Europe in 451
Dictionary and Thesaurus
I: General Remarks
Although a saint, a bishop, and an important figure in a turbulent age,
Sidonius is remembered particularly because of his somewhat dubious
literary talents. These were so admired until the revival of appreciation
for good Latin that some 147 letters and twenty-four poems of his have
survived. It is not a simple matter to reconstruct an entire life from
such materials, and much of what follows may not be correct in detail. Its
account of the course of events and descriptions of some of the
institutions of the Late Roman Empire are true enough, however, and the
attempt to weave the life and attitudes of Apollinaris Sidonius into this
context accords well enough with what we do know of the man and his
works.
II: Youth (c. 430-456)
A: General Situation in the Empire in the West
1: The condition of the empire had deteriorated badly by the time of Sidonius'
birth in Lyon in about the year 430, and the situation of the western provinces
deteriorated rapidly during his youth.
a: By 430, the first invaders of the Empire, the Vandals, had moved to
Africa, the richest grain area of the Empire, which they took and held in
defiance of imperial authority. They took to the sea and their piratical
attacks soon destroyed Roman commerce on the Western Mediterranean.
b: The Visigoths, who had sacked Rome in 410, were settled in Aquitaine by
a treaty with the imperial government. They soon threw off their federate
status and established themselves as a separate kingdom. Always seeking
to operate in a favorable manner with the Romans, the Goths nevertheless
sought to expand: into Spain, against the Vandals and Alans left in the
northwest of the peninsula, and in every other direction against Roman
provinces of the region, Tarraconensis, Narbonnensis, and Lugdunensis --
the province of Lyon -- which stretched along the valleys of the Rhone and
Loire.
c: The Burgundians had been allowed to settle in Savoy, along the upper Rhone,
perhaps as a counterweight to the Visigoths.
d: North of the Loire, the rebel Bretons were poised and, the greatest Germanic
force that would emerge in the future, the Franks who were experiencing a slow
but steady growth of population that would eventually drive them to cross the
lower Rhine and establish themselves in what is now Belgium.
2: The Empire had not responded well to this threat.
a: The Italian Provinces, especially Rome, had been favored at the expense of
the more exposed regions.
b: Rather than putting aside personal interests, the central government had
become the site of almost continuous conspiracy and treachery. Barbarians used
this factionalism to advance their own candidates for the throne, hoping to gain
advantages thereby.
c: The heavy expenses of government; salaries, bribes, and, most particularly,
defense, were met by an extremely uneven taxation, in which the provinces paid
more than Italy, and in which the poor and the middle class bore the entire
burden.
3. Despite these conditions, the tone of Sidonius' letters suggests that the
class to which he belonged were hardly aware of the direction in which Roman
affairs were moving.
B: Birth and education
1: Sidonius was born in the pleasant city of Lyon, situated on the Rhone
River in what is now southern France. His family was of the praefectorial
class and was one of the more influential of the region. His grandfather
and father had both been Praefect of the Gauls, a position at the time of
real responsibility. The family had accepted Christianity in his
grandfather's time, but like most of the noble families of the region,
they had not become fanatic about it. At least they had not yet, as some
other families had already done, produced a saint.
2: When the time came, Sidonius entered the Roman equivalent of a
university located in his own city of Lyon. For some time, the caliber of
the schools of Gaul had been improving, although those in the rest of the
West were in a state of decline. Lyon was not one of the first rank of
Gallic schools, but it was respected. The emperor Gratian (370-383) had
attended the "university" of Bordeaux and had appointed his old professor,
the poet Ausonius, to the consulship in 379. This remarkable appointment
had brought Bordeaux prestige and funds, and it had assumed a rank in Gaul
not unlike that of Harvard in the United States. If Bordeaux was the
Harvard of the Western empire, Toulouse and Marseilles might be considered
the Princeton and Yale. Lyon was, then, the equivalent of a great state
university such as Michigan or the University of California at
Berkeley.
The organization and purpose of the Roman school was considerably
different from the medieval or modern concept, but education was certainly
as highly regarded. The central government endowed chairs and, more
commonly, required municipalities to do so. In many cases, the government
built public lecture halls where the professors could discourse. Normally,
however, the lecture was only a part of the education. The serious
student would pay his professor a fee to work with him personally.
