Narrative Time and the Letters of Sidonius Apollinaris.
By Michael Hanaghan
In the mid to late fifth-century, as Roman power in the West waned, Sidonius Apollinaris wrote nine books of epistles. Scholarship has largely focused on the historical utility of these epistles. They offer insights into the Gallo-Roman aristocracy of his period, the interaction between Romans and barbarians, and the organisation of the Church (Harries). Sidonius explicitly ruled out writing history owing perhaps to the political difficulties any such work would necessarily entail.