Panegyric orations

 To run against you from an opposing lot, he endured but the pentathlon was accomplished for you and the pancratium was completed with no one having c

 The votes, i imagine the divine judgment and i refer to the incorruptible tribunal. when i test you in elections, i admire your intelligence and your

 From afar it shines on those landing and extends a hand to those from the sea, escorting them to rome most painlessly. what in addition to these does

 Using it and bending and curving it towards the drooping jaw, i remember the indian's eyebrow at this, how he held it more than a cubit above his head

 And to a rival. let others, then, measure you against and compare you with whomever they wish, but i, though i seem to make a strange and dissimilar c

 In prose, not in meters and poems or perhaps many are present, but they have no account of the matter, as if it were of no account to them. and time

 The hegemony of his father, with kingdoms overthrown and not a few changes having occurred in both, those who, having exchanged their fortune for the

 He took counsel of opposing nations, but by making everything purchasable with gold and royal splendors, from this he gained the goodwill of all, and

 Opened, and flung wide the very gates of the soul, and associated with wicked and corrupt lives. for he did not at once know the whole line of the fam

 To work deeds of injustice for he was angry with those who did wrong and would punish them. but when he began to be sick and his body was wasting awa

 Not a magnificent spirit, not a musical and graceful speech, nothing else of the sort that knows how to beautify the soul and the nature of the body.

 Drives a sphere, and the other the superterrestrial one, so that the one might wind its own zone in a single cycle, and the other in twelve cycles, an

 Defining the virtues by its power, and practicing the higher geometry. for this, as proclus also says, has occupied the middle ground between the indi

 The power of the kingdom came to him, besides these the life of david among the flocks, the pursuit, those many dangers into which he fell but was not

 He locks up the monarchy into a tyranny, having exchanged one evil for another. justice is not quiet, it kindles the coals, it sends the arrow, the wi

 I call it his girdle-and he draws away no small cavalry and infantry force from old rome, he adds to these also the best army of the east, and no smal

 An angel wrought a more manifest victory. i have something more to say than those wonders there the cross was in types and images, a bronze serpent s

 You, o king the more abundantly you pour out benefits upon us, the more you increase by being filled. from this, no one has been left out of such wea

 With the eyes, then poured out and dissolved, but better and higher than all that is visible. but, o emperor—for i repeat the title to you and call it

 You fill the western beacon, neither grudging us your rays nor altering the color of your disk, but the more time increases the distances, the more be

 The rising of the sun, the land upon which it immediately rises, so that, if any of our people wished, having gone there he could, not with geometrica

 I am an unskillful chronicler of your deeds and erring in my timing, and i do not have a nature that strikes out in both directions at once. for you a

 To wish. for you both comprehend the present and conjecture the future and discover the unseen, discerning character from eyebrows and eyelids, so tha

 To speak? -unseemly even in his appearance, made of tin or dipped in bile and altogether counterfeit gold, but since he was in the midst of dangers, t

 With stones lying along each side, so that the conjoined may seem continuous and the well-fitted of one nature. behold for me the heights and beauties

 But here is a distinct hand divided into five rosy branches. but this is a most unerring testimony of that godlike soul. but do you wish to see some t

 Transcending substance and holding the principles of the forms folded together and least of all divided from the one. and you, being such, do you not

 The fountains of good deeds flowed, as if from a sheer rock, having received the impetus for their flowing these proclaimed you by reputation even be

 A guide, so also there an arbiter of the administrations, that i may suit you for both, both speaking your deeds and doing the words of your administr

 P]ortions are deprived of praise, but no one of all men has been suited to all words of praise. but to you so much is granted [against] all in all thi

 To bring to the highest point of keenness, or your soul which was not [shattered by] trials, but also most nobly endured through the magnitude of the

 And they were torn away, and their manner altered their nature [....], and they have remained, and after the separation, being both nourished and fatt

 But the love of art and the care concerning the divine sanctuaries, what demostheneses or the best of the writers could describe and praise? how beau

 Having surpassed in his heroic deeds him and the kings up to you, but in his plans he is recorded as being less than his accomplishments, winning in [

 Less, you have given the first place to reason over passion, and you have established the one like some foundation upon the acropolis, but the other y

 Having considered what is seen, but when i also behold the tomb of the queen, and i behold it often whenever i wish to console some hardship of fortun

 To comprehend in a speech. for to whom could the unattainable be attainable, even if he were rich in the homeric power for speeches, or the herodotan

 Admiring and in return is eager to make an image and someone already having constructed a stele for you inscribed the gentle one. therefore solomon

 Much praise and measured against all of time. how then could i summarize the whole in a few words? i will speak, therefore, a little of your virtues,

 Everyone rejoices and exults with the one who has taken up your encomiums and because i did not weave the words of praise sooner, he is rather vexed

