Mamertinus' Speech of Thanks to the Emperor Julian

Further, in decreeing the consulship, setting aside your own advantages, you had regard only for my dignity. For in administrations, labor is joined to honor; in the consulship, honor is undertaken without labor. In those, if you should rejoice, you might seem to be of covetous ambition; in this, unless you rejoice openly and publicly, you would be ungrateful. To this is added that this very city, and this most august temple of public counsel, demand the duty of this oration. This city, of a new name but of most ancient nobility, is your fatherland: here you were first brought forth, here you rose as it were a certain saving star for the human race. These citizens and your fellow-countrymen do not allow me to be silent, nor do they suffer that anyone else should usurp, on this most auspicious day, the office of speaking before you and about you, except one who is endowed with the most ample magistracy. They think that the name of consul adds something to the splendor of your praises, and they think rightly.

For something is added to the worthiness of praises by the honor of the one who praises. And although, greatest emperor, I owe you thanks by public judgment and in the name of the office, yet those things which you have accomplished for the highest good, at home and abroad, I shall for the most part now pass over, so that my speech may reach more quickly to those matters which are properly mine.

Shall I now proceed to recount, as though new and unheard-of, the Gauls recovered by your valor, all barbarism subdued—things which in this part of the Roman empire have been celebrated with the most glorious praise of fame, to such a degree that they earned the envy of your brother emperor? For what else alienated the mind of your fellow emperor from you, but the splendor of your glory? I call to witness the immortal God, I call to witness, in place of the divine, my own sacred conscience, that I would have said many things steadfastly in this city concerning those things which were conceived and undertaken against the best emperor with harshness and impiety, if even now the divine Constantius were attending the assemblies of men. Never indeed would I have failed in the duty of a free citizen and a good senator, but that I would have refuted and convicted those causes of hatred toward you in him, which ought rather to have been kindlers of love and pledges of loyalty.

Once the most flourishing and most ancient cities were possessed by barbarians; that celebrated nobility of the Gauls had either perished by the sword or was enslaved, delivered up to merciless masters. Furthermore, other cities, which distances of land had kept apart from the barbarian devastation, were held under the name of judges by wicked robbers; freeborn bodies subjected to unworthy tortures; no one free from injury, no one untouched by insult, unless he had mitigated the cruelty of the plunderer with a price: so that now the barbarians were missed, so that the fortune of captives was preferred by the wretched. In this state our emperor found the Gauls; against the enemy he had minimal labor and danger—in one battle-line all Germany was destroyed, in one battle the war was ended—but the correction of morals and the reform of the courts were a difficult struggle and a task full of danger.

For the more wicked each man was, the more he was hostile to Caesar's cause, seeking remedies for a new crime by avoiding the penalties of the laws, and since he could not defend the crimes committed, he heaped envy upon the avenger of the law. And since the character and institutions of the holy prince removed the license of false opinions and slanders, by a cunning art of doing harm they carried out the malice of accusation under the titles of praise, boasting in all their gatherings, as though out of goodwill, such things as these: Julian has tamed Germany, Julian has raised the cities of Gaul from their ashes and embers. Those provinces, besieged, stormed, laid waste by sword and fire, are more fortunate than these towns which Constantius holds without an enemy. He spends all his summers in camp, his winters on the judgment-seat. Thus the seasons of the year are divided for him, that he either tames barbarians or restores rights to citizens, professing perpetual struggle either against the enemy or against vice.

Those were words more powerful for kindling hatred than any reproaches. For if they had attempted to invent any crimes, they would easily have been refuted by the very splendor of praise and glory. They found a kind of accusation that no one could refute. But what, I ask you, do you think our prince ought to have done? Should he have handed Roman cities over to the enemy, lest he offend the mind of his brother? Should he have allowed the strongest and most useful provinces of the state to be harassed and plundered before his very eyes, lest the Augustus should hear anything he did not wish to hear? Should he not only have loosened the reins on the crimes of administrators, but even goaded them on, lest a dissimilarity of character create discord between the princes? They say a noble youth of Etruria, since by reason of the exceptional dignity of his beauty he stirred up the love of many women toward himself, wounded his own face with cuts to obliterate his beauty.

But it was easy for a youth who set the beauty of the body below the dignity of the mind, both to discolor its fairness and to mar the brightness of his countenance with deeply impressed scars. Ought Julian to have done anything of this sort against the love of the citizens? Nay, he could not even have done so—unless perhaps we think that forms capable of wounds are virtues. Doubtless he could also have overshadowed the fairness of equity, and abolished from temperance the purple of holy blushing, wounded the place of fortitude with unworthy gashes, torn out the eyes of foresight! Moreover, unless that youth had laid a severe hand upon his own features, the passage of days and time, not even a long succession of years, would have destroyed all that flower of his body. But in the virtues of our prince, the longer his age, the more excellent grows his beauty.

