In late c.e. 467 Sidonius Apollinaris journeyed from Lyon to Rome. An account of his journey appears in Epist. 1.5. Sidonius made his way to the city by boat and imperial post horses, arriving during the nuptial celebrations of the Emperor Anthemius’ daughter Alypia and the barbarian potentate Ricimer.Footnote 1 The wedding linked Ricimer, who had held significant political power in the interregnum after the death of Libius Severus (461–465), to the new emperor in the West, Anthemius, whom the eastern Roman emperor, Leo I, had just appointed.Footnote 2
This article argues that Sidonius uses carefully considered literary allusions to texts that bemoan war, in Italy especially, to express his own concern regarding the political climate, specifically that the political union of Ricimer and Anthemius, confirmed by the marriage, will not provide the stability needed for the western Roman empire.Footnote 3 The anti-war sentiment is a lament about the state of imperial politics. Ricimer and Anthemius become its focus as the current powers that be. At the end of the epistle Sidonius’ concern focusses specifically on the impact of the wedding and, by implication, on the political union, which has rendered Rome completely dysfunctional and unable to conduct real business.
This letter has received extensive scholarly attention. In 2005 Soler devoted her analysis of this letter to its combination of classical heritage and Christian inspiration. She argued that the journey described in the epistle should be read as a spiritual pilgrimage.Footnote 4 Her approach assumes that Sidonius expresses humility throughout the epistle, culminating in his arrival in Rome like a pilgrim. The epistle is rather an exercise in careful display in which Sidonius appears important, popular and learned. His reference to the shrines of the Apostles (Epist. 1.5.9) is one part of this display focussed on his Christian audience. Reading the epistle as a pilgrimage exaggerates the importance of this one reference to Christianity in the letter.Footnote 5
Wolff in 2012 offered a detailed reading of literary allusions in the epistle, noting connections between Sidonius’ language and remarks by Horace, Claudian, Virgil, Ovid, Pliny and Martial.Footnote 6 His reading of these allusions is, however, largely detached from the specific political circumstances. Wolff links Tityrus-Virgil, Horace and Sidonius together by drawing upon the connection which Sidonius makes to Horace in Carm. 4.9–10 (which is otherwise unrelated to this epistle). He connects Horace's forgiveness after the battle at Phillipi to a supposedly similar situation to what Sidonius went through, after his father-in-law Avitus was replaced by the Emperor Majorian. Wolff notes:
… comme Horace obtint le pardon et le soutien poétique de celui qu'il avait combattu à Philippes, de même Sidoine, après avoir été exposé un temps à la colère de César (Majorien) pour son activité militaire dans le parti d'Avitus, a obtenu de lui le pardon et la possibilité de jouir en paix de ses biens.Footnote 7
Wolff does not cite the evidence he relies on for Sidonius’ military activity on behalf of Majorian's predecessor Avitus. Presumably his assertion that Sidonius invoked Majorian's wrath relies on Sidonius’ comments in the preface to his panegyric for Majorian (Carm. 4.11–12): sic mihi diuerso nuper sub Marte cadenti | iussisti inuicto, uictor, ut essem animo ‘and so, conqueror, you ordered me, lying down from the recent effect of the war on the other side, to be unconquered in spirit’. This does not indicate that Sidonius fought against Majorian or even that Majorian fought against Avitus.Footnote 8 Sidonius was presumably closely aligned to Avitus as his son-in-law and panegyrist. Taking literally two lines in a panegyrical preface as evidence is highly problematic. Sidonius had a clear reason to misrepresent his involvement with Avitus to embellish Majorian's (supposed) clemency toward him. In any case, all of this dates to 456–457 which is a full decade before Sidonius’ journey to Rome and composition of Epist. 1.5.
The detailed comparison that Sidonius draws between himself and Horace operates on a deeper level than Wolff allows. The allusion is well established.Footnote 9 Like Horace in Sat. 1.5, Sidonius describes falling ill on his approach to Rome, affected, so he claims, by a hot wind (Sid. Apoll. Epist. 1.5.8)Footnote 10 :
… ubi mihi seu Calaber Atabulus seu pestilens regio Tuscorum spiritu aeris uenantis flatibus inebriato et modo calores alternante, modo frigora uaporatum corpus infecit.
… when either the Calabrian Atabulus or the pestilent region of the Tuscans with its breeze drunk on the winds of poisonous air and changing its vapours, hot, then cold, infected my body.
The name Atabulus is used by other authors to describe this wind.Footnote 11 Sidonius’ phrase Calaber Atabulus points directly to Horace's satire as his source (Hor. Sat. 1.5.77–8): incipit ex illo montis Apulia notos | ostentare mihi, quos torret Atabulus […] ‘from there Apulia began to show its renowned mountains to me, which the Atabulus parches …’. Like Horace in Sat. 1.5, Sidonius is not just travelling in order to ask a favour, but he is embarking on a journey, the purpose of which is vaguely political but never totally disclosed. Both become ill during their travels, and operate in similar political situations; Horace's journey comes during a period of strife and a settlement between two powerful individuals, Antony and Octavian, which mirrors the tension between Sidonius’ Ricimer and Anthemius.Footnote 12 Reading the epistle against a possible reconstruction of Sidonius’ involvement in the events of 456/457 relegates the real significance of the contemporary context in which Sidonius’ literary allusions operate. Allusions, especially in an ‘intensely intertextual’ author like Sidonius, place a complex hermeneutic burden on readers to interpret them in many different contexts, literary, cultural and political.Footnote 13 Given the turbulence of this period, the immediate political situation must be preferred to events that transpired a decade earlier.
