Letter 885: Libanius reminds Proclus of a promise to help Eusebius with his public service obligations without crushing him.
There is no need for me to explain who the bearer of this letter is, or what his background is. When I first started to speak to you about him as you were leaving, you interrupted me with your own knowledge of our friend Gaius. You spoke of Gaius's cultural interests, how he was like a brother to this man's father and a father to the man himself by law. You made some wonderful promises then: that you would be delighted to see him when he arrived and would give him the appropriate help - not exempting him from the public services he is capable of performing, but also not imposing a burden he couldn't possibly carry. Because of this, Eusebius is coming to you in high spirits, and we are sending him off happily, expecting him to write to us soon about your kindness and to tell the story to his companions later on.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Οὐδὲν ἂν δεοίμην σε διδάσκειν, τίς τέ ἐστι καὶ τίνων καὶ πόθεν ὁ φέρων σοι τὴν ἐπιστολήν. καὶ γὰρ ὅτε σε προπέμπων ἠρξάμην τῶν περὶ αὐτοῦ ῥημάτων, τῷ παρὰ σαυτοῦ λόγῳ τὸν ἐμὸν ἔστησας Γάϊόν τε λέγων καὶ τὴν Γαΐου μουσικὴν καὶ ὡς ἀδελφὸς εἴη τοῦ τοῦδε πατρὸς καὶ ὡς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦδε τῷ νόμῳ, καὶ προσετίθεις ἐπαγγελίας καλάς, ὡς ἥδιστά τε αὐτὸν ἀφικόμενον ὄψει καὶ βοηθήσεις τὰ εἰκότα οὔτ' ἀφιείς ὧν οἷός τε λειτουργεῖν οὔτ' ἀνατιθεὶς φορτίον ὃ μὴ δύναιτ' ἂν φέρειν. 2. διὰ ταῦτα χαίρων μὲν Εὐσέβιος ἔρχεται, χαίροντες δὲ αὐτὸν ἡμεῖς πέμπομεν ὡς αὐτίκα τε ἐπιστελοῦντα ἡμῖν περὶ τῶν εἰς αὐτὸν παρὰ σοῦ καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα πρὸς συνόντας διηγησόμενον.
Revision history
- 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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