 Gracefulness, the maturity of your thought, the symmetry of your greatness, the quick-wittedness, the stability of your mind, the unmarried life, the

 At once for us the lord and most skilled in command and pleasing to all, o most excellent foresight, o wise consideration, o most noble counsel, o div

 Of virtues? you, beyond any kings who ever were, honored justice and preferred philanthropy, and having attained the height of prudence, you appeared

 Accomplishments? o the arrows from heaven against the barbarians, o the unseen bowshots, o the angelic powers in the air, o the divine armies against

 The greatest part of character. for as many as have become of a civic disposition, if they have descended to this willingly, they seemed both prudent

 Of civil administration and of divine hearing. if therefore, being engaged in one, he also holds to the other, let this for now be a secret to many. b

 Of wise men going to ammon's shrine or being within the delphic tripod suddenly transferred their apparent wisdom to the more divine and greater, how

 We have taken starting points, and yet more absurd, if we render praises to the good and noble men who have died, for what they have said concerning w

 And not many months after the sowing, but immediately reaping the harvest and so that i might say what is from the gospel, the two were running toget

 If we should set about to build him up, this marvelous man, both in nature and in diligence, has received much contribution toward his eloquence from

 For having embraced one of these, they might neglect the rest, or putting ears before mind, they have an unintelligible tongue, or having drawn up spr

 Pleases the petty and the overly artful. therefore, of these enumerated wise men, the one now honored in this discourse wishes to imitate gregory, and

 I knew not only what the greeks knew, nor what the chaldeans or egyptians knew, but i had also condemned them, though not all of them, nor has my refu

 With magnanimity, he who was both namesake and like-minded with the great constantine, and who alone nobly contended against all, and taking his name-

 Regulates the state of the church, no less than moses who constructed the tabernacle below according to the pattern shown to him for whether melodies

 Concerning which things, before his high-priesthood, at a time when he did not even have many resources of money, he constructed brilliantly and accom

 And to impart to others. and perhaps he did not endure the waves of the sea, but in his toils on land he might in some way be compared to paul. and co

 One of two things happening, either god descending into the mind, or the mind ascending to god. but what is the place of god's rest, or by which of al

 Of a voice, nor were you instructed by any of the higher powers, to lay aside the symbols of the priesthood, and to transfer yourself to another life,

 Nothing unpleasant would happen to those handling these things but for you, who happen to be a philosopher, what harm will come from these affairs? j

 Of words but you, o king, will both speak publicly among the armies and bring an impulse with your speech and will rouse them together for the deed.

 May you be crowned on the head with glorious trophies. may you be adorned with deeds of valor against the barbarians, and be escorted by many victorie

 May you rend the sea and stop the river and vanquish amalek. may a cloud, giving shade over your head, take away your burning heat, and a pillar of li

and to a rival. Let others, then, measure you against and compare you with whomever they wish, but I, though I seem to make a strange and dissimilar comparison, in comparing you to the sun will show the clear likeness. It has beauty and size and a circular shape, and a twofold motion: the one contrary to nature through the revolution of the universe, the other according to nature, I mean, toward the east and toward the west. And what of you? Are you not fair in beauty beyond the sons of men? Do you not partake of the first beauty in the form of your soul? Is there not an intelligible magnitude to you, by which you touch the heavenly vaults? Do you not turn your mind in a circle, equal and like to yourself? Is not the first and indivisible motion of the soul like the middle of a center, and the mind that surrounds it a circle, and the virtues that lead to it a line? Are you not the same, self-moved and moved by another, now moved from the rising of the first sun, now from the west, from the earthy and lowly nature? Are you not inspired, not wholly transformed and moved by the nod of God? And what of your physical attributes? How very much they rival and reflect the sun, you flash with golden locks, you are fire-colored with inimitable complexions, you shine with ineffable beauties, you gleam with untold splendors. Not wholly a sun, not brighter than the sun, I would say. Very well. But it travels everywhere, now rising to the north, now being driven in winter toward the south. And what is new in that? For even the nature of a bird could do this. But our emperor, from one of the points of the east, from its ineffable radiance, fills all things. And I can find something more in you: that it makes an oblique and inclined motion, standing twice perhaps perpendicular to the equatorial zone, but your motion is unerring. And your course is straight and undeviating. And it, passing under the earth, returns again, but you are ever unable to be set and above the earth. And if you ever once come to the west, I fear that this will become the disappearance of the whole cosmos and the extinguishing of the luminaries. Thus, then, we have fittingly rendered the comparison, and in some way for some reason we have even won. May you be, O emperor, ever more a lover of philosophy and with it adorn your reign, which the earthly realm has not been able to contain, having its hearth with God, but has received the mind as its dwelling, and if you receive this as it descends, to the best of your ability, you may both become a god yourself and make us so. 2 Oration to the Emperor Monomachus. The present time is fleeting, O greatest emperor, and has no foundation or stability, and the affairs within it are transient, flowing by and moving together with its ceaseless stream. But the wise men of old, being very powerful in speech, in a way made the unstable stand still and fixed the unseated, casting upon them an unbreakable bond: their writings. For Homer, who knew all things were offspring of flux and motion, as he himself somewhere wishes in the passages where he introduces Oceanus as progenitor, did not let the evils of the Iliad escape, nor the fleet of the Achaeans, nor the valiant deeds of the best heroes, but he bound them in his poems, setting himself against nature itself. And it is possible now to see Helen being seized, the Achaeans sailing in, those in the war being struck, those striking, and all that the first cause of the trouble brought forth. And Plato too, the all-wise, and adhering more to this doctrine, that being cannot be predicated of things in flux, but only becoming and being made and perishing, did not allow the Socratic dialogues to flow away, nor the erotic conversations of the beautiful Phaedrus, nor the definitions concerning knowledge of the gifted Theaetetus, nor the opinions about the soul of Simmias and Cebes, but the thoughts of the greatest men, which were in danger of departing along with time and of being hidden, as they say, in the depths of oblivion, he held back with his words and did not permit to pass by. But now there is no one who can master the unmasterable, not with words

