Page 238 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

summer the Visigoths were defeated at Vouill´ e. If Senarius was one of
the envoys who bore the original copies of Variae iii, 1–4, his claim to
success either overlooks the calamity of the Visigothic defeat of 507,or,
more likely, includes a remission in hostilities gained in 506/7, before the
Burgundian allegiance was switched to the Franks. Such a moratorium
suggests that the progress to war in Gaul was considerably more protracted
than the sparse narratives of the chronicles suggest.
In the aftermath of conflict with the Franks, Theoderic sought new
support in western Europe through a marriage alliance with the king
of the Thuringians and the adoption-in-arms of the king of the Heruli.
Letters to the kings of these people immediately precede the letters of
Senarius’ appointment as comes patrimonii in Cassiodorus’ Variae, perhaps
suggesting his association with these negotiations. 135
For two years following the battle of Vouill´ e, the security of Ostro-
gothic Italy was compromised. Provence was first occupied by the Franks
and Burgundians, but then annexed to the Italian administration. Though
the Ostrogoths pushed the Franks out of Provence by military strength,
the antagonists may have reached some form of negotiated settlement,
for there were no further border conflicts between the Ostrogoths and
the expansionist Franks during the next two decades. The court of Anas-
tasius attempted to distract Ostrogothic efforts in Provence by launching
naval attacks on the east coast of Italy, a tactic criticised even at Con-
stantinople, and Byzantine support of the Franks was displayed by the
grant of an honorary consulate to Clovis. Yet by late 508/9, Ravenna
and Constantinople were reconciled. 136
Senarius’ advancement came after, and very likely because of, the reso-
lution of the conflicts which had jeopardised the Italian kingdom for the
previous five years. The period 507/9 in particular must have seen much
‘shuttle diplomacy’ between Italy, Constantinople, and Gaul. 137 Senarius
owed his advancementto comes patrimonii to the international hostilities
of 504–9.

There is little evidence of Senarius’ career after his appointment as comes
patrimonii.The Variae preserves three letters giving him instructions while

135
Cass., Variae iv, 1, 2. Date: Krautschick, Cassiodor, 54, 76.
136
Annexation of Provence: Cass., Variae i, 24; iii, 16–18, 32, 40; iv, 16.1; Procopius, Wars v, 12.45.
Byzantine naval attacks: Marcellinus comes, Chron., s.a. 508. Clovis’ honorary title: Gregory of
Tours, Hist. ii, 38; Michael McCormick, ‘Clovis at Tours: Byzantine Public Ritual and the
Origin of Medieval Ruler Symbolism’, in Evangelos K. Chrysos and Andreas Schwarcz (eds.),
Das Reich und die Barbaren (Vienna and Cologne, 1989), 155–80; Ralph Mathisen, ‘Clovis,
Anastase et Gr´ egoire de Tours: consul, patrice et roi’, in Rouche (ed.), Clovis: histoire et m´ emoire
i, 395–407. Reconciliation: Cass., Variae i, 1; Moorhead, Theoderic, 186–7.
137
Cf. epitaph, lines 11–13.
212