---
title: "Thanksgiving for His Consulship · Gratiarum actio"
author: "Ausonius"
translator: "Hugh G. Evelyn-White"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Classical Latin"
section: 2 of 2
url: https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-thanksgiving/2/
cite: "Ausonius, tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Thanksgiving for His Consulship · Gratiarum actio, section 2. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-thanksgiving/2/"
---

# Thanksgiving for His Consulship · Gratiarum actio

*Ausonius, tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White*

Ausonius thanks the emperor Gratian for making his old teacher consul in 379.

> Latin: ed. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit, stoa0045.stoa014, CC BY-SA 4.0).

> English: Hugh G. Evelyn-White, from the Perseus Digital Library (stoa0045.stoa014.perseus-eng1). Notes are not included.

> Rows follow the references the two texts share (chapters and sections), cut where both reach the end of a sentence.

## 2. Sections 10–17

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-thanksgiving/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-thanksgiving/2/#p-N

[¶0] 10. And now, most devout Emperor, that I may not insult the majesty of this sacred Audience-Chamber by shrinking from interpreting your utterances, with the forgiveness of your godhead, though not without some slight sacrilege, I run over your words. When, you say, I was considering the appointment of consuls for the year. What a learned phrase! What a solemn task! I was pondering inwardly. What depths to the secrets of your heart! You have, then, a counsellor without fearing betrayal. As you know I do: what could be more intimate? As I was bound to do: what more uncompromising? As I knew you wished: what more courteous phrase could be used? I referred my purpose to God: how, then, can you say privately when such vast wisdom is ready to aid you? Could you have weighed the matter more thoroughly if the Senate, the Equestrian Order, and the People together with your army and all the provinces had been aiding you? I referred my purpose to God. Not, I am sure, in order to gain some new plan, but to consecrate your own inclination. In obedience to his will: that is to say, as you have acted in canonizing your father, in avenging your uncle, in associating your brother with you. I have designated you as consul, proclaimed you as such, and given your name the preference. Who taught you these words? I knew none so fitting, so thoroughly Roman. I have designated, proclaimed, and named you. This is no random writing. The ripe deliberation of these words with its pauses allows them to progress by well-marked degrees. If I have this letter of yours posted up like an edict on every pillar and in every portico where it could easily be read, shall I not have as many statues in my honour as there were placarded sheets?

> Latin: 10. Et nunc ego, piissime imperator, ne fastigium anditorii sacri, dictorum tuorum timidus interpres, offendam, divinitatis tuae pro! levi cum piaculo verba transcurro. cum de consulibus, inquis, in annum creandis: erudita vox et cura sollemnis! mecum volutarem: o profundi altitudo secreti! habes ergo consiliatorem et non metuis proditorem, ut me nosti: quid familiarius, ut facere debui: quid constantius, ut velle te scivi: quid dici blandius potest? consilium meum ad deum retuli. et quemadmodum solus, cui praesto est tam grande consilium? an plenius cum senatu, eum equestri ordine, eum plebe Romana, cum exercitu tuo et provinciis omnibus deliberasses? consilium meum ad deum retuli. non ut, credo, novum sumeres, sed ut sanctius fieret, quod volebas, eius auctoritati obsecutus: scilicet ut in consecrando patre, in ulciscendo patruo, in cooptando fratre fecisti, te consulem designati et declaravi et priorem nuncupavi. quis haec verba te docuit? ego tam propria et tam Latina nescivi. designati et declaravi et nuncupavi. non fit hoc temere, habet moras suas dispertitis gradibus tam matura cunctatio, has ego litteras tuas si in omnibus pilis atque porticibus, unde de plano legi possint, instar edicti pendere mandavero, nonne tot statuis honorabor, quot fuerint paginae libellorum?

