Cassiodorus at his Vivarium library ( in Codex Amiatinus, 8th century).

Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 - c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and great writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was his surname, not his rank. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 393 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (564 × 860 pixel, file size: 465 KB, MIME type: image/gif) Medieval illumination depicting the scribe Ezra restoring the Old Testament (4 Ezra [= 2 Esdras] 14: 41-48; from the 8th century Codex Amiatinus) Faithful reproductions of... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 393 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (564 × 860 pixel, file size: 465 KB, MIME type: image/gif) Medieval illumination depicting the scribe Ezra restoring the Old Testament (4 Ezra [= 2 Esdras] 14: 41-48; from the 8th century Codex Amiatinus) Faithful reproductions of... The Codex Amiatinus is the most celebrated manuscript of the Latin Vulgate Bible, remarkable as the best witness to the true text of St. ... Events Peter the Fuller is excommunicated by a synod in Rome. ... Events Famine in Gaul. ... Motto Senatus Populusque Romanus (SPQR) The Roman Empire at its greatest extent. ... Theodoric the Great (454 - August 30, 526), known to the Romans as Flavius Theodoricus, was king of the Ostrogoths (488-526), ruler of Italy (493-526), and regent of the Visigoths (511-526). ... Map of Ostrogothic Kingdom The Ostrogoths (Greuthung, Gleaming Goths or Eastern Goths), along with the Visigoths (Noble Goths or Western Goths) were branches of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe that played a major role in the political events of the late Roman Empire. ...

Life

Cassiodorus was born at Scyllaceum (Squillace) in southern Italy, of a family that was apparently of Syrian origin. He began his career as councillor to his father, the governor of Sicily, and made a name for himself while still very young as learned in the law. During his working life, as quaestor c. 507-511, as a consul in 514, then as magister officiorum under Theodoric, then under the regency for Theodoric's young successor, Athalaric, Cassiodorus kept copious records and letterbooks concerning public affairs. At the Gothic court, his literary skill that seems so mannered and rhetorical to a modern reader was accounted so remarkable that, whenever he was in Ravenna, significant public documents were often entrusted to him for drafting. His culminating appointment was as praetorian prefect for Italy, effectively the prime ministership of the Ostrogothic civil government and a high honor to finish any career. Coat of arms of Comune di Squillace Squillace (Latin: Scyllaceum or Scalacium) is an ancient seaside town in the southern Italian region of Calabria facing the Golfo di Squillace. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian and Sicilian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,708 km² (9,926 sq. ... Quaestores were elected officials of the Roman Republic who supervised the treasury and financial affairs of the state, its armies and its officers. ... Consul (abbrev. ... In Late Antiquity, the Roman position of magister officiorum (lat. ... Athalaric (516 - 2 October 534), king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, grandson of Theodoric the Great, became king on his grand-fathers death (526). ... Ravenna is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. ... Praetorian prefect (Latin Praefectus praetorio) was the constant title of a high office in the Roman state that changed fundamentally in nature. ...

James O'Donnell notes:

"it is almost indisputable that he accepted advancement in 523 as the immediate successor of Boethius, who was then failing from grace after less than a year as magister officiorum, and who was sent to prison and later executed. In addition, Boethius' father-in-law (and step-father) Symmachus, by this time a distinguished elder statesman, followed Boethius to the block within a year. All this was a result of the worsening split between the ancient senatorial aristocracy centered in Rome and the adherents of Gothic rule at Ravenna. But to read Cassiodorus' Variae one would never suspect such goings-on."

There is no mention in Cassiodorus' selection of official correspondence of the death of Boethius. Boethius teaching his students (initial in a 1385 Italian manuscript of the Consolation of Philosophy). ...

Athalaric died in early 534, and the remainder of Cassiodorus' public career was engulfed by the Byzantine reconquest and dynastic intrigue among the Ostrogoths. His last letters were drafted in the name of Witigis. Cassiodorus' successor was appointed from Constantinople. Events January 1 - Decimus Theodorius Paulinus appointed consul, the last to hold this office in the West. ... Witiges or Vitiges (d. ...

