Letters

Contents

Reading pages: 1–21 · 22–56 · 57–65 · 67–79 · 80–105 · 107–131 · 132–146 · 147–156

1. 1Synesius sends a playful speech, probably his Praise of Baldness, and asks his friend to judge it and publish it if it deserves.
2. 2Synesius warns a friend who scorned the laws to fear his enemies and the judges.
3. 3A satirical letter on a showy niece at Aeschines' tomb and on a rhetor, son of a courtesan, who claims he need not support his mother.
4. 4Synesius tells his brother of a disastrous voyage from Alexandria under a Jewish captain who abandoned the helm on the Sabbath, a shipwreck, and their stay among hospitable Libyans.
5. 5Synesius warns his presbyters against Eunomian clergy who have arrived to win converts, and tells them to hunt them out.
6. 6Synesius complains that a certain Carnas has taken a horse by force and refuses to return it.
7. 7Synesius rejoices that a rumour of a friend's grave illness proved false and asks for letters.
8. 8Synesius reproaches a 'brother' for sending no letter with the festal letters; a separate note wishes Theophilus long life and praises his paschal letter.
9. 9Synesius greets Hypatia and her circle, lamenting that, bereaved of his children and friends, he has not even her letters.
10. 11Synesius tells his presbyters that he accepts the episcopate only as God's will, fears it will end his philosophic leisure, and asks for the people's prayers.
11. 12Synesius readmits a clergyman, Cyril, to communion after a fixed penance imposed by the previous bishop.
12. 13Synesius asks Peter to look after the courier who brought the Easter announcement through hostile country and to have the city pray for its unworthy bishop.
13. 14Synesius explains why he protected Carnas, his suppliant, from arrest during the fast, and asks that the man who lost him not be punished.
14. 15Synesius, ill, asks Hypatia to have a bronze hydroscope made and describes the instrument.
15. 16Synesius tells Hypatia that grief for his dead sons is wearing him down, and sends greetings to her circle.
16. 17The opening words of a letter of thanks; the rest is lost.
17. 18Synesius recommends an Alexandrian councillor, a relative of the late Theodore, to officials.
18. 19A joint letter recommending to friends an official courier carrying gold, commended by the whole council.
19. 20Synesius recommends Ammonius, nephew of Theodore, a patron of the Pentapolis.
20. 21A second recommendation of Theodore's nephew, at the request of the Alexandrian council.
21. 22Synesius congratulates a friend on the imperial legitimation of his children, and teases him for not writing.
22. 23Synesius reproaches a friend raised to high office for forgetting him.
23. 25Synesius asks a busy official to write, or to admit his forgetfulness and amend it.
24. 26Synesius assures a friend that God will reward his help to Cyrene even if the cities are ungrateful.
25. 27Synesius asks protection for a cousin of the late philosopher Amyntianus against a certain Soterichus.
26. 28Synesius commends remitting a penalty as obedience to God's command to forgive debts.
27. 29Synesius jokes that a high official's kindness has made him a magnet for petitioners, and sends another request.
28. 30Synesius pleads for a man unjustly penalized, citing Plato that doing wrong is worse than suffering it.
29. 31Synesius praises a former high official, whose benefactions make him like God, and greets his son Taurus.
30. 32Synesius asks that a debauched slave, unfit for a philosopher's house, be shipped back to his homeland tied on deck.
31. 33Synesius returns a friend's praise of Alexander like an echo.
32. 34Synesius consoles a statesman out of office and asks his help for a rhetor, his foster-brother.
33. 35Synesius denounces a certain Athanasius who enriches himself by preying on the dying and their wills.
34. 36Synesius reports the death of Castricius after a frightening vision.
35. 37Synesius tells a friend that John, ill and away from him, chafes at his enforced idleness.
36. 38Synesius asks a high official to protect his relative Herodes from being taxed twice.
37. 39Synesius asks a friend to wait for his visit.
38. 40Synesius sends a fine though ugly horse as a gift.
39. 41Synesius tells a friend he has hired a reliable Carpathian ship for him.
40. 42Synesius asks a judge to give his relative Asphalius a quick hearing and restore his inheritance under his father's will.
41. 43Synesius playfully commends to a friend a young man who, having lost his inheritance, seeks his fortune in Thrace.
