From Emperor Caesar Flavius Anastasius, pious, fortunate, victorious, ever august, the illustrious Germanicus, the illustrious Francicus, the illustrious Sarmaticus, father of the country, to the proconsuls, consuls, praetors, tribunes of the people, and to his own senate, greetings.

If you and your children are well, it is good: I and my army are well. Whenever both public affairs are considered with a prosperous will, not only is exhortation but also request believed fitting, so that with two causes converging into one, the encouraged mind may achieve what is happy and good for the parties. For if Christ, our God and Lord, called us back to Himself both through His most gentle will and a certain plea of dispensation, and restored us, redeemed by His own blood, to liberty to grant salvation to mortality, it does not seem absurd to hope for things that are mutually beneficial, with God’s consent, both from the most glorious king and from the most blessed pope of the holy city of Rome, with the conscript fathers joined in the imperial petition; that is, not to listen to the contrived speeches of fugitives, composed solely of lies, but to strive for desired peace with a will pleasing to God, after accepting the satisfaction that both truth and the inquiry of the envoys sent forth have revealed. It is undoubtedly clear from the long series of years that your constancy claims a large part of the republic.

Therefore, it is fitting for your most holy assembly to strive with diligent study and prudent labor; both with the exalted king, to whom the power and concern of governing you is entrusted, and with the venerable pope, to whom the ability to intercede before God is granted, that they deign to expend the goodness of their spirit in that part where the members of both republics may be saved with the hoped-for health. You will indeed fulfill the old custom, very well known to your counsel, if you have brought about, with God as your guide, the effect of those matters that are conducive to the public utility, by discussing, hoping, and requesting.

Given on the 5th day before the calends of August (in the year of our Lord 516), at Chalcedon, under the consulship of the most illustrious man, Peter.