Page 155 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The saint as envoy: bishops’ Lives

At the level of imagery, this passage elevates to a spiritual plane Germanus’
constant travels on behalf of various causae; 56 and at the level of plot, it
brings a conclusion to his travels. The language of dispatch (viaticum,
causa, dirigo, praemia), of travel (peregrinor,peregrinatio, transitum), and of
return (patria, quies et requies) serves as metaphor for worldly and eternal
life, playing on Christian imagery employed in particular by Augustine. 57
Germanus’ heroic aspect and his exhausting labours are emphasised in the
epithet fessum eroam laboribus. Throughoutthe Vita, Germanus’ miracles
are prominent, but the imagery used in his death-scene indicates that
Constantius’ central literary conception of Germanus is as a traveller on
behalf of the causes of others – an envoy.
Constantius explicitly eulogises Germanus’ efficacy in dealing with
secular affairs: from his meeting with the praetorian prefect of Gaul,
Germanus ‘bore back to his own city what had been hoped for’; on
his embassy to Goar, ‘through the intercession and merits of the priest,
the king was constrained, the army recalled, provinces released from
devastation’. 58 But the author also works his material in less obvious
ways to heighten the image of Germanus as an agent of constant and ex-
hausting travels, including the false impression that Germanus’ journeys
occurred rapidly one after the other. All of Germanus’ missions are pre-
sented as commissions – by the synod of Gallic bishops; by the populace
of Auxerre; by the Armorican embassy; even by Goar, whose request for
imperial confirmation of the understanding reached between the bishop
and the king propels Germanus to Ravenna. Germanus is never seen
initiating any of his actions. By contrast, neither Martin nor Ambrose is
ever depicted in the Vitae responding to a request, even when explicitly

habebis quietem et requiem sempiternam.” ’ Dirivabant intellectu alio somnium sacerdotes; sed ille studiosius
commendabat extrema,dicens: ‘Bene novi,quam patriam Deus suis famulis repromittet.’
(42) Factum est,ut post dies aliquot sequeretur incommodum; quo ingravescente,civitas tota turbatur.
Accelerabat transitum,qui vocabat ad gloriam,et fessum eroam laboribus Dominus invitat ad praemia . . .
Septimo incommodi die ad caelos anima fidelis et beata transfertur.
Other fifth-century metaphoric uses of viaticum are listed in Blaise and Chirat, Dictionnaire
latin–franc¸ois des auteurs chr´ etiens (Turnhout, 1954), s.v. § 1.
The topos of the saint warned of his impending death by a divine vision or dream appears in
other late antique Latin hagiography, e.g. Honoratus Massiliensis, Vita Hilarii episcopi Arelatensis,
ed. S. Cavallin, Vitae sanctorum Honorati et Hilarii episcoporum Arelatensium (Publications of the New
Society of Letters at Lund 40; Lund, 1952), 19–20.
56
Causa appears in the passage immediately prior to Germanus’ vision: Constantius, Vita Germani,
40: Causam sane Armoricanae regionis quae necessitatem peregrinationis [sc. ad Ravennam] indixerat. The
proximity and collocation with peregrinatio indicates that its meaning in c. 41 is semi-technical,
‘business’ or ‘case’, notmore generally ‘cause’.
57
Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (London, 1967), 323–4. Cf. (with caution) R. Van
Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley, 1985), 145–6 and n. 16.
58
Constantius, Vita Germani, 24 (optatum levamen propriae detulit civitati), 28 (per intercessionem et
meritum sacerdotis rex compressus est,exercitus revocatus,provinciae vastationibus absolutae).
129