taxes for the
coming Indiction, and pay them in on the appointed day to the
Treasurer[827] of the Province; or else it will be the worse for you,
and you will have to return, stripped of all official rank[828], into
the Province which you are conscious of having badly administered.

[Footnote 827: 'Arcarius.']

[Footnote 828: 'Degeniatus.']

'I shall not _speak_ again on this subject, but shall, if necessary,
extract the sums from you by an irrevocable act of distraint.'

11. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO PETER, VIR CLARISSIMUS,
DISTRIBUTOR OF RELISHES[829].

[Footnote 829: 'Erogatori obsoniorum.']

[Sidenote: Distribution of relishes to Roman citizens.]

'The liberality of a good Sovereign must not be discredited by fraud
and carelessness in the person charged with its distribution. Even
molten gold contracts a stain if not poured into an absolutely clean
vessel. How sweet is it to see a stream flowing clear and unpolluted
over a snow-white channel! Even so must you see that the gifts of the
Sovereign of the State reach the Roman people as pure and as copious
as they issue forth from him.

'All fraud is hateful; but fraud exercised upon the people of Romulus
is absolutely unbearable. That quiet and easily satisfied people,
whose existence you might forget except when they testify their
happiness by their shouts; noisy without a thought of sedition; whose
only care is to shun poverty without amassing wealth; lowly in fortune
but rich in temper--it is a kind of profanation to rob such people as
these.

'We therefore entrust to you the task of distributing the
relishes[830] to the Roman people from this Indiction. Be true to the
citizens, else you will become as an alien unto us. Do not be bribed
into allowing anyone to pass as a Latin who was not born in Latium.

[Footnote 830: 'Obsonia.']

'These privileges belong to the Quirites alone: no slave must be
admitted to share them. That man sins against the majesty of the Roman
people, who defiles the pure river of their blood by thrusting upon
them the fellowship of slaves.'

12. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO ANASTASIUS, CANCELLARIUS OF
LUCANIA AND BRUTTII.

[Sidenote: Praise of the cheese and wine of Bruttii.]

'When we were dining, according to our wonted custom, with the
Sovereign of the State[831], the conversation happened to turn upon
the delicacies of various Provinces, and we praised the wines of
Bruttii and the cheese of the district a