I should like to describe our luscious dinner parties, he concludes, but I have no more paper.

However, come and stay with us and you shall hear all about it.

Clearly this is no Britain, where in the sixth century half-barbarian people camped in the abandoned villas and cooked their food on the floors of the principal rooms.
And yet ...

it had gone a long way downhill since the days of Ausonius, and Sidonius could not now ignore the very existence of the barbarians.
He has indeed left notable protraits of them, especially of the king of the Visigoths and of the Burgundians who ruled Lyons, where he was born.
Whenever he went to stay there, he complains, they flocked about him in embarrassing friendliness, breathing leeks and onions and dressing their hair with rancid butter (they were not, it appears, constrained to choose between spears and butter).

How can he compose six foot metres, he asks, with so many seven foot patrons around him, all singing and all expecting him to admire their uncouth stream of non-Latin words?
The shrug of the shoulder, the genial contempt of one conscious of an infinite superiority--how clear it is.