[¶1] 11. But I hasten on to what is still more agreeable. For in your letter which was delivered to me, you diverged from this subject, and so far condescended as to ask me what sort of robe should be sent me. With your anxiety you have worn out the whole staff of officials in charge of your bounties. Have I not then received over and above the con- sulate an additional gift in these pains, which cost you so much trouble and caused me so much happiness? Swords are being drawn in Illyricum: for my sake you distribute robes of civil dignities in Gaul: you, wearing your equipment, deal with the question of my gown; while prepared for battle and on the verge of a supreme struggle, you make arrangements for the decoration of my palm-broidered garb. Yet the omen was happy and auspicious. For just as in peace time this apparel marks the consul, so in victory it distinguishes the conqueror in his triumph. But it is not enough for you to ask what kind of robe shall be sent me: you must have it produced before your eyes. You are not content that the officials of your largess should perform their ordinary duties: you choose one robe out of many with your own hands, and having chosen it, follow up your gift with words of compliment. You say: I have sent yon a palm-broidered robe in winch is worked a figure of the sainted Constantins 1 my ancestor. Happy am I that such pains should be bestowed upon my vestments! It is, it most surely is, a broidered robe, as you say; but embroidered more richly with your words than with its own threads of gold. But, since it is you who have invested me, I perceive that its enrichment means far more. For the light which flashes from this single garment bespeaks two imperial personages: Constantius is embroidered in the actual fabric of the robe; but in the complimentary nature of the gift, I feel the presence of Gratian.

> Latin: 11. Sed ad blandiora festino, ab hac enim litterarum ad me datarum parte digressus, eo quoque descendisti, ut quaereres, qualis ad me trabea mitteretur, omne largitionum tuarum ministerium sollicitudine fatigasti. non ergo supra consulatum mihi est adhibita per te cura tam diligens, pro me cura tam felix? in Illyrico arma qnatiuntur: tu mea causa per Gallias civilium decorum indumenta dispensas, loricatus de toga mea fractas, in procinctu et cum maxime dimicaturus palmatae vestis meae ornamenta disponis: feliciter et bono omine, namque iste habitus, ut in pace consulis est, sic in victoria triumphantis. parum est, si, qualis ad me trabea mittatur, interroges: te coram promi iubes, nec satis habes, ut largitionum ministri ex more fungantur: eligis ipse de multis et, cum elegeris, munera tua verborum honore prosequeris. palmatam, inquis, tibi misi, in qua divus Constantius parens noster intentus est. me beatum, cuius insignibus talis cura praestatur! haec plane, haec est picta, ut dicitur, vestis, non magis auro suo quam tuis verbis, sed multo plura sunt in eius ornatu, quae per te instructus intellego, geminum quippe in uno habitu radiat nomen Augusti. Constantius in argumento vestis intexitur, Gratianus in muneris honore sentitur.

[¶2] 12. To your favour, already so weighty, was added the weight which a question put by certain persons piled upon it. When they inquired whom you appointed senior of the two consuls, you replied that there could he no uncertainty as to that; and the honourable men who surround you could not feel uncertainty. Nevertheless, this pronouncement aroused the expectations of those who would have been glad to think that the most distinguished man, who is my colleague, and who happened to be present at the time, had been awarded the precedence. At any rate, they made themselves wearisome by seeking for that meaning which they had read into your answer. Whereupon, as I am informed, your well-known modesty caused you for a while to hesitate, not through indecision as to your course, but to reprove with your flushed glance those who were flattering their own hopes by their affected inability to understand. Then you replied outright: Why do you ask in what order of precedence the two consuls designate are to stand? Can they stand in any other order than that which the prefecture has already determined? What happy modesty, so sagely to suggest that popular reason! You could have made another reply, Gratian, but refrained in order to spare the feelings of certain persons. But I find myself on dangerous ground and for the sake of that distinction which I never coveted, I must avoid it. Since I have been declared the senior, it is enough for me to keep to your decision: so farewell, you who would examine merits! I do not, however, regard this honour of precedence as a trifling favour, my most gracious Sovereign. It confers a glory of which Cicero was fully conscious: “The Roman People,” he says, “made me chief praetor and senior consul."1 His very form of expression makes us clearly understand that it is more honourable to receive precedence over one person, than over many; for while there is indeed no disgrace in taking the second place, the one of two who is preferred is signally distinguished. It is said of Alexander of Macedon that, after reading that passage in Homer 1 relating the decision to select by lot one of the nine chiefs who were all eager to fight in answer to Hector's challenge, and how the whole host besought Jupiter the Best and Greatest with anxiously conflicting prayers to suffer Ajax, or the son of Tydeus, or even Agamemnon, the king of rich Mycenae, to be chosen; he exclaimed: I would have killed the man who named me third!” See the high spirit of the dauntless hero! He scorned to be placed third in a list of nine persons, even though, of course, he would have more below him than above him. How deeply ashamed he would feel if he were the second of two persons only! For where there are two candidates, the choice of one is rich in high distinction. If the two who are made consuls are exalted over all mankind, then the one who has precedence over his colleague is set not above one only, but over all.

