Competing at otium : A juxtaposed reading of sidonius’s baths

Sidonius engages in competitive aristocratic display by inviting the reader to compare the magnificence of the baths at his villa, Avitacum, with the extravagance of Pontius Leontius's baths, and contrast them with the shoddy makeshift bath of his uncles, Apollinaris and Ferreolus. Competition interacts with the thematic unity of Sidonius's second book of letters and manifests in Sidonius's three descriptions of Avitacum's baths in Ep. 2.2 and Carm. 18 and 19. Direct contrast to the baths of his uncles, informed by the conception of juxtaposition, shows how Sidonius uses his baths to display his paideia and political importance, something which his uncles' bath is unable to do for its owners. The conclusion offers a socio-historical rationale for the juxtaposition of the baths by presenting the epistolary dynamic as evidence of Sidonius's embrace of his wife's family, from which he inherited Avitacum