The Letters of Cassiodorus
fall back into the ranks of the ordinary senators, and no longer to
receive the reverent salutations of the chiefs of the army when he
entered the hall of meeting. Whether the public good or the private
advantage swayed him most who shall say? There are times when
patriotism calls for the costliest sacrifice which a statesman can
make--the sacrifice, apparently, of his own honour. The man who has
made such a sacrifice must be content to be misjudged by his
fellow-men. Certainly, to us the one stain upon an otherwise pure
reputation seems to be found in the service, the apparently willing
service, which in the Tenth Book of his letters Cassiodorus renders to
Theodahad.
[Sidenote: Vacillation of Theodahad.]
Throughout the latter half of 535, Belisarius in Sicily and Mundus in
Dalmatia were warring for Justinian against Theodahad. The rhetorician
Peter, who had boldly rebuked the Gothic King for the murder of his
benefactress, and had on his master's behalf denounced a truceless war
against him, still lingered at his Court. Theodahad, who during part
of the summer and autumn of 535 seems to have been at Rome, not at
Ravenna, was more than half inclined to resume his old negotiations
with the Emperor, and either to purchase peace by sinking into the
condition of a tributary, or to sell his kingdom outright for a
revenue of L48,000 a year and a high place among the nobles of the
Empire. Procopius[65] gives us a vivid and detailed narrative of the
manner in which these negotiations were conducted by Theodahad, who
was perpetually wavering between arrogance and timidity; trembling at
the successes of Belisarius, elated by any victory which his generals
might win in Dalmatia; and who at length, upon receiving the tidings
of the defeat and death of Mundus, broke off the negotiations
altogether, and shut up Peter and his colleague Athanasius in prison.
[Footnote 65: De Bello Gotthico, i. 6.]
[Sidenote: Silence of the 'Variae' as to many of the negotiations
between Theodahad and Justinian.]
Here again, while not doubting the truth of the narrative of
Procopius, I do not find it possible exactly to fit in the letters
written by Cassiodorus for Theodahad with the various stages of the
negotiation as described by him. Especially the striking letter of the
King to the Emperor--striking by reason of its very abjectness--which
is quoted by Procopius in the sixth chapter of his First Book, appears
to be entirely unrepresented in the collection of Cassiodorus.
Evidently all this part of the 'Variae' has been severely edited by
its author, who has expunged all that seemed to reflect too great
discredit on the Sovereign whom he had once served, and has preserved
only some letters written to Justinian and Theodora by Theodahad and
his wife, vaguely praising peace, and beseeching the Imperial pair to
restore it to Italy; letters which, as it seems to me, may be applied
with about equal fitness to any movement of the busy shuttle of
diplomacy backwards and forwards between Ravenna and Constantinople.
[Sidenote: Theodahad deposed, Witigis elected, Aug. 536.]
The onward march of Belisarius trampled all the combinations of
diplomatists into the dust. In the early part of July, 536, he had
succeeded in capturing the important city of Neapolis, and had begun
to threaten Rome. The Gothic warriors, disgusted at the incapacity of
their King, and probably suspecting his disloyalty to the nation, met
(August, 536) under arms upon the plain of Regeta[66], deposed
Theodahad, and elected a veteran named Witigis as his successor.
Witigis at once ordered Theodahad to be put to death, and being
himself of somewhat obscure lineage, endeavoured to strengthen his
title to the crown by marrying Matasuentha, the sister of Athalaric
and the only surviving descendant of Theodoric.
[Footnote 66: The situation of this plain is unknown.]
[Sidenote: Letter on the elevation of Witigis.]
Whether Cassiodorus had any hand in this revolution--which was
pre-eminently a Gothic movement--we cannot tell; but certainly one of
the best specimens of his letters is that written in the name of the
new King[67], in which he makes Witigis thus speak, 'Universis
Gothis'--not as Theodoric had so often spoken, 'Universis Gothis et
Romanis:'
[Footnote 67: Var. x. 31.]
'Unde Auctori nostro Christo gratias humillima satisfactione
referentes, indicamus parentes nostros Gothos inter procinctuales
gladios, more majorum, scuto supposito, regalem nobis contulisse,
praestante Deo, dignitatem, ut honorem arma darent, cujus opinionem
bella pepererant. Non enim in cubilis angustis, sed in campis late
patentibus electum me esse noveritis: nec inter blandientium delicata
colloquia, sed tubis concrepantibus sum quaesitus, ut tali fremitu
concitatus desiderio virtutis ingenitae regem sibi Martium Geticus
populus inveniret.'
[Sidenote: Letters written in name of Witigis.]
We have only five letters written by Cassiodorus for Witigis (who
reigned from August, 536, to May[68], 540). One has been already
described. All the other four are concerned with negotiations for
peace with Justinian, and may probably be referred to the early part
of the new reign.
[Footnote 68: We get this date only from Agnellus (loc. cit. p. 522).]
[Sidenote: Share of Cassiodorus in the administration during the war.]
