Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire

98 Pages·2016·6.79 MB·English

by  Brown Peter Robert Lamont.

Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity
Towards a Christian Empire
PETER BROWN
To honor the distinguished historian Merle Curti,
lectures in social and intellectual history
were inaugurated in 1976 under the sponsorship of the
University of Wisconsin Foundation and the
Department of History of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
PUBLlSHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
Christopher Hill, Some Intellectual Consequences ojthe
English Revolution (1980)
Carlo M. Cipolla, Fighting the Plague in
Seventeenth-Century Italy (1981)
James Willard Hurst, Law and Markets in United States History:
Dgerent Modes ofBarxaining among Interests (1982)
Cordon A. Craig, The End ofPrussia (1984)
Michael Kammen, Spheres ojliberty: Changing Perceptions ojLiberty in
American Culture (1986)
Paul Conkin, Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost (1989)
THE UNIVERSITY OF WlSCONSlN PRESS
Contents
Preface vii
1. Devotio: Autocracy and Elites 3
2. Paideia and Power 35
Tbc University of Wiiconaili Press 3. Poverty and Power 71
114 North Murrny Street 4. Towards a Christian Empire 118
Madison, Wiaconain 53715
Index 159
3 Henrietta Strect
London WCZE 8LU, England
Copyright @ 1992
Thc Board of Re.aeii tr of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amcrica
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Peter Robert brnont.
Power and persuasion in late antiquity: towards a Christian
empire 1 Peter Brown.
192 pp. cm. - (The Curti lecturer ; 1988)
Indudes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-299-13340-0 ISBN 0-299-13344-3 (pbk.)
1. Rome-Palitim and government-284-476. 2. Rome-Social
conditions. 3. Upper classes-Romc-History. I. Title.
11. Seriet.
Preface
It was a great honor for me to have been invited to deliver the Curti Lec-
tures for 1988 and an undiluted joy to find myself once again in Madison,
Wisconsin, beside quiet waters and among friends, colleagues, and heroes
of long standing. Not the least of these pleasures was to make the acquain-
tance of Merle Curti and to offer, through this narrative of a distant age,
some tribute to the humane values which he has always maintained in the
study of modern America.
The reader should know that these four long chapters grew out of the
three lectures delivered at that time and that the three lectures themselves
:marked only the beginning of a process of self-education which, I very
much hope, will continue for many years beyond the publication of this
book. The book must be read in this light. It is an essay, with all the
tentativeness, even the lopsidedness, that goes with such an endeavor. And
it is an essay written largely to help myself, my readers, and future students
of the later Roman Empire to catch up on certain themes in the political,
cultural, and religious history of the time, on which a large body of mod-
ern scholarship now exists.
The exciting consequences of much of this scholarship have not been
appreciated as fully as they might be. For this reason, I have chosen to
write this essay in the form of a synthesis. It is an account of certain as-
pects of the period between A.D. 300 and A.D. 450, written in the light
of recent advances in the field. I have tried to place the traditional culture
of the upper classes in a social and political context which gives somewhat
greater weight than has been given hitherto to its continued relevance and
vii
viii Preface Preface ix
implicit goals. I have also attempted to link the increased persuasive power Libanius: Opera, vols. 1-11 (Leipzig: Teuhner, 1903-22), giving, between
1 of the Christian bishops not only to the emergence of a novel, Christian parentheses, the volume number of that edition in roman and the page
image of society-for which we have abundant evidence-but also to so- in arabic numerals. Other well-known authors I have cited in references
jcial developments in the late Roman cities, whose outlines we can trace that are standard in most works on ancient history. The reader should have
only in a fragmentary manner. little difficulty in tracing these to standard editions and to reliable transla-
Readers must know the tentativeness of some of the connections that tions. The Resgestae of Ammianus Marcellinus, in particular, is edited and
are advanced in this book between various cultural, religious, and social translated in the Loeb Classical Library, by J. C. Rolfe, Arnrnianus Marcell;.
phenomena. But they should also take heart. For almost every aspect of nus (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952-56). W. Hamilton,
this period, newly discovered sources, the exploitation of sources hitherto Amrnianus Marcellinus: The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378) (Harmonds-
ignored, and the skillful reinterpretation of evidence long taken for granted worth, Eng.: Penguin, 1986), provides a more recent, slightly abridged,
;have opened the way to a new view of the period that saw the final tri- translation.
