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Ansbertus was a Gallo-Roman Senator. He was probably born just when the Roman Empire collapsed in 476. The son of a Frankish Princess and of a Roman senatorial family claiming Praetorian Prefects in its lineage, Ansbertus' place was secured in the emerging Frankish world. He, like his father, married into a Frankish royal line, thus securing his status, as Gaul became more and more separated from its Roman imperial heritage.

Nevertheless, the following description of the Gallo-Roman noble applies to Ansbertus the Senator to some degree. Professor Dill notes, "He should, as an almost religious duty, repay the debt of noble birth by adding to the list of family "honours" some great magistracy. He should, without reducing himself to the level of a bailiff or a money-grubber, attend to the management of his estates. Some of his superfluous wealth may be spent in additions to his country seat, or redecorating his baths and salons with fresh frescoes and marbles. He will be a keen sportsman, after the manner of his Celtic ancestors. But these pursuits should not absorb all his energy. The noble class, the salt of Roman society, is a great brotherhood, bound together by the traditions of hereditary friendship and a common culture of priceless value. The true descendant of a great race will train his son in the same arts and accomplishments which moulded his ancestors and himself. He will also, by scrupulous attention to correspondence and social duties, keep warm the feelings of friendship and interest in common studies.

[The Gallo-Roman senator will uphold] the ideal of the wealthy and studious country gentleman with a wholesome well-balanced nature, fond of sport and farming proud of his family, devoted to his friends, and above all penetrated with a sense of the obligation to carry on the tradition of culture. . . . . .Pride of birth was one of the strongest feelings in the Gallo-Roman aristocrat." Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, pp. 196-97.

While the ancestry of Blithilde is not "proven" with corroborating documentation, the early records nevertheless might have been copies from ancient texts or reported authentic oral tradition. Thus this plausible ancestral line is included. She supposedly is the daughter of Cloderic the Parricide. Thus to trace her possible ancestry see her brother Munderic. Blithilde was a Frankish princess.

When Tonantius was growing into manhood, his relative Sidonius Apollinaris, called him "the elect among the nobles of our own age." He grew up at the family estate at Prusianum. Tonantius II later became a Gallo-Roman senator at Narbonne in Gaul. Sidonius at one time had served as Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, just as Tonantius II's father had. In 472, Sidonius was made Bishop of Clermont.

In 481, Sidonius addressed a letter to Tonantius whom he refers to as still a young man; see 9.13. (Sidonius died in 488.) Sidonius reminds Tonantius, "Your opinion of my verse is sometimes, I must confess, so laudatory and so prone to partiality that you judge me comparable with the choicest poets and indeed preferable to a good many of the. I should believe you were it not that, though you have great discrimination, you also have a great affection for me. Hence it comes that your affection may exaggerate my achievements and yet not deceive me." Tonantius had asked for some poetry and Bishop Sidonius complied. However, he rejoined, "But rather, when you are making merry at a specially sumptuous feast, please take my advice and occupy yourself with religious tales; let the conversation be constantly devoted to telling them and let the listners be earnestly bent on learning them. But if, being still a young man, you are only faintly attracted by such salutary diversions, at least borrow from the Platonist of Madaura [= Apuleius of Madaura in Africa] his patterns of convivial problems, and (to improve your education) solve these when propounded, and propound these to be solved; and busy yourself with such pursuits even in your free time." Obviously, Tonantius II was a learned man, and as one reads in the biography of his father, the villa at Prusianum where he was raised, contained a veritable library.

Tonantius II lived during the fall of the Roman Empire. The abandonment of Gaul to the Visigoths in 475 caused Sidonius to lament, "Soon our ancestors will no longer glory in the name of ancestor when they are ceasing to have descendants!" Letter 7.7.5 Sidonius would have been relieved to know that a descendant of his friend Tonantius would revive the old Roman Empire--Charlemagne.

It is thanks to this unnamed Princess of the Franks that the family line of the Ferreoli was preserved in post-Roman Gaul. The Gallo-Roman senatorial family was a good alliance for the emerging Frankish royal family.