It will be seen that the letters written by Cassiodorus for the
Sovereign during the five years following the death of Athalaric are
few and somewhat unsatisfactory. But, on the other hand, it was just
during these years that he wrote in his own name as Praetorian
Praefect the letters which are comprised in the Eleventh and Twelfth
Books of his collection, and which are in some respects the most
interesting of the whole series. There is a strong probability that he
was not present at the long siege of Rome (March, 537, to March, 538),
nor is it likely that he, an elderly civilian, would take much part in
any of the warlike operations that followed. Upon the whole, it seems
probable that during the greater part of this time Cassiodorus was, to
the best of his power, keeping the civil administration together by
virtue of his own authority as Praetorian Praefect, without that
constant reference to the wishes of the Sovereign which would have
been necessary under Theodoric and his daughter. Perhaps, in the
transitional state of things which then prevailed in Italy, with the
power of the Gothic sceptre broken but the sway of the Roman Caesar
not yet firmly established in its stead, men of all parties and both
nationalities were willing that as much as possible of the routine of
government should be carried on by a statesman who was Roman by birth
and culture, but who had been the trusted counsellor of Gothic Kings.
[Sidenote: Dates of later letters.]
I have endeavoured as far as possible to fix the dates of these later
letters. It will be seen that we have one[69] probably belonging to
the year 536, five[70] to 537, and one[71] (possibly) to 538. These
later letters refer chiefly to the terrible famine which followed in
the train of the war, and of which Cassiodorus strenuously laboured to
mitigate the severity.
[Footnote 69: Var. xii. 20.]
[Footnote 70: Var. xii. 22, 23, 24, 27, 28.]
[Footnote 71: Var. xii. 25.]
[Sidenote: End of Cassiodorus' official career.]
It is possible that the Praefect may have continued to hold office
down to the capture of Ravenna in May, 540, which made Witigis a
prisoner, and seemed to bring the Ostrogothic monarchy to an end. Upon
the whole, however, it is rather more probable that in the year 538
or 539 he finally retired from public life. The dates of his letters
will show that there is nothing in them which forbids us to accept
this conclusion; and the fact, if it be a fact, that in 540, when
Belisarius, with his Secretary Procopius in his train, made his
triumphal entry into Ravenna, the late Praefect was no longer there,
but in his native Province of Bruttii, a little lessens the difficulty
of that which still remains most difficult of comprehension, the
entire omission from Procopius' History of the Gothic War of all
mention of the name of Cassiodorus.
[Sidenote: The Variae edited.]
The closing years of the veteran statesman's tenure of office were
years of some literary activity. It was in them that he was
collecting, and to some extent probably revising, the letters which
appear in the following collection. His motives for publishing this
monument of his official life are sufficiently set forth in the two
prefaces, one prefixed to the First Book and the other to the
Eleventh. Much emphasis is laid on the entreaties of his friends, the
regular excuse, in the sixth century as in the nineteenth, for an
author or a politician doing the very thing which most pleases his own
vanity. A worthier reason probably existed in the author's natural
desire to vindicate his own consistency, by showing that the influence
which for more than thirty years he had wielded in the councils of the
Gothic Sovereigns had been uniformly exerted on the side of law and
order and just government, directed equally to the repression of
Teutonic barbarism and the punishment of Roman venality.
[Sidenote: What alterations were made in the letters.]
The question how far the letters which now appear in the 'Variae'
really reproduce the actual documents originally issued by Cassiodorus
is one which has been a good deal discussed by scholars, but with no
very definite result. It is, after all, a matter of conjecture; and
every student who peruses the following letters is entitled to form
his own conjecture--especially as to those marvellous digressions on
matters of Natural History, Moral Philosophy, and the like--whether
they were veritably included in the original letters that issued from
the Royal Secretum, and were carried over Italy by the Cursus
Publicus. My own conjecture is, that though they may have been a
little amplified and elaborated, substantially they were to be found
in those original documents. The age was pedantic and half-educated,
and had lost both its poetic inspiration and its faculty of humour;
and I fear that these marvellous letters were read by the officials to
whom they were addressed with a kind of stolid admiration, provoking
neither the smile of amusement nor the shrug of impatience which are
their rightful meed.
[Sidenote: 'Illum atque Illum.']
The reader will observe that in many, in fact most of the letters,
which were meant to serve as credentials to ambassadors or commissions
to civil servants, no names are inserted, but we have instead only the
tantalising formula, 'Illum atque Illum,' which I have generally
translated, 'A and B.' This circumstance has also been much commented
upon, but without our arriving at any very definite result. All that
can be said is, that Cassiodorus must have formed his collection of
State-papers either from rough drafts in his own possession, or from
copies preserved in the public archives, and that, from whichsoever
source he drew, the names in that source had not been preserved: a
striking comment on the rhetorical unbusinesslike character of the
Royal and Imperial Chanceries of that day, in which words were deemed
of more importance than things, and the flowers of speech which were
showered upon the performer of some piece of public business were
preserved, while the name of the performer was forgotten.
[Sidenote: Treatise 'De Anima.']
As soon as he had finished the collection of the 'Variae,' the
Praefect--again in obedience to the entreaties of his
friends--composed a short philosophic treatise on the Nature of the
Soul ('De Anima'). As he said, it seems an absurd thing to treat as a
stranger and an unknown quantity the very centre of our being; to seek