Although the offices of all dignities are debarred from the armed hand, and those who are taught to carry out public severity are seen to be clothed in civil garments, your dignity alone is adorned with terrors, you who are girded with the sword of war even in peaceful affairs. See by what judgment you have been advanced, when we see the vigor of the fasces entrusted to others, but to you it is established that the steel itself has been held forth by the very laws. They gave a bloody thing to a peaceful spirit, so that both the guilty might exceedingly fear and the injured might rejoice in the longed-for vengeance. Otherwise the earlier men would be blamed, had they not made all things tempered. But since you understand yourself to have been chosen for governance, do not readily covet human destruction. He who is called a defendant—let him also be proved one.
Know that the remedy of punishing has been given to you for the well-being of the many. These are the arms of law, not of frenzy. This display is surely instituted against the guilty, so that terror may correct more than penalty consumes. For he is not compelled to cut down with steel a robust audacity who still bends a tender one with words. This dread is civil, not warlike, which you will make to be glorious if it be not proved to have excess. You also have steel that is nonetheless bloodless. Let those be shut up in the bonds of chains whom the censure of light crimes assails. He who judges concerning life ought to be one who delays: another sentence can be corrected; what has been transacted concerning life suffers no change.
Let cattle-rustlers fear your standards, let thieves grow pale, let robbers shudder with horror; let innocence alone look on glad, while it believes that aid has come to it which the discipline of the laws has transmitted. Let no one turn your will aside by bribes: the sword is despised where gold is accepted; you render yourself unarmed if you depart from a manly spirit through greed. Wherefore through the said indiction we grant you the dignity of the countship in that province, so that you may carry out what pertains to your titles rather as one praiseworthy for civility, and presume to do nothing except what a private man might lawfully avenge. For that is right administration which is defended even without power, so that he may then be proved to have been just when an enemy can object to him whatever he would prefer.
Nor yet is your hope deserted as if with disdain: for if you preside well over the administrations of provinces, the laws have with good reason judged that you may hope for the most ample honors. Whence it now seems almost a debt, what is known to have been freely promised to you by so great an authority. Antiquity in all ways prudently considered that the dignities of provinces be renewed by yearly succession, lest one man should grow insolent through long-continued power, and that the advancements of many might find their joys. For it suffices each man to have departed praised, because while a prolonged time of power is sought, the reproaches of faults are not avoided. For it is marvelous to escape them even in a short span, since they frequently steal upon even those who depart from the fasces with swiftness.
A full year suffices both to declare the good things of a conscience and the more easily guards itself from error. Let it be in your purpose to undertake the administration of a single year: it is ours to increase the time for the deserving, because we do not readily wish to remove those whom we perceive to be just. Therefore, invited by the morals of your conduct, through the said indiction we grant you, by favoring divinity, the governorship in that province, so that you ought so to act that the landholder may seem to render thanks along with his tributes. Follow the good examples of your predecessors; sever yourself from the imitation of the vicious: let not every custom be reckoned worthy of approval. Another's error ought to render one cautious, not compliant. He betrays the fault of folly who follows one who has been accused.
But that is the better choice from which the reputation of one's predecessor is praised with admiration. Consider with how many nobles the province is full. You have those who both ought to speak well of you and presume to disparage, because there is no power which can take away the quality of its own reputation from the mouth of men. On the contrary, what a fruit it is to go through neighboring provinces with a praiseworthy reputation, and to find there the truest praise, where you do not rule by power! It is added that we do not leave unrewarded, if we hear that you have acted commendably. Shun vice, and you earn the affection of the prince. You have the royal will in the laws: obey them, and you are recognized to fulfill our commands.
Since, with God's help, we know that the Goths dwell intermingled with you, lest any indiscipline should arise among the partners, as is wont to happen, we have judged it necessary to send to you that sublime man, hitherto approved by us for his good morals, as count, who according to our edicts is to cut off any suit between two Goths; and if perchance any business should arise also between a Goth and a Roman, taking to himself a prudent Roman, he may settle the contest by even-handed reason. But between two Romans let the cognitors whom we direct through the provinces give audience as Romans, so that to each his own rights may be preserved, and under a diversity of judges one justice may embrace all alike.
Thus, in common peace, may both nations, divinity being favorable, enjoy a sweet leisure. Know, moreover, that our charity is one and equal toward all: but he will be able to commend himself the more to our heart who has loved the laws with a temperate will. We love nothing uncivil: we detest wicked pride along with its authors. Our piety execrates the violent. In a cause let rights, not arms, prevail. For why should those choose to seek violent means who are proved to have judgments at hand? For this reason we give emoluments to judges, for this reason we maintain so many offices with diverse largesses, that we may not allow to grow among you what might pertain to hatred. Let one desire of living embrace you, you for whom it is established that the empire is one.
