雜記與文集 第 10 章

We are bound by a most harsh lot, that those whom we before called sweet kindred, we now charge with most bitter matters—charges which no one can let pass who is known to ponder the memorials of piety. For who could be ignorant that Amalafrida, of divine memory, the outstanding ornament of our race, met among you a violent setting of her light, and that her whom you long had as your mistress you did not suffer to live, not even as a private person? If she seemed, against the law of kinship, to be a burden, she ought to have been sent back to us honourably—she whom you sought with great entreaties. It is a kind of parricide, that her whom the union of the king had made your kinswoman, you should by wicked daring involve in her own destruction. What so great an evil did she, abandoned by her consort, deserve?

If the succession was owed to another, could a woman ever be found within that ambition? Nay rather she ought to have been held as a mother, who passed kingdoms over to you. For this too would have been added to your nobility, if among the stock of the Hasdingi you had retained the purple dignity of the Amal blood. This our Goths understand to have been attempted to their own reproach. For he who brought death upon the lady of an alien people is seen to have utterly despised the virtue of her kindred, since no one thinks that he ought to attempt what he believes must be cut off. And therefore, admonished by moral reasoning, through these our legates we first seek equity from you in words, looking to see what excuse may be offered for such great misfortunes.

For even if any business whatever had arisen in such a person, it ought to have been made known to us, so that she might perish even by our judgment, who had mingled herself in wicked deeds. It remains that her natural death be feigned. We do not speak of impossibilities, we seek nothing novel: hand over this man and that man and the other, through whom the matter that was done must be made clear. Let there be in them a complete proof of the whole cause, without war, without slaughter, either to make us appeased or to render you guilty. But if you think this is to be despised, and do not dispose yourselves to reasonable answers, we are absolved from the condition of the peace entered into, we who are not held by the bond of a violated treaty.

Let the heavenly Majesty now avenge the crime, committed by whatever art, that Majesty which declares that the impious slaughter of a brother's blood cries out to it. Whoever desires that the state and the general summit should stand must be solicitous for all things, because there is no health in the body except such as the members too can obtain. By the injury of one place the whole frame is shaken, and so great is the force of cohesion, that you would believe one wound to be received everywhere when that one part has begun to ache. For the state is not the care of a single city, but the provident guardianship of the whole realm: wherefore if anything is diminished from it, losses are felt at the source. For he must needs have less, from whom anything perishes.

And therefore the ever-watchful care of the various cities troubles us, lest evils, if allowed too far, should be able to burden the palaces. For a tree, which you see flourish, which you behold rejoicing in the highest greenness, is quickened by the subterranean sap of fruitfulness, rendering at the surface what it holds in the root. The countenance of men too is adorned with great cheerfulness, if with sound inward parts it feels the burden of no injury. So a realm is rightly called most whole, if it has nowhere been diminished. This can be done when unbridled licence is everywhere driven away, and no daring is granted to a malign mind to sin under an abominable liberty.

The curials, who take their name from provident care, are said to be shaken by most grievous harassment, so that whatever is delegated to them for the sake of honour seems rather to be turned to their injury. O wicked crime, O unbearable evil! when they ought to profit by serving the state, then they are seen to lose their liberty together with their fortunes.

Wherefore by edictal proclamation we decree: that if anyone shall have been engaged either in the injury or in the loss of a curial, or shall perhaps have presumed to impose upon him anything beyond what has been commanded by us or by the courtiers whose powers are concerned, let him either be struck with the loss of ten pounds of gold—of profit nonetheless to the very man who has suffered such a thing—or, if his means do not suffice for the penalty, let him be torn by flogging punishments, and pay by penalties the debt which he could not discharge by money; yet in such wise that whatever has been delegated for the public benefit be fulfilled with honourable care, since they begin to owe more, whom we do not permit to bear the iniquities of others.

Let no one seize by unlawful purchase the estates of the curials, whence chiefly snares are laid for men of middling station, because it cannot be called a contract unless it comes from the laws. Concerning the molestations of the saiones and the soldiers, let them be protected by the help of the judges. From the governors themselves too our authority will vindicate them, since he must be more grievously punished if he, to whom help is delegated, is proved to bring detriment. Lift up your necks, you who are downcast: raise your spirits, you who are weighed down by the burdens of evils: give zeal to recover what you know you have ill lost. To each citizen his own city is his commonwealth. Administer justice in the cities with harmonious will. Let your orders live equitably.

Do not oppress those of middling station, lest the more powerful be able deservedly to oppress you. This is the penalty of sin, that each one may receive in himself what he insolently practised against another. Live justly, live temperately, since scarcely does anyone dare to transgress against those in whom he cannot find faults. The cranes know how to practise a moral concord, among whom no primacy is sought, because there is no ambition of iniquity. They keep watch in turn, they guard themselves with common caution, the very feeding is by turns. Thus honour is taken from none, while all things are kept under community. For these too their flight is ordered with a reciprocal equality: the last becomes first, and the one that held the primacy does not refuse to be later.

Thus, joined together by a kind of community, they obey one another without kings, they submit without lordship, they serve without terror. By serving voluntarily they are free, and by loving one another they are fortified. The writers on natural things, observing their custom, record that there is a certain polity among them, whom they have known to live with civic affection. If you imitate these, you will exclude from yourselves all the calumnies of depravities. For you, who receive the vows of the upright, have by the laws power over your fellow citizens. For antiquity did not grant you a curia in vain, nor did it idly call you the lesser senate, naming you also the sinews and the vitals of the cities. What of power or of honour do you not possess in that appellation?

For he who is compared to the senate is excluded from no genius of renown. If all assiduous labour exacts such diverse fruits, that gold and silver are bought by the customary exchange, why do we not diligently seek out those very things, for the sake of which we seemed to demand others? Let rich Italy bring to us golden fruits as well. Every revenue is acquired where the tawny metal is found. For what need is there for the earth to be wearied with manifold fruitfulness, if the very prices themselves can be found in it? Nature, with industry seconding her, grants us grain for ordinary use: wines pour themselves forth on every side: metal is rarely brought forth, that it may be the more zealously sought.

Wherefore we order Your Magnitude to dispatch a clerk to the estate of our right, Rusticiana, situated in the province of the Bruttii, and if, as is said by Theodorus, an artificer of these matters, the earth is fruitful in the said things, then, with workshops solemnly established, let the bowels of the mountains be searched through: let entry be made by the benefit of art into the inner chamber of the earth, and let nature, rich as in her treasures, be sought out. For with the vaults turned back by ingenious presumption, imitating the mole-creature, they dig passages which lay open to none before. Thus ambition leaves nothing hidden, nor any place where in the meantime it might endure the uttermost.

