APPENDIX 523 into the Gothic interest, and both the official and private correspondence con- tained in his Variac (epistolae) are a most valuable mine for the history of the Ostrogothic kingdom. His weak point was inordinate literary vanity, and the tumid pomposity of his style, tricked out with far-fetched metaphors and conceits, renders it often a task of considerable difficulty to elicit the sense. Mr. Hodgkin observes that, next to Rhetoric, ' ' Natural History had the highest place in his affections. He never misses an opportunity of jiointing a moral lesson by an allusion to the animal creation, especially to the habits of birds." A short extract foviiid in a Ms. of the Institibtioncs huvianarum reruiii of Cassiodorus, at Carlsruhe, and known as the Anecdoton Holderi, was edited with a commentary by H. TTsener in 1877. It threw new light on some points connected with the statesman's biograjihy. The Variae have been edited in a s])lendid edition by Mommseu (in Mon. Germ. Hist., 1894). A large volume of selected translations has been published by Mr. Hodgkin. The Chronicle (or Consularia) of Cassiodorus was drawn up in a.d. 510, on the occasion of the considship of Theodoric's son-in-law, Eutharic Cillica. The sources which he used were : (1) The Chronicle of Jerome ; (2) the Chronicle of Prosper, in the edition published in a.d. 445 (cp. above, vol. iii.. Appendix 1), for the j-ears subsequent to the end of Jerome's Clu-on. ; (3) an epitome of Livj' ; (4) the history of Aufidius Bassus ; (5) Eutropius ; ((3) the Paschale of Victorius ; (7) Consularia Italica (see alwve, vol. iii., Aj'p. 1). "Aritten for the use of the city po])ulace, " as Mommsen remarks, it contains many entries relating to games and the buildings in Rome, and it is marked by some interesting blunders in grammatical form. Finding in his source, for instance, Varane ct Tcrtullo conss. (a..d. 410), Cassiodorus translating this into the nominative case gives Varan ct TertuUvs. See Mommsen, Chron. Min. ii., p. 112. In the later part of the work he has made several slight additions and changes of his own in the notices which he cojjies from his authorities, out of regard for Gothic feelings. Thus Prosper recorded that Ambrose of Milan wrote " in defence of the Catholic faith ". But the Goths were Arians ; and so Cassiodorus modifies the phrase to "concerning the Christian faith". Again Prosper simply states that "Rome was taken by the Goths under Alaric ; Cassiodorus adds that "they used their victorv with clemency". The best edition is Mommsen's in Chron. Min. ii., p. 120 sqq. Flavins Cresconius Corippus, a native of Africa, seems to have held the office of a tribune or a notary, in that branch of the civil service of which the quaestor of the Sacred Palace was the chief.-"^ He was an old man at the death of Jus- tinian. -'^ He wrote two jioems relating to contemjiorary history, both of the greatest interest and importance. (1) The Johannicl celebrates the Moorish wars of Johannes, who was api)ointed Magister Militum in a.d. 54() (see below, Ap|)endix 18). It was unknown to Gibbon and was published for the first time by ]Iazzucchelli (librarian of the Ambrosian library) from the Codex Trivultianus, the only IMs. now known to exist. (Other IIss. known in the Middle Ages and as late as the sixteontli century have disap])eared. ) The poem contains eight Books ; the end of the eighth Book is missing, and there are other lacunae.*'- Corippus intro- fluces a sketcli of the events in Africa which ])receded the arrival of John (3, .54-4, 24fi); describing the career of Antala, the wars of Solomon and Areobindus. The poem must have been composed soon after the decisive victorj- of John in A.I). .548. The respect shown for Athanasius, the prastorian prefect, suggests that he was still in office when Corippus wrote. (2) Towards the end of Jus- tinian's reign Corippus went to Constantinople, where he was present at the 3" See Panegyr. in laudem Anastas. 46--18. 31 lb., 48. •'- In the ed. princeps and the greatly improved Bonn ed. by Bekker, it is divided into seven Books, as if the whole eighth were missing. But G. Loewe has shown that Books 4 and 5 were wrongly thrown into one, so that 5,6, 7 should be 6, 7, S ; and so it appears in Partbch'sed.
