Page 207 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533
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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
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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
18
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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