character to retain them.  But the complaisance of others will weaken your character.  Flattery and servile compliments will break down its defences and self-interest too, the bane of all sincerity.  What though you and I can talk plainly with each other to-day?  Others will address themselves not to us but to our fortunes.  To persuade an emperor what he ought to do is a laborious task:  any one can flatter him without a spark of sincerity.

’If the vast bulk of this empire could stand and keep its balance 16 without a guiding hand, the Republic might well have dated its birth from me.  As it is, things have long ago come to such a pass that neither I in my old age can give the Roman people any better gift than a good successor, nor you in your prime anything better than a good emperor.  Under Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, Rome was the heirloom of a single family.  There is a kind of liberty in the free choice we have begun to exercise.  Now that the Julian and Claudian houses are extinct, by the plan of adoption the best man will always be discovered.  Royal birth is the gift of fortune, and is but valued as such.  In adoption we can use a free judgement, and if we wish to choose well, the voice of the country points the way.  Think of Nero, swollen with the pride of his long line of royal ancestry.  It was not Vindex with a powerless province at his back, nor I with a single legion that freed Rome’s shoulders of that burden:  it was his own cruelty and profligacy.  And that was before there was any precedent for the conviction of an emperor.

’We have been called to the throne by the swords of those who thought us worthy.  Our high state will not escape the eye of envy.  You may be sure of that.  But there is no reason for you to feel alarm because in this world-wide upheaval a couple of legions have not yet settled down.  I myself did not succeed to a safe and peaceful throne, and, when once the news of your adoption is spread, I shall cease to be charged with my advanced age, which is now the only fault they find in me.  The rascals will always miss Nero:  you and I have got to see that good citizens do not miss him too.

’A longer sermon would ill befit the time and I have fulfilled my purpose, if I have done right in choosing you.  The soundest and easiest criterion of right and wrong policy is to consider what you would have approved or condemned in another emperor.  For Rome is not like the nations which are ruled by kings, where one house is supreme and the rest are slaves.  Your future subjects are men who cannot endure the extremes either of bondage or of freedom.’