Page 278 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

urban ceremonial occasions; it is argued above that the prominence of
references to embassies in the Chronicle of Hydatius also reflects public
formalities. 142 The regularity of such ritual is probably an important fac-
tor militating against its record: frequently repeated ceremonies, even of
important events such as imperial accessions, tend not to be recorded by
contemporary sources because of their very banality. 143
The departure of a legation too could be an occasion for public ob-
servation. A passage of Vita Epiphani may represent public ritual for the
departure of a legation. 144 The brusque dismissal of unwelcome envoys
recorded in several sources may have been known to the authors because
of intentional publicity on the part of the court, and recorded as eloquent
breaches of convention. 145
Other elements of the hosting of embassies were also for public con-
sumption. The formal audience of the legation in the imperial or royal
consistorium, though limited to the small circle of the ruler’s leading of-
ficials and advisers, was nota privvy occasion. Procopius casually de-
scribes such interviews as ‘in public’ ( ). 146 In times of conflict,
the regular presence of senior officials and other important subjects at
the reception of an embassy could be anticipated and exploited as an op-
portunity to spread disinformation and distrust between a ruler and his
leading magnates. 147 References to secret dealing on secondary matters
between envoys and rulers – ‘to put a word in your ear’, as one envoy put
it – underscore the public nature of the ostensible communications. 148
Ceremonial of the audience could be elaborate, including, like many
other late antique public ceremonies, the delivery of panegyrics. 149 Con-
vivia and other informal meetings between ruler and envoy also exposed

142 Persian envoys: Consularia Constantinopolitana (MGH AA 9; Burgess, Chronicle), s.aa. 358, 384;
Chron. Pasch., s.a. 384; Marcellinus comes, Chron., 384.1. Hydatius: above, chapter 2 atnn. 51–2.
143 McCormick, ‘Analyzing Imperial Ceremonies’, 7 (‘The banality of ceremonies, in particular,
profoundly affected the surviving evidence’), 8–9.
144 Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 92 (read as the abandonment of Roman provincials by the ceding of
the Auvergne to Euric by e.g. Courcelle, Histoire litt´ eraire, 180, butcf. above, chapter 4,atn.
224).
145
Hyd., 238 [234]; Gregory of Tours, Hist. vii, 14.
146
Procopius, Wars v, 7.13 (quotation; Theodahad in Ravenna with envoys from Justinian); v, 20.8
(envoys of Vitigis before Belisarius, his commanders, and the Senate of Rome); viii, 4.12–13
(‘for there were many who heard their speeches’); Agathias, Hist. i, 5.3 (Gothic envoys before
Frankish kings and ‘all the high officials’).
147
Procopius, Wars v, 4.22,cf. 7.21–5; iii, 16.12 (Justinian writes to the ‘archons’ of the Vandals).
148
Secret dealing alongside public negotiations: Procopius, Wars v, 2.4, 9; 4.17–19; vi, 2–5, 7–25
(Theodahad and Justinian); v3.13–16, 8–29 (Amalasuntha and envoys of Justinian); vi, 29.26–30
(Goths and Belisarius); vii, 2.17 (Eraric and Justinian); viii, 4.12–13 (Tetraxite Goths and Jus-
tinian); Gregory of Tours, Hist. vii, 30; viii, 13, 28; vi, 3; vii, 32; ix, 16 (quotation: Iussit . . .
dominus noster ponere verbum in auribus vestris); x, 19 (Bishop Egidius).
149
John Lydus, De mag. iii, 28; De cer. i, 87 (Reiske 395); Ennodius, Pan. Theod., 77.
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