Four—
De Regno
I—
Summary
In form, the De regno is an address to the emperor Arcadius about the virtues and duties of the ideal king. Much of the speech is concerned with topics far beyond the scope of this book. Lacombrade's annotated translation usefully illustrates some aspects of the speech,[1] though there is still room for a study that will set it firmly in the long history of Greco-Roman kingship literature. Our purpose is more limited: first, to discover when and in what circumstances the speech was composed and delivered; second, to investigate the nature and reference of its famous tirade against barbarians in Roman service; and third, to consider its immediate purpose and approach. But so that readers may be able to form some idea of the contents, character, and, above all, the tone of the speech as a whole, we begin with a full summary.
1 Though I come on embassy, I will not flatter or speak merely
pleasing rhetoric. Rather I will exhort the emperor as a philoso-
2 pher. My speech will be virile; it may sound harsh, but it is in-
tended to do good.
I bring crown gold from Cyrene. My city's ancient glory has
3 fallen and it requires the king's hand to raise it again. The prosper-
ity of his realm, the number of citizens he benefits, directly reflects
[1] Lacombrade 1951b; see too A. Garzya's translation of 1989.
the virtue of the ruler's soul. Therefore this instruction will benefit
the whole empire. Do not balk at reproof, but accept correction.
4 The resources of empire are boundless good fortune; but this
exterior gift can only be maintained by inner virtue. Virtue may
even excite Fortune's reward, as it did for your father. You have in-
5 herited what he labored to win. Now you must labor to preserve it,
with God's help. The good king is always diligent. He bears all his
6 ubjects' dangers for them. Only a tyrant expects his subjects to
7 support his luxury. Both king and tyrant have power, but prudence
is required to use power well; prudence is the most kingly virtue. It
is realized in action, just as an evil and ignorant nature will do less
8 harm if it has fewer resources. You who have so much must use it
well. Thus the king imitates God. The universally recognized es-
9 sence of God is His beneficence; follow this model and you will de-
serve praise.
Wisdom accumulated from antiquity to today establishes this
ideal image of the king: first, his piety is the foundation of every-
10 thing. Next, with God's direction, he must rule himself. Even a
commoner who governs the baser elements of his soul is king over
himself, and godly; but a king is especially godly, for his virtue will
affect whole nations. The calm he achieves in himself will encour-
age his friends, the good, and defeat his wicked enemies with ter-
11 ror. Only he who controls his separate impulses can be constant
and at one with himself.
The good king benefits his friends and benefits from their ad-
12 vice and information, for only God is truly self-sufficient. The ty-
rant's treachery toward his friends, conversely, isolates him. Flat-
tery must not be allowed to beguile. True love of his friends is a
king's virtue and strength.
The second rank of the king's friends are his soldiers.
He should make himself truly their comrade-in-arms by sharing all
their labors. Such open exercise is not really toilsome; moreover, all
13 eyes will turn upon him and the goodwill he wins will fortify him.
As Plato observed, the military is like a dog, who fights loyally for
the master he knows. Addressing soldiers of all ranks by name es-
pecially inspires them. Homer voices this excellent advice through
14 Agamemnon. Finally, war is the king's craft and his soldiers his
tools. He must know them to use them well.
The barbarian pomp that has grown up about the Roman em-
peror is the greatest impediment to this useful knowledge. Your
15 isolation reduces you to a life of sensuous fatuity. Your favorites are
petty clowns who injure you by befogging your mind. You reject
serious thought. But consider the many examples of history: it is
the austere warrior peoples who conquer and maintain dominion.
16 The Roman emperor should uphold the noblest Roman traditions:
not the obscene luxury that fetters you, but the simple manliness
17 that won the empire. Proper aggression once held off the barbar-
ians. Now they terrorize you.
A story from the not very distant past will instruct and inspire
18 you. The emperor Carinus,[2] on campaign against the Parthians,
did nothing to impress their embassy but stayed sitting on the
ground, eating pea soup. He punched his threat against their king
with a joke about his own baldness, invited the ambassadors to join
him at chow, and cut short the audience. The ambassador's report
19 of this remarkable behavior so terrified the enemy that their king
surrendered on the spot. And he was not the last good emperor.
From hatred of tyranny, Romans have avoided the title of
"king" since they expelled the Tarquins; instead you call yourself
20 emperor, which means a military leader with absolute power. Such
an attitude vindicates kingship. A tyrant on the other hand avoids
the public eye to protect his majesty. This ridiculous attitude is con-
tradicted by history, whose great kings were not ashamed of their
21 frugality. Moderation and wisdom bring all things into order. True
kingship abhors arrogance and extravagance.
Return us to kingship that serves its people, for we face great
22 danger. God will aid the good. Again, the king is properly under-
stood to be a military leader who associates freely with his soldiery.
Naturally, his own people best provide this soldiery. Arming
peoples who have been raised under different laws, of whose loy-
alty you lack that guarantee, is like mixing in wolves with your
sheep dogs. By such very wolves are we now threatened, as any-
one can see: outbreaks have already begun. Our present course
is suicidal. The Scythians must be excluded; all Romans must be
23 pressed into service. The military must be kin with them it de-
fends, or it will prey upon them.
The first step will be to ban these skin-wearing foreigners from
24 the Roman civic honors they insult. It is absurd to let the same race
[2] The wrong emperor for the story. Probably Carus (so Gibbon 1909, chap. 12 n. 79), though Probus too has been suggested (by Petau and Tillemont: discussion in Krabinger 1825, 261–62).
govern us as provides our meanest slaves. As they did under Spar-
tacus and Crixus, the slaves will rise up to murder their masters.
We now face an even greater threat, whole armies we have supinely
allowed to penetrate us. The foreign infection must be purged
25 from the army, before it spreads. The Scythians are an effeminate
race the Romans conquered of old; they have come to us as sup-
pliants driven from their own land. Theodosius raised them up,
but now they repay his compassion with insolence. Hordes of for-
26 eigners extort subsidies from us on their example. We must recover
our military strength and drive them forth. The task will not be too
hard for soldier-citizens led and inspired by their own king; and
the king is first a warrior.
His warlike strength will protect his peace. After attending to
27 his soldiers, the king should turn to the rest of his realm. Again,
personal knowledge serves him best, supplemented by embassies.
They give him godlike omniscience, so that his beneficence can
answer all his people's needs. The soldiers must be reminded that
they fight to protect the civilians; their billeting should not op-
press them.
The good king will not exhaust his cities with taxes. He does
not need to wage war constantly, for as I have shown he cannot be
28 overcome. He is not luxurious. He uses prudently what he has,
and can even forgive shortfalls. Greed in a king is even more despi-
cable than it is in a merchant; though there too it subjects the ruling
intelligence to base appetites, and the good king should help his
citizens to drive it forth from themselves by his virtuous example.
29 Virtue should be honored above all things. The king should lead
his people to it. He does so especially in public worship of God,
Who is his own and their King. So he shows them due honor to his
own model, and God Himself must rejoice in it.
Like God, the king should be tireless in beneficence toward his
people. He should make his closest associates echo him in kingly
30 adornment of soul. Governors extend his reach, just as Nature ex-
tends God's benevolence to all; the king too must choose just ad-
ministrators. Virtue, not wealth, should be his criterion. By his
judgment will all be influenced.
31 Finally, I pray that you may embrace Philosophy, for she dwells
with God and will guide you in kingship. Bring to life my image of
32 the ideal king, and I will rejoice whenever I have to speak on behalf of cities.
II—
The Date of the Speech
The fact that it was from 397 to 400, rather than from 399 to 402, that Synesius was in Constantinople has major consequences for the interpretation of De regno —and indeed of the politics of the Eastern court as a whole. The year 399, to which the speech has hitherto generally been assigned, saw the revolt of Tribigild and the fall of Eutropius. With few exceptions,[3] it has always been taken for granted that De regno was not delivered till after Eutropius's fall. If Synesius did not arrive till 399, it was a reasonable assumption that it was the end of the year before he delivered a speech that already betrays his frustration with Arcadius's court. And if that speech embodied what Bury called "the anti-German manifesto of the party of Aurelian,"[4] how could it be otherwise? But now we know that Synesius arrived two years earlier, it is by no means self-evident that he would wait till this late date.
One passage in particular proves that he did not—15A–B, addressed to Arcadius:
Those you associate with at table and elsewhere, those who have easier access to the palace than generals and captains, those you treat as your favorites, men with small heads and petty minds . . . people able to laugh and cry incessantly at the same time, playing the buffoon with gestures, noises, and all means possible, these are the folk who help you to waste your time, to dissipate with an even greater evil the fogginess of mind you have from not living in accordance with nature. The half-witted thoughts and words of these men suit your ears better than a philosophical concept clearly and tersely expressed. And the result of this astonishing seclusion is this: you despise and disdain sensible people, while admitting the senseless and stripping in front of them .[5]
Most of this diatribe against the emperor's unworthy favorites consists of fairly commonplace abuse. But the allegation that he strips in front of senseless people is both extraordinary and precise. What courtiers might watch the emperor undress, and why, when, and where would he do such a thing? There is, as Bames acutely observed,[6] oly one imperial favorite who might without impropriety be present when his mas-
[3] Sievers 1870, 384 ("gewiß bevor Eutropius gestürzt war"); Bury (1923) 1958, 129 (before Eutropius's fall but after the outbreak of Tribigild's revolt).
[4] Bury (1923) 1958, 129. So too Grützmacher 1913, 38; Stein 1959, 235; Coster 1968, 165 at p. 167 calling Synesius "the mouthpiece of Aurelian."
[6] Barnes 1986a, 108.
ter removed his clothes: the grand chamberlain. The chamberlain often acquired wide-ranging power, but as his title indicates, his proper function was to be praepositus sacri cubiculi , in charge of the sacred bedchamber. A poem by Theaetetus Scholasticus on a statue or painting of Justinian's chamberlain Callinicus describes how he
ever lulls the emperor to sleep in his bedchamber,
sowing all gentleness in his ears.
(Anth. Plan . 33.3–4)
Callinicus was a powerful man who played a key role in the succession to Justinian,[7] but even he might be represented in art performing his original humble role in the imperial bedchamber. The difference between the two passages is of course that Theaetetus writes in praise and Synesius in disgust. There can be no question about the object of this disgust, the unworthy chamberlain who is Arcadius's confidant: Eutropius.
It can be added more generally that the principal subject of this section, the seclusion of the emperor, is a motif often associated with the excessive power wielded by eunuchs, who received most of the blame for keeping the emperor shut up in his court, ignorant of what was happening outside.[8] Sensing this suggestion of "eunuch-rule" in the passage but never doubting that it was written after the fall of Eutropius,[9] Albert makes the unhappy and paradoxical suggestion that Synesius is warning Arcadius against certain supporters of Eutropius who were still either in office or powerful at court. In particular, he claims that Hosius the magister officiorum is meant. The alleged allusion to Hosius is entirely unconvincing,[10] and if Hosius was a lowborn creature of Eutropius, as Claudian alleges, he probably fell with his patron. So at least Claudian believed:
dissimulant socii coniuratique recedunt;
procumbit pariter cum duce tota cohors.
