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Letter CCCXXVIII. To Hyperectius. [On Basil's health.] · Letter CCCXXIX. To Phalirius. With Thanks for a Present of Fish.]

Letter CCCXLIX

Page 382 of 394

Libanius to Basil.

Will you not give over, Basil, packing this sacred haunt of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these redolent of the frost3285 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.

Notes

  1. 3285

    grite, an unknown word. Perhaps akin to kriote. cf. Duncange s.v.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Volume 8, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.