 In 383 the army of Britain, led by Magnus Maximus, revolted against Gratian and assassinated him at Lyons; and when emperor Valentinian II was driven out of Italy, Ausonius retired to his estates near Burdigala (now Bordeaux) in Gaul.When Magnus Maximus was overthrown by emperor Theodosius I in 388, Ausonius did not leave his country estates.They were, he says, his "nidus senectutis", the "nest of his old age", and there he spent the rest of his days, composing poetry and writing to many eminent contemporaries, several of whom had been his pupils.