Professors XV. — To Nepotianus, Grammarian and Rhetorician

Witty and cheerful, an old man with a heart of youth, whose soul, steeped in honey with no drop of gall, never throughout all your life instilled aught of bitterness, balm of my heart, Nepotianus, taking your share in grave and gay alike: your lips once closed, you could surpass Amyclae in silence; when once you began to discourse, even Ulysses could not leave you — he who left the tuneful Sirens at their song. Honourable and pure, sparing, frugal, temperate, eloquent, you were second to no orator in style, while in argument you were the equal of Cleanthes the Stoic. Scaurus and Probus you knew off by heart, and in memory were a match for Cineas of Epirus. You were my comrade, companion, and my guest continually: and not my guest alone, but the awakener of my mind. None gave advice out of a heart more sincere, or concealed it, when given, with deeper secrecy. When you had been distinguished by your appointment as governor, and had lived through the changes of ninety years, you met your end leaving two children, to your kinsfolk's great sorrow as to mine.