See also: Apollinaire, Sidoine

Sidoine Apollinaire ( Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius ) (430, Lyon - 486, Clermont-Ferrand) is a Gallo-Roman politician, prefect of Rome in 468 and a saint of the Catholic church, archbishop of Clermont in 471, celebrated on August 23rd. It is also known for its literary work ( panegyrical Lettres and ).

Biography

Sidoine was born with Lyon, about year 430, from a famous family arverne of the Gaulle S, where its grandfather and his father were prefects of the court of Gaules. In 449, it assisted at nineteen years, upright beside the ivory chair of his father, with the festivals given to Arles for the inauguration of the consulate of Astère and Protogène. He studied the letters under the most skilful Masters, and became itself one of the men of his most famous time in the eloquence and poetry.

Son-in-law of the emperor Avitus, arverne as him (he had married his Papianilla daughter in 452), he accompanied it with Rome and pronounced his panegyric in front of the Sénat.

Returned in Lyon after the fall of Avitus, it was captured there by the new emperor Majorien in 457. Because of its reputation, this one treated it with large respect, and Sidoine pronounced its panegyric in return, which was worth to him to have a bronze statue raised on the Forum and Count titrates it.

In 467, the emperor Anthémius rewarded it for a panegyric made up in his honor by naming it Préfet of Rome for the year 468, and thereafter raised it with the dignity of patrician and senator. It left this station however during the year, following the committal for trial of his friend Arvandus for treason towards Rome, and turned over as a Gaulle.

There, he was confronted with the tyranny of the corrupted civil servant Seronatus, of which he obtained finally the deposition. For reasons more political than religious, it had to succeed Eparchius on the episcopal see of Arvernum, today Clermont in 470 (or 471).

At the time of the catch of the city by the Visigoths in 475, he was imprisoned because he had taken a big part with his brother-in-law Ecdicius in the defense of the city, which had resisted to the attackers during three years. He was however well treated, grace especially to his friend Victorius, senior official of the king Euric, and was restored in his functions by the sovereign, controlling its évêché until his death which undoubtedly occurred during years 480. Its poems and its letters provide us a single and interesting testimony on the Auvergne of the 5th century, on manners and the political positions of the aristocracy Gallo-Roman within the new cruel kingdoms.

Works

• Dyed with carmine (469), collection of 24 poems, of which famous panegyrics (the poem n°2 is that of Anthémius, the n°5 of Majorien and the n°7 of his/her father-in-law Avitus);

• Letters , delivers I (469);
• Letters , books II to IV (477);
• Letters , books V to VIII (479);
• Letters , books IX (482).

Sidoine has writing 24 poems ( Carmina ) and nine books of letters, is 146 letters ( epistulae ).