Page 86 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

refer to a specific Christian congregation, whether of a diocese, parish,
or bishopric. 92 In the negotiations of the pars plebis Callaeciae in 430–1,
however, several bishops were involved, while no clergy are mentioned in
relation to the Aunonian plebs. Hydatius’ plebes do notappear to represent
ecclesiastical administrative units. A closer comparandum to Hydatius’ use
of the word occurs in the Vita S. Severini by Eugippius, written 509/11,
in which plebs appears as an alternative to Romani and habitatores oppidi,to
refer to the inhabitants of the town of Comagenis in Noricum. These
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provincial Romani had formed a foedus with a group of barbarians. Late
in the sixth century, Gregory of Tours, who usually uses plebs in the senses
either of vulgus or congregation, reproduces a legal judgement of 590,in
which plebs refers to an urban community under the governance of a
comes. 94 The uses of plebs by both Eugippius and the document repro-
duced by Gregory are similar to Hydatius’ term, though both refer to the
communities of specific towns, whereas Hydatius’ plebs seems to refer to
a wider region, and there is no reference in the Chronicle to a governor
or any other single magistrate with authority for the plebs.The plebes
of Gallaecia appear to be a remnant of Roman provincial administrative
structures, a local assembly or council. Plebes are the only provincial or-
ganisation attested in Hydatius’ Chronicle with the authority to send rep-
resentatives to treat with imperial authorities and the Suevic court, and
may be the body acting in Hydatius’ other references to the Gallaeci.
Hydatius’ embassy and the subsequent negotiations between the im-
perial envoy, the Sueves, and the provincial bishops had limited success.

92 Niermeyer, Lexicon minus, s.v. §§ 6–16; Du Cange, Gloss., vi, 363–4; attestations for plebs desig-
nating a specific community begin in the ninth century. Isidore, Etymologiae ix, 4.5–6 gives the
classical definition of plebs.
93 Plebs: Eugippius, Vita Severini ii, 2 (cf. Romani in i, 4, ii, 1; habitatores oppidi in ii, 1); for the foedus:
i, 4.
Elsewhere in Vita Severini, cives of the town of Tiburnia are able to fight a band of Goths to
a standstill (reminiscent of the success of Gallaecian provincials in defeating Sueves and Goths;
Hyd., cc. 91, 186 [81, 179] and cf. atnn. 67–71 above) and to establish a truce: xvii, 4 (cives
Tiburniae vario cum obsidentibus Gothis certamine dimicantes vix initi foederis pactione); the truce required
the townspeople, inter cetera, to hand over to the Goths clothing which had been collected for
distribution to the poor, an insight into the scale of barbarian raids in post-Roman Noricum.
On these passages from Eugippius: Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 119 and nn. 16, 18;
R. A. Markus, ‘The End of the Roman Empire: A Note on Eugippius, Vita Sancti Severini,
20’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 26 (1982), 4 and n. 17. (Markus errs in describing the benivola
societas between Rugi and Norican provincials in Vita S. Severini xxxi, 6 as a treaty negotiated by
Severin; the saint only provides safe passage for the provincials whom the Rugian king relocated
to territories tributary to him.)
94
Gregory of Tours, Hist. x, 16 508, lines 9–10 (referring to Poitiers); for plebs as vulgus: iii, 18118,
line 4; as a congregation: e.g. iv, 5 138, line 12; vii, 31 398, line 7;cf. x, 1 479, lines 3, 4, 8 (the
Oratio of Pope Gregory I).
Plebs is attested from the early eighth century with the meaning ‘legal community’ or pagus:
Niermeyer, Lexicon minus, s.v. §§ 3–5; Du Cange, Gloss. vi, 354: conventus publicus.
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