Roman Officials--cassiodorus

The government of Italy still carried on according to Roman

precedent--Classification of the officials--The Consulship and the

Senate--Cassiodorus, his character and his work--His history of the

Goths--His letters and state papers.





I have said that one of the most important characteristics of

Theodoric's government of Italy was that it was conducted in accordance

with the traditions of the E pire and administered mainly by officials

trained in the Imperial school. To a certain extent the same thing is

true of all the Teutonic monarchies which arose in the fifth century on

the ruins of the Empire. In dealing with the needs and settling the

disputes of the large, highly-organised communities, into whose midst

they had poured themselves, it was not possible, if it had been

desirable, for the rulers to remain satisfied with the simple, sometimes

barbarous, principles of law and administration which had sufficed for

the rude farmer-folk who dwelt in isolated villages beyond the Rhine and

the Danube. Nor was this necessity disliked by the rulers themselves.

They soon perceived that the Roman law, with its tendency to derive all

power from the Imperial head of the State, and the Roman official staff,

an elaborate and well-organised hierarchy, every member of which

received orders from one above him and transmitted orders to those

below, were far more favourable to their own prerogative and gave them a

far higher position over against their followers and comrades in war,

than the institutions which had prevailed in the forests of Germany.

Hence, as I have said, all the new barbarian royalties, even that of the

Vandals in Africa (in some respects more anti-Roman than any other),

preserved much of the laws and machinery of the Roman Empire; but

Theodoric's Italian kingdom preserved the most of all. It might in fact

almost be looked upon as a mere continuation of the old Imperial system,

only with a strong, laborious, martial Goth at the head of affairs, able

and willing to keep all the members of the official hierarchy sternly to

their work, instead of the ruler whom the last three generations had

been accustomed to behold, a man decked with the purple and diadem, but

too weak, too indolent, too nervously afraid of irritating some powerful

captain of foederati, or some wealthy Roman noble, to be able to do

justice to all classes of his subjects.



The composition of the official hierarchy of the Empire is, from various

sources,[82] almost as fully known to us as that of any state of modern

Europe.



[Footnote 82: Chiefly the Notitia Utriusque Imperii (a sort of

official Red-book of the time of Honorius,) but also the Various

Letters of Cassiodorus, to be described below.]



Pre-eminent in dignity over all the rest rose the Illustrious

Praetorian Prefect, the vicegerent of the sovereign, a man who held

towards Emperor or King nearly the same position which a Grand Vizier

holds towards a Turkish Sultan. Like his sovereign he wore a purple robe

(which reached however only to his knees, not to his feet), and he drove

through the streets in a lofty official chariot. It was for him to

promulgate the Imperial laws, sometimes to put forth edicts of his own.

He proclaimed what taxes were to be imposed each year, and their produce

came into his Praetorian chest. He suggested to his sovereign the names

of the governors of the provinces, paid them their salaries, and

exercised a general superintendence over them, having even power to

depose them from their offices. And lastly, he was the highest Judge of

Appeal in the land, even the Emperor himself having generally no power

to reverse his sentences.



There was another Illustrious minister, who, during this century both

in the Eastern and Western Empire, was always treading on the heels of

the Praetorian Prefect, and trying to rob him of some portion of his

power. This was the Master of the Offices the intermediary between the

sovereign and the great mass of the civil servants, to whom the

execution of his orders was entrusted. A swarm of Agentes in Rebus

(King's messengers, bailiffs, sheriff's officers; we may call them by

all these designations) roved through the provinces, carrying into

effect the orders of the sovereign, always magnifying their master's

dignity, (whence they derived their epithet of Magistriani,) and

seeking to depress the Praetorian Cohorts, who discharged somewhat

similar duties under the Praetorian Prefect. The Master of the Offices,

besides sharing the counsels of his sovereign in relation to foreign

states, had also the arsenals under his charge, and there was

transferred to him from his rival, the Prefect, the superintendence of

the cursus publicus, the great postal service of the Empire.



