Letter 9018: Ancient wisdom providently decreed that the public should be admonished by general edicts, through which every...

18. EDICT. KING ATHALARIC. With good provision antiquity decreed that the whole community should be admonished by general edicts, by means of which every offense is corrected and the modesty of the transgressor is not burdened. For all suppose that the words are addressed to themselves, where it is established that no single person is singled out, and one whom it has befallen to be cleared under a general statement becomes like an innocent man. Hence too our piety is truly preserved, since with the sword on holiday fear is born and correction comes about without bloodshed. For we are moved while appeased, we threaten while at leisure, and we grow angry with clemency, since we condemn vices alone. It is long now that the complaints of various persons have sounded in our ears with frequent murmurings, that certain men, with civility despised, strive to live with the savagery of beasts, while, having gone back to a rustic beginning, they reckon human law to be hatefully deadly to themselves. These men we have now fitly judged must be restrained, so that at that very time we may prosecute crimes hostile to good morals at which we resist the enemies of the commonwealth by divine valor. Both indeed are harmful, both are to be driven out; but vices rage so much the more gravely as they are proved to be internal. The one rests upon the other. For more easily do the battle-lines of our enemies fall, if we withdraw the offenses of our own people. [1] The first injury to the human race, encroachment, under which civility can neither be spoken of nor be held to exist, we condemn by the severity of the laws and by our indignation, decreeing that the sanction of the deified Valentinian, long most wickedly neglected, shall rise up against those who, despising the order of law, have presumed by themselves and their people, with the possessor expelled, violently to enter urban or rural estates. Nor do we wish anything of its detestable strictness to be mitigated by tempering, adding moreover that, if any of the freeborn is not found suitable to make satisfaction to the law defined above, he shall straightway be subject to the punishment of deportation, because he ought to have given more thought to the public laws, who knew that he could not elsewhere bear the penalty. Therefore the competent judges, to whom the admitted crime may pertain, if, when they are able to remove the invader, they have allowed him to hold what he has presumed, shall both be deprived of the honor of the belt they have attained and shall become liable to our treasury in just so much as the presumptuous man could have been condemned, the authors of the crime nevertheless remaining bound by the established penalties. But if anyone, swept into such great madness, with a tyrannical spirit neglects to obey the public law, and, overpowering in strength, scorns the small number of the appointed office, let him be brought to our ears as a marked man by the report of the judge, so that, with the execution of the saiones [royal officers] granted, he may feel the vengeance of royal vigor, he who refused to obey the magistrate. [2] And because even the highest princes must live under the common bond of law, if anyone, with the order of the laws passed over, in the public name shall have presumed, or has presumed, to affix titles [of ownership], let him become liable to the possessor in just so much as the sanction mentioned above attests. For deservedly he is also struck by the penalty of sacrilege, who by the iniquitous weight of encroachment has dared to burden the majesty of the royal name. Let him also, overcome in the judgment, pay out the expenses of the suit, because from this source are given the kindlings of detestable wrangling, when the wicked are conquered unharmed, nor does the loss of shame grieve the slanderers, if they have escaped the loss of their fortunes. [3] But if anyone shall believe that something is to be obtained from our offices, let him reckon that nothing of the obtained series of orders is to be suppressed from his adversary, in so far as it pertains to his case: if he shall not do so, let him be deprived of what he obtained, or if he shall attempt to do anything by means of it, let it nonetheless be held invalid, because we wish those alone to enjoy our benefits whom we do not know to be devoted to cunning. [4] He who by punishable persuasion strives to divide the marriages of others, let his own wedlock be held unlawful: so that he may feel that there has rather befallen himself what, malignant, he attempted to practice upon another. Whether he is deprived of unions out of affection, we by law deny him a future marriage, because he does not deserve to obtain the rewards of conjugal reverence, who has dared to ravage in the division of the marriage-bed. But lest our vengeance leave any guilty of this crime behind, those whom no hope of present or future marriage holds, if they shall have presumed anything against the marriage-chambers of others by deceitful contrivance, let them be deprived of half their property, which is straightway to be applied to the resources of the treasury. But if, poverty preventing, vengeance cannot be exacted upon the substance of any of