Julius Firmicus Maternus was a Roman Latin writer and astrologer, who received a pagan classical education that made him conversant with Greek; he lived in the reign of Constantine I (306 to 337 AD) and his successors.
The Matheseos was dedicated to the governor of Campania, Lollianus Mavortius, whose knowledge of the subject inspired Firmicus, and whose encouragement supported him during the composition of this handbook.
18‑29) he discusses a number of formulae and rites connected with the mysteries, with particular attention and animus toward alleged homosexual practices,[10] recovering in a certain way the contempt that the senators had at the time of the Republic to the Hellenization of the Roman religion and culture.
For 19th-century readers, De errore profanarum religionum provided such a sharp contrast with Firmicus' book on astrology (commonly referred to as the Matheseos) that the two works were generally attributed to different writers.
However, Clifford Herschel Moore soundly identified the single authorship of the two works, by idiosyncratic choices of vocabulary and syntax, in a dissertation overseen by Eduard Wölfflin (1897).