Letter 5035: VARIAE, BOOK 5, LETTER 35

35. KING THEODERIC TO LIUVIRIT, COUNT, AND AMPELIUS, MAN OF SPECTABLE RANK. [1] Since, owing to the circumstance of an uncertain season, scarcity with its haggard countenance was battering the dwellings of Rome, and, though only at intervals, nevertheless seemed to be a most foul thing for so beautiful a city, we judged it equitable to furnish her with the wheat-supplies of Spain, so that Rome, more fortunate under us, might recover her ancient revenue. The praiseworthy diligence of Marcianus, a man of spectable rank, served our orders indeed: but those things were too negligently fulfilled which it is agreed had been most excellently arranged. For those men who had undertaken to transport it, not bearing the tedium of delays, are said to have sold in the regions of Africa, for their own profit, the grain that had been appointed. [2] Although this ought by no means to have passed unpunished, that love of one's own advantage should keep in suspense the hungry prayers of so many peoples, nevertheless, because it is innate in us to remit faults which we are able to correct by a prudent ordinance, we have judged that Catellus and Servandus, energetic men, ought to be dispatched, so that, since the shipmasters are reported to have received two hundred and eighty solidi for the wheat and seven hundred and fifty-eight solidi for the freight charges, if the truth of the matter becomes known among you, when the sum has been gathered up by reckoning, the amount of one thousand thirty-eight solidi may be exacted from them, so that we, who have remitted the punishment, may by no means suffer the losses. In this matter let your Sublimity so diligently exert yourselves that you may be seen to have satisfied both justice and the public interests.

XXXV. LIVVIRIT COMITI ET AMPELIO V. I. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Cum pro incerti temporis eventu Romanas aedes inopia facie castigata pulsaret et quamvis rare, tamen tam pulchrae civitati videretur esse foedissima, aequum iudicavimus Hispaniae triticeas illi copias exhibere, ut antiquum vectigal sub nobis felicior Roma reciperet. iussis quidem nostris viri spectabilis Marciani laude digna servivit industria: sed parum diligenter impleta sunt, quae constat optime fuisse procurata. ii enim, qui portanda susceperant, morarum taedia non ferentes destinatum frumentum in Africae partibus pro suo dicuntur vendidisse compendio. [2] Quod quamvis inultum minime transire debuisset, ut amor proprii commodi tot populorum ieiuna vota suspenderet, tamen quia nobis insitum est culpas remittere, quas possumus cauta ordinatione corrigere, Catellum et Servandum viros strenuos credidimus esse dirigendos, ut, quia naucleri ducentos octoginta solidos in triticum et in naulis septingentos quinquaginta octo solidos accepisse perhibentur, si apud vos facti veritas innotescit, in summam ratione collecta, ab eis mille triginta octo solidorum quantitas inferatur, ut, qui vindictam remisimus, damna minime sentiamus. in qua parte ita se sublimitas vestra diligenter impendat, ut et iustitiae et publicis utilitatibus satisfecisse videatur.