Letter 10030: The season in the city has been unusually demanding, with three official events in the same week and the usual...

Avitus and Gastor, palace officials [palatini] who farm the public revenues of the sacred largesses [munerationum sacrarum], among the other names which they pursue in legal action have summoned to my examination, by their conventions, the heirs of Postumianus, a man of most distinguished memory [clarissimae memoriae vir], O our lords the emperors [the three Augusti: Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius]; this on the prompting of Lucianus, who previously administered the senatorial assessments, on the ground that the same house was liable for the offered obligations [oblativae functiones]. It was urged that part of the debt pressed upon Lolliana, and part equally upon Cattianilla and Severilla. Meanwhile, the name of Lolliana, a most distinguished lady [clarissima femina], having been set aside—she whom the exaction binds for six twelfths—there arose the present objection on the part of these women, whom the obligation of payment was harrying for single quarters of their estates apiece. The judgment having for the most part been adjourned, the matter has been brought to this point: that the advocacy of the imperial treasury [fiscus] demanded that the receipts of acquittance be made out by the most distinguished persons through their respective turns of the obligation; whereas the defense of Cattianilla and Severilla rested upon a rescript issued in reply to the report [relatio] of the deified prince [divus princeps; here the late emperor Valentinian I, father of the addressees]. For it is an old question, and one frequently agitated in the inquiries of the prefecture, and it ran all the way up to the arbitration of your renowned and ever-to-be-revered father; he, consulted at that time through the representation of Viventius, a man of most distinguished and illustrious memory [clarissimae et inlustris memoriae vir], then prefect of the city, made known in a certain part of his rescript that the offered dues [oblativa munera] had been duly paid by Cattianilla and Severilla, most distinguished women, each at their own proper times. This knot has fixed me fast—me who was already ready and inclined to demand the documents of the payments—since the emperor's affirmation seemed more forceful than all the receipts of acquittance. Concerning his responses, which are to abide in perpetual honor, it is right that the judgment belong to your Clemency; we for our part have been accustomed to venerate rather than to interpret the divine oracles. The records of the proceedings are at hand, and the supporting documents of the parties are likewise not lacking. It is just that this human hesitation be informed by the arbitration of your Majesty.