Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters. Tr. O. M. Dalton (1915) pp. xi-clv ; Introduction
INTRODUCTION
(CAIUS) SOLLIUS APOLLINARIS (MODESTUS) SIDONIUS 1 was born at Lyons, about the year 431, and died at Clermont perhaps in A. D. 489, at the age of nearly sixty years. 2 The exceptional interest of the period covered by his life is apparent from these dates; he saw the last sickness and the death of the Roman Empire in the West, and is our principal authority for some of the events which attended its extinction. He was a younger contemporary of Attila and Gaiseric. The campaigns of Aëtius took place in his boyhood; he was a youth of about twenty when the Huns were defeated on the Catalaunian plains, and for the first time in history the Roman and the Teuton fought side by side against a common xii enemy. He was about twenty-four when the house of Theodosius became extinct with Valentinian III, and the Vandals plundered the city of the Caesars (A. D. 455). He was still alive when Romulus Augustulus laid down his diadem at the bidding of Odovakar. More than once his path crossed that of the last emperors who ruled in Italy; as the son-in-law of Avitus, and a high officer of state under Anthemius, he saw Rome in the final phases of her imperial existence. In his own country he met or corresponded with every person of importance. He had dined with Majorian, he had played backgammon with the Visigoth Theodoric II; he lived to become first the prisoner and then the subject of that monarch's fierce successor, Euric. He exchanged letters with Lupus, Remigius, Faustus, and all the leaders of the Church in Gaul. There was hardly a single distinguished name with which in some way or another his own was not associated. Like Cassiodorus, he enjoyed an outlook over two worlds, the old Roman civilization in its decay, and mediaeval society in its beginnings. To paraphrase a sentence of Sir Thomas Browne, he stands like Janus in the field of history.
Sidonius came of a senatorial family long settled in Gallia Lugdunensis, a family to which, as he himself says, the holding of high office seemed almost a hereditary right: both his father and his grandfather had been prefects in Gaul. 3 His mother belonged to the gens xiii of the Aviti, which was connected with other noble provincial families, the Ferreoli, the Ommatii, and the Agroecii; when therefore he married Papianilla, daughter of the Avitus who became emperor, he may only have added a new tie to an old alliance. 4 He had a brother, who may not have lived to mature age, as no letter is addressed to him; 5 he had aunts or sisters and a mother-in-law, mentioned as taking care of one of his children (V. xvi. 5). A nephew Secundus (III. xii), and a cousin Apollinaris complete the list of his own relations, with the possible addition of Simplicius, who is so often mentioned with Apollinaris that he may have been his brother. He had two brothers-in-law, Ecdicius and Agricola, 6 of the latter of whom we hear little, of the former, much. For Ecdicius was the hero of his native country of Auvergne. He distinguished himself by great gallantry in the last struggle for independence (III. iii), and seems to have had in him much of the spirit of mediaeval chivalry. 7 Nor xiv was he deficient in other gifts; he must have possessed some talent for diplomacy, since he was instrumental in rallying the Burgundians to the cause of Auvergne at a very critical moment. Sidonius and Papianilla8 had one son, Apollinaris, and three daughters, Alcima, Roscia, and Severiana. 9 The boy, whose early promise is mentioned in one of the most pleasing passages of the Letters (IV. xii. 1), was destined to disappoint his parents, first in his failure to maintain the intellectual promise of his youth, and later by more serious deficiencies, recorded by other hands than those of his own father. 10 Of the girls, only Roscia and Severiana are xv mentioned in the Letters, and both in an incidental manner; for Sidonius was not communicative on his family affairs. The name of Alcima does not occur at all: we learn more of her from other sources than Sidonius himself tells us of her sisters. She became noted for her devotion to the saints, and for her munificence to the Church, 11 and is said to have joined her sister-in-law Placidina in a successful effort to obtain the see of Clermont for her brother some years after her father's death (see below, p. li, note 2).
Sidonius was educated in his native city, where the schools, if less famous than those of Bordeaux, were yet of high repute. He passed through the regular course of academic training, the essential parts of which consisted of grammar and rhetoric; and in both Letters and Poems preserves kindly memories of his teachers and fellow students. 12 As might be expected from the fortunate circumstances of his birth, and his father's rank as prefect, his youth was probably a happy one, passed alternately between the city and the country estate, where he enjoyed games and all the pleasures of xvi the chase. 13 His love of eloquence began early; he refers to the delight with which, as a youth of eighteen, he listened to the speech of Nicetius when Astyrius assumed the consulship at Aries in 449 (VIII. vi. 5). After his marriage, which must have been an early one, he probably divided his time between Lyons and Auvergne; in the latter region was situated his father-in-law's estate of Avitacum, which was ultimately to come to him through Papianilla, and of which he has left a description (II. ii; Carm. xviii). It was probably during the first years of his married life that he frequented the Visigothic Court at Toulouse, from which he wrote home the very interesting letter descriptive of Theodoric II to his brother-in-law Agricola (I. ii).14 Avitus, to whose exertions the coalition of Roman and Visigoth against Attila had been largely due, had long favoured an understanding between the two peoples. He had been a familiar figure at the Court of Theodoric I, whose sons he had endeavoured to imbue with Roman civilization; 15 it was therefore natural that he should xvii encourage the visits of his son-in-law to the more important of these pupils. He may not have clearly foreseen the part which he was destined personally to play in the near future; but it must have appeared a possible contingency that the Goths and their Gallo-Roman neighbours might once more be called upon to take decisive action together. With Tonantius Ferreolus and many others, he may well have shared the belief that the Roman understanding with the most civilized of the barbaric peoples might save an Empire which Italy was too enfeebled to lead. He had seen the Visigoths and the Burgundians in their homes, and learned to appreciate the rude virtues and the manly strength which redeemed the coarser elements in their nature. He dreamed perhaps of a Teutonic aristocracy more and more refined by Latin influences, which should impart to the Romans the qualities of a less sophisticated race and to their own countrymen a wider acceptance of Italian culture. 16 He knew that for more than a century Gaul had been the most vigorous and enlightened portion of the Empire in the West, and as Italy became year by year more helpless, he may well have believed that the leadership of the decaying state might pass into the control of his own country. But throughout he probably gave Theodoric II credit for a greater disinterestedness than he possessed; for in all likelihood the Visigothic king intended to exploit the Roman connexion in the xviii interest of himself and his own people. Be that as it may, when, in 455, the line of Theodosius became extinct with Valentinian III, the murderer of Aëtius, Avitus was sent as magister milltum to secure the recognition of Petronius Maximus in Gaul. But while he was at Toulouse, news came of that emperor's murder, whereupon Theodoric urged him to assume the diadem himself. 17 After a meeting either of representative magnates or of the Council of the Seven Provinces 18 at Ugernum (Beaucaire), Avitus, then some sixty years of age, was formally invested with the purple.
The event was the first turning-point in the career of Sidonius: it opened before him the brightest prospects of advancement, and awakened in him that ardent desire of political distinction which was for many years to exert so strong an influence on his life. He accompanied his father-in-law to Rome, and there, following the precedent of a Claudian or an Ausonius, delivered the Panegyric of Avitus which earned him the honour of a statue in the. Forum of Trajan. 19 But the hopes xix which the young aspirant might legitimately base upon his relationship to the head of the state were soon dashed to the ground: Avitus did not fulfil the expectations of his friends. His personal courage availed him little in Rome. On the other hand, his character revealed unsuspected weakness, 20 and his position as a provincial nobleman among the critical aristocracy of the capital became each day more difficult. His every action was watched with unfriendly eyes; his bodyguard of Visigoths aroused resentment; and when, to provide their payment, he was reduced to melting statues and stripping the bronze tiles from temple roofs, it needed but a pretext to ensure his speedy ruin. The immediate cause of his downfall lay in the hostility of Ricimer, now only at the beginning of his career as king-maker. The formidable Suëve had achieved a notable triumph over the Vandal fleet near Corsica (456), and, flushed with victory, determined to remove an emperor over whose election he had exerted no xx control. The unfortunate Avitus, who found his position in Rome untenable, fled to Gaul with the object of obtaining military support, but returning with an insufficient force, was defeated by Ricimer at Placentia.
21 The conqueror, establishing a precedent destined to be followed more than once in the immediate future, compelled him to exchange the diadem for the mitre, but the transformation did not long preserve the victim's life. Apprehensive that his fate was only postponed, Avitus seems to have sought safety in renewed flight; it is certain that he met his death within a few months of his deposition. 22
The fall of Avitus was a crushing blow to Sidonius. He returned home, where he found many spirits troubled like his own, and a party among the nobility still indisposed to acquiesce in the rule of Ricimer, or to see Gaul robbed of the leadership which she had fairly assumed. Feeling ran so high that a regular conspiracy was formed with both Visigothic and Burgundian support, in the hope of placing upon the throne a second emperor approved by Gaul. The candidate is conjectured to have been the gallant Marcellinus; 23 but it seems unlikely that xxi such a scheme can have had the consent of the person principally involved, for Marcellinus, actually commander in Dalmatia, had been the comrade of Majorian, now raised by Ricimer to the principate (April 457), and during the new reign played a part of conspicuous loyalty. 24 Majorian had almost all the gifts which make a ruler----courage, prudence, tact, love of justice, and magnanimity. A puppet-emperor might have been defied, but not a man like this. As soon as events permitted, he entered Gaul, and in 458 and 459 reduced the rebels to submission, 25 The focus of the rising was Lyons, which had actually received a Burgundian garrison. 26 Whether these barbaric auxiliaries remained in the city, or whether they were persuaded to withdraw by Petrus, Majorian's Secretary of State, there could only be one end to the adventure; the city, after suffering great hardships, was compelled to unconditional surrender. 27 The emperor felt it necessary to exercise severity; in addition xxii to the ruin of its walls and buildings, Lyons was punished by severe taxation. In this rising and its consequent disasters Sidonius took a prominent part; he seems to imply that he and his friend Catullinus actually bore arms, 28 and he was certainly one of those who had to smart under the lash of a 'tribute' described in one of his poems as triple-headed, like the monster Geryon. 29 After the capture of Lyons, the movement collapsed: perhaps by the secret activity among the rebels of men like Paeonius, the upstart, who during the interregnum had usurped positions to which he had no claim, and who now sowed dissension in the hope of securing favour at the victor's hands. 30 Theodoric, who had attacked Aries, abandoned open hostility, and renewed his previous relations to the empire; the Burgundians, returning to their old position as loyal foederati, were confirmed in possession of all Lugdunensis Prima except the capital itself.
From the embarrassment into which his active participation in rebellion had thrown him, Sidonius extricated himself, perhaps with the assistance of the literary Petrus, by the exercise of his poetic talents. His short appeal against the triple impost was successful; he made a xxiii further bid for the emperor's favour by writing a pane-eyrie. It is difficult to exonerate our author from the charge of a certain moral pliancy in this matter. Not twenty months had elapsed since he had sung the praises of Avitus before the Senate at Rome, and now he stood forth in the town of his birth to laud the nominee of Avitus' murderer. 31 This second panegyric is in some ways superior to the first; if the heart of the writer was less glad, his pen was no less ready; and the poem contains passages of no small brilliance and great descriptive power. 32 Majorian loved letters, and had a generous nature; he accepted the tribute, and admitted the panegyrist to the circle of his friends. Sidonius received the title of count, and became a persona grata at the court; the extent of his influence became apparent during the second visit of Majorian to Gaul in the year 461.33 At that time there appeared an anonymous satire which created a great stir at Arles; the writer xxiv severely lashed some of the personages most prominent under the new régime, among others the parvenu Paeonius, who was naturally consumed with the desire to unmask the hidden assailant. He thought he had succeeded in tracing the lampoon to Sidonius, whom he would have gladly humiliated. Instead of this, he was himself subjected to new and conspicuous discomfiture in the presence of the emperor, who at a banquet endorsed the conduct of his new friend by publicly resenting an unproved insinuation (X. xi).34 Once more the star of Sidonius seemed in the ascendant; for the second time it was eclipsed. Majorian's career, which promised so much for the empire, was suddenly arrested, and the last real emperor of Rome fell a victim to the jealousy of Ricimer
(461). The king-maker availed himself of the disappointment caused by the failure of a new naval expedition against the Vandals to remove too popular a rival. 35 During the xxv next four years he kept upon the throne Severus, a feeble personage on whose nullity he could rely. Severus died in 465, whereupon Ricimer for two years controlled the destinies of Italy alone. In 467, however, a rapprochement with the court of Constantinople, alienated by the murder of Majorian, became the interest of Italy, and the Senate requested Leo I to nominate an emperor in the West. 36 He complied, naming Anthemius, a great Byzantine noble, son-in-law of Marcian, and a soldier of high repute. Soon after the new ruler had landed in Italy, he endeavoured to conciliate Ricimer by giving him his daughter Alypia in marriage. 37 For the first time since Majorian's death Italy indulged new hopes. Under a soldier supported by Byzantine influence she might make head against the barbarian without, while the union of Ricimer with the imperial princess promised internal peace.
When his prospects were for the second time overclouded by the untimely fate of Majorian, Sidonius passed six years of retirement at Lyons and upon his xxvi favourite estate of Avitacum. The quietness of his life was relieved by more than one round of visits to friends at Bordeaux and Narbonne; a number of the letters, and these among the most entertaining, were probably written during the leisure which he now enjoyed. 38 But for the ambitions awakened by experience of two courts and only latent during these years, this would perhaps have been the happiest period of his career. Reading or composing in his library, or instructing his young son; wandering in his grounds by the lake, and amusing himself upon occasion with games and with the chase, he found the hours pass not unpleasantly at home; abroad, the society of the cultured friends and relatives who vied with one another in their desire to show him hospitality, afforded him the most agreeable of distractions. But he had tasted publicity and imperial favour; he had fallen under the glamour of Rome; and amid all the ease and calm of his existence the thought of the prizes which had just slipped from his grasp was a source of secret discontent. He was still well under forty; he could not yet resign himself to the undistinguished life of a provincial noble. 39 While Ricimer remained sole arbiter of Rome's destinies, Ricimer who had caused the death of both his patrons, there seemed no place for him on the greater stage of the world. On all sides the road xxvii was barred against him; he must accept the fate of the disappointed man.
