r with the written obligation, that these things may be felt to
be profitably restored and speedily granted, that the longed-for means
of performing their world-famous ministrations may be replaced in the
hands of the Levites. Let that be given back which was their own,
since that is justly received back by way of largesse which the Priest
had legally mortgaged.

[Footnote 865: 'Actoribus.']

'Herein is the great example of King Alaric surpassed. He, when
glutted with the spoil of Rome, having received the vessels of the
Apostle Peter from his men, when he heard the story of their seizure,
ordered them to be carried back across the sacred threshold, that so
the remembrance of the cupidity of their capture might be effaced by
the generosity of their restoration.

'But our King, with religious purpose, has restored the vessels which
had become his own by the law of mortgage. In recompense for such
deeds frequent prayer ought to ascend, and Heaven will surely gladly
grant the required return for such good actions[866].'

[Footnote 866: Baronius not unfairly argues that if the Roman See was
so poor that the Church plate had to be pawned to provide for the
Pope's journey to Constantinople, the _wealth_ of the Pope cannot have
largely contributed to that great increase of his influence which
marked the early years of the Sixth Century.]

[There are in this letter several extremely obscure sentences as to
the generosity of Theodahad. As the Papal journey was undertaken by
Theodahad's orders, it was a piece of meanness, quite in keeping with
that King's character, to treat the advance of money for the journey
as a loan, and to insist on a bond and the deposit of the Church plate
as a security for repayment. Cassiodorus evidently feels this; and
very probably the restoration of the vessels and the quittance of the
debt had been insisted on by him. But the more he despises his
master's shabbiness, the more he struggles through a maze of almost
nonsensical sentences, to prove that he has committed some very
glorious action in lending the money and then forgiving the debt.]

21. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO DEUSDEDIT, A SCRIBE OF RAVENNA.

[Sidenote: Duties of a Scribe.]

'The Scribe's office is the great safeguard of the rights of all men.
The evidence of ownership may be destroyed by fire or purloined by
dishonest men, but the State by making use of the Scribe's labours is
able to make good the loss so sustained. T