Ausonius
Decimus Magnus Ausonius was born around AD 310 in Burdigala (modern Bordeaux) into a family of Gallic professionals — his father was a physician, his grandfather a rhetorician. He taught grammar and rhetoric at Bordeaux for thirty years before being summoned to the imperial court at Trier around 365 to serve as tutor to the young prince Gratian. When Gratian became emperor in 375, Ausonius's career soared: he held the offices of quaestor, prefect of Gaul, and consul (in 379).
His poetry is enormously varied: the Mosella, a long poem describing a journey along the river from Bingen to Trier, is vivid landscape writing; the Parentalia commemorates his dead relatives with genuine feeling; the Professores memorialises his teaching colleagues at Bordeaux; the Cento Nuptialis constructs an obscene wedding poem entirely from lines of Virgil. He also wrote epigrams, verse letters, a poem on the cities of the empire, and a peculiar meditation on the number three (Griphus Ternarii Numeri).
Ausonius was a Christian — probably — but his Christianity barely appears in his poetry. He belongs to a world where Roman culture continued with little apparent disruption even as the empire crumbled. He died around 395.
A cento — a poem composed entirely from lines of Virgil, rearranged to describe a wedding night. Ausonius apologises for the obscenity while clearly e...
Verse memorials for the professors of Bordeaux — Ausonius' teachers and colleagues at the university where he spent most of his career. A unique docum...
Cupid is tortured in the underworld by the heroines he has wronged — a witty ekphrasis on a painting Ausonius claims to have seen in Trier.
A short poem about a captured German girl named Bissula, written in the aftermath of Ausonius' campaign on the Rhine. Part portrait, part trophy.
A poem about Ausonius' small country estate — mock-humble, affectionate, and a window into the daily life of a Gallic landowner.
A miscellaneous book of short poems on various subjects — literary exercises, riddles, and occasional pieces.
A funeral poem for Ausonius' father — personal, warm, and marked by genuine grief beneath the rhetorical polish.
A collection of epigrams — short, pointed poems on various subjects, in the tradition of Martial.
A birthday poem for Ausonius' grandson — warm, didactic, and full of a grandfather's hopes.
Ausonius' speech of thanks to the Emperor Gratian for the consulship — ceremonial, elaborate, and politically delicate.
A literary puzzle-poem built around the number three. Everything in the poem comes in threes — a virtuoso display of formal ingenuity.
An exhortation to Ausonius' grandson to study hard — a grandfather's advice dressed up as poetry.
A verse drama in which the Seven Sages of Greece each deliver their famous maxim and explain it. Light, didactic, and unusual — one of the few dramati...
A prayer in rhopalic verse — each word one syllable longer than the last. Technical virtuosity as devotion.
A ranking of the great cities of the Roman Empire — Rome first, Constantinople second, Carthage third, and downward through Bordeaux (naturally well p...
Verse memorials for Ausonius' dead relatives — parents, siblings, children, in-laws. The most personal of his collections, and at times the most movin...
Short prose prefaces to various works — Ausonius explaining himself, often with false modesty.
Short prayers in verse — simple, direct, and unexpectedly sincere for so sophisticated a poet.
A wordplay poem where each line ends and begins with the same syllable. Literary acrobatics from a poet who never met a formal constraint he didn't en...
Verses on Easter themes, composed with attention to prosodic patterns — a minor devotional work.