Letter 828: I consider that day the beginning of our friendship — the day I invited you to a modest dinner, and you thought even...

LibaniusMemorios|c. 393 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
friendship

To Memorius. (363)

I consider that the beginning of our friendship came to be on that day on which I was inviting you to a humble meal, while to you even small things seemed great, and you departed having become the more content.

And so I do what befits friendship and write to you, trusting that, in imitation of me, you will write back in turn. As for the man from whom you will receive this letter, he [...] is one of those who have associated with us with a certain measure of decorum and eagerness. To him I have granted the favor of meeting you, and you in turn will do me the favor of looking upon this man kindly.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Μεμορίῳ. (363)

Ἐγὼ φιλίας ἀρχὴν ἡμῖν τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην γεγενῆσθαι
νομίζω, ἐν ᾗ σε ἐκάλουν ἐπὶ φαύλην θοίνην, σοὶ δὲ ἐδόκει
καὶ τὰ μικρὰ μεγάλα καὶ ἀπῄεις ἡδίων γενόμενος.

πράττω
δὴ τὸ τῇ φιλίᾳ πρέπον καὶ ἐπιστέλλω πιστεύων ὅτι με μιμού-
μενος ἀντεπιστελεῖς. παρ’ οὗ δὲ λήψῃ τὰ γράμματα, τῶι

ἡμῖν ἐστιν ὡμιληκότων μετὰ κόσμου τι καἰ προθυμίας. ᾧ
κεχάρισμαι τὸ ἐντυχεὶν σοι, σὺ δὲ ἐμοὶ χαριῇ τὸ τοῦτον ἡμέ-
ρως ἰδεῖν.

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