Page 166 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

actor in the drama. Other sources indicate a variety of participants in-
volved in the ending of conflict: a number of bishops in Salvian; Avitus,
then praetorian prefect of Gaul, according to Sidonius; Merobaudes prob-
ably attributes it to Aetius. 100
The second embassy, in which Orientius attends the court of (presum-
ably the same) Gothic king to petition for the life of a Spanish vir nobilis-
simus genere condemned to death on a false accusation, can be roughly
paralleled in letters of Sidonius Apollinaris describing petitions to the
Gothic kings by provincial magnates. 101 Orientius wins his suit after at-
tending the king’s dinner.
That the author was familiar with Vita Germani is mostexplicitin the
healing miracle of Vita Orientii,c. 6, in which a man who suffers crippling
contractions of his legs and hands is cured by praying at Orientius’ tomb.
This is the only healing miracle, and one of only two miracle narratives,
in the Vita. Motifs and vocabulary of this scene are derived from Vita
Germani,c. 30, in which Germanus (en route to Ravenna) cures a young
girl whose hands are crippled; the most direct borrowing is the grotesque
detail that the fingernails of both sufferers had grown into the palms of
their hands. 102 The opening words of Vita Orientii also borrow a conceit
from Constantius, the inability of the author to provide a complete
account of the saint’s deeds because of their great number. 103

100 Salvian, De gubernatione Dei vii, 9;Sid.Ap., Carm. vii, 295–315; Merobaudes, Pan. i with Clover,
Merobaudes, 32–41 and PLRE ii, ‘Aetius 7’, 25–6;cf. L’Ann´ ee ´ epigraphique 1950 (Paris, 1951), 30.
101 Sid. Ap., Epp. i, 2.8; iv, 8.5.
102 (Common words in BOLD): Vita Germani, 30: Illic in conventu [sc. Autun] omnium prostrati in ter-
ram parentes filiam in annis nubilibus obtulerunt,cui DEBILITATIS POENAM saevissimam temporis
accessione generaverat. Ab ortu enim nativitatis suae ita CONTRACTIS NERVIS,in PALMAM
DIGITI curvabantur,ut,crescentibus introsum nimie unguibus,cedente carnis teneritudine,tot inciper-
ent esse vulnera quot DIGITI,et nisi insistenti acumini ossa obiecta aliquatenus restitissent,PALMAM
totam ulcera inmersa transfoderent. Huius dextram conprehensam dum adtrectat sacerdos,tactus salubri-
tate benedixit adprehensosque singillatim digitos,cedentibus nervis,in USUM flexibilem REVOCAVIT,
REDDITURQUE ministerio MANUS,quae inferebat sibi ipsa perniciem.
Vita Orientii, 6: Quidam peregrinus,arcescentibus NERVIS vim DEBILITATIS incurrens,et
CONTRACTIS genibus manibusque constrictis longa POENA languescens, ad solemnitatem beati
Orientii episcopi,virtutem caelestis medici dum requireret,invenit: ibique fideli oratione supplicare non
cessat. Procedit virtus de tumulo,et in tantum sanitas REDDITUR arefacto,ut redivivo infuso san-
guine,vitali calore membra sanitas gratia replerentur. Sic ergo praemortuae MANUS IN USUM pristinum
REVOCANTUR: quarum DIGITI ita fuerant ante constricti,ut etiam eorum vestigia,PALMIS infixa
debilibus,putrida apparerent.
Cf. Gregory of Tours, Gloria confessorum, 57, attributing a similar miracle to the tomb of
Vivianus of Saintes.
103
Vita Germani, Praef .: Plerique ad scribendum,sollicitante materia uberiore,producti sunt . . . mihi inlus-
trissimi viri Germani antistitis vitam gestaque VEL ex aliqua PARTE dicturo incutitur pro miraculorum
numerositate trepidatio.
Vita Orientii, 1: Beatissimi Orientii sacerdotis sacratissimos actus VEL PRO PARTE disserere,non
peritiae profluitate,sed tantae materiae admiratione,compellor ...
Cf. Levison, ‘Bischof Germanus’, 144–5.
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