Blossius Aemilius Dracontius, a Christian, a lawyer and vir clarissimus (Roman of senatorial rank), well trained in rhetoric, lived in *Carthage towards the end of the 5th cent. ce. For eulogizing in verse the Roman emperor he was imprisoned by Gunthamund, the *Vandal king, but subsequently released. His secular works, marked by unrestrained rhetoric, consist of a collection of short hexameter poems entitled Romulea, including rhetorical exercises, epithalamia, and mythological epyllia (Hylas, De raptu Helenae (On the Abduction of Helen), Medea); the anonymous Orestis tragoedia (Tragedy of Orestes), now proved Dracontian, probably belongs to this collection. The Christian poems, written in prison, comprise (a) a short elegiac poem of repentance addressed to the king (Satisfactio), (b) De laudibus Dei in three books of hexameters; this, his chief work, shows some poetic imagination, appeals by its personal interest, but is marked by digressions, repetitions, and lack of unity. Dracontius displays a considerable knowledge both of Scripture and of classical Roman literature.