Page 247 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Negotium agendum

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ventures in other parts of the Mediterannean world. Vitigis’ embassy
constituted a meeting of two parallel diplomatic offensives against Jus-
tinian: in Italy, Vitigis attempted to gain allies against the east Roman
forces from amongst the Franks in Gaul and the Lombards in central
Europe (while simultaneously negotiating with Belisarius and Justinian);
in Persia, Chosroes sought among the buffer states and client kings neigh-
bouring Rome and Persia in the Caucasus and the Arabian peninsula for
causae belli with Constantinople. In Procopius’ narrative, Vitigis’ embassy
is followed by a legation from Armenia, also under attack by Justinian’s
forces, sent to Chosroes for the same ends. The Goths and Armenians
gave Chosroes the pretexts he desired, while Vitigis succeeded in gaining
an eastern distraction for imperial attention.
Procopius’ narrative assumes a common protocol for the dispatch and
reception of embassies in centres of authority within and adjacent to
the Roman empire, employing letters of credence, formal audiences and
orations, and in particular the high status of the envoys themselves. The
Armenian delegation included a local lord; an earlier Roman embassy to
Chosroes included a senior general and a civil magistrate who was also
honorary consul and patricius, both with previous experience in negotia-
3
tion with Rome’s south-eastern neighbours. The clerics sentby Vitigis
were smaller beer, chosen for subterfuge and unlikely to have had prior
acquaintance with international diplomacy. Yet the king judged them fit
for this crucial task. Presumably, like Ennodius in Milan, their clerical
positions had exposed them to ecclesiastical and perhaps municipal or
provincial legations, forms of ‘internal’ communication applicable to ex-
ternal diplomacy. The arrogation by one cleric of the title of bishop,
at which Procopius takes offence, was clearly an attempt to convey
greater status on the embassy; there are comparable instances of secu-
lar officials being elevated to higher positions in preparation for an
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embassy. Vitigis’ legates adapted themselves to the expectations of their
recipient.
These shared practices were conventional. Though there is no sense
of constitutionalism associated with them – they were not agreed upon
by any ‘international’ forum – they were to some extent prescribed by
the routine procedures of Roman imperial reception of provincial and
other embassies. Imperial legislation, for example, ordered embassies to
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present sealed letters from their principals outlining their purposes; the
automatic preparation of a letter to accompany the oral presentations of

2
Persia: Procopius, Wars ii, 1.1; Armenians: 3.52; Italians: vi, 22.15–17.
3
Armenian envoy: Procopius, Wars ii, 3.29–31 (Bassaces; PLRE iii, 177); Roman envoys: 1.9–10
(Strategius and Summus; PLRE ii, 1034–6 and 1038–9).
4 5
See below, n. 51. CTh xii, 12.4, 10, 11; cf. below atnn. 117–20.
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