I pass over all barbarism roused to arms against the champion of Roman liberty, and nations recently conquered, defiant with wavering neck against the yoke newly imposed, stirred up by unspeakable goads to renewed fury. All of which at last overcame the obstinate and unmovable patience of the greatest prince. And so, when he had crushed the rebelling Germans in the very effort of their uprising—he who a little before had traversed with a victorious army regions, rivers, and mountains whose very names were unheard of—flying over the trampled heads of kings through the utmost realms of savage nations, he appeared unexpectedly in the very heart of Illyricum. We saw his fortunate companions scarcely able to believe it in their astonishment, and the peoples of the cities hesitating to believe what they saw. I think the nations were no less astounded than those who received the Palladium fallen from heaven.

Virgins, boys, women, trembling old women, tottering old men beheld with no small awe the emperor running a long way under the weight of heavy arms, his hastening breath showing no sense of weariness, the frequent streams of sweat flowing down his sturdy neck, and amid the horror of the dust that weighed upon his beard and hair, his eyes gleaming with starlike fires. The greatness of the marvel suppressed the voices of those rejoicing. The offices of praise ceased before those who beheld things greater than praise.

Mere speed alone would have sufficed for the dispatch of present affairs, but it does not suffice our prince to provide for the state by one plan only. His breast, wearied by no labors, ever undertakes many things at once. So that at one and the same time he might both settle the state of the most loyal provinces, and, by bringing terror nearer, strike all barbarism with dread, he chose to sail the Ister on a very long voyage. O sacred divinity! What a spectacle was that voyage, when an unbroken line of both sexes, of every rank, of armed and unarmed, lined the right-hand bank of the renowned river, while on the left barbarism, bent upon its knee, was looked down upon in wretched entreaty! All the cities that dwell along the Danube were visited, the decrees of all were heard, their condition was relieved, their fortunes restored, pardon was granted to countless barbarians, and the gift of peace bestowed.

Whoever considers that speed will think the emperor read nothing but the road; whoever considers the multitude of things accomplished will not believe that he made haste.

O eloquent and mighty Greece, thou alone couldst exalt the deeds of all thy princes to greater heights, thou alone couldst stretch the glories of deeds to the abundance of words. Thou didst consecrate to the stars, exalted even to heaven, one ship because of the theft of the golden fleece and the rape of a maiden. Thou didst boast that a boy, the inventor of sowing, flying in a chariot drawn by winged serpents, scattered seeds upon the earth. What wouldst thou make, if thou shouldst set thy mind to writing and celebrating the deeds of our prince, out of Julian's barges and light galleys? Which not only take nothing away from anyone, nor plunder the cities that host them, but rather freely bestow upon all peoples immunities, privileges, and moneys.

With what dignity wouldst thou describe the fleet flying with oars and winds along the course of the greatest river, then our prince exalted high upon the stern: not scattering grain over fields of some sort, but distributing to Roman towns good hopes, liberty, riches, while on the other side sowing into the barbarian soil the terror of war, tremblings, flights, and dread?

Now what a thing it was, that while still sailing the Ister you extended your benefits as far as the Adriatic, the Tyrrhenian sea, and the Maeotis! For at that very time the Dalmatians, relieved of the enormous prices of horses, and the Epirotes, brought to the last extremity by the weight of an unbearable tribute, by your providence, O emperor, not only cast off their miseries, but even regained an ample and opulent fortune. The city of Nicopolis, which the divine Augustus had built as a monument and trophy of the Actian victory, had fallen almost entirely into lamentable ruins; the houses of the nobility were in shreds, the forums roofless, all things long since, since the aqueducts had collapsed, full of squalor and dust. The games, accustomed to be attended every lustrum, had been interrupted by a shameful cessation brought on by sad times. Athens herself, the mistress and inventor of the liberal arts, had lost all cultivation both publicly and privately. Eleusis had fallen into pitiable ruin.

But it would take too long to enumerate all the cities restored by the aid of the emperor: it is enough to know that all the cities of Macedonia, Illyricum, and the Peloponnese, by one or two letters of the greatest emperor, suddenly put on the youthfulness of renewed walls, that waters gushed forth everywhere: places that a little before appeared dry and gasping with thirst are now washed, cleansed, made wet; that the forums, the promenades, the gymnasia are thronged with glad and rejoicing peoples, that old festival days are celebrated and new ones consecrated in honor of the prince.

