Letters of Julian/Letter 11

by Julian

11. To Leontius

[361 From Naissa or Constantinople]

The Thurian historian^[1] said that men's ears are less to be trusted than their eyes.^[2] But in your case I hold the opposite opinion from this, since here my ears are more trustworthy than my eyes. For not if I had seen you ten times would I have trusted my eyes as I now trust my ears, instructed as I have been by a man who is in no wise capable of speaking falsely,^[3] that, while in all respects you show yourself a man, you surpass yourself^[4] in your achievements "with hand and foot," as Homer says.^[5] I therefore entrust you with the employment of arms, and have despatched to you a complete suit of armour such as is adapted for the infantry. Moreover I have enrolled you in my household corps.^[6]

Footnotes

1. Herodotus.
2. Herodotus 1. 8; cf. Julian Oration 1. 37c, and 4. 145d.
3. An echo of Demosthenes, Olynthiac 2. 17.
4. Cf. Julian, Oration 7. 235b, Letter to Themistius 264d, Caesars 309d, 327c.
5. Odyssey 8. 148; the phrase is there used of the athletic sports of the Phaeacians.
6. i.e. the protectores domestici; cf. Symmachus, Letter 67. In C.I.L. III. 5670a (Dessau 774), a Leontius is mentioned as praepositus militum auxiliarium in 370 A.D.