Claudian

c. 370 AD – c. 404 AD

Latin

Claudius Claudianus was born around AD 370 in Alexandria, a Greek speaker who, like Ammianus Marcellinus before him, chose Latin as his literary medium — and mastered it completely. He arrived in Rome around 394 and quickly became the court poet of the western emperor Honorius and, more importantly, of Honorius's all-powerful general Stilicho. He is the last great poet of the classical Latin tradition.

His major works are political panegyrics and invectives in epic hexameters: the De Raptu Proserpinae (an unfinished mythological epic of genuine beauty), panegyrics on Honorius's consulships, and savage attacks on the eastern ministers Rufinus and Eutropius. The invective against Eutropius — a eunuch who became consul — is one of the most venomous poems in Latin literature. But Claudian could also write with delicacy: his epithalamium for Honorius and Maria, and his shorter poems on natural wonders (the old man of Verona who never left his farm, the porcupine, the crystal ball), show a lighter touch.

He disappears from the record after 404. Whether he died young or simply fell with Stilicho (executed in 408) is unknown. Augustine knew his work; the Middle Ages read him alongside Virgil and Ovid.

Works (14)

1
Carminum minorum corpusculum prose
A miscellaneous collection of shorter poems — mythological pieces, letter-poems, epigrams, and occasional verse. Claudian at his most varied and intim...

52 books
1,423 lines
2
de bello Gildonico prose
An epic on the war against the rebel Gildo in North Africa. Claudian turns Stilicho's suppression of a provincial revolt into a cosmic struggle for Ro...

526 lines
3
de Bello Gothico prose
Claudian's epic on Stilicho's victory over the Visigoths at Pollentia in 402. The last great military epic in Latin — confident, vivid, and written fo...

647 lines
4
de consulatu Stilichonis prose
Three books in praise of Stilicho — general, regent, and (Claudian argues) saviour of the Roman Empire. A panegyric that doubles as a political progra...

3 books
1,254 lines
5
de raptu Proserpinae prose
The rape of Proserpina — Claudian's retelling of the myth of Persephone's abduction by Pluto. Unfinished, but what survives is some of the most accomp...

3 books
1,172 lines
6
Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii Augusti prose
A wedding poem for the Emperor Honorius and his bride Maria, daughter of Stilicho. Mythological pageantry — Venus, Cupid, and the whole divine apparat...

341 lines
7
Fescinnina de nuptiis Honorii Augusti prose
Ribald wedding songs for the marriage of Honorius — shorter, racier companion pieces to the formal Epithalamium.

4 books
135 lines
8
In Eutropium oratory
A savage verse invective against the eunuch Eutropius, who rose from slavery to become consul in the eastern empire. Claudian's most vicious poem — pe...

2 books
1,191 lines
9
In Rufinum oratory
An invective against Rufinus, the praetorian prefect of the East, presented as a cosmic battle between good and evil. Rufinus is the instrument of the...

2 books
952 lines
10
Panegyricus de quarto consulatu Honorii Augusti prose
A panegyric for the Emperor Honorius' fourth consulship — Claudian celebrates the young emperor with mythological grandeur and political advice.

656 lines
11
Panegyricus de sexto consulatu Honorii Augusti prose
A panegyric for Honorius' sixth consulship. Claudian's last major public poem, delivered at Rome in 404.

660 lines
12
Panegyricus de tertio consulatu Honorii Augusti prose
A panegyric for Honorius' third consulship — the poet celebrates a teenage emperor with verses designed to educate as much as flatter.

211 lines
13
Panegyricus dictus Manlio Theodoro consuli prose
A panegyric for the philosopher-consul Manlius Theodorus. Unusually for Claudian, the praise focuses on learning and philosophy rather than military g...

340 lines
14
Panegyricus dictus Probino et Olybrio consulibus prose
Claudian's first major public poem — a panegyric for the consuls of 395. The piece that made his reputation at the western court.

279 lines

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