Page 48 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

policy creation or implementation, although individual magistri, such as
Peter patricius, evidently took a particular interest in foreign affairs. 62
Eustathius’ presence in the first mission raises the final factor deter-
mining selection of envoys: rhetorical skill. The philosopher was nomi-
nated as a member of the embassy for his talents in persuasion, ut opifex
suadendi, remarkable testimony to assumptions of cultural assimilation
63
between the Sassanian court and the Greek East. The classical practice
of selecting envoys for their skill in oratory continued to operate under
the Roman empire. At the time of the embassies to Shapur, the prae-
torian prefect Musonianus had already been engaged for some time in
negotiations with Persia. His suggestion to send the philosopher reflects
the judgement of an experienced officer on how best to constitute an
embassy. Though philosophers and sophists are not frequently attested
as envoys to foreign powers, the criterion by which Eustathius was se-
lected was not unusual. Rhetorical training was the key to success for a
civil public career; when selecting a representative, the emperor had at
his disposal a pool of individuals with conventional rhetorical training
within the imperial service. Eustathius’ companion on the journey to
Ctesiphon, the tribunus et notarius Spectatus, is elsewhere described as an
able orator, as may be expected from a cousin of the sophist Libanius of
64
Antioch. Spectatus’ fellow tribunus Procopius was sufficiently regarded
by his close relative the emperor Julian to be considered as a potential
65
successor to the throne. Eloquence, indeed, was the most characteristic
trait of envoys.
Though the emperors engaged in frequent diplomatic communica-
tions with foreign powers, they were far more often the recipients of
formal embassies from within the empire: approaches from cities, provin-
cal and diocesan councils, the Senate, and other bodies. There are no
terminological distinctions between formal legationes within the em-
pire and those without; the same conventions and conceptions regulated
62 Rudolf Helm, ‘Untersuchungen ¨ uber den ausw¨ artigen diplomatischen Verkehr des r¨ omischen
Reiches im Zeitalter der Sp¨ atantike’, Archiv f¨ ur Urkundenforschung 12 (1932), repr. in Olshausen
and Biller (eds.), Antike Diplomatie, 343–5 and n. 323; Jones, LRE i, 369, iii, 75 n. 8; Manfred
Clauss, Der Magister officiorum in der Sp¨ atantike (4.–6. Jahrhundert): das Amt und sein Einfluss auf die
kaiserliche Politik (Vestigia 32; Munich, 1980), 63–72. See below, chapter 5 atn. 41, and chapter 6
atnn. 10–17, 30, 52.
63
Amm. Marc. xvii, 5.15 (quote); the theme is much developed in Eunapius, Vitae vi, 5–10.
Cf. R. C. Blockley, ‘Doctors as Diplomats in the Sixth Century’, Florilegium 2 (1980), 89–100;
S. N. C. Lieu, ‘Captives, Refugees and Exiles: A Study of Cross-Frontier Civilian Movements
and Contacts between Rome and Persia from Valerian to Jovian’, in P. Freeman and D. Kennedy
(eds.), The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East (BAR International Series 297; Oxford, 1986),
492–3.
64
Libanius, Epp., 331 (trans. Dodgeon and Lieu, Roman Eastern Frontier, 223–4); PLRE i, ‘Spec-
tatus 1’, 850.
65
PLRE i, ‘Procopius 4’, 742–3.
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