The Autocracy or Late Empire: 285–565 A. D

Part IV

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Chapter XXI

From Diocletian to Theodosius the Great; The Integrity of the Empire Maintained; 285–395 A. D.

I. Diocletian: 285–305 a. d.

The epoch-making character of Diocletian’s reign. Upon Diocletian devolved the task of bringing order out of chaos, of rebuilding the shattered fabric of the Roman empire, of reëstablishing the civil administration and taking effective measures to secure an enduring peace. Like many of the emperors of the third century, Diocletian was an Illyrian of humble origin who by sheer ability and force of character had won his way up from the ranks to the imperial throne. In attacking the problem of imperial restoration he displayed restless energy and versatility, a thorough-going radicalism which knew little respect for traditions, and a supreme confidence in his ability to restore the economic welfare of the empire by legislative means. In his administrative reforms he gave expression to the tendencies which had been at work in the later principate and with him begins the period of undisguised autocracy, in which the emperor, supported by the army and the bureaucracy, is the sole source of authority in the state. Like Augustus, Diocletian was the founder of a new régime; one in which the absolutist ideal of Julius Caesar finally attained realization.

Maximian co-emperor, 286 A. D. One of the first acts of Diocletian was to coöpt as his associate in the imperium, with the rank of Caesar, a Pannonian officer named Valerius Maximianus. In 286 Maximian received the title of Augustus and equal authority with Diocletian. However, the latter always dominated his younger colleague, and really determined the imperial policy. In conformity with the undisguised absolutism of his rule, Diocletian assumed the divine title of Jovius, and that of Herculius was bestowed upon Maximian. Diocletian’s choice of a co-emperor was determined [pg 318]largely by the conviction that the burden of empire was too heavy to be borne by one man. He therefore entrusted the defense of the western provinces to Maximian, while he devoted his attention to the Danubian and eastern frontiers. Maximian’s first task was to quell a serious revolt of the Gallic peasants, called Bagaudae, occasioned by the exactions of the state and the landholders. After crushing this outbreak (285 A. D.), he successfully defended the Rhine frontier against the attacks of Franks, Alamanni and Burgundians (286–88 A. D.). However, in the meantime a usurper had arisen in Carausius, an officer entrusted with the defense of the Gallic coast against the North Sea pirates, who made himself master of Britain and proclaimed himself Augustus (286 A. D.). Maximian was unable to subdue him, and the two emperors were forced against their will to acknowledge him as their colleague.

Regulation of the succession. Diocletian saw in the absence of a strict regulation of the succession a fertile cause of civil strife. To do away with this, and to discourage the rise of usurpers, as well as to relieve the Augusti of a part of their military and administrative burdens, he determined to appoint two Caesars as the assistants and destined successors of Maximian and himself. His choice fell upon Gaius Galerius and Flavius Valerius Constantius, both Illyrian officers of tried military capacity. They received the title of Caesar on 1 March, 293 A. D. To cement the tie between the Caesars and the Augusti, Diocletian adopted Galerius and gave him his daughter in marriage, while Maximian bound Constantius to himself in the same way. It was the plan of Diocletian that the Augusti should voluntarily abdicate after a definite period, and be succeeded by the Caesars, who in turn should then nominate and adopt their successors.

The division of the empire. To each of the four rulers there was assigned a part of the empire as his particular administrative sphere. Diocletian took Thrace, Egypt and the Asiatic provinces, fixing his headquarters at Nicomedia. Maximian received Italy, Raetia, Spain and Africa, and took up his residence at Milan. To Galerius were allotted the Danubian provinces and the remainder of the Balkan peninsula, with Sirmium as his residence; while Constantius, to whose lot fell the provinces of Gaul, established himself at Trèves. However, this arrangement was not a fourfold division of the empire, for the Caesars were subject to the authority of [pg 319]the Augusti, and imperial edicts were issued in the name of all four rulers. Additional unity was given to the government by the personal ascendancy which Diocletian continued to maintain over his associates. One result of this arrangement was that Rome ceased to be the permanent imperial residence and capital of the empire, Milan and later Ravenna being preferred as the seat of government for the West. This change was largely the result of the exclusion of the Senate from all active participation in the government, and the fact that Rome retained traditions of republican and senatorial rule incompatible with the spirit of the new order. Yet, in spite of its loss of prestige, the Eternal City continued to hold a privileged status, and its citizens were fed and amused at the expense of the empire.

The restoration of the frontiers. The division of the military authority among four able commanders enabled the government to deal energetically with all frontier wars or internal revolts. In 296 Constantius recovered Britain from Allectus, who three years previously had overthrown Carausius and proclaimed himself Augustus. In 297 Maximian was forced to appear in person in Africa to suppress a revolt of the Quinquegentiani. Meanwhile, Diocletian crushed a usurper named Achilles in Egypt and repulsed the invading Blemyes. Galerius, under the orders of Diocletian, after repelling attacks of the Iazyges (294 A. D.) and Carpi (296 A. D.), was called upon to meet a Persian invasion of Armenia and Mesopotamia. He was at first severely defeated, but, after being reinforced, won a decisive victory over Narses, the Persian king, and recovered Armenia. Diocletian himself won back Mesopotamia and the Persians were forced to acknowledge the Roman suzerainty over Armenia, while the Roman frontier in Mesopotamia was advanced to the upper Tigris. In all parts of the empire the border defenses were repaired and strengthened.

Army reforms; provincial organization. The military reforms of Diocletian aimed to correct the weakness revealed in the previous system by the wars of the third century. He created a powerful mobile force—the comitatenses; while organizing the permanent garrison along the frontier in the form of a border militia—the limitanei. At the same time, the military and civil authority in the provinces was sharply divided to prevent a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of any one official. And the same motive is to be traced in the subdivision of the province, the number of which [pg 320]was raised to 101. These were grouped in thirteen dioceses, administered by vicarii (vicars), who were subordinate to the praetorian prefects.

The edict of prices, 301 A. D. Diocletian also made a thorough revision of the system of taxation, and tried, but without success, to establish a satisfactory monetary standard. A more conspicuous failure, however, was his attempt to stabilize economic conditions by government regulation. By the Edict of Prices issued in 301, he fixed a uniform price for each commodity and every form of labor or professional service throughout the empire. The penalty of death was provided for all who demanded or offered more than the legal price. The law proved impossible to enforce. It took no account of the variations of supply and demand in the various parts of the empire, of the difference between wholesale and retail trade, or in the quality of articles of the same kind. In spite of the severe penalty prescribed, the provisions of the law were so generally disregarded that the government abandoned the attempt to carry them into effect.

Persecution of the Christians, 302 A. D. Equally unsuccessful were his measures for the suppression of Christianity. For nearly half a century following Valerian’s persecution the Christians had enjoyed immunity from repressive legislation. They had continued to increase rapidly in numbers and it has been estimated that at this time perhaps two-fifths of the population of the empire were adherents of the Christian faith. The reason for the revival of persecution by Diocletian is uncertain, although it may possibly have been at the instigation of Galerius, who displayed the greatest zeal in carrying it into effect. In 302 Diocletian issued three edicts, ordering the confiscation of church property, the dismissal of Christians from civil offices, the abrogation of their judicial rights, the enslavement of Christians of plebeian status, the arrest and imprisonment of the heads of the church, and heavy penalties for those who refused to offer sacrifice to the state gods, while granting liberty to all who did so. In 304, a fourth edict ordered all citizens without exception to make public sacrifice and libation to the gods. The degree to which these edicts were enforced varied in the different parts of the empire. The most energetic persecutors were Maximian and Galerius, while in Gaul Constantius made little or no effort to molest the Christians. The persecution lasted with interruptions till 313 A. D. Many leading Christians met a martyr’s death, but the church emerged from the [pg 321]ordeal more strongly organized and aggressive than before. Its victory made it a political force of supreme importance.

Abdication, 305 A. D. On 1 May, 305 A. D., Diocletian and Maximian, after a joint rule of twenty years, formally abdicated their authority and retired into private life. Diocletian withdrew to his palace near Salona in Dalmatia, and Maximian, much against his will, to an estate in Lucania. Galerius and Constantius succeeded them as Augusti.

II. Constantine I, the Great: 306–337 a. d.

Constantine Caesar, 306 A. D. Diocletian’s plan for securing an orderly succession of rulers for the empire had neglected to take into account individual ambitions and the strength of dynastic loyalty among the soldiers. Its failure was forecast in the appointment of the new Caesars. Galerius, who was the more influential of the new Augusti, disregarded the claims of Constantine, the son of Constantius, and nominated two of his own favorites, Severus and Maximinus Daia. In this Constantius acquiesced but when he died in Britain in 306 A. D., his army acclaimed Constantine as his successor. Galerius was forced to acknowledge him as Caesar.

The revolt of Maxentius, 306 A. D. In the same year Maxentius, the son of Maximian, took advantage of the opposition aroused in Rome by the attempt of Galerius to make the city subject to taxation, and caused himself to be proclaimed Caesar. He was supported by his father, who emerged from his enforced retirement, and defeated and brought about the death of Severus, whom Galerius had made Augustus, and sent to subdue him. Maxentius then took the title of Augustus for himself. The same rank was accorded to Constantine by Maximian, who made an alliance with him and gave him his daughter, Fausta, in marriage. Upon the failure of an attempt by Galerius to overthrow Maxentius, an appeal was made to Diocletian to return to power and put an end to the rivalries of his successors (307 A. D.). He refused to do so, but induced Maximian, who had quarrelled with his son, to withdraw a second time from public life. Licinius, who had been made Caesar by Galerius in place of Severus, became an Augustus, while Daia and Constantine each received the title of Son of Augustus (filius Augusti), a distinction which Constantine, from the beginning, and Daia, soon after[pg 322]wards, ignored. Thus, by 310 A. D., there were five Augusti (including Maxentius), in the empire and no Caesars. It was not long before the ambitions of the rival emperors led to a renewal of civil war.

The rival Augusti, 310–312 A. D. In 310 Maximian tried to win over the army of Constantine, but his attempt failed and cost him his life. The following year Galerius died, after having, in concert with Constantine and Licinius, issued an edict which put an end to the persecution of the Christians and granted them the right to practice their religion; an admission that the state had failed in its plan to stamp out the religion of Christ. The empire was then divided as follows: Constantine held Britain, Gaul and Raetia, Maxentius Spain, Italy and Africa, Licinius the Illyrian and Balkan provinces, and Maximinus Daia the lands to the east of the Aegean, including Egypt. The attempt of Maxentius to add Raetia to his dominions brought him into conflict with Constantine. Constantine allied himself with Licinius, and Maxentius found a supporter in Maximinus. Without delay Constantine invaded Italy, and routed the troops of Maxentius at Verona. He then pressed on to Rome and won a final victory not far from the Milvian bridge (312 A. D.). Maxentius perished in the rout. It was in this campaign, as a result of a vision, that Constantine adopted as his standard the labarum, a cross combined with the Christian monogram formed of the first two letters of the Greek word Christos (Christ).

Constantine and Licinius, 313–324 A. D. In 313 Constantine and Licinius met at Milan, where they issued a joint edict of toleration, which placed Christianity upon an equal footing with the pagan cults of the state. Although this edict enunciated the principle of religious toleration for the empire, it was issued with a view to win the political support of the Christians and pointed unmistakably to Christianity as the future state religion. Shortly after the publication of the Edict of Milan, Maximinus Daia crossed the Bosphorus and invaded the territory of Licinius. He was defeated by the latter, who followed up his advantage and occupied Asia Minor. Upon the death of Maximinus, which followed within a short time, Licinius fell heir to the remaining eastern provinces. These now received the religious toleration previously extended to the rest of the empire.

However, the concord between the surviving Augusti was soon broken by the ambitions of Constantine, who felt aggrieved since Licinius controlled a larger share of the empire than himself. A brief war ensued, which was terminated by an agreement whereby [pg 323]Licinius ceded to Constantine the dioceses of Moesia and Pannonia (314 A. D.). In 317 they jointly nominated as Caesars and their successors, Crispus and Constantine, the younger sons of Constantine, and Licinianus, the son of Licinius. However, although they continued to act in harmony for some years longer, it was evident that they still regarded one another with jealous suspicion. This came clearly to light in the difference of their policies towards the Christians. The more Constantine courted their support by granting them special privileges, the more Licinius tended to regard them with disfavor and restrict their religious liberty. Finally, in 322 A. D., when repelling a Gothic inroad, Constantine led his forces into the territory of Licinius, who treated the trespass as an act of war. Constantine won a signal victory at Adrianople and his son Crispus destroyed the fleet of Licinius at the Hellespont. These disasters induced Licinius to withdraw to Asia Minor. There he was completely defeated by Constantine near Chrysopolis (18 September, 324 A. D.). Licinius surrendered upon assurance of his life, but the following year he was executed on a charge of treason. Constantine was now sole emperor.

Constantine sole emperor, 324–337 A. D. Constantine’s administrative policy followed in the steps of Diocletian, whose organization he elaborated and perfected in many respects. The praetorian prefecture was deprived of its military authority, which was conferred upon the newly-created military offices of master of the horse and the foot (magister equitum and peditum). This completed the separation between the military and civil offices. Diocletian’s field force was strengthened by the creation of new mobile units, and his efficient army enabled Constantine to defend the empire against all barbarian attacks. Upon waste lands within the frontiers he settled Sarmatians and Vandals, while he greatly increased the barbarian element in the army as a whole, but particularly among the officers of higher rank.

Constantinople, 330 A. D. Of special importance for the future history of the empire was the founding of a new capital, called Constantinople, on the site of ancient Byzantium. After four years’ preparation, the new city was formally dedicated on 11 May, 330 A. D. The choice of the site of the new capital of the empire was determined by its strategic importance. It was conveniently situated with respect to the eastern and Danubian frontiers, and well adapted as a link between the European and Asiatic parts of the empire. The aim of the emperor was to make Constantinople a new Rome, and he gave [pg 324]it the organization and the institutions of Rome on the Tiber. A new Senate was established there; likewise the public festivals and free bread for the populace. For the latter purpose the grain of Egypt was diverted from Rome to Constantinople.

Constantine and the succession. Like Diocletian, Constantine realized the necessity of having more than a single ruler for the empire, but he determined to choose his associates from the members of his own household. Accordingly, following Crispus and Constantine, his younger sons, Constantius and Constans, were given the title of Caesar, while Licinianus, the son of Licinius, was gotten rid of in 326. In the same year Crispus was also put to death. The cause of his fall is uncertain. It involved the death of his stepmother, Fausta, the mother of Constantine’s other sons. Ultimately, the three surviving Caesars were set over approximately equal portions of the empire. In 335 Constantine the younger governed Britain, Gaul and Illyricum; Constans ruled Italy, Africa and Pannonia; and Constantius was in control of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. In that year Constantine appointed as a fourth Caesar his nephew, Delmatius, to whom he intended to entrust the government of Thrace, Macedonia and Achaea. At the same time, Annabalianus, a brother of Delmatius, was designated as the future ruler of Pontus and Armenia, with the title of King of Kings.

Constantine’s Christianity. Constantine died in May, 337 A. D. shortly after having been baptized into the Christian church. Although his mother, Helena, was a Christian, it seems improbable that Constantine himself was from the first an adherent of that faith. On the whole, one may say that his attitude towards Christianity was determined largely by political rather than religious convictions. However, his mother’s influence and his father’s toleration of Christianity doubtless predisposed him to consider the Christians with favor. He soon sought the support of the Christians on political grounds, and his successes over his rivals seem to have confirmed him in this policy. Finally, he appears to have seen in Christianity the religion best suited to a universal faith for the empire. However, Constantine himself did not raise Christianity to that position, although he prepared the way to this end. Although he forbade the performance of private sacrifices and magical rites, in other respects he adhered faithfully to his policy of religious toleration. He took the title of pontifex maximus, maintained the imperial cult, and until [pg 325]330 issued coins with the image of the Sun-god, with whom the emperor was often identified. His designation of Sunday as a general holiday in 321 was in full accord with this policy of toleration, for although this was the day celebrated by the Christians as “the Lord’s day,” as the “day of the Sun” it could be celebrated by pagans also. Nevertheless, he exhibited an ever-increasing personal leaning towards Christianity, and granted special privileges to the Christian clergy. He caused his sons to be brought up as Christians, and really established a special relation between the emperor and the church. For his services to the cause of Christianity he well merited the title of “the Great,” bestowed upon him by Christian historians.

III. The Dynasty of Constantine: 337–363 a. d.

Constantine II, Constans and Constantius, 337–340 A. D. Constantine’s plans for the succession were thwarted by the troops at Constantinople, who, instigated, as was said, by Constantius, refused to acknowledge any other rulers than the sons of Constantine and put to death the rest of his relatives, with the exception of his two youthful nephews, Gallus and Julian. Constantius and his two brothers then declared themselves Augusti and divided the empire. Constantine II received Spain, Gaul and Britain, Constantius Thrace, Egypt and the Orient, while the youngest, Constans, took the central dioceses, Africa, Italy and Illyricum. However, this arrangement endured only for a brief time. The peace was broken by Constantine, who encroached upon the territory of Constans, and affected to play the rôle of the senior Augustus. However, he was defeated and killed at Aquileia by the troops of Constans, who annexed his dominions.

Constantius and Constans, 340–350 A. D. The joint rule of Constantius and Constans lasted for ten years. The latter showed himself an energetic sovereign and maintained peace in the western part of the empire. At length, however, his harshness and personal vices cost him the loyalty of his own officers, who caused him to be deposed in favor of Magnentius, an officer of Frankish origin (350 A. D.). And while Magnentius secured recognition in Italy and the West, the army in Illyricum raised its commander, Vetranio, to the purple.

Constantius sole emperor, 350–360 A. D. From 338 A. D. Constantius had been engaged in an almost perpetual but indecisive [pg 326]struggle with Sapor II, king of Persia, over the possession of Mesopotamia and Armenia. It was not until late in 350 that he was able to leave the eastern frontier to attempt to reëstablish the authority of his house in the West. He soon came to an agreement with Vetranio, who seems to have accepted the title of Augustus solely to save Illyricum from Magnentius. Vetranio passed into honorable retirement, but when Constantius refused to recognize Magnentius as Augustus the latter marched eastwards to enforce his claims. He was defeated in a desperate battle at Mursa in Pannonia (351 A. D.), where the victory was won by the mailed horsemen of Constantius, who from this time onwards formed the most effective arm in the Roman service. In the next year Constantius recovered Italy, and in 353 invaded Gaul, whereupon Magnentius took his own life.

Gallus, Caesar, 351–4 A. D. Constantius had no son, and so to strengthen his position, he made his cousin, Gallus, Caesar and placed him in charge of the Orient when he set out to meet Magnentius in 351 A. D. But Gallus soon showed himself unworthy of his office. His mistreatment of the representatives of the emperor sent to investigate his conduct caused him to be suspected of treasonable ambitions, and he was recalled and put to death in 354 A. D.

