If this petition is supported by truth, and you find that his father's substance lawfully belongs to the suppliant, then, justice being considered—which you yourselves counsel—let what is owed be assigned to him without the loss of long delay, since the quality of your causes ought to be terminated by you as judges, from whom it is more to be awaited than that justice should be imposed upon you. But if your arbitration does not in equity define this cause at all, know that the suppliant's complaint must be brought before our hearing. For you yourselves teach that the voices of the poor ought not to be neglected, which justice can accompany.
Although it is established to be the wish of our piety that everywhere civil, everywhere moderate dealings be conducted, yet we especially desire that things be well managed in the Gallican regions, where both the recent devastation brings no further injury, and the very beginnings ought well to plant the fame of our name. For the preserved security of subjects spreads the prince's reputation far and wide, and where an army is directed, let it be esteemed as one not for burdening, but rather for defending. And therefore by the present authority we delegate that in Avignon, where you reside, you suffer no violent acts to be done. Let our army live in civil concord with the Romans; let the appointed defence profit them, nor allow them to suffer anything from our men, whom we strive to free from hostile oppression.
The principle of equity persuades us to preserve the ancient custom for those who furnish public rejoicing, especially when it comes from a consul, whose purpose it is established to be that he ought to be praised for liberality, lest his dignity should seem to promise one thing and the senator wish to fulfil another. Wherefore, under a reputation for munificence, it is not fitting to be found niggardly, because the obscurity of tenacity casts a shadow over the public reputation in a consul. Wherefore let Your Illustrious Greatness know that we have been approached by the charioteers of Milan, claiming that those things have been withdrawn from them in your times which ancient custom had granted, since, the occasion offering itself, munificence stands in place of law.
Accordingly, if their assertions are vitiated by no falsehood, it befits Your Highness to follow antiquity, which by a certain privilege of its own demands the things granted as though they were owed. Nor is it permitted to deny what you know yourself to bestow under sanction of antiquity. Although a manifold throng of thought might enter into the mind of our piety, and look upon the diverse parts of the kingdom with accustomed diligence, yet we have hastily regarded the remedies of your benefit, since in our conscience it is a kind of injury to delay things that will be profitable, nor can we reckon as pleasant that which has been held in suspense by an unwelcome delay. For when diseases grow worse, the harm is permitted to rage when the cure is deferred.
To you, therefore, devastated by hostile ferocity, know that in proportion to the quality of the injury the tributary contribution has been remitted for the fourth indiction, because we do not rejoice to exact what a grieving payer is known to offer. Yet in such wise that out of those things which are known to be intact the military expenses may be aided; because devotion ought not wholly to forsake those whom it knows to labour on its behalf. For a fasting defender is feeble, nor does the spirit supply boldness when valour has been deprived of bodily strength. Everything becomes tolerable that is arranged by an even ordinance, because a divided burden, under sharing, is certain not to weigh down the subjects: for the extreme part returns to each individual, when the whole has enclosed them all.
The supply of wheat, therefore, which our providence has dispatched from Italy for the military expenses, lest the wearied province should be harmed by furnishing it, is established to be conveyed to the forts set above the Durance from the granaries of Marseilles. Wherefore we command that the labour of conveying the aforesaid supply be undertaken in common, so that what is seen to be taken up by the zeal of the whole community may speedily be accomplished. Under a benign prince subjects are not met with the need to demand remedies, since humanity precedes supplication, and in a wondrous manner wishes become later than the things bestowed. For recently, moved by justice, we had commanded that some unharmed part of the province should furnish sustenance, when found, to our Goths.
But because, although it is fitting for a prince always to decree the more humane things—provided it has not the fault of changeableness, that which has been altered for a benefit—yet, so that the possessors might not be burdened even by the smallest levy, we have dispatched from Italy the military expenses, so that the army directed for your defence might be nourished by our humane provisions, and the province might feel only the help from so great an assembling. To the dukes also and the commanders we have transmitted a sufficient quantity of money, so that their rations, which could not be conveyed, might there be procured without anyone's loss, because we do not wish to impose upon your free choice even those things which you yourselves, as we suppose, were able to offer.
