Letter 10004: The public games require animals from the provinces, and the provincial governors have been less cooperative than...

Lest we should keep silent, in the presence of the brother of Your Clemency the deified prince [the emperor's late colleague, of revered memory], about what the Roman state would gain were it to enjoy it, we lay this before the guardians of its renown with that devotion by which it befits your prefect to set fidelity above flattery, my lords the emperors. It has been falsely believed that the use of a foreign and ostentatious carriage would exalt the dignity of the urban magistracy; this reasoning alone once persuaded a kindly disposition to enact the new ordinance, that a wealthy display should bear about the ancient office. But sober honor refuses distinction of this kind, honor which is never displeased with itself; for if we suffer anything to be added to it, we confess that hitherto something had been lacking. And so the eyes of the city look for the noble measure of a private carriage, and the Roman people reckons that prefecture degenerate which has borrowed later precedents. Far be it that the governor of a free city, and for that reason a devoted one, should ride in like Salmoneus the Elean [the mythical king who imitated Jupiter's thunder and was destroyed for his presumption]. We pay no heed to foreign marvels. Your Rome does not tolerate an incitement to pride, mindful indeed of her good forefathers, whom the haughtiness of Tarquin and the chariot of Camillus himself offended. For to that great man his white four-horse team brought a grievous exile. But, by contrast, the lowering of his power conferred glory upon Publicola; for he submitted the consular axe to the assembly of citizens and broke the summit of his own honor, that he might raise up the liberty of the state. Let us therefore be judged by our character rather than by our insignia. We do not blame the new favor, but we prefer our own good things. Remove the carriage, whose adornment is the more conspicuous; we have rather chosen that one whose use is the more ancient.