ble sagacity and of unblemished honour, a well-read scholar, and a devout Christian; but he was apt to crouch before the possessors

on the confines of the

ome; 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 abo

e 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

fines of Politi

as 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,

rmation comes from his own correspondence, I shall, to avoid repetition, not do much more than refer the reader to the passage in

ance

re enumerated for us in the letters (Var. i. 3-4) which in the name of Theodoric he

grandf

ily and Bruttii from the incursions of the Vandals. This was probably between 430 and 440, and, as we may supp

dfat

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 influen

th

ystem 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

ut 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 i

m (Squillace) about the year 480. His name, his birthplac

a

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

ublished among the 'Monumenta Germaniae Historica;' but in the meantime it may be remarked that the correct Greek f

em Chrysostomus

d as early as the eighth century. It is therefore to b

na

ous 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

gilius (who speaks of 'religiosum virum filium nostrum Senatorem[6]'), from the titles of the letters written by Cassiodorus[7], and from his punnin

ace, Sc

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 g

reek

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 ma

oman

s 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 ext

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 i

e city at the ti

like a cluster of grapes upon the hills, basking in the brightness of the sun all day long, yet cooled by the breezes from the sea, and looking at her leisure on the labours of the husbandman in

hasty in his assertion that the modern city of Squillace incontestably covers the ground of the Latin Scolacium. Mr. Arthur J. Evans, after making a much more careful survey of the place and its neighbourhood than the French archaeologist had leisure for, has come to the conclusion that in this identification M. Lenormant is entirely wrong, and that the Roman city was not at Squill

place of Cassiodorus' birth to i

of

ittheim (or Trithemius), Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Spanheim, who died in 1516, was one of the ecclesiastical scholars of the Renaissance p

imperii Justini junioris paene finem, annos

evidence against it. But if this cannot be asserted, it is not desirable entirely to discard the assertion of a scholar who, in the age of the Renaissance and

in the Younger [565-578], attaining to more than 95 years of age in the year of our Lord 575.' But on reflection we see that the meaning must be that Cassiodorus died in 575 (which agrees well with the words 'paene finem imperii Justini junioris'), and that when he died he was some way on in his 96th

cially our latest acquired information[13], we find that they do in a remarkable manner agree with Tritthe

nd which contains a list of his previously published works, no mention is made of this 'Computus.' It must therefore, say the supporters of the theory, have been written after he was 93. He must have been at least 94 in 562, and the year of his birth must be put back at least to 468. In this argument there are two absolutely worthless links. There is no evidence to show that the 'Computus Paschalis' came from

n identifying him with his father, who bore office under Odovacar (476-493). To do this it was necessary to get rid of the date 480 for the birth of Cassiodorus Senator, and to throw back that event as far as possible. And yet, not even by pushing it back to 468, do they make it reasonably probab

ll with those which the course of history induces us to assign to his ancestors in the three preceding generations[14], we also note with interest th

n of Cas

d, however, that though he evidently received the usual instruction in philosophy and rhetoric which was given to a young Roman noble aspiring to employment in the Civil Service, there are

ius to hi

the time which we are now describing it was customary for the Judge to choose his Consiliarius from among the ranks of young jurists who had just completed their studies. The great legal school of Berytus especially furnished a large number of Consiliarii to the Roman Governors. In order to prevent an officer in this position from obtaining an undue influence over the mind of his principal, the latter was forbidden by law to keep a Consiliarius, who was a native of the Province in which he was administering justice, more than four months in his employ[18]. This provision, of course, would not apply when the young Assessor, as in the case of Cassiodorus, came with his fat

ic on T

t to deliver an oration in praise of Theodoric[21], and he did this with such admirable eloquence-admirable according to the depraved taste of the time-that Theodoric at once bestowed upon the orator, still in the first dawn of manhood[22], Appointed Quaestor