The school of Grammar was the basic level, corresponding, one might
suppose, to the first and second years of a modern American university,
although the student might spend more or less time in studies at this
level. In a fully-staffed institution, the school of Grammar consisted of
two divisions, Greek grammar and Latin grammar. Faculty generally began
teaching at this level, and, if they were sufficiently skilled, might move
up to the better pay and greater prestige of the school of Rhetoric.
The curriculum and teaching methods of the schools of Grammar were more or
less standardized. There were certain great works of literature recognized
as suitable for study, some more important than others; the poets were
particularly emphasized. Homer's Iliad and Hesiod's
Theogony and Works and Days were the most important works
for Greek Grammar, and Virgil's Aeneid and Cicero's orations and
letters were basic to the study of Latin Grammar. The professor would
read a passage to his students, and then comment extensively upon it,
discussing its style, allusions, comparing it with similar passages in
other authors, clarifying archaic words, etc. At best such training could
have been a fine liberal education. In practice, it sometimes rose to
literary criticism, and more often sank to providing massive footnotes and
glosses.
Upon completion of the both the Greek and Latin curricula of the school of
Grammar, student were prepared to move on. Many chose to end their formal
education at this point, and, if the institution provided such, some
entered the professional schools of medicine and law. The brightest and
wealthiest students, and those from the most important families, however
went on to enter the school of Rhetoric. The school of Rhetoric was
composed, like that of Grammar, into divisions of Greek and Latin
Rhetoric, and the student normally took one as a major and the other as a
minor field of study.
At the level of the school of Rhetoric, the student was not expected
simply to study past authors, but to create. But the emphasis was upon
creation in the style of the past masters, especially extemporaneous
compositions and speeches. The great orations of the past were studied,
and the students learned to speak in the style of Cicero, with literary
allusions drawn from Virgil, discussing some episode of Homer's
Iliad. Achievement was measured by style, not by content.
This was the sort of education that Sidonius pursued, although he did not
enjoy the benefits that would have come with a full curriculum of study.
By this time, the lack of funds, the rise of Christian thought, and other
factors were leading to the "downsizing" of the late Roman universities,
and few could afford to maintain a full faculty. Lyon appears to have
dispensed with Philosophy and Law, and did not emphasize Greek Rhetoric.
Sidonius thus knew his Greek authors reasonably well, but not to the point
that he could think in Greek. His letters and poems were solidly based on
Latin models, and he attempted to demonstrate the extent of his learning
with frequent allusions and images drawn from the Greek classics. He was
not too different from others of his class in this respect. The cultural
ties that had bound the Western nobility to the Greek tradition of
scholarship were weakening, although every attempt was made to disguise
that fact.
3: What was the purpose of this sterile and imitative talent, and why did
the children of noble families spend their youth in learning how to write
and give public speeches in a centuries-old style? Why did they memorize
Greek and Latin fables and myths, and fill their writings and speeches
with obscure references and ponderous evocations of long-dead authors?
The answer was, as is often the case, that they were educated in the
skills that might gain them advancement. In the world of fourth-century
Gaul, however, there were few areas in which demanded any real ability
from the nobility. The Roman nobles had for so long attempted to avoid the
burdens of empire that there were very few areas of life in which they
could demonstrate real ability.
a: They were forbidden to serve in the army, and, even if they had been
able to do so, there would have been little role for them to play.
Military command authority was usually in the hands of a barbarian
chieftain, like Merobaudes, who led Roman armies that consisted primarily
of Germanic mercenaries.
b: The traditions of their class forbade them to go into manufacture,
their great estates were self-sufficient and managed by trained slaves.
They continued to make money, but could do nothing with it except loan it
out at interest. Since, under the declining economic conditions of the
period, loans were often note repaid. This meant that the nobility simply
gained more land. Even if their loans were repaid, this simply provided
them with more money that they could use only in making more loans. Since
families of the senatorial rank or above were tax- exempt and their
estates relieved them of having to buy anything but the most exotic of
luxuries, the wealth of the Roman nobles grew no matter what they did. The
distance between them and the mass of the Roman population increased until
they were virtually isolated within their own society.
c: The local government was entrusted to the middle-class curiales, and
senatorial scions were debarred from these onerous functions.
d: Positions of responsibility within the central government were in the
hands of professional bureaucrats
The nobles could simply retire to their estates and wear themselves out
with excesses, and some did. Most, however, sought a "nobler" life.
