SOURCE: An introduction to The “Variae” of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, translated by S. J. B. Barnish, Liverpool University Press, 1992, pp. ix-xxxv.

[In the excerpt below, Barnish offers an overview of the Variae, discussing its style, its reliability as a source of historical information, and various manuscript issues.]

… B. THE VARIAE

1. THE COMPILATION

Our most important documents for the history of Gothic rule in Italy are the Variae of Cassiodorus: twelve books, comprising 468 letters, edicts and model letters (formulae), which the author drafted, between 506 and 538, for Theoderic, Athalaric, Amalasuintha, Theodahad, Witigis, and the Senate, and in his own person as Praetorian Prefect of Italy. In the case of those written for monarchs, he was acting as, or for, the Quaestor, chief legal expert and official publicist.¹ He apparently compiled the Variae in 537/8, near the harassed end of his service as Prefect, while war was raging, and Witigis was besieging the Byzantine commander Belisarius in Rome. In a long and conventionally self-deprecatory Preface, he claimed a range of motives for this work: to satisfy the demands of friend—a standard apology; to supply models of official eloquence for future administrators, himself among them; to ensure immortality for those praised in the letters; to strengthen respect for the laws; and to provide a mirror of his own character. The title Variae reflects the varieties of rhetorical style which the letters show. A verse couplet dedicated the collection to an unnamed rhetorician: ‘[Cassiodorus] Senator offers these gifts of love and duty to the master whom no gold pleases more than eloquence.’

The claims and suggestions of the Preface are a useful starting-point when considering the Variae. Official education is a plausible motive. Cassiodorus' later commentary on the psalms (Expositio Psalmorum) and his Institutiones show a deep concern for rhetorical training. His near contemporary John Lydus, a middle ranking career bureaucrat in Constantinople, was awarded a state teaching post for his general learning and skill in Latin. In the early medieval west, formulary collections of legal and chancery documents were common; the Variae are an early example of the genre. An inscription from the territory of Timgad in Numidia repeats a sentence from VII.7, the formula of appointment for the Prefect of the Watch at Rome. This suggests that the collection was read and used by the provincial administrators of Justinian. A Boethius, probably related to Cassiodorus, served as Praetorian Prefect of Africa in 560.²

As a compilation, the Variae can also be read as an apology, both for the Gothic regime, and for the Roman aristocracy which had served it. (Justinian's officials were to penalise the Romans for abuses of power under the Goths.³) There is something almost defiant in Cassiodorus' inclusion of 67 letters from his own Prefectural administration. Perhaps, too, he was advocating either a continuing Gothic role in Italy, a revival of the western empire, or a combination of the two. About the time the Variae were published, he probably also collected and published his formal panegyrics on Gothic royalties.⁴ While Ravenna was under siege in 540, the Goths offered the rule of the western empire to Belisarius. Many formulae in the Variae (e.g. VII.42) suggest an expectation that the Gothic administration would continue; but VI.6, at least, may describe imperial practices obsolete under the Goths. Some of the Roman senators praised in the collection probably remained loyal to the Goths; others had transferred their allegiance, and one, Fidelis, may already have been serving as Justinian's Praetorian Prefect of Italy, in rivalry with Cassiodorus.

Politically significant themes, such as the defence of Italy, relations between Goths and Franks, and diplomacy with Byzantium are also prominent. Moreover, both in general and in detail, the Variae may imply a critique of the growing cultural and religious intolerance of Justinian's regime. (Cf. II.27, X.26.) The emperor, furthermore, was at odds with the Senate of Constantinople, which probably hoped for a greater share in government, and a leading role in the choice of the emperor. Controversy of this kind may lie behind the fall of Boethius in Italy, the Nika riots of 532 in Constantinople, and an anonymous Greek dialogue on political science.⁵ In the context of such debate, Cassiodorus gives a model of courteous relations between monarch and Senate; he depicts the Senate as a galaxy of learned, talented statesmen, which embodies the traditions of Rome; but he seldom shows it acting corporately, to devise or execute policy, and he makes it clear that it played no part in the choice of rulers for Italy.

In these political circumstances, his favourable picture of senators, tribesmen and Gothic monarchs should not be taken on trust. (He is well able to gild or ignore decay; cf. note 14 to VIII.33.) However, the image is far from ideal. Corruption, brutality and inefficiency among Goths and Romans, and the impotence of the monarch are often shown or hinted at, sometimes illustrating, perhaps, the political struggles of Cassiodorus and his family (III.8, III.21, III.27-28, III.46). A policy not of racial integration, but of an uneasy partnership, with the Goths forming Sidonius' ‘privileged military class’ against the civilian Romans, is also plain to view (III.13). Gothic rulers seem to stand above the two races, to hold an unequal balance between them, and to owe their authority to this position. (The emperors had treated the military and civilian hierarchies similarly.) Between the lines, inded, we see these monarchs manoeuvering with difficulty to enforce their will and restrain disorder among the jostling pride and interests of Roman and Gothic barons. The land-grabbing of Theodahad is not ignored, and the drunkenness of Athalaric is hinted at; as too, perhaps, the murder of Amalasuintha (X.5, X.20-21, XI.1.4-5).