> Latin: 12. Accessit tam inpenso beneficio tuo pondus quorundam sciscitatione cumulatum, interrogatus, quem priorem decerneres consulem, ner dubitandum esse dixisti tu, et qui tecum boni sunt, dubitare non poterant, sed tamen ad hoc dictum erexerant animos, qui libenter clarissimum virum collegam meum, quem praesentem habebat occasio, praelatum credidissent, fatigantes tamen, quod intellexerant, requirebant, hic tu, sicut mihi renuntiatum est, noto illo pudore tuo paulisper haesisti non rationis ambiguus, sed eorum dubitationem vultu et rubore condemnans. qui studium suum interpretationis errore palpabant. deinde illico subdidisti: quid de duobus consulibus designatis quaeritis, quis ordo sit nuncupationis? anne alius quam quem praefectura constituit? o felicem verecundiam tuam, cui ista popularis ratio tam prudenter occurrit! scisti aliud, Gratiane, quod diceres: sed propter quorundam verecundiam dicere noluisti. scopulosus hic mihi locus est et propter eam, quam numquam adpetivi, gloriam, recusandus. cum prior renuntiatus sim, satis est tuum tenere iudicium: interpretes valete meritorum, neque autem ego, sacratissime imperator, in tenui beneficio gradum nuncupationis amplector, non est haec gloria ignota Ciceroni: praetorem me, inquit, populus Romanus primum fecit, consulem priorem, ex ipsa eius sententia intellegitur commendabilius uni videri quam pluribus esse praepositum, nulla enim est equidem contumelia secundi, sed in duobus gloria magna praelati. Alexandri Macedouis hoc fertur, cum legisset illos versus Homericos, quibus Hectore provocante de novem ducibus, qui omnes pugnare cupiebant, unum deligi placeret sortis eventu, trepida ubi contentione votorum Iovem optimum maximum totus precatur exercitus, ut Aiacem vel Tydei filium aut ipsum regem ditium Mycenarum sortiri patiatur Agamemnonem: occiderem, inquit, illum, qui me tertium nominasset. o magnanimitatem fortissimi viri! nominati inter novem tertius recusabat; ubi certe pluribus antecelleret quam subesset. quanta hic verecundia gravaretur posterior de duobus? est enim in hoc numero arduae plena dignationis electio. eum universis mortalibus duo, qui fiant consules, praeferuntur, qui alteri praeponitur, non uni, sed omnibus antefertur.

[¶3] 13. I know that the ears of my audience are now eagerly waiting, I can read on every face the thought which springs from the longing of each heart. They think that now that I have touched on every topic which has reference to my Thanksgiving—however summarily, or, as our poet says,'2 " spun out with meagre thread"—I am bound to touch upon the praises of your Majesty. Although I have said that I have put that subject on one side and am keeping it for another occasion, nevertheless they all urge with nods, nay, almost with protests, to make some reference to it now. I will do as they bid (for I welcome this compulsion), but I must lay aside the larger aspects of the subject and speak only of the slighter; and this not with any hope of according them adequate treatment, but to let all men know that from me they are to expect a relation only of those personal qualities which deserve praise, and to look to others for an estimate of your higher virtues. I shall deal therefore not with your loftiest qualities, but those of your every-day life.