According to the Domus Carolingicae Genealogia the wife of Tonantius Ferreolus II was Industria of Narbonne. I am not sure, however, if she is the same woman as the daughter of Clodoveius, though it is plausible since the names are Latin.

Tonantius was the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul in 451. He was at Rome in 469, serving as one of three representative Gallo-Roman Senators. He returned to Rome in 475. Tonantius Ferreolus was a friend and relative of Sidonius Apollinaris.

Tonantius as Patrician and Prefect was instrumental in warding off the Visigoths and arranging a co-operation with them. This resulted in the defeat of Attila the Hun at Maurica by Aetius. Tonantius was gifted with diplomatic skills which empowered him to preserve the city of Arles when it was beseiged by the new Visigothic king Thorismond whom he invited to a dinner during which he brokered a peace. However, in 475 Rome abandoned Auvergne, Gaul to the invading Goths, and a year later, the Western Roman Empire was no more. The glory of ancient Rome was to survive and thrive, however, in the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Constantinople, built upon the old Byzantium. The Byzantine Empire lasted another thousand years, until it fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

For the role of Praetorian Prefect of Gaul in late antiquity, read the description found in his father's bio. The prefecture of Gaul at this time encompassed present-day Britain, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, parts of Germany, all of Spain and Portugal, and Morocco. Professor Dill made the following further remarks, "In the fifth century the limits of the great prefecture of the West were steadily retreating from the Atlantic towards the Mediterranean. Yet the anxieties of its ruler must have increased as the times grew darker. In the career of Tonantius Ferreolus, we have an example of a public-spirited noble, and a benevolent and vigorous governor. Along with Avitus, he bore a foremost part in organising the united resistance of Goth and Roman to the Hun invasion in 451. And he signalised his tenure of office in 453 by lightening the burden of taxation in those disastrous years. The later Roman Code bears witness to the strenuous efforts of many high-minded prefects to check the growing disorganisation of society." Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, p. 199.

The following is a description by Sidonius Apollinaris of Tonantius' estate known as Prusianum. Sidonius himself was from a senatorial family; both his father and grandfather had served as Prefects.

"I have passed the most delightful time in the most beautiful country in the company of Tonantius Ferreolus and Apollinaris, the most charming hosts in the world. Their estates march together; their houses are not far apart; and the extent of intervening ground is just too far for a walk and just too short to make the ride worth while. The hills above the houses are under vines and olives; they might be Nysa and Aracynthus, famed in song. The view from one villa is over a wide flat country, that from the other over woodland; yet different though their situations are, the eye derives equal pleasure from both. But enough of sites; I have now to unfold the order of my entertainment. Sharp scouts were posted to look out for our return; and not only were the roads patrolled by men from each estate, but even winding short-cuts and sheep-tracks were under observation, to make it quite impossible for us to elude the friendly ambush. Into this of course we fell, no unwilling prisoners; and our captors instantly made us swear to dismiss every idea of continuing our journey until a whole week had elapsed.

And so every morning began with a flattering rivalry between the two hosts, as to which of their kitchens should first smoke for the refreshment of their guest; nor, though I am personally related to one, and connected through my relatives with the other, could I manage by alteration to give them quite equal measure, since age and the dignity of the praetorian rank gave Ferreolus a prior right of invitation over and above his other claims. From the first moment we were hurried from one pleasure to another. Hardly had we entered the vestibule of either house when we saw two opposed pairs of partners in the ball-game repeating each other's movements as they turned in wheeling circles; in another place one heard the rattle of dice boxes and the shouts of the contending players.

In yet another were books in abundance ready to your hand; you might have imagined yourself among the shelves of some grammarian, or the tiers of the Athenaeum, or a bookseller's towering cases. They were so arranged that the devotional works were near ladies' seats; where the master sat were those ennobled by the great style of Roman eloquence. The arrangement had this defect, that it separated certain books by certain authors in manner as near to each other as in matter they are far apart. Thus Augustine writes like Varro, and Horace like Prudentius; but you had to consult them on different sides of the room. Turranius Rufinus' interpretation of Adamantius Origen was eagerly examined by the readers of theology among us; according to our several points of view, we had different reasons to give for the censure of this Father by certain of the clergy as too trenchant a controversialist and best avoided by the prudent; but the translation is so literal and yet renders the spirit of the work so well, that neither Apuleius' version of Plato's Phaedo, nor Cicero's of the Ctesiphon of Demosthenes is more admirably adapted to the use and rule of our Latin tongue.

