Page 175 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The saint as envoy: bishops’ Lives

educational and social prospects. 141 In 489, the year Theoderic entered
Italy and Ennodius turned sixteen, Ennodius’ aunt died. Ennodius con-
tracted a marriage with an unnamed daughter of a noble family, but the
marriage did not eventuate because Ennodius’ fortunes collapsed; the dis-
array caused by the prolonged conflict between Odoacer and Theoderic
in northern Italy during 489–93 may have been the cause. Instead of
the planned marriage, Ennodius entered the church, c. 493. His ordi-
nation was urged by Fl. Anicius Probus Faustus ‘Niger’, a relative and
frequent correspondent. Faustus was a powerful patron, particularly at
the time of Ennodius’ entry to the church: a senior member of the Anicii
clan, the last appointment as western consul by Odoacer in 490 and the
first attested magister officiorum under Theoderic (though whether ap-
pointed by Odoacer or Theoderic is unclear), he undertook an embassy
on Theoderic’s behalf to the emperor Anastasius, c. 492–4, to gain impe-
rial recognition of Theoderic’s viceroyalty of Italy. 142 Ennodius, Faustus’
client, was ordained by Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia. In 494, presumably
after his ordination, he accompanied Epiphanius on an embassy to the
Burgundian king Gundobad in Lyons to redeem Italian captives. 143 In
495/6, Ennodius declaimed a eulogistic poem in honour of the thirtieth
anniversary of Epiphanius’ episcopal election; Epiphanius did not live to
his next anniversary. Ennodius is next attested, before 499, as a deacon of
the church of Milan, under Bishop Laurence (490–512). 144 With the sole
exception of his eulogy for Epiphanius’ thirtieth anniversary, Ennodius’
extant writings begin in 501. The earliestnon-epistolary work appears
to be the prose speech he delivered in honour of the anniversary of
Laurence’s ordination, in March 503. Ennodius was active in support of

141 Gothic conquest of Arles linked to Ennodius’ migration: Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Visigothic
Gaul, 63. The valuable education in grammar and rhetoric which Ennodius received in Italy
was sought also by a steady stream of nephews who followed him from Visigothic Gaul during
the 500s, to be directed by their uncle to the school of Milan. Their mothers, Ennodius’ sisters
and other female relations, lived in Visigothic Gaul, one sister in Arles, whence the family had
perhaps originated (PLRE ii, ‘Euprepia’, 426–7 [Arles]; ‘Archotamia’, 135 [Marseilles]; ‘Camilla’,
255 [Gaul]; ‘Fl. Licerius Firminus Lupicinus 3’, 694; ‘Parthenius 2’, 832–3; Rich´ e, Education and
Culture in the Barbarian West, 24–6). Ennodius’ family demonstrates not aristocratic flight before
conquering barbarians, but the gender division in educational ambitions of the late Roman
aristocracy.
142
Urged by Faustus: Ennodius, Ep. i, 7 ( = opus xi Vogel); Barnish, ‘Ennodius’ Lives of Epiphanius
and Antony’, 17–18. On Faustus: Sundwall, Abhandlungen, 117–20, 191; PLRE ii, ‘Fl. Anicius
Probus Faustus iunior Niger’, 454–6. Faustus and Ennodius: Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy, 157;
PCBE ii, ‘Magnus Felix Ennodius’, 621, 623–5. See further chapter 5 below, atnn. 83–5.
143
Ordination: Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 199. Gaul: 171.
144
Vogel, Introduction to Ennodius, Opera, makes Ennodius transfer from Pavia to Milan after
Epiphanius’ death; Cook, Life of Saint Epiphanius, 209–10, arguing that such a transfer would
have contravened western ecclesiastical practice, suggests that Ennodius was originally attached
to Milan but ordained by the bishop of Pavia while Laurence was imprisoned by Odoacer on
accountof his supportfor Theoderic.
149