If any mortal, borne up on a cloud to some celestial watchtower, had seen a little before all things sorrowful, towns half-ruined, walls desolate, solitude where inhabitants should be, a crowd of exiles; and if now he were set back on that same height, and were to look down upon all things rejoicing, fields sown, cities thronged, waters flowing into towns, not private houses but public buildings rising in magnificent splendor, crops rich according to the nature of the lands, vintages surpassing the prayers of the farmers, steep hills and deep valleys and the broad plains resounding with bleating, neighing, and lowing—surely he would marvel that all things had been so changed in so short a time; he would leap down from the clouds, and gladly abandon the neighborhood of heaven, to enjoy your lands, O emperor.

But what a marvel is this, that no one has felt any loss amid such great preparation of things, that money is drawn from the emperor for all purposes, and a kind of tribute is paid in return, as it were, to the provinces, that riches flow thence to all, from whence before they used to flow together from everywhere? So that it is the greatest question, from whom you receive, O emperor, who thus bestow upon all. But whoever has come to know the principles and manner of your life will easily find the source of this abundance. Your parsimony, O Augustus, provides you the greatest revenue: for whatever others used to squander on extravagant desires, all that is now reserved for public uses.

Up to now this alone was thought the fruit of empire, that the emperor be set apart from other citizens not by the strength of a stouter breast, nor by the splendor of glory, but by the magnitude of his expenditure. Hence the unnecessary mass of structures in buildings, the vast throngs of courtiers, easily surpassed the expense of legions. Indeed, the Roman people felt the laboriously contrived magnificence of breakfasts and dinners, when the most exquisite dainties were valued not by their taste but by the difficulty of procuring them—marvels of birds, fish of distant seas, fruits out of season, summer snows, winter roses. All these things a mind victorious over every pleasure has cast aside.

For not to be compared are the painted veneers of marble and ceilings roofed with solid gold, for one who lies for the greater part of the year on bare ground, covered only by the sky; nor are throngs of servants appointed for luxuries, for one who has so few things needing service; nor is there time for banqueting for one who more often takes a standing meal for the mere necessity of the human body, rejoicing in camp fare, with whatever servant is at hand and whatever cup comes by chance.

But amid these things I cannot marvel enough that he is so severely sparing toward himself, and yet so liberal and lenient toward his own citizens; taking upon himself the harshest of labors, that we may pass our time in tranquility, since we observe it commonly happens that those who follow a life removed from pleasures are difficult and morose, joyless for themselves but gloomier toward others, and make even their private households sad and anxious. But our most holy emperor strives earnestly that we may dwell according to our dignity, that we may abound in comforts, that we may lead a chaste yet cheerful life; whereas in other emperors toil has rendered them fierce, and indulgence has rendered them slack, and grace has always been lacking to the strict emperors, industry to the easygoing ones. Nor has anyone been so troublesome to himself while showing himself so accommodating to others, without coercing others to follow his own example.

Our emperor, granting himself no indulgence, imposing on others no trouble or labor, through his own toil provides leisure for all, a bestower of riches, a miser of cares, preferring himself to perform the most laborious of tasks rather than to command others to do so.

Many, after the kings had been driven out, desired sole rule over the whole commonwealth. Known to those who recall are the names of those, namely, who, raging for their own advantage, paid the penalties of aspiring to kingship. I pass over the ancients who were cast headlong from the rock, whose goods were confiscated, whose houses were razed, whose names were forbidden to their descendants; not a few of such madmen, deranged by this fury, our own age too has produced, who through blind desire of ruling rushed upon the sword. If the gods were to restore these men to life for a little while and address them: hark, for example, Nepotianus and Silvanus, through hostile swords and imminent deaths you sought empire.

But now the power of reigning is freely given to you, that you might reign on the same condition as Julian—that for the leisure of all you must keep watch day and night, and though called masters, you must serve the liberty of the citizens, more often take up battle than banquet, take nothing from anyone, and freely bestow upon all, show favor to none, rage against none; that throughout the whole world no maiden's reputation be violated, that your bed be purer than that of the Vestals even without permitted, yet lawful pleasures; that in summer you endure the dust of Alamannia, in winter the frost of Thrace with head uncovered. Assuredly their delicate ears could not endure the very vexation of these words; terrified by such great burdens, loathing not only empire but even life itself, they would hasten to return to some lower region of the dead.

