aped by the supposed impossibility of her living. Now therefore, if
you acknowledge the fact to be so, you are to consult your own honour
by inflicting summary punishment as a husband on your wife, that we
may not hear of this complaint again[401]. But if you deny the fact,
you are to bring your said wife to our Comitatus and there prove her
innocence.'

[Footnote 400: Into Gaul; see next letter.]

[Footnote 401: 'Atque ideo decretis te praesentibus admonemus, ut si
factum evidenter agnoscis, delatam querimoniam, pudori tuo consulens,
_maritali districtione redarguas_; quatenus ex eadem causa ad nos
querela justa non redeat.']

33. KING THEODORIC TO DUKE WILITANCH.

[Containing the explanation of Procula's violence to Regina].

[Sidenote: Adulterous connection between Brandila and the wife of
Patzenes.]

'Patzenes brings before us a most serious complaint: that during his
absence in the Gaulish campaign, Brandila dared to form an adulterous
connection with his wife Regina, and to go through the form of
marriage with her.

'Whose honour will be safe if advantage is thus to be taken with
impunity of the absense of a brave defender of his country? Alas for
the immodesty of women! They might learn virtue even from the chaste
example of the cooing turtle-dove, who when once deprived by
misfortune of her mate, never pairs again with another.

'Let your Sublimity compel the parties accused to come before you for
examination, and if the charge be true, if these shameless ones were
speculating on the soldier of the Republic not returning from the
wars, if they were hoping, as they must have hoped, for general
collapse and ruin in order to hide their shame, then proceed against
them as our laws against adulterers dictate[402], and thus vindicate
the rights of all husbands.'

[Footnote 402: 'Et rerum veritate discussa _sicut jura nostra
praecipiunt_, in adulteros maritorum favore resecetur.']

[If these laws were, as is probable, those contained in the _Edictum
Theodorici_, the punishment for both the guilty parties was death, Sec.
38, 39.]

34. KING THEODORIC TO ABUNDANTIUS, PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT.

[Sidenote: Endless evasions of Frontosus. The nature of the
chameleon.]

'Frontosus, acting worthily of his name [the shameless-browed one],
confessed to having embezzled a large sum of public money, but
promised that, if a sufficient interval were allowed him, he would
repay it. Times without number has this interv