Letter 975: Libanius asks Siburius to complete his promise and relieve Euthymius' poverty.

LibaniusSiburius, correspondent of Libanius|c. 390 AD|Libanius|From Antioch|AI-assisted
PovertyPatronagePromiseReligious Rhetoric
Libanius builds the argument around a divine nod: a powerful person's assent should become action.

You are one of those loved by Zeus, and so you would be right to imitate Zeus. Zeus has a law: whatever he nods assent to, he brings to completion. You should use the same law. Since you nodded in agreement with the speeches I made about Euthymius' virtue and poverty, add the deed as well: end his poverty, following the god who made all things.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Εἷς σὺ τῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ Διὸς ἀγαπωμένων. οὐκοῦν καὶ μιμεῖσθαι δίκαιος ἂν εἴης τὸν Δία. τῷ Διὶ δὲ νόμος ὅσα νεύσειεν ἐπιτελεῖν. οὐκοῦν καὶ σοὶ τῷ νόμῳ τούτῳ χρηστέον, καὶ ἐπειδήπερ ἕνευσας ἐν τοῖς λόγοις, οὓς περί τε τῆς ἀρετῆς Εὐθυμίου καὶ πενίας ἐποιούμεθα, πρόσθες τὸ ἔργον καὶ λύε τὴν πενίαν ἑπόμενος τῷ τὰ πάντα πεποιηκότι θεῷ.

Revision history

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

    Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch7 t257 reviewed 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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