Letter 3

3. To Candidianus

When I took your letter into my hands, I had an experience worth telling. I was wary of it, as of something announcing public business, and during the time I was loosening the seal I looked at it with dread, as no Spartan under accusation ever looked at a Laconian dispatch-staff. But when I had loosed it and gone through it all point by point, I was moved to laughter—partly from pleasure at hearing nothing alarming, and partly because I was judging your case against that of Demosthenes. For he, since he furnished the means for only a few choristers and flute-players, no longer thought fit to be called Demosthenes, but a chorus-master; whereas you are the same man whether you furnish supplies or not—furnishing them, mind you, to more myriads of soldiers than the men to whom he provided provisions—and you write to us not from the height of your station, but in your accustomed manner. Nor do you relax at all in your zeal for letters, but, as Plato says, in the storm and tempest of affairs, standing apart as it were beneath some strong wall, you fill your soul with no disturbance; or rather, so far as in you lies, you do not let others be disturbed either.

Such are your affairs—great and admirable to those able to discern them, and again not admirable to one who judges by the whole purpose of your life. Hear now our own affairs as well, which are at once strange and yet such as regularly befall us.

A certain boorish man, one of those who dwell with us at Annisa, when a servant of mine had died, though he had said he had no contract with him, though he had not come to me, had laid no charge, had not asked to receive anything from me willingly, and had not threatened to use force if he did not get it, suddenly attacked my house with some others as senseless as himself, beat and bruised the women who were keeping it, broke down the doors, and carried off everything—some things taking for himself, and others setting out for plunder to whoever wished.

That we, then, may not be the last limit of weakness, and seem to everyone fit objects for attack, show now that zeal which you have displayed in all our affairs, and be entreated to bring it to bear in this matter too. For only thus would our freedom from trouble be preserved for us, if we were ranged alongside your energy. And it would be sufficient justice for us, if the man were arrested by the local magistrate and shut up in prison for a short time. For we are not indignant only over what we have suffered, but we also need security for the future.