Letter 23: The luxury of Syria is making you forget your friends and relatives.

To Diogenes [a cousin]. The luxury of Syria is making you forget your friends and relatives. It has been five months since you sent me a letter — even though nature gave you an exceptional gift not just for ordinary correspondence but for letters worthy of posterity. Do not waste that talent on silence.

Letter 23: A Complaint [1] To Diogenes note [A cousin of Synesius, who also sent him Letter 20 .] The luxury of Syria is such that it makes men forget friends and relations. It is five months now since you have greeted me with a letter, though you have received from Nature herself an exceptional gift for dictating, not merely letters on daily affairs, but letters destined to be known and admired. [2] If you are in good health, however - you, your golden children, and their mother, happy in her fair offspring - I am quite satisfied.