Letter 3047: Tempered severity falls on the side of mercy, and the ruler who softens a deserved punishment with considered...

47. KING THEODERIC TO FAUSTUS, PRAETORIAN PREFECT. [1] A severity that has been mitigated falls back into the realm of mercy, and he punishes under the guise of a benefit who, with measured moderation, softens the penalty that is owed. Jovinus, a curial [town councillor], whom the corrector [governor] of Lucania and Bruttium reports to us to be polluted by the shedding of human blood (for on this account, inflamed by the heat of a mutual quarrel, he carried a brawl of words all the way to the wicked slaughter of his colleague, but, conscious of his deed, fleeing within the precincts of the church, he believed he could avoid the vengeance prescribed by the laws) we condemn to perpetual relegation on the island of Vulcano, so that we may both appear to have shown reverence for a consecrated temple, and the criminal may not escape punishment altogether, who did not believe that the innocent man ought to be spared. [2] Let him therefore be deprived of his ancestral hearth, doomed to live amid a destructive conflagration, where the bowels of the earth do not fail, though they are continually consumed through so many ages. For this earthly flame of ours, which is nourished by the diminution of some body, if it does not consume, is extinguished; but there a vast unfailing mass of mountain burns continuously amid the very waves, and does not diminish that which one would think could be dissolved: namely because the inextricable power of nature restores to the rocks as much increase as the ravenous fire has taken from them. For in what way would the stones remain whole, if they were forever boiled away without being replenished? [3] For the divine power thus makes a perpetual miracle out of contrary things, that openly it restores by most hidden increases the things consumed, which it wishes to endure for lasting ages. But although other mountains also seethe with vaporous tremors, none is reckoned by a like name: it is to be supposed that the one which is called by the name of Vulcan is more grievously kindled. [4] Let the man guilty of a capital crime, then, be sent alive to the aforesaid place: let him be deprived of the world we enjoy, from which he cruelly drove out another by death, since, surviving, he receives what he inflicted by the outcome of death: about to follow the example of the salamander, which for the most part dwells in fires. For it is bound together by so great a natural coldness that it is tempered amid the burning flames. It is a subtle and small animal, akin to the earthworm, clothed in a yellow color. It alone grants life [to itself] in that which consumes all mortal things. [5] Moreover, the preservers of ancient lore relate that this island, some years ago, burst forth from the depths, the dread barrier of the waves having been broken, at the time when Hannibal, at the court of Prusias king of Bithynia, did battle against himself with poison, lest so great a leader should come to be the mockery of the Romans. More marvelous still from that, that a mountain kindled with so great a gathering of flames should be held hidden by the marine waves, and that a burning should there live unceasingly which so vast a flood seemed to overwhelm.

XLVII. FAUSTO PPO THEODERICUS REX. [1] In partem pietatis recidit mitigata districtio et sub beneficio punit qui poenam debitam considerata moderatione palpaverit. Iovinum curialem, quem corrector Lucaniae Bruttiorumque humani nobis suggerit sanguinis effusione pollutum (ob hoc cum mutuae contentionis ardoribus excitatus rixam verborum usque ad nefarium collegae deduxit in ritum, sed conscius facti sui intra ecclesiae saepta refugiens declinare se credidit praescriptam legibus ultionem) Vulcanae insulae perpetua relegatione damnamus, ut et sacrato templo reverentiam habuisse videamur nec vindictam criminosus evadat in totum, qui innocenti non credidit esse parcendum. [2] Careat proinde patrio foco cum exitiabili victurus incendio, ubi viscera terrae non deficiunt, cum tot saeculis iugiter consumantur. flamma siquidem ista terrena, quae alicuius corporis imminutione nutritur, si non absumit, extinguitur: ardet continue inter undas medias montis quantitas indefecta nec imminuit, quod resolvi posse sentitur: scilicet quia naturae inextricabilis potentia tantum crementi cautibus reponit, quantum illi vorax ignis ademerit. nam quemadmodum saxa incolumia permanerent, si semper inadiuvata decoquerent? [3] Potentia siquidem divina sic de contrariis rebus miraculum facit esse perpetuum, ut palam consumpta occultissimis instauret augmentis, quae vult temporibus stare diuturnis. verum cum et alii montes motibus vaporatis exaestuent, nullus simili appellatione censetur: aestimandum, quia gravius succenditur, qui Vulcani nomine nuncupatur. [4] Mittatur ergo reus capitis in locum praedictum vivus: careat quo utimur mundo, de quo alterum crudeliter fugavit exitio, quando superstes recipit quod eventu mortis inflixit: salamandrae secuturus exemplum, quae plerumque degit in ignibus. tanto enim naturali frigore constringitur, ut flammis ardentibus temperetur. subtile ac parvum animal, lumbricis associum, flavo colore vestitum. vitam praestat soli, quae mortalia cuncta consumit. [5] Memorant autem aevi pristini servatores hanc insulam ante aliquot annos undarum rupto terrore imitus erupisse, cum Hannibal apud Prusiam Bithyniae regem veneno secum ipse pugnavit, ne tantus dux ad Romanorum ludibria perveniret. plus inde mirabile, ut mons tanta flammarum congregatione succensus marinis fluctibus haberetur absconditus et ardor ibi indesinenter viveret, quem tanta unda videbatur obruere.