Letter 7020: We believe it pertains to the credit of your office if we assign you duties suited to your responsibilities, since a...

From: Cassiodorus, on behalf of the King To: A provincial judge (formula for collecting the bina et terna tax) Date: ~522 AD Context: A brief administrative formula ordering the collection of the "bina et terna" taxes -- customary supplementary levies on provincials -- and their transmission to the treasury. We believe it pertains to the credit of your office if we assign you duties suited to your responsibilities, since a man is rendered all the more pleasing the more occasions for obedience he is shown to have accepted. Therefore, with your office managing the process, you will promptly transmit to the bureaus of the Count of the Sacred Largesses [the chief financial officer of the realm] the bina et terna taxes [supplementary provincial levies on certain goods] that ancient authority decreed should be collected from the provincials, for the current tax year. The entire amount is to be paid in full by the Kalends of March [March 1]. Take care that you are not forced to pay from your own funds what you neglected to collect. It would have been an insult to you if someone else were seen collecting the taxes that the most sacred laws assigned to your jurisdiction.

XX. FORMULA BINORUM ET TERNORUM, SI PER IUDICEM AGANTUR. [1] Ad genium dignitatis tuae credimus pertinere, si competentia tibi videamur iniungere, quia tanto quis gratior redditur, quanto parendi causas amplius suscepisse monstratur. et ideo binorum et ternorum titulos, quos a provincialibus exigi prisca decrevit auctoritas, per illam indictionem, officio tuo procurante, ad scrinia comitis sacrarum largitionum transmittere maturabis, ita ut omnis quantitas intra kal. Martiarum diem sollemniter impleatur. ne de proprio reddere cogaris quod procurare neglexeris. tuam enim tetigisset iniuriam, si alter eos titulos videretur exigere, quos ad te praeceperunt leges sacratissimae pertinere.