Page 288 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

Gaius’ definition in the Institutes and Digest, Isidore in his Etymologies
defined ius gentium exclusively in terms of actions concerning peaceful or
warlike relations, revealing the influence of literary over jurisprudential
sources:

The law of peoples [concerns] the occupation of dwelling-places, construction,
fortification, wars, captivities, slavery, the recovery of rights, treaties of peace,
armistices, the sanctity of not violating envoys, and the prohibition of marriage
between those who are born in foreign lands. It is called the law of peoples,
because almostall peoples use this law. 188

A similar conceptof the religio of envoys’ inviolability informs several
fifth- and sixth-century narratives, which display an expectation that the
‘name of envoy’ at least ought to offer protection. 189 In Eunapius, war
erupts between Valens and the Gothic king Athanaric when the emperor
imprisons Gothic envoys withoutregard for their ! " . 190 Priscus
makes Attila threaten that he would impale an interpreter attached to a
Roman embassy but that it would outrage the #
$
of envoys. 191 Pro-
copius has two Gothic kings, Theodahad and Totila, preface speeches
with professions that ‘the position of envoys is revered and in general has
become respected among all people’; the phrase %
"
# !
in particular recalls ius gentium. 192 Both Menander Protector and Theo-
phylact Simocatta indicate the barbarity of the khagans of the Avars by
referring to their disregard of the ‘universal laws of envoys’. 193 Amongst
Latin authors before Isidore, the concept appears in Cassiodorus’ Variae:
writing in the name of Theoderic, the phrase leges gentium refers notto
inviolability of envoys but to the process of mediation which the king
encourages in order to preventconflictbetween Clovis and Alaric II. 194
These references to ius gentium are small signs of the continuity from
imperial to post-imperial times of the mental frameworks within which
political communication occurred.

188
Isidore, Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), v, 6:
Quid est ius gentium: Ius gentium est sedium occupatio,aedification,munitio,bella,captivitates,servitutes,
postliminia,foedera pacis,indutiae,legatorum non violandorum religio,conubia inter alienigenas prohibita.
Et inde ius gentium,quia eo iure omnes fere gentes utuntur.
189 190
E.g. Priscus, Fr., 9.2; Procopius, Wars v, 7.17. Eunapius, Fr., 37.
191
Priscus, Fr., 11.2 (Fr. Class. Hist., 254).
192
Procopius, Wars v, 7.14; vii, 16.9;cf. viii, 20.20.Cf. On Envoys (Lee and Shepard, ‘Peri Presbeon’,
30 = Anon. Byz. Treatise on Strategy xliii): ‘When envoys are sent to us, they should be received
with honour and liberality, for everyone treats envoys with respect.’
193
Menander Protector, Fr., 12.4; Theophylact Simocatta, Hist. vi, 2.13.
194
Cass., Variae iii, 3.2;cf. 1.3; 2.3; 4.3, 4. Further allusions to mediation: above, chapter 5,
n. 126.
262