60 Bjornlie
Probably the most readily available example of this kind of administrative
culture can be found with Cassiodorus. During the course of more than thirty
years, Cassiodorus held three of the most important posts in the Ostrogothic
administration: quaestor, magister officiorum, and praefectus praetorio.
Cassiodorus’ steady advancement in palatine service is, in part, explained
by the personal nature of his family’s attachment to the Amal court.64 As a
valued member of the inner circle of the Amal regime, Cassiodorus had been
entrusted with involvement in the full range of administrative affairs which, as
represented in the Variae, bears a remarkable degree of consistency from one
period of his career to the next (irrespective of the office that he held at any
particular moment). There is of course some debate concerning the degree of
agency implied by Cassiodorus’ penning of letters on behalf of Amal rulers.65
Regardless of whether one views Cassiodorus as merely the amanuensis of
Gothic rulers, writing the responses of the Gothic court to such a wide array
of administrative concerns implies the dependence of the court upon person,
rather than the specialized competence of a particular office. The fact that var-
ious Gothic rulers entrusted the same range of matters to the pen of the same
individual in three different offices, regardless of the traditional competence
corresponding to those offices, speaks to the simplification of the allocation
of personnel. Neither should it be thought that such a situation was unique to
Cassiodorus. Variae 1.12 explains how the promotion of a quaestor to the office
of magister officiorum would involve the transference of this official’s former
duties to the new office.66 The conflation of duties associated with more than
one office to a trusted person speaks not only to the exigencies of managing
palatine service on a truncated budget, but also to the increased emphasis on
intimacy with the Amal ruler. As stated in the preface to the Variae, “and just
as with lesser officials, the princes seem to set upon you, above any other office
holder, those matters needing attention, and which the appropriate ministers
are unable to unravel”.67 It is worth noting that the velut mediocribus fascibus of
this statement implies that the habit of transgressing traditional departmental
boundaries was a feature of civil service particular not only to the higher mag-
istracies, but common throughout the lower offices.
64 For a reconstruction of the context of Cassiodorus’ public life: Bjornlie, “Variae of
Cassiodorus”.
65 On this, Bjornlie, “Variae of Cassiodorus”.
66 Variae 1.12.4, ed. Mommsen.
67 Variae, praefatio 1.7, “et velut mediocribus fascibus insudanti illa tibi de aliis honoribus
principes videntur imponere, quae proprii iudices nequeunt explicare”, ed. Mommsen.