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The saint as envoy: bishops’ Lives

be underscoring his exclusion of miracle accounts. 175 Despite the impor-
tance of miracle narratives in highly influential hagiographies including
the Vitae of Anthony, Martin, and Ambrose, accounts of bishops de-
void of supernatural elements were not unprecedented; neither Possidius’
Life of Augustine nor the Life of Fulgentius of Ruspe includes miracle
accounts. 176
The absence of miracles in Ennodius’ narrative mightin partbe a
function of his proximity to the saint’s own lifetime, to which En-
nodius draws attention in his preface – though Sulpicius’ Vita Martini,
the western model of the thaumaturge, was composed during its sub-
ject’s lifetime. 177 Proximity in time clearly tempers Ennodius’ rhetoric.
Whereas the embassies of Germanus and Vivianus for taxation relief are
completely successful, Ennodius is careful to specify that, in response to
Epiphanius’ missions, Theoderic does notpardon quite all who had sup-
ported Odoacer, or grant to Liguria a complete relief from taxation; nor
does Gundobad allow all the Italian prisoners to be redeemed without
payment. 178 Nevertheless, more germane to the scarcity of miracles from
Vita Epiphani may be the purposes of the biography. Ennodius perhaps
did not want the romance element of miracle accounts to distract from
his narrative. The absence of the miraculous in Vita Epiphani affects En-
nodius’ embassy narratives: Germanus achieves success in his missions
after performing healing miracles; Epiphanius wins his cases through
oratorical skills and force of personality. 179
The second major narrative difference between Vita Germani and Vita
Epiphani is Ennodius’ use of dramatic speeches. The six major embassy
narratives are distinguished not just by their length, but by the inclusion

175 Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 58: In quo itinere quid molestiarum sustinuerit quidve virtutum gesserit,festinans
ad maiora praetereo; cf. Constantius, Vita Germani, 20: Operae pretium puto mandare memoriae,etiam
eius iter clarum fuisse virtutibus. Lotter, Severinus von Noricum, 57.
176 Possidius, Vita Augustini; Vita Fulgentii (the traditional attribution to Ferrandus is disputed),
PL 65, 117–50, now trans. in Fulgentius: Selected Works, trans. R. B. Eno (Washington, DC,
1997), 1–56. Vita Fulgentii, 22–3, in fact belittles the importance of miracles in the profile of a
bishop, perhaps in line with Augustine’s early thought (cf. Brown, Augustine, 413–18), though
nevertheless attributing by implication healing miracles to Fulgentius; cf. also 6–7 (miraculous
recovery of lost solidi). On miracles in hagiography: Lotter, Severinus von Noricum, 51–9, esp. 57;
Stancliffe, St. Martin and his Hagiographer, 98.
Augustine’s works were much cultivated in Ostrogothic Italy, but the absence of miracles in
Vita Epiphani is unlikely to have been a result of Augustinian influence; note that Eugippius, a
focus for Augustinian scholarship in Italy, included miracles prominently in his Vita Severini.
177
Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 6; Fouracre, ‘Merovingian History and Merovingian Hagiography’,
11.
178
Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 134, 170, 187.
179
These characteristics, like the absence of miracles, are also shared with the portrait of Fulgentius
in Vita Fulgentii.
157