chapter Three

Ritualized encounters: late Roman diplomacy and the Barbarians, Fifth–Sixth century

Walter Pohl

On 21 November 565 an Avar embassy led by Tergazis was received by the new emperor, II. devoted a long section to this encounter (more than 250 lines) in book III of his panegyric on Justin.1 It is one of the most extensive descriptions that we have from of the reception of barbarian envoys in the palace in . The previous section (3.152 ff.) relates how the dignitaries came together for a great reception on the seventh day of Justin’s reign. Corippus offers a lengthy poetic description of the scholia palatina, the decani, the couriers, the agentes in rebus, the palace guards, protectors and excubitores, and all the officers adorned in their different uniforms who appear “in fixed order.” In their description, the poem indulges in metaphors of light, to conclude: “Through its offices, the imperial palace imitates Olympus”. Then the emperor clad in purple enters, followed by the senate and the clergy, and mounts the throne. Now the scene is set for the arrival of the Avar envoys (3.231 ff.): “The magister officiorum announces that the Avar ambassadors have been ordered to enter the outer gateway to the divine court, asking to see the holy feet of the gracious master. With benign voice and mind, he com- mands to admit them.”2 Another extensive descriptive section elaborates on the awe of the barbarians as they are accompanied into the audi- ence hall, comparing them to Hyrcanian tigers being led into the circus. Finally, the veil hiding the emperor from sight is drawn. “Indeed, as the veil was drawn back and the inner doors opened, and the gold-covered

1 Flavius Cresconius Corippus, Éloge de l’Empereur Justin II 3.231–401, ed. and French trans. S. Antès (Paris, 1981), pp. 62–71. I would like to thank Christina Pössel and Alexander O’Hara for corrections and suggestions. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Frame- work Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC grant agreement No. 269591. 2 Corippus, Éloge, 3.231–237, ed. Antès, p. 62: “Ut laetus princeps solium conscendit in altum/ membraque purpurea praecelsus ueste locauit,/ legatos Auarum iussos intrare magister/ante fores primas diuinae nuntiat aulae/ orantes sese uestigia sacra uidere/ clem- entis domini. Quos uoce et mente benignus/ imperat admitti.” 68 walter pohl halls shone, the Avar Tergazis beheld from below how the imperial head blazed under the holy diadem, and genuflecting three times he adored him, and remained prostrate and cast to the floor.” The other Avars also threw themselves to the floor. “When the gracious prince ordered the ambassadors to get up, officers, on the order and admonishment of their commander, raised the stretched-out men.”3 Then Justin invited the bar- barians to speak. The rest of the section is filled with the two speeches by Tergazis and Justin, which serve to underline the unfounded boasting of the barbarians, and the clemency and determination of the emperor. It is interesting to compare the briefer speeches added to the accounts of the same event in Menander (who features a much more soft-spoken Targitios) and John of Ephesos (in which Justin is much ruder, addressing the Avars as “dead dogs”).4 Rhetoric takes precedence over ritual here. Justin’s pro- grammatic words formulate a fundamental change of policy by refusing to continue paying the subsidies that Justinian had regularly bestowed on the Avars as to many other barbarian neighbours.5 Without being able to respond, the barbarians leave the palace in fear. Undoubtedly, abolishing subsidies was a popular move as giving tax money to barbarians strongly displeased taxpayers. The disastrous political consequences of this policy would soon make themselves felt. Corippus’s poetic account is extremely elaborate on the rhetoric (which carries the political message) and sumptuous in its visual imagery (which is more exquisite than precise). He has relatively little to say about diplomatic ceremonial. The announcement by the master of offices, the lifting of the veil, the genuflection and the proskynesis with the succes- sive raising from the ground by a court official are the only circumstan- tial details that we get. They correspond to what we know from other sources, for instance, the description of a Sasanian embassy to Justinian

3 Corippus, Éloge, III.255–64, ed. Antès, p. 63: “Uerum ut contracto patuerunt intima uelo/ ostia et aurati micuerunt atria tecti/ Caesareumque caput diademate fulgere sacro/ Tergazis suspexit Auar, ter poplite flexo/ pronus adorauit terraeque afflixus inhaesit./ Hunc Auares alii simili terrore secuti/ in facies cecidere suas stratosque tapetas/ fronte terunt longisque implent spatiosa capillis/ atria et augustam membris immanibus aulam./ Ut clemens princeps legatos surgere iussit, officia stratos iussu monituque iubentis/ erexere uiros.” 4 The History of Menander the Guardsman, fr. 8, ed. J. Blockley (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 92–97; John of Ephesos, Historiae Ecclesiasticae pars tertia 6.24, ed. E. W. Brooks, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 106, Scriptores Syri 55 (Louvain, 1964), p. 247. 5 For the context, see W. Pohl, Die Awaren. Ein Steppenvolk in Europa, 559–828, 2nd ed. (Munich, 2002), pp. 48–50, and E. Nechaeva, “The ‘Runaway’ Avars and Byzantine Diplo- macy,” in Romans, Barbarians and the Transformation of the Roman World: Cultural Inter- action and the Creation of Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. R. W. Mathisen and D. Shanzer (Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2011), pp. 175–81.