Letter 2019: We justly detest all crimes, and our merciful hearing condemns everything that is unjust.
Cassiodorus→Rechared, of Visigoths|c. 522 AD|Cassiodorus
barbarian invasion
From: Cassiodorus, on behalf of King Theoderic
To: All Goths and Romans, and those in charge of ports and mountain passes
Date: ~522 AD
Context: A dramatic order to hunt down fugitive slaves who murdered their master Stephanus, featuring a remarkable literary digression on vultures and natural law.
We justly detest all crimes, and our merciful hearing condemns everything that is unjust. But the offenses that especially provoke our censure are those polluted by the shedding of human blood. Who could endure that danger was found in the very place of domestic safety -- that the end of a sweet life was discovered where the aid of protection should have been born?
We therefore command by this order that the laws' full severity be applied to the slaves who murdered their master Stephanus with punishable wickedness and even cast his unburied remains aside in contempt. Let those who are provoked by the worst examples be restrained by the sight of punishments. How shameful! A devotion found in birds is absent from the human condition. Even the vulture -- whose life depends on another's carcass, a bird of enormous size -- is not known to attack smaller birds. Rather, it strikes the hawk -- that feathered hunter of other birds' lives -- beating it with its wings, tearing it with its beak, and crushing it with its full weight...
XVIIII. UNIVERSIS GOTHIS ET ROMANIS VEL HIS QUI PORTIBUS VEL CLUSURIS PRAESUNT THEODERICUS REX.
[1] Cuncta quidem iure detestamur scelera et omne quod iniquum est clemens execratur auditus, sed ea maxime quae, humani sanguinis effusione polluta, nostram contra se incitavere censuram. quis enim ferat in domesticis praesidiis locum fuisse periculis et ibi inventum dulcis vitae exitum, unde nasci debuerat defensionis auxilium? [2] Et ideo praesenti iussione mandamus, ut in famulos, qui Stephanum dominum suum plectibili scelere trucidantes inhumatam quoque reverentiam eius funeris abiecerunt, legum districtione resecetis, quatenus qui exemplis provocantur pessimis, poenis arceantur aspectis. pro dolor! pietas in avibus invenitur, quae ab humana condicione deseritur. [3] Vultur ipse, cui vita est cadaver alienum, tantae magnitudinis corpus, nec exiguis alitibus probatur infestus, sed magis accipitrem, vitam plumigerum avium persequentem, alis caedit, ore dilaniat totoque suo pondere periclitantibus nititur subvenire: et homines parcere nequeunt, cuius se genus esse cognoscunt. ille non vult extinguere quo poterat vesci: servi maluerunt occidere qui eos superstes consueverat enutrire. fiat ergo pastus pii vulturis, qui necem potuit crudeliter desiderare pastoris. tali potius sepulcro recipiatur, qui dominum reddidit insepultum.
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From:Cassiodorus, on behalf of King Theoderic
To:All Goths and Romans, and those in charge of ports and mountain passes
Date:~522 AD
Context:A dramatic order to hunt down fugitive slaves who murdered their master Stephanus, featuring a remarkable literary digression on vultures and natural law.
We justly detest all crimes, and our merciful hearing condemns everything that is unjust. But the offenses that especially provoke our censure are those polluted by the shedding of human blood. Who could endure that danger was found in the very place of domestic safety -- that the end of a sweet life was discovered where the aid of protection should have been born?
We therefore command by this order that the laws' full severity be applied to the slaves who murdered their master Stephanus with punishable wickedness and even cast his unburied remains aside in contempt. Let those who are provoked by the worst examples be restrained by the sight of punishments. How shameful! A devotion found in birds is absent from the human condition. Even the vulture -- whose life depends on another's carcass, a bird of enormous size -- is not known to attack smaller birds. Rather, it strikes the hawk -- that feathered hunter of other birds' lives -- beating it with its wings, tearing it with its beak, and crushing it with its full weight...
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.