Letter CCCXLIX.

Libanius to Basil.

Will you not give over, Basil, packing this sacred haunt of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these redolent of the frost1549    γριτή, an unknown word.  Perhaps akin to κρίοτη.  cf. Duncange s.v. and snow and all Cappadocia’s good things?  They have almost made me a Cappadocian too, always chanting their “I salute you.”

I must endure, since it is Basil who commands.  Know, however, that I am making a careful study of the manners and customs of the country, and that I mean to metamorphose the men into the nobility and the harmony of my Calliope, that they may seem to you to be turned from pigeons into doves.

ΛΙΒΑΝΙΟΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙῼ

[1] Οὐ παύσῃ, Βασίλειε, τὸν ἱερὸν τοῦτον τῶν Μουσῶν σηκὸν μεστὸν ποιῶν Καππαδοκῶν καὶ ταῦτα ἀποζόντων γριτῆς καὶ χιόνος καὶ τῶν ἐκεῖθεν καλῶν; Μικροῦ δέ με καὶ Καππαδόκην ἔθηκαν ἀεί μοι τὸ »προσκυνῶ σε« προσᾴδοντες. Δεῖ δὲ ὅμως ἀνέχεσθαι Βασιλείου κελεύοντος. Ἴσθι τοίνυν ὡς τῆς μὲν χώρας τοὺς τρόπους ἐξακριβάζω, τὴν δὲ εὐγένειαν καὶ τὸ ἐμμελὲς τῆς ἐμῆς Καλλιόπης μεταμφιάσω τοὺς ἄνδρας, ἵν' ὀφθεῖεν ὑμῖν ἀντὶ φασσῶν περιστεραί.