A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

the grammarian. Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius Macrobiusare the names usually prefixed to the works of this author. One MS. is said to add the designation Oriniocensis, which in a second appears under the form Ornicensis or Ornicsis, words supposed to be corruptions of Oneirocensis, and to bear reference to the commentary on the dream (ὄνειρος) of Scipio; in a third we meet with the epithet Sicetini, which some critics have proposed to derive from Sicca in Numidia, others from Sicenus or Sicinus, one of the Sporades. Both Parma and Ravenna have claimed the honour of giving him birth, but we have no evidence of a satisfactory description to determine the place of his nativity. We can, however, pronounce with certainty, upon his own express testimony (Sat. i. praef.), that he was not a Roman, and that Latin was to him a foreign tongue, while from the hellenic idioms with which his style abounds we should be led to conclude that he was a Greek. From the personages whom he introduces in the Saturnalia, and represents as his contemporaries, we are entitled to conclude that he lived about the beginning of the fifth century, but of his personal history or of the social position which he occupied we know absolutely nothing. In the Codex Theodosianus, it is true, a law of Constantine, belonging to the year A. D. 326, is preserved, addressed to a certain Maximianus Macrobius, another of Honorius (A. D. 399) addressed to Macrobius, propraefect of the Spains, another of Arcadius and Honorius (A. D. 400), addressed to Vincentius, praetorian praefect of the Gauls, in which mention is made of a Macrobius as Vicarius; another of Honorius (A. D. 410), addressed to Macrobius, proconsul of Africa; and a rescript of Honorius and Theodosius (A. D. 422), addressed to Florentius, praefect of the city, in which it is set forth, that in consideration of the merits of Macrobius (styled Vir illustris), the office of praepositus sacri cubiculi shall from that time forward be esteemed as equal in dignity to those of the praetorian praefect, of the praefect of the city, and of the magister militum; but we possess no clue which would lead us to identify any of these dignitaries with the ancestors or kindred of the grammarian, or with the grammarian himself. In codices he is generally termed V. C. ET INL., that is, Vir clars (not consularis) et inlustris, but no information is conveyed by such vague complimentary titles. It has been maintained that he is the Theodosius to whom Avianus dedicates his fables, a proposition scarcely worth combating, even if we could fix with certainty the epoch to which these fables belong. [AVIANUS.] When we state, therefore, that Macrobius flourished in the age of Honorius and Theodosius, that he was probably a Greek, and that he had a son named Eustathius, we include every thing that can be asserted with confidence or conjectured with plausibility.

[W.R]