Tag: Letters of Aeneas of Gaza

Let’s carry on reading the letters of Aeneas of Gaza.  Here are five more.

7. To Diodorus Scholasticus.

The excellent Herodotus reconciled us through the power of his musical art, an art surpassing that of Orpheus and Thamyris. Now, finally, we actually know one another, as if we had previously been fighting a battle in the dark: and there is now lasting peace.  Come, let us set up a mixing-bowl, as befits a time of peace, and pour libations, among the gods to Hermes, and among men to Herodotus, for they are the ones who finally resolved the discord between us. In honouring them, we shall banish Comedy, with all its attendant vices, from our correspondence.  For Comedy runs about impudently exposing the secrets of closest friends. Instead we shall make room for what safeguards every friendship: persuasion, grace, mutual pleasure, applause, and praise. With these, let us compose a nobler spectacle, forbidding Comedy to cause the slightest annoyance

[This letter, and letter 22, suggest that Aeneas and Diodorus had been fierce enemies, exchanging polemics and even personal attacks.  The two have been reconciled by a mutual friend, Herodotus (not the historian).  Witty personal attacks were part of the Greek Old Comedy – hence the introduction of Comedy – and were known as ὀνομαστὶ κωμῳδεῖν. Diodorus was a pupil of Procopius of Gaza, and accompanied him to Egypt, then settled in Caesarea as a lawyer.  As many as sixteen letters of Procopius are addressed to him and often concern recommendations and gifts sent by him to the master.]

8. To Zosimus the Premier.

I am well aware that your voyage has come to a happy conclusion. For, in truth, you did not set sail in order to engage in piracy, as the mighty leaders of old once did, nor for the sake of commerce, like most people today.  Rather, you travelled out of a longing for cherished people and places.  So it is fitting to say that Zeus, the guardian of friendship, was your companion on the voyage. And so, may the city be as favourable to you as the sea was, and, having received the love of friends, return to friends.

[From the papyri we learn that the πρωτεύων was the leading magistrate, official or citizen of a city, presumably Gaza; or Egyptian nome.  One papyrus uses πρωτεύοντι Ἡρακλεοπολίτου for the leading citizen or magistrate of Herakeopolis.  The letter is intended to flatter this important personage, suggesting that the voyage could never have gone wrong since Zeus Philios accompanied him.]

9. To the Sophist Sopater.

I praise the spirit of the excellent Constantine but pity his fate.  For, to be truly happy, he should have enjoyed only a single city, his home city. Instead, since fortune did not grant this, he has seen the cities of many men and he wanders about in order to earn a living, forced to glorify poverty while practicing a poetic art that originated not in Greece but in Italy. And thus he declaims in a heavy and baroque style. Having arrived here with this craft, he appealed to me to help him, and now I appeal to you. You, too, will surely guide him to a successful outcome by commending him to others.

[A reluctant and somewhat hostile letter of recommendation on behalf of a visitor from the now barbarous Latin world.  We do not know whether the addressee is the Sopater who is the author of an Ἐκλογαὶ διαφόρων (Photius, Bibl. cod. 161), of biographies (Cramer, An. Par. I 389), of Διαιρέσεις ζητημάτων and of scholia to Hermogenes (Walz, Rhet. gr. IV, V, VIII).]  At all events Aeneas simply hands his guest over to Sopater who must find friends for him.

10. To the Sophist Zosimus.

If the excellent Paul were young and a poet, he would still be worthy of honour.  As it is, he is both a poet and an old man, and both of these qualities require someone who knows how to render them their deserved tribute. You wish to be foremost among those who do this, and rightly so. Here, then, is someone to whom you can do a good turn.

