to the reputation of its author; nor can it be defended from
the terrible attack which has been made upon it by that scholar of our
own day whose opinion upon such a subject stands the highest, Theodor
Mommsen[37]. Only, when he makes this unfortunate Chronicle reflect
suspicion on the other works of Cassiodorus, and especially on the
Gothic History[38], the German scholar seems to me to chastise the
busy Minister more harshly than he deserves.

[Footnote 36: Clinton's date for this battle, 403, differs from that
assigned by Cassiodorus, and is, in my judgment, erroneous.]

[Footnote 37: Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Klasse der
Koeniglich Saechsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, iii. 547-696.]

[Footnote 38: 'Dass die ganze Procedur von der uebelsten Art ist und
den viel gefeierten gothischen Historiker in jeder weise
compromittirt, bedarf keiner Ausaneindersetzung' (l.c. 564).]

[Sidenote: The Gothic History.]

I have just alluded to the Gothic History of Cassiodorus. It was
apparently shortly after the composition of his Chronicle[39] that
this, in some respects his most important work, was compiled and
arranged according to his accustomed habit in twelve books. His own
estimate--and it is not a low one--of the value of this performance is
expressed in a letter which he makes his young Sovereign Athalaric
address to the Senate on his promotion to the Praefecture[40]: 'He
extended his labours even to our remote ancestry, learning by his
reading that which scarcely the hoar memories of our forefathers
retained. He drew forth from their hiding-place the Kings of the
Goths, hidden by long forgetfulness. He restored the Amals to their
proper place with the lustre of his own[41] lineage (?), evidently
proving that up to the seventeenth generation we have had kings for
our ancestors. He made the origin of the Goths a part of Roman
history, collecting as it were into one wreath all the flowery growth
which had before been scattered through the plains of many books.
Consider therefore what love he showed to you [the Senate] in praising
us, he who showed that the nation of your Sovereign had been from
antiquity a marvellous people; so that ye, who from the days of your
forefathers have ever been deemed noble, are yet ruled over by the
ancient progeny of Kings[42].'

[Footnote 39: It could not have been written, at any rate in its
present shape, before 516, because Athalaric's birth is mentioned in
it. I