the character of Symmachus from our other authorities--the 'Anonymus
Valesii,' Procopius, and Boethius. The blending of old Roman gravity
and Christian piety in such a man's disposition is happily indicated
in the words before us. It would be an interesting commentary upon
them if we were to contrast the career of the Christian Symmachus, who
suffered in some sense as a martyr for the Nicene Creed under
Theodoric, with that of his ancestor the Pagan Symmachus, who, 143
years before, incurred the anger of Gratian by his protests against
the removal of the Altar of Victory from the Senate House, and the
curtailment of the grant to the Vestal Virgins.

[Footnote 102: Caput Senati. This, not Caput Senatus, is the form
which we find in Anon. Valesii. Usener suggests (p. 32) that Symmachus
probably became Caput Senati on the death of Festus, who had held that
position from 501 to 506.]

The Symmachus with whom we are now concerned was also an orator; and
we learn from this extract that he delivered a speech, evidently of
some importance, in the Senate, 'pro allecticiis.' There seems much
probability in Usener's contention that these 'allecticii' were men
who had been 'allecti,' or admitted by co-optation into the Senate
during the reign of Odovacar, and whom, on the downfall of that ruler,
it had been proposed to strip of their recently acquired dignity--a
proposal which seems to have been successfully resisted by Symmachus
and his friends.

Lastly, we learn that Symmachus, 'in imitation of his ancestors,' put
forth a Roman History in seven books. The expression for ancestors
(parentes) here used is thought by Usener to refer chiefly to Virius
Nicomachus Flavianus (Consul in 394[103]), whose granddaughter married