the Quaest

hpiece of the Sovereign. In the 'Notitia[24]' the matters under his contro

He also, as we learn from Cassiodorus, had audience with the ambassadors of foreign powers, to whom he addressed suitable and stately harangues, or through whom he forwarded written replies to the letters which they had brought, but always of course speaking or writing in the name of his master. In the performance of these duties he had chiefly to rely on his own intellectual resour

the 'Variae' (vi. 5), under the title 'Formula Quaesturae,' and to this document I refer the reader who wishes

y of a Quaesto

ecially because it is also told of his contemporary, the Emperor Justin; but I have no doubt that such literary education as Theodoric ever received was Greek rather than Latin, being imparted during the ten years of his residence as a hostage at Constantinople. Years of marches and countermarches, of battle and foray, at the head of his Ostrogothic warriors, may well have effaced much of the

plause steered the vessel of the State for the first seven years of the new reign. The elder Cassiodorus, who had succeeded him, seemed likely to follow the same course. But possibly Theodoric had begun to feel the necessity laid upon all rulers of men, not only to be, but also to seem, anxious for the welfare of their subjects. Possibly some dull, unsympathetic Quaestor had failed to present the generous thoughts of the King in a sufficiently attractive shape to the minds of the people. This much at all events we know, that when the young Consiliarius,

ion of t

do we find a thought clothed in clear, precise, closely-fitting words, or a metaphor which really corresponds to the abstract idea that is represented by it. We take up sentence after sentence of verbose and flaccid Latin, analyse them with difficulty, and when at last we come to the central thought enshrouded in them, we too often find that it is the merest and most obvious commonplace, a piece of tinsel wrapped in endless folds of tissue paper. Perhaps from one point of view the study of the style of Cassiodorus might p

of hu

king-fish[27] fixed its teeth into the hulls through the liquid waves; or have the shells of the Indian Sea, whose quiet touch is said to hold so firmly that the angry billows cannot loosen it, with like power fixed their lips into your keels? Idle stands the bark though winged by swelling sails; the wind favours her but she makes no way; she is fixed without an anchor, she is bound without a cable; and these tiny animals hinder more than all such prospering circumstances can help. Thus, though the loyal wave may be hastening its course, we are informed that the ship stands fixed on the surface of the sea, and by a strange paradox the swimmer [the ship] is made to remain immovable while the wave is hurried along by movements numberless. Or, to describe the nature of another kind of fish, perchance the sailors in the aforesaid ships have grown dull and torpid by the touch of the torpedo, by which such a de

cilled) signature. If he did, he must surely have smiled to see his few angry Teutonic words transmu

r of Cas

haps, inclined to humble himself unduly before mere power and rank, and he had the fault, common to most rhetoricians, of over-estimating the power of words and thinking that a few fluent platitudes would heal inveterate discords and hide disastrous blunders. But when we have said this we have said the worst. He was, as far

onding the poli

gians and Turcilingians[28],' Odovacar. The compact, it is true, was loose and indefinite, and contained within itself the germs of that misunderstanding which, forty-seven years later, was developed into a terrible war. Still, for the present, Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths,

s love of

ce and a strong government, Theodoric's rule ensured to her. The theory of his government was this, that the two nations should dwell side by side, not fused into one, not subject either to the other, but the Romans labouring at the arts of peace, the Goths wielding for their defence the sword of war. Over all was to be the strong hand of the King of Goths and Romans, repressing the violence of the one nation, correcting the chicanery of the other, and from one and all exacting the strict observance of that which was the object of his daily and nightly cares, civilit

ssiodorus in ai

and for Roman and Goth to become in Italy, as they did become in Spain, one people. The grounds upon which the praise of far-seeing statesmanship may be claimed for Cassiodorus are, that notwithstanding the bitter taste which it must have had in his mouth, as in the mouth of every educated Roman, he perceived that here was the best medicine for the ills of Italy. All attempts to conjure with the great name of the Roman Empire could only end in sub

