The later Roman empire, 284-602 : a social economic and administrative survey. Volume I

786 Pages·1964·69.71 MB·English

by  Jones

■
THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE
284-602

THE LATER
ROMAN EMPIRE,
284 602
- . Vci. I.
A SOCIAL ECONOMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE
SURVEY
By A. H. M. JONES
VOLUME I
UNIVKRSrrV OF OKL.MIOMA PRFSS NORMAN
VICE CANCELLARIIS ET MAGISTRIS ET SCHOLARIBUS UNIVERSITATUM
OXONIENSIS, BABYLONIENSIS, LONDINIENSIS, CANTABRIGIENSIS;
CUSTODI SOCIIS SCHOLARIBUS CLERICIS ET CHORISTIS COLLEGII
B. V. MARIAE WINTON. IN OXONIA, COMMUNITER NUNCUPATI
NEW COLLEGE, CUSTODI ET SOCIIS COLLEGII OMNIUM
ANIMARUM FIDELIUM DEFUNCTORUM, PRAEPOSITO ET SOCIIS
COLLEGII UNIVERSITATIS APUD LONDINIUM, MAGISTRO ET
SOCIIS COLLEGII B. V. MARIAE, SC. JOHANNIS EVANGELISTAE
ET GLORIOSAE VIRGINIS SC. RADEGUNDAE COMMUNITER
NUNCUPATI JESUS COLLEGE.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 64-20762
Original copyright Great Britain, 1964, by Basil Blackwell and Mott, Ltd., Oxford,
England. .American edition, manufactured in the United States of America, published
by the University of Oklahoma Press, Publishing Division of the University, Norman,
Oklahoma. First edition 1964.
PREFACE
THIS book is not a history of the later Roman empire. It is a
social, economic and administrative survey of the empire,
historically treated. I have therefore little to say about wars,
but much about the organisation, recruitment and conditions of
service of the army. I do not concern myself much with politics,
but discuss the character of the governing class, the administrative
machine and the structure of the civil service. Again I have little to
say about doctrinal controversies, but much about the growth of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy. I ignore the two major intellectual achieve­
ments of the age, theology and law, but discuss the organisation and
finances of the church, the administration of justice, and the social
status of the clergy and of lawyers. Similarly there is little about
literature and education, art and architecture, but something about
universities and schools, architects and artists and the building
industry.
My opening date, the accession of Diocletian, is a conventional
one but marks a real change. It is more difficult to find a satis­
factory terminal date. There is none in the West; in the East the
Arab conquest of Syria and Egypt would ideally be the best. I have
stopped at the death of A.raurice for two reasons. The collapse of
the Hast began at that date and Heraclius’ restoration of the empire
was very transient. Secondly the evidence, full and contemporary
up to that date in both East and West, abruptly fades out. I have
not hesitated, however, to use such evidence (the Life of John the
Alfnonei\ the Doctrina lacobi, Moschus’ Pratn/n Spirituale^ some con­
ciliar acts and the papyri) as falls in the next generation.
My theme is the Roman empire, and the barbarian successor
kingdoms of the W^est therefore fall outside my scope. It would,
however, have been pedantic to ignore the interludes of Vandal
rule in Africa and Ostrogothic rule in Italy. I have also said some­
thing about the survival of Roman institutions in other barbarian
kingdoms. I have also used evidence from the German kingdoms
to illustrate my principal themes.
VI PREFACE
I have had great difficulty in marshalling and presenting my
material. Ideally an historical work should be written chronolo­
gically, so as to show not only the development in time of each
element in the whole structure but their mutual interaction. In my
field this procedure proved practically impossible. In many depart­
ments of life conditions were virtually static—or seem to have been
so for lack of detailed evidence. In most the movement was so
slow that the thread of continuity in each would become imper­
ceptible, if in each decade, reign or even century I discussed the
whole field. I have therefore arranged my material by topics,
treating each topic chronologically as far as is practicable. I came
to realise, however, that to the reader not familiar with the period
this treatment would obscure the general course of development,
and I have compromised by prefacing my analytical chapters by a
series of brief narrative chapters. In these I give an outline of the
political, military and ecclesiastical history, stressing the social and
economic factors. This arrangement has necessarily involved some
duplication, but not, I hope, on a scale to weary the reader.
It is only fair to tell the reader on what information this book is
based and how far I have covered the ground. I early realised that
if in a field so vast I tried to read the modern literature exhaus­
tively and keep abreast of current scholarship, I should not have
time to read the sources. I therefore abandoned the former attempt.
This is not to say that I have not read and profited from many
modern books and articles (particularly those whose authors were
so kind as to send me offprints), but I have undoubtedly missed
much of value, and must have unwittingly reproduced some ex­
ploded errors. I must also seem discourteous in failing to acknow­
ledge indebtedness when I have arrived independently at the same
conclusion that another scholar had previously reached. In these
circumstances it would be dishonest to compile a bibliography,
and I have not done so. I have only cited at the beginning of each
chapter of notes such general modern works as I have read and
found useful, and in the appropriate place in the notes books and
articles which treat exhaustively a topic marginal to my theme.
As I explored the ancient sources I regretfully came to the con­
clusion that a lifetime would not suffice to read them all; anyone
who surveys only the relevant shelves of Migne’s Vatrologiae will
understand. I soon decided to abandon theological treatises and
commentaries on the Scriptures and secular belles lettres (with
obvious exceptions such as Ausonius and Claudian). There are a
few grains of wheat in these, but the quantity of chaff (from my
point of view) is overwhelming, and many of the best grains
have been winnowed by earlier scholars, particularly those of the