Julian, Caesar, 335 A. D. However, Constantius still found himself in need of an associate in the imperium. In addition to the danger of invasion on both northern and eastern frontiers, came the revolt of Silvanus at Cologne in 355, which, although quickly suppressed, was a reminder that every successful general was potentially a candidate for the throne. Accordingly, at the advice of the empress Eudoxia, he called from the enforced seclusion of a scholar’s life Julian, the younger brother of Gallus, whom he made Caesar and dispatched to Gaul (355 A. D.). Since the fall of Magnentius the Gallic provinces had been exposed to the devastating incursions of Franks and Alemanni, and the first task of the young Caesar was to deal with these barbarians. In a battle near Strassburg in 357 he broke the power of the Alemanni, and drove them over the Rhine. The Franks were forced to acknowledge Roman overlordship, but the Salian branch of that people were allowed to settle to the south of the Rhine (358 A. D.). In addition to displaying unexpected capacities as a general, Julian showed himself a forceful and upright administrator, whose chief aim was to revive the prosperity of his sorely-tried provincials.

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Julian, Augustus, 360 A. D. In 359 A. D. a fresh invasion of Mesopotamia by Sapor II called Constantius to the East. The seriousness of the situation there caused him to demand considerable reinforcements from the army in Gaul. This was resented both by the soldiers themselves and by Julian, who saw in the order a prelude to his own undoing, for he knew the suspicious nature of his cousin, and was aware that his own successes and the restraint he imposed upon the rapacity of his officials had aroused the enmity of those who had the emperor’s confidence. However, after a vain protest, he yielded; but the troops took matters into their own hands, mutinied and hailed Julian as Augustus. His ambitions, which had been awakened by the taste of power, and the precariousness of his present situation led him to accept the title (360 A. D.). He then sought to obtain from Constantius recognition of his position and the cession of the western provinces. The latter rejected his demand, although he did not deem it advisable to leave the East unprotected at that moment and attempt to reassert his authority. Julian then took the offensive to enforce his claims, and, upon the retirement of the Persian army, Constantius hastened to meet him. But on the march he fell ill and died in Cilicia, having designated Julian as his successor.

The pagan reaction. The importance of Julian’s reign lies in his attempt to make paganism once more the dominant religion of the empire. His own early saturation with the fascinating literature of Hellenism and the mystical strain in his character made Julian an easy convert to Neo-platonism. He had become a pagan in secret before he had been called to the Caesarship, and after the death of Constantius openly proclaimed his apostacy. While he adhered in general to the principle of religious toleration and did not institute any systematic persecution of the Christians, he prohibited them from interpreting classical literature in the schools, forced them to surrender many pagan shrines which they had occupied, deprived the clergy of their immunities, endeavored to sow dissension in their ranks by supporting unorthodox bishops, and stimulated a literary warfare against them in which he himself took a prominent part. Following the example of Maximinus Daia, Julian attempted to combat Christianity with its own weapons, and tried to establish a universal pagan church with a clergy and liturgy on the Christian model. He also sought to infuse paganism with the morality and missionary zeal of Christianity. But his efforts were in [pg 328] vain; the pagan cults had lost their appeal for the masses, and the only converts were those who sought to win the imperial favor by abandoning the Christian faith.

Persian war and death, 363 A. D. In his administration of the empire Julian pursued the same policy as in Gaul. He checked the greed of government officials, abolished oppressive offices, and in every way tried to restrain extravagances and lighten the burdens of his subjects. The war with Persia which had begun under Constantius had not been concluded and Julian was fired by the ambition to imitate the career of Alexander the Great and overthrow the Persian kingdom. After long preparations he began his attack early in 363 A. D. He succeeded in reaching Ctesiphon where he defeated a Persian army. But his attempt to penetrate further into the enemy’s country failed for want of supplies, and he was forced to begin a retreat. On the march up the Tigris valley he was mortally wounded in a skirmish (26 June, 363 A. D.), and with his death ended the rule of the dynasty of Constantine the Great.

Jovian, 363–4 A. D. The army chose as his successor Jovian, the commander of the imperial guard. To rescue his forces, Jovian made peace with Sapor, surrendering the Roman territory east of the Tigris, with part of Mesopotamia, and abandoning the Roman claim to suzerainty over Armenia. Julian’s enactments against the Christians were abrogated and religious toleration proclaimed. After a brief reign of eight months, Jovian died at Antioch in 364 A. D.

IV. The House of Valentinian and Theodosius the Great: 364–395 a. d.

Valentinian I and Valens, Augusti, 364 A. D. At the death of Jovian the choice of the military and civil officials fell upon Flavius Valentinianus, an officer of Pannonian origin. He nominated as his co-ruler his brother, Valens, whom he set over the East, reserving the West for himself.

Valentinian’s reign was an unceasing struggle to protect the western provinces against barbarian invaders. The emperor personally directed the defense of the Rhine and Danubian frontiers against the incursions of the Alemanni, Quadi and Sarmatians, while his able general Theodosius cleared Britain of Picts, Scots and Saxons, and [pg 329]suppressed a dangerous revolt of the Moors in Africa. In 375 Valentinian died at Brigetio in the course of a war with the Sarmatians. Although imperious and prone to violent outbursts of temper, he had shown himself tireless in his efforts to protect the empire from foreign foes and his subjects from official oppression. In this latter aim, however, he was frequently thwarted by the intrigues of his own officers.

Gratian and Valentinian II. As early as 367 Valentinian had appointed as a third Augustus his eldest son, Gratian, then only seven years old. The latter now succeeded to the government of the West, although the army also acclaimed as emperor his four-year-old brother, Valentinian II.

The Gothic invasion, 376 A. D. Meanwhile Valens, who exercised the imperial power in the East, had been involved in protracted struggles with the Goths along the lower Danube and with the Persians, whose attempt to convert Armenia into a Persian province constituted a threat too dangerous to be ignored. Peace had been established with the Goths in 369, but in 376 new and unexpected developments brought them again into conflict with the Romans.

The cause lay in the westward movement of the Huns, a nomadic race of Mongolian origin, whose appearance in the regions to the north of the Black Sea marks the beginning of the period of the great migrations. In 375 A. D. they overwhelmed the Greuthungi, or East Goths, and assailed the Thervingi, or West Goths. Unable to defend themselves, the latter in 376 sought permission to settle on Roman territory to the south of the Danube. Valens acceded to their request upon the condition of their giving up their weapons. The reception and settlement of the Goths was entrusted to Roman officers who neglected to enforce the surrender of their arms, while they enriched themselves by extorting high prices from the immigrants for the necessities of life. Thereupon, threatened by starvation, the Goths rebelled, defeated the Romans, and began to plunder the country (377 A. D.). The news of this peril summoned Valens from the East, but Gratian was hindered from coming to the rescue by an incursion of the Alemanni into Gaul. However, as soon as he had defeated the invaders he hastened to the assistance of his uncle. Without awaiting his arrival, Valens rashly attacked the Goths at Hadrianople. His army was cut to pieces, he himself slain, and Goths overran the whole Balkan peninsula (378 A. D.).

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Theodosius I, the Great, 378 A. D. To meet this crisis, Gratian appointed as Augustus, Theodosius, the son of the Theodosius who had distinguished himself as a general under Valentinian I, but who had fallen a victim to official intrigues at the latter’s death. The new emperor undertook with vigor the task of clearing Thrace and the adjoining provinces of the plundering hordes of Goths. By 382 he had forced them to sue for peace and had settled them on waste lands to the south of the Danube. There they remained as an independent people under their native rulers, bound, however, to supply contingents to the Roman armies in return for fixed subsidies. They thus became imperial foederati.

The revolt of Arbogast and Eugenius, 392 A. D. In 391 Theodosius reduced the Goths to submission when a revolt of the troops in Britain raised Magnus Maximus to the purple. Gratian had shown himself a feeble administrator and had alienated the sympathies of the bulk of his troops by his partiality towards the Germans in his service. Maximus at once crossed into Gaul and was confronted by Gratian at Paris. But the latter was deserted by his army, and was captured and put to death. The authority of Maximus was now firmly established in Britain, Gaul and Spain. He demanded and received recognition from Theodosius, who was prevented from avenging Gratian’s death by threatening conditions in the East. The third Augustus, the young Valentinian II, acquired for the time an independent sphere of authority in Italy. However, in 387 A. D. Maximus suddenly crossed the Alps and forced him to take refuge with Theodosius. Having come to terms with Persia, Theodosius refused to sanction the action of Maximus and marched against him. The troops of Maximus were defeated, and he himself captured and executed at Aquileia (388 A. D.). Gaul and the West were speedily recovered for Theodosius by his general, Arbogast.

Theodosius and Ambrose. While Theodosius was at Milan in 390 occurred his famous conflict with Bishop Ambrose. In a riot at Thessalonica the commander of the garrison had been killed by the mob, and Theodosius, in his anger, had turned loose the soldiery upon the citizens, of whom seven thousand are said to have been butchered. Scarcely had Theodosius issued the order when he was seized with regret, and endeavored to countermand it; but it was too late. Upon the news of the massacre, Ambrose excluded the emperor from his church and refused to admit him to communion until he [pg 331]had publicly done penance for his sin. For eight months Theodosius refused to yield, but Ambrose remained obdurate, and the emperor finally humbled himself and publicly acknowledged his guilt. The question at issue was not the supremacy of secular or religious authority, but whether the emperor was subject to the same moral laws as other men. Nevertheless, it required a high degree of courage for the bishop to assert the right of the church to pass judgment in such a matter upon the head of the state.

The revolt of Arbogast and Eugenius, 392 A. D. In 391 Theodosius returned to the East, leaving Valentinian as emperor in the West with his residence at Vienna in Gaul. But the powerful Arbogast, whom Theodosius had placed in command of the western troops, refused to act under the orders of the young Augustus, and finally compassed his death (392 A. D.). However, he did not dare, in view of his Frankish origin, to assume the purple himself, and so induced a prominent Roman official named Eugenius to accept the title of Augustus. The authority of Eugenius was acknowledged in Italy and all the West, but Theodosius refused him recognition and prepared to crush the usurper. In the autumn of 394 A. D., at the river Frigidus, near Aquileia, Theodosius won a complete victory over Arbogast and Eugenius. The former committed suicide and the latter was put to death.

Early in the next year Theodosius died, leaving the empire to his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, upon both of whom he had previously conferred the rank of Augustus. The success of Theodosius in coping with the Gothic peril and in suppressing the usurpers Maximus and Eugenius, combined with his vigorous championship of orthodox Christianity, won for him the title of the “Great.” With the accession of Arcadius and Honorius and the permanent division of the empire into an eastern and a western half, there begins a new epoch of Roman history.

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Chapter XXII

The Public Administration of the Late Empire

I. The Autocrat and His Court

Powers and titles of the emperor. The government of the late Roman empire was an autocracy, in which the emperor was the active head of the administration and at the same time the source of all legislative, judicial and military authority. For the exercise of this authority the support of the army and the bureaucracy was essential. All the sovereign rights of the Roman people were regarded as having been transferred to the imperial power. The emperor was no longer the First of the Roman citizens—the primus inter pares—but all within the empire were in equal degree his subjects. This view of the exalted status of the emperor was expressed in the assumption of the divine titles Jovius and Herculius by Diocletian and Maximian. Their Christian successors, although for the greater part of the fourth century they accepted deification from their pagan subjects, found a new basis for their absolutism in the conception of the emperor as the elect of God, who ruled by divine guidance. Thus the emperor could speak of the imperium which had been conferred upon him by the heavenly majesty. The adjectives “sacred” and “divine” were applied not only to the emperor’s person but also to everything that in any way belonged to him, and the “imperial divinity” was an expression in common use.

As the sole author of the laws, the emperor was also their final interpreter; and since he acted under divine guidance those who questioned his decisions, and those who neglected or transgressed his ordinances, were both alike guilty of sacrilege. The emperor was held to be freed from the laws in the sense that he was not responsible for his legislative and administrative acts, yet he was bound by the laws in that he had to adhere to the general principles and forms of the established law of the state, and had to abide by his own edicts, for the imperial authority rested upon the authority of the laws.

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The titles of the emperor bore witness to his autocratic power. From the principate he had inherited those of Imperator, the significance of which was revealed in its Greek rendering of Autocrator, and Augustus, which was as well suited to the new as to the old position of the emperor. More striking, however, was the use of dominus or dominus noster, a title which, as we have seen, was but rarely used during the principate, but which was officially prescribed by Diocletian. The term princeps, although it has long lost its original significance, still continued to be employed in official documents, at times in conjunction with dominus.

Imperial regalia. The imperial regalia likewise expressed the emperor’s autocratic power. With Diocletian the military garb of the principate was discarded for a robe of silk interwoven with gold and Constantine I introduced the use of the diadem, a narrow band ornamented with jewels, which formed part of the insignia of the Persian monarchs, and was symbolic of absolutism in the ancient world.

The succession. We have seen how the scheme devised by Diocletian for regulating the succession to the throne broke down after his retirement. His successors refused to abdicate their imperial authority and only surrendered it with life itself. In the appointment of new emperors two principles found recognition—election and coöptation. The system of election was a legacy from the principate, and recourse was regularly had to it when the imperial throne was vacant. The elected emperor was usually the choice of the leading military and civil officials, approved by the army. In Constantinople, from the fifth century at least, the nomination was made by these officers in conjunction with the reorganized senate, and the new emperor was proclaimed before the people assembled in the Hippodrome. The emperors thus appointed claimed to have been elected by the officials, the Senate, and the army with the sanction of the people. However, as the history of the time shows, the right of election might be exercised at any time, and a victorious usurper became a legal ruler. Thus the autocracy, as has been aptly remarked, was tempered by a legal right of revolution. As this method of election guaranteed a high average of ability among emperors, so the custom of coöptation gave opportunity to admit the claim of dynastic succession. An Augustus could appoint as his colleague the one whom he wished to succeed him on the throne. However, it is to be noted that a son [pg 335]who was thus elevated to the purple became emperor by virtue of his father’s will and not by the right of birth.

The imperial court. Under Diocletian the organization and ceremonial of the imperial palace were thoroughly remodelled. The servants of the household—ushers, chamberlains, grooms and the like—were now formed into corps on a military basis, with a definite regulation of insignia, pay, term of service and promotion. In harmony with the general spirit of the autocracy, the court ceremonial was designed to widen the gulf between the ruler and his subjects and to protect his person by rendering it inaccessible. Surrounded by all the pomp and pageantry of an oriental potentate, the Roman emperor was removed from contact with all but his immediate entourage. The effect of this seclusion was to enhance the power of the few who were permitted to come into touch with him, in particular the officials of the imperial household. The personal servants of the emperor were placed on the same level as the public administrative officers, and the most important of them, the grand chamberlain, before the close of the fourth century had become one of the great ministers of state, with a seat in the imperial cabinet. In conformity with the assumption of the title dominus and of the diadem, was the requirement of prostration from all who were admitted to an audience with the emperor. In addition to its civilian employees, the palace had its special armed guard. These household troops were the scholarians, organized by Constantine I when he disbanded the praetorian guards who had upheld the cause of Maxentius.

II. The Military Organization

General characteristics. The chief characteristics of the military organization of the late empire were the complete separation of civil and military authority except in the person of the emperor, the sharp distinction between the mobile forces and the frontier garrisons, and the ever-increasing predominance of the barbarian element, not merely in the rank and file of the soldiers, but also among the officers of highest rank.

The limitanei. The troops composing the frontier garrisons were called limitanei, or borderers; also, when stationed along a river frontier, riparienses. They were the successors of the garrison army of the principate and were distributed among small fortified posts [pg 336](castella). To each of these garrisons there was assigned for purposes of cultivation a tract of land free from municipal authority. These lands were exempt from taxation, and, although they were not alienable, the right to occupy them passed from father to son with the obligation to military service. Thus the limitanei were practically a border militia. Their numbers were materially increased by Diocletian but reduced again by Constantine I who transferred their best units to the field army. The limitanei ranked below the field troops; their physical standards were lower, and their rewards at the end of their term of service inferior.

The palatini and comitatenses. To remedy the greatest weakness in the army of the principate, namely, its lack of mobility, Diocletian formed a permanent field force to accompany the emperor on his campaigns, for it was his intention that the emperors should personally lead their armies. Since the field troops thus formed the comitatus, or escort, of the emperor they received the name of comitatenses. Later certain units of the comitatenses were called palatini, or palace troops, a purely honorary distinction. The palatini and comitatenses were stationed at strategic points well within the frontiers.

Numbers. In both the garrison and field armies the old legion was broken up into smaller detachments, to each of which the name legion was given. They still continued to be recruited from Romans, but were regarded as inferior in caliber to the auxilia, the light infantry corps which were largely drawn from barbarian volunteers. A great number of new cavalry units were formed, so that the proportion of cavalry to infantry was largely increased. At the opening of the fifth century the troops stationed in Spain, in the Danubian provinces, in the Orient and in Egypt had a nominal strength of 554,500 of which 360,000 were limitanei and 194,500 field troops. However, it is extremely doubtful if the separate detachments were maintained at their full numbers. The scholarians, organized as an imperial bodyguard by Constantine I, numbered 3500. They were divided into seven companies called scholae, from the fact that a particular schola, or waiting hall in the palace, was assigned to each.

Recruitment. In the late empire the ranks of the Roman army stood open to all free men who possessed the requisite physical qualifications. Slaves were also enrolled from the fifth century onwards but their admission to military service brought them freedom. Recruits were either volunteers or conscripts. The universal liability [pg 337]to service existed until the time of Valentinian I, although in practice it was limited to the municipal plebs and the agricultural classes. Valentinian placed the obligation to furnish a specified number of recruits upon the landholders of certain provinces, and levied a corresponding monetary tax upon the other provinces. He also made it obligatory for the sons of soldiers to present themselves for service. Many barbarian peoples, settled within the empire, were likewise under an obligation to furnish a yearly number of recruits, who, however, were regarded as volunteers. Still voluntary recruitment was the rule under the late empire even more than under the principate, and the majority of the volunteers for military service were of barbarian origin. Corps of all sorts were named after barbarian peoples, and while barbarian officers received Roman citizenship, the rank and file remained aliens.

Discipline. The chief reason for the victories of the Roman armies of the early principate over their barbarian foes lay in their superior discipline and organization. And the burden of maintaining this discipline had rested upon the junior officers or centurions who came from the senatorial order of the Roman municipalities. By the end of the third century the centuriate had disappeared for lack of volunteers of this class and with its disappearance began a decline in discipline and training. The construction of the fortified camp was no longer required, the soldier’s heavy pack was discarded, and before the close of the fourth century the burdensome defensive armor was also given up. In equipment and tactics the Roman troops of the late empire were on a level with their barbarian opponents. Just as the Roman empire was unable to assimilate the barbarian settlers within its frontiers, so the Roman army proved unable to absorb the barbarian elements within its ranks.

Foederati. The decline in efficiency of the Roman troops and the confessed inability of the state to deal with its military obligations led to the taking into the Roman pay of warlike peoples along the Roman frontiers. Such peoples were called federated allies (foederati), and guaranteed to protect the territory of the empire in return for a stipulated remuneration in money or supplies. Such were the terms upon which the Goths were granted lands south of the Danube by Theodosius the Great. But in this case, as in others, it is hard to distinguish between subsidies paid to foederati and the payments made by many emperors to purchase immunity from invasion by [pg 338]dangerous neighbors. A danger inherent in the system was that the foederati might at any moment turn their arms against their employers. Retaining as they did their political autonomy and serving under their own chiefs, the foederati were not regarded as forming a part of the imperial forces.

