Letter 10027: A man who rushes to relieve taxpayers does not give away expenses — he repays them.

27. King Theodahad to Senator, Praetorian Prefect. [1] Whoever hastens to relieve the taxpayers with some remedy seems not to be giving away expenditures, but rather repaying them. For what is more just than to confer upon one who asks the very thing by which he is understood to have toiled? The idle perhaps may be fed out of mercy; but the cultivator of the field is abandoned to future famine, unless he is relieved when it has become necessary. [2] For this reason, abundance is said to have been withdrawn from the fields of industrious Liguria and devoted Venetia: but now let it be born in the granaries, since it is exceedingly impious that, when the storehouses are most full, the cultivators should go hungry and empty. And therefore let your illustrious greatness, whose dignity is read to have been established for this very purpose, that out of the stored-up supplies you might be able to feed the people, decree that a third portion from the granaries of Ticinum [Pavia] and Dertona [Tortona] be distributed to the Ligurians, whom nevertheless you know to be in need, at twenty-five measures per solidus. [3] To the Venetians, however, see that the same third portion be given, up to the quantity defined above, from the granaries of Tarvisium [Treviso] and Tridentum [Trento], so that the divine power, having taken pity, may be able to bestow abundance, which it knows men to have labored to produce for it. And therefore appoint such men to these distributions, that our indulgence may reach above all those who have been least able to feed themselves by their own resources.

XXVII. SENATORI PPO THEODAHADUS REX. [1] Non dare, sed reddere videtur expensas, quisquis tributariis aliquo remedio subvenire festinat. quid enim iustius est quam petenti conferre quod intellegitur ipse laborasse? ad misericordiam forsitan pascantur otiosi: cultor agri ad futuram famem deseritur, nisi ei, cum necesse fuerit, subvenitur. [2] Quapropter industriosae Liguriae devotisque Venetiis copia subtracta dicitur esse de campis: sed nunc nascatur in horreis, quia nimis impium est plenissimis cellis vacuos esurire cultores. atque ideo illustris magnitudo vestra, quorum dignitas ad hoc legitur instituta, ut de repositis copiis populum saturare possetis, Liguribus, quos tamen indigere cognoscitis, tertiam portionem ex horreis Ticinensibus atque Dertonensibus per solidum viginti quinque modios distrahi censitote. [3] Venetis autem ex Tarvisiano atque Tridentino horreis ad definitam superius quantitatem idem dari facite tertiam portionem, ut miserata divinitas copiam largiri possit, quam homines in se exercuisse cognoscit. et ideo tales viros his distributionibus adhibete, ut indulgentia nostra maxime ad illos perveniat qui suis viribus pasci minime potuerunt.