Be assured, conscript fathers, that the zeal of you all ought to be stirred up to render thanks to your most excellent king, since you know that my promotion has been devised for the benefit of all. And therefore that should be received with eagerness which would necessarily have been a thing to wish for. It is indeed useful to all to follow the judgements of princes, but he makes them his own who gladly accepts what is another's. You remember that I have always cherished the assembly of the senate, but now most of all, when I seem to enter into your fellowship. The taking up of the dignity of your order has doubled our gratitude, since I feel myself to be among those by whom I trust I can be loved.
There is added also that most welcome pledge of your goodwill, that the dignity of the patricians stands exalted through us, since none of the foreigners will think it abased in you which he beholds honoured in me. In the seeking of honours too, before Theoderic, that prince of kings of glorious memory, I often joined my prayers with yours, so that by a kind of foreshadowing I may seem to have sent ahead such men, among whom it was fitting that I should enter with goodwill. For that is sought with more confidence where men hasten after benefits already conferred. Often have I promoted consuls, often patricians, often prefects by my intercession, striving to obtain for you what I could only with difficulty have wished for myself. Rejoice now with me, conscript fathers, at my auspices, I who have ever favoured your honours.
Do you wish to know with what affection I embrace you? Engrafted into the royal stock, I wished to hold a title in common with you. Live secure under God's favour and — what is the most blessed kind of sweetness — exult together with your children. Strive, as ever, to be praised for Roman morals, and seek the renown of good deeds in deep tranquillity. It concerns our glory that those whose number we have increased we should protect with the divinity propitious. We judge that the perfecting of necessary matters is complete only if, just as by choosing a magnificent man as patrician we have provided for the armed part of the commonwealth, so we also take counsel for joining to him one most skilled in letters.
For it is fitting that those to whom the highest power is committed should have most learned counsellors, so that, with no defect of merits hindering, the foreseen advantage of the commonwealth may be unfolded. There are other honours which compose themselves by an ordinary provision; but for the general security a man had to be associated with the careful prince such as would have no equal in his pursuits. Nor indeed will you be recognized as hitherto less approved, although you have come to honours in your prime. The field of advocacy has exercised you; the summit of our judgement has chosen you. For though your profession of letters was ample, it dwelt within you in such a way that we would not suffer your talent to grow old there.
You began as a soldier, when you could have filled the office of judge; and although eloquence drew you to plead for the defence, yet equity urged you to bring forward matters to be adjudged. It has been proven what usefulness eloquence armed with good morals possesses. For just as it is pernicious that learned men should persuade to depravity, so it is a wholesome gift when discourse knows not how to overstep the bounds of truth. But that we may set forth your merits rather by praiseworthy examples, it is pleasing to recall that splendid embassy, which you carried out not with common words but with a torrential river of eloquence.
For sent from the regions of Dalmatia to our lord grandfather, you so set forth the needs of the provincials and the public interests, that before that anxious and most cautious prince you were both copious and yet stirred no weariness. For your words flowed in abundance with the sweetest charm, and when you made an end, you were still asked to speak: by delighting and moving you fulfilled rather the effort of a true orator, when you had now laid aside the office of a mere pleader. You were aided too by the eloquence and character of your own father, whose discourse could have instructed you, even if you had not had leisure for the books of the ancients. For he was, as we know, eminently learned in letters.
And that we may seem to say something choice to a scholar, Mercury, the inventor of many arts, is recorded — as the more frequent opinion relates — to have first gathered these letters from the flight of the Strymonian birds. For even today the cranes, which join themselves into a flock, trace the forms of the alphabet by nature's instilling: and he, reducing this into a seemly order, with vowels and consonants fittingly mingled, found a path of meaning, by which the mind, seeking the heights, may most swiftly arrive at the inner sanctuaries of wisdom. Hence Helenus, an author of the Greeks, said many things excellently, describing the virtue and composition of letters with most subtle narration, so that at the very beginning the abundance of great letters may be recognized.
But that we may return to our purpose: you are to be believed, then, to have extended your talent by your father's example, you who did not nourish your eloquence in the Roman forum. O blessed teacher and most fortunate pupil, who learned with affection what the terror of teachers wrings from others! In short, you found Roman eloquence not in its own regions, and there the reading of Cicero rendered you eloquent where once the Gallic tongue resounded. Where are those who assert that Latin letters are to be learned at Rome and not also elsewhere? Caecilius would have escaped the weight of his shame, if the earlier ages had begotten this accomplished man. The force of that saying is indeed undone: even Liguria sends forth its own Tullii.
