Letter 7023: We grant our benefits to your grace especially if we find you administering your duties with good judgment.

From: Cassiodorus (formula template) To: [Vicar of the Port] Date: ~522 AD Context: Template letter for appointing the Vicar of the Port (Portus, the harbor of Rome), emphasizing the diplomatic skill needed to manage foreign merchants. We grant our benefits to your grace especially if we find you administering your duties with good judgment. You will not go unrewarded if you receive foreign peoples wisely and manage the commerce of our own people with balanced fairness. Although prudence is needed everywhere, it is particularly suited to this role, since disputes constantly arise between two peoples unless justice is maintained. Therefore, those who bring temperaments as changeable as the winds must be calmed with skill -- if their spirits are not first tempered, they will leap with native impulsiveness into the most brazen contempt. Accordingly, drawn by your reputation for moderation, we assign you charge of that port for the designated indiction. Handle everything under your authority in such a way as to earn advancement. Great responsibilities are given to those who prove themselves in small ones.

XXIII. FORMULA VICARII PORTUS. [1] Beneficia nostra gratiae tuae specialiter damus, si te agere commissa rationabiliter approbemus. nec enim inremuneratus iaces, si et populos peregrinos prudenter excipias et nostrorum commercia moderata aequalitate componas. nam licet ubique sit necessaria prudentia, in hac potius actione videtur accommoda, quando inter duos populos nascuntur semper certamina, nisi fuerit iustitia custodita. quapropter arte placandi sunt qui mores afferunt simillimos ventis, quorum nisi prius animi temperentur, in contemptum maximum nativa facilitate prosiliunt. qua de re modestiae tuae fama provocati curas illius portus per illam indictionem te habere censemus, ut omnia ad tuum titulum pertinentia sic agas, quemadmodum ad meliora pervenias. in parvis enim discitur, cui potiora praestentur.