cture of Cassiodorus.]

Cassiodorus held the post of Praetorian Praefect, amid various changes
in the fortunes of the State, from 533 to 538, or perhaps a year or
two longer. Of his activity in the domain of internal administration,
the Eleventh and Twelfth Books of the 'Variae' give a vivid and
interesting picture. Unfortunately, neither those books nor the Tenth
Book of the same collection, which contains the letters written by him
during the same time in the names of the successive Gothic Sovereigns,
give any sufficient information as to the real course of public
events. Great misfortunes, great crimes, and the movements of great
armies are covered over in these documents by a veil of unmeaning
platitudes and hypocritical compliments. In order to enable the
student to 'read between the lines,' and to pierce through the
verbiage of these letters to the facts which they were meant to hint
at or to conceal, it will be necessary briefly to describe the
political history of the period as we learn it from the narratives of
Procopius and Jordanes--narratives which may be inaccurate in a few
minor details but are doubtless correct in their main outlines.

[Sidenote: Opposition to Romanising policy of Amalasuentha.]

The Romanising policy of the cultivated but somewhat self-willed
Princess Amalasuentha met with considerable opposition on the part of
her Gothic subjects. Above all, they objected to the bookish education
which she was giving to her son, the young King. They declared that it
was entirely contrary to the maxims of Theodoric that a young Goth
should be trembling before the strap of a pedagogue when he ought to
be learning to look unfalteringly on spear and sword. These
representations were so vigorously made, and by speakers of such high
rank in the State, that Amalasuentha was compelled to listen to them,
to remove her son from the society of his teachers, and to allow him
to associate with companions of his own age, who, not being wisely
chosen, soon initiated him in every kind of vice and dissipation.

[Sidenote: Amalasuentha puts three Gothic nobles to death.]

The Princess, who had not forgiven the leaders of the Gothic party for
their presumptuously offered counsels, singled out three of the most
powerful nobles who were at the head of that party and sent them into
honourable banishment at the opposite ends of Italy. Finding, however,
that they were still holding communication with one another, she sent