To Anatolios. (357 AD)
What am I to do? You say you want complaints, but everything you do deserves praise. You are harsh toward anyone who praises you, yet you give no grounds for blame.
How much praise, then, do you think this deserves? Dometios has been called to share in your responsibilities — a man hardly useless, serving a governor hardly wicked. I could say much, if I wished, about his virtues, but I am afraid that telling you what you already know well enough to have summoned him would only give you an opening for mockery — for you did not call him in ignorance.
But here is something you don't know, so learn it now: he assisted others with their speeches, but admired mine — the first from respect for friendship, the second from true knowledge of rhetoric. So he proved himself good to us on both counts: not disturbing the one, and honoring the other.
What am I to do? You say you want complaints, but everything you do deserves praise. You are harsh toward anyone who praises you, yet you give no grounds for blame.
How much praise, then, do you think this deserves? Dometios has been called to share in your responsibilities — a man hardly useless, serving a governor hardly wicked. I could say much, if I wished, about his virtues, but I am afraid that telling you what you already know well enough to have summoned him would only give you an opening for mockery — for you did not call him in ignorance.
But here is something you don't know, so learn it now: he assisted others with their speeches, but admired mine — the first from respect for friendship, the second from true knowledge of rhetoric. So he proved himself good to us on both counts: not disturbing the one, and honoring the other.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.