Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor
Honorius at
Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general
Stilicho. His work, written almost entirely in
hexameters or
elegiac couplets, falls into three main categories: poems for Honorius, poems for Stilicho, and
mythological epic.
Life
Claudian was born in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
. He arrived in Rome in 394 and made his mark as a court poet with a
eulogy of his two young
patrons,
Probinus and
Olybrius, consuls of 395. He wrote a number of
panegyric
A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens.
Etymology
The word originated as a compound of gr ...
s on the
consul
Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throu ...
ship of his patrons, praise poems for the deeds of Stilicho, and
invectives directed at Stilicho's rivals in the Eastern court of
Arcadius.
Little is known about his personal life, but it seems he was a convinced pagan:
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...
refers to him as the 'adversary of the name of Christ' (''
Civitas Dei'', V, 26), and
Paul Orosius describes him as an 'obstinate pagan' (''paganus pervicacissimus'') in his ''Adversus paganos historiarum libri septem'' (VII, 55).
He was well rewarded for his political engagement. In fact, he was granted the rank of ''
vir illustris''. The
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
honored him with a statue in the
Roman Forum in 400. Stilicho's wife,
Serena, secured a rich wife for him.
Since none of Claudian's poems record the achievements of
Stilicho after 404, scholars assume Claudian died in that year. His works don't give an account of the
sack of Rome, while the writings of
Olympiodorus of Thebes has been edited and made known only in few fragments, which begin from the death of
Stilicho.
As poet
Although a native speaker of
Greek, Claudian is one of the best Latin poetry stylists of
late antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...
. He is not usually ranked among the top tier of Latin poets, but his writing is elegant, he tells a story well, and his polemical passages occasionally attain an unmatchable level of entertaining vitriol. The literature of his time is generally characterized by a quality modern critics find specious, of which Claudian's work is not free, and some find him cold and unfeeling.
Claudian's poetry is a valuable historical source, though distorted by the conventions of panegyric. The historical or political poems connected with Stilicho have a manuscript tradition separate from the rest of his work, an indication that they were likely published as an independent collection, perhaps by Stilicho himself after Claudian's death.
His most important non-political work is an unfinished
epic, ''De raptu Proserpinae'' ("The Abduction of
Proserpina"). The three extant books are believed to have been written in 395 and 397. In the 20th and early 21st centuries, Claudian has not been among the most popular Latin poets of antiquity, but the epic ''De raptu'' influenced painting and poetry for centuries.
Works
*''Panegyricus dictus Probino et Olybrio consulibus''
*''De raptu Proserpinae'' (unfinished epic, 3 books completed)
*''In Rufinum'' ("Against
Rufinus")
*''De Bello Gildonico'' ("On the
Gildonic revolt")
*''In Eutropium'' ("Against
Eutropius")
*''Fescennina / Epithalamium de Nuptiis Honorii Augusti''
*''Panegyricus de Tertio Consulatu Honorii Augusti''
*''Panegyricus de Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augusti ''
*''Panegyricus de Consulatu Flavii Manlii Theodori ''
*''De Consulatu Stilichonis''
*''Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti''
*''De Bello Gothico'' ("On the
Gothic War" of 402–403)
*''Gigantomachy''
*''Epigrams''
*Lesser poems: ''Phoenix'', ''Epithalamium Palladio et Celerinae''; ''de Magnete''; ''de Crystallo cui aqua inerat''
Editions and translations
* Hall, J.B.. ''Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae'' (Cambridge University Press, 1969).
*Dewar, Michael, editor and translator. ''Claudian Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti'' (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1996).
* Slavitt, David R., translator. ''Broken Columns: Two Roman Epic Fragments: The Achilleid of Publius Papinius Statius and The Rape of Proserpine of Claudius Claudianus, with an Afterword by David Konstan'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997).
*Gruzelier, Claire, editor (translation, introduction, commentary). ''Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae'' (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1997).
* Baier, Thomas and Anne Friedrich, ''Claudianus. Der Raub der Proserpina'', edition, translation and
commentary (Darmstadt: WBG (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), 2009), Edition Antike.
* English verse translations of Claudian online:
** A. Hawkin'
translation(rhymed couplet) via
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...
.
**
J. Strutt'sbr>
translation(blank verse) via
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
.
**The rape of Proserpine: with other poems, from Claudian (1814). Translated into English verse, with a prefatory discourse, and occasional notes. By
Jacob George Strutt.
**The rape of Proserpine: a poem in three books (1854). Translated by
Henry Edward John Howard (1795–1868).
