The fourth century produced a considerable number of poets who possessed no mean skill in versification, but whose works have for the most part disappeared. Optatianus. Optatianus (Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius) composed a poem in praise of Constantine in which he shows his ingenuity by writing lines that take the shape of an altar or an organ, contriving to make fifteen successive hexameters each one letter shorter than its predecessor, making nineteen stanzas of four lines each from the same twenty words, and inventing the most complicated and elaborate acrostics and the like. Such work is not poetry, but it shows skill in the manipulation of words. It is interesting to know that Constantine was so pleased that he recalled the ingenious author from banishment. Juvencus. About the same time Juvencus (Gaius Vettius Aquilinus Juvencus) made a version of the Gospel story in hexameters after the manner of Virgil. He shows intelligent appreciation of the dignity and beauty of his model, and writes skillfully and easily. Avienus. This Latin poem is the prototype of the “Gospel Harmonies” of the Middle Ages. Avienus (Rufus Festus Avienus), of Vulsinii, in Etruria, was a descendant of the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus (see page [177]), and was twice proconsul—in Africa in 366 and in Greece in 371 A. D. He translated the Phænomena of Aratus into Latin verse, and tried to improve upon the translations by Cicero and Germanicus (see pages 70 and 173), made a similar translation with variations from the Periegesis of Dionysius, described the coasts of the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Mediterranean in iambic trimeters, and made abridgments of Livy and Virgil in the same metre. These last are lost, as is a large part of the description of the coasts. Avienus was also the author of several short poems. He has no little ability as a maker of verses, and has the good taste to imitate Virgil, but exhibits no poetic originality. His language is for the most part strictly classic. Querolus. To about the same time as Avienus belongs also a curious comedy entitled Querolus (The Discontented Man), a free imitation of the Aulularia of Plautus, composed in a remarkable mixture of prose and verse.
The only really interesting poet of the fourth century is, however, Ausonius, whose life extends through nearly the entire century. Decimus Magnus Ausonius was born at Bordigala (Bordeaux) about 310 A. D. Ausonius. He became a teacher of rhetoric and oratory, and was appointed tutor to Gratian, the son of the Emperor Valens. When Gratian became emperor he rewarded his teacher with public offices, and raised him in 379 A. D. to the consulate. After Gratian’s death (383 A. D.) Ausonius retired from public life and devoted himself to literary pursuits at his native Bordeaux until his death, which took place not far from 395 A. D. Nearly all his extant writings belong to this period. The only considerable specimen of his prose extant is the oration in which he expressed his thanks to Gratian for the consulship. In this the style, though somewhat flowery, is not without dignity, and the vocabulary is pretty strictly classic. The extant poems are of various kinds and in various metres. They include epigrams, idylls, letters, a series of short poems called Parentalia, devoted to the poet’s relatives, a Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium, describing his colleagues at Bordeaux, verses on the Roman emperors, on famous cities, and a variety of other subjects. Some of these show cleverness in the use of language, but no higher quality. Such are the letters written partly in Greek and partly in Latin, and the idylls so composed that the last word of each line is a monosyllable; but among the poems are some of considerable interest even though their poetic qualities are not of the highest. So the Parentalia and the verses on the Bordeaux professors give the reader some insight into the life of an important provincial city. It is interesting, too, to observe that of the seventeen cities mentioned in the List of Famous Cities five are in Gaul. To be sure, Ausonius was himself a Gaul, and may have made his native region unduly prominent, but other evidence, including the remains of ancient buildings, supports his estimate of the importance of the Gallic cities. His lines on Bordeaux, famous for its wine, its culture, its fertile soil, great rivers, copious water supply, and fine buildings, show his patriotism and his skill in descriptive writing. The latter quality is conspicuous in the most famous of his idylls, the one entitled Mosella, in which Ausonius describes the stream and the valley of the Moselle, which he had visited on some business not further specified. The vine-clad hills and grassy meadow lands, the roofs of villas that stand upon the banks, the broad, clear river, calm and placid as a lake, are all brought before our eyes with clear, well-chosen words and a masterly lightness of touch. At the same time the poet’s love of nature and her beauties is as plainly manifest as in any poem of Wordsworth or Whittier. Unfortunately, Ausonius proceeds to mention all the different kinds of fish in the Moselle, and the remarkable productivity of the river does not add to the attractiveness of the poem. Yet the poem is deservedly famous for its beauty of expression and its enthusiastic love of nature. It is also remarkably modern in its tone. Satyrs and Naiads are mentioned, but only as a modern poet might mention them. Ausonius is a Christian, and for him the pagan deities of the woods are only beings which he “might imagine.” This poem shows as clearly as the Pervigilium Veneris, though in a different way, that the spirit of the Middle Ages was awake.
