Letter 3015: When justice is violated, the injury is ours, because we rightly take upon ourselves offenses against things we hold...

From: Cassiodorus, on behalf of King Theoderic To: Theodahad, Vir Sublimis Date: ~522 AD Context: Theoderic orders the nobleman Theodahad -- his own kinsman -- to adjudicate a dispute that the defendant has been evading through legal trickery. When justice is violated, the injury is ours, because we rightly take upon ourselves offenses against things we hold dear. We especially will not allow an act committed in contempt of our orders to go unpunished. What presumption would dare avoid punishment if it showed contempt for the reverence owed to a royal command? Therefore the man whom we previously ordered to appear before the court of the distinguished Sona, and who has eluded it through his ingrained cunning, we now commit to your examination for a hearing, so that you may put an end to a dispute that has been prolonged by culpable scheming. Give this hearing your full attention, so that your reputation for justice may grow -- since the tangled disputes of litigants are entrusted to you for the sake of a remedy.

XV. THEODAHADO V. S. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Iniuvia quidem nostra est laesa iustitia, quia violationes earum rerum merito ad nos trahimus quas amamus. unde illud maxime inultum esse non patimur, quod in contemptum nostrae iussionis constat admissum. quae enim praesumptio plectenda non audeat, si sacrae iussionis reverenda contemnat? ideoque illum, quem dudum ad viri illustris Sonae iudicium decrevimus convenire isque se inveterata calliditate subitraxit, examini vestro committimus audiendum, ut finem detis iurgio plectibili machinatione dilatato. praestate itaque audientiae curam, ut iustitiae vobis crescat opinio, quando pro remedio causantium committuntur vobis ambigua iurgiorum.