Letter CCCXLVII.
Libanius to Basil.
Every bishop is a thing out of which it is very hard to get anything. [3279] The further you have advanced beyond other people in learning, the more you make me afraid that you will refuse what I ask. I want some rafters. [3280] Any other sophist would have called them stakes, or poles, not because he wanted stakes or poles, but rather for shewing off his wordlets than out of any real need. If you do not supply them, I shall have to winter in the open air.
[3279] pragma dusgripiston. gripizo=I catch fish, from griphos, a creel.
[3280] stroter.
Letter CCCXLVIII.
Basil to Libanius.
If gripizein is the same thing as to gain, and this is the meaning of the phrase which your sophistic ingenuity has got from the depths of Plato, consider, my dear sir, who is the more hard to be got from, I who am thus impaled [3281] by your epistolary skill, or the tribe of Sophists, whose craft is to make money out of their words. What bishop ever imposed tribute by his words? What bishop ever made his disciples pay taxes? It is you who make your words marketable, as confectioners make honey-cakes. See how you have made the old man leap and bound! However, to you who make such a fuss about your declamations, I have ordered as many rafters to be supplied as there were fighters at Thermopylæ, [3282] all of goodly length, and, as Homer has it, "long-shadowing," [3283] which the sacred Alphæus has promised to restore. [3284]
[3281] With a play on charax, the word used for stakes.
[3282] i.e. three hundred.
[3283] Hom. iii. 346.
[3284] Non illepide auctor epistolæ fluvium obstringit restituendi promisso, ut gratuito a se dari ostendat." Ben. note.
Letter CCCXLIX.
Libanius to Basil.
Will you not give over, Basil, packing this sacred haunt of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these redolent of the frost [3285] and snow and all Cappadocia's good things? They have almost made me a Cappadocian too, always chanting their "I salute you."
I must endure, since it is Basil who commands. Know, however, that I am making a careful study of the manners and customs of the country, and that I mean to metamorphose the men into the nobility and the harmony of my Calliope, that they may seem to you to be turned from pigeons into doves.
[3285] grite, an unknown word. Perhaps akin to kriote. cf. Duncange s.v.
Letter CCCL.
Basil to Libanius.
Your annoyance is over. Let this be the beginning of my letter. Go on mocking and abusing me and mine, whether laughing or in earnest. Why say anything about frost [3286] or snow, when you might be luxuriating in mockery? For my part, Libanius, that I may rouse you to a hearty laugh, I have written my letter enveloped in a snow-white veil. When you take the letter in your hand, you will feel how cold it is, and how it symbolizes the condition of the sender--kept at home and not able to put head out of doors. For my house is a grave till spring comes and brings us back from death to life, and once more gives to us, as to plants, the boon of existence.
[3286] grite, an unknown word. Perhaps akin to kriote. cf. Duncange s.v.
Letter CCCLI.
Basil to Libanius.
Many, who have come to me from where you are, have admired your oratorical power. They were remarking that there has been a very brilliant specimen of this, and a very great contest, as they alleged, with the result that all crowded together, and no one appeared in the whole city but Libanius alone in the lists, and everybody, young and old, listening. For no one was willing to be absent--not a man of rank--not a distinguished soldier--not an artisan. Even women hurried to be present at the struggle. And what was it? What was the speech which brought together this vast assembly? I have been told that it contained a description of a man of peevish temper. Pray lose no time in sending me this much admired speech, in order that I too may join in praising your eloquence. If I am a praiser of Libanius without his works, what am I likely to become after receiving the grounds on which to praise him?