Letter 113
To his Brother
How now? Shall we watch these foul fiends braving death so readily
for the sake of others' property, that they may not have to give up to the owners what
they may have plundered? And shall we be sparing of ourselves, and cling to our lives,
when the question is one of defending our country, our altars, our laws, and our property,
all the possessions that we have enjoyed for so many years? At this rate we shall no
longer look like men. For my part, just as I am, I must go against these barbarians. I
must make trial to see what these enemies are who stop at nothing, what sort of people
they are who dare to laugh the Romans to scorn, even though faring as they do now. A camel
with the mange, says the proverb, can shoulder the burden of many asses.
Quite apart from all this, I see that in such cases all those who do
not think of anything except saving their lives, generally succumb, whereas those who are
ready to make the sacrifice escape the danger. I shall be among these. I shall fight as if
I were at the point of death, and I have no doubt at all that I shall survive. I am a
Lacedaemonian by descent, and I remember the letter which the magistrates addressed to
Leonidas. 'Let them fight as if doomed to die, and they will not die'.
Letter 114
To his Brother
Are you astonished that while you are dwelling in a parched place like the country of the Phycuntes, you should shiver and poison should enter your blood? There would have been more cause for wonder had your body proved stronger than the heat there. Come to us, then, here. You could recover your health with God's help, once away from the infected air of the marshes, away from that salt, warn, and absolutely stagnate water. Which one might call really dead. What charm can there be in lying down on the sand of the shore? That is the only pastime you have for where could you went your way? Here you can go under the shadow of a tree. If you are tired of one, you can go to another, even from one grove to another. You can step across a rivulet. How delightful is the zephyr which stirs the branches gently; there are the varied notes of birds, the colours of the flowers, the shrubs of the meadow; here the works of the husbandman, there nature's gifts. All things are fragrant with perfume, the aromas of a healthy soil. I will not praise the nymphs' grotto. It would need a Theocritus. And there is something beyond all this.