BONIFACIUS,  a Roman general, tribunus, and comes in the province of Africa under Valentinian III.  In the early part of his career he was distinguished for his prompt administration of justice, and also for his activity against the barbarians, as at Massilia in A.D. 413 against the Gothic king Ataulphus, and in 422 against the Vandals in Spain.  Hi high character procured for him the friendship of Augustin, whom he consulted with regard to enforcing the imperial laws against the Donatists, and to scruples which he entertained against continuing military pursuits, and (on the death of his wife) even against remaining in the world at all.  These scruples Augustin wisely allayed, only recommending to him resolutions, which he adopted, of confining himself to defensive warfare against the barbarians, and of leading a single life.
     The abandonment of this last resolution, in his second marriage with a rich Arian lady of the name Pelagia, seems to have exercised a pernicious influence over his general character.  Although he so far maintained his own religious convictions as to insist on the previous conversion of his wife, yet he so far gave them up as to allow his child to receive Arian baptism; and as the first breach of even slight scruples may prepare a conscience naturally tender for the commission of actual crimes, he is afterwards reported to have lived with concubines... (A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Smith, v.1, 1876)