It was probably summer, and the four men were probably
accompanied by others. They met with a representative of the Visigothic king,
Euric, so it was very likely to have been in summer. But despite all the others
in the room, they were the ones charged by the western emperor, Julius Nepos,
with the negotiations he instructed them to undertake.
The four men were all bishops: Leontius was bishop of Arles,
and as a friend of Pope Hilary, had established his see as the leading one of
Gaul. Then there was Basilius of Aix, Graecus of Marseille and Faustus of Riez,
the Briton considered the foremost Christian writer of his day. The men they
met were not Visigoths by background; they were Roman officials who had changed
sides to save their own hides. In Euric’s delegation, perhaps leading it, would
have been Victorius, who Euric made Duke of Aquitania Prima in 479. He may have
been, or been related to, another Victorius of Aquitaine, a contemporary
intellectual and mathematician.
A year before, Euric’s troops had occupied Provence. Julius
Nepos wanted it back. The negotiation with Euric’s men was to determine what
price might be needed. They would have had in their minds the Battle of Arles
in 458, in which the Visigothic king Theodoric, elder brother of Euric, had
been massively defeated by the Romans under Majorian. Now Euric (who had
overthrown his brother) had broken the pact (foedus) which governed de facto
Visigothic rule in southern Gaul.
Euric promised the Romans could have Provence back, if he
could have the Auvergne (Arvernia). The bishops agreed to this on behalf of the
emperor. With Roman connivance, Euric invaded the Auvergne and took it in 475.
Then he invaded Provence again and seized that in 476. The loss of Gaul was a
catastrophe, and Odoacer used this to depose the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus
and seize power.
Arles had become the capital of Gaul in the early fifth
century, when Trier, an imperial capital a mere twenty five years earlier, was
abruptly abandoned. Leontius would have had in his mind the substantial fees
and earnings Arles received because of the Elisii
Campi (Elysian Fields), now known as the Alyscamps. This was a highly
fashionable burial ground, so popular that people were ferried across the
Mediterranean from North Africa to be interred there. Even the guild of Rhone
bargemen made a small fortune ferrying the dead of the empire to the must-have
funeral they aspired to. They had to be stacked three deep to be accommodated
there.
Around the table, next to Leontius no doubt, was Faustus of
Riez. He was the leading clergyman of his day for theology. He was aged about
48 and British, and travelled back to Britain from time to time, testing the
still widespread belief that his homeland was being devastated by the
Anglo-Saxons. Faustus was quite probably the son of the British king we call
Vortigern. The Historia Britonnum
refers to St Germanus of Auxerre returning from Britain to Gaul with an
illegitimate and allegedly incestuous son of Vortigern called Faustus (‘Lucky’)
to make the boy a priest, and the ages match. In addition, Faustus of Riez was
known as a ‘semi-Pelagian’, one holding a
modified version of the teachings of Pelagius, a Briton condemned as a heretic
a generation back. Germanus had travelled to Britain to resolve a dispute
between the teachings of the Church and the popular philosophy of Pelagius.
Basilius of Aix must have been a young man, because he was
still bishop in AD500, when he caused to be built a spanking new cathedral, on
top of the Forum, which survived for centuries until being destroyed in Saracen
raids. But we can imagine the young bishop (not so uncommon, as life expectancy
was quite low) thinking about how he might be able to remodel his city for the
glory of God, and perhaps himself. The baptistery of Aix cathedral was built
over a temple to Apollo and survives to this day. His name suggests he might
have been of Greek ancestry, but there were other Greek settlements along the
coast.
Graecus of Marseille sounds like he ought to be of Greek
ancestry, but since Marseille was so Greek, the name holds no distinction. Perhaps
it was a nickname which became his church name. He was an older man, and had a
reputation as a bit of a maverick. Faustus had rebuked him harshly for
espousing Nestorianism, a Christian sect that became a heresy (Ralph Mathiesen Ruricius of Limoges and Friends: A
collection of letters from Visigothic Gaul, Liverpool University Press,
1999). So in that room in Arles, there would have been little love lost between
Faustus and Graecus.
We should pause for a moment to consider what these four men
had done: they had handed fellow Romans, who had managed to hold the Visigoths
at bay, over to the enemy. They had in doing so betrayed their friend and
fellow bishop, Sidonius Apollinaris. They had failed to see that Euric had
already conquered Provence once, and knew how to do it again.
Once he had taken Arvernia and its capital Arvernis
(formerly Augustonemetum and from the 9th century Claremontum (now
Clermont-Ferrand)), and taken Sidonius prisoner, transporting him in chains to
Liviana, near Carcasso (modern Carcassonne), then to Bordeaux, putting him in
prison there for some time, Euric almost surrounded Provence, enabling him to
take it anyway.
Sidonius wrote letters, and eventually published nine books
of them, in emulation of Pliny the Younger (all translations derived from O.M.
Dalton, 1915 Loeb edition). If he imagined there would be a tenth book compiled
by his admirers, that never occurred, although several people tried to engage
him in writing the history of his times.
