author

Julius Firmicus Maternus

A fourth-century Roman writer who moved from astrology to fierce Christian apologetics, leaving behind one of antiquity’s fullest surviving works on astrology. His life and writing capture a moment when the classical world and the rising Christian empire were colliding.

1 Audiobook

Ocellus Lucanus on the nature of the universe : Taurus, the Platonic philosopher, on the eternity of the world. Julius Firmicus Maternus of the thema mundi. Select theorems on the perpetuity of time, by Proclus.

Ocellus Lucanus on the nature of the universe : Taurus, the Platonic philosopher, on the eternity of the world. Julius Firmicus Maternus of the thema mundi. Select theorems on the perpetuity of time, by Proclus.

by Julius Firmicus Maternus, Proclus, Tauros

About the author

Born in the Roman world during the age of Constantine, Julius Firmicus Maternus was a Latin author with a broad classical education. Sources describe him as active in the fourth century and associate him with Sicily, while also noting his skill in law, rhetoric, and learned pagan culture.

He is best known for two very different kinds of writing. One is the Matheseos Libri VIII, a large and influential treatise on astrology that is often described as the most complete astrological work to survive from classical antiquity. The other is De errore profanarum religionum, a sharp attack on pagan religions written after his turn toward Christianity.

That unusual combination makes him especially interesting today. His surviving works preserve both the intellectual world of late Roman astrology and the intense religious arguments of the Christianizing empire, giving readers a vivid glimpse of a period of major cultural change.