Basically they attempted to add to the honors of their family by holding
some position of prestige within what was called the cursus
honorum, something that might best be translated as "The Ladder of
Offices." Many of the old imperial administrative offices had been
preserved and the emperors had even added new ones. These had once been
offices of prestige and responsibility. Although the responsibilities had
been long since been assumed by professional civil servants, the prestige
remained, and members of the Roman nobility gained honor of serving as
figurehead administrators of these offices. The offices of the cursus
honorum formed a ladder of positions, a ladder on increasing prestige
and social status. There were numerous lower ranks, but the three highest
-- those of prefect, patrician, and consul -- were avidly pursued,
especially since the person who served a short term in one of these higher
offices earned social status that became hereditary in his family. The
young Roman, after having finished his education, would use his family
connections to enter the cursus honorum at as high a level as
possible. Once having obtained such an office he would attempt to
ingratiate himself with his superiors so that they might appoint him to
another office further up the ladder.
How did one ingratiate himself with one's superiors? By demonstrating
one's social skills. These skills consisted primarily of culture, wit, and
urbanity. Clever and polished conversation, the ability to make and to
recognize literary allusions, facility in publicly praising one's sponsors
and patrons in fashionable poetry, personally declaimed in public,
graceful manners, mastery of the art of conversation, and other genteel
accomplishments were the signs of merit that gained one favor and advanced
one's career. Certainly these were artificial and mannered affectations,
but their mastery demanded an education that only the wealthy could afford
and only the noble could value. Privileged classes often close their ranks
to outsiders in this way, as one will see with the hereditary nobility of
Medieval Europe or the nobility of Restoration London.
The term of service in each of these offices was short, often only a year,
and the average noble reached the limit of his ability to rise in the
cursus honorum relatively early in life, often by his early
thirties and then had nothing to do but to retire to his country estate
and to the company of neighbors much like himself. He Superannuated in the
prime of his life, the Roman noble devoted himself to reading, writing,
conversation, mild sports, and his gardens.
Thus the school education of the day while, admittedly artificial,
achieved three basic ends: it gave the nobles a sense of identity and
protected them from encroachment by the lower classes; it provided them
with the skills necessary to achieve success in their terms; and it
provided the best of them with a cultured mind which could survive a
lifetime of retirement years without falling into excess or simple
vegetation.
4. This was Sidonius' education, and this was the type of life which lay
before him. His first step was to marry, and he did quite well, marrying a
daughter of the family of the Avitii, perhaps the most prestigious and
wealthy family in the region. She brought with her as a dowry, the great
estate of Avitacum, which Sidonius mentions a great deal more than he does
her. After making himself at home here, By about 455 he was ready to enter
politics.
III: Entering the Cursus Honorum (456-458)
1: The situation was somewhat unusual when Sidonius was ready to begin
public life in his mid-twenties. In the year 451, the western provinces
had been menaced by the invasion of Attila the Hun and a large army.
Attila and his forces crossed the Rhine River, and a remarkable Roman
general, Aetius (pronounced aye-EE-tee- uhs), had been able to patch
together an equally remarkable confederation to meet them. He convinced
the Germanic tribes residing in the area to join in resistance and, under
his leadership, Visigoths, Franks, Bretons, and Burgundians joined forces
with the small regular Roman army in defeating the enemy in battle at
Chalons-sur Marne. More to the point, Aetius had been successful in
enlisting the active assistance of some of the nobles resident in the
area, among them being Sidonius' father-in-law, Avitus. The results of
this co-operation were very encouraging to the West, and the Germanic
leaders were impressed with the advantages of forming a western
confederation under the leadership of Aetius. The Visigoths returned to
their former status of Roman allies, the Sueves gave the Spanish province
of Carthaginensis back to imperial administration. and the new Visigothic
king, Theodoric II, began to search for new avenues of mutual action.
It was at this point that Aetius was murdered by enemies at the imperial
court who were jealous of his successes. The effects of this assassination
in the West were quite dramatic. Acting as if their chieftain had been
killed and they were seeking vengeance according to German custom, the
Franks and Alamanni moved south and west, occupying stretches of imperial
territory and gaining control of some important imperial arms factories.
Meanwhile, the court faction that had encompassed Aetius' death ignored
the German attacks and concentrated on eliminating their political
opponents. A group of the old followers of Aetius gathered to attempt to
restore Aetius' vision of a Western Federation, by were betrayed. Many
were killed (15 March, 455), and the other nobles of the region organized
to defend their territory and their own lives. Avitus, who had survived
the downfall of both Aetius and his friends, was sent by his neighbors to
the Visigothic capital of Toulouse to enlist the assistance of the
Visigoths. Meanwhile, Rome was in turmoil. Attila had appeared before the
city and had been bought off by Pope Leo with the gift of a heavy tribute.
