# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/lactantius
# Generated: 2026-08-12T23:56:37.885Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/lactantius"
name: "Lactantius"
slug: "lactantius"
description: "The early Christian apologist who sold the faith to skeptics with prose so polished that Renaissance readers nicknamed him the \"Christian Cicero\" — and may have written the era's most curious poem about an undying bird."
tagline: "Roman Christian author (c. 250 - c. 325)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Lactantius.jpg"
gender: "male"
category:
  name: "Writers"
  slug: "writers"
profileType:
  name: "Writer / Author"
  slug: "writer"
birthDate: "240"
deathDate: "320"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           54.44
  momentum:             0
  historical:           23.849768
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  60
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: 113
tags:
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    slug: "writers"
  - name: "Writer / Author"
    slug: "writer-author"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "Ancient History"
    slug: "ancient-history"
sources:
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q209102"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactantius"
    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Lactantius"
    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
    type:  "DATABASE"
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    title: "لاكتانتيوس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Lactanciu"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laktansi"
    title: "Laktansi"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B9"
    title: "Лактанций"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Lactantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Lactanci"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Lactantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Lactantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Laktancio"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Lactancio"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactantius"
    title: "Lactantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laktantzio"
    title: "Laktantzio"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%84%D8%A7%DA%A9%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%88%D8%B3"
    title: "لاکتانتیوس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactantius"
    title: "Lactantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactance"
    title: "Lactance"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laktantius"
    title: "Laktantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactancio"
    title: "Lactancio"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laktancije"
    title: "Laktancije"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactantius"
    title: "Lactantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Լակտանտիոս"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactantius"
    title: "Lactantius"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://az.wikiquote.org/wiki/Laktansius"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lattanzio"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%B3"
    title: "لاكتانتيوس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ary.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%B3"
    title: "لاكتانتيوس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius lived from roughly 250 to 325, spanning the final decades of Roman persecution and the dawn of imperial Christianity. His major work, the Institutiones Divinae, argued the case for Christian truth to a pagan audience with rhetorical skill sharp enough to win him a place at the court of Constantine I, where he became advisor on the emperor's emerging religious policy and tutor to Constantine's son Crispus. That eloquence earned him centuries of admirers: humanists in the Renaissance returned to his apologetics and gave him his Ciceronian nickname. A poem called The Phoenix, often attributed to him, retells the Egyptian and Arabian myth of the deathless bird in lines that modern scholars read as a veiled Christian symbol of resurrection, though the text never declares it outright.