AUSONIUS

: ''This article is about the Roman poet Ausonius. For John Ausonius, the Swedish murderer, see John Ausonius.''

'Decimus Magnus Ausonius' (ca. 310-395), was a Latin poet and rhetorician, born at Burdigala (Bordeaux).

Contents

Biography

Works

See also

External links

References

Notes

Biography

Decimus Magnus Ausonius was born in Bordeaux in ca. 310. His father was a noted physician of Greek ancestry ^[1] The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Edward John Kenney, Cambridge University Press, p.16 and his mother was descended on both sides from long-established aristocratic families of southwestern Gaul The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Edward John Kenney, Cambridge University Press, p.16 . Ausonius was given a strict upbringing by his aunt and grandmother, both named Aemilia. He received an excellent education, especially in grammar and rhetoric, but professed that his progress in Greek was unsatisfactory. Having completed his studies, he trained for some time as an advocate, but he preferred teaching. In 334, he established a school of rhetoric in Bordeaux, which was very popular. His most famous pupil was St. Paulinus of Nola, who later became Bishop of Nola.
After thirty years of this work, he was summoned by Valentinian to the imperial court, to teach Gratian, the heir-apparent. The prince greatly respected his tutor, and after his accession bestowed on him the highest titles and honours that any Roman (besides from the royal family) could attain, culminating in the consulate in 379. Ausonius also took part in a military campaign against the Alamanni, in 375, and then later he received the Suebian slave girl Bissula as his part of the booty; he later addressed a poem to her.
After the murder of Gratian in 383, Ausonius retired to his estates near Burdigala (now Bordeaux) in Gaul. These supposedly included the land now owned by Château Ausone, which takes its name from him. He appears to have been a late and perhaps not very enthusiastic convert to Christianity. He died about 395.

Works

Although much admired by his contemporaries, the writings of Ausonius have not since been ranked among Latin literature's best. His style is easy and fluent, and his ''Mosella'' is still widely appreciated for its description of life and scenery along the River Moselle. Overall, however, he is generally considered derivative and unoriginal. Edward Gibbon observed in the third volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that "the poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age."
However, he is frequently cited by historians of winemaking, as his works give early evidence of large-scale viniculture in the now-famous wine country around his native Bordeaux.

''De rosis nascentibus'' (also titled ''Idyllium de rosis'') is attributed to Ausonius or Virgil and contains the exhortation ''collige virgo rosas'' ("pick, girl, the roses"), a theme repeated in later literature encouraging enjoying youth to the fullest in a similar way to Horace's ''carpe diem''.
This idea was popular in 16th and 17th-century English poetry, for example in Robert Herrick's ''To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time'', which begins "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" [1]. It is interesting to note that the following Chinese couplet attributed to a poetess in the Tang Dynasty, which has entered the realm of proverbs, strikingly resembles Herrick's line: "Pluck the flower when it has blossomed; don't wait until there are no flowers with only branches to break." Similar sentences appear numerous times in Chinese poetry, such as in the famous poem by Yue Fai, where there is a sentence roughly translated as "Do not wait in vain while your young head grows white..."

See also

★ Château Ausone

★ French wine

★ List of wine personalities

★ The ancient Ausones of Italy gave name to Ausonia.

External links

★ Works by Ausonius at the Internet Archive

★ Latin text of ''Mosella'' and the ''Septem Sententiae''

★ Ausonius' Opera Omnia: IntraText Digital Library

References

★

Notes

1. Harvard Magazine, Harvard Alumni Association, University of Michigan, p.2