(In Eutr . 2pr. 15–16)
His associates deny him, his accomplices abandon him;
the whole band perishes together with their leader.
[7] Averil Cameron 1976, 132.
[8] It is eunuchs "qui soli principes perdunt . . . claudentes principem suum et agentes ante omnia ne quid sciat" (HA Alex. Sev. 66.3); it is because of eunuchs and courtiers that "imperator, qui domi clausus est, vera non novit" (HA Aurel . 43.4). See K. F. Stroheker, "Princeps clausus," Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1968/69 , Antiquitas 4.7 (Bonn 1970), 273–83; Guyot 1980, 160; Albert 1984, 53.
[9] Lacombrade too saw that "une critique violeé semble viser Eutrope" (1951b, 110).
Hosius is not recorded in office after 15 December 398, and although no new incumbent is attested before 404, it is likely that he was replaced at once by the future regent Anthemius.[11] In any case, the motifs of an attack on a eunuch do not fit an attack on a bureaucrat. Even supposing Hosius had survived Eutropius's fall and continued to exercise what was felt to be an unhealthy influence on Arcadius, it was no part of his office to keep him shut up in the palace.
Albert constantly recurs to this thesis that one of Aurelian's chief worries in the early days of his ascendancy was a comeback by Eutropius. But of all imperial favorites, it was the eunuch whose fall was most sudden and final. With no kin and no friends, he had no resources to stage a comeback. Eutropius's one hold on power had been his personal access to Arcadius; once deprived of that, where could he turn?[12] According to Zosimus, it was because of Gaïnas's vindictiveness that he was soon after recalled from exile and executed.[13] There seems no reason to substitute modern conjecture for ancient testimony here, especially since Zosimus's version is indirectly supported by Synesius.
III—
The Antibarbarian Tirade
The most strikingly concrete part of the De regno , and the most important to the historian, is the long section (22A–26C) criticizing the dependence of the Roman state on "Scythians," by which are meant Goths. Unfortunately it has in the past been misinterpreted on every level. The Goths in question have been identified as those led by Tribigild in the rebellion of 399–400; Synesius's tirade against them has been supposed to reflect the policy of the new prefect Aurelian, the leader of the nationalist party, whose avowed aim is believed to have been to rid the Eastern empire of barbarians; many have thought that the entire passage was directed against Gaïnas.[14] All the assumptions embraced by
[11] Though not attested as magister officiorum until January 404 (PLRE II.94), Anthemius clearly exercised considerable influence before winning the prefecture itself in June/July 405, since he was ordinary consul in January 405. To receive such an honor, he must have been holding high office for several years. That of magister officiorum is an obvious vacancy; no other name is attested after Hosius in December 398.
[12] K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (1978), 189f.
[13] See too Eunap. frag. 75.6 Mueller = 67.10 Blockley.
[14] E.g., Albert 1984, 54–63.
these contentions are false. Gaïnas could only have been a target, for example, if Synesius had been writing as late as the fall of Eutropius, at the end of July 399. But the De regno cannot be that late; in fact it cannot be later than the first half of 398. Not only does the passage make perfectly satisfactory sense in terms of the new date, but its details strongly support an earlier date in their own terms.
In the first place, a number of passages make it clear that Synesius was warning of a disaster that at the time of writing was yet to come. It is a "rock of Tantalus suspended over the state by fragile cords" (22B). The Scythians "will fall upon us the first moment they think the attempt will succeed" (22B). The shepherd must not mix wolves with his dogs, "for the moment they notice any weakness or slackness in the dogs, they will attack them, flock, shepherd, and all" (22A). The oblique comment that "only a fool or a prophet" would not be apprehensive of the Gothic danger (22B) means either someone too obtuse to appreciate these threats or someone who has foreknowledge that they will come to nothing. Then there is 24D: "You must remove the foreign body causing the disease before the abscess festering beneath the surface erupts, before the hostility of these dwellers in our land is exposed. For evils may be overcome when they are just beginning (
That makes eight separate warnings looking to barbarian trouble in the future . Goths in Roman territory are an abscess festering beneath the skin; their hostility is not yet exposed; they will attack when they see a weakness, when they think they will succeed. One of two conclusions must follow. Either Synesius really was writing before there was any serious barbarian trouble or he was writing afterwards and pretending to have foreseen the trouble. That would make the entire speech a dramatic fiction and the antibarbarian section a post eventum prophecy. To be sure, Synesius did employ this technique in book 1 of De providentia , where a god lists as the signs that will presage the expulsion of the barbarians portents that had already happened at the time of writing in the middle of A.D. 400. The beauty of post eventum prophecy is precisely the advantage of detail that hindsight affords. Specificity reinforces the thesis. Moreover, De providentia is set in the distant past, purporting to prove that history repeats itself. But there could be little point in pretending that Synesius had delivered De regno a mere twelve months earlier, especially since any contemporary would see through the pretence. Synesius's antibarbarian invective is in any case so general that he could
not have claimed to foresee anything so precise as Tribigild's revolt and Gaïnas's disloyalty. Indeed, if anything, his warnings suggest a revolt by Alaric that never happened. This very inconclusiveness argues against the hypothesis of retrospective exploitation of knowledge of 400.
Synesius wrote at a time when he felt that his contemporaries were underestimating the dangers of current policies simply because no serious consequences had yet been identified. He could not possibly have taken this tone or stance as late as the autumn of 399, when Tribigild's rebellion was six months old and Gaïnas's collusion plain to all. As for the prophecy that slaves would join any barbarian rebellion (24C), though hindsight reminds us that slaves did join Tribigild's rebellion in Phrygia,[15] Synesius does not describe anything so distant. He is in fact concerned with the danger literally at his own doorstep. As he had said only a page earlier, "every house, however humble, has a Scythian slave. The butler, the cook, the water-carrier, all are Scythians, and the servants who carry through the streets on their shoulders the litters on which their masters sit, these are all Scythians" (23D). Synesius even had a Scythian slave of his own.[16] His fear was that even though the expected Gothic rebellion might take place in the provinces, the slaves of Constantinople would rise up and join. This did not happen in 400.
After the reference to the rock of Tantalus, Synesius adds: "The first skirmishes are already taking place, and many parts of the empire are aflame." There has long been general agreement that he refers here to the outbreak of Tribigild's revolt. But
[15] Zos. 5.13.4; cf. Claud. In Eutr . 2.222, "bella dabunt socios." Claudian uses the future tense because he is describing in retrospect advice given to Tribigild before the revolt.
[16] Calv. Enc . 77B.
cases in history of warning about the stable door after the horse has bolted.
In the second place, as Peter Heather has recently shown in an important paper,[17] Synesius's detailed account of the history of the Goths (25A–D) fits Alaric in Illyricum, not Tribigild in Phrygia. For Synesius, the Goths are a people "always fleeing their own country," driven out by one invader after another. Finally they came as suppliants to the Romans (the treaty of 376), but then became insolent (the battle of Adrianople in 378), and paid the penalty to Theodosius (various engagements between 379 and 381). Theodosius then took pity on them, gave them offices (i.e., Roman commands) and even Roman land (the treaty of 382). Unfortunately, "the barbarian does not know the meaning of goodness: from then right up to the present moment," Synesius remarks, "they have treated us with derision."
This is a fairly accurate summary of the history of the Tervingi, the main body of Visigothic immigrants, from 376 to the 390s.[18] Those who were given Roman commands included Modares, Munderic, Fravitta, Gaïnas, and probably Tribigild.[19] Most conspicuous among those who remained with the federates in the lands granted by the treaty of 382 and who according to Synesius "treated us with derision" was the young chieftain Alaric. Alaric led a rebellion in 391, and though he served under Theodosius in the campaign against Eugenius in 394, he rebelled again almost immediately. In 395 he briefly laid siege to Constantinople and left only after receiving from Rufinus some sort of promise of high command. It was never fulfilled. From 395 to 397 Alaric devastated the Balkans continuously until Eutropius finally saved the situation by appointing him magister militum per Illyricum .[20]
Alaric's repeated treachery over many years matches Synesius's description perfectly. But it does not at all match the Greuthungi led to rebellion by Tribigild in 399.[21] The Greuthungi crossed the Danube in 386 under their chief Odothaeus, not as suppliants but as invaders.[22] They
[17] Heather 1988, 152–72.
[18] The fullest recent narrative account is E. Demougeot, La formation de lEurope[*] et les invasions barbares , vol. 2.1 (Paris 1979), 134–69.
[19] Roman commands—that is to say, regular commands in the Roman army as opposed to irregular service as federates, like Alaric. See E. A. Thompson, Romans and Barbarians (1982), 41–42.
[20] Demandt 1970, 730.
[21] As Albert seems to be uncomfortably aware. He acknowledges that Synesius's account fits "vor allem der terwingischen Goten," but argues that "in diese kompromittierende Nachbarschaft wird also Gaïnas gesetzt, ungeachtet der Differenzen, die ihn und seine Gefolgsleute von Alarich und seinem Volk trennten, und ohne auf den völlig unterschiedlichen Lebensweg des Gaïnas einzugehen" (1984, 59).
[22] For the sources, Seeck 1913, 208 and 519; Paschoud 1979, 426–29.
were defeated by Theodosius's general Promotus and settled en bloc in Phrygia.[23] Once there they are not known to have caused any trouble till 399.
These Greuthungi, being in effect prisoners of war, and so understandably called captivi by Claudian (In Eutr . 2.582), will not have been given the favorable terms accorded to the Tervingi. Compare here another passage of De regno: "Only a foolhardy man or a prophet would look without fear on this mass of differently bred youth living according to their customs and practicing the art of war in this country" (22A). In the preceding sentence Synesius had warned against giving arms to those "not born and brought up under Roman law." Once again, the remark suits the Tervingi in Illyricum,[24] not the Greuthungi in Phrygia; for the Tervingi were indeed allowed to live in Roman territory under their own customs and laws. Although they were liable to military service if the emperor should call on them, they served in their own units under their own tribal commanders.[25] The old tribal organization and loyalties therefore remained intact. It was not Synesius alone who found this the most disturbing aspect of the Gothic settlement in the Balkans.[26]
But Odothaeus's Greuthungi will have been treated like other dediticii ,[27] segregated into a number of small units settled in different places precisely so as to break up old tribal organization and loyalties as far as possible. They were then known (in Gaul at least) as laeti and were expected to furnish recruits.[28] That is to say, they would normally serve in regular army units under Roman discipline and officers. Whereas the optimates at any rate among the Tervingi were presumably given land in freehold, the Greuthungi will have become coloni , tenants who at this date were little more than serfs.[29] Claudian draws precisely this distinction between them:
concessoque cupit vixisse colonus
quam dominus rapto.
