Part 81 (1/2)
[Footnote 788: 'Eorum est etiam sudoribus applicandum, quod victuales expensae longe quidem positae, _sed tamquam in urbe Regia natae_ [I do not quite understand this ant.i.thesis] sine querela Provincialium congregantur.']
[Footnote 789: 'Labores, violenti magistri, solliciti paedagogi, per quos cautior quis efficitur dum incurri pericula formidantur.']
'Such men ought a.s.suredly to receive their stipulated rewards; and therefore we order you to pay regularly so many solidi of the third instalment, from the land-tax of the Province of Campania[790], to such and such a person, who has now just completed his term of service as Primiscrinius.'
[Footnote 790: 'Ex canone provinciae Campaniae tertiae illationis tot solidos solenniter te dare censemus.']
38. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO JOANNES, CANONICARIUS[791] OF THUSCIA.
[Footnote 791: Tax-collector.]
[Sidenote: Praises of paper.]
'Rightly did Antiquity ordain that a large store of paper should be laid in by our Bureaux (Scrinia), that litigants might receive the decision of the Judge clearly written, without delay, and without avaricious and impudent charges for the paper which bore it[792].
[Footnote 792: Lydus (De Magistratibus iii. 14) makes a similar remark, but says that in his time the copying clerks (Exceptarii, or Exceptores) supplied disgracefully bad paper made of gra.s.s, and charged a fee for doing so.]
'A wonderful product in truth is this wherewith ingenious Memphis has supplied all the offices in the world. The plants of Nile arise, a wood without leaves or branches, a harvest of the waters, the fair tresses of the marshes, plants full of emptiness, spongy, thirsty, having all their strength in their outer rind, tall and light, the fairest fruit of a foul inundation.
'Before Paper was discovered, all the sayings of the wise, all the thoughts of the ancients, were in danger of peris.h.i.+ng. Who could write fluently or pleasantly on the rough bark of trees, though it is from that practice that we call a book _Liber_? While the scribe was laboriously cutting his letters on the sordid material, his very thought grew cold: a rude contrivance a.s.suredly, and only fit for the beginnings of the world.
'Then was paper discovered, and therewith was eloquence made possible.
Paper, so smooth and so continuous, the snowy entrails of a green herb; paper which can be spread out to such a vast extent, and yet be folded up into such a little s.p.a.ce; paper, on whose white expanse the black characters look beautiful; paper which keeps the sweet harvest of the mind, and restores it to the reader whenever he chooses to consult it; paper which is the faithful witness of all human actions, eloquent of the past, a sworn foe to oblivion.
'Therefore for this thirteenth Indiction[793] pay so many solidi from the land-tax of the Tuscan Province to our Bureau, that it may be able to keep in perpetuity a faithful record of all its transactions.'
[Footnote 793: Sept. 1, 534. The reading 'de tertiae decimae Indictionis rationibus' seems required by the sense, instead of 'tertiam de decimae Indictionis rationibus.' It is quite clear that Ca.s.siodorus was not Praetorian Praefect at the tenth Indiction.]
39. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO THE CLARISSIMUS VITALIAN, CANCELLARIUS OF LUCANIA AND BRUTTII.
[Sidenote: Payment by Province of Bruttii of commuted cattle-tax.]
'The vast numbers of the Roman people in old time are evidenced by the extensive Provinces from which their food supply was drawn, as well as by the wide circuit of their walls, the ma.s.sive structure of their amphitheatre, the marvellous bigness of their public baths, and the enormous mult.i.tude of mills, which could only have been made for use, not for ornament.
'It was to feed this population, that mountainous Lucania paid her tribute of swine, that fertile Bruttii furnished her droves of oxen.
It was a glorious privilege for them thus to feed the Roman people: yet the length of roads over which the animals had to be driven made the tribute unnecessarily burdensome, since every mile reduced their weight, and the herdsman could not possibly obtain credit at the journey's end for the same number of pounds of flesh which he possessed at its beginning. For this reason the tribute was commuted into a money payment, one which no journeyings can diminish and no toil can wound. The Provinces should understand and respond to this favourable change, and not show themselves more slack than their ancestors were, under far more burdensome conditions. Your Diligence has now collected both these taxes[794] at the appointed periods; and I am glad of it, that my countrymen, who have served alien magistrates with praiseworthy diligence, might not seem negligent under my rule. These Provinces, which I, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather have benefited as private persons, I have endeavoured to help yet more earnestly while I bore the majesty of the _fasces_, that they who have rejoiced in my exaltation might see that I still retained my love for our common country. Let them pay the tax then, not from fear but from love. I have prevailed on the royal generosity to limit its amount; for whereas it used to be 1,200 solidi [720] annually, it is henceforward to be 1,000 [600][795].'
[Footnote 794: 'Ambos t.i.tulos.']
[Footnote 795: This sum seems ridiculously small for the Province of Bruttii. Can it be the sum a.s.sessed on each district?]
40. AN INDULGENCE [OR AMNESTY TO PRISONERS ON SOME GREAT FESTIVAL OF THE CHURCH, PROBABLY EASTER].
[Sidenote: General Amnesty.]