CHRONOLOGY.

In the following chronological table of the life of Cassiodorus I have, for convenience sake, assumed 480 as the year of his birth, and 575 as that of his death. It is now, I think, sufficiently proved that if these dates are not absolutely correct, they cannot be more than a year or two wrong in one direction or the other.

Consular Fasti.

As dates were still reckoned by Consulships, at any rate through the greater part of the life of Cassiodorus, I have inserted the Consular Fasti for the period in question. It will be seen that several names of correspondents of Cassiodorus figure in this list. As a general though not universal practice, one of the two Consuls at this time was chosen from out of the Senate of Rome and the other from that of Constantinople. We can almost always tell whether a chronicler belongs to the Eastern or Western Empire by observing whether he puts the Eastern or Western Consul first. Thus, for a.d. 501, Marcellinus Comes, who was an official of the Eastern Empire, gives us 'Pompeius et Avienus, Coss.;' while Cassiodorus, in his 'Chronicon,' assigns the year to 'Avienus et Pompeius.' Pompeius was a nobleman of Constantinople, nephew of the Emperor Anastasius; while Avienus was a Roman Senator[186]. Again, in a.d. 490, Marcellinus gives the names of Longinus and Faustus, which Cassiodorus quotes as Faustus and Longinus. Longinus was a brother of the Emperor Zeno, and Faustus was for many years Praetorian Praefect under Theodoric, and was the receiver of many letters in the following collection.

I have endeavoured to give the priority always to the Western Consul in the list before us, except in those cases where an Emperor (who was of course an Eastern) condescended to assume the Consular trabea.

Indictions.

Another mode of reckoning the dates which the reader will continually meet with in the following pages is by Indictions. The Indiction, as is well known, was a cycle of fifteen years, during which, as we have reason to believe, the assessment for the taxes remained undisturbed, a fresh valuation being made all round when the cycle was ended. Traces of this quindecennial period may be found in the third century, but the formal adoption of the Indiction is generally assigned to the Emperor Constantine, and to the year 312[187]. The Indiction itself, and every one of the years composing it, began on the 1st of September of the calendar year. The reason for this period being chosen probably was that the harvests of the year being then gathered in, the collection of the tithes of the produce, which formed an important part of the Imperial revenue, could be at once proceeded with. What gives an especial importance to this method of dating by Indictions, for the reader of the following letters is, that most of the great offices of State changed hands at the beginning of the year of the Indiction (Sept. 1), not at the beginning of the Calendar year.

To make such a mode of dating the year at all satisfactory, it would seem to us necessary that the number of the cycle itself, as well as of the year in the cycle, should be given; for instance, that a.d. 313 should be called the first year of the first Indiction, and a.d. 351 the ninth year of the third Indiction. This practice, however, was not adopted till far on into the Middle Ages[188]. At the time we are speaking of, the word Indiction seems generally to have been given not to the cycle itself, but to the year in the cycle. Thus, 313 was the first Indiction, 314 the second Indiction, 315 the third Indiction, and so on. And thus we find a year, which from other sources we know to be 313, called the first Indiction, 351 the ninth Indiction, 537 the fifteenth Indiction, without any clue being given to guide us to the important point in what cycles these years held respectively the first, the ninth, and the fifteenth places.

As the Indiction began on the 1st of September a question arises whether the calendar year is to be named after the number of the Indiction which belongs to its beginning or its end; whether, to go back to the beginning, a.d. 312 or a.d. 313 is to be accounted the first Indiction. The practice of the chroniclers and of most writers on chronology appears to be in favour of the latter method, which is natural, inasmuch as nine months of the Indiction belong to the later date and only three to the earlier. Thus, for instance, Marcellinus Comes calls the year of the Consulship of Belisarius, which was undoubtedly 535, 'Indictio XIII:' the thirteenth Indiction of that cycle having begun Sept. 1, 534, and ended August 31, 535. But it is well that the student should be warned that our greatest English authority, Mr. Fynes Clinton, adopts the other method. In the very useful table of comparative chronology which he gives in his Fasti Romani[189] he assigns the Indiction to that year of the Christian era in which it had its beginning, and accordingly 534, not 535, is identified with the thirteenth Indiction.

In order to translate years of Indiction into years of the Christian era it is necessary first to add some multiple of 15 (what multiple our knowledge of history must inform us) to 312. On the 1st of September of the year so obtained the Indiction cycle began; and for any other year of the same cycle we must of course add its own number minus one. Thus, when we find Cassiodorus as Praetorian Praefect writing a letter[190] informing Joannes of his appointment to the office of Cancellarius 'for the twelfth Indiction,' as we know within a little what date is wanted, we first of all add 14 x 15 (= 210) to 312, and so obtain 522. The first Indiction in that cycle ran from September 1, 522, to August 31, 523. The twelfth Indiction was therefore from September 1, 533, to August 31, 534, and that is the date we require.

On the other hand, when we find a letter written by Cassiodorus as Praetorian Praefect to the Provincials of Istria[191] as to the payment of tribute for the first Indiction, we know that we must now have entered upon a new cycle. We therefore add 15 x 15 (= 225) to 312, and get 537. As it happens to be the first Indiction that we require, our calculation ends here: September 1, 537, to August 31, 538, is the answer required.

If anyone objects that such a system of chronology is cumbrous, uncertain, and utterly unscientific, I can only say that I entirely agree with him, and that the system is worthy of the perverted ingenuity which produced the Nones and Ides of the Roman Calendar.

In the following tables I have not attempted to mark the years of the Indiction, on account of the confusion caused by the fact that two calendar years require the same number. But I have denoted by the abbreviation 'Ind.' the years in which each cycle of the Indictions began. These years are 492, 507, 522, 537, 552, and 567.