Again, somewhat overlapping, as it seems to us, the functions of the

Master of the Offices, came the Illustrious Quaestor, the

head-rhetorician of the State, the official whose business it was to put

the thoughts of the sovereign into fitting and eloquent words, either

when he was replying to the ambassadors of foreign powers, or when he

was issuing laws and proclamations to his own subjects. As his duties

and qualifications were of a more personal kind than those of his two

brother-ministers already described, he had not like them a large

official staff waiting upon his orders.



There were two great financial ministers, the Count of Sacred

Largesses (sacred, of course, is equivalent to Imperial), and the

Count of Private Domains, whose duties practically related in the

former case to the personal, in the latter to the real, estate of the

sovereign. Or perhaps, for it is difficult exactly to define the nature

of their various duties, it would be better to think of the Count of

Sacred Largesses as the Imperial Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the

Count of Private Domains as the Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests.



The Superintendent of the Sacred Dormitory was the Grand Chamberlain

of the Empire, and commanding, as he did, the army of pages, grooms of

the bed-chamber, vestiaries, and life-guardsmen, who ministered to the

myriad wants of an Arcadius or a Honorius, he was not the least

important among the chief officers of the State.



These great civil ministers, eight in number under the Western Emperors

(for there were three Praetorian Prefects, one for the Gauls, one for

Italy, and one for the City of Rome), formed, with the military officers

of highest rank (generally five in number), the innermost circle of

Illustres, who may be likened to the Cabinet of the Emperor. At this

time the Cabinet of Illustres may have been smaller by one or two

members, on account of the separation of the Gaulish provinces from

Rome, but we are not able to speak positively on this point.



Nearly every one of these great ministers of state had under him a

large, ambitious, and often highly-paid staff of subordinates, who were

called his Officium. The civil service was at least as regular and

highly specialised a profession under the Emperors and under Theodoric

as it is in any modern State. It is possible that we should have to go

to the Celestial Empire of China to find its fitting representative. A

large number of singularii, rationalii, clavicularii, and the like

(whom we should call policemen, subordinate clerks, and gaolers) formed

the Unlettered Staff (Militia Illiterata), who stood on the lowest

stage of the bureaucratic pyramid. Above these was the lettered staff,

beginning with the humble chancellor (Cancellarius), who sat by the

cancelli (latticework), at the bottom of the Court (to prevent

importunate suitors from venturing too far), and rising to the dignified

Princeps or Cornicularius, who was looked upon as equal in rank to a

Count, and who expected to make an income of not less than L600 a year,

equivalent to two or three times that amount in our day.



All this great hierarchy of officials wielded powers derived, mediately

or immediately, from the Emperor (or in the Ostrogothic monarchy from

the King), and great as was their brilliancy in the eyes of the dazzled

multitudes who crouched before them, it was all reflected from him, who

was the central sun of their universe. But there were still two

institutions which were in theory independent of Emperor or King, which

were yet held venerable by men, and which had come down from the days of

the great world-conquering republic, or the yet earlier days of Romulus

and Numa. These two institutions were the Consulship and the Senate.



The Consuls, as was said in an earlier chapter, still appeared to

preside over the Roman Republic, as they had in truth presided, wielding

between them the full power of a king, when Brutus and Collatinus, a

thousand years before Theodoric's commencement of the siege of Ravenna,

took their seat upon the curule chairs, and donned the trabea of the

Consul. Still, though utterly shorn of its power, the glamour of the

venerable office remained. The Emperor himself seemed to add to his

dignity when he allowed himself to be nominated as Consul, and in

nothing was the cupidity of the tyrant Emperors and the moderation of

the patriot Emperors better displayed than in the number of Consulships

which they claimed or forbore from claiming. Ever since the virtual

division of the Empire into an Eastern and Western portion, it had been

usual, though not absolutely obligatory, for one Consul to be chosen out

of each half of the Orbis Romanus, and in reading the contemporary

chronicles we can almost invariably tell to which portion the author

belongs by observing to which Consul's name he gives the priority. As

has been already stated, after the resumption of friendly relations

between Ravenna and Constantinople, Theodoric, while naming the Western

Consul, sent a courteous notification of the fact to the Emperor, by

whom his nomination seems to have been always accepted without question.

