], seeing that my
religion and thine thus flourish under their rule?

[Footnote 761: 'Pio Principi.']

'"My Senate grows in honour and is incessantly increasing in wealth.
Do not dissipate in quarrels what thou oughtest rather to defend with
the sword. I have had many Kings; but none so trained in letters as
this one. I have had foreseeing statesmen, but none so powerful in
learning and religion. I love the Amal, bred up as he has been at my
knees, a strong man, one who has been formed by my conversation, dear
to the Romans by his prudence, venerable to the nations by his valour.
Join rather thy prayers to his; share with him thy counsels: so that
any prosperity which I may earn may redound to thy glory. Do not woo
me in the only fashion in which I may not be won. Thine am I already
in love, if thou sendest none of thy soldiers to lacerate my limbs.
For if Africa has deserved through thee to recover freedom, it were
hard that I should from the same hand lose that freedom which I have
ever possessed. Control the emotions of anger, oh illustrious
conqueror! The claims urged upon thee by the general voice of the
people ought to outweigh the offence which the ingratitude of any
private individual may have occasioned to thy heart."

'Thus Rome speaks while, through her Senators, she makes supplications
to you. And if that be not enough, let the sacred petition of the
blessed Apostles Peter and Paul be also taken into your account. For
surely they, who are proved to have so often defended the peace of
Rome from her enemies, deserve that your Sovereignty should yield
everything to their merits. The venerable man, our most pious King's
ambassador to your Clemency, will further set forth our prayers.'

[It is not easy to fix the exact occasion on which this petition was
likely to be sent from the Senate to the Emperor. The allusion to the
conquest of Africa shows that it was after the Vandal War, which ended
in March, 534. On the other hand, the language put into the mouth of
the Senate implies that the Imperial troops had not yet landed in
Italy or Sicily, and the petition is therefore of an earlier date than
the summer of 535. During the whole of these fourteen months the
relations between Empire and Kingdom were more or less strained, the
causes of complaint on the part of Constantinople beginning with the
occupation of Lilybaeum and ending with the murder of Amalasuentha. I
fear that the nattering portrait drawn of 'the