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we have been deprived of pleasure. Such things I have enjoyed from good books. For in seeking them, I think I have also lost the one who is dearest of all to me. But you, best of all, send back the book and leave behind none of your former goodwill. But if not, let at least our friendship remain. For thus I will seem to have suffered nothing. But also let me know how your school is doing, and if a multitude of students fences in your lecture-hall, and, what is greatest, if you revel in wealth, and if some Pactolus has flooded your house. May these things be yours, and we will have the book, and your coin will henceforth be counted in the thousands. 90 To Sabinus If for lovers one day is enough to bring on old age, you could not count quickly enough how very old we have become. For long ago we were happy both seeing you and holding on to what is yours; and everything for us was good, a most pleasant sight, words that charm the hearing, a mind that provides goodwill. And whatever good thing one longed for, it was enough just to look at you. But now suddenly we are bereft of all things, whence I am at a loss and I love the myths and would pray to become that Perseus; for perhaps it would be possible for me, by flying up a little, to console my love. "1But why has my own heart debated these things with me?"2 For behold, longing has fashioned me with wings, and I have become Perseus and a myth and whatever a yearning mind is wont to easily imagine. And already I was pleased to see you in a dream, and rising up I immediately comforted myself with the vision. And by treating the bearer of this letter well, you will both do me a favor and confirm the opinion which he happened to have, that if you should receive a letter from us, there is nothing that you will not readily do. 91 To Hieronymus What an accusation of yours we have enjoyed, we impostors and extreme sophists and those who are sick with arrogance in a modest guise. And I could not say how many things you have heaped up against us, as if you had long been seeking an opportunity to raise your tongue against us. Whence, not even having taken a just pretext, you bring into the open things which you long concealed without being noticed. For what, tell me, is terrible if in writing to you I inscribed, "1Procopius to Hieronymus, greetings"2? For that the custom is ancient, I surely have you as one who would agree. "1But it is not necessary,"2 you say, "1to depart from the now prevailing custom"2. Therefore, you would bring an accusation even if someone should wish to lead back the now prevailing luxury to ancient sobriety, and even if one should bring back music, which has fallen into the nonsense of melodies and popular triviality, to the Muse of Terpander again. But you yourself, by Philios, whence do you seem to us to be august if you utter some Attic phrase, and you happen upon those who praise it as being