Letter 921: Libanius thanks Ablabius for hosting Eusebius, praises his home and intellect, and explains a long silence between teacher and former pupils.

When Eusebius enjoyed your hospitality, I felt as though I myself had breakfasted with you, bathed there, and dined there. By the favor of the gods he is home again and has escaped dangers no one would have expected him to survive. As for that narrow street where your house stands, the place where you think through the speeches you will bring before the people, I say it is brighter than any marketplace, even the one at Rome that outshines all others. Olympus too is only a mountain with splendid porticoes because the gods spend their time there. It is natural that for a long while neither you have written to me nor any letter from me has come to you. It would not have made sense for you to send your young men one way and letters here; and someone might have blamed me for pestering you and not knowing when silence was called for. I have done the same with the other Galatians, since they stand toward me as you do. It seems that I have not forgotten my former students, but those students have forgotten their old fathers. Perhaps not without reason: there is a long distance between me and your part of the world, while your later teachers are close at hand.