Page 58 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

of Procopius, while generally accurate, is brief on military points but
evidently interested in embassies, treaties, and ethnography (Photius re-
tains, for example, the embassy of the Gothic king Vitigis to the Persian
shah Chosroes). 104 The stress on diplomacy in the extant versions of the
classicising authors is not a direct reflection of their own emphases or of a
climate of increasing formality in relations between Constantinople and
Ctesiphon; in addition to Persia, the fragments and summaries narrate
in detail Roman relations with important and lesser barbarian neighbour
groups, most famously Priscus’ account of his embassy to Attila. 105 The
classicising historians are extremely valuable sources; the conditions of
their survival in fact serve modern interests to an extent which is rare
for study in this period. But it is important to recognise the bias in their
preservation.
The West has no equivalent even to these selective ‘diplomatic’ his-
tories. This is largely because of different literary traditions in East and
West: a classicising Latin historiography may have existed in the Latin
Westduring the fifth century, butitdid notflourish and has barely been
transmitted to posterity. 106 A word aboutsources and methodology is
therefore in order. Because of the inadequacy of Latin historiae, a detailed
narrative account of diplomatic politics throughout the West – a diplo-
matic history – cannot be written without invalidating lacunae or exces-
sive speculation. Similarly, a full, systematic analysis of the functions of
embassies cannot be written for the late antique West, though a survey of
available data is offered at chapter 6 below. 107 To compile an inventory
of desirable areas of enquiry, mostof which remain blank through lack
of data, or which are filled with specific examples from which generali-
sations can be drawn only perilously, would not be useful.
Although diplomatic narratives are lacking, certain western writers do
display a special interest in diplomatic exchange and the role of the envoy.
Their interests are all the more striking for appearing in texts representing

104
Procopius: Photius, Biblioth` eque i, codex 63;Tomas H¨ agg, Photios als Vermittler antiker Literatur:
Untersuchungen zur Technik des Referierens und Exzerpierens in der Bibliotheke (Uppsala, 1975),
184–94. Gothic embassy: see below, chapter 6,atnn. 1–5.
105
Priscus, Fr., 11–14 [7–11].
106
Latin classicising historiography: the historiae of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus (written probably
before 454) and of Sulpicius Alexander (extending to at least 395), fragments of both preserved
only in Gregory of Tours, Hist. ii, 8–9.
107
For systematic analysis of other periods: for classical Greece: Mosley, Envoys and Diplomacy;
Adcock and Mosley, Diplomacy in Ancient Greece; for the early Middle Ages and Carolingian
period: McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, esp. 123–236, 470–4; for the central Middle
Ages: Krijnie N. Ciggar, Western Travellers to Constantinople: The West and Byzantium,926–1204:
Cultural and Political Relations (Leiden, 1996); for late Middle Ages: Donald E. Queller, The
Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1967); for Renaissance Europe: Mattingly,
Renaissance Diplomacy.
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