Letter 657: Who will win the crown at our festival — whether in wrestling, the pankration, or boxing — Zeus and Heracles know,...

To Sopater [361]. Whoever shall win a crown among us, whether by wrestling or by the pancratium or by victory in boxing, this Zeus presumably knows, and Heracles, and all the divinities to whom those contests are a care; but you, in our judgment, before the athletes have conquered all the presidents of games upon whom the sun has ever looked down, both by the excellence and by the number of your competitors, and still more by the magnitude of the gifts which you mingled with the banquets, neither forced to it by any precedent nor likely to have anyone to imitate you. The expense, then, was yours, but the glory arising from it is common to the whole race. I myself, indeed, when those who had received the gifts displayed and recounted them, grew proud and was the more elated, just as if I were myself the one who had instituted the Olympic games. But yet, while I stir up and send the others, I sit here under compulsion, reaping such fruits from my head. Nevertheless I console myself for not having been a spectator by my wonder at the things that were done. And in a certain way I contrived that I should not be wholly absent. For I raised up Olympius from his grievous grief, and persuaded him to join in the festival, ceasing from his lamentations. And now I consider that I see all things and hear all things, with this man's ears and eyes.

Σωπάτρῳ. (361) Ὅστις μὲν στεφανώσεται παρ’ ἡμῖν ἢ παλαίων ἢ παγ- κρατιάζων ἢ πυγμῇ νικῶν, Ζεύς που τοῦτο οἶδε καὶ Ἡρακλῆς καὶ ὅσοις μέλει τῶν ἄθλων ἐκείνων δαίμοσι· σὺ δ’ ἡμῖν πρὸ τῶν ἀθλητῶν νενίκηκας ἅπαντας οὓς ἐπεῖδεν ἥλιος ἀθλοθέτας ἀρετῇ τε καὶ πλήθει τῶν ἀγωνιστῶν καὶ ἔτι γε μᾶλλον τῷ μεγέθει τῶν δώρων, ἃ ταῖς τραπέζαις ἀνέμιξας οὔτε παρα- δείγματι βιασθεὶς οὔθ’ ἕξων τὸν μιμησόμενον. ἡ μὲν οὖν δαπάνη σή, τὸ δὲ ἀπ’ αὐτῆς καλὸν κοινὸν τοῦ γένους. ἔγωγέ τοι τῶν λαβόντων ἐπιδεικνύντων τε καὶ διηγουμένων ἡβρυ- νομὴν τε καὶ μεῖζον ἐφρόνουν καθάπερ αὐτὸς ὢν ὁ θεὶς τὰ Ὀλύμπια. ἀλλά τοι τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους κινῶ καὶ πέμπω, κάθημαι δὲ ὑπ’ ἀνάγκης ἐνθάδε τοιαῦτα ἀπολαύων τῆς κε- φαλῆς. παραμυθοῦμαι δὲ ὅμως τὸ μὴ θεάσασθαι τῷ τῶν ποιουμένων θαύματι. καί τινα τρόπον ἐσοφισάμην, ὅπως μὴ παντάπασιν ἀπείην. ἀνέστησα γὰρ ἀπὸ λύπης ἰσχυρᾶς Ὀλύμπιον καὶ πανηγυρίζειν ἔπεισα παυσάμενον οἰμωγῶν. καὶ νῦν ἐγὼ πάντα μὲν ὁρᾶν, πάντα δὲ ἀκούειν ὠσί τε ἡγοῦμαι τοῖς τοῦδε καὶ ὄμμασιν.