Himerius, Orations

ToposText · Himerius · 532 sections

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§ 12.30 All of Asia —I don’t mean what we now call Asia, using the name of the whole continent for a mere part [i.e., Asia Minor]—begins way up in India and is separated and set off from the other continents in the east and the north by the Red Gulf and [the] Phasis [River], in the south and where the sun sets by Egypt and the Ionian Sea. From the Propontis to Pamphylia a side of it stretches along and gives shape to the continent. This whole side is washed by the Aegean, which has one and the same beginning with it.... The people who inhabit these cities clearly reveal who the ancestors were from whom, I think, they originally descended not by the cicada-pin and the chiton, but by their virtue and wisdom....
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§ 12.31 This Meles [River]—it is not right to pass over in silence a river that produced such a great tongue [i.e., Homer ]—arises in the suburbs of Smyrna, where countless springs that flow forth near one another give birth to it. Because of them the river swells up and quickly forms a sea below them; it becomes navigable by merchantmen and the oar. After passing by banks on both sides that are lush with cypress trees and reeds, it shares its stream with the nearby sea, if “stream” is the right word; for you will hear no sound, nor would it seem to you that any water is moving along. The river is like a lover who wants to conceal a rendezvous with his beloved; it secretly mixes with the sea, calming the sea’s waves with its flow....
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§ 12.32 Since I wish to summon the wind in a poetic manner but am unable to express myself poetically, I wish to address the wind in accordance with the Muse of Ceos [i.e., Simonides ].69...
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§ 12.33 Diffusing itself gently over the waves, [the wind] parts them as they surge around the prow.... For he [i.e., Flavianus ] is eager to sail your sea, not in search of reckless love, but in his desire to initiate all the Ionians in the solemn mysteries of self-control....
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§ 12.34 Legend says that the Rhodians were rained upon with gold when Zeus broke open a golden cloud upon them. But no dubious tale will tell of the good fortune that all of you [Asian provincials] will enjoy because of this man; no, the wonders [he brings to you] will be right before your eyes....
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§ 12.35 The beautiful spring, of course, was destined to bring to all of you, not nightingales, swans, or cicadas, but the sun itself, which would illuminate Ionia with its golden rays....
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§ 12.36 Above all others, the colt who led my colts [was] holy and lordly, like the colts the Nisaeans train for the god Helios. Having equipped this colt with the Muses’ curb-chain and completely bound his hair with the Graces’ headband, I offered him as the first-fruits of my drove [of students] and dedicated him, as it were, to a god....
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§ 12.37 May gleaming stars appear, illuminating the sea voyage with their bright light....
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§ 12.38 My eloquence longs almost to anticipate the future. In the midst of its farewell songs it seeks to strike up a song welcoming [him] back. What it has in mind is what heights it will reach, I think, when it catches sight of him returning and is about to dance the Muses’ dance again in his honor....
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§ 13.1 From Another Protreptic Oration Lysippus, you know, was clever of mind as well as of hand. He used his mind to create such daring works of art. He enrolled Opportunity (Kairovn) among the gods, then made a statue of him and explained his nature by how he represented him. To the best of my memory, this is what the statue looks like. Lysippus represents Opportunity as a boy of graceful form, at the peak of adolescence. He has hair on his temples and forehead, but, from there back, he is hairless. He is armed with iron in his right hand and is extending his left hand toward a balance. His ankles are winged, not to be lifted way up above the ground into the air, but so that, while appearing to touch the ground, he may escape notice as he stealthily desists from resting on the ground....20
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§ 13.2 Glaucus, waylaying, as I think, the very opportuneness (το καιριον) of the contest, in which the prize was a crown, just showed up and was the first to get the crown....21
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§ 13.3 For everything is good in season, and the archer who knows how to shoot his arrows at the right time (kaivria) is the one who hits his mark....
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§ 13.4 Nightingales fly from earth into the sky; for myth dares to lift birds up into the sky itself because of their song....
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§ 13.5 So they came to the swan, which was in a vernal meadow and just about to surrender its wings to the Zephyr and to sing....
