Synesius: Letters

To Nicander

I have begotten children in my books, some from most august Philosophy, an from Poesy who dwelleth with her in the Temple, some again from Rhetoric of the public place. But anyone can see that they are all from the same father, who inclines now to the serious and now to the lighter side. This book [1] therefore shall give its own pledge as to which category it belongs.

So far as I am concerned, it is exceptionally dear to me that I would most gladly graft it on to Philosophy, and would rank it amongst my legitimate offspring, but this the very laws of the City refuse me, “for they are terribly stern guardians of noble birth”. Notwithstanding this, it has whatever bounty I am able to bestow upon it in secret, and I have put much of the sterner side into it also.

If, therefore, you agree with me as to its merit, make my work known to your Greek friends, and if its reception be unfavorable let it be returned to the sender. After all, love of offspring is so great a force in nature that, according to the fable, the very apes when they bring forth their young gaze upon them as idols, and are lost in admiration of their beauty, but those of their fellows they see just as they are - the offspring of apes. Hence we should leave to others the task of appraising the value of our creation, for partiality is quite capable of warping our judgment. It was for this that [the sculptor] Lysippus brought [the painter] Apelles to see his pictures, and for the same reason Apelles brought Lysippus to see his own.

Note 1: A Eulogy of Baldness.

To Joannes

To be free from fear one must fear the law, but you have always been ashamed even to seem to fear them. At all events fear your enemies, and with them fear the judges if they are incorruptible. Nay, they are still to be feared even if they are open to bribery; for such ones, if your purse is not of the longest, are full of zeal to defend the laws once they have found a paymaster into the bargain.

To his Brother

Aeschines had already been interred three days when his niece came to visit his tomb for the first time. Custom, you know, does not permit girls to attend funerals once they are engaged to be married. However, even then she was dressed in purple, with a transparent veil over her hair, and she had decked herself with gold and precious stones that she might not be a sign of evil omen to her betrothed. Seated upon a chair with double cushions and silver feet, so they say, she railed against the untimeliness of this misfortune, on the ground that Aeschines should have died either before her wedding or after it, and she was angry with us because we were in grief. Scarcely waiting for the seventh day, on which we had met for the funeral banquet, she mounted her mule car, in company with that talkative old nurse of hers, and, when the forum was thronged, set out on her stately course for Taucheira with all her adornments. Next week she is preparing to display herself crowned with fillets, and with a towering head-dress like Cybele.

We are in no way wronged by this except in the fact, patent to the whole world, that we have relations with very bad taste. The one who has been wronged is Harmonius, the father of her janitor,[1] as Sappho might say, a man who although wise and moderate in all respects in his own life, vied with Cecrops himself on the ground of noble birth.

The granddaughter of this man, himself greater than Cecrops, her uncle and janitor Herodes has now given away to the Sosiae and Tibii.[2] Perchance they are right who extol the future bridegroom to us because of his mother, pointing to his descent from the famous Lais.[3] Now Lais was an Hyccarian slave brought from Sicily, according to one historian; whence this mother of fair offspring, who bore the famous man. She of old lived an irregular life with a shipmaster for her owner - afterwards with an orator, who also owned her, and after these in the third instance with a fellow-slave, at first secretly in the town, then conspicuously, and was a mistress of her art. When by reason of oncoming wrinkles she gave up the practice of her art, she trained in her calling the young persons whom she palmed off on strangers. Her son, the orator, asserts that he is dispensed by the law from the duty of supporting a mother who is beyond the pale. Out upon such a law! The mother has been clearly revealed to those thus born: it is only the other parent that is doubtful. All the care that is due to both parents from those born in wedlock should be bestowed by the fatherless on the mother alone.

[1] Apparently, the girls' guardian is meant; her father must be dead.

[2] The Sosii were a family with a great line of ancestors. Cecrops was the founder of Athens, “born from the earth”.

[3] Lais was a hetaere, born in 422 in Hyccara on Sicily. In 415, during the Athenian expedition ot Sicily, her town was looted and she was sold as a slave in Corinth. Among her lovers were the philosophers Aristippus and Diogenes of Sinope.

To his Brother

Although we started from Bendideum [near Alexandria] at early dawn, we had scarcely passed Pharius Myrmex by noonday, for our ship went aground two or three times in the bed of the harbor. This mishap at the very outset seemed a bad omen, and it might have been wiser to desert a vessel which had been unlucky from the very start. But we were ashamed to lay ourselves open to an imputation of cowardice from you, and accordingly

It was no longer granted us to tremble or to withdraw. [Homer, Iliad, 7.217]

So now, if misfortune awaits us, we shall perish through your fault. After all, was it so dreadful that you should be laughing and we out of danger? But of Epimetheus they aver that

His prudence was at fault, his repentance never,

and that is precisely our own case, for we might easily have saved ourselves in the first instance; whereas now we are lamenting in concert on desert shores, gazing out towards Alexandria to our heart’s content, and towards our motherland Cyrene; one of these places we willfully deserted, while the other we are unable to reach - all the time having seen and suffered such things as we never thought to happen even in our dreams.

Hear my story then, that you may have no further leisure for your mocking wit, and I will tell you first of all how our crew was made up. Our skipper was fain of death owing to his bankrupt condition; then besides him we had twelve sailors, thirteen in all! More than half of them, including the skipper, were Jews - a graceless race and fully convinced of the piety of sending to Hades as many Greeks as possible. The remainder were a collection of peasants who even as late as last year had never gripped an oar.

But the one batch and the other were alike in this, that every man of them had some personal defect. Accordingly, so long as we were in safety they passed their time in jesting one with another, accosting their comrades not by their real names, but by distinguishing marks of their misfortunes, as to call out the 'Lame', the 'Ruptured, the 'Lefthanded', the 'Goggle-eyed'. Each one had his distinguishing mark, and to us this sort of thing was no small source of amusement. The moment we were in danger, however, it was no laughing matter, but rather did we bewail these very defects.

We had embarked to the number of more than fifty, about a third of us being women, most of them young and comely. Do not, however, be quick to envy us, for a screen separated us from them and a stout one at that, the suspended fragment of a recently torn sail, to virtuous men the very wall of Semiramis.[1] Nay, Priapus himself might well have been temperate had he taken passage with Amarantus, for there was never a moment when this fellow allowed us to be free from fear of he uttermost danger.

As soon as he had doubled the temple of Poseidon, near you, he made straight for Taphosiris,[2] with all sails spread, to all seeming bent upon confronting Scylla, over whom we were all wont to shudder in our boyhood when doing our school exercises. This maneuver we detected only just as the vessel was nearing the reefs, and we all raised so mighty a cry that perforce he gave up his attempt to battle with the rocks. All at once he veered about as though some new idea had possessed him, and turned his vessel's head to the open, struggling as best he might against a contrary sea.

Presently, a fresh south wind springs up and carries us along, and soon we are out of sight of land and have come into the track of the double-sailed cargo vessels, whose business does not lie with our Libya; they are sailing quite another course. Again we make common cause of complaint, and our grievance now is that we have been forced away far from the shore. Then does this Titan of ours, Amarantus, fulminate, standing up on the stern and hurling awful imprecations upon us. 'We shall obviously never be able to fly,' he said, 'How can I help people like you who distrust both the land and the sea?'

'Nay,' I said, 'Not so, worthy Amarantus, in case anyone uses them rightly. For our own part we had no yearning for Taphosiris, for we wanted only to live. Moreover,' I continued, 'What do we want of the open sea? Let us rather make for the Pentapolis, hugging the shore; for then, if indeed we have to face one of those uncertainties which, as you admit, are unfortunately only too frequent on the deep, we shall at least be able to take refuge in some neighboring harbor.'

I did not succeed in persuading him with my talk, for to all of it the outcast only turned a deaf ear; and what is more, a gale commenced to blow from the north, and the violent wind soon raised seas mountains high. This gust falling suddenly on us, drove our sail back, and made it concave in place of its convex form, and the ship was all but capsized by the stern. With great difficulty, however, we headed her in.

Then Amarantus thunders out, 'See what it is to be master of the art of navigation. I had long foreseen this storm, and that is why I sought the open. I can tack in now, since our sea room allows us to add to the length of our tack. But such a course as the one I have taken would not have been possible had we hugged the shore, for in that case the ship would have dashed on the coast.'

Well, we were perforce satisfied with his explanation so long as daylight lasted and dangers were not imminent, but these failed not to return with the approach of night, for as the hours passed, the seas increased continually in volume. Now it so happened that this was the day on which the Jews make what they term the 'Preparation', and they reckon the night, together with the day following this, as a time during which it is not lawful to work with one's hands. They keep this day holy and apart from the others, and they pass it in rest from labor of all kinds. Our skipper accordingly let go the rudder from his hands the moment he guessed that the sun's rays had left the earth, and throwing himself prostrate,

Allowed to trample upon him what sailor so desired. [Sophocles, Ajax, 1146]

We who at first could not understand why he was thus lying down, imagined that despair was the cause of it all. We rushed to his assistance and implored him not to give up the last hope yet. Indeed the hugest waves were actually menacing the vessel, and the very deep was at war with itself. Now it frequently happens that when the wind has suddenly relaxed its violence, the billows already set in motion do not immediately subside; they are still under the influence of the wind's force, to which they yield an with which they battle at the same time, and the oncoming waves fight against those subsiding.

I have every need of my store of flaming language, so that in recounting such immense dangers I may not fall into the trivial. To people who are at sea in such a crisis, life may be said to hang by a thread only, for if our skipper proved at such a moment to be an orthodox observer of the Mosaic law, what was life worth in the future? Indeed we soon understood why he had abandoned the helm, for when we begged him to do his best to save the ship, he stolidly continued reading his roll. Despairing of persuasion, we finally attempted force, and one staunch soldier - for many Arabs of the cavalry were of our company - one staunch soldier, I say, drew his sword and threatened to behead the fellow on the spot if he did not resume control of the vessel. But the Maccabaean [3] in very deed was determined to persist in his observances.

However, in the middle of the night he voluntarily returned to the helm. 'For now,' he said, 'We are clearly in danger of death, and the law commands.' On this the tumult sprang up afresh, groaning of men and shrieking of women. All called upon the gods, and cried aloud; all called to mind those they loved. Amarantus alone was in good spirits, for he thought to himself that now at last he would foil his creditors. For myself, amidst those horrors, I swear to you by the god sacred to philosophy, that the only thing that troubled me was a passage from Homer. I feared that were my body once swallowed up in the waves, the soul itself also might eternally perish, for somewhere in his epic he writes:

Ajax perished, once he had drunk of the briny wave, [Homer, Odyssey, 4.511]

bearing witness to the fact that death at sea is the most grievous way of perishing, for in no other case does the poet speak of annihilation, but of everyone who dies the phrase is 'he went to Hades'. Thus in the two books of the Nekyiai,[4] the lesser Ajax is not brought into the narrative, for this very reason, that his soul is not in Hades; and again, Achilles, the most high-spirited and the most daring of all, shrinks from death by drowning and refers to it as a pitiable ending.[Homer, Iliad, 21.281]

[cont.]

[1] According to Greek legend, Semiramis had been queen of Babylonia. The walls of Babylon were reckoned among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

[2] Litt. the 'tomb of Osiris', a sanctuary near Alexandria.

[3] Another word to say Jew.

[4] The Nekyiai are those living in the Underworld: Homer, Odyssey, 11 (Odysseus' descent) and 24 (the arrival of his enemies).

As I was musing in this fashion, I noticed that all soldiers on board were standing with drawn swords. On inquiring the reason for this, I learned from them that they regarded it as more honorable to belch out their souls to the winds while still on the deck, than to gape them out to the waves. These men are by nature true descendants of Homer, I thought, and I entirely approved their view of the matter.

Then someone loudly proclaimed that everyone possessing gold should suspend it about the neck, and those who possessed it did so, as well as those who had anything of the value of gold. The women themselves put on their jewelry, and distributed cords to those who needed them: such is the time-honored custom. Now this is the reason for it. It is a matter of necessity that the corpse from a shipwreck should carry with it a fee for burial, inasmuch as whosoever comes across the dead body and profits by it, will fear the laws of Adrasteia,[1] and will scarcely grudge sprinkling a little sand on the one who has given him so much more in value.

So then they occupied themselves, but I sat solemnly apart, my thoughts fixed on the heavy sum of money which my host had deposited with me. I was lamenting, not so much my approaching death, - the god of hospitality be my witness! - as the sum of money which would be lost to this Thracian before whom, even when dying, I should feel shame. I came to the point of regarding it as a luxury to die in the fullest sense of the word, above all to perish in such a way as to escape all consciousness hereafter.

Now what made death gape at our feet was the fact that the ship was running with all sails spread, and that there was no means of taking them in, for as often as we attempted this we were thwarted by the ropes, which stuck in the pulleys; and again we had a secret fear lest in the night time, even if we lived out the sea, we should approach land in this sorry plight.

But day broke before all this had time to occur, and never, I know, did we behold the sun with greater joy. The wind grew more moderate as the temperature became milder, and thus, as the moisture evaporated, we were able to work the rigging and handle the sails. We were unable, it is true, to replace our sail by a new one, for this was already in the hands of the pawnbroker, but we took it in like the swelling folds of a garment, and lo, in four hours' time we who had imagined ourselves already in the jaws of death, were disembarking in a remote desert place, possessing neither town nor farm near it, only an expanse of open country of one hundred and thirty stadia [22½ km].

Our ship was riding in the open sea, for the spot was not a harbor, and it was riding on a single anchor. The second anchor had been sold. And a third Amarantus did not possess. When now we touched the dearly beloved land, we embraced the earth as a real living mother. We sent up hymns of gratitude to Providence, as is our custom, and to all this we added a mention of the present good fortune by which we had been saved contrary to all expectation.

Thus we waited two days until the sea should have abated its fury. When, however, we were unable to discover any way out by land, for we could find no one in the country, we decided to try our fortune again at sea. We straightway started at dawn with a wind which blew from the stern all that day and the following one, but towards the end of this second day the wind left us and we were in despair. However, only too soon should we be longing for a calm.

It was the thirteenth day of the waning moon, and a great danger was now impending, I mean the conjunction of certain constellations and those well known chance events which no one, they say, ever confronted at sea with impunity. So at the very moment when we should have stayed in harbor, we so far forgot ourselves as to run out again to sea. The storm opened with north winds and with heavy rain during the moonless night, presently the winds raged without measure, and the sea became deeply churned up.

As to ourselves, exactly what you might expect at such a crisis took place. I will not dilate a second on the identical sufferings, I will only say that the very magnitude of the storm was helpful. First the sailyard began to crack, and we thought of tightening up the vessel; then it broke in the middle and very nearly killed us all. It seems that this very accident, failing to destroy us, was the means of our salvation. We should never have been able to resist the force of the wind, for again the sail was intractable and defied all our efforts to take it in. Contrary to all prevision we had shaken off the rapacious violence of our enforced run, and we carried along during a day and a night, and at the second crowing of the cock, before we knew it, behold we were on a sharp reef which ran out from the land like a short peninsula.

Then a shout went up, for someone passed the word that we should had gone aground on the shore itself. There was much shouting and very little agreement. The sailors were terrified, whereas we through inexperience clapped our hands and embraced each other. We could not sufficiently express our great joy. And yet this was accounted the most formidable of the dangers that had beset us.

Now when day appeared, a man in rustic garb signaled and pointed out which were the places of danger, and those that we might approach in safety. Finally, he came out to us in a boat with two oars, and this he made fast to our vessel. Then he took over the helm, and our Syrian [i.e., Amarantus] gladly relinquished to him the conduct of the ship. So after proceeding not more than fifty stadia, he brought her to anchor in a delightful little harbor, which I believe is called Azarium [2] and there disembarked us on the beach. We acclaimed him as our savior and good angel.

A little while later, he brought in another ship, and then again another, and before evening had fallen, we were in all five vessels saved by this godsent old man, the very reverse of Nauplius [3] in his actions, for the latter received the shipwrecked in a vastly different manner. On the following day, other ships arrived, some of which had put out from Alexandria the day before we set sail. So now we are quite a great fleet in a small harbor.

Now provisions began to run short. So little accustomed were we to such accidents and so little had we anticipated a voyage of such length, that we had not brought sufficient stock and, what is more, we had not husbanded what we had on board. The old man had a remedy for this also. He did not give us anything himself, and he certainly did not look like one who had possessions. But he pointed out rocks to us where, he said, breakfast and supper were hidden away for those willing to work for it daily. Forthwith we set ourselves to fishing, and we have lived on the produce of our sport now seven days. The more stalwart of our party hunted out eels and lobsters of great size, and the children made a great game of catching gudgeons and shrimps. As to the Roman monk and myself, we fortified ourselves with limpets, a concave shell which attaches itself very firmly on the rocks.

In the first stages of this life or ours we fared ill enough. Everyone kept avariciously whatever he could get hold of, and no one gave a present to his neighbor, but now we have abundance, and this is how it all happened. The Libyan women would have offered even bird's milk to the women of our party. They bestowed upon them all the products of earth and air alike; to wit, cheeses, flour, barley cakes, lamb, poultry, and eggs; one of them even made a present of a bustard, a bird of very delicious flavor. A yokel would call it at first sight a peacock.

They bring these presents to the ship, and our women accept them and share them with those who wish it. At present they who go fishing have become generous - a man, a child comes to me one after another, and makes me a present, now a fish caught on the line, invariably some dainty that the rocks produce. To please you I take nothing from the women, that there may be no truce between them and me, and that I may be in no difficulty about denial, when I have to abjure all connection with them.

And yet what was to hinder me from rejoicing in necessities? So much comes in from all sides. The kindness of the inhabitants of the country towards their women guests you probably attribute to their virtue alone. Such is not the case; and it is worth while to explain all this to you, particularly as I have so much leisure. The wrath of Aphrodite, it would seem, lies heavy on the land; the women are as unlucky as the Lemnians;[4] their breasts are overfull and they have disproportionately large chests, so that the infants obtain nourishment held not by the mother's arm, but by her shoulder, the nipple being turned upwards.

One might of course maintain that Ammon and the country of Ammon is as good a nurse of children as of sheep, and that nature has there endowed cattle and humanity alike with fuller and more abundant fountains of milk, and so to that end are ampler breasts and reservoirs needed. Now, when these women hear from men who have had commerce with others beyond the frontier, that all women are not like this, they are incredulous. So when they fall in with a foreign woman, they make up to her in every way until they have gained their object, which is to examine her bosom, and then the woman who has examined the stranger tells another, and they call one another like the Cicones,[5] they flock together to the spectacle and bring presents to them.

We happened to have with us a young female slave who came from Pontus. Art and nature had combined to make her more highly chiseled than an ant. All the stir was about this one, and she made much gain from the women, and for the last three days the richest in the neighborhood have been sending for her, and have passed her from one to the other. She was so little embarrassed that she readily exhibited herself in undress.

So much for my story. The divinity has shaped it for you in mingling the comic with the tragic element. I have done likewise in the account I have given to you. I know this letter is too long, but as when with you face to face, so in writing to you I am insatiable, and as it is by no means certain that I shall be able to talk with you again, I take all possible pleasure in writing to you now. Moreover, by fitting this letter into my diary, about which I take great pains, I shall have the reminiscences of many days.

Farewell; give my kindest messages to your son Dioscuros and to his mother and grandmother, both of whom I love and look upon as though they were my own sisters. Salute for me the most holy and revered philosopher Hypatia, and give my homage also to the company of the blessed who delight in her oracular utterance. Above all to the holy Theotecnus, and my friend Athanasius. As to our most sympathetic Gaius, I well know that you, like myself, regard him as a member of our family.

Do not forget to remember me to them, as also to Theodosius, who is not merely a grammarian of the first order, but one who, if he really be a diviner, has certainly succeeded in deceiving us. (He surely must have foreseen the incidents of this voyage, for he finally gave up his desire to come with me.) However, this is a matter that does not signify. I love and embrace him.

As for you, may you never trust yourself to the sea, or at least, if you really must do, let it not be at the end of a month.

[1] Adrasteia means “that which is inescapable”, and usually refers to punishment.

[2] Ptolemy of Alexandria calls it Mount Azarion (Geography 4.5).

[3] Nauplius was the father of Palamedes, who deliberately misled sailors on Euboea.

[4] I.e., they were living without their men, who were in the interior with their flocks during the winter. Synesius' comparison is a bit strange, as the Lemnian women had killed their husbands: Herodotus, Histories, 6.137.

[5] Homer, Odyssey, 9.47.

To the Bishops

'It is well to trust in God, rather than to trust in man'.[Psalm 97.8] Nevertheless, I hear that those who have taken up the godless heresy of Eunomius are putting forward a certain Quintianus and the boasted influence they themselves possess at court, to the end that they may again sully the Church; and that certain false teachers are spreading their nets for the souls of weaker brethren. These are the very ones whom the acolytes of Quintianus recently landed upon our shores, and for this very purpose. Their litigation is merely a cloak for their impiety, or even worse, a struggle on behalf of their impiety.

An adulterous generation [Matthew 16.4] are these elders, modern apostles of the devil and Quintianus. Beware lest they privily attack the flock you are shepherding. Beware lest they privily sow tares amidst your wheat [Matthew 13.25]. Their lairs are well known to all. You know well what estates harbor them, you know what houses are open to these bandits. Purse these brigands, nosing out their trail. Seek eagerly for yourselves the blessing that Moses invoked on those who armed themselves, heart and hand against traitors in the camp.[Numbers 25.10-13] And this, my brethren, is a thing worth saying to you: 'Let the honorable be honorably done.'

I counsel you to let all struggle for lucre be put aside, let all be undertaken for God alone; it were ill indeed that virtue and vice should rest on the same foundation. The race is for holiness; we must struggle for men's souls, that no one may plunder them from the Church, as these men have too successfully done in the past. He who governs the Church only to make his own purse heavier, and who be seeming useful in times which call for astuteness, builds up power for himself thereby, that man is one that we must sever from all communion with Christians.

God has not made Virtue other than perfect; it needs not evil as an ally. Soldiers worthy of churches will never be lacking to God. He will find allies for the cause, unrewarded here below, but fully rewarded in Heaven. Be ye of their number. It is quite as just to curse evildoers as it is to pray with those that walk uprightly. Whosoever weakens and betrays his cause, and whosoever comes forward in it only to lay his hands on another's possessions, may such an one never be sinless in the eyes of God.

Make this alone your cardinal point, therefore, to circumvent these evil bankers who adulterate the divine decree as if it were coin. Make all see them in their true light, and thus have them disfranchised and banished from the frontiers of Ptolemais, taking whatever they brought with them, unweighed. Whosoever shall act contrary to these instructions, may he be accursed before God.

If perchance someone there may be who has seen a nefarious meeting and overlooked the matter, or pretends not to have heard what he has heard, or who even allows himself to be corrupted by baser gain at their hands, anyone of these men we order to be put under such ban as was ordained in the case of the Amalekites, from whom it is not lawful to carry of spoils, and of him who takes them God say, 'I repent me that I made Saul king' [1 Samuel 15.11]. May He never have to repent that any of you are his. Be ye all devoted to the service of God, that he may care for us.

To Anysius

This Carnas is taking his time about it. Neither of his own free will, nor forced by necessity will he ever become an honest man. However that may be, he must come before us soon, that we may hear what he has to say, and see how he will look us in the face, from whom even against our will he wanted to buy a horse which he had stolen, on the ground that a soldier cannot be horseless.

Furthermore, he offers me a purely nominal price for it, and refuses to hand it over to us although we had never handed it over to him. The worst of it is that he seems to be under the impression that the horse belongs to him by right and equity; and all this although he is neither an Agathocles nor a Dionysius,[1] men of whom tyrannical powers have made chartered libertines, but merely a Carnas of Cappharodis, whom it would not be difficult to bring to account for his conduct before the law. If anyone, therefore, brings him before you, let me know, that I may bring from Cyrene witnesses who will confound him.

Note 1: Tyrants of Syracuse on Sicily.

To Theodorus and his Sister

How do you think I felt in my heart's depths when the rumor was spread about town that you were struggling with a dangerous or even worse than dangerous attack of ophthalmia, and that you were threatened with the loss of your eyesight?

Soon, however, the story was proved false. I suppose some downright rascal took advantage of the word ophthalmia in order grossly to exaggerate the report and to make out a tragic situation. May all the he said falsely about you return upon his own head! God be praised that he has granted us to hear better news of you!

But after all, do you expect us, as the proverb goes, to read news of you in the stars? Or to find out what rumor has to say? We ought indeed to have you with us, but failing that, we might at least be favored with letters from you, and learn about your own affairs from yourself. You really neglect us too much. Perchance it is God that so wills it.

To his Brother

You will not tell me, I am sure, that you were ignorant of the departure of the messenger who carries the Paschal letters. Rather was it that, seeing him, you took no notice of him, and it did not seem to you worth your while to call your brother to mind, and to send a letter to let him know how you were, and the state of your affairs in general.

Whatever concerns you is always a matter of interest to me; for, as I am in trouble about all my own affairs, I would fain rejoice in yours; but you deprive me even of this consolation. You should not have treated me thus, let alone the fact that we are born of the same parents, were brought up together, and have had our education in common.

What indeed has not been given in common to both of us? Everything has combined to unite us in every way to each other. Truly, adversity is a terrible thing to face, or so they say, and when disastrous times come to any one, all things in this world, the sentiments of brothers and friends included, are put to the test.

I shall be quite content, however, to have some news of you, even though it be from others. Only let God be the dispenser of good things, for I desire to hear some such good tidings concerning you.

To the Archbishop Theophilus

Most holy and wise prelate, may a long and comfortable old age await you! A great boon it were to us in other respects, the prolongation of your life; and the greatest contribution to Christian teaching is this series of Paschal letters, which grows as the years pass. The one that you have this year sent us has both instructed and charmed our cities, as much by the grace of its language as by the grandeur of its thoughts.

To the Philosopher Hypatia

I salute you, and I beg of you to salute your most happy comrades for me, august Mistress. I have long been reproaching you that I am not deemed worthy of a letter, but now I know that I am despised by all of you for no wrongdoing on my part, but because I am unfortunate in many things, in as many as a man can be.

If I could only have had letters from you and learnt how you were all faring -I am sure you are happy and enjoying good fortune- I should have been relieved, in that case, of half of my own trouble, in rejoicing at your happiness. But now your silence has been added to the sum of my sorrows.

I have lost my children, my friends, and the goodwill of everyone. The greatest loss of all, however, is the absence of your divine spirit. I had hoped that this would always remain to me, to conquer both the caprices of fortune and the evil turns of fate.

To the Elders

I was unable, for all my strength, to prevail against you and to decline the bishopric, and this in spite of all my machinations; nor is it to your will that I have yielded. Rather was it a divine force which brought about the delay then, as it has caused my acceptance now. I would rather have died many deaths than have taken over this religious office, for I did not consider my powers equal to the burden. But now that God has accomplished, not what I asked, but what He willed, I pray that He who has been the shepherd of my life may become also the defender of His charge.

How shall I, who have devoted my youth to philosophic leisure and to the idle contemplation of abstract being, and have only mingled as much in the cares of the world as to be able to acquit myself of duties to the life of the body and to show myself a citizen - how, I say, shall I ever be equal to a life of daily routine?

Again, if I deliver myself over to a host of practical matters, shall I ever be able to apply myself to the fair things of the mind which may be gathered in happy leisure alone? Without all this, would life be worth living to me, and to all those who resemble me? I, for one, know not, but to God they say all things are possible, even impossible things.

Do you therefore lift up your hands in prayer to God in my behalf, and give orders both to the people in the town, and as many as inhabit the fields or frequent the village churches, to offer prayers for us alike in private and in the congregation. If I am not forsaken by God, I shall then know that this office of priesthood is not a decline from the realms of philosophy, but, on the contrary, a step upwards to them.

To Cyril

Go, my brother Cyril, to your mother Church, from whom you have not been excommunicated, but only separated for a period which is measured according to that which your shortcomings deserve.

I feel sure that our common Father of holy memory [1] would have taken this step long ago if the fatal hour had not come too soon; for to shorten the term of your penalty was clearly the act of one whose heart prompted him to pardon.

Consider then that that sacred priest himself has given you permission to return, and approach God with a soul free from suffering and enjoying amnesty from evil. Hold, moreover, in all happy memory that sacred elder clear to God, who appointed you a leader of the people. May all this be not without joy to you!

Note 1: Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria.

To Peter the Elder

May God direct my every deed and word. I have just sent you the carrier with the Paschal letters, announcing the date of the holy festival as the nineteenth of Pharmuthi,[1] so that the night which precedes the day in question may also be consecrated to the mystery of the Resurrection.

Show the messenger every consideration both on his arrival and at his departure. Let him have a change of horses each time. This is only fair to him, for he runs the risk of falling into the hands of armed enemies in undertaking to traverse so hostile a country in order to save an old ancestral custom of the Church from disappearing.

This letter also begs the city to offer up prayers for me. The city ought thus to understand the imprudence it committed towards me in appointing one to the priesthood who had not sufficient confidence in his mission to enable him to go to God and pray on behalf of the whole people, but one who has need of the prayers of the people for his own salvation.

A conjunction of circumstances has brought this gathering here at the very moment when I was trying to write to you. A Synod is now in session here, attended by many prelates. If I can say none of the things which you are accustomed to hear, there must be forgiveness for me and blame to yourselves, for instead of choosing one deep in the knowledge of the scriptures, you have selected one who is ignorant of them.

Note 1: 14 April.

To Anysius

Thus do sons defend their fathers! I thank you for this. Carnas came to me as a suppliant, and God Himself made the prayer more sacred. How can a priest overlook the arrest of a man, on his own mandate too, during a day of fasting? Whoever, therefore, brought him, did not surrender the fellow, but was deprived of him by force.

Wherefore, if on account of this violence I am to be punished, I have come to the point of showing humanity to those who have wronged me, and having wronged the very people who have done no wrong.

Note 1: Tyrants of Syracuse on Sicily.

To the Philosopher Hypatia

I am in such evil fortune that I need a hydroscope. See that one is cast in brass for me and put together.

The instrument in question is a cylindrical tube, which has the shape of a flute and is about the same size. It has notches in a perpendicular line, by means of which we are able to test the weight of the waters. A cone forms a lid at one of the extremities, closely fitted to the tube. The cone and the tube have one base only. This is called the baryllium. Whenever you place the tube in a liquid, it remains erect. You can then count the notches at your ease, and in this way ascertain the specific gravity of the water.

A densimeter A densimeter

Note The instrument is probably a densimeter, used to measure the density of liquids. Synesius' description is pretty accurate

The cylindrical tube and the shape of a tube are clearly recognizable. It's also correct that it has about the same size of a flute. The densimeter remains erect in a liquid as it's made heavier at its bottom. I suppose Synesius' densimeter was made of wood with a piece of metal attached to its bottom. The way a densimeter works is based on Archimedes' famous principle, described in On floating bodies:

Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.

Obviously a densimeter has to float in the liquids we want to research. That means that the average density of the densimeter has to be smaller than the density of the liquid. This makes it likely that Synesius' densimeter was made of wood indeed. Wood has a relatively small density and thus will not sink easily.

