Variae & Works 5 part 3/3

and that, when in their case it had been cut short by public severity, immediately the inflamed strife of the populace, with a rash conflagration, led the synagogue to be burned, avenging the faults of men by the destruction of buildings; whereas, if any of the Jews were proved to transgress, he himself ought to have been subjected to the penalty, and it was not right to rush together to the foul deeds of seditions or to hasten to the burning of buildings. But we, to whom, by God's favour, it is a matter of the heart to set right what has been wrongly committed, that all may be able to agree with appeased manners, by the present authority decree that you investigate the aforesaid cause by lawful examination, and that, upon the few authors of this fire whom you can find, with severity duly observed, you cut them off:

since we do not wish anything detestable to be done, on account of which Roman gravity should be accused. Decreeing this likewise by equal reason, that, if anyone reasonably believes that something supports him against the Jews, let him come to be heard before your judgment, so that censure may condemn him whom guilt has involved. For know that this has displeased us vehemently, that the most empty intentions of the peoples should have proceeded to the very destruction of buildings, where we wish everything to be beautifully ordered. An odious complaint is that against him to whom the rights of reverence are to be preserved, since some grave offence is believed to have been committed, where silence is not kept against such persons.

Stephanus, then, has complained in a tearful appeal that a cottage of his own right, possessed for a long age before your predecessor and your predecessor's predecessor, was, about nine months ago, seized by the men of the church over which you preside, with disregard for the order of civil law. And if you recognize that it was so done, restore it, in consideration of justice, by the right of the moment, to the petitioner. For it is fitting that what ought not to have been admitted by your household be corrected by you.

However, if you recognize that justice is on your side in either the possessory or the principal case, having first diligently examined and inspected the matter—since it does not befit a priest to prolong an unrighteous suit—dispatch to our court a person instructed in the laws, where the nature of the matter ought to be ascertained and concluded. Wherefore let the mind of your Holiness not be burdened, nor grieve that it was accused with deceitful words: far greater is a reputation cleared than if, the complaints ceasing, it had not been assailed. We have ordered the suppliant Heruli, with God as author, to come to our court at our appointed places; to whom passage by ship is to be afforded, lest in our homeland they still seem to labour under the want of their own province.

Therefore, admonished by the present command, prepare for them both the use of a ship as far as the city of Ravenna and provisions for five days, without any delay, and do not cause anything necessary to be lacking to them, so that they may know that they have left a hungry province by their discovery of abundance, and that a foreign land may be more bountiful to them than their own. It befits our piety to arrange the petitions of suppliants by a wholesome ordinance, since the minds of subjects are relieved whenever the complaint of the grieving is settled. The respectable man Liberius, then, has reported to us in a grievous appeal that his wife was, in your judgment, overburdened against the order of law.

And if it is so, with prejudgments set aside, let the case be heard according to the laws before arbiters whom the consent of the parties shall choose, with you pressing it forward. But if an end of the matter cannot be found there, through instructed representatives—if indeed they themselves do not choose to come—we do not deny to the parties the liberty of coming to our court, where neither bribery may perchance be suspected nor insidious calumny able to harm. Those things which are known to be subject to continual exertions must be cherished with assiduous solicitude. For how could the conveyance by post-horses suffice for necessary labour, if it were permitted to be exceeded? For neglected guardianship is an incitement to dishonest presumption.

From the report of our envoys, then, we have learned that the courier-horses are wearied by frequent misuse, and that those which we wish to be kept for public necessities are taken, as we have found, for the use of private will. And therefore, by the ordinance of the praetorian prefect and the master of the offices, we decree that you reside in the city of Rome, as long as the public advantage shall advise, so that you may suffer none of the Goths or Romans to go forth thence, except those whom the deputies acting in the place of the aforesaid dignities may perchance have dismissed.

And as for what is reported to us to have been frequently usurped—if anyone, against the will of those to whom this care has been entrusted, should perhaps presume to take post-horses, of whatever nation or rank he may be, let him be compelled to pay a hundred solidi by way of fine for each horse: not because the harm to a single beast is to be valued at so much, but because importunate presumption must be checked by a heavy penalty. Furthermore, suffer no saio to make excursions, but to the cause for which he has been directed let him be permitted to go and return by one journey only. Upon those let the prohibited frequency fall under the above-mentioned fine. Moreover let no one exceed loads of a hundred pounds for pack-horses. For we wish couriers to hasten unencumbered; we do not decree that they migrate.

