For often, while you are pressed to sell to outsiders, you are wont to feel losses, especially at that time when the foreign buyer has been snatched away from you and gold is hard to obtain, since you find that the merchants are not present. But how much better it is to obey one's lords than to render service to far-off men, and to pay one's debts in produce than to endure the disdain of buyers! We disclose also, out of love of justice, what you might have suggested to us, namely that we ought not to harm in the matter of price, seeing that we are not burdened by the provision of freight-charges. For there is a region near to us, set above the gulf of the Ionian Sea, filled with olives, adorned with crops, abundant in the vine, where, as from three breasts bestowing surpassing abundance, every fruit has flowed forth with desirable fecundity.
This region, not undeservedly, is called the Campania of Ravenna, the storeroom of the royal city, a place exceedingly delightful and a charming retreat. Lying toward the north, it enjoys an admirable temperateness of climate. It has also—I should not absurdly say—its own Baiae, where the billowing sea, entering the hollows of the land, is laid down in a fair appearance with the levelness of a pool. These places nourish many garum-vats and glory in an abundance of fish. There is there not one Avernus only. Numerous Neptunian fishponds are to be seen, in which, even when industry ceases, oysters are everywhere born unbidden. Thus there is proved to be neither toil in the rearing nor doubt in the taking of these delicacies.
The mansions, shining far and wide, you would think to be arranged in the likeness of pearls, so that from this it appears what kind of judgments the ancestors of that province had, which is shown to be adorned with such great buildings. There is added also to that shore a most beautiful row of islands, which, arranged with lovely usefulness, both defends ships from dangers and enriches the cultivators with great abundance. It plainly restores the watches of the court, it adorns the empire of Italy, it feeds the magnates with delicacies and the middling sort with the outlay of victuals, and what is born there is almost wholly possessed in the royal city. Let the province now, more devoted, furnish its supplies of its own accord: let it obey the more, while it is hoped of, since it acted most graciously while it was least asked.
But lest any doubt should arise concerning our orders, we have dispatched Laurentius, a most experienced man, approved to us by his great labors in the commonwealth, with present authority, so that, according to the schedules annexed below, he may without delay carry out what he knows has been enjoined upon him for the public expenditures. Now provide what has been commanded. For you make a devoted soldier when you willingly accept the order. The moderate prices, however, we shall declare to you on the following occasion, when the bearer of the present letter shall have suggested to us, by a report sent, the measure of the produce. For nothing can be justly assessed unless the abundance of the thing can be evidently ascertained.
For he is an unjust arbiter who issues a sentence in vain, and he proves ill-conscious to himself who is about to speak things undeliberated. The deliberation of a judge ought to employ approved men in public business, so that what is sought under the barrenness of the season may easily be fulfilled. In an abundance of things any person whatever can manage himself; but chosen soldiers are needed when the impulse of necessity has come.
And therefore we command Your Experience—most pleasing to us by frequent and such devotion—to hasten to the province of Histria, so that to the value of so many solidi you must procure the commodities of wine, oil, and wheat from the tributary solidus; while with the other so many solidi, which you have received from our treasurer, you will make haste to buy both from merchants and from landowners, just as the notice furnished by the accountants has instructed you. Wherefore now raise up your spirit to obey, you who have pleased in such great vigils by an undistinguished lot. Let the example of your former conduct admonish you, since it is exceedingly grievous for a veteran to offend, who as a recruit is shown in no way to have erred.
But what abundance of the aforesaid commodities has, as desired, freely opened itself, indicate to us by a truthful report—as we believe of you—so that we, the measure being known, may determine that which neither harms the provincials nor can burden the public expenditures. By an order given before, we have decreed that Histria should happily direct to the Ravennate station the commodities of wine, oil, and wheat, of whose abundance, granted in the present year, it enjoys the full benefit. But you who possess numerous ships on its borders, provide with an equal grace of devotion, so that what that province is prepared to deliver, you may strive to carry with speed. For the grace of completion will be alike for both, since one of these, kept separate, does not permit the effect to be fulfilled.
