DRACONTIUS, BLOSSIUS AEMILIUS, of Carthage (according to the early tradition, of Spanish origin), Christian poet, flourished in the latter part of the 5th century A.D. He be longed to a family of landed proprietors and practised as an advocate in his native place. After the conquest of the country by the Vandals, Dracontius was at first allowed to retain his lA passage (long overlooked) in Cicero, De republica, shows that, by the 1st century B.C. the interpolation had already been made; the quotation is evidently taken from the list in ch, xli. of the Constitution, which it reproduces.
estates but was later thrown into prison by the Vandal king. He addressed an elegiac poem to the king, asking pardon and plead ing for release. The result is not known, but it is supposed that Dracontius obtained his liberty and migrated to northern Italy. This is consistent with the discovery at Bobbio of a 15th century ms., now in the Museo Borbonico at Naples, containing a number of poems by Dracontius (the Carmina minora). The most im portant of his works is the De laudibus Dei or De Deo in three books, wrongly attributed by ms. tradition to St. Augustine. The account of the Creation, which occupies the greater part of the first book, was at an early date edited separately under the title of Hexaemeron, and it was not till 1791 that the three books were edited by Cardinal Arevalo. The apology (Satisfactio) consists of 158 elegiac couplets; it is generally supposed that the king addressed is Gunthamund (484-496). The Carmina minora, nearly all in hexameter verse, are school exercises and rhetorical declamations. It is also probable that Dracontius was the author of the Orestis tragoedia, a poem of some i,000 hexameters, which in language, metre and general treatment resembles the other works of Dracontius. His works show considerable vigour of expression and a remarkable knowledge of the Bible and of Roman classical literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-De Deo and Satisfactio, ed. Arevalo, reprinted in Bibliography.-De Deo and Satisfactio, ed. Arevalo, reprinted in Migne's Patrologiae cursus, lx. ; Carmina minora, ed. F. de Duhn (1873) ; Baehrens 1879 in Poetae Latini Minores vol. v., re-ed. F. Vollmer 191o. On Dracontius generally, see A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, i. (1874) ; C. Rossberg, In D. Carmina Minora (1878) ; H. Mailfait, De Dracontii poetae lingua (1902) ; E. Provana, Blossio Emilio Draconzio, in Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino (Turin, 1912) vol. lxii. On the Orestis tragoedia, see editions by R. Peiper (1875) and C. Giarratino (Milan, 1906) ; pamphlets by C. Rossberg (188o, on the authorship; 1888, materials for a commentary) .