Rejecting romanitas? Sidonius, Syagrius and the politics of language

Dodd, Leslie

Abstract

This paper examines an event described in Letter 5.5 of Sidonius Apollinaris which describes how the Roman aristocrat and lawyer, Syagrius, had broken with tradition and begun taking lessons in the Burgundian language. It demonstrates that this event was interpreted by Sidonius as the rejection of a Roman political identity and that he sought to use this letter as a warning and a plea to draw Syagrius back to an overtly Roman cultural and political identity.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: 'Without Let or Hindrance’: Inclusion and its Subversion from the Medieval to the Modern
• Start Date: Jul 7, 2006
• End Date: Jul 9, 2006
• Deposit Date: Aug 20, 2019
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2067762