Around 537-38, he left Italy for Constantinople where he remained almost two decades, concentrating on religious questions. He noticeably met Junilius, the quaestor of Justinianus. His constantinopolitean journey contributed to the improvement of his religious knowledge.

He spent his career trying to bridge the cultural divides that were fragmenting the 6th century, between East and West, Greek culture and Latin, Roman and Goth, Christian people with an Arian ruler. He speaks fondly in his Institutiones of Dionysius Exiguus, responsible for the Anno Domini dating system. Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little, meaning humble) (c. ... Dionysius Exiguus invented Anno Domini years to date Easter. ...

In his retirement he founded the monastery of Vivarium on his family estates on the shores of the Ionian Sea, and his writings turned to religion. The twin structure of the Vivarium was to permit coenobitic monks and hermits to coexist. Cassiodorus also established a library where, at the very close of the Classical period, he attempted to bring Greek learning to Latin readers and preserve texts both sacred and secular for future generations. As its unofficial librarian, Cassiodorus not only collected as many manuscripts as he could, he also wrote treatises aimed at instructing his monks in the proper uses of reading and methods for copying texts accurately. In the end, however, the library at Vivarium was dispersed and lost, though it was still active ca. 630, when the monks brought the relics of Saint Agathius from Constantinople, to whom they dedicated a spring-fed fountain shrine that still exists [1]. By then, however, Theodoric's Gothic kingdom was undermined by Christian forces from within and Lombard invaders from without. The Ionian Sea. ... The Librarian, a 1556 painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo A librarian is an information professional trained in library science and information science: the organization and management of information and service to people with information needs. ... Saint Agathius, also known as Achatius[1] or Acacius of Byzantium[3] was a Cappadocian centurion of the imperial army. ... The Lombards (Latin Langobardi, whence comes the alternative name Longobards found in older English texts), were a Germanic people originally from Northern Europe that entered the late Roman Empire. ...

Works

• Laudes (very fragmentary published panegyrics on public occasions)
• Chronica, (ending at 519) uniting all world history in one sequence of rulers, a union of Goth and Roman antecedents, flattering Goth sensibilities as the sequence neared the date of composition
• Gothic History (526-533), survives only in Jordanes' abbreviation, which must be considered a separate work
• Variae epistolae (537), Theodoric's state papers. Editio princeps by M. Accurius (1533). English translations by Thomas Hodgkin The Letters of Cassiodorus (1886); S.J.B. Barnish Cassiodorus: Variae (Liverpool: University Press, 1992) ISBN 0-85323-436-1
• Expositio psalmorum (Exposition of the Psalms)
• De anima ("On the Soul") (540)
• Institutiones Divinarum et Saecularium Litterarum (543-555)
• De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum ("On the Liberal Arts")
• Codex Grandior (a version of the Bible)

In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. ... Thomas Hodgkin (July 29, 1831 - 1913), British historian, son of John Hodgkin (1800-1875), barrister and Quaker minister, and Elizabeth Howard (daughter of Luke Howard). ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library. ...

References

• James J. O'Donnell (1979). Cassiodorus (Berkeley: University of California Press,). On-line e-text.

External links

• James J. O'Donnell's Cassiodorus webpage: an assessment of Cassiodorus' cultural predicament
• Christopher H. Walker, "Cassiodorus Senator and the Search for 6th Century Détente", 2002: Abstract
• Works by Cassiodorus at Project Gutenberg
• of the Christian Church/A.D. 590-1073 by Philip Schaff at 'ccel.org'
• of the Christian Church/A.D. 590-1073 by Philip Schaff at the [2]
• History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4 by Gibbon at Project Gutenberg.
• Cassiodorus - Catholic Encyclopedia article