**The rape of Proserpine (1714). With the story of
Sextus
Sextus is an ancient Roman ''praenomen'' or "first name". Its standard abbreviation is Sex., and the feminine form would be Sexta. It is one of the numeral ''praenomina'', like Quintus ("fifth") and Decimus ("tenth"), and means "sixth". Although i ...
and
Erichtho, from the ''
Pharsalia'' of
Lucan. Translated by
Jabez Hughes (c. 1685 – 1731).
[George Fisher Russell Barker (1898). " Hughes, Jabez". In ''Dictionary of National Biography''. 28. London. p. 178.]
See also
*
Allegory in the Middle Ages
The four senses of Scripture is a four-level method of interpreting the Bible. This method originated in Judaism and was taken up in Christianity by the Church Fathers.
In Kabbalah the four meanings of the biblical texts are literal, allusive, ...
*
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...
*
Late Latin
Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...
*
Latin poetry
The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205-184 BC.
History
Scholars conve ...
References
Further reading
* Barnes, Michael H. 2005. "Claudian." In ''A Companion to Ancient Epic.'' Edited by
John Miles Foley, 539–549. Oxford: Blackwell.
*
Cameron, A. 1970. ''Claudian. Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Cameron, A. 2015. ''Wandering Poets and Other Essays on Late Greek Literature and Philosophy.'' New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
* Christiansen, P. G. 1997. "Claudian: A Greek or a Latin?" ''Scholia'' 6:79–95.
* Ehlers, Widu-Wolfgang, editor. 2004. ''Aetas Claudianea. Eine Tagung an der Freien Universität Berlin vom 28. bis 30. Juni 2002'' München/Leipzig: K.G. Saur.
*Fletcher, David T. “Whatever Happened to Claudius Claudianus? A Pedagogical Proposition.” ''The Classical Journal'', vol. 104, no. 3, 2009, pp. 259–273.
* Gruzelier, C. E. “Temporal and Timeless in Claudian's 'De Raptu Proserpinae'.” ''Greece & Rome'', vol. 35, no. 1, 1988, pp. 56–72.
*Guipponi-Gineste, Marie-France. 2010. ''Claudien: poète du monde à la cour d'Occident. Collections de l'Université de Strasbourg. Études d'archéologie et d'histoire ancienne.'' Paris: De Boccard.
* Long, J. 1996. "Juvenal Renewed in Claudian's "In Eutropium"." I''nternational Journal of the Classical Tradition'' 2.3: 321-335.
*
Luck, Georg. 1979. "Disiecta Membra: On the Arrangement of Claudian’s Carmina Minora." ''Illinois Classical Studies'' 4: 200–213.
* Martiz, J.A. 2000. "The Classical Image of Africa: The Evidence from Claudian." ''Acta Classica'' 43: 81–99.
* Miller, P.A. 2004. ''Subjecting Verses: Latin Love Elegy and the Emergence of the Real.'' Princeton: Princeton University Press.
* Mulligan, B. 2007. "The Poet from Egypt? Reconsidering Claudian's Eastern Origin." ''Philologus'' 151.2: 285–310.
* Parkes, Ruth. 2015. "Love or War? Erotic and Martial Poetics in Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae." ''The Classical Journal'' 110.4: 471–492.
* Ratti, S. 2008. "Une lecture religieuse des invectives de Claudien est-elle possible?" ''AnTard'' 16: 177–86.
*Roberts, Michael. “Rome Personified, Rome Epitomized: Representations of Rome in the Poetry of the Early Fifth Century.” ''The American Journal of Philology'', vol. 122, no. 4, 2001, pp. 533–565.
* Wasdin, Katherine. 2014. "Honorius Triumphant: Poetry and Politics in Claudian's Wedding Poems." ''Classical Philology'' 109.1: 48–65.
* Ware, Catherine. 2012. ''Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
* Wheeler, Stephen M. 1995. "The Underworld Opening of Claudian’s De Raptu Proserpinae." T''ransactions of the American Philological Association'' 125:113–134.
External links
*
* Full Latin text o
Divus Angelus
*Complete Latin text and English translation (Platnauer, 1922), at
LacusCurtius, Bill Thayer'
edition*Michael Hendry, critical edition
{{Authority control
400s deaths
4th-century Latin writers
4th-century Roman poets
4th-century Romans
5th-century Latin writers
5th-century Roman poets
5th-century Romans
Late-Roman-era pagans
Claudii
Roman-era Alexandrians
Year of birth unknown
Year of birth uncertain