Men enter the deep darkness, they live without those above, they are exiles from the sun, and, while they seek gains beneath the earth, they sometimes forsake the joys of light. For them their own way is sometimes a ruin, and they cannot procure a return, who with laborious hands made paths for their own feet. But those whose art is more cautious have a happier life: they enter needy, they go out wealthy: without theft they snatch riches, they enjoy to the full the longed-for treasures without envy, and they alone of men are seen to acquire prices without any trafficking.

For as soon as they have been restored to the upper light, they separate from their mother earth, by waters that discern the heavier portions, all the finer particles, and, stored away in clay vessels, they boil them down in a vast furnace, until they are usefully dissolved into liquid; and the streams that come from the flame they purge with so great a fire, until they yield up their own beauty, which the earthen bowels had hidden, lest they should be coveted. Nature is overcome, while industry betters her. It is more beautiful once it has burned, more excellent once it has been boiled down, because it grows so much in price as it has been cleansed with sincerity. Its origin indeed is noble, but from the flame it takes the force of colour, so that you would rather believe it born from that whose likeness it is seen to be adorned with.

But since it bestows a splendid redness on gold, and confers a most white light on silver, it is a wonder that one substance should transmit what can be fitted to unlike things. Accordingly, whatever you know to pertain to the exercise of the skill of this art, let your ordering bring to completion, so that the land of the Bruttii too may find of itself a tribute which it can give—it which luxuriates rich in fruits. For it is fitting that among so many goods even those should not be wanting which are thought to be foremost. For why should that lie without use, which can be an honourable gain? For indeed it is impious to seek gold through wars, perilous through the seas, a disgrace through falsehoods, but in its own nature it is justice.

Honourable are the gains by which no one is harmed, and that is well acquired which is taken away from no owners as yet. Griffins are continually said to dig out gold and to delight in the inspection of this metal; and since they have no ambition of gain, they are not said to be inflamed with the crime of cupidity—namely, because every act lies in the quality of its purpose, and that is not to be blamed which has been wanton by no will. Let them therefore be continual in zealous working for gain; let them not dread envy: what is called a skill is freed from crime. Happy is the complaint, when the laws are surpassed by piety, and blessed is the condition of subjects, if they recognize that man to have had mercy on others, whom they desire to be propitious to themselves also.

For the most sacred laws bound the curials for no other reason than that, when the princes alone should release them, they might find heralds of indulgence—that is, where the lord dissents from his own judgments by a loving contention, since it is itself a kind of justice that he who is called pious should by no means be held to the strict term of severity. For this too is a certain reasonable order, at length to release from service those who are proved to be unequal to the labours. For a curial, if he is held by no soundness of body, is set up only for deceptions, and what will it profit that he be present, if he chance to be found failing in strength? For he is indeed like one absent, by whom commands cannot be fulfilled.

Moreover, while the curia rejoices in a manifold numerousness, it does not seem, stricken by losses, to have lost a few out of very many. Wherefore let Your Illustrious Magnificence cause Agenantia, the wife of Campanianus, a most eloquent man, settled in the province of Lucania, and their sons, to be diligently erased from the roll of her curia, so that posterity to come may not know there was that which it is forbidden to cast up as a reproach, since calumny is not presumed where no proof is to be had. Accordingly let them rather be placed in the number of the landholders, destined nonetheless to suffer the molestations which they themselves were inflicting on others. For they will be troubled toward the accustomed tributes:

they will dread the face of the compeller—they who before knew not that orders had come from the powers—and, wearied by a longed-for ignorance, they will begin to fear the things delegated, through which formerly others were made to fear. For from this very circumstance too they are to be approved of having lived by good morals, since they suffer to live idle among those whose hatred they do not recognize themselves to have deserved. Otherwise they would not suffer to be under those whom they knew they had incited by evil deeds. Let them therefore enjoy the princely benefit: let them live tranquil in relaxed peace, who were composed in the quality of their actions.

By the complaint of the landholders of your territory we have learned that, beyond the necessity of the time, they endure the execrable savagery of certain of their fellow citizens, who, in the first season, having bought up the produce of panic-grass into their own private store, looking to a dearness grievous to men of middling means, so that they may bring detestable nakedness upon those who store more sparingly, when men placed in the peril of famine, beseeching, offer those very things which they know they can be plundered of. For indeed in the necessity of want there is no contention over price, while a man suffers himself to be led, lest he be smitten by any delay.

Condemning therefore these designs, we have dispatched the present bearers, so that, whether in the granary or in other places they shall have been able to find the stores of grain, each owner may retain for himself or for his household only as much as he knows he can expend, and let him sell the remainder to those in peril—in the presence, that is, of the bearers of this letter, who are known to have been appointed to that very matter—at a moderate amount of price, however, at which it shall be established that he bought it from his own provincials, so that neither may he who buys be too greatly burdened, nor he who sells be left without some gain.

Wherefore fulfil with willing minds what has been commanded, because in this matter you owe it to one another to take counsel, lest, while you seek excessive dearness, you should rather choose for yourselves something wicked—which God forbid. Let no one therefore complain of the sale imposed upon him; let him know that liberty is not to be sought in crime, but that it is rather the mark of a good disposition not to hasten to transgress. Let him therefore who sells, sell on a just reckoning. If he consents, he works his own praise: if he dissents, he makes it our heralding, since the good belongs to him who commands, if justice is imposed on the unwilling.

Since you have kept watch with long-continued labours, you assert that you have been so grievously wounded by the weakness of body that you cannot even hasten to attain the renown of the service to which it is agreed you have rushed with eager vow—fearing lest, through your absence, the sweetest fruit should seem to be torn from you almost from your very jaws—petitioning also that, constrained by the necessity of a chilled body, you may be relaxed by the dryness of the Baian bath. It is plainly worthy that we bestow it among the highest rewards, that, as we confer hope on the vanquished, so we may grant health as well to suppliants. Wherefore we both absolve you from the bond of the emolument's terror, and relieve you with the gift of the aforesaid bath, so that, first refreshed by the gladness of mind, you may the more easily recover the soundness of your limbs.

