Page 263 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Negotium agendum

both of discussions and of the selection of the members; such business is
partof the secreta of the court. 61
Provincial envoys to court were constrained to adhere closely to their
commission, outlined in the letters of credence with which they were
supplied, though literary narratives often overlook this restriction on their
subject’s independence. 62 Palatine legates may sometimes have enjoyed,
or been burdened with, a greater latitude in independently assessing a
situation after arrival at their host’s court and negotiating an outcome
accordingly. 63 It was presumably in order to allow time for assessment
and negotiation that some embassies remained for up to a year at their
64
hostcourt. The imprecision of some diplomatic letters in Cassiodorus’
Variae may also have been intended to allow scope for independence by
the envoys. Nevertheless, there is explicit evidence for even very senior
and experienced legates needing to seek new instructions when situations
changed significantly. 65
Though envoys are often named singly in eulogistic sources, it ap-
pears to have been common for the leadership of legations to have been
entrusted to two envoys, sometimes more. 66 This is mostevidentfrom
the sixth-century evidence of Cassiodorus’ Variae, in which diplomatic
letters refer with formulaic regularity to their bearers, who are to deliver
the substantive message orally, as ille et ille. Pairs of envoys appear to have
been customary in the fifth and seventh centuries also, for both palatine
67
and provincial embassies. Dispatching two colleagues afforded compan-
ionship in the labour of their travels and negotiations; a back-up in the
61 Priscus, Fr., 11.1–2 (Fr. Class. Hist., 245–7); Sid. Ap., Ep. iii, 7.3; Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 136;
above, chapter 5 atn. 44. The planned assassination of Attila in the excerpt from Priscus of course
necessitated clandestine discussions, but it is striking that Theoderic’s plans to redeem Italian
captives, an act of largesse to his subjects, should have been discussed secretly.
62 CTh xii, 12.4, 11. Cf. below, atn. 117.
63 Cf. On Envoys in Lee and Shepard, ‘Peri Presbeon’, 30–1 = Anon. Byz. Treatise on Strategy xliii:
‘The envoys mustexercise judgement and be alert to opportunities, not necessarily carrying out
all they have been instructed to do, unless they have been ordered to accomplish something at all
costs’; like the criteria for selecting envoys (above, n. 50), this may reflect literary influences.
64 65
Below, atn. 93. Procopius, Wars v, 4.20–1.
66
CTh xii, 12.7 (380?) limits provincial embassies to three envoys, xii, 12.9 (382) suggests one
or two for diocesan embassies; both laws are attempts to rationalise and restrict the number of
municipal envoys to court.
67
Cassiodorus: see above, chapter 5 atn. 22, for Theoderic’s outgoing embassies, with Cass., Variae i,
4.11 (Cassiodorus’ grandfather and Carpilio, son of Aetius, to Attila). For embassies received from
other western kings: Cass., Variae v, 1, 2, 44; viii, 1 (though the formula for travelling provisions for
foreign envoys provides for only one: vii, 33). Other examples: Prosper, Chron., 1367 (Trygetius,
Gennadius Avienus, and Pope Leo I to Attila, though Leo’s role may have been to ransom captives
rather than to act as a negotiator; see above, chapter 4 atn. 5); Priscus, Fr., 11.1, 11.2 (three envoys),
14.2, 15.3–4 (Fr. Class. Hist. 243, 263, 297); Malchus, Fr., 20 (Fr. Class. Hist., 243, 263, 297, 437);
Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 123–4, 146; Collectio Avellana, 57, 102 (three envoys); Procopius, Wars
ii, 2.1; iii, 24.7; vi, 22.20, 29.1–5; vii, 21.18; Gregory of Tours, Hist. iv, 40; vi, 18; vii, 30, 32;
ix, 20; x, 2 (three envoys); Gregory the Great, Registrum xiii, 7, 9; Ep. Austr., 18, 20, 42, 43–7
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