The Letters of Cassiodorus
It is not likely that Theodoric ever read a letter like this before
affixing to it his (perhaps stencilled) signature. If he did, he must
surely have smiled to see his few angry Teutonic words transmuted into
this wonderful rhapsody about sucking-fishes and torpedoes and
shell-fish in the Indian Sea.
[Sidenote: Character of Cassiodorus.]
The French proverb 'Le style c'est l'homme,' is not altogether true as
to the character of Cassiodorus. From his inflated and tawdry style we
might have expected to find him an untrustworthy friend and an
inefficient administrator. This, however, was not the case. As was
before said, his character was not heroic; he was, perhaps, inclined
to humble himself unduly before mere power and rank, and he had the
fault, common to most rhetoricians, of over-estimating the power of
words and thinking that a few fluent platitudes would heal inveterate
discords and hide disastrous blunders. But when we have said this we
have said the worst. He was, as far as we have any means of judging, a
loyal subject, a faithful friend, a strenuous and successful
administrator, and an exceptionally far-sighted statesman. His right
to this last designation rests upon the part which he bore in the
establishment of the Italian Kingdom 'of the Goths and Romans,'
founded by the great Theodoric.
[Sidenote: His work in seconding the policy of Theodoric.]
Theodoric, it must always be remembered, had entered Italy not
ostensibly as an invader but as a deliverer. He came in pursuance of a
compact with the legitimate Emperor of the New Rome, to deliver the
Elder Rome and the land of Italy from the dominion of 'the upstart
King of Rugians and Turcilingians[28],' Odovacar. The compact, it is
true, was loose and indefinite, and contained within itself the germs
of that misunderstanding which, forty-seven years later, was developed
into a terrible war. Still, for the present, Theodoric, King of the
Ostrogoths, was also in some undefined way legitimate representative
of the Old Roman Empire within the borders of Italy. This double
aspect of his rule was illustrated by that which (rather than the
doubtful Rex Italiae) seems to have been his favourite title,
'Gothorum Romanorumque Rex.'
[Footnote 28: Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis, lvii.]
[Sidenote: Theodoric's love of _Civilitas_.]
The great need of Italy was peace. After a century of wars and rumours
of wars; after Alaric, Attila, and Gaiseric had wasted her fields or
sacked her capital; after she had been exhausting her strength in
hopeless efforts to preserve the dominion of Gaul, Spain, and Africa;
after she had groaned under the exactions of the insolent _foederati_,
Roman soldiers only in name, who followed the standards of Ricimer or
Odovacar, she needed peace and to be governed with a strong hand, in
order to recover some small part of her old material prosperity. These
two blessings, peace and a strong government, Theodoric's rule ensured
to her. The theory of his government was this, that the two nations
should dwell side by side, not fused into one, not subject either to
the other, but the Romans labouring at the arts of peace, the Goths
wielding for their defence the sword of war. Over all was to be the
strong hand of the King of Goths and Romans, repressing the violence
of the one nation, correcting the chicanery of the other, and from one
and all exacting the strict observance of that which was the object of
his daily and nightly cares, CIVILITAS. Of this civilitas--which we
may sometimes translate 'good order,' sometimes 'civilisation,'
sometimes 'the character of a law-abiding citizen,' but which no
English word or phrase fully expresses--the reader of the following
letters will hear, even to weariness. But though we may be tired of
the phrase, we ought none the less to remember that the thing was that
which Italy stood most in need of, that it was secured for her during
forty years by the labours of Theodoric and Cassiodorus, and that
happiness, such as she knew not again for many centuries, was the
result.
[Sidenote: Foresight of Cassiodorus in aiding this policy.]
But the theory of a warrior caste of Goths and a trading and labouring
caste of Romans was not flattering to the national vanity of a people
who, though they had lost all relish for fighting, could not forget
the great deeds of their forefathers. This was no doubt the weak point
of the new State-system, though one cannot say that it is a weakness
which need have been fatal if time enough had been given for the
working out of the great experiment, and for Roman and Goth to become
in Italy, as they did become in Spain, one people. The grounds upon
which the praise of far-seeing statesmanship may be claimed for
Cassiodorus are, that notwithstanding the bitter taste which it must
have had in his mouth, as in the mouth of every educated Roman, he
perceived that here was the best medicine for the ills of Italy. All
attempts to conjure with the great name of the Roman Empire could only
end in subjection to the really alien rule of Byzantium. All attempts
to rouse the religious passions of the Catholic against the heretical
intruders were likely to benefit the Catholic but savage Frank. The
cruel sufferings of the Italians at the hands of the Heruli of
Belisarius and from the ravages of the Alamannic Brethren are
sufficient justification of the soundness of Cassiodorus' view that
Theodoric's State-system was the one point of hope for Italy.
[Sidenote: His religious tolerance.]
