Malalas and erudite memory in sixth-century Constantinople

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his colleagues did, to further his political ambitions. He wrote panegyrics, a Chronicle
{Chronica) and a lost Gothic History {Historia Gothorum) before AD 533.
Apart from his political activities Cassiodorus was mainly concerned with the
preservation of educational standards. Already during his service in the Ostrogothic
state he conceived of a translation programme of logical and mathematical works, and
he had a keen interest in medicine and architecture.25 During his term as praetorian
prefect (533-540) he and Agapetus of Rome26 tried to raise funds for a Christian school
of higher learning in the city of Rome.27 These particular plans are framed within the
need, generally felt at the time, to establish a Christian form of higher learning.28 It
materialised elsewhere in the Didascalion at Alexandria, the biblical School of Nisibis,
and the state university at Constantinople.29 These plans were abandoned due to the
Gothic wars.
At the end of his service he compiled the Variae, a collection of state letters in
twelve books, to which the treatise On the Soul {De anima) was appended. Cassiodorus
wrote these letters on behalf of King Theoderic, his successors, or on his own account
as praetorian prefect. The encyclopaedic digressions in these letters betray Cassiodorus’
erudite and didactical interests.30 Recently, M.S. Bjornlie has posited the date of the
compilation and rewriting of the Variae between 540 and the mid-540’s, which would
imply that Cassiodorus revised and completed his collection in the city of Constan-
tinople.31 For the purpose of this paper, therefore, we will only use Cassiodorus’ Variae
as a testimony to his literary production in Constantinople. Indeed, after the top-
pling of the Ostrogothic regime, Cassiodorus went to Constantinople, of his own free
will, as a refugee or as a prisoner of war with the captured Ostrogothic king Vitiges
and the remainder of his court.32 He also worked on his monumental Commentary on
the Psalms {Expositio psalmorum) in Constantinople and finished his Tripartite history
{Historia Tripartita) in the same city, a historical work which consists of translations
of Greek Church historians.33 He also wrote a short biographical pamphlet, the Ordo
generis Cassiodororum, which he addressed to the Roman aristocrat Cethegus.34
Although we should not remain blind to the sociological differences between the
three authors - Cassiodorus is a high-ranking aristocrat and official, whereas Lydus
and Malalas enjoyed a less prominent social status - these short biographical sketches
show the similar social and intellectual profiles of the three authors. All three were
25 Cracco Ruggini (2008), pp. 30-31 gives an elucidating sketch of Cassiodorus’ scientific activities during
his political career.
26 PLRE IIIA, s.n. Agapetus 1, p. 23.
27 O’Donnell (1979), p. 31, Gribomont (1985), p. 145, Bjornlie (2013), p. 15.
28 Peretto (1993), p. 217.
29 Fuchs (1926), p. 5, Peretto (1993), p. 218, Halporn/Vessey (2004), p. 25.
30 Bjornlie (2013), p. 4.
31 Bjornlie (2013), pp. 19-26,32.
32 Bjornlie (2013), pp. 17-18.
33 Bjornlie (2013), p. 22. For these translations Cassiodorus sought the assistance of a certain Epiphanius
Scholasticus: Weissengruber (1972), PLRE IIIA, s.n. Epiphanius 1, p. 446.
34 Bjornlie (2013), pp. 145,159-162.