While we were engaged in these discussions as fancy prompted each, appears an envoy from the cook to warn us that the moment of bodily refreshment is at hand. And in fact the fifth hour had just elapsed, proving that the man was punctual, had properly marked the advance of the hours upon the water-clock. The dinner was short, but abundant, served in the fashion affected in senatorial houses where inveterate usage prescribes numerous courses on very few dishes, though to afford variety, roast alternated with stew. Amusing and instructive ancedotes accompanied our potations [imbibing]; wit went with one sort, and learning with the other. To be brief, we were entertained with decorum, refinement, and good cheer.

After dinner, if were were at Vorocingus (the name of one estate) we walked over to our quarters and our own belongings. If at Prusianum, as the other is called, the young Tonantius and his brothers turned out of their beds for us because we could not be always dragging our gear about: they are surely the elect among the nobles of our own age.

The siesta over, we took a short ride to sharpen our jaded appetites for supper. Both of our hosts had baths in their houses, but in neither did they happen to be available; so I set my own servants to work in the rare sober interludes which the convivial bowl, too often filled, allowed their sodden brains. I made them dig a pit at their best speed either near a spring or by the river; into this a heap of red-hot stones was thrown, and the glowing cavity then covered over with an arched roof of wattled hazel. This still left interstices, and to exclude the light and keep in the steam given off when water was thrown on the hot stones, we laid coverings of Cilician goats' hair over all. In these vapour-baths we passed whole hours with lively talk and repartee; all the time the cloud of hissing steam enveloping us induced the healthiest perspiration.

When we had perspired enough, we were bathed in hot water; the treatment removed the feeling of repletion, but left us languid; we therefore finished off with a bracing douche from foutain, well or river. For the river Gardon runs between the two properties; except in time of flood, when the stream is swollen and clouded with melted snow, it looks red through its tawny gravels, and flows still and pellucid over its pebbly bed, teeming none the less with the most delicate fish. I could tell you of suppers fit for a king! it is not my sense of shame, simply want of space which sets a limit to my revelations!"

This excerpt from Letter 9 in Book 2 of Sidonius' works, affords us precious insight into the daily life of our ancestor, Tonantius Ferreolus who would have been just over forty at the time.

The following written by Sidonius in Book 7, Letter 12, give us a glancing view of Tonantius' exploits:

"Why even if the recital of your ancestral glories had dulled it [your own achievement], that of your great personal qualities would lend it a new point. In place of all this, it is determined to pay you here conspicuous homage and, leaving your past career to speak for itself, to consider rather what you are today. It has passed over your administration of the Gauls when they were still at their greatest extent. It has been silent on the efficacy of your measures against Attila the enemy on the Rhone, and on your support of Aetius the Liberator of the Loire. It has not related the dragging of your chariot by cheering provincials, whose fervent applause proclaimed their gratitude for the prudence and the foresight with which you handled the reins of power; since you ruled the Gauls with such wisdom that the exhausted proprietor was relieved from the unbearable yoke of taxes. It passed over the address with which you unfluenced the savage Gothic king by a language blending grace with gravity and astuteness, a language unfamiliar in his ears, causing him to withdraw from the gates of Arles by a banquet, where Aetius could not have succeeded by force of arms." This letter was written around 479.

Clodoveius was a king of the Franks.

Ferreolus was a Gallo-Roman governor. He also served as Praetorian Prefect of Gaul. His family estate was at Trevidos, which some scholars have identified as modern Treves.

