Orientius

Orientius was a late ancient Latin poet of the first half of the 5th century AD

In all likelihood, the poet Orientius is identical to the same Bishop of Augusta Ausciorum in southern Gaul, about his life and the lives of saints three report was sent to 438 on behalf of the Visigoths as an envoy to the Western Roman magister militum Flavius ​​Aetius.

Orientius is known for a long didactic poem which has survived under the title Commonitorium and among other things in a Christian perspective with the turmoil, the Gaul suffered by the onset of migration of peoples dealing. The work on older poets like Virgil and Ovid betrayed his emoluments, the classical education of the author, is decorated in elegant hexameters and can be taken as evidence that literature was written in Gaul of rank of the 5th century, even under difficult conditions still: the Commonitorium is one of the most important late Latin poems.

Edition

• C. A. Rapisarda: Orienzio. Carme esortativo ( Commonitorium ), Catania, 1970.