Chapter 41

the AGENTES IN REBUS; and, after extolling the zeal and alacrity of those officers, who are constantly intent on enforcing obedience to the Imperial decrees and reverence for the authority of the Praetorian Praefect, he observes that it would be impiety to delay the reward of such labour.

'Therefore let your Experience[780] pay, out of the third instalment of land-tax[781] from such and such a Province, those monies which the wisdom of Antiquity directed should be paid to the Princeps Augustorum[782]. Let this be done at once to those who are chargeable on the accounts of the thirteenth Indiction (Sept. 1, 534--Sept. 1, 535). Let there be no venal delays. Behave to the out-going public servant as you would wish that others should behave to you on your retirement from office. All men should honour the veteran, but especially they who are still toiling in the public service.'

[Footnote 780: It is not clear to whom the letter is addressed.]

[Footnote 781: 'Ex illatione tertiâ.']

[Footnote 782: The marginal note says: 'i.e. Agentium in Rebus.']

36. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO ANAT(H)OLIUS, CANCELLARIUS OF THE PROVINCE OF SAMNIUM.

[Sidenote: The retirement of a Cornicularius on a superannuation allowance justified on astronomical grounds.]

'As all things else come to an end, so it is right that the laborious life of a civil servant should have its appointed term.

'The heavenly bodies have their prescribed time in which to complete their journeyings. Saturn in thirty years wanders over his appointed portion of space. Jupiter in twelve years finishes the survey of his kingdom. Mars, with fiery rapidity, completes his course in eighteen months. The Sun in one year goes through all the signs of the Zodiac. Venus accomplishes her circuit in fifteen months; the rapid Mercury in thirteen months. The Moon, peculiar in her nearer neighbourhood, traverses in thirty days the space which it takes the Sun a year to journey over[783].

[Footnote 783: As might be expected from an observer who did not understand the earth's motion in its orbit, the periods assigned to the _inferior_ planets in this paragraph are all wrong, while those assigned to the _superior_ planets are pretty nearly right.

_Periods according to Cassiodorus_. _True Periods_.

Saturn 30 years 29 years 174 days. Jupiter 12 " 11 " 317 " Mars 1 year 182 days 1 year 321 " Venus 1 " 91 " 224 " Mercury 1 " 30 " 88 "]

'All these bodies, which, as philosophers say, shall only perish with the world, have an appointed end to their journeyings. But they complete their course that they may begin it again: the human race serves that it may rest from its ended labours. Therefore, since the Cornicularius in my Court has completed his term of office, you are to pay him without any deduction this 1st September 700 solidi (£420) from the revenues of the Province of Samnium, taking them out of the third instalment of land-tax[784]. He commanded the wings of the army of the Praefect's assistants, from whence he derived his name[785]. When he handed us the inkstand, we wrote, unbribed, those decrees which men would have paid a great price to obtain[786]. We gratified him whom the laws favoured, we frowned on him who had not justice on his side. No litigant had cause to regret his success, since it came to him unbought. You know all this that we are saying to be true, for our business was all transacted in the office, not in the bedchamber. What we did, the whole troop of civil servants knew[787]. We were private persons in our power of harming, Judges in our power of doing good. Our words might be stern, our deeds were kindly. We frowned though mollified; we threatened though intending no evil; and we struck terror that we might not have to strike. You have had in me, as you were wont to say, a most clean-handed Judge: I shall leave behind in you my most uncorrupted witnesses.'

[Footnote 784: 'Per illam Indictionem de Samnii provinciâ ex illatione tertiâ sine ambiguitate contrade.']

[Footnote 785: 'Praefuit enim Cornibus Secretarii Praetoriani, unde ei nomen est derivatum.']

[Footnote 786: 'Eo ministrante caliculum scripsimus inempti quod magnis pretiis optabatur impleri.']

[Footnote 787: 'Quod egimus cohortes noverunt.' Observe the military character of the service, 'cohortes.']

37. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO THE CLARISSIMUS LUCINUS, CANCELLARIUS OF CAMPANIA.

[Sidenote: Payment of retiring Primiscrinius.]

'It was well ordered by Antiquity that the servants of the Public should receive a due reward for their labours; and who of all these are more deserving than the officers of the Praetorian Praefect (Praetoriani). Theirs is the difficult task of waiting on the necessities of the army. They must demand accounts, often minute and intricate, from great officers whom they dare not offend. They must collect the stores of food for the Roman people from the Provincials without giving them cause for complaint[788]. Their acts constitute our true glory; and in the formation of their characters, work, hard work, that stern and anxious pedagogue[789], is better than all literary or philosophic training.

[Footnote 788: 'Eorum est etiam sudoribus applicandum, quod victuales expensae longe quidem positae, _sed tamquam in urbe Regiâ natae_ [I do not quite understand this antithesis] sine querelâ Provincialium congregantur.']

[Footnote 789: 'Labores, violenti magistri, solliciti paedagogi, per quos cautior quis efficitur dum incurri pericula formidantur.']

'Such men ought assuredly to receive their stipulated rewards; and therefore we order you to pay regularly so many solidi of the third instalment, from the land-tax of the Province of Campania[790], to such and such a person, who has now just completed his term of service as Primiscrinius.'

[Footnote 790: 'Ex canone provinciae Campaniae tertiae illationis tot solidos solenniter te dare censemus.']

38. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO JOANNES, CANONICARIUS[791] OF THUSCIA.

[Footnote 791: Tax-collector.]

[Sidenote: Praises of paper.]

'Rightly did Antiquity ordain that a large store of paper should be laid in by our Bureaux (Scrinia), that litigants might receive the decision of the Judge clearly written, without delay, and without avaricious and impudent charges for the paper which bore it[792].

[Footnote 792: Lydus (De Magistratibus iii. 14) makes a similar remark, but says that in his time the copying clerks (Exceptarii, or Exceptores) supplied disgracefully bad paper made of grass, and charged a fee for doing so.]

'A wonderful product in truth is this wherewith ingenious Memphis has supplied all the offices in the world. The plants of Nile arise, a wood without leaves or branches, a harvest of the waters, the fair tresses of the marshes, plants full of emptiness, spongy, thirsty, having all their strength in their outer rind, tall and light, the fairest fruit of a foul inundation.

'Before Paper was discovered, all the sayings of the wise, all the thoughts of the ancients, were in danger of perishing. Who could write fluently or pleasantly on the rough bark of trees, though it is from that practice that we call a book _Liber_? While the scribe was laboriously cutting his letters on the sordid material, his very thought grew cold: a rude contrivance assuredly, and only fit for the beginnings of the world.

'Then was paper discovered, and therewith was eloquence made possible. Paper, so smooth and so continuous, the snowy entrails of a green herb; paper which can be spread out to such a vast extent, and yet be folded up into such a little space; paper, on whose white expanse the black characters look beautiful; paper which keeps the sweet harvest of the mind, and restores it to the reader whenever he chooses to consult it; paper which is the faithful witness of all human actions, eloquent of the past, a sworn foe to oblivion.

'Therefore for this thirteenth Indiction[793] pay so many solidi from the land-tax of the Tuscan Province to our Bureau, that it may be able to keep in perpetuity a faithful record of all its transactions.'

[Footnote 793: Sept. 1, 534. The reading 'de tertiae decimae Indictionis rationibus' seems required by the sense, instead of 'tertiam de decimae Indictionis rationibus.' It is quite clear that Cassiodorus was not Praetorian Praefect at the tenth Indiction.]

39. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO THE CLARISSIMUS VITALIAN, CANCELLARIUS OF LUCANIA AND BRUTTII.

[Sidenote: Payment by Province of Bruttii of commuted cattle-tax.]

'The vast numbers of the Roman people in old time are evidenced by the extensive Provinces from which their food supply was drawn, as well as by the wide circuit of their walls, the massive structure of their amphitheatre, the marvellous bigness of their public baths, and the enormous multitude of mills, which could only have been made for use, not for ornament.

