Among the most useful arts that the divine powers have granted to sustain the need of human frailty, none seems to offer anything comparable to what healing medicine can confer. For with a mother's grace it ever stands by those endangered by disease; it does battle against pains on behalf of our weakness, and strives to lift us up there where no riches, no rank can come to aid. Those skilled in legal causes are held to bear the palm when they have defended the affairs of individuals: but how much more glorious to drive out what seemed to bring death, and to restore health to one in peril, of which he had been compelled to despair!
An art which finds more in a man than he himself knows within himself: it makes firm what is in peril, strengthens what is shaken, and, foreknowing things to come, does not yield to a man's seeming health; when the sick man, troubled by his present weakness, understands more than appears, trusting his reading more than his eyes, so that what is gathered by reason is by the ignorant almost reckoned a prophecy. To this skill, that there should be lacking a judge—is this not proved to be a forgetfulness of human affairs? And when wanton pleasures have their tribune, does this art not deserve to have its chief? Let them therefore have a president, those to whom we entrust our well-being: let them know that they render account to him who undertake to work the health of mankind. Let it be called an art not because it works by chance, but because it works by what it has read.
Otherwise we are rather exposed to dangers, if we submit to wandering whims. Hence, if there be hesitation, let inquiry at once be made. Exceedingly obscure is man's health, a balance composed of contrary humors: where any of these has grown excessive, it forthwith drives the body to sickness. Hence it is that, just as weary health is refreshed by suitable foods, so a thing is poison which is taken unfittingly. Let physicians therefore, for the safety of all, even after their schooling, have a master; let them be free for their books and delight in the ancients: none more justly reads assiduously than he who has dealt with human health. Lay aside, you craftsmen of healing, the harmful contentions of the sick; lest, while you are unwilling to yield to one another, you seem to scatter your own discoveries in turn.
You have one whom you may consult without envy. Every prudent man seeks counsel, while he is recognized as the more studious who shows himself the more cautious by frequent inquiry. Indeed, in the very beginnings of this art certain sacred rites consecrate you after the manner of a priesthood: for to your teachers you promise to hate wickedness and to love purity. So it is not free to you to transgress of your own will, you to whom, before the moments of your knowledge, it is laid as a charge to bind your souls. And therefore search out the more diligently the things that may heal the wounded and strengthen the weak: for I will see to it that what a lapse may excuse as a fault, to sin against a man's health is the crime of homicide. But we believe these things now suffice, since it is we who must be the ones to admonish you.
Wherefore from the present time we adorn you with the honor of the countship of the chief physicians (comes archiatrorum), that among the masters of health you alone may be held preeminent, and that all may yield to your judgment who torment themselves with the rivalry of mutual contention. Be the arbiter of this excellent art, and unloose the conflicts of those whom the outcome alone was wont to judge. In this very office you heal the sick, if you prudently cut off their harmful contentions. It is a great gift to have prudent men as subordinates, and to become honorable among those whom the rest revere. Let your visitation be the well-being of the sick, the refreshment of the weak, the sure hope of the wearied. Let the inexperienced inquire of the sick whom they visit, whether the pain has ceased, whether sleep has come:
but of his own illness let the sick man question you, and let him hear from you more truly what he himself suffers. You too surely have most truthful witnesses whom you may question. To a skilled chief physician the pulse of the veins announces what nature suffers within; the urine too is offered to the eyes, so that it is easier to disregard the voice of one crying out than not to perceive signs of this kind. Indulge yourself also at our palace: have the confidence to enter, a thing wont to be procured by great rewards. For though others serve under subject law, you must observe the lords of affairs with surpassing zeal. It is lawful for you to weary us with fastings; it is lawful to oppose our desire and, in place of a benefit, to prescribe what may torment us toward the joys of health.
In short, you recognize that such liberty toward us is yours as we are not proved to have toward others. Although the testimonies of the very name seem to declare that your dignity descends from the consuls, yet such great insignia surround you that no one can doubt that you shine with the brightness of that lamp. For the axes and fasces, which antiquity dedicated to its guardian-spirit, seem assigned to your trappings, so that the jurisdiction granted you may admonish the provinces even when silent. But what must that be for you which is shown to adorn the famed curule chairs? Nay, the festive pomp of obeisance sends before you even the countenance of the reigning sovereigns, so that, heaped with reverence not only of the supreme judge but also of the lords, you may be adorned. O invention of great moderation!