Let each people hear what we love. Let the Romans, as they are neighbors to you in possessions, so be also joined to you in charity. And you, Romans, ought to love the Goths with great zeal, who both make numerous peoples for you in peace and defend the whole commonwealth through wars. And so it befits you to obey the judge appointed by us, so that whatever he shall decree for the preserving of the laws, you may fulfill in all ways, insofar as you may seem to have satisfied both our empire and your own benefit.
Although the honor of the rank of spectabilis seems to be one, and in these matters nothing else is wont to be set before another except time, yet when the quality of affairs is weighed, much is seen to be entrusted to those to whom border peoples are assigned, because it is not the same thing to pronounce law in pacified regions as to sit beside suspect nations, where not so much vices as wars are to be feared, nor only does the herald's voice sound, but the blare of trumpets frequently makes its onset. For the Raetias are the fortifications of Italy and the barriers of the province: which we judge not without reason to have been so named, since against fierce and most savage nations they are set out like certain obstacles of snares. For there the heathen onset is received, and by hurled javelins the raging presumption is wounded.
Thus the heathen onset is your hunting, and you carry on as sport what you perceive yourselves to have continually done with happy success. And therefore, hearing that you are strong in talent and might, through the said indiction we yield to you the dukedom of the Raetias, that you may both rule the soldiers in peace and, with them, traverse our borders with solemn alacrity, since you perceive that no small matter has been committed to you, when the tranquillity of our kingdom is believed to be guarded by your solicitude. Yet so, that the soldiers committed to you may live with the provincials by civil law, and that the spirit which feels itself armed may not grow insolent, because that shield of our army ought to furnish quiet to the Romans. They are clearly stationed for this purpose, that within, a happier life may be plucked in secure freedom.
Wherefore answer to our judgment, pleasing us by faith and diligence, so that you neither receive foreigners without examination nor transmit our people to the nations without care. Indeed, recourse to arms comes more rarely where an attempted surprise is felt to be capable of being guarded against. But the privileges of your dignity you shall vindicate by our commands. Our hall (aula), as it is acknowledged to have been established by skilled arrangers, so there ought to be in it the diligent care of learned men, since that marvelous beauty, if it be not refreshed from time to time, is spoiled as old age steals upon it. These are the delights of our power, the comely face of empire, the heralding testimony of kingdoms:
these are shown to envoys with admiration, and at first sight such a lord is believed to be as his dwelling is proved to be. And therefore it is a great pleasure of a most prudent mind continually to rejoice in a most beautiful habitation, and amid public cares to refresh the wearied spirit with the sweetness of buildings. These the Cyclopes are first said to have founded in Sicily, most spacious, after the manner of caverns, after Polyphemus had borne in the hollows of the mountains, at the hand of Ulysses, the lamentable bereavement of his single eye. Thence the skill of building is read to have been transferred to Italy, so that what was invented by such great and such (skilled) founders, an emulous posterity might preserve to its own advantage.
Hence it is that we judge your spectability ought, from the said indiction, to undertake the care of our palace, so that you may both keep the old things in their former brightness and bring forth new ones with a similar antiquity: because, just as it befits a comely body to be clothed in one color, so the brightness of the palace ought to be diffused alike through all its members. For these tasks you can be found suitable, if you frequently read the geometer Euclid, if you store up his diagrams, described with marvelous variety, in the contemplation of your mind, so that at the hour, being prompted, copious knowledge may serve you. Let Archimedes too, that most subtle investigator, with Metrobius ever stand by you, so that you may be rendered most ready for new things, you who are proved learned in the books of the ancients.
For no small care is delegated to you, since you are proved to fulfill, by the ministry of your art, our spirit most desirous of the zeal for building. For if anywhere we either restore a city or wish to found the newness of strongholds, or if the pleasantness of a praetorium to be constructed should allure us, by your ordering there is brought before the eyes what is found amid our thinking. A comely mastery, a purpose altogether glorious, to send into ages so long that whereby posterity ought to praise you in admiration.