'It was to feed this population, that mountainous Lucania paid her tribute of swine, that fertile Bruttii furnished her droves of oxen. It was a glorious privilege for them thus to feed the Roman people: yet the length of roads over which the animals had to be driven made the tribute unnecessarily burdensome, since every mile reduced their weight, and the herdsman could not possibly obtain credit at the journey's end for the same number of pounds of flesh which he possessed at its beginning. For this reason the tribute was commuted into a money payment, one which no journeyings can diminish and no toil can wound. The Provinces should understand and respond to this favourable change, and not show themselves more slack than their ancestors were, under far more burdensome conditions. Your Diligence has now collected both these taxes[794] at the appointed periods; and I am glad of it, that my countrymen, who have served alien magistrates with praiseworthy diligence, might not seem negligent under my rule. These Provinces, which I, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather have benefited as private persons, I have endeavoured to help yet more earnestly while I bore the majesty of the _fasces_, that they who have rejoiced in my exaltation might see that I still retained my love for our common country. Let them pay the tax then, not from fear but from love. I have prevailed on the royal generosity to limit its amount; for whereas it used to be 1,200 solidi [£720] annually, it is henceforward to be 1,000 [£600][795].'

[Footnote 794: 'Ambos titulos.']

[Footnote 795: This sum seems ridiculously small for the Province of Bruttii. Can it be the sum assessed on each district?]

40. AN INDULGENCE [OR AMNESTY TO PRISONERS ON SOME GREAT FESTIVAL OF THE CHURCH, PROBABLY EASTER].

[Sidenote: General Amnesty.]

'All the year we are bound to tread in the path of Justice, but on this day we secure our approach to the Redeemer by the path of Forgiveness. Therefore we forswear punishments of all kinds, we condemn the torture, and thus feel ourselves, in forgiving, to be more truly than ever a Judge.

'Hail to thee, O Clemency[796], patroness of the human race! thou reignest in the heavens and on the earth: and most fitting is it that, at sacred seasons like this, thou shouldest be supreme.

[Footnote 796: 'Indulgentia.']

'Therefore, O Lictor, thou who art allowed to do with impunity the very thing for which other men are punished, put up thy axe; let it be henceforth bright, not bloody. Let the chains which have been so often wet with tears now grow rusty. The prison--that house of Pluto, in which men suffer a living death, from its foul odours, from the sound of groaning which assails their ears, from the long fastings which destroy their taste, from the heavy weights which weary their hands, from the endless darkness which makes their eyes grow dim--let the prison now be filled with emptiness. Never is it so popular as when it is seen to be deserted.

'And you, its denizens, who are thus in a manner transplanted to Heaven from Hell, avoid the evil courses which made you acquainted with its horrors. Even animals shun the things which they have once found harmful. Cattle which have once fallen into a pit seek not again the same road. The bird once snared shuns bird-lime. The pike buries himself in deep sand, that he may escape the drag-net, and when it has scraped his back leaps nimbly into the waves and expresses by his gambols his joy for his deliverance. When the wrasse[797] finds that he is caught in an osier trap, he moves himself slowly backwards till he can leave his tail protruding, that one of his fellows, perceiving his capture, may pull him out from his prison.

[Footnote 797: 'Scarus.']

'So too the Sauri (?), a clever race of fish, named from their speed, when they have swum into a net, tie themselves together into a sort of rope; and then, tugging backwards with all their might, seek to liberate their fellow-prisoners.

'Many facts of the same kind would be discovered on enquiry. But my discourse must return to thee, O Gaoler. Thou wilt be miserable in the general joy, because thou art wont to derive thy gladness from the affliction of many. But as some consolation for thy groans, we leave to thee those prisoners whom the Law, for very pity's sake, cannot set free--the men found guilty of outrageous crimes, whose liberation would make barbarous deeds frequent. Over these thou mayest still exert thy power.'