For they would see that just rule is disquieted by labors, cares, and vigils—those who, gazing only upon its pleasant and lovable face, did not see the harshness of its toils.

When, then, these excellent affairs had been accomplished along the way and he had arrived at the borders of Thrace, having swiftly arranged the army's supply, he turned his mind to the city of Rome, destitute of grain. Any other man would have been deterred from attempting relief by so grievous a famine and so dire a peril to the state. But by the tribute of the provinces and the produce of his own patrimony, and then by grain purchased from every quarter, he filled the now-starving City to overflowing abundance. Someone will say, how could so much be done in so short a time? And rightly so. But our emperor adds to time by subtracting from his own leisure. He grants nothing to sleep, nothing to feasting, nothing to rest; he defrauds himself even of the use of things natural and necessary, wholly devoted to the public good.

And so his reign, already lengthy, will appear so to those who measure Julian's times not by the reckoning of days or months, but by the abundance of his labors and the measure of things accomplished. When the sustenance of the Roman people and the army's supply were in hand, and amid the anxious effort of dispatching grain, a report came that many ships heavy with African wheat had sailed past the Achaean shore and flown on to Constantinople. All of us, moved and angry against those who guarded the coast, came to the prince, complaining eagerly, each for himself, that so much grain had been lost through the judges' negligence. But our greatest emperor, smiling serenely, said that nothing had gone amiss, that the grain bound for this city was not lost to him.

We took that remark as a sign of his well-known love for his homeland, while an ambiguity of words concealed a treachery yet to come: for even then his divine mind, conscious of what was to come, foresaw the outcome of the coming good fortune.

Within a few days, the state having been restored to a new and flourishing condition, his sacred mind turned its attention to the honors and adornments of magistracies. The consulship began to occupy his sacred breast in council. What he then followed, he himself knows, and whatever counsels the divine will rejoices to shape in him. Of all the men of the Roman empire I was chosen first, though my colleague, glorious with military decorations, heaped honors upon mine. Thanks to you, thanks, emperor, if you believed me to deserve it, and greater thanks, emperor, if you loved me so much as to make me consul even though undeserving. Nor am I unaware that the greatest honors are often conferred upon men too little worthy, for want of better ones; but I do not fear that any ill-wisher will suppose this happened in the case of my consulship. If any envious person spreads such a rumor, he is refuted by the very timing itself, against whom it suffices to say: even then Rome was obedient to our prince.

What of this, that to me, hoping for no increase of honor—for the modesty of my wishes did not extend beyond the prefecture—there came the news that I had been made consul without expense, which had long been rare for few; without labor, which never happens; without solicitation, which happens to no one?

Who does not know that even then, when honors were entrusted to the votes of the Roman people, the labors of candidates were many? All the names of the tribes had to be learned, men had to be greeted one by one, the hands of those met had to be seized, one had to smile upon everyone; not only with the lowest but even with strangers a semblance of familiarity had to be feigned, and many other things had to be done for the sake of honor which would not otherwise befit a man worthy of honor. Whence that famous saying of Crassus, when he was seeking the consulship, and happened to walk through the streets of the City with his father-in-law Scaevola, and, in the presence of that most grave and severe man, dared not flatter the people, stroke those he met, and practice the arts of canvassing.

"I beg you, Mucius," he said, "withdraw for a little while, and do not think yourself honored by your company: you impede my honor; with you watching I cannot be foolish." But I indeed won no one's favor by base flattery, did nothing foolish, did nothing that I would not wish Mucius to watch. Not only did I entreat none of the common people, but I did not even approach you yourself, emperor—whom it is glorious to beseech, to whom to offer prayers is most full of dignity—even in a single word. Of your own accord that divine gift was poured into my family.

I shall confess to you, then, greatest emperor, and safely before you I shall unlock all the hidden things of my mind. Never did I covet power over the heads of citizens, never the provinces; but because it seemed that the commonwealth ought to be aided by me too, according to my strength, when I was called to a magistracy, I did not shrink back for fear of a reputation for idleness. I neither sought public office through ambition, nor refused it through timidity or sloth, but from tender years even to this present old age I burned with love of the consulship. I owe you also a second degree of confession. While the commonwealth was in the power of other emperors, I long nourished a vain desire without the comfort of hope. For whence should such madness of aspiring to this name come upon me, empty of resources and ignorant of how to seek office? For first, when you were Caesar, you stirred the already fading flame of my desire with the breath of good hope.

And when I saw you, Augustus, a wondrous witness of innocence and virtues, then I said to myself, Claudius Mamertinus, you have not lived in vain until now. You have a fitting judge of your fidelity and diligence. Remember that your fortunes are in great jeopardy. It will be known that you did not deserve the consulship, if this emperor has not bestowed it upon you.

