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Updated: June 7, 2025
"It is an admitted truth," he writes, "that attendant spirits have protected certain men, to wit, Socrates, Plotinus, Synesius, Dion, Flavius Josephus, and myself. All of these have enjoyed prosperous lives except Socrates and me, and I, as I have said before, was at one time offered many and favourable opportunities for the achievement of happiness.
They must be close to us over the brow. I know that favourite grassy slope of old. Round under yon hill, or they will get wind of us, and then farewell to them! And Synesius and his groom cantered on, hanging each to their horses' necks by an arm and a leg, in a way which Raphael endeavoured in vain to imitate.
Synesius pleaded in behalf of baldness; and Lucian defended a sipping fly. Seneca drollingly related the deifying of Claudius; Plutarch the dialogue betwixt Gryllus and Ulysses; Lucian and Apuleius the story of an ass; and somebody else records the last will of a hog, of which St. Hierom makes mention.
Slowly and sadly, by the light of a tiny lamp, he went on writing a verse or two, and then burying his face in his hand, while hot tears dropped between his fingers on the paper; till a servant entering, announced Raphael Aben-Ezra. Synesius rose, with a gesture of surprise, and hurried towards the door. 'No, ask him to come hither to me.
The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal, applauded the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius. Perhaps the philosopher who addresses the emperor of the East in the language of reason and virtue, which he might have used to a Spartan king, had not condescended to form a practicable scheme, consistent with the temper, and circumstances, of a degenerate age.
Ah, that explains, said Raphael, why, I thought myself once the best swordsman on the Armenian frontier.... 'I suspect that you were thinking of some one besides the Moors, said Synesius, archly pointing to the litter; and Raphael, for the first time for many a year, blushed like a boy of fifteen, and then turned haughtily away, and remounted his horse, saying, 'Clumsy fool that I was!
Now suppose I took up some of the early Christian Greek poets, and wrote a few continuous papers so? Give me your advice, my dear friend! I think of Synesius, for one. Suppose you send me a list of the names which occur to you! Will you advise me? Will you write directly? Will you make allowance for my teazing you? Will you lend me your little Synesius, and Clarke's book?
Sidonius, like Synesius, was a Christian, and, though the observation may seem no more logical than Fluellen's about Macedon and Monmouth, besides being in more doubtful taste, there would seem to be some connection between the spread of Christianity and that of letter-writing. At any rate they synchronise, despite or perhaps because of the deficiency of formal literature during the "Dark" Ages.
It may be added, that one of the main points of the narrative the position of Antiochus at Constantinople during the early years of Theodosius is corroborated by the testimony of a contemporary, the bishop Synesius, who speaks of a man of this name, recently in the service of a Persian, as all-powerful with the Eastern emperor.
The stranger, instead of bursting out laughing, as Raphael did, solemnly lifted his hand, and gave him his blessing. The Jew sprang to his feet, heedless of all such courtesies, and, looking round, saw the Ausurians galloping off up the hill in scattered groups, and Synesius standing close by him, wiping a bloody sword. 'Is the litter safe'? were his first words. 'Safe; and so are all.
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