Sidonius Apollinaris
Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius, better known as Sidonius Apollinaris (5 November, c. 430 – 481/490 AD), was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Born into the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, he was son-in-law of Emperor Avitus and was appointed Urban prefect of Rome by Emperor Anthemius in 468. In 469 he was appointed Bishop of Clermont and he led the defence of the city against attacks from the armies of Euric, King of the Visigoths, from 473 to 475. He regained his position as bishop, after the city's conquest, and retained it until his death in the 480s. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic church, the Orthodox Church, and the True Orthodox Church, with his feast day on 21 August.
Sidonius wrote significant poetry, including panegyrics on different emperors, for which he was honored in his time: with a bronze statue in the libraries of Trajan's Forum, as comes, and by being made Patrician and Senator. A large number of his letters also survive, making him "the single most important surviving author from 5th-century Gaul" according to Eric Goldberg. He is one of four Gallo-Roman aristocrats of the 5th- to 6th-century whose correspondence survives in quantity; the others are Ruricius, bishop of Limoges (died 507); Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, bishop of Vienne (died 518); and Magnus Felix Ennodius of Arles, bishop of Ticinum (died 534). All of them were linked in the tightly bound aristocratic Gallo-Roman network that provided the bishops of Catholic Gaul at the time. His writing is characterised by an extremely dense network of classical and biblical allusions, which was central to his self-presentation as a Roman aristocrat in a Western Roman Empire in decline.
In the Martyrology
- August 21 Saint Sidoine Apollinaire de Clermont, bishop of Clermont