Page 201 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Cassiodorus and Senarius

year 514, and atsome date before leaving his final posthe was made
patricius. At an unknown time during the protracted Byzantine war against
the Goths in Italy, Cassiodorus took up religious life, and journeyed to
Constantinople. Later he founded a double monastery, including the
well-appointed cenobite house of Vivarium, on his family lands in the
south Italian province of Bruttium. He was still there, writing grammatical
works, at the age of ninety-three. 2
Prior to completing his tenure as praetorian prefect of Italy in 537,
Cassiodorus published a selection of the official letters he had written over
the last thirty years, both in the names of the Ostrogothic monarchs and
in his own right, gathered into twelve books, together with a thirteenth
which was a short philosophical work on the nature of the soul. He chose
to emphasise the stylistic diversity of the collection by naming the work
Variae, and offered it to satisfy the demands of admiring literary friends
for publication of his writings, and also to provide model formulae of
3
official letters for later civil servants to imitate. All the letters which he
had written in the names of the Ostrogothic monarchs, from Theoderic
to Vitigis, were drafted in the capacity of quaestor, the publicist of the
court. Though he had formally held this post only at the beginning of
his career, Cassiodorus had acted in the capacity of quaestor when in

2 On Cassiodorus: L. Hartmann, ‘Cassiodorus 1–4’, RE iii.2, 1671–6; Sundwall, Abhandlungen,
154–6; Schanz-Hosius iv, 2, 92–109 (Variae, 97–9); A. van de Vyver, ‘Cassiodor etson œuvre’,
Speculum 6 (1931), 244–92; Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Cassiodorus and the Italian Culture of His
Time’, in his Studies in Historiography (London, 1966), 181–210; PLRE ii, ‘Cassiodorus 1–3’, 263–5
(ancestors), ‘Fl Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator 4’, 265–9; Averil Cameron, ‘Cassiodorus
Deflated’, Journal of Roman Studies 71 (1981), 183–6. See also John Matthews, ‘Anicius Manlius
Severinus Boethius’, in Margaret Gibson (ed.), Boethius: His Life,Thought and Influence (Oxford,
1981), 25–31. For a possible context of the emigration of Cassiodorus’ ancestors to the West:
Andrew Gillett, ‘The Date and Circumstances of Olympiodorus of Thebes’, Traditio 48 (1993),
18–24 and n. 99.
3 For editions, see ‘Note on editions, commentaries, and translations’ below. On the Variae:
B. Hasenstab, Studien zur Variensammlung des Cassiodor Senator: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Ostgothenherrschaft in Italien (Munich, 1883); Mommsen, Prooemium to Cass., Variae, v–xxxix;
Å. J. Fridh, Terminologie et formules dans les Variae de Cassiodore: ´ etudes sur le d´ eveloppement du style
administratif aux derniers si` ecles de l’antiquit´ e (Studia graeca et latina Gothoburgensia 2; Stockholm,
1956); Odo John Zimmermann, The Late Latin Vocabulary of the Variae of Cassiodorus,with Special
Advertance to the Technical Terminology of Administration (Washington, 1944; repr. Hildersheim, 1967);
James J. O’Donnell, Cassiodorus (Berkeley, 1979), 55–102; Stefan Krautschick, Cassiodor und die
Politik seiner Zeit (Bonn, 1983), 41–117; Robin Macpherson, Rome in Involution: Cassiodorus’ Variae
in Their Literary and Historical Setting (Poznan, 1989); P. S. Barnwell, Emperor,Prefects,and Kings: The
Roman West,395–565 (London, 1992), 166–9; BeatMeyer-Fl¨ ugel, Das Bild der ostgotisch-r¨ omischen
Gesellschaft bei Cassiodor: Leben und Ethik von R¨ omern und Germanen in Italien nach dem Ende des
Westr¨ omischen Reiches (Berne, 1992); Andrew Gillett, ‘The Purposes of Cassiodorus’ Variae’, in
Alexander C. Murray (ed.), After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History: Essays
Presented to Walter Goffart (Toronto, 1998), 37–50.
Date of publication: Mommsen, Prooemium to Cass., Variae, xxx–xxxi.

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