SOURCE: "Boethius, the First of the Scholastics," in Founders of the Middle Ages, 1928. Reprint by Dover Publications, 1957, pp. 135-80.

Rand was an eminent American classical scholar who, in addition to writing works on such authors as Vergil, Horace, and Ovid, provided one of the most influential twentieth-century accounts of Boethius, which appears below. Originally delivered as a lecture and reprinted later with minor alterations, Rand's overview of Boethius 's life and career is placed within the political context of sixth-century A.D. Italy.

A century of barbarism had swept like a wave over Roman civilization, or dashed against its coasts, when there suddenly appeared the most thoroughgoing philosopher, and, with the exception of St. Augustine, the most original philosopher, that Rome had ever produced. Boethius must not be considered an altogether isolated phenomenon. He lived under an Ostrogothic king, whose capital was at Ravenna, or Verona, or Pavia...