Into these shadows the election of Anthemius and the improved position of affairs in Italy brought a sudden light; hopes almost abandoned rose once more. Sidonius began to consider whether he might not attain at the new court the position which fortune had twice placed almost within his reach and twice withdrawn. The course now taken by events was exceptionally favourable to the attempt. Anthemius fully grasped the importance of strengthening his new dominions, and his attention was naturally directed to Gaul as the bulwark of empire in the West. The provincials on their side were anxious to explain their needs, and to enlist the sympathies of the new prince; they probably had grievances for redress, and schemes for a strong policy against barbaric encroachment. A deputation was appointed to visit Rome, and after offering congratulations to Anthemius, to lay before him the hopes and the necessities of the country. What more natural than that the eloquent son-in-law of Avitus, one used to courts and no stranger in the capital, should be selected to act as leader? Doubtless to his great satisfaction, Sidonius found himself once more preparing to cross the Alps, furnished with an Imperial letter which placed all public means of transport at his disposal. After a favourable journey down the Ticino and the Po to Ravenna, he learned that the emperor was at Rome, and followed him thither by the Flaminian Way, arriving on the eve of the nuptials of Ricimer and Alypia.
The first step was taken; Sidonius had now to see that on this, his third endeavour to rise, he reached an xxviii altitude commensurate with his persistent effort and with the dignity of his family. It is probable that Anthemius met him more than half-way, and that the comedy of advancement in which Sidonius now engaged was in reality directed by the imperial advisers. It was very important for the emperor to conciliate Gaul. He was now perfecting a defensive scheme against the aggression of Euric, 40 which involved the sanction of all Burgundian appropriations, and possibly a further cession, 41 in order to secure the more willing cooperation of Gundioc. It was a matter of moment to win for his policy a man of such influence in Lyons and Auvergne as Sidonius, and it may therefore be fairly surmised that the way of ascent was made smooth for the aspirant's feet. The leader of the deputation took up his quarters with a cultured Roman noble, Paulus, by whose assistance he prepared to combine the prosecution of his mission with a legitimate advancement of his private fortunes. The two selected the most efficacious patron in the Senate, Basilius, who had the xxix reputation of obtaining promotions for all his clients and not for his relatives alone. It was arranged that the emperor should be favourably impressed by a panegyric delivered on his assumption of the consulship for the second term on New Year's Day, 468 A. D. 42 The story which must be read in Sidonius' own words (I. ix), recalls some episode from court-life in the eighteenth century; as Baret has said, the scene might almost be an entresol at Versailles. The panegyric was graciously received----had not Basilius guaranteed as much? And the poet was magnificently rewarded with the office of Prefect of Rome, carrying with it the presidency of the Senate. It can hardly be supposed that the appointment was nothing more than a distinction offered to Letters, like the consulship of Ausonius, or those nominations with which ministers of the eighteenth century recompensed their literary partisans. As already hinted, it is more probable that in part at least the affair was prearranged, and that the panegyric provided an ostensible motive for an act really dictated by considerations of imperial policy.
Sidonius now rode, as he would have said, at a safe anchor of glory, 43 he had attained the highest grade but two in the imperial system of honours. There remained only the titles of Patrician and Consul; could he win these, he would have achieved the feat which he repeatedly declared to be every man's proper ambition; he would have risen to a higher rank than any of his ancestors. In the moment of his elation, he xxx doubtless indulged golden dreams; but the unselfishness of his nature is shown by his evident desire that his friends in their turn should set their feet upon the official ladder, and by his promises to do all that he can to further their advancement. 44 Yet he soon found that office has its troubles; almost from the first, the path of greatness was rough to his feet. Among his duties as prefect was the superintendence of the Corn Supply, the Praefectus Annonae being his subordinate officer. 45 On one occasion supplies ran dangerously short, and he grew somewhat alarmed, fearing outbreaks in the amphitheatre on the part of the spoiled Roman populace; fortunately the arrival of ships at Ostia preserved him from the unpopularity which he dreaded (I. x. 2). A more serious event was the impeachment of Arvandus, Prefect of Gaul, and a personal acquaintance of his own, before a committee of the Senate on charges of peculation and high treason. 46 xxxi Sidonius was now placed in a most embarrassing position. On the one hand, he could not but sympathize with this effort of his native province to end by a signal example the insolence and corruption which were leading Roman provincial government to disaster; moreover, the principal accuser, Tonantius Ferreolus, was his connexion and intimate friend. On the other hand, to leave Arvandus to his fate without lifting a finger, appeared a dishonourable and cowardly course. He decided to do what he could for the impeached man who proved an intractable client, committing every possible blunder in the defence, and rendering the severest sentence unavoidable. The action of Sidonius has been commended by historians, among whom Gibbon is numbered. 47 He necessarily incurred much odium (I. vii. i); for never had representative of law and order a more compromising client. The praise which thus falls to his lot is doubtless deserved, for it may well have been that Sidonius was unaware of Arvandus' treasonable correspondence with Euric, a matter which the prosecution may have kept as the trump-card to be played at Rome, and perhaps deliberately concealed from all friends of the accused, however nearly connected with themselves. Even when the treasonable letter was produced, Sidonius may have hoped against hope that it was not a genuine document, but had been supplied to the accusers by more unscrupulous enemies xxxii of the fallen prefect. 48 But though we may approve this loyalty to a fallen friend, we cannot but feel some astonishment that a man of Sidonius' high character should have permitted himself an intimacy with an unscrupulous and violent personage like Arvandus: he was wont to choose his intimates among men of a very different stamp, and to be fastidious in selection. The conceit and obstinacy of the ex-prefect frustrated all efforts to establish a plausible defence, 49 and Sidonius absented himself from Rome before sentence was pronounced, probably to avoid the pain of witnessing a condemnation which he had been unable to avert. But he and those who acted with him did not relax their efforts on behalf of the condemned man; in all likelihood the commutation of the death-sentence to banishment with confiscation of property may be ascribed to their active intervention.
Events of such a nature must have rendered the term of his office an anxious time for the Prefect of Rome. There was another and yet graver cause of anxiety, xxxiii less immediately conspicuous, but big with coming trouble. This was the increasing tension between Anthemius and his new son-in-law. 50 To any one gifted with political foresight, an ultimate rupture became day by day more certain; and it may be that the retirement of Sidonius 51 was hastened by his desire to leave Rome before fresh disasters broke on the ill-fated empire. This explanation of his final departure is perhaps as likely as that which would attribute his second return from Italy to something in the nature of honourable dismissal. It is possible, however, that, like Mr. Secretary Addison in 1717, this earlier literary statesman proved unequal to the routine of administration, and that the title of Patrician which he now received, was intended to cover any mortification at the premature close of his career; but the capacity for affairs manifested in the stage of his life on which he was now to enter, is rather against the supposition of actual failure. Whatever the causes of his retirement, Sidonius now bade farewell to secular ambitions; restored to the peace of Avitacum, he may well have reflected upon their vanity, and tasted the last bitterness of disillusion. It is a xxxiv probable conjecture that such reflections gave a more serious turn to a mind never irreligious, and that the evident change of his outlook on the world conditioned the event which was now to transform his life. 52 On the death of the Bishop of Clermont, Sidonius was invited by general consent to occupy the vacant throne, and he accepted the invitation. 53 Assuming him to have been born between 431 and 433, he was now about forty years of age. 54 The Letters contain no allusion to the circumstances immediately preceding this, the crucial event of our author's life. Nowhere does Sidonius allude to the invitation itself, of the persons who made xxxv it or to the arguments which they employed, though more than once he describes his new profession as having in a sense been forced upon him, 55 as indeed it had been forced upon many other men of birth and wealth alike in Italy, and in his own country, among whom St. Ambrose himself is numbered. It is not difficult to supply the information which he omits to furnish. In those troubled times, the Church had special need of leaders familiar with the traditions of high office, trained to public life, and possessed of ample fortune (see below, p. lxxiii). Such men were better able than any others to stand between their flocks and the imperious barbarian princes who, with every year, closed in a narrowing circle round the dwindling territory of Rome. The careers of a Patiens and a Perpetuus proved the wisdom of those who elected them: the career of Sidonius was destined to justify it in an equal degree. He probably accepted the office not only from the changed view of life which led him to despise worldly ambition, but also because he believed that it opened to him a prospect of useful action for the benefit of his fellow countrymen. He well knew the anxieties and labours which it would involve; long before his own ordination, he had been acquainted with some of the best among the Gallic bishops, and the arduous manner of their life. There can be no question of vanity or ambition in his acceptance. As far as worldly honour went, the ex-Prefect and Patrician had nothing to gain xxxvi by occupying a bishop's throne; and Clermont was not even a metropolitan see. 56 Several letters written by Sidonius to other prelates soon after his election show that he was sincerely oppressed by the sense of his own unworthiness, and aware how little his previous life had prepared him for his new career; at the same time his health seems to have suffered, and a dangerous fever brought him almost to death's door (V. iii. 3). But he was cheered by the receipt of encouraging and kindly replies from several bishops of the Province; that of Lupus of Troyes57, which is preserved, must have caused him peculiar pleasure, for Lupus was the most venerable figure in Gaul, and regarded with respect in every diocese.
Events were now moving to a crisis which was to put the character of Sidonius to the severest test, alike as patriot and as ecclesiastic. The hold of the empire upon Gaul continually relaxed. It had rewarded the friendship of the Burgundians by permitting great annexations of territory; 58 its enemies were never satisfied. Riothamus the 'King' of the Bretons, who had been entrusted with the defence of Berry with some twelve thousand men, had already been defeated by the Goths, whose ambition was an ever-present menace. 59 Count Paul, for a while the Roman commander, had xxxvii checked with Frankish support their advance north of the Loire, but they now added to their dominion the northern part of Aquitanica Prima, with the cities of Bourses and Tours. While Euric's lieutenant Victorius made steady conquests in Aquitanica Prima he himself overran the country beyond the Rhône, which he was unable to retain on account of Burgundian jealousy. 60
The fulfilment of his ambitions involved the absorption of Auvergne, the most loyal district which remained to the empire, inhabited by a war-like race claiming Trojan descent, a people which had fought with Hannibal, and, in the person of Vercingetorix, sent against Julius Caesar a captain worthy of his military genius. Their principality had been the most formidable in Gaul, and they had long enjoyed the reputation xxxviii of freemen and warriors. 61 Such men, whose leaders still desired Roman rule, even with the traitorous Arvandus and Seronatus 62 as the official representatives of the empire, were not likely to accept Visigothic domination without a struggle. Their country was apparently exposed for several years to a series of raids and invasions culminating in sieges of the city of Clermont, 63 whose people offered a most stubborn resistance, with Sidonius at their head. The bishop was no longer animated by the sentiments towards the Gothic monarchy which had inspired his eulogy of Theodoric II. Euric was a very different man from his murdered brother, more violent, less refined, less amenable to reason. He made no pretence of recognizing Roman supremacy; moreover his Arianism was of an aggressive type, and with Sidonius, whose Catholicism was orthodox and sincere, this was a factor which now weighed more than any other. The Arvernians, though at first they had conceived new hope from the accession of Nepos, 64 now began to fear that they looked in vain xxxix towards the Rome for which they prepared to make the utmost sacrifices. As the year 474 advanced it was seen that without imperial support their position was hopeless. Sidonius had attempted to postpone the evil day by diplomatic means; Avitus, whose family name was so well known to the Goths, had been sent to intercede with Euric; 65 Ecdicius seems to have been dispatched to solicit aid from the Burgundians. But neither was able to prevent the horrors of continued siege. The defenders fought with tenacity; and though their walls were damaged, though fires destroyed whole quarters and they were reduced to extremities by hunger, they succeeded in holding the city. Their spirits were at one time raised by a heroic exploit of Ecdicius, 'the Hector of this Troy,'66 who with a little band of eighteen troopers broke through the enemy's lines, inflicting heavy loss upon seasoned warriors, perhaps xl overcome by a momentary panic. 67 The privations of the city had been so severe, that a party was apparently formed in favour of accepting Gothic rule, a party perhaps recruited by Gothic agents, who no doubt reminded the suffering citizens that the exactions of Visigothic counts were not likely to exceed those of Seronatus. This was a move of which Sidonius perceived the peril. The tension of war was followed each winter by inevitable reaction. The Goths had burned the crops; and though the generosity of Patiens and Ecdicius, now and later, did much to relieve distress, 68 men stood among ruined homes and saw their families still suffering the pangs of hunger. The advocates of surrender had here a promising material to work upon, and Sidonius strained every nerve to counteract their efforts. He induced his friend Constantius of Lyons, a venerable priest whose name was held in honour in Auvergne, to visit Clermont. 69 The appeal was not in vain; though the winter weather was severe, the old man braved every inconvenience of the way, and by his cheerful presence and calm advice composed xli the differences and animated the courage of the people. 70 The bishop also instituted the solemn processional prayers or Rogations already used in time of peril by Mamertus, bishop of Vienne. 71 These also had a tranquillizing effect. But there was still a prospect that the siege might be again renewed, and all eyes were turned to Italy. Julius Nepos was alive to the danger that Euric might cross the Rhône; but weak as his resources were, he could only hope to secure peace by negotiation. The quaestor Licinianus, who had been sent into Gaul to investigate the condition of affairs upon the spot, had done little more than confer upon Ecdicius the title of Patrician, an honour which even at this anxious time highly gratified Sidonius, and filled Papianilla with delight; 72 he had now returned, and it was soon only too clear that hopes based on his xlii intervention were not likely to be fulfilled. Rumours of negotiations were in the air. We find Sidonius writing for information to those presumably in a position to receive early intelligence. 73 To this last period of suspense, if not earlier, may belong the visit to the Burgundian kingdom, when he was able to frustrate the machinations of the informers threatening Apollinaris. 74 He began to fear that something was going on behind his back, and that the real danger to Auvergne came no longer from determined enemies but from pusillanimous friends.
