Page 108 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

Table 1 (cont.)

Gothic army enters Spain and pressures the Sueves from Lusitania to the south and from
north-eastern Gallaecia,468 (cc. 245–6,250 [239–40,244])

41 469
c. 251 [245] Remismund sends Lusidius, a praesens cives of the Lusitanian
city of Lisbon, together with Suevic envoys, to the emperor
Anthemius. (Cf. Fredegar, Chron. ii, 56,p. 77, line 21:
4
Richymund ‘crosses to’ [transeuntem] the emperor. )
Note on legatus and legatio
Hydatius consistently uses these terms to identify formal embassies. They are used in
every embassy listed above except nos. †2, 24, and 39, usually with a part of mitto.
Where an envoy is named, the title legatus is given in apposition, e.g. Censorius comes
legatus mittitur (no. 3). Itis clear from the wording of no. 39 (Gothi... missi) that the
subjects had been sent as envoys. The vir nobilis Galleciae Palogorius (no. 24) was almost
certainly an envoy from some elementof the Gallaecian provincials, though the passage
is difficult to construe. Like Hydatius in 431 (no. 1), he travelled to southern Gaul, and
returned in the company of an envoy; only by then, the Gallic envoy’s principal was the
Gothic king Theoderic II, not the emperor’s leading general.
The wording of no. †2 is ambivalent, and it is possible that Vetto in fact travelled to
Gallaecia notas an envoy of the Gothic king (cf. the Arian missionary Aiax, never stated
to have been sent by Theoderic II; Hyd., c. 232 [228]). Hydatius’ careful use of the
terms legatus and legatio makes itimprobable thatCyrila’s second mission to Gallaecia
was diplomatic (Hyd., c. 220 [216]; cf. above no. 26).

Notes:
1. Table 1 differs somewhat from the enumeration of embassies in Burgess, ‘Hydatius’,
69–70.Table 1 omits:
(a) Hyd., cc. 176, 186 [169, 179], refering to ‘announcements’ made to Theodoric II
while in Spain. Hydatius’ terminology does not indicate that this news was
conveyed by formal embassies; cf. atn. 60 above.
(b) Hyd., c. 220 [216], the dispatch of Remismund and Cyrila to Gallaecia. The
passage refers to a military expedition, not an embassy; cf. Table 1 no. 26 and
n. 120 above.(Cf.‘Noteon legatus and legatio’ above.)
Table 1 includes:
(c) Fredegar, Chron. ii, 55,p. 76, lines 22–3, printed by Mommsen parallel to Hyd.,
c. 197 [192](Table 1 no. 17–20). Fredegar’s entry is too different from Hydatius’
to be a variant of the same text, and it appears to preserve a fragment lost from the
other MSS of Hydatius; cf. n. 160 below.
2. Terraconensis is not occupied by the Sueves at this time; cf. Hyd., c. 158 [150]: the
Goths operate on the empire’s behalf in Terraconensis. The ulteriores regiones perhaps
refers to the Pyrenees region; cf. c. 140 [132].

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