Page 64 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

under the years from 431 onwards. In his preface, Hydatius states that
he was dependent upon written sources and relationes for the period 379
(the conclusion of Jerome’s continuation of Eusebius) to 427; thereafter,
following his elevation as bishop, he wrote ‘from the knowledge which
4
the mournful times of my own life now provide’. His accounts of the
forty-one embassies come from his own observations or from contem-
porary reports. 5
Diplomatic missions constitute a large proportion of Hydatius’
6
Chronicle. This attention is unique among late antique chroniclers; it
is not a usual topic of the genre. Neither Hydatius’ model, Jerome’s
translation and continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, nor his only
extant written source, a recension of the Consularia Constantinopolitana,
7
accords significantspace to embassies. The dispatch and reception of
embassies are not topics regularly entered by late antique chroniclers.
Eusebius’ model established more or less standardised topics for inclu-
sion in Christian chronicles (many derived in turn from earlier chrono-
graphic traditions), including imperial and episcopal successions, battles,
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the writings of leading churchmen, earthquakes, and portents. All are

late antique historical sources: Mommsen, Introduction to Hyd., 199–204; Brian Croke, ‘City
Chronicles of Late Antiquity’, in G. Clarke (ed.), Reading the Past in Late Antiquity (Rushcutters
Bay, 1990), 182–91; Muhlberger, Fifth-Century Chroniclers, 23–46; Burgess, Chronicle, 175–207, esp.
178–86. Hydatius did not use the extant version of the Cons. Const., traditionally attributed to
his editorship, but an earlier recension; Burgess, ‘Hydatius’, 35–50; Burgess, Chronicle, 199–202;
Cardelle de Hartmann, Philologische Studien, 24–38.
4 Hydatius, Praefatio, §§ 5–7 [5–6]: ex cognitione quam iam lacrimabile propriae vitae tempus offendit.
On Hydatius’ sources: Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 142–50; Muhlberger, Fifth-Century
Chroniclers, 206–9; Burgess, ‘Hydatius’, 33–72; Cardelle de Hartmann, Philologische Studien, 17–38.
Hyd., Praef ., 7 [6] implies that he became bishop in 427 or 428; this is not confirmed in the body
of the Chron. itself, but the entries for the years 426 and 427 are lacunose, as Burgess’ edition
demonstrates.
5 See Table 1 for a listof these embassies.
6 Of 165 sections in Mommsen’s edition from 427 onwards, twenty-nine directly mention embassies,
but the presence of embassies in the text is greater than this statistic suggests because of indirect
references in other sections (e.g. cc. 242–4 [238]) and the clustering of accounts of embassies
(e.g. Table 1, nos. 1–4, 34–9); cf. Muhlberger, Fifth-Century Chroniclers, 211: ‘Hydatius’ chronicle
after [455] is almost a history of these embassies and the news they brought.’
7
The Consularia Constantinopolitana records only two embassies: Persian envoys to Constantinople
in 358, and again in 384 ( = Hyd., c. 11), concerning the partition of Armenia; Cons. Const.,
s.aa. Thatpartof the Cons. Const. thought to have been continued in Spain contains no accounts
of embassies. The few embassies recorded in Jerome’s translation and continuation of Eusebius’
Chronicle occurred in distant antiquity; neither author listed embassies in his account of recent
history (Eusebius/Jerome, Chron., 128, lines 7–9: envoys of Ptolemy I to Rome, seeking amicitia,
293 bc; 132, lines 16–23: envoy of the Jews to Ptolemy III, 246 bc; 137, lines 15–18: Antiochus
the Great sends legates to Hannibal, 186 bc; 156, lines 17–19: embassy of the Jews to Rome,
seeking amicitia, 46 bc). For an instance where a known foreign embassy is not mentioned:
Eusebius/Jerome, Chron., 247, lines 23–4 s.a. 375, cf. Amm. Marc. xxx, 5.15: death of Valentinian
I, while receiving a Quadi embassy.
8
Eusebius defined the categories of topics in his Canones: Eusebius/Jerome, Chron., 18–19.
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