But Letter 7.7 to Graecus of Marseille is the bitter gall of
a man who has been betrayed by his friends. It came after a siege of the
Auvergne for four years (471-5) by the Visigoths. Clermont was his wife’s home
town, but he had adopted its defence as his life’s cause.
Letter 7.7 is quietly furious at the betrayal: ‘Our enslavement is the price paid for the
safety of others’ he says, adding that he now finds himself ‘amidst an unconquerable, yet alien people’
. Sidonius knew that Vercingetorix had been king of the Arveni facing Caesar
and echoes Lucan’s Pharsalia in condemning
‘the servitude of the Arvernians who
dared once to call themselves “brothers of Latium” and counted themselves “a people sprung from Trojan blood”’.
The sense of betrayal Sidonius expresses is keen: ‘you are the channel through which embassies
come and go; to you first of all, although the emperor is absent, peace is not
only reported when negotiated, but entrusted to be negotiated’ , adding
later ‘you are surrounded by those most
holy pontiffs, Leontius, Faustus, and Graecus; you have a middle place among
them in the location of your city and in seniority, and you are the centre of
their loving circle; you four are the channels through which the unfortunate
treaties flow; through your hands pass the compacts and stipulations of both
realms’.
Sidonius sums up his condemnation with these words: ‘You should be ashamed of this peace treaty
for it is neither useful nor honourable’.
So who was Sidonius?
Sidonius Apollinaris was born in Lyon on 5 November 430; he came from a
rich family with a long history of public office. His grandfather Apollinaris
was praetorian prefect of Gaul for part
of AD408, replacing a certain Limenius, but had quit in protest at the
corruption of politics. In one of his letters, Sidonius talks of visiting his
grandfather’s grave, which was neglected and overgrown, and mourned this; but
his grandfather had been a rebel, prefect for Constantine III, so maybe
somebody held a grudge.
The father of Sidonius was also Praetorian Prefect of the
Gauls, as was Tonantius Ferreolus, a kinsman, related to Sidonius by blood and
marriage. The father in law of Sidonius, Marcus Avitus, was Prefect in 439 and
the father of Avitus, Flavius Julius Agricola, had been Prefect in 416 – 421.
Marcus Avitus, the candidate of the Visigoths, was acclaimed emperor by their
king Theodoric in Toulouse, the Visigothic capital, 455 after the assassination
of Valentinian III. Sidonius wrote a panegyric to his own father in law on his
elevation. He grew up and lived within the nexus of power.
With the coming of Christianity into the power structures of
the Roman Empire, a new channel was opened for status and display. Bishops were
elected by their parishioners and for life; decurions were expressly forbidden
to enter the Church, but several time, so the law must have been quite ineffective.
Constantine had given bishops the power to run courts and dispense summary
justice. And while bishops were forbidden to marry, there has never been a law
preventing a married man becoming a bishop. Sidonius had sons and daughters
too. A middle aged bishop with grown up sons to effectively inherit episcopal
power was far from unusual.
Had Avitus held the throne for any time, he might well have
made Sidonius Prefect of Gaul. However Avitus, once the richest man in Gaul,
was deposed as emperor, but then made Bishop of Placentia (modern Piacenza).
Although that didn’t stop Avitus being murdered, it does show that becoming a
bishop was an alternative route to power.
Forgiven his connection to Avitus, Sidonius rose again to
become Urban Prefect of Rome, a position he had to resign from because his
friend Arvandus was found guilty of treason for supporting the Visigothic king
Euric. The epitaph of Sidonius, discovered recently, stresses his civic roles
noble through his titles, powerful through his
office, head of the administration, magistrate at the court, quiet amid the
world's billowing waves, then managing the turmoil of lawsuits, he imposed laws
on the barbarian fury; for the realms that were involved in an armed conflict he
restored peace by his great prudence.
His death
is noted at ‘August 22, under the reign of Zeno’, as if the Roman Empire still
existed at that time. By that date in AD489, there had been no western emperor
for thirteen years. Note it stresses his public role, not his clerical one.
Making
ex-leaders into bishops was a kind of exile. Once tonsured as priests, they
could not in theory return to civilian life. Julius Nepos, once dethroned, was
made Bishop of Salona, the capital of Dalmatia, the former province, which he
had ruled for a long time before briefly becoming emperor. All of this can be
dated back to St Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who had been the local provincial
governor before that.
Sidonius
also attacks (Ep.7.6, to Basilius, dated 474) the damage to the Church:
Diocese and parish lie waste without ministers.
You may see the rotten roofs of churches fallen in, the doors unhinged and
blocked by growing brambles. More grievous still, you may see the cattle not
only lying in the half-ruined porticoes, but grazing beside altars green with
weeds. And this desolation is not found in country parishes alone; even the
congregations of urban churches begin to fall away.
