in their places. (4) _Judicial_, as the highest Judge of Appeal.']

[Footnote 60: See authorities quoted by Bethmann Hollweg, pp. 79, 80.]

[Sidenote: Letters written during the Praefecture of Cassiodorus.]

Cassiodorus held the post of Praetorian Praefect, amid various changes
in the fortunes of the State, from 533 to 538, or perhaps a year or
two longer. Of his activity in the domain of internal administration,
the Eleventh and Twelfth Books of the 'Variae' give a vivid and
interesting picture. Unfortunately, neither those books nor the Tenth
Book of the same collection, which contains the letters written by him
during the same time in the names of the successive Gothic Sovereigns,
give any sufficient information as to the real course of public
events. Great misfortunes, great crimes, and the movements of great
armies are covered over in these documents by a veil of unmeaning
platitudes and hypocritical compliments. In order to enable the
student to 'read between the lines,' and to pierce through the
verbiage of these letters to the facts which they were meant to hint
at or to conceal, it will be necessary briefly to describe the
political history of the period as we learn it from the narratives of
Procopius and Jordanes--narratives which may be inaccurate in a few
minor details but are doubtless correct in their main outlines.

[Sidenote: Opposition to Romanising policy of Amalasuentha.]

The Romanising policy of the cultivated but somewhat self-willed
Princess Amalasuentha met with considerable opposition on the part of
her Gothic subjects. Above all, they objected to the bookish education
which she was giving to her son, the young King. They declared that it