Letter 3033: Sigismund, king, to the most pious Emperor Anastasius.

King Sigismund to the lord Emperor. It is known to all that Your Highness measures things not by the obstacles of the times, but by the vows of your subjects. In the confidence of that assurance, and in such gladness, we who are absent in body are made present in mind to our most glorious prince. And although this duty my mistress your handmaid, my own lineage, has already discharged out of devotion, yet it is not so much my ancestral obligations as the benefits bestowed upon me that have made me a debtor to your favor. My people are indeed yours, and it delights me more to serve you than to rule over them. From the forefathers of my race a Roman devotion has always drawn this sentiment toward you and toward your predecessors: that we reckoned that distinction greater which Your Highness extended to us through the titles of military service; and among all my ancestors it was always held in higher esteem to receive something from the emperors than to have brought something from their own fathers. And although we seem to govern our own nation, we believe ourselves to be nothing other than your soldiers. Your prosperity fills us with the gift of joys: whatever you there attend to for the welfare of all is ours as well. Through us you administer the expanses of remote regions; our homeland is your world. The light of the East touches Gaul and Scythia, and the ray which is believed to rise in those parts shines forth here. We do not, indeed, grasp the radiance of your countenance by direct beholding, but we possess by longing the light of that serenity which you diffuse everywhere. No barrier confines the dominion divinely granted to you, nor is the extension of your blessed scepters limited by any boundaries of provinces. Saving the honor due to the Divinity, be it said: it does not diminish your majesty that not all are able to hasten to you; it suffices well for the reverence owed to you that all adore you from their own seats. By valor you reign over the eastern world, by good fortune over the western: you are permitted to be loved everywhere, even if it is not granted to all to behold you. But since this is rightly declared of the whole world, now consider how much they ought to owe whom you exalt with honors, whom you attach by titles of dignities as partners in all your triumphs and successes: so that thus the glories of your valor may be ours, and whatever the fount of honors has wrought may belong to the adornment of those so honored. I therefore desire, O renowned among princes, the dutiful service of letters, the vows of thanksgiving; I await the oracle of your august speech; I court the chance that there may be something you may deign to command. For even if your dignity is not believed to stand in need of our service, yet whoever has earned to serve a fortunate lord soldiers for himself. May the distance of the eastern nations too demand me, I beseech you; may the Parthian commander demand by his cruelty that our prince should rule over him; and if, for the advantage of peace, he should rejoice to pass under the laws of the Roman Empire, may the Indian himself, made gentle after such trials and the harsh hissing of his speech subdued, come to know with gratitude, through an interpreter, the laws by which he is bidden to serve. Whatever fervor there is by which the southern clime boils over, temper it with refreshment, and tame by reverence whatever before your coming had been untamed by nature. Whoever does not desire the scepters of unconquered religion that press upon him, let him receive them. Let religion be extended by you no less than by power, which, for the peoples that serve you, may both build up the truth and bestow liberty for the worship alike of heavenly and earthly things: with this as mediator, it is fitting that we, who lean upon you for the cult of eternal salvation, should serve long not only by human order but also by divine love. [King Sigismund to the lord Emperor.] By what judgment of pious majesty Your Serenity either makes light of the obstacles of the times or takes account of the hearts of your servants is known by no better proof than this: that in extending your sacred dispatches to ever greater distances you fulfill the vows of those who long for them and do not wait upon the dutiful services of suppliants. The minds of all crave to meet you: nor is that so glorious which few are able to do, as that which all desire to see you. But that the address of your august greeting now anticipates the dutiful service of the page owed to you - let the judge attribute this in no way the more to undevotion, let him impute it in no way to slowness. Had not an intervening barrier suspended the approach to our endeavors, by now assuredly the word venerable to the world would have dispatched responses rather than oracles. Yet by delaying it did me not so much harm as envious malice begrudged me. You did not indeed read me as one in possession of his duty, but you made me happy by the greeting of your pious lips. Nor does it matter whether your august speech receives us or awaits us: from your most lofty graciousness it is as great a thing not to be despised by us as for yours