Resultados25 letters/passages
synesius_cyrene · c. 409 · score 0.02
To my Brother. How sad that we have only bad news to share when we write. The enemy has occupied Battia, attacked Aprosylis, burned the threshing floors, ravaged the fields, and sold the women into slavery. As for the men — no quarter was given. They used to take the boys alive, but now, I suppose, they do not have eno …
synesius_cyrene · c. 411 · score 0.02
To Anysius. Nothing could benefit Pentapolis more than honoring the Unnigardae [a barbarian military unit], who are excellent both as men and as soldiers, above all the other troops — not just the so-called native forces, but every auxiliary unit that has ever been stationed in our region. The proof of their quality is …
synesius_cyrene · c. 409 · score 0.02
To Simplicius. When you asked Cerialis to bring me your congratulations, you did him an unintended favor — you kept me ignorant for five days of what a contemptible man he is. Our cities had some hope for anyone Simplicius deemed worth knowing. But he quickly disgraced not you — may your reputation never depend on any …
synesius_cyrene · c. 412 · score 0.02
To Theophilus. You care for Pentapolis — you truly do. You will therefore read the official correspondence. But beyond what those letters contain, the messenger will tell you that the disasters that have already occurred are greater and more numerous than those the letters threaten. He was sent to request military rein …
synesius_cyrene · c. 410 · score 0.02
To my Brother. We may concede that there are worse things than women shrieking, beating their breasts, and tearing their hair when they see the enemy or hear he is coming. Still, Plato considers it scandalous that they will not stand up like hens defending their chicks — giving the human race a reputation as the most c …
synesius_cyrene · c. 408 · score 0.02
To my Brother. May all good things befall the priests of Axomis! While the soldiers were hiding in mountain gorges to save their precious skins, these priests gathered the peasants around them and led them straight from the church door against the enemy. They called on God and raised a trophy of victory in the Myrtle V …
synesius_cyrene · c. 405 · score 0.01
To my Brother. I have acquired three hundred lances and the same number of scimitars. As for double-edged swords, I never had more than ten — they do not manufacture those long iron weapons in our country. But I think the scimitars strike the enemy's bodies with a more devastating blow anyway. [The letter continues wit …
synesius_cyrene · c. 406 · score 0.01
To my Brother. Are you surprised that while living in a parched place like the country of the Phycuntes [the "Seaweed People"] you shiver and your blood turns to poison? It would have been more surprising if your body had held up. Come to me instead — we have clean water, good air, and room for you. An invitation like …
synesius_cyrene · c. 412 · score 0.01
To Olympius. Evil men from outside are troubling our Church. Take action against them. Only nails drive out nails.
synesius_cyrene · c. 405 · score 0.01
To Olympius. Just the other day — during the recent consulship of Aristaenetus [404 AD] and, I forget the name of his colleague — I received a letter bearing your seal and signed with your sacred name. But I suspect it was very old: it was worm-eaten, and the words were mostly illegible. Please do not content yourself …
synesius_cyrene · c. 406 · score 0.01
To my Brother. What now? Are we going to watch these vile raiders bravely risking death for the sake of other people's property — refusing to give up what they have plundered — while we spare ourselves and cling to our lives when our wives, our children, our freedom, and our country are at stake? It is time to act. I a …
synesius_cyrene · c. 398 · score 0.01
To Aurelian. Providence has not yet turned its attention to the Romans — but it will, someday. Those men [perhaps the Goths of Gainas] will not sit quietly in their houses forever, they who have the power to save the state. As for our old friend the orator: the power you currently hold is enough to give him what he nee …
synesius_cyrene · c. 408 · score 0.01
