(4) Of a different quality, though still partaking somewhat of the

nature of a compilation, was his chief educational treatise, the

'Institutiones Divinarum et Humanarum Lectionum[85].' About the year

543, some three or four years after his retirement from public life,

while he was slowly ploughing his way through the Commentary on the

Psalms, twenty of which he had already interpreted, he seems to have

laid it aside for a time in order to devote himself to this work,

which aimed more at instruction than at religious edification. In the

outset of this book he describes that unsuccessful attempt of his, to

which allusion has already been made, for the establishment of a

theological school in Rome, and continues that, 'as the rage of war

and the turbulence of strife in the Italian realm[86] had prevented

the fulfilment of this desire, he felt himself constrained by Divine

charity to write for his monks' behoof these _libri introductorii_, in

which, after the manner of a teacher, he would open to them the

series of the books of Holy Scripture, and would give them a

compendious acquaintance with secular literature.' As the book is not

written for the learned, he undertakes to abstain from 'affectata

eloquentia,' and he does in the main keep his promise. The simple,

straightforward style of the book, which occasionally rises into real

and 'unaffected eloquence' where the subject inspires him to make an

appeal to the hearts of his readers, presents a striking and

favourable contrast to the obscure and turgid phraseology in which the

perverted taste of the times caused him generally to shroud his

meaning[87].

[Footnote 85: Printed hitherto as two works, De Institutione Divinarum

Litterarum, and De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum. But,

as Ebert has shown (i. 477), the Preface to the Orthographia makes it

probable that these two really formed one book, with a title like that

given above.]

[Footnote 86: 'In Italico regno.' These words seem to favour the

conjecture that Theodoric may have called himself King of Italy.]

[Footnote 87: As a specimen of this better style of Cassiodorus, I may

refer to his praises of the life of the literary monk, and his

exhortation to him who is of duller brain to practise gardening:

'Quapropter toto nisu, toto labore, totis desideriis exquiramus ut ad

tale tantumque munus, Domino largiente, pervenire mereamur. Hoc enim

nobis est salutare, proficuum, gloriosum, perpetuum, quod nulla mors,

nulla mobilitas, nulla possit separare oblivio; sed in illa suavitate

patriae, cum Domino faciet aeterna exsultatione gaudere. Quod si

alicui fratrum, ut meminit Virgilius,

"Frigidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis,"

ut nec humanis nec divinis litteris perfecte possit erudiri, aliqua

tamen scientiae mediocritate suffultus, eligat certe quod sequitur,

"Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes."

Quia nec ipsum est a monachis alienum hortos colere, agros exercere,

et pomorum fecunditate gratulari; legitur enim in Psalmo centesimo

vigesimo septimo, "Labores manuum tuarum manducabis; beatus es et bene

tibi erit."']

In the first part of this treatise (commonly called the 'De

Institutione Divinarum Litterarum') Cassiodorus briefly describes the

contents of the nine Codices[88] which made up the Scripture of the

Old and New Testaments, and mentions the names of the chief

commentators upon each. After some important cautions as to the

preservation of the purity of the sacred text and abstinence from

plausible emendations, the author proceeds to enumerate the Christian

historians--Eusebius, Orosius, Marcellinus, Prosper, and others[89];

and he then slightly sketches the characters of some of the principal

Fathers--Hilary, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. This part of

the work contains an interesting allusion to 'Dionysius Monachus,

Scytha natione, sed moribus omnino Romanus,' of whom Cassiodorus

speaks as a colleague in his literary enterprises. This is the

so-called Dionysius Exiguus, who fixed (erroneously, as it now

appears) the era of the birth of Christ, and whose system of

chronology founded on this event has been accepted by all the nations

of Christendom. At the conclusion of this the first part of the

treatise we find some general remarks on the nature of the monastic

life, and some pictures of Vivarium and its neighbourhood, to which we

are indebted for some of the information contained in the preceding

pages. The book ends with a prayer, and contains thirty-three

chapters, the same number, remarks Cassiodorus (who is addicted to

this kind of moralising on numbers) that was reached by the years of

the life of Christ on earth.

[Footnote 88: 1. Octateuchus (Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth).

2. Kings (Samuel and Kings, Chronicles).

3. Prophets (Four Major, including Daniel, and Twelve Minor).

4. Psalms.

5. Solomon (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom,

Ecclesiasticus).

6. Hagiographa (Tobias, Esther, Judith, Maccabees, Esdras).

7. Gospels.

8. Epistles of the Apostles (including that to the Hebrews).

9. Acts of the Apostles and Apocalypse.]

[Footnote 89: The remarks on Marcellinus Comes and Prosper are worth

transcribing: 'Hunc [Eusebium] subsecutus est suprascriptus

Marcellinus Illyricianus, qui adhuc patricii Justiniani fertur egisse

cancellos; sed meliore conditione devotus, a tempore Theodosii

principis usque ad finem imperii triumphalis Augusti Justiniani opus

suum, Domino juvante, perduxit; ut qui ante fuit in obsequio suscepto

gratus, postea ipsius imperio copiose amantissimus appareret.' [The

allusion to 'finem imperii Justiniani' was probably added in a later

revision of the Institutiones.] 'Sanctus quoque Prosper Chronica ab

Adam ad Genserici tempora et urbis Romae depraedationem usque

perduxit.']

The second part of the treatise, commonly called 'De Artibus ac

Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum,' contains so much as the author

thought that every monk should be acquainted with concerning the four

liberal arts--Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Mathematics--the last of

which is divided into the four 'disciplines' of Arithmetic, Geometry,

Music, and Astronomy. As illustrating the relative importance of these

sciences (as we call them) as apprehended by Cassiodorus, it is

curious to observe that while Geometry and Astronomy occupy only about

one page, and Arithmetic and Music two pages each, Logic takes up

eighteen pages, Grammar two, and Rhetoric six.

[Sidenote: De Orthographiâ.]

(5) Some other works, chiefly of a grammatical kind[90], which have

now perished, together with the exegetical treatises already named,

occupied the leisure hours of the old age of Cassiodorus. At length,

in the ninety-third year of his age, the veteran statesman, nobleman,

and judge crowned his life of useful service by writing for his

beloved monks his still extant treatise 'De Orthographia[91].' He

tells us that the monks suddenly exclaimed, 'What doth it profit us to

study either those works which the ancients have composed or those

which your Wisdom has caused to be added to the list, if we are

altogether ignorant how we ought to write these things, and on the

other hand cannot understand and accurately represent in speech the

words which we find written?' In other words, 'Give us a treatise on

spelling.' The venerable teacher gladly complied with the request, and

compiled from twelve grammarians[92] various rules, the observance of

which would prevent the student from committing the usual faults in

spelling. It is no doubt true[93] that this work is a mere collection

of excerpts from other authors, not arranged on any systematic

principle. Still, even as such a collection, it does great credit to

the industry of a nonagenarian; and it seems to me that there is much

in it which a person who was studying the transition of Latin into the

Lingua Volgare might peruse with profit. To an epigraphist especially

it must be interesting to see what were the mistakes which an

imperfectly educated Italian in that age was most likely to commit.

The confusion between _b_ and _v_ was evidently a great source of

error, and their nice discrimination, to which Cassiodorus devotes

four chapters, a very _crux_ of accurate scholarship. We see also from

a passage in the 'De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum[94]' that the

practice of assimilating the last letter of the prefix in compound

words, like i_l_luminatio, i_r_risio, i_m_probus, though it had been

introduced, was as yet hardly universal; and similarly that the monks

required to be instructed to write qui_c_quam for euphony, instead of

qui_d_quam.

[Footnote 90: They were a compilation from the 'Artes' of Donatus,

from a book on Etymologies (perhaps also by Donatus), and from a

treatise by Sacerdos on Schemata; and a short Table of Contents of the

Books of Scripture, prepared in such a form as to be easily committed

to memory.]

[Footnote 91: Ad amantissimos orthographos discutiendos anno aetatis

meae nonagesimo tertio (Domino adjuvante) perveni.]

[Footnote 92: They were Donatus, Cn. Cornutus, Velius Longus, Curtius

Valerianus, Papirianus, Adamantius Martyrius, Eutiches, Caesellius,

Lucius Caecilius, and 'Priscianus grammaticus, qui nostro tempore

Constantinopoli doctor fuit.' Two names seem to be omitted by

Cassiodorus.]

[Footnote 93: As stated by Ebert (p. 481).]

[Footnote 94: Cap. xv.]

[Sidenote: Death of Cassiodorus, 575 (?).]

The treatise 'De Orthographiâ' was the last product, as far as we

know, of the industrious brain of Cassiodorus. Two years after its

composition the aged statesman and scholar, in the ninety-sixth year

of his age, entered into his well-earned rest[95]. The death of

Cassiodorus occurred (as I believe) in the year 575, three years

before the death of the Emperor Justin II, nephew and successor of

Justinian. The period covered by his life had been one of vast

changes. Born when the Kingdom of Odovacar was only four years old,

he had as a young man seen that Kingdom overthrown by the arms of

Theodoric; he had sat by the cradle of the Ostrogothic monarchy, and

mourned over its grave; had seen the eunuch Narses supreme vicegerent

of the Emperor; had heard the avalanche of the Lombard invasion

thunder over Italy, and had outlived even the Lombard invader Alboin.

Pope Leo, the tamer of Attila and the hero of Chalcedon, had not been

dead twenty years when Cassiodorus was born. Pope Gregory the Great,

the converter of England, was within fifteen years of his accession to

the Pontificate when Cassiodorus died. The first great schism between

the Eastern and Western Churches was begun in his boyhood and ended

before he had reached old age. He saw the irretrievable ruin of Rome,

such as Augustus and Trajan had known her; the extinction of the Roman

Senate; the practical abolition of the Consulate; the close of the

schools of philosophy at Athens.

[Footnote 95: In assigning the death of Cassiodorus to the

ninety-sixth year of his age I rest upon the authority of Trittheim

(as quoted in the earlier part of this chapter), who appears to me to

have preserved the chronology which was generally accepted, before the

question became entangled by the confusion between Cassiodorus and his

father.]

Reverting to the line of thought with which this chapter opened, if

one were asked to specify any single life which more than another was

in contact both with the Ancient World and the Modern, none could be

more suitably named than the life of Cassiodorus.

NOTE ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF SQUILLACE.

The chief conclusions which Mr. Evans came to after his two days'

study of the country about Squillace are these:--

[Sidenote: Position of Scylacium.]

I. The Scylacium or Scolacium of Roman times, the city of Cassiodorus,

is not to be looked for at the modern Squillace, but at the place

called Roccella in the Italian military map, which Lenormant and Evans

know as _La Roccelletta del Vescovo di Squillace_.

[Illustration: [map] _Oxford University Press_]

This place, which is about ten kilometres north-east of modern

Squillace, is on a little hill immediately overhanging the sea, while

Squillace is on a spur of the Apennines three or four miles distant

from the sea. Mr. Evans' chief reasons for identifying Roccella with

Scylacium are (1) its position, 'hanging like a cluster of grapes on

hills not so high as to make the ascent of them a weariness, but high

enough to command a delightful prospect over land and sea.' This

description by Cassiodorus exactly suits Roccella, but does not suit

Squillace, which is at the top of a conical hill, and is reached only

by a very toilsome ascent. 'With its gradual southern and eastern

slope and its freedom from overlooking heights (different in this

respect from Squillace),' says Mr. Evans, 'Roccella was emphatically,

as Cassiodorus describes it, "a city of the sun."'

(2) Its ruins. While no remains of a pre-mediaeval time have been

discovered at Squillace, there is still standing at Roccella the shell

of a splendid basilica, of which Mr. Evans has taken some plans and

sketches, but which seems to have strangely escaped the notice of most

preceding travellers. The total length of this building is 94 paces,

the width of the nave 30, the extreme width of the transept 54. It has

three fine apses at the eastern end, and is built in the form of a

Latin cross. On either side of the nave was an exterior arcade, which

apparently consisted originally of eleven window arches, six of them

not being for the transmission of light. 'Altogether,' says Mr. Evans,

'this church, even in its dilapidated state, is one of the finest

monuments of the kind anywhere existing. We should have to go to

Rome, to Ravenna, or to Thessalonica, to find its parallel; but I

doubt whether, even at any of those places, there is to be seen a

basilica with such fine exterior arcading. It is a great tribute to

the strength of the original fabric that so much should have survived

the repeated shocks of earthquake that have desolated Calabria, and

scarcely left one stone upon another of her ancient cities.'

After a careful examination of the architectural peculiarities of this

basilica, Mr. Evans is disposed to fix its erection somewhere about

the time of the Emperor Justinian.

In addition to this fine building there are at Roccella the ruins of

two smaller late Roman churches, mausolea, and endless foundations of

buildings which must have formed very extensive suburbs.

More important than all, the massive walls of a considerable city can

still be traced for nearly a mile in two parallel lines, with the

transverse wall which unites them. Certainly all these indications

seem to point to the existence at this spot of a great provincial city

of the Empire, and to make Mr. Evans' conjecture more probable than

that of M. Lenormant, who identified the ruins at Roccella with those

of Castra Hannibalis, the seaport of Scylacium. It would seem

probable, if Mr. Evans' theory be correct, that the city may have been

removed to its present site in the early middle ages, in order to

guard it against the incursions of the Saracens.

[Sidenote: The Vivarian Monastery.]

