Background
Around 364 the emperor Valentinian I summoned him to Trier to become imperial tutor to his youthful son Gratian. Ausonius accompanied Valentinian and Gratian on their campaign against the Germans in 368-369; the following year he was granted the honorary title of comes or count. On the accession of Gratian in 375, Ausonius and his family rapidly attained positions of considerable influence. In 378 he became prefect of the Gauls, one of the most important posts in the empire, and in 379, he received the crowning honor of the consulship. His "Thanksgiving to Gratian" for the consulship has been preserved. Upon expiration of his term he evidently retired to his ancestral estate in Bordeaux and, following the murder of Gratian at Lyons in 383, devoted himself entirely to agricultural and literary pursuits.
Ausonius' literary remains are generally of historical interest rather than literary merit. His personal poems, the elegies commemorating relatives and former teachers, and his descriptions of his journeys and of the famous cities that he visited often provide delightful insights into daily life in the fourth century.
Ausonius was perhaps the first to write macaronic (mixed Greek and Latin) verse. He preferred the dactylic hexameter and the elegiac distich. Too often, in spite of careful Latinity, his matter is trite and uninspired. His finest works are the "Moselle," a 483-line poem celebrating a famous river, and the "Nuptial Cento." The first poem recounts a journey along the Moselle from Bingen to Trier with descriptions of sights along the river, where "on quivering ripples whole hills float and the absent vine trembles," of fish and anglers, and of homes along the banks. The "Nuptial Cento" describes a wedding feast and is made up entirely of tags from Vergil. The composition is a marvelous tour de force and provides amusing reading for anyone familiar with the earlier poet. Edward Gibbon's famous epigram, "The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age," is perhaps unduly harsh.
