27. Senator, Praetorian Praefect, to Datius[893], Bishop of Milan.

Relief of famine-stricken citizens of Ticinum and Dertona.

'It is most fitting that good and holy men should be made the stewards of the Royal bounty. We therefore request your Holiness, in accordance with the King's commands, to open the granaries at Ticinum[894], and Dertona[895], and sell millet thereat to the starving people at the rate of 20 modii per solidum[896]. We are anxious that you should do this, lest the work should fall into venal hands which would sell the King's bounty to those who are able to provide for themselves. It is the poor, not the rich, that we wish to help: we would pour our bounty into empty vessels. Let not then your Holiness think this work of compassion, unworthy of your sacred office. In order to assist you we have sent A and B, who will simply obey the orders of your Holiness, doing nothing of their own motion.

'Send us an account of the solidi received in payment for the said millet, that they may be stored up with our Treasurer[897], in order to replace the before-mentioned grain, and thus provide a reserve for future times of scarcity; like a garment taken to pieces that it may be made up again as good as new.'

[It is not very easy to assign a date to this letter. The mention of the famine would incline us to assign it to 538, as that seems to have been the year when the full force of the famine was felt in Italy (see Procopius, De Bello Gotthico ii. 20, where 538 and 539 seem to be marked as the two great famine years). But very early in 538 the Bishop of Milan, the same Datius to whom this letter is addressed, visited Rome to entreat Belisarius to send a small garrison to occupy Milan, which had already revolted, or was on the verge of revolting, from the Gothic King. As soon as the siege of Rome was raised Belisarius complied with this request, and sent 1,000 men, under Mundilas, to escort Datius back to Milan. This expedition set forth probably in April 538, and as soon as it arrived at Milan that city openly proclaimed its defection from Witigis and its allegiance to the Emperor. It was soon besieged by Uraias, nephew of Witigis, by whom in the following year (539) it was taken. The city, we are informed, was rased to the ground, and Bishop Datius escaped to Constantinople. Evidently we have here a continuous chain of events, which makes it impossible for us to date this letter in 538 or any subsequent year.

We ought probably therefore to assign it to the autumn of 537, and to look upon it as an attempt (unsuccessful, as it proved) to retain Datius and the citizens of Milan on the side of the Goths. We know from the Twenty-second Letter of this book that signs of scarcity had already shown themselves in Italy by the 1st September, 537; and in an interesting passage of the 'Historia Miscella' (Book xvi.), famine in Liguria, the year 537, and the name of Datius are all combined. 'Praeter belli instantiam angebatur insuper Roma famis penuriâ: tanta siquidem per universum mundum eo anno [the year of the siege of Rome], maxime apud Liguriam fames excreverat, ut sicut vir sanctissimus Datius Mediolanensis antistes retulit, pleraeque matres infelicium natorum membra comederent.' I owe this reference to Baronius.]