The duces and the magistri militum. We have already referred to the complete separation of military and civil authority. This was carried out as far as the border troops were concerned by Diocletian. He divided the frontiers into military districts which corresponded to the provinces and placed the garrisons in each under an officer with the title of dux. The duces of highest rank were regularly known as comites (counts). Under Diocletian the praetorian prefects remained the highest military officers, and were in command of the field army. As we have seen, Constantine I deprived the praetorian prefecture of its military functions and appointed two new commanders-in-chief—the master of the foot (magister peditum) and the master of the horse (magister equitum). Under the successors of Constantine these offices were increased in number and the distinction between infantry and cavalry commands was abandoned. Consequently, the titles of master of the horse and master of the foot were altered to those of masters of horse and foot, masters of each service, or masters of the soldiers. In the East by the close of the fourth century there were two masters of the soldiers at Constantinople, each commanding half of the palatini in the vicinity of the capital, and three others commanding the comitatenses in the Orient, Thrace and Illyricum, respectively. In the West there were two masterships at the court, and a master of the horse in the diocese of Gaul.

But while in the East the several masters of the soldiers enjoyed independent commands, in the West by 395 A. D. there had developed a concentration of the supreme military power in the hands of one master, who united in his person the two masterships at the court. The master in Gaul, with the duces and comites in the provinces were under his orders. This subordination was emphasized by the fact that the heads of the office staff (principes) of the comites and duces were appointed by the master at the court. On the other hand, in the East, these principes were appointed by a civil official, the master of the offices, who was also charged with the inspection of the frontier defences, and from the opening of the fifth century exercised judicial [pg 339]authority over the duces. The latter, however, remained the military subordinates of the masters of the soldiers. Thus the concentration of military power in the West in the hands of a single commander-in-chief prepared the way for the rise of the king-makers of the fifth century, while the division of the higher command in the East prevented a single general from completely dominating the political situation.

Judicial status of the soldiers. Characteristic of the times was the removal of soldiers from the jurisdiction of the civil authority. In the fourth century they could only be prosecuted on criminal charges in the courts of their military commanders, and in the fifth century they were granted this privilege in civil cases also.

III. The Perfection of the Bureaucracy

The administrative divisions of the empire. The administrative machinery of the late empire was simply an outgrowth from, and a more complete form of, the bureaucracy which had developed under the principate. All the officers of the state were now servants of the emperor, appointed by him and dismissed at his pleasure. At the basis of the administrative organization lay the division of the empire into prefectures, dioceses and provinces. By the close of the fourth century there were one hundred and twenty provinces, grouped into fourteen dioceses, which made up the four prefectures of Gaul, Italy, Illyricum and the Orient. This division of the empire into four prefectures was carried out under Constans and Constantius. Until the death of Constantine I, the pretorian prefecture had remained an office associated with the person of the emperor, and from the time of Diocletian the number of praetorian prefects had corresponded to the number of Augusti, each emperor appointing one for his own part of the empire. This practice was followed by the sons of Constantine. But after Constans had overthrown Constantine II he left the latter’s territory under the administration of a special prefect, thus establishing the prefecture of Gaul. He afterwards appointed another prefect for Illyricum, which was separated from [pg 340]the jurisdiction of the prefect of Italy. When Constantius became sole emperor in 351, he retained the three prefectures of Constans, and his own previous dominions constituted the fourth, that of the Orient. In 379, Gratian, the emperor in the West, transferred the Illyrian prefecture from his sphere to that of Theodosius, his colleague in the East.

The praetorian prefects and their subordinates. Each province had a civil governor, variously known as proconsul, consular, corrector or praeses, according to the relative importance of his governorship. The provincial governors, with a few exceptions, were subject to the vicars, who were in charge of the several dioceses, and who, in turn, were under the administrative control of the four praetorian prefects, the heads of the prefectures. The prefects and their subordinates were in charge of the raising of taxes paid in kind and of the administration of justice for the provincials. Italy was now divided into several provinces and Italian soil was no longer exempt from taxation. With the exception of the population of Rome, the inhabitants of Italy were upon the same footing as those of the other provinces, with whom they shared the name of provincials.

The central administrative bureaus. The remaining branches of the civil administration were directed by a group of ministers resident at the court, with subordinates in the various administrative departments. These ministers were the master of the offices, the quaestor, the count of the sacred largesses and the count of the private purse. The master of the offices united in his hands the control of the secretarial bureaus of the palace, the oversight over the public post, the direction of the agentes-in-rebus, who constituted the imperial secret service, the command of the scholarians, the supervision of several branches of the palace administration, and jurisdiction over practically all of the personal servants of the emperor. As we have seen, in the East he also exercised certain authority over the duces. The quaestor (to be distinguished from the holders of the urban quaestorships) was a minister of justice, part of whose duties consisted in the preparation of imperial legislation. The count of the sacred largesses was the successor to the rationalis, who had been in charge of the imperial fiscus under the principate. He was charged with the collection and disbursement of the public revenues which were paid in money, and his title was derived from the fact that the funds under his control were used for the imperial donations [pg 341]or largesses. He likewise had the supervision of the imperial factories engaged in the manufacture of silks, and other textiles. The count of the private purse was the head of the department of the res privata and in charge of the revenues from the imperial domains. These ministers with certain other administrative officials of the court and the chief officers of the imperial household, such as the grand chamberlain, were known as the palace dignitaries (dignitates palatinae).

Rome and Constantinople were exempt from the authority of the praetorian prefects, and were each administered by a city prefect. Two consuls were nominated annually, one at Rome and one at Constantinople, and gave their names to the official year, but their duties were limited to furnishing certain entertainments for the populace of the capitals. This was also the sole function of the praetorship and quaestorship, which were now filled by imperial appointment upon the recommendation of the city prefects.

The imperial council of state. The system of graded subordination, which placed the lower officials in each department under the orders of those having wider powers, brought about the ultimate concentration of the civil and military administration in the hands of about twenty officers who were directly in touch with the emperor and responsible to him alone. From these were drawn the members of the council of state or imperial consistory (so-called from the obligation to remain standing in the presence of the emperor). Permanent members of this council were the four ministers of the court mentioned above, who were known as the counts of the consistory, and also the grand chamberlain.

The officia. The officials who were at the head of administrative departments, civil or military, had at their disposal an officium or bureau, the members of which were known as officiales. These subaltern employees of the state were free men, no longer slaves or freedmen like their predecessors of the principate. As in the case of the palace servants their numbers, terms of service (militia), promotion and discharge were fixed by imperial edicts, and they were not placed at the mercy of the functionary whose office staff they formed. Indeed, owing to the permanent character of the organization of the officia, the burden of the routine administration fell upon their members, and not upon their temporary director, for whose acts they were made to share the responsibility. This was particularly true of the [pg 342]bureau chief (princeps), who was regularly appointed from the agentes-in-rebus as a spy upon the actions of his superior. Like the soldiers, the civil service employees enjoyed exemption from the ordinary courts of justice and the privilege of defending themselves in the courts of the chief of that branch of the administration to which they were attached.

Official corruption. The attitude of the emperor towards his chief servants was marked by mistrust and suspicion. The policy which led to the attempt to weaken the more powerful offices by the separation of civil and military authority and by the subdivision of the administrative districts was adhered to in the provisions for direct communication between the emperor and the subordinates of the great ministers, and the highly developed system of state espionage whereby the ruler kept watch upon the actions of his officers. However, in spite of the efforts of the majority of the emperors to secure an honest and efficient administration, the actual result of the development of this elaborate bureaucratic system was the erection of an almost impassable barrier between the emperor and his subjects. Neither did their complaints reach his ears, nor were his ordinances for their relief effective, because the officials coöperated with one another to conceal their misdemeanors and to enrich themselves at the expense of the civilian population. So thoroughly had the spirit of “graft” and intrigue penetrated all ranks of the civil and military service that to gratify their personal ambitions they were even willing to compromise the safety of the empire itself. The burden imposed upon the tax payers by the vast military and civil establishment was immensely aggravated by the extortions practised by representatives of both services, whose rapacity knew no bounds.

IV. The Nobility and the Senate

The senatorial order. The conflict between the principate and the Senate resulted, as we have seen, in the exclusion of members of the senatorial order from all offices of state. But it was unthinkable that the great landed proprietors should be permanently shut out of the public service, and with the loss of any claim to authority by the Senate as a body there was no longer any objection to their entering the service of the emperor. Consequently, the essential distinction be[pg 343]tween the senatorial and equestrian orders vanished and a new senatorial order arose into which was merged a large equestrian element.

The clarissimate. The distinguishing mark of this new senatorial order was the right to the title clarissimus, which might be acquired by inheritance, by imperial grant, or by the attainment of an office which conferred the clarissimate upon its holder, either during his term of service or upon his retirement. Practically all of the higher officials in the imperial service were clarissimi and there was consequently a great increase in the number of senators in the course of the fourth century. The place of the equestrian order was in part filled by the perfectissimate, an inferior order of rank conferred upon lower imperial officials and municipal senators.

The higher orders of rank. The development of an oriental court life with its elaborate ceremonial demanding a fixed order of precedence among those present at imperial audiences, and the increase in the number and importance of the public officials, which necessitated a classification of the various official posts from the point of view of rank, led to the establishment of new and more exclusive rank classes within the circle of the clarissimi. There were in the ascending order the spectabiles, or Respectables, and the illustres, or Illustrious. The illustriate was conferred solely upon the great ministers of state. Under Justinian, in the sixth century, there was established the still higher order of the gloriosi (the Glorious). The official positions, to which these titles of rank were attached, were called dignities (dignitates), and the great demand for admission to these rank classes, which entitled their members to valuable privileges, caused the conferment of many honorary dignities, i. e., titles of official posts with their appropriate rank but without the duties of office.

The patricians and counts. The other titles of nobility were those of patrician and count. The former, created by Constantine I in imitation of the older patrician order, was granted solely to the highest dignitaries, although it was not attached to any definite official post. It was Constantine also who revived the comitiva, which had been used irregularly of the chief associates of the princeps until the death of Severus Alexander, and put it to a new use. The term count became a title of honor definitely attached to certain offices, but also capable of being conferred as a favor or a reward of merit. Like the [pg 344]other titles of rank the patriciate and the comitiva brought with them not only precedence but also valuable immunities.

Nothing illustrates more clearly the importance of official positions than the division of the people of the empire as a whole into two classes—the honestiores (more honorable) and the humiliores (more humble or plebeians). The former class, which included the imperial senators, the soldiers and the veterans, were exempt from execution except with the emperor’s consent, from penal servitude, and, with some limitations, from torture in the course of judicial investigations.

The Senate. The Senate at Rome was not abolished but continued to function both as a municipal council and as the mouthpiece of the senatorial order. After the founding of Constantinople a similar Senate was established there for the eastern part of the empire. At first all clarissimi had a right to participate in the meetings of the Senate, and their sons were expected to fill the quaestorship. However, after the middle of the fifth century only those having the rank of illustris were admitted to the senate chamber, and the active Senate became a gathering of the highest officials and ex-officials of the state. In addition to their functions as municipal councils, the Senates made recommendations for the quaestorship and praetorship, discussed with the imperial officials the taxes which affected the senatorial order and even participated to a certain extent in drafting imperial legislation.

The senators and the municipalities. The most important privilege enjoyed by the senators was their exemption from the control of the officials of the municipalities within whose territories their estates were situated. As we shall see, this was one of the chief reasons for the extension of their power in the provinces.

V. The System of Taxation and the Ruin of the Municipalities

The system of taxation. The debasement of the Roman coinage in the course of the third century resulted in a thorough disorganization of the public finances, for the taxes and disbursements fixed in terms of money had no longer their previous value. Diocletian completely reorganized the financial system by introducing a general scheme of taxation and remuneration in produce in place of coin, [pg 345]and by establishing a new method of assessment. This latter consisted in the division of the land, cattle and agricultural labor into units of equal tax value. The unit of taxation for land was the iugum, which differed in size for arable land, vineyards and orchards, as well as for soils of varying fertility. A fixed number of cattle likewise constituted a iugum, assessed at the same value as a iugum of land. The unit of labor, regarded as the equivalent of the iugum was the caput, which was defined as one man or two women engaged in agricultural occupations. Thus the workers were taxed in addition to the land they tilled.

The indiction. The amount of the land tax to be raised each year was announced in an annual proclamation called an indiction (indictio), and a revaluation of the tax units was made periodically. The term indiction was also used of the period between two reassessments, which occurred at first every five, but after 312 A. D. every fifteen, years. The indictions thus furnished the basis for a new system of chronology. From the taxes raised in kind the soldiers and those in the civil service received their pay in the form of an allowance (annona), which might under certain conditions be commuted for its monetary equivalent.

Special taxes. In addition to the land tax raised in the form of produce on the basis of the iuga and capita, there were certain other taxes payable in money. The chief of these were: the chrysargyrum, a tax levied on all trades; the aurum coronarium, a nominally voluntary but really compulsory contribution paid by the municipal senators every five years to enable the emperor to distribute largesses to his officials and troops; the aurum oblaticium, a similar payment made by the senatorial order of the empire; and the collatio glebalis or follis senatoria, a special tax imposed upon senators by Constantine I.

Munera. Besides the taxes, the government laid upon its subjects the burden of performing certain public services without compensation. The most burdensome of these charges (munera) were the upkeep of the public post, and the furnishing of quarters (hospitium) and rendering other services in connection with the movement of troops, officials and supplies. So heavy was the burden of the post that it denuded of draught animals the districts it traversed and had to be abandoned in the sixth century. It was in connection with the exaction of these charges, the collection of the revenue in kind, and in [pg 346]the administration of justice that the imperial officials found opportunity to practice extortions which weighed more heavily upon the taxpayers than the taxes themselves.

The curiales. The class which suffered most directly from the established fiscal system was that of the curiales, as the members of the municipal senatorial orders were now called. In the course of the third century the status of curialis had become hereditary, and was an obligation upon all who possessed a definite property qualification, fixed at twenty-five iugera of land in the fourth century. Since the local senates had become agents of the fiscus in collecting the revenues from their municipal territories, the curiales, through the municipal officers or committees of the local council, had to apportion the quotas of the municipal burden among the landholders, to collect them, and be responsible for the payment of the total amount to the public officers. They were also responsible for the maintenance of the public post and the performance of other services resting upon the municipalities. Inevitably the curiales sought to protect themselves by shifting the burden of taxation as much as possible upon the lower classes in the municipal territory who regarded them as oppressors. “Every curialis is a tyrant” (quot curiales, tot tyranni), says a fourth century writer.

The exactions of the imperial officers proved more than the curiales could meet, and they sought to withdraw from their order and its obligations. But the government required responsible landholders and so they were forbidden to dispose of their properties or to leave their place of residence without special permission. And when they tried to find exemption by entering the imperial senatorial order, the military or civil service, or the clergy, these avenues of escape were likewise closed. Only those who had filled all the municipal offices might become clarissimi and immune from the curial obligations, and only clergy of the rank of bishops were excused, while the lower orders had to supply a substitute or surrender two-thirds of their property before they could leave the curia. Valentinian I attempted to aid the curiales by appointing officials known as defensores civitatium or plebis—“defenders of the cities” or “of the plebs”—whose duty it was to check unjust exactions and protect the common people against officials and judges. These defensores were at first persons of influence, chosen by the municipalities and approved by [pg 347]the emperor. They were empowered to try certain cases themselves, and had the right to address themselves directly to the emperor without reference to the provincial governor. However, the defensores accomplished little, and in the fifth century their office had become an additional obligatory service resting upon the curiales. By 429 A. D. hardly a curialis with adequate property qualifications could be found in any city, and by the sixth century the class of municipal landholders had practically disappeared.

The hereditary corporations. We have seen how, in the course of the third century, the professional corporations were burdened with the duty of performing certain public services in the interest of the communities to which they belonged. The first step taken by the state to insure the performance of these services was to make this duty a charge which rested permanently upon the property of the members of the corporations (corporati), no matter into whose possession it passed. But men as well as money were needed for the performance of these charges, and consequently, in order to prevent a decline in the numbers of the corporati, the state made membership in these associations an hereditary obligation. This was really an extension of the principle that a man was bound to perform certain services in the community in which he was enrolled (his origo). Finally, the emperors exercised the right of conscription, and attached to the various corporations which were in need of recruits persons who were engaged in less needed occupations.

The burden of their charges led the corporati, like the curiales, to seek refuge in some other profession. They tried to secure enrollment in the army, among the officiales, or to become coloni of the emperor or senatorial landholders. But all these havens of refuge were closed by imperial edicts, and when discovered the truant corporatus was dragged back to his association. Only those who attained the highest office within their corporation were legally freed from their obligations.

Although the corporations probably retained their former organization and officers, their active heads were now called patroni, and these directed the public services of their colleges. In Rome and Constantinople the colleges were under the supervision of the city prefects, in the municipalities under that of the local magistrates and provincial governors. The professional colleges are the only ones which sur[pg 348]vived during the late empire. The religious and funerary associations vanished with the spread of Christianity and the general impoverishment of the lower classes.

The coloni. Among the agricultural classes the forces which had developed in the course of the principate were still at work. In the fourth century the attachment of the tenant farmers and peasant laborers to the soil was extended to the whole empire. The status of the coloni became hereditary, like that of the corporati. Their condition was half way between that of freedmen and that of slaves, for while they were bound to the estate upon which they resided and passed with it from one owner to another, they were not absolutely under the power of the owner and could not be disposed of by him apart from the land. They had also other rights which slaves lacked, yet as time went on their condition tended to approximate more and more closely to servitude. “Slaves of the soil,” they were called in the sixth century. As this status of serfdom was hitherto unknown in Roman law, a great many imperial enactments had to be issued defining the rights and duties of the coloni.

The growth of private domains. The development of vast private estates at the expense of the public and imperial domains was another prominent characteristic of the times. This was the result of the failure of the state to check the spread of waste lands, in spite of its attempt to develop the system of hereditary leaseholds to small farmers. To maintain the level of production the government opened the way for the great proprietors to take over all deserted lands under various forms of heritable lease or in freehold tenure. The system of attaching waste lands to those of the neighboring landholders and making the latter responsible for their cultivation was an added cause of the growth of large estates. The result of this development was that the state tenants became coloni of the great landlords, and the latter were responsible for the taxes and other obligations of their coloni to the state. The weight of these obligations rested as before upon the coloni, and led to their continued flight and a further increase in waste land. Like the curiales and corporati, the coloni tried to exchange their status by entering the public service or attaining admission to some other social class. But, in like manner also, they found themselves excluded from all other occupations and classes. Only the fugitive colonus who had managed to remain undetected for [pg 349]thirty years (in the case of women twenty years) could escape being handed back to the land which he had deserted.

