Finding himself victorious, Symmachus proceeded to call a synod held at Rome on March 1, 499, which was attended by 72 bishops and all of the Roman clergy, with the aim of confirming that his congregation accepted the king's judgment, as well as ensuring in the future there would be no rioting or illegal canvassing at election time.

* March 1 – During a synod in Rome, which is attended by 72 bishops and all of the Roman clergy, Pope Symmachus makes Antipope Laurentius bishop of the diocese of Nocera in Campania.

First the accusers introduced a document which included a clause stating that the king already knew Symmachus was guilty, and thus the synod should assume guilt, hear the evidence, then pass sentence.

More momentous was an attack by a mob on Pope Symmachus ' party as he set out to arrive at the synod: many of his supporters were injured and several — including the priests Gordianus and Dignissiums — killed.

Symmachus retreated to St. Peter's and refused to come out, despite the urgings of deputations from the synod.

They were mentioned by Julius Caesar in his treatise, The Gallic Wars, and by 391 BC, they were written about by Roman Consul, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, who received seven of them, " canes Scotici ", as a gift to be used for fighting lions, bears, that in his words, " all Rome viewed with wonder ".

However, an early document known as the " Laurentian Fragment " claims that Symmachus obtained the decision by paying bribes, while deacon Magnus Felix Ennodius of Milan later wrote that 400 solidi were distributed amongst influential personages, whom it would be indiscreet to name.

The session quickly deadlocked over the presence of a visiting bishop, for as Symmachus argued, the presence of a visiting bishop implied the See was vacant, and the See could only be vacant if he were guilty — which meant the case had already been decided before the evidence could be heard.

The other was through diplomacy, which produced a sheaf of forged documents, the so-called " Symmachean forgeries ", of judgments in ecclesiastical law to support Symmachus ' claim that as pope he could not be called to account.

Julien Havet demonstrated in 1885, however, that it is a forgery of the Oratorian, Jérome Viguier, who also forged a letter purporting to be from Pope Symmachus to Avitus.

* Libri contra Symmachum -- (" Books Against Symmachus ") oppose the pagan senator Symmachus's requests that the altar of Victory be restored to the Senate house.

Eusebius inferred that Symmachus was an Ebionite ( Ἐβιωνίτης Σύμμαχος " Symmachus the Ebionite "), but this is now generally thought to be unreliable.

To judge from the scattered fragments that remain of his translation, Symmachus tended to be periphrastic in representing the Hebrew original.

According to Eusebius Symmachus also wrote commentaries, then still extant, apparently written to counter the canonical Greek Gospel of Matthew, his Hypomnemata ; it may be related to the De distinctione præceptorum, mentioned in the catalogue of the Nestorian metropolitan Abdiso Bar Berika ( d. 1318 ).

In an age when all religious communities credited the divine power with direct involvement in human affairs, Symmachus argues that the removal of the altar had caused a famine and its restoration would be beneficial in other ways.

The style of Symmachus was widely admired in his own time and into the early Middle Ages, but modern scholars have been frustrated by the lack of solid information about the events of his times to be found in these writings.

A decree of 502 under Pope Symmachus ruled that laymen should no longer vote for the popes and that only higher clergy should be considered eligible.

However, a document known as the " Laurentian Fragment " claims that Symmachus obtained the decision by paying bribes, while deacon Magnus Felix Ennodius of Milan later wrote that 400 solidi were distributed amongst influential personages, whom it would be indiscreet to name.

* 502: Pope Symmachus ruled that laymen should no longer vote for the popes and that only higher clergy should be considered eligible.

* July 19 – Pope Symmachus dies at Rome after a 16-year reign and is succeeded by Hormisdas as the 52nd pope.

Valentinian, at the insistence of Ambrose, refused the request and, in so doing, rejected the traditions and rituals of pagan Rome to which Symmachus had appealed.

Both Memmius Symmachus and Boethius were fluent in Greek, an increasingly rare skill at the time in the Western Empire, which has led some scholars to think that Boethius was educated in the East.

Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Gratian, when he ordered the Altar of Victory removed from the curia, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum.

As a representative of the political cursus honorum, Symmachus sought to preserve the ancient religion of Rome at a time when the senatorial aristocracy was converting to Christianity.

) the use of the hymn at the Mass of Christmas Day and to Pope Symmachus ( 498 – 514 ) its use on Sundays and the feasts of martyrs, but only by bishops ; the right to use it was later extended to priests, at first only at Easter and on the day of their ordination, but by the end of the 11th century priests, as well as bishops, used it in the Mass on Sundays and feasts outside of Lent and Pre-Lent.

Conducted chiefly by two non-Roman supporters, the Milanese deacon Ennodius and the exiled deacon Dioscorus, they convinced the king's personal physician, the deacon Helpidius, at last they convinced Theodoric to instruct Festus to hand over the Roman churches to Symmachus.

Based on Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, he writes that Emperor Maximinus Thrax ( 235 AD-238 AD ) was the son of a Goth who arrived at this time and an Alan woman.

