Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Aviēnus, Rufus Festus

A Latin poet of the fourth century A.D. He wrote in hexameter verse a translation of the Phaenomena of Aratus (q.v.); a geography based upon Dionysins Periegetes (Descriptio Orbis Terrarum); and another geographical piece (Ora Maritima) in iambics, describing the coasts of the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian seas. Of the last work only a part of the first book is extant. He is known to have written also, in iambics, a poetical version of Livy and a condensed paraphrase of the Aeneid of Vergil, of which poet he is, in style, an imitator. The editio princeps of the complete works was published in Venice (1488). A good edition is Holder's (Innsbruck, 1887).