II. As to the situation of the _Vivarian Monastery_ Mr. Evans comes to

nearly the same conclusion as M. Lenormant. Both place it on the

promontory of Squillace (eastward of Staletti), and, as Mr. Evans

observes, 'only such a position can be reconciled, on the one hand,

with the presence of an abundant stream and rich Campagna, on the

other with the neighbourhood of caves and grottoes on the sea-shore.'

But while M. Lenormant places it at a place called Coscia, almost

immediately to the north of and under Staletti, Mr. Evans pleads for

the site now occupied by the Church of S. Maria del Mare, on the cliff

top, very near the sea, and about three kilometres south of Staletti.

This church is itself of later date than Cassiodorus, and probably

formed part of the work of restoration undertaken by Nicephorus Phocas

in the Tenth Century; but there are signs of its having formerly

joined on to a monastery, and some of the work about it looks as if

materials taken from the Cassiodorian edifice had been used in the

work of reconstruction.

[Sidenote: The Fons Arethusae.]

III. The _Fountain of Arethusa_ may possibly, according to Mr. Evans,

be identified with the Fontana della Panaghia, a small fountain by the

sea-shore at the south end of a little bay under the promontory of S.

Gregorio. The so-called Fontana di Cassiodoro, near Coscia, has

received its name and its present appearance in modern times, and is

much too far from the sea to be the Fountain of Arethusa.

CHAPTER II.

THE ANECDOTON HOLDERI.

A few pages must be devoted to the MS. bearing the somewhat uncouth

title of 'Anecdoton Holderi,' because it is the most recently opened

source of information as to the life and works of Cassiodorus, and one

which, if genuine, settles some questions which have been long and

vigorously debated among scholars.

My information on the subject is derived from a pamphlet of 79 pages

by Hermann Usener, printed at Bonn in 1877, and bearing the title

'Anecdoton Holderi: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Roms in Ostgothischer

Zeit.' I am indebted to Mr. Bywater, of Exeter College, Oxford, for my

introduction to this pamphlet, which, while strikingly confirming some

conclusions which I had come to from my own independent study of the

'Variae,' has been of the greatest possible service to me in studying

the lives of Cassiodorus and Boethius.

[Sidenote: Description of the MS.]

The 'Anecdoton' (which loses its right to that name by Usener's

publication of it) was discovered by Alfred Holder in a MS. known as

Codex Augiensis, No. CVL, which came from the Monastery of Reichenau

and is now in the Grand-Ducal Library at Carlsruhe. The monks of the

fertile island of Reichenau (Augia Dives), in the Lake of Constance,

were celebrated in the ninth and tenth centuries for their zeal in the

collection and transcription of manuscripts. The well-known Codex

Augiensis (an uncial MS. of the Greek text of the New Testament, with

the Vulgate version in parallel columns) is referred by

palaeographers to the ninth century[96]. The Codex Augiensis with

which we are now concerned, and which is a copy of the 'Institutiones

Humanarum Rerum' of Cassiodorus, is believed to have been written in

the next succeeding century. On the last page of this MS. Holder

discovered the fragment--not properly belonging to the

'Institutiones'--to which he has given his name, and which is as

follows[97]:--

[Footnote 96: See Scrivener, Plain Introduction to the Criticism of

the New Testament, pp. 133-4.]

[Footnote 97: I have adopted the emendations--most of them the

corrections of obvious mistakes--which are suggested by Usener.]

[Sidenote: Contents of the Anecdoton Holderi.]

'Excerpta ex libello Cassiodori Senatoris monachi servi Dei,

ex-Patricio, ex-Consule Ordinario Quaestore et Magistro

Officiorum, quem scripsit ad Rufum Petronium Nicomachum

ex-Consule Ordinario Patricium et Magistrum Officiorum. Ordo

generis Cassiodororum[98]: qui scriptores exstiterint ex

eorum progenie vel ex civibus[99] eruditis.

[Footnote 98: In the original, 'Casiodoru.']

[Footnote 99: In the original, 'ex quibus.']

'Symmachus Patricius et Consul Ordinarius, vir philosophus,

qui antiqui Catonis fuit novellus imitator, sed virtutes

veterum sanctissima religione transcendit. Dixit sententiam

pro allecticiis in Senatu, parentesque suos imitatus

historiam quoque Romanam septem libris edidit.

'Boethius dignitatibus summis excelluit. Utraque lingua

peritissimus orator fuit. Qui regem Theodorichum in Senatu

pro Consulatu filiorum luculenta oratione laudavit. Scripsit

librum de Sancta Trinitate et capita quaedam dogmatica et

librum contra Nestorium. Condidit et carmen bucolicum. Sed

in opere artis logicae, id est dialecticae, transferendo ac

mathematicis disciplinis talis fuit ut antiquos auctores aut

aequiperaret aut vinceret.

'Cassiodorus Senator, vir eruditissimus et multis

dignitatibus pollens. Juvenis adeo, dum patris Cassiodori

Patricii et Praefecti Praetorii Consiliarius fieret et

laudes Theodorichi regis Gothorum facundissime recitasset,

ab eo Quaestor est factus. Patricius et Consul Ordinarius,

postmodum dehinc Magister Officiorum [et praefuisset

formulas dictionum, quas in duodecim libris ordinavit et

Variarum titulum superposuit] scripsit praecipiente

Theodoricho rege historiam Gothicam, originem eorum et loca

moresque XII libris annuntians.'

This memorandum, for it is hardly more, is a vestige, and the only

vestige now remaining, of a short tract by Cassiodorus on the literary

history of his family and kinsmen. The 'Excerpta' have been made by

some later hand--perhaps that of a monk in the Vivarian convent. To

him undoubtedly we owe the words 'monachi servi Dei' as a description

of Cassiodorus; probably also the 'ex-Patricio,' which is perhaps an

incorrect designation. 'Vir eruditissimus,' in the last paragraph, is

probably due to the same hand, as, with all his willingness to do

justice to his own good qualities, Cassiodorus would hardly have

spoken thus of himself in a work avowedly proceeding from his own pen.

The clause which is placed in brackets [et ... superposuit] is

probably also due to the copyist, anxious to supply what he deemed the

imperfections of his memorandum. In short, it must be admitted that

the fragment cannot consist of the very words of Cassiodorus in

however abbreviated a form. Still it contains so much that is

valuable, and that could hardly have been invented by any writer of a

post-Cassiodorian age, that it is well worthy of the careful and, so

to speak, microscopical examination to which it has been subjected by

Usener.

[Sidenote: Date of the fragment.]

[Sidenote: Persons to whom addressed.]

The work from which these 'Excerpta' are taken was composed, according

to Usener, in the year 522. This is proved by the facts that the

receiver of the letter is spoken of as Magister Officiorum, a post

which he apparently held from Sept. 1, 521, to Sept. 1, 522; and that

the Consulship of the two sons of Boethius, which began on Jan. 1,

522, is also referred to. The name of the person to whom the letter is

addressed is given as Rufius Petronius Nicomachus. Usener, however,

shows good reason for thinking that his final name, the name by which

he was known in the consular lists, is omitted, and that his full

designation was Rufius Petronius Nicomachus Cethegus, Consul in 504,

Magister Officiorum (as above stated) in 521-522, and Patrician. He

was probably the same Cethegus whom Procopius mentions[100] as

Princeps Senatus, and as withdrawing from Rome to Centumcellae in the

year 545 because he was accused of treachery to the Imperial

cause[101].

[Footnote 100: De Bello Gotthico iii. 13 (p. 328, ed. Bonn).]

[Footnote 101: If Usener be right (and he has worked up this point

with great care), we can trace the following links in the pedigree of

Cethegus (see pp. 6 and 11):

Rufius Petronius _Placidus_, Consul 481.

|

Rufius Petronius Anicius _Probinus_, Consul 489.

|

Rufius Petronius Nicomachus _Cethegus_, Consul 504, correspondent of

Cassiodorus.

Probinus and Cethegus are referred to by Ennodius in his letter to

Ambrosius and Beatus, otherwise called his Paraenesis (p. 409, ed.

Hartel).]

[Sidenote: Its object.]

The object of the little treatise referred to evidently was to give an

account of those members of the family to which Cassiodorus belonged

who had distinguished themselves in literature. The words 'Ex genere

Cassiodororum' are perhaps a gloss of the transcribers. At least it

does not appear that they would correctly describe the descent of

Symmachus and Boethius, though they were relations of Cassiodorus,

being descended from or allied to the great house of the Aurelii from

which he also sprang. Probably several other names may have been

noticed in the original treatise, but the only three as to which the

'Anecdoton' informs us are the three as to whom information is most

acceptable--Symmachus, Boethius, and Cassiodorus himself.

[Sidenote: Information as to life of Symmachus.]

I. The name of Q. Aurelius Memmius _Symmachus_ was already known to us

as that of the friend, guardian, and father-in-law of Boethius, and

his fellow-sufferer from the outburst of suspicious rage which

disgraced the last years of Theodoric. That he was Consul in 485

(under the dominion of Odovacar), and that he had at the time of his

fall attained the honoured position of Father of the Senate[102], we

also know from the 'Consular Fasti' and the 'Anonymus Valesii.' This

extract tells us that he had attained the rank of Patricius, which may

perhaps have been bestowed upon him when he laid down the Consulship.

He was 'a philosopher, and a modern imitator of the ancient Cato; but

surpassed the virtues of the men of old by [his devotion to] our most

holy religion.' This sentence quite accords with all that we hear of

the character of Symmachus from our other authorities--the 'Anonymus

Valesii,' Procopius, and Boethius. The blending of old Roman gravity

and Christian piety in such a man's disposition is happily indicated

in the words before us. It would be an interesting commentary upon

them if we were to contrast the career of the Christian Symmachus, who

suffered in some sense as a martyr for the Nicene Creed under

Theodoric, with that of his ancestor the Pagan Symmachus, who, 143

years before, incurred the anger of Gratian by his protests against

the removal of the Altar of Victory from the Senate House, and the

curtailment of the grant to the Vestal Virgins.

[Footnote 102: Caput Senati. This, not Caput Senatus, is the form

which we find in Anon. Valesii. Usener suggests (p. 32) that Symmachus

probably became Caput Senati on the death of Festus, who had held that

position from 501 to 506.]

The Symmachus with whom we are now concerned was also an orator; and

we learn from this extract that he delivered a speech, evidently of

some importance, in the Senate, 'pro allecticiis.' There seems much

probability in Usener's contention that these 'allecticii' were men

who had been 'allecti,' or admitted by co-optation into the Senate

during the reign of Odovacar, and whom, on the downfall of that ruler,

it had been proposed to strip of their recently acquired dignity--a

proposal which seems to have been successfully resisted by Symmachus

and his friends.

Lastly, we learn that Symmachus, 'in imitation of his ancestors,' put

forth a Roman History in seven books. The expression for ancestors

(parentes) here used is thought by Usener to refer chiefly to Virius

Nicomachus Flavianus (Consul in 394[103]), whose granddaughter married

Q. Fabius Memmius Symmachus, and was the grandmother of our Symmachus.

This Flavianus, who was in his time one of the chief leaders of the

heathen party in the Senate, is spoken of in one inscription as

'historicus disertissimus;' and in another, mention is made of the

fact that he dedicated his annals to Theodosius.

[Footnote 103: See Usener, p. 29. The Consules Ordinarii for that year

were Arcadius and Honorius.]

Whether the elder Symmachus, the Pagan champion, was a historian as

well as an orator is a matter about which there is a good deal of

doubt. Jordanes twice quotes 'The History of Symmachus,' once as to

the elevation of the Emperor Maximin, and once as to his death[104].

Usener thinks that the 'Anecdoton Holderi' authorises us henceforward

to assign these quotations without doubt to the younger, Christian

Symmachus, not to his Pagan ancestor. To me the allusion to

_parentes_ (in the plural), whose industry as historians the Symmachus

there spoken of imitated, seems to make it at least as probable that

the earlier, not the later member of the family composed the history

which is here quoted by Jordanes.

[Footnote 104: Jordanes, Getica xv.: 'Nam, ut dicit Symmachus in

quinto suae historiae libro, Maximinus ... ab exercitus effectus est

imperator.' 'Occisus Aquileia a Puppione regnum reliquit Philippo;

quod nos huic nostro opusculo de Symmachi hystoria [sic] mutuavimus.']

[Sidenote: Information as to life of Boethius.]

II. We now pass on to consider the information furnished by this

fragment as to the illustrious son-in-law of Symmachus, Anicius

Manlius Severinus _Boethius_. Of the facts of his life we had already

pretty full information, from the autobiographical sections of the

'Consolation of Philosophy' and other sources. He does not indeed

mention the exact year of his birth, but the allusion to 'untimely

gray hairs' which he makes in that work, written in 523 or 524,

together with other indications[105] as to his age, entitle us to fix

it at about 480, certainly not earlier than that year. The death of

his father (who was Consul in 487) occurred while he was still a

child. Symmachus, as has been already said, was the guardian of his

youth and the friend of his manhood, and gave him his daughter

Rusticiana to wife. That he received the honour of the Consulship in

510 we know from the 'Fasti Consulares;' but it is perplexing to find

him even before that year spoken of[106] as Patricius, since this

honour was generally bestowed only on those who had already sat in the

curule chair of the Consul[107]. The high consideration in which he

was held at the Court of Theodoric, and the value placed upon his

scientific attainments, are sufficiently proved by the letters in the

following collection, especially by those in which he is consulted

about the frauds committed by the officers of the Mint, about the

water-clock which is to be sent to Gundobad King of the Burgundians,

and the harper who is to be provided for the King of the Franks[108].

