Cassiodorus

Cassiodorus—famed throughout history as one of the great Christian exegetes of antiquity—spent most of his life as a high-ranking public official under the Ostrogothic King Theoderic and his heirs. He produced the Variae, a unique letter collection that gave witness to the sixth-century Mediterranean, as late antiquity gave way to the early middle ages. The Variae represents thirty years of Cassiodorus’s work in civil, legal, and financial administration, revealing his interactions with emperors and kings, bishops and military commanders, private citizens, and even criminals. Thus, the Variae remains among the most important sources for the history of this pivotal period and is an indispensable resource for understanding political and diplomatic culture, economic and legal structure, intellectual heritage, urban landscapes, religious worldview, and the evolution of social relations at all levels of society during the twilight of the late-Roman state. This is the first full translation of this masterwork into English.

One of the great Christian scholars of antiquity and a high-ranking public official under Theoderic, King of the Ostrogoths, Cassiodorus compiled edicts, diplomatic letters, and legal documents while in office. The collection of his writings, the Variae, remains among the most important sources for the sixth century, the period during which late antiquity transitioned to the early middle ages. Translated and selected by scholar M. Shane Bjornlie, The Selected Letters gathers the most interesting evidence from the Veriae for understanding the political culture, legal structure, intellectual and religious worldviews, and social evolution during the twilight of the late-Roman state. Bjornlie’s invaluable introduction discusses Cassiodorus’s work in civil, legal, and financial administration, revealing his interactions with emperors, kings, bishops, military commanders, private citizens, and even criminals. Section notes introduce each letter to contextualize its themes and connection with other letters, opening a window to Cassiodorus’s world.

This book is a study in the myth of the origins and early history of the Goths as told in the Getica written by Jordanes in AD 551. Jordanes claimed they emigrated from the island of Scandza (Sweden) in 1490 BC, thus giving them a history of more than two thousand years. He found this narrative in Cassiodorus' Gothic history, which is now lost. The present study demonstrates that Cassiodorus and Jordanes did not base their accounts on a living Gothic tradition of the past, as the Getica would have us believe. On the contrary, they got their information only from the Graeco-Roman literature. The Greeks and Romans, however, did not know of the Goths until the middle of the third century AD. Consequently, Cassiodorus and Jordanes created a Gothic history partly through an erudite exploitation of the names of foreign peoples, and partly by using the narratives about other peoples' history as if they belonged to the Goths. The history of the Migrations therefore must be reconsidered.

A revealing study of the Variae of Cassiodorus and the insight that the epistolary collection can provide into sixth-century Italy.

Cassiodorus (c.485–585), Roman senator and consul, served in various high offices from c.505 to c.538, under the kings of the Ostrogoths, who had inherited the imperial administration of Italy. For long periods the Goths' chief publicist, he compiled the state papers he had drafted, as their regime crumbled under Byzantine attack. This selection is the first translation to appear since 1886. " ... excellent and invaluable ..."—Classical Review

The Honey of Souls is the first full-length study of the Explanation of the Psalms by Cassiodorus. While the Explanation became a seminal document for the monastic movement in the West and was eagerly read and widely quoted for centuries, it has languished in relative obscurity in the modern period. Derek Olsen explores Cassiodorus and his strategies for reading as a window into a spirituality of the psalms that defined early Western biblical interpretation.

As mother, as regent, and as queen, Amalasuintha struggled at the palace of Ravenna to maintain the Ostrogothic dynasty. Massimiliano Vitiello demonstrates the ways in which her life shows the influence of both Western and Eastern imperial models on the formation of female political power in the post-Roman world.