For it is a natural care to give gladness to the sick: for make the invalid rejoice, and he is healed. Go therefore to the pleasant retreats: go to a sun, so to speak, brighter: where, with the salubrity of the air tempered, nature is more gentle to the lands. There, the marvels weighed with deep thought, the human mind converses with the secrets of the world, nor does it cease to wonder at the things it knows can be done there: first, that the streams of Nereus are filled with sea-delights, that nature's prudence has set so many harbours between the bays of the land, so many noble islands endowed with the embrace of the deep: then the briny sea let into Avernus, where for the pleasure of men the life of oysters is governed, and that by the industry of mortals it comes to pass that a thing fortuitous elsewhere there always appears abundant.

With how great masses the marine boundaries have been there gracefully invaded! over how great spaces has land been pushed forward into the bowels of the sea! On the right and left shoals of fish play. Let abundant delights be shut up elsewhere by industrious walls: let the watery shoals be held captive: here everywhere the fishponds are under liberty. Add that the fishing thus undertaken is so pleasant that, before the sumptuous banquet, it feeds the gaze of the beholders. For it is a great joy to have caught the things desired: but in matters of this kind the pleasantness of the eye is generally more welcome than the usefulness of the catch. But, not to wander further, he is believed to dwell among the treasures of Neptune, to whom the leisures of Baiae are furnished.

Fattened therefore by these things in a delightful exercise, you press on to the most beautiful baths, which are both full of marvels and precious in the quality of health. For although they are known to be fashioned by the care of men, they are certainly exhibited by natural ministries. There the furnaces do not kindle conveyed timbers: with the flame ceasing, a perpetual heat works: there smoky globes are unknown: the air is most pure, which ministers the vapours, and sweetly provokes the panting sweats: and it is found so much more salubrious than common baths, as nature is loftier than human industry. There you may see the waters steam with perpetual eddies, which so seem to fulfil the desires of those who bathe that you would believe them tempered by human zeal.

Let the ever-praised renown of the coral sea give way: let the more wealthy fame of the Indian sea, from the whiteness of its white things, subside. What have I to do with prices, if the mind does not enjoy the things desired? Nothing can be more excellent than the Baian shores, where it befalls one both to feed on the sweetest delights and to be filled with the priceless gift of health. Enjoy therefore the goods you have nonetheless sought after: by our benefits you will come to your own profit: by Baian remedies obtain the thing of health. After the illustrious administrations of forebears, eminent dignities are well conferred on their posterity, while no one's genius consents to lie within the estimation of his own people, since it is a certain honourable ambition, by praises to wish to outstrip those whom we follow in time.

It is added also that those learned in the doctrines of the ancients delight to be increased by the favour of reputation. For the more each one knows that he has striven after the better arts, by so much the more does he presume to seek greater things. Long ago, therefore, the Roman state felt the diligence of your father of illustrious memory. For presiding over the count of the largesses, and having discharged also the offices of the prefects, he conducted the praetorian dignity most uprightly, repairing the curia, restoring to the poor what had been taken away; and although he was unpolished in liberal studies, he did not fail to please the industrious, since a good genius can naturally commend itself of itself, even when it does not appear adorned by accidental circumstances. But how much is this in comparison with the notice of your letters?

For learning indeed, which distinguishes some from the unskilled, joins them to the wise in a friendly fellowship—learning, to which it is most easy to adorn the well-born, which even out of obscurity makes a man noble. There grows also to your illustrious merits the fact that, into the grace of affinity, such a man chose you—one whom it has always befallen to be praised for the integrity of his judgment, common in his morals, singular in his conscience, who always made himself praised by his own morals and by the converse of friends and by his own probity. To what kind of man, then, must he be reckoned to have joined his own blood, who never determined to attach even to his own community one of evil reputation? And therefore, although you come young to honour, after the judgment of so great a man it is foolish to say that you are not approved.

For if we lend placid ears to them when they make good suggestions in the causes of strangers, why should we the more not follow their judgments in their own kindred, where even those who frequently transgress in other matters always zealously look out for themselves? And therefore—be it spoken with good fortune—for that indiction we grant you the fillets of the urban dignity, so that, as you are first in that order, so you may be held foremost also in the praise of merits. For indeed what is transacted in that city is offered, one might say, to the eyes of the lands. Whom now will a judge make appeased to himself, if he offend that senate of so great benignity? What is of maturity, what of prudence, you recognize in the estimation of that very order, whose first-springing seeds, as soon as they have grown up, are called fathers.

There youth begins with mature counsel: young men conduct themselves with the restraint of old men. There a weight of character is set forth in the very flower of age, such as is scarcely produced elsewhere even in white-haired years. With such moderation, therefore, shall you bear yourself, that when you summon so many nobles to the court, you may lay open before them an opinion worthy of your will. For it is exceedingly difficult to say among them anything of the kind that could fail to displease so many prudent men. And so the man is to be reckoned of no ordinary worth who has been able to win a favourable judgement from that throng of the learned. For if it is gratifying to be praised even where praise is rare, what joy can come to him whom the votes of so many noblemen have commended? Love justice; bestow yourself graciously upon the oppressed.

Render to your descendants the praises which you yourself received from your forebears. It is our purpose to adorn honourable labours with the palm of reward, so that, by the change of fortune in which the advanced rejoice, the slothful may be stung and may impute it to themselves that under the most clement times of our judgement they do not earn its rewards. And therefore, with God's help, we have resolved to send Your Illustrious Greatness once again to the provinces of Dalmatia and Savia, so that whatever you recognise to be for our advantage you may arrange with even-handed ordering, and through your justice may render the people devoted and most welcome to us; for he is joined to the praises of his lords when one who is chosen conducts himself commendably. Do not seek out the examples of others.

Be mindful of what you have done, and you need no reminding. For what is there that anyone should doubt concerning your conduct, when you know that your own good name still breathes fragrant in those very provinces? In a manner it is already owed that men should wish to serve well one in whose presence you know you have been praiseworthy. For a willing spirit is justly granted to the obedient, and to those we know to be mindful of benefits we unhesitatingly extend our affection anew. Your age indeed is advanced, but your conduct too is the more mature; what now could steal anything from you, in whom not even your youth was blameworthy? But these things you did in the reign of our lord grandfather: now show such deeds that you may seem to have reserved for our times whatever measure of probity you shall add.

Throughout the provinces granted to us by God's bestowal we desire to send such men as are endowed with arms and glorious in justice, so that from you may be banished both the fear of foreign nations and that you may not lie open to slanderous snares; for it is no less an evil to have avoided war than to escape harsh exaction. For that is true security which dreads no iniquity of a judge. And therefore — let it be said with God for our author — we have decreed that the Illustrious Count Osuin, distinguished both in our palace and most well known to the provinces through long acquaintance, shall preside over the Dalmatians. Take care to obey him when he commands for our advantage, since you have so often experienced his great justice that, even without a royal command, you ought, mindful of former times, to obey him.

