you passed through the deserts as cities, unless by coming through the conceptual Gate itself you were shown to be an unerring traveler? O you who now show the purple to be true—for it is made purple for an eternal dye, piously blood-stained by your sweat; but it remains white, though it is purple, and gleaming with new and careful workmanship, the more it is worn, the more brilliantly it shines. Hail, general of a worldly birthday; for every land and city knows your contest to be the practical birthday of life; you completed the five-fold race to the end, sweating, driving, rousing in turn, running with, until you brought down <the> transgressor Chosroes. The charioteers before you were astonished at such a great extension of the race, seeing your wheels advancing, and the whole populace of the earth from its four corners sang hymns in the theater of life; all adorn the City at your appearance, and having gathered living flowers, they crown you with prayers as with roses; for the judge and master of the contests opens for you the worldly doors, through which, having gone forth victorious for all the race, you have the undefiled image from on high. Thus, poured out insatiably toward words, on your account I love this noble insatiability. What shall I say first, what shall I write in the middle, what final beginnings of yours shall I grasp? For an intertwining and battle of your contests is now composed, mixed together; and it becomes for me a mixture and a conflict, just as when rain-swollen rivers flow, the sea's current stands still, having been mixed. For so the mixed rivers of your sweats, gushing forth from a single channel, push and throb as if by force, urged on to outrun one another and to be placed in the abysses of words. And if any one of them should emerge before another with weightier speed, immediately the mind, changing its course, is gladly divided, as if for the rest constrained by necessity to restrain for itself the rush of its exit, until your mind and fount-like mouth might loose the many blockages of words; nevertheless, stretching out my mind with reckless daring, I swim upon the very matters.

2 Rome, make a balanced judgment; you who are well-supplied with many generals, say with which one it seems right to you to compare the master; “Let him be ranked alone,” she says, “having no equal.” Now then, the fire of tyranny, Phocas, had been extinguished, the storm, the drunkenness, the prime cause of our misfortunes, the vengeance of phantoms in dreams, the one who considered our bloody outpourings to be for his thrice-wretched power, the sea-monster of the earth, the face of a Gorgon. You did not seize him, as in the wandering tale of Perseus, but by setting against the defiler of virgins the dreadful form of the undefiled Virgin; for you had her helping icon when you approached the devouring of the beast; you brought him down, not having saved one maiden who was hung up, but whole cities. Not such, even if one says it was, was the sea-monster slain before by Heracles, as was the tyrant sea-monster that Heracles the