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CHAPTER 15
FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP IN THE WEST
ian n. wood
At the beginning of the fifth century the senatorial aristocracy of the late
empire seemed well assured of its future. Its great dynasties, the Anicii and
Symmachi among them, appear full of confidence in the letter collections
of the period – those of Symmachus himself, but also of Jerome,
Augustine and Paulinus of Nola. 1 Nor were they much shaken by the
initial break-up of the western empire, despite panic-stricken reactions to
the arrival of the barbarians and to the invasions of the Huns. At the end
of the fifth century the Italian aristocracy appears as confident as ever in
the inscriptions of the Colosseum 2 and in the letters of Ennodius of
Pavia. Its Gallic counterpart, a little less grand in status, but of nearly comparable
wealth, dominates the letter collections of Sidonius Apollinaris,
Ruricius of Limoges and Avitus of Vienne, as well as having a significant
profile in that of Ennodius (Provençal by birth, albeit Italian in his
career). 3 By the mid sixth century, however, the greatest of these dynasties
were no longer a power in the west: Justinian’s Ostrogothic wars had
destroyed their Italian base, although the Anicii themselves were still of
some importance in Constantinople. However, while the front rank of the
aristocracy had collapsed in Italy, in the successor states of Gaul its provincial
counterpart survived, 4 as is again evidenced by a letter collection,
this time the poetic epistles of Venantius Fortunatus. 5 In all probability it
had also managed to hang on to much of its wealth. Moreover, these families
had not held themselves aloof from the political changes which followed
the failure of the western empire; instead they, or at least individual
members of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, were involved in the new kingdoms
of the Visigoths, Burgundians and Franks, whether at a local level
as bishops, or at the level of the state, as counsellors. 6 As such they appear
in the Ten Books of Histories of Gregory of Tours, who was himself a
1 See above all, on the aristocrats, Matthews (1975); Arnheim (1972) 103–42; on friendship, Brown
(1992) 45–6; White (1992); Clark (1990) 11–42; on Paulinus of Nola, Fabre (1949); on the letter collections,
Matthews (1974) 58–99. 2 Chastagnol (1966). 3 Wood (1993a); Mathisen (1981).
4 Stroheker (1948) remains the classic work. 5 Brown (1996) 103.
6 For a study of one individual and his family in the first half of this transitional period, see Harries
(1994); more generally, Mathisen (1993).
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