Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

of failing to make two and destroying the one he had. Tell the Emperor and his ministers
that they are not after this fashion increasing the empire, for power lies not in number but
in condition. I am sure that now men are neglecting the course of events, some, possibly,
from ignorance of the truth, some from their being unwilling to say anything offensive,
some because it does not immediately concern them. The course likely to be most beneficial,
and worthy of your high principles, would be for you, if possible, to approach the Emperor
in person. If this is difficult both on account of the season of the year and of your age, of
which, as you say, inactivity is the foster brother, at all events you need have no difficulty
in writing. If you thus give our country the aid of a letter, you will first of all have the satisfaction
of knowing that you have left nothing undone that was in your power, and further,
by showing sympathy, if only in appearance, you will give the patient much comfort. Would
only that it were possible for you to come yourself among us and actually see our deplorable
condition! Thus, perhaps, stirred by the plain evidence before you, you might have spoken
in terms worthy alike of your own magnanimity and of the affliction of Cæsarea. But do
not withhold belief from what I am telling you. Verily we want some Simonides, or other
like poet, to lament our troubles from actual experience. But why name Simonides? I should
rather mention Æschylus, or any other who has set forth a great calamity in words like his,
and uttered lamentation with a mighty voice.
3. Now we have no more meetings, no more debates, no more gatherings of wise men
in the Forum, nothing more of all that made our city famous. In our Forum nowadays it
would be stranger for a learned or eloquent man to put in an appearance, than it would for
men, shewing a brand of iniquity or unclean hands, to have presented themselves in Athens
of old. Instead of them we have the imported boorishness of Massagetæ and Scythians.
And only one noise is heard of drivers of bargains, and losers of bargains, and of fellows
under the lash. On either hand the porticoes resound with doleful echoes, as though they
were uttering a natural and proper sound in groaning at what is going on. Our distress
prevents our paying any attention to locked gymnasia and nights when no torch is lighted.
There is no small danger lest, our magistrates being removed, everything crash down together
as with fallen props. What words can adequately describe our calamities? Some have fled
into exile, a considerable portion of our senate, and that not the least valuable, prefering
perpetual banishment to Podandus. 2263 When I mention Podandus, suppose me to mean
the Spartan Ceadas 2264 or any natural pit that you may have seen, spots breathing a noxious
vapour, to which some have involuntarily given the name Charonian. Picture to yourself
2263 Now Podando, in Southern Cappadocia, made by Valens the chief town of the new division of the
province.
2264 So the Spartans named the pit into which condemned criminals were thrown. Pausanias, Book IV. 18,
4. Thucyd., i. 134. Strabo, viii. 367.
To Martinianus.
500
170