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§ 13.6 To the Newly Arrived Followers of Piso The physician gets control over disease through his knowledge of medicine, and the rhetor gets control over the masses through his eloquence.
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§ 13.7 Whenever the sun makes you hot, and you want to seek shelter in the shade of a glen...
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§ 13.8... not when the Nile swells and has covered Egypt with its waters...
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§ 14.1 From the Oration to the Newly Arrived Egyptian The Egyptians call the [progressive] augmentation of the Nile “cubits,” and they measure the [rise of its] waters [in cubits], and the cubit is a cause of celebration for them....
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§ 14.2 A clever businessman amasses a large sum of money by increasing his wealth little by little....
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§ 14.3 And you will see that excellent generals are at first credited with only a few triumphs; then, as time goes on, they can proclaim innumerable victories. Themistocles was of rather small stature at Artemisium, for he excelled there against what were still [only] the [ Persian ] king’s servants. He was greater at Psyttaleia and really great at Salamis, for in the fight at Salamis he drowned the whole of Asia....38
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§ 14.4 It seems to me that Homer himself wrote about the ten-year war and destroyed Troy by fire only after that interval in order to show all humankind through his poetry that fortune gives good things to people only after hard work and the passage of time.
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§ 15.1 From a Propemptic Oration And perhaps it is well that you do this [i.e., end your studies?]. For a person who wishes to be praised must strive to do the kind of deeds that will earn him admiration. The actions that were a source of pride to Pericles were not sufficient for his children; in fact, since the children were unworthy of their father’s virtue, his reputation caused them to be subject to more censure than they might otherwise have been. Many other outstanding men have had children, for all of whom their fathers’ fame was more a proof of their own deficiencies than a source of praise for them....
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§ 15.2 How, then, you may ask, is the mind cared for? By virtue and eloquence (lovgoˇ). Virtue rules and presides over eloquence. Eloquence, like an adept servant of a good queen, executes and carries out virtue’s commands with all haste....
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§ 15.3 There is another uncountable group of virtues, all of which you will find when you have entered the shrines of learning. But I shall recommend these virtues to you [instead], as the nurses and mothers of those others, and I say that, through them, you will also get to the prey of the virtues that depend on them....
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§ 15.4 The boys, released from their teachers, were taking part in that procession....
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§ 15.5 The Phrygian Midas, when he wanted to capture Satyrus, put wine in the waters. He bound him with sleep and lethargy and thus made him his prey.
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§ 16.1 From the Extempore Oration Given When Discord Arose within His School What drug is there in my words, my friends, that is capable of stilling strife? Does my rhetorical skill aim at achieving the kind of dazzling result that Homer hints at through Helen’s mixing bowl, which that daughter of Zeus sets up in Menelaus’s palace for guests who were overcome by tears? Isn’t it true that Helen’s drug was not an herb, that she did not have an Egyptian’s ability to prepare a drink that would banish sorrow? Rather, her remedy was sweet and all-wise speech, which, like a drug, is able to extinguish emotions that swell up from the depths of the heart.
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§ 16.2 Homer’s poem puts the story [of Helen’s acquisition of the drug] in distant Egypt in order to hint at the fact that that land is the mother of wise words....24
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§ 16.3 Once the king [ Alexander the Great] was having rather base thoughts. Timotheus would not allow this; instead, by means of his music he lifted Alexander’s mind heavenwards.
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§ 16.4 The king’s anger intensified beyond the point of moderation; Timotheus came to his side and removed the excess of emotion through his melodies. The king was disheartened; Timotheus immediately made him smile. Alexander surrendered himself to pleasures, but you would have seen him turn serious immediately after hearing Timotheus’s music. In a word, one could see that king take on whatever mood Timotheus caused in him through his piping....25
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§ 16.5 The Zephyr calms the ocean’s waves with its breezes. Won’t an Attic rhetor with his Greek eloquence put an end to discord merely by expressing himself?...
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§ 16.6 Xenophon went on military campaign, for he had taken up the spear after associating with Socrates....
