The Ecclesiastical History ('Historia Tripartita') seems to have been the first of the works of Cassiodorus to attract the notice of printers at the revival of learning. The Editio Princeps of this book (folio) was printed by Johann Schuszler, at Augsburg, in 1472[184].

The Editio Princeps of the 'Chronicon' is contained in a collection of Chronicles published at Basel in 1529 by Joannes Sichardus (printer, Henricus Petrus). The contribution of Cassiodorus is prefaced by an appropriate Epistle Dedicatory to Sir Thos. More, in which a parallel is suggested between the lives of these two literary statesmen.

Next followed the Editio Princeps of the 'Variae,' published at Augsburg in 1533, by Mariangelus Accurtius.

In 1553, Joannes Cuspinianus, a counsellor of the Emperor Maximilian, published at Basel a series of Chronicles with which he interwove the Chronicle of Cassiodorus, and to which he prefixed a short life of our author.

The Editio Princeps of the collected works of Cassiodorus was published at Paris in 1579 by Sebastianus Nivellius; and other editions by the same publisher followed in 1584 and 1589. This edition does not contain the Tripartite History, the Exposition of the Psalter, or the 'Complexiones' on the Epistles. Some notes, not without merit, are added, which were compiled in 1578 by 'Gulielmus Fornerius, Parisiensis, Regius apud Aurelianenses Consiliarius et Antecessor.' The annotator says[185] that these notes had gradually accumulated on the margin of his copy of Cassiodorus, an author who had been a favourite of his from youth, and whom he had often quoted in his forensic speeches.

The edition of Nivellius, which is evidently prepared with a view to aid the historical rather than the theological study of the writings of Cassiodorus, contains also the Gothic history of Jordanus (sic), the 'Edictum Theoderici,' the letter of Sidonius describing the Court of Theodoric II the Visigoth (453-466), and the Panegyric of Ennodius on Theodoric the Great. The letter of Sidonius is evidently inserted owing to a confusion between the two Theodorics; and this error has led many later commentators astray. But the reprint of the 'Edictum Theoderici' is of great interest and value, because the MS. from which it was taken has since disappeared, and none other is known to be in existence. A letter is prefixed to the 'Edictum,' written by Pierre Pithou to Edouard MolÉ, Dec. 31, 1578, and describing his reasons for sending this document to the publisher who was printing the works of Cassiodorus. At the same time, 'that the West might not have cause to envy the East,' he sent a MS. of the 'Leges Wisigothorum,' with illustrative extracts from Isidore and Procopius, which is printed at the end of Nivellius' edition.

I express no opinion about the text of this edition; but it possesses the advantage of an Index to the 'Variae' only, which will be found at the end of the Panegyric of Ennodius. Garet's Index, which is in itself not so full, has the additional disadvantage of being muddled up with the utterly alien matter of the Tripartite History.

In 1588 appeared an edition in 4to. of the works of Cassiodorus (still excluding the Tripartite History and the Biblical Commentaries), published at Paris by Marc Orry. This was republished in 1600 in two volumes 12mo.

The 'Variae' and 'Chronicon' only, in 12mo. were published at Lyons by Jacques Chouet in 1595, and again by Pierre and Jacques Chouet at Geneva in 1609, and by their successors in 1650. These editions contain the notes of Pierre Brosse, Jurisconsult, as well as those of Fornerius.

In 1679 appeared, in two volumes folio, the great Rouen edition by FranÇois Jean Garet (of the Congregation of S. Maur), which has ever since been the standard edition of the works of Cassiodorus. Garet speaks of collating several MSS. of various ages for the text of this edition, especially mentioning 'Codex S. Audoeni' (deficient for Books 5, 6, and 7 of the 'Variae'), 'et antiquissimae membranae S. Remigii Remensis' (containing only the first four books of the same collection). A codex which once belonged to the jurist Cujacius, and which had been collated with Accurtius' text in 1575 by a certain Claude Grulart, seems to have given Garet some valuable readings by means of Grulart's notes, though the codex itself had disappeared. Garet's edition was re-issued at Venice in 1729, and more recently in Migne's 'Patrologia' (Paris, 1865), of which it forms vols. 69 and 70.

There can be little doubt, however, that all these editions will be rendered obsolete by the new edition which is expected to appear as a volume of the 'Auctores Antiquissimi' in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. The editor is Professor Wilhelm Meyer, of Munich. The work has been for some years announced as near completion, but I have not been able to ascertain how soon it may be expected to appear.

Finally, I must not omit to notice the fragments of an oration published by Baudi de Vesme in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Turin (1846). Those fragments, which were found in a palimpsest MS. of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, were first published in 1822 by Angelo Mai, who was then disposed to attribute them to Symmachus (the elder), and to assign them to the early part of the fifth century. On reflection, however, he came to the conclusion that they were probably the work of Cassiodorus, and formed part of a panegyric addressed to Theodoric. This theory appears now to meet with general approval. The style is certainly very similar to that of Cassiodorus; but, as will be inferred from the doubt as to their origin, there is little or nothing in these scanty fragments which adds anything to our knowledge of the history of Theodoric.