[Also a letter of recommendation.  When you are young, it is enough to be famous.  When you are old, you need material help too.  The addressee cannot be the same as the Zosimus of letter 7.  Letter 151 of Procopius of Gaza is also addressed to a Zosimus, who, after being his pupil, has now dedicated himself to the study of law.  The Suda mentions a Zosimus of Ascalon, a sophist, who lived in the time of the emperor Anastasius and wrote an alphabetical lexicon and commentaries on Demosthenes and Lysias. But Aeneas was older than Procopius and so could hardly have had a pupil of Procopius – a young man – as an authoritative friend.  It is possible that the Suda erroneously fused together information concerning two sophists named Zosimus, one native of Gaza put to death by the emperor Zeno (473-491), the other of Ascalon lived under Anastasius I (491-518). In all probability this second Zosimus was Aeneas’ friend.]

11. To Marinianus, of a consular family.

The excellent Ponton has surpassed the others in my school through his unflagging zeal, a quality that greatly aids the acquisition of learning.  He has undoubtedly mastered the techniques of rhetorical oratory and added to them a multifaceted knowledge of the law.  Yet he is not sated by these labours. Indeed, he has set out for your city like a skilled athlete heading to Olympia, superbly prepared for the contest.  For if you inspire him, I prophesy that the young man will emerge an Olympic champion! May you brilliantly organize the games and offer prizes, not for boxing or wrestling, but for the art of eloquence and for wisdom. I greet the most illustrious Victor, the illustrious Stephen, and the most accomplished John, as well as your families and my friends.

[The addressee is clearly an influential person.  A Marinianus was praefectus praetorio Italiae, Illyrici et Africae and then consul ordinarius in 423; another was bishop of Synnada in Phrygia; another was outright bishop of Gaza and took part in the Council of Ephesus in 449: to him John Chrysostom addresses epistle 128 (Migne PG 52, 638). It is clear, therefore, that this is a very influential Gazan family. The personal name Pontus is known from a Latin inscription.]

Twenty-five letters of the early sixth century sophist Aeneas of Gaza have been preserved, scattered across a mass of manuscripts.  Let’s read the first six in the collection, using the Positano edition and Italian translation of 1961, thanks to the wonders of Google Translate and Deepseek.[ref]Lidia Massa Positano, Enea di Gaza: Epistole, 2nd ed., Naples (1961).[/ref]  The notes are abbreviated from Positano.

1. To John.

If the book were yours and I desired it, it would rightly have been already in my hands, for some time: that is how friendship is made. But now the owner of the book is me; and yet you do not give it to me. Oh no, by Zeus the protector of friendship, may this not happen to me because it is a book; in reality it is all that I have; and such possession seems to me worthy of greater consideration than the talents of Croesus.

Certainly, one man loves the hoe [he is a farmer], and one has a passion for dogs [he is a hunter], another delights in the bow, another takes pleasure in horses: for me, it is books and discourses. But the very thing that brings most pleasure to its owner is what brings most pain when taken from him.

So if you return the book to me, I will convinced that it is imprinted upon your mind.  But if not, it will look as if you do not care about its contents, but rather about appearing to be its owner. But why do I say this?  Certainly not in order to get pain from something that so often brought me joy.

[The letter is only intelligible if John is a rather wealthier man than Aeneas.  The name John is very common; note that letter 14 is directed to a priest John, and another John is greeted in letter 11.  Procopius of Gaza refers in letter 103 to a John who returns books swiftly, and addresses letters 5, 12, 33, 55, 95, 154 and 156 to him; but we cannot be sure the two are the same.]

2. To Cassus.

In his old age, Laertes no longer wished to be king or rule over peoples; instead, he wanted to be a gardener and tend to trees. It seems to me that you have emulated him; otherwise, you would not have left the city and your own people to spend such a long time in the countryside conversing with plants. You ought, however, to have kept in mind not Laertes, but Socrates and the Socratic precepts, where he, discoursing with elegance and gravity, maintains that fields and trees are not disposed to teach anything, whereas the men of the city are.  Listen to him instead: hold the fields in low regard, for it is unlikely that farmers there reap the fruit of wisdom; remember, rather, those familiar, customary discussions where one can learn and teach knowledge and, most importantly, bring joy to friends.