His suspicions were only too well founded. On receipt of the quaestor's report, a Council was held to determine the policy of the empire towards the Visigothic king. Four Gaulish bishops were empowered to enter into negotiations----Leontius of Arles, Graecus of Marseilles, Faustus of Riez, and Basilius of Aix. It is not easy to say whether they failed because they refused to surrender Auvergne; nor can we precisely define the relation of their mission to that undertaken on behalf of the emperor by the venerated bishop of Pavia. Schmidt considers that the embassy of Epiphanius took place when the negotiations of the four bishops had broken down, and that the treaty of
475 was ratified by him. 75 The empire did not feel strong enough to support Auvergne, and it was decided xliii to cede the whole territory to Euric, apparently without condition, unless, indeed, the Visigoth undertook that Catholics should receive fairer treatment, and that the disabilities from which they had suffered should cease. 76 If so, the contingent religious advantages of the treaty might ultimately have soothed Sidonius the Churchman, as the shame of surrender at first incensed Sidonius the patriot. But when the news of the decision reached him he gave way to an outburst of righteous indignation, and wrote to Graecus, his intimate friend, a letter in which the bitterness of reproach is no less remarkable than the exalted tone of patriotism. 77 Sidonius loved Auvergne; among all the Gallo-Roman nobles none was more devoted to the imperial connexion than he; none attached more weight to the maintenance of Latin letters and Roman civilization. He was cut to the heart. All the valour of Auvergne had been thrown away: the treaty seemed an impossible, an xliv incomprehensible betrayal; the thought of it filled him with mingled shame and sorrow. The year 475, in which he ceased to be a Roman citizen, was the darkest year of his life. 78
In the organization of his new territory, which he seems to have annexed without further opposition, Euric showed the qualities of a statesman. He appointed Victorius, a Catholic and Gallo-Roman, as Count of Clermont, a man whose piety Sidonius praises, but whose character is painted in a different light by Gregory of Tours. 79 He probably intended to act as fairly by his new Catholic subjects as violent prejudice would allow. But the conduct of Sidonius in encouraging so protracted a resistance at Clermont had incurred his sharp resentment. The bishop was imprisoned in the fortress of Livia, situated between Narbonne and Carcassonne. 80 There may have been some pretence of entrusting him with a special duty, 81 but probably the principal object of the victor was to keep him away from his people until the new government was fairly xlv established. Sidonius seems to have remained for some time within the walls of Livia, but to have undergone no great physical hardships, since his chief complaint is that he suffered from the chattering of two repulsive Gothic hags outside his window (VIII. iii. 2). He had a powerful friend at court in the person of Leo, Euric's Secretary of State, who only waited a propitious time to intercede for his unfortunate countryman, and meanwhile recommended him to occupy his mind by literary work. 82 It must have been due to the solicitations of Leo (VIII. iii) that the prisoner was at last removed, apparently on parole, to Bordeaux, where Euric was now holding his court; and here, among a crowd including members of numerous barbaric tribes, he was forced to wait the king's good pleasure. 83 Sidonius was ill at ease about his property, perhaps his loved estate of Avitacum, all, or part, of which had been seized during the recent disturbances. 84 He found it difficult to obtain justice; and in a letter to his friend Lampridius
(VIII. ix), whose case was very different xlvi from his own, bewails the hardness of his lot; but the verses which accompany the letter are practically a panegyric of the Visigothic ruler, whose power they exalt to the skies. 85 As Lampridius was now a favoured personage in the king's entourage, the writer doubtless hoped that they would be brought to the royal notice, as indeed they probably were; the subsequent permission to return home, soon afterwards accorded to Sidonius, may well have been hastened by this timely resort to the arts of the court poet. 86 Euric was perhaps of opinion that his prisoner had now suffered enough, and would cause him no further trouble.
The bishop returned to Clermont in a despondent mood. The Patrician and ex-Prefect was brought low; xlvii the idol of his patriotism was shattered. He saw himself abandoned by the government for which he had willingly risked his life; he was the subject of a barbarian whose manners he despised and whose heresy he detested. There remained to him only his faith and his pastoral duty; and in time these were sufficient for him, leading him to those paths of sanctity which were to result in his canonization. But at first the new life was hard; Auvergne enslaved was no longer Auvergne to one whose youth was full of such memories as his. He threw himself with a high sense of duty into his episcopal work; several of his letters refer to events and meetings which occurred in the course of his diocesan visitations; 87 those which were written to aid clerks, deacons, readers, and others in need of his assistance prove that he did not spare himself when an opportunity came to help his neighbours or dependants. But in spite of all these activities, there must have been long and melancholy hours, especially in winter; and his friends feared their effect on his mind. They therefore encouraged him to write; and to this encouragement we probably owe the nine books of the Letters. The first book was issued in response to a request from the aged priest Constantius who had rendered him such noble aid after the siege of Clermont. It probably appeared in 478.88 It was followed by Books II-VII, dedicated to the same venerable friend. Books VIII and IX xlviii were supplemental, the first added to gratify Petronius, 89 though still dedicated to Constantius; the second by desire of another friend, Firminus. 90
There can be no two opinions as to the wisdom of his friends. It is clear from more than one passage that Sidonius enjoyed rummaging among his papers for any letters suited for publication, and that to transcribe, correct and polish the pages written at various periods of his life provided just the distraction which he required. To the gradual process of publication may in part be ascribed the lack of chronological order in the Letters, which makes them appear inconsequent to the modern reader, though it is not the sole reason (cf. below, p. cliv). But Sidonius was not only asked for collections of his letters. His talent as a poet was still in request. If a new church was erected, a metrical inscription for the walls must come from his hand; if a notable person died, he must provide an elegy. 91 High ecclesiastic though he was, he was still expected by privileged persons to furnish occasional verses; and though he sometimes declined a request which he felt inappropriate, at others he could not find it in him to refuse. 92 He was also urged to write the history of periods falling within his own remembrance, a task which he was unwilling to perform. 93 But he occupied xlix himself with Commentaries on the Scriptures, and composed, among other religious works, certain Contestatiunculae, which appear to have been prefaces to the Mass. The loss of his religious writings makes it impossible to estimate his position among the doctors; Gennadius placed him without hesitation among their number. 94 His activities were not confined to composition; he also revised manuscripts. Thus we find him sending to Ruricius a Heptateuch collated by his own hand. 95
Amid these manifold occupations, pastoral, literary, and scholastic, the later life of Sidonius wore away. In the words of his epitaph (see p. Hi), he lived tranquil amid the swelling seas of the world (mundi inter tumidas quietus undas). He continued to write to his friends and to receive letters from them; it is thought some examples may date from 484, or even later. 96 l This was an important year, for it marked the death of Euric, and the succession of a weaker ruler in the person of Alaric II. The disappearance of the great Arian may have relaxed in some measure the tension between the Catholic Gallo-Romans and their unorthodox rulers; but it prepared the way for the final subjection of Gaul under a single barbaric nation. The Franks soon afterwards commenced the advance which was only to end on the shores of the Mediterranean; in 486 Clovis ended the shadowy rule of Syagrius between the Loire and Somme, and prepared the way for a descent upon the Visigothic and Burgundian kingdoms; 97 Sidonius may even have lived to hear of this event. 98 The last years of his life are said to have been embittered by the persecution of two priests of Clermont, Honorius and Hermanchius, possibly representatives of the Arian heresy. 99 The story runs that they proposed li on a certain day to drive Sidonius from his church, but a horrible fate overcame one conspirator, and the other for the moment desisted from aggression. Thus Sidonius, when his time came, was suffered to die in peace. He is said to have fallen sick of a fever, and to have been carried into the church of St. Mary, where he took an affecting farewell of his flock, and indicated his desire that Aprunculus should succeed to his office. 100 Little more is heard of his family after his death. His son Apollinaris is said to have been one of his successors in the see of Clermont. 101 The year of Papianilla's death is unrecorded; of her daughters, we know only the meagre facts with regard to Alcima related by Gregory of Tours. By the end of the sixth century the house which had played so great a part in Gaul was no longer known to history. 102 Sidonius was buried in the chapel lii of St. Saturninus at Clermont, and an epitaph of eighteen hendecasyllables, composed not very long after his decease, is quoted by Savaron from an early manuscript formerly belonging to the Abbey of Cluny, but now at Madrid. 103 At some time after the tenth century, the chapel having fallen into ruin, his remains were translated to the church of St. Genesius in the centre of the town, where they lay in a reliquary on the right-hand side of the principal altar. In 1794 the church was destroyed; it is not known whether the bones were actually burned within the Place de Jaude, or whether the reliquary was buried under the ruins of the demolished walls.
Such were the principal events in the career of Sidonius, Gallo-Roman noble, Prefect and Patrician, Visigothic subject, bishop and saint. His letters have been compared to a literary Herculaneum, preserving under the accumulated centuries the most varied evidences of late Roman provincial life. 104 We may gather from them a multitude of facts bearing upon the liii society, civil and ecclesiastical, of the time; and though the value of Sidonius as a chronicler is seriously affected by an upbringing which set more store on literature than on observation, the harvest is plentiful enough. He experienced life under such various aspects, and knew so many people, that he could not fail to present a picture of provincial society of the highest interest and importance. It was inevitable that he should see things in the light of his own times, and remain under the influence of his own environment. He does not say as much about common things and ordinary events as a modern historian would like to know; he is reticent, after the Roman manner, about his family. It was not an age which cared to talk much of private life, or to describe the usual scenes of city, farm and country-side; nor was it the age of confessions, confidences and apologies. Sidonius does not depict his inmost nature like Montaigne, though in many little touches, applied almost at random, he allows us to trace for ourselves a portrait which he would not himself elaborate. We must not therefore go to him either for the sociology of the fifth century, or for the more intimate aspects of life; his mind was absorbed in other things. But when all deductions are made, we shall still find in his pages much invaluable material even on the subjects which he disregards; while those on which he cared to be explicit receive from him more illumination than from any contemporary writer. This is especially true of the lives of the members of his own class, of the literary activities of fifth-century Gaul, and of ecclesiastical affairs. His hundred and forty-nine letters are addressed to a hundred and nine correspondents, including ex-prefects liv and patricians, a minister and an 'admiral' of the Visigothic king, a Breton commander, and no less than twenty-eight bishops; while among the recipients of letters who did not hold ecclesiastical or secular office are to be found the student, the poet, the young noble, the country gentleman, the schoolmaster and the rhetor. So varied a list proves that the writer was a man whose wide acquaintance gives him a right to be heard as a representative of his time and country.
Many allusions in the Letters will be more intelligible if a few words are said in the present place on the general conditions obtaining in Gaul when Sidonius wrote, with especial reference to the classes from which his correspondents were drawn. And firstly in relation to his own class, the provincial nobles of senatorial houses.
Perhaps the point which first strikes us is that life on the great estates in the last half of the fifth century, at the very end of Roman power in Gaul, is just as Roman, and in some ways almost as secure, as in the times of Hadrian or Trajan. The noble has his town house and his country villa, the latter with its large establishment of slaves, its elaborate baths, and all the amenities of country existence as understood by Roman civilization. 105 In his well-stocked library he reads his lv favourite authors, writes himself in verse and prose, or maintains a continual correspondence with friends of equal wealth and leisure. For diversion, he hunts and fishes, or rides abroad to visit his neighbours; if interested in the development of his land, he goes round the estate, watches the work in progress, and is present at the harvest or the vintage. 106 It is the life of the cultured landed proprietor in a country at profound peace, where soldiers seem to be neither seen nor thought of, and the only sense of insecurity arises from the presence of robbers on the lonelier roads; but for the apparent predominance of literary over sporting interests, we might be reading of the English shires in the days of the Georges, when the carriages of nobles were stopped by highwaymen on Bagshot Heath. Yet the Visigoths had been established half a century in Aquitaine; the Burgundians were on the Rhône; the Franks were pressing upon such territory in northern Gaul as still retained a shadow of Roman authority. The barbarians encompassed the diminished imperial possessions upon three sides; even before the time of Anthemius and Euric, the empire must have been aware that they were bent on a further advance. 107 When we think of the apprehension caused in modern times lvi by the threatened invasion of one nationality by another, of the military preparations and the manifold precautions on every hand, it all seems at first sight very strange. The explanation is to be sought in the fact that, for the majority of the population, the possibility of change had no exceeding terrors. The small landowners and townsmen had suffered to such an extent from maladministration in the past, that they regarded the future with indifference; their own lot was no whit better than that of their fellows who had already passed under Teutonic sway. The Visigoths and the Burgundians had the best reputation among the barbarian peoples; they kept order with a strong hand; they endeavoured to assimilate what was good in Roman law and practice. Even the great landowner had only to fear a partial confiscation of his estates; but in most cases the acreage was large enough to leave him still in comfort, and in difficulties he would probably still have an appeal to some administrator of Roman extraction, like Leo or Victorius. 108 Under these circumstances lvii the Gallo-Roman noble might view the change in his allegiance without despair; though his income and his acreage would be diminished, he would still have his villa, and cultivators to work on his land; he would still live his leisured life. Only in Auvergne, perhaps, did loyalty to a tottering empire go the length of resolute resistance; even there, it is probable that a part of the population was lukewarm, and that ardour had to be assiduously fanned by enthusiastic loyalists like Sidonius and Ecdicius. Thus the change from Roman to Visi-gothic citizenship implied, for the noble, a comparative loss, and for the lower classes a possibility of actual gain: a Euric was less likely than a remote and helpless emperor to tolerate a Seronatus in his service. The Letters afford interesting confirmation of a certain tacit confidence in barbaric rule. One year Sidonius paid a round of visits to Roman friends living near Bordeaux and Narbonne; these friends are displayed to us reading and writing in their comfortable libraries, maintaining their luxurious kitchens, entertaining each other, and living a large life at their ease. Yet at the time every one of them had ceased to have any political concern with the empire; every one of them was a Visigothic subject. The fact speaks for itself, and it makes the point from which we started less strange than it at first appeared. If life continued almost in the old fashion, lviii even across the barbaric frontier, why should there be panic on the Roman side, or terror as to what would happen when the line was finally abolished? Existence would be much the same for most men after the great change was made. The higher nobility would lose the honours of imperial office, for there would be no more prefectorian or patrician rank; the rude barbarians would be unwelcome neighbours; but there were ways of avoiding them, and after all, they were a small minority. The Gallo-Roman nobles would continue to pay each other visits and write each other elaborate letters; they would hold closely together, and neither Visigoth nor Burgundian would care to intrude on their society. The prestige of Roman culture would remain; things would go on as before. Their day would begin at its usual early hour, opening in religious families with a service in the chapel attached to the house, 109 followed by visits to particular friends. After nine o'clock, there would be outdoor and indoor games; if sport was pursued, the hawks or hounds would be taken out. 110 The company would perhaps adjourn to the baths, after which would come the prandium or midday meal, about 11 a. m. 111 lix The hour of the siesta would be succeeded by a ride or other light exercise, and by the afternoon bath, preparatory to the coena, or supper, which would be enlivened by songs and music, or seasoned by cultured conversation. The barbarian might rule the land, but the laws of polite society would be administered as before.
