Page 125 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The hero as envoy: Sidonius Apollinaris

Avitus’ skills of persuasion, an inborn talent (indole). These oratorical
skills are the defining quality of the character of Avitus. With this first
mission, Sidonius establishes the context in which Avitus will most often
be portrayed. 62
The following episode describes Avitus’ first trip to the Gothic court of
Toulouse. It is here that the phrase ‘wars and compacts with kings’ appears.
By implication, it appears that the first journey to Toulouse constitutes
part of Avitus’ public life and duties, and is therefore an ‘official’ mission,
like the preceding journey to Constantius and the later approaches to
the Goths. But this is deceptive. Avitus visits Toulouse to see his relative
Theodorus, one of several Gallic hostages given to Theoderic I as part
of a settlement between the Goths and the empire. 63 There is nothing
in Sidonius’ language to indicate that Avitus represented either imperial
or provincial authorities, or that his aim was to demand the return of
Theodorus, as is often assumed. 64 If Avitus’ purpose had been to seek
the surrender of the Gallic hostages, Sidonius would have commented on
the outcome, as he does for all the official missions. His task was private,
carried out pro pietate propinqui. 65
This episode establishes in the plot of the poem the beginnings of
the ties between Avitus and the Gothic monarchy. 66 The Gothic king
Theoderic I is charmed by Avitus, as may be expected from the praise, in
the preceding episode, of the young Gaul’s eloquence. But this nascent
liaison is immediately qualified. Theoderic is so impressed by the young

62 Sid. Ap., Carm. vii, 207: [Avitus] eligitur primus,iuvenis,solus. Loyen has been misled by the structure
of Sidonius’ poem into translating the passage as ‘Il est alors choisi, pour la premi` ere mission, malgr´ e
sa jeunesse, comme unique d´ el´ egu´ e’; cf. Anderson: ‘young though he was, he was chosen first
and alone’.
63 Sid. Ap., Carm. vii, 215–29. For the circumstances: Loyen, Recherches, 39–43; PLRE ii, 1087.On
hostages given between rulers and provincial communities, see above, chapter 2,n. 70.Loyen’s
objections to 425 as the date when hostages were given to the Goths are inadequate. Prosper’s
report(Chron., c. 1290) that Aetius defeated the Goths after their siege of Arles is not incompatible
with a mutually agreed settlement in which the Goths received hostages as guarantees against
whatever concern prompted their attack on the provincial capital (on the causes for Gothic
assaults on Arles: Wolfram, History of the Goths, 175; Peter Heather, ‘The Emergence of the
Visigothic Kingdom’, in Drinkwater and Elton (eds.), Fifth-Century Gaul, 84–5).
64
Anderson i, 136–7 n. 1 rightly insists that expetis in Sid. Ap., Carm. vii, 219 should be understood as
‘to seek out’, not ‘to demand back’, as translated by e.g. Mommsen, MGH AA 8 Index personarum
436 s.v. ‘Theodorus’ (repetitur); Loyen, Sidoine i, 63 (‘le r´ eclamer’). Elsewhere, Sidonius uses expetere
in the sense of ‘to seek out’, e.g. Epp. i, 2.4; ii, 4.3; v, 20.3; vii, 2.2;cf. ThLL v.2, s.v. expetere
i.b.2.a.
65
Sid. Ap., Carm. vii, 218. Rouche, L’Aquitaine, is forced to assume that ‘Th´ eodoric accorda
probablementla lib´ eration demand´ ee’; cf. J¨ ulicher, ‘Eparchius Avitus’, 2396; Harries, Sidonius,
68.
66
So Loyen, Recherches, 39–40, though discussing the scene as a source rather than a literary con-
trivance: ‘L’importance de cette visite est capitale, puisqu’elle est ` a l’origine d’une amiti´ e qu’Avitus
mitparfois au service de Rome, parfois de son ambition personnelle.’
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