As much as fun as it would be to start this chapter with ‘And Now for Something Completely Different’, the fact of the matter is that Monty Python’s Life of Brian is not really all that much at odds with the Biblical film tradition. The film owes quite a lot to Jesus of Nazareth (of which it is something of a parody) and was shot in many cases on the very same sets in North Africa and with the very same extras as the ITV miniseries had been just a few years before. ‘I had these elderly Tunisians telling me, “Well, Mr Zeffirelli wouldn’t have done it like that, you know”’, director Terry Jones joked about the production in an interview some time later. Life of Brian is about many things, of course, and the Python troupe’s usual buffoonery is everywhere to be seen in the film, but there is a consistent engagement throughout with the concept of empire. The well-known and hilarious ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ episode is a send-up of contemporary anti-imperialist movements set in ancient Judaea, of course, but it is also addressed in some wider fashion to the protests of its present day. All of the Pythons were children of Britain’s decline, who in their formative college years strongly felt the ‘Winds of Change’, as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had famously called Britain’s stepdown from its own empire. In many ways, the entire Monty Python project can be seen as a madcap made-for-TV version of The Waste Land, a gathering of disiecta membra from the cultural past rearranged and reconsidered in a startlingly innovative format. If empire broadly imagined is a matter at issue in Life of Brian, then it makes sense that the representation of Pilate, as the chief agent of empire in the film, will be an especially important character to ponder.

In the seventh to ninth centuries, the Islamic caliphs, Roman/Byzantine emperors and Khazarian khağans minted coins which proclaimed their respective monotheistic affiliations: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This chapter explores how gold and silver coin reforms representing divinity were a major departure from previous coins which primarily represented rulers. The first section, ‘Empires of Faith and their Finances’, charts the confessional coin reforms of these three ‘empires of faith’ from the late seventh century to Khazaria’s Moses coins of the late 830s. The second section, ‘Coinage and “Commonwealth” (Ninth to Eleventh Century): the Ummah and the Oikoumene’, expands to include the monotheistic coinages of some eleventh- to thirteenth-century peripheral dynasties within the Islamic ummah and the Christian oikoumene and explores hints of Judaic involvement in otherwise Islamic and Christian mints across the worlds of both Islam and Christendom.

Empires of Faith and their Finances

According to the mid-tenth-century De Ceremoniis, emperor Konstantinos VII ranked the Khazarian khağan after the Christian Roman emperor and the Islamic caliph in importance based on weight in gold on correspondence seals. These empires of faith minted coins to display their respective official monotheisms as seventh- to ninth-century top-down political programmes. As a ‘third force’, Khazarian coin reforms should be considered alongside the other two Abrahamic ecumenical empires.

Having conquered lands inhabited by erstwhile Roman subjects, early caliphs beginning with the Prophet Mohammed mostly avoided coin reforms. This changed in the years 696–7 under caliph ‘Abd al-Malik, when the first purely Islamic coin, a gold dinar, appeared, manifesting the supremacy of the Shahada in Arabic, being the coins’ only reference. This coinage initiated a period of expressly Islamic reforms for coinage and other domestic policies. Along with the coin reforms, these Islamisation policies were primarily reflected in the adoption of Arabic as the ruling language, dislodging ‘Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Pehlevi’. While ‘Abd al-Malik was not the first to attempt coin reform, historians still debate whether his policies influenced Byzantine iconoclasm.

Sidonius greets his dear Serranus

• 1. Your letter was shown to me by the advocate Marcellinus, an experienced person and a man with friends. After offering a greeting with its preliminary words, in the rest of its course, which is certainly considerable, it contained the praise of your patron the emperor Petronius Maximus. You call him most lucky – with more determination or friendship than accuracy or truth – because he was elevated through the most important offices up to imperial power. But I can never consent to such an opinion of thinking that those who set foot upon the steep and slippery heights of our state are fortunate.

• 2. For there is no telling how much misery in earthly life hourly the lives of these fortunate ones entail, if one nevertheless wants to call them that, because they arrogate the name to themselves like Sulla – of course because they go beyond what is lawful and right and think the highest power to be the highest happiness, and they are all the more unhappy precisely because they understand too little that they are subject to a most restless servitude. For just as kings have mastery over men, the wish for mastery masters kings.

• 3. If we omit at this point the cases of the preceding and following emperors, by himself this Maximus, who is special to you, can provide us with maximum proof; though he ascended fearlessly to the height of the prefecture, the patriciate and the consulate, and though he insatiably repeated the offices that he had held for a second time as if following in his own tracks, still, when he came after mobilising all his forces to the cliff-edge of imperial honour, under the crown he suffered a sort of vertigo at his measureless rank and he could no longer bear to be the master, just as he had not endured being under a master.

