257. IX. iii.
258. Cf. VIII. ii; and III. iii, where he uses the phrase: Sermonis Celtici squama. The Latin language stood in a more impregnable position than the pessimists supposed. Not only was it the most efficient instrument of expression in law, theology, and the sciences, but it was indispensable as the language of diplomacy between the varions Teutonic courts. Probably most of the principal barbarians could speak it, at any rate among the Visigoths. Cf. Germain, p. 133.
259. I. xi. 5 and 12.
260. The rusty sword or rusty armour is used more than once in different comparisons (cf. VI. vi. i).
261. Fortunae nauseantis vomitu exsputus (I. vii. 12).
262. ii, p. 97. Cf. the description of the parasite (III. xiii).
263. It need hardly be said that Sidonius is at his worst when he believed himself at his best. His calculated effects are almost all tedious in form and redolent, not (to use a phrase of his own) of the Muses, but of the rhetor's lamp. Among such show-pieces are (in addition to the description of the parasite): the reply to the complaint of Claudianus Mamertus (IV. iii), the letter on Claudianus Mamertus' death (IV. xi), that on the informers at Chilperic's court (V. vii), that with the disquisition on necessary affinity between the cultured (VII. xiv). Even the letters on Theodoric (I. ii) and Petronius Maximus (II. xiii) are not free from these defects.
264. Johnson, Lives of the Poets: Life of Cowley.
265. For instance, the translator will be confronted by sentences like the following: Nam cum viderem quae tibi pulchra sunt non te videre, ipsam eo tempore desiderii tui impatientiam desideravi (IV. xx. 3).
266. Sidonii temeritatem admirari vix sufficio, nisi forte temerarius ipse sim, qui temerarium ilium dicam, dum sales eius, seu tarditatis meae, seu illius styli obice, seu fortassis (nam unumquodque possibile est) scripturae vitio, non satis intelligo (Preface to Epistulae ad fam.).
267. See Preface, p. iv.
268. The word is Baret's, p. 106.
269. Giraldus of Ferrara (quoted by Baret), who says that both in prose and verse Sidonius strikes him as having something of the Gaul and the barbarian: in utroque dicendi genere, Gallianum nescio quid et barbarum redolere videtur. (De poet. hist. Dialog, v; in Opera, ii, p. 114.) Sidonius would himself have borne any reproach rather than this. For the lifelong guardian of pure Latin in Gaul, the contemner of the Celtica squama, to be told that his own style smacked of barbarism, would have been a blow too grievous for endurance. His zealous interest in Latinity and his uneasiness at the indifference of certain fellow nobles to correct diction, deserved a better reward (II. x; III. iii. 2; IV. xvii; VIII. ii). Discussing the influence of Celtic dialect, Fertig asks what kind of Latin the middle classes spoke, if even nobles were so careless? (Part iii, p. 24). It is perhaps significant that Sidonius himself insists on his preference for current words, and on his avoidance of archaisms or far-fetched terminology (VIII. xvi).
270. p. 99; pp. 115 ff.
271. But after Diocletian, such epithets as 'your sublimity', 'your magnificence', became the common mode of addressing great officials of State.
272. The word papa is applied to bishops throughout.
273. Sidonius tends to avoid the deeper subjects which occupy the thoughts of Jerome and Augustine. But in the ordinary field of life his range is very wide.
274. Cf. Dill, Book ii, ch. 2. The successors of Sidonius as representatives of the art of letter-writing in Gaul, Ruricius of Limoges and Avitus of Vienne, both share his defects of over-elaboration and tumidity. Cassiodorus, the Italian, writing in the first half of the sixth century is no improvement; he has been described as 'concealing commonplaces within fold after fold of verbosity '.
275. Though, as Sir A. Geikie has once more demonstrated (The Love of Nature among the Romans, 1913), several of the great writers had a true passion for natural beauty, yet, taking Latin literature as a whole, we find the spectacular aspect of nature rather too prominent; landscape and 'scenery' are the same thing.
276. Though Pliny nicknamed his villas on Lake Como 'Tragedy' and 'Comedy', because one was on a high rock, the other on a low. Yet here again the Stage intrudes on Nature.
277. Germain, in defence of Sidonius' humour, cites the letter to Graecus on Amantius (VI. viii), and the letter to Trygetius (VIII. xii). The former is probably the best which our author achieved in this field. In the second, as in that to Namatius, there is a certain straining after effect which tires the reader and defeats the humorist's end. We may add the remarks about doctors (II. xii) and incompetent sportsmen (VIII. vi). Cf. also IV. xviii; IX. vii.
278. In many ways Sidonius recalls the Seigneur de Balzac (Jean-Louis de Guez, b. 1594, d. 1654), just as much as Voiture. The following passage from Balzac's letter to Corneille acknowledging a copy of 'Cinna' will illustrate the affinity: Votre Cinna guérit les malades; il fait qtie les paralytiques battent des mains; il rend la parole à un muet . . . S'il était vrai qu'en quelqu'une de ses parties vous eussiez senti quelque faiblesse, ce serait un secret entre vos Muses et vous, car je vous assure que Personne ne l'a reconnue.
279. The poems were published at the request of Magnus Felix. The fact that the panegyric of Anthemius is placed first, out of its historical sequence, is in favour of the date mentioned above.
280. Fertig, Part ii, p. 15.
281. Cf. the often quoted lines: Has inter clades et funera mundi | Mors vixisse fuit.