I have just alluded to the Gothic History of Cassiodorus. It was apparently shortly after the composition of his Chronicle[39] that this, in some respects his most important work, was compiled and arranged according to his accustomed habit in twelve books. His own estimate--and it is not a low one--of the value of this performance is expressed in a letter which he makes his young Sovereign Athalaric address to the Senate on his promotion to the Praefecture[40]: 'He extended his labours even to our remote ancestry, learning by his reading that which scarcely the hoar memories of our forefathers retained. He drew forth from their hiding-place the Kings of the Goths, hidden by long forgetfulness. He restored the Amals to their proper place with the lustre of his own[41] lineage (?), evidently proving that up to the seventeenth generation we have had kings for our ancestors. He made the origin of the Goths a part of Roman history, collecting as it were into one wreath all the flowery growth which had before been scattered through the plains of many books. Consider therefore what love he showed to you [the Senate] in praising us, he who showed that the nation of your Sovereign had been from antiquity a marvellous people; so that ye, who from the days of your forefathers have ever been deemed noble, are yet ruled over by the ancient progeny of Kings[42].' [Footnote 39: It could not have been written, at any rate in its present shape, before 516, because Athalaric's birth is mentioned in it. I prefer Jordanes' date for this event, 516 or 517, to that given by Procopius, 518. On the other hand, Usener proves (p. 74), from the reference to it in the Anecdoton Holderi, that it could not have been written after 521.] [Footnote 40: Var. ix. 25.] [Footnote 41: 'Iste Amalos cum generis _sui_ claritate restituit.' Perhaps it is better to take 'sui' as equivalent to 'illorum,' and translate 'their lineage.'] [Footnote 42: 'Ut sicut fuistis a majoribus vestris semper nobiles aestimati, ita vobis rerum antiqua progenies imperaret.' For 'rerum' we must surely read 'regum.'] [Sidenote: Its purpose.] In reading this estimate by Cassiodorus of his own performance, we can see at once that it lacked that first of all conditions precedent for the attainment of absolute historic truth, complete impartiality[43]. Like Hume and like Macaulay Cassiodorus wrote his history with a purpose. We may describe that purpose as two-fold: [Footnote 43: My meaning would be better expressed by the useful German word 'voraussetzungslosigkeit,' freedom from a foregone conclusion.]