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§ 16.7 For what is of good natural disposition is well-tempered....
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§ 16.8 Alcibiades lived a voluptuous life when among the Athenians. In Lacedaemon he was grave. He alone outdid the Persians in luxury. But whenever he had to think out a speech and exercise himself in philosophy, he would turn everything into a Lyceum and an Academy through his conversations....
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§ 16.9 They, working hard on an account of these men...We shall be so advanced in wisdom...
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§ 17.1 From the Oration Given at the Arrival of the Cyprians The poets give Cyprus to the goddess Aphrodite, just as they give Delos to the god Apollo. For Cyprus is a great country....
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§ 17.2 Sappho and Anacreon of Teos do not cease invoking Cypris as a prelude to their songs....
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§ 17.3 They say that the well-being of this island has nothing to do with land and sea, but actually with heaven....
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§ 17.4 Its inhabitants [are] genuinely Greek in language....
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§ 17.5 The sea brought forth Aphrodite from Heaven, but the mystical teachings command that the precise nature of this birth be hidden. This heavenly being had to be born, then. The sea was immediately stilled and became calm, swelling in gentle waves around the newborn goddess....
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§ 17.6 One could say that the island [of Cyprus ] is Aphrodite’s own meadow; and this island, I think, is teeming with Erotes....
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§ 17.7 Pandemos (vulgar) Aphrodite has nothing in common with the Ourania (heavenly) one. The former gives birth to Erotes who have an unhallowed and impure nature. But the latter’s children are golden, and so are their arrows; they take aim at newly initiated and undefiled souls....
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§ 17.8 May you yourselves take notice if I open my doors to welcome a false lover.
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§ 18.1 From an Oration Addressed to the Cappadocian Because of [ Apollo’s] arrow, the Scythian [ Abaris ] was transported about, not only across the Danube itself and the Tanaïs, but also to every land and sea; and, of course, Apollo’s arrow is eloquence....
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§ 18.2 And a river there [i.e., in Cappadocia ] that has a story connected with it is something Greeks can consider worth hearing about. Dionysus had gone to the Indians, a people who rejected his kindness. His army consisted of Bacchae and satyrs; his arms were fawnskins and thyrsi. As soon as the Indians saw the god, they were overcome. They threw away their weapons, and they who had been fighting against Dionysus up to that point became his chorus.
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§ 18.3 Well, when they had been led into the territory of the Cappadocians, they encamped alongside the river for which they were about to provide a name. When they had to wash in its waters, the river was transformed, its silvery water darkening (melaivnetai) after coming into contact with the Indians. Thus they caused the river to be and be called what they themselves were....
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§ 18.4 Rumor leads the young man [to me?] from there [i.e., Cappadocia?]....
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§ 18.5 But my wealth is not the gold of Gyges or Lydian [gold], but boys in the bloom of youth, of a vigorous age, who, first of all, look proud and carry their heads high because they were born right from Zeus’s chest.
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§ 19.i Fine Things Are Rare Things From the oration he gave on the occasion when, having been asked to give an oratorical display (επιδείξις), he held off for a while and then spoke.
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§ 19.1 The Persians busy themselves with the bow, and their whole life consists of the quiver and arrows....
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§ 19.2 Whenever he [a Persian ] is feasting, arrows will not be lying far from the mixing-bowl; and, in a word, their bows are weapons for them if they have to fight and ornaments when they are at peace....
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§ 19.3 The [ Persian ] king himself trains in the use of the bow....
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§ 19.4 I praise the custom. It is a fitting test of industriousness....
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§ 19.5 For it is proper that things held in honor be rare....
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§ 19.6 Nature knew this law before the Persians [did]. A person would never have thought seeing the ocean to be something worthwhile, unless he had embraced the ends of the earth after fleeing from its middle regions. What repute would the pyramids have, if they were not a spectacle far removed from us? What repute would the stone statue of Memnon among the Ethiopians have, if his mother [ Eos ] had not placed it, too, inland beyond the view of most people? It is because of the statue’s location that we believe what they say about it to be true and not a mere myth—namely, that, once it has come into contact with the sun, it sounds forth and speaks like a human being....
