PROOEMIVM. IX

...and was subsequently created Praetorian Prefect by King Theodoric, not before the year 500. For since the Anonymus Valesianus (ch. 68) writes concerning the events of that year: "He made Liberius, whom he had made Praetorian Prefect at the beginning of his reign, a patrician and gave him a successor in the administration of the prefecture" (cf. Var. II.16), Liberius held that position in this year. Whether Cassiodorus succeeded him immediately or not cannot be determined; but he seems to have laid down the prefecture around 507 AD. For the two letters by which he is rewarded with the rank of patrician because of his well-administered prefecture were written by his son, the quaestor—an office we shall show below he held between 507 and 511 AD, and as it seems, at the beginning of his quaestorship, since there are several letters extant addressed to the Praetorian Prefects of those years, but none to his father. Moreover, it is understood from these that the author of the Variae is called the counselor to his father, the patrician and Praetorian Prefect Cassiodorus, with little accuracy in the Holderian anecdote. Furthermore, through letter III.28, written during those same years, the King summons his father to the royal court.

As for the other names he used—Flavius, Magnus, Aurelius, and Senator—which are common to all in this age, it is unknown from where he adopted them, nor are any parents or relatives mentioned beyond those recently reviewed, nor do we have any tradition handed down regarding his wife. Because he gave Boethius and Symmachus a place in the line of the Cassiodorian genealogy, take care not to conclude that any kinship existed between them and him; certainly, not even in the letters he directed to them under the King's name is there any sign of such a relationship.

The course of the author's honors, as recorded in the subscription original: "subscriptio" (formal list of titles at the end of a manuscript) of the Variae as well as his names, is handed down in all the best books with such consensus, even in the abridged lists of honors, that it is certain the information has reached us correctly and fully. There he is called: "Most Clarissimus (an error for consular of Brussels) and Illustris, former quaestor of the palace, former ordinary consul, former master of offices, Praetorian Prefect, and patrician." The same subscription is found in manuscripts of the Chronicles, except that it reads "quaestor of the sacred palace" there due to interpolation. For as I showed elsewhere (Neues Archiv 14, 522), while "sacred" is legitimate for the emperor according to the custom of this age, it is not used for the royal palace except incorrectly. But that very subscription, while suited to the Variae published by the author during his prefecture, by no means fits the Chronicles completed in 519 AD, sometime before he obtained that office. There is no doubt that in the most ancient exemplar, the parent of all our manuscripts which contained both the Variae and the Chronicles, it was wrongly transferred from the former to the latter. Beyond the dignities declared in the subscription, the memory of two other illustrious offices survives. "While still a youth," it is written in the anecdote, "when he became an advisor to his father, the Praetorian Prefect Cassiodorus, and had most eloquently recited the praises of Theodoric, King of the Goths, he was created quaestor by him."