Vandals, thus averting from those regions
the ruin which afterwards fell upon Rome from the same quarter.

[Footnote 218: Great-grandfather of Cassiodorus Senator.]

In the East, Heliodorus, a cousin of the Cassiodori, has brilliantly
discharged the office of Praefect for eighteen years, as Theodoric
himself can testify. Thus the family, conspicuous both in the Eastern
and Western World, has two eyes with which it shines with equal
brilliancy in each Senate.

Cassiodorus is so wealthy that his herds of horses surpass those of
the King, to whom he makes presents of some of them in order to avoid
envy. 'Hence it arises that our present candidate [for patrician
honours] mounts the armies of the Goths; and having even improved upon
his education, generously administers the wealth which he received
from his parents.

'Now, Conscript Fathers, welcome and honour the new Patrician, who is
so well worthy of a high place among you.'

5. KING THEODORIC TO FLORIANUS, VIR SPECTABILIS.

[Sidenote: Interest reipublicae ut sit finis litium.]

'Lawsuits must not be dragged on for ever. There must be some
possibility of reaching a quiet haven. Wherefore, if the petitioners
have rightly informed us that the controversy as to the farm at
Mazenes has been decided in due course of law by Count Annas, and
there is no reasonable ground for appeal[219], let that sentence be
held final and irreversible. We must sometimes save a litigious man
from himself, as a good doctor will not allow a patient to take that
which is injurious to him.'

[Footnote 219: 'Nec aliqua probatur appellatione suspensa.']

6. KING THEODORIC TO AGAPITUS, PRAEFECTUS URBIS.

[One of the MSS. reads _Pontifici_, but this is clearly wrong. The
language is not at all suitable to be addressed to a Pope, and there
was no Pope Agapetus till 535, nine years after the death of
Theodoric.]

[Sidenote: Mosaics ordered for Ravenna.]

'I am going to build a great Basilica of Hercules at Ravenna, for I
wish my age to match preceding ones in the beauty of its buildings,
as it does in the happiness of the lives of my subjects.

'Send me therefore skilful workers in Mosaic' [of which kind of work
we have a very good description as follows].

_(Cassiodorus on Mosaic)._

'Send us from your city some of your most skilful marble-workers, who
may join together those pieces which have been exquisitely divided,
and, connecting together their different veins of colour, may