reparans, pauperibus ablata restituens.']

'You have those advantages of mental training which were denied to
your father. Education lifts an obscure man on to a level with nobles,
but also adorns him who is of noble birth. You have moreover been
chosen as son-in-law by a man of elevated character, whose choice is
in itself a mark of your high merit. You are coming young to
office[587]; but, with such a man's approbation, you cannot be said to
be untried.

[Footnote 587: 'Licet primaevus venias ad honorem.']

'We therefore confer upon you for this Indiction the dignity of
Praefect of the City. The eyes of the world are upon you. The Senate,
that illustrious and critical body, the youngest members of which are
called _Patres_, will listen to your words. See that you say nothing
which can displease those wise men, whose praise, though hard to win,
will be most sweet to your ears. Diligently help the oppressed. Hand
on to your posterity the renown which you have received from your
ancestors.'

8. KING ATHALARIC TO COUNT OSUIN (OR OSUM), VIR ILLUSTRIS[588].

[Footnote 588: Cf. iii. 26 and iv. 9. In the former letter he is
called Osun.]

[Sidenote: Osuin made Governor of Dalmatia and Savia.]

'We reward our faithful servants with high honours, hoping thereby to
quicken the slothful into emulation, when they ask themselves why,
under such an impartial rule, they too do not receive promotion.

'We therefore again entrust to your Illustrious Greatness the
Provinces of Dalmatia and S(u)avia. We need not hold up to you the
examples of others. You have only to imitate yourself, and to confer
now again in your old age the same blessings on those Provinces which,
as a younger man, you bestowed on them under our grandfather.'

9. KING ATHALARIC TO ALL THE GOTHS AND ROMANS (IN DALMATIA AND SAVIA).

[Sidenote: The same subject.]

'We send back to you the Illustrious Count Osuin, whose valour and
justice you already know, to ward off from you the fear of foreign
nations, and to keep you from unjust demands. With him comes the
Illustrious Severinus[589], that with one heart and one mind, like the
various reeds of an organ, they may utter their praiseworthy precepts.

[Footnote 589: We are not told in what capacity Severinus came.
Probably it was on account of Osuin's age that Severinus was
associated with him.]

[Sidenote: Remission of Augmentum.]

'As an act of grace on the commencement of our reign, we direct the