The power of the landed nobility. The immunities of the senatorial order and the power of the high officials tended to give an almost feudal character to the position of the great landed proprietors. These had inherited the judicial powers of the procurators on the imperial estates and transferred this authority to their own domains. Over their slaves and coloni they exercised the powers of police and jurisdiction. As they were not subject to the municipal authorities, and, during the greater part of the fourth century, were also exempt from the jurisdiction of the provincial governors they assumed a very independent position, and did not hesitate to defy the municipal magistrates and even the minor agents of the imperial government. Their power made their protection extremely valuable, and led to a new type of patronage. Individuals and village communities, desirous of escaping from the exactions to which they were subject in their municipal districts, placed themselves under the patronage of some senatorial landholder and became his tenants. And he did not hesitate to afford them an illegal protection against the local authorities. Complaints by the latter to higher officials secured little redress for they were themselves proprietors and sided with those of their own class. The power of the state was thus nullified by its chief servants and the landed aristocracy became the heirs of the empire.

Resumé. The transformation which society underwent during the empire may be aptly described as the transition from a régime of individual initiative to a régime of status, that is, from one in which the position of an individual in society was mainly determined by his own volition to one in which this was fixed by the accident of his birth. The population of the empire was divided into a number of sharply defined castes, each of which was compelled to play a definite rôle in the life of the state. The sons of senators, soldiers, curiales, corporati, and coloni had to follow in their fathers’ walks of life, and each sought to escape from the tasks to which he was born. In the eyes of the government collegiati, curiales, and coloni existed solely to pay taxes for the support of the bureaucracy and the army. The consequence was the attempted flight of the population to the army, civil service, the church or the wilderness. Private industry lan[pg 350]guished, commerce declined, the fields lay untilled; a general feeling of hopelessness paralyzed all initiative. And when the barbarians began to occupy the provinces they encountered no national resistance; rather were they looked upon as deliverers from the burdensome yoke of Rome.

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Chapter XXIII

The Germanic Occupation of Italy and the Western Provinces: 395–493 A. D.

I. General Characteristics of the Period

The partition of the empire. With the death of Theodosius the Great the empire passed to his sons, Arcadius a youth of eighteen, whom he had left in Constantinople, and Honorius a boy of eleven, whom he had designated as the Augustus for the West. However, in the East the government was really in the hands of Rufinus, the pretorian prefect of Illyricum, while an even greater influence was exercised in the West by Stilicho, the Vandal master of the soldiers, whom Theodosius had selected as regent for the young Honorius. The rivalry of these two ambitious men, and the attempt of Stilicho to secure for Honorius the restoration of eastern Illyricum, which had been attached by Gratian to the sphere of the eastern emperor, were the immediate causes of the complete and formal division of the empire into an eastern and a western half, a condition which had been foreshadowed by the division of the imperial power throughout the greater part of the fourth century.

The fiction of imperial unity was still preserved by the nomination of one consul in Rome and one in Constantinople, by the association of the statues of both Augusti in each part of the empire, and by the issuance of imperial enactments under their joint names. Nevertheless, there was a complete separation of administrative authority, the edicts issued by one emperor required the sanction of the other before attaining validity within his territory, and upon the death of one Augustus the actual government of the whole empire did not pass into the hands of the survivor. The empire had really split into two independent states.

The Germanic invasions. In addition to the partition of the empire, the period between 395 and 493 is marked by the complete breakdown of the Roman resistance to barbarian invasions, and the penetration and occupation of the western provinces and Italy itself [pg 352]by peoples of Germanic stock. The position of Roman and barbarian is reversed; the latter become the rulers, the former their subjects, and the power passes from the Roman officials to the Germanic kings. Finally, a barbarian soldier seats himself upon the throne of the western emperor, and a Germanic kingdom is established in Italy.

The military dictators. During this period of disintegration, the real power in the western empire was in the hands of a series of military dictators, who with the office of master of the soldiers secured the position of commander-in-chief of the imperial armies. Beside them the emperors exercised only nominal authority. But as these dictators were either barbarians themselves, or depended upon barbarian troops for their support, they were continually intrigued against and opposed by the Roman or civilian element, headed by the civil officers of the court. Yet the fall of one “kingmaker” was always followed by the rise of another, for by their aid alone could the Romans offer any effective resistance to the flood of barbarian invasion.

The empire maintained in the East. But while the western empire was thus absorbed by the Germanic invaders, the empire in the East was able to offer a successful resistance both to foreign invasions and the ambitions of its own barbarian generals. This is in part accounted for by the greater solidarity and vigor of the Hellenic civilization of the eastern provinces, and the military strength of the population, particularly in Asia Minor, and in part by the success of the bureaucracy in holding the generals in check, a task which was facilitated by the division of the supreme military authority among several masters of the soldiers. The strength of the eastern empire caused the West to look to it for support and the western emperors upon several occasions were nominated, and at other times given the sanction of legitimacy, by those in the East.

II. The Visigothic Migrations

The revolt of Alaric, 395 A. D. Seizing the opportunity created by the death of Theodosius and the absence of the army of the East which he had led into Italy, Alaric, a prince of the Visigothic foederati, began to ravage Thrace and Macedonia with a band of his own people, aided by other tribes from across the Danube. He was [pg 353]opposed by Stilicho who was leading back the troops of the eastern emperor and intended to occupy eastern Illyricum. However, the latter was ordered by Arcadius to send the army of the East to Constantinople and complied. This gave Alaric free access to southern Greece which he systematically plundered. However, Stilicho again intervened. He transported an army by sea to the Peloponnesus, and maneuvered Alaric into a precarious situation, but came to terms with him, possibly because of a revolt which had broken out in Africa. Stilicho was declared an enemy by Arcadius, while Alaric, after devastating Epirus, settled there with his Goths, and extorted the title of magister militum from the eastern court.

The death of Stilicho, 408 A. D. In 401 A. D., when Stilicho was occupied with an inroad of Vandals and Alans into Raetia, Alaric invaded Italy. However, Stilicho forced him to withdraw, and foiled a second attempt at invasion in 403 A. D. But Alaric did not long remain inactive. He now held the title of master of the soldiers from Honorius and had agreed to help Stilicho to accomplish his designs upon Illyricum. But when the western empire was embarrassed by new invasions and the appearance of a usurper in Gaul, he made his way into Noricum and demanded an indemnity and employment for his troops. By the advice of Stilicho his demands, which included a payment of 4000 pounds of gold, were complied with. Shortly afterwards, Stilicho fell a victim to a plot hatched by the court officials who were jealous of his influence (408 A. D.).

The Visigoths in Italy. The death of Stilicho removed the only capable defender of Italy and, when Honorius refused to carry out the agreement with Alaric, the latter crossed the Alps. Honorius shut himself up in Ravenna, and the Goths marched on Rome, which ransomed itself at a heavy price. As Honorius still refused to make him master of the soldiers and to give him lands and supplies for his men, Alaric returned to Rome and set up a new emperor, named Attalus. Yet Honorius, supported by troops from the eastern empire, remained obdurate, and a disagreement between Alaric and Attalus led to the latter’s deposition. Rome was then occupied by the Goths who plundered it for three days (410 A. D.). Alaric’s next move was to march to south Italy with the intention of crossing to Sicily and Africa. But his flotilla was destroyed by a storm, and while retracing his steps northwards he suddenly took sick and died.

The Goths in Gaul and Spain. Alaric’s successor was his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who led the Visigoths into Gaul (412 A. D.), [pg 354]where he at first allied himself with a usurper, Jovinus, but soon deserted him to take service with the Romans. However, when Honorius failed to furnish him supplies, he seized Narbonne and other towns in southern Gaul and married the emperor’s sister, Placidia, whom the Goths had carried off captive from Rome. He again attempted to come to terms with the Romans, but failed, and Constantius, the Roman master of the soldiers, who had succeeded to the position and influence of Stilicho, forced him to abandon Gaul. Ataulf and the Goths crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, where he died in 415 A. D. His successor Wallia, being hard pressed by famine and failing in an attempt to invade Africa, came to terms with the Romans. He surrendered Placidia and in the name of the emperor attacked the Vandals and Alans who had occupied parts of Spain. Alarmed by his success Constantius recalled the Goths to Gaul, where they were settled in southern Aquitania (418 A. D.).

The Visigothic kingdom in Gaul. The status of the Goths in Gaul was that of foederati, bound to render military aid to Rome, but governed by their own kings. The latter, however, had no authority over the Roman population among whom the Goths were settled. This condition was unsatisfactory to the Gothic rulers who sought to establish an independent Gothic kingdom. Theodoric I, the successor of Wallia, forced the Romans to acknowledge his complete sovereignty over Aquitania, but failed in his attempt to conquer Narbonese Gaul. However, he joined forces with the Romans against Attila the Hun and was largely responsible for checking the latter at the battle of the Mauriac plain (451 A. D.) in which he lost his life. For a time the Goths remained on friendly terms with the imperial authority but under Euric, who became king in 466 A. D., the anti-Roman faction was in the ascendant and they embarked upon a policy of expansion. In 475 Euric, after a protracted struggle, gained possession of the district of Auvergne, and the Roman emperor acknowledged his sovereignty over the country between the Atlantic and the Rhone, the Loire and the Pyrenees, besides some territory in Spain. Two years later the district between the Rhone and the Alps, south of the Durance, was added to the Visigothic kingdom.

III. The Vandals

The invasions of 406 A. D. In 405 A. D. an invading horde of [pg 355]Vandals and Alans, who had descended upon Italy, was utterly defeated by Stilicho. But in the following year fresh swarms of the same peoples, united with the Suevi, crossed the Rhine near Mainz and plundered Gaul as far as the Pyrenees. For a short time they were held in check by the usurper Constantine, who held sway in Gaul and Spain. However, when he was involved in a struggle with a rival, Gerontius, they found an opportunity to make their way into Spain (409 A. D.).

The occupation of Spain. The united peoples speedily made themselves masters of the whole Iberian peninsula. But in spite of their successes over the Roman troops, the lack of supplies forced them to come to terms with the empire. In 411 they became Roman foederati and were granted lands for settlement. Under this agreement the Asdingian Vandals and the Suevi occupied the northwest of Spain, the Alans the center, and the Silingian Vandals the south. However, the Roman government had only made peace with the Vandals and their allies under pressure, and seized the first opportunity to rid themselves of these unwelcome guests. In 416 Constantius authorized the Visigoths under Wallia to attack them in the name of the emperor. Wallia was so successful that he utterly annihilated the Silingian Vandals, and so weakened the Alans that they united themselves with the Asdingian Vandals, who escaped destruction only through the recall of the Visigoths to Gaul. However, the Vandals quickly recovered from their defeats, waged successful war upon the Suevi, who had reached an agreement with the Romans, and occupied the whole of southern Spain.

The Vandal kingdom in Africa. In 429 A. D. the Vandals under the leadership of their king Gaiseric crossed into Africa, attracted by the richness of its soil and its strategic importance as one of the granaries of the Roman world. Their invasion was facilitated by the existence of a state of war between Count Bonifacius, the military governor of Africa, and the western emperor. The number of the invaders was estimated at 80,000, of whom probably 15,000 or 20,000 were fighting men.

In spite of the reconciliation between Bonifacius and the imperial government and their united opposition, Gaiseric was able to overrun the open country although he failed to capture the chief cities. In 435 A. D. peace was concluded and the Vandals were allowed to settle in Numidia, once more as foederati of the empire. However, in 439 [pg 356]A. D. Gaiseric broke the peace and treacherously seized Carthage. This step was followed by the organization of a fleet which harried the coasts of Sicily. In 442 the western emperor acknowledged the independence of the Vandal kingdom. Peace continued until 455, when the assassination of the emperor Valentinian III gave Gaiseric the pretext for a descent upon Italy and the seizure of Rome which was systematically plundered of its remaining treasures, although its buildings and monuments were not wantonly destroyed. Among the captives was Eudoxia, widow of the late emperor, and her daughters, who were valuable hostages in the hands of Gaiseric.

The lack of coöperation between the eastern and western empires against the Vandals enabled them to extend their power still further. Their fleets controlled the whole of the Mediterranean and ravaged both its western and its eastern coasts. A powerful expedition fitted out by the eastern emperor Leo I in 468 for the invasion of Africa ended in utter failure, and in 476 his successor Zeno was compelled to come to terms and acknowledge the authority of the Vandals over the territory under their control. At the death of Gaiseric in 477 A. D. the Vandal kingdom included all Roman Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the fortress of Lilybaeum in Sicily.

IV. The Burgundians, Franks, and Saxons

The Burgundian invasion of Gaul. The invasion of Gaul by the Vandals and Alans in 406 A. D. was followed by an inroad of the Burgundians, Ripuarian Franks and Alemanni. The two latter peoples established themselves on the left bank of the Rhine, while the Burgundians penetrated further south. In 433 the Burgundians were at war with the empire and were defeated by Aetius, the Roman master of the soldiers in Gaul. Subsequently they were settled in the Savoy. Thence, about 457, they began to expand until they occupied the whole valley of the Rhone as far south as the Durance.

Yet on the whole they remained loyal foederati of the empire. They fought under Aetius against Attila in 451, and their kings bore the Roman title of magister militum until the reign of Gundobad (473–516), who was given the rank of patrician by the emperor Olybrius.

The Salian Franks. The Salian Franks, as those who had once dwelt on the shores of the North Sea were called in contrast to the [pg 357]Ripuarians, whose home was on the banks of the Rhine, crossed the lower Rhine before the middle of the fourth century and occupied Toxandria, the region between the Meuse and the Scheldt. They were defeated by Julian who, however, left them in possession of this district as Roman foederati. The disturbances of the early fifth century enabled the Salian Franks to assert their independence of Roman suzerainty, and to extend their territory as far south as the Somme. Still, they fought as Roman allies against the Huns in 451 A. D., and their king Childeric, who began to rule shortly afterwards, remained a faithful foederatus of Rome until his death in 481 A. D.

In 486 A. D. Clovis, the successor of Childeric, overthrew the Gallo-Roman state to the south of the Somme and extended his kingdom to meet the Visigoths on the Loire. Thus the whole of Gaul passed under the rule of Germanic peoples.

The Saxons in Britain. After the decisive defeat of the Picts and Scots by Theodosius, the father of Theodosius the Great, in 368 and 369 A. D., the Romans were able to maintain the defence of Britain until the close of the fourth century. But in 402 Stilicho was obliged to recall part of the garrison of the island for the protection of Italy, and in 406 Constantine, who had laid claim to the imperial crown in Britain, took with him the remaining Roman troops in his attempt to obtain recognition on the continent. The ensuing struggles with the barbarians in Gaul prevented the Romans from sending officials or troops across the channel, and the Britons had to depend upon their own resources for their defense.

The task proved beyond their strength and it is probable that by the middle of the fifth century the Germanic tribes of Saxons, Angles and Jutes were firmly established in the eastern part of Britain. Because of the uncivilized character of these peoples, of the fact that Roman culture was not very deeply rooted among the native population, and of the desperate resistance offered by the latter to the invaders, the subsequent struggle for the possession of the island resulted in the obliteration of the Latin language and the disappearance of that material civilization which had developed under four centuries of Roman rule.

V. The Fall of the Western Empire

Honorius, 395–432 A. D. After the murder of Stilicho in 408 [pg 358]A. D., Honorius was faced with the problem of restoring his authority in Gaul, where for a time he had been forced to acknowledge the rule of a rival emperor Constantine who had donned the purple in Britain in 406 A. D. Constantius, a Roman noble who had succeeded Stilicho as master of the soldiers, was despatched to Gaul in 411 and soon overthrew the usurper. Two years later another rival, Jovinus, was crushed with the help of the Visigoths.

Constantius, the leader of the anti-barbarian faction of the court, was now the mainstay of the power of Honorius and used his influence to further his own ambitions. After the surrender of the princess Placidia by the Visigoths he induced the emperor to grant him her hand in marriage (417 A. D.). In 421 A. D. Honorius appointed him co-emperor, but he was not recognized as an Augustus at Constantinople and died in the same year. His death was followed by a quarrel between the emperor and his sister, as a result of which Placidia and her son took refuge under the protection of the eastern emperor, Theodosius II.

Valentinian III, 425–455 A. D. Honorius died in 423 A. D., leaving no children, and Castinus, the new master of the soldiers, secured the nomination of John, a high officer of the court, as his successor. However, Theodosius refused him recognition and his authority was defied by Bonifacius, an influential officer who had established himself in Africa. Valentinian, the five-year-old son of Placidia and Constantius, was escorted to Italy by forces of the eastern empire and John was deposed. His chief supporter Aetius, who had brought an army of Huns to his aid, was induced to dismiss his troops and accept a command in Gaul with the rank of count. Placidia, who had returned to Italy with Valentinian, became regent with the title of Augusta.

Aetius. During the reign of Valentinian III interest centers about the career of Aetius, “last of the Romans.” In 429, after getting rid of his enemy Felix, who had succeeded to the position of Castinus, Aetius himself became master of the soldiers and the real ruler of the empire. However, the Augusta Placidia endeavored to compass his downfall by an appeal to Bonifacius, who after his revolt of 427 A. D. had fought in the imperial cause against the Vandals. In 432 Bonifacius returned to Italy and was appointed master of the soldiers in place of Aetius. The latter appealed to arms, was defeated near Ariminum, and forced to flee for refuge to his friends [pg 359]the Huns. But as Bonifacius died not long after his victory, Aetius, with the backing of the Huns, was able to force the emperor to reappoint him master of the soldiers in 433 A. D. From that time until his death in 454 he directed the imperial policy in the West. He received embassies from foreign peoples and the latter made treaties with him and not with the emperor.

Attila’s invasion of Gaul, 451 A. D. The chief efforts of Aetius were directed towards the preservation of central and southeastern Gaul for the empire. In this he was successful, holding in check the Franks on the north, the Burgundians on the east, and the Goths in the southwest. But though Gaul was saved, Africa was lost to the Vandals, Britain to the Saxons and the greater part of Spain to the Suevi. The success of Aetius in Gaul was principally due to his ability to draw into his service large numbers of Hunnish troops, owing to the influence he had acquired with the leaders of that people while a hostage among them. At this time the Huns occupied the region of modern Hungary, Rumania, and South Russia. They comprised a number of separate tribes, which in 444 A. D. were united under the strong hand of King Attila, who also extended his sway over neighboring Germanic and Scythian peoples.

At first Attila remained on friendly terms with Aetius but his ambitions and his interference in the affairs of Gaul led to friction and to his demand for the hand of Honoria, sister of Valentinian III, with half of the western empire as her dowry. When the emperor refused to comply Attila led a great army across the Rhine into Gaul and laid siege to Orleans. Their common danger brought together the Romans and the Germanic peoples of Gaul, and Aetius was able to face the Huns with an army strengthened by the presence of the kings of the Visigoths and the Franks. Repulsed at Orleans, Attila withdrew to the Mauric plains where, in the vicinity of Troyes, a memorable battle was fought between the Huns and the forces of Aetius. Although the result was indecisive, Attila would not risk another engagement and recrossed the Rhine. The next year he invaded Italy, but the presence of famine and disease among his own forces and the arrival of troops from the Eastern Empire induced him to listen to the appeal of a Roman embassy, led by the Roman bishop Leo, and to withdraw from the peninsula without occupying Rome. Upon his death in 453 A. D. his empire fell to pieces and the power of the Huns began to decline.

