Rufino de Aquilea
Flavianus has been identified with the object of the Christian work known as "Carmen adversus Flavianum". He is one of the main characters, together with other members of his pagan club, of Macrobius' "Saturnalia", a work written in the 430s, where he is depicted as a man of huge erudition. In his "Ecclesiastical History", Tyrannius Rufinus depicts the pagan Flavianus, rather than the Christian Eugenius, as the true opponent defeated by the Christian Theodosius at the battle of the Frigidus; according to Rufinus, Flavianus committed suicide because he realized his own religion was false. Scholars are unanimous in the belief that Rufinus invented this claim to advance the cause of the religion for which he so zealously apologised.