Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (340–402) is recognised as one of the most influential orators and politicians of late imperial Rome. Born into a Gallo-Roman senatorial family, his writings bear witness to his profound interest in the fall of the pagan Roman world and the rise of a new medieval world ruled by Christianity.

One of the main events involving Symmachus concerns the removal of the altar of Victory from the Roman Curia. The altar was a powerful symbol of fortune and the ancient deities that had brought Rome to its greatness, but Christianity no longer tolerated it. The Christian “sect” at the time had expanded very quickly throughout the empire, methodically beginning to take control of the main imperial institutions, until even the Roman emperors themselves began to convert one after another to the “one true” religion. Simmacus remained faithful to the traditions of ancient Rome, to the Mos Maiorum and to the religion of his ancestors, and the removal of the altar was a scandal. The decision had been made by Emperor Gratian and subsequently confirmed by Emperor Valentinian II. Symmachus addressed both of them with a heartfelt plea and prayer in which he never sought to attack Christianity, but rather defended paganism as a form of peaceful religious plurality that allowed numerous local cults to coexist together in peace. His most famous phrase was “Uno itinere non potest perveniri ad tam grande secretum” (“One cannot arrive at such a great mystery by a single path”). His argument is a masterpiece of rhetoric and tolerance: he did not defend paganism with fanaticism, but with inclusive logic. The Christian response came from the man destined to embody the new course of the Empire: Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Ambrose not only rejected the request, but overturned Symmachus' argument, stating that there was only one truth and that it was identified with Christianity. The Christian victory in this seemingly minor dispute dealt a formidable symbolic blow to ancient Roman traditions. 

Symmachus' plea symbolically marked the end of the ancient world, the idea of a long and prosperous tradition, that of Roman paganism, which came to an end. In 410, just eight years after his death, Rome was sacked by Alaric's Visigoths. That trauma marked the perception that an era had truly come to an end. Symmachus, with his oratory, appears as the last voice of old Rome.