Sīdōnius

Sīdōnius (Gaius Sollius Apollināris Sidonius, canonized as St Sidonius Apollinaris, c. AD 430–c.480), a notable Gallo-Roman poet and bishop of Augustonemetum (Clermont-Ferrand), chief town of the Arverni region of Gaul (now the Auvergne). He was born at Lugdunum (Lyons) of a prominent Christian family, and his father and grandfather both held important civic offices. When his wife's father Avītus was proclaimed Roman emperor in the West in 455, Sidonius pronounced a panegyric in verse, for which he was rewarded by a statue in the Ulpian Library of Trajan at Rome. When Avitus was dethroned in 456, Sidonius was reconciled to the new emperor Majorian for whom also he wrote a panegyric (458). When Majorian was overthrown in 461, Sidonius withdrew to Gaul but wrote a third panegyric for a later emperor Anthemius. He became bishop in 469, and resisted an invasion of Visigoths with courage and devotion, giving up the struggle only when the whole Auvergne was ceded to them in 475. Released from imprisonment in 476 he devoted himself to his diocese and to literature until his death. Sidonius was one of the last major figures of classical culture. His poems (twenty-four survive), addressed to friends, are replete with mythological allusions and show great technical skill if limited originality. He also published nine books of letters, many written with an eye to publication and the rest carefully revised. One of the letters records the classic if rather meaningless example of a palindrome (a phrase which reads the same forwards and backwards): Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor, which may be translated, ‘Rome, your love, will suddenly collapse in disturbances’. Both letters and poems are often interesting for the light they throw on life and conditions in Gaul in the fifth century.