Page 177 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The saint as envoy: bishops’ Lives

the early 500s, Ennodius corresponded with Laconius, a senior palatine
official (perhaps consilarius) of the Burgundian king Gundobad; Epipha-
nius and Ennodius had met Laconius during the embassy to Lyons in 494.
The correspondence ceases in 506/7, about the time of the outbreak of
hostilities leading up to the battle of Vouill´ e. 152 Ennodius’ extant writ-
ings terminate in early 513. Probably the next year, he became bishop of
Pavia, the second in succession to Epiphanius. Twice in the next three
years, in 515 and 517, he and several other bishops were sent by Pope
Hormisdas on embassies to the emperor Anastasius, concerning the Aca-
cian schism between Rome and Constantinople; Anastasius treated the
second embassy with contempt and Ennodius’ return to Italy was un-
comfortable. Hormisdas’ instructions for the first mission are extant. 153
Ennodius’ epitaph records his death in 521.
This outline of Ennodius’ career provides some context for the com-
position of his Vita Epiphani. The author was a member of Epiphanius’
lower clergy in the last years of the bishop’s life. His selection to present
a eulogy of the bishop’s anniversary after only some two years in orders
suggests that Faustus’ patronage of Ennodius elevated his standing above
his junior level. Ennodius lived in northern Italy during the disturbed
years of conflictbetween Odoacer and Theoderic, vividly described in
Vita Epiphani, and he accompanied Epiphanius on atleastone embassy,
to Gaul in 494. Itis possible thatEnnodius accompanied his bishop on
one subsequentjourney also, to Theoderic in Ravenna in 496, though
Ennodius’ account could have been derived from other members of the
bishop’s entourage. Ennodius had already written a shorter, poetic eulogy
of Epiphanius before composing the Vita.The Vita itself was written
within six to eight years of the death of its subject; Ennodius draws atten-
tion to how recent some of the events described were. 154 Presumably he
maintained contacts with the church of Pavia after Epiphanius’ death and
his own transfer to Milan, prior to his election as bishop of the city. 155
Such contacts might have prompted the composition of the Vita.The

152
Ennodius, opera 38, 86, 252 = Epp. ii, 5; iii, 16; v, 24.
153
For Hormisdas’ instructions, see chapter 6, below, atnn. 21–30. On the embassies: Liber pont.
54; W. T. Townsend and W. F. Wyatt, ‘Ennodius and Pope Symmachus’, in Studies in Honor of
E. K. Rand (New York, 1938), 277–91.
154
Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 6.
155
Evidence of Ennodius’ contact with Pavia in the period covered by his extant writings, 501–13,is
sparse: only two letters to a recipient in Pavia, the nun Speciosa (possibly the intended spouse of
the young Ennodius); Ennodius, opus 35, 36 = Ep. ii, 2, 3;and two Dictiones written on behalf
of Bishop Maximus, Epiphanius’ successor as bishop of Pavia; Dict., 3, 4 = opera 214, 277;
Sundwall, Abhandlungen, 72–83. Though Ennodius travelled to Ravenna and Rome, he seems
to have visited Pavia only once in the period covered by his extant writings; opus 36 = Ep. ii, 3.
His election as bishop of Pavia perhaps owed much to his earlier support for Laurence of
Milan, metropolitan of Liguria, in the Laurentian schism.
151