After the battle of Actium Augustus set up in the senate house an altar to the goddess Victory, at which the senators customarily swore oaths. Constantius II removed the altar and Julian restored it. Gratian removed it and confiscated the revenues of the priesthoods and abolished their privileges. The senator Symmachus had been sent by the senate to request the restoration of the altar and privileges but was prevented from receiving an audience. In 383, the senate tried again with petition to the new emperor, Valentinian II. (By the principle of the collegiality of the emperors it is addressed to them all, but only Valentinian is intended as the recipient.). When Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, heard about the new petition, he sent the Emperor Valentinian a request for a copy in order to respond to it, and then issued a formal response. Your assignment for the second paper is to pretend you are Ambrose and write a 3- to 5-page retort to the text of Symmachus given below. Be sure to answer in a way that would be appropriate for an irascible Christian bishop of the fourth century.
NB Do NOT read Ambrose's actual response or make any use of it! The point is to come up with your own argument, not to paraphrase Ambrose's.
Note: The square brackets indicate notes given to you to explain references in the text. This information is not part of the original text.
(2) It is, therefore, a double duty that I am performing, in that I am both relaying the official proceedings as your praefect and commending them as the representative of the citizens. There is no disagreement in wishes in this instance, because people have now ceased to believe that they gain advantage through the favor of the Imperial retinue if there is a disagreement. To be loved, cultivated and cherished is something greater than Imperial sway. Who could bear that private quarrels stood in the way of the public good! The senate is justified in attacking those who set their own power before the emperor's reputation. Our labor, moreover, keeps watch on behalf of your clemency. For what benefits more than does the glory of the age from our protecting the established practices of our ancestors, the fated rights of our fatherland? This glory is greater at the moment when you understand that you are allowed to do nothing in violation of the custom of our forebears. We are, therefore, seeking restitution of the religious obligations that were long beneficial to the commonwealth. Certainly, it is possible to count emperors of both sects and of each views. A recent one[2] cultivated the ceremonies of their ancestors, and a later one[3] did not abolish them. If the religion of the ancient emperors does not make precedent, then the connivance of the most recent ones[4] should.
(3) Who is so friendly with the barbarians that he does need the altar of Victory? We are taking precautions for the future and avoiding omens suggesting such things. Let the honor that has been denied to the divinity at least be returned to the name! Your long-term prosperity owes many debts to Victory and will have more. Let those to whom this power has been of no benefit turn her away. As for you, do not you abandon the patronage that has been friendly to your triumphs. That power is the object of everyone's prayers. Let no one deny that she is to be cultivated when they admit that she is to be hoped for.
(4) If it were not right to avoid this omen, it would at least be fitting to leave alone the adornments of the senate house. Grant, I beg you, that as old men we may leave to posterity what we received as children. The love of custom is great, and it was just that the act of the Deified Constantius was not long upheld. You should avoid all precedents that you have learned were later abolished. We are looking after the longstanding of your reputation and good name, so that posterity will not find something to be corrected.
(5) Where will we swear allegiance to you and your laws? With what religious scruple will the false mind be scared away from lying as witnesses? Of course, everything is filled with God and there is no refuge for the perjurers, but also being prompted by the presence of the divinity is the greatest means of instilling a fear of wrong-doing. That altar maintains everyone's harmony, admonishes individuals to the good faith, and nothing enhances the authority of our pronouncements as senators more than the fact that the senate decides everything as if under oath. An unsanctified chamber will therefore be open to perjury, and will my renowned emperors, who are protected by the public oath, judge this commendable?
(6) But it is said that the Deified Constantius did the same thing. Let us instead imitate the other acts of that emperor, who would never have undertaken such a thing if someone else had gone astray before him. For the successor is corrected by the lapse of the predecessor and improvement derives from the criticism directed at some who went before. It was religiously right for that ancestor of your Clemency not made precaution against rancor in a matter that was as yet novel. Is it possible for the same defense to be appropriate for you too if we are to imitate what we are aware to have been met with disapproval? Let your enduring repute accept other deeds of Constantius that it would be more justified in implementing. He took nothing away from the privileges of the Vestal Virgins, he filled the priesthoods with noblemen. He did not refuse the cost of the Roman ceremonies, and after following the cheerful senate through all the roads of the eternal city he beheld the shrines with peaceful expression, he read the names of the gods inscribed on the pediments, he asked about the origins of the temples, he was marveled at the men who had built them, and though he himself followed other ceremonies, he preserved these ones by his command. For each has his own custom, his own rite. The divine mind has distributed various cults among the cities as guards. Guardian spirits are divided by fate among nations the way that souls are among people at birth.
(7) In addition there is the utility that most of all proves the existence of the gods to a human. While all reasoning is obscure, from what is it more proper to derive knowledge of the divinities than from the historical records of successful affairs? Now if the passage of much time gives authority to religious duties, then trust should be put in so many generations and we should follow our ancestors, who found good fortune in following theirs.
(8) Let us now imagine that Rome is present, pleading with us in the following words. "Best of emperors, fathers of the fatherland, have reverence for my years, to which pious ritual has brought me! I will practice my ancestral ceremonies, for I do not regret them! I will live by my custom, because I am free! This worship subjected the world to my laws, these rites repelled Hannibal from the walls and the Gauls from the Capitol[5]. Is then the reason for my having been saved that I should be rebuked in my old age? I will see what it is that is thought worthy of being established. It is, however, a late insult to chastise the aged."
