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strangers, friends. For who does not gather wood from a fallen oak? But I, as far as it concerned my own account, would never have feared the assaults of fortune; for I am a winged creature, easily soaring aloft. But nevertheless it is necessary to endure all things together with my good father, both good things and their opposites, being a partner in affairs, not in possessions. And just as those whose footing is not firm at first, slipping once, fall into the depths of a cliff, no longer masters of themselves, so for me, having tasted evils, one terror was stirred up after another. There came to us once—I will be silent on what is in between, lest I seem to utter a blasphemous word against a man whom I have now ceased to praise— but there came to us the dearest of friends, Basil—alas for my words! but I will speak nevertheless—, another father to me, much more burdensome; for the one it was necessary to endure even as a tyrant, but the other there is no need to, for the sake of a companionship that brings harm, not deliverance from evils. I know not whether I should blame more my own failings, which have indeed often stung me, as the misfortune that befell me is always freshly boiling up, or you for your haughtiness, O best of men, which the throne has given you? As for the rest, be gracious in your speech, perhaps you yourself would not have deigned to lord it over me; certainly you did not deign to before, O best of men; and if you had deigned to, perhaps some fair-minded judge, knowing both sides, would have restrained you. What then has happened to you? How have you cast us off so completely and so suddenly? May such a law of friendship that so reveres its friends perish from life! We were lions yesterday, but today I am an ape; and for you, even a lion is a small thing. If indeed you saw all your friends this way—I will utter a high word—it ought not to be so for me, whom you once led before your other friends, before you were above the clouds, having all things beneath you. Why, my spirit, do you boil? Restrain the colt by force. My words are again at the turning-post. He was a liar to me, though in other things most truthful, who, having heard me say these things many times, that for now all things are bearable, even if worse things should befall, but if my parents should depart this life, it was my whole intention to depart from worldly affairs, so that I might gain something from a hearthless life, being most easily a citizen of every place— so, hearing these things and agreeing with my reasoning, he nevertheless forced me to the throne of a bishopric, both he and my father having twice tripped me up in this. Be not yet troubled, until you learn the whole story. If my enemies had considered for a very long time how they might dishonor me, I do not think they could have found any other way than the present one. Do you wish to hear? Will