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Rh have had two sons, Patricius and Hypatius, Greek consuls A.D. 500.

(2) According to his own statement, Boëthius was imprisoned (Cons. Phil. x. ii. metr. 24) at a distance of 500 miles from Rome (ib. i. 4); according to other accounts he was simply exiled, a confusion which no doubt arose from the epitaph of the said Elpis, in which she is said (Burm. Anth. Lat. tom. ii. epigr. 138) to have followed her husband into banishment.

(3) His fall and death is mixed up by Paulus Diaconus and other writers, who are followed among modern writers by Bähr (Rom. Lit. p. 162) and Heyne (Censar. Ingenii, etc., Boeth.), with the constrained embassy of pope John to Constantinople on behalf of the Arians of the East, which is said to have resulted in the suspicion of his treachery and finally in his death; whereas Boëthius was put to death, according to others (Anonym. Vales., etc.), before the embassy, or at least before the return of the pope, A.D. 525, and as he himself implies (Cons. Phil. i. 4), on suspicion of conspiracy, not against Arianism, but for the restoration of the liberty and power of the senate.

(4) Two distinct accounts exist of his execution, one stating that he was beheaded at Ticinum (Anast. Vit. Pontif. in Johanne I.; Aimoin, Hist. Franc. ii. 1), where he was imprisoned, according to popular tradition, in a tower still standing at Pavia in 1584 (Tiraboschi, iii. l. 1, c. 4); another relating (Anonym. Vales. p. 36, in Gronov. ed. Amm. Marcell.) that he was confined along with Albinus in the baptistery of a church, and soon afterwards executed "in agro Calventiano," first being tortured by a cord tightly twisted round his forehead, and then beaten to death with a club.

(5) He is claimed by the church as a saint and martyr under the name of Severinus, the friend of St. Benedict (Tritenhem, ap. Fabric. Bibl. Lat. iii. 15), and the worker of a miracle at his death (Martianus Rota, vid. Boëth. in usum Delphin.), but of all this his contemporaries knew nothing, and no hint of it appears until three centuries after his death, when he also becomes the author of four dogmatic treatises on the mysteries of the Trinity.

Whether or not this double tradition has grown out of the history of two distinct individuals, there can be little doubt that to obtain a true estimate of the character and writings of Boëthius, the author of the Consolatio must be distinguished from Severinus, saint and martyr, or whoever else was the writer of the above-mentioned theological works. It remains for us briefly to notice the most authentic facts of the philosopher's life, and to inquire how far his thoughts were coloured by the contemporaneous influence of Christianity, or exercised an influence in their turn upon the religious thought of the Middle Ages.

Boëthius was born between the years A.D. 470‒475, as is inferred from his contemporary Ennodius (Eucharisma de Vitâ suâ), who says that he himself was sixteen when Theodoric invaded Italy, A.D. 490. As a wealthy orphan (Cons. Phil. ii. 3) Boëthius inherited the patrimony and honours of the Anician family, was

brought up under the care of the chief men at Rome (ib. ii. 3), and became versed in the erudition of his own country and likewise in that of Greece. In the words of his friend Cassiodorus, "The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle," were translated and illustrated for the benefit of the Romans by his indefatigable pen (Var. i. Ep. 45). Nor was he less distinguished for his virtue. His purse was ever open to the poor of Rome (Procop. Goth. I. i.). He exerted his authority and eloquence on behalf of the oppressed provincials (Cons. Phil. i. 4). Such conspicuous merit was at first appreciated by Theodoric. He received the title of patrician while still a youth (ib. i. 3), became consul A.D. 510, and princeps senatus (Procop. Goth. I. i.), was employed in the important station of master of the offices (Anonym. Vales. p. 26), in which post his scientific knowledge and mechanical skill were turned to ample account (Cassiod. Ep. i. 10, 45, ii. 40), and reached the summit of his fortune on the day when, supported by his two sons, who had just been inaugurated in the consulship, he pronounced a panegyric upon Theodoric and gratified the populace with a largess (Cons. Phil. ii. 3). But a reverse was at hand. The philosopher had exerted himself to rescue the state from the usurpation of ignorance; the senator had opposed his integrity to the tyranny and avarice of the barbarians who did not in general share the moderation of their leader. His expression, "palatini canes" (ib. i. 4), shews his uncompromising spirit against their iniquities; and it is not surprising that the courage and sympathy he shewed in pleading the cause of Albinus, a senator who was accused of "hoping the liberty of Rome" (ib.), joined to other similar conduct, and misrepresented by his foes, at length poisoned the mind of Theodoric, who seems to have appointed one Decoratus, a man of worthless character, to share and control the power of his favourite (ib. iii. 4). As to the existence of any widespread conspiracy to overthrow the Ostrogothic rule there is but very faint evidence, and against this must be set down his own indignant self-justification (ib. i. 4). A sentence of confiscation and death was passed upon him by the senate without a trial; he was imprisoned in the Milanese territory, and ultimately executed in one of the ways named above, probably about the 50th year of his age, A.D. 520‒524. His father-in-law, Symmachus, was involved in his ruin (Procop. Goth. I. i.), and his wife, Rusticiana, reduced to beggary (ib. iii. 20). The remorse of Theodoric, which came too late to save "the last of the Romans," is the natural and tragic finish to a story which has too many parallels in history.

It was during his imprisonment that Boëthius composed his Consolation of Philosophy, a work described by Gibbon as "a golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully." It is a dialogue in prose and verse (a species of composition suggested probably by the medleys of Petronius and Capella) 