Chapter 3

But these honours, as I promised just now. shall have their special place apart for paying their tribute. At the present moment my consulship begs and prays you to allow one whom you have set above all to submit his high degree to yourself alone. And how many further degrees were added to this honour! Not only was I associated in this high office with a distinguished colleague,1 and designated as the senior, but by your favour, most gracious Emperor, I became consul without undergoing the ordeal of the hustings, the Campus Martius, the canvassing, the registration, the gratuities; I have not had to shake hands, nor have I been so confused by crowds of people pressing to greet me as to have been unable to call my friends by their proper names, or to have given them names which were not theirs: I have not had to visit the tribes, to flatter the centuries, I have not trembled as the classes were called upon to vote. I have made no deposit with a trustee, nor given any pledge to a financial agent. The Roman people, the Field of Mars, the Equestrian Class, the Rostra, the hustings, the Senate and the Senate House—Gratian alone was all of these for me. I have the right to declare, most mighty Emperor, and that without offending any of those who have ever attained or shall attain hereafter to this distinction in right of various qualities (for everyone has his own spirit, his own deserts, his own conscience): I can, I repeat, rightfully declare that my consulship seems to stand apart from the consulships of other men. Some are cruelly grieved by the disappointment of their hopes: I longed for nothing; some busy themselves in canvassing for this honour: I never sought it; some extort it by their importunity: I brought no pressure to bear; some owe their designation to the accident of their presence:2 I was not at the court; some use their wealth to help them: the morality of our age forbids such a practice; I did not buy this honour, yet cannot boast any self-restraint: I had no money. One thing only I have tried to make sure of, and even that I cannot claim as my own; for it depends upon your valuation whether I have been deserving.