Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Κλαυδιανός; ), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor

Honorius Honorius (; 9 September 384 – 15 August 423) was Roman emperor from 393 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla. After the death of Theodosius in 395, Honorius, under the regency of Stilicho ...

Mediolanum Mediolanum, the ancient city where Milan now stands, was originally an Insubres, Insubrian city, but afterwards became an important Ancient Rome, Roman city in Northern Italy. The city was settled by a Celts, Celtic tribe belonging to the Ins ...

(Milan), and particularly with the general

Stilicho Stilicho (; – 22 August 408) was a military commander in the Roman army who, for a time, became the most powerful man in the Western Roman Empire. He was partly of Vandal origins and married to Serena, the niece of emperor Theodosius I. He b ...

. His work, written almost entirely in hexameters or elegiac couplets, falls into three main categories: poems for Honorius, poems for Stilicho, and

mythological Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

epic.

Life

Claudian was born in

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

. He arrived in Rome in 394 and made his mark as a court poet with a eulogy of his two young

patrons Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, art patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people ...

, Probinus and Olybrius, consuls of 395. He wrote a number of

panegyric A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens. Etymology The word originated as a compound of - ' ...

s on the

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

ship of his patrons, praise poems for the deeds of the general

, and invectives directed at Stilicho's rivals in the Eastern court of

Arcadius Arcadius ( ; 377 – 1 May 408) was Roman emperor from 383 to his death in 408. He was the eldest son of the ''Augustus'' Theodosius I () and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and the brother of Honorius (). Arcadius ruled the eastern half of ...

. Little is known about his personal life, but it seems he was a convinced pagan:

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

refers to him as "foreign to the name of Christ" ('' Civitas Dei'', V, 26), and Paul Orosius describes him as an "obstinate pagan" (''paganus pervicacissimus'') in his ''Adversus paganos historiarum libri septem'' (VII, 55). He was well rewarded for his political engagement, being granted the rank of ''

vir illustris The title ''vir illustris'' () is used as a formal indication of standing in late antiquity to describe the highest ranks within the senates of Rome and Constantinople. All senators had the title ''vir clarissimus'' (); but from the mid fourth ce ...

''. The

Roman Senate The Roman Senate () was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC) as the Sena ...

honored him with a statue in the

Roman Forum A forum (Latin: ''forum'', "public place outdoors", : ''fora''; English : either ''fora'' or ''forums'') was a public square in a municipium, or any civitas, of Ancient Rome reserved primarily for the vending of goods; i.e., a marketplace, alon ...

in 400. Stilicho's wife, Serena, secured a rich wife for him. Scholars assume Claudian died in 404, for none of his poems record the achievements of Stilicho after that year. His works give no account of the sack of Rome, while the writings of

Olympiodorus of Thebes Olympiodorus of Thebes (; born c. 380, fl. c. 412–425 AD) was a Roman historian, poet, philosopher and diplomat of the early fifth century. He produced a ''History'' in twenty-two volumes, written in Greek, dedicated to the Emperor Theodosius II, ...

have been edited and made known only in few fragments, which begin from the death of Stilicho.

As poet

Although a native speaker of

, Claudian is one of the best Latin poetry stylists of

late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

. He is not usually ranked among the top tier of Latin poets, but his writing is elegant, he tells a story well, and his polemical passages occasionally attain an unmatchable level of entertaining vitriol. The literature of his time is generally characterized by a quality modern critics find specious, of which Claudian's work is not free, and some find him cold and unfeeling. Claudian's poetry is a valuable historical source, though distorted by the conventions of panegyric. The historical or political poems connected with Stilicho have a manuscript tradition separate from the rest of his work, an indication that they were likely published as an independent collection, perhaps by Stilicho himself after Claudian's death. His most important non-political work is an unfinished

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

, ''De raptu Proserpinae'' ("The Abduction of

Proserpina Proserpina ( ; ) or Proserpine ( ) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whos ...

