1I have undertaken to write on clemency, Nero Caesar, so that I might in some way serve as a mirror and show you to yourself as one about to attain the greatest of all pleasures. 1For although the true reward of right actions lies in having done them, and there is no prize worthy of the virtues outside themselves, it is pleasant to examine and go round a good conscience, then to cast one's eyes upon this immense multitude, quarrelsome, seditious, unruly, ready to run riot alike to the ruin of others and its own if it should break this yoke, and to speak thus with oneself: 'Have I, of all mortals, found favour and been chosen to act on earth in the place of the gods?
2I am the arbiter of life and death for the nations; 2what lot and station each man has is placed in my hand; 2what fortune wishes to be granted to each mortal, she pronounces through my mouth; 2from our answer peoples and cities conceive their reasons for joy; 2no region anywhere flourishes except by my will and favour; 2these many thousands of swords, which my peace holds in check, will be drawn at my nod; 2which nations should be utterly destroyed, which transplanted, which given liberty, which robbed of it, which kings should become slaves and whose heads should be crowned with royal honour, which cities should fall and which should rise: this is mine to decree.
3In this great power over affairs, it is not anger that has driven me to unjust punishments, nor youthful impulse, nor the rashness and defiance of men, which has often wrung patience even from the calmest breasts, nor that glory of displaying power through terror, dreadful yet common in great empires. 3With me the sword is sheathed, nay, laid away, and I am supremely sparing even of the meanest blood; 3there is no one who, though he lacks all else, does not find favour with me by the name of man. 4Severity I keep hidden, but clemency girt and ready; 4I guard myself as though I were to render account to the laws which I have called out of neglect and darkness into the light.
4I have been moved by one man's early youth, by another's old age; 4one I have pardoned for his rank, another for his lowliness; 4whenever I had found no reason for pity, I have spared myself. 4Today, if the immortal gods should ask me for an account, I am ready to number the human race back to them in full.' 5You can boldly proclaim this, Caesar: that everything which has come into your trust and protection is kept safe, and that nothing is taken from the state through you, either by force or by stealth. 5You have set your heart on a most rare distinction, granted as yet to no prince: innocence.
5Your labour is not lost, nor has that singular goodness of yours met with ungrateful or spiteful judges. 5Gratitude is returned to you; 5no single man was ever so dear to another as you are to the Roman people, its great and lasting blessing. 5But you have laid a huge burden on yourself; 5no one now speaks of the deified Augustus or the early years of Tiberius Caesar, or seeks outside you a model he would have you imitate; 6your principate is held to the standard of its first taste. 6This would have been hard, if that goodness of yours were not natural but assumed for the moment. 6For no one can wear a mask for long; things feigned soon fall back into their own nature; 6those which have truth beneath them, and which grow, so to speak, out of solid ground, advance with time itself into something greater and better.
7The Roman people was running a great risk while it was uncertain which way that noble disposition of yours would turn; 7now the public prayers are secure; 7for there is no danger that a sudden forgetfulness of yourself will seize you. 7Excessive good fortune does indeed make men greedy, and desires are never so moderate that they stop at what has been attained; 7the step is from great things to greater, and those who have gained what they never hoped for embrace the most extravagant hopes; 7yet now from all your citizens this admission is wrung, that they are happy, and this too, that nothing more can now be added to these blessings, except that they should last for ever.
8Many things drive them to this admission, than which none comes more slowly to a man: a deep and abundant security, and justice set above every injury; 8before their eyes hovers the most joyful form of commonwealth, which lacks nothing for the fullest liberty except the licence to destroy itself. 9Above all, however, admiration for your clemency reaches the highest and the lowest alike; 9for the other blessings each man feels or expects in greater or lesser measure in proportion to his own fortune, but from clemency all hope for the same; 9nor is there anyone so well pleased with his own innocence as not to rejoice that clemency stands in view, ready for human errors.