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Maximus and Avitus, 455–6 A. D. The death of Attila was soon followed by that of Aetius, who was murdered by Valentinian at the instigation of his chamberlain Heraclius (454 A. D.). This rash act deprived him of the best support of his authority and in the next year Valentinian himself fell a victim to the vengeance of followers of Aetius. With him ended the dynasty of Theodosius in the West. The new emperor, a senator named Petronius Maximus, compelled Valentinian’s widow, Eudoxia, to marry him, but when the Vandal Gaiseric appeared in Italy in answer to her call he offered no resistance and perished in flight. Maximus was succeeded by Avitus, a Gallic follower of Aetius, whom he had made master of the soldiers. But after ruling little more than a year Avitus was deposed by his own master of the soldiers, Ricimer (456 A. D.).

Ricimer. Ricimer, a German of Suevic and Gothic ancestry, who succeeded to the power of Aetius, was the virtual ruler of the western empire from 456 until his death in 472. Backed by his mercenary troops he made and unmade emperors at his pleasure, and never permitted his nominees to be more than his puppets. Majorian, who was appointed emperor in 457 A. D., was overthrown by Ricimer in 461, and was followed by Severus. After the death of Severus in 465 no emperor was appointed in the West for two years. The imperial power was nominally concentrated in the hands of the eastern emperor, Leo, while Ricimer was in actual control of the government in Italy. In 467, Leo sent as emperor to Rome, Anthemius, a prominent dignitary of the eastern court, whose daughter was married to Ricimer in order to secure the coöperation of the latter in a joint attack of the two empires upon the Vandal kingdom in Africa. However, in 472 Ricimer broke with Anthemius who had endeavored with the support of the Roman Senate to free himself from the influence of the powerful barbarian. Anthemius was besieged in Rome, and put to death following the capture of the city. Thereupon Ricimer raised to the purple Olybrius, a son-in-law of Valentinian III. But both the new emperor and his patron died in the course of the same year (472 A. D.).

The last years of the western empire. In 473 A. D. Gundobad, the nephew of Ricimer, caused Glycerius to be proclaimed emperor. However, his appointment was not recognized by Leo, who nominated Julius Nepos. The next year Nepos invaded Italy and overthrew his rival, only to meet a like fate at the hands of Orestes, whom he had [pg 361]made master of the soldiers (475 A. D.). Orestes did not assume the imperial title himself, but bestowed it upon his son Romulus, known as Augustulus. But Orestes was unable to maintain his position for long. The Germanic mercenaries in Italy—Herculi, Sciri, and others—led by Odovacar, demanded for themselves lands in Italy such as their kinsmen had been granted as foederati in the provinces. When their demands were refused they mutinied and slew Orestes. Romulus was forced to abdicate, and Odovacar assumed the title of king (476 A. D.). The soldiers were settled on Italian soil and the barbarians acquired full control of the western empire.

The kingship of Odovacar, 476–493 A. D. With the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, the commander-in-chief of the barbarian soldiery, long the virtual ruler in the western empire, was recognized as legally exercising this power. The imperial authority was united in the person of the eastern emperor who sanctioned the rule of Odovacar by granting him the title of patrician, which had been held already by Aetius, Ricimer and Orestes. The barbarian king was at the same time the imperial regent in Italy.

But it was only in Italy that Odovacar obtained recognition. The last remnants of Roman authority vanished in Gaul and Spain, while Raetia and Noricum were abandoned to the Alamanni, Thuringi and Rugii.

The Ostrogothic conquest of Italy, 488–493 A. D. In 488 A. D. the position of Odovacar in Italy was challenged by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. This people after having long been subject to the Huns, recovered their freedom at the death of Attila, and settled in Pannonia as foederati of the eastern empire. Theodoric, who became sole ruler of the Ostrogoths in 481 A. D., had proved himself a troublesome ally of the emperor Zeno who mistrusted his ambitions. Accordingly when Theodoric demanded an imperial commission to attack Odovacar in Italy, Zeno readily granted him the desired authority in order to remove him to a greater distance from Constantinople. In 488 Theodoric set out with his followers to invade Italy. Odovacar was defeated in two battles and, in 490 A. D., blockaded in Ravenna. After a long siege he agreed to surrender upon condition that he and Theodoric should rule jointly over Italy. Shortly afterwards he and most of his followers were treacherously assassinated by the Ostrogoths (493 A. D.). Theodoric now ruled Italy as king of the Ostrogoths and an official of the Roman empire, probably [pg 362]retaining the title of master of the soldiers which he had held in the East.

VI. The Survival of the Empire in the East

Arcadius, 395–408 A. D. The year of the death of Theodosius the Great saw the Asiatic provinces of the empire overrun by the Huns who ravaged Syria and Asia Minor, while the Visigoths under Alaric devastated the Balkan peninsula. The absence of the eastern troops in Italy prevented the government from offering any effective opposition to either foe. And when Stilicho came to the rescue from Italy and was holding the Visigoths in check, his rival the praetorian prefect Rufinus, who directed the policy of the young Arcadius, induced the emperor to order Stilicho to withdraw and sent the troops of the East to Constantinople. This order resulted in the death of Rufinus, who was killed by the returning soldiery at the orders of their commander, the Goth Gaïnas.

The influential position of Rufinus at the court fell to the grand-chamberlain Eutropius, who had been an enemy of the late prefect. He had induced Arcadius to marry Eudoxia, daughter of a Frankish chief, instead of the daughter of Rufinus, as the latter had desired. The fall of Eutropius was brought about by Gaïnas, now a master of the soldiers, who sought to play the rôle of Stilicho in the East. He was supported by the empress Eudoxia, who chafed under the domination of the chamberlain. In 399 on the occasion of a revolt of the Gothic troops in Phrygia, Gaïnas held aloof and the failure of the nominee of Eutropius to crush the movement gave him the opportunity to bring about the latter’s dismissal and eventually his death.

But Gaïnas did not long retain his power. He quarrelled with the empress, and the Arianism of himself and his followers roused the animosity of the population of the capital. A massacre of the Goths in Constantinople followed and with the aid of a loyal Goth Fravitta, Gaïnas was driven north of the Danube where he was slain by the Huns (400 A. D.). The influence of Eudoxia was now paramount. However, she found a critic in the eloquent bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, who inveighed against the extravagance and dissipation of the society of the court, and directed his censures towards the empress in particular. Ultimately, Eudoxia was able to [pg 363]have him deposed from his see in 404 A. D., a few months before his death. Four years later Arcadius himself died, leaving the empire to his eight-year-old son Theodosius II.

Theodosius II, 408–450 A. D. At the opening of the reign of Theodosius II the government was in the hands of the praetorian prefect Anthemius, who had shown himself an able administrator during the last years of Arcadius. However, in 414, the emperor’s elder sister, Pulcheria, was made regent with the title of Augusta. She was a strong personality and for many years completely dominated the emperor who was lacking in independence of character and energy. In 421 Pulcheria selected as a wife for Theodosius, Athenais, the daughter of an Athenian sophist, who took the name of Eudocia upon accepting Christianity. After a lapse of some years differences arose between the empress and her sister-in-law which led to the latter’s withdrawal from the court (after 431 A. D.). But, about 440, Eudocia lost her influence over the emperor; she was compelled to retire from Constantinople and reside in Jerusalem, where she lived until her death in 460. The reins of power then passed to the grand chamberlain Chrysapius, whose corrupt administration rivalled that of his predecessor Eutropius.

During the reign of Theodosius II the peace of the eastern empire was broken by a war with Persia and by inroads of the Huns. The Persian war which began in 421 as a result of persecutions of the Christians in Persia was brought to a victorious conclusion in the next year. A second war, the result of a Persian invasion in 441, ended with a Persian defeat in 442. But with the Huns the Romans were not so fortunate. In 434, king Rua, the ruler of the Huns in the plains of Hungary, had extorted from the empire the payment of an annual tribute to secure immunity from invasion. At the accession of Attila and his brother in 433, this tribute was raised to 700 pounds of gold and the Romans were forbidden to give shelter to fugitives from the power of the Huns. But the payment of tribute failed to win a permanent respite, for Attila was bent on draining the wealth of the empire and reducing it to a condition of helplessness. In 441–43 the Huns swarmed over the Balkan provinces and defeated the imperial armies. An indemnity of 6000 pounds of gold was exacted and the annual payment increased to 2100 pounds. Another disastrous raid occurred in 447. The empire could offer no resistance, and so Chrysapius plotted the assassination of Attila, but the [pg 364]plot was detected. Attila claimed to regard himself as the overlord of Theodosius.

In 438 there was published the Theodosian code, a collection of imperial edicts which constituted the administrative law of the empire, and which was accepted in the West as well as in the East. Theodosius died in 450, without having made any arrangements for a successor.

Marcian, 450–57 A. D. The officials left the choice of a new emperor to the Augusta Pulcheria. She selected Marcian, a tried officer, to whom she gave her hand in formal marriage. Marcian proved himself an able and conscientious ruler. He refused to continue the indemnity to Attila, and was able to adhere to this policy owing to the latter’s invasion of the West and subsequent death. It was he who permitted the Ostrogoths to settle as foederati in Pannonia (454 A. D.).

Leo I, 457–474 A. D. At the death of Marcian in 457 the imperial authority was conferred upon Leo, an officer of Dacian origin. His appointment was due to the Alan Aspar, one of the masters of the soldiers, whose power in the East rivalled that of Ricimer in the West. But Leo did not intend to be the puppet of the powerful general, whose loyalty he eventually came to suspect. Accordingly as a counterpoise to the Gothic mercenaries and foederati, the mainstay of Aspar’s power, he drew into his service the Isaurians, the warlike mountaineers of southern Anatolia, who had defied the empire under Arcadius and Theodosius. The emperor’s eldest daughter was given in marriage to Zeno, an Isaurian, who was made master of the soldiers in the Orient. However, in 470 Aspar was still strong enough to force Leo to bestow the hand of his second daughter upon his son Leontius and to appoint the latter Caesar. But in the following year when Zeno returned to Constantinople the Alan and his eldest sons were treacherously assassinated in the palace.

Leo II, 473–4 A. D. In 473 Leo took as his colleague and destined successor his grandson, also called Leo, the son of Zeno. The death of the elder Leo occurred early in 474, and the younger soon crowned his father Zeno as co-emperor. When Leo II died before the close of the same year, Zeno became sole ruler.

Zeno, 474–491 A. D. The reign of Zeno was an almost uninterrupted struggle against usurpers and revolting Gothic foederati. In [pg 365]474 occurred an outbreak of the latter led by their king Theodoric the son of Triarius, called Strabo or “the Squinter,” who ruled over the Goths settled in Thrace as a master of the soldiers of the empire. Before this revolt was over, the unpopularity of the Isaurians induced Basiliscus, the brother-in-law of Leo I, to plot to seize the throne for himself. He was supported by his sister, the ex-empress Verina, and Illus, the chief Isaurian officer in Zeno’s service. The conspirators seized Constantinople and proclaimed Basiliscus emperor (475 A. D.). But his heretical religious views aroused strong opposition, and he was deserted by both Verina and Illus. Zeno re-entered the capital and Basiliscus was executed.

During the revolt Zeno had been supported by Theoderic the Amal, a Gothic prince who was a rival of Theoderic son of Triarius. The emperor therefore tried to crush the latter with the help of the former, but the two Theoderics came to an agreement and acted in concert against Zeno (478 A. D.). In 479 peace was made with Strabo, but hostilities continued with the Amal. At this time another insurrection broke out in Constantinople, under the leadership of Marcian, a son-in-law of Leo I, as a protest against the predominance of the Isaurians, in particular Illus. However, this revolt was easily put down.

Theoderic son of Triarius was killed in 481, and in 483 Zeno made peace with Theoderic the Amal, creating him patrician and master of the soldiers, and granting him lands in Dacia and lower Moesia. These concessions were made in consequence of the antagonism which had developed between the emperor and his all-powerful minister Illus. This friction culminated in 484 A. D. when Illus, who was master of the soldiers in the Orient, induced the dowager empress Verina to crown a general, named Leontius, as emperor. But outside of Isauria the movement found little support and after a long siege in an Isaurian fortress the leaders of the revolt were taken and put to death (488 A. D.). In the meantime Theoderic the Amal had asked and received an imperial warrant for the conquest of Italy, and with the departure of the Goths the eastern empire was delivered from the danger of Germanic domination. Zeno died in April, 491 A. D.

Anastasius, 491–518 A. D. The choice of a successor was left to the empress Ariadne, who selected as emperor and her husband an [pg 366]experienced officer of the court, Anastasius. The first act of Anastasius was to remove the Isaurian officials and troops from Constantinople. This led to an Isaurian rebellion in southern Asia Minor which was not stamped out until 498. In the struggle the power of the Isaurians was broken, their strongholds were captured, part of their population transported to Thrace, and they ceased to be a menace to the peace of the empire.

In the place of the Goths new enemies appeared on the Danubian border in the Slavic Getae and the Bulgars who overran the depopulated provinces of the northern Balkan peninsula. So extended were their ravages and so utterly did the imperial troops fail to hold them in check that Anastasius was obliged to build a wall across the peninsula, upon which the city of Constantinople stands, for the protection of the capital itself. Anastasius had also to cope with a serious Persian war which began with an invasion of Roman Armenia and Mesopotamia by King Kawad in 502 A. D. After four years of border warfare, in which the Persians gained initial success but the fortune of the Roman arms was restored by the master of the offices Celer, peace was reëstablished on the basis of the status quo ante.

The civil administration of Anastasius is noteworthy for the abolition of the tax called the chrysargyrum (498 A. D.), and his relief of the curiales from the responsibility for the collection of the municipal taxes. A testimony of the increasing influences of Christian morality was the abolition of certain pagan festivals and of combats between gladiators and wild beasts in the circus.

But in spite of the justness and efficiency of his administration the reign of Anastasius was marked by several popular upheavals in Constantinople, and in other cities of the empire as well. The cause lay in his sympathy for the monophysite doctrine which was vigorously opposed by the orthodox Christians. In 512 the appointment of a monophysite bishop at Constantinople provoked a serious rebellion which almost cost Anastasius his throne.

Although the emperor was able to quiet the city rabble by a display of cool courage the prevailing religious discord encouraged Vitalian, the commander of the Bulgarian foederati in the Thracian army, to raise the standard of revolt (514 A. D.). He defeated all forces sent against him and endangered the safety of the capital. However, he was induced to withdraw by a ransom of 5000 pounds of gold and [pg 367]the office of master of the soldiers in Thrace. But the truce was only temporary, and in 515 he again advanced on Constantinople. This time his forces met with a crushing defeat on land and sea, and the rebellion came to an end. Three years later Anastasius died.

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Chapter XXIV

The Age of Justinian: 518–565 A. D.

I. The Germanic Kingdoms in the West to 533 a. d.

The Germans and the Romans. The passing of Italy and the western provinces under the sway of Germanic kings was accomplished, as we have seen, by the settlement of large numbers of barbarians in the conquered territories. This necessitated a division of the soil and a definition of the status of the Romans with respect to the invaders, who were everywhere less numerous than the native population. These questions were settled in different ways in the several kingdoms.

Under the Visigoths. In the Visigothic kingdom in Gaul the Goths and the Romans lived side by side as separate peoples, each enjoying its own laws, and the Romans were not regarded as subjects having no rights against their conquerors. However, intermarriage between the two races was forbidden. The law which applied to the Romans was published by King Alaric in 506 A. D., and is known as the Lex Romana Visigothorum, or the Breviary of Alaric; his predecessor Euric had caused the compilation of a code of the Gothic customary law in imitation of the imperial Theodosian code.

The settlement of the Goths on the land took the form of hospitium or quartering. By this arrangement the Roman landholders gave up to the Goths two thirds of their property, both the land itself and the cattle, coloni and slaves which were on it. The shares which the Goths received were not subject to taxation.

For the purposes of administration the Roman provincial and municipal divisions were retained (provinciae and civitates), the former being placed under duces and the latter under comites civitatum. The Goths settled within these districts formed their national associations of tens, hundreds, and thousands, under native Gothic officers. But the adoption of a more settled form of life deeply affected the Gothic tribal institutions. The Gothic national assembly could no longer be easily called together and came to exist in the form of [pg 370]the army alone. In the division of the land the more influential warriors and friends of the king received the larger shares and this helped the rise of a landed nobility. The government was concentrated at the capital, Toulouse, where central ministries were established modelled on those of the Roman court. This led to a considerable strengthening of the royal power. The language of government remained Gothic for the Goths and Latin for the Romans, but the leading Goths appear to have been familiar with both tongues.

Under the Vandals. In the Vandal kingdom of Africa the position of the Romans was much less favorable. They were treated as conquered subjects, and, as under the Goths, intermarriage between them and the conquering race was prohibited. In the province of Zeugitana (old Africa), where the Vandal settlement occurred, the Roman landowners were completely dispossessed and their estates turned over to new proprietors. The coloni and other tenants, however, remained on the soil, and the Vandal landlords entrusted the management of their properties to Roman stewards. Elsewhere the Romans were undisturbed in their possessions.

The Roman administrative territorial divisions were retained, but the regions settled by the Vandals stood outside of these and had a separate organization. Here the Vandals preserved their tribal divisions of hundreds and thousands. The administration of justice for the Vandals was in the hands of their own officials and according to their customary laws; for the Romans it rested with their previous authorities in accordance with Roman law but under the supervision of the Vandal king.

The Vandal kingdom was a strongly centralized monarchy. This led to the development of a nobility based on employment in the imperial service. The African climate and the sudden acquirement of wealth which enabled them to enjoy all the luxurious extravagance of Roman life in the upper classes of society soon produced an enervating effect upon the northern conquerors. On the other hand, although they were completely lacking in political rights, the Roman agricultural population of Africa felt the rule of the Vandals to be less oppressive than that of the Roman bureaucracy.

Under the Ostrogoths. In Italy, Odovacar had maintained the Roman administrative system in its entirety and Theoderic continued his policy. He made no attempt to found a new state but regarded himself as one of the rulers of the Roman empire. In 497 he asked [pg 371]and received from Anastasius the symbols of imperial power which Odovacar had sent to Constantinople upon the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476. From this time the Gothic king may be regarded as a colleague of the eastern emperor. Not merely did he retain the Roman administrative organization but all his civil officials were Romans. He published an edict which constituted a code of law applicable to Goths and Romans alike. So thoroughly Roman was Theoderic’s administration that even the army was open to Romans, who are found among his prominent generals.

The Ostrogoths received assignments of land in Italy but it seems probable that there was no confiscation of private property, one third of the state lands being allotted for this purpose. Ravenna was the royal residence and center of government, but the Roman Senate exercised a great deal of influence and until the later years of his reign cordially supported the authority of Theoderic.