In the Encyclopedia Britannica one reads, "Under Diocletian each emperor had his praetorian prefect, who combined military, judicial, financial, and general administrative functions. He was a chief of staff and adjutant general, controlling the discipline and recruitment of the armies, and often assuming the supreme command. he was. next to the emperor himself, the supreme judge, receiving appeals from the courts of provincial governors; his sentences were declared by Constantine to be inappellable. He organized the indiction, the taxation in kind which supplied the bulk of the empire's needs. Through his deputies (vicarii) he controlled the provincial governors. Constantine by the creation of the magistri militum deprived the praetorian prefects of their military powers, but they retained their judicial and financial functions amd remained the highest officers of the Empire. From 395 four territorial prefectures became stabilized: of the Gauls (Britain, Gaul, the Seven Provinces, and Spain); of Italy (Pannonia, Italy, the city of Rome, and Africa); of Illyricum (Dacia and Macedonia); and of the East (Thrace, Asiana, Pontica, Oriens and Egypt)."

Thus Ferreolus was one of the four Praetorian Prefects of the Roman Empire and controlled a vast territory, in short, everything west and north of Italy.

Regarding the duties of the Prefect of Gaul, professor Dill writes,
"The prefect of the Gauls had the financial and judicial administra-tion of three great countries in his hands, and the control of a numerous body of officials. Although, from the time of Constantine, the prefect had no military command, he had to provide for the commissariat of the legions quartered in his province. He had also the superintendence of the great roads and the postal service. He had to advise subordinate magistrates on questions of difficulty, and to hear appeals from their decisions. Above all he exercised enormous powers over the levying of taxes and the whole financial service. It was his duty at once to secure full and regular collection, and to check venality or oppression. It was also his business to give due publicity to all edicts of the Emperor, and in the framing of these edicts there is no doubt that the suggestions and advice of a [praetorian] governor had great weight [upon the Emperor]. The vast machine had to be kept running, and any defect in its working had to be brought to the notice of the Emperor." Samuel Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (New York: Meridian Books, 1958), p. 199.

Unfortunately not much is known of our ancestor Ferreolus who three times served as Prefect. The letter from Sidonius Apollinarius to Prefect Ferreolus' son (Tonantius Ferreolus) is tantalizing, though suggestive. Thus to gain more appreciation of Tonantius' father and his ancestry, the following excerpt from Sidonius' Book 7, Letter 12, is provided. It was written around 479; Tonantius' father had been dead by this point. However, in his Poem 24 written in 463, Ferreolus is still alive.

"If, disregarding our friendship and relations, I had considered only your rank and position, your name [Tonantius Ferreolus] would have taken its proper place at the beginning of this small work, and the dedication would have been yours. My pen should have recounted the curule [= highest dignitaries'] chairs of your ancestors and the infulae [red & white band of wool denoting inviolable rank, i.e., insignia] of their patrician dignity; it should not have omitted the twice repeated prefecture, or refused to herald with due praise your great Syagrius [Tonantius' maternal grandfather] for three times changing the heralds of his office. It should have proceeded to celebrate your father and your uncles, whom it were impossible, indeed, to pass in silence; and however worn by transcribing the long roll of your ancestral triumphs, it should not have been so spent by the unfolding of your genealogy as to grow too blunt for the record of your own achievements. Why even if the recital of your ancestral glories had dulled it, that of your great personal qualities would lend it a new point."

We can only lament that Sidonius did not catalogue the ancestors of Tonantius Ferreolus and their patrician glory! Suffice it to say, that the office of Prefect was given to men of noble birth whose families were senatorial and well-established within the Roman Empire, families who could trace their own genealogies back for several generations.

Usually she is listed as an unnamed daughter of Afranius Syagrius, Praetorian Prefect of Gaul; however, in the writings of Sidonius Apollinaris, a relative of the family, her name is provided in Carmen 23.37. Of her, Sidonius writes, "Here (at Trevidos the family estate) you will find the father of the learned Tonantius, the goevrnor and pillar of the Gallic lands, Ferreolus, peer of old Syagrius, to whom Papianilla gives all the help a good wife can, sharing his cares--a woman surpassing Tanaquil and the daughter of Tricipitinus and that votary of Phrygian Vesta."

Tanaquil was the queen of Tarquinius Priscus, a traditional king of ancient Rome. She nobly ruled his household. Sidonius poetically remarks that Papianilla outshines her nobility and Roman ideals in governing her own household. The daughter of Tricipitinus is the famed Lucretia.

