Letter 1018: KING THEODERIC TO DOMITIANUS AND WILIA.

XVIII. KING THEODERIC TO DOMITIANUS AND WILIA. [1] It behooves you to cultivate and observe justice, you who have undertaken to declare equity to the people, since it is not permitted to do wrong to those who are believed to keep others within the rule of equity, lest he who is known to have been chosen for a praiseworthy office become a depraved example. And therefore we have taken care to furnish a response to your inquiry, lest through doubt you might err, unless—which heaven forbid—you should wish to transgress. [2] If a barbarian usurper has occupied a Roman's estate, from the time when, with God's favor, we crossed the streams of the Isonzo, where the dominion of Italy first received us, without any allocator's warrant, let him restore it to the former owner with all delay set aside. But if he appears to have entered upon the property before the time we have designated, since the prescription of thirty years is proven to stand in the way, we order that the claimant's petition be at rest. [3] For we wish those matters to be brought back into the open which, having been usurped in our times, we condemn, because no room for false accusation is left once the obscurity of a long span of time has passed by. [4] As for one who has only struck down, and not also wholly destroyed, a brother—although by the common law of all such a man is condemned, and parricide alone is the crime that surpasses the tragedy of every guilt—nevertheless our humanity, which seeks for itself a place for mercy even among the wicked, determines by the present authority that monstrosities of this kind be driven from the bounds of the province. For those to whom the fellowship of their own kin was hateful do not deserve to have the company of fellow citizens, lest the pleasant serenity of an unblemished body be defiled by murky stains.

XVIII. DOMITIANO ET VVILIAE THEODERICUS REX. [1] Oportet vos colere et observare iustitiam, qui aequitatem populi dicere suscepistis, quando non licet delinquere, qui alios creditur sub aequitatis regula continere, ne fiat exemplum pravum qui electus ad laudabile cognoscitur institutum. et ideo ad interrogationem vestram curavimus praebere responsum, ne per dubitationem possitis errare, nisi, quod absit, velitis excedere. [2] Si Romani praedium, ex quo deo propitio Sonti fluenta transmisimus, ubi primum Italiae nos suscepit imperium, sine delegatoris cuiusquam pittacio praesumptor barbarus occupavit, eum priori domino summota dilatione restituat. quod si ante designatum tempus rem videtur ingressus, quoniam praescriptio probatur obviare tricennii, petitionem iubemus quiescere pulsatoris. [3] Illa enim reduci in medium volumus, quae, nostris temporibus praesumpta, damnamus, quia locus calumniandi non relinquitur, cum longi temporis obscuritas praeteritur. [4] De percussore tantummodo, non etiam peremptore fratris, quamquam omnium communi lege damnatur solumque sit parricidium quod totius tragoediam reatus exsuperet, tamen humanitas nostra, quae sibi etiam in sceleratis locum pietatis inquirit, praesenti auctoritate definit, ut huius modi portenta provinciae finibus abigantur. nam quibus fuit exosa societas parentum, civium non merentur habere consortium, ne puri corporis iucunda serenitas nebulosis maculis polluatur.