The Letters of Cassiodorus

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4554-3445-9
Verlag: Seltzer Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 796 Seiten

A condensed translation of the Variae Epistolae of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator. According to Wikipedia: 'Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 - c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.'

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Cassiodorus

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 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...