Letter 10008: Your silence has been long enough that I write to break it from my end; the alternative is that we lose the habit...

Of all the benefits which a more favorable fortune bestows upon its subjects, the times are fixed; only the laws, which proceed toward the common good, never suffer their setting. Therefore the venerable order [the Senate] gives thanks for your divine ordinances, even in the name of posterity, to whom a reformed commonwealth will be handed down. For when a shameful ostentation had buried the senatorial offices beneath grievous outlays, you have restored to our morals and to our expenditures their former soundness, lest either a meager production should disgrace colleagues unequal in their means, or rash extravagance should sink, through a sense of shame, those who had attempted things beyond their strength. By the salutary effect of the same address, moreover, the old form of delivering opinions has been restored, so that the foremost place in voting should be granted to each man not by the reckoning of his expenditures but by the good fortune of his honors, and so that the assent of the rest should not follow, even against its will, the proposal which the wealthier man had voted before all the others. We believe, therefore, that with these abuses removed the virtues have returned to their own kingdom: in the public shows thrift will be observed, in the Senate due order, nor will opulence make a display of itself, opulence that is always feeble for good men in such times. It remains that the law august should confirm, once the senatorial decree is known, those matters which Your Serenity has bequeathed to the Fathers for deliberation. For it has been decreed, with no one dissenting, what limit of assessments should be applied to the moderation of productions to be undertaken once or several times; what tempering of expenses befits a gladiatorial show and what befits the theatrical games; what measure of liberty the disbursement of a man present deserves to have; what penalty the contumacy of those absent ought to undergo. When Your venerable Eternity entrusted these matters to be determined by the Senate, you commanded that they be reported back to yourselves at once, so that what has been resolved by all might be made firm for everyone by an immortal law. We have obeyed your commands; we await the oracle [the imperial response] by which you may salutarily confirm the decrees of the Fathers, as is customary to your divinity, with a threat added, in case any intriguing should at some time corrupt these or those provisions which you have sanctioned by your heavenly counsel for the dignity of the order. Theodosian Code XV.9.1, given on the eighth day before the Kalends of August [25 July] at Heraclea, in the consulship of Richomeres and Clearchus [AD 384].

Omnium beneficiorum, quae tribuit potior fortuna subiectis, certa sunt tempora, domini imperatores, solae leges, quae in bonum commnneprocedunt, numquam patiuntur occasum. agit igitur divinis sanctionibus vestris gratias ordo reverendus etiam nomine posterorum, qnibus res publica emendata tradetur. nam cum foeda iactatio senatorias functiones gravibus inpendiis obruisset, et moribus et sumptibus nostris sanitatem veterem reddidistis, ne aut inpares facultate collegas tenuis decoloraret editio aut per verecundiam viribus maiora conatos effusio inconsulta demergeret. eiusdem praeterea orationis salubritate vetus dicendarum sententiarum forma reparata est, ne snmmum cuique decemendi locum non ratio munerum sed honorum fortuna praestaret atque id assensio ceterorum vel invita sequeretur, quod ante onmes felicior censuisset. credimns igitur his remotis ad regnum suum redisse virtutes: in editionibns parsimonia, in senatu ordo retinebitur, nec se ostentabit opulentia semper bonis infirma temporibus. superest ut ea, quae serenitas vestra patribus deliberanda legavit , cognito senatus consulto lex augusta confirmet. nullo enim dissentiente decretum est, quis modus censuum semel aut saepius fungendis mediocritas editionibus adplicetur, quae gladiatorio muneri et quae scaenicis ludis sumptuum temperamenta conveniant, quid libertatis habere mereatur praesentis expensio, quid damni absentium contumacia debeat experiri. haec aetemitas vestra venerabilis cum senatni statuenda mandaret, referri ad se protinus imperavit, ut pladta cunctis inmortali lege solidentur. iussis paruimus; expectamus oraculum, quo salutariter, ut vestro numini familiare est, patrum decreta firmetis, adiecta comminatione , si ullus aliquando ambitus haec vel illa cormperit, quae consilio caelesti pro ordinis dignitate sanxistis. C. Tbeod. XV 9, 1 dat. viu kal. Aug. Heracleae, Richomere et Clearcho coss.