For he who is just possesses his own proper authority: for although he is in no way exalted by the terror of power, yet, equity persuading, he is always heard. At the same time we have also judged that the Illustrious Severinus should be directed to you, so that, being well-matched, with harmonious will they may be able to enjoin upon you what is praiseworthy. For if it befits unequal reeds to sound forth a single melody, much more is it fitting for most prudent men to counsel what is just with concordant voice. But that our beginnings might commence from benefits conferred, and that you might feel a most clement lord on the very threshold of our reign, whatever was sought from you under the name of increase through the fourth indiction we have now ordered the Illustrious Count of our patrimony to remit.

And we further grant you this in addition: that when, by God's favour, we shall have caused the aforesaid man to come to attend us, you should send such persons through whom we may clearly learn in what manner the census imposed in future is being assessed, so that, if we find you to be burdened, we may relieve you in such part as shall seem fit, considering equity. Thus it comes to pass that you may have hope of a future benefit also, who have already in part obtained remedies. Wherefore it is fitting that you serve our interests, since that which you could rather have hoped for by entreaties, princely munificence has bestowed unasked. For thus we have learned from our most clement author who handed it down to us, that we should not be idle in the matter of benefits toward our subjects.

Plainly, the discipline of ruling is to love what profits the many, since the commonwealth receives the greatest solidity if the resources of the taxpayers remain unharmed. Some while ago we judged that the rise of our reign should be announced to you: now it is fitting that a benefit should follow, for the increase of the joy of all, so that those to whom our advent was most welcome may find the royal spirit in some part munificent toward them. We desire that all things should grow together with us by God's bestowal, because that is truly our revenue which a glad possessor pays out. Therefore we withdraw from money what may be added to glory, and we strive lavishly to raise up the cultivators of the soil, even the grasping, unto our own praises.

Long ago our lord grandfather of divine memory, presuming much upon his own benefits — because long-lasting peace both granted cultivation to the fields and increased the peoples — appointed within the province of Sicily, under the wonted moderation of his prudence, that a census be exacted, so that devotion might grow in you to whom prosperity had spread. But his praiseworthy justice prepared a place for our benignity, so that what could justly be offered to him, we with a clement spirit might bestow as though they were tributes brought in; and by a certain presage of the divine mind he rendered dutiful even the one for whom he was preparing the rule.

And therefore, throughout the happily-numbered fourth indiction, whatever beyond the customary levy was sought from you under the name of increase, or is established to have been exacted, our liberality remits. And although you could justly have paid it, we rather command you to attribute it as glory to our bounty. But that our clemency may be extended more widely, and that you may feel a lord made gentle by benefits bestowed, whatever the assessors of the new census are proven to have fixed through the fifth indiction, we have caused them to bring to our notice, so that what shall have been reasonably assessed you may endure with willing hearts, since justice observed harms no one.

But lest you suppose that you are burdened merely at the discretion of the appointed officials, if there be any who judges that he has cause to complain of their deed, let him resort to the remedies of our piety, so that we may correct the judges — we who have clemently granted benefits even unasked. For our glorious grandfather of blessed memory had also been moved by their tardiness, being a searcher of deep prudence, judging that those whom by repeated command he had already ordered to return were lingering in the province too long, not without your distress. But we, whom it befits to fulfil whatever he ordained in equity, now with God's help complete in you what he began. Render now to our bounty a most prosperous loyalty and faithful service.

For you have a prince who is proven to have arisen for you with benefits, and — what is sweeter to subjects — who grows in benevolent disposition together with the increase of his age. To which end we have resolved to direct to you Quidila, our saio, through whom most prosperous commands may be unfolded to you by God's bounty. To Victor and Witigisclus, the Respectable men, assessors of the province of Sicily, we have directed our precepts, that whatever they appear lately to have added to the tributary levy upon the possessors they should not exact from the fourth indiction, because the imposition of that thing is grievous whose justice is not yet proven.

But concerning their assessments we have caused instructions to be brought to us, so that if, the resources having been weighed, the arrangement was made with equality, it ought to remain moderate; but if it is established that anyone has been over-burdened contrary to reason, let him be relieved by our judgement — yet in such wise that, if anything is proven to have been brought in through the fourth indiction, it should be returned to the possessors without any diminution, because a burden imposed ought to be received without complaint when it is established that it must be borne for long times. Now for what remains, it is fitting that we admonish you provincials, that of those to whom we have given benefits we may in all things feel the devotion, and that what is owed to the prince may be seen to be paid with a grateful spirit.

Your tardiness with our lord grandfather of glorious memory deservedly made you suspect, you whom he thought ought to be admonished even by second precepts, that, the distress of the provincials being at last laid aside, you ought to hasten to his justice. And now too it has greatly increased suspicion, that you were unwilling to present yourselves even at our beginnings — something which a free conscience could have desired to do. And therefore by present authority we decree that, if you have exacted anything above the tributary solidus through the fourth indiction from the provincials, you should return it to them without any diminution, because beyond the old census we do not wish them to feel any losses of the aforesaid indiction.

We have thought this also ought to be added — since out of love of clemency we are unwilling to discover faults, lest, being compelled, we should rather cut away what, with justice preserved, we cannot dissemble — namely, that if you have injured anyone through depraved zeal, you should correct it rather by your own judgement, because to correct one's own offences is the same as not to have committed them. And lest perchance you suppose that what has been done lies hidden by the difficulty of distance, we have given the Sicilians confidence to pursue redress. See now whether you can endure querulous voices which even our authority has invited. We have therefore admonished those whom it befits to be dutiful: he already seems accused by his own fault who has been unwilling to be set right by his own free will.

From the report of Your Greatness we have learned, concerning the excesses of the domestics who attend the counts sent out, that the provincials have been burdened with very many losses — which we believe to have been nourished by the smallness of their emoluments, because one is thought to sin under a kind of excuse to whom necessities are not provided. And therefore, granting general advantages by a special benefit, we command Your Greatness by present authority that, above the two hundred solidi and ten allowances of provisions which they have hitherto received, you should without delay cause fifty solidi yearly to be added to them from the happily-numbered fifth indiction, which ought to be charged to your accounts, so that, the mother of crimes — necessity — being removed, the scope for sinning may be taken away.