Almost as soon as the Huns, who were suffering from an epidemic of some
sort anyway, had departed, the Vandal fleet sailed up the Tiber River, and
Vandal marines took and sacked Rome. This was followed by a flood that
destroyed many of the poor neighborhoods of the city, and swept away many
of the warehouses in which the city's food supply was stored. Hunger was
followed by the effects of the sickness the Huns had left behind them. The
Roman government, under the control of Petronius Maximus, a usurper, had
proven completely unable to protect the city or its inhabitants. When
Petronius ventured outside the imperial palace to speak to the masses,
they came carrying rocks and stoned him to death. When the news reached
Toulouse, the Westerners decided to attempt to seize imperial power and
restore the policy of Aetius. The Visigothic king Theodoric, probably
hoping to gain the power of the king-maker, recommended Avitus as emperor
and promised to support him. The Gallo-Roman senators crowned Avitus at
Arles, and, in September, he left for Rome with a strong detachment of
Visigothic warriors.
His son-in-law, Sidonius, was also a member of his train and ready for a
dazzling career. He had wealth, education, and now patronage of the
highest level. On his arrival in Rome, Sidonius did what any ambitious
young man would do. He wrote a excessively flattering poem about Avitus
and read it publicly in the Roman forum. Although it is rather pompous and
obscure, everyone applauded and voted to place Sidonius' statue in Forum
of Trajan along with those of other accomplished Romans. Sidonius was sure
that he was on the path to success, and he failed to note that the Romans
applauded every imperial protégé and voted to erect his statue in the
Forum of Trajan, but such projects were brought to a successful conclusion
only very rarely. Sidonius seemed not to have realized upon how slender
bases his present prestige rested.
Although Avitus was able to take power, he was unable to solve all of
Rome's problems at once, and so was unable to hold on to that power. He
fought and defeated the Vandals, but Rome faced a famine, and there was no
food to be had to alleviate conditions until the Spring harvests would
become available. Avitus may have been a bit gullible, since he agreed
that it would look better if he were to send his Visigothic troops home,
where they would no longer be an additional drain on the city's food
supply. As soon as they had left, the old faction that had opposed Aetius
stirred up a revolt among the Roman populace. Majorian, a Roman general
who had been an enemy of Aetius, took command of the rebels, and managed
to defeat and kill Avitus in October of 456. Majorian then set about
rooting the Westerners and their sympathizers out of all positions of any
power or prestige.
The Romans of Lugdunensis did not give up easily, however, and rose in revolt
against Majorian, who had made himself the new emperor. The revolt was crushed,
however, and Sidonius -- along with other Gallo-Roman nobles of the region --
retired from public life.
IV: County Gentleman (458-467)
1: The affairs of the West steadily declined during these years. Majorian
failed in his attempts to defeat the Vandals, losing Africa definitively,
as well as Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearics. Most of Lugdunensis,
including Lyons, was turned over to the Burgundians, and the Visigoths
were allowed to take Narbonnensis Prima. Finally, the Vandals took Sicily,
the last granary of the West (468). At this point, the Eastern emperor,
Leo, intervened, and appointed Anthemius, his own man, as emperor in the
West. Matters had gone too far for imperial fortunes to be repaired,
however, and Anthemius' reign was, in retrospect, the last gasp of the
Roman Empire in the West.
2: This steady decline in Roman fortunes seems to have had little effect
upon Sidonius during these nine years. He appears to have accepted the
curtailment of his public career as an unfortunate, but not unusual,
event, and retreated to retirement at Avitacum. His letters from this
period. as well as a few incidental poems provided us an unparalleled
picture of the life of the leisured classes of the time.
The nobles lived on great estates, of which they might own a number. The
estate formed a separate world, self-sufficient in virtually all things.
Slaves did all the necessary work, although the owner supervised building,
decorating, and some of the more refined activities such a flower
gardening. The mansion formed the heart of the estate, and embellishing
its amenities and enjoying them were the profession of the owner. Much
time was spent in visiting, reading, hunting, bathing, and generally
resting. The nearest society to it that springs to mind is that of the
Ante-Bellum south pictured in MGM movies from the thirties, such as the
opening scenes from Gone With the Wind.
3: Unbeknownst to Sidonius, who appears to have given up all political ambition,
events were moving him towards a second excursion into public life.
