Sidonius has given us a few glimpses of Gothic life in Gaul towards the end of the fifth century. Theodoric, whose ‘civilitas’ he commends,[137] does not load his table with tasteless profusion: ‘maximum tunc pondus in verbis est’. And it is to his credit that in his case, ‘cibi arte, non pretio placent’.[138] A wise balance is kept: ‘videas ibi elegantiam Graecam, abundantiam Gallicanam, celeritatem Italam.’ He does not go in for those cheap amusements which were all too common as meal-time entertainments: there is no hydraulic organ, no choir, no flute, or lyre or performing girl.[139] If we take this with Salvian’s panegyrics on the morals of the Goths, it may not perhaps be unjustifiable to conclude that the Gothic element gave some stability to the moral education of Southern Gaul.
Intellectually, too, they stood high. It is not without significance that Arbogast (391-2) made his nominee for the Empire a former teacher of rhetoric. Seronatus speaks of ‘literature among the Goths’,[140] and Sidonius praises Arbogast, who, though ‘potor Mosellae’ is famous for his Roman eloquence and commits no barbarism, in spite of living among barbarians.[141] The greater part of the nobility understood Latin well, though Gothic was probably spoken in ordinary intercourse. The lower classes among the Goths understood Latin very imperfectly. At the collapse of the conspiracy vaguely mentioned by Sidonius[142] an interpreter is used. The persons concerned were clearly Goths. And Ennodius speaks of an interpreter at an interview between Euric and Epiphanius, when the latter made a speech in Latin.[143] But Latin was preponderant. It was the language of diplomacy[144] and legislation; it was the language of a mighty civilization, and of Placidia, the wife of Ataulf. Theodoric II was trained by Avitus in Latin literature, and Euric encourages the teaching of classical literature. Lampridius sang in praise of the Gothic kings at Bordeaux, and Leo, Euric’s minister, was famous as a rhetorician. In fact, the Visigothic court became the last refuge of Roman letters.[145] Nor did the activity of the Goths end with literature. In 484, feeling the complexity and difficulty of the Theodosian code, they called a conference of lawyers and ecclesiastics who produced an abridged form, with interpretations, which was destined[146] to replace the older code throughout the country occupied by the Goths. That there were schools of jurisprudence in this part, notably at Arles, we gather from Sidonius.[147] Fauriel thinks this revised form, published A.D. 506, bore traces of the Germanic spirit and tradition, and was, in comparison with the Roman code, ‘plus concise et mieux rédigée’.
There is no doubt that a large number of people in Gaul welcomed the government of the Goths, whose influence was thereby extended to the classes whose interest did not reach to books and codes. For the poor, crushed by the cast-iron imperial system, looked to the Goths as their deliverers, and the middle classes, oppressed with taxation, welcomed any change, while many eagerly sought the service of the Gothic government.[148] ‘Sed Gothicam fateor pacem me esse secutum’, says Paulinus of Pella,[149] who, though a nobleman, preferred Gothic rule, because he felt how uncertain imperial protection was becoming. He also mentions the ‘summa humanitas’ which the Goths showed in shielding the people on whom they were billeted.[150] Generally speaking, he was satisfied with Gothic rule: it was quite profitable, in spite of his many and great sufferings.[151]
Under these circumstances it was easy to forget Rome. ‘Rome était si loin de Bordeaux’, remarks Rocafort.[152] And so Gallo-Romans very often came to treat their Gothic neighbours on terms of friendliness and equality.
But among the upper classes of the Gallo-Romans generally Roman pride was still very strong. They held high offices at the court of the barbarians, for whom they cherished a secret contempt, or else retired to their great châteaux[153] (ruins of which are still to be seen[154]) and bewailed to one another the encroachment of the Goths, who retained, to a large extent, their lawless and roving instinct. There is a feeling that literature and religion (in both of which we see, though in different degrees, the growth of a ceremonious externalism) are the only things left. Sidonius asks Basilius to see to it that the bishops obtain the right of ordination in those parts which the Goths have taken, so that there may be, at any rate, a religious if not a political bond.[155] And both in religion and literature they despised the Goths. For the Goths were Arians, and their jargon was barbarous. The well-known epigram of the Latin Anthology[156] expresses the attitude of mind:
Inter hails goticum, scap jah matjan jah drigkan
non audet quisquam dignos educere versus.
How can one write poetry, exclaims Sidonius, among people who put rancid oil on their hair? ‘The Muse of the six-foot metre has scorned her task, since the appearance of patrons seven feet high.’[157] And to Philagrius he confesses: ‘barbaros vitas quia mali putentur: ego etiamsi boni’.[158]
How sensitive men of Sidonius’s class were to the charge of barbarism we may see from Avitus’s letter to Viventiolus.[159] Rumour whispers that in one of his sermons he has slipped into a ‘barbarism’, and his friends are openly criticizing. ‘I confess’, says the bishop with wounded pride, ‘that such a thing may have happened to me. Any learning I may have had in more youthful years is now the spoil of age, “omnia fert aetas”’—a Virgilian quotation to indicate that, in spite of his profession to his friend, his ‘studia litterarum’ still remain to mark his culture. The barbarism at issue is the quantity of the middle syllable of ‘potitur’, to which he devotes most of the letter.