It behooves us, most clement emperor, to seek peace, who are known to have no causes of wrath: since he is already held bound by his own conduct who is found unprepared for what is just. For tranquillity ought to be desirable to every kingdom, in which both peoples prosper and the welfare of nations is guarded. For this is the comely mother of the good arts; this, multiplying the race of mortals by a reparable succession, extends their faculties and refines their manners: and he is recognized as ignorant of such great things who is perceived to have by no means sought it. And therefore, most pious of princes, it befits your power and your honor that we should be bound to seek your concord, in the love of which we still prosper.
For you are the fairest glory of all kingdoms, you the saving safeguard of the whole world, whom the other rulers rightly look up to, because they recognize that there is in you something singular—we most of all, who by divine aid have learned in your commonwealth in what manner we may rule the Romans with equity. Our kingdom is an imitation of yours, a model of good purpose, the exemplar of a unique empire: and as much as we follow you, so much do we go before the other nations. You frequently exhort me to love the senate, to embrace gladly the laws of princes, that I may compose all the members of Italy. How can you separate from the august peace one whom you do not wish to differ from your own manners?
There is added also the venerable affection for the city of Rome, from which those things cannot be sundered which have been joined by the unity of its name. Accordingly we have thought that such and such a one should be sent on the office of an embassy to your most serene piety, so that the sincerity of peace, which is known to have been impaired by emergent causes, may, with contentions wiped away, henceforth remain restored in its firmness: because we do not believe that you would suffer any discord to remain between the two commonwealths, which are declared always to have been one body under the ancient princes. Which it behooves not only to be joined together by a leisured love, but also it is fitting that they be aided by mutual strength. Let the Roman realm have one will, ever one mind.
Whatever we too can do, let it be applied to your renown. Wherefore, putting forward the honorableness of our greeting, with prone mind we earnestly beseech that you do not withhold the most glorious charity of your gentleness, which I ought to have hoped for, even if it seemed it could be granted to no others. The rest, indeed, we have committed to be suggested by word to your piety through the bearers of this present letter, that neither might the epistolary discourse be rendered too extended, nor might we seem to have passed over anything for our advantage. By the report of Count Stephanus we have learned that the work of the sacred vestment, which we wished to be completed with necessary haste, hangs unfinished, its labor rather disrupted: by withholding the customary use of it, you are recognized to bring in, rather, an abominable tardiness.
For we believe that some neglect has occurred, so that either those milky fleeces, twice and thrice sated with the fleshy draught, blushed too little with the loveliest intoxication, or the wools did not drink in the most precious quality of the adorable murex. Wherefore, if the searcher of the Hydruntine sea had duly stored away the shut-up shellfish at the fitting time, that Neptunian heap, the ever-generator of flourishing purple, the adorner of the throne, dissolved by an abundance of waters, would have loosed a courtly shower with its flame-colored liquor. The color, blooming with excessive charm, the reddening darkness, the blood-red blackness, distinguishes the reigning one, makes the lord conspicuous, and grants to the human race that they may not err concerning the aspect of the prince.
It is wonderful that that substance, finished by death, exudes from itself, after the space of so long a time, the gore which is wont to flow from living bodies wounded by injury. For when those marine delicacies have been for almost six months separated from vital vigor, they know not how to be most offensive to keen nostrils, namely lest that noble blood should breathe forth anything of horror. When this substance, once dyed, perseveres, it knows not how to be withdrawn before the garment can be consumed. But if the quality of the shellfish is not changed, if there is but one vintage of that wine-press, the fault assuredly will be the craftsman's, from whom no abundance of material has been withdrawn.
But in those ruddy fountains, when the learned controller shall have dipped the locks of whitening silk, he ought to have the purest chastity of body, because the secrets of such things are said to shun the unclean. If all these things have been fulfilled, if in no part does the due ceremony seem to have been omitted, we marvel that you have given no thought to your own perils, since it is a sacrilegious guilt of negligence to sin in such a vestment. For what do so many craftsmen accomplish, so many bands of sailors, so many households of country-folk? You too, raised by the dignity of a count, give orders to such great matters, and defend yourself with so great a presumption of that name, that, when you are believed to be doing a royal work, you may seem to command in many your fellow citizens.
This, then, your slackness neglects—that very thing which had both raised you in the province and made you come into the honorable sight of the prince. But if the care for your fortune does not yet desert you, if the affection for your own safety touches you, within that day, with the bearer of this letter pressing upon you, hasten to come with the purple which you have been accustomed to give yearly to our bedchamber: for now we send to you not a compeller, but an avenger, if you should believe that there is anything to be delayed by any mockery. Yet how easy a stroke of luck this so great and weighty matter is read to have been discovered! When a dog, greedy with hunger, had crushed with pressed jaws the shellfish cast upon the Tyrian shore, those, naturally letting the blood-red moisture flow down, dyed his mouth with a wondrous color.
