Letter 3050: An arrangement should be gratefully received when it helps the giver and delights the receiver as circumstances require.
An arrangement should be gratefully received when it helps the giver and delights the receiver as circumstances require. Who could consider it a burden when the exchange offers a clear advantage? Therefore, by this decree we establish that the cattle of the Alamanni -- which are impressive for their large size but exhausted by the long journey -- may be exchanged with yours. Your cattle are smaller in frame but fit for work. Their journey will be aided by healthier animals, and your fields will be equipped with larger beasts. The result is that they acquire animals robust in strength, and you acquire ones conspicuous in appearance -- and what rarely happens in trade, both parties in a single transaction will feel they got the better deal.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
L. PROVINCIAL1BUS NORICIS THEODERICUS REX.
[1] Grate suscipienda est ordinatio, quae dantem iuvat et accipientem pro temporis necessitate laetificat. nam quis putare possit onus, ubi magis meretur in commutatione compendium? [2] Et ideo praesentibus decernimus constitutis, ut Alamannorum boves, qui videntur pretiosiores propter corporis granditatem, sed itineris longinquitate defecti sunt, commutari vobiscum liceat, minores quidem membris, sed idoneos ad laborem, ut et illorum profectio sanioribus animalibus adiuvetur et vestri agri armentis grandioribus instruantur. [3] Ita fit ut illi adquirant viribus robustos, vos forma conspicuos et, quod raro solet emergere, in una mercatione utrique videamini desiderata compendia percepisse.
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