Letter 10010: The library continues to grow, the correspondence continues to multiply, and the hours available for reading...

I would have preferred to be the bearer of happy tidings, my lords the emperors, but the obligation of my public office has laid upon me the necessity of a sorrowful announcement. Your Praetextatus [Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, Praetorian Prefect and a leading pagan senator], the Praetextatus of all good men, the champion of old-fashioned integrity, has been carried off by an envious fate -- a man endowed with every virtue, at home and abroad, in whose place it is exceedingly difficult even for Your Eternity, which knows how to choose the best, to substitute his like. And so he has left behind the deepest longing for himself in public affairs, and a great grief for the citizens dear to him. For as soon as the bitter report about him resounded at Rome, the people refused the customary pleasures of the theatre, and, bearing witness to his illustrious memory with much acclamation, dealt severely with the spite of fortune, because it had taken away from them the benefits conferred by renowned princes. He, indeed, has discharged the law of nature; but we, the partners of his spirit and of your good judgment, he has overwhelmed with such grief that we ask for the remedy of leisure [release from office]. I pass over the other matters which do not allow me to bear the prefecture patiently: this single loss of a colleague is alone a just ground for obtaining a discharge. Let others love power without end: for me the highest fruit of happiness is to be admitted into the presence of your divine majesty, and to behold the kindly stars of my own welfare. This one thing, in return for all that you have bestowed, I crave. My petition is a simple one, and does not aim at the path of seeking further honor; for I shall have declared once and for all that there is nothing else I desire, when, as a suppliant, I have given back my magistracy.