The great Ostrogoth, having once worn the Consular robes and distributed

largess to the Roman People in the streets of Constantinople, does not

seem to have cared a second time to assume that ancient dignity, but in

the year 519, towards the end of his reign, he named his son-in-law,

Eutharic, Consul, and the splendour of Eutharic's year of office was

enhanced by the fact that he had the then reigning Emperor, Justin, for

his colleague. As for the Senate, it too was still in appearance what

it had ever been,--the highest Council in the State, the assembly of

kings which overawed the ambassador of Pyrrhus, the main-spring, or, if

not the main-spring, at any rate the balance-wheel, of the

administrative machine. This it was in theory, for there had never been

any formal abolition of its existence or abrogation of its powers. In

practice it was just what the sovereign, whether called Emperor or King,

allowed it to be. A self-willed and arbitrary monarch, like Caligula or

Domitian, would reduce its functions to a nullity. A wise and moderate

Emperor, like Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, would consult it on all

important state-affairs, and, while reserving to himself both the power

of initiation and that of final control, would make of it a real Council

of State, a valuable member of the governing body of the Empire. The

latter seems to have been the policy of Theodoric. Probably the very

fact of his holding a somewhat doubtful position towards the Emperor at

Constantinople made him more willing to accept all the moral support

that could be given him by the body which was in a certain sense older

and more august than any Emperor, the venerable Senate of Rome. At any

rate, the letters in which he announces to the Senate the various acts,

especially the nomination of the great officials of his kingdom, in

which he desires their concurrence, are couched in such extremely

courteous terms, that sometimes civility almost borders on servility.

Notwithstanding this, however, it is quite plain that it was always

thoroughly understood who was master in Italy, and that any attempt on

the part of the Senate to wrest any portion of real power from Theodoric

would have been instantly and summarily suppressed.



I have said that it was only by the aid of officials, trained in the

service of the Empire that Theodoric, or indeed any of the new barbarian

sovereigns, could hope to keep the machine of civil government in

working order. We have, fortunately, a little information as to some of

these officials, and an elaborate self-drawn picture of one of them.



Liberius had been a faithful servant of Odovacar; and had to the last

remained by the sinking vessel of his fortunes. This fidelity did not

injure him in the estimation of the conqueror. When all was over, he

came, with no eagerness, and with unconcealed sorrow for the death of

his former master, to offer his services to Theodoric, who gladly

accepted them, and gave him at once the pre-eminent dignity of Praetorian

Prefect. His wise and economical management of the finances filled the

royal exchequer without increasing the burdens of the tax-payer, and it

is probable that the early return of prosperity to Italy, which was

described in the last chapter, was, in great measure, due to the just

and statesmanlike administration of Liberius. In the delicate business

of allotting to the Gothic warriors the third part of the soil of Italy,

which seems to have been their recognised dividend on Theodoric's

Italian speculation, he so acquitted himself as to win the approbation

of all. It is difficult for us to understand how such a change of

ownership can have brought with it anything but heart-burning and

resentment. But (1) there are not wanting indications that, owing to

evil influences both economic and political, there was actually a large

quantity of good land lying unoccupied in Italy in the fifth century;

