The Letters of Cassiodorus
the crime[411].
[Footnote 411: 'Homicidii scelus legum jubemus auctoritate resecari:
sed quantum vehementior poena est tanto ejus rei debet inquisitio plus
haberi: ne amore vindictae innocentes videantur vitae pericula
sustinere.']
'(2) The collectors of the land-tax (assis publicus) are accused of
using false weights [in collecting the quotas of produce from the
Provincials]. This must cease, and they must use none but the standard
weights kept by our Chamberlain[412].
[Footnote 412: 'Libra cubiculi nostri.']
'(3) The farmers[413] of our Royal domain must pay the rent imposed on
them, otherwise they will get to look on the farms as their own
property; but certain salaries may be paid them for their trouble, as
you shall think fit[414]. [Dahn suggests that the salary was to
reimburse them for their labours as a kind of local police, but is
not himself satisfied with this explanation.]
[Footnote 413: 'Conductores domus Regiae.']
[Footnote 414: 'Et ne cuiquam labor suus videatur ingratus, salaria
eis pro qualitate locatae rei, vestra volumus aequitate constitui.']
'(4) Import duties[415] are to be regularly collected and honestly
paid over.
[Footnote 415: 'Transmarinorum canon.']
'(5) The officers of the mint are not to make their private gains out
of the coinage.'
(6) An obscure sentence as to the 'Canon telonei' [from the Greek
[Greek: telones], a tax-gatherer. Garet reads 'Tolonei,' which is
probably an error].
(7) The same as to the _Actus Laeti_, whose conscience is assailed by
the grossest imputations. [Laetus is perhaps the name of an official.]
'(8) Those concerned in _furtivae actiones_, and their accomplices,
are to disgorge the property thus acquired.
'(9) Those who have received _praebendae_ [apparently official
allowances charged on the Province] are, with detestable injustice,
claiming them _both_ in money and in kind. This must be put a stop to:
of course the one mode of payment is meant to be alternative to the
other.
'(10) The Exactores (Collectors) are said to be extorting from the
Provincials more than they pay into our chamber (_cubiculum_). Let
this be carefully examined into, and let the payment exacted be the
same that was fixed in the times of Alaric and Euric.
'(11) The abuse of claiming extortions (_paraveredi_) by those who
have a right to use the public posts must be repressed.
'(12) The defence of the Provincials by the _Villici_ is so costly,
and seems to be so unpopular, that we remove it altogether.' [For this
_tuitio villici_, see Dahn iii. 131; but he is not able to throw much
light on the nature of the office of the _Villicus_.]
'(13) Degrading services (servitia famulatus) are not to be claimed of
our free-born Goths, although they may be residents in cities[416].'
[Footnote 416: Cf. the 30th letter of this book.]
[This very long letter is one of great importance, but also of great
difficulty.]
40. KING THEODORIC TO CYPRIAN, COUNT OF THE SACRED LARGESSES.
[This Cyprian is the accuser of Albinus and Boethius.]
41. KING THEODORIC TO THE SENATE OF THE CITY OF ROME.
[On Cyprian's appointment to the above office, 524.]
[Sidenote: Promotion of Cyprian to the Comitiva Sacrarum Largitionum.]
The usual pair of letters setting forth the merits of the new
official. The Senate is congratulated on the fact that the King never
presents to a place in that body a mere tyro in official life, but
always himself first tests the servants of the State, and rewards with
a place in the Senate only those who have shown themselves worthy of
it.
Cyprian is the son of a man of merit, Opilio, who in the times of the
State's ill-fortune was chosen to a place in the royal household[417].
He was not able, owing to the wretchedness of the times, to do much
for his son. The difference between the fortunes of father and son is
the measure of the happy change introduced by the rule of Theodoric.
[Footnote 417: 'Vir quidem abjectis temporibus ad excubias tamen
Palatinas electus.' The time of Odovacar's government is here alluded
to (see viii. 17). An Opilio, probably father of the one here
mentioned, was Consul under Valentinian III in 453.]
In some subordinate capacity in the King's final Court of Appeal
(probably as _Referendarius_[418]) Cyprian has hitherto had the duty
of stating the cases of the hostile litigants. He has shown wonderful
dexterity in suddenly stating the same case from the two opposite
points of view[419], and this so as to satisfy even the requirements
of the litigants themselves.
[Footnote 418: Anonymus Valesii says: 'Cyprianus, qui tunc
Referendarius erat postea Comes Sacrarum et Magister,' Sec. 85.]
[Footnote 419: 'Nam cum oratoribus sit propositum diu tractata unius
partis vota dicere, tibi semper necesse fuit repentinum negotium
utroque latere declarare.']
Often the King has transacted business in his rides which used of old
to be brought before a formal Consistory. He has mounted his horse,
when weary with the cares of the Republic, to renew his vigour by
exercise and change of scene. In these rides he has been accompanied
by Cyprian, who has in such a lively manner stated the cases which had
come up on appeal, that an otherwise tedious business was turned into
a pleasure. Even when the King was most moved to wrath by what seemed
to him a thoroughly bad cause, he still appreciated the charm of the
Advocate's style in setting it before him. Thus has Cyprian had that
most useful of all trainings, action, not books.
Thus prepared he was sent on an embassy to the East, a commission
which he discharged with conspicuous ability. Versed in three
languages (Greek, Roman, Gothic?), he found that Greece had nothing to
show him that was new; and as for subtlety, he was a match for the
keenest of the Greeks. The Emperor's presence had nothing in it to
make him hesitating or confused. Why should it, since he had seen and
pleaded before Theodoric[420]?
