Claudius Claudianus, usually known in English as Claudian, was a Latin poet associated with the court of the emperorHonorius at Mediolanum, 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 mythologicalepic.
Life
Claudian was born in Alexandria. 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 panegyrics on the consulship 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 refers to him as the 'adversary of the name of Christ', and Paul Orosius describes him as an 'obstinate pagan' in his Adversus Paganos Historiarum. He was well rewarded for his political engagement. In fact, he was granted the rank of vir illustris. The Roman senate 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.
As poet
Although a native speaker of Greek, Claudian is one of the bestLatin poetry stylists of late antiquity. 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 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
In Rufinum
De Bello Gildonico
In Eutropium
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
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.
Dewar, Michael, editor and translator. Claudian Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti.