not all those to whom the matter seemed unjust tell you? How I offered myself to my friend, Pontus knows, and the city of the Caesareans knows, and all our common friends. For it is petty for me to reproach him with these things. For it is fitting for the one who has received a benefit to remember what good he has received, but for the one who has done it, not at all. But as for what he was to me, let the facts persuade you. There is a certain posting-station on the main road of Cappadocia, which splits into a three-way road, waterless, grassless, not at all civilized, a terribly disagreeable and cramped little village. Dust is everything, and noises, and wagons, wailings, groans, tax-collectors, instruments of torture, chains, and the people are all strangers and wanderers. This was Sasima, my church. To this place he gave me—what courage!—he who was hard pressed by his fifty rural bishops, and this, so that when another was seizing it by force, he might get the upper hand by creating a new see. For we were for him the first of his warlike friends—for we were once valiant, and blessed wounds are nothing terrible. For in addition to the other things I have recounted, it was not possible to take control of the throne without bloodshed; for this was a borderland between two rival bishops, and a terrible strife had broken out, of which the creator was the division of the province, which made two cities mothers of smaller ones. Souls were the pretext, but the reality is the love of power; for I hesitate to say it, revenues and taxes, by which the whole world is miserably shaken. What then, by God, was it just for me to do? To be content? To receive the assaults of evils? To be cast out unseasonably? To be choked in the mire? Nor to have a place to set this old age of mine in peace, always being violently pushed from shelter? Not even having bread to break for the stranger, a poor man chosen to guide a poor people, seeing not one of the things I might set right, but abounding in the evils that cities have, reaping thorns, not plucking roses, the terrible things

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ξένοι, φίλοι. τίς γὰρ πεσούσης οὐ ξυλεύεται δρυός; Ἐγὼ δ', ὅσον μὲν ἧκεν εἰς ἐμὸν λόγον, οὔποτ' ἂν ἔδεισα πραγμάτων ἐπιδρομάς· πτηνὸν γάρ εἰμι ῥᾳδίως μετάρσιον. ὅμως δ' ἀνάγκη πάντα τῷ καλῷ πατρί συνδιαφέρειν, καὶ χρηστὰ καὶ τἀναντία, κοινωνὸν ὄντα πραγμάτων, οὐ χρημάτων. ὡς δ' οἱ βάσιν τὸ πρῶτον οὐ πεπηγότες ἅπαξ ὀλισθήσαντες εἰς κρημνοῦ βάθος πίπτουσιν, οὐκέτ' ὄντες αὑτῶν ἐγκρατεῖς, οὕτως ἔμοιγε τῶν κακῶν γεγευμένῳ ἄλλοις ἔπ' ἄλλο δεινὸν ἐξηγείρετο. Ἧκέν ποθ' ἡμῖν-τἀμμέσῳ σιγήσομαι, τοῦ μὴ δοκεῖν βλάσφημον ἐκφέρειν λόγον κατ' ἀνδρός, ὃν νῦν εὐλογῶν ἐπαυσάμην- ἀλλ' ἧκεν ἡμῖν τῶν φίλων ὁ φίλτατος, Βασίλειος-οἴμοι τῶν λόγων· ἐρῶ δ' ὅμως-, ἄλλος πατήρ μοι φορτικώτερος πολύ· τὸν μὲν γὰρ ἐχρῆν καὶ τυραννοῦντα στέγειν, τὸν δ' οὐκ ἀνάγκη τῆς ἑταιρίας χάριν βλάβην φερούσης, οὐκ ἀπαλλαγὴν