Now it's impossible to measure forces and densities directly. What the densimeter really measures is the volume (or rather the depth) of the densimeter underneath the surface of the liquid. The weight of the instrument being equal to that buoyant force (as it lies stable in the liquid) that volume is inverse proportional to the density of the liquid: if the latter is doubled the volume underneath the surface will be halved. The perpendicular notches Synesius writes about obviously refer to the scale division, which is not linear.

The craftsman who designed Synesius' densimeter obviously must have understood the concept of specific gravity and/or density. What's more, he must have known and understood Archimedes' hydrostatics plus likely the mathematical concept of inverse proportionality - or he simply could not have handmade the instrument.

Obviously we cannot determine how accurate the instrument was, but Synesius seemed to be satisfied in this respect. That allows us to speculate that quite some knowledge and understanding of physics and maths had been preserved as late as 400 CE, which is almost seven centuries after Archimedes did his research. If this is correct we cannot maintain that the scientific level declined during the Roman Empire. Before I read this letter I assumed that Augustine of Hippo with his excellent reflections on time in Confessions (at the end of the fourth century) was exceptional, but that is not the case as this letter shows.

Mark Nieuweboer Teacher Physics and maths Moengo, Suriname

To the Philosopher Hypatia

I am dictating this letter to you from my bed, but may you receive it in good health, mother, sister, teacher, and withal benefactress, and whatsoever is honored in name and deed.

For me bodily weakness has followed in the wake of mental sufferings. The remembrance of my departed children is consuming my forces, little by little. Only so long should Synesius have lived as he was still without experience of the evils of life. It is as if a torrent long pent up had bust upon me in full volume, and as if the sweetness of life had vanished. May I either cease to live, or cease to think of the tomb of my sons!

But may you preserve your health and give my salutations to your happy comrades in turn, beginning with father Theotecnus and brother Athanasius, and so to all! And if any one has been added to these, so long as he is dear to you, I must owe him gratitude because he is dear to you, and to that man give my greetings as to my own dearest friend. If any of my affairs interests you, you do well, and if any of them does not so interest you, neither does it me.

To Heliodorus

May all blessings fall to the lot of the man, whoever he is, inasmuch as he extols your dignity in pious remembrance! He has filled the ears of all with your praises, those which are due to your heart of gold and to your tongue. However, you are promptly returning thanks for his good works. They are ever bringing him in return the praise of countless of your devoted friends, amongst whom I myself dispute the pre-eminence; nay, rather I dispute not at all, for all agree with me.

To his Brother

This man [1] is a senator of the city in which my children were born to me. In some way or other we ought to honor all the people of Alexandria as fellow citizens and look upon them as such. What is more, he is a relation to Theodorus who is ever in our memories, and moreover he is by no means to be overlooked by such as hold the first rank in the city. These men have brought him to me with money for you to pay your troops. They have asked me to write a letter recommending him to your good graces, being assured that everything will go smoothly with him if he gets a letter of introduction from me to you and to a certain person. What they asked of me I have granted, and if not in vain, it will be for you to make manifest.

Note 1: This man was probably called Ammonius, see Letter 20. He was probably not a senator of the “real” Senate, but of the Alexandrine town council.

To Herodes and Martyrius

In writing a letter to you in common, I consider that I am in no way at fault. Rather would it have been a just reproach to me if I had divided in my letters those who are united in my heart. Accept all my best wishes, my dear friends, and to the man who is delivering the letter to you, who has journeyed on the public highway to convey gold to you, extend the warmest possible welcome, for he has been recommended to me by the entire senate.[1] I should like to be of some use to him. In fact, I do not know that others should care more for us and for the things we may undertake than you do.

Note 1: The town council of Alexandria is meant.

To Diogenes

The blessed Theodorus was during his lifetime a popular host to the citizens of Pentapolis. He particularly attached my own parents to himself by the great kindness he showed them in every possible way, and by his delightful conversation and charm. Let us recall the grace of his many delightful traits by our actions in favor of his kinsman, Ammonius. I have paid my meed of gratitude. And what was the duty of the absent but to comment this man to such as near him at the moment? It is your duty to see that his stay among you should not be irksome to him.

To the Governor

If your Excellency should remember Theodorus (and how could it be otherwise?), I beg you will show some respect for his kinsman by honoring him in the same way. By kind treatment to an excellent man you will confer a favor on the senate of our illustrious Alexandria; they all in a body recommended the man to me, and begged me to help him with letters of introduction. I have done all that I can in this matter now that I have written to you. Whether my efforts prove of any use to him, rests entirely with yourself.

To Anastasius

I am rejoiced, but for what reason, think you? From the very bottom of my heart I am rejoiced when I hear that these golden children have by the word of the Emperor become legally your own. Most of all do I rejoice because of my love for you. Whom should I love with more justice? Then again, I abhor those wicked creatures whose hopes, fostered in dark and secret places, this good fortune of the children has been destroyed.

To Diogenes

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. If you are in good health, however - you, your golden children, and their mother, happy in her fair offspring - I am quite satisfied.

To Simplicius

Assuredly it is fitting that one's sentiments should not be exalted by turns of fortunes, nor should the memory of one's past friends be deemed of less consequence then one's present dignities. You have been forgetful of us for a long time; this is not at all right, when one considers the strong affection which so intimately united us aforetime.

To Heliodorus

The power of love's spell grows stronger in me with my advancing years. Now it is the same with you, but if your innumerable occupations are such an obstacle in its way that you leave no time duly to honor now and again with a letter those to whom a letter is due; if you cannot snatch a moment from your affairs of state to write such a letter, at all events let me know that such is the case. If, on the other hand, you admit that a suspicion of your forgetfulness is justifiable, right the matter at once by your repentance, and restore yourself to us once more.

To Troilus

Even if neither the people of Cyrene, nor those of the neighboring towns extend you the gratitude that you deserve for the fact that the great Anastasius writes to them, nevertheless, the grace of God will be with you, to Whom you will be dear for the part you have taken in forwarding good works. Be happy, most excellent of philosophers; so I delight to call you, for your acts speak for themselves.

To Constans

If you hold the virtue of philosophy in esteem, you will honor it not merely in those of the present day who have their share in it, but also in those who are dead and gone. The divine Amyntianus, for a time once with us, has obtained a better lot, and is, I think, present, though he appears to be absent. A near relation of this man, his own cousin, is being attacked by your own Soterichus. Show a little interest yourself in behalf of Dionysius, and Soterichus will immediately stop attacking him.

To Simplicius

God declares that we ought to cancel debts which are owing to us.[Matthew 6.12 || Luke 11.4] One man owes us a sum of money, another, payment of the penalty of justice. The man, therefore, who scorns to accept this penalty, is obedient unto God.

To Pentadius the Augustalis

As to the crowd of people who come to see you and me, as to their affairs, you have only yourself to blame for their coming. The fact of the matter is that you are too zealous to make it evident to all that you hold me in great honor, and thus you have laid me open to a perfect influx of people in trouble. Do you know how to take action to put a stop to my being tormented by innumerable applicants, and to your being troubled by me in turn with so many?

Why, in this way, of course. Even admitting that the individual in whose behalf I may be writing, is a man who needs just and kind treatment, and is most worthy of these in the eyes of all, none the less send him empty away, as if he were a thoroughly dishonest man, and one making utterly dishonorable requests to you. Nay even if I come myself, of course to make a complaint to you, give orders to your servants to slam the door in my face. When people begin to see what has happened, and hear from those who have seen, then at last you and I will enjoy peace and quiet. No one henceforth will rush to me with grievances.

If, however, you are too timid for this, and if you do not wish men to witness such conduct on your part, be prepared to extend your favors many times a day to such as have become your suppliants in my name and in the name of God. After all, I know only too well that you will not renounce doing good - not for a moment, nor shall I tire of giving you suitable opportunities for doing so.

To Pentadius the Augustalis

I am anxious about you, and also about this man; for you, that you may not commit an injustice, for him, that he may not suffer one.

If you agree with Plato that it is a greater evil to commit an injustice than to submit to one,[1] I think it is to you rather than to him that I am doing a service when I plead for this man, who is undergoing sentence for matters in which he has not been at fault.

Note: Plato, Gorgias, 509c.

To Aurelian

If cities have souls, as they must, divine guardians and spirits, you may be sure that they are grateful to you and remember your good works, those which you brought about for all nations during your great administration [as praetorian prefect]. Believe me that these divinities are at your side, at all times, as advocates and allies, and that they beg the universal God to grant you a becoming recompense for imitating Him to the utmost of your powers.

To do good actions is the only trait which God and men have in common. Imitation is an affinity which joins the imitation to that which is imitated. Wherefore consider that you have established an intimacy with God by a communion in the will to work righteousness. Cherish sweet hopes, hopes suited only to such a spirit as your own, you whom I honor as no other man. Yours is a rank which belongs to you alone, or at least very few share it with you. Give all my most affectionate messages to your son Taurus, the hope of the Empire. It is a great pleasure to me to communicate them to him by the mouth of a father so revered as yourself.

To his Brother

The man I quite ignorantly bought as a teacher of gymnastics from the heirs of Theodorus, was a slave both in name and in nature. He was worthless from the beginning, badly born and badly brought up, nor had he failed to receive a training worthy of his natural bent. From his childhood he had wallowed in cock-fighting, in gambling, and in drinking at taverns. Today, as Lysias would say, all is up with him, he has attained his goal, he is the very limit of all that is unsavory. He cares not in the very least for Hermes and Herakles, the guardians of the palaestra, but serves Cotytto and the other Attic gods of lechery, and whatever other demons of that stamp there may be.

All these are his, and he is theirs. I have no idea of punishing him in any other way than this. Vice is a sufficient penalty in itself for the vicious, but as a proved wretch of this sort is quite unfit to live with masters who are philosophers, and whom shame haunts in their homes because of such, let him be banished from the city that harbors us. At the sight of this debauchee swaggering through the forum, garlanded, perfumed, and drunken, giving way to every excess and singing aloud songs of a piece with the life he leads, everyone naturally attributes the fault to his owner.

Contrive, therefore, some way of handing him over to the captain of a ship, to take him to his native land, for that country may tolerate him with more reason. But during the voyage by all means tie him upon the deck. If he is allowed to go down below, let no one be surprised to find many wine jars half empty. And if the voyage is prolonged, he will drain the perfumed liquid to the dregs.

Furthermore, he might incite the whole crew to do these very things, for in addition to other motives, evil is most persuasive when it assumes the leadership for enjoyment's sake. And of those who sail in the ocean for pay, who is so austere as not to give way to the dissipation at the sight of this pest dancing the cordax as he passes round the cup? He is an adept in every sort of buffoonery, and the captain of the ship must steel himself against him. Odysseus indeed passed by the shore of the Sirens fast bound, that he might not succumb to pleasure, and this wretch too will be bound, if the crew are wise, that he may not destroy the ship's company with indulgences.

To the Philosopher Hypatia

I seemed destined to play the part of an echo. Whatever sounds I catch, these I repeat. I now pass on to you the praises of the marvelous Alexander…[1]

Note 1: Perhaps a relative of Synesius.

To Aurelian

Not as yet does Providence care for the Romans, but it will care for them some day. They [1] will not lead a quiet life in their houses for ever, they who are themselves able to save the state. As to the orator, our old housemate, the power you possess at present suffices for what he needs. May he enjoy this protection by himself now, and later also in common with all nations!

Note 1: Perhaps the Goths of Gainas.

To his Brother

Athanasius has found the shortest road to fortune. He has recognized the necessity of going right to the beds of the dying, and attaining all his own ends with them either by persuasion or by force. The moment a notary is called in to draw up a will, he romps in with him.

To his Brother

The blessed Castricius has died on the sixteenth day of the month of Athyr,[1] having a terrible vision of which he gave a full account.

Note 1: 16 October 402.

To Anysius

Joannes, whom I love especially because of his affection for you, has been in the grip of a grievous malady. But he is suffering less from his illness than from the disappointment of being separated from your sacred self. He is still in the same state, and in addition to this there is a third thing which is making his illness worse. He is longing to do something that may become a soldier, and he frets against his forced inaction.

To Aurelian

I think your divine soul must have been sent down for this very thing, the common good of mankind; and also to be grateful to those who introduce you to such men as are seeking their rights, because they supply you with material well suited to your taste.

It is not because the young Herodes is my relative that I recommend him to your notice, but because he is seeking his rights. A man most distinguished by his ancestry and one who has inherited a family estate subject to taxation by the Senate, he maintains that since he has become an officer he is contributing taxes on the same scale as the newly appointed senators, and that he is now taxed twice, in the first instance because of his fortune, in the second because of the post he has occupied.

To his Brother

Longing and necessity draw me to you. I should like to know, then, whether you will await me if I come.

To Uranius

I have just sent you a present, a horse most perfect in every quality that befits a horse. You will find him useful for racing as well as for hunting, and when you lead a triumphant procession in honor of the Libyan victory. I do not know for which purpose he is most valuable, whether for hunting or for contests in the hippodrome, or again, whether for parade or for actual warfare.

If he is less beautiful than the horses of Nesaea, if he is heavy about the head and too thin about the flanks, perhaps God does not give all points together to horses any more than to men. After all perhaps it is an additional good quality in his case that the soft parts of the body are less developed by nature than the hard. Bones, I know, are more equal to toil than flesh is. Your horses are heavier in flesh, ours in bone.

To a Friend

I have hired a ship for you furnished with a crew of sailors of good stock, sailors who trust more to skill than chance in navigation. These vessels of the Carpathians [1] have the reputation of being endowed with intelligence, as were the famed ships of the Phaeacians [2] before the wrath of the gods beat upon their island.

Note 1: Inhabitants of the isle of Carpathus.

Note 2: Cf. Homer, Odyssey, 8.555.

To Cledonius

One of my relatives is suffering an injustice. You are my friend, and it has fallen to your share to hold the court. You are therefore, in a position to satisfy yourself, myself, and at the same time the law of the land.

Accordingly let Asphalius come again into possession of his wine jars in peace, receiving a decision of the court to confirm his father's will. Let not the prosecution impede the immediate hearing of the case, for when should we do justice better than at the moment in which we are especially engaged in the lifting up our hands to God?

To Anastasius

Some God or argument or demon has persuaded Sosenas that something is inherent in certain localities which attract or repels the blessings of the Divinity, for, not succeeding in our part of the world, he has entirely cut himself off from his own ancestral home.

He departs, for he hopes, that in journeying to Thrace E'en there at last his lot may find some saving grace.

If by chance you are in the good graces of the goddess, use all your influence with her in behalf of this young man. May she afford him some opportunity of enriching himself! It is very easy for her if she wishes. The best proof of this is that she turned over to others the property of Nonnus, the father of Sosenas, without any difficulty. Let her, then, make Sosenas the heir of someone else's father. In this way justice will come out of injustice.also when you are about to return. For then they will be more favorable to you.

To Joannes

Many a time before this have I come to your assistance. I have softened the harshness of Fate for you, as on each occasion my power enabled me, both in word and deed. Today, in regard to your present situation, I desire to give you my advice only, for I am powerless to act in the matter. It is not right the Synesius, while he lives and has the power, should fail in eagerness to benefit his friends in every possible way. Hear then what it is befitting that I should say to you.

If Rumor is a goddess, as one of our poets would have it,[1] it was you who made away with the blessed Aemilius, not by any overt act of your own, but because you desired it. You prepared everything for this terrible drama, you selected the assassin, the most bloodthirsty of your band of ruffians. This is the story which Rumor has recounted, and it is not ordained that a divinity should lie.

But if Hesiod's words are nothing, or words many but to no purpose, and if this thing concerning you is one of many (and would that it were so, for I hold loss in money of less moment than loss of a friend), if, I say, being innocent of the crime, you are yet evil spoken of, in that case you are an unfortunate man, but not a guilty one, and may you not be even so unfortunate! In the first case you would be deserving of lawful hatred as your portion, in the second case of piety.

For my own part, I who am easily won by intimacy, should in that case hate your act, but none the less feel pity for you, and it is the part of one who has pity, to bear aid to the full extent of his power to find out where he thinks he may be of assistance. In either case I am bound to tell you what seems to me to be most in your own interests. Innocent or guilty, you will profit by the same advice from me.

Go before the laws and give yourself up to the magistrate, together with all your henchmen, if you have any regard for them. If the crime was committed by you, pray, beg, supplicate, tire not of going down on your knees, even until the moment that judgment shall have been passed upon you, and you shall have been delivered up to an executioner, and shall have paid your penalty. If will be a blessing to you, my dear Joannes, that what has first been purified should so depart to the judges below.

Do not think that my warning is a speech with any other sense than this. Do not imagine for a moment I am jesting with you; so may I have profit of sacred Philosophy, and of my own children besides. I should not have given you any such advice, if you had been no friend of mine, for I pray that this lot may not fall even to my enemies. As for them, may they never take the point of view that it is a nobler thing for the culprit voluntarily to undergo his punishment! May they on the contrary never forgo being prosperous in their sins, in order that they may live in them a longer time, and have to account for them all in that place below!

For the sake of friendship I feel for you I am running the risk of revealing to you some of the mysteries. There is no resemblance between paying the penalty in this crass body and in paying it in the soul. God is a stronger force than man, and the human order of things is but a shadow of the divine organization.

Now that same office which the public executioners, the hands of the law, fulfill in states, the avenging deities fulfill in the constitution of the universe.[2] There are demons of purification who treat souls as fullers treat soiled garments. If these garments were endowed with consciousness, what would be their suffering, I ask you, while they were being trampled, washed, and combed in every way? With what pain would the old spots and clinging stains be washed away? I need scarcely say that in many cases the soiling is so deeply ingrained that it is irremovable, and the stuff will disappear before it returns to its proper form, because corruption has come into its nature, either on account of the lapse of time or the very greatness of the corruption.

For a soul in such a state, to be perishable would be happiness indeed. But although there are sins which resemble spots that cannot be washed away, the soul is not like the soiled garment whose web does not resist destruction. Eternal as it is, its lot is eternal punishment when it becomes ingrained and incurably soiled with sin; but when it has already undergone punishment in that life in which it has sinned, it has not this [eternal] calamity clinging to it ever present, but as one might say, the soul, newly dyed, is quickly washed again.

The penalty therefore ought to be paid as quickly as possible, and at the hands of the men, rather than at those of demons. A certain story is recounted, which persuades me that those who have been sinned against become the masters eventually - masters with power to lengthen or cut short the terms of punishment. Whether one has done a great injury to one, or a slight injury to many, the result will be very much the same, for each victim will put it in his own claims to vengeance, and each one must be satisfied. If a cure is possible, the punishment already undergone by the soul may mollify the Judge, and even incline the victims themselves to indulgence. When then is it likely that the blest soul of Aemilius may be inclined to grant you forgiveness?

I think, or rather I know well, that every suppliant has a claim to respect, once he has expiated his errors by punishing himself. Ere now a man has been summoned before me to defend himself for a crime, and by haste in recognizing his guilt and admitting that he deserves punishment has won his acquittal; whereas to revel in one's crime is to turn into a sullen enemy the man whose life or fortune one has attacked.

But now what will become of you, when you have left your body either by capital punishment or in some other way, when you recognize his soul with your own, and your tongue is unable to make denial, branded as you will be with the fresh-carved image of the event? Will you not be seized with dizziness? Will you not be at a loss? Silent, you will be hurried off. You will be exposed before the Judgment where we are all alike awaited, you, I, and all such as a public repentance has not first purified.

Courage, then, my noble friend, for I wish you to be noble; despise not those pleasures which we purchase by wrong-doing. You must not be ashamed before men, but must confess everything to the magistrate, and endeavor to avert the punishment below by an immediate castigation. For while the greatest good is not to err, the next best is to take punishment for an error.

The man who remains unpunished for longstanding sins should be deemed most unfortunate, as one cared for neither by God nor man.

Again, look at it from this point of view. If immunity from punishment is recognized as an evil, punishment itself becomes a benefit, for contrary forces, according to all logic, produce contrary results. If I had only been with you, you would not have made difficulties about putting aside your shame and denouncing yourself. I should have directed myself to your defense, and I should have conducted you to the laws as to physicians. Some stupid fellow might have said, “Synesius is prosecuting Joannes”, but you would have known the truth that if I brought the accusation it would be only by mercy and solicitude for you, and with the object of making you far better in your evil plight.

These things I would do if you were guilty. May that not be true for your own sake and for that of the city, for there would be universal pollution therein, if fratricidal blood had been spilled; but if, on the other hand, you are pure in hand and soul -and may it be so- accursed be those who have brought false charges against you. Such men have infernal punishments waiting for them, for not other manner of evil is so abhorred by God as the slanderer who strikes in the dark. Such a low-minded man cries out much evil, and a certain fated obscenity is said to cling to that class, and to be the strongest element in the art.

In many other ways such men are sophistical and adroit. So if anyone is found fabricating false reports, ask no questions, and entertain no doubts. However strong he may appear to be, expose him fearlessly as the effeminate wretch he is, the red-handed disciple of Cotys.

It is in your power to secure a conviction for libel on account of these words, if you place yourself and your household at the disposal of the court. Go there and say, “There are certain people accusing me secretly, who, though self-condemned, attempt to remain concealed; but, nevertheless they are bringing many grave charges against me, and are likely to gain some credence, for they are intriguers, and adepts in giving plausibility to their story.”

Next let us go through the charges which are the basis of your evil repute, a marriage and an unholy assassination. Since it is said, I think, that a certain debauched wretch committed the murder, some creature in your pay, bring him forward, and beg and pray the court on bended knee not to let the fellow go without submitting him to cross-examination. Let him not be condemned in default. “Most worthy judges,” you might say, “because no one has brought a charge against me in open court, it is less your duty to resort to every inquisition to pursue and hunt down the truth? Here is the debauched wretch so much talked about; you have your man. Apply your tortures. This man, if any crime has been committed, ought to be shown up this day as my accuser and his own.”

If, when you use such language, the judge does not yield to you, at all events it is sufficient for human beings like us. If, on the other hand, he should be benevolent and should thank you for your hearing of the case, you can then make a brilliant defense and the slanderers be put to shame and silenced. This wretch must not give himself airs; he should be bound and hung, and his ribs broken. Tortures are wonderfully efficient in exposing shams. These men possess iron nails which have the force of learned syllogisms, so that whatever is made manifest when they hold sway, this is truth itself.

If such wise you are acquitted as an innocent man, you will then come back from the tribunal victorious and exultant, a shining light, and so regarded. Now that I have told you what course I think will be most benefit you, should you refuse to follow it and decline to appear before the tribunal, none the less Justice sees and knows the truth.

The eye of the goddess, penetrating everywhere, saw Libya, saw the valley, and marked the rumor, whether it be true or false, saw Aemilius turn away in flight. What he suffered and from whom, what he said, what he heard (if indeed he said and heard aught), all this she knows. She knows also that, even admitting you to be blameless and pure before God, and that you have never committed this abominable deed nor premeditated it, she knows, I say, that even so you are not yet innocent in our eyes as men, so long as you have not made your formal defense.

As matters stand, we will not shake hands with you nor eat at the same table with you, for we are in dread of the avenging Furies of Aemilius, lest by contact you may infect us with guilt. We, too, have our own stains - we do not need to take such contributions from others besides.

Note 1: It was apparently the Latin poet Virgil who changed the Greek goddess Pheme, “fame”, into the multi-tongued Fama, “Rumor”.

Note 2: In the next lines, Synesius adapts an argument about the dyer's art from Plato, The State, 429D.

To Olympius

Evil men from without are troubling our Church. Take steps against them. Only nails drive out nails.

To Anastasius

It was not generous of Amasis to steel his heart against tears over the misfortunes of Polycrates, misfortunes which he had forseen. He sent a herald to him while he was still prosperous, to announce the breaking off of the friendship, thus making it evident that he would have also lamented with him had the misfortune preceded this act of rupture.

You also stood by us as long as we did not incur the disfavor of Fortune, then later on you disappeared with her. For the story is circulated by those who have come from Thrace, that you neither say nor think any good of me. This is clearly not to renounce friendship: it is to announce enmity. It was quite enough in any case not to share my sorrow, but to add to these sorrows still further surpasses harshness, and is worthy neither of Amasis nor even of a man.

No doubt you had an eye for your own interests. Do what you must, so long as you do it rejoicing, for it would only be half an evil, if even by the ills I suffer I could bring pleasure to my friends.

To Theotimus

Regard Peter also as the scorn of Pentapolis, a fellow who sets about breaking its laws without method, and for my part I detest the man who proceeds about a thing in that way. God knows this, and Dioscurides as well. But this man is much more impudent than the latter, for he first seizes whatever possession he may desire, and makes them his own; then he goes to the law about it, and if the verdict is given against him, he takes them by force.

This is how he behaved recently. He possessed himself a wine jar; someone summoned him before the court for this; he was condemned, but he refused to give up the object, and threatened the police agents with blows. As I am much annoyed about this, and I think that life would be insupportable in a city where some private persons have more powerful hands than the laws themselves, I have exhorted the most conspicuous men here to rally to the call, and to come to the help of the constitution. For if this man succeeded, in a little while we should see numerous Peters.

The worthy Martyrius fully shares my indignation, and I am very grateful to him for this, and for assisting me more zealously than any one else. May some blessing come to him from God for this! I only hope that he will not encounter any evil at the hands of Anthemius, to whom Peter threatens to appeal. To prevent this, I beg of you, and I make this request, through you, to the renowned and wise Troilus - I beg you, I say, to make it impossible for such a sin-stained creature as this to use the law against the law.

I have first the interests of Pentapolis at heart, and second, I should not like to be the cause of misfortune to a friend. How can the intrigues of this wretch be checked? It is not my province to find the answer, but rather yours, O most ingenious of all men in noble purposes.

To Pylaemenes

You are quite right to come back to the city where the Emperor dwells. For even if good fortune had attended you in the mountains of Isauria, nevertheless good fortune becomes unfortunate because of the place where one is. Moreover I have a personal reason to desire that you should prosper in the palace itself. As long as you are there, you can receive and send letters, the most precious to me of all the exports of Thrace.

To Theotimus

[The tyrant of Syracuse] Hiero enjoyed greater good from his intercouse with [the poet] Simonides than did Simonides from his with Hiero,[1] but -by the divinity who presides over our friendship- I do not congratulate you on your intimacy with the great Anthemius more than I congratulate the great Anthemius himself on his friendship with you. Even for a man who has power, what possession is fairer than a friend who brings him the gift of a sincere character? Such a man I know Theotimus to be, a most amiable man and most beloved of God.

However, here is a point in which you are superior to Simonides: Simonides admitted that he gave his discourses for money. But you resemble him in this, that it was Simonides who handed down the fame of Hiero to all posterity, and that, through the poems of Theotimus, Anthemius will be famous in letters as long as Greeks shall exist.

May the prosperity of the Romans ever increase, thanks to him; and thanks to you, the renown of Anthemius, for God has granted to the art of poetry to be a dispenser of renown, and the honor of this has come round to you.

Note 1: Simonides composed poems for Hiero, who became famous but these compositions; however, Simonides suffered from life at court, as he became greedy.

To his Brother

They say that Joannes killed Aemilius. Another says this is a calumny that his political enemies have put in circulation. Justice only knows the truth, and time will discover it, but although the case is an obscure one, I think all these people should be held in detestation; the one because, even if he did not commit the crime, he is just the sort of man to commit it; the other because, if they did not invent the stories, at all events were quite capable of doing so, and the attempt to slander is theirs.

But if only a man has a nature that does not lend itself to suspicion, even all the evidence of a multitude of conspirators will not injure his reputation. He would be laughed to scorn who assailed Ajax on the charge of unchastity. But Alexander, even if not debauched, at all events was effeminate, and laid himself open to that imputation. As for Sisyphus and Odysseus, I detest them. Even although they spoke the truth in exceptional cases, they were, nevertheless, the sort of men who generally lie, and in whatever way I may be unlucky, I am very lucky to get rid of such citizens, whether they be friends or enemies.

Let me be fortified against all such, and may I have no dealings with any of them! I would rather live a stranger amongst strangers.

Our way of life separates us more than country. I mourn over the famous site of Cyrene, in the past the abode of the Carneadae and of the Aristippi, but now of the Joannes and the Julii. In their society I cannot live with pleasure, and I live away from it with pleasure. Do not write again to me therefore about any occurrences there. Do not recommend to my good graces anybody who is engaged in a lawsuit, for in future I do not wish to interest myself in any one of them.

I should indeed by unfortunate if I were deprived of good things of my beloved native town, but had to take part in its quarrels and those affairs that drag me away from my ease in philosophy, unfortunate if, when I have chosen poverty as a guerdon from leisure, I should interfere without reward in other men's evil concerns.

To his Brother

Starting from Physcus [in Caria] at early dawn, late in the evening we stood in the Gulf of Erythra. There we stopped only a sufficient time to drink water and to take in a supply. Springs of pure, sweet water gush forth upon the very shore. As our Carpathians [1] were in a hurry, we took to sea again. The wind was light, but it blew continually on our stern, so that where we expected to make nothing of a run each day, we made all we needed before we were aware of it.

On the fifth day we perceived the beacon fire lit upon a tower to warn ships running too close. We accordingly disembarked more quickly than it takes to relate, on the island of Paros, a poor island where there are neither trees nor fruit, but only salt marshes.

Note 1: Inhabitants of the isle of Carpathos.

To his Brother

They say that a fellow who sells boots has come from Athens. It is the same person, I think, from whom you bought for me last year some lacing shoes. Now, according to my information, he has extended the area of his trade; he has robes in the Attic style, he has light summer clothes which will become you, and mantles such as I like for the summer season. Before he sells all these goods, or at least the finest of them, invite the stranger here, for you must remember that the first purchaser will choose the best of everything, without troubling himself about those who come to buy after him, and buy for me three or four of these mantles. In any case, whatever you pay, I will repay you many times over.

To his Brother

Prolixity in a letter argues a certain lack of intimacy with ourselves in the letter-carrier. But my good friend Acacius is as well informed as I myself, and he will tell you even more than he knows, because he is very fond of you, and has a tongue which rises above the facts. So I favor with you this letter, rather from the law of correspondence than from any necessity; but if I announce to you that your son Dioscurius is in good health, that he is reading books, and that he is glued to them, my letter itself will at all events have a certain value to you.

I have given to Dioscurius a whole company of brothers, adding further a pair of many brothers for Hesychius. May God bestow his blessing on these, themselves, their brothers, their parents' house, the rest of their family, and their ancestral cities.

To his Brother

A great number of people, either private individuals or priests, by moulding dreams, which they call revelations, seem likely to do me harm when I am awake, if I do not happen with all speed to visit sacred Athens. Whenever, then, you happen to meet a skipper sailing for the Piraeus, write to me, as it is there I shall receive my letters.

I shall gain not only this by my voyage to Athens - an escape from my present evils, but also a relief from doing reverence to the learning of those who come back from Athens. They differ in no wise from us ordinary mortals. They do not understand Aristotle or Plato better than we, and nevertheless they go about among us as demi-gods among mules, because they have seen the Academy, the Lyceum,[1] and the Poikilê where Zeno gave his lectures on philosophy. However, the Poikilê no longer deserves its name, for the proconsul has taken away all the pictures, and has thus humiliated these men's pretensions to learning.

Note 1: Aristotle's school was the Lyceum; Plato's school was called the Academy.

