Letter 740: Your insult did not go unnoticed, my dear Magnus -- though you certainly hoped it would.

Your insult did not go unnoticed, my dear Magnus -- though you certainly hoped it would. You thought that being clever, you could pull this on a simpleton. I may be slow in most things, but this one I caught. You locked up the bathhouse -- a fine thing to do -- and told me to use it, while you yourself, claiming you needed to rush home for food, disappeared. But you did not really need the house or the food. You just could not bear to be present and have to open it for me, or to leave it locked and cause me pain -- so you devised a third option that caused me even more pain: your escape. It would have been more graceful, I think, to persuade me and lead me away, rather than to send me to the door and subject me to the boorishness of soldiers. For if that arrangement had been in your interest, you would not have guarded it while I tried to change it. But you wanted, it seems, to commit an insult. Very well: I have bathed, and a small bath sufficed in place of a grander one. If you have an itch to mock someone, leave the others alone -- they are touchy. With me, indulge the urge. I am the sort who would take even a blow with good grace.

Μάγνῳ. (362) Ὑβρίσας οὐκ ἔλαθες, ὦ φίλε Μάγνε, καίτοι γε ἤλπισας· ᾤου γὰρ δεινὸς ὢν εἰς ἀνόητον τοῦτο ποιεῖν, ἐγὼ δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα γνώμην βραδύς, τοῦτο δὲ οὐ διέφυγεν. ἀλλ’ ἔκλεισας μὲν τὸ βαλανεῖον εὖ ποιῶν, ἐμὲ δὲ αὐτῷ χρῆσθαι κελεύσας αὐτὸς κατὰ χρείαν τροφῆς ἔφασκες οἴκαδε τρέχειν. σὺ δ’ οὐκ ἄρα ἐδέου τῆς οἰκίας οὐδὲ σιτίων, ἀλλ’ ὅπως μήτ’ ἀνοί- ξαις παρὼν μήτ’ ἐῶν κεκλεῖσθαι λυποίης, ἐπενόησας τρίτοι ἐν ᾧ πλέον ἐλύπησας, τὴν φυγήν. ἢν γάρ, οἶμαι μᾶλλον ἐμμελὲς πείσαντα ἀπαγαγεῖν ἢ πέμψαντα πρὸς τὰς θύρας εἰς στρατιωτῶν ἀπαιδευσίαν ἐμβαλεῖν. ει γὰρ τοῦτο ἦν ἀστείῳ συμφέρον, οὐκ ἂν ὑπὸ σοῦ μὲν ἐτηρεῖτο, ὑπ᾿ ἐμοῦ δὲ ἐκινεῖτο. ἀλλ’ ἐπεθύμεις, ὡς ἔοικεν, ὑβρίσαι ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν λέλουμαι καὶ μικρὸν ἀντὶ μείζονος ἤρκεσέ μοι· σὺ δ’ εἰ χλευάζειν ἐπι- θυμεῖς, τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους ἴα χαλεποὶ γάρ, ἐξ ἐμοῦ δὲ χαρίζου τῷ πάθει τοῦ καὶ πληγὴν ἂν ἐνεγκόντος πρᾴως.