[849] Dust-money.

[850] 'Canonicario.'

[851] 'Dum res nobis etiam asperas captatâ semper opinione conciliat.' Apparently a veiled allusion to the disasters of the Goths.

[852] 'Nec iterum remissione lentatâ quisquam se dicat esse praeteritum.'

[853] This mention of the just weight of course suits a tax paid in kind, not in money.

[854] 'Expensarum quoque fidelem notitiam per quaternos menses ad scrinia nostra solemniter destinabis.'

[855] 'Illum atque illum sedis nostrae milites, tibi officioque tuo periculorum suorum memores praecipimus imminere.'

[856] Collector of the Siliquaticum, or tax of one twenty-fourth on sales. See [ii. 30], [iii. 35], [iv. 19].

[857] No doubt the walls of Ravenna. I cannot identify the Mons Caprarius. The name Caprera is a common one in Italy.

[858] One may conjecture that this letter was written in 535, when war with the Empire was imminent, but before it was actually declared.