Letter 10009: The matter of the candidate you recommended has been handled as you wished, though not without some difficulty that...

To give thanks for your benefactions on behalf of the city of Rome is a matter of approved duty, yet also of unaccustomed boldness; for words are not equal to immense things, and no oration can fill the role of the Roman people, my lords emperors. But since in affairs of this kind it is the reckoning of intention rather than of talent that is at issue, I do not fear the reputation of being unequal to the task, so long as I escape the name of an ingrate. O city received into heaven and among the stars! Upon her you have heaped the good things of all lands, and you reckon that to be added to you in particular which Rome has acquired. We have recovered the assurance of our ancient prerogative, our security; since indeed it is settled that, under your rule, whatever anywhere either nature engenders or industry shapes as noble belongs to the Roman people. Indeed you have also given to posterity an outstanding example: those to come will know that public pleasures flow in abundance only then, when the palaces do not lay claim to them. This is the proof of a self-restrained spirit: to deny to oneself what is bestowed on others, and to set the gladness of the rest before one's own private consolations; this practice befits good princes. For the enjoyment of the ears and the eyes is fleeting, but that of generosity is eternal. Others would have reserved these gifts for their own triumphs, so that, once they were set out, the Pompeian stage-fronts [the colonnades of Pompey's theatre] might resound with new performers; so that, in place of captive tetrarchs, Indian beasts [elephants] might lead the chariot's advance; so that a long line of horses might be led along like so many nations: your triumph shall receive the Arsacids [the Parthian/Persian royal house] bound behind their backs and the treasuries of conquered Babylon. For affected ostentation does not enter great spirits. You do not know how to defer what is to be granted; whatever the servitude of the nations has offered, at once becomes public property. Deservedly the Senate and people celebrate you with their lips, venerate you with devotion, embrace you with love. Believe me: you possess the inmost recesses of all hearts, those places of good bonds where the affection of children, where that of parents abides. And because every reward, when it is set against your benefactions, is too narrow, the most ample order [the Senate] has found a lovely return by which it might prove itself grateful. For it has consecrated, with equestrian statues among the ancient names, the founder of your family and stock, Africanus, once the British general [the elder Theodosius, father of the emperor, who campaigned in Britain], who by his happy stock begot a divinity for the salvation of the empire. Thus are those honored whose children are born for the public good. But indeed the people, filled with the gifts of imperial munificence, gave way with a ready inclination into love of you; and when, at my announcement, it learned that the gifts of the public parents were at hand, it poured out and burst forth through all the gates into the distance, judging him more fortunate than the rest who should first have seen your good things. Therefore, whereas the gifts of princes are usually awaited, now they came as though summoned. I pass over that day on which the royal elephants advanced through dense throngs in a procession of noble horses; I prefer to set forth the roar of the valley of Murcia [the Circus Maximus, in the valley of the Murcia between the Palatine and Aventine] and that distribution of four-horse chariots, in which, although the man to whom the urn shortly assigned the choice seemed to himself more fortunate, yet he whom the lot had made last was equal or even better off. How often did the first man envy the one who followed? The choice is doubtful when judgment is passed on like things. And do not think that pleasure of this kind seems small to the people of Mars [the Romans, descendants of Mars through Romulus], to whom the enticements of the circus have furnished a kinship with their neighbors, to whom it has seemed the highest honor that, exulting, they should ride upon the backs of the horses, and that the triumphal chariot should carry them. Wherefore may Victory, the familiar deity of the race of Romulus, requite your clemency according to the wish of all. You have brought it about that the hoary city luxuriates, restored to her first gladness and to that springtime once belonging to her flourishing age. I now dare to hope for greater things: you will send also the royal fleet, to augment with grain supplies the sustenance of your devoted people. This indeed the Senate, mingled with the people, will receive at the mouths of the Tiber; we shall venerate as sacred the vessels which have brought in the happy cargoes of Egyptian grain. The prayers are not greedy which the kindness of the age has aroused: this confidence comes from precedents; by accepting great things we presume upon greater. Now read the auspicious votes of the Senate and people, although I know that more lies in their minds than can be unfolded in words, and receive certain libations of the public love toward you. If what has so far been said is but little, charge it to the marvels of your gifts; for the greatness of our astonishment has left no room for many a round of applause.