In the year 522 his two sons, Symmachus and Boethius, though they had

but just attained to man's estate, received the honour of the

Consulship, upon which occasion the proud and happy father pronounced

a panegyric upon Theodoric before the assembled Senate. Some of these

facts in the life of Boethius are referred to in the extract before

us, which, as was before said, appears to be taken from a treatise

composed in this same year 522, the year of the Consulship of the

young Boethii. Of their father's investiture with the office of

_Magister Officiorum_ on September 1, 522, of his sudden fall from the

royal favour, of the charge of treason which was preferred against him

before the end of that year, of his imprisonment during 523 and

execution (probably in the early part of 524), we have of course no

trace in this extract; and the fact that we have none is a strong

argument for the genuineness and contemporary character of the

treatise from which it is taken.

[Footnote 105: Chiefly derived from the Paraenesis of Ennodius (Opusc.

vi.).]

[Footnote 106: In the Paraenesis.]

[Footnote 107: Usener's suggestion (pp. 38, 39) that he obtained this

honour in consequence of having filled the place of _Comes Sacrarum

Largitionum_ seems to me only to land us in the further difficulty

caused by the entire omission of all allusion to this fact both in the

Paraenesis and in the Anecdoton Holderi.]

[Footnote 108: See Var. i. 10 and 45; ii. 40.]

[Sidenote: His theological treatises.]

So far, then, we have in the 'Anecdoton Holderi' only a somewhat

meagre reiteration of facts already known to us. But when we come to

the statement of the literary labours of Boethius the case is entirely

altered. It is well known that in the Middle Ages certain treatises on

disputed points of Christian theology were attributed to him as their

author. They are:--

1. A treatise 'De Sancta Trinitate.'

2. 'Ad Johannem Diaconum: Utrum Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus de

Divinitate substantialiter praedicentur.'

3. 'Ad eundem: Quomodo substantiae in eo quod sint bonae sint cum non

sint substantialia bona.'

4. 'De Fide Catholica.'

5. 'Contra Eutychen et Nestorium.'

It may be said at once that in the earlier MSS. the fourth treatise is

not attributed to Boethius. It seems to have been included with the

others by some mistake, and I shall therefore in the following remarks

assume that it is not his, and shall confine my attention to the first

three and the fifth.

[Sidenote: Difficulty as to religious position of Boethius.]

Even as to these, notwithstanding the nearly unanimous voice of the

early Middle Ages (as represented by MSS. of the Ninth, Tenth, and

Eleventh Centuries) assigning them to Boethius as their author,

scholars, especially recent scholars, have felt the gravest possible

doubts of their being really his, doubts which have of late ripened

into an almost complete certainty that he was not their author. The

difficulty does not arise from anything in the diction or in the

theology which points to a later age as the time of their composition,

but from the startling contrast which they present to the religious

atmosphere of the 'Consolation of Philosophy.' Here, in these

theological treatises, we have the author entering cheerfully into the

most abstruse points of the controversy concerning the Nature of

Christ, without apparently one wavering thought as to the Deity of the

Son of Mary. There, in the 'Consolation,' a book written in prison and

in disgrace, with death at the executioner's hands impending over

him--a book in which above all others we should have expected a man

possessing the Christian faith to dwell upon the promises of

Christianity--the name of Christ is never once mentioned, the tone,

though religious and reverential, is that of a Theist only; and from

beginning to end, except one or two sentences in which an obscure

allusion may possibly be detected to the Christian revelation, there

is nothing which might not have been written by a Greek philosopher

ignorant of the very name of Christianity. Of the various attempts

which have been made to solve this riddle perhaps the most ingenious

is that of M. Charles Jourdain, who, in a monograph devoted to the

subject[109], seeks to prove that the author of the theological

treatises referred to was a certain Boethus, an African Bishop of the

Byzacene Province, who was banished to Sardinia about the year 504 by

the Vandal King Thrasamond.

[Footnote 109: De l'Origine des Traditions sur le Christianisme de

Boèce (Paris, 1861.)]

Not thus, however, as it now appears, is the knot to be cut. And after

all, M. Jourdain, in arguing, as he seems disposed to argue, against

any external profession of Christianity on the part of Boethius,

introduces contradictions greater than any that his theory would

remove. To any person acquainted with the thoughts and words of the

little coterie of Roman nobles to which Boethius belonged, it will

seem absolutely impossible that the son-in-law of Symmachus, the

receiver of the praises of Ennodius and Cassiodorus, should have been

a professed votary of the old Paganism. It is not the theological

treatises coming from a man in his position which are hard to account

for; it is the apparently non-Christian tone of the 'Consolation.'

The fragment now before us shows that the old-fashioned belief in

Boethius as a theologian was well founded. 'He wrote a book concerning

the Holy Trinity, and certain dogmatic chapters, and a book against

Nestorius.' That is a sufficiently accurate _resumé_ of the four

theological treatises enumerated above. Here Usener also observes--and

I am inclined to agree with him--that there is a certain resemblance

between the style of thought of these treatises and that of the

'Consolation' itself. They are, after all, philosophical rather than

religious; one of the earliest samples of that kind of logical

discussion of theological dogmas which the Schoolmen of the Middle

Ages so delighted to indulge in. The young philosopher, hearing at his

father-in-law's table the discussions between Chalcedonian and

Monophysite with which all Rome resounded, on account of the prolonged

strife with the Church of Constantinople, set himself down to discuss

the same topics which they were wrangling over by the light--to him so

clear and precious--of the Greek philosophy. There was perhaps in this

employment neither reverence nor irreverence. He had not St.

Augustine's intense and almost passionate conviction of the truth of

Christianity; but he was quite willing to accept it and to discourse

upon it, as he discoursed on Arithmetic, Music, and Geometry.

But when premature old age, solitude, and the loss of liberty befell

him, it was not to the highly elaborated Christian theology of the

Sixth Century that he turned for support and consolation. Probably

enough the very fact that he knew some of the pitfalls in the way

deterred him from that dangerous journey, where the slightest

deviation on either side landed him in some detested heresy, the

heresy of Nestorius or of Eutyches. 'On revient toujours à ses

premiers amours;' and even so Boethius, though undoubtedly professing

himself a Christian, and about to die in full communion with the

Catholic Church, turned for comfort in his dungeon to the

philosophical studies of his youth, especially to the ethical writings

of Plato and Aristotle.

After all, the title of the treatise is '_Philosophiae_ Consolatio;'

and however vigorous a literature of philosophy may in the course of

centuries have grown up in the Christian domain, in the sixth century

the remembrance of the old opposition between Christianity and

Philosophy was perhaps still too strong for a writer to do anything

more than stand neutral as to the distinctive claims of Christianity,

when he had for the time donned the cloak of the philosopher.

[Sidenote: The Bucolic Poem of Boethius.]

We learn from the fragment before us that Boethius also wrote a

'Bucolic Poem.' This is an interesting fact, and helps to explain the

facility with which he breaks into song in the midst of the

'Consolation.' It may have been to this effort of the imagination that

he alluded when he said at the beginning of that work--

'Carmina qui quondam studio florente peregi

Flebilis, heu, moestos cogor inire modos.'

We would gladly know something more of this 'Bucolic Poem' indited by

the universal genius, Boethius.

[Sidenote: Cassiodorus.]

III. As for _Cassiodorus_ himself, the additional information

furnished by this fragment has been already discussed in the foregoing

chapter. That he was _Consilarius_ to his father during his

Praefecture, and that in that capacity he recited an eloquent

panegyric on Theodoric, which was rewarded by his promotion to the

high office of the Quaestorship, are facts which we learn from this

fragment only; and they are of high importance, not only for the life

of Cassiodorus but for the history of Europe at the beginning of the

Sixth Century, because they make it impossible to assign to any letter

in the 'Variae' an earlier date than 500.

CHAPTER III.

THE GRADATIONS OF OFFICIAL RANK IN THE LATER EMPIRE.

[Sidenote: Official Hierarchy introduced by Diocletian.]

It is well known that Diocletian introduced and Constantine perfected

an elaborate system of administration under which the titles,

functions, order of precedence, and number of attendants of the

various officers of the Civil Service as well as of the Imperial army

were minutely and punctiliously regulated. This system, which, as

forming the pattern upon which the nobility of mediaeval Europe was to

a great extent modelled, perhaps deserves even more careful study than

it has yet received, is admirably illustrated by the letters of

Cassiodorus. The _Notitia Utriusque Imperii_, our copies of which must

have been compiled in the early years of the Fifth Century, furnishes

us with a picture of official life which, after we have made allowance

for the fact that the Empire of the West has shrunk into the

Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy (with the addition of Dalmatia and some

other portions of Illyricum), is almost precisely reproduced in the

pages of the 'Various Letters.' In order that the student may

understand the full significance of many passages in those letters,

and especially of the superscriptions by which each letter is

prefaced, it will be well to give a brief outline of the system which

existed alike under Theodosius and Theodoric.

[Sidenote: Nobilissimi.]

In the first place, then, we come to what is rather a family than a

class, the persons bearing the title _Nobilissimus_[110]. These were

the nearest relatives of the reigning Emperor; his brothers, sisters,

sons, and daughters. The title therefore is not unlike that of Royal

or Imperial Highness in modern monarchies. I am not sure whether any

trace can be found of the survival of this title in the Ostrogothic

Court. Theodahad, nephew of Theodoric, is addressed simply as 'Vir

Senator[111],' and he is spoken of as 'praecelsus et amplissimus

vir[112].' It is not so, however, in respect of the three great

official classes which follow--the Illustres, Spectabiles, and

Clarissimi--whose titles were rendered as punctiliously in the Italy

of Theodoric as ever they were in the Italy of Diocletian and

Constantine.

[Footnote 110: The existence of this title is proved not only by the

language of Arcadius in the Theodosian Code x. 25. 1, concerning

'Nobilissimae puellae, filiae meae,' but also by Zosimus (ii. 39), who

says that Constantine bestowed the dignity of Nobilissimus on his

brother Constantius and his nephew Hannibalianus ([Greek: tês tou

legomenou nôbelissimou par' autou Kônstantinou tuchontes axias aidoi

tês syngeneias]); and by Marcellinus Comes, s. a. 527, who says:

'Justinus Imperator Justinianum ex sorore suâ nepotem, jamdudum a se

Nobilissimum designatum, participem quoque regni ani, successoremque

creavit.' It is evident that the title did not come by right of birth,

but that some sort of declaration of it was necessary.]

[Footnote 111: Var. iii. 15.]

[Footnote 112: Var. viii. 23.]

[Sidenote: Illustres.]

I. The _Illustres_ were a small and select circle of men, the chief

depositaries of power after the Sovereign, and they may with some

truth be compared to the Cabinet Ministers of our own political

system. The 'Notitia' mentions thirteen of them as bearing rule in the

Western Empire. They are:

1. The Praetorian Praefect of Italy.

2. The Praetorian Praefect of the Gauls.

3. The Praefect of the City of Rome.

4. The Master of the Foot Guards (Magister Peditum in Praesenti).

5. The Master of the Horse Guards (Magister Equitum in Praesenti).

6. The Master of the Horse for the Gauls (per Gallias).

7. The Grand Chamberlain (Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi).

8. The Master of the Offices.

9. The Quaestor.

10. The Count of Sacred Largesses.

11. The Count of the Private Domains (Comes Rerum Privatarum).

12. The Count of the Household Cavalry (Comes Domesticorum Equitum).

13. The Count of the Household Infantry (Comes Domesticorum Peditum).

Substantially these same titles were borne by the Illustres to whom

Cassiodorus (himself one of them) addressed his 'Various Letters.' The

second and the sixth (the Praetorian Praefect of the Gauls, and the

Master of the Horse for the Gauls) may possibly have disappeared; and

yet, in view of the fact that Theodoric was during the greater part of

his reign ruler of a portion of Gaul, it is not necessary to assume

even this change. Into the question of the military officers I will

not enter, as I confess that I do not understand the relations

(whether co-ordinate or subordinated one to another) of the two pairs

of officers, Nos. 4 and 5 and Nos. 12 and 13.

The rank and duties of the Praetorian Praefect of Italy, the Master of

the Offices, and the Quaestor have already been described in the first

chapter. It will be well to say a few words as to the four remaining

civil dignitaries, the Praefect of the City, the Grand Chamberlain,

the Count of Sacred Largesses, and the Count of the Private Domains.

[Sidenote: Praefect of the City.]

(_a_) The _Praefectus Urbis Romae_ was by virtue of his office head of

the Senate. He had the care of the Annona or corn-largesses to the

people, the command of the City-watch, and the duty of keeping the

aqueducts in proper repair. The shores and channel of the Tiber, the

vast _cloacae_ which carried off the refuse of the City, the quays and

warehouses of Portus at the river's mouth were also under his

authority. The officer who was charged with taking the census, the

officers charged with levying the duties on wine, the masters of the

markets, the superintendents of the granaries, the curators of the

statues, baths, theatres, and the other public buildings with which

the City was adorned, all owned the supreme control of the Urban

Praefect. At the beginning of the Fifth Century the _Vicarius Urbis_

(whom it is difficult not to think of as in some sort subject to the

_Praefectus Urbis_), had jurisdiction over all central and southern

Italy and Sicily. But if this was the arrangement then, it must have

been altered before the time of Cassiodorus, who certainly appears as

Praetorian Praefect to have wielded authority over the greater part of

Italy. He states, however[113], that the Urban Praefect had, by an

ancient law, jurisdiction, not only over Rome itself, but over all the

district within 100 miles of the capital.

