[Footnote 572: 'Praesto sunt pueri ac puellae, diverso sexu atque aetate conspicuo, quos non facit captivitas esse sub pretio sed libertas: hos merito parentes vendunt, quoniam de ipsa famulatione proficiunt. Dubium quippe non est servos posse meliorari qui de labore agrorum ad urbana servitia transferuntur.' With almost any writer but Cassiodorus this would prove that in the Sixth Century free Italians were selling their children into actual slavery. But I doubt whether he really means more than that the children of the country people were for hire as domestic servants in the cities. If so, the scene is not unlike our own 'statute fairs' or 'hirings' in the north of England. It appears from Sec. 94 of the Edictum Theodorici that parents could sell their children, but that the latter did not lose their _status ingenuus_. Must they then claim it on coming of age? 'Parentes qui cogente necessitate filios suos alimentorum gratia vendiderint ingenuitati eorum non praejudicant. _Homo enim liber pretio nullo aestimatur._' Cf. also Sec. 95: 'Operas enim tantum parentes filiorum quos in potestate habuerint, locare possunt.'] 'What can I say of the bright and many-coloured garments? what of the sleek and well-fed cattle offered at such a price as to tempt any purchaser? 'The place itself is situated in a wide and pleasant plain, a suburb of the ancient city of Cosilinum, and has received the name of Marcilianum from the founder of these sacred springs[573]. [Footnote 573: Marcilianum is now Sala, in the valley of the Calore (Tanager). Padula is thought by some to mark the site of Cosilinum. The Island of Leucosia, now Licosa, a few miles from Paestum, evidently does not represent the Leucothea of this letter.] 'And this is in truth a marvellous fountain, full and fresh, and of such transparent clearness that when you look through it you think you are looking through air alone. Choice fishes swim about in the pool, perfectly tame, because if anyone presumes to capture them he soon feels the Divine vengeance. On the morning which precedes the holy night [of St. Cyprian], as soon as the Priest begins to utter the baptismal prayer, the water begins to rise above its accustomed height. Generally it covers but five steps of the well, but the brute element, as if preparing itself for miracles, begins to swell, and at last covers two steps more, never reached at any other time of the year. Truly a stupendous miracle, that streams of water should thus stand still or increase at the sound of the human voice, as if the fountain itself desired to listen to the sermon. 'Thus hath Lucania a river Jordan of her own. Wherefore, both for religion's sake and for the profit of the people, it behoves that good order should be kept among the frequenters of the fair, since in the judgment of all, that man must be deemed a villain who would sully the joys of such happy days.' BOOK IX. CONTAINING TWENTY-FIVE LETTERS, ALL WRITTEN IN THE NAME OF ATHALARIC THE KING.