Late Antique Literary Developments

This paper argues that the war against the rebellious African commander Gildo in 397 CE was the impetus for the publication of the Letters of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 340-402), both as a one-book and as a later seven-book collection. Roda (1981 71-74), supported by Sogno (2006, 61-62) and Salzman (2011 lx-lxi), has convincingly demonstrated that Symmachus’ son Memmius published only the first seven books of what is now a ten-book collection between 402 and 408.

In his spiritual epyllion, the Psychomachia, Prudentius presents in narrative and personified form the Christian’s internal struggle against vice. The characterization of the Virtues and Vices populating the poem’s battlefield has warranted much attention. The combatants have been designated as goddesses and demonic spirits (Haworth 1980), as valiant gladiators and condemned criminals (James 2002), and as personified abstractions (Malamud 1989).

In describing the impetus for the retreat his dialogue Contra Academicos purports to record, Augustine establishes a philosophy/rhetoric binary that appears antagonistic. He has just left his position as chair of rhetoric at Milan in order to pursue a life of Christian philosophy. At several points throughout the text, he compares the “good” philosophy he and his students are doing with the vain pursuit of rhetoric in the schools.

On or around the year of Constantine’s death, Aphrahat provides one of the sole testimonies to the Persian Christian experience. Writing in Syriac, his first ten Demonstrations primarily address Syriac conceptualizations of faith, practice, devotion, and worship, save one exception. In the middle of his earliest works, Aphrahat provides a Demonstration on the Wars. Subsequent scholarship often cites this document as evidence of a persecuted Christian calling out for the salvation of a converted Constantine.

This paper investigates how Gregory of Nazianzus imitates and responds to the Greek poetic tradition in “On his own affairs” (2.1.1), an autobiographical poem of 634 hexameters. Famous in the Byzantine tradition for his elegant Greek and defense of Trinitarian orthodoxy, Gregory (329-389) was also one of the most prolific poets of late antiquity. The Suda knows of nearly 30,000 verses, more than 18,000 of which survive. Gregory writes in traditional meters and dialects, and he frequently alludes to earlier poetry, especially Homer.

This paper outlines the development of an “ascetic poetics” within Avitus of Vienne’s (ca. 460-518) Latin hexameter poem, De consolatoria laude castitatis, written to encourage the poet’s sister, an avowed Christian nun, in her religious profession.