Rufus Festus Avienus

Avienus was a Latin writer of the 4th century AD. An inscription from Bulla Regia reports his full name as "Postumius Rufius Festus who is also Avienius". He was a native of Volsinii in Etruria, from the distinguished family of the Rufii Festi. He was twice appointed consul, if an inscription published by the 17th-century antiquaries Jacob Spon and Raffaello Fabretti really refers to this Avienus.

Famously asked what he did in the country, he answered Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, lavo, caeno, quiesco:

Avienus made somewhat inexact translations into Latin of Aratus' didactic poem Phaenomena. He also took a popular Greek poem in hexameters, Periegesis, briefly delimiting the habitable world from the perspective of Alexandria, written by Dionysius Periegetes in a terse and elegant style that was easy to memorize for students, and translated it into an archaising Latin as his Descriptio orbis terrae ("Description of the World's Lands"). Only Book I survives, with an unsteady grasp of actual geography and some far-fetched etymologies: see Ophiussa.

Avienus wrote Ora Maritima ("Sea Coasts"), a poem claimed to contain borrowings from the 6th-century BC Massiliote Periplus. This poeticised periplus resulted in a confused amateur's account of the coastal regions of the known world. His editor A. Berthelot demonstrated that Avienus' land-measurements were derived from Roman itineraries but inverted some sequences. Berthelot remarked of some names on the Hispanic coast "The omission of Emporium, contrasting strangely with the names of Tarragon and Barcelona, may characterize the method of Avienus, who searches archaic documents and mingles his searches of them with his impressions as an official of the fourth century A.D." (Barthelmy, Introduction). Ora maritima was a work for the reader rather than the traveller, where the fourth century present intrudes largely in the mention of cities at the time abandoned (see Oestriminis). More recent scholars have emended the too credulous reliance on Avienus' accuracy of his editor, the historian-archaeologist Adolf Schulten. Another ancient chief text cited by Avienus is the Periplus of Himilco, the description of a Punic expedition through the coasts of western Europe which took place at the same time of the circumnavigation of Africa by Hanno (c. 500 BC).

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