Fournier and Stoehr-Monjou in 2014 offered a far-ranging essay on Epist. 1.5, which identified how Sidonius creates literary space in the epistle.Footnote 14 This included a few attempts to read the epistle's literary allusions in a political context but not critically at the moment of composition in 467.Footnote 15 For example, Fournier and Stoehr-Monjou point out that Sidonius’ allusion to Claudian (discussed below) invokes a connection between Alaric and Ricimer as two barbarians who pose an undefined threat to traditional forms of Roman power, but only allow that this becomes troubling after 470.Footnote 16 This article argues that the connection to Claudian is more involved than the treatment of Fournier and Stoehr-Monjou indicates and that there is important historical significance to Sidonius critiquing Ricimer in this latent way in 467. While Fournier and Stoehr-Monjou identify similar other allusions to texts that relate to conflicts, they do not read these allusions as part of Sidonius’ latent political agenda, acting in concert to indicate his concerns regarding the political climate of the mid to late 460s (Sid. Apoll. Epist. 1.5.10).Footnote 17
Two dates are critical to the interpretation of the epistle. The first is Sidonius’ stated moment of composition in 467. The nuptial celebrations have begun, but the marriage is yet to be consummated: Sid. Apoll. Epist. 1.5.10, cum hoc ipso tempore, quo haec mihi exarabantur ‘at the very moment when these comments were being written by me’. This very specific point in time may be better understood as an effective narratological tool rather than an accurate indication of the letter's composition.Footnote 18 It is of course a literary conceit, he could have brought the present of the epistle's composition forward, to before or after the wedding, once it had been consummated.Footnote 19 To do so, however, would have removed the narratological precipice on which the epistle balances, and the political precipice on which Rome totters, reliant on the success of the accord between barbarian potentate and Emperor to deal with external threats, principally the Vandal threat from North Africa.
What Sidonius thought about the new emperor and Ricimer as he journeyed to Rome in 467 may not be inferred from what subsequently transpired, namely his giving of the panegyric to Anthemius on 1 January 468.Footnote 20 His comments in praise of Anthemius do not invalidate his latent criticism in this epistle; the criticism is latent by necessity, for critiquing the current emperor demands a degree of concealment owing to the dangers it necessarily entails.Footnote 21 Schwitter has recently outlined how late antique epistolography navigated political difficulties by using obscuritas, which he defines as a kind of disturbance to understanding which is internal to language.Footnote 22 In his analysis literary allusions contribute to the ‘coded communication’ that was invariably a political necessity for Sidonius.Footnote 23 Sidonius’ apparent political views are best understood as highly adaptive to the rapidly shifting geopolitical environment.Footnote 24
The second date is the moment of collation and circulation, which took place prior to Sidonius’ episcopacy beginning in late 469 or 470. By then the alliance between Ricimer and Anthemius had started to fray, and Sidonius’ friend Arvandus had narrowly escaped the death penalty for a charge of treason brought about by his attempts to negotiate independently of Rome with the barbarians who threatened Gaul.Footnote 25 The dominant point when this epistle was read was this second stage, by which time the geopolitical situation for Gaul had worsened considerably.
Clearly it suited Sidonius to express some reservations about the governance of Ricimer and Anthemius to his fellow Gallo-Romans who constituted his literary circle; the former had been complicit in the removal of Sidonius’ father-in-law, Emperor Avitus, from power in late 456, the latter, as an Easterner (and appointee of Leo, the Roman emperor in the East), could not be relied upon to represent Gallic interests.Footnote 26 Sidonius’ account of the trial of Arvandus states that Arvandus’ incriminating letter attempted to dissuade the Visigothic king Euric from peace with the Greek emperor (pacem cum Graeco imperatore).Footnote 27 One may try to put this criticism purely at the feet of Arvandus, but it was Sidonius who decided to include this detail in his reporting of Arvandus’ letter in Epist. 1.7 and then circulate that epistle in his collection. He could easily have edited out Graeco subsequently but chose not to, in effect preserving this discourse against Anthemius.
