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Sisyphus or Cercyon or Sciron or any others of that sort we hear about in the stories, for falsehood is more ready to them than any truth; and they are so emboldened by shamelessness in lying as not even those who are vehement about it are in telling the truth, and to be refuted among them for the greatest evils becomes an occasion for good repute among the many, and insolence and harshness and insensibility and the stench of what is said are considered to be culture and a certain love of beauty of that sort. 19.19 These few things out of many, avoiding the immoderation of the letter, we have set forth to you, so that you might not condemn our indolence for declining to write prose at present; for how is it possible for one who is in these circumstances even 19.20 to bring his own name to his lips with ease? But if it is by all means your desire that we should ever be occupied with these things, lend us yourself especially and the time to gather, unless the lotus of the city sweetens you more than our love; but if the affairs among you should prevail (for I hear that every church holds to you), you will sufficiently aid us by praying that some release from evils may come to us from God; and perhaps, God granting, if ever we should obtain such leisure, we will not be reckoned as contributing nothing to the common good.

20.t To Adelphius the Scholasticus

20.1 From the sacred Vanota, if indeed I do no wrong in calling the place by its local name,

I have drafted this letter to you; but I say I do the place wrong, because the name has nothing elegant, and the great grace of the place is not jointly signified by this Galatian appellation, but there is 20.2 need of eyes to interpret its grace. For having already seen many things among many people, and having understood many things through the written account in the tales of the ancients, I consider all that I have seen and all that 20.3 I have heard to be trifles in comparison with the beauties here. That Helicon is nothing; the isles of the blessed are a myth; the plain of Sicyon is a small thing; the stories about the Peneius are otherwise a poetic boast, which they say, overflowing its sloping banks with its rich stream, creates the much-hymned plains 20.4 for the Thessalians. For what is there of such a kind among each of the aforementioned, as Vanota has shown us with its own beauties? For if one should seek the natural grace of the place, it is in no need of the beauties from art, or if one should look at the things added by artifice, they are of such a kind and so many as to be able to overcome even a harshness of nature. 20.5 For the things which nature bestows upon the place, adorning the land with unadorned grace, are of this sort: from below, the river Halys beautifies the place with its banks, just as some golden thread gleams through deep purple, 20.6 reddening its stream with the silt; and from the upper part a mountain both vast and wooded extends with a long ridge, everywhere crowned with oaks, worthy of meeting with some Homer as its praiser rather than that Neriton of Ithaca, which the poet says is both conspicuous and 20.7 with rustling leaves. And descending toward the slope the wild wood joins with the works of agriculture along the foot of the mountain; for immediately vines, spread out over the sloping and flat and hollow parts of the mountain's foot, like some garment green in its dye, take up all the underlying space; and the season was added to the beauty, revealing a divine thing in the grape-clusters, which indeed led to greater astonishment, because while the neighboring country was showing its fruit still unripe, here it was possible to feast on the grapes and to be sated with the season's bounty. 20.8 Then from afar the grace of the buildings shone upon us, like some torch from a great beacon, on the left as one entered, the oratory prepared for the martyrs, not yet having the perfection of

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Σίσυφον ἢ Κερκυόνα ἢ Σκείρωνα ἢ εἴ τινας τοιούτους ἄλλους ἐν ταῖς ἱστορίαις ἀκούομεν, τὸ μὲν γὰρ ψεῦδος πάσης ἀληθείας ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς ἑτοιμότερον· οὕτω δὲ ἐπιθαρσοῦσιν ὑπ' ἀναισχυντίας τῷ ψεύδεσθαι ὡς οὐδὲ τῷ ἀληθεύειν οἱ περὶ τοῦτο σφοδροί, καὶ τὸ ἐλεγχθῆναι παρ' αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τοῖς μεγίστοις κακοῖς ἀφορμὴ τῆς παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς εὐδοκιμήσεως γίνεται, ὕβρις τε καὶ τραχύτης καὶ ἀναισθησία καὶ ἡ τῶν λεγομένων δυσωδία πολιτισμὸς εἶναι καί τις τοιαύτη φιλοκαλία νομίζεται. 19.19 Ταῦτά σοι ἀπὸ πολλῶν ὀλίγα, φεύγοντες τὴν ἀμετρίαν τῆς ἐπιστολῆς, ἐξεθέμεθα, ὡς ἂν μὴ ῥᾳθυμίαν ἡμῶν καταγινώσκοις τὸ λογογραφεῖν ἐπὶ τοῦ παρόντος παραιτουμένων· τὸν γὰρ ἐν τούτοις ὄντα πῶς ἐστι δυνατὸν καὶ 19.20 τὸ ἴδιον ὄνομα διὰ στόματος ἐν εὐκολίᾳ φέρειν; ἀλλ' εἴ σοι πάντως καταθύμιόν ἐστιν ἐν τούτοις ἡμᾶς ἀσχοληθῆναί ποτε, χρῆσον ἡμῖν σεαυτὸν μάλιστα καὶ τοῦ συναγαγεῖν χρόνον, ἐὰν μή σε πλέον τῆς ἡμετέρας ἀγάπης ὁ λωτὸς καταγλυκαίνῃ τῆς πόλεως· εἰ δέ σε κρατοίη τὰ καθ' ὑμᾶς (ἀκούω γὰρ ἔχεσθαί σου πᾶσαν ἐκκλησίαν), ἱκανῶς ἡμῖν συμμαχήσεις λύσιν τινὰ τῶν κακῶν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ γενέσθαι ἡμῖν ἐπευξάμενος· καὶ τάχα, θεοῦ διδόντος, εἴποτε τύχοιμεν τοιαύτης σχολῆς, οὐκ ἀσυντελεῖς τῷ κοινῷ λογισόμεθα.

