185. As excavations in more than one country sufficiently prove, the hypocaust was commonly used for other rooms beside the bath. Cf. Carm. xxii. 188, where the hiberna domus of Leontius is described; here the wood-fed furnace spargit lentatum per culmina tota vaporem---- in fact, central heating.
186. He mentions also the baths in the Octaviana of Consentius at Narbonne, and those in the Burgus of Leo near Bordeaux ( Carm. xxii.).
Almost more interesting than Sidonius' description of these elaborate structures, is the account which he gives of the extemporized vapour-baths used by him at Vorocingus and Prusianum, where the baths of his hosts were for some reason unavailable. He there caused a pit to be dug and enclosed by an arched roof of wattling, upon which coverings of Cilician goat's-hair were laid. Red-hot stones were placed in the pit and upon these warm water was thrown, with the result that the improvised chamber was filled with vapour. In this the bather sat for some time, receiving when he came out a douche of cold water. The whole procedure recalls that employed in Russia, the East, and in primitive America (cf. note, 52. 2, p. 225). For the general arrangement of Roman baths, see Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des ant. grecques et rom. i. 651; Marquardt, Privatleben, pp. 279 ff. It is interesting to contrast Sidonius' descriptions of Roman country-houses with what he has to say of the palace of Theodoric II at Toulouse (I. ii). There he describes a large hall of audience, a treasure-chamber, and a stable, but nothing is said of any baths.
187. But cf. Carm. xxiv. 56 ff., where the garden of Apollinaris is mentioned.
188. Leaving off the toga was one of the first delights of country life. Pliny ( Ep. V. vi. 45) says of one of his haunts nulla necessitas togae (cf. Juvenal, Sat. iii. 171).
189. The Burgus of Leontius was fortified. Dill (p. 310) notes the fact that in isolated cases such fortification seems to have begun at the time of the Visigothic settlement in Gaul. The remains of the castle built by Dardanus, Prefect from 409 to 413, were identified by an inscription found on the spot (C. I. L. xii. 1524). Cf. Fauriel, Hist, de la Gaule méridionale, i. 560. The foundation of these strongholds in difficult country heralded the approach of a feudal system.
190. The absence of information about the towns themselves is also disappointing. Several allusions show that they were protected by walls: thus Vienne (VII. i. 2) and Clermont (III. ii. 1). The mention of the statues in the forum at Arles is interesting (I. xi. 7), and the allusion to the deer which took refuge in the forum at Vienne (VII. i. 3) seems to show that the forum of that place still stood in the late fifth century.
191. For Roman dining arrangements, see Marquardt, Privatleben, pp. 302 ff.
192. Or at any rate with subjects familiar on Sassanian textiles of the sixth to eighth centuries. Similar motives, however, were favoured in other places in the Near East, among others probably in Alexandria (O. von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidentextilien; Berlin, 1913).
193. Silver plate, as we should expect from a wealthy Roman writer, is often mentioned. Theodoric's was unostentatious (I. ii); but there were families who thought more of their old plate than of being useful in the world (VIII. vii. 1). A silver cup with fluted sides, like a shell, is considered an appropriate gift for Ragnahild, queen of Euric (IV. viii. 4, 5). Sidonius is silent as to his own plate; to Gregory of Tours we owe the story that in the time of greatest distress at Clermont the bishop disposed of his silver to relieve the poor (see p. cxlviii).
194. Iuvat et vago rotatu | dare fracta membra ludo, | simulare vel trementes | pede veste voce Bacchas: lines 64-7 of the poem. It is here implied that even the costume of the Bacchante was assumed.
195. The reference probably is to carvers who officiated with a studied style and flourish, as if they worked to music (see note, 15. 1, p. 230).