Noting that
‘Bordeaux, Périgueux, Rodez, Limoges,
Javols, Eauze, Bazas, Comminges, Auch, and many another city are all like
bodies which have lost their heads through the death of their respective
bishops. No successors have been appointed to fill their places’ and that ‘for every bishop snatched from our midst,
the faith of a population is imperilled. I need not mention your colleagues
Crocus and Simplicius, removed alike from their thrones and suffering a common
exile’. He ends the letter
To you these miserable treaties are submitted,
the pacts and agreements of two kingdoms pass through your hands. Do your best,
as far as the royal condescension suffers you, to obtain for our bishops the
right of ordination in those parts of Gaul now included within the Gothic
boundaries, that if we cannot keep them by treaty for the Roman State, we may at
least hold them by religion for the Roman Church.
This shows
a change in perception from Rome as state to Roman as the body of the faithful.
In Ireland at about the same time, St Patrick was telling the soldiers of the
king of Strathclyde ‘you are not Romans but demons’, when they were never politically Romans in the first place.
Sidonius
adds a comment about the successes of Euric:
I must confess that formidable as the mighty
Goth may be, I dread him less as the assailant of our walls than as the subverter
of our Christian laws. They say that the mere mention of the name of Catholic
so embitters his countenance and heart that one might take him for the chief
priest of his Arian sect rather than for the monarch of his nation. Omnipotent
in arms, keen-witted, and in the full vigour of life, he yet makes this single
mistake – he attributes his success in his designs and enterprises to the
orthodoxy of his belief, whereas the real cause lies in mere earthly fortune.
The
thinking behind this comment is that of Orosius: the victories of the enemy
cannot be because God favours them, but because of simple numbers and main
force. It should be noted that Arians called themselves Catholics; Sidonius is
engaging in a little rhetoric here.
In a letter
(Ep. 7.1, dated 474) to Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, Sidonius refers to
earthquake, shattering the outer palace walls
with frequent shocks; now fire, piling mounds of glowing ash upon proud houses
fallen in ruin; now, amazing spectacle! wild deer grown ominously tame, making
their lairs in the very forum. You saw the city being emptied of its
inhabitants, rich and poor taking to flight.
The
earthquake of September 470 is recorded by Gregory of Tours, quoting the now
lost Chronicle of Angers (Historiae
2.18,19). Mamertus invented Church Rogations, still practised today; by doing
so, he encouraged the panicked people of Vienne to return to the city. The
bishop remaining in his city seems to have been crucial to that city’s
survival. If a bishop left it and settled his see elsewhere, the former see
tended to collapse and the latter to survive. In addition, where no replacement
bishop could be appointed after a bishop died or was exiled, there were
sometimes too few bishops left to ordain another, something which Sidonius alludes
to in his letter (Ep.7.5, dated 472) to Agroeclus, bishop of Sens, a famous
grammarian, where he says ‘Clermont is
the last of all the cities in Aquitanica Prima which the fortune of war has
left to Rome; the number of provincial bishops is therefore inadequate to the
election of a new prelate at Bourges, unless we have the support of the
metropolitans’.
Sidonius
ends Letter 7.7 with unerring bitterness:
I ask your pardon for telling you hard truths;
my distress must take all colour of abuse from what I say. You think too little
of the general good; when you meet in council, you are less concerned to
relieve public perils than to advance private fortunes. By the long repetition
of such acts you begin to be regarded as the last instead of the first among
your fellow provincials.
But how long are these feats of yours to last? Our
ancestors will cease to glory in the name of Rome if they have no longer
descendants to bear their memory. Oh, break this infamous peace at any cost;
there are pretexts enough to your hand. We are ready, if needs must, to
continue the struggle and to undergo more sieges and starvations. But if we are
to be betrayed, we whom force failed to conquer, we shall know beyond a doubt
that a barbarous and cowardly transaction was inspired by you. … The other conquered
regions have only servitude to expect; Auvergne must prepare for punishment. If
you can hold out no help in our extremity, seek to obtain of Heaven by your
unceasing prayers that though our liberty be doomed, our race at least may
live. Provide land for the exile, prepare a ransom for the captive, make
provision for the emigrant. If our own walls must offer an open breach to the
enemy, let yours be never shut against your friends.
That the
Auvergne was singled out for punishment does bring to mind the famous practice
of the pharmakos of Marseille, where
someone was singled out as a scapegoat for all society’s ills, kept apart and
eventually killed. Letter 7.7 was written to Graecus of Marseille, a bishop who
must have been aware of the ancient practice, and I think Sidonius is hinting
at it to make Graecus squirm.
We are
beginning to see a picture of former imperial officials starting to become
rulers of new semi-autonomous states: Syagrius in what became Neustria, Julius
Nepos in Dalmatia, Theodoric in Acquitaine, Childeric, father of Clovis, in
Belgica Secunda, under the guidance of St Remigius (and portrayed in Roman
uniform on his seal ring) and Sidonius in the Auvergne. As the former urban
prefect of Rome, Sidonius became de facto the ruler of the Auvergne.
We should
end as Sidonius ended Book 7 of his letters (Ep.7.18 to Constantius of Lyon,
the author of the Vita of St Germanus of
Auxerre, dated 479):
while Christ is my defender I will never suffer
my judgement to be enslaved; I know as well as any one that with regard to this
side of my character there are two opinions: the timid call me rash, the
resolute a lover of freedom; I myself strongly feel that the man who has to
hide his real opinions cuts a very abject figure.