Because Poem 24 closes the book sent to his friend Felix around 463, we can date Papianilla as still alive.

The Aviti were a Gallo-Roman senatorial family. This senator's son, Eparchius Avitus, eventually became Roman Emperor.

Dr. John McGeachy in his Quintus Aurelius Symmachus and the Senatorial Aristocracy of the West, makes the following observation: "The senatorial nobility formed the most important class in the imperial bureaucracy, and the highest offices were filled by the most prominent men of senatorial rank. The narrow interests of the senator concerned with the municipal affairs of Rome might be broadened to imperial scope if he secured a place in the bureaucracy and ascended by the offices which formed steps of the imperial hierarchy," p. 41. Given that Eparchius Avitus did exactly this, we can safely presume that he was following the example of his father.

McGeachy also notes, "In the social life of the Empire, the predominant place belonged to the senatorial aristocracy. Their pre-eminence in social life was a natural result of their superior resources in wealth, their controlling position in the imperial bureaucracy, and their dominance in the sphere of pagan thought and intellectual interests of the western Roman world. Aristocratic families of the clarissimate, particularly of that select group which lived in Rome and formed the actual membership of the senate, took great pride in their position, accepting as a matter of course their superiority over the middle classes of the towns and the proletariate of the city of Rome. Stratification of social classes in the Empire had been an accepted condition since the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine, and the senatorial aristocracy were determined to maintain their position in the highest stratum," p. 87.

Eparchius Avitus had a daughter Papianilla whom he gave in marriage to the Roman Prefect Sidonius Apollinaris. This was before Eparchius became Emperor. The estate as wedding dowry had belonged to Eparchius' father. Thus the following is a description by Sidonius of the Aviti Family estate upon which the Senator had lived, and raised his family, in particular, Papianilla Avitus. It was located near Clermont-Ferrand.

{3} "Just let me tell you, if you don't mind, how this country place you are invited to is situated. We are at Avitacum; this is the name of the estate, which is dearer to me than property I inherited from my {Sidonius'} father, because it came to me with my wife {Papianilla Avitus, Eparchius' daughter}: such is the harmony in which, under God's guidance, I live with my family. On the western side is a mountain, earthy in substance but stiff to climb, which pushes out lower hills from itself like offshoots from a double stem; and these hills diverge so as to leave a breath of about four iugera {= about 5/8 an acre} between them. But before spreading out so as to allow a sufficiently large frontage for a dwelling, the hillsides escort the intervening valley in straight lines, right up to the outskirts of the masnion, which has its fronts facing north and south.

{4} On the south-west side are the baths, hugging the base of a wooded-cliff, and when along the ridge the branches of light wood are lopped, they slide almost of themselves in falling heaps into the mouth of the furnace. At this point there stands the hot bath, and this is of the same size as the anointing-room which adjoins it, except that it has a semicircular end with a roomy bathing-tub, in which part a supply of hot water meanders sobbingly through a labyrith of leaden pipes that pierce the wall. Within the heated chamber there is full day and such an abundance of enclosed light as forces all modest persons to feel themselves something more than naked.

{5} Next to this the cold room spreads out; it might without impertinence challenge comparison with baths built as public undertakings. First of all the architect has given it a peaked roof of conical shape; the four faces of this erection are covered at the corners where they join by hollow tiles, between which rows of flat tiles are set, and the bath-chamber itself has its area perfectly adjusted by the nicest measurements so as to find room for as many chairs as the semicircular bath usually admits bathers, without causing the servants to get in one another's way. The architect has also set a pair of windows, one opposite the other, where the vaulting joins the wall, so as to disclose to the view of guests as they look up the cunningly-wrought coffered ceiling. The inner face of the walls is content with the plain whiteness of polished concrete.

{6} Here no disgraceful tale is exposed by the nude beauty of painted figures, for though such a tale may be a glory to art it dishonours the artist. There are no mummers absurd in features and dress counterfeiting Philistion's outfit in paints of many colours. There are no athletes slipping and twisting in their blows and grips. Why, even in real life the chaste rod of the gynasiarch promptly breaks off the bouts of such people if they get mixed up in an unseemly way!