Cassiodorus must, however, have selected only a minority of his letters, and certain omissions are striking. Some of these may be on literary grounds. Cassiodorus must have drafted many letters of appointment for Consuls and ministers which are not included. Thus, Liberius' appointment as Praetorian Prefect of Gaul is missing; the high praise he receives elsewhere in the Variae (II.16, XI.1.16f.) suggests that the motive for this was not political. In the Preface, the author claims that over hasty compositions caused him embarrassment. Another factor is the composition of his public: there is much on the administration of Gaul, little on Pannonia or Spain; the Gallic and Italian aristocracies were closely linked (cf. II.1, III.18).

More significant is silence on the internal strife of Theoderic's last years, which brought Cassiodorus back to court as Master of the Offices, replacing his fallen kinsman Boethius. Instead, the building of a fleet to defend Italy from foreign threats is given prominence, and Boethius features only in much earlier letters. Amalasuintha's murder of her Gothic opponents, to which Cassiodorus may have owed his promotion to the Italian Prefecture, is also missing. Of such conflicts, we have only the occasional hint, although one of his major tasks must have been their favourable public presentation. Did he rewrite the letters he included?⁶ For extensive political revision there was probably no time: careless syntax, incorrect titles and arrangement, and the incomplete adaptation of letters of formulae (e.g. XI.36) confirm the complaints of the Preface; the royal formulary books VI-VII are more carefully written.⁷ Yet, like the letter collections of the younger Pliny or the elder Symmachus (written c. A.D. 100-110 and 364-402), the Variae were perhaps intended to coat with plaster the more conspicuous cracks in their society. Style, however, appears in the Preface as Cassiodorus' main concern: the study of his literary form will give a deeper understanding of his aims.

2. THE CHARACTER OF THE VARIAE⁸

Cassiodorus gave the Variae a character partly formulaic, partly timeless and literary. Some persons—especially envoys, although these were often high in rank—are referred to not by name, but as X and Y (illum et illum). Dates have been removed, save for the occasional internal reference to the tax year (indiction), and figures for money and commodities have often disappeared. Official protocols, with the full titles due to sender and recipient have been abbreviated to short rubrics (not always accurate); presumably, this must have detracted from their value as secretarial models. We should contrast the Merovingian protocols in some of the Epistulae Austrasicae, private and official letters, probably compiled for chancery instruction c.600. A document which Cassiodorus' predecessor as Quaestor probably drafted in 507 is also typical: ‘King Flavius Theodericus to the Senate of the City of Rome, Tamer of the World, Head and Restorer of Liberty’.⁹ Except in the formulae of VI-VII and XI.17-34, there is a very rough and unreliable chronological arrangement, but the order of the letters is determined partly by literary considerations: for instance, set-piece documents, particularly diplomatic, begin and end the books. Sometimes, though, we find a string of letters of similar date and subject, and may surmise that portions of an official file (e.g. on the administration of Gaul) have been included without much disturbance.

The letters differ greatly in size, content, and elaboration. In Å. Fridh's text, the average length is some 30 lines, but the range is between 5 and 140. Formally, the majority convey administrative measures, legal rulings and edicts, or announcements of appointments. The last of these usually include miniature panegyrics on the more eminent ministers, and remarks on their offices. Resembling the speeches of a university's Public Orator, they are literary equivalents to the illuminations found in the late empire's Register of State Dignities (Notitia Dignitatum).¹⁰ They usually come in pairs (e.g. I.3-4), one for the honorand, the other for the Senate, notifying it of the appointment and requesting confirmation. The legal and administrative types often include digressive, belletristic essays: set-piece descriptions (ekphrases) of public works and spectacles are frequent; so too accounts of the liberal arts and cultural inventions; also (recalling Vergil), the wealth, landscapes and natural phenomena of Italy, especially the author's native south. Digressions are generally addressed to men of learning and social distinction, and must usually affirm a bond between recipient and sender, as similar private letters would do; sometimes, though, they are included in rebukes to the erring or negligent.

Letters of the more elaborate type are probably over represented in the collection. But, short or long, the majority are prefaced by, and mixed with general reflections on the conduct and duties of monarchs, subjects and administrators, which too often resemble the woolly platitudes of Jane Austen's Mr Collins. From these principles, the measure conveyed is deduced, although sometimes the proem is so stylised as to seem almost irrelevant. In a substantial minority of cases, morality is illustrated by digressive analogies, drawn usually from nature, but now and then from political or Biblical history.¹¹ We get the impression of an urge to justify and explain, which has been devalued almost to an irrational habit, and is coupled with a high level of generality.

