Address to the Emperor Theodosius

People commonly say that the emperors of the past were each eager about some useful pursuit or other. Those who loved fine things cared for the royal purple, the crown, and the like. Those devoted to letters composed some tale or treatise that could charm its readers. Those trained in war tried to send a weapon straight to its mark, to bring down wild beasts, to hurl the spear, or to leap onto a horse. Everyone who devoted himself to a craft that pleased the rulers presented himself at the palace. One brings a precious stone that is hard to polish. Another undertakes to make a color more brilliant than the purple robe. One dedicates a poem or a treatise. Another brings in some skillful and unusual style of armor.

It is thought the greatest of things, and a kingly one, for the ruler of the whole people to have at least one of the everyday virtues. But no one has set such a high value on piety, which is, after all, the true ornament of the empire. You, however, most powerful emperor Theodosius, have, in a word, by God’s help, cultivated every virtue. You are clothed in the purple robe and the crown, a sign of your rank to those who look on you. But within you always wear the true ornament of sovereignty: piety and kindness toward all. That is why poets and writers, most of your officials, and the rest of your subjects too, busy themselves on every occasion with you and your deeds. When you preside over contests and judge speeches, no artful sound or showy form robs you of your accuracy. You award the prize honestly, watching whether the style suits the purpose of the composition, and the same with the choice of words, the divisions, the order, the unity, the phrasing, the construction, the arguments, the thought, and the narrative. You reward the speakers with your favorable verdict and your applause, and also with golden images, the setting up of statues, gifts, and every kind of honor. [a]

You show the speakers greater personal favor than the ancient Cretans showed the much-celebrated Homer; or the Aleuadae showed Simonides; or Dionysius, the sole ruler of Sicily, showed Plato, the companion of Socrates; or Philip of Macedon showed Theopompus the historian; or the emperor Severus showed Oppian, who told in verse of the kinds of fish, their nature, and how they are caught. After the Cretans rewarded Homer with a thousand nummi, they inscribed the amount of the gift on a public column, as if to boast of their great generosity. The Aleuadae, Dionysius, and Philip were no more restrained than the Cretans, who boasted of their modest and philosophical government. They quickly imitated the Cretans’ column, so as not to be outdone in their giving. But when Severus gave Oppian a gift of gold for every line of his modest poem, he so astonished everyone with his generosity that Oppian’s poems are popularly called “golden words” to this day. Such were the gifts of the lovers of learning and of speeches in former times.

But you, Emperor, surpass every one of the ancients in your generosity to letters, and it seems to me that you do this with good reason. For while you strive to conquer everything by your virtues, you also manage your own affairs successfully, thanks to your thorough knowledge of the history of those ancient affairs that the Greeks and Romans directed so prosperously. Report has it that by day you take military and bodily exercise and arrange the affairs of state: you give judicial decisions, you note down what is needed, and you look into what ought to be done, both in public and in private. At night, it is said, you busy yourself with books. They say that for this study you use a lamp that feeds its oil into the wick by itself, through some kind of mechanism. In this way none of the palace servants has to be burdened with your labors and do violence to nature by fighting off sleep. So you are kind and gentle both to those near you and to everyone, since you imitate the heavenly King, who is your pattern. For he loves to send rain and to make the sun rise on the righteous and the unrighteous, and to give other blessings without grudging.

As one would expect, I also hear that through your wide learning you know the nature of stones, the powers of roots, and the strength of remedies no less than Solomon, the wisest son of David. And you surpass him in virtue. For Solomon became the slave of his pleasures and did not keep to the end that piety which had been the source of his prosperity and his wisdom. But you, most powerful Emperor, because you set your reason against frivolity to hold it in check, are sole ruler not only of men but also of the passions of soul and body, as one would naturally suppose. This too ought to be mentioned. I understand that you conquer the craving for every kind of food and drink. Neither the sweeter figs, to speak like the poets, nor any other fruit in its season can take you prisoner, beyond the little that you touch and taste after you have given thanks to the Maker of all things. By your daily exercise you are used to overcoming thirst, stifling heat, and cold, so that self-control seems to be second nature to you.

Recently, as is well known, you were eager to visit the city of Heraclea in Pontus and to restore it, since time had brought it to ruin. You traveled in the summer season by way of Bithynia. Around midday, when the sun was blazing, one of your bodyguards saw you hot, drenched in sweat and covered with clouds of dust. Wishing to do you a favor, he offered you, before you could ask, a bowl that flashed brilliantly in the sun’s rays. He poured some sweet drink into it and added cold water. You, most powerful Emperor, took it and praised the man for his goodwill, and you made it plain that you would soon reward his well-done deed with royal generosity. All the soldiers were gaping in wonder at the bowl and counting blessed the man who would get to drink. But you, noble Emperor, handed the drink back to him and told him to use it however he liked. So it seems to me that your virtue surpassed that of Alexander, the son of Philip. His admirers tell of him that while he and the Macedonians were crossing a waterless region, an anxious soldier found water, drew some, and offered it to Alexander. He would not drink it, but poured it out.

In a word, then, it is fitting to call you, in Homer’s phrase, more kingly than the kings who came before you. For we have heard of some who achieved nothing worth admiring, and of others who adorned their reigns with barely one or two deeds. But you, most powerful Emperor, have gathered together all the virtues. You have excelled everyone in piety, kindness, courage, prudence, justice, generosity, and a greatness of mind that befits royal dignity. Every age will boast of your rule as the only one, beyond all governments that ever existed, unstained and pure of murder. You teach your subjects to pursue serious things with pleasure, so that they show zeal for you and for public affairs, with goodwill and respect.

For all these reasons it has seemed necessary to me, as a writer of church history, to address myself to you. To whom could I do this more fittingly? I am about to tell of the virtue of many devoted men and of the events of the catholic church, and her struggles with so many enemies bring me to your threshold and to that of your fathers. Come, then, you who know all things and possess every virtue, above all that piety which the divine Word says is the beginning of wisdom. Receive this writing from me. Put its facts in order and purify it by your labors, out of your exact knowledge, whether by adding or by cutting out. For whatever course pleases you will be wholly to the readers’ advantage and will make the work shine, and no one will lay a hand on it after you have approved it.

My history begins with the third consulship of the Caesars Crispus and Constantine, and reaches to your seventeenth consulship. I thought it right to divide the whole work into nine parts. The first and second books will cover the affairs of the church under Constantine. The third and fourth will cover those under his sons. The fifth and sixth will cover those under Julian, the cousin of the sons of the great Constantine, and under Jovian, and then under Valentinian and Valens. The seventh and eighth books, most powerful Emperor, will lay open the affairs under the brothers Gratian and Valentinian, up to the proclamation of Theodosius, your divine grandfather, and on to the time when your celebrated father Arcadius, together with your uncle, the most pious and godly Honorius, received their father’s government and shared in ruling the Roman world. The ninth book I have devoted to your Christ-loving and most innocent majesty. May God always keep it in unbroken goodwill, triumphing greatly over its enemies, with all things under your feet, and handing on the holy empire to your sons’ sons with the approval of Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father, with the Holy Spirit, forever. Amen.