καὶ πρὸς ἀνθάμιλλον. ἄλλοι μὲν οὖν οἷς ἂν βούλοιντο παραμετρείτωσάν σε καὶ ἀντεξεταζέτωσαν, ἐγὼ δέ, εἰ καὶ καινήν τινα καὶ ἀνόμοιον δόξω ποιεῖν τὴν παράθεσιν, ἡλίῳ σε παραβάλλων σαφῆ δώσω τὴν ὁμοιότητα. Κάλλος ἐκείνῳ καὶ μέγεθος καὶ σχῆμα περιφερές, καὶ διπλῆ κίνησις· ἡ μὲν ὑπὲρ φύσιν διὰ τὴν συμπεριφορὰν τοῦ παντός, ἡ δὲ κατὰ φύσιν, τὴν πρὸς ἀνατολὰς καὶ πρὸς ἑσπέραν φημί. σὺ δὲ τί; οὐχ ὡραῖος κάλλει παρὰ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων; οὐ τοῦ πρώτου κάλλους μετέχων ἐπὶ τῷ τῆς ψυχῆς εἴδει; μέγεθος δέ σοι οὐ πρόσεστι νοητόν, ᾧ ψαύεις τῶν οὐρανίων στοῶν; τὸν δὲ νοῦν οὐ πρὸς κύκλον στρεφόμενος, οὐ σεαυτῷ ἶσος καὶ ὅμοιος; οὐ κέντρου μέσον οἷον τῆς ψυχῆς ἡ πρώτη καὶ ἄτομος κίνησις, κύκλος δὲ ὁ περιέχων αὐτὴν νοῦς, γραμμὴ δὲ αἱ πρὸς ἐκείνην φέρουσαι ἀρεταί; οὐκ αὐτοκίνητος ὁ αὐτὸς καὶ ἑτεροκίνητος, νῦν μὲν ἐκ τῆς ἀνατολῆς τοῦ πρώτου ἡλίου κινούμενος, νῦν δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς ἑσπέρας, τῆς γεώδους καὶ χθαμαλῆς φύσεως; οὐκ ἐπίπνους, οὐχ ὅλος μεταπεποιημένος καὶ θεοῦ κινούμενος νεύματι; Τὰ δὲ σωματικὰ πῶς; ὡς λίαν ἀνθάμιλλα καὶ ἀνθήλια, κόμαις ἐπιχρύσοις ἀστράπτεις, χρώμασιν ἀμιμήτοις πυρσεύεις, κάλλεσιν ἀπορρήτοις αὐγάζεις, φέγγεσιν ἀμυθήτοις προλάμπεις. οὐχ ὅλος ἥλιος, οὐχ ἡλίου λαμπρότερος, φαίην ἂν ἔγωγε. εἶεν. ἀλλ' ἐκεῖνος ἁπανταχόσε φοιτᾷ, νῦν μὲν εἰς βορρᾶν ἀνιών, νῦν δὲ τὴν χειμερινὴν πρὸς νότον ἀπελαυνόμενος. καὶ τί καινόν; τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ πτηνοῦ φύσις ποιήσειεν. ἀλλ' ὁ ἡμέτερος βασιλεὺς ἀφ' ἑνὸς τῶν τῆς ἀνατολῆς σημείων, τῆς ἀρρήτου μαρμαρυγῆς πάντα πληροῖ. ἔχω δέ τι καὶ πλέον εὑρεῖν παρά σοι· ὅτι ὁ μὲν λοξὴν καὶ παρεγκεκλιμένην ποιεῖται τὴν κίνησιν δίς που κατ' ὀρθὸν τῆς ἰσημερινῆς ζώνης ἱστάμενος, σοὶ δὲ ἀπλανὴς μὲν ἡ κίνησις. ὁ δὲ δρόμος ὀρθός τε καὶ ἀπαρέγκλιτος. καὶ ὁ μὲν ὑπὸ γῆν διϊὼν αὖθις ἐπάνεισι, σὺ δὲ ἄδυτος ἀεὶ καὶ ὑπέργειος. ἢν δ' ἅπαξ ποτὲ ἐς δυσμὰς ἥκῃς, δέδοικα μὴ τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου