Letter 368: This Tiberius suffers a great disadvantage in his lack of connections, but he has a greater help in the fact that...

LibaniusApellion (2)|c. 349 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
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To Apellion. (358)

For this Tiberius his unworldliness [aloofness from public affairs] is a great disadvantage, but the greater help is that you govern the Cilicians, you who do not give your attention to those who are busy with many dealings more than to those who plead what is just.

To me he is worthy of regard on many grounds. For it is not permitted me not to remember Philagrius: he dwelt as a husband with this man's sister; and this very man himself attended on us as a student and would have been an orator, had anyone allowed him, but, I think, he was dragged away too soon.

Moreover, Marcus too, my cousin, and this man have sisters as wives, daughters of Hesychius. And Hesychius has two sons, Eutropius and Celsus, whom above all I love, and who above all I have as men loving me.

Consider, then, how it is necessary both for me to be concerned for this man from so many just grounds, and that you yourself will not have anything to plead in defense before us if you do not employ your own character. And that character is to be slack nowhere.

And from the very things in which he will have need of you, you will find the young man excellent; in this way he knows how to ask nothing either unjust or burdensome.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.

Latin / Greek Original

Ἀπελλίωνι. (358)

Τιβερίῳ τούτῳ μέγα μὲν ἐλάττωμα ἡ ἀπραγμοσύνη, βοή-
θεια δὲ μείζων τὸ σὲ Κιλίκων ἄρχειν, ὃς οὐ τοῖς πολλὰ πράτ-
τουσι προσέχεις μᾶλλον ἢ τοῖς τὸ δίκαιον λέγουσιν.

ἐμοὶ
δὲ πολλαχόθεν ἐστὶν ἄξιος σπουδῆς. οὔτε γὰρ Φιλαγρίου μοι
μὴ μεμνῆσθαι θεμιτόν, ἀδελφῇ τοῦδε συνῴκει, αὐτός τε
οὗτος ἐφοίτησεν ὡς ἡμᾶς καὶ ἦν ἂν ῥήτωρ, εἴ τις αὐτὸν ἐπέ-
τρεπεν, ἀλλ’, οἶμαι προαφειλκύσθη.

ἔτι τοίνυν Μάρκος
τε, οὑμὸς ἀνεψιός, καὶ οὗτος ἀδελφὰς ἔχουσι γυναῖκας, Ἡσυ-
χίου θυγατέρας. Ἡσυχίῳ δὲ υἱεῖς δύο, Εὐτρόπιός τε καὶ Κέλ-
σὸς, οὓς μάλιστα μὲν φιλῶ, μάλιστα δὲ φιλοῦντας ἔχω.

σκό-
πει τοίνυν ὡς ἐμοί τε ἀνάγκη τοῦδε φροντίζειν ἀπὸ τοσού-

τῶν δικαίων σύ τε οὐχ ἕξεις, ὅ τι πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἀπολογήσῃ μὴ
τῷ σαυτοῦ τρόπῳ χρησάμενος. οὗτος δ’ ἐστὶ μηδαμοῦ ῥᾳθυ-
μεῖν.

ἐξ αὐτῶν δὲ ὧν σου δεήσεται βέλτιστον εὑρήσεις τὸν
νεανίσκον· οὕτως οὐδὲν οἶδεν ἐπαγγέλλειν οὔτ᾿ ἄδικον οὔτε
βαρύ

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern libanius retranslated v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/First1KGreek/blob/master/volume_xml/libanius_10.xml

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