a, quaestor, magister, palatii,
Praetorian praefect, patrician, consul, and private secretary, and, in
fact, first minister of the king. He was five times Praetorian praefect
under different sovereigns, the last time in the reign of Vitiges. This
is the theory of Manso, which is not unencumbered with difficulties.
M. Buat had supposed that it was the father of Cassiodorus who held
the office first named. Compare Manso, p. 85, &c., and Beylage, vii. It
certainly appears improbable that Cassiodorus should have been count of
the sacred largesses at twenty years old.--M.]

As the patron of the republic, it was the interest and duty of the
Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the senate [58] and people.
The nobles of Rome were flattered by sonorous epithets and formal
professions of respect, which had been more justly applied to the merit
and authority of their ancestors. The people enjoyed, without fear or
danger, the three blessings of a capital, order, plenty, and public
amusements. A visible diminution of their numbers may be found even in
the measure of liberality; [59] yet Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, poured
their tribute of corn into the granaries of Rome an allowance of bread
and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens; and every office was
deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of their health and
happiness. The public games, such as the Greek ambassador might politely
applaud, exhibited a faint and feeble copy of the magnificence of the
Caesars: yet the musical, the gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not
totally sunk in oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised
in the amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters; and the
indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained the
blue and green factions, whose contests so often filled the circus with
clamor and even with blood. [60] In the seventh year of his peaceful
reign, Theodoric visited the old capital of the world; the senate and
people advanced in solemn procession to salute a second Trajan, a new
Valentinian; and he nobly supported that character by the assurance of
a just and legal government, [61] in a discourse which he was not afraid
to pronounce in public, and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in
this august ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and a saint,
the spectator of this pompous scene, could only hope, in his pious
fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial splendor of the