Let Your Greatness see to it that this comes to the knowledge of all, lest anyone suppose he may be excused through ignorance on the ground that he did not understand it to have been forbidden. Since the honourable nobility of your lineage and the proofs of your great loyalty had persuaded us to entrust to you, for peaceful governance, the city of Ticinum which you had defended in war, you, being overcome by a sudden flooding of slimy gout, have requested that you might be allowed to seek out rather the drying waters of Bormio, which are wholesome especially for this affliction. We heal your desire with a remedial command, so that by the benefit of our order we may bring about the soundness of health which we deservedly seek in you.
Far be it that the tyranny of a most grievous calamity should disarm a most warlike man—that ailment which in wondrous fashion forces vigorous limbs to wither by the infusion of a punishing humour, and fills the once-mobile joints, swelling them with a marble-like tumour. Though it knows how to empty all else, it seeks out the hollow cavities of the joints, where, growing sluggish in its marshy lodging, it forms stones out of fluid, and what nature had loosened for the grace of bending, it binds into a most unsightly rigidity with an alien hardness. This incurable affliction—and a suffering soundness—binds the loosed, contracts the living, and makes bodies shrink which have been maimed by no mutilation. While the limbs remain whole, the measure of one's stature is lost, and he is seen to be smaller from whom nothing is felt to have been taken away.
From the survivor the services of his limbs are withdrawn: the body is alive yet does not move, and, reduced to the rank of insensible things, it is now carried not by its own will but by another's motion. This living death is said to be sounder than all torments, and he is said to fare better who is not proved to have escaped the cause of so great a peril. The pain indeed departs, yet it leaves behind remnants stronger than itself; and, by a new example of misfortune, the affliction seems to withdraw, yet the sick man does not cease to be sick. Even the supplementary burdens are at times remitted to tortured debtors: but these are chains which, once they have been able to fetter their captive, know not how to loose him in his whole lifetime.
As it departs it leaves behind unhappy tokens, and in the manner of barbarian peoples it violently guards by its own marks the lodging of the body it has occupied, lest where that fierce thing has begun to take hold, hostile health should perhaps dare to enter there again. Although this seems contrary to all, it is most so to those who have flourished in the exercise of arms—that those hardest of limbs should grow soft from the boiling-down of disease, and that those who could in no way be overcome by an enemy from without should rather be conquered by an inward adversity. Go, therefore, with God as your guide, on your own feet to the aforesaid place. For far be it that our warrior should walk with another's steps. Let him be carried on a horse's back, not by human conveyance; for it is a grievous thing for a brave man so to live that he cannot even fill the place of an unarmed servant.
These things we have related to you in heightened narrative, that you may be carried away by a more than fervent longing to the pursuit of health. Use therefore those waters: first as a cleansing draught when drunk, then by the drying exhalations of the baths, where deservedly that untameable neck of the affliction is bent—when the inner parts are cleansed by abundant outflow, and the outer become free by the drawing-out virtue, and, as if by two aids gathered together, the disease cast into the midst is overcome. Let the gifts there granted by divine bounty be cherished. Against that conqueress of the human race the timely defences of the baths have been given; and what an unbroken decade does not subdue, what the entry of a thousand draughts does not soften, is there put to flight by pleasurable remedies.
May the divine powers grant the wished-for benefit, that we may come to know the most truthful fame of the place rather through your restored health—for to us it is desirable to escape whatever takes away bodily soundness. From the tenor of your report we have learned that on the Sacred Way, which antiquity dedicated with many superstitions, the bronze elephants in the neighbourhood are everywhere tottering toward ruin; and those creatures which in their fleshly substance are wont to live above a thousand years seem in their brazen images to be enduring their imminent fall. Let your providence cause their proper longevity to be restored to them, strengthening the gaping limbs with iron hooks; let it also fortify the sagging belly by setting a wall beneath it, lest that marvellous greatness collapse shamefully into ruin.
For even to the living ones their very fall is hostile: for when, in their manner of lying down, by men's art trees are cut away and they have committed their huge limbs to them, being upset with their whole weight they cannot rise again by their own strength once it has befallen them to have collapsed—namely because their feet are bent by no joints, but remain ever rigid and unbendable after the fashion of columns. There they lie prostrate with so great a mass that you might then sooner believe them made of metal, when you behold them living yet not moving. They lie as survivors with the likeness of corpses: you would think them dead though you do not doubt them to be alive; and, in the manner of collapsing buildings, they know not how to leave of their own accord the place which they have been able to occupy with their limbs.
