17. King Athalaric to the Senate of the City of Rome.

The same subject.

This letter, though it does not mention the name of Opilio, is evidently written on his promotion to the office of Comes Sacrarum Largitionum. It enumerates his good qualities, and declares that it is marvellous and almost fortunate for Athalaric that so suitable a candidate should not have been promoted in the reign of his grandfather. The father of Opilio was a man of noble character and robust body, who distinguished himself by his abstinence from the vices of the times and his preference for dignified repose in the stormy period of Odovacar[531].

'He was reputed an excellent man in those times, when the Sovereign was not a man of honour[532]. But why go back to his parentage, when his brother has set so noble an example. The friendship, the rivalry in virtue of these two brothers, is worthy of the good old times. Both are true to their friends; both are devoid of avarice. Both have kept their loyalty to their King unspotted, and no marvel, since they have first shown themselves true to their friends and colleagues.

'Distinguished by these virtues, our candidate has been fittingly allied by marriage with the noble family of Basilius[533].

'He has managed his private affairs so as to avoid the two extremes of parsimony and extravagance. He has become popular with the Goths by his manner of life, and with the Romans by his righteous judgments[534]; and has been over and over again chosen as a referee (Judex privatus), thus showing the high opinion in which his integrity is held.

'The Conscript Fathers are exhorted to endorse the favourable judgment of the King, by welcoming the new Count of Sacred Largesses into their body.'

[In view of these letters I do not understand what Gibbon means by saying (cap. xxxix. n. 95), 'The characters of the two delators, Basilius ('Var.' ii. 10, 11; iv. 22) and Opilio (v. 41; viii. 16), are illustrated, not much to their honour, in the Epistles of Cassiodorus.' This is quite true of Basilius, if the person alluded to in the references given by Gibbon be the same as the informer against Boethius, of which there may be a doubt; but Opilio is mentioned, as we see, with the highest honour by Cassiodorus. So, too, is Decoratus, whom in the same note Gibbon too hastily stigmatises as 'the worthless colleague of Boethius.']