κακῶν. οὐκ οἶδ' ἐμαυτοῦ τὰς ἁμαρτίας πλέον, αἳ πολλὰ δή με πολλάκις δεδήχασιν, μέμψωμ', ὑπερζέοντος ὡς ἀεὶ νέου τοῦ συμπεσόντος, ἢ σὲ τῆς ἐπάρσεως, ἀνδρῶν ἄριστε, ἣν δέδωκεν ὁ θρόνος; ὡς τῶν γε λοιπῶν εἵνεχ', ἱλήκοις λόγῳ, τάχ' οὐδ' ἂν αὐτὸς ἠξίους ὑπερζυγεῖν· οὔκουν τὸ πρόσθεν, ὦ φέριστ', οὐδ' ἠξίους· εἰ δ' ἠξίους, τυχόν σε τῶν εὖ εἰδότων ἄμφω κατέσχεν ἄν τις εὐγνώμων κριτής. τί οὖν πέπονθας; πῶς τοσοῦτον ἀθρόως ἔρριψας ἡμᾶς; ὡς ὄλοιτ' ἐκ τοῦ βίου νόμος φιλίας οὕτω σεβούσης τοὺς φίλους. λέοντες ἦμεν ἐχθές, ἀλλὰ σήμερον πίθων ἔγωγε· σοὶ δὲ μικρὸν καὶ λέων. εἴ τοί γε πάντας-φθέγξομ' ὑψηλὸν λόγον- οὕτως ἑώρας τοὺς φίλους, οὐ χρῆν γ' ἐμέ, ὃν καὶ φίλων ἔμπροσθεν ἦγες ἦν ὅτε, πρὶν ἦς ὑπερνεφῶν τὰ πάντ' ἔχων κάτω. Τί, θυμέ, βράζεις; εἶργε τὸν πῶλον βίᾳ. πρὸς νύσσαν αὖθις οἱ λόγοι. ἐκεῖνος ἦν ψεύστης ἔμοιγε, τἆλλα δ' ἀψευδέστατος, ὅς μου λέγοντος ταῦτ' ἀκούσας πολλάκις, ὡς νῦν μὲν οἰστὰ πάντα, κἂν χείρω πέσῃ, εἰ δ' ἐκλίποιεν οἱ τεκόντες τὸν βίον, κἀμοὶ τὰ πράγματ' ἐκλιπεῖν ἅπας λόγος, ὡς ἄν τι κερδάναιμι τῆς ἀνεστίου ζωῆς πολίτης ῥᾷστα ὢν παντὸς τόπου- ταῦτ' οὖν ἀκούων καὶ συναινῶν τῷ λόγῳ ὅμως βιάζετ' εἰς ἐπισκοπῆς θρόνον, αὐτὸς πατήρ τε δίς με τοῦτο πτερνίσας. Μήπω ταραχθῇς, πρὶν ἂν ἐκμάθῃς τὸ πᾶν. εἰ πλεῖστον ἐσκέψαντο δυσμενεῖς χρόνον, ὅπως ἀτιμάσαιεν, οὐκ ἄλλον τινά εὑρεῖν ἂν αὐτοὺς οἴομ' ἢ τὸν νῦν τρόπον. ποθεῖς ἀκοῦσαι; πάντες οὐκ ἐροῦσί σοι, ὅσοις τὸ πρᾶγμ' ἔδοξε τῶν οὐκ ἐνδίκων; ἐγὼ μὲν οἷον ἐμπαρέσχον τῷ φίλῳ ἐμαυτόν, οἶδε Πόντος, οἶδε καὶ πόλις ἡ Καισαρέων καὶ πάντες οἱ κοινοὶ φίλοι. μικροπρεπὲς γὰρ ταῦτ' ὀνειδίζειν ἐμέ. τὸν μὲν γὰρ εὖ παθόντα μεμνῆσθαι πρέπει, ὧν εὖ πέπονθε, τὸν δράσαντα δ' οὐδαμῶς. ὁ δ' οἷος ἡμῖν, πειθέτω τὰ πράγματα. Σταθμός τίς ἐστιν ἐν μέσῃ λεωφόρῳ τῆς Καππαδοκῶν, ὃς σχίζετ' εἰς τρισσὴν ὁδόν, ἄνυδρος, ἄχλους, οὐδ' ὅλως ἐλεύθερος, δεινῶς ἀπευκτὸν καὶ στενὸν κωμύδριον. κόνις τὰ πάντα καὶ ψόφοι καὶ ἅρματα, θρῆνοι, στεναγμοί, πράκτορες, στρέβλαι, πέδαι, λαὸς δ' ὅσοι ξένοι τε καὶ πλανώμενοι. αὕτη Σασίμων τῶν ἐμῶν ἐκκλησία· τούτοις μ' ὁ πεντήκοντα χωρεπισκόποις στενούμενος δέδωκε- τῆς εὐψυχίας- καὶ ταῦθ', ἵν' ἁρπάζοντος ἄλλου πρὸς βίαν περικρατήσῃ τὴν καθέδραν καινίσας. ἡμεῖς γὰρ αὐτῷ τῶν ἀρηΐων φίλων τὰ πρῶτα-καὶ γὰρ ἦμεν ἄλκιμοί ποτε, καὶ δεινὸν οὐδὲν τραύματ' ηὐλογημένα. πρὸς τοῖς γὰρ ἄλλοις, οἷς ἀπηριθμησάμην, οὐδ' ἦν ἀναιμωτί γε τοῦ θρόνου κρατεῖν· μεταίχμιον γὰρ ἀντεπισκόπων δύο τοῦτ' ἦν, συνερρώγει τε δεινός τις μόθος, οὗ δημιουργὸς ἡ τομὴ τῆς πατρίδος δύω πόλεις τάξασα μικρῶν μητέρας. ψυχαὶ πρόφασις, τὸ δ' ἔστιν ἡ φιλαρχία· ὀκνῶ γὰρ εἰπεῖν, οἱ πόροι τε καὶ φόροι, ἐξ ὧν δονεῖται πᾶς ὁ κόσμος ἀθλίως. Τί οὖν με ποιεῖν, πρὸς θεοῦ, δίκαιον ἦν; στέργειν; δέχεσθαι τῶν κακῶν τὰς ἐμβολάς; βάλλεσθ' ἀωρί; συμπνίγεσθαι βορβόρῳ; μηδ' ἔνθα θείην εὐπορεῖν γῆρας τόδε ἀεὶ βιαίως ἐκ σκέπης ὠθούμενον; μηδ' ἄρτον ἕξων τῷ ξένῳ διακλάσαι, πένης πένητα λαὸν εὐθύνειν λαχών, ὧν μὲν κατορθώσαιμι, μηδὲ ἓν βλέπων, ὧν δ' αἱ πόλεις ἔχουσιν, εὐπορῶν κακῶν, τρυγῶν ἀκάνθας, οὐκ ἀπανθίζων ῥόδα, τὰ δεινὰ