A.D. 369. A.D. 370. A.D. 373. A.D. 374. A.D. 379. A.D. 381. Οr. ix., προτρεπτικὸς Οὐαλεντινιανῷ τῷ νέφ. Το Valentinian the younger, son of Valens, consul of the year. Or. x., ènì rūs eiphyns, pronounced before the Senate of Constantinople, congratulating Valens on his peace with the Goths. Or. xi., deketnpikós (March 28). On the decennalia of Valens, who was then in Syria. Or. xii. An appeal for religious toleration. Or. xiii., èpwτikós, pronounced in honour of Gratian at Rome, whither Οr. xiv., πρεσβευτικὸς εἰς Θεοδόσιον αὐτοκράτορα (early in the year), Or. xv., els codóσtov (February or March). On the virtues of a king. Οr. xvi., χαριστήριος τῷ αὐτοκράτορι ὑπὲρ τῆς εἰρήνης καὶ τῆς ὑπατείας του σтратηуοû Zαтopvívov (January). On the peace with the Goths in 382. Or. xvii., ènì tỷ Xeipotovią tŷs moλiapxlas. Returning thanks for his own appointment to the Prefecture of Constantinople (c. Sept. 1 ?). A.D. 384. Or. xviii., repì tŷs Toû Baσiλéws Piλnkotas. Panegyric of Theodosius. A.D. 385. Οr. xix., ἐπὶ τῇ φιλανθρωπίᾳ τοῦ αὐτοκράτορος Θεοδοσίου, pronounced in the Senate; praises the clemency of Theodosius (before Sept. 14). SYNESIUS of Cyrene (born 360-70 A.D.) studied first at Alexandria, afterwards at Athens. When he had completed his academical course he returned to the Pentapolis and led the life of a cultivated country gentleman. In 397 A.D. he arrived in Constantinople to plead the cause of Cyrene at the court, and stayed there some years, where he enjoyed the friendship of Aurelian. During that time he delivered his speech on the office of king (see above, p. 259), and witnessed the fall of Aurelian and rebellion of Gainas. He afterwards made these events the subject of a bold political "squib," entitled "The Egyptians". For the light which this throws on the political parties and intrigues in Constantinople, see below, Appendix 21. After the Gainas episode, Aurelian returned, and by his influence the petition of Synesius was granted. Synesius then returned to Africa (probably in 402 to Alexandria, and 404 to Cyrene; so Seeck, who has revised the chronology of the letters of Synesius in a very valuable study in Philologus, 52, p. 458 sqq., 1893). Translation of his interesting descriptions of the pleasures of country life will be found in Mr. Halcomb's excellent article on 66 Synesius," in the Dict. of Chr. Biography. These descriptions occur in his letters, of which 156 are extant ' (included in the Epistolographi Græci of Hercher). The Cyrenaica, however, was exposed to the depredation of the nomads, owing to the incompetence of the governor Cerealis, and Synesius took an active part in defending the province. In 403 he had married a Christian wife; he came under the influence of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria (where he resided a couple of years); and was gradually converted to Christianity. In 410 he yielded to the wishes of the people of Ptolemais and became a bishop. He died a few years later. His works, which included philosophical poems, may be most conveniently consulted in Migne's edition (Monograph: Volkmann, Synesios von Cyrene, 1869. See also A. Nieri, La Cirenaica nel secolo quinto giusta le lettere di Sinesio, in the Revista di filologia, 21, 220 sqq., 1892; W. S. Crawford, Synesius the Hellene, 1901). PALLADIUS, Bishop of Helenopolis, wrote a biographical work on John Chrysostom (of whom he was a supporter) under the title "A Dialogue with Theodore the Deacon". After Chrysostom's banishment, not being safe in Constantinople, he went to Rome and explained to the Pope the true facts of Chrysostom's treatment. Afterwards returning to the east he was thrown into prison, and then banished to a remote part of Egypt. At a later time his sentence was revoked; he seems to have been restored to Helenopolis, and was then translated to the See of Aspuna in Galatia I. (Socrates, vii. 36). A strict ascetic himself, he dedicated to Lausus the Chamberlain (of Theodosius ii. ?) a compila 1 Among them, letters to Hypatia. tion of short biographies of men and women of his time who had embraced the ascetic life. It is known as the Historia Lausiaca (written about 420 A.D.); more will be said of it in considering the sources for the growth of monasticism, in an appendix to vol. iv. The History (Aóyoɩ iσтopiol) of the pagan OLYMPIODORUS (of the Egyptian Thebes) in twenty-two books was a highly important work. It embraced eighteen years of contemporary history (A.D. 407-425). It is unluckily lost, but valuable fragments are preserved in the Bibliotheca of Photius (amongst