Then did I rally my spirit till it was strong again, and answered,' Does the savage bitterness of my fortune still need recounting? Does it not stand forth plainly enough of itself? Does not the very aspect of this place strike you? Is this the library which you had chosen Page 10for yourself as your sure resting-place in my house? Is this the room in which you would so often tarry with me expounding the philosophy of things human and divine? Was my condition like this, or my countenance, when I probed with your aid the secrets of nature, when you marked out with a wand the courses of the stars, when you shaped our habits and the rule of all our life by the pattern of the universe? 1 Are these the rewards we reap by yielding ourselves to you? Nay, you yourself have established this saying by the mouth of Plato, that commonwealths would be blessed if they were guided by those who made wisdom their study, or if those who guided them would make wisdom their study.2 By the mouth of that same great man did you teach that this was the binding reason why a commonwealth should be governed by philosophers, namely that the helm of government should not be left to unscrupulous or criminal citizens lest they should bring corruption and ruin upon the good citizens.3 Since, then, I had learned from you in quiet and inaction of this view, I followed it further, for I desired to practise it in public government.
You and God Himself, who has grafted you in the minds of philosophers, are my witnesses that never have I applied myself to any office of state except that I might work for the 10:1 -- Boethius means that his chief ' philosophical ' studies had been physics, astronomy, and ethics.
10:2 -- Plato, Repub.v 473.
10:3 -- Plato, Repub.vi, 488, 489.Page 11common welfare of all good men.Thence followed bitter quarrels with evil men which could not be appeased, and, for the sake of preserving justice, contempt of the enmity of those in power, for this is the result of a free and fearless conscience.How often have I withstood Conigastus 1 to his face, whenever he has attacked a weak man's fortune! How often have I turned by force Trigulla, 1 the overseer of the Emperor's household, from an unjust act that he had begun or even carried out! How many times have I put my own authority in danger by protecting those wretched people who were harried with unending false charges by the greed of barbarian Goths which ever went unpunished! Never, I say, has any man depraved me from justice to injustice.My heart has ached as bitterly as those of the sufferers when I have seen the fortunes of our subjects ruined both by the rapacity of persons and the taxes of the state.Again, in a time of severe famine, a grievous, intolerable sale by compulsion was decreed in Campania, and devastation threatened that province.Then I undertook for the sake of the common welfare a struggle against the commander of the Imperial guard; though the king was aware of it, I fought against the enforcement of the sale, and fought successfully.Paulinus was a man who had been consul:
the jackals of the court had 11:1 -- Conigastus and Trigulla were favourite officers of the Emperor, Theodoric, the Goth: they used their influence with him for the oppression of the weak.Page 12in their own hopes and desires already swallowed up his possessions, but I snatched him from their very gaping jaws.I exposed myself to the hatred of the treacherous informer Cyprian, that I might prevent Albinus, also a former consul, being overwhelmed by the penalty of a trumped-up charge.Think you that I have raised up against myself bitter and great quarrels enough? But I ought to have been safer among those whom I helped;for, from my love of justice, I laid up for myself among the courtiers no resource to which I might turn for safety.Who, further, were the informers upon whose evidence I was banished? One was Basilius: he was formerly expelled from the royal service, and was driven by debt to inform against me.Again, Opilio and Gaudentius had been condemned to exile by the king for many unjust acts and crimes: this decree they would not obey, and they sought sanctuary in sacred buildings, but when the king was aware of it, he declared that if they departed not from Ravenna before a certain day, they should be driven forth branded upon their foreheads.What could be more stringent than this? Yet upon that very day information against me was laid by these same men and accepted.Why so? Did my character deserve this treatment?
Or did my prearranged condemnation give credit and justification to my accusers? Did Fortune feel no shame for this? If not for innocence calumniated, at any rate for the baseness of the calumniators? Page 13'Would you learn the sum of the charges against me? It was said that "I had desired the safety of the Senate." You would learn in what way.I was charged with "having hindered an informer from producing papers by which the Senate could be accused of treason." What think you, my mistress? Shall I deny it lest it shame you? Nay, I did desire the safety of the Senate, nor shall ever cease to desire it.Shall I confess it? Then there would have been no need to hinder an informer.Shall I call it a crime to have wished for the safety of that order? By its own decrees concerning myself it has established that this is a crime.Though want of foresight often deceives itself, it cannot alter the merits of facts, and, in obedience to the Senate's command, I cannot think it right to hide the truth or to assent to falsehood.
'However, I leave it to your judgment and that of philosophers to decide how the justice of this may be; but I have committed to writing for history the true course of events, that posterity may not be ignorant thereof.I think it unnecessary to speak of the forged letters through which I am accused of " hoping for the freedom of Rome." Their falsity would have been apparent if I had been free to question the evidence of the informers themselves, for their confessions have much force in all such business.
