Blossius Aemilius Dracontius (c. 455 – c. 505 AD) of Carthage was a Christian poet who flourished in Roman Africa during the latter part of the 5th century.
[1] The result is not known, but it is supposed that Dracontius obtained his liberty and migrated to northern Roman Italy in search of peace and quiet.
This is consistent with the discovery at Bobbio of a 15th-century MS., now in the Biblioteca Nazionale at Naples, containing a number of poems by Dracontius (the Carmina minora).
The Carmina minora, nearly all in hexameter verse, consist of school exercises and rhetorical declamations, amongst others the fable of Hylas, with a preface to his tutor, the grammarian Felicianus; De raptu Helenae (The Rape of Helen); Medea; and two epithalamia.
[2] Opinions differ as to his poetical merits, but, when due allowance is made for rhetorical exaggeration and consequent want of lucidity, his works show considerable vigour of expression, and a remarkable knowledge of the Bible and of Roman classical literature.