Accordingly, that it may be joined to happy auspices, by such an indiction we adorn you with the honor of the Count of the Private Estates, which the laws have decreed to be equal even to the prefects: for this too is a courtly power, to be revered by right in our palace, which you will cause to grow beyond its bounds if you conduct the dignity you have received with self-restraint. The reasoning of ancient custom persuades us to instruct in our written documents those who, placed far away, receive their dignities by transmission, so that a worthy reading might admonish those whom we could not instruct in person. But you, whom the royal choice has plucked out for the cares of our patrimony, we do not instruct by appointed precepts so much as we educate by the practice of most serene conversation.
For our conversations shall be to you the instruments of justice, since you will perceive that what can also accord with the divine commands is pleasing to us. We entrust our patrimony to you for the relief of private men's fortunes, not for their oppression. For if you would consider the manner of our tranquility, you impose a certain prejudice of humility upon the servants of the royal house. A wicked master indeed strives by any means to vindicate his own profits; but he who is known to be zealous for good repute is always more burdened by his own judgment. The race of rustics is insolent toward liberty, who think that voluntary acts are so far permitted to themselves because they are said to belong to our substance.
Be therefore moderate toward them with upright authority. We grant restraint at the same time as we concede power. Consider with what splendor the dignity you have received ought to be handled, through which you have deserved to have, above the other judges, the familiarity of the prince. For just as the rising sun, when night is put to flight, reveals the colors of bodies, so the quality of your character, by the prince being constantly seen, will not be hidden. Your mind will lie open both to our eyes and to our ears. In countenance and in voice we recognize the morals of those who serve. If a calm face, if a measured voice has presented itself, we believe the causes to be most proven; for whatever is said in a turbulent manner, we do not reckon to be justice.
Wherefore the examination of your sovereign will weigh your manner of speaking, since they cannot conceal their own inclinations who are able to bring forth their own words. For words are the mirror of men's hearts, since that is believed to please him in his character which he is shown to have chosen for himself to act upon. The proud man, moreover, is betrayed by his straddling gait; the irascible is disclosed by the blazing of his eyes; the crafty always loves a downward look; lightness is betrayed by the inconstancy of the eyes; the greedy is laid bare by his hooked nails. And therefore, study those virtues to which you have been advanced, because no one can deceive a prince who is proved excellently to inquire even into the causes of natural things in you.
Wherefore, with God's help, we promote you to the Count of our Patrimony by such an indiction, so that our palace may bear witness that he is an ungreedy judge whom we have judged worthy of promotion. For what greater thing could you desire than to know that the tongues of nobles praise you? Elsewhere perhaps unjust judges are feared; here, where a present remedy is sought, a sentence that has been bought is not feared. Settle the complaints of proprietors without venal delay. For everything just passes over into a benefit by the advantage of speed, and what is rendered as a debt is, by such grace, reckoned a gift. Let our possessions, both because they are immovable, not go beyond the bounds set, lest, by a contrary condition, what cannot be moved should by evil practices come to be extended.
Convey also to your soldiers what purity of soul you have chosen to follow, since he can be called just under whom no one is proved to transgress. Use therefore, by God's grant as author, the privilege of dignity happily granted to you. Let what you see very often incite you to the desire of good things, because in those things which you do I shall be both judge and witness. For if you arrange our banquets with careful ordering, you must needs be rendered illustrious not only to our palace but also to the nations. For envoys coming from almost every part of the world, when they begin to take part in our feasts, marvel that there is found in abundance what they know to be most rare in their own country.
They are astonished too that the abundance of a single table can satisfy such crowds of attendants, so that they judge that what is consumed grows again, whence such great supplies are proved to come forth. They have, no doubt, in their own land something to talk about, while they long to tell their kinsmen what they have seen. Thus he is rendered famous well-nigh throughout the whole world who is found provident in our preparations. Add that the times of our gladness are your council-chambers, when the breast is rendered free from cares, and then a place for suggesting is granted to you, when it is taken away from all. Deservedly, since you are the judge of so great a display and of the feasts, let a mind soothed by food be granted to you.
