Chapter 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.