> Latin: 13. Expectare nunc aures praesentium scio et eminere in omnium vultu intellego, quod desiderio concipiatur animorum, existimant enim, cum ea. quae ad grates agendas pertinebant, summatim et tenuiore filo, sicut dicitur, deducta libaverim, aliqua me etiam de maiestatis tuae laudibus debere perstringere. quamquam me istam dixerim seposuisse materiam et in tempus aliud reservare: nihilominus tamen, ut nunc aliqua contingam, nutu et prope murmure cohortantur. itaque faciam, quando cogunt volentem, sed maioribus separatis tenuiora memorabo, nulla spe ad plenum exequendi, sed universi ut intellegant eorum, quae inter ⟨familiaria⟩ praedicanda sunt, a me poscendam esse notitiam, ab aliis dignitatem, nec excellentia, sed cotidiana tractabo.

[¶4] 14. From your boyhood you have never let a single day pass without worshipping God, without discharging your vows the moment that they became due, with clean hands and a pure heart, a stainless conscience, and—a rare quality— with undivided thoughts. Was there ever a prince whose going forth was attended with better auguries, whose progress was less ostentatious, whose state was less extravagant, whose attire in private life was more seemly or in the field more severe? In athletic pursuits who ever matched your fleetness of foot, who so supple in disengaging at wrestling, who cleared so great a height in leaping? No one ever launched a javelin with a more forceful swing, no one hurled darts with greater speed or struck the mark more surely. We used to wonder at the poet 1 when he spoke of Numidians who use no reins, and at that other who summed up by saying that in riding it is with the lash alone that they urge their horses to full speed or make them stand.2 While we read we could not understand this, but we realized it when we saw you drop the reins and at the same time draw your bow, or urge on your horse with the whip when he slackened speed and check his exuberance likewise with the whip. Those who were supposed to instruct you in this do not do these things: nay, rather, those who are supposed to instruct you are now learning from you. Again, in the matter of food, was ever a priest more self-denying on religious grounds? Or in the matter of wine, was there ever an old man more sparing at table? The altar of Vesta is not more hallowed than the privacy of your bedchamber, the couch of a priest is not more pure, the bed of a prophet not more chaste. In your relations with your friends I do not say that you return like for like: you anticipate our services, or whenever we have the advantage in paying our duty to you, you flush up shyly with an embarrassment which we rather ought to feel when we have been anticipated by our Sovereign. In that place which we ordinarily speak of as your Consistory, but which I regard as your sanctuary, none of your predecessors ever thought out more deeply what he had to say, or arranged his thoughts more skilfully, or delivered them, when so arranged, in a more masterly style.

> Latin: 14. Nullum tu umquam diem ab adnleseentia tua nisi adorato dei numine et reus voti et illico absolutus egisti, lautis manibus, mente pura, inmaculabili conscientia et, quod in paucis est, cogitatione sincera. cuius autem umquam egressus auspicatior fuit aut incessus modestior aut habitudo cohibitior aut familiaris habitus condecentior aut militaris aecinctior? in exercendo corpore quis cursum tam perniciter incitavit? quis palaestram tam lubricus expedivit? quis saltum in tam sublime collegit: nemo adductius iacula contorsit, nemo spicula crebrius iecit aut certius destinata percussit. mirabamur poetam, qui infrenos dixerat Numidas, et alterum, qui ita collegerat, ut diceret in equitando verbera et praecepta esse fugae et praecepta sistendi. obscurum hoc nobis legentibus erat: intelleximus te videntes, cum idem arcum intenderes et habenas remitteres aut equum segnius euntem verbere concitares vel eodem verbere intemperantiam cohaereres. qui te visi sunt hoc docuisse. non faciunt: immo qui visi sunt docuisse, nunc discunt, in cibis autem cuius sacerdotis abstinentior caerimonia? in vino cuius senis mensa frugalior? operto conclavis tui non sanctior ara Vestalis, non pontificis cubile casti us nec pulvinar flaminis tam pudicum. in officiis amicorum non dico paria reddis: antevenis et. quotiens in obsequendo praecedimus, erubescis pudore tam obnoxio, quam in nobis esse deberet ab imperatore praeventis. in illa vero sede, ut ex more loquimur, consistorii, ut ego sentio, sacrari i tui, nullus umquam superiorum aut dicenda pensius cogitavit aut consultis cogitata disposuit aut disposita maturius expedivit.

