The Introduction, or First Chapter, Pliny to Trajan.

“IT is provided by Pompey’s laws for the Bithynians, that no man under thirty years of age be capable of magistracy, or of the senat: by the same it is also establish’d, that they who have born magistracy may be senators. Now because by a latter edict of Augustus, the lesser magistracys may be born by such as are above one and twenty; there remains with me these doubts, whether he that being under thirty, has born magistracy, may be elected by the censors into the senat; and if he may, whether of those also that have not born magistracy, a man being above one and twenty, seeing at that age he may bear magistracy, may not by the same interpretation be elected into the senat, tho he has not born it: which is here practis’d and pretended to be necessary, because it is somwhat better, they say, that the senat be fill’d with the children of good familys, than with the lower sort. My opinion being ask’d upon these points by the new censors, I thought such as being under thirty have born magistracy, both by Pompey’s laws, and the edict of Augustus, to be capable of the senat; seeing the edict allows a man under thirty to bear magistracy, and the law, a man that has born magistracy, to be a senator. But as to those that have not born magistracy, tho at the age in which they may bear it, I demur till I may understand your Majesty’s pleasure, to whom I have sent the heads both of the law and of the edict.”