The Burgundians and the Franks. The Burgundians in the Rhone valley effected their settlement like the Visigoths according to the system of hospitium. In general their relations with the Roman population were peaceful, intermarriage between the two peoples was sanctioned, and the Burgundian kings showed themselves appreciative of Roman culture. Gundobad, who reigned from 473 to 516, issued both a code of Burgundian laws and the Burgundian Roman Law (Lex Romana Burgundionum) which applied to his Roman subjects and also to the Burgundians in their disputes with Romans. The Franks in the course of their advance to the Seine had annihilated the Roman population of northern Gaul. However, in the region between the Seine and the Loire they left the Romans in undisturbed possession of their property, the Frankish kings making no distinction between their Frank and Roman subjects.

The religious question. In addition to racial differences, there was also a religious line of demarcation between the Goths, Vandals and Burgundians on the one hand, and the Roman population on the other. The Goths and neighboring Germanic peoples had been converted to Christianity in the latter half of the fourth century, largely through the missionary activities of Ulfila, who translated the Bible into Gothic. However, they had been won to the Arian and not the Nicaean creed, and consequently were regarded as heretics by the orthodox Romans, who never became reconciled to rulers of another confession than themselves. This hostility led frequently to govern[pg 372]ment intervention and persecution. But in this respect the policy of the several Germanic kingdoms varied under different rulers.

In general the Visigoths pursued a policy of toleration, leaving the orthodox clergy undisturbed except when the latter were guilty of disloyalty in giving support to outside enemies. At the time of their settlement in Zeugitana the Vandals confiscated the property of the orthodox church in that province and turned it over to their own Arian clergy. Elsewhere in Africa the Catholics remained unmolested during the reign of Gaiseric but were persecuted by his successors. In the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy Theoderic, although an Arian, gave complete freedom to the orthodox church throughout the greater part of his rule. However, his policy changed when the eastern emperor, Justin, began to persecute the Arians within his dominions in 523 A. D. The ban upon Arianism found support among the Romans in Italy, particularly among the orthodox clergy and the senators. This caused Theoderic to suspect that the emperor’s action had been stimulated by a faction in the Roman Senate, and led to the execution of Boethius and other notables on the charge of treason. Realizing the effect that the imperial proscription of Arianism would produce upon the relations of his Roman and Gothic subjects, Theoderic sent a delegation, headed by the bishop of Rome, to Constantinople to secure the annulment of the anti-Arian decree. When he failed to attain this, he resolved upon a general persecution of the Catholics which was forestalled, however, by his death in 526 A. D.

The Burgundians were also Arians, and this prevented their winning the loyal support of the orthodox clergy, who, however, recognized the authority of the Burgundian kings. Although Sigismund, the son of Gundobad, who came to the throne in 516, was converted to orthodoxy, it was too late to heal this religious breach before the fall of the Burgundian power.

Unlike their neighbors, the Visigoths and Burgundians, the Franks were pagans when they established themselves upon Roman territory and remained so until toward the close of the fifth century. In 496 the Frankish king Clovis was converted to Christianity, and to the orthodox, not the Arian, belief, a fact of supreme importance in his relations with the other Germanic peoples in Gaul.

The expansion of the Franks. The foreign policy of Theoderic was directed towards strengthening his position in Italy by establishing friendly relations with the western Germanic kingdoms and main[pg 373]taining peace and a balance of power among them. To this end he contracted a series of family alliances with the rulers of these states. In 492 he himself wedded a sister of Clovis the Frank, and gave his own sister in marriage to the Vandal king Thrasamund. One of his daughters became the wife of Sigismund, king of the Burgundians, and another was married to Alaric II, who succeeded Euric as king of the Visigoths.

However, Theoderic’s scheme was rudely disturbed by the ambitions of Clovis. In 496 the latter conquered the Alamanni. He next forced the Burgundians to acknowledge his overlordship, and with these as his allies in 507 he attacked the Visigothic kingdom. The conquests of Euric in Gaul and Spain had overtaxed the strength of the Visigothic people and weakened their hold upon the territory they occupied. Furthermore, their Roman subjects gave active aid to the orthodox Clovis. In a battle near Poitiers the Visigoths were defeated and their king, Alaric II, slain. Theoderic had been hindered from intervening previously by the outbreak of hostilities between himself and the emperor Anastasius, who gave his sanction to the action of Clovis and sent him the insignia of the consulship. Now, however, the Ostrogothic king came to the aid of the Visigoths. He repulsed the Franks and Burgundians before Arles (508 A. D.). and recovered Narbonese Gaul. However, the greater part of Aquitania remained in the hands of the Franks. Theoderic established his grandson Amalaric as king of the Visigoths and exercised a regency in his name (510 A. D.). Clovis died in 511 and the expansion of the Franks ceased for a time. However, the death of Theoderic in 526 was the signal for fresh disturbances. The Visigothic king Amalaric at once asserted his independence in southern Gaul and in Spain. But not long afterwards, in 531, he fell in battle against the Franks, who seized the remaining Visigothic possessions in Gaul except Septimania—the coast district between the Pyrenees and the Rhone. Three years later they overthrew the kingdom of the Burgundians and so brought under their sway the whole of Gaul outside of Septimania and Provence.

In 533 A. D. the situation in the west was as follows. Gaul was mainly in the hands of the Franks, Spain was under the Visigoths, the Vandals were still established in Africa, and the Ostrogoths in Italy. Both of the latter kingdoms, however, were showing signs of internal weakness. In addition to the hostility between the Germanic [pg 374]conquerors and the subject Roman population, factional strife had broken out over the succession to the throne. Evidence of the declining power of the Vandals in particular was the success of the Moorish tribes in winning their independence. By 525 both Mauretania and Numidia had been abandoned to them, and the tribes of Tripolis had shaken off the Vandal yoke. In 530 the Moors of southern Byzacene inflicted a severe defeat on the Vandals, which led to the deposition of the ruling king. The weakness of these states seemed to offer a favorable opportunity for the reëstablishment of the imperial authority in the West.

II. The Restoration of the Imperial Power in the West: 553–554 a. d.

Justin I, 518–527 A. D. Anastasius died in 518 and was succeeded by Justin, an Illyrian of humble origin who had risen to the important post of commander of the imperial body guard (comes excubitorum). Unlike his predecessor Justin was an adherent of the orthodox faith, and at the opening of his reign an exceedingly influential position was held by the general Vitalian, who had been the champion of orthodoxy against Anastasius. He became master of the soldiers at Constantinople and in 520 was honored with the consulship. But his power and unscrupulous ambitions constituted a real menace to the emperor and induced the latter to procure his murder. Justin ruled for nine years. He was an experienced soldier, but illiterate, and personally unequal to the task of imperial government. The guiding spirit of his administration was his nephew Justinian, who was largely responsible for Vitalian’s removal. In fact the reign of Justin served as a brief introduction to the long rule of Justinian himself, whom his uncle crowned as his colleague in 527 A. D., and who became sole emperor at the latter’s death in the same year.

Justinian’s imperial policy. Justinian was by birth a Latin peasant from near Scupi (modern Uskub) in Upper Moesia, but through his uncle he had been able to enjoy all the educational advantages offered by the schools of Constantinople. In public life he showed himself a laborious and careful administrator, of an extremely autocratic, and yet at the same time somewhat vacillating, character. He was a devout Christian, zealous for the propagation of the ortho[pg 375]dox faith, with a strong liking for, and considerable learning in, questions of dogmatic theology. He regarded religious and secular affairs as equally subject to the imperial will, and in each sphere he exercised absolute authority. In him the ideal of autocracy found its most perfect embodiment.

The goal of Justinian’s imperial policy was the recovery of the lands of the western empire from their Germanic rulers and the reëstablishment of imperial unity in the person of the eastern emperor. The attainment of unity of belief throughout the Christian world he regarded as no less important than that of political unity: one empire, one church, was his motto.

Reconciliation with the western Church: 519 A. D. The way was paved for the reconquest of the Roman West by a reconciliation with the Roman bishop Hormisdas, as a result of which orthodoxy was once more formally received at Constantinople and a persecution of the monophysites and other heretics inaugurated in the eastern empire (519 A. D.). Although this union with Rome was brought about while the influence of Vitalian was predominant, it had the cordial support of Justinian, who recognized that the good will of the clergy and the Roman population of the western provinces would in this way be won for the eastern emperor. Such proved to be the case, and the subsequent wars for the recovery of the West assumed the aspect of crusades for the deliverance of the followers of the orthodox church from Arian domination.

Outbreak of the Vandal war, 533 A. D. The deposition of Hilderic, who had been on friendly terms with the eastern empire, and the accession of Gelimer who reverted to an anti-Roman policy, afforded Justinian a pretext for intervention in the Vandal kingdom. In conformity with his policy of treating the Germanic kings as vassal princes of the empire, he demanded the reinstatement of Hilderic, and when this was refused, he prepared to invade Africa. An expeditionary force of ten thousand foot and five thousand horse, accompanied by a powerful fleet, was placed under the command of the able general Belisarius and despatched from Constantinople in 533 A. D. An alliance concluded with the Ostrogoths forestalled the possibility of their coming to the aid of the Vandals.

The military condition of the empire. The imperial armies of the sixth century were entirely composed of mercenary troops. While the voluntary enlistment of barbarians had been a regular [pg 376]method of recruitment from the time of Diocletian, such troops were at first enrolled directly in the imperial service. But by the opening of the sixth century it had become customary for private individuals, as a rule officers of repute, to enlist troops in their personal service. Such troops were known as bucellarii, from the word bucella, signifying soldiers’ bread. These bucellarii were usually taken into the service of the state along with their leaders, and were then maintained at the public expense. It was with mercenaries of this type that the ranks of Justinian’s armies were largely filled. For the most part they were veteran troops and good fighters, but with all the weaknesses of their class. They were greedy of plunder, impatient of discipline, and both officers and men displayed a conspicuous lack of loyalty. The most effective troops were the cataphracti, mailed horsemen armed with bow, lance and sword. Beside them the infantry played only a subordinate rôle. The fact that the government was obliged to rely upon condottieri for its own maintenance reveals the internal decay of the whole imperial system, and the smallness of the forces which it could put into the field shows the weakness of its resources compared with the aims of Justinian and explains the protracted character of the wars of the period. In fact, the emperor was on the point of abandoning the invasion of Africa for financial reasons, when the prophecy of an eastern bishop induced him to persevere.

The reconquest of Africa, 533–4 A. D. The landing of Belisarius in Africa (September, 533) completely surprised the Vandals. Gailimer was defeated in battle and Belisarius occupied Carthage. A second defeat before the close of the year sealed the fate of the Vandal kingdom. Early in 534 Gailimer surrendered and all resistance came to an end. The Vandal insular possessions—Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic Islands—fell to the Romans without further opposition.

Revolts of the Moors. However, the Moors, who had managed to assert their independence against the Vandals, were not disposed to pass under the Roman yoke without a struggle. A revolt which broke out in 535 was not finally crushed until 539; and another, which was complicated by a mutiny of the imperial troops, raged between 546 and 548. In the end, the Roman authority was reëstablished over all the African provinces except Mauretania Caesariensis and Tingitana. The previous system of civil administration was [pg 377]revived and elaborate measures taken to secure the defence of the frontiers. However, the ravages of the Moors and the war of restoration had played sad havoc with economic conditions in Africa, and in spite of government assistance, its former prosperity was never revived. Still, Africa had been recovered for the empire and was destined to remain a part of it until the Saracen invasion nearly a century and a half later.

The recovery of Italy, first phase, 535–540 A. D. The overthrow of the Vandal kingdom had scarcely been accomplished when events in Italy gave Justinian the desired pretext for the invasion of the peninsula. Upon the death of King Athalaric, Theoderic’s grandson and successor, in 534, his mother, the regent Amalasuntha, had married Theodahad, whom she made her consort. Shortly afterwards, however, he caused her to be imprisoned and, when she appealed to Justinian for aid, put her to death. As the avenger of his former ally, Justinian made war upon the Gothic king. The possession of Africa gave the Romans an excellent base of operations against Italy. In 535 Belisarius invaded Sicily with 7500 men and speedily reduced the whole island, while another Roman army marched on Dalmatia. From Sicily Belisarius crossed into South Italy, where he found little resistance. The inactivity of Theodahad produced a revolt among his own people. He was deposed, and Witiges became king in his place. The new king was able to purchase the neutrality of the Franks, who were in alliance with Justinian, by ceding to them the Ostrogothic possessions in South Gaul. However, Belisarius continued his advance and occupied Rome (December, 536 A. D.). There he was besieged for a year (March, 537 to March, 538) by the Goths, who were in the end forced to abandon the blockade and fall back upon North Italy. At the same time, the eunuch Narses arrived in Italy at the head of a new Roman army. But since his presence was largely due to Justinian’s mistrust of Belisarius, he failed to coöperate with the latter and accomplished nothing before his recall in 539. The last episode of the campaign was the siege of Ravenna (539–540 A. D.), which was defended by the Gothic king. With its fall and his capture in 540, the resistance of the Goths came to an end. Italy was declared a Roman province, the civil administration was reëstablished, and Belisarius was recalled to assume the command against Persia.

Second phase, 541–554 A. D. But the withdrawal of Belisarius [pg 378]and his best troops led to a revolt of the Goths under the leadership of the brave and energetic Totila (or Baduila) in 541. Within the next three years he drove the Roman garrisons from the greater part of Italy, including Rome. Belisarius was despatched against him, but was given inadequate support and accomplished nothing except the recovery of Rome, which he held until he was recalled at his own request in 548. The drain of a fresh Persian war upon the resources of the empire forced Justinian to the temporary abandonment of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Italy, apart from Ravenna and a few other fortresses. At last in 552 he was able to resume the struggle and entrusted the conduct of the war to Narses, whose ability as a commander was superior to that of Belisarius himself. The army of Narses numbered over 30,000, and consisted chiefly of barbarian auxiliaries, in particular Lombards, who had been settled as foederati in Noricum since 547. Narses marched upon Italy by way of Illyricum and reached the Roman base at Ravenna. Thence he advanced towards Rome and met and defeated the Goths in a decisive engagement in Umbria (552 A. D.). Totila fell in the battle. A second victory in Campania in the following spring forced the surviving Goths to come to terms. They were allowed to leave Italy and seek a new home beyond the Roman borders. A fresh enemy then appeared in the Franks, who had been nominal allies of the Goths but had rendered them little assistance. A horde of Alamanni and Franks swept down upon Italy and penetrated deep into the peninsula. But Narses annihilated one of their divisions at Capua (554 A. D.), and the remainder were decimated by disease and forced to withdraw. The Roman sway was firmly established over Italy as far as the Alps; but Raetia, Noricum and the Danubian provinces remained lost to the empire.

The long and bitter wars of restoration had wrought frightful damage to the material welfare of Italy, and the heavy financial burdens imposed by the Roman administrative system aroused bitter protests. The measures of relief attempted proved insufficient, the middle class disappeared, the richer landed proprietors left the peninsula, and, as in Africa, the former prosperity was never recalled.

The attempted recovery of Spain, 554 A. D. Following the conclusion of hostilities in Italy, Justinian seized the opportunity which presented itself for intervention in Spain. He sent an army to the support of the rebel Agila against Athanagild, the king of the [pg 379]Visigoths (554 A. D.). The Roman forces occupied Corduba, Carthagena and other coast towns, but on the death of Athanagild, Agila succeeded to his throne and headed the Visigothic opposition to the Romans, who were unable to advance further. However, they retained what they had already conquered.

Extent of the Roman conquests. Justinian’s policy had resulted in the overthrow of the Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms, and in the recovery for the empire of Africa, Italy, the Mediterranean islands, and a strip of the Spanish coast. More, the empire was too weak to accomplish.

III. Justinian’s Frontier Problems and Internal Administration

Barbarian invasions of the Balkan peninsula. The strain which the policy of expansion in the West imposed upon the strength of the empire is clearly seen in the failure to defend the Danubian frontier and the ineffective conduct of the Persian wars. Time after time hordes of Bulgars and Slavs poured into the Balkans. Especially destructive were the inroads of 540 and 559. In the former the invaders penetrated as far as the Isthmus of Corinth; in the latter they threatened the capital itself, but were driven off by the aged Belisarius.

The Persian wars. In 527, the Persian king Kawad declared war upon the empire. The struggle was indecisive, and, at the death of Kawad in 532, Justinian, who wished to be free at any price to pursue his western policy, was able to conclude peace with his successor, Chosroes I, upon condition of paying an annual indemnity. But the successes of Justinian in the West aroused the jealousy and ambitions of Chosroes in 539. The Persians overran Syria and captured Antioch, carrying off its population into captivity (540). However, they failed to take Edessa (544). In Mesopotamia an armistice was concluded in 545, although war continued between the Arab dependents of both states, and in the district of Lazica (ancient Colchis), a Roman protectorate which transferred its allegiance to Persia. Finally, a fifty years’ peace was concluded in 562 A. D. The Roman suzerainty over Lazica was acknowledged by the Persians, but the Romans obligated themselves to pay the Persians a heavy annual subsidy, in return for which the Persians undertook the [pg 381]defence of the Caucasus. In this way the Persians became technically Roman foederati; however, as in the case of the Visigoths in the fourth century, this was equivalent to a confession that the Romans were unable to subdue their enemy, who looked upon the subsidy as tribute.

The empress Theodora. In 523 Justinian married Theodora, a former professional pantomime actress from the purlieus of the Hippodrome, after he had induced his uncle to cancel the law which forbade the marriage of senators and actresses. And when Justinian became emperor in 527, Theodora was crowned with him as Augusta. From that time until her death in 553 she was in a very real sense joint ruler with her husband. Whatever the character of her previous career, her private life as empress was beyond reproach. She was fond of power, jealous of the influence of others with the emperor, and unforgiving towards those who thwarted her purposes; both Belisarius and John of Cappadocia, the powerful praetorian prefect, were driven from the emperor’s service by her enmity. On the other hand, she was a woman of dauntless courage, and possessed of remarkable foresight in political affairs.

The “Nika” riot, 532 A. D. The courage of the empress was conspicuously displayed on the occasion of the great riot of the factions of the Hippodrome—the Greens and the Blues—in 532 A. D. These factions had been organized in Constantinople in imitation of the circus factions of Rome, but had acquired a different character and a greater importance in the new capital. The two factions divided between them the entire urban population, and had their regularly appointed leaders, who enjoyed a recognized place in the administrative organization of the city. These parties may be regarded as the last survival of the Hellenic popular assembly of the city-state, and owing to the extreme centralization of the administration at Constantinople, they were able to exercise considerable pressure upon the government.

The emperor and the court regularly supported one or other of the parties. Anastasius had favored the Greens, but Justinian was a partizan of the Blues. The rivalry of the factions was intense, and culminated, in the early years of Justinian’s reign, in open warfare, which gave the lower elements the opportunity for the perpetration of crimes of all sorts. The punishment of notorious criminals of both factions in 532 led to their uniting in a revolt which nearly [pg 382]cost the emperor his throne. At first the mob demanded the release of their partizans, and the dismissal of John, the praetorian prefect, whose financial policy was extremely oppressive, of Trebonian, the able but unscrupulous quaestor, and of the prefect of the city. Later, emboldened by their success, they crowned as emperor Hypatius, a nephew of Anastasius. The situation became extremely critical, for, with the exception of the palace, the whole city fell into the hands of the rebels, whose battle cry was “Nika” or “Conquer.” Justinian and his councillors had already resolved upon flight, when Theodora, by a spirited speech in which she declared that she would die before abandoning the capital, reanimated their hearts and induced them to alter their decision. By a judicious use of bribes they induced the Blues to desert the Greens, and the imperial troops exacted a bloody vengeance from the rebellious populace. For the future the population of the capital was politically a negligible quantity.

