Boethius

Boethius (c.480-c.525 CE) was philosopher, poet, politician, and (perhaps) martyr.  His Consolation of Philosophy was unremarked in its own time and a late-blooming best-seller three hundred years later.  Its vogue lasted most of a thousand years.  This site provides: Also available, courtesy of the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum project, T. Mathiesen director, Indiana University is the Latin text of Boethius' de musica with some added features.

The International Boethius Society and its journal, Carmina Philosophiae, will be of interest to many who read this page. 

This page was created for the fall 1994 Boethius Internet seminar, which offered "credit" and grades from the University of Pennsylvania to four doughty participants from around the world, as well as the lively experience of auditing to hundreds more. The page is maintained as a resource for students and scholars and will doubtless be the basis of future teaching as well. For further information, contact jod@georgetown.edu. This page is an index to the materials for that course. Click here for the assigned readings from the Consolation for each week of the term of the fall of 1994.  The complete log of seminar postings is available, and that log also has a searchable index.

Topics for the student of the Consolation:

  • Text

    • * history of editions (best: Moreschini; see also Weinberger, Bieler, Büchner)
    * modern commentaries: J. Gruber (advanced), J. O'Donnell (students)
  • Manuscript Tradition

    • * abundance of copies from ninth century (see editions)
    * medieval commentaries in abundance, esp.:
    ** Saeculi Noni Auctoris, ed. E. Silk
    ** Tradizione Perdute, F. Troncarelli
    ** Nicholas Trivet (never yet printed, widely influential)
    * medieval translators: Alfred the Great, Jean de Meun, Chaucer, Queen Elizabeth I
  • Early Medieval Invisibility

    • * no sign of readership in sixth century or immediately thereafter except what is indicated by "subscriptions" in MSS
    * abundant popularity from ninth century
    * why popular? see H. Chadwick's preface quoting tenth century author of a commentary on 3M9 asking the same thing
  • Biographical Issues

    • * martyrdom?
    * Christianity?
    ** G. Arnold, F. Nitzsch
    ** Ordo generis Cassiodororum ("Anecdoton Holderi") discovered in nineteenth century offering decisive evidence
    ** V. Schurr, Die Trinitätslehre des Boethius im Lichte der 'Skythischen Kontroversen'
  • Ostrogothic Italy

    • * Important contemporaries: Ennodius, Cassiodorus
    * See Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy
  • Quellenforschung

    • * see esp. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques and La Consolatio de Philosophie dans la tradition littéraire
    * see also R. Sorabji, Philoponos and related works
  • Literary Aspects

    • * genre (see Relihan on Menippean Satire and numerous articles by D.R. Shanzer)
    * literary filiations (Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue, O'Daly, The Poetry of Boethius)
    * narrative, character, reader's expectations
  • Boethius's Other Works

    • * Plato/Aristotle/Porphyry/Platonic tradition
    * "liberal arts" (see I. Hadot)
    * magic/theurgy?
  • Philosophical Issues within Text

    • * fortune
    * fate
    * providence
    * philosophy
  • Nachleben

    • * what was it actually used for by its medieval readers?