Claudian (Claudius Claudianus) [key], c.370–c.404, last notable Latin classic poet. Probably born in Alexandria, he flourished at court under Arcadius and Honorius. Besides panegyrics, idylls, epigrams, and occasional poems, he wrote several epics, the most ambitious of which is the Rape of Proserpine, perhaps inferior to his epic attack Against Rufinus. He has been highly regarded as a vigorous, skillful, and imaginative writer.
See T. Hodgkin, Claudian, the Last of the Roman Poets (1875); study by A. Cameron (1970).
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