Page 168 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

to Aetius and Litorius may also contain echoes of Sulpicius’ Dialogi in
the emphasis on the bishop’s protection even of heretics: Martin protects
the Priscillianists, Orientius the Arian Goths. 110 As is often the case with
hagiography, the model is used notby directreproduction, butthrough
new combinations of existing motifs.
The two embassy scenes in Vita Orientii offer limited historical data.
The author’s intent is not to be descriptive, but to establish tableaux which
present charged gestures: Aetius’ dismounting and request for the prayers
of Orientius; the bishop surrounded by menacing barbarians at the court
of the Gothic king. 111 ThatOrientius in factfails to preventthe imperial
assault on Toulouse seems not to be a difficulty to his hagiographer;
Litorius’ punishment for disrespect, and Aetius’ salvation on account of
his faith, are the point of the story.
Orientius’ embassy to Aetius and Litorius has often appeared prob-
lematic: the approach of a Roman provincial bishop to imperial generals,
seeking peace on behalf of a recently aggressive barbarian leader, has
raised questions of loyalty. 112 It has been suggested that the work (or a
hypothetical source) must have been written before the battle of Vouill´ e
in 507 and the Frankish take-over of southern Gaul in the following years,
as the author’s sentiment is seen as too dangerously pro-Gothic to have
been composed after 507. 113 These considerations overlook the tenor
of the Vita. The hagiographer takes pains to display Orientius’ distance
from the Arian Goths. 114 More importantly, the milieu of the Vita is
civilian and local: Orientius’ mission provides freedom for his patria;he
is the salvation of his fellow cives. 115 In describing Litorius’ antagonists,
the author uses interchangeably the contemporary term Gothi, the clas-
sicising Getae, and the civic label Tolosani. 116 The author writes from a
standpoint of regional, not ethnic or political, identification. Orientius’
embassy is not to support the Gothic regime, but to prevent the outbreak
of warfare in his own region; irrespective of which combatant won, the

110
Sulpicius, Dialogi iii, 11; Vita Orientii, 3 fin.
111
Joaqu´ ın Mart´ ınez Pizarro, A Rhetoric of the Scene: Dramatic Narrative in the Early Middle Ages
(Toronto, 1989).
112
E.g. Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 179, 272 n. 62 (‘St. Orientius’ sympathies lay with the
Visigoths’); Wolfram, History of the Goths, 176 (‘It is surprising to read in the biography of Bishop
Orientius of Auch . . . that its hero had led the delegation to Litorius and had even prayed for
the victory of the Goths’); Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul, 125.
113
Courcelle, Histoire litt´ eraire, 347 n. 1; more cautiously, Griffe, La Gaule chr´ etienne ii, 32 n. 3.
114
Vita Orientii, 3: apud Dominum omnes eius [sc. Gothorum regis] ante confidentia propter fiduciam
Arianorum viluerat...Quam supplicationem beatus Orientius libenti animo amplectens,non pro haereseon
erroris squallore contempsit . . . [Orientium] antea contempserat haereticorum turba Getarum.
115
Vita Orientii, 4, 6.
116
Vita Orientii, 3: Tolosani qui beati Orientii patrocinia postulaverant (making explicit the identification
with the Goths).
142