Letter 629: If I were not doing these things, I would be doing wrong; but in doing them, I should not reasonably expect praise.
To Amphilochius.
If I were not doing these things, I would be doing wrong; but in doing them I could not reasonably be praised. For you too, were you to neglect your sons, would have accusers, but, in taking care of them, do not look for anyone to admire you. As for me, what these young men do makes me in no small degree their father; and the chief of these things is their being well endowed by nature for eloquence.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ἀμφιλοχίῳ. (361)
Εἰ μὴ ταῦτα ἐποίουν, ἠδίκουν ἄν, ποιῶν δὲ οὐκ ἂν
εἰκότως ἐπαινοίμην· ἐπεὶ καὶ σὺ τῶν μὲν υἱέων ἀμελῶν εἶχες
ἂν κατηγόρους, ἐπιμελούμενος δὲ μὴ ζήτει τὸν θαυμασόμενον
ἐμὲ δὲ τούτοις οὐκ ὀλίγα ποιεῖ πατέρα· ὧν κεφάλαιον τὸ
πρὸς λόγους εὖ πεφυκέναι.
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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