This criticism of Anthemius recurs in Ennodius’ prose Life of Epiphanius written in the early sixth century. In that work Ennodius has Italian nobles promote Epiphanius’ candidature for the bishopric of Ticinum by asserting that even a Graeculus could come to love him, using the pejorative diminutive in reference to Anthemius.Footnote 28 Ennodius’ criticism of Anthemius, made through the voice of others, could be done in relative safety; Anthemius had died three decades before. The same cannot be said for Sidonius’ remarks.Footnote 29 The potential repercussions of criticizing Ricimer and Anthemius openly may account for Sidonius’ use of literary allusions to conceal his criticisms.Footnote 30
1. EPISTOLARY INTRODUCTION
Sidonius addressed the epistle to Heronius, a fellow Gallo-Roman, who was also the addressee of Epist. 1.9.Footnote 31 In that letter Sidonius asks him to avoid comparing their poetry, which indicates that Heronius, like others in Sidonius’ circle, had a keen interest in literature and should thus be credited with the ability to identify the literary allusions which Sidonius deploys. The beginning of the epistle signals Sidonius’ intent to use allusions in the travelogue (Sid. Apoll. Epist. 1.5.1):
… inquiris uiam etiam qualem qualiterque confecerim quos aut fluuios uiderim poetarum carminibus inlustres aut urbes moenium situ inclitas aut montes nominum opinione uulgatos aut campos proeliorum replicatione monstrabiles … quia uoluptuosum censeas quae lectione compereris eorum qui inspexerint fideliore didicisse memoratu.
… you inquire about what the journey was like and how I have conducted it, which rivers I have seen, illustrious because of the songs of poets and the cities made famous by the lie of their battlements and mountains widely known by the reputation of their names and fields noteworthy for the recollection of battles … since you think it would be delightful to learn about what you have ascertained by reading from the more reliable recollection of those who have looked upon these things.
Sidonius indicates that the description of rivers will draw upon poetry (fluuios poetarum carminibus inlustres), which signals to the reader that they should look out for such connections. The battlefields of history (campos proeliorum replicatione monstrabiles) will also feature in the epistle, as Sidonius’ autopsy of the landscape draws upon his extensive reading to invoke war.
At no point in the letter does Sidonius state what his purpose for going to Rome was, although his presence there allowed him to deliver his Panegyric to Anthemius on 1 January 468, after which he was elevated to the prefecture of the city.Footnote 32 The letter responds to an apparent request from Heronius for Sidonius to update him on the progress of their common plan (commune consilium), but no further detail is forthcoming as to what this plan is or how it is progressing (§1): litteras tuas Romae positus accepi, quibus an secundum commune consilium sese peregrinationis meae coepta promoueant, sollicitus inquiris ‘I received your letters now installed in Rome, in which you ask anxiously whether the undertakings of my journey are advancing themselves according to our common plan’. The commune consilium remains undisclosed.Footnote 33 Sidonius does note, however, that he was travelling on official business and under imperial summons.Footnote 34 In Epist. 1.9 Sidonius hints at the purpose of his trip, noting that the Kalends of January came, ‘while we were planning something concerning the petitions of the Arvenian embassy’.Footnote 35 It may be that Sidonius is pursuing another agenda on this visit in addition to his official purpose.
2. THE RIVER CATALOGUES
There are two river catalogues in this epistle, both of which draw upon poetic sources to refer to analogous political contexts: the first reworks Claudian's panegyric on the sixth consulship of the Emperor Honorius, the second remodels a scene from Virgil's Aeneid. Footnote 36 The Claudianic source of these remarks is readily discernible (1.5.3–4):
Ticini cursoriam (sic nauigio nomen) escendi, qua in Eridanum breui delatus cantatas saepe comissaliter nobis Phaethontiadas et commenticias arborei metalli lacrimas risi. uluosum Lambrum caerulum Adduam uelocem Athesim pigrum Mincium qui Ligusticis Euganeisque montibus oriebantur, […] inspexi.
At Ticinum [Pavia] I boarded a postal boat (this is the name for the vessel), on which having travelled down the Po in a short space of time I laughed at Phaethon's sisters, who often have been sung about by us in revelry, and the fictitious tears of arboreal ore. I looked at the wet Lambro, the sky-blue Adda, the quick Adige, the sluggish Mincio, which arise from the mountains of Liguria and the Euganeans.Footnote 37
Sidonius’ description accommodates his literary allusions, which interact with the Italian landscape as an allusive receptacle of literary motifs. Sidonius follows the language of the river deity Eridanus in Claudian's panegyric (On the Sixth Consulship of Honorius 205–9):Footnote 38
Having spoken, standing straighter he summons the Ligurian and Venetian streams with a loud voice. They raise their dripping necks from the leafy banks: beautiful Ticino and the Adda sky-blue in appearance and quick Adige and Mincio slow in its course and Timavo raising its nine mouths.
The same rivers are mentioned, namely the Ticino, which appears in §3 of Epist. 1.5, the Adda, Adige and Mincio.Footnote 39 Of these, two rivers are modified by the same adjective in both Sidonius’ letter and Claudian's Panegyric; the Adda by caerulus and the Adige by uelox. The description of the Mincio is also very similar, in Claudian tardus, in Sidonius piger. Sidonius’ remark at Epist. 1.5.1 (fluuios uiderim poetarum carminibus inlustres) primes the reader to expect his catalogue of rivers to allude to poetry rather than to any rote-learnt table from his school days.Footnote 40 By copying Claudian's catalogue of rivers so closely and by referring like Claudian to Phaëthon and his sisters, Sidonius invites comparison between the context of his epistle and Claudian's poem.Footnote 41
In Claudian's Panegyric Eridanus pondered the threat that the Gothic leader Alaric posed to Rome. One of his daughters, a Naiad, tries to placate his concerns. She then raises Eridanus’ head, which Claudian describes in some detail (163–6):
Green branches of the Heliades shaded his head and amber flowed from all his hair. A cloak covered his broad shoulders, Phaethon embroidered with his father's chariot sets the grey-green garment ablaze.
