For although every fraud seems grievous, yet that becomes insupportable which rages among the people of Romulus: a throng that lives quietly, a populace that is not noticed save when it is glad, a clamour without sedition, an uproar ignorant of fury, whose sole striving is to flee poverty and not to love riches. For they know not how to be money-grubbers, nor do they torment themselves with any cunning of trade: they live by the fortune of the middling sort and by the conscience of the rich. Is it not a sacrilege to plunder such men, who know not how to defraud another's goods? Wherefore we grant to you, with divinity propitious, the food-provisions to be distributed to the Roman people from that indiction, so that it may be able to receive without any diminution what it has earned by royal liberality.
Beware lest another receive what they have earned, and you yourself be rendered a stranger to our favour, if you depart from love of the citizens. Let no man become a Latian for a price who has not the rights of that city by birth. That name must always be honoured which has given rank to the nations, since he is rendered the more eminent in human affairs from whose splendour anything is bestowed. These gifts are of the Quirites. Let not the lot of a slave usurp the place of a freeman. He sins against the majesty of the Roman people who befouls the purity of that blood by the fellowship of slaves. When we were dining with the lord of affairs at the solemn banquet, and the various provinces were being praised for their delicacies, the discourse, as is wont, in its running course came round to the wines of the Bruttii and the sweetness of Silan cheese:
namely that by the benefit of the herbs there it is fashioned with such delight of nature that you would not believe the taste of honey to be lacking, which you perceive mixed in by no quality at all. There milk, lightly provoked, flows from the teats as from pipes, and, gathered as it were into other bellies by the richness of nature, it does not rain down in drops, but pours forth in certain sudden torrents. There breathes a sweet and varied fragrance of herbs: the pasturage of the cattle is recognized by the nostrils, which, fragrant with manifold virtue, is felt to breathe forth things like to incense. To this is joined so great a richness that you would judge a Palladian liquor to run down at the same time, save that it is distinguished from that leek-green hue by its snowy whiteness.
Then, in widely gaping vats, that marvellous abundance, received by the more than gladdened shepherd, when with the addition of rennet it has begun to be hardened into a firm tenderness, is brought to the form of a most beautiful disk, which, gathered for a little while in subterranean storehouses, makes the cheese to be of long-lasting substance. This, with all speed placed upon the ships, you shall consign, so that we may seem to have satisfied the royal desires with a small offering. The wine too, which antiquity, wishing to praise, named Palmatian, do you seek out for us—astringent, harsh, but pleasing in sweetness. For although among the Bruttian wines it may seem the last, yet by almost general opinion it has become the foremost. For there is found one both equal to Gazetan, like to Sabine, and singular for its great fragrances.
But since the latter has claimed for itself a most noble renown, let this one too, exceedingly elegant in its kind, be sought out, lest the prudence of our forefathers should seem to have named anything improperly. For it is softly thick with a sweet richness, most firm in vivacity, strong to the nostril, and clear too in brightness, which so exhales when belched from the mouth that the name seems deservedly to have been imposed upon it from the palm. It binds together failing inwards, dries up moist wounds, refreshes the weary breast; and what a drink artfully compounded can scarcely manage to achieve, this one naturally provides unprocessed. But see to it that you consign the aforesaid kinds, duly exacted, since we cannot be deceived, who hold this by patriotic truth:
for at present we have offered from our cellars the things that were desired. But you, at your own peril, do things unlike, the proofs of which you know can now be held against you. The expended liberality of all lords ought to be sustained with effort, since it is needful that there profit all what they, by the impulse of divinity, shall have been approved to have effected. For the piety of princes guards the whole empire, and while a worthy return is rendered to them, the members of the commonwealth are preserved unharmed. For some while since, the imperial constitutions throughout the Bruttii and Lucania aided the most sacred churches with a certain devotion of gifts.