Whoever carries much with him betrays his own sloth, nor does he who has preferred to handle himself with delicate ease give thought to speed. Cranes, in short, when about to cross the sea, grasp small pebbles with their hooked feet, so that neither may their lightness be snatched away by too strong a wind, nor their native swiftness be weighed down by unfair burdens. Can they imitate this who know that they have been chosen for public necessities? And therefore let now not the courier, but the cart-driver, incur a fine of fifty solidi, whoever shall have believed that a pack-horse is to be loaded beyond a hundred pounds.

But for those who preside in the city in place of the above-written dignities, we charge you to observe that any excess detected by them be punished, by your execution, with the aforesaid condemnation. And if intemperate fault should strike any down, we wish the amount collected to be applied, through the deputies, to the keepers of the relays, so that the courier-service may have its remedy from that source whence hitherto it has taken its harm. For in worldly affairs prosperity is often born of adversity, and men, when they desire to harm, frequently bestow benefits. But you shall fulfil all things so effectively and diligently that, provoked by your good deeds, we may owe it to commit greater things to your devotion.

After the wearisome cares of the tumultuous city and the burdensome troubles of supervisions, your Greatness desires to be refreshed by the pleasantness of the provinces, asserting that causes of occupation have arisen for you at the present times, which once discharged, you desire to enjoy rural sweetness. And because that security is true which is given by our commands, when the time of your occupation shall be ended for you, by our authority we grant a respite of eight months in the sweet retreats of Lucania, to be reckoned from that time when it shall befall you, by divine favour, to go forth from the city. These accomplished, hasten, to the desire of many, to come to your Roman seat, to be restored to the assembly of nobles and to a converse worthy of your character.

The strictness of the royal command ought not always to be withdrawn, so that it may both restrain the bold with fear and cherish the wounded with future hope. For very often a threat announced accomplishes more than punishment settles. And therefore, with God as our patron, we have decreed that Fridibad preside over your places, who may with lawful severity restrain rustlers of animals, cut off homicides, condemn thefts, and render you quiet from wicked outrages, by which now unjust presumption tears you apart. Live orderly, live trained in good morals; let no nation, no merited honour excuse anyone. He who yields to depraved morals must needs lie subject to vengeance.

The Campanians, laid waste by the hostility of Mount Vesuvius, have poured out suppliant tears to our clemency, that, stripped of the fruits of their fields, they may be relieved of the burden of the tributary obligation. That this ought to be done, our piety deservedly agrees. But since to us the unexamined calamity of each one is doubtful, we charge your Greatness to dispatch a man of proven trust to the territory of Nola or Naples, where the very necessity rages with a certain domestic injury, so that, the fields there being diligently inspected, in proportion as the advantage of the possessor has suffered, he may be relieved: so that the amount of the benefit may be measured out in due proportion, while the full extent of the injury is ascertained.

For this province, despoiled of its lands, labours under this one evil, which, lest it should enjoy perfect happiness, is frequently shaken by the bitterness of this fear. But that terrible event is not wholly harsh: it sends signs beforehand, that adversities may be borne more tolerably. For, with nature struggling under such great masses, the chasm of that mountain murmurs within, so that a certain spirit, aroused, terrifies the neighbourhood with a deep-sounding roar. For the airs of that place are darkened by a most foul exhalation, and it is known throughout almost all Italy when that indignation is stirred up.

Ash, baked to ash, flies through the great void, and, with earthy clouds stirred up, it rains down even upon provinces beyond the sea with dusty drops; and what Campania can suffer is recognized, when its evil is felt in another part of the world. You may see there, as it were, certain dusty rivers go forth, and barren streams of sands run down with seething rush like liquid currents. You may be amazed that suddenly the ridges of the fields have swelled up to the very tops of the trees, and that suddenly, by a mournful heat, those things have been laid waste which had been adorned with the gladdest greenness.

That perpetual furnace vomits forth sands that are indeed of pumice, yet fertile, which, although they have been dried by long burning, when received into various offspring soon bring forth seedlings, and with a certain great swiftness restore what a little before they had laid waste. What is this singular exception, that one mountain should so roar within as to be proved to terrify so many parts of the world by a change of air, and so to scatter its own substance everywhere, that it does not seem to feel any loss? Far and wide it bedews with dusts, but for its neighbours it belches forth certain masses, and through so many ages it is held to be a mountain, which is spent by such great outpourings.

Who would believe that such enormous clods, brought down even to the plains, have boiled up out of such deep chasms, and, by a certain spirit blowing them out from the mountain's mouth, have been spat forth and cast out like light chaff? Elsewhere great peaks of lands seem to burn in their own locality: the conflagrations of this one it has been granted to almost the whole world to be able to recognize. How then should we not believe the inhabitants in a matter that can be recognized by the testimony of the universe? Wherefore, as has been said, let your prudence choose such a man as may both confer remedies on the injured and leave no room for fraudulent claims.

