Letter 689: Right from the starting line you showed yourself worthy of our hopes.

To Celsus. (362) From the very starting line you have shown yourself worthy of our hopes, in that, though you found one man of Alexandria serving on the council—and that man, as I hear, lame—you extended their number to fifteen in two days, by no compulsion at all, but by brilliant prospects. For by showing that the councillors would not be Mysian plunder for those who seize them, you brought some of them down from the mountains, and others who were hiding beneath their couches you persuaded to leap forth to public service as if to a profit. And these things were reported by our companions, who were present when the business was being done; and they kept their hearers delighted, and no one disbelieved, for it seemed that fine and great things naturally fell in with your nature. But I, who exhorted you greatly to strictness and to the necessity of doing away with all favors and extending your hand to the cities, seem to have suffered the very thing that Pericles suffered, and to have fallen foul of my own law. And what was it that he suffered? Having written for the Athenians the law that the man who was not an Athenian on both sides should be barred from what belongs to the citizens, when his sons Xanthippus and Paralus had died on him, he begged the citizens to enroll as a citizen the son born to him from Aspasia, setting in motion his own measure; and they granted the favor. And I therefore, transgressing my own law, would wish that a certain Seleucus should obtain something outside both my decrees and yours. And having heard "Seleucus," you could not fail to call to mind Alexandra; and having recalled her, you could not resist. For we must, just as we set the gods before her, so set her before all other human beings. The very privileges, then, that I myself, were I in office, would have used—these you must be seen using, bearing in mind the woman's bearing, and the measure of her judgment, and her other virtue, and how we seemed to be departing from some sacred place when we came down from her presence. To Pericles, then, the Athenians gave that favor in return for Euboea and Samos; but I have no islands taken in war to name, yet you have looked upon Alexandra, the greatest of all the things under the sun—Seleucus permitting it, and I bringing her in.

Κέλσῳ. (362) Εὖθύς ἀπὸ γραμμῆς ἡμῖν ἄξιος τῶν ἐλπίδων ἐφάνης ἴνα μὲν ἄνδρα τὴν βουλὴν εὑρὼν Ἀλεξανδρείας καὶ τοῦτον, ὡς ἀκούω, χωλόν, εἰς πεντεκαίδεκα δὲ τὸν ἀριθμὸν ἐκτείνας ἐν ἡμέραις δύο βίᾳ μὲν οὐδεμιᾷ, προσδοκίαις δὲ λαμπραῖς. δείξας γὰρ ὡς οὐκ ἔσονται Μυσῶν λεία τοῖς ἁρπάζουσιν οἱ βουλευταί, τοὺς μὲν ἐκ τῶν ὀρῶν κατήγαγες, τοὺς δὲ ὑπὸ κλίνας κρυπτομένους ἔπεισας ὡς ἐπὶ κέρδος τὸ λειτουργεῖν ἐκπηδᾶν. καὶ ταῦτα ἠγγέλλετο μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν ἑταίρων, οἱ παρῆσαν, ὅτε ἐπράττετο, τοὺς ἀκροωμένους δὲ ἡδομένους εἶχον, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἠπίστει· τὰ γὰρ δὴ καλά τε καὶ μεγάλα συμ- βαίνειν ἐδόκει τῇ σῇ φύσει. ἐγὼ δέ σε πολλὰ παρακεκληκὼς ἐπὶ τὴν ἀκρίβειαν καὶ τὸ δεῖν πάσας ἀνελόντα χάριτας χεῖρα ὀρέγειν ταῖς πόλεσιν ἔοικα τὸ τοῦ Περικλέους πεπονθέναι τῷ τε ἐμαυτοῦ περιπεπτωκέναι νόμῳ. τί δ’ ἦν ὃ ἐκεῖνος ἔπαθε; γράψας Ἀθηναίοις νόμον τὸν οὐκ ὄντα ἀμφοτέρωθεν Ἀθη- ναῖον τῶν τοῖς ἀστοῖς ὑπαρχόντων εἴργεσθαι τεθνεώτων αὐτῷ Ξανθίππου καὶ Παράλου τὸν ἐκ τῆς Ἀσπασίας υἱὸν ἐδεῖτο τῶν πολιτῶν πολίτην ἐγγράφειν τὰ αὑτοῦ κινῶν, οἱ δὲ ἐχα- ρίσαντο. κἀγὼ τοίνυν τὸν ἐμαυτοῦ παραβαίνων νόμον βου- λοίμην ἂν τὸν Σελεύκου τινὸς τυγχάνειν ἔξω τῶν ἐμῶν τε καὶ σῶν δογμάτων. Σέλευκον δὲ ἀκούσας οὐκ ἂν Ἀλεξάνδρας ἀμνημονεῖν δύναιο, ταύτης δὲ μνησθεὶς οὐκ ἂν ἀντιτείνειν δύναιο. δεῖ γάρ, ὥσπερ τοὺς θεοὺς πρὸ ταύτης ἄγομεν, οὕτω ταύτην πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων. οἷς οὖν αὐτὸς ἄρχων ἐχρώμην ἄν, τούτοις σὲ δεῖ φανῆναι χρώμενον ἐννοοῦντα σχῆμά τε τὸ τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ γνώμης μέτρον καὶ τὴν ἄλλην ἀρετὴν καὶ ὡς ἐδοκοῦμεν ἐξ ἱεροῦ τινος ἀπιέναι παρ’ αὐτῆς καταβαίνοντες. τῷ μὲν οὖν Περικλεῖ τὴν χάριν ἐκείνην ἀντὶ Εὐβοίας ἔδοσαν Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ Σάμου, ἐγὼ δὲ νήσους μὲν ᾑρημένας εἰπεῖν οὐκ ἔχω, τὸ δὲ μέγιστον τῶν ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον Ἀλεξάνδραν εἶδες Σελεύκου μὲν ἐπιτρέποντος, ἐμοῦ δὲ εἰσάγοντος.