(In Eutr . 2.205–6)
[23] Zos. 4.35, 4.38, 5.13; Claud. In Eutr . 2.174f.; Seeck 1913, 306–7; so already Güldenpenning 1885, 100.
[24] So, for example, Jones 1964a, 157 n. 46.
[25] On the terms of the treaty of 382 see Lippold 1980, 31–32, with Demougeot 1974, 143–60.
[26] Amm. Marc. 31.16.8; cf. Straub 1943, 255f.; Pavan 1964, 41f.
[27] The technical term for those who surrendered unconditionally to Rome and accepted whatever terms were imposed: A. Momigliano, Ricerche sullorganizzazione[*] della Giudea sotto il dominio romano (1934), 2–5; Jones (1960) 1968, 130f.
[28] Laeti: Jones 1964a, 620; Hoffmann 1969, 139 and passim (see the index in Hoffman 1970, 252); Liebeschuetz 1990, 12–13, 100–101. The name laeti is not found in the East.
[29] G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca, N.Y. 1981), 158–60, 247, 249–53.
He is happy to live as a tenant on sufferance
rather than a master on plunder.
According to Zosimus (5.13.2), Tribigild was the commander "of the barbarian, not the Roman troops in Phrygia." This has often been taken to imply that he was the leader of a band of federates, and it may well be what Zosimus himself thought. For example, at 5.16.1 he says Tribigild marched into Pamphylia "with his barbarians." But he also repeatedly refers to Gaïnas and "his barbarians." Zosimus may have believed that both, like Alaric, led barbarian hordes. But he was certainly wrong about Gaïnas, who led a regular field army, whatever its ethnic composition.
According to Philostorgius, Tribigild had the rank of comes , and his troops were stationed at Nacoleia.[30] F. Paschoud doubted whether "this Gothic federate" really held a Roman rank,[31] but Socrates and Sozomen claim that Tribigild was a kinsman of Gaïnas.[32] There seems no obvious reason why this detail should have been invented: the probability is that Tribigild was not a Greuthung at all,[33] but a Tervingian who had enlisted in the Roman army with Gaïnas and Fravitta long ago under Theodosius.[34] Indeed this would explain why he was so disgruntled and why he made common cause with Gaïnas. Both were men who after twenty years' loyal service had gradually risen through the ranks to the modest rank of comes . Alaric won himself a mastership of the soldiers at one stroke simply by burning and looting.
One possibility is that Tribigild was a regular officer in command of barbarian federates. This is the post Gaïnas had held on Theodosius's western expedition of 394, likewise with the rank of comes .[35] But federates were only enlisted for the duration of specific campaigns and then dismissed.[36] According to Socrates, Tribigild was "tribune of the troops
[30] HE 11.8, p. 138.17 Bidez-Winkelmann.
[31] Paschoud 1986, 126.
[32] Socr. HE 6.6; Soz. HE 8.4.2.
[33] As often assumed, and explicitly stated in PLRE II.1125.
[34] If Tribigild was related to Gaïnas by marriage, the possibility that he was a Greuthung would be left open. But it is unlikely that an ambitious man would have contracted so disadvantageous a match—or one outside his tribe.
[35] Zos. 4.57.2, 4.58.2; cf. Demandt 1970, 733.
[36] Indeed this is doubtless the cause of much of what our sources dismiss as barbarian treachery. When federates were dismissed their subsidies were discontinued. Of course, the Romans had always used barbarian federates this way, paying them ad hoc . When such federates returned to their usual way of life beyond the frontiers, that caused no problems. The problems started when discarded federates were forced to turn to a life of plunder within the frontiers. The Germans who served Rome so loyally during most of the fourth century were trained to follow experienced officers and received pay, equipment, and bonuses until they retired with a pension. Before we condemn Gothic federates too readily for their treachery, we should take into account the fact that they enjoyed none of these advantages.
stationed in Phrygia."[37] "Tribune" was the normal title for commanders of regular units,[38] and the phrase as a whole implies that both Tribigild and his unit were regular army. Tribunes were often given the rank of comes[39] An unusually precise passage of Claudian corroborates this inference:
legio pridem Romana Gruthungi,
iura quibus victis dedimus, quibus arva domusque
praebuimus.
(In Eutr. 2.576–78 )
The Greuthungi were once a Roman legion;
we conquered them and gave them laws, we let them have
fields and homes.
If the Greuthungi were a Roman legion that obeyed Roman laws before their rebellion, they cannot have been federates.[40] It was common for even elite units to be recruited from laeti and barbarians.[41] A regular military base for elite Roman units in the neighborhood of Nacoleia happens to be well documented, from at any rate the mid-fourth century down to the reign of Justinian.[42] It was no doubt to supply recruits for these units that Theodosius had settled the defeated Greuthungi there in 386.
The fact that it was in 399 that they revolted suggests a connection with the expedition against the Huns the year before. We learn from Claudian that Eutropius's army consisted largely of Goths,[43] among them presumably the Greuthungi from Nacoleia, and perhaps a contingent of Alaric's Tervingi as well. According to Zosimus (5.15.3), Tribigild had only just arrived from Constantinople when the revolt began, which accords well enough with Claudian's account of his return from
[38] Jones 1964a, 372, with note 16.
[39] Jones 1964a, 372.
[40] In Eutr . 2.176 describes Tribigild more vaguely as "Geticae dux improbus alae." But even here ala may be used in its technical sense of a cavalry unit (G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army, 3d ed. [1985], 145–48); Tribigild certainly had cavalry (Zos. 5.15.5, 5.16.3).
[41] Jones 1964a, 621.
[42] See particularly the epitaph of a ducenarius in the crack regiment of the Cornuti seniores from Nacoleia dated to 356, published with valuable commentary by Thomas Drew-Bear, HSCP 81 (1977): 257–74. A senator is attested at the nearby city of Dorylaion (Drew-Bear, Glotta 50 [1972]: 220), as also is the schola gentilium iuniorum (Drew-Bear and W. Eck, Chiron 6 [1976]: 305–7). See also Theophanes, p. 236.16f. In 562 Justinian transferred units of the scholae stationed in various bases in Asia Minor (including Dorylaion) to Thrace.
[43] "adloquiturque Getas," In Eutr . 1.242; Seeck 1913, 564; Demougeot 1951, 224; Albert 1979, 630.
court vacuus donis , indignant at the haughty eunuch's insults.[44] He had evidently been trying to get better terms of some sort.
Though he shares the affectation common at the period of designating all Goths as "Scythians,"[45] it is difficult to believe that Synesius was unaware of the different origin, location, treatment, and behavior of Alaric's Goths and Tribigild's Goths. Claudian, though living in the West since 395, draws a sharp distinction between the two groups in book 2 of his In Eutropium (174–229), written at Milan late in 399. Bellona comes upon Tribigild trudging home with empty hands from the meeting with Eutropius. Taking on the form of his wife, she urges him to imitate the boldness of Alaric's Goths, who have conquered Greece: "The Greuthungians will make good farmers. . . . Happy those other women whose glory is seen in the towns their husbands have conquered . . . whose servants are fair captives of Argos or Thessaly." She reproaches him for timidly sticking to treaties while "the man who lately ravaged Achaea and devastated defenseless Epirus is master of Illyricum; he now enters as a friend within the walls that he once besieged, and administers justice to those whose wives he has raped and whose children he has murdered." Here there is an interesting parallel with Synesius. At De regno 23C he draws a vivid picture of a skin-clad warrior briefly changing into a toga and sitting in the senate, right at the front by the consul.[46] To have enjoyed the precedence (
Synesius's arrogant Goth who mocks the toga must be either Alaric or Gaïnas. It was Gaïnas, according to Albert,[49] because Alaric was not a central figure in the crisis of 399–400. Again, this argument relies solely on the presupposition of a later date for the speech. It was not till the
[44] In Eutr . 2.178, 192.
[45] See, for example, the indexes to Julian and Themistius. Huns, on the other hand, usually appear as "Massagetae" (see Maenchen-Helfen 1973, 3–7).
[46] The passage is quoted in full above.
[47] PLRE II.1013–14; Demand 1970, 728.
[48] PLRE 1.372 mistakenly allows the possibility that Fravitta was MVM as early as 395; see rather Demandt 1970, 728.
[49] Albert 1984, 56.
outbreak of Tribigild's rebellion in the spring of 399 that Gaïnas was even promoted to the rank of MVM,[50] and not till late summer that any suspicion of his own disloyalty can have arisen. Our sources, writing after the event, not unnaturally assumed that he was in league with Tribigild from the start,[51] but obviously no one can have suspected this at the time or he would never have been appointed to the command against Tribigild in the first place. Since Synesius certainly wrote well before Eutropius's fall in August 399, this consideration seems to rule out Gaïnas too. For Albert, the Goth had to be Gaïnas going to and fro between Phrygia and Constantinople in the summer of 399, not Alaric far away in Illyricum. But Gaïnas was not some skin-clad ruffian out of place in the big city. Even the hostile Zosimus refers to Gaïnas as one of the senators distressed at Eutropius's maladministration.[52] As a Roman officer of some twenty years' standing, he must have spoken fluent Latin, and perhaps Greek too; at any rate, the Ancyrene monk Nilus addressed him a series of letters in Greek.[53] He lived in a grand palace in Constantinople.[54] We can hardly doubt that he normally wore Roman dress. But Alaric was an authentic prince of the Gothic royal house. As for the likelihood of his paying visits to Constantinople, we may compare Claudian's picture, written in the summer of 399, of Alaric striding impudently into cities he had once besieged. It is immaterial whether or not Alaric really did pay official visits as MVM either to Constantinople or to cities he had once besieged. The point is that the Romans would do nothing to stop this arrogance if he wanted to. Both Synesius and Claudian use their images to reinforce the sense of affront and shock: it was a disgrace that a barbarian chieftain with Roman blood on his hands should be honorably received as a Roman magistrate.
Since the Gothic villain of De providentia is so clearly Gaïnas, it might be thought implausible to identify the Gothic villain of De regno differently. Synesius did much to confuse the issue by reusing several points from the antibarbarian tirade of De regno in the old beggarwoman's outburst against Gaïnas's Goths in De providentia (118A–B). Nevertheless,
[50] See the full discussion by Demandt 1970, 733–36.
[51] So Synesius De prov . 108C; Zos. 5.13.2, 5.14.3 and 5: see chapter 6, section II for full discussion.
[53] Ep . 1.70, 79, 114–16, 205–6, 286, in PG 79; it must be added that there are some doubts about the authenticity of this correspondence, though the letters to Gaïnas are among the least suspicious items (Cameron 1976b, 187).