For whatever the builder of walls, or the carver of marble, or the founder of bronze, or the turner of vaults, or the worker in plaster, or the mosaicist does not know, he prudently asks of you; and that whole great army of craftsmen runs back to your judgment, lest it should produce anything confused. See, therefore, how much he ought to know who is able to instruct so many. You assuredly reap the most abundant fruit of your good management, since you are praised for their labor, if you display works diligently executed by them. Wherefore, whatever pertains to you, we wish it to be carried out so becomingly, so firmly, that the only difference from the work of the ancients should be the newness of the structures. But you make these things possible, if you suppress none of our gifts through any greed.
For he commands the craftsman effectively who does not allow him to be defrauded of due remuneration. A generous hand nourishes the talents of the arts, since he who need not think about his sustenance hastens to accomplish what is commanded. Consider too with what favor you are treated, that, adorned with a golden staff, you are seen to march first among the numerous attendants before the royal feet, so that by this very testimony of nearness to us it may be recognized that we have entrusted the palaces to you. Although the buildings of Rome, set side by side, can scarcely be found that surpass one another—since everything that is seen to have been founded there is acknowledged to have been wrought to a marvel—nevertheless we judge there to be this difference: that necessary usefulness gratifies, while the other commends itself only for the sake of beauty.
To behold the Forum of Trajan even with constant gazing is a marvel; to ascend the lofty Capitol is to have seen human genius surpassed. But is life sustained by these, or is any health of the body refreshed by such delight? In the aqueducts of Rome, however, both are foremost: the construction is wondrous, and the wholesomeness of the waters singular. For how many rivers are led there as if upon constructed mountains! You would believe their channels natural, by the solidity of the stone, since so great a force of water could for so many ages be firmly upheld. Hollowed mountains often collapse, the courses of torrents are scattered; yet that work of the ancients is not destroyed, if it is preserved with supporting diligence.
Let us indeed observe how great an adornment the abundance of waters affords to the walls of Rome. For what would that beauty of the baths be, if it did not possess certain most sweet expanses of water? The Aqua Virgo runs with the most pure delight, which is believed to be so called for this reason, that it is defiled by no impurities. For while other waters are violated by an excess of rains through the admixture of earth, this, flowing most purely, counterfeits an air ever serene with its limpid wave. Who could set forth such things in fitting words?—how the Aqua Claudia is led through so great a mass of arches up to the height of the Aventine, so that, when it has fallen there, slipping down from on high, that lofty summit seems to be watered as though it were the deepest valley.
The Egyptian Nile, swelling at fixed seasons, when its flood is poured over the lying fields, rages turbid beneath a serene sky; but how much more beautiful it is that the Roman Aqua Claudia has sent forth most pure waters through so many dry mountain heights from the teeming pipes to baths and houses, and flows so evenly that it can never withdraw itself when desired! For the one, while it recedes, is mud; while it comes unexpectedly, is a deluge. Who then would not judge that the famous Nile is surpassed by the rivers of our city—seeing that it either terrifies its own dwellers by its coming or forsakes them by its receding? But we have related these things not by superfluous recital, that you may perceive what diligence is required of you, to whom so great a beauty is committed.
Wherefore, by this indiction we have entrusted to you, after great deliberation, the office of count of the aqueducts, that with utmost zeal you may strive to accomplish what you see to be expedient for things so great and of such kind. First of all, the harmful trees, which bring about the ruin of the structures—being like certain irresistible battering-rams of the walls—we decree to be cut down by the roots; for no injury is removed whose origin is not taken away. But if anything has been demolished by the action of age, let it be repaired with vigilant speed, lest, as the decay grows, our occasion of loss be increased. The aqueduct's conduit is your fortune: while you remain unharmed, if you have made it solid; and you advance with us in such measure as you shall prove yourself to have labored for them.
Let then your skill and fidelity act so that both the construction of the fabric may remain unimpaired, and the distribution of the water may not be diverted by any venality of the keepers. Although your very name ought to rouse you to the vigils of the city, that you may fulfill what you are called, nevertheless our wonted forethought and caution do not desert us, but rather we sweetly invite to obedience those whom we choose for action. For what is more beautiful for you than to expend the labor of your diligence zealously in that city, where such witnesses are seen to stand by? Indeed, your caution, as soon as it has been applied, runs through the mouths of patricians and consuls: you scarcely do anything carefully, and you hear the nobles praise you with admiration.
You hold a middling rank from the king, yet you move in the highest repute. You are called the guardian of the Roman state, since you defend it from the domestic enemy. Wherefore be vigilant concerning thieves. Although the laws by no means bid you punish them, nevertheless they did not deny you the license of tracking them down—I believe in order that, although they were detestable robbers, yet because they were called Romans, they might subject them to a greater dignity. Use therefore, through this indiction, the dignity of prefect of the watch. The terror of penalties has been taken from you, not the power: for the law judged that one to be feared all the more by whom it willed the wicked to be seized.
