[Footnote 16: This fact, and also the cause of Senator's promotion to
the Quaestorship, we learn from the Anecdoton Holderi described in a
following chapter.]

[Footnote 17: The terms Adsessor, Consiliarius, [Greek: Paredros],
[Greek: Symboulos], seem all to indicate the same office.]

[Footnote 18: Cod. Theod. i. 12. 1.]

[Footnote 19: This seems to be the meaning of Cod. Theod. i. 12. 2.
The gains of the 'filii familias Assessores' were to be protected as
if they were 'castrense peculium.']

[Footnote 20: Some points in this description are taken from Bethmann
Hollweg, Gerichtsverfassung der sinkenden Römischen Reichs, pp.
153-158.]

[Sidenote: Panegyric on Theodoric.]

[Sidenote: Appointed Quaestor.]

It was while Cassiodorus was holding this agreeable but not important
position, that the opportunity came to him, by his dexterous use of
which he sprang at one bound into the foremost ranks of the official
hierarchy. On some public occasion it fell to his lot to deliver an
oration in praise of Theodoric[21], and he did this with such
admirable eloquence--admirable according to the depraved taste of the
time--that Theodoric at once bestowed upon the orator, still in the
first dawn of manhood[22], the 'Illustrious' office of Quaestor,