Synesius of Cyrene

Mosaic depicting an angel. Museum of Ptolemais

Synesius of Cyrene (c.370-c.413) was a Neo-Platonic philosopher who became bishop of Ptolemais in the Cyrenaica. He left behind a small corpus of texts that offer much information about daily life in Late Antiquity, and about the christianization of the Roman world.

Letter 92, written in 402, is offered here in the translation by A. Fitzgerald.

Letter 92: On Speaking Bluntly

To his Brother

I shall get no small harm from the rusticity of my character, for you must know my way of speaking the truth bluntly has followed me even to the hounds of Libya.

Online 2007
Revision: 14 August 2007