gious to

aps in some degree failing, he was tempted by the persecuting policy of the Emperor Justin into retaliatory measures of persecution towards his Catholic subjects, but as a rule his policy was eminently fair and even-handed towards the professors of the two hostile creeds, and even towards the generally proscribed nation of the Jews. So conspicuous

proceed from

en words which may well atone for many platitudes and some ill-judged display of learning: Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus[30]. And this tolerant temper of mind is the more to be commended, because it did not proceed from any indi

to each in n

passed at Court and i

ommencement o

ntly not arranged in strict chronological order, and to but few of them is it possible to affix an exact date. There are two or three, however, which requi

to Anas

endered to Zeno. But the language of the letter in question, which speaks of 'causas iracundiae,' does not harmonise well with either of these dates, since there was then, as far as we know, no quarrel between Ravenna and Constantinople. On the other hand, it would fit perfectly with the state of feeling between the two Courts in 505, after Sabinian the general of Anastas

s to C

om Boethius has provided. It used to be thought that these letters must be referred to 496, the year of the celebrated victory of Clovis over the Alamanni, commonly, but incorrectly, called the battle of Tulbiacum. But this was a most improbable theory, for it was difficult to understand how a boy of sixteen (and that was the age of Boethius in 496) should have attained such eminence as a musical connoisseur as to be entrusted with the task of selecting the citharoedus. And in a very recent monograph[31] Herr von Schubert has shown, I thi

o Gaulish

Visigoths and the Franks, have been by some authors[32] assigned to a date some years before the war actually broke out; but though this cannot, perhaps, be disproved

f Cassiodo

f the office from being re-appointed. In the case of Cassiodorus, the Quaestor after Theodoric's own heart, his intimate friend and counsellor, this may have been done for several years running, or he may have apparently retired from office for a year and then resumed it. It is clear, that whether in or out of office he had always, as the King's friend, a large share in the direction of State aff

of Cassio

oman noble: he was hailed as Consul Ordinarius, and gave his name to the year. For some reason which is not stated, possibly because the City of Constantinople was in that year m

us in the year 498. Victory had been assured to Symmachus by the Synod of 501, but evidently the feelings of hatred then aroused had still smouldered on, especially perhaps among the Senators and high nobles of Rome, who had for the most part adopted the candidature of Laurentius. Now, on the death of Symmachus (July 18, 5

to the Rom

heodoric. In all this, as in the whole relation of the Empire to the Senate during the five centuries of their joint existence, it is difficult to say where well-acted courtesy ended, and where the desire to secure such legal power as yet remained to a venerable assembly began. Perhaps when we remember that for many glorious centuries the Senate had been the real ruler of the Roman State, we may assert that the attitude and the language of the successors of Augustus towards the Conscript Fathers were similar to those used by a modern House of Commons towards the Crown, only that in the one case the individual supplanted the assembly, in the other the assembly supplanted the in

orus Pa

a title which had been borne by Ricimer, Odovacar, and Theodoric himself might well excite the ambition of Theodoric's subject. If our conjecture be correct that it was conferred upon Cassi

Chro

ic. This Chronicle is for the most part founded upon, or rather copied from, the well-known works of Eusebius and Prosper, the copying being unfortunately not correctly done. More than this, Cassiodorus has attempted with little judgment to combine the mode of reckoning by Consular years and by years of Emperors. As he is generally two or three years out in his reckoning of the former, this proceeding has the curious result of persistently throwing some

hic victory; the clemency of Alaric at the capture of Rome (410) is magnified; the valour of the Goths is made the cause of the defeat of Attila in the Catalaunian plains (451); the name of Gothic Eutharic is put before that of Byzantine Justin in the consular list; and so forth. Upon the whole, as has been already said, the work cannot be considered as adding to the reputation of its author; nor can i

thic H

re[40]: 'He extended his labours even to our remote ancestry, learning by his reading that which scarcely the hoar memories of our forefathers retained. He drew forth from their hiding-place the Kings of the Goths, hidden by long forgetfulness. He restored the Amals to their proper place with the lustre of his own[41] lineage (?), evidently proving that up to the seventeenth generation we have had kings for our ancestors. He made the origin of the Goth

