Decimus Magnus Ausonius | |
|---|---|
 Monument to Ausonius in Milan | |
| Born | c. 310 |
| Died | c. 395 |
| Occupation(s) | poet, teacher |
| Relatives |
|
Decimus Magnus Ausonius[1] (/ɔːˈsoʊniəs/;c. 310 – c. 395) was aRoman poet andteacher ofrhetoric fromBurdigala,Aquitaine (nowBordeaux, France). For a time, he was tutor to the future EmperorGratian, who afterwards bestowed theconsulship on him. His best-known poems areMosella, a description of the RiverMoselle, andEphemeris, an account of a typical day in his life. His many other verses show his concern for his family, friends, teachers and circle of well-to-do acquaintances and his delight in the technical handling ofmeter.
Decimus Magnus Ausonius was bornc. 310 inBurdigala (nowBordeaux), the son ofJulius Ausonius (c. 290 – 378), aphysician ofGreek ancestry,[2][3] and Aemilia Aeonia, daughter of Caecilius Argicius Arborius, descended on both sides from established, land-owningGallo-Roman families of southwesternGaul.[3]
Ausonius was given a strict upbringing by his aunt and grandmother, both named Aemilia. He received an excellent education at Bordeaux and at Toulouse, where his maternal uncle,Aemilius Magnus Arborius, was a professor. Ausonius did well in grammar and rhetoric, but professed that his progress inGreek was unsatisfactory. In 328 Arborius was summoned to Constantinople to become tutor toConstans, the youngest son of Constantine the Great, whereupon Ausonius returned to Bordeaux to complete his education under the rhetorician Minervius Alcimus. He had a sister, Dryadia, who lived to 60, a sister Aemilia Melania, who died in infancy, as well as a younger brotherAvitianus, who died before reachingpuberty, whom Ausonius laments in hisParentalia.[4]
Having completed his studies, he trained for some time as an advocate, but he preferred teaching. In 334 he became agrammaticus (instructor) at a school of rhetoric in Bordeaux and afterwards arhetor or professor. His teaching attracted many pupils, some of whom became eminent in public life. His most famous pupil was the poetPaulinus, who later became aChristian andBishop of Nola.
After thirty years of that work, Ausonius was summoned by EmperorValentinian I to teach his son,Gratian, the heir-apparent. When Valentinian took Gratian on the German campaigns of 368–369, Ausonius accompanied them. Ausonius turned literary skill into political capital. In recognition of his services emperor Valentinian bestowed on Ausonius the rank ofquaestor. His presence at court gave Ausonius the opportunity to connect with a number of influential people. In 369, he metQuintus Aurelius Symmachus; their friendship proved mutually beneficial.[5]
Gratian liked and respected his tutor, and when he became emperor in 375, he began bestowing on Ausonius and his family the highest civil honors. That year Ausonius was made Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, campaigned against theAlemanni and received as part of his booty a slave girl,Bissula (to whom he addressed a poem), and his father, though nearly ninety years old, was given the rank of prefect of Illyricum.
In 376 Ausonius's son,Hesperius, was madeproconsul of Africa. In 379 Ausonius was awarded theconsulate, the highest Roman honour.[6]
In 383, the army of Britain, led byMagnus Maximus, revolted against Gratian and assassinated him at Lyons; and when EmperorValentinian II was driven out of Italy, Ausonius retired to his estates nearBurdigala (now Bordeaux), in Gaul.[6] Magnus Maximus was overthrown by EmperorTheodosius I in 388, but Ausonius did not leave his country estates. They were, he says, hisnidus senectutis, the "nest of his old age", and there, he spent the rest of his days, composing poetry and writing to many eminent contemporaries, several of whom had been his pupils. His estates supposedly included the land now owned byChâteau Ausone, which takes its name from him.
Ausonius appears to have been a late convert toChristianity.[6] He died about 395.[6]
His grandson,Paulinus of Pella, was also a poet. His works attest to the devastation that Ausonius's Gaul would face soon after his death.
Although admired by his contemporaries, the writings of Ausonius have not since been ranked amongLatin literature's finest. His style is easy and fluent, and hisMosella is appreciated for its evocation of the life and the country along the RiverMoselle, but he is considered derivative and unoriginal.Edward Gibbon pronounced in hisDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire that "the poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age".[9] However, Ausonius's works have several points of interest:
Collige, virgo, rosas, dum flos novus et nova pubes
et memor esto aevum sic properare tuum.
Gather, girl, roses while the flower is fresh and fresh is youth,
remembering that your own time is hurrying on.
Itque reditque viam totiens | uteroque recusso
transadigit costas | et pectine pulsat eburno.
Iamque fere spatio extremo fessique sub ipsam
finem adventabant: | tum creber anhelitus artus
aridaque ora quatit, sudor fluit undique rivis,
labitur exsanguis, | destillat ab inguine virus.
Back and forth he plies his path and, the cavity reverberating,
thrusts between the bones, and strikes with ivory quill.
And now, their journey covered, wearily they neared
their very goal: then rapid breathing shakes his limbs
and parched mouth, his sweat in rivers flows;
down he slumps bloodless; the fluid drips from his groin.
His writings are also remarkable for mentioning in passing the working of awater mill sawing marble on a tributary of theMoselle:
....renowned isCelbis for glorious fish, and that other, as he turns his mill-stones in furious revolutions and drives the shrieking saws through smooth blocks of marble, hears from either bank a ceaseless din...
The excerpt sheds new light on the development ofRoman technology in using water power for different applications. It is one of the rare references inRoman literature to water mills used to cut stone, but that is a logical consequence of the application of water power to mechanical sawing of stone and presumably wood also. Earlier references to the widespread use of mills occur inVitruvius in hisDe Architectura ofc. 25 BC, and theNaturalis Historia ofPliny the Elder published in 77 AD. Such applications of mills would multiply after the fall of the empire through theMiddle Ages into themodern era. The mills atBarbegal, in southernFrance, are famous for their application of water power to grinding grain to make flour and were built in the 1st century AD. They consisted of 16 mills in a parallel sequence on a hill nearArles.
The construction of a saw mill is even simpler than a flour or grinding mill since no gearing is needed, and the rotary saw blade can be driven directly from the water wheel axle, as the example ofSutter's Mill,California, shows. However, a different mechanism is shown by the sawmill atHieropolis,Asia Minor, involving a frame saw that is operated by a crank and connecting rod.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ausonius, Decimus Magnus".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 935–936.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Roman consul 379 withQ. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
