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

888 MACROBIUS. MACAOBIUS.
pretended to design the prefecture of Egypt, a confidence or conjectured -with plausibility. The
place of the highest trust (Tac. Ann. ii. 59, list. works which have descended to us are,
i. 11-), for Macro. But hatred at length prevailed I. Saturnaliorum Conviviorum Libri VII., conover dissimulation,:and Macro, his wife Ennia, and sistingof a series of curious and valuable dissertations
his children, were all compelled to die by a master on history, mythology, criticism, and various points
whose life he had thrice saved, and who owed his of antiquarian research, supposed to have been:empire to the power and preference of his victim. delivered during the holidays of the Saturnalia at
*(Tac. Ann. vi. 15, 23, 29, 38, 45, 47, 48, 50; the house of Vettius Praetextatus,who was invested:Suet. Tib. 73, Cal. 12, 23, 26; Dion Cass. lviii. with the highest offices of state under Valentinian
9, 12,13, 18, 21, 24, 25,27, 28, lix. 1. 10; Joseph. and Valens. The form of the work is avowedly
Antiq. xviii. 6. ~ 6, 7; Philo, Leoat. ad Caium, p. copied from the dialogues of Plato, especially the:994, in Flacc. p. 967.) [W. B. D.] Banquet: in substance it bears a strong resemMACRO'BIUS, the grammarian. Ambrosius blance to the Noctes Atticae of A. Gellius, from
-Aurelius Tleodosius Macrobins are the names whom, as well as from Plutarch, much has been
usually prefixed to the works of this author. One borrowed. It is in fact a sort of commonplace
MS. is said to add the designation Or:iniocensis, book, in which, information collected from a great
which in a second appears under the form Orni- variety of sources, many of which are now lost, is
censis or Ornicsis, words supposed to be corruptions arranged with some attention to system, and
of Oneirocensis, and to bear, reference to the com- brought to bear upon a limited number of subjects.
mentary on the dream (yveipos) of Scipio; in a The individual who discourses most largely is
-third we meet with the epithet Sicetini, which some. Praetextatus himself, but the celebrated Aurelius
critics have proposed to derive from Sicca in Nu- Symmachus, Flavianus the brother of Symmachus,
midia, others from Sicenus or Sicinus, one of the Caecina Albinus, Servius the grammarian, and
-Sporades. Both Parma and Ravenna have claimed several other learned men of less note, are present
*the honour of giving him birth, but we have during the conversations, and take a part in the
-no evidence of a satisfactory description to deter- debates. The author does not appear in his own,mine the place of his nativity. We can, however, person, except in the introduction addressed to his
pronounce with certainty, upon his own express son Eustathius; but a pleader named Postumianus
testimony (Sat. i. praef.),. that he was not a Roman, relates to a friend Decius the account, which he
and that Latin was to him a foreigntongue, while had received from a rhetorician Eusebius, who had
from the hellenic idioms with which his style *been present during the greater part of the disabounds we should be led to conclude that he was cussions, both of' what he had himself heard and of
-a Greek. From the personages whom he intro- what he had learned from others with regard to
duces in the Saturnalia, and represents as his con- the proceedings during the period when he had been
temporaries, we are entitled to conclude that he absent. Such is the clumsy machinery of the.lived about the beginning of the fifth century, but piece. The first book is occupied with an inquiry.of his personal history or of the social position into the attributes and festivals of Saturnus and
which he occupied we know absolutely- nothing. Janus, a complete history and analysis of the
-In the Codex Theodosianus, it is true, a law- of Roman calendar, and an exposition of the theory:Constantine, belonging to the year A. D. 326, is according to which all deities and all modes of
preserved, addressed to a certain Maximianus worship might be deduced from the worship of the:Macrobins, another of Honorius (A. D. 399) ad- sun. The second book commences with a collection
dressed to Macrobius,. propraefect of the Spains, of bon mots, ascribed to the most- celebrated wits
another of Arcadius and Honorius (A. D. 400), of antiquity, among whom Cicero and'Augustus
addressed to Vincen'tius, praetorian praefect of the hold a conspicuous place; to these are appended a
Gauls, in which mention is'made of a Macrobius series of essays on matters connected with the
as Vicarius; another of:Honorius (A. D. 410), pleasures of the table, a description of some choice
addressed to Macrobius, proconsul of Africa; and a fishes and fruits, and a chapter on the sumptuary
rescript of Honorius and Theodosius (A.-D. 422), laws. The four following books are devoted to
addressed to Florentius, praefect of the city, -in criticisms on Virgil. In the third is pointed out
which it is set forth, that in consideration of the the deep and accurate acquaintance with holy. rites
merits of Macrobius (styled Vir illustris), the office possessed by the poet; the fourth illustrates his
of praepositus sacri cubiculi shall from that time rhetorical skill; in the fifth he is compared with
forward be esteemed as equal in dignity to those Homer, and numerous passages are adduced imiof the praetorian praefect, of the praefect of the tated from the Iliad and Odyssey; the sixth
city, and of the magister militum; but we possess contains a catalogue of the obligations which he
no clue which would lead us to' identify any of owed to his own countrymen. The seventh book
these dignitaries with the ancestors or'kindred of is of.a more miscellaneous character than the prethe grammarian, or with the grammarian himself. ceding,' comprising among other matters an invesIn codices he is generally termed v. c. ET INL., tigation of various questions connected with the
that is, Vir clarus (not consularis) et inlustris, but physiology of the human frame, such as the com-.no information is conveyed by such vague com- parative digestibility of different kinds of food,
plimentary titles. It has been maintained that he why persons who whirl round in a circle become'is the Theodosius to whom Avianus' dedicates his affected with' giddiness, why shame or joy calls up
fables, a proposition scarcely worth combating, even a blush upon the cheek, why fear produces paleness,'if we could fix with certainty the epoch to which and in general in what way the brain exercises an,these fables belong. [AvlANus.] When we state, influence upon the members of the body.
therefore, that Macrobius flourished in the age of II, Commentarius ex Cicerone in Somnium SciHonorius and Theodosius, that he was probably a pionis, a tract which was greatly admired and exGreek, and that he had a son named Eustathius, tensively studied during the middle ages. The
we include every thing that can be asserted with Dream of Scipio, contained in the sixth book oi