Letter 5029: VARIAE, BOOK 5, LETTER 29

[1] Anduit's tearful petition moved us, but what made it more pitiable still was the man's loss of sight. A man who survives in perpetual darkness hastened to seek our aid, guided by borrowed light, so that even if he could not see his sovereign, he might at least feel the warmth of our mercy. He cries out that Gudila and Oppas are trying to impose the condition of slavery on his family, though he has long followed our army as a free man. [2] We are astonished that such a man should be dragged into servitude -- a man any proper master would have dismissed from bondage. What strange greed, to claim ownership of someone you can only pity, and to call a servant the man to whom, by divine consideration, you owe compassion instead. He further states that these slander claims were already examined and dismissed in the court of the late Count Pitzia, a man of celebrated reputation, but that now, crushed by the weight of his infirmity, Anduit can no longer defend himself by force -- the very thing that serves as patron to the strong. [3] But we, whose business it is to maintain impartial justice between equals and unequals alike, decree by this order: if Anduit proved his free status in the court of the aforementioned Pitzia, remove his accusers at once. Let them not dare to exploit another man's helplessness any further, since they have already been convicted once and should have abandoned their claims.