M. Shane Bjornlie is Assistant Professor of Roman and Late Antique History at Claremont McKenna College. His research interests include ethnography, late-antique letter collections, ancient political culture and the 'decline and fall' of the Roman Empire.

Part I. The Variae as Windows onto Painted Curtains: Introduction; 1. Cassiodorus and Italy in the fifth and sixth centuries; Part II. Cassiodorus and the Circumstances of Political Survival: 2. The age of bureaucracy; 3. The reign of Justinian; 4. Voices of discontent in Constantinople; 5. The Anicii between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople; 6. The memory of Boethius in the Variae; Part III. Reading the Variae as Political Apologetic: 7. Literary aspects of the Variae; 8. Antiquitas and Novitas: the language of good governance in the Variae; 9. Natura and Law in Justinian's Novellae and the Variae; 10. Reading good governance in the Variae and the De anima; 11. The Variae as apologetic narrative; 12. Conclusion: innovative traditionalism and its consequence; Bibliography.