Cassiodorus in 527, writing in the name of King Athalaric (Variae 8.33), orders better protection for merchants visiting a rural fair held on the feast of *Cyprian (bishop and martyr of Carthage, S00411) at 'Leucothea', near the town of Consilinum (southern Italy). Written in Latin, probably at Ravenna (northern Italy).
E04335
Literary - Letters
Cassiodorus
Cassiodorus, Variae 8.33
The letter is addressed to Severus, evidently the governor of the province of Lucania et Bruttium, and orders him to prevent robbery of the goods of merchants at a fair.
Frequenti siquidem probatione didicimus Lucaniae conventum qui prisca superstitione Leucothea nomen accepit quod ibi sit aqua nimio candore perspicua: praesumptionibus illicitis rusticorum facultates negotiantium hostili direptione saepe laceratas, ut qui ad natale sancti Cypriani religiosissime venerant peragendum mercimoniisque suis faciem civilitatis ornare, egentes turpiter inanesque discederent.
'Now by frequent proofs I have learnt of events at the Lucanian assembly to which ancient superstition gave the name of Leucothea, from the clarity and great whiteness of the water in that place. There the merchants' wealth has often been damaged by the lawless seizures and hostile plundering of the country people, so that those who had come in all devotion to honour the anniversary of St Cyprian, and to adorn with their merchandise the form of civilised life, have departed poor, shamed, and empty-handed.'
The letter then tells how large this fair is, and how it attracts merchants and wares from all the provinces of mainland southern Italy – Campania, Bruttium, Calabria, Apulia and Lucania. The letter ends with a description of the exceptionally clear pool of spring-water that gave the site its name, and describes a miracle that happens once a year: as the priest begins the prayers of baptism, the water spontaneously rises in the pool, covering more of the steps down into it.
Text: Giardina 2016, 64-67.
Translation: Barnish 1992, 109.
Summary: Bryan Ward-Perkins.
Saint’s feast
Cult PlacesHoly spring/well/river
Activities accompanying CultFair
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesMerchants and artisans
Source
Cassiodorus (full name Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator), from a noble Roman family, served a succession of Gothic kings of Italy in a variety of important roles. In the late 530s, as Gothic power crumbled in the face of the Justinianic conquest, he published a selection of the letters (the Variae Epistolae, invariably abbreviated to the Variae), which he had written in Gothic service. The collection extols many aspects of Gothic rule, and Cassiodorus' role within it.Discussion
The Variae provide almost no information on the cult of saints in Gothic Italy, but this is probably because Cassiodorus deliberately steered off the subject of religion when selecting and editing his collection – as the Goths were 'Arian' heretics, it was safer to concentrate on the secular side of their rule.This letter, however, tells us of a major rural fair held on the feast of Cyprian, bishop and martyr of Carthage (14 September), which attracted traders from all over southern Italy. The fair was at a place called Marcellianum, near the town of Consilinum, on one of the major roads south from Naples. Cassiodorus' ancestral home and estates were in Lucania (also in southern Italy), so there is no reason to doubt the basis of what he reports here.
In the quoted passage, Cassiodorus tells us that the fair was named after a pagan sea-goddess named Leucothea (literally, 'the clear or bright goddess'), because at the site there was a spring of remarkably pure water. It is tempting to speculate that the fair was originally held around a feast of Leucothea, and that she was later replaced by Cyprian, whose feast happened to fall on the same, or a very close, day of the year; this is, however, not explicit in our letter.
The miracle of the surging waters of the spring asserted the sacrality of the site, but almost certainly should not be linked to Cyprian. Cassiodorus tells us that this annual miracle occurred when baptism was carried out, which was almost invariably at Easter. It thus appears that the water miracle was associated with baptism and Easter, rather than with Cyprian.
Bibliography
Edition and Italian translation:Giardina, A. and others, Flavio Magno Aurelio Cassiodoro Senatore: Varie, Vol IV (Libri VIII-X) (Rome: 'L'Erma' di Bretschneider, 2016). [With full commentary.]
Other editions:
Fridh, A.J., and Halporn, J.W., Magni Aurelii Cassiodori Variarum libri XII (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 96; Turnhout, 1973).
Mommsen, T., Cassiodori Senatoris Variae (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi XII; Berlin, 1894).
English translations:
Barnish, S., Cassiodorus: Variae (Translated Texts for Historians 12; Liverpool, 1992). [A selection of the letters, chosen to illustrate the life of Cassiodorus and the history of his family.]
Bjornlie, M.S., The Variae: The Complete Translation (University of California Press, 2019).
Bryan Ward-Perkins
3/2/2021
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00411 | Cyprian, bishop and martyr of Carthage | Cyprianus | Certain |
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