Magnus Aurelius, secretary of state to Theodoric the Great, was born at Scylacium (Spilacce), of an ancient and wealthy Roman family, about A.D. 468. His genius and great attainments were conspicuous at a very early age, and were fully appreciated by Theodoric; under whom and his successors Cassiodorus was successively appointed to the highest offices of state. Having continued for a long series of years to conduct the government of the Ostrogothic kingdom with singular ability and success, at the age of seventy he retired to the monastery of Viviers, in his native province of Bruttium (Calabria); and in this retreat, of which he had been the founder, he devoted the remaining thirty years of his life to study, and the composition of treatises on history, metaphysics, the seven liberal arts, and divinity. He was assiduous also to elevate the standard of education among the ecclesiastics, and particularly encouraged them to make transcripts of ancient works. In his leisure hours, too, he exercised his mechanical ingenuity in the construction of a variety of philosophical toys, such as sun-dials, water-clocks, and perpetual lamps. The writ- Cassiopeia evince great erudition; but his Latin style partakes much of the corruptions of the age. The best edition of his collected works is that of Father Garet, in 2 vols. folio, published at Rouen in 1679, and reprinted at Venice in 1729. Of these works the most valuable is his *Variarum Epistolae*, libri xii., a series of state papers drawn up by the command of Theodoric and his successors.