learning joined with prudence. In granting all other dignities we
confer favours, but from the holder of this we ever receive them. He
is favoured to have a share in our anxieties; he enters in by the
door of our thoughts; he is intimately acquainted with the breast in
which the cares of the whole State are weighed. Think what judgment
you ought to form of a man who is partaker of such a confidence. From
him we require skill in the laws; to him flow together all the prayers
of all suitors, and (a thing more precious than any treasure) to him
is committed our own reputation for _civilitas_. Under a just Quaestor
the mind of an innocent man is at rest: only the wicked become anxious
as to the success of their evil designs; and thus the bad lose their
hope of plunder, while more earnestness is shown in the practice of
virtue. It is his to safeguard the just rights of all men: temperate
in expenditure, lavish in his zeal for justice, incapable of
deception, prompt in succour. He serves that Sovereign mind before
which all bow: through his lips must he speak who has not an equal in
the land.'

5. KING THEODORIC TO THE SAJO MANNILA.

[Sidenote: Abuses of the Cursus Publicus.]

Repeats the injunctions given in Letter iv. 47 against improper use of
the public post-horses, and overloading of the extra horses. The fines
imposed are the same as in that letter [with the addition of a fine of
two ounces of gold (about L6 10s.) for overloading]; the examples from
Natural History are similar. 'The very bird when weighted with a load
flies slowly. Ships though they cannot feel their toils, yet move
tardily when they are filled with cargo. What can the poor quadruped
do when pressed by too great burden? It succumbs.'

But apparently this rule against overloading is not to apply to
Praepositi (Provincial Governors?), since 'reverenda antiquitas' has
given them special rights over the _Cursus Publicus_.

6. KING THEODORIC TO STABULARIUS, COMITIACUS[381].

[Footnote 381: Officer of the Court. See vi. 13.]

7. KING THEODORIC TO JOANNES, VIR CLARISSIMUS, ARCARIUS [TREASURER].

[Sidenote: Default in payments to Treasury made by Thomas. His
property assigned to his son-in-law Joannes.]

'The _Vir Honestus_, Thomas, has long been a defaulter (reliquator) in
respect of the Indictions payable for certain farms which he has held
under the King's house in Apulia[382], and this default has now
reached the sum of 10,000 solidi (L6,000