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§ 19.7 Nature also gives human beings the rose bit by bit. It does not spring up and blossom all at once; rather it remains inside of its bud during much of its prime, emerging and breaking forth only after a long period [of concealment]. Nor can people gather the harvest whenever they want to; if you want apples or wish to pluck ripe figs, you must wait for the harvest season, which takes its very name from the word for harvest....
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§ 19.8 Time hated the bronze gong at Dodona because it resounded endlessly, and so it reduced the device to mere story. For familiarity has the power to breed a sense of satiety and, by its overbearingness, to sully what is available to us....
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§ 19.9 The sun, too, often annoys us because we get too much of it....
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§ 19.10 When we live on land, we seek the sea; conversely, when sailing, we look around for fields of grain. The seaman thinks that the farmer is lucky, and the man at the plow has the opposite view: he believes that it is the sailor who is happy. This is all the sport of satiety. Familiarity breeds satiety. Let us flee from satiety, my boys. In its arrogance it often shoots its arrows even at lovers. I heard this once in a proverb.
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§ 20.1 From the Oration to Musonius, Proconsul of Greece When I was very reluctant to go before audiences and eager to remove my eloquence from mass gatherings, you forced me to break this habit. The swan breaks its silence whenever it hears Apollo striking his lyre, and the shrill sound of the Zephyr leads the nightingale from the cave out into the light of the sun....
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§ 20.2 The sailor dares to sail over the waves, and the man who belongs to Bacchus leaps up boldly—the former, when he sees springtime calming the sea, and the latter, when he senses that Dionysus is shaking the thyrsus....
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§ 20.3 I do not think that a courageous poet would hesitate to compare you to Apollo himself. But your fondness for the bow and arrows goes only far enough to show that you have Apollo’s nature; those weapons of yours always remain unstained with blood. It is unlawful that the barbs of your arrows be touched by human gore. On the contrary, through your decision a person escaped the public executioner even as the latter was raising his sword up over the victim’s neck....
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§ 20.4 So too a colt is broken in well, and a puppy is skillfully trained, when the horse -breaker wants to raise his horse without using a goad or a whip, and the dog -trainer wants to raise his dog using only his hand to tame it....
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§ 20.5 What made Cyrus great among the Persians? His gentle and mild character....
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§ 20.6 For the city always fared well against the barbarians....
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§ 20.7 Once one of the valiant soldiers announced victory to the people. They marveled so much at his enthusiasm that, as a result of those words that he spoke to them, a bronze statue of him was set up among the Athenians....
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§ 20.8 O sprout of the Muses, O sweetest creature of the Graces!
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§ 21.1 From the Oration to the Newly Arrived Severus Achilles, of course, did not forget his lyre (lyra) even while battles were going on. The plains were gleaming with weapons, but he was in his tent tuning his kithara. As for the theme of his song: well, Achilles loved valor. Whether he was fighting or singing songs, he tried to make the glorious deeds of men come alive again....
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§ 21.2 There was strife among the gods over what they were enamoured of. But although Athena had weapons, she did not use them in contending [with Poseidon ]. Nor did Poseidon aim his trident at [her], even though he was carrying it. Instead, she brandished the olive branch, and he in turn shouted at her with the sound of his waves. A vote settled their dispute, and Athena carried off the prize of victory....
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§ 21.3 But choruses of Muses and Apollo play in soft meadows....
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§ 21.4 And one played the aulos, another held a kithara, and yet another played the syrinx.
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§ 22.1 From a Talk (λαλιά). Whenever the Muses dance together on Mt. Helicon, everything is filled with sound for me. The cicada sounds forth and, in its song, calls to mind a tale: “I,” as it says, “was always singing when I was a human being; and when I gave up one nature for another, I did not abandon my desire to sing along with a particular form of life.”36... The race of nightingales and that of swallows, as well as groups of swans, dance together around the goddesses [i.e, the Muses ].