[The addressee was probably “Cassius”, but it is given as “Cassus” in the manuscripts, and Κάσσος does exist as a name, because it appears in the Suda.]

3. To the Priest Alphius.

The opposite has happened. Anastasius is at peace, while you are making war.  That course of action is not fitting for you, nor is it honourable. Shall I tell you how the conflict came about? Cornelius occupied Anastasius’s farm while the latter was away.  Upon his return, the owner wanted to reclaim the land, while the farmer, for his part, wished to become the owner.  And not for free either, for he had actually negotiated a price. They came to an agreement; a purchase contract was drawn up, and Cornelius was already preparing to hand over the money for the farm.

Then you swooped in unexpectedly and prevented the transaction, claiming ownership of the land yourself. Hence the anger and the conflict. If you are in the wrong, settle the dispute even before you come to us. If, however, there is only the appearance of wrongdoing rather than the reality, come and answer to the judges as soon as possible. For I would not want friends to be unjust, nor even merely to seem so.

[Anastasius inclines towards a reconciliation; Alphius, on the other hand, a priest, has assumed a litigious attitude. Both are friends of Aeneas.  It’s possible that Alphius has invoked an ecclesiastical privilege over the land. Anastasius is very likely the Anastasius whom Procopius mentions as his relative in one of his letters addressed to Gessius the physician, who is also a friend of Aeneas (ep. 68).]

4. To the Sophist Zoneus.

May the excellent Epiphanius enjoy great happiness, because he filled us with joy.  Indeed, in calling you a fine orator, he admired your character more than your eloquence. For—and this is the essential point—you proved yourself a sincere friend.  He would often turn to me in jest, and this in your name; because you had instructed him to do so. You know what he is like: a man who cultivates every grace. To tell the truth, he was sometimes even a nuisance to me with his constant delivery of greetings on your behalf.  But you are to blame.  Had you sent me even a brief note, just to exchange a few words, I would have received it with pleasure.

[The name of the addressee is corrupt in the manuscripts.  A Zoneus is mentioned in Letter 107 by Procopius of Gaza, and it seems to be the same person. It is uncertain whether this is the same orator who wrote, according to the Suda lexicon both ἐρωτικαὶ ἐπιστολαὶ καὶ ἀγροικικαί and a treatise Περὶ τῶν σχημάτων. A short work Περὶ τῶν κατὰ λόγον καὶ κατὰ λέξιν has come down to us under the name of Zoneus, but the attribution is perhaps due to the 16^th century forger Constantine Palaeocappa. It has also been thought that the letters attributed to Aristaenetus are instead by Zoneus. For Epiphanius see letter 12, addressed to him.]

5. To Ulpia.

May the wicked, whoever they may have been, perish miserably for the damage that they inflicted upon your household.  By the gods, I cannot express how deeply distressed I was by it.  Yet, fortunately, a source of comfort has presented itself to me, albeit belatedly, and I felt it was right to share it with you, so that the misfortune will not have been entirely in vain.

Now indeed you will believe more firmly that, while gold, silver, and splendid garments are eagerly sought after by the many, they are insecure and unstable possessions, even for their actual owners, because anyone who wants to can steal them.  Culture and wisdom, on the other hand, may be objects of ridicule for fools, but they are a secure and steadfast possession that cannot be taken away: a treasure, in short, that is proof against theft.   Cling on to these things instead, and in future you will need neither walls nor weapons nor a troop of guards to protect your wealth.

[This and the following letter are letters addressed separately to Ulpia and Pampus to console them for a theft. The central theme of this letter, that culture and wisdom are the only secure possession, is a recurring motif in rhetoric.]

6. To the Grammarian Pampus.

The joy of receiving your letter was overshadowed by the pain I felt at the news of the theft.  This troubled me no less than if I had suffered it myself. Let this statement not seem incredible: for if friends share possessions, do they not share losses too. But why do I grieve so? Undoubtedly he who is superior to gain is also above loss.  In this, we find comfort. I should like to know from you if I am right.