Letter 775: You should have been receiving such letters from others on such matters, but you fled the rank of teachers and...

To Celsus. (362) You should have been receiving such letters from others on such matters, but you fled the rank of teachers and entered that of governors. And yet you perform that role with such skill as we never could, even if someone led us there; and had you been here, you would have prevailed here too. So versatile a thing did god fashion your nature. And you alone among those we know are blamed not for being lazy, but for not biting. Let nothing change you, and let not a drunken man grieve you more than Homer's praise delights you — and with the poet, all the Cilicians, and before the other Cilicians, Anticles the rhetor, whose vote should be considered stronger than both continents. That is how you should think. As for the young man, he will receive no less than you did before.

Κέλσῳ. (362) Τοιαύτας ἴδει σε παρ’ ἄλλων ἐπιστολὰς ὑπὲρ τοιούτων δέχεσθαι, σὺ δ’ ἀποδρὰς τὴν τῶν παιδευτῶν τάξιν εἰς τὴν τῶν ἀρχόντων εἰσῆλθες. εἶτ’ ἐκεῖνο μὲν δὺν ἐπιστήμῃ πράττεις, ὡς οὐκ ἂν ἡμεῖς, εἴ τις ἐκεῖσε ἦγεν· εἰ δ’ ἐνταῦθα ἐτύγχανες ὤν, κἀνταῦθα ἂν ἐκράτεις. οὕτως εὐτράπελόν τι χρῆμα τὴν σὴν φύσιν ὁ θεὸς ἐτεκτήνατο. καὶ μόνος ὧν ἴσμεν οὐχ ὅτι ῥᾳθυμεῖς, ἀλλ’ ὅτι μὴ δάκνεις, ἐγκαλῇ. σὲ δὲ μη- δὲν μεταβαλλέτω μηδὲ λυπείτω μᾶλλον ἀνὴρ μεθύων ἢ Ὅμη- ρος ἐπαινῶν εὐφραινέτω καὶ μετὰ τοῦ ποιητοῦ πάντες Κίλι- κες καὶ πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων Κιλίκων Ἀντικλῆς ὁ ῥήτωρ, οὗ τὴν ψῆφον ἰσχυροτέραν νομιστέον ἀμφοτέρων τῶν ἠπείρων. σὲ μὲν οὕτω δεῖ φρονεῖν, ὁ δὲ νέος οὐδὲν ἐλαττόνων ἢ σὺ πρό- τερον τεύξεται.