(But as for me, what has come over me? And what speech do I intend to achieve if not a panegyric of my beloved Hellas, of which one cannot make mention without admiring everything? But perhaps someone, remembering what I said earlier, will say that this is not what I intended to discuss when I began, and that, just as Corybants when excited by the flute dance and leap without method, so I, spurred on by the mention of my beloved city, am chanting the praises of that country and her people. To him I must make excuse somewhat as follows: Good sir, you who are the guide to an art that is genuinely noble, that is a wise notion of yours, for you do not permit or grant one to let go even for a moment the theme of a panegyric, seeing that you yourself maintain your theme with skill. Yet in my case, since there has come over me this impulse of affection which you say is to blame for the lack of order in my arguments, you really urge me, I think, not to be too much afraid of it or to take precautions against criticism. For I am not embarking on irrelevant themes if I wish to show how great were the blessings that Eusebia procured for me because she honoured the name of philosophy. And yet the name of philosopher which has been, I know not why, applied to myself, is really in my case nothing but a name and lacks reality, for though I love the reality and am terribly enamoured of the thing itself, yet for some reason I have fallen short of it. But Eusebia honoured even the name. For no other reason can I discover, nor learn from anyone else, why she became so zealous an ally of mine, and an averter of evil and my preserver, and took such trouble and pains in order that I might retain unaltered and unaffected our noble Emperor’s good‐will; and I have never been convicted of thinking that there is any greater blessing in this world than that good‐will, since all the gold above the earth or beneath the earth is not worth so much, nor all the mass of silver that is now beneath the sun’s rays or may be added thereto,(564) not though the loftiest mountains, let us suppose, stones and trees and all were to change to that substance, nor the greatest sovereignty there is, nor anything else in the whole world. And I do indeed owe it to her that these blessings are mine, so many and greater than anyone could have hoped for, for in truth I did not ask for much, nor did I nourish myself with any such hopes.)