Letter 7001: By following the instructions of Your Greatness, I am discharging a duty I owe, since a man comes close to justice...

Ennodius to Julianus. In obedience to the commands of your Greatness we have discharged the service we owed, since he draws near to equity who heeds the counsels of a just man. The nature of the business, which is entrusted to be examined by a friend of truth, instructs the mind of an upright investigator with caution. The consideration of your Greatness would have instilled partiality in us, had not zeal for duty prevented it. Therefore, in the case that is disputed between Bauto, the lessee of the royal household, and Epiphanius, the paper-merchant: while in our hearing the outcome wavered in doubt and the parties dashed against one another with opposing claims, Bauto asserting that he had acknowledged, by a bond he had issued, that he owed sixty-four solidi of the public revenue from the remainder of that indiction, and that he could not repay them because he had paid forty solidi to Epiphanius, through the hands of the eminent man Proiectus, under the name of patronage [suffragium, payment for influence], for which it was shown that no benefit had followed; and Epiphanius replying for his part that if he had received anything, he had earned it by his labor, and that nothing had been bestowed on him by Bauto without cause, and unceasingly extolling with praises the credit of the witness produced: we decreed that, under oath, the man named above, the nobleman Proiectus, should declare both the kind of benefit hoped for and should assert, if it were so, that its effect had not followed; and that, when this had been fulfilled, Epiphanius should refund the amount of money he had received. Now it lies in the power of your Eminence, if it please you, to support our decision with your authority.

I. ENNODIVS IVLIANO. Praeceptis magnitudinis uestrae ministerium debitionis exsoluimus, quia fit aequitati proximus qui iusti uiri monitis obsecundat. negotiorum qualitas, quae ab amico ueritatis agnoscenda committitur, cautione instruit animum cognitoris integri. adfectionem infudisset nobis magnitudinis uestrae consideratio, si studia non dedissent. in negotio igitur, quod inter Bautonem regiae domus conductorem et Epiphanium cartarium uertitur, dum anceps in disceptatione nostra euentus nutaret et alterna se partes intentione conliderent, adserente Bautone se sexaginta et quatuor solidos publicos, quos de reliqua indictionis illius emisso chirographo fuerat debere confessus. idcirco non posse restituere, quia per manus sublimis uiri Proiecti quadraginta solidos Epiphanio suffragii nomine contulisset, pro quibus nullum beneficium secutum fuisse doceretur, et replicaret ipse Epiphanius, se si quid accepisset, labore meruisse nec frustra sibi a Bautone quicquam fuisse conlatum uel prolati testis fidem laudibus incessanter adtolleret: statuimus ut sub iureiurando mihi nominatus superius uir nobilis Proiectus et sperati genus declararet beneficii et effectum, si ita esset, adsereret non secutum: quod cum fuisset I. 3 debitionis] deuotionis b 6 caationem b, cautiorem coni. Schottus 7 infandisset Bb, insudisset L 9 epifanium B cartbarium BLVb 12 publicus Bb 13 chyrographo 6, cyrographo LV, cyrografo B, cirographo T deberi fort . 15 epifanio B, epiphanici T nominis B b 16 docetur V1 17 epifanins BL V 18 ab auctone B 19 collooatum b probati T 20 statuim** (us eras.) L mihi om. Bb 21 beneficio Ll inpletum, Epiphanius acceptem pecuniae refunderet quanti. tatem. nunc in potestate est culminis uestri decisionem nostram, si placet, auctoritate fulcire.