kes a commercial
transaction which is forced upon the unwilling.

[Footnote 602: This seems a possible interpretation of a dark
sentence: 'Navigiis vecta commercia te suggerunt occupare, et ambitu
cupiditatis exosae solum antiqua pretia definire, quod non creditur a
suspicione longinquum etiam si non sit actione vicinum.']

[Footnote 603: Is this a kind of compurgation which is here proposed?]

'Wherefore we have thought it proper to warn your Sublimity by these
presents, since we do not like those whom we love to be guilty of
excess, nor to hear evil reports of those who are charged with
reforming the morals of others.'

[This is an important letter, especially when taken in connection with
the words of Totila (Procopius, 'De Bello Gotthico' iii. 16), as to
the exceptional indulgence with which the Gothic Kings had treated
Sicily, 'leaving, at the request of the inhabitants, very few soldiers
in the island, that there might be no distaste to their freedom or to
their general prosperity.'

Gildias is evidently a Goth, and though a _Vir Spectabilis_ and
holding a Roman office--the Comitiva Syracusanae Civitatis--still it
is essentially a military office, and he has no business to divert
causes from the Judices Ordinarii to his tribunal, though probably a
Roman Comes might often do this without serious blame. But by his
doing so, the general principle, that in purely Roman causes a Goth is
not to interfere, seems to be infringed, and therefore he receives
this sharp reprimand to prevent his doing it again.]

15. KING ATHALARIC TO POPE JOHN II (532).

[Sidenote: Against Simony at Papal elections.]

'The Defensor of the Roman Church hath informed us in his tearful
petition that lately, when a President was sought for the Papal chair,
so much were the usual largesses to the poor augmented by the promises
which had been extorted from the candidate, that, shameful to say,
even the sacred vessels were exposed to sale in order to provide the
necessary money[604].

[Footnote 604: 'Quosdam nefaria machinatione necessitatem temporis
aucupatos, ita facultates pauperum extortis promissionibus ingravasse,
ut quod dictu nefas est, etiam sacra vasa emptioni publicae viderentur
exposita.']

'Therefore let your Holiness know that by this present decree, which
relates also to all the Patriarchs and Metropolitan Churches [the five
Metropolitan Churches in Rome, and such Sees as Milan, Aquileia,
Ravenna], we confirm the wise l