You have, Augustus, the betrayal of my silence, and a matter concealed by me through no brief span of taciturnity. Yet I have not yet disclosed everything. I wish to keep back no secret with myself from this point on; I shall empty out all the recesses of my breast. Had you delayed your goodwill, and had your generosity toward me, against your own custom, added some artifice, perhaps I would have asked. But do you think it a small benefit, emperor, that you spared me the danger of asking? A danger, I say, most holy emperor: if you had hesitated to grant it, if you had put it off to some future time, what would have become of me after a refusal? Even in the slightest of favors, once sought and not obtained, friendship is dissolved. For the love by which friendship is held together is polluted on both sides. The one thinks himself not loved, because he did not grant it; the other thinks himself hated, because he did not obtain it.

Nor indeed would I seem to have been made consul as a free gift, if I had purchased the honor with entreaties. For I would have undergone a wretched and toilsome apprenticeship in petitioning, with the better part of my life already spent. Nor indeed do I think it more troublesome to pour out money than to pour out entreaties. For we see that in every purchase, men, trusting in the equivalence of exchange, bring forth gold and silver with a bold and lofty spirit; but those who resort to entreaties, humble and downcast, scarcely bring forth hesitant and stammering words, and not only bow their speech but cast their whole bodies down upon their knees. In short, to speak my mind plainly, he who accepts entreaties sells his favor at the highest price.

But would I have seemed more gloriously declared consul had I been elected in the centuriate assemblies by the votes of the whole people? By no means: since even in those ancient times the Campus was infamous for the ambition of many. Known were the crimes of the vote-distributors, known the tricks of the money-boxes, and then bands of hired men bought for violence and sedition. Nor indeed can anything be weighed with due consideration in a confused multitude of the ignorant. For since good men are rare and the crowd of the wicked is immense, and in the Campus number and throng prevail, it is doubtless understood that the man who obtains a magistracy by the votes of the people is the one whom the majority—that is, the worse sort—approved. Whence it came about that our ancestors saw Gabinii elected and Catos rejected. But let such things be left to the memory of antiquity; let us recall instead how honor was sought a little while ago.

Scarcely a few could be found to whom it was conferred for their virtues—though even for them the reward of industry and probity came late. But the rest courted every most depraved man among the courtiers; whoever seemed most acceptable to the emperor through the basest arts, him they earned by constant service and captured with gifts. Nor did they court men only, but little women too, and not women only, but eunuchs as well—those whom, as if exiled from the fellowship of humankind, either the origin of nature or the calamity of the body had separated from both sexes. Thus those illustrious ancient names flattered whatever was most sordid and most disgraceful in the imperial retinue. When these men were sent into the provinces, they plundered both sacred and profane things alike, paving their road to the consulship with money. And so there was no longer any pursuit of the good arts.

Military labor was rejected by every noble as sordid and illiberal. Knowledge of civil law, which had raised the Manlii, the Scaevolas, the Servii to the highest rank of dignity, was called the craft of freedmen. Our leading men spurned the oratorical faculty of speaking, a business of much labor and little use, wishing to seem to have refused what they were unable to attain. And truly it was considered madness to undertake so much labor and wakefulness to acquire that whose use would not enhance the adornments of one's manner of life. And so the whole pursuit was the heaping up of money. For each man was thought better in proportion as he was richer. Then there was the pitiable patience of servility, the wondrous cunning of flattery. The thresholds of the palace attendants were worn daily. At the doors of those who served the desires of kings you would see men of patrician family, three at a time, undeterred from such disgrace by rain, by cold, by the very bitterness of the insult itself.

Bowed down, prostrate, they could scarcely raise their heads above the knees of those they were entreating. In the end, honors were earned not by judgment or the goodwill of the proud, but by pity.

But now, whoever desires provinces, tribunates, prefectures, consulships, need not seek money by fair means or foul, nor diminish his own liberty by servile obsequiousness. The more ready a man has been for servility, the more unworthy of honor he will be called. Then there is another sort of men in the friendship of our prince, rude, as it seems to those city-bred folk, not very courteous, somewhat rustic; it resists the blandishments of flatterers, and shrinks from the touch of another's money as from a noxious thing, and sets its greatest wealth in the safety of the commonwealth and the glorious praise of its emperor. He himself, indeed, by a vast and divine providence, is fortified against all the allurements and snares of flatterers. For what danger is there to him from the false poisons of flatterers, who is even reluctant to lend his ears to true praises? But now the manner of seeking honors is far, far easier.