[54] T. Preger, ed., Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum (Leipzig 1907), 2:252.5.
the lapse of time and the rapid succession of events between the two works must not be overlooked. In 398, when Synesius composed De regno , there cannot have seemed any reason to single out one small settlement of Greuthungi in Phrygia; nor in fact did Synesius do so. Gaïnas was still merely an unemployed count cooling his heels at court. No one could have identified him as a future public enemy. When he had been promoted against Tribigild and used his position to topple two successive ministries, however, all the stakes were changed. In the heat of crisis, persuasion and the careful marshaling of facts were no longer needed.[55] But some two years earlier, it was Alaric who must have seemed the real danger, the man who had rebelled so often in the past. There was no telling how long he would honor the agreement recently concluded with Eutropius. Its terms were a fresh, humiliating insult for the Romans, on top of the threat Alaric continued to represent in the Balkans. How much longer would he be satisfied with the plunder of Greece? How much more Roman gold would it take to keep him away from Constantinople?
Stilicho had twice attempted a military solution, in 395 and 396. On both occasions he failed.[56] Since he did fail, his propagandist Claudian is understandably vague about both campaigns, and Zosimus, here as elsewhere, is curiously ill informed about Alaric between 394 and 402. Stilicho's expedition of 396 put Eutropius on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand his position would be threatened if Stilicho defeated Alaric when he had failed; yet at the same time he could not allow Alaric's depredations to continue indefinitely. At some point he declared Stilicho a public enemy; whether before or after his ignominious withdrawal is unfortunately uncertain.[57] If Stilicho had failed twice, how could Eutropius expect one of his own armies to face Alaric?
In the modern accounts that see everything in terms of a struggle for power between pro- and antibarbarian parties, Eutropius has always been classified as pro-barbarian.[58] Not by his choice. In fact, he kept Alaric waiting nearly three years for the command he had perhaps been promised by Rufinus. The cost to the Balkans was terrible. Gaïnas too seems to have been given no command between Rufinus's murder in November 395 and his appointment against Tribigild. And Claudian depicts Tribigild leaving an audience with Eutropius empty-handed:
[55] For the charge that Gaïnas was being ungrateful, compare Theod. HE 5.32.
[56] Cameron 1970a, 156–88.
[57] Paschoud 1986, 113–15. He would have had a better pretext afterward, if he had accused Stilicho of collusion; but there is no way of deciding. For the mystery about Stilicho's failure, see Cameron 1970a, 168–76.
[58] So first Güldenpenning 1885, 93.
viso tum forte redibat
Eutropio vacuus donis.
(In Eutr. 2.177–78)
The poem goes on to blame Tribigild's rebellion on Eutropius's folly and mismanagement. Indeed, it can hardly be doubted that it was precisely because he did not treat Gaïnas and Tribigild as he had treated Alaric that they resorted to Alaric's tactics. But by appointing Alaric to the Illyrican command he laid himself wide open to the charge of philobarbarism at its most shameful.
Much of the advice Synesius offers in De regno is conventional: Arcadius cannot be the master of men until he is master of himself. Much is also utopian: the good king will not need to impose high taxes to pay an army because he will not make enemies (27D)! The two points that stand out for their emphasis and actuality are the attack on Eutropius and the attack on barbarians. The two themes must be connected. Synesius is attacking Eutropius for his barbarian policy.
Synesius draws the connection with surprising delicacy, however—a point to whose implications we shall be returning. The passage that identifies Eutropius most clearly does so to illustrate how far Arcadius goes in preferring a crew of asinine boobs to "sensible men" who can "express a philosophical concept clearly and tersely" (15A–B). In itself the accusation is fairly vague and exclusively moral. But as Synesius repeatedly emphasizes, philosophy's demands on Arcadius are the whole substance of his speech. He equates listening to his speech with "allowing philosophy to dwell with you" in the proem (1B), and he closes with the thought that in the single word philosophy he has summed up all his thoughts on kingship (32A). He even speaks of philosophy as a separate entity that controls the speech (4D, 26A, 32B–C). Synesius intends the moral argument to carry weight in its own right. It is part of the same radical approach that makes piety the "pedestal" for Synesius's "statue" of the ideal king (9D). But the speech as a whole amounts to practical, if unrealistic, advice on how Arcadius is to live up to his role as philosophy requires him to:
philosophy demanded of the king that he should often mix with the military and not keep to his palace, for it taught us that goodwill toward him, his only real safeguard, was fortified by this daily intercourse. This once admitted, in the company of what race of soldiers should a philosopher devoted to his king desire that he should train his body and dwell in the camps?
This passage (21C–D) introduces the whole antibarbarian tirade. Synesius does not try to claim that Eutropius directly prevents Arcadius
from acting as a warrior-king, personally involved with a native army whose loyalty blood and nurture alike guarantee,[59] but that the isolation and irresponsibility eunuch-rule fosters prevent him from the proper understanding of his role, which in turn requires him to act. Again, it is a radical, intellectual approach; but the antibarbarian tirade works out its practical consequences: policies Arcadius himself is not taking the trouble to direct have brought the empire into danger.
Synesius has come in for a good deal of admiration over the years for his sagacity in diagnosing in the East a key factor in the fall of the West: Lacombrade comments: "Aussi nest-il[*] pas inutile, pour apprécier à sa juste valeur la clairvoyance politique de Synésios et des milieux byzantins cultivés de cette fin du IVe siècle, de lui opposer laveuglement[*] fatal dont la Rome occidentale est victime à la même date."[60] Elsewhere Lacombrade writes of "lhonnete[*] clairvoyance dun[*] patriote vigilant," going so far as to compare De regno to Demosthenes' First Philippic .[61] Does Synesius really deserve such credit? Not, at any rate, on the traditional date and interpretation of De regno . If writing in the autumn of 399, he was forecasting that the Goths would attack when they had already attacked. And what was his solution? "Let them be excluded from magistracies and deprived of the privilege of sitting in the senate" (23B); and let us raise a native army with the spirit to drive them out or make them till the soil (26B).[62] The bland recommendation to raise a national army would have raised a smile in any Roman court: emperors had been trying and failing to raise a national army for centuries.
How could Synesius have made such feeble and irrelevant recommendations as late as the autumn of 399? At that moment all three Eastern magistri militum were Goths: Alaric, of proven disloyalty; Gaïnas, suspected of collusion with the rebellious Tribigild; and Fravitta, in command of all remaining Eastern troops, on whom everything depended. It was the most serious crisis that had faced the Eastern court since its establishment at Constantinople. This was not the moment to debate
[59] One may contrast the panegyrical approach Claudian applies to Honorius at III Cons. Hon. 73–87, where although too young to be allowed to do it, he desires to march out with his father against Arbogast and Eugenius; or Synesius to Osiris at De providentia 91D–92A: "While still a youth Osiris shared in the generalship with the men appointed to that office: the law did not permit arms to someone so young, but he ruled their will as if he were their mind, and used the generals as his hands."
[60] Lacombrade 1951b, 26.
[61] Lacombrade 1951b, 86; Cracco Ruggini (1972, 285) also writes of Synesius's "courageous" speech—or rather speeches, since she apparently thought that he delivered De providentia , as well as De regno , before Arcadius.
long-term options like new methods of recruitment or turning the Goths into farmers. But if he was writing in 398, these recommendations, if still utopian,[63] were at any rate not superfluous. Alaric was then a problem for the future.
Not only is it intrinsically implausible to identify the objects of Synesius's antibarbarian tirade as the revolt of Tribigild and treachery of Gaïnas, but its main section clearly alludes to Eutropius's agreement with Alaric in 396 or 397.[64] To resentment at this humiliating treaty would have been added apprehension at the large number of Goths present in Eutropius's expeditionary force against the Huns in early 398. As for the "first skirmishes" (
IV—
Aurelian and the Barbarians
On the old chronology, which put De regno in 399, it was generally assumed that the antibarbarian tirade reflected the policy of the new praetorian prefect Aurelian. But if De regno was written at least a year before Aurelian reached the prefecture, under the ascendancy of Eutropius, the antibarbarian sections cannot represent what Stein called "le programme du nouveau gouvernement."[65] Do they even represent the views of "Aurelian and his party"? Curiously enough, despite his advocacy of the earlier date, even Barnes continued to cling to this unnecessary and now implausible assumption.[66]
To be sure, De providentia is full of similar antibarbarian sentiments, associated in a very general way with the figure of Osiris. And since Osiris stands for Aurelian in Synesius's allegory, it has come to be taken for
[63] There is also a distinctly racist element in Synesius's thought. At 22B he compares the empire to a human body "in which alien elements are incapable of mingling in a healthy state of harmony." Not only are Goths servile by nature: they are tainted, as Herodotus pointed out "and as we see ourselves," by a "feminine malady" (Hdt. 1.105.4; a parallel reference in the Hippocratic corpus, Aër . 22, makes clear that the malady is impotence; see further G. E. R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience [Cambridge 1979], 31). It is a curious coincidence that Charles Kingsley, in the preface to his Hypatia (1853), describes the Goths as "untainted by hereditary effeminacy"!
[64] This treaty must follow the failure of Stilicho's second campaign against Alaric in the spring of 396 and precede Eutropius's expedition against the Huns in the spring of 398 (Albert 1979, 630). Eutropius would hardly have left Constantinople if he had not secured the situation in Illyricum.
[65] Stein 1959, 235.
[66] Barnes 1986a, 108.
granted (a ) that this was indeed the policy of Aurelian and (b ) that in De regno Synesius was articulating these policies on Aurelian's behalf.
But if Synesius were really Aurelian's propagandist, why present Aurelian's program as if it were his own? To make the obvious comparison, we are never in any doubt whose program Claudian is articulating. But not only is there no reference, direct or indirect, to Aurelian throughout De regno , there is no suggestion that there is even one sane counsel at court. Synesius is a voice in the wilderness. Throughout the speech he ostentatiously strikes the pose of the philosopher, the only man who has the courage to say what needs to be said ("only listen to me"). But if he really hoped that his speech would influence people, why so emphasize his isolation? If he was in fact merely acting as a "mouthpiece" (C. H. Coster) for the views of a rich and powerful senator with a party behind him, why so carefully conceal the fact? If such views were dangerous, Aurelian could surely have expressed them himself with less risk than Synesius.
The truth is that the modern picture of Aurelian as a fanatical barbarophobe rests entirely on a misinterpretation of De providentia and a misreading of De regno in the light of this misinterpretation. Since the antibarbarian sentiments of De providentia appear to be associated with its hero, Osiris/Aurelian, it has been assumed that when we encounter similar antibarbarian sentiments elsewhere in Synesius, we may see Aurelian there too.
Yet the anti-Germanism of De providentia is much more muted and its association with Osiris/Aurelian much more oblique than has so far been appreciated.[67] At no point in the work is Osiris himself directly credited with any antibarbarian sentiments. In the early chapters of book 1 Synesius in his own person pours scorn on the foreigners who support Osiris's wicked brother Typhos, men rightly deprived of a vote. But Osiris himself neither says nor does anything about them. In the second half of book 1 Typhos's wife, plotting a coup for her husband with the aid of these foreigners, tells their general's wife that Osiris is planning to depose him and rid the kingdom of foreign mercenaries.
