Letter 810: I thought I had been cleared of every charge after that letter, and that your feelings toward me had returned to...

To Themistius. (363) I thought I had been cleared of every charge after that letter, and that your feelings toward me had returned to what they were before the accusations. But it seems you still regard me as an enemy and have been planning to exact punishment. Yet the admirable Harpocration kept saying the old friendship held, and he urged me to take heart, assuring me you had not changed. We were both deceived, it seems — he and I — for no short time, and perhaps I profited from the deception, if not being pained counts as profit. But when the speech arrived and was circulated along with letters, and I heard one person after another say "Themistius has sent me a copy" — a second, a third, a fourth — while I alone among the Argives went unhonored [Homer, Iliad 1.119], then I said to myself: the reconciliation has not come; the anger still prevails. And though I could have obtained the speech, I did not take it, so as not to learn what you did not wish me to know. It pained me to abstain from so fine a feast, but I endured it, lest something happen that you did not want. So if you still think you must be angry, then do not write to me, and do not dissemble. But if the anger has ceased, add the speech to your letter. I will read it with far greater pleasure when the craftsman himself sends me his work.

Θεμιστίῳ. (363) Ὤιμην ἀφεῖσθαι πάσης αἰτίας μετ’ ἐκείνην τὴν ἐπιστο- Λὴν καὶ γνώμην εἶναι σοὶ πρὸς ἐμὲ τὴν πρὸ τῶν ἐγκλημάτων. σὺ δ’ ἄρα ἐχθρόν τέ με ἡγοῦ καὶ δίκην ἐπιθήσειν ἔμελλες. καίτοι ὅ γε θαυμαστὸς Ἁρποκρατίων μένειν ἔφασκε τὴν παλαιὰν φιλίαν θαρρεῖν τε ἐκέλευεν ὡς σοῦ γε οὐ μεταβεβλη- μένου. ἐξηπατώμεθα δέ, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐγώ τε κἀκεῖνος οὐ μι- κρόν τινα χρόνον, καὶ ἴσως ἐκέρδαινον ἀπατώμενος, εἰ τὸ μὴ λυπεῖσθαι κέρδος ἦν. ὡς δὲ ἦλθεν ὁ λόγος καὶ διεδόθη μετὰ τῶν γραμμάτων καὶ ἤκουον τοῦ δεῖνος ἐμοὶ πέπομφε βιβλίον Θεμίστιος λέγοντος καὶ τοὐ ταὺτὸ κοὶ τρί- του καὶ τετάρτου καὶ μόνος ἦν Ἀργείων ἀγέραστος, τοτ’ ἔφην πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν ὡς οὔπω διαλλαγαί, κρατεῖ δὲ ὁ θυμὸς ἔτι καὶ παρόν μοι λαβεῖν τὸν λόγον οὐκ ἔλαβον, ὅπως μὴ γνοίην ἃ μὴ ἐθέλεις, καὶ ὠδυνώμην μὶν ἀπεχόμενος θοίνης οὕτω καλῆς, ἠνειχόμην δέ, ὅπως μὴ γένηταί τι ὧν οὐκ ἐβού- λου. εἰ μὲν οὖν ἔτι χαλεπαίνειν οἴει δεῖν, μὴ ἐπίστελλε μηδ’ εἰρωνεύου τῆς ὀργῆς δὲ πέπαυσαι, πρόσθες ἐπιστολῇ τὸν λόγον. ἥδιον γὰρ ἀναγνώσομαι πέμποντος αὐτοῦ τοῦ δη- μιουργοῦ τὸ τέχνημα.