The Letters of Cassiodorus Part 48

'We shall now again have baths that we may look upon with pleasure; water which will cleanse, not stain; water after using which we shall not require to wash ourselves again; drinking-water such that the mere sight of it will not take away all our appet.i.te for food[409].'

[Footnote 409: The scarcity of water at Ravenna was proverbial.]

39. KING THEODORIC TO AMPELIUS AND LIVERIA[410].

[Footnote 410: Cf. the somewhat similar letter to Severinus, Special Commissioner for Suavia (v. 14).]

[Sidenote: Sundry abuses in the administration of the Spanish government to be rectified.]

'That alone is the true life of men which is controlled by the reign of law.

'We regret to hear that through the capricious extortions of our revenue-officers anarchy is practically prevailing in Spain. The public registers (polyptycha), not the whim of the collector, ought to measure the liability of the Provincial.

'We therefore send your Sublimity to Spain in order to remedy these disorders.

'(1) Murder must be put down with a strong hand; but the sharper the punishment is made the more rigid we ought to be in requiring proof of the crime[411].

[Footnote 411: 'Homicidii scelus legum jubemus auctoritate resecari: sed quantum vehementior poena est tanto ejus rei debet inquisitio plus haberi: ne amore vindictae innocentes videantur vitae pericula sustinere.']

'(2) The collectors of the land-tax (a.s.sis publicus) are accused of using false weights [in collecting the quotas of produce from the Provincials]. This must cease, and they must use none but the standard weights kept by our Chamberlain[412].

[Footnote 412: 'Libra cubiculi nostri.']

'(3) The farmers[413] of our Royal domain must pay the rent imposed on them, otherwise they will get to look on the farms as their own property; but certain salaries may be paid them for their trouble, as you shall think fit[414]. [Dahn suggests that the salary was to reimburse them for their labours as a kind of local police, but is not himself satisfied with this explanation.]

[Footnote 413: 'Conductores domus Regiae.']

[Footnote 414: 'Et ne cuiquam labor suus videatur ingratus, salaria eis pro qualitate locatae rei, vestra volumus aequitate const.i.tui.']

'(4) Import duties[415] are to be regularly collected and honestly paid over.

[Footnote 415: 'Transmarinorum canon.']

'(5) The officers of the mint are not to make their private gains out of the coinage.'

(6) An obscure sentence as to the 'Canon telonei' [from the Greek [Greek: telones], a tax-gatherer. Garet reads 'Tolonei,' which is probably an error].

(7) The same as to the _Actus Laeti_, whose conscience is a.s.sailed by the grossest imputations. [Laetus is perhaps the name of an official.]

'(8) Those concerned in _furtivae actiones_, and their accomplices, are to disgorge the property thus acquired.

'(9) Those who have received _praebendae_ [apparently official allowances charged on the Province] are, with detestable injustice, claiming them _both_ in money and in kind. This must be put a stop to: of course the one mode of payment is meant to be alternative to the other.

'(10) The Exactores (Collectors) are said to be extorting from the Provincials more than they pay into our chamber (_cubiculum_). Let this be carefully examined into, and let the payment exacted be the same that was fixed in the times of Alaric and Euric.

'(11) The abuse of claiming extortions (_paraveredi_) by those who have a right to use the public posts must be repressed.

'(12) The defence of the Provincials by the _Villici_ is so costly, and seems to be so unpopular, that we remove it altogether.' [For this _tuitio villici_, see Dahn iii. 131; but he is not able to throw much light on the nature of the office of the _Villicus_.]

'(13) Degrading services (servitia famulatus) are not to be claimed of our free-born Goths, although they may be residents in cities[416].'

[Footnote 416: Cf. the 30th letter of this book.]

[This very long letter is one of great importance, but also of great difficulty.]

40. KING THEODORIC TO CYPRIAN, COUNT OF THE SACRED LARGESSES.

[This Cyprian is the accuser of Albinus and Boethius.]

41. KING THEODORIC TO THE SENATE OF THE CITY OF ROME.

[On Cyprian's appointment to the above office, 524.]

