[1] Treated with distinction by Theodoric on account of his oration in behalf of the Dalmatians, and protected by Cassiodorus, he spent much of his career in Ravenna, doing the Gothic state some service with the fruits of a classical education second to none in what until recently had been the Western Roman Empire.
It may have been the death of King Theoderic, and the destabilizing of the Gothic regime, that caused Arator to leave Ravenna (in this the career of Cassiodorus is parallel) and make for Rome.
Arator’s method in distilling Acts into epic verse is to select what he sees as its most important events, and to mould each of these into short episodes in which there is a simple, edifying, narrative or theme.
Arator’s fascination with allegory and obvious delight in exploring allegorical significance of themes, names, and numbers gives his work a wide perspective, as he ranges through Scripture and draws on material at first sight extraneous to Acts.
The euphoria of the occasion, and the poem, was soon to be succeeded by more stressful times, and it may be that the author died within a few years, perhaps when the Goths sacked Rome in 546.