01 - Meliboeus esse coepi: A critical reading of Sidonius Epistula VIII.9

Sidonius Ep. 8.9 contains a 59-line poem addressed to his friend Lampridius. In the aftermath of the Visigothic seizure of Sidonius' city of Clermont, Lampridius had found favor with king Euric (r. 466-484), while Sidonius himself was still struggling to recover an estate which had been confiscated by the Goths. Ostensibly composed at Euric's court, where Sidonius had been waiting for months for an audience, the poem has traditionally been construed as panegyric (Hannaghan, 97-8; Mratschek, 316-7; Mathisen, 70; Harries, 240-1; contra Gualandri, 118-29). This paper reexamines the poem in order to show that, far from being laudatory, it expresses the poet's indignant disapproval of the king and his conduct.

The poem begins with Sidonius invoking the imagery of poetic inspiration but denying he can experience it because of the pain he suffes (1-11). Only Lampridius can sing harmonious verses, for he is able to roam like a latter day Tityrus on his own estates, since these have been restored to him (12-16).

The reader is then transported to the world of Euric's court (16-55), where Sidonius has been waiting fruitlessly. But the king finds no time for him, too busy offering responses to the petitions of a subject world (19-20). A catalogue of suppliants follows (21-54): a timid Saxon, his hair shaven into a "mullet"; a conquered old Sygambrian, whose shaven neck grows back in stubble; a Herul with skin so gray he resembles seaweed; a seven-foot-tall Burgundian pleading on bended knee; and an Ostrogoth, whose recent boldness before the Huns is predicated on his fealty to the Visigoths. Turning from this motley parade of sycophants, Sidonius addresses a generic Roman (Romane), echoing Aen. 6.851; cf. Hor. C. 3.6.2). But his Roman no longer ‘spares the subjected and battles down the proud' but is instead reduced to dependency on the Goths. Next Euric is addressed in a plea to enlist the powerful Garonne to defend the feeble Tiber (tenuem... Thybrim) with a ‘transplanted Mars' (inquilinum Martem) - a reference to the Gothic inquilini settled in Aquitaine in 418. Finally, the parade goes off the map with Parthian Arsaces, whose boasts of celestial descent are deflated by his subservience to the Gothic king (45-54). At the back of the grovelers, we return to Sidonius , who laments, "I am wasting my time in worthless delays" (55). He then closes with a return to the opening frame (56-59): Lampridius is once again Tityrus, and Sidonius has become Meliboeus, frustrated and wrongfully deprived of his land.

The paper retells Sidonius' composition to show how a web of allusions to Horace and Vergil are used to signal satirical intent and the author's displeasure with barbarian rule in Gaul. It will tie the story to the much-debated Gothic resettlement of 418, arguing that Ep. 8.9 supports the argument for Gothic land expropriation from Gallic aristocrats (in contrast with Goffart; Halsall). Far from praising Euric, Sidonius subtly skewers him with literary barbs and ethnocentric stereotypes.

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Presenters

Noel Lenski, Yale University

  SCS-68