Good morals would be gravely endangered if dignities were bestowed only on the rich or on those strong of body, since you may find many who shun the watches of the palace, who are rather able to shine by praiseworthy conduct. For to many their own means do not suffice for the triumph, from many lovers of wisdom bodily health is withdrawn, and it often happens that the wise lie unrewarded, if men should always come to honors by attendance at court. It is rare for many things to flow together into one, whereas the reigning power's piety ought to come to the aid of all. What if a poor noble should dread the expenses of the consulship? What if one renowned for wisdom should be unable to sustain the troubles of the prefecture? What if a flowing eloquence should fear the burdens of the quaestorship?
What if the remaining fasces should perchance be avoided through weariness of troubles rather than through merits? Is it not, if such things be fled by great men, that dignities undergo a kind of repulse to the shame of our clemency? How much more justly should a good prince leave nothing unrewarded that nature has made praiseworthy! It is wisdom that deserves honors; all else comes from without. Prudence alone is that which is set before all things, when it is happily found in a man. Let there be among us both a consular most upright in fortunes, let there be also leading men without long toil, let military service have its own rewards; but let this honorable place too exist, which is procured by merits alone.
For the most sacred laws have decreed, not absurdly, that those whom the report of good opinion commends should seek such high places by codicils of the vacant rank. For though means might desert them in the apparatus of so great an honor, their conscious virtue would not conceal them. Those who seemed to despair of their own fortune are animated to such things. By this both the man most robust for labors and the man feeble of body earns his praises. For all are proclaimed under their diversity whom the name of such an honor embraces, and he is believed to have wrung out something more of merit, I know not what, who is felt, in leisure, to have deserved the office of the laboring.
And therefore, by the present codicils, from that indiction defend this for yourself by favorable divinity: that, the circumstance of the present time being considered, you may obtain the rank of the honor acquired; yet in such a way that those be in every manner preferred who, with the greatest sweat, have been present to our sight. For it is necessary that one merit yield to two, being outweighed. Otherwise all could run to restful dignities, if the laboring be not at all preferred to the idle. Let those attain those things who can, nor let these things which we grant be lacking to you. Thus, both parties being stirred by either grace, both they will be able to hasten to our palaces, and the joys of the desired honor will accompany you. It is established that that commonwealth is happy which shines adorned with many citizens.
For just as the heaven is rendered bright by stars, so cities shine again with the light of dignities: not because a man becomes another through honors, but because he is made more modest, from whom a better order of conduct is demanded. For who would wish to handle his own reputation in a blameworthy manner, which he knows to have been chosen especially for praises? Honors indeed glorify him whom his life also commends. For to live by an evil practice is not lawful even for a prince, since the people can secretly speak even of him against whose morals no one has publicly dared to lay any charge.
Take therefore, for your fidelity and your labors, the vacant distinction of the Count of the Domestics, that you may appear adorned to your fellow citizens, and—what is sweetest to good minds—you may be continually occupied with your own affairs. For what is more fortunate than to cultivate a field and to shine in the city, where one's own work delights its author, nor is anything acquired by deceiving, while granaries are heaped up by sweet toil? Wherefore we have given a delightful honor; do you join to it the dignity of conduct, for both are conjoined to each other: the one hangs upon the other. Scattered seeds do not grow together unless the quality of the soil too has done its work: you shall have a copious harvest from our grace, if we learn that our judgments have been excellently handled by you.
It seems indeed a great thing to many, and an occasional festal privilege, to be occupied for the public good by upright actions; but how much more happy to take up a splendid honor and to have none of the troubles of cares? For at times assiduous labors render even dignities themselves ungrateful, since human weakness is wont quickly to feel disgust, and what is first believed to have been sought is afterward felt to be wished to be avoided. But it is far more excellent to be present to the royal gaze and absent from troubles, to have the grace of the place and to avoid the affronts of office. It is sweet to earn something in such a way that it can be disturbed by no anxiety, while it is rendered far more pleasing where only the joys of prosperity are felt.
This honor, then, you regard as bestowed upon you by a leisurely recompense, as much as it is known to have been conferred by ancient provision upon those who labored exceedingly, so that governors of provinces, praised by a year's administration, were scarcely brought to such a summit, to whom they confessed themselves to owe very much. The counselors of the prefects too, renowned for their conscience, foremost in dictation, who in that office of the most ample prefecture seem so to exercise eloquence that you would believe it to be another quaestorship for dispatching public affairs—whence we frequently take them up even as judges, because we approve them to be most learned.