umph of Christianity in the Roman Empire, the foundation of the Byzan- In this process of self-education, I have been more than fortunate in the
: tine Empire, and the decline and fall of the empire in the West. It is pro- ' help I have received. The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation enabled
foundly reassuring to work in a field among scholars who have questioned me to travel throughout the late Roman sites of Turkey and Syria. I would
and replaced so many standard generalizations and familiar narratives in not like it to be forgotten that the absorption of whole landscapes once
recent years. central to the history of early Christianity and of the eastern empire was
If I were to sum up in a nutshell the changes in the historiography of only possible because of those innumerable persons-Turks, Syrians, and
t11e late Roman Empire that have affected my own presentation in these exiles from Palestine-whose rare courtesy, skill, and, at times, high-spirited
chapters, I would say that we are better informed about and also consider- courage made travel possible in remote regions. The few days that I spent
ably more sensitive to the religious and cultural expectations with which at Aphrodisias in Caria remain, in a way, the imaginative core of the book.
late Roman persons approached the political, administrative, and social A late classical city was brought alive to me-as to so many scholars in
developments of their time. It is as if a lunar landscape whose outlines this generation-through the rare generosity of a uniquely vivid and un-
once stood out with unearthly clarity in standard accounts of the political compromising host, the late Kenan Erim. I would wish him to be remem-
and administrative changes of the age has taken on softer tints, because bered as he lies now in the city that he loved, whose unequaled riches
it is now bathed in an atmospl~ereh eavy with hopes and fears rooted in he has unlocked for so many.
the religious and cultural traditions of the participants. If my account has Colleagues at Princeton University, especially those in the history de-
recaptured some of the ways in which educated contemporaries reacted to, partment, contributed at almost every stage to the slow and difficult pro-
exp1oited;and presented to themselves the many dramatic developments cess by which the insights of the first draft of these lectures became chas-
that took place in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., I will be content. tened and gathered weight, through an increasing sense of the complexity
If it persuades others that this can be done, and done better than in this of the social and political life of the later empire. The meetings of the
essay, I will be delighted. Shelby Cullom Davis Center, then under the directorship of lawrence Stone,
For these reasons, I have tried wherever possible, in my footnotes, to gave me almost weekly food for thought throughout 1988-89 on issues
do justice to the most up-to-date scholarship on the subjects that I con- tantalizingly close to those with which I found myself forced to grapple.
sider. I have cited sources that are difficult of access or little known with But ultimately, the manuscript owes most to fellow scholars in my own
full references to editions, whether these are the most modern or, as is field. Charlotte Rouechk and Garth Fowden read and reread drafts in such
frequently the case, the most widely available standard editions. Most no- a way as not only to add a wealth of further information, such as only
table are the Patrologia Graeca and Patrologia Latina, edited by J. P. Migne they were able to provide, but also to alter, quite decisively, the perspec-
in his Patrologiae cunus completus (Paris, 1844 onwards). To support my tives and the balance of the study as a whole. At the end, Judith Herrin's
arguments, I have deliberately chosen, whenever possible, to cite passages apposite criticisms helped me to bring greater cohesion to a story which
from works of authors for which translations and commentaries in English could easily have fallen apart into its constituent themes, handled as they
or French exist. This is particularly the case with the extensive works and are in separate chapters. With candor, generosity, and patience, these read-
letters of Lihanius of Antioch, whom I cite from the edition of R. Fiiister, ers have made the book what it is on a far deeper level than merely pro-
x Preface
viding erudite information or removing superficial blemishes: the constant
'challenge of their friendship stands between it and earher, less satisfactory
drafts.
Power and Persuasion
The manuscript would not have been prepared so quickly or wlth such
ease if I had not turned to Olga Savin, who proved to be not only adept
in Late Antiquity
at word processing but also an exceptionally alert reader of my text. The
index I owe to the intelligence and industry of Beatrice Caseau.
Last of all, I would like to thank my wife, Betsy. She has shared, with
unfailing cheerfulness about their outcome, both the disruptions of travel
and the tiresome and quotidian dislocations occasioned by the work that
turned three lectures, delivered with an easy heart and in good company,
into a book whose efforts to survey a complex and rapidly changing field
may be of some use, I hope, to students of the later empire and so prove
worthy of a lecture series delivered in the university where none other than
Michael Rostovtzeff began his American career.
