Letter 455: You did well both in keeping silent when silence was better and in speaking when speaking was better -- bringing the...
You did well both in keeping silent when that was better and in speaking out when that was preferable, and in once again bringing the fine practices of Pythagoras into life. I admired you before, and now I love you; and if I should ever see you, I will count the sight as the greatest good fortune.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Λιβανίῳ. (355/56)
Καλῶς ἐποίησας καὶ σιγήσας ὅτε ἄμεινον καὶ φθεγγό-
μένος ἡνίκα βέλτιον καὶ τὰ τοῦ Πυθαγόρου καλὰ πάλιν εἰς
τὸν βίον εἰσάγων.
ἐγὼ δέ σε πρότερόν τε ἠγάμην καὶ νῦν
φιλῶ κἂν ἴδω ποτέ, τὴν ὄψιν εἰς μεγίστην εὐτυχίαν θήσομαι.
Revision history
- 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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I am dissuaded from writing often to you, learned as you are, by my timidity and my ignorance. But your persistent silence is different. What excuse can be offered for it?
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