Letter 376: I had supposed your silence was due to some other preoccupation — and so it should have been.

To Hierocles. (358) For my part, I supposed that the silence had come about through some other occupation, and indeed it ought to have been so; but now, with you having made mention of your illness, and the boy recounting how complicated it had become, I came to utter despondency about the whole matter. But you both did well, you in that you wrote, and he in that he said that the danger has been resolved. In giving Calycius a wife you are minded rightly, and rightly too in wishing to give him an education. For thus he would be able both to preserve what he has and to make it more. And from us he has both been exhorted to this and been summoned hither. And from the Muses I ask that they render eloquence sweet for the young man.

Ἱεροκλεῖ. (358) Ἐγὼ δὲ ᾤμην ὑπ’ ἄλλης ἀσχολίας γεγονέναι τὴν σιω- πήν, καὶ ἔδει γε τοῦθ’ οὕτως ἔχειν· νῦν δὲ σοῦ τε μνησθέν- τος ἀρρωστίας καὶ τοῦ παιδός, ὡς ποικίλη γένοιτο, διηγου- μένου πρὸς πᾶν ἀθυμίας ἦλθον. ἀλλ’ εὖ ποιοῦντες σύ τε καὶ ἐκεῖνος, σὺ μὲν ἔγραφες, ὁ δὲ ἔλεγεν ὡς λέλυται τὸ δεινόν. Καλυκίῳ δὲ γυναῖκα δοὺς ὀρθῶς φρονεῖς καὶ λόγους ἐθέ- λων δοῦναι. τὰ γὰρ ὄντα καὶ σώζειν καὶ πλείω ποιεῖν οὕτως ἂν δυνηθείη. παρὰ δὲ ἡμῶν καὶ παρακέκληταί τε πρὸς τοῦτο καὶ κέκληται δεῦρο. καὶ παρὰ τῶν Μουσῶν αἰτῶ γλυκὺ τοὺς λόγους ἀποφῆναι τῷ νεανίσκῳ.