That terrible greatness is not even equal to the tiniest ants, since it has not from nature that benefit which the lowliest of animals are seen to have merited. They rise up by human aid, by whose art they had lain. Yet the beast, once restored to its own steps, knows how to be mindful of the benefit: for it receives as its master him whom it recognizes to have come to its help; at his will it moves its steps, by his pleasure it takes food, and—what surpasses all the intelligence of quadrupeds—it does not hesitate at first sight to adore him whom it perceives to be the ruler of all. But if a tyrant should appear to it, it remains unbending; nor can it be imposed upon the beast to render to wicked men that which it knows of itself to display toward good princes.
In turn it stretches out its trunk as a hand, and gladly receives what will profit its master, because it knows that by his care it can live. For the aforesaid beast has, so to speak, a nosed hand, through which it takes up what is given and transmits it to its own mouth to be swallowed. For though it is a tall animal, it is fashioned with a very short neck, so that what it could not pluck up food from the ground, this it might seem able to satisfy by such a service. Cautious, it always advances by testing the ground, remembering that at the beginning of its capture a fall was harmful to it. Its breath, because it is said to heal the human headache, it exhales when asked.
When it comes to draw water, through the hollow of its trunk it pours out, on request, a shower like rain, and so recognizes what is asked of it that it gladly does what it is bidden. By a movement of its body it asks from various people what it may offer to its master, and reckons its keeper's gains to be its own nourishment. But if anyone scorns to supply what is requested, it is said, by opening the reservoir of its bladder, to discharge so great a flood that a kind of river seems to enter into the man's household, avenging the contempt by stench. For when wronged it keeps the offence, and is said long afterward to repay him by whom it perceives itself to have been injured. Its eyes indeed are small, yet they move with weight: you would believe its gaze to have aimed at something kingly. It scorns those who jest scurrilously;
it attends gladly to whatever is honourable, and you perceive that it judges rightly, since you will have learned that frivolous things displease it. Its hide is furrowed with ulcerous valleys, from which the abominable affliction of those-beyond-the-sea (elephantiasis) took its name; and it is hardened into such toughness that you would think the skin to be of bone. This is pierced by no force, penetrated by no edge of iron; and therefore the kings of the Persians drew this beast into their wars, since it would yield to no blows struck against it and would terrify its adversaries by its very mass. Wherefore it is most pleasing even to possess their likenesses, so that they who have not seen the living substance may know the imagined animal by such a representation.
And therefore do not suffer them to perish, since it belongs to Roman dignity to store up in that city, by the talents of craftsmen, what wealthy nature is known to have produced through the diverse parts of the world. Although every advancement is to be referred to the gifts of the Godhead, and nothing is established as good save what is recognized to have been conferred by Him, nevertheless above all the cause of royal dignity is to be ascribed to the judgments on high, because He Himself no less ordained him to whom He granted that His peoples should obey.
Wherefore, rendering thanks to our Author with most humble satisfaction, we make it known that our parents the Goths, amid the swords of armed array, after the custom of our forefathers, by laying a shield beneath us, conferred upon us—the Lord granting it—the royal dignity; so that arms bestowed the honour whose reputation wars had begotten. For know that I was chosen not in the narrowness of a bedchamber, but in fields widely open; not amid the dainty converse of flatterers, but with trumpets resounding I was sought, that, roused by such a din to a longing for inborn valour, the Getic people might find for itself a martial king. For how long could brave men, nurtured amid fervent wars, endure an unproven prince, so that they should labour over his reputation, however much they presumed upon their own valour?
For it is necessary that such an opinion be current concerning all, as the nation shall have deserved to have its ruler. For as you have been able to hear, summoned by the perils of my kinsmen I had come to undergo a common fortune with all; but they did not suffer me to be their mere leader, who seemed to be seeking a battle-trained king. Wherefore favour first the divine grace, then the judgments of the Goths, since you all make me king who with one mind cast your votes together. Lay aside now the fear of losses; cast away suspicions of harm; dread nothing harsh under our rule. We have learned to love brave men, we who have often carried wars through to the end. It is added that I stand as witness to each one of your men.
