Letter 12010: Arrears in public accounts should be compared to an illness — they weigh you down and debilitate, unless they are...

10. Senator, Praetorian Prefect, to the various chancellors of the provinces. [1] Arrears of the public accounts are to be compared to an ill-omened sickness, which weighs down and weakens, unless they are dispatched with speed. To be under a debt is a kind of guilt, nor can he truly be called free who is shown to be found liable. The prudent man compels himself; less cautious is he who is pressed by another. For what has the whole year's undertaken collection accomplished? Let the sum of the coming indiction and its full amount be exacted. [2] By sparing you do not spare: in unburdening you weigh down all the more, and while you seek out venal delays, you double the burdens of the tribute. Abandon at last this cruel mercy, these benefits made bitter as gall by total detestation. He strikes more grievously who advances by flattering and wounds under the guise of indulgence, who has put off exacting the tributes at the customary times. And therefore cease at some point to trade upon the losses of the landholders, because, hemmed in by your inconveniences, you give back in full what you have taken away by unjust delays. For after these things, do not believe that you are being admonished again by words, but compelled by an unremitting exaction. [3] Wherefore, if by that day you have not either through yourself paid in to our treasurer what is solemnly demanded from the provinces, with the accounts balanced, or dispatched the amount, you, degraded in the province, will swiftly render back what you know you have wrongly deferred; for it is far too unjust that a public coin should lie idle through your negligence, while the treasurer ceaselessly spends out borrowed money for the public benefit.

X. DIVERSIS CANCELLARIIS PROVINCIARUM SENATOR PPO. [1] Rationum publicarum reliquiae infaustae sunt aegritudini comparandae, quae gravant, debilitant, nisi sub celeritate discedant. reatus quidam est esse sub debito nec liber potest veraciter dici, qui probatur obnoxius reperiri. prudens se ipse compellit: minus cautus est, qui urgetur ab altero. nam quid egit totius anni suscepta compulsio? summa futurae indictionis et quantitas exigatur. [2] Parcendo non parcitis: exonerando praegravatis et dum venales moras quaeritis, tributi onera duplicatis. relinquite tandem crudelem misericordiam, beneficia tota detestatione fellita. gravius percutit qui blandiendo grassatur et sub indulgentia laedit, qui consuetis temporibus exigere tributa distulerit. et ideo desinite aliquando possessorum damna mercari, quia totum constricti per incommoda redditis quod iniquis dilationibus abstulistis. post ista enim non vos credatis verbis iterum commoneri, sed inremissibili exactione compelli. [3] Quapropter si ad illum diem arcario nostro, quae de provinciis sollemniter postulantur, dispunctis rationibus non aut per te intuleris aut destinaveris quantitatem, degeniatus in provincia velociter reddis quae te male distulisse cognoscis, quia nimis iniquum est, ut assis publicus sub tua neglegentia iaceat et arcarius mutuatam pecuniam publicis utilitatibus incessanter expendat.