1. CONTEXT
Sid. Apoll. Epist. 3.12 is addressed to Sidonius’ nephew Secundus. The author describes how, as he leaves Lyons on horseback heading for Clermont, he approaches the town's old, overgrown graveyard, where the tomb of his grandfather is scarcely recognizable anymore. Some gravediggers think that they have hit upon a vacant spot and have begun digging a pit. Sidonius discovers the desecration and has them punished on the spot. Patiens, the town's bishop, accepts his apologies for letting his temper flare up. Sidonius asks his nephew to take care of the restoration of the burial mound and to provide for a gravestone at his expense. He also supplies the poem to be engraved upon it. Secundus must see to it that the engraver commit no errors. This belated tribute by the third and fourth generations has august precedents in history—the author claims.
This letter is traditionally interpreted as an instance of the author's self-promotion for his filial piety and his expert storytelling.Footnote 1 It is variously dated to some point in the 460s.Footnote 2
Sidonius’ grandfather ApollinarisFootnote 3 had been involved in the surge of Gallic usurpations against Emperor Honorius in 407–413, supporting the usurper Constantine III and acting as his praefectus praetorio Galliarum in 408–409, and, possibly, after that supporting Jovinus in another coup. The rebellions were crushed and it has often been conjectured that Apollinaris fell victim to the purges of 413 carried out by Honorius’ generals and the then praefectus praetorio Galliarum, Claudius Postumus Dardanus.Footnote 4 Gaul's relationship with the central government would remain precarious, and the tensions were subsequently heightened by the Visigoths and the Burgundians carving out kingdoms of their own. Political prudence as to this vulnerable strain in his family history remained Sidonius’ policy, including his reticence about the exact cause (or perpetrator) of Apollinaris’ death.Footnote 5 As this article suggests, it took a long time and a specific occasion before he deemed fit publicly to flaunt Apollinaris’ memory and, if not to lift the veil, at least to draw an unmistakable historical parallel suggesting murder.
2. LUCAN
While this letter, for its form, harks back to Plin. Ep. 6.10 about the neglected tomb of Verginius Rufus—a letter that also contains a couplet composed for the monument,Footnote 6 for articulating its meaning it is arguably indebted to Lucan. Section 4, about restoring Apollinaris’ grave, reads:
sed ne quid in posterum casibus liceat, quos ab exemplo uitare debemus, posco, ut actutum me quoque absente tua cura sed meo sumptu resurgat in molem sparsa congeries quam leuigata pagina tegat.
The phrase resurgat in molem sparsa congeries (‘that the scattered heap rises up again into a shrine’) is strikingly over the top for restoring a modest earth mound.Footnote 7 Indeed, it is nothing less than a reference to Lucan's description at 8.865–9 of Pompey's paltry grave in Egypt—a fact that hitherto has gone unnoticed. The relevant lines read:
The words printed in bold in the above two passages are the same and in the same order. Sidonius plays on the similarity of the burials of Pompey and of his own grandfather, working out opposing elements. Whereas Pompey's lowly burial mound will disappear in the course of time (sparget … uetustas congeriem), Apollinaris’ burial mound, having initially undergone the same fate, is reconstructed. For Pompey, this is an advantage (proderit hoc olim) as a glorious rehabilitation and a stable resting place hopefully await him in Rome, as the narrator foresees in lines 835–50, which end with the words consilio iussuque deum transibis in urbem, | Magne, tuam summusque feret tua busta sacerdos. Apollinaris, on the other hand, is already buried in his native town (epitaph line 7, maerentis patriae sinu receptus), but, while the invisibility of his tomb clearly makes it vulnerable to profanation (section 4: anything might happen [casibus], as things turned out [ab exemplo]), the reconstruction is immediately (actutum) taken in hand. Paradoxically, the desecration of Pompey's grave (845 uiolare sepulchrum) with a view to reburying him is licit, whereas, in Apollinaris’ case, it is outright illicit (section 1 tumulum … paene manus profana temerauerat) and is severely punished,Footnote 8 besides sparking the tomb's restoration.
There is more. In the epitaph, the lateness of the rehabilitation is thematized from the outset: serum post patruos patremque carmen,Footnote 9 reinforced in section 6 of the letter where Sidonius reassures Secundus concerning the fact that the rehabilitation is only realized in the third and fourth generations: tibi quoque non decet tardum uideri quod heres tertius quartusque dependimus. The same motif of lateness occurs in Luc. 837–9 si saecula prima | uictoris timuere minas, nunc excipe saltem | ossa tui Magni. In both cases, the cause of this belatedness is dangerous repression at the deaths of both Pompey (initiated by the victorious Caesar) and, presumably, Apollinaris (under Emperor Honorius).