But, as is familiar to sacrilegious minds, even to sin against divine reverence itself, the canon-collectors were withdrawing some part thereof under the name of the accountants, making the substance of the clergy into lay profit. Which thing the accountants of our see, rejecting it with execrable detestation, report was never brought in to them, of which crime impious hands have defrauded. What further, O scarcely human audacity, will you attempt, if you reach out thefts even there where you know you can in no wise lie hidden? To deceive mortal eyes perhaps there seems to be some presumption, however iniquitous; but with how great a blindness is he condemned who reckons that he is perpetrating what divinity cannot perceive!
But lest a like presumption should perchance rage further, or frequent excess be able to provoke the divine patience, by an edictal proclamation we determine that whoever shall henceforth have engaged in this fraud shall both lose his service and forfeit the profit of his own means. For he is to be punished with a heavier penalty who has stretched out his audacity even to divine injury. Let the poor have the gifts of the rulers; let those possess something who have no means at all. Why is another's substance, placed in the royal largesse, invaded? The possession thereof is the prince's gift. How may a subject presume to touch what looks to God—to offer the humility of the ruler? It is added that not to give to such men is to have taken away—and deservedly:
since he who is able to succour the hungry, if he does not feed them, slays them. Let them be ashamed to take from those to whom we are bidden to give. Beyond all cruelties is it to wish to become rich from the scantiness of a beggar. Let honest gains be loved, ruinous profits dreaded: let no one dare to take thence what he could scatter once gathered. He loses by adding who shall have gathered by retaining, and rather draws poverty to himself, if he does not repel the moneys of the needy.
The citizens of Regium, the farthest of the Bruttii, whom the violent onset of the sea once severed from the body of Sicily—whence their city took its name, for a division is in the Greek tongue called 'region'—report that they are wearied by the iniquitous presumption of the tax-collectors, imploring remedies known not to our ears alone but to our eyes, we who are able to know that their territory does not have what is demanded. For the land is most sparse with mountain stones, dry for pastures, but abounding in vintages: adverse to crops, but suited to olives; and therefore all its cultivation is in the hoe, since its surface, being dry, cannot nourish things born above. There the field, bare in its hide, is clothed by industry rather than by nature.
For it is covered with the greenness of Palladian woods, which on its soil is proved most parched. For in such places those things thrive which descend by tall roots to the depth of the ground. The crops are watered that they may live, and, the condition being changed, that is bestowed on the ears of grain which is afforded to garden-herbs. How great is the harvest which is tilled by hand? Rarely there does the farmer come from the threshing-floor burdened on his shoulders, so that he can not gather the harvest in barns, but scarcely fill some few baskets from the highest fertility. In the gardens, however, of the country folk a laborious band is kept, since every vegetable there is of savours, being sprinkled with sea-spray: what is wont to be done by human industry, this it received while being nourished.
But contrary to Maro's verdict, the fibres of the endives there are most sweet, which, girt about with twisted leaves, are clustered together with a firm tenderness: whence, after the manner of glass, anything plucked off is broken, while it is severed from the fertile turf. With these victuals, if you wish to know, that region is fertile: for it also enjoys the delicacies of the sea with copious delight, since there the upper and the nether sea, joined with intermingled fronts, by the rolling of its bay leads the delicacies of either deep into one gathering. For it is needful that fishes too hasten thither, where it is established that the wave too can flow down.
The exormiston too, among fishes a royal kind, equal to the murena in body, but differing in colour, with bristly nostrils, endowed with a beestings-like delicacy, curdled with an oily and sweet liquor—an appetizing and pleasing richness—when amid the floating foams it has begun to swim out into the borders of the air, knows not to return to the lairs which it deserts: I believe either unmindful of its return, or, softened by its utmost tenderness, it cannot, against the lifting waves, plunge down by a contrary struggle. It is borne along like a lifeless body, avoiding the peril by no efforts, by no art; and hence, destitute of strength, it is not believed to return, since it is not perceived even able to flee. This is plainly discerned to be of so great a sweetness that no fish may be compared to it.
