7/30/2019 Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus

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Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus

Musical writings

Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (c. AD 480c.524). The Ostrogothic king Theoderic (1) appointed thisleading nobleman consul (510), and magister officiorum (?522). He resisted official oppression, was implicated

in a senatorial conspiracy, imprisoned, and executed. HisDe consolatione philosophiae is a prison dialogue withPhilosophy, a Menippean mixture of prose and verse, owing much to Martianus Capella and Augustine. It

justifies providence on a Stoic and Neoplatonic basis (see STOICISM; NEOPLATONISM), without overtChristianity; its reconciliation of free will and divine prescience is philosophically notable; it shows high literary

genius, and an astounding memory for classical texts under trying conditions. Boethius' Greek scholarship wasrare in Italy; he planned introductions and translations for the mathematical and logical disciplines, and complete

translations of Plato (1) and Aristotle. The project was never completed, and much is lost or fragmentary.Survivors:De arithmetica andInstitutio musica (on which see below); a commentary on Cicero's Topics,translations and commentaries for Porphyry'sIsagoge, and Aristotle'sPrior Analytics, Categories, and

Perihermeneias; translations of Aristotle's Topics and Sophistici elenchi. Five treatises give Boethius' own

introduction to Peripatetic logic. Literal translation and repetitive explanation made the philosophic corpusinelegant but serviceable; exceptingDe syllogismis hypotheticis, it is generally unoriginal. Boethius owed much

to Alexandrian and Athenian Neoplatonists (especially Ammonius (2) ), but personal contact is unprovable.Involved in Christological controversies which had divided Rome and Constantinople, he wrote five theological

Tractates; the fifth, the most original, favours the Theopaschite formula, aimed at reconciling Monophysites.Undervalued in his own day, Boethius wielded vast influence from Carolingian times onward, especially on

Abelard;De consolatione was translated by King Alfred, Chaucer, and Elizabeth I.

TEXTS, COMMENTARIES, TRANSLATIONS

Migne,PL 634 (includingspuria);De consolatione, ed. L. Bieler, CCSL 94 (1957), comm., J. Gruber (1978);Tractates, ed. R. Peiper (1871);De cons. and Tractates, ed. with Eng. trans., E. K. Rand, H. F. Stewart, and S. J.

Tester (1973);De arithmetica andDe musica, ed. G. Friedlein (1867); Eng. trans. ofDe arith., M. Masi (1983),Eng. trans. ofDe mus., C. M. Bower (1989);De syllogismis Hypotheticis, ed. L. Obertello (1969); Geometriae

(supposed), ed. M. Folkerts (1970); Aristotelian translations: trans. of Porphyry'sIsagoge, and comm. onPrior

Analytics inAristoteles Latinus, ed. L. Minio-Paluello and B. Dod (196175); comm. onIsagoge, ed. S. Brandt,CSEL 48 (1906), onPerihermeneias, ed. C. Meiser (187780), on Cicero's Topics in Ciceronis Opera 5. 1, ed. J.

C. Orelli and J. G. Baiter (1834);De Topicis Differentiis, Eng. trans. with comm., E. Stump (1978).

LITERATURE

P. Courcelle,Late Latin Writers and their Greek Sources (1969; Fr. orig. 1948); M. T. Gibson (ed.),Boethius(1981); H. Chadwick,Boethius (1981).

S. J. B. B.

Copyright The Oxford Classical Dictionary Oxford University Press 1996, 2000

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