Literary Culture in Late Antiquity: Introductory Dracontius’ Satisfactio (Reconciliation)

Abstract

This paper examines the cultural connection between Graeco-Roman antiquity and early Christianity through the works of the late fifth-century poet Blossius Aemilius Dracontius. Living under the Vandal Kingdom, Dracontius synthesized classical literary paradigms and Christian moral thought. His poem Satisfactio reveals how the exemplary Roman maxims of clementia, pietas, and divine justice were reinterpreted within a Christian ethical framework. By aligning great figures from the pagan past – such as Caesar and Augustus – with biblical exempla, Dracontius emphasized a shared moral vocabulary between pagan and Christian traditions. His poetry demonstrates that the rise of the Christian world order was not a cultural rupture but a complex process of cultural reception, suggesting that Graeco-Roman ethics could be integrated into biblical teaching. The article argues that Dracontius’s fusion of classical rhetoric and Christian piety reveals a broader continuity in moral philosophy during the transformation of the Roman world.