And as it is the way of men to draw sudden occasions toward the arts, men meditating on such examples brought it about that a thing which is known to have a moderate substance gives a noble honor to princes. The eastern Tyre is the Italian Hydruntum, a courtly wardrobe indeed, keeping not old things, but unceasingly transmitting new ones. See therefore whether anyone suffers you to fulfill less fully that which you know we so necessarily demand. Although that which is by nature praiseworthy enjoys its own honor, and the fasces of a proven conscience are not lacking, since it engenders dignities for the mind—for indeed all good things are joined with their fruits, nor can that virtue be believed which is sundered from its reward—yet the summit of our judgment is lofty:
since he who is advanced by us is esteemed full of outstanding merits. For if he is to be believed equitable whom the just man has chosen, if endowed with temperance whom the moderate has taken on, surely he can be capable of all merits who has deserved to have as his judge the one possessed of all virtues. For what greater thing is sought than to have found the testimonies of praise there where gratification cannot be suspect? For the sentence of the reigning one takes its judgment from deeds alone, nor does a mind fortified by a lord's power deign to flatter. Let there be recalled, at any rate, the things which have poured you into our senses, that you may take the fruit of your labor, when you recognize that each thing has sweetly clung to our minds.
For in the very beginning of our reign, when, amid still fluctuating affairs, the hearts of the provinces wandered, and the very novelty allowed a new lord to be neglected, you turned the minds of the suspicious Sicilians away from headlong obstinacy, removing the fault from them, and withdrawing from us the necessity of vengeance. A wholesome persuasion accomplished what a vehement severity could have corrected. You gained back the losses of the province, which deserved under your devotion to know them not: where, keeping the civil laws under the girding of Mars, an uncovetous arbiter, you weighed public and private interests, and, your own revenue neglected, without envy of gain you brought back the riches of good morals, shutting out both an approach to complaints and a place to disparagements:
and from a quarter whence scarcely the silence of patience is wont to be reported, the voices of those praising you fought on your behalf. For we know, by the testimony of Tully, how prone the nature of the Sicilians is to complaints, so that by their wonted custom they can accuse judges even on suspicions. But not content with that limit of public praises, we gave you the manners of the Bruttians and of Lucania to be governed, lest the good which a foreign province had deserved should be unknown to the fortune of your native soil. But you, expending the custom of devotion, bound us by that gift whereby we think we have repaid you all things: amplifying the debt from that very quarter whence it could have been believed discharged. You acted throughout as a judge free from all error, neither depressing anyone by envy nor exalting anyone by flattering favor.
Which, though it is everywhere arduous, becomes especially glorious in one's homeland: where it is necessary either that kinship provoke favor or that long contentions exasperate hatred. It delights us, therefore, to recall your conduct of the prefecture, a good most well known to all Italy, where, disposing all things with provident ordering, you showed how light a thing it is to pay tributes under the integrity of a judge. No one offered grudgingly what he paid under equity, because whatever is rendered in due order is not reckoned a loss. Enjoy now your goods, and receive doubled the advantage of your own which, out of regard for the public, you despised. For this is the glorious benefit of life: to have lords as witnesses, to have citizens as praisers.
Incited therefore by these so many and so ample praises, we confer upon you the summit of the patriciate by a just remuneration, so that what is to others a reward may be to you a repayment of merits. Well done, most excellent man, in your praiseworthy felicity, who at this utterance have impelled the minds of the ruler, so that we confess that what we yield is rather of your own goods. May these things be divine and perpetual, so that, when we bestow these as a remuneration, we may again be required to give better things to your merits. We desire indeed, conscript fathers, that your crown be painted with the flower of diverse fasces: we desire that the genius of Liberty may behold a pleasing throng of the senate. For the assembly of such men is the dignity of those who rule, and whatever in you is regarded with festive congratulation is truly applied to our praises.
Yet this above all we desire with longing, that the lights of dignities may adorn your college, since they fittingly render increase to the fatherland who have grown by the power of the court. These men our intention searches out: in these treasures of character we rejoice when they are found, in whom, as in figured countenances of honors, the clemency of our serenity is expressed. Hence it is that to Cassiodorus, an illustrious and magnificent man, most well known for his distinguished renown in the commonwealth, we have given the rank of the patriciate as a remuneration of his suggestion: so that by the honor of a great name the merits of the servant might be declared.
