busiest years of the life of Cassiodorus were passed.

[Sidenote: Special utility of a Quaestor to Theodoric.]

To a ruler in Theodoric's position the acquisition of such a Quaestor
as Cassiodorus was a most fortunate event. He himself was doubtless
unable to speak or to write Latin with fluency. According to the
common story, which passes current on the authority of the 'Anonymus
Valesii,' he never could learn to write, and had to 'stencil' his
signature. I look upon this story with some suspicion, especially
because it is also told of his contemporary, the Emperor Justin; but I
have no doubt that such literary education as Theodoric ever received
was Greek rather than Latin, being imparted during the ten years of
his residence as a hostage at Constantinople. Years of marches and
countermarches, of battle and foray, at the head of his Ostrogothic
warriors, may well have effaced much of the knowledge thus acquired.
At any rate, when he descended the Julian Alps, close upon forty years
of age, and appeared for the first time in Italy to commence his long
and terrible duel with Odovacar, it was too late to learn the language
of her sons in such fashion that the first sentence spoken by him in
the Hall of Audience should not betray him to his new subjects as an
alien and a barbarian.

Yet Theodoric was by no means indifferent to the power of well-spoken
words, by no means unconcerned as to the opinion which his
Latin-speaking subjects held concerning him. He was no Cambyses or
Timour, ruling by the sword alone. His proud title was 'Gothorum
Romanorumque Rex,' and the ideal of his hopes, successfully realised
during the greater part of his long and tranquil reign, was to be
equally the King of either people. He had been fortunate thus far in