Letter 1012: KING THEODERIC TO EUGENITUS, A MAN OF ILLUSTRIOUS RANK AND MASTER OF OFFICES.

[1] The royal judgment is the pageant of merits, since we know not how to bestow these except upon the worthy. And although, by God's favor, everything that we wish lies subject to our power, we nevertheless measure our will by reason, so that we may rather be esteemed to have chosen that which it is fitting for all to approve. [2] Hence it is that, when you were laudably pursuing the studies of literary learning, we some time ago chose you for the summit of the quaestorship, so that the dignity of letters might become the reward of your honorable labor. For what is more honorable than the office of advocacy, if it is discharged with integrity — an office that draws another's business into its own troubles, so as to come to the aid of others' labors? Trained in this field, you have arrived by a course of merits at the palm of our judgment. [3] Yet our kindness, not content with a single recompense, doubles the honor, procures increases, and with such zeal restores its gifts as though it owed all that it bestows. Take up, therefore, the insignia of the magisterial dignity, to enjoy all the privileges which it is established that your predecessors possessed. And so rejoice in the judgment you have received, you who have deserved to receive a second honor as the reward of your first office's labor. For what we felt about your earlier reward we declare by the increase of this second dignity. The fasces have been born from the fasces, and the offshoots of the tree, retaining their nature, have sprouted again, fittingly pruned. [The fasces were the bundle of rods symbolizing high magisterial authority.] [4] But let not this recompense fill you to satiety, nor let the praise our judgment has won grant a holiday to your labors. Rather, let honorable conduct become the more desirable when it attains its reward, and then let it become the more gratifying to have endured anxious labors, when you understand that you have found their fruit. The honors, therefore, which you receive from documents, repay through your merits. You know well by what zeal we are pleased, you who come from the very inner chambers of our council. You remember how often the innocent have been praised before us, how often we have rendered recompense for good deeds. By your mouth we used to pronounce our judgments: be roused by such examples. Be a temple of innocence, a shrine of temperance, an altar of justice. Let nothing profane be far from the minds of those who judge. Let a devout prince be served as under a kind of priesthood.

XII. EUGENITI V. I. MAGISTRO OFFICIORUM THEODERICUS REX. [1] Pompa meritorum est regale iudicium, quia nescimus ista nisi dignis impendere. et quamquam potestati nostrae deo favente subiaceat omne quod volumus, voluntatem tamen nostram de ratione metimur, ut illud magis aestimemur elegisse, quod cunctos dignum est approbare. [2] Hinc est quod te litterati dogmatis studia laudabiliter exsequentem pridem ad quaesturae culmen elegimus, ut honesti laboris tui fieret praemium dignitas litterarum. quid enim advocationis officio, si pure impendatur, ornatius, quod peregrinum negotium ad suas molestias trahit, ut laboribus subveniat alienis? in hoc campo exercitatus cursu meritorum ad palmam nostri iudicii pervenisti. [3] Nec tamen benignitas nostra una remuneratione contenta honorem geminat, augmenta procurat et eo studio dona reparat, quasi debeat omne quod praestat. sume igitur magisteriae infulas dignitatis, usurus omnibus privilegiis quae tuos habuisse constiterit decessores. atque ideo tanto iudicio laetare suscepto, qui pro labore honoris tui honorem alterum accipere meruisti. quid enim de priore senserimus praemio, secundae dignitatis declaramus augmento. nati sunt fasces ex fascibus et naturam retinentes fetus arborei pullulaverunt iterum decenter abscisi. [4] Verum te haec remuneratio satietate non expleat nec det laboribus tuis ferias nostri laus inventa iudicii. desiderabilior quin immo sit honestas, cum pervenit ad praemium, et tunc fiat gratius labores anxios fuisse perpessum, cum te fructum eorum intellegis invenisse. honores ergo quos sumis ex chartis, redde de meritis. nosti bene, quo nobis studio placeatur, qui ab ipsius consilii penetralibus venis. meministi, quotiens apud nos laudati sint innocentes, quotiens bonis actibus reddidimus vicem. ore tuo iudicia nostra loquebamur: exemplis talibus incitare. esto innocentiae templum, temperantiae sacrum, ara iustitiae. absit a iudiciariis mentibus aliquid profanum. pio principi sub quodam sacerdotio serviatur.