A Biography of Boethius of Rome (480 - 524).

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was a Roman statesman and philosopher. Often styled "the last of the Romans", regarded by tradition as a Christian martyr, born at Rome in 480; died at Pavia in 524 or 525. Boethius became an orphan when he was about seven years old when his father, who became consul in 487, died soon afterwards. He was brought up in the household of one of the richest and most venerable aristocrats of the time, Symmachus. He married Symmachus's daughter Rusticiana and they had two sons who would follow their father in being appointed to high public office. Boethius was extremely well educated, fluent in Greek, very familiar with the works of Greek philosophers and was influenced by Greek Neo-Platonism.

Boethius's final years are well known to anyone who has read his most popular work, the Consolation of Philosophy. He agreed to become Theoderic's ‘Master of Offices’, one of the most senior officials, but he quickly fell out with many others at court, probably because he attacked their corruption. It was one of Boethius's ambitions to translate and comment on all the known works of Plato and Aristotle, and provide a synthesis of the two greatest Greek philosophers. This was never achieved, for he was executed by the emperor Theodoric before he could complete his work. Nevertheless, the translations he did complete became the standard texts of Greek philosophy for Europe, and were the only access to these classical writers that people the Middle Ages had.

During his imprisonment, he reflected on the instability of the favour of princes and the inconstancy of the devotion of his friends. These reflections suggested to him the theme of his best-known philosophical work, De Consolatione Philosophiae, in which he held a conversation with Philosophy, who showed him the mutability of all earthly fortune, and the insecurity of everything save virtue. The work, which in style imitates the best Augustan models, is theistic in its language, but affords no indication that its writer was in fact a Christian. Boethius was the last great Roman writer who understood Greek and his translations of Aristotle were long the only means of studying Greek philosophy. He was translating and writing commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle when he died. He translated Porphyry’s Isagogue. Boethius also wrote De Institutione Arithmetic Libri II, De Institutione Music Libri V, and Geometria Euclidis a Boethio in Latinum translata. Boethius was one of the main sources of material for the quadrivium, an educational course introduced into monasteries consisting of four topics: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and the theory of music. These were generally used in medieval schools.