The life by Garet was paraphrased in French by Denys de _Ste. Marthe_ ('Vie de Cassiodore,' Paris, 1695), whose work has enjoyed a reputation to which it was not entitled on the ground either of originality or accuracy, but which was probably due to the fact that the handy octavo volume written in French was accessible to a wider circle of readers than Garet's unwieldy folio in Latin. A more original performance was that of _Count Buat_ (in the 'Abhandlungen der Kurfuerstlichen Bairischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,' Munich, 1763); but this author, though he pointed out the cardinal error of Garet, his confusion between Senator and his father, introduced some further gratuitous entanglements of his own into the family history of the Cassiodori. [Sidenote: Modern monographs.] All these works, however, are rendered entirely obsolete by three excellent monographs which have recently been published in Germany on the life and writings of Cassiodorus. These are-- [Sidenote: Thorbecke.] August _Thorbecke's_ 'Cassiodorus Senator' (Heidelberg, 1867); [Sidenote: Franz.] Adolph _Franz's_ 'M. Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator' (Breslau, 1872); and [Sidenote: Usener.] Hermann _Usener's_ 'Anecdoton Holderi' (Bonn, 1877), described in the second chapter of this introduction. Thorbecke discusses the political, and Franz the religious and literary aspects of the life of their common hero, and between them they leave no point of importance in obscurity. Usener, as we have already seen, brings an important contribution to our knowledge of the subject in presenting us with Holder's fragment; and his Commentary (of eighty pages) on this fragment is a model of patient and exhaustive research. It seems probable that these three authors have really said pretty nearly the last word about the life and writings of Cassiodorus. In addition to these authors many writers of historical works in Germany have of late years incidentally contributed to a more accurate understanding of the life and times of Cassiodorus. _Dahn_, in the third section of his 'Koenige der Germanen' (Wuerzburg, 1866), has written a treatise on the political system of the Ostrogoths which is almost a continuous commentary on the 'Variae,' and from which I have derived the greatest possible assistance. _Koepke_, in his 'Anfaenge des Koenigthums bei den Gothen' (Berlin, 1859), has condensed into a small compass a large amount of useful disquisition on Cassiodorus and his copyist Jordanes. The relation between these two writers was also elaborately discussed by _von Sybel_ in his thesis 'De Fontibus Libri Jordanis' (Berlin, 1838), and by _Schirren_, in his monograph 'De Ratione quae inter Jordanem et Cassiodorum intercedat' (Dorpat, 1885). The latter, though upon the whole a creditable performance, is disfigured by one or two strange blunders, and not improved by some displays of irrelevant learning.