Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 'Carnegie Andrew' to 'Casus Belli' / Volume 5, Slice 4 - Various

2. (a) De Anima, a discussion on the nature of the soul, at the conclusion of which the author deplores the quarrel between two such great peoples as the Goths and Romans. It seems to have been published with the last part of the Variae.

(b) Institutiones divinarun et humanarunt litterarum, an encyclopaedia of sacred and profane literature for the monks, and a sketch of the seven liberal arts. It further contains instructions for using the library, and precepts for daily life.

(d) De Orthographia, a compilation made by the author in his ninety-third year from the works of twelve grammarians, ending with his contemporary Priscian (ed. H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, vii.).

The Latin translations of the Antiquities of Josephus and of the ecclesiastical histories of Theodoret, Sozomen and Socrates, under the title of Historia Tripartita (embracing the years 306-439), were carried out under his supervision.

Of his lost works the most important was the Historia Gothorum, written with the object of glorifying the Gothic royal house and proving that the Goths and Romans had long been connected by ties of friendship. It was published during the reign of Athalaric, and appears to have brought the history down to the death of Theodoric. His chief authority for Gothic history and legend was Ablavius (Ablabius). The work is only known to us in the meagre abridgment of Jordanes (ed. T. Mommsen, 1882).

Complete Works.—Editio princeps, by G. Fornerius (Paris, 1579); J. Garet (Rouen, 1679; Venice, 1729), reprinted in J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, lxix., lxx. On Cassiodorus generally, see Anecdoton Holderi, excerpts from a treatise of Cassiodorus, edited by H. Usener (Bonn, 1877), which throws light on questions connected with his biography; T. Mommsen, preface to his edition of the Variae; monographs by A. Thorbecke (Heidelberg, 1867) and A. Franz (Breslau, 1872); T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, iii. p. 280, iv. p. 348; A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters i.; Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng trans.), § 483; G.A. Simcox, Hist. of Latin Literature (1884); W. Ramsay in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography J.B. Bury’s edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, iv. 180, 522; R.W. Church in the Church Quarterly Review, x. (1880); J.E. Sandys in Hist. of Classical Scholarship (2nd ed., 1906); A. Olleris, Cassiodore, conservateur des livres de l’antiquité latine (Paris, 1891); G. Minasi, M.A. Cassiodoro ... ricerche storico-critiche (Naples, 1895); and C. Cipolla in Memorie della r. Accademia delle scienze di Torino (2nd ser. xliii. pt. 2, 1893); L.M. Hartmann in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopadie, iii. pt. 2 (1899), with note on the musical section of Cassiodorus’ Institutions by C. von Jan.

CASSIOPEIA, in Greek mythology, the wife of Cepheus, and mother of Andromeda; in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century b.c.) and Aratus (3rd century b.c.). Ptolemy catalogued 13 stars in this constellation, Tycho Brahe 46, and Hevelius 37. Its most interesting stars are:—Nova Cassiopeiae, a “new” star, which burst out with extraordinary brilliancy in 1572, when it was observed by Tycho Brahe, but gradually diminished in brightness, ultimately vanishing in about eighteen months; α-Cassiopeiae and R-Cassiopeiae are variable stars, the former irregular, the latter having a long period; η-Cassiopeiae, a binary star, having components of magnitudes 3½ and 7½; σ-Cassiopeiae, a double star, one being white and of magnitude 5, the other blue and of magnitude 7½.