Iam totiens procedere in rostra, inascensumque illum superbiae principum locum terere, hic suscipere hic ponere magistratus, quam dignum te quamque diversum consuetudini illorum, qui pauculis diebus gestum consulatum, immo non gestum abiciebant per edictum! Hoc pro contione pro rostris, pro iure iurando, scilicet, ut primis extrema congruerent, utque hoc solo intellegerentur ipsi consules fuisse, quod alii non fuissent.
To appear on the platform so often, to frequent a place shunned by the pride of princes, there to assume and there to lay down your offices: how this conduct becomes you, and how it contrasts with the conduct of those who took up a consulship for a day or two'or, rather, failed to take it up' only to issue a proclamation that they had flung it aside! That was what took the place of the assembly, the platform and their oath, doubtless to make their consulship end as it had begun, and to provide the only indication that they had been elected at all: namely, the absence of any other consul.
final_alignments\Pliny_Younger_Panegyricus.json