Whoever, I say, you wish to obtain a magistracy, be careless of gold and silver; go not from door to door to the houses of the powerful; embrace no one's feet, no one's knees. Bring with you only companions that cost nothing and are most easily had—justice, fortitude, temperance, and prudence; of his own accord the greatest emperor will come to you, and will urge you to take up the commonwealth. While you are at leisure, attending to other things, provinces, prefectures, the fasces, the curule chair, and all the insignia of magistracies will be brought to you. For what may not a man of true and perfect virtue confidently promise himself concerning honor, when he sees me, on account of so small a merit of innocence, honored three times in a single year?

What god ever gave manifold fruits in a single year to a single field? Has anyone ever in the same fallow field, in one summer, reaped more than once? Has a threefold vintage ever flowed for anyone from one autumn and one vineyard? The olive-harvest, at any rate, is that of a single winter alone. But in the benefits of our prince, manifold fruitfulness knows no miracle. To say nothing of other most excellent men, who from one autumn to the next have reaped the fruits of honors manifold, for me at least the consulship is the third abundance of a single year. The first was the entrusted guardianship of all the treasuries, and the dispensing of largess. The second place among the fruits of my honors is held by the prefecture. Added to these, that by which alone the greediness of anyone whatsoever would be surpassed, is the third of your bounties, the consulship.

Then, whereas a field is worn down into leanness by the continual bearing of fruit, the later liberality of our emperor surpasses the former, nor does it become barren from bearing, but is made fruitful by successive harvests. Utterly new and unhoped-for was this heaping-up of conferred honors. The courses of the stars had not yet changed their position, when already the prince was setting in motion the course toward another dignity; and already then the sun was shining from the same region of those same stars, already Augustus had passed beyond the third signs of my magistracy. I ask you, would he not seem to you most greedy for empty glory, would he not seem to burn with notable ambition, if anyone had wished for himself all at once as much as Augustus heaped upon me alone within so short a time?

They say that just men dwell upon lands in the Ocean which are called the Islands of the Blessed, because throughout them grain is born without the soil being ploughed, the ridges of the hills are clothed with vines growing of their own accord, the tree is laden with fruit unbidden, and the common herb takes the place of grasses. How small are these gifts, if you consider that a god is their author?

Surely for us too, though we do not till the field with our own hands, these things are born without labor. How much happier is our condition, how much more excellent our blessedness? Not a head of wheat, not the cheap clusters of grapes; but wealth and riches are heaped upon us who labor not at all; provinces, prefectures, the fasces spring up of their own accord. You, you, I say, greatest emperor, have brought back to the republic, by a kind of postliminium, the virtues that had been exiled and banished: you have kindled again studies of letters already extinguished: you have not only freed from judgment philosophy, lately suspect, and not merely stripped of honors but accused and rendered odious, but, clothed in purple, crowned with gold and gems, you have set her upon the royal throne. Now it is permitted to look up to heaven, and to gaze upon the stars with untroubled eyes, we who but lately, after the manner of cattle and four-footed beasts, seemed to fix trembling glances upon the ground.

For who would have dared to watch the rising of a star, who its setting? Not even the farmers, whose labors ought to be regulated by the movement of the heavenly signs, searched out the portents of the weather. The very sailors, who guide their nightly courses by the stars, refrained from the names of the constellations. In short, on land and sea men lived not by heavenly reckoning, but by chance and at random.

It is no wonder, then, emperor, if so great and so true a love for you burns in your citizens. For I think that after men were first born, none was ever loved with such fervor of the human race. The affections shown toward other kings and emperors have been quite rare, and never lasting. For they dwelt in the topmost regions of men's hearts, called forth by sudden and fortunate good will, not bound fast by admiration of virtues. But our devotion is of true and certain judgment, a mind bound to the innermost seat of the heart, mingled with and united to life, destined to live on with the immortal mind even when the body is dissolved by death. Arms, therefore, and young men with swords and javelins are not for the guarding of your body, but a kind of solemn adornment of imperial majesty. For what need is there of these, when you are hedged about with the firmest wall of civic love?

Or is the senate-house to be feared by you, when you have not only restored to the senate its ancient dignity, but have also added very much new honor to it? Or is the people to be feared by the guardian of its own sustenance, the vindicator of its life, the author of its liberty? For what shall I say of the soldiers? Two, or at most three pairs of friends are cited from ancient memory. I deny that anyone was ever loved by a single friend as much as you, emperor, are loved not only by your companions and tribunes, but by all the legions, cavalry and infantry, even by the common soldiers. Therefore, so far as concerns you, you would remove all arms from about your guard; but how can you persuade the soldiers of this? Anxious is the diligence of the faithful. To the greatest love is joined the greatest fear.

