SOURCE: “The Work of Cassiodorus after His Conversion,” in Latomus: Revue D'Etudes Latines, Vol. XLVIII, No. 1, January-March, 1989, pp. 157-87.

In the essay that follows, Barnish argues that many of Cassiodorus's writings, particularly those composed after he retired to his monastery, were designed to influence both the lay and clerical public in matters of politics, religion, and culture.

About the end of the year 537, Cassiodorus, former consul, Roman aristocrat, and elder statesman of that Gothic realm on which the mantle of the western empire had fallen, laid down his last office, the praetorian prefecture of Italy. His time was then being devoted to a collection of the documents which he had drafted as a civil servant. These Variae, he claimed, were meant as a memorial of his own labours and the virtues of his colleagues, and as a model of style for future administrators of less polished education¹. This...