To his Brother

At the very moment when you weighed anchor, I pulled up my mules on the western shore. I jumped out of my carriage, but you had already set sail, and the wind was blowing your stern. Albeit, I followed you with my eyes as long as I could. I said much to the winds in behalf of a soul so beloved by me, and the ship to which so precious a freight had been entrusted I commended to their care. As they are not without love of fair things, they promised me a happy voyage for you, and a happy return, and as they are honest gods, it cannot be that they will be faithless to their promise; but do you, even as you said prayers to them when parting, pray to them also when you are about to return. For then they will be more favorable to you.

To his Brother

You wrong me, divine and precious head. After having inspired a simple soul, and one whose affections are easily won by daily intercourse, with a love of yourself and of his niece, you make a breach between him and yourself, as also between him and his niece. When she was with me, I seemed to have before my eyes a twofold image; in the girl I seemed still to see her uncle. Now all that was dear to me is gone, and I even blame my natural character because of its unmeasured tendency to become subject to unjust treatment. But if philosophy has really any value at all, I shall steel my heart to more manliness, and henceforth you will see how tough I am, and how unyielding.

Introduction The malevolent forces in the universe fulfill the designs of Providence, inasmuch as they punish those deserving of punishment, but nevertheless they are abhorred by God and are to be shunned.

For I will raise against you, saith the Lord, a race at whose hands you shall suffer even great woes.[1] And yet those very ones through whom He makes war, He declares that He will in turn assail, for when once they had you in their power, they showed you no pity, nor did they treat you with humanity. I cannot recall the exact words of Holy Writ, but I am sure that somewhere in the sacred books God is represented as speaking in this wise.[2]

Nor did He merely speak in this wise without giving effect to His words, but in very truth the Babylonian king razed the city of Jerusalem to the ground, and delivered its people into bondage; furthermore, to this very king himself was soon afflicted with madness.[3] And thus it happened that, by the justice of God, that city was made desolate, so that no man would believe that a city has ever stood on the spot.

How, then? Shall any one dare ask God: “Wherefore dost Thou raise men against the erring, as Thine avengers, and when they have done service to the Divine Will, and have become the executioners of those against whom they are sent, hast Thou visited them with punishment, at the very time when it was meet that they should receive full payment for their service?” Has He then awakened us to receive an answer to those questions we put to Him?

Inasmuch as the Divine law has been violated here, evils have come upon men; and the forces that make for evil are those which are especially evil, since by the very abundance of their nature they are also potent in action. Since, then, evils have come once for all, the work of Divine wisdom and virtue and power is not only to do good - this is the nature of God, one might say, as it is that of fire to warm, or light to illuminate- but most of all to accomplish some good and useful end out of the very evils that have been devised by certain persons, and to turn to good uses those which seem to be evil. For this reason it is the part of an adroit wisdom to make use of an occasion even of evil. And thus, whenever God is in need of avengers, he employs, at one moment, demons who lead hordes of locusts, at another those whose work are pestilences, or perchance a barbarous nation, or again a wicked ruler, and, in a word, the natures fitted to commit public harm. Nevertheless, He hates those very natures, because they are suitable for this purpose. For God did not make instruments of calamity, but He readily made use of those appointed by themselves to that end.

The very fact that you [Andronicus] have become useful in such a direction, is precisely that which cuts you off from God. In the same way is one vessel unworthy and another worthy, and is so esteemed to be, for each one is judged according to the use for which it is provided. A table is a sacred thing, for therein is honored the God of friendship and hospitality. Love of the stranger made Abraham God's host. But a whip is an abominable thing, for it is the servant of anger, and one who has once used it is seized with regret. But those who are chastised are cared for by God; nor is this a small matter, to be found worthy of God's oversight and to be purified of our sins through retribution.

Vengeful natures, however, are altogether turned away from God. For that which is destructive is of course inimical to that which is creative. Nor is this the avenger's state of mind, whether demon or man, that he is in this contributing service to God, but rather, gratifying the evil of his nature, he seeks to bring disasters on all and sundry.

Not, therefore, because the city must needs be ill fated, and because you accomplished this disaster, is it ordained that you should escape retribution. For a defense of this sort Judas himself might have brought forward, on the ground that Christ must needs be crucified to redeem the sins of all. Now it was indeed ordained, “But,” He says, “woe to him through whom it cometh. It were good for that man that he had never been born”.[4] So then, as far as one can see, the noose was the sequel of his treachery. But the unseen side no man understands, for it is not in the understanding of man to compass what might be a punishment for the betrayer of Christ.

Truly it is not a clever line of defense to plead that one has already served a destiny in the way in which it was bound to be accomplished. It is accordingly of the first necessity that the Ausurians [5] and Andronicus should suffer a well-merited punishment for the evils which they have done us.

For behold the locust which has destroyed our fruits, which has eaten the crops to the stalk, and stripped the trees to the bark; against him has risen a wind sweeping headlong to the sea, and has scattered him in the midst of the waves. And as against this pestilence God has arrayed the south wind, so now has a leader been chosen by Him against the Ausurians. Oh, may it prove that he is the holiest and most just of all His generals!

May it be granted to me to acclaim him in the glory of a triumph over these! “Happy,” it is said, “he that shall requite him for their ill deeds. Happy he that shall dash their infants against the rock”[6] What destruction, then, shall await Andronicus, the pest of the district? What retribution could be worthy of a soul that works evil only? In my own case, Andronicus is a far heavier ill than all the blows wherewith God has visited us for my sins, for in addition to our common sufferings, this man is my own personal evil. Through him the tempter is at work to get me to desert the service of the altar. But I must take up my discourse a little further back, so as to add to what you already know what is not known to all of you, and thus give you an orderly account of my affairs; for in view of what is to follow, it is well for me that you should have heard this from me.

Account From childhood, leisure and comfort in life have ever appeared to me a divine blessing which someone has said befits divine natures; and this is naught else but the culture of the intellect, and its reconciliation with God on the part of the man who possesses that leisure and profits by it. For the things that concern children or come into their lives in childhood, I felt but the smallest interest, as also for the affairs of youth and early manhood. And when I came to a man's estate, I had changed in nothing from my boyhood's love of a quiet life, but, passing my days as if in a sacred festival, I strove throughout all my life to preserve a state of spirit gentle and untroubled by storms.

But, nevertheless, God has not made me useless to men, inasmuch as oftentimes both cities and private individuals made use of my services in times of need. For God gave me the power to do the utmost and to will the fairest. None of these services drew me apart from philosophy, nor cut short my happy letters. For to accomplish with struggle and pain, and even then scarcely to accomplish at all, all this wastes time and imbues the spirit with material cares. But he whom speech alone becomes, and persuasion attends upon his utterance, and his speech prevails with his audience, why should such an one be sparing in his words, when thereby another might be freed from his evil plight? “Man is an animal to be prized; to be prized indeed, since for his sake Christ was stretched on the Cross.”[7]

Until the present year, it was my divine lot to carry persuasion to men; and, however lightly affairs, perchance to gain success in them. But now the whole matter seems to have turned to nothing, with many things which clearly came from God. My success, too, I always ascribed to Him, and I lived with good hopes in a sacred enclosure, the universe, an animal ranging at will in freedom, apportioning my life between prayer, books, and the chase. For that the soul and body may be in health, it is necessary to do some work on the one hand, and on the other to make supplication to God. With such peace in life, I spent the years up to the taking over the priesthood, for which office I had very little courage in comparison with those that have lived before me. I call to witness the God who rules over all, and whose hidden mysteries I have espoused for your sakes, that away from human preoccupations and ambitions I have come alone to Him in many places and at many times. Prostate and upon my knees, I have in suppliant guise prayed for death rather than the priesthood. For a certain reverence and love for the leisure I had found in philosophy held me to her, in whose behalf I thought I ought to do and say all things.

But although I overbore men I was myself overcome by God. And as it is common tradition that he who is judged worthy of this office becomes the intimates of God himself, I took it over, but bore with great unwillingness the change in my life. Fain as I was to take refuge in flight, the hope of good things to come, and the fear of worse, checked me. Then, again, I listened to certain aged saints who averred that God was acting as my shepherd, and one of these said in conversation that the Holy Spirit is joyful, and fills with joy those who receive Him; adding that demons disputed the possession of me with God, and that I am wounding them by espousing the better side. “But even if they cause you some trouble,” he said, “none the less the philosopher priest is not neglected by God.”

I, then, for I am not easily puffed up with pride, or prone to pleading my own cause brilliantly, blamed only my own ill fortune, nor ascribed aught to an envious demon. I do not think I have sufficient virtue in me to stir up the evil powers. Rather did I fear that being myself a sinner, I should unworthily handle the mysteries of God. My soul was prophetic of the misfortune into which I speedily slipped. Nay, no sooner was I here than all horrors were here, and the chorus leader of them all was Andronicus, a demon of war, gorged with disasters, gloating over the ruins of the city. Alas, everywhere in the market-place the groaning of men, the wailing of women, the lamentations of children! He invested the city with semblance of one taken by storm. He cut off the fairest part of it, and was responsible for its new name, the Place of Vengeance, making the royal colonnade, of old the court of justice, into a place of execution.

He offered all this as an altar and a communion table for the demons of vengeance in whose number he had enrolled himself. Alas, with how many tears of the citizens has he feasted them!

What Taurosythians, what Lacedaemonians ever honored their own Artemis on such a scale with the blood that ran from their scourgings?[8] At once every one rushed to me; from all sides I was pressed to hear and to see atrocities. When I admonished Andronicus, I failed to convince him, when I upbraided him, I only irritated him. The crisis which had now arisen exposed our weakness, which until this moment God had concealed from men, for as I had always enjoyed the credit for all that had prospered, my fellow citizens got the idea that I was a man of power.

And this is the most bitter of misfortunes that have befallen me; I am condemned in the light of the hope of me felt by those to whom I have been a stranger. For I do not succeed in persuading them that I have not the power they ascribe to me; rather do they insist on my potency to gain all just ends. All that remains to me, therefore, is grief and shame. Then, suddenly I suffer in my soul, and my cares are complex. There are images of material things before me, and God is far distant.

If all that happened through Andronicus may be taken as signifying the attacks of demons, in that case they did all they desired. No longer did I enjoy the erstwhile sweetness of spirit in my prayers. Only the forms of prayer were there, while I was swept about on all sides of these affairs of mine, distracted by anger, grief, and all kinds of suffering.

Yet it is through the intellect that we have communion with God, whereas the tongue purveys to men the things which concern man. Accordingly, if I have had the misfortune to be inattentive in my prayers, the result makes that obvious. For when my life was changed, not only in this way did I have the benefit of the change and encounter evil, to wit by turning to practical matters through neglect of prayer, but behold, I, who still the other day had lived untouched by grief, saw lying dead one who, I had prayed, might outlive me. So bitter is the reception with which the city has welcomed me. In this way do the affairs of men move, at one moment upward, at another downward; and the tide sets in, carrying many things heaped together, at one moment the lucky, at another the unlucky. But in my own case, when it befell me to lose the dearest of sons, I was sore tempted to inflict an awful blow upon myself. To such an extent I was overcome by grief. Face to face with other things, I am a man, I say this before those who well know it, and for the most part I obey the dictates of reason, but I am so overcome by affection the unreason gets the upper hand over reason. Therefore not by the tenets of philosophy have I overcome my present trouble; it is Andronicus who has been the driving force. It is he who has made me keep my mind upon the misfortunes I share with others. Troubles have come to me which are the antidotes of my own troubles, drawing me to themselves, and driving out suffering with suffering.

Along with the bitter consciousness of present misfortunes there comes to me the memory of the great blessings of the past, out of what experiences I have come into my present circumstances, and in a word, how I live unhappily deprived of everything at once. The greatest of the evils afflicting me, and one which makes my life a difficult one to find hope in, is that whereas aforetime I was accustomed to be never without a response in my prayers to God, now for the first time I know that I have prayed in vain.

Then, too, I see that my house is faring evilly, and I am forced to dwell in my ill-fated native town [Cyrene]. Exposed at all, one to whom they come for sympathy, and to lament, each one over his own sorrows, I can now only offer these a useless pity. Furthermore, I am ashamed of the case of a citizen who is in misfortune, and has had public money stolen from him, and -lo!- comes Andronicus, reclaiming more than ten thousand staters, even deciding to kill him, without granting a respite, on account of the one thousand still due, or rather on my account.

Yes, on my account, he keeps him guarded in an impregnable fortress in the like of which the children of the poets represent the Titans are enchained. In order that he may not be taken away by me, so he says, he has given orders that the man shall not have food brought to him for five days, all entrance of bread having been forbidden to the jailers. But only the other day every one heard him loudly declare that the citizen's death would be worth more to him than the thousand staters. Again, when men come about him to purchase the estates, he proceeds to terrorize them, to throw them into confusion, and he drives them away by any means whatsoever. For of the money, as I think, he has no need; rather stands he in need of this man's death. Now I am not strong enough to attack walls so solid, nor sufficiently adroit to enter into his cell by stealth, and rescue him from his plight.

Nor, some say, do they permit any one to enter there. For his servants are by nature such as they are, but now they are living after the pattern of Andronicus, who governs to the dishonor of the Church.

I do not trouble about the extent of the forces he has combined against me; nay, I should even be grateful to him if I were to receive a dishonor at his hands, for so long as it were in the service of God, I should regard it as of the nature of martyrdom. For remember who he was, as compared with me. Indeed, if nothing else, I am descended from those men whose lineage, beginning with Eurysthenes who settled the Dorians in Sparta, and going down to my own father, has been engraved on the public monuments, whereas this fellow cannot tell the name of his own grandfather, nor even of his father, except by guess, and from a tunny fisher's perch on a crag he has come at a bound into the governor's chariot.

Let him stand back in awe, therefore, of the light which shines in the city, and be ashamed of his defects. As for myself, up to the time when I took priest's orders, I was loaded with honor, and dishonor I never tasted. But now I cannot rejoice in honor, nor do I grieve if slighted, for neither of these things appears any longer to have been brought upon me by their author, but both must be referred to God himself. Wherefore this all-daring fellow, when he can disturb me to butt against God himself, and to this end raises his voice publicly before people herded and assembled together. You shall hear his words presently, when the letter is read to all the churches throughout the world.

Preparing the accusation Such is the nature that has remained without education, once it has acquired power. It strives to shatter heaven with its head. So be it, then, let him rule; let him give rein to his nature; to his opportunity; let him kill and bind whomsoever of the citizens he pleases. But for us it is enough to remain in the rank wherein God has placed us, to be separated from the fellowship of evil, to keep our ears pure from grievous evil-speaking, and despair of the cause of the unjustly treated. And our defense before you and the people will be that we have tried in vain. No doubt it became one who had any greatness in him, to act thus even before this experience had come to him. But I have waited to make you convinced with me, by the logic of facts, that to join together political ability with the priesthood is to combine the incompatible.

The past ages made the same men priests and judges. The Egyptians and the Hebrew nation were for long ruled over by their priests. Then, later, it seems to be, when the Divine work was executed in a humane spirit, God separated the two ways of life. One of these was appointed to the priestly, and the other to the governing order. Some He turned over to matter, and others He associated with Himself. And so some have been marshaled for practical affairs, but we to remain in our life of prayer. For each class God asks that which is fair, and just. Why then do you move backwards, why do you seek to fit together those things which have been separated by God, you who demand not that we should govern, but that we should govern badly? Nothing could be more unfortunate as this. Do you need a protector? Walk to the administrator of the laws of the state. Do you want anything of God? Go to the priest of the city - not that you shall always find there what you seek, though for my part I shall do my utmost. And if anyone is disposed to leave me tranquility, perchance I shall have the powers, some day; for at the same moment does not turn away from matter and towards God.

Contemplation is the end and aim of the priesthood, if it does not belie its name. But contemplation and action do not deign to mingle. For impulse is the beginning of all action, and no impulses is free from passion. For it is not lawful, He says, that the man who is not pure should handle that which is pure. “Be still and learn that I am God”.[9] He has need of leisure, who is a bishop and a philosopher. I do not condemn bishops who are occupied with practical matters, for knowing of myself that I am hardly equal to the one of two things, I admire all the more those who are competent in both fields.

Power to serve two masters is not in me. Nevertheless, if there are some who are not injured even by a condescension, they would be able both to be bishops, and to conduct the affairs of cities. A sunbeam, even if it consorts with mud, remains pure and undefiled. But I, in like case, should need springs and the sea itself to cleanse me. If it was possible for an angel to live more than thirty years among men, and to absorb no evil from matter for enjoyment, of what use was it that the son of God should come down to us? It is the acme of power to mix with the inferior, and at the same time to remain steadfast in our true nature, and in no way to represent passion. This is worthy of praise in God, but it is a course to be shunned by men, who must be on his guard against the weakness of his nature.

According to those principles shall I pass my life with you. Nevertheless, I reserve to myself the right of judging when times and seasons are opportune, so that when it is possible I may come down, that I may do some great good when the chance arises. Thus does God Himself govern His own kingdom.

But absorption is the terrible thing; for this evil the Divine Nature does not admit of, nor does any man who regulates his life according to the Divine Example. If I become absorbed in my money and my possessions, if you become aware that I am for ever receiving same time that I am grudging in the measure of time I give to your affairs - in that case I am an impostor and deserve no forgiveness. But if, on the other hand, I have neglected my domestic affairs, the better to cultivate the activities of the intellect, is it so surprising if I ask you to do the same? But since we do not please you with these opinions, inasmuch as there are others who are able to serve equally well in both fields, it is always in your power to decide the best course for the city, for the churches, and for me. The priesthood I shall not decline. May the power of Andronicus never go as far as that!

But just as when a philosopher I sought not the public, nor courted the applause of the theater, nor even opened a lecture room -and yet I was in very truth, and may I ever be, a philosopher- so now I have no desire to be a popular bishop.

All men cannot do all things. Living by myself and communing with God through my reason, when I descend from the realms of contemplation, I can hold useful converse with one or two at a time, and these must not belong to the crowd, but be as such as, either by the character they have been allotted, or the education they have been blessed with, admire the soul rather than the body. By so handling affairs at long intervals and at my own leisure, I might be useful at an opportune moment. On the other hand, when I am overwhelmed by these things, I am forgetful of myself, and only injure the success of the business I am engaged in. For it is not possible to do anything well if one hates it. The man who is carrying out what is not the resolution of his best judgment, goes disheartened to that which needs his personal supervision. But the man who is unsuited for leisure, and who when leisure comes cannot in any way profit by it, who is the very last word in the way of a public servant, a spacious spirit adequate to the cares of all, and who, since it is his nature, willing to act, that man will assuredly be grateful to the circumstances which draw him near to them, for they furnish material for his very nature. The greatest aid to success is the love for the thing itself. Therefore you must all choose the most useful man in the place of us, who can with difficulty save ourselves.

Why do you protest? Is it because this has never yet taken place that it should be thought that it cannot even now take place? Many necessary things has time found and righted, nor do all things happen according to a pattern, and of those which have happened, each one had a beginning, and, before it came into existence, was not yet. Usefulness is more deserving of preference than custom. Let us start the best custom on its way. Let the man be chosen to succeed us, or chosen to act with us, but by all means let him be chosen. Whoever he be, he will appear far wiser than I, so far as politics are concerned, and he will be able to conciliate and manage those miserable wretches for your sake.

Now if this does not yet seem good to you, let us postpone the matter to a later date. For one may take up this matter both individually and in common. Now in what terms the council has attacked Andronicus' madness, listen.

Note 1: A reference to the prophecies in Jeremiah 27.

Note 2: Synesius might have quoted Isaiah 10.

Note 3: A reference to the capture of Jerusalem by king Nebuchadnezzar in 586, and his insanity, mentioned in Daniel 4.

Note 4: Matthew 26.24; 18.7.

Note 5: A military unit.

Note 6: Psalm 137.8-9.

Note 7: Unknown quote.

Note 8: The Scythians of the Taurus were believed to sacrifice people to Artemis; in Sparta, boys were whipped until they bled for the same goddess.

Note 9: Reference to Psalm 46.11.

To the Bishops

Andronicus of Berenice let no man call a Christian - for he was born, nurtured, and grew up for the evil destiny of Pentapolis [i.e, Cyrenaica], having brought the rule of his country for his own - but accursed of God, let him with his whole household be turned out of every church.

The reason for this is, not that he has been the deadliest plague of Pentapolis, after an earthquake, an invasion of locusts, a pestilence, a conflagration of war; not that he methodically sought out the remaining victims of these disasters and introduced horrible kinds and fashions of punishment for the first time into the country (and would that I could say that he alone has made use of them). Not because of his instruments of torture to which I allude, that crush the fingers and feet, compress limbs, tweak the nose, and deform the ears and lips, of which things those who had forestalled the experience and the sight by perishing in the war, were adjudged happy by such as had by ill fate survived. The reason for this condemnation is that first among us, and alone of our number, he blasphemed Christ both in word and deed.

In deed, for that he nailed upon the door of the church edicts of his own, in the which he denied to those whom he had ill-used the right of sanctuary at the inviolate table, threatening the priests of God with such things as even Phalaris the Agrigentine, and Cephren the Egyptian, and Sennacherib the Babylonian would have feared to menace, and the last of these sent envoys to Jerusalem to insult Hezekiah and God Himself. And this the sun looked down upon and men read it aloud.[1]

No Tiberius Claudius was administering the State, by whom Pilate sent to govern the Jews, but the sacred race of Theodosius was holding the scepter of the Romans, from which Andronicus had filched the ruling power for himself, animated by the same spirit as Pilate. Those written words were a matter for laughter to the unbelieving passers by, just as that which was written upon the Cross of Christ was to the Jews. And yet the inscription on the Cross, although proceeding from an impious mind, was at all events serious in its wording, since by it Christ was proclaimed 'King'. In this case, however, the tongue was in accord with the mind.

But as to those things which followed after, they were even graver than those first placarded. For when he had found some pretext for proceeding against an enemy (there was indeed an enmity between them because the one was desirous of marriage which the other forbade), he sought to maltreat him with those unnatural tortures of his. May these never be handed down by the passage of time, but, as they begin with Andronicus, so may they disappear with him, and may these symbols of this man's rule survive to our posterity as a mere rumor.

Now when a man of good birth, not an unjust one, but a man who has been unfortunate only, was tortured by these means, and that too in the full midday sun, that he might die with executioners only for witnesses, and when Andronicus himself became aware that the Church was in sympathy with this man - only because, the moment I heard of the facts, I myself rushed out, as I was, that I might be on the spot and share in bearing the trouble - when he hears of this, he flies into a rage that a bishop has dared to pity a man hated by himself. Then he indulges in all sorts of violent behavior, the boldest of his servants, Thoas, encouraging him, the tool he employs for this public outrages and finally he lets out in madness that most godless voice of his, saying that he has placed his hopes in the Church in vain, and that no one shall be torn from the hands of Andronicus, not even should he be embracing the foot of Christ Himself.

We must be, both in mind and in body, pure before God. For these reasons the church of Ptolemais enjoins her sister churches everywhere in these terms:

Let the precincts of no house of God be open to Andronicus and his associates, or to Thoas and his associates. Let every holy sanctuary and enclosure be shut in their faces. There is no part in Paradise for the Devil; even if he has secretly crept in, he is cast out.

I exhort, therefore, every private individual and ruler not to be under the same roof with them, nor to be seated at the same time, particularly priests, for these shall neither speak to them while living, nor join in their funeral processions, when dead.

Furthermore, if any one shall flout the authority of this church on the ground that it represents a small town only, and shall receive those who have been excommunicated by it, for that he need not obey that which is without wealth, let such a one know that he is creating a schism in the Church which Christ wishes to be one. Such a man, whether he be deacon, presbyter, or bishop, shall share the fate of Andronicus at our hands, and neither shall we give him our right hand, no even eat at the same table with him, and far be it from us to hold communion in the holy mysteries with those desiring to take part with Andronicus and Thoas.

Note 1: Phalaris was the proverbal evil tyrant of Acragas, who cruelly tortured his enemies. Cephren the Egyptian was a pharaoh who was believed to have employed the Hebrews when he was constructing his pyramid; the story is not in the Bible. Sennacherib, an Assyrian (not Babylonian) king besieged Jerusalem in 701 (2 Kings 19; Sennacherib prism).

To Anysius

The man to whom I have entrusted this letter is at heart a philosopher, but by profession a pleader at the bar. As long as Anysius was with us, and as long as Pentapolis existed, he continued to practice this profession in our country. The times since your departure have betrayed us to our enemies, and have brought a spell of tranquility in the law courts; so he has made up his mind to sail to another law court where a venal tongue, the pleader's stock-in-trade, makes the pleader known.

Try to win for him the friendliness of a provincial governor. I call to witness the divinity who presides over our friendship, that anyone to whom your recommend him will be grateful to you, when he returns after making trial of him.

To Auxentius

If I were to accuse you of being false to friendship, I should win my case before the tribunal of God and of all godlike men, for how did I become involved in your quarrel with my brother? Without my approval he took the side of Phaus, of blessed memory, against Sabbatius. You failed to persuade him by what you said on that occasion; you then turned your wrath against me, and did me as much harm as you could.

I accepted your declaration of war, for at the moment it was permissible. Today it is not permissible, nor do I desire to continue it. The advance of years in its bounty stifles the spirit of contention in me, and holy laws, they say, forbid it.

Then again, I well remember how we were brought up and educated together, and how we consorted in Cyrene, things which we ought to hold stronger than these quarrels over Sabbatius. Make a cult, then, of friendship, that excellent thing, and receive my greetings. I account the time of my silence as my punishment. Do you not think I was wounded at the time I allude to? Yet I persisted in my silence. Such is the evil of lasting enmity.

To Pylaemenes

I had a large Egyptian rug, not such as one could put below a bedspread, but one which might be used by itself as a bedspread. Asterius, the shorthand writer, saw it, and asked me for it, at the time when I was obliged to sleep in front of the Record Office. I promised to leave it to him as a present when I should go away, but naturally I could not gratify him in such a manner, exposed as I was to the Thracian snow. Now I am sending it off to him, for I did not leave it behind at the time.

Would you be so kind as to give it to him for me, with an apology to the truth which you yourself shall witness, if you remember the circumstances which I left the town. God shook the earth repeatedly during the day, and most men were on their faces in prayer: for the ground was shaking. As I thought at the time that the open sea would be safer than the land, I rushed straight to the harbor without speaking to anyone except Photius of blessed memory, but I was content simply to shout to him from afar, and to make signs with my hand that I was going away. He who departed without saying good-bye to Aurelian, his dear friend and a consul, has certainly excused himself for having behaved in the same way to Asterius, an attendant.

That is how it all happened, and though since my departure this vessel has been sent on her third voyage to Thracian parts, yet it is the first time that she is being sent by me. So I am now paying my debt through you on the first possible occasion. Be so kind as to find out this man for me.

I first tell you his name and occupation, but you must have some further indications, as perchance there may be some one else with the same name and calling. All points are seldom found in one person, nor would a man be at once a Syrian by race, dark in color, aquiline in features, and medium in height. He dwells near the royal palace, not that palace which belongs to the state, but the one behind it which formerly belonged to Albabius, and which now belongs to Placidia, the sister of our Emperors. If Asterius has changed his dwelling-place, for that is possible, you have only to seek Marcus. He is a well-known person, one of the Prefect's cohort. He was at that time at the very head of the company of shorthand writers of which Asterius was a member, and through his good offices you could find out this company. Asterius was not the last, but amongst the first few, the third or the fourth; possibly now he is the first.

You will give him this thick rug, and say to him what we have said to you concerning the delay. And you may also, if you wish, read the letter itself to him, for military duties do not leave us time to write to him too; but nothing, I suppose, prevents us from being just. May weapons of war never have such power as that!

To the General

Praise is the reward of virtue, which we offer to the most illustrious [1] Marcellinus at this moment when he is leaving his post, at this moment when suspicion of every flattery is in abeyance. When he arrived here, he found our cities attacked from without by the multitude and rage of the barbarians, from within by the lack of discipline of the troops and the rapacity of their commanders. Marcellinus appeared in our midst as a god. He vanquished the enemy in a single day's fighting, and by his continual alertness he has brought our subjects into line. He has thus out of both calamities brought peace to our cities.

Nor did he claim any of those profits that usage has made to appear lawful; he has not plotted to despoil the rich or ill-treat the poor. He has shown himself pious towards God, just towards his fellow citizens, considerate to suppliants.

On this account a philosopher priest is not ashamed to praise him, a priest from whom no one ever received a testimonial bought by favor. We wish that the courts of law also were present with us, so that, collectively and individually, all we inhabitants of Ptolemais might have presented him in return with such a testimonial as is in our power, however inadequate, for words are somehow far inferior to deeds. I would most willingly have made a speech on the occasion in behalf of us all.

But since today he is beyond the frontier, we wish at all events to dedicate to him our testimony in the form of a letter, not as those from whom a favor is solicited, but as those who have solicited one.

Note 1: A translation of clarissimus, the title of a man of senatorial rank.

To Joannes

One should use the friendship of the great, but not abuse it.

To Joannes

Do not ask great things, for you run two dangers; if successful you wound, and if unsuccessful you are wounded.

To his Brother

I am sending you both the Dionysii, so that you may keep one of these books and take back the other.[1]

Note 1: Perhaps books by Dionysius of Halicarnassus are meant.

To Theophilus

As I am about to make a certain inquiry of you, I wish first to give you some explanation in regard to it. A man from Cyrene, Alexander by name, of senatorial rank, while still quite young entered the monastic life. As his plan of life developed with his years, he was deemed worthy of ecclesiastical orders. He first became a deacon and then a priest. Then certain matters called him to court, and he became associated with Johannes [1] of blessed memory (I use the phrase advisedly, for we cannot speak without respect of that man, now that he is no more; all enmity ought to end with this life). Associated with this prelate before the churches were thrown into confusion, he was ordained at his hands Bishop of Basinupolis in Bithynia, and when differences arose he remained the friend of his ordainer, and was of those who took his part. But when the Synod's judgment prevailed against him, for a time the quarrel continued.

But why should I tell you all that you know better than anyone? Was it not owing to you, after all, that measures were taken to bring about union? I read a memoir full of good sense, which you addressed, if I am not mistaken, to the blessed Atticus, and in which you advised him to receive certain men again.

Up to this moment there was common cause between Alexander and his fellow-apostates. But his was a peculiar line of conduct, at least one shared by few, inasmuch as the third year he has now come round since the amnesty and the reconciliation, but he has not taken the straight road to Bithynia nor has he taken over the see assigned to him. He remains in our midst, as if he cared not at all whether any one treats him as a layman or not.

Now, for my part, I have not been in the past brought up in knowledge of the holy laws, nor has it befallen me to learn much even now, for as recently as last year I was not on the list of bishops. So, when I perceive aged men not pretending to understand the situation clearly, but terrified lest they should unwittingly offend against some canon of the Church; when I see them treating him quite harshly on this account, and because of their vague distrust slighting the stranger everywhere in public, nor suffering him in their houses; I do not censure these men, but I do not imitate them. Do you know how I conducted myself, most venerable father? I did not receive Alexander at the church, nor did I permit him to communicate at the sacred table, but in my own house I paid him the same civilities as I extend to the blameless, and my manner to him is such as it to my fellow countrymen.

