Letter 188
To Andronicus, a general. (360)
Sebon is a Cretan, and he is related by blood to the people you govern -- for he descends from those men born to Zeus after the god carried Europa from Phoenicia across the sea to Crete. He is brimming with learning, as you will discover yourself when you meet and test him, and his education has made him no less good in character than in speech.
Here is another mark of his culture: he opened his house to strangers and made many forget their own homes, preferring his company to their own families.
He took in a Phoenician man who had come ashore -- the brother of the rhetorician Eusebius. He prayed for his guest's safe arrival, nursed him during his stay, and mourned his death. The man was decent in every way, and his will was admirably drawn.
For he bypassed his own wicked brothers -- wicked to others and to him alike -- and left his estate to a man who was honorable to everyone, including himself. But now those brothers have attacked the will with breathtaking shamelessness. Along with them, other vultures descended from every direction, and Sebon drove them off.
But these people are like the Scythians -- most dangerous in defeat, for they conquer by retreating. The Scythians owed this trick to living on wagons; these men owe it to the sloth of some officials and the more active corruption of others. The men who should have been as indignant as if they themselves were wronged simply slept -- Elpidius playing Aristides and Andronicus playing Phocion [ironic comparisons to famously just Athenians].
But now the mouse has tasted pitch, as the proverb says. You will drag them from darkness into the light, for the sake of justice and because you will think it outrageous that men who sit idle at home should live in luxury, no better than slaves, while Sebon -- the finest of Hellenes -- wanders abroad for four years, separated from his wife and children.
You would understand his longing to go home -- a longing that has driven him many times to throw away the case and return, only to be stopped by us, out of pity, warning him how shameful it would be to let his enemies enjoy his property and, in Homer's words, how disgraceful if no action proves stronger than the passage of time.
Show that we were right to persuade him to stay. Honor the laws by summoning those who hide, and honor us by doing it quickly. I will have nothing to say if this man is subjected to yet more delays, when the power to press the matter lies with you. I have told everyone that you will help with all your strength on my account -- and if you are slack, that prediction will make a liar of me. So be careful not to make me out a fraud.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.