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Cassiodorus: Variae (Translated Texts for Historians, 12)
Cassiodorus (c.485-585), Roman senator and consul, served in various high offices from c.505 to c.538, under the kings of the Ostrogoths, who had inherited the imperial administration of Italy. For long periods the Goths' chief publicist, he compiled the state papers he had drafted, as their regime crumbled under Byzantine attack. This selection is the first translation to appear since 1886.
254 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1992
About the author
Cassiodorus
59 books13 followersFlavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, Roman statesman, wrote
Chronicon
, a universal history to 519, and
Institutiones
, a broad course of study for a monastery.
Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (circa 485 – circa 585), commonly known, served in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator formed part of his surname, not his rank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiod...
Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (circa 485 – circa 585), commonly known, served in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator formed part of his surname, not his rank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiod...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 2, 2019
Cassiodorus (circa 485-585 AD) Letters, sometimes called “Variae,” are a few gems in a strawpile of formality and gossip. For the gems I “would” recommend reading it but at a library rather than purchase. I must admit though, the translator here, Thomas Hodgkin, was one of those few (maybe 3?) scholars in his century who really knew this period backwards and forwards, especially when it came to the Huns; he makes works by the likes of Patrick Howarth look like, well I’d rather not say. So it is an overall good production.
But to save you time (in case you are a bit short on it like I am), I’ll highlight two diamonds (among maybe 5 other semi-precious rubies of passages) you might find at the cost of long hours reading all this fairly thick work (thinking all the while you will at last come across some mystical correspondence of High Gothic Kings revealing great secrets of old and then nothing of the sort transpires - leaving you at a level of emotional disappointment only we scavengers know).
Both passages are correspondence coming from King Theodoric of the Goths. So first: which King Theodoric you may ask? No, you probably won’t because modern scholarship usually only speaks as though there is one now. Hodgkin’s knew there were more and mentions such. In fact I have found 5 Theodoric’s from that time (which I will save for another review - suffice to say there is a most interesting passage I found of Charlemagne revering the true great Theodoric King of the Goths he made a statue for and clarified it was not that Byzantine imposter). Most of these Theodoric’s are not of great import or importance except the one true one - if you can find him. He is key to history from this time and, for me, for all time.
Given this confusion, by all appearances then I find it likely throwing in all the other Theodorics was this standard hit job redactive historians used to play the previous two millenia of intentionally conflating and confusing unimportant people with the same name as important one’s in that same era. That is, when they were important ones whom they couldn’t successfully somewhat bury or fully hide but ones they would very much like to, they would pull out this trick. Call it a sort of fifth columning back then.
In any case, I’ll leave the reader to decide if this was the true King of the Goths or the Byzantine imposter here. But either way, the passages are very interesting recording his correspondence.
One of them has him commanding a brethren king a bit to his Northeast to allow free passage to the Heruli Goths for that was the tradition of old to do so. For they were, he says, the highest kings among they, the Goths, and wanderers and descended from the Heracleids (see my other reviews on the importance of them). Then later he goes on to mention them having black robes!
I abhor exclamations, and why should one bloody care what kind of attire some blokes had? Well simply because three other passages from other Historians left me guessing like a madman aforetime exactly who these mysterious black robed individuals are whom they mention too. And I have never found any other lineages of people’s to have worn such except this enigmatic important one continually popping up.
First Herodotus, one of the oldest extant Greek Historians, mentions the black robed Buddhini from the far Northeast. Then he is very clever placing in a totally other part of his work these Buddhini are associated with, if not the same as, the true Scythian Royalty of old called the Melanchlaenae who he shows to be the original Chaldeans. Then elsewhere he mentions in passing the Scythians may be the first humans on earth and then in yet another passage he mentions a group of brutal enslaving fake Scythians (Russians - most likely Giambutas’ “Kurgans” and Dexippus’ “Iuthungri”) who co-opted and displaced such ancient royalty. Is it possible these Melanchlaenae original Scythian Chaldeans are the self same Heruli Goths of black robes said to have come from the East?
Another passage I once came across in a very old icelandic history mentioned their first inhabitants being Chaldean Mystics whom they called Akadan’s and of black robes. I know, this is not the standard history.
Then the third and oldest passage (about 1,350’s BC I would argue but that is a long story why) comes from the Tel El Amarna Letters wherein the Canaanites are complaining to Akhenaten to come help them because a group of some silent odd black robed people they call the Habiru keep getting called in by their slaves to liberate them from their labors and then they just appear and decimate the canaanite slave holders and disappear. They mention them again saying though they were royalty long ago they did something bad in the past and so were forsaken by the gods.
I would argue all of these passages speak of the same ancient Hyboreal Wandering High Kings of man. Now I have many other reasons that could fill a book as to this but that is enough for now on the potential great value of this passage in Cassiodorus.
The other interesting passage in Cassiodorus’ Letters is when Theodoric describes the ancient importance and danger of the position of the Magistrate. He describes it as one of being the most vocal and of being a go between between the spirit of the people (which he says can ever change and most blame the Magistrate when it does) and the spirit of the King. In the Islamic world but a century later they also all had their Viziers next to their Kings. They were called Wazirs (Wizards) per Al Biruni in the East, especially by the Hyrcanians.
