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

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, and might cast off the light and put it on again, but always journeying together with this brilliant luminary it is far-shining and bright. But these things, O greatest emperor, happen to be secondary works, and only like delicacies for your hearing; but the discourse proceeds to you from above and now begins the history and praise concerning you. and I will pass over recounting your homeland and lineage, even if it is customary, for neither do I speak to an unknowing audience, nor do I wish to sketch with externals you who are painted in your own right. And I lay this down as the first foundation of your praise, that when your mother's birth pangs broke forth, a certain radiance of the victory-bringing sign shone across the space between your eyebrows, not formed spontaneously from hairs, but formed, I think, from certain solar rays; thus for you at your birth things beyond birth were intermingled, and future things were proclaimed from afar, and through a single shape both rule and victory were decreed for you, and before the scepters you were a trophy-bearing king, and before the palaces you were made brilliant with a royal ornament. thus for you the cross was constructed not of stones, but was illumined by divine rays, not on a golden diadem, but on a divine and sacred head. But as for you, take pride in the hairs on your chest because they give the semblance of wings and a beak, and exult in your mother's dreams which some irrational wandering and spontaneity follows. For what greater or more far-shining thing than this could one have to say? But if you wish, leave aside the symbols and the portents, and behold for me how great is the grace of your body, the beauty of your soul, and how they competed with each other and the one was defeated by the other while being victorious. For the one put forward a sharp nature and quickness of mind, but the other the rosiness of the face, the grace of the eyes, the diffusion where needed of white against red and the blending, the gleaming rays of the head, by which the one was victorious, but the other was not defeated. But was he then sharp and quick-witted, but quick to anger and unrestrained in temper, or not this, but less studious as one who trusts in his nature, or excellent in this too, but quickly forgetting what he has learned? Not at all, even if Platos should speak against it, fashioning for the soul certain waxes that are softer and harder, and impressions of letters that are slowly imprinted, but more slowly flow away. For our king is not so. But he is quick to inscribe lessons on the wax of his soul, and makes them like encaustic paintings so as never to be erased. And while being unmoved towards anger, yet for the comprehension of thoughts he uses a noble and mobile soul, not like a stream of oil flowing silently according to your Theaetetus, but like some water flowing most vehemently and by the sharpness of its course carrying away whatever stands in its way. And as for you, marvel for me at this gifted youth, one who cares for philosophy, and geometry even more, and go over the argument about sciences, and twist the meaning as you wish, and jest with the young man, feigning alien opinions, and praise those who know how to inscribe a triangle in a circle, and a circle in a triangle. But if I shall wish to praise my emperor from these things, I would be praising the sun from its shadows; for it is not ours, nor of a divine purpose, to set bounds to things and to play at what is not for play. Whence he did not define knowledge, whether as perception or something else, but he knew the subject itself of which the definition is predicated, not according to the opinion of Protagoras, but according to the truth of the divine oracles. And he knew how to draw in his soul the circles that come from virtues, and inscribing in these its tripartite nature, he changed it again, as it were, into a triangle, in one way winding the tripartite nature around the need for the most beautiful actions, in another way ordering the irrational part with reason, and directing desire towards the one object of desire, and with the

