oethius_. Of the facts of his life we had already
pretty full information, from the autobiographical sections of the
'Consolation of Philosophy' and other sources. He does not indeed
mention the exact year of his birth, but the allusion to 'untimely
gray hairs' which he makes in that work, written in 523 or 524,
together with other indications[105] as to his age, entitle us to fix
it at about 480, certainly not earlier than that year. The death of
his father (who was Consul in 487) occurred while he was still a
child. Symmachus, as has been already said, was the guardian of his
youth and the friend of his manhood, and gave him his daughter
Rusticiana to wife. That he received the honour of the Consulship in
510 we know from the 'Fasti Consulares;' but it is perplexing to find
him even before that year spoken of[106] as Patricius, since this
honour was generally bestowed only on those who had already sat in the
curule chair of the Consul[107]. The high consideration in which he
was held at the Court of Theodoric, and the value placed upon his
scientific attainments, are sufficiently proved by the letters in the
following collection, especially by those in which he is consulted
about the frauds committed by the officers of the Mint, about the
water-clock which is to be sent to Gundobad King of the Burgundians,
and the harper who is to be provided for the King of the Franks[108].
In the year 522 his two sons, Symmachus and Boethius, though they had
but just attained to man's estate, received the honour of the
Consulship, upon which occasion the proud and happy father pronounced
a panegyric upon Theodoric before the assembled Senate. Some of these
facts in the life of Boethius are referred to in the extract before
us, which, as was before said, appears to be taken from a treatise
composed in this same year 522, the year of the Consulship of the
young Boethii. Of their father's investiture with the office of
_Magister Officiorum_ on September 1, 522, of his sudden fall from the
royal favour, of the charge of treason which was preferred against him
before the end of that year, of his imprisonment during 523 and
execution (probably in the early part of 524), we have of course no
trace in this extract; and the fact that we have none is a strong
argument for the genuineness and contemporary character of the
treatise from which it is taken.

[Footnote 105: Chiefly derived from the Paraenesis of Ennodius (Opusc.
vi.).]

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