them, let them be bound by the penalty of exile, lest, what is unspeakable to say, they seem on that account to escape the threat of public law, because they are known to be subject to a most worthless fortune. But these things our piety has decreed concerning solicitors of another's affection. [5] As for the rest, in the case of adulterers we wish everything to be most strictly observed, whatever could be decreed by imperial enactment. [6] Let no one be joined at one time to two wives, since he shall know that he is to be punished by the loss of his property. For either it is lust, and he is rightly not permitted to enjoy it; or it is greed, and by law he is condemned to nakedness. [7] But if anyone, with conjugal honor despised through superfluous and base desire, shall have chosen to come to the embraces of a concubine: if she was freeborn, let her by all means be assigned, with her children, in the yoke of servitude to the wife, so that she may feel herself subjected by honorable judgments to her whom, through unlawful lust, he believed could be preferred over her. But if a slave-woman has come to such disgrace, let her, apart from the penalty of blood, be subject to the matron's vengeance, so that she may endure as judge the very woman whom she ought to have dreaded in her absence. [8] Let the terror of no one extort gifts; let no one covet to acquire through fraud or execrable wantonness: for honesty alone deservedly desires gains. Concerning the laws, in the pleading of a most just bounty, we wish that strictness to be observed which careful legal antiquity sanctioned for the sake of truth. For thus, as it itself attests, both occasion will not lie open to fraud and a greater authority grows for truth. Otherwise we command that nothing seem firm to anyone which its own author has made uncertain by not fulfilling what the laws or statutes prescribe. [9] Let the severity of the laws also pursue evildoers [sorcerers], or those who shall have believed that something is to be sought from their nefarious arts, because it is impious for us to be lenient toward those whom heavenly piety does not allow to go unpunished. For what folly is it to forsake the creator of life and rather to follow the author of death? Let a base act be entirely foreign to the judges. Let no one do what the laws condemn, because they are to be punished by the decreed penalty who have mingled themselves in forbidden excesses. For what would they condemn in others, if they themselves defile themselves with a dishonorable contagion? Let modest means also be safe under the rich. [10] Let madness be restrained from slaughter. For the presumption of hands is proved to be an act of wars, especially in the case of those whom the authority of our protection fortifies. But if anyone shall have attempted to act contrary to this with wicked presumption, let him be held a violator of our command. [11] We do not allow an appeal from a suspected magistrate to the ordinary judges to be made a second time in one case, lest what was devised as a remedy for the innocent seem in some manner to exist as a sanctuary for the criminal. But if anyone shall have attempted to repeat what is forbidden, let him depart deprived of his suit. [12] But lest, touching upon a few matters, we be believed to have been unwilling that the rest be preserved, all edicts, both our own and those of our lord grandfather, which have been formed by venerable deliberation, and the customary public laws, we judge are to be guarded with all the strength of strictness; these protect themselves with so great a defense that they are girded also by the interposition of our oath. Why do we range over many things? Let the customary rule of the laws and the probity of our precepts be observed everywhere.

XVIII. EDICTUM. ATHALARICUS REX. Provide decrevit antiquitas universitatem edictis generalibus admoneri, per quae et delictum omne corrigitur et excedentis verecundia non gravatur. cuncti enim sibi aestimant dici, ubi nullum constat exponi et similis fit innocentis, quem contigerit sub communione purgari. hinc et nostra vere pietas custoditur, dum feriato gladio nascitur metus et provenit sine cruore correctio. commovemur enim placati, minamur otiosi et clementer irascimur, quando vitia sola damnamus. diu est, quod diversorum querellae nostris auribus crebris susurrationibus insonarunt quosdam civilitate despecta affectare vivere beluina saevitia, dum regressi ad agreste principium ius humanum sibi aestimant feraliter odiosum. quos nunc apte iudicavimus comprimendos ut eo tempore inimica bonis moribus crimina persequamur, quo hostibus reipublicae divina virtute resistimus. utrumque quidem noxium, utrumque pellendum: sed tanto gravius grassantur vitia quanto probantur interna. unum recumbit in altero. facilius quippe inimicorum acies cadunt, si nostrorum delicta subducimus. [1] Primam humano generi noxiam pervasionem, sub qua nec dici potest civilitas nec haberi, severitate legum et nostra indignatione damnamus statuentes, ut sanctio divi Valentiniani adversum eos diu pessime neglecta consurgat, qui praedia urbana vel rustica despecto iuris ordine per se suosque praesumpserint expulso possessore violenter intrare. nec aliquid de eius districtione detestabili volumus temperatione mitigari, insuper addentes ut, si quis ingenuorum ad satisfaciendum legi