Page 300 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

locus of communication, from military borders to the palaces of admin-
istrative centres; and in the medium, from displays of arms to rhetorical
argument. Such civilian modes of negotiation, however, were not cus-
tomary in treating with tribal groups on any of the empire’s borders.
Officially regulated traffic in provincial and civic embassies continued
throughout the fifth century within the areas under imperial rule, best
demonstrated by Sidonius Apollinaris’ provincial embassy to the em-
peror Anthemius in Rome in 467. The governments of Odoacer and the
Ostrogothic monarchs maintained this machinery; Theoderic received
legations not only from cities within Italy, but also from the provinces of
Dalmatia and Provence. It is unclear whether the resources of the king-
doms in Gaul or Spain were sufficient to permit government assistance to
civic legations, but there is evidence that in Gaul assistance was provided
for emissaries to and from the royal courtatleastby public levy.
Whether or not governmental infrastructure was available, the habit
of civic legations continued within the former western provinces after
rule had devolved onto barbarian kings. The borders of each kingdom
were not restrictions to diplomatic traffic. Hydatius shows Gallaecian
provincials approaching imperial officials and the Gothic royal court in
Gaul; Sidonius’ letters reveal several appeals to the kings at Toulouse from
Roman citizens of the Auvergne while still under imperial rule. Though
the sources tend to advance bishops as representatives of regional commu-
nities, lay envoys elected by municipal councils or provincial assemblies
continued to form the bulk of traffic. Close attention to provincial em-
bassies shows regional communities as far more active in the political
processes of the fifth century than may otherwise be supposed. Cities
could organise their own defence; more characteristically, cities sought
through embassies to avoid becoming theatres of war between compet-
ing forces, whether imperial or barbarian. There are indications that in
the early fifth century, provincial and municipal bodies negotiated with
barbarian monarchs as separate entities, not as impotent subjects.
The fragmentation of political power in the West throughout the fifth
century, and the complex layering of authority and interstate relation-
ships, gave rise to the need for royal courts themselves regularly to adopt
the use of embassies to communicate with other rulers and even distant
regional communities. Even rulers outside the former Roman terri-
tories adopted Mediterranean conventions of public communication, as
Attila’s use of Latin secretaries demonstrates. Within the former empire,
rulers made use of the channels and conventions of imperial ‘internal
diplomacy’ to communicate with other kings and with the imperial courts
at Rome, Ravenna, and Constantinople. The use of Roman bishops and
magnates by the Suevic kings in western Spain in the early 430s are the
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