Jordanes was asked by a friend to write this book as a summary of a multi-volume history of the Goths ( now lost ) by the statesman Cassiodorus.

De origine actibusque Getarum ( The Origin and Deeds of the Getae / Goths ), or the Getica, written in Late Latin by Jordanes ( or Jornandes ) in 551, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people, which may have had the title " Origo Gothica " and which is now lost.

This miniature was probably based on an original in the Codex Grandior, a lost imported Italian bible at Jarrow, which showed Cassiodorus and the nine volumes he wrote of commentary on the Bible.

But Cassiodorus does not supply any details about his correspondent or the size and nature of his pension, and Jordanes, whose history of the period abridges an earlier work by Cassiodorus, makes no mention of a pension.

Sixth Century historian Jordanes makes two references the Aesti in his book " The Origins and the Deeds of the Goths ", which was a treatment of Cassiodorus ' longer book ( which no longer survives ) on the history of the Goths.

Under the direction of Cassiodorus, in about 510, he compiled the Historiae Ecclesiasticae Tripartitae Epitome, or the Historia Tripartita (" Tripartite History "), a standard manual of church history through the Middle Ages.

Cassiodorus revised and corrected the work and arranged it into one continuous history of the church.

According to other historians, Jordanes ' narrative has little relation to Cassiodorus ,' no relation to oral traditions, and little relation to actual history.

In spite of numerous errors taken over from Eusebius, and some of his own, Jerome produced a valuable work of universal history, if only for the impulse which it gave to such later chroniclers as Prosper, Cassiodorus, and Victor of Tunnuna to continue his annals.

In the preface to his Getica, Jordanes writes that he is interrupting his work on the Romana at the behest of a brother Castalius, who apparently knew that Jordanes had had the twelve volumes of the History of the Goths by Cassiodorus at home.

* Arne Søby Christensen, Cassiodorus, Jordanes, and the History of the Goths.

Cassiodorus, a Roman in the service of Theodoric the Great, invented the term " Visigothi " to match that of " Ostrogothi ", which terms he thought of as " western Goths " and " eastern Goths " respectively.

Furthermore, Cassiodorus used the term " Goths " to refer only to the Ostrogoths, whom he served, and reserved the geographical term " Visigoths " for the Gallo-Hispanic Goths.

Cassiodorus, a Roman in the service of Theodoric the Great, invented the term " Visigothi " to match that of " Ostrogothi ", which terms he thought of as signifying " western Goths " and " eastern Goths " respectively.

Further, Cassiodorus used the term " Goths " to refer only to the Ostrogoths, whom he served, and reserved the geographical term " Visigoths " for the Gallo-Spanish Goths.

The name Visigothi is an invention of Cassiodorus, who combined Visi and Gothi under the misapprehension that it meant " west Goths ".

In the pen of Jordanes ( or Cassiodorus ), Herodotus ' Getian demi-god Zalmoxis becomes a king of the Goths ( 39 ).

First, the originality of his main source, Cassiodorus, is debatable because large part of it consists of culling of ancient Greek and Latin authors for descriptions of peoples who might have been Goths.

He asked Cassiodorus to write a work on the Goths that would, in essence, demonstrate their antiquity, nobility, experience and fitness to rule.

In 533 a letter ostensibly written by King Athalaric to the senate in Rome, but ghosted by Cassiodorus, mentions the great work on the Goths, now complete, in which Cassiodorus " restored the Amali with the illustriousness of their race.

Cassiodorus, Jordanes, and the History of the Goths.

Strabo, Polyaenus, Cassiodorus, and Jordanes ( in De origine actibusque Getarum, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths ) also wrote of her.

Cassiodorus, a younger contemporary of the above, used the names tensibilia, percussionalia, and inflatilia ;

However, we cannot assess the extent to which Jordanes actually used the work of Cassiodorus ( see the discussion below on the sources also used by Jordanes ).

