An open library of thought
Seek, in disgrace, the good that fortune cannot take back.
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
These records present three groups of writings: the Consolation, the five theological tractates and the two commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge. The Latin translations of Aristotle, the other logical commentaries and monographs, and the handbooks on arithmetic and music are not indexed separately; this is a selection, not a complete bibliography.
01written c. 524
Written in prison around 524 while Boethius awaited execution, the work draws on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Neoplatonist authors but never cites Scripture or names Christ, a silence still debated. Its 39 poems in varied metres were widely imitated and translated into vernacular languages.
02written c. 512–522
Composed roughly between 512 and 522 amid Christological disputes between Rome and Constantinople, the tractates were long doubted until a fragment of Cassiodorus published in 1877 confirmed Boethius’s authorship; the authenticity of the fourth was contested longer. Medieval masters from Gilbert of Poitiers to Aquinas commented on them.
03written c. 500–510
The first commentary, a dialogue in two books, follows the Latin translation of Marius Victorinus; the second, in five books, rests on Boethius’s own new translation. Both belong to the early years of his programme, roughly between 500 and 510, and became standard schoolbooks of the old logic.