Letter 2010: VARIAE, BOOK 2, LETTER 10

King Theoderic to Speciosus, devoted man, of the count's office [comitiacus, an officer of the count]. [1] It is a royal resolve to come to the aid of those burdened by injustice, so that the restraint of the wicked may make justice be loved the more. Nor can it be tolerated, while the fellowship by which we live remains intact, that the revered partnership of the marriage bed should have public solicitors, and that this procreative sacrament of the human race should be profaned by criminal rashness. [2] Moved therefore by the petition of Agapita, a woman of respectable rank [spectabilis], who asserts that her privacy was assailed by everyone, to the point that they even made promises concerning the murder of her husband, by whom they rather justly deserve to be put to death, we decree by the present command that, from the time when, corrupted in mind, she abandoned the marriage bond, with every contract -- which, made through the error of fickleness, cannot stand firm -- annulled by the reasoning of the laws, whatever shall be found to be possessed by those withholding it you shall cause to be restored without any delay, and the criminals shall not be able to claim for themselves, to the mockery of justice, the profits of their frauds. For it is exceedingly absurd that those whom punishment has deserved to consume should also be able to claim gains for themselves.

X. SPECIOSO VIRO DEVOTO COMITIACO THEODERICUS REX. [1] Propositum regale est gravatis per iniuriam subvenire, ut coercitio pravi iustitiam faciat plus amari. nec dissimulari potest salva communione qua vivitur, ut sollicitatores publicos habeat genialis tori reverenda societas et illud humani generis procreabile sacramentum scelerata temeritate profanetur. [2] Agapitae igitur spectabilis feminae supplicatione commoti, quae ab universis temptatum asserit suum secretum, ut etiam promitterent de nece mariti, a quo iuste potius merentur extingui, praesenti iussione decernimus, ut a tempore, quo iugalem copulam animo vitiata dereliquit, omni contractu, qui levitatis errore firmus esse non potest, legum ratione cassato, quicquid a retentatoribus constiterit possideri, sine ulla facies dilatione restitui, nec scelerati ad irrisionem iustitiae fraudum suarum valeant compendia vindicare. nimis enim absurdum est ut, quos poena meruit consumere, etiam lucra sibi valeant vindicare.