Roman Letters

Letter 875: Libanius recommends the son of his friend Marianus for a position in the imperial administration.

Libanius→Theodorus, correspondent of Libanius|c. 388 AD|Libanius|From Antioch|AI-assisted
educationcareerimperial courtMarianuspatronage
The letter notes the tension between a traditional rhetorical education and the pull of imperial service at court.
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This young man is the son of the excellent Marianus. In character, he is just like his father, but in speaking ability, he has even surpassed him. He would have been a great success as a lawyer or as a teacher in a position like mine. However, before he could finish his studies with us, he was enrolled in a bureau [a division of the palace staff] at court. He has now arrived there to take up his duties. I am asking you to speak to his colleagues on his behalf. Make it clear that if they look out for him, they will be doing you a personal favor.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

1. Παῖς οὑτοσὶ τοῦ χρηστοῦ Μαριανοῦ κατὰ μὲν τὸν τρόπον ἴσος τῷ γεγεννηκότι, λόγοις δὲ καὶ παριών, ὥστε μέγας μὲν ἂν ἐγένετο δικαζομένοις ἐπικουρῶν, μέγας δ' ἂν ἱδρυθεὶς οὗπερ ἐγώ· πρὸ δὲ τῶν παρ' ἡμῖν διατριβῶν ἐγγραφεὶς εἰς συμμορίαν τινὰ τῶν ἐν τοῖς βασιλείοις ἀφῖκται νῦν κοινωνήσων αὐτῇ τῶν πόνων. 2. βούλομαι δὴ καὶ αἰτῶ λόγους παρὰ σοῦ πρὸς ἐκείνην ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ γενέσθαι δῆλον ποιοῦντας ὅτι ταῖς περὶ τοῦτο σπουδαῖς τῇ σῇ χαριοῦνται κεφαλῇ.

Text source →View original manuscript →

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch3 gemini flash v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/download/foerster-libanii-opera/Foerster%20%281922%29%2C%20Libanii%20opera%2011_djvu.xml

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