These are the things on the Reginian shore which we have described, which we have come to know by no one else's report, though we hold them by visual proof. Wherefore we decree that the kinds of bacon and wheat be at no times demanded thence under the name of compulsory purchase, since that is too calumniously sought which by the benefit of the place is not had. Moreover, the defence of truth and the testimony of the judge ought to suffice, since it is too execrable an evil if, when conscience knows one thing, the tongue decrees another. It is added too that it is wearied by so many arrivals of travellers, worn down by so great a laceration of those running through it, that it ought reasonably to have remitted to it even what could be established to be able to be born there.
Scylacium, the first of the cities of the Bruttii, which Ulysses, the destroyer of Troy, is read to have founded, is said to be irrationally vexed by the excess of presumptuous men—a thing which, with us presiding, ought not to have been assumed, since we are compelled the more to grieve at its injuries, while it is proved to touch us with a patriotic affection. The city, set above the Hadriatic gulf, hangs upon the hills in the manner of a cluster of grapes, not that it swells with a difficult ascent, but that it may voluptuously look upon the green fields and the azure backs of the sea. This city beholds the rising sun from its very cradle, where the coming day does not send the dawn before it, but as soon as it has begun to rise, its brightness, brandishing its torch, shows itself. It looks upon the rejoicing Phoebus:
there it shines with the proper brightness of light, so that it is thought rather to be itself the very homeland of the sun, the renown of Rhodes being surpassed. It enjoys clear light: gifted too with a tempering of air, it feels sunny winters and cooled summers, and life is passed without any sorrow, where hostile seasons are not feared. Hence man too is freer in mind, since temperateness moderates all things. For a torrid homeland makes men fickle and sharp, a cold one slow and crafty: a temperate land alone composes the manners of men by its own quality. Hence it is that the ancients said Athens to be the seat of the wise, which, anointed with the purity of its air, prepared most lucid senses for the contemplative part by a happy bounty.
For is it the same thing to the body to swallow muddy waters as to draw in the clearness of a most sweet spring? Thus the vigour of the soul is burdened, while it is pressed down by a heavier air. For of necessity we are subject to such things, when by clouded weather we are made sorrowful, and again naturally we rejoice at fair skies, since the heavenly substance of the soul rejoices at all that is *** and most pure. It enjoys too the copious delicacies of the sea, while it possesses near at hand those Neptunian enclosures which we ourselves made: for at the foot of Mount Moscius, the bowels of the rocks being hollowed out, we have fittingly let in the flowing of Nereus' gulf, where a host of fishes, sporting in free captivity, both refreshes the spirits by delight and soothes the gaze with wonder.
They run eagerly to the hands of men, and before they become food themselves, they crave food. Man feeds his own delights, and while he holds in his power what he might catch, it frequently happens that, being satisfied, he leaves all behind. The spectacle too of those beautifully labouring is not taken away from those seated in the city. Copious vintages are seen in plenty, the rich threshing of the floors is beheld, the face too of the green olives is laid open. No one lacks the pleasantness of the fields, to whom it is given to behold all things from the city. Because in this way it now has no walls, you would believe it a rural city, you might judge the villa to be urban; and, placed between the two, it is known to be enriched with copious praise.
While travellers frequently desire to visit this city, while they wish to flee the wearinesses of toil, the proprietary citizens are wearied with expenses in the furnishing of post-horses and provisions on account of the pleasantness of the city. Wherefore, lest its own pleasantness should harm the city, or the matter of its renown become the cause of loss, we have ordained that the furnishing of post-horses and provisions, according to the conveyances granted, be charged to the public account. Abolishing too utterly the judge's 'dust-money,' we decree, according to the old constitutions, that provisions be furnished to magistrates for three days only, conveyances being charged at their own expense for any delay made. For the laws have willed those administering to be a remedy, not a burden.