• 4. And as for the aforementioned man, look next at the favour, the power and the durability of his earlier life; and on the contrary the beginning, the storminess and the end of his principate, which lasted not much longer than two months. Certainly, you will find out that the man was happier before he was called the happiest.

The cases discussed in Chapter 5 against Agoratus and Eratosthenes illustrate the effectiveness of the Amnesty to block litigation which recalled wrongs committed under the Thirty. The first of these, the trial of Agoratus, at first sight seems to have violated the rule μὴ μνησικακεῖν which blocked frivolous litigation against those who were not among the Thirty, Ten or Eleven. Though a close conspirator and confidante of the Thirty, Agoratus had not sat on any of the boards whose members were exempted under covenant 16 (see Chapter 3). Though scholars have sought routes around this, none of the suggestions made to date pass muster. The closest suggestion to the truth that has been advanced to date is that though the Amnesty did put legal measures in place to prevent trials of this kind from happening, in the wake of the ousted oligarchy, restored citizens, despite their oaths, harboured such anger that they engaged in court litigation which was strictly illegal under the terms of the covenants. But even that is to miss a deeper point: the trial of Agoratus is evidence not of the ineffectiveness of the Reconciliation but, on the contrary, of its enormous and widespread efficacy. If the trial was inadmissible, there was nevertheless a legal grey area over whether crimes which had had such enormous significance in bringing down democracy in 404 could be relegated into same bracket of the exception made in the Amnesty clauses for the Thirty, Ten and Eleven, even if the person who committed them was not a member of any of those boards. The speech has survived in the record precisely because it exemplifies the enormous efforts litigators had to canvass in order to argue their way around the rule which specified that untried cases predating 403, whether relating to the period of oligarchy or even before, were now inadmissible. The speaker of Lys. 13 alludes to the Amnesty in anticipation that the defendant would cite it, and in that expectation presents a skewed interpretation of the Amnesty clause μὴ μνησικακεῖν which the defence would have found easy to refute. The trial of Eratosthenes, in contrast, was admissible because the defendant had sat on the board of the Thirty.

This commentary on Sidonius’ second book of letters is part of a larger international project that gives a comprehensive overview of Sidonius’ work and builds upon the preliminary research published in the Edinburgh Companion to Sidonius Apollinaris, edited by Gavin Kelly and Joop van Waarden (2020a). As Sidonius’ life and many aspects of his work are covered in that volume, I will keep this introduction brief and limit myself to four important themes of the second book of letters: (1) Sidonius’ life between otium and negotium and the position of Book 2 in the collection of letters; (2) the date and order of letters in Book 2; (3) Book 2 as a response to Pliny the Younger's Letters and the question of intertextuality; and (4) the epigrams in Sidonius’ letters. I shall also (5) discuss the basis of the text and the aims of the translation. Here I will briefly present my theses and the grounds for them; the details will be found in the commentary.

Sidonius’ second book of letters is devoted to the subject of otium. The question of how to spend one's leisure time honourably is a literary motif explored by many famous Romans before Sidonius – Cato, Horace, Sallust, Cicero, Seneca and Pliny the Younger among them – and was also addressed by Christian authors. The authors before Sidonius who devoted themselves to the subject denoted different things by otium, depending on the genre of their literary works. The meaning of otium ranges from the negatively connoted ‘idleness’ to the otium honestum, ‘honourable retirement’, after a fulfilled political or military career. Otium is also associated with concepts such as ‘freedom’, ‘idyll’ and ‘happiness’. It is often opposed to negotium, that is, occupation and professional commitment.

Sidonius is aware that he is part of a long tradition and demonstrates his knowledge of otium as a literary motif through intertextual allusions. Pliny the Younger, in particular, who in his letters extensively dealt with life in the villa, is a central role model for Sidonius’ discussion of otium in the second book. Sublime literature, according to Pliny, cannot be produced in the hustle and bustle of the city, but only in peace and solitude, the otium of the countryside

Across historiography, Pečenegs, Oğuz, Cuman-Qıpčaqs and other nomads have been cast within a binary: as either enemies of civilisation or manifesting cooperation between Rus’ and the Eurasian steppe. The former interpretation, common in Russian literature for centuries, plays into the standard Christian-versus-pagan dichotomy. The latter interpretation is newer, and became an essential component of the Eurasianist school of Soviet and post-Soviet historiography led by Lev Gumilëv, which has reflected recent ethnonational geopolitics.

