Cassiodorus argues that as the 'Sors nascendi' prevented the Curialis from rising to the higher honours of the State, it certainly ought also to prevent him from sinking into slavery[257]. 'Therefore we advise you to look well to your facts, and see whether these men are not justly claimed as Curials, in which case the Church should give them up before the matter comes to trial. It does not look well for the Bishop, who should be known as a lover of justice, to be publicly vanquished in a suit of this kind.'
[Did the alleged Curials, in such a case, wish to have their curiality or their quasi-ecclesiastical character established? Who can say?]
[19.] [ King Theodoric to all the Goths and Romans, and those who keep the Harbours and Mountain-Fortresses (Clusuras).]
Domestic treachery and murder.
'We hate all crime, but domestic bloodshed and treachery most of all. Therefore we command you to act with the utmost severity of the law against the servants of Stephanus, who have killed their master and left him unburied. They might have learned pity even from birds. Even the vulture, who lives on the corpses of other creatures, protects little birds from the attacks of the hawk. Yet men are found cruel enough to slay him who has fed them. To the gallows with them! Let him become the food of the pious vulture, who has cruelly contrived the death of his provider. That is the fitting sepulchre for the man who has left his lord unburied.'
[20.] King Theodoric to the Sajo [Unigilis] (or Wiligis).
Provision-ships to follow movements of Theodoric's Court.
'Let any provision-ships [sulcatoriæ?] which may be now lying at Ravenna be ordered round to Liguria (which in ordinary times supplies the needs of Ravenna herself).
'Our presence and that of our Court (Comitatus) attracts many spectators and petitioners to those parts, for whose maintenance an extra effort must be made.' [See Dahn, 'Könige der Germanen' iii. 282.]