148 (376). To Trajan
SAINT BASIL
But, if that is not possible, he asks you at least to make public the intentions of the man treating him so outrageously. For, the disclosure of the wickedness of those plotting against him will be a satisfying consolation for a man who has been wronged.
148. To Trajan 1 It brings much consolation to the afflicted even to be able to lament their misfortunes bitterly, and, especially, when they find men who are able, because of the nobility of their character, to sympathize with them in their grievances. Now, the most revered brother Maximus, he who ruled our country, has endured such sufferings as no other man has yet endured, and has been stripped of all his belongings, both such as he inherited from his father and such as he had amassed by his former labors. Moreover, having suffered bodily evils without number by his wanderings to and fro, and not even having preserved intact his rights of citizenship, for the sake of which free men are accustomed to endure anything, he has loudly bewailed his misfortunes in our presence. Furthermore, he has asked that through us the Iliad of evils encompassing him should be briefly made known to you. And, since I was not otherwise able to relieve him of his dire troubles, I readily granted him "is favo, -to notify your Modesty of a few of the many thihiSs which I had heard from him, since he himself seemed to me to blush at relating openly his misfortunes.
For, even if what has happened does not prove the perpetrator of the injustice to be a wicked man, still it shows
I Cf. preceding letter. This Trajan may be, although it is not certain, the commander-in-chief of the army under Valens. This letter was written in 373.