Letter 1042: VARIAE, BOOK 1, LETTER 42

King Theoderic to Artemidorus, Most Illustrious and Most Eminent, Prefect of the City. [1] The recompense of merits reveals the just rule of a sovereign, in whose presence whatever anyone has labored at cannot perish. For if we bestow things unlooked-for, how can we deny those things we owe? With us every devotion securely lays up what it deserves, and he reaps a double fruit who knows that he has in some matter rendered us service. [2] Long ago indeed you deserved to obtain from us something more precious in rank, so that you might cling, worthy, to the royal side. Our affection allowed you to be put off: with one who loves you, you obtained the cause of your advancement more slowly, so that, after the genius of sacred friendship, you might arrive at honors more fully adorned. For all those things from which human character gains repute have, congenial, settled together in you: country, lineage, distinguished training. If any single one of these completes nobility, gathered together in you they will accomplish more, since you shine no less by the fortune of your native soil than you are adorned by the glory of your pedigree and your virtue. [3] Hence it is that we now raise you, in this happily third indiction, to the summit of the Urban Prefecture, granting you the fasces in that city where the honors are everlasting. And we, who appraise our own gifts more modestly, will surely confess that you have deserved much of our judgment, that you may be able to preside over that assembly which you know to be worthy of reverence by the human race. [4] Is this perhaps to govern palaces and to set in order one's own households? For the most part honor is acquired from the things entrusted to one, and it is not the same thing to undertake the guarding of a wine-cellar as to keep watch over precious diadems. Those things which we believe more important we give to better men to preserve, and in matters where we do not allow ourselves to sustain losses we assuredly assign them to more faithful minds. If Rome has an equal, judge that we have entrusted similar things to others as well; but if she is a singular good, we make you the judge of a thing preeminent, which we always desire to increase.

XLII. ARTEMIDORO V. I. P. U. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Remunaratio meritorum iustum dominantis prodit imperium, apud quem perire nescit, quod quempiam laborasse contigerit. nam si inopinata tribuimus, quemadmodum negare possumus quae debemus? in tutum apud nos reponit omnis devotio quod meretur et duplicem fructum metit, qui nobis se in aliquo paruisse cognoscit. [2] Olim quidem a nobis quod esset dignitate pretiosius habere meruisti, ut regio lateri dignus adhaereres. differri te pertulit noster affectus: apud amantem provectus tui causam tardius impetrasti, ut post sacrae amicitiae genium ad honores ornatior pervenires. cuncta siquidem, unde famam captat humanitas, in te congeniata sederunt, patria, genus, instituta praeclara. quorum si unum nobilitatem complet, in te collecta plus facient, qui non minus genitalis soli fortuna resplendes quam gloria stemmatis et virtutis ornaris. [3] Hinc est quod nunc te per indictionem feliciter tertiam ad praefecturae urbanae culmen erigimus, tribuentes tibi in ea civitate fasces, ubi perpetui sunt honores. quod nos, qui munera nostra verecundius aestimamus, certe fatebimur, multum te meruisse de nostro iudicio, ut illi coetui praesidere possis, quem reverendum humano generi esse cognoscis. [4] Numquid hoc est palatia regere et domos proprias ordinare? plerumque honor ex commendatis adquiritur nec tale est cellam vinariam tuendam suscipere, quale pretiosa diademata custodire. illa, quae potiora credimus, ad conservandum melioribus damus et in quibus sustinere damna non patimur, fidelioribus profecto mentibus applicamus. Roma si habet parem, aestima nos et aliis similia credidisse: si vero singulare bonum est, iudicem te praecipuae rei facimus, quam augere semper optamus.