Page 160 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

are respected wherever he goes. Senior imperial magistrates are only too
pleased to assist Germanus, and the imperial court itself is a place of
great piety. It is true that barbarians, a subject presumably of keen interest
to Gauls of the late fifth century, appear twice. Barbarians appear twice
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in both Vita Martini and Vita Ambrosii also. The firstbarbarians in Vita
Germani are the Picts and Saxons in far-off Britain, traditional raiders who
are repelled bloodlessly by a ruse; if Britain was bothered any further by
these looters, Constantius seems unaware of it. 75
More complex is the scene concerning the second group of barbarians,
the Alans of Goar. What is significant here is that the barbarians them-
selves are not the problem. Greedy and warlike though the Alans are,
their king is easily won over, not by a miracle, but through Germanus’
audacity and eloquence. The Alans are only an instrument in an internal
Roman dispute: a provincial rebellion (Constantius does not use the word
‘Bagaudae’) and its repression by the imperial government. Germanus’
missions to Goar and to the imperial court are a bid not to repel invading
barbarians or insurgent peasants but to ameliorate the brutality of imperial
justice. In this attempt he is unsuccessful, because of the fickleness of the
provincials. Neither the imperial government nor the Alans is at fault, nor
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of course is Germanus’ supplication any less efficacious than before. The
fault is laid with the Armoricans and specifically the rebel leader Tibatto,
whose just punishment removes the sole cause of trouble, as had the ex-
pulsion of the Pelagian bishops from Britain. Germanus’ acquiescence in
the imperial decision to inflict punishments on the Armoricans is made
plain: ‘the intercession of the priest vanished’. 77 The verb used to rep-
resent the bishop’s failure to prevent what may very well have been a
bloodbath, evanuit, is studiously ambiguous, but Constantius makes very
clear that events caused no rupture in relations between Germanus and
the imperial court. 78 When Germanus had firstarrived in Ravenna, he
74 Sulpicius, Vita Martini, 4, 18. Paulinus, Vita Ambrosii, 30, 36.
75 Constantius, Vita Germani, 18 fin., 27 fin. On the artificial closure of these sections: Christensen,
‘Germanus and Fifth-Century History’, 226.
76
Constantius, Vita Germani, 40: obtenta venia et securitate perpetua ad proprium obtinuisset arbitrium.
For a review of interpretations of the fifth-century Bagaudae: John Drinkwater, ‘Patronage in
Roman Gaul and the Problem of the Bagaudae’, in Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in
Ancient Society (London, 1989), 189–203.
77
Constantius, Vita Germani, 40: intercessio sacerdotis evanuit. Contra Wood, ‘End of Roman Britain’,
10 (‘a section of text which is so carefully crafted as to lead the reader...into overlooking the fact
that the legation was useless’), Constantius’ recapitulation of the causes of Germanus’ journey to
Ravenna in fact emphasises the failure of the embassy to Ravenna; contrast the brief statement
of the success of the legation to Arles (Constantius, Vita Germani, 24 fin).
78
Bloodbath: cf. e.g. Chron. Gall. 452, 99 (Ravenna in 425, punished for supporting the usurper
John); Hydatius, Chron., 173–8 [166–71] (Gallaecia punished for Suevic expansionism); Procopius,
Wars v, 9.23–8 (Belisarius’ picture of what citizens of Naples can expect if the city is taken by
force).
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