Letter 487: The longer a wrong goes unaddressed, Ammonios, the harder it becomes to address.

To Ammonios. Concerning the same man. The impious Gigantius, who brought a plausible-looking slander against the wretched farmers, [charging them] with the embezzlement of certain taxes and tributes, and who made the Augustan tax-register [the imperial census-assessment] heavier for them, although it was already most oppressive to them; who long ago persuaded the ruler to attend to him as one speaking the truth, and who became the cause of calamities for the villagers, has now come again into Thrace, seeking to clothe himself with office. You know how many men he scattered into flight by his registering, how many exchanged their ancestral freedom for gripping the spade and the mattock. So take care that he does not once more lay hold of a governorship unobserved, and reduce everyone to the condition of Cappadocians [proverbial for slaves], whose life is made up of nothing other than slavery and field-labor.

Περὶ αὐτοῦ. Ὁ δυσσεβὴς Γιγάντιος, ὁ εὐπρόσωπον συκοφαντίαν ἐνθεὶς κατὰ τῶν ἀθλίων γεωργῶν, τελῶν καὶ φόρων τινῶν κλοπὴν, καὶ τὴν Αὐγούστου βαρύνας ἀπογραφὴν, καίτοι βαρυτάτην αὐτοῖς ὑπάρχουσαν· πάλαι πείσας προσχεῖν αὐτῷ ὡς ἀληθεύοντι τὸν κρατοῦντα, καὶ συμφορῶν αἴτιος γεγονὼς τοῖς κωμήταις, εἰς Θρᾴκην ἥκει αὖθις, τὴν ἀρχὴν περιθέσθαι ζητῶν. Οἷσθα δὲ ὅσους εἰς φυγὴν ἐσκέδασεν ἀπογράφων, ὅσοι τῆς πατρῴας ἐλευθερίας, τὸ σκαπάνην κρατεῖν, καὶ σμινύην ἠλλάξαντο. Καὶ φρόντισον, μὴ λάθηται πάλιν ἡγεμονίας, καὶ πάντας ἐργάσηται Καππαδόκας, οἷς ὁ βίος οὐκ ἄλλοθεν ἢ ἐκ δουλείας καὶ γεωπονίας συνίσταται.