1You will laugh, then be indignant, then laugh again, if you read what you cannot believe unless you read it. 2On the Via Tiburtina, within the first milestone — I noticed it recently — there is a monument of Pallas inscribed thus: 'To him the senate, for his loyalty and devotion to his patrons, decreed the insignia of a praetor and fifteen million sesterces, with the honour of which he was content.' 3For my part I have never admired things that come more often from fortune than from judgement; 3but this inscription above all reminded me how farcical and absurd are the honours that are sometimes thrown away into this mud, into this filth, honours which, in short, that gallows-bird dared both to accept and to refuse, and even to hand down to posterity as an example of moderation.
4But why am I indignant? 4It is better to laugh, so that those who reach such heights by good fortune only to be laughed at may not think they have attained something great. 4Farewell.