Page 215 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Cassiodorus and Senarius

The praetorian prefect and the magister officiorum, by their administra-
tion of evectiones (official travel warrants) and the cursus publicus (official
means of transport and communication) were involved in the transporta-
tion, accommodation, and provisioning of envoys; the comes patrimonii
and the cura palatii, through their provisioning of the royal court, were
responsible for ensuring the palatial plenitude which would, amongst
other things, impress visitors. The magister officiorum also controlled and
stage-managed the official receptions of envoys, as his eastern counterpart
41
did also in Constantinople. Cassiodorus included a separate formula for
the issue to foreign envoys of a tractoria, an official warrantwhich would
ensure their provisioning and a speedy return home. 42 One edict, not a
formula, demonstrates that responsibility for the provision of supplies to
visiting envoys was notmet solely from central government resources:
the comites, defensores, and curiales of the city of Pavia were enjoined to
provide transport by boat between their city and Ravenna and five days’
provisions (annonae) to envoys from the Heruli travelling to Theoderic’s
court. Again, the need to impress the visitors with the copiousness of
43
resources is enjoined. This is the extent of administrative detail on em-
bassies provided by the Variae.
Altogether, there is remarkably little evidence for organisation of em-
bassies in the administrative documents of the Variae. This is partially
because diplomatic activities were not confined within a single depart-
mental structure; there was therefore no responsible magistracy which
would generate or receive administrative correspondence specifically
concerning the needs of embassies. Facilities for embassies, such as trans-
port, were provided by the service departments of the praetorian prefect
and magister officiorum, and so the needs of envoys were included under
the general administration of, for example, the cursus publicus or the provi-
sioning of the court. It is probably not by chance that the only two letters
giving evidence of arrangements for specific embassies concern envoys
who were not current servants of the court, for whom, therefore, specific
provisions were needed. There is also a further systemic reason why ad-
ministrative arrangements for embassies are little attested. The activities
of envoys were partof the arcana regia, the privy affairs of the monarch,

41
Cass., Variae vi, 3.3, 6 (praetorian prefect), 6.4 (magister officiorum), 9.7–8 (comes patrimonii –
quotation); vii, 5.1 (cura palatii); vii, 33 (Formula tractoriae legatorum diversarum gentium). Legati
gentium are specified in all but vii, 5.1. The legati mentioned in iv, 47.1, concerning abuses of
the cursus publicus, appear to be Theoderic’s agents in Rome; cf. 47.2. Eastern court: Constantine
VII Porphyrogenitus, De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae libri duo, ed. J. J. Reiske (Corpus scriptorum
historiae Byzantinae 7; Bonn, 1829–30), i, 87.
42
Cass., Variae vii, 33 (Formula tractoriae legatorum diversarum gentium).
43
Cass., Variae iv, 45. See below, chapter 6,atnn. 85–8.
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