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) Such letters as these you ought to be receiving from others on behalf of such matters; but you, having run away from the rank of the teachers, have entered into that of the magistrates. And then you discharge that office with expert knowledge, as we ourselves could not, were anyone to lead us to it; yet if you happened to be here in our profession, here too you would prevail. So versatile a thing did god fashion your nature to be. And, alone of all the men we know, you are reproached not because you are lazy, but because you do not bite. But let nothing change you, and let a drunken man grieve you no more than Homer's praise gladdens you, and along with the poet let all the Cilicians gladden you, and before the rest of the Cilicians Anticles the rhetor, whose vote one must reckon stronger than that of both continents. You, then, must think in this way, and the young man will obtain nothing less than you yourself 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.