close of a glorious life, the king of Italy discovered that he had excited the hatred of a people whose happiness he had so assiduously laboured to promote; and his mind was soured by indignation, jealousy, and the bitterness of unrequited love. The Gothic conqueror condescended to disarm the unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of offence, and excepting only a small knife for domestic use. The deliverer of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest informers against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. 98 After the death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on the [518 A.D.] head of a feeble old man ; but the powers of government were assumed by his nephew Justinian, who already meditated the extirpation of heresy, and the conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by the dread of punishment within the pale of the church, awakened the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so long granted to the Catholics of his dominions. At his stern command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious [Pope John I. senators, embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike stantinople. dreaded the failure or the success. The singular veneration shewn to the first pope who had visited Constantinople was punished as a crime by his jealous monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal of the Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate was prepared in Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies, the most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of persecution; and the life of Theodoric was too long, since he lived to condemn the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus.99 sent to Con A.D. 525] The senator Boethius 100 is the last of the Romans whom Cato Character, Rex avidus communis exitii, &c. (Boethius, . i. p. 59): rex dolum Romanis tendebat (Anonym. Vales. p. 723 [§ 86; the Mss. have tenebat]). These are hard words: they speak the passions of the Italians, and those (I fear) of Theodoric himself. 99 I have laboured to extract a rational narrative from the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian Fragment (p. 722, 723, 724), Theophanes (p. 145), Anastasius (in Johanne, p. 35), and the Hist. Miscella (p. 103, edit. Muratori). A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no violence. Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. iv. p. 471-478), with the Annals and Breviary (tom. i. 259-263) of the two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew. 100 Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (Bibliot. Choisie, tom. xvi. p. 168-275); and both Tiraboschi studies, and honours of Boethius or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As & wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honours of the Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol and sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the republic. In the youth of Boethius. the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil 101 is now extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the professors of grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in their privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his ardent curiosity; and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen laborious years in the schools of Athens,102 which were supported by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his disciples. The reason and piety of their Roman pupil were fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and magic, which polluted the groves of the academy; but he imbibed the spirit, and imitated the method, of his dead and living masters, who attempted to reconcile the strong and subtle sense of Aristotle with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. [Rusticiana] After his return to Rome and his marriage with the daughter of his friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a palace of ivory and marble,103 to prosecute the same studies.104 The church was edified by his profound defence of (tom. iii.) and Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of his birth may be placed about the year 470 [rather 480], and his death in 524, in a premature old age (Consol. Phil. Metrica, i. p. 5). [Some new light on Boethius and Symmachus has been gained by a fragment discovered in a 10th century Ms. at Carlsruhe. It is known as the Anecdoton Holderi and has been edited by Usener (1877). Cp. Schepps's paper in the Neues Archiv. xi., 1886.] 101 For the age and value of this Ms. now in the Medicean library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p. 430-447), of Cardinal Noris. 102 The Athenian studies of Boethius are doubtful (Baronius, A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De Disciplinâ Scholarum), and the term of eighteen years is doubtless too long; but the simple fact of a visit to Athens is justified by much internal evidence (Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 524-527), and by an expression (though vague and ambiguous) of his friend Cassiodorius (Var. i. 45), "longe positas [leg. positus] Athenas introisti". [This expression is purely figurative and there is no evidence that Boethius had ever visited Athens. Cp. Gregorovius, Gesch. der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter, i. p. 54.] 103 [Glass.] 104 Bibliothecæ comptos ebore ac vitro parietes, &c. (Consol. Phil. 1. i. pros. v. P. 74). The epistles of Ennodius (vi. 6; vii. 13; viii. 1, 31, 37, 40 [271, 318, 320, 408, 415, 418, ap. Vogel]), and Cassiodorius (Var. i. 39 [? 45]; iv. 6 [?]; ix. 21 [?]), afford many proofs of the high reputation which he enjoyed in his own times. is true that the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an old house at Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part of payment. It the orthodox creed against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was explained or exposed in a formal treatise by the indifference of three distinct though consubstantial persons.105 For the benefit of his Latin readers, his genius submitted to teach the first elements of the arts and sciences of Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle, with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And he alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders of art, a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere which represented the motions of the planets. From these abstruse speculations, Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he rose to the social duties of public and private life: the indigent were relieved by his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might compare to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was felt and rewarded by a discerning prince; the dignity of Boethius was adorned with the titles of consul and patrician, and his talents were usefully employed in [Consul 510] the important station of master of the offices. Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and West, his two sons were created, in their tender youth, the consuls of the same year. 106 On the [A.D. 522] memorable day of their inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp from their palace to the forum, amidst the applause of the senate and people; and their joyful father, the true consul of Rome, after pronouncing an oration in the praise of his royal benefactor, distributed a triumphal largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous in his fame and fortunes, in his public honours and private alliances, in the cultivation of science and the consciousness of virtue, Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man. A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his His patriottime, might be insensible to the common allurements of ambi 105 [The genuineness of these theological treatises is proved by a positive statement in the Anecdoton Holderi.] 106 Pagi, Muratori, &c. are agreed that Boethius himself was consul in the year 510, his two sons in 522, and in 487, perhaps, his father. [For his father Aurelius Manlius Boethius, cp. C. I. L., v. 8120. He held the offices of Præf. Urbi, and Præf. Præt.] A desire of ascribing the last of these consulships to the philosopher had perplexed the chronology of his life. In his honours, alliances, children, he celebrates his own felicity-his past felicity (p. 109, 110). tion, the thirst of gold and employment. And some credit may be due to the asseveration of Boethius, that he had reluctantly obeyed the divine Plato, who enjoins every virtuous citizen to rescue the state from the usurpation of vice and ignorance. For the integrity of his public conduct he appeals to the memory of his country. His authority had restrained the pride and oppression of the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered Paulianus from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were exhausted by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had courage to oppose the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by conquest, excited by avarice, and, as he complains, encouraged by impunity. In these honourable contests, his spirit soared above the consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence; and we may learn from the example of Cato that a character of pure and inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by prejudice, to be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities with public justice. The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the infirmities of nature and the imperfections of society; and the mildest form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance and gratitude, must be insupportable to the free spirit of a Roman patriot. But the favour and fidelity of Boethius declined in just proportion with the public happiness; and an unworthy colleague was imposed, to divide and control the power of the master of the offices. In the last gloomy season of Theodoric, he indignantly felt that he was a slave; but, as his master had only power over his life, he stood without arms and without fear against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been provoked to believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible with He is accused his own. The senator Albinus was accused and already convicted on the presumption of hoping, as it was said, the liberty of Rome. "If Albinus be criminal," exclaimed the orator, "the senate and myself are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent, Albinus is equally entitled to the protection of the laws." These laws might not have punished the simple and barren wish of an unattainable blessing; but they would have shewn less indulgence to the rash confession of Boethius that, had he known of a conspiracy, the tyrant never should. 107 The advocate of Albinus was soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of his client; their signature (which they denied as a forgery) was of treason 107 Si ego scissem tu nescisses. Boethius adopts this answer (1. i. pros. 4, p. 53) of Julius Canus, whose philosophic death is described by Seneca (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 14). affixed to the original address, inviting the emperor to deliver Italy from the Goths; and three witnesses of honourable rank, perhaps of infamous reputation, attested the treasonable designs of the Roman patrician. 108 Yet his innocence must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of justification, and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the senate, at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence of confiscation and death against the most illustrious of its members. At the command of the Barbarians, the occult science of a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and magic. 109 A devout and dutiful attachment to the senate was condemned as criminal by the trembling voices of the senators themselves; and their ingratitude deserved the wish or prediction of Boethius, that, after him, none should be found guilty of the same offence.110 ment and 524 While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected eacn moment His imprisonthe sentence or the stroke of death, he composed in the tower of death. A.D. Pavia the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author. The celestial guide, whom he had so long invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended to illumine his dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his wounds her salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity and his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the inconstancy of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious condition of her gifts; experience had satisfied him of their real value; he had enjoyed them without guilt; he might resign them without a sigh, and calmly disdain the impotent malice of his enemies, who had left him happiness, since they had left him virtue. 108 The characters of his two delators, Basilius (Var. ii. 10, 11; iv. 22) and Opilio (v. 41; viii. 16), are illustrated, not much to their honour, in the epistles of Cassiodorius, which likewise mention Decoratus (v. 31), the worthless colleague of Boethius (1. iii. pros. 4, p. 193). [On the contrary we derive a favourable impression from Cassiodorus as to the character of the accusers Cyprian and Opilio, and also as to Decoratus. Cp. Var. viii. 17; v. 3, 4. Hodgkin, iii. 543 sqq.] 109 A severe inquiry was instituted into the crime of magic (Var. iv. 22, 23; ix. 18); and it was believed that many necromancers had escaped by making their gaolers mad: for mad, I should read drunk. [The condemnation of Boethius and Symmachus had nothing to do with religion, so that they are in no sense martyrs.] 110 Boethius had composed his own Apology (p. 53), perhaps more interesting than his Consolation. We must be content with the general view of his honours, principles, persecution, &c. (1. i. pros. iv. p. 42-62), which may be compared with the short and weighty words of the Valesian Fragment (p. 723 [§ 85]). An anonymous writer (Sinner, Catalog. Mss. Bibliot. Bern. tom. i. p. 287) charges him home with honourable and patriotic treason. |