From the name of consul you are promised most clement, and from the image of princes, to be feared. In some provinces still you are honored, adorned with the cloak (paenula) and with the conveyance of a carriage, so that by many tokens, through the displayed images, it may be declared that you bear the alternating turns of a most exalted dignity. Consider that what you undertake is great, and may you be defiled by no degradation of crimes. The author of your name is celebrated for conferring much: do you act so that you may be accused of no greed, in order that, if you cannot avail to give, you may at least hasten to wish to be moderate. For he is reckoned next to the giver of whom it can be said, 'he keeps continually from what is another's.' Surely it is a vice of most foul contradiction to be zealous for thefts and to bear the name of liberality.
Let what you are called raise your spirits to praise. You assuredly do not make yourself unequal to your merits, if you trample down the offenses of most shameful ambition. For to conquer harmful errors, to overcome staining vices—this consulate too is truly brought forth from character. For not in vain did the wisest of the ancients impose such names on things, when they sent to the provinces a consular man as president of great self-restraint. Triumph over the public laws, lavish justice, and you can imitate in the stronger part him whom you touch by the nearness of the name. A man of middling estate may lack money; he cannot but have the talents of character who is just. Do not dread the lavish hands of consuls: even good poor men have their own riches.
That therefore is sought from you which is born in the human breast, not what is held in the bowels of the earth. How much better to triumph from the treasury of the soul, whence repentance is never born, since you are not made poorer when you grant more—nay rather, you are rendered so much the richer as you recognize that you have scattered abroad the goods of a good conscience. Wherefore, enticed by the praise of your reputation, we command you through the said indiction to exercise in that province the dignity of the consularship, so that nothing be acceptable to you which is proved hostile to the laws. Love rather those things which the rights of equity commend. Prove your name by your actions. Take counsel for (consule) the weary, and then you will be truly called consular.
But that all things may be weighed with even measure, resolve not to seek after money, and you will find that abundant gifts come to you. For the divine powers have set this condition upon human deeds, that he can the more grow rich who knows not how to wish for base gains. Those who act well receive without knowing it, because it must needs be that, while the ambition of evils is for a little while despised, more is bestowed by a heavenly gift. Antiquity altogether providently decreed that judges be sent to the province, lest mean men be burdened by having to come to us. For who of robbers would bear his audacity, if they knew discipline to be set far off? Permitted violence could rage unchecked, if the complainant were believed to be heard too tardily.
But how much better to repress crimes while still soft in their very cradle than to avenge them when hardened! We send evils to a quick reckoning, if we make judgments to be present at hand. For who would dare to sin, when he knows strict severity to hang over his own neck? And therefore our choice sends you as governor of that province through the said indiction, so that you may truly strive to correct those whom you know to have been committed to you. Among other things, attend without doubt to the stripes (clavi) of your cloak (chlamys), which you should know are not idly set there, except that, when those engaged in public service beheld the purple, they might ever be admonished of the prince's vigor.
The festive garb you wear, a gracious vesture, which Venus is said to have woven for her son Priapus, so that the son, singularly adorned, might bear witness to a mother of surpassing beauty. Consider how much the laws have given, and stretch yourself to the measure of your power. To you is shown to be entrusted the exaction of the fiscal tributes. It is established that it is committed to your good faith to report to the prince whatever is proved to arise in the provinces. You are likewise bidden to give audience to the senator residing there; you are to punish a soldier under the prefects only with his own (the prefect's) cognizance; they have ordered your name to be set before the honored provincials in the subscriptions. What has been judged of you may be perceived, you to whom so many nobles seem able to be set behind.
It is added that by the prince you are called brother, so that by the nobility of a precious name you might be lifted up from the baseness of crimes. Think that the fortunes of so many men have been committed to you. Your character will be the report of our age. Be self-restrained in regard to yourself, that you may be able to be a judge over others. The first equity is for presidents to begin with themselves, so that the criminal must fear one whom they cannot find to be like themselves. For a defendant fears no faults in himself which he has noticed his examiner to have, since he reckons that one acting wrongly displeases none but those of good character. No one condemns his own deeds in another, because it is the nature of the human mind that it strives rather to avenge what it has recognized itself to have committed.
O what a thing it is to sit free upon the tribunals, not to be beholden to one's own defendant, lest he who has bought you off begin to become the more powerful! Let him fear the strict, let him fear the self-restrained, let him not hear one who flatters. Grant that he may dread a rigid sentence. Greedy judges know not how much they transgress: for when they sell another's crimes, they make them to be their own sins. Wherefore be solicitous, that we may rather hear the praises of your good administration. From us you confidently demand what you remit, because we think as much of your reward as we recognize that you have not sought after money. It belongs to royal providence to choose such persons as judges that they may have no necessity of coming to the court, those whom it has befallen to tarry in far-off regions.
