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 a] TRANSITION TO MEDLEVAL POETRY 293 Phrases classically reminiscent carried hallowed associations, and gave tone and feeling to the lines in which they fell. But a misuse might be ridiculous. In one so much a poet as Avitus it is a little pause- giving to find ' the Almighty setting his marriage admonition and blessing of our first parents in words borrowed from Jupiter's promise to Venus that empire without end should be the lot of ^Eneas' race : Vivite concordi studio^ mundumque replete; « « « « « Progenium sine fine dedi. . . .^ Besides these veritable Christian poets, there were nominal Christians whose poetry discoursed of pagan themes. Such was Ausonius, friend and master of Paulinus ; Apollinaris Sidonius (430-480) of Lyons, a rhetorician-poet of noble birth, ability, and bravery, whose panegyric on the shadow emperor Anthemius was rewarded with the office of praefectus urbi; and Ennodius (473-521) of southern Gaul. One may hardly speak of pagan reminiscence in poetry which is pagan by descent, and frankly pagan in spirit and in theme. These writers fill their poems with my- thology as naively as the pagan poets Claudianus and Rutilius. A partial change was not far off. In the fifth and sixth centuries Teutonic barbarians were entering the Empire in great masses ; they were learning the Latin language and gaining some knowledge of the literature. The barbarians received Christianity upon a foundation of German mood and feeling, and not, as the Latin Christians had received it, upon a foun- 1 Avitus, I (X)« origine mundi), 173.