Letter 11036: The man who devised laborious duties and offices of great diligence also reasonably established fixed terms for them...

XXXVI. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PREFECT, TO ANATOLIUS, CHANCELLOR OF THE PROVINCE OF SAMNIUM. [1] He who has devised laborious watches and the duties of great diligence has reasonably also set fixed limits of time, so that what was placed as a reward at the term of life should not be uncertain. Otherwise, who could endure forever and keep waiting, when the very light withdraws itself from mortals? For this reason, under an uncertain life there is a certain term of service, and he who has earned the right to arrive without offense at the appointed time has nothing he need fear. [2] The very stars, as the astronomers maintain, although they revolve in unceasing repetition, keep the fixed limits of their course. There can be no doubt about that which is held enclosed within its own boundary. Saturn ranges over the spaces of heaven assigned to him in thirty years. The star of Jupiter illuminates the region allotted to it in twelve years. The planet of Mars, swept along with fiery swiftness, runs through the course apportioned to it in eighteen months. The sun in the space of a year flies past the signs of the zodiacal circle. The star of Venus crosses the spaces granted to it in fifteen months. Mercury, girt with swiftness, traverses the intervals set before him in thirteen months. The Moon, nearer to us by a special closeness, completes in thirty days what the golden sun completes when carried round in the space of a year. [3] Rightly, therefore, do mortals find an end to their labor, since, as the philosophers say, even those things which cannot fail except with the world have reasonably received the limits of their course; with this difference intervening, however, that those things finish their work so as to return to their beginning, while the human race serves for this reason: that, its toils completed, it may rest. [4] And therefore to that man who has discharged the office of cornicularius without blame, deliver without ambiguity the seven hundred solidi which long-standing custom has assigned to him, for that indiction, from the province of Samnium, out of the third levy: because he cannot doubt his reward whom the truthful affirmation of his judge commends. For he presided over the horns of the praetorian secretariat, from which his name is derived, proven by praiseworthy actions: while he was serving, we wrote down [the order for] the cup unbought, which men desired to have filled at great prices; we granted favor to him whom the laws favored; we refused him to whom justice made no promise. [5] No one came away saddened by his own victory, because he obtained it with his means intact, since, in order to become the winner, he did not purchase it. You know everything of which we speak: for your secretarial business was not transacted in our private chambers; what we did, the cohorts have known. We were indeed private men when it came to doing harm, judges when it came to granting. Our severity was held in words, and our kindness felt in deeds. We grew angry while remaining appeased, we threatened while remaining harmless, and, lest we should have power to injure, we seemed to inspire terror. You have, as you used to say, a most chaste judge: I shall leave you behind as wholly upright witnesses.

XXXVI. ANATOLICO CANCELLARIO PROVINCIAE SAMNII SENATOR PPO. [1] Qui laboriosas excubias et officia magnae sedulitatis invenit, rationabiliter et temporis definita constituit, ut quod erat sub vitae termino positum praemium, non haberet incertum. alioquin quis sufficere semper et expectare posset, cum se mortalibus lux ipsa subduceret? qua de re sub incerta vita certa militia est nec habet quod possit metuere, qui ad designatum tempus inoffense meruit pervenire. [2] Astra ipsa, ut astronomi volunt, licet assidua repetitione volvantur, cursus sui definita custodiunt. nequit esse ambiguum, quod fine proprio tenetur inclusum. Saturnus annis triginta constituta sibi caeli spatia pervagatur. stella Iovis duodecim annis attributam sibi regionem illustrat. Martis sidus ignea celeritate raptatum decem et octo mensibus deputata sibi discurrit. sol anni spatio zodiaci circuli signa praetervolat. astrum Veneris mensibus quindecim spatia concessa transcendit. Mercurius velocitate succinctus tredecim mensibus proposita sibi intervalla praetervehit. Luna peculiari nobis vicinitate proximior triginta diebus peragit, quod anni spatio sol aureus circumactus impleverit. [3] Merito ergo laboris finem mortales inveniunt, quando, ut philosophi dicunt, et ipsa, quae deficere nequeunt nisi cum mundo, cursus sui terminos rationabiliter acceperunt, hac tamen interveniente distantia, quod illa opus suum finiunt, ut ad principium redeant, humanum genus ideo militat, ut peractis sudoribus conquiescat. [4] Et ideo illi, qui inculpabiliter cornicularii est perfunctus officio, septingentos solidos, quos ei longaeva consuetudo deputavit, per illam indictionem de Samnii provincia ex illatione tertia sine ambiguitate contrade: quia non potest dubitare de praemio, quem vera iudicis commendat assertio. praefuit enim cornibus secretarii praetoriani, unde ei nomen est derivatum, laudatis actionibus comprobatus: eo ministrante caliculum scripsimus inempti, quod magnis pretiis optabatur impleri: gratificati sumus, cui leges faverunt: negavimus, cui iustitia non promisit. [5] Nemo tristis extitit de victoria sua, quia salvis facultatibus obtinuit, quando ut fieret superior, non redemit. nostis omne quod loquimur: neque enim in cubiculis nostris secretaria vestra peracta sunt: quod egimus, cohortes noverunt. fuimus nimirum ad nocendum privati, ad praestandum iudices. districtio nostra in verbis est habita et in factis sensa benignitas. irascebamur placati, minabamur innoxii et ne potuissemus laedere, terrorem videbamur inferre. habetis, ut solebatis dicere, castissimum iudicem: relinquam vos integerrimos testes.