To Maximos. (358 AD)
If you do not help those I recommend, that is not the Greek way. And if you do help them but withhold the favor of a letter, you please less with the one than you pain with the other. Your silence shows me that my not being silent is a nuisance to you.
But let me venture this present request too, since a friend commands it — the chief of my friends. Ouranios shares with me the care of my flock [students], shares my table, my sorrows, my pleasures, my whole life. His children do not come before me with him, nor do my brothers rank above him with me. I would not accept any good fortune in which he did not have a share.
He has family in your city — all decent, all poor, all needing to know that the city has not neglected them in your eyes. For this small thing means much to the weak against the powerful.
On both counts you must grant this favor, whether you saved those I previously recommended or not. If you did, it would be keeping to your own rule; if not, let the last request dissolve the charge.
If you do not help those I recommend, that is not the Greek way. And if you do help them but withhold the favor of a letter, you please less with the one than you pain with the other. Your silence shows me that my not being silent is a nuisance to you.
But let me venture this present request too, since a friend commands it — the chief of my friends. Ouranios shares with me the care of my flock [students], shares my table, my sorrows, my pleasures, my whole life. His children do not come before me with him, nor do my brothers rank above him with me. I would not accept any good fortune in which he did not have a share.
He has family in your city — all decent, all poor, all needing to know that the city has not neglected them in your eyes. For this small thing means much to the weak against the powerful.
On both counts you must grant this favor, whether you saved those I previously recommended or not. If you did, it would be keeping to your own rule; if not, let the last request dissolve the charge.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.