Res Gestae

I rejoice, brave defenders of our provinces, and I maintain and always shall maintain that it is your services that have bestowed on me, rather than another, the rule of the Roman world, which I neither hoped for nor desired.

The task, then, which was placed in your hands before the ruler of the empire was chosen you carried out expediently and gloriously, by raising to the pinnacle of honours one whom from his earliest youth until the present prime of life you know by experience to have lived

That to meet all chances necessity demands the choice of a colleague with equal powers, at the demands of much varied reasoning I neither doubt nor dispute, since I myself also, as a man, fear masses of cares and varied changes of circumstances. But with all our strength we must strive for harmony, through which even the weakest states grow strong; and this will easily be attained, if your calmness combined with fairness willingly allows me what belongs to my position.

For Fortune (I hope) which aids good purposes, so far as I can accomplish this and effect it, will give me after careful search a man of sober character.[*](As colleague in the imperial power.) For as the philosophers teach us, not only in royal power, where the greatest and most numerous dangers are found, but also in the relations of private and everyday life, a stranger ought to be admitted to friendship by a prudent man only after he has first tested him; not tested after he has been admitted to friendship.

This I promise you with the hope of a happier future. Do you, while the winter rest allows, retain your firmness and loyalty of conduct and refresh your strength of spirit and body: then be sure that you will receive without delay what is your due[*](The emperors chosen by the soldiers, on entrance into power often gave them gifts (donativa). According to Dio, this was repeated every fifth and tenth year, and each) because of your imperial nomination of myself.

Having finished his address, to which his unexpected assumption of authority had given greater weight, the emperor gained the favour of the soldier received five aurei. The custom was finally abolished by Justinian.