Reshaping East Roman Diplomacy with Barbarians During the 5Th Century

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Chapter 1 From Hegemony to Negotiation: Reshaping East Roman Diplomacy with Barbarians during the 5th Century

Audrey Becker

Introduction

During the first half of the 4th century ad, thanks to their military power, the Romans had been giving the barbarian tribes bordering the Danube and the Rhine no choice but to accept the conclusion of deditio after losing the war, leav- ing them in a very humiliating position.1 Yet, the military and political events of the second half of the 4th century ad, and even more of the 5th century ad, led the Romans to reconsider their relationship with the barbarian tribes.2 The characteristics of diplomatic relationship changed even before the defeat at Andrinople in 378, because the barbarian tribes, in the middle of the 4th century, gradually became able to restore the balance of power, leading the Eastern Roman Empire to reconsider its relations with its barbarian neighbours. This compelled the Byzantine Empire, from the end of the 4th century onward, to take into account barbarian leaders or kings who became, at that time, real diplomatic actors playing, of necessity, with formal rules of diplomatic protocol to

1 For instance, Constantinus with the Sarmatians in 323: Zosimus, Historia Nova 2.21.3, ed.Paschoud (Paris, 2000), p. 92; Julian in 358 with the Alemanni kings Suomarius and Hor- tarius: Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 17.10.3, ed. Sabbah (Paris, 1989), p. 64; Ammianus Marcellinus 17.10.9, p. 66; Constantius ii, in 358 as well, with the kings of the Sarmatians and Quadi: Ammianus Marcellinus 17.12.9–16, pp. 70–73; on the deditio, Maxime Lemosse, Le régime des relations internationales dans le Haut Empire romain (Paris, 1967); Dieter Nörr, Die Fides im römischen Völkerrecht (Karlsruhe, 1991); on the deditio during the 4th century, Alain Chauvot, Opinions romaines face aux barbares au ive siècle apr. J.C. (Paris, 1988), pp. 260–261; Gerhard Wirth, “Rome and its Germanic Partners in the Fourth Century,” in Kingdoms of the Empire. The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, ed. Walter Pohl (Leiden, 1997), pp. 13–55. 2 On the late Roman Empire diplomacy, Andrew D. Lee, Informations and Frontiers: Roman Foreign Relations in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1993); Andrew Gillett, Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West, 411–533 (Cambridge, 2003); Audrey Becker, Les relations diplomatiques romano-barbares en Occident au ve siècle: acteurs, fonctions, modalités (Paris, 2013); Ekaterina Nechaeva, Embassies – Negotiations – Gifts: Systems of East Roman Diplomacy in Late Antiquity (Stuttgart, 2014).

22 Becker show their own political supremacy. This was the case, for example, during the 5th century, along the Danube with the Hunnic kings Rua, Bleda and Attila, as well as with Vandal kings, both of which succeeded in shaking up the Eastern Roman Empire.3 Between 431, the year of the first known peace treaty between Huns and Romans, and 453, the year Attila died, Roman-Hunnic diplomatic ex- changes were frequent because Theodosius ii, unable to win against the Huns, had to deal with their kings in order to conclude several peace treaties that he and his successor Marcianus never fully respected.4 This paper will address the issue as to how the Eastern Roman Empire over- came the challenge posed by barbarian tribes, in particular by the Hunnic power, thanks to diplomacy turned from an expression of imperial hegemony into a negotiation process. It will argue that the Eastern Roman Empire had no choice but to adapt to the new power balance and to find a way to rebalance it. Since the rebalancing could no longer be accomplished militarily, the ideology of peace with the barbarians also had to be reshaped to avoid calling into ques- tion the ideology of an emperor ruling over the orbis terrarum or even over the kosmos. The Eastern Roman Empire also had no other choice but to find a new diplomatic strategy in order to avoid wars they were not able to win. Choosing ambassadors who would be able to prevent, thanks to their ability, any con- frontations other than diplomatic encounters was part of this reshaping process. This paper will then also investigate how ambassadors were chosen to be sent to barbarian kings.

1 Reshaping Peace’s ideology with the Barbarians: Diplomacy Over War

Roman-Hunnic diplomatic relations fell into a wider ideological context of full redefinition from the middle of the 4th century onward. As a matter of fact, previously, in order to maintain or to restore order in the kosmos, the only ac- ceptable way to finish a war was the conclusion of a deditio which implied first

3 On the Huns, see the numerous contributions in Michael Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Com- panion to the Age of Attila (Cambridge, 2015); also Christopher Kelly, Attila the Hun (London, 2008); Escher Katalin, Iaroslav Lebedynsky, Le dossier Attila (Paris, 2007); Edward Arthur Thompson, The Huns (Oxford, 1996). 4 As a result, Hunnic kings, especially Attila, sent numerous ambassadors claiming the respect of treaties’ clauses. For the list of the embassies exchanged between Hunnic kings and the Eastern Roman Emperors Theodosius ii and Marcianus, Becker, Relations diplomatiques, pp. 249–250.