When anyone of these comes to pay me a visit, in every act and word conveying honor, we defer to him, esteeming as nonsense any disgust that people may feel, at our subversion of the metropolitan rights of the city. And yet on account of this I bear the cares of all, taking them on my shoulders, and, for the sake of the leisure of all, I alone have no leisure; but it will be put down to my honor in the sight of God, that though poor in honors I am rich in labors. Whenever I set out for church, I do not like to see this Alexander anywhere in the forum, and if by chance I see him, I turn my eyes elsewhere, and a blush at once spreads over my cheek. But the moment he has crossed the threshold of my house, that he is under my roof, I receive him with all the usual courtesies. Why, then, am I at variance with myself in public and private, and in neither of the situations do what seems fitting? At one moment I obey the law, at another I am yielding to my own nature, which inclines me to benevolence; and yet I should have been willing even to do violence to my nature, if I had been clearly informed about the law. This very thing, then, is the question to which the authority of the evangelical succession ought to give an answer simply and clearly, and as I understand it - Is Alexander to be considered a bishop or not?

Note 1: Unidentified, but perhaps John Chrysostom, an enemy of Theophilus of Alexandria.

To Theophilus

I desire, and a divine necessity urges me, to consider as law all that your sacred throne ordains. On this account, I have declined a sad duty, I have forced my body to action, while still under medical treatment, and have just journeyed through the suspected region as if it were unsuspected. I have traversed a country infested by the enemy, and have arrived at Palaebisca and Hydrax. (these are two villages of Pentapolis on the very frontier of arid Libya). Once there, I called together a meeting of the inhabitants; I gave them one letter, and I read to them from the other (one of them was addressed to them, the other, concerning them, addressed to me). I then delivered a speech suited to an election, hoping to induce them to propose the resolution concerning a bishop, or, if the case demanded it, to force them to such a decision; but I could not overcome this people's devotion to the most holy Paul. Believe me, my Father, it was no wish of mine to set out upon this quick and useless journey. I have only offended a people who held me in great honor.

Amongst the most prominent citizens some protested with exclamations of wrath, while others, mounting upon any available pedestal to better be heard, addressed themselves at length to the gathering. I at once accused these of bribery and conspiracy, and ordered the ushers to hustle and to expel them from the meeting. I restrained and pacified the turbulent excitement of the crowd. I went through every path of argument; I invoked the sanctity of the Primate's throne, seeking to convince them that slight or honor to you means slight or honor to God. After this their lips pronounced the name of your sacred person with respect. They knelt down, they called upon you with cries and with groans, even as though you had been present. The emotion of these men, even though it was greater than I expected, was slight, but the women, who are proverbially difficult to control, lifted their arms, they raised their infants towards Heaven, they closed their eyes that they might not see the bishop's seat bereft of its accustomed occupant.[i.e., Paul]

Indeed, in spite of our policy being the very opposite, they almost compelled us to the same state of feeling. I feared that I should not have the power to resist the contagion, for I felt my inner emotions mastering me; so I dissolved the meeting, and announced that it should assemble again on the fourth day, not, however, without first pronouncing vengeful execrations upon any who by their venal conduct and from motives of purely personal interest, by their complacent attitude or from any other private motive, should use language in opposition to the will of the Church.

The appointed day arrived, and the people were again there, hostile and contentious. They did not even wait for a discussion, but straightway all was in an uproar, a confused sound impossible to distinguish. At this moment he heralds of the church proclaimed silence. Their clamor then ended in a dirge, and there was a sullen sound of men groaning, of women wailing, and of children sobbing. One said he mourned a father, another a son, another a brother, each one according to his age divided the titles of relationship.

I was just about to speak, when a petition was passed up to me from the midst of the crowd. This someone begged me to read before the assembly. It was an adjuration to me not to attempt to restrain their violence any longer, but to postpone my decision until they were enabled to send to your most blessed presence a decree touching the matter, and an ambassador. They even begged me to send to you a written statement in their behalf, explaining all that I had learned here.

Now it was proclaimed in the Synod by the priests and publicly by the people, and the missive went through these very points in order, that these churches belonged to that of Erythrum, according to the Apostolic and patriarchal tradition, but split away under Orion of blessed memory, then in advanced old age and blamed for weakness of character.

This has always been a reproach in the eyes of those who consider that the priesthood should be a champion of men's affairs,[1] and versatile in its functions. So when he continued to live on, they could not bring themselves to wait for the death of the righteous man, but brought forward Siderius of blessed memory for election, for he seemed to them a man young and energetic. He had served under the emperor Valens, and had returned from his military career to take over the administration of a domain which he had claimed, a man able to injure his enemies and to be useful to his friends.[2] This was the moment when the influence of heresy was powerful; it had the masses of the people on it side; cleverness, wisdom's tool, found its opportunity. This man and this one alone was appointed Bishop of Palaebisca.

But the election was positively unlawful, as I have learned from the older man, inasmuch as he was not duly consecrated either in Alexandria or by three here, even though the power to ordain had been granted there. Philo of blessed memory, they say, took upon himself to announce the election of his fellow-priest entirely upon his own responsibility. This Philo of Cyrene was the elder, the uncle, and the namesake of the younger. In other respects he was such as Christ's teachings had made him, but the moment there was a question of authority on the one hand and obedience on the other, he was more audacious than law-abiding. (I ask forgiveness from the sacred soul of the old man for such a remark.) He arrived on the spot, and took the ordaining of the blessed Siderius into his own hands, and placed him upon the bishop's throne.

After all, one must relax the severe letter of the law in times when freedom of speech is impossible. Even the great Athanasius himself has been known to yield to the force of circumstances; and some little time after all this, when it was necessary to warm and kindle up the tiny spark of the orthodox faith that still remained in Ptolemais, and since Siderius seemed to him fit for so important a mission, he transferred him to this place, that he might govern the metropolitan Church. But old age brought back Siderius to the village churches. There he died, and had no successor in these towns anymore than he had had a predecessor. Palaebisca and Hydrax were put under the old arrangement and came back to their dependency upon Erythrum, and this, they say, was in accordance with the decision of your sacred person.

Now the citizens are very strong upon one point, to wit: that this consecration of yours should not be annulled. I asked them for the original document signed by you. They were not able to present it to me, but they produced as witnesses bishops from the council. These said that they proposed Paul to the people in obedience to a letter received from you. As it seemed well to all to make him bishop, they reported the decision, and others succeeded in placing him on the throne.

Now, if you will allow me to say so, most revered Father, that was really the moment to look into the matter, for it is more painful to take away a thing than not to grant it; but let that now prevail which seems best to your paternal authority. For if what then seemed right to you was so to them, and they allege this, the fact that it no longer seems so to you deprives it of any justice in the future. It is only in this way that your will becomes identical with justice in the eyes of the people; for obedience is life, and disobedience is death. Therefore they do not raise their hands against you; on the contrary, they supplicate you not to make them orphans while their Father yet lives, for so they declare in their speech.

I hardly know whether I should praise or congratulate the young man [i.e., Paul] on the goodwill all are showing him. For it is a triumph either of art and power, or of divine grace, so to win men and so to dominate the multitude that for them life is not worth living without him.

[cont.]

Note 1: An important point: the towns were in a war zone.

Note 2: A common expression.

Your kind nature will therefore give the kindlier decision in their case. I must go back to town, there to await your orders to act. But you shall not be in ignorance of my arrangements during the four days that I passed in this place, and what solution each difficulty found. Do not be surprised if I happen to speak well and ill of the same man, for these comments do not all apply to the same actions, and it is acts that are praised or blamed. It were well that discord should never arise between those who are brothers in Christ, but if this does occur, it is well that it should promptly disappear. Moved by all these considerations, as well as in obedience to the instructions you sent, I have undertaken to arbitrate, and I have been listening to a dispute of somewhat the following nature:

In the village of Hydrax there is a spot, itself the loftiest part of the village, which formerly was a highly fortified citadel, but God having visited the spot with an earthquake, it has become an abandoned heap of ruins. Up to this day, they have been making other uses of some few of its parts, but these present times of war make it extremely valuable to those who possess it, because it could be fortified anew and return to its old use.

Now between our brothers, the most pious bishops Paul [of Erythrum] and Dioscurus [of Darnis], as formerly between others, it was a matter of contention. The Darnite has accused the Erythrite of employing fraudulent means of his own to get possession of that which did not belong to him. He had, forsooth, consecrated to God the property of another, under the pretext of piety. He then defended his villainy with the strong hand; he was the first man to occupy it! The reverend Paul endeavored to advance some counter-arguments, how that he had annexed the fort beforehand, and it had been used as a church long before the reverend Dioscurus had been appointed owner of the site.

But if anyone were to handle the inquiry firmly, the truth would soon be evident, for this whole allegation seems stale. The fact that a crowd of men have once prayed there by necessity, driven in by a hostile attack of the enemy, does not consecrate a spot, for at that rate all the mountains and all the valleys would be churches, and no fortress would escape being a place of public worship, for in all such places, when the enemy are out for plunder, prayers and celebrations of the Holy Mysteries take place. How many houses in the godless days of the Arians have received prayers and sacred ceremonies! These houses are none the less private property. For that, too, was a case of flight, and they, too, were enemies.

Next I inquired into the date of the consecration, and if it had taken place by the gift or agreement of the proprietors. The opposite appeared clearly to be the case. One of the bishops asked for the fort. The other, who was in possession at the time, refused it. Finally one went out with the keys in his pocket, then the other burst in, and bringing with him a table, therewith consecrated a small room, on a broad hill. But nowhere is there access to this small room, except by crossing the whole plateau.

Clearly it had been calculated that by this maneuver the hill could be definitely acquired. For my own part, this whole performance seemed to me unworthy, more than unworthy, and I was very angry at this flagrant violation of all sacred laws and civil forms of justice alike. All things become confounded, if on the one hand a new form of confiscation is invented, and if on the other by the holiest things the most abominable should be judged – prayer, the table of the Holy Communion, and the Mystic Veil becoming instruments of a violent attack. No doubt it was on these points that judgment had already been given in the city, for as a matter of fact at Ptolemais a meeting of almost all the bishops of the province had then assembled to consider a question of public interest. As they listened they felt hatred of the proceeding, but they hesitated before an act of eviction.

I wish to separate superstition from piety, for it is an evil which has taken on the mask of virtue, an evil which philosophy has discovered to be the third degree of godlessness. In my eyes there is nothing sacred or holy except which has come into being in justice and holiness. Nor did it occur to me to shudder at the alleged consecration. For it is not the doctrine of Christians that the Divine presence follows of necessity these mystical matters and sounds, as though these were certain physical attractions. An earthly spirit might be so moved, indeed, but rather is the Divine present with unperturbed dispositions, and those that are proper to God. How could the Holy Ghost descend into a heart where anger, unreasoning passion, and a contentious spirit are the ruling forces? Nay, if such passions as these enter, even if it has formerly dwelt therein, it takes its departure. I was just about to declare the transference, but he was then proved to have promised this earlier himself, and had clenched his promise with an oath.

Accordingly, taking this up with satisfaction, I was already for withdrawing from pronouncing sentence, but declaring the man himself his own judge, and compelling him to keep his oath, but he tried to retract and delayed. As I happened to be on the spot because of the ecclesiastical inspection, I felt called upon to cast an eye on the site, and to consider anew the subject under discussion; and again there was present a gathering of bishops from the neighborhood collected for one reason or another. In the presence of all these, and in my own, the boundary stones were shown marking out clearly the territory of Darnis; and the testimony of the old men, and the admissions of those who had up to the moment taken the contrary side, made it evident that the most pious Dioscurus was the owner of the site.

On the insistence of Dioscurus' brother, necessity arose that I read publicly the abusive paper that the blessed Paul had written in the shape of a letter addressed to your holiness, an obscene and unpleasant satire directed against his brother, of which the burden of shame fell upon him who had spoken evil, not on him of whom evil had been spoken.

But to feel shame is only the second of the virtues. Sinlessness is of the Divine destiny and nature entirely, but one might ascribe to modesty the blush for what has been ill done. By admitting these principles in the present case, the reverend Paul gave evidence of a change of opinion more convincing than any rhetoric, for his confession of error, and the bitter grief manifested as for evils he had voluntarily done, made us all favorably disposed towards him.

This was not surprising in our case, but it was remarkable that the reverend bishop Dioscurus yielded to his adversary of his own free will, when he saw that he who had been until now so contentious had come to a more humble frame of mind. Although victorious by the votes of the judges, he was himself conquered by his own sentiment, and it became in the power of the reverend Paul to keep or give up the hill, as he should desire. The splendid Dioscurus was the first to suggest to him various concessions, to not one of which would Paul have listened for a moment before his repentance. Dioscurus suggested him to give up the hill alone, or to give up the whole property in exchange, and many other plans besides he devised, lavishing upon him ways in which a man might anticipate another's pleasure.

But the other hesitated, he wished for one thing only, namely – to have the property by purchase on the same conditions as those by which his colleague Dioscurus had become the proprietor. Paul therefore became the proprietor of the vineyards and the olive groves in addition to the hill. Dioscurus, in place of his possessions, has the possession of magnanimity, a greater one in return for a less, and the honor of remaining within the gospel laws, which have declared the spirit of love to be the most important of its behests. This one thing only was worth commemorating, to wit, the agreement and harmony between the two brothers, passing over the fact that one who is a bishop had been convicted of stumbling, for it is best to allow acts that ought never to have been committed to pass into oblivion.

But that Dioscurus should not be unlucky in everything, I have granted his request that I should go through the whole matter very carefully, so that your holiness should be ignorant of nothing. He considers it of the very greatest importance that you should be made acquainted with the facts of the case, and that you should thus realize that he was struggling in no unjust cause.

Now I commend the man for other qualities, for he is one after my heart, but I exceedingly admire the feelings of respect by which he is moved for the dignity of your holy office. This I swear by your dear and sacred head: his fellow-poor at Alexandria owe Dioscurus much gratitude, for he helps them to cultivate their lands, and he is ubiquitous, and indefatigable in getting a profit from these even in bad years, and he knows how to turn all available chances to their advantage.

Thus the quarrel between the two bishops has come to an end. You also gave me instructions to listen to the complaint of the presbyter Jason, the man who accused one of his colleagues of treating him with much unfairness. The case is somewhat as follows: Jason convicted Lamponian of wrong-doing, but the latter, though he anticipated the sentence by a confession, has his punishment in being debarred from attendance at ecclesiastical synods. Nevertheless he shed tears in repentance, and the people made supplications for his pardon. Notwithstanding all this, I confirmed the decision already rendered and left the right of acquittal to the pontifical seat.

To Theophilus

The man to whom I have given this letter is being dispatched to carry out a piece of business which piety does not allow me to specify; but that he has cultivated virtue from his youth upwards, this is just for me to say, and it is the truth itself. You will honor him therefore as a good man. In regard to the accusation he has made, let that fulfill its own destiny, for you surely would never meddle with a justifiable homicide.

To Theophilus

You care even for Pentapolis, you do indeed. You will, therefore, read the official correspondence, but further than this you will learn from the words of the messenger that greater and more numerous misfortunes have already come to pass than those which the letters menace. For he was sent to solicit military co-operation from thence, but the enemy did not wait even for his departure, and they have already spread en masse over the country. All is lost, all is destroyed. At the moment of writing, there is nothing left but the cities, nothing. What may befall tomorrow, God alone knows. In the face of this calamity your prayers are needed; I speak of such prayers as wont to stir the Almighty. As to myself, many times in private and in public have I already prayed in vain. Why do I say 'in vain'? Everything is turning against me, so many and so heavy are our sins.

To Proclus

During the year which has just passed no letter has come to me from your sacred hand, and I look upon this as one of a number of calamities which have happened to me at this juncture. For I have suffered many griefs in many ways this last year, and now this winter has snatched away from me that child who was all the joy that remained to me. No doubt it was my fate to be happy when in your company, but when away to have experience of evil fortune. At all events may there come from your fatherly heart some letter that shall alleviate my grief, the most precious cargo that comes from Thrace!

To Pylaemenes

There are two letters in circulation addressed to you; for I am writing at the same time to Thrace and to Isauria, that I may in any case find you with one or other of the letters. The theme of both of them is a greeting to my dear friend Pylaemenes, the philosopher, for this is he, whether he wills it so or not. He can never completely get rid of his own natural bent. He will never succeed in extinguishing the spark of sacred fire, but some day when he has risen above his vain pursuits, it will shine forth again.

To the Bishops

Let Andronicus, who has deceived the Church, have experience of her truth. Just now, even yesterday, he sinned against God and insulted man. For these reasons we closed the church here against him, and dictated a letter to your brotherhood, acquainting you with the sentence which had been passed upon him. He anticipated the dispatch of this letter by pretending to be a suppliant, and making promise of repentance. All were desirous that I should admit him to penitence, except myself, for I thought that I knew the fellow only too well, and that he was quite capable of saying and doing anything. I had this presentiment, and even predicted that he would return to his natural bent upon the very first opportunity. I thought, however, that he would be much less daring while under the load of our ecclesiastical sentence, than if he were entirely free from all suspicion. I therefore desired to hold by the decree, as the aim of my deliberations was to be at once pious toward God and useful to my fellow-citizens.

But it is presumptuous to attempt to resist, when you are alone against many, a younger man against elder men, one who had not taken office a year ago, against those whose lives have been spent in the priesthood. I therefore yielded to their demand that I should not circulate the letter yet, and that I should receive Andronicus on his promise that henceforth he would give up his mad treatment of his peers, and that he would take reason as the guide of him, 'within those limitations that you have set yourself, we will not only pray for the pardon of your sin, but for the future we will pray in your company. On the other hand, if you shirk the fulfillment of your agreement, the sentence awaits you, and will be made public before all men. The punishment will only be put off such a time as is necessary to let all see that your character is incorrigible.' So the matter was settled.

He assured us that he would give and we receive proof. He has given it, and we have received it. He has lavished upon us additional reason for his excommunication. Up to that moment confiscation of property had not been ventured upon, and murder had not been taken in hand. To-day how many there are who are exiled because of this man, how many of those formerly rich have been reduced to beggary! But all this is nothing in comparison with the case of Magnus, so well born, so foully to death. He lies fallen, this son of a distinguished citizen, after having spent his whole fortune on public objects. He has perished, a victim of one man's envy of another. Andronicus demanded gold of him, and when he would not give it, he was flogged; it he did give it, he was flogged again, because they found him a means of gain. How was it that he was selling his estate mot to his friends, but to the general? I mourn both over this young life treated so lawlessly, and the hopes of the city in it, thus rendered vain; but the old age of his mother is more pitiable than his youth. She had two sons: the one was exiled by Andronicus and she knows not in what country he is. As to the other, she knows very well where he buried him. Alas for the laws, trampled on even by those prefects who govern their country, and who in defiance of them borrow sums of money to purchase office! For these laws indeed God desires different guardians. As to us, it is sufficient to remain pure amongst the pure, if we but keep within the sacred precincts, and debar the unholy from the holy altars.

To Troilus

You are both a philosopher and a humane man. Therefore I can lament with you the misfortunes of my country. You will honor her because of her citizen, the philosopher, and you will pity her because you have a gentle nature. Thus you have a double motive for lifting her up from her downfalls, and you are able to do so because [praetorian prefect] Anthemius has the character that can save cities, and moreover he has fortune and statecraft.

Now, whereas God has given him many things to this end, the greatest of all His gifts is the gifts of friends, and the greatest of all these is Troilus. Read, therefore, I beg you, this letter which has been moistened with my many tears, read it not only with your eyes, but also with the full power of your mind.

The Phoenicians may not rule Phoenicia, nor the Coele-Syrians Coele-Syria: an Egyptian can be a prefect everywhere except in Egypt. How then does it happen that the Libyans alone may administer their own country? Are the Libyans the only brave men, do they alone know how to defy the laws, these laws against which evil natures throw themselves all the more, in proportion as the penalties assigned are more numerous and terrifying?

Cyrenaean Pentapolis was doomed to perish utterly. War and famine have not yet annihilated it completely, as was foredoomed; but they are wearing it away and destroying it little by little. Now we have actually found out what was wanting for its quick destruction; and yet this is nothing but what the ancient oracle announced as to how Pentapolis must end. We have heard from our fathers and our grandfathers that “Libya shall perish by the wickedness of its leaders”. This very sentence is an extract from the oracle.

But even if this is its fate, devise some postponement of the evil. The physician's skill cannot prevent a man from dying sooner or later, for this is the course of nature. The utmost that it can do is to delay the inevitable end. Very well, all that we ask of our statesmen is to do something like this. Let them assist nature against the malady which we are enduring, let them not hasten to our end. I pray that it may not come to pass in the time of the great Anthemius that Roman rule shall perish from the midst of the Province! Say to him, in the name of reason, say to him, is it not you yourself who have caused a new law to be dispatched to supplant the old one, a law which threatens with many severe penalties those who should lay claim to govern their native country? Why does not your wrath, then, fall upon those who glory in breaking your administrative acts? If you know who they are, you are acting unjustly. If you do not know, you are acting carelessly.

The man most fit to govern, ought not to act thus but to give his particular attention to this alone, to choose the most worthy men for the office of prefect. Divine and noble is the forethought which is employed in selecting a good man. In this way alone is it possible to reject such men as trample upon the laws, who govern their country in defiance of the laws, and also, when borrowing money, give us security, as if we were landed property. Put an end to this evil. Send us more law-abiding magistrates, neither knowing us nor known by us, and who judge cases by their innate character, not according to each man's passions.

This is the situation at present. A governor is at sea, on his way here, one who formerly took a line of policy directed against the city, and is now fighting for his divergent political views from the tribunal. How many other evil by-products there are! Slanders are propagated at banquets, a citizen gets into trouble to please a woman. An informer is summoned; whosoever will not indict a person for proposing a measure contrary to the laws is himself condemned, unless before condemnation he has already suffered all the penalties of the condemned. We have seen a man thrown into prison because he did not prosecute a magistrate for embezzling public funds, a magistrate who had just retired from highest office. Or rather, we did not really see him, for they forbade us to approach him (as one is forbidden to approach those under a curse or enemies of the emperor), until they had done everything they wishes. The poor wretch saw the light of day only because he had indicted [praeses] Gennadius. But our own Pentapolis in many cases derived much help from Gennadius the Syrian. And most important of all, administering his office with moderation and persuasiveness, he has without anyone one remarking it, brought more money to the public treasury than those of his predecessors who were most cruel and notorious for their harshness.

Thus no one had to shed tears, no one had to sell his farm. One might justly term this a pious contribution, which neither violence nor the lash compelled. But, as far as the citizens are concerned, alas for the memory of the past, alas for the experience of the present! Now, we are asking nothing new, we only beg Anthemius to enforce the laws of which he is the guardian, and which are worthy of veneration owing to their antiquity, for in this consists the very sacredness of law; or, if it seem best to any one, let him enforce the newer edicts which register what one might call a still living kingdom.

To Pylaemenes

I have just sent you the treatise, written in Attic style and of finished workmanship.[1] If it obtains the approbation of Pylaemenes, the most critical of our audience, this very fact will be quite sufficient to recommend it to posterity. But if my book seems to you a frivolous production, remember that it is always permissible to treat light subjects lightly.

Note 1: A Eulogy of Baldness.

To Nicander

The following is a famous epigram of mine. How could it fail to be famous, when great Nicander himself has praised it?

Image of golden Cypris or of Stratonice

You know, of course, it was addressed by me formerly to my sister; you may learn so much from the verse. Theodorus [1] of the Emperor's Guard is the husband of this one, the dearest to me of my sisters, of whom I have done honor with an epigram and a statue.

If one took account only of the duration and assiduity of his military services, Theodosius would have been promoted long ago, but intrigue is more powerful than years of service. Try to help him, therefore, in this way, even in lawsuits which he may have to go through before Athemius. May he obtain the great Nicander's protection!

Note 1: Fitzgerald has Theodosius.

To Theophilus

The Olbiates, who are a village community, were obliged to elect a bishop to replace the blessed father Athamas, who died after passing his long life in the priesthood. They called me in to take part in their deliberations. I complimented the people on having to choose between many candidates who were so entirely deserving, but I particularly complimented Antonius on account of his goodness, for he was thought nobler even than the noble, and it is upon him that everybody's choice is fixed.

The choice of the multitude has had the full assent of two venerable bishops, with whom Antonius had been brought up, and by one of whom he had been ordained presbyter. I was not entirely without knowledge of Antonius myself, and as much as I knew of his deeds and words, so much I praised him, and, adding what I had heard to the good things I knew, I gave my vote to the man.

It would accord with my own wish to receive him into the honorable priesthood as a colleague. One thing only is needed, but the most important thing of all, namely your sacred hand. The Olbiates have need of this, and I of have your prayers.

To Anysius

Light and darkness are not wont to await each other. By a natural law, they avoid one another. Returning from escorting you we fell in with Andronicus.

To Anysius

Nothing could be more advantageous to Pentapolis than to give honor to the Unnigardae, who are excellent both as men and as soldiers, in preference to all the other troops, not only those who are termed native troops, but also all that have ever come into these districts as auxiliary forces.

The truth is that these latter, even when they are much superior to the enemy in numbers, never yet gave battle with courage, but the Unnigardae in two or three engagements, with a handful of forty men, engaged an enemy of over a thousand. Assisted by God and led by you, they have gained the greatest and most glorious victories.[1] The barbarians had scarcely shown themselves when some were killed on the spot and others put to flight. They still patrol the heights, ever on the watch to drive back attacks of the enemy, like whelps springing out from the courtyard, that no wild beast may attack the flock.

But we blush when we see these brave fellows weeping in the very midst of their strenuous service in our cause. It is not without sadness that I have read a letter which they have sent me, and I think that you also ought not to be remain unmoved at their prayer. They make a request of you through me, and of the Emperor through you, which it were only fair that we ourselves should have made, even had they been silent, to wit, that their men should not be enrolled amongst the native units. They would be useless both to themselves and to us if they were deprived of the Emperor's largesses, and if, moreover, they were deprived of their relays of horses and of their equipment, and of the pay which is due to troops on active service. I beg of you, who were the bravest among these, not to allow your comrades-in-arms to enter an inferior rank, but to let them remain without loss of their honors, in the security of their former position. This might well be, if our most kind Emperor should learn through your representation how useful they have been to Pentapolis.

Make of the Emperor another request on my behalf in your letter, namely, to add one hundred and sixty of these soldiers to the forty that we have already; for who would not admit that two hundred Unnigardae, with the aid of God, like unto these in heart and hand, and no less docile than brave, would suffice, when commanded by you, to bring the Ausurian war to an end for the Emperor? Or what use are many levies and the annual cost of maintaining the troops here? For war we need hands, not a list of names.

Note 1: Cf. the Constitutio.

To Anastasius

I have not been able to do anything for the presbyter Evagrius any more than for any other of the wronged. We have Andronicus of Berenice for ruler, a wicked fellow, whose soul and tongue are equally detestable.

It is of no consequence that he hold me in small esteem, but, which is more grave, he appears to me to be ashamed to reverence those things which are divine. In his pride he strikes heaven with his head.

I swear by your dear and sacred head that he has wound a web of suffering about Pentapolis. He has invented thumb-screws and instruments of torture for the feet, and other strange machinery for inflicting punishments, which he employs, not against any guilty people, for everyone is now free to do evil, but rather against those who pay property-tax, or who owe money in any shape or form. He is a clever fellow at finding pretexts for so doing, worthy of his own nature and of that of Thoas, the jailer, whom he has directed to collect sums of money which he needs for army purposes, the so-called tirocinium.[1]

He is also exacting a sum for the needs of the court. Ever he finds some new evil to add to an old one, whereby torture may be inflicted on whole tribes and peoples. You may be as rich as you please and have plenty of money to pay with; nevertheless you will not escape his lash. Sometimes, while the slave is dispatched to the house to seek his master's ransom, the master is cudgelled, and runs the risk of losing several of his fingers.

When Andronicus is without a pretext for making a banquet of cruelty, he falls back upon Maximinus and Clinias, and gratifies his passion upon them. A man so evil as this must, I think, be under the special protection of evil spirits, who pour honors and wealth upon perverted souls whom they use as their tools for the persecution of mankind. For all these reasons they grant him celebrity, as though to a noble character.

Now is it fair to exalt the exalted and to humiliate the humble? Suppose that a man is of a simple and gentle nature; in the eyes of Andronicus he is of Carian destiny [2] and dishonorable. The only persons who are powerful in his eyes are Zenas and Julius. Zenas is the man who imposed a double tax last year, and who threatens to prosecute and to condemn my brother Anastasius, on the pretence that he carried out his ambassadorial duties dishonestly. At all events, he is in power by the will of Andronicus.

Julius, on the other hand, has grown stronger against his will, nay, notwithstanding his complaints, and against no one is Julius more violent than against this very Andronicus. He has raised his voice against him two or three times, reviled him like a carter, threatened him with everything, saying all thing such as I should have taken credit to myself for saying about the man.

He [Julius] has shown this castaway as a mouse instead of a lion, and thus he treats him as a slave, nor does the man dare to whisper even in corners against his master - the common privilege, I suppose, of menials. Andronicus dare not even do this, for a fool is never courageous. He shows himself in turn cowardly or rash, but he is ever contemptible.

Now the noble Hero will tell you in a manner worthy of himself what has happened to himself, if, after all, he survives. For he has suffered so from mere contact with the wickedness of this man, and from daily affliction through the dreadful things he has heard and endured, that he can scarcely hope to recover his own life, although he has been with difficulty saved from this fatal association.

At that time Thoas was not yet home from that celebrated journey of his. But now that he has returned, he has raised in his own person a very fortress of Decelea, to prevent all people of birth from departing. He brought with him the mysterious dream of the prefects, which signifies that some of those here should die, while others should be put in prison. Thus, because of the mysterious dream, some among us are manacled, others without any apparent cause are dying - and if they have not already died, they will die at once. As far as the rod could do it, they have perished, and if they still live today, it is only the robustness of their condition which has saved them.

“The great Anthemius will not recover, nor shall the Roman prefect get rid of his fever, unless Maximinus and Clinias are put to death”: this is the story which Thoas whispers in the ears of everyone. On this account Andronicus refuses to allow Maximinus to contribute, and holds off by threats those who wish to purchase the property of Leucippus. It is not a question of replenishing the public treasury, bit of giving back health to the prefects.

The prefects made Thoas alone come home, he says, and, without any other witness of their interview than the sophist himself, they disclosed the dream to him. Then, as Thoas declares on oath, the harbors were closed until he should first have sailed out and communicated the secret to Andronicus, in order that none of those that deserved to die in place of Anthemius might escape in secret.

Therefore, as the result of a dream seen by another, or rather said to have been seen, Pentapolis fares evilly in a waking state. Andronicus, who has been entrusted with the information, and is to be the benefactor of the prefects' prosperous house, “now rages madly, trusting in” Thoas. “He no longer” knows how to “respect

- or gods or men, wild frenzy holds him fast.[3]

In the sad state into which our city has fallen, Evagrius had no need to consult a prophet to predict that he was bound to come off badly, if his case should come up before the courts. Andronicus himself announced his intentions beforehand, not to outsiders, bit direct to Evagrius himself. He bade him to be wise in time, and to take up the public duties of his own free will.[4] For he would certainly give his vote for condemnation.

