1.1Synesius, though a philosopher who avoids public life, joins the cities in thanking the general Anysius, whose victory answered his prayers against the barbarians.
1.2With only forty Unnigardae Anysius destroyed over a thousand raiding horsemen; Synesius asks that two hundred be sent under his command.
1.3Synesius asks that an embassy request troops and more time for Anysius, praising his discipline over the soldiers, his incorruptibility, and his piety.
2.1Synesius laments that Pentapolis, long loyal to the emperor, has been lost to the barbarians, and asks that the emperor's council be told.
2.2After Anysius's departure the scattered garrisons failed, the Ausurians grew bold, the Unnigardae were held back by poor generalship, and even women had to fight.
2.3Synesius is ashamed that a nomadic people threatens Libya and even Alexandria, enslaving women and children to breed soldiers, while no one defends them.
2.4The invaders desecrated graves, burned churches, used altars as butchers' tables, and carried off the sacred vessels, along with captives and plunder on five thousand camels.
2.5Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, mourns the end of Pentapolis, imagines exile far from Cyrene, longs to bid farewell to the altar, and describes sleepless nights on the walls and terrifying dreams.
2.6Facing a threatened assault, Synesius resolves to stay in the church clinging to the altar and to die there as God's minister if need be.
Not honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant traditions. Writer in the church of his time, not venerated by any of the three traditions.
Date
ca. 405-412 (approximate) · Two speeches delivered in Cyrenaica during the raids of the Ausurian and Marmaridan tribes on the Pentapolis; the first thanks the people for their honours and urges Anysius to be given Unnigardic troops, the second was delivered when the invasion was at its worst, to the governor Gennadius or to Thalassius. Dates and occasions are a rough estimate (to be checked).
Written at
Ptolemais, Cyrenaica (approximate)
Language
Greek
Genre
other
Reference system
Piece.section: 1 = the first Catastasis (sections 1-3), 2 = the second (sections 1-6, headed in the manuscripts as delivered when the barbarians' invasion was at its greatest, in the time of the governor Gennadius and the commander Innocentius, to Thalassius), as Krabinger divides them (Synesii Cyrenensis opuscula, vol. 1, Landshut 1850, pp. 376-390).
SBL abbreviation
Catast.Not yet checked
Text from
G. Krabinger, ed., Synesii Cyrenensis quae exstant opera omnia, vol. 1 (Landshut, 1850), 376-390 (Printed edition in the public domain; Tesseract OCR of public-domain page images (archive.org, Google Books))
Critical editions
J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Graeca 66 (Paris, 1859); N. Terzaghi, ed., Synesii Cyrenensis opuscula (Rome, 1944) (cited, not reproduced)