Letter 24: Aeneas asks Marcianus to secure restitution for a robbed poor man.
You told me to love; now I begin to ask as well. The man to whom I gave this letter has been wronged. He went down to buy palm produce, carrying gold for the price. But fortune! It is not even possible to defend poverty without danger. He was traveling on good hopes when the most thieving of the barbarians who pretend friendship fell on him. They beat him, twisted him, raised a naked sword over him, and threatened outright to kill him. In the end they took the gold and told him to be grateful that he had changed only his fortune, not his life. Justice, being winged, catches some wrongdoers. The governor heard of it and was angry, always hating thieves more than open enemies, and rightly so: enemies can be guarded against from far away, while thieves attack friends from hiding. He ordered the poor man's loss repaired and what had been taken restored. The governor gave the order, but the poor man still laments his poverty. Put an end to their robbery, and to his want. I greet the most magnificent and God-loving governor.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
κδ'. Μαρκιανῷ.
Φιλεῖν ἐκέλευες, ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ αἰτεῖν ἄρχομαι. ἠδίκηται γὰρ ᾧ δεδώκαμεν τὴν ἐπιστολήν. κατέβαινεν ἐπὶ φοινίκων ὠνὴν φέρων χρυσίον· βαρβάρων δὲ οἱ ληστρικώτατοι προσπεσόντες παίουσί τε καὶ στρεβλοῦσι καὶ γυμνὸν τὸ ξίφος ἐπανατείναντες ἀποσφάττειν ἠπείλουν. τέλος δὲ τὸ χρυσίον λαβόντες ἐκέλευον χάριν εἰδέναι ὅτι τὴν τύχην οὐ τὸν βίον μετήλλαξε.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern aeneas gaza hercher v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/download/epistolographoih00herc/epistolographoih00herc_djvu.txt
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