Part 3 (1/2)
[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 Ca.s.siodorus, 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 plat.i.tudes 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.
Ca.s.siodorus 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 pa.s.sed in a monastery were evidently
'Bound each to each in natural piety'
with the earlier years pa.s.sed 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 Ca.s.siodorus 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 a.s.signed 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 emba.s.sy of Faustus in 493, or with that of Festus in 497, to the Court of Constantinople, the latter of which emba.s.sies 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 Ca.s.siodorus 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 amba.s.sadors 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 Tulbiac.u.m. 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: Stra.s.sburg, 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] a.s.signed 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 Burgundisch-Romanischen Konigreichs, p. 181.]
[Sidenote: Duration of Ca.s.siodorus' office.]
More difficult than the question of the beginning of the Quaestors.h.i.+p of Ca.s.siodorus is that of its duration and its close. It was an office which was in its nature an annual one. At the commencement of each fresh year 'of the Indiction,' that is on the first of September of the calendar year, a Quaestor was appointed; but there does not seem to have been anything to prevent the previous holder of the office from being re-appointed. In the case of Ca.s.siodorus, the Quaestor after Theodoric's own heart, his intimate friend and counsellor, this may have been done for several years running, or he may have apparently retired from office for a year and then resumed it. It is clear, that whether in or out of office he had always, as the King's friend, a large share in the direction of State affairs. He himself says, in a letter supposed to be addressed to himself after the death of Theodoric[33]: 'Non enim proprios fines sub te _ulla dignitas_ custodivit;' and that this was the fact we cannot doubt. Whatever his nominal dignity might be, or if for the moment he possessed no ostensible office at all, he was still virtually what we should call the Prime Minister of the Ostrogothic King[34].
[Footnote 33: ix. 24.]
[Footnote 34: Thorbecke has pointed out (pp. 40-41) that we possess letters written by Ca.s.siodorus to four Quaestors before the year 510, and that therefore the fact of others holding the nominal office of Quaestor did not circ.u.mscribe his activity as Secretary to Theodoric.]
[Sidenote: Consuls.h.i.+p of Ca.s.siodorus, 514.]
In the year 514 he received an honour which, notwithstanding that it was utterly divorced from all real authority, was still one of the highest objects of the ambition of every Roman n.o.ble: he was hailed as Consul Ordinarius, and gave his name to the year. For some reason which is not stated, possibly because the City of Constantinople was in that year menaced by the insurrection of Vitalian, no colleague in the East was nominated to share his dignity; and the entry in the Consular Calendars is therefore 'Senatore solo Consule.'
In his own Chronicle, Ca.s.siodorus adds the words,'Me etiam Consule in vestrorum laude temporum, adunato clero vel [= et] populo, Romanae Ecclesiae rediit optata concordia.' This sentence no doubt relates to the dissensions which had agitated the Roman Church ever since the contested Papal election of Symmachus and Laurentius in the year 498.
Victory had been a.s.sured to Symmachus by the Synod of 501, but evidently the feelings of hatred then aroused had still smouldered on, especially perhaps among the Senators and high n.o.bles of Rome, who had for the most part adopted the candidature of Laurentius. Now, on the death of Symmachus (July 18, 514) the last embers of the controversy were extinguished, and the genial influence of Ca.s.siodorus, Senator by name and Consul by office, was successfully exerted to induce n.o.bles, clergy, and people to unite in electing a new Pope. After eight days Hormisdas the Campanian sat in the Chair of St. Peter, an undoubted Pontiff.
[Sidenote: Deference to the Roman Senate.]