Letter 4042: King Theodoric to Argolicus, Praefectus Urbis [Prefect of the City].

XLII. KING THEODERIC TO ARGOLICUS, PREFECT OF THE CITY. [1] It is right that the clemency of a prince should take up those whom a father's tender care has abandoned, for under a public parent the loss of one's begetter ought hardly to be felt at all. To us, indeed, an abandoned childhood rightly has recourse, since the increase of all men redounds to our benefit. [2] The complaint, then, of the most distinguished young men Marcianus and Maximus has struck us, since during the days of Easter they were wounded by the blow of paternal grief, and in the very season of rejoicing were compelled alone to endure sorrow, having neglected their own advantage out of dutiful disregard, when even for one of firm age to ponder such matters amid tears would seem a kind of madness. For the eager pursuit of gain ceases when one is at leisure for mourning, nor does the mind take in anything else when the condition of filial devotion has filled it. [3] By this cruel seizing of opportunity, they report that the tower of the circus and the place of the amphitheatre, belonging to their father of illustrious memory, has been sought after with detestable ambition from your authority. The plotter against these things no feeling of humanity called back, nor did a like misfortune frighten him: he burdened a childhood which, by the just verdict of decency, it is judged a disgrace not to come to the aid of. [4] But we, who preserve the rules of the ancients, who keep the just measures of filial duty, decree by a wholesome ordinance that, if once the patrician and magnificent man Volusianus, the father of the petitioners, possessed the above-mentioned places by common right, they ought not to be lost to his sons, especially since we desire to nourish senatorial stock with new benefits rather than, amid its very beginnings, to crush the hope of mature age by some injury. And therefore your illustrious greatness, if it remembers that any such thing has been done, shall know that it is to be corrected at once, lest the venerable body of the senatorial order be violated by an inequitable presumption.

XLII. ARGOLICO P. U. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Bene principalis clementia suscipit quos pietas paterna destituit, quia sub parente publico genitoris minime sentiri debet amissio. ad nos siquidem iure recurrit infantia destituta, quibus universorum hominum proficiunt incrementa. [2] Clarissimorum igitur adultorum Marciani atque Maximi nos querela pulsavit, cum paschalibus diebus paterni luctus essent vulnere sauciati et in ipso laetitiae tempore soli cogerentur tristitiam sustinere, utilitatem suam pio neglexisse contemptu, cum vel firmae aetati inter lacrimas ista cogitare genus videretur insaniae. cessat enim lucri ambitus, cum vacatur ad planctus, nec mens quodlibet aliud capit, cum eam qualitas pietatis impleverit. [3] Hac crudeli subreptione captata turrem circi atque locum amphitheatri illustris recordationis patris eorum detestabili ambitu a vestris suggerunt fascibus expetitum. quorum insidiatorem non humanitatis ullus revocavit affectus, non similis terruit casus: gravavit infantiam, cui non subvenire merito pudoris aestimatur esse iactura. [4] Sed nos, qui regulas veterum, qui servamus momenta pietatis, salubri ordinatione censemus, ut, si quondam patricius atque magnificus vir Volusianus pater supplicum supra memorata loca communi iure possedit, filiis perire non debeant, praesertim cum germen senatorium novis cupiamus beneficiis enutrire quam inter ipsa initia spem adultae aetatis aliqua laesione comprimere. atque ideo illustris magnitudo vestra, si quid tale factum esse meminit, ilico noverit corrigendum, ne venerandum examen senatorii ordinis iniqua praesumptione temeretur.