But if any wicked violator of our commands shall arise, so that by some chance he becomes entangled in losses or prejudices of the provincials, let him be deprived of all emoluments, because he is worthy to obtain rewards who is known to obey equity: for he receives from us precisely that he may not seek from others. To give of our own is nobility: royal gifts, however small, ennoble, because he who is raised up by a princely gift is believed at the same time to have found the favour of merits. It has been declared to us by the report of the Sicilian provincials that certain things are done by your authority whereby their fortunes seem to be afflicted. This we have taken the more lightly because they themselves were unwilling to have the past avenged. For it stands as doubtful which an adversary concedes.

And he cannot rightly be struck down whom the complainant prefers to pardon. But that we may abolish unjust suspicions for future occasions, we decree by present command that the following be perpetually observed, so that neither may those men dread anything for the future, nor may you through ignorance incur what is alleged. In the first place, moneys are said to have been extorted from various provincials for the repair of the walls, while yet no promised construction has thence arisen. If this is established to have been committed, either let walls be thereupon built for their protection, or let each one recover what is proven to have been improperly taken from him. For it is exceedingly absurd to promise fortifications and to give the citizens execrable devastations.

They report also that you claim the estates of certain deceased persons, without any discernment of justice, under the title of property lapsed to the fisc, when this only seems to have been entrusted to you concerning foreigners for whom no heir, whether testamentary or legitimate, is found. For it is impious that what is commanded by us should be claimed by you in our name through wrongdoing. Moreover, they lament that they are in every way burdened by summonses, so that in being brought to judgement they seem to lose almost as much as those condemned are scarcely proven to sustain in penalties. For the summons of a judge ought to be a hope of justice, not a fine. For he himself is justly rendered suspect, before whose hearing grievances are felt.

Wherefore we decree that, if our decrees befit those summoned, the executor should receive only so much advantage as our glorious lord grandfather established that the saiones ought to receive, by an expressed amount, according to the ranks of persons. For an advantage (commodum) ought to be in measure (cum modo): for if it exceeds the measure of equality, it will not have the force of its own name. But if a summons is directed by your command — only in those cases and persons where the edicts have willed you to be involved — let the executor receive a middle portion of what he could have taken from the royal precepts, because it cannot accord with justice that as much should be granted at your direction as is offered out of reverence for our command.

But if any violator of this most wholesome ordinance shall arise, we command that what was taken away be restored fourfold, so that what is taken through the delight of cupidity may be avenged by the harshness of loss. But the edicts of our glorious lord grandfather, and all the precepts which he directed to Sicily for the admonishing of the morals of all, we wish to be kept with such great obedience that whoever, stirred up by bestial impulses, shall have attempted to break in upon the bulwark of our commands, may be held guilty of sacrilege. You are said to summon the affairs of two Romans to your judgement even against their will: if you recognise these to have been done, presume no further, lest, while you wish to seek a judgement improperly, you should rather be seen to find guilt.

For you ought first to be mindful of the edict, you who prefer that among others things to be followed be established by you: otherwise all your authority of decreeing is taken away, if that rule is in no way kept by you. To the ordinary judges let the power of their administrations be preserved unimpaired. Let their proper retinue accompany the cognitores. Be not stung with envy of those observances. The praise of the Goths is civility preserved. All renown flows to you, if your litigant rarely waits upon you. Defend the laws by arms; let the Romans contend at law in the peace of statutes. You are reported to monopolise the merchandise conveyed by ships, and through a grasping of hateful cupidity to fix narrow prices for the soil's produce alone: which is not believed to be far from suspicion, even if it be not vicious in the act.

Wherefore, if you hasten, as is fitting, to avoid a rumour of this kind, let the bishop of the city and the people stand as witnesses of your conscience. Let that be pleasing to all which must of necessity pertain to the fortunes of all. Prices ought to be fixed by common deliberation, because there is no delight in commerce which is enjoined upon the unwilling. Therefore we have thought Your Sublimity should be admonished by these present commands, because we are unwilling to find at fault those whom we love, nor do we suffer anything sinister to be said of such men through whom we think the morals of others can be corrected. If it was the zeal of the ancient princes to seek out laws, that the subject peoples might enjoy delightful tranquillity, far more excellent is it to decree such things as can accord with the sacred canons.

For let ruinous gains be absent from our age. That alone can we truly call gain which is established not to be punished by the divine judgements. Recently indeed the defender of the Roman Church came to us with a tearful representation that, while a bishop was being sought for the apostolic see, certain men by nefarious machination, seizing upon the necessity of the time, so burdened the resources of the poor with extorted promises that — what is impious to say — even the sacred vessels seemed exposed to public sale. As cruel as this was to be committed, so glorious is it to be cut away by applied piety.

And therefore let Your Holiness know that we have established by the present definition — which we wish to pertain also to all patriarchs and metropolitan churches — that, from the time of the most holy pope Boniface, when, for the prohibiting of such suffrages, the conscript fathers, mindful of their nobility, framed senatorial decrees, whosoever in obtaining a bishopric is declared, whether through himself or through any other person whatsoever, to have promised anything, the execrable contract shall be voided with all its force.

But if anyone is caught to have been involved in this crime, we leave him no voice; nay rather, even if he should believe that what was received ought either to be reclaimed or not returned, let him forthwith be held guilty of sacrilege, restoring what was received under compulsion of the competent judge. For most just laws, as they open action to the good, so they close it to evil characters. Moreover, whatever was decreed in that decree of the senate, we command to be kept in every way against those who in any manner whatsoever, or by interposing any persons whomsoever, have mingled themselves in such wicked contracts.

And because it is fitting that all things be moderated under reason, nor can those things be called just which are excessive, when perchance a contention shall have arisen concerning the consecration of the apostolic pontiff, and the strife of the peoples shall have been brought to our palace, we decree, upon their petitioning us, that within three thousand solidi, together with the assembling of the documents, be received. From which sum, however, we exclude all who by consideration of the matter itself are eligible, because out of the ecclesiastical resource counsel should rather be taken for the poor. But other patriarchs, when their ordination is treated of at our court, we command to expend, in the aforesaid conditions and persons, within two thousand solidi.

But in their own cities let them know that they are to distribute no more than five hundred solidi to the most lowly common folk. Let the penalty of the present edict and of the senatorial decree lately enacted constrain those who receive the rest; and let the severity of the canons also pursue the givers. But you, who in the honour of patriarchs preside over the remaining churches, since our constitution has freed you from unlawful promising, it remains that, imitating good examples, you should offer pontiffs worthy of majesty without any loss to the churches. For it is iniquitous that ambition should have a place among you, which we, out of divine consideration, have shut out from laymen.

