The Letters of Cassiodorus
[Footnote 597: 'Nostra' (the reading of Nivellius) seems evidently a
better reading than 'vestra' (which Migne has adopted).]
[Footnote 598: 'Commodum debet esse _cum modo_.' A derivation or a
pun.]
'But if _your_ decrees are being enforced--and that must be only in
cases against persons with whom the edicts allow you to
interfere[599]--then your officer must receive half the gratuity
allowed to him who carries our decrees into execution. It is obviously
improper that the man who only performs _your_ orders should receive
as much as is paid out of reverence for _our_ command. Anyone
infringing this constitution is to restore fourfold.
[Footnote 599: 'Duntaxat in illis causis atque personis, ubi te
misceri edicta voluerunt.']
'(4) The edicts of our glorious grandfather, and all the precepts
which he made for the government of Sicily, are to be so obediently
observed that he shall be held guilty of sacrilege who, spurred on by
his own beastly disposition, shall try to break down the bulwark of
our commands[600].
[Footnote 600: 'Quisquis belluinis moribus excitatus munimen
tentaverit irrumpere jussionum.']
'(5) It is said that you cite causes between two Romans, even against
their will, before your tribunal. If you are conscious that this has
been done by you, do not so presume in future, lest while seeking the
office of Judge, for which you are incompetent, you wake up to find
yourself a culprit. You, of all men, ought to be mindful of the
Edictum, since you insist on its being followed by others. If not, if
this rule is not observed by you, your whole power of decreeing shall
be taken from you. Let the administration of the laws be preserved
intact to the _Judices Ordinarii_. Let the litigants throng, as they
ought to do, to the Courts of their _Cognitores_. Do not be gnawed by
envy of their pomp. The true praise of the Goths is
_law-abidingness_[601]. The more seldom the litigant is seen in your
presence the greater is your renown. Do you defend the State with your
arms; let the Romans plead before their own law courts in peace.
[Footnote 601: 'Gothorum laus est civilitas custodita.']
'(6) You are also accused of insisting on buying the cargoes of
vessels that come to the port at your own price [and selling again at
a higher]--a practice the very suspicion of which is injurious to an
official, even if it cannot be proved against him in fact[602].
Wherefore, if you wish to avoid the rumour of this deed, let the
Bishop and people of the city come forward as witnesses on behalf of
your conscience[603]. Prices ought to be fixed by the common
deliberation [of buyer and seller]; since no one likes a commercial
transaction which is forced upon the unwilling.
[Footnote 602: This seems a possible interpretation of a dark
sentence: 'Navigiis vecta commercia te suggerunt occupare, et ambitu
cupiditatis exosae solum antiqua pretia definire, quod non creditur a
suspicione longinquum etiam si non sit actione vicinum.']
[Footnote 603: Is this a kind of compurgation which is here proposed?]
'Wherefore we have thought it proper to warn your Sublimity by these
presents, since we do not like those whom we love to be guilty of
excess, nor to hear evil reports of those who are charged with
reforming the morals of others.'
[This is an important letter, especially when taken in connection with
the words of Totila (Procopius, 'De Bello Gotthico' iii. 16), as to
the exceptional indulgence with which the Gothic Kings had treated
Sicily, 'leaving, at the request of the inhabitants, very few soldiers
in the island, that there might be no distaste to their freedom or to
their general prosperity.'
Gildias is evidently a Goth, and though a _Vir Spectabilis_ and
holding a Roman office--the Comitiva Syracusanae Civitatis--still it
is essentially a military office, and he has no business to divert
causes from the Judices Ordinarii to his tribunal, though probably a
Roman Comes might often do this without serious blame. But by his
doing so, the general principle, that in purely Roman causes a Goth is
not to interfere, seems to be infringed, and therefore he receives
this sharp reprimand to prevent his doing it again.]
15. KING ATHALARIC TO POPE JOHN II (532).
[Sidenote: Against Simony at Papal elections.]
'The Defensor of the Roman Church hath informed us in his tearful
petition that lately, when a President was sought for the Papal chair,
so much were the usual largesses to the poor augmented by the promises
which had been extorted from the candidate, that, shameful to say,
even the sacred vessels were exposed to sale in order to provide the
necessary money[604].
[Footnote 604: 'Quosdam nefaria machinatione necessitatem temporis
aucupatos, ita facultates pauperum extortis promissionibus ingravasse,
ut quod dictu nefas est, etiam sacra vasa emptioni publicae viderentur
exposita.']
'Therefore let your Holiness know that by this present decree, which
relates also to all the Patriarchs and Metropolitan Churches [the five
Metropolitan Churches in Rome, and such Sees as Milan, Aquileia,
Ravenna], we confirm the wise law passed by the Senate in the time of
the most holy Pope Boniface [predecessor of John II]. By it any
contract or promise made by any person in order to obtain a Bishopric
is declared void.
'Anyone refusing to refund money so received is to be declared guilty
of sacrilege, and restitution is to be enforced by the Judge.'
'Should a contention arise as to an election to the Apostolic See, and
the matter be brought to our Palace for decision, we direct that the
maximum fee to be paid, on the completion of the necessary documents
(?), shall be 3,000 solidi [L1,800][605]; but this is only to be
exacted from persons of sufficient ability to pay it.