Ausonius was a Christian, but his poems have no specifically Christian contents. Prudentius. The most important specifically Christian poet of the fourth century is Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, who was born in Spain, at or near Saragossa, in 348 A. D., studied and practised oratory, and held important offices. His life was apparently passed for the most part in Spain, but at one time he held a position at the imperial court of Theodosius. The date of his death is probably about 410 A. D. Prudentius, like Ausonius, employs hexameters and various other classic metres, in which he departs occasionally, but not often, from the rules of quantitative verse. His poems, both epic and lyric, are religious and inspired by earnest faith and genuine enthusiasm. He excels in narrative and description, in wealth and brilliancy of language, but lacks the virtue of simplicity. His poetry was intended to appeal to educated readers, not to the people, and the cultured classes of the time were only too thoroughly accustomed to an artificial style. Yet, in spite of his faults of style, Prudentius is the most important Christian poet of the fourth century, and among the other poets of the time none equal him except Ausonius and Claudian.
Claudius Claudianus, the last important Roman poet, was, like Livius Andronicus, with whom Roman poetry began, a Greek by birth. Claudian. He was born in Asia Minor, but lived so long at Alexandria that he called that centre of learning his fatherland (patria). In 395 A. D. he went to Rome, where he was attached to the court of Honorius, from whom he received the rank of patrician and the honor of a statue in the Forum of Trajan. He remained at Rome, or rather at Milan, until 404 A. D., but about that time returned to Alexandria, and married a noble woman of the place, being aided in his suit by Serena, niece and adopted daughter of the Emperor Theodosius and wife of Stilicho. Claudian’s poems all appear to have been written from 395 to 404 A. D., and throughout this period he is the faithful follower and enthusiastic admirer of Stilicho, Whether Stilicho’s death in 408 A. D. relegated Claudian to obscurity, or the poet himself died at about the same time as his patron, can not now be determined. Claudian’s works comprise epic poems on the important events of his times, such as the Gothic war and the war against Gildo, mythological epics, and shorter miscellaneous poems. Among the historical epics are included poems in praise of Honorius and other patrons of the poet, as well as metrical attacks upon Rufinus and Eutropius. The only remains of his mythological epics are three books of a poem, on the Rape of Proserpine, and somewhat more than one hundred lines of a Gigantomachia. In these poems Claudian shows the mythological and antiquarian learning which had for centuries been characteristic of the Alexandrian school of poetry. That school was already old when it was imitated by Catullus and his contemporaries in the early days of Roman poetry, and now, when Roman literature was dying, Alexandria continued to train learned poets. Had Claudian not gone to Italy, he would doubtless have continued to write in his native Greek, and might, as a Greek poet, have rivalled his contemporary Nonnus. In his historical and miscellaneous poems also Claudian exhibits much Alexandrian learning, and at the same time shows an intimate acquaintance with the earlier Roman poets, which is somewhat surprising in one who was educated in the Greek-speaking provinces of the east. It is equally surprising that Claudian uses the Latin language with an ease and grace not attained by any of his contemporaries. His verse is correct, dignified, and harmonious, his diction pure and classical. In these respects, as well as in wealth of imagery, brilliancy of narrative, and skill in composition, he is unequalled by any Roman poet after Statius. His historical poems must be used with caution by historians, for, although facts are not invented, they are presented in a strong light, or left in obscurity, according to the effect they might have upon the reputation of the poet’s friends or enemies. In the exuberance of his praise, Claudian equals the contemporary prose panegyrists, and surpasses the early Alexandrian and most of the later Roman poets. Among his miscellaneous poems none is so well known in modern times, or so modern in tone, as the brief elegy of only twenty-two lines, on an old man of Verona, who never left his suburb, who pressed his staff upon the same sand in which he had crept, counted his years by the changes of crops, not by consuls, and saw the trees grow old which he had seen as little sprouts. The advantages of a quiet, humble life have seldom been more charmingly set forth than in this poem.
With all his learning, skill, and genuine poetic inspiration, Claudian is still the belated singer of a worn-out empire and a dying civilization. Rome was no longer the mighty and unquestioned ruler of the world. The poet whose chief task it was to sing the praises of Stilicho, and spread the glory of his victories, must needs shut his eyes, so far as possible, to the evident decay, but he could not simulate utter blindness. In the beginning of his poem on the war with Gildo, Claudian shows that the feebleness and old age of Rome were not hidden from him. He describes the personified city, the goddess Roma, as she approaches Olympus to beg for aid against Gildo, whose revolt, involving the loss of the African grain supply, threatened to expose the city to famine:
Her voice is weak, and slow her steps; her eyes
Deep sunk within; her cheeks are gone; her arms
Are shrivelled up with wasting leanness. On
Her feeble shoulders hardly can she bear
Her tarnished shield; she shows from loosened helm