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Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

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Title: The Letters of Cassiodorus
       Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of
              Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator

Author: Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

Translator: Thomas Hodgkin

Release Date: June 15, 2006 [EBook #18590]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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THE

LETTERS OF CASSIODORUS

BEING

A CONDENSED TRANSLATION OF THE VARIAE EPISTOLAE
OF MAGNUS AURELIUS CASSIODORUS SENATOR

With an Introduction

BY

THOMAS HODGKIN

FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON; HON. D.C.L. OF DURHAM UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF 'ITALY AND HER INVADERS'

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE
AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

1886.

[All rights reserved]

Oxford

PRINTED BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

Table of Contents

[Pg v]

PREFACE.

The abstract of the 'Variae' of Cassiodorus which I now offer to the notice of historical students, belongs to that class of work which Professor Max Müller happily characterised when he entitled two of his volumes 'Chips from a German Workshop.' In the course of my preparatory reading, before beginning the composition of the third and fourth volumes of my book on 'Italy and Her Invaders,' I found it necessary to study very attentively the 'Various Letters' of Cassiodorus, our best and often our only source of information, for the character and the policy of the great Theodoric. The notes which in this process were accumulated upon my hands might, I hoped, be woven into one long chapter on the Ostrogothic government of Italy. When the materials were collected, however, they were so manifold, so perplexing, so full of curious and unexpected detail, that I quite despaired of ever succeeding in the attempt to group them into one harmonious and artistic picture. Frankly, therefore, renouncing a task which is beyond my powers, I offer my notes for the perusal of the few readers who may care to study the mutual reactions[Pg vi] of the Roman and the Teutonic mind upon one another in the Sixth Century, and I ask these to accept the artist's assurance, 'The curtain is the picture.'

It will be seen that I only profess to give an abstract, not a full translation of the letters. There is so much repetition and such a lavish expenditure of words in the writings of Cassiodorus, that they lend themselves very readily to the work of the abbreviator. Of course the longer letters generally admit of greater relative reduction in quantity than the shorter ones, but I think it may be said that on an average the letters have lost at least half their bulk in my hands. On any important point the real student will of course refuse to accept my condensed rendering, and will go straight to the fountain-head. I hope, however, that even students may occasionally derive the same kind of assistance from my labours which an astronomer derives from the humble instrument called the 'finder' in a great observatory.

A few important letters have been translated, to the best of my ability, verbatim. In the not infrequent instances where I have been unable to extract any intelligible meaning, on grammatical principles, from the words of my author, I have put in the text the nearest approximation that I could discover to his meaning, and placed the unintelligible words in a note, hoping that my readers may be more fortunate in their interpretation than I have been.

With the usual ill-fortune of authors, just as my last sheet was passing through the press I received from[Pg vii] Italy a number of the 'Atti e Memorie della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Provincie di Romagna' (to which I am a subscriber), containing an elaborate and scholarlike article by S. Augusto Gaudenzi, entitled 'L'Opera di Cassiodorio a Ravenna.' It is a satisfaction to me to see that in several instances S. Gaudenzi and I have reached practically the same conclusions; but I cannot but regret that his paper reached me too late to prevent my benefiting from it more fully. A few of the more important points in which I think S. Gaudenzi throws useful light on our common subject are noticed in the 'Additions and Corrections,' to which I beg to draw my readers' attention.

I may perhaps be allowed to add that the Index, the preparation of which has cost me no small amount of labour, ought (if I have not altogether failed in my endeavour) to be of considerable assistance to the historical enquirer. For instance, if he will refer to the heading Sajo, and consult the passages there referred to, he will find, I believe, all that Cassiodorus has to tell us concerning these interesting personages, the Sajones, who were almost the only representatives of the intrusive Gothic element in the fabric of Roman administration.

From textual criticism and the discussion of the authority of different MSS. I have felt myself entirely relieved by the announcement of the forthcoming critical edition of the 'Variae,' under the superintendence of Professor Meyer. The task to which an eminent German scholar has devoted the labour of several years, it would be quite useless for me, without[Pg viii] appliances and without special training, to approach as an amateur; and I therefore simply help myself to the best reading that I can get from the printed texts, leaving to Professor Meyer to say which reading possesses the highest diplomatic authority. Simply as a a matter of curiosity I have spent some days in examining the MSS. of Cassiodorus in the British Museum. If they are at all fair representatives (which probably they are not) of the MSS. which Professor Meyer has consulted, I should say that though the titles of the letters have often got into great confusion through careless and unintelligent copying, the main text is not likely to show any very important variations from the editions of Nivellius and Garet.

I now commend this volume with all its imperfections to the indulgent criticism of the small class of historical students who alone will care to peruse it. The man of affairs and the practical politician will of course not condescend to turn over its pages; yet the anxious and for a time successful efforts of Theodoric and his Minister to preserve to Italy the blessings of Civilitas might perhaps teach useful lessons even to a modern statesman.

THOS. HODGKIN.

[Pg ix]

NOTE.

The following Note as to the MSS. at the British Museum may save a future enquirer a little trouble.

