'It has been wisely decided by Antiquity that minors cannot make a binding contract, for they are naturally the prey of every sharper. You allege that your patronus [Albinus] is under age, that he is heaping up expenses instead of property, and that his raw boyhood does not know what is really for his benefit. If this be correct, and be legally proved, he is entitled to a restitutio in integrum'

[For the restitutio in integrum, see Cod. Theod. ii. 16. 1, and vi. 4. 16. Nothing seems to be expressly said in this letter about the appointment of a Curator.]

[36.] King Theodoric to Faustus, Praetorian Praefect. a.d. 509-510.

Remission of taxes for Provincials of Cottian Alps.

'A wise ruler will always lessen the weight of taxation when his subjects are weighed down by temporary poverty. Therefore let your Magnificence remit to the Provincials of the Cottian Alps the as publicum for this year [the third Indiction], in consideration of their losses by the passage of our army. [The army of Ibbas, on its march in [408] to fight Clovis, after the fall of the Visigothic Monarchy.] True, that army went forth with shouts of concord to liberate Gaul. But so a river bursting forth may irrigate and fertilise a whole country, and yet destroy the increase of that particular channel in which its waters run.

'We have earned new subjects by that campaign: we do not wish them to suffer loss by it. Our own heart whispers to us the request which the subjects dare not utter to their Prince.'

[37.] King Theodoric to the Illustrious Woman Theodagunda.

Theodagunda is admonished to do justice to Renatus.

Warns Theodagunda [apparently a member of the royal family and governing some Province; but what place could she hold in the Roman official hierarchy?], that she must emulate the virtue of her ancestors and show prompt obedience to the royal commands. 'The lamentable petition of Renatus states that, after judgment given in his favour by the King's Court, he is still harassed by the litigation (not in the way of regular appeal) of Inquilina, who appears to be not so much desirous of victory as anxious to ruin his adversary.' [Notwithstanding the form of the name I think Inquilina is male, not female.]

'You must see that this is put right at once.'