Letter 60003: The oration , which contains some account of your glorious actions, you honour not only with praise but admiration.
Libanius→Julian of Antioch|c. 363 AD|Libanius
education booksimperial politics
The oration , which contains some account of your glorious actions, you honour not only with praise but admiration. And as you are ranked among the learned, you maintain, I am told, that Demosthenes could not have written more forcibly, Socrates more agreeably or Plato more copiously on the occasion. You affirm also that greater glory will contribute to you from my writings than from the fortunate event of your actions. My opinion is far different. For though, with my most studious and elaborate endeavours, I strove to exalt your name, yet as my strength was unequal to such a weight, what I performed I performed with great pleasure. But so brilliant are your praises that the rudest genius may seem sufficiently decorated by the dignity of the subject. Your actions therefore were the noblest ornaments of my oration. And though I attempted to illustrate those actions which in their own nature were most splendid, I rather illustrated myself. So that you have no cause to return me thanks, or to think that they are due to me. But that I may acquire such a splendour by recording your exploits, whatever success may attend you in future do not fail to communicate to me by a letter.
The oration , which contains some account of your glorious actions, you honour not only with praise but admiration. And as you are ranked among the learned, you maintain, I am told, that Demosthenes could not have written more forcibly, Socrates more agreeably or Plato more copiously on the occasion. You affirm also that greater glory will redound to you from my writings than from the fortunate event of your actions. My opinion is far different. For though, with my most studious and elaborate endeavours, I strove to exalt your name, yet as my strength was unequal to such a weight, what I performed I performed with great pleasure. But so brilliant are your praises that the rudest genius may seem sufficiently decorated by the dignity of the subject. Your actions therefore were the noblest ornaments of my oration. And though I attempted to illustrate those actions which in their own nature were most splendid, I rather illustrated myself. So that you have no cause to return me thanks, or to think that they are due to me. But that I may acquire such a splendour by recording your exploits, whatever success may attend you in future do not fail to communicate to me by a letter. This is the 3rd of the 2nd book of the letters of Libanius, collected in Greek by Francisco Zambicari of Bologna and published in his Latin translation only by John Somerfeld at Cracow, 1504. It is also inserted by Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. 7, p.390. His panegyrical address to Julian, when he was at Antioch, just before he set out on his Persian expedition. It is the 5th in the 2nd volume of the works of this sophist, published by Morell. How agreeable it was to the emperor Libanius mentioned in a letter to Celsus [the 648th] as well as in the above. FABRICIUS.
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The oration , which contains some account of your glorious actions, you honour not only with praise but admiration. And as you are ranked among the learned, you maintain, I am told, that Demosthenes could not have written more forcibly, Socrates more agreeably or Plato more copiously on the occasion. You affirm also that greater glory will contribute to you from my writings than from the fortunate event of your actions. My opinion is far different. For though, with my most studious and elaborate endeavours, I strove to exalt your name, yet as my strength was unequal to such a weight, what I performed I performed with great pleasure. But so brilliant are your praises that the rudest genius may seem sufficiently decorated by the dignity of the subject. Your actions therefore were the noblest ornaments of my oration. And though I attempted to illustrate those actions which in their own nature were most splendid, I rather illustrated myself. So that you have no cause to return me thanks, or to think that they are due to me. But that I may acquire such a splendour by recording your exploits, whatever success may attend you in future do not fail to communicate to me by a letter.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.