Now I have made it my defense before God, the divine Dioscorides, and all men, that in worldly matters I myself am become more dishonored than I was honored, and weak instead of strong. When I was away, Andronicus courted my power, for that I twice saved him at Alexandria from prison. When I came back here, however, he showed himself quite another man to me; by your sacred head, I swear it.

When I was so unfortunate to lose the dearest of my children, I might even have rid me of my life, so crushed was I with grief, and grief has always found me too much like a woman, as you know well. If I ended by overcoming my grief, this was not by any effort of my reason. It was Andronicus who changed the whole current of my ideas, and compelled me to think about nothing except public disasters. Troubles have become for me a consolation for troubles, drawing me towards them, and pushing out grief by grief. All the sadness that I felt for the death of my boy has given way to another sort of sadness mingled with wrath.

You must know that my death had been predicted to fall upon a certain day of the year. That day turned out to be the one on which I entered on the priesthood. I felt a change in my life, I who up to the moment have held festal assemblies in it, and have enjoyed honor from me, and benevolence such as has been granted to no philosopher before me - no less outwardly than in the state of the soul.

Today I am conscious of the loss of all these things. But the greatest of all my afflictions, and one which makes my life actually one of despair, is that, while accustomed up to this moment to find my prayers listened to, I now know for the first time that I appeal to God in vain. I see my house faring ill. I am compelled to dwell in my native city at a time of distress. I am situated so that all come to me to weep and groan, each for his own troubles. Andronicus has put the finishing touch to my misfortunes; for because of him I never enjoy for a moment the leisure to which I am accustomed.

I am unable to be of any assistance to any of those who come to me for help, I am condemned to endure them when they reproach me for my helplessness. I therefore implore and supplicate both of you, but more especially you who are so dear to me, brother Anastasius, and who are said to be a protector of a demented man; if you possess any power, us it, as is only right, in behalf of Synesius rather than of Andronicus, and save Ptolemais from shame, I beg you, that city which appointed me its bishop against my own will - as the all-seeing eye of God knoweth.

I know not for what misdeeds I am paying so heavy a retribution. If we have incurred aforetimes the envy of any of the gods, as the saying is, we have made ample expiation. This statement is only just to make on behalf of Maximinus and Clinias also, for even the most savage of the demons would, it seems to me, hold them in pity, all except Thoas and Andronicus, for these men are the only implacable demons.

Note 1: A tax paid by the owner of a house, who is freed from the obligation to furnish a recruit (tiro) to the army.

Note 2: A synonym for despised.

Note 3: Homer, Iliad, 9.238

Note 4: Rich people were obliged to pay for certain public tasks. In late Antiquity, this burden was felt to be too heavy.

To Theophilus

I was ready to place my hand and my judgement at the service of your paternal command. However, I do not think that Andronicus would have provided better for his own profit than did Nicaeus for his own loss; nor do I clearly understand why he first went away, nor why he came back again, nor why he is once again away from home.

How could I? for I did not see him, nor was anything reliable reported about him. Quite another person brought me the letter written by your sacred hand, and asked me for this answer; but Nicaeus had already weighed anchor, and I missed seeing him.

No doubt the commander saw or heard something of him. As to that man, he neither saw nor heard anything. Now, how can Nicaeus win his case, if he lives abroad in the country? It is true, he has plenty of good things in compensation, as many as the seasons bring to husbandmen, but there would have been still more of them if he had won the maternal inheritance also.

To the Philosopher Hypatia

Even if Fortune is unable to take everything away from me, at least she wants to take away everything that she can, she who has “bereft me of many excellent sons”.[1] But she can never take away from me the choice of the best, and the power to come to the help of the oppressed, for never may she prevail to change my heart! I abhor iniquity: for one may, and I would fain prevent it, but this also is one of those things which were taken from me; this went even before my children.

“Aforetime the Milesians were men of might”.[2] There was a time when I , too, was of some use to my friends. You yourself called me the providence of others. All respect which was accorded to me by the mighty of this earth, I employed solely to help others. The great were merely my instruments. But now, alas, I am deserted and abandoned by all, unless you have some power to help.

I account you as the only good thing that remains inviolate, along with virtue. You always have power, and long may you have it and make good use of that power. I recommend to your care Nicaeus and Philolaus, two excellent young men united by the bond of relationship. In order that they may come again into possession of their own property, try to get support for them from all your friends, whether private individuals or magistrates.

Note 1: Homer, Iliad, 22.44.

Note 2: Aristophanes, Plutus, 1002.

To his Brother

Who, who should be admired by your peers? He that is prudent, orderly, well educated, and religious. In a word, such a man as Gerontius. Now you have the man together with the letter. When you have made his acquaintance, you will say that my praise was not unmerited.

To Chryses

Not because this charming Gerontius is related to my children, do I recommend the young man to your friendship, although that in itself would be the best of reasons. It is rather because he is worthy of the golden Chryses in his manners, if I must express myself with the cold wit of a Gorgias. To say of you that you are included in the sphere of every virtue, and that the man who is to hand you this letter is more worthy to enjoy intimacy with you, is the very truth.

To his Brother

A lengthy letter argues unfriendliness in the carrier, but the charming Gerontius knows all that I know, and if he were not unfriendly to falsehood, I think he would say concerning me even more than he knows, because he loves me, and has speech equal to the expression of his thought. If you see him with gladness, then you will see him as I wish.

To his Brother

Receive with the living letter also the lifeless one. The one is the charming Gerontius, the other these written lines. They are written to you rather that I may conform to custom, than from any necessity for communicating with you. I live with you always in memory. This is what the young man will tell you with a much more powerful voice than ten thousand letters.

To his Brother

I have entrusted to the charming Gerontius a letter addressed to your august and thrice-longed-for-self, one that offers and opportunity for your first meeting. Then perchance you will honor him for my sake, but, after you have made trial of him, you will honor some one else for his.

To his Brother

The man to whom I have given this letter is a paymaster and quartermaster of the Dalmatian cohort. I love all the Dalmatians as if they were my own children, because they are the people of the city to which I was appointed bishop. This is all that I had to tell you. It is for you now to give a welcome to my friends, as if they were your own.

To Pylaemenes

Some letters dated last spring have just come to me from Thrace. I turned the whole bundle upside down, to see whether it would contain one upon which the famous name of Pylaemenes might be written. It would indeed have been unworthy of me to read any other first, but there were none anywhere. If you are really away from home, I wish you a quick and happy return. But it you were still on the spot at the moment when all my friends gave their letters to Zosimus, it really would be surprising if any one has more mindful of me than Pylaemenes.

To his Brother

Up to this moment I had been happy. Then, as it were, a counter-waver of misfortune dashed against me, and both public and private affairs are now paining me. I live, not as a private citizen, in a country which is a prey to war, and I am bound continually to condole every one's misfortunes. Often in a month I have to rush to the ramparts, as if I received a stipend to take part in military service rather than to pray. I had three sons; only one remains to me. But if only you sail with a fair wind and live happily, fortune is not wounding me on all sides.

To Theophilus

Justice has gone out from mankind. In the past Andronicus did injustice, but now in turn is treated with injustice. Nevertheless it is the character of the Church to exalt the humble and to humble the proud. The Church detested this man Andronicus on account of his actions, wherefore she pressed for this result, but now she pities him for that his experiences have exceeded the measure of her malediction. On his account we have incurred the displeasure of those now in power.

After it, it were dreadful if we never take our stand with those that are prosperous, and now if we were ever weeping with them that weep. So we have snatched him from the tribunal here, and have in other respects greatly mitigated his sufferings.

If your sacred person judges that this man is worthy of any interest, I shall welcome this as a signal proof that God has not yet entirely abandoned him.

To Troilus

In days gone by when I conversed, or when I wrote to my friends, our intercourse was free from care. I lived in a sense with my books, and was quite out of touch with any city or political life. But now God has assigned me a definite spot to dwell in, and has ordered me to take a certain rank in the city, and to live amongst a limited number of men. I should like, therefore, to be useful to my colleagues, and to do as much good as possible to individuals in private as also to the city in public. In other words, I desire in this voyage of life, as one might call it, to see my shipmates in a pleasant light, and so to be seen by them.

I would to you to recommend Matyrius. If it be in your power to do him a good turn, be assured that you are doing me a kindness in the person of one who is my daily companion. I call our past discussions, so dear to us both, to witness that Matyrius is devoted to me. He often sits up even to the very last hour of the night, in order to keep me company.

To his Brother

I shall get no small harm from the rusticity of my character, for you must know my way of speaking the truth bluntly has followed me even to the hounds of Libya.

To Hesychius

The Athenians praised Themistocles, the son of Neocles, because although as much a lover of political power as any man of his time, he decline every office in which his friends should possess nothing more than strangers. The times have recognized your merits. Through you an office, new both in name and in reality, has come into the administration of the State. I am very glad of this, as it quite natural when one considers our old friendship, and that sacred geometry has linked us one to the other.

But when I see that you deem my brother's name worthy to be ranked in the list of senators, and yet do not strike out his family from the black list, although under a cloud of ancient misfortune something happened before, I can only say that in this you are not behaving as an imitator of Themistocles, nor in accordance with the principles of divine geometry. You ought to treat Euoptius as among the number of your brothers, if it is true that two things equal the same thing are equal also to each other.

If through your too numerous occupations you have hitherto neglected your duty, do at once honor my claim upon you, my dearest friend, and after receiving my letter, exempt his mother-in-law both in the future and in the past from the absurd fine. Also give me back my brother. God knows whether he has left the country on this very account. But that is the only excuse Euoptius gives for not being here to console me. I have great need of consolation for many misfortunes of which you have certainly heard.

To Anysius

As soon as I learned the bad news from Cyrene the other day (that the enemy were approaching), I thought of sending to you at once at Taucheira to acquaint you with the fact, but a messenger came to inform us that the general had already occupied the high ground. You then knew it first. May God reward you for your alertness, both now and hereafter!

But I send my congratulations to you at the same moment as my inquiry into the state of your affairs. They are, I hope, in a satisfactory condition. I have very much at heart - how could it be otherwise? - the happiness of Pentapolis, my mother-country, as the Cretans might say: and at the same time I have great interest in you and your glory, and at each step of your good fortune the whole world wants to congratulate us.

Since then, my own reputation is dependent on you, O best of men and of generals, I have a right to know what you are doing. I exhorted Joannes to do his best to distinguish himself as a valiant soldier with the help of God. Give him your protection on account of his brother, who will render you as many services as all the others put together. I know these two young men intimately, and I know in what great esteem they hold each other. I give you the advice which seems to me the best. If you agree with me, support it with your authority.

Salute on my behalf the comrades who are serving under your orders. I wish to see my friend return soon, and he will bring me, I am sure, good news of the war. Although he is very timid, he has set out upon his way boldly, under the protection of your arms. Send back the two brothers to Cyrene - they will fight for their country - that country which has brought them up and nourished them.

To his Brother

You think that I am inclined to yield to your injunctions, at least so you write to me. You are quite right in entertaining this opinion of me. How grateful I am to you for the favor I have received, if one may admit that an elder brother owes gratitude to a younger one for his obedience, and this I can scarcely believe. But it suffices me for recompense that you recognize my attitude, that you are the only person in the world at whose mercy am I.

When, however, you say that you are sure that friendship with me is Julius' great desire, this idea is not worth a moment's consideration. Yours is the view of man who is deceived, I do not say deceiving. At the very moment when I was reading your letter, another person was reading one from Julius. You tell me one story, and he says the very reverse.

He knows also from what he has read and heard, that Julius expresses himself about me in very unfriendly language. Now, as he is an honorable man who has reported this to me, it is impossible for me not to believe him: but although I believe him, I call to witness the God who presides over our brotherly affection, that I do not regret having been useful to Julius.

Only yesterday I had to resort to force to rid him of the prosecutor who was arraigning him on a charge of impiety, for an offense to the Emperor's household. Now -by your sacred head- I had to resist innumerable attempts on the part of the judge and the accuser. The first, out of cowardice, would not admit of a change of front in an affair of this sort: the second, with the courage of despair, and as one pleading dire necessity, showed himself determined both to do and undergo evil.

The whole case might have had awful consequences, not only for Julius' wife and children, but also for very many of his relations and friends, rich and poor. In a word, a very “Iliad of misfortunes” [1] would have threatened our city from the mere fact that one desperate individual was determined to die. Julius might have won the case, but only under conditions which would have rendered his life impossible. For all these reasons I felt compelled to act as I did.

By all means let my enemies profit of my nature and will! I would much rather do kind offices to someone unworthy of them, than leave many to be a target for undeserved blows of fortune, when I can save them. I certainly do not hate this man's well-born wife, or his young children. And yet neither does he deserve to suffer any evil from me on account of his slanders of me; far from this.

It is true that the man is detestable. He talks with the intent to injure me, and only opens his mouth for the purpose of backbiting me. His purpose therefore is not blameless, but culpable. Nevertheless, let him know, or rather let him not know all this, for in the case he might cease benefiting me. You at any rate must know by experience the truth of the old proverb, “Even enemies have their uses.” Now this has been proved by the facts. After all, what does the fellow not contribute for my glory? When people desire to speak well of me, if they are at a loss how to add to their praise of me, the highest eulogy, the very ne plus ultra of praise, is theirs in these few words, “Julius speaks ill of him”.

What a swarm of truths is there not in this one phrase, for to be antagonistic to every kind of evil is to be intimate with every kind of virtue! For myself, I could never be conscious of such virtue. It is he who declares it, and as everything he denies gains credence, I am very grateful to him for this result. I swear by thy sacred head and by the life of my children, that there is no greater favor he could confer on me than to slander me, for this is the highest claim that I have to the esteem of God and man.

Julius will end in being punished for his line of conduct, not that I shall ever take vengeance on him - no, perchance not even if I could, would I do so; and certainly even if I would I could not. What influence could an unfortunate man like me have with the present governor? Hunted as I am from my home, wandering without hope of return, with the enemy encamped on my property, and making of my house a base whence to menace Cyrene? To whom them to whom will he pay the penalty? To Justice herself. I pledge myself to this. I am profoundly convinced of it. Justice will overtake him in behalf of me and our common city, for it is for her sake we have adopted opposite courses in public affairs, and on her account that we have become enemies - he and I.

Even he could not say that I acted for any private interest of my own, for in the first place I saw the army and the Senate falling under the yoke of mercenaries, and I endeavored to resist.[2] Then the matter of the embassy was a most conspicuous cause of discord between us. I pass over the case of my friend Dioscurides; for that was conducted with restraint, and so as not to stir up the wrath of God or man. Clearly it is Justice about we sing with the lyre thus:

Thou comest in secret at their heels, Thou bendest the proud neck, Thy law imposes itself on every mortal.

But when we had to vote, I proposed for the sake of my native city that the ranks of the army should be closed to foreigners, but he opposed me in the interest of Helladius and of Theodorus. And yet, who does not know that even the most enthusiastic officers lose all their professional spirit, once they are in touch with these foreigners, and they are changed into merchants?

On another occasion I made a proposal to abolish the supreme military command in our country, for everybody here agrees that the only remedy for our evils is for the cities to revert to their old government; in other words, that the Libyan cities ought to be put under the prefect of Egypt. But Julius opposed all this in order to keep his gains, and he had actually the impudence to say that it is a good plan to make soldiers out of the worst types of men.

“Well, my friend” (say this to him, for it is fitting that he should be told this by you), “the reason that you are now execrated is that you scheme against the common weal; you are happy, while the people are miserable; but I am suffering with my fellow citizens. Understand, nevertheless, that it is a law of nature that the parts are involved in the whole. When from a disease of the body the spleen becomes seriously enlarged, as long as the body endures, it grows strong and fattens, but when that dies it perishes also. So at the present moment everything smiles on you, but you do not see that by your measures you will ultimately be fatal both to your city and to yourself. Lasthenes was called the friend of Philip up to the day when he betrayed Olynthus. When one has no longer any city, how can one be happy?”

Note 1: Demosthenes, On the False Embassy, 387.

Note 2: A reference to Synesius' speech On Imperial Rule.

To Olympius

I call to witness that divinity whom both philosophy and friendship honor, that I should have preferred many deaths to the bishopric. But God has imposed upon me not what I desired but what He wished. I pray Him, therefore, who has been the giver of my life, to be its protector also, so that this office may not seem to me a descent from the realm of philosophy, but rather a step upwards to it.

Meantime, just as if any pleasure had come to me, I should have shared it with you, my dearest friend, so also I send to you the recital of my griefs, in order that you may suffer with me, and that after scrutinizing the matter in question with reference to my character, you may, if possible, express an opinion as to what I ought to do.

As it is, I am trying to tackle the matter at a distance. I have been for over six months in this dreadful position, far from the men amongst whom I shall be a priest. I am waiting to learn exactly what the nature of this office is. If it is possible, I will perform the duties with philosophy, but if it cannot be reconciled with my school of thought and sect, what better could I do than sail straight for illustrious Greece? For if I refuse the priesthood, I can no longer dream of returning to my own city either, unless I am prepared to be the most dishonored and accursed of all men, living amidst a crowd of enemies.

To Olympius

On reading the letter wherein you spoke to me of your illness, I was at first alarmed. At last I was reassured, for after first alarming me about a danger you had incurred, you ended by announcing the good news of your recovery. As to the things you asked me to send or bring to you, all that are possible will certainly be sent or brought. But which of them are possible, and which impossible, it is needless to say, for the gift will declare itself.

Live on in health and happiness, and acceptance with God, friend thrice dear! May we soon be together again, and rejoice in one another! Do not set out before we meet. But if Heaven decide otherwise, at least remember me, in spite of separation. You will meet with many better people than Synesius, but you will never find any others who love you more.

To Olympius

How do you think I received your pleasant letters, I who was thirsting to hear from you; and o'er what passage in them did not my heart melt? They inspired many different feelings, and I look forward to seeing again soon that Alexandria where there still lives a friend who is so dear to me. In taking so great an interest in Secundus, you have done my great honor, and in honoring him so in your letter you have attached us to yourself, and have made us yours entirely.

As I am one of those men who walk humbly, I do not deem myself worthy of so great honor. For you do me a double honor, both by the greatness of what you have written, and by the zeal of your actions. I have already written frequently to my Lord the Count, but as in the letter I received through the young man you reproach me for not writing to him, I have entrusted my brother with a letter to him.

Take care of your health, continue happy, give yourself up to philosophy, as it befits one to do who has cloven to her, led on by divine love. I am writing to you from my bed, holing myself up with difficulty to form the letters. Pray that the best things may be mine, whatso'er God may adjudge the best. If I recover, I am off to Alexandria at once.

To Olympius

This is a new practice of mine in use of letters. I have written not to recommend the bearer of this to your friendly offices, but rather to give you the benefit of the acquaintance of a man who will be very useful both to you and to your beloved friend the great Diogenes. Do not be angry with me if I believe, and if I say, that the advantage will be on your side, and not on Theotimus'.

But this is the case, since this man is the most inspired poet of our times, and since every one needs the power of the poet, in order that he may be famous for posterity, and may not escape the notice of those who are distant. Great actions, if they do not gain his clarion notes, disappear from men's memories, and are clothed in oblivion. They blossom only at the moments in which they are accomplished amongst those who witness them. Therefore this godsend ought to be honored by you, and ought to be welcomed above everything, quite apart from any personal interest, for out of reverence for the Muses one should honor their priests, and never hold them in less esteem than those who know how to dispense flattery at your gates.

Let there be also a third reason why you should give honor to Theotimus. It is that Synesius is an admirer of all his good qualities, of all those for which men praise men and deem them happy. May you pass your life in good health, you whom I honor for every reason!

All who live in my house send greetings to your illustrious person, and above all your own Ision. I send greetings to all those who are with you, and above all to my dear Abramius. You yourself shall judge whether or not you ought to hand over what I have written to the Count.

To Pylaemenes

Here at last is that Anastasius about whom I have so often spoken. If I had been introducing you to him, I should have praised you as I am praising him at this moment. You are both of you neighbors in my heart, and have been so for a long time past. Let your meeting, therefore, be an act of recognition. Embrace each other, and see in this, both of you, a means of doing me a little good.

Now leisure is the greatest good, a good of which one might say that, like a country bearing in abundance, it brings all noble things to the soul of the philosopher. This leisure I shall enjoy when I succeed in freeing myself from entanglement in the political life of the Romans; and that will be when I am released from these accursed curial functions.

So far as the Emperor is concerned, I am free of them, but I should justly blame myself and feel ashamed, if I were to take any profit from my personal activity. I shall accordingly make my defense to myself. For I shall appear to be fulfilling the duty of ambassador again, since my tongue is again an ambassador; nor will any one who praises Pythagoras contradict me, since he defined a friend as a second self.[1]

Note 1: In fact, Aristotle: Nicomachaean Ethics, 9.4.

To Pylaemenes

A man from Phycus (Phycus is a harbor of the Cyreneans) has brought me a letter written in your name. I have read it both with pleasure and admiration. It was worthy of both, because of its note of feeling and because of the beauty of its language. I quickly called together in your honor an assembly of the Greeks who reside in Libya, and I told them to come and listen to an eloquent letter. And now in our cities Pylaemenes, the creator of the divine letter, is famous.

One thing only seemed strange, and struck the audience as contrary to expectation. You asked for my Cynegetica, as if there were some value in it. You seemed, therefore, to reveal a humorous disposition, and to be brimming with sarcasm; but the Cyreneans did not admit that the poorest speaker among them could have produced something in a sportive vein worthy of your attention: but I acquitted you on this charge of sarcasm. I explained that besides the rest of your good qualities, you were extremely kind, and lavish in your praise; that thus you had not made the request in jest, but rather to fill me with joy that I had been honored by such a judge as you. Write to me, therefore, as often as you can. Give the Cyreneans a feast of eloquence.

No recital could be pleasanter to them than the letters of Pylaemenes, now that they have been inspired by this example. At all events you will meet plenty of men on their way here, and if no others, at least those who are to be our rulers, both of the less and of the greater province, and the province of Egypt as well.

It is easy to recognize them by the train of money-lenders who follow them. Since it interests you to know about my life, we study philosophy, my dear friend, and we have only splendid isolation for our fellow-worker, not one human being. I have never anywhere in Libya heard a man uttering a philosophical phrase except when an echo is repeating my own voice. But as the proverb says, “Adorn the Sparta which fate has given you.”[1] And for my part I think I shall be content with my own fate, and shall myself adorn it, regarding this as a contest set before my life, and a test, whether I am abandoning philosophy in her evil days. If I have no other witness, at least God himself will bear witness for me, God whose seed, the intellect, has come to man. I think even the stars at all times fix a kindly gaze upon me, for they see that I alone in this vast stretch of country examine them with knowledge. Pray for me, then, that I remain in my present way of life, and for yourself, that you may abandon the ill-omened forum, you who use your natural gifts so ill.

How I long to see you turn thoughts to what is within, even when your outward circumstances are prosperous; for to exchange happiness for prosperity is to barter gold for bronze. For myself, I rejoice when they twit me with being myself a private citizen, the while all my many relations are eager for office. I prefer that my soul should be guarded by virtues, rather than my body by soldiers, since no longer do circumstances afford room for a philosopher to control the State. Even if you do not get on any better in the forum (which I do not believe for a moment), at all events I have never had gloomy anticipations about you, such as thinking that you would turn false to your character, and that you might come to resemble those famous scribes; I would not dignify them by the name of orators.

Now in no other manner is it possible to get rich in your courts except by a general confusion of human and divine justice, and by not even getting rich, look to philosophy all the more. If you come across an earnest philosopher, share with me your great acquisition. It is quite a harmless quest, to wander through Greek and foreign lands on such a hunting expedition as this.

But if, amidst a harvest blighted by drought, we seem to suffice unto you, come and take your share of us and whatever is ours, “on fair and equal terms”, as the Lacedaemonian saying has it. Give all my kindest message to the venerable Marcian. If I had said in the language of Aristides that he was the image of Hermes, the god of eloquence, come amongst men,[2] I should scarcely have praised him as he deserves, for he is more than an image. I should have liked to write to him directly, but I have become stiff, that I may not expose myself to correction from the pedants who polish every syllable. There is no small danger that the letter would be read in the Panhellenion. This is the place in which parts of the world meet, to hear the sacred voice of the old gentlemen whose researches comprehend tales both past and present. Give my compliments to my friend Eucharistus, and to all those to whom you think fitting.

Note 1: Fragment 723 from Euripides' Telephus (ed. Nauck).

Note 2: Aristides, Or. 3.663 (Behr).

To Pylaemenes

I ask your friendship and protection for my dear Sosenas, born and brought up in learning, who is not meeting with the rewards from fortune which should follow learning. He throws the blame on his city's unfortunate condition, and some line of reasoning is persuading him that it is possible to change one's fortune with one's domicile. He is going to the Imperial city [Constantinople], persuaded as he is that where a king is, there Fortune is also, and will perchance discover him.

Accomplish for him whatever he desires, if it is in your power, for you are worthy to have power, and to assist to good fortune those that are in need. If Sosenas has any need of your friends, you will introduce him to them yourself.

To Pylaemenes

No, my dear Pylaemenes, I call to witness the God who presides over our friendship, I never dreamt of ridiculing your love of your country. Have I not also a city and a home? You did not understand the meaning of my letter, and you impute to me a fault of which I am innocent. You love Heraclea. You are eager to be of some use to your native town, and I approve of this. What I meant to say to you was that you ought to put philosophy before your avocations at the bar.

You seem to me to think that you can serve your native city more eminently as a pleader of cases than as a philosopher. This being the case, in order to explain your persistence in this idea, you alleged your love of country. I took the liberty of scoffing not at this patriotism of yours, but as the reason that you gave for your preference. You are very much mistaken if you think that in attaching yourself to the bar, you are going to do any good at all to this city you love.

If I were to say that philosophy is a sufficient force in itself to lift up cities, Cyrene would refute me, for she has fallen lower than any of the cities of Pontus. But what I do not fear to assert is that philosophy more than rhetoric, more in fact than any art of science you like to name, for she is the very queen of all, philosophy, I say, makes the man who possesses her of the highest usefulness to individuals, families, and states. No doubt she cannot by herself make men prosperous, for the fact is, my dear Pylaemenes, of our pursuits those which are beautiful have a certain power in perfecting of the soul's preparation, and by those alone is it possible for the soul to profit; but it is on fortune and on outside circumstances that the rise and decline of cities ultimately depend. Today they are prosperous, tomorrow they will be miserable, because the mortal lot in which they participate has so willed it.

We grant you that you love your city. So do I. You cultivate rhetoric. All I wish is that you attach yourself not to the rhetoric of the bar, but to the right and noble rhetoric that even Plato himself, in my opinion, does not try to prohibit. For my own part I honor philosophy, and I honor it more than any other human possession. But what good can you or I do cities by our work, unless lives adequate to our aims could be dedicated to it?

For every work we must have suitable material; we must have tools for the man who can use them, and it is only fortune which will ever give us all this. But if you really think that fortune will favor you through the art of rhetoric alone, and will suffice to bring you to a position of authority or the highest public office, that of prefect, why, in case of failure, should you blame philosophy for your ill fortune?

And again, if the chances of success and failure are the same in philosophy and in rhetoric (I mean neither greater nor less), why not choose meantime that one which is better in itself? You yourself admit that philosophy is in itself worth more than rhetoric, but you say that since you desire to be useful to your city, it is the less worthy of the two sciences that has become the more necessary to you.

As things now are, one may hope for the best, but the philosopher will have all the gods for his enemies, and they will draw fortune away from him, so that he will not be left even in the enjoyment of his hopes. For my part I never before now heard it said that misfortune is the divine lot of revered philosophy. No doubt it is very rare for power and wisdom to be found in the same man, but sometimes God unites them both. It follows then perforce from the argument that the same man is philosopher and patriot, nor does he despair of fortune, but rather looks forward to the best, by reason of his own intrinsic merit.

For in this one point especially, as the old saying has it, do the virtuous surpass the evil, I mean in their fair hopes. How then shall we admit that they will have the lesser reward? But so we must, if we adopt the argument which has brought you such a degree of error, that you say you must needs remain in your profession for the sake of the city.

Suffer me now to turn this defense of my mocking humor into an accusation, for although you used to be convinced of the truth of that which as a matter of fact was not true, I am persuaded that you think so no longer.

You see that I am in danger of becoming embroiled with the sacred Cyrene, and all by your fault, through you, though you are the dearest of my friends. For if you persuade the cities that rhetoric alone can rid them of their present misfortunes, and that they will get real help only from those who come to the aid of people engaged in lawsuits over their contracts, in that case they will hate those of us who are busied with anything else rather than lawsuits.

Now there is but one statement I have to make to you and to all the cities, in the name of philosophy. That is, if circumstances with the aid of fortune call philosophy to take part in the administration, then no other science, not even all the sciences together, will be able to govern public affairs so well as this very philosophy. None will be so able to harmonize jarring elements, to make improvements, and to benefit the interests of the citizens. But as long as fate does not tend in this direction, it is wiser to mind one's own business, and not to govern badly nor behave oneself unseemly in the attempt to jostle for the magistracy of such and such a town, unless it is absolutely necessary. “The Gods themselves,” it is said, “do not fight with necessity.”

For our part, we are following a much higher aim, for when the intellect is not occupied with things here below, it is occupied with God. There are two parts in philosophy, contemplation and action. Wisdom presides over the one, and prudence over the other. But prudence needs to be seconded by fortune, whereas wisdom is an end in itself, and nothing can prevent its being freely exercised.

To his Brother

How often one sees the same men who are very courageous in peace-time showing themselves cowardly at the moment of combat! That is to say, they are worthless everywhere. Thus it seems to me that everyone should be thankful to war, for it is an exact touchstone of the blood in the heart of each one of us. It takes away many boasters, and returns them to us more temperate men. In the future, we shall no longer see the guilty Joannes swaggering about the public square, and attacking with kicks and blows men of a peaceable disposition. Indeed, yesterday the proverb, or rather the oracle, received clear information, for you certainly know it as an oracle: There be no long-haired men who are not degenerates?

For some days now they have been warning us of the approach of the enemy. I thought that we ought to meet these. The leader of the Balagritae [1] drew up his forces, and sallied out with them. Then, having occupied the plain first, we waited. The enemy did not appear. In the evening we went away home each of us, after we had arranged to return upon the following day.

During this time, Joannes the Phrygian was nowhere; at least he was invisible, but he spread rumors in secret, at one moment that he had broken his leg and they had been obliged to amputate it, at another that he was suffering from asthma, later that some other untoward fate had overtaken him. Such tale-bearers kept drifting in from different sides, or so they pretended, the object being, no doubt, that no one should know into what retreat our man had slipped, or where he was concealed.

And you should have heard them in the midst of their narration deploring the unlucky misfortune with tears in their eyes. “Ah! Now is the moment when we need his generous spirit - strong hands like his. What wonderful things he would have done, how he would have shone!” In each case, crying “Oh, evil destiny!”, they wrung their hands and disappeared.

