DRACONTIUS, BLOSSIUS AEMILIUS

This article appears in Volume V08, Page 465 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DIO-DRO

DRACONTIUS, BLOSSIUS AEMILIUS , of Carthage (according to the early tradition, of Spanish origin), Christian poet, flourished in the latter

part

PART

of the 5th

century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

A.D. He belonged to a family of landed proprietors, and practised as an

advocate

in his native place. After the conquest of the country by the Vandals,

Dracontius

DRACONTIUS, BLOSSIUS AEMILIUS

was at first allowed to retain possession of his estates, but was subsequently deprived of his property and thrown into prison by the Vandal king, whose triumphs he had omitted to celebrate, while he had written a panegyric on a foreign and hostile ruler. He subsequently addressed an elegiac poem to the king, asking

pardon

PARDON (through the Fr. from Late Lat. perdonare, to remit a debt or other obligation on a penalty)

and pleading for release. The result is not known, but it is supposed that

Dracontius

DRACONTIUS, BLOSSIUS AEMILIUS

obtained his liberty and migrated to northern Italy in

SEARCH, or VISIT AND SEARCH

of peace and quietness. This is consistent with the discovery at Bobbio of a 15th-

century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

MS., now in the Museo Borbonico at Naples, containing a number of poems by Dracontius (the Carmina mainora). The most important of his works is the De laudibus Dei or De Deo in three books, wrongly attributed by MS. tradition to St

Augustine

AUGUSTINE, SAINT (354-430)
AUGUSTINE, SAINT (d. c.613)

. The account of the creation,
which occupies the greater

part

PART

of the first book, was at an early date edited separately under the title of Hexaemeron, and it was
not till 1791 that the three books were edited by Cardinal
Arevalo. The apology (Satisfactio) consists of 158 elegiac
couplets; it is generally supposed that the king. addressed is Gunthamund (484-496). The Carmina minora, nearly all in hexameter verse, consist of school exercises and rhetorical declamations, amongst others the fable of Hylas, with a

preface

PREFACE (Med. Lat. prefatia, for classical praefatio, praefari, to speak beforehand)

to his tutor, the grammarian Felicianus; the

rape

of Helen; the story of

Medea

MEDEA (Gr. Mi/Seta)

; two epithalamia. It is also probable that Dracontius was the author of the Orestis tragoedia, a poem of some x000 hexameters, which in language, metre and general treatment of the subject exhibits a striking resemblance to the other works of Dracontius. Opinions differ as to his poetical merits, but, when due allowance is made for rhetorical exaggeration and consequent want of lucidity, his works show considerable vigour of expression, and a remarkable knowledge of the Bible and of Roman classical literature.

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