Fourth century-fifth century? A.D.

Roman North African Scholar

Martianus Capella is remembered almost solely for De nuptiis philologiae et Mercurii (the marriage of Mercury and philology), also known variously as the Satyricon and Disciplinae. An allegory concerning the arts and sciences, the book was destined to have an enormous impact on medieval learning.

He was a native of Madaura, Numidia (now in Algeria), the same town where the philosopher Lucius Apuelius (124?-170?) had been born three centuries earlier. After moving to Carthage (now in Tunisia), Martianus worked as a solicitor or attorney, and married. He later had a son named Marianius, to whom he dedicated De nuptiis.

In Martianus's time, North Africa had been overrun by the Vandals, and he and his family apparently struggled to maintain some semblance of a normal life in Carthage. Thus it is all the more interesting and significant that...