Letter 2028: Go ahead — judge my decisions in hindsight, as you like, and blame me for the prefecture's complaint that it was...
Go ahead — judge my decisions in hindsight, as you like, and blame me for the prefecture's complaint that it was disrespected. It's easy to accuse a man who's been left without support. And so I'd rather accept the confession of error myself than charge my friends with negligence or my opponents with hostility.
If I appeared defeated before I'd even begun to fight, that was Fortune's doing, not my conscience. And yet you write that I should stay away from cases like this in the future! You see how much the outcome is allowed to determine everything. You've forgotten my character. I, for one, will add timid cowardice to my habitual restraint — and I thank your letter for urging me, stripped now of all confidence in law and friends alike, to meet every injustice with silence.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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