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.

* Cassiodorus: A lost history of the Goths used by Jordanes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ).

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 ).

Eccl., VII, xix ), and by Cassiodorus in his " Tripartite History ", which Duchesne apparently accepts, that no one preached at Rome.

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, 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 ".

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.

Adam based his works in part on Einhard, Cassiodorus, and other earlier historians, as he had the whole library of the church of Bremen at his fingertips.

He also drew on Josephus's Antiquities, and the works of Cassiodorus, and there was a copy of the Liber Pontificalis in Bede's monastery.

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.

) Letters of Cassiodorus, London: H. Frowde.

The first Christian encyclopedia were the Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum of Cassiodorus ( 543-560 ), which were divided in two parts: the first one dealt with Christian Divinity ; the second one described the seven liberal arts.

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

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

According to his own introduction, he only had three days to review what Cassiodorus had written, meaning that he must also have relied on his own knowledge.

Cassiodorus, minister to Theodoric, established a monastery at Vivarium in the heel of Italy with a library where he attempted to bring Greek learning to Latin readers and preserve texts both sacred and secular for future generations.

As its unofficial librarian, Cassiodorus not only collected as many manuscripts as he could, he also wrote treatises aimed at instructing his monks in the proper uses of reading and methods for copying texts accurately.

Agapetus collaborated with Cassiodorus in founding at Rome a library of ecclesiastical authors in Greek and Latin and helped Cassiodorus with the project of translating the standard Greek philosophers into Latin.

The word is Latin, meaning " the four ways " ( or a " place where four roads meet "), and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century.

Cassiodorus, then a secretary to Theodoric the Great, wrote a letter to a " Romulus " in 507 confirming a pension.

Thomas Hodgkin, a translator of Cassiodorus ' works, wrote in 1886 that it was " surely possible " the Romulus in the letter was the same person as the last western emperor.