Merobaudes on the Imperial Family

Abstract

;THE GLIMMERINGS of an abridgement or the doubtful light of a panegyric: Gibbon's characterisation of the sources for the reign of Trajan aptly describes those available for reconstructing a narrative political history of the Western Roman Empire during much of the fifth century.1 On the careers and reigns of Avitus (455/6), Maiorianus (457461) and Anthemius (467-472), three panegyrics of Sidonius Apollinaris can be made to disclose a great deal.2 From the middle years of the reign of Valentinian (425-455), there survive some four hundred lines of the work of Flavius Merobaudes, which deserve (and have recently received) detailed investigation from a competent historian.3 The first poem, a fragment of twenty-three lines, which is panegyrical in tone, if not in form, perhaps poses the most delicate problems of interpretation. Merobaudes is clearly describing the painting or mosaic decoration of a vault or ceiling which depicts the emperor Valentinian and his closest relatives.4 But the passage of time has erected two serious obstacles to comprehension of the poem. Merobaudes' precise meaning must sometimes be elicited from literary reminiscences of classical poets, which do not automatically come to the mind of a modern reader, and the scenes which Merobaudes describes allusively and with an air of familiarity must be reconstructed from his words alone. Recent exegetes have not always taken enough account of the literary allusions, and they have sometimes attempted to overcome historical difficulties by the easy hypothesis that the poet glides insensibly from the description of visible features to private reflection or meditation.' There is room, therefore, for an interpretation which attempts to identify all the classical reminiscences relevant to determining Merobaudes' meaning and to allow each of his statements to have its most natural significance.