Acknowledge therefore what is to be thought of such an honor, since perfect men find for so many praiseworthy practices the rewards of this dignity, and it is deservedly granted with so great pomp—a dignity reckoned even with the splendor of the senatorial order: a clear rank of Spectabilis, most worthy of our consistory, which enters among the Illustres and is summoned among the magnates: a dignity girt with the honor of a leisured belt, which knows to offend no one, is known to burden no one, and, above all good things, knows not how to stir up envy.
Wherefore, provoked by your character, we bestow upon you the Count of the First Order from that indiction by the favor of majesty, so that you may enter our consistory as one invited, and adorn it as one praised for character, since this honor is neighbor to the Illustres, while no other is held between them. Let it delight you to imitate those whom you touch by nearness. You make the place ample and honorable, if you handle yourself with moderate conduct. Let it certainly admonish you that the dignity you have received is reckoned by the appellation of the First Order, surely because all follow you who are adorned with the honor of Spectabilis. But see that no one precede you in reputation who follows you in dignity. Otherwise it is a grave weight of envy to shine with the brightness of the belt and not to glow with the lamp of morals.
If honor is frequently conferred on the idle, if at times either nobility is chosen or only the favor of one's person supports the deserving of something, with what zeal are those to be rewarded who have come through to the prizes of their own contest? It must be considered with what labor service has been done, and so the recompense must be pondered. For the measure of these matters comes from the contrary, since such a gift ought to be given to the obedient as could have been a peril to the disloyal. Great are the things which those keeping watch sustain: they compel contumacious persons to obey, they track down with prudent shrewdness those hiding in their bedchambers, they impose the moderation of equality upon the proud: thus what is briefly spoken by the judges is by them completed, with efficacy as their servant.
It is known what perils they sustain when they are sent to others' cases. If one acts too slackly, the petitioner complains; if strictly, the one summoned cries out. Thus between the two opposites it is rare to have found commendation. Be it said with the peace of the dignities: it is easier to find a praised judge than a soldier who completes what is enjoined upon him without offense. For it is one thing only to declare what is lawful, another to have brought justice to its term. A good thing is indeed praiseworthily spoken, but the appointed measures are far more gloriously fulfilled. Words alone are directed by the magistrates, but from the soldiers the effect is demanded. After everything they are subjected to perils, if, being constrained, they should lodge any plausible complaint. Frequently the very integrity of an action has harmed others.
For many whom they have striven to grieve in execution, they have afterward endured as their costly judges. For they frequently, unknowing, offend those whom they are afterward to obey, and while they keep faith in others' cases, they sometimes incur perils to their own safety. But amid these things, does not the soldier who has escaped praised seem justly to be a marvel? To such merits, therefore, a recompense is to be rendered, that we may stir up by granted compensations those grown torpid through excessive labor. Use therefore confidently whatever the bountiful laws have bestowed on veterans, you who are to be subjected to no sordid burden, having handled yourself with the purest conduct.
The Count of the First Order too, which venerable antiquity assigned to those who have discharged such military service, you shall claim according to the imperial statutes. These things indeed you obtain by the benefit of the ancients; but by our name you are walled with perennial protection against uncivil assaults and conventional injuries, so that the office which has served our commands with special diligence may seem to have been able to merit something more than the other soldiers. We decree also that a penalty of so many pounds of gold is to be inflicted, if anyone should believe our statutes to be violable on any occasion whatever. Nor yet do we permit anything to avail against you which has been attempted by deceitful machination.
We desire indeed that the curia of the most ample senate be filled with natural fecundity, and that its offspring grow so greatly that it may seem to satisfy the wishes of its parents—which is the most difficult kind of greed. But it belongs to one who loves less, not to seek something more whereby it might increase so great a number. The diligent farmer, by anticipating, aids the heavenly rain and waters his seedbeds before they earn the desired showers. Striving moreover to improve the fruit of trees, he establishes the breedings of diverse grafts, so that, the sweetness of the fruits being multiplied, he may sow into his gardens the ornament of variety. So we desire to enclose the most pleasant praises of virtues within the belt of Gabinius, that a foreign shoot, bound by the embrace of grace, may grow into the morals of the curia.
But this cultivation is far different. For into trees what is judged better is grafted; to them foreign things come, that they may grow sweet rather from the others' sweetness. To you, however, things are offered that the rustic may make progress. For although fire shines by night, yet presented to the sun it is dark; hence it is that nothing excellent can be brought to that order except what is proved to be increased through it. And therefore let the light of the senate receive him, conspicuous for the splendor of his birth and prudently kindled by the heat of genius. For hitherto he has been clear by his own merits; but now he will be translucent from your conspicuousness. Open the curia, receive the candidate: he is already predestined to the senate, on whom we have conferred the broad-striped dignity.
