Page 255 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Negotium agendum

he places on his envoys are safeguards against the substance of their pur-
pose becoming known in advance of the formal imperial reception. 26
After their audience, the legates may receive at their lodgings any who
are known to support the papal case; such visitors are to be exploited to
advance the embassy’s aims. 27
The lengthy account of the envoys’ audience and hypothetical dia-
logue with Anastasius in the Indiculus of 515 is difficult to square with
the procedure of De ceremoniis. Hormisdas envisages the envoys deliver-
ing his letter to the emperor without its contents having been previously
revealed. Should the emperor ask them what the letter concerns during
their audience, they are to parry until he has read it. Only after he has
done so are they to reveal that they possess a similar letter to be de-
livered to Vitalian, thus bluntly flagging Hormisdas’ willingness to treat
with the rebel; the envoys are to refuse the expected demand to see the
second letter. In the following postulated debate, Anastasius seeks to de-
fend the orthodoxy of himself and the eastern churches with arguments
for which Hormisdas provides crushing responses. 28 Read as a setof
practical instructions, the document seems disingenuous in its failure to
anticipate any process of filtering the letters and arguments of embassies
well before the legates are permitted into the presence of the emperor and
his consistory, and in its depiction of an extended, contrary interview.
Conventionally, letters were delivered sealed to the emperor or other re-
cipient, as Hormisdas instructs his envoys to insist. 29 Yeteven without
the explicit evidence of De ceremoniis for the role of the magister officiorum
in discussing the matters of embassies prior to the granting of an imperial
audience, it is difficult to imagine any ruler, let alone one with the palace
resources of the eastern emperor, engaging in open and unpremeditated
debate with the representatives of a party known to be quarrelsome. 30
Hormisdas would be hopeful at best to think that dialogue between his
legates and the emperor would follow the tortuous path he outlines, and
that the emperor would accept the repeated rebuffs Hormisdas proposes.
More realistic information on Constantinopolitan court procedures was
readily available to the bishop of Rome, from the frequent contact be-
tween East and West over the Acacian schism. The scenario drawn by
Hormisdas, of his bishops resolutely denying the emperor’s demands and

26
For receptions by local clergy as opportunity for the envoy’s purpose to be revealed in advance:
cf. Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 151 (bishop Rusticius of Lyons welcomes, questions, and advises
Epiphanius).
27
Collectio Avellana, 116.4, 158.3.
28
Collectio Avellana, 116.5–9 (handing over of letter; Vitalian), 10–27 (debate).
29
Cf. CTh xii, 12.5; Procopius, Wars v, 7.21; De cer. i, 89 (Reiske 406).
30
See Procopius, Wars v, 7.13–25 for an instance of an impromptu royal audience backfiring.
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