Ἐπίνικος

Governor of the city under [the rule of] Basiliscus,¹ a man never satiated with money-making and selling off the nations and all the cities and filling the provinces with unusual tributes. These were things which neither the classes of governors nor the councils abroad were able to tolerate any longer, so they fled and abandoned the exaction of tributes. Moved by this man's avarice, they took to sitting in the public cult-places and denouncing his robberies. He was the object of everybody's hatred, because he did not pay anybody his due respect. And they removed this man from his office with ignominy; and in his place they chose a man [named] Laurentius, who had formerly been one of the rhetors of the great forum and had been one of the best there. No matter whom he talked to, he never tried to exploit him nor to force him [to do something] in order to get a bigger profit.²