Page 74 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

no explicit statement indicating when he began or completed composi-
tion of his work. Though he is often assumed to have written the whole
work retrospectively in the late 460s, he may have written a first ver-
sion in the mid-450s, prompted by the traumatic events of the Gothic
attack; the remainder of the Chronicle may have been added in the late
460s, using notes kept in the intervening period, including records of em-
bassies to and from Gallaecia. At both stages of composition, Hydatius
wrote lengthier entries for recent events, by no means an uncommon
historiographic tendency. 43
One formal feature of the Chronicle preserves evidence of this two-stage
composition. In his account of the Gothic attack on the Sueves in 456,
Hydatius describes how Theoderic II won a pitched battle, then pursued
and captured the Suevic king Rechiarius and accepted the surrender of
his army; consequently, he adds, regnum destructum et finitum est Suevorum,
‘the kingdom of the Sueves was destroyed and ended’. 44 The finality
of this statement is at odds with Hydatius’ subsequent record of the
activity of the Sueves, unambiguously referring to the Suevic regnum and
its reges. 45 The phrase regnum destructum et finitum est is notHydatius’
own, but is derived from a formal feature of Jerome’s translation and
continuation of the Chronici canones of Eusebius. In Eusebius/Jerome,
this phrase was regularly used to mark the collapse of ancient regna such
as Lydia, Egypt, and Achaemenid Persia. In the original format developed
by Eusebius for his Canones and maintained by Jerome (but abandoned by
their continuators), the chronologies of contemporaneous empires were
setoutin parallel columns; the phrase regnum destructum et finitum est closed
the column assigned to each empire as it reached its end. 46 The use of

135–6, 224–6, 238–40; thematic differences are discussed passim,e.g. 134, 179, 190; Cardelle de
Hartmann, Philologische Studien, 47–9, 61–5.
43 Cf. Burgess, Chronicle, 5–6. Cardelle de Hartmann, Philologische Studien, 64–5 suggests c. 450 as
the date for a first draft of the Chronicle, maintained annually thereafter. The argument is based in
part on the greater length of entries in the latter part of the work. Hydatius’ account of the Gothic
assault on Gallaecia is certainly much longer than earlier entries, but few subsequent entries are in
factlonger than pre-456 material. The length of the account of 456 suggests that it was originally
the final entry to an early version of the text.
44
Hyd., c. 175 [168].
45
References to the regnum of the Sueves post-456: Hyd., cc. 187, 203 [180, 198]; to their reges:
181, 188, 230, 232, 237, 238, 240, 249 [174, 181, 226, 228, 233, 234, 236, 243]. The possibility
of composition in stages and the significance of this phrase was first pointed out by Thompson,
Romans and Barbarians, 140–1 and 290 n. 10; notfollowed by Muhlberger, Fifth-Century Chroniclers,
194 n. 3, 264, or Burgess, ‘Hydatius’, 65, 229–40; briefly discussed by Cardelle de Hartmann,
Philologische Studien, 64–5.
46
E.g. Eusebius/Jerome, Chron., 103b (Lydia), 121 (Egypt), 124 (Persia). The complex structure
of parallel columns used by Eusebius/Jerome was abandoned by most continuators and many
copyists, but the formula for the end of states was commonly employed by continuators and
users, e.g. Chronica Caesaraugustana (MGH AA 11) ad a. 507: regnum Tolosanum destructum est,the
48