[This letter is evidently addressed to Goths, and Quidila the _Prior_, who is set over them, is also a Goth. We can only conjecture what the office of Prior was: probably to some extent it involved civil as well as military authority. The conjecture of Dahn ('Koenige der Germanen' iv. 173) that it corresponds to the Gothic _Hundafath_ (Centenarius), seems to me extremely probable. The title of the letter is curious. It is addressed 'Universis Reatinis et Nursinis.' Are we then to suppose that strong military colonies of Goths had been settled in these places, the Roman inhabitants having been extruded? The fact that St. Benedict was born in Nursia, some fifty-seven years before the writing of this letter, gives an additional interest to this question.] 27. KING ATHALARIC TO DUMERIT THE SAJO, AND TO FLORENTINUS, A ZEALOUS OFFICER OF THE COURT[554]. [Footnote 554: 'Florentino viro devoto Comitiaco.'] [Sidenote: Robbery in the district of Faenza to be suppressed.] 'Justice must be shown upon the wicked. Different diseases require different remedies. 'Let your Devotion speed instantly through the territory of Faventia, and if you find any persons, either Goths or Romans, concerned in the plunder of the possessors, punish them severely. How much better it would be for those misguided persons to live according to our will, and earn the reward of pleasing us.' [The last sentence is obscure, and perhaps the text is corrupt.] 28. KING ATHALARIC TO CUNIGAST, VIR ILLUSTRIS. [No doubt the same as the Conigast attacked by Boethius in the 'Philosophiae Consolatio' i. 4[555].] [Footnote 555: 'Quoticus ego Conigastum in inbecillis cujusque fortunas impetum facientem obvius excepi!'] [Sidenote: Possessores (or Coloni?) forced to become slaves.] 'Our Serenity has been moved by the grievous petition of Constantius and Venerius, who complain that Tanca [probably a Goth] has wrested from them the farm which is called Fabricula, which belonged to them in their own right, together with the stock upon it[556], and has compelled them, in order to prevent similar forcible demands upon their property in future, to allow the worst lot of all--the condition of slavery--to be imposed upon them, who are really free[557]. [Footnote 556: 'Cum suo peculio.' If they were not slaves they could not have _peculium_ in the technical sense. I therefore understand 'peculio' to be simply equivalent to _cattle_, a sense which is confirmed by 'Calabri peculiosi' in Letter 33.] [Footnote 557: 'Adjicientes ne rerum suarum repetitionibus imminerent [? imminuerent] liberis sibi conditionem ultimae servitutis imponi.' Cf. Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei v. 8, 9, for a description of similar occurrences in Gaul.]