Synesius, Letter 088

Synesius of Cyrene (c.370-c.413) was a Neo-Platonic philosopher who became bishop of Ptolemais in the Cyrenaica. He left behind a small corpus of texts that offer much information about daily life in Late Antiquity, and about the christianization of the Roman world.

This letter, written in 401, was sent to a close friend of Synesius, living in Constantinople. Pylaemenes also was the recipient of letters 61, 152, 74, 100, 101, 103, 102, 129, 131, 134, 71, 150, 151, 48, and 153.

Letter 88 is offered here in the translation by A. Fitzgerald.

Letter 88: A Lost Friend

[1] To Pylaemenes

Some letters dated last spring have just come to me from Thrace. I turned the whole bundle upside down, to see whether it would contain one upon which the famous name of Pylaemenes might be written. It would indeed have been unworthy of me to read any other first, but there were none anywhere.

[2] If you are really away from home, I wish you a quick and happy return. But it you were still on the spot at the moment when all my friends gave their letters to Zosimus, it really would be surprising if any one has more mindful of me than Pylaemenes.