[Footnote 113: Var. vi. 4.]

[Sidenote: Grand Chamberlain.]

(_b_) The _Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi_ had under his orders the large

staff of Grooms of the Bedchamber, at whose head stood the

_Primicerius Cubiculariorum_, an officer of 'respectable' rank. The

_Castrensis_, Butler or Seneschal, with his army of lacqueys and pages

who attended to the spreading and serving of the royal table; the

_Comes Sacrae Vestis_, who with similar assistance took charge of the

royal wardrobe; the _Comes Domorum_, who perhaps superintended the

needful repairs of the royal palace, all took their orders in the last

resort from the Grand Chamberlain. So, too, did the three Decurions,

officers with a splendid career of advancement before them, who

marshalled the thirty brilliantly armed Silentiarii, that paced

backwards and forwards before the purple veil guarding the slumbers of

the Sovereign.

[Sidenote: Count of Sacred Largesses.]

(_c_) The _Comes Sacrarum Largitionum_, theoretically only the Grand

Almoner of the Sovereign, discharged in practice many of the duties of

Chancellor of the Exchequer. The mines, the mint, the Imperial linen

factories, the receipt of the tribute of the Provinces, and many other

departments of the public revenue were originally under the care of

this functionary, whose office however, as we are expressly told by

Cassiodorus, had lost part of its lustre, probably by a transfer of

some of these duties to the Count of the Private Domains.

[Sidenote: Count of Private Domains.]

(_d_) This Minister, the _Comes Rerum Privatarum_, had the

superintendence of the Imperial estates in Italy and the Provinces.

Confiscations and the absorption by the State of the properties of

defaulting tax-payers were probably always tending to increase the

extent of these estates, and to make the office of Count of the Domain

more important. The collection of the land-tax, far the most important

item of the Imperial revenue, was also made subject to his authority.

Finally, in order, as Cassiodorus quaintly observes[114], that his

jurisdiction should not be exercised only over slaves (the cultivators

of the State domains), some authority was given to him within the

City, and by a curious division of labour all charges of incestuous

crime, or of the spoliation of graves, were brought before the

tribunal of the Comes Privatarum.

[Footnote 114: Var. vi. 8.]

Besides the thirteen persons who, as acting Ministers of the highest

class, were entitled to the designation of Illustris, there were also

those whom we may call honorary members of the class: the persons who

had received the dignity of the Patriciate--a dignity which was

frequently bestowed on those who had filled the office of Consul, and

which, unlike the others of which we have been speaking, was held for

life.

It is a question on which I think we need further information, whether

a person who had once filled an Illustrious office lost the right to

be so addressed on vacating it. I am not sure that we have any clear

case in the following collection of an ex-official holding this

courtesy-rank; but it seems probable that such would be the case.

Considering also the great show of honour with which the Consulate,

though now destitute of all real power, was still greeted, it seems

probable that the Consuls for the year would rank as Illustres; but

here, too, we seem to require fuller details.

[Sidenote: Spectabiles.]

II. We now come to the Second Class, the _Spectabiles_, which consists

chiefly of the lieutenants and deputies of the Illustres.

For instance, every Praetorian Praefect had immediately under him a

certain number of _Vicarii_, each of whom was a Spectabilis. The

Praefecture included an extent of territory equivalent to two or three

countries of Modern Europe (for instance, the Praefecture of the Gauls

embraced Britain, Gaul, a considerable slice of Germany, Spain, and

Morocco). This was divided into Dioceses (in the instance above

referred to Britain formed one Diocese, Gaul another, and Spain with

its attendant portion of Africa a third), and the Diocese was again

divided into Provinces. The title of the ruler of the Diocese, who in

his restricted but still ample domain wielded a similar authority to

that of the Illustrious Praefect, was _Spectabilis Vicarius_.

But the Praefect and the Vicar controlled only the civil government of

the territories over which they respectively bore sway. The military

command of the Diocese was vested in a _Spectabilis Comes_, who was

under the orders of the Illustrious Magister Militum. Subordinate in

some way to the Comes was the _Dux_, who was also a Spectabilis, but

whose precise relation to his superior the Comes is, to me at least,

not yet clear[115].

[Footnote 115: I think the usual account of the matter is that which I

have given elsewhere (Italy and her Invaders, i. 227), that the Comes

had military command in the Diocese and the Dux in the Province. But

on closer examination I cannot find that the Notitia altogether bears

out this view. It gives us for the Western Empire eight Comites and

twelve Duces. The former pretty nearly correspond to the Dioceses, but

the latter are far too few for the Provinces, which number forty-two,

excluding all the Provinces of Italy. Besides, in some cases the

jurisdiction appears to be the same. Thus we have both a Dux and a

Comes Britanniarum, and the Dux Mauritaniae Caesariensis must, one

would think, have held command in a region as large or larger than the

Comes Tingitaniae. Again, we have a Comes Argentoratensis and a Dux

Moguntiacensis, two officers whose power, one would think, was pretty

nearly equal. The same may perhaps be said of the Comes Litoris

Saxonici in Britain and the Dux Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani in

Gaul. While recognising a _general_ inferiority of the Dux to the

Comes, I do not think we can, with the Notitia before us, assert that

the Provincial Duces were regularly subordinated to the Diocesan

Comes, as the Provincial Consulares were to the Diocesan Vicarius. And

the fact that both Comes and Dux were addressed as Spectabilis rather

confirms this view.]

Besides these three classes of dignitaries, the _Castrensis_, who was

a kind of head steward in the Imperial household, and most of the

Heads of Departments in the great administrative offices, such as the

_Primicerius Notariorum_ and the _Magistri Scriniorum_[116], bore the

title of Spectabilis. We have perhaps hardly sufficient data for an

exact calculation, but I conjecture that there would be as many as

fifty or sixty Spectabiles in the Kingdom of Theodoric.

[Footnote 116: Probably, from the order in which they are mentioned by

the Notitia.]

It appears to me that the epithet _Sublimis_ (which is almost unknown

to the Theodosian Code), when it occurs in the 'Variae' is used as

synonymous with Spectabilis[117].

[Footnote 117: Sublimis occurs in the superscription of the following

letters: i. 2; iv. 17; v. 25, 30, and 36; ix. 11 and 14; xii. 5.]

[Sidenote: Clarissimi.]

III. The _Clarissimi_ were the third rank in the official hierarchy.

To our minds it may appear strange that the 'most renowned' should

come below 'the respectable,' but such was the Imperial pleasure. The

title 'Clarissimus' had moreover its own value, for from the time of

Constantine onwards it was conferred on all the members of the Senate,

and was in fact identical with Senator[118]; and this was doubtless,

as Usener points out[119], the reason why the letters Cl. were still

appended to a Roman nobleman's name after he had risen higher in the

official scale and was entitled to be called Spectabilis or

Illustris. The _Consulares_ or _Correctores_, who administered the

Provinces under the Vicarii, were called Clarissimi; and we shall

observe in the collection before us many other cases in which the

title is given to men in high, but not the highest, positions in the

Civil Service of the State.

[Footnote 118: See Emil Kühn's Verfassung des Römischen Reichs i. 182,

and the passages quoted there.]

[Footnote 119: p. 31.]

Besides the three classes above enumerated there were also:--

[Sidenote: Perfectissimi.]

IV. The _Perfectissimi_, to which some of the smaller provincial

governors belonged, as well as some of the clerks in the Revenue

Offices (Numerarii) who had seen long service, and even some veteran

Decurions.

Below these again were:--

[Sidenote: Egregii.]

V. The _Egregii_, who were also Decurions who had earned a right to

promotion, or even what we should call veteran non-commissioned

officers in the army (Primipilares).

But of these two classes slight mention is made in the Theodosian

Code, and none at all (I believe) in the 'Notitia' or the 'Letters of

Cassiodorus.'

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE OFFICIUM OF THE PRAEFECTUS PRAETORIO[120].

[Footnote 120: To illustrate the Eleventh Book of the Variae, Letters

18 to 35.]

[Sidenote: Military character of the Roman Civil Service.]

The official staff that served under the Roman governors of high rank

was an elaborately organised body, with a carefully arranged system of

promotion, and liberal superannuation allowances for those of its

members who had attained a certain position in the office.

Although, in consequence of the changes introduced by Diocletian and

Constantine, the civil and military functions had been for the most

part divided from one another, and it was now unusual to see the same

magistrate riding at the head of armies and hearing causes in the

Praetorium, in theory the officers of the Courts of Justice were still

military officers. Their service was spoken of as a _militia_; the

type of their office was the _cingulum_, or military belt; and one of

the leading officers of the court, as we shall see, was styled

_Cornicularius_, or trumpeter.

The Praetorian Praefect, whose office had been at first a purely

military one, had now for centuries been chiefly concerned in civil

administration, and as Judge over the highest court of appeal in the

Empire. His _Officium_ (or staff of subordinates) was, at any rate in

the Fifth Century, still the most complete and highly developed that

served under any great functionary; and probably the career which it

offered to its members was more brilliant than any that they could

look for elsewhere. Accordingly, in studying the composition of this

body we shall familiarise ourselves with the type to which all the

other _officia_ throughout the Empire more or less closely

approximated.

NOTITIA. CASSIODORUS LYDUS

(xi.). (iii. 3 and ii. 18.).

Princeps.

Cornicularius. Cornicularius. Cornicularius.

Adjutor. Primiscrinius. II Primiscrinii.

Commentariensis. Scriniarius Actorum.

Ab Actis. Cura Epistolarum.

IV Numerarii. Scriniarius Curae Militaris.

Subadjuva. Primicerius Exceptorum.

Cura Epistolarum. Sextus Scholarius.

Regerendarius. Praerogativarius.

Exceptores. Commentariensis. II Commentarisii.

Adjutores. Regendarius. II Regendarii.

Singularii. Primicerius Deputatorum. II Curae Epistolarum Ponticae.

Primicerius Augustalium.

Primicerius Singulariorum. Singularii.

Lydus calls all the officers down to the Curae Ep. Ponticae [Greek:

Hai Logikai Leitourgiai] (Officium Litteratum).

[Sidenote: Sources of information as to the Officium.]

Our chief information as to this elaborate official hierarchy is

derived from three sources[121]:--

[Footnote 121: See Table, p. 94.]

(1) The _Notitia Dignitatum_, the great Official Gazetteer of the

Empire[122], which in its existing shape appears to date from the

reign of Arcadius and Honorius, early in the Fifth Century.

[Footnote 122: To use a modern illustration, we might perhaps say that

the Notitia Dignitatum = Whitaker's Almanac + the Army List.]

(2) The _De Magistratibus_ of Joannes Lydus, composed by a civil

servant of the Eastern Empire in the middle of the Sixth Century.

(3) The _Variae Epistolae_ of Cassiodorus, the composition of which

ranges from about 504 to 540.

The first of these authorities relates to the Eastern and Western

Empires, the second to the Eastern alone, the third to the Western

Empire as represented by the Ostrogothic Kingdom founded by Theodoric.

Much light is also thrown on the subject by the Codes of Theodosius

and Justinian.

Godefroy's Commentary on the Theodosian Code, and Bethmann Hollweg's

'Gerichtsverfassung des sinkenden Römischen Reichs,' are the chief

modern works which have treated of the subject.

[Sidenote: The Officium as described in the Notitia.]

We will follow the order in which the various offices are arranged by

the 'Notitia,' which is most likely to correspond with that of

official precedence.

In the second chapter of the 'Notitia Orientis,' after an enumeration

of the five Dioceses and forty-six Provinces which are 'sub

dispositione viri illustris Praefecti Praetorio per Orientem,' we have

this list, 'Officium viri illustris Praefecti Praetorio Orientis:'

Princeps.

Cornicularius.

Adjutor.

Commentariensis.

Ab actis.

Numerarii.

Subadjuvae.

Cura Epistolarum.

Regerendarius.

Exceptores.

Adjutores.

Singularii.

The lists of the officia of all the other Praetorian Praefects in the

'Notitia' are exactly the same as this, except that under the head

'Praefectus Praetorio per Illyricum' we have, instead of the simple

entry 'Numerarii,'

'Numerarii quatuor: in his auri unus, operum alter;'

and the 'Praefectus Urbis Romae' had under his Numerarii, a

'Primiscrinius,'

and between the 'Adjutores' and 'Singularii,'

Censuales and

Nomenculatores.

We will go through the offices enumerated above in order:

[Sidenote: Princeps.]

(1) The PRINCEPS was the head of the whole official staff. In the case

of the officium of the Praetorian Praefect, however, this officer

seems, after the compilation of the 'Notitia,' to have disappeared,

and his rights and privileges became vested in the Cornicularius. It

will be observed that in the letters of Cassiodorus to the members of

his staff there is none addressed to the Princeps; and similarly there

is no mention of a Princeps as serving under the Praetorian Praefect

in the treatise of Lydus. This elimination of the Princeps, however,

was not universally applicable to all the officia. Cassiodorus (xi.

