Avitianus was a youth of ancient Rome, the son of Julius Ausonius and Aemilia Aeonia, and brother to the renowned poet Ausonius, and two other sisters, Aemilia Melania, who died in infancy, and Dryadia. He lived in the 4th century CE.
He was said to have been a young man of great talent and promise, who was being brought up to follow his father's profession as a physician, but died before reaching puberty. His older brother Ausonius laments his premature death in one of his poems, the Parentalia, saying that he felt more like a grieving parent than older brother, and gives the above particulars of his life.
References
- Nathan, Geofrey (2016). "Extended Family in the Experiences of Ausonius and Libanius". In Nathan, Geoffrey; Huebner, Sabine R. (eds.). Mediterranean Families in Antiquity: Households, Extended Families, and Domestic Space. Wiley. p. 249. ISBN 9781119143703. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
- Evans-Grubbs, Judith (2012). "Marriage and Family Relationships in the Late Roman West". In Rousseau, Philip (ed.). A Companion to Late Antiquity. Wiley. p. 204. ISBN 9781118293478. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
- Jones, A. H. M.; Martindale, J. R.; Morris, J., eds. (1971). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: AD 260-395. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 126. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
- Ausonius, Parentalia xiii.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Greenhill, William Alexander (1870). "Avitianus". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 434.