It seems very probable that it was during these happy years that Sedulius composed his great poem in some sweet valley under the shadow of the steep Arcadian Mountains, whose bold spurs are washed by the glancing waters of the Corinthian Gulf. Although the work was formally dedicated to Macedonius, and copies were doubtless multiplied for the benefit of his familiar associates, it does not appear that it was published for the literary world in general during the lifetime of the author. That publication seems to have taken place some years later, as we shall presently see, and under the direction of one who was eminently well qualified for the task. How or where Sedulius ended his life, we have no means of ascertaining. Some say he returned to Rome, where he died about A.D. 449; others make him a bishop, but the see which he ruled cannot be ascertained; while many think he ended his life in Greece, amongst those dear associates of whom he speaks so tenderly in the dedication. But although the poet himself seems to have been during his lifetime somewhat indifferent to worldly fame, his friends did not forget him.[42] There is a considerable variety of readings, but in substance all the MSS. agree that Sedulius left his poems scattered amongst his papers, and that the scattered portions of the _Carmen Paschale_ especially were collected, arranged, and elegantly published by the ex-consul, Turcius Ruffus Asterius. We find two consuls of this name in the Fasti of the fifth century, one in A.D. 449, whose colleague was Protogenes, and the other in A.D. 494, whose colleague was Praesidius. Very many writers think that the publisher of Sedulius was that Asterius, whose consulate is fixed for A.D. 449. But as his praenomen was Flavius, it is much more probable that the consul of A.D. 494, who was also the editor of the splendid Medicean Codex of Virgil, must get the credit of collecting and preserving the poems of the great Christian poet who was perhaps Virgil's closest imitator.