on which it makes between him and his father, an error
which Garet has probably done more than any other author to
perpetuate.

[Sidenote: Life by St. Marthe.]

The life by Garet was paraphrased in French by Denys de _Ste. Marthe_
('Vie de Cassiodore,' Paris, 1695), whose work has enjoyed a
reputation to which it was not entitled on the ground either of
originality or accuracy, but which was probably due to the fact that
the handy octavo volume written in French was accessible to a wider
circle of readers than Garet's unwieldy folio in Latin. A more
original performance was that of _Count Buat_ (in the 'Abhandlungen
der Kurfuerstlichen Bairischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,' Munich,
1763); but this author, though he pointed out the cardinal error of
Garet, his confusion between Senator and his father, introduced some
further gratuitous entanglements of his own into the family history of
the Cassiodori.

[Sidenote: Modern monographs.]

All these works, however, are rendered entirely obsolete by three
excellent monographs which have recently been published in Germany on
the life and writings of Cassiodorus. These are--

[Sidenote: Thorbecke.]

August _Thorbecke's_ 'Cassiodorus Senator' (Heidelberg, 1867);

[Sidenote: Franz.]

Adolph _Franz's_ 'M. Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator' (Breslau, 1872);
and

[Sidenote: Usener.]

Hermann _Usener's_ 'Anecdoton Holderi' (Bonn, 1877), described in the
second chapter of this introduction.

Thorbecke discusses the political, and Franz the religious and
literary aspects of the life of their common hero, and between them
they leave no point of importance in obscurity. Usener, as we have
already seen, brings an important contribution to our knowledge of the
subject in presenting us with Holder's fragment; and his Commentary
(of eighty pages) on this fragment is a model of patient and
exhaustive research. It seems probable that these three authors have
really said pretty nearly the last word about the life and writings of
Cassiodorus. In addition to these authors many writers of historical
works in Germany have of late years incidentally contributed to a more
accurate understanding of the life and times of Cassiodorus.

_Dahn_, in the third section of his 'Koenige der Germanen' (Wuerzburg,
1866), has written a treatise on the political system of the
Ostrogoths which is almost a continuous commentary on the 'Variae,'
and from which I have derived the greatest possible assist