Pentadius (poet)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pentadius was a Latin poet of Late Antiquity. Two elegies and four epigrams are ascribed to him in the Anthologia Salmasiana.[1]
Pentadius was a North African, probably resident in Carthage.[1] He was seemingly a Christian.[2] His life is usually dated to the 3rd or 4th century AD.[3] What can be said with certainty is that he was active before 534, when the Anthologia was compiled.[4] He has often been identified with the Pentadius to whom Lactantius dedicated the epitome of his Divine Institutions in 320.[5] Paola Paolucci, on the other hand, proposed to identify the poet with the Bishop Pentadius who attended the Council of Carthage in 416 and is mentioned in Pope Innocent I's letter of that year. His diocese was probably Carpi and he may have had Pelagian sympathies.[6] Two other educated 5th-century Africans with of the name are known: the Pentadius who was governor of Egypt in 404 and corresponded with Synesius of Cyrene, who attests to his learning;[7] and Pentadius, the nephew of Vindicianus Afer and dedicatee of a Latin translation of a Hippocratic work.[8]
