To save Albinus, who was of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a prejudged charge, I exposed myself to the hatred of Cyprian, the informer.
'Thinkest thou I had laid up for myself store of enmities enough?
Well, with the rest of my countrymen, at any rate, my safety should have been assured, since my love of justice had left me no hope of security at court.

Yet who was it brought the charges by which I have been struck down?
Why, one of my accusers is Basil, who, after being dismissed from the king's household, was driven by his debts to lodge an information against my name.

There is Opilio, there is Gaudentius, men who for many and various offences the king's sentence had condemned to banishment; and when they declined to obey, and sought to save themselves by taking sanctuary, the king, as soon as he heard of it, decreed that, if they did not depart from the city of Ravenna within a prescribed time, they should be branded on the forehead and expelled.

What would exceed the rigour of this severity?
And yet on that same day these very men lodged an information against me, and the information was admitted.

Just Heaven! had I deserved this by my way of life?
Did it make them fit accusers that my condemnation was a foregone conclusion?
Has fortune no shame--if not at the accusation of the innocent, at least for the vileness of the accusers?
Perhaps thou wonderest what is the sum of the charges laid against me?
I wished, they say, to save the senate.