1There should be no need, my dearest Secundus, for more fellow-soldiers to be diverted to guarding prisoners. 1Let us keep to the custom of that province, that they be guarded by public slaves. 2For it rests on your strictness and diligence that they do this faithfully. 2Above all, as you write, it is to be feared that if soldiers are mixed with the public slaves, they will become more negligent through relying on one another; 2but let us also keep fixed in mind that as few as possible should be called away from the standards.
Lectitō › Pliny the Younger › Letters, Book 10
Pliny · Epistulae X
Pliny, Letter 10.20
Trajan keeps public slaves as guards
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Pliny, Epistulae X. Latin text: the Perseus digital text of Pliny's Letters, public domain; digital text from the Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA. Word analysis: drafted by our own tagger (trained on the hand-checked texts on this site), with every doubtful word checked by hand. English translation and section titles: written for this app, each checked against the Latin by a second reader.