Letter 405
To Datianus, official. (355)
Since you began helping me long ago -- help through which I recovered what was mine -- a brief word will suffice. If I were trying to persuade someone for the first time, I would need a long speech. But to stir someone already persuaded requires nothing lengthy.
Reach out your hand, my good friend. Hold firm to your decision. See this favor through to the end. Do not stand by while I am torn away from an unfortunate uncle, impoverished brothers, and a mother bedridden with old age -- do not let me be dragged off to a foreign land while my homeland becomes bitter to them.
My misfortunes actually strengthen the case you can make on my behalf. My head has been seized by an illness, for which I drink medicine more than wine. My kidneys have confined me to bed. And the things that make life most worth living -- from those I have been shut out.
My witness to these sufferings is Olympius, who has wrestled with illness himself -- your companion and a follower of both Hippocrates and Plato. I have begged him to clasp your knees, weep before you, and leave no form of supplication untried.
With these appeals I call on you. I would write nothing like this to anyone else, knowing that if you are willing, you alone will be enough -- and if you are not willing, no one else will suffice.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.