MCXVIII. (The exact time is thus 1117 years, I month, 17 days.) It is noteworthy that Festus closes with the same date as Eutropius, in ortum perennitatis vestrae (i.e. the accession of Valentinian and Valens), repeating it as in Iovianum (i.e. to the death of Jovian). Festus, 1, 3, gives the duration of the republic as 467 years in Pansam et Hirtium (i.e. counting their consulship, during which Octavianus came to power). Eutropius, 7, 1, places the death of Caesar 709 a.u.c., mentioning the consulship of Antony, and follows with the consulship of Pansa and Hirtius without date, but 710 a.u.c. is to be inferred, though he is thus one year earlier than the Varronian reckoning. If Festus subtracted his 243 years of royal rule from this 710 years, he got 467 years for the republic. As Livy must have given 464 years for the same period1 and Eusebius-Hieronymus had 469, it is very likely that Eutropius was the source of Festus.

same.

The duration of the empire in Festus (407 years) must thus also agree with Eutropius, as the totals of the two were the We have left to consider in Festus, 1, 3, the 916 consuls (=458 pairs), two years for decemvirs, three years under military tribunes, and four years without curule magistrates. Eutropius, 2, 1, mentions the change from consuls to military tribunes, though he does not say for how long a time; then (2, 3) he mentions the four years without curule magistrates and adds that military tribunes were again elected, and that this office continued for three years. Festus interpreted these three years as covering the whole period of rule by military tribunes, and so placed it before the four years of anarchy. These, with the two years of decemvirs, gave him nine years without consuls: 467-9=458; i.e. the number of consular years for Festus, hence 916 consuls. The fact that most of these statements are wrong, and that all are thus easily derived from Eutropius and from no other known source, is a positive proof that Eutropius actually was the source.

1 Livy's reckoning is three years behind the Varronian from Book 10 on; thus the consulship of Pansa and Hirtius would have been 708 a.u.c., and taking away 244 years for kings, he had 464 for republic; cf. Mommsen, Röm. Chron. P. 120 ff.

In Cassiodorus the length of reigns of the kings was taken from Hieronymus. The total number of years in Cassiodorus from the founding of the republic to 519 A.D. is given as 1031. This number was easily obtained from his sources, Prosper and Eutropius. If we add to the total of Eutropius. (1117 years) the years of the next eight emperors according to Prosper (86) and the four reigns (7+17+17+27=68), which Cassiodorus inserts on his own knowledge, we get 1271 years; and if we subtract 240 years of royal rule, we have 1031 years left for republic and empire. But the Mss of Cassiodorus have only 153 pairs of consuls for the period after Eutropius, as the consuls for the year 503 A.D. are missing, thus shortening the reign of Anastasius to twentysix years instead of twenty-seven. There is no doubt that this pair of consuls must be restored. Cassiodorus certainly knew the length of the last emperor's reign, nor could he have forgotten a pair of consuls coming only sixteen years before he wrote.

Of these 1031 years Mommsen (Leip. Akad. VIII, p. 555) assigns 462 to the republic (before Julius Caesar) and 569 to the empire. The result is correct, but his method faulty. The Mss give 568 pairs of consuls for the empire, but Mommsen reckons in the missing consuls for 297 A.D., on the authority of the edition of Cuspinianus alone, though he thus gets twenty-one consulships for the reign of Diocletian, to whom both Cassiodorus and his source Hieronymus give the length of rule expressly as twenty years. We may, therefore, be sure that Cassiodorus omitted the consulship, as we have the combined evidence of his sources, his own reckoning, and all the Mss. The total, 569 years, is obtained by the reinsertion of the consuls for the year 503, as given above. Mommsen on his reckoning must either omit this, or explain that Cassiodorus miscounted. He inclines to the latter view.