Wherefore, if any prelate of the apostolic church, or bishop of the patriarchs, whether through himself, or through his kinsmen, or any persons whatsoever of his servants, shall have believed that he is to be promoted by any ambitious soliciting of suffrage, we determine both that he himself shall return what was received, and that he shall in every way undergo what is established by the canons. But if anyone, while the same man survives, shall fear to make public what he gave or promised, let the church, by whose suffrage the prelate is found to have been ordained, reclaim it from his heirs or co-heirs, the mark of infamy nonetheless branding the survivors. We command the remaining orders also to be conducted under the same strictness.

But if perchance, by the invention of a crafty machination, a person shall have been bound by intervening oaths, so that, with the soul's state being safe, he can neither approve the iniquity committed nor dare to accuse it, we give licence to any honourable persons in each and every city to bring this crime before the competent judges; and whatever can be recovered from that proof — that we may encourage those who pursue it to the proof — let him receive a third part of the matter disclosed who shall have willed to prove such a deed; let the rest accrue to the churches themselves, what appears to have been extorted, being likewise to profit either in their fabrics or in their ministries. For it is fitting to convert to good uses what iniquitous perversity wished to defraud.

Let the depraved cupidity of the malignant, therefore, be at rest. Whither do they tend, who are shut off from the fountainhead? Let the just condemnation of Simon be recalled and feared, who believed that the Author of all bounty could be bought. Pray, therefore, for us, keeping our edicts, which you know to accord with the divine mysteries. But that the prince's wish may the more easily become known to the minds of all, we command that this be made known to the senate, this to the peoples, through the prefect of the city, so that the generality may recognise that we persecute those who rather seem opposed to majesty. You too make this known to all the bishops whom you govern, God being propitious, lest anyone who could recognise the things established be a stranger to the guilt.

It is a welcome thing to publish abroad what will profit all, so that there may become a general joy what could have been an object of prayer. Otherwise it is known to be a cause of injury, if benefits are rather concealed. Some time ago indeed the most ample senate, desiring to scrape away from its own splendour the stain of a most foul suspicion, by provident deliberation established that in the consecration of the most blessed pope no one should pollute himself with abominable cupidity, a penalty also being established for him who should have attempted to presume such things: not unjustly, because then the merit of the elected is truly sought, when money is not loved. Praising and augmenting this invention, we have directed to the most blessed pope the constitutions which shine pre-eminent above these foregoing, that profane ambition may be removed from the honour of the holy Church.

This we wish you to bring to the notice of the senate and of the Roman people without any delay, that it may be fixed in the heart of all which we desire to be kept by the zeal of all. But that this princely benefit may cleave both to present ages and to future ones, we command that our definitions as well as the senatorial decrees be becomingly engraved on marble tablets, and set up before the atrium of the blessed apostle Peter as a public testimony: for it is a worthy place which may contain both our glorious recompense and the praiseworthy decrees of the most ample senate. To which end we have directed that man, upon whose return we may learn that what we commanded has been fulfilled. For he seems to hold uncertainly what he commands, to whom the effect of things becomes known too tardily.

If the ancient princes sought out the walls of Rome for the gladness of the peoples, lest those citizens, deservedly singular, should possess anything in common with the rest, it is impious that amid so many pleasant things they should sustain a long sadness, because the exultation of that city is a general vow, since the rest must of necessity rejoice if it comes to pass that the head of the world is glad. For from the report of the apostolic pope John and of our nobles we have learned that such-and-such Romans, for mere suspicion of sedition, were worn down by the penalty of so long a custody that the whole city contracted mourning over their continual calamity, so that neither the festivity of days, nor any dignity of its name — which among us is most welcome — availed them.

This displeased us for the bitterness of its doing, that men who are by no means reported convicted in judgement should have endured torments and tortures due to evildoers. And therefore we admonish Your Greatness by these present commands, that wherever you can find them, you should not delay to release them; and even if it has become clear that they are involved in some guilt, by the aforesaid intercessions we judge that they are now free from fear. But if they trust that they have, while innocent, sustained torments, we give a free voice to their complaints, that by just laws they may avenge what they have suffered by iniquitous outrages, because we do not wish the innocent to be oppressed by the judges who are established to be raised up for their protection.

Let the Romans now recall their spirits to their former gladness, and let them not believe that any can please us save those who treat them with modest equality in their choosing. Let them understand that our forebears underwent toilsome perils for their repose, and that we ourselves act with many expenses, that they may rejoice with garrulous exultation. For even if they have hitherto endured anything unjustly or harshly, let them not believe it to be neglected by our gentleness — we who give ourselves no leisure, that they may enjoy untroubled peace and tranquil gladness: they quickly perceive that we cannot love those whom they have shuddered at for their excesses.

For whose favour can they obtain, who have deserved to displease their own fellow-citizens and, while they had a time for public love, acted in such wise that they ought justly to be execrated? Antiquity providently decreed that the whole community be admonished by general edicts, through which both every offence is corrected and the modesty of the transgressor is not burdened. For all reckon that it is spoken to themselves, where it is established that no one is singled out, and he becomes like an innocent man whom it has befallen to be purged under a common amnesty. Hence too our piety is truly preserved, while, the sword being on holiday, fear is born and correction comes about without bloodshed. For we are moved when appeased, we threaten when at leisure, and we are angry with clemency, when we condemn faults alone.

It is long since the complaints of divers people have sounded in our ears with frequent whisperings, that certain men, despising civility, affect to live with bestial savagery, while, returning to a wild beginning, they reckon human law to be brutishly hateful to themselves. These we have now fitly judged ought to be restrained, so that at the very time when by divine power we resist the enemies of the commonwealth, we may also pursue the crimes hostile to good morals. Both indeed are harmful, both to be driven out: but vices rage the more grievously the more they are proven to be internal. The one reclines upon the other. For the battle-lines of enemies fall the more easily, if we withdraw the offences of our own.

The foremost injury to the human race — usurpation, under which civility can neither be spoken of nor held — we condemn with the severity of the laws and our indignation, decreeing that the sanction of the divine Valentinian should rise up against those, long most wretchedly neglected, who, despising the order of law, shall have presumed through themselves and their men to enter violently upon urban or rustic estates, the possessor having been expelled. Nor do we wish anything of its detestable strictness to be softened by any tempering; adding moreover that, if any free-born man is not held capable of satisfying the law defined above, he shall forthwith lie under the vengeance of deportation, because he ought rather to have considered the public laws who knew that he could nowhere else sustain punishment.

