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

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 grace and pleasure, or the persuasion and skill of Demosthenes, or the clarity of Isocrates? But for me, let these things be declined; "for in what I do not understand, I love to be silent," says the tragedy. And let the things after these also be declined, since not even these seem to me burdens easy to handle and easy to carry, but sufficient to wrestle down even one exceedingly manly in nature. What do I mean by the things that follow and come after your forefathers? The upbringing, from the beginning divinely inspired and truly most royal, the—if it is bold to say—angelic way of life, which in the palace the king—O the great counsel and foreknowledge of God, through which you were prepared beforehand, most divine scepter-holder—you both embraced and pursued and made a matter of zeal and a contest. But neither will my speech elaborate on your pursuits, but it will leap away from these also as impossible for it, having recalled the proverb in any case at the right moment, and not daring either to boil a stone, or to card against fire, or to write on water. For I admire, O king, and I praise, having left aside all other things, the incomparable quality of your shrewdness and gentleness, for which you received the starting-points from God above, arranging beforehand the mighty work concerning your power, as it seems—it has been said—and you increased and brought it to perfection both through continuous exercise and through unremitting zeal and training for noble things. Or is it not a mark of the highest shrewdness and unsurpassable understanding to have handled so skillfully the—I know not how to say it—adverse time that crept in upon you, and to await the decree of God and to remain quiet, and to consider what happened as not having happened and to philosophize in a wondrous way, and this at the very point of your age that is swift-to-turn and overly hot, in which reason is by nature tyrannized in most people by the powers that oppose it? But this was not so in your case, nor did you imitate the many, who indeed often, acting rashly at the wrong moment, have come to grief, but you for a time ruled over passions, and were truly a king by seeming to despise kingship, rather displaying strength and putting forth the wisdom of an old and philosophizing man in a young body. Then what? The troublesome thing has gone away, and the cloud that overshadowed you, the sun, has been allotted its own darkness. And again all under the sun is most fortunate. Were you, then, changed along with the occasion, and did arrogance and conceit drive out your modesty? By no means, but you remained again what you were, preserving your own high standard and established upon a noble spirit. And in some way you even wept over the ruin that came from despair upon the one who grieved you. All these things are manifestly the works of a divine and profound mind. And what of your gentleness? Is not this also beyond description, having no equal in mortal nature and exceeding all understanding? For I do not mean these frenzied things, and what they call the works of Ares, that you do not appear quick-handed for murder, nor exult in streams of blood, nor delight in the wailings of men torn by scourges, but just as you do not allow the passionate part of your soul even to leap up or flutter a little at the start, but you have both changed and reshaped {as it were} the appetitive part toward the love of virtue and philosophy; so you allow this part to act as general only against the resistances, surges, and assaults of the opposing passions. And to your subjects, instead of a threat, should this ever be needed, you put forth smiles, and if anyone happens to have died beforehand from fear and has condemned himself to every terrible thing, he is gloomy and gives up on life only up to this point, until he is brought and seen by your face, but from that moment the tables are turned for him, as they say, and he who a little before was in tears, the downcast one, goes about leaping with joy as if he has come back to life. and your love for mankind