V: Second Attempt at Politics (468-469)
1: The new Emperor, Anthemius, was attempting to reconcile the West and
restore some order. The people of the district of Auvergne asked Sidonius
to present a petition to Anthemius while he was in a conciliatory mood,
and Sidonius travelled to Rome to do so.
He arrived in Rome in time for the marriage of Anthemius' daughter and
seized the opportunity to write a poem about the event, and read it
publicly. The acclaim was great and much to Sidonius' joy, he was made
Prefect of the City, only two steps away from the golden prize of the
consulship. He encountered problems, however, since one of the major
responsibilities of the Prefect was to ensure the regular distribution of
grain to the city. Of course, the Prefect had no power to do anything
about the matter, but he was praised when grain was plentiful and
condemned when it was short. With Sardinia, Sicily, and Africa in the
hands of the Vandals, the city's grain supply was no longer as assured as
it once had been. Sidonius spent the entire year in fear that something
would go wrong and that people would boo him in the theater. Even the idea
of such humiliation horrified him, and, by the end of his term, he seems
to have suffered what might best be termed a nervous breakdown. As soon as
he was relieved of office, and before his successor had been installed, he
had gathered his household and fled to his villa at Avitacum. He did not
even wait for the ceremony that raised him and his family to the Patrician
status, a dignity that his service as Prefect of the City had won him.
2: Once again, he retired to Avitacum. This time, he should have
definitely given up any ambitions. He had broken down under the pressure
of office and being placed in the public eye, he was in his late forties,
and he had accomplished enough to bring honor to his family's name and to
be remembered and honored by his descendants.
VI: Roman Bishop (c. 470-474)
1: This was not to be the case, however. Within the year, he was called by
the people of Auvergne to become their bishop. This brings up the problem
of why they would have chosen a retired gentleman with no record of
spirituality and little proof of personal administrative ability. One must
understand that different cities had different needs, and two types of men
during this period were considered as prime candidates for the post of
bishop, a post that was, to all intents and purposes, filled by someone
chosen by members of the congregation. the bishops of the time were more
like elected representatives than any other officials of the West.
a: The superficiality of the public educational system had led the Church
to concentrate Christian education in the monasteries, and a number of
these were springing up in the West. The major one in Lugdunensis was at
Lerins, off the coast of France. where St. Honoratus had established an
institution modeled upon the monasteries and schools of Egypt and Syria.
In such places, which were usually in close and frequent contact with
Eastern centers, real philosophy was being developed and a peculiar
western version of Christianity -- the semi-Pelagian school -- was showing
great promise of revivifying Roman life.
b: On the other hand, an ascetic thinker was not always what a given
church needed. Sometimes it needed a wealthy man to help endow it;
sometimes a cultured man to impress Germanic neighbors; sometimes a man of
good birth to handle its properties honestly; sometimes a man of position
simply as a compromise candidate. Generally speaking, since local needs
were peculiar and paramount, the people of the diocese elected their own
man.
2: It is difficult to ascertain what Sidonius' special qualifications were, but
the call to serve as bishop represented for the nobility of the time a public
charge which, unlike all others, it was impossible simply to refuse. It was
possibly the only really public obligation the senatorial class still
recognized.
3: The position of Sidonius' diocese was perilous. The Visigoths under the
stern and Arian king Euric coveted the territory and threatened it from
the south, while it was cut off from other Roman territories by the
Bretons and Burgundians to the east and north. Many of the officials of
the region were in despair. Roman taxation was heavy, and benefits were
nil. Corruption was endemic, and many residents of the district had come
to the conclusion that they were simply being exploited, which was indeed
the case.
4: Bishop Sidonius and his brother-in-law Ecdicius stiffened the
resistance of the inhabitants of the territory, and Euric finally invaded
and laid siege to the city of Auvergne. Sidonius managed supplies and
morale during this difficult period, while Ecdicius formed a body of
eighteen commandos which made life hell for the besiegers by their sudden
raids and ambushes. Both Sidonius and Ecdicius showed a strength of
character that one would not have believed possible of men of their tender
upbringing and impractical background. Upon arriving at his seat of
Aurillac, already under Visigothic threat and menaced by famine, Sidonius
ordered his flock to scrape the algae and lichens from the walls of the
city to make soup, and to eat the dogs and cats instead of feeding them.
