Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity 0199739404, 9780199739400

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Preface
List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Contributors
Part I: Introduction: Rome and Constantinople in Context
1. Introduction: From Rome to Constantinople
2. Competing Capitals, Competing Representations: Late Antique Cityscapes in Words and Pictures
3. Old and New Rome Compared: The Rise of Constantinople
Part II: Urban Space and Urban Development in Comparative Perspective
4. The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae
5. Water and Late Antique Constantinople: “It would be abominable for the inhabitants of this Beautiful City to be compelled to purchase water.”
6. Aristocratic Houses and the Making of Late Antique Rome and Constantinople
Part III: Emperors in the City
7. Valentinian III and the City of Rome (425–55): Patronage, Politics, Power
8. Playing the Ritual Game in Constantinople (379–457)
Part IV: Panegyric
9. Bright Lights, Big City: Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini
10. A Tale of Two Cities: Th emistius on Rome and Constantinople
11. Claudian and Constantinople
12. Epic Panegyric and Political Communication in the Fifth-Century West
Part V: Christian Capitals?
13. There but Not There: Constantinople in the Itinerarium Burdigalense
14. Virgilizing Christianity in Late Antique Rome
15. “Two Romes, Beacons of the Whole World”: Canonizing Constantinople
16. Between Petrine Ideology and Realpolitik: The See of Constantinople in Roman Geo-Ecclesiology (449–536)
Part VI: Epilogue
17. From Rome to New Rome, from Empire to Nation-State: Reopening the Question of Byzantium’s Roman Identity
Bibliography
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
Index Locorum

Citation preview

Two Romes

OX FOR D STU DIE S I N L ATE A N TIQU IT Y Series Editor Ralph Mathisen Late Antiquity has unified what in the past were disparate disciplinary, chronological, and geographical areas of study. Welcoming a wide array of methodological approaches, this book series provides a venue for the finest new scholarship on the period, ranging from the later Roman Empire to the Byzantine, Sasanid, early Islamic, and early Carolingian worlds. The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science Kevin van Bladel Two Romes Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity Edited by Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly

Two Romes Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity

Edited by Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly

Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grig, Lucy. Two Romes / Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly. p. cm.—(Oxford studies in late antiquity) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-973940-0 1. Rome (Italy)—History. 2. Istanbul (Turkey)—History. 3. Rome—Historiography. 4. Istanbul (Turkey)—Historiography. 5. City and town life—Rome—History. 6. City and town life—Turkey—Istanbul— History—To 1500. 7. Social change—Rome—History. 8. Social change—Turkey— Istanbul—History—To 1500. 9. Rome (Italy)—Relations—Turkey—Istanbul. 10. Istanbul (Turkey)—Relations—Italy—Rome. I. Kelly, Gavin, 1974- II. Title. DG63.G75 2012 937′.6309—dc23 2011017620

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Preface

We first thought of collaborating on the two Romes in 2005. Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity had figured in our previous research, but it seemed to us that there was surprising little effort made to look at the two greatest cities of the late ancient Mediterranean together, despite the ideological and political importance of their relationship and the many features they had in common. In the following summer, many of the contributors to this book met in Lampeter for a panel entitled “Two Romes” as part of the Celtic Classics Conference: we are grateful to Anton Powell, the inventor and organizer of the conference, for accepting our panel and for providing a format that allowed plenty of time for contributions to be heard and debated. Although the group who had been brought together came from different traditions and disciplines, we found both that there was much to be gained from studying the two Romes together and that we shared a revisionist dissatisfaction with the overly teleological approaches of much previous scholarship, whereby Rome was always destined to decline and become a papal city, and Constantinople likewise was always destined to take Rome’s place. By the end of three days, we knew that we wanted to bring the project forward to publication, but felt that we had heard too little on the New Rome compared to the old. This matched the survival of evidence from antiquity and the trend of modern scholarship, but it lacked balance; so we convened a short conference on early Constantinople in Edinburgh in spring of 2007 (opening on the birthday of the city, 11 May). Many of the speakers from Lampeter also attended, and in general we have found the experience of putting this book together one of sharing in an ongoing debate. One additional chapter (John Vanderspoel