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

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 you have ordered to be subordinate and to act as a bodyguard. For this reason, whenever the circumstances of events stir up passion and it begins, as it were, to swell up and be provoked, reason, immediately turning toward it, checks its audacity and represses it and does not allow it to be a tyrant. Wherefore no one at all has seen you being angry, nor your gaze distorted, nor your countenance inflamed, but as in holy sanctuaries, grave and repressed and with solemn thought and its fullness. But since you have thus judged for yourself, you have proceeded to external inequalities and have maintained the same justice in these things also. For seeing that some you have honored with reason, and others who embrace the private life, you have subjected despondency to knowledge and preferred understanding to boorishness, and in general in all the needs of life you have given first place to the first and finest things and have set the rank of the worst things. And adapting justice to the better things themselves, you have set things that partake of a more divine nature far above the lesser things. Therefore, with both philosophy and rhetoric being zealously pursued, you have given the prizes of victory to philosophy in these matters; for the one is concerned with thought, while the other is zealous about expression, and the one is unchangeable, while the other changes with times and circumstances. And proceeding to lower matters and applying virtue to the uncertainties of affairs, you judge with justice, and you both legislate better things for us, and you resolve the complexities of affairs with scientific accuracy, not siding with the persuasion of the tongue, nor with the powers of words, nor with the greatness of fortune, but taking the side of the lesser party, so that by your addition you may restore the lesser to equality with the greater. And when you are judging, none of all things sways you, not the necessity of kinship, not a pre-existing friendship, not anything else at all. Do you see, O emperor, how having brought my discourse to bear on some small part of your virtues, as if I were on the sea and unable to hold the rudders, I was almost submerged by the assaults of the waves, if I had not quickly returned to myself and gotten out of the surge. Homer, if he were present, would have said more, but not even he would have reached the end of the subject. For this reason I say, O emperor, that he who prepares for the contest of your praises should be no less hesitant than bold, the one because of the vastness of the subject, the other because he endures defeat along with everyone else. At any rate, all those, O greatest emperor, who contribute praises to you from outside sources, from your native land, from your parents, seem to make some artful instruction, but they deliberately evade the test; for fearing to approach you yourself, the invincible and unconquerable light, they are fluttered about the shadows of your nature. For what could one say, falling into the midst of your virtues, how you have ambidextrously divided yourself for both wars and peace, like hands for each part and section, with one you stop the barbarians, or rather you destroy them or, to speak more truly, you drive them off from afar and widen our borders, and with the other you dispense equality in affairs and establish our government and ratify laws and introduce admonitions? And you do both at the same time, things which by nature are separate from each other. And how shall one recall your piety toward the divine, and how having first established the most holy rites in your own soul, you so distributed them to the sacred shrines and added to the divine hymns, bringing reverence on the one hand to the first cause itself, and on the other to those who for his sake either shed their blood in martyrdom or nailed their own flesh with divine fear? So that I, often approaching the precincts of the martyrs, which you indeed have founded and built, boldly altering the voice of the apostle, greater than his sufferings are the

