Claudian

Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (Greek: Κλαυδιανός; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho.

He arrived in Rome in 394 and made his mark as a court poet with a eulogy of his two young patrons, Probinus and Olybrius, consuls of 395.

Little is known about his personal life, but it seems he was a convinced pagan: Augustine refers to him as "foreign to the name of Christ" (Civitas Dei, V, 26), and Paul Orosius describes him as an "obstinate pagan" (paganus pervicacissimus) in his Adversus paganos historiarum libri septem (VII, 55).

His works give no account of the sack of Rome, while the writings of Olympiodorus of Thebes have been edited and made known only in few fragments, which begin from the death of Stilicho.

He is not usually ranked among the top tier of Latin poets, but his writing is elegant, he tells a story well, and his polemical passages occasionally attain an unmatchable level of entertaining vitriol.