Veteran dispute

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Often appears with: spain · repayment of benefits · julius caesar · equity, mercy, and pardon · contracts, oaths, and obligation

Usually: narrative (1) · injustice endured (1) · detachment (1) · exhortation (1)

L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits primary

Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 59-65 CE (approx.)
BOOK I. The prevalence of ingratitude--How a benefit ought to be bestowed--The three Graces--Benefits are the chief bond of human society--What we owe in return for a benefit received--A benefit consists not of a thing but of the wish to do good--Socrates and > BOOK V. (22/22)

Seneca recounts Julius Caesar and a veteran from Spain, using the story to argue that asking repayment should consider circumstances, legal and practical limits, and the tempering of speech to avoid offense.

bitterness, not in public, or in a reproachful manner, but so that he may think that he himself has remembered it rather than that it has been recalled to him. XXIV. One of Julius Caesar's veterans was once pleading before him against his neighbours, and the cause was going against him. "Do you remember, general," said he, "that in Spain you dislocated your ankle near the river Sucro [Footnote: Xucar]?" When Caesar …