9]. In a dispute let laws decide, not the strong arm.
Why should men seek by choice violent remedies, when they know that
the Courts of Justice are open to them? It is for this cause that we
pay the Judges their salaries, for this that we maintain such large
official staffs with all their privileges, that we may not allow
anything to grow up among you which may tend towards hatred. Since you
see that one lordship (imperium) is over you, let there be also one
desire in your hearts, to live in harmony.

[Footnote 467: 'Qui leges moderata voluntate dilexerit.' To translate
this literally might give a wrong idea, because with us 'to love the
law' means to be litigious.]

[Footnote 468: 'Non amamus aliquid incivile.']

[Footnote 469: 'Violentos nostra pietas execratur.']

'Let both nations hear what we have at heart. You [oh Goths!] have the
Romans as neighbours to your lands: even so let them be joined to you
in affection. You too, oh Romans! ought dearly to love the Goths, who
in peace swell the numbers of your people and in war defend the whole
Republic[470]. It is fitting therefore that you obey the Judge whom we
have appointed for you, that you may by all means accomplish all that
he may ordain for the preservation of the laws; and thus you will be
found to have promoted your own interests while obeying our command.'

[Footnote 470: 'Vos autem, Romani, magno studio Gothos diligere
debetis, qui et in pace numerosos vobis populos faciunt, et universam
Rempublicam per bella defendunt.']

4. FORMULA OF THE DUKE OF RAETIA.

[Sidenote: Ducatus Raetiarum.]

'Although promotion among the _Spectabiles_ goes solely by seniority,
it is impossible to deny that those who are employed in the border
Provinces have a more arduous, and therefore in a sense more
honourable, office than those who command in the peaceful districts of
Italy. The former have to deal with war, the latter only with the
repression of crime. The former hear the trumpet's clang, the latter
the voice of the crier.

'The Provinces of Raetia are the bars and bolts of Italy. Wild and
cruel nations ramp outside of them, and they, like nets, whence their
name[471], catch the Barbarian in their toils and hold him there till
the hurled arrow can chastise his mad presumption.

[Footnote 471: Raetia, from _rete_, a net.]

'Receive then for this Indiction the _Ducatus Raetiarum_. Let your
soldiers live on friendly terms with the Provincials, avoiding all
law