A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

BOETHIUS.
Being the last Roman of any note who understood
the language and studied the literature of'Greece,
and living on the boundary of the ancient and
modern world, he is one of the most important links
between them. As it had been the great object of
his public life to protect the declining fortunes of
Rome against the oppression of the barbarian invaders, so it was the great object of his literary
life to keep alive the expiring light of Greek
literature amidst the growing ignorance of the age.
The complete ruin of the ancient world, which followed almost immediately on his death, imparted.
to this object an importance and to himself a
celebrity far beyond what he could ever have
anticipated. In the total ignorance of Greek
writers which prevailed from the 6th to the 14th
century, he was looked upon as the head and type
of all philosophers, as Augustin was of all theology
and Virgil of all literature, and hence the tendency
throughout the middle ages to invest him with a
distinctly Christian and almost miraculous character. In Dante,e.g. he is thus described (Parad. x.
124):Per veder ogni ben dentro vi gode
L' anima santa, che 'I mondo fallace
Fa manifesto a chi di lei ben ode;
Lo corpo, ond 'ella fu cacciata, giace
Giuso in Cicldauro, ed essa da martiro
E da esiglio venne a questa pace.
After the introduction of the works of Aristotle into
Europe in the 13th century, Boethius's fame gradually died away, and he affords a remarkable instance
of an author, who having served a great purpose for
nearly 1000 years, now that that purpose has been
accomplished, will sink into obscurity as general as
was once his celebrity. The first author who
quotes his works is Hincmar (i. 211, 460, 474,
521), A. D. 850, and in the subsequent literature
of the middle ages the Consolatio gave birth to
imitations, translations, and commentaries, innumerable. (Warton's Eng. Poet. ii. 342, 343.)
Of four classics in the Paris library in A. D. 1300
this was one. (Ib. i. p. cxii.) Of translations the
most famous were one into Greek, of the poetical
portions of the work, by Maximus Planudes (first
published by Weber, Darmstadt, 1833), into
Hebrew by Ben Banschet (Wolf. Bibl. Heb. i.
229, 1092, 243, 354, 369; Fabric. Bibl. Lat. iii.
15), into old High German at the beginning of the
llth century, by St. Gallen; into French by J.
Meun, in 1300, at the order of Philip the Fair;
but above all, that into Anglo-Saxon by Alfred
the Great, which is doubly interesting, (1.) as one
of the earliest specimens of Anglo-Saxon literature;
(2.) as the chief literary relic of Alfred himself,
whose own mind appears not only in the freedom
of the translation, but also in large original insertions relative to the kingly office, or to Christian
history, which last fact strikingly illustrates the
total absence of any such in Boethius's own work.
(Of this the best edition is by J. S. Cardale, with
notes and translation, 1828.)
Of imitations may be mentioned (1), Chaucer's
Testament of Love. (Warton's Eny.Poet. ii. 295.)
2. Consolatio Monachorum, by Echard, 1130. 3.
Consolatio Theologiae, by Gerson. 4. The King's
Complaint, by James I. 5. An Imitation, by
Charles, Duke of Orleans, in the 15th century.
Bo'thius's own works are as follow:-1. De
Consolationo PhilosopiZiae. Of its moral and
religious character no more need be said. In a|

BOETHUS. 497
literary point of view, it is a dialogue between
himself and Philosophy, much in the style of the
Pastor of Hermas,-a work which it resembles in
the liveliness of personification, though inferior to
it in variety and superior in diction. The alternation of prose and verse is thought to have been
suggested by the nearly contemporary work of
Marcianus Capella on the nuptials of Mercury and
Philology. The verses are almost entirely borrowed from Seneca.
2. De Unitate et Uno, and De Arilhmetica libri
ii.; 3. De Musica iibri v.; 4. De Geometria libri
ii.; 5. In Porphyrii Phoenicis Isagogen de Praedicabilibus a Victorino translatam Diologi ii.; 6. In
eandem a se Latine versam Expositio secunda libris
totidem; 7. In Caiegorias Aristotelis libri ii.; 8.
In librum Aristotelis de Intelpretatione o flinorum
Commentariorum libri ii., and a second ed. called
Comment. Majora, in 6 books; 9. Analyticorum
Aristotelis priorum et posteriorum libri iv.; 10. Introductio ad Categoricos Syllogismos; 11. De Syllogismo Categorico libri ii., and De Hypothetico libri
ii.; 12. De Divisione, and De Dfinitione; 13. Topicorum Aristotelis libri viii.; 14. Elenchorum Sophisticorum libri ii.; 15. In Topica Ciceronis libri
vi.; 16. De Difoerentiis Topicis libri iv. The first
collected edition of his works was published at
Venet., fol., 1491 (or 1492); the best and most
complete at Basel, 1570, fol.
The chief ancient authorities for his life are the
Epistles of Ennodius and Cassiodorus, and the
History of Procopius. The chief modern authorities are Fabric. Bibl. Lat. iii. 15; Tiraboschi,
vol. iii. lib. 1. cap. 4; Hand, in Ersch and Gruber's
Encyclopadie; Barberini, Crit. storica Exposizione
della Vita di Sev. Boezio, Pavia, 1783; Ieyne,
Censura ingenii, Sc. Boethii, Gottin.1806. [A. P. S.]
BOE'THUS (Boeods). 1. A Stoic philosopher
who perhaps lived even before the time of Chrysippus,
and was the author of several works. One of themn
was entitled irepl q('uws, from which Diogenes
Laertius (vii. 148) quotes his opinion about tlhe
essence of God; another was called irept eijaupUlevrs,
of which the same writer (vii. 149) mentions the
eleventh book. This latter work is, in all probability the one to which Cicero refers in his treatise
on Divination (i. 8, ii. 21). Philo (de Mund.
incorript. ii. p. 497, ed. Mangey) mentions him
together with Posidonius, and it is not improbable
that this Boethus is the one mentioned by Plutarch. (De Placit. Philos. iii. 2.)
2. An Epicurean philosopher and geometrician,
who is mentioned by Plutarch (de Pyth. Orac. p.
396, d.), and is introduced by the same writer in
the Symposiaca (v. 1, p. 673, c.); but nothing further is known about him.
3. A Platonic philosopher and grammarian, who
wrote a Lexicon to Plato's works (orvvaywy'
Eewv E lXav-rwIKcr 7v), dedicated to Melanthus,
which Photius (Cod. 154) preferred to the similar
work of Timaeus still extant. Another work on
the ambiguous words of Plato (irepi rwv 7rapa IhIa"rwvt dropovlEvovn Ae'(ew) was dedicated to Athenagoras. (Phot. Cod. 155.) Whether he is the
same as the BoUthus who wrote an exegesis to the
Phaenomena of Aratus (Geminus, Introd. ad Phaen.
14) is uncertain, and also whether he is the one
against whom Porphyrius wrote his work irepl
mvX/is. (Euseb. Praep. Evaong. xiv. 10, xv. 11, 16
comp. Hesych. s. v. ald rd'v CtrpIr"s; Aeneas,
Gaz. Theophr. p. 16.) [L. S.]
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