purp

of all conditions precedent for the attainment of absolute historic truth, complete impartiality[43]. Like

ginem Gothicam historiam fecit esse Romanam'); and (2) among the Goths, to exalt as highly as possible the family of the Amals, that family from which Theodoric

t the reconciliation of the past and the future of the world by showing to the outworn Latin race that the new blood which was being poured into it by the northern nations came, like its own, from

etween Goth

tions, is not one for which Cassiodorus is responsible, since it had been made at least a hundred years before his time. When the Emperor Claudius II won his great victories over the Goths in the middle of the Third Century, he was hailed rightly enough by the surname of Gothicus; but when at the beginning of the Fifth Century the feeble Emperors Arcadius and Honori

rm Scy

ideal of wisdom swaying brute force. With these and similar stories culled from classical authors Cassiodorus appears to have filled up the interval-which was to him of absolutely uncertain duration-between the Gothic migration from the Baltic to the Euxine and their appearance as conquerors and ravagers in the eastern half of the Roman Empire in the middle of the third century of the Christian era. Now, soothing as it may have been to the pride of a Roman subject of Theodoric to be informed that his master's ancestors had fought at the war of Troy and humbled the pride of Perdiccas, to a scientific historian these Scytho-Getic histories culled from Herodotus and Trogus are of little or no value, and his first step in the process of enquiry is to eliminate them from 'Gothica historia,' thus making it, as far as he can, not 'Romana.' The question then arises whether there was another truly Go

al ped

eal historical personages is a matter about which we may almost be said neither to know nor care. We see that it begins in the approved fashion with 'Non puri homines sed semidei id est Anses[44],' and that the first of these half-divine ancestors is named Gaut, evidently the eponymous hero of the Gothic people. Some of the later links-Amal, Ostrogotha, Athal-have the same appearance of names coined to embody facts of the national consciousness. At the end of the genealogy appear the undoubtedly historical names of the immediate ancestors of Th

t by Jo

ult question as to the personality of this writer, which has been debated at considerable length and with much ingenuity by several German authors[46]. It is enough to say that Jordanes, who was, according to his own statement, 'agrammatus,' a man of Gothic descent, a notary, and then a monk[47], on the alleged request of his friend Castalius, 'compressed the twelve books of Senator, de origine actibusque Getarum, bringing down the history from olden times to our own days by kings and generations, into one little pamphlet.' Still, according to his statement, which there can be little doubt is here thoroughly false, he had

rement from of

ng intellect of Theodoric, goaded almost to madness by Justin's persecution of his Arian co-religionists, condescended to ignoble measures of retaliation, which brought him into collision with Senate and Pope, and in the end tarnished his fame by the judicial murder of Boethius and Symmachus. It was fortunate indeed

Master of the

in all the splendour of official dignity; for when Theodoric died, his old and trusted minister was hold

'king's messengers,' who swarmed through all the Provinces of the Empire, executing the orders of the Sovereign, and earning gold and hatred from the helpless Provincials among whom their errands lay. In addition to these the four great stationary bureaux-the Scrinium Memoriae, Scrinium Dispositionum, Scrinium Epistolarum, and Scrinium Libellorum-the offices whose duty it was to conduct the correspondence of the Sovereign with foreign powers, and to answer the petitions of his own subjects, all owned the Master of the Offices as their head. Moreover, the great arsenals (of which there were six in Italy at Concordia, Verona, Mantua, Cremona, Ticinum, and Lucca) received their orders from the same official. An anomalous and too widely dispersed range of functions this seems according to our ideas, including something of the Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, something of the Home Secretaryship, and something of the War Office and the Horse Guards. Yet, as