The Letters enable us to follow in some detail the career of the Gallo-Roman noble from childhood to mature age. During his tender years he and his sisters were left to the care of the ladies of the family; at this period of their lives they remained in a seclusion almost resembling that of the Eastern gynaeceum. 112 From this seclusion the girl never really issued into the full light; she learned, as she grew up, to superintend and share the work of the textrinum (II. ii. 9); if she was skilful, like Araneola, she executed ambitious pieces of embroidery with figure-subjects (Carm. xv. 147 ff.); in the library, lx her place was where the religious books were kept (II. ix. 4), and sometimes, like Frontina, she attained at home a reputation of piety superior to that of nuns (IV. xxi. 4). The boy was permitted far more freedom; he played ball-games, and was initiated into the various forms of outdoor sport. As soon as he was old enough he attended the schools of his provincial capital, and learned to deliver 'declamations' before the rhetor, perhaps a man of distinction like Eusebius of Lyons, at whose feet Sidonius sat (IV. i). In his holidays, or on special occasions, the high official position held by his relatives might secure for him a good position at any spectacle or ceremony; we see the young Sidonius, when his father was prefect, pushing into the near neighbourhood of the consul Astyrius on the day of his inauguration (VIII. vi. 5). Released from the schools, he continued his sports, adding games of chance with dice, evidently very popular on all hands (II. ix. 4; V. xvii. 6, &c.). If a young man was rich and clever, or his family had influence, he went to Rome and entered the Palatine service, with the hope of rising to the high offices of the State. But his public life was usually over before middle age, and he retired to enjoy the honorary rank conferred by his late office. If he had no taste for further publicity he remained at home, read and wrote, followed his hounds, or acquired a taste for rural economics; kept up his classics and his ball-games; perhaps built additions to his villa. He might even grow too absorbed in rural interests to visit town even in the winter, like the Eutropius whom Sidonius rebuked, or the Maurusius whose company he so highly valued. Or he might advance a stage further, and think of lxi nothing else, till he was lost to all ambition beyond crops and stock, and sank into rusticity. There were many such in Gaul, and in more than one letter Sidonius alludes to them with regret or indignation. 113 But the more intellectual among the country gentlemen did not lightly forget the culture of their younger years. Literature probably occupied the class as a whole more than it has ever done in modern Europe. The Gallo-Roman noble was always a potential author, and valued himself as a critic. Verses and epigrams were circulated from house to house, 114 and the writers of these expected from every reader a letter of acknowledgement, which could be nothing less, under the circumstances, than eulogistic. The more earnest students would edit a classic, and keep copyists at work transcribing manuscripts for their shelves. In their houses the library was a very important room, and the scrolls and books were carefully arranged. 115 We receive the impression that the proportion of well-to-do people really fond of literature was high in the second half of the fifth century; and though the devotion to the classics in many ways recalls that of the Chinese lxii literate to whom the past is everything, the precedence given to literature over sport is a feature which commands our respect.
For all this, the more strenuous noble must often have found time hang heavy on his hands. He had few outlets for his energy; local politics were of the slightest interest to him; they were the affair of smaller men, and he had, as a rule, little notion of what we now call social service (see below, p. lxx). But his duties as father of a family were conscientiously performed; he sometimes himself took a part in his children's education. 116 Then there was the regular and voluminous correspondence with his friends, comparable, in the care lavished on style and diction, to the leisurely exchange of letters by persons of culture in the eighteenth century. Visits to friends living at a distance were also serious undertakings; we find Sidonius making 'rounds' which range from Auvergne to Provence, from Bordeaux to Lyons. 117 On long expeditions he took his servants, bedding, and all impedimenta; where there was no friend's house to offer hospitality, he camped (IV. viii), or, if driven to it, used an inn (II. ix. 7; VIII. xi. 3). Friends' houses stood open to each other, and liberal hospitality reigned. But though good cooking was evidently as general as in modern France, excess at table was rather the exception than the rule. Hospitality, lxiii however, was sometimes insistent, then as now; and in one place Sidonius confesses that after the opulent suppers of Ferreolus and Apollinaris a week's thin living will do him good (II. ix. 10). If the noble was a Christian, as was now very generally the case, 118 public religious duties played some part in his life. When a church was consecrated, or the feast of the patron saint came round, he made a point of attending the services, which sometimes began even before daybreak: at such festivals all classes came together, though they did not mingle, and the intervals between the services were occupied with games and conversation (V. xvii). Or he would prepare to set out with all his family on a pilgrimage to some important shrine, even when the state of the roads was dangerous (IV. vi). With these tranquil occupations his years passed by. But if he bore a high character and was popular with his neighbours, the quiet tenor of his life might be suddenly interrupted: he might wake one day to find himself elected bishop, and the most earnest nolo episcopari was not accepted as an excuse. If, on the other hand, the Church made no such claim upon him, he declined into a serene old age, and might have to listen in his own bed to those contradictory verdicts of the doctors whose quarrels in previous years disturbed his patience. 119 lxiv He died; but though veneration for the dead was a conspicuous virtue of his age, his family might forget for two generations to erect his monument, and when reminded by some accident of their duty, excuse each other by citing the irrelevant cases of an Achilles and an Alexander. 120
Both in town and country, the nobles seem to have led a large and sumptuous existence, in no way inferior to that of their own class in Italy. The proud name of 'the lesser Rome of Gaul' which Ausonius applied to Arles, 121 is justified by the letters alluding to the sojourn of Majorian in that town. In one an imperial banquet is described; in another a private feast, given by an acquaintance of Sidonius. 122 In both cases the luxury is redeemed by an intellectual atmosphere, but the luxury is there, with all the genialis apparatus which contemporary extravagance required. There are the hangings of rich purple, the napery 'white as snow', the table-decoration of vine-tendrils and ivy; there are flowers in profusion. The guests recline, with balsam-perfumed hair, while frankincense smokes to the roof, and the very lamps are scented. The slaves bow beneath the burden of chased silver plate; choice wines flow in cups crowned with rose-wreaths. There is dancing, and music made on cithara and flute by Corinthian girls and other professional musicians. It lxv all suggests an evening with Lucullus rather than a dinner-party in a provincial capital. These were special occasions; but the general standard of life was clearly high. There is a picture of one Trygetius, so comfortable at Bazas amid the selected delicacies of his storeroom123 that even the prospect of a gourmet's paradise at Bordeaux cannot drag him from home. A snail would outstrip this lazy personage, whom a comfortable boat awaits on the Garonne, with 'mounds of cushions', a grating to keep the feet dry, an awning to ward off the evening damp, dice and backgammon to pass the idle hours while, in frequent chants, the oarsmen sing his praise. Even the delicata pigritia of Trygetius, thinks Sidonius, must be tempted by this care for his comfort, all leading to a veritable tournament of epicures at the end. Who would imagine that when this invitation was sent, the homes of these Gallic Sybarites were in Visigothic territory, and that Theodoric was master of Bordeaux? Sidonius himself was comfortable enough at Avitacum, with his winter and summer dining-rooms, his elaborate baths, and his ball-ground down by the lake
(see below, p. xcv); while the lordly villa of Consentius, the Octaviana, was probably more extensive still, with its porticoes and baths, its well-stocked library, its vineyards and olive-groves, where the visitor hardly knew which to praise most, the cultivation of the estate or that of the master's mind (VIII. iv).124
It is in many respects a singularly refined life, free, lxvi as a rule, from coarse vice and brutality. But no one who reads either the letters of Sidonius, or any other work descriptive of the fourth and fifth centuries, can fail to be struck by a certain lack of broad aims or ardent interests. These men are less primitive than the barons of the Middle Ages, but in idealism and fervour the mediaeval knights leave them far behind. It has already been hinted that to find a parallel for some of these lives, absorbed in solemn literary trifling, we should have to look to the Far East, rather than to any European state. These members of the senatorial class125 were possessed of enormous wealth, but they seem to have had little encouragement to expend any part of it for the benefit of their country. 126 They escaped the municipal taxation which they could well afford; 127 their chief use for surplus money was to lend lxvii it at twelve per cent, and if possessed of business instinct, to foreclose their mortgages. 128 Thus they had come to possess nearly the whole superficial area of a country which they were not even supposed to defend. If they wished to commit illegal acts, they could often set themselves above the law. Provincial governors were amenable to hospitality and open to social influence; a Seronatus could be persuaded to sanction courses which the distant emperor would not have tolerated. Judges were even more exposed to improper influence; the powerful noble had probably little difficulty in wresting a judgement, if he had the mind to do so. The base arts to which some members of the senatorial class descended to evade their share of taxation, or fill their pockets at the expense of a defrauded state, disclose a code of ethics for which too often public duty was a phrase without a meaning. 129 The honourable men among them----a Tonantius Ferreolus, a Thaumastus----might discountenance such ignoble practices, and lead the province in an attempt to obtain the punishment of a bad governor. But they were in a minority, and the evil grew despite their efforts. It is difficult to understand how the nobles spent the princely incomes which, by fair or unfair means, were always increasing. lxviii In modern times, with continual demands upon his purse for all kinds of public objects, with the competition for expensive works of art, with a thousand and one objects of use or luxury daily forced upon his notice, it may be supposed that the magnate can keep expenditure within range of income. But the Roman millionaire, at any rate in the provinces, had no great and steady drain on his resources unless he was a devout man and prepared to erect or restore churches as a practice. He might spend considerable sums on his houses and baths; but as labour was cheap, if not unpaid, and as there is a limit to construction, even building on a large scale would not seriously diminish an income equivalent to £50,000 a year. A few, like Magnus or Consentius, might buy pictures or other works of art, but the sums paid for them can hardly have been comparable with those given for old masters to-day, nor do we gather from the Letters that the love of art was really intense, or widely disseminated in Gaul. The chief intellectual interest was literary, and however enthusiastic it may have been, it can hardly have depleted a senatorial purse. There were manuscripts to buy, but, it may be conjectured, not at the prices of the modern sale-room; and the rarer illuminated books were not yet collected by the competitive methods of our day. If then there were no hospitals to endow, no large yachts to maintain, no subscription lists to head, on what did the provincial millionaire spend his money? He could only entertain on a very lavish scale when resident in a town like Arles. He gambled, but not, as far as we know, on the heroic scale. He patronized the chase, but hunting was then a cheap pursuit. The milliners' and jewellers' lxix bills which he had to pay can hardly have caused him much embarrassment; the weaving, and probably the making, of his wife's clothes was done by the maids of the house; and it may be doubted whether, in an age when diamonds were practically unknown, the most expensive jewellers could send him an inconvenient account. His estate was self-supporting; those who tilled it largely worked for nothing or were recompensed in kind; 130 all the food and all the fuel required for his household came from his own fields and woods. 'Clients' cannot have been ruinously expensive where food was cheap. He had only to feed and clothe his domestic servants, not to pay them wages. 131 The lxx answer to the question probably is that the rich provincial noble did not and could not spend his income; year by year he became richer and ever more uselessly rich.
That he did so was but one count in the indictment against the Roman system of provincial government, which threw such burdens on the middle class and the lower class of freemen, that the vigour of both was sapped, and the spirit of enterprise crushed out of existence. It is unnecessary in the present place to dwell upon the notorious evils of the Curial system, 132 which gave the decurion all duties and no rights, and the senatorial class all rights and no duties. We need not linger over the folly which encouraged useless wealth and useless lives in a class which, reasonably handled, might have become a bulwark of the State. The noble had no useful work to do. His tenure of quaestorship, vicariate or prefecture once over, he had no further career. He could not serve in the army; he was not lxxi supposed to found an industry. There was no scope for active brains except in literature, and literature was now of such a kind that its propagation was of doubtful advantage to the world. We can hardly wonder if men unmanned, as it were, by statute failed the empire in its need, or if the great proprietor made his estate his world, and cared little for events beyond his boundaries. He had become a fly upon the wheel of government, brilliant perhaps, but an insect still, and adding no momentum. Sidonius belonged to the best of his order; he and his relations loved their country, and were prepared to sacrifice everything for it. But custom held them bound; they had no chance to prove themselves until it was too late.