Public fathers must needs be benign, because this title owes itself not so much to its own offspring as to the general zeal and wish. It is the custom of those acting in another's stead so to obey the wills of the judges that they have no dignities of their own. They shine with borrowed light, they rely on others' strength, and a certain image of truth seems to be in them, who have not the rights of their own brightness. But you are called Vicar, and you do not relinquish your privileges, since the jurisdiction which is given by the prince is your own. For you have some portion with the prefects: the parties contend before you under praetorian advocacy;
in the sacred stead you pronounce sentence, and—what is the greatest sign of trust—in capital indictments the life of men is committed to you, which among mortals is established to be precious. It is added that the laws would not have you greeted without the chlamys, namely that, always seen under military garb, you should never be believed to be a private man. But all these things we judge to have been granted to the glory of the prefecture, so that he who is called the Vicar of so great a seat should see nothing shadowy. Consider what manner of things you display concerning yourself, who are borne aloft by so great an authority. He who is to be stripped of crime should not be stripped of harmless means; for what could it owe you, if he should impute to his own coin that he escaped? In the likeness, indeed, of the highest, you are borne in a carriage.
Within the fortieth milestone you guard the rights of the most sacred city. At Praeneste you give games in the stead of the consul, placed in his honor, and you acquire the dignity of a senator, and those halls are opened to you which are proved to have been granted to the highest. Hence it is that in the Hall of Liberty you hold an ancestral place, and there you earn a seat where merely to have entered is a herald of praise. The senators themselves, indeed, who precede in order, seem to ask certain necessary things from you. You have wherewith to render service to those greater than you, nor not undeservedly are you to be reckoned among the foremost, you who can either aid or harm the consulars. Lift up your spirit under the quality of modesty. Every dignity is such as is the will of those administering it.
Nothing that is conducted in the commonwealth is abject, unless it has been vitiated by evil morals. For if the equality of humble private men pleases, how much more welcome is it when preserved at the summit of power, which with difficulty keeps measure, while it hastens to its own desire? Accordingly, we confer upon you the dignity of the Vicariate by the estimation of our serenity, which you are so to conduct at Rome that you may make your conscience most worthy of so great a city. You shall use all the privileges which it is established that your predecessors had, because, just as we demand from you the institutions of the ancients, so also we do not deny to your dignity the things of old.
There is no doubt that the prince's secret adorns its subjects, since nothing necessary is judged able to be committed to any save those who have been made solid by great faith. Everything indeed that we do is public; but many things are not to be known beforehand, except when they have been, with God's aid, completed—which ought to be the more concealed, the more they are desired to be known. It befits only the most weighty to know the king's counsel. They ought to imitate cabinets, which contain the records of documents, so that when some instruction is sought from them, then they may speak: but they ought to dissemble the whole, as though knowing they knew not. For from anxious inquirers often even by the face is betrayed what is kept silent.
Let innocence be present, which commends all things, because in a placid mind it is fitting that royal words be deposited. But since our solicitude, the huntress of good conduct, has regarded you as one established in approved morals, from that indiction we decree you to be our Notary, that, the course of military service being run, you may happily come to the summit of the Primiceriate—an honor which makes a senator, to whom the hall of the fathers is unlocked, not unjustly: for he who serves our cares with assiduous nightly toil seems justly also to enter the curia of Liberty. There is added also another gift for the labor discharged: that, if in any way he should merit to attain the Illustrate, whether actual or vacant, he ought to be preferred to all who are proved to be adorned with codicillary Illustrates.
Whence it is absolutely gathered that this is given to use according to the merits of the Primiceriate, so that under one and the same title there would be unequal dignity, though equally acquired. You ought therefore to be animated to labors, when you see set before you such a reward as the magnates rejoice to have found. Although every dignity is clear precisely so far as the sight of our presence illumines it—since he always receives honor who decently acquires our conversations—yet no one merits our discourses so much as he who is known to be the Referendarius. Through him the orderings of cases are set forth to us, through him we learn the wishes of those who appeal, and we render answers to them, that we may loose the entangled affairs.