To the literature relating to Cassiodorus the most important contribution till recent times was the life by Garet prefixed to his edition of 1679. I cannot speak of this from a very minute investigation, but it seems to be a creditable performance, the work of one who had carefully studied the 'Variae,' but unfortunately quite misleading as to the whole framework of the life of Cassiodorus, from the confusion which it makes between him and his father, an error which Garet has probably done more than any other author to perpetuate.

The life by Garet was paraphrased in French by Denys de Ste. Marthe ('Vie de Cassiodore,' Paris, 1695), whose work has enjoyed a reputation to which it was not entitled on the ground either of originality or accuracy, but which was probably due to the fact that the handy octavo volume written in French was accessible to a wider circle of readers than Garet's unwieldy folio in Latin. A more original performance was that of Count Buat (in the 'Abhandlungen der KurfÜrstlichen Bairischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,' Munich, 1763); but this author, though he pointed out the cardinal error of Garet, his confusion between Senator and his father, introduced some further gratuitous entanglements of his own into the family history of the Cassiodori.

All these works, however, are rendered entirely obsolete by three excellent monographs which have recently been published in Germany on the life and writings of Cassiodorus. These are—

August Thorbecke's 'Cassiodorus Senator' (Heidelberg, 1867);

Adolph Franz's 'M. Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator' (Breslau, 1872); and

Hermann Usener's 'Anecdoton Holderi' (Bonn, 1877), described in the second chapter of this introduction.

Thorbecke discusses the political, and Franz the religious and literary aspects of the life of their common hero, and between them they leave no point of importance in obscurity. Usener, as we have already seen, brings an important contribution to our knowledge of the subject in presenting us with Holder's fragment; and his Commentary (of eighty pages) on this fragment is a model of patient and exhaustive research. It seems probable that these three authors have really said pretty nearly the last word about the life and writings of Cassiodorus. In addition to these authors many writers of historical works in Germany have of late years incidentally contributed to a more accurate understanding of the life and times of Cassiodorus.

Dahn, in the third section of his 'KÖnige der Germanen' (WÜrzburg, 1866), has written a treatise on the political system of the Ostrogoths which is almost a continuous commentary on the 'Variae,' and from which I have derived the greatest possible assistance.

KÖpke, in his 'AnfÄnge des KÖnigthums bei den Gothen' (Berlin, 1859), has condensed into a small compass a large amount of useful disquisition on Cassiodorus and his copyist Jordanes. The relation between these two writers was also elaborately discussed by von Sybel in his thesis 'De Fontibus Libri Jordanis' (Berlin, 1838), and by Schirren, in his monograph 'De Ratione quae inter Jordanem et Cassiodorum intercedat' (Dorpat, 1885). The latter, though upon the whole a creditable performance, is disfigured by one or two strange blunders, and not improved by some displays of irrelevant learning.

Von Schubert, in his 'Unterwerfung der Alamannen unter die Franken' (Strassburg, 1884), throws some useful light on the question of the date of the early letters in the 'Variae;' and Binding, in his 'Geschichte des Burgundisch-Romanischen KÖnigreichs' (Leipzig, 1868), discusses the relations between Theodoric and the Sovereigns of Gaul, as disclosed by the same collection of letters, in a manner which I must admit to be forcible, though I do not accept all his conclusions.

Mommsen, in his paper 'Die Chronik des Cassiodorus Senator' (Vol. viii. of the 'Abhandlungen der KÖniglich SÄchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften;' Leipzig, 1861), has said all that is to be said concerning the unfortunate 'Chronicon' of Cassiodorus, which he handles with merciless severity.

To say that Ebert, in his 'Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters im Abendlande' (Leipzig, 1874), and Wattenbach, in his 'Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter,' tell us with fullness and accuracy just what the student ought to wish to know concerning Cassiodorus as an author, is only to say that they are Ebert and Wattenbach. Every one who has had occasion to refer to these two books knows their merits.

Passing from German literature, I regret that I am prevented by ignorance of the Dutch language from forming an opinion as to the work of Thijm ('Iets over M.A. Cassiodorus en zijne eeuw;' Amsterdam, 1857), which is frequently quoted by my German authorities.

Gibbon of course quotes from the 'Variae,' and though he did not know them intimately, he has with his usual sagacity apprehended the true character of the book and of its author. But the best account of the 'Various Letters' in English, as far as I know, is unfortunately entombed in the pages of a periodical, being an article by Dean Church, contributed in July, 1880, to the 'Church Quarterly Review.' There is also a very good though necessarily brief notice of Cassiodorus in Ugo Balzani's little volume on the 'Early Chroniclers of Italy,' published by the Christian Knowledge Society in 1883.