To Palladius. (361)
Just as I would have been ashamed to write to you — a man who lives for justice — on behalf of someone in the wrong, so now, about to speak for someone with a just cause, I thought it shameful to hesitate.
Acacius seems to consider me one of the easily ignored, and treats me accordingly. He took a quantity of timber into his keeping, and has been master of what was entrusted to him for four years now, always promising to give it back, never once without lying.
He wrongs me in two ways: first by withholding what is mine, then by forcing me to take the matter to the courts. Step in, if you will, before this becomes a lawsuit. You know how to distinguish the just claim from the unjust — and this one is plain enough.
Just as I would have been ashamed to write to you — a man who lives for justice — on behalf of someone in the wrong, so now, about to speak for someone with a just cause, I thought it shameful to hesitate.
Acacius seems to consider me one of the easily ignored, and treats me accordingly. He took a quantity of timber into his keeping, and has been master of what was entrusted to him for four years now, always promising to give it back, never once without lying.
He wrongs me in two ways: first by withholding what is mine, then by forcing me to take the matter to the courts. Step in, if you will, before this becomes a lawsuit. You know how to distinguish the just claim from the unjust — and this one is plain enough.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.