Be most ready, therefore, for nearby places, you who often traverse boundless distances. You run, as it were, through your own lodgings, you who sail through your homeland. There is added also to your conveniences that another route is opened to you, tranquil with perpetual safety. For when, with raging winds, the sea has been closed, a way is spread open to you through the most delightful of rivers. Your keels do not dread the rough blasts; they touch the land with the utmost good fortune and know not how to perish, though they frequently run aground. From afar they are thought to be borne as if through meadows, when it happens that their channel cannot be seen. Drawn by ropes they walk, which were wont to stand still by their cables, and, the condition being changed, men aid their ships with their feet:
They draw the carrying-vessels without toil, and instead of the dread of sails they employ the more prosperous step of the sailors. It is pleasant to relate how we have observed your dwellings to be situated. The Venetiae, once praiseworthy and full of nobles, touch on the south upon Ravenna and the Po, and on the east enjoy the delight of the Ionian shore; where the alternating tide, going out, now closes, now opens the face of the fields by its reciprocal inundation. Here you have a home after the manner of water-birds. For he who is now of the land is presently seen to be of the islands, so that you might think you were rather among the Cyclades, where you suddenly behold the faces of the places altered. For in their likeness, dwellings seem scattered across the widely-extending waters, which nature has brought forth, but the care of men has established.
For with flexible withies bound together, earthen solidity is there gathered, and so fragile a fortification is not feared to be set against the sea-wave—namely, when the shoaly shore does not know how to cast forth the mass of waves, and that is borne without force which is not aided by the help of depth. The inhabitants therefore have one resource, that they may be sustained by fish alone. Poverty there dwells together with riches under equality. One food refreshes all, a like dwelling encloses everyone; they know not how to envy one another over their households, and living under this measure they escape the vice to which all the world is shown to be liable. In the working of the salt-pans, however, is all their striving: instead of plows, instead of sickles, you roll cylinders:
Thence every fruit springs up for you, since in those very salt-pans you possess even what you do not make. There, in a manner, a coinage of victuals is struck. Every wave is devoted to your craft. Someone may seek gold the less, but there is no one who does not desire to find salt, and rightly, since to salt every food owes whatever it can be that is most pleasing. Accordingly, repair with diligent care the ships which, after the manner of animals, you tie to your walls, so that, when the most experienced man Laurentius, who has been dispatched to procure the commodities, shall have attempted to admonish you, you may hasten to set out, so that you may delay the necessary expenditures by no difficulty—you who, according to the quality of the weather, can choose for yourselves the shortcut of the journey.
For the most part those become anxious who behold the altered orders of things, because they often portend certain matters which are proved adverse to custom. For nothing is done without a cause, nor is the world entangled in fortuitous chances, but whatever we see coming to its term is established to be a divine counsel. Men are held in suspense when kings have changed their established ways, if they go forth attired otherwise than their wont had grown accustomed. But who would not be troubled with great curiosity about such things, if, by an inverse turn of customs, something obscure should seem to come from the stars? For just as it is a sure security to mark the seasons running in their courses, so we are filled with great curiosity when such things are perceived to be changed.
What a thing is it, I ask, to behold the chief of the stars and not to see its accustomed light? to gaze upon the moon, the glory of night, full in its orb yet emptied of its natural splendor? We all still discern, as it were, a bluish sun; we marvel that at midday bodies cast no shadows, and that that vigor of the strongest heat has come to the inertness of an extreme tepidness—a thing which is established to be brought about not by the momentary failure of an eclipse, but throughout the course of well-nigh an entire year. What dread, then, is it to endure for so long that which is wont to terrify peoples even in its utmost swiftness? And so we have had a winter without storms, a spring without mildness, a summer without heats.
Whence now should mildness be hoped to be able to come, when the months which were able to ripen the fruits were bitterly cold with the blasts of the north wind? For what should produce fertility, if the earth does not grow warm in the summer months? What should open the bud, if the womb does not take up the rain again? These two things we prove to be adverse to all the elements: perpetual rigor and a contrary dryness. The seasons have changed themselves by not changing, and what was wont to be effected by mingled showers cannot be obtained from dryness alone. And therefore let Your Prudence overcome the coming scarcity by means of the old crops, since so great was the happy abundance of the past year that the things provided suffice even for the coming months. Let everything that is sought for sustenance be laid up in store.
The private man easily finds his necessities, when the public provision has fulfilled itself. But lest the present matter torment you with great hesitation, return to a consideration of natural things, and that becomes certain by reason which seems doubtful to the astonished crowd. For it is so established, ordained by divine arrangement, the stars of the present year have so come together in their houses by mutual administrations, that beyond the usual the winter has been rendered dry and cold. Hence the air, thickened by snows with excessive rigor, has been brought by the sun's heat into no rarefaction, but, persisting in the thickness it had assumed, both withstood its heats and eluded the sight of human frailty.
