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than for his private worth (Parent, i.). Hismother, Aemilia Aeonia, was descended from theancient nobility of the Aedui (Parent, ii.). Theyoung Ausonius, who was born at Burdigala(Bordeaux) early in the 4th century, was des-tined ere long to fulfil the twofold destiny thusforeshadowed in his parentage. His poems,which are singularly communicative as to hisprivate history, display him to us in riper yearsboth as student and courtier, professor and prae-fect, poet and consul. Owing probably to thehigh promise of a horoscope drawn for him byCaec. Agricius Arborius, his maternal grandfather(Parent. 4,17), special care seems to have beentaken of his education by his female relatives(Parent, ii., v., vi., xxv.), one of whom, his auntDryadia, had taken a vow of chastity. Fromthe professors of his native town he derived thefirst rudiments of Greek and Latin, and his educa-tion was completed by his uncle Arborius, who* taught rhetoric at Toulouse (Parent, iii. 12;Clar. Urb. xii.). Upon his return to Bordeauxhe practised for a time at the bar, but abandonedthis calling for the more congenial one of aschoolmaster. At the age of 30 he was pro-moted to the chair of rhetoric in his native city,and not long after was invited to court by thethen Christian Emperor Valentinian I., who ap-pointed him tutor to his son Gratian (Praef. adSyagr. 15-26). About this time he marriedAttusia Lucana Sabina, from whom he was sepa-rated by death after a brief union, and for whosesake he continued a widower during the remainderof a long life (Parent, viii. 18). Some of hismost touching verses are addressed to this lady.Ausonius was held in high regard by the emperorand his son, and accompanied the former in hisexpeditions against the Alemanni. It was nodoubt during the residence of the court at Trfcvesat this time that he composed his Mosella. Manyof his lighter pieces also seem to belong to thisperiod, those especially which reflect the loosemorality of the camp. From Valentinian heobtained the title of Comes and the office ofQuaestor, and on the accession of Gratian becamesuccessively Praefect of Latium, Libya, and Gaul,and finally, a.d. 379, was raised to the consul-ship (Praef. ad Syagr. 35, &c.; Epigr. ii., iii., defast). The letter of Gratian conferring this dig-nity, and the poet’s grateful reply, are bothextant. After the death of Gratian, a.d. 383,although he seems to have enjoyed the favourof Theodosius (Praef. ad Theodos.\ it is probablethat he returned to the neighbourhood of hisnative city and spent the remainder of his lifein studious retirement (Ep. xxiv.). His corre-spondence with Paulinus evidently belongs tothese later years. The date of his death is un-known, but he was certainly alive in a.d. 388,as he rejoices in the victory of Theodosius overthe murderer of Gratian at Aquileia (Clar. Urb.vii.).

The question of the poet’s religion has alwaysbeen a matter of dispute. Voss, Cave, Heindrich,Muratori, &c., maintaining that he was a pagan,while Jos. Scaliger, Fabricius, Funccius, andlater M. Ampere, uphold the contrary view.Without assenting to the extreme opinion ofTrithemius, who even makes him out to haveheld the see of Bordeaux, we may safely pro-nounce in favour of his Christianity. The nega-tive view rests purely upon assumptions, such

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as that a Christian would not have been guiltyof the grossness with which some of his poemsare stained, nor have been on such intimateterms with prominent heathens (Symmach. Epp.ad Auson. passim), nor have alluded so constantlyto pagan rites and mythology without someexpression of disbelief. On the other hand hewas not only appointed tutor to the Christianson of a Christian emperor, whom he seems atany rate to have instructed in the Christiandoctrine of prayer ( Grat . Act. 43); but certainof his poems testify distinctly to his Christianityin language that is only to be set aside by as-suming the poems themselves to be spurious.Such are (1.) the first of his idylls, entitledVersus Paschales, and commencing Sancta salu -tiferi redeunt solemnia Christy the genuinenessof which is proved by a short prose address tothe reader connecting it with the next idyll, theEpicedion , inscribed to his father. (2.) TheEphemeris , an account of the author’s mode ofspending his day, which contains not merely anallusion to the chapel in which his morningdevotions were performed (1. 7), but a distinctconfession of faith, in the form of a prayer tothe first two Persons of the Trinity. (3.) Theletters of the poet to his friend and former pupilSt. Paulinus of Nola, when the latter had for-saken the service of the pagan Muses for thelife of a Christian recluse. This correspond-ence so far from being evidence that he was aheathen (see Cave, &c.), displays him to usrather as a Christian by conviction, still cling-ing to the pagan associations of his youth, andincapable of understanding a truth which hadrevealed itself to his friend, that Christianitywas not merely a creed but a life. The lettersare a beautiful instance of wounded but notembittered affection on the one side, and ofan attachment almost filial tempered by firmreligious principle on the other. Paulinus no-where chides Ausonius for his paganism ; on thecontrary, he assumes his Christianity (Paulin.Ep. ii. 18,19), and this is still further confirmedby a casual passage in one of the poet’s lettersto Paulinus, in which he speaks of the necessityof returning to Bordeaux in order to keep Easter(Ep. viii. 9). To say that Ausonius was a Christianin the same sense as Paulinus would be goingtoo far, but he was one of those spirits thathovered on the border-land which still separatedthe new from the old religion; not ashamed, itis true, to pen obscenities beneath the eye andat the challenge of his patron, yet in the quietof his oratory feeling after the God of theChristians; convinced apparently of the dogmaof the Trinity, yet so little penetrated by itsawful mystery as to give it a haphazard placein a string of frivolous triplets composed at thedinner-table (Qryph. Tern. 87): keenly aliveto natural beauty, and susceptible of the ten-derest affection, he yet fell short of appreciatingin his disciple the more perfect beauty of holi-ness, and the entire abnegation of self for thelove of a divine master. And yet the spiritwhich breathes in the poet’s letters to Paulinusis a marked advance upon the careless tone ofhis more youthful productions; and it is pos-sible that his collected works, as they have comedown to us, include much that their authorwould have disowned at the close of his long life.

The works of Ausonius comprise :—