20.τ Πρὸς Ἀδέλφιον σχολαστικόν

20.1 Ἐκ τῶν ἱερῶν Οὐανώτων, εἴ γε μὴ ἀδικῶ καλῶν ἐπιχωρίως τὸν τόπον,

ταύτην σοι τὴν ἐπιστολὴν διεχάραξα· ἀδικεῖν δέ φημι τὸν χῶρον, ὅτι μηδὲν ἔχει γλαφυρὸν ἡ ἐπωνυμία, καὶ ἡ τοσαύτη τοῦ τόπου χάρις οὐ συνεμφαίνεται τῷ Γαλατικῷ τούτῳ προσρήματι, ἀλλ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἐστι 20.2 χρεία τῶν ἑρμηνευόντων τὴν χάριν. πολλὰ γὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ παρὰ πολλοῖς ἤδη τεθεαμένος, πολλὰ δὲ καὶ διὰ τῆς τῶν λόγων ὑπογραφῆς ἐν τοῖς διηγήμασι τῶν ἀρχαίων κατανοήσας, λῆρον ἡγοῦμαι τὰ πάντα ὅσα τε εἶδον καὶ ὅσα 20.3 ἤκουσα συγκρίσει τῶν τῇδε καλῶν. οὐδὲν ἐκεῖνος ὁ Ἑλικών· μῦθος τῶν μακάρων αἱ νῆσοι· μικρόν τι χρῆμα τὸ πέδον τὸ Σικυώνιον· κόμπος τις ἄλλως ποιητικὸς τὰ κατὰ τὸν Πηνειὸν διηγήματα, ὅν φασι πλουσίῳ τῷ ῥείθρῳ τὰς ἐκ πλαγίων ὄχθας ὑπερχεόμενον τὰ πολυύμνητα πεδία 20.4 τοῖς Θετταλοῖς ἀπεργάζεσθαι. τί γὰρ τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν παρ' ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰρημένων, οἷον ἡμῖν ἡ Οὐάνωτα τοῖς οἰκείοις ἐπεδείξατο κάλλεσιν; εἴτε γάρ τις τὴν φυσικὴν ἐπιζητοίη τοῦ τόπου χάριν, ἀπροσδεής ἐστι τῶν ἐκ τῆς τέχνης καλῶν, εἴτε τὰ ἐκ τῆς ἐπιτεχνήσεως προσγινόμενα βλέποι, τοιαῦτα καὶ τοσαῦτά ἐστιν ὡς καὶ φύσεως δύνασθαι δυσκληρίαν 20.5 νικῆσαι. ἃ μὲν γὰρ ἡ φύσις τῷ τόπῳ χαρίζεται τῇ ἀκατασκεύῳ χάριτι τὴν γῆν ὡραΐζουσα, τοιαῦτά ἐστι· κάτωθεν μὲν ποταμὸς Ἅλυς ταῖς ὄχθαις καλλωπίζων τὸν τόπον, οἷόν τιςνία χρυσῆ διὰ βαθείας ἁλουργίδος ὑποστίλβει, 20.6 διὰ τῆς ἰλύος ἐρυθραίνων τὸ ῥεῖθρον· ἐκ δὲ τοῦ ἄνωθεν μέρους ὄρος ἀμφιλαφές τε καὶ λάσιον μακρᾷ τῇ ῥαχίᾳ παρατείνεται δρυσὶν ἁπανταχόθεν κατάκομον, ἄξιον Ὁμήρου τινὸς ἐπιτυχεῖν ἐπαινέτου μᾶλλον ἢ τὸ Νήριτον ἐκεῖνο τὸ Ἰθακήσιον, ὅ φησιν ὁ ποιητὴς ἀριπρεπές τε εἶναι καὶ 20.7 εἰνοσίφυλλον. ἐπικατιοῦσα δὲ πρὸς τὸ πρανὲς ἡ αὐτόματος ὕλη τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς γεωργίας κατὰ τὴν ὑπώρειαν συνάπτεται· εὐθὺς γὰρ ἄμπελοι διηπλωμέναι κατὰ τὰ πλάγιά τε καὶ ὕπτια καὶ κοῖλα τῆς ὑπωρείας, οἷον ἱμάτιόν τι χλοερὸν τὴν βαφήν, πάντα τὸν ὑποκείμενον χῶρον ἀπολαμβάνουσι· προσετίθετο δὲ τῇ ὥρᾳ καὶ ὁ καιρὸς θεσπέσιόν τι χρῆμα τῶν βοτρύων ὑποδεικνύς, ὃ δὴ καὶ μᾶλλον εἰς ἔκπληξιν ἤγαγεν, ὅτι τῆς γείτονος χώρας ἐν ὄμφακι τὸν καρπὸν δεικνυούσης, ἐνταῦθα κατατρυφᾶν ἐξῆν τῶν βοτρύων καὶ κατ' ἐξουσίαν ἐμφο20.8 ρεῖσθαι τῆς ὥρας. εἶτα πόρρωθεν ἡμῖν οἷόν τις πυρσὸς ἐκ φρυκτωρίας μεγάλης ἡ τῶν οἰκοδομημάτων χάρις ἐπέλαμπεν, <ἐν> ἀριστερᾷ μὲν εἰσιόντων ὁ εὐκτήριος οἶκος τοῖς μάρτυσιν ἡτοιμασμένος, οὔπω μὲν τὸ τέλειον τῆς