Paulinus of Pella

Paulinus von Pella (* 376 in Pella in Macedonia , † after 459 in Bordeaux ) was a late antique Western Roman aristocrat and author.

The only source for the life of Paulinus is his autobiography, written in 616 hexameters , which he wrote at the age of 83 under the title Eucharisticos Deo sub ephemeridis meae textu . Paulinus therefore came from a family of the senatorial upper class and was the grandson of the famous Gallic rhetorician Ausonius . He was born while his father was serving as the imperial vicarius of the province of Macedonia ; It is unclear whether his father was Hesperius, the son of Ausonius, or Thalassius, his son-in-law, since Paulinus does not mention his father's name. What is certain is that Paulinus accompanied his father on other stations and thus reached Bordeaux in 379 or 380. Since he had initially been brought up by Greek teachers, Paulinus first had to learn Latin here, which, according to his own statement, gave him trouble.

At the age of 20 he married a woman from the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, had three children and was the administrator of his wife's large estate. Between 399 and 406 Paulinus wrote a preserved "oratio" in 19 verses in which he asks God for a happy life. When the usurper Priscus Attalus rose to be the counter-emperor, he appointed Paulinus his comes largitionum privatum , i.e. the administrator of his finances. This cost the senator dearly, because when the usurpation in 414 was put down by Gothic foederati , Paulinus lost all his property and had to flee to Bazas. After further strokes of fate, Paulinus joined the clergy as conversus . After a stopover in Marseille, he finally returned to Bordeaux, where he was likely to have died soon after 460.

The Eucharisticos is written in cultivated Latin, which, however, has some typical late antique forms and, above all, a considerable influence of Greek; the hexameters are simple and sometimes a little awkward. Formally, the work follows the tradition of ancient biography and is evidently influenced by the confessiones of Augustine . The poem is an extremely important source for the eventful history of Roman Gaul during the Migration Period ; For example, only Paulinus mentions that negotiations with the Alans took place after 414 , which should be used as a counterweight to the Visigoths .

Editions and translations

• Carlo M. Lucarini (Ed.): Paulinus Pellaeus: Carmina. Accedunt duo carmina ex Cod. Vat. Urb. 533 . Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-598-71323-1 ( Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana ).
• Hugh G. Evelyn White (Ed. And Translator): Ausonius with an English Translation (...) in Two Volumes. With the Eucharisticus of Paulinus Pellaeus. Volume 2. (= The Loeb Classical Library. ). William Heinemann and GP Putnam's Sons, London and New York 1921, pp. 293–351 (Latin, English, reprinted several times).

literature

• A. Brun: Un poète à Marseille . In: Bulletin trimestriel de la societé de statistique de Marseille 2, 1922, pp. 22-32.
• M. Deufert - O. Zwierlein: Paulinus von Pella on the adversities of old age . In: Philologus 152, 2008, pp. 359-363
• B. Dümler: Paulinus von Pella . In: S. Döpp / W. Geerlings (ed.): Lexicon of ancient Christian literature . Freiburg 1998, p. 482f.
• N. McLynn: Paulinus the Impenitent. A Study of the Eucharisticos . In: Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, 1995, pp. 461-486.
• J. Osgood: The education of Paulinus of Pella. Learning in the Late Empire . In: S. McGill et al. (Ed.): From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians. Later Roman History and Culture, 284-450 CE . Cambridge 2010, pp. 135-152.