(Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator). Born circa 487 at Scyllacium, in Calabria; died circa 578 at Vivarium. Writer and statesman of the Ostrogothic state.

Cassiodorus was a retainer of Theodoric and his successors. He favored rapprochement between the Ostrogoths and the Romans. In his old age he became a monk and founded the monastery of Vivarium, which became one of the centers of early medieval culture, on his estate on the western shore of the Gulf of Taranto. He wrote the 12-book History of the Goths, which has survived in Jordanes’ abridged version. Cassiodorus also composed several works on the history of the church and the Variae —collections of letters, rescripts, and the like—which are an important source for the history of the Goths.