Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus

He belonged to the Symmachi, one of the richest and most influential senatorial families in Rome; his father, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, had been consul in 446. The family emphasised their status as members of the traditional Roman senatorial aristocracy. One manifestation of this is that Mummius Symmachus is the last attested individual to have borne a praenomen, the first element of the traditional Roman name.{{cite journal |last1=Salway |first1=Benet |title=What's in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from |journal=The Journal of Roman Studies |date=1994 |volume=84 |page=131|doi=10.2307/300873 |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/300873 |language=en |issn=1753-528X|url-access=subscription }} Memmius Symmachus had three daughters (Rusticiana, Galla and Proba) and adopted the young Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius when his father died; later Boethius married Rusticiana, and the couple had two sons, Symmachus and Boethius, both consuls in 522. Memmius Symmachus' civil offices included being appointed sole consul for 485, the third known member of his family to hold this office.The first was his great-grandfather, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus in 391.

Although Symmachus was the head of a family with a long connection with Pagan tradition—his grandfather Quintus Aurelius Symmachus delivered a famous speech urging the return of the Altar of Victory to the Roman Senate House—he was an ardent Christian,Both his daughters took religious vows. interested both in theological disputes and, more prosaically, in the struggles for the control of the Pope. During and after the disputed election of Pope Symmachus (who was apparently not related to him), he and Anicius Probus Faustus Niger were the only two senators known to support the pope against his more popular rival, Laurentius.{{cite journal |first=Susan T. |last=Stevens |jstor=27831119 |title=The Circle of Bishop Fulgentius |journal=Traditio |volume=38 |date=1982 |page=338|doi=10.1017/S036215290000948X }}

Symmachus cultivated the ancient Roman culture, writing a Roman history in seven volumes; this work has been lost except for a section quoted by Jordanes in his Getica. Symmachus' wealth enabled his patronage: he was involved in publication of the Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis by Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, and there is even a copy of the work corrected by his hand.{{cite book |last=Hedrick |first=Charles W. |title=History and Silence |url=https://archive.org/details/historysilencepu00wcha |url-access=limited |publisher=University of Texas Press |date=2000 |isbn=0-292-73121-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/historysilencepu00wcha/page/n211 183] |quote=Aurelius Memmius Symmachus v.c. emendabam vel distinguebam meum Ravennae cum Macrobio Plotino Euexodio, translated "I, Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, vir clarissimus, corrected and put punctuation to my copy in Ravenna together with Macrobius Plotinus Euxodius, vir clarissimus"}}

For the most part, Symmachus maintained good relationships with the new rulers of Italy—both Odovacer and Theodoric the Great -- demonstrated by his appointment as praefectus urbi between 476 and 491, consul in 485, patricius within 510, and even reaching the influential rank of caput senatus (president of the Senate). His visit to Constantinople, after which Priscian dedicated him some poems, was likely on behalf of king Theodoric. However, Symmachus contradicted the Ostrogothic king, who condemned him to death for treason in 526, one year after the execution of Boethius.{{cite book |last=Boethius |title=The Consolation of Philosophy |translator=P. G. Walsh |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2000 |isbn=0-19-283883-0 |page=xiv}}

• Pope Symmachus

{{reflist}}

• Martindale, John R., and John Morris, "Symmachus (9)", Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2, Cambridge 1980, pp. 1044–1046.
• Polara, Giovanni, Memmio Simmaco e il teatro, in Farmhouse Alberto Paulo and Paniagua David (eds.), Ways of Approaching Knowledge in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Schools and Scholarship, Nordhausen, 2012 (Studia Classica et Mediaevalia, 8), pp. 158–176.

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{{s-bef | before=Decius Marius Venantius Basilius,
Flavius Theodericus }}

{{s-ttl |title=Consul of the Roman Empire | years=485 }}

{{s-aft | after=Caecina Mavortius Basilius Decius Iunior,
Flavius Longinus }}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, Quintus}}

Category:526 deaths

Category:5th-century western Roman consuls

Category:5th-century Christians

Category:6th-century Christians

Category:6th-century Italo-Roman people

Category:6th-century historians

Category:Urban prefects of Rome

Category:Year of birth unknown

Quintus Memmius

Symmachus, Quintus Aurelius

Category:Patricii

Category:Executed ancient Roman people

Category:6th-century Italian writers

Category:6th-century writers in Latin