Letter 435: We ask everyone who comes from your region how your health is.

To Palladius. (355) We ask each of those who come up from there how your body is faring. For about your soul we would not inquire whether it is sound [...] for this we could say even to others. And when we hear that you are in good health, we both rejoice and, what is more, we wonder that, knowing how great an evil it is to be sick and how much it is, above all, a matter requiring quiet, you should deprive me of this very quiet, hemmed in as I am by illnesses. For he who has the power to prevent such things from being written about me, yet permits them to be written, is himself the one who is applying the compulsions. But, O most gentle of men, neither overlook me being dragged from my bed, and grant to the emperor, who has determined the matter, that nothing unworthy of his own judgment be done to a man who has sung much in his honor. And to our fellow-citizen Antiochus, who is bringing back a crown from the contest named after Zeus, be everything, considering that in this you are both doing the city a good service and delighting the heart of Zeus more than those of the Greeks who sang of Apollo around Troy.

Παλλαδίῳ. (355) Τῶν ἐκεῖθεν ἀνιόντων ἕκαστον ἐρωτῶμεν, ὅπως ἔχει σοι τὸ σῶμα. περὶ γάρ τοι τῆς ψυχῆς οὐκ ἂν ἐροίμεθα εἰ χρηστή τοῦτο γὰρ κἂν πρὸς ἄλλους εἴποιμεν. ἀκούοντες δὲ ὡς ἔρ- ρωσαι χαίρομέν τε καὶ προσέτι θαυμάζομεν εἰ εἰδὼς ἡλίκον τι κακὸν τὸ ἀρρωστεῖν καὶ ὡς μάλιστα πρᾶγμα τῆς ἡσυχίη δεό- μενον, ἐμέ γε ταύτης ἀφαιρῇ τῆς ἡσυχίας κεκυκλωμένον νο- σήμασιν. ὁ γὰρ ἔχων μὲν κωλῦσαι μὴ τοιαῦτα περὶ ἐμοῦ γρά- φεσθαι, γράφεσθαι δὲ ἐπιτρέπων αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ τὰς ἀνάγκας προσάγων. ἀλλ’, ὦ πρᾳότατε, μήτ’ ἐμὲ περιίδης ἐκ τῆς κλί- νης ἀποσπώμενον τῷ τε ὁριστῷ βασιλεῖ χάρισαι τὸ μηδὲν ἀνά- ξιον τῆς αὑτοῦ γνώμης εἰς ἄνδρα πράττεσθαι πολλὰ εἰς ἐκεῖ- νον ᾄσαντα. τῷ πολίτῃ δὲ ἡμῶν Ἀντιόχῳ στέφανον φέροντι τοῦ ἀγῶνος ἐπώνυμον τῷ Διὶ πάντα γενοῦ νομίζων ἐν τούτῳ τήν τε πόλιν εὖ ποιεῖν καὶ τοῦ Δῖός τὴν φρένα τέρπειν μᾶλ- λον ἢ τῶν Ἑλλήνων οἱ περὶ Τροίαν μέλποντες τὸν Ἀπόλλω.