"). The three extant books are believed to have been written in 395 and 397. In the 20th and early 21st centuries, Claudian has not been among the most popular Latin poets of antiquity, but the epic ''De raptu'' influenced painting and poetry for centuries.

Works

Rembrandt - The Rape of Proserpine - Google Art Project

*''Panegyricus dictus Probino et Olybrio consulibus'' *''De raptu Proserpinae'' (unfinished epic, 3 books completed) *''In Rufinum'' ("Against Rufinus") *''De Bello Gildonico'' ("On the

Gildonic War The Gildonic War () was a rebellion in the year 398 led by ''Comes'' Gildo against Roman emperor Honorius. The revolt was subdued by Stilicho, the ''magister militum'' of the Western Roman Empire. Background Revolt of Firmus Gildo was a ...

") *'' In Eutropium'' ("Against Eutropius") *''Fescennina / Epithalamium de Nuptiis Honorii Augusti'' *''Panegyricus de Tertio Consulatu Honorii Augusti'' *''Panegyricus de Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augusti '' *''Panegyricus de Consulatu Flavii Manlii Theodori '' *''De Consulatu Stilichonis'' *''Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti'' *''De Bello Gothico'' ("On the Gothic War" of 402–403) *''Gigantomachy'' *''Epigrams'' *Lesser poems: ''Phoenix'', ''Epithalamium Palladio et Celerinae''; ''de Magnete''; ''de Crystallo cui aqua inerat''

Editions and translations

* Hall, J.B.. ''Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae'' (Cambridge University Press, 1969). *Dewar, Michael, editor and translator. ''Claudian Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti'' (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1996). * Slavitt, David R., translator. ''Broken Columns: Two Roman Epic Fragments: The Achilleid of Publius Papinius Statius and The Rape of Proserpine of Claudius Claudianus, with an Afterword by David Konstan'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). *Gruzelier, Claire, editor (translation, introduction, commentary). ''Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae'' (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1997). * Baier, Thomas and Anne Friedrich, ''Claudianus. Der Raub der Proserpina'', edition, translation and commentary (Darmstadt: WBG (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), 2009), Edition Antike. * English verse translations of Claudian online: ** A. Hawkin's 181
translation
(rhymed couplet) via

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

. ** Helen Waddell's 1976 translation of two Epigrams in "More Latin lyrics, from Virgil to Milton", ed. Felicitas Corrigan (NY: Norton)
(Internet Archive)
**The rape of Proserpine: with other poems, from Claudian (1814). Translated into English blank verse, with a prefatory discourse, and occasional notes. By Jacob George Struttbr>(Internet Archive)
**The rape of Proserpine: a poem in three books (1854). Translated by Henry Edward John Howard (1795–1868
(Internet Archive)
**The rape of Proserpine (1714). With the story of Sextus and Erichtho, from the ''

Pharsalia ''De Bello Civili'' (; ''On the Civil War''), more commonly referred to as the ''Pharsalia'' (, neuter plural), is a Latin literature, Roman Epic poetry, epic poem written by the poet Lucan, detailing the Caesar's civil war, civil war between Ju ...

'' of Lucan. Translated by Jabez Hughes (c. 1685 – 1731
(Internet Archive)
George Fisher Russell Barker (1898). " Hughes, Jabez". In ''Dictionary of National Biography''. 28. London. p. 178.

References

External links

* * Full Latin text o
Divus Angelus
*Complete Latin text and English translation (Platnauer, 1922), at LacusCurtius, Bill Thayer'
edition
*Michael Hendry, critical edition

) {{Authority control 400s deaths 4th-century writers in Latin 4th-century Roman poets 4th-century Romans 5th-century writers in Latin 5th-century Roman poets 5th-century Romans Late-Roman-era pagans Claudii Roman-era Alexandrians Year of birth unknown Year of birth uncertain