CHAPTER ONE
Devotio: Autocracy and Elites
This is a book about one aspect of the control of power in the later Roman
Empire. It attempts to describe the expectations with which upper-class
subjects approached the emperor and his representatives, to ward off the
cruelty and fiscal rigor that characterized the government of the Roman
Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. It will not describe all the
mechanisms by which such approaches were made, nor all the strategies
employed: rather, it will concentrate on the cultural and religious elements
that were thought to have played a role in making the imperial power,
for all its domineering majesty, amenable to persuaiion.
The first chapter will offer a brief sketch of the social and administrative
setting within which the power of the emperor normally made itself felt
among those who wished to temper its impact. It will stress the extent
to which the imperial administration, though greatly strengthened in com-
parison with previous centuries, still needed to make sure of the collabora-
tion of the upper classes in the cities and provinces if its demands were
to be effectively implemented. The structural weakness of the central gov-
ernment made it essential that the devotio, the loyal support, of a wide and
varied constituency of local notables should he actively engaged. This led
to the elaboration of a language of power and to occasional gestures of
grace and favor that kept a place, in the midst of a hard-dealing system
of government, for expeciations that the emperor and his local represen-
tatives could be persuaded to act according to norms upheld by spokesmen
of the upper classes.
The second chapter will examine the traditional culture of the upper
3
4 Devolio: Autocracy and Elites Devoria Autocracy and Elite3 5
classes, as this was imparted to them through the system of education that
new beliefs: another element had entered the politics of the empire. The
went by the name of paideia. It will attempt to measure the role of this
emperor's willingness to listen to bishops, as he had once listened to phi-
culture in creating common ground among all members of the upper classes,
losophers, implied his recognition of new forms of local power. This power
the rulers and the ruled alike, and in elaborating exacting codes of courtesy
could wear a sinister face: its non-Christian victims spoke of it, accurately
and self-control, linked to the ideal of a benevolent, because cultivated,
enough, as a "usurped authority."z The unauthorized demolition of major
exercise of authority.
shrines of the old religion, unpunished attacks on Jewish synagogues, and,
The prevalence of ideals associated withpaideia explains a further feature
finally, the lynching of a leading member of the prestigious town council
of the political imagination of the age-the repeated references to a per- of Alexandria, the woman philosopher Hypatia, in 415, were acts of vio-
suasive role exercised by the philosopher. In reality, philosophers tended
lence that showed that the cities themselves had changed. They had fallen,
to be peripheral figures on the political scene in late antiquity; some, in-
in part, into the hands of new, nontraditional leaders, and their inhabitants
deed, were fierce recluses, proud of their ability to avoid all contact with
sought redress for their grievances in novel, frequently more threatening,
public life. Yet the late antique philosopher had been empowered by long
forms of direct action.
tradition to act as the disinterested adviser, even as the critic, of the power-
The fourth chapter, therefore, concludes the book with a description
ful. He had been assigned a clearly written character-part in the drama of the elaboration, in Christian literature, of a new language of power
of persuasion, even if this part was frequently left unplayed or was played
and, so, of a new rationale for its control that reflected the balance be-
only by ceremonious yes-men of little real authority.
tween imperial autocracy, civic notables, and the Christian church in the
The third chapter will consider the social changes within the late Roman
fifth-century eastern empire.
cities that led to the emergence of representatives of Christianity in an
Throughout the book, the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire will
arena that had previously been considered the exclusive preserve of the tra-
hold the center of attention. From the Danube to the Euphrates, and from
ditional upper classes. In the last decades of the fourth century, bishops
the Black Sea to as far south as the upper Nile and westward to Cyrenaica,
and monks showed that they could sway the will of the powerful as effec-
in an area that now embraces the territories of no less than ten modern
tively as had any philosopher.