Now this is essentially the advice Synesius had given in De regno , and to that extent we may be sure that he himself considered it both wise and honorable. Yet the plans outlined by Typhos's wife in De providentia are certainly not presented as wise and honorable. "Osiris has decided," she claims (108C), "to bring [your husband] back with all the compulsion and trickery he can manage. As soon as he is away from his troops,
[67] Though see the brief but sensible remarks of Liebeschuetz (1983, 42–43).
he will take away his command and cruelly destroy him and you and your children. These fine children, these beautiful babies, he has decided to cut their throats before they grow up!" The general's wife gullibly swallows these allegations, which, as here presented, we are manifestly not meant to consider genuine plans of the upright and plain-dealing Osiris.
Typhos's wife goes on to "add horror after horror every day, announcing supposed secret plans against them: the Scythian race was to be completely eliminated from the country and Osiris was daily working toward this end, infiltrating the military rolls [i.e., with nonbarbarians] and making other provisions, so that the Egyptians might be independent. The barbarians they would either kill or drive out" (108D). From what we have been previously told of Osiris's conduct and policies as king, these are clearly meant to be understood as calumnies, the only way resentment could be created against a virtuous ruler.
The gods warn Osiris that his brother will bring destruction on the state, but he ignores their advice and "weakly" (their word, 102D) allows Typhos to remain. It is because of this weakness that Typhos is able to stage the coup that deposes Osiris and hand the state over to the barbarians. In book 2 Osiris returns just as Typhos is about to be condemned to death for his treachery. True to character, he "interceded with an enraged populace" and spares Typhos a second time, acting "with more clemency than justice" (124A). As a result, Typhos remains in power (122A–B).
Not only is Osiris not depicted by Synesius in the colors of the ruthless and energetic barbarophobe Aurelian of modern textbooks, but Synesius clearly implies that but for Osiris's weakness, the barbarian coup would never have happened. He takes every opportunity to praise Osiris's virtue and culture; the economy flourished under his rule, education prospered, all were happy, everyone sounded his praises. Synesius does his best to palliate his hero's one weakness by representing it as clemency and to minimize barbarian responsibility for the coup by representing them as the reluctant tools of Typhos's ambition. Was it not praiseworthy and noble in a man to see only the best in his brother?
Nonetheless, the fact is that Synesius portrays Osiris as failing to foresee or forestall the uprising. And while his fictionalized version neatly transfers the responsibility to Typhos's deceit, in real life innocence and ignorance are no excuse. So far from Osiris putting into effect the policies advocated in De regno , the truth is that De providentia provides a casebook demonstration of the disasters that happened when they were not followed.
The antibarbarian sentiments in both De regno and De providentia are Synesius's own. He proclaimed them loud and clear in his own person in De regno . But in De providentia they are more muffled because they do not really fit the story he is trying to tell. The purpose of this curious work was to present an apologetic version of Gaïnas's coup, a version that would minimize the responsibility of both Aurelian (now Synesius's patron) and Gaïnas (at the time of writing still master of Constantinople and so best not offended).[68] This is why the lion's share of the blame is laid on a character nowhere so much as mentioned in our other sources for these events, Osiris/Aurelian's brother, Typhos/Caesarius.
Modern accounts, claiming to follow Synesius, tell of a bitter political struggle between Aurelian and Caesarius. Aurelian was the spokesman for the nationalists, the antibarbarians; while Caesarius was the leader of the Theodosian party, the pro-barbarians. But this picture of a dramatic struggle between pro- and antibarbarian factions is entirely imaginary. Puzzlement has sometimes been expressed that no one but Synesius so much as mentions it. The truth is that Synesius does not mention it either.
For Synesius the struggle between Typhos and Osiris is purely personal. In the election described in 1.5–7 Osiris wins easily because everyone loves and votes for him. Typhos loses because the only people who support him are the "senseless and numerous category of swineherds and foreigners" who do not have a vote (94A–B). They like Typhos because they are "senseless," and we are never specifically told that Typhos liked them. As for the rebellion, it is made clear that Typhos only turned to the barbarians because he, or rather his wife, could think of no other way to get rid of Osiris. In return for their support he offers to allow them to sack Thebes (i.e., Constantinople), an offer they themselves nobly turn down (110C)! In short, the rivalry between Typhos and Osiris is both personal and one-sided. Osiris is not represented as harboring a single hostile thought about barbarians and is gentle and forgiving toward his brother.[69] Typhos is motivated throughout by hatred and envy of his brother and turns to the barbarians only as a last resort. If Caesarius and Aurelian had been the leaders of pro- and antibarbarian parties respectively, why did Synesius not exploit this in De providentia ?
It follows that there is no reason for identifying the antibarbarian sentiments of De regno as Aurelianic propaganda. In fact Synesius as
[68] For more detail, see below, p. 320.
[69] The hostile plans attributed to him in the speech of Typhos's wife (108C–110A) are clearly represented as calumnies: see pp. 122–23 above.
good as says so himself. The rustic philosopher is represented as "rejecting the idea of addressing Osiris on the subject of himself, because he considered words an unequal recompense for deeds and was ashamed lest he acquire a reputation for flattery because of the rusticity of his background" (113C). It was not till after Osiris's exile that he "began to publish. . . . In speech and in writing he called down the direst curses on Typhos. . . . Osiris was everywhere in his discourse" (113D). The second part of this claim undoubtedly corresponds to Synesius's activity in 400: De providentia , praising Aurelian and attacking his brother, was not written till after Aurelian's exile.
This being so, there seems no reason to doubt that the first part of the claim also corresponds to real life; namely that Synesius did not publish anything about Aurelian before his exile. But this is a curious claim to make. Boldly denouncing "Typhos" obviously reflected well on Synesius. But why insist that he had not published anything about Aurelian? The motive given—reluctance to appear a flatterer—is hardly satisfactory. What of the gross flattery in De providentia ? It looks as if Synesius is obliquely defending himself against the charge of not rallying to Aurelian's support till it was too late. The more so in view of the very precise (and anachronistic) claim that the stranger had indeed written both verse and prose on Osiris before the exile but had not published it (
This would explain why the speech nowhere even hints at either of the real-life counterparts of Typhos and Osiris. If De regno had been written as usually supposed, after Eutropius's fall but before Aurelian's exile, we should expect to find (a ) praise of Aurelian and (b ) warning against Caesarius. But the criticism of Arcadius's ministers, forthright though it is, focuses on their buffoonery, not the wickedness of a Typhos. This fits Eutropius, with his servile origins, despised status, and low tastes, but not Caesarius as Synesius chose to portray him in De providentia . It is relevant to observe that Claudian used the same sort of weapons against Eutropius: he is clown, pander, pervert, an object of disgust and shame rather than fear. Chrysostom too dwelled on Eutropius's gluttony, drinking parties, and love of the games.[70] Rufinus, in sharp contrast, Claudian depicted (like Typhos) as the personification of
[70] PG 52.391–92.
evil, a nursling of the Furies, sent to earth to destroy the felicity bequeathed to mankind by Theodosius. To be sure, Synesius does in passing accuse Typhos of gluttony and orgies, but from start to finish he is presented (like Rufinus) as the ally of evil demons.
So De regno cannot be one of the invectives on Typhos or panegyrics on Osiris mentioned in De providentia . It was written earlier, in a different political situation. Nor is there any reason for postponing the speech, with Barnes, till Synesius had won Aurelian's favor. We have already seen that there is nothing in the antibarbarian tirade that points to Aurelian, and (once more) the lack of any suggestion that Arcadius had at least one prudent counselor strongly suggests that as yet Synesius owed nothing to Aurelian.
Barnes further suggests that Synesius may have been promised his tax concessions in advance of Aurelian's elevation to the prefecture in recompense for his services as propagandist. But if Synesius had really established such a connection as early as 398, why did he not leave for Cyrene the moment Aurelian was elevated to the prefecture? Aurelian is attested in office by 27 August 399,[71] in comfortable time for Synesius to get a boat from the Constantinople he had grown to detest before the closure of the seas. But instead he stayed another whole year. Could it be that he had not secured Aurelian's favor before August 399; that he had to start his lobbying afresh with the new administration?
Once we abandon the traditional Synesian chronology, De regno and De providentia actually turn out to have less in common than usually supposed. Synesius came to Constantinople in the autumn of 397 and delivered De regno a few months later in 398. Not surprisingly, it reflects hostility to Eutropius, still in power, and anxiety about his recent legalization of Alaric's depredations in the Balkans. It was not till after Aurelian came to power in August 399 that Synesius won the tax concessions he had been seeking (De providentia 113B), perhaps not till early 400. Unfortunately, before he could leave for Cyrene with the opening of the seas, Aurelian fell from power in (probably) April 400, and the new prefect reduced or abolished them (112C). Synesius was obliged to stay on till the autumn of 400 in the hope of obtaining some redress. He wrote De providentia in the late summer of 400, naturally turning now to the new development of Gaïnas's coup. Book 1 he did not complete till after the massacre of 12 July, to which the closing chapter clearly alludes. Book 2 he wrote "after the return of the best men" (88B) but before his own departure in probably October 400.
[71] Cod. Theod. 2.8.23.
V—
Publication
Thus far it has been convenient to speak of the De regno as an oration on kingship addressing Arcadius. That is ostensibly its form. Not only is Synesius's second-person addressee the emperor in a contemporary setting, but he is described in terms that clearly identify Arcadius: he is a young ruler who inherited the realm his father won, his father having defeated two usurpers and died a natural death (5A–B).[72] But scholars have always felt some uneasiness at Synesius's tone. Could he really have delivered his blistering criticisms of Arcadius and his court before—Arcadius and his court? Is this credible?[73] Predictably, the verdicts divide. For example, on the one side Demougeot simply asserted: "Il est probable que ces paroles hardies ne furent jamais prononcées," citing the distant and scarcely parallel precedent of Cicero's Pro Milone .[74] On the other, for Coster "Synesius was a man of rare honesty and courage; we must believe, with Gibbon and with Seeck, that he did deliver the address in substantially the form in which it was published . . . one of the frankest addresses that a monarch has ever been called upon to listen to."[75] According to Lacombrade, De regno not only was delivered in its present form but further "a transmis sans apprêt, sans retouches, limage[*] exacte des préoccupations patriotiques qui, en 399, animaient lelite[*] intellectuelle de Byzance."[76]
Fortunately we are not limited to the purely subjective. On the matter of boldness and sincerity we have another work by Synesius for comparison. A considerable part of De providentia consists of obsequious flattery of Aurelian, thinly disguised as Osiris—from whom Synesius was hoping for benefits. Hitherto critics have satisfied themselves that Aurelian was indeed a man of superlative moral character, warmly deserving such praises. A closer look at the evidence suggests that he was no better, and perhaps rather worse, than his brother Caesarius,[77] on whose head (disguised as Typhos) Synesius heaps malicious and scurrilous abuse. In short, De providentia reveals a Synesius as adept as Claudian himself at shifting effortlessly from ferocious invective to fulsome
[72] The usurpers were Maximus (387–88) and Eugenius (392–94).
