Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (redirected from Anicius Manlius Boethius)

Boethius

 in full Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

(born AD 470–475?, Rome—died 524, Pavia?) Roman scholar, Christian philosopher, and statesman. Born to a patrician family, he became consul in 510 and subsequently chief minister to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric. Accused of treason and condemned to death, he wrote his Neoplatonic The Consolation of Philosophy while in prison awaiting execution. The work was extremely popular and influential through the Middle Ages and later. He is also known for his translations of works of Greek logic and mathematics, including those of Porphyry and Aristotle. His translations and commentaries were among the basic texts of medieval Scholasticism.

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Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus 

Born circa 480, in Rome; died 524, in Pavia. Roman philosopher and statesman; senator, at one time close to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric.

Accused of secret ties with Byzantium, Boethius was imprisoned and sentenced to death. While he awaited execution in prison, he wrote his principal work, The Consolation of Philosophy (1474; Russian translation, 1794). The basic ideas of this treatise, which takes the form of a dialogue between the author and philosophy personified, are the worthlessness of earthly goods and the advantages of spiritual peace and a pure conscience. The influence of Boethius on the spiritual life of the early Middle Ages was established by his Latin translations of Aristotle’s works on logic (the Categories and On Interpretation, as well as Porphyry’s “Introductions” to Aristotle’s Categories), his translations of Nicomachus’ Arithmetic and Euclid’s Elements, and his own treatise On Music. In Boethius’ works the ideas of Christianity were eclectically interwoven with the teachings of various schools of late classical philosophy (in addition to Aristotle, Neoplatonism, and Stoicism).

WORKS

Opera omnia, vols. 1–2. (Patrologiae latina, vols. 63–64.) Paris, 1860.
In Russian translation:
“Nastavlenie k muzyke.” In Muzykal’naia estetika zapadnoevropeiskogo srednevekov’ia i Vozrozhdeniia. Moscow, 1966.

REFERENCES

Istoriia rimskoi literatury. Moscow, 1954.
Kol’man, E. Istoriia matematiki v drevnosti. Moscow, 1961.
Steward, H. E. Boetius. Edinburgh-London, 1891.

V. V. SOKOLOV