o will simply obey the orders of your Holiness,
doing nothing of their own motion.

[Footnote 894: Pavia.]

[Footnote 895: Tortona.]

[Footnote 896: Twelve shillings for twenty pecks, or about nineteen
shillings and twopence a quarter; not a very low price, one would
think, for such a grain as millet.

Datius is ordered to sell _tertiam portionem_ of this millet. Probably
this expression has the same meaning as the 'tertia illatio' of xi.
37.

In the similar letter, x. 27, 'tertia portio' (whether of wheat or
millet is not stated) is to be sold at 25 modii per solidum.]

'Send us an account of the solidi received in payment for the said
millet, that they may be stored up with our Treasurer[897], in order
to replace the before-mentioned grain, and thus provide a reserve for
future times of scarcity; like a garment taken to pieces that it may
be made up again as good as new.'

[Footnote 897: 'Arcarius.']

[It is not very easy to assign a date to this letter. The mention of
the famine would incline us to assign it to 538, as that seems to have
been the year when the full force of the famine was felt in Italy (see
Procopius, De Bello Gotthico ii. 20, where 538 and 539 seem to be
marked as the two great famine years). But very early in 538 the
Bishop of Milan, the same Datius to whom this letter is addressed,
visited Rome to entreat Belisarius to send a small garrison to occupy
Milan, which had already revolted, or was on the verge of revolting,
from the Gothic King. As soon as the siege of Rome was raised
Belisarius complied with this request, and sent 1,000 men, under
Mundilas, to escort Datius back to Milan. This expedition set forth
probably in April 538, and as soon as it arrived at Milan that city
openly proclaimed its defection from Witigis and its allegiance to the
Emperor. It was soon besieged by Uraias, nephew of Witigis, by whom in
the following year (539) it was taken. The city, we are informed, was
rased to the ground, and Bishop Datius escaped to Constantinople.
Evidently we have here a continuous chain of events, which makes it
impossible for us to date this letter in 538 or any subsequent year.

We ought probably therefore to assign it to the autumn of 537, and to
look upon it as an attempt (unsuccessful, as it proved) to retain
Datius and the citizens of Milan on the side of the Goths. We know
from the Twenty-second Letter of this book that signs of scarcity had
already shown themselves in Italy