It was while Cassiodorus was holding this agreeable but not important position, that the opportunity came to him, by his dexterous use of which he sprang at one bound into the foremost ranks of the official hierarchy. On some public occasion it fell to his lot to deliver an oration in praise of Theodoric[21], and he did this with such admirable eloquence--admirable according to the depraved taste of the time--that Theodoric at once bestowed upon the orator, still in the first dawn of manhood[22], the 'Illustrious' office of Quaestor, giving him thereby what we should call Cabinet-rank, and placing him among the ten or eleven ministers of the highest class[23], by whom, under the King, the fortunes of the Gothic-Roman State were absolutely controlled. [Footnote 21: 'Cassiodorus Senator ... juvenis adeo, dum patris Cassiodori patricii et praefecti praetorii consiliarius fieret et laudes Theodorichi regis Gothorum facundissime recitasset, ab eo quaestor est factus' (Anecdoton Holderi, ap. Usener, p. 4).] [Footnote 22: He himself says, or rather makes Theodoric's grandson say to him, 'Quem _primaevum_ recipiens ad quaestoris officium, mox reperit [Theodoricus] conscientia praeditum, et legum eruditione maturum' (Var. ix. 24).] [Footnote 23: At this time the Illustres actually in office would probably be the Praefectus Praetorio Italiae (Cassiodorus the father), the Praefectus Urbis Romae, the two Magistri Militum in Praesenti, the Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, the Magister Officiorum, the Quaestor, the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum, the Comes Rerum Privatarum, and the two Comites Domesticorum Equitum et Peditum.] [Sidenote: Nature of the Quaestor's office.] The Quaestor's duty required him to be beyond all other Ministers the mouthpiece of the Sovereign. In the 'Notitia[24]' the matters under his control are concisely stated to be 'Laws which are to be dictated, and Petitions.' [Footnote 24: 'Sub dispositione viri illustris Quaestoris Leges dictandae Preces. Officium non habet sed adjutores de scriniis quos voluerit.']