eodoric, Au

of the 'Variae.' Athalaric himself being only a boy of eight or ten years of age, supreme power was vested in his mother Amalasuentha, with what title we are unable to say, but apparently not with that of Queen. This Princess, a woman of great and varied accomplishments, perhaps once a pupil, certainly a friend, of Cassiodorus, ruled entirely in accordance with the maxims of his st

odorus to the Reg

cum novitas regni multa posceret ordinari? Erat solus ad universa sufficiens. Ipsum dictatio publica, ipsum consilia nostra poscebant; et labore ejus actum est ne laboraret imperium. Reperimus e

of inv

the murder of Theodoric's sister Amalafrida by Hilderic the Vandal King. Cassiodorus provided ships and equipped soldiers at his own expense, probably for the defence of his beloved Province of Bruttii. The alarm of war passed away, but difficulties appear to have arisen owing to the

s Praetorian

he same dignity, we may fairly conjecture that father and son both climbed this eminence at the same period of their lives; yet, considering the extraordinary credit which the younger Cassiodorus enjoyed at Court, we might have expected that he would have been clothed with the Praefecture before he attained the fifty-third year of his

he Praetori

tinued to be the first civil servant of the Empire. Cassiodorus is fond of comparing him to Joseph at the Court of Pharaoh, nor is the comparison an inapt one. In the Constantinople of our own day the Grand Vizier holds a position not altogether unlike that which the Praefect held in the Court of Arcadius and Theodosius. 'The office of this Praefect,' said one who had spent his life as one of his subordinates[58],' is like the Ocean, encircling all other offices and ministering to all their needs. The Consulate is indeed higher in rank than the Praefecture, but less in power. The Praefect wears a mandye, or woollen cloak, dyed with the purple of Cos, and differing from the Emperor's only in the fact that it reaches not to the feet but to the knees. Girt with hi

Praefect as J

ight be made not only important but predominant[59]. The chief employment, however, of the ordinary Praefectus Praetorio consisted in hearing appeals from the Governors of the Provinces. When the magical words 'Provoco ad Caesarem' had

ring the Praefectu

ntains the letters written by him during the same time in the names of the successive Gothic Sovereigns, give any sufficient information as to the real course of public events. Great misfortunes, great crimes, and the movements of great armies are covered over in these documents by a veil of unmeaning platitudes and hypocritical compliments. In order to enable the student to 'r

manising policy

at it was entirely contrary to the maxims of Theodoric that a young Goth should be trembling before the strap of a pedagogue when he ought to be learning to look unfalteringly on spear and sword. These representations were so vigorously made, and by speakers of such high

ts three Gothic

Italy. Finding, however, that they were still holding communication with one another, she sent to the Emperor Justinian to ask if he would give her an asylum in his dominions if she required it, and then gave orders for the secret assassination of the thre

en Ravenna and

ations were masked by others of a more public kind, in which Justinian claimed the Sicilian fortress of Lilybaeum, which had once belonged to the Vandals; insisted on the surrender of some Huns, deserters from the army of Africa; and demanded redress for the sack by the Goths of the Moesian city of Gratiana. These claims Amalasuentha met publicly with a reply as

thalaric,

of female sovereignty was barely accepted by any Teutonic tribe. Evidently the Ostrogoths had not accepted it, or Amalasuentha would have ruled as Queen in her own right instead of as Regent for her son. In order to strengthen her position, and ensure her acceptance as Sovereign by the Gothic warriors, she decided to associate with herself, not in matrimony, for he was already married, but in regal p

ciates Theodahad

Gothic cavalry. But his acquaintance with Latin and Greek literature had done nothing to ennoble his temper or expand his heart. A cold, hard, avaricious soul, he had been entirely bent on adding field to field and removing his neighbour's landmark, until the vast possessions which he had received from the generosity of Theodoric should embrace the whole of the great Tuscan plain. It will be seen by referring to two letters in the followin

d and imprisoned by Th

that the reed upon which she was leaning was about to pierce her hand. Only four letters, it will be seen, of the following collection were written by order of Amalasuentha after the commencement of the joint reign. Soon Theodahad felt himself strong enough to hurl from the throne the woman who had dared to compel him to draw back the boundary of his Tuscan latifundium. The rela

