CASSIODORUS (not CASSIODORIUS), the name of a Syrian family settled at Scyllacium (Squillace) in Bruttium, where it held an influential position in the 5th century A.D. Its most important member was FLAVIUS MAGNUS AURELIUS CASSIODORUS SENATOR (c. 490--585), historian, statesman, and monk. "Senator" (not a title) is the name used by himself in his official correspondence. His father attached himself to Theodoric, who appointed him corrector (governor) of Bruttium and Lucania, and praefectus praetorio. The son at an early age became consiliarius (legal asses sor) to his father, and (in 507) quaestor, his chief duties being to act as the mouthpiece of the ruler and draft his despatches. In 514 he was ordinary consul, and later corrector of his native province. At the death of Theodoric (5 26) he held the office of magister officiorum (chief of the civil service). Under Athalaric he was praefectus praetorio, a post which he retained till about 540, after the entry of Belisarius into Ravenna, when he retired. He founded two monasteries—Vivarium and Castellum—in his ancestral do mains at Squillace (others identify the two monasteries). The special duty which he enjoined upon the inmates was the acquisi tion of knowledge, both sacred and profane. He also collected and emended valuable mss., which his monks were instructed to copy, and superintended the translation of various Greek works into Latin. As he is stated to have written one of his treatises at the age of 93, he must have lived till after 580. His works are (I) historical and political; (2) theological and grammatical.
I. (a) Variae, his most important work, published in 537, contains the decrees of Theodoric and his successors Amalasuntha, Theodahad, and Witigis; the regulations of the chief offices of State ; the edicts published by Cassiodorus himself when praefectus praetorio. It is the best source of our knowledge of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy (ed. T. Mommsen in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquissimi, xii., 1894 ; condensed English translation by T. Hodgkin, 1886).
(b) Chronica, written at the request of Theodoric's son-in-law Eutharic, published in 519. It is an inaccurate compilation, unduly partial to the Goths (ed. T. Mommsen in Mon. Germ. Hist.: Auct. Ant., xi. pt. i., 1893).
(c) Panegyrics on Gothic kings and queens (fragments ed. L. Traube in Mon. Germ. Hist.: Auct. Ant., xii.) .
2. (a) De Anima, a discussion on the nature of the soul, in which the author deplores the quarrel between Goths and Romans. It seems to have been published with the last part of the Variae.
(b) Institutiones divinarum et humanarum litterarum, an encyclo paedia of literature and the arts for the monks.
(c) A commentary on the Psalms and short notes (complexiones) on the Pauline epistles, the Acts, and the Apocalypse.
(d) De Orthographic, a compilation made by the author in his 93rd year from the works of 12 grammarians, ending with his con temporary Priscian (ed. H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, vii.) .
The Latin translations of the Antiquities of Josephus and of the ecclesiastical histories of Theodoret, Sozomen, and Socrates, under the title of Historia Tripartita (embracing the years 306-439), were car ried out under his supervision.
Of his lost works the most important was the Historia Gothorum, which appears to have brought the history down to the death of Theodoric. His chief authority for Gothic history and legend was Ablavius (Ablabius) . The work is only known to us in the meagre abridgment of Jordanes (ed. T. Mommsen, 1882).