Letter 12014: The citizens of Rhegium, at the farthest tip of Bruttium — whom the violent force of the sea long ago separated from...

From: Senator [Cassiodorus], Praetorian Prefect To: Anastasius, Chancellor of Lucania and Bruttium Date: ~533-537 AD Context: Cassiodorus defends the city of Reggio (modern Reggio Calabria) from unfair tax demands — deploying his personal knowledge of the region's agriculture and a remarkable description of a rare fish. The citizens of Rhegium, at the farthest tip of Bruttium — whom the violent force of the sea long ago separated from the body of Sicily (hence their city's name, since "division" is called rhegion in Greek) — report that they are being harassed by unjust presumptions of the tax collectors. They appeal not to our ears but to our eyes for a well-known remedy — for I can personally attest that their territory does not produce what is being demanded. Their land is the sparsest sort among mountain pebbles — dry for pasture but flowing with vineyards, hostile to grain but suited to olives. All their cultivation therefore depends on the hoe, since the dry surface cannot nourish crops that grow from above. There the bare ground is clothed by industry rather than by nature. Land that proves utterly parched in its soil is covered with the green of olive groves — for in such places, only trees that send their tall roots deep into the earth's interior can thrive. Their grain must be irrigated to survive, and in a reversal of normal practice, what is usually spent on garden vegetables must be lavished on cereal crops. How great a harvest can there be when it is tended by hand? Rarely does a farmer leave the threshing floor with his shoulders burdened — rather than gathering harvests in granaries, he can barely fill a few baskets from even the best yield. In the peasants' gardens, however, there is a hardworking abundance, because every vegetable there is full of flavor, being sprinkled with sea spray. What human effort usually has to accomplish artificially, these plants receive as they grow. Contrary to Virgil's observation [in the Georgics], the endive roots there are the sweetest — wrapped in twisted leaves, they form into globes of firm tenderness, so that a piece snapped off breaks like glass when separated from the fertile turf. These are the foods in which that region is abundant, if you wish to know. It also enjoys marine delicacies in copious profusion, since there the upper and lower seas [the Tyrrhenian and Ionian], joining at their frontiers, bring the delights of both bodies of water together in the embrace of a single bay. Fish must naturally rush to wherever the current can flow. The exormiston too — a royal species among fish, similar in body to the moray but different in color, with bristly nostrils and possessed of a colostrum-like delicacy, coagulated in an oily, sweet liquid — when this appetizing, pleasing fatty creature begins to swim up among the frothing waves at the boundary of sea and air, it forgets how to return to the depths it left. I believe it either forgets the way back or, softened by its extreme tenderness, cannot struggle against the lifting waves to dive back down. It is carried like a lifeless body, avoiding danger by neither effort nor skill — and it is not believed able to return by its own strength, since it is observed to be incapable even of fleeing. This fish is acknowledged to be of such sweetness that no other can compare. These are the things I have described on the coast of Rhegium — things I learned not from another's report but hold from the evidence of my own eyes. Therefore I decree that salt pork and wheat shall never be requisitioned from there under any pretext of compulsory purchase, since it is utterly unreasonable to demand what the nature of the place does not produce. Furthermore, the defense of truth and the testimony of a judge should suffice — for it is an utterly abominable evil when a man's conscience knows one thing and his tongue decrees another. I would add that the city is so exhausted by the constant arrival of travelers and so depleted by the drain of transients that it would be reasonable to remit even what the region does manage to produce.

XIIII. ANASTASIO CANCELLARIO LUCANIAE ET BRUTTIORUM SENATOR PPO. [1] Regenses cives ultimi Bruttiorum, quos a Siciliae corpore violenti quondam maris impetus segregavit, unde civitas eorum nomen accepit divisio enim 'region' Graeca lingua vocitatur, iniqua suggerunt exactorum se praesumptione fatigari, implorantes non aurium, sed oculorum nostrorum nota remedia, qui possumus scire territorium eorum quod petitur non habere. est enim montanis lapillis terra rarissima, arida pascuis, sed undosa vindemiis: segetibus adversa, sed olivis accommoda: et ideo cultura eius omnis in sarculis est, quia superficies ipsius sicca nutrire non valet superne nascentia. tergore illic ager nudus industria potius quam natura vestitur. [2] Nam Palladiae silvae viriditate contegitur qui in solo aridissimus approbatur. talibus enim locis illa proficiunt, quae radicibus proceris ad humi penetrale descendunt. segetes rigantur, ut vivant et condicione mutata hoc aristis impenditur, quod oleribus exhibetur. quanta seges est, quae manu colitur? raro illic ab area venit umeris gravatus agricola, ut non messes in horreis colligere, sed vix possit aliquos cophinos de summa ubertate complere. [3] In hortis autem rusticorum agmen habetur operosum, quia holus illic omne saporum est dum marina inroratione respersum: quod humana industria fieri consuevit, hoc cum nutriretur accepit. contra Maronis autem sententiam intiborum illic fibrae dulcissimae sunt, quae praecinctae foliis tortuosis callosa teneritudine conglobantur: unde in morem vitri aliquid decerptum frangitur, dum a fecundo cespite segregatur. [4] His victualibus, si vis nosse, regio illa fecunda est: nam et marinis deliciis copiosa iucunditate perfruitur, quia ibi mare supernum atque infernum, insertis frontibus adunatum, delicias utriusque pelagi in unam congregationem sinus sui volubilitate perducit. necesse est enim illic et pisces properare, ubi constat et undam posse defluere. [5] Exormiston quoque, inter pisces regium genus, compar murenis corpore, sed colore distans, naribus setosis, colostrea delicatitudine praeditum, oleoso ac suavi liquore coagulatum, appetibilis grataque pinguedo, cum spumis fluctuantibus inter aeris confinia coeperit enatare, nescit ad cubilia redire quae deserit: credo aut immemor reversionis aut teneritudine summa mollitus nequit undis elevantibus contraria obluctatione demergere. fertur velut corpus exanime, nullis nisibus periculum, nulla arte devitans et hinc viribus destitutus redire non creditur, quia nec fugere posse sentitur. hic plane tantae dulcedinis esse dinoscitur, ut ei nemo piscium comparetur. [6] Haec sunt in litore Regino quae diximus, quod non alio referente cognovimus, etsi visuali probatione retinemus. quapropter laridi atque tritici species nullis temporibus coemptionis nomine inde decernimus postulari, quia nimis calumniose petitur, quod loci beneficio non habetur. deinde sufficere debet defensio veritatis et testimonium iudicis, quia nimis execrabile malum est, si, cum aliud noverit conscientia, aliud lingua decernat. additur etiam quod tantis commeantium fatigatur adventibus, tanta excurrentium laceratione deteritur, ut rationabiliter illi remitti debuisset vel quod apud ipsam nasci posse constaret.