Letters of Julian/Letter 61

by Julian

61. To Sopater^[1]

It is an occasion to rejoice the more when one has the chance to address friends through an intimate friend. For then it is not only by what you write that you unite the image of your own soul with your readers. And this is what I myself am doing. For when I despatched the custodian of my children,^[2] Antiochus, to you, I could not bear to leave you without a word of greeting. So that if you want to have news of me, you can have from him information of a more intimate sort. And if you care at all for your admirers, as I believe you do care, you will prove it by never missing an opportunity while you are able to write.

Footnotes

1. This letter is rejected by Schwarz, Cumont and Geffcken; Schwarz on the slender evidence of style classes it with the apocryphal letters to Iamblichus; Cumont also places it in that series, and thinks that this Sopater is the friend of the elder Iamblichus executed by Constantine.
2. No forger would have referred to children of Julian's body; but the phrase may refer to his writings. Libanius, Epitaphius, says of Julian's letters παῖδας τούτους ἀθανάτους καταλέλοιπεν. See also To Iamblichus, Letter 78.