The commonly accepted interpretation of steppe-nomads in traditional Russian historiography derives from the PVL, which depicts the Polovcÿ (Cuman-Qıpčaqs) in the entries for the years 1068, 1093 and 1096 as a ‘hostile force’ bent on invasion. Similarly, the sedentary and Christianised Russian narrative is presented by the compilers as demonstrating supremacy over steppe-nomads. When inserted into the Orthodox Christian template to explain pagan-nomad victories against Christians, it became a divine punishment, resembling Jordanes’ interpretation of Attila’s Huns. Regarded as the ‘Mongol yoke’, this interpretation survived into the Soviet period. So deeply held was this interpretation, that Gumilëv called it the ‘black legend’. Gumilëv’s concept of ‘Eurasianism’ advocates a primordial ethnic alliance between the ancient Rus’ and the steppe-nomads (Pečenegs, Cuman-Qıpčaqs, Oğuz, etc.). The traditional interpretation receded in the late Soviet period.

Gumilëv’s Eurasianism and theories of primordial ethnicity have become well established in current geopolitical relations within the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (Kazakhstan’s Gumilëv Eurasian National University was refounded in 1996). Gumilëv reinterpreted the image of the alien steppe as a predominantly Western one and developed dual concepts of ‘ethnic chimera’ and ‘passionarity’ with the intention of fostering current transnational amity based on primordial ethnic identities.

Sidonius greets his dear Agricola

• 1. You have sent me a swift and solid boat, which has also room for a couch next to the catch of fishes; besides, an experienced steersman, and strong and expedient oarsmen, who certainly fly over the surface of the river going upstream with the same rapidity as downstream. But you will pardon me for refusing your invitation to accompany you on a fishing expedition, because I am held back by much stronger nets of sadness about sick family members, which causes pain to friends as well as to outsiders. That is why I think that you too, if you properly feel brotherly love, will rather think about turning back the minute you get this letter.

• 2. Severiana, our common cause of anxiety, was first disturbed by a tenacious fit of coughing, and now she also is exhausted by a fever, which gets worse night by night. That is why she wants to move out to our suburban place; when we got your letter we were preparing to leave for our little estate. So whether you come or stay, help our wishes with your prayers that this move will heal her, keen as she is for the country air. Certainly your sister and I are in suspense between hope and fear, and we thought her indisposition could increase if we opposed the patient's wishes.

• 3. I am therefore removing myself and my whole household together from the heat and torpor of the city with the help of Christ and thus I am escaping at the same time from the advice of the doctors who sit by and disagree, and who, little taught but eager enough, kill many sick people very dutifully. Iustus of course will be received in our home by right of friendship, and if it were allowed to make a joke in sad circumstances, I could easily prove him to be trained rather in the art of Chiron than of Machaon. So we must pray to Christ all the more diligently and beg him that heavenly power heals the illness, for which our concern does not find a cure. Goodbye.

The Athenian Amnesty Agreement of 403 bce is the best-known treaty of its kind from Greek antiquity and was hailed in later ages as the paradigm of reconciliation. A full understanding of the difficulties and challenges faced by Athens in 403, when the Thirty were defeated and overthrown, in reinstalling the ancient and prized democracy is impossible without exploration of the period which preceded it. It would be tempting to begin with the democrat Thrasybulus in Piraeus over the oligarchs and the Reconciliation that followed. As Cloché realised, however, the magnitude and scale of what the democrats achieved after regaining control of the city in the summer of 403 is to be measured against the scale and size of the calamity which gripped Athens during the eight intervening months between her defeat at the hands of the Spartan general Lysander in autumn 404 and the resurgence of the democratic resistance the following year. Crucially, the regime of the Thirty Tyrants, or simply ‘the Thirty’, signalled a suspension of law and order alongside systematic suppression of the principle of legal justice. To rebuild democracy in the wake of these calamities, it was essential for the victorious democrats in 403 to re-establish justice and the rule of law. The restored democracy of the fourth century is viewed by some as a democracy ‘tempered’ by legal restraint, in contrast to fifth-century Athens, often caricatured as ‘lawless’ democracy, but a closer look at the evidence will show that democracy and rule of law were two sides of the same coin, and that in order to re-establish democratic principle, it was of paramount importance to reaffirm the sovereignty of law as the final authority through and under which democracy and justice could be guaranteed.

Some critics may object to a chapter on the Thirty, on the grounds that it presents merely a sideshow. I wish to argue otherwise. The thirty-ninth chapter of the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. gives a nearly complete and compendious summary of the Reconciliation terms, which the Athenians contracted on the twelfth day of the Attic month Boedromion, in the archonship of Eucleides (403/2). These contracts or covenants are of vital historical importance, and modern scholars have rightly prioritised them in their reconstruction of the Athenian Amnesty Agreement. Yet, at the same time, they tell only part of the story.

