Septimius Acindynus

Septimius Acindynus was a Roman consul with Valerius Proculus in 340 AD. He was governor of Antioch when, a man being ordered by him to pay a pound of gold into the public treasury, was unable to comply, and was put into prison. To release him, with his own sanction, his wife "listened to the persuasions" of a rich man; but the rich man had filled her purse with earth instead of gold. He revealed his fraud to Acindynus. Condemning himself for a rigor which had led to the crime, Acindynus paid the gold himself, and gave the woman the field from which the earth had been brought.