We delight that those whom we desire to vindicate by arms should live by Roman law, nor is our care for moral matters less than it can be for wars. For what does it profit to have removed the barbarians in confusion, unless one lives by the laws? Wherefore, since with God propitious our army has entered the Gauls, if any slaves declining servitude have betaken themselves to others than those to whom they seemed to belong, we command that they be restored to their former masters without any doubt, because rights ought not to be confounded when justice commands, nor can the defender of liberty favour servitude cast off. The battles of other kings perhaps seek either the plunder or the ruin of captured cities;
but our purpose, with God's help, is so to conquer that the subjected may grieve to have acquired our dominion too late. Although it is first to revive the injured inhabitants and to show the sign of piety rather in men, yet our humanity joins both together, so that we may both provide for the citizens by the remedy of generosity and hasten to restore the ancient walls to splendour. For thus it will come about that the fortune of the city, which is raised up in its citizens, may also be displayed by the beauty of its buildings. For the restoration, therefore, of the walls of Arles or of the old towers, we have directed a fixed quantity of money. Provisions also, which may seem to relieve your expenses, we have caused to be prepared, so that they may be dispatched to you when the season of navigation has smiled.
Lift up now your spirits, and, refreshed by our promise, holding the hope of future abundance, have confidence by divine favour, because no less is what is contained in our words than what is contained in the granaries. It befits our justice that we suffer no calumnies to be made concerning benefits granted, and that whatever is veiled by a perverse interpretation we should reveal, the cloud of falsehood being put to flight. The defenders, therefore, of the most holy Roman Church have complained that a house of the late Simplicius, of blessed memory, situated in the most sacred City, was solemnly purchased from Eufraxius the acolyte by documents drawn up, which house they suggest the Roman Church possessed by quiet right through the long courses of years, and transferred to other uses with security of ownership.
But now there has arisen one hardened with the shameless effrontery of the Samaritan superstition, who falsely pretends with wicked endeavours that there was a synagogue there, although the dwellings are shown to have been fashioned for human uses in a manner far otherwise than the aforesaid construction could be. Wherefore let Your Greatness, with the proven justice of your conscience, examine the case with diligent investigation, and, if you ascertain to be true the things that come into the complaint, with equity considered, define it. For if calumnies are to be removed from human affairs, how much more do we believe those things ought to be amended which we judge to touch the contumely of the Godhead! The guilt of the offender is the material of princely glory, since, unless occasions of faults emerged, piety would have no place.
For what would a wholesome ordinance accomplish, if the uprightness of morals composed all things? Arid dryness longs for the benefit of the moistening rain. Only frail health needs the healing hands of physicians. Thus, while one succumbs to weakness, remedies are fittingly bestowed. Wherefore, in harsh cases, moderation must be furnished under the praise of justice, so that we neither suffer vengeance to surpass the sins, nor allow fault to insult the laws while unpunished.
By the petition you have submitted, then, you have alleged that you, oppressed by the bitterness of the hatred of the respectable man Venantius, governor of Lucania and Bruttium, and worn out by the long squalor of imprisonment, were compelled into a confession of the rape of the grown girl Valeriana, so that it became more pleasing to seek the hope of a swift death than to endure the cruelties of tortures. For amid the supreme straits, the wish of one gasping for breath is to perish rather than to live, because the detestable sense of punishments excludes the affection for sweetest safety. You add this too, which justice would by no means permit, that the protections of advocates were often withdrawn from you, though you repeatedly requested them, while your adversaries, flourishing in talent, could entangle even an innocent man in the snares of the laws.
When this supplication had effectively entered the mind of our piety, and was gradually inclining toward the rights of mercy, there came a report sent by the governor of Bruttium, which by the voice of its own tragic account suppressed the private allegation, denying that credence should be given, against the public faith, to one supplicating deceitfully.
Therefore we soften the harshness of the penalty by our leniency, decreeing that from the day of the issuing of this pronouncement you shall undergo six months of exile, in such wise that to no one, after our decree, shall it be permitted under any interpretation to charge you with the crime of infamy—since it is lawful for a prince to wipe away the stained marks of a tarnished reputation—but, this time being elapsed, restored to your country and to all your possessions, let it be your free right to have everything you had at first, because we deem that you should groan under no scorching of disgrace, you whom we wish to be detained by a temporary exile: threatening nonetheless a penalty of three pounds of gold, if anyone, either by opposing or by interpreting otherwise, should attempt to violate this our present ordinance.
But since we do not wish these statutes to extend even to the innocent, lest his ignorance should seem to have profited each one not at all, by the present authority we free from fear those who are established to have been present in the same case, in whatever place or time, as men unknowing. For he seems like one absent who has no consciousness of the criminal deed. Mitigated severity falls into the part of piety, and he punishes under a benefit who, with measured moderation, has softened the deserved penalty.
