1You ought to know already from my letter that I recently noticed the monument of Pallas with this inscription: 'To him the senate, on account of his loyalty and devotion towards his patrons, decreed the insignia of a praetor and fifteen million sesterces, with the honour of which he was content.' 2Afterwards it seemed to me worth the effort to look up the decree of the senate itself. 2I found it so wordy and effusive that that most arrogant inscription seemed modest and even humble. 2Let them come together and combine — I do not mean those men of old, the Africani, the Achaici, the Numantini, but these more recent ones, the Marii, Sullas and Pompeys — I do not want to go further —: they will lie far below the praises of Pallas.
3Am I to think those who voted this witty, or wretched? 3I would call them witty, if wit befitted the senate; 3wretched, but no one is so wretched as to be forced into this. 3Was it ambition, then, and the desire for advancement? 3But who is so mad as to wish to advance through his own disgrace and the public's, in a state in which the advantage of the most eminent rank was this, that one could be the first in the senate to praise Pallas? 4I pass over the fact that the insignia of a praetor are offered to Pallas, a slave — offered, naturally, by slaves —; I pass over their resolution that he should be not only urged but even compelled to wear gold rings; 4for it was contrary to the majesty of the senate that a man of praetorian rank should wear iron ones.
5These things are trivial and to be passed by; what must be recorded is that in the name of Pallas the senate — and the senate house was never purified afterwards — in the name of Pallas the senate gives thanks to Caesar, because he himself had honoured him with the highest distinction in mentioning him and had given the senate the opportunity of attesting its goodwill towards him. 6For what could be finer for the senate than to seem sufficiently grateful towards Pallas? 6It is added: 'That Pallas, to whom all confess themselves obliged to the best of their ability, may reap the most deserved reward of his unique loyalty and unique diligence'.
6You would think he had extended the boundaries of the empire or restored armies to the state. 7To this is joined: 'Since no more welcome occasion for liberality could be presented to the senate and Roman people than if it fell to them to augment the means of the most disinterested and loyal guardian of the imperial wealth'. 7This, then, was the prayer of the senate, this the chief joy of the people, this the most welcome occasion for liberality: if it should fall to them to augment the means of Pallas by draining the public wealth. 8Now, what follows? 8That the senate had wished to vote that fifteen million sesterces be given him from the treasury, and that, the further removed his mind was from desires of that kind, the more earnestly it begged the father of the state to compel him to yield to the senate.
9This indeed was all that was lacking: that Pallas should be dealt with by public authority, that Pallas should be asked to yield to the senate, that Caesar himself, his patron, should himself be called in as advocate against that most arrogant self-restraint, so that he should not scorn fifteen million sesterces. 9He did scorn it, which was the only thing he could do, with such wealth offered publicly, more arrogant than if he had accepted it. 10Yet the senate bore this too with praises, as if complaining, and indeed in these words: but since the best of emperors and father of the state, at the request of Pallas, had wished that part of the motion which concerned giving him fifteen million sesterces from the treasury to be dropped, the senate declared that it had begun to decree this sum to Pallas, among his other honours, willingly and deservedly on account of his loyalty and diligence, but that it complied in this matter too with the will of its emperor, whom it thought it unlawful to oppose in anything.
11Picture Pallas, as it were, vetoing a decree of the senate and moderating his own honours, and refusing fifteen million sesterces as too much, when he had accepted the insignia of a praetor as if they were less; 12picture Caesar obeying the entreaties, or rather the command, of a freedman in the presence of the senate — for a freedman commands his patron when he makes a request of him in the senate —; 12picture the senate declaring at every turn that it had begun, deservedly and willingly, to decree this sum to Pallas among his other honours, and would have persisted, had it not been complying with the will of the emperor, whom it was unlawful to oppose in anything.
12Thus, to keep Pallas from carrying off fifteen million sesterces from the treasury, there was need of his own modesty and of the senate's obedience, a senate that would especially not have obeyed in this, had it thought it lawful not to obey in anything. 13Do you think this is the end? 13Wait a little and hear greater things still: 'And whereas it is expedient that the emperor's generosity, most ready to praise and reward the deserving, should be made known everywhere, and above all in those places where those placed in charge of his affairs might be spurred to imitation, and whereas the most proven loyalty and integrity of Pallas might by its example arouse zeal for so honourable an emulation, that the matters which on the tenth day before the Kalends 13of February last the best of emperors had read out in the most distinguished order, and the decrees of the senate passed concerning them, should be engraved on bronze, and that this bronze should be fixed beside the armoured statue of the deified Julius'.
14It seemed too little for the senate house to be witness of such great disgraces: a most frequented place was chosen, in which they might be published for those now living to read and for those to come to read. 14It was resolved that all the honours of that most disdainful slave should be recorded in bronze, both those he had refused and those which, as far as the voters were concerned, he held. 14The praetorian insignia of Pallas were carved and engraved on public and everlasting monuments, as if they were ancient treaties, as if they were sacred laws. 15So great was the emperor's, so great the senate's, so great Pallas's own — I do not know what to call it — that they wished to be fixed before the eyes of all: Pallas his insolence, Caesar his complaisance, the senate its abasement.
15Nor were they ashamed to put forward a reason to cover their shame, an excellent and fine reason indeed: that by the example of Pallas's rewards others might be spurred to zeal for emulation. 16Such was the cheapness of honours, even of those which Pallas did not disdain. 16Yet men of respectable birth were found who sought and coveted what they saw being given to a freedman and promised to slaves. 17How glad I am that my life did not fall in those times, of which I am as ashamed as if I had lived in them! 17I do not doubt that you are affected in the same way. 17I know how lively and generous a spirit you have: so it is the more likely that you feel as I do; 17although in some places I may perhaps have carried my indignation beyond the limits of a letter, you should believe that I have felt too little pain rather than too much.
17Farewell.