In Claudian's poem the myth of Phaëthon is doubly apt as a warning to Alaric. First, it implies that, like Phaëthon, Alaric is ill-equipped for the task he intends; in Phaëthon's case the driving of his father's (the Sun) chariot, in Alaric's case the dominance and governance of the Roman empire in the West. Second, it warns Alaric against sacking Rome, which Claudian suggests will herald a fate like that of Phaëthon, who crashed the chariot in a mass of flames. Eridanus directs this sentiment at Alaric in the words that immediately precede the mini-catalogue of rivers (186–92):
Did my Phaëthon at least not scare you, wicked man, as an example, who quenched his fires in my waters, when he gave attention to steering the flaming reins of the sky with his earthly arms and mortal countenance, hoping to disperse daylight? Trust me, whoever aspires for the spoils of Rome or the reins of the Sun, revels in a similar crime.
By alluding to this passage through the imitation of Claudian's catalogue and similar reference to Phaëthon and the fate of his sisters, Sidonius repurposes Claudian's remarks for his own context, and so implicitly compares Alaric to Ricimer, who is trying to exploit Rome by forming a political alliance with the Emperor Anthemius through his marriage to the emperor's daughter.Footnote 42 This is a clever and subtle technique that relies for its effect on Sidonius’ readers having a high degree of literacy. If Sidonius had intended to allude to the marriage between Stilicho's daughter and Honorius, he would have used a specific allusion to that union, perhaps by drawing upon Claudian's Epithalamium for Honorius and Maria rather than upon his panegyric.
The second river catalogue has a Virgilian reminiscence (Epist. 1.5.8):
interea febris sitisque penitissimum cordis medullarumque secretum depopulabantur; quarum auiditati non solum amoena fontium aut abstrusa puteorum, quamquam haec quoque, sed tota illa uel uicini uel obuia fluenta, id est uitrea Velini gelida Clitumni, Aniensis caerula Naris sulpurea, pura Fabaris turbida Tiberis […] pollicebamur.
Meanwhile, fever and thirst ravaged the most inner part of my chest and marrow, to their greed I began to promise not only the charms of springs and the hidden waters of wells, although these too, but all of the streams either nearby or en route, that is, the water of Velino transparent, that of Clitunno icy, of Anio blue, of Nera sulphuric, of Farfa pure, of the Tiber muddy.
The model is Aeneid Book 7, when Juno guides Iulus’ arrow against Silvia's tame deer, then seizes the opportunity to provoke war by sounding the shepherd's call (Aen. 7.516–17): audiit et Triuiae longe lacus, audiit amnis | sulpurea Nar albus aqua fontesque Velini ‘The lake of three-formed Diana heard it far off, and the white stream the Nera with its sulphuric waters and the springs of Velino’. Sidonius uses the same adjective as Virgil, sulpureus, to describe the water of the Nera and, like Virgil, includes the waters of the Velino in his catalogue. In the Aeneid the moment is the beginning of war between the Trojans and the Italians. Three further rivers mentioned by Sidonius also feature in the seventh book of the Aeneid, in the description of the provenance of Turnus’ army (Aen. 7.681–3):
A rustic legion accompanies this man from far and wide: those men who call high Praeneste home, and the fields of Gabine Juno, and the icy Anio.
In the Aeneid the Anio is qualified by the adjective gelidus, in Sidonius by caeruleus, perhaps because Sidonius preferred to use gelidus for the cool water drawn from the temple alongside the Clitunno.Footnote 43 Later in Book 7 the catalogue of places included both the Tiber and Farfa (7.715). By referring to these four rivers specifically, and by describing them either exactly or similarly to Virgil, Sidonius invokes the context of these sections of Book 7 of the Aeneid which pertain to the cause of the war and the assembly of armies. At the beginning of that book Aeneas arrives in Italy in a boat that sails down the Tiber (7.29–36):
And there Aeneas saw from the sea a huge grove. Through it the Tiber in a pleasant stream with swirling rapids and yellow with abundant sand bursts into the ocean. Different birds, around and above, haunting the banks and streams, were pleasing the heavens with their tune and flying in the grove. He orders his friends to alter their course and turn their prows towards the land, and happily he entered the shady stream.
Aeneas’ arrival by boat begins the tension that leads to the war which dominates the final half of Virgil's epic. Reckford notes that in this passage ‘there is latent symbolism of war in [Aeneas’] entering the dark womb of the river’.Footnote 44 The particulars of the journey, specifically the emerging wood and the singing birds, also occur in Sidonius’ description of his river journey (Epist. 1.5.4):
paulum per ostia aduersa subuectus in suis etiam gurgitibus inspexi; quorum ripae torique passim quernis acernisque nemoribus uestiebantur.Footnote 45 hic auium resonans dulce concentus.
Sailing a little way through the opposite mouths I caught sight of each river in its own swell, whose banks and bulges were covered in oak and maple forests, a concert of birds chirping sweetly.