Recognize what we have esteemed from your merits, since you see yourself associated with the counsel of him who handles the secret of our rule. Hence it is that, having distinguished you among the count of the domestics, we adorn you with this honour, so that you may deservedly hope greater things from our judgements, you in whom we believe still better things to be found. You see that a great task has been committed to you: whatever you shall do, the whole community feels it. For he who can sin against the universe is exceedingly glorious, if he knows not how to transgress. Secure does he ascend the heights who has approved himself in things a little lower, and with sure footstep he advances who gains the desired thing step by step.
For whatever is sudden is thought to be rewarded without merit, nor does that which has come about suddenly escape the suspicion of being untested. On the contrary, all things deliberated are robust, and he is believed to have obtained the whole by good deeds who is promoted after the documents of a praised service. Long ago, received among the schools of letters by that inspector of merits who by his judgements foretold even future things, you presided over the insignia of the privy largesses: an honour but slight, had it not grown from yourself, which you, taking up the patronage of merits, so increased by the favour of your sovereign, that there was often committed to you what the dignity did not possess. But if it is praiseworthy to be equal even to middling honours, how much more excellent to have surpassed the dignity of the court by one's character.
When you carried out these praised duties under so great a judge, you found favour also in another place. For you are proven to have been employed in dictations, when another was expelled for his offences, and your talent so sustained your suspended honour that you did not allow the palace to lack a judge whose dignity we had learned to be for a time abrogated. Our times are not unequal to those that are past: we have followers and rivals of the men of old. Behold, again, by your talent you come, eminent, to the quaestorship. Give us back now a Pliny, and take up a Trajan. You have great things to say, if you too shine resplendent with like discourse. The fame of the times is begotten of a lawful and eloquent command. A learned tongue heaps up all good things, and what is enjoined by us is adorned by the grace of him who composes it.
Be most ready for us to suggest good things, and constantly upright against the wickedness of those who presume ill. Tell to our ears even that which is wholly for us. That is a good prince who may be addressed on behalf of justice, and against the token of tyrannical savagery is unwilling to hear anything against the ordinances of the ancient sanctions. We renew indeed that most famous saying of Trajan: take up the dictation, if I be good, on behalf of the commonwealth, and against me, if I be evil, on behalf of the commonwealth. But see what we ask of you, since we do not permit even ourselves to do anything unjust. Let our decrees, therefore, echo the ordinances of the ancients, which find as much sweetness of praise as they take on a savour of antiquity.
The prejudgements which we dread, we do not love in others. We bind you assuredly to the community, while we absolutely command the laws to be kept. This we now say for this reason, that we may seem to have taken counsel for all in your person opportunely. For it is fitting to forewarn, lest we should seem to wish to correct you too late, after the perils of others. Follow the examples of good men, and walk on mindful of your own nobility. Those return worthily to the vices of their stock who are born of a contemptible lineage. Having therefore foretold these things for the public good, in this fifth indiction we grant you happily, by God's bestowing, the insignia of the quaestorship — the honour of the prudent, the fount of all dignities, since from it there proceeds whatever has flowed forth from the bounty of our indulgence.
Act so that you, who are taken into our counsel, may be known to excel all in prudence and gravity. For you see what befits you. You are called the voice of the laws, while we establish statutes. Apply yourself now to probity and to faith, so that, just as your prior honour made you worthy of another, so the second may make you worthy of a third dignity. Receive, conscript fathers, the judgement which our beginnings have brought forth, since the things that are done with caution are wholly more pondered, because such a sequel is believed to follow as the commencement is felt to have come. For no one thinks that man will be diligent in the future whom he does not see to be a keeper of his own reputation in its very newness.
The provident gardener strives to adorn his garden with fruitful nursery-plots, so that those which had been tended with careful labours may yield the desired fruits: how much more does it befit a kingdom to be composed at the beginnings of peace with pleasantness, lest it seem to have the appearance of an untilled field! And therefore we have thought to give a quaestor to our benefits as a kind of doorway, through which the summits of coming dignities may fittingly pass forth. The merits of the candidate are surely known to you, since even the present matters are such as we speak of. For when the anxious hearts of his subjects mourned the passing of our lord grandfather of glorious memory — for a good thing lost, while it is sought, is the more loved — through him there were opened to you the desired things both of our auspices and of your security.