The competent judges, therefore, to whom the committed crime can pertain, if they shall have suffered an invader to hold his presumptions when they could remove him, shall both be deprived of the honour of the belt they have attained, and shall become liable to our fisc for as much as the presumptuous one could have been adjudged — the authors of the crime nonetheless remaining under the established penalties. But if anyone, carried away into such madness with a tyrannical spirit, shall have neglected to obey the public law, and, being over-mighty in forces, shall have spurned the fewness of the office appointed against him, let him be made notable to our ears by the report of the judge, so that, execution by the saiones being granted, he may feel the vengeance of royal vigour, who was unwilling to obey the cognitor.

And because supreme princes must live in the common bond of law, if anyone, the order of laws being passed over, shall have presumed in the public name to set up notices of confiscation — or has presumed it — let him become liable to the possessor for as much as the sanction mentioned above attests. For deservedly is he struck also with the penalty of sacrilege, who by the iniquitous weight of usurpation has dared to burden the majesty of the royal name. Let him also, being overcome in judgement, pay the costs of the suit, because hence are given the fuels of detestable wrangling, when the wicked are overcome unharmed, nor does the loss of honour grieve the calumniators, if they have escaped the expenses of their fortunes.

But if anyone thinks he has obtained something worthy of favour from our archives, let him judge that, as far as concerns his case, nothing of the established sequence of the orders is to be suppressed from his adversary. If he fails to do this, let him lose what he has obtained; or if he attempts to act upon any part of it, let it nonetheless be held invalid, since we wish only those to enjoy our benefits whom we do not perceive to be devoted to cunning tricks. He who by punishable persuasion strives to break apart the marriages of others, let his own wedlock be held unlawful, so that he may feel that what the malicious man attempted to practise upon another has rather befallen himself.

Or rather, since he is deprived of the affection of union, we by right deny him a future marriage, because he does not deserve to attain the rewards of conjugal reverence who has dared to rage in the breaking up of the marriage-bed. But lest our vengeance leave any guilty of this crime unpunished, those who have no hope of a present or future marriage, if they presume anything against the marriage-chambers of others by deceitful contrivance, shall be deprived of the middle portion of their property, which is at once to be applied to the resources of the treasury. But if, prevented by poverty, satisfaction cannot be exacted from the substance of any such persons, let them be bound by the penalty of exile, lest — a thing unspeakable to utter — they should seem to escape the threat of the public law because they are known to lie under the meanest fortune.

But these things our piety has decreed concerning those who solicit the affection of another. As for adulterers, however, we wish everything to be most strictly observed, whatever could be decreed by imperial enactment. Let no one at one time be joined to two wives, since he should know that he is to be punished by the loss of his property. For it is either lust, and he is not permitted to enjoy it lawfully; or it is greed, and he is by right condemned to nakedness. But if anyone, with superfluous and base desire, scorning conjugal honour, chooses to come to a concubine's embraces — if she be free-born, let her by every means be assigned to his wife together with her children under the yoke of servitude, so that he may feel himself subjected through honourable judgments to her over whom he believed, through unlawful lust, that he could be set as master.

But if a slave-woman has come to such disgrace, apart from the penalty of blood let her be subject to the matron's vengeance, so that she may endure as judge the very woman whom she ought to have feared even in her absence. Let no man's terror extort gifts; let no one covet to acquire by fraud or detestable wantonness, for honesty alone with merit desires gains. Concerning the laws, in the pleading of most just liberality, we wish that strictness to be observed which careful legal antiquity sanctioned for the sake of truth. For thus, as it itself testifies, no occasion will lie open to fraud, and greater authority grows for truth. Otherwise we ordain that nothing shall be deemed valid which the very author, by not fulfilling what the laws or statutes prescribe, has rendered uncertain.

Let the severity of the laws also pursue sorcerers, and those who think anything should be sought from their wicked arts, for it is impious that we should be lenient to those whom heavenly piety does not allow to go unpunished. For what folly is it to abandon the Creator of life and rather to follow the author of death? Let every shameful act be wholly alien to the judges. Let no one do what the statutes condemn, for those are to be punished by the prescribed penalty who have mingled themselves in forbidden excesses. For what shall they condemn in others, if they themselves defile themselves with dishonourable contact? Let modest means also be safe under the rich. Let the madness of slaughter be restrained, for the violence of hands is shown to be the act of war, especially in those whom the authority of our protection defends.

But if anyone with wicked presumption attempts to act contrary to this, let him be held a violator of our command. We do not permit an appeal to be made a second time in one case from a suspected magistrate to the ordinary judges, lest what was devised as a remedy for the innocent should in some way seem to become a refuge for the guilty. But if anyone attempts to repeat what is forbidden, let him depart deprived of his suit. But lest, in touching upon a few matters, we be thought to have wished the rest not to be preserved, we decree that all edicts, both our own and those of our lord grandfather, which were formed with venerable deliberation, and the customary public laws, are to be observed with all the strength of strictness — laws which protect themselves with so great a defence that they are girded even by the interposition of our oath. Why do we run on through many words?

Let the customary rule of the laws and the integrity of our precepts be everywhere observed. The praiseworthy causes of laudable enactments are for the most part furnished by another's blameworthy excess, and in a wondrous manner the impulses of justice arise from the occasion of iniquity. For equity is silent if no admitted fault cries out, and the prince's genius rests idle which has not been provoked by some complaint. Indeed, driven by the voices of those who complain, and admonished by the frequent appeals of peoples concerning certain matters, we have set down in writing, by an edictal proclamation in twelve chapters — just as the civil law is read to have been instituted — certain things necessary for Roman tranquillity, to be preserved forever; which, when observed, may seem not to weaken the remaining law but rather to strengthen it.

Let these be recited in the splendour of your assembly, and for thirty days let the prefect of the city cause them to be posted in the customary solemn manner in the most frequented places, so that, when our civic order has been acknowledged, hope may be taken away from savage characters. For with what confidence shall the insolent man take up what he knows the prince's clemency has condemned? Let the love of discipline return to all, through which both small things grow together and greater things are preserved. For we set our armies in motion, by God's help, with frequent expeditions for this very end: that we may perceive the whole community living in an orderly way under the laws. Let this exchange of rewards be rendered to our spirit: that he whom you know to be occupied with the welfare of the commonwealth may be assailed by the rarest approach of complaints. Let the judges hold to lawful strictness;

let them cast away the vow of most foul venality. Fear settles all things, if the accused finds no crime in the one who judges. Since by God's help we provide for our provinces with yearly renewal, and tribunals distributed throughout all the bounds of Italy are not lacking, we understand that an abundance of lawsuits comes from a scarcity of justice. For it is proven to be the fault of your negligence whenever men are compelled to seek from us the benefits of the laws. For who would choose to seek so far off what he saw had come to his own dwellings?