Since you have so devoted yourself to private buildings that you seem to have made certain ramparts in your own hearth, it is fitting that you should be known to maintain Rome—which you have adorned with the beauty of houses—in its own wonders, as an excellent founder of buildings and their distinguished embellisher, since both come from prudence: both to arrange aptly and to adorn fittingly what stands forth. For it is known with how great praise you have drawn Rome into its suburbs, so that whoever happens to enter those buildings of yours does not feel his view to be outside the city, except when he recognizes himself also to be present amid the pleasantnesses of the fields: a most diligent imitator of the ancients, a most noble founder among the moderns.

Your buildings speak your character, since no one is recognized as careful in them, unless he is also found most ornate in his own perceptions. And therefore we believe that the structure of the theatre, which is collapsing under its own great mass, should be strengthened by your counsel, so that what was clearly granted by your ancestors for the adornment of the homeland may not appear to be diminished under better descendants. What do you not dissolve, O old age, who have so shaken what was so robust? Mountains would more easily be thought to give way than that solidity to be shaken: since that very mass too was wholly of rock, so that, apart from the art added to it, it might be believed to be itself also natural. We could perhaps have neglected these things, had it befallen us not to see such things:

You would say that those vaulted recesses, arched beneath their overhanging masses of stone, have been joined together into shapes of the greatest beauty by hidden seams, so that you would sooner believe them grottoes of a lofty mountain than judge them to be anything man-made. The ancients built a place equal to peoples so numerous, so that those who seemed to hold the mastery of the world might possess a spectacle without compare. But since our discourse is shown to be with a learned man, it is fitting to recall why early antiquity is said to have founded these walls.

When the tillers of the soil on their festal days celebrated rites to various deities throughout the groves and villages, the Athenians were the first to gather this rustic beginning into an urban spectacle, naming it 'theatre' by a Greek word meaning a place of viewing, because the crowd assembling there can watch without any hindrance from those standing at a distance. The front of the theatre is called the 'scaena' from the very dense shade of a grove, where at the onset of spring songs were sung by shepherds with varied tones. There the art of music and the sayings of the wisest of the age flourished. But little by little it came about that the most honourable disciplines, fleeing the company of the wicked, withdrew themselves thence from a modest sense of decorum.

Tragedy takes its name from the vastness of the voice, which, strengthened by hollow reverberations, seems to produce such a sound that it is scarcely believed to issue from a man. It is raised up on goat-like feet, because if anyone among the shepherds had given pleasure with such a voice, he was rewarded with the gift of a he-goat. Comedy is named from villages (pagi): for 'comus' means a village, where the country folk in their merriment mocked human deeds with the most joyful songs. To these have been added the most eloquent hands of the orchestra-dancers, their talkative fingers, their clamorous silence, their wordless exposition, which the Muse Polyhymnia is said to have discovered, showing that men can declare their will even without the speech of the mouth.

The Muses indeed are called in the Eastern tongue as though 'homousae' (of one essence), because they seem mutually necessary to one another like the virtues. The sharp points of light feathers are therefore painted on their brows, because their understanding, borne aloft by swift thought, gazes upon the loftiest things. To the pantomime, then, who takes his name from his manifold imitation, when first he has come upon the stage invited by applause, harmonious choirs stand by, trained in diverse instruments. Then that hand of the senses sets forth a tuneful song to the eyes, and by gestures composed as if of certain letters it instructs the gaze of the onlooker; in those gestures the headings of matters are read, and without writing it accomplishes what writing declares.

The same body portrays Hercules and Venus, presents a woman in a man, makes a king and a soldier, renders an old man and a youth, so that you would believe there are many in one, distinguished by so varied an imitation. The mime, too, which now is held only for derision, was devised with such great care by Philistio that his performances were set down in writing, in order to temper with the most joyful maxims a world seething with devouring cares. What of the ringing of the little cymbals? What shall I say of the modulation of the sweetest sound by varied percussion? It is received with so great a charm of pleasantness that men then reckoned hearing to have been bestowed upon them, among the remaining senses, for the highest of gifts.

But the age that followed, mingling its slippery ways, dragged the inventions of the ancients toward vices, and what had been devised for the sake of honourable delight they drove with headlong minds toward the pleasures of the body. The Romans, drawing these rites, as they did other observances, to no profit into their commonwealth, founded with marvellous magnanimity a building conceived in lofty thought. Whence not without reason is Pompey believed to have been called 'the Great' rather on this account. And therefore, whether this fabric could be held together by the original pillars or renewed by zeal for its restoration, we have taken care to assign you the costs from our own chamber, so that the fame of so fine a work may be acquired for you and antiquity may seem in our times to be more becomingly renewed.