Understand with what equity we bind ourselves for the future, that he himself should become the keeper of the laws for you, who had been made the promiser of justice to be preserved. He attended the royal mandates as an eloquent and comely orator, soothing even by his appearance those whom he rendered most well-disposed by his hearing. For such ought courtiers to be, that they may disclose the goods of nature by the witness of their countenance, and may be recognized by their character when they are seen. For one who is silent is for the most part despicable, if only his tongue ennobles him: but he ever remains in honour if, when his mind is tranquil, his most serene aspect also commends him. By this deed, in short, we testify that we have an abundance of prudent men, since one is chosen such as is praised on both sides.
But it is foolish to extol the goods of eloquence in a quaestor, since he is for this in particular proven to be chosen, that he may commend the repute of the times by the quality of his words. For to other judges of the provinces let the collection of taxes be committed, to others let the custody of the private treasury be delegated: but here the insignia of courtly fame are deposited, whence the report spread abroad may be praised throughout the whole world. This we have judged worth recalling to you, conscript fathers, so that you may believe us to seek such men as it is expedient to find both for our praise and for your security. Recognize, learned men, the good intention of a prince: have confidence in benefits, you who are proven to have knowledge of letters. It belongs to the most sluggish to grow torpid, when he knows that the lords of affairs have invited him to advancement.
Wherefore, conscript fathers, let the favour of your kindness receive the illustrious Ambrosius, adorned with the summit of the quaestorship. For there should be no doubt about him who has already deserved to be approved in his first dignity by your order. We profess it most welcome to our mind that you assented to the judgement of our glorious lord grandfather in the election to the episcopate. For it behoved that the will of a good prince should be obeyed, who, weighing matters with wise deliberation, seemed — though in another religion — to have chosen such a pontiff as ought rightly to displease no one, so that you may recognize that he chiefly desired this: that by good priests the religion of all the churches might flourish.
You have therefore received a man both commendably instructed by divine grace and approved by royal examination. Let no one any longer be held by his former contention. He has not the shame of one defeated, whose wish chances to be overcome by the prince. Nay rather, he makes that wish his own who has loved him in purity. For what cause of grief is there, when he finds even in this man that which, drawn into the other party, he had desired for another? These are civic contests, a battle without the sword, a quarrel without hatred: the matter is carried through by shouts, not by sorrows. For even if a particular person be set aside, yet nothing is lost by the faithful, since the longed-for priesthood is possessed.
Wherefore, on the return of your legate, the illustrious Publianus, we have thought it reasonable to direct words of salutation to your assembly. For we enjoy great gladness whenever we exchange words with our nobles. And this too we doubt not is most sweet to you, if what you did at his bidding you also know to be pleasing to us. Those who come to courtly dignities are wont indeed to be weighed by long examination, lest the imperial judgement should seem to approve anything doubtful, since it is the glory of a kingdom to have found out choice judges. But so frequent is the most fortunate advancement of your family, prudence so declared in many persons, that although someone choose you on the sudden, he would seem to have done nothing uncertain.
A fortunate vein preserves the likeness of its own, since they are ashamed to fail who cannot find the like within their own stock. Hence it is that to have chosen a noble man is recognized to be better than to have made one fortunate: for the former, admonished, keeps himself by the deeds of the ancients, while the latter has no example save what he himself shall have done. Wherefore we securely entrust to you that which we rejoice to have so often been committed to your family. Your father presided over these insignia: but your brother too shone with the same brightness. The very dignity has, as it were, set up a household-god in your dwelling, and a domestic matter has become a public adornment.
For you learned the order of military service under your brother's praise, to whom, joined by mutual affection, you fulfilled the part of a partner in labours and of a brother by sharing in his counsels, judging that to pertain rather to yourself which your brother had received. Upon this staff that happier man leaned, by your forethought neglecting some things in shrewdness, because through you he saw all things fulfilled. Behold the sweet compliance of brothers, and the ancient concord of present times! Well is judgement entrusted to such dispositions, who are felt to preserve their character by nature. But if pleasant retreats and provincial leisure had perchance pleased him, troops of suitors and the anxious prayers of the wronged ran to you.
Among them you took up the office of a good judge, so that, urged as it were by some presage of things to come which you could receive from us, you carried it out by the assumption of merits. We remember also with what devotion you served us in the beginnings of our reign, when the compliance of the faithful is held most necessary. For when, after the passing of our lord grandfather of divine memory, the anxious prayers of the peoples trembled, and the hearts of his subjects were poured forth in fear over the still uncertain heir of so great a realm, you, a fortunate bearer, announced our auspices to the Ligurians, and, strengthened by the address of your wisdom, they changed into joys, at the rising of our reign, the grief which they had conceived from the setting of the former.
