1Claudius Pollio wishes to be loved by you, deserving it by the very fact that he wishes it, and then because he himself loves you; 1for hardly anyone demands that unless he does it himself. 1He is besides an upright man, honest, quiet, and modest almost beyond measure — if indeed anyone can be so beyond measure. 2When we served in the army together, I observed him not merely as a fellow soldier. 2He commanded a cavalry squadron a thousand strong; 2I, ordered by the consular legate to examine the accounts of the cavalry squadrons and cohorts, found in some great and shameful greed and equal negligence, but in him the highest integrity and anxious care.
3Later, promoted to the most important procuratorships, corrupted by no opportunity, he never swerved from his inborn love of honesty; 3he never grew puffed up in prosperity; 3he never let the variety of his posts interrupt his continuous reputation for kindness, and he was equal to his labours with the same firmness of mind with which he now endures leisure. 4This leisure, indeed, he interrupted and laid aside for a while, to his great credit, when he was taken on by our friend Corellius as an assistant in purchasing and distributing land under the generosity of the emperor Nerva. 4For what glory it deserves, to have particularly pleased so great a man when he had so wide a choice!
5How respectfully and how faithfully he cherishes his friends you can believe from the last wills of many, among them that of Annius Bassus, a most venerable citizen, whose memory he prolongs and extends with such grateful praise that he has published a book on his life — for he reveres literature too, like the other good arts. 6That is a fine thing and to be commended for its very rarity, since most people remember the dead only so far as to complain of them. 7This man, who is most eager for your friendship, embrace, believe me, and take hold of him, or rather invite him, and love him as if you were returning a favour.
7For in the duty of friendship the one who began first is not to be put under obligation but to be repaid. 7Farewell.