Letter 4031: When I departed, you entrusted me with a responsibility befitting our friendship: not to keep silent about matters...

As I was departing, you saw fit to entrust me with a charge befitting our friendship: that I should not keep silent about matters bearing on your reputation and your official acts. Since the occasion therefore demands it, I carry out what was enjoined upon me. For I see that the accounting of the basilica and the bridge has indeed been rightly committed to Bonosus, a man of praetorian rank, who possesses both the vigilance to bring to light the obscurities of the public accounts and the good faith to pursue whatever the audit may uncover; but I fear that the task laid upon him may grow cold amid evasions, since the man he has received as his colleague in the investigation works against him. And for that reason I do not allow it to be hidden from you that the matter is being brought to such a point that a great squandering of public funds is being concealed under the guise of contention. For what does that pairing intend for itself, especially in an inquiry of this kind, which seems to bind the very investigator? Therefore a correction must at last be applied to this part [...]