The style, in general, is highly ornate: formulaic, rhythmical, repetitive, given to internal rhyme, and studded with antitheses, paradoxes, exclamations and rhetorical questions. Abstract nouns and passive or impersonal verbs are very numerous; so too are causal and conclusive conjunctions, particles, and adverbs, words in which Latin is far richer than English. Constat, forms of probari and videri, and superlatives are commonplace, indeed are often almost meaningless; many words, phrases and inflections are introduced largely for the sake of rhythm and euphony. To give variety, neologisms are created, and old words given new uses. In the combination of stock phrases, or the accumulation of clauses, the syntax may become confused, and a paratactic arrangement of clauses is often preferred to a subordinate—signs, perhaps, of hasty writing and compilation.¹²

By comparison with other late Latin letters, the Variae make easy reading: Cassiodorus is less dry, compressed, and elliptical than Symmachus or his own contemporary, bishop Ennodius of Pavia, less recherché in vocabulary than Sidonius or Ennodius. Even so, his later Institutiones, a guide to the world of learning, intended partly for monastic readers, is generally plainer and more comprehensible, designed to instruct, more than to impress. The De Anima, appended to the Variae, seems to be transitional in manner as well as matter.¹³

Connoisseurs would have seen his letters as studded with rhetorical conceits and figures like a meadow jewelled with flowers. The stock vocabulary of symbols, metaphors, and abstract qualities has lately been compared to heraldic blazonry.¹⁴ The ancients had always exploited history and nature for moral exempla, and this may have been especially so in late antiquity, a culture fascinated by type, symbol and allegory. The great men of the realm seem identified with virtues, vices, skills and offices (cf. Preface, 14); their array has as little individuality as the saints and prophets who look down in mosaic from the walls of Theoderic's church of S.Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna. Cassiodorus' ekphrastic descriptions are often vivid and instructive—thus, V.1 gives a remarkable word-picture of the play of light on a pattern-welded German sword. However, they lack the precision of those in Pliny's letters which lie behind their tradition, and they sometimes leave us doubtful if the author has seen the object he describes. Even in the less relevant descriptions, the object, and men's response to it, are given an exemplary turn, and a moral or religious purpose seems never far away. (For instance, with VIII.33, contrast Pliny, Ep. IV.30 and VIII.8.)

Literary allusions and echoes are probably numerous. (No thorough scrutiny has yet been made, but I have noted a few instances.) Despite the many pious expressions of the Variae, especially those letters which the Catholic Cassiodorus drafted in his own right, rather than for Arian rulers, secular classics are more alluded to than the scriptures. In this, there is some contrast with the De Anima, discussed below, but the general avoidance of Christian discourse seems comparable to the non-religious Novels of the last western emperors. On natural disasters, Cassiodorus speaks less of divine vengeance, than of physical causes, as in XII.25.¹⁵ Now and then, however, Christian miracles and morality are introduced, and may even be used to condemn traditional Roman practices (V.42, VIII.33). A digression addressed to the Christian philosopher Boethius combines classical and biblical allusions, and concludes with a passage of near Christian mysticism (II.40). While the ancient Roman title of Patrician is traced back to the priesthoods of early Rome (VI.2), in the next formula the prototype of the Praetorian Prefect is the Patriarch Joseph (VI.3).

On practicalities, the letters are not always very instructive: the technical exposition of law and administration features less than in the official correspondence of Symmachus (Book X, Relationes), or of Pliny (Book X). In one letter (XI.14), such is Cassiodorus' absorption in his rhetoric that the official point is all but omitted: administration has become a vestigial frame for verbal landscape-painting. Most letters, however, are quite brief; and sometimes oral messages were sent, or accounts, lists, and detailed instructions were attached in breves, a practice familiar from private and literary epistolography. But, in general, we do not get so sure a grasp on the diplomacy and administration of the regime as papal correspondence gives us for the sixth century Roman Church.

The late Roman upper classes linked themselves privately by elegant correspondence,¹⁶ but it seems a strange mode for official business. Was it peculiar to Cassiodorus? His Latin is not mere bureaucratese, but it has much in common with chancery style in the late antique world. So too his moralising proems. Ancient rulers believed it important to use persuasion; and late Roman laws, which give the best comparisons to the Variae, often show a similar rhetorical structure: they move from the moral arenga to an exposition of the situation (narratio or expositio), thence to a decision (dispositio) and measures of enforcement (sanctio or corroboratio).¹⁷ Examples can be conveniently studied in the imperial Novels and Sirmondian Constitutions attached to the Theodosian Code: some of these go straight to the point, and the arenga is almost lacking; others come close to rivalling the wordiest Variae.¹⁸ Evidently, much depended on the time, taste and talents of the drafting officer; sometimes, perhaps, of the monarch himself; sometimes, too, on his political position. Verbose edicts of consolation to men afflicted by flood, famine or earthquake probably had a long imperial history, although Cassiodorus gives the sole surviving examples.¹⁹ An edict of the emperor Julian, a talkative intellectual, with special need to justify himself, included an extensive essay on funerary rites; it was eventually reduced to a much briefer law.²⁰ The short law-code called the Edict of Theoderic²¹ is far more straight-forward and usefully informative than the Edict of Athalaric (IX.18). The Cassiodorian piece, though, was probably designed for a different end: not to provide a handy legal compendium for judges, but to shore up the shaky moral and political authority of the regime. Hence its rather artificial twelve-part structure, recalling the Twelve Tables that were the foundation of Roman law.²²

Cassiodorus' originality lies in his elaborate use of metaphor and digression, an importation, perhaps, to the official world from sermons, secular declamations, and sermonising private letters.²³ From a tradition of private letters which goes back to Pliny, he has adopted his descriptions of scenery or natural wonders, and his miniature panegyrics; both have their parallels in the correspondence of Sidonius in late fifth century Gaul. Epistolary panegyric was also in vogue with the contemporary Byzantine bureaucracy, as shown by examples in the De Magistratibus of John Lydus.²⁴ ‘A flow of the most genial impertinence’, George Gissing affectionately called Cassiodorus' digressions; but there may be more to them than learned light relief.

