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CLAUDIANUS, CLAUDIUS
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See also:CLAUDIANUS, See also:CLAUDIUS , Latin epic poet and panegyrist, flourished during the reign of See also:Arcadius and See also:Honorius. He was an See also:Egyptian by See also:birth, probably an Alexandrian, but it may be conjectured from his name and his mastery of Latin that he was of See also:Roman extraction. His own authority has been assumed for the assertion that his first poetical dompositions were in See also:Greek, and that he had written nothing in Latin before A.D. 395; but this seems improbable, and the passage (Caren. See also:Min. xli. 13) which is taken to prove it does not necessarily See also:bear this meaning. In that See also:year he appears to have come to See also:Rome, and made his debut as a Latin poet by a See also:panegyric on the consulship of Oly brius and Probinus, the first See also:brothers not belonging to the imperial See also:family who had ever simultaneously filled the See also:office of See also:consul. This piece proved the precursor of the See also:series of panegyrical poems which compose the bulk of his writings. In Birt's edition a See also:complete See also:chronological See also:list of Claudian's poems is given, and also in J. B. See also:Bury's edition of See also:Gibbon (iii. app. i. p. 485), where the See also:dates given differ slightly from those in the See also:present See also:article. In 396 appeared the encomium on the third consulship of the See also:emperor Honorius, and the epic on the downfall of See also:Rufinus, the unworthy See also:minister of Arcadius at See also:Constantinople. This revolution was principally effected by the contrivance of See also:Stilicho, the See also:great See also:general and minister of Honorius. Claudian's poem appears to have obtained his patronage, or rather perhaps that of his wife See also:Serena, by whose interposition the poet was within a year or two enabled to See also:contract a wealthy See also:marriage in See also:Africa (Epist. 2). Previously to this event he had produced (398) his panegyric on the See also:fourth consulship of Honorius, his See also:epithalamium on the marriage of Honorius to Stilicho's daughter, Maria, and his poem on the Gildonic See also:war, celebrating the repression of a revolt in Africa. To these succeeded his piece on the consulship of See also:Manlius See also:Theodorus (399), the unfinished or mutilated invective against the See also:Byzantine See also:prime minister See also:Eutropius in the same year, the epics on Stilicho's first consulship and on his repulse of See also:Alaric (400 and 403), and the panegyric on the See also:sixth consulship of Honorius (404): From this See also:time all trace of Claudian is lost, and he is generally supposed to have perished with his See also:patron Stilicho in 408. It may be conjectured that he must have died in 404, as he could hardly otherwise have omitted to celebrate the greatest of Stilicho's achievements, the destruction of the See also:barbarian See also:host led by Radagaisus in the following year. On the other See also:hand, he may have survived Stilicho, as in the See also:dedication to the second See also:book of his epic on the See also:Rape of Proser See also:pine (which Birt, however, assigns to 395--397), he speaks of his disuse of See also:poetry in terms hardly reconcilable with the fertility which he displayed during his patron's lifetime. From the manner in which See also:Augustine alludes to him in his De civitate Dei, it may be inferred that he was no longer living at the date of the See also:composition of that See also:work, between 415 and 428. Besides Claudian's See also:chief poems, his lively Fescennines on the emperor's marriage, his panegyric on Serena, and the Gigantomachia, a fragment of an unfinished Greek epic, may also be mentioned. Several poems expressing See also:Christian sentiments are undoubtedly See also:spurious. Claudian's paganism, however, neither prevented his celebrating Christian rulers and magistrates nor his enjoying the distinction of a See also:court See also:laureate. It is probable that he was nominally a Christian, like his patron Stilicho and See also:Ausonius, although at See also:heart attached to the old See also:religion. The very decided statements of See also:Orosius and Augustine as to his heathenism may be explained by the See also:pagan See also:style of Claudian's See also:political poems. We have his own authority for his having been honoured by a See also:bronze statue in the See also:forum, and See also:Pomponius See also:Laetus discovered in the 15th See also:century