From: Cassiodorus (formula template)
To: The Quaestor (public edict)
Date: ~522 AD
Context: Template edict requiring anyone who requests a royal enforcer (saio) to post a bond, preventing abuse of the system.
We have often learned that the saiones [royal enforcers] whom we believed we were granting out of compassion have instead become sources of the greatest complaint. Our benefit has been corrupted -- the remedy has only increased the calamity, because the malice of petitioners has diverted these agents to purposes other than those for which our relief intended them. It has therefore become necessary for us to counter these pestilent schemes with a healthy remedy, lest we be subjected to the most unjust abuse of petitions while being drawn by the spirit of compassion to provide fair benefits.
Therefore, by this edict we decree: whoever wishes to obtain a saio against violent threats due to inescapable necessity must bind himself to our office with a penal guarantee. If the person at whose request the saio was sent transgresses our orders through the saio's intervention, the petitioner himself shall pay a penalty of such-and-such pounds of gold and shall promise to satisfy whatever losses his opponent may sustain, both in damages and travel expenses. When we wish to restrain uncivil behavior, we must not crush innocence. As for the saio who exceeds the limits of his instructions on his own initiative, let him know he will be stripped of his salary, face the danger of losing our favor -- which is worse than any material loss -- and never again be trusted, if he proves to be a violator of the very orders he was supposed to execute.
XLII.
FORMULA EDICTI, AD QUAESTOREM, UT IPSE SPONDERE DEBEAT, QUI SAIONEM MERETUR.
[1] Frequenter saiones, quos a nobis credidimus pia voluntate concedi, querelis maximis cognovimus ingravatos. corruptum est, pro dolor! beneficium nostrum, crevitque potius de medicina calamitas, dum ad alios usus petentium malignitate translati sunt quam eos nostra remedia transtulerunt. unde nobis necesse fuit remedio salubri votis pestiferis obviare, ne, dum pietatis studio ad aequabilia beneficia trahimur, subreptionum iniquissima patiamur. [2] Atque ideo edictali programmate definimus, ut, quicumque contra violentas insidias propter ineluctabiles necessitates suas mereri desiderat forte saionem, officio nostro poenali se vinculo cautionis astringat, ut, si praecepta nostra eius inmissione plectibili is apud quem meretur excesserit, ipse poenae nomine det auri libras tot et satisfacere se promittat quaecumque adversarius eius potuerit tam commodi quam itineris sustinere detrimenta. [3] Nos enim cum reprimere inciviles animos volumus, praegravare innocentiam non debemus. saio autem, qui sua voluntate modum praeceptionis excesserit, donativo se noverit exuendum et gratiae nostrae, quod est damnis omnibus gravius, incurrere posse periculum nec sibi ulterius esse credendum, si iussionis nostrae, cuius executor esse debuit, temerator extiterit.
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From:Cassiodorus (formula template)
To:The Quaestor (public edict)
Date:~522 AD
Context:Template edict requiring anyone who requests a royal enforcer (saio) to post a bond, preventing abuse of the system.
We have often learned that the saiones [royal enforcers] whom we believed we were granting out of compassion have instead become sources of the greatest complaint. Our benefit has been corrupted -- the remedy has only increased the calamity, because the malice of petitioners has diverted these agents to purposes other than those for which our relief intended them. It has therefore become necessary for us to counter these pestilent schemes with a healthy remedy, lest we be subjected to the most unjust abuse of petitions while being drawn by the spirit of compassion to provide fair benefits.
Therefore, by this edict we decree: whoever wishes to obtain a saio against violent threats due to inescapable necessity must bind himself to our office with a penal guarantee. If the person at whose request the saio was sent transgresses our orders through the saio's intervention, the petitioner himself shall pay a penalty of such-and-such pounds of gold and shall promise to satisfy whatever losses his opponent may sustain, both in damages and travel expenses. When we wish to restrain uncivil behavior, we must not crush innocence. As for the saio who exceeds the limits of his instructions on his own initiative, let him know he will be stripped of his salary, face the danger of losing our favor -- which is worse than any material loss -- and never again be trusted, if he proves to be a violator of the very orders he was supposed to execute.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.