λόγῳ περιλαβεῖν. τίνι γὰρ γένοιτ' ἂν ἐφικτὸν τὸ ἀνέφικτον, κἂν τὴν Ὁμηρικὴν πρὸς λόγους ἐπλούτησε δύναμιν, κἂν τὴν Ἡροδότειον χάριν καὶ ἡδονήν, κἂν τὴν τοῦ ∆ημοσθένους πειθὼ καὶ δεινότητα, κἂν τὴν Ἰσοκράτους σαφήνειαν; Ἐμοὶ δὲ παρῃτήσθω μὲν καὶ ταῦτα· "ἐν οἷς γὰρ οὐ φρονῶ, σιγᾶν φιλῶ" ἡ τραγῳδία φησί. παρῃτήσθω δὲ καὶ τὰ μετὰ ταῦτα, ἐπεὶ μηδὲ ταυτί μοι φαίνεται φορτία εὐμεταχείριστα καὶ εὐάγκαλα, ἀλλ' ἱκανῶς καὶ τὸν ἄγαν ἀνδρεῖον τὴν φύσιν καταπαλαίσοντα. Ποῖα δέ φημι τὰ ἑξῆς καὶ μετὰ προγόνους; τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς θεοληπτουμένην καὶ ὄντως βασιλικωτάτην ἀγωγήν, τὴν- εἰ καὶ τολμηρὸν ἐρεῖν-ἀγγελικὴν δίαιταν, ἣν ἐν βασιλείοις ὁ βασιλεύς-ὢ τῆς μεγάλης βουλῆς καὶ προγνώσεως τοῦ θεοῦ, δι' ἧς προκαρτηρτίζου, σκηπτοκράτορ θειότατε- ἠσπάζου τε καὶ μετήρχου καὶ σπούδασμα ἐποίου καὶ ἀγώνισμα. Ἀλλ' οὐδὲ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα ὁ ἐμὸς λόγος ἐπεξεργάσεται, ἀλλ' ἀποπηδήσει καὶ τούτων ὡς ἀδυνάτων αὐτῷ πάντως κατὰ καιρὸν μνημονεύσας τῆς παροιμίας καὶ μήτε λίθον ἑψεῖν μήτε κατὰ πυρὸς ξαίνειν μήτε καθ' ὕδατος γράφειν ἐπιτολμῶν. θαυμάζω γάρ, ὦ βασιλεῦ, καὶ ἐγκωμιάζω τῶν ἄλλων πάντων ἀφέμενος τὸ τῆς σῆς ἀγχινοίας ἀπαράμιλλον καὶ πραότητος, ὧν ἐδέξω μὲν τὰς ἀφορμὰς ἐκ θεοῦ ἄνωθεν, προοικονομοῦντος τὴν περὶ τὸ σὸν κράτος μεγαλουργίαν, ὡς ἔοικεν-εἶρητο-ἐπηύξησας δὲ καὶ ἐτελεσφόρησας διά τε τῆς συνεχοῦς μελέτης καὶ τῆς ἀνενδότου πρὸς τὰ καλὰ σπουδῆς καὶ ἀσκήσεως. ἢ οὐκ ἀγχινοίας ἄκρας καὶ ἀνυπερβλήτου συνέσεως τὸ διαθέσθαι δεξιῶς οὑτωσὶ τόν-οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως ἐρῶ-παρεισφθαρέντα σοι ἀντίξουν καιρὸν καὶ περιμεῖναι τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ ψῆφον καὶ ἡσυχάσαι, λογίσασθαί τε τὸ γεγονὸς ὡς μὴ γεγονὸς καὶ παραδόξως φιλοσοφῆσαι, καὶ ταῦτα ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ τῆς ἡλικίας ὀξυρρόπῳ καὶ ὑπερθέρμῳ, ἐν ᾧ τυραννεῖσθαι πέφυκεν ὁ λογισμὸς τοῖς <πολλοῖς> παρὰ τῶν ἀνθισταμένων τούτῳ δυνάμεων; ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐπὶ σοῦ τοῦτο οὐδ' ἐμιμήσω τοὺς πολλούς, οἵ γε δὴ πολλάκις οὐκ ἐν καιρῷ θερμουργήσαντες παρεσφάλησαν, ἀλλ' ἐβασίλευες μὲν τέως κατὰ παθῶν, καὶ ἦς ἀληθῶς βασιλεὺς διὰ τοῦ δῆθεν καταφρονεῖν βασιλείας, μᾶλλον τὸ κραταιὸν ἐνδεικνύμενος καὶ γηράσκοντος φρόνημα καὶ φιλοσοφοῦντος ἐν νέῳ τῷ σώματι προβαλλόμενος. Εἶτα τί; γέγονε τὸ ἐνοχλοῦν ἐκποδών, καὶ τὸ οἰκεῖον σκότος τὸ τῷ ἡλίῳ σοι ἐπισκοτῆσαν νέφος ἐπεκληρώσατο. καὶ πάλιν πανευτυχὴς ἡ ὑφ' ἥλιον. ἆρ' οὖν συνεξηλλοίωσαι τῷ καιρῷ, καὶ παρήλασεν ἐπί σοι τὴν μετριοφροσύνην ἀλαζονεία καὶ ἔπαρσις; οὐμενοῦν, ἀλλ' ἔμεινας αὖθις ὃ ἦς, τὸ ὕψος τηρῶν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ γενναίου ἐρηρεισμένος τοῦ λήματος. καὶ ποῦ καὶ ἐδάκρυσας ἐπὶ τῇ ἐξ ἀπονοίας ἐπιφυείσῃ τῷ λυπήσαντι συντριβῇ. ταῦτα δὲ πάντα θείου ἄντικρυς καὶ ἐμβριθοῦς φρονήματος ἔργα καθέστηκε. Τὸ δὲ τῆς πραότητος οἷον; οὐχ ὑπὲρ λόγον καὶ τοῦτο καὶ τὸ ἶσον ἐν γεννητῇ φύσει μὴ ἔχον καὶ πᾶσαν ὑπερεκπῖπτον διάνοιαν; οὐ γὰρ δή φημι τὰ μανιώδη ταυτὶ καὶ ὅ φασιν Ἄρεως ἔργα, ὡς οὐκ ὀξύχειρ φαίνῃ πρὸς φόνον οὐδ' ἐπαγάλλῃ ῥοαῖς αἵματος οὐδ' ἐντρυφᾷς θρήνοις ἀνθρώπων ξαινομένων ταῖς μάστιξιν, ἀλλ' ὥσπερ μηδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀνασκιρτῆσαι μικρὸν καὶ πτερύξασθαι τῷ θυμοειδεῖ μέρει χωρεῖς τῆς ψυχῆς, ἀλλὰ μετήμειψάς τε καὶ μετερρύθμησας {ὥσπερ} τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν πρὸς ἀρετῆς καὶ φιλοσοφίας ἔρωτα· οὕτω τοῦτο πρὸς τὰς τῶν ὑπεναντίων παθῶν ἀντιστάσεις καὶ κυματαγωγίας καὶ ἐμβολὰς καὶ κατ' ἐκείνων μόνων παραχωρεῖς στρατηγεῖν. τοῖς δ' ὑπηκόοις τοῖς σοῖς ἀντ' ἀπειλῆς, εἴ ποτε δή γε τούτου δεήσειε, προβάλλῃ τὰ μειδιάματα, κἄν τις τύχῃ τῷ δέει προτεθνηκὼς καὶ αὐτὸς ἑαυτοῦ τὰ πάνδεινα καταψηφισάμενος, μέχρι τούτου σκυθρωπάζει καὶ ἀπολέγεται τὴν ζωήν, μέχρι τοῦ παραχθῆναι καὶ ὀφθήσεσθαι τῷ προσώπῳ σου, τὸ δ' ἀπ' ἐκείνου μεταπίπτει τούτῳ τὸ ὄστρακον, ὅ φασι, καὶ ὁ πρὸ μικροῦ δεδρακρυμένος, ὁ κατηφής, σκιρτῶν γεγηθὼς ὡς ἀναβεβιωκὼς περίεισι. καί σου τὴν φιλανθρωπίαν