Dracontius, Blossius Aemilius

▪ Latin poet

flourished 5th century AD

      the foremost Christian Latin poet of Africa. He lived at the time of the literary revival that took place under Vandal rule in the latter part of the 5th century.

      At Carthage Dracontius received the traditional rhetorical education and practiced as a lawyer. Though his family was initially favoured by the Vandals, he eventually suffered imprisonment and confiscation of his property on account of a poem in which he praised the Roman emperor rather than the Vandal king Gunthamund (484–496).

      Dracontius's earlier verse is represented by the Romulea, a collection of nine pieces principally on mythological themes, forming the basis for philosophical argument. The highly rhetorical flavour of these poems reappears in his elegiac Satisfactio, a plea for pardon addressed to Gunthamund during his imprisonment, and is evident even in his most religious poem, De laudibus dei. This last poem, considered his most important work, comprises 2,327 hexameters in three books: Book I describes the Creation and Fall and the evidence for immortality; Book II treats the benevolence of God as shown by the preservation and redemption of the world; and Book III is concerned with the dealings of God with man. The account of the Creation was separately circulated during the Middle Ages under the title Hexaëmeron. The tragedy Orestes—927 lines on the murder of Agamemnon and the revenge of his son, Orestes—has been transmitted without Dracontius's name but is now held to be his. Dracontius demonstrates wide familiarity with pagan Latin literature and with the Bible.

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