The Letters of Cassiodorus Part 74

[Footnote 692: 1,200.]

[It is clear that this letter refers to an office greatly coveted, and one in which there was a possibility of making great gains, but also one in which, owing to the regulation of prices by the government, there might be temporary losses; to guard against which it was considered reasonable that the holder should be guaranteed in his office for five years.

The office is the supply of the staple articles of food to the King's household at Rome and Ravenna, and to the garrisons probably of Pavia and Piacenza and the neighbouring country. Did this right carry with it an absolute monopoly as far as the other inhabitants of those places are concerned? This seems probable; but I do not know that we can positively state it.

The term used, 'Arcarii,' is applied in the Theodosian Code (xii. 6, 14) to the bailiffs by whom the rents on the Imperial domain were collected. Here it has manifestly altered its meaning.]

29. KING THEODAHAD TO COUNT WINUSIAD.

[Sidenote: An old soldier receives furlough for a visit to the baths of Bormio.]

'Your n.o.ble birth and tried fidelity induced us to commit to you the government of the City of Ticinum, which you had defended in war: but now, being deluged with a sudden inundation of muddy gout[693], you ask leave to resort to the waters of Bormio, which by their drying influences are of healing power for this malady.

[Footnote 693: 'Limosae podagrae subita inundatione complutus.']

'We permit, nay earnestly encourage, you to undertake this journey; for we cannot bear that one of our warriors should fall a victim to the tyranny of this cruel disease, which, like the Barbarians, when it has once claimed by force hospitality in the owner's body, ever after defends its right thereto by cruelty. It seeks out all the hollow places of the system, makes stones out of its moisture, and deposits them there, destroying all the beautiful arrangements of Nature for free and easy movement. It loosens what ought to be tight, it contracts the nerves, and so shortens the limbs that a tall man finds all the comeliness of his stature taken from him while he is still unmutilated. It is in truth a living death; and when the excruciating torment is gone, it leaves an almost worse legacy behind it--inability to move. Even debtors in the torture chamber have the weights sometimes removed from their feet; but this cruel malady, when it has once taken hold of a man, seems never to relinquish possession. A disease of this kind, bringing with it weakness and helplessness, is especially terrible to a warrior, who after overcoming the foes that came against him in battle, finds himself thus struck down by an enemy within.

'Go then, in Heaven's name, to the healing springs. We cannot bear the thought that you the warrior should be carried on men's shoulders, instead of bestriding your war-horse. We have painted all these evils in somewhat exaggerated style in order to stir you up to seek an early cure.

'Use then these waters, soothing to the taste, and in the hot bath able to dry up the gouty humours. G.o.d has given us this ally wherewith to overcome that enemy of the human race; and under its double influence, within and without, the malady, which ten years of regimen and endless medicines cannot lessen, is put to flight by remedies which are in themselves delightful.

'May G.o.d grant that this far-famed place may restore your body to health[694].'

[Footnote 694: The nature-heated springs of Bormio are still resorted to; and some pedestrian travellers, who have crossed the Stelvio from Trafoi, have a grateful remembrance of their soothing waters.]

30. KING THEODAHAD TO HONORIUS, PRAEFECT OF THE CITY.

[Sidenote: The elephants in the Via Sacra.]

'We regret to learn from your report that the brazen elephants placed in the Via Sacra[695] (so called from the many superst.i.tions to which it was consecrated of old) are falling into ruins.

[Footnote 695: I have not found any other mention of these brazen elephants. Nardini (Roma Antica i. 295) cites this pa.s.sage, and ill.u.s.trates it by quotations from Suetonius, Pliny, and the Historia Augusta, showing that it was the custom to erect to Emperors and Empresses statues of elephants drawing triumphal chariots.]

'This is to be much regretted, that whereas these animals live in the flesh more than a thousand years, their brazen effigies should be so soon crumbling away. See therefore that their gaping limbs be strengthened by iron hooks, and that their drooping bellies be fortified by masonry placed underneath them.

[Sidenote: Natural history of the elephant.]

'The living elephant, when it is prostrate on the ground, as it often is when helping men to fell trees, cannot get up again unaided. This is because it has no joints in its feet; and accordingly you see numbers of them lying as if dead till men come to help them up again.

Thus this creature, so terrible by its size, is really not equally endowed by Nature with the tiny ant.

'That the elephant surpa.s.ses all other animals in intelligence is proved by the adoration which it renders to Him whom it understands to be the Almighty Ruler of all. Moreover it pays to good princes a homage which it refuses to tyrants.

'It uses its proboscis[696], that nosed hand which Nature has given it to compensate for its very short neck, for the benefit of its master, accepting the presents which will be profitable to him. It always walks cautiously, mindful of that fatal fall [into the hunter's pit]

which was the beginning of its captivity. At its master's bidding it exhales its breath, which is said to be a remedy for the human headache.

[Footnote 696: Ca.s.siodorus calls it 'promuscis.']

'When it comes to water it sucks up in its trunk a vast quant.i.ty, which at the word of command it squirts forth like a shower. If anyone have treated it with contempt, it pours forth such a stream of dirty water over him that one would think a river had entered his house. For this beast has a wonderfully long memory, both of injury and of kindness. Its eyes are small, but move solemnly. There is a sort of kingly dignity in its appearance, and while it recognises with pleasure all that is honourable, it seems to despise scurrilous jests.

Its skin is furrowed by deep channels, like that of the victims of the foreign disease named after it[697], _elephantiasis_. It is on account of the impenetrability of this hide that the Persian Kings used the elephant in war.

