Origini altisonanti, genealogie enfatiche e un passato da dimenticare. Ipotesi sulle possibili strategie comunicative della perduta Storia Gotica di Cassiodoro = Highsounding origins, emphatic genealogies and a past to forget. Hypotheses on the possible communicative strategies of the lost Gothic History of Cassiodorus

Abstract

The essay focuses on the possible communicative intentions of the lost Gothic History by the Roman Cassiodorus, a learned official of the Ostrogothic court of Theodoric and his successors. Proceeding on the basis of conjectures, supported, however, by several clues, the article suggests (in addition to a possible dating of the work to the years around 522-523) that the intentions of Cassiodorus were essentially three: making the history of the Goths compatible with Greek and Latin historiography; enhancing the lineage of Theodoric and his descendants with bold genealogical proposals; concealing the less glorious past of the history of the Gothic people. In the light of these arguments, the article also hypothesizes that Giordane's later Getica (History of the origins and deeds of the Goths), usually considered completely dependent on Cassiodorus, actually contained original parts not derived from the Gothic History of the learned Roman intellectual.