Iovinus the curial, whom the corrector of Lucania and Bruttium reports to us to be polluted with the shedding of human blood (for on this account, kindled with the ardours of mutual contention, he carried a strife of words even into the abominable rite of his colleague's murder, but, conscious of his own deed, fleeing within the enclosures of the church, he believed he could evade the vengeance prescribed by the laws)—him we condemn to perpetual banishment on the island of Vulcano, so that we may both appear to have shown reverence to the consecrated temple, and the criminal may not altogether escape vengeance, who did not believe the innocent man ought to be spared. Let him therefore lack his native hearth, about to live amid a destructive conflagration, where the bowels of the earth do not fail, though for so many ages they are continually consumed.
For that earthly flame, which is fed by the diminution of some body, is extinguished if it does not consume; but there, amid the midst of the waves, an undiminished mass of mountain burns continually, nor does it lessen that which is felt able to be dissolved—namely because the inextricable power of nature replaces in the rocks as much of growth as the voracious fire has taken from them. For how would the rocks remain unharmed, if, unaided, they were forever burned down? For the divine power thus makes of contrary things a perpetual miracle, that it openly restores by most hidden increases the things consumed, which it wills to stand for lasting ages. But although other mountains too seethe with vaporous motions, none is reckoned by a like appellation:
it is to be supposed that he is more grievously set ablaze who is called by the name of Vulcan. Let the man guilty of a capital crime therefore be sent alive to the aforesaid place: let him lack the world which we use, from which he cruelly drove another by his death, since the survivor receives what he inflicted by the event of death: about to follow the example of the salamander, which for the most part dwells in fires. For it is constrained by so great a natural cold that it is tempered amid burning flames—a subtle and small animal, akin to worms, clothed in a yellow colour. It furnishes life to that alone which consumes all mortal things.
Moreover, the preservers of bygone ages relate that this island, some years before, burst forth from the very depths, the terror of its waves being broken, at the time when Hannibal, with King Prusias of Bithynia, fought against himself with poison, lest so great a general should come to the mockery of the Romans. More wondrous still, that a mountain kindled with so great a gathering of flames should be held hidden by the sea's waves, and that the burning should live there unceasingly, which so great a flood seemed to overwhelm. The provident command of rulers ought to be the joy of all, when you see us offer that which you yourselves ought to have sought. For what is more pleasing than always to apply forethought to human affairs, which either becomes necessary, or does not grieve us by being superfluous?
And therefore we have, by the present order, delegated to Leodefrid our saio, that by his exertion you may build dwellings for yourselves in the fortress of Verruca, which received a name suitable from its situation. For there is in the midst of the plains a rocky mound, rising in a rounded shape, which, with its lofty sides scraped bare of woods, becomes wholly a mountain as it were one tower, whose lower parts are slenderer than its summits, and it is extended above in the manner of a most soft mushroom, while in the lower part it is narrowed. A rampart without battle, a siege made secure, where neither does the adversary presume anything, nor does the one enclosed dread anything. By this the Adige, honoured among rivers, flows past with the purity of its pleasant stream, furnishing the cause of fortification and of beauty:
a fortress almost singular in the world, holding the barriers of the province, which is for this reason all the more proved to be outstanding, because it is established to be set against fierce nations. This noteworthy stronghold, this marvellous security, who would not desire to dwell in it, which even outsiders delight to come and see? And although, with God's help, we believe the province secure in our times, yet it is nonetheless the part of prudence to guard against even those things which are not thought to arise. A fortification must always be made ready in time of leisure, which is ill sought when it is judged necessary. The grebes—which take their name from their deed—dwellers together with the fish, water-birds, naturally foreseeing future tempests, seek dry places and forsake the pools.
The dolphins, fearing the surge of the open sea, linger along the shallow shores. The sea-urchins—those fleshy honey-morsels, ribbed and tender, the saffron-coloured delicacies of the rich sea—when they perceive that storms are coming and wish to change their place, since by reason of the lightness of their bodies they have no confidence in swimming, embrace little stones that can match their own weight, and, balanced as it were by the ballast of anchors, make for the rocks, which they do not believe will be tossed about by the waves. The very birds change their homelands at winter's coming. Wild beasts seek out lairs according to the quality of the season. Should not human forethought provide what it can call upon in adversity? There is nothing single in the world: human affairs are shaken by mutability.