Of course, they all belong to that company which Joannes fed at his table, for no good purpose - men with long hair like himself, base creatures, “impudent thieves of lambs and goats” [2] and, by the gods, sometimes of women also. Such are the henchmen that he has been preparing for a long time. To be a man amongst them he never attempts. That would be too difficult. He is a cunning fellow withal, and he seeks the best opportunities of appearing a man in the eyes of those who are real man, but methinks fortune has upset all his calculations famously.

For five days we had in vain sallied out in arms to find the enemy, but they were always at the frontier places which they were engaged in devastating. Then when Joannes was convinced that the enemy would not dare to come into the heart of the country, he himself appeared and is now turning everything into confusion.

He ill? Never! Why, he was even laughing at people who believed such a story. He had come from a great distance, he said, I know not whence. He had been called there to bring assistance, and it was owing to this that the districts which had called on him were saved, for the enemy did not invade, terrified as they were at the mere rumor of the approach of Joannes. Once he had tranquillized everything there, he rushed up, he said, to the menaced province. He is waiting for the barbarians, who may appear at any moment, so long as they are not aware of his presence, and so long as his name is not mentioned.

So, here he is, spreading confusion everywhere. He is claiming to be the general's right hand, he is promising that in no time at all he will teach the art of victory. He is shouting “Front form! Fall into line! Form square to the flank!” In a word he is using all the words of the military profession without any knowledge of their meaning.

Thus some considered him a man of consequence and praised his talents, and were eager to become his pupils.

It was now late in the evening. It was time to pursue our attack. When we came down from the mountains, we pushed on to the plain. There four young men - peasants, as their clothes indicated - rushed to us at top speed shouting as loud as they could. No one had need of a diviner to see that they were in terror of the enemy, and that they were in a hurry to find refuge amongst our troops. Before they had time to tell us properly that the enemy was there, we saw some wretched creatures on horseback, men who, to judge from the look of them, had been pushed into battle merely by hunger, and were quite ready to risk their lives in order to possess of our goods.

The moment that they saw us, as we also saw them, before they were within javelin throw, they jumped from their horses, as is their way, to give battle on foot. I was of the opinion that we ought to do the same thing, for the ground did not lend itself to cavalry maneuvers. But our noble friend said he would not renounce the arts of horsemanship, and insisted on delivering a cavalry attack.

What then? He pulls the horse's head sharply to the side, turns and flees away at full gallop, covers his horse with blood, gives it full rein, incites it with frequent application of spear, whip, and voice. I really do not know which of the two to admire the more, the horse or the rider, for if the horse galloped up hill and down hill and over rough country and smooth alike, cleared ditches and banks at a bound, the horseman for his part, kept his seat in the saddle firm and unshaken. I am sure the enemy thought it a fine sight, and were only too anxious to have many such.

We could not give them this satisfaction, but you may imagine that we were disconcerted after having taken the promises of this hirsute beauty so seriously. So we drew up the line of battle to receive the enemy, if he should attack us. But we did not wish to take the initiative in the engagement ourselves. With such an example before us, the bravest of us distrusted his neighbor. Here nothing was a greater abomination than a head of hair, for the possessor seemed the most likely to betray us.

However, the enemy did not seem in a hurry to open the attack any more than we were, for they drew up their line of battle and waited for us, in order to drive us back, in case we should take the offensive. On both sides the troops stood watching each other. Finally they drew off to the left and then we to the right, but at a walking pace and without haste, so that the retreat might not have the appearance of a flight.

Notwithstanding all these anxieties, we tried to find out where in the world Joannes was. He had galloped without reining up as far as Bombaea, and he remained hidden in the cave there, like a field-mouse in its hole. Bombaea is a mountain full of caverns, where art and nature have combined to form an impregnable fortress. It has been long celebrated, and justly: they often compare it to the subterranean vaults of Egypt. But today everyone admits that there are no walls behind which one could be safer than at Bombaea, since even the most prudent of all men - I am too polite to say the most cowardly, the right word to use - has gone thither to hide himself, as to the surest refuge. The moment one enters this place, one is in a regular labyrinth, hard to get through, so that it by itself could provide places of refuge for Joannes.

Note 1: A military unit.

Note 2: Homer, Iliad, 24.255-262.

To his Brother

I should be altogether lacking in sense, if I did not show myself very grateful to the inhabitants of Ptolemais, who consider me worthy of an honor to which I should never have dared to aspire. At the same time I ought to examine, not the importance of the duties with which they desire to entrust me, but merely my own capacity for fulfilling them. To see oneself called to a vocation which is almost divine, when after all one is only a man, is a great source of joy, if one really deserves it. But if, on the other hand, one is very unworthy of it, the prospects of the future are sombre. It is by no means a recent fear of mine, but a very old one, the fear of winning honor from men at the price of sinning against God.

When I examine myself, I fail to find the capacity necessary to raise me to the sanctity of such a priesthood as this. I will now speak to you of the emotions of my soul: for I cannot speak to any one in preference to you who are so dear to me, and have been brought up with me. It is quite natural that you should share my anxieties, that you should watch with me during the night, and that by day we should search together whatever may bring me joy or turn sorrow away from me. Let me tell you, then, how my circumstances are, although you know in advance most of what I am going to say to you.

I took up a light burden, and up to this moment I think I have borne it well. It is, in a word, philosophy. Inasmuch as I have never fallen too far below the level of the duties which it imposed upon me, people have praised me for my work. And I am regarded as capable of better things still, by those who do not know how to estimate in what directions my talents lie.

Now, if I frivolously accept the dignity of the position which has been offered to me I fear I may fail both causes, slighting the one, without at the same time raising myself to the high level of the other. Consider the situation. All my days are divided between study and recreation. In my hours of work, above all when I am occupied with divine matters, I withdraw into myself. In my leisure hours I give myself up to my friends. For you know that when I look up from my books, I like to enter into every sort of sport. I do not share in the political turn of mind, either by nature or in my pursuits.

But the priest should be a man above human weaknesses. He should be a stranger to every sort of diversion, even as God Himself. All eyes are keeping watch on him to see that he justifies his mission. He is of little or no use unless he has made himself austere and unyielding towards any pleasure. In carrying out his holy office he should belong no longer to himself, but to all men. He is a teacher of the law, and must utter that which is approved by law. In addition to all this, he has as many calls upon him as all the rest of the world put together, for the affairs of all he alone must attend to, or incur the reproaches of all.

Now, unless he has a great and noble soul, how can he sustain the weight of so many cares without his intellect being submerged? How can he keep the divine flame alive within him when such varied duties claim him on every side? I know well that there are such men. I have every admiration for their character, and I regard them as really divine men, whom intercourse with man's affairs does not separate from God.

But I know myself also. I go down to the town, and from the town I come up again, always enveloped in thoughts that drag me down to earth, and covered with more stains than anybody can imagine. In a word, I have so many personal defilements of old date, that the slightest addition fills up my measure. My strength fails me. I have no strength and there is no health in me. I am not equal to confronting what is without me, and I am far from being able to bear the distress of my own conscience. If anybody asks me what my idea of a bishop is, I have no hesitation in saying explicitly that he ought to be spotless, more than spotless, and in all things, he to whom is allotted the purification of others.

In writing to you, my brother, I still have another thing to say. You will not be by any means the only one to read this letter. In addressing it to you, I wish above all things to make known to every one what I feel, so that whatever happens hereafter, no one will have a right to accuse me before God or before man, nor, above all, before the venerable Theophilus [1]. In publishing my thoughts, and in giving myself up entirely to his decision, how can I be in the wrong? God himself, the law of the land, and the blessed hand of Theophilus himself have given me a wife. I, therefore, proclaim to all and call them to witness once for all that I will not be separated from her, nor shall I associate with her surreptitiously like an adulterer; for of these two acts, the one is impious, and the other is unlawful. I shall desire and pray to have many virtuous children. This is what I must inform the man upon whom depends my consecration. Let him learn from his comrades [bishop] Paul [of Erythra] and Dionysius, for I understand that they have become his deputies by the will of the people.This is one point, however, which is not new to Theophilus, but of which I must remind him. I must press my point here a little more, for beside his difficulty all the others are as nothing.

It is difficult, if not quite impossible, that convictions should be shaken, which have entered the soul through knowledge to the point of demonstration. Now you know that philosophy rejects many of those convictions which are cherished by the common people. For my own part, I can never persuade myself that the soul is of more recent origin than the body. Never would I admit that the world and the parts which make it must perish. This resurrection, which is an object of common belief, is nothing for me but a sacred and mysterious allegory, and I am far from sharing the views of the vulgar crowd thereon. The philosophic mind, albeit the discerner of truth, admits the employment of falsehood, for the light is to truth what the eye is to the mind. Just as the eye would be injured by an excess of light, and just as darkness is more helpful to those of weak eyesight, even so do I consider that the false may be beneficial to the populace, and the truth injurious to those not strong enough to gaze steadfastly on the radiance of the real being

If the laws of the priesthood that obtain with us permit these views to me, I can take over the holy office on condition that I may prosecute philosophy at home and spread legends abroad, and allow men to remain in their already acquired convictions. But if anybody says to me that he must be under this influence, that is the bishop must belong to the people in his opinions, I will betray myself very quickly. What can there be in common between the ordinary man and philosophy? Divine truth should remain hidden, but the vulgar need a different system. I shall never cease repeating that I think the wise man, to the extent that necessity allows, should not force his opinions upon others, nor allow others to force theirs upon him.

No, if I am called to the priesthood, I declare before God and man that I refuse to preach dogmas in which I do not believe. Truth is an attribute of God, and I wish in all things to be blameless before Him. This one thing I will not dissimulate. I feel that I have a good deal of inclination for amusements. Even as a child, I was charged with a mania for arms and horses. I shall be grieved, indeed greatly shall I suffer at seeing my beloved dogs deprived of their hunting, and my bow eaten up by worms. Nevertheless I shall resign myself to this, if it is the will of God. Again, I hate all care; nevertheless, whatever it costs, I will endure lawsuits and quarrels, so long as I can fulfill this mission, heavy though it be, according to God's will; but never will I consent to conceal my beliefs, nor shall my opinions be at war with my tongue.

I believe that I am pleasing God in thinking and speaking thus. I do not wish to give anyone the opportunity of saying that I, an unknown man, grasped Theophilus, knowing the situation and giving me clear evidence that he understands it, decide on this issue concerning me. He will then either leave me by myself to lead my own life, to philosophize, or he will not leave himself any ground on which hereafter to sit in judgment over me, and to turn me out of the ranks of the priesthood. In comparison with these truths, every opinion is insignificant, for I know well that Truth is dearest to God. I swear it by your sacred head, nay, better still, I swear by God the guardian of Truth, that I suffer. How can I fail to suffer, when I must, as it were, remove from one life to another?

But if after those things have been made clear which I least desire to conceal, if the man who holds this power from Heaven persists in putting me in the hierarchy of bishops, I will submit to the inevitable, and I will accept the token as divine. For I reason thus, that if the emperor or some ill-fated augustalis had given an order, I should have been punished if I disobeyed, but the one must obey God with a willing heart. But even at the expense of God's not admitting me to his service, I must nevertheless place first my love for Truth, the most divine thing of all. And I must not slip into His service through ways opposed to it– such as falsehood. See then that the scholastics know well my sentiments, and that they inform Theophilus.

Note 1: The bishop of Alexandria, who had blessed Synesius' marriage.

To his Brother

I asked the young man who brought me some silphium from you, whether you had grown it yourself, or whether it was a present you had received, a share of which you were passing on to me. I learned from him that your own garden, which you take such care of, yielded you this excellent plant, together with every other sort of fruit.

I am doubly rejoiced both on the account of the beauty of this product, and on the account of the reputation your estate enjoys. Go on, then, and make the most of such fertile soil. Never tire of watering your beloved garden beds, and may they never weary of the labors of birth, so that you may have enough for your own use, and may send me whatever the seasons bring forth.

To his Brother

Really you are joking when you say that you want to prevent us from manufacturing arms while the enemy is holding the country, plundering everything, and slaughtering whole populations every day, and when we have no soldiers to be seen. Are you going to maintain then that private individuals are not authorized to bear arms, but allowed to die? Evidently the government is full of wrath against those who attempt to save themselves.

Very well, then, if I gain nothing else, at all events the laws shall be our masters instead of these destroyers. How high a value, think you, do I set on seeing peace flowering again, the tribunal in position, and the herald ordering silence! Yes, I desire only to die when my city has regained her former position.

To his Brother

I have gained three hundred lances and as many scimitars. As to two-edged swords, I never had more than ten, for they do not manufacture these long iron weapons in our country. I think, however, the scimitars strike the bodies of our enemies a more terrible blow, and for that reason we shall use them.

At a pinch we can have clubs, for our wild-olive trees are excellent. Some of our men carry also hatchets, ground on one side, in their belts. By battering the shields of our enemies with hatchets, we force them to fight on an equal footing with us, as we have no defensive armor.

Tomorrow, I think, the battle will take place. A band of the enemy met some of our scouts recently. It pursued them with vigor, and then, seeing that our people were too well mounted to be overtaken, the barbarians bade them to announce to us tidings, cheerful indeed, if we shall no longer have to wander about looking for men hiding in the vast expanses of the country. For they told us that they would wait for us, that they wished to know what sort of men we were, who had not hesitated to leave our homes for so long a time, to go out to fight a warlike people, wandering tribes accustomed to live perpetually as we live only when we are making an expedition.

I hope, therefore, that tomorrow by the aid of God I may vanquish the enemy, or, that, not to say anything of ill omen, I shall vanquish him in a second attempt.

I commend my children to you. You are their uncle, and ought to remember to show favor to them.

To his Brother

Just at present I have neither asses, nor mules, nor horses at hand, for all have gone to pasture. If I could have used them, I might have come to your beloved presence. I wanted very much to make the journey on foot, and I might perhaps have done it, but my relations are opposed to the project. They say that I should make those I met laugh at me.

Evidently the people on the road, whoever they may be, are wisdom itself. They have so much sense that each one of them knows what becomes me better than I do myself. How many judges are opposed upon us by those who wish to make us live for appearances!

In the end I gave in, not to warnings, but to force. At the very moment when I was on the point of leaving, they would not let me, but seized me by the cloak.

There is only one thing left for me to do, to dispatch this letter in my place. I send you by it all my messages of affection. I ask you what are the exports from Ptolemais, I mean what news you are probably bringing from government headquarters. Above all, tell me what I ought to think of the mysterious rumor that has come from the west, for you know that it makes a great difference to me whether it is true or not. If, then, you will write to me, and will give me all the details clearly stated, I will remain here. If not, you too will be reproaching me for having rushed to you.

To his Brother

You remember Chilas, I suppose; I mean the one who kept a disorderly house. Probably few do not know him. He was quite celebrated in his walk of life. Andromache, the actress who was one of the prettiest women of our time, was part of his company. After having passed his youth in this honorable career, he took it into his head that it would be a fitting sequel to his past life to shine in his old age by military achievements. So he has just come to us, after obtaining from the Emperor the command of our brave Marcomans. Now that they are so happy as to have a really fitting leader, it seems to us that these soldiers, who have always been brave enough, cannot fail to distinguish themselves by the most brilliant feats of arms.

Chilas, then, told Syrianus, when he met him, - you know the latter, of course, a doctor, who is one of my neighbors, - and Syrianus repeated to me, the state of the camp of the Lord's anointed when he took his departure. Now as to other details that he gave me and to which I myself paid little attention at the moment, why should I trouble to mention them to you? There are, however, a few things which greatly tickle me and with which I would fain regale you in turn.

Our wonderful Joannes, in a word, is in the same position as ever. Fortune is showing herself as prodigal as possible to him, and is even seeking to surpass herself. He has the ear of the Emperor, and more important still, his good will to use for his own needs. Then, again, Antiochus does for him whatever he can, and Antiochus can do whatever he will. When I speak of Antiochus, do not confound him with Gratian's favorite, the sacred little man, honorable in character, but very ugly. The man I am talking about is young, has a paunch, was in great esteem with Narses the Persian and even after Narses. Since then his fortune has only gone on increasing. Under these circumstances it is probable that he will be in command among us as long as is a raven's life, this most righteous general, the near relation of the one and the intimate of the other.

To Troilus

You ask me how many lines Dioscorus declaims every day? Fifty. He renders them without a mistake, without repeating himself, or stopping for a moment to recall them. Once he has commenced he goes forward without pausing, and silence marks the end of his declamation.

To Troilus

Praise and Love cannot be explained by the same motives, and they are not regulated by the same faculties of the soul. Feeling determines love and hatred, whereas it is by the use of the critical and rational faculties that we praise and blame.

To his Brother

How now? Shall we watch these foul fiends braving death so readily for the sake of others' property, that they may not have to give up to the owners what they may have plundered? And shall we be sparing of ourselves, and cling to our lives, when the question is one of defending our country, our altars, our laws, and our property, all the possessions that we have enjoyed for so many years?

At this rate we shall no longer look like men. For my part, just as I am, I must go against these barbarians. I must make trial to see what these enemies are who stop at nothing, what sort of people they are who dare to laugh the Romans to scorn, even though faring as they do now. A dromedary with the mange, says the proverb, can shoulder the burden of many asses.

Quite apart from all this, I see that in such cases all those who do not think of anything except saving their lives, generally succumb, whereas those who are ready to make the sacrifice escape the danger. I shall be among these. I shall fight as if I were at the point of death, and I have no doubt at all that I shall survive. I am a Lacedaemonian by descent, and I remember the letter which the magistrates addressed to Leonidas. “Let them fight as if doomed to die, and they will not die.”[1]

Note 1: Leonidas was the Spartan king who fought at Thermopylae. Synesius' reference is a bit odd, as Leonidas was killed in action.

To his Brother

Are you astonished that while you are dwelling in a parched place like the country of the Phycuntes,[1] you should shiver and poison should enter your blood? There would have been more cause for wonder had your body proved stronger than the heat there.

Come to us, then, here. You could recover your health with God's help, once away from the infected air of the marshes, away from that salt, warm, and absolutely stagnate water, which one might call really dead. What charm can there be in lying down on the sand of the shore? That is the only pastime you have, for where could you wend your way?

Here you can go under the shadow of a tree. If you are tired of one, you can go to another, even from one grove to another. You can step across a rivulet. How delightful is the zephyr which stirs the branches gently; there are the varied notes of birds, the colors of the flowers, the shrubs of the meadow; here the works of the husbandman, there nature's gifts. All things are fragrant with perfume, the aromas of a healthy soil. I will not praise the nymphs' grotto. It would need a Theocritus.[2] And there is something beyond all this.

Note 1: “Seeweed country”.

Note 2: The author of several famous idyllic poems.

To the Doctor Theodorus

Scarcity of food is a good forced upon us. Someone else might even scoff at the idea, but that is not permitted to you, the admirer of Hippocrates, who defined want as the mother of health.

To Auxentius

“To the mountain, or the wave of the much-sounding sea”.[1] Homer banishes the evils arising from contention, but Philosophy does not allow these even at the first approach to the soul. We are too weak to be philosophers, at least I am, but nevertheless we do not at all wish to conduct ourselves in a less worthy manner than those men of arms about whom the poem was written.

I therefore borrow this over verse from Home, who says somewhere: “Do you begin, for you are younger in years.”[2] May there be no conflict, but if it comes, may the youngest begin it, for some such thing as this was in Poseidon's mind when he made way for a god younger than himself to open the conflict. It is the part of the elder to be the leader in noble actions, and the noblest thing of all is concord.

In my case, not merely am I older than you, but I am even already an old man. As Pherecydes says, you can see it in my skin. Therefore the matter of an apology devolves upon me. If the man who is first wrong, ought always to be the first to give in, and if you wish me to be that man, I grant this also for your sake. For since I first made a claim on you, it is right that I should at once accord you a favor which you desire.

Note 1: Homer, Iliad, 6.347.

Note 2: Homer, Iliad, 21.439.

To Heliodorus

Rumor says that you have great influence with the present prefect of Egypt, and in this it speaks the truth. You are worthy of such an influence, for you use your power honorably.

Here then is an excellent opportunity for displaying your kindness as well as your power. My dear Eusebius stands in need of both. Hear what he has to say, and you will learn that I am recommending to you one who is also an orator.

To Troilus

If you have heard of the late Maximinianus (he spent a great deal of time at court), you are certainly aware that he was an honorable man. His son is my second cousin, and he will give you this letter. Many other people would perhaps pay deference to him on account of his good fortune, for he is one of those who have occupied a very important position. But Troilus is a philosopher; he will see in this young man his personal qualities alone, and he will value him for himself.

It is evident that you will be of great assistance to him in his present difficulties, for he is being attacked by the informers who unfortunately abound in Cyrene,

Unless you arm yourself with valor.[1]

Whatever you shall persuade Anthemius or any one of his colleagues to say in defense of us and the truth, will be entirely your own act, and you will have the credit of all that takes place.

By taking up this case of one man only and one affair only, I beg that you will make an effort to rid us of these obnoxious wild beasts, for the success that attends those who make the first attempt will incline many to emulate them.

Note 1: Homer, Iliad, 9.231.

To Trypho

Whatever you did for Diogenes, of all that it is in your nature to accomplish, you will have done nothing new, but will be adding another deed to those already achieved by you. He is from Cyrene, and that city owes its continued existence to you.[1] But you must benefit the citizens not only collectively but also individually.

As to the matter in which Diogenes is implicated, and for which he stands in need of friends to come to his aid, he will tell you all about this in conversation much better than I could do in writing, for nothing could be more eloquent than the man who has suffered.

Salute Marcian the philosopher for me; I mean the ex-governor of Paphlagonia. If he can do anything, and I fancy he can, I beg him to prevent my relative, my very own cousin, from becoming the victim of calumniating informers, who are the curse of the whole country.

I comment him to your care with this letter. Treat him like a son, for if we are only two brothers by blood, Euoptius and I, nevertheless, with Diogenes, we become three by the links of affection.

Note 1: A reference to the siege of Cyrene in the preceding year.

To his Brother

When a sick man vomits with difficulty, the doctors prescribe tepid water for him to swallow, so as to make it easy for him to give up whatever is already in his stomach. For my part I desire to give you news which has recently been brought me from the other continent, in order that you may give it up to me in turn, but swollen in volume by everything else that you have learned yourself.

To Athanasius

Odysseus tried to persuade Polyphemus to let him leave his cave. “I am a wizard,” he said, “and I can give you the timely help to win the heart of the sea nymph whom you are courting without success. I know enchantments, magic ties, and love spells that bind, which it is not likely that Galatea will resist even for a little.

Only undertake to displace this door for me, or rather this rock, which seems to me actually a promontory. I will come back to you quicker than speech, after bringing the young girl to a state of submission. What do I say, a state of submission? Nay, I will by my incantations bring her hither in person, quite manageable through my many spells. She herself shall come to beg of you, to supplicate your favors. You will be able then to affect indifference, and to dissemble.

Meantime there is only one thing that disquiets me. The smell of these fleece will perhaps be offensive to this delicate nymph, accustomed to bathe many times in a day. You would do well, then, to put everything in order, to sweep and wash out the place, and to fumigate your room, and still better, prepare garlands of ivy and convolvulus wherewith to bind your own head and that of your dearly beloved. But why are you so slow? What, you have not yet opened the door?”

In reply Polyphemus laughed out his loudest. He clapped his hands with delight. Odysseus thought that he was beside himself with joy, excited by his hope of soon possessing his beloved, but the giant only chucked him under the chin.

“Noman,” said he, “you have all the airs of a very shrewd little fellow and one experienced in affairs; but try some other scheme, for you will not escape from here.”

Odysseus, unjustly detained, then prepared to profit by his cunning, but as to you, a Cyclops in audacity and a Sisyphus in your actions, it is injustice which has pursued you, and law which has closed in upon you. May you never be able to mock at these! Even if you must be above the laws, may I never be the one to undo them, and to break down the doors of the prison; for if the government had been in the hands of the priests, it would have been their duty themselves to punish wrong-doing, and the blade of the executioner purifies the town as certainly as lustral water placed at the entrance of temples.

Thus we have heard of the fame of the men that have flourished before us.[1]

It seemed good to them that the same man be charged to pray for the public good, and to act as the occasion demanded. For many years the Egyptians and the Hebrew race were governed by their priests. Later on the two callings were separated. One was appointed to the sphere of religion, the other to that of government. These latter were appointed to the post of action, and we to the office of prayer. If, at present, the law forbids us to lend a hand to justice, or to put the worst criminal to death, how then could it ever allow us to take the side of a criminal against this same justice?

But I do everything that comes within my sphere; I pray at home, and in the churches common to all, that justice shall rise above injustice and that the city may be purified from sin. This is equivalent to saying that the evil man should perish evilly, such a man as you and those that are like unto you. Let it be a sign to you what manner of man I should have been, if it had been permitted me to act in the matter, that since it is not permitted me, I pronounce my curse upon you.

Note 1: Homer, Iliad, 9.524.

To his Brother

May all good things befall the priests of Axomis! While the soldiers were hiding themselves in the gorges of the mountains to take care of their precious lives, these priests called the peasants about them, and led them straight from the very church door against the enemy, and then they called upon God, and erected a trophy in the Myrtle Valley!

This is a long ravine, deep and covered with forests. The barbarians, when they found no resistance in their way, rashly entered this dangerous defile, but they had to meet the valiant Faustus, the deacon of the church. This man, unarmed, when marching at the head of his troops, was himself the first to encounter a hoplite. He snatches up a stone, not to hurl it, but, holding it in his hand and leaping upon him as with a clenched fist he strikes the other violently on the temple. He knocks him down, strips him of his armor, and heaps many of the barbarians upon him. If any other man gave proof of courage in that battle, it is to Faustus that credit is due, both on account of his personal bravery, and for the orders which he gave at the critical moment.

For my part, I would willingly give a victor's wreath to all those who participated in the engagement, and I would have their names proclaimed by the voice of a herald, for they were the first to do brave deeds, and to show panicstricken souls that the barbarians are not Corybantes nor the demons who serve Rhea, but men like ourselves, who can be wounded and killed.

And if only we are men in such a crisis as this, even the second prize will be honorable. Fate perchance might accord us even the first, if instead of being fifteen irregulars, hiking in a valley to forage, we were able to give battle in the open, in regular warfare, mass against mass.

To Troilus

Even though there shall be utter forgetfulness of the dead in Hades, I shall remember there my so dear companion.[1]

These lines were written by Homer, but as to the meaning of them, I know not whether they rightly apply to Achilles and Patroclus more than to me in relation to your beneficent and beloved person. I call God to witness, whom philosophy reveres, that I carry with me the image of your sweet and pious nature in my very heart. The wondrous echo of your words of wisdom resounds in my ears. When I came back from Egypt to my own city, and when I read all your letters of the two last years, I watered them with my tears. For I got no pleasure from the letters, out of the joy I always take in you, but rather sadness, recalling in them your living fellowship, and thinking of what a friend and father alike I am bereaved, although one who is in reality living.

Willingly would I undergo more weighty struggles in behalf of my city, if only I might again have a pretext for leaving it. Shall I ever have the happiness of seeing you, O truest of fathers, and of embracing your sacred head, and of joining with that council that your word captivates? If this joy is given me, I shall prove by my own example that what the poets recount of Aeson the Thessalian is not after all a fable; they aver that he was twice endowed with youth, changing to a young man in his old age.

Note 1: Homer, Iliad, 22.389.

To the Philosopher Hypatia

Even though “there shall be utter forgetfulness of the dead in Hades, even there shall I remember thee,”[1] my dear Hypatia. I am encompassed by the sufferings of my city, and disgusted with her, for I daily see the enemy forces, and men slaughtered like victims on an altar. I am breathing an air tainted by the decay of dead bodies. I am waiting to undergo myself the same lot that has befallen so many others, for how can one keep any hope, when the sky is obscured by the shadow of birds of prey?

Yet even under these conditions I love the country. Why then do I suffer? Because I am a Libyan, because I was born here, and it is here that I see the honored tombs of my ancestors. On your account alone I think I should be capable of overlooking my city, and changing my abode, if ever I had the chance of doing so.

Note 1: Homer, Iliad, 22.389.

To his Brother

How sad it is to have only bad news to send when we write to each other, for, behold, the enemy has occupied Battia, he has attacked Aprosylis, he has burnt the threshing-floors, ravaged the fields, sold the women into slavery; and as to the men, there was no quarter given. Formerly they used to take away the little boys alive, but now, I suppose, they do not consider themselves sufficient in number to guard the booty, and at the same time to meet all the necessities of war, in case any one should attack them.

However, none of us shows any indignation. We remain helpless in our homes. We always wait for our soldiers to defend us, and a sorry help they are! And, in spite of this, we are never done talking about the pay we give them and the privileges which they enjoy in time of peace, as if this were the moment to impeach then, and not the moment to hurl back the barbarians.

When shall we have done with our useless chatter? When shall we act seriously? Let us collect our peasants, the tillers of the soil, to advance upon the enemy, to assure the safety of our wives, of our children, of our country, and also, I may add, of our soldiers. It will be a fine thing in time of peace to go about saying that we took care of the troops, and that we saved them.

I am dictating this letter almost from my horse. I myself enrolled companies and officers with the resources I had at my disposal. I am collecting a very considerable body of Asusamas also, and I have given the Dioestae word to meet me at Cleopatra. Once we are on the march, and when it is announced that a young army has collected round me, I hope that many more will join us of their own free will. They will come from every side, the best men to associate themselves with our glorious undertaking, and the worthless to get booty.

To Asclepiodotus

Alas! but why alas! Our lost is but mortal. The third of my sons, the only one who remained to me, has gone. I still, however, hold to the view that good and evil cannot be predicated of that which is not in our power. Or rather, this lesson which I learned long ago has now become a belief of a soul schooled in experience; the blow was of course more violent than my own suffering from it.

The evil spirit whose business it is to hurt me arranged beforehand also that you, always so dear to me, should not be present. Oh best, thrice dear and most loyal of friends, may you come yet!

I can bear witness that the noble Menelaus has a warm affection for you. For this reason I often spend a day with him, because he remembers you with something akin to veneration. Although he is very much occupied with the care of his soul, and has given himself up today to the guardians who are bringing him straight to Taucheira, he was well-disposed to the great Asclepiodotus, and he has continued to express gratitude to one to whom he owes so much.

I am searching for a marble pot or cask to keep fresh water in, the larger the better. It shall be placed in the river Asclepius,[1] for beside it I am building the monastery, and getting ready the holy vases. May God bless my enterprise!

Note 1: A play on the name of the addressee. However, the name is also that of the pagan god of health; obviously, Synesius was converting an ancient shrine into a monastery, which was a common practice when Theophilus was patriarch of Alexandria.

To his Brother

Beware of the asp and the toad, the snake and the Laodiceans. Beware of the mad dog too, and again of the Laodiceans.[1]

After the most amiable and cultivated man, Pentadius, it is a Laodicean, Euthalius, who has obtained and holds the tablets which the state makes the token of the Egyptian government. You know the youth, for, if I am not mistaken, he entered service about the same time as we did, and it is impossible that you did not notice him, on account of his character and his surname. You have heard of a certain Balantas;[2] this dignified appellation did not come to him by inheritance from his father, but rather was a nickname which he acquired for himself. Having been appointed governor of Lydia in the days of Rufinus, I think, he so plundered the Lydians that Rufinus in great wrath condemned him to a fine of fifteen pounds of gold. He furthermore gave orders to some of his soldiers, the bravest and most faithful, as he believed, of his servants, to go and collect this sum of money by force from him and to bring it back faithfully to his bank.