You shall therefore be the security of those who sleep, the safeguard of homes, the protection of locks; an unseen investigator, a silent arbiter, for whom it is right to deceive those who lie in ambush, and a glory to outwit them. Your activity is a nocturnal hunt, which by a marvelous manner, if it is not seen, then is it caught. You commit thefts the more upon thieves, while you strive to circumvent those whom you know to be able to delude all men. It is a kind of conjuring trick that you perform, that you may entangle the cunning of robbers. For we reckon that the riddles of the Sphinx could more easily be grasped than the fugitive presence of a robber be discovered. He, circumspect to all things, unstable for what is to come, fearful of ambushes—how can he be caught, who, like the wind, is seen to be held in no fixed place?
Keep watch unwearied with the birds of night: let the night reveal to you its sights, and as they find their food in the darkness, so may you be able to discover renown. Be now attentive to the duties enjoined. Let no venality take from you what your industry grants. For although these things may seem to be carried on beneath a deep gloom, yet there is no act that can be hidden. Your privileges too, and those of your appointed office, you shall reasonably claim by our authority, since it is necessary in so great a city that matters be conducted by various judges, which cannot be dispatched by one.
Although you are adorned at first sight with the dignity of a great name—since the prudence of the ancients could not designate the highest and the lowest things by a like appellation, lest it should pollute by another's baseness the splendor it gave to the highest—nevertheless from this it is understood what the authority of our forebears could have intended, when they willed those to be called prefects of the watch who go their rounds for the general repose. For to you is committed the security of fortunes, the adornment of the city, the advantage of all; that is, that you may wage a peaceful war against domestic prowlers, should you perceive any citizen to be in danger of harm. Guard the fortunes of all. Untroubled sleep is enjoyed while you keep watch, and no annoyance is felt. Set in peace, you take victories over the thief of the night.
At morning the defended city rejoices in your laurels, which, when it beholds the captives, then knows itself to have been freed from a hidden enemy. Daily you triumph, if you keep good watch; and although the glory of warlike contest is rare, yet it serves you continually in the robbers you have found. O office of leadership undertaken with too great affection for the citizens! You undertake to seek out plunderers whom the master cannot find for himself, and, beneficent by a double reckoning, you either forestall thefts to come or shut off those already committed. Is not this a certain ineffable grace of the city—to take upon itself the one thing which it sees to be expedient for all? Deservedly did prudent antiquity assign to you the glorious name of prefect, since that one could not do this, except who loved the citizens more than his own advantages.
Your office too stands relieved by no small reward, since the rights of even those of lower station have been extended, who are known to perform military service for the security of the citizens. Since these things are so, we grant you, well pleased with your repute, the prefecture of the watch for that indiction, on this condition: that you carry out in every way both the care of this dignity and the privileges befitting you. But although a general consent pursues the most hateful name of thieves, nevertheless, because the shedding of human blood is at issue, we command that nothing be undertaken suddenly or without deliberation. Follow moderation, you who condemn rashness; love restraint, you who condemn thefts.
Let those who are brought to trial be heard, as they are about to say something for their safety, since whatever is not examined is not deemed justice. But for those convicted and confessed, let the secrets be kept: since he does nothing cruel who follows the laws. It is a more delightful than laborious service to hold the dignity of count in the Roman Port. For there a copious arrival of ships is observed; there the sail-bearing sea sends across foreign peoples with the diverse merchandise of the provinces, and amid so many spectacles of pleasant things, it is to your advantage that those who come have escaped peril. By these jaws first are the delights of Rome perceived, and through the Tiberine waves, as if through a gullet, pass the things that ascend to the commerce of the city.
A well-devised dignity, which is seen to adorn the supplies of Rome! For what could be done more elegant than that whence that people is proved to be sustained? O the inventions of our forebears! O the refined discoveries of the prudent! that, because Rome seemed set somewhat far from the shore, it might begin to exist more fully from where it possessed a seemly entrance for ships. For the two channels of the Tiberine bed received most adorned cities, like two eyes, so that what supplied the costs for so great a city might not be void of grace. A surpassing matter therefore is committed to you, if it is carried out with moderation. You provide abundance, when you have treated the incomers justly. A greedy hand shuts the harbor, and when it draws in its fingers, it at once furls the sails of the ships.