But in order to remove from you crafty excuses and from the provincials harsh hardships, we have decided by the definition of an edictal proclamation concerning certain cases hitherto neglected through the worst sloth, so that both confidence in judging rightly may grow in you and malicious boldness may gradually be diminished. Cause this to be posted in solemn manner through public gatherings for thirty days by publication, so that he may by right be held condemned who after these remedies shall presume to remain in despair. We are known to have rightly remitted the cases of sons to the persons of their fathers, so that they themselves ought to think about the advancement of those whose interest it is that Roman studies should prosper.

For it is not to be believed that you can be the less anxious on that account, whereby both the adornment of your lineage increases and counsel comes to your assembly through constant reading. For recently, since our care for you is solicitous, we have learned through the whisperings of certain persons that the teachers of Roman eloquence do not receive the fixed rewards of their labour, and that through the trafficking of certain men it comes about that the sum assigned to the masters of the schools seems to be diminished. Wherefore, since it is manifest that reward nourishes the arts, we have judged it a wickedness that anything should be withdrawn from the teachers of young men, who are rather to be summoned to glorious studies through increases of their benefits.

For the school of the grammarians is the first and fairest foundation of letters, the glorious mother of eloquence, which knows how to think unto praise and to speak without fault. In the course of speech it recognizes the discordant error just as good morals detest the foreign crime. For just as the musician produces the sweetest melody with concordant choirs, so the grammarian knows how to chant the metre with accents fittingly arranged. Grammar is the mistress of words, the adorner of the human race, which is known to help us by its counsels through the exercise of the most beautiful reading of the ancients. The barbarian kings do not use her: among lawful lords she is known to remain peculiarly her own. For arms and the rest the nations possess too;

eloquence alone is found which obeys the lords of the Romans. Hence the contest of orators sounds the trumpet-call of civil law; hence a most noble eloquence commends all the nobles; and, to be silent about the rest, this very thing which we speak comes from there.

Wherefore, conscript fathers, with favouring Divinity we bestow upon you this care, this authority: that the successor in the school of liberal letters, whether grammarian or orator, and likewise the expounder of law, may receive without any diminution the emoluments of his predecessor from those whose concern it is; and once confirmed by the authority of your first order and of the rest of the most ample senate, so long as he is found fit for the work he has undertaken, let him suffer no wicked questioning from anyone, neither about transferring nor about diminishing his allowances, but, with you ordaining and safeguarding, let him enjoy the security of his emoluments — the prefect of the city nonetheless preserving what has been established.

And lest anything be left uncertain at the will of those who pay, as soon as six months have elapsed, let the aforesaid masters receive the middle portion of the fixed sum, and let the remaining months of the year be concluded with the due repayment of the allowances; lest those be compelled to depend on another's disdain to whom it is a sacrilege to have been idle even for any moment of the hours. For we wish what has been decreed to be most firmly observed to such a degree that, if anyone whose concern it is shall think this payment, as though due, ought to be deferred, let him himself suffer the losses incurred after the manner of interest, who through punishable greed has withdrawn just emoluments from those who labour praiseworthily.

For if we lavish our wealth upon stage-players for the people's amusement, and those obtain it most eagerly who are not held to be so necessary, how much more ought it to be furnished without delay to those through whom both honourable morals arise and eloquent talents are nourished for our palace! But cause this to be made known to your venerable assembly in the presence of the masters of letters, so that, as they recognize us to be solicitous about their emoluments, so they may know that the advancement of young men is to be exacted from them all the more earnestly. Let that maxim now cease, usurped by the querulous teachers in the satirists, that the mind ought not to be occupied with two cares. Behold, they are now proved to have a tolerable lodging;

whence now they may deservedly, clinging unremittingly to one concern, be transferred with the whole vigour of their minds to the studies of the good arts. The morals of men would wander confused and undiscerned, if either fault had no fear or virtue no reward. But since both are enclosed by their own limits and their proper boundaries, it is wickedness to be in doubt about him who has deserved to be chosen by the prince's judgment. For we decree nothing out of hatred, nor do we praise anyone enticed by some gratification. Our choice comes from merits, and a man is brought near to the royal mind in proportion as he is joined in fellowship by good studies. Do not fear that you are absent, nor be anxious about the prince's ignorance. The common sort of men may perhaps lie hidden;

the offspring of the senate cannot be unknown, since those are well known who are vouched for by their merits, and whoever is praised with fame as witness is abundantly recognized. Wherefore the serene eye of our mind beheld you, though stationed very far off, and saw the merit which was not held concealed. For celebrated repute spread abroad your purpose, giving credence to your lineage by the weight of your character, not by your age. For it was not right that our sentence should find anything to be corrected in him whom so great a family had produced. You have repaid the seed of your lineage with the fruits of your character. Long age has withdrawn nothing from you;

Rome has recognized in you the ancient Decii — the Decii, I say, a lineage honoured in former ages, the help of liberty, the glory of the senate-house, the singular renown of the Roman name; to which it is specially ascribed that, when the state of the commonwealth was imperilled, it escaped the most savage enemy, and amid so great a multitude of brave men one alone was found who loved his country more. These examples, by reminding, ever kindle you, since the praise of forefathers is a great spur of modesty, while we do not allow you to be unequal to those whom we rejoice to claim as our authors. And therefore — and let this be said with God for its inaugurator — receive in the twelfth indiction the insignia of the consulship, an honour lofty indeed, but native to your family. For you fill up the consular page;

the course of the years names you again and again; and whereas abundance is for the most part wont to bring disdain, your name, repeated, is ever rendered glorious. Indeed, the heavens have favoured this lineage by granting to the desires of its fathers happy offspring of males. Hence it is that in that highest office you scarcely see a colleague who is a stranger: you have as judges those whom you have as kinsmen. O singular renown of the times! The Roman senate-house is almost filled with your family. Behold, now indeed it must be called one body, since it is established as intermingled by the fellowship of a neighbouring lineage. But do not relax your spirits in confidence of your own, nor believe it can suffice that it has fallen to your lot to rejoice in their praise.

More is demanded of the heir of good things, since he is urged on without cessation who is admonished by the virtues of his elders. Add distinguished praises: let the succeeding age come after your elders with some renown of fresh achievement. For if it is glorious for posterity to extend ancestral resources, how much more excellent is it to increase inherited virtues! We have praised your character in domestic conversation, but now it befits you to display something greater in public sight, whereon neither tender age may flatter itself, nor fear claim anything, nor a master take credit.