to be granted. Therefore, after the death of my father, most devoted and most faithful to you, your kinsman - to whom, amid most fortunate successes in unbroken prosperity, this too fell out by divine favor as a thing to be wished: that he knew the commonwealth glad and flourishing while you who rule the world reigned, and that he left you, lords of the nations, when received at a peaceful end - to convey and commend these things to you, and indeed also the first rudiments of my military service, which you nourished while my father yet survived, but which you will increase more and more after him with a heap of sacred graciousness, just as I ought to have wished, or it would have been fitting to desire equally: I was offering to the ears of your venerable retinue one of my counselors, who, as regards Gallic ignorance, is reckoned to surpass the rest in letters, having conceived a more particular assurance because the ruler of Italy [Theodoric] was publicly applauding your peace and, with the rumor spread abroad, was coloring the favor of the East as restored to himself. The journey undertaken with the dispatches assigned was therefore cut off and forbidden. Surely he himself will have seen what, in this matter, the sequence of truth looks toward before your august gladness. Yet it seems a small token of friendship to be unwilling that one whom you profess to honor should be honored by others: since all of us who look up to you with worthy reverence ought to wish this very thing to be done by all. For he shows little of his own devotion if anyone, having condemned the liberty of coming to meet you, should also strive to make others undevoted: although the holiness of your heavenly mind cannot judge him culpable whom even the will alone has rendered innocent. Whence you plainly see that the very man pleads my case - he who so anxiously tried to prevent it - as to what I desired. And so, since by the gift of God and of you both your sacred dispatches and favorable occasions come forth, although it differs: those to whom you offer new things pray for the increase of your reign; those for whom you preserve accustomed things wish for their safekeeping. Thus by the governance of a pious helm the one party indeed sought out further remedies, even though neither party suffered a rebuff. Among these, however, I owe this more particularly: that, doubling the effect of this petition granted to my regard, you showed by granting freely how much grace you have bestowed upon a particular servant; and for this advantage alone, with the reward laid up in your treasuries - namely, what you were giving to the poor - you wished it to stand not at a price but at a recompense. And with what elegance may this very thing be worthily recalled: you preferred to give back what had been offered by your servants rather than to spurn it, and, that the gift might be made the more gladly, you were unwilling to sadden the act of service. And although whatever comes into your hands is turned toward the poor, and therefore perhaps that man would dissuade you from receiving who begrudges your giving out: nevertheless supply the divine recompense from which both you may dispense when the needy lack and may grant when debtors entreat. Run therefore, most pious one, along the native path with the unity of your work. Never, if you believe, will sufficiency be lacking to such a spirit. From Him who grants the means you have whence it may be supplied - from Him by whom it has been instilled into your will that you can deny nothing.

Sigismundus rex domno imperatori. Notum est omnibus celsitudinem vestram non impedimenta temporum, sed subiec- torum vota metiri. Sub cuius fiduciae securitate atque laetitia gloriosissimo principi nostro qui corpore absumus, animo praesentamur. Et quamquam istud famula vestra, prosapia mea, ex devotione persolverit, me tamen gratiae debitorem non magis paren- talia debita quam beneficia mihi impensa fecerunt. Vester quidem est populus meus, et plus me servire vobis quam illi praeesse delectat. Traxit illud a proavis generis mei apud vos decessoresque vestros semper animo Romana devotio, ut illa nobis magis claritas putaretur, quam vestra per militiae titulos porrigeret celsitudo, cunctisque auctoribus meis semper magis habitum est, quod a principibus sumerent, quam quod a patribus attulissent. Cumque gentem nostram videamur regere, non aliud nos quam milites vestros credimus. Implet nos gaudiorum munere vestra prosperitas: quidquid illic pro salute omnium curatis, et nostrum est. Per nos administratis remotarum spatia regionum, patria nostra vester orbis est, tangit Galliam, Scythiam lumen Orien- tis et radius, qui illis partibus oriri creditur, hic refulget. Iubar quidem conspectus vestri contemplatione non capimus, sed lucem serenitatis, quam ubique diffunditis, desiderio possidemus. Dominationem vobis divinitus praestitam obex nulla concludit nec ullis provinciarum terminis felicium sceptrorum diffusio limitatur. Salvo divinitatis honore sit dictum: non minuit maiestatem vestram, quod adcurrere non omnes valent; satis ad reverentiam vobis debitam sufficit, quod omnes e propriis sedibus vos adorant. Virtute orbi eoo, felicitate regnatis occiduo: licet vos ubique diligi, etiamsi