Dynamius

1. A legal pleader of Bordeaux known to us through a short poetical memoir in elegiac verse, composed after his decease by his friend Ausonius. From this little piece we learn that Dynamius was compelled to quit his native city in consequence of being charged, not unjustly it would seem, with adultery, that he took refuge under the assumed name of Flavinius at Lerida, where he practised as a rhetorician, and that he there wedded a wealthy Spanish bride. Late in life he paid a short visit to the place of his birth, but soon returned to his adopted country, where he died. (Auson. Prof. xxiii.)

2. A grammarian of uncertain date, the author of an "Epistola ad Discipulum" to be found in the "Paraenetici Scriptores Veteres" of Melchior Goldast. (Insul. 4to, 1604.) He is believed by some to be the same with No. 3.

3. Of Arles, born of a noble family in the middle of the sixth century, and at the early age of thirty appointed governor of the province of Marseilles, where he soon became notorious for tyranny and extortion, persecuting with especial hostility the bishop Theodorus, whom he drove into banishment, confiscating at the same time the revenues of the see. As he advanced in life, however, a singular change was wrought in his character by remorse or some motive now unknown. He became the obedient instrument of pope Gregory, the zealous champion of the rights of Rome, lavished his ill-gotten hoards on the endowment of monasteries, and ended his life in a cloister about A. D. 601. In youth he composed several poetical pieces, which are warmly lauded by Fortunatus of Poitiers; but the only productions of his pen now extant are the Vita S. Marii, abbot of Bevon, an abridgment of which is given in the Acta of Bollandus under the 27th of January; and the Vita S. Maximi, originally abbot of Lerins, but afterwards bishop of Riez, contained in the collection of Surius under 27 Nov., and in a more correct form in the "Chronologia S. Insulae Lerinensis," by Vincentius Barralis, Lugdun. 4to, 1613. [W.R]