[36.] Senator, Praetorian Praefect, to Anat(h)olius, Cancellarius of the Province of Samnium.
The retirement of a Cornicularius on a superannuation allowance justified on astronomical grounds.
'As all things else come to an end, so it is right that the laborious life of a civil servant should have its appointed term.
'The heavenly bodies have their prescribed time in which to complete their journeyings. Saturn in thirty years wanders over his appointed portion of space. Jupiter in twelve years finishes the survey of his kingdom. Mars, with fiery rapidity, completes his course in eighteen months. The Sun in one year goes through all the signs of the Zodiac. Venus accomplishes her circuit in fifteen months; the rapid Mercury in thirteen months. The Moon, peculiar in her nearer neighbourhood, traverses in thirty days the space which it takes the Sun a year to journey over[783].
'All these bodies, which, as philosophers say, shall only perish with the world, have an appointed end to their journeyings. But they complete their course that they may begin it again: the human race serves that it may rest from its ended labours. Therefore, since the Cornicularius in my Court has completed his term of office, you are to pay him without any deduction this 1st September 700 solidi (£420) from the revenues of the Province of Samnium, taking them out of the third instalment of land-tax[784]. He commanded the wings of the army of the Praefect's assistants, from whence he derived his name[785]. When he handed us the inkstand, we wrote, unbribed, those decrees which men would have paid a great price to obtain[786]. We gratified him whom the laws favoured, we frowned on him who had not justice on his side. No litigant had cause to regret his success, since it came to him unbought. You know all this that we are saying to be true, for our business was all transacted in the office, not in the bedchamber. What we did, the whole troop of civil servants knew[787]. We were private persons in our power of harming, Judges in our power of doing good. Our words might be stern, our deeds were kindly. We frowned though mollified; we threatened though intending no evil; and we struck terror that we might not have to strike. You have had in me, as you were wont to say, a most clean-handed Judge: I shall leave behind in you my most uncorrupted witnesses.'
[37.] Senator, Praetorian Praefect, to the Clarissimus Lucinus, Cancellarius of Campania.
Payment of retiring Primiscrinius.
'It was well ordered by Antiquity that the servants of the Public should receive a due reward for their labours; and who of all these are more deserving than the officers of the Praetorian Praefect (Praetoriani). Theirs is the difficult task of waiting on the necessities of the army. They must demand accounts, often minute and intricate, from great officers whom they dare not offend. They must collect the stores of food for the Roman people from the Provincials without giving them cause for complaint[788]. Their acts constitute our true glory; and in the formation of their characters, work, hard work, that stern and anxious pedagogue[789], is better than all literary or philosophic training.
'Such men ought assuredly to receive their stipulated rewards; and therefore we order you to pay regularly so many solidi of the third instalment, from the land-tax of the Province of Campania[790], to such and such a person, who has now just completed his term of service as Primiscrinius.'