[Footnote 420: 'Talibus igitur institutis edoctus, Eoae sumpsisti
legationis officium, missus ad summae quidem peritiae viros: sed nulla
inter eos confusus es trepidatione _quia nihil tibi post nos potuit
esse mirabile_. Instructus enim trifariis linguis, non tibi Graecia
quod novum ostentaret invenit; nec ipsa qua nimium praevalet, te
transcendit argutia.']
In addition to all these other gifts he possesses _faith_, that anchor
of the soul amidst the waves of a stormy world.
He is therefore called upon to assume at the third Indiction [524-525]
the office of Count of the Sacred Largesses, and exhorted to bear
himself therein worthily of his parentage and his past career, that
the King may afterwards promote him to yet higher honour.
[For further remarks on this letter--a very important one, as bearing
on the trial of Boethius--see viii. 16. The third Indiction might mean
either 509-510 or 524-525; but the statement of 'Anomymus Valesii,'
that Cyprian was still only Referendarius at the time of his
accusation of Albinus, warrants us in fixing on the later date. This
makes the encomiums conferred in this letter more significant, since
they must have been bestowed _after_ the delation against Albinus and
Boethius. Probably it was during Cyprian's embassy to Constantinople
(described in this letter) that he discovered these intrigues of the
Senators with the Byzantine Court, which he denounced on his return.]
42. KING THEODORIC TO MAXIMUS, VIR ILLUSTRIS, CONSUL.
[Flavius Anicius Maximus was Consul A.D. 523.]
[Sidenote: Rewards to performers in the Amphitheatre.]
'If singers and dancers are to be rewarded by the generosity of the
Consul, _a fortiori_ should the _Venator_, the fighter with wild
beasts in the amphitheatre, be rewarded for _his_ endeavours to please
the people, who after all are secretly hoping to see him killed. And
what a horrible death he dies--denied even the rites of burial,
disappearing before he has yet become a corpse into the maw of the
hungry animal which he has failed to kill. These spectacles were first
introduced as part of the worship of the Scythian Diana, who was
feigned to gloat on human gore. The ancients called her the triple
deity, Proserpina-Luna-Diana. They were right in one point; the
goddess who invented these games certainly reigned _in hell_.'
The Colosseum (the Amphitheatre of Titus) is described.
The combats with wild beasts are pourtrayed in a style of pompous
obscurity. We may dimly discern the form of the _bestiarius_, who is
armed with a wooden spear; of another who leaps into the air to escape
the beast's onset; of one who protects himself with a portable wall of
reeds, 'like a sea-urchin;' of others who are fastened to a revolving
wheel, and alternately brought within the range of the animal's claws
and borne aloft beyond his grasp. 'There are as many perilous forms of
encounter as Virgil described varieties of crime and punishment in
Tartarus. Alas for the pitiable error of mankind! If they had any true
intuition of Justice, they would sacrifice as much wealth for the
preservation of human life as they now lavish on its destruction.' ['A
noble regret,' says Gregorovius ('Geschichte der Stadt Rom.' i. 286),
'in which in our own day every well-disposed Minister of a military
state will feel bound to concur with Cassiodorus.']
43. KING THEODORIC TO TRANSMUND [THRASAMUND], KING OF THE VANDALS
(CIR. 511).
[Sidenote: Complains of the protection given by Thrasamund to
Gesalic.]
'Having given you our sister, that singular ornament of the Amal race,
in marriage, in order to knit the bonds of friendship between us, we
are amazed that you should have given protection and support to our
enemy Gesalic [natural son of Alaric II]. If it was out of mere pity
and as an outcast that you received him into your realm, you ought to
have kept him there; whereas you have sent him forth furnished with
large supplies of money to disturb the peace of our Gaulish Provinces.
This is not the conduct of a friend, much less of a relative. We are
sure that you cannot have taken counsel in this matter with your wife,
who would neither have liked to see her brother injured, nor the fair
fame of her husband tarnished by such doubtful intrigues. We send you
A and B as our ambassadors, who will speak to you further on this
matter.'
44. KING THEODORIC TO TRANSMUND [THRASAMUND], KING OF THE VANDALS.
[Sidenote: Reconciliation between Theodoric and Thrasamund.]
'You have shown, most prudent of Kings, that wise men know how to
amend their faults, instead of persisting in them with that obstinacy
which is the characteristic of brutes. In the noblest and most truly
kinglike manner you have humbled yourself to confess your fault in
reference to the reception of Gesalic, and to lay bare to us the very
secrets of your heart in this matter. We thank you and praise you, and
accept your purgation of yourself from this offence with all our
heart. As for the presents sent us by your ambassadors, we accept them
with our minds, but not with our hands. Let them return to your
Treasury (cubiculum), that it may be seen that it was simply love of
justice, not desire of gain, which prompted our complaints. We have
both acted in a truly royal manner[421]. Let your frankness and our
contempt of gold be celebrated through the nations. It is sweeter to
us to return these presents to you, than to receive much larger ones
from anyone else. Your ambassadors carry back with them the fullest
salutation of love from your friend and ally.'
[Footnote 421: 'Fecimus utrique regalia.']
BOOK VI.
CONTAINING TWENTY-FIVE FORMULAE[422].
[Footnote 422: For the reasons which induced Cassiodorus to compile
the two books of Formulae, see his Preface (translated, p. 133).]
1. FORMULA OF THE CONSULSHIP.
[Sidenote: Consulship.]