{7} In short, there will not be found traced on those spaces anything which it would be more proper not to look at; only a few lines of verse will cause the new-comer to stop and read: these strike the happy mean, for althought they inspire no longing to read them again, they can be read throughout without boredom.

If you ask what I have to show in the way of marble, it is true that Paros, Carystos and Proconnesos, Phrygians, Numidians and Spartans have not deposited here slabs from hill-faces in many colours, nor do any stone surfaces, stained with a natural tinge among the Ethiopian crags with their purple preciipices, furnish a counterfeit imitation of sprinkled bran. But although I am not enriched by the chill starkness of foreign rocks, still my buildings--call them cottages or huts as you please--have their native coolness. However, I want you to hear what we have rather than what we have not.

{8} Attached to this hall is an external appendage on the east side, a piscina (swimming-pool), or, if your prefer the Greek word, a baptisterium, which holds about 20,000 modii (= about 40,000 gallons). Those who come out of the heat after the bath find a triple entrance thrown open to them in the centre of the wall, with separate archways. The middle supports are not pillars but columns, of the kind that high-class architects have called
"purples" (= made out of porphyry). A stream is "enticed from the brow" of the mountain, and diverted through conduits which are carried round the outer sides of the swimming-bath; it pours its waters into the pool from six projecting pipes with representations of lions' heads: to those who enter unprepared they will give the impression of real rows of teeth, genuine wildness in the eyes and unmistable manes upon the neck.

{9} If the owner is surrounded here by a crowd of his own people or of visitors, so difficult is it to exchange words intelligibly, owing to the roar of the falling stream, that the company talk right into each other's ears; and so a perfectly open converstaion, overpowered by this din from without, takes on an absurd air of secrecy. On leaving this place one comes across the front of the ladies' dining-room; joined on to this, with only a barrack partition between them, is the hosuehold store-room, next to which is the weaving-room.

{10} On the east a portico overlooks the lake {Aydat: Aidacum in medieval Latin}; it is supported on round composite pillars rather than by a pretentious array of monolithic columns. On the side of the vestibule extends inward a length of covered passage--covered but open, being unbroken by partitions; this corridor has no view of its own, so, although it cannot claim to be a hypodrome {= underground passageway}, at any rate I am entitled to call it a crypto-portico. At the end of this passage, however, a part is stolen from it to form a very cool chamber, where a chattering crowd of female dependents and nursemaids spread a feast for the gods, but sound the retreat when I and my family have set out for our bedrooms {for siesta}.

{11} From the crypto-portico we come to the winter dining-room, which the fire often called into life within the vaulted fireplace has stained with black soot. But why should I speak of this to you, when the last thing in my mind is to bid you to the fireside? Rather let me speak of what better suits you and the time of year. From this dining-room we pass to a living-room or small dining-room, all of which lies open to the lake and to which almost the whole lake lies open. In this room are a semicircular dining-couch and a glittering sideboard, and on the to the floor or platform on which they stand there is a gentle ascent from the portico by steps which are not made eitehr short or narrow. Reclining in this place, you are engrossed by the pleasures of the view whenever you are not busy with the meal.

{12} Then if a chilled drink is brought you from that most celebrated of springs, you will see in the cups, when they are suddenly filled to the brim, spots and crumbs of snowy mist, and the glosssy glitter which cups have is dimmed by the greasy-looking film produced by sudden cold. Then there are the drinks that are suited to the cups, icy ladlefuls of them, which might be dreaded by the most thirsty of men, to say nothing of you, who are supremely abstemious. From this place you will see how the fisherman propels his boat into the deep water, how he spreads his stationary nets on cork floats, and how lengths of rope with hooks attached are poised there, with marks arranged at regular intervals, so that the greedy trout, in their nightly forays through the lake, may be lured to kindred bait: for what more suitable phrase could I find in this case, when fish is caught by fish?

{13} When you have finished your meal, a drawing-room will offer you welcome, one which is truly a summer room because it is not in th least sun-baked, for, as it is open to the north only, it admits daylight but not sunshine; before you reach it there is a narrow ante-chamber, where the somnolence of the ushers has room to doze rather than to sleep.