(1) 10 B. XV. is a MS. about 11 inches by 8, written in a fine bold hand, and fills 157 folios, of which 134 belong to the 'Variae' and 23 to the 'Institutiones Divinarum Litterarum.' There are also two folios at the end which I have not deciphered. The MS. is assigned to the Thirteenth Century. The title of the First Book is interesting, because it contains the description of Cassiodorus' official rank, 'Ex Magistri Officii,' which Mommsen seems to have looked for in the MSS. in vain. The MS. contains the first Three Books complete, but only 39 letters of the Fourth. Letters 40-51 of the Fourth Book, and the whole of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Books, are missing. It then goes on to the Eighth Book (which it calls the Fifth), but omits the first five letters. The remaining 28 appear to be copied satisfactorily. The Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Books, which the transcriber calls the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth, seem to be on the whole correctly copied.

There seems to be a certain degree of correspondence between the readings of this MS. and those of the Leyden MS. of the Twelfth Century (formerly at Fulda) which are described by Ludwig Tross in his 'Symbolae Criticae' (Hammone, 1853).

(2) 8 B. XIX. is a MS. also of the Thirteenth Century, in a smaller hand than the foregoing. The margins are very large, but the Codex measures only 6-3/4 inches by 4-1/4. The rubricated titles are of somewhat later date than the body of the text. The initial letters are elaborately illuminated. This MS. contains, in a mutilated state and in a peculiar order, the books from the Eighth to the Twelfth. The following is the order in which the books are placed:

[Pg x]

The amanuensis, who has evidently been a thoroughly dishonest worker, constantly omits whole letters, from which however he sometimes extracts a sentence or two, which he tacks on to the end of some preceding letter without regard to the sense. This process makes it exceedingly difficult to collate the MS. with the printed text. Owing to the Eighth Book being inserted after the Twelfth, it is erroneously labelled on the back, 'Cassiodori Senatoris Epistolae, Lib. X-XIII.'

(3) 10 B. IV. (also of the Thirteenth Century, and measuring 11 inches by 8) contains, in a tolerably complete state, the first Three Books of the 'Variae,' Book IV. 5-39, Book VIII. 1-12, and Books X-XII. The order, however, is transposed, Books IV. and VIII. coming after Book XII. These excerpts from Cassiodorus, which occupy folios 66 to 134 of the MS., are preceded by some collections relative to the Civil and Canon Law. The letters which are copied seem to be carefully and conscientiously done.

These three MSS. are all in the King's Library.

Besides these MSS. I have also glanced at No. 1,919 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Like those previously described it is, I believe, of the Thirteenth Century, and professes to contain the whole of the 'Variae;' but the letters are in an exceedingly mutilated form. On an average it seems to me that not more than one-third of each letter is copied. In this manner the 'Variae' are compressed into the otherwise impossible number of 33 folios (149-182).

All these MSS., even the best of them, give me the impression of being copied by very unintelligent scribes, who had but little idea of the meaning of the words which they were transcribing. In all, the superscription V.S. is expanded (wrongly, as I believe) into 'Viro Senatori;' for 'Praefecto Praetorio' we have the meaningless 'Praeposito;' and the Agapitus who is addressed in the 6th, 32nd, and 33rd letters of the First Book is turned, in defiance of chronology, into a Pope.

[Pg xi]

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

NOTE.

ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

LIFE OF CASSIODORUS.

[Pg xii]

CHAPTER II.

THE 'ANECDOTON HOLDERI.'

CHAPTER III.

THE GRADATIONS OF OFFICIAL RANK IN THE LOWER EMPIRE.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE OFFICIUM OF THE PRAEFECTUS PRAETORIO.

CHAPTER V.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER VI.

CHRONOLOGY.

[Pg xiii]

ABSTRACT OF THE 'VARIAE.'

BOOK I.

CONTAINING FORTY-SIX LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN THE NAME OF THEODORIC.

BOOK II.

CONTAINING FORTY-ONE LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN THE NAME OF THEODORIC.

BOOK III.

CONTAINING FIFTY-THREE LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN THE NAME OF THEODORIC.

BOOK IV.

CONTAINING FIFTY-ONE LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN THE NAME OF THEODORIC.

BOOK V.

CONTAINING FORTY-FOUR LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN THE NAME OF THEODORIC.

BOOK VI.

CONTAINING TWENTY-FIVE FORMULAE.

[Pg xx]

BOOK VII.

CONTAINING FORTY-SEVEN FORMULAE.

BOOK VIII.

CONTAINING THIRTY-THREE LETTERS, ALL WRITTEN IN THE NAME OF ATHALARIC THE KING, EXCEPT THE ELEVENTH, WHICH IS WRITTEN IN THE NAME OF TULUM.

BOOK IX.

CONTAINING TWENTY-FIVE LETTERS, WRITTEN IN THE NAME OF ATHALARIC THE KING.

[Pg xxiii]

BOOK X.

CONTAINING THIRTY-FIVE LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS:

FOUR IN THE NAME OF QUEEN AMALASUENTHA;
TWENTY-TWO IN THAT OF KING THEODAHAD;
FOUR IN THAT OF HIS WIFE GUDELINA;
FIVE IN THAT OF KING WITIGIS.

BOOK XI.

CONTAINING THIRTY-NINE LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN HIS OWN NAME AS PRAEFECTUS PRAETORIO, AND ONE ON BEHALF OF THE ROMAN SENATE.

[Pg xxv]

BOOK XII.

CONTAINING TWENTY-EIGHT LETTERS WRITTEN BY CASSIODORUS IN HIS OWN NAME AS PRAETORIAN PRAEFECT.