on the
boundary of two worlds, the Roman and the Teutonic.

[Sidenote: Also on the confines of Politics and Religion.]

But the statesman who, after spending thirty years at the Court of
Theodoric and his daughter, spent thirty-three years more in the
monastery which he had himself erected at Squillace, was a borderer in
another sense than that already mentioned--a borderer between the two
worlds of Politics and Religion; and in this capacity also, as the
contemporary, perhaps the friend, certainly the imitator, of St.
Benedict, and in some respects the improver upon his method,
Cassiodorus largely helped to mould the destinies of mediaeval and
therefore of modern Europe.

I shall now proceed to indicate the chief points in the life and
career of Cassiodorus. Where, as is generally the case, our
information comes from his own correspondence, I shall, to avoid
repetition, not do much more than refer the reader to the passage in
the following collection, where he will find the information given as
nearly as may be in the words of the great Minister himself.

[Sidenote: His ancestors.]

The ancestors of Cassiodorus for three generations, and their public
employments, are enumerated for us in the letters (Var. i. 3-4) which
in the name of Theodoric he wrote on his father's elevation to the
Patriciate. From these letters we learn that--

[Sidenote: Great grandfather.]

(1) Cassiodorus, the writer's great grandfather, who held the rank of
an Illustris, defended the shores of Sicily and Bruttii from the
incursions of the Vandals. This was probably between 430 and 440, and,
as we may suppose, towards the end of the life of this statesman, to
whom we may conjecturally assign a date from 390 to 460.

[Sidenote: Grandfather.]

(2) His son and namesake, the grandfather of our Cassiodorus, was a
Tribune (a military rank nearly corresponding to our 'Colonel') and
Notarius under Valentinian III. He enjoyed the friendship of the great
Aetius, and was sent with Carpilio the son of that statesman on an
embassy to Attila, probably between the years 440 and 450. In this
embassy, according to his grandson, he exerted an extraordinary
influence over the mind of the Hunnish King. Soon after this he
retired to his native Province of Bruttii, where he passed the
remainder of his days. We may probably fix the limits of his life from
about 420 to 490.

[Sidenote: Father.]

(3) His son, the third Cassiodorus, our author's father, se