Letter 10020: There is no necessity, my dear Pliny, to employ more soldiers in guarding the prisons.
Trajan to Pliny.
There is no necessity, my dear Pliny, to employ more soldiers in guarding the prisons. Let us continue to observe the custom of your province which utilised the public slaves for that purpose, for it depends upon the severity and attention you show whether they will perform their duties faithfully. As you say, the chief danger to be apprehended, if you mix soldiers with the public slaves, is that they will grow more careless, for each will trust to the other. So let this be our standing rule, to withdraw as few soldiers as possible from the standards.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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