Marianus of Eleutheropolis

Abstract

The Suda tells us (M 194), all that is known about this person Marianus, a consul, praefect and patrician under Anastasius  emigrated from Rome to Eleutheropolis in Palaestina Prima together with his father Marsus, an advocate at the court of the Praefect of the City of Rome. He paraphrased into iambics the hexameter poems of all the important Hellenistic poets. The Suda does not indicate at which stage of his life his emigration from Rome to Eleutheropolis occurred.  It will be only right and proper to look at Marianus’ possible Roman, viz. Latin, background. As is well known, also in Latin poetry there was a movement away from the hexameter, and towards the iambic metre. A short discussion of two or three authors may be relevant to our present quest. The first among these is Avienus, who according to Servius turned Virgil and Livy into iambics. Another is Alfius Avitus. He seems to have found a follower, a poet whose only extant fragment of five iambic dimeters comes from a poem called Lupercalia (or similarly). His name is Marianus. Obviously in the present context this information cannot be left unexplored. Of course a sheer coincidence of the names. is not impossible; but even in that case it would have been wrong to ignore the Roman background of a poet from Rome.