35) mentions a _Princeps Augustorum_, who was, perhaps, Princeps of

the _Agentes in Rebus_; and Lydus more distinctly ('De Mag.' iii. 24)

speaks of a bargain made between the Cornicularius of the Praetorian

Praefect and the [Greek: Prinkips tôn magistrianôn], who must be

supposed to be Princeps in the officium of the _Magister Officiorum_,

though no such officer appears in the 'Notitia[123].'

[Footnote 123: See also Var. vii. 24 and 28.]

Speaking generally, however, we may perhaps say that the greater part

of what we are about to hear concerning the rights and endowments of

the Cornicularius in the Praefect's office might be truly asserted of

the Princeps at the time when the 'Notitia' was compiled, before the

two offices had been amalgamated.

[Sidenote: Cornicularius.]

(2) The _Cornicularius_. As to this officer we have a good many

details in the pages of Joannes Lydus. The antiquarian and

etymological part of his information must generally be received with

caution; but as to the actual privileges of the office in the days of

Justinian we may very safely speak after him, since it was an office

which he himself held, and whose curtailed gains and privileges caused

him bitter disappointment.

'The foremost in rank,' says he[124], 'of the Emperor's assistants

(Adjutores) is even to this day called _Cornicularius_, that is to say

_horned_ ([Greek: keraïtês]), or _fighting in the front rank_. For the

place of the monarch or the Caesar was in the middle of the army,

where he alone might direct the stress of battle. This being the

Emperor's place, according to Frontinus, on the left wing was posted

the Praefect or Master of the Horse, and on the right the Praetors or

Legati, the latter being the officers left in charge of the army when

their year of office was drawing to a close, to hold the command till

the new Consul should come out to take it from them.

[Footnote 124: De Mag. iii. 3, 4.]

'Of the whole Legion then, amounting to 6,000 men, exclusive of

cavalry and auxiliaries, as I before said, the _Cornicularius_ took

the foremost place; and for that reason he still presides over the

whole [civil] service, now that the Praefect, for reasons before

stated, no longer goes forth to battle.

'Since, then, all the rest of the staff are called assistants

(_Adjutores_), the Praefect gives an intimation under his own hand to

him who is entering the service in what department ([Greek:

katalogos]) he is ordered to take up his station[125]. And the

following are the names of all the departments of the service. First

the _Cornicularius_, resplendent in all the dignity of a so-called

Count ([Greek: komês]; comes; companion), but having not yet laid

aside his belt of office, nor received the honour of admission to the

palace, or what they call brevet-rank (_codicilli vacantes_), which

honour at the end of his term of service is given to him, and to none

of the other chiefs of departments[126].

[Footnote 125: Lydus here gives the Formula for the admission of

assistants, 'et colloca eum in legione primâ adjutrice nostrâ,' which

he proceeds to translate into Greek for the benefit of his readers

([Greek: kai taxeias auton en tô prôtô tagmati tô boêthounti hêmin]).]

[Footnote 126: I have slightly expanded a sentence here, but this is

evidently the author's meaning.]

'And after the Cornicularius follow:--

'2 Primiscrinii,

'2 Commentarisii,

'2 Regendarii,

'2 Curae Epistolarum,

'15 Scholae of Exceptores,

and then the "unlearned service" of the Singularii[127].'

[Footnote 127: Condensed from Lydus, De Mag. iii. 4-7.]

Again, further on[128], Lydus, who delights to 'magnify his office,'

gives us this further information as to the rank and functions of the

Cornicularius:

[Footnote 128: Ib. iii. 22-24.]

'Now that, if I am not mistaken, we have described all the various

official grades, it is meet to set forth the history of the

Cornicularius, the venerable head of the Civil Service, the man who,

as beginning and ending, sums up in himself the complete history of

the whole official order. The mere antiquity of his office is

sufficient to establish his credit, seeing that he was the leader of

his troop for 1,300 years, and made his appearance in the world at the

same time with the sacred City of Rome itself: for the Cornicularius

was, from the first, attendant on the Master of the Horse, and the

Master of the Horse on the King, and thus the Cornicularius, if he

retained nothing of his office but the name, would still be connected

with the very beginnings of the Roman State.

'But from the time when Domitian appointed Fuscus to the office of

Praefect of the Praetorians (an office which had been instituted by

Augustus), and abolished the rank of Master of the Horse, taking upon

himself the command of the army[129], everything was changed.

Henceforward, therefore, all affairs that were transacted in the

office of the Praefect were arranged by the Cornicularius alone, and

he received the revenues arising from them for his own refreshment.

This usage, which prevailed from the days of Domitian to our own

Theodosius, was then changed, on account of the usurpation of Rufinus.

For the Emperor Arcadius, fearing the overgrown power of the

Praefectoral office, passed a law that the Princeps of the Magister

[Officiorum]'s staff[130] ... should appear in the highest courts, and

should busy himself with part of the Praefect's duties, and especially

should enquire into the principle upon which orders for the Imperial

post-horses ([Greek: synthêmata]; _evectiones_) were granted[131]....

This order of Arcadius was inscribed in the earlier editions of the

Theodosian Code, but has been omitted in the later as superfluous.

[Footnote 129: This seems to be the meaning of Lydus, but it is not

clearly expressed.]

[Footnote 130: There is something wanting in the text here.]

[Footnote 131: See Cod. Theod. vi. 29. 8, which looks rather like the

law alluded to by Lydus, notwithstanding his remark about its

omission.]

'Thus, then, the Princeps of the Magistriani, being introduced into

the highest courts, but possessing nothing there beyond his mere empty

dignity, made a bargain with the Cornicularius of the day, the object

of which was to open up to him some portion of the business; and,

having come to terms, the Princeps agreed to hand over to the

Cornicularius one pound's weight of gold [£40] monthly, and to give

instant gratuities to all his subordinates according to their rank in

the service. In consequence of this compact the Cornicularius then in

office, after receiving his 12 lbs. weight of gold without any

abatement, with every show of honour conceded to his superior[132] (?)

the preferential right of introducing "one-membered" cases ([Greek:

tên tôn monomerôn entuchiôn eisagôgên]), having reserved to himself,

beside the fees paid for promotion in the office[133], and other

sources of gain, especially the sole right of subscribing the _Acta_

of the court, and thus provided for himself a yearly revenue of not

less than 1,000 aurei [£600].'

[Footnote 132: [Greek: tô kreittoni].]

[Footnote 133: [Greek: ek tou bathmou].]

I have endeavoured to translate as clearly as possible the obscure

words of Lydus as to this bargain between the two court-officers. The

complaint of Lydus appears to be that the Cornicularius of the day, by

taking the money of the Princeps Magistrianorum, and conceding to him

in return the preferential claim to manage 'one-membered' cases (or

unopposed business), made a purse for himself, but prepared the way

for the ruin of his successors. The monthly payment was, I think, to

be made for twelve months only, and thus the whole amount which the

Cornicularius received from this source was only £480, but from other

sources--chiefly the sums paid for promotion by the subordinate

members of the _officium_, and the fees charged by him for affixing

his subscription to the _acta_ of the court--he still remained in

receipt of a yearly revenue of £600.

[Sidenote: Jealousy between the Officia of the Praefect and the

Magister.]

The jealousy between the Officia of the Praetorian Praefect and the

Magister Officiorum was intense. Almost every line in the treatise of

Lydus testifies to it, and shows that the former office, in which he

had the misfortune to serve, was being roughly shouldered out of the

way by its younger and more unscrupulous competitor.

Lydus continues[134]: 'Now, what followed, like the Peleus of

Euripides, I can never describe without tears. For on account of all

these sources of revenue having been dried up, I myself have had to

bear my part in the general misery of our time, since, though I have

reached the highest grade of promotion in the service, I have derived

nothing from it but the bare name. I do not blush to call Justice

herself as a witness to the truth of what I say, when I affirm that I

am not conscious of having received one obol from the Princeps, nor

from the Letters Patent for promotions in the office[135]. For indeed

whence should I have derived it, since it was the ancient custom that

those who in any way appeared in the highest courts should pay to the

_officium_ seven and thirty _aurei_ [£22] for a "one-membered" suit;

but ever after this bargain was made there has been given only a very

moderate sum of copper--not gold--in a beggarly way, as if one were

buying a flask of oil, and that not regularly? Or how compel the

Princeps to pay the ancient covenanted sum to the Cornicularius of the

day, when he now scarcely remembered the bare name of that officer, as

he never condescended to be present in the court when promotions were

made from a lower grade to a higher? Bitterly do I regret that I was

so late in coming to perceive for what a paltry price I was rendering

my long services as assistant in the courts, receiving in fact nothing

therefrom as my own _solatium_. It serves me right, however, for

having chosen that line of employment, as I will explain, if the

reader will allow me to recount to him my career from its commencement

to the present time.'

[Footnote 134: De Mag. iii. 25.]

[Footnote 135: [Greek: apo tôn legomenôn kompleusimôn], apparently the

same source of revenue as the promotion-money ([Greek: tên ek tou

bathmou pronomian]).]

Lydus then goes on to describe his arrival at Constantinople (A.D.

511), his intention to enter the _Scrinium Memoriae_ (in which he

would have served under the Magister Officiorum), and his abandonment

of this intention upon the pressing entreaties of his countryman

Zoticus, who was at the time Praefectus Praetorio. This step Lydus

looks upon as the fatal mistake of his life, though the consequences

of it to him were in some degree mitigated by the marriage which

Zoticus enabled him to make with a lady possessed of a fortune of 100

pounds' weight of gold (£4,000). Her property, her virtues (for 'she

was superior to all women who have ever been admired for their moral

excellence'), and the consolations of Philosophy and Literature, did

much to soothe the disappointment of Lydus, who nevertheless felt,

when he retired to his books after forty years of service, in which he

had reached the unrewarded post of Cornicularius, that his official

life had been a failure.

It has seemed worth while to give this sketch of the actual career of

a Byzantine official, as it may illustrate in some points the lives of

the functionaries to whom so many of the letters of Cassiodorus are

addressed; though I know not whether we have any indications of such a

rivalry at Ravenna as that which prevailed at Constantinople between

the _officium_ of the Praefect and that of the Magister. We now pass

on to

[Sidenote: Adjutor.]

[Sidenote: Primiscrinius.]

(3) The _Adjutor_. Some of the uses of this term are very perplexing.

It seems clear (from Lydus, 'De Mag.' iii. 3) that all the members of

the officium were known by the generic name _Adjutores_. Here however

we may perhaps safely assume that Adjutor means simply an assistant to

the officer next above him, as we find, lower down in the list of the

'Notitia,' the Exceptores followed by their Adjutores. We may find a

parallel to Adjutor in the word Lieutenant, which, for the same reason

is applied to officers of such different rank as the Lord Lieutenant

of Ireland, a Lieutenant-General, a Lieutenant-Colonel, and a simple

Lieutenant in the Army or Navy. In the lists of Cassiodorus and Lydus

we find no mention of an officer bearing the special name of Adjutor,

but we meet instead with a _Primiscrinius_, of whom, according to

Lydus, there were two. He says[136], 'After the Cornicularius are two

Primiscrinii, whom the Greeks call first of the service[137].' And

later on[138], when he is describing the course of business in the

_secretum_ of the Praefect, as it used to be in the good old days, he

informs us that after judgment had been given, and the Secretarii had

read to the litigant the decree prepared by the Assessors and

carefully copied by one of the Cancellarii, and after an accurate

digest of the case had been prepared in the Latin language by a

Secretarius, in order to guard against future error or

misrepresentation, the successful litigant passed on with the decree

in his hand _to the Primiscrinii, who appointed an officer to execute

the judgment of the Court_[139]. These men then put the decree into

its final shape by means of the persons appointed to assist them[140]

(men who could puzzle even the professors themselves in logical

discussions), and endorsed it on the litigant's petition in characters

which at once struck awe into the reader, and which seemed actually

swollen with official importance[141]. The name and titles of the

'completing' officer were then subscribed.

[Footnote 136: De Mag. iii. 4.]

[Footnote 137: [Greek: meta de ton kornikoularion primiskrinioi duo,

ous Hellênes prôtous tês taxeôs kalousi].]

[Footnote 138: De Mag. iii. 11.]

[Footnote 139: [Greek: parêei pros tous primiskrinious taxantas

ekbibastên tois apopephasmenois]. Probably we should read [Greek:

taxontas] for [Greek: taxantas].]

[Footnote 140: [Greek: eplêroun dia tôn boêthein autois tetagmenôn] (?

Adjutores).]

[Footnote 141: [Greek: epi tou nôtou tês entuchias grammasin aidous

autothen apasês kai exousias onkô sesobêmenois].]

If the suggestion that the Primiscrinii were considered as in some

sense substitutes (Adjutores) for the Cornicularius be correct, we may

perhaps account for there being two of them in the days of Lydus by

the disappearance of the Princeps. The office of Cornicularius had

swallowed up that of Princeps, and accordingly the single Adjutor, who

was sufficient at the compilation of the 'Notitia,' had to be

multiplied by two.

[Sidenote: Commentariensis, or Commentarisius.]

(4) The _Commentariensis_. Here we come again to an officer who is

mentioned by all our three authorities, though in Cassiodorus he seems

to be degraded some steps below his proper rank (but this may only be

from an accidental transposition of the order of the letters), and

though Lydus again gives us two of the name instead of one. The

last-named authority inserts next after the Primiscrinii 'two

Commentarisii--so the law calls those who are appointed to attend to

the drawing up of indictments[142].'

