The authors studied in previous chapters give some intimation of the constant activity and complexity of political communication throughout the late and post-imperial world. The interchange of communication between different levels of authority, using well-maintained traditions, continued to serve a central role in public administration as it had under the earlier empire. But, as Procopius' vignette demonstrates, political communication also shaped crucial political developments in the fifth and sixth centuries.

The role of two nameless members of the lower Italian clergy in triggering the conflict of 540–4 between the late antique ‘super-powers’ of the eastern Roman empire and Sassanian Persia dramatically illustrates the potential of late antique patterns of communication.