The Silence of the Muses in Sidonius Apollinaris (Carm. 12–13, Ep. 8.11): Aphasia and the Timelessness of Poetic Inspiration

When the Muses and Apollo fall silent for Sidonius, this signifies neither a general silence of poetry in Late Antiquity nor a lasting silence on the poet's own part. It is paradoxically the "silence of the Muse," the trope for the poet's loss of speech, that most clearly displays the gamut of the emotions of the poetic persona. The "inward turn" and psychological approach will be used to show that Sidonius, in discourse with the changing voices of the Muses, created a series of self-portraits—petitioner of Majorian, host to the Burgundians, a human suffering deeply after the murder of Lampridius—that prove instrumental in explaining himself and the world. Using his allegory of the "silent Muse" and the literary technique of allusion, Sidonius evokes a multi-layered world of imagery that enables him to overcome his traumas and make his readers into spectators alert and responsive to the troubles of their epoch.