Letter 10030: Your report informs me that on the Via Sacra [the Sacred Way, Rome's ceremonial boulevard] — which antiquity...

King Theodahad to Honorius, Prefect of the City. [1] From the tenor of your report we have learned that, on the Sacred Way [Via Sacra]—which antiquity dedicated with many superstitions—the bronze elephants are tottering with a ruin that threatens them on every side, and that creatures which in their fleshly substance are accustomed to live above a thousand years seem, in their figures of bronze, to be facing an imminent collapse. Let your foresight make their proper longevity be restored to them by binding firm with iron clamps the limbs that gape apart; let it also strengthen the sagging belly with a wall set beneath it, lest that marvelous bulk dissolve disgracefully into ruin. [2] For even to the living elephants this same fall is an adversity: when, by men's art, they have committed their huge limbs to a kind of repose with trees cut down beneath them, they are thrown backward with their whole weight and cannot rise again by their own strength once it has befallen them to have collapsed—because their feet are bent by no joints, but, rigid after the manner of columns and unbending, persist continually so. There, fallen down by so great a mass, you might believe them all the more to be of metal at the very moment when you behold that the living creatures do not move. They lie as survivors with the likeness of corpses: you would think them dead, though you do not doubt they are alive; and in the manner of falling structures they do not know how to leave of their own accord the place which they were able to occupy with their limbs. [3] That terrible bulk is not even equal to the tiniest ants, since it does not possess that boon of nature which the lowest animals are seen to have deserved. They rise up by human assistance, by whose art they had lain. The beast, however, once restored to its own steps, knows how to be mindful of the benefit: indeed, it receives as its master the one whom it recognizes to have come to its aid; at his discretion it moves its steps, by his will it takes its food, and—what surpasses all the intelligence of quadrupeds—it does not hesitate at first sight to adore the one whom it understands to be the ruler of all. But if a tyrant should appear to it, it remains unbending, nor can it be imposed upon the beast to render to wicked men also that which it knows to display, of itself, to good princes. [4] In place of a hand it stretches out its trunk and gratefully receives what will be of profit to its master, because it recognizes that it can live by his care. For there is, so to speak, a nose-like hand of the aforesaid beast, through which it takes up what is given and conveys it to its mouth to be devoured. For although it is a tall animal, it has been fashioned with a very short neck, so that what it was not strong enough to gather from the ground as food, this it might seem able to satisfy by such a service. Testing the ground, it always advances cautiously, remembering that at the beginning of its captivity a fall had been harmful to it. [5] Its breath, because it is said to heal pain of the human head, it breathes out when asked. When it has come to draw waters, through the hollow of its trunk it pours forth, when requested, a shower after the manner of rain, and so it recognizes what is asked, that it gladly does what it is requested. By a movement of its body it asks from various persons what it may hand to its master, and it counts the provisions of its keeper as its own nourishment. But if anyone scorns to offer what is asked, it is said—the receptacle of its bladder being opened—to discharge so great a flood that a kind of river seems to enter into his household, avenging the contempt with a stench. [6] For even when wronged it preserves the offense, and after a long time it is said to repay the one by whom it perceives itself to have been injured. Its eyes indeed are small, but they move with gravity. You would believe that its gaze had directed something regal. It looks down upon those who play the buffoon; it gladly attends to something honorable, and you perceive that one to judge rightly to whom you have come to know that trifles are displeasing. [7] Its skin is furrowed with ulcerous valleys, from which the abominable affliction of those across the sea [elephantiasis] has taken its name; this hardens into such firmness that you would think the skin to be of bone. It is penetrated by no force, pierced by no edge of iron, and therefore the kings of the Persians dragged this beast to wars, since, struck by no blows, it would yield, and by its own bulk would terrify the adversaries. [8] Wherefore it is most welcome to possess even their likenesses, so that those who have not seen the living substance may recognize the imagined animal by such a representation. And therefore do not allow them to perish, since it belongs to Roman dignity to preserve in that City, by the talents of craftsmen, what rich nature is known to have brought forth through the various parts of the world.

