The Letters.
To Antipater, the governor.
Letter CLXXXVI.
To Antipater, the governor.
Philosophy is an excellent thing, if only for this, that it even heals its disciples at small cost; for, in philosophy, the same thing is both dainty and healthy fare. I am told that you have recovered your failing appetite by pickled cabbage. Formerly I used to dislike it, both on account of the proverb, and because it reminded me of the poverty that went with it. Now, however, I am driven to change my mind. I laugh at the proverb when I see that cabbage is such a “good nursing mother of men,” and has restored our governor to the vigour of youth. For the future I shall think nothing like cabbage, not even Homer’s lotus, not even that ambrosia, whatever it was, which fed the Olympians.
Edition and rights
NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1895.
Blomfield Jackson, translator
Ancient work and historical English translation: public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Copyright rules vary by country. This is a historical source transcription, not an official Church edition. Modern website material is not reproduced.
Historical footnotes and publisher introductions are omitted. Author-written openings are retained. Paragraph whitespace is normalized. Transcriptions can contain errors; this is not a critical edition. Attribution follows the historical edition, not universal scholarly agreement.
Digitization provenance (not an external reading link): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/npnf208.xml
Source section: ix.clxxxvii · Text SHA-256: 2ad511fd3ff5307e217452b915a4bd43b6490ca784110d84be9c9aaf4f5688d6