[¶5] 15. I would also make some remarks on your excellence as a speaker, were I not afraid of flattering myself. Sulpicius was not more vehement in harangue, nor the elder Gracchus more deserving of praise for self-control, nor your own father more weighty, more impressive. How your voice rings out when you declaim some stirring theme! How gentle in unimpassioned passages! How skilfully regulated when you deal with both! Which of the orators either in speech or in the free domain of thought dealt with cheerful themes more charmingly, on eloquent themes more choicely, on the strenuous more intensely, on the intense more forcibly? Ah, Attic Xenophon, I would that it were possible in the nature of things for you to come to life again in this age—you who celebrated the virtues of Cyrus by following the line of your own desires rather than his actual history, since you described him not as he was, but as he ought to have been. If you could take a stride forward into these present times, you would behold in our beloved Gratian not what you actually saw in your favourite Cyrus, but what you wished to see. All these qualities, the salient points of which I have sketched in a few dashes, I would describe in detail were my powers of speaking proportionate to my will; for however much I may lack fluency, the greatness of the subject would inspire my pen. But all that is appropriate neither to this occasion, nor to this subject. You, who hereafter shall pronounce the praises of our Sovereign have here, if I may call it so, a nursery-garden on which you can draw to fill out the acres of your own discourses. I have merely touched upon the subject, and being—as all are aware—the exponent of secrets known to me through my close intimacy, I may be thought merely to divulge rather than to belaud these personal virtues. And as I have spoken of matters known to me and to all who share the inner life of the Court, I might also tell of those which are constantly spoken of beyond its precincts, were it not that they are all known to all men and individually to each. I could say in as few words as I have done above: a most perfect hero does nothing of which he need be ashamed; but you have never done anything which calls for repentance, while you have always extended pardon to those who repent. It is noble to be merciful to those who fear; but so continual is your kindness that your edicts remove all cause for fear. It is splendid to lavish distinctions: you not only bestow distinctions, but also generously enrich the recipients. It is praiseworthy in an Emperor to grant petitioners easy access and not to refuse them on the pretext of engagements: you encourage those who hesitate to approach yon, and when they have declared their complaints, you ask them whether they have left anything still unmentioned.

> Latin: 15. Et aliqua de oratoriis virtutibus tuis dicerem, nisi vererer mihi gratificari. non enim Sulpicius acrior in contionibus nec maioris Gracchi commendabilior modestia fuit nec patris tui gravior auctoritas, qui tenor vocis, cum incitata pronuntias; quae inflexio, cum remissa; quae temperatio, cum utraque dispensas! quis oratorum laeta iucundius, facunda cultius, pugnantia densius, densata glomerosius aut dixit aut, quod est liberum, cogitavit? vellem, si rerum natura pateretur, Xenophon Attice, in aevum nostrum venires, tu, qui ad Cyri virtutes exequendas votum potius, quam historiam commodasti: cum diceres, non qualis esset, sed qualis esse deberet, si nunc in tempora ista procederes, in nostro Gratiano cerneres, quod in Cyro tuo non videras, sed optabas. atque ista omnia, quae punctis quibusdam acuminata signavi, si facundia pro voluntate suppeteret, quamquam non copiosius, exequerer, ubertatem stilo rerum magnitudine suggerente. sed nec huius diei nec huius ista materiae, qui dicturi estis laudes principis nostri, habetis velut seminarium. unde orationum vestrarum iugera compleatis. ego ista perstrinxi atque, ut sciunt omnes, possum videri familiaris notitiae secretus interpres domestica istaec non tam praedicare quam prodere. Atque ut ista dixi de cognitis mihi atque intra aulam familiaribus, possem et foris celebrata memorare, nisi omnia omnes et separatim sibi quisque novisset, possem pari brevitate dicere, qua superiora: emendalissimi viri est pigenda non facere: at tu numquam paenitenda fecisti et semper veniam paenitentibus obtulisti, pulchrum est indulgere timentibus: sed tu perpetuae bonitatis edictis occurrit omnibus, ne timerent, magnificum largiri honores: tu honoratos et liberalitate ditasti. laudabile est imperatorem faciles interpellantibus praebere aditus nec de occupatione causari: tu confirmas adire cunetantes; et iam querimoniis explicatis, ne quid adhuc sileatur. interrogas.

