Page 231 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Cassiodorus and Senarius

to Rome may account for a number of Senarius’ trips. The Laurentian
schism, which divided the aristocracy and clergy of Italy over a disputed
papal election in 498, necessitated many communications between Rome
and Ravenna in the following years. It was perhaps in this context that
Senarius made the acquaintance of John, a deacon of Rome, who played
an active role in the affair. 106
Senarius and Cassiodorus, however, emphasise travel to other courts,
Senarius mentioning both Constantinople and the West, Cassiodorus
stressing the courts of barbarian kings. Ennodius, too, gives contemporary
evidence of journeys to gentes. 107 Even a score of long-distance voyages
in the course of a career spanning perhaps a decade and a half is not
incredible for pre-modern travelling conditions. Italy was connected with
the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa by ancient sea-routes, and
the inland waterways of Gaul, where many of Senarius’ western missions
may have taken him, were equally well exploited. 108 Senarius states that
he travelled from Constantinople to the Atlantic coast twice in one year,
showing that even ‘shuttle diplomacy’ of a sort was possible. 109
The epitaph employs the four cardinal points to delineate the ex-
tent of Senarius’ journeys. 110 Oriens, and later Pontica litora, evidently
represent Constantinople, and ‘sun-scorched Africa’ stands for Vandal
Carthage. The ‘numb North’ refers at least to Gaul, indicating the
Frankish and Burgundian kingdoms, and perhaps beyond. The ‘furthest
clime of Spain’ and ‘the shores of Ocean’ are problematic. If ultimus axis
is meantto modify Iberi (‘furthest’, i.e. westernmost Spain), and is not
merely a transferred epithet of Spain itself (‘Spain, the furthest clime’),
taken literally it can only refer to the kingdom of the Sueves in Gallaecia,

106 Below, atnn. 144–5. Ennodius, in winter 507/8, asked Senarius to pray per omnes sanctorum
basilicas for the illness he was experiencing in his eyes; Ep. vi, 8,cf. vi, 4. Vogel interprets this as
a reference to the basilicas of Rome, implying that Senarius was in or travelling to the city at the
time; ‘Index nominum’ to Ennodius, Opera, 359; followed by Delmaire, Les Responsables, 294.
Butcf. Sundwall, Abhandlungen, 44–5: Ennodius, Ep. vi, 8 was sent simultaneously with Epp. 6
and 9 to recipients in Ravenna, and was shortly followed by Ep. vi, 12, the letter to Senarius and
four other addressees in Ravenna, discussed above at n. 86. There is no reason that Ennodius
could not be referring to the basilicas of Ravenna.
107
Ennodius, Ep. v, 15–16; below, atn. 130.
108
Use of the inland waterways of Gaul for long-distance travel pre-dated Roman conquest; Strabo,
Geography, trans. H. L. Jones (LCL; London, 1949), iv, 1.14, 3, 5.2; P.-M. Duval, ‘Proues de
navires de Paris’, Gallia 5 (1947), 123–42. On riverine trade and travel in the Roman period: Louis
Bonnard, La Navigation int´ erieure de la Gaule ` al’´ epoque gallo-romaine (Paris, 1913); A. R. Lewis,
‘The Rhˆ one Valley Route and Traffic between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, ad
300–1200’, Res publica litterarum 5 (1982), 139–50. Evidence of fifth- and sixth-century navigation:
Constantius, Vita Germani, 23 (on the Saˆ one); Vita Genovefae, 35–40, 51; Gregory of Tours, Hist.
vi, 25; vii, 46; below, n. 122 (the Visigothic princess Galswintha, and Venantius Fortunatus). See
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 77–82.
109 110
Epitaph, lines 11–13. Ibid., lines 7–8.
205