us was adorned
with the titles of consul and patrician, and his talents were
usefully employed in the important station of master of the offices.
Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and West, his two sons were
created, in their tender youth, the consuls of the same year. [93] On
the memorable day of their inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp
from their palace to the forum amidst the applause of the senate
and people; and their joyful father, the true consul of Rome,
after pronouncing an oration in the praise of his royal benefactor,
distributed a triumphal largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous
in his fame and fortunes, in his public honors and private alliances,
in the cultivation of science and the consciousness of virtue, Boethius
might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely
applied before the last term of the life of man.

[Footnote 89: Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical life
of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius, (Bibliot. Choisie, tom. xvi.
p. 168--275;) and both Tiraboschi (tom. iii.) and Fabricius (Bibliot
Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of his birth may be placed
about the year 470, and his death in 524, in a premature old age,
(Consol. Phil. Metrica. i. p. 5.)]

[Footnote 90: For the age and value of this Ms., now in the Medicean
library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p. 430-447) of Cardinal
Noris.]

[Footnote 91: The Athenian studies of Boethius are doubtful, (Baronius,
A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De Disciplina Scholarum,) and
the term of eighteen years is doubtless too long: but the simple fact
of a visit to Athens is justified by much internal evidence, (Brucker,
Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 524--527,) and by an expression
(though vague and ambiguous) of his friend Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 45,)
"longe positas Athenas intrioisti."]

[Footnote 92: Bibliothecae comptos ebore ac vitro * parietes, &c.,
(Consol. Phil. l. i. pros. v. p. 74.) The Epistles of Ennodius (vi. 6,
vii. 13, viii. 1 31, 37, 40) and Cassiodorus (Var. i. 39, iv. 6, ix. 21)
afford many proofs of the high reputation which he enjoyed in his own
times. It is true, that the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an
old house at Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part of
payment. * Note: Gibbon translated vitro, marble; under the impression,
no doubt that glass was unknown.--M.]

[Footnote 93: Pagi, Muratori, &c., are a