And therefore it is called providence, that things to come may be dealt with beforehand. Pleasing to us and welcome is that devotion which anticipates a good command, and it is rightly received as acceptable if what we might have ordered is itself requested. For it is the happiness of a ruler that his subjects love what is expedient, since the toil of deliberation is thereby spared us, when those under our authority arrange what will profit them. And so, having learned the tenor of your petition—which out of civic affection you have undertaken for the fortifying of your walls—we judge that you have full licence in this matter: nor need you fear anything in this regard, on which account you ought presently to expect the rewards of our favour. For your fortification is no less our strength:
and whatever rescues you from uncertainty extends the renown of our protection. As for the stones, then, which you report to have fallen from the amphitheatre through long age and to be no longer of any use to public adornment but to display only their unsightly ruins, we grant you licence to put them to use—but for public purposes alone—so that what cannot profit while it lies prostrate may rise into the face of the walls. Therefore carry through confidently whatever defence requires for protection, whatever ornament demands for beauty, knowing only that what you do will be as pleasing to us as the favour of your city is thereby exalted. Gratefully to be received is that arrangement which both aids the giver and gladdens the receiver according to the necessity of the time.
For who could think it a burden, where one rather earns gain in the exchange? And therefore we decree by the present ordinance that you be permitted to exchange the oxen of the Alamanni—which seem more valuable on account of the great size of their bodies, but are worn out by the length of the journey—with your own, which are indeed smaller in limb but fit for labour, so that both their departure may be aided by healthier animals and your fields be furnished with larger herds. Thus it comes about that they acquire beasts robust in strength, you ones conspicuous in form, and—what rarely tends to happen—in a single transaction both parties may seem to have gained the advantages they desired.
As rare as constancy and an honourable resolve are among actors, so much the more precious are they when in such men a praiseworthy disposition is shown. For it is dear to a man to have found something where he had not supposed he would discover anything worthy of praise. Some time ago, then, when the charioteer Thomas arrived from the regions of the East, our consideration granted him reasonable allowances of provision, until we should put his skill and his spirit to the test. But since he is known to hold the first rank in this contest, and his will, having forsaken his fatherland, has chosen to cherish the seat of our empire, we have resolved to confirm him with a monthly bounty, lest we still leave in doubt one whom we know to have chosen the lordship of Italy. For he has often flown as victor before the faces of the various peoples, borne along more by favour than by his chariots.
He took up the part of the people that was at once inclined his way, and those whom he himself had made sorrowful he laboured to render glad again, now surpassing his rivals by skill, now outstripping them by the swiftness of his horses. The frequency of his victory-palms caused him to be called a sorcerer—among such men it seems to be a great proclamation of fame to arrive at charges of that kind. For it must needs be attributed to magical perversity when victory cannot be ascribed to the merits of the horses. A spectacle that drives out the gravest morals, that invites the most frivolous quarrels, an emptier of decency, a flowing fountain of brawls; what antiquity indeed held to be sacred, but a contentious posterity has made into a mockery. For Oenomaus is said first to have set it forth at Elis, a city of Asia:
which afterwards Romulus, at the rape of the Sabine women, when the buildings were not yet founded, displayed in rustic fashion to Italy. But the lord of the world, Augustus, raising the work to match his own power, stretched out even for the Romans a marvellous structure in the valley of Murcia, so that an immense mass, firmly girt about by hills, might contain within it the tokens of great matters. They set twelve gates to answer to the twelve signs. These are flung open by ropes let down from little posts (hermuli), with sudden uniformity, teaching that everything there is conducted by design—so they supposed—where the image of the head is recognized to be at work. The colours, moreover, are poured forth in turn according to a fourfold division of the seasons:
green was assigned to the verdant spring, blue to cloudy winter, red to flaming summer, white to frosty autumn, so that the whole year, as it passed through the twelve signs, might be signified. Thus it was contrived that the offices of nature should be mimicked by a composed imagining of the spectacles. The two-horse chariot (biga) was devised in imitation of the moon, the four-horse (quadriga) of the sun. The vaulting-horses (desultorii), by which the servants of the circus announce that the heats are about to begin, imitate the heralding swiftnesses of the morning-star (Lucifer). So it came to pass that, while they thought they were honouring the stars, they profaned their own religion by a playful resemblance.
A white line is drawn not far from the gates, straight as a ruler, across to each podium, so that the contest might begin from there as the chariots advance, lest, while they strive too hastily to jostle one another out, they should seem to deprive the people of the pleasure of watching. The whole contest is run over seven goal-laps, in the likeness of the recurring week. The turning-posts themselves, according to the decans of the zodiac, have three summits each, around which the swift chariots range like the sun. The eastern ones (Eoae) mark the bounds of East and West. The water-channel (euripus) renders the image of the glassy sea, into which the dolphins of the deep pour their waters there.
