BOOK XI.

CONTAINING THIRTY-NINE LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN HIS OWN NAME AS PRAEFECTUS PRAETORIO, AND ONE ON BEHALF OF THE ROMAN SENATE.

BOOK XII.

CONTAINING TWENTY-EIGHT LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN HIS OWN NAME AS PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT.

INDEX OF PERSONS.

GENERAL INDEX.

FOOTNOTES.

ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

P. 6, l. 30, for 'Scylletium' read 'Scylletion.'

P. 24, n. 1, for 'Uterwerfung' read 'Unterwerfung.'

In the 'Note on the Topography of Squillace' (pp. 68-72), and the map illustrating it, for 'Scylacium' read 'Scyllacium.' (The line of Virgil, however, quoted on p. 6, shows that the name was sometimes spelt with only one 'l.')

Pp. 94 and 96, head line, dele 'the.' [Transcriber's Note: headers have been deleted from this e-text.]

P. 128 (Chronological Table, under heading 'Popes') for 'John III.' read 'John II.'

P. 146 (last line of text). S. Gaudenzi remarks that the addresses of the laws in the Code of Justinian forbid us to suppose that Heliodorus was Praetorian Praefect for eighteen years. He thinks that most likely the meaning of the words 'in illa republica nobis videntibus praefecturam bis novenis annis gessit eximie' is that twice in the space of nine years Heliodorus filled the office of Praefect.

P. 159, Letter 27 of Book I. The date of this letter is probably 509, as Importunus, who is therein mentioned as Consul, was Consul in that year.

P. 160, Letter 29 of Book I. S. Gaudenzi points out that a letter has probably dropped out here, as the title does not fit the contents of the letter, which seems to have been addressed to a Sajo.

In the titles of I. 14, 26, 34, 35, and II. 5 and 9, for 'Praepositus' read 'Praetorian Praefect.' The contraction used by the early amanuenses for Praefecto Praetorio has been misunderstood by their successors, and consequently many MSS. read 'Praeposito,' and this reading has been followed by Nivellius. There can be no doubt, however, that Garet is right in restoring 'Praefecto Praetorio.'

On the other hand, I have been misled by Garet's edition into quoting the following letters as addressed Viro Senatori; I. 38; II. 23, 28, 29, 35; III. 8, 13, 15, 16, 27, 32, 41; IV. 10, 12, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 28; V. 21, 24. Here, too, the only MSS. that I have examined read 'Viro Senatori;' but Nivellius preserves what is no doubt the earlier reading, 'V.S.,' which assuredly stands for 'Viro Spectabili.' Practically there is no great difference between the two readings, and the remarks made by me on II. 29, 35, &c., as to Senators with Gothic names may still stand; for as every Senator was (at least) a Clarissimus, it is not likely that any person who reached the higher dignity of a Spectabilis was not also a Senator. (See pp. 90 and 91.)

P. 181, Letter 19 of Book II. Here again, on account of the want of correspondence between the title and contents of the letter, S. Gaudenzi suggests that a letter has dropped out.

P. 182, title of Letter 20, for 'Unigilis' read 'Uniligis.'

P. 205, l. 6 from bottom, for 'Praefectum' read 'Praefectorum.' [Transcriber's Note: Original already reads "Praefectorum."]

P. 206, l. 1, for 'Provinces' read 'Provincials.'

P. 224 (marginal note), for 'amphitheatre' read 'walls.' Last line (text), for 'its' read 'their.'

P. 244, title of Letter 17, for 'Idae' some MSS. read 'Ibbae,' which is probably the right reading, Ibbas having commanded the Ostrogothic army in Gaul in 510.

P. 247, dele the last two lines. (The Peter who was Consul in 516 was an official of the Eastern Empire, the same who came on an embassy to Theodahad in 535.)

P. 253. l. 9, for '408' read '508.'

P. 255, ll. 9, 14, and in margin, for 'Agapeta' read 'Agapita.'

P. 256, ll. 16, 26, and in margin, for 'Velusian' read 'Volusian.'

P. 256, title of Letter 43. S. Gaudenzi thinks this letter was really addressed to Argolicus, Praefectus Urbis.

P. 269, l. 20, dele 'possibly Stabularius.'

P. 282, Letter 31 of Book V. (to Decoratus). As Decoratus is described in V. 3 and 4 as already dead, it is clear that the letters are not arranged in chronological order.

P. 282, l. 27, for 'upon' read 'before.'

P. 288, l. 25, for 'extortions' read 'extra horses.'

P. 291, l. 6, for 'Anomymus' read 'Anonymus.'

P. 308, l. 7. This is an important passage, as illustrating the nature of the office which Cassiodorus held as Consiliarius to his father.

P. 333, second marginal note, for 'aguntur' read 'agantur' (twice).

P. 398, title of Letter 15, for '532' read '533-535.'

P. 400, title of Letter 17, for 'between 532 and 534' read 'between 533 and 535.'

P. 450, l. 8. Probably, as suggested by S. Gaudenzi, Felix was Consiliarius to Cassiodorus.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

LIFE OF CASSIODORUS.

