CLARIFICATION

necessary for the understanding of

this Work.

It is important to know the character of Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c. 477–524 AD), a Roman senator and philosopher and the strength of his mind, in order to render the esteem due to his productions; not that it is necessary to borrow the panegyrics that the Reverend Father Caussin Nicolas Caussin (1583–1651), a Jesuit hagiographer and confessor to Louis XIII made for him in his The Statesman original: "Homme d'Estat"; nor that one is obliged to hold all the noble thoughts of that author to grasp the true idea of this excellent Philosopher. It is enough to know that he was descended from those Manlii The Manlia gens, one of the oldest patrician families in Rome who alone prevented the Gauls from triumphing entirely over the Capitol, and who drew the illustrious name of "Torquatus" from the chains referring to the torques or neck-ring taken from a defeated Gaul that their courage prepared for the Romans. This race was so fertile in Heroes that for the space of a thousand years it gave Consuls to the Empire; and if any member did not possess that great dignity, he was nevertheless judged worthy of it. Boethius, whom Ennodius Magnus Felix Ennodius, a bishop and poet of the 5th century calls THE VEIN OF THE PURPLES original: "LA VEINE DES POVRPRES," a metaphor for his noble imperial lineage, held this honor three times, and