Letter 362: While your son was here, I both loved him and helped him.

To Bassus. (358) While your son was here, I both loved him and sought to be of use to him; now that he is away, I do the one thing that remains to me, and have not ceased to love him. And you too seem to me, having discovered eloquence in him, to feel gratitude toward the one who gave it. Here is the proof of this: great recompenses come to me from you, a man indeed of free birth. And by recompenses I mean your letters. It is open to you, then, to add to these and to give me a gift that costs you nothing easier, yet is to me nothing greater. You know, I suppose, Quirinus, whom eloquence seated upon a sophist's chair, but whom Fortune led to the seat of magistrates. I mean that man who sat as assessor to Philippus, who tended Lycia, who saved Pamphylia, who governed Cyprus. He has a son, Honoratus, whom you will do no wrong even if you reckon him my own. This young man is enrolled in your chorus, but for the present he sings in ours, and he will indeed become the better for that one [school] from the songs [he learns] in this one. He will come, I think, at that time when he is most sharp at writing and good at speaking. And let his youth not make his parents afraid. So then he is absent, yet not alone; alone, perhaps, by reason of a fair cause. Reverencing that cause, honor him by granting him a place in the register of the young men, a place that will set him ahead of many. And in return for these things you shall have from us the only thing we possess, an acknowledgment of the favor in long discourses.

Βάσσῳ. (358) Ἐγὼ τὸν σὸν υἱὸν παρόντα μὲν καὶ ἐφίλουν καὶ ὠφέ- λοῦν, εἰς ἀπόντα δὲ τό γε ἕτερον ποιῶ καὶ φιλῶν οὐ πέπαυ- μαι. δοκεῖς δέ μοι καὶ σὺ λόγους εὑρὼν ἐν αὐτῷ χάριν εἰδέναι τῷ δεδωκότι. τούτου σημεῖον, ἀμοιβαὶ παρὰ σοῦ φοιτῶσιν ἀνδρί γε ἐλευθέρῳ μεγάλαι. καλῶ δὲ ἀμοιβὰς τὰ γράμματα. προσθεῖναι δὴ ταύταις ἔξεστί σοι καὶ δοῦναί μοι δῶρον, οὗ σοὶ μὲν ῥᾷον οὐδέν, ἐμοὶ δὲ μεῖζον οὐδέν οἶσθά που Κυ- ρῖνον, ὅν οἱ λόγοι μὲν εἰς σοφιστοῦ θρόνον ἐκάθιζον, ἡ Τύχη δὲ εἰς ἀρχόντων ἤγαγεν. ἐκεῖνον λέγω τὸν Φιλίππῳ παρε- δρεύσαντα, τὸν Λυκίαν θεραπεύσαντα, τὸν ΙΙαμφυλίαν σεσω- κότα, τὸν κυβερνήσαντα Κύπρον. τούτῳ παῖς ἐστιν Ὁνω- ράτος, ὃν εἰ καὶ ἐμὸν θείης, οὐκ ἀδικήσεις. οὗτος ὁ νέος ἐγγέγραπται μὲν τῷ σῷ χορῷ, ᾄδει δὲ νῦν ἐν τῷ ἡμετέρῳ καὶ ἔσται δὴ βελτίων εἰς ἐκεῖνον ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν τούτῳ μελῶν. ἥξει δέ, οἶμαι, τότε, ὅταν γράφειν μὲν ὀξύτατος ᾖ, λέγειν δὲ ἀγα- θός. νεότης δὲ τοὺς γονεῖς μὴ φοβῇ. ἄπεστι μὲν οὖν οὐ μόνος, μόνος δὲ ἴσως ὑπὸ καλῆς αἰτίας. ἣν αἰδεσθεὶς τίμη- σον ἐν τῷ καταλόγῳ τῶν νέων χώραν διδούς, ἣ πρὸ πολλῶν αὐτὸν ἀποδείξει. καὶ σοὶ παρ’ ἡμῶν ἀντὶ τούτων ὃ κεκτή- μεθα μόνον, ὁμολογία τῆς χάριτος ἐν λόγοις μακροῖς.