The Introduction, or First Chapter, Pliny to Trajan. (2)

“YOU and I, dearest Pliny, are of one mind. Pompey’s laws are so far qualify’d by the edict of Augustus, that they who are not under one and twenty may bear magistracy, and they who have born magistracy may be senators in their respective citys: but for such as have not born magistracy, tho they might have born it, I conceive them not eligible into the senat till they be thirty years of age.”

“POWER is granted to the Bithynian citys by Pompey’s law, to adopt to themselves what citizens they please, so they be not foreners, but of the same province; by the same law it is shewn in what cases the censors may remove a man from the senat: among which nevertheless it is not provided what is to be don in case a foren citizen be a senator. Wherfore certain of the censors have thought fit to consult me, whether they ought to remove a man that is of a foren city for that cause out of the senat. Now because the law, tho it forbids the adoption of a forener, commands not that a forener for that cause should be remov d out of the senat, and I am inform’d there be foren citizens almost in every senat; so that many, not only men, but citys might suffer concussion by the restitution of the law in that part, which thro a kind of consent seems to be now grown obsolete; I conceive it necessary to have your Majesty’s resolution in the case, to which end I have sent a breviat of the law annex’d.”