1When your deified father, my lord, had encouraged all citizens to generosity both by a most splendid speech and by a most honourable example, I asked him to allow me to move into my town the statues of emperors which, handed down to me through several successions, I was keeping on my distant estates just as I had received them, and to add his own statue to them. 2This he had indeed granted me, with the fullest testimonial; 2I had at once written to the town councillors asking them to assign a site on which I might build a temple at my own expense; 2they, in honour of the work itself, had offered me the choice of the place.
3But held back first by my own health, then by your father's, and afterwards by the cares of the office you entrusted to me, I think I can now most conveniently make a trip to the spot. 3For my month of duty ends on the Kalends of September, and the following month has a good many holidays. 4I ask, then, first of all, that you allow me to adorn the work I am about to begin with your statue as well; 4and secondly, so that I may do this as soon as possible, that you grant me leave. 5It is not, however, in keeping with my candour to conceal from your kindness that you will at the same time be greatly assisting the interests of my private affairs.
5For the letting of the lands which I own in the same region, since it amounts in any case to more than four hundred thousand sesterces, is so far from admitting delay that the next pruning must be done by a new tenant. 5Besides, a succession of poor harvests is forcing me to think about reductions of rent; 5and I cannot work out the reckoning of these unless I am there in person. 6So I shall owe to your indulgence, my lord, both the speed of my dutiful act and the settling of my affairs, if you give me thirty days' leave for both these purposes. 6For I cannot fix a shorter time, since both the town and the lands I speak of are beyond the hundred and fiftieth milestone.