For the things which are in the middle dominate our gaze, and through them we are able to see only so much as they grant us by the thinness of their substance. For this great void, which between heaven and earth ranges about after the manner of the most liquid element, when it happens to be pure and besprinkled with the sun's brightness, truly opens our views; but if it has been gathered together by some admixture, then, as though by a stretched hide, it lets neither the proper colors nor the heats of the stars come through. This is also frequently brought about in other ages by a sky cloudy according to the season. Hence it is that for a longer time the rays of the stars have been darkened with an unwonted color, that the reaper has dreaded a strange cold, that with the advance of the season the fruits have hardened, that the old age of the grapes is sour.
But if this be committed to divine providence, we ought not to busy ourselves anxiously, since by His command we are forbidden to seek out prodigies. Yet this we recognize without doubt to be adverse to the fruits of the earth, where we do not see the accustomed nourishment fostered by its own law. Accordingly let Your Solicitude act, lest the barrenness of one year should seem to disturb us, since it has so been provided by that first administrator of our dignity that a preceding abundance had availed to mitigate the following scarcity. Frequently the public benefit is preserved by an advantageous piety, when it acquires the more that which it has remitted by the intercession of good men.
And so the venerable man Augustinus, illustrious in life and in name, coming, declared to us with a tearful pleading the necessities of the Venetians: that neither wine, nor wheat, nor millet had been produced among them, asserting that the fortunes of the provincials had come to such poverty that they cannot endure the perils of life, unless the royal piety should provide for them with its accustomed humanity. It seemed cruel to us to demand anything from petitioners and to hope for that of which the province is known to be in need. For from such men he exacts tears alone who imposes what is not to be found.
And therefore, moved by the pleading of so great a man, the wine and wheat which we had caused you to collect from the cities of Concordia, Aquileia, and Forum Iulii for the equipment of the army, we remit by the present authority, providing only the meat thence, as the schedule given to you contains. For from here, when it shall be necessary, we shall send a sufficient quantity of wheat. And since we have learned that wine has been produced abundantly in Histria, thence request as much as was expected from the aforesaid cities, just as it is found in the market of goods for sale, so that they too cannot be harmed, when just prices are kept for them.
Wherefore believe that the present indulgence is to be reckoned at no venality, so that, while it is a free remedy, it may nonetheless prove to be glorious. For know that you can be subjected to a grave punishment, if what is forbidden to be given should seem to have been taken by you. It profits the less to command a good, unless we wish to effect this through most holy men. For the upright will of just men increases the benefit, and whatever is done without fraud is truly applied to the merits of the giver. For it is fitting that priestly purity should carry out the princely munificence. For he who has the zeal to do good of his own can laudably fulfill the desires of others.
And therefore we ask Your Holiness, whose purpose is to serve the divine commands, that from the granaries of Ticinum and Dertona you cause a third portion of the millet, as has been ordered by the prince, to be sold under your ordering to the hungry people at twenty-five modii per solidus, lest by anyone's profiteering it reach those who seem able to manage of their own. Let him who has less receive the princely indulgence. It has been ordered that the needy, not the rich, be relieved. He rather pours out who casts into a full vessel, for that is rather stored up which is gathered into empty vessels. Wherefore let Your Holiness not think the offices of mercy an injury:
Because everything is worthy of you where piety is found, since to discharge faithfully the desires of others is to have perfected one's own goods. For procuring this matter, with God's help, we have taken care to dispatch this man and that, who, obeying the ordinances of Your Holiness, may do nothing of their own, but strive only to obey you. But how many solidi can be gathered from the aforesaid quantity of millet, declare to us by your report, so that, stored up with the treasurer, they may be reserved for restoring the aforementioned commodity in future times, with God's aid: after the manner of a renewed garment, whose union is unraveled into threads, that it may rather be woven into a new appearance with splendid adornment.
Who would not know that divine providence wishes to withdraw some things from our use, so that it may test the human mind? For if it happened that no one were in want at all, then bounty would have no place. Scarcity has been given to the provinces unto the praise of our king: the fields have been made barren, that the abundance of the lord might be recognized. The most acceptable gift would be of less worth, had not an inconvenience preceded it. Rejoice, provinces, and rather render thanks for your evils, since you prove such a spirit in the prince that it yields to no adversities. Behold the wondrous piety, which everywhere fights against our hardships!
For when the heathen savagery of an earlier time had roused itself, and your Aemilia and Liguria—as you must needs remember—were shaken by the incursion of the Burgundians and waged a furtive war arising from neighborhood, suddenly the fame of the present reign shone forth like the rising of the sun. The enemy lamented that he had been overcome by his own presumption, when he learned that he was the ruler of the renowned nation whom he had found, under the name of soldier, to be peerless. How often did the Burgundian wish not to go out from his own borders, lest he should fight against our prince as an adversary—whose presence, though relieved he escaped it, yet, hurled headlong, he ran upon his good fortune?
