The Consolation of Philosophy | Page 7

I learnt from thee in leisured seclusion. Thou art my
witness and that divinity who hath implanted thee in the hearts of the
wise, that I brought to my duties no aim but zeal for the public good.
For this cause I have become involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds,
and, as happens inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of
conscience, I have had to think nothing of giving offence to the
powerful in the cause of justice. How often have I encountered and
balked Conigastus in his assaults on the fortunes of the weak? How
often have I thwarted Trigguilla, steward of the king's household, even
when his villainous schemes were as good as accomplished? How often
have I risked my position and influence to protect poor wretches from
the false charges innumerable with which they were for ever being
harassed by the greed and license of the barbarians? No one has ever
drawn me aside from justice to oppression. When ruin was overtaking
the fortunes of the provincials through the combined pressure of private
rapine and public taxation, I grieved no less than the sufferers. When at
a season of grievous scarcity a forced sale, disastrous as it was
unjustifiable, was proclaimed, and threatened to overwhelm Campania
with starvation, I embarked on a struggle with the prætorian prefect in
the public interest, I fought the case at the king's judgment-seat, and
succeeded in preventing the enforcement of the sale. I rescued the
consular Paulinus from the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, who
in their covetous hopes had already made short work of his wealth. To
save Albinus, who was of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a
prejudged charge, I exposed myself to the hatred of Cyprian, the
informer.
'Thinkest thou I had laid up for myself store of enmities enough? Well,
with the rest of my countrymen, at any rate, my safety should have

been assured, since my love of justice had left me no hope of security at
court. Yet who was it brought the charges by which I have been struck
down? Why, one of my accusers is Basil, who, after being dismissed
from the king's household, was driven by his debts to lodge an
information against my name. There is Opilio, there is Gaudentius, men
who for many and various offences the king's sentence had condemned
to banishment; and when they declined to obey, and sought to save
themselves by taking sanctuary, the king, as soon as he heard of it,
decreed that, if they did not depart from the city of Ravenna within a
prescribed time, they should be branded on the forehead and expelled.
What would exceed the rigour of this severity? And yet on that same
day these very men lodged an information against me, and the
information was admitted. Just Heaven! had I deserved this by my way
of life? Did it make them fit accusers that my condemnation was a
foregone conclusion? Has fortune no shame--if not at the accusation of
the innocent, at least for the vileness of the accusers? Perhaps thou
wonderest what is the sum of the charges laid against me? I wished,
they say, to save the senate. But how? I am accused of hindering an
informer from producing evidence to prove the senate guilty of treason.
Tell me, then, what is thy counsel, O my mistress. Shall I deny the
charge, lest I bring shame on thee? But I did wish it, and I shall never
cease to wish it. Shall I admit it? Then the work of thwarting the
informer will come to an end. Shall I call the wish for the preservation
of that illustrious house a crime? Of a truth the senate, by its decrees
concerning me, has made it such! But blind folly, though it deceive
itself with false names, cannot alter the true merits of things, and,
mindful of the precept of Socrates, I do not think it right either to keep
the truth concealed or allow falsehood to pass. But this, however it may
be, I leave to thy judgment and to the verdict of the discerning.
Moreover, lest the course of events and the true facts should be hidden
from posterity, I have myself committed to writing an account of the
transaction.
'What need to speak of the forged letters by which an attempt is made
to prove that I hoped for the freedom of Rome? Their falsity would
have been manifest, if I had been allowed to use the confession of the
informers themselves, evidence which has in all matters the most

convincing force. Why, what hope of freedom is left to us? Would
there were any! I should have answered with the epigram of Canius
when Caligula declared him to have