states (Greece;Bulgaria, and Romania south of the Danube, in Europe,
They were, in many ways, disturbingly new protagonists. But they had
along with Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, and Libya, in
been able to make their debut on the stage of late Roman politics because
the Middle East), the ruling classes of what was, in the last analysis, a
contemporaries needed them to act according to scripts that bad been written,
mighty confederation of regions prided themselves on sharing a common
in previous centuries, by men of paideia. An upper-class bishop such as
Greek culture and were expected to exhibit strenuous loyalty to a theoreti-
Ambrose, at Milan, and even a wild man of the Syrian hilltops such as cally undivided Roman Empire. This last was hardly ever the case. For
the hermit Macedonius, at Antioch, acted as eAectively as they did because
thirteen years, between Constantine's conquest of the eastern provinces in
they found roles into which they could step with confidence. They were
324 to his death in 337, and then for only another seven years in all, from
"true" philosophers. They played the ancient part of the courageous and
that time to the death of Theodosius I, in 395, the eastern and western
free-spoken man of wisdom, but in playing this ancient role they invested
parts of the empire were united under the rule of a single emperor. Usu-
it with a heavy charge of novel meaning. The strong religious overtones
ally, up to 395, and invariably from then onwards, the eastern provinces
associated with their interventions brought a new world of values, char-
were ruled by an emperor who, either by agreement or because he had
acterized by belief in supernatural sanctions, into a system of control that
no option, allowed a western colleague to control the Latin-speaking prov-
had, until then, remained resolutely profane. The most urgent concern
inces of the empire, from Britain to the present-day frontiers of Greece,
of those who "had been formed through paideia" had been with the self-
Bulgaria, and Romania.
grooming of a governing class according to classical notions of deport-
By concentrating on the eastern provinces, the book will do no more
ment.' The bishops and monks, by contrast, spoke of the wrath and mercy
than respect the contours of a division within the Roman world that was
of a new, high God. already transparent in the fourth century and that became definitive in the
The intrusion of the supernatural betrayed the presence of more than
2. Eunapiur, Liver ofrhr Sophiirr 472, in Philairratus ondEunopiur, ed. and tranr. W. C.
1 L~bamur,E p 994 2 (XI 124)
Wright, Laeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952), 422.
6 Devario: Autocracy and Elites Devoric Autocracy and Elites 7
' fifth with the collapse of the western empire and the emergence of a spe- Constantinople-the pivot of repeated attempts by eastern emperors to as-
cifically East Roman state, the predecessor of what we call the Byzantine sert themselves as sole, or dominant, rulers of the entire Roman world:
Empire. these factors ensured that Milan, Aquileia, Rome, and, to a lesser extent,
The decision to deal principally with the eastern provinces inevitably Carthage never faded entirely from the field of vision of leading inhabl-
involves viewing the Roman world from a single and, in many ways, pecu- rants of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria.
liar viewpoint. It is easy to overlook the limitations that such an angle
of vision imposes. Late Roman people lived in a wider world than our The reader should labor under no illusion. Power, not persuasion, re-
neat divisions between East and West, Latin and Greek, would imply. Many mains the most striking characteristic of the later Roman Empire in all
of them possessed surprisingly wide areas of peripheral vision. its regions. The fourth-century empire that we find described in the work
To take a crucial example: the evidence for the eastern parts of the em- of its principal Latin historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, was frankly authori-
pire in the fourth and fifth centuries is overwhelmingly written in Greek. tarian. Ammianus found it unusual, and praiseworthy, that the emperor
The "Greek East" is as good a shorthand term as any to describe the dis- Valentinian I did not attempt to "bend the necks of his subjects by menac-
tinctive cultural world that we meet in the majority of the sources. Yet ing prohibitions."3 It was more normal to impose obedience by imperial
there was always more to it than that. We are dealing with a political sys- fiat, in religious as well as in secular matteri. In the words of John Mat-
tem that embraced a variety of ancient regions. In many areas, members thews' masterly study: "Imperial government in Ammianus' time was un-
of the ruling classes and their clients combined respect for Greek culture matched in Graeco-Roman history in its scale and coinplexity of organiza-
with an ability to express themselves in languages that derived from the tion, in its physical incidence upon society, the rhetorical extravagance with
leading tongues of the ancient Near East: in Syriac, the lineal descendant which it expressed, and the calculated violence with which it attempted
of Aramaic, long the lingua Jranra of the Fertile Crescent, from Gaza to to impose its wi11."4
southern Mesopotamia, and, in Egypt, in a Coptic that was the last, most When pitted against so formidable a system, the language of persuasion
flexible version of a language once spoken by the pharaohs. Above all, these most commonly deployed by educated persons in the later empire seems
regions were held together by an imperial system that was staunchly, even out of touch with reality. Greek gentlemen were still taught to "install
aggressively, Roman. No educated or influential Greek-not even a pro- Demosthenes in their souls," just as their Latin equivalents absorbed the
fessor of Greek rhetoric, such as Libanius of Antioch-could afford the works of Cicero.5 They brought into the fourth century A.D. a political
tunnel vision necessary to deny this fact. Latin was the native language language that had been perfected in the days of the free city-states of Greece
of almost all the emperors of the age. In the crucial upper reaches of the and in the Roman Republic. Yet Demosthenes and Cicero themselves al-
imperial service, traditional cultural boundaries meant little. High-ranking ready spoke under the shadow of impending tyranny, and by A.D. 300 poli-
imperial servants moved with ease from one half of the empire to the other. tics of the kind that a historian of the classical world might recognize,
A knowledge of Roman law and an ability to speak to the great in their in Athens and in republican Rome, were a thing of the remote past6 It
own Latin tongue remained a sine qua non for success at the court, and is, indeed, tempting to dismiss the bulk of our evidence for the political
in the provinces, a command of Latin conferred priceless advantages on views of the educated classes as no more than out-of-date verbiage. The
Greek speakers faced with the perpetual, intrusive presence of a Mediter- conceit that the politics of a vast, despotic empire could be represented
ranean-wide Roman state.
