1But understanding the feelings of the province, and taught at the same time by others' experience that little is achieved by arms if injustices follow, he decided to cut out the causes of wars. 2Beginning with himself and his own people, he first kept his own household in check, which for most men is no less difficult than governing a province. 2He did no public business through freedmen and slaves, he took on no centurion or soldiers from personal liking or on recommendation or entreaty, but thought the best men the most trustworthy. 3He knew everything, but did not act on everything. 3He granted pardon for small offences, severity for great ones; 3nor was he always satisfied with punishment, but more often with repentance; 3he preferred to put in charge of offices and administration men who would not do wrong, rather than to condemn them when they had done wrong.
4He lightened the exaction of grain and tribute by sharing the burdens fairly, cutting out the devices invented for profit, which were borne more resentfully than the tribute itself. 4For the provincials had been forced, as a mockery, to wait by locked granaries, to buy grain into the bargain, and to sell it back at a sham price. 5Out-of-the-way routes and distant districts were prescribed, so that states would deliver from the nearest winter quarters to remote and trackless places, until what was readily available to all became a source of profit to a few.