Letter 3019: It is right that we should look after the just compensation of those who serve our palace, because public labor...
Cassiodorus→Daniel (a craftsman)|c. 522 AD|Cassiodorus
grief deathproperty economics
From: Cassiodorus, on behalf of King Theoderic
To: Daniel (a craftsman)
Date: ~522 AD
Context: An appointment letter for the official supervising the production and sale of marble sarcophagi in Ravenna -- one of Cassiodorus's characteristically humane reflections on death, grief, and commerce.
It is right that we should look after the just compensation of those who serve our palace, because public labor should be productive. Although service to us is owed freely by right, we should still encourage it through moderate rewards.
Delighted by your skill in your craft -- which you practice diligently in carving and ornamenting marble -- we grant by the present authority that you shall oversee, with reasonable management, the distribution of the stone sarcophagi that are sold in the city of Ravenna for the burial of the dead. Through these, bodies are laid to rest in the earth above, providing no small consolation to the grieving -- since only the souls depart from the world's company, while the bodies do not abandon those who were once their sweet companions in life.
Through this trade, grief becomes a source of profit for some, and by a pitiable turn of fortune, merchants gain from human death. Nevertheless, let there be no unjust pricing under this arrangement, lest the wretched be forced to weep over heavy losses of property amid the bitter pangs of mourning, and bound by an unholy devotion, be compelled either to spend beyond their means...
XVIIII. COMMONITORIUM. DANIELI THEODERICUS REX.
[1] Decet ut palatio nostro servientibus iustis commodis consulamus, quia fructuosus esse debet publicus labor, ut, quamvis obsequia nobis gratuita iure debeantur, servitia tamen per moderata compendia provocemus. et ideo artis tuae peritia delectati, quam in excavandis atque ornandis marmoribus diligenter exerces, praesenti auctoritate concedimus, ut, te rationabiliter ordinante, dispensentur arcae quae in Ravennati urbe ad recondenda funera distrahuntur, quarum beneficio cadavera in supernis humata sunt, lugentium non parva consolatio, quando animae tantum de mundi conversatione discedunt, corpora vero dulces quondam superstites non relinquunt. [2] Hinc quibusdam veniunt dolores ad pretium, et miserabili sorte votorum crescit mercantibus de humana morte compendium. ita tamen, ut non sit iniqua sub hac occasione taxatio, ne cogantur miseri inter acerba luctuum gravia plorare dispendia facultatum et nefanda devotione constricti aut urgeantur patrimonia pro mortuis perdere aut dilecta corpora vilissimis foveis potius dolentes abicere. sit modus in voluntate poscentium, quando ipsa miseratio pro ementibus facit. nam minus debet laedi, cui amplius pro pietatis officio videtur imponi.
◆
From:Cassiodorus, on behalf of King Theoderic
To:Daniel (a craftsman)
Date:~522 AD
Context:An appointment letter for the official supervising the production and sale of marble sarcophagi in Ravenna -- one of Cassiodorus's characteristically humane reflections on death, grief, and commerce.
It is right that we should look after the just compensation of those who serve our palace, because public labor should be productive. Although service to us is owed freely by right, we should still encourage it through moderate rewards.
Delighted by your skill in your craft -- which you practice diligently in carving and ornamenting marble -- we grant by the present authority that you shall oversee, with reasonable management, the distribution of the stone sarcophagi that are sold in the city of Ravenna for the burial of the dead. Through these, bodies are laid to rest in the earth above, providing no small consolation to the grieving -- since only the souls depart from the world's company, while the bodies do not abandon those who were once their sweet companions in life.
Through this trade, grief becomes a source of profit for some, and by a pitiable turn of fortune, merchants gain from human death. Nevertheless, let there be no unjust pricing under this arrangement, lest the wretched be forced to weep over heavy losses of property amid the bitter pangs of mourning, and bound by an unholy devotion, be compelled either to spend beyond their means...
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.