PREFACE Vll
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose editions of patristic
literature are a mine of curious information. I next, after reading a
fair sample, abandoned sermons, having discovered that most
consisted of exegesis of the Scriptures or of vague and generalised
moralisation. On the other hand I have read secular speeches,
even panegyrics, and found some, notably those of Libanius, very
useful. I have tried to cover completely all historians, secular and
ecclesiastical, in Greek, Latin and (where translated) Syriac. I have
read and re-read the Codes and Novels, the Notitia Dignitatum
and similar official documents. I have read all collections of letters,
whether of laymen or churchmen (skipping theological controversy
and scriptural exegesis in epistolary form). I have tried to read all
contemporary biographies, notably hves of saints, and the hagio-
graphical literature of an anecdotal kind, like the Lausiac History
and Gregor}^’s Dialogues. I have read the Acts and Canons of
church councils, omitting purely theological matter. I can claim to
have at least looked at every published papyrus of relevant date
(and by courtesy of its editor, Mr. T. C. Skeat of the British Museum,
the unpublished P. Beatty Panop.). I have tried to do the same by
inscriptions, but my coverage is here much less complete, since
many are so cunningly concealed in the corpora and periodicals.
My most lamentable gap is the archaeological material. I have
not read the excavation reports on late Roman sites. I depend for
for my knowledge of the coins on the published catalogues and even
more on the help of kind numismatic friends, notably Mr. Philip
Grierson of Gonville and Caius College, and iSlr. J. P. C. Kent of
the British Museum. On the other hand I have visited 94 of the 119
provinces of the Roman empire; my omissions are the Maure-
tanias and Numidia (owing to the recent troubles), Valeria, Dacia
Ripensis, Moesia II, Scythia, Thracia and Epirus Nova (beyond
the Iron Curtain), Osrhoene, Mesopotamia, the Armenias, Pontus
Polemoniacus, Helenopontus and Paphlagonia (mostly in a Turkish
military zone), Syria II, Euphratensis and Phoenice Libanensis
(frontier temporarily closed), and Corsica, Sardinia, Baleares
Insulae and Cyprus (merely because they are islands). Wherever I
have gone I have inspected the Roman sites, ruins and still surviv­
ing buildings, and have studied the character of the countryside
and the contents of local museums. In some areas, notably southern
Asia Minor, Syria and North Africa, many Roman cities, villages,
fortresses and monasteries still stand, apart from deterioration by
earthquakes and the weather, much as they were left in the sixth or
seventh centuries A.D.
I must also confess that I know little about technology, except
from watching how Near liastern craftsmen still turn pots on the
vm
PREFACE
wheel and hammer out copper dishes, how weavers operate hand
looms and women spin with distaff and spindle, how peasants still
plough with ox teams and thresh the corn on threshing floors with
sledges and winnow it with shovels, work shadufs by hand or
sakkiyas by oxen to raise water, and take their produce to market
on donkeys, camels or ox-carts.
From the point of view of the social and economic historian the
great defect of the evidence is the total absence of statistics. There
are quite a number of isolated figures—far more than for the
Principate—^which are individually reliable, but no groups or
sequences which are statistically significant. I have used the
available figures, perhaps overworked some of them. The reader
will have to judge how far my judgment is sound in drawing con­
clusions from them.
The abundant legal material presents many difficulties of inter­
pretation. There are some technical problems. The dates of many
laws are wrong in the Codes; one often cannot tell from the address
whether a given enactment was a general circular applicable to all
the empire (or rather to that part of it which the emperor who
issued it ruled), or special to a particular diocese or province,
whether it represented general policy or was evoked by a particular
scandal. But a more substantial difficulty is to estimate whether a
law was enforced or remained a pious aspiration. Many modern
historians, it seems to me, have too readily assumed that Roman
citizens obeyed the law, and that everything was done as the
imperial government directed. My own impression is that many, if
not most, laws were intermittently and sporadically enforced, and
that their chief evidential value is to prove that the abuses which
they were intended to remove were known to the central govern­
ment. The laws, in my view, are clues to the difficulties of the em­
pire, and records of the aspirations of the government and not its
achievement.
I am indebted to many scholars for their comments, corrections
and criticism. Mr. Russell Meiggs of Balliol College read the whole
work at an early stage of its composition. Mr. Keith Flopkins of
London University read Part II, Professors Anastos and Downey of
Dumbarton Oaks Part I at its later stage. The Regius Professor of
Civil Law at Cambridge read Chapter XIV, Professor White of the
University of Ghana read Chapter XX, Mr. Moses Finley of Jesus
College, Cambridge, Chapter XXI, the Regius Professor of
Divinity at Oxford Chapters XXII and XXIII.
A devoted band of ex-pupils performed more exacting tasks. Mr.
G. E. C. de Ste Croix of New College read the first proofs of the
text and second proofs of the notes. Mr. J. Martindale checked all
PREFACE IX
dates and all references to the Codes and Novels. Mr. W. Liebe-
schiitz compiled the Index.
Finally I owe a profound debt of gratitude to my English publisher,
Sir Basil Blackwell. These are no mere idle words. Sir Basil agreed
to accept the work piecemeal, thus enabling me to complete the notes
while the text was being printed. This was of great convenience to
me, and expedited the publication of the book.
I am also grateful to my American publisher, the University of
Oklahoma Press, for spontaneously asking to undertake the heavy
task of the American edition.
A. H. M. J.
Jesus College,
Cambridge,
August, 1963