Letter 72: I did not advise you to leave your homeland, your home, your family, and your prospects -- nor would I ever give...

LibaniusAetius|c. 321 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
property economics

To Aetius. (359)

I did not advise you to leave your fatherland and your home and your kindred and your prospects, nor would I ever advise such things to a citizen who has so great a city to offer him.

But since there appeared an adviser more persuasive than I, and something of your own that seemed to you more venerable, I do not commend what was resolved upon, yet I pray that it may reach a good outcome. And this too would be the work of Fortune.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Ἀετίῳ. (359)

Ἐγώ σε πατρίδα καταλιπεῖν καὶ οἶκον καὶ γένος καὶ
προσδοκίας οὐ παρῄνεσα μηδέ γε παραινέσαιμί ποτε πολίτη
τοιαῦτα πόλιν οὕτω μεγάλην παρεχομένῳ

ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐφάνη
σύμβουλος μὲν ἐμοῦ πιθανώτερος, σοὶ δέ τι τῆς σαυτοῦ σε-
μνότερον, οὐκ ἐπαινῶ μὲν τὰ δόξαντα, λαβεῖν δὲ χρηστὸν εὔχο-
μαι τέλος. εἴη δ’ ἂν καὶ τοῦτο τῆς Τύχης.

Revision history

  1. 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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