Letter 7042: We have often learned that the saiones [royal enforcers] whom we believed we were granting out of compassion have...

42. FORM OF AN EDICT, ADDRESSED TO THE QUAESTOR, THAT HE HIMSELF OUGHT TO STAND SURETY WHO OBTAINS A saio [a royal officer or agent of enforcement]. [1] We have frequently learned that the saiones, whom we believed to be granted by us out of dutiful goodwill, have been burdened with the greatest complaints. Our benefit, alas for the grief, has been corrupted, and calamity has grown rather out of the remedy, since they have been diverted to other uses by the malice of those who petition for them, rather than that our remedies have transferred them. Hence it has been necessary for us to meet pestilent wishes with a wholesome remedy, lest, while we are drawn by zeal for piety toward impartial benefits, we should suffer the most unjust of deceptions. [2] And therefore by an edictal proclamation we determine that whoever, against violent plots and on account of his inescapable necessities, happens to desire to obtain a saio, shall bind himself to our office by a penal bond of guarantee, so that, if the man with whom he obtains [the saio] should, by the saio's punishable interference, exceed our orders, he himself shall pay in the name of the penalty so many pounds of gold and shall promise to make satisfaction for whatever losses, both of property and of travel, his adversary may have been able to sustain. [3] For we, when we wish to restrain uncivil tempers, ought not to weigh down innocence. The saio, however, who by his own will exceeds the limit of his instruction, shall know that he is to be stripped of his donative and may incur the peril of our favor, which is graver than all losses, and that he is no longer to be trusted, if he has shown himself a violator of our command, of which he ought to have been the executor.

XLII. FORMULA EDICTI, AD QUAESTOREM, UT IPSE SPONDERE DEBEAT, QUI SAIONEM MERETUR. [1] Frequenter saiones, quos a nobis credidimus pia voluntate concedi, querelis maximis cognovimus ingravatos. corruptum est, pro dolor! beneficium nostrum, crevitque potius de medicina calamitas, dum ad alios usus petentium malignitate translati sunt quam eos nostra remedia transtulerunt. unde nobis necesse fuit remedio salubri votis pestiferis obviare, ne, dum pietatis studio ad aequabilia beneficia trahimur, subreptionum iniquissima patiamur. [2] Atque ideo edictali programmate definimus, ut, quicumque contra violentas insidias propter ineluctabiles necessitates suas mereri desiderat forte saionem, officio nostro poenali se vinculo cautionis astringat, ut, si praecepta nostra eius inmissione plectibili is apud quem meretur excesserit, ipse poenae nomine det auri libras tot et satisfacere se promittat quaecumque adversarius eius potuerit tam commodi quam itineris sustinere detrimenta. [3] Nos enim cum reprimere inciviles animos volumus, praegravare innocentiam non debemus. saio autem, qui sua voluntate modum praeceptionis excesserit, donativo se noverit exuendum et gratiae nostrae, quod est damnis omnibus gravius, incurrere posse periculum nec sibi ulterius esse credendum, si iussionis nostrae, cuius executor esse debuit, temerator extiterit.