d myself are all guilty of the same
crime. If we are innocent, Albinus is equally entitled to the protection
of the laws." These laws might not have punished the simple and barren
wish of an unattainable blessing; but they would have shown less
indulgence to the rash confession of Boethius, that, had he known of a
conspiracy, the tyrant never should. [94] The advocate of Albinus was
soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of his client; their
signature (which they denied as a forgery) was affixed to the original
address, inviting the emperor to deliver Italy from the Goths; and three
witnesses of honorable rank, perhaps of infamous reputation, attested
the treasonable designs of the Roman patrician. [95] Yet his innocence
must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of
justification, and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the
senate, at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence of
confiscation and death against the most illustrious of its members. At
the command of the Barbarians, the occult science of a philosopher was
stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and magic. [96] A devout and
dutiful attachment to the senate was condemned as criminal by the
trembling voices of the senators themselves; and their ingratitude
deserved the wish or prediction of Boethius, that, after him, none
should be found guilty of the same offence. [97]

[Footnote 94: Si ego scissem tu nescisses. Beothius adopts this answer
(l. i. pros. 4, p. 53) of Julius Canus, whose philosophic death is
described by Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 14.)]

[Footnote 95: The characters of his two delators, Basilius (Var. ii. 10,
11, iv. 22) and Opilio, (v. 41, viii. 16,) are illustrated, not much
to their honor, in the Epistles of Cassiodorus, which likewise mention
Decoratus, (v. 31,) the worthless colleague of Beothius, (l. iii. pros.
4, p. 193.)]

[Footnote 96: A severe inquiry was instituted into the crime of magic,
(Var. iv 22, 23, ix. 18;) and it was believed that many necromancers had
escaped by making their jailers mad: for mad I should read drunk.]

[Footnote 97: Boethius had composed his own Apology, (p. 53,) perhaps
more interesting than his Consolation. We must be content with the
general view of his honors, principles, persecution, &c., (l. i. pros.
4, p. 42--62,) which may be compared with the short and weighty words of
the Valesian Fragment, (p. 723.) An anonymous writer (Sin