Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

418 15. family and friendship in the west
types of descent groups, together with broader approaches to the definition
of the family, as suggested by literature and religion. Comparison will then
be made with the Frankish and Burgundian evidence for family structures
and attitudes. Before concluding, a sideways glance will be cast in the direction
of the other great bond in late antique and early medieval society – the
bond of friendship, which worked in parallel to the bonds of family, and
which is likewise documented in the letter collections.
The Roman or sub-Roman household or familia of the fifth and sixth
century was a large group. Where it is possible to reconstruct a family tree 13
it is clear that a high birth rate was common and that families could be sizeable
– something perhaps exacerbated by the absence of child exposure in
a Christian world. 14 Apart from parents and children, the familia, at least of
the greater families, included officials and servants of various sorts, among
them household slaves. 15 One such slave, whose history is related by
Gregory of Tours, was Andarchius, a member of the household of the
Auvergnat aristocrat, Felix. Having impressed his master by his intelligence
and learning, he dispossessed him and married his daughter, only to be
killed by other slaves in the household, who objected to his usurpation of
status and his arrogant behaviour. 16 The story provides a vignette of life in
a great household, from Felix and his daughter to the learned, clever and
ambitious Andarchius and down to his fellow slaves, who preferred the
status quo to the more open social world implied by the upward mobility of
their former companion.
Andarchius had his eyes on the property of Felix, as well his daughter. In
all likelihood this property would have been scattered in numerous estates
across a large geographical area. Before the fall of the western empire the
geographical distribution of land held by members of the late Roman senatorial
aristocracy was extraordinary, as can be seen from comments on the
estates of Melania the Younger, the distribution of which stretched from
Spain to Italy and Britain to Africa 17 – or even the estates of Paulinus of
Pella, who held lands in both halves of the empire until he lost control of
them as a result of the migration and settlement of the barbarians. 18
Although such holdings were no longer possible in the late fifth century,
Gallo-Roman aristocrats still held properties which were widely scattered
within the provinces of Gaul: the lands of their successors were similarly dispersed
across the kingdom of the Franks throughout the following centuries.
19 In the fifth century most will have possessed urban villas, as, to judge
13 See, for instance, the genealogies in Stroheker (1948).
14 For child exposure in the Roman empire, Garnsey and Saller (1987) 138.
15 Compare Garnsey and Saller (1987) 126–47.
16 Greg. Tur. Hist. iv.46. Compare the reaction of the slaves in Vitas Patrum Emeritensium 3, ed. J. N.
Garvin (Washington 1946). 17 Vita Melaniae 11, 19, ed. D. Gorce, SChrét. 90 (Paris 1962).
18 Paulinus of Pella, Eucharisticos lines 408–19, ed. C. Moussy, Paulin de Pella, Poème d’Action de Grâces
et de Prière, SChrét. 209 (Paris, 1974). 19 Wood, Merovingian Kingdoms (1994) 206–11.
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