Before the matter was over, he would have his congregation dining on rat
rather than surrender to a bunch of heretical barbarians. For his part,
Ecdicius and his friends are said to have enjoyed slipping out of the city
at night to cut the throats of unwary Germans. Some of these accounts may
be more than a little romanticized, but they illustrate what the people of
the time believed that their urbane and sophisticated leaders were capable
of doing. In any event, the Visigoths, who had terrorized great expanses
of the empire in the West, were unable to dislodge the bishop and his
followers.
In 474 the Visigoths lifted the siege, and a Roman official arrived to
pour praise on the defenders. Arrangements were made for peace talks with
Euric. The bishops of Arles, Marseilles, Riez, and Aix were the Roman
negotiators, and they appeased Euric by giving him Auvergne in exchange
for his promise not to attack their own territories. It was betrayal plain
and simple, but these were perilous times, and self-preservation was the
order of the day. In the year 475, Sidonius ceased to be a Roman citizen
and never seems to have recovered from the blow.
VII: Later Years (475-483)
1: Sidonius was thrown into a Visigothic prison as a recognition of how
steadfast had been his resistance to Euric's designs. His imprisonment
seems to have been light, but of a sort that must have been particularly
painful. He was exiled to a small villa high in the Pyrenees Mountains,
where he was isolated from others of his class and culture. Interestingly
enough, this little district still exists, a patch of land of about a mile
square called Llivia, a piece of Spanish territory completely surrounded
by the lands of France. After a while, he was simply released and allowed
to go his own way. This lack of regard was perhaps only a further
punishment. Sidonius wandered to Bordeaux, where Euric was holding his
court, and being attended by many of the Gallo-Roman nobles who, like
Sidonius, now found themselves subjects of a barbarian king. After a
period of being ignored in Bordeaux, Sidonius finally returned to
Avitacum. His friends apparently feared that the shocks of recent years
might drive him into a permanent state of depression, and suggested that
he occupy his time by editing some of the best of his letters and poems.
He did so, with great pleasure, and it is to this period -- his final
retirement -- that we owe the written works which have kept his name
alive.
He seemed to have paid little attention to events in Italy, where the
barbarian commander of the Roman army, Odoacer, found himself faced with a
steady increase in the price of food, now that the peninsula could no
longer relay on imports from the imperial granaries of Sicily, North
Africa, Spain, and southern France. His troops could no longer feed
themselves on the pay they were given, and salary increases were only
eaten up by inflation. In the year 476, he went to Orestes, regent for the
boy-emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and asked that each of his soldiers be
given a piece of land and a slave family to till it and produce enough
food to maintain the soldier. These lands and slaves were to be donated,
naturally enough, by the nobility who owned most of the land and slaves.
Orestes flatly refused, and Odoacer had him killed. He then brought in
monks to give the eleven-year old Romulus Augustulus the monastic tonsure.
The last of the Roman emperors on the West spent the rest of his life in a
lovely monastery overlooking the Bay of Naples. Odoacer, meanwhile had
packed up the imperial regalia, the diadem, purple cloak, and red shoes
that were the official dress of a Roman emperor. He had sent them to the
emperor of the East with he message that they were no longer needed. There
was no more Roman Empire of the West.
2: Sidonius died of unknown causes on the 21st of August, probably in the
year 483. He was buried in the church in Auvergne, and was immediately
regarded as a saint by popular, if not overly excited, acclaim. The shrine
of St. Apollinaris was venerated until the disorders of 1794, when it was
destroyed by mobs inspired by the more radical of the ideals of the French
Revolution to erase from the face of France all signs of its superstitious
and monarchical past.
VIII: Some General Observations
1: The career of Sidonius suggests a cause for the fall of the Roman
Empire which is not generally emphasized: that the empire trained a noble
class superbly well to compete in an artificial fashion for a series of
empty honors. Their education blunted their creativity, and their energy
was dissipated in meaningless pursuits. The late Roman noble was brave and
honorable; talented and dogged, as Sidonius and Ecdicius proved during the
siege of Auvergne. Such men could have saved the empire if they had not
been so finely trained to waste their time. Sidonius had every
opportunity to see the sham and waste; he lived to learn of the deposition
of the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman Emperor in the West
and yet seemed unable to comprehend that it was all over. His last letter
to his wife closed with the words,
... I pray in our common name that just as we of this generation were
born into prefectorian families, and have been enabled by divine favor to
elevate them to patrician rank, so (our children) in turn may exalt the
patrician to the consular' dignity. V, xvi
Europe in 476
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