But dignities make him honourable and reverend on whom they light. Have
offices that force to plant virtues and expel vices in the minds of
those who have them? But they are not wont to banish, but rather to make
wickedness splendid. So that we many times complain because most wicked
men obtain them. Whereupon Catullus called Nonius a scab or impostume
though he sat in his chair of estate.[123] Seest thou what great
ignominy dignities heap upon evil men? For their unworthiness would less
appear if they were never advanced to any honours. Could so many dangers
ever make thee think to bear office with Decoratus,[124] having
discovered him to be a very varlet and spy? For we cannot for their
honours account them worthy of respect whom we judge unworthy of the
honours themselves. But if thou seest any man endued with wisdom, canst
thou esteem him unworthy of that respect or wisdom which he hath? No,
truly. For virtue hath a proper dignity of her own, which she presently
endueth her possessors withal. Which since popular preferments cannot
do, it is manifest that they have not the beauty which is proper to true
dignity.
In which we are farther to consider that, if to be contemned of many
make men abject, dignities make the wicked to be despised the more by
laying them open to the view of the world. But the dignities go not
scot-free, for wicked men do as much for them, defiling them with their
own infection. And that thou mayst plainly see that true respect cannot
be gotten by these painted dignities, let one that hath been often
Consul go among barbarous nations; will that honour make those barbarous
people respect him? And yet, if this were natural to dignities, they
would never forsake their function in any nation whatsoever; as fire,
wheresoever it be, always remaineth hot. But because not their own
nature, but the deceitful opinion of men attributeth that to them, they
forthwith come to nothing, being brought to them who esteem them not to
be dignities.
And this for foreign nations. But do they always last among them where
they had their beginning? The Praetorship, a great dignity in time past,
is now an idle name, and an heavy burden of the Senate's fortune. If
heretofore one had care of the people's provision, he was accounted a
great man; now what is more abject than that office? For as we said
before, that which hath no proper dignity belonging unto it sometime
receiveth and sometime loseth his value at the users' discretion.
Wherefore if dignities cannot make us respected, if they be easily
defiled with the infection of the wicked, if their worth decays by
change of times, if diversities of nations make them contemptible, what
beauty have they in themselves, or can they afford to others, worth the
desiring?
[123] Cf. Catull. lii.
[124] Decoratus was quaestor _circa_ 508; cf. Cassiod. _Ep_. v. 3 and 4.