[73] For a recent anthology of views see the (inconclusive) discussion in Albert 1984, 63–66.
[74] Demougeot 1951, 238.
[75] Coster 1968, 155.
[76] Lacombrade 1951b, 87; cf. Young 1983, 174: "There was a time when scholars believed it could not be the actual words he spoke in the presence of the emperor, a view successfully demolished by Lacombrade."
[77] See pp. 177–81.
panegyric—a typical courtier of the age. Is this really the man who on a different occasion delivered the boldest, most honest speech ever pronounced before a Roman emperor?
There are also other grounds for doubting that the speech as extant was ever delivered in court. Since it purports to accompany the presentation of crown gold, Lacombrade naturally compared the formula for the relevant speech (stephanotikos logos ) in the late third- or early fourth-century treatise ascribed to Menander.[78] But he dismissed without argument the formula's one purely objective requirement, that of length. The stephanotikos ought not to exceed 150–200 lines. The De regno runs to nearly 1,200. This excess alone makes it hard to believe that the speech was delivered in court.[79] Granted, Menander's prescriptions were guidelines rather than rules; one good example of the stephanotikos , a speech by Themistius dated to 357 (Or. 3), presents a crown to Constantius on behalf of Constantinople in about 300 lines. But a 600 to 800 percent overrun cannot be reconciled with the setting. Even an ambassador like Synesius, possessing the highest opinion of his own and his city's merits, cannot have expected to do their cause any good by so flagrantly defying protocol. No reader of panegyrics doubts that late antique tolerance for ceremonial elaboration was high. But there were limits. The crown gold was an anniversary tax, and the number of cities having requests to present along with it must have been considerable; the court cannot have wished to see any one presentation unduly prolonged. We can hardly doubt that it was with just such considerations in mind that Menander prescribed a short speech.[80]
As to content, Menander directs that the stephanotikos should be almost entirely devoted to praise of the emperor and should close with a reading of the honorific decree of the city sending the crown. Lacombrade could discern praise of Arcadius by allowing it to be "anticipatory";[81] the question of the decree he ignores. "Cyrene sends me, to crown your head with gold and your soul with philosophy" (2C) is a fleeting hint of it but goes no farther. Synesius then begins to lament his
[78] Lacombrade 1951b, 83–85; cf. Menander Rhetor , ed. D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson (Oxford 1981): on the date, xxxix–xl; on the stephanotikos , 178–81, with notes on 336–37.
[79] And is rightly adduced by Barnes 1986a, 106. Strangely, Russell and Wilson (1981, 336) cite De regno as a "good instance" of the stephanotikos . Klauser too cites it as a typical example of a "Kranzrede" (Ges. Arbeiten [1974], 301).
[80] His remarks on the similarly concise kateunastikos , dispatching a newlywed couple to the bedroom, illustrate his sensitivity to the patience inherent in an occasion (Russell and Wilson 1981, 146–59, with 317–23).
[81] Lacombrade 1951b, 85.
city's fallen glory (2D), suggesting the subgenre of the presbeutikos logos .[82] Besides the city's need, Menander recommends that the ambassador dwell on the emperor's humanity and generous beneficence. But for Synesius this theme is merely a springboard for an elaborate peri basileias . Indeed this very title in the manuscripts (whether original or not) recognizes its true nature. The designation is thematic rather than formal, a "semi-philosophical discussion with no set rules on the merits and duties of the ideal king."[83] It is an established topic; but again, impossibly overgrown for the oration's ostensible setting.
It has often been asserted that Synesius himself claims to have delivered the speech before Arcadius. He says in the De insomniis that dream divination made him "bolder than any Greek has ever been when addressing the emperor" (
If Synesius revised for publication the presbeutikos he did deliver, he could easily have added or elaborated points that did not fit the real occasion. Pliny rewrote his Panegyric endlessly before releasing it to the world. But De regno does not just include a few outspoken but detach-
[82] Russell and Wilson 1981, 180–81, with 337–38.
[83] Cameron 1970a, 322.
[84] See the relevant entries in the lexica (LSJ, Bauer, and Lampe).
[85] G. A. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors (Princeton 1983), 182; cf. his Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill, N.C. 1980), 136–38.
[86] Contrast Lacombrade: "La hardiesse de cette pièce deloquence[*] avait surpris ses contemporains comme elle déconcerte la posterité" (1951b, 81).
able passages. As the composition stands, it is an organically conceived whole. Synesius introduces it by repeatedly proclaiming (2A–B) that it will not be light and witty but solemn and stern,
words that refuse to court the bounty of the great by servile adulation . . . ready to wound if opportunity arises, threatening to bite into the heart, not just on the surface but to the very core, if anyone may be helped by suffering. . . . Freedom of speech should be of great price in the ears of a monarch. Praise at every step is seductive but harmful. . . . A frank speech saves the mind of a young emperor from such paths as the license of power might open to him. Endure then this unusual speech.
Synesius deliberately strikes the Cynic pose of a philosopher rebuking the king.
The last chapter of De providentia includes a transparent self-portrait of Synesius, introducing a stranger "nurtured by philosophy in a rather rustic manner" who, "like all mankind, had met with innumerable benefits from Osiris. He himself was not obliged to perform public services, and his country's obligations had been made less burdensome." This man was as grateful as any, "even more so, being better endowed. For he wrote both poems and speeches and sang to the lyre in the Dorian mode" (113A–C). The "Dorian mode" is a flagrant anachronism in the Egyptian context, and the reference to the philosopher-poet-essayist winning tax remissions for himself and his native city inescapably evokes Synesius's own errand at court. This is not Hitchcock making a walk-on appearance in his own film. The self-portrait is so precise and detailed that Synesius's select audience was obviously meant to look for further correspondences. Nor would they have looked in vain. This rustic philosopher strikes the same Cynic pose in an address before the tyrant Typhos (114A):
He paid no attention to older men and friends who admonished him. Fear did not shake him from his impetuosity; he was like a man raving with unrestrained madness. He did not stop until he stood as close as possible to Typhos himself, at a time when distinguished men from all the world were gathered around him, and gave a long speech in favor of Typhos's brother.
Though never losing its obvious risks, such boldness was an established convention. The emperor was expected to endure the criticism, as Typhos manages to do here.[87] Julian, the one authentic philosopher-
[87] "But from his face one could picture what was going on in his mind" (114B). Cf. D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (London 1937), 125f.; R. Höistad, Cynic Hero and CynicKing (Uppsala 1948), 150f.; H. A. Musurillo, The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Oxford 1954), 236f., 267f.; Festugière 1959, 274–76; R. MacMullen, Enemies of the Roman Order (Cambridge, Mass. 1966), 53f.; J. Hahn, Der Philosoph und die Gesellschaft (Stuttgart 1989), 182f.; on popular outbursts at the theater and hippodrome, Cameron 1976a, 157–83.
emperor of the age, satisfied himself with answering Cynics in kind.[88] Sometimes the philosopher even won a fair hearing. For example, the unfavorable report of the philosopher Iphicles provoked Valentinian to investigate the conduct of his praetorian prefect.[89] But Iphicles presented Valentinian with a verifiable complaint about an absent minister. Synesius in contrast purports to be criticizing Arcadius himself to his face in the harshest possible terms. The adulation the emperor receives is "barbarian" (14C). The isolation that reinforces the impression of his exalted status is a "disease" (14D). In consequence Arcadius is ignorant and "lives the life of a jellyfish" (14D). His jeweled robes recall Homer's phrase "stony cloak," a degraded death by stoning (16A; Il. 3.57). He is fettered in gold, and it is every bit as confining as the basest stocks (16C). He skulks in his lair like a lizard (16D). Synesius warns him at 3B–C:
If in the course of this address some act of yours appears among those we know to be wrong and which you so recognize yourself, in that case you should show your anger with yourself and blush because something not worthy of you has come to light. Assuredly this color promises the virtue that comes from a change of mind, for this shame is divine and so seems to Hesiod.[90]
On the model of diatribe, the oration satirizes its addressee's acts in order to inspire him with revulsion and thus drive him to correction. It is a unity.
Tradition has indelibly labeled Arcadius a sluggard; but Synesius's harshly exaggerated images strain even that slack tolerance. Pace Coster, they go well beyond a question of frankness or courage. Still more so the accusation that Arcadius's closest associates are "small-headed men with little understanding, whom nature deceitfully misstrikes, just as money changers criminally do to coins, and the witless man becomes a gift to the king, and a greater gift the more witless he is," who will sink to any depth in their buffoonery.[91] Even if imperial forbearance or colossal dullness prevented Arcadius from responding to the attacks on himself, no tradition or incapacity restrained his ministers. Least of all could a eunuch, "the senseless element you strip in front of," tolerate being denounced in front of the only protector he had. Eutropius had exiled
[88] Or. 6 and 7.
[89] Amm.Marc. 30.5.8–10; cf. PLRE I.464.
[90] Referring to Hes. Op. 197ff.
[91] 15A–B; the part paraphrased here is quoted in full above, p. 107.
Abundantius and Timasius, military men actually serving the imperial administration, as merely potential threats.[92] If Synesius had dared to speak 15B in open court, he could at the very least abandon all thought of tax remissions.
Why then did Synesius write the De regno in its present form? What could be done with a speech too dangerously offensive to be delivered?
The well-documented circumstances attending the publication of many speeches of Libanius provide instructive examples. His funeral speech on his uncle Phasganius Libanius divided into three sections. The last, because he was afraid it would offend Julian, he recited to a select group of friends behind closed doors, insisting that they refrain even from applauding (Ep. 33, 282). His monodies on Nicomedia and Aristaenetus were declaimed before an audience of only four (Ep. 33). A closer parallel to De regno is Or. 15, the proem to which represents Libanius as leading an embassy to Julian in Mesopotamia in order to reconcile him to Antioch. Libanius begs the emperor not to interrupt him (Or. 15.14), apostrophizing him throughout and speculating at the end as to how he will dare return to Antioch if unsuccessful. Yet the truth is that there was no embassy, Libanius never left Antioch, and the speech was never delivered to Julian, who was dead before it was even finished. Both it and Or. 14, which also purports to have been delivered before Julian, were in fact recited in private before a few friends Libanius could trust.[93]
Or. 3 of Themistius, purporting to have been delivered before Constantius at Rome in 357, may be another such case. The orator begins, like Synesius, by offering the emperor crown gold on behalf of Constantinople to commemorate his thirty-fifth anniversary.[94] But many scholars have doubted whether Themistius actually went to Rome on this occasion. A careful study by G. Dagron attempts to dispel these doubts,[95] and he may be right; but if he is wrong, a fictitious setting would be an obvious and acceptable explanation. Or. 13 was certainly delivered in Rome, but not in the presence of Gratian, as sometimes inferred from a few second-person invocations.[96] It would be easy to multiply earlier ex-
[92] PLRE I.4–5, 914–15.