superius definitae idoneus non habetur, deportationis protinus subiaceat ultioni, quia plus debuit cogitare iura publica, qui se noverat alibi non posse sustinere vindictam. iudices igitur competentes, ad quos potest admissum facinus pertinere, si invasorem, cum possint amovere, pertulerint tenere praesumpta, et adepti cinguli honore priventur et fisco nostro tantum fiant obnoxii, quantum praesumptor potuisset addici, in auctoribus tamen facinoris manentibus constitutis. quod si quis in tantam raptatus amentiam tyrannico spiritu iuri publico parere neglexerit viribusque praepotens destinati officii spreverit paucitatem, relatione iudicis nostris auribus notabilis ingeratur, ut indulta executione saionum ultionem sentiat vigoris regii, qui oboedire noluit cognitori. [2] Et quia summis principibus iuris communione vivendum est, si quis legum ordine praetermisso nomine publico titulos praesumpserit vel praesumpsit affigere, in tantum possidenti fiat obnoxius, quantum sanctio superius memorata testatur. merito enim et sacrilegii poena percellitur, qui iniquo pervasionis pondere ausus est maiestatem regii nominis ingravare. litis quoque expensas iudicio superatus exsolvat, quia hinc dantur fomenta detestabilis iurgii, cum improbi vincuntur illaesi, nec dolet calumniantibus pudoris damnum, si evaserint dispendia facultatum. [3] Si quis autem de nostris scriniis aliquid crediderit promerendum, adversario suo, quantum ad causam eius pertinet, de consecuta serie iussionum nihil aestimet supprimendum: ni fecerit, careat impetratis, vel si aliquid ex eo agere temptaverit, nihilominus habeatur infirmum, quia illos solos volumus uti beneficiis nostris, quos non cognoscimus studere versutiis. [4] Qui suasione plectenda matrimonia dividere nititur aliena, ipsius coniugium habeatur illicitum: ut magis contigisse sentiat sibi, quod in altero malignus exercere temptavit. sive pro coniunctionibus caritate privatur, futurum illi matrimonium iure denegamus, quia non meretur iugalis reverentiae praemia consequi, qui in genialis tori ausus est divisione grassari. sed ne aliquos huius sceleris reos ultio nostra derelinquat, illos, quos spes non habet praesentis coniugii vel futuri, si quid in alienos thalamos dolosa machinatione praesumpserint, facultatum suarum priventur media portione fisci protinus viribus applicanda. si vero prohibente pauperie in aliquorum substantia nequiverit vindicari, poena religentur exilii, ne, quod dictu nefas est, ideo videantur comminationem iuris publici evadere, quia vilissimae noscuntur subiacere fortunae. sed haec de sollicitatoribus affectus alieni pietas nostra decrevit. [5] Ceterum in adulteris totum districtissime volumus custodiri, quicquid divali potuit commotione decerni. [6] Uno tempore duabus nemo copuletur uxoribus, quia se noverit rerum suarum amissione plectendum. nam aut libido est, et recte perfrui non sinitur: aut cupiditas, et iure nuditate damnatur. [7] Si quis autem superflua turpique cupidine coniugali honestate despecta ad concubinae elegerit venire complexus: si ingenua fuerit, iugo servitutis cum filiis suis modis omnibus addicatur uxori, ut illi se per honesta iudicia sentiat subdi, cui per illicitam libidinem credidit posse praeponi. quod si ad tale flagitium ancilla pervenerit, excepta poena sanguinis matronali subiaceat ultioni, ut illam patiatur iudicem, quam formidare debuisset absentem. [8] Donationes nullius terror extorqueat: nullus adquirere per fraudem vel execrabilem lasciviam concupiscat: sola enim honestas merito cupit lucra. de legibus in allegationem iustissimae largitatis illam districtionem volumus custodiri, quam pro veritate sollicita legalis sanxit antiquitas. sic enim, ut ipsa testatur, et fraudi non patebit occasio et veritati maior crescit auctoritas. alioquin nulli praecipimus videri firmum, quod ipse conditor, non implendo quae leges vel iura praecipiunt, fecit incertum. [9] Maleficos quoque vel eos, qui ab eorum nefariis artibus aliquid crediderint expetendum, legum severitas insequatur, quia impium est nos illis esse remissos, quos caelestis pietas non patitur impunitos. qualis enim fatuitas est creatorem vitae relinquere et sequi potius mortis auctorem? turpis actus ex toto sit a iudicibus alienus. nemo faciat quod iura condemnant, quia decretali poena plectendi sunt, qui se prohibitis excessibus miscuerunt. quid enim in aliis damnent, si ipsi se inhonesta contagione commaculent? sit etiam sub divitibus tuta mediocritas. [10] A caedis temperetur insania. nam praesumptio manuum actus probatur esse bellorum, maxime in eis, quos tuitionis nostrae munit auctoritas. si quis autem contra facere improba praesumptione temptaverit, violator nostrae iussionis habeatur. [11] Appellari a suspecto iudicibus ordinariis in una causa secundo non patimur, ne, quod ad remedium repertum est innocentis, asylum quodam modo videatur existere criminosis. si quis vero vetita iterare temptaverit, negotio privatus abscedat. [12] Sed ne pauca tangentes reliqua credamur noluisse servari, omnia edicta tam nostra quam domni avi nostri, quae sunt venerabili deliberatione formata, et usualia iura publica sub omni censemus districtionis robore custodiri, quae tanto munimine se tegunt, ut nostra quoque iurisiurandi interpositione cingantur. quid per multa discurrimus? legum usualis regula et praeceptorum nostrorum probitas ubique servetur.