Letter 2035: It is deeply painful that the works of our ancestors should be diminished in our time, when we strive every day to...

XXXV. KING THEODERIC TO TANCILA, MAN OF SPECTABLE RANK. [1] It is exceedingly bitter that in our times the works of the ancients should diminish, since we daily desire to increase the adornment of the cities. Therefore by the present orders we admonish you to search out, with all earnestness, concerning a bronze statue of the city of Comum [Como] which is reported to have vanished: promising even a hundred gold pieces, if anyone should prefer to betray this sacrilegious theft, so that the promise of our Serenity may invite the fearful to the hope of confession, as the edicts dispatched to you also declare. But when, nevertheless, you have published these orders, if the crime should still be concealed by secrecy, after the venerable day you are to have the craftsmen of those places assembled: from whom, under terror, search out by whose agency it was perpetrated. For by men unskilled in these matters the overturning of a statue would not have been easy, unless a masterful presumption had attempted to move it from its place.

XXXV. TANCILAE V. S. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Acerbum nimis est nostris temporibus antiquorum facta decrescere, qui ornatum urbium cottidie desideramus augere. quocirca praesentibus te iussionibus ammonemus, ut de Comensi civitate aeneam statuam quae perisse suggeritur, omni animositate perquiras: spondens etiam centum aureos, si quis haec sacrilega prodere furta maluerit, quatenus promissio nostrae serenitatis trepidos ad spem confessionis invitet, quod etiam ad te destinata edicta proloquuntur. sed cum haec tamen iussa promulgaveris, si adhuc facinus secreta velaverint, post diem venerabilem locorum artifices facias congregari: a quibus sub terrore perquire quo ministro fuerit perpetratum. ab imperitis enim harum rerum statuae facilis eversio non fuisset, nisi eam temptasset movere loco magistra praesumptio.