(9) We are, therefore, requesting peace for the ancestral gods, the native gods. It is fair that whatever everyone practices should be considered a single notion. We look at the the same stars, the heaven is held common, the same world surrounds us all. What difference does it make with what sort of wisdom each person seeks the truth? So great a secret cannot be reached by only one path. But this is how the idle argue. What we are now offering is not contentions but entreaties. How great a benefit has accrued to you sacred treasury through removing the prerogative of the Vestals? Should what the cheapest emperors granted be denied under the most generous? Their only honor is in that payment, as it were, for their chastity. It considered a mark of distinction to be exempt from obligations, in the same way that sacred bands adorn their heads. They need some mere title of tax-free status since they have been protected from actual payment by poverty. Therefore, those who take something away from their property increase their praise, since the virginity dedicated to the public good grows in merit as it lacks in reward. Let your sacred treasury be free from such gains! Let the purse of good emperors be increased not through losses incurred by the priests but through spoils taken from the enemy! Does that feeble profit outweigh the rancor? Yet greed is not compatible with your character. All the more wretched are those whose ancient subsidies have been taken away. For under emperors who refrain from others' property because they oppose avarice, the loss results only in injury to the one who loses since the desire of the remover is not the motive. The treasure also keeps land left by the will of the dying to the virgins and the servants of the gods. I beg you, priests of justice, that the right of private inheritance be returned to the rites of your city. Let people dictate their wills confidently and know that under emperors who are not greedy what they have written is valid. Let the human race, being blessed in this way, love you. The precedent of this situation has begun to disturb the dying. Do not, then, Roman religious scruples have a share in Roman rights? What name will be given to the appropriation of resources which no law, no misfortune has rendered escheatable[6]? Freedmen receive legacies, just rewards in wills are not denied to slaves; will only the noble virgins and the servants of the fated rites be excluded from the means of security acquired by inheritance? What good is there in dedicating a body in chastity to the public well being, to support the eternal duration of the empire with heavenly protection, to apply favorable virtues to your arms and your eagles[7], to make effective vows on behalf of everyone and not to have the same right as everyone else? Is this how a service that is devoted to mankind is better? We harm the commonwealth, which never benefits from being ungrateful.
(10) Let no one imagine that I am defending the case of religious duties alone. From such misdeeds have arisen all the defeats of the Roman race. The law of our ancestors had honored the Vestal Virgins and the attendants of the gods with a moderate livelihood and just privileges. This gift remained intact until the time of the degenerate money changers who diverted the sacred sustenance of chastity to pay lowly porters.[8] This deed was followed by a public famine and a feeble harvest cheated the hopes of all the provinces. This was not the fault of the earth, we cannot attribute anything to the winds, no disease blighted the crops, no weed killed the grain. Sacrilege shriveled the year. For it was necessary that there should be a loss for everyone when the religious obligations were rejected. Certainly if there is some precedent for this misfortune, we should ascribe so great a famine to the vicissitudes of the years, but it is a serious cause that brought about this sterility. Life is being prolonged by trees of the forests, and once more the poor of the countryside have in their poverty rushed to the trees of Dodona.[9] What comparable disaster was endured by the provinces when the attendants of the religious duties were feed by public honor? On what occasion was the oak shaken for general use? On what occasion were the roots of plants dug up? On what occasion was the crop failure of one region abandoned by the fecundity of another, when grain was supplied to the People and Virgins in common? For the livelihood of the priests used to commend the produce of the earth and was a cure rather than a gift. Or is there any doubt that what the poverty of everyone now has confiscated was always given in the past on behalf of the abundance of everyone?
(11) Someone will say that public expense has been denied to the expenses of someone else's religion. Let good emperors refrain from the opinion that what was once granted from the common fund to certain people is still in the control of the treasury. For since the commonwealth consists of individuals, what is alienated by it becomes once more the property of the individuals. You rule everything but preserve for each his possessions, and with you justice has more influence than does the freedom to do as you please. Certainly consult your munificence as to whether it wishes those things that you have transferred to others to be still considered public property. Once benefits have been conferred in the honor of the city they cease to belong to those who grant them, and what was previously the favor of an emperor becomes through custom and the passage of time an entitlement. Thus, if someone claims that you conspire with those who make the grant if you do not experience the rancor felt against those who revoke it, he is trying to instill in your divine minds a vain fear. May your clemency be favored by the secret supports of all religions and especially those supports that once helped your ancestors. May they defend you and be cultivated by you. We ask for the arrangement of religious practices that preserved the rule of the deified parent[10] of your divinity, and that provided legitimate heirs for that blessed emperor. Let that deified elder view from the starry citadel the tears of the priests and think that he has been blamed when the custom that he himself willingly preserved has been violated. Present also for your deified brother[11] the correction of someone else's plan. Cover over the deed that he did not know had displeased the senate. For it is agreed that the embassy[12]> was kept out to prevent the public judgment from reaching him. It is on behalf of the reputation of the earlier period that you should not hesitate to abolish what must be viewed as not having been an act of that emperor.