42. 44Synesius urges John, rumoured to have arranged the murder of Aemilius, to surrender to justice and, if guilty, to seek his punishment so as to go purified to the judgment below.
43. 45Synesius urges action against outsiders troubling the Church, citing the proverb that one peg drives out another.
44. 47Synesius reproaches a friend who turned against him in his misfortune, and asks protection for Martyrius, who helped him convict the violent Peter.
45. 48Synesius congratulates a friend on his return from Isauria to Constantinople and asks for letters.
46. 49Synesius compliments the poet Theotimus on his friendship with the prefect Anthemius, whose fame his poems will spread.
47. 50Synesius, on the rumour that John killed Aemilius, renounces both John and his accusers and, disgusted with Cyrene's present leaders, asks to hear no more of its lawsuits.
48. 51Synesius describes a quick voyage from Phycus to the island of Pharos at Alexandria.
49. 52Synesius asks a woman relative to buy him three or four Attic cloaks from a visiting merchant.
50. 53Synesius sends news that a boy in his care, Dioscurius, is well and studying, and that Synesius's own twin sons have been born.
51. 54Synesius plans to escape local troubles by visiting Athens, if only to stop deferring to those who boast of having studied there.
52. 55Synesius tells a departed friend how he arrived at the shore too late to see him off and commended his ship to the winds.
53. 56Synesius complains to a friend who has left, taking with him his niece, whom Synesius had come to love as a daughter.
54. 57Synesius explains that God uses evil men like Andronicus as instruments and then punishes them, recounts how his peaceful philosophic life was shattered by the episcopate and the death of a son, and proposes that a second man be chosen to handle civic affairs while he devotes himself to contemplation.
55. 58Synesius excommunicates the governor Andronicus for his cruelty and for nailing decrees to the church door that denied asylum at the altar and threatened the clergy.
56. 59Synesius recommends a rhetor who, with the Pentapolis ruined by war, seeks work elsewhere.
57. 60Synesius, now a bishop, offers reconciliation to an old schoolfellow who had quarrelled with him over a lawsuit involving his brother.
58. 61Synesius sends an Egyptian rug he had promised to a stenographer in Constantinople, explaining why he had not left it there.
59. 62A public testimonial for Marcellinus, the former commander, who defeated the barbarians and governed justly.
60. 63A one-line maxim on using powerful friends.
61. 64A one-line maxim against asking great favours.
62. 65A short covering note sending two books, both named Dionysius.
63. 67Synesius asks Theophilus whether Alexander, a bishop of Chrysostom's party who will not return to his see, is to be treated as a bishop; reports his failed attempt to give Palaebisca and Hydrax their own bishop and the settlement of a property dispute between bishops Paul and Dioscorus; and proposes that clergy who desert their churches be treated as laymen.
64. 68The opening of a letter of recommendation; the rest is lost.
65. 69Synesius reports that the barbarians have overrun the Pentapolis and asks for the prayers of his correspondent, since his own have failed.
66. 70Synesius, bereaved of a child, asks a fatherly friend for the letters that would console him.
67. 71Synesius sends duplicate letters to find his friend Pylaemenes, whom he still calls a philosopher.
68. 72Synesius tells his fellow bishops that Andronicus, once spared excommunication on a promise of repentance, has since confiscated property and caused the death of young Magnus, and so is now shut out of the church.
69. 73Synesius begs Troilus to persuade the prefect Anthemius to stop natives of Libya from buying the governorship of their own province, which is ruining the Pentapolis.
70. 74Synesius sends Pylaemenes a carefully written speech for his judgment.
71. 75Synesius recommends his sister's husband, the imperial guardsman Theodosius, to a friend at court.
72. 76Synesius reports to Theophilus the election of Antonius as bishop of the Olbiatae and asks him to ordain him.
73. 77A fragment to the commander Anysius, followed by a letter asking him to secure the privileges of the Hunnic Unnigardae troops and to request reinforcements of the same kind against the Ausurians.
74. 78Synesius begs Anastasius, reputed protector of the governor Andronicus, to use his influence to free Ptolemais from Andronicus's tyranny.
75. 79Synesius explains to a fatherly correspondent that he could do nothing for Nicaeus in his property dispute because Nicaeus never appeared.
76. 80Synesius, powerless after the loss of his sons, asks Hypatia to use her influence for two young relatives seeking to recover their property.
