Introduction

Summary

Sidonius informs his brother-in-law, Agricola, that his daughter, Severiana, is very ill. He therefore cannot join him on a fishing trip and instead is leaving with his whole family for their suburban estate, hoping for an improvement in Severiana's condition. The letter ends with critical remarks about the incompetence of doctors. Despite fear for his daughter's life, Sidonius’ scolding of the medical profession is witty and characterised by many literary allusions.

Addressee

Agricola, Sidonius’ wife, Papianilla, and Ecdicius are siblings, children of emperor Avitus; see the introduction to Ep. 2.1. He was a vir illustris (for this title, see the commentary on Ep. 2.4.1 Vir clarissimus Proiectus…) and married to a daughter of Ruricius; see Ruric. Ep. 2.32, addressed to Agricola; Neri (2009) 340–1, 409, Mathisen (2020a) 55. He is also the addressee of Sidon. Ep. 1.2, which is Sidonius’ portrait of the Visigothic king Theoderic II. On Agricola, see PLRE 2, 37 n. 2, PCBE 4, 106, Kaufmann (1995) 275, Mathisen (2020a) 77.

Date

It is clear from the letter that Sidonius’ daughter is old enough to decide where she would like to be looked after, but beyond that the letter is not dateable. On the general difficulty of dating Sidonius’ letters, see the Introduction, ‘2. The date and order of letters in Book 2’.

Major themes and further reading

Structure and intertextuality

Ep. 2.12 varies the subject of Ep. 2.2, a flight from the heat in the countryside to the sanitary rural estate. The connection is reinforced by the motif of fishing, which plays a role in both letters; see Ep. 2.2.12 and 17. It is not clear where the letter has been written and where the fishing trip should have taken place, as Sidonius only writes that it would have been on a river. For an overview of all the estates mentioned in Sidonius’ letters, see Mratschek (2020b) 249 n. 90. The letter has been studied in connection with Sidonius’ relation to his female family members (Mascoli 2010, 35–45, Mascoli 2014, 36) and Sidonius’ attitude towards illness, medicine, and healing practices in Late Antiquity; Faure and Jacquemard (2014) 63–4, Clark (1993) 67–8, Hess (2021). The subject of health and medical cures is a frequent theme in the ancient epigram and letter.