tions of the
Cancelli than when you open the prison doors to those who have been
unjustly confined.'

2. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO ALL THE JUDGES OF THE PROVINCES
(A.D. 534-535).

[Sidenote: General instructions to the Provincial Governors.]

'God be thanked, the Provincials have attended to all my admonitions,
and I have kept all my promises to them. You, as Judges, have
admirably copied my own freedom from corruption, and I can only desire
that you will go on as you have begun.

'Let the peasant pay cheerfully his share of the public taxes, and I
on my part will guarantee him the administration of justice in the
courts[799].

[Footnote 799: 'Possessor mihi publicas pecunias libens inferat: ego
illi in conventus justitiae tributa persolvam.']

'It was evidently the intention of the legislators that you should be
imitators of our dignity, since they have given you almost the same
jurisdiction in the Provinces as ourselves.

'What avails the reputation of being a rich man? It confers no glory.
But to be known as a just man wins the praise of all. Nothing mean or
avaricious is becoming in a Judge. All his faults are made more
conspicuous by his elevation. Better were it to be absolutely unknown,
than to be marked out for the scorn of all men. Let us keep our own
brews clear from shame; then can we rebuke the sins of others. A
terrible leveller is iniquity: it makes the Judge himself feel like
the culprit who is tried before him. All these considerations,
according to my custom, I bring before you in this my yearly address,
since it is impossible ever to have too much of a good thing[800].

[Footnote 800:'Haec nos annuo sermone convenit loqui: quia bonarum
rerum nulla satietas est.']

'Now, to proceed to business. Do you and your official staff impress
upon all the cultivators of the soil the absolute necessity of their
paying their land-tax[801] for this thirteenth Indiction[802] at the
appointed time. Let there be no pressing them to pay before the time,
and no venal connivance at their postponement of payment after the
time. What kindness is there in delay? The money must be paid, sooner
or later.

[Footnote 801: 'Trina Illatio.']

[Footnote 802: Sept. 1, 534, to Sept. 1, 535.]

'Prepare also a full and faithful statement of the expenditure for
every four months[803], and address it to our bureaux[804], that there
may be perfect clearness in the public accounts.

[Footnote 803: 'Expensarum fid