Letter 7047: Although the freedom to sell one's property should rest with the owner, since true ownership means having the power...

47. FORMULA TO THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT, THAT ESTATES MAY BE SOLD UNDER A DECREE OF THE CURIALS [the municipal town councillors]. [1] The improvident condition of mortals very often suffers this: that, when it is thought to harm, it gives good counsel, and when it seems to give counsel, it inflicts injury. But that course is rather to be chosen which is recognized to be beneficial. For even poisons themselves, if they are proven to help, are welcomed; and on the contrary the sweetness of honey must be shunned, which is found to bring on injuries. The aim of the wise man, therefore, is to love what is expedient: thus he does not regard the wish of the sick man who strives to do him good. Prudent antiquity indeed determined that the estates of the curials should not easily be alienated, so that they might suffice the better for public necessities, if the supports of their substance were greater. [2] But in this matter again it made provision that, if before you an unavoidable necessity should appear, the sale of his own goods should come to his relief. For what does it profit if someone seems solvent and yet cannot be released from the bonds he has contracted? He is like a needy man who cannot repay what belongs to another; nor can that be called one's own which does not appear to grant its owner deliverance. [3] But although this has been granted to your authority by the warrant of the laws, nevertheless, lest you should bear the odium even of a most rare deed, moved by the plea of that townsman, we too by this present order permit your Eminence that, the truth having been examined to the point of clarity, if the contracted bonds cannot otherwise be discharged, he shall have license to sell that estate of his which he shall choose of his own free will, in such a way that he repays the debt which is proven to have been contracted, lest, steeped in the vice of greed, he should seem to have been allowed to swallow up his own resources. Let the case of his losses stand as creditable before you, since we wish relief to be given to him who is proven to be bound by hard necessities: for either course can be blameworthy, whether to loosen the reins to evil habits or, on the other hand, to shut out just complaints. Wherefore antiquity providently permitted you to decide concerning that matter for which it is useful to guard the council. For by whom will the duties of the cities be able to be sustained, if the sinews of the communities are seen to be everywhere cut away? Cassiodorus

XLVII. FORMULA AD PPO, UT SUB DECRETO CURIALIUM PRAEDIA VENUNDENTUR. [1] Patitur hoc inprovida mortalium plerumque condicio, ut, cum laedere putatur, consulat et cum consulere videtur, affligat. sed illud magis est eligendum, quod prodesse cognoscitur. nam venena ipsa si iuvare probantur, accepta sunt: et contra refugienda est suavitas mellis, quae inferre dinoscitur laesiones. finis ergo sapientis est amare quod expedit: sic nec aegri votum respicit qui prodesse contendit. praedia quidem curialium non facile distrahi prudens definivit antiquitas, ut ad necessitates publicas melius sufficerent, si substantiae iuvamina plus haberent. [2] Sed in hac iterum parte prospexit, ut, si apud vos ineluctabilis necessitas appareret, ei suarum rerum distractio subveniret. nam quid prodest, si quispiam videatur idoneus et fieri non possit a contractis nexibus absolutus? egenti similis est, qui reddere nequit alienum, nec dici potest proprium, quod liberare dominum non videtur aditum. [3] Sed quamvis hoc vestrae potestati fuerit legum auctoritate concessum, tamen, ne quam vel rarissimi facti sustineretis invidiam, illius municipis allegatione permoti, nos quoque eminentiae vestrae praesenti iussione permittimus, ut ad liquidum veritate discussa, si aliter solvi nequeunt contracta ligamina, praedii sui, quod propria voluntate delegerit, habeat licentiam distrahendi, ita ut reddat debitum quod probatur esse contractum, ne vitio voracitatis imbutus facultates suas absorbere videatur esse permissus. constet apud vos probabilis causa damnorum, quoniam illi volumus subveniri qui duris necessitatibus probatur astringi: utrumque enim potest esse culpabile aut malis moribus frena laxare aut iustas iterum querelas excludere. quapropter provide vobis permisit antiquitas de illa causa decernere, cui est utile curiam custodire. a quibus enim urbium munia poterunt sustineri, si civitatum nervi passim videantur abscidi? Cassiodorus