that all charges for providing post-horses
and rations shall be debited to the public account. We cut up, root
and branch, the system of paying _Pulveratica_[849] to the Judge; and
we decide, according to ancient custom, that rations for three days
only shall be given on their arrival to the great Dignitaries of the
State, and that any more prolonged delay in their locomotion be
provided for by themselves.

[Footnote 849: Dust-money.]

'To relieve your city of its heaviest burdens will be, according to
our injunctions, an act of judicial impartiality, not of laxity. Live,
by God's help, a mirror of the justice of the age, delighting in the
security of all. Some people call the Isles of the Atlantic
'Fortunate:' I would rather give that name to the place where you do
now dwell.'

16. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO A REVENUE OFFICER[850].

[Footnote 850: 'Canonicario.']

[This interesting letter is one of the few written by Cassiodorus as
Praetorian Praefect which we can date with certainty. It is written
apparently at the beginning of the first Indiction, i.e. Sept. 1, 537.
Witigis and the Goths have been for nearly six months besieging Rome,
and are beginning to be discouraged as to its capture. Cassiodorus is
probably at Ravenna, directing the machine of government from that
capital.]

[Sidenote: Payment of Trina Illatio.]

'Time, which adapts itself incessantly to the course of human affairs,
and reconciles us even to adversity[851], has brought round again the
period for collecting the _Trina Illatio_ from the taxpayer. Let the
peasant (_possessor_) pay in your Diocese, for this first Indiction,
his instalment of the tax freely, not being urged too soon nor allowed
to postpone it too late, so that he may plead that he has been let off
from payment[852]. Let none exceed the fair weight, but let him use a
just pound: if once the true weight is allowed to be exceeded, there
is no limit to extortion[853].

[Footnote 851: 'Dum res nobis etiam asperas captata semper opinione
conciliat.' Apparently a veiled allusion to the disasters of the
Goths.]

[Footnote 852: 'Nec iterum remissione lentata quisquam se dicat esse
praeteritum.']

[Footnote 853: This mention of the just weight of course suits a tax
paid in kind, not in money.]

'Let a faithful account of the expenses of collection be rendered
every four months to our office[854], that, all error and obscurity
being removed, truth may be manifest in the