What did our Sisyphus then? I shall not be so tactless as to spin out at great length the story which has been proclaimed on the house-tops. You have heard of course how he prepared a pair of purses much more like one another than the horses of Eumelus.[3] He filled one of these with bronze obols, the other with gold staters. Then he proceeded to conceal the first one, and to show the second. They counted up the gold, weighed it, and sealed it up with the public seal. Then he secretly effected an exchange of the two purses, and sent the obols instead of the staters. But those in charge had in an official dispatch acknowledged the receipt of the gold, and promised to convey it to the bank.

“Daphnis became henceforth the first of the shepherds”.[4] It was this which raised Euthalius to the height of fortune. Nobody could feel sorry for the state, because all laughed so much. Rather did all long to see one who had worked wonders as no other man in history. They were always inviting him. He went in procession through the cities as though he were a benefactor of the Romans, seated in a state chariot. The fellow is more talkative, I know, than the idlers who deliberate in the vestibule of the council-chamber, and this man will at once replace our dear Pentadius.

Note 1: Probably a quote from an unknown text.

Note 2: “Purseman”.

Note 3: A reference to Homer, Iliad, 2.763.

Note 4: Theocritus, 8.92.

To a Bishop, expelled from his Bishopric because he was unwilling to subscribe to the Arian dogma.

You have recovered what you were, you have not lost it. For when one is struck off from the list of impiety, he is not at the same moment deprived of the throne of piety. Welcome this banishment of yours from Egypt, and believe that it was also to you that the prophet cried aloud:

“What hast thou to do with the land of Egypt, that thou shouldest drink from the water of Geon?”[1]

It is a race which has for a long time been rebellious to God and an enemy of the Holy Fathers.

Note 1: Jeremia 2.18.

To Pylaemenes

In Plato we see Socrates already advanced in years seeking out his loves. “Do not be surprized”, he says to them, “if after having given myself up to love with difficulty, I renounce it also with difficulty.” Methinks I have experienced the same thing in my relations with you, and ought to ask the same forgiveness, I who have passed a whole year, it would not be right or true to say, without writing to you, but in writing to you in vain, since all my letters have come back to me.

Today, therefore, I am sending all of them to you at the same time. In saying so much to you, I not only pay what might be called the arrears of the debts, but seek to contribute something else as well. And yet I swear in the name of Him who presides over our friendship that I came down to the sea for this very purpose, “having given up the turf”', and made a bargain with the oarsmen of Phycus whom I enjoined to give you my letters and…

but why enumerate the presents which I sent to Pylaemenes, and which by an unfortunate voyage have been landed at Alexandria? I am very much disappointed on your account, but although Pylaemenes is the dearest to me of all my friends there, I swear by your beloved disposition that I am still more disappointed, because of many other friends, above all the admirable Proclus and Trypho, the only men from whom you sent me messages of greeting.

I am sending your honor ten pieces of gold, and to our comrade Proclus as noble Hesiod has prescribed, a third more than he lent me. Thus the matter stands. When abroad I accepted from Proclus sixty pieces of gold for the expenses of the voyage. On the bill he had written seventy, and I am sending him eighty. He would have had many more, if you had received the first letters I sent you, and if the ship had reached you with the cargo then sent.

Now I have, but some turn of fortune, set out for Alexandria. I thought that we should arrive at Crete into the Egyptian Sea, which we safely reached, through with difficulty. Had it not been for this, what would have prevented you from feeding ostriches like hens? The venerable Proclus should give my agents the receipt, when he has received the eighty pieces of gold and get my friend Troilus to send me quickly the books that you have given him; namely Nicostratus and Alexander of Aphrodisias.[1] If through your kindness those who are soon coming to take over our government show any friendship for us, you will for your part have done for us as much good to philosophy as, according to Plato, contempt for it has done harm.

Note 1: Nicostratus was a comic poet; Alexander of Aphrodisias wrote comments on Aristotle.

To Simplicius

When you asked Cerialis to bring me your congratulations, you did him this good service, that you kept me in ignorance during five days as to what a contemptible man he is, for our cities had some hopes of one whom Simplicius deemed not unworthy of his acquaintance; but now he has made haste to dishonor -not you, for may your reputation never depend on any other mans!- himself, his mission, and in a word the affairs of the Romans. A venal fellow he is, and cheap at that: he takes no account of public opinion, is unfit for war and a real nuisance during peace, a peace which has brought him little profit, for it did not take him long to sow trouble and discord everywhere.

As if the possessions of soldiers belong rightfully to the general, he takes away whatever they have, and gives them in return exemption from service, and allows them to go freely, wherever they hope to find anything to live on. After having behaved to the inhabitants of the counter in this manner (for as to the foreigners, it was impossible to levy money upon them), he proceeded to extract money from their cities by conducting troops there and moving them, not where there was the greatest military advantage, but where there was most plunder. Burdened by this billeting of troops upon them, the cities paid in gold.

This was soon known to the Macetae; there half-barbarous people told the story to the barbarians themselves and these latter.

Came countless like the leaves and flowers in spring.[1]

Alas! for the young men we have lost. Alas! for our crops which we hoped for in vain! We have planted our fields for the fires lit by our enemies. Our wealth for the most part of us was our cattle, our herds of dromedaries and horses which grazed on the prairie. All are lost, all have been driven away.

I feel that I am not master of my grief, but forgive me. I write to you shut up behind ramparts and besieged. Often in an hour I see torches gleaming, I am lighting some myself, and raising them as signals to others. But those hunts of yore which drew us on so far, and in which we rejoiced formerly in perfect safety, thanks, above all, to you, all these have gone. It is with a groan that we call to mind “those young years, that mind, and those thoughts”.

Today we suffer from entire lack of horses, the country is held by the enemy, and I, placed as a sentinel between two towers, am struggling against sleep.

To my lance I owe my bread; To my lance I owe my Ismarian wine; Leaning on my lance I drink.[2]

I do not know if it was more true for Archilochus than for me.

May the wretched Cerialis perish wretchedly, if he has not already perished, before these my curses. He richly deserved to become a victim of that last storm, he, who at the sight of the dangers into which he had thrown his province, for once in his life lost faith in earth itself. He embarked his gold on double-sailed merchantmen and he is tossing about on the high seas.

A little ship is carrying us letters from him enjoining us to do exactly such things as we are doing now, namely, to keep within the walls, not to attempt any sortie from the trenches, not to give combat to an enemy who is unconquerable. If we do not obey him, he protests that he will not answer for the consequences. Then again he advises us to establish four watches in the night, as if our hopes lay in matters, like a man who is accustomed to misfortune. Nevertheless, he took very good care not to share our troubles. Instead of being upon the ramparts, like me, Synesius the philosopher, the general keeps himself close to the oar-blade.

If you really wish to have the poems you asked me for, I must tell you that I see nothing therein felicitous, except the subject. Pray then with the Cyrenaens for a slight respite from war. In our present state we cannot take our books from their cases.

Note 1: Homer, Odyssey, 9.51.

Note 2: Archilochus, fragment 2.

To Pylaemenes

Know well that the definitions of geometry are infallibly true. Moreover, the other branches of knowledge are very proud when they are able, for their demonstration, to borrow something, however slight, from geometry.

Now there is a certain principle, of course, that two things which are equal to a third thing are equal to each other. I am bound to you by the link of association, and to the wonderful Diogenes by temperament also. Both of you are friends of the one man. You must then be united to one another, even as you are united to the middle link, myself. I attach you, therefore, the one to the other by this letter, in virtue of which the celebrated Diogenes will also give himself up to your honor's friendship, and at the same time, I am sure, he will take in return my own Pylamenes.

In calling you my own, I think I am saying nothing of which we can either of us be ashamed. Thanks to you he will have, as friends, all others who love me and also such as are useful, owing to their power. It would be doing you an injustice to doubt this. More than any one at any time he stands in need of friends to come to his assistance.

Well, in a few words, this is his trouble. Diogenes is a loyal young man, noble and full of gentleness and courage at once, just such a man as Plato would have wished to make a guardian in his state. Further, he saw military service while still a stripling. When he had passed out of youth he was given the command of the troops in our country, and in exposing himself to dangers he incurred the obloquy of the spectators. For so do the citizens regard whatever is successful. But this man rose superior to envy. Another might have much to say on this subject, but we resemble each other too much, he and I, in our attitude towards praising and being praised, for further comment. In a word, he has conquered the enemies of his city by his feats of arms, and all evil-minded men in it by his virtue. Although stepping into power while still young, he was not ashamed of his relationship with a philosopher.

Diogenes, such as I describe him to you, has some troublesome affairs to deal with, precisely, because he is a virtuous man, for every honest man is a gold-mine for scoundrels, and the wicked get their revenues from the other part of mankind.

An informer is trying to extort money from Diogenes, and now, having failed in that attempt, he has brought an action against him in the courts. As he has not succeeded by this means in getting any of his ill-founded claims, for we have the law upon our side, he has turned to another plan; he is changing the civil suit into a criminal charge by trying to impute to him a misdemeanor, committed before the accused was born.

Diogenes will not wait to be brought before justice, for we must not give way to a murderous blackmailer, nor can he abandon to this fellow the possessions he has inherited from his fathers and from his ancestors, with the appearance of disgrace in addition. Diogenes, therefore, is in want of sincere, incorruptible, able friends, like yourself, and he shall have, by the grace of God, yourself through me, and the friends who are mine and yours through you. In doing a service to Diogenes every one will acquire a claim to my personal gratitude. Note 1: A reference to the siege of Cyrene in the preceding year.

To his Brother

We may allow that there are worse things than woman shrieking, beating their breasts, or tearing their hair when they see the enemy or when his coming is announced to them. For all that, Plato regards it as scandalous that they should not be willing to stand up like hens against the bravest in the defense of their offspring, and that they should give to the race of man the reputation of being the most cowardly of all animals.

However this may be, that you should commit the same fault as these women, that you should be terrified out of your wits in the night, that you should get out of bed, and go about shouting that the barbarian is already at the gate of the fortress; I ask, is this to be endured any longer? And yet someone has told me some such story about you. It would seem like a transformation to be at one moment my brother, and at another a coward.

For my part, at the moment of dawn I am off on horseback, I am scouting as far out as possible, searching busily wit eyes and ears for any signs of these cattle-lifters, for I cannot give the name of enemy to looters and foot-pads. I wish I could find stronger phrases still with which to characterize them.

They never hold their ground against determined adversaries, and they only attack the timid, whom they slaughter like victims for sacrifice, and then strip them. At night, with an escort of young men, I patrol the hill and I give the women an opportunity of sleeping without fear, for they know that there are those who are watching over them.

Moreover I have with me some of the corps of the Balagritae. Before Cerialis had taken over the command of the province, these men were mounted bowmen; but when he entered upon his functions, their horses were sold and they became only archers, but even as infantry they are useful to me. We need archery in defense of our wells and of the river, as water is entirely lacking in the interior of our lines.

Now what prevents us from going through our siege in flute-playing and in festal gatherings? It is that we must either conquer now by fighting, or perish in hand-to-hand struggle with the enemy, unless we wish to die of thirst, and what could be more pitiable than this? We must, therefore, of necessity be brave men. Do you, on your side, take heart and rally the others.

As to that pair of voracious horses which you are feeding only the tax-collector, give orders to have them brought to you. Particularly in moments like these a horse is no useless possession. For whether it is scouting, observing the enemy, or carrying messages in the shortest time - all this a horse can do so easily.

If you are in want of archers, send for them and they will come. As to the Phycuntian oarsmen, I can no more count upon them to do their duty as soldiers than I can count on my gardeners. I seek only a small number of men, but they must not be false to their manhood. If I can find such, by God's grace be it said, I shall have courage.

If I am called upon to die, here lies the advantage of philosophy, not to regard it as a terrible thing to retire from this poor envelope of the flesh. But whether I shall be tearless in presence of my wife and child, of this I dare give no pledge; would that Philosophy were so powerful! But may I never have to make trial of her, never, O savior, never, O guardian of freedom!

To Olympius

Just the other day, during the recent consulship of Aristaenetus and of - I don't know the name of his colleague - [1] I received a letter sealed with your seal, and singed with your sacred name. But I conjecture it was a very old one, for it was worm-eaten, and the words for the most part were illegible.

I wish very much that you would not content yourself with merely sending me one letter a year, as a sort of tribute, and that you would not take our friend Syrus for your only postman. In this way nothing comes to me in its pristine freshness, everything seems stale. Do, therefore, as I do - no messenger of the Court changes his horses and leaves our city, without his bag being made heavier by some letter of mine addressed to your eloquent self.

Whether all or only some of them give you my letters, may those who put them in your hands be ever blest! They are excellent men. But if they do otherwise, you will then be the wiser, inasmuch as you will not put faith in faithless men. But that I may not uselessly weary my secretary in dictating letters to him that you will never receive, I should like to be sure about this.

I shall in that case arrange things differently in the future, and entrust them to Peter alone. I think Peter will on this letter through the agency of the sacred hand, for I am sending it from Pentapolis to our common teacher Hypatia. She will choose the man by whom she wishes it be conveyed, and her choice, I am sure, will fall upon the most trusted messenger.

We do not know, my dearest and best friend, if we shall ever have a chance of conversing together again. The cowardice of our generals has delivered up our country to the enemy without a single battle; there are no survivors except those of us who have seized fortified places. Those who have been captured in the plains have been butchered like victims for sacrifice.

We are now afraid of a prolonged siege, lest it should compel most of the fortresses to surrender to thirst. This is the reason why I did not answer your counter-charges on the subject of the presents. I had no leisure, for I was taken up with a machine which I am constructing, that we may hurl long-distance missiles from the turrets, stones of really substantial weight. I shall leave you, however, entirely at liberty to send me gifts, for of course Synesius must yield to Olympius, but they must not be gifts of a luxurious sort. I disapprove of the luxury of the quarters assigned to the company.

Send me, then, things that are useful for soldiers, such as bows and arrows, and above all arrows with heads attached to them. As far as the bows are concerned, I can at a pinch buy them elsewhere, or repair those which I have already, but it is not easy to procure arrows, I mean really good ones. The Egyptian arrows that we have bulge at the knots and sink in between the knots, so that they deviate from their right course. They are like men starting in a foot-race, who from the very start are hampered and stumble; but those which are manufactured in your country are long and deftly turned on the pattern of a single cylinder; and this means everything for the straight course of their flight.

Now this is what you ought to send me, and at the same time some serviceable bits for my horses. That Italian horse whose praises you set forth in such beautiful language, I would have very gladly seen, if he will give us, as you promise, some excellent colts. However, at the end of your letter, in a postscript, I read that you were obliged to leave him at Seleucia, because the captain of your vessel refused to embark such a cargo on account of the bad weather; but as I recognize neither a style resembling your own, nor your hand, nor the precision of your script, I think I ought to warn you of the fact. It would be absurd if such a fine horse were preserved neither for you nor for me.

Note 1: In 404, Aristaenetus shared the consulship with the emperor Honorius.

To Pylaemenes

I have received your letter in which you again accuse Fortune of treating you no better than in the past. You are wrong, dearest of friends, for it is not meet to blame her, but rather to console yourself. In your difficulties you can always come to me; you will be in the house of a brother. We are not rich, my good friend, but all we possess is quite sufficient for Pylaemenes and for me. If only we dwelt together, perhaps we should even be wealthy. Other men with resources such as mine enjoy great comfort, but I am a bad steward. In the meantime my patrimony still holds out against absolute neglect, and is well able to support a philosopher. Do not imagine that chance carries foresight with it.

Well, then, do exactly as I tell you, unless meantime you have found fortune more favorable, and unless you again plan to raise the prostrate Heraclea. I am not writing to my habitual correspondents, on account of the difficulties of these times,[1] but I have written quite lately to all of them. I gave Diogenes a whole packet of letters. Diogenes is my cousin; he undoubtedly went in search of you, and if he had succeeded in finding you, the packet ought to have been given to you by this time, for it bears your name. If you have not yet received it, ask the captain to point out the young man to you, and when you have obtained the letters, take upon yourself the care of distributing them.

There are people whom I particularly ask you to salute in my name, the aged Proclus, Trypho, who has governed our province, and Simplicius, a most worthy man, an excellent magistrate, and a friend of mine. When you have brought him the letter, take advantage of the opportunity to make his acquaintance, for it is a beautiful thing to pass one's time with a poet-soldier.

We caught ostriches in the days when peace allowed us the pleasure of hunting, but we have not been able to send them to sea owing to the enemies' armaments, nor could we put upon our ships any part of the goods lying on the wharves. There is only a cargo of wine, and as to olive-oil, by your noble head, they have not succeeded in embarking a single measure, so far as I know. Accept them, so many pints of wine as I offer you. In order to get it, you have only to send Julius the order, which I append to his letter, for fear that it may go astray. I also wrote to the aged Proclus sending a like consignment.

Let him receive the letter by you, and the wine by Julius. We have prepared delicate presents for the golden Trypho (I must make use even now of the cold wit of a Gorgias), a great deal of silphium juice (even you know of the silphium of Battus), and the best saffron, for this is also a worthy product of Cyrene. However, it is impossible at the present moment to send all this. We would put it on board another vessel when we send the ostriches with it, and the olive-oil by itself.

Note 1: A reference to the siege of Cyrene in the preceding year.

To his Brother

Poemenius, who will give you this letter, was sent to us by Artabazaces, the man who was recently our governor, to take charge of all the property which he had acquired in these parts. In the performance of this task Poemenius showed himself gentle and considerate.

And yet would any other man have used such an opportunity? No one in Libya groaned under the power of Poemenius during that time, and the best proof of this is the general regret that his departure caused. You will oblige me by giving him a warm reception, and by showing him all the consideration that his rectitude deserves.

To his Brother

I hope that I may profit as much as you desire from my residence at Athens. It seems to me that I have already grown more than a palm and a finger's length in wisdom, and I can give you at once a proof of the progress I have made.

Well, it is from Anagyrus that I am writing to you; and I have visited Sphettus, Thria, Cephisia, and Phalerum.

But may the accursed ship-captain perish who brought me here! Athens has no longer anything sublime except the country's famous names! Just as in the case of a victim burnt in the sacrificial fire, there remains nothing but the skin to help us to reconstruct a creature that was once alive - so ever since philosophy left these precincts, there is nothing for the tourist to admit except the Academy, the Lyceum, and -by Zeus!- the Decorated Porch which has given its name to the philosophy of Chrysippus.[1] This is no longer Decorated, for the proconsul has taken away the panels on which [the painter] Polygnotus of Thasos has displayed his skill.

Today Egypt has received and cherishes the fruitful wisdom of Hypatia. Athens used to be the dwelling place of the wise: today the beekeepers alone bring it honor. Such is the case of that pair of sophists in Plutarch who draw the young people to the lecture room - not by the fame of their eloquence, but by the pots of honey from [the Athenian mountain] Hymettus.[2]

Note 1: The Academy was the school of Plato, the Lyceum of Aristotle, the Decorated Porch (“Stoa Poikilê”) of Zeno and Chrysippus.

Note 2: The anecdote from Plutarch cannot be identified.

To Herculian

If Homer had told us that it was an advantage to Odysseus in his wanderings that he saw the towns and became acquainted with the mind of many nations [Homer, Odyssey, 1.3], and although the people whom he visited were not cultured, but merely Laestrygonians and Cyclopses, how wondrously then would poetry have sung of our voyage, a voyage in which it was granted to you and me to experience marvelous things, the bare recital of which had seem to us incredible!

We have seen with our eye, we have heard with our ears the lady Hypatia who legitimately presides over the mysteries of philosophy. And if human interests join those who share them in a bond of union, so a divine law demands of us who are united in mind, which is the best part of us, to honor each other's qualities.

For my part, after having rejoiced so much in your bodily presence with me, it seems to me as if I still saw you, although now you are absent from me, for memory furnishes me with the image that your disposition produces within me. The wondrously sweet echo of your sacred words resounds in my ears. If you do not feel all that I feel, you do me wrong indeed; but if you do feel all this, it is simple enough. You are only in that case repaying the debt of friendship.

Whenever my thoughts go back to our association in the study of philosophy, and to that philosophy at which we have both laboriously toiled, under the influence of reasoning I attribute our meeting to God the ruler.

For it must needs be from no less than a divine cause that I, Synesius, thus readily disclosed myself and all that is mine to a man with whom I had hardly conversed; I, the least inclined to vulgarize such subjects, whose contact with men is frequent, but whose conversation with them is confined to subjects of general interest, and who hold philosophy to be the most unutterable amongst unutterable things. Now, when the being appeared to whom I betrayed matters that were not to be found out by inquiry until that moment, I had quite forgotten the cunning art of Proteus;[1] and this was naught else than to live in the midst of men, not as a god, but as a citizen. Since this happened without any forethought on my part, but quite unrehearsed, I account God the prime mover in the unexpected event. Therefore we will beg Him to conduct in a prosperous end what He has begun, and to grant us to study philosophy together if possible, but if not, in any case, to study philosophy.

I am in the throes of thought, longing to pour over my letter certain arguments that are in my mind, concerning that subject we were discussing, but I shall not do anything of the sort. If God permit me, it may befall you to discuss the matter with us, and with many who have better knowledge! I cannot believe that it is a good thing to confide secrets of this sort to paper, for it is not the business of a letter to hold its peace; its nature is to speak to the first comer.

Goodbye then, study philosophy, and go on digging up the eye that is buried within us. For an upright life, which I consider the beginning of wisdom, has been enjoined upon us by the wise men of old. The inspired voice says that it is not right for the unpurified to handle that which is pure; but the masses think that uprightness of life does not exist for the end of wisdom, but stands by itself, and is itself the perfection of man, and that the way is not a way merely, but the goal itself at which we must aim. In this view they are mistaken. An unreasoning self-control and an abstinence from eating of meat, have been given to many unreasoning creatures by nature. We do not commend a raven or any other creature that has discovered a natural virtue, because they are devoid of reasoning power. To live according to reason is the end of man. Let us pursue that life; let us ask God to turn our thoughts to divine things, and let us ourselves, as much as is possible for us, gather wisdom from all sides.

Note 1: According to Homer (Odyssey, 4.412ff), an Egyptian god, who could change his shape.

To Herculian

I once heard one of our brilliant speakers praising the practice of letter-writing; and this very theme the sophist developed with a wonderful flow of eloquence. He hymned an encomium on it for various reasons, but particularly because of the letter's power to be a solace for unhappy loves, affording as it does in bodily absence the illusion of actual presence, for this missive seems itself to converse, thus fulfilling the soul's desire.

In this way he celebrated the inventor of letters,[1] and came to the conclusion that they were not a gift from any man but one from God to men. For my part I enjoy this sacred gift of God, and to whomsoever I needs must talk, if I cannot speak to him, at all events I can write, and this I often long to do. I then rejoice in those I love, and am present with them to the best of my power.

Now as to you, if it may be said without bitterness, you seem to me to have changed your character along with your abode.[2] If you do not abandon this way of separating yourself from those who have loved you without guile or affection, you are like the swallow who comes to live, so to speak, in the friendship of men with cries of joy, and who later on leaves us in silence.

So far all this addressed to the man, and these are a man's complaints. But if through philosophy you have united what up to this moment has been separated, and if the beautiful is lovable, and is one thing and the same, as you have heard the poet say,[3] in that case we shall no longer attribute your silence to disdain, but will share your philosopher's joy, and will exhort you to keep clear of meanness, so that by union with what is strongest in your own nature, you may unite what is strongest in ours. May you be such a man as this, O best of men, and thrice longed-for of brothers!

Note 1: Palamedes, a common theme for sophists, cf. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, 4.13.

Note 2: In Letter 139, it seems to be Synesius who had left Alexandria.

Note 3: Perhaps a reference to Theognis, Elegies, 16-17: “The beautiful is good, and if a thing's not beautiful, it isn't good.”

To Herculian

If there is such a sting of persuasion in letters, if even without your living sympathy and charm the images of your character cast such a spell over those who read, to converse with you face to face would be irresistible indeed. For my part, as long as I was in your company, you charmed me by the sweet siren of your voice. Nevertheless, I should not be ashamed to tell you the truth that a pleasure still sweeter would be our second meeting, for the perception of a present good cannot compare with that of an absent good, to him who has once made trial. Moreover, the continuity of the enjoyment steals away the sensation of joy, but he who has been separated even a little while from pleasures, retains a proportionately poignant memory of those things which he actually lacks.

May you come to me, friend who are so dear to me! Let us take up again our discourses on philosophy, and build up something worthy of our beginnings, that from perfect things a perfect beauty may be manifest, not one that is marred. But if we are fated to remain deprived of each other's company, which God forbid, the loss will certainly be mine alone, for where you are, education flourishes, amongst a multitude of men, and there will be with you many like Synesius and many better than he.

My city is dear to me because it is my city, but it has become, I know not how, insensible to philosophy. It is therefore not without apprehension that I feel myself alone and without help in the absence of one with whom to share my philosophic frenzy. But even if we should admit that there are some such,

How could I forget Odysseus equal unto the Gods! [Homer, Odyssey, 1.65]

Leaving your sacred soul, against what other pieces of wood could I rub myself, and bring forth a luminous child of reason? Who will be so able by every contrivance powerfully to call forth a hidden spark which loves to conceal itself, to ignite it, and reveal a brilliant flame? United or separated, may God always be with us! If God is present, there is a path in every pathless place.

Farewell; philosophize, and raise the divine within you to the first-born divine. For it is a beautiful thing that my whole letter should say from me to your honoured self what Plotinus, the story goes, said to those present as he released his soul from its body. [1]

Note 1: A reference to Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 2.

To Herculian

Of loves there are some which have earthly and human origins. These are detestable and ephemeral, measured by the presence of the object alone, and even then with difficulty. But there are others over which a Divinity presides, and, according to the divine utterance of Plato, he fuses those who love one another by his art, so that from being two they become one.[1]

They triumph both over time and place. Nothing can prevent souls who seek each other from drawing near to each other by secret paths and becoming locked together. Now our friendship ought to be of this character, if we are not going to shame our training in philosophy. Do not let us be such men as simply rejoice in the senses, and never allow the soul to enter unless the body knocks at the door.

Why do you lament and drench your letters with your tears? If it is from pity for me, because I have not yet become a philosopher, even although I have taken the outward appearances and the name of one, then I recognize that your lament is well founded; but if you are only complaining of the unfeeling fate which has separated us - for it is that which I think your letters attempt to express - it is womanish or childish to love those things through which the demon is able to rob us of the fruits of our plans.

For my part, I should have imagined that Herculian, that lofty spirit, with his eyes fixed upon Heaven, and given over completely to the contemplation of real being and of the origin of mortal things, would have long ago passed beyond the virtues which are deflected, and whose function is to regulate this world below. Again, according to this conception of you, I put at the end of my letter, “Be Wise” instead of “Goodbye” or “Farewell”, for such a formula is too common. For the mind that presides over actions is one of an inferior order, and it is not that which I supposed was buried in you.

I have treated this whole question at considerable length in two of my previous letters, but those to whom I have entrusted them have never given them to you. I am, therefore, writing you today a fifth letter, and I hope this time not in vain. In the first place it will not be in vain, if this letter shall reach you; in the next place, and this is still more important, if it shall counsel, teach, and persuade you to exchange strength of body for manliness of soul.

I am speaking, not of that manliness which springs from the first and earthly quaternion of the virtues, but of the proportionate manliness amongst the virtues of the third and fourth degree.[2] You will enter into full possession of this force, when you learn to wonder at nothing here below. If you do not yet understand the difference which I am trying to establish between the primal and the least virtues, still, if you come to the point of no longer lamenting about anything, and of feeling only a just contempt for everything here below, let this be a standard for you, and a means of testing your attainment of the first things, that I also may again write in my letters to you - “be wise in many things”.

May you continue in good health - may philosophy keep you in calm cheerfulness, O admirable master! If philosophy knows how to give the first place to absence of emotion itself, and if the intermediary states consist in the moderate experience of passion, where on earth shall we place the extreme of passion and the extreme of humiliation? Shall we not place them outside of philosophy, of which we prayed earnestly that you might be the priest? Not that, at all events, most dear to me of all men! Show yourself a more manly friend to us.

My whole household has charged me to salute you in their behalf. Accept then the salutations of all: each one of them all but pours out his heart in the final greetings. And do you yourself on our behalf salute the light cavalry, I beg you.

Note 1: Plato, Symposium, 192D.

Note 2: An unclear sentence.

To Herculian

Do not be surprised that I am giving two letters for you to the same messenger. First consider yourself undergoing punishment for your unreasonable reproach, and replenish yourself with my garrulity; in the next place, I wish my second missive to fulfill another object. I beg you to give me back the brief composition in iambics, in which the author holds converse with his own soul.[1] I thought that I should be able to piece this together again from memory, but now there seems every chance of its not resembling the one in question at all, and of my using my invention rather than my memory in attempting to write it down.

Perhaps it would be worse or perhaps better, but one should not in any case bring the same offspring twice into the world, when one may have the thing that has already been born. Send me back, then, a copy of the quatrain, in the name of the very soul that the sheet of paper seeks to adorn. But do this as quickly and as safely as possible, that is to say, by one of those who are certain to deliver it, for in erring in either way you will accomplish nothing at all. If you are slow in sending it, it will no longer find me here; and the same thing will happen if you give it to one who will not deliver it at all.

Note 1: Unidentified; according to Letter 143, Herculian sent the poem back.

To Herculian

On reading over your letter, I recognize Odysseus at once. Many traits of character therein recall that hero to my memory, but I do not recognize Proteus.[1] It is not improbable that a man like you might approach the demigods; but for my part, although wise in a way, although knowing myself, in accordance with the Delphic injunction, I condemn the feebleness of my own character, and I disclaim an affinity with heroes. My whole ambition would be rather to imitate their taciturnity, the very thing which, like the Spartan Menelaus, you have muddled; so well indeed that you seem to belong no longer to Odysseus alone, but to a pair of heroes.

But enough of all this. While you blame your own lack of taste for writing, you have no right to ask me for an abundance of letters that would only weary you. I have therefore reduced the length of this one, so that you may not give yourself more trouble by reading more. Take care of your health and live on in cheerfulness. Work at philosophy, my admirable friend, and it will conduct you to the divine.

Give my regards to the noble Count; we have not allowed ourselves a personal interview with him; for the words of the poem are:

Commence, you are the younger. Thus he allows the younger the right to begin war and strife, and the elder benevolence. But the man is honored by me and is in every way worthy, for he alone of our time has conducted to the same goal education and military science, once walled off from each other by formidable barriers, and has discovered some ancient affinity in these callings. Proud as no other soldier, he turns away from the arrogance that dwells on the border of pride. Such a man as this I love, even if I do not write to him, and if I do not court him, I honor him.

Note 1: A deity that could change its appearance, mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey, 4.385ff. Proteus was captured by Menelaus.

To Herculian

You have not kept your promise, my dear friend, the promise which you made that you would not reveal those things which ought to remain hidden. I have just listened to people who have come from you. They remembered some of your expressions. and they begged me to reveal the meaning of them. But according to my custom I did not pretend to them that I understood the writings in question, nor did I say that I knew them.