It is not enough for us that you have obtained that no one should wish to harm you, unless we also see to it that no one can.

Some other princes, too, have had a devoted and loving retinue, but in a rather different way; first because, being unskilled and rude, they chose for counsel the most unlearned of men, so that, forsooth, they might in some measure stand out above the common herd by their own prudence. Thus, since the most worthless men had obtained honors and riches, they loved their own advantages and the vices of their princes. From these, every best man was driven far away, since uprightness was suspect and hated; and the more honorable each man was, the more troublesome he was thought as a judge of base things, and so was avoided. But you, Augustus, all trifles set aside, seek out every man who is best and most learned. If someone excels in warlike virtues and the praise of military service, he is counted among your friends; whoever excels in oratorical skill, whoever in the science of civil law, is unbidden called into intimacy.

Whoever has ever shown himself blameless and vigorous in the administration of the republic is received into a share of your offices. For the governance of provinces you choose not the most intimate but the most blameless. All are enriched by you with money, made wealthy with riches, honored with honors.

Truly you preserve friendships with the good faith of a private man, and the opulence of an emperor, which is the first assurance of perpetual and constant good will, the surest of virtues, and the foremost truth. Have I ever heard that anyone suspected your mind of something else? No one has been deceived by feigned blandishments, no one by false promise. Who does not know the cheerful cruelty of other emperors, and their laughing savagery, by which innate cruelty was cloaked under a pretense of gladness? Wonderful in our prince is the harmony of mind and tongue. He knows that lying is not merely a mean and petty fault, but a servile vice. And truly, since men are made liars either by want or by fear, an emperor who lies does not know the greatness of his own fortune. Who, I ask you, has given more proofs of faith and constancy? All whom he received into intimacy as a private man he holds with the same affection now as emperor.

No one has been thrust from his rank, no one forbidden access, to no one are the doors of the palace closed. He keeps all who are good. In receiving friends he is the best judge. If some unworthy men must be tolerated, he remains, despite the faults of his intimates, an unchanging friend.

But do prosperous circumstances change men's minds? If they have not yet changed our prince, when will they? Whose felicity was ever more divine? A little while ago, amid the torn provinces of Gaul, he was assailed by the treachery of mortal enemies with open arms and hidden plots; within a few months, by divine gift, he is ruler of Libya, Europe, and Asia. What greater rewards of god shall we expect, what richer gifts of fortune? See whether, exalted by prosperity, he has changed anything of the gentleness and moderation of his former life. He has indeed changed—he has changed. For, having become more civil, he has broken the envy of his successes. To whom did not that time, too, afford a proof of a mind at peace, when, the republic freed from the fear of a dreadful war, we were all uplifted with exultant joy?

But the emperor, though he saw the safety of the republic prolonged by heavenly aid, both grieved for the human condition, and, granting pardon for offenses, put on the part of a brother even toward one whose arms he knew had assailed his life; he honored that man's death, and afterward himself paid the last rites. Marvelous both in memory and in forgetfulness, he forgot the enemy, and remembered the heir.

But why do I fetch from further off proofs of a mild and gentle mind? This very day, this very day, I say, has furnished clear enough evidence of a civil spirit. My colleague and I feared lest the greatest emperor might do something with too great an eagerness of kindness. And so at the morning twilight we sought the palace. It is announced to the prince, then by chance attending to the salutations, that we were approaching. At once he sprang up from his throne as if summoned, his countenance troubled and bustling, such as my own mind might have been, had I come late to meet the prince. Scarcely could the crowds of people who went before us be pushed aside, so eager was he to advance as far as possible to meet us. There, O sacred divinity! Amid the rejoicing of all, with what countenance, with what voice did he say: Hail, most illustrious consul.

He deigned to give his hand, consecrated by that divine kiss of his mouth, that right hand, the immortal pledge of virtue and of faith. The poets tell that that most high god, who restrains all things by his power, who governs by perpetual sway things divine and human, when he looks down upon the earth, changes with the aspect of his countenance the uncertain weather, at his nod the world trembles, at his gladness whirlwinds are driven off, clouds are put to flight, and clear skies are poured back gleaming over the world.

