Page 55 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and political communication

recorded by Gildas as an indication of British degeneracy and pointedly
repeated by Bede. This vain attempt to gain Roman imperial military
support against barbarian raids was the last of three legations sent to
imperial authorities, after the withdrawal of direct Roman administration
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and the establishment of independent rule. There are less melodramatic
examples of embassies sent to imperial officials by individuals, cities,
and local bodies in Spain, several generations after the establishment of
autonomous kingdoms there. 90 At the same time, provincials still under
direct imperial rule could present petitions at the courts of neighbouring
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barbarian monarchs. The approaches of kings themselves to the emperor
often resemble the appeals of any other subject, albeit a highly placed one,
to his legitimate ruler; yet an experienced envoy could speak of addressing
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the emperor and barbarian rulers in the same terms. The establishment
of the new kingdoms did not terminate the constant motion of embassies
throughout the western provinces, but expanded its range of participants.
Legatine traffic in the fifth and early sixth centuries was both a sign of
administrative and social continuity from imperial to royal rule, and itself
an instrument of the political changes of the period.
Formal interstate diplomacy, the most obvious example of political
communication, is more studied in relation to the late Roman East than
the West. This is not only because of the evident importance of Roman
foreign relations with its neighbouring empire, Sassanian Persia, but also
because the extant eastern sources foreground embassies and treaties.
The East proffers ‘diplomatic histories’ and administrative monuments,
including archives and formulae for ceremonial, which the West lacks. 93
The extant sections of the classicising Greek historians Olympiodorus of

89 Gildas, De excidio Britonum, ed. T. Mommsen, trans. M. Winterbottom (Arthurian Period
Sources 7; London, 1978), xiv–xx, quotation at xx, 1.Bede, Chronica maiora, ed. T. Mommsen
(MGH AA 13, 303), 484;Bede, HE i, 13.
90 For Spain: see below, chapter 2 and Table 1 nos. 1, 3, 16, 24–5, 40. For Gaul, cf. below,
chapter 4, on Orientius of Auch.
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Sid. Ap., Ep. i, 2.8; iv, 8.5.
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Kings’ addresses to emperors: e.g. Cass., Variae i, 1; ii, 1; viii, 1 (Theoderic to Anastasius; Athalaric
to Justin); Avitus of Vienne, Epp., 46a, 78, 93, 94 (Sigismund to Anastasius or Justin I). Experienced
envoy: Senarius, Epitaph, lines 4–13.
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Archives: Peter patricius,magister officiorum under Justinian and an experienced envoy to the Persians
and Goths (PLRE iii,‘Petrus 6’, 994–8), published an accountof his mission to Persia in 561,
and may also have lodged minutes of meetings and other papers concerning the same mission
in imperial archives; Blockley, Introduction to Menander Protector, 19–20 and Fr. vi, 2. The
lengthy account in Malalas, Chron. xviii, 56 of the embassy of an unnamed envoy sent by Justinian
to the king of the Axumites, dated c. 530, was also based on a report written by the envoy himself;
the style and emphasis on exoticism suggest a literary publication rather than an archival report.
Peter patricius’ history of the office of the magister officiorum preserved descriptions of ceremonial
for various court events, including the dispatch and reception of envoys: De cer. i, 84–95 (envoys:
i, 87–90); see below, chapter 6,atnn. 8–20.
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