non datur omnibus intueri. Sed cum iure istud de universitate dictatur, conicite nunc, quantum debeant, quos honoribus fastigiatis, quos socios triumphorum omnium successuumque vestrorum dignitatum titulis applicatis: ut sic virtutis vestrae decora nostra sint et ad honoratorum ornamenta pertineat, quidquid gesserit fons honorum. Affecto igitur, principum inclite, litterarum obsequia, vota gratiarum; praestolor oraculum sermonis augusti; ambio, si quid sit, quod iubere dignemini. Quia etiam si indigere famulatu nostro dignitas vestra non creditur, quisquis tamen felici meruerit servire, sibi militat. Me exposcat, supplico, Orientalium quoque gentium distantia, crudelitate exposcat principari sibi praesulem nostrum Parthicus ductor; propter quae si pacis commodo in Romani imperii gaudeat iura transire, Indus ipse post experimenta mansuetus oris striduli voce compressa leges, quibus servire iubeatur, gratia cognoscat interprete. Si quis feruor est, quo axis meridianus exaestuat, refrigerio temperate et edomate per reverentiam, quidquid ante vos indomitum fuerat per naturam. Incumbentia sibi sceptra religionis invictae quisquis non optat, excipiat. Prorogetur per vos non minus potestate religio, quae famulantibus populis ad caelestia pariter terrenaque veneranda et veritatem adstruat et porrigat libertatem: qua mediante vobis cultui aeternae salutis innisis non humano tantum ordine, verum etiam divino amore longum servire nos deceat. [Sigismundus rex domno imperatori]. Quam piae maiestatis iudicio serenitas vestra vel parvi pendat impedimenta tem- porum vel censeat corda famulorum, nullo indicio meliore cognoscitur, quam quod in sacris apicibus longinquius porrigendis implet desiderantum vota et supplicum non expectat officia. Appetunt occursum vestri omnium mentes: nec tam gloriosum est, quod pauci possunt, quam quod cuncti videre vos cupiunt. Quod autem nunc augustae compellationis affatus debitae vobis paginae praevenit obsequium, nihil indevotioni plus arbiter, nihil imputet tarditati. Nisi aditum conatibus nostris obex interiecta suspenderet, iam nunc profecto verbum mundo venerabile responsa potius quam oracula destinasset. Nec tamen remorando mihi tantum nocuit, quantum invidit aemulus livor. Non me quidem legistis officii mei compotem, sed reddidistis pii oris compellatione felicem. Nec interest, excipiat nos sermo augustus, an expectet: a celsissima digna- tione tantum est nostra non despici, quantum vestra concedi. Igitur post obitum devo- tissimi fidelissimique vobis patris mei, proceris vestri, cui ad felicissimos integra pro- speritate successus id quoque contigit divino favore votivum, ut laetam florentemque rempublicam vobis orbem regentibus sciret vosque dominos nationum placido receptus fine derelinqueret: ad haec intimanda vobisque commendanda quin etiam meae mili- tiae rudimenta, quae genitore quidem meo superstite nutristis, sed magis magisque post eum cumulo sacrae dignationis augebitis, sicut debebam vel optare par fuerat, unum de consiliariis meis, qui, quantum ad ignorantiam Gallicanam, ceteros praeire litteris aestimatur, venerandi comitatus vestri auribus offerebam, specialius securitate concepta, quod rector Italiae de pace vestra publice plauderet et rumore disperso redditam sibi Orientis gratiam coloraret. Interclusum est ergo atque prohibitum rela- tionibus destinatis iter arreptum. Certe ipse viderit, quid hinc apud augustam laeti- tiam spectet series veritatis. Parvum tamen amicitiae videtur indicium eum, quem te colere adseras, nolle a ceteris honorari: cum omnes, qui vos digno cultu suspicimus, id ipsum a cunctis fieri velle debeamus. Parum enim propriae devotionis ostendit, si quis occurrendi libertate damnata alios quoque facere studeat indevotos: cum tamen sanctitas caelestis ingenii nequeat censere culpabilem, quem vel sola voluntas reddi- derit innocentem. Vnde evidenter ipsum videtis allegare, quid cuperem, qui tam sollicite conatus est impedire, ne possem. Itaque quoniam divino vestroque munere et sacri apices et opportuni proveniunt, quamquam discrepat, orant augmentum regni vestri, quibus nova profertis; optant custodiam, quibus consueta servatis. Sic pii moderamine gubernaculi remedia quidem altera conquisivit, etsi repulsam neutra pars pertulit. Inter hos tamen peculiarius illud ego debeo, quod huius petitionis effectum respectui meo praestitum duplicantes quantum peculiari servo impenderitis gratiae, gratis praestando monstrastis: solumque ob hoc commodum in thesauris vestris mercede reposita quod pauperibus donabatis, non pretio voluistis constare, sed praemio. Et hoc ipsum qua elegantia digne memoretur: reddere, quod a famulis oblatum fuerat, quam spernere maluistis et quo laetius fieret donum, contristare noluistis obsequium. Et licet, quidquid ad manus vestras pervenit, vergatur in pauperes atque idcirco ille vos forsitan dehortetur accipere, qui invidet erogare: subministrate tamen retributioni divinae, unde et dispensetis, cum egent inopes, et concedatis, cum supplicant debi- tores. Currite quapropter piissimi via genuina vestri operis unitate. Numquam, si creditis, sufficientia deerit animo tali. Ipso possibilitatem largiente unde praestetur, habetis, a quo voluntati infusum est, ne aliquid negare possitis.