an inscription (C.I.L. vi. 1710) on the See also:pedestal, which, formerly considered spurious, is now generally regarded as genuine. The position of Claudian—the last of the Roman poets—is unique in literature. It is sufficiently remarkable that, after nearly three centuries of torpor, the Latin muse should have experienced any revival in the See also:age of Honorius, nothing less than amazing that this revival should have been the work of a foreigner, most surprising of all that a just and enduring celebrity should have been gained by See also:official panegyrics on the generally uninteresting transactions of an inglorious See also:epoch. The first of these particulars bespeaks Claudian's See also:taste, rising See also:superior to the prevailing barbarism, the second his command of See also:language, the third his rhetorical skill. As remarked by Gibbon, " he was endowed with the rare and See also:precious See also:talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most barren, and of diversifying the most similar topics." This See also:gift is especially displayed in his poem on the downfall of Rufinus, where the See also:punishment of a public male-See also:factor is exalted to the dignity of an epical subject by the magnificence of diction and the ostentation of supernatural machinery. The See also:noble exordium, in which the See also:fate of Rufinus is propounded as the vindication of divine See also:justice, places the subject at once on a dignified level; and the See also:council of the infernal See also:powers has afforded a hint to See also:Tasso, and through him to See also:Milton. The inevitable monotony of the panegyrics on Honorius is relieved by just and brilliant expatiation on the duties of a See also:sovereign. In his celebration of Stilicho's victories Claudian found a subject more worthy of his powers, and some passages, such as the description of the See also:flight of Alaric, and of Stilicho's arrival at Rome, and the felicitous parallel between his triumphsand those of See also:Marius, See also:rank among the brightest ornaments of Latin poetry. Claudian's panegyric, however lavish and regardless of veracity, is in general far less offensive than usual in his age, a circumstance attributable partly to his more refined taste and partly to the genuine merit of his patron Stilicho. He is a valuable authority for the See also:history of his times, and is rarely to be convicted of serious inaccuracy in his facts, whatever may be thought of the colouring he chooses to impart to them. He was animated by true patriotic feeling, in the shape of a reverence for Rome as the source and See also:symbol of See also:law, See also:order and See also:civilization. Outside the See also:sphere of actual See also:life he is less successful; his Rape of See also:Proserpine, though the beauties of detail are as great as usual, betrays his deficiency in the creative See also:power requisite for dealing with a purely ideal subject. This denotes the rhetorician rather than the poet, and in general it may be said that his especial gifts of vivid natural description, and of copious See also:illustration, derived from extensive but not cumbrous erudition, are fully as appropriate to eloquence as to poetry. In the general See also:cast of his mind and See also:character of his writings, and especially, in his See also:faculty for bestowing enduring See also:interest upon occasional themes, we may fitly compare him with See also:Dryden, remembering that while Dryden exulted in the See also:energy of a vigorous and fast-developing language, Claudian was cramped by an artificial diction, confined to the See also:literary class. The editio princeps of Claudian was printed at See also:Vicenza in 1482; the See also:editions of J. M. See also:Gesner (1754) and P. See also:Burmann (1760) are still valuable for their notes. The first See also:critical edition was that of L. Jeep (1876-1879), now superseded by the exhaustive work of T. Birt, with bibliography, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (x., 1892; smaller ed. founded on this by J. See also:Koch, Teubner series, 1893). There is a See also:separate edition with commentary and See also:verse See also:translation of Il See also:Rath) di Prosperpina, by L. Garces de See also:Diez (1889); the See also:satire In Eutropium is discussed by T. Birt in Zwei politische Satiren See also:des a&ten Rom (1888). There is a complete See also:English verse translation of little merit by A. See also:Hawkins (181:7). See the articles by See also:Ramsay in See also: See also:Hodgkin, Claudian, the last of the Roman Poets (1875). 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