Cassiodorus retired in 540 to his home town of Squillace, where he used his wealth to build a monastery with school and library, Vivarium.

The History was used in the Excerpta de Legationibus of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus ( r. 913 – 959 ), as well as by authors such as Evagrius Scholasticus, Cassiodorus, Jordanes, and the author of the Souda.

He would probably have used the library assembled by Cassiodorus at Monasterium Vivariense, the monastery of Vivarium on his family estates at the foot of Mount Moscius on the shores of the Ionian Sea.

As sources, Aurelian used Isidore of Seville, Cassiodorus, and above all Boethius, but the eight Tones were more likely than not imported from Byzantine music in the 8th century.

In the monastic library at Jarrow were a number of books by theologians, including works by Basil, Cassian, John Chrysostom, Isidore of Seville, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Pope Gregory I, Ambrose of Milan, Cassiodorus, and Cyprian.

This was repeated by Claudian and Sidonius and reinterpreted by Cassiodorus.

According to his friend and fellow-student, Cassiodorus, although by birth a " Scythian ", Dionysius was in character a true Roman and a thorough Catholic, most learned in both tongues ( by which he meant Greek and Latin ), and an accomplished Scripturist.

Eventually the term found a hidden meaning by Christian Romans through the folk etymology of Cassiodorus.

In the second book, dealing with dialectic and rhetoric, Isidore is heavily indebted to translations from the Greek by Boethius, and in treating logic, Cassiodorus, who provided the gist of Isidore's treatment of arithmetic in Book III.

The presence in Jerusalem of the relic is attested by Cassiodorus ( c. 485 – c. 585 ) as well as by Gregory of Tours ( c. 538 – 594 ), who had not actually been to Jerusalem.

The praenomen Lucius is given by Aulus Gellius and Cassiodorus.

However, other sources depict these men in far more positive light: for example Cassiodorus describes Cyprianus and Opilio as " utterly scrupulous, just and loyal " and mentions they are brothers and grandsons of the consul Opilio ; Theodoric was feeling threatened by international events: the Acacian Schism had been resolved, and the Catholic Christians aristocrats of his kingdom were seeking to renew their ties with Constantinople ; the Catholic Hilderic became king of the Vandals and put his sister Amalafrida to death ; and Arian Christians in the East were being persecuted.

Athalaric died in early 534, and the remainder of Cassiodorus ' public career was engulfed by the Byzantine reconquest and dynastic intrigue among the Ostrogoths.

Alan Cameron notes that Cassiodorus and Boethius both refer to him as " Macrobius Theodosius ", while he was known during his lifetime as " Theodosius ": the dedication to the De differentiis is addressed Theodosius Symmacho suo (" Theodosius to his Symmachus "), and by the dedicatory epistle to Avianus's Fables, where he is addressed as Theodosi optime.

The letters of Cassiodorus, chief minister and literary adviser of Amalasuntha, and the histories of Procopius and Jordanes, give us our chief information as to the character of Amalasuntha.

Because the original work of Cassiodorus has not survived, the work of Jordanes is one of the most important sources for the period of the migration of the European tribes, and the Ostrogoths and Visigoths in particular, from the 3rd century CE.

The fact that Jordanes once obtained them from a steward indicates that the wealthy Cassiodorus was able to hire at least one full-time custodian of them and other manuscripts of his ; i. e., a private librarian ( a custom not unknown even today ).

The names of Rhovanion's royal family, Vidugavia, Vidumavi and Vinitharya are of Gothic origin and are attested in sixth-century chronicles by Cassiodorus, Jordanes and Procopius.

Cassiodorus and his disciple Jordanes ( middle of the 6th century ) make the last known antique references ; Cassiodorus draws on parts of the Germania and Jordanes cites the Agricola, but both know the author only as Cornelius.

A Danish historian, Arne Søby has nonetheless proposed that Cassiodorus, who wrote the original text on which Jordanes ' work is based, invented him, with inspiration from the name of Βέρικος ( Berikos or Verica ).