32. No man was better endowed by Nature with qualities that endeared him to his subjects. He was a good mixer, winning everyone’s affections by an art that was conscious, yet unaffected. In his efforts to charm there was no trace of insincerity, only a genuine desire to cultivate friendship, by deliberated setting out to please.
33. Listening to the emperor’s conversation was a real delight. He was always ready to smile and his expression was cheerful, not merely in moments of recreation when a smiling face is normal, but even when he was obviously engaged in serious business. His favourite companions were simple persons, the type that did not stand greatly in awe of himself, and he hated to see anybody approach him with a worried look. He had the lowest opinion of these latter individuals, with their air of superiority, their preoccupation with affairs of national importance, and their anxiety to discuss these matters with himself.
Accommodated their behaviour
They must, he thought, have a mental outlook quite different from his own. Consequently, those who lived with him accommodated their behaviour to please him. If someone had serious business to put before the emperor, he would be careful not to mention it at once, but to begin the conversation with some playful remark, or mix serious and playful together, like a man offering an invalid a purgative, with a dash of something to sweeten its bitter taste.
34. The truth is, Constantine looked upon the palace as a harbour, in which he had taken refuge after much buffeting by the waves in a storm — the sufferings he had endured as an exile — and to recompense him for the past, he needed complete rest and absolute tranquility. The man who found favour with him was one with a smooth brow, a man with a tongue always ready to tell a diverting story and to utter the most favourable prophecies about the future.
35. Although he could scarcely be called an advanced student of literature, or, in any sense of the word, an orator, yet he admired men who were, and the finest speakers were invited to the imperial court from all parts of the empire, most of them very old men.
36. At that time I was in my twenty-fifth year and engaged in serious studies. My efforts were concentrated on two objects: to train my tongue by rhetoric, so as to become a fine speaker, and to refine my mind by a course of philosophy.
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