Gregory to Romanus, our defensor of Sicily. It has been brought to us (Grat. dist. 88, c. 4) that our most reverend brother Basil the bishop is occupied, as if one of the lowest, in lawsuits, and uselessly frequents the praetoria. Since this matter both renders him vile and annihilates priestly reverence, as soon as your experience shall have received this precept, compel him by strict execution so to return, that, with you insisting, it be not permitted him to tarry there five days under any excuse whatever; lest, if in any manner you permit him to have delay there, you begin with him to be gravely culpable before us. Given in the month of December, indiction 3. (Cf. John the Deacon, Bk. III, c. 36. See ep. 9.)