He who, not advanced by a fragile felicity, did not fly up by sudden successions to the summit of the fasces by fortune's sport, but, as virtues are wont to grow, ascended to the pinnacle of renown by the steps of dignities. For his first entrance into administration, as you know, was founded upon the weighty office of the count of the private estates, where, not tottering through the weakness of inexperience, did he err even innocently by the fault of novelty, but with the footstep of abstinence made firm he lived by imitating example. He who soon afterward, having received the honor of the sacred largesses, grew in the praise of his conduct as much as he had advanced in dignity. Why should we recount the discipline restored to the provinces, the monuments of justice instilled into every kind of men?
He lived with such self-restraint that he both established equity by his admonitions and taught it by his example. For an innocent judge is an easy persuader to the right, since under his praiseworthy manner of life one is ashamed not to hold to upright morals. For who would dread to commit a crime when he sees, in the seat of the judge's own bosom, an accomplice in it? In vain does the greedy man put on the mask of feigned severity, when he dissuades others from the pursuit of money; in vain does the unjust man decree that the laws must be obeyed. He has no genius for fair distribution to whom a free conscience does not supply authority, since excesses are then held in dread when they are believed to be displeasing to the judges. And so, trained in these schools under his earlier service, he has come to our palace adorned with well-earned praises.
For you remember—and the memory of recent events still serves you—with what moderation he conducted himself when placed at the summit of the praetorian office, and how, raised to that height, he thence looked down all the more upon the vices that attend prosperity. For he was not, as is the custom with most, puffed up by the favour of fortune so as to mount upon the lofty buskin of great power; but, tempering all things with equity, he did not render our favour toward him a source of hatred. He made men desire greater things for him, while he kept great things within the bounds of modesty. For this is the most welcome fruit of a tested conscience: that, although he could have attained the highest honours, he is nevertheless judged by all to deserve still more. He joined our advantage well with the joys of all, generous to the treasury and gracious to those who paid justly.
The commonwealth then perceived, from that Romulean assembly, a man of innocence, who, though he made himself glorious by his self-restraint, yet conferred a still greater benefit in this: that he left to those who came after the example of good conduct. For he is ashamed to sin who seems able to succeed men that are praised. And so he was, as you know, to be revered by the soldiers, gentle to the provincials, eager to give, disdainful of receiving, a hater of crime, a lover of equity. This was not difficult for him to preserve, since he had resolved to abstain from the property of others. For it is the mark of an unconquered spirit to cherish the advantage of one's reputation and rather to hate the gains of lawsuits. But let those marvel at these things in him by right who never knew the most noble character of his father and grandfather.
For fame celebrates the Cassiodori who went before him. Although this name may seem to be borne by others also, yet it is acknowledged to be the proper possession of his family. An ancient line, a praised lineage, illustrious among men of the toga, eminent among brave men, since they flourished both in the strength of their limbs and in the tallness of their stature. For his father held praiseworthily, under the prince Valentinian, the dignity of tribune and notary of the household troops—an honour that was then given to distinguished men, since to the imperial council such men are chosen as in whom no fault of reproach can be found. But, as kindred spirits are ever wont to choose one another, he was joined in great affection to the patrician Aëtius for the help of the commonwealth;
him the lord of affairs then followed in every part of his counsel, on account of his wisdom and his glorious labours for the commonwealth. He was therefore sent, not without effect, on the office of an embassy to Attila, mighty in arms, together with Carpilio, the son of the aforesaid man. Undaunted, he beheld the empire that men feared; relying on truth, he despised those terrible and threatening looks, nor did he hesitate to confront in dispute the man who, carried away by I know not what fury, seemed to be seeking the dominion of the world. He found the king proud, but left him appeased, and overthrew his slanderous allegations with such truth that the king wished to seek the goodwill of one with whom it was to his advantage not to keep peace, rich kingdom though he was.
His steadfastness raised up the fearful parties, nor were those thought unwarlike who seemed to be armed by such envoys. He brought back the peace that had been despaired of. What his embassy accomplished may be understood from this, that it was received as gladly as it had seemed to be longed for. Soon he offered the honour of the office of count, soon the gifts of revenues, as a fair arbiter. But he, rather most rich in his native moderation, while accepting the dignity, sought in place of reward the leisure of the most delightful regions of Bruttium. The prince could not deny him the repose he desired, who had rendered the prince secure from a savage foe: he let him depart from his service with sadness, knowing that he had been necessary to himself.
