Quintus Aurelius Symmachus signo Eusebius (, Classical Latin: [ˈsʏmmakʰʊs]; c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and intellectual. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391. Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Emperor Gratian's order to remove the Altar of Victory from the curia, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum. Two years later he made a famous appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Symmachus's career was temporarily derailed when he supported the short-lived usurper Magnus Maximus, but he was rehabilitated and three years later appointed consul. After the death of Theodosius I, he became an ally of Stilicho, the guardian of Emperor Honorius. In collaboration with Stilicho he was able to restore some of the legislative powers of the Senate. Much of his writing has survived: nine books of letters; a collection of Relationes or official dispatches; and fragments of various orations.
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Life
Symmachus was the son of a prominent aristocrat, Lucius Aurelius Avianius Symmachus, who had been urban prefect of Rome twice. His mother, whose name has not survived, was a daughter of Fabius Tatianus, consul in 337 and a two-term urban prefect. He had two brothers, both consulares (provincial governors) and one possibly a Christian, and a sister who may have been the family member that established a connection through marriage between the Symmachi and the Anicii, one of the first Roman families of the highest rank to convert to Christianity.