Letter 4007: King Theodoric to Senarius, Vir Illustris [Most Illustrious], Count of the Private Estates.

King Theoderic to Senarius, Count of the Private Estates [the official in charge of the crown's private revenues]. [1] It is the purpose of our clemency to relieve the fortunes of those who are imperiled unjustly, since we cannot drag toward a charge of wrongdoing that which is established to have been imposed by another's force. For it is unfair that something should be reckoned to a man's fault which is not governed by his own will; and that the blame should be charged to one who is imperiled by that from which it is rarely granted to escape. [2] And therefore let your Sublimity know that the escorts of the grain shipments, who had been dispatched from Sicily to the Gauls, have appealed to us with a tearful petition, telling how, when they had moved the cargo they had taken on out into the open sea, it was caught by adverse winds: there, as the framework of the timbers gave way, the force of the waves swallowed everything, and nothing remained to the wretched men out of that vast flood of waters except their tears alone. [3] Wherefore let your illustrious Sublimity, admonished by this present authority, cause the measure of wheat which they shall have proved to have perished under this lot to be credited to the aforesaid escorts without any delay. For it is a kind of cruelty to wish to rage on beyond the shipwreck and to drive to losses those men to whom the merciless elements are shown to have left a destitute life.

VII. SENARIO V. I. COMITI PRIVATARUM THEODERICUS REX. [1] Propositum nostrae pietatis est iniuste periclitantium sublevare fortunas, quia quod aliena vi constat impositum, trahere non possumus ad delictum. iniquum est enim, ut hominis vitio deputetur quod eius voluntate non regitur: et illud imputetur periclitanti, unde raro datur evadere. [2] Atque ideo sublimitas tua prosecutores frumentorum, qui de Sicilia fuerant ad Gallias destinati, lacrimabili nos aditione pulsasse cognoscat, dum susceptum onus promovissent in pelagus, adversis flatibus fuisse susceptum: ubi fatiscente compage trabium, omnia vis absorbuit undarum nec quicquam miseris de aquarum nimietate nisi solas lacrimas restitisse. [3] Unde illustris sublimitas tua, praesenti auctoritate commonita, modiationem tritici quam sub hac sorte perisse probaverint, supradictis prosecutoribus sine aliqua faciat cunctatione reputari. crudelitatis enim genus est ultra naufragium velle desaevire et illos ad dispendia cogere, quibus inopem vitam probantur inmania elementa cessisse.