To Modestus. (360)
I know that you welcome frankness, so I shall not waste your time with flattery before coming to the point. There is a problem in our city, and it requires your attention.
The tax collectors have been exceeding their authority -- not by a little, but by a great deal. Men of modest means are being squeezed for sums they cannot pay, while the truly wealthy find ways to lighten their burden. This is neither new nor surprising, but it has grown worse in recent months, and the suffering is real.
I do not write to you as a critic but as a friend who believes you would want to know. Your reputation rests not only on the buildings you raise and the roads you maintain but on the justice you dispense to ordinary people. A stoa, however magnificent, is cold comfort to a man whose livelihood has been destroyed by a corrupt assessor.
I have specific names and amounts, which I will share with anyone you send to investigate. The facts will speak for themselves. What is needed is not new legislation but the enforcement of existing rules, and the removal of a few men who have confused their office with a license to steal.
Forgive the directness. You have always preferred the truth to elegance, and in this case the truth is urgent enough to excuse any want of grace.
I know that you welcome frankness, so I shall not waste your time with flattery before coming to the point. There is a problem in our city, and it requires your attention.
The tax collectors have been exceeding their authority -- not by a little, but by a great deal. Men of modest means are being squeezed for sums they cannot pay, while the truly wealthy find ways to lighten their burden. This is neither new nor surprising, but it has grown worse in recent months, and the suffering is real.
I do not write to you as a critic but as a friend who believes you would want to know. Your reputation rests not only on the buildings you raise and the roads you maintain but on the justice you dispense to ordinary people. A stoa, however magnificent, is cold comfort to a man whose livelihood has been destroyed by a corrupt assessor.
I have specific names and amounts, which I will share with anyone you send to investigate. The facts will speak for themselves. What is needed is not new legislation but the enforcement of existing rules, and the removal of a few men who have confused their office with a license to steal.
Forgive the directness. You have always preferred the truth to elegance, and in this case the truth is urgent enough to excuse any want of grace.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.