and (2) there had already been one expropriation of the same kind for

the benefit of the soldiers of Odovacar. In so far as this allotment of

Thirds[83] merely followed the lines of that earlier redistribution, but

little of a grievance was caused to the Italian owner. An Ostrogoth, the

follower of Theodoric, stepped into the position of a slain Scyrian or

Turcilingian, the follower of Odovacar, and the Italian owner suffered

no further detriment. Still there must have been some loss to the

provincials and some cases of hardship which would be long and bitterly

remembered, before every family which crossed the Alps in the Gothic

waggons was safely settled in its Italian home. It is therefore not

without some qualification that we can accept the statement of the

official panegyrist[84] of the Gothic regime, who declares that in

this business of the allotment of the Thirds Liberius joined both the

hearts and the properties of the two nations, Gothic and Roman. For

whereas neighbourhood often proves a cause of enmity, with these men

communion of farms proved a cause of concord.[85] Thus the division of

the soil promoted the concord of the owners; friendship grew out of the

loss of the provincials, and the land gained a defender, whose

possession of part guaranteed the quiet enjoyment of the remainder. It

is possible that there was some foundation of truth for the last

statement. After the fearful convulsions through which the whole Western

Empire had passed, and with the strange paralysis of the power of

self-defence which had overtaken the once brave and hardy population of

Italy, it is possible that the presence, near to each considerable

Italian landowner, of a Goth whose duty to his king obliged him to

defend the land from foreign invasion, and to suppress with a strong

hand all robbery and brigandage, may have been felt in some cases as a

compensation even for whatever share of the soil of Italy was

transferred to Goth from Roman by the Chief Commissioner, Liberius.



Two eminent Romans, whom in the early years of his reign Theodoric

placed in high offices of state, were the two successive ambassadors to

Constantinople, Faustus and Festus. Both seem to have held the high

dignity of Praetorian Prefect. We do not, however, hear much as to the

career of Festus, and what we hear of Faustus is not altogether to his

credit. He had been for several years practically the Prime Minister of

Theodoric, when in an evil hour for his reputation he coveted the estate

of a certain Castorius, whose land adjoined his own. Deprived of his

patrimony, Castorius appealed, not in vain, to the justice of Theodoric,

whose ears were not closed, as an Emperor's would probably have been, to

the cry of a private citizen against a powerful official. We are

determined, says Theodoric, in his reply to the petition of Castorius,

to assist the humble and to repress the violence of the proud. If the

petition of Castorius prove to be well-founded, let the spoiler restore

to Castorius his property and hand over besides another estate of equal

value. If the Magnificent Faustus have employed any subordinate in this

act of injustice, bring him to us bound with chains that he may pay for

the outrage in person, if he cannot do so in purse. If on any future

occasion that now known craftsman of evil (Faustus) shall attempt to

injure the aforesaid Castorius, let him be at once fined fifty pounds of

gold (L2,000). Greatest of all punishments will be the necessity of

beholding the untroubled estate of the man whom he sought to ruin.

Behold herein a deed which may well chasten and subdue the hearts of all

our great dignitaries when they see that not even a Praetorian Prefect is

permitted to trample on the lowly, and that when we put forth our arm to

help, such an one's power of injuring the wretched fails him. From this

may all men learn how great is our love of justice, since we are willing

to diminish even the power of our judges, that we may increase the

contentment of our own conscience. This edict was followed by a letter

to the Illustrious Faustus himself, in which that grasping governor was

reminded that human nature frequently requires a change, and permission

was graciously given him to withdraw for four months into the country.

At the end of that time he was without fail to return to the capital,

since no Roman Senator ought to be happy if permanently settled

anywhere but at Rome. It is tolerably plain that the four months'

villeggiatura was really a sentence of temporary banishment, and we

may probably conclude that the Magnificent Faustus never afterwards held

any high position under Theodoric.



The letters announcing the King's judgment in this matter, like all the

other extant state-papers of Theodoric, were written by a man who was

probably by the fall of Faustus raised a step in the official hierarchy,

and who was certainly for the last twenty years of the reign of

Theodoric one of the most conspicuous of his Roman officials. This was

Cassiodorus, or, to give him his full name, Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus

Senator, a man, whose life and character require to be described in

some detail.



