Which for desire of good do move Back to the springs from whence they first did fall. No worldly
thing Can a continuance have Unless love back again it bring Unto the cause which first the
essence gave.
Boethius was, until the end, a friend of Theodoric. His father was consul, he was consul, and so
were his two sons. His father-in-law Symmachus (probably grandson of the one who had a
controversy with Ambrose about the statue of Victory) was an important man in the court of the
Gothic king. Theodoric employed Boethius to reform the coinage, and to astonish less
sophisticated barbarian kings with such devices as sun-dials and water-clocks. It may be that his
freedom from superstition was not so exceptional in Roman aristocratic families as elsewhere; but
its combination with great learning and zeal for the public good was unique in that age. During the
two centuries before his time and the ten centuries after it, I cannot think of any European man of
learning so free from superstition and fanaticism. Nor are his merits merely negative; his survey is
lofty, disinterested, and sublime. He would have been remarkable in any age; in the age in which
he lived, he is utterly amazing.
The medieval reputation of Boethius was partly due to his being regarded as a martyr to Arian
persecution--a view which began two or three hundred years after his death. In Pavia, he was
regarded as a saint, but in fact he was not canonized. Though Cyril was a saint, Boethius was not.
Two years after the execution of Boethius, Theodoric died. In the next year, Justinian became
Emperor. He reigned until 565, and in this long time managed to do much harm and some good.
He is of course chiefly famous for his Digest. But I shall not venture on this topic, which is one
for the lawyers. He was a man of deep piety, which he signalized, two years after his accession, by
closing the schools of philosophy in Athens, where paganism still reigned. The dispossessed
philosophers betook themselves to Persia, where the king received them kindly. But they were
shocked--more so, says Gibbon, than became philosophers--by the Persian practices of polygamy
and incest, so they returned home again, and faded into obscurity. Three