Boethius: Biography And Contributions Of This Roman Philosopher
This is how he is known: “the last of the Romans.” Although it is true that the expression is exaggerated (we already know that classical knowledge continued in the Middle Ages), it is no less true that Boethius lived at a time when Western Rome was undergoing drastic changes, which would prefigure the new society. medieval. In this context, the philosopher was, indeed, one of the last thinkers connected with the Roman spirit, through the concept of res publica and a philosophical thought stripped, in principle, of any hint of theology.
In this Boethius biography We are going to try to get closer to the life of this philosopher, one of the last representatives of a world that was already ending.
Like so many other characters distant in time, the life of Anicio Manlio Severino Boethius contains, to our regret, many gaps. The extraordinary fame that he acquired in the Middle Ages justifies the distortions of which his biography has been subject and, as often happens, reality merges with fantasy. Who was Boethius? Why is his legacy so important? Was he an anachronistic pagan, or had he converted to the prevailing Christianity?
Between Goths and Romans
Our character was born in Rome between 480 and 482, into a wealthy family that included important representatives of the Roman state in its genealogy.
Let us remember that, At the time of Boethius’s birth, the Western Roman Empire was already in the hands of the barbarians (Odoacer, the king of the Heruli, had deposed the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476). However, the social and political reality did not change, logically, overnight. The year 476 is nothing more than a historical convenience to place the “beginning of the Middle Ages”, but the reality is that an era with its own characteristics does not begin overnight. Thus, at the time of our protagonist’s birth, the Western Empire still preserved its social reality and culture.
At the end of the 5th century, the period in question, the Italian peninsula was in the hands of the Ostrogoths, the “Eastern Goths”, so called to distinguish them from the Visigoths or the “Western Goths”. The king was for all intents and purposes Theodoric, who had managed to establish a pact with the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) and ruled the West in his name.
The reality was that The Goths, and especially their leader Theodoric, deeply admired Roman culture and had no problem learning from it and respect the administrative structures of the Romans. Thus, in principle, few things were affected by the arrival of the invaders: the Senate and official positions were maintained, with which Boethius’ family had an important career, the famous cursus honorum.
Serving the state
Since ancient times, it was very common for male members of wealthy Roman families to participate in the politics of the empire through the so-called cursus honorum, a career that consisted of climbing political positions. Boethius’s father was no exception, and his son was destined to follow in his footsteps.
The death of his father when little Boethius was about seven years old meant that the minor was left in the care of several relatives and friends of his father, among whom was Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, consul and prefect of Rome. This character had a capital importance in the life of Boethius, since he became his main supporter and faithful friend. His relationship with Symmachus was so close that, already in his youth, Boethius ended up marrying Rusticiana, his daughter.
Everything seemed to be going well for young Boethius. He started his cursus honorum with tremendous success; At twenty-five he was a senator and, at thirty, a consul. The culmination of his political career came in 522, when he was appointed magister officiorum , which placed him at the head of the state’s general administration. At that time, his relations with King Theodoric were good; The same year of his appointment as magister, Boethius offered a speech to the Senate where he praised the virtues of the Gothic king.
What could go wrong? Even two of the children she had had with Rusticiana had been elevated to positions of high prestige. Boethius’ family touched the sky with their hands; He had fame, wealth and stability.
The fall from grace
But, as he himself said in his capital work, The Consolation of Philosophy, the wheel of Fortune is capricious and blind. In 523, tragedy struck. To understand the fall from grace of Boethius and his family, it is necessary to understand the political context of the time. We have already said that the Gothic Theodoric reigned in Italy, sponsored by the Emperor of the East, who was, in fact, the legitimate holder of the empire.
However, behind the apparent peace between Byzantines, Goths and Romans, storms were hidden. Many Roman exiles had taken refuge in Constantinople, fleeing the religious persecutions of the Goths. Let us remember that, at that time, The Western Romans were Catholic, while the Goths professed the Arian faith An intermittent conflict that presaged a catastrophe.
