Letter 709: If you did not already know Theophilus, I would tell you that even when circumstances invited excess, the man...
To the same man. (362)
If you did not know Theophilus, I would be teaching you that this man, on an occasion that gave him license to behave drunkenly, kept within bounds; but since you both know it and on that account act rightly, I would have no need to teach you anything or to urge you, and instead I praise you, because you consider the man worthy of your care.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Τῷ αὐτῶ. (362)
Εἰ μὲν ἠγνόεις Θεόφιλον, ἐδίδασκον ἄν σε ὅτι οὗτος ἐν
καιρῷ παρέχοντι παροινεῖν μέτριος ἦν· ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ οἶσθα καὶ
διὰ τοῦτ’ εὖ ποιεῖς, διδάσκειν μὲν ἢ παρακαλεῖν οὐδὲν ἄν σε
δεοίμην, ἐπαινῶ δέ, ὅτι τὸν ἄνδρα τῶν προνοίας ἀξίων ἡγῇ.
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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