Letter 154: Unknown admirers praise Zacharias so warmly that Procopius treats the praise as his own crown.
I do not know who the bearers of this letter are; but since they admire you, I define them as very much my own. Seeing me and noticing a kindred stamp of character, they guessed the truth. After saying something among themselves and making one another judges of the matter, they decided that I was the brother of the dearest man. Since they all moved toward one opinion, they ran up together, greeted me at once, looked at me with kindly eyes, and made you a constant object of wonder, calling you an upright judge, a just ruler, and whatever else is venerable. Their words were perhaps less than your worth; at any rate they clearly wanted to say more than they could express, showing that their judgment of you was better than their tongue. Crowned by their many praises, I treated the praises of you as my own and gave them this present letter as the reward they requested.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ζαχαρίαι ἀδελφῶι Τοὺς ἄγοντας τὴν ἐπιστολὴν οἵτινες μέν εἰσιν ἀγνοῶ, ὅτι δέ σε θαυμάζουσιν οἰκείους ἄγαν ὁρίζομαι. οὗτοι γὰρ ἰδόντες ἐμὲ καὶ συγγενοῦς χαρακτῆρος ἐλθόντες εἰς ἔννοιαν τοῦθ' ὅπερ ἦν ἐμαντεύοντο, καί τι πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς εἰπόντες καὶ κριτὰς ἀλλήλους πεποιημένοι τοῦ πράγματος ὡς ἀδελφὸς τοῦ φιλτάτου καθέστηκα. ἐπεὶ δὲ πρὸς μίαν γνώμην ἐφέροντο, προσδραμόντες ὁμοῦ προσεῖπόν τε ἅμα καὶ εὐμενέσιν ὀφθαλμοῖς ὑπεβλέποντο, καί σε διὰ παντὸς ἐποιήσαντο θαύματος, δικαστὴν ὀρθὸν καὶ ἄρχοντα δίκαιον καὶ ὅ τι σεμνὸν ὀνομάζοντες, τῆς μὲν ἀξίας ἴσως ἐλάττονα, δῆλοι δ' οὖν ἦσαν πλείω λέγειν ἐθέλοντες ὧν ἀπαγγέλλειν ἠδύναντο, τὴν περὶ σὲ γνώμην τῆς γλώττης ἀποφαίνοντες κρείττονα. ἐγὼ δὲ πολλοῖς ἐπαίνοις ἐξ αὐτῶν στεφανούμενος οἰκεῖα γὰρ τὰ καθ' ὑμῶν ἐποιούμην ἐγκώμια[καὶ] μισθὸν αἰτοῦσιν ἐδίδουν τὴν παροῦσαν ἐπιστολήν.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern procopius gaza batch9 matia greek v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://www.matia.gr/pisth/pdf/pg_migne/Procopius_of_Gaza_PG_87a-87c/Epistulae.pdf
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