Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow LIV: To the Emperor Trajan - Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero

Return to Title Page for Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History

LIV: To the Emperor Trajan - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero [1909]

Edition used:

Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero: with his Treatises on Friendship and Old Age, trans. E.S. Shuckburgh. And Letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, trans. William Melmoth, revised by F.C.T. Bosanquet (New York: P.F. Collier, 1909).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


LIV

To the Emperor Trajan

I beg, Sir, you would settle a doubt I have concerning your diplomas;1 whether you think proper that those diplomas the dates of which are expired shall continue in force, and for how long? For I am apprehensive I may, through ignorance, either confirm such of these instruments as are illegal or prevent the effect of those which are necessary.

[1 ]A diploma is properly a grant of certain privileges either to particular places or persons. It signifies also grants of other kinds; and it sometimes means post-warrants, as, perhaps, it does in this place. M.