Avienus, Rufus Festus

, a Latin poet, flourished under Theodosius the elder, in the fifth century. We have by him a translation in verse of the Phænomena of Aratus, Venice, 1488, 4to, and Madrid, 1634, 4 to of the description of the Earth by Dionysius of Alexandria; and of some fables of Æsop, far inferior to those of Phædrus for purity and elegance of diction. His translation of Æsop in elegiac verses is to be found in the Phaedrus of Paris, 1747, 12mo, and the Variorum edition of Amsterdam, 1731, in 8vo. He also turned all the books of Livy into iambic verse: a very strange undertaking, of which it is not easy to conceive the use at that time, although at present it may supply in part what is wanting of that historian. ²