archaic, when it is possible to be filled with words from the crossroads and to bring these to the platform? Or why indeed, sitting before the youths, do you think you bring some great praise to the famous Aristides, if you speak like him? Or did not Polemon purify the ancient rhetoric of its Asiatic monstrosity? But if fortune had granted you to be there then, you seem to me that you would perhaps even have brought an indictment against him, because, disregarding customary things, he wishes to be an impostor, returning to the ancient Muse. And I wish that now a Laconian table held sway again and our life were as it was for the ancient Persians: barley-cake and water and cress. But these things one might see prevailing even now in your Elousa, not because of an excess of endurance, but because the land barely provides so much for its inhabitants. But nevertheless you yourself, having learned Egyptian luxury, have cast off your ancestral ways, you who lay down the law to keep to customary things, even if they are outside of what is fitting. But to call me an impostor, when, placing you after my own name, I subordinated you, seems to be the act of one not really knowing that what is first in order does not in all cases also hold the first place of honor, nor of one pretending to know the works of Demosthenes, which little children are accustomed to study, how that acting is subsequent in order to speaking and voting, but is prior in power and is better. But if you in every case accuse such things of being imposture, it is time also to clothe with the sickness of arrogance, along with me, those who of old used the custom of such an inscription, of whom, passing over the others, I mean Socrates and Plato, who raised philosophy to the heights. But regarding imposture, drop it at once, and do not stir up against yourself the proverb's

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ἡδονῆς ἐστερήμεθα. τοιαῦτα τῶν χρηστῶν βιβλίων ἀπέλαυσα. ζητῶν γὰρ ἐκεῖνα καὶ τὸν πάντων μοι φίλτα τον προσαπολέσαι δοκῶ. σὺ δὲ μάλιστα μὲν καὶ τὸ βιβλίον ἀπόστειλον καὶ τῆς πρὶν εὐνοίας ἀπολίπῃς μηδέν. εἰ δὲ μή, τὸ γοῦν φίλους εἶναι διαμενέτω. δόξω γὰρ οὕτω πεπονθέναι μηδέν. δήλωσον δέ μοι καὶ ὅπως ὑμῖν ἔχει τὸ φροντιστήριον, καὶ εἰ πλῆθος ὁμιλητῶν σοι περιφράττει τὸ θέατρον, καὶ, τὸ δὴ μέγιστον, εἰ πλούτῳ κωμᾷς, καὶ σοί τις Πακτωλὸς τὴν οἰκίαν ἐπέκλυσε. ταῦτά σοι γινέσθω, καὶ τὸ βιβλίον ἐσχήκαμεν καί σοι λοιπὸν εἰς χιλιάδας ἀριθμεῖται τὸ νόμισμα. 90 Σαβίνωι Εἰ τοῖς ἐρῶσιν ἡμέρα μία πρὸς γῆρας ἀρκεῖ, οὐκ ἂν φθάνοις ἀριθμῶν ὁπόσα δὴ γεγηράκαμεν. πάλαι μὲν γὰρ ἦμεν εὐδαίμονες σέ τε ὁρῶντες καὶ τῶν σῶν ἀντεχόμενοι· καὶ ἦν ἡμῖν πάντα χρηστά, ὄψις ἡδίστη, λόγοι κατακηλοῦντες τὴν ἀκοήν, γνώμη χορηγοῦσα τὴν εὔνοιαν. καὶ ὅ τί τις ἐπόθει καλόν, ἤρκει πρὸς σὲ μόνον ἰδεῖν. ἀλλὰ νῦν ἐξαίφνης ἔρημοι πάντων ἡμεῖς, ὅθεν ἠπόρημαι καὶ τῶν μύθων ἐρῶ καὶ Περσεὺς ἐκεῖνος εὐξαίμην γενέσθαι· τάχα γὰρ ἂν ἐξείη μοι μικρὸν ἀναπτομένῳ παραμυθεῖσθαι