8. King Theodoric to Venantius, Senator, Corrector of Lucania and Bruttii.

Remissness of Venantius in collection of public revenue.

[Venantius, son of Liberius, was, with many high commendations, made Comes Domesticorum in Letters ii. 15 and 16. See further as to his fall in iii. 36, also iii. 46.]

'Remissness in the collection of the public taxes is a great fault, and no kindness in the end to the taxpayer. For want of a timely caution you probably have to end by selling him up.

'The Count of Sacred Largesses tells us that you were long ago commissioned to get in the Bina and Terna [and have not done so]. Be quick about it, that the collection may be completed according to the registers of the Treasury. If you are not quick, and the Treasury suffers loss, you will have to make it good out of your private property. You have not shown proper respect to our orders, nor a due sense of the obligation of your own promise.'

[These 'Bina' and 'Terna' are a mystery; but Dahn[281] thinks they are not a specially Gothic tax, but an inheritance from the fiscal administration of Rome, having probably nothing to do with the Tertiae.]

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