Two western Mediterranean provinces, Italy and North Africa, also ap-
3. Ammianus Marcellinus, Rer geifar 30.9.5; John Matthews, The Roman Empire of
pear occasionally in our account. They provide abundant evidence for themes
Ammianui (London: Duckworth, 1989). 256.
that were common to the late antique Mediterranean as a whole, in both 4. Matthews, Roman Empire oJAmmianur, 253.
its Greek-speaking and its Latin parts. The vigor of an analogous form 5. Libanius, Ep 1261.2 (X1.339).
of urban life; the continued attraction to easterners of Rome as a tradi- 6. M. I. Finley, Polirkr in the Anrienr World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1983); Feigus Millar, "Thc Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic," Journol
tional soundinghoard for their restless talents; and above all, the strategic
$Roman Studies 74 (1984): 1-19; idem, "Politics, Persuasion and the People before the
logic that made Milan-standing as it did at the center of the road system Social War (150 90 R.c.)," Journal of Roman Studies 76 (1986): 1-11; J. A. North, "Dcmo-
that led from Gaul through northern Italy to the Balkans, and thence to cratic Politics in Republican Rome," Part and Present 126 (1990): 3-21.
8 Devotio: Autocracy and Elites Dwotio: Autocracy and Elites 9
. . .
was the essence of what Ammianus called a 'civil and rightful empire,'
in terms of the life of classical Athens; the continued emphasis placed 011
civile iustumque imperiurn."'O
the practice of classical political virtues, such as freedom of speech, respect
for legality, clemency, and the ability to display deliberative eloquence; the Other scholars have stressed the manner in which even the theorists of
obligatory, flattering comparisons between contemporary emperors and the imperial autocracy, precisely because they still drew on a long tradition
great statesmen of Greece and Rome: all this has been characterized as "com- of Hellenistic treatises on the ruler as philosopher-king, continued to spell
pletely conscious and completely artificial,"' "tedious" and '3ejune."8 It out, to the recipients of praise, an insistent antithesis between the self-will
is assumed, by most scholars, that the intellectual baggage of classically of the tyrant and the civilized adherence to law that distinguished a legiti-
educated persons can be safely ignored in any description of "real" politics mate ruler." Recently, the density and the permanence of this normative
in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. system has been studied, as a rallying point for opposition and as a grid
In the opening chapters of this book I will attempt to find another way on which contemporaries mapped their criticism of individual emperors,
around the dilemma posed by the seeming dissonance between late Roman up to and beyond the reign of Justinian.12
upper-class culture and late Roman political reality. Without giving classical It is, perhaps, time to add a further dimension to these considerations.
rhetoric undue weight in the decision-making of the later empire, it can, Studies of late Roman law and political theory have tended to concentrate
at least, be suggested that we are not dealing with a total split between ~ almost exclusively on the role of the emperor. By so doing, such studies
"language" and "reality." Rather, the persistent recurrence of appeals to run the risk of taking at its face value the vast "institutionalized egotism"-
ideals of behavior derived, through education, from the classical past was the conviction that all power and all political initiative should reside in
one aspect, among many, of a late Roman political practice that was more the person of the emperor-which characterized the imperial office in the
complex than we might at first suppose. The nuances of the late Roman fourth century in much the same way as it characterized the claims to ab-
political imagination, and the complexity of the ground rules of late Roman solute sovereignty made by Louis XIV. Yet in neither case did the ruler
politics, deserve closer attention than they have received in many recent truly stand alone. Absolute monarchy, in late antiquity as in late seventeenth-
accounts. It is to these that we must now turn. century France, was as effective as it was because its servants had learned-
In his lecture on the constitution of the later Roman Empire of 1910, over many centuries, in the case of the Roman Empire-"the limits within
J. B. Bury remarked that little attention had been paid to "the forms of which the practice of absolutism was possible."" These limits of the pos-
government which are commonly classified as absolute monarchies. . . . sible can be sketched briefly.
