Letter 53: Procopius distinguishes judgment from fortune while accusing Philip of arrogance.
Here is another letter from me to you, and again I know well that you will be silent. If you forgive me for speaking from distress, I will say that your character has changed toward arrogance, and you do not wish to remain the man you were before.
It is a good thing I did not sail across the Bosporus and arrive at the emperor's city. Perhaps I too, seeing the great emperor, the consular dress, some office called very great, and all those solemn things among you, whether you want to call them realities or names, would have raised my brow and thought in youthful fashion, lifted up by the fortune of what I saw. The things once dear to me would have seemed nonsense.
Since you were caught by these things, I cannot easily say that I would have escaped suffering the same, unless some reasoning had slipped in and told me: my excellent friend, judgment and fortune are not the same. Fortune goes wherever it thinks best, often changes, and laughs at human affairs. But the self-controlled person should be master of judgment, neither rising with fortune when it rises nor changing along with it when it falls.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Φιλίππῳ ἀδελφῷ
Ἰδού σοι πάλιν ἐπιστολὴ παρ' ἡμῶν, καὶ πάλιν εὖ οἶδ' ὅτι σιγήσεις. καὶ εἴ μοι δοίης συγγνώμην ἀχθομένῳ λέγειν, μεταβέβληταί σοι πρὸς ἀλαζονείαν ὁ τρόπος, καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλεις μένειν οἷος ἦσθα καὶ πρότερον. ἀλλ' εὖ γε ὅτι μὴ τὴν τοῦ Βοσπόρου διέπλευσα θάλατταν καὶ βασιλέως πόλιν ἀφῖγμαι· ἴσως γὰρ ἂν κἀγὼ βασιλέα τὸν μέγαν ὁρῶν καὶ τὴν τῶν ὑπάτων στολὴν καὶ ἀρχὴν δή τινα μεγίστην καλουμένην καὶ τὰ σεμνὰ δὴ ταῦτα τὰ παρ' ὑμῖν, εἴτε πράγματα βούλει λέγειν εἴτε ὀνόματα, ἐπῆρα τὴν ὀφρῦν καὶ νεανικὸν ἐφρόνουν πρὸς τὴν τῶν ὁρωμένων ἐπαιρόμενος τύχην, καί μοι τὰ πάλαι φίλα λῆρος ἐδόκει. ὅπου γὰρ σὺ τούτοις ἑάλως, οὐκ ἂν εἴποιμι ῥᾳδίως ὡς διέφυγον ἂν τὸ μὴ οὐ ταὐτὰ παθεῖν, εἰ μή μέ τις ἄρα λογισμὸς ὑπεισῆλθεν ὡς οὖ ταὐτόν, ὦ λῷστε, γνώμη καὶ τύχη, ἀλλ' ἡ μὲν ὡς ἂν αὐτῇ δοκῇ φέρεται καὶ μεταπίπτει πολλάκις καὶ γελᾷ τὰ ἡμέτερα, τῆς δὲ κύριον εἶναι προσήκει τὸν σωφρονοῦντα, καὶ μήτε αἰρομένῃ συναναστῆναι μήτε πιπτούσῃ συμμεταβάλλεσθαι.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern procopius gaza batch4 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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