On which matter, with a view to equity, it is to relieve our city's *** the judiciary burden, which we report to you, not as remitted. Live, with God's help, by the justice of the age and by a singular joy of security. Let others speak of islands; I would rather call your dwellings the Fortunate Isles. The season admonishes us, ever suited to human affairs, while, with opportunity ever seized, it reconciles to us even harsh things, that we should renew the care of fiscal payments by an annual festivity, since the order of the commonwealth is seen to consist in such an institution. And deservedly is that votive which is bestowed for the benefit of all. Those things are to be cherished whence the commonwealth is seen to be most firm, which, while it is restored by the returning census, is held together by the most firm strength of its own estate.
Wherefore devotion shown at any time is great, but then is it rendered more acceptable when it is held to be the more needful. Let the proprietors therefore furnish payments destined to profit their own favour. For a debt which cannot be avoided ought always to be offered with a ready mind, that it may become a benefit, which is established to be brought in without compulsion. And therefore—be it spoken with good omen—through the first indiction in your diocese we command you to admonish the proprietor, that, the three-fold payment being observed, he devoutly pay out the tributary penny in full, so that neither may anyone groan to have been exacted under premature compulsion, nor again, by a postponed remission, may anyone say himself to have been passed over.
Let no one exceed the amount of just weighing, and let the balance be most just: there will be no measure of plundering, if it be lawful for weights to be exceeded. A faithful record too of expenditures you shall solemnly send to our offices every four months, so that, the obscurity of all error being wiped away, the truth may shine forth in the public accounts. But that you may the more easily, with God's help, fulfil what has been ordained, we command this and that soldier of our see, mindful of their own perils to you and to your office, to press upon you, so that what you know to be commanded may blamelessly obtain its effect. Beware therefore lest the fault of either dishonest bribery or sluggish idleness regard you, and lest what you have neglected to expedite bring losses upon your own fortunes.
The fortification of cities is the sure hope of all, when in peace it is learned from foreign nations what may truly be feared in conflict. For the habitation of each several city is full of diverse kinds of men. Who knows with what nation he may clash? And therefore all ought to recognize what it would not be pleasing for future enemies to hear. Wherefore by our command you shall take care to admonish the proprietors that near Mount Caprarius and the surrounding places huge mouths of trenches be opened in the walls, and that there gape such a chasm that no entrance be left there. Why, O wicked men, do you scrutinize unlawful approaches, to whom the entry of the gates is freely permitted? I know not what you seem to conceal, who do not desire to enter openly.
A right conscience keeps to the public ways, rejoices in conversation with those it meets, and, while it gladly inquires after diverse persons, is not weighed down by the weariness of toil. But it is the friend of crime to wish to be unknown, and he who hides his own ways betrays his conscience. Accordingly let the ancient routes be recalled to general use, lest, while they seek a saving of toil, they suffer the costs of life. For that man is rightly to be held an enemy who strives to violate the safeguards of a city. The royal apparatus, just as it brings peril to the negligent, so to those labouring strenuously it lends adornment, since it is the reward of life to serve while the lord beholds, from whom neither fault can be hidden nor good thing concealed.