sy of

o injury. Meanwhile Peter, a rhetorician and an ex-Consul, was travelling from Constantinople with a commission the character of which was being constantly changed by the rapid current of events. He started with instructions to complete the transaction with Amalasuentha as to the surrender of Italy, and to buy from Theodahad, who was still a private individual, his possessions in Tuscany. Soon after his departure he met the ambassadors, who told him of the death of Athalaric and the accession of Theodahad. On the shores of the Hadriatic he heard of Amalasuentha's captivity. He waited for further instructions from his master, and on his arrival at Ra

continue in the se

beloved Italy. He may have thought that whoever wore the Gothic crown, Duty forbade him to quit the Secretum at Ravenna just when war with the Empire was becoming every day more imminent. On the other hand, the Praetorian Praefecture, the object of a life's ambition, was now his, but had been his only for two years. It was hard to lay aside the purple mandye while the first gloss was yet upon it; hard to have to fall back into the ranks of the ordinary senators, and no longer to receive the reverent salutations of the chiefs of the army wh

ion of T

to have been at Rome, not at Ravenna, was more than half inclined to resume his old negotiations with the Emperor, and either to purchase peace by sinking into the condition of a tributary, or to sell his kingdom outright for a revenue of ￡48,000 a year and a high place among the nobles of the Empire. Procopius[65] gives us a vivid and detailed narrative of the manner in which these

many of the negotiations bet

quoted by Procopius in the sixth chapter of his First Book, appears to be entirely unrepresented in the collection of Cassiodorus. Evidently all this part of the 'Variae' has been severely edited by its author, who has expunged all that seemed to reflect too great discredit on the Sovereign whom he had once served, and has preserved onl

ed, Witigis ele

disgusted at the incapacity of their King, and probably suspecting his disloyalty to the nation, met (August, 536) under arms upon the plain of Regeta[66], deposed Theodahad, and elected a veteran named Witigis as his successor. Witigis

he elevatio

certainly one of the best specimens of his letters is that written in the name of the new King[67], in which he

ntulisse, praestante Deo, dignitatem, ut honorem arma darent, cujus opinionem bella pepererant. Non enim in cubilis angustis, sed in campis latè patentibus electum me esse noveritis:

tten in nam

May[68], 540). One has been already described. All the other four are concerned with negotiat

s in the administra

present at the long siege of Rome (March, 537, to March, 538), nor is it likely that he, an elderly civilian, would take much part in any of the warlike operations that followed. Upon the whole, it seems probable that during the greater part of this time Cassiodorus was, to the best of his power, keeping the civil administration together by virtue of his own authority as Praetorian Praefect, without that constant reference to the wishes of the Sovereign which would have b

f later

ly belonging to the year 536, five[70] to 537, and one[71] (possibly) to 538. These later letters refer chiefly to the ter

odorus' offi

finally retired from public life. The dates of his letters will show that there is nothing in them which forbids us to accept this conclusion; and the fact, if it be a fact, that in 540, when Belisarius, with his Secretary Procopius in his train, made his triumphal entry into Ra

riae e

refaces, one prefixed to the First Book and the other to the Eleventh. Much emphasis is laid on the entreaties of his friends, the regular excuse, in the sixth century as in the nineteenth, for an author or a politician doing the very thing which most pleases his own vanity. A worthier reason probably existed in the author's natur

ns were made i

ly as to those marvellous digressions on matters of Natural History, Moral Philosophy, and the like-whether they were veritably included in the original letters that issued from the Royal Secretum, and were carried over Italy by the Cursus Publicus. My own conjecture is, that though they may have been a little amplified and elaborated, substantially they were to be f

atque

ented upon, but without our arriving at any very definite result. All that can be said is, that Cassiodorus must have formed his collection of State-papers either from rough drafts in his own possession, or from copies preserved in the public archives, and that, from whichsoever source he drew, the names in that source had not been pres

se 'De

he said, it seems an absurd thing to treat as a stranger and an unknown quantity the very centre of our being; to seek to understand the height of the air, the extent of the earth, the causes of storms and

