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Notes | Translated by Wilmer Cave Wright Chapter 31 | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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However, it becomes me to be silent about all that I [Note 1] have done for all my subjects in common, lest it should seem that I am purposely as it were singing my praises with my own lips, and that too after announcing that I should pour down on my own head many most opprobrious insults. But as for my actions with respect to you as individuals, which, though the manner of them was rash and foolish, nevertheless did not by any means deserve to be repaid by you with ingratitude, it would, I think, be becoming for me to bring them forward as reproaches against myself; and these reproaches ought to be more severe than those I uttered before, I mean those that related to my unkempt appearance and my lack of charm, inasmuch as they are more genuine since they have especial reference to the soul. I mean that before I came here I used to praise you in the strongest possible terms, without waiting to have actual experience of you, nor did I consider how we should feel towards one another; nay, since I thought that you were sons of Greeks, and I myself, though my family is Thracian, am a Greek in my habits, I supposed that we should regard one another with the greatest possible affection. This example of my rashness must therefore be counted as a reproach against me. Next, after you had sent an embassy to me -- and it arrived not only later than all the other embassies, but even later than that of the Alexandrians who dwell in Egypt, -- I remitted large sums of gold and of silver also, and all the tribute money for you separately apart from the other cities; and moreover I increased the register of your Senate by two hundred members and spared no man; for I was planning to make your city greater and more powerful. Note 1: I = Julian |