1My love for you compels me, not to instruct you — for you do not need an instructor — but still to remind you to hold to and observe what you know, or else it would be better not to know it. 2Consider that you have been sent to the province of Achaia, that true and genuine Greece, in which civilisation and letters, and even agriculture, are believed to have been first discovered; 2sent to set in order the condition of free cities, that is, to men who are most truly men, to free men who are most truly free, who have kept the rights given them by nature through virtue, merit, friendship, and finally by treaty and religion.
3Revere their founding gods and the names of the gods, revere their ancient glory and that very old age which in a man is venerable, in cities sacred. 3Let there be honour with you for antiquity, for mighty deeds, for legends too. 3Take nothing away from anyone's dignity, nothing from their freedom, nothing even from their boasting. 4Keep before your eyes that this is the land which sent us our laws, which gave us its laws not as conquered but as asking for them, that it is Athens you are going to, Sparta you are governing; 4to snatch from them the shadow that remains and the name of liberty that is left is harsh, savage and barbarous.
5You see that doctors, although in illness there is no difference between slave and free, nevertheless treat the free more gently and more kindly. 5Remember what each city has been, not so as to despise it because it has ceased to be so; 5let there be no arrogance, no harshness. 6And do not fear contempt. 6Is a man who holds command, who holds the fasces, despised, unless he is low and mean, and the first to despise himself? 6It is a poor thing for power to test its strength by insulting others, a poor thing to gain respect through terror, and love is far more effective than fear in obtaining what you want.
6For fear departs if you go away, love remains, and just as the former turns into hatred, so the latter turns into reverence. 7You ought again and again — for I shall repeat it — to remember the title of your office and explain to yourself what and how great a thing it is to set in order the condition of free cities. 7For what is more befitting a citizen than setting in order, what more precious than liberty? 8Moreover, how shameful, if order should be turned into overthrow, liberty into slavery! 8Add the fact that your contest is with yourself: you are weighed down by the reputation of your quaestorship, the excellent one you brought back from Bithynia; 8you are weighed down by the emperor's commendation; 8weighed down by your tribunate, your praetorship and this very appointment, given as a kind of reward.
9All the more must you strive not to seem to have been more humane, better and more skilful in a distant province than in one near the city, among slaves than among free men, when sent by lot than by choice, when raw and unknown than when tried and approved, since besides, as you have often heard and often read, it is much more disgraceful to lose praise than not to win it. 10I should like you to believe, as I said at the beginning, that I have written this by way of reminder, not of instruction; 10although of instruction too. 10For I am not afraid that I have exceeded due measure in love.
10For there is no danger that what ought to be greatest should be too much. 10Farewell.