Letter 6015: It is the custom of deputies to obey the will of the judges they represent so completely that they seem to have no...

15. FORMULA FOR THE VICAR OF THE CITY OF ROME. [1] It is customary for those who act as deputies so to obey the wishes of judges that they have no dignities of their own. They shine with borrowed light, they rely on others' strength, and there seems to be in them a certain image of the reality, since they have no rights of their own brilliance. You, however, are called Vicar, and you do not relinquish your own privileges, since the jurisdiction granted by the prince is your own. For you hold a certain share alongside the prefects: cases contend before you under the advocacy of the praetorian court; you pronounce sentence in place of the sacred authority, and—what is most of all a sign of trust—in your subscriptions the lives of men are committed to you, a thing which among mortals is held to be precious. [2] It is added that the laws have not willed you even to be greeted without the chlamys [military cloak], so that, always seen beneath the military garb, you should never be believed to be a private man. But we judge all these things to have been granted toward the glory of the prefecture, so that whoever should be called Vicar of so great a seat might see nothing shadowy. Consider what sort of conduct you ought to display, you who are raised up by so great an authority. He who is to be stripped of crime ought not to be stripped of his harmless means: for what could he owe to you, if he should charge to his own money the fact that he escaped? Indeed, in the likeness of the highest men, you are conveyed in a carriage. Within the fortieth milestone you guard the laws of the most sacred city. At Praeneste you give the games in place of the consul, set in his honor, and you acquire the dignity of a senator, and those halls are opened to you which are recognized to have been bestowed upon the highest men. [3] Hence it is that in the Hall of Liberty you hold an ancestral place, and there you earn a seat in council, where even merely to have entered is a proclamation of distinction. Indeed the senators themselves, who precede you in rank, are seen to request certain necessary things from you. You have what you may grant to those more powerful than yourself, and not undeservedly are you to be reckoned among the foremost, you who can either help or harm men of consular rank. Lift up your spirit under the quality of modesty. Every dignity is of such a kind as is the will of those who administer it. Nothing that is conducted in the commonwealth is base, unless it has been corrupted by evil character. For if the equality of humble private men is pleasing, how much more welcome is it when preserved at the summit of power, which with difficulty keeps to measure while it hastens toward its own desire? [4] Accordingly, by the estimation of Our Serenity we confer upon you the dignity of the vicariate, which you are so to bear at Rome that you make your conscience most worthy of so great a city. You shall enjoy all the privileges which it is established your predecessors possessed, because, just as we require of you the institutions of the ancients, so too we do not deny to your dignity the things of old.

XV. FORMULA VICARIIS U. R. [1] Vices agentium mos est sic iudicum voluntatibus oboedire, ut suas non habeant dignitates. splendent mutuato lumine, nituntur viribus alienis et quaedam imago in illis esse videtur veritatis, qui proprii non habent iura fulgoris. tu autem vicarius diceris et tua privilegia non relinquis, quando propria est iurisdictio, quae datur a principe. habes enim cum praefectis aliquam portionem: partes apud te sub praetoriana advocatione confligunt: vice sacra sententiam dicis et, quod maxime fidei signum est, in inscriptionibus vita tibi committitur hominum, quod inter mortales constat esse pretiosum. [2] Additur quod nec salutari te sine chlamyde iura voluerunt, scilicet ut sub veste militari semper visus numquam credereris esse privatus. sed haec omnia ad praefecturae gloriam iudicamus esse concessa, ut qui tantae sedis vicarium diceret, umbratile nil videret. considera qualia de te praestes, qui tanta auctoritate subveheris. exuendus a crimine non nudetur ab innoxia facultate: nam quid tibi debere possit, si nummis suis imputet quod evasit? ad similitudinem quippe summorum carpento veheris. intra quadragesimum sacratissimae urbis iura custodis. Praeneste ludos edis in vicem consulis in honorem positus dignitatemque senatoris adquiris et illa tibi panduntur atria quae summatibus probantur esse collata. [3] Hinc est quod in aula Libertatis locum patrium tenes et ibi mereris consessum, ubi est vel intrasse praeconium. ipsi quin etiam senatores, qui praecedunt ordine, aliqua videntur a te necessaria postulare. habes quod praestes potioribus te nec inmerito inter praecipuos censendus es, qui aut iuvare potes aut laedere consulares. erige animos sub qualitate modestiae. talis est unaquaeque dignitas, qualis administrantium est voluntas. nihil abiectum est, quod in re publica geritur, nisi malis fuerit moribus vitiatum. nam si humilium privatorum placet aequalitas, quanto magis grata est in potestatis culmine custodita, quae difficile modum servat, dum ad suum velle festinat? [4] Proinde vicariae tibi dignitatem serenitatis nostrae aestimatione conferimus, quam sic Romae geras, ut conscientiam tuam tanta civitate facias esse dignissimam. usurus omnibus privilegiis, quae tuos decessores habuisse constiterit, quia sicut a vobis instituta antiquorum deposcimus, ita et dignitati vestrae vetera non negamus.