Anicius Maulius Torquatus Severinas Boethius, a Roman philosopher, born between A. D. 470 and 475, executed at Pavia about 525. His grandfather Flavins, prefect of the prajtorians, was murdered by order of Valentinian III., in 455. His father was consul in 487, but died while the son was yet a child, and Boethius was brought up by some of the principal men in Rome, among whom were Festus and Sym-niachus. He attained the rank of patrician while under the legal age, was consul in 510, and subsequently princeps senatus. In the mean time he had married Rusticiana, the daughter of his guardian Symmachus, who bore him two sons, Aurelius Anicius Symmachus and Anicius Manlius Severinus, both of whom were afterward consuls. Amid his public duties he found leisure to translate several mathematical and philosophical works from the Greek, to indulge his talent for the construction of curious machines, and to bestow charity upon the poor of Rome. His reputation attracted the attention of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who appointed him magister afficiorum at his court. For some years Boethius enjoyed the friendship of this monarch, and on the occasion of the inauguration of his two sons in the consulate in 522, he pronounced a glowing panegyric on his patron.

His bold advocacy of the cause of the weak had raised him up many enemies at the court of Theodoric, who eagerly watched for an opportunity to effect his ruin. At length Albinus, a noble Roman, having been accused of treason by the dictator Cyprianus, Boethius undertook his defence with such zeal that he was accused of plotting with Symmachus to free Rome from the barbarians. He was accordingly by command of Theodoric arrested with Symmachus, and, without being allowed to defend themselves, they were stripped of their property and sentenced to death. Boethius was taken to Pavia, imprisoned for some time in the baptistery, and executed. In 722 a cenotaph was erected in his honor, in the church of San Pietro Cielo d'Oro, by Liutprand, king of the Lombards; and in 990 a still more magnificent one, with an epitaph by Pope Sylvester II., was raised to his memory by the emperor Otho III. He was long regarded as a saint and a martyr, and in alter times many traditions were current about his intimacy with St. Benedict, and the miracles which he had wrought during his life and at his death. It is, however, now considered an established tact that he was not a Christian at all, and that the theological compilations ascribed to him were written by another person of the same name.

The greatest of his works is that which he composed in prison at Pavia while awaiting execution, and entitled Be Consolatione Philosophiae. It is an imaginary dialogue, alternately in prose and verse, between the author and philosophy. Its tone is moral and elevated, its style eloquent, perspicuous, and pure, and arguments are ingenious. It had great fame in the middle ages, and was translated into all the languages of central and western Europe, and also into Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. The most celebrated of these translations was that into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred (new ed. by Fox, London, 1864), which has a peculiar interest, both as being one of the earliest specimens of English literature and one of the chief literary relies of Alfred. Editions of the works of Boethius were published at Venice in 1491 (the earliest full collection), at Basel in folio in 1570, and at Glasgow in 4to in 1751. There is an edition of De Con-tolathne Philosophiae, with notes and English translation by J. S. Canlale (London, 1829).