It is a great thing in this contest to serve princely prudence and on the sudden so to maintain others' griefs that he may seem to satisfy the wishes of the complainants. For what manner of thing is it to be confounded by no admixture in our tumultuous processions, or to be in no wise impeded by such great clamors? He must needs seek out from the troubled what he can placably intimate to us and report more distinctly than he could have heard. It is arduous to compose the sayings of the trembling and to speak the truth: not so much does the appellant dread the outcome of his own affair as this man sustains peril in the relation. If he should say anything less, he is asserted an enemy, he is cried out a bribed man.
The master of the affair can, by the patronage of fear, turn his own words about, but the reporter is not permitted to change anything. Our sentences indeed are to be held with such cautious memory that nothing may seem diminished, nothing added. With us very often listening, you are about to speak our words, and, bound by a difficult condition, you lie subject to our judgment while you strive to expound others' causes. Wherefore our choice has constituted you Referendarius: but do you apply to our commands the purity of conscience and the truth of tongue. A marvelous erudition, however, our conversation grants to you, which, while through you it orders others, adorns the quality of your mind.
For under us it is not permitted to be unskilled, since in the stead of a whetstone we render minds splendid, which we polish by the assiduity of cases. Wherefore report to all that we have commanded those things which they ought or were able to receive. You so prove our words, if you re-say just things. Love what glorifies us. Let your will be such as you see our purpose to be. We desire you to be such, in the highest degree, that even through you we may correct the judges. We exact a peculiar tribute from you, that, just as we mingle our discourses with you familiarly, so also our reputation may especially merit from you affection.
If dignities are to be reckoned by this measure—that one is held honorable in proportion as he is known to have benefited the citizens—then surely he ought to be glorious who is proved chosen for the abundance of the Roman people. For it is your task that provision be prepared for the most sacred city, that everywhere a supply of bread may abound, and that so great a people may be satisfied as if at one table. You run through the bakers' workshops and their foods, you exact the weight and the cleanness of the bread, nor do you judge it base, whence Rome can praise you: deservedly, since the affection of that city is a singular glory. And lest anything you do be thought lowly, you ascend the carriage of the Prefect of the City with mingled gratification.
You are found most closely joined to him at the spectacles, so that the populace, whom your industry satisfies, may recognize you to be honored to their own reverence. For if a complaint about bread, as is wont, should be stirred up, you, the promiser of plenty, dissolve the civic seditions by momentary satisfaction, and through you it is provided that nothing be exceeded by the complaining peoples. Not undeservedly is Pompey said, by the quantity of supply provided, to have come even to the summit of affairs, because deservedly the love of the people is singular, when it could be freed from want. Hence he earned gratification and popular applause: hence he was uniquely always loved, and in the favor of all the citizens he surpassed the deeds of his elders:
who, lest he should ever be spoken of without honor, was even called, with an appraisal of his name, 'the Great.' Let this example invite you to prosperity, since he is known to have performed the function of your office, whom happy Rome admired. But lest anyone think that you command abject men, the rights of the bakers too have served your dignity, which extended through diverse parts of the world by a most far-reaching possession, lest, by want being caused, that should grow cheap which served the Roman supply with praiseworthy ministration. The swine-dealers also, found for the sake of the Roman supply, seem assigned to your examination. Glory in the privileges acquired. Your tribunal is not among the least of dignities, since you both enjoy Roman favor and transmit commands to the provinces.
But to weigh fully the merits of this very office: the praetorian prefecture, it is true, provides the supplies of wheat, yet it is no lesser praise to make a worthy distribution than to gather the grain, since amid any abundance whatever the complaint is not removed if no refinement of bread is preserved. Thus Ceres is said to have discovered grain, while Pan is reported to have been the first to bake the kneaded crops, whence bread is also called by his name. So she was celebrated who found it, and he was praised who fittingly applied to human use what was to be eaten. And therefore, recognizing your diligence, which is ever the friend of wisdom, we confer upon you by our choice the prefecture of the grain-supply for the said indiction.
Consider now that it is not permitted to steal anything from the people: for what is committed to the city's loss is not concealed in silence. The common folk know not how to keep quiet, since at times they even speak of what is perpetrated by no one. Restrain those who commit fraud; as a fair examiner attend to the weights of the bread: let that be weighed more carefully than gold by which the citizens live, because the joy of a favoring Roman people is more pleasing to us than a store of the most precious metal. Mark well what we say. What better thing can you wish for than to seek the favor of that people, which it is agreed that we ourselves also desire?