Biography
Olybrius was the son of Sextus Petronius Probus, one of the most influential men of his era and consul in 371, and of Anicia Faltonia Proba; his brothers were Anicius Probinus, Anicius Petronius Probus and Anicia Proba.
Olybrius was raised with his brother Probinus in Rome, where he was born. He divided with his brother the consulate in the year 395, while both were very young; on this occasion to the two brothers was dedicated a panegyric by Claudian (Panegyricus de consulatu Probini et Olybrii). Although they originated in a family belonging to the Roman senatorial aristocracy, traditionally pagan, Olybrius and Probinus were Christians; the appointment as consuls of these two Christians may have been a signal, desired by the emperor Theodosius I, the very next year to the usurpation and Pagan restoration of Eugenius.
With his brother he received the dedication of the work Exempla elocutionum by Arusianus Messius, and both received a letter (Epistles, v) by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus in 397.
He married his relative Anicia Iuliana and had one son and one daughter, Demetrias.
Read more about this topic: Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)