The ascendancy of the Graeco-Roman ruling classes was based on their mastery of rhetoric and associated learning. To civilian administrators, it gave an éclat to parallel the soldier's glory.²⁵ East and west, this tradition was increasingly threatened, whether by social mobility, declining education, Christian values, or the contempt of warrior élites; not surprisingly, men reaffirmed it, deliberately showing its virtues in the work of government. Rhetoric, indeed, had traditionally a moral, as well as a practical function, and we shall see that the Variae may have been designed to educate the ruling class in the values of its role and the purposes of the state. As Cassiodorus wrote, ‘the knowledge of literature is glorious, since it purifies our morals—something of prime importance for mankind; as a secondary matter, it supplies us with eloquence’ (III.33.3; cf. III.6.3-5, 11.4-5, IX.21.8, 24.8). The virtues of prudence and integrity inculcated may seem tediously banal, but he occasionally reveals something of the moral dilemmas and special obligations of high office (XII.5.1-2,9, XI.16).²⁶

The rule of law, as both a natural and social phenomenon, and the chief end of politics, is a common theme of the Variae. A key word is civilitas. In classical usage, this had implied a ruler's correct demeanour towards his subjects, and still did so for Sidonius and for Cassiodorus' contemporary, bishop Avitus of Vienne. In the Variae, as in writings of Ennodius and Pope Gelasius (492-6), it more usually denotes the duty of subjects towards each other, decent social behaviour, and respect for law; ‘civilisation’ and ‘good order’ are sometimes possible translations. By his use of natural and cultural history, Cassiodorus seems to root civilitas in a garden of natural law and social progress.²⁷

Men of the sixth century liked to theorise about government and society,²⁸ and Cassiodorus gave to his picture of men at work in their secular society a theoretical dimension which combined Bible-based theology with classical philosophy. The De Anima, he claimed, was an afterthought; but it also formed the thirteenth book of the Variae, was similar in length to the others, was probably published and long joined with them in manuscript, and was allegedly composed by request of the same friends. There, the digressions of the Variae expand into the nature and destiny of the soul, which has made the marvellous discoveries necessary to earthly society, and perceives and understands the divinely ordered universe (XI, praef.7, De An. i, iv, Expositio Psalmorum, cxlv.2).²⁹ The four cardinal virtues, which figure largely in the Variae, are given a social emphasis, and are complemented by a more spiritual or intellectual trio (vii). Prayer and meditation close the treatise. St Augustine's On Order may lie behind the concept; we might also compare the thirteen books of his Confessions, of which the last four turn from autobiography to associated meditation and theology. Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy likewise moves from political autobiography to the religious philosophy of the cosmos, and is copiously illustrated with natural analogies. In their original form, the mosaics of S.Apollinare Nuovo probably showed Theoderic's family and courtiers in solemn procession from the palace at Ravenna to the throne of Christ,³⁰ to this Cassiodorus gives a literary parallel.

To develop a Christian version of the rhetorical training for public life, while retaining classical elements, was a major concern for Cassiodorus.³¹ In his On the Duties of the Clergy (c.390), St Ambrose had replaced Cicero's On Duties, articulating practice and ideals for the servants of God in the Latin Church. Despite the Stoic and Platonic tradition, of which Boethius was the last, belated representative,³² Roman secular officials had always lacked an ideology of service formulated with such clarity; the Variae and De Anima seem a half deliberate response to their need.

Boethius saw it as his consular duty to translate Greek philosophy for his fellow citizens.³³ He also hoped to play the philosopher statesman at Theoderic's court, and both he and Cassiodorus may have been influenced by the orator and philosopher Themistius (317-88), counsellor to successive emperors. Roman arms had not restrained the barbarians; Roman culture might yet do so.³⁴ Cassiodorus celebrated the instruction he had given to Theoderic (IX.24.8). In his lost Gothic History, he apparently depicted a legendary sage Dicineus. This alien had given the Goths political counsel, and had taught them logic, natural philosophy, and finally religion; their understanding of nature gave them laws and moral standards. In Dicineus, did Cassiodorus idealise his own aims and achievement at the court of Ravenna?³⁵

In the tenth century, the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus was to write of the ceremonies of his court, ‘Hereby may the imperial power be exercised with due rhythm and order; may the empire thus represent the harmony and motion of the universe as it comes from its creator; and may it thus appear to our subjects in a more solemn majesty, and so be the more acceptable to them and the more admirable in their eyes …’³⁶ Supported by the De Anima, the Variae display this governmental mirror of the cosmos.