[93] Liebeschuetz 1972, 25–26; P. Petit, "Recherches sur la publication et la diffusion des discours de Libanius," Historia 5 (1956): 479–509 (= Libanios , Wege der Forschung 621, ed. G. Fatouros and T. Krischer [Darmstadt 1983], 84–128, here 95).
[94] Not vicennalia, as in the chroniclers' notices (Chron. Min. I.239): Long 1988, 115; Themistius Or. 3.40C = 1.58 Downey.
[95] Dagron 1968, 20–21, 205–12.
[96] E.g., O. Seeck, Briefe des Libanius (1906), 303; PLRE I.891; correctly, Dagron 1968, 22–23; T. D. Barnes, HSCP 79 (1975): 329.
amples: the legatio of Athenagoras purports to have been addressed to Marcus and Commodus, apparently in September 176,[97] but we must agree with R. Lane Fox that "the setting is a literary fiction."[98]
Less clear-cut cases are Libanius's many speeches of social criticism from the Theodosian age. Undoubtedly he took his role as social critic seriously, and on occasion he took risks. But he was never rash. A letter describes how, on the advice of friends more current with court politics than himself, he kept his speech against a certain law unpublished until the law was rescinded—when as a call for reform it had been completely neutralized.[99] It is hard to believe that Libanius was imprudent enough to publish some of the extant speeches while the men he attacked in them were still in power.[100] A notable case is the Pro templis (Or. 30), an impassioned demand for religious toleration addressed to Theodosius himself, for all the world as if Libanius were standing before him ("Now too I come on the same errand," Or. 30.1). So forthrightly did Libanius attack the fanatical praetorian prefect Cynegius, it is most unlikely that the speech was made public at all, much less presented at court, as long as he was still in office. Libanius doubtless sent it to one or two reliable friends at court.
As A. F. Norman put it, "such restricted circulation was utilitarian in purpose, since it directed propaganda to the right quarters at court in safety and with effectiveness, the orator's friends there acting as intermediaries (cf. Or. 2.70f.). Hence the unexpected combination of social criticism and violent personal abuse."[101] Synesius was in a similar position. A similar presentation would solve the problems of delivering De regno publicly. A further point in confirmation is the fact that Synesius's self-portrait, the rustic philosopher of De providentia , "entrusted" his works only to discerning and serious audiences (113B–C). His reticence is mentioned merely to excuse his not returning a gratiarum actio for Osiris's favors, but if modesty compelled silence then, all the more did the real dangers to his mission that De regno courted, had it come to Eutropius's ears. The tone and emphases of the speech conform to what Barnes termed opposition-literature.[102] It does not, however, as Barnes himself thought, put forward the policies of an opposition party. Rather it is an appeal by Synesius to such a party, whose sympathy he hoped to enlist for his own cause—the embassy.
[97] T. D. Barnes, JTS 26 (1975): 111–14.
[98] Pagans and Christians (New York 1987), 306.
[99] Ep. 916; cf. Petit 1983, 97–98.
[100] For examples, see Liebeschuetz 1972, 30; Petit 1983, 107f.
[101] Libanius: Selected Works , vol. 2 (Cambridge, Mass. 1977), 94.
[102] Barnes 1986a, 112.
VI—
Synesius's Audience
Since De dono , the first document from Synesius's embassy, complains to Paeonius that others have disregarded him (308A), it may be presumed that the presbeutikos logos with which he presented the Cyreneans' crown gold bore no fruit. De regno displays further frustration at court inaction. Paeonius, though currently holding office (309C), was apparently not implicated in this unresponsive policy: perhaps then a disaffected official. Since Synesius had brought his silver astrolabe from home, he doubtless bestowed it on a suitable target soon after his arrival, perhaps in early 398. It was certainly more a political than a scientific instrument; Synesius took care to link respect for philosophy with the advantage of cities (309B–C). We do not know how Paeonius reacted to the solicitation. In Ep. 154 Synesius credits him with some benefaction to Pentapolis; on the other hand, the tax concessions he wanted could only be granted from the very top. De providentia confirms that it was Aurelian, prefect on Eutropius's fall, who actually granted them (113A–B). The next prefect revoked them (114B), and Ep. 61 shows that Synesius faced further exertions, "sleeping before the Great Archives," right up until he fled Constantinople during the earthquake. The rug he promised Asterius the shorthand writer represents his politicking at the lowest level. Paeonius obviously required more subtle handling. He surely played the all-important intermediary role so well documented in Synesius's correspondence. Not himself in a position to give Synesius what he wanted, he could nonetheless introduce him to others from whom better things might be hoped. This group corresponds to the select audience of Synesius's rustic philosopher in De providentia (113B–C).
The portrait of Arcadius's favorites in De regno can have done nothing to conciliate the officeholders of the day. But by the time the speech was written, Eutropius's relations with Alaric and the disturbances to which Synesius alludes may have suggested to many that he could not maintain his position long. Clearly Synesius had abandoned hope of success with the current administration. Nothing remained but to burn this unprofitable bridge behind him. Sensibly, he did not burn it openly; and resourcefully, he burnt it in a way that might engage the sympathies of men who shared his hostility toward Eutropius, those who might be expected to succeed him in influence.
Interpreted in this light, De regno represents a fresh start for Synesius's embassy. In it he says what he would have liked to say in his real presbeutikos . The setting gave him the advantages presupposed in a real embassy presenting crown gold: if his city sent the emperor a gift, it de-
served something in return. At the same time, complicit knowledge of "true facts" too dangerous for publication helps engage the audience's sympathy.
On the other hand, since Synesius no longer faced the real occasion of the speech, he could disregard its formal requirements. He took time to do full justice to his themes: the enlightened conduct of public affairs, with particular regard to choice of favorites and advisers, conduct of military and barbarian affairs, and protection of cities. There is no reason to doubt that he was attracted by the idea of writing a peri basileias for its own sake. His emphasis on the value of education, repeated in De dono, De regno, De providentia , and Dion , was certainly sincere. The reason he expected prospective patrons to honor philosophy in him and to receive compliments of it as the highest praise was that he himself so prized it. And the use of philosophy to mold the highest ruling power must provide a speaker with his highest subject. The great influence of the beloved Dio's four orations on kingship (Or. 1–4) will also have been a factor.[103] Dio's censorious Rhodian, Alexandrian, and Tarsian orations showed even the harshest criticism made acceptable by rhetorical polish.[104] Synesius's verdict is that Dio "showed virility of mind beyond any of his contemporaries; he set himself to admonish mankind whether kings or private citizens, speaking to both individuals and the masses" (Dion 38A). Synesius admired this stance. It is no coincidence that he uses the same word, "virile," to characterize both De regno and the outspoken words of the rustic philosopher who represents him in De providentia (113B).[105] The moral courage the Cynic pose implicitly asserts adds extrarational persuasive force to the speaker's arguments. It is a further resource of Synesius's setting.
The three points of his hidden agenda significantly affect the way he
[103] Asmus 1900, 85–151. Synesius's Dion is of course the greatest testimony of the importance Dio held for him; but for motifs borrowed specifically from Dio's kingship orations for the De providentia see below, chapter 7, section III.
[104] Or. 31–33. It is currently fashionable to date the Rhodian and Alexandrian orations early (see the summary in C. P. Jones 1978, 133–34), but see a forthcoming paper by O. Murray.
presents his general theme. His peri basileias addresses not Arcadius but a group of men excluded from and hostile to Eutropius's administration, men sufficiently prominent to be likely successors when it fell. Synesius plays on their ambitions by stressing the power and prestige of the emperor's friends.[106] Unremarkably, perhaps, the properly chosen circle of the good king's friends will be good men (10C), who will match him in their "kingly adornment of soul" (29C). It is more significant that Synesius identifies those who actually enjoy sight of the king as the true wielders of power (16B).[107] The extended discussion of 11B–12B elaborates the point. The king's near and dear league about him, and he will confer with them about everything. They are a "kingly possession," sweet for him to share good fortune with, loyal in bad, trustworthy in praise, and able to admonish without causing pain. By making them enviable the king gives sure general proof of his goodwill. The king relies on his friends to bring him to the omnicompetence of God, "for thus he will see with the eyes of all, he will hear with the hearing of all, and he will take counsel with the opinions of all resolving on a single decision." This perfect relationship can be perverted on either side, by the capriciousness of the tyrant or by the imposture of flattery. Synesius concludes that "love toward his friends is not the least virtue of the king." The vital role of advisers, their power, and the favors a munificent ruler will return them are dangled alluringly before Synesius's audience. He does not explicitly evoke their natural conviction that they themselves deserve to be enjoying these things, but he implicitly flatters them with his scathing portrait of the vile buffoons who presently do. This is one line by which he binds his listeners to him.
A second is his criticism of current barbarian policy. It is worth emphasizing that the theme of the barbarian threat is absent from De dono . Synesius did not arrive in the capital burning with antibarbarian fervor. Nor (as we have seen) is there any reason to believe that the antibarbarian sentiments of the speech were specially tailored to Aurelian. Aurelian was doubtless one of the main contenders for the prefecture on Eutropius's fall, but it cannot have been certain that he would get it. In 399, the only thing that mattered was Pentapolis.
The barbarian danger was a serious issue that aroused legitimate anxieties. In this respect the moderns who applaud Synesius for shrewdly identifying a crucial political problem of his age show sound instincts. But Synesius develops the theme with emotive rhetoric, not serious political suggestions. His audience shared the mortification of Themis and
[106] For a survey of their position and privileges, see Millar 1977, 110–22.
the god of the battle line when a skin-clad foreigner took precedence over native generals or, briefly changed into a toga, over native aristocrats in the senate.[108] They were the very "legitimate men" the upstart outranked (23B–C). Synesius stresses the prevalence of Scythian slaves not merely to alarm his audience at how close the danger had come, but to feed their sense of injury. Even the threat of being mastered by "the kin of our own slaves" is an insult (23D–24C). Similarly the effeminacy and abjection of the often-defeated Scythians not only offer reassurance that they will not be too hard to subject again, but reinforce a sense of humiliation at submitting to them now (24D–26B).
The vagueness of Synesius's proposals likewise reflects his real purpose. He wrote De regno in ignorance of the impending dangers from Tribigild and Gaïnas. He wrote without attention to the West, under the thumb of the half-Vandal Stilicho—still less to its future when less Romanized barbarians inherited his loyal ascendancy. Had Synesius been enunciating the program of an antibarbarian party, more specific and realistic proposals might have been expected. In the event he was simply rousing feeling against the current regime. His limited purpose was to show that current policies were disastrous. There was no need to suggest alternatives in realistic detail. Such vagueness suited the situation perfectly. Synesius knew his audience perceived a barbarian problem—but he had no idea how they would cope with it. Needing their favor, he did not want to risk supplying perhaps unwelcome detail. A bare demand for change would demonstrate his common cause without running risks. Conventional appeals to pristine Roman militarism were a fine note to sound, lending weight and emotive force but no substantive content. If his new patrons wanted a spokesman, they could supply the content later.
