c. 480 – execution in 524/526

Boethius: theological treatises, the "Consolation of Philosophy," and his execution

The Roman aristocrat Boethius served under the Arian Ostrogothic king Theodoric. He intended to translate all of Plato and Aristotle into Latin. But he managed only to translate and comment on Aristotle's logical works ("Categories," "On Interpretation"). Through these the West knew Aristotle until the 12th–13th centuries.

He also wrote orthodox theological treatises, "On the Holy Trinity" and "Against Eutyches and Nestorius." In them he applied philosophical method to questions of faith, laying the groundwork for the scholastic method for a thousand years to come.

Suspected of conspiring with Constantinople, Boethius was imprisoned at Pavia. There he wrote the "Consolation of Philosophy" – a meditation on Providence, free will, and the good, containing no direct reference to Christian doctrine. He was executed in 524 (by other accounts 526) along with his father-in-law Symmachus.

The Church venerated him as a martyr. Soon afterward Emperor Justinian sent Belisarius to conquer Ostrogothic Italy.