When not acting as Quaestor, Cassiodorus was sometimes called on to help out the Quaestor of the day with his compositions. In theory, Quaestors were men of rhetorical skill; but it seems that his talents were regarded as exceptional by successive rulers. (At a lower level, John Lydus similarly lent his talents around the Praetorian Prefecture of the East.) We have, in fact, a few documents probably drawn up by other Theoderican Quaestors which support this impresssion: the Latin is a chancery style similar to Cassiodorus's, but the letters seem much shorter and plainer than he would have made them. The rhetorical declamations of Ennodius are the work of a skilled and learned orator, and have some general resemblance to the Variae: for instance, a new pupil is introduced into a school of rhetoric like a new minister to the Senate. However, they show little of the Cassiodorian digressive technique, which Theoderic himself may well have enjoyed (cf. IX.24.8, and note).³⁷

We should compare another Quaestor of the time, Justinian's great jurist Tribonian. The prefaces which he devised for his master's Novels, and which ceased when he died, often include lengthy historical digressions, reassurances to a doubtful public that radical reforms really followed Roman tradition. For the reforms themselves, though, he was probably not responsible—they were the work of Justinian and his Prefect John the Cappadocian; and some he may even have opposed.³⁸ Allusions to history long past are infrequent in the Variae—their history is contemporary—and the political thrust is rather different. The Ostrogothic rulers tried to change as little as possible. Cassiodorus could not prove them Romans, although exempla from Roman history may have been more frequent in their formal panegyrics. Instead, he seems to assure educated Roman gentlemen that they were not lawless, arbitrary, and uncultivated despots, that they observed natural justice, and differed from other tribesmen, who lacked their noble-savage traditions, and the educating grace of residence in Italy. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) was to write, ‘this is the difference between tribal kings and emperors of the Romans, the fact that tribal kings are lords of slaves, but emperors of the Romans lords of free men’.³⁹ Cassiodorus' task was to show the Goths as defenders of freedom under the law, and of civilised values, who honoured and employed gentlemen of humane education; the term ‘barbarian’ is never applied to them.⁴⁰ To read Theoderic's letters to the recovered provinces of Gaul and Pannonia (III.17 and 23) is to meet again the Caesar Constantius in 296, as a medallion depicts him, delivering London from rebels and barbarians, and ‘restoring the eternal light’ of Rome.⁴¹

If the execution was the work of Cassiodorus, what of the policy? Procopius tells of cultural tension between Romans and barbarians in Italy.⁴² The honours given by Theoderic to Boethius, then translating Greek philosophy into Latin, were conferred in 521-2, when Cassiodorus was out of office, and suggest royal awareness of the problem. If the Variae portray Theoderic, Amalaberga, Amalasuintha and Theodahad as ‘philosophers in purple’—a phrase perhaps taken from Themistius⁴³—the image need not have been foisted on them by Cassiodorus who helped to shape it. Many emperors had worn a double mask of soldier and intellectual, and other barbarian rulers employed Roman rhetoricians among their leading counsellors. The political, if not the cultural, tone of the reign had been set at least as early as 500, when Theoderic visited Rome in a generous and impressive but tactful triumph: citizens, clergy and senators found their religious sensibilities reassured, and their political traditions confirmed.⁴⁴ Cassiodorus enjoyed unusually long periods in high office, but these total fifteen years at most; the Ostrogothic state down to the fall of Ravenna, lasted for some forty. As with Tribonian, the influence he must have had is hard to disinter from documents in which every decision and appointment is presented, at least to the casual eye, in similar style, through all changes of political weather and regime.

One quaestor of Theoderic apparently altered a general pardon to make it still more inclusive,⁴⁵ and two non-Cassiodorian Ostrogothic documents also shed light on the independence of official draftsmen. One of these is a formal directive sent by Theoderic to a council of bishops set up to try Pope Symmachus; the other seems to reproduce the words of the king on which the first was based.⁴⁶ The Quaestor of the day improved his master's Latin and the structure of his remarks; he eliminated biblical references, and a not very relevant historical anecdote; in general, he produced a blander discourse, less lively and forceful, but more coherent, and less biassed. At the same time, he followed Theoderic's general gist, and sometimes closely echoed it. In the same way, Tribonian's laws may express the personality of Justinian with more elegance than the emperor could command.⁴⁷ The Symmachus case, however, was one of great political importance, in which the Quaestor's work would have been closely monitored; on lesser occasions, or where flexibility was needed, he may have been allowed a freer hand. As noted earlier, between the lines of the Variae, we can sometimes read a criticism of the monarch.

Cassiodorus sometimes likens secular offices to the priesthood, and the overall impression left by the Variae is of governmental liturgies, compiled in a secular Sacramentary: their stereotyped sentiments and instructions correspond to prayers and ritual actions, their metaphors and digressions to pulpit oratory. Popes contemporary with Cassiodorus did much to shape the liturgy of the Roman Church, and the age was one of sacred texts, religious and secular: the law codes of Theodosius II and Justinian mirror the scrolls and jewelled codexes in the mosaics of the Ravenna churches, or the great Bible⁴⁸ produced by Cassiodorus' monks at Vivarium.