The Roman empire opened its own veins. But there was now within it an organism which drew to itself new blood, and amid the general enfeeblement of old institutions, grew daily in vitality. The Church succeeded to the neglected opportunities of the State. While the secular arm relaxed, the Church enlarged her power, and drew the people to the one rallying-point that remained to them amid the increasing disruption of society. 'In the civil world', said Guizot, many years ago, speaking of the fifth century, 'we find no real government; the imperial administration is fallen, the senatorial aristocracy fallen, the municipal aristocracy fallen as well. It is a tale of dissolution everywhere. Authority and freedom alike are attacked by the same sterility. In the religious world, on the other hand, we see an active government, an animated and interested people. Excuses for anarchy and tyranny may be numerous; but the liberty is real, lxxii and so is the power. On all sides are the germs of an energetic popular activity and of a strong executive. This, in a word, is a society marching towards a future, a stormy future fraught with evil as well as good, but full of power and fecundity.'133 Here is the root of the matter: the Church had a future and a present; the State had only a past. While the imperial officials were too often regarded as instruments of tyranny, whose only relation to the mass of the people was external and oppressive, the leaders of the Church were in constant touch with national and individual life. Their homes were in the towns; their houses were open to all in trouble. Instead of being the common enemy, the bishop was every one's friend, 134 he stood in a regular relation to the municipal body, and exercised certain judicial rights of his own. 135 lxxiii Moreover, he controlled the Church lands in his diocese, and had thus a power of the purse which necessarily increased his consideration at a time of general impoverishment. It is not astonishing that under such circumstances the prestige of the bishop steadily rose. In the time of Sidonius, the episcopate was already moving towards the emancipation attained in the sixth century; but as yet the occupants of the Gallic sees were men of such high character that there was little abuse of their expanding authority. The Letters bring no such charges of violent and unseemly conduct as those which are scattered through the pages of Gregory of Tours. 136 The bishops of the expiring fifth century were powers in the land and powers for good, mitigating the hardships of a dangerous epoch, and standing forth in the public eyes as the true representatives of national life. They were indeed almost the only conspicuous figures who were visibly doing national work, and the fact was widely recognized. Good men of wealth and standing, condemned to inaction by the absence of any secular career, must have cast envious eyes upon this episcopal office which enabled its holders to serve their country so well; the hierarchy and the people, equally alive to the importance of strengthening the Church by the lxxiv admission of such valuable recruits, did not discourage their aspirations. 137 The Church was not so ill-advised as to imitate the State in debarring from a share in her activities the very men who could render the greatest service; she gave the nobles a ready welcome, not merely because they were rich, though riches were desirable, but because they were likely to possess, in a more eminent degree than others, the high culture and the great manner which the long habit of receiving deference conferred. The Church had room, as historians have observed, for two types of bishop. She needed, on the one hand, the learned pupil of the monasteries, the theologian, preacher, and disciplinarian. She needed, on the other, the man born to great place, imposing respect by personal distinction, and a commanding figure in any company. She appreciated a Faustus, pursuing as bishop the austerities which he had practised as a monk; she welcomed Remigius and Principius, sons of a count, and the wealthy Patiens, who could combine simplicity in his own life with a lordly openness of hand and the most gracious arts of hospitality (cf. VI. xii. 3). The aristocratic bishop could serve her best not only in her relations with imperial officials, whose day was almost gone, but also with the barbarian princes, whose favour grew more important with every year. As the empire was ever further dismembered, and the Church provided the one bond of union between the subjects of isolated kingdoms, the diplomatic bishop continually proved his lxxv worth. The Visigoth and the Burgundian were impressed by his culture and his experience of the world; moreover, they were by tradition disposed to favour high birth. There was thus a general tendency to elect a certain number of aristocratic personages to vacant sees, and a corresponding readiness, on the part of the worthier noble, to look with favour on such election, seeing, as he could not fail to do, that the one way to be of use was to become a bishop. It was therefore no unprecedented event when upon the death of the Bishop of Clermont, Sidonius found himself called to succeed by the voice of his fellow countrymen in Auvergne. The call came perhaps too suddenly; it appeared rather a summons than an invitation; but the recipient of it was more ready for the change than he supposed himself to be. And in spite of the misgivings which crowded upon his mind, he must have seen ground for hope in more than one direction. In leaving the aimless existence of the provincial magnate for the living work of the Church, he joined an organization which now assumed a commanding influence over the whole moral and intellectual field; to throw himself with ardour into its work was to aid the one force in the land which made for regeneration. The Church appealed also to the scholar and man of letters. The only original philosophical speculation of the day was carried on by theologians like Faustus and Claudianus Mamertus, who had persuaded Philosophy into the service of Religion (IX. ix. 12).138 To rhetoric the Church offered the one chance of effective action; the orator in the pulpit could feel that he was not lxxvi delivering a class-room declamation, but reaching the hearts of men. The preacher could treat the great subjects of life, not as themes for academic display, but with a purpose of practical reform; the eloquence of a Remigius carried away great congregations; the pulpit had succeeded the rostra, it alone spoke to an assembly of the people. 139 Even the education of the young was beginning to pass into the control of the Church: in the monastery of Lerins a school was established by Faustus, at which a brother of Sidonius was trained (Carm. xvi. 1. 70).140 The old education was doomed to pass with the passing of the empire; it was a survival, unfitted for the coming age. The people at large had no interest in the exercises of rhetors and grammarians; they turned from them to other teachers. And among these the former pupil of Hoënius and Eusebius now took an honoured place.
We may briefly notice a few allusions in the Letters to those ecclesiastical matters with which the second part of Sidonius' life was so largely concerned. Great as the influence of the bishops had become, it is clear that it was still in some measure controlled both by the general voice of the laymen, and by that of the priesthood, now a body apart, and more definitely severed from the community than in early Christian times. 141 We mark the survival of these two factors, lxxvii the popular and the priestly, in the interesting accounts of the episcopal elections at Bourges and Châlon (VII. ix; IV. xxv). We there find the popular vote still regarded as an integral part of the proceedings, while some of the diocesan priests give vent to strong opinions of their own, not always coincident with the episcopal point of view. But in both cases the bishops, though recognizing the traditional popular claim, succeed in carrying their point. They hold a private meeting at which they agree upon their candidate and it is this candidate who is elected. 142 The consecration of a new bishop at Châlon is carried out by Patiens and Euphronius in a masterful manner; at Bourges, Sidonius delivers a formal address calling upon the people to accept Simplicius. At Bourges, 143 indeed, the electors seem to have recognized the necessary confusion where 'two benchfuls' of unscrupulous men were all urging their claims to a single throne (VII. ix. 2). When one aspirant based his hopes on his kitchen and his dinners, and another on a promise to divide Church property among his supporters, the evils of popular election became apparent to all responsible laymen: they abrogated their claims in favour of the bishops, whose selection they agreed to accept. Such cases lxxviii probably illustrate as well as any examples could, the evil tendencies which necessitated a change of system.
144 And the people were not alone in the responsibility for undesirable episodes on these occasions. At Bourges the priests openly favoured promotion by seniority rather than by merit, and Sidonius was obliged to administer a sharp rebuke. It is plain that in the late fifth century a tightening of the bonds of discipline was inevitable, and this could only be effected by the bishops. 145 The intense and factious excitement aroused on the occasion of an episcopal vacancy affords yet another proof of the importance attaching to the bishop's position. A see was worth fighting for; so much so, that the prize attracted candidates whose motives were sometimes entirely base. 146 Perhaps in the years preceding the disasters of A. D. 474 there had been a certain laxity in the religious life of Gaul. Sidonius alludes to public devotions in which the prayers were too much interrupted by refreshments (V. xiv. 2); 147 the dicing and other amusements interspersed between the services at the festival of St.. Just seem in rather lxxix too close an alternation with the devotions of the day (V. xvii).148 There may have been in many places an excessive preoccupation with the material side of life, which affected even those whose office it was to inspire thoughts of the opposite kind. An Agrippinus in holy orders harassing his sister-in-law on money matters is not a pleasant figure
(VI. ii). Nor can we approve the apparent toleration of money-lending in the case of priests (IV. xxiv). But against such examples may be set others of a very different kind, which show that there was a strong leaven of piety and devotion both among clerics and among laymen. In the monasteries there was severe self-discipline, and many of the distinguished monks or abbots who were taken from Lerins to fill the sees of Gaul, carried into their new spheres of activity all the monastic rigour to which they had been accustomed. 149 The Syrian monk Abraham, who after being driven from his native country by lxxx Sassanian persecution, had finally settled down at Clermont (see below, pp. lxxxiii, civ), afforded another example of renunciation, 150 which produced its effect even upon Victorius, Euric's Count of Auvergne (VII. xvii. 1). Vectius, the noble who maintained his place in the world while secretly practising a devout life, is, as Dill has observed, a character which might be taken from Law's Serious Call (IV. ix). The ex-quaestor Domnulus, a friend of Sidonius, goes into retreat in the monasteries of the Jura (IV. xxv). Simplicius, while a young man, straitens his resources by building a church, Elaphius builds a baptistery in Rouergue (IV. xv).
It is natural that we should learn more from Sidonius of the contemporary bishops than of the lower ranks in the Church, since it was with them that he had chiefly to correspond. Many attractive figures pass before us, some already familiar, as having their recognized place in the history of their age. There is the aged Lupus of Troyes
(S. Loup), the doyen of Gaulish bishops, who in spite of advanced years and many anxieties, received the news of Sidonius' election with fatherly satisfaction, and, for all his saintliness, was human enough to take umbrage at a supposed breach of literary etiquette (IX. xi). There is Remigius (S. Remi), the apostle of the Franks, to whose glowing eloquence lxxxi Sidonius bears his testimony (IX. vii). There is Faustus, the daring theologian of the day, and leader of a semi-Pelagian school in the south of Gaul, whose work on Free Grace was condemned by Pope Gelasius, and whose anonymous treatise on the Materiality of the Soul elicited the De Statu Animae of Claudianus Mamertus.
151 There is the learned Graecus of Marseilles, whose part in ratifying the treaty of surrender drew from Sidonius the bitter reproach of outraged patriotism, but did not ultimately affect the friendly relations between them. There are St. Euphronius of Autun, Leontius of Arles, Perpetuus of Tours, Basilius of Aix, and many others less known to posterity. 152 Finally there is Patiens, for whom Sidonius is the sole authority, the saintly and generous bishop who relieved the distress even of those living far beyond the limits of his own diocese, and rebuilt on a magnificent scale the old church of the Maccabees at Lyons: for him, as bishop of his native town, Sidonius may well have felt an almost filial affection. Of the 'second order' in the Church, the priests, we hear comparatively little. The most distinguished lxxxii among them is the above-mentioned Claudianus Mamertus, the religious philosopher of Gaul, who combined high speculation with orthodox belief, while at the same time aiding his brother Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, in almost all the practical work of the diocese, from the receipt of the revenues to the training of the choir (IV. xi). Most other priests whose names are mentioned in these pages are names and nothing more; it is a matter for regret that there is no portrait of the parish priest and his activities, such as the most literary bishop of Gaul could so well have drawn for us on his return from one of his extended visitations. Of the inferior orders, one or two deacons ('Levites') are briefly introduced. Proculus, a pupil of Euphronius, is praised as reflecting in his manner something of the urbanity of his master Principius (IX. ii); a more unfortunate Lévite, who, driven from home by the barbarian incursion, has sown a crop on church-lands in the diocese of Auxerre, finds a ready advocate in Sidonius, who begs of Bishop Censorius the remission of the payments due (VI. vii). Two Readers (lectures) also find mention in these pages, one, the impudent Amantius, several times, and once at great length; the other, an unnamed person engaged in commerce, whom the influence of Graecus is to convert from a small trader into a 'splendid merchant' (splendidus mercator (VI. viii). Of the monks in Gaul Sidonius gives but scanty information. An Abbot Chariobaudus receives a gift of a cowl for winter use (VII. xvi); but though allusions are made to the great houses of Lerins and Grigny, and to the smaller houses of Condat and Lauconne in the Jura, the Letters give us lxxxiii no details of monastic life. 153 We only learn that on the death of the monk Abraham, the founder of St. Cirgues at Clermont, his successor had not the qualities which maintain order, and Sidonius asks his friend Volusianus to act as a kind of Superior without the walls (VII. xvii); perhaps in the founder's time these monks followed an oriental custom, and Volusianus was now to introduce the stricter rules of Lerins or Grigny. It was at St. Cirgues that some ill-conditioned person removed Sidonius' book when he was conducting a service, with the vain idea of causing him embarrassment (Gregory, Hist. Franc. II. xxii), a rather curious little episode, which, if really founded on fact, throws an interesting side-light on the maintenance of monastic discipline. The house ultimately became a priory and lasted till the close of the eighteenth century. 154
Though as a young man Sidonius was familiar with the court of Theodoric II at Toulouse (I. ii), no small part of his experience among the barbarians was gained when he had become a bishop. We have seen that after his imprisonment in the fortress of Livia, he lxxxiv seems to have been compelled to wait the king's pleasure at Bordeaux; and in the course of his efforts to recover his lost property, he must have been brought into contact with various members of the Visigothic administration. It was at Bordeaux that he saw those representatives of the different barbarian tribes whose personal characteristics he has described, some of them captives like himself, others rendering voluntary service to a dreaded master. At both periods of his life he must have been familiar with the Burgundians, whose territory even in his youth was at no great distance from his native town. But in their case also, the acquaintance which was so distasteful to his fastidious mind was renewed at a later time after they had entered on the possession of Lyons. His female relations continued to reside in that city; and he went there after his entry into the Church, to see not only his family, but also the Burgundian king who stood with Rome against the aggression of Euric. 155 It must have been painful in the extreme for one to whom Roman culture meant so much, to hear the guttural voices of the barbarians in the streets where in his young days he had passed to and fro with his Latin classics; to see 'skin-clad' guards at the gate of the praetorium where Rome had displayed the symbols of her power, and, penetrating to the halls built for an imperial magistrate, to be welcomed by the gross good-humoured chieftain whom Patiens conciliated by excellent dinners (VI. xii. 3). Sidonius paid his court, as duty to his people compelled him to do; he took the opportunity of interceding for his lxxxv kinsman Apollinaris, threatened by the malevolence of the informers who now infested the barbarian capitals; but, all the time, the iron must have entered into his soul. Like his brother-in-law Ecdicius, who in like manner had frequented these same halls, he must have suffered from a keen sense of humiliation. There was but one consolation, that however unrefined the Visigoth and the Burgundian might appear by comparison with the Roman standard, they were humane and civil compared with the pagan Frank and the fierce piratical Saxon of the north. 156
It was indeed the peculiar good fortune of central and southern Gaul that the two peoples which here succeeded to the Roman inheritance were the best of all the conquering Teutons. The Visigoths belonged to a tribe which had now been in contact with imperial civilization for generations and had adopted much from Roman law and custom; the Burgundians, though outwardly less civilized, were the most genial and good-natured of all the German nations. The great drawback to both lay in their common profession of the Arian heresy, but for which the Gallo-Romans might have acquiesced far more readily in their dominion, and the ultimate triumph of the Frank would hardly have been lxxxvi so rapid. 157 Religious fanaticism apart, and this only flamed fiercely in the ten years of Euric's reign, the relations between provincial and barbarian were those of mutual tolerance. 158 Neither Visigoth nor Burgundian was animated by any inveterate hostility to Rome. They had been confirmed in possession of their present territory by imperial sanction; 159 it had been their earlier ambition to rank as foederati; the Burgundian king was even now proud to hold rank under the empire. 160 It was impossible even for the most exclusive Roman citizen to forget that the fabric of the empire had been preserved by barbarian arms, and that the great Stilicho was a Vandal. Nor could personal charm be denied to those Teutonic leaders who had learned the arts of Roman life. In Italy itself there had been conspicuous examples; and though the portrait of Theodoric II in I. ii is perhaps overdrawn for a temporary political purpose, his manner of life was tolerably civilized. The Goths and Burgundians were prepared to treat the Gallo-Romans without violence; but they were determined ultimately to dominate the whole of central and southern Gaul. Before the time came for the full satisfaction of that ambition, they were as a rule inclined to live peaceably with their neighbours; lxxxvii meanwhile they were subjected to a continual process of Romanization, 161 their new relation to the land and their inferior knowledge of agriculture alone making them to a great extent dependent on Roman law.
