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 200 LATIN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE of the Neoplatonists, and this tendency gained ground also in Rome. About the middle of the 4th century lived Donatus, the author of sev- eral valuable works on grammar, and of com- mentaries on Terence and Virgil. Palladius wrote 14 books on husbandry, but without ma- king any claim to great erudition. The histor- ical literature of this time consists in the short abridgments of Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, and Sextus Rufus. Eloquence was practised by many, among them by Gennadius, Alcimus, and Delphidius ; but the only extant Latin speech of this period is one by Claudius Mamertinus, which gives a faithful portrait of Julian's char- acter as a prince. Hilarius (Hilary), bishop of Poitiers, was a fertile writer on theology ; less prolific were the Sardinian bishop Lucifer and the bishops Phoebadius and Potamius. Rufius Testus Avienus wrote poems, chiefly didactic, on historical subjects, and manifests always great purity of form and thought. The po- etical compositions of the rhetorician Magnus Ausonius have little value as poems, but are interesting for their faithful representation of the persons and affairs of his age* The re- quirements of Christian worship occasioned the composition of hymns, and those of Dama- sus (died in 384) are among the earliest which have come down to us. To this time may be assigned also the earliest Latin translation of the Bible (Itala), and the translation of Pela- gonius is not much later. From the reign of Theodosius I. polytheism became gradually extinct, and only a few circles maintained their interest in the old literature. Symmachus and Ammianus were in fact the last representatives of polytheism in literature. The fluency and elegance of Symmachus in literary composition were acknowledged even by his adversaries. Other rhetoricians of his time were Pacatus, Palladius, Syagrius, and Eugenius, whom Ar- bogast raised to the imperial throne. Ammi- anus Marcellinus of Antioch wrote a continua- tion of Tacitus in 31 books; he honestly en- deavored to tell the truth in regard to his own time, but his diction is very difficult to under- stand and wearisome. Philosophy was chiefly studied by men like Vettius Prastextatus, who hoped to find in it a weapon against the Chris- tian religion. The number and importance of the Christian writers were of course daily in- creasing. Above all stands Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, among whose writings the letters and the funeral sermons on Valentinian and Theo- dosius are important for history. His hymns, which kept more closely to classical form than those of Damasus, became very famous. St. Jerome (Hieronymus of Stridon) was the most learned Christian writer; he interpreted and translated the books of the Bible, and wrote an enlarged version of the chronicles of Eusebius and the Viri Illustres, a history of Christian literature. Prudentius wrote poems on Chris- tian subjects, in various metres, and not long after him Sulpicius Severus and Orosius treat- ed history from the Christian point of view. Medical literature was reduced to translations of Greek works, or consisted in valueless en- largements of earlier Latin works. Claudian (Claudius Claudianus) was the most important heathen author at the close of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th century. Though a na- tive of Alexandria, he wrote principally in Latin, and imitated the diction and metres of the poets of the classical age with perfect suc- cess ; his mastery in description appears very brilliantly in his " Rape of Proserpine." St. Augustine the African (Aurelius Augustinus, 354-430) is the most conspicuous intellect of this time ; his diction is somewhat too ornate and verbose, but not rarely also logical and precise. A short account of universal his- tory was written by Sulpicius Severus, whose contemporary Julius Hilario wrote a treatise on the duration of the world. Early in the 5th century lived also the Briton Pelagius, the well known founder of Pelagianism, his young friend Caslestius, the translator Anianus, and, among other Christian writers, Antiochius, Severianus, Bachiarius, Sabbatius, Helvidins, and Innocentius. Macrobius wrote a com- mentary on Cicero's dream of Scipio, and seven books of Saturnalia ; the rhetorician Endele- chius, a pleasant idyl on a cattle plague ; Audax, some tyro-like verses on Augustine ; and Lu- cillus, some satires which are lost. At the same .time, perhaps, Arianus composed 42 ^Esopian fables in elegiac metre, which were used as a school book, and frequently copied, augmented, paraphrased, and imitated. Before the conquest of the north of Africa by the Vandals, Martianus Capella wrote an encyclo- paedia of the seven liberal arts, a very pedantic production, which shows plainly how little the men of the 5th century were capable of liberal scientific conceptions, and more plainly an ut- ter want of taste. The ruling nations were now barbarians, and the conquered nations submitted to them in dull despair. Rutilius Namatinus still composed lively poems, correct in formal details ; Vicentius Lerinensis, under the name of Peregrinus, wrote exhortations to maintain genuine Catholic doctrine, in a com- paratively educated style; and the works of the founder of papal power, the Roman bishop Leo I. (440-461), are still important for their subject matter, and interesting in their form. But by degrees literary productions became extinct, and most of those who still attempted to write proved only that the infection of bar- barism was general. In the first half of this century the Gallic presbyter Salvianus wrote four books against avarice, and a work in which the misfortunes of the time are proved to be well merited punishments ; but they are exaggerated, and sound rather garrulous. The aspirations and polish, combined with poverty of thought and phrases, of the Gallo-Roman literature, are eminently conspicuous in the poems and letters of Apollinarius Sidonius. Culture and literature gradually passed into the exclusive possession of the clergy. There