HKB
and arguing with myself that if I were murdered by them some one else would willingly accept the dignity of emperor, I consented, hoping thus to pacify their armed violence.
"This is the plain account of what has been done; and I entreat you to listen to it with mildness. Do not believe that anything else is the truth; and do not listen to malignant men who deal in mischievous whispers, always eager to seek their own gain by causing ill will between princes. Banish flattery, which is the nurse of vice, and listen to the voice of that most excellent of all virtues, justice. And receive with good faith the equitable condition which I propose, considering in your mind that such things are for the interest of the Roman state, and of us also who are united by affection of blood, and by an equality of superior fortune.
"And pardon me. These reasonable requests of mine I am not so anxious to see carried out, as to see them approved by you as expedient and proper; and I shall with eagerness follow all your instructions.
"What requires to be done I will briefly explain. I will provide you some Spanish draught horses, and some youths to mingle with the Gentiles and Scutarii of the Letian tribe, a race of barbarians on the side of the Rhine; or else of those people which have come over to our side. And I promise till the end of my life to do all I can to assist you, not only with gratitude, but with eagerness.
"Your clemency will appoint us prefects for our prætorium of known equity and virtue: the appointment of the ordinary judges, and the promotion of the military officers it is fair should be left to me; as also the selection of my guard. For it would be unreasonable, when it is possible to be guarded against, that those persons should be placed about an emperor of whose manners and inclinations he is ignorant.
"These things I can further assure you of positively. The Gauls will neither of their own accord, nor by any amount of compulsion, be brought to send recruits to foreign and distant countries, since they have been long harassed by protracted annoyances and heavy disasters, lest the youth of the nation should be destroyed, and the whole people, while recollecting their past sufferings, should abandon themselves to despair for the future.
"Nor is it fit to seek from hence assistance against the Parthians, when even now the attempts of the barbarians against this land are not brought to an end, and while, if you will suffer me to tell the truth, these provinces are still exposed to continual dangers on being deprived of all foreign or adequate assistance.
"In speaking thus, I do think I have written to you in a manner suited to the interests of the state, both in my demands and my entreaties. For I well know, not to speak in a lofty tone, though such might not misbecome an emperor, what wretched states of affairs, even when utterly desperate and given up, have been before now retrieved and re-established by the agreement of princes, each yielding reciprocally to one another. While it is also plain from the example of our ancestors, that rulers who acknowledge and act upon such principles do somehow ever find the means of living prosperously and happily, and leave behind them to the latest posterity an enviable fame."
To these letters he added others of a more secret purport, to be given privily to Constantius, in which he blamed and reproached him; though their exact tenor was not fit to be known, nor if known, fit to be divulged to the public.