Cassiodorus was sprung from a noble Roman family, which had already

given three of its members in lineal succession (all bearing the name

Cassiodorus) to the service of the State. His great-grandfather, of

Illustrious rank, defended Sicily and Calabria from the incursions of

the Vandals. His grandsire, a Tribune in the army, was sent by the

Emperor Valentinian III. on an important embassy to Attila. His father

filled first one and then the other of the two highest financial offices

in the State under Odovacar. On the overthrow of that chieftain, he,

like Liberius, transferred his services to Theodoric, who employed him

as governor first of Sicily, then of Calabria, and finally, about the

year 500, conferred upon him the highest dignity of all, that of

Praetorian Prefect. The ancestral possessions of the Cassiodori were

situated m that southernmost province, sometimes likened to the toe of

Italy, which was then called Bruttii, and is now called Calabria. It was

a land rich in cattle, renowned for its cheese and for its aromatic,

white Palmatian wine; and veins of gold were said to be in its

mountains. Here, in the old Greek city of Scyllacium (Sguillace), a

city perched upon a high hill overlooking the sea, sunny yet fanned by

cool Mediterranean breezes, and looking peacefully on the cornfields,

the vineyards, and the olive-groves around her,[86] Cassiodorus was

born, about the year 480. He was therefore probably some twelve or

thirteen years of age when the long strife between Odovacar and

Theodoric was ended by the murder scene in the palace at Ravenna.



Like all the young Roman nobles who aspired to the honours and

emoluments of public life, Cassiodorus studied philosophy and rhetoric,

and, according to the standard of the age, a degraded standard, he

acquired great proficiency in both lines of study. When his father was

made Praetorian Prefect (about the year 500), the young rhetorician

received an appointment as Consiliarius, or Assessor in the Prefect's

court, at a salary which probably did not exceed forty or fifty pounds.

While he was holding this position, it fell to his lot to pronounce a

laudatory oration on Theodoric (perhaps on the occasion of one of his

visits to Rome), and the eloquence of the young Consiliarius so

delighted the King, that he was at once made an Illustrious Quaestor,

thus receiving what we should call cabinet-rank while he was still

considerably under thirty years of age. The Quaestor, as has been said,

was the Public Orator of the State. It devolved upon him to reply to the

formal harangues in which the ambassadors of foreign nations greeted his

master, to answer the petitions of his subjects, and to see that the

edicts of the sovereign were expressed in proper terms. The post exactly

fitted the intellectual tendencies of Cassiodorus, who was never so

happy as when he was wrapping up some commonplace thought in a garment

of sonorous but turgid rhetoric; and the simple honesty of his moral

nature, simple in its very vanity and honest in its childlike egotism,

coupled as it was with real love for his country and loyal zeal for her

welfare, endeared him in his turn to Theodoric, with whom he had many

gloriosa colloquia (as he calls them), conversations in which the

young, learned, and eloquent Roman poured forth for his master the

stored up wine of generations of philosophers and poets, while the

kingly barbarian doubtless unfolded some of the propositions of that

more difficult science, the knowledge of men, which he had acquired by

long and arduous years of study in the council-chamber, on the

mountain-march, and on the battle-field.



We can go at once to the fountain-head for information as to the

character of Cassiodorus. When he was promoted, soon after the death of

Theodoric, to the rank of Praetorian Prefect, it became his duty, as

Quaestor to the young King Athalaric (Theodoric's successor), to inform

himself by an official letter of the honour conferred upon him. In

writing this letter, he does not deviate from the usual custom of

describing the virtues and accomplishments which justify the new

minister's promotion. Why indeed should he keep silence on such an

occasion? No one could know the good qualities of Cassiodorus so well or

so intimately as Cassiodorus himself, and accordingly the Quaestor sets

forth, with all the rhetoric of which he had such an endless supply, the

virtues and the accomplishments which his observant eye has discovered

in himself, the new Praetorian Prefect. Such a course would certainly not

be often pursued by a modern statesman, but there is a pleasing

ingenuousness about it which to some minds will be more attractive than

our present methods, the inspired article in a hired newspaper, or the

feigned reluctance to receive a testimonial which, till the receiver

suggested it, no one had dreamed of offering.