77. 81Synesius recommends Gerontius as a man of learning and devotion.
78. 82Synesius recommends Gerontius to Chrysus, punning on his name.
79. 83A short letter commending Gerontius as one who can report all of Synesius's news.
80. 84A note of greeting sent with Gerontius.
81. 85Another short letter introducing Gerontius.
82. 86Synesius recommends the paymaster of the Dalmatian troops stationed at Ptolemais.
83. 87Synesius complains that no letter from Pylaemenes came with the spring post from Constantinople.
84. 88Synesius, bishop in a war-torn land, tells a friend that only one of his three sons survives.
85. 89Synesius tells Theophilus that the fallen governor Andronicus, whom he had excommunicated, now deserves pity, and that he has protected him.
86. 90Synesius explains that as bishop he must now help those of his city, and recommends his companion Martyrius.
87. 91A brief, obscure note on Synesius's rustic plain-speaking.
88. 92Synesius asks an old fellow-student, now an official, to strike his brother Euoptius's family off the list of those liable for council burdens.
89. 93Synesius congratulates a general on a success near Cyrene and recommends to him the brothers John and his brother.
90. 94Synesius tells his brother that Julius, whom he saved from a charge of impiety, has been speaking ill of them.
91. 95The opening of a letter on Synesius's reluctant acceptance of the episcopate; the rest is lost.
92. 96Synesius rejoices at a friend's recovery; a second letter to the same friend thanks him for his kindness to Secundus and his letters.
93. 97A fragment asking for prayers and mentioning a possible journey to Alexandria.
94. 98Synesius offers the poet Theotimus as a gift to a powerful friend, since great deeds need poets to make them remembered.
95. 99Synesius introduces Anastasius to a friend and asks their help in obtaining release from curial duties so that he may have philosophic leisure.
96. 100Synesius thanks Pylaemenes for a much-admired letter, promises to send his trivial hunting pieces, and describes his solitary philosophic life in Libya.
97. 102A fragment of a letter of recommendation.
98. 103Synesius assures Pylaemenes that he did not mock his love for Heraclea, but urged that philosophy would make him more useful to it than the law courts.
99. 104Synesius mocks John the Phrygian, a long-haired braggart who feigned illness while the enemy threatened, talked grandly of tactics, and then fled at full gallop at the first sight of the barbarians.
100. 105Synesius, elected bishop of Ptolemais, tells his brother (and through him Theophilus) why he feels unfit for the office: he loves leisure and amusement, will not give up his wife, and holds philosophical views on the soul, the world, and the resurrection that differ from popular belief.
101. 107Synesius thanks his brother for silphium from his garden; a second letter protests against a ban on private citizens arming themselves while barbarians ravage the country.
102. 108On the eve of a battle with nomad raiders, Synesius reports his improvised arms and commends his children to his brother.
103. 109Synesius, kept from walking to visit a friend by his relatives' concern for appearances, asks by letter for news from Ptolemais and from the West.
104. 110Synesius ironically reports that a brothel-keeper has been made commander of the Marcomanni, and that John stands high at court through the eunuch Antiochus, so the present governor will last long.
105. 111A fragment praising someone's memory for reciting fifty lines a day.
106. 112A short reflection: love arises from the feeling part of the soul, praise and blame from reason.
107. 113Synesius rouses his people to fight the raiders for their land, churches, and laws.
108. 114Synesius invites a friend ailing in hot Phycus to recover at his country estate, with its shade, streams, and birdsong.
109. 115Synesius reminds a physician friend that Hippocrates praised moderate eating.
110. 116Synesius, quoting Homer, renounces a quarrel.
111. 117Synesius asks Troilus to protect his cousin, son of Maximinus, from informers in Cyrene by influencing the prefect Anthemius.
112. 119Synesius recommends the Cyrenean Diogenes and asks that Marcianus protect his cousin from informers.
113. 120A fragment: Synesius sends news in the hope of receiving more in return.
114. 121Synesius answers a prisoner who asked a bishop's help to escape: with a parable of Odysseus failing to talk Polyphemus into releasing him, he refuses to free a man the law has justly imprisoned, though as a priest he may not himself punish.
115. 122Synesius praises the clergy of the village of Axomis, and especially the deacon Faustus, who led peasants against barbarian raiders after the soldiers hid.
