It was to his ancestral Scyllacium that Cassiodorus retired; and here, between the mountains of Aspromonte and the sea, he founded his monastery, or, more accurately, his two monasteries, one for the austere hermit, and the other for the less aspiring coenobite. The former was situated among the 'sweet recesses of Mons Castellius[74],' the latter among the well-watered gardens which took their name from the Vivaria (fish-ponds) that Cassiodorus had constructed among them in connection with the river Pellena[75]. Baths, too, especially intended for the use of the sick, had been prepared on the banks of the stream[76]. Here in monastic simplicity, but not without comfort, Cassiodorus ordained that his monks should dwell. The Rule of the order--in so far as it had a written Rule--was drawn from the writings of Cassian, the great founder of Western Monachism, who had died about a century before the Vivarian monastery was founded. In commending the writings of Cassian to the study of his monks, Cassiodorus warns them against the bias shown in them towards the Semi-Pelagian heresy, and desires them to choose the good in those treatises and to refuse the evil. Whatever the reason may have been, it seems clear that Cassiodorus did not make the Rule of Benedict the law of his new monastery; and indeed, strange as the omission may appear, there is, I believe, no allusion to that great contemporary Saint, the 'Father of Monks,' in the whole of his writings. [Footnote 74: 'Nam si vos in monasterio Vivariensi divina gratia suffragante coenobiorum consuetudo competenter erudiat, et aliquid sublimius defaecatis animis optare contingat, habetis mentis Castelli secreta suavia, ubi velut anachoritae (praestante Domino) feliciter esse possitis' (De Inst. Div. Litt. xxix.).] [Footnote 75: 'Invitat vos locus Vivariensis monasterii ... quando habetis hortos irriguos, et piscosi amnis Pellenae fluenta vicina, qui nec magnitudine undarum suspectus habetur, nec exiguitate temnibilis. Influit vobis arte moderatus, ubicunque necessarius judicatur et hortis vestris sufficiens et molendinis.... Maria quoque vobis ita subjacent, ut piscationibus variis pateant; et captus piscis, cum libuerit, vivariis possit includi. Fecimus enim illic (juvante Deo) grata receptacula ubi sub claustro fideli vagetur piscium multitudo; ita consentanea montium speluncis, ut nullatenus se sentiat captum, cui libertas eat escas sumere, et per solitas se cavernas abscondere.'] [Footnote 76: 'Balnea quoque congruenter aegris praeparata corporibus jussimus aedificari, ubi fontium perspicuitas decenter illabitur, quae et potui gratissima cognoscitur et lavacris.'] [Sidenote: Probably never Abbot.]