Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
Encyclopedia
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 in 384 and 385, and consul
Roman consul
A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...

 in 391. Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Gratian
Gratian
Gratian was Roman Emperor from 375 to 383.The eldest son of Valentinian I, during his youth Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Upon the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratian's brother Valentinian II was declared emperor by his father's soldiers...

, when he ordered the Altar of Victory
Altar of Victory
The Altar of Victory was located in the Roman Senate House bearing a gold statue of the goddess Victory. The altar was established by Octavian in 29 BC in honor of the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. The statue depicted a winged woman, holding a palm and descending to present a laurel...

 removed from the curia
Curia
A curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...

, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum. Two years later he made a famous appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II
Valentinian II
Flavius Valentinianus , commonly known as Valentinian II, was Roman Emperor from 375 to 392.-Early Life and Accession :...

, in a dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose
Ambrose
Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose , was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.-Political career:Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about...

, the bishop of Milan. Symmachus's career was temporarily derailed when he supported the short-lived usurper Magnus Maximus
Magnus Maximus
Magnus Maximus , also known as Maximianus and Macsen Wledig in Welsh, was Western Roman Emperor from 383 to 388. As commander of Britain, he usurped the throne against Emperor Gratian in 383...

, but he was rehabilitated and three years later appointed consul. Much of his writing has survived: nine books of letters; a collection of Relationes or official dispatches; and fragments of various orations.

Life

Symmachus was the son of a prominent aristocrat, Lucius Aurelius Avianius Symmachus, who was a member of the patrician gens
Gens
In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...

 Aurelia
. He was educated in Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

, apparently at Bourdeaux
Bourdeaux
Bourdeaux is a commune in the Drôme department in southeastern France.-Population:...

 or Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

. In early life he became devoted to literature. Having discharged the functions of quaestor
Quaestor
A Quaestor was a type of public official in the "Cursus honorum" system who supervised financial affairs. In the Roman Republic a quaestor was an elected official whereas, with the autocratic government of the Roman Empire, quaestors were simply appointed....

 and praetor
Praetor
Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...

, he was appointed Corrector of Lucania and the Bruttii in 365; in 373 he was proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...

 of Africa, and became, probably about the same time, a member of the pontifical college. As a representative of the political cursus honorum
Cursus honorum
The cursus honorum was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in both the Roman Republic and the early Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The cursus honorum comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts. Each office had a minimum...

, Symmachus sought to preserve the ancient religion of Rome
Religion in ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

 at a time when the senatorial aristocracy was converting to Christianity.

In 382, the Emperor Gratian
Gratian
Gratian was Roman Emperor from 375 to 383.The eldest son of Valentinian I, during his youth Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Upon the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratian's brother Valentinian II was declared emperor by his father's soldiers...

, a Christian, ordered the Altar of Victory
Altar of Victory
The Altar of Victory was located in the Roman Senate House bearing a gold statue of the goddess Victory. The altar was established by Octavian in 29 BC in honor of the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. The statue depicted a winged woman, holding a palm and descending to present a laurel...

 removed from the Curia
Curia
A curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...

, the Roman Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

 house in the Forum
Roman Forum
The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum...

, and curtailed the sums annually allowed for the maintenance of the Vestal Virgins, and for the public celebration of sacred rites. Symmachus was chosen by the Senate on account of his eloquence to lead a delegation of protest, which the emperor refused to receive. Two years later, Gratian was assassinated in Lugdunum
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

, and Symmachus, now urban prefect of Rome, addressed an elaborate epistle to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II
Valentinian II
Flavius Valentinianus , commonly known as Valentinian II, was Roman Emperor from 375 to 392.-Early Life and Accession :...

, in a famous dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose
Ambrose
Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose , was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.-Political career:Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about...

, the bishop of Milan. In an age when all religious communities credited the divine power with direct involvement in human affairs, Symmachus argues that the removal of the altar had caused a famine and its restoration would be beneficial in other ways. Subtly he pleads for tolerance for traditional cult practices and beliefs that Christianity was poised to suppress in the Theodosian edicts of 391
Theodosius I
Theodosius I , also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War, establishing their homeland...

.

It was natural for Symmachus to sympathise with Magnus Maximus
Magnus Maximus
Magnus Maximus , also known as Maximianus and Macsen Wledig in Welsh, was Western Roman Emperor from 383 to 388. As commander of Britain, he usurped the throne against Emperor Gratian in 383...

 who had defeated Gratian. When Maximus was threatening to invade Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 in 387, his cause was openly advocated by Symmachus, who upon the arrival of Theodosius I
Theodosius I
Theodosius I , also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War, establishing their homeland...

 was impeached of treason, and forced to take refuge in a sanctuary. Having been pardoned through the intervention of numerous and powerful friends he expressed his contrition and gratitude in an apologetic address to Theodosius, by whom he was not only forgiven, but was received into favour and elevated to the consulship in 391, and during the remainder of his life he appears to have taken an active part in public affairs. The date of his death is unknown, but one of his letters was written as late as 402.

His leisure hours were devoted exclusively to literary pursuits, as is evident from the numerous allusions in his letters to the studies in which he was engaged. His friendship with Ausonius
Ausonius
Decimius Magnus Ausonius was a Latin poet and rhetorician, born at Burdigala .-Biography:Decimius Magnus Ausonius was born in Bordeaux in ca. 310. His father was a noted physician of Greek ancestry and his mother was descended on both sides from long-established aristocratic Gallo-Roman families...

 and other distinguished authors of the era proves that he delighted in associating and corresponding with the learned. His wealth must have been prodigious, for in addition to his town mansion on the Caelian Hill
Caelian Hill
The Caelian Hill is one of the famous Seven Hills of Rome. Under reign of Tullus Hostilius, the entire population of Alba Longa was forcibly resettled on the Caelian Hill...