[Footnote 697: 'A qua transportaneorum (?) nefanda pa.s.sio nomen accepit.']

'It is most desirable that we should preserve the images of these creatures, and that our citizens should thus be familiarised with the sight of the denizens of foreign lands. Do not therefore permit them to perish, since it is for the glory of Rome to collect all specimens of the process by which the art of workmen hath imitated the productions of wealthy Nature in all parts of the world.'

[This letter traverses the same ground as Pliny's 'Historia Naturalis'

viii. 1-11, but supplies some new facts. Pliny makes the elephant live to the age of 200 or even 300 years. Ca.s.siodorus boldly says 'more than a thousand.' The curious story of the elephant's religion is given with more detail by Pliny; but he knows nothing of the political sagacity which enables it to discern between a good king and a tyrant.

Pliny mentions the fact that the elephant's breath is a cure for headache, but adds, 'especially if he sneeze[698].'

[Footnote 698: Hist. Nat. xxviii. 8.]

Upon the whole, though Ca.s.siodorus had probably read Pliny's description, his own must be p.r.o.nounced original.

This marvellous letter is the last that we have, written in the name of Theodahad.]

31. KING WITIGIS[699] TO ALL THE GOTHS.

[Footnote 699: Spelt 'Vitigis' by Ca.s.siodorus.]

[Sidenote: Elevation of Witigis.]

'Though every advance in station is to be accounted among the good gifts of the Divinity, especially is the kingly dignity to be looked upon as coming by His ordinance through Whom kings reign and subjects obey. Wherefore, with liveliest satisfaction returning thanks to our Maker Christ, we inform you that our kinsmen[700] the Goths, amid a fence of circling swords, raising us in ancestral fashion upon a shield, have by Divine guidance bestowed on us the kingly dignity, thus making arms the emblem of honour to one who has earned all his renown in war. For know that not in the corner of a presence-chamber, but in wide-spreading plains I have been chosen King; and that not the dainty discourse of flatterers, but the blare of trumpets announced my elevation, that the Gothic people, roused by the sound to a kindling of their inborn valour, might once more gaze upon a Soldier King.

[Footnote 700: 'Parentes nostros Gothos.']

'Too long indeed have these brave men, bred up amid the shock of battle, borne with a Sovereign who was untried in war; too long have they laboured to uphold his dubious fame, though they might presume upon their own well-known valour[701]. For it is inevitable that the character of the ruler should in some degree influence the reputation of the whole people.

[Footnote 701: 'Ut de ejus fama laboraret quamvis de propria virtute praesumeret.' I have translated as if 'laboraret' and 'praesumeret'

were in the plural, and even so, find it difficult to get a satisfactory meaning out of these words.]

'But, as ye have heard, called forth by the dangers of my kindred, I was ready to undergo with them one common fate; but they would not suffer me to continue a mere General, feeling that they needed a veteran King. Wherefore now accept first the Divine decree, and then the judgment of the Goths, since it is your unanimous wish which makes me King. Lay aside then the fear of disaster: cast off the suspicion of further losses: fear no rude strokes of fate under our dominion. We who have ridden so oft to war have learned to love valiant men.

a.s.sociated in all things with your labours, I have been myself a witness to the brave deeds of each of you, and need no other evidence of your worth. By no fraudulent variations between my public and private negotiations shall the might of the Gothic arms be broken[702]. Everything that we do shall have respect to the welfare of our whole people: in private we will not even love. We promise to follow those courses which shall adorn the royal name. Finally, we undertake that our rule shall in all things be such as becomes a Gothic King, the successor of the renowned Theodoric--that man who was so rarely and so n.o.bly qualified by Nature for the cares of royalty; that man of whom it may be truly said that every other Sovereign is ill.u.s.trious in so far as he loves _his_ counsels. Therefore he who succeeds in imitating the deeds of Theodoric ought to be considered as belonging to his line. Thus then, manifest your anxious care for the welfare of our kingdom, while your hearts are at ease, through G.o.d's goodness, as to our internal security.'

[Footnote 702: 'Arma Gothorum nulla promissionum mearum varietate frangenda sunt.' An evident allusion to the treacherous and unpatriotic diplomacy of Theodahad, as described by Procopius.]

32. KING WITIGIS TO THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN.

[Sidenote: Overtures for peace with the Empire.]

'How much, oh most clement Emperor, we long for the sweetness of your favour, may be understood from this fact alone, that after such serious injuries and such grievous bloodshed as you have inflicted on us, we still come forward to ask for peace with you, as if none of your servants had ever wronged us. We have suffered such things as might move the indignation even of our enemies, who must know that they have attacked us without our guilt, have hated us without our fault, have despoiled us without our owing them anything. Nor can it be said that the blow has been so slight that no account need be taken of it, since it has been struck not in the Provinces alone but in Rome [or Italy] herself, the Capital of the World[703]. Think how great must be our pain at this, which nevertheless we banish from memory in order that we may obtain justice at your hands. Such disturbance has been made as the whole world speaks of[704] [and condemns], and it deserves to be so composed by you that all men may admire your spirit of equity.

[Footnote 703: 'Non in provinciis tantum sed in ipso rerum capite probatur inflictum.']

[Footnote 704: 'Talis res effecta est quam mundus loquatur.' The commentator Fornerius absurdly understands this of Mundus, the general of Justinian in Dalmatia, who had already fallen in battle before the accession of Witigis.]