Page 283 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Negotium agendum

western kings; Theoderic enlisted the aid of Boethius in preparing items
for the Burgundian king Gundobad and the Frankish Clovis. 168 Royal
and imperial gift-exchange is attested earlier in the Chronicle of Hydatius,
and later, regularly, in the many royal embassies in the Histories of Gregory
of Tours. 169
One gift had the striking fate to be owned by at least two kings and by
the two leading generals of the eastern and western halves of the fifth-
century empire: Zercon, a Moor whose severe hunched back, stammer,
and quick witcondemned him to a life as an objectof humour. Given as
a gift to the eastern magister utriusque militiae Aspar in Proconsular Africa
either by a leading citizen of Carthage or, perhaps, by the Vandal king
Geiseric, Zercon subsequently passed as war booty into the possession of
Bleda, co-ruler of the Huns with his brother Attila. Regarding Zercon
as an unwanted gift, Attila, after his murder of Bleda, gave him to the
western magister utriusque militiae Aetius, who in turn presented Zercon
back to Aspar. 170
Notonly the principals butthe envoys themselves could give and re-
ceive gifts. The historian Priscus cynically observed that Attila exploited
this practice as a way of enriching favourite subjects. 171 As with other
aspects of ceremonial, alterations to the customary protocol of gift-giving
could be powerful means of negotiation. The Constantinopolitan senator
and patricius Severus, sent by the emperor Zeno to Geiseric to negotiate

168 Cass., Variae i, 45–6 (to Gundobad, a sundial and water-clock); ii, 40–1 (to Clovis, a harpist);
iv, 1 (the Thuringian king Herminifrid, when marrying Amalaberga, niece of Theoderic, sends
in addition to the bridal pretia of a herd of horses, gifts including domesticated beasts (beluasque
morigeras)); v, 1, 2 (gifts of swords and amber from the kings of the Warni and Haesti respectively);
Theoderic sends unspecified return gifts to the Thuringian, Warni, and Haesti kings.
169 Hydatius, Chron., 226 [222] (Theoderic II of Toulouse and the Suevic ruler Remismund).
Gregory of Tours, e.g. Hist. iv, 40; vi, 2 (one-pound gold medallions from the emperor Tiberius II
to the Frankish king Chilperic, and other gifts), 3, 34, 40; viii, 35; ix, 1, 16 (acceptisque ac datis
muneribus), 25, 28 (a large golden salver decorated with jewels, and wooden dishes with gold and
jewel decorations, from Brunhild, mother of king Childebert II, to the Gothic king Reccared),
29. Also Ep. Austr., 18 (gifts from Justinian to the Frankish king Theudebald).
170
Priscus, Fr., 13.1–3 (Fr. Class. Hist., 287–9). A possible chronology for the travels of Zercon
is as follows. Given to Aspar ‘in Libya’: between Aspar’s arrival in 431 as part of the eastern
fleet against the Vandals, and his departure, sometime between 434 and 441 (PLRE ii, 166;for
departure c. 441: Thompson, Attila, 81; for late 434: Clover, Geiseric the Statesman, 43–53, who
postulates some form of treaty between Aspar and Geiseric). Capture: during a Hunnic raid on
Thrace, probably the push which reached Constantinople in 443, atwhich Aspar and his fellow
generals were defeated (Thompson, Attila, 84). Death of Bleda: 445 (PLRE ii, 230). Presentation
to Aetius: between 445 and 449, the date of Priscus’ embassy to Attila, possibly as part of the
negotiations transferring to the Huns part of Pannonia near the Save (Priscus, Fr., 11.1 (Fr. Class.
Hist., 243); PLRE ii, 27).
171
Envoys receiving gifts: De cer. i, 90 (Reiske 408); Malchus, Fr., 17 (the emperor Zeno and
envoys of the Vandal king Huneric); Vita Epiphani, 188 (though here the gifts given to envoys
‘pro ipsorum quiete’ could mean subsidies to be passed on to the envoys’ principals). Attila:
Priscus, Fr., 10, 14.1 (Fr. Class. Hist., 243, 293).
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