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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON STUDIES IN FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURY LATIN LITERATURE WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO AUSONIUS by Geoffrey John Fisher A thesis submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Southampton January, 1981 , Acknowledgement s I must express a great debt of thanks to all members of staff and students of the Department of Classics, both for help with points of information and also for general moral support. In particular I should like to thank Dr. F.J. Williams for saving me from some of my worst errors. Dr. Anne Ross for assistance on some points of Celtic civilisation and Dr. T.O. Jones for a helpful discussion of medieval drama. I should also like to thank Mr. D. Owens and Mrs. J. Keen and Mr. K. Gilvary for their helpful comments at various stages. My thanks also go to my typists, Mrs. Sheila James and Mrs. Alison Parsons. Finally I should like to thank my supervisor. Professor H.D. Rankin, for his continuous encouragement and support at every stage of the composition of my thesis. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF ARTS CLASSICS Doctor of Philosophy STUDIES IN FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURY LATIN LITERATURE WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO AUSONIUS by Geoffrey John Fisher The main theme of this work is a discussion of the literary worth of the works of a number of authors of the Later Roman Empire. The works considered are those of Ausonius, Rutilius Namatianus, the anonymous Querolus and, to a lesser extent, Sidonius Apollinaris. The authors will be discussed in turn, beginning with Ausonius, the first chronologically. His work will be examined in the light of his career and of the prevailing conditions in Gaul during his lifetime. Particular attention will be paid to the use made of nature in his works, especially the Mosella. The poem by Rutilius Namatianus known as the De reditu suo will be examined both from an historical and from a literary viewpoint. The Querolus will be considered for its effectiveness as a piece of drama, particular attention being paid to the various kinds of humour to be found in the piece and the way in which it could have been staged. A dating of the play to the mid-fifth century will be suggested. The life and work of Sidonius Apollinaris will be examined in order to provide a view of the change in the political situation in the fifth century and therefore in the environment for literary production. It will be suggested that the writers in Gaul from the fourth century onwards were subject to influences not only from Roman literature but also from native traditions, the result of the Celtic Renaissance of the third century. It will be concluded, however, that despite these indisputable influences and also their undoubted local patriotism, all the writers were basically Roman in outlook, still determined to preserve civilisation on a Roman basis rather than a local one. Contents Page 1. Introduction. 1 2. Ausonius - his life and works. 3 3. Ausonius the teacher - the influence of the schools in his work. 16 4. Ausonius the politician. 33 5. Nature and emotion - the personal poetry. 46 6. The Mosella. 59 7. The man and his times. 82 8. Rutilius Namatianus - his life and career. 97 9. The De Reditu Suo. 103 10. Philosophy and religion. 118 11. Rutilius as a poet. 136 12. The position of drama in the Later Roman Empire. 147 13. The Querolus - introduction. 153 14. The metre of the Querolus. 163 15. The humour of the Querolus. 168 16. Sidonius Apollinaris and the end of Roman Gaul. 186 17. The Celtic Strain. 202 18. Gauls or Romans. 210 Appendix 215 Bibliography 219 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Despite the resurgence of interest in the history of the Later Roman Empire in the West, the secular Latin literature of the period has remained comparatively neglected. Ausonius, for example, with the partial exception of the Mosella, has been largely ignored, despite his position as the only major Latin poet of his generation. Furthermore, such attention as has been paid to the literature of the period has been historical rather than literary. I therefore intend to consider the works of various authors of this period, Ausonius, Rutilius Namatianus, Sidonius Apollinaris and the anonymous writer of the Querolus from a literary viewpoint, to see what these authors were trying to achieve with their work, and what effect they were trying to bring about among their audience. One cannot of course forget the political and historical aspects of their work to the extent that they bear upon the literary, for all three named writers were at some time involved in politics and government in a way which their predecessors of the Augustan age never were. On one level literature was of political importance because of its symbolic significance as an aspect of Roman, as opposed to barbarian, culture. On another, the use of the dedication of a piece of work as a quid pro quo for some favour must have been commonplace. In a similar fashion the receipt of a letter from Symmachus or Sidonius Apollinaris, or the publication of a letter which one had received and the immortality thus conferred upon one's name, was a cachet of personal success. It is within this framework of publication that we must examine the literary achievements of these writers. The fourth and early fifth century were comparatively peaceful, at least in relation to the invasions which had all but wrecked the Western Empire in the second half of the third century and those which finally brought it down in the fifth. This return to peace brought with it a return to more relaxed and civilised living, partly manifested in the form of education and literature. Gaul had long been highly regarded for its schools, but Autun, the centre of greatest excellence before the invasions, faded from prominence during the fourth century, perhaps because of its relative proximity to the threatened frontier. As a result, it was the south-western corner of France which took over the palm for education and the town of Bordeaux in particular. As a result of Bordeaux's rise to pre-eminence in this area, its teachers were soon known throughout at least the western part of the Roman world. In the middle of the fourth century men such as Minervius and Nazarius held sway, being succeeded by Ausonius, one of their pupils and the first of the authors dealt with in this survey. In some respects Ausonius is the father of Gaulish literature; Sidonius clearly looks back to him as a poet of great importance (Ep. IV, 14, 2), while Rutilius, although not naming him as a model, is obviously sprung from similar literary roots, an education in south-western Gaul. The importance of the literary output from southern Gaul during this period must be partly attributable to the high quality of education enjoyed there, but this localization of literary talent, the evidence for any local bias in their work and the reasons for it are also worthy of examination. As stated above, Ausonius is the earliest of the writers to be discussed, so it is with him that we shall start our investigation of the literature of the period. Chapter 2 Ausonius - His Life and Works "On peut mepriser le poete: nous demandons pour I'homme respect et sympathie." Thus wrote Camille Jullian,^ generally one of Ausonius' more sympathetic critics. Of course, some of Ausonius' poetry, especially the Mosella, has been praised by a majority of critics, but, more often than not, his poetry, in terms of modern taste, does not rise above the indifferent, when it is not downright bad. If this is the case, the question must arise whether his work is worth studying, but the answer must be an emphatic affirmative, for, in the best of his works, which is normally where the influence of the schools of rhetoric is at its most slender, he achieves a freshness and sympathy with his subject which is rarely found in Latin literature. Ausonius is also important for the information which he gives us about life in Gaul in the fourth century, and which provides the social historian with one of his primary sources. Much of Ausonius' life can be traced in references in his own writings; in fact, without the personal emphasis which pervades much of his work, we should know hardly anything of him from other sources. Ausonius was born in about 310 at Bordeaux and lived until about 394, his lifetime spanning most of the last period of peace and prosperity in Roman Gaul. He provides his reader with an introduction to his life and family in the first poem of 3 the Praefatiunculaef and returns to the topic several times elsewhere.