now with mildness, patience, and moderation,
that you may show yourself worthy of your affinity with us. Your
ancestors have hitherto been praised, but they were never dignified
with such an alliance. Your nobility has now reached a point beyond
which it can climb no further. All that you do henceforward of a
praiseworthy kind will but have the effect of rendering you more
worthy of the matrimonial alliance which you have already
achieved[648].'

[Footnote 647: 535 to 536.]

[Footnote 648: 'Laudati sunt hactenus parentes tui, sed tanta non sunt
conjunctione decorati. Nobilitas tua non est ultra quod crescat.
Quicquid praeconialiter egeris, proprio matrimonio dignissimus
aestimaris.']

12. KING THEODAHAD TO THE SENATE OF THE CITY OF ROME.

[Sidenote: The same subject.]

'We do not think that the fact of a man's having received the
Consulship early in life should shut him out from holding office of
lower rank in his maturer years[649]. As the Tiber receives the water
of smaller rivers which merge their names in his, so a man of Consular
rank can serve the State in less conspicuous ways, yet still be
Consular. Therefore we have thought fit to bestow on the Illustrious
and Magnificent Patrician Maximus, the Primiceriatus which is also
called Domesticatus, from this fourteenth Indiction, that the
lowliness of the honour may be raised by the merit of the wearer. He
is an Anicius, sprung from a family renowned throughout the whole
world. He is also honoured with the affinity of our own illustrious
race. Receive him, welcome him, rejoice at these nuptials, which bind
me closer to you, now that you have in your ranks one whom I can truly
call a relation.'

[Footnote 649: Flavius Anicius Maximus was Consul in 523.]

13. KING THEODAHAD TO THE SENATE OF THE CITY OF ROME.

[This letter may probably be referred to the Spring or Summer of 535.
Theodahad, soon after the deposition or death of Amalasuentha, has
apparently invited the Senate to Ravenna, an invitation which they
have respectfully declined. He chides their suspicions of him.]

[Sidenote: Summons to Ravenna. Suspicions of the Senators.]

'After we had dismissed the venerable Bishops who brought your
message, without taking exception to your requests, though there were
some things blameworthy among them, we received tidings that the City
of Rome was agitated by certain foolish anxieties, from which real
evil would grow unless the suspicion which caused them