Lactantius the Teacher of Rhetoric

Firmianus, also known as Lactantius, a disciple of Arnobius, was summoned to Nicomedia in the reign of Diocletian together with Flavius the grammarian, whose poem On Medicine still survives. He taught rhetoric there, and since he had few pupils, it being a Greek city, he turned to writing. We have a Banquet of his, which he wrote as a young man in Africa; an Itinerary of a journey from Africa to Nicomedia, written in hexameters; another book, called The Grammarian; a most beautiful one, On the Wrath of God; the Divine Institutes against the nations, seven books; an Epitome of the same work in one volume, without a title; two books To Asclepiades; one book On Persecution; four books of Letters to Probus; two books of Letters to Severus; two books of Letters to his pupil Demetrius; and one book to the same man, On the Work of God, or The Creation of Man. In his extreme old age he was tutor in Gaul to Crispus Caesar, a son of Constantine, the same who was afterward put to death by his father. [a]