Page 173 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The saint as envoy: bishops’ Lives

The author has reworked elements from Constantius’ embassy narra-
tives and Sulpicius’ scenes of secular confrontation in order to describe
the appeal of a bishop for release of fellow citizens imprisoned because of
onerous taxation. The description of the embassy, however, is ambigu-
ous. The purpose of Vivianus’ journey to Toulouse is not explicitly to
plead for release of the prisoners, but to share their captivity voluntarily;
arriving in the royal city, the bishop does not seek an audience with the
king, butis summoned by Theoderic only because of his benevolence
towards the thief; at the convivium, Vivianus makes no representation to
the king. It is only after Theoderic’s vision that the author refers to
‘[Vivianus’] petition for the release of the citizens’. 133 This ambiguity is
underscored by the statement that Vivianus achieved the release of the
prisoners ‘trusting in divine authority rather than in supplication’. 134 The
author of Vita Viviani seeks to exploit the drama and image of authority
which could be drawn from embassy scenes, without portraying his sub-
ject in the humbling position of a suppliant. This ambiguity reflects closer
adherence to Constantius’ Germanus than to Sulpicius’ Martin. Though
Martin ‘commanded rather than requested’ when making supplications
to the emperor Maximus, his Vita and Sulpicius’ Dialogi show him com-
promising his views in order to win appeals. 135 Constantius’ portrayal of
Germanus’ embassies to Arles and to Ravenna, however, avoids actually
presenting the bishop in supplication. 136
Though neither Vita Orientii nor Vita Viviani displays the sustained
narrative structure of Vita Germani, both imitate Germanus’ presentation
of a bishop engaged in undertaking embassies to secular rulers on behalf
of his local community, to prevent war and oppressive taxation. Both

133 Vita Viviani, 6: petitio eius [sc. Viviani] pro absolutione civium.
134 Vita Viviani, 6: auctoritate divina potius quam supplicatione fretus. 135 Above, atnn. 33, 36.
136 Cf. later versions of Pope Leo’s embassy to Attila, in which, like Theoderic in Vita Viviani, Attila
is convinced by visions rather than persuasion: Pizarro, Writing Ravenna, 117–18.
Vita Viviani clearly influenced the Life of Marcellus, bishop of Die in Viennensis (463–510).
The extant prose and metric texts of his life are Carolingian but may be based on an earlier
¸
Vita: Francois Dolbeau, ‘La Vie en prose de saintMarcel, ´ evˆ eque de Die’, Francia 11 (1983),
97–130, esp. 107–9, prose text at 113–30.Asinthe Vita of Vivianus, the citizens of Marcellus’
town are deported en masse by a Gothic king, though here the king is Euric, and the exiles are
taken to Arles not Toulouse; Marcellus secures their release after a healing miracle which restores
the king’s (unnamed) son to health (Vita Marcelli iv–v). More clearly than in Vita Viviani,no
supplication on the part of the bishop is intimated. In a later episode, however, the bishop does
act explicitly on behalf of the city of Die: while in Lyons to attend the dedication of a church (in
506: Dolbeau, n. 44 to Vita Marcelli ix, 1), he petitions the Burgundian king Gundobad, seeking
immunitas for Die from a tax. Gundobad refuses, but reverses his decision after a healing miracle
cures a servantof his queen Caratena (Vita Marcelli ix; for Caratena: CIL xiii, 2372; PLRE ii,
‘Caratena’, 260–1; Heinzelmann, ‘Gallische Prosopographie’, 574). Healing miracles involving
the children or servants of powerful figures are a common hagiographical motif following New
Testament archetypes; see n. 19 above. On Vita Marcelli, see also chapter 6 below, n. 81.
147