196. II. ix. 6, xiii. 4. For the clepsydra, see note, 51. 2, p. 224.
197. His visits to Rome inspire him with no desire to dwell upon the artistic treasures of the capital. He dismisses the frescoes in his baths with the remark that there was nothing in them to offend modesty. K. Purgold has shown that most of the descriptions in his poems which seem to suggest observations of works of art are really borrowed from Claudian and other Roman poets (Claudianus und Sidonius, 1878). Some of these are elaborate, but in no case does the poet speak with enthusiasm or evident personal comprehension. In Carm. xxii he enumerates frescoes and pictures in the house of Pontius Leontius rather in the style of an abstract inventory, and without any critical appreciation: the chief subjects were: Mithridates sacrificing his horses to Neptune; an episode from the siege of Cyzicus; the infant Hercules strangling the serpents; and (an interesting point) episodes from Jewish history. In the epithalamium of Polemius and Araneola (Carm. xv. 159ff.) a number of classical episodes are woven by Araneola on a toga palmata for her father, themes perhaps derived from familiar pictures.
Sidonius refers more than once to encaustic painting (VII. xiv. 5; and Panegyric of Majorian, 1. 590). The description of the mosaics in the church of Patiens is difficult (see notes, 54. I, 55. 1, pp. 225-6). But whatever the exact translation of the author's words may be, it seems certain that no figure-subjects were depicted, but only ornamental or conventional designs, in which the colours of blue and green preponderated. As Hodgkin has observed, their parallels may perhaps be sought in some of the purely decorative designs in the mosaics of churches at Ravenna.
198. Sidonius says that the sunlight was reflected from the gilded roof, which, at a period when gold backgrounds were not yet employed in mosaic, certainly implies the ceiling of painted and gilded wood usual in early basilicas. It may be noted, however, that he speaks of mosaics covering the camera, a word which implies vaulting, but is probably here applied to the concha of the apse (cf. note, 54. 1, p. 226, below). Sir T. G. Jackson, Byzantine and Romanesque Architecture (Cambridge, 1913), ii. 31, also regards the church as ceiled. He draws attention once more, as Viollet-le-Duc in an earlier generation, to the poverty of our information on the churches built in Gaul before the tenth century. Neither Sidonius nor any other writer gives us a tithe of the facts which they might so easily have presented.
199. Hist. Franc. II. xiv. In IV. xx Gregory mentions its destruction by fire. He himself restored it; and as he must have been familiar with its details, should be regarded as a competent witness.
200. This was a position where inscriptions are known to have been placed (H. Holtzinger, Die altchristliche Architektur, &c., p. 184).
201. The monastery must have been of the eremitic type, like those of St. Martin at Marmoutier and Tours, and based on oriental prototypes (cp. p. lxxix above). The church was completed by Abraham (Petits Bollandistes, vii. 59, 60).
202. For these, cf. note, 6. i, p. 216.
203. He liked the music of birds, to which he refers more than once. He also mentions without resentment the piping of the local 'Tityri', heard on the hills near Avitacum.
204. IV. xi, lines 13-15 Psalmorum hic modulator et phonascus | Ante altaria fratre gratulante | Instructas docuit sonare classes. St. Amabilis of Auvergne was in early life cantor in the church of St. Mary at Clermont (Chaix, ii. 66).
205. Summus nitor in vestibus, cultus in cingulis, splendor in phaleris. The lively sexagenarian Germanicus is said to have accentuated his youthful appearance by wearing 'tight clothes' (IV. xiii. 1). This may refer only to the tunic; but it is conceivable that the influence of Teutonic or Celtic fashions may have made itself felt, and that some garment for the leg may be indicated; or did he wear a buttoned garment? Cf. Fertig, i. 24.
206. The pallium was first distinctive of philosophers, who continued to wear it after it came into general use, differentiating themselves from the unlearned by carrying a staff and wearing the hair and beard long. From IV. xi. I we infer that this costume was still affected by philosophers in Gaul in the middle of the fifth century.
207. Cf. VIII. vi. 6; and Carm. xv. 145 ff., where Araneola embroidered a toga palmata for her father; for this garment, cf. Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 549. It has been noticed