This then is how Cassiodorus, in 533, describes his past career[87]:

You came (his young sovereign, Athalaric, is supposed to be addressing

him) in very early years to the dignity of Quaestor; and mv grandfather's

(Theodoric's) wonderful insight into character was never more abundantly

proved than in your case, for he found you to be endued with rare

conscientiousness, and already ripe in your knowledge of the laws. You

were in truth the chief glory of your times, and you won his favour by

arts which none could blame, for his mind, by nature anxious in all

things, was able to lay aside its cares while you supported the weight

of the royal counsels with the strength of your eloquence. In you he had

a charming secretary, a rigidly upright judge, a minister to whom

avarice was unknown. You never fixed a scandalous tariff for the sale of

his benefits; you chose to take your reward in public esteem, not in

riches. Therefore it was that this most righteous ruler chose you to be

honoured by his glorious friendship, because he saw you to be free from

all taint of corrupt vices. How often did he fix your place among his

white-haired counsellors; inasmuch as they, by the experience of years,

had not come up to the point from which you had started! He found that

he could safely praise your excellent disposition, open-handed in

bestowing benefits, tightly closed against the vices of avarice.



Thus you passed on to the dignity of Master of the Offices,[88] which

you obtained, not by a pecuniary payment, but as a testimony to your

character. In that office you were ever ready to help the Quaestors, for

when pure eloquence was needed men always resorted to you; and, in fact,

when you were at hand and ready to help, there was no accurate division

of labour among the various offices of the State.[89] No one could find

an occasion to murmur aught against you, although you bore all the

unpopularity which accompanies the favour of a prince.



Your detractors were conquered by the integrity of your life; your

adversaries, bowing to public opinion, were obliged to praise even while

they hated you.



To the lord of the land you showed yourself a friendly judge and an

intimate minister. When public affairs no longer claimed him, he would

ask you to tell him the stories in which wise men of old have clothed

their maxims, that by his own deeds he might equal the ancient heroes.

The courses of the stars, the ebb and flow of the sea, the marvels of

springing fountains,--nto all these subjects would that most acute

questioner inquire, so that by his diligent investigations into the

nature of things, he seemed to be a philosopher in the purple.



This sketch of the character of the minister throws light incidentally

on that of the monarch who employed him. Of course, as a general rule,

history cannot allow the personages with whom she deals to write their

own testimonials, but in this case there is reason to think that the

self-portraiture of Cassiodorus is accurate in its main outlines, though

our modern taste would have suggested the employment of somewhat less

florid colouring.



One literary service which Cassiodorus rendered to the Ostrogothic

monarchy is thus described by himself, still speaking in his young

king's name and addressing the Roman Senate.[90]



He was not satisfied with extolling surviving Kings, from whom their

panegyrist might hope for a reward. He extended his labours to our

remote ancestry, learning from books that which the hoary memories of

our old men scarcely retained. He drew forth from their hiding-place the

Kings of the Goths, hidden by long forgetfulness. He restored the Amals

in all the lustre of their lineage, evidently proving that we have Kings

for our ancestors up to the seventeenth generation. He made the origin

of the Goths part of Roman history, collecting into one wreath the

flowers which had previously been scattered over the wide plains of

literature. Consider, therefore, what love he showed to you (the Senate)

in uttering our praises, while teaching that the nation of your

sovereign has been from ancient time a marvellous people: so that you

who from the days of your ancestors have been truly deemed noble are

also now ruled over by the long-descended progeny of Kings.



These sentences relate to the Gothic History of Cassiodorus, which

once existed in twelve books, but is now unfortunately lost. A hasty

abridgment of it, made by an ignorant monk named Jordanes, is all that

now remains. Even this, with its many faults, is a most precious

monument of the early history of the Teutonic invaders of the Empire,

and it is from its pages that much of the information contained in the

previous chapters is drawn. The object of the original statesman-author

in composing his Gothic History is plainly stated in the above

sentences. He wishes to heal the wound given to Roman pride by the fact

of the supremacy in Italy of a Gothic lord; and in order to effect this

object he strings together all that he can collect of the Sagas of the

Gothic people, showing the great deeds of the Amal progenitors of

Theodoric, whose lineage he traces back into distant centuries. It is

true he seems to say to the Senators of Rome, that you, who once ruled

the world, are now ruled by an alien; but at least that alien is no

new-comer into greatness. He and his progenitors have been crowned Kings

for centuries. His people, who are quartered among you and claim

one-third of the soil of Italy, are an old, historic people. Their

ancestors fought under the walls of Troy; they defeated Cyrus, King of

Persia; they warred not ingloriously with Perdiccas of Macedonia.



