DRACONZIO, Blossius Aemilius. – Born in Africa, perhaps in Carthage; he composed the greater part of his works between 484 and 506.
Of his life, the only information known is what he himself provides: he studied under the rhetorician Felicianus, acquiring a broad culture that enabled him to pursue a successful career. However, on account of a poem in praise of the Emperor Zeno, and especially due to the machinations of envious rivals, he incurred the suspicion of the Vandal king, Gonthamund, who imprisoned him.
In the desolation of prison, the poet felt more vividly the voice of God; from his suffering there arose two works of Christian inspiration of notable poetic beauty: the *Satisfactio*, in which he begs forgiveness from the king, and the *De laudibus Dei*, in which the poet turns to the Eternal.
These works are less obscured by rhetorical artifices that weigh down the poems of pagan inspiration, and are of broad scope and notable for their variety and richness of themes. Among his remaining works are: the *Romulea* in ten poems, of which three are mythological epyllia (II, VIII, X), three rhetorical declamations (IV, V, IX), two epithalamia (VI, VII), two prefaces (I, III), the *Orestis tragoedia* in 974 hexameters, the *De mensibus* in 24 hexameters, and the *De origine rosarum* in 7 elegiac couplets. The authenticity of the *Aegritudo Perdicacae* is doubted.
D. is of interest for his complex personality, in which human and divine sentiments and aspirations, pagan and Christian elements, biblical and classical reflections alternate, much like in Augustine.