Celsus

Celsus is known chiefly as a recipient of letters within the aristocratic correspondence networks of the post-Roman West, appearing in the collections of Ennodius of Pavia (c. 473/4-521) and Ruricius of Limoges (c. 440-510). The name was a common Roman cognomen, and the Celsus addressed here belongs to the layer of Gallo-Roman and Italian lay aristocrats and clerics who sustained these literary friendships during the Ostrogothic and Visigothic period. Beyond his role as a correspondent he is otherwise little attested; no securely datable office, biography, or distinct events can be assigned to him without conflating figures who share the name. He is best understood as a member of the late-fifth/early-sixth-century epistolary milieu that knit together Italy and Aquitaine after the Western Empire's collapse.