Letter 4012: King Theodoric to Marabadus, Vir Illustris [Most Illustrious], Count, and Gemellus, Vir Spectabilis [Most Respectable].

King Theoderic to Marabad, Most Distinguished Count, and to Gemellus, Most Noble Senator. [1] It is our purpose that the provinces made subject to us, with God's help, should be ordered by laws just as we defend them by arms, since justice observed always exalts princes, and the more one lives by a praiseworthy ordering of life, the more is added even now to the highest advancements. [2] And so Arcotamia, an illustrious lady, lamenting tearfully and bewailing the misfortune of her grandson with this complaint, since a grandmother's care for her own kin is always more tender, asserts that her daughter-in-law Aetheria, having cast aside love for her husband, joined herself in the marriage bond to a certain Liberius, and, while she desires to appear more elegantly adorned in a new bridal chamber, has set about overturning the resources of her former husband, alleging that she has been enriched by the spoils of his sons, by whom it would have been more fitting that these things be gathered together. [3] Therefore we, who are accustomed to refer the desires of petitioners to the provisions of the imperial sanctions, so that we neither reject the appeal of supplicants nor condemn the adversary's case with credulous readiness, commit this cause to the judgment of Your Sublimity to be heard according to the laws, so that, with all incivility removed, in the presence of the most holy Gospels, together with three honorable men whom the consent of the parties shall have chosen, men who may have knowledge of the laws, you may set forth whatever the form of ancient law has established between them, having regard to the discipline of our own time, since it is not fitting that those who have deserved to come to our governance should do anything by force.

XII. MARABADO V. I. COMITI ET GEMELLO V. S. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Propositi nostri est, ut provincias nobis deo auxiliante subiectas, sicut armis defendimus, ita legibus ordinemus, quia semper auget principes observata iustitia et quantum probabili institutione vivitur, tantum summis adhuc provectibus aggregatur. [2] Arcotamia itaque illustris femina flebiliter ingemiscens nepotis sui calamitatem tali conquestione deploravit, dum semper aviae cura tenerior est suorum, asserens Aetheriam nurum suam, mariti postposita dilectione, cuidam se Liberio iugali foedere sociasse et cum ornatior cupit novis thalamis apparere, studuerit prioris viri facultates evertere, allegans ditatam filiorum spoliis, quibus magis decuit congregari. [3] Ideoque nos, qui desideria supplicantum consuevimus remittere ad statuta divalium sanctionum, ut nec insinuationem supplicum renuamus nec adversarii negotium credula facilitate damnemus, sublimitatis vestrae iudicio hanc causam legibus committimus audiendam, ut omni incivilitate summota mediis sacrosanctis evangeliis cum tribus honoratis, quos partium consensus elegerit, qui legum possint habere notitiam, quicquid prisci iuris forma constituit inter eos, considerata disciplina nostri temporis, proferatis, quia non decet per vim eos aliquid agere, qui ad nostra meruerunt regimina pervenire.