lamp was invented, to burn for long hours
without attention; dials and clepsydras marked the progress of day and
night.

Among the monastic duties is that of giving instruction to the
peasantry round about. They are not to be oppressed, these humble
tillers of the soil, for is it not written that "My yoke is easy, and
my burden light"? But one must insist that they come frequently to
religious service, and that they do not _lucos colere_--worship in
groves--which shows that a heathen mind still lingered among the
people, and that they reverenced the old deities. Benedict, the
contemporary of Cassiodorus (we have no authority for supposing that
they knew each other), when he first ascended the mount above Casinum,
found a temple of Apollo, with the statue of the god receiving daily
homage. Archaeologists have tried to determine at what date the old
religion became extinct in Italy. Their research leads them well into
the Middle Ages, but, undoubtedly, even then they pause too soon.

Legend says that Cassiodorus attained the age of nearly a hundred
years. We may be sure that to the end he lived busily, for of idleness
he speaks with abhorrence as the root of evil. Doubtless he was always
a copious talker, and to many a pilgrim he must have gossiped
delightfully, alternating mundane memories with counsel good for the
soul. Only one of his monastic brethren is known to us as a man of any
distinction: this was Dionysius Exiguus, or the Little, by birth a
Scythian, a man of much learning. He compiled the first history of the
Councils, and, a matter more important, originated the computation of
the Christian Era; for up to this time men had dated in the old way, by
shadowy consulships and confusing Indictions. There is happy
probability that Cassiodorus lived out his life in peace; but the
monastery did not long exist; like that of Benedict on Monte Cassino,
it seems to have been destroyed by the Lombards, savages and Arians. No
trace of it remains. But high up on the mountain is a church known as
S. Maria de Vetere, a name indicating an ancient foundation, which
perhaps was no other than the anchorite house of Castellense.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GROTTA

About a mile beyond Squillace the line passes by a tunnel through the
promontory of Mons Moscius. At this point on the face of the sea-cliff
I was told that I should discover a _grotta_, one of the caverns which
some think are indicated by Cassiodorus when he speaks