CAS'SIODO'RITS, or CAS'SIODO'RIUS, FLAY I US MAGNUS AURELIUS, Sena tor ( c.480 e.580 ) . A Latin statesman and writer, the most profound and enlightened scholar of an age of barbarism. Ile was horn shortly before A.D. 490, Seylaeeum (Squillacel, in Bruttii (now Ca labria), of a noble family long settled in that region. His public services lay not so much in directing affairs as in perpetuating the Latin civilization under the Gothic rule. First raised to position under °dormer, he held many im portant offices under Thvodoric the Ostrogoth. From the questorship he passed to the consul ship in 514; and during the following years, though engaged in public services, he devoted his leisure to literary work and study. At the command of Thendorie he prepared a History of the Goths, which has survived only in the epitome made by Jordanis. After the death of Theodoric, Caasiodorus published a collection of valuable historical State papers. under the title
Variorum Epistolarum Libri XII., which gives the best information we possess regarding the Ostrogothic rule in Italy (Consult Hodgkin, Letters of Cassiodorus. London, 1886). Late in life (toward .s.n. 540) Cassiodorus retired from public life. and founded upon his estates at Vivarium, near Squillace, a monastery. in which lie spent the remainder of his long life in study and pious endeavor. lie required of his monks not only meditation, but also scholarship, and this included, as part of their monastic duty, the copying of manuscripts. To the happy ex ample thus instituted we owe the preservation of most of the classic literature. Cassiodorns died at the age of almost 100 years. His works are published by Migne in the Patrologia Latina (1S65), Vol. LXIX.