[Footnote 142: [Greek: kommentarisioi duo (houtô de tous epi tôn

hypomnêmatôn graphê tattomenous ho nomos kalei)] (iii. 4). I accept

the necessary emendation of the text proposed in the Bonn edition.]

The Commentariensis (or Commentarisius, as Lydus calls him[143]) was

evidently the chief assistant of the Judge in all matters of criminal

jurisdiction[144]. We have a remarkably full, and in the main clear

account of his functions in the pages of Lydus (iii. 16-18), from

which it appears that he was promoted from the ranks of the

_Exceptores_ (shorthand writers), and had six of his former colleagues

serving under him as Adjutores[145]. Great was the power, and high the

position in the Civil Service, of the Commentariensis. The whole tribe

of process-servers, gaolers, lictors[146]--all that we now understand

by the police force--waited subserviently on his nod. It rested with

him, says Lydus, to establish the authority of the Court of Justice

by means of the wholesome fear inspired by iron chains and scourges

and the whole apparatus of torture[147]. Nay, not only did the

subordinate magistrates execute their sentences by his agency, he had

even the honour of being chosen by the Emperor himself to be the

minister of vengeance against the persons who had incurred his anger

or his suspicion. 'I myself remember,' says Lydus, 'when I was serving

as Chartularius in the office of the Commentariensis, under the

praefecture of Leontius (a man of the highest legal eminence), and

when the wrath of Anastasius was kindled against Apion, a person of

the most exalted rank, and one who had assisted in his elevation to

the throne[148], at the same time when Kobad, King of Persia, blazed

out into fury[149], that then all the confiscations and banishments

which were ordered by the enraged Emperor were entrusted to no one

else but to the Commentarienses serving under the Praefect. In this

service they acquitted themselves so well, with such vigour, such

harmonious energy, such entire clean-handedness and absence of all

dishonest gain, as to move the admiration of the Emperor, who made use

of them on all similar occasions that presented themselves in the

remainder of his reign. They had even the honour of being employed

against Macedonius, Patriarch of Constantinople, when that prelate had

provoked the Emperor by suspending all intercourse with him as a

heretic; and that, although Celer, one of the most intimate friends of

Anastasius, was at that very time holding the rank of Magister

Officiorum.'

[Footnote 143: To avoid confusion I will use the term

'Commentariensis' throughout.]

[Footnote 144: So Bethmann Hollweg (p. 179), 'Diess ist der Gehülfe

des Magistrats bei Verwaltung der Criminaljustiz.' I compare him in

the following translation of Cassiodorus to a 'magistrate's clerk.']

[Footnote 145: See iii. 9 (p. 203, ed. Bonn), and combine with iii.

16. The _Augustales_ referred to in the latter passage were a higher

class of Exceptores.]

[Footnote 146: Applicitarii, Clavicularii, Lictores.]

[Footnote 147: [Greek: sidêreois desmois kai poinaiôn organôn kai

plêktrôn poikilia saleuontôn tô phobô to dikastêrion] (iii. 16).]

[Footnote 148: [Greek: kai koinônêsantos autô tês basileias].]

[Footnote 149: [Greek: hote Kôadês ho Persês ephlegmaine]. The whole

passage is mysterious, but we seem to have here an allusion to the

outbreak of the Persian War (A.D. 502).]

An officer who was thus privileged to lay hands on Patriarch and

Patrician in the name of Augustus was looked up to with awful

reverence by all the lower members of the official hierarchy; and

Lydus, with one graphic touch, brings before us the glow of gratified

self-love with which, when he was a subordinate _Scriniarius_, he

found himself honoured by the familiar conversation of so great a

person as the Commentariensis[150]: 'I too am struck with somewhat of

my old awe, recurring in memory to those who were then holders of the

office. I remember what fear of the Commentarisii fell upon all who at

all took the lead in the _Officium_, but especially on the Scriniarii;

and how greatly he who was favoured with a chat with a Commentarisius

passing by valued himself on the honour.' Lydus also describes to us

how the Commentariensis, instructed by the Praefect, or perhaps even

by the Emperor himself, would take with him one of his faithful

servants, the Chartularii, would visit the abode of the suspected

person (who might, as we have seen, be one of the very highest

officers of the State), and would then in his presence dictate in

solemn Latin words the indictment which was to be laid against him,

the mere hearing of which sometimes brought the criminal to confess

his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the Emperor.

[Footnote 150: iii. 17 (p. 210).]

It was from this _commentum_, the equivalent of a French _acte

d'accusation_, that the Commentariensis derived his title.

[Sidenote: Ab Actis (Scriniarius Actorum?).]

(5) The _Ab Actis_. The officer who bore this title (which is perhaps

the same as the Scriniarius Actorum of Cassiodorus[151]) seems to have

been exclusively concerned with civil cases, and perhaps held the same

place in reference to them that the Commentarienses held in criminal

matters[152]. Practically, his office appears to have been very much

what we understand by that of _Chief Registrar_ of the Court. He (or

they, for in Lydus' time there were two _Ab Actis_ as well as two

Commentarienses[153]) was chosen from the select body of shorthand

writers who were known as Augustales, and was assisted by six men of

the same class, 'men of high character and intelligence and still in

the vigour of their years[154].' His chief business--and in this he

was served by the _Nomenclatores_, who shouted out in a loud voice the

names of the litigants--was to introduce the plaintiff and defendant

into the Court, or to make a brief statement of the nature of the case

to the presiding magistrate. He then had to watch the course of the

pleadings and listen to the Judge's decision, so as to be able to

prepare a full statement of the case for the Registers or

Journals[155] of the Court. These Registers--at least in the

flourishing days of Roman jurisprudence--were most fully and

accurately kept. Even the _Dies Nefasti_ were marked upon them, and

the reason for their being observed as legal holidays duly noted.

Elaborate indices, prepared by the Chartularii, made search an easy

matter to those who wished to ascertain what was the decision of the

law upon every point; and the marginal notes, or _personalia_,

prepared in Latin[156] by the Ab Actis or his assistants, were so

excellent and so full that sometimes when the original entry in the

Registers had been lost the whole case could be sufficiently

reconstructed from them alone.

[Footnote 151: Var. xi. 22.]

[Footnote 152: This seems to be Bethmann Hollweg's view (p. 181).]

[Footnote 153: This we learn from iii. 20. They are not mentioned in

iii. 4, where we should have expected to find them.]

[Footnote 154: [Greek: hex andres erastoi kai nounechestatoi kai

sphrigôntes eti] (Lydus iii. 20).]

[Footnote 155: [Greek: rhegestôn ê kottidianôn (anti tou ephêmerôn)].]

[Footnote 156: [Greek: Italisti]. Of course the emphasis laid on this

point proceeds from the Greek nationality of our present authority.]

The question was already mooted at Constantinople in the sixth century

whence the Ab Actis derived his somewhat elliptical name; and our

archaeology-loving scribe was able to inform his readers that as the

officer of the household who was called _A Pigmentis_ had the care of

the aromatic ointments of the Court; as the _A Sabanis_[157] had

charge of the bathing towels of the baths; as the _A Secretis_ (who

was called Ad Secretis by vulgar Byzantines, ignorant of the niceties

of Latin grammar) was concerned in keeping the secret counsels of his

Sovereign: so the _Ab Actis_ derived his title from the Acts of the

Court which it was his duty to keep duly posted up and properly

indexed.

[Footnote 157: [Greek: sabanon] = a towel.]

[Sidenote: Numerarii.]

(6) The _Numerarii_ (whose exact number is not stated in the

'Notitia'[158]) were the cashiers of the Praefect's office. Though

frequently mentioned in the Theodosian Code, and though persons

exercising this function must always have existed in a great Court of

Justice like the Praefect's, we hear but little of them from

Cassiodorus[159]; and Lydus' notices of the [Greek: diapsêphistai],

who seem to correspond to the Numerarii[160], are scanty and

imperfect. Our German commentator has collected the passages of the

Theodosian Code which relate to this class of officers, and has shown

that on account of their rapacity and extortion their office was

subjected to a continual process of degradation. All the Numerarii,

except those of the two highest classes of judges[161], were degraded

into _Tabularii_, a name which had previously indicated the cashiers

of a municipality as distinguished from those in the Imperial service;

and the Numerarii, even of the Praetorian Praefect himself, were made

subject to examination by torture. This was not only to be dreaded on

account of the bodily suffering which it inflicted, but was also a

mark of the humble condition of those to whom it was applied.

[Footnote 158: Except, as before stated, those in the office of the

Praetorian Praefect for Illyricum. These were four in number, and one

of them had charge of 'gold,' another of '[public] works.' Further

information is requisite to enable us to explain these entries.]

[Footnote 159: They are alluded to in Var. xii. 13. The Canonicarii

(Tax-collectors) had plundered the Churches of Bruttii and Lucania in

the name of 'sedis nostrae Numerarii;' but the Numerarii with holy

horror declared that they had received no part of the spoils.]

[Footnote 160: See Bethmann Hollweg, 184.]

[Footnote 161: Illustres and Spectabiles.]

[Sidenote: Scriniarius Curae Militaris.]

We may perhaps see in the _Scriniarius Curae Militaris_ of

Cassiodorus[162] one of these Numerarii detailed for service as

paymaster to the soldiers who waited upon the orders of the Praefect.

[Footnote 162: xi. 24.]

[Sidenote: Subadjuvae.]

(7) The _Subadjuvae_. This is probably a somewhat vague term, like

Adjutores, and indicates a second and lower class of cashiers who

acted as deputies for the regular Numerarii.

[Sidenote: Cura Epistolarum.]

(8) _Cura Epistolarum._ The officer who bore this title appears to

have had the duty of copying out all letters relating to fiscal

matters[163]. This theory as to his office is confirmed by the words

of Cassiodorus (Var. xi. 23): 'Let Constantinian on his promotion

receive the care of the letters relating to the land-tax' (Hic itaque

epistolarum _canonicarum_ curam provectus accipiat).

[Footnote 163: This is Bethmann Hollweg's interpretation of the words

of Lydus, [Greek: hoi tas men epi tois dêmosiois phoitôsas psêphous

graphousi monon, to loipon kataphronoumenoi] (iii. 21). In another

passage (iii. 4, 5) Lydus appears to assign a reason for the fact that

the Praefectus Urbis Constantinopolitanae, the Magister Militum, and

the Magister Officiorum had no _Cura Epistolarum_ on their staff; but

the paragraph is to me hopelessly obscure. Curiously enough, too,

while he avers that every department of the State (perhaps every

diocese) had, as a rule, its own Curae Epistolarum, he limits the two

in the Praetorian Praefect's office to the diocese of Pontica ([Greek:

koura epistolaroum Pontikês duo]).]

[Sidenote: Regerendarius, or Regendarius.]

(9) _Regerendarius_, or _Regendarius_[164]. This officer had the

charge of all contracts relating to the very important department of

the _Cursus Publicus_, or Imperial Mail Service. At the time of the

compilation of the 'Notitia' only one person appears to have acted in

this capacity under each Praefect. When Lydus wrote, there were two

Regendarii in each Praefecture, but, owing to the increasing influence

of the Magister Officiorum over the Cursus Publicus[165], their office

had become apparently little more than an ill-paid sinecure. As we

hear nothing of similar changes in the West, the Cursus Publicus was

probably a part of the public service which was directly under the

control of Cassiodorus when Praetorian Praefect, and was administered

at his bidding by one or more Regendarii.

[Footnote 164: The first form of the name is found in the Notitia, the

second in Lydus and Cassiodorus.]

[Footnote 165: It is not easy to make out exactly what Lydus wishes us

to understand about the Cursus Publicus; but I think his statements

amount to this, that it was taken by Arcadius from the Praetorian

Praefect and given to the Magister Officiorum, was afterwards restored

to the Praefect, and finally was in effect destroyed by the corrupt

administration of John of Cappadocia. (See ii. 10; iii. 21, 61.)]

[Sidenote: Exceptores.]

(10) We now come to the _Exceptores_, or shorthand writers[166], a

large and fluctuating body who stood on the lowest step of the

official ladder[167] and formed the raw material out of which all its

higher functionaries were fashioned in the regular order of promotion.

[Footnote 166: The [Greek: tachygraphoi] of Lydus.]

[Footnote 167: In making this statement I consider the Adjutores to be

virtually another class of Exceptores, and I purposely omit the

Singularii as not belonging to the _Militia Litterata_, which alone I

am now considering.]

[Sidenote: Augustales.]

[Sidenote: Deputati.]

We are informed by Lydus[168], that in his time the Exceptores in the

Eastern Empire were divided into two corps, the higher one called

_Augustales_, who were limited in number to thirty, and the lower, of

indefinite number and composing the rank and file of the profession.

The Augustales only could aspire to the rank of Cornicularius; but in

order that some prizes might still be left of possible attainment by

the larger class, the rank of Primiscrinius was tenable by those who

remained 'on the rolls of the Exceptores.' The reason for this change

was that the unchecked application of the principle of seniority to so

large a body of public servants was throwing all the more important

offices in the Courts of Justice into the hands of old men. The

principle of 'seniority tempered by selection' was therefore

introduced, and the ablest and most learned members of the class of

Exceptores were drafted off into this favoured section of Augustales,

fifteen of the most experienced of whom were appropriated to the

special service of the Emperor, while the other fifteen filled the

higher offices (with the exception of the Primiscriniate) in the

Praefectoral Courts[169]. The first fifteen were called

_Deputati_[170], the others were apparently known simply as

Augustales.