De regno is actually very different from superficially similar works of the age, and it employs correspondingly different tactics. Much traditional material is shared, for example, by De regno and the miniature peri basileias Claudian set within his panegyric for the fourth consulate of Honorius. Arcadius in the one and Honorius in the other are both instructed to share the life of their armies—to ride with the cavalry, march with the infantry, address individual soldiers by name, and so forth.[109] The advice corresponds to no known intention of either unwarlike em-
[108] The native generals are emblematized by their chlamydes , the vox propria for the military cloak. From the imperial purple on down, garment iconography was a voluble language of late antique thought.
[109] De regno 12B–14B; IV Cons. Hon. 320–52. Th. Birt (De moribus Christianis quantum Stilichonis aetate in aula imperatoria occidentali valuerint disputatio [Marburg 1885], xvi–xxii) and Lacombrade (1956) collect ideas common to the two works; but they are all commonplaces and do not indicate that either was derived from the other.
peror. But where Claudian puts it into Theodosius's mouth as affectionate advice from father to son, Synesius hurls bitter rebukes at the hapless Arcadius in his own person. Claudian's purpose was to present the military ideal as a dynastic tradition still vested in Honorius, Synesius's to lament its absence in the current degenerate regime. He explicitly assigns the ideal to philosophy: its authority is intellectual and impersonal. The only emotional ties evoked are the ones the king will form with his soldiers. Eutropius having been a trusted minister of Theodosius,[110] dynastic sentiment would not help Synesius here. Moreover, he puts Arcadius's failure to live up to the ideal in a light that reflects badly on Eutropius. If Arcadius associated with sensible men instead of this "senseless element," he would be exposed to the philosophical principles by which he could rule well (15A–B). Synesius does not draw the connection any tighter, because (of course) it was not in his hearers' interest to turn Arcadius into a warrior-king, or even a strong ruler in less anachronistic style. They wanted to enjoy the power behind the throne themselves. The practical implication of the ideal is merely that Arcadius would receive better advice from different advisers.
Again, protest at the emperor's seclusion is commonplace and often, as in the Historia Augusta , blamed on the influence of eunuchs. It is normally implicit, disguised as criticism of the current emperor's predecessors. Synesius does just this: "Do not be angry, for the fault is not yours; it is the fault rather of those who first created this mischief and transmitted to Time's heritage an evil now zealously maintained" (14D). Pacatus's panegyric on Theodosius (389) provides a good parallel: "Some emperors (you know who I mean) consider the imperial majesty diminished and vulgarized unless they lock themselves away in some corner of the palace as if in some Vestal shrine" (21). Pacatus was probably influenced by a similar development in Pliny's panegyric on Trajan. According to Pliny, previous emperors had been "afraid of being brought down to our level" (24.5).[111] For Synesius too it was "fear of becoming like other mortals" that led to seclusion. The difference is that Pacatus, like Pliny, was careful to imply throughout that his emperor repudiated this vicious practice of safely dead predecessors. Ostensibly pure praise incorporates a warning against less praiseworthy behavior. Synesius, in contrast, after conceding that Arcadius did not begin this isolation, goes on to rebuke him for maintaining it. He describes Arcadius's seclusion
[110] Ca. 393, Theodosius sent him to Egypt to consult a holy man about the war against Eugenius: Claud. In Eutr. 1.312–13; Soz. HE 7.22.7–8.
[111] In Pliny's case, clearly Domitian, but it is hardly likely that it is also Domitian to whom Pacatus alludes, as E. Galletier thought (Pan. Lat. , vol. 3 [Paris 1955], 88 n. 2). Perhaps rather Theodosius's junior colleague Valentinian II.
brutally, saying that it reduces him to the enjoyment of only the meanest bodily pleasures, living the life of a jellyfish (14D).[112] The deliberate offensiveness of the exaggeration, inconceivable in a real address to an emperor, bears the moral force of Synesius's real argument. Eutropius's influence debases Arcadius.
If a speaker wanted to reform the emperor, there were time-honored ways to try it. The various indirect devices were known collectively as
launched into invectives against the emperor and did not even use simulated arguments (
), though it might have been expected that a man who has been trained in this kind of oratory would have had his own anger under control. But with an aggressive and unguarded tongue he persisted in his attack.[115]
Thanks to his long-standing friendship with Marcus, who must have known why he was so distraught, Herodes came to no harm.[116] Less securely placed, most speakers reasonably preferred caution.
Themistius is the fourth century's best-known practitioner. As Dagron put it, his technique was "to congratulate emperors for the qualities they most conspicuously lacked: Constantius for his gentleness, Valens for his love of literature and capacity for forgiveness."[117] For example, Themistius praises Valens for his statesmanlike and merciful treatment of the followers of the usurper Procopius (Or . 7). Our other sources document a ruthless persecution. By speaking directly against fact, Themistius offered advice, suggesting to Valens how he could be effec-
[112] The image of the jellyfish is taken from Pl. Phlb. 21C.
[113] Philostr. VS 597 (trans. W. C. Wright, Loeb edition). See the convenient summary in the glossary of rhetorical terms in W. C. Wright's Loeb edition, p. 570; cf. too de Blois 1986, 282–83.
[114] VS 519, 597, 609.
[115] VS 561.
[116] On the circumstances of Herodes' speech, see G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford 1969), 92-100.
[117] Dagron 1968, 84 n. 2. It is interesting to note that at least one contemporary appreciated the element of criticism wrapped up in Themistius's flattery (Socr. HE 4.32), though unfortunately he chose an example that does not survive (Dagron 1968, 186–89). Socrates describes how the orator reproached Valens at Antioch for persecuting fellow Christians. The extant Or . 12 ad Valentem de religionibus (vol. iii, pp. 137–41, Downey-Norman) is acknowledged to be a modern forgery.
tive and win respect.[118] There is no reason to doubt that Pacatus was praising Theodosius in the passage just cited. But if he had been addressing, say, the young Valentinian II, it would have been legitimate to suspect discreet criticism.[119]
Synesius knew Themistius intimately, not to mention countless lesser panegyrists now forgotten. He was thoroughly familiar with all these devices. In De providentia , for example, he palliates the sting of the discreet warnings Osiris ignores to his cost, by detaching the advice from the events and setting it within the metaphysical discourse of his father. The eventual disaster is foreshadowed; but at the same time Osiris's overall moral superiority is affirmed through a friendly voice. It was not through either incompetence or boldness that Synesius neglected these obvious devices in De regno . It was because Arcadius was not really his addressee at all. He uses the form of an imperial address simply as a device to address a different audience, appealing to their common hostility to Arcadius's current ministers.
The only straightforward appeal in the speech is that on behalf of cities. Its one complexity is that listeners are meant to understand themselves in Arcadius's place. It is they who are meant to carry through Synesius's principles of good government, they who can expect his gratitude when they do. As in Synesius's appeal to Paeonius, kingship motifs are applied to lesser magnates.
Synesius does not introduce Cyrene, her crown, and her needs (the central themes of an ordinary presbeutikos logos ) until after the groundwork of his Cynic pose has been laid. Her need must make her bold of speech. This privilege he had already claimed for philosophy; if Arcadius takes to heart the philosophy with which Cyrene sends Synesius to crown his soul, he will restore her to her ancient glory, and Synesius will gladly "bring a second crown from my great and then happy city" (2C–3B). The thought that philosophy encourages Arcadius to support cities underlies Synesius's whole theoretical peri basileias . He should follow the perfect model of God in his beneficence, "flooding the cities with all good things and pouring as much happiness as possible on every subject" (9C). The great hint of the De dono , "no greater misfortune could possibly befall cities than that the powerful be senseless and the wise without power" (309B-C), is recalled verbally in the interplay compounds of
[118] Cameron 1985b, chap. 9, p. 12.
[119] See Ambrose Ep . 20.28 for the arrogance of Valentinian's chamberlain Calligonus.
regno 7B-C: he claims that both figures were designed to symbolize the need to unite judgment and power. Similarly, the De dono's "greatest misfortune" is realized in Synesius's description of Arcadius's life under Eutropius's domination at De regno 15A-B. Neither of these passages expressly relates its ideas to cities, but the connection must have been present in Synesius's mind and would have occurred to anyone who had also seen De dono . Similar situations in the letters make it a fair inference that Paeonius would have shown the essay around when he began to introduce Synesius to a new circle of patrons in Constantinople.[120]
Embassies are of great value to the king, Synesius insists, because they extend his knowledge over the whole of his realm. He should therefore be especially gracious toward embassies and their requests (27A-B). He had already assigned the same function to the king's friends (11D–12A), and the fact that he does not identify ambassadors and the king's friends is further confirmation that he is addressing this group rather than Arcadius himself. The ambassador should be favored but remains deferential to those he waits upon.
As ambassador, Synesius urges several points in general terms without explaining their specific relevance to Cyrene; he did not want to banalize his speech with tedious specifics he could give later if his audience had any questions. First, the provisioning of soldiers should not overburden the cities they are supposed to be protecting (27B-D).[121] Second, cities should not be heavily taxed and indeed should be released from unavoidable shortfalls (27D–28A). The benefits received by the rustic philosopher in De providentia confirm Synesius's interest specifically here (113B). Third, since in so large an empire the king cannot rule all directly, he must take particular care to select governors who will administer the provinces justly. In general, honor should be paid to virtue rather than to wealth (29D–31C). Synesius's later troubles as bishop with the unjust governor Andronicus confirm at least the general relevance of this point.[122]
In conclusion, Synesius calls his audience to the love of philosophy once more and promises his gratitude when he has occasion to speak again on behalf of cities. This combination of themes has overarched the
[120] E.g., Ep . 1, 74, 154 involving Synesius's own works; 99 on Theotimus; 101 on Pylaemenes' letters and the "Panhellenion."
[121] Ep . 95 shows an ongoing concern with related troubles: see Liebeschuetz 1985b. He argues persuasively that the letter was written while Synesius was trying to avoid consecration as bishop, rather than concerning Synesius's own embassy, its traditional association.
[122] Ep . 57 (=41 G), 58 (= 42 G), 72, 73, 79; PLRE II.89–90; cf. also De providentia 111D.
whole speech. The needs of the city form its fundamental theme, and the dictates of philosophy Synesius's basic model for addressing them. He attacks the court and Eutropius's barbarian policy to engage his audience's sympathy. The attacks contain much important material for the historian; and it is no less important that for Synesius they were like the astrological protreptics of De dono , edifying in themselves but principally deployed to serve a practical end. His search for the patronage he required brought him into contact with men who soon became the highest officials of the day. Synesius himself never lost sight of his basic goal.[123]
[123] We are thus in sharp disagreement with Roques, who claims that "dans lensemble[*] du Discours Synésios se présente comme le porte-parole de la philosophie. De soucis matériels il nest[*] nullement question; . . . il sagit[*] dun[*] traité sur la Royauté , non d'un plaidoyer pour Cyrène" (1987, 30).