Cassiodorus' Historiographical Plan

The years that Cassiodorus spent in Constantinople influenced his attitude towards historiography: both the close contact with Greek culture and the reading of many works which were no longer available in the West led him to promote several interconnected projects that greatly influenced the historiographical culture of Mediaeval Europe. The triad of chronography, geographical literature and ecclesiastical history, which formed Cassiodorus’ library, reminds us of Eusebius’ grandiose historiographical plan. As for the history of Israel, a Latin version of Josephus’ Jewish War had already appeared, but the far longer and more difficult Jewish Antiquities, not yet translated into Latin, remained inaccessible by the majority; it has been recently demonstrated that the Biblioteca Ambrosiana Cimelio 1 is the rough copy of the translation of Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities made in Constantinople: thus we may assume that the translation of Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities was completed during Cassiodorus’ stay and that the same context also applies to the Historia Tripertita. Cassiodorus had discussed the project of founding a sort of Christian university with pope Agapetus in 535 AD, but the pope died next year: consequently the place where this library was finally set up obviously changed: the Vivarium replaced Rome