Page 229 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Cassiodorus and Senarius

seen between Senarius’ career and those of other palatine officers under
Theoderic. 102
The illustrious position to which Senarius was advanced was of particu-
lar importance to Theoderic’s administration. A recent addition to the
two financial comitivae of the largitiones and res privatae established about
the time of Constantine, the comitiva patrimonii administered all sources of
income acquired by the Italian government since Odoacer’s usurpation
of 476. Primarily these sources consisted of revenues from lands in the
conquered provinces of Sicily, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Provence. 103 The
revenue from the patrimonium in the West was distinct from that of the
other financial comitivae, for it was treated as the private domain (domus)

and ‘militium’, 335–6; Jones, LRE i, 412, 427, 497; ii, 565, 584, 587–8; idem, ‘The Roman
Civil Service (Clerical and Sub-Clerical Grades)’, Journal of Roman Studies 39 (1949), 53–4 =
his Studies in Roman Government and Law (Oxford, 1960), 213–14; H. C. Teitler, Notarii and
Exceptores: An Inquiry into the Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ec-
clesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (From the Early Principate to c. 450 ad) (Amsterdam,
1985), 73–85. Mommsen, ‘Ostgothische Studien’, 420 n. 6, suggests that Cassiodorus refers to
the post of referendarius, rather than the stenographic position, as neither Cassiodorus’ praise
of Senarius’ oratorical skills in office, nor Senarius’ advancement to an illustrious office, was
characteristic of the lowly exceptor. Cassiodorus, however, does notusually employ euphemisms
instead of titles of offices, and he uses the title referendarius elsewhere; Cass., Variae vi, 17 Formula
referendariorum viii, 21.4, 25 title. (There are no other exceptores named in the Variae;cf. xi, 25:
a letter of appointment for a primicerius of the exceptores in the praetorian prefect’s office.) It is
possible that the status of the exceptor, unimpressive in the fourth and fifth centuries, had been
inflated in the West by the early sixth century. The similar position of tribunus et notarius had been
elevated from a stenographic post to an office with the rank of clarissimus from the fourth to the
mid-fifth century; Jones, ‘Roman Civil Service’, 214; Teitler, Notarii and Exceptores 2, 68–72.
Cf. the use of exceptio in Cass., Variae xi, 38.4 in the sense of ‘literary composition’; and note
that under the Ostrogoths the scriniarius curae militaris, charged with the financing of the army,
was placed among the exceptores of the office of the praetorian prefect, a higher ranking than the
post enjoyed in the East; Ernst Stein, Untersuchungen ¨ uber das Officium der Pr¨ atorianer Pr¨ afectur
seit Diokletian (Vienne, 1922; repr. Amsterdam, 1962), 70–1. The formula for appointment of
notarii to the king’s consilium begins: ‘There is no doubtbutthatthe king’s confidences glorify
his servants’ (Non est dubium ornare subiectos principis secretum); Cass., Variae vi, 16.1. The theme
of the probity required for such access to palatine secrets is reminiscent of Cassiodorus’ praise of
Senarius, Variae iv, 3.3, 4.4.
102 E.g. entry to court service as a youth: Variae viii, 10.3–4 (the Amal Tulvin); proximity to the
king, service as an envoy, and advancementto a financial comitiva: v, 40.2–4, 41.2–4 (Cyprianus);
Wolfram, History of the Goths, 292.
103
On the comitiva patrimonii: Codex Just. i, 34 (Anastasius); Cass., Variae vi, 9; John Lydus,
De magistratibus ii, 27; Procopius, Wars v, 4.1; Theodore Mommsen, ‘Ostgothische Studien’,
401–3; Seeck, ‘Comes’, 676–7; Ernst Stein, ‘Untersuchungen zur sp¨ atr¨ omischen Verwaltungs-
geschichte’, Rheinisches Museum f¨ ur Philologie n.s. 74 (1925), 384–7; Ensslin, Theoderich, 170–2;
Jones, LRE i, 255, 292, 424–7; Wolfram, History of the Goths, 293; Delmaire, Largesses sacr´ ees,
691–8; Delmaire, Les Responsables, 291–9; Barnwell, Emperor,Prefects,and Kings, 148–50.Onthe
western comitivae under Theoderic: William G. Sinnigen, ‘Comites consistoriani in Ostrogothic
Italy’, Classica et Mediaevalia 24 (1963), 158–65; Sinnigen, ‘Administrative Shifts of Competence
under Theoderic’, Traditio 21 (1965), 456–67. The office of comitiva patrimonii continued in the
sixth century both in Byzantine Italy and in Visigothic Spain: Jean Durliat, Les Finances publiques
de Diocl´ etien aux Carolingiens (284–889) (Beiheftzu Francia 21; Sigmaringen, 1990), 111 n. 111,
114, 160 n. 74.
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