Letter 279

To Proclus, Member of the City Council [a decurion serving on the municipal council]. By [providential] dispensation there was given to you neither natural eloquence, nor a rich abundance and multitude of ideas, nor a lavish supply of money, nor health of body. For if, even when deprived of these things, you kick back against the goads with your arguments, and prattle on incessantly, saying things that profit nothing, with your mouth gaping wide and your tongue beyond restraint, gratifying only your own vainglory and your craving to please men, and leading wretched little women captive, what would you have done had you been well supplied with the very things of which you were, with good reason, deprived?

Οἰκονομικῶς οὐκ ἐδόθη σοι οὔτε λόγων εὐφυΐα, οὔτ’ ἀφθονία, καὶ πλῆθος νοημάτων, οὔτε χρημάτων δαψίλεια, οὔτε ὑγεία τοῦ σώματος. Εἰ γὰρ καὶ τούτων στερηθεὶς λακτίζεις τοῖς λογισμοῖς, καὶ φλυαρεῖς ἀπαύστως λαλῶν τὰ μηδὲν ὠφελοῦντα, πεπλατυσμένῳ τῷ στόματι, καὶ ἀκαθέκτῳ τῇ γλώττῃ, καὶ μόνον τὴν ἑαυτοῦ κενοδοξίαν, καὶ ἀνθρωπαρεσκίαν πληροφορῶν, καὶ ἄθλια αἰχμαλωτίζων γύναια· τί ἂν διεπράξω εὐπορήσας, ὧνπερ εὐλόγως ἀπεστε- ρήθης;