Fournier and Stoehr-Monjou took this allusion to indicate a return to peace, but it may equally be read as another coded reference to conflict.Footnote 46 Sidonius’ description of his river journey resonates with the political context of the mid to late 460s, as a barbarian potentate formed a union through marriage with the imperial family. The threat of war, especially in Italy, looms allusively in the literary backdrop of Aeneid Book 7.
3. DOMESTIC FURY AND FIERCE STRIFE
In quick succession Sidonius alludes to a series of literary texts that bemoan war in Italy. Sidonius arrives in Cremona by river (1.5.5): atque obiter Cremonam praeuectus adueni, cuius est olim Tityro Mantuano largum suspirata proximitas ‘and so having travelled further along I arrived at Cremona, whose proximity was once bemoaned at some length by Mantua's Tityrus’. Sidonius alludes specifically to the words of Moeris in Virgil's ninth eclogue (28–30):Footnote 47
Varus, if Mantua is only left for us, Mantua, alas too close to sad Cremona, then singing swans will carry your name on high to the stars.
These lines refer to Alfenus Varus’ role in confiscating land near Cremona, which he took up as Octavian's appointee once Pollio, who was politically aligned to Antony, had withdrawn from that role following the Perusine War in 40 b.c.e.Footnote 48 Sidonius does not allude to the ninth eclogue in its entirety but very specifically to these lines of the poem.
Sidonius crosses the Rubicon (Epist. 1.5.7): unde progressis ad Rubiconem uentum, qui originem nomini de glarearum colore puniceo mutuabatur quique olim Gallis cisalpinis Italisque ueteribus terminus erat (‘we left there and arrived at the Rubicon, which takes the origin of its name from the reddish colour of its gravel and which was once the boundary for Cisalpine Gaul and Italy of old’). Describing the Rubicon as red and as the boundary of Italy is a literary topos which foreshadows the outbreak of war.Footnote 49
Through these allusions Sidonius imbues the epistle with the imagery and sentiment of war. As Sidonius travels closer to Rome, the allusions more explicitly reference the death and suffering that all too often accompany political instability and military clashes.
Sidonius describes Fanum (Epist. 1.5.7):
[Fanum perueni] … hoc Hasdrubaliano funere infectum: siquidem illic Metaurus, cuius ita in longum felicitasFootnote 50 uno die parta porrigitur, ac si etiam nunc Dalmatico salo cadauera sanguinulenta decoloratis gurgitibus inferret.
I reached Fanum … that town is stained with Hasdrubal's death: indeed, there is the Metaurus, whose good luck, begun on one day, has endured for a long time, as if even now it carried bloodied corpses in its discoloured waters to the Dalmatian sea.
This description refers to Hasdrubal's death at the battle of the Metaurus and specifically describes the Metaurus river as carrying corpses out to sea.Footnote 51 Of the many historical sources that describe the battle, not one (other than Sidonius) mentions that bodies entered and discoloured the Metaurus after or during the battle.Footnote 52 The very same feature is ascribed to the Metaurus in Sidonius’ Panegyric to Anthemius (Carm. 2.532–5):
If the wicked Metaurus is going to grow red with Barcid slaughter, let a punished consul do it for you, while scattering Hasdrubal's thousands, since he has made his sword red, let him wear his head unkempt.Footnote 53
In this Panegyric Sidonius provides further detail, particularly regarding the consul M. Livius Salinator, who quit Rome following a trial that condemned him, but returned to lead the Roman army with Claudius Nero against Hasdrubal.Footnote 54 In both cases the Metaurus grows red, by the verb rubeat in the poem and by the more vivid phrase cadauera sanguinulenta decoloratis gurgitibus in the epistle.Footnote 55
Rivers swollen with bodies are an epic trope that dates back to Homer.Footnote 56 In Virgil's Aeneid the Sibyl sees the Tiber foaming with blood in her prophecy of war (6.85–6): bella, horrida bella | et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno (‘I see wars, horrible wars and the Tiber foaming with much blood’). Sidonius’ specific notion that the Metaurus river grew red draws upon Silius Italicus’ Punica.Footnote 57 The Punica mentions the Metaurus at 7.486, multaque Hasdrubalis fulgebit strage Metaurus ‘the Metaurus will shine with the abundant slaughter of Hasdrubal’. Five lines earlier the battle of Cannae is described (Sil. Pun. 7.481–2): sanguineis tumidus ponto miscebitur undis | Aufidus et rubros impellet in aequora fluctus ‘Aufidus swollen will mix its bloody waters with the sea and pour red waves into the ocean’. A different river exhibits the same features as the Metaurus in Sidonius’ epistle; its water is bloodied (sanguineis) and swollen (tumidus), presumably because of the recently added corpses, and it spills its reddened waters (rubros fluctos) into the sea (ponto miscebitur undis … impellit in aequora). Although Geisler does not list Silius Italicus’ Punica in his loci similes for Epist. 1.5, Silius’ epic is listed on eight occasions in his list of loci similes in Sidonius’ poetry, which together (and given their detail) suggest that Sidonius had some familiarity with the Punica.Footnote 58 It is feasible that Sidonius would turn to Silius’ work about the Second Punic War for literary inspiration to describe the Metaurus, given the river's prominent role in the war as the site of the death of Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, and the destruction of the Carthaginian army under his leadership.Footnote 59
Sidonius’ description of the bodies in the water (cadauera sanguinulenta decoloratis gurgitibus) is reminiscent of Hor. Carm. 2.1.33–6:
What creeks or what rivers are ignorant of lamentable war? What sea has Daunian slaughter not discoloured? What shore lacks our blood?
