To Andronicus.
You need a plan to deal with the scheming of your uncle -- let him keep the title "uncle" in my letters too, so everyone can see what sort of man does what sort of deeds. You have every reason to fear how he uses his power, because he does not use it justly.
But the choice is yours, and mine, to leave. If you feel like seeing Rome, go to Rome. If you prefer Greece, go to Greece. And do not be ashamed of leaving -- the shame belongs to the man who forced you out.
I will stay and take the blows, and if the moment ever comes, I will exact justice for us both. You are well aware of how I usually get justice. And in fact, even now, if you look at it fairly, he is already paying for his behavior. Quite apart from the hatred he earns from good people, he lavishes his attention on a man who has never once spoken a correct sentence.
As Demosthenes would say, the things a person might curse him with, he does by choice. He is an enemy to his brother's son and to his nephew's teacher, but a friend to Pausanias the debaucher. He puts on airs greater than Alcibiades, yet acts like Sicon [a stock comic character known for petty theft]. What Sicon got up to, you can ask Aristophanes.
So write and tell me what you decide. And if there is any hope that staying will bring you no harm, then stay -- that would certainly be better than exile.
You need a plan to deal with the scheming of your uncle -- let him keep the title "uncle" in my letters too, so everyone can see what sort of man does what sort of deeds. You have every reason to fear how he uses his power, because he does not use it justly.
But the choice is yours, and mine, to leave. If you feel like seeing Rome, go to Rome. If you prefer Greece, go to Greece. And do not be ashamed of leaving -- the shame belongs to the man who forced you out.
I will stay and take the blows, and if the moment ever comes, I will exact justice for us both. You are well aware of how I usually get justice. And in fact, even now, if you look at it fairly, he is already paying for his behavior. Quite apart from the hatred he earns from good people, he lavishes his attention on a man who has never once spoken a correct sentence.
As Demosthenes would say, the things a person might curse him with, he does by choice. He is an enemy to his brother's son and to his nephew's teacher, but a friend to Pausanias the debaucher. He puts on airs greater than Alcibiades, yet acts like Sicon [a stock comic character known for petty theft]. What Sicon got up to, you can ask Aristophanes.
So write and tell me what you decide. And if there is any hope that staying will bring you no harm, then stay -- that would certainly be better than exile.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.