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§ 23.1 To the Comes Ursacius The hierophant rejoices when he senses that all those religious beginners desire initiation; the poet is delighted when he sees his audience eagerly gathering to hear his poetry; and the general gladly gives the signal for war when he sees his soldiers thirsting for battle....
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§ 23.2 Every person, I think, is fond of what belongs to his own country. If an Egyptian should come here, he will find the Nile —that is, our conception of it—swelling in orations we deliver on Egypt....
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§ 23.3 Oratory can have the same effect that painting has; rather, any attempt to represent something falls short of oratory. That is how effective some [orations] are in tracking down the truth....
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§ 23.4 They say that the wise Abaris was ethnically a Hyperborean, but a Greek in language, and a Scythian as far as his clothes and outer appearance were concerned. Whenever he opened his mouth to speak, one thought that his words were coming right from the Academy and from the Lyceum itself....
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§ 23.5 Since a man from Illyria dwells among us, a poet would speak of his “golden countenance.”83...
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§ 23.6 They say that the Eleusinian youth [ Triptolemus ] was raised on high by Demeter so that he could replace the food of nomads with cultivated grain. But an arrow... he came to [Athe]ns and to the other Greeks... [and, although raised on Scy]thian plains, he understood the Greek language and... passionately desiring to visit [Greece?].
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§ 23.7 Abaris came to Athens carrying a bow, with a quiver on his shoulder, and wearing a tightly fastened cloak. He had a golden belt around his waist and was wearing pants that stretched from his buttocks right to the bottom of his feet. He had pleasing eyes and a charming face, which revealed to those who met him that he had a Hellenic disposition. But when he entered the city, the council welcomed this speaker [of Greek, and] they examined his thinking [as well as] his speech, to see if it too was thoroughly Hellenic (?)85...
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§ 23.8 We find that, as with a lyre’s harmony, everything one heard him say was completely in concord with what he thought. He was pleasant to meet; he could carry out a great deed quietly; he was sharp in seeing what lay before him, but also providently kept the future in mind. He always yielded to wisdom and was a lover of friendship. He entrusted few things to fortune, guaranteeing everything by his judgment.
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§ 23.9 When the Centaur [ Chiron ], having built the cave, was tuning his lyre in it, Aeacus, the son of Zeus, came to him to see the cave and the lyre. The Centaur put the swans from Mt. Pelion in a circle in the middle of the cave and played the lyre. Then the whole of Mt. Pelion was overcome by amazement, as the swans echoed forth in reply to the lyre. Aeacus marveled at the Centaur for his skill and at how the chorus of swans immediately started dancing around the lyre, and he brought [his sons] Telamon and Peleus to Chiron and gave them to him, to be watched over along with the swans.... to be satisfied with the meal I [provide], but if my eloquence skillfully provides food...
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§ 24.1 To His [Former] Pupil Severus But the grace of excellence attends not only the beginnings [of an art], but also anyone who has marveled at it and striven to achieve distinction in it himself. The fact that the seed of Phidias’s craft came from Daedalus did not make Phidias less famous than Daedalus; indeed, Phidias practiced his sculpting craft in full for the human race. Nor was Cratinus less famous than Epicharmus, nor were those who flourished at the time of Gorgias and Protagoras less famous than the followers of Tisias and Corax... to sharpen with their eloquence.
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§ 24.20 With reference to these matters, my son, you will hear now [of rhetors?]... some of whom, so winged... extended their reputation along with... while others bloom in a Laconian manner... But he himself [ Severus ] recommended schooling under me [for his son?], expecting it to be an Olympic racecourse. Meanwhile, this was not announced in an ordinary way, as if [the young man] were “so-and-so, son of so-and-so.” He was the son of a good father.... His people and his family [were set forth?] in the announcement. As for his people: he hailed from [ Diospontus... all the way to the other side through the Bosporus and the land of the Cimmerians.... Now some people... the hyparchic office...
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§ 24.30 and, not least of all, [it] turns my attention toward you, and... Yet it is both unworthy to speak... what I myself have heard, they opened the imperial [doors] to that man... and immediately enrolled him among the emperor’s friends... in the manner of athletes, he gathered together those who... he began with an office [greater?] than the others [of his cohort] began with, as if... The Galatians were the preface to his honors, the Bithynians came next... as if hearing some Orpheus’s lyre....