On their side, the Gallo-Romans were used to the presence of the northerner in their midst. The individual Teutonic peasant or slave had been a familiar figure in their households or on their farms since the days when the military emperors had distributed thousands of prisoners over the land. It was recognized, not by the fiery Salvian162 alone, but by the average inhabitant, that the barbarians had their good qualities, and that in blunt honesty and the sense of justice the Teutonic chief might excel the Roman official. When the imperial system degenerated beyond redemption, when a Seronatus succeeded an Arvandus, and the extortions of the tax-gatherers were hardly to be borne, the perception became general that life might lxxxviii be more tolerable in Septimania, or under Chilperic than under the jurisdiction of Rome. Except in Auvergne, where among a section of the inhabitants loyalty to Rome was a passion, the country was being gradually prepared for the inevitable transference of sovereignty. The poor man often longed for the change; the rich man resigned himself to unavoidable fate. The one felt that his lot could not be worse; the other saw that the civilized life of ease might be led almost as agreeably at Toulouse or Bordeaux, which had been Visigothic for half a century, as in the cities remaining to the empire (cf. above, p. lxv). It may be added that even as fighting men the barbarians did not inspire universal terror. The intruders were in a numerical inferiority which increased with each fresh annexation, and the Gallo-Roman could remember more than one occasion on which, man for man, Roman warriors had proved their equals. 163 Moreover the barbarian tribes were not united against Rome. The Burgundian was jealous of the Visigoth, and even lent troops to Auvergne to assist in opposing his advance. Perhaps the worst feature in the situation was the general suspense; the uncertainty when the blow would fall paralysed such public life as remained. The administration continued to deteriorate; the officials were openly dishonest. The roads were insecure. lxxxix Fugitives from unjust usage established themselves in fastnesses and seized on all property which could be carried off. 164 They were joined by bankrupts, runaway agents or cultivators from the great estates, in short by every one to whom the lawless life appealed. Rome was ceasing to maintain order; she had to make way for a power which could.
Perhaps when the blow did fall, it proved, for a time at least, more serious than the sanguine had expected. 165 Euric was an intolerant Arian; the passive or active resistance of the Catholic clergy provoked him to harsh treatment of individuals, while he prevented new appointments to sees left vacant by death or deprivation. Churches fell in ruin; bereft of their pastors, flocks were scattered. 166 He was further incensed by the obstinate resistance of Auvergne; his troops burned the crops and devastated the country, thus causing the most widespread distress. But as soon as the treaty was concluded and Berry and Auvergne were his own, he in some measure justified the hope that the Goths would establish a reputable government. He already had at his right hand, as xc prime-minister, the Catholic Gallo-Roman Leo; 167 he now set over the conquered Auvergne another Gallo-Roman, Victorius; and we may perhaps assume that the episcopal negotiators of the treaty had secured from him better conditions for the Catholic population under his rule (see above, p. xlii). As a whole, the newly acquired territory settled down under Visigothic laws, in which, as we have seen, much Roman law was now incorporated. 168 A sensible loss to the senatorial families was that of the 'consular', 'prefectorian', and other titles derived from their passage through the cursus honorum. As Sidonius says, the only distinction now was culture, so that the jealous maintenance of Roman literature and the purity of Latin speech became more than ever important. 169 A few nobles followed the example of Leo and Victorius, and took high office under the new régime, as they did in like manner at the Burgundian courts. 170 Evodius, for whose presentation-cup to Ragnahild Sidonius wrote his verses (IV. viii), may have succeeded in pushing his fortunes in this manner. Other conspicuous Gallo-Romans were perhaps content to ingratiate themselves xci with their prince by the arts of flattery: such was Lampridius, the orator and poet of Bordeaux (VIII. ix).171 The baser sort found their advantage in becoming informers, and trading in the properties and lives of their fellow countrymen. 172 Their machinations were in one case thwarted by the interventions of Chilperic's queen, whose support was of such worth to Patiens. The respect which the Teutonic princes and peoples showed to their women was a virtue which did much to make them respected by their Gallo-Roman subjects.
Probably Sidonius came into close personal relations with no barbarians other than the Visigoths and Bur-gundians; of the rest he had a glimpse during his sojourn at Euric's court (see below, p. cix), or only knew by hearsay. 173 His experience was gained in the most favourable field; but it is clear that though in younger days he had followed his father-in-law's pro-Gothic policy, and though as a Visigothic subject he schooled himself to civility, the intensity of his Roman sympathies never suffered him to like even the best of the barbarians. In a confidential letter he makes the confession that he does not care for barbarians even when they are good (VII. xiv. 10). He despised them as lacking in the refinements of the one culture in which he believed. The personal habits of the Burgundians xcii revolt him, 174 he indulges in a subdued sneer at the culture of the Visigothic court: the quality of the silver of Ragnahild's cup, not that of the verses engraved on it, will alone be esteemed 'in such an Athenaeum'
(cf. above, p. xlvi). The barbarians are always the skin-clad savages (pelliti), as compared with . the Romans in their civilized dress. 2 In a time of strained relations, the Visigoths become the perfidious people (foedifraga gens), in whom no reliance can be placed (cf. p. lxxxvii, note175). This ingrained dislike on the part of Sidonius is an unfortunate circumstance for the historian of the barbaric nations. He was in a position which offered him priceless opportunities to observe not only the outward appearance of a few ypes casually seen at Bordeaux or Lyons, but the daily life of the community. He might have learned to converse with them, given us examples of their speech, told us their proverbial wisdom, their legends and their history. He did none of these things. The apostle of Latin idiom would not soil his lips with the detested German tongue. An Athenian, forced to learn Persian under a victorious Xerxes, would not have suffered more than this Patrician, if Visigothic had been made a compulsory language in vanquished Gaul. It is clear that he only half admires xciii the cleverness of a Syagrius who became so proficient in the Burgundian dialect that old men were afraid of being detected by him in solecism (V. v. 3).
It is a great opportunity lost. 176 But though he falls lamentably short of what he might so easily have accomplished, Sidonius has left several sketches of barbarian types which are not without their value to the student of history and ethnology, or even to the literary man. It was probably at Lyons that he saw the young Frankish (?) prince Sigismer in his rich apparel, walking amongst his guards to the house of his prospective father-in-law, the Burgundian Chilperic (IV. xx). The description is full of interest, and has attracted the attention of every historian of the fifth century; so circumstantial is it that though the nationality of Sigismer is not stated, it may be fairly inferred from his equipment and his arms. 177 But, as already noted, it was during his enforced stay at Bordeaux that the Bishop of Clermont had occasion to observe the various representatives of the northern tribes who pressed upon one another at the court of the powerful Euric (VIII. ix). There he saw the swift Herulian with his glaucous countenance; 178 the blue-eyed Saxon 'arch-pirate', terror of the coasts; 179 the grey-eyed Frank with his shaven face, yellow hair, and close-fitting tunic; 180 the Sigambrian, shorn of his xciv treasured back-hair. 181 His knowledge of Mongolians probably dates from an earlier time, and is not displayed in the Letters; it may chiefly have been derived from Avitus, who knew the Asiatic nomads well from the days of Attila, Aëtius, and Litorius. What Sido-nius has to say of them is to be found in his Panegyric of Anthemius, where he praises the horsemanship of troopers who seem rather centaurs than men separable from their mounts. 182 From hearsay also may have come the extremely interesting description of the Saxons, 'who regarded shipwreck as only so much practice.' Their maritime skill and enterprise are told in a few vigorous phrases, while their custom of offering a human sacrifice before setting sail on the homeward voyage is recorded as a fact of common knowledge. 183 Taken as a whole, these contributions to our knowledge of the Teutonic tribes are well worth having, though, for the reasons given above, they at the same time disappoint us, knowing as we do the unique nature of his opportunities. After all, great allowance must be made for a writer who had championed a lost cause against these very peoples of the north. The representative of a high civilization who fears that all refinement is going down before the flood of barbarism cannot be expected to regard the barbarian with the same sympathetic interest as the conqueror or pioneer xcv who carries the banner of the higher culture into the wilderness in the confident assurance of its triumph. Had Sidonius accompanied a victorious Roman army to the shores of the Baltic, he might have looked upon the Teuton with other eyes, and developed some of the observant qualities of a Tacitus or a Lafitau. And yet, when we remember his silence on his own countrymen of the lower classes, we may perhaps doubt whether, even under stimulating conditions, he would have made a good scientific observer. The whole education and training of the Roman school were such as to make the scientific attitude almost impossible to the finished product of the system.
Before turning to consider that system and its effect upon the literary talent of Sidonius, we may pause briefly to consider the information which he supplies on several external aspects of Gallo-Roman civilization in the last years of the imperial connexion.
We may take, in the first place, his description of his villa Avitacum, evidently modelled upon Pliny's accounts of his own favourite country seats. In some parts this description is hard to follow, and the relative position of the principal chambers not quite easy to understand. We imagine, however, an extensive structure designed with all the Roman regard for aspect; with a winter dining-room provided with an open hearth, and summer dining-room, half out of doors; with colonnade and loggia, weaving-room, women's quarters, and very extensive baths. 184 The xcvi baths were clearly a great feature of Avitacum. The house almost abutted upon an eminence, from which a stream flowed down, while the same hill provided timber for heating in such convenient fashion that the cut logs rolled down the steep slope, and almost delivered themselves at the furnace-door. 185 The different chambers used by the bathers, some of which were adorned with frescoes, are described in some detail; one had a pyramidal roof; another a basin filled from pipeheads cast to resemble lion-masks, through which the water comes in such a tumult that the master of the house and his fellow bathers have to converse at the top of their voices to be heard. Sidonius clearly prided himself on his baths, saying that they need fear no comparison with public establishments. 186 The house of xcvii Avitacum must have been a charming place, situated on rising ground with a wide prospect over a lake, perhaps the Lake of Aydat
(see note, 36. 2, p. 222); it is not wonderful that the owner should describe it with enthusiasm. But there are curious omissions in the description of its amenities. It is remarkable that so bookish a man should say nothing of his own books, though he could certainly have quoted Cicero's words about his library (Ep. VI. viii), and in another letter dwells at some length on that of a friend. Again, while there must have been extensive gardens round such a residence, not a word is said of them, though, here again, the gardens of a friend are praised in another place. How different Pliny, who dwells with delight upon his fountains and trim walks, his cypresses and roses! We are tempted to doubt whether Sidonius really loved flowers. 187 Nothing, again, is said of stables; nor is there a word of domestic pets: we doubt Sidonius as xcviii a lover of animals. Yet, for its freshness and solitude, Avitacum was evidently near to his heart; there he enjoyed the tunicata quies, 188 which to the Roman was the equivalent of the ease in 'flannels' so delightful to the city dweller of to-day. We gather that the villa of Avitacum was as undefended as Roman country-houses usually were. But it is a sign of this unsettled period that some seats were already fortified, rather, perhaps, to resist sudden attack by brigands than assault by barbarian invaders. 189 We learn nothing precise from the Letters of the architectural features of town dwellings. It would have been interesting to know the disposition of the houses in such a place as Lyons, and how those of the chief citizens resembled the larger residences in Italy on the one side and Britain on the other. 190 xcix
Of the interior furnishing of the house, little is said; apart from the description of baths, what details we have concern almost exclusively the dining-room. Here were the stibadium (horseshoe couch) and 'gleaming sideboard' (nitens abacus); here couches for the diners, decked perhaps, like those of Theodoric, with linen coverings on ordinary days, and silk on great occasions (I. ii). The best accounts of dining-room arrangements are given where Sidonius describes the banquets at Arles already mentioned (p. lxiv). In I. xi the arrangement of the company on the stibadium. in strict order of precedence is clearly noted, the host being at one 'horn', his principal guest at the other, followed by the remaining guests in order of their official rank, so that the junior (in this case, Sidonius himself) reclined next to the host. 191 The poem of IX. xiii enters with some detail into the luxurious accessories of a Roman banquet in the capital of the province. The couches are draped with hangings of purple silk, or with figured silk textiles bearing representations of mounted huntsmen in Sassanian style, 192 which proves the importation of oriental stuffs into the West as early as the mid-fifth century (see note, 203. I, pp. 251-2). There are flowers on the sideboards and even on the couches. Burning frankincense rolls its perfume to the roof; the c lamps, knowing nothing of common oil (oleum nescientes), are fed with scented opobalsamum. When the feast begins the servants appear, bowed under the weight of the chased silver plate. 193 Wine gleams in rose-wreathed cups and bowls of various form, and is spiced with nard. When the meal is done, some of the guests are stimulated to the imitation of Bacchantes, and dance among garlands that hang from the unguent-vases. 194 But the chief entertainment comes with the introduction of Corinthian girls, who sing to the accompaniment of the cithara, and of other flute-players and singers. It is a scene of lavish extravagance. The midday meal of a senatorial family in every-day life is described as consisting of dishes few in number but varied in contents; the evening meals seem to have been more elaborate (II. ix. 6, 10). A high standard of comfort and a good cuisine were evidently the rule. Introducing to Simplicius a person unused to the manners of society (IV. vii), Sidonius pictures the man's astonishment when invited, as the acquaintance of so old a friend ci as himself, to sit at the family table: 'it will abash this rustic to be entertained with an elegance which will make him think himself among the delicate guests of Apicius, and served by the "rhythmic carvers of Byzantium".'195 The one indispensable article of furniture, not necessarily placed in the dining-room, which receives special mention is the water-clock or clepsydra; 196 even here, however, it is in one case brought in as having announced to the chef the hour for lunch. Of bedrooms nothing is said: one passage rather leads us to suppose that sleeping accommodation was less extensive than we should have expected (II. ix. 7).