Allusion has been made in the last paragraph to the religious
differences which divided the Goths from the Italians. It is well
known that Theodoric was an Arian, but an Arian of the most tolerant
type, quite unlike the bitter persecutors who reigned at Toulouse and
at Carthage. During the last few years of his reign, indeed, when his
mind was perhaps in some degree failing, he was tempted by the
persecuting policy of the Emperor Justin into retaliatory measures of
persecution towards his Catholic subjects, but as a rule his policy
was eminently fair and even-handed towards the professors of the two
hostile creeds, and even towards the generally proscribed nation of
the Jews. So conspicuous to all the world was his desire to hold the
balance perfectly even between the two communions, that it was said of
him that he beheaded an orthodox deacon who was singularly dear to
him, because he had professed the Arian faith in order to win his
favour. But this story, though told by a nearly contemporary
writer[29], is, it may be hoped, mere Saga.
[Footnote 29: Theodorus Lector (circa 550), Eccl. Hist. ii. 18. Both
he and some later writers who borrow from him call the King [Greek:
Theoderichos ho Aphros]; why, it is impossible to say.]
[Sidenote: This did not proceed from indifference.]
The point which we may note is, that this policy of toleration or
rather of absolute fairness between warring creeds, though not
initiated by Cassiodorus, seems to have thoroughly commended itself to
his reason and conscience. It is from his pen that we get those golden
words which may well atone for many platitudes and some ill-judged
display of learning: _Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo
cogitur ut credat invitus_[30]. And this tolerant temper of mind is
the more to be commended, because it did not proceed from any
indifference on his part to the subjects of religious controversy.
Cassiodorus was evidently a devout and loyal Catholic. Much the larger
part of his writings is of a theological character, and the
thirty-five years of his life which he passed in a monastery were
evidently
'Bound each to each in natural piety'
with the earlier years passed at Court and in the Council-chamber.
[Footnote 30: Var. ii. 27.]
[Sidenote: Date of the commencement of the Variae.]
We cannot trace as we should like to do the precise limits of time by
which the official career of Cassiodorus was bounded. The 'Various
Letters' are evidently not arranged in strict chronological order, and
to but few of them is it possible to affix an exact date. There are
two or three, however, which require especial notice, because some
authors have assigned them to a date previous to that at which, as I
believe, the author entered the service of the Emperor.
[Sidenote: Letter to Anastasius.]
The first letter of the whole series is addressed to the Emperor
Anastasius. It has been sometimes connected with the embassy of
Faustus in 493, or with that of Festus in 497, to the Court of
Constantinople, the latter of which embassies resulted in the
transmission to Theodoric of 'the ornaments of the palace' (that is
probably the regal insignia) which Odovacar had surrendered to Zeno.
But the language of the letter in question, which speaks of 'causas
iracundiae,' does not harmonise well with either of these dates, since
there was then, as far as we know, no quarrel between Ravenna and
Constantinople. On the other hand, it would fit perfectly with the
state of feeling between the two Courts in 505, after Sabinian the
general of Anastasius had been defeated by the troops of Theodoric
under Pitzias at the battle of Horrea Margi; or in 508, when the
Byzantine ships had made a raid on Apulia and plundered Tarentum. To
one of these dates it should probably be referred, its place at the
beginning of the collection being due to the exalted rank of the
receiver of the letter, not to considerations of chronology.
[Sidenote: Letters to Clovis.]
The fortieth and forty-first letters of the Second Book relate to the
sending of a harper to Clovis, or, as Cassiodorus calls him, Luduin,
King of the Franks. In the earlier letter Boethius is directed to
procure such a harper (citharoedus), and to see that he is a
first-rate performer. In the later, Theodoric congratulates his royal
brother-in-law on his victory over the Alamanni, adjures him not to
pursue the panic-stricken fugitives who have taken refuge within the
Ostrogothic territory, and sends ambassadors to introduce the harper
whom Boethius has provided. It used to be thought that these letters
must be referred to 496, the year of the celebrated victory of Clovis
over the Alamanni, commonly, but incorrectly, called the battle of
Tulbiacum. But this was a most improbable theory, for it was difficult
to understand how a boy of sixteen (and that was the age of Boethius
in 496) should have attained such eminence as a musical connoisseur as
to be entrusted with the task of selecting the citharoedus. And in a
very recent monograph[31] Herr von Schubert has shown, I think
convincingly, that the last victory of Clovis over the Alamanni, and
their migration to Raetia within the borders of Theodoric's territory,
occurred not in 496 but a few years later, probably about 503 or 504.
It is true that Gregory of Tours (to whom the earlier battle is
all-important, as being the event which brought about the conversion
of Clovis) says nothing about this later campaign; but to those who
know the fragmentary and incomplete character of this part of his
history, such an omission will not appear an important argument.
[Footnote 31: Die Uterwerfung der Alamannen: Strassburg, 1884.]
[Sidenote: Letters to Gaulish princes.]
The letters written in Theodoric's name to Clovis, to Alaric II, to
Gundobad of Burgundy, and to other princes, in order to prevent the
outbreak of a war between the Visigoths and the Franks, have been by
some authors[32] assigned to a date some years before the war actually
broke out; but though this cannot, perhaps, be disproved, it seems to
me much more probable that they were written in the early part of 507
on the eve of the war between Clovis and Alaric, which they were
powerless to avert.
[Footnote 32: Especially Binding, Geschichte des