Intellectual Culture And Literary Practices 327
Like their predecessors in earlier centuries, educated aristocrats such as
Faustus and Symmachus cultivated an interest in literature and history. The
Roman past and its traditions always held a great attraction for conservative
intellectuals, who interpreted Roman history according to their political and
cultural goals. According to Cassiodorus, Symmachus composed a Roman his-
tory (no longer extant) in seven books in imitation of his ancestors.47 A vir cla-
rissimus, Rusticius Helpidius Domnulus (who may have been one of Ennodius’
correspondents) edited a collection of historical exempla, probably based
on the 4th-century work of Valerius Maximus. He also emended the text of
Pomponius Mela’s 1st-century geographical treatise.48 A certain “master Felix,
orator” collaborated with Vettius Agorius Basilius Mavortius (consul 527) on
emending the text of Horace’s Epodes.49
In the traditions of encyclopaedic learning, people of the time displayed
their broad interests by editing and correcting texts on various subjects.50 It
appears that the editor of Horace, named in another subscription as Securus
Melior Felix, a “rhetor of the city of Rome”, also emended the manuscript of
Martianus Capella. Martianus’ 5th-century treatise De nuptiis Philologiae et
Mercurii, written in a combination of prose and verse, discussed the liberal arts
in the framework of Neoplatonic philosophy, mythology, and allegory.51 One
more subscription states that Symmachus, working at Ravenna together with
a vir clarissimus Macrobius Plotinus Eudoxus, corrected the text of Macrobius’
commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, which discussed the nature of the
cosmos in the spirit of Neoplatonic and Stoic ideas.52 The copying of those
Neoplatonic texts indicates an existence of a certain learned audience inter-
ested in the complexities presented by the authors’ language and the matters
they discussed.53
47 Cassiodorus, Ordo generis Cassiodorum: “parentesque suos imitatus historiam quoque
Romanam septem libris edidit.” See also Heather, “Historical Culture”; Matthews, “Anicius
Manlius Severinus Boethius”, especially pp. 25–6.
48 Martindale, Prosopography, pp. 374–5; Jahn, “Über die Subscriptionen”, pp. 345–7;
Billanovich, “Dall’ antica Ravenna”, pp. 321–2; idem, “Ancora dall’ antica Ravenna”, pp. 110–
11; Kirkby, “Scholar and His Public”, p. 52; Heather, “Historical Culture”, p. 320.
49 Jahn, “Über die Subscriptionen”, p. 353.
50 See, however, Cameron, Last Pagans of Rome, pp. 421–97, strongly objecting to overinter-
pretations of the evidence of subscriptions.
51 Jahn, “Über die Subscriptionen”, p. 351; Cameron, “Martianus and His First Editor”; Kaster,
Guardians of Language, p. 269.
52 Jahn, “Über die Subscriptionen”, pp. 347–8; Chadwick, Boethius, p. 7; Hen, Roman
Barbarians, pp. 44–5.
53 The influence of Neoplatonic philosophy on the intellectual elite will be discussed below.