τὸν ἔρωτα. "1ἀλλὰ τίη μοι ταῦτα φίλος διελέξατο θυμός;"2 ἰδοὺ γάρ με καὶ πτεροῖς ὁ πόθος ἀνέπλασε καὶ Περσεὺς καὶ μῦθος γεγένημαι καὶ ὅσα γε ποθοῦσα διάνοια ῥᾳδίως ἀνα πλάττειν ἐθέλει. ἤδη δέ σε καὶ ὄναρ ἥσθην ἰδών, καὶ ἀναστὰς εὐθὺς παρ εμυθούμην τῇ θέᾳ. εὖ δὲ ποιῶν τὸν φέροντα τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἐμοί τε χαριῇ καὶ βεβαιώσεις ἣν ἔχων ἐτύγχανε γνώμην, ὡς εἰ δέξαιο γράμματα παρ' ἡμῶν, οὐδὲν ὅ τι μὴ ῥᾳδίως ποιήσεις. 91 Ἱερωνύμωι Ὅσης σου τῆς κατηγορίας ἀπελαύσαμεν οἱ ἀλαζόνες ἡμεῖς καὶ λίαν σοφισταὶ καὶ νοσοῦντες ὑπεροψίαν ἐν μετρίῳ τῷ σχήματι. καὶ οὐκ ἂν ἔχοιμι λέγειν ὅσα καθ' ἡμῶν συνεφόρησας, ὥσπερ καιρὸν πάλαι ζητῶν ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἐγεῖραι τὴν γλῶτταν. ὅθεν οὐδὲ πρόφασιν δικαίαν λαβὼν εἰς μέσον ἄγεις ἃ πάλαι κρύπτων ἐλάνθανες. τί γάρ, εἰπέ μοι, δεινὸν εἰ πρὸς σὲ γράφων "1Προκόπιος Ἱερωνύμῳ χαίρειν"2 ἐπέγραφον; ὡς μὲν γὰρ ἀρχαῖος ὁ νόμος, ἔχω δήπουθεν ὁμολογοῦντα ἂν καὶ σέ. "1ἀλλ' οὐδὲν δεῖ"2 φής "1τὴν νῦν ἐπι πολάζουσαν ἐκβῆναι συνήθειαν"2. οὐκοῦν κατηγόρει κἂν εἰ τὴν νῦν κρατοῦ σαν τρυφὴν εἰς σεμνότητά τις τὴν ἀρχαίαν ἐπανάγειν ἐθέλοι, κἂν εἰ τὴν μουσικὴν ἐκπεσοῦσαν εἰς ὕθλους μελῶν καὶ δημοτικὴν φλυαρίαν εἰς τὴν Τερπάνδρου μοῦσαν αὖθις ἐνέγκοι. αὐτὸς δὲ πόθεν ἡμῖν, πρὸς Φιλίου, σεμνὸς εἶναι δοκεῖς εἴ τι ῥῆμα φθέγξαιο τῶν Ἀττικῶν, καὶ τύχοις τῶν ἐπαινούντων ὡς ἀρχαῖον καθέστηκε, παρὸν ἐμφορεῖσθαι τῶν ἐκ τριόδου ῥημάτων καὶ ταῦτα φέρειν ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος; ἢ τί δῆτα τῶν μειρακίων προκαθεζόμενος οἴει τι μέγα φέρειν Ἀριστείδου τοῦ πάνυ πρὸς ἔπαινον, εἰ λέγοις ὡς αὐτός; ἢ Πολέμων τῆς Ἀσιανῆς τερατείας τὴν ἀρχαίαν ῥητορικὴν οὐκ ἐκάθηρεν; εἰ δέ σοι τότε γενέσθαι παρέσχεν ἡ τύχη, τάχ' ἄν μοι καὶ γραφὴν ἐπενέγκα σθαι κατ' ἐκείνου δοκεῖς, ὅτι τὰ συνήθη παριδὼν ἀλαζὼν εἶναι βούλεται, πρὸς ἀρχαίαν ἀναγόμενος μοῦσαν. εἴθε δὲ καὶ τράπεζα νῦν αὖθις ἐκράτει Λακωνικὴ καὶ ἦν ἡμῖν ὁ βίος ὡς πάλαι τοῖς Πέρσαις μᾶζα καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ κάρδαμα. ταῦτα δὲ καὶ νῦν ἐν Ἐλούσῃ τις ἴδοι κρατοῦντα τῇ σῇ, οὐ διὰ καρτερίας ὑπερβολήν, ἀλλ' ὅτι τοσαῦτα μόλις χορηγεῖ τοῖς ἐνοικοῦσιν ἡ γῆ. ἀλλ' ὅμως αὐτὸς τρυφὴν Αἰγυπτίαν μαθὼν ἀπεδύσω τὰ πάτρια, ὁ φυλάτ τειν τὰ συνήθη νομοθετῶν, κἂν ἔξω τοῦ πρέποντος ᾖ. τὸ δὲ καὶ ἀλαζόνα με καλεῖν, ὅτε σε μετὰ τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ προσηγορίαν φέρων ὑπέταξα, ἔοικεν οὐ λίαν εἰδότος ὡς οὐ τὸ πρῶτον τῇ τάξει καὶ τῆς τιμῆς ἔχει πάντως τὰ πρῶτα, οὐδὲ τὰ ∆ημοσθένους εἰδέναι ποιουμένου, ἅπερ μελετᾶν εἴωθε τὰ παιδάρια, ὡς ἄρα τὸ πράττειν τοῦ λέγειν καὶ χειροτονεῖν, ὕστερον ὂν τῇ τάξει, πρό τερον τῇ δυνάμει καὶ κρεῖττόν ἐστιν. εἰ δὲ πάντως ἀλαζονείαν τὰ τοιαῦτα κατηγορεῖς, καιρὸς καὶ τοὺς πάλαι κεχρημένους τῷ νόμῳ τῆς τοιαύτης ἐπι γραφῆς ὑπεροψίας σὺν ἐμοὶ περιβάλλειν νοσήματι, ὧν τοὺς ἄλλους παρεὶς Σωκράτην λέγω καὶ Πλάτωνα τοὺς ἄνω τὴν φιλοσοφίαν ἐξάραντας. ἀλλὰ περὶ ἀλαζονείας αὐτόθεν κατάβαλε, καὶ μὴ κίνει κατὰ σαυτοῦ τῆς παροιμίας τὴν