Boëthius
(better
Boëtius), Anicius Manlius
Torquātus Severīnus. A Roman statesman and scholar, born in Rome
about A.D. 475, and one of the distinguished family of the Anicii, who had for some time been
Christians. Having been left an orphan in his childhood, he was taken in his tenth year to
Athens, where he remained eighteen years, and acquired a stock of knowledge far beyond the
average. After his return to Rome, he was held in high esteem among his contemporaries for his
learning and eloquence. He attracted the attention of Theodoric, who in A.D. 510 made him
consul, and, in spite of his patriotic and independent attitude, gave him a prominent share in
the government. The trial of the consul Albinus, however, brought with it the ruin of
Boëthius. Albinus was accused of maintaining a secret understanding with the
Byzantine court, and Boëthius stood up boldly in his defence, declaring that if
Albinus was guilty, so was he, and the whole Senate with him. Thus involved in the same
charge, he was sentenced to death by the cowardly assembly whose cause he had represented. He
was thrown into prison at Pavia, and executed in the year 525. While in prison he wrote his
famous work,
De Consolatione Philosophiae, in five books, a splendid testimony
to his noble mind and to his scholarly attainments. The
editio princeps
was published at Nuremberg in 1473 by Coburger. An Anglo-Saxon version made by Alfred the
Great exists, of which an edition by Fox appeared in London in 1864. A good edition of the
Latin text is that of Peiper
(Leipzig, 1871).
Besides writing the treatise
De Consolatione, Boëthius also
translated many works on philosophy, rhetoric, and mathematics from the Greek, most of which are extant. His translations from Aristotle gave him much influence in
the development of scholasticism; and his manuals of geometry, arithmetic, and music were long
used in the mediæval schools. He was the last Roman writer of any note to show a
good knowledge of the Greek language and literature.