In this climate of suspicion, Theodoric promoted severe surveillance by the Gothic police. It was precisely one of its members, a certain Severus, who intercepted some letters addressed to the Emperor of the East, which were considered a betrayal. The letters were supposedly the work of Albinus, an important Roman figure. Convinced of the innocence of his companion, Boethius came to his defense, and thus became a suspect. Quickly, The philosopher is imprisoned in Pavia, where he remains for a year awaiting his execution
It is during his imprisonment that Boethius writes what would be his most famous work, Consolatio philosophiae“The consolation of philosophy.” It is an immense treatise in which the philosopher turns to Philosophy, personified in a woman who goes to prison to visit him, to console herself for her fatal fate. In the work, Boethius uses an idea from the classical world that will later be recovered in medieval times and will enjoy unusual fame: Fortune as capricious and fickle, blind to the sufferings and desires of human beings, which can elevate you. to the highest and, suddenly, make you fall to the deepest of abysses.
The work is presented in the form of a dialogue between the philosopher and Philosophy, a resource widely used in ancient times and that will also be very successful in the Middle Ages. Thus, Boethius laments his fate and the betrayal of his acquaintances, moved by envy of his fate and greed of his wealth and power. During the dialogue, Philosophy appears serene and calm, and makes her interlocutor see the uselessness of complaining, since, since the world has been a world, everything is in constant change and nothing lasts forever, much less happiness. .
The clear stoicism that exudes the work is closely linked to the Roman philosophy of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius , as well as with the Greek Stoic school. A stoicism that, by the way, will continue to be valid in the medieval years, fused with Christian resignation and fortitude.
The death of the philosopher and the birth of the myth
We do not know if Boethius found the consolation he sought in philosophy. What we do know with certainty is that he was finally executed in 524, a year after his entry into the prison of Pavia. The man died, but, as often happens, the myth was born.
Boethius’s work persisted and continued to be studied throughout the medieval centuries. Especially, his Consolation of philosophy It was a bedside book for scholars, who in no way forgot classical knowledge and its precepts There are very abundant illuminations of medieval manuscripts that represent Boethius in prison, with Philosophy, represented by a beautifully dressed woman, speaking with him. In this way, Roman stoicism merged with Christianity, since both pointed towards a similar destiny: the elevation of the soul through the acceptance of sacrifice.
However, many scholars doubt that Boethius, who lived at a time when the Romans had already converted to Christianity, was truly a Christian. He should be by culture and how he would correspond to a wealthy family of the time, but many students of his work see too much trace of paganism in his writings. For example, it is still curious that, in his final moments, the philosopher sought solace in philosophy and not in faith, as would have been normal in the case of a true Christian. Was Boethius only a nominal Christian, since he was the official religion of the empire?
In addition to his Consolation, the thinker left many other works for posterity; especially, the beginning of what he was going to be an ambitious project: the reconciliation of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , as well as the translation of his works from Greek to Latin accompanied by comments of his own authorship. We know, therefore, that Boethius’ desire was to imbue Roman-Gothic Italy with the same cultural spirit that was experienced in the Eastern Empire.
There is also a series of religious texts known, called sacral opuscula, in which the author reflects on certain Christian dogmas and establishes his own statements. Clearly influenced by Saint Augustine, the philosopher does not abandon dialectics and reasoning in these works, which deal with topics such as the Trinity. During the Middle Ages, his theological work gained wide fame and famous thinkers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas made comments on his works. Opuscula.
However, many specialists question the authorship of Boethius with regard to these theological works. The style of the Opuscula, often closer to a simple catechism, is very different from the scholarly style of his philosophical works. So is it the same man?
Whether Boethius was a Christian or not is really unimportant. He was, above all, a man of his time, somewhere between late antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages , who drank from the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans and who lived according to what was expected of a well-to-do Roman of the time. Perhaps that is why he is known as “the last of the Romans and the first of the scholastics”; His life passed between a world that was ending and another that was beginning. And all of that can be traced in his work.
