authority and
dignity--to reconcile the Greeks with the _publicani_, and to beg of
those, whom you have served eminently well, and who owe you everything,
to suffer you by their compliance to maintain and preserve the bonds
which unite us with the _publicani_. But why do I address these
exhortations to you, who are not only capable of carrying them out of
your own accord without anyone's instruction, but have already to a
great extent thoroughly done so? For the most respectable and important
companies do not cease offering me thanks daily, and this is all the
more gratifying to me because the Greeks do the same. Now it is an
achievement of great difficulty to unite in feeling things which are
opposite in interests, aims, and, I had almost said, in their very
nature. But I have not written all this to instruct you--for your wisdom
requires no man's instruction--but it has been a pleasure to me while
writing to set down your virtues, though I have run to greater length in
this letter than I could have wished, or than I thought I should.

XIII. There is one thing on which I shall not cease from giving you
advice, nor will I, as far as in me lies, allow your praise to be spoken
of with a reservation. For all who come from your province do make one
reservation in the extremely high praise which they bestow on your
virtue, integrity, and kindness--it is that of sharpness of temper. That
is a fault which, even in our private and everyday life, seems to
indicate want of solidity and strength of mind; but nothing, surely, can
be more improper than to combine harshness of temper with the exercise
of supreme power. Wherefore I will not undertake to lay before you now
what the greatest philosophers say about anger, for I should not wish to
be tedious, and you can easily ascertain it yourself from the writings
of many of them: but I don't think I ought to pass over what is the
essence of a letter, namely, that the recipient should be informed of
what he does not know. Well, what nearly everybody reports to me is
this: they usually say that, as long as you are not out of temper,
nothing can be pleasanter than you are, but that when some instance of
dishonesty or wrong-headedness has stirred you, your temper rises to
such a height that no one can discover any trace of your usual kindness.
Wherefore, since no mere desire for glory, but circumstances and fortune
have brought us upon a path of life which makes it inevitable that men
wil