In these lines the noun gurges occurs a mere two lines before the verb decolorauere. The verb decolorare is rarely used; here Horace uses it to denote specifically the discolouration of water by bloodied bodies. Sidonius reworks this phrase from Horace's poem, combining two specific words, decolorare and gurges, and related imagery in cadauera sanguinulenta to invoke the context of Horace's ode, which functions as a lament against civil war.Footnote 60
Sidonius’ allusions to these moments of crisis form a natural comparison to the political climate of the late 460s, in which this epistle was circulated, as ongoing instability, endless war and barbarian pressure forced profound changes to the Roman world. The travelogue and its intense intertextuality with descriptions of war in Italy reflect poorly on Rome's recent military efforts, and place additional pressure and expectations on the political alliance between Ricimer and Anthemius as a means of saving the state from such calamities.
4. ROME IN DISARRAY
Sidonius arrives in Rome (Epist. 1.5.9): ubi priusquam uel pomoeria contingerem, triumphalibus apostolorum liminibus adfusus omnem protinus sensi membris male fortibus explosum esse langorem (‘when before I even reached the outer boundary, having knelt at the triumphal thresholds of the Apostles, I felt that the sickness had been completely driven from my weakened limbs’). The phrase triumphalibus apostolorum liminibus refers to the Christian understanding of martyrs as victorious heroes.Footnote 61
Sidonius’ entrance may also be read figuratively. He enters the city through the Porta Triumphalis, the gate reserved for the procession of a general's triumph.Footnote 62 Like a triumphant general, he pauses before the pomerium, the sacred boundary marking the inner part of the city. Sidonius’ experience of war, however, has come not from any one battle but through his description of the scenery he has encountered in his journey. He has crossed the Rubicon, seen Hasdrubal's death at the Metaurus, its waters growing red with dead bodies, and imagined Aeneas confronting the Italians.
Sidonius arrived in Rome at an inopportune moment for the task he intendsFootnote 63 (Epist. 1.5.10): interueni etenim nuptiis patricii Ricimeris, cui filia perennis Augusti in spem publicae securitatis copulabatur ‘truly I arrived while the wedding of the patrician Ricimer was ongoing, to whom the daughter of the eternal Augustus was being coupled in the hope of the safety of the state’. Sidonius has a clear understanding of the political situation. The emperor has married off his daughter to secure the support of Ricimer.Footnote 64
To Sidonius’ wider and subsequent audience this hope would have seemed misplaced. By 469 Anthemius had turned his attention towards trying to restrict the Visigothic expansion in southern Gaul; but this ended in disaster with the destruction of the Roman army and the death of its leaders, including Anthemius’ own son, Anthemiolus.Footnote 65
At Epist. 1.9.1 Sidonius provides a brief description of Rome after the wedding festivities:Footnote 66
post nuptias patricii Ricimeris, id est post imperii utriusque opes euentilatas, tandem reditum est in publicam serietatem, quae rebus actitandis ianuam campumque patefecit.
After the wedding of the patrician Ricimer, that is, after the wealth of both empires had been scattered to the wind,Footnote 67 at last there has been a return to public seriousness, which has opened the door and a field for conducting business.
The phrase post imperii utriusque opes euentilatas refers to the excessive celebrations that Sidonius described in Epist. 1.5.10–11. The tone of Sidonius’ sentiment is negative; all the expense and fanfare has been pointlessly dissipated. His remark that Rome is finally (tandem) returning to its typical activities draws attention to the length of the festivities which disrupted the entire city.Footnote 68 Even if the distribution of largesse which Sidonius describes is read neutrally (or positively) in this epistle, these comments resonate with renewed importance inside Sidonius’ collection.Footnote 69 The first epistle of the second book, written to Ecdicius, Sidonius’ brother-in-law (which was also circulated before Sidonius’ bishopric in 469), nervously ends by reporting (Epist. 2.1.4):Footnote 70
si nullae a republica uires nulla praesidia si nullae, quantum rumor est, Anthemii principis opes statuit, te auctore nobilitas seu patriam dimittere seu capillos. uale.
If there is no strength from the state, if no protection, if, as the rumour has it, the Emperor Anthemius has no wealth, then the nobility under your advice has decided either to lose its homeland or its hair. Farewell.
Sidonius specifically links Rome's lack of human and pecuniary resources to Anthemius’ rule. He cites his source: the rumour mill in Gaul is in overdrive; the state has run out of means. Clearly this is not a positive take on Anthemius’ governance. The reader can hardly feign surprise at Sidonius’ remarks; in Epist. 1.9 his sober assessment of the fiscal cost of Anthemius’ daughter's wedding to Ricimer had foreshadowed this very outcome.