The renewal of the king passed without any confusion, and your solicitude brought it about that no one offended us. And therefore, having approved you in such institutions, from the happily sixth indiction we grant you, with the divinity propitious, the countship of the sacred largesses. You shall enjoy all the privileges and emoluments which are known to have pertained to your predecessors: for far be it that those should be shaken by any machination of calumny who stand firm by the firmness of their own conduct. For there was a time when even judges were vexed by informers. Lay aside now your dread, you who have no fault: enjoy the fruits of your dignities:
for what long custom gave to you through your predecessors and forerunners in the times of our lord grandfather, our indulgence also preserves. We confer upon you your brother's honour: but do you imitate the faith of his service. For if you follow him, you outstrip many in praise — a man of greatest authority, of proven constancy, who under so great a prince both obeyed without fault and, praised, exercised his judgements. For it is easy to estimate what he did, since under an ungrateful successor the palatine office could not keep silent his praises. It is therefore not difficult to be able to follow a brother in character, because for the most part those agree even in the fruit of their conduct who are begotten from one seed.
So great, conscript fathers, is the abundance of merits in the candidate, that we fear he may be thought to have been chosen too late rather than not proven by judgement. For when our grandfather of divine memory sought out the best men, a more prosperous fortune preserved him unrewarded for us. To him he obeyed, him he served with much dutifulness, and yet from a lord most lavish of benefits he is agreed to have been left without any recompense. I believe the recompense of his merit was deferred so that the occasion of bestowing might become more fitting for us: for our piety congratulates itself by the law of nature. It is fitting that what is agreed to have been conferred on the author should be paid by the heir. For why should our munificence put him off, when the custom of his nobility urged him to advance?
His father was illustrious in deed and conspicuous for the highest nobility of character, whom neither did burning wars reject nor would tranquil leisures fail to extol; sound in body, robust in friendship, he bore the antiquity of his age, and, the ages of Odovacar cast aside, was enriched with illustrious honours. In these times he was held eminent, when the prince was not exalted. But why do we recall the ancient nobility of his parents, when it shines resplendent in the near light of his brother? To have been joined to him not, I will say, in kinship, but even in friendship, can be praiseworthy. To his virtues he so associated and bound himself, that this is rather uncertain — which of the two is the more to be extolled by the other. The one excels in faith toward friendships: but the latter owes great constancy to his promises.
The one too is empty of avarice: and the other is proven a stranger to cupidity. Hence it is that they know how to keep faith with kings, because they know not how to practise perfidy even among their equals. For there character is more easily proven, where nature is shown under freedom. How then should they not serve their lords in purity, who knew not how to deceive their colleagues? Chosen by these praises, he is said to have been allied by his wife to the Basilian family — a thing which for the most part comes from merit, that one can be joined to the noble. Look in him, if it please you, also at his domestic life, because more often these signs have betokened industrious men to your ancestors. His private estate was managed with such moderation that it neither grew sordid by any stinginess nor again slipped into ruin by excessive lavishness.
The barbarians he bound to himself by his fare, the Romans by his judgements; and where ingratitude for the most part comes to dignities, this man, by adjudicating, gathered friendships for himself. See what noble nature does. Born of judges, he played the part of an arbiter — a thing which can come about by no means except from probity of character. For obedience to the magistracies the necessity of power for the most part compels: but to obey a private judge only the probity of his sentences brings about. Whence a voluntary judge seems to us to have more praise, since none is chosen for arbitration save he who is esteemed to be just in character. Wherefore, conscript fathers, favour your foster-sons and favour our judgements.
For the second time he comes to your curia, who is both born of a senator and is proven to be honoured with courtly dignities. It is agreed to be the profession of justice to appoint judges skilled in the laws, because he can scarcely be negligent who knows equity, nor easily is he befouled by the fault of error whom doctrine has purged. Long ago the imperial eye beheld you sweating over forensic affairs, nor could it lie hidden with what fidelity you carried out the causes you undertook, with what brilliance you pleaded the matters you handled. With equal step your eloquence and your conscience advanced together: no client had anything more to desire: no judge found anything in you that he could correct. There was added a charm of countenance and a chastity of mind: your beauty alone showed you a youth:
from your youthful mouth flowed hoary words. The flower of age and the maturity of mind contended: but rather did that maturity prevail which leads us to the steps and glory of the virtues. Wherefore we fit our gifts to your name and to your merits, that you, Fidelis, may receive the royal secrets, and you, an eloquent man, may find a lettered dignity. Now judge gloriously the causes which you used to plead praiseworthily: let your own and well-exercised learning sit beside you. Now is the condition of affairs happy and assured, when he pronounces sentence who cannot be ignorant of what he reads. For it does not befit a judge to be the minister of another's will, so as to obey rather another, to whom so many soldiers are subservient.
