Baring-Gould’s sources: Gallican and Roman Martyrologies. Authorities: — The letters of Sidonius himself and of Mamertus of Vienna; mention by Gennadius of Marseilles (d. 495); Gregory of Tours (d. 594). His own epistles and poems are, however, the chief sources of information.] Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius was probably a native of Auvergne. His family was one of the most illustrious in Gaul. His grandfather, Apollinaris, was the first of the family who embraced Christianity. He was prtetorian prefect in Gaul, and his son, the father of the saint, occupied the same office under the Emperor Honorius. Sidonius was born on the 5 th of November, but in what year is not so certain as the day of his birth. It was probably in 431. He was taught philosophy by Eusebius, and elocution by HSnius. His education was carefully attended to, so that when grown to man’s estate he was regarded as one of the most learned as well as one of the most accomplished men of his time. He served in the army with distinction, and married Papianilla, daughter of Avitus, four times prefect of Gaul, and thrice general of the army, and received with her the land and lordship of Aubifene in Auvergne. By his wife Sidonius had a son and two daughters. He has left us a pleasant picture of country life in one of his epistles, 6". Sidonius Apollinaris.
Sin which he describes a visit which he made to his friends, some Gallic nobles, whose estates were in the neighbourhood of Nismes. The morning hours were spent in the tennis court or the library. The latter was furnished with Latin authors, profane and religious, the former for the men, the latter for the ladies. The' table was twice served, at dinner and supper, with meat, boiled and roast, and with wine. Between meals the company slept, galloped about the country, or lounged in the bath.
The house of his father-in-law was a favourite spot with Sidonius. A copious stream, issuing from the mountain, and falling in foaming cascades over the steps of trap rock, discharged its waters into a lake, about two miles long, and the villa was pleasantly situated on the margin of th e lake. The baths, the porticoes, the summer apartments ingeniously kept cool, the winter rooms as ingeniously warmed, were adapted to the purposes of luxury and use. The adjacent mountainous country afforded beautiful prospects of woods, pastures, and the tall cones of the volcanic peaks of Auvergne.
From this retreat, where Avitus amused his leisure with books, rural sports, and the practice of husbandry, he was called to the general command of the forces in Gaul [roughly modern France and Belgium], when the province was threatened by the Visigoths. Avitus visited Theodoric, King of the Goths [Germanic peoples who invaded the Roman Empire, many of them Arian Christians], at Toulouse, and laid the foundations of a solid alliance with that powerful nation. Whilst at Toulouse the news reached him that the Emperor Maximus was slain, and that Rome had been pillaged by the Vandals.
A vacant throne, which he might ascend without guilt or danger, tempted his ambition, and the Visigoths were easily persuaded to support his claim. They loved the person of Avitus, they respected his virtues, and they were not insensible of the advantage of giving an Emperor to the West. The annual assembly of the seven provinces was shortly after held at Arles, and the nomination of Avitus to the purple was confirmed. The formal consent of Marcian, Emperor of the East, was solicited and obtained; but the Senate, Rome, and Italy submitted with impatience to the presumption of a Gallic usurper. He deemed it expedient to hasten to Rome, and secure his seat in the heart of the Empire. But Rome was ready to acquiesce in his assumption of the purple only when he was backed by the legions of Gaul and the host of Gothic Barbarians. The capital saw its Emperor at the beginning of the year 456. On the 1st day of January, his son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, celebrated his virtues in a panegyric of six hundred pompous verses, and was rewarded by the erection of a bronze statue in the portico of Trajan [Roman emperor 98–117]’s Library— among those of famous orators and poets.
Late writers attribute to Avitus giddiness at his promotion, and loss of control over his passions. He is said to have become grossly profligate. It is satisfactory to know that this charge is entirely unsubstantiated by anything like contemporary evidence.
The Senate asserted their legitimate claim to elect an Emperor. Count Ricimer, one of the principal commanders of the barbarian troops, who formed the military defence of Italy, supported them in their discontent. Avitus received peremptory orders before the close of this year to descend from his throne; and the feeble Emperor, after a short and unavailing struggle, abdicated the purple and the vices wherewith he had stained it, to resume his former virtues as Bishop of Placentia. But the inflexible severity of the Senate refused to allow the usurper to hide his discomfiture under the episcopal mitre, and demanded his death. Avitus fled towards the Alps with the hope of securing his person and treasures in his patrimony in Auvergne. Disease, or if! if* S. Sidonius Apollinaris.
the hand of the executioner, arrested him on his road. Sidonius had contracted some guilt by his relationship to and laudation of the fallen Emperor. He hastened to wipe it out, and secure his safety by a tribute of fulsome flattery to the rising star, Majorian.
