he Ancient World and the Modern, none could be
more suitably named than the life of Cassiodorus.

NOTE ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF SQUILLACE.

The chief conclusions which Mr. Evans came to after his two days'
study of the country about Squillace are these:--

[Sidenote: Position of Scylacium.]

I. The Scylacium or Scolacium of Roman times, the city of Cassiodorus,
is not to be looked for at the modern Squillace, but at the place
called Roccella in the Italian military map, which Lenormant and Evans
know as _La Roccelletta del Vescovo di Squillace_.

[Illustration: [map] _Oxford University Press_]

This place, which is about ten kilometres north-east of modern
Squillace, is on a little hill immediately overhanging the sea, while
Squillace is on a spur of the Apennines three or four miles distant
from the sea. Mr. Evans' chief reasons for identifying Roccella with
Scylacium are (1) its position, 'hanging like a cluster of grapes on
hills not so high as to make the ascent of them a weariness, but high
enough to command a delightful prospect over land and sea.' This
description by Cassiodorus exactly suits Roccella, but does not suit
Squillace, which is at the top of a conical hill, and is reached only
by a very toilsome ascent. 'With its gradual southern and eastern
slope and its freedom from overlooking heights (different in this
respect from Squillace),' says Mr. Evans, 'Roccella was emphatically,
as Cassiodorus describes it, "a city of the sun."'

(2) Its ruins. While no remains of a pre-mediaeval time have been
discovered at Squillace, there is still standing at Roccella the shell
of a splendid basilica, of which Mr. Evans has taken some plans and
sketches, but which seems to have strangely escaped the notice of most
preceding travellers. The total length of this building is 94 paces,
the width of the nave 30, the extreme width of the transept 54. It has
three fine apses at the eastern end, and is built in the form of a
Latin cross. On either side of the nave was an exterior arcade, which
apparently consisted originally of eleven window arches, six of them
not being for the transmission of light. 'Altogether,' says Mr. Evans,
'this church, even in its dilapidated state, is one of the finest
monuments of the kind anywhere existing. We should have to go to
Rome, to Ravenna, or to Thessalonica, to find its parallel; but I
doubt whether, even at any of those places, there is to be seen a
basilica with such fine exterior