You no longer need any warning from me, my dear Herculian, for it would not be enough to convince you. Rather look up the letter which Lysis the Pythagorean addressed to Hipparchus, and when you have found it, oblige me by reading it frequently.[1] Perhaps you will then experience a complete change of mind in regard to you uncalled-for revelation. “To explain philosophy to the mob,” as Lysis says in his somewhat Dorian dialect, “is only to awaken amongst men a great contempt for things divine.” How often have I met, time and time again, people who, because they had rashly listened to some stately little phrases, refused to believe themselves the laymen that they really were!

Full of vanity, they sullied sacred dogmas by pretending to teach what they had never succeeded in learning. They attached to themselves three or four flatterers to flatter them, men in no way different in their souls from the vulgar, and none of them such as are instructed through early education. It is a dreadful thing and full of guile, this conceit of wisdom, shrinking at nothing in the case of the ignorant, and daring all things thoughtlessly; for what could be more reckless than ignorance?

When I encounter such men, impostors, and drones, who are neither versed in letters nor set themselves to the task, I feel detestation for the tribe, but I can find no other cause for the state of their culture than this, that they have been injudiciously and prematurely deemed worthy at the start, no doubt by others such as themselves, to listen to the supremely valuable doctrines. For my part I am and advise you also to be, a more careful guard over the mysteries of philosophy. That these things are fitted for Herculian, I know well, but if you have approached philosophy itself sincerely, you ought to avoid the society of those who are not faithful to it, and who by their pretence adulterate its great sanctity.

Now in the name of the God of friendship who watches over you, do not show my letter to certain people for, if you do so, these pictures of evil will anger those who recognize in themselves or amongst their friends the features recorded. To give pain is sometimes a manly act, and quite in the character of philosophy, but only when face to face with those concerned.

It seems petty even to write about these things, but whatever Synesius says to himself, he says equally to your honored soul, to you, his only friend, or at least, his best friend, for he has two others besides. Outside of this triad that you form, there is nothing human that I honor. In joining myself to you I forthwith complete a quaternary of sacred friendship, but as to the nature of the like-named quaternary which belongs to first principles, let it be mentioned with reverence.

In the four sets of iambics,[2] I found at the end of twelve lines written continuously as if they only formed a single epigram. As it is quite possible that you have copies of these verses, know them that they are not one and the same, nor are they by one author. The first eight lines, written with knowledge of verse in which poetry is mingled with astronomy, are by your friend. The four last are merely poetic daintiness, and an ancient fragment. Now, in my opinion, it is much greater sacrilege to steal the verses of the dead than to steal their garments, a thing called grave-robbing.

Take continual care of your health, seek after philosophy with religious care. I promise to wait for you, as long as the twentieth day of Mesori,[3] and then with God's help I shall take the road. Give all my regards to your excellent friend. I love him because he loves you greatly.

Note 1: According to a late tradition, Hipparchus -whose historicity is doubtful- had betrayed several secrets of Pythagoras.

Note 2: See Letter 141.

Note 3: 13 August 402.

To Herculian

Phoebammon, who is to give you this letter, is an honest man, one of my friends, and a victim of injustice. For every reason, therefore, you are justified in coming to his assistance, to wit, for our sake, for his character, and the circumstances of his case. So, then, let it be. He himself probably counts very much upon the friendship which unites us. For in the need that he has of you, it is to me that he has come for help, thinking himself assured of gaining support by my intervention. Thus, as I promised him, he can, thanks to Synesius, count upon Herculian, and, thanks to the sacred and honored person of Herculian, he can triumph over his adversaries.

You wrote to me by Ursicinus concerning the count, I mean the one who has been entrusted the command of the troops in our city. You asked that I should cause letters to be written to the count and to the ordinary prefect, by friends of yours who can manage this. It is true that I accepted your plan at the moment, but in point of fact I rather declined it, as superfluous, for I give myself wholeheartedly to philosophy.

Now friends of mine, soldiers and civilians alike, who suffer injustice, are forcing me to pretend to power in the city, a thing for which I know myself to be unqualified by nature. They know this as well as I do, but for their own sakes they are forcing me to take some action, however unwillingly. Now, therefore, if you resolve to act thus, I consent.

Salute your hallowed comrade the deacon for me. Let him train against his equestrian rival. My whole household salutes you, including Ision, who has recently joined us, the very man whom you wanted because of his story-telling powers. He has the cause of that sordid and unphilosophic request for a letter which I made to those in power, induced both by his personal persuasion in behalf of many, and also by letters which he carried with him. He will, then, wait for you up to the day which I indicated to you, that is to say, the twentieth.

To Herculian

One of my slaves has run away. He is not one of those whom I inherited, or one of those who have in any other way been brought up with me, for all such have received the education of freemen. I have treated them almost as my equals, and I may add that they love me as their chosen chief, rather than fear me as their lawful master.

Philoromus, that is the name of the runaway, was a slave belonging to my niece, the daughter of Amelius, and became mine through her. But as he had been brought up without care and discipline, he could not endure a philosophic and Lacedaemonian [1] regime. So he has found a master in place of me, an Alexandrian. At the present moment he is traveling over Egypt with him.

Now amongst the henchman of Heraclian there is a certain Haropcration, whose rank is that of assistant aide-de-camp - at least, so the word subadiuva is interpreted. It is in this man's company that Philoromus is. So far as I am concerned, I would most willingly have said farewell to him, for it is absurd that a rascal can do without honest people, and that confessedly honest people cannot do without a rascal. But the mistress of this scamp is not yet sufficiently philosopher to despise those people who do not stick to her, and she has urged me to dispatch people to bring him back.

Aithales, my messmate, has taken this task upon himself. I send him, confiding him to the guidance of God, and besides this I have promised him human help, namely yours. May this letter be handed over to you. Now that you understand the proposal, for the future it will concern only God, yourself, and Aithales.

Note 1: Synesius' family came from Sparta in Lacedaemonia. The word still meant something like “austere”.

To Herculian

The desire which I felt to fortify your hallowed soul made me write to you in blame of your excessive desire to converse with me. But long ago there was such a flood of enchantments in your letters that I, in turn, felt softened. And you see me today such a man as I at one time reproached you for being. Has the illustrious Herculian done me great benefit in thus making my soul depend on himself, and in compelling it to descend from the heights of philosophy?

I believe that the Sirens are censured by the poets purely because by the melody of their voice they lured to destruction one who had put his trust in them. I heard some man of learning too give an allegorical explanation of this tale. He said that the Sirens signified for the wise an allegory of the voluptuous pleasures, which destroy, little by little, those yielding to them and bewitched by their enticements.

Well now, how do the pleasures of your letters differ from the Sirens, they which make me dismiss from my mind all that is serious, and cause me to become the entire possession of Herculian? May God be my witness that I have not written these words, as the habit of writers is, for want of something else to say, or in search of a subject for my pen!

Among the three letters which Ursicinus gave me, the one which is midway between the others in length bore some vital affection of the soul which it has instilled into me, and I am so influenced by the flattery that I am ashamed.

You ought to have given your brother Cyrus a letter on the subject you have mentioned to me; because of the count of Pentapolis. I am much indebted to you for your desire to recommend me to him; but you have forgotten that I do not wish to be anything but a philosopher. I am, God be praised, in want of nothing. We do no harm to anyone; no one does harm to us; it is not fitting for us to solicit it. If there had been any question of seeking letters of introduction, the request ought to have been made to address them to me, for that would be doing me honor. I should not ask anybody to send any addressed to another on our behalf.

Take continual care of your health and happiness, be the loyal servant of philosophy. The whole household, God be my witness, salutes you, the young and old alike, and the women; but perhaps you detest women, even when they are well-disposed to you.

See what you have done to me. I was always on the road, but you hold me fast and do not let me go. The Egyptians were sorcerers, and Homer does not falsify everything, I see, since you yourself also send me from Egypt letters full of incantations. The drug which brings forgetfulness of grief was handed to Helen by Polydamna, the wife of Thon.[1] But who gave you the painful philter with which you have infected the letter you sent me?

Note 1: Homer, Odyssey, 4.227.

To Joannes

I think you are a happy man beyond all power of expression, inasmuch as you have left us, poor wretches. 'wandering in the darkened meadow of Ate',[1] tossed about as we are amidst earthly thoughts. While still alive you have raised yourself above these, and have entered into the happy life, unless your friend Ganus -in speaking of you and in conveying your messages to us- thinks it incumbent upon him to utter a bit of falsehood as well, for goodwill has a dreadful way of concealing the truth.

This very Ganus tells us then that you are living in a monastery, and that if you ever come into town, it is only to consult books, and so much of their contents as pertains to theology. He also says that you were wearing the coarse, dark mantle. The mantle would lose nothing from being white, for what is clear and luminous to the eyes, would be better suited to the pure character. But if you have given your approval to the dark one out of zeal for any who assumed it before you, I give mine to all that is undertaken from a divine motive. For the motive of an action justifies the doer of it, and it is in the intention that virtue resides.

I congratulate you, therefore, on having achieved offhand the end that we have long been hammering at with great difficulty. Pray with us, that we also may reach it. May we derive some benefit from the thought that we have devoted to philosophy, and may we not have passed our lives over books in vain!

Note 1: Empedocles, fragment 121.

To Olympius

I have neglected the duty to pay tribute, but what could I do? Not one of the Greeks settled in Libya is willing to dispatch merchantmen to your sea. At the same time I release you from your contribution, for Syrians never take the trouble to call at the ports of the Cyrenaica, and if one did by chance come, I should never know of it.

As a matter of fact, I do not live near the sea, and I rarely come to the harbor. I have moved up country to the southern extremity of the Cyrenaica, and my neighbors are such men as Odysseus was in quest of, when he steered from Ithaca, to appease the wrath of Poseidon, in obedience of the oracle:

Men, who know not of the sea, nor eat food mixed with salt.

But do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that people here do not take to the sea, even for the purpose of getting their salt, nor yet suppose that thus they eat their meat and cakes unsalted. We have, I swear by holy Hestia, at a distance to the south less than that which separates us from the sea to the north, a native salt which comes from the earth and which we call Ammon's salt. It collects under a scab, as it were, of crumbling stone, and when this scab, which conceals it, has been removed, it is easy enough to scoop out the depths with one's hand or with a shovel, and the lumps that you may take up in this manner are salt, pleasant both to look at and to taste.

Do not think it sophistical vanity on my part, this account of the salts found in this country. Rustic people such as we are the last to harbor vain glory.

But you express a wish to learn from me about everything in my part of the world; therefore be prepared for a loquacious letter, that you may pay the penalty for your untimely curiosity. At the same time, what is foreign to anyone is difficult of credence. A Syrian will not easily acknowledge the existence of salt from the earth, very much as people here are hard to convince when I answer questions about ships, sails, and the sea.

You may remember that once when I was studying philosophy with you, I looked out upon this very thing, the sea, and the great deep lake which stretches from Pharos to Canopus. One ship was being towed in; another was moving with all sails set; another was propelled by oars. You laughed at me when I compared this last one to a centipede. Now the people here are in the same state of mind as we ourselves, whenever we listen to tales in the world beyond Thule,[1] whatever Thule may be, which gives to those who have crossed it freedom to lie about it without criticism or censure. Even if they admit what is told them about vessels, or only seem to laugh at it, at all events they stoutly refuse to believe that the sea too is able to nourish mankind. According to their idea, this privilege belongs to mother earth alone.

On one occasion, when they refused to believe in the existence of fish, I took a certain jar, and dashing it against a stone, showed them plenty of salted fish from Egypt, on which they said they were the bodies of evil snakes, sprang up and took to flight, for they suspected that the spines were as dangerous as the poison of serpent's fang. Then the oldest and most intelligent of them all said that he found it difficult to believe that salt water could produce anything good and fit to eat, since spring water, excellent though it be to drink, produces nothing except frogs and leeches, which not even a madman would taste. And yet their ignorance is natural.[2]

“For the onrushing wave” of the sea “awakens them not in the night” - only the neighings of horses, the bleating of a herd of goats, the cry of sheep, or the bellowing of a bull; then at the first ray of sunshine the humming of bees, yielding the palm to no other music in the pleasure it gives. Does it not seem to you that I am setting forth in detail the topic of Anchemachus, when I speak of the country where we live, far away from the town, far from the roads, far from commerce and its wily morality? For us there is time for philosophy, but no time to do evil.

All our meetings are full of comradeship for all, for we depend on each other for farming, for our shepherds and flocks, and for every sort of hunting which the land affords. No one of us, either man or horse, may take his food without the sweat of his brow. We lunch off barley-groats, most sweet to gobble up, most sweet to gulp down, like that which Hecamede prepares for Nestor.[3] After heavy fatigue this drink is a safeguard against the summer heat.

Then again we have wheaten cakes, and fruits, either wild or cultivated, all grown in our country - with the flavor of the best soil; also honey from our bees and milk from our goats, for it is not the custom here to milk cows. Moreover, hunting with the assistance of dogs and horses brings no less abundance to our tables.

I do not know why Homer has not described hunting as a glory to man and as ennobling those that pursue it. He has so eulogized the forum, that makes us poor men shameless and utterly vile, a place in which there is no health, but only railing and skill in contriving evil. When they of the forum are under our roofs, we laugh at them, for they shiver at the sight of wild beasts' flesh fresh from the fire.

What do I say? Wild beasts' flesh? Why, they would rather take poison than any such dishes of ours! They seek the lightest wine, the thickest honey, the thinnest olive oil, and the heaviest wheat. They are always singing the praises of places where these products may be obtained, such as Cyprus, a certain Hymettus, Phoenice, and Barathra. Our country, even if it is inferior to each country that holds the first place in some one particular, surpasses the rest in the rest; and this to hold the first place by virtue of the second places, just as by gaining this distinction, Peleus and Themistocles were proclaimed to the Greeks the best of all in all things.[4]

We will admit, if you like, that our honey is not as good as the honey of Hymettus; nevertheless, it is so good that, when you have it, it falls not short of the foreign flavor. As to the olive-oil of this country, it is certainly the best, if one does not listen to people whose taste is depraved, for these persist in judging oil by weight, and the less heavy they hold to be more valuable. With us scales are not forged for oil, but we assert that if this must be done, it would be natural to give preference to the heavier. Moreover, their oil, however famous and costly, when once put into a lamp, is so feeble that it scarcely gives any light at all. But our oil is so good that it gives out a complete flame, and when a lamp is needed, it produces artificial daylight. It is useful for enriching cakes, or to make the sinews of athletes supple.

Again, the art of music is especially native to our country. Our Anchemachetae play upon a little shepherd's lyre, a simple thing made by themselves, sweet-toned and fairly masculine in its note, not unworthy for the bringing-up of children in Plato's city. For it is not supple, nor does it have the virtue of adaptation to every note. However, our singers accommodate themselves to the simplicity of its strings, for they do not attempt sentimental subjects. One fair subject of song amongst us is praise of a the vigorous ram,[5] and the dog with the lost tail comes in for a eulogy, because I suppose he deserves it for not fearing the hyenas, and strangling the wolves. Then the hunter is not least a subject of song, who brings peace to our pastures and feasts us with every sort of meat. Nor is the twin-bearing ewe deemed unworthy of our lyre, she who rears lambs more numerous than the years. We also often sing with vigor the praises of the fig-tree and the vine, but above all we sing to supplicate Heaven, asking blessings for men, and crops, and cattle.

Such are our celebrations, seasonable and of old tradition, the good things of the poor; but as to the emperor, as to the favorites of the emperor, and fortune's dance, which we hear about when we come together, all those mere names which, like flames, are shot up to great height of glory, only to be extinguished - no one, or hardly anyone, speaks of them here. Our ears have rest from such stories.

No doubt men know well that there is always an emperor living, for we are reminded of this every year by those who collect taxes; but who he is, is not very clear. There are people amongst us who suppose that Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, is still king, the great king who went against Troy. From childhood we have heard the king spoken of by this name and no other. He has for a friend, our good herdsman say, a certain Odysseus, a bald man, quite wonderful in dealing with events, and finding a way out of difficulties, and indeed they tell with laughter the story of the Cyclops, imagining that Odysseus blinded him only a year ago; and how the old man was conveyed under the belly of a ram, how this outcast mounted guard at the entrance, and imagined that the leader of the flock was bringing up the rear, not from the weight he was carrying, but through sympathy for his master's fortune.

Through this letter you have at all events been with us in spirit for a while. You have watched our fields and seen the simplicity of our life, and no doubt you will say to yourself, it was thus that they lived in the time of Noah, before justice was enslaved.

Note 1: Thule was the proverbial country on the edge of the earth. It is mentioned for the first time by Pytheas of Marseille in c.325 BCE.

Note 2: This is probably exaggerated. Even in the wells in the desert, small fish can be found.

Note 3: Homer, Iliad, 11.624.

Note 4: According to Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Histories, 8.123), all Greeks who had fought in the naval battle of Salamis (September 480 BCE) voted themselves to have been the most courageous, but Themistocles obtained most second votes, and in the end was recognized as the greatest of them all. That Cyrene was never the very best, but came in second often, appears to have been proverbial: the great scientist Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c.275-192) was also nicknamed Bêta, “number two”.

Note 5: This may be a reference to the cult of Ammon.

To Olympius

Although absent, you live always present in our memory, for not even if we greatly desired it, could we forget the sweetness of your disposition and your most sincere character, brother admirable in all things. Nothing can be more precious to me than my recollection of you, nothing except the prospect of embracing your revered head again. May God grant this happiness, and may we see you and hear the sweet sound of your voice!

You delighted us also by what you sent: we received them all. But you have saddened us more by the thought of the living comrade of whom we are deprived, although not by death. May the moment of good fortune come some day, and may God bring me this good fortune.

To Pylaemenes

I think that even in your Heraclea nobody is ignorant of the name of our fellow-countryman, the philosopher Alexander, a man who acquitted himself with credit everywhere.

A dumb man is he who does not lend his tongue to Heracles.[1]

My own cousin, his son, will give you this letter. He wishes to follow in the footsteps of his father, in order to be like him, not in dress but in character. He is therefore going to war against evil men, to purify the city of them like another Heracles. He needed of course the protection of God and the arm of Heracles, but he needed also the co-operation and assistance of an Ioleos.

As to the favor of God, my cousin will neglect nothing to obtain it, and this he will gain by the virtue of his life and the piety of his heart, but I am endeavoring by this letter to find another Ioleos for him in you and your friendship. You will be for him all that you have been for me. When you have admitted this young man to your friendship, you will admit that I was not wrong in praising him.

Note 1: Pindar, Pythian Hymn 9, 87.

To Pylaemenes

To me, do you stand firm in philosophy, that Pylaemenes whom I left behind, the soul newly initiated, the offspring divine? I fear the time which has passed since that birth; I fear still more the intercourse of the market-place, the absorption in many situations and affairs; and that these may soil that most holy temple, your divine intellect, one of the few I deem entirely worthy to receive God.

I know that one of my dearest wishes was to be able to celebrate with you the mysteries of philosophy, but since patriotism is stronger in your heart, I pray that wherever in the world you may be, you will cultivate philosophy as much as possible. So I embrace your dear head. I embrace it again and again, whether I am silent or speaking, whether I write or do not write.

Note 1: Pindar, Pythian Hymn 9, 87.

To Pylaemenes

Believe me that I embrace Pylaemenes, very soul and very soul. Words fail me wherewith I may pour out the fullness of my heart's desire, or rather I cannot explain, even to myself, the nature of the sentiments that I feel for you.

But there was one man at least who was extraordinary in all knowledge of Love. That was Plato the Athenian, the son of Ariston, so happy in discovering, and pleasant in describing the nature of the lover and also his desires in regard to the beloved. It is he, therefore, who shall discover and describe me. The man who loves, he said, would fain be melted by the art of Hephaestus, and so completely united with the beloved object, that two would become one.[1]

Note 1: Plato, Symposium, 192D.

To Pylaemenes

A letter comes to us from you every year, as though the seasons themselves brought it with them, and this fruit is perchance sweeter to me than that which the circling months and the husbandmen bring to maturity. You would do me an injustice if you deprived me of the joy I find in this. Change your mind, then, and send me, this year at least, an abundance of letters.

To the Philosopher Hypatia

I have brought out two books this year. One of them as I was moved thereto by God Himself, the other because of the slander of men.

Some of those who wear the white or dark mantle [1] have maintained that I am faithless to philosophy, apparently because I profess grace and harmony of style, and because I venture to say something concerning Homer and concerning the figures of the rhetoricians. In the eyes of such persons one must hate literature in order to be a philosopher, and must occupy himself with divine matters only. No doubt these men alone have become spectators of the knowable. This privilege is unlawful for me, for I spend some of my leisure in purifying my tongue and sweetening my wit.

The thing which urged them to condemn me, on the charge that I am fit only for trifling, is the fact that my Cynegetics [2] disappeared from my house, how I know not, and has been received with great enthusiasm by certain young men who make a cult of atticisms and graceful periods. Moreover, some poetical attempts of mine seemed to them the work of an artist who reproduces the antique, as we are wont to say in speaking of statues.

There are certain men among my critics whose effrontery is only surpassed by their ignorance, and these are the readiest of all to spin out discussions concerning God. Whenever you meet them, you have to listen to their babble about inconclusive syllogisms. They pour a torrent of phrases over those who stand in no need of them, in which I suppose they find their own profit. The public teachers that one sees in our cities, come from this class. It is a very Horn of Amalthea [3] which they think themselves entitled to use. You will, I think, recognize this easy-going tribe, which miscalls nobility of purpose. They wish me to become their pupil; they say that in a short time they will make me all-daring in questions of divinity, and that I shall be able to declaim day and night without stopping.

The rest, who have more taste, are sophists, much more unfortunate than these. They would like to be famous in the same way, but unfortunately for them they are incapable even of this. You know some who, despoiled by the office of the tax-collector, or urged thereto by some one calamity, have become philosophers in the middle of their lives. Their philosophy consists in a very simple formula, that of calling God to witness, as Plato did, whenever they deny anything or whenever they assert anything. A shadow would surpass these men in uttering anything to the point; but their pretensions are extraordinary. Oh, what proudly arched brows! They support their beards with the hand. They assume a more solemn countenance than the statues of Xenocrates. They are even resolved to shackle us with a law which is altogether to their advantage; to wit, that no one shall be in open possession of any knowledge of the good. They esteem it an exposure of themselves if any one, deemed a philosopher, knows ho to speak, for as they think to hide behind a veil of simulation and to appear to be quite full of wisdom within.

These are the two types of men who have falsely accused me with occupying myself in trivial pursuits, one of them because I do not talk the same sort of nonsense as they do, the other because I do not keep my mouth shut, and do not keep the 'bull on my tongue', as they do. Against these was my treatise composed, and it deals with the loquacity of the one school and the silence of the other. Although it is the latter in particular that it is addressed, namely to the speechless and envious men in question (do you not think with some comeliness of from?), none the less it has found means of dragging in those other men also, and it aims at being not less an exhibition than an encomium of great learning. Nor did I abjure their charges, but for their still great discomfiture I have often courted them.

Next, passing as to the choice of a life, the work of praises that of philosophy as being the most philosophic of choices; and what sort of choice it must be regarded, learn from the book itself. Finally, it defends my library, also, which the same men accused, on the ground that it conceals unrevised copies. These spiteful fellows have not kept their hands even off things like these. If each thing is in its proper place; and all things have been handled in season; if the motives behind each part of the undertaking are just; if it has been divided into a number of chapters in the manner of the divine work the Phaedrus, in which Plato discusses the various types of the beautiful; if all the arguments have been devised to converge on the one end proposed; if, moreover, conviction has anywhere quietly come to the support of the flatness of the narrative, and if out of conviction demonstration has resulted, as happens in such cases, and if one thing follows another logically, these results must be gifts of nature and art.

He who is not undisciplined to discover even a certain divine countenance hidden under a coarser model, like that Aphrodite, those Graces, and such charming divinities as the Athenian artists concealed within the sculpted figures of a Silenus or a Satyr, that man, at all events, will apprehend all that my book has unveiled of the mystic dogmas. But the meanings of those will easily escape others because of their semblance to redundancy, and their appearance as being thrown into the narrative too much by chance, and as it might seem roughly. Epileptics are the only people who feel the cold influences of the moon. On the other hand only those receive the flashes of the emanations of the intellect, for whom in the full health of the mind's eye God kindles a light akin to his own, that light which is the cause of knowledge to the intellectual, and to knowable things the cause of their being known. In the same way, ordinary light connects sight with color. But remove this light, and its power to discern is ineffective.

Concerning all of this I shall await your decision. If you decree that I ought to publish my book, I will dedicate it to orators and philosophers together. The first it will please, and to the others it will be useful, provided of course that it is not rejected by you, who are really able to pass judgment. If it does not seem to you worthy of Greek ears, if, like Aristotle, you prize truth more than friendship, a close and profound darkness will overshadow it, and mankind will never hear it mentioned.

So much for this matter.

The other work [On dreams] God ordained and He gave His sanction to it, and it has been set up as a thank-offering to the imaginative faculties. It contains an inquiry into the whole imaginative soul, and into some other points which have not yet been handled by any Greek philosopher. But why should one dilate on this? This work was completed, the whole of it, in a single night, or rather, at the end of a night, one which also brought the vision enjoining me to write it. There are two or three passages in the book in which it seemed to me that I was some other person, and that I was one listening to myself amongst others who were present.

Even now this work, as often as I go over it, produces a marvelous effect upon me, and a certain divine voice envelops me as in poetry. Whether this my experience is not unique, or may happen to another, on all this you will enlighten me, for after myself you will be the first of the Greeks to have access to the work.

The books that I sending to you have not yet been published, and in order that the number may be complete, I am sending you also my essay concerning the Gift. This was produced long ago in my ambassadorial period. It was addressed to a man who had been great influence with the emperor and Pentapolis profited somewhat from the essay, and also from the gift.

Note 1: People in white mantles: pagan philosophers. Those in black mantles: Christian monks and philosophers.

Note 2: A book on dog-breeding.

Note 3: The 'horn of plenty' from Greek myth.

To Domitian, the Jurist

I know quite clearly, from the facts themselves, that your greatest pleasure is to do good, and that you are always ready to hold out a helping hand to the needy. I appeal to you with this very purpose, thinking to turn, as they say, the horse to the plain.

My dear friend, you should now show more kindness than ever, inasmuch as the future beneficiary is in this case the more pitiable, for it is a woman that is in question, who has the misfortune to be a widow, and her sufferings have been shared with an orphan child. Who it is that has wronged her, in what way, and how, she herself will instruct your goodness.

I beg you, therefore, my friend, to come to her aid, because that would be a good deed, and one worthy of you, and I ask for my sake as well, for I too will share with you in whatever befalls her. She is a kinswoman of mine, and brought up virtuously under an honorable mother in our midst.

To Domitian, the Jurist

Whatsoever things are righteous to stand in need of allies, and those who come to their rescue may be accounted fortunate, inasmuch as they are co-operating with the upright. It is you whom I have chosen as the bulwark of these principles, as you will defend them with knowledge and skill.

It is my desire to do good to all whom I can benefit. Do you yourself give me the opportunity! You will gain knowledge of a friendship that you will not yourself regret, and which no one is likely to ridicule.

To Chryso-…

To all others spring is delightful, because it beautifies the face of the earth with flowers and makes the whole country a meadow. To me its great charm is that it allows me by writing to be with my own dear flowers.[1] Would that I could behold you face to face! As this joy, however, is denied me, I very eagerly do what I may, and consort with you by letter. Sailors and seamen do not feel as great pleasure in cutting through the expanse of the sea when this time of year has come, as I feel in taking up my pen, paper, and ink to write to your charming self.

In winter time, when everything was in the grip of frost and when the roads were blocked by unspeakable snow, no one dared to come to visit us from the outer world, and no one dared to go away from here. Shut up here in our houses, then, as in a prison, we were to our regret condemned to keep this long silence, the lack of letter-carriers acting as a sort of muzzle; but today, now that the mild season has opened the public roads and has loosened our tongue-strings, we hasten to send away to your excellency the presbyter who is living with us, that he may obtain some news of your health.

Give him, most admirable chief, the sort of reception that he deserves. Turn a sympathetic eye upon him, and when he comes back, let us know, I beg of you, the state of your health, for you know how anxious we are to hear about it.

Note 1: Navigation was impossible during the winter, so sending letters was only possible after the beginning of spring.

To Chryso-…

The son of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles, after receiving from Aeolus the treasure-stores of winds, was approaching rocky Ithaca, and was already listening to the songs of birds, but through the contrivances of his comrades he was driven far away from his native place.

We, alas, hearing the song of birds and the barking of dogs, and being so near our friends themselves that we almost hear their talk, return home, deprived of those longed for, who long for us, and we acquiesce in a fortune that so tramples on us insatiably.

We are slaves to time, and we yield to circumstances whereby the intellect is overcome, and the soul made to suffer exceedingly under the pressure of necessity. And you yourself, sweetest of friends, who know well our love, since you love us, continue then to pray for us. Farewell.

To an unknown correspondent [1]

Your wise letter has come to us, so tasteful and withal so brief, yet so eloquent, the offspring of your marvelous brain. I am greatly delighted with it, for it pleases me doubly, first, as coming from the best of friends, and from one entirely worthy of praise, and second, on account of the rare grace with which it has been composed.

Nay, it has incited me to something else more formidable and audacious. Did not our old affection, with its power to unite things far separated, and often to bring into accord forces antagonistic to each other - did not this old affection, I say, make a plea for forgiveness in this matter, perchance we should thus be very little removed from the position of those who have good cause to be angry. To what, perhaps you ask, has it incited me? Why, to make response, as you see, with my own tongue to such a great man, assuredly initiated by the muses, if any man ever was; to one of whom Demosthenes would have said,[2] had he seen him amongst us, that he had come among men as a copy of Hermes the eloquent. This tongue of mine never in old days had the least share in the best, and now it is so rough that it can scarce call a spade a spade. For I tell you in all confidence that the suffering which I endure in silence now rather threatens to gain the mastery over me, so fate has willed it.

This indeed makes us pity rather than congratulate ourselves, inasmuch as it is not even accorded us to meet here anyone of the highest destiny, such as yourself, by contact with whom something of our barbarous side might perhaps be filed away, and thus our real qualities gradually emerge from their stale odor of the goat-pen.

Now is the moment to pity myself more than ever before, for your request was inopportune: the oil which you ask me for, and which I wish to give you, or, to speak truly, which I was keeping to give to such a man as you, this oil has remained in the country. As the nature of the case would have it, it was bestowed for use.

Moreover there is not an olive tree without eyes on it - if you will put up with just a little use of the ordinary phraseology - on which my dear friend might be grafted, for each one has been filled already, and is beginning to bring forth fruit with all its might. This is how the matter stands. The rest will be made clear by him who is now with you and perhaps he will state plainly to you how that which you asked for missed the right moment.

Be well and happy in devoting yourself to the whole of philosophy.

Note 1: Perhaps Olympius, who was almost invited to ask Synesius' olive oil in Letter 148.

Note 2: In fact an expression by Aristides, who describes Demosthenes: Or. 3.663 (Behr).