Introduction

Summary

In Ep. 2.11 Sidonius confirms his close friendship with Rusticus, which persists even though their homes are far apart.

Addressee

Rusticus is a friend of Sidonius and a neighbour of Pontius Leontius, who lives near Bordeaux; see Ep. 8.11.3 v. 36. Rusticus is described as vir illustris in Ep. 2.11.2. For Rusticus’ life, see Loyen (1970a) 220 n. 47, Kaufmann (1995) 344, PLRE 2, 964 n. 4, PCBE 4, 1664, Mathisen (2020a) 119. He is also the addressee of Ruricius (Ruric. Ep. 2.20 and 2.54), bishop of Limoges, to whom Sidonius sends three letters (Sidon. Ep. 4.16, 5.15, 8.10, and Carm. 10); Mathisen (2020a) 54–5, van Waarden (2020a) 15.

Date

Loyen (1970a) 72, 247 n. 11 dates Ep. 2.11 after Sidonius’ trip to Bordeaux (see Ep. 8.11.3). As Sidonius only talks about the long distance between him and Rusticus and not the attacks of the Visigoths (see the commentary on the date of Ep. 2.1), Loyen thinks that the letter was written in the Auvergne around 467 (or in Lyon around 469). Kelly (2020a) 173 points out that Sidonius might have made multiple trips to Bordeaux or Narbonne in the 460s. 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

The three long letters, 2.8–10, are followed by two short letters, 2.11 and 12, which both deal with a simple subject but offer an artful and elaborate description. Like Letters 2.3 and 2.6, Letter 2.11 belongs to the category of friendship letters with typical motifs; see the introduction to Ep. 2.3. There is also a connection between Ep. 2.11 and Ep. 2.14, because both address the subject of distance between friends. Fernández López (1994) 87–98 therefore treats them together as ‘cartas de simple saludo, respuesta, y salutación familiar’. The main theme of the letter is the spatial separation between friends, which is expressed with several verbs and nouns; Montone (2017) 27–8. According to Whitton (2013) 35–6, 186–7, Sidonius’ Letters 2.11 and 2.12 (addressed to Rusticus and Agricola, both meaning ‘farmer’) respond to a pair of letters of Pliny (Plin. Ep. 2.11 and 2.12) which are both addressed to Arrianus and the only two successive letters to the same addressee.