Such artistic references as occur seem to show that Sidonius, though fond of all refinement, was not a connoisseur. 197 It may perhaps be surmised that provincial art in Gaul in the second and third quarters of the cii fifth century resembled the literature of the same period, and that its work was uninspired and imitative, coldly reproducing at second-hand traditional classical models. It probably did not share the great prestige accorded to literature; though Sidonius mentions a score of contemporary orators and poets, artists are to seek in his pages. The wealthy Gallo-Romans may have chiefly concentrated their enthusiasm upon Letters, and have regarded art as a secondary matter. Such comparative indifference could only have hastened the downfall of the academic Roman style before the invading oriental motives which now entered Gaul in increasing numbers, and were naturally more congenial to barbaric taste. Of sculpture we learn even less than painting. The author gives no description of his own statue erected at Rome after the delivery of his Panegyric of Avitus, nor does he allude to the sculptor. His mention of stereotyped attitudes when enumerating the ciii principal philosophers of antiquity (IX. ix. 14) suggests that he had well-known sculptural types in his mind, but he does not himself assert it. On the subject of architecture Sidonius does not seem to write with understanding. The account of the villa of Avitacum is not that of an expert; and his descriptions of two churches, that erected by Patiens at Lyons (II. x) and that by Perpetuus at Tours (IV. xviii. 4) are rather slight: we do, however, gather that the first was an orientated basilica, preceded by an atrium, and with a coffered ceiling in the interior, 198 though there is no clear statement as to the number of aisles or the form of the bema. The second, which replaced the older building erected by St. Brice over the shrine of St. Martin, seems to have presented most exceptional features; it may have introduced into Gaul a type of choir which was destined to influence the whole course of Romanesque and even Gothic building (see note, 33. 1, p. 231). Yet nothing that Sidonius says would lead us to infer that the church of Perpetuus was an epoch-making civ structure; we infer it only from the later description by Gregory of Tours. 199 In connexion with the churches mentioned by Sidonius, we must not forget the metrical inscriptions which he and his rival poets composed at the bishop's request to be engraved upon the walls. These are of such a length that they were probably cut in rather small characters upon panels or executed in mosaic. In the case of Patiens' church, the verses of Constantius and Secundinus were to be placed to right and left of the altar, those of Sidonius himself perhaps opposite on the west wall, though the words he uses are not clear (in extimis).200 Monastic buildings are not described by our author. Yet, as we have already seen, he had a personal knowledge of Lerins, and any details of its architectural features, plan, and internal arrangements would have been of the highest interest. He could have described to us, too, the process by which the simple cell of the Syrian monk Abraham near Clermont developed into the monastery of St. Cirgues, for at the time of Abraham's death the community was evidently of some size (VII. xvii. 3, 4).201 Altogether, we could wish that Sidonius shared the cv architectural interest of one of his friends, who was fond of reading Vitruvius (VIII. vi. 10). Perhaps, however, he would only have reiterated his preference for the traditional in all things, and, like the accepted oracles of the eighteenth century, to whom Gothic architecture was all contemptible, have regarded all divergences from Vitruvian precept as wholly beneath his notice. His indifference to the really important features of Perpetuus' church lends some colour to the supposition. In relation to the art of music, our author again reveals no personal enthusiasm. His references to secular music usually concern the performances enlivening banquets, which then, as now, were intended rather to distract than to inspire. But we are told that Theodoric II only cared for serious strains at table, and that he dispensed alike with the hydraulic organs
202 and with vocalists---- the negative statement here suggesting that in other houses neither was disdained (cf. above, p. lxiv). Perhaps at no period of his life was Sidonius a patron of musicians. 203 Church music receives just enough attention to tantalize the reader. Among the merits of the accomplished priest-philosopher Claudianus Mamertus, Sidonius records his zeal in training the choir for his brother the Bishop of Vienne; 204 again, in connexion cvi with the celebration of the festival of St. Just at Lyons, we hear of antiphonal singing (V. xvii. 3). There is no definite allusion to the use of musical instruments in churches.
In the matter of costume, we learn more of barbarian than of Roman dress, and more of the garb of laymen than of clerics. It may be taken for granted that the tunic remained the usual garment for the house among the Gallo-Romans; sometimes the girdle or belt which held it round the waist offered scope for ornament of a particular fashion (IV. ix. 2).205 Over the tunic were probably worn the mantles most commonly in use in late-Roman times----the pallium, of Greek origin, 206 and the paenula (a kind of poncho) for bad weather. The toga was now a ceremonial garment, of which the most sumptuous form was the toga palmata, or embroidered robe worn by the Consul. 207 Sandals or boots are only cvii mentioned in relation to a symbolic figure of a Muse; the description of the method of lacing is not easy of comprehension (VIII. xi., 11. 12 ff. of the poem). It is just possible that there is an allusion to a professional dress in the letter which Sidonius sends to Domitius, the grammarian of Ameria, inviting him to the cool retreat of Avitacum in a very hot summer. Domitius is depicted as expounding Terence to his pupils wrapped in a thick cloak, while others were perspiring in thin linen or silk; it may be, however, that Domitius was extremely sensitive to draughts, for even under the thick cloak he is said to be swathed round and round, a fashion which would be no necessary accompaniment of a master's gown. 208 Armour is mentioned in the letter which recounts the prowess of Ecdicius in breaking through the Gothic lines round Clermont. The hero is described as wearing greaves, a cuirass, and a helmet with cheek-pieces (III. iii. 5), the whole equipment following the Roman model. The most careful description of barbarian costume concerns not the Visigoths or Burgundians, with whom Sidonius was in frequent contact, but in all likelihood the Franks, with whom he had had probably no regular relations. It has been already noticed (p. xciii) that the weapons borne by the guards of the young Sigismer, whom Sidonius saw at Lyons, are characteristic of that nation (note, 35. 1, p. 233). The prince himself wears a flame-red mantle over a white silk tunic, and a wealth of cviii gold ornaments. 209 His companions wear high, close-fitting, short-sleeved, parti-coloured (?) tunics scarcely reaching to their bare knees, and low boots of hide with the hair adhering; their legs are left uncovered. Each has a green cloak (sagum) with a purple border, and apparently a skin mantle over all, brooched on the right shoulder to leave the sword-arm free. The sword is worn on a baldric; the other weapons are barbed lances and missile axes (lancet uncati, secures missiles). Circular shields enriched on the field with silver, and on the umbo with gold, complete the equipment of the brilliant train. In general it recalls the Frankish warrior as he is depicted in Carolingian illuminated manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries; though at this later date cix the legs are commonly protected by tight bandages. The skin garment is the great characteristic of the barbarian in the Roman's eyes; the adjective pellitus is used almost as a synonym for barbarian. 210
Especial importance was attached by the different tribes to the manner in which the hair was cut. Theo-doric's hair is withdrawn from the forehead and long over the ears (I. ii. 2).211 The Saxons have the whole fore-part of the skull shorn, a fashion which at a distance seems to increase the length of the face and reduce that of the head (VIII. ix,
11. 23-7 of the poem). The Sigambrian normally wears his hair long at the back; the old warrior of this tribe, whom Sidonius sees at Bordeaux, has had his long locks cut off, and will not feel a true man until they have grown again (ibid. 1. 28).
Of clerical vestments, unfortunately, nothing is said; at this early period, differentiation between clerical and lay garb may not have gone very far; but it had begun, and even a few words would have had their importance. Monks are described as wearing the palliolum, which cx would seem to indicate that the monastic dress at first resembled that of the philosopher (IV. ix. 3). The cowl was apparently at this time an independent covering for the head, as Sidonius sends a thick one as a present to the abbot Chariobaudus (nocturnalem cucullum, VII. xvi. 2).212 The tonsure is described by the usual word corona, which is ultimately transferred to the tonsured: corona tua is used very much as we should say 'your reverence'.
The allusions to sport and games are fairly numerous. In the chase the bow is the principal weapon (I. ii), but for encountering the boar and other beasts the spear comes into play, the game being driven into nets (VIII. vi. 12). Namatius is bantered on the over-merciful temperament of the hounds with which he pursues the hares of Oleron
(ibid.).213 The hawk is more than once mentioned as an essential possession of the young country gentleman with sporting tastes (III. iii. 2). In one place we hear of a fishing expedition to which Agricola, his brother-in-law, invites Sidonius (II. xii. i).214 Racing in small boats took cxi place in former times on the lake below Avitacum, in recollection of Aeneas' regatta at Drepanum, the people of Auvergne claiming a Trojan descent (II. ii. 19). Large comfortable river-boats manned by rowers ply on the Garonne
(VIII. xii. 5).215
References to games are of much interest, but unfortunately they are seldom precise, and where they seem to give detail, only confuse by uncoordinated facts. A board-game of some kind resembling backgammon, possibly that known as duodecim scripta, 216 is indicated in the difficult passage in I. ii, where Theodoric is described at play. Dice-boxes are frequently mentioned, and one would assume that games of hazard were a little too popular with the aristocracy of Gaul. 217 Outdoor games with balls were evidently pursued with ardour, cxii and Sidonius, similar in this to Augustine, admits himself a devotee (V. xvii. 6). But here again it is difficult to form an idea of the rules. There is no mention of any apparatus beyond the ball itself, so that to translate by 'tennis' is misleading to a modern reader: the players seem simply to have required an open space in a courtyard or on the grass, with perhaps lines marked upon the ground. Sometimes two players were enough, as when Sidonius and Ecdicius play in the meadow by the lake (II. ii. 15)218; at others there are opposing pairs (II. ix. 4); in one place we read of whole 'sides', when at the festival at Lyons the elderly Filimatius is knocked down (V. xvii. 7). The reference to collisions shows that the game was fast. 219 The great games of the Circus were still held in Gaul in the second half of the fifth century, but possibly not after Majorian's time. 220
Turning to the apparatus of more serious pursuits, we find various references to writing materials. Letters and manuscripts were written upon parchment or paper; the words membrana, papyrus, and charta are all employed, the two latter being synonymous. 221 But tablets (codicilli, pugillares) and a stylus were used for the first notes or cxiii rough drafts (e. g. IV. xii. 4, and cf. Cicero, Ad fam. IX. xxvi). Literary people were sometimes accompanied by a secretary, who kept the tablets always ready for their use, or himself wrote from their dictation, as did the secretary of Filimatius on the famous occasion when Sidonius composed his epigram upon the towel (V. xvii. x).222 From IX. xvi it would appear that ink was allowed to dry, and that the process was not accelerated by the use of sand, or by any other substitute for blotting-paper. In the same passage there is a reference to ink freezing on the pens in very cold weather. 223
A few miscellaneous facts may be noted which bear upon contemporary custom and observance. From I. v. 10 we gather that the old Thalassio still held its own in 468, the year of the wedding of Ricimer and Alypia, and that the crown was still worn by the bridegroom at the ceremony. For all that is said to the contrary, it might have been a pagan marriage of cxiv Catullus' day, whereas both the contracting parties were Christians.
An interesting point is raised with regard to the disposal of the dead. The spade of the excavator seems to show that in the Roman provinces cremation went out of fashion about the year A. D. 250. We should infer the opposite from those passages in Sidonius, where the machinery of cremation is mentioned as if it were still in use, or had been so within living memory (III. iii. 13; III. xiii; Carm. xvi. 123). Perhaps we may hazard the conjecture that a few aristocratic families preserved an old custom after it had been abandoned by the mass of the people, just as, in more ancient times, they had maintained burial when incineration was first introduced. The evidence of Sidonius with regard to epitaphs also deserves notice. Those which he himself composed are of inordinate length, and imply monuments with abundance of plane surface. 224 That they are not merely literary exercises, but really meant to be used, is shown by his desire that the work of the monumental mason who was to cut the epitaph on the tomb of the prefect Apollinaris should be cxv carefully checked, for fear that any error committed might be imputed to the writer and not to the artisan. Altogether, the epitaphs are of most formidable length, eclipsing in this respect those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or the longer effusions of our country churchyards.