[Footnote 168: iii. 6, 9.]

[Footnote 169: I think this is a fair summary of Lydus iii. 9 and 10,

but these paragraphs are very difficult and obscure.]

[Footnote 170: We should certainly have expected that the Augustales

would be those writers who were specially appropriated to the

Emperor's service, but the other conclusion necessarily follows from

the language of Lydus (iii. 10): [Greek: hôste kai pentekaideka ex

autôn tôn pepanôterôn peira te kai tô chronô kreittonôn pros

hypographên tois basileusin aphoristhênai, ous eti kai nun dêpoutatous

kalousin, hoi tou tagmatos tôn Augoustaliôn prôteuousin].]

The change thus described by Lydus appears to have been made in the

West as well as in the East, since we hear in the 'Variae' of

Cassiodorus (xi. 30) of the appointment of a certain Ursus to be

Primicerius of the Deputati, and of Beatus to take the same place

among the Augustales[171].

[Footnote 171: The form of the word must I think prevent us from

applying the Princeps _Augustorum_ of xi. 35 to the same class of

officers.]

[Sidenote: Adjutores.]

(11) The _Adjutores_ of the 'Notitia' were probably a lower class of

Exceptores, who may very likely have disappeared when the Augustales

were formed out of them by the process of differentiation which has

been described above.

We have now gone through the whole of what was termed the 'Learned

Service[172]' mentioned in the 'Notitia,' with one exception--the

title of an officer, in himself humble and obscure, who has given his

name to the highest functionaries of mediaeval and modern Europe.

[Footnote 172: [Greek: tous epi tais logikais tetagmenous

leitourgiais] (Lydus iii. 7). [Greek: Peras men hode tôn logikôn tês

taxeôs systêmatôn] (iii. 21). The 'Learned Service' may be taken as

corresponding to 'a post fit for a gentleman,' in modern phraseology.

In our present Official Directories the members of the [Greek: logikê

taxis] appear to be all dignified with the title 'Esq.;' the others

have only 'Mr.']

[Sidenote: Cancellarius.]

(12) The _Cancellarius_ appears in the 'Notitia' only once[173], and

then in connection not with the Praetorian Praefect, but with the

Master of the Offices. At the very end of the Officium of this

dignitary, after the six _Scholae_ and four _Scrinia_ of his

subordinates, and after the _Admissionales_, whom we must look upon as

the Ushers of the Court, comes the entry,

Cancellarii:

their very number not stated, the office being too obscure to make a

few less or more a matter of importance.

[Footnote 173: Occidentis ix. 15.]

After the compilation of the 'Notitia' the office of Cancellarius

apparently rose somewhat in importance, and was introduced into other

departments besides that of the Master of the Offices.

One Cancellarius appears attached to the Court of Cassiodorus as

Praetorian Praefect, and from the admonitions addressed to him by his

master[174], we see that he had it in his power considerably to aid

the administration of justice by his integrity, or to hinder it by

showing himself accessible to bribes.

[Footnote 174: In Var. xi. 6, which see.]

In describing the Cancellarius, as in almost every other part of his

treatise, Lydus has to tell a dismal story of ruin and decay[175]:

[Footnote 175: iii. 36, 37.]

'Now the Scriniarii [subordinates of the Magister Officiorum] are made

Cancellarii and Logothetes and purveyors of the Imperial table,

whereas in old time the Cancellarius was chosen only from the ranks of

Augustales and Exceptores who had served with credit. In those days

the Judgment Hall [of the Praefect] recognised only two Cancellarii,

who received an _aureus_ apiece[176] per day from the Treasury. There

was aforetime in the Court of Justice a fence separating the

Magistrate from his subordinates, and this fence, being made of long

splinters of wood placed diagonally, was called _cancellus_, from its

likeness to network, the regular Latin word for a net being casses,

and the diminutive cancellus[177]. At this latticed barrier then stood

two _Cancellarii_, by whom, since no one was allowed to approach the

judgment-seat, paper was brought to the members of the staff and

needful messages were delivered. But now that the office owing to the

number of its holders[178] has fallen into disrepute, and that the

Treasury no longer makes a special provision for their maintenance,

almost all the hangers-on of the Courts of Law call themselves

Cancellarii; and, not only in the capital but in the Provinces, they

give themselves this title in order that they may be able more

effectually to plunder the wealthy.'

[Footnote 176: About twelve shillings.]

[Footnote 177: This derivation from casses is, of course, absurd.]

[Footnote 178: Can this be the meaning of [Greek: eis plêthos]?]

This description by Lydus, while it aptly illustrates Cassiodorus'

exhortations to his Cancellarii to keep their hands clean from bribes,

shows how lowly their office was still considered; and indeed, but for

his statement that it used to be filled by veteran Augustales, we

might almost have doubted whether it is rightly classed among the

'Learned Services' at all.

[Sidenote: End of the Militia Literata.]

Now at any rate we leave the ranks of the gentlemen of the Civil

Service behind us, and come to the 'Militia Illiterata,' of whom the

'Notitia' enumerates only

[Sidenote: Militia Illiterata: Singularii.]

(13) The _Singularii_, a class of men of whose useful services Lydus

speaks in terms of high praise, contrasting their modest efficiency

with the pompous verbosity[179] of the Magistriani (servants of the

Master of the Offices) by whom they were being generally superseded in

his day. They travelled through the Provinces, carrying the Praefect's

orders, and riding in a post-chaise drawn by a single horse (veredus),

from which circumstance, according to Lydus, they derived their name

Singularii[180].

[Footnote 179: [Greek: Kompophakellorrêmosynê] =

Pomp-bundle-wordiness, an Aristophanic word.]

[Footnote 180: De Dignitatibus iii. 7.]

We observe that the letter of Cassiodorus[181] addressed to the

retiring chief (Primicerius) of the Singularii informs him that he is

promoted to a place among the King's Body-guard (Domestici et

Protectores), a suitable reward for one who had not been a member of

the 'Learned Services.'

[Footnote 181: Var. xi. 31.]

After the Singularii Lydus mentions the _Mancipes_, the men who were

either actually slaves or were at any rate engaged in servile

occupations; as, for instance, the bakers at the public bakeries, the

_Rationalii_, who distributed the rations to the receivers of the

annona[182], the _Applicitarii_ (officers of arrest), and

_Clavicularii_ (gaolers), who, as we before heard, obeyed the mandate

of the Commentariensis. The Lictors, I think, are not mentioned by

him. A corresponding class of men would probably be the _Apparitores_,

who in the 'Notitia' appear almost exclusively attached to the service

of the great Ministers of War[183].

[Footnote 182: This seems a probable explanation of a rather obscure

passage.]

[Footnote 183: See the following sections of the Notitia: Magister

Militum Praesentatis (Oriens v. 74, vi. 77; Occidens v. 281, vi. 93);

M.M. per Orientem (Or. vii. 67); M.M. per Thracias (Or. viii. 61);

M.M. per Illyricum (Or. ix. 56); Magister Equitum per Gallias (Occ.

vii. 117). The only civil officer who has Apparitores is the Proconsul

Achaiae (Oriens xxi. 14).]

Thus, it will be seen, from the well-paid and often highly-connected

Princeps, who, no doubt, discussed the business of the court with the

Praetorian Praefect on terms of friendly though respectful

familiarity, down to the gaoler and the lictor and the lowest of the

half-servile _mancipes_, there was a regular gradation of rank, which

still preserved, in the staff of the highest court of justice in the

land, all the traditions of subordination and discipline which had

once characterised the military organisation out of which it

originally sprang.

CHAPTER V.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

[Sidenote: Editiones Principes.]

The Ecclesiastical History ('Historia Tripartita') seems to have been

the first of the works of Cassiodorus to attract the notice of

printers at the revival of learning. The Editio Princeps of this book

(folio) was printed by Johann Schuszler, at Augsburg, in 1472[184].

[Footnote 184: This edition is described by Dibdin (Bibliotheca

Spenceriana iii. 244-5).]

The Editio Princeps of the 'Chronicon' is contained in a collection of

Chronicles published at Basel in 1529 by Joannes Sichardus (printer,

Henricus Petrus). The contribution of Cassiodorus is prefaced by an

appropriate Epistle Dedicatory to Sir Thos. More, in which a parallel

is suggested between the lives of these two literary statesmen.

Next followed the Editio Princeps of the 'Variae,' published at

Augsburg in 1533, by Mariangelus Accurtius.

In 1553, Joannes Cuspinianus, a counsellor of the Emperor Maximilian,

published at Basel a series of Chronicles with which he interwove the

Chronicle of Cassiodorus, and to which he prefixed a short life of our

author.

[Sidenote: Edition of Nivellius.]

The Editio Princeps of the collected works of Cassiodorus was

published at Paris in 1579 by Sebastianus Nivellius; and other

editions by the same publisher followed in 1584 and 1589. This edition

does not contain the Tripartite History, the Exposition of the

Psalter, or the 'Complexiones' on the Epistles. Some notes, not

without merit, are added, which were compiled in 1578 by 'Gulielmus

Fornerius, Parisiensis, Regius apud Aurelianenses Consiliarius et

Antecessor.' The annotator says[185] that these notes had gradually

accumulated on the margin of his copy of Cassiodorus, an author who

had been a favourite of his from youth, and whom he had often quoted

in his forensic speeches.

[Footnote 185: p. 492.]

The edition of Nivellius, which is evidently prepared with a view to

aid the historical rather than the theological study of the writings

of Cassiodorus, contains also the Gothic history of Jordanus (sic),

the 'Edictum Theoderici,' the letter of Sidonius describing the Court

of Theodoric II _the Visigoth_ (453-466), and the Panegyric of

Ennodius on Theodoric the Great. The letter of Sidonius is evidently

inserted owing to a confusion between the two Theodorics; and this

error has led many later commentators astray. But the reprint of the

'Edictum Theoderici' is of great interest and value, because the MS.

from which it was taken has since disappeared, and none other is known

to be in existence. A letter is prefixed to the 'Edictum,' written by

Pierre Pithou to Edouard Molé, Dec. 31, 1578, and describing his

reasons for sending this document to the publisher who was printing

the works of Cassiodorus. At the same time, 'that the West might not

have cause to envy the East,' he sent a MS. of the 'Leges

Wisigothorum,' with illustrative extracts from Isidore and Procopius,

which is printed at the end of Nivellius' edition.

I express no opinion about the text of this edition; but it possesses

the advantage of an Index to the 'Variae' only, which will be found at

the end of the Panegyric of Ennodius. Garet's Index, which is in

itself not so full, has the additional disadvantage of being muddled

up with the utterly alien matter of the Tripartite History.

In 1588 appeared an edition in 4to. of the works of Cassiodorus (still

excluding the Tripartite History and the Biblical Commentaries),

published at Paris by Marc Orry. This was republished in 1600 in two

volumes 12mo.

The 'Variae' and 'Chronicon' only, in 12mo. were published at Lyons by

Jacques Chouet in 1595, and again by Pierre and Jacques Chouet at

Geneva in 1609, and by their successors in 1650. These editions

contain the notes of Pierre Brosse, Jurisconsult, as well as those of

Fornerius.

[Sidenote: Edition of Garet.]

In 1679 appeared, in two volumes folio, the great Rouen edition by

François Jean Garet (of the Congregation of S. Maur), which has ever

since been the standard edition of the works of Cassiodorus. Garet

speaks of collating several MSS. of various ages for the text of this

edition, especially mentioning 'Codex S. Audoeni' (deficient for Books

5, 6, and 7 of the 'Variae'), 'et antiquissimae membranae S. Remigii

Remensis' (containing only the first four books of the same

collection). A codex which once belonged to the jurist Cujacius, and

which had been collated with Accurtius' text in 1575 by a certain

Claude Grulart, seems to have given Garet some valuable readings by

means of Grulart's notes, though the codex itself had disappeared.

Garet's edition was re-issued at Venice in 1729, and more recently in

Migne's 'Patrologia' (Paris, 1865), of which it forms vols. 69 and 70.

[Sidenote: Forthcoming Edition by Meyer.]

There can be little doubt, however, that all these editions will be

rendered obsolete by the new edition which is expected to appear as a

volume of the 'Auctores Antiquissimi' in the _Monumenta Germaniae

Historica_. The editor is Professor Wilhelm Meyer, of Munich. The work

has been for some years announced as near completion, but I have not

been able to ascertain how soon it may be expected to appear.

[Sidenote: Supposed fragment of orations.]

Finally, I must not omit to notice the fragments of an oration

published by Baudi de Vesme in the Transactions of the Royal Academy

of Sciences at Turin (1846). Those fragments, which were found in a

palimpsest MS. of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, were first

published in 1822 by Angelo Mai, who was then disposed to attribute

them to Symmachus (the elder), and to assign them to the early part of

the fifth century. On reflection, however, he came to the conclusion

that they were probably the work of Cassiodorus, and formed part of a

panegyric addressed to Theodoric. This theory appears now to meet with

general approval. The style is certainly very similar to that of

Cassiodorus; but, as will be inferred from the doubt as to their

origin, there is little or nothing in these scanty fragments which

adds anything to our knowledge of the history of Theodoric.

[Sidenote: Life by Garet.]

To the literature relating to Cassiodorus the most important

contribution till recent times was the life by Garet prefixed to his

edition of 1679. I cannot speak of this from a very minute

investigation, but it seems to be a creditable performance, the work

of one who had carefully studied the 'Variae,' but unfortunately quite

misleading as to the whole framework of the life of Cassiodorus, from

the confusion which it makes between him and his father, an error

which Garet has probably done more than any other author to

perpetuate.