For there is no such business as can bear the great expenses of a Sicilian journey, since it is more convenient to lose one's case than to have gained anything through such outlays. For we do not wish complaints to come from Sicily, but praises, because an administrator's conduct is held grievous with us if petitioners from so far off have been able to accuse it. For a feigned grief is not believed where the tedium of so great a labor is undergone. And therefore those things must be handled with the greater care, from which envy is the more to be feared. Accordingly, through the said indiction we grant you, by favoring divinity, the countship of the city of Syracuse, that you may strive to do all things just as you recognize that we have granted them to you. From those near at hand we endure the vows (demands) of litigants:
but from afar, on the contrary, we of our own accord seek out those places from which we perceive that it can with difficulty be come to us. You have things which ought to adorn you, if only you come there cleansed in conscience. A number of soldiers serves you at our expense. You are rendered festive amid arms: your procession is a war-array adorned. You enjoy a peaceful army, nor do you undergo the perils of war, and you are adorned with the pomp of arms. Yet amid these things think of civil discipline. Do not permit the soldiers to be insolent toward the landholders. Let them receive their rations under moderation; let them not be mixed up in matters foreign to them. Let him who glories that he is armed know that he has been chosen for the security of all. We neither wish the privileges of your dignity to be diminished, nor command them to be exceeded.
Let it suffice you to perform just so much as it is established your predecessors reasonably accomplished. Among the other inventions of antiquity and the astonishing praises of well-ordered things, this deserves to be extolled with all praises: that the comely appearance of various cities is seen to be adorned with suitable administrations, so that both the assembly of nobles is gathered by a frequented concourse, and the knots of cases are loosed by the disputation of law. Whence we too recognize that we have no lesser glory, who renew the deeds of the ancients by yearly solemnities. For what would an invention profit, if it had not been continually preserved? Dignities go forth from us, gleaming like rays from the sun, that in our part of the world preserved justice may shine again.
For this reason we sow the advantages of so many emoluments, that we may gather the security of the provincials. Our harvest is the repose of all, which we cannot otherwise reckon, except that our subjects seem not to have lost anything unreasonably. And therefore we gladly bring you to the countship of Naples through the said indiction, that as a fair balance you may examine civil affairs, and guard your reputation with such maturity as you recognize that you may easily displease that people even in a slight fault. It is a city adorned with a multitude of citizens, abounding in the delights of sea and land, so that you may judge yourself to have found there a most sweet life, if you mingle yourself with no bitternesses. Your offices fill the praetorium; a throng of soldiers keeps guard.
You sit upon a festive tribunal: but you endure as many witnesses as you recognize the throngs that surround you to be. Besides, by command you guard the shores up to the appointed place. Foreign trade is obedient to your will. You grant to buyers from your own price, and what the eager merchant acquires profits your favor. But amid these illustrious heights it befits one to be the best of judges, since he cannot hide himself who is known to dwell among frequented peoples. Your deed will be the talk of the city, while there is carried through the mouths of the people whatever it happens has been done by a judge. The frequency of men has its own vengeance, if it speaks adversely, and what is voiced by many corroborations is believed to be a judgment passed upon the judge.
On the contrary, what is better than to regard with favor that people over whom you are known to preside? What a thing it is to enjoy the favor of the many and to receive those voices which it delights even clement lords to hear! We give you the material for advancement: it is yours so to act that it may delight the prince to increase his benefits. You indeed pay us tributes with yearly devotion: but we, with a greater exchange, render back to you adorning dignities, so that those who obey our commands may defend you from the wickedness of invaders. Your repose will be our joy: a sweet gain, if you should know no harm. Live with composed morals, that you may live by laws kept as holidays. What need is there for anyone to do that whereby he may incur penalties?
Let the judge seek causes among you and not find them. Let reason compose your movements, you who recognize that you are rational beings. To the wicked we appoint a judge, to those of good morals a witness, so that no one may feel himself compelled, except him whom the order of lawful conduct accuses. And therefore we declare that we have given to that man the countship of the city of Naples through the said indiction, so that, praised for your governance, he may deserve another dignity from our judgment. To him it befits you prudently to obey, because either thing is praiseworthy: that a good people make a benign judge, and that a gentle judge compose a most weighty people by even-handed reason. It befits all administrative bodies to have their own judges: for he from whom the president is taken away is also denied his service.
But we, to whom it is dear to hold all the orders in their own places, make known that, with the Lord's help, we have bestowed the countship of Naples, so that, with the judges renewed by yearly succession, the solemnity of administration may not perish for you. Wherefore render fitting obedience to the designated man, so that, just as we do not suffer you to lose the advantages of your emoluments, so you too ought to keep the ancient rule of obedience.