Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391. Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Gratian, when he ordered the Altar of Victory removed from the curia, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum. Two years later he made a famous appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Symmachus's career was temporarily derailed when he supported the short-lived usurper Magnus Maximus, but he was rehabilitated and three years later appointed consul. Much of his writing has survived: nine books of letters; a collection of Relationes or official dispatches; and fragments of various orations.

Symmachus was the son of a prominent aristocrat, Lucius Aurelius Avianius Symmachus, who was a member of the patrician gens Aurelia, and the daughter of Fabius Titianus, who had been twice urban prefect of Rome. Symmachus was educated in Gaul, apparently at Bordeaux or Toulouse. In early life he became devoted to literature. Having discharged the functions of quaestor and praetor, he was appointed Corrector of Lucania and the Bruttii in 365; in 373 he was proconsul of Africa, and became, probably about the same time, a member of the pontifical college. As a representative of the political cursus honorum, Symmachus sought to preserve the ancient religion of Rome at a time when the senatorial aristocracy was converting to Christianity.

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