τοῦτο ἀφανισμὸς γενήσεται καὶ τῶν φωστήρων ἀπόσβεσις. Τὴν μὲν οὖν σύγκρισιν οὕτως ἡμεῖς καταλλήλως ἀποδεδώκαμεν, καί που διά τι καὶ νενικήκαμεν. σὺ δ' εἴης, ὦ βασιλεῦ, ἐπὶ μᾶλλον φιλοσοφίας ἐρῶν καὶ ταύτῃ τὴν βασιλείαν κοσμῶν, ἣν ὁ μὲν χθόνιος χῶρος χωρεῖν οὐ δεδύνηται ἑστίαν ἔχουσαν παρὰ τῷ θεῷ, νοῦν δὲ ἔλαχεν οἰκητήριον, κἂν ταύτην κατιοῦσαν χωρήσῃς εἰς δύναμιν, αὐτός τε θεὸς γένοιο καὶ ἡμᾶς ἐξεργάσαιο. 2 Λόγος εἰς τὸν βασιλέα τὸν Μονομάχον. Ῥευστὸς μὲν ὁ παρὼν χρόνος, ὦ μέγιστε αὐτοκράτορ, καὶ μηδεμίαν ἔχων ἕδραν ἢ παγιότητα, παροδικὰ δὲ καὶ τὰ κατ' αὐτὸν πράγματα τῇ ἀπαύστῳ τούτου ῥοῇ παραρρέοντά τε καὶ συγκινούμενα. ἀλλ' οἱ πάλαι σοφοὶ μεγάλα τῷ λόγῳ δυνάμενοι ἔστησάν τε τὰ ἄστατα τρόπον τινὰ καὶ ἐπαγίωσαν τὰ ἀνέδραστα, δεσμὸν αὐτοῖς ἄλυτον τὰς συγγραφὰς ἐμβαλόντες. Ὅμηρός τε γὰρ ὁ πάντα εἰδὼς ῥοῆς ἔκγονα καὶ κινήσεως, ὡς αὐτός που βούλεται ἐν οἷς τὸν Ὠκεανὸν εἰσάγει γενέτην, οὐκ ἀφῆκε φυγεῖν τὰ τῆς Ἰλιάδος κακά, οὐδὲ τὸν στόλον τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, οὐδὲ τὰ τῶν βελτίστων ἡρώων ἀνδραγαθήματα, ἀλλ' ἐπέδησε τοῖς ποιήμασι πρὸς αὐτὴν τὴν φύσιν ἀντιταξάμενος. καὶ πάρεστι νῦν ὁρᾶν Ἑλένην ἁρπαζομένην, τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς καταπλέοντας, τοὺς ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ βαλλομένους, τοὺς βάλλοντας, καὶ πάνθ' ὅσα ἡ πρώτη τοῦ κακοῦ ὑπόθεσις ἤνεγκε. καὶ Πλάτων δὲ ὁ πάντα σοφὸς καὶ τῷ δόγματι τούτῳ μᾶλλον προσθέμενος, ὡς μηδὲ τὸ ὂν χωρεῖν κατὰ τῶν ῥεόντων φέρεσθαι, ἀλλὰ τὸ γίγνεσθαι καὶ τὸ ποιεῖσθαι καὶ τὸ ἀπόλλυσθαι, οὐκ εἴασε ῥυῆναι τοὺς Σωκρατικοὺς διαλόγους, οὐ τοῦ καλοῦ Φαίδρου τὰς ἐρωτικὰς ὁμιλίας, οὐ τοῦ εὐφυοῦς Θεαιτήτου τοὺς περὶ ἐπιστήμης ὅρους, οὐ τὰς περὶ ψυχῆς δόξας Σιμμίου καὶ Κέβητος, ἀλλὰ μεγίστων ἀνδρῶν γνώμας κινδυνευούσας συναπιέναι τῷ χρόνῳ καὶ λήθης ὅ φασι κρυφθῆναι βυθοῖς ἐπέσχε τῷ λόγῳ καὶ παροδεύειν οὐ συνεχώρησε. Νῦν δ' οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεὶς ὁ κρατῶν τὸ ἀκράτητον, οὐ λόγῳ