s innumerable with which they were for ever being harassed by the
greed and license of the barbarians? No one has ever drawn me aside from
justice to oppression. When ruin was overtaking the fortunes of the
provincials through the combined pressure of private rapine and public
taxation, I grieved no less than the sufferers. When at a season of
grievous scarcity a forced sale, disastrous as it was unjustifiable, was
proclaimed, and threatened to overwhelm Campania with starvation, I
embarked on a struggle with the praetorian prefect in the public
interest, I fought the case at the king's judgment-seat, and succeeded
in preventing the enforcement of the sale. I rescued the consular
Paulinus from the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, who in their
covetous hopes had already made short work of his wealth. To save
Albinus, who was of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a
prejudged charge, I exposed myself to the hatred of Cyprian, the
informer.

'Thinkest thou I had laid up for myself store of enmities enough? Well,
with the rest of my countrymen, at any rate, my safety should have been
assured, since my love of justice had left me no hope of security at
court. Yet who was it brought the charges by which I have been struck
down? Why, one of my accusers is Basil, who, after being dismissed from
the king's household, was driven by his debts to lodge an information
against my name. There is Opilio, there is Gaudentius, men who for many
and various offences the king's sentence had condemned to banishment;
and when they declined to obey, and sought to save themselves by taking
sanctuary, the king, as soon as he heard of it, decreed that, if they
did not depart from the city of Ravenna within a prescribed time, they
should be branded on the forehead and expelled. What would exceed the
rigour of this severity? And yet on that same day these very men lodged
an information against me, and the information was admitted. Just
Heaven! had I deserved this by my way of life? Did it make them fit
accusers that my condemnation was a foregone conclusion? Has fortune no
shame--if not at the accusation of the innocent, at least for the
vileness of the accusers? Perhaps thou wonderest what is the sum of the
charges laid against me? I wished, they say, to save the senate. But
how? I am accused of hindering an informer from producing evidence to
prove the senate guilty of treason. Tell me, then, what is thy counsel,
O my mistress. Shal