Letter 757: What you asked for has been accomplished.

LibaniusDiophantos|c. 386 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
property economics

To Diophantus.

What you asked for has been accomplished for you, and you may make use of your own judgment and of your grandfather's property in your grandfather's city. But these things were brought about while many were snatching at the business of managing it, and while each one sought that the achievement should be reckoned his own. For this reason I too became one of those who learned that the matter was already finished before they had contributed any share to it.

If, then, anyone inscribes me upon the trophy, remember the trophy at Marathon and the Lacedaemonians, who did not in fact fight in the battle yet were inscribed there nonetheless; for in this way you will be least deceived.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Διοφάντῳ. (362)

Ἐπράχθη σοι ὧν ἐδέου, καὶ χρῶ τῇ τε γνώμῃ σαυτοῦ
καὶ τοῖς τοῦ πάππου χρήμασιν ἐν τῇ τοῦ πάππου πόλει. ταῦτα

δὲ ἐπράττετο πολλῶν ἁρπαζόντων τὴν διακονίαν κοὶ ζητοῦν-
τος ἑκάστου τὸ ἔργον αὑτοῦ γίνεσθαι. ἐντεῦθεν καὶ αὐτὸς
ἐγενόμην τῶν ὅτι τέλος ἔχει μαθόντων πρίν τι συμβαλέσθαι
μέρος.

ἢν οὖν τις ἐπιγράφῃ με τῳ τροποίῳ, μέμνησο τοῦ
Μαραθῶνι τροπαίου καὶ τῶν μὴ συμμεμαχημένων μὲν Λακε-
δαιμονίων, ἐγγεγραμμένων δέ οὕτω γὰρ ἥκιστα παρακρου-
σθήσῃ.

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

Related Letters