[Sidenote: Promotion of Cyprian to the Comitiva Sacrarum Largitionum.]

The usual pair of letters setting forth the merits of the new official. The Senate is congratulated on the fact that the King never presents to a place in that body a mere tyro in official life, but always himself first tests the servants of the State, and rewards with a place in the Senate only those who have shown themselves worthy of it.

Cyprian is the son of a man of merit, Opilio, who in the times of the State's ill-fortune was chosen to a place in the royal household[417].

He was not able, owing to the wretchedness of the times, to do much for his son. The difference between the fortunes of father and son is the measure of the happy change introduced by the rule of Theodoric.

[Footnote 417: 'Vir quidem abjectis temporibus ad excubias tamen Palatinas electus.' The time of Odovacar's government is here alluded to (see viii. 17). An Opilio, probably father of the one here mentioned, was Consul under Valentinian III in 453.]

In some subordinate capacity in the King's final Court of Appeal (probably as _Referendarius_[418]) Cyprian has. .h.i.therto had the duty of stating the cases of the hostile litigants. He has shown wonderful dexterity in suddenly stating the same case from the two opposite points of view[419], and this so as to satisfy even the requirements of the litigants themselves.

[Footnote 418: Anonymus Valesii says: 'Cypria.n.u.s, qui tunc Referendarius erat postea Comes Sacrarum et Magister,' -- 85.]

[Footnote 419: 'Nam c.u.m oratoribus sit propositum diu tractata unius partis vota dicere, tibi semper necesse fuit repentinum negotium utroque latere declarare.']

Often the King has transacted business in his rides which used of old to be brought before a formal Consistory. He has mounted his horse, when weary with the cares of the Republic, to renew his vigour by exercise and change of scene. In these rides he has been accompanied by Cyprian, who has in such a lively manner stated the cases which had come up on appeal, that an otherwise tedious business was turned into a pleasure. Even when the King was most moved to wrath by what seemed to him a thoroughly bad cause, he still appreciated the charm of the Advocate's style in setting it before him. Thus has Cyprian had that most useful of all trainings, action, not books.

Thus prepared he was sent on an emba.s.sy to the East, a commission which he discharged with conspicuous ability. Versed in three languages (Greek, Roman, Gothic?), he found that Greece had nothing to show him that was new; and as for subtlety, he was a match for the keenest of the Greeks. The Emperor's presence had nothing in it to make him hesitating or confused. Why should it, since he had seen and pleaded before Theodoric[420]?

[Footnote 420: 'Talibus igitur inst.i.tutis edoctus, Eoae sumpsisti legationis officium, missus ad summae quidem peritiae viros: sed nulla inter eos confusus es trepidatione _quia nihil tibi post nos potuit esse mirabile_. Instructus enim trifariis linguis, non tibi Graecia quod novum ostentaret invenit; nec ipsa qua nimium praevalet, te transcendit argutia.']

In addition to all these other gifts he possesses _faith_, that anchor of the soul amidst the waves of a stormy world.

He is therefore called upon to a.s.sume at the third Indiction [524-525]

the office of Count of the Sacred Largesses, and exhorted to bear himself therein worthily of his parentage and his past career, that the King may afterwards promote him to yet higher honour.

[For further remarks on this letter--a very important one, as bearing on the trial of Boethius--see viii. 16. The third Indiction might mean either 509-510 or 524-525; but the statement of 'Anomymus Valesii,'

that Cyprian was still only Referendarius at the time of his accusation of Albinus, warrants us in fixing on the later date. This makes the encomiums conferred in this letter more significant, since they must have been bestowed _after_ the delation against Albinus and Boethius. Probably it was during Cyprian's emba.s.sy to Constantinople (described in this letter) that he discovered these intrigues of the Senators with the Byzantine Court, which he denounced on his return.]

42. KING THEODORIC TO MAXIMUS, VIR ILl.u.s.tRIS, CONSUL.

[Flavius Anicius Maximus was Consul A.D. 523.]