22. Formula of the Count of the City of Syracuse.

Comitiva Syracusana.

'We must provide such Governors for our distant possessions that appeals from them shall not be frequent. Many men would rather lose a just cause than have the expense of coming all the way from Sicily to defend it; and as for complaints against a Governor, we should be strongly inclined to think that a complaint presented by such distant petitioners must be true.

'Act therefore with all the more caution in the office which we bestow upon you for this Indiction. You have all the pleasant pomp of an official retinue provided for you at our expense. Do not let your soldiers be insolent to the cultivators of the soil (possessores). Let them receive their rations and be satisfied with them, nor mix in matters outside their proper functions. Be satisfied with the dignity which your predecessors held. It ought not to be lowered; but do not seek to exalt it.'