Page 90 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

imperial envoys were sent to protest. They travelled in a joint embassy
with envoys of the Gothic king Theoderic II – a pivotal moment in
relations between the Sueves, the empire, and the Goths. 108
The Sueves’ dealings with the western imperial authorities cannot be
understood separately from the simultaneous development of their re-
lations with the Goths. In the 410s, Vallia’s Goths campaigned for the
empire in Spain againstthe Asding and Siling Vandals, Alans, and Sueves,
butwere recalled by the magister utriusque militiae Constantius in 418, af-
ter extirpating the Alans and the Siling Vandals. The Sueves and Asding
Vandals were left intact, in Gallaecia. The basis for this withdrawal was
probably a tripartite alliance between the empire, Goths, and Sueves. The
Sueves, like the Goths, were accepted as imperial federates, and were tied
to the Goths by a marriage alliance between the two barbarian royal
houses; a similar three-way alliance was to operate in the 450s (from the
union of the 410s was born Ricimer, later generalissimo of the western em-
pire). The Sueves benefited from their federate status with the empire:
imperial forces defended the Sueves from Asding Vandal aggression in
419. But the marriage alliance with the Goths was short-lived, ruptured
when Vallia died shortly before the settlement of the Goths in Aquitania
and the new dynasty of Theoderic I assumed rule of the Goths. 109 Subse-
quent relations between the Sueves and Goths are obscure. In 421 and 429,
Gothic auxiliaries assisted imperial forces campaigning against the Asding
Vandals, enemies of the Sueves, in Spain. 110 In the unsettled conditions
caused by the Vandal departure for North Africa in 429, the Goths may
have sought to interfere in relations between the Sueves and the empire,
but the details are unclear. 111
In the 440s, the Goths were willing to support the empire in its at-
tempt to regain Carthaginiensis and Baetica from the aggressive Suevic
king Rechila. A large Gothic force accompanied the magister utriusque
militiae Vitus into Spain in 446, butwas putto flightby the Sueves. 112

108
Table 1 nos. 10 and 11.
109
On the question whether the Sueves were federates after 411: Muhlberger, Fifth-Century Chron-
iclers, 248 n. 120 for bibliography, with Demougeot ii, 448–9. Ricimer’s parentage as evidence
of a tripartite alliance in 417/18: Andrew Gillett, ‘The Birth of Ricimer’, Historia 44 (1995),
380–4. Alliance of 450s: below, n. 116. Imperial assistance to Sueves against Asding Vandals: Hyd.,
cc. 71 and 74 [63, 66].
110
421: Hyd., c. 77 [69]; 429:asatn. 77 above.
111
Table 1 no. 2:in 431, while the Gallaecians sought imperial assistance against the Sueves, Vetto,
qui de Gothis dolose ad Gallaeciam venerat,sine aliquo effectu redit ad Gothos. Itis unclear whether
Vetto acted on behalf of the Gothic king; cf. Table 1,‘Noteon Legatus and Legatio’.
112
Hyd., c. 134 [126]. Hydatius accused the Goths of following Vitus only for plunder, but they
would have been observing their obligations as federates, reconfirmed by the settlement of the
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