32. KING THEODORIC TO BRANDILA (CIR. 508-9).
[See remarks on this letter in Dahn ('Könige der Germanen' iv. 149-152); he claims it as a proof that Gothic law still existed for the Goths in Italy.]
[Sidenote: Assault of the wife of Brandila on the wife of Patzenes.]
'Times without number has Patzenes laid his complaint upon us, to wit that while he was absent on the recent successful expedition[400] your wife Procula fell upon his wife [Regina], inflicted upon her three murderous blows, and finally left her for dead, the victim having only escaped by the supposed impossibility of her living. Now therefore, if you acknowledge the fact to be so, you are to consult your own honour by inflicting summary punishment as a husband on your wife, that we may not hear of this complaint again[401]. But if you deny the fact, you are to bring your said wife to our Comitatus and there prove her innocence.'
[Footnote 400: Into Gaul; see next letter.]
[Footnote 401: 'Atque ideo decretis te praesentibus admonemus, ut si factum evidenter agnoscis, delatam querimoniam, pudori tuo consulens, _maritali districtione redarguas_; quatenus ex eâdem causâ ad nos querela justa non redeat.']
[Containing the explanation of Procula's violence to Regina].
[Sidenote: Adulterous connection between Brandila and the wife of Patzenes.]
'Patzenes brings before us a most serious complaint: that during his absence in the Gaulish campaign, Brandila dared to form an adulterous connection with his wife Regina, and to go through the form of marriage with her.
'Whose honour will be safe if advantage is thus to be taken with impunity of the absense of a brave defender of his country? Alas for the immodesty of women! They might learn virtue even from the chaste example of the cooing turtle-dove, who when once deprived by misfortune of her mate, never pairs again with another.
'Let your Sublimity compel the parties accused to come before you for examination, and if the charge be true, if these shameless ones were speculating on the soldier of the Republic not returning from the wars, if they were hoping, as they must have hoped, for general collapse and ruin in order to hide their shame, then proceed against them as our laws against adulterers dictate[402], and thus vindicate the rights of all husbands.'