The imperial road system was still apparently maintained on a satisfactory footing in the year 467, when Sidonius travelled from Lyons to Rome, and, as bearer of an imperial summons, was entitled to the free use of post-horses. The mansiones, or rest-houses, and the veredarii, or mounted letter-carriers, are mentioned in different Letters
(III. ii. 3; V. vii. 3).225 In more than one place Sidonius alludes to inns which were patronized by nobles when no better accommodation was to be had, but they seem to have been of indifferent quality. 226
The above are but examples of a much larger number of points which the archaeologist may discover in the Letters. But even these will suffice to show that the study of Sidonius is not altogether unprofitable to archaeological research.
The preceding pages have sketched in outline the cxvi life of Sidonius and the surroundings in which it was passed. But the conditions under which he grew to manhood will be imperfectly understood unless something is said of the system under which the young Gallo-Roman was prepared for his career. For the education which the boy Sidonius received, the typical education of his class and time, exerted a lasting influence upon the man. It coloured his whole outlook upon the world, not always to his advantage, since his very loyalty to academic ideals obscured those natural powers of observation which he certainly possessed. It controlled his literary prospects, determined his interests, and created the astonishing style which seemed to him worth so many vigils, but to us is like a faded finery, hampering the free movement of his thought. Some idea of the intellectual training which produced such strange results is thus essential to our purpose.
The education of the young Gallo-Roman in the fifth century differed but little from that which his father and grandfather had received. 227 The whole training was rooted in traditions no longer vital; it was essentially bookish, uninterested in facts, almost exclusively absorbed in words. Before all other things it set Grammar and Rhetoric; in many schools these two subjects represented almost the whole curriculum. Law had of course to be learned by candidates for the bar; cxvii philosophy was studied perhaps more as an accomplishment and a discipline of the mind, than for the problems with which it was properly concerned; 228 there was some musical instruction, perhaps more of a theoretical than of a practical nature. But for most youths education meant a proficiency in the Latin classics, a knowledge of the structure of the Latin language, and of the art of speaking before an audience upon a given subject. The interest was directed not to the synthesis of life, but the antithesis of clauses. Science, as we understand the term, was practically unknown; the mathematics, the geography, the astronomy of the schools had as much relation to mythology as to fact. The interesting letter on the death of the rhetor Lampridius shows that even on the most brilliant products of the late Roman schools, astrologers 229 could still exert their baneful influence
(VIII. xi. 9). Perhaps the decline in the study of Greek prejudicially affected the power and inclination to observe or think naturally. That language was still taught in Gaul; Sidonius noted the fluency of Lampridius in both Greek and cxviii Latin; 230 and at Narbonne there were men of culture who appreciated Greek poetry. 231 But the Theodosian Code shows that the Latin grammarians received higher salaries than the Greek, enjoyed a higher position, and probably instructed larger classes. 232 Their lectures consisted for the most part in commentaries on classical authors, chiefly the Roman poets. Style was analysed; the vocabulary of each writer examined; metaphors and expressions were carefully discussed. Points of etymology and antiquarian knowledge were raised, and pursued along the by-paths of erudition; it was a golden age for commentators. Not all, however, was learned trifling. Some of the criticism upon Virgil and Homer was acute and penetrating, as, for example, the fifth book of the Saturnalia of Macrobius.
Book II: Letter IX
To His friend Donidius AD 461-7
To your question why, having got as far as Nimes, I still leave your hospitality expectant, I reply by giving the reason for my delayed return. I will even dilate upon the causes of my dilatoriness, for I know that what I enjoy is your enjoyment too. The fact is, I have passed the most delightful time in the most beautiful country in the company of Tonantius Ferreolus and Apollinaris, the most charming hosts in the world. Their estates march together; their houses are not far apart; and the extent of intervening ground is just too far for a walk and just too short to make the ride worthwhile. The hills above the houses are under vines and olives; they might be Nysa and Aracynthus, famed in song. The view from one villa is over a wide flat country, that from the other over woodland; yet different though their situations are, the eye derives equal pleasure from both. But enough of sites ; I have now to unfold the order of my entertainment. Sharp scouts were posted to look out for our return ; and not only were the roads patrolled by men from each estate, but even winding short-cuts and sheep-tracks were under observation, to make it quite impossible for us to elude the friendly ambush. Into this of course we fell, no unwilling prisoners; and our captors instantly made us swear to dismiss every idea of continuing our journey until a whole week had elapsed. And so every morning began with a flattering rivalry between the two hosts, as to which of their kitchens should first smoke for the refreshment of their guest ; nor, though I am personally related to one, and connected through my relatives with the other, could I manage by alternation to give them quite equal measure since age and the dignity of prefectorian rank gave Ferreolus a prior right of invitation over and above his other claims. From the first moment we were hurried from one pleasure to another. Hardly had we entered the vestibule of either house when we saw two opposed pairs of partners in the ball-game repeating each other's movements as they turned in wheeling circles ; in another place one heard the rattle of dice boxes and the shouts of the contending players in yet another, were books in abundance ready to your hand; you might have imagined yourself among the shelves of some grammarian, or the tiers of the Athenaeum, or a bookseller's towering cases. They were so arranged that the devotional works were near the ladies' seats where the master sat were those ennobled by the great style of Roman eloquence. The arrangement had this defect, that it separated certain books by certain authors in manner as near to each other as in matter they are far apart. Thus Augustine writes like Varro, and Horace like Prudentius; but you had to consult them on different sides of the room. Turranius Rufinus' interpretation of Adamantius Origenl was eagerly examined by the readers of theology among us; according to our several points of view, we had different reasons to give for the censure of this Father by certain of the clergy as too trenchant a controversialist and best avoided by the prudent; but the translation is so literal and yet renders the spirit of the work so well, that neither Apuleius' version of Plato's Phaedo, nor Cicero's of the Ctesiphon of Demosthenes is more admirably adapted to the use and rule of our Latin tongue. While we were engaged 6 in these discussions as fancy prompted each, appears an envoy from the cook to warn us that the moment of bodily refreshment is at hand. And in fact the fifth hour had just elapsed, proving that the man was punctual, had properly marked the advance of the hours upon the water-clock . The dinner was short, but abundant, served in the fashion affected in senatorial houses where inveterate usage prescribes numerous courses on very few dishes, though to afford variety, roast alternated with stew. Amusing and instructive anecdotes accompanied our potations; wit went with the one sort, and learning with the other. To be brief, we were entertained with decorum, refinement, and good cheer. After dinner, if we were at Vorocingus (the name of one estate) we walked over to our quarters and our own belongings. If at Prusianum, as the other is called, [the young] Tonantius and his brothers turned out of their beds for us because we could not be always dragging our gear about: I they are surely the elect among the nobles of our own age. The siesta over, we took a short ride to sharpen our jaded appetites for supper. Both of our hosts had baths in their houses, but in neither did they happen to be available; so I set my own servants to work in the rare sober interludes which the convivial bowl, too often filled, allowed their sodden brains. I made them dig a pit at their best speed either near a spring or by the river; into this a heap of red-hot stones was thrown, and the glowing cavity then covered over with an arched roof of wattled hazel. This still left interstices, and to exclude the light and keep in the steam given off when water was thrown on the hot stones, we laid coverings of Cilician goats' hair over all. In these vapour-baths we passed whole hours with lively talk and repartee; all the time the cloud of hissing steam enveloping us induced the healthiest perspiration.
When we bad perspired enough, we were bathed in hot water; the treatment removed the feeling of repletion, but left us languid ; we therefore finished off with a bracing douche from fountain, well or river. For the river Gardon runs between the two properties except in time of flood, when the stream is swollen and clouded with melted snow, it looks red through its tawny gravels, and flows still and pellucid over its pebbly bed, io teeming none the less with the most delicate fish. I could tell you of suppers fit for a king ; it is not my sense of shame, but simply want of space which sets a limit to my revelations. You would have a great story if I turned the page and continued on the other side; but I am always ashamed to disfigure the back of a letter with an inky pen. Besides, I am on the point of leaving here, and hope, by Christ's grace, that we shall meet very shortly ; the story of our friends' banquets will be better told at my own table or yours-provided only that a good week's interval first elapses to restore me the healthy appetite I long for. There is nothing like thin living to give tone to a system disordered by excess. Farewell.
BOOK I, Letter II
To [his brother-in-law] Agricola AD. 454 (?)
You have often begged a description of Theodoric the Gothic king, whose gentle breeding fame commends to every nation; you want him in his quantity and quality, in his person, and the manner of his existence. I gladly accede, as far as the limits of my page allow, and highly approve so fine and ingenuous a curiosity.
Well, he is a man worth knowing, even by those who cannot enjoy his close acquaintance, so happily have Providence and Nature joined to endow him with the perfect gifts of fortune; his way of life is such that not even the envy which lies in wait for kings can rob him of his proper praise. And first as to his person. He is well set up, in height above the average man, but below the giant. His head is round, with curled hair retreating somewhat from brow to crown. His nervous neck is free from disfiguring knots. The eyebrows are bushy and arched; when the lids droop, the lashes reach almost half-way down the cheeks. The upper ears are buried under overlying locks, after the fashion of his race. The nose is finely aquiline; the lips are thin and not enlarged by undue distension of the mouth. Every day the hair springing from his nostrils is cut back; that on the face springs thick from the hollow of the temples, but the razor has not yet come upon his cheek, and his barber is assiduous in eradicating the rich growth on the lower part of the face. 2 Chin, throat, and neck are full, but not fat, and all of fair complexion ; seen close, their colour is fresh as that of youth; they often flush, but from modesty, and not from anger. His shoulders are smooth, the upper- and forearms strong and hard ; hands broad, breast prominent; waist receding. The spine dividing the broad expanse of back does not project, and you can see the springing of the ribs ; the sides swell with salient muscle, the well-girt flanks are full of vigour. His thighs are like hard horn ; the knee-joints firm and masculine; the knees themselves the comeliest and least wrinkled in the world. A full ankle supports the leg, and the foot is small to bear such mighty limbs.
Now for the routine of his public life. Before daybreak he goes with a very small suite to attend the service of his priests. He prays with assiduity, but, if I may speak in confidence, one may suspect more of habit than conviction in this piety. Administrative duties of the kingdom take up the rest of the morning. Armed nobles stand about the royal seat; the mass of guards in their garb of skins are admitted that they may be within call, but kept at the threshold for quiet's sake; only a murmur of them comes in from their post at the doors, between the curtain and the outer barrier. 1 And now the foreign envoys are introduced. The king hears them out, and says little ; if a thing needs more discussion he puts it off, but accelerates matters ripe for dispatch. The second hour arrives ; he rises from the throne to inspect his treasure-chamber or stable. If the chase is the order of the day, he joins it, but never carries his bow at his side, considering this derogatory to royal state. When a bird or beast is marked for him, or happens to cross his path, he puts his hand behind his back and takes the bow from a page with the string all hanging loose; for as he deems it a boy's trick to bear it in a quiver, so he holds it effeminate to receive the weapon ready strung. When it is given him, he sometimes holds it in both hands and bends the extremities towards each other ; at others he sets it, knot-end downward, against his lifted heel, and runs his finger up the slack and wavering string. After that, he takes his arrows, adjusts, and lets fly. He will ask you beforehand what you would like him to transfix ; you choose, and be hits. If there is a miss through either's error, your vision will mostly be at fault, and not the archer's skill. On ordinary days, his table resembles that of a private person. The board does not groan beneath a mass of dull and unpolished silver set on by panting servitors; the weight lies rather in the conversation than in the plate ; there is either sensible talk or none. The hangings and draperies used on these occasions are sometimes of purple silk, sometimes only of linen; art, not costliness, commends the fare, as spotlessness rather than bulk the silver. Toasts are few, and you will oftener see a thirsty guest impatient, than a full one refusing cup or bowl. In short, you will find elegance of Greece, good cheer of Gaul, Italian nimbleness, the state of public banquets with the attentive service of a private table, and everywhere the discipline of a king's house. What need for me to describe the pomp of his feast days ? No man is so unknown as not to know of them. But to my theme again. The siesta after7 dinner is always slight, and sometimes intermitted. When inclined for the board-game, he is quick to gather up the dice, examines them with care, shakes the box with expert hand, throws rapidly, humorously apostrophizes them, and patiently waits the issue. Silent at a good throw, he makes merry over a bad, annoyed by neither fortune, and always the philosopher. He is too proud to ask or to refuse a revenge; he disdains to avail himself of one if offered; and if it is opposed will quietly go on playing. You effect recovery of your men without obstruction on his side; he recovers his without collusion upon yours. You see the strategist when be moves the pieces ; his one thought is victory. Yet at play he puts off a little of his kingly rigour, inciting all to good fellowship and the freedom of the game: I think he is afraid of being feared. Vexation in the man whom he beats delights him; he will never believe that his opponents have not let him win unless their annoyance proves him really victor. You would be surprised how often the pleasure born of these little happenings may favour the march of great affairs. Petitions that some wrecked influence had left derelict come unexpectedly to port; I myself am gladly beaten by him when I have a favour to ask, since the loss of my game may mean the gaining of my cause. About the ninth hour, the burden of government begins again. Back come the importunates, back the ushers to remove them ; on all sides buzz the voices of petitioners, a sound which lasts till evening, and does not diminish till interrupted by the royal repast ; even then they only disperse to attend their various patrons among the courtiers, and are astir till bedtime. Sometimes, though this is rare, supper is enlivened by sallies of mimes, but no guest is ever exposed to the wound of a biting tongue. Withal there is no noise of hydraulic organ, or choir with its conductor intoning a set piece ; you will hear no players of lyre or flute, no master of the music, no girls with cithara or tabor; the king cares for no strains but those which no less charm the mind with virtue than the ear with melody. When he rises to withdraw, the treasury watch begins its vigil; armed sentries stand on guard during the first hours of slumber. But I am wandering from my subject. I never promised awhole chapter on the kingdom, but a few words about the king. I must stay my pen ; you asked for nothing more than one or two facts about the person and the tastes of Theodoric; and my own aim was to write a letter, not a history. Farewell.
From, Sidonius, The Letters of Sidonius, trans. O. M. Dalton, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1915), two vols.
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Evans Experientialism 