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§ 24.40 The Muses let Orpheus strike up Calliope’s song so that, by playing his lyre in the midst of wild beasts, he might calm them, as he says, with his music. A myth that took up this story about Orpheus will be fresh in its application to that man [ Severus ], when, having given [himself?] over to wild beasts... so the job he got from the emperor was to guide peoples and cities. And... For who hunted down the essence of justice more than he did and with his speed? Who, after rightly hunting it down, made it public [as speedily as he did]?
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§ 24.50 Who was as quick to act, yet as slow to punish a person in legal trouble? Who was so above bribery, so unable to withhold benevolence and pity from a person experiencing misfortune; so powerfully eloquent, but even more powerful in deed and action? They know...... in Homer’s words, “so that someone in a future generation may speak well of you” [Od. 3.200]—he [ Hector?] led off [the Trojans ]... he ordered battles (?) and armed them against the Greeks... having put to flight. What made Plato wise? Solon... of Heracles among the Greeks, Socrates... to virtue...
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§ 24.60 a leader and chief of my own craft... to spur on... he set forth great deeds for us, and he [made?] some of them [i.e., ancestral heroes?] objects to swear by... to encourage the city to do [great] deeds. I shall also tell you a Laconian story. A young Laconian’s luck in warfare was often not going well. His mother was grieved by his setbacks, for Laconian women are remarkable lovers of [eloquent] words or [daring] deeds. She came up with the following device. There was a bronze shield in the precinct of Athena, the dedication of a war hero from the very house from which the young man hailed.
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§ 24.70 The mother secretly took the shield—for even the Laconian mother of Lycurgus had acted presumptuously to palliate the ill luck of her son—and offered it to her son, who was shying away from battle, but before doing so said, “Victory or death.” The son accepted his mother’s watchword along with the shield. From that day on, as they say, he was recognized as the most renowned of all the Spartans and was proclaimed a victor throughout the city.
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§ 25.i To Scylacius, The Proconsul Of Greece. To Scyl[acius]... after he [ Himerius ] became an Areopagite... the oratorical display (τῆς επιδείξεως).
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§ 25.1 Come now, after [receiving] the Athenians’ myrtle crown,... [attend to] the business of the Muses, dance with the Muses, even if I have faced the contest late and with great effort. Consider Achilles, son of Thetis, who stirred up war against the demigods: poetry armed him for battle very late, for he would not tolerate appearing on the plain to fight before he got arms from Hephaestus. But once a shield glittering with gold came down from heaven—a shield that, by its wondrousness, betrayed the hand of Hephaestus
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§ 25.10 because it alone, by virtue of the skill [of its maker], could imitate nature in the craftsmanship it displayed. Achilles no longer would let himself remain in his tent and [only] hear the sounds of battle. He took the suit of armor, which the god had fashioned from bronze, and entered into war on the plain.... tokens of the finest men. An athlete rushes into every contest when he sees an excellent judge present. A soldier into war when, fighting under a noble general, he goes... A sailor has no fear of the sea when a [qualified] steersman is guiding the boat...