How pleasing it is to make the appointed journey without any offence, to see the tokens of diligence, to pass dubious places without fear, to ascend the mountainous ground with easy step, on the bridges not to tremble at the swaying of the beams, and to accomplish the way in such wise that all things be proved to have suited the mind! You surpass your own service, if you can please the lord of affairs. For with him whom we strive to obey, it is a great advancement if you deserve to come into his placid sight. Wherefore the road of the Flaminian Way, furrowed and channelled by streams, do you join its gaping banks by the very broad interposition of bridges; lay bare the oppressed margins of the streets from the roughest woods. Let the assigned number of post-horses be procured, with a choice quality of limbs:
Let the supply of designated provisions be collected without any loss to the landowners, for in this way you render all things pleasing—if you fail in no part. One item withdrawn disfigures the whole, and everything is thought to be wanting wherever even the smallest complaint stirs up resentment. Moreover, seek out with all diligence the provisions that are prepared for the royal tables, exactly as required. For what will it profit to satisfy the army, if it should befall you to offend in the very feeding of our lords? Let the provincials, when admonished, comply; let each city supply what is set forth in the schedules. For as often as one meets a joyful prince, favours are effectively requested. Consider also that I, being present, pass judgment upon your deeds:
Either I joyfully render thanks to you, my lords, or, angered, I lay upon you the prince's displeasure. Act, therefore, so that your excess be not charged to me, for I make satisfaction to all whom I shall have offended through your faults. Rather let the whole army repay me with gratitude. It will be great glory to you both to render me secure and to have earned the good opinion of so many. Indeed you can recognize the royal arrival from the very throng of travellers, since a great affair must always send fitting signs before it. The rising Morning Star reveals the coming day; the favouring wind shows that calm weather will follow; we discern imminent good things by a certain presaging of the mind, and hardly is a great matter accomplished that is not heralded by the running-ahead of signs.
Nevertheless we too of necessity give warning that you solemnly clothe the Tiber's waves with the joining of a bridge, so that a vessel made fast by a chaining-together may afford an unshaking passage and grant us a swift crossing from its fixed position. Let it not be moved by sluggish ropes, as was the custom; let so great a mass not grow torpid by the hands of those who haul it; rather let it, being fixed, confer the speed which, when moving, it did not formerly afford. Let the bands of travellers walk indeed, not sail; let the divided wave carry us across. Thus it is fitting that the lord be received, so that he ought to rejoice in some novelty. The joining of the planks, strongly bound together, must afford the needful solidity, so that by an earth-like semblance it may take away from the hesitant the dread of the waves.
Nay rather, let it be wished that the crossing had been longer, since it is traversed without harm. Let the protection of railings be fittingly fixed on the right and left: a prosperous passage is granted when the chance of a hard fall is shut out. See how you prepare the rest of the things pertaining to you, you who know that you are to go forth to meet him. For what a thing it is, amid so great a throng, to have been unable to be blamed! He afflicts all who withdraws anything needful from the king, because, while he is desired joyful by all, he saddens everyone if he be found offended. Add that it is so glorious, under so great a gathering of senators, to be praised, to receive the prince in such a way that all understand nothing is lacking, and to come before the lord himself joyful rather than confounded by any alarm.
It is an unhoped-for good if he to whom the danger of being deceived belongs procures for himself an increase of favour. Know that for this purpose we have dispatched that officer of our court, who is to keep watch over you and your office, so that he may report to us that all is prepared; for that cannot be entrusted to chance which is reckoned to our peril. You recall with me, most faithful men, that the holy Agapitus, pope of the city of Rome, when by royal command he was being sent on an embassy to the prince of the East, having received pledges from you, solemnly accepted so many pounds of gold upon a written bond, so that, as the provident lord had commanded, it might hasten even his sudden departure. He indeed first acted kindly who in necessity gave money on loan:
But how much more gloriously did he act in bestowing even that which might have been offered with the rendering of thanks! Necessity was overcome without loss: the hand of the pope gave what his substance did not possess, and that journey was rendered harmless which was completed by gifts. What a thing, I ask, did it seem—for the bishop to pour out upon those who asked, and yet for the Church to feel no detriment? He was a distributor rather than a giver, for that must be credited to him out of whose resources the expenditure seemed to be made. What may such an embassy not accomplish before a pious prince, an embassy which is shown to have been sent forth by a singular example?
Wherefore, admonished by our command and made secure by the royal order, restore without any delay the holy vessels, together with the obligation of the written bond, to the agents of Saint Peter the Apostle, so that, profitably returned, they may seem swiftly to obtain what is desired. Let the sacred ministries be carried back into the hands of the levites, to be recounted throughout the whole world; let that be given which was its own, since it justly receives through bounty what the priest pledged under the laws. Surpassed is the precedent which we have recounted with great earnestness in our history.
