Letter 2008: VARIAE, BOOK 2, LETTER 8

King Theoderic to Severus, the venerable man and bishop. [1] Who is better chosen for the offices of equity than one who is honored with the priesthood, one who through love of justice does not know how to judge with personal bias, and who, cherishing all alike in their common station, leaves no opening for ill-will? Accordingly, considering an action suited to your merits, we make known that we have dispatched through Montanarius fifteen hundred solidi to your holiness, which you are to distribute among the provincials according as you shall have ascertained that each has, in the present year, suffered loss through the passage of our army, an estimate of the injury having been made, so that no one whom his own losses have burdened may be rendered a stranger to our munificence. For we do not wish to bestow in confusion what ought properly to be distributed by careful reckoning: lest what we are agreed to have necessarily sent to the afflicted be granted superfluously to those who are unharmed.

VIII. SEVERO VIRO VENERABILI EPISCOPO THEODERICUS REX. [1] Quis melius ad aequitatis iura deligitur quam qui sacerdotio decoratur, qui amore iustitiae personaliter nesciat iudicare et diligens cunctos in commune locum non relinquat invidiae? proinde aptam considerantes vestris meritis actionem significamus nos per Montanarium sanctitati vestrae mille quingentos solidos destinasse, quos provincialibus, prout quemque praesenti anno exercitu nostro transeunte dispendium pertulisse cognoveris, habita laesionis aestimatione distribuas, ut nullus a nostra munificentia reddatur alienus, quem sua damna gravaverunt. nolumus enim sub confusione largiri, quod decet sub ratione distribui: ne quod nos necessarie transmisisse constat afflictis, superfluo tribuatur illaesis.