Letter 380: To the same person. (358/59)

To the same person. (358/59) Your labors truly deserve praise — both those by which you save the cities and those by which you drove off your illness. For I believe it has indeed been expelled by your endurance, Marcellus's skill, and the gods' aid. Those who brought you to us to guard the provinces surely also gave you the strength to do so. Marcellus was praised for restoring others to health, but now he might justly be crowned for healing a man who himself heals countless cities. But since you have sufficiently tended to matters there, show yourself here too — and you will appear to those who love you, whom you have made to find being governed a pleasure through the gentleness of your character.

Τῷ αὐτῷ. (358/59) Ἄξιοί γε ἐπαίνων οἱ πόνοι, δι’ ὧν τε σώζεις τὰς πόλεις καὶ οἶς τὴν νόσον ἀπήλασας. πιστεύω γὰρ οὖν αὐτὴν ἐκβε- βλῆσθαι σῇ τε καρτερίᾳ καὶ Μαρκέλλου σοφίᾳ καὶ θεῶν βοη- θείᾳ. τῶν γὰρ ἀγαγόντων σε παρ’ ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ φυλακῇ τῶν ἐθνῶν ἦν δήπου καὶ δύναμιν εἰς τὸ φυλάττειν δοῦναι. Μάρκελλος δὲ τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους ἀνιστὰς ἐπῃνεῖτο, νῦν δ’ ἂν εἰκότως καὶ στεφανωθείη ἰασάμενος ἄνδρα μυρίας ἰώμενον πόλεις. ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ τἀκεῖ τεθεράπευκας ἱκανῶς, φάνηθι καὶ τῇδε φανήσῃ δὲ ἐρῶσιν, οἷς ἡδὺ τὸ ἄρχεσθαι πεποίηκας τῇ τῶν τρόπων ἐπιεικείᾳ.