Count of the Patrimony to remit to you all the super-assessment
(augmentum) which was fixed for your Province at the fourth
Indiction[590].

[Footnote 590: 'Per quartam Indictionem quod a nobis augmenti nomine
quaerebatur illustrem virum Comitem Patrimonii nostri nunc jussimus
removere.' As the fourth Indiction began Sept. 525, in the lifetime of
Theodoric, it is clear that that date belongs to the imposition, not
to the removal of the 'augmentum.']

'We also grant that when the aforesaid person [Severinus] returns to
our presence, you may send suitable men with him to inform us of your
financial position, that we may, by readjustment of the taxes, lighten
your load if it be still too heavy. Nothing consolidates the Republic
so much as the uninjured powers of the taxpayer.'

10. KING ATHALARIC TO ALL THE PROVINCIALS OF THE CITY OF SYRACUSE.

[Sidenote: Remission of Augmentum to Syracusans.]

'Lately we announced to you our accession: now we wish to confer upon
you a benefit in the matter of taxes. For we look on that only as our
revenue which the cultivator pays cheerfully. Our grandfather,
considering the great increase in wealth and population which his long
and peaceful reign had brought with it, thought it prudent to increase
the taxes to be paid by the Province of Sicily[591]. He was quite
right in doing this, but he thereby prepared for us, his young
successor, an opportunity of conferring an unexpected favour, for we
hereby remit to you all the augmentum which was assessed upon you at
the fourth Indiction. And not only so, but all that you have already
paid under this head for the fifth Indiction (526-7) we direct the
tax-collectors to carry to your credit on account[592].

[Footnote 591: 'Avus noster de suis beneficiis magna praesumens (quia
longa quies et culturam agris praestitit et populos ampliavit) intra
Siciliam provinciam sub consueta prudentiae suae moderatione censum
statuit subflagitari ut vobis cresceret devotio, quibus se facultas
extenderat.']

[Footnote 592: This most be the meaning of 'quicquid a discursoribus
novi census per quintam Indictionem probatur affixum, ad vestram eos
fecimus deferre notitiam.']

'Besides this, if anyone have to complain of oppression on the part of
the Governors of the Province, let him seek at once a remedy from our
Piety. Often did our grandfather of glorious memory grieve over the
slowness of the Governors to obey their letters of recall, feeling
sure tha