The codification of the Roman law. One of the greatest monuments to the reign of Justinian is the corpus iuris civilis, a codification of the Roman law by a commission of expert jurists, headed by Trebonian. The object of this codification was the collection in a convenient form of all the sources of law then in force, and the settlement of controversies in the interpretative juristic literature. The compilation was divided into three parts; the Code of Justinian, the Digest or Pandects, and the Institutes. The Code was a collection of all imperial constitutions of general validity; it was first published in 529, but a revised edition was issued in 534. The Digest, which was issued in 533, consisted of abstracts from the writings of the most famous Roman jurists systematically arranged so as to present the whole civil law in so far as it was not contained in the Code. The Institutes was a brief manual designed as a text-book for the use of students of the law. From the time of their promulgation these compilations constituted the sole law of the empire and alone carried validity in the courts and formed the only material for instruction in the law schools of recognized status—those at Rome, Constantinople and Berytus. Provision was made for the publication of future legislation in a fourth compilation—the Novels or New Constitutions.

St. Sophia. Justinian’s administration was characterized by great building activity. He was zealous in the construction of frontier defences, the rebuilding of ruined cities, the founding of new ones, [pg 383]and the erection of religious edifices. Among the latter the most famous was the great church of the Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia), which took the place of an older building destroyed in the Nika riot. Transformed into a Mohammedan mosque, it remains to the present day as the greatest architectural monument of the eastern Roman empire. The execution of grandiose works of this sort augmented the heavy expenditures necessitated by Justinian’s foreign policy, and required the continual wringing of fresh contributions from the already overburdened taxpayers. In raising the revenues needed to meet the demands upon the fiscus, the emperor found the prefect John an invaluable agent.

Justinian’s religious policy. Throughout the whole of his reign Justinian strove with unflagging zeal to secure a united Christian church within the empire. To this end he did not hesitate to make use of the autocratic power which he claimed in religious as well as secular affairs and which was formally admitted by the synod of 536, which declared that “Nothing whatsoever may occur in the church contrary to the wishes and orders of the emperor.” His own views Justinian set forth in extensive writings on dogmatic questions. The reconciliation with Rome in 519, so necessary for the recovery of the West, had alienated the Monophysites, who were predominant in Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, especially among the lower classes of society. For the rest of his reign Justinian strove indefatigably to heal this breach, a policy in which he was largely influenced by Theodora, who was personally sympathetic with the Monophysites and saw the danger to the empire in the continued hostility of the eastern peoples. An ecumenical council summoned by him at Constantinople in 553 accepted a formula of belief upon which he hoped both orthodox and monophysites could unite. The Pope Vergilius was forced to submit to Justinian’s will, but the clergy of Italy and Africa regarded the new doctrine as heretical, and some openly condemned it. Nor was the desired end attained, for the Monophysites still refused to be conciliated. A final edict, issued in 565, went still further in its recognition of the tenets of this sect, but the emperor’s death forestalled its enforcement and saved the orthodox clergy from the alternative of submission or persecution.

A far harsher treatment was meted out to the Arians, who were treated as hereticals and punished as criminals. A rebellion of the Samaritans, occasioned by their persecution, was stamped out in blood. [pg 384]A determined effort was made to eradicate the last remains of the old Hellenic faith which still claimed many adherents of note. In 529 the endowment of Plato’s Academy was confiscated and the teaching of philosophy forbidden at Athens. The persecution of heretics and unbelievers was accompanied by a vigorous missionary movement which carried the Christian gospel to the peoples of southern Russia, the Caucasus, Arabia, the Soudan and the oases of the Sahara.

The condition of the empire at the death of Justinian. Justinian died on 14 November, 565 A. D. He left the empire completely exhausted by the conquest of the western provinces. The national antagonism between Greeks and Romans which was coming more and more clearly to light was not effectively bridged by a formal church union, and a mistaken religious policy had fostered the growth of national ambitions among the native populations of Syria and Egypt and led to further disunion with the empire. Under Justinian the annual consulship, for a thousand years identified with the life of the Roman state, was abolished (540 A. D.). In the government of the provinces Justinian took the initial steps towards abandoning the principle of the division of civil and military authority, which was so marked a feature of Diocletian’s organization, and thus prepared the way for the later form of the themes, or military districts, in which the military commanders were at the head of the civil government as well. It was in his reign also that the culture of the silkworm was introduced into the empire by Persian monks, who had lived in China, learned the jealously guarded secrets of this art, and brought some eggs of the silkworm out of the country concealed in hollow canes. The manufacture of silk goods had long been a flourishing industry in certain cities of the Greek East and was made an imperial monopoly by Justinian. The introduction of the silkworm rendered this trade to a large degree independent of the importation of raw silk from the Orient.

As Justinian was the last emperor whose native tongue was Latin, so he was the last who maintained that language as the language of government at Constantinople and upheld the traditions of the Roman imperial policy.

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Chapter XXV

Religious and Intellectual Life in the Late Empire

I. The End of Paganism

The paganism of the late empire. In spite of the tremendous impulse given to the spread of Christianity by Constantine’s policy of toleration and by its adoption as the religion of the imperial house, the extinction of paganism was by no means rapid. While the chief pagan religions during the fourth century were the Oriental cults and the Orphic mysteries of Eleusis, which strongly resembled them in character, the worship of the Graeco-Roman Olympic divinities still attracted numerous followers. But, although paganism persisted in many and divers forms, these, by a process of religious syncretism, had come to find their place in a common theological system. This development had its basis in the common characteristics of the Oriental cults, each of which inculcated the belief in a supreme deity, and received its stimulus through the conscious opposition of all forms of paganism to Christianity, which they had come to recognize as their common, implacable foe. The chief characteristic of later paganism was its tendency to monotheism—a belief in one abstract divinity of whom the various gods were but so many separate manifestations. The development of a harmonious system of pagan theology was greatly aided by Neoplatonic philosophy, which may be regarded as the ultimate expression of ancient paganism. Neoplatonism was essentially a pantheism, in which all forms of life were regarded as emanations of the divine mind. But Neoplatonism was more than a philosophical system; it was a religion, and, like the Oriental cults, preached a doctrine of salvation for the souls of men. Such was the paganism by which the Christians of the late empire were confronted, and which, because of its many points of resemblance to their own beliefs and practices, they admitted to be a dangerous rival. At the same time, this similarity made the task of conversion less difficult.

[pg 386]

Causes of the persistence of paganism. There were several reasons for the persistence of paganism. The Oriental and Orphic cults exercised a powerful hold over their votaries, and made an appeal very similar to that of Christianity. Stoicism, with its high ideal of conduct, remained a strong tradition among the upper classes of society; and Neoplatonism had a special attraction for men of intelligence and culture. Roman patriotism, too, fostered loyalty to the gods under whose aegis Rome had grown great, and until the close of the fourth century the Roman Senate was an indefatigable champion of the ancient faith. But more potent than all these causes was the fact that, apart from some works of a theological character, the whole literature of the day was pagan in origin and in spirit. This was the only material available for instruction in the schools, and formed the basis of the rhetorical studies which constituted the higher education of the time. Thus, throughout the whole period of their intellectual training, the minds of the young were subjected to pagan influences.

The persecution of paganism. Constantine the Great adhered strictly to his policy of religious toleration and, although an active supporter of Christianity, took no measures against the pagan cults except to forbid the private sacrifices and practice of certain types of magical rites. He held the title of pontifex maximus and consequently was at the head of the official pagan worship. With his sons, Constantius and Constans, the Christian persecution of the pagan began. In 341 they prohibited public performance of pagan sacrifices, and they permitted the confiscation of temples and their conversion into Christian places of worship. With the accession of Julian this persecution came to an end, and there was in the main a return to the policy of religious toleration, although Christians were prohibited from interpreting classical literature in the schools. The attempt of Julian to create a universal pagan church proved abortive and his scheme did not survive his death. His successors, Jovian, Valentinian I and Valens, adhered to the policy of Constantine the Great.

Gratian was the first emperor to refuse the title of pontifex maximus, and to deprive paganism of its status as an official religion of Rome. In 382 he withdrew the state support of the priesthoods of Rome, and removed from the Senate house the altar and statue of Victory, which Julian had restored after its temporary removal by [pg 387]Constantius. This altar was for many of the senators the symbol of the life of the state itself, and their spokesman Symmachus made an eloquent plea for its restoration. However, owing to the influence of Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, the emperor remained obdurate, and a second appeal to Valentinian II was equally in vain. Although the brief reign of Eugenius produced a pagan revival in Rome, the cause of paganism was lost forever in the imperial city. In the fifth century the Senate of Rome was thoroughly Christian.

Theodosius the Great was even more energetic than his colleague Gratian in the suppression of paganism. In 380 he issued an edict requiring all his subjects to embrace Christianity. In 391 he ordered the destruction of the great temple of Serapis at Alexandria, an event which sounded the death knell of the pagan cause in the East. The following year Theodosius absolutely forbade the practice of heathen worship under the penalties for treason and sacrilege. Theodosius II continued the vigorous persecution of the heathen. Adherence to pagan beliefs constituted a crime, and in the Theodosian Code of 438 the laws against pagans find their place among the laws regulating civic life. It was during the reign of Theodosius II, in 415, that the pagan philosopher and mathematician, Hypatia, fell a victim to the fanaticism of the Christian mob of Alexandria.

Still, many persons of prominence continued to be secret devotees of pagan beliefs, and pagan philosophy was openly taught at Athens until the closing of the schools by Justinian. The acceptance of Christianity was more rapid in the cities than in the rural districts. This gave rise to the use of the term pagan (from the Latin paganus, “rural”) to designate non-Christian; a usage which became official about 370. And it was among the rural population that pagan beliefs and practices persisted longest. However, between the fifth and the ninth centuries paganism practically disappeared within the lands of the empire.

The long association with paganism and the rapid incorporation of large numbers of new converts into the ranks of the church were not without influence upon the character of Christianity itself. The ancient belief in magic contributed largely to the spread of the belief in miracles, and the development of the cult of the saints was stimulated by the pagan conception of inferior divinities, demigods, and daemons, while many pagan festivals were Christianized and made festivals of the church.

[pg 388]

II. The Church in the Christian Empire

The emperor and the church. The religious policy of Constantine the Great had the effect of making Christianity a religion of state and incorporating the Christian church in the state organism. Thereby the clergy gained the support of the imperial authority in spreading the belief of the church and in enforcing its ordinances throughout the empire. Yet this support was won at the price of the recognition of the autocratic power of the emperor over the church as well as in the political sphere. Subsequently, however, this recognition was only accorded to orthodox emperors; that is those who supported the traditional doctrine of the church as sanctioned in its general councils.

Constantine made use of his supremacy over the church to enforce unity within its ranks. However, he did not champion any particular creed but limited his interference to carrying into effect the decisions of the church councils or synods which he summoned to pass judgment upon questions which threatened the unity of the church and the peace of the state.

These councils were a development from the provincial synods, which had previously met to decide church matters of local importance. Procedure in the councils was modelled upon that of the Roman Senate; the meetings were conducted by imperial legates, their decisions were issued in the form of imperial edicts, and it was to the emperor that appeals from these decrees were made. The first of the great councils was the Synod of Arles, a council of the bishops of the western church, summoned by Constantine in 314 to settle the Donatist schism in the church in Africa. This was followed in 325 by the first universal or ecumenical council of the whole Christian church which met at Nicaea to decide upon the orthodoxy of the teachings of Arius of Alexandria.

Constantine’s successors followed his example of summoning church councils to settle sectarian controversies, though, unlike him, many of them sought to force upon the church the doctrines of their particular sect. As the general councils accentuated rather than allayed antagonisms, the eastern emperor Zeno substituted a referendum of the bishops by provinces. But this precedent was not followed. Justinian was the emperor who asserted most effectively his authority [pg 389]over the church. He issued edicts upon purely theological questions and upon matters of church discipline without reference to church councils, and he received from the populace of Constantinople the salutation of “High Priest and King.” The decision of the council of 553 provoked an attack upon the sacerdotal power of the emperor by Facundus, bishop of Hermiana in Africa, who declared that not the emperor but the priests should rule the church. Nevertheless, this opposition had no immediate effect, and Justinian remained the successful embodiment of “Caesaro-papism.”

The growth of the papacy. The late empire witnessed a rapid extension of the authority of the bishopric of Rome, which had even previously laid claim to the primacy among the episcopal sees. In the West the title “pope” (from the Greek pappas, “father”) became the exclusive prerogative of the bishop of Rome. The papacy was the sole western patriarchate, or bishopric, with jurisdiction over the metropolitan and provincial bishops, and was the sole representative of the western church in its dealings with the bishops of the East. At the council of Serdica (343 A. D.) it was decided that bishops deposed as a result of the Arian controversy might refer their cases to the Pope Julius for final decision, and, in the course of the fifth century, eastern bishops frequently appealed to the decision of the pope on questions of orthodoxy. However, the eastern church never fully admitted the religious jurisdiction of the papacy. The ideal of the papacy became the organization of the church on the model of the empire, with the pope as its religious head.

The claims of the papacy were pushed with vigor by Innocent I (402–417 A. D.) and Leo I (440–461 A. D.). The latter laid particular stress upon the primacy of Peter among the Apostles and taught that this had descended to his apostolic successors. It was Leo also who induced the western emperor Valentinian III in 455 to order the whole western church to obey the bishop of Rome as the heir to the primacy of Peter. The Pope Gelasius (492–496 A. D.) asserted the power of the priests to be superior to the imperial authority, but the establishment of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy and the reconquest of the peninsula by the eastern emperor weakened the independence of the Roman bishopric. Justinian was able to compel the popes to submit to his authority in religious matters.

[pg 390]

The patriarchate of Constantinople. A rival to the papacy developed in the patriarchate of Constantinople, which at the Council of Constantinople in 381 was recognized as taking precedence over the other eastern bishoprics and ranking next to that of Rome, “because Constantinople is New Rome.” However, the primacy of the bishop of Constantinople in the eastern church was challenged by the older patriarchates of Ephesus, Antioch and Alexandria, all of which had been apostolic foundations, while the claims of Constantinople to that honor were more than dubious. Between 381 and 451 the bishops of Alexandria successfully disputed the doctrinal authority of the see of Constantinople, but at the council of Chalcedon (451 A. D.) Pulcheria and Marcian reasserted the primacy of the patriarch of the capital. At this time also the bishopric of Jerusalem was recognized as a patriarchate. The patriarch of Constantinople was now placed on an equality with the pope, a recognition against which the Pope Leo protested in vain. However, the patriarchs of Constantinople never acquired the power and independence of the popes. Situated as they were in the shadow of the imperial palace, and owing their ecclesiastical authority to the support of the throne, they rarely ventured to oppose the will of the emperor. Under Justinian the patriarch held the position of a “minister of state in the department of religion.”

The temporal power of the clergy. When Christianity became a religion of state it was inevitable that the Christian clergy should occupy a privileged position. This recognition was accorded them by Constantine the Great when he exempted them from personal services (munera) in 313 and taxation in 319 A. D. Those who entered the ranks of the clergy were expected to abandon all worldly pursuits, and an imperial edict of 452 excluded them from all gainful occupations. In addition to their ecclesiastical authority in matters of belief and church discipline, the bishops also acquired considerable power in secular affairs. In the days of persecution the Christians had regularly submitted legal differences among themselves to the arbitration of their bishops, rather than resort to the tribunals of state. Constantine the Great gave legal sanction to this episcopal arbitration in civil cases; Arcadius, however, restricted its use to cases in which the litigants voluntarily submitted to the bishop’s judgment. The bishops enjoyed no direct criminal jurisdiction, al[pg 391]though since the right of sanctuary was accorded to the churches, they were frequently able to intercede with effect for those who sought asylum with them. In the enforcement of moral and humanitarian legislation the state called for the coöperation of the bishops.

The influential position of the bishops as the religious heads of the municipalities led to their being accorded a definite place in the municipal administration. In protecting the impoverished taxpayers against the imperial officers they were more effective than the “defensores plebis.” And in the days of the barbarian invasions, when the representatives of the imperial authority were driven from the provinces, the bishops became the leaders of the Roman population in their contact with the barbarian conquerors.

III. Sectarian Strife

Sectarianism. The history of the church from Constantine to Justinian is largely the history of sectarian strife, which had its origin in doctrinal controversies. While the western church in general abstained from acute theological discussions and adhered strictly to the orthodox or established creed, devoting its energies to the development of church organization, the church of the East, imbued with the Greek philosophic spirit, busied itself with attempts to solve the mysteries of the Christian faith and was a fruitful source of heterodoxy. Strife between the adherents of the various sects was waged with extreme bitterness and frequently culminated in riots and bloodshed. Toleration was unknown and heretics, like pagans, were classed as criminals and excluded from communion with the orthodox church. Of the many sects which arose in the fourth and fifth centuries, two were of outstanding importance. These were the Arians and the monophysites.

Arianism. Arianism had its rise in an attempt to express with philosophical precision the relation of the three members of the Holy Trinity; God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. About 318 A. D., Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, taught that God was from eternity but that the Son and the Spirit were his creations. Over the teaching of Arius, a controversy arose which threatened the unity of the church. Accordingly, Constantine intervened and summoned the ecumenical council of Nicaea to decide upon the orthodoxy of Arius. [pg 392]The council accepted the formula of Athanasius that the Son was of the same substance (homo-ousion) as the Father, which was the doctrine of the West. Arius was exiled.

The struggle, however, was by no means over, for the Nicene creed found many opponents among the eastern bishops who did not wish to exclude the Arians from the church. The leader of this party was Eusebius of Caesarea. In 335 they brought about the deposition of Athanasius, who had been bishop of Alexandria since 328. After the death of Constantine, Athanasius was permitted to return to his see, only to be expelled again in 339 by Constantius, who was under the influence of Eusebius. He took refuge in the West, where the Pope Julius gave him his support. At a general council of the church held at Serdica (Sofia) in 343 there was a sharp division between East and West, but the supporters of Athanasius were in the majority, and he and the other orthodox eastern bishops were reinstated in their sees (345 A. D.).

When Constantius became sole ruler of the empire (353 A. D.) the enemies of Athanasius once more gained the upper hand. The emperor forced a general council convoked at Milan in 353 to condemn and depose Athanasius, while the Pope Liberius, who supported him, was exiled to Macedonia. A new council held at Sirmium in 357 tried to secure religious peace by forbidding the use of the word “substance” in defining the relation of the Father and the Son, and sanctioned only the term homoios (like). The adherents of this creed were called Homoeans. Although they were not Arians, their solution was rejected by the conservatives in both East and West. In 359 a double council was held, the western bishops meeting at Ariminum, the eastern at Seleucia. The result was the acceptance of the Sirmian creed, although the western council had to be almost starved before it yielded. Under Julian and Jovian the Arians enjoyed full toleration, and while Valentinian I pursued a similar policy, Valens went further and gave Arianism his support.