[¶6] 16. The saying of Titus Caesar 1 that he had lost that day in which he had not performed a good action, has become famous; but it has become famous because it was uttered by the successor of Vespasian, a man whose excessive economy and almost intolerable strictness made his son's easier rule seem remarkable. You, the son of Valentinian, whose kindness was so profound, whose affability was never lacking, whose sternness was so well controlled—you realize that, now that the State has gained and established a thoroughly sound condition, you can show all the gentleness of your nature without prejudice to good order. And, indeed, it is not just one good deed a day that you perform: every moment of every hour you increase the sum of your momentous favours. How shall we speak of that single measure by which the arrears of tribute were remitted? What a wealth of generosity there was in this act! What Emperor has ever granted such a boon to his subject provinces with a more generous consideration, or calculated its results with a surer confidence, or safeguarded it with more experience and wisdom? Trajan 2 also did the same thing in past times; but since he retained a claim to a certain amount of the arrears, the pleasure caused by that portion of the debt which he forgave was less than the underlying discontent left unremoved by the amount which he retained. Antoninus, too, granted the same favour; but he who inherited his throne but not his kindliness, grudged this remission of arrears and reclaimed from his people the full amount as entered in the schedules and registers. You gave orders for all these evidences of claim to be burned publicly. Every township beheld in its own market-place the blaze of the relieving fire. Burning were the roots of by-gone wrongs: burning were the seeds of those to come. Already the ashes had mingled with the dust, already the smoke had been absorbed in the clouds; but still the debtors beheld in the charred pages the lines of lettering and the figures in the cash-column together with the valuation of their little properties: still they feared that what they remembered to have heard read could even now be read. What then can there be winch is more merciful, more sagacious than you, most gracious Emperor? You give good gifts and make sure that they shall not be transitory: you remove ills, and take precautions against their revival. Such are the favours you have lavished upon the provinces; but what of those conferred upon our own order? Or upon the Army? The personal interest taken by the Antonines. and even earlier by the Germanici, in their suite of friends and in their legions, was a recognized fact. But I do not care to extol your benevolences by comparing others. You furnish a host of such instances of goodness and virtue as generations to come will long to imitate, and as ages past would have wished, did the nature of things allow, to have attributed to themselves.

> Latin: 16. Celebre fuit Titi Caesaris dictum, perdidisse se diem, quo nihil boni fecerat; sed celebre fuit, quia Vespasiani successor dixerat, cuius nimia parsimonia et austeritas vix ferenda miram fecerat filii lenitatem, tu Valentiniano genitus, cuius alta bonitas, praesens comitas, temperata severitas fuit, parto et condito optimo reipublicae statu, intellegis posse te esse lenissimum sine dispendio disciplinae, neque vero unum aliquod bonum uno die praestas: sed indulgentias singulares per singula horarum momenta multiplicas, vel illud unum cuius modi est de condonatis residuis tributorum? quod tu quam cumulata bonitate fecisti! quis umquam imperatorum hoc provinciis suis aut uberiore indulgentia dedit, aut certiore securitate prospexit, aut prudentia consultare munivit? fecerat et Traianus olim, sed partibus retentis non habebat tantam oblectationem concessi debiti portio, quanta suberat amaritudo servati, et Antoninus indulserat, sed imperii, non beneficii successor invidit, qui ex documentis tabulisque populi condonata repetivit. tu argumenta omnia flagitandi publicitus ardere iussisti, videre in suis quaeque foris omnes civitates conflagrationem salubris incendii, ardebant stirpes fraudium veterum: ardebant semina futurarum. iam se cum pulvere favilla miscuerat, iam nubibus fumus se involverat: et adhuc obnoxii in paginis conerematis duetus apicum et sestertiorum notas cum substantiolae ratione cernebant, quod meminerant lectum, legi posse metuentes, quid te, imperator Auguste, indulgentius, quid potest esse consultius? quae bona praestas, efficis, ne caduca sint: quae mala adfinis, prospieis ne possint esse recidiva. haec provincialibus indulgentiae bona. quid illa nostro ordini? quid illa militibus? Antoninorum cognita fuit et iam ante Germanicorum in cohorte amicorum et legionibus familiaris humanitas. sed ego nolo benevolentiam tuam aliorum collatione praecedere abundant in te ea bonitatis et virtutis exempla, quae sequi cupiat ventura posteritas et, si rerum natura pateretur, adscribi sibi voluisset antiquitas.