For there is no need that your deeds be related to me by another, who have known all things, sharing in your labours with you. The arms of the Goths are not to be broken by any inconstancy of my promises: everything we do shall look to the people's advantage; we shall love nothing privately; this we promise to pursue—what may adorn the royal name. Finally, we pledge our governance in all things to be such as it befits the Goths to have after the renowned Theoderic: a man singularly and beautifully composed for the cares of the kingdom, so that deservedly each of princes is understood to be illustrious in proportion as he is found to love that man's counsels. Therefore he ought to be believed his kinsman who shall have been able to imitate his deeds.
And therefore be solicitous for the welfare of our kingdom, secure—with the Lord's help—concerning our inward conduct. How great, most merciful Emperor, is to us the longed-for sweetness of your favour, may be wholly understood from this: that after so many most grievous injuries and after so great an effusion of blood perpetrated, we are seen to seek your peace as though none of your subjects were thought to have injured us before. We have endured such things as could offend even those who did them: persecutions without crime, hatred without fault, losses without debts. And lest it could have been neglected on account of its smallness, the blow was inflicted not in the provinces only, but in the very capital of affairs. Estimate what griefs we cast aside, that we may be able to find your justice.
Such a thing has been wrought as the world may talk of: which so deserves to be settled by you, that the world at large ought to admire your equity. For if vengeance for King Theodahad is sought, I deserve to be loved; if regard for Queen Amalasuintha of divine memory is held before your eyes, her daughter ought to be considered—whom the effort of you all ought fittingly to have brought to the throne, that all nations might recognize that you had repaid the return of grace to so great a pledge. For this ought also to have moved you: that by a wondrous disposition, before the heights of the kingdom, the Godhead made us mutually to have acquaintance with one another, so that it might grant a cause of love to those upon whom mere sight had bestowed favour.
For with what reverence could I cherish the prince, whom, while still placed in that fortune, I looked up to? But you can even now make whole again all that has been done, since it is not difficult to keep him in affection who is known eagerly to seek your favour. And therefore, greeting your Clemency with fitting honour, we make known that we have sent our envoys, so-and-so and so-and-so, to the wisdom of your Serenity, that you may consider all things after your manner, in order that both commonwealths may persevere in restored concord, and that what in the times of former princes was founded with praiseworthy reputation may rather, under your rule, by divine aids, be increased.
The remaining matters indeed we have entrusted to the aforesaid envoys to be conveyed by word to your Serenity, so that both the brevity of a letter might touch on some things, and they, suggesting our cases, might more fully disclose them. Directing such-and-such and such-and-such, our envoys, to the most serene prince, it was fitting to your Greatness to send through them health-bringing missives, that in every part your benefits might be deserved, since they carried the affection of our converse. And therefore, rendering the grace of a letter to your merits, we hope that your prudence may support them before the mind of the most merciful Emperor, because the things we ask are so just that they deserve the striving of all wise men. For that ought easily to be corrected by you which it would not have been seemly to admit.
But you can order all things graciously, all things appeasingly, because grace is wont to be the sweeter after bitternesses are expiated. For one unknown might have shunned you; but I, who have seen the adornment of your commonwealth, who have known so many noble hearts of the great, do not desire to separate myself from the favour of the most pious prince, if he will think upon me what is just. For if another deserved the offence, I ought to be held most welcome, who succeeded with vengeance to one who was hateful. I followed your minds: rewards ought to have been rendered to me, not injury. And therefore let not grace be denied to one to whom nothing whatever is to be imputed. And so let the hatred be buried with the death of the sinner.
For even if from you we perhaps deserve somewhat less, let Roman liberty be considered, which is everywhere shaken through the tumults of wars. To have said few things suffices for your wisdom, because it is extended in a deep breast, where what is considered is ever increased. If we owe honour even to priests unknown to us, how much more to those whom we have beheld with lovable veneration! For in one way we seek out the known, in another we address the unknown. The affection for those we have seen is always greater, while he is most gladly retained who is joined to us by constant and sweet discourse.
And therefore through the bearers of this letter, our envoys whom we have appointed to the most serene prince, we present to your Holiness the homage of due veneration, hoping that you may deign to pray for us, and that, where need shall require, they may find your consolations; because it is necessary that you should wish well to those whom you recognize to be joined to you by religion. Having directed such-and-such and such-and-such, our envoys, to the most serene prince—God favouring—through whom it was necessary to render to your Greatness the affection of a greeting, since it is owed to your honour and wisdom that we may enjoy the grace of converse with you.
Moreover we hope from your Excellence that those whom you perceive us to have dispatched with speed should not have to endure delay, so that we may attach them to your benefits, if we learn that they arrive with all tardiness removed.