Note (return) — Chapter IX

The ancestral possessions of the Cassiodori were situated m that southernmost province, sometimes likened to the toe of Italy, which was then called Bruttii, and is now called Calabria. It was a land rich in cattle, renowned for its cheese and for its aromatic, white Palmatian wine; and veins of gold were said to be in its mountains. Here, in the old Greek city of Scyllacium (Sguillace), "a city perched upon a high hill overlooking the sea, sunny yet fanned by cool Mediterranean breezes, and looking peacefully on the cornfields, the vineyards, and the olive-groves around her", 86 Cassiodorus was born, about the year 480. He was therefore probably some twelve or thirteen years of age when the long strife between Odovacar and Theodoric was ended by the murder scene in the palace at Ravenna.