A. Life
Son of the consul for 487, B. was born around 480. After his father's early death he was adopted into the household of Symmachus, whose daughter, Rusticiana, he married. Given an excellent education, he was as familiar with the writings of Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, especially Porphyry and the Athenian School, as with Augustine, and he soon acquired a reputation as a scholar. In 510 he became consul sine collega, and in 522 his two sons, not fully grown-up, ob…