Page 207 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533
P. 207

Cassiodorus and Senarius

         vain diplomacy in 506/7, to prevent conflict between the Goths of
         Toulouse and the Franks of Clovis, is recalled in Book iii; so, in Book ix,
         is the outbreak of conflict in 526/7 between the Ostrogothic court and
         the Vandals under Justinian’s ally Hilderic (signalled by the murder of
         Amalafrida, sister of Theoderic and wife of Hilderic’s predecessor as
              16
         king). It is the dominance of letters to Justinian and Theodora in Book x
         which appears the most disproportionate feature of the distribution of
         diplomatic correspondence throughout the Variae. The series of diplo-
         matic letters in Book x may be attributed to the topicality of negotiations
         with Constantinople at the time of publication of the Variae;theymay
         represent the majority of the occasions when Cassiodorus was requested
         to act in the capacity of quaestor while holding the office of praetorian
         prefect of Italy, and therefore the bulk of his available material. But as the
         cause for the number of imperial letters in Book x is notmade apparent
         by the editor of the work, one should be wary of conjecturing a purpose
         for this selection, whether mundane or persuasive.
           Detailed analysis of the Variae as a whole indicates that Cassiodorus
         employs distinctive vocabulary to differentiate letters to emperors and
         kings, and also to the Senate, from the dispositive letters concerning Italian
         administration. Cassiodorus uses certain words exclusively to describe
                                 17
         diplomatic correspondence. These are not strictly technical terms, and
         though some, such as apices, have a sense of grandeur, all come directly
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         from the vocabulary of private correspondence. Somewhatsurprisingly,
         the term used most exclusively for letters to sovereigns is simply litterae.
         Diplomatic correspondence differs stylistically from administrative letters
         in the Variae notby explicitaggrandisementof the former, butby the sense
         of command in the latter. In a formal sense, correspondence between
         rulers is more a part of the tradition of the cultured epistolography of
         friendship than of a specifically bureaucratic, chancellery style. 19
           Other features, either of Cassiodorus’ original composition of the let-
         ters or of his subsequent collection, set the diplomatic letters apart. Several
         titles of courtesy used to address recipients are reserved exclusively for
         rulers, some exclusively for the eastern emperors and empresses, though


         16
           Variae iii, 1–4; ix, 1.
         17
           Fridh, Terminologie et formules, 65–72 (apices,chartae,epistulae,and litterae).
         18
           The meaning of ‘correspondence’ for apices in factderives from a mundane calligraphic sense;
           Lewis and Short, s.v. apex ii, d–e.
         19
           See Pseudo-Demetrius, Epistolary Types,c. 1 in Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 33 on the
           occasions for ‘those in prominent positions’ to adopt the style of letter classified as ‘friendly’;
           for a later period: M. E. Mullett, ‘The Language of Diplomacy’, in Shepard and Franklin (eds.),
           Byzantine Diplomacy, 203–16. Cf. the letters of the Burgundian king Sigismund to the emperor
           Anastasius or Justin; Avitus of Vienne, Epp., 46, 78, 93, 94.
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