Letter 520: What you most desired -- and what you desired, I believe, was a letter from me -- here it is.

LibaniusSpectatus|c. 363 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
imperial politics

To Spectatus. (356)

What you most desired -- and you desired, I think, a letter from me -- this has come to you. Severus brings it, a man for whom two just claims make you his protector: both that he is on familiar terms with us, and that the man is a fellow-citizen of us both.

That you should learn these things, then, has been my concern; but the eagerness to help will surely be yours to attend to. For each of the two would be out of place: both that he should fail in the matters for which he has come, and that, while you are present, he should obtain some benefit through someone other than you.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Σπεκτάτῳ. (356)

Οὗ μάλιστα ἐπεθύμεις, ἐπεθύμεις δέ, οἶμαι, γραμμάτων
ἐμῶν, τοῦτο ἤκει σοι. κομίζει δὲ Σευῆρος, ἀνὴρ ᾧ ποιεῖ σε
προστάτην δικαιώματα δύο, τό τε πρὸς ἡμᾶς αὐτὸν ἔχειν οἰ-
κείως καὶ τὸ πολίτην ἀμφοῖν εἶναι τὸν ἄνδρα.

τοῦ μὲν
οὖν μαθεῖν σε ταῦτα ἐμέλησεν ἐμοί, τῆς δὲ εἰς τὸ βοηθεῖ,
προθυμίας σοὶ δήπου μελήσει· ὡς ἑκάτερόν γε ἄτοπον, καὶ τὸ
πὲρ ὧν ἥκει μὴ πρᾶξαι καὶ τὸ σοῦ παρόντος μὴ διὸ σοῦ
τινος ἀγαθοῦ τυχεῖν.

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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