master brought down, not destroying one city, but reaping the whole state. But a reward has been prepared for you, not a reward of horses superior to corruption; for this is a myth and a colored noise, unless someone, like you, with gnostic tones, should allegorize the seed of males to be incorruptible through the transmission of the race, as one after another they enkindle nature. Not this for you, nor may you receive such a reward on our account, but may you obtain the chariot of life running into the roads of incorruptibility. But since for the rest the boldness of the people also, nurtured along with the tyrant's drunkenness, had as an indwelling disorder of its members, and the City was in travail with almost all its citizens confused, in the manner of a Centaur—for cut apart and badly mixed, they were occupied with their own confusions—coming as a physician, truly a Galen, and feeling the disorderly arteries, you yourself did not overlook the throbbing disease, and you in no way used a cutting division, nor on the other hand astringent tonics, but with a softening and speaking medicine you persuaded them, out of good order alone, not to suffer this beastly passion, but rather to have their rational nature on top, and to throw down below and well

παρῆλθες τὰς ἐρήμους ὡς πόλεις εἰ μὴ δι' αὐτῆς τῆς νοουμένης Πύλης ἐλθὼν ἐδείχθης ἀπλανὴς ὁδοιπόρος; ὦ νῦν ἀληθῆ δεικνύων τὴν πορφύρανπορφύρεται γὰρ εἰς βαφὴν αἰωνίαν ἱδρῶσι τοῖς σοῖς εὐσεβῶς ᾑμαγμένη· μένει δὲ λευκή, καίπερ οὖσα πορφύρα, καὶ τῇ νέᾳ στίλβουσα καλλιεργίᾳ, ὅσον φορεῖται, μειζόνως λαμπρύνεται χαῖρε, στρατηγὲ κοσμικοῦ γενεθλίου· τὸν σὸν γὰρ ἆθλον πᾶσα χώρα καὶ πόλις ἔμπρακτον οἶδε τοῦ βίου γενέθλιον· τὸν πενταπλοῦν εἰς ἄκρον ἤνυσας δρόμον ἱδρῶν, ἐλαύνων, ἀντεγείρων, συντρέχων ἕως καθεῖλες <τὸν> παραβάτην Χοσρόην. κατεπλάγησαν οἱ πρὸ σοῦ διφροστάται ἐν τῇ τοσαύτῃ τοῦ δρόμου παρεκτάσει ὁρῶντες ὑμῶν τοὺς τροχοὺς βεβηκότας, καὶ πᾶς ὁ τῆς γῆς δῆμος ἐκ τῶν τεττάρων ὕμνησε πλευρῶν ἐν θεάτρῳ τοῦ βίου· κοσμοῦσι πάντες σοῦ φανέντος τὴν Πόλιν, ἄνθη δὲ συλλέξαντες ἐψυχωμένα στέφουσιν ὑμᾶς ταῖς προσευχαῖς ὡς ῥόδοις· τὰς κοσμικὰς γὰρ ἐξανοίγει σοι θύρας ὁ τῶν ἀγώνων καὶ βραβεὺς καὶ δεσπότης, δι' ὧν προελθὼν παγγενὴς νικηφόρος ἔχεις ἄχραντον τὴν ἀφ' ὕψους εἰκόνα. οὕτως ἀπλήστως ἐκχυθεὶς πρὸς τοὺς λόγους στέργω δι' ὑμᾶς τὴν καλὴν ἀπληστίαν. τί πρῶτον εἰπών, ποῖα συγγράφων μέσα, τῶν ἐσχάτων σου δράξομαι προοιμίων; ἀντεμπλοκὴ γὰρ συγκροτεῖται καὶ μάχη τῶν σῶν ἀγώνων νῦν ὁμοῦ μεμιγμένων· καὶ μῖξις ὥσπερ γίνεταί μοι καὶ στάσις, ὥσπερ ῥεόντων τῶν ποταμῶν τῶν ὀμβρίων ὁ πόντιος ῥοῦς ἵσταται μεμιγμένος. οὕτω γὰρ ἐκβλύσαντες ἐξ ἑνὸς πόρου τῶν σῶν ἱδρώτων οἱ ποταμοὶ μεμιγμένοι ὠθοῦσι καὶ σφύζουσιν ὥσπερ ἐκ βίας ἄλλος τὸν ἄλλον ἐκδραμεῖν ἠπειγμένοι καὶ ταῖς ἀβύσσοις ἐντεθῆναι τῶν λόγων. καί πού τις αὐτῶν εἴπερ ἐμβριθεστέρῳ τάχει προκύψει πρὸς τὸν ἄλλον, εὐθέως ὁ νοῦς μεταστὰς ἡδέως μερίζεται ὡς ἐξ ἀνάγκης λοιπὸν ἐστενωμένος εἴργειν ἑαυτῷ τὴν φορὰν τῆς ἐξόδου, ἕως ὁ σὸς νοῦς καὶ τὸ πηγαῖον στόμα λύσῃ τὰ πολλὰ τῶν λόγων ἐμφράγματα· ὅμως ἁπλώσας ῥιψοκινδύνῳ θράσει τὸν νοῦν ἐπ' αὐτῶν νήχομαι τῶν πραγμάτων.

