1When I was at Prusa near Olympus, sir, attending to public business in my lodgings, intending to leave the same day, the magistrate Asclepiades informed me that an appeal had been made to me by Claudius Eumolpus. 1When Cocceianus Dio wished a building of which he had had charge to be handed over to the city at a meeting of the council, Eumolpus, appearing for Flavius Archippus, said that Dio should be required to give an account of the work before it was handed over to the city, since he had carried it out otherwise than he ought. 2He added also that your statue had been placed in the same building, as well as the bodies of people buried there, Dio's wife and son, and demanded that I should hear the case in court.
3When I said that I would do so at once and postpone my departure, he asked that I should allow a longer interval for preparing the case and should hear it in another city. 4I replied that I would hear it at Nicaea. 4When I had taken my seat there to hear it, this same Eumolpus, as if he were still insufficiently prepared, began to ask for an adjournment, while Dio on the other hand demanded to be heard. 5Much was said on both sides, including about the merits of the case. 5Since I thought that an adjournment should be granted and that you should be consulted in a matter that would set a precedent, I told both parties to submit written statements of their claims.
5For I wanted you to learn what had been put forward preferably in their own words. 6And Dio for his part said that he would submit one. 6Eumolpus replied that he would set out in a statement what he was claiming on behalf of the city, but that as far as the burials were concerned he was not the accuser but the advocate of Flavius Archippus, whose instructions he had conveyed. 6Archippus, for whom Eumolpus was appearing as advocate, just as at Prusa, said that he would submit a statement. 6But neither Eumolpus nor Archippus, though I have waited very many days for them, has yet given me a statement; 6Dio has given one, which I have attached to this letter.
7I myself have been to the spot and seen your statue too, placed in a library, and the building in which Dio's son and wife are said to be buried, situated in an open court which is enclosed by colonnades. 8I ask you, sir, to deign to guide me above all in this kind of inquiry, since there is in any case great expectation, as there must be in a matter which is both admitted as fact and defended by precedents.