maturis
aetatibus pervenitur.']

[Footnote 280: 'Et quot edidit familiae juvenes, tot reddidit curiae
consulares.']

7. KING THEODORIC TO THE VENERABLE JANUARIUS, BISHOP OF SALONA.

[Sidenote: Extortion by the Bishop of Salona.]

'The lamentable petition of John says that you have taken sixty tuns
of oil from him, and never paid him for them. It is especially
important that preachers of righteousness should be righteous
themselves. We cannot suppose that God is ignorant whence come the
offerings which we make before Him [and He must therefore hate robbery
for a burnt offering]. Pray enquire into this matter, and if the
complaint be well founded remedy it promptly. You who preach to us our
duty in great things should not be caught tripping in little ones.'

8. KING THEODORIC TO VENANTIUS, SENATOR, CORRECTOR OF LUCANIA AND
BRUTTII.

[Sidenote: Remissness of Venantius in collection of public revenue.]

[Venantius, son of Liberius, was, with many high commendations, made
Comes Domesticorum in Letters ii. 15 and 16. See further as to his
fall in iii. 36, also iii. 46.]

'Remissness in the collection of the public taxes is a great fault,
and no kindness in the end to the taxpayer. For want of a timely
caution you probably have to end by selling him up.

'The Count of Sacred Largesses tells us that you were long ago
commissioned to get in the _Bina_ and _Terna_ [and have not done so].
Be quick about it, that the collection may be completed according to
the registers of the Treasury. If you are not quick, and the Treasury
suffers loss, you will have to make it good out of your private
property. You have not shown proper respect to our orders, nor a due
sense of the obligation of your own promise.'

[These 'Bina' and 'Terna' are a mystery; but Dahn[281] thinks they are
not a specially Gothic tax, but an inheritance from the fiscal
administration of Rome, having probably nothing to do with the
Tertiae.]

[Footnote 281: iii. 145, _n._ 4.]

9. KING THEODORIC TO THE POSSESSORES, DEFENSORES, AND CURIALES[282]
DWELLING AT AESTUNAE[283].

[Footnote 282: Note these three classes; as also in ii. 17.]

[Footnote 283: I have not been able to identify this place.]

[Sidenote: Marbles for Ravenna.]

'We wish to build new edifices without despoiling the old[284]. But we
are informed that in your municipality there are blocks of masonry and
columns formerly belonging to some building now lying absolutely
useless and