Probably the reason lies in the apparent simplicity of a constitution, by The emperor's vast notional power had to be mediated through his rep-
which the supreme power is exclusively vested in one man. When we say resentatives in the provinces. For we must always remember that the em-
that the monarch's will is supreme, we may seem to say all that there is peror lived at an almost insuperable distance from the majority of his
to be said."9 There is, in fact, much more to he said, even on the topic subjects. When at Trier, for instance, or at Sirmium, in the Balkans, the
of the theoretical basis of the imperial office. Recent studies have stressed emperor was over a month's journey away from Rome and as much as a
the fact that the later Roman Empire remained a Rechtsstaat. There is suffi- quarter of a year away from petitioners in North Africa. If at Constanti-
cient evidence to suggest that Ammianus Marcellinus was not out of touch nople, he was a month away from Antioch, and a further six weeks of
with late Roman reality when, at the end of the fourth century, he pro- travel, by land, from Antioch to Alexandria, and three weeks from An-
pounded his own, workaday definition of the imperial power under which
10. Matthews, Romnn Empire oJAmmianur, 252.
he and his contemporaries expected to live: "There were properly insti-
11. J. Ehrayannopoular, "Der friihhyzantinische Kaiser," Byzontiniiche Zeitrchii/r 49
tuted courts of law and regular procedures, and in the observance of these (1958): 369-84, now in Dar byzontiniwhe Hernihnbild, ed. H. Hunger, Wege der Forrchung
341 (Darmctadt: Wisrenschaftliche Buchgesellrchaft, 1975), 235-57.
7. hmsay MacMullen, "Some Pictures in Ammianus Marcellinus," Art Bulletin 46 12. I. CiZurov, "Geretz und Gerechtigkeit in den hyzantinirchen Fiirstenspiegel dei
(1964): 437, now in Changes in the Romnn Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 6.-9. Jhts.," in Cupido Legum, ed. L. Burgmann, M. T. Fogen, and A. Schminck (Frank-
19901. 81. furt: Ewenklau, 1985), 33-45; Christian Gizewski, Zur Normativitijt und Strgktur der HT-
8.' Ramsay MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome (New Haven: Yale Univer- jar~rm~u~rhaltniiinr ed er ipareren romirrhen Kaiserzeit, Munchener Beitrage zur Payralogie
sity Press, 1988), 113. und Rechtsgeschichte 81 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1988).
9. J. B. Bury, The Conrtitution ojthe Lato Roman Empire, Creighton Menlorial Lec- 13. P. J. Coveney, Introduction to F~ancein Crisis, 1620-1675, ed. P. J. Coveney (Totowa,
ture, University College London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910), 1-2. N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977), 43, 56.
10 Dwotio: Autocracy and Elitei Devorio: Autocracy and Eliter 11
tioch to Edessa. Even with the advantages conferred by the cur~lrs~ublicus- The resolute and fortunate few, of course, had less reason to complain.
the system of rapid transport made available to imperial of5cials and mes- By approaching the celsaepotestates directly, they gained the kind of advan-
sengers-the speed with which the emperor's edicts reached their destina- tage that so centralized a system made peculiarly precious: they came away
tions fluctuated widely with the seasons. Difficult enough in any period with direct authorization, which bypassed the slow-moving and unreliable
of imperial history, communications appear to have become slower towards process of appeal and correspondence that normally linked provincials to
the end of the fourth century as barbarian inroads disrupted the overland the centers of power. In A.D. 245 a group of villagers from the Euphrates
routes in western Europe and the Balkans.14 was quite prepared to wait for eight months in Antioch, in order to bring
The maintenance of an autocratic imperial system involved a perpetual home a ruling from the prefect himself.z0 This remarkable document-
battle with distance. The wielders of power were only too easily isolated from a recently discovered collection of parchments and papyri from Roman
from the world they claimed to control. In the words of A. H. M. Jones, Syria-illustrates the fact that the centralization of the imperial system was
"in view of the slowness of communications, the administration of the as much wished upon the emperors and their higher officials as it was cre-
empire was centralized to a fantastic degree."'S The central nucleus of the ated by them. Litigants wanted direct access to the only truly authoritative
imperial govemment - the emperor, with his praetorian prefects, commanders courts-those closest to the emperor. The reduction in the sizes of indi-
in chief, heads of the bureaucracy, palace officials, and personal advisers- vidual provinces, under Diocletian, which virtually doubled the presence
kept for itself as many final decisions as possible. At meetings of the con- of Roman government throughout the empire, increased the availability
sistorium, generals and heads of government departments were summoned of courts to which to appeal. Hence the importance of the title of mdtropolis.