Sidonius’ initial attempt to visit Ricimer and Anthemius falls short (1.5.10): neque adhuc principis aulicorumque tumultuosis foribus obseruer ‘nor am I yet acknowledged by the disorderly doors of the emperor and his courtiers’.Footnote 71 Anthemius’ doors are bustling from the chaos which the nuptial celebrations have caused. Figuratively, the fores represent Anthemius’ seat of power and authority. The adjective tumultuosus highlights the chaos of the mob that has enveloped the capital. The noun aulicus and its cognate adjective are used by Sidonius on four other occasions, three times negatively to describe the stress of court intrigue.Footnote 72 The word became popular in Late Antiquity but in earlier Latin occurs most predominantly in Suetonius in his various descriptions of the henchmen of Caligula, Otho, Nero and Domitian.Footnote 73 Through its etymological link to aula (‘palace’), it carries unwanted regal connotations.Footnote 74
Rome is overrun by the wedding festivities (Epist. 1.5.10):
igitur nunc in ista non modo personarum sed etiam ordinum partiumque laetitia Transalpino tuo latere conducibilius uisum, quippe cum hoc ipso tempore, quo haec mihi exarabantur, uix per omnia theatra macella, praetoria fora, templa gymnasia Thalassio Fescenninus explicaretur atque etiam nunc e contrario studia sileant negotia quiescant, iudicia conticescant differantur legationes, uacet ambitus et inter scurrilitates histrionicas totus actionum seriarum status peregrinetur.
And so now among all this revelry not only of individuals but even of classes and groups it seemed best to your Transalpinus to hide, since at this very moment, when these remarks of mine are being written down, scarcely has the Fescennine cry ‘Thalassio’ begun to unfold through all the theatres, markets, official residences, forums, temples, exercise grounds and even now the opposite is true, the schools are silent, business is quiet, courts fall silent, embassies are deferred, ambition is absent and the entire position of serious deeds has gone wandering among silly buffoonery.
Theatres, forums and other public spaces resound with the nuptial celebrations, but places of real business are completely quiet. Sidonius uses one verb (explicaretur) to describe the noise resounding throughout the city, but in contrast he uses six verbs (sileant, quiescant, conticescant, differantur, uacet and peregrinetur) to describe the absence of noise. This relative abundance of verbs emphasizes the absence of real business. The chiasmus totus actionum seriarum status accentuates the contrast between the celebrations and the abandoned seriousness, highlighted by the phrase e contrario. Sidonius uses this vivid description to characterize the nuptial celebrations as scurrilitates histrionicas.
The nuptial celebrations have left everything in disarray; it is unclear whether the marriage can restore order to the empire. The end of the epistle stands on a threshold, a powerful allegory for the political climate of the Roman empire in the West (1.5.11):
iam quidem uirgo tradita est, iam coronam sponsus, iam palmatam consularis, iam cycladem pronuba, iam togam honoratus, iam paenulam deponit inglorius, et nondum tamen cuncta thalamorum pompa defremuit, quia necdum ad mariti domum noua nupta migrauit. qua festiuitate decursa cetera tibi laborum meorum molimina reserabuntur, si tamen uel consummata sollemnitas aliquando terminauerit istam totius ciuitatis occupatissimam uacationem. uale.
Now indeed the maiden has been handed over, the husband has placed down his wreath, the man of consular rank his robe, the bridesmaid her decorative gown, the honoured man his toga, the unremarkable citizen his cloak, and meanwhile the wedding celebration has still not completely ceased raging, since the bride has not yet crossed to the home of her husband. After the festivity has run to a close, the other struggles of my suffering will be revealed to you, if perhaps at some point the finished celebration will bring this very busy holiday of an entire city to an end. Goodbye.
The moment is very specific; Rome is consumed by the wedding festivities. It looks forward to an unclear eventuality; the success of the wedding and thus the political union between Ricimer and Anthemius are not yet confirmed. The past is more fixed but no less disconcerting. War and strife have plagued Italy, a trend which the reader is encouraged to project forwards. This moment is dependent on Sidonius’ authorial decision for existence which he could easily have edited out in subsequent revisions but chose to keep.
At the beginning of the epistle Sidonius invokes the principle that writers ought to begin with positives even when discussing negative matters (Epist. 1.5.1, sinisteritatum). If the entire epistle is meant to be read positively, this phrase is wholly redundant―Sidonius would have no need to state his intention of doing so. Instead, this remark foreshadows the negativity of the epistle's end, as Rome is disrupted by the wedding, and Sidonius is consequently unable to obtain the access he requires to carry out his agenda. It clearly marks the last major moment of the epistle, specifically Ricimer's marriage, as one of these sinisteritates.
In §11 everything has just begun to change, but the outcome of this change is still unclear. Sidonius uses two compounds with de, defremuit and decursa, which can indicate the cessation of an act but also can carry a negative sense as if on a downward spiral.Footnote 75 Defremere (‘to cease raging’) refers to the chaotic nature of the celebrations, as the bride transitions into her husband's home. The foreboding tone at the start of the letter returns in these final remarks through a cryptic reference to further difficulties that Sidonius has endured in the phrase cetera tibi laborum meorum molimina. Footnote 76 The adjective cetera characterizes the disorder and problems that the festivities and, by implication, the marriage itself have caused. The final words of the letter reinforce the chaos through the oxymoronic occupatissimam uacationem—the most busy holiday. The extent of this chaos is complete, enwrapping the entire city (totius ciuitatis). The statement is all the more outrageous given that Rome is in total disarray awaiting the final bedroom formality of the wedding.
