Letter 334: Your letter was sweeter than the storax you sent — and not only sweeter than that batch, but than the kind you say...

To Akakios. (357/58) Your letter was sweeter than the storax you sent — and not only sweeter than that batch, but than the kind you say no longer reaches you from Isauria. As for your speech, I take pleasure in what you've already said, but you want me to hold back my complaints about what is still to come. And yet, even if I say nothing, my heart is struck by the thought that there will be no help in what follows. I had been waiting for you, gaping toward the gates, asking Strategios, "When will he come?" and hearing "Any moment now." Then your letter arrived, and I had grief from every quarter: your wife's illness — a wife dear to you and the mother of Titianos — and the fact that you are weighed down by two burdens, her sickness and your beloved's absence from the contests. I consoled myself with the thought that no one can be fortunate in everything, and I kept reciting to myself: "But not all things at once" [Homer, Iliad 4.320]. Strategios, meanwhile, was loudly denouncing Fortune, and being just as he always was — fearing the fear of the public speaker — he said everything imaginable about your absence. As for me, I shall enter the hall trusting that Hermes will stand in for you. And for you, may you be freed from your present troubles and come to us, if that is better — or stay where you are, if that is better.

Ἀκακίῳ. (357/58) Τῆς μὲν στύρακος, ἣν ἔπεμψας, ἡδίω τὰ γράμματά σου, καὶ οὐ ταύτης γε μόνον, ἀλλὰ κἀκείνης, ἣν φὴς οὐκέτι φοι- τᾶν ἐξ Ἰσαύρων ὡς ὑμᾶς· τοῦ λόγου δὲ οἷς μὲν εἶπον συνή- δομαι, τοῖς δὲ ρηθησομένοις βούλει με τὸ βλάσφημον ἀφεῖναι. καίτοι, κἂν μὴ λέγω, πέπληγμαι τὴν καρδίαν ὡς οὐκ οὔσης ἐν τοῖς δευτέροις βοηθείας, ἣν περιμένων ἐγὼ καὶ κεχηνὼς πρὸς τὰς πύλας καὶ λέγων πρὸς τὸν Στρατήγιον· ὁπότε δὲ ἥξει; καὶ ἀκούων ὡς αὐτίκα, λαβὼν τὰ γράμματα πολλα- χόυεν εἶχον ἀθυμεῖν τῇ τε ἀρρωστίᾳ τῆς γυναικός, γυναικὸς σοί τε ἀρεσκούσης καὶ Τιτιανὸν τεκούσης, καὶ ὅτι σὺ δυοῖν βαρύνῃ, τῷ τε ἐκείνην κάμνειν καὶ τῷ τῶν ἀγώνων ἀπεῖναι τοῦ φιλτάτου. παρεμυθούμην δ’ οὖν ἐμαυτὸν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ πάντα εἶναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις εὐτυχεῖν καὶ συνεχῶς ἐπῇδον τό· ἀλλ’ οὔπως ἅμα πάντα. Στρατήγιος δὲ καὶ δὴ λαμπρῶς κατεβόα τῆς Τύχης καὶ ὢν ὥσπερ πρὸ τοῦ καὶ φόβον τὸν τοῦ λέγοντος φοβούμενος οὐδὲν ὅ τι οὐκ ἐφθέγγετο περὶ τῆς σῆς ἀπουσίας. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν εἴσειμι τὸν Ἑρμῆν ἀντὶ σοῦ μοι πιστεύων ἔσεσθαι, σὲ δὲ εἰη τῶν παρόντων ἀπαλλαγέντα κα- κῶν ἐλθεῖν μὲν ὡς ἡμᾶς, εἰ βέλτιον, μένειν δὲ κατὰ χώραν, εἰ βέλτιον.