Scilicet externae superbiae sueto, non inerat notitia nostri (perhaps 'nostrae'); apud quos vis Imperii valet, inania transmittuntur. —Tacitus, The Annals, xv. 31.
The gradation from the style of freedom and simplicity to that of form and servitude may be traced in the Epistles of Cicero, of Pliny, and of Symmachus.