These classical elements of the Gothic history of Cassiodorus (which

rest chiefly on a misunderstanding of the vague and unscientific term

Scythians) are valueless for the purposes of history; but the old

Gothic Sagas, of which he has evidently also preserved some fragments,

are both interesting and valuable. When a nation has played so important

a part on the theatre of the world as that assigned to the Goths, even

their legendary stories of the past are precious. Whether these early

Amal Kings fought and ruled and migrated as the Sagas represent them to

have done, or not, in any case the belief that these were their

achievements was a part of the intellectual heritage of the Gothic

peoples. The songs to whose lullaby the cradle of a great nation is

rocked are a precious possession to the historian.



The other most important work of Cassiodorus is the collection of

letters called the Variae, in twelve books. This collection contains

all the chief state-papers composed by him during the period (somewhat

more than thirty years) which was covered by his official life. Five

books are devoted to the letters written at the dictation of Theodoric;

two to the Formulae or model-letters addressed to the various

dignitaries of the State on their accession to office; three to the

letters written in the name of Theodoric's immediate successors (his

grandson, daughter, and nephew); and two to those written by Cassiodorus

himself in his own name when he had attained the crowning dignity of

Praetorian Prefect.



I have already made some extracts from this collection of Various

Epistles and the reader, from the specimens thus submitted to him, will

have formed some conception of the character of the author's style. That

style is diffuse and turgid, marked in an eminent degree with the

prevailing faults of the sixth century, an age of literary decay, when

the language of Cicero and Virgil was falling into its dotage. There is

much ill-timed display of irrelevant learning, and a grievous absence of

simplicity and directness, in the Various Epistles. It must be

regarded as a misfortune for Theodoric that his maxims of statesmanship,

which were assuredly full of manly sense and vigour, should have reached

us only in such a shape, diluted with the platitudes and false rhetoric

of a scholar of the decadence. Still, even through all these disguises,

it is easy to discern the genuine patriotism both of the great King and

of his minister, their earnest desire that right, not might, should

determine every case that came before them, their true insight into the

vices and the virtues of each of the two different nations which now

shared Italy between them, their persevering endeavour to keep

civilitas intact, their determination to oppose alike the turbulence

of the Goth and the chicane of the scheming Roman.



As specimens of the rhetoric of Cassiodorus when he is trying his

highest flights, the reader may care to peruse the two following

letters. The first[91] was written to Faustus the Praetorian Prefect, to

complain of his delay in forwarding some cargoes of corn from Calabria

to Rome:



What are you waiting for? says Cassiodorus, writing in his master's

name. Why are your ships not spreading their sails to the breeze? When

the South-wind is blowing and your oarsmen are urging on your vessels,

has the sucking-fish (Echeneis) fastened its bite upon them through the

liquid waves? Or have the shell-fishes of the Indian Sea with similar

power stayed your keels with their lips: those creatures whose quiet

touch is said to hold back, more than the tumultuous elements can

possibly urge forward? The idle bark stands still, though winged with

swelling sails, and has no way on her though the breeze is propitious;

she is fixed without anchors; she is moored without cables, and these

tiny animals pull back, more than all such favouring powers can propel.

Therefore when the subject wave would hasten the vessel's course, it

appears that it stands fixed on the surface of the sea: and in

marvellous style the floating ship is retained immovable, while the

wave is hurried along by countless currents.



But let us describe the nature of another kind of fish. Perhaps the

crews of the aforesaid ships have been benumbed into idleness by the

touch of a torpedo, by which the right hand of him who attacks it is so

deadened--even through the spear by which it is itself wounded--that

while still part of a living body it hangs down benumbed without sense

or motion. I think some such misfortunes must have happened to men who

are unable to move themselves.



But no. The sucking-fish of these men is their hindering corruption.

The shell-fishes that bite them are their avaricious hearts. The torpedo

that benumbs them is lying guile. With perverted ingenuity they

manufacture delays, that they may seem to have met with a run of

ill-luck.



