Letter 3052: As we have learned from the spiteful reports of petitioners, a boundary dispute has arisen between the spectabiles...

LII. KING THEODERIC TO CONSULARIS VIR ILLUSTRIS [a man of consular rank, illustrious]. [1] As we have learned from the all-too-spiteful representation of those who appeal to us, a boundary dispute has arisen between Leontius and Paschasius, men of spectabilis [respectable] rank, such that they believed the boundaries of their estates were to be vindicated not by laws but by force. Whence we marvel that there has been litigation with such heat over a matter which is established to have been defined either by boundary witnesses, or by mountain ridges, or by riverbanks, or by constructed arch-markers, and by other evident signs. [2] What would these men do if they held property in the regions of Egypt, where, when the flood of the river Nile comes over the land, a most vast whirlpool scrapes away the marks of the boundaries and the face of the earth is rendered indistinguishable, where all things are proved to be covered by mud? Therefore not even then ought they to have rushed to arms, if the lawsuit, once stirred up, departed unsettled by any satisfaction. For this matter is recognized through geometrical figures and the gromatic [land-surveying] discipline just as carefully as everything is set down in a written statement by language. [3] Indeed the Chaldeans are recorded to have first discovered geometry, being, as it is, a most acute and diligent race of men; gathering together the principle of that very discipline in a general way, they taught that it is suited to matters of astronomy, and music, and mechanics, and to architects, and to medicine, and to the art of calculation [logistic], or to whatever can be contained within general forms, so that without it none of these things can arrive at the most true recognition. [4] After this, the Egyptians, blazing with no less heat of mind, transferred it, on account of the Nilotic risings which they suffer each year by a longed-for inundation, to the measurement of land and the recovery of the forms of boundaries, so that by art there should be made distinct that which seemed liable to litigious confusion. [5] Wherefore let your magnitude nonetheless employ a most skilled land-surveyor, who takes his name from the art [agrimensor], so that he may now display by evident documents all the things which have been distinguished by manifest reckoning. For if that marvelous discipline accomplished this, that it should distinguish undefined fields by a sure method, how much more ought this man to display all the things which are already proved to be bounded by their own limits? [6] For indeed in the times of Augustus the Roman world was divided into fields and described by census, so that no one's possession, which he had received in respect of the amount of tribute to be paid, should be held uncertain. [7] This Heron the metrician reduced to written doctrine, so that the studious man, by reading, might be able to recognize what he ought to display plainly to the eyes. Let those skilled in this art see what public authority thinks of them. For those disciplines, celebrated throughout the whole world, do not have this honor. You point to arithmetic: it has leisure for the lecture-halls. Geometry, although it disputes so greatly about the heavenly bodies, is only expounded to students. Astronomy and music are learned for knowledge alone. [8] But to the land-surveyor a boundary lawsuit, once arisen, is committed, so that the impudence of contentions may be cut off. He is indeed judge of his own art; his courtroom is the deserted fields themselves: you would think him a fanatic, whom you have observed walking along winding paths. For he seeks out the marks of things among rough woods and thickets; he does not walk by the common road; the path for him is his own reading; he shows what he says, he proves what he has learned, by his own steps he discerns the rights of the disputing parties, and after the manner of a most vast river he takes away spaces from some and grants lands to others. [9] Wherefore, supported by our authority, choose such a man, after whom the parties will blush to litigate with shameless brow, so that the rights of the possessors may not be confused, for whom it is necessary to apply cultivation to their own property.

LII. CONSULARI V. I. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Sicut invidiosa nimis interpellantium suggestione comperimus, inter Leontium atque Paschasium spectabiles viros finalis orta contentio est, ita ut terminos casarum suarum non legibus, sed viribus crederent vindicandos. unde miramur tanta animositate fuisse litigatum, quod aut terminis testibus aut iugis montium aut fluminum ripis aut arcaturis constructis aliisque signis evidentibus constat esse definitum. [2] Quid isti facerent, si in Aegyptiacis partibus possiderent, ubi Nili fluminis superveniente diluvio indicia finium vastissimus gurges abradit et indiscreta terrae facies redditur, ubi omnia limus tegere comprobatur? quapropter nec tunc ad arma concurrere debuissent, si excitata lis nulla satisfactione superata discederet. hoc enim per geometricas formas et gromaticam disciplinam ita diligenter agnoscitur, quemadmodum litteris omnia sermo conclusus est. [3] Geometriam quippe, ut est hominum genus nimis acutissimum atque sollicitum, Chaldaei primum invenisse memorantur, qui rationem ipsius disciplinae generaliter colligentes et in astronomicis rebus et in musicis et in mechanicis et in architectis et in medicinam et ad artem logisticam, vel quicquid potest formis generalibus contineri, aptam esse docuerunt, ut sine ea nihil horum possit ad agnitionem verissimam pervenire. [4] Hanc post Aegyptii, non dissimiliter animi calore ferventes, propter augmenta Nilotica, quae singulis annis votiva inundatione patiuntur, ad dimensionem terrae et recuperandas formas finium transtulerunt, ut fieret arte distinctum, quod litigiosae confusioni videbatur obnoxium. [5] Quapropter agrimensorem peritissimum, cui ab arte nomen est, vestra nihilominus adhibeat magnitudo, ut iam omnia, quae manifesta ratione distincta sunt, per evidentia debeat documenta monstrare. nam si hoc egit illa disciplina mirabilis, ut indeterminatos agros ratione certa distingueret, quanto magis iste monstrare debet omnia, quae iam probantur suis finibus terminata? [6] Augusti siquidem temporibus orbis Romanus agris divisus censuque descriptus est, ut possessio sua nulli haberetur incerta, quam pro tributorum susceperat quantitate solvenda. [7] Hoc auctor Heron metricus redegit ad dogma conscriptum, quatenus studiosus legendo possit agnoscere, quod deberet oculis absolute monstrare. videant artis huius periti, quid de ipsis publica sentit auctoritas. nam disciplinae illae toto orbe celebratae non habent hunc honorem. arithmeticam indicas, auditoriis vacat. geometria, cum tantum de caelestibus disputat, tantum studiosis exponitur. astronomia et musica discuntur ad scientiam solam. [8] Agrimensori vero finium lis orta committitur, ut contentionum protervitas abscidatur. iudex est utique artis suae, forum ipsius agri deserti sunt: fanaticum credis, quem tortuosis semitibus ambulare conspexeris. indicia siquidem rerum inter silvas asperas et dumeta perquirit, non ambulat iure communi, via illi est lectio sua, ostendit quod dicit, probat quod didicit, gressibus suis concertantium iura discernit et more vastissimi fluminis aliis spatia tollit, aliis rura concedit. [9] Quapropter auctoritate nostra suffulti talem eligite, post quem partes erubescant impudenti fronte litigare, quatenus possessorum iura confusa esse non debeant, quibus est necessarium rebus propriis adhibere culturam.