A ‘consolatio’ (παραμυθητικός. cf. Sen. cons. ad Polyb. ad Helv. ad Marc. Plut. cons. ad Apollon. ad uxor. a beautiful tribute to his daughter's memory) addressed to Calvinus, who had been cheated of ten sestertia.

Guilt meets its due punishment, if not from corrupt judges, yet from the conscience of the sinner and the reprobation of honest men (1–6). But there are other considerations, Calvinus, which should mollify your wrath. True, the friend whom you trusted has defrauded you; but your fortune can well support so trifling a loss. Look about you, and see how rife such crimes are. In the golden days of Saturn's rule falsehood was unknown, but now it is honesty that is the prodigy (7–85). Never was perjury so universal: for, while many believe in no God, others hope for a long reprieve, if not a final pardon (86–119). To raise an outcry then, as though your case were hard and strange, is as unreasonable as to wonder at blue eyes in a German, the goître among the Alps, dwarfs in the land of pygmies (120–173). Are you then to look for no redress? Philosophy will teach you that none but little minds delight in revenge: but, in any case, you may be well content to leave the delinquent to his own remorse and to that law by which crime breeds crime. If such be your desire, you may yet see him condemned to exile or to death (174–249).