s invenerunt.']

[Footnote 822: 'Chlamydes non pavescant, qui arma timuerunt.']

8. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO THE CONSULARIS OF THE PROVINCE OF
LIGURIA.

[Sidenote: Permission to pay taxes direct to Royal Treasury.]

'It is a new and delightful kind of profit to be able to grant the
request of a petitioner without feeling any loss oneself. The present
suitor, complaining that he is vexed by the exactions of the
tax-gatherer on account of certain farms mentioned in the subjoined
letter, offers to bring the amount due from them himself to our
Treasurers[823]. We are willing to grant this request, on condition
that the Fiscus does not suffer thereby; and therefore desire your
Respectability to warn all _Curiales_, _Compulsores_, and all other
persons concerned, to remove for this Indiction every kind of legal
process from the before-mentioned properties; the condition of this
immunity being that he shall, before the kalends of such and such a
month produce the receipts[824] of the _Arcarius_, showing that he has
discharged his debt to the State. Otherwise the debt must be exacted
by ordinary process. But it is delightful to us whenever the tax is
paid without calling in the aid of the _Compulsor_. Would that the
peasant would always thus freely anticipate the needs of the
Treasury!'

[Footnote 823: 'Arcarii.']

[Footnote 824: 'Apochae.']

9. SENATOR, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT, TO PASCHASIUS, PRAEFECT OF THE
CORN-DISTRIBUTIONS[825].

[Footnote 825: 'Praefectus Annonae.']

[Sidenote: African claims to succeed to estate of an intestate
countryman.]

[To make this letter intelligible we must presuppose a custom,
certainly a very extraordinary one, by which on the death of an
African without heirs, any other African in Italy was allowed to claim
the inheritance. By 'African,' no doubt, we must understand one of the
indigenous inhabitants of Africa, perhaps a man of Negro race. The
custom certainly cannot have applied to African Provincials of Roman
descent. It was perhaps based on some old tribal notions of joint
possession and mutual inheritance.]

'It is a work of wondrous kindness to oblige a foreign race with
public benefits, and not only to invite blood relations to enjoy the
advantages of property, but to permit even strangers to share them.
This kind of heirship is independent of the ties of kindred,
independent of succession from parents, and requires nothing else
save only power to utter the speech