Senator.

We assume therefore with some confidence the year 480 as the
approximate date of the birth of our author; and while we observe that
this date fits well with those which the course of history induces us
to assign to his ancestors in the three preceding generations[14], we
also note with interest that it was, as nearly as we can ascertain,
the year of the birth of two of the most distinguished contemporaries
of Cassiodorus--Boethius and Benedict.

[Footnote 14: Cassiodorus the First, born about 390; the Second, about
420; the Third, about 450.]

[Sidenote: Education of Cassiodorus.]

Of the training and education of the young Senator we can only speak
from their evident results as displayed in the 'Variae,' to which the
reader is accordingly referred. It may be remarked, however, that
though he evidently received the usual instruction in philosophy and
rhetoric which was given to a young Roman noble aspiring to employment
in the Civil Service, there are some indications that the bent of his
own genius was towards Natural History, strange and often laughable as
are the facts or fictions which this taste of his has caused him to
accumulate.

[Sidenote: Consiliarius to his father.]

In the year 500[15], when Senator had just attained the age of twenty,
his father, as we have already seen, received from Theodoric the high
office of Praetorian Praefect. As a General might make an