Quintus Aurelius Symmachus in the context of "Maurus Servius Honoratus"

⭐ In the context of Macrobius’ *Saturnalia* and a correspondence from Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, Servius the Grammarian is understood to have…

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⭐ Core Definition: Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus signo Eusebius (/ˈsɪməkəs/, Classical Latin: [ˈsʏmmakʰʊs]; c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and intellectual. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391. Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Emperor Gratian's order to remove the Altar of Victory from the curia, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum. Two years later he made a famous appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Symmachus's career was temporarily derailed when he supported the short-lived usurper Magnus Maximus, but he was rehabilitated and three years later appointed consul. After the death of Theodosius I, he became an ally of Stilicho, the guardian of Emperor Honorius. In collaboration with Stilicho he was able to restore some of the legislative powers of the Senate. Much of his writing has survived: nine books of letters; a collection of Relationes or official dispatches; and fragments of various orations.

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👉 Quintus Aurelius Symmachus in the context of Maurus Servius Honoratus

Servius, distinguished as Servius the Grammarian (Latin: Servius or Seruius Grammaticus), was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil. These works, In Tria Virgilii Opera Expositio ("Exposition on Three Works of Virgil"), Commentarii in Virgilium ("Commentaries on Virgil"), Commentarii in Vergilii Opera ("Commentaries on the Works of Vergil"), or Vergilii Carmina Commentarii ("Commentaries on the Poems of Virgil"), constituted the first incunable to be printed at Florence, by Bernardo Cennini, in 1471.

In the Saturnalia of Macrobius, Servius appears as one of the interlocutors; allusions in that work and a letter from Symmachus to Servius indicate that he was not a convert to Christianity.

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