Page 133 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The hero as envoy: Sidonius Apollinaris

Rome. 100 Sidonius foregoes the opportunity of a scene of Avitus’ adventus
into Rome, a standard element of late Latin panegyric, showing Avitus’
reception by the Senate and populace of Rome. 101 Possibly the circum-
stances of Avitus’ arrival were too delicate to recall so soon after the event.
But Sidonius had no need to portray local events to his Roman audience.
He described earlier events in which the Senate did not participate. His
purpose was not to convince the Senate of the truthfulness of his narra-
tive, but to gain the senators’ acquiescence in the events in Gaul through
a public gesture of approval of this ‘official’ version.
Sidonius’ epic tone and his portrait of Avitus enable him to assimilate
Avitus’ private and military contacts with the Goths to his formal em-
bassies. Avitus represented his provincial community in his appeal to the
general Constantius in c. 418; he wentto Toulouse in 451 on behalf of
the imperial government. His other journeys to the Goths were either in
a private capacity (on his first journey to Toulouse), or in military office
(during his involvementin the relief of Narbo in 437). In 439 Avitus
acted as praetorian prefect, but did not travel to Gothic territory himself.
Sidonius blurs the distinction between these contacts, casting them all as
official, civilian embassies. 102
This deceptive account provides a context for his presentation of
Avitus’ journey to Toulouse in 455: once again, Avitus acts in a civil-
ian capacity to use his personal influence over the Goths in the interests
of the empire. In fact, Avitus’ bid for power, supported by the Goths, was
the first involvement of a barbarian leader and his troops in the politics
of the western imperial succession since the settlement of the Goths in
Toulouse in 418 (which had ended, among other political disturbances, a
decade of Gothic-supported imperial usurpations in the West). To Italian
eyes, Avitus probably appeared as a usurper who had gathered the sup-
port of the Gothic king by exploiting his position as a major land-owner

100 Sid. Ap., Carm. vii, 589–91, is the only allusion to Avitus’ actions after the Gallic acclamation;
cf. Loyen, Recherches, 57–8.
101
Cf. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony, 224: ‘The only constitutional element which could not be
mentioned [in the scene of the Arles acclamation] was the Roman Senate.’
102
Avitus’ formal embassies were clearly distinguished by Sirmond, PL 58, 683 n. c, 687 n. a, 689
n. b. Subsequentusers of the Panegyric were notso careful, e.g. Gibbon, Decline and Fall ii, 363:
Avitus concluded ‘the most important embassies’ before his appointment as praetorian prefect
in 439 (he had in fact only undertaken one, to Constantius); Stevens, Sidonius, 22: Avitus had
been sent to the Goths ‘on several occasions’ before 455 (in factonly once, in 451). Harries,
Sidonius, 97, sums up Sidonius’ literary creation well: a ‘pro-Gothic civilian diplomat’; cf. (more
cautiously) Ralph W. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an
Age of Transition (Austin, 1993), 54. Sidonius’ evocation of a negotiated approach to relations
with the Goths addressed the specific circumstances of Avitus’ barbarian-supported usurpation
in 455, not a general ‘policy’ of cooperation with the Goths, as envisaged by Harries, Sidonius,
67–75,cf. 14, 101.
107