A central theme of the epitaph is Apollinaris’ exemplary (and life-threatening) courage under high-handed tyrants: 11–12 exemploque aliis periculoso | liber sub dominantibus tyrannis (‘an example for others at his own peril, a free man under high-handed tyrants’).Footnote 10 His life (and death?) played out among dangerous usurpers.Footnote 11 His patriotic collaboration,Footnote 12 first with the usurper Constantinus (and the latter's son Constans—the situation being complicated by the magister militum Gerontius)Footnote 13 from outside the Gallo-Roman circle, then with a full-blown Gallic aristocrat, Jovinus, cost him dear. The alternative, the loyalist stance towards the emperor, personified in the prefect Dardanus, turned out to be another snake pit. This chimes with Pompey falling victim to Caesar, dubbed saeuo … tyranno in Lucan (835), in an equally inextricable conflict of loyalties, murdered by an overzealous henchman.Footnote 14 Like another Pompey, it is implied, Apollinaris had fallen a tragic victim to the consequences of tyranny, but now his time has come, just as Pompey's time will come: ueniet felicior aetas (869 in the passage cited above). The parallel with Pompey strongly suggests that Apollinaris, too, was murdered, which adds a decisive argument to the existing assumption that this was the case (see page 2 above).
Finally, and significantly, both gravesites are decked with a stone: Pompey's with a simple piece of rock (saxo) provisionally marked with the text hic situs est Magnus in charcoal (semusto stipite, 789–93), Apollinaris’—anonymous at first—with a smooth slab of marble (section 2 leuigata pagina, 3 in marmore) meticulously inscribed (3 ut uitium non faciat … lapidicida) with a full-blown epitaph intimating that praefectus iacet hic Apollinaris (poem line 6).
Lucan is one of Sidonius’ most important intertextual anchors. His descriptions, in particular, of Caesar's march on Rome and the famine in Caesar's besieged camp at Dyrrhachium inspire Sidonius’ evocations of crucial episodes from the Visigothic onslaught on Auvergne and the desperate defence of its inhabitants (Epist. 7.1 and 7.7). The proud definition of the Arvernians as ‘brothers to Latium’ (Epist. 7.7.2) also stems from Lucan.Footnote 15 While thus defining Sidonius’ one foothold in Clermont, the presence of Lucan in Sid. Apoll. Epist. 3.12 now also appears to define the other in his native Lyons, linking his and his family's fate—as he is setting out for Clermont—to grandfather Apollinaris, a second Pompey, liber sub dominantibus tyrannis.
3. DATE AND OCCASION
3.1. Epist. 3.12 in 469/470
It is worth looking if a more specific date and occasion for this letter can be teased out, however tentatively. As late a date as possible, in 469/470, between Sidonius’ return from Rome and his consecration as bishop of Clermont, is needed because: (1) Sidonius calls himself haud indignus auo nepos (poem line 2), which is meaningful if it indicates that he, like his grandfather, had been a prefect;Footnote 16 (2) Sidonius is clearly not yet a bishop himself because of the way in which he speaks about Patiens, defining himself as one of his parishioners (section 3 nostro … sacerdoti); (3) in this connection, the surprising appearance of Gaudentius may point to the circle of Patiens c.469, in which he may have taken part as a conuersus Footnote 17 and in which Sidonius took his preparation for the episcopate, being ordained a deacon by Patiens;Footnote 18 (4) Secundus, almost certainly a son of Sidonius’ younger brother mentioned as having his virtue saved by Bishop Faustus in Carm. 16,Footnote 19 has to be adult enough to take responsibility for the tomb.
Why was Apollinaris’ public rehabilitation postponed to this particular moment and rather forced by the circumstances than fully premeditated? The following hypothesis would create a coherent picture. From a position of relative strength (his favour with Emperor Anthemius and the honour of having held the City Prefecture, also acquiring the title of patricius), but weakened by the unpalatable Arvandus affair which went at the heart of loyalties in Gaul and temporarily split the family,Footnote 20 Sidonius moves on to the insecurity of leadership in Clermont, leaving the Burgundian dominated orbit for a world where Visigothic pressure looms large. Epist. 3.12 must immediately precede his episcopate and constitutes a strategic statement aimed to realign his family in the face of other competing factions and political stakeholders. Restoring grandfather Apollinaris to the public view means adding full weight to an undivided glorious family line. It takes no wonder, given Sidonius’ new walk of life, that the decisive accolade for Apollinaris is his being the first in the family to be baptized: haec sed maxima dignitas probatur, | quod frontem cruce, membra fonte purgans | primus de numero patrum suorum | sacris sacrilegis renuntiauit (poem lines 13–16). Thus, the public rehabilitation of his grandfather is proof not only of the author's self-confidence as a responsible heir but also as an incumbent religious and political player. The voyage from Lyons to Clermont is not just any trip but a watershed, and Epist. 3.12 could be the pivotal letter in Sidonius’ career switch.
3.2. Epist. 3.12 in 474/478
As a corollary, in the economy of Book 3 as published some five years later,Footnote 21 this letter is also a very personal one. Sidonius leaves the care for the grave and all it stands for in the hands of his nephew Secundus rather than in the hands of his own son, another Apollinaris. The next letter, Epist. 3.13 to this Apollinaris, suggests why, going beyond the obvious supposition that, whereas Secundus lived in Lyons, Apollinaris stayed in Clermont. Epist. 3.13 is about the infamous typical rascal ‘Gnatho’, in every respect the opposite of what Sidonius stands for. Sidonius feels compelled to warn his son (of all people) to avoid such bad company.Footnote 22 ‘Secundus’ would seem to be the ‘next’ generation Sidonius can rely on rather than the younger Apollinaris.Footnote 23