post is communicated to them, almost as if their suffrages were
solicited for the new candidate; what a show is made of consulting
them in reference to peace and war; and what a reality there seems to
be in the appeals made to their loyalty to the new King after the
death of Theodoric. In all this, as in the whole relation of the
Empire to the Senate during the five centuries of their joint
existence, it is difficult to say where well-acted courtesy ended, and
where the desire to secure such legal power as yet remained to a
venerable assembly began. Perhaps when we remember that for many
glorious centuries the Senate had been the real ruler of the Roman
State, we may assert that the attitude and the language of the
successors of Augustus towards the Conscript Fathers were similar to
those used by a modern House of Commons towards the Crown, only that
in the one case the individual supplanted the assembly, in the other
the assembly supplanted the individual. But whatever the exact
relations between King and Senate may have been, and though
occasionally the former found it necessary to rebuke the latter pretty
sharply for conduct unbecoming their high position, there can be no
doubt that the general intention of Theodoric was to soothe the
wounded pride and flatter the vanity of the Roman Senators by every
means in his power: and for this purpose no one could be so well
fitted as Cassiodorus, Senator by name and by office, descendant of
many generations of Roman nobles, and master of such exuberant
rhetoric that it was difficult then, as it is often impossible now, to
extract any definite meaning from his sonorous periods.

[Sidenote: Cassiodorus Patrician.]

It was possibly upon his laying down the Consulship, that Cassiodorus
received the dignity of Patrician--a dignity only, for in itself it
seems to have conferred neither wealth nor power. Yet a title which
had been borne by Ricimer, Odovacar, and Theodoric himself might well
excite the ambition of Theodoric's subject. If our conjecture be
correct that it was conferred upon Cassiodorus in the year 515, he
received it at an earlier age than his father, to whom only about ten
or eleven years before he had written the letter announcing his
elevation to this high dignity.

[Sidenote: The Chronicon.]

Five years after his Consulate, Cassiodorus undertook a little piece
of literary labour which he does not appear to have held in high
account himself (since he does not