Page 112 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

narrative to manufacture this image of Avitus as envoy. It is the assump-
tions behind Sidonius’ literary presentation of his hero as an envoy, not
the elusive details of Avitus’ dealings with the Goths, which are most
informative of the role of political communication in the politics of the
West in the mid-fifth century.
The literary nature of the Panegyric, and the circumstances of its de-
livery, are often and unwisely ignored when assessing the information it
provides. The Panegyric is nota record like a formal history or a chroni-
cle. It is an ornately literary and political work that happens to treat real
events rather than, for example, mythology. Modern critics, failing to take
proper account of the work’s literary and ceremonial nature, have some-
times misconstrued the poem as a poor attempt at a historical sketch of
the early fifth century, or as a personal political manifesto expressing the
4
aspirations of the south Gallic aristocracy. Ignoring the circumstances of
the delivery of the Panegyric has led to dismissal of its political message as
mere flattery. 5
The poem can be understood only in the immediate political con-
text of its delivery. In Rome on 1 January 456, Sidonius celebrated a
provincial usurper who had claimed power ata time of greatupheaval,
supported by barbarian auxiliaries. The audience of the poem was the
senatorial aristocracy of Rome, whose influence on imperial politics in-
creased in the mid-fifth century. Sidonius was conscious of criticisms of
Avitus’ legitimacy, and in particular of his relations with the Goths. In his
later Panegyric on the emperor Majorian, also the product of a period of
4 Historical sketch: Samuel Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, 2nd edn
(London, 1906), 334; A. Arnold, ‘Sidonius Apollinaris’, Realencyklop¨ adie f¨ ur protestantische Theologie
und Kirche xviii (Leipzig, 1906), 303: ‘[the Panegyric] spiegelt die Zeitgeschichte seit c. 420 aus
seiner Artwieder’.
Political manifesto: Marc Reydellet, La Royaut´ e dans la litt´ erature latine de Sidoine Apollinaire ` a
Isidore de S´ eville (Rome, 1981), 50–5: ‘une grande unit´ e...de pens´ ee’ behind all Sidonius’
panegyrics expresses a ‘senatorial and republican’ idea of imperial power; Rouche, L’Aquitaine,
29–30:the Panegyric expresses the ‘optimisme’ of the south Gallic nobility (cf. Dill, Roman Society,
335: ‘The poem reflects the general gloom’); Teillet, Des Goths ` a la nation gothique, 195: ‘[Avitus]
apparaˆ ıt, aux yeux de Sidoine, comme un interm´ ediaire tout d´ esign´ e entre Rome et la capi-
tale wisigothique, entre l’Empire et les nations’; Rigobert G¨ unther, ‘Apollinaris Sidonius – Eine
Untersuchung seiner drei Kaiserpanegyriken’, in G. Wirth et al., Romanitas–Christianitas: Unter-
suchungen zur Geschichte und Literature der r¨ omischen Kaiserzeit (Berlin, 1982), 660: ‘Romm kann von
Gallien gerettet werden’; H. S. Sivan, ‘Sidonius Apollinaris, Theoderic II, and Gothic–Roman
Politics from Avitus to Anthemius’, Hermes 117 (1989), 87–90: the poem expresses ‘Sidonius’ ad-
vocacy of Gallo-Gothic cooperation’; Harries, Sidonius: the main purpose of the poem at the time
of delivery was to justify Avitus’ ‘policy’ of cooperation with the Goths, in contrast with Aetius’
efforts to contain the barbarians (67–8). These analyses generally focus on the poet’s presentation
of the Gothic kings, not his image of Avitus, the subject of the Panegyric.
5
E.g. Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders ii (Oxford, 1880), 375–6. Two valuable analyses of
the literary nature of the Panegyric are the brief account of Sabine MacCormack, Art and Ceremony
in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1981), 223–4 and, in greater detail, Harrison, ‘Verse Panegyrics of
Sidonius’.
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