[Footnote 605: 'Et quia omnia decet sub ratione moderari, nec possunt
dici justa quae nimia sunt, cum de Apostolici consecratione Pontificis
intentio fortasse pervenerit, et ad Palatium nostrum producta fuerit
altercatio populorum, suggerentes (?) nobis intra tria millia
solidorum, cum collectione cartarum censemus accipere.']
'Patriarchs [Archbishops of the other great Italian Sees] under
similar circumstances are to pay not more than 2,000 solidi [L1,200].
'No one is to give [on his consecration] more than 500 solidi [L300]
to the poor.
'Anyone professing to obtain for money the suffrage of any one of our
servants on behalf of a candidate for Papacy or Patriarchate, shall be
forced to refund the money. If it cannot be recovered from him, it may
be from his heirs. He himself shall be branded with infamy.
'Should the giver of the money have been bound by such oaths, that,
without imperilling his soul, he cannot disclose the transaction,
anyone else may inform, and on establishing the truth of his
accusation, receive a third part of the money so corruptly paid, the
rest to go to the churches themselves, for the repair of the fabric or
for the daily ministry. Remember the fate of Simon Magus. We have
ordered that this decree be made known to the Senate and people by the
Praefect of the City.'
[I think the early part of this letter gives us the clue to the
pretext under which these simoniacal practices were introduced. It was
usual for the Pope on his election to give a certain sum of money to
the poor. Then at a vehemently contested election certain of the
voters--perhaps especially the priests of the different _tituli_ of
Rome--claimed to be distributors of the Papal bounty, a large part of
which they no doubt kept for themselves.]
16. KING ATHALARIC TO SALVANTIUS, VIR ILLUSTRIS, PRAEFECT OF THE CITY.
[Sidenote: The same subject.]
Rehearses the motives of the previous edict, and directs that both it
and the Senatus Consulta having reference to the same subject [and
framed two years previously], be engraved on marble tablets, and fixed
up in a conspicuous place, before the Atrium of St. Peter the Apostle.
17. KING ATHALARIC TO THE SAME (BETWEEN 532 AND 534).
[Sidenote: Release of two Roman citizens accused of sedition.]
'We cannot bear that there should be sadness in Rome, the head of the
world. We hear with regret from the Apostolic Pope John, and other
nobles, that A and B, who are Romans, on a mere suspicion of sedition
are being macerated by so long imprisonment that the whole city mourns
for them; no gladness of a holyday and no respect for the Papal
name[606] (which is most dear to us) availing to mitigate their
confinement. This treatment of persons against whom no crime has been
proved distresses us much, and we admonish your Greatness, wherever
you may succeed in finding them, to set them free. If, confident in
their innocence, they think that they have been unjustly tormented, we
give them liberty to make their appeal to the laws. Judges were
raised to their high estate, not to oppress but to defend the
innocent.
[Footnote 606: 'Nec ulla--quae apud nos est gratissima--nominis sui
dignitas subveniret.' I think _sui_ must refer to the
recently-mentioned _Papa Johannes_.]
'Now let the Romans return to their ancient gladness; nor let them
think that any [rulers] please us but those who seek to act with
fairness and moderation. Let them understand that our forefathers
underwent labours and dangers that _they_ might have rest; and that we
are expending large sums in order that they may rejoice with garrulous
exultation. For even if they have before now suffered some rough and
unjust treatment, let them not believe that that is a thing to be
neglected by our Mildness. No; for we give ourselves no rest, that
they may enjoy secure peace and calm gladness. Let them understand at
once that _we_ cannot love the men whose excesses have made them
terrible to our subjects. Whose favour do those men expect to win who
have earned the dislike of their fellow-citizens? They might have
reaped a harvest of the public love, and instead thereof they have so
acted that their names are justly held in execration.'
18. THE EDICT OF ATHALARIC.
[This edict is minutely examined by Dahn ('Koenige der Germanen' iv.
123-135). I have adopted his division of paragraphs, though rather
disposed to think that the 'De Donationibus' should be broken up into
two, to prevent counting the Epilogue as a section. See also Manso
('Geschichte der Ostrogothen' 405-415).]
[Sidenote: Edict of Athalaric.]
'_Prologue._ This edict is a general one. No names are mentioned in
it, and those who are conscious of innocence need take no offence at
anything contained therein.
'For long an ominous whisper has reached our ears that certain
persons, despising _civilitas_, affect a life of beastly
barbarism[607], returning to the wild beginnings of society, and
looking with a fierce hatred on all human laws. The present seems to
us a fitting time for repressing these men, in order that we may be
hunting down vice and immorality within the Republic at the same time
that, with God's help, we are resisting her external foes. Both are
hurtful, both have to be repelled; but the internal enemy is even more
dangerous than the external. One, however, rests upon the other; and
we shall more easily sweep down the armies of our enemies if we subdue
under us the vices of the age. [This allusion to foreign enemies is
perhaps explained by the hint in Jordanes ('De Reb. Get.' 59) of
threatened war with the Franks. But he gives us no sufficient
indication of time to enable us to fix the date of the Edictum.]
[Footnote 607: 'Affectare vivere belluina saevitia.']
'I. _Forcible Appropriation of Landed Property_[608] (Pervasio). This
is a crime which is quite inconsistent with _civilitas_, and we remit
those who are guilty of it to the punishment[609] provided by a law of
Divus Valentinianus [Valentinian III. Novell. xix. 'De Invasoribus'],