ad hoc, to stand in the presence of the enthroned emperor-hence its name. In previous centuries, this title had been a mark of honor. It had singled
Vigorous discussions, marked by raised voices and sweeping gestures, might out one city from among the many that might aspire to preeminence within
ensue. But the emperor could bring the debate to a close at any moment the province. It assumed competition among roughly equal centers. From
simply by rising from his seat. He was expected to listen to his ministers, the late third century onwards, the title of mPtropolis was held by the pro-
and he often participated in their discussions. But once he had heard them vincial city at which a governor resided. The mPtropolis became the un-
out, his decision was final.16 disputed legal and administrative capital of the region. This change was
This was the world of the celsae potestates: it was a chill peak, which quickly followed by the foundation of an imperial capital at Constanti-
few provincials scaled, and then only at their peril. Little was known to nople and by prolonged imperial residence in a major eastern city, An-
the outside world of discussions in the ronsistorium. Even so important a tioch. Both developments are not only a tribute to the centralizing ten-
figure as Ambrose, bishop of Milan, was deliberately kept ignorant of the dencies of the late Roman state, but they also reflect the insistence of the
debate that had led to Theodosius I's decision to impose a punitive mas- notables of the Greek East that they should have, at best, an emperor, or
sacre on the inhabitants of Thessalonica." This inner circle "played" with at least one of his representatives, within comfortable traveling distance.2'
the destinies of distant cities and regions.'a Delegates from the provinces Most litigants, however, did not wish to linger at the court. Those who,
could be ignored or subjected to savage punishments: one group, sent by like Ammianus Marcellinus, found themselves involved in the murderous
the city of Sardis, emerged from the presence of the praetorian prefect feel- politics surrounding the emperor, the generals, and the higher officials wrote
ing their heads, to make sure they were still on their shoulders.19 of their experiences as a venatio, as an enclosed arena where they had been
forced to pit their skill against exotic and ravenous beasts.22 The tales of
14. A. El. M. lones. The Later Roman Emoire (Oxford: Blackwell. 1964,),. 1:402-3: violence and cruelty that have had the most decisive effect in forming mod-
R. Duncan-Jones, Strurturc and Scale in the Roma>n Ec\o nomy (Cambridge:, C ambridge Um-
versity Prcss, 1 9 a9t 0er) , 7-29. 20. D. Feissel and J. Gascou, "Documents d'archives romainr inedits du Moyen-Euphrate
15. Jones, Roman Empire 1:403. liii. siscle a~r&Ks .)."C ornofer rendui de ifiroddmie dei Inriripfionr et Belies lattres 1989
16. Ibid., 1:331-41, 403-6; Matthew, Roman Empire o/Ammianus, 267-69, is a- (~ul~-~'1e98~9)t: .5 47-48. '
cellcnt on such meetings. 21. Charlotte RouechC, Floreot Perge, Imagei o/Audority: Papers Presented foJ oyre Rey-
17. Ambrose, Ep 51.2. nolds ed. M. M. Mackenzie and C. Roue& (Cambridge: Cambridge Philolagical Society,
18. Ammianus Marcellinus, Rer geriae 28.6.9. 1989). 218-21; Fergus Millar, The Emperor in Be Roman World (London: Duckworth,
19. E~mapiusF, ragment 72.1. in The Fragmenlary Ciarricising Hkforiam ofthe iater Roman 1977). 40-57.
Empire, ed. and trans. K. C. Blockley, ARCA 10 (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1983), 119. 2i: Ammianus Marcellinus, Rei gcrtae 15.5.23, 28.1.10; cf. 15.3.3, 29.1.2T