XXX. HONORIO PRAEFECTO URBIS THEODAHADUS REX. [1] Relationis vestrae tenore comperimus in via sacra, quam multis superstitionibus dicavit antiquitas, elephantos aeneos vicina omnimodis ruina titubare, et qui solent in carnali substantia supra millenos annos vivere, occasum videantur proximum in simulacris aereis sustinere. his providentia vestra reddi faciat propriam longaevitatem uncis ferreis hiantia membra solidando: alvum quoque demissam subdito pariete corroboret, ne illa magnitudo mirabilis solvatur turpiter in ruinam. [2] Nam et vivis ipse casus adversus est, qui, dum in genus cubationis arte hominum succisis arboribus ingentia membra commiserint, toto pondere supinati nequeunt propriis viribus surgere, quos semel contigerit corruisse, scilicet quia pedes eorum nullis inflectuntur articulis, sed in modum columnarum rigentes atque incurvabiles iugiter perseverant. ibi tanta mole prostrati sunt, ut tunc magis metallicos possis credere, cum se vivos aspicias non movere. iacent superstites similitudine cadaverum: mortuos putes, quos vivos esse non dubites et more cadentium fabricarum, nesciunt locum sponte relinquere, quem suis membris potuerint occupare. [3] Magnitudo illa terribilis nec formicis minutissimis par est, quando beneficium non habet naturae, quod ultima videntur animalia meruisse. humano solacio consurgunt, cuius arte iacuerunt. belua tamen suis gressibus restituta novit memor esse beneficii: in magistrum quippe recipit quem sibi subvenisse cognoscit: ad ipsius arbitrium gressus movet, ipsius voluntate cibos capit, et, quod omnem intellegentiam quadrupedum superat, non dubitat primo aspectu adorare quem cunctorum intellegit esse rectorem: cui si tyrannus appareat, inflexa permanet nec imponi potest beluae hoc et malis pendere, quod a se novit bonis principibus exhibere. [4] In vicem manus promuscidem tendit et magistro profutura gratanter accipit, quia se ipsius cura vivere posse cognoscit. est enim, ut ita dixerim, praedictae beluae nasuta manus, per quam data suscipit et ori suo voranda transmittit. nam cum sit altum animal, brevissima cervice compositum est, ut quod cibos ex humo non praevalebat carpere, hoc se ministerio videretur posse satiare. temptando solum cautus semper incedit, retinens initio captivationis suae fuisse sibi noxiam ruinam. [5] Flatum suum, quia dolori capitis humani mederi dicitur, rogatus exhalat. hic dum ad aquas venerit hauriendas, per cavum promuscidis in modum pluviae imbrem postulatus effundit et sic agnoscit quod petitur, ut libens faciat quod rogatur. motu corporis ab diversis postulat quod magistro porrigat et nutritoris compendia sua putat alimenta. quod si aliquis praebere contempserit postulata, vesicae collectaculo patefacto tantam dicitur alluvionem egerere, ut in eius penatibus quidam fluvius videatur intrare, contemptum vindicans de fetore. [6] Nam et laesus servat offensam et longo post tempore reddere dicitur, a quo iniuriatus esse sentitur. oculi quidem parvi, sed graviter se moventes. credas aliquid regium eius intendisse conspectum. despicit scurriliter ludentes: honestum aliquid gratanter adtendit et advertis recte iudicare, cui levia cognoveris displicere. [7] Cutis huius ulcerosis vallibus exaratur, a qua transportaneorum nefanda passio nomen accepit, quae in tantam duritiam solidatur, ut putes esse osseam cutem. haec nulla vi transmittitur, nullo ferri acumine penetratur, ideoque Persarum reges hanc beluam ad bella traxerunt, quae et nullis ictibus pulsata cederet et adversarios sua mole terreret. [8] Quapropter eorum vel formas habere gratissimum est, ut qui vivam substantiam non viderunt, opinatum animal tali imaginatione cognoscant. et ideo non patiaris perire, quando Romanae dignitatis est artificum ingeniis in illa urbe recondere, quod per diversas mundi partes cognoscitur dives natura procreasse.