Page 75 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The provincial view of Hydatius

this phrase in Hydatius’ account of the Gothic assault on Gallaecia, which
evidently did not end the autonomy of the Suevic kingdom, appears
to be fossilised from an earlier version of the Chronicle written soon
after 456.
Theeventsof 456 clearly appeared catastrophic from a Gallaecian per-
spective, and can readily be understood as a spur to the composition of a
work of Christian historiography, with its teleological emphasis; Hydatius
compares the Gothic sack of Braga with divine wrath against Jerusalem. 47
By contrast, the end of the Chronicle describes changing circumstances,
with the collapse of Gothic tutelage of the Sueves and renewed hostil-
ities between the barbarian armies and Gallaecian provincials; the out-
come of these events was uncertain when Hydatius wrote, and indeed
remains unknown. As it stands, the work has no distinct ending, either
a chronological summary like Eusebius/Jerome and many continuators,
or a terminal comment such as Hydatius’ description of the events of
456. The final entry, listing natural phenomena as omens of ambiguous
significance, is reminiscent of the last chronological entry to Gregory of
Tour’s Histories, with a similar (perhaps accidently) inconclusive tone. 48
The second partof Hydatius’ Chronicle has every appearance of being a
continuation of a work extending originally only to 456; Hydatius was
not alone among continuators of Eusebius/Jerome in adding extensions
to his own work. 49 The more regular record of embassies in the latter

Frankish defeat of the Goths at Vouill´ e and end of the old Gothic kingdom of Toulouse (but not
of the kingdom of the Goths itself, subsequently restricted to Spain).
47 Hyd., c. 174 [167], identified with ‘the abomination of desolation’ of Daniel ix.27 and Matthew
xxiv.15 by Tranoy ii, 105.
48 Renewed hostilities: Hyd., cc. 230, 233, 245–6, 249–50 [226, 229, 239–40, 243–4]. Omens: 253
[247]; Gregory of Tours: Hist. x, 30 (the final chapter is a review of the acts of the bishops of
Tours, Gregory’s own writings, and a chronological summary); Walter Goffart, The Narrators of
Barbarian History (AD 550–800): Jordanes,Gregory of Tours,Bede,and Paul the Deacon (Princeton,
1988), 186.
49 E.g. Prosper wrote versions of his Chronicle in 433, 445, possibly 451,and 455; Marcellinus comes
in 518 and 534. Hydatius thought it possible that Jerome had also; Praef., 4.
The Chronicle of 511, the earliest extant user of Hydatius, seems to preserve extracts from
only the first half of his work (Burgess, Chronicle, 167–8, though cf. MGH AA 9, 664,c. 634,
citing Hyd., c. 198, recte 200 [195]; Gillett, ‘Accession of Euric’, 37). The Chronicle of 511 shows
interest in the extension of Gothic control in north-eastern Spain and southern Gaul in the 470s
(cc. 651, 652, 657), yet does not use material from the second half of Hydatius concerning Gothic
influence in Gallaecia, Baetica, Lusitania, and Narbonensis in the 460s(172–86, 192–3, 201, 217,
245–6, 250 [165–79, 185, 188, 196, 212, 239–40, 244]), suggesting that the author of the chronicle
may not have had that part of Hydatius’ text.
For a different interpretation of the structure of the Chronicle: Burgess, ‘Hydatius’, 229–40,
seeing the conflict of 456 as the dramatic climax of a unified work written in the late 460swith
a classical literary structure, implying composition retrospectively in the 460s. This reading does
not explain Hydatius’ use of the phrase regnum destructum et finitum est Suevorum; composition in
the late 460s is a rather delayed reaction to the events of more than a decade before.
49