Letter 3039: Fairness demands that we maintain the ancient custom for those who celebrate public festivals -- especially when it...

39. KING THEODERIC TO FELIX, MOST DISTINGUISHED MAN, CONSUL. [1] The principle of fairness urges that, for those who furnish public festivity, we should preserve the ancient custom, and especially when it proceeds from a consul, whose declared purpose it is that he ought to be praised for his liberality, lest his rank seem to promise one thing and the senator wish to fulfill another. Therefore, under a reputation for munificence, a man ought not to be found stingy, since in a consul the obscurity of niggardliness casts a shadow over his public renown. [2] Wherefore let your illustrious Greatness be aware that we have been approached by the charioteers of Milan, alleging that there have been withheld from them, in your times, those things which ancient custom had granted, since in a former age munificence stood in place of law. Accordingly, if the things they assert are not corrupted by any falsehood, it befits your Sublimity to follow antiquity, which by a certain privilege of its own demands the gifts that are bestowed as though they were owed. Nor is it permitted to deny that which you know yourself to be bestowing under the sanction of antiquity.

XXXVIIII. FELICI V. I. CONSULI THEODERICUS REX. [1] Aequitatis ratio persuadet, ut exercentibus laetitiam publicam consuetudinem servemus antiquam, praesertim a consule venientem, cuius constat esse propositi, ut debeat ex liberalitate laudari, ne videatur aliud dignitas promittere et aliud senatorem velle complere. quocirca sub opinione munifici parcum non decet inveniri, quia inumbrat famam publicam in consule tenacitatis obscuritas. [2] Quapropter illustris magnitudo tua a Mediolanensibus aurigis nos aditos esse cognoscat illa sibi vestris temporibus fuisse subtracta, quae mos priscus indulserat, cum praestante tempore munificentia sit pro lege. proinde si nullo mendacio asserta vitiantur, sublimitatem vestram sequi convenit vetustatem, quae suo quodam privilegio velut debita quae donantur exposcit. nec licet negari, quod te cognoscis sub antiquitate largiri.