For deservedly do all merchants flee from that which they perceive to be costly to themselves. Wherefore the adverse wind there is immoderate presumption: for he condemns the calm sea who heaps up the waves of greed. Let each one, admonished according to custom, offer a voluntary gift. For these are presents, not debts. He receives from few who seeks too much; and he himself nourishes the gifts of life who moderates what is offered. Let your chief care therefore be not only to abstain yourself, but also to restrain the hands of those who would presume; since it is no light thing to transgress in that plenty which it becomes all men unceasingly to desire.
Wherefore, by that indiction, we adorn you with the honor of count of the Port, that, as the dignity ministers sweet delights to you, so you too may leave behind for the honor a praiseworthy repute. Although the slippery arts are removed from honorable conduct, and the wandering life of actors might seem capable of being carried off into license, nevertheless governing antiquity provided that they should not flow loose altogether, since they too were to endure a judge. For the exhibition of pleasures must be administered under a certain discipline. Let an order of judgment, if not real, yet at least shadowy, hold the players in check. Let these affairs too be tempered by the quality of the laws, as if honesty commanded the dishonorable, and let those live by certain rules who know not the way of upright conduct.
For those men study not so much their own pleasure as the merriment of others, and by a perverse condition, while they hand over the mastery to their own bodies, they have compelled their souls rather to serve. It was fitting therefore that they should receive a governor, who know not how to conduct themselves by lawful behavior. For your office is set, as it were, a certain guardian for these herds of men. For as those keep watch over tender ages with applied caution, so by you must fervid pleasures be bridled by a bestowed maturity. Do by good institutions what excessive prudence is established to have invented in our forebears. A light desire, even if modesty does not restrain it, a forewarned severity moderates.
Let the spectacles be conducted, ordered by their own customs, since not even they can find favor unless they have imitated some discipline. Wherefore our choice makes you tribune of pleasures for that indiction, that you may so act in all things as to win to yourself the good wishes of the city, lest what is established to have been devised for merriment should seem in your times to have been turned to faults. Conduct yourself, your repute safe, among matters of diminished honor. Love chastity, you to whom prostitutes are subject; that it may be said with great praise: 'He pursued virtues, who mingled among pleasures.' For we desire that through a sportive administration you may attain to a serious dignity.
If for accomplishing the business of any private person such a one is chosen as is praised for counsel and gravity, how much more excellent ought you to be, who undertake the business of the city? For if it is a peril to deceive one man, what will it be to have shown oneself unequal to the judgments of so many? For the cause of many well managed ennobles, since he is believed to do everything with good purpose, who is perceived to be present to the general desires. By that indiction, therefore, moved by the supplication of your citizens, our authority grants you the office of defender of that city, that you may will to do nothing venal, nothing dishonest, you who are called by such a name. Arrange the commerce for the citizens with even moderation according to the quality of the times.
Keep as fixed the things you shall have ordained, since there is no labor in setting the totals of selling, except to guard the appointed prices most uprightly. For you truly fulfill the office of a good defender, if you suffer your citizens neither to be oppressed by the laws nor consumed by exactions under the guise of love. Although he is held honorable in himself who is seen to spend even the slightest care upon his own city, and enjoys great reverence among his own who has professed that he loves the citizens, nevertheless that honor is beyond doubt which is conferred by our choice, since he is believed endowed with good institutions to whom anything is delegated by the prince's authority.
And therefore, from that indiction, we wish the care of that city to pertain to you, that you may wisely govern the praiseworthy orders of the curia, and cause moderate prices to be kept by those very persons whom it concerns. Let not the price be in the power of the sellers alone: let a welcome equality be preserved in all things. For a most opulent grace of the citizens is gathered hence too, if prices are kept under moderation, so that you may truly fulfill the office of curator, when your concern shall be for the advantage of all. The customs, moreover, which your forebears are established to have held in that same place, you shall defend for yourself by our authority.
If a most wicked desire is wont to lie in wait for closed and fortified houses, how much more is he seen to be enticed in the Roman city, who finds in the open streets something precious that he can carry off? For a most copious population of statues, and likewise most abundant herds of horses, are to be preserved with such caution as the care with which they are seen to have been set up—where, if there were any consideration in human affairs, not the watchmen, but reverence alone ought to guard Roman beauty. What shall we say of marbles, precious even beyond metals? Which, if one were at leisure to snatch away, rare is the hand that could refrain from such things. Where they are exposed, which the general riches and the labor of the world were able to produce—who would it become to be negligent amid these things?