Ep. CIV.

All The Other favours which I have received I know to be due to your kindness; and may God reward you for them with His own mercies; and may one of these be, that you may discharge your office of prefect with good fame and splendour from beginning to end.  In what I now ask I come rather to give than to receive, if it is not arrogant to say so.  I personally introduce poor Philumena to you, to entreat your justice, and to move you to the tears with which she afflicts my soul.  She herself will explain to you in what and by whom she has been wronged, for it would not be right for me to bring accusations against any one.  But this much it is necessary for me to say, that widowhood and orphanhood have a right to the assistance of all right-minded men, and especially of those who have wife and children, those great pledges of pity, since we—ourselves only men—are set to judge men.  Pardon me that I plead with you for these by letter, since it is by ill health that I am deprived of seeing a ruler so kind and so conspicuous for virtue that even the prelude of your administration is more precious than the good fame of others even at the end of their term.

[104] ΟΛΥΜΠΙΩΙ

Τὰς μὲν ἄλλας χάριτας ὅσων ἔτυχον εἰληφὼς οἶδα παρὰ τῆς σῆς ἡμερότητος: καί σε ἀντὶ τούτων ἀμείψαιτο τοῖς παρ' ἑαυτοῦ χρηστοῖς ὁ Θεός, ἓν δὲ τῶν χρηστῶν εὐδόκιμον καὶ λαμπρὸν διεξελθεῖν τὴν ἀρχήν. Ἣν δὲ νῦν αἰτῶ, δώσων ἔρχομαι μᾶλλον ἤπερ ληψόμενος, εἰ μὴ φορτικὸν εἰπεῖν. Τὴν ἀθλίαν Φιλουμένην δι' ἐμαυτοῦ προσάγω σοι καὶ τῇ σῇ δίκῃ προσπεσουμένην καὶ ὑμῖν τὰ δάκρυα στήσουσαν οἷς συντρίβει τὴν ἡμετέραν ψυχήν. Ἃ μὲν οὖν ἠδίκηται καὶ παρ' ὧν, αὐτὴ δηλώσει: οὐ γὰρ ἡμῖν γε κατηγορεῖν οὐδενὸς ἀσφαλές, αὐτοὺς δὲ τοσοῦτον εἰπεῖν ἀναγκαῖον, ὅτι χηρεία καὶ ὀρφανία πᾶσι μὲν βοηθητέα τοῖς γε νοῦν ἔχουσι, μάλιστα δὲ οἷς γυνὴ καὶ τέκνα ἐν μέσῳ, τὰ μεγάλα τοῦ ἐλεεῖν ἐνέχυρα: ἐπειδή γε ἀνθρώποις δικάζομεν, ὄντες ἄνθρωποι. Ἡμῖν δὲ συγγνώμη τοῦ δι' ἐπιστολῶν ταῦτα πρεσβεύειν, ἐπειδή γε τῷ ἀρρωστεῖν ζημιούμεθα.