ἐλαύνει σφαῖραν, ὁ δὲ τὴν ὑπέργειον, ἵν' ὁ μὲν ἐς ἅπαξ, ἡ δ' ἐς δώδεκα κύκλους τὴν ἑαυτῆς ζώνην περιελίξηται, καὶ ἀποβάλῃ τὸ φῶς καὶ πάλιν ἐνδύσηται, ἀλλ' ἀεὶ τῷ λαμπρῷ τούτῳ φωστῆρι συμπεριοδεύουσα τηλαυγής ἐστι καὶ λαμπρά. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μέν, ὦ μέγιστε αὐτοκράτορ, πάρεργα τυγχάνει πονήματα, καὶ μόνον οἷα τῇ σῇ ἀκοῇ ἐντρυφήματα, ὁ δὲ λόγος ἐπί σέ τε χωρεῖ ἄνωθεν καὶ τῆς περί σε ἤδη ἱστορίας καὶ εὐφημίας ἀπάρχεται. καὶ πατρίδα μὲν καταλέγειν καὶ γένος εἰ καὶ τεχνικόν ἐστιν ὑπερβήσομαι, οὔτε γὰρ πρὸς ἀγνοοῦσαν ἀκοὴν φθέγγομαι, οὔτε τοῖς ἔξωθέν σε σκιαγραφῆσαι τὸν καθ' αὐτὸν ζωγραφούμενον βούλομαι. τοῦτο δὲ τοῦ σοῦ πρῶτον ἐπαίνου θεμέλιον τίθεμαι, ὅτι σοι τῆς μητρικῆς ῥαγείσης ὠδῖνος αὐγήν τινα τοῦ νικοποιοῦ τύπου διέλαμπε τὸ μεσόφρυον, οὐκ ἐκ τριχῶν αὐτοματισθεῖσαν, ἀλλ' ἔκ τινων οἶμαι ἀκτίνων σχηματισθεῖσαν ἡλιακῶν, οὕτως σοι ἅμα τῇ γενέσει τὰ ὑπὲρ γένεσιν καταμέμικτο, καὶ τὰ μέλλοντα προανεκηρύττετο πόρρωθεν, καὶ δι' ἑνὸς σχήματος ἀρχή σοι καὶ νῖκος ἐπρυτανεύετο, καὶ πρὸ τῶν σκήπτρων βασιλεὺς ἦσθα τροπαιοφόρος, καὶ πρὸ τῶν ἀνακτόρων ἀνακτορικῷ κοσμήματι λαμπρυνόμενος. οὕτως σοι οὐκ ἐκ λίθων ὁ σταυρὸς κατεσκεύαστο, ἀλλ' ἐκ θείων ἀκτίνων κατηύγαστο, οὐκ ἐν χρυσῷ στέμματι, ἀλλ' ἐν θείᾳ καὶ ἱερᾷ κεφαλῇ. σὺ δέ μοι ταῖς ἐν στήθεσι σεμνύνου θριξὶν ὅτι πτερῶν εἰκασίαν καὶ ῥάμφους διδόασι, καὶ τοῖς μητρικοῖς ἐπαγάλλου ὀνείρασιν οἷς πλάνη τις καὶ αὐτοματισμὸς ἕπεται ἄλογος. τούτου γὰρ τί τις μεῖζον ἂν εἰπεῖν ἔχοι καὶ τηλαυγέστερον; εἰ δὲ βούλει, τὰ μὲν σύμβολα ἄφες καὶ τὰ μηνύματα, ὅρα δέ μοι τὴν χάριν τοῦ σώματος ὅση, τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς κάλλος, καὶ ὡς πρὸς ἄλληλα ἤριζον καὶ θάτερον θατέρου ἡττᾶτο νικῶν. ἡ μὲν γὰρ ὀξεῖαν φύσιν προὐβάλλετο καὶ ἀγχίνοιαν, τὸ δὲ τὴν τοῦ προσώπου ῥοδωνιάν, τὴν τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν χάριν, τὴν τοῦ λευκοῦ πρὸς τὸ ἐρυθρὸν ἀνάχυσιν ἐφ' οἷς δεῖ καὶ ἀνάκρασιν, τὰς στιλβούσας ἀκτῖνας τῆς κεφαλῆς, οἷς τὸ μὲν ἐνίκα, τὸ δὲ οὐχ ἡττᾶτο. ἀλλ' ἄρα ὀξὺς μὲν ἦν καὶ ἀγχίνους, ὀξύρροπος δὲ καὶ δυσκάθεκτος τὴν ὀργήν, ἢ τοῦτο μὲν οὐχί, ἧττον δὲ σπουδαστὴς ὡς τῇ φύσει θαρρῶν, ἢ καὶ τοῦτο μὲν ἄκρος, ταχὺ δ' ἀποβάλλων ἃ μεμάθηκεν; οὐμενοῦν, κἂν Πλάτωνες ἀντιφθέγγωνται κηρούς τινας ἀναπλάττοντες τῇ ψυχῇ ὑγροτέρους καὶ σκληροτέρους, καὶ τύπους γραμμάτων σχολῇ μὲν ἐνσημαινομένους, σχολαιότερον δὲ διαρρέοντας. οὐ γὰρ οὕτως ὁ ἡμέτερος βασιλεύς. ἀλλὰ ταχὺς μὲν ἐγγράφων τῷ κηρῷ τῆς ψυχῆς τὰ μαθήματα, ποιούμενος δ' αὐτὰ ὥσπερ ἐγκαύματα ὡς μηδέποτε ἀπαλείφεσθαι. καὶ πρὸς μὲν ὀργὴν ἀκίνητος ὤν, πρὸς δὲ νοημάτων ἀνάληψιν γενναίᾳ καὶ εὐκινήτῳ τῇ ψυχῇ χρώμενος, καὶ οὐχ ὥσπερ ῥεῦμα ἐλαίου ἀψοφητὶ ῥέοντος κατὰ τὸν σὸν Θεαίτητον, ἀλλ' ὥσπέρ τι ὕδωρ σφοδρότατα ῥέον καὶ τῷ ὀξεῖ τῆς φορᾶς παρασύρον τὸ ἐνιστάμενον. καὶ σὺ μὲν τὸ εὐφυὲς τοῦτο θαύμαζέ μοι μειράκιον καὶ φιλοσοφίας, γεωμετρίας δὲ μᾶλλον, ἐπιμελούμενον, καὶ τὸν περὶ ἐπιστήμας ἀνακύκλει λόγον, καὶ διάστρεφε ὡς βούλει τὸ νόημα, καὶ πρόσπαιζε τῷ νέῳ ἀλλοτρίας δόξας ὑποκρινόμενος, καὶ ἐπαίνει τοὺς εἰδότας ἐν κύκλῳ μὲν ἐγγράψαι τρίγωνον, ἐν δὲ τριγώνῳ κύκλον. ἐγὼ δ' εἰ ἀπὸ τούτων βουλήσομαι τὸν ἐμὸν ἐπαινεῖν αὐτοκράτορα, ἀπὸ τῶν σκιῶν ἂν τὸν ἥλιον ἐπαινέσαιμι· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἡμέτερον, οὐδὲ θείου σκοποῦ ὅρους συντιθέναι πραγμάτων καὶ παίζειν ἐν οὐ παικτοῖς. Ὅθεν ἐπιστήμην μὲν οὐχ ὡρίζετο εἴτε ὡς αἴσθησις εἴτε ἄλλο τι, αὐτὸ δὲ τὸ ὑποκείμενον οὗπερ ὁ λόγος κατηγορεῖται ἠπίστατο, οὐ κατὰ τὴν Πρωταγόρειον δόξαν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν τῶν θείων χρησμῶν ἀλήθειαν. κύκλους δὲ γράφειν ἠπίστατο ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ τοὺς ἐξ ἀρετῶν, καὶ τούτοις τὴν ταύτης ἐγγράφων τριμέρειαν, οἷα τρίγωνον αὖθις μετήλλαττε, πῇ μὲν τὸ τριμερὲς τῇ τῶν καλλίστων πράξεων περιελίττων χρείᾳ, πῇ δὲ τὸ ἄλογον κοσμῶν τῷ λόγῳ, καὶ τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν πρὸς ἓν ἀπευθύνων τὸ ἐφετόν, καὶ τῇ