others a curious account of the initiation of new students at the university of Athens, fr. 28). The work was used as a source by the somewhat later writers, Philostorgius, Socrates, Sozomen, and later still by Zosimus, so that our historical material for the reign of Honorius and the first half of the reign of Theodosius ii. depends more largely on Olympiodorus than might be inferred from the extent of the Photian fragments. He himself described his work as material (λn) for history. He dedicated it to Theodosius ii. The most convenient edition of the fragments is that in Müller's Fragmenta Hist. Græc., iv. p. 57 sqq. In the same place (69 sqq.) will be found the fragments of PRISCUS of Panium in Thrace, whose history probably began about A.D. 433 and ended at 474. The most famous is the account of his embassy to Hunland, but other very valuable notices from his work are preserved. So far as we can judge from these remains he was perhaps the best historian of the fifth century. He was a source of Cassiodorus and so of Jordanes, for the history of Attila. Q. Aurelius SYMMACHUS (of a rich but not an ancient family 2) was born not long after 340. The details of his career are rehearsed on the base of a statue which his son set up in his house: Q. Aur(elio) Symmacho v(iro) c(larissimo) quaest (ori) pret(ori) pontifici maiori, correctori Lucaniae et Brittiorum, comiti ordinis tertii, procons(uli) Africae, praef(ecto) urb(i), co(nsuli) ordinario, oratori disertissimo, Q. Fab(ius) Memm(ius) Symmachus v(ir) c(larissimus) patri optimo. On the occasion of the quinquennalia of Valentinian (A.D. 369, Feb. 25) he carried the Senate's congratulations and aurum oblaticium to the Emperor and pronounced panegyrics on Valentinian and Gratian, of which fragments remain (Or. i. and Or. iii., ed. Seeck, p. 318 and 330). He remained with the court, and accompanied the Emperors on their Alamannic expedition in 369 (like Ausonius). He celebrated the campaign in a second panegyric in honour of Valentinian's third consulship, A.D. 370 (Orat. ii.). He was proconsul of Africa at the time of the revolt of Firmus (373-375). He was prefect of Rome in 384, and his appointment probably marks a revival of the pagan influence after Gratian's death. In the same year he drew up the celebrated third Relatio to Theodosius for the restoration of the Altar of Victory, which had been removed by Gratian in 382. In 388, as the spokesman of the senate, he pronounced a panegyric on the tyrant Maximus, when he invaded Italy, and for this he was accused of treason on Valentinian's restoration, and with difficulty escaped punishment. The Panegyric and the Apology to Theodosius which he wrote after his pardon are mentioned by Socrates (v. 14), but have not survived. In 391 he was consul, and took the occasion of a panegyric which he pronounced in the presence of Theodosius to recommend to him a petition which the Roman senate had recently preferred for the restoration of the Altar of Victory. The result is described by Gibbon (p. 203). Next year Symmachus made another unsuccessful attempt with Valentinian. He probably survived the year 404. His works have been edited by Seeck (in the Mon. Germ. Hist.). They consist of nine Books of Letters, and the Relationes (which used to be numbered as a tenth Book of Letters); and fragmentary remains of eight Orations (first published by Mai, and unknown to Gibbon). His father, L. Aurelius Avianius Symm. (consul 330), was prefect of Rome in A.D. 364-5. Statues were set up to him both in Rome and Constantinople, as is recorded in an inscription, where the public offices which he held are enumerated. He was princeps senatus. C. I. L. 6, 1698. For the Panegyric (A.D. 389) of Drepanius Latinus PACATUS, see p. 175. The poems of Decimus Magnus AUSONIUS (born c. 310 at Burdigala) are more important for the literary than for the political history of the century. His uncle and præceptor Arborius, with whom he lived at Tolosa (320-28), had the honour of being for a time teacher of one of Constantine's sons (Constantine or Constantius). He became a teacher of grammar (about 334) and soon afterwards of rhetoric, in his native town, and married about the same time. About 364 A.D. he was summoned to the court of Trier to instruct Gratian. In 368 and 369 he accompanied Valentinian and Gratian on their Alamannic campaigns. He refers to their victories in his Mosella (written at Trier in 370-1): Hostibus exactis Nicrum super et Lupodunum Et fontem Latiis ignotum annalibus Histri (423-4). In 370 he obtained the rank of