Let your Greatness, whom it especially behoves to take thought for such

matters, cause that this be put right by speediest rebuke: lest the

famine, which will otherwise ensue, be deemed to be the child of

negligence rather than of the barrenness of the land.



The occasion of the second letter (Var., x., 30.) was as follows. Some

brazen images of elephants which adorned the Sacred Street of Rome were

falling into ruin, Cassiodorus, writing in the name of one of

Theodoric's successors, to the Prefect of the City, orders that their

gaping limbs should be strengthened by hooks, and their pendulous

bellies should be supported by masonry. He then proceeds to give to the

admiring Prefect some wonderful information as to the natural history

of the elephant. He regrets that the metal effigies should be so soon

destroyed, when the animal which they represent is accustomed to live

more than a thousand years.



The living elephant he says, when it is once prostrate on the ground,

cannot rise unaided, because it has no joints in its feet. Hence when

they are helping men to fell timber, you see numbers of them lying on

the earth till men come and help them to rise. Thus this creature, so

formidable by its size, is really more helpless than the tiny ant. The

elephant, wiser than all other creatures, renders religious adoration to

the Ruler of all: also to good princes, but if a tyrant approach, it

will not pay him the homage which is due only to the virtuous. It uses

its proboscis, that nose-like hand which Nature has given it in

compensation for its very short neck, for the benefit of its master,

accepting the presents which will be profitable to him. It always walks

cautiously, remembering that fatal fall into the hunter's pit which was

the beginning of its captivity. When requested to do so, it exhales its

breath, which is said to be a remedy for the headache.



When it comes to water, it sucks up a vast quantity in its trunk, and

then at the word of command squirts it forth like a shower. If any one

have treated its demands with contempt, it pours forth such a stream of

dirty water over him that one would think that a river had entered his

house. For this beast has a wonderfully long memory, both of injury and

of kindness. Its eyes are small but move solemnly, so that there is a

sort of royal majesty in its appearance: and it despises scurrile jests,

while it always looks with pleasure on that which is honourable.



It must be admitted that if the official communications of modern

statesmen thus anxiously combined amusement with instruction, the dull

routine of I have the honour to inform and I beg to remain your

obedient humble servant, would acquire a charm of which it is now

destitute.



I have translated two letters which show the ludicrous side of the

literary character of Cassiodorus. In justice to this honest, if

somewhat pedantic, servant of Theodoric, I will close this sketch of his

character with a state-paper of a better type, and one which

incidentally throws some light on the social condition of Italy under

the Goths.



THEODORIC to the Illustrious Neudes. (Var., v., 29.)



We were moved to sympathy by the long petition of Ocer but yet more by

beholding the old hero, bereft of the blessing of sight, inasmuch as the

calamities which we witness make more impression upon us than those of

which we only hear. He, poor man, living on in perpetual darkness, had

to borrow the sight of another to hasten to our presence in order that

he might feel the sweetness of our clemency, though he could not gaze

upon our countenance.



He complains that Gudila and Oppas (probably two Gothic nobles or a

Gothic chief and his wife) have reduced him to a state of slavery, a

condition unknown to him or his fathers, since he once served in our

army as a free man. We marvel that such a man should be dragged into

bondage who (on account of his infirmity) ought to have been liberated

by a lawful owner. It is a new kind of ostentation to claim the services

of such an one, the sight of whom shocks you, and to call that man a

slave, to whom you ought rather to minister with divine compassion.



He adds also that all claims of this nature have been already judged

invalid after careful examination by Count Pythias, a man celebrated for

the correctness of his judgments. But now overwhelmed by the weight of

his calamity, he cannot assert his freedom by his own right hand, which

in the strong man is the most effectual advocate of his claims. We,

however, whose peculiar property it is to administer justice

indifferently, whether between men of equal or unequal condition, do by

this present mandate decree, that if, in the judgment of the aforesaid

Pythias, Ocer have proved himself free-born, you shall at once remove

those who are harassing him with their claims, nor shall they dare any

longer to mock at the calamities of others: these people who once

convicted ought to have been covered with shame for their wicked

designs.