He was formerly identified with Aristaenetus of Nicaea ( the friend of Symmachus ), who perished in an earthquake at Nicomedia, 358, but internal evidence points to a much later date.

Symmachus sent his police to occupy the Lateran, where Eulalius had established himself, and escorted him to a house outside the walls of Rome.

* Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, urban prefect of Rome, pleads for traditional cult practices.

* November 22 – Anastasius is succeeded by Symmachus as the 51st pope, in the official papal selection in the Lateran Palace ( Rome ).

* Quintus Aurelius Symmachus becomes urban prefect of Rome.

Symmachus was baptized in Rome, where he became archdeacon of the Church under Pope Anastasius II.

While a deacon in Rome, he is known to have been a partisan of the Antipope Laurentius, for in a libellus written to Pope Symmachus in 506, John confessed his error in opposing him, anathematized Peter of Altinum and Laurentius, and begged pardon of Symmachus.

Buoyed by this instruction, the pagan senators, led by Aurelius Symmachus, the Prefect of Rome, petitioned in 384 for the restoration of the Altar of Victory in the Senate House, which had been removed by Gratian in 382.

Two years later, Gratian was assassinated in Lugdunum, and Symmachus, now urban prefect of Rome, addressed an elaborate epistle to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a famous dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan.

He returned to Rome 18 March to celebrate Easter Sunday, but this flouting of the Emperor's orders lost him the support of these two powerful individuals ; the inhabitants of Rome rioted, and the Urban prefect, Aurelius Anicius Symmachus, had his police occupy the Lateran, where Eulalius had made his base, and escort Eulalius out of the city to a house and kept under guard.

But having gone to Ariminum, Symmachus fled the city in the middle of the night, returning to Rome where he took refuge in St. Peter's.

He belonged to the Symmachi, one of the richest and most influential senatorial families in Rome ; his father, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, had been consul in 446.

After Gratian's death, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, the Prefect of Rome and a Pagan, wrote to the new Emperor Valentinian II in 384 requesting the restoration of the Altar.

He became a popular emperor, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus delivered a panegyric on Maximus ' virtues.

Symmachus was elected pope on 22 November 498 in the Constantinian basilica.

According to the account in the Liber Pontificalis, Symmachus bestowed the See on Laurentius " guided by sympathy ", but the " Laurentian Fragment " states that Laurentius " was severely threatened and cajoled, and forcibly despatched " to Nuceria.

The initial charge was that Symmachus celebrated Easter on the wrong date.

Based on this introduction, Caesarius later wrote to Symmachus for help with establishing his authority, which Symmachus eagerly gave, according to William Klingshirn, " to gather outside support for his primacy.

" The schism had lingered on largely out of personal hatred to Symmachus ," writes Jeffrey Richards, " something with which Hormisdas was apparently not tainted.

* Three treatises dedicated to Symmachus ( the father-in-law of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius ): on weights and measures ; on the metres of Terence ; and the Praeexercitamina, a translation into Latin of Greek rhetorical exercises from Hermogenes.

At any rate, the wearing of the pallium was usual in the fifth century ; this is indicated by the above-mentioned reference contained in the life of St Marcus which dates from the beginning of the sixth century, as well as by the conferring of the pallium on St. Cæsarius of Arles by Pope Symmachus in 513.

Established underneath the San Pacrazio basilica which was built by Pope Symmachus on the place where the body of the young martyr Saint Pancras, or Pancratius, had been buried.

Not long afterwards Theodoric had Boethius ' father-in-law Symmachus put to death, according to Procopius, on the grounds that he and Boethius together were planning a revolution, and confiscated their property.

During the transition to the Christian Empire, Symmachus argued that Rome's continued prosperity and stability depended on preserving the mos maiorum, while the early Christian poet Prudentius dismissed the blind adherence to tradition as " the superstition of old grandpas " ( superstitio veterum avorum ) and inferior to the new revealed truth of Christianity.

Some fragments of Symmachus's version that survive, in what remains of the Hexapla, inspire scholars to remark on the purity and idiomatic elegance of Symmachus ' Greek.

Eusebius also records Origen's statement that he obtained these and others of Symmachus ' commentaries on the scriptures from a certain Juliana, who, he says, inherited them from Symmachus himself ( Historia Ecclesiae, VI: xvii ) Palladius of Galatia ( Historia Lausiaca, lxiv ) records that he found in a manuscript that was " very ancient " the following entry made by Origen: " This book I found in the house of Juliana, the virgin in Caesarea, when I was hiding there ; who said she had received it from Symmachus himself, the interpreter of the Jews ".

Symmachus was chosen by the Senate on account of his eloquence to lead a delegation of protest, which the emperor refused to receive.

* The Panegyric of Theodoric, written to thank the Arian king for his tolerance of Catholicism and support of Pope Symmachus ( probably delivered before the king on the occasion of his entry into Ravenna or Milan ); like all similar works, it is full of flattery and exaggeration, but if used with caution is a valuable authority

Archpriest of Santa Prassede, Laurentius was elected pope on 22 November 498, in opposition to official pope Symmachus, by a dissenting faction.