Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/545

 APPENDIX 521 compilation, which consisted of twelve Books (Bk. 11 and part of 10 and 12 are lost). The pseudo-Zacharias has records of considerable value on the Persian wars and the founding of Daras, a curious notice on the Nika riot, &c. Frag- ments of the work, preserved in the Vatican, were published and translateil by Mai (Scr. Vet. Coll. vol. x.), but the work in its more comidete form was not known till 1870, when it was published by Land from a ]Ms. in the British Museum. (The genuine Zacharias has been translated by Rev. F. J. Hamilton, 1802, printed privately.) C. Sollius Modestus Apolli.varis Sidonius was born about 430-4.33 a.jl He belonged to a good L3-onese family ; his father was Praetorian Prefect of Gaul in A.D. 449, a post which his father had held before him. Sidonius married Papianilla of Arverni, daughter of Avitus. His relations with that emperor and with his successors Majorian and Anthemius are noticed by Gibbon (c. XXX vi.). In A.D. 469 or 470 Sidonius became bishop of Arverni ; he died, before he reached the age of fifty, in 479. The years of his episcopate were troubled, owing to the hostilities between the Visigoths and the Empire. Arverni in Aquitania Prima still, but alone, held out against the Goths, till 475, when Sidonius and Ecdicius his brother-in-law were captured by King Euric, and the bishop was compelled to live for some time in exile from his see, at Tolosa and Burdigala. His literary works consist of a collection of twenty-four poems, and of nine Books of Epistles. These epistles were written evidently with the in- tention of being published, and each Book appeared separately (Book i. published in 469, ii. in 472, v. in 474-5, vii. in 475 (?)). In man}- of the Letters original poems are inserted. Books iii. v. vii. and viii. contain letters of great importance for the history of the Visigoths. Sidonius had ceased to write longer poems before A.D. 469, — that is, before he began to publish letters and before his ecclesiastical career began. It may be convenient to arrange here the most important (most of which are mentioned by Gibbon) chronologically : vii. Paneg. dictirs Avito, with "i vi. preface and ] a.l>. 4-56, Jan. 1. viii. jiropemjiticon ) V. Paneg. dictus Maioriano, with '. ,,-0 i iv. jireface > '"' ' ^ ' xiii. ad Maiorianum. a.d. 458 (?). xxiii. ad Consentium, between a.d. 461 and 466 (after Xarbo, which the poem celebrates, had become Gothic, and before Theodoric, whom it also cele- brates, died), ii. Paneg. dictus Anthcmio, with") i. preface and |- a.d. 468, Jan. 1. iii. ))ropempticon J The poetical talent of Sidonius, like that of Claudian and of Mcrobaudcs, was publicly recognized at Rome bj- a statue in the Forum of Trajan, inter auctores utriusque fixam bybliothecae. The authoritative edition of his works is that of C. Luetjoliann (in the IMou. Germ. Hist.), 1887, to which Mommsen has contributed a short biography of the poet. Mr. Hodgkin (Italy and her Invaders, vol. ii.)hasan interesting chapter on Sidonius, with some prose and verse translations from liis works. The state of Noricum in the days of the last Emperors of tlie "West is graphic- ally described in the Life of Saint Sevcrinug ijy an eye-witness, Euuippius, who was with the saint in Noricum when it was at the mcrc}- of the Rugians and their fellow-barbarians. Severinus was buried in the Lucullan Castle near Naples, by the bounty of the lady Barbaria, and a monastery was established in the same place. Eugippius became its abbot, and wrote the biography of his master in A.D. 511. [Edition by H. Sauppe, 1877, in the iMon. Germ. Hist.]