Cassiodor, Variae 6

Books 6 and 7 occupy a special position within Cassiodorus' Variae. They contain formulae, i.e. sample letters without specific addressees. Until now, they have hardly been taken into account by scholars, and have sometimes been used unfiltered as a source of information. This has ignored the fact that - contrary to what the praefatio might suggest - this is not a mere collection of forms to make administrative procedures easier, but a literary documentation of the Roman administration. This provides unique insights into the final period of the Ostrogothic Empire, but only if the linguistically demanding text is correctly understood and appreciated as a literary construct. This work is the first to present a complete German translation of Book 6, flanked by a Latin reading text (closely based on Fridh's edition) and a comprehensive philological commentary. The preceding introduction examines the circumstances of origin, aims and possible literary models of the formulae; it also provides an overview of the linguistic, stylistic and argumentative characteristics of the text.