Page 117 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The hero as envoy: Sidonius Apollinaris

panegyric and propaganda
How did the Panegyric function as propaganda? Itwas surely notan at-
tempt to ‘convert’ its hearers to support the emperor. The political per-
suasiveness of poetry should not be overestimated, and in any case, the
Roman Senate had already demonstrated its consent to Avitus’ rule. 26
Rather, the poem functioned as a medium for its audience to express
support of the new emperor. Sidonius, providing a baroque decoration
to the celebrations of the imperial consulate, exploited the occasion to
restate Avitus’ claim to rule. The poet’s detailed and tendentious narrative
of the emperor’s accession probably elaborated claims which Avitus had
already put forth in Gaul and Italy the previous summer; the consular
27
celebrations were surely not their first airing. Sidonius’ delivery of the
panegyric offered the Senate the opportunity, or perhaps obligation, to
reaffirm its support of Avitus through its reaction. The Senate displayed
this reaffirmation by following a precedent established in the time of
Stilicho and revived under Valentinian III: the erection of a bronze statue
28
of the ruler’s panegyricist in the Forum of Trajan. The statue, honouring
the emperor’s advocate, was a public gesture of support. The Panegyric was
a focus of the symbolic communications between the emperor and the
Roman aristocracy.
Late antique panegyrics generally followed well-established but flexible
29
conventions. The Panegyric on Avitus preserves the basic structure rec-
ommended by rhetorical handbooks, though it is set in an epic, narrative
framework. The laudatio of the emperor, delivered by Jupiter himself, fol-
lows the traditional order of topics: an introduction (discussing the roles
of fate, fortune, and divine aid in Rome’s history) and short accounts

26 On the function of panegyric as propaganda: C. E. V. Nixon, ‘Latin Panegyrics in the Tetrarchic
and Constantinian Periods’, in Brian Croke and Alanna M. Emmett (eds.), History and Historians
in Late Antiquity (Sydney, 1983), 88–99. Senatorial consent: above, at n. 19.
27 Contra Michael Mause, Die Darstellung des Kaisers in der lateinischen Panegyrik (Palingenesia 50;
Stuttgart, 1994), 100.
28
Statue of Sidonius: Sid. Ap., Carm. viii, 7–10 (written before Avitus’ downfall); Ep. ix, 16.21–8.
Precedents: in Stilicho’s time, the statue of his spokesman Claudian: Claudian, Bellum Geticum,
in Carmina, ed. John Barrie Hall (Teubner; Leipzig, 1985), Praef. 7–9;CIL vi, 1710 = Dessau,
ILS, 2949; Cameron, Claudian, 248–9. In Valentinian’s time, the statue of the court eulogist
Merobaudes: Merobaudes, Pan. i, Fr. iia, 2–3;Hyd.,c. 128 [120]; Sid. Ap., Carm. ix, 300–1;CIL
vi, 1724 = Dessau, ILS, 2950; Clover, Merobaudes, 39–40.
29
Lester B. Struthers, ‘The Encomia of Claudius Claudian’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
30 (1919), 49–87; MacCormack, ‘Latin Prose Panegyrics’, 145; Cameron, ‘Wandering Poets’,
478–81; Cameron, Claudian, 22–3, 253–5; Mause, Darstellung des Kaisers, 63–204. On literary
techniques of the Latin panegyrists: W. S. Maguinness, ‘Some Methods of the Latin Panegyrists’,
Hermathena 47 (1932), 42–61; Maguinness, ‘Locutions and Formulae of the Latin Panegyrists’,
Hermathena 48 (1933), 117–38. The best-known rhetorical handbook is that attributed to
Menander Rhetor, ed. and trans. Russell and Wilson, Treatise ii.

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