Introduction

Summary

Sidonius expresses his approval of Menstruanus, who was recommended to him as a friend by Pegasius, the recipient of this letter. In addition to Sidonius, there are many other people among the Avernians who are pleased with Menstruanus’ behaviour.

Addressee

Pegasius, probably a Gallic noble, is otherwise unknown; PLRE 2, 856, PCBE 4, 1459, Kaufmann (1995) 331, Mathisen (2020a) 113.

Date

There is no evidence for the date of this letter; see the Introduction, ‘2. The date and order of letters in Book 2’.

Major themes and further reading

Like Ep. 2.3 and 2.11, this letter belongs to the category of letters of friendship; see the introduction to Ep. 2.3. Fernández López (1994) 191–204 treats Ep. 2.6 and 2.12 together under ‘cartas descriptivas de lugares y personas: descripción breve’ (‘descriptive letters of places and persons: brief description’). In his overall positive behaviour, Menstruanus is an antithesis to Seronatus; see the introduction to Ep. 2.1.

Commentary

Section 1

Sidonius Pegasio suo salutem: For the simple greeting formula, see the commentary on Ep. 2.1.1 Sidonius Ecdicio suo salutem. For the addressee, Pegasius, see the introduction to this letter.

Proverbialiter celebre est saepe moram esse meliorem, sicuti et nunc experti sumus: The initial proverb (‘good things take time’) does not fit properly. It suggests that it took Menstruanus a long time to become the excellent friend he is now. But presumably Sidonius wants to emphasise that he has been observing Menstruanus for a long time; see the commentary immediately below on Ep. 2.6.1 Menstruanus amicus tuus longo istic tempore…. The adverb proverbialiter, ‘proverbially’, also appears in Ep. 7.9.19; van Waarden (2010) 505–6. For adverbs ending in -(i)ter in general, see the commentary on Ep. 2.1.1 Duo nunc pariter mala sustinent. The proverb saepe mora melior is preserved in Lactantius Placidus’ commentary on Statius’ epic Thebaid 3.719 as an epigram of Lucan (Epigrammata frg. 10); Courtney (2003) 355. Its meaning is also attested in different forms in Stat. Theb. 10.704 da spatium tenuemque moram (‘delay a little while’), Ov. Fast. 3.394 habent parvae commoda magna morae (‘short delays have great advantages’), Sen. Ag. 130 quod ratio non quit saepe sanavit mora (‘what reason cannot cure often has been cured by time’); Montone (2017) 41 n. 41. For the use of proverbs in letters in general, see Cugusi (1983) 96–8.

When the disputants came to terms in summer 403, the task they faced was daunting. Athens had been rent apart by the most gruesome civil conflict in memorable history, and the impulse for revenge on both sides must have been fierce. Had it not been for the interventions of the Spartan king Pausanias, civil unrest would have continued indefinitely. Lysias is clear that the democratic forays around the walls of the city were motivated by revenge, and the Three Thousand were not prepared to come to a settlement without a fight (Lys. 25.22). Though scholarly convention has been to speak of a ‘democratic victory’, the reality was somewhat different. Though this was a democratic victory in the sense that a line was drawn under eight months of oligarchy, it would be mistaken to imagine that one party was the victor in a military sense. Athenians reconciled under a Spartan mandate not because one party had decisively beaten the other, but because Spartans had by now understood that unless measures were taken to unite the Athenian citizenry under a tenable government, her allies Thebes and Corinth would get dragged into the military fray, jeopardising chances of a united campaign against Persia in the East. It was therefore essential that Sparta ensure that the basic tenets of the Spartan-led alliance of 404 were reinforced, with the important exception that she was now prepared to recognise that Athens would best be governed under her traditional democracy, and that any attempt to back further the imposed oligarchy of 404 was destined to end in disaster. The treaty of 403 was overseen by a board of ten (or fifteen) Spartan officials. The sources refer to these as diallaktai, cognate with the Greek for a negotiated settlement, diallagê, whose remit was to ensure that the two sides reconciled and enforce this in law.

As noted in Chapter 1, modern discussions of the Athenian Amnesty of 403 have been hampered by definitional problems. It has become a commonplace in scholarship to speak of an ‘amnesty’ which followed on from the victory of Thrasybulus, but the difficulty here is that the terms of the Reconciliation entailed much more than a commitment from one side to the other to discontinue hostilities.