For his grandfather Cassiodorus, girt with illustrious honour which could not be denied to his stock, freed Bruttium and Sicily from the incursion of the Vandals by the defence of arms, so that he deservedly held the primacy in those provinces which he defended from so savage and sudden a foe. The commonwealth therefore owed to his virtues that Geiseric did not invade those provinces lying so near—Geiseric, whom Rome afterwards endured in his ferocity. These men flourished also in the regions of the East with the praise of their kindred. For Heliodorus, who in that commonwealth held the prefecture most excellently for twice nine years before our own eyes, was proved to be joined to their kindred.
A lineage illustrious in both worlds, which, fittingly adapted to the twin senates, shone as if endowed with two eyes of the purest brightness. For to what further point does any nobility extend itself than this, which has merited to be illustrious in both worlds? He too lived in the province with the honour of a judge and the security of a private man: more potent than all those others in nobility, he drew the affections of all to himself, so that those who could not be made subject by right of liberty seemed rather to be sweetly bound by continual benefits. Indeed he gloried in so great an abundance of his patrimony that, among his other goods, he surpassed princes in herds of horses, and by giving them away he often did not incur envy.
Hence it is that our candidate always arms the armies of the Goths, and, being the better for his good upbringing, preserves with hereditary liberality what he received from his forefathers. Our dignity has therefore run through these things in order, so that each one may understand that even the praises of his own forebears can be renewed in our presence by him who has chosen to live by distinguished principles. And therefore, conscript fathers, since the honour of good men is to your advantage, and your assent attends our judgement, let the advancement of him be received under a prosperous omen, who has made the favour of all men lie open to himself. For it is rather a recompense than a reward, that those who have cultivated you by praiseworthy conduct should rejoice in reciprocal favour. It is not fitting that disputes once concluded should be dragged out without end.
For what peace will be granted to the contentious, if they do not even acquiesce in lawful sentences? For there is one harbour built amid the storms of men, which, if men pass it by with their fervid willfulness, they will ever wander amid the surging quarrels. And therefore we declare to your worthiness by the present oracles that, if the matter stands thus—that what is supplicated for by the present parties, and the controversy over the Mazenian estate, was decided by fixed laws in the judgement of the count Annas, and is proved to be suspended by no appeal—the things that were decreed should be observed. For just as we are unwilling to deny judgement to the oppressed, so we do not lend assent to unreasonable complaints. For he ought to be compelled to be quiet who by his own fault refuses to be peaceable.
For the physician skilled in healing frequently saves the unwilling patient, since in grave afflictions the right will is lacking, but rather that is craved which is felt by the judge of health to be able to do harm. Care that looks to the increase of the commonwealth befits a prince, and it is truly worthy of a king to adorn his palaces with buildings. For far be it that we should yield in adornment to the ancients, we who are not unequal to them in the blessedness of our age.
Wherefore, having undertaken in the city of Ravenna the ample work of the basilica of Hercules—to whose name antiquity fittingly attributed whatever it founded in any hall of praiseworthy admiration—we most studiously entrust to your greatness that, according to the brief list appended below, you direct to us from the city the most skilled workers in marble, who may join together the excellently divided pieces, so that, bound together with the veins matching and playing into one another, they may praiseworthily counterfeit a natural appearance. Let that come from art which may surpass nature: let the varicoloured incrustations of marble be woven with the most pleasing variety of pictures, since that is ever held precious which has been sought out for the sake of beauty. You shall furnish for these the expenses and the transport: lest the command burden any one of us, which we wish to look to the advantage of each individual.
From the petition of Venantius, guardian of Plutianus, we have learned that you have engaged in an action which was not seemly toward him—so that you afflicted with the loss of his property the very one whom you ought to have aided at your own expense. Indeed, your kinship should have been attested by lavished comforts. What sort of thing, then, does it seem toward those joined by blood, which would be deemed criminal even toward strangers? And therefore by the present injunction we decree that, whatever you know yourself to have not so much purchased as filched from the prodigal and wanton will of Neoterius, you restore without any delay, to be incorporated into the estate of our ward, lest you compel us to avenge by the laws a deed of this kind—we who now seem to have tempered all things with mildness. For we do not permit to perish for the orphan what we had given to his parents to our own praise.
For it is a most grievous thing that what was bestowed by princely munificence should be taken away by calumny. But as for the rest, which you assert you divided as your wife's portion in contempt of the path of justice—if indeed it is to be called a division, which is acknowledged to have been carried out at the arbitrary will of one party alone—hasten to come to our court, that we may order between you those things which accord with justice. For it is unjust that, out of one substance, where an equal succession is due, some should overflow with abundance while others groan under the discomforts of poverty. It is in our heart to protect all in common, but most of all those whom we know to have been wronged.