In the meantime, however, the labors of the three great Cappadocians,—Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa—had already done much to reconcile the eastern bishops to the Nicaean confession and, with the accession of Theodosius I, the fate of Arianism was sealed. A council of the eastern church met at Constantinople in 381 and accepted the Nicene creed. The Arian bishops were deposed and assemblies of the heretics forbidden by im[pg 393]perial edicts. Among the subjects of the empire Arianism rapidly died out, although it existed for a century and a half as the faith of several Germanic peoples.

The monophysite controversy. While the point at issue in the dogmatic controversies of the fourth century was the relation of God to the Son and the Holy Spirit, the burning question of the fifth and sixth centuries was the nature of Christ. And, like the former, the latter dispute arose in the East, having its origin in the divergent views of the theological schools of Antioch and Alexandria. The former laid stress upon the two natures in Christ—the divine and the human; the latter emphasized his divinity to the exclusion of his humanity, and hence its adherents received the name of monophysites. The Antiochene position was the orthodox or traditional view of the church, and was held universally in the West, where the duality of Christ was accepted without any attempt to determine the relationship of his divine and human qualities. Beneath the doctrinal controversy lay the rivalry between the patriarchates of Alexandria and Constantinople, and the awakening national antagonism of the native Egyptian and Syrian peoples towards the Greeks. The conflict began in 429 with an attack of Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, upon the teachings of Nestorius, the patriarch of Constantinople. Cyril, taking the view that the nature of Christ was human made fully divine, justified the use of the word Theotokos (Mother of God), which was coming to be applied generally to the Virgin Mary. Nestorius criticized its use, and argued in favor of the term Mother of Christ. In the controversy which ensued, Cyril won the support of the bishop of Rome, who desired to weaken the authority of the see of Constantinople, and Nestorius was condemned at the council of Ephesus in 431.

The next phase of the struggle opened in 448, when Dioscorus, the occupant of the Alexandrine see, assailed Flavian, the patriarch of the capital, for having deposed Eutyches, a monophysite abbot of Constantinople. At the so-called “Robber Council” of Ephesus (449 A. D.) Dioscorus succeeded in having Flavian deprived of his see. But the pope, Leo I. pronounced in favor of the doctrine of the duality of Christ, and in 451 the new emperor Marcian called an ecumenical council at Chalcedon which definitely reasserted the primacy of the see of Constantinople in the East, approved the use of Theotokos, and declared that Christ is of two natures. The attempt [pg 394]to enforce the decisions of this council provoked disturbances in Egypt, Palestine and the more easterly countries. In Palestine it required the use of armed force to suppress a usurping monophysite bishop. In Egypt the enforcement led to a split between the orthodox Greek and the monophysite Coptic churches.

As the opposition to the decree of Chalcedon still disturbed the peace of the church, the emperor Zeno in 482, at the instigation of the patriarchs Acacius of Constantinople and Peter of Alexandria, sought to settle the dispute by exercise of the imperial authority. He issued a letter to the church of Egypt called the Henoticon, which, while acknowledging the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, condemned that of Chalcedon, and declared that “Christ is one and not two.” This doctrine was at once condemned by the Pope Silvanus. The rupture with Rome lasted until 519, when a reconciliation was effected at the price of complete submission by the East and the rehabilitation of the council of Chalcedon. This in turn antagonized the monophysites of Syria and Egypt and caused Justinian to embark upon his hopeless task of reëstablishing complete religious unity within the empire by holding the western and winning back the eastern church.

Justinian hoped to reconcile the monophysites by an interpretation of the discussions of the council of Chalcedon which would be acceptable to them. This led him, in 544, to condemn the so-called Three Chapters, which were the doctrines of the opponents of the monophysites. And although this step implied a condemnation of the council of Chalcedon itself, and was consequently opposed in the West, he forced the fifth ecumenical council of Constantinople in 553 to sanction it. However, neither this concession nor the still greater one of the edict of 565 availed to win back the extreme monophysites of Egypt and Syria, where opposition to the religious jurisdiction of Constantinople had taken a national form, and the religious disunion in the East continued until these lands were lost to the empire.

IV. Monasticism

The origin of monasticism. Monasticism (from the Greek monos, “single”), which became so marked a feature of the religious life of the Middle Ages, had its origin in the ascetic tendencies of the early Christian church, which harmonized with the eastern religious [pg 395]and philosophic ideal of a life of pure contemplation. The chief characteristics of early Christian asceticism were celibacy, fasting, prayer, surrender of worldly goods, and the adoption of a hermit’s life. This renouncement of a worldly life was practised by large numbers of both men and women, especially in Egypt. It was there that organized monastic life began early in the fourth century under the influence of St. Anthony in northern and Pachomius in southern Egypt.

Anthony and Pachomius in Egypt. Anthony was the founder of a monastic colony, which was a direct development from the eremitical life. He laid down no rule for the guidance of the lives of the monks, but permitted the maximum of individual freedom. It was Pachomius who first established a truly cenobitical monastery, in which the monks lived a common life under the direction of a single head, the abbot, according to a prescribed rule with fixed religious exercises and daily labor. The organization of convents for women accompanied the foundation of the monasteries. However, the Antonian type of monkhood continued to be the more popular in Egypt, where monasticism flourished throughout the fourth, but began to decline in the fifth, century.

Eastern monasticism. From Egypt the movement spread to Palestine, but in Syria and Mesopotamia there was an independent development from the local eremitical ideals. Characteristic of Syrian asceticism were the pillar hermits who passed their lives upon the top of lofty pillars. The founder of the Greek monasticism was Basil (c. 360 A. D.), who copied Pachomius in organizing a fully cenobitical life. He discouraged excessive asceticism and emphasized the value of useful toil. The eastern monks were noted for their fanaticism and they took a very prominent part in the religious disorders of the time. The abuses of the early, unregulated monastic life led to the formulation of monastic rules and the subjection of the monks to the authority of the bishops.

Monasticism in the west: Benedict. Monasticism was introduced in the West by Athanasius, who came from Egypt to Rome in 339. From Italy it spread to the rest of western Europe. The great organizer of western monasticism was Benedict, who lived in the early sixth century, and founded the monastery at Monte Cassino about 520 A. D. His monastic rule definitely abandoned the eremitical ideal in favor of the cenobitical. In addition to worship and [pg 396]work, the Benedictine rule made reading a monastic duty. This stimulated the collection of libraries in the monasteries and made the monks the guardians of literary culture throughout the Middle Ages.

As yet no distinct monastic orders had developed, but each monastery was autonomous under the direction of its own abbot.

V. Literature and Art

General characteristics. The period between the accession of Diocletian and the death of Justinian saw the gradual disappearance of the ancient Graeco-Roman culture. In spite of Diocletian’s reëstablishment of the empire, there was a steady lowering of the general cultural level. This was due chiefly to the progressive barbarization of the empire and to the decline of paganism which lay at the roots of ancient civilization. The one creative force of the time was Christianity, but, save in the fields of religion and ethics, it did little to stem the ebbing tide of old world culture.

Literature. The dying out of this culture is clearly to be seen in the history of the Greek and Roman literatures of the period, each of which shows the same general traits. In the fourth century, under the impulse of the restoration of Diocletian, there is a brief revival of productivity in pagan literature. But this is characterized by archaism and lack of creative power. The imitation of the past produces not only an artificiality of style, but also of language, so that literature loses touch with contemporary life and the language of the literary world is that of previous centuries, no longer that of the people. Rhetorical studies are the sole form of higher education, and are in part responsible for the archaism and artificiality of contemporary literature, owing to the emphasis which they laid upon literary form to the neglect of substance. In the fifth century, following the complete triumph of Christianity, pagan literature comes to an end.

The recognition of Christianity as an imperial religion by Constantine, its subsequent victorious assault upon paganism, and the intensity of sectarian strife gave to Christian literature a freshness and vigor lacking in the works of pagan writers, and produced a wealth of apologetic, dogmatic and theological writings. But the Christian authors followed the accepted categories of the pagan literature, and while producing polemic writings, works of translation and of religious [pg 397]exegesis, they entered the fields of history, biography, oratory and epistolography. Thus arose a profane, as well as a sacred, Christian literature. And since Christian writers were themselves men of education and appealed to educated circles, their works are dominated by the current rhetorical standards of literary taste. Yet in some aspects, in particular in sacred poetry and popular religious biography, they break away from classical traditions and develop new literary types.

But after the first half of the fifth century originality and productivity in Christian literature also are on the wane. This is in part due to the effects of the struggle of the empire with barbarian peoples; in part to the suppression of freedom of religious thought by the orthodox church. Even after the extinction of paganism the classical literatures of Greece and Rome afforded the only material for a non-religious education. And since they no longer constituted a menace to Christianity, the church became reconciled to their use for purposes of instruction, and it was to the church, and especially to the monasteries, that the pagan literature owes its preservation throughout the Dark Ages.

A symptom of the general intellectual decline of the later empire is the dying out of Greek in the western empire. While up to the middle of the third Christian century the world of letters had been bi-lingual, from that time onwards, largely as a result of the political conditions which led to a separation of the eastern and western parts of the empire, the knowledge of Greek began to disappear in the West until in the late empire it was the exception for a Latin-speaking man of letters to be versed in the Greek tongue.

Pagan Latin literature. A wide gulf separated the pagan Latin literature of the fourth century from that of the early principate. Poetry had degenerated to learned tricks, historical writing had taken the form of epitomies, while published speeches and letters were but empty exhibitions of rhetorical skill. The influence of rhetorical studies made itself felt in legal phraseology, which now lost its former clarity, directness and simplicity. Still there are a few outstanding literary figures who deserve mention because they are so expressive of the tendencies of the time or because they have been able to attain a higher level.

Ausonius and Symmachus (c. 345–405 A. D.). The career of Ausonius, a professor of grammar and rhetoric at Bordeaux, whose [pg 398]life covers the fourth century, shows how highly rhetorical instruction was valued. His ability procured him imperial recognition, and he became the tutor of Gratian, from whom he received the honor of the consulate in 379. His poetical works are chiefly clever verbal plays, but one, the Mosella, which describes a voyage down the river Moselle, is noteworthy for its description of contemporary life and its appreciation of the beauty of nature. Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, city prefect, and the leader of the pagan party in Rome under Gratian and Valentinian II, is a typical representative of the educated society of the time which strove to keep alive a knowledge of classical literature. He left a collection of orations and letters, poor in thought, but rich in empty phrase.

Ammianus Marcellinus, fl. 350–400 A. D. A man of far different stamp was Ammianus Marcellinus, by birth a Greek of Antioch, and an officer of high rank in the imperial army. Taking Tacitus as his model, he wrote in Latin a history which continued the former’s work for the period from 96 to 378 A. D. Of this only the part covering the years 353 to 378 has survived. His history is characterized by sound judgment and objectivity, but is marred by the introduction of frequent digressions extraneous to the subject in hand and by a strained rhetorical style. However, it remains the one considerable pagan work in Latin prose from the late empire.

Claudius Claudianus and Rutilius Namatianus (both fl. 400 A. D.). The “last eminent man of letters who was a professed pagan” in the western empire was Claudius Claudianus. Claudian was by birth an Egyptian Greek who took up his residence in Rome about 395 A. D. and attached himself to the military dictator, Stilicho. He chose to write in Latin, and composed hexameter epics which celebrated the military exploits of his patron. He also wrote mythological epics and elegiacs. Claudian found his inspiration in Ovid and reawakened the charm of Augustan poetry. A contemporary of Claudian, and, like him a pagan, was Rutilius Namatianus, who was a native of southern Gaul but a resident of Rome where he attained the highest senatorial offices. His literary fame rests upon the elegiac poem in which he described his journey from Rome to Gaul in 416 A. D., and revealed the hold which the imperial city still continued to exercise upon men’s minds.

Christian Latin literature: Lactantius (d. about 325 A. D.). It is among the writers of Christian literature that the few great [pg 399]Latin authors of the time are to be found. At the beginning of the fourth century stood Lactantius, an African, who became a teacher of rhetoric in Nicomedia, where he was converted to Christianity. His chief work was the Divinae Institutiones, an introduction to Christian doctrine, which was an attempt to create a philosophical Christianity. His purity of style has caused him to be called the “Christian Cicero.”

Ambrose, (d. 397 A. D.). Ambrose, the powerful bishop of Milan, who exercised such great influence with Gratian and Theodosius the Great, also displayed great literary activity. In general, his writings are developments of his sermons, and display no very great learning. Their power depended upon the strength of his personality. More important from a literary standpoint are the hymns which he composed for use in church services to combat in popular form the Arian doctrines. In his verses Ambrose adhered to the classic metrical forms, but in the course of the next two centuries these were abandoned for the use of the rhymed verse, which itself was a development of the current rhetorical prose.

Jerome, 335–420 A. D. The most learned of the Latin Christian writers of antiquity was Jerome (Hieronymus), a native of northern Bosnia, whose retired, studious life was in striking contrast to the public, official career of Ambrose. A Greek and Hebrew scholar, in addition to his dogmatic writings he made a Latin translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew (the basis of the later Vulgate), and another of the Greek Church History of Eusebius.

Augustine, 354–430 A. D. The long line of notable literary figures of the African church is closed by Augustine, the bishop of Hippo who died during the siege of his city by the Vandals in 430 A. D. In his early life a pagan, he found inspiration and guidance in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. But while Jerome was still dominated by Greek religious thought, Augustine was the first Latin Christian writer to emancipate himself from this dependence and display originality of form and ideas in his works. Of these the two most significant are the Confessions and On the City of God. The Confessions reveal the story of his inner life, the struggle of good and evil in his own soul. The work On the City of God was inspired by the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 and the accusation of the pagans that this was a punishment for the abandonment of the ancient deities. In answer to this charge Augustine develops a philosophical inter[pg 400]pretation of history as the conflict of good and evil forces, in which the Heavenly City is destined to triumph over that of this world. His work prepared the way for the conception of the Roman Catholic Church as the city of God.

Boethius (d. 524 A. D.) and Cassiodorus (c. 480–575 A. D.). Between the death of Augustine and the death of Justinian the West produced no ecclesiastical literary figure worthy of note. However, under the Ostrogothic régime in Italy, profane literature is represented by two outstanding personalities—Boethius and Cassiodorus. The patrician Boethius while in prison awaiting his death sentence from Theoderic composed his work On the Consolation of Philosophy, a treatise embued with the finest spirit of Greek intellectual life. Cassiodorus, who held the posts of quaestor and master of the offices under Theoderic, has left valuable historical material in his Variae, a collection of official letters drawn up by him in the course of his administrative duties. His chief literary work was a history of the Goths, of which unfortunately only a few excerpts have remained. In his later years Cassiodorus retired to a monastery which he founded and organized according to the Benedictine rule. There he performed an inestimable service in fostering the preservation of secular as well as ecclesiastical knowledge among the brethren, thus giving to the Benedictine monks the impulse to intellectual work for which they were so distinguished in medieval times.

Greek Christian literature; Religious prose. It was in the fourth century that Greek Christian prose literature reached its height. Among its leading representatives were Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria who fought the Arian heresy; Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, the founder of church history; Gregory of Nazianzus, church orator and poet; and Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, the organizer of Greek monasticism. Above them all in personality and literary ability stood John Chrysostom (the Golden-mouth), patriarch of Constantinople under Arcadius. With the fifth century came a decline in theological prose; men resorted to excerpts and collections. But at this time began the development of the popular monastic narratives and lives of the saints which served as the novels and romances of the time.

Religious poetry. It was subsequent to the fourth century also that Christian religious poetry attained its bloom. Here a break was made with classical tradition in the adoption of accentual in place of [pg 401]quantitative verse. This was in harmony with the disappearance of distinctions of syllabic quantity from popular speech. The use of rhythm in verse was introduced by Gregory of Nazianzus, but the chief and most productive representative of the new poetry was Romanus, a converted Syrian Jew whose activity falls in the reign of Justinian.

Greek profane literature. Contemporary profane Greek literature exhibits less originality and interest. Historical writing was continued in strict imitation of classical models by both Christian and pagan writers. Of exceptional historical value are the works of Procopius, the historian of the wars of Justinian, who like Ammianus Marcellinus shared in an official capacity in the events which he described. A more popular form of historical writing was the compilation of chronicles of world history, collections of excerpts put together for the most part by men who failed to understand their sources. The profane verse of the time is represented by narrative poems, such as the Dionysiaca and the metrical version of the Gospel of St. John composed by Nonnus in Egypt (c. 400 A. D.), and by a rich epigrammatic literature.

In the eastern empire literary productivity continued, although on the decline, slightly longer than in the West, but by the middle of the sixth century there also it had come to an end.

Art. The art of the late empire exhibits the same general characteristics as the literature. Not only was there a general lack of originality and creative capacity, but even the power of imitating the masterpieces of earlier times was conspicuously lacking. The Arch of Constantine erected in 312 A. D. affords a good illustration of the situation. Its decoration mainly consists of sculptures appropriated from monuments of the first and second century, beside which the new work is crude and unskilful. A comparison of the imperial portraits on the coins of the fourth century with those of the principate up to the dynasty of the Severi reveals the same decline in taste and artistic ability.

In the realm of art as in literature Christianity supplied a new creative impulse, which made itself felt in the adaptation of pagan artistic forms to Christian purposes. The earliest traces of Christian art are to be found in the mural paintings of the underground burial vaults and chapels of the Roman catacombs, and in the sculptured reliefs which adorned the sarcophagi of the wealthy. These [pg 402]were popular branches of contemporary art and the influence of Christianity consisted in the artistic representation of biblical subjects and the employment of Christian symbolical motives. These forms of Christian art decayed with the general cultural decline that followed the third century.

The most important and original contribution of Christianity to the art of the late empire was in the development of church architecture. To meet the needs of the Christian church service, which included the opportunity to address large audiences, there arose the Christian basilica, which took its name from the earlier profane structures erected to serve as places for the conduct of public business, but which differed considerably from them in its construction. In general the basilica was a long rectangular building, divided by rows of columns into a central hall or nave and two side halls or aisles. The walls of the nave rose above the roof of the aisles, and allowed space for windows. The roof was flat or gabled, and, like the wall spaces, covered with paintings or mosaics. The rear of the structure was a semicircular apse which held the seats of the bishop and the lower clergy. To the original plan there came to be added the transept, a hall at right angles to the main structure between it and the apse. This gave the basilica its later customary crosslike form.

While the basilica became the almost universal form of church architecture in Italy and the West, in the East preference was shown for round or polygonal structures with a central dome, an outgrowth of the Roman rotunda, which was first put to Christian uses in tombs and grave chapels. A rich variety of types, combining the central dome with other architectural features arose in the cities of Asia and Egypt. The masterpiece of this style was the church of St. Sophia erected by Justinian in Constantinople in 537 A. D. Another notable example from the same period is the church of San Vitale at Ravenna.

In the mosaics which adorn these and other structures of the time are to be seen the traces of a Christian Hellenistic school of painting which gave pictorial expression to the whole biblical narrative. These mosaics and the miniature paintings employed in the illuminated manuscripts survived as prominent features of Byzantine art.

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