comes and in 375 was promoted to be quæstor sacri palatii. His son Hesperius (A.D. 376 proconsul of Africa) became in 377 prætorian prefect of Italy, while his son-in-law Thalassius became in 378 proconsul of Africa. Ausonius himself was appointed Prætorian prefect of Gaul in first months of 378 (see Cod. Th. 8, 5, 35). But in his Epicedion in Patrem he describes his son Hesperius as, Praefectus Gallis et Libyæ et Latio. By coupling this with words in the Gratiarum Actio to Gratian, § 7, ad praefecture collegium filius cum patre coniunctus, and Liber Protrept. ad Nepotem, v. 91, praefecturam duplicem, it has been concluded (see Peiper's preface to his ed. p. ci.) that, in consequence of the relationship between the two praefects, the praefectures of Gaul and Italy were temporarily united into a single administration under the collegial government of father and son, and, when Ausonius laid down the office in the last month of 379, again divided. In 379 he was consul. His death occurred later than 393. One of his most intimate friends was his pupil Pontius Paulinus, and he was in touch with many other men of literary im portance, such as Symmachus and Drepanius Pacatus. His son-in-law Thalassins was the father (by a first wife) of the poet Paulinus of Pella. The works of Ausonius have been edited by Schenkl (in Mon. Germ. Hist.) and by Peiper (1886). Of Pontius PAULINUS of Nola, the most important of various people of the same name (to be distinguished from (1) Paulinus of Pella, (2) the author of the Life of St. Ambrose, and (3) Paulinus of Périgueux, who in the latter half of fifth century wrote a Life of St. Martin), there are extant various works both poetical and, in prose, epistles and a panegyric on Theodosius i. Born about 354, he retired to Nola in 394 and died 431 (there is an account of his death in a letter of Uranius to Pacatus, printed in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. 53). His descriptions of Churches at Nola, in Epistle 32 and in some of his poems (18, 21, 27, 28), are of great importance for the history of Christian architecture. His letters and poems have recently been edited by Hartel, 1894, in the Vienna Corpus scr. ecc. Lat. (Monograph: A. Bose, Paulin und seine Zeit, 1856). PAULINUS of Pella (his father, a native of Burdigala, was Praetorian Praefect of Illyricum; which explains the birth of Paulinus in Macedonia) is known by his poem entitled Eucharisticon Deo sub ephemeridis meæ textu (published in De la Bigne, Bibliot. Patr., Appendix col. 281, ed. 1579; critical ed. by G. Brandes, 1888, in the Vienna Corpus scr. ecc. Lat.); contains one or two important notices of events in Aquitania at the time of Ataulf's invasion. The poet, thirty years old then, was appointed comes largitionum by the tyrant Attalus, Ut me conquirens solacia vana tyrannus Burdigala was burnt down by the Goths, who, not knowing that he held this dignity, stripped him and his mother of their property. He went to the neigh bouring Vasates; induced the Alans to separate from the Goths and undertake the Roman cause; and the town was delivered by their intervention. (J. Rocafort. Un type gallo-romain. Paulin de Pella; Sa vie, son poème, 1896, contains s French translation.) 1 It is probable that Claudius CLAUDIANUS was born in Egypt and certain that he belonged to Alexandria and spent his early years there (cp. Sidonius Apoll. ix. 275, and Birt's preface to his ed. of Claudian, ad init.). His father Claudian (cp. C. I. L. 6, 1710) may be identical with Claudian the brother of the philosopher Maximus, Julian's teacher (Eunapius, Vit. Soph., p. 47 and 101, ed. Boiss; Birt, ib. p. vi.). At Alexandria he wrote poems in Greek, and a fragment of his reyavroμaxia has been preserved. (There seems to have been another Greek poet of the same name, who wrote in the reign of Theodosius ii., and to him may be ascribed perhaps some Christian epigrams. But it is certain that the great Claudian wrote in Greek, and his authorship of the гiyavтoμaxía has been successfully vindicated by Birt.) He seems to have come to Italy in or before A.D. 394, where he obtained a small post in one of the departments (scrinia) under the control of the magister officiorum; and his poetical talents were discovered in the senatorial circles of Rome. He was patronised by Rufinus Synesius Hadrianus, a countryman of his own, who held the post of Count of the Sacred Largesses (A.D. 395; he was Mag. Offic., 397-399, and subsequently Praet. Praef. of Italy), and by members of the great Anician family, in the years 394 and 