26. King Theodoric to all the Citizens of Marseilles[345].

Taxes remitted for a year.

Confirms all privileges and immunities granted by previous Princes, and remits the taxes (censum) for one year, a boon which they had not dared to ask for. 'For that is perfect pietas, which before it is bent by prayer, knows how to consider the weary ones.'

[Here, as in many other passages of Cassiodorus, pietas shows signs of passing into the Italian pietà (= pity).]