AIJXENTIUS
AVITUS, ALCIMUS ECDICIUS 233
and of Arichisus as duke of the province whichhe inhabits; evidently the province of Benevento,of which Arrigis* was duke. Now Didier wasthe last king of the Lombards, and was de-throned by Charles’the Great in 774 (see Gibbon,chap. 49), and Arrigis submitted to the samegreat conqueror in 786, and consented to holdhis duchy as a fief. Consequently it must havebeen after the completion of this book that Aut-pert was elected abbot, and in that capacity ob-tained from Charles a confirmation (pvaccepturri )of all the rights hitherto enjoyed by his monas-tery. The document is given by Duchesne; itis chiefly curious as a study of local geography.Autpert held the abbacy for about the last yearand a quarter of his life. A later legend reportsthat having been afflicted with a stammering inhis speech, he gained perfect freedom of enun-ciation through the favour of the blessed Virgin.His death, as has been said, took place in a.d. 778or 779. Some have confounded him with a laterAutpert, who was abbot of Monte Cassino underthe Emperor Lothair.
Writings. —Tritheim remarked in 1546 thatonly few of Autpert’s writings have come downto posterity. He had only been able to find thefollowing:— In Cantica Canticorum, lib. i. InPsalterinm, lib. i. Donum Sapientiae. Episto-larum ad diversos, lib. i. De Cupiditate , lib. i.In Apoccilypsin Joannis lib. decem.
There have also been ascribed to him— Liberde confiictu vitiorum et virtutum inter Ambrosii etAugastini opera repcrtus. Sei'mo in Assumptio-nem B. Mariae xviiimus inter Sermones Augusti-nianos de Sanctis. Sermo de lectione S. Evan -gelii, qui ad crdcem operum S. Amh'osii in edit.Paris, reperitur. Vita SS. Poldonis t Tatonis etJasonis una cum historica Monasterii sui relationea Mabillonio edita. Homiliae de S. Matthia depurijicatione B. M. et aliae Homiliae. (These lastare either lost or else preserved in the library atMonte Cassino.)
This second list is ab-judged away from ourAutpert, and we should think justly, by Cave:who would assign all to the abbot of Monte Cas-sino except the lives of S. Paldo, &c., which heascribes to a third and later Autpert. For re-marks on Autpert’s writings see the generalnotice of Gallican divines of the primitive andearlier middle age. [V incentius.] [J. G. C.]
AUXENTTTJS, a bishop of Mopsuestia ina.d. 360, by whom the heretic Aetius washospitably received on his banishment (Philost.H.E.y. 1 , 2; Suidas, i. 491). He is said byPhilostorgius to have been brother of Theodoreof Tarsus, but the chronology is confused.Philostorgius (a pud Suidam sub voc .) relates avery pleasing tale of his having been an officerand notary in the army of Licinius, and havingat once thrown up his commission rather thanobey the emperor’s command to lay a bunch ofgrapes at the feet of a statue of Bacchus. Onthis ground Baronius places him in the Romanmartyrology (Dec. 18), but his authority fordoing this is questioned by Tillemont, Me'moires ,vi. 786-7, who is inclined to believe that Auxen-tius was an Arian, as his patronage of Aetiuswould indicate [E. V.]
R Airigo is a common form for Enrico in modern Ita-lian; ju&t as we have Marry for Henry.
AUXILIUS, bishop of Carthage, at thebeginning of the 5th century. Chrysostom wroteto him from Cucusus, a.d. 406, commendingthe zeal he had shown in promoting the peace ofthe church (Chrysost. Ep. cxlix.). He waspresent at the councils held at Carthage, a.d.411, 412, 416, that of Cirta, A.D. 412, andMilevium, a.d. 416 (Labbe, Condi, ii. 1336,1510, 1519, 1533, 1544). [E. V.]
AVIDA, the name of the antagonist in theDialogue on Fate ascribed to Bardeisan (Cure-ton’s Spicileg. Syr. 1-15). It is written ’A/3et'5asin the common texts of Epiphanius, i. 477 A, butA veiSas in the Venice MS. [Bardeisan.]Hilgenfeld ( Bardesanes d. letzte Gnostiker , 74f.) supposes Avida to represent Avit/is , one ofthe original names of Elagabalus, with whomthere are other reasons for thinking that Bar-deisan came in contact; and refers to Eusebius’sstatement (AT. E. iv. 30) that the Dialogue wasaddressed to “Antoninus,” Antoninus being oneof the Roman names assumed by Elagabalus.But the grounds are insufficient. [II.]
AVITUS, ALCIMUS ECDICIUS, a son ofIsicius or Hesychius, Archbishop of Vienne inNarbonian Gaul, was born about the middle olthe 5th century. His father belonged to afamily of senatorial rank. His mother, Au-dentia, was, in all probability, a sister of M.Maecilius Avitus, Emperor of the West, a.d. 456.The mother of Sidonius Apollinaris the poet,who, in a letter to Alcimus Avitus, speaks oftheir near relationship and the identity of theiryouthful pursuits, seems to have been anothersister of the same illustrious family (Sidon.Apoll. Ep. iii. 1, 61). The life of a studentpresented greater attractions to the young Avitusthan thepossession of wealth and rank,and thoughin after years he addresses Roman senators asstill one of their own order (Ep. xxxi.), we findthat at an early age he bestowed his patrimonyupon the poor, and retired into the seclusion of amonastery close to the walls of his native city.Here he devoted himself to study, and gained sohigh a reputation for piety and learning that in490 a.d., upon the death of his father, he waselected to succeed him in the archbishopric. In494 a.d. he gave fresh proof of his charitabledisposition by completing the ransom of theItalian captives whom Epiphanius, Bishop ofPavia, came to seek at the Burgundian Court(Ennod. Vit. Epiphan. p. 234 B, ed. Migne).The fame of Avitus rests partly upon his poetryand partly upon the important part he wascalled to play in the controversies of his time.In 499 A.D. Vienne was captured by Gundobald,King of the Burgundians, who was at war withClovis, King of the Franks; and in the sameyear Avitus, as Metropolitan of S. and E. Gaul,took the lead in a conference between theCatholic and Arian bishops held in presence ofGundobald at Sardiniacum near Lyons (Greg.Turon., ii. 34). The king was convinced by theearnest entreaties and powerful reasoning ofAvitus, several of whose extant letters are ad-dressed to him, but could never be induced torecant his errors publicly. After his death,
B Ecdicius seems to have been a family name, since itwas borne by a son of the Emperor Avitus, who is cele-brated in history for the defence of Clermont against theVisigoths, a.d. 473—4.