395, before he was discovered and "taken up" by Stilicho and the court of Honorius. From 396 to 404 he was a sort of poet laureate to the Imperial court; Honorius was his Augustus, Stilicho his Maecenas. His fame and favour did not bring any remarkable advancement in his career in the civil service; by the year 400 he had become tribune and notary. But he enjoyed the ample honour of having his statue erected (perhaps at the beginning of A.D. 400; Birt, op. cit., xliv.) in the Forum of Trajan, and the inscription of this statue is preserved in the Museum of Naples. It is printed in C. I. L. 6, 1710, and ends with the Greek distich: ΕΙΝ ΕΝΙ ΒΙΡΓΙΛΙΟΙΟ ΝΟΟN ΚΑΙ MOYCAN ΟΜΗΡΟΥ KAATAIANON PÒMH KAI BACIAHC EOECAN We have no record of Claudian's death; but it is a probability closely approaching certainty that he died in A.D. 404 (so Birt, p. lix.). The silence of his muse after this date, amidst the public events which ensued, is unintelligible on any other supposition. Here a conclusion from silence seems to be justified. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CLAUDIAN'S POEMS (AFTER BIRT). Γιγαντομαχία Letters to Olybrius and Probinus (= Carm. Min., 40, 41) Raptus Proserpinae Panegyr. de iii. consulatu Honorii In Rufinum Libri i. and ii. Carm. Min., 32 Carm. Min., 21, 22 Carm. Min., 19 Præfatio to Bk. ii. in Rufinum, and the whole work published Panegyricus de iv. cons. Honorii Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii, and De Bello Gildonico Panegyricus dictus Manlio Theodoro consuli In Eutropium Bk. i., written and pub- In Eutropium Bk. ii. and Præfatio A.D. 394, or shortly before. A.D. 394 between Sept. and Dec. A.D. 395. between A.D. 395 and 397. A.D. 395 between Sept. and Dec. A.D. 396. A.D. 397 or later. A.D. 397. A.D. 397 between Sept. and Dec. A.D. 398 Jan., Feb. between A.D. 398 and A.D. 404. A.D. 398 between Oct. and Dec. A.D. 399 between Jan. and June. 4 He attests it himself, Carm. Min., 41, 14, et Latiae accessit Graia Thalia togae, VOL. III.-33 This table may be found convenient by those who have the older editions of Claudian. More details, and the proofs of the chronology, will be found in Th. Birt's Preface to his complete and admirable edition of Claudian (in Mon. Germ. Hist., 1892). A useful text founded on Birt's work has been published by L. Koch (1893). Cp. also Jeep, Cl. Claudiani Carmina, 1876-9. Vogt, de Claudiani car minum quæ Stiliconem prædicant fide historica, 1863. Ney, Vindicia Claudianes, 1865. Aurelius PRUDENTIUS Clemens-the first distinctly Christian Latin poet-was a Spaniard by birth (born A.D. 348). He gave up a secular career at the age of fiftyseven and spent the remainder of his life in composing Christian poetry. For historical purposes his most important work is the Contra Symmachum in two Books, on the question of the Altar of Victory. It is important to determine the date of this work. It seems decisive (as Birt has observed in his Preface to Claudian) that in Bk. ii. Prudentius sings of the victory over Alaric at Pollentia but does not mention the triumph of Verona (see below, Appendix 14). It follows that the work Contra Symmachum appeared between May 402 and August 403; another inference is that Symmachus was alive (cp. Gibbon, chap. xxviii. n. 22) in the year 402-3. (Birt points out a number of verbal echoes which show that the muse of the Christian poet was stimulated by the "Gothic War" of the pagan.) It seems highly probable that this controversial poem was called forth by an actual permis sion granted by Honorius to restore the Altar of Victory in A.D. 399. At least this is a very plausible inference from a line (19) of Claudian in the Præf. to De cons. I Stil. iii. (a poem of that year): advexit reduces secum Victoria Musas, combined with de vi. cons. Hon. 597: adfuit ipsa suis ales Victoria templis (Edition of Prudentius: H. Dressel, 1860. Rev. F. St. J. Thackeray, 1890.) "Translations from Prudentius," The most distinguished poet in the reign of Valentinian iii., before the rise of Sidonius, was the Spaniard, Flavius MEROBAUDES. Sidonius mentions, with out naming, him in Carm. ix. 296 sqq., as one who was honoured (like Claudia by a statue in the Forum of Trajan. sed nec tertius ille nunc legetur Baetin qui patrium semel relinquens Sirmondus brilliantly guessed the identity of the poet referred to in these lines and his guess was confirmed by the discovery of the basis of the statue, with the 5 There was another contemporary poet, Quintianus a Ligurian, who also sang the praises of Aetius. Sidonius, c. ix. 289 sqq. |
