Namatiānus, Rutilius
Claudius
A Roman poet, by birth a Gaul and a pagan, who was
praefectus urbi
under the emperor Honorius. After the sack of Rome by Alaric, he returned to his native
country, then overrun by the Visigoths, and described his journey home in a poem in two books,
De Reditu Suo, of which a portion of the first and the end of the second have
perished. The poem is pure and correct in language and metrical form, and is interesting on
account of its pathetic description of the misfortunes of the time. He detests the Jews (i.
383), and speaks of Christianity as
deterior Circaeis secta venenis (i. 525).
His philosophy is See F.
Müller, De Namatiano Stoico
(1882). There is an edition by L. Müller with an introduction
(Leipzig,
1870); and a (German) translation with notes by Reumont
(Berlin, 1872).