Modern readers tend to dislike the repetitious habit of the Variae: ideas are worked to death by an author who did not know when to stop. Some ancients would have agreed: Quintilian wrote c. A.D. 90, ‘In our passion for words we paraphrase what might be said in plain language, repeat what we have already said at sufficient length, pile up a number of words where one would suffice, and regard allusion as better than directness of speech.’⁴⁹ But repetition is an important liturgical element, a fact of which Cassiodorus shows some appreciation in his commentary on the Psalms. He might also be compared to a musician, composing multiple variations on a theme. With his varied repetitions, his use of paradox and antithesis, his careful, sonorous rhythms, his lengthy periods, paratactically organised, and his display of curious learning, he has his closest English counterpart in Sir Thomas Browne. Rooted in Roman liturgies of the fifth to seventh centuries, the old Book of Common Prayer also conveys the flavour of his more religious moralising and his simpler sentences (cf. XI.2). The style of the letters won the respect of the novelist George Gissing; while Gibbon, though outwardly contemptuous, at least paid them the compliment of paraphrase.

3. THE VARIAE AS SEPARATE DOCUMENTS

What congregations heard these chants of the state liturgy, as each was separately sung? One audience, of course, was the person or persons to whom they were immediately directed. An edict on simony in episcopal elections was to be engraved on marble, and placed in the atrium of St Peter's; another general edict was to be read in the Senate, then formally posted (or proclaimed) in public places and assemblies for thirty days (IX.15-16, IX.18-20).⁵⁰ A letter to a provincial governor regulating a country fair was to be read to the people there, then posted up (VIII.33). No such document would have been easily understood by an ordinary person, and the last is an essay of great literary pretensions. Doubtless, the governor was properly impressed, but we may surmise larger educated audiences. An unauthorised circulation among the educated is sometimes attested for private letters and declamations, before they were published in collections.⁵¹ One recipient of a specially elaborate letter summoned an assembly of the cultured and eminent in his province for a formal recitation.⁵² Official assemblies of provincial notables probably continued in Ostrogothic Italy, and I would guess that Cassiodorus' letters were distributed or recited at such gatherings. XII.25 was designed to reassure anxious subjects, rather than his deputy.

Some documents, at least, will probably have been publicised before they left the palace or reached the relevant official. Cassiodorus certainly did not intend the royal directives which he drafted to himself as Praetorian Prefect for his eyes only. To judge by imperial precedent, copies of edicts would routinely have been posted outside the royal residence where they had been produced. Among the duties of the Quaestor may have been the public declamation, before their despatch, of decrees and rescripts he had drafted, a practice which saved the monarch's credit if they were challenged.⁵³ Formal diplomatic letters may often have been recited in council; so too, perhaps, set-piece rebukes (e.g. I.2, 35) which displayed the monarch's cultivation, but which the recipient would hardly have publicised. Public shame, as well as honour, could be conveyed by letter, although learned digression might soften reproof (e.g. V.42). Many office holders, like John Lydus, must have dangled their letters of appointment before the public eye; indeed, they may have displayed them formally on their desks.⁵⁴ The letter to the honorand, and its twin to the Senate usually cover rather different ground, as if the Senate were expected to hear them both.

Moreover, some leading Goths and their followers will have been literate in Latin; and those whose style and grammar were shaky may yet have appreciated an elegant author, as did Jordanes, whose Getica abridged Cassiodorus' Gothic History. At Naples in 535, two trained rhetoricians of the city apparently persuaded a popular assembly of Goths and Romans to resist the Byzantines.⁵⁵ The Gothic History may likewise have been aimed at both races: to impress on blue-blooded senators, and proud Gothic chieftains the dignity and antiquity of the Amal house, whose pre-eminence was recent and precarious.⁵⁶ Probably, then, at least so long as Cassiodorus was active at court, most Roman, and some Gothic notables in state and society will have been exposed to a sequence of letters, building up the desired image of their monarchs.

What, though, of the non-élite? How far did the Variae resemble the ivory diptychs and silver-ware which Consuls and emperors presented to a chosen few?⁵⁷ In the Preface, Cassiodorus claims to have adapted his style to his audience; but, though the style does often vary, the education and status of the recipient was not always a criterion.⁵⁸ Most barbarians, and even Romans of the day would have found even the simpler letters hard to understand. (Interpreters had to be provided for a learned letter on amber [V.2], sent to Estonia!) As so often in ritual, the language and ideas are meant to be heard widely, but are intelligible mainly to a few. Goths will have depended on Romans, and the unlearned on their social betters, to interpret what concerned them; relations of dependency and respect may thereby have been strengthened or created. The Lucanian peasants at the fair of St Cyprian, whom Cassiodorus disciplined and threatened (VIII.33), were the distant ancestors of those whom Carlo Levi met in his exile beyond Eboli in 1935. They had received nothing from Rome except the tax collector, and radio speeches, irrelevant and incomprehensible. How much in common had the audiences of Athalaric and Mussolini?

4. THE VARIAE AS AN HISTORICAL SOURCE: A CAUTION

Even where suspicious silences and overt propaganda cannot be detected, the Variae must be used with caution. Next to the imperial laws, they are our fullest source for the administrative workings of the late, particularly the western empire. They may, indeed, be too full a source, shedding strong light on a very restricted region and period. During the fifth century, great political changes had taken place in the west, while the volume of new legislation declined sharply, ceasing altogether in Italy from 476. Hence, we cannot always tell when features of government encountered in the Variae had arisen, and how far Odoacer and his successors dealt with novel situations by new arrangements. So too with administrative politics: the light cast by Cassiodorus hardly extends beyond his tenures of office. Hence, certain letters may mark new drives against private violence or official corruption, for which he and his masters should be given some credit—or they may be common form.