What we are looking at then is an ancient position of Wizards in leadership in the Archaic world and yet somehow by our day this position and role was almost totally replaced and inversed by pedantic legislating, beheading, legalists (“Magistrates”) starting from the 1600’s or earlier. How did this happen? However it did, it is an interesting and valuable piece of information for a historian of esoteric ways and peoples to find this passage and the other in Cassiodorus.
I hope this review assists some of you all in your searches for the history of peoples that can help transform and unravel our own identity and fate as individuals carrying on a certain similar inner identity and continuity with such ancient beings and their ways - even if we lost connection to such for a long time now.
But to save you time (in case you are a bit short on it like I am), I’ll highlight two diamonds (among maybe 5 other semi-precious rubies of passages) you might find at the cost of long hours reading all this fairly thick work (thinking all the while you will at last come across some mystical correspondence of High Gothic Kings revealing great secrets of old and then nothing of the sort transpires - leaving you at a level of emotional disappointment only we scavengers know).
Both passages are correspondence coming from King Theodoric of the Goths. So first: which King Theodoric you may ask? No, you probably won’t because modern scholarship usually only speaks as though there is one now. Hodgkin’s knew there were more and mentions such. In fact I have found 5 Theodoric’s from that time (which I will save for another review - suffice to say there is a most interesting passage I found of Charlemagne revering the true great Theodoric King of the Goths he made a statue for and clarified it was not that Byzantine imposter). Most of these Theodoric’s are not of great import or importance except the one true one - if you can find him. He is key to history from this time and, for me, for all time.
Given this confusion, by all appearances then I find it likely throwing in all the other Theodorics was this standard hit job redactive historians used to play the previous two millenia of intentionally conflating and confusing unimportant people with the same name as important one’s in that same era. That is, when they were important ones whom they couldn’t successfully somewhat bury or fully hide but ones they would very much like to, they would pull out this trick. Call it a sort of fifth columning back then.
In any case, I’ll leave the reader to decide if this was the true King of the Goths or the Byzantine imposter here. But either way, the passages are very interesting recording his correspondence.
One of them has him commanding a brethren king a bit to his Northeast to allow free passage to the Heruli Goths for that was the tradition of old to do so. For they were, he says, the highest kings among they, the Goths, and wanderers and descended from the Heracleids (see my other reviews on the importance of them). Then later he goes on to mention them having black robes!
I abhor exclamations, and why should one bloody care what kind of attire some blokes had? Well simply because three other passages from other Historians left me guessing like a madman aforetime exactly who these mysterious black robed individuals are whom they mention too. And I have never found any other lineages of people’s to have worn such except this enigmatic important one continually popping up.
First Herodotus, one of the oldest extant Greek Historians, mentions the black robed Buddhini from the far Northeast. Then he is very clever placing in a totally other part of his work these Buddhini are associated with, if not the same as, the true Scythian Royalty of old called the Melanchlaenae who he shows to be the original Chaldeans. Then elsewhere he mentions in passing the Scythians may be the first humans on earth and then in yet another passage he mentions a group of brutal enslaving fake Scythians (Russians - most likely Giambutas’ “Kurgans” and Dexippus’ “Iuthungri”) who co-opted and displaced such ancient royalty. Is it possible these Melanchlaenae original Scythian Chaldeans are the self same Heruli Goths of black robes said to have come from the East?
Another passage I once came across in a very old icelandic history mentioned their first inhabitants being Chaldean Mystics whom they called Akadan’s and of black robes. I know, this is not the standard history.
Then the third and oldest passage (about 1,350’s BC I would argue but that is a long story why) comes from the Tel El Amarna Letters wherein the Canaanites are complaining to Akhenaten to come help them because a group of some silent odd black robed people they call the Habiru keep getting called in by their slaves to liberate them from their labors and then they just appear and decimate the canaanite slave holders and disappear. They mention them again saying though they were royalty long ago they did something bad in the past and so were forsaken by the gods.
I would argue all of these passages speak of the same ancient Hyboreal Wandering High Kings of man. Now I have many other reasons that could fill a book as to this but that is enough for now on the potential great value of this passage in Cassiodorus.
The other interesting passage in Cassiodorus’ Letters is when Theodoric describes the ancient importance and danger of the position of the Magistrate. He describes it as one of being the most vocal and of being a go between between the spirit of the people (which he says can ever change and most blame the Magistrate when it does) and the spirit of the King. In the Islamic world but a century later they also all had their Viziers next to their Kings. They were called Wazirs (Wizards) per Al Biruni in the East, especially by the Hyrcanians.
What we are looking at then is an ancient position of Wizards in leadership in the Archaic world and yet somehow by our day this position and role was almost totally replaced and inversed by pedantic legislating, beheading, legalists (“Magistrates”) starting from the 1600’s or earlier. How did this happen? However it did, it is an interesting and valuable piece of information for a historian of esoteric ways and peoples to find this passage and the other in Cassiodorus.
I hope this review assists some of you all in your searches for the history of peoples that can help transform and unravel our own identity and fate as individuals carrying on a certain similar inner identity and continuity with such ancient beings and their ways - even if we lost connection to such for a long time now.
Displaying 1 of 1 review