[Sidenote: Life by St. Marthe.]

The life by Garet was paraphrased in French by Denys de _Ste. Marthe_

('Vie de Cassiodore,' Paris, 1695), whose work has enjoyed a

reputation to which it was not entitled on the ground either of

originality or accuracy, but which was probably due to the fact that

the handy octavo volume written in French was accessible to a wider

circle of readers than Garet's unwieldy folio in Latin. A more

original performance was that of _Count Buat_ (in the 'Abhandlungen

der Kurfürstlichen Bairischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,' Munich,

1763); but this author, though he pointed out the cardinal error of

Garet, his confusion between Senator and his father, introduced some

further gratuitous entanglements of his own into the family history of

the Cassiodori.

[Sidenote: Modern monographs.]

All these works, however, are rendered entirely obsolete by three

excellent monographs which have recently been published in Germany on

the life and writings of Cassiodorus. These are--

[Sidenote: Thorbecke.]

August _Thorbecke's_ 'Cassiodorus Senator' (Heidelberg, 1867);

[Sidenote: Franz.]

Adolph _Franz's_ 'M. Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator' (Breslau, 1872);

and

[Sidenote: Usener.]

Hermann _Usener's_ 'Anecdoton Holderi' (Bonn, 1877), described in the

second chapter of this introduction.

Thorbecke discusses the political, and Franz the religious and

literary aspects of the life of their common hero, and between them

they leave no point of importance in obscurity. Usener, as we have

already seen, brings an important contribution to our knowledge of the

subject in presenting us with Holder's fragment; and his Commentary

(of eighty pages) on this fragment is a model of patient and

exhaustive research. It seems probable that these three authors have

really said pretty nearly the last word about the life and writings of

Cassiodorus. In addition to these authors many writers of historical

works in Germany have of late years incidentally contributed to a more

accurate understanding of the life and times of Cassiodorus.

_Dahn_, in the third section of his 'Könige der Germanen' (Würzburg,

1866), has written a treatise on the political system of the

Ostrogoths which is almost a continuous commentary on the 'Variae,'

and from which I have derived the greatest possible assistance.

_Köpke_, in his 'Anfänge des Königthums bei den Gothen' (Berlin,

1859), has condensed into a small compass a large amount of useful

disquisition on Cassiodorus and his copyist Jordanes. The relation

between these two writers was also elaborately discussed by _von

Sybel_ in his thesis 'De Fontibus Libri Jordanis' (Berlin, 1838), and

by _Schirren_, in his monograph 'De Ratione quae inter Jordanem et

Cassiodorum intercedat' (Dorpat, 1885). The latter, though upon the

whole a creditable performance, is disfigured by one or two strange

blunders, and not improved by some displays of irrelevant learning.

_Von Schubert_, in his 'Unterwerfung der Alamannen unter die Franken'

(Strassburg, 1884), throws some useful light on the question of the

date of the early letters in the 'Variae;' and _Binding_, in his

'Geschichte des Burgundisch-Romanischen Königreichs' (Leipzig, 1868),

discusses the relations between Theodoric and the Sovereigns of Gaul,

as disclosed by the same collection of letters, in a manner which I

must admit to be forcible, though I do not accept all his conclusions.

_Mommsen_, in his paper 'Die Chronik des Cassiodorus Senator' (Vol.

viii. of the 'Abhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der

Wissenschaften;' Leipzig, 1861), has said all that is to be said

concerning the unfortunate 'Chronicon' of Cassiodorus, which he

handles with merciless severity.

To say that _Ebert_, in his 'Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur des

Mittelalters im Abendlande' (Leipzig, 1874), and _Wattenbach_, in his

'Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter,' tell us with fullness

and accuracy just what the student ought to wish to know concerning

Cassiodorus as an author, is only to say that they are Ebert and

Wattenbach. Every one who has had occasion to refer to these two books

knows their merits.

Passing from German literature, I regret that I am prevented by

ignorance of the Dutch language from forming an opinion as to the work

of _Thijm_ ('Iets over M.A. Cassiodorus en zijne eeuw;' Amsterdam,

1857), which is frequently quoted by my German authorities.

_Gibbon_ of course quotes from the 'Variae,' and though he did not

know them intimately, he has with his usual sagacity apprehended the

true character of the book and of its author. But the best account of

the 'Various Letters' in English, as far as I know, is unfortunately

entombed in the pages of a periodical, being an article by Dean

_Church_, contributed in July, 1880, to the 'Church Quarterly Review.'

There is also a very good though necessarily brief notice of

Cassiodorus in _Ugo Balzani's_ little volume on the 'Early Chroniclers

of Italy,' published by the Christian Knowledge Society in 1883.

CHAPTER VI.

CHRONOLOGY.

In the following chronological table of the life of Cassiodorus I

have, for convenience sake, assumed 480 as the year of his birth, and

575 as that of his death. It is now, I think, sufficiently proved that

if these dates are not absolutely correct, they cannot be more than a

year or two wrong in one direction or the other.

[Sidenote: Consular Fasti.]

As dates were still reckoned by Consulships, at any rate through the

greater part of the life of Cassiodorus, I have inserted the Consular

Fasti for the period in question. It will be seen that several names

of correspondents of Cassiodorus figure in this list. As a general

though not universal practice, one of the two Consuls at this time was

chosen from out of the Senate of Rome and the other from that of

Constantinople. We can almost always tell whether a chronicler belongs

to the Eastern or Western Empire by observing whether he puts the

Eastern or Western Consul first. Thus, for A.D. 501, Marcellinus

Comes, who was an official of the Eastern Empire, gives us 'Pompeius

et Avienus, Coss.;' while Cassiodorus, in his 'Chronicon,' assigns the

year to 'Avienus et Pompeius.' Pompeius was a nobleman of

Constantinople, nephew of the Emperor Anastasius; while Avienus was a

Roman Senator[186]. Again, in A.D. 490, Marcellinus gives the names of

Longinus and Faustus, which Cassiodorus quotes as Faustus and

Longinus. Longinus was a brother of the Emperor Zeno, and Faustus was

for many years Praetorian Praefect under Theodoric, and was the

receiver of many letters in the following collection.

[Footnote 186: See Usener, p. 32.]

I have endeavoured to give the priority always to the _Western_ Consul

in the list before us, except in those cases where an Emperor (who was

of course an Eastern) condescended to assume the Consular _trabea_.

[Sidenote: Indictions.]

Another mode of reckoning the dates which the reader will continually

meet with in the following pages is by _Indictions_. The Indiction, as

is well known, was a cycle of fifteen years, during which, as we have

reason to believe, the assessment for the taxes remained undisturbed,

a fresh valuation being made all round when the cycle was ended.

Traces of this quindecennial period may be found in the third century,

but the formal adoption of the Indiction is generally assigned to the

Emperor Constantine, and to the year 312[187]. The Indiction itself,

and every one of the years composing it, began on the 1st of September

of the calendar year. The reason for this period being chosen probably

was that the harvests of the year being then gathered in, the

collection of the tithes of the produce, which formed an important

part of the Imperial revenue, could be at once proceeded with. What

gives an especial importance to this method of dating by Indictions,

for the reader of the following letters is, that most of the great

offices of State changed hands at the beginning of the year of the

Indiction (Sept. 1), not at the beginning of the Calendar year.

[Footnote 187: Compare Marquardt (Römische Staatsverwaltung ii. 237).

He remarks that the Indiction seems to have been first adopted in

Egypt, and did not come into universal use all over the Empire till

the end of the Fourth Century.]

To make such a mode of dating the year at all satisfactory, it would

seem to us necessary that the number of the cycle itself, as well as

of the year in the cycle, should be given; for instance, that A.D. 313

should be called the first year of the first Indiction, and A.D. 351

the ninth year of the third Indiction. This practice, however, was not

adopted till far on into the Middle Ages[188]. At the time we are

speaking of, the word Indiction seems generally to have been given

not to the cycle itself, but to the year in the cycle. Thus, 313 was

the first Indiction, 314 the second Indiction, 315 the third

Indiction, and so on. And thus we find a year, which from other

sources we know to be 313, called the first Indiction, 351 the ninth

Indiction, 537 the fifteenth Indiction, without any clue being given

to guide us to the important point in what cycles these years held

respectively the first, the ninth, and the fifteenth places.

[Footnote 188: The Twelfth Century, according to Marquardt.]

As the Indiction began on the 1st of September a question arises

whether the calendar year is to be named after the number of the

Indiction which belongs to its beginning or its end; whether, to go

back to the beginning, A.D. 312 or A.D. 313 is to be accounted the

first Indiction. The practice of the chroniclers and of most writers

on chronology appears to be in favour of the latter method, which is

natural, inasmuch as nine months of the Indiction belong to the later

date and only three to the earlier. Thus, for instance, Marcellinus

Comes calls the year of the Consulship of Belisarius, which was

undoubtedly 535, 'Indictio XIII:' the thirteenth Indiction of that

cycle having begun Sept. 1, 534, and ended August 31, 535. But it is

well that the student should be warned that our greatest English

authority, Mr. Fynes Clinton, adopts the other method. In the very

useful table of comparative chronology which he gives in his Fasti

Romani[189] he assigns the Indiction to that year of the Christian era

in which it had its beginning, and accordingly 534, not 535, is

identified with the thirteenth Indiction.

[Footnote 189: Vol. ii. pp. 214-216. See his remarks, p. 210: 'The

Indictions in Marcellinus and in the Tables of Du Fresnoy are compared

with the Consulship and the Julian year in which they end. In the

following Table they are compared with the year in which they begin,

because the years of the Christian era are here made the measure of

the rest, and contain the beginnings of all the other epochs.']

In order to translate years of Indiction into years of the Christian

era it is necessary first to add some multiple of 15 (_what_ multiple

our knowledge of history must inform us) to 312. On the 1st of

September of the year so obtained the Indiction cycle began; and for

any other year of the same cycle we must of course add its own number

minus one. Thus, when we find Cassiodorus as Praetorian Praefect

writing a letter[190] informing Joannes of his appointment to the

office of Cancellarius 'for the _twelfth_ Indiction,' as we know

within a little what date is wanted, we first of all add 14 x 15 (=

210) to 312, and so obtain 522. The first Indiction in that cycle ran

from September 1, 522, to August 31, 523. The twelfth Indiction was

therefore from September 1, 533, to August 31, 534, and that is the

date we require.

[Footnote 190: Var. xi. 6.]

On the other hand, when we find a letter written by Cassiodorus as

Praetorian Praefect to the Provincials of Istria[191] as to the

payment of tribute for the _first_ Indiction, we know that we must now

have entered upon a new cycle. We therefore add 15 x 15 (= 225) to

312, and get 537. As it happens to be the _first_ Indiction that we

require, our calculation ends here: September 1, 537, to August 31,

538, is the answer required.

[Footnote 191: Var. xii. 22.]

If anyone objects that such a system of chronology is cumbrous,

uncertain, and utterly unscientific, I can only say that I entirely

agree with him, and that the system is worthy of the perverted

ingenuity which produced the Nones and Ides of the Roman Calendar.

In the following tables I have not attempted to mark the years of the

Indiction, on account of the confusion caused by the fact that two

calendar years require the same number. But I have denoted by the

abbreviation 'Ind.' the years in which each cycle of the Indictions

_began_. These years are 492, 507, 522, 537, 552, and 567.

_Chronological Tables._

Private Public Rulers of

A.D. Consuls. Events. Events. Italy. Popes. Emperors.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

480 Basilius Magnus Assassination ODOVACAR SIMPLICIUS ZENO

Junior. Aurelius of Nepos, (from 476). (from 468). (from 474).

Cassiodorus formerly

Senator, Emperor of

born at the West.

Scyllacium

(?).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

481 Placidus. Odovacar

avenges the

murder of

Nepos. Death

of

Theodoricus

Triarii.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

482 Trocondus Accession of

and Clovis.

Severinus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

483 Faustus. Zeno issues FELIX II

the Henoticon. (or III).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

484 Theodoricus Illus revolts

and against Zeno.

Venantius. Schism between

Eastern and

Western

Churches.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

485 Q. Aurelius

Memmius

Symmachus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

486 Decius and

Longinus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

487 Boethius War between

(_Father of Odovacar and

the great the Rugians.

Boethius_).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

488 Dyanamius Theodoric

and starts for

Sifidius. Italy. Death

of Illus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

489 Anicius Theodoric

Probinus descends into

and Italy. Battles

Eusebius. of the Isonzo

and Verona.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

490 Flavius Battle of the

Faustus Adda.

Junior and

Longinus (II).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

491 Olybrius Battle of ANASTASIUS.

Junior. Ravenna.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

492 Flavius GELASIUS.

(Ind.) ANASTASIUS

Augustus and

Rufus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

493 Eusebius Surrender of THEODORIC.

(II) and Ravenna.

Albinus. Death of

Odovacar.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

494 Turcius

Rufus

Apronianus

Asterius and

Praesidius.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

495 Flavius

Viator.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

496 Paulus. Clovis ANASTASIUS.

defeats the

Alamanni. His

conversion.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

497 Flavius SYMMACHUS

ANASTASIUS (Antipope

Aug. (II). Laurentius).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

498 Paulinus

and Joannes

Scytha.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

499 Joannes

Gibbus.