deciding
cases of this kind, you whose advantage lies in the maintenance of the
Curia. For by whom could its burdens be borne, if the nerves of the
communities should everywhere be seen to be severed[500]?'

[Footnote 500: 'Quapropter provide vobis permisit antiquitas de illa
causa decernere, cui est utile Curiam custodire. A quibus enim munia
petuerunt sustineri, si civitatum nervi passim videantur abscidi.']

BOOK VIII.

CONTAINING THIRTY-THREE LETTERS, ALL WRITTEN IN THE NAME OF ATHALARIC
THE KING, EXCEPT THE ELEVENTH, WHICH IS WRITTEN IN THE NAME OF TULUM.

1. KING ATHALARIC TO THE EMPEROR JUSTIN (A.D. 526).

[Sidenote: The accession of Athalaric announced to the Emperor
Justin.]

[Some MSS. read Justiniano, but there can be no doubt that Justino is
the right reading. Athalaric's accession took place August 30, 526;
the death of Justin, August 1, 527. Justinian was associated with his
uncle in the Empire, April 1, 527.]

'Most earnestly do I seek your friendship, oh most clement of Princes,
who are made even more illustrious by the wide extension of your
favours than by the purple robe and the kingly throne. On this
friendship I have an hereditary claim. My father was adorned by you
with the palm-enwoven robe of the Consul [Eutharic, Consul 519] and
adopted as a son in arms, a name which I, as one of a younger
generation, could more fittingly receive[501]. My grandfather also
received curule honours from you[502] in your city. Love and
friendship should pass from parents to their offspring, while hatred
should be buried in the tomb; and therefore with confidence, as one
who by reason of my tender years cannot be an object of suspicion to
you, and as one whose ancestors you have already known and cherished,
I claim from you your friendship on the same compacts and conditions
on which your renowned predecessors granted it to my lord and
grandfather of Divine memory[503]. It will be to me something better
than dominion to have the friendship of so excellent and so mighty a
ruler. My ambassadors (A and B) will open the purport of their
commission more fully to your Serenity.'

[Footnote 501: The text is evidently corrupt here: 'Genitor meus
desiderio quoque concordiae factus est per arma filius, quia unis
nobis pene videbatur aequaevus.' The suggested reading, 'quamvis
vobis,' does not entirely remove the difficulty.]

[Footnote 502: That is, of course, not from Justin himself but from
his predecess