OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 337 ance to the ambassadors of Dagobert ; despoiled them on the road ; stipulated, after a long negotiation, the inadequate ran- som of two hundred thousand pieces of gold ; and preserved the missorium as the pride of the Gothic treasury. ^^ When that treasury, after the conquest of Spain, was plundered by the Arabs, they admired, and they have celebrated, another object still more remarkable : a table of considerable size, of one single piece of solid emerald,^^'^ encircled with three rows of fine pearls, supported by three hundred and sixty-five feet of gems and massy gold, and estimated at the price of five hundred thousand pieces of gold.^*^ Some portion of the Gothic trea- sures might be the gift of friendship or the tribute of obedience ; but the far greater part had been the fruits of war and rapine, the spoils of the empire, and perhaps of Rome. After the deliverance of Italy from the oppression of the Laws for the Goths some secret counsellor was permitted, amidst the and^Rom"*^^ factions of the palace, to heal the wounds of that afflicted coun- ^'°' ^"^^^ try.i*^ By a wise and humane regulation the eight provinces which had been the most deeply injured, Campania, Tuscany, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and Lucania, obtained an indulgence of five years : the ordinary tribute was reduced to one-fifth, and even that fifth was destined to restore and support the useful institution of the public posts. By another law the lands which had been left without inhabitants or cultivation were granted, with some diminution of taxes, to the neighbours who should occupy, or the strangers who should solicit, them ; and the new possessors were secured against the future claims of the fugitive proprietors. About the same time a general amnesty was published in the name of Honorius, to abolish the guilt and memory of all the involuntary offences i-*^ Consult the following original testimonies in the Historians of France, torn, ii. Fredegarii Scholastici Chron. c. 73, p. 441. Fredegar. Fragment, iii. p. 463. Gesta Regis Dagobert. c. 29, p. 587. The accession of Sisenand to the throne of Spain happened a.d. 631. The 200,000 pieces of gold were appropriated by Dagobert to the foundation of the church of St. Denys. I'lSThe president Goguet (Origine des Loix, Sic, toni. ii. p. 239) is of opinion that the stupendous pieces of emerald, the statues and columns which antiquity has placed in Egypt, at Gades, at Constantinople, were in reality artificial com- positions of coloured glass. The famous emerald dish which is shown at Genoa is supposed to countenance the suspicion. i'i<> Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, 1. i. p. 85. Roderic. Tolet. Hist. Arab. c. 9. Cardonne, Hist, de I'Afrique et de I'Espagne sous les Arabes, torn. i. p. 83. It was called the Table of Solomon according to the custom of the Orientals, who ascribe to that prince every ancient work of knowledge or magnificence. w His three laws are inserted in the Theodosian Code, 1. .xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 7. L. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 12. L. xv. tit. xiv. leg. 14. The expressions of the last are very remarkable, since they contain not only a pardon but an apology. VOL. III. 22
