Letter 8005: King Athalaric to the Goths Settled Throughout Italy.

V. King Athalaric to the various Goths settled throughout Italy. [1] We would indeed have wished to announce to you the joys of a long life for our lord grandfather; but since by a harsh condition he has been taken from those who loved him, he appointed us, by God's command over him, as the heirs of his kingdom, so that through the succession of his own blood he might make the benefits conferred by him upon you to be perpetual, while we desire both to increase and to safeguard those things which we know to have been done by him. To his arrangement, while he was still surviving, the wishes of all in the royal city were so joined together by the interposition of an oath that you would have believed one man to be promising what the whole body seemed to choose. [2] Following this example, carry it through with equal devotion, lest you should appear to have done less than those present, by whom it is believed that the whole can likewise be fulfilled. That count, indeed, we have caused to promise to you with a sworn voice, so that, just as you most devotedly reveal your spirit to us, so you may hear what you desire from our own thoughts. Receive therefore the name that is ever prosperous for you, the royal lineage of the Amals, the purple-born offshoot, the purple-clad infancy, through whom, with God's help, our forebears were fittingly exalted and received perpetual increase among so long a line of kings. [3] For we believe, of the favorable Divinity which graciously aided our elders, that now too it bestows the grace of its esteem, so that, with us also reigning, you may bring forth the sweetest fruits of good things, you who flourished under our parents with abundant praise of your virtues.

V. DIVERSIS GOTHIS PER ITALIAM CONSTITUTIS ATHALARICUS REX. [1] Voluissemus quidem vobis domni avi nostri longaevae vitae gaudia nuntiare: sed quoniam diligentibus dura condicione subtractus est, nos heredes regni sui deo sibi imperante substituit, ut successione sanguinis sui beneficia vobis a se collata faceret esse perpetua, dum nos illa et augere et tueri cupimus, quae ab illo facta esse cognoscimus. cuius ordinationi, adhuc eo superstite, in regia civitate ita sacramenti interpositione cunctorum vota sociata sunt, ut unum crederes promittere, quod generalitas videbatur optare. [2] Hoc vos sequentes exemplum pari devotione peragite, ne quid a praesentibus minus fecisse videamini, a quibus creditur totum similiter posse compleri. illum vero comitem vobis fecimus iurata voce promittere, ut, sicut nobis vestrum animum proditis devotissime, sic optata de nostris sensibus audiatis. recipite itaque prosperum semper vobis nomen, Hamalorum regalem prosapiam, blatteum germen, infantiam purpuratam, per quos deo iuvante parentes nostri decenter evecti sunt et inter tam prolixum ordinem regum susceperunt semper augmentum. [3] Credimus enim de divinitate propitia, quae maiores nostros dignanter adiuvit, nunc quoque gratiam suae dignationis impendere, ut et nobis regnantibus bonarum rerum fructus dulcissimos afferatis, qui sub nostris parentibus copiosa virtutum laude floruistis.