Considering the 569 as settled, we have 462 years left for the republic down to the rule of Caesar. As Cassiodorus assigns four years seven months to the rule of Caesar, his total for the republic really agrees with Festus (462+5=467),

and thus with Eutropius. It is interesting to note also that, as Livy was three years behind the Varronian reckoning, the last year of the republic in Cassiodorus, 705 (Varr.), must have been 702 a.u.c., had it appeared in the Epitome. From this also Cassiodorus would get 462 years by subtracting his 240 years of royal power.

These 462 years of the republic are divided as follows: in the period before the military tribunes of 362 a.u.c. (Varr.) he chronicles eighty-three pairs of consuls, to which we must add those for 333 a.u.c., omitted in the Mss of Cassiodorus, but found in Livy, 4, 43, giving eighty-four pairs; he then adds the monstrosity, forty years of decemviral rule. Why?1 Evidently because he had to complete 124 years before the first accession of military tribunes known to him. According to Eutropius, 2, 1, these were first elected in 365 a.u.c.; i.e. there had been 364 years of the state before; Cassiodorus divided this into 240 years for the kings and 124 for the republic. But he had only eighty-four pairs of consuls and found mention only of decemvirs as additional rulers for this earlier period, according to Eutropius. It is clear that, if Cassiodorus had no other information available, his insertion of forty years of decemviral rule was natural; so it is not likely that his consular list, which came directly or indirectly from the Epitome of Livy, could have retained the three decemviral and twenty-nine military tribune years of the original. For, if it had, he would have learned about the military tribunes while copying the consuls' names. Even if Mommsen's unwarranted scorn of Cassiodorus were deserved, we could not think him guilty of such falsification as this. We may feel sure that the form of the Epitome, which Cassiodorus used, did not contain an exact enumeration or designation of the non-consular years for this earlier period.

For the following period Cassiodorus gives seventeen years of military tribunes, four years of anarchy, then three years

1 Cf. Mommsen, l.c., who found it impossible to reconcile this number with any known chronology or combination, simply because he did not reinsert the omitted consulate of 333 a.u.c.

2 Hieronymus also copies this incorrect date from Eutropius.

of military tribunes, a total of twenty-four years and 311 pairs of consuls. We must, however, with Mommsen, l.c., add three pairs of consuls, which have been omitted by the copyists; one consul from each of the years 688, 689 a.u.c. is missing, causing the two remaining to coalesce into one year; the missing consuls for 561 a.u.c. are given by Livy, 34, 54, and for 485 by Eutropius, 2, 16. The three extra pairs are thus fully established for the Livian tradition and for the Epitome, hence for Cassiodorus. On this basis his total of years for the republic is 124 +24+ 314462, the same that we found above that he must have to agree with his sources and with his own total. But Mommsen got the necessary total, 462, without supplying the missing consuls for 333 a.u.c. That was, however, because he had made a mistake in counting, claiming that he had 312 pairs of consuls on Ms authority for this period, when in fact he had but 311. Hence his vain attempt to show why Cassiodorus might have omitted a pair of consuls certainly given in Livy.1

tum.

Though the sum total of non-consular years after 362 a.u.c. is twenty-four as in Livy, Cassiodorus gives seventeen years as the first period of military tribunes, where Livy had but fifteen, for the period of anarchy four, against Livy five, and the remaining military tribunes three, against Livy four. The last two agree with Eutropius, who has, however, given the duration. of the first period only by the indefinite expression, post aliquanBut the total twenty-four years (= Livy) could perhaps be obtained from the Epitome, and at any rate was made necessary by his previous reckoning (462 124 = 338, from which subtracting the 314 consular years leaves 24). To bring all into agreement with Eutropius and Livy's total, he gives seventeen years to the first period of military tribunes. We thus see that Cassiodorus, while indebted to Eutropius, seems to show acquaintance with the chronology of the Epitome of Livy for this period, though he had to be ignorant of it in the former. This is best explained on the basis that he got

1 The consuls for 247, 264, and 265 a.u.c. as well as the military tribunes for 378 a.u.c. were omitted by Livy himself, though he reckons them in his chronology.