ἐλάττονα, τὰ πρωτεῖα τῷ λόγῳ κατὰ θυμοῦ δέδωκας, καὶ τὸν μὲν ὥσπερ τινὰ βάσιν ἐπὶ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως ἔδρασας, τὸν δὲ ὑποκεῖσθαι καὶ δορυφορεῖν ἔταξας. διὰ ταῦτα, ἐπειδὰν τὸν θυμὸν πραγμάτων περιστάσεις παρακινήσωσι καὶ οἷον ἐξοιδοῦν καὶ ἀνερεθίζεσθαι ἄρχεται, ὁ λόγος εὐθὺς πρὸς τοῦτον ἐπιστρεφόμενος ἐπέχει τοῦ θράσους καὶ καταστέλλει καὶ τυραννεῖν οὐκ ἐᾷ. ὅθεν οὐδείς σε τῶν πάντων εἶδε θυμούμενον, οὐ τὸ βλέμμα διαστρεφόμενον, οὐ τὴν ὄψιν πυρούμενον, ἀλλ' ὥσπερ ἐν ἱεροῖς ἀδύτοις ἐμβριθῆ καὶ καταστελλόμενον καὶ μετὰ τῆς σεμνῆς ἐννοίας καὶ τοῦ πληρώματος. Ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ σαυτῷ οὕτως ἐδίκασας, ἐπὶ τὰς ἔξω κεχώρηκας ἀνισότητας καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν κἀν τούτοις δικαιοσύνην τετήρηκας. ὁρῶν γὰρ τοὺς μὲν τῷ λόγῳ τετίμηκας, τοὺς δὲ τὴν ἰδιώτιδα ἀσπαζομένους ζωήν, τῇ γνώσει τὴν ἀθυμίαν ὑπέθηκας καὶ τῆς ἀγροικίας τὴν σύνεσιν προτετίμηκας καὶ ὅλως ἐν πάσαις βίῳ νεῖ ἐνδείαις τὰ πρῶτα καὶ κάλλιστα πρῶτα καὶ τὴν τάξιν τῶν χειρίστων πεποίηκας, καὶ αὐτοῖς δὲ τοῖς κρείττοσι τὴν δικαιοσύνην ἁρμόζων, τὰ θειοτέρας μετεσχηκότα φύσεως μακρῷ τῶν ἐλαττόνων ὑπερανέθηκας. ἀμφοῖν οὖν σπουδαζομένων φιλοσοφίας ὁμοῦ καὶ ῥητορικῆς, φιλοσοφίᾳ κατὰ ταῦτα τὰ νικητήρια δέδωκας· ἡ μὲν γὰρ περὶ νόησιν πραγματεύεται, ἡ δὲ περὶ λέξιν σπουδάζει, καὶ ἡ μέν ἐστιν ἀμετάπτωτος, ἡ δὲ μεταπίπτει τοῖς καιροῖς καὶ τοῖς πράγμασιν. Κατωτέρω δὲ προϊὼν καὶ ταῖς τῶν πραγμάτων ἀμφιβολίαις τὴν ἀρετὴν ἐπιβάλλων, μετὰ τῆς δίκης δικάζεις, καὶ νομοθετεῖς μὲν ἡμῖν τὰ κρείττονα, τὰς δὲ τῶν πραγμάτων διαλύεις πλοκὰς μετ' ἐπιστημονικῆς ἀκριβείας, οὐ προστιθέμενος γλώττης πειθοῖ, οὐ λόγων δυνάμεσιν, οὐδὲ τύχης μεγέθεσιν, ἀλλὰ μετὰ τοῦ ἐλάττονος μέρους γινόμενος, ἵνα διὰ τῆς προσθήκης ἐπανασώσῃς τὸ ἧττον τῷ μείζονι. καί σε δικάζοντα οὐδὲν τῶν πάντων αἱρεῖ, οὐ γένους ἀναγκαιότης, οὐ φιλία προηγησαμένη, οὐκ ἄλλο τι τῶν πάντων οὐδέν. Ὁρᾷς, ὦ βασιλεῦ, ὅπως βραχεῖ γέ τινι μέρει τῶν σῶν ἀρετῶν τὸν λόγον ἐπαναγαγών, ὥσπερ ἐν πελάγει γενόμενος καὶ κατέχειν τοὺς οἴακας μὴ δυνάμενος, μικροῦ δεῖν κατεβαπτίσθην ταῖς τῶν κυμάτων ἐπιφοραῖς, εἰ μὴ ταχὺ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἐπανῆλθον καὶ ἔξω τοῦ κλύδωνος γέγονα. εἶπε δ' ἂν πλείω, εἰ παρῆν, Ὅμηρος, ἀλλ' οὐδ' οὗτος ἂν ἐφίκετο πρὸς τὸ τέρμα τῆς ὑποθέσεως. διὰ ταῦτά φημι, βασιλεῦ, ὅτι ὁ πρὸς τοὺς σοὺς ἀγῶνας ἀποδυόμενος οὐδὲν ἧττον θαρρείτω ἢ συστελλέτω, τοῦτο μὲν διὰ τὴν τῶν πραγμάτων ὑπερβολήν, ἐκεῖνο δὲ διὰ τὸ μετὰ πάντων ὑπομένειν τὴν ἧτταν. ὅσοι γοῦν, ὦ μέγιστε αὐτοκράτορ, ἔξωθέν σου τοὺς ἐπαίνους προσερανίζονται ἀπὸ τῆς ἐνεγκαμένης, ἀπὸ τῶν τεκόντων αὐτῶν τεχνικὸν μέν τι ποιεῖν δοκοῦσι παράγγελμα, ἐξεπίτηδες δὲ τὸν ἔλεγχον διαδιδράσκουσι· δεδοικότες γὰρ αὐτῷ σοι προσβαλεῖν τῷ ἀηττήτῳ καὶ ἀμάχῳ φωτί, περὶ τὰς σκιὰς τῆς σῆς ἐπτόηνται φύσεως. τί γὰρ ἂν εἴποι τις μέσος ἐμπεσὼν ταῖς σαῖς ἀρεταῖς, ὅπως ἀμφιδεξίως σαυτὸν πρός τε μάχας καὶ εἰρήνας μερίσας ὥσπερ τινὰς χεῖρας πρὸς ἑκάτερα μέρη καὶ τμήματα, τῇ μὲν τοὺς βαρβάρους ἱστᾷς, μᾶλλον δ' ἀναιρεῖς ἤ, τό γε ἀληθέστερον εἰπεῖν, πόρρωθεν ἀπελαύνεις καὶ πλατύνεις τοὺς ὅρους ἡμῖν, τῇ δὲ τὴν ἰσότητα πρυτανεύεις τοῖς πράγμασι καὶ τὴν πολιτείαν ἡμῖν καθιστᾷς καὶ νόμους κυρεῖς καὶ νουθεσίας εἰσάγεις; καὶ ἐν ταὐτῷ ἄμφω ποιεῖς, ἃ φύσιν ἔχει ἀπ' ἀλλήλων διαιρεῖσθαι. πῶς δ' ἀναμνήσει σου τὴν πρὸς τὸ θεῖον εὐσέβειαν καὶ ὅπως τὰς ἁγιωτάτας τελετεὰς ἐν τῇ σῇ πρότερον καταστήσας ψυχῇ, οὕτω τοῖς ἱεροῖς σηκοῖς κατεμέρισας καὶ τοῖς θείοις ὕμνοις προσέθηκας, τὰ μὲν αὐτῷ τῷ πρώτῳ αἰτίῳ τὸ σέβας ἐπάγων, τὰ δὲ τοῖς δι' ἐκεῖνον ἢ μαρτυρικῶς τὸ αἷμα ἐκχέασιν ἢ τῷ θείῳ φόβῳ τὰς σάρκας ἑαυτῶν καθηλώσασιν; ὡς ἔγωγε πολλάκις τοῖς τῶν μαρτύρων προσεγγίζων τεμένεσιν, ἃ δὴ σὺ τεθεμελίωκάς τε καὶ ᾠκοδόμησας, τὴν τοῦ ἀποστόλου τολμηρῶς μεταλλάττων φωνήν, μείζονα τῶν ἐκείνου παθημάτων τὰ