APOLLINARE SIDONIO. — Gaius Sollius Modestus A. S. was born at Lugdunum between 430 and 433. After the customary course of studies, in which he cultivated poetry with particular passion, he married Papianilla, daughter of Avitus, formerly prefect of the Gauls, who was proclaimed emperor in 455. A. S. accompanied him to Rome, where on 1 January 456 he delivered his panegyric. After Avitus was defeated by Ricimer and died in October 456, A. S. read the panegyric of his successor Majorian. When the latter too fell, assassinated in August 461, the poet spent the period of the Emperor Severus in the tranquillity of his estates at Avitaeus. He returned to political life in 467, when, after Anthemius had been raised to the empire, he was sent to him as ambassador from Auvergne; he also delivered the panegyric of the new sovereign at Rome on 1 January 468, and in return was appointed prefect of Rome and then patrician. Returning to the Gauls, he went to Arvernum (Clermont-Ferrand) and worked to repair the misdeeds of the prefect Seronatus; the citizens, grateful to him, elected him bishop, overcoming his reluctance, around 470. He had a difficult episcopate, especially because of the threats of Euric, king of the Visigoths, who coveted possession of Auvergne, which he seized in 474. A. S., who was also the region’s actual civil governor, suffered imprisonment and exile; he spent his final years devoting himself to his flock, venerated by the faithful and his fellow bishops. He died around 489, in the church to which he had wished to be carried. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him as a saint on 23 August.
A. S.’s literary activity is a typical example of that superficial education which regarded beautiful form, the product of the school’s recherché artifices, as an end in itself, without knowing how to animate it with sincere and powerful inspiration. This character is displayed by the 24 poems that constitute all his production prior to the episcopate. The most important are the three panegyrics of the emperors already mentioned; there are also two epithalamia, eulogies of cities and villas, brief epigrams, etc. The mythological element abounds, while one searches in vain for a Christian note, except in XVI, addressed to Faustus, bishop of Riez. Once he became bishop, he thought he ought to bid farewell to poetry; the brief compositions in verse that he inserted in the collection of his letters are for the most part Christian in inspiration. A. S. also devoted the greatest formal care to his letters, published during his episcopate. In nine books, issued in several installments, he collected 147 letters addressed to friends; some were written solely with a view to publication. Their subjects are varied: congratulations, recommendations, business matters, etc. The 12 letters of Book VI and the first of Book VII are addressed to bishops. There is no evidence that A. S. carried out the plan he announced (Ep. 9, 16) to compose hymns in praise of the Martyrs. The following were lost: the Latin translation of the romance of Apollonius written by Philostratus, which A. S. declares (Ep. 8, 31) that he had revised, and the contestatiunculae sent to Bishop Megetius (Ep. 7, 3, 1), probably prayers for the Mass or sermons.
A. S.’s writings reveal neither originality of thought nor vigour of inspiration, but they possess considerable historical and cultural interest, providing information about political and ecclesiastical figures, but especially about otherwise unknown rhetoricians and poets, and vividly portraying the customs of Roman society in the Gauls and of the invading barbarians. Among his contemporaries and those of the succeeding generations they enjoyed considerable success and were widely imitated. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to A. S. to judge him solely by them: while the man of letters, bound to the trends of his time and to the school, appears vacuous and concerned only with external problems, the bishop is worthy to stand alongside those numerous pastors of his age who showed themselves fully conscious of their mission, promoting, with wisdom and strength, the good of the people during the initial adjustment of relations between Roman society and the barbarian world.
BBL.: Editions: PL 58; critical editions by C. Luetjohann, in MGH, Auct. Ant., VIII, and by P. Mohr, Leipzig 1895 (Teubneriana). — Studies: L. A. Chaz, S. Sidoine Apollinaire et son temps, 2 vols., Clermont-Ferrand 1867–68; Th. Mommsen, Apollinaris Sidonius und seine Zeit, in Sitzungsberichte der hgl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., Berlin 1885, pp. 215–23; M. Schanz-C. Hosius-G. Krüger, Geschichte der röm. Liter., IV, 2nd–3rd ed., Munich 1920, pp. 43–55; C. E. Stevens, Sidonius Apollinaire and his age, Oxford 1933; A. Loyen, Recherches historiques sur les panteyriques de Sidoine Apollinaire (Bibl. Ecole des Hautes Etudes, 283), 1942; id., Sidoine Apollinaire et l'esprit précieux en Gaule aux derniers jours de l'Empire, Paris 1943. — Michele Pellegrino