[11] His great-grandfather held a command in the defense of the coasts of southern Italy from Vandal sea-raiders in the middle of the fifth century; his grandfather appears in a Roman embassy to Attila the Hun, and his father (who bore the same name) served as comes sacrarum largitionum and comes rerum privatarum to Odovacer[11] and as Praetorian Prefect to Theoderic the Great.

In the judicial capacity of the prefect, he held absolute right of appeal over any magistrate in the empire (or Gothic kingdom, later) and the consiliarius served as a sort of legal advisor in cases of greater complexity.

At the Gothic court his literary skill, which seems mannered and rhetorical to modern readers, was so esteemed that when in Ravenna he was often entrusted with drafting significant public documents.

His culminating appointment was as praetorian prefect for Italy, effectively the prime ministership of the Ostrogothic civil government[14] and a high honor to finish any career.

Cassiodorus also collaborated with Pope Agapetus I to establish a library of Greek and Latin texts that were intended to support a Christian school in Rome.

James O'Donnell notes: [I]t is almost indisputable that he accepted advancement in 523 as the immediate successor of Boethius, who was then falling from grace after less than a year as magister officiorum, and who was sent to prison and later executed.

Athalaric died in early 534, and the remainder of Cassiodorus's public career was dominated by the Byzantine reconquest and dynastic intrigue among the Ostrogoths.

Around 537–38, he left Italy for Constantinople, from where his successor was appointed; Cassiodorus remained in the eastern capital for almost two decades, concentrating on religious questions.

The order of subjects in the second book of the Institutiones reflected what would become the Trivium and Quadrivium of medieval liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.

[18] The library at Vivarium was still active c. 630, when the monks brought the relics of Saint Agathius from Constantinople, dedicating to him a spring-fed fountain shrine that still exists.

[20] Despite the demise of the Vivarium, Cassiodorus's work in compiling classical sources and presenting a sort of bibliography of resources would prove extremely influential in Late Antique Western Europe.

[23] By examining the rate at which copies of his Psalmic commentaries were issued, it is fair to assess that, as the first work in his series, Cassiodorus's educational agenda had been implemented to some degree of success.

Thus he is unafraid to cite Cicero alongside sacred text, and acknowledge the classical ideal of good being part of the practice of rhetoric.

It is also worth noting that all Greek and Roman works were heavily screened to ensure only proper exposure to text, fitting with the rest of the structured learning.

Before the founding of Vivarium, the copying of manuscripts had been a task reserved for either inexperienced or physically infirm devotees, and was performed at the whim of literate monks.