Soul is c

he definitio

its substan

be believed to

has which contribute to i

powers], given to enable it to hol

g the origin

ce it appears to be in a certain

orm and composition

we may discern what properties

guish the souls of righteous men, since

fter death, and how it will be af

h the harmony of the soul; to give reason the ascendancy over the flesh; and to keep the mind in happy eq

retires to t

nd we hear nothing of any children for whose sake he need have remained longer in the world. The Emperor would probably have received him gladly into his service, but Cassiodorus had now done with politics. The dream of his life had been to build up an independent Italian State, strong with the strength of the Goths, and wise with the wisdom of the Romans. That dream was now scattered to the winds. Providence had made i

monasteries

with the river Pellena[75]. Baths, too, especially intended for the use of the sick, had been prepared on the banks of the stream[76]. Here in monastic simplicity, but not without comfort, Cassiodorus ordained that his monks should dwell. The Rule of the order-in so far as it had a written Rule-was drawn from the writings of Cassian, the great founder of Western Monachism, who had died about a century before the Vivarian monastery was founded. In commending the writings of Cassian to

y never

ly called them)-work of a literary and educational kind-which perhaps made it undesirable that he should be burdened with the petty daily routine of an Abbot's duties. Some years before, he had endeavoured to induce Pope Agapetus[78] to found a School of Theology and Christian Literature at Rome, in imitation o

ances of these lonely enthusiasts while still keeping their main ends in view. St. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, had shown what great results might be obtained for the Church of all ages from the patient literary toil of one religious recluse. And finally St. Benedict, in that Rule of his which was to be the code of monastic

of literary

ndard, with every sacked city and with every ravaged villa, some Codex, it may be such as we should now deem priceless and irreplaceable, was perishing. This being the state of Italy, Cassiodorus resolved to make of his monastery not merely a place for pious meditation, but a theological school and a manufactory for the multiplication of copies, not only of the Scriptures, not only of the Fathers and the commentators on Scripture, but also of the great writers of pagan antiquity. In the chapter[80] which he devotes to the description of the scriptorium of his monastery he describes, with an enthusiasm which must have been contagious, the noble work done there

ian Scriptures, but it could easily be shown from other passages[81] that the literary activ

bind

samples of various sorts of binding, that the amanuensis might choose that which pleased him best. Mechanical appliances for the convent.He had moreover provided, to help the nightly toil of the scriptorium, mechanical lamps of some wonderful construction, which appears to have made them self-trimming, and to have ensured their ha

the Benedi

rit of the Rule of St. Benedict, if it was not formally ordained in that document. At a very early date in the history of their order, the Benedictines, influenced probably by the example of the monastery of Vivaria, commenced that long series of services to the cause of literature which t

a transcriber o

a custodian and transmitter of the sacred text. They were no doubt considerable; and the rules which he gives to his monks, to guide them in the work of transcription, show that he belonged to the Conservative school of critics, and was anxious to guard against hasty emendations of the text, however plausible. Practica

th as an original author and a compiler, used his pen

ry on th

s which they were daily and nightly intoning, refutations of all the heresies that had ever racked the Church, and the rudiments of all the sciences that flourished in the world. It is impossible now for this or any future age to do aught but lament over so much wasted ingenuity, when we find the author maintaining that the whole of the one hundred and fifty Psalms were written by King David, and that Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun have only a mystical meaning; that

y on the

est in them, even for theological scholars, are that Cassiodorus evidently attributes the Epistle to the Hebrews without hesitation to the Apostle Paul, and that he notices the celebrated passage concerning the Three Heavenly Witnesses

