'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.]
[9.] King Theodoric to the Possessores, Defensores, and Curiales[282] dwelling at Aestunae[283].
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 unhonoured. If it be so, send these slabs of marble[285] and columns[286] by all means to Ravenna, that they may be again made beautiful and take their place in a building there.'
[10.] King Theodoric to the Illustrious Festus, Patrician.
The same subject.
A similar order, for the transport of marbles from the Pincian Hill to Ravenna, by Catabulenses[287]. 'We have ordered a "subvectus" [assistance from the public postal-service?], that the labourers may set to work at once.'