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CASSIODORUS (not Cassiodorius)

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 460 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CASSIODORUS (not Cassiodorius) , the name of a Syrian See also:family settled at Scyllacium (Squillace) in See also:Bruttii, where it held an influential position in the 5th See also:century A.D. Its most important member was FLAVIUS See also:MAGNUS AURELIUS CASSIODORUS SENATOR (c. 490-585), historian, statesman, and See also:monk. " Senator " (not a See also:title) is the name used by himself in his See also:official See also:correspondence. His See also:father held the offices of comes privatarum and sacrarum largitionum (controller of the See also:emperor's private See also:revenue and the public See also:exchequer) under See also:Odoacer, and subsequently 46o attached himself to See also:Theodoric, by whom he was appointed corrector (See also:governor) of Bruttii and Lucania, and praefectus praetorio. The son at an See also:early See also:age became consiliarius (legal See also:assessor) to his father, and (probably in 507) See also:quaestor, an official whose See also:chief See also:duty at that See also:time consisted in acting as the mouth-piece of the ruler, and drafting his despatches. In 514 he was See also:ordinary See also:consul, and at a later date possibly corrector of his native See also:province. At the See also:death of Theodoric (526) he held the See also:office of magister officiorum (chief of the See also:civil service). Under See also:Athalaric he was praefectus praetorio, a See also:post which he retained till about 540, after the triumphal entry of See also:Belisarius into See also:Ravenna, when he retired from public See also:life. With the See also:object of providing for the transmission of divine and human knowledge to later ages, and of securing it against the See also:tide of barbarism which threatened to sweep it away, he founded two monasteries—Vivarium and Castellum—in his ancestral domains at Squillace (others identify the two monasteries). The See also:special duty which he enjoined upon the inmates was the acquisition of knowledge, both sacred and profane, the latter, however, being subordinated to the former. He also collected and emended valuable See also:MSS., which his monks were instructed to copy, and superintended the See also:translation of various See also:Greek See also:works into Latin.

He further amused himself with making scientific toys, such as See also:

sun-dials and See also:water-clocks. As he is stated to have written one of his See also:treatises at the age of ninety-three, he must have lived till after 580. Whether he belonged to the See also:Benedictine See also:order is uncertain. The writings of Cassiodorus evince See also:great erudition, ingenuity and labour, but are disfigured by incorrectness and an affected artificiality, and his Latin partakes much of the corruptions of the age. His works are (r) See also:historical and See also:political, (2) theological and grammatical. 1. (a) Variae, the most important of all his writings, in twelve books, published in 537. They contain the decrees of Theodoric and his successors See also:Amalasuntha, Theodahad and Witigis; the regulations of the chief offices of See also:state; the edicts published by Cassiodorus himself when praefectus praetorio. It is the best source of our knowledge of the Ostrogothic See also:kingdom in See also:Italy (ed. T. See also:Mommsen in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquissimi, xii., 1894; condensed See also:English translation by T. See also:Hodgkin, 1886).

(b) Chronica, written at the See also:

request of Theodoric's son-in-See also:law Eutharic, during whose consulship (519) it was published. It is a dry and inaccurate compilation from various See also:sources, unduly partial to the Goths (ed. T. Mommsen in Mon. Germ. Hist.: Auct. See also:Ant. xi. pt. i., 1893). (c) Panegyrics on See also:Gothic See also:kings and queens (fragments ed. L. Traube in Mon. Germ. Hist.: Auct.

Ant. xii.). 2. (a) De Anima, a discussion on the nature of the soul, at the conclusion of which the author deplores the See also:

quarrel between two such great peoples as the Goths and See also:Romans. It seems to have been published with the last See also:part of the Variae. (b) Institutiones divinarun et humanarum litterarum, an See also:encyclopaedia of sacred and profane literature for the monks, and a See also:sketch of the seven liberal arts. It further contains instructions for using the library, and precepts for daily life. (c) A commentary on the See also:Psalms and See also:short notes (complexiones) on the Pauline epistles, the Acts, and the See also:Apocalypse. (d) De Orthographia, a compilation made by the author in his ninety-third See also:year from the works of twelve grammarians, ending with his contemporary See also:Priscian (ed. H. Keil, Grammatici See also:Latini, vii.). The Latin See also:translations of the Antiquities of See also:Josephus and of the ecclesiastical histories of See also:Theodoret, See also:Sozomen and See also:Socrates, under the title of Historia Tripartita (embracing the years 306-439), were carried out under his supervision. Of his lost works the most important was the Historia Gothorum, written with the object of glorifying the Gothic royal See also:house and proving that the Goths and Romans had See also:long been connected by ties of friendship.

It was published during the reign of Athalaric, and appears to have brought the See also:

history down to the death of Theodoric. His chief authority for Gothic history and See also:legend was Ablavius (Ablabius). The See also:work is only known to us in the meagre abridgment of Jordanes (ed. T. Mommsen, 1882).

End of Article: CASSIODORUS (not Cassiodorius)

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