Page 233 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Cassiodorus and Senarius

Clovis foughtatVouill´ e near Poitiers. Alaric was killed, and Clovis was
able to penetrate Visigothic territory. While the Visigoths were able to re-
tain Novempopulana in south-western Gaul, the Franks, allied with the
Burgundians, took control of parts of Aquitania and Provence, gain-
ing access to the Mediterranean. Despite diplomatic and military hin-
drance from Byzantium, Theoderic subsequently forced the Franks out
of Provence in a series of engagements in 508/9. Provence was then ruled
from Ravenna as the province of Gallia; Ostrogothic control was repre-
sented as the return of the region to the empire. This settlement was not
challenged, and Italy was involved in no further known military con-
flicts with the Franks, the Burgundians, or Constantinople for the rest of
Theoderic’s lifetime. 113
All the diplomatic letters included in the first four books of Cas-
siodorus’ Variae concern these events. Those letters to Clovis and the
Burgundian king Gundobad which stand at the end of the first two books
respectively were written before the outbreak of hostilities in the West,
as Theoderic still enjoys at least nominally good relations with his fellow
kings. 114 The two letters to the kings of the Thuringians and the Heruli
atthe beginning of Book iv are usually dated after Vouill´ e, and seen as
an attempt by Theoderic to forge new ties with powers surrounding the
now hostile Franks and Burgundians. 115
Theoderic’s diplomacy is best displayed in the set of letters at the
beginning of Book iii, addressed to Alaric II, Gundobad, the kings of
the Heruli, Warni, and Thuringians, and Clovis. 116 Written when the

113 For these events and their consequences to 511: Chron. Gall. 511,cc. 688–91; Cassiodorus, Chron.,
cc. 1348–9 (a. 508); Procopius, Wars v, 12–13; Jordanes, Get., 296–305; Chron. Caesar.,s.aa.
507, 508, 510, 513; Marius of Avanche, Chron., s.a. 509; Gregory of Tours, Hist. ii, 35–8; iii, 1,
2, 5, 21, 31; Isidore, Hist. Goth.,s. 36; Fredegar, Chron. ii, 58; iii, 24. Modern accounts: Bury i,
459–64; Stein ii, 143–55; Ensslin, ‘Romverbundenheit’, 518–24; Eugene Ewig, ‘Die fr¨ ankischen
Teilungen und Teilreiche (511–613)’, in his Sp¨ atantikes und fr¨ ankisches Gallien: Gesammelte Schriften
(1952–1973), ed. H. Atsma (Munich, 1976), i, 114–28; Erich Z¨ ollner, Geschichte der Franken bis
zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1970), 65–6; Wolfram, History of the Goths, 243–6,
306–24; Moorhead, Theoderic, 173–88. No further known conflicts: though Theoderic ruled
from Verona and Pavia from c. 519 propter metum gentium (Anon. Val. xiv, 81–3, 87), he returned
to Ravenna c. 524 (after the death of Boethius; ibid. xv, 88). Theoderic’s return followed the
fall of the Burgundian king Sigismund to the Franks and the allegedly peaceful extension of
Ostrogothic power into a large part of Burgundian territory (Moorhead, Theoderic, 213–26).
These circumstances suggest that the gentes causing worry in c. 519 were the Burgundians.
114 115
Cass., Variae i, 46; ii, 41. E.g. Stein ii, 50; Wolfram, History of the Goths, 318–20.
116
Cass., Variae iii, 1–4. There were six original letters; the kings of the Heruli, Warni, and
Thuringians each received a copy of the same letter; Variae iii, 3 title: Epistula uniformis talis
ad Herulem regem,ad Guarnorum regem,ad Thoringian regem (not a single circular letter; cf. Bury i,
462 n. 1; Ensslin, ‘Romverbundenheit’, 519). Doubtless the original letters were differentiated
by individual inscriptions, including the kings’ names, and perhaps other elements omitted by
Cassiodorus for publication. A later letter to the Thuringian king preserves his name, Hermi-
nafred (Cass., Variae iv, 1 title), but the later letters to the kings of the Heruli and Warni do
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