Letter 415: Zenobius was our teacher and meant everything to us.

LibaniusSyncletius, judge|c. 353 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
education booksfriendship

To Synkletios. (355)

Zenobius was our teacher and everything to us. To him Boethus is related by blood. And to this Boethus, in turn, there is a son of the same name, who, beloved by our teacher as a son, tended him as a household servant. And whoever did even some small kindness for that man, him we set among those who have done the greatest kindnesses to us.

The younger Boethus, then, who lives here, we treat well in whatever way we can; but the elder, who is with you and who deserves to fare well on account of the son's goodness, do you do some good for him; since it is no worse than precision in lawsuits to gladden those who love us by acting justly.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Συγκλητίῳ. (355)

Ζηνόβιος ἡμῖν διδάσκαλος καὶ πάντα ἦν. τούτῳ συγγε-
νής ἐστι Βοηθός. τῷ δ’ αὖ Βοηθῷ τούτῳ παῖς ὁμώνυμος, ὃς
τὸν διδάσκαλον ἡμῖν ἀγαπώμενος ὡς υἱὸς ἐθεράπευσεν ὡς
οἰκέτης. ὅστις δὲ ἐκείνῳ τι καὶ μικρὸν ἐχαρίζετο, τοῦτον ἡμεῖς
τίθεμεν εἰς τοὺς τὰ μέγιστα κεχαρισμένους ἡμῖν.

τὸν μὲν
οὖν νεώτερον Βοηθὸν ἐνθάδε οἰκοῦντα ὅ τι ἔχομεν εὖ ποι-
οῦμεν, τὸν δὲ πρεσβύτερον παρ’ ὑμῖν τε ὄντα καὶ διὰ τὴν
τοῦ παιδὸς χρηστότητα δίκαιον εὖ παθεῖν ὄντα σύ τι ποίησον
ἀγαθόν· ὡς τῆς ἐπὶ τῶν δικῶν ἀκριβείας οὐ χεῖρον τὸ τοὺς
φιλοῦντας ἐκ τῶν δικαίων εὐφραίνειν.

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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