116. 123Synesius tells a revered older friend that he carries his memory in his heart and longs to see him again.
117. 124Synesius tells Hypatia that he clings to his war-torn homeland and would leave it only for her; a letter to his brother reports barbarian devastation and his own levy of farmers to resist.
118. 125Synesius tells a friend of the death of his last son, which he bears with philosophic doctrine, and asks for a marble water-jar.
119. 127Synesius tells the story of Euthalius, nicknamed 'Purse-man', who cheated Rufinus with a switched purse, and is now about to succeed Pentadius as prefect of Egypt.
120. 128Synesius consoles a bishop expelled from his see and warns him against joining the Arians.
121. 129Synesius sends Pylaemenes overdue letters, gifts, and the repayment of a loan to Proclus; a second letter denounces the cowardly and venal commander Cerealius, whose misrule let the barbarians overrun Cyrenaica.
122. 130Synesius introduces his relative Diogenes, a young commander, to Pylaemenes, joining them by Euclid's axiom as friends of the same friend.
123. 131Synesius rebukes his brother for panicking at night over the raiders, whom he scorns as mere robbers who flee from any resolute attack.
124. 132Synesius asks Olympius to write more often and by reliable bearers, describes the siege conditions in the Pentapolis, and asks for arrows, bridles, and an Italian stallion instead of luxurious gifts.
125. 133Synesius invites the discouraged Pylaemenes to share his modest estate, explains how his letters were sent with Diogenes, and lists gifts of wine, silphium, and saffron for friends in Constantinople.
126. 134Synesius recommends Poemenius, a mild and moderate estate manager whom the cities are sorry to lose.
127. 135Synesius writes from Athens that he has gained nothing there: the city has only famous names left, the Stoa has lost its paintings, and its sophists draw students with Hymettus honey rather than eloquence.
128. 136Two letters to Herculian, Synesius's fellow student under Hypatia: on their providential friendship in philosophy, which is not to be committed to writing, and a gentle reproach for his silence.
129. 137Synesius tells Herculian that only his company kindles his philosophy, and closes with Plotinus's last words.
130. 138Synesius urges the grieving Herculian to rise above sorrow at their separation to the higher, contemplative virtues, since souls united in philosophy are not divided by distance.
131. 139Synesius asks Herculian to send a copy of his own iambic poem addressed to his soul.
132. 140Synesius answers a letter of Herculian full of Homeric allusions, keeps his own reply short, and sends greetings to the Count.
133. 142Synesius rebukes Herculian for divulging their philosophic teaching to the unworthy, urging him to read the letter of Lysis to Hipparchus on keeping the doctrines secret.
134. 143Synesius recommends Phoebammon to Herculian and, now pressed by the wronged, accepts his earlier offer of introductions to the Count and the governor.
135. 144Synesius asks a friend to help recover a runaway slave of his niece, now with one of Herculian's guardsmen in Egypt.
136. 145The opening of a letter rebuking a friend's excessive grief; the rest is lost.
137. 146Synesius congratulates a friend reported to have taken up the solitary, monastic life in a grey cloak, and asks his prayers that he too may reach the goal of philosophy.
138. 147Synesius describes to a city-dwelling friend his simple life on an inland Libyan estate: salt from the rock, honey, oil, game, rustic music, and philosophic leisure free from the vices of the city.
139. 148Synesius thanks a friend for gifts and longs to see him again.
140. 149Synesius recommends to Pylaemenes of Heraclea his cousin, son of the philosopher Alexander, travelling on a mission for his city.
141. 150Synesius urges Pylaemenes, now absorbed in public life, to remain a philosopher.
142. 151Synesius expresses his love for Pylaemenes with Plato's image of lovers fused into one.
143. 152Synesius complains that his friend writes only once a year.
144. 153Synesius sends Hypatia his Dion, a defence of literary culture against rhetoric-scorning monks and pretentious philosophers, together with On Dreams, written in one inspired night, and the speech On the Gift.
145. 154Synesius asks a friend to protect a widowed kinswoman and her orphaned child who have been wronged.
146. 155A short note commending a just cause.
147. 156Synesius declines a friend's request for a bishopric, all sees being filled; there follow two short Easter homilies, on the 'cup in the hand of the Lord' (Ps 75:8) as the one Word of both Testaments, and to the newly baptized, and the opening of a speech against the people of Leontopolis.