Decimus Magnus Ausōnius

Ausōnius, Decimus Magnus (c. AD 310–c.393), Latin poet, the son of physician of Burdigala (Bordeaux), educated there and at Tolosa (Toulouse). After teaching rhetoric at Burdigala for thirty years he was appointed tutor to Gratian, son of the emperor Valentinian I. With his pupil he accompanied Valentinian's expedition against the Germans in 368–9. When Gratian succeeded his father Ausonius received rapid official advancement, becoming prefect of the Gallic provinces, and later of others, and finally consul in 379. After the murder of Gratian he returned to his family estate at Burdigala, where he appears to have spent most of the remainder of his life. He was nominally at least a Christian, but without any depth of religious feeling: he tried to dissuade his pupil Paulinus (later St Paulinus of Nola) from abandoning the world for a life of religion.

Ausonius wrote a great deal of verse in a variety of metres, showing great technical ability. There are over a hundred epigrams, some of which are in Greek. He seems to have written on any theme that presented itself, such as the names of the days and months, or the properties of the number three. He particularly delighted in verse catalogues: the professors of Burdigala, the famous cities of the world, the Twelve Caesars, the Seven Sages. He delighted also in such feats of skill as the composition of a prayer in forty-two rhopalic hexameters beginning spes deus aeternae stationis conciliator (‘God, | our hope | of haven | safe for ever, | uniter of all’). His more important and interesting poems are the Ephēmeris (‘a day's events’), a description of a normal day in his life (when and where are not clear), his awakening, talking with his various servants, and so on; and the Mosella, a long hexameter poem describing in considerable detail the beauties of the river Moselle and the life that goes on around it. His prose writing includes a long Grātiarum actio, or thanksgiving for his consulship, addressed to Gratian.