Page 80 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

courts is deceptive. Hydatius demonstrates vigorous contact throughout
many levels of authority in the provinces; provincial imperial authorities,
municipal communities, episcopal assemblies, and the barbarian royal
courts all communicated with each other. Envoys travelled notonly from
the barbarian courts to the imperial capitals, but also across the provinces.
The Chronicle records more missions between Toulouse and Braga than
along any other route. To each centre of authority in the provinces, the
position of the imperial court, though unique, was not necessarily cen-
tral. A diagram of relations in the West would look less like the radii of
a circle than a cat’s cradle.
Yet Hydatius’ vision was circumscribed. He mentions only one em-
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bassy to an eastern emperor. The intense negotiations preceding Attila’s
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invasion of Gaul in 451 seem to have been unknown to him. Diplomatic
exchanges between barbarian peoples in the West other than the Sueves,
Goths, and Vandals – those who impinged upon affairs in Gallaecia –
were beyond his knowledge. While Hydatius’ authority on contact be-
tween southern Gaul and Gallaecia is presumably reliable, his awareness
of interactions among other western powers is demonstrably sporadic. 65
Hydatius describes only one small part of the mosaic of the West in
the mid-fifth century, detailed for north-western Spain but fragmen-
tary beyond. His account is all the more valuable for the richness of
information it nevertheless provides for this one, relatively unimportant
region.
Some idea of the extent of political interaction between the different
regions and social strata of the West can be gained by setting out the vari-
ous bilateral channels of communication which appear in the Chronicle.
The empire is by no means a player in all dialogues; even when itis,
senior imperial officers in the provinces form a quite distinct entity from
the two imperial courts. Hydatius’ own class, the Gallaecian provincials
and their episcopacy (not necessarily a uniform body), is seen in contact
with authorities in Gaul, first with imperial magistrates, then with the
Goths; they treat also with their Suevic rulers. The Sueves negotiate with
the Goths of Toulouse, sometimes in association with their relations with

63
Table 1 no. 9 (Avitus to Marcian, 455).
64
Cf. Jordanes, Get., 184–9, 191, 194–5, 197–9;Sid.Ap., Carm. vii, 328–56; Prosper, Chron.,
c. 1364. Aetius’ manipulations in 451 became a leitmotiv in early medieval histories: Gregory of
Tours, Hist. ii, 7; Fredegar, Chron. ii, 53; Addimenta ad Prosperum Hauniensis (MGH AA 9), 302,
s.a. 451; S. Barnish, ‘Old Kaspars: Attila’s Invasion of Gaul in the Literary Sources’, in Drinkwater
and Elton (eds.), Fifth-Century Gaul, 43–4.
65
E.g. he recorded Geiseric’s overtures for peace to Majorian in 460 (Table 1 no. 23), seemingly
unaware of earlier treaties between the Vandals and the empire in 435 and 442; cf. F. M. Clover,
‘Geiseric the Statesman: A Study of Vandal Foreign Policy’ (diss., University of Chicago, 1966),
53–60, 88–102.
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