[¶7] 17. Nevertheless, some comparison must be made in order to make clear the superiority of our blessings. Trajan was in the habit of visiting his friends when they were sick: so far we may grant that he had a considerate nature. Your practice is both to visit and to heal them: you provide them with attendants, you order their diet, you prescribe medicines, you furnish the cost of remedies, you comfort them in their pain, and you congratulate them on their recovery. See in how many ways you show advance beyond Trajan's single form of consideration! With the legions one and all, whenever any regrettable incident had occurred, as is the fortune of war, I have seen you go round the men's lines, asking “How goes it?”, attending to the wounds of casualties, giving strict orders that healing remedies should be applied and that there should be no delay about it. I have seen men who turned from their food with loathing take it on your recommendation: I have heard you speak words which gave them heart to recover. You anticipated what each man sorely needed, causing this man's pack to be carried by the mules of the royal train, providing special beasts for some to ride, furnishing others with servants in place of those whom they had lost: sometimes you would relieve the poorer soldiers out of your own purse, sometimes cover the nakedness of the thinly clad. You would do all unwearyingly and cheerfully, with the deepest charity and without a trace of display, bestowing everything upon the sick and claiming nothing from the cured. Thus it is that you have become dearer to us than our lives, and have deservedly gained friends who are obedient, ready, devoted, faithful—men who will stand by you for ever, since it is affection rather than accident which makes them yours. After this I must bring my speech to a close, most Sacred Majesty; though it is my words rather than my gratitude which will end. For the latter is unending: its course can never be run, for it knows no stopping point. Yet I must make a slight digression and turn not very far from you to God. Eternal Begetter of all things, thyself unbegotten, Creator and Cause of the universe, more ancient than its beginning, outlasting its end, Thou who hast built thine own temples and altars in the inmost hearts of the initiated 1 worshippers: Thou hast implanted in Gratian, the lord of this world below, such seeds of love towards me that separation has not weakened his remembrance of me though parted from him. He has honoured me though I was no longer in his presence, he has preferred me above those who stand before him; and further: because distance would not allow him to be present at the opening ceremony of my elevation, he has hastened to attend the solemnities of my laying down office, that his bounties might be completed by his courtesy. For what record is there, even in the daring fables of the Greeks, of a journey so swiftly accomplished? Winged Pegasus starting from Lycia travelled no further than Cilicia: Cyllarus and Arion 2 grew old between Argos and Nemea. Even the steeds of a Castor do not accomplish that endless journey of theirs without changing their riders.3 You, Gratian, speed across all those frontiers of the Roman Empire, all those rivers and lakes, all those barriers of old-established kingdoms, from distant Thrace and along the whole coast, through all its length, of Illyricum, through Venetia, Liguria, and old Gaul, over the forbidding peaks of Rhaetia, across the fords of the Rhine, through the thick country of the Sequani and across the plains of Germany; you speed across them, I repeat, swifter in your passage than my rapid speech, without stopping for rest, without indulging fully in sleep or in food; and all to shed the unexpected light of your presence upon your favourite Gaul, to surprise (how welcome the surprise!) your own consul while still in office, to make even Rumour, who is usually swifter than the winds, a slower traveller than yourself. This was your tribute to my age, this to my dignity! God, that supreme confidant, controller and author both of your throne and of your counsels, has graciously permitted that the curule chair (which you will often fill with so much grace), that my magisterial robe dyed with your glowing purple, that my consular apparel which is enriched less by its own gold than by your munificence—that all these favours, which your noble letter from Illyricum made vet more honourable, should gain yet further in lustre by your presence in Gaul; that your quaestor, your praetorian prefect, your consul, and—a name which you still rate above all my titles—your tutor, lie whom you designated with your sacred lips, whom you named as senior consul on substantial grounds, whom you enriched with your generous bounty, should be hallowed by the condescension of your royal attentions.