The lofty lengths of the obelisks, too, are raised up to the height of the sky, but the taller is dedicated to the Sun, the lower to the Moon, where the sacred rites of the ancients are set forth in Chaldaean characters as if in letters. The central barrier (spina) signifies the lot of the unhappy captives, where the leaders of the Romans, walking upon the backs of their enemies, reaped the joys of their labours. The cloth (mappa), however, which seems to give the signal to the circus-games, flowed into custom by such a chance. When Nero was prolonging a banquet, and the people, eager as usual for the spectacle, clamoured for haste, he ordered the napkin with which he used to wipe his hands to be thrown out through the window, so as to give freedom for the demanded contest. From this it was derived that the cloth, once displayed, is held to be a sure promise of the games to come.
The Circus takes its name from the circuit (circuitus), and the circenses, as it were, from 'around swords' (circuenses): for this reason, that among rude antiquity, which had not yet brought spectacles into the adornment of buildings, they were held in green places amid swords and rivers. Nor is it without meaning that the conditions of this contest are completed in twenty-four heats, doubtless that the hours of day and night should be enclosed in such a number. Nor let it be thought idle that the circuit of the turning-posts is marked by the removal of eggs, since the act itself, heavy with many superstitions, professed by the example of the egg that it would bring forth something. And therefore it is given to understand that flighty and most inconstant manners are born from it, which they have fitted to the mothers of birds.
To run through the rest of the Roman circus in discourse would be a long matter, since everything is seen to pertain to particular meanings. This, however, we say is in every way astonishing: that there, above all other spectacles, the fervour of men's minds is carried away with ill-advised seriousness. The green passes by—a section of the people mourns; the blue takes the lead—and at once the throng of the city is cast down. They rage hotly though they gain nothing; they are gravely wounded though they suffer nothing; and over empty quarrels men part as though the very standing of an imperilled fatherland were at stake. Which is rightly believed to have been dedicated to a numerous superstition, where it is agreed that men so depart from honourable conduct.
These things we foster by reason of the need of the pressing populace, whose wish is to gather for such pursuits, while they delight to cast off serious cares. For reason wins over few, and a praiseworthy aim delights but a rare number: the crowd is rather led to that which is reckoned to have been devised for the relaxation of cares. For whatever it deems pleasurable, this it judges should also be applied to the happiness of the times. Wherefore let us be generous with expenditures, though we do not always give from judgement. It is sometimes expedient to play the fool, that we may be able to keep among the people their longed-for joys.
As we have learned through the all-too-vexatious report of those who appealed to us, a dispute over boundaries has arisen between Leontius and Paschasius, men of distinction, to such a degree that they believed the bounds of their estates were to be vindicated not by laws but by force. Whereat we marvel that there should have been such heated litigation over what is plainly defined either by boundary-witnesses, or by mountain ridges, or by river banks, or by constructed arches and other evident markers. What would these men do if they held property in the Egyptian regions, where, when the flood of the river Nile comes over, the vastest whirlpool scours away the tokens of boundaries and an undistinguished face of the land is returned, where everything is proven to be covered by silt?
Wherefore neither then ought they to have run to arms, if the lawsuit, once stirred up, departed unsettled by any satisfaction. For this is recognized through geometric figures and the discipline of land-surveying (gromatica) just as carefully as everything is concluded in writing by enclosed speech. Geometry, indeed—as the race of men is exceedingly keen and diligent—the Chaldaeans are recorded to have first invented, who, gathering together the rationale of that discipline in a general way, taught it to be apt for astronomical matters, for music, for mechanics, for architecture, for medicine, and for the art of calculation (logistic), or for whatever can be contained within general forms, so that without it none of these can arrive at truest recognition.
After them the Egyptians, fervent with no different heat of mind, on account of the increases of the Nile which they undergo each year by a wished-for inundation, transferred this to the measurement of land and the recovery of the forms of boundaries, so that what seemed liable to litigious confusion might be made distinct by art. Wherefore let your Greatness no less employ a most skilled land-surveyor—who takes his name from the art (agrimensor)—so that now he ought, by evident documents, to demonstrate all things that have been distinguished by manifest reasoning. For if that marvellous discipline accomplished this, that it might distinguish undetermined fields by sure method, how much more ought this man to demonstrate all things which are already proven to be bounded by their own limits?
In the times of Augustus, indeed, the Roman world was divided into fields and described by a census, so that each man's possession—which he had received in proportion to the amount of tribute to be paid—might be held uncertain by none. This its author, Heron the metrician, reduced to a written doctrine, so that the diligent student might recognize by reading what he ought to demonstrate plainly to the eyes. Let those skilled in this art see what the public authority thinks of them. For those disciplines, celebrated throughout the world, do not have this honour. You point to arithmetic—it is given over to lecture-halls. Geometry, though it disputes so much of celestial things, is expounded only to students. Astronomy and music are learned for knowledge alone.