Surely, if in others it is somehow to be tolerated, it is exceedingly shameful in a quaestor that he who is chosen for the prince's counsel should expect another's help. And therefore — and let this be said under God's auspices — through the sixth indiction we confer upon you the dignity of the quaestorship. But your honour is a reproach to the unskilled. For just as the conscience is glad which is advanced by merits, so he lies under guilt who knows himself unequal to the offices he has obtained. You have men of old whom it befits you to imitate. Outstrip in fame him whom you follow in dignity. For if private life exercised you in virtues, how much better will advancement declare it? You have taken your name from your merits: keep it, so that you may always rejoice in the truth of your appellation.
For since every appellation seems to be imposed to declare realities, it is exceedingly absurd to bear another's name and to be called something other than can be found in one's character. But let these words suffice for a good conscience, since he is believed to be doubted of who is admonished by very many. Although your assembly is ever illumined by its native splendour, yet it is rendered more brilliant whenever it is increased by the light of dignities. For heaven itself shines forth the more with most numerous stars, and from a manifold beauty renders a wondrous comeliness to those who behold it. For it is implanted in nature that an abundance of good things should delight the more. Meadows, in short, are painted with countless flowers: the denser crop of a fertile field is praised. Let antiquity have made you held to be noble:
we wish the senate to be extolled also for its numerousness. Hence it is that we desire to add to you whomever we shall have found pre-eminent anywhere. For although among you there be a seedbed of the senate, yet there is also born of our indulgence one who may be joined to your assemblies. All the courtly dignities bring forth foster-sons for you, but the quaestorship is truly the mother of a senator, since it comes from prudence. For what is more worthy than that he should become a participant in the curia who has cleaved to the counsel of the prince? But since for a prudent man a general praise does not suffice, let us touch upon his peculiar and proper notes.
Know, conscript fathers, that our quaestor first pleased by his eloquence practised beforehand, and so won the frequent victories of his advocacy, that a triumphal election deservedly drew him to itself, so that, inaugurated with happy palms, he might give us the omens of laurels. Led in his first youth to the forensic school, he ever pursued the integrity of his mind, and with most noble modesty passed his bodily chastity under exceeding toil. An eloquent orator, a most weighty patron, he aided the causes he undertook with his praises, since a case could not be believed unprovable to which such a man seemed to lend his aid. Would it not be a public loss to pass over this man?
For what ought to be more welcome either to us or to you than that he should be joined to our side who deserved to be approved among the laws? For he can love those laws by which, learned, he shone forth, since each man aspires to his own glory, nor can the mind forget from what quarter it was associated with us. Do you perhaps believe, princely men, that a new and unprepared prudence has appeared in this man? His origin claimed for itself hereditary letters, whose father so shone resplendent in the Milanese forum that he flourished both from a triple growth of brothers and from a Ciceronian sod. Therefore, although even among the middling the kind of pleasing is most difficult, yet he frequently deserved to find the praise of advocacy among the foremost of eloquence.
He stood against the great Olybrius, he sufficed against the richness of the prize-winning tongue of Eugenetes, and he proved equal to those whom Rome knew as singular. For what is more noble than to have had as ancestors so many leaders of letters? For if wealth grown old and drawn through one's lineage makes men noble, much more excellent is he whose origin is found rich in the treasures of prudence. Wherefore, conscript fathers, favour our judgement and the candidate for his merits: since if you stretch out the hand of clemency to a colleague, you rather raise up yourselves. It is a proof of merits to have been able to be chosen after the wickedness of an accused judge, since the excess of those preceding is not corrected save when a most excellent successor is found.
For the most part medicine succeeds by contrary things, for when vital heat has been applied, then the pestilent cold recedes. The very clouds are wiped away by the breathing of the winds, and the north wind renders tranquil the face of the sky which the south breeze had disturbed. So we removed your predecessor for love of the community, that you, most wholesome, might come. Imitate things contrary to the former, and you have carried out things to be praised. He was odious for calumnies: do you study to be rendered acceptable by justice. He was rapacious: be you continent. Of all good men the definition is brief — to avoid what he did, since those things are truly to be praised which he did not approve by his own judgement. Look, in short, upon the public hatred in him, and do you aspire to the love of all.