Page 256 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

outwitting him with rhetorical skill and theological certitude, recalls the
dramatic descriptions of envoys in the saints’ Vitae and secular eulogies
discussed in previous chapters, rather than the procedural formulae of
De ceremoniis. Hormisdas’ instructions may have been intended more as
an exhortation to his envoys than a practical guide to what could be
expected at the eastern imperial court.

descriptive accounts: personnel and protocol

There is no prescriptive accountequivalentto De ceremoniis of the pro-
cedures for the reception of envoys atany western court, whether of the
emperors, senior magistrates, kings, or bishops, or at provincial or town
councils. A composite picture can be pieced together from descriptions
in narrative sources, but only as a very rough approximation. Unlike the
work of Constantine VII and perhaps Peter patricius, none of the sources
which describe the dispatch or reception of embassies in the West pro-
fesses to be prescriptive or even accurately descriptive. The protocol they
intermittently report, assuming it to be chronologically accurate for the
narrative setting and not anachronistic retrojection or dramatic artifice,
need not apply to different courts or different times other than those of
the scene at hand. Like other late antique secular protocols and ceremo-
nial, the procedures described below represent attested practices from a
range of options; conventions should not be taken as binding. 31 Several
of the authors of the works most fruitful for descriptions of embassies had
experience as legates themselves; in addition to Hydatius and Ennodius,
this includes Gregory of Tours, who provides many useful comparanda for
procedures in the fifth and early sixth centuries. Ennodius in particular,
who gives the most circumstantial descriptions of the dispatch, reception,
and return of embassies, has good claims to be a well-informed witness:
he had personal experience of undertaking embassies to the court of
Gundobad and perhaps Theoderic by the time he wrote the Vita Epiphani;
he was acquainted with his subject during the time Epiphanius under-
took his final three journeys; and he was close to many other individuals
who undertook palatine, provincial, or ecclesiastical embassies. None the
less, data drawn from Vita Epiphani must be used with caveats because of
the literary nature of the work. 32
31
Cf. McCormick, ‘Analyzing Imperial Ceremonies’, esp. 2 (citing Peter patricius).
32
There are rich descriptive sources for the conduct of embassies between the eastern imperial
court and other powers, particularly Persia, thanks in part to the selections of the excerptors
of Constantine VII (e.g. Priscus, Fr., 11; Menander Protector, Fr., 6.1), butalso Procopius,
Wars; Agathias, Hist.; Malalas, Chron. xviii (Roger Scott, ‘Diplomacy in the Sixth Century: The
Evidence of John Malalas’, in Shepard and Franklin, Byzantine Diplomacy, 159–65); these are
drawn on below as comparanda.
230