SYMMACHUS, QUINTUS AURELIUS

born c. 345 died c. 402 Roman statesman, a brilliant orator and writer who was a leading opponent of Christianity. Symmachus was the son of a consular family of great distinction and wealth. His oratorical ability brought him an illustrious official career culminating in the proconsulship of Africa in 373, the city prefecture at Rome in 384, and the consulship for 391. When the emperor Gratian (367383), influenced by the Christian bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, ordered the statue of Victory to be removed from the Senate house at Rome in 382, Symmachus, who was an earnest pagan, was appointed by the Senate to go to Milan to plead with the Emperor to cancel this antipagan measure; but the mission was a failure. After Gratian's murder in 383, Symmachus renewed his plea to Valentinian II (375392) to revoke Gratian's antipagan orders; but, largely owing to the opposition of St. Ambrose, he was again unsuccessful. Symmachus' oration De ara Victoriae was considered so brilliant that even after 19 years the poet Prudentius found it necessary to write a reply to it. The increasingly Christian character of Valentinian's court caused Symmachus to lose much of his influence; but when Magnus Maximus drove Valentinian from Italy in 387, Symmachus, who was regarded as the leader of the Senate, was appointed to offer the new emperor the Senate's congratulations on his elevation. When Theodosius I reconquered Italy for Valentinian in 388, Symmachus was forgiven and appointed consul for 391. Under the pagan rule of Eugenius and Arbogast in 392394 he apparently regained some of his influence and survived under Honorius until 402. Symmachus' extant works, of which the most important are the 10 books of his Lettersbecause only fragments of his speeches survivewere edited by O. Seeck in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, vol. 6, part 1 (1883).