Letter 5025: VARIAE, BOOK 5, LETTER 25

25. KING THEODERIC TO BACAUDA, MAN OF SENATORIAL RANK [vir spectabilis]. [1] Our munificence gives strength to one's weary years, since it does not let a declining age feel the injuries of want. For the vigor of the young is animated by the bold confidence to undertake toil: it belongs to the life of the old alone to have found the remedies of repose. And therefore, moved by your supplication, we decree that the responsibility of the appointed tribunate, to be discharged most diligently in the city of Milan, pertains to you in such a way that—a thing that is new in the service of the commonwealth—the punishable presumption of no one shall ever assign you a successor for as long as you live, so that, by the favor of our clemency, you may continually enjoy the care of this office in the rendering of its pleasures, having in both that which may console your age: the advantage of the post and the gladness of its pleasures.

XXV. BACAUDAE V. S. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Fessos annos munificentia nostra corroborat, dum aetatem occiduam penuriae non facit detrimenta sentire. iuvenum siquidem virtus praesumptione laboris animatur: sola senum vita est quietis invenisse remedia. atque ideo tua supplicatione permoti designati tribunatus curam in Mediolanensi urbe diligentissime peragendam ad te decernimus pertinere ita, ut, quod est in rei publicae militia novum, donec vixeris, numquam tibi successorem tribuat cuiusquam plectenda praesumptio, quatenus in exhibendis voluptatibus officii huius cura, mansuetudinis nostrae beneficio, iugiter perfruaris, habens in utroque, quod tuam consoletur aetatem, loci commodum et laetitiam voluptatum.