A few fragmentary letters are all that remain of the inscription bordering the lower frame of the 'Resurrection' by Piero della Francesca in Sansepolcro. The interpretation advanced in the present article underlines the public importance of the work due to its emblematic function. This would be the quotation by Seneca of an assertion the latter attributes to Cato, contained in Letter 71, one of the most celebrated of those addressed to Lucilius. The subject is the transience of power, a concept recurring frequently in the inauguration ceremonies of political authorities and one that was anything but extraneous to republican culture from the Middle Ages onward.