I have undertaken, Nero Caesar, to write on the subject of mercy, in order to serve in a way the purpose of a mirror, and thus reveal you to yourself as one destined to attain to the greatest of all pleasures. For, though the true profit of virtuous deeds lies in the doing, and there is no fitting reward for the virtues apart from the virtues themselves, still it is a pleasure to subject a good conscience to a round of inspection, then to cast one’s eyes upon this vast throng — discordant, factious, and unruly, ready to run riot alike for the destruction of itself and others if it should break its yoke — and finally to commune with oneself thus. “Have I of all mortals found favor with Heaven and been chosen to serve on earth as vicar of the gods? I am the arbiter of life and death for the nations; it rests in my power what each man’s lot and state shall be; by my lips Fortune proclaims what gift she would bestow on each human being; from my utterance peoples and cities gather reasons for rejoicing; without my favor and grace no part of the wide world can prosper; all those many thousands of swords which my peace restrains will be drawn at my nod; what nations shall be utterly destroyed, which banished, which shall receive the gift of liberty, which have it taken from them, what kings shall become slaves and whose heads shall be crowned with royal honor, what cities shall fall and which shall rise this it is mine to decree. With all things thus at my disposal, I have been moved neither by anger nor youthful impulse to unjust punishment, nor by the foolhardiness and obstinacy of men which have often wrung patience from even the serenest souls, nor yet by that vainglory which employs terror for the display of might — a dread but all too common use of great and lordly power. With me the sword is hidden, nay, is sheathed; I am sparing to the utmost of even the meanest blood; no man fails to find favor at my hands though be lack all else but the name of man. Sternness I keep hidden, but mercy ever ready at hand. I so hold guard over myself as though I were about to render an account to those laws which I have summoned from decay and darkness into the light of day. I have been moved to pity by the fresh youth of one, by the extreme old age of another; one I have pardoned for his high position, another for his humble state; whenever I found no excuse for pity, for my own sake I have spared.1 Today, if the immortal gods should require a reckoning from me, I am ready to give full tale of the human race.”
This pronouncement, Caesar, you may boldly make, that whatever has passed into your trust and guardianship is still kept safe, that through you the state suffers no loss, either from violence or from fraud. It is the rarest praise, hitherto denied to all other princes, that you have coveted for yourself innocence of wrong. Nor has the effort been in vain, and that unparalleled goodness of yours has not found men ungrateful or grudging in their appraisement. Thanks are rendered to you; no human being has ever been so dear to another as you are to the people of Rome — its great and lasting blessing. But it is a mighty burden that you have taken upon yourself; no one today talks of the deified Augustus or the early years of Tiberius Caesar, or seeks for any model he would have you copy other than yourself; the standard for your principate is the foretaste you have given. This would have indeed been difficult if that goodness of yours were not innate but only assumed for the moment. For no one can wear a mask long; the false quickly lapses back into its own nature; but whatever has truth for its foundation, and whatever springs, so to speak, from out the solid earth, grows by the mere passing of time into something larger and better.
Great was the hazard that the Roman people faced so long as it was uncertain what course those noble talents of yours would take; today the prayers of the state are assured, for there is no danger that you will be seized by sudden forgetfulness of yourself. Over-much prosperity, it is true, makes men greedy, and desires are never so well controlled as to cease at the point of attainment; the ascent is from great to greater, and men embrace the wildest hopes when once they have gained what they did not hope for; and yet today your subjects one and all are constrained to confess that they are happy, and, too, that nothing further can be added to their blessings, except that these may last. Many facts force them to this confession, which more than any other a man is loath to make: a security deep and abounding, and justice enthroned above all injustice; before their eyes hovers the fairest vision of a state which lacks no element of complete liberty except the license of self-destruction. Above all, however, alike to the highest and the lowest, extends the same admiration for your quality of mercy; for although of other blessings each one experiences or expects a larger or smaller measure in proportion to his lot, yet from mercy men all hope to have the same; nor is there any man so wholly satisfied with his own innocence as not to rejoice that mercy stands in sight, waiting for human errors.