For as soon as the Goths betook themselves to the zeal of war with their inborn fortitude, the band of the rebels was so cut down in a prosperous contest, as if on that side it had happened that unarmed men stood, on this side armed: by the equity of the divine judgment, that the plunderer should fall upon those very fields which he had presumed to lay waste. Exult, O province adorned with the corpses of your adversaries; laugh at the heap of funerals, which is shown to have been wrought by the destruction of enemies. Now better cultivated, O Liguria, to whom, the fruit of the crop being denied, a hostile harvest has come forth: for although your tributes could be received the less, you have happily offered triumphs born within you.
To these is added the recently routed stealthy raid of the Alamanni, which in its first attempts is proved to have been so crushed that it joined together its arrival and its departure, as if purged by the cautery of a salutary iron, to the end that both the excess of those presuming evil might be avenged and the destruction of the subjects might not rage altogether. I could indeed enumerate to you how great a throng of enemies fell in other places; but, after the manner of the human mind, hastening to your own happy events, you desire that we say only that which you feel pertains specially to you. Let us return, then, to that sweet beginning: when he who defends you from the disaster of war suffers you not to endure even the perils of want; for he who struck down the enemy of the province also commanded famine to depart.
O contest to be proclaimed throughout the whole world! Against savage want the humanity of the glorious prince does battle, whose camps in truth are granaries filled full, which, had he wished to close them, then the unbearable enemy would have entered, but because he rather opened them, he soon put to flight the raging adversary. I know not which of our prince's wars the world should rather admire; I, however, will say what I feel: it is customary for brave men to have waged battles successfully, but it is established to be above human virtue to have conquered want. But since to these so great and such goods no prayers of suppliants could suffice, he has further endured to remit even half the function of the fiscal reckoning, lest he should make sorrowful in any part those to whom he had granted so many happy things.
We read that Joseph, against a deadly famine, granted permission indeed to buy wheat, but set such a price that the man eager for his own relief would rather sell himself in order to purchase food. What sort of life, I ask, was it then for the wretched, to whom that bitter relief seemed to take away their very liberty—where the man set free groaned no less than the captive was able to weep! I believe the holy man was bound by this necessity, that he might both satisfy a greedy prince and relieve a people in peril. With the leave of so great a father let me say: how much more excellent it is to sell grain with liberty preserved, and on account of need to remit the taxes! That sale of ours stands free of charge, since both the means whence you may buy has been granted, and a price has been imposed that should delight you.
Therefore public bounty sells twenty-five measures, while the landowner cannot find them to buy at ten. Humane kindness has reversed the order of this world's affairs: we are bidden to sell cheaply, while the hungry man is ready to acquire at a dearer price. O novel outcome of proclamation! Trade proceeds with a view to loss, and it is the seller's wish rather to lose, so that the one acquiring may find his gain. Such commerce truly befits a king to conduct; such bargaining it becomes piety to practice, that he should then be less content to receive, when the buyer is impelled to offer the most. It is pleasing to relate what affection the ruler bears toward you, since both at first he yielded as much as he believed would suffice, and now again he has doubled what was requested.
It would have shamed you to hope for anything after gifts, since humane kindness was still reserving itself for the prince's benefactions: he did not despise what he had not heard, since he himself bore witness to what he had seen. Happy that calamity which first found a compassionate witness, so that afterward it might not have a stern judge. Rejoice therefore, Ligurian, now accustomed to good fortune: prosperous times have come for your benefit; for you have surpassed with great prosperity the Egyptians compared with you; you escape the times of want and do not lose the rewards of liberty; nay rather, in that very time you are made secure from the enemy, when you are recognized to have been freed also from the peril of famine. The aforesaid example still adorns you; there is still a respect in which it may be surpassed. For we read that Joseph repaid to his brothers only secret prices in their sacks.
What wonder, if, with nature constraining him, he appeared to have shown himself more humane toward his own kin? But this man has sold generously to all, has remitted the due levy, and he has bestowed more upon the taxpayers in general than the other was seen to grant to his brothers alone. Let what is lavished be said in brief: from this let the whole community learn its blessings, since our age is compared not with kings but with prophets. But lest we keep longer those eager for royal benefactions, learn that our instructions have flowed forth to those whom it concerns, so that according to the tenor of the command the princely munificence may reach you.