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3.: ODOVACAR’S GRANT TO PIERIUS - Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 6 [1776]

Edition used:

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B. Bury with an Introduction by W.E.H. Lecky (New York: Fred de Fau and Co., 1906), in 12 vols. Vol. 6.

Part of: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 12 vols.

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3.

ODOVACAR’S GRANT TO PIERIUS

An interesting memorial of the administration of Odovacar survives in a deed of donation to his Count of Domestics, Pierius. The papyrus document (dated at Ravenna in 489) is preserved in two parts, of which one is at Naples, the other at Vienna. It was published in 1805 in Marini’s Papiri diplomatici, but the English reader will find it convenient to consult the text (with a clear exposition) in Hodgkin’s Italy and her Invaders, iii. note B (p. 165 sqq.). Odovacar granted his minister estates which were to yield an income amounting to the value of about £414. These estates were (1) in the territory of Syracuse, (2) the island of Meleda on the Dalmatian coast. Pierius had already received these lands, but, as these only produced about £390, Odovacar completes in this document the promised revenue by adding some small farms to the Syracusan estate, calculated to yield £24 9s. (so that Pierius gained an additional 9s. or ¾ of a solidus). The document is not signed by Odovacar. It is probable, as Dahn observes (Kön. der Germanen, ii. 48), that he could not write.