> Latin: 17. Necesse est tamen aliquid comparari, ut possit intellegi, bona nostra quo praestent. Aegrotantes amicos Traianus visere solebat: hactenus in eo comitas praedicanda est. tu et visere solitus et mederi praebes ministros, instruis cibos, fomenta dispensas, sumptum adicis medellarum, consolaris adfectos, revalescentibus gratularis. in quot vias de una eius humanitate progrederis! legionibus universis, ut in communi Marte evenit, si quid adversi acciderat, vidi te circumire tentoria, “satin salvae?” quaerere, tractare vulnera sauciorum et, ut salutiferae adponerentur medellae atque ut non cessaretur, instare, vidi quosdam fastidientes cibum te commendante sumpsisse, audivi confirmantia ad salutem verba praefari, occurrere desideriis singulorum: huius sarcinas mulis aulicis vellere, his specialia iumenta praebere, illis ministeria perditorum instaurare lixarum, aliorum egestatem tolerare sumptu, horum nuditatem velare vestitu, omnia agere indefesse et benigne, pietate maxima, ostentatione nulla, omnia praebere aegris, nihil exprobrare sanatis. inde cunctis salute nostra carior factus meruisti, ut haberes amicos obnoxios, promptos, devotos, fideles, in aevum omne mansuros, quales caritas potius quam fortuna concidat, XVI II. Concludam deinceps orationem meam. piissime Auguste, sermonis magis fine, quam gratiae, namque illa perpetua est et spatio non transmeabili terminum calcis ignorat, flexu tamen parvo, nec a te procul, convertar ad deum. aeterno omnium genitor, ipse non genite, opifex et causa mundi, principio antiquior, fine diuturnior, qui templa tibi et aras penetrabilibus initiatorum mentibus condidisti, tu Gratiano humanarum rerum domino eiusmodi semina nostri amoris molesti, ut nihil in digressu segnior factus meminisset et relicti, illustraret absentem, praesentibus anteferret; deinde quia interesse primordiis dignitatis per locorum intervalla non poterat, ad sollemnitatem condendi honoris occurreret, beneficiis ne deesset officium, quae enim maiorum umquam memoria transcursum tantae celeritatis vel in audacibus Graecorum fabulis commenta est? Pegasus volucer actus a Lycia non ultra Ciliciam permeavit. Cyllarus atque Arion inter Argos Ncmeamque senuerunt. ipsi Castorum equi, quod longissimum iter est, non nisi mutato vectore transcurrunt, tu, Gratiane. tot Romani imperii limites, tot flumina et lacus, tot veterum intersaepta regnorum ab usque Thracia per totum, quam longum est, latus Illyrici, Venetiam Liguriamque et Galliam veterem, insuperabilia Rhaetiae, Rheni vadosa, Sequanorum invia, porrecta Germaniae, celeriore transcursu, quam est properatio nostri sermonis, evolvis, nulla requie otii, ne somni quidem aut cibi munere liberali, ut Gallias tuas inopinatus illustres, ut consulem tuum, quamvis desideratus, anticipes, ut illam ipsam, quae auras praecedere solet, famam facias tardiorem. hoc senectuti meae, hoc honori a te datum, supremus ille imperii et consiliorum tuorum deus conscius et arbiter et auctor indulsit, ut sellam curulem, cuius sedem frequenter ornabis, ut praetextam meam purpurae tuae luce fucatam, ut trabeam non magis auro suo quam munere tuo splendidam, quae ab Illyrico sermonis dignitas honestavit, apud Gallias illustriora praestares, quaestorem ut tuum, praefectum ut tuo praetorio, consulem tuum et, quod adhuc cunctis meis nominibus anteponis. praeceptorem tuum, quem pia voce declaraveras, iusta ratione praetuleras, liberali largitate ditaveras, Augustae dignationis officiis consecrares.