The interest of the life of Cassiodorus is derived from his position rather than from his character. He was a statesman of considerable sagacity and of unblemished honour, a well-read scholar, and a devout Christian; but he was apt to crouch before the possessors of power however unworthy, and in the whole of his long and eventful life we never find him playing a part which can be called heroic.

His position, however, which was in more senses than one that of a borderer between two worlds, gives to the study of his writings an exceptional value. Born a few years after the overthrow of the Western Empire, a Roman noble by his ancestry, a rhetorician-philosopher by his training, he became what we should call the Prime Minister of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric; he toiled with his master at the construction of the new state, which was to unite the vigour of Germany and the culture of Rome; for a generation he saw this edifice stand, and when it fell beneath the blows of Belisarius he retired, perhaps well-nigh broken-hearted, from the political arena. The writings of such a man could hardly fail, at any rate they do not fail, to give us many interesting glimpses into the political life both of the Romans and the Barbarians. It is true that they throw more light backwards than forwards, that they teach us far more about the constitution of the Roman Empire than they do about the Teutonic customs from whence in due time Feudalism was to be born. Still, they do often illustrate these Teutonic usages; and when we remember that the writer to whom after Tacitus we are most deeply indebted for our knowledge of Teutonic antiquity, Jordanes, professedly compiled his ill-written pamphlet from the Twelve Books of the Gothic History of Cassiodorus, we see that indirectly his contribution to the history of the German factor in European civilisation is a most important one.

Thus then, as has been already said, Cassiodorus stood on the confines of two worlds, the Ancient and the Modern; indeed it is a noteworthy fact that the very word modernus occurs for the first time with any frequency in his writings. Or, if the ever-shifting boundary between Ancient and Modern be drawn elsewhere than in the fifth and sixth centuries, at any rate it is safe to say, that he stood on the boundary of two worlds, the Roman and the Teutonic.

But the statesman who, after spending thirty years at the Court of Theodoric and his daughter, spent thirty-three years more in the monastery which he had himself erected at Squillace, was a borderer in another sense than that already mentioned—a borderer between the two worlds of Politics and Religion; and in this capacity also, as the contemporary, perhaps the friend, certainly the imitator, of St. Benedict, and in some respects the improver upon his method, Cassiodorus largely helped to mould the destinies of mediaeval and therefore of modern Europe.

I shall now proceed to indicate the chief points in the life and career of Cassiodorus. Where, as is generally the case, our information comes from his own correspondence, I shall, to avoid repetition, not do much more than refer the reader to the passage in the following collection, where he will find the information given as nearly as may be in the words of the great Minister himself.

The ancestors of Cassiodorus for three generations, and their public employments, are enumerated for us in the letters (Var. i. 3-4) which in the name of Theodoric he wrote on his father's elevation to the Patriciate. From these letters we learn that—

(1) Cassiodorus, the writer's great grandfather, who held the rank of an Illustris, defended the shores of Sicily and Bruttii from the incursions of the Vandals. This was probably between 430 and 440, and, as we may suppose, towards the end of the life of this statesman, to whom we may conjecturally assign a date from 390 to 460.

(2) His son and namesake, the grandfather of our Cassiodorus, was a Tribune (a military rank nearly corresponding to our 'Colonel') and Notarius under Valentinian III. He enjoyed the friendship of the great Aetius, and was sent with Carpilio the son of that statesman on an embassy to Attila, probably between the years 440 and 450. In this embassy, according to his grandson, he exerted an extraordinary influence over the mind of the Hunnish King. Soon after this he retired to his native Province of Bruttii, where he passed the remainder of his days. We may probably fix the limits of his life from about 420 to 490.

(3) His son, the third Cassiodorus, our author's father, served under Odovacar (therefore between 476 and 492), as Comes Privatarum Rerum and Comes Sacrarum Largitionum. These two offices, one of which nominally involved the care of the domains of the Sovereign and the other the regulation of his private charities, were in fact the two great financial offices of the Empire and of the barbarian royalties which modelled their system upon it. Upon the fall of the throne of Odovacar, Cassiodorus transferred his services to Theodoric, at the beginning of whose reign he acted as Governor (Consularis[1]) of Sicily. In this capacity he showed much tact and skill, and thereby succeeded in reconciling the somewhat suspicious and intractable Sicilians to the rule of their Ostrogothic master. He next administered (as Corrector[2]) his own native Province of 'Bruttii et Lucania[3].' Either in the year 500 or soon after, he received from Theodoric the highest mark of his confidence that the Sovereign could bestow, being raised to the great place of Praetorian Praefect, which still conferred a semi-regal splendour upon its holder, and which possibly under a Barbarian King may have involved yet more participation in the actual work of reigning than it had done under a Roman Emperor.

The Praefecture of this Cassiodorus probably lasted three or four years, and at its close he received the high honour of the Patriciate. We are not able to name the exact date of his retirement from office; but the important point for us is, that while he still held this splendid position his son was first introduced to public life. To that son's history we may now proceed, for we have no further information of importance as to the father's old age or death beyond the intimation (contained in Var. iii. 28) that Theodoric invited him, apparently in vain, to leave his beloved Bruttii and return to the Court of Ravenna.

Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator was born at Scyllacium (Squillace) about the year 480. His name, his birthplace, and his year of birth will each require a short notice.

(1) Name. Magnus (not Marcus, as it has been sometimes incorrectly printed) is the author's praenomen. Aurelius, the gentile name, connects him with a large gens, of which Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus was one of the most distinguished ornaments. Cassiodorus, or Cassiodorius.As to the form of the cognomen there is a good deal of diversity of opinion, the majority of German scholars preferring Cassiodorius to Cassiodorus. The argument in favour of the former spelling is derived from the fact that some of the MSS. of his works (not apparently the majority) write the name with the termination rius, and that while it is easy to understand how from the genitive form ri a nominative rus might be wrongly inferred instead of the real nominative rius, it is not easy to see why the opposite mistake should be made, and rius substituted for the genuine rus.

The question will probably be decided one way or the other by the critical edition of the 'Variae' which is to be published among the 'Monumenta Germaniae Historica;' but in the meantime it may be remarked that the correct Greek form of the name as shown by inscriptions appears to be Cassiodorus, and that in a poem of Alcuin's[4] occurs the line

showing that the termination rus was generally accepted as early as the eighth century. It is therefore to be hoped that this is the form which may finally prevail.

Senator, it is clear, was part of the original name of Cassiodorus, and not a title acquired by sitting in the Roman Senate. It seems a curious custom to give a title of this kind to an infant as part of his name, but the well-known instance of Patricius (St. Patrick) shows that this was sometimes done, and there are other instances (collected by Thorbecke, p. 34) of this very title Senator being used as a proper name.

It is clear from Jordanes (who calls the Gothic History of Cassiodorus 'duodecem Senatoris volumina de origine actibusque Getarum[5]'), from Pope Vigilius (who speaks of 'religiosum virum filium nostrum Senatorem[6]'), from the titles of the letters written by Cassiodorus[7], and from his punning allusions to his own name and the love to the Senate which it had prophetically expressed, that Senator was a real name and not a title of honour.

(2) Scyllacium, the modern Squillace, was, according to Cassiodorus, the first, either in age or in importance, of the cities of Bruttii, a Province which corresponds pretty closely with the modern Calabria. It is situated at the head of the gulf to which it gives its name, on the eastern side of Italy, and at the point where the peninsula is pinched in by the Tyrrhene and Ionian Seas to a width of only fifteen miles, the narrowest dimensions to which it is anywhere reduced. The Apennine chain comes here within a distance of about five miles of the sea, and upon one of its lower dependencies Scyllacium was placed. The slight promontory in front of the town earned for it from the author of the Aeneid the ominous name of 'Navifragum Scylaceum[8].' In the description which Cassiodorus himself gives of his birthplace (Var. xii. 15) we hear nothing of the danger to mariners which had attracted the attention of Virgil, possibly a somewhat timid sailor. The name, however, given to the place by the Greek colonists who founded it, Scylletium, is thought by some to contain an allusion to dangers of the coast similar to those which were typified by the barking dogs of the not far distant Scylla.

According to Cassiodorus, this Greek city was founded by Ulysses after the destruction of Troy. Strabo[9] attributes the foundation of it to the almost equally widespread energy of Menestheus. The form of the name makes it probable that the colonists were in any case of Ionian descent; but in historic times we find Scylletion subject to the domineering Achaian city of Crotona, from whose grasp it was wrested (b.c. 389) by the elder Dionysius. It no doubt shared in the general decay of the towns of this part of Magna Graecia consequent on the wars of Dionysius and Agathocles, and may very probably, like Crotona, have been taken and laid waste by the Bruttian banditti in the Second Punic War. During the latter part of this war Hannibal seems to have occupied a position near to, but not in, the already ruined city, and its port was known long after as Castra Hannibalis[10].

[11] 'A century before the end of the Republic, a city much more considerable than that which had existed in the past was again established near the point where the Greek Scylletion had existed. Among the colonies of Roman citizens founded b.c. 123 on the rogation of Caius Gracchus, was one sent to this part of Bruttii, under the name of Colonia Minervia Scolacium, a name parallel to those of Colonia Neptunia Tarentum and Colonia Junonia Karthago, decided on at the same time. Scolacium is the form that we meet with in Velleius Paterculus, and that is found in an extant Latin inscription of the time of Antoninus Pius. This is the old Latin form of the name of the town. Scylacium, which first appears as used by the writers of the first century of our era, is a purely literary form springing from the desire to get nearer to the Greek type Scylletion.

'Scolacium, or Scylacium, a town purely Roman by reason of the origin of its first colonists, was from its earliest days an important city, and remained such till the end of the Empire. Pomponius Mela, Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy speak of it as one of the principal cities of Bruttii. It had for its port Castra Hannibalis. Under Nero its population was strengthened by a new settlement of veterans as colonists. The city then took the names of Colonia Minervia Nervia Augusta Scolacium. We read these names in an inscription discovered in 1762 at 1,800 metres from the modern Squillace, between that city and the sea—an inscription which mentions the construction of an aqueduct bringing water to Scolacium, executed 143 a.d. at the cost of the Emperor Antoninus.'