For when King Alaric, sated with the plundering of the city of Rome, had received from his own men, who were bringing them, the vessels of the Apostle Peter, as soon as by inquiry he learned the cause of the matter, he ordered them to be carried back to the sacred thresholds from the hands of the plunderers, so that the greed which through the course of pillage had committed a crime might, by a most lavish devotion, blot out the transgression. But what wonder is it if he was unwilling to plunder the venerable things of the saints, he who had enriched himself by so great a devastation of the city? Our king, however, by a religious purpose restored the vessels which by the right of pledge seemed to have been made his own. And therefore let frequent prayer be offered for such deeds, since we believe that joyful things can be granted, when we ask a recompense for good actions.
The office of the scribes is wont to be the security of all, since the right of all is guarded by his diligence. For fire devastates some men; furtive theft strips others bare; through negligence some lose what a diligent man had acquired: but through public trust whatever is lost by private persons is most robustly restored. He is more careful in others' affairs than care can be over one's own: unprompted he does what one scarcely asked would fulfil, and when consulted he cannot deny what the interested party confesses he has lost. His cabinet is the fortune of all, and rightly is it called the refuge of all, where the security of everyone is found. He passes over into paternal duties, if the truth be kept uncorrupted.
For just as a diligent parent preserves what an idle heir may find, so the arbiter of the parties suffers no one to be defrauded of his own benefit. And therefore we command you to be the continual guardian of so great a matter, so that you, who hitherto have pleased by your integrity, should be darkened by no inconstancy. See what is entrusted to you—ancient faith and daily diligence. You settle the quarrel of the litigants: before all magistrates men plead by reason of your care, and you rather are the judge, you who loose the bonds of cases. This is an honorable distinction, an indisputable testimony: when the ancient voice of the documents comes forth uncorrupted from your inner shrine, the examiners receive it reverently; the litigants, however shameless, being constrained, nevertheless obey.
And although it is lawful for a promulgated sentence to be suspended, it is not permitted that you be opposed. Wherefore have no venal intent. The moth of the documents is the malicious bribe of the buyer-off, while they seek to consume what they have recognized as an obstacle to themselves. Let the comely publication of the truth feed you; let your wealth be reckoned as integrity. Give to those who ask what was done of old. Be a transmitter, not a founder, of ancient deeds. Imprint the copy as a ring upon wax, so that, just as the impressed features cannot escape their marks, so your hand may not be able to diverge from the authentic. But if anyone should mislead you by an unjust subornation, how, in another case, shall he acquiesce in believing you, whom he knows could have been corrupted?
He attacks you by his own fraud and easily convicts the one whom he has deceived in one matter. Love justice, of which no one complains, so that even one angered may speak a wholesome testimony—he who wished in vain to lead you astray. Everything you do is public, since either, being praised, you may find favour, or, being accused, you may find offence. Public expenditures, tottering through the diverse variety of the times, will be able to restrain themselves by this principle, if the wholesomeness of the orders follows the yield of the localities. For there management is easy where the produce has been more abundant. For if there is levied what hungry barrenness has denied, then both the province is harmed and the desired effect is not obtained.
By the testimony of travellers, therefore, we have learned that the province of Histria, renowned with praise for three excellent products, teeming by divine gift with wine, oil, and wheat, rejoices in the fecundity of the present year. And therefore let the aforesaid commodities, supplied to the value of so many solidi, be reckoned to you as your tributary obligation for the present first indiction; but the remainder, on account of the customary expenditures, we leave to the devoted province. But since the things we have mentioned must be procured by us in a larger sum, we have also transmitted so many solidi from our treasury, so that the necessary goods may be gathered most abundantly without loss to you.