Avienus

Postumius Rufus Festius Avienus, known as Avienus, was a fourth century CE Roman Author, from Etruria in Italy.
He is noted for his Work, Ora Maritima, a sea pilot guide describing the Atlantic coasts of Ancient Western Europe and written as a poem.

In an inscription in Tunisia, his full name is written as ‘Postumius Rufius Festus also known as Avienus’.
If this is the case, then Avienus was appointed Proconsul on two occasions, first to Achaea in 366 CE, and then to Asia.

The Ora Maritima is a Poem written by Avienus who lived in the late fourth century CE.
It means the ‘Sea Coasts’, and is written as a Periplus, a Sea Pilot Guide of the Ancient World.
Pilot guides were written as poems, to make it easier for navigators to memorise their contents. It claimed to quote passages from the following Books:
The Massiliote Periplus
- A 6th century BCE Periplus which described the Tin Sea Route from Cadiz along the coasts of Spain, Brittany, Britain and Ireland.
The Periplus of Himilco
- A fifth century BCE Punic expedition along the Atlantic coasts of Western Europe, Spain, Portugal and France.
- This Periplus also described a part of the Atlantic as being covered in seaweed, possibly an early description of the Sargasso Sea.
- It was dedicated to the Consul Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus (358-390 CE), described by Ammianus Marcellinus as a very wealthy and powerful aristocrat. Probus was a patron of the poet Ausonius, and also presumably of Avienus.