Page 219 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Cassiodorus and Senarius

adlection of a new member, whose career was based on palatine service
rather than on a senatorial cursus honorum, still required tact. 57
These concerns were inherent in all royal appointments to high office
of illustrious rank. The letter to Senarius, however, also contains more
individualised passages which indicate that Cassiodorus took pains to
craft a letter agreeable to its recipient. The more personalised passages are
those which laud Senarius’ public career. Again it is useful to contrast the
letter to the Senate with that to Senarius. The description of Senarius’
career sent to the Senate is brief and factual. At some time after 493, 58
Senarius entered court service as a youth, performing such varied tasks
(including ‘discourse with the king’, presumably membership of the royal
consistorium; exceptiones, i.e. the duties of exceptores, stenographic officers
in imperial officia; and the execution of embassies) that it was difficult to
state in which office he had actually served. 59
In the letter to the new comes, however, Cassiodorus dwells on Senarius’
talents, rather than the progress of his career. He states that Senarius
had served Theoderic in a twofold capacity, participating in Theoderic’s
consilium while acting as the king’s agent. 60 Itwas as an official of the
king that Senarius undertook embassies and performed the duties of
exceptor. These tasks, briefly listed in the letter to the Senate, are elabo-
rated by Cassiodorus in the address to Senarius. On Senarius’ embassies,
Cassiodorus says:

Often you have sustained the duty of an arduous embassy: you have withstood
kings, an advocate not unequal to the task, constrained to reveal our justice even
to those who, in their base obstinacy, were barely able to understand reason.
The enraged authority of kings did not terrify you with its contentions; rather
you subjected insolence to truth and, following our instructions, you forced the
barbarians to their senses. 61

57 Theoderic and Senate: below, at n. 95.
58 Cass., Variae iv, 4.3, lines 17–18: In ipso quippe adulescentiae flore palatia nostra [i.e. after the death of
Odoacer in 493;cf. i, 4.6] . . . intravit. Ensslin, Theoderich, 295 makes Senarius’ entry to court ser-
vice in the early 500s, after the Laurentian schism, but without evidence. Sundwall, Abhandlungen,
154 wrongly sees cana Libertas in Cass., Variae iv, 4.5 as referring to Senarius, who was therefore
‘wahrscheinlich schon im fortgeschrittenem Alter’ in 509; cana Libertas in fact refers to the Senate,
whereas Senarius is one of the primaevi introeuntes, i.e. a homo novus (cf. Traube, ‘Index rerum et
verborum’ to Cass., Variae, 583, reading cana Libertas as the aged senators themselves). Senarius
can have spent at most sixteen years between entering court service in ipso . . . adulescentiae flore
after 493 and his advancementin 509. On the average age of the financial comites: Delmaire,
Largesses sacr´ ees, 94.
59
Cass., Variae iv, 4.3.
60
Cass., Variae iv, 3.2, lines 22–3: diu namque nostris ordinationibus geminum mutuatus obsequium et
consilii particeps eras et disposita laudibili assumptione complebas.
61
Cass., Variae iv, 3.2, lines 24–8. The letter to the Senate refers to the ‘honour of an embassy’
(in honorem legationis electus, iv, 4.3), butwithoutthe emphasis of iv, 3.2.
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