2 Ῥώμη, δίκαζε τὴν ἰσόρροπον κρίσιν· πολλῶν στρατηγῶν εὐπορήσασα φράσον ποίῳ δοκεῖ σοι συμβαλεῖν τὸν δεσπότην· μόνος τετάχθω, φησίν, οὐκ ἔχων ἴσον. ἤδη μὲν οὖν ἔσβεστο τῆς τυραννίδος τὸ πῦρ ὁ Φωκᾶς, ἡ καταιγίς, ἡ μέθη, ὁ τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς συμφορῶν πρωτεργάτης, ἡ τῶν ἐν ὕπνοις φασμάτων τιμωρία, ὁ τὰς καθ' ἡμᾶς αἱματώδεις ἐκχύσεις ἔχειν νομίζων εἰς τρισάθλιον κράτος, τῆς γῆς τὸ κῆτος, τὸ πρόσωπον Γοργόνος. οὐχ εἷλες αὐτόν, ὡς ὁ Περσέως πλάνος, ἀλλ' ἀντιτάξας τῷ φθορεῖ τῶν παρθένων τὸ φρικτὸν εἶδος τῆς ἀχράντου Παρθένου· αὐτῆς γὰρ εἶχες τὴν βοηθὸν εἰκόνα ὅτε προσῆλθες τῇ βορᾷ τοῦ θηρίου· καθεῖλες αὐτόν, οὐ κρεμασθεῖσαν κόρην μίαν σεσωκώς, ἀλλὰ τὰς πόλεις ὅλας. τοιοῦτον οὐκ ἦν, κἂν γενέσθαι τις λέγῃ, τὸ πρὶν φονευθὲν κῆτος ἐξ Ἡρακλέους, οἷον καθεῖλεν Ἡρακλῆς ὁ δεσπότης κῆτος τύραννον, οὐ μίαν φθεῖρον πόλιν, ἀλλ' ἐκθέριζον τὴν πολιτείαν ὅλην. πλὴν μισθὸς ὑμῖν ἐστιν εὐτρεπισμένος, οὐ μισθὸς ἵππων τῆς φθορᾶς ἀνωτέρων· μῦθος γὰρ οὗτος καὶ κεχρωσμένος ψόφος, εἰ μή τις, ὡς σύ, γνωστικοὺς ἔχων τόνους ἀλληγορήσει τὴν σπορὰν τῶν ἀρσένων ἄφθαρτον εἶναι τῇ μεταδόσει τοῦ γένους ἄλλου μετ' ἄλλον ζωπυρούντων τὴν φύσιν. οὐχ οὗτος ὑμῖν, μηδὲ τοιοῦτον λάβοις μισθὸν δι' ἡμᾶς, ἀλλ' ὀχήματος τύχοις ζωῆς τρεχούσης εἰς ὁδοὺς ἀφθαρσίας. ἐπεὶ δὲ λοιπὸν καὶ τὰ τοῦ δήμου θράση συνεκτραφέντα τοῦ τυράννου τῇ μέθῃ ἔνοικον εἶχε τῶν μελῶν ἀταξίαν, σχεδὸν δὲ πάντας τοὺς πολίτας ἡ Πόλις πεφυρμένους ὤδινε Κενταύρου δίκην τετμημένοι γὰρ καὶ κακῶς μεμιγμένοι πρὸς τὰς ἑαυτῶν ἠσχολοῦντο συγχύσεις, ἰατρὸς ἐλθὼν κυρίως Γαλήνιος καὶ τὰς ἀτάκτους ψηλαφῶν ἀρτηρίας σφύζουσαν αὐτὸς οὐ παρεῖδες τὴν νόσον, καὶ τμητικῇ μὲν οὐδαμῶς διαιρέσει οὐδ' αὖ γε τοῖς στύφουσιν ἐχρήσω τόνοις, μαλακτικῷ δὲ καὶ λαλοῦντι φαρμάκῳ ἔπεισας αὐτοὺς ἐκ μόνης εὐταξίας τὸ θηριῶδες τοῦτο μὴ νοσεῖν πάθος, ἄνω δὲ μᾶλλον τὴν λογικὴν ἔχειν φύσιν, κάτω δὲ ῥῖψαι καὶ καλῶς