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.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Argue , nt vis , remm consilia post exitnm et mihi vitio verte, quod contemptum
sni praefectura conquesta est. facile accusatur desertus auxilio; atqne ideo in me
tu recipere malo erroris confessionem, ne aut amicos neglegentiae aut adversatos asperi-
tatis incessam. fuerit fortnnae non conscientiae meae, nt victus viderer, qni necdum
coeperam litigare. at etiam scribis, causis similibns abstinendum. vides, quantum
liceat eventui. oblitus es morum meorum. ego vero solitae verecundiae ignavnm
quoqne iungam timorem et litteris tnis agam gratias, quae me deposita iuris et ami-
15 coram fiducia ad omnium iniuriarum silentium cohortantnr.
XXVmi ante a. 395.
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