When he became Quaestor he distinguished himself by his excellent qualities. 'He stood beside us, under the light of our Genius, bold but reverent; silent at the right time, fluent when there was need of fluency. He kept our secrets as if he had forgotten them; he remembered every detail of our orders as if he had written them down. Thus was he ever an eminent lightener of our labours[379].' [Footnote 379: Decoratus is called by Boethius, who was his colleague in some office, 'a wretched buffoon and informer' (nequissimus scurra et delator. Cons. Phil. iii. 4). But Ennodius addresses him in friendly and cordial language (Epist. iv. 17). His epitaph, which mentions his Spoletan origin, is of course laudatory: 'Nam fessis tribuit requiem, miseros que levavit, Justitiae cultor, largus et hospes erat.' (Quoted in the notes to Ennodius in Migne's Patrologia.)] The past career of the younger brother, Honoratus, who has been advocate at Spoleto, and has had to contend with the corrupt tendencies of Provincial judges, full of their little importance, and removed from the wholesome control which the opinion of the Senate exercised upon them at Rome, is then sketched; and the hope is expressed that, in the words of the Virgilian quotation[380], this bough upon the family tree will be found as goodly as that which it has untimely lost. [Footnote 380: 'Primo avulso non deficit alter' (Aen. vi. 143).] [Sidenote: Duties of the Quaestorship.] The letter to the Senate has an interesting passage on the duties and responsibilities of the Quaestor. 'It is only men whom we consider to be of the highest learning that we raise to the dignity of the Quaestorship, such men as are fitted to be interpreters of the laws and sharers of our counsels. This is an honour which neither riches nor high birth by itself can procure, only learning joined with prudence. In granting all other dignities we confer favours, but from the holder of this we ever receive them. He is favoured to have a share in our anxieties; he enters in by the door of our thoughts; he is intimately acquainted with the breast in which the cares of the whole State are weighed. Think what judgment you ought to form of a man who is partaker of such a confidence. From him we require skill in the laws; to him flow together all the prayers of all suitors, and (a thing more precious than any treasure) to him is committed our own reputation for _civilitas_. Under a just Quaestor the mind of an innocent man is at rest: only the wicked become anxious as to the success of their evil designs; and thus the bad lose their hope of plunder, while more earnestness is shown in the practice of virtue. It is his to safeguard the just rights of all men: temperate in expenditure, lavish in his zeal for justice, incapable of deception, prompt in succour. He serves that Sovereign mind before which all bow: through his lips must he speak who has not an equal in the land.' 5. KING THEODORIC TO THE SAJO MANNILA.