Letter 5021: If our judgment had chosen you as a raw recruit, if you had come to the scales of examination as an unknown, we...

21. KING THEODERIC TO CAPUANUS, MAN OF DISTINCTION [vir spectabilis]. [1] If our judgments had chosen you as a raw recruit, if you had come to the scale of examination an unknown man, we would think it necessary to admonish you with what prudence and with what propriety you should conduct yourself. But you are believed to possess an understanding of all the virtues, you who have earned to be trained in the soldiery of letters. For you know with what modesty you ought to restrain yourself, you who have been seen to carry through the vows of another's business. For if the harsh suspicion of the judge had touched you, by praising justice you used to correct his mind with a gentle and penetrating remedy, obtaining by sweet persuasion what you could not have imposed upon a superior. Who therefore doubts that you love those things which you are agreed by public report to have advocated! [2] Goods that are openly professed are not held to be doubtful: nor does anyone's mind acquiesce that what he himself, as a veteran, was able to pursue, should appear to be taught to him by others as though he were untrained. As an examiner you used to demand, in lawful voice, that credence be given to a document produced, whether the archives kept the truth uncorrupted. Now as judge display what you wished to obtain among others. Come, lest your own speech be cast against you, for it is a burden of the gravest shame to be convicted by one's own voice. Take up, therefore, with God as your author, the direction of the decuriae [the corporations of public clerks], the most truthful witness of human acts, the security of those who possess property, the most splendid temple of public trust. Whence so much praise is acquired for you, as the usefulness of so many things is there preserved uncorrupted. [3] Let the will of the deceased live there for perpetual ages: let the judgments of parents pass to their descendants: let the repose of all be preserved in your archives. Let others have honors and the dread fasces: to you the guardians most pleasing to human life seem to serve as soldiers. For there are the acquittals of men, the bonds of cases, the chain of lawsuits, the prison of fury. Concerning which the Mantuan bard [Virgil] might more truly say: 'the gates of strife are closed, impious fury, shut up within, roars dreadfully with bloody mouth.' Therefore choose the decurions with due estimation of merits taken into account, because it is not fitting to summon to so great a city that which is base. Use also, when it shall be necessary, the opinion of the elder in age, having been made the senior of so many fathers, the voice of the senate while so many are silent. See what dignity you have received, that among so many eloquent men you should be the foremost in speaking, men whom we too profess to be revered by us. Take it up, therefore, to grant what we command, to bestow what we yield, so that you may open to those the doors of the curia whom our choice shall have ordered to enter the hall of Liberty.

XXI. CAPUANO V. S. THEODERICUS REX. [1] Si te tironem iudicia nostra delegissent, si ad examinis trutinam venisses incognitus, monendum aestimaremus, quali te prudentia, quo decore tractares. sed omnium crederis intellegentiam habere virtutum, qui exerceri meruisti militia litterarum. aestimas enim, qua te debeas modestia continere, qui alieni negotii visus es vota peregisse. nam si te iudicis suspicio saeva tetigisset, laudando iustitiam leni ac penetrabili remedio eius animum corrigebas, obtinens suavi persuasione, quod superiori non potuisses imponere. quis ergo dubitat illa te diligere, quae constat publica voce suasisse! [2] Professa bona non habentur ambigua: nec cuiusquam adquiescit ingenium, ut quod ipse potuit emeritus prosequi, ab aliis tamquam rudis videatur edoceri. prolati documenti fidem fieri legitima voce poscebas examinans, si retinerent incorruptam scrinia veritatem. iudex nunc exhibe, quod te volebas apud alios obtinere. age, ne tua tibi obiciatur oratio, quia pondus est pudoris gravissimi propria voce convinci. sume igitur auctore deo recturam decuriarum, humanorum actuum veracissimum testem, securitatem possidentium, publicae fidei splendidissimum templum. unde tantum tibi laudis adquiritur, quantorum illic utilitas incorrupta servatur. [3] Vivat ibi perpetuis saeculis decedentium voluntas: transeant in posteros iudicia parentum: scriniis tuis servetur omnium quies. alii honores habeant et terribiles fasces: tibi humanae vitae gratissimi videntur militare custodes. ibi enim absolutiones sunt hominum, vincla causarum, catena litium, carcer furoris. de quo verius diceret vates Mantuanus: 'clauduntur litis portae, furor impius intus inclusus fremit horridus ore cruento.' decuriales igitur habita meritorum aestimatione deligito, quia non decet tantae urbis appellare quod vile est. maioris etiam natu utere, cum fuerit necesse, sententia, factus tot patribus senior, tantis tacentibus vox senatus. vide quid dignitatis acceperis, ut inter tot eloquentes viros sis dicendi primarius, quos etiam nobis profitemur esse reverendos. assume ergo concedere quae iubemus, praestare quae cedimus, ut illis aperias ianuas curiae, quos nostra electio aulam iusserit Libertatis intrare.