The new Emperor, pleased with the panegyric, showed favour to Sidonius, invested him with some military command, and finally with the title of Count. Majorian was assassinated 461, and was succeeded by Severus II., during whose reign Sidonius was in Gaul; in 467 Sidonius was in Rome when Anthemius was exalted to the purple. He composed and recited in his honour a panegyric; practice in flattery had removed the difficulty and the ignominy, but his prognostications of a long, prosperous reign were as little verified by the event as were those so lavishly expended on Avitus.1 Anthemius, after five years of sad contemplation of the breaking up of the Western Empire, was massacred by the soldiers of Ricimer. Sidonius, during the brief reign, enjoyed the prefectship of the city, the pay accorded him for his poetical adulation of the Emperor.
The murder of Anthemius, and the sack of Rome by the soldiers of Ricimer, probably disgusted Sidonius with his life at the capital, and he returned to his estates in Gaul. There he met again his wife, his son Apollinaris, and his daughters Severiana and Roscia. He was a fond and careful father. Among his letters is one excusing himself from a fishing party with his brother-in-law, Agricola, because his daughter Severiana was ill; first with a light cough, and then with fever — probably congestion of the lungs. Gregory of Tours [bishop and historian of the Franks (d. 594)] mentions another daughter, Alchima, who, after the death of their father, combined with her 1 He composed this panegyric it the advice of Basilius, the Consul, who assured him that obsequious laudation was the only mode of obtaining emolument and advancement.
sisters to obtain, by unworthy and uncanonical means, tire bishopric of Clermont for their brother Apollinaris. The see obtained by bribery was enjoyed only four months. In one of his letters Sidonius warns his son against listening to immodest discourses, and praises him for his avoidance of them hitherto. His villa possessed no indelicate pictures of nude females, nor were his evenings passed in watching buffoons with painted faces, or boxing or wrestling matches. A coarse joke among his slaves was corrected with a rap of the cane of the steward. The return of Sidonius to Auvergne probably coincided with the year of his election to the bishopric of Clermont. He was not in Holy Orders at the time; his ambitious nature may have impelled him to seek a new field of aggrandizement when that of Court advancement was closed to him. The people of Clermont would certainly acquiesce in a hint that he desired to rule them with spiritual authority, the see being opportunely vacant by the death of S. Eparchius (a.d. 472). Or, it may be, that the citizens and clergy thought his return from Italy a happy coincidence, and eagerly elected one who, they were well aware, would do credit to the Church and diocese, by his learning and general integrity. On his elevation, S. Lupus of Troyes wrote him an affectionate letter, pointing out to him his duties, and exhorting him to a conscientious discharge of them.
He seems, as far as we can judge from his own letters, to have faithfully followed this good advice, and to have set the example of a zealous bishop, caring for the souls committed to his charge.
The incursions of the Goths threatened Auvergne. He exhorted the people to defend themselves valiantly, and after the example of S. Mamertus of Vienne, he instituted ■S'. Sidonius Apollinaris.
Rogations.1 Having been invited by some Religious, one day, to preach to them on the festival of S. Cyrus, some one maliciously stole his manuscript, but to the delight and astonishment of all, he preached extempore, with fluency and apparently without effort.
Auvergne having been ceded to the Goths, Sidonius went into exile, to the little town of Levignac, in Gallia Narbonensis, not far from Carcasonne. There he found a lodging next door to two old women who spent their time in quarrelling; and their discordant voices irritated the poor bishop to such an extent, that he could not sleep or study. “Never!” says he, “were there such chatterboxes, so quarrelsome, so restless, so abusive.” After a short exile he returned to his see, never to quit it again till death. On his resuming the direction of his diocese he was worried by two of his priests, who deprived him of his comforts and his goods, and interfered with the discharge of his authority. The opportune death of one of these priests of cramp in the bowels so frightened the other, that Sidonius was left in peace for a time. But the bishop falling sick with fever, the surviving priest, who had before tormented him, set about canvassing for the bishopric. Sidonius, highly incensed, had himself carried down into the cathedral. The people were convoked, and he exhorted them to receive no one as their prelate but his brother Aprunculus. S. Sidonius died in 488 or 489, and his brother at once stepped into the office he had vacated. S. Aprunculus died in 491, and was succeeded by S. Euphrasius, on whose death Apollinaris, the son of S. Sidonius, obtained the see by bribery.
The relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of Sidonius Apollinaris are shown in a rich shrine in the church of S. Gengt at Saint-Saturnin. 1 Lib. v. Epist. 14; vii. Epist. x.
