Lionel Yaceczko has written a curious book about a curious author. His subject is the fourth-century CE Ausonius, who, in a life of quicksilver social mobility, rose from his position as a teacher in Bordeaux to become an imperial tutor and hold significant political offices. Ausonius was also a prolific poet of dizzying variety and an important source on social history, particularly because of his many prose and verse letters, dedicatory and otherwise. All of this makes him a rich subject for the biographer, literary critic, and historian alike. Yaceczko operates primarily as the first of these but also takes on the other roles to produce a life of Ausonius, organized chronologically and thematically. The result is a book of substantial interest and insight, but one that does not fully coalesce into a coherent whole.
The book opens with a simple question: “Who was the poet Ausonius?” (1). In his...
University of California Press