Letter 100
To Trajan.
We have paid. Sir, with joyfulness and alacrity the vows we publicly pronounced for the years that are past, and we have undertaken new ones, * the troops and the provincials vying with one another to show their loyalty. We pray the gods that they may preserve you and the State in prosperity and safety, and show you the good will which you have so richly deserved, not only by your exceeding and numerous virtues, but by your striking integrity of life and the obedience and honour you have paid to Heaven.
[Note: On 3rd January 113 A.D.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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Even the ability to bewail their own calamities brings much comfort to the distressed; and this is specially the case when they meet with others capable, from their lofty character, of sympathizing with their sorrows. So my right honourable brother Maximus, after being prefect of my country, and then suffering what no other man ever yet suffered...