Paulinus of Pella Towards the End of the Roman Empire
The grandson of the famous scholar Ausonius, Paulinus was a cultivated country gentleman, who lived to see the final breakdown and disintegration of the Roman way of life. By Charles Johnston.
Ausonius - poet, administrator, and sensitive observer of the West Roman Empire in its last settled generation - died about A.D. 394, twelve years or so before the final catastrophe began.
In one of his last works, a letter to his grandson, also called Ausonius, the poet recalls his days of glory as tutor to the young Emperor Gratian:
I presided over the Empire, while my pupil, with purple sceptre and throne, submitted himself to the sway of his teacher, and Augustus rated my honours above his own... I have aimed at an equally great career for my grandson; your grandfather the Consul is a light shining out over your life... Do not be burdened by my distinction; climb to the peaks on your own merits, and hope that you too will win the emblems of Consulship.’
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