Letter 9015: While you are busy relieving the hardships of the provincials, a heavier blow has fallen on the Apulians.
While you are busy relieving the hardships of the provincials, a heavier blow has fallen on the Apulians. Their grain is being requisitioned because of a groundless rumor of abundance — grain that will be stripped from the province without ever reaching the public supply in time. How can so great a shipment be prepared when the year is already turning toward winter?
If you can hasten your journey to Campania, let me know quickly so I may wait for you. But if some greater obligation has changed your plans, tell me that at once, so that our Symmachus, who has been idling long enough at Formiae, can hurry back with me to serious work. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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