For thus the balance of equity will be preserved, if we bestow aid upon the weaker and set the fear of us against the insolent on behalf of the little ones. A lesser fortune seeks out the prince, since those rush into our reproach from whom the public prayers are withdrawn. And so by the tearful representation of Venantius, guardian of Plutianus, we have learned that Neoterius, his brother, forgetful of the affection of brotherhood, has torn apart the goods of the little one with a hostile fury. This has moved us by reason of the harshness done to his affairs, lest our liberality—which we wish to stand as a kind of title of piety—should seem to have been usurped by unlawful presumptions.
And since there is no doubt that in the recovery of a minor's property the losses arising from delay are above all to be removed, therefore let your devotion, confirmed by our injunction, if there is nothing that can reasonably be objected by the party impeached, cause the demanded property to be restored without delay to the aforesaid guardian. Or if there is anything which the claim of the retainer urges on his own behalf, then, a legal undertaking being first given, let him make haste to come to our court, so that, the allegations being heard, we may judge according to the custom of our equity. The condition of subjects is safe where men live under the equity of those who reign; nor is it fitting to be drawn along by uncertain rumour by him who ought to establish things that are not to be altered.
Indeed we gather the trustworthiness of matters from reason, which is never hidden from those who desire it, if it be sought out by its own traces. And therefore, what we trust to be most pleasing to your blessedness, we declare by the present tenor that the bishop of the city of Augusta, accused by false charges of betraying his country and now restored by you to his former honour, shall have all the right of the episcopate which he had. For nothing in such an honour is to be presumed with rash thinking, where, if credit is given to one's purpose, a man is excused from excesses even by his silence. Therefore manifest crimes scarcely find credence in such men; and whatever is said out of envy is not reckoned to be truth. For we wish to strike his assailants with the lawful penalty;
but since they too were discharging the office of clergy, we have transmitted all matters to be ordered by the judgement of your holiness, whose part it is both to impose probity by such morals and to maintain ecclesiastical discipline. Although general justice ought to be dispensed to all peoples—which thus obtains the dignity of its name, if with even-handed moderation it runs through both the more powerful and the humble—yet those more confidently seek it who do not withdraw from the service of the palace. For something is freely granted by princely munificence to the idle; but to one who faithfully renders obedience, custom is rendered as a kind of debt.
The Domestics of the section of horse and foot, who seem to keep continual watch over our court, have, by a supplication gathered together to us—a thing that is wont to arise from great griefs—complained that, from that paymaster of the prefects, they receive for their customary emoluments solidi not of full weight, and that in their number they sustain grievous losses. Wherefore let your prudence, instructed by readings in the science, cast out this wicked falsification from the fellowship of truth, lest it be alluring to anyone to subtract something from that integrity. For this thing which is called arithmetic stands amid the ambiguities of the world by a most certain reckoning, which we know to be equal with the heavenly things:
an evident order, a beautiful arrangement, a simple cognition, an immovable knowledge, which both contains things above and guards things below. For what is there that either has no measure or exceeds weight? It embraces all things, governs all things, and all things take their beauty from this, that they are known to exist under its measure. It is a delight to inspect how the number ten, after the manner of heaven, both revolves upon itself and is found never to fail. By a new condition it grows by returning through itself, the same reckoning being ever added to itself; and, though the number ten seems not to be exceeded, out of small things it prevails to embrace greater.
This, often repeated with the fingers of the hands now bent and now raised, is always rendered extended; and the further the calculation is led back to its beginning, the more, beyond doubt, it is increased. By a numerable quantity are bounded the sand of the sea, the drops of the rains, the shining stars. For to its own Author every creature is under number, and whatever comes into existence cannot be removed from such a condition. And since it delights us to speak of the more hidden things of this discipline with those who know, the coins themselves, although by their most common use they seem to be of little worth, deserve that one observe with how great a reckoning they were assembled by the ancients.
They willed that six thousand denarii make a solidus, namely that the moulded roundness of the radiant metal, like a golden sun, might fittingly enclose the age of the world. And the number six, which learned antiquity not without cause defines as perfect, they marked with the name of the ounce, which is the first degree of measure; and reckoning it twelvefold by the likeness of the months, they gathered it into the fullness of the pound for the course of the year. O the inventions of the wise! O the foresights of our forefathers! It is an exquisite thing which both distinguished what was necessary for human use and figuratively contained so many secrets of nature. Deservedly therefore is it called a pound (libra), which has been weighed out with so great a consideration of things.