[This very long letter is one of great importance, but also of great difficulty.]
40. KING THEODORIC TO CYPRIAN, COUNT OF THE SACRED LARGESSES.
[This Cyprian is the accuser of Albinus and Boethius.]
41. KING THEODORIC TO THE SENATE OF THE CITY OF ROME.
[On Cyprian's appointment to the above office, 524.]
[Sidenote: Promotion of Cyprian to the Comitiva Sacrarum Largitionum.]
The usual pair of letters setting forth the merits of the new official. The Senate is congratulated on the fact that the King never presents to a place in that body a mere tyro in official life, but always himself first tests the servants of the State, and rewards with a place in the Senate only those who have shown themselves worthy of it.
Cyprian is the son of a man of merit, Opilio, who in the times of the State's ill-fortune was chosen to a place in the royal household[417]. He was not able, owing to the wretchedness of the times, to do much for his son. The difference between the fortunes of father and son is the measure of the happy change introduced by the rule of Theodoric.
[Footnote 417: 'Vir quidem abjectis temporibus ad excubias tamen Palatinas electus.' The time of Odovacar's government is here alluded to (see viii. 17). An Opilio, probably father of the one here mentioned, was Consul under Valentinian III in 453.]
In some subordinate capacity in the King's final Court of Appeal (probably as _Referendarius_[418]) Cyprian has hitherto had the duty of stating the cases of the hostile litigants. He has shown wonderful dexterity in suddenly stating the same case from the two opposite points of view[419], and this so as to satisfy even the requirements of the litigants themselves.
[Footnote 418: Anonymus Valesii says: 'Cyprianus, qui tunc Referendarius erat postea Comes Sacrarum et Magister,' § 85.]
[Footnote 419: 'Nam cum oratoribus sit propositum diu tractata unius partis vota dicere, tibi semper necesse fuit repentinum negotium utroque latere declarare.']
Often the King has transacted business in his rides which used of old to be brought before a formal Consistory. He has mounted his horse, when weary with the cares of the Republic, to renew his vigour by exercise and change of scene. In these rides he has been accompanied by Cyprian, who has in such a lively manner stated the cases which had come up on appeal, that an otherwise tedious business was turned into a pleasure. Even when the King was most moved to wrath by what seemed to him a thoroughly bad cause, he still appreciated the charm of the Advocate's style in setting it before him. Thus has Cyprian had that most useful of all trainings, action, not books.