Throughout Epist. 1.5 the presence and transition of borders is a key theme. Sidonius leaves Gaul, crosses the Alps, the Rubicon, the pomerium and the walls of the city but fails in his final attempt to gain access to the emperor.Footnote 77 In the guise of a conquering general, each boundary falls by the wayside: the Alps are crossed easily, the Rubicon was the dividing line between Gaul and Italy (terminus erat), but seemingly it is no longer, as Sidonius finally enters Rome.
Sidonius plays the role of a Transalpinus but views the landscape of Italy through a Roman lens, highlighting his own complex identity as a Gallo-Roman aristocrat, committed to the continuation of Roman power in the West but increasingly aware of the fallibility of this power, and not averse to Gallic attempts to influence events directly, most noticeably through his father-in-law Avitus’ elevation to the purple in 455. Unlike the Alps, the natural borders of which Sidonius crossed as if porous, the walls of Rome still demarcate the city from the outsider.
Inside the epistle new boundaries are unclear; Ricimer's marriage has taken place, the bride has been given to her husband, yet the final act, the transition of the bride to his home is still to happen. This adds to the confusion and chaos that grips Rome, amounting to a clever critique of the destabilization of the empire at the hands of Ricimer and Anthemius.
This criticism of Ricimer and Anthemius in the epistle is all the more significant given that this epistle was circulated prior to Sidonius’ bishopric in late 469 or early 470, when both Ricimer and Anthemius were still alive though heavily occupied with the affairs of state. By using literary allusions to layer his criticism inside an epistle, Sidonius seemingly avoided the repercussions of reproaching Anthemius and Ricimer on their political union. More broadly, it may indicate the limits of the emperor's reach; Sidonius was clearly prepared to express his concerns about the alliance between Anthemius to Ricimer in two epistles (1.5 and 1.9) which were circulated in Gaul, while in Rome he delivered a panegyric to Anthemius and served as urban prefect.
5. CONCLUSION
Sidonius includes in the travelogue of Epist. 1.5 a range of allusions to different wars and battles, and the texts which describe them. These allusions to Horace, Silius and Virgil emphasize the destruction of war and, in particular, the tremendous cost of war. They act as a continual reminder to Sidonius’ audience of the constant threat of war, while also demonstrating Sidonius’ extensive reading, as his journey reminds him of events recorded in classical literature. By drawing upon these texts, Sidonius places the political turmoil and strife of the mid fifth century into a historical and notional continuum derived from classical literature.
The epistle manifests literary allusions as integral to its composition. Sidonius’ response to Heronius’ interest in rivers, mountains, cities and battle-sites draws upon literature that reveals the horror and suffering of war: rivers choked with bodies, land confiscations and epic struggles over life and limb. The alternate model of reading Sidonius’ allusions in this epistle, namely that Sidonius drew quotations perhaps from a handbook merely to satisfy his addressee, appears too simplistic to me given Sidonius’ complex and subtle use of allusions.Footnote 78 These allusions put war and its suffering on the reader's mind before the climactic end of the letter, providing the backdrop to Sidonius’ professed hope that the alliance between Ricimer and Anthemius will provide security and stability for the Roman empire in the West.
The importance of the nuptials to the political climate is evident in the description in Sidonius’ panegyric to Anthemius delivered to celebrate Anthemius’ second consulship in 468, in which his daughter and her wedding to Ricimer are explicitly mentioned.Footnote 79 The overwhelming positivity felt in the city for the marriage is juxtaposed with the very real dangers that the failure of the alliance and the outbreak of war will pose to the empire. Sidonius’ criticism of the wedding is clearly focussed on its ability to disrupt the city from the political affairs that brought him to Rome, but they are never clearly discussed in the epistle.
The danger of war was not merely an intellectual exercise for Sidonius. Throughout his lifetime the barbarian presence in Gaul posed an ongoing threat. Sidonius’ own father-in-law was killed following civil strife. Around 469 Sidonius returned to Gaul to take up his bishopric. The alliance between Anthemius and Ricimer, however, broke down, leading to further civil strife and, in 472, to their death within a short space of time of one another. The disruption this caused to the western Roman empire precipitated its collapse. Sidonius was not wrong in his calculations. The western Roman empire needed stability of government, which could only feasibly occur if Ricimer was supportive of the emperor, so that they could deal together with the growing number of external threats. The marriage between Alypia and Ricimer did not provide this stability.
Sidonius’ criticism of Anthemius and Ricimer fits the changing political environment; by the late 460s events had begun to turn against Ricimer; Leo I's appointment of Anthemius ended the interregnum, as the Vandal threat continued unabated. His critique of the wedding links Epist. 1.5 with Epist. 1.9. Together they clearly reveal Sidonius’ frustration at the pointlessness of bringing Rome to a halt and the usurpation of political process, waiting on Ricimer to consummate his marriage.Footnote 80
