文集與托雷多會議 第 39 章 第 2/2 段

For the governors, if they abstain from every bribe, will set nothing above the fear of God, of the law, and of us, but looking to this, they will preserve justice for their subjects, both judging and acting all things according to our laws. And to such governors we subject even the soldiers who reside in the provinces, who indeed do not need for this any special order, whether from us or from our nobles, but only employing the present law, and the governors showing it to the soldiers, so that they may be of aid to them as they use the power of their office—knowing that if they do not do this, they shall not only suffer the loss of their provisions and military service, but shall also come into peril concerning their body.

So that we may have no further need of any other magistrate, nor of brigand-hunters (latrunculatores), nor of those whom they call appointed for restraining violence (nay rather for exercising depredations), nor of disarmers standing out, bearing titles honourable enough in appearance, but in the very deed perpetrating the most shameful of all things. For if the governors of the provinces fill the place of each and of the greatest magistrates, and are in the stead of many other judges for the provinces, and, so far as in them lies, deliver sentences according to our laws, who would dare, before them, to use either a privilege of jurisdiction or anything else of that kind?

And we forbid both the most glorious Master of the Soldiers throughout the East, and absolutely all our magistrates, to send into the provinces either brigand-hunters, or those appointed for restraining violence, or disarmers, or others of that kind. For let those who shall presume to be appointed to these things after this our law know that, being captured by our judges of the provinces, they shall even be put into chains, and, the cause being reported to us, they shall sustain the highest peril from us; and those who shall have handed down precepts of this kind shall sustain a penalty of thirty pounds of gold, and shall moreover experience our greater and more vehement indignation.

It behooves the governors of the provinces, therefore, having been honored by us with so great an authority, so to conduct themselves in the management of affairs that—so far, however, as justice and the laws permit—they may be feared by all; knowing that, if they use the administration committed to them ill and beyond the dignity of the power entrusted by us, they shall be subject to the penalties aforesaid: enduring these, that is, while they are still in office, and after laying it down exposed to even greater perils of being put to the test. For we deny to them, in the provinces which they have governed, the license to depart before the lawful period of fifty days is completed, whether on the occasion of a writ of recall, or under pretext of flight, or for any other cause whatsoever:

they knowing that, whether (as we said before) they tarry in this nurturing City, or anywhere else, they shall be brought back again to the province which they governed and shall receive the punishments we have foretold. They shall moreover take an oath, here indeed according to the form expressed above. But if it please anyone that the codicils of administration be sent to those who are in the provinces, they shall take the oath before the most God-beloved bishop of the metropolis and the foremost men of that city, and so undertake the administration of affairs, your Highness of course providing for it, whether someone receives a magistracy here in this great City, or his codicils are sent into the province by your Highness:

he who receives it shall give security to the treasury concerning the exacting of the tributes without complaint, exactly as you yourself shall altogether have determined. And let this law of ours be applied to all who henceforth, by our express nomination, receive offices free of charge. For past matters shall be subject to the laws laid down before, none of the penalties defined in this our law threatening those who up to now administer offices, unless perchance they too, after the promulgation of this law, be caught having seized something. All these things, therefore, your Highness, learning thoroughly,

let him take care, that they may become manifest among all the nations placed under him, by sending, after the custom, instructions to all the rulers of the provinces, that, acknowledging our zeal toward our subjects and our resolve concerning the appointing of governors, they themselves may know how great benefits we have conferred upon them—we who, that they might enjoy a better fortune, have not even spared the royal household. Given on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of April at Constantinople, in the consulship of Belisarius, most distinguished man.