Sidoine et les Barbares

Abstract

Sidonius Apollinaris has let us the most important testimony we have of the Vth century in the Roman West. One of the main problems this member of the Romano-Gaulish political and cultural elite confronted was that of Barbarian populations and Barbarian kingdoms established in Gaul, especially the Wisigothic one at Toulouse and the Burgundian one at Lyon. At Toulouse as well as at Lyon, his native city, and Clermont-Ferrand, where he finished his life as a bishop of the city and a foe to the Gothic king Euric, Sidonius was able to know and appreciate them in different manners, but always with the scorn due to that kind of people. The paper tries to evaluate the notions of barbarian and barbarism compared with the use made of them by Augustine and other Christian writers, and to measure the similarities and differences of Sidonius’ behaviour towards the Goths of Theodoric and then to those of Euric, and of that of his friend Syagrius towards the Burgundians.

Keywords

• Augustine
• barbarians
• barbarism
• Burgundians
• Wisigoths
• Sidonius