{14} How charming it is here to have echoing in one's ears the midday chirp of cicalas, the coraking of the frogs as evening comes on, the honking of swans and geese in the early hours of slumber, the crowing of the cocks in the small hours; to hear the prophetic rooks greeting with thrice-repeated cry the red torch of rising dawn, Philomela piping in the bushes in the half-light, and Procne twittering amid the rafters! To this concert you may add if your please the pastoral muse with seven-holed flute, which often many a Tityrus of our mountains, forgoing sleep, keeps sounding in a nocturnal competition of song, among the belled sheep whose cries echo through the pastures as they crop the grass. Yet all these changeful tones of music and cries will but fondle and coax your slumber and make it all the deeper.

{15} Issuing from the shelter of the colonnades, if you make for the lakeside harbour, you find yourself exposed to "the light of commnon day" on a stretch of gree; but there is a wooded patch not far off, where two enormous limes link the foliage of their separate stocks to produce a single shade from a twofold root. In that dark shelter, when my dear Ecdicius {Sidonius' son} sheds his lustre upon me, we find recreation at ball, but only until the diminishing shadow of the tree is driven backward and confined within the range of the branches and makes there a dicing-space for people tired after their ballgame.

{16} Now that I have duly presented the building to you I must still give you the lake; so listen to what remains. The lake flows downwards towards the eat, and its wash, which surges as the wind drives it, moistens the foundations of the house, which are sunk in its sandy bottom. At its beginning it has an expanse of marshy soil with deep pools, and no would-be sight-seer can get near, thanks to the greasy mixture of oozing slime amid an intertwining labyrinth of cold streams and weed-grown banks. But the moving plain of open water is cut in all directions by small boats flitting about everywhere, if the wind has fallen; but if a gale from the south brings dirty weather, it forms stupendous waves, so that the breaking of the overcast spray comes down like rain on the foliage of the trees which stand on the bank.

{17} The lake itself, according to what is called nautical measurement, has a length of seventeen stadia {= 2 miles}, and is entered by a stream which is roughly broken by rocky barriers and so whitens with splashes of foam, and presently frees itself from the steep rocks and buried itself in the lake. Whether it so happens that this river creates the lake or merely that it runs into it, it certainly passes ebyond it, being strained through subterranean sieves, with the result that it undergoes a deprivation, not of its waters but of its fish. These are thrown back into the more sluggish water, where they increase the bulk of red flesh in their white bellies; and so it goes on: they are not able to make their way back or to find a way out, and their obesity creates for them what one may call a living circulatory prison.

{18} As for the lake itself, on its right bank it is indented, winding and wooded; on the left, open, grassy and even. On the south-west the water is green along the shore, because the foliage stretches over the water, and just as the water floods the gravel, so the shade floods the water. On the east a like fring of trees spreads a tint of the same kind. On the northern side the water presents its natural appearance. On the west is a vulgar and disorderly growth of weeds, which is often bent under the weight of the yachts that speed over it; round this growth slippery tufts of bulrushes wrap themselves; thick slabs of sedge also float there, and the bitter sap of grey willows is ever nurtured by these sweet waters.

{19} In the middle of the deep part is a small island. Here a turning-post sticks up on the top of a natural accumulation of boulders; it is worn by the dent of oars dashed against it in the course of the circling evolutions of the ships, and it is the scene of the jolly wrecks of vessels which collide at the sports. For here it is the traditional custom of our elders to imitate the contest of Drepanum in the mythical tale of Troy {i.e. a boat race}. Further, let me say of the land around (though this is going beyond my obligation) that it is extensive in its woodland and nicely coloured in its flowers, with plenty of sheep in its pastures and plenteous savings in the shepherds' purses."

This long letter provides us a detailed depiction of Avitacum, the estate of our senatorial ancestors. The servants, farmers, and shepherds, all would have been the property, or indentured-servants of the Aviti. Unfortunately, we do not know how many hundreds of acres this estate encompassed. From this set-up later would emerge the feudal system.