The point which we may note is, that this policy of toleration or rather of absolute fairness between warring creeds, though not initiated by Cassiodorus, seems to have thoroughly commended itself to his reason and conscience. It is from his pen that we get those golden words which may well atone for many platitudes and some ill-judged display of learning: _Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus_[30]. And this tolerant temper of mind is the more to be commended, because it did not proceed from any indifference on his part to the subjects of religious controversy. Cassiodorus was evidently a devout and loyal Catholic. Much the larger part of his writings is of a theological character, and the thirty-five years of his life which he passed in a monastery were evidently 'Bound each to each in natural piety' with the earlier years passed at Court and in the Council-chamber. [Footnote 30: Var. ii. 27.] [Sidenote: Date of the commencement of the Variae.] We cannot trace as we should like to do the precise limits of time by which the official career of Cassiodorus was bounded. The 'Various Letters' are evidently not arranged in strict chronological order, and to but few of them is it possible to affix an exact date. There are two or three, however, which require especial notice, because some authors have assigned them to a date previous to that at which, as I believe, the author entered the service of the Emperor. [Sidenote: Letter to Anastasius.] The first letter of the whole series is addressed to the Emperor Anastasius. It has been sometimes connected with the embassy of Faustus in 493, or with that of Festus in 497, to the Court of Constantinople, the latter of which embassies resulted in the transmission to Theodoric of 'the ornaments of the palace' (that is probably the regal insignia) which Odovacar had surrendered to Zeno. But the language of the letter in question, which speaks of 'causas iracundiae,' does not harmonise well with either of these dates, since there was then, as far as we know, no quarrel between Ravenna and Constantinople. On the other hand, it would fit perfectly with the state of feeling between the two Courts in 505, after Sabinian the general of Anastasius had been defeated by the troops of Theodoric under Pitzias at the battle of Horrea Margi; or in 508, when the Byzantine ships had made a raid on Apulia and plundered Tarentum. To one of these dates it should probably be referred, its place at the beginning of the collection being due to the exalted rank of the receiver of the letter, not to considerations of chronology. [Sidenote: Letters to Clovis.]