Letter 57

Pliny the YoungerPliny the Younger|c. 112 AD|pliny younger

Trajan to Pliny.

What steps ought to be taken with respect to those who were banished for three years by the proconsul Servilius Calvus, and afterwards were recalled by an edict of his and remained in the province, I will write and tell you shortly as soon as I have ascertained from Calvus the reason for his recalling them. As to the man who was banished for ever by Julius Bassus, he had two years allowed him in which to appeal if he considered he had been unjustly banished, and as he failed to do so and continued to linger in the province, he must be sent in chains to the prefects of my praetorian guard. * For he will not be sufficiently punished by being sent to complete his former sentence, since he impudently evaded it.

[Note: To await trial; as St Paul in Acts xxviii.16.]

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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