To the Philosopher [Hypatia]. "Even if there is utter forgetfulness of the dead in Hades, even there shall I remember you" [Homer, Iliad 22.389], my dear Hypatia. I am surrounded by the sufferings of my city, and I am sickened by it. Every day I see enemy forces, and men slaughtered like sacrificial animals. I breathe …
synesius_cyrene · c. 409 · score 0.01
To my Brother. "Beware the asp and the toad, the snake and the Laodiceans. Beware the mad dog too — and again the Laodiceans." After the most cultured and amiable Pentadius, it is a Laodicean — Euthalius — who has obtained the governorship of Egypt. You know the youth: if I am not mistaken, he entered service around th …
synesius_cyrene · c. 401 · score 0.01
To my Brother. How often one sees the same men who are brave in peacetime turn cowardly in battle! They prove themselves worthless everywhere. I think we should all be grateful to war, for it is an exact touchstone of the blood in a man's heart. It strips away many a braggart and returns them to us humbler. We will no …
synesius_cyrene · c. 411 · score 0.01
To Anastasius. I have not been able to do anything for the presbyter Evagrius — nor for anyone else who came to me for help during the rule of Andronicus. That man turned our province into a tyranny and made the bishop's office powerless. [This long, detailed letter describes the full extent of Andronicus's crimes and …
synesius_cyrene · c. 403 · score 0.01
To my Brother. Until now I had been happy. Then a wave of misfortune crashed over me, and both public and private affairs are causing me pain. I live, not as a private citizen, in a country that is ravaged by war, and I am obliged constantly to share in everyone's misfortunes. Often I cannot tell where my own grief end …
synesius_cyrene · c. 413 · score 0.01
To the General. Praise is the reward of virtue, and we offer it now to the most illustrious Marcellinus [a man of senatorial rank], at this moment when he is leaving his post — precisely when there can be no suspicion of flattery. When he arrived here, he found our cities attacked from without by hordes of barbarians a …
synesius_cyrene · c. 412 · score 0.01
To a Bishop, expelled from his diocese for refusing to accept Arian doctrine. You have recovered what you truly are — you have not lost it. When a man is struck from the rolls of impiety, he is not at the same moment deprived of the throne of genuine piety. Welcome your exile from Egypt, and believe that the prophet's …
synesius_cyrene · c. 412 · score 0.01
To the Bishops. "It is better to trust in God than to trust in man" [Psalm 97:8]. Even so, I hear that the followers of the godless heresy of Eunomius [an extreme Arian theologian who denied any similarity between Father and Son] are putting forward a certain Quintianus and boasting about their influence at court, with …
synesius_cyrene · c. 412 · score 0.01
To Anysius. So this is how sons defend their fathers! I thank you for it. Carnas came to me as a suppliant, and God himself made the plea sacred. How can a priest ignore the arrest of a man — on his own warrant, no less — during a day of fasting? Whoever brought him did not hand him over willingly; he was taken by forc …
synesius_cyrene · c. 412 · score 0.01
To Chryso-. Odysseus, after receiving from Aeolus the stored-up winds, was approaching rocky Ithaca and could already hear the sounds of home — when his companions, thinking the bag held treasure, untied it and unleashed a storm that blew them back across the sea. Something similar has happened to me. I was on the very …
synesius_cyrene · c. 400 · score 0.01
To Troilus. You are both a philosopher and a compassionate man. So I can lament with you the misfortunes of my homeland. You will honor Cyrene because of her citizen the philosopher, and you will pity her because your nature is gentle. You have a double reason to lift her up from her ruin — and you have the power to do …
synesius_cyrene · c. 396 · score 0.01
To my Brother. The blessed Castricius died on the sixteenth of Athyr [October 16, 402], having experienced a terrible vision of which he gave a full account.
synesius_cyrene · c. 410 · score 0.01
To Auxentius [a childhood friend with whom Synesius was ending a quarrel]. Homer banishes the evils of contention "to the mountains or the waves of the loud-sounding sea" [Iliad 6.347]. But philosophy does better — she dissolves them entirely. I was wrong to let this quarrel between us last as long as it has. Let us pu …