That this is so, a little while ago it was permitted to prove by our own eyes. Into how great a joy was the people, with you as consuls, and you smiling upon it, released? We saw the astonished faces of admirers, the many-shaped postures of the rejoicing, the varied movements of bodies. An unrestrained liberty of praising poured forth unordered shouts. The multitude leaped with repeated dances. In their excessive joy they were unmindful of decorum and gravity. That tossing of togas, that leaping of bodies, was stirred up, men scarcely knowing what they did. All the modesty of the people, all your own reserve, their unbridled joys had overcome. Hail, most illustrious consul. I do indeed rejoice, emperor, and shall rejoice. Nor can the outcome of this wish be doubtful, since he bids me rejoice who has already made me rejoice. Most illustrious consul. I am indeed both consul, and a most illustrious consul.

For who was ever a more illustrious consul than I, whom the consulship you conferred exalts and makes illustrious: the greatness which you bestow. After the auspicious words of the first greeting, he asks what by consular right we might wish to do, ready to fulfill the senatorial office, whether we should like to seek the tribunal, to summon an assembly, to mount the rostra. But the solemn decrees of the senate for this day drew us to the curia. And so he at once offers himself as companion, and walks covered on both sides by the consular purple-bordered robes, differing little from his own magistrates in the kind and color of his dress.

It may perhaps seem superfluous to repeat what you yourselves have seen, for things that have been perceived by the eyes are not sought after by the ears, but must be entrusted to writing, set into records, and sent on to posterity, marvels scarcely to be believed by ages yet to come. Almost within the very doors of the palace itself, he ordered the consular litters to be brought in; and when, yielding to the honor and veneration due to him, we refused that seat of most ample dignity, he began, having placed us there almost with his own hands, mingled among the throng of the toga-clad, to walk on foot before us, moderating his pace almost to the nod of a lictor, and the command of an usher. Who would believe this, who had seen a little before the disdain of the purple-clad, who conferred so great an honor on their own men only that they might not be despised for being without honor?

Who would believe that after so long a time that ancient liberty of the early days had been restored to the republic? For I do not think that the consulship of Lucius Brutus and Publius Valerius, who first, the kings having been expelled, presided over the citizens with an annual power, is to be preferred to ours. Each was for the public good, each salutary for the Roman republic, each notable in the beginnings of its benefits; but each has something peculiar to itself. They received consular power through the people, we have received ours through Julian. In their year liberty arose; in ours it was restored.

But let these things, most holy emperor, which you do justly, moderately, civilly, be perhaps a marvel to others; to me they cannot be, since I know you to be free and absolved of all human vices, and to burn with love for immortality alone, directing all your resources and thoughts toward the eternal memory of posterity, and to be devoted above all to those judges who will judge of your deeds, without hatred and without favor, in ages to come. He cannot think anything base and mean, who knows that men will always speak of him. Now if I shall seem to you, emperor, to have used too scanty a speech, not answering to your merits, I beg and beseech you to attribute this rather to my own nature than to the greatness of your benefits. No one, since men were first born, has ever obtained greater rewards from kings and emperors; on no one has greater burden been laid.

I will not deny that prefectures and consulships have been conferred on many, but on them, after immense labors, honor was restored as though owed; to me, since I have already obtained the honor, now at last I must labor to deserve it. With the order of times reversed, with the sequence of rewards exchanged, I must now strive to be thought worthy of the reward, though I have already received the reward. O how heavy a burden is your hastening benevolence to me! I fear I shall scarcely be able to express plainly the order of my difficulties. It is easier, emperor, to deserve by good arts to be made consul, than by industry and labor to bring it about that you seem to have deserved it, once you have already been made.

Far be it, Augustus, and may holy divinity avert that omen, that you should expect a return of benefit from any mortal! Nevertheless, that which alone this fortune either can receive, or be bestowed by us upon your resources, I shall cultivate the immortality of your gifts with everlasting offices. All my business, all my leisure will be spent in adorning and celebrating your deeds; nor shall the benevolence of a grateful mind be declared only while I live and am strong; but even when my breath shall have failed, the monuments of your kindness toward me will remain in me.

But in returning gratitude, most holy emperor, this I promise you, and shall always show, that truth in offering counsel, nor courage in facing dangers, if the matter shall demand it, nor faith in stating my opinion plainly, nor freedom in opposing the wishes of men when they would harm the republic and you, nor diligence in enduring labors, nor the benevolence of a grateful mind in increasing the advantages of your rule, shall ever be lacking in me; and that through the whole time of my life I shall strive, labor, and bring it about with my utmost powers, that your honors bestowed upon me may be seen not as having been conferred merely because it was necessary they be given to someone, but as rightly placed and reasonably bestowed.