ia Tri

unes from the accession of Constantine to the thirty-second year of the reign of Theodosius II (306-439). The fact that the numerous mistranslations of Epiphanius have passed uncorrected, probably indicates that Cassiodorus' own knowledge of Greek was but slight, and that he depended on his coadjutor entirely for this part of the work. The 'Historia Tripartita' has probably had a larger circulation than any other of its author's works; but Cassiodor

ivinarum et Hum

outset of this book he describes that unsuccessful attempt of his, to which allusion has already been made, for the establishment of a theological school in Rome, and continues that, 'as the rage of war and the turbulence of strife in the Italian realm[86] had prevented the fulfilment of this desire, he felt himself constrained by Divine charity to write for his monks' behoof these libri introductorii, in which, after the manner of a teacher, he would open to them the series of the books of Holy Scripture, and would give them a compend

ers[89]; and he then slightly sketches the characters of some of the principal Fathers-Hilary, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. This part of the work contains an interesting allusion to 'Dionysius Monachus, Scytha natione, sed moribus omnino Romanus,' of whom Cassiodorus speaks as a colleague in his literary enterprises. This is the so-called Dionysius Exiguus, who fixed (erroneously, as it now appears) the era of the birth of Christ, and whose system of chronology founded on this event has been accepted

mmar, Rhetoric, Logic, Mathematics-the last of which is divided into the four 'disciplines' of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. As illustrating the relative importance of these sciences (as we call them) as

thogr

and accurately represent in speech the words which we find written?' In other words, 'Give us a treatise on spelling.' The venerable teacher gladly complied with the request, and compiled from twelve grammarians[92] various rules, the observance of which would prevent the student from committing the usual faults in spelling. It is no doubt true[93] that this work is a mere collection of excerpts from other authors, not arranged on any systematic principle. Still, even as such a collection, it does great credit to the industry of a nonagenarian; and it seems to me that there is much in it which a person who was studying the transition of Latin into the Lingua Volgare might peruse with profit.

assiodorus

ingdom of Odovacar was only four years old, he had as a young man seen that Kingdom overthrown by the arms of Theodoric; he had sat by the cradle of the Ostrogothic monarchy, and mourned over its grave; had seen the eunuch Narses supreme vicegerent of the Emperor; had heard the avalanche of the Lombard invasion thunder over Italy, and had outlived even the Lombard invader Alboin. Pope Leo, the tamer of Attila and the hero of Chalcedon, had not been dead twenty years when Cassiodor

specify any single life which more than another was in contact both with the Ancient

TOPOGRAPHY O

came to after his two days' study of t

n of Sc

ooked for at the modern Squillace, but at the place called Roccella in the Italian mi

lar

its position, 'hanging like a cluster of grapes on hills not so high as to make the ascent of them a weariness, but high enough to command a delightful prospect over land and sea.' This description by Cassiodorus exactly suits Roccella, but does not suit Squillace, which is at the top of

. It has three fine apses at the eastern end, and is built in the form of a Latin cross. On either side of the nave was an exterior arcade, which apparently consisted originally of eleven window arches, six of them not being for the transmission of light. 'Altogether,' says Mr. Evans, 'this church, even in its dilapidated state, is one of the finest monuments of the kind anywhere existing. We should have

ities of this basilica, Mr. Evans is disposed to fix its

of two smaller late Roman churches, mausolea, and endless founda

the existence at this spot of a great provincial city of the Empire, and to make Mr. Evans' conjecture more probable than that of M. Lenormant, who identified the ruins at Roccella with those of Castra Hannibalis, the

arian M

e neighbourhood of caves and grottoes on the sea-shore.' But while M. Lenormant places it at a place called Coscia, almost immediately to the north of and under Staletti, Mr. Evans pleads for the site now occupied by the Church of S. Maria del Mare, on the cliff top, very near the sea, and about three kilometres south of Staletti. This church is

ns Are

y the sea-shore at the south end of a little bay under the promontory of S. Gregorio. The so-called Fontana di Cassiodoro, near Cosci