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

To Bassus. (~358 AD) While your son was here, I both loved him and helped him. Now that he is away, I still do one of the two — I have not stopped loving him. And it seems to me that you too, having found eloquence in him, are grateful to the one who gave it. The proof: repayments come from you — great ones, for a free man. By "repayments" I mean your letters. You may add to these and give me a gift that costs you nothing yet means everything to me. You know Cyrinus — a man whose eloquence would have seated him in a sophist's chair, but Fortune led him instead to governors' posts. I mean the man who served as assessor to Philippus, who tended Lycia, who saved Pamphylia, who governed Cyprus. He has a son, Honoratus, whom you would not be wrong to call mine as well. This young man is enrolled in your corps [the bar] but now studies in ours [my school], and he will return to yours the better for his training here. He will come, I think, when he is sharpest at writing and accomplished at speaking. Let not his youth alarm his parents. He is absent, then — not alone in this, but perhaps alone in having a noble reason for it. Respect that reason and honor him by granting him a place in the register of young men that will rank him above many. And from us in return: the only thing we possess — an acknowledgment of your favor in a long speech.

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.