Libanius to Basil.
yourself will judge whether
I have added anything in the way of learning to the young men whom you
have sent. I hope that this addition, however little it be, will
get the credit of being great, for the sake of your friendship towards
me. But inasmuch as you give less praise to learning than to
temperance and to a refusal to abandon our souls to dishonourable
pleasures, they have devoted their main attention to this, and have
lived, as indeed they ought, with due recollection of the friend who
sent them hither.
So welcome what is your own, and give praise to men who
by their mode of life have done credit both to you and to me. But
to ask you to be serviceable to them is like asking a father to be
serviceable to his children.