Page 87 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The provincial view of Hydatius

Although the agreement reached by the bishops and the Sueves does
not seem to have been ratified by the imperial government, 95 Hydatius
recorded no further conflict in Gallaecia for five years. Then, in 437,the
comes Censorius was sent a second time, presumably again in response to
a provincial embassy, to broker a settlement between the Sueves and the
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same plebs of inland Gallaecia. This was the last appeal of the Gallaecians
to the imperial authorities. When the Gallaecians and the Sueves next
came into conflict, almost two decades later in the late 450s and 460s,
it was no longer from imperial authorities but from the Gothic court of
Toulouse that the provincials sought intervention.
Although Hydatius records provincial embassies from the Gallaecians
to the imperial authorities and to the Goths, he never refers to any
embassy representing the Gallaecians to the Sueves, or the Sueves to the
Gallaecians. The conflicts and treaties between the Sueves and Gallaecians
indicate that even after six decades of Suevic settlement in north-western
Spain, the Gallaecians preserved a corporate identity separate from the
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royal courtof Braga. Yet during periods of conflict, the Chronicle records
no representation or intercession for the provincials before the Suevic
kings; no Gallaecian was sentas legatus ad Suevos.
The Sueves and the provincials clearly interacted, not as ruler and
subject, but as two relatively equal parties. 98 Although Hydatius refers
to his province as infelix Gallaecia, conflict between the two parties was
sporadic, its timing dependent upon the external actions of the Sueves.
Hydatius describes the initial settlement of the Vandals, Sueves, and Alans

95 Table 1 no. 4: Hermeric sentBishop Symphosius ad comitatum, in vain. Hydatius’ terminology is
careful. The Gallaecians and Sueves had negotiated with a representative of the magister utriusque
militiae in Gaul, not directly with the western imperial court. But Hermeric was unable to rati-
fy the agreement with Aetius. In 432–3, Aetius’ fortunes were fluctuating wildly as he
fought with his rivals Boniface and Sebastian; PLRE ii, ‘Aetius 7’, 23–4. Hydatius distinguished
between the palatium, the household of Galla Placidia and Valentinian III which the generals sought
to dominate (Hyd., cc. 99 twice, 100 [89, 91]), and the comitatus, the emperor’s court of high
magistrates including Aetius, the ultimate victor of the struggle for power (cf. Jones, LRE i,
366–73). Hermeric’s approach to the comitatus should be seen as an attempt to conclude negotia-
tions with Aetius or, if necessary, his successor in these uncertain conditions, not as an appeal to
the emperor himself (contrast the embassies of Euric and Remismund, unambiguously described
as ad imperatorem; Table 1 nos. 34, 36, 41). The embassy fell foul of the violent politics of the
western imperial court; cf. Tranoy ii, 68; Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, 179; Muhlberger,
Fifth-Century Chroniclers, 221.
96
Table 1 no. 5.
97
Paces between the Sueves and provincials: Hyd., cc. 91, 100, 113, 188 (a Suevic assault sub specie
pacis, ‘under the appearance of a peace’), 204, 219 (promissa), 223, 249 [81, 91, 105, 181, 199, 215,
219, 243]. It was perhaps these reports of Hydatius which convinced Isidore that, after the Suevic
occupation of all Gallaecia in 429, Gallici autem in parte provinciae regno suo utebantur; Hist. Goth.,
c. 85.
98
For a thorough discussion of Suevic–provincial relations: Muhlberger, Fifth-Century Chroniclers,
245–60.
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