St. Augustine
Faventium bene novit sanctitas tua, qui Paratianensis saltus conductor fuit. Is cum ab eiusdem possessionis domino nescio quid sibi metueret, ad Hipponiensem confugit ecclesiam, et ibi erat, ut confugientes solent, expectans quo modo per intercessionem nostram sua negotia terminaret. Qui, ut saepe fit, per dies singulos minus minusque sollicitus et quasi adversario cessante securus, cum ab amico suo de cena egrederetur, subito raptus est a Florentino quodam, ut dicunt, comitis officiali per armatorum manum, quanta eis ad hoc factum sufficere visa
Letters of St. Augustine
Your Holiness is well acquainted with Faventius,b the tenant of the estate at Paratianis.c Being apprehensive of something or other at the hands of the proprietor of that same estate, he fled for refuge to the Church of Hippo, where he remained, as those who seek sanctuaryd usually do, waiting to see if by my interposition he could bring the affair to a satisfactory end. Becoming, as each day passed, less and less vigilant—a usual occurrence—and lulled to security by the delusion that his enemy was growing remiss, he was leaving a friend’s house after supper when he was suddenly seized and abducted by one Florentinus, said to be an officer of the Count,e aided by what they thought to be for the purpose a sufficiently
- aFortunatus was bishop of Cirta. He was present at the Conference in Carthage in 411 and is elsewhere mentioned by Augustine (Epp. liii., clxxvi.).
- bThe case of Faventius was the occasion of the writing of Epp. cxiii., cxiv., and cxvi., as well as this letter, Saltus, originally only wooded and pasture land (“saltus proprie locus adhuc incultus et silvester dicitur,” Aug. In Ps. cxxxi. 11), were vast estates as great as, sometimes larger than, the territory of a city (Grom. ed. Lachmann, p. 53). At the centre lay the villa of the owner, surrounded by the houses of the workers, and this settlement was also called villa. All or part of the saltus was let to a conductor, below whom were the coloni, owing him certain services. The domain itself was often called fundus or lati fundi, but the word fundus was applied too to the smaller portions. See Reid, Municipalities of the Roman Empire, pp. 319 ff.; Boissier, L’Afrique Romaine, p. 165.
- cParatianis has been identified with Medjez, on the coast twenty-five miles from Rusicade. It has fairly extensive ruins dating from Roman times.
- dSince the time of Constantine, churches had been a sanctuary for the innocent, the oppressed, and others who sought episcopal intercession. Commonly thirty days’ protection was granted. See Cod. Theod. ix. xv. 4 “de iis qui ad ecclesias confugiunt.” See also No. 61 infra.
- eWhen Diocletian separated the military administration of Africa from the civil, he appointed a dux per Africam, but this title was changed about 330 to comes. In 393 Gildo was comes et magister utruisque milittae; he was succeeded by Boniface, addressed by Augustine in Nos. 42 and 51.