Beatus, Chancellor

Beatus is otherwise little attested and is known chiefly as a correspondent within the world of Ostrogothic Italy in the early sixth century AD, appearing as the recipient of letters in the collections of Cassiodorus (the Variae, the official chancery correspondence of Theoderic and his successors) and Ennodius of Pavia. The label "Chancellor" (cancellarius) points to a middle-ranking administrative official of the provincial or palatine bureaucracy rather than a figure of independent prominence; on the present evidence his career, dates, and exact office cannot be securely reconstructed beyond his service in the Italian administration of the period roughly 500-540 AD. He should be regarded as a minor official known almost entirely through this correspondence rather than from independent historical sources.