Letters' are evidently not arranged in strict chronological order, and
to but few of them is it possible to affix an exact date. There are
two or three, however, which require especial notice, because some
authors have assigned them to a date previous to that at which, as I
believe, the author entered the service of the Emperor.

[Sidenote: Letter to Anastasius.]

The first letter of the whole series is addressed to the Emperor
Anastasius. It has been sometimes connected with the embassy of
Faustus in 493, or with that of Festus in 497, to the Court of
Constantinople, the latter of which embassies resulted in the
transmission to Theodoric of 'the ornaments of the palace' (that is
probably the regal insignia) which Odovacar had surrendered to Zeno.
But the language of the letter in question, which speaks of 'causas
iracundiae,' does not harmonise well with either of these dates, since
there was then, as far as we know, no quarrel between Ravenna and
Constantinople. On the other hand, it would fit perfectly with the
state of feeling between the two Courts in 505, after Sabinian the
general of Anastasius had been defeated by the troops of Theodoric
under Pitzias at the battle of Horrea Margi; or in 508, when the
Byzantine ships had made a raid on Apulia and plundered Tarentum. To
one of these dates it should probably be referred, its place at the
beginning of the collection being due to the exalted rank of the
receiver of the letter, not to considerations of chronology.

[Sidenote: Letters to Clovis.]

The fortieth and forty-first letters of the Second Book relate to the
sending of a harper to Clovis, or, as Cassiodorus calls him, Luduin,