, and several houses in the city which he lent to his friends, he possessed upwards of a dozen villas in Italy, many detached farms, together with estates in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 and Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

.

Symmachus, and his real-life associates Vettius Agorius Praetextatus
Vettius Agorius Praetextatus
Vettius Agorius Praetextatus was a wealthy pagan aristocrat in 4th-century Roman Empire and a high priest in the cults of numerous gods...

 and Virius Nicomachus Flavianus
Virius Nicomachus Flavianus
Virius Nicomachus Flavianus was a grammarian, a historian and a politician of the Roman Empire.A pagan and close friend of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, he was Praetorian prefect of Italy in 390–392 and, under usurper Eugenius , again praetorian prefect and consul...

 are the main characters of the Saturnalia of Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, which was written in the 5th century but set in 384. These three aristocratic intellectuals lead nine others, consisting of fellow noble and non-noble intellectuals, in a discussion over learned topics, dominated by the many-sided erudition of the poet Vergil.

Writings

Of his many writings, the following have survived:
  • Nine books of letters, published by his son
    Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus
    Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus was a politician of the Roman empire, member of the influential family of the Symmachi.- Biography :...

    . Many of the letters are notes extending to a few lines only, addressed to a wide circle of relations, friends, and acquaintances. They relate for the most part to matters of little importance. The most famous letter is the most highly finished and important piece in the collection, the celebrated epistle to "Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius" entreating them to restore the Altar of Victory to its ancient position in the senate house.

  • A collection of Relationes or official dispatches, which is chiefly composed of the letters written by him when prefect of Rome to the emperors under whom he served.

  • Panegyrics, written in his youth, two on Valentinian I and one on the youthful Gratian.

  • Fragments of various orations, discovered by Angelo Mai
    Angelo Mai
    Angelo Mai was an Italian Cardinal and philologist. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discover and publish, first while in charge of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan and then in the same role at the...

     in palimpsest
    Palimpsest
    A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...

    s in the Ambrosian library and the Vatican
    Vatican Library
    The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

    .


According one of his letters (dated to 401), Symmachus also engaged in the preparation of an edition of Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

's Ab Urbe Condita. Seven manuscripts of the first decade of Livy's extensive work (books 1-10) bear subscriptions including Symmachus' name along with Tascius Victorianus, Appius Nicomachus Dexter
Appius Nicomachus Dexter
Appius Nicomachus Dexter was a politician of the Western Roman Empire.- Biography :Dexter belonged to the Nicomachi, an influential family of senatorial rank...

, and Nicomachus Flavianus; J.E.G. Zetzel has identified some of their effects to this tradition of the transmission of this portion of Livy's work.

The style of Symmachus was widely admired in his own time and into the early Middle Ages, but modern scholars have been frustrated by the lack of solid information about the events of his times to be found in these writings. As a consequence, little of his work has been translated into English.

See also

  • Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych
    Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych
    The Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych is a Late Antique ivory diptych dating to the late fourth or early fifth century whose panels depict scenes of ritual pagan religious practices...

  • Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus
    Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus
    Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus was a politician of the Roman empire, member of the influential family of the Symmachi.- Biography :...

    , his son, who edited Aurelius' letters for publication

Further reading

  • Q. Aurelii Symmachi quae supersunt, ed. by Otto Seeck
    Otto Seeck
    Otto Seeck was a German classical historian who is perhaps best known for his work on the decline of the ancient world. He was born in Riga....

     (Berlin, 1883; reprinted Munich, 2001), ISBN 3-921575-19-2. All surviving writings of Symmachus: letters, speeches and official reports, in the original Latin. This volume is one of the series Monumenta Germaniae Historica
    Monumenta Germaniae Historica
    The Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...

    . The letters are also published in a supplementary volume XIII in the Patrologia Latina
    Patrologia Latina
    The Patrologia Latina is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1844 and 1855, with indices published between 1862 and 1865....

    . More recently, Symmaque: Lettres, ed. by Jean-Pierre Callu in four volumes (Paris, 1972-2002) published by Les Belles Lettres
    Bude
    Bude is a small seaside resort town in North Cornwall, England, at the mouth of the River Neet . It lies just south of Flexbury, north of Widemouth Bay and west of Stratton and is located along the A3073 road off the A39. Bude is twinned with Ergué-Gabéric in Brittany, France...

     contains the letters of Symmachus in Latin with facing-page French translation. This has the fullest text and translation.
  • Richard Klein: Symmachus. Eine tragische Gestalt des ausgehenden Heidentums. Darmstadt (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft [Impulse der Forschung, Band 2]) 1971, ISBN 3-534-04928-4.
  • Richard Klein: Der Streit um den Victoriaaltar. Darmstadt (WBG [Texte zur Forschung Band 7]) 1972, ISBN 3-534-05169-6.
  • J.F. Matthews, "The Letters of Symmachus" in Latin Literature of the Fourth Century (edited by J.W. Binns), pp. 58–99. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
  • J.F. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, AD 364-425. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. ISBN 0-19-814499-7
  • Cristiana Sogno, Q. Aurelius Symmachus: A Political Biography. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-472-11529-7

External links

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