Letter 10001: My duties are not yet finished, and the city's demands are not yet satisfied.

Upon me, a man at ease and long since withdrawn from any craving for offices, you have of your own accord bestowed a prefecture coveted by many. I give thanks to the goodwill of so many excellent emperors toward me; but I understand how much more anxiety attaches to the magistracy that comes from a deliberate judgment than to the one that comes from favor. For the former, given as if to merit, must match the hope placed in it, whereas the latter, sought through a benefaction, is free from the peril of expectation, my lords emperors [the reigning Augusti]. Who, then, will make me equal to this honor? Your clemency, surely, whose concern it is that I not be thought to have been chosen rashly; for me, as to my conscience, it is enough not to have sought after public office. Now what sort of man I shall prove to be lies in the hands of the times; for it is the favor of emperors that makes magistrates good, and the virtues of judges always flow from your own character. Bring it about that all may understand that, if perchance there is wanting in governors an unblemished vigor and a just conscience, the fault is the man's and not the age's. I am not immoderate in my prayer, when I commend my own office to those who conferred it. For how small a thing is it that I render thanks to your divine majesty? Bring it about that the commonwealth too may be grateful to you on my account.