TheMosellaof Ausonius

Abstract

‘A prodigious memory, a facile talent for versification, a cheerful and kindly optimism, and an avoidance of all that was serious or profound or disquieting’ – so Professor Robert Browning not unjustly sums up the poetic character of Decimus Magnus Ausonius. He was a professor of Latin, and it shows in his work. That is not surprising, since it was on his professional and professorial skill as teacher and rhetorician that his whole career was founded. It was by displaying proficiency in Latin Prose and Verse Composition that he rose to provincial governorships and to the consulate, and to the post of tutor to the future Emperor Gratian. It is to this last circumstance that we owe his best poem, theMosella, a celebration of the beauties of the river Moselle. InA.d.367 the Imperial court had been established at Trier in Gaul; and Ausonius was required to accompany the Emperor Valentinian, with his pupil, on his German campaigns. These, continuing a policy inaugurated by Valentinian's predecessors, were directed towards the consolidation of a Roman presence on the German bank of the Rhine, with the ultimate object of incorporating the Germans in the Empire and setting up a bulwark against further barbarian encroachments. It is against this political and military background that theMosellamust be read. It was clearly intended as propaganda. ‘The purpose of the poem was to inspire the Gauls with confidence in the renewed peace and security.’ They stood in need of such reassurance, for the recent past in Gaul had been far from secure.