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§ 25.20 I [would] gladly dance to Pan’s pipe because he knows... Apelles did not think that he should display one of his paintings unless someone knowledgeable about painting was about to see his work. [I know that horsemen] gladly had Alexander [as a leader] because he knew the art of horsemanship best of the Macedonians. I hear a story about the Ethiopic Muse as follows. A spring gushes out from the spurs of her mountains. It is said that it broadens out from a small flow into a river. The Ethiopians call it the fount of Dionysus, and the nature of this stream of water is such that it fades away if someone who is uninitiated wants to drink from it
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§ 25.30 then it swells up again if a Bacchic worshiper approaches to touch its waters. Whence for us, O... the sign a trumpet (?), which first was so prominent in the imperial palace that... later having let loose its bolts upon Ionia. When he set that region, too, in order... What, then, O eloquence, what, by the Muses, O friends, shall I do? What Mu[se?]... do you wish. He [Scylacius] desires, he desires to know and learn [that?] that trumpet... Zeus... Chiron’s lyre, because it alone of [the instruments belonging to] the Centaurs... to praise the race of Zeus... a helpmate to our words. The wings of poets
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§ 25.40 are light, and therefore... neighboring on my words. Come, let us entrust the hymn to this [lyre of mine?], having tuned [it]... The ancients, having allotted nobility to the mind and to the family, some of them... that the conjunction of each occurs rarely in human beings... was lucky to have a portion of this good fortune... no time to seek on high, for there is one at hand who will give verbal testimony... It is said that two races flourished among the Greeks, one descended from Zeus through Aeacus, the other from Poseidon through Theseus; one Attic
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§ 25.50 the other, the earlier one, of Aegina. Let anyone from these two races prevail in whatever field he wishes; he will win the victory, of course, because of this [race of his]. The distinguishing mark of [each] race is not some shoulder, as the Pelopidae say; rather, justice is the excellence of the Aeacidae, and benevolence shows who the elite Athenians are.... The occasion does his virtues’ actions an injustice if it does not allow the oration to list all of them, so one must mention as many of them as possible. You marvel at [his?] courage and justice and self-control (?)... What are his virtues’ deeds? Proof of his courage can be found in [the freeing of] the Pisidians who were formerly slaves,... the ingenious measures taken with regard to the Maeander River. Judgments of the justice of leaders...
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§ 25.70 first to rule one’s own soul and to keep one’s hands off of all [money]101... Let us speak, beginning with the Maeander... That river surpasses the Nile in nature as much as it falls short of it in magnitude. The soil that the Nile bestows upon the Egyptians is wondrous to tell of. But [the Maeander ] has deprived sailors of the sea and given farmers furrows, in place of waves, to break through with their plows. You could see a plain where there previously was a sea, a fawn leaping about instead of dolphins; you will hear the sound of a herdsman’s pipe instead of a sailor shouting a command.
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§ 25.80 For the nature of the place is as follows: The gulf, coming forth... separates the island [of Lade ] from the city [of Miletus ].102 This Maeander... had turned dry land into a gulf. When this man [Scylacius] saw nature being wronged... comparable in extent to the sea (?)—for inlets appeared everywhere, and the place made it possible to sail... this lake, which became spoiled over time by [an excess of ] water, [he]... by means of a canal dug on the plain... he gave a lake to the inhabitants... 10. They say that Cyrus the Persian got angry at the Gyndes River because it overwhelmed his Nisaean foal and covered over the animal with its waters
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§ 25.90 he broke down the waters of this river, which was previously navigable, into a series of canals in order to make the Gyndes crossable by Assyrian women. You, however, were not in search of a lordly foal but had seen [the area] being wronged when you [diverted the river’s waters to] where it is natural for them to flow, and you gave back to the city its harbors and... it was done like this. And what great deed did you do in the case of the Pisidians? Well, robbers were devastating the Pisidians. [The area’s workers] could not safely traverse it... Plundering drove [them] away. But when this man appeared, with the law supporting him, the whole lot of robbers... he put out of business. Under your jurisdiction people stopped daring to disgrace justice through bribery...
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§ 25.100 they went off, having learned not to inflict outrages on such a goddess [i.e., Justice ]. O... of all, O dwelling place of all wisdom! These words for the time being... we... for you, like a... of eloquence... May [I] set up the same [krater of friendship?] for you a third time and often. But you... of [your] tenure of office... eloquence, in order that [I?], having learned the solemn my[steries] of Right ( Themis ) under your [administration of ] justice...
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§ 26.i To the Newly Arrived Ephesians, Mysians, and Fellow Citizens of the Speaker. Largely [aimed] at... who had become [ Himerius’s] pupil and was attending his school against the wishes of his parents.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Robert J. Penella (1947 - ). Composed ca. 380 CE. Licence: copyright Robert J. Penella, used by permission. Source.