Chapter 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.