5. THE VARIAE: TEXT AND EDITIONS; SELECTION, DATING AND TRANSLATION

More than a hundred manuscripts of the Variae survive. Those which Th. Mommsen used in his edition (below), he divided into six classes, stemming principally from a lost archetype. This archetype may be identical with a manuscript which probably also contained the archetype of the De Anima, attested in a ninth century catalogue from Lorsch.⁵⁹ The Variae archetype came to be divided into two parts, the second commencing with letter VII.41, and wholly or partially transmitted by Classes 3-5. Class 6 is the only one to give a complete text, but it is mainly a composite, drawn from Classes 1, 4, and 5. The two best manuscripts are, for the first part, Codex Leidensis Vulcanianus 46 in Class 2, written at Fulda c.1170; for the second part, Codex Bruxellensis 10018-10019 in Class 4, also of the 12th century. Leidensis, whose attractive drawings of Cassiodorus and Theoderic are reproduced in Mommsen's edition, contains I.1 to VII.41, and alone gives the dedicatory couplet. Bruxellensis runs from VII.42 to the end, and is the only member of its class to give VII.42-47.⁶⁰

The editio princeps of the complete Variae appeared in 1533, the work of M. Accursius. In many libraries, the only edition available is likely to be the mediocre one of J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 69, based on that of the Maurist J. Garet (1679). Th. Mommsen's edition of 1894 (MGH AA XII) is a monument of scholarship, which put the text and chronology of the letters on a sound footing. It includes some additional documents relevant to Theoderic's relations with the Church of Rome, and L. Traube's edition of the fragments of Cassiodorus' panegyrics. The introduction is important for text, dates, and orthography; while the indexes, especially Traube's index of words and things, which includes remarks on textual readings, word usage, grammar and syntax, make the edition vital for research. In 1973, Å. Fridh edited the text in CCSL, vol.96. Based on deep study of late antique Latin, and adding a manuscript unknown to Mommsen, this edition offers some textual improvements, and cannot be ignored. It also has indexes of scriptural and other citations (to be used with caution), a bibliography, and Halporn's appended edition of the De Anima. However, it is marred by a throng of misprints, and the index of names and things is very inadequate, being confined to the title rubrics. The only English translation published is that of 1886 by T. Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus. In this, the contents of many letters are only noted; others are ‘condensed.’ Hodgkin was a learned authority on Ostrogothic Italy, but lacked literary sympathy for Cassiodorus, and worked from Garet's inferior text. He provided a lengthy introduction and notes, but these are frequently misleading, knowledge of the late Roman world having advanced considerably since his day. Consultation of his work is sometimes worthwhile, although it will often prove dangerous or frustrating.

The Variae have much to interest the political, social, economic, religious, and cultural historian; a selection with something for each was hard to make. To focus on Cassiodorus' career, interests, and way of life, with those of his family connections, seemed the least unsatisfactory solution; at least it fulfills one of the author's intentions. The section below, ‘Cassiodorus and his Kindred in the Variae’, shows why each letter was chosen for translation.

Like all translators, I have had to compromise between a rebarbatively literal rendering, and one so free that it would neither guide the student through the original, nor convey its formal qualities. I have tended to break up Cassiodorus' lengthier sentences, and have sometimes substituted the active for the passive voice. Cassiodorus commonly uses honorific plurals (‘the royal we’), but does not do so with consistency, or confine them to royalty; I have altered them to the singular. In general, though, I have tried to stick closely to the text, even translating many words which were probably added more for rhythm than for meaning. The dearth of causal and conclusive expressions in English has given an inevitable and misleading monotony to the start of many sentences and clauses. Latin is also a language far more economical than English, and Cassiodorus less prolix than translation makes him seem.

In dating the Variae, I have used Mommsen's work as my foundation, but have sometimes had to refine or question his chronology, and have found an invaluable supplement in Krautschick's recent study. …

Notes

1. On this office, see Honoré, 8f., 136, 201; Harries.

2. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, VIII, 2297; cf. Macpherson, 181; but both texts may be modelled on an earlier one.

3. Procopius, Wars VII.i.32.

4. On the character of these, see MacCormack, 1975, 187-91, 1981, ch.8.

5. Cf. Averil Cameron, 247-53.

6. Cf. Ward-Perkins, 116.

7. Cf. Vidén, 140-4.

8. On this, see especially Zimmermann, Fridh, 1956, O'Donnell, ch.3, Vidén, ch.3-4, Macpherson, part 4; on Cassiodorus' political concepts and terminology, Reydellet, ch.5, Teillet, ch.8.

9. MGH AA XII, 392.

10. Examples are illustrated in Cornell and Matthews, 202f.

11. Other types of structure are used. A moral (or digression) may end, rather than start a letter, e.g. XII.20; a letter may move in a circle, from moral to matter to moral, e.g. I.25, I.27, III.20; or from matter to moral (or digression), and back to matter, e.g. VIII.33, XI.14, XII.15.

12. Cf. Fridh, 1956, 81f.

13. Cf. Halporn, CCSL vol.96, 513ff.

14. Cf. Roberts, ch. 2-3, Macpherson, 182.

15. Cf. Leopold.

16. Cf. Matthews, 1974.

17. See Fridh, 1956, 39-59; Benner, 1-25; Vidén, 120-53.

18. Constitution 8, an Easter-tide amnesty for prisoners, published at Constantinople in 386, may have influenced XI.40 on the same subject; cf. Macpherson, 174-9.

19. Cf. Leopold.

20. Julian, Ep. 56; C.Th., IX.17.5, a.363; compare Valentinian III's Quaestor in Novel 23.

21. This code is sometimes claimed as the work of the Visigoth Theoderic II (453-66); I disagree.

22. Even in less rhetorical codes and edicts of the period, the laws stated may be less important than the action of stating them; cf. Wormald (2).

23. Some of his bestiary morality is shared with the sermon-based Hexaemeron of St Ambrose; St Jerome gives good examples of analogy in the homiletic letter, e.g. 125.2-4.

24. III.29f.

25. Cf. Sidonius, Ep. VIII.2, Gregory of Tours, Life of the Fathers, ix.1.

26. Readers 1500 years hence may well find the high minded editorials of our more intellectual newspapers equally platitudinous!

27. Cf. Reydellet, 193f.

28. Cf. Averil Cameron, ch.14.

29. Cf. Halporn, CCSL vol.96, 505, 510-13, O'Donnell, ch.4.

30. Cf.MacCormack, 1981, 238-9.

31. Cf. Barnish, 1989, 174-83. Ennodius 452 (Opusc. 6) seems a comparable project.

32. Cf. Matthews, 1981, 35-8.

33. In Categorias Aristotelis II, J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 64, c.201 B.

34. Cf. Sidonius, Panegyric on Avitus, 489-518, Ep. VIII.2.2, 3.3.

35. Jordanes, Getica 67-72; like a Praetorian Prefect, Dicineus was given ‘almost regal power’ by the king.

36. De Caerimoniis, praef.D, tr. E. Barker. Compare the interpretation of the money-system [I.10], and the elaborate symbolism of chariot-races [III.51], long closely linked with imperial ceremony.

37. The closest parallel may be Ennodius 8 (Opusc.7), a directive probably drafted for archbishop Laurentius of Milan, in 501. Also, with II.14, cf. 239 (Dictio 17).

38. See Honoré, 58ff., 244f.; Maas.

39. Reg.Ep. XI.4; cf. ibid. XIII.32, Wormald, 126ff.

40. Tribonian did a similar job for his low-born emperor.

41. Illustrated by Cornell and Matthews, 172. Compare also king Euric of the Visigoths in 476, using the declamations of his Roman counsellor Leo to restrain ‘arms by laws’ in his newly conquered territory (Sidonius, Ep. VIII.3.3).

42. Wars V.i.33, ii.1: chauvinist Goths claimed that Theoderic had wisely kept his tribe illiterate; cf. Wormald (1), 97ff.

43. IX.24.8, Themistius, Or. 34.viii.34; cf. Procopius, Wars V.iii.1, vi.10.

44. Anonymus Valesianus, 65-9.

45. Ennodius, 80.135 (Opusc.3).

46. MGH AA XII, 424f.

47. Cf. Honoré, 26ff.

48. The probable ancestor of the famous Anglo-Saxon Codex Amiatinus.

49. Inst. Or. VIII, praef. 24 (Loeb translation).

50. Cf. Anonymus Valesianus 69: a royal address to the people of Rome engraved on bronze, and publicly displayed.

51. Symmachus, Ep. II.12, 48; Sidonius, Ep. IX. 7.

52. Synesius, Ep. 100/101.

53. Procopius, Anecdota 14.2-3.

54. De Mag. III.29f.; cf. Cornell and Matthews, 202.

55. Procopius, Wars V.viii.29-42.

56. Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, 35; Heather. The Amals are given noticeably more prominence in letters to the Senate (IX.24.4-5, XI.1.19) than to barbarians (e.g. IV.1.1).

57. Cf. Matthews, 1975, 112, 244; Roberts, 90-111, 121, 125-9.

58. Cf. O'Donnell, 73f., 87.

59. Interestingly, some De Anima manuscripts so derived may be linked with the Palace School at Aachen; did Carolingian officials also know the Variae?

60. These remarks are based on Mommsen's and Fridh's prefaces to the Variae, and on Halporn's to the De Anima.

References and Abbreviations

References to the Variae in bold type are to texts translated in this volume, e.g. Preface, or VIII.33; references in plain type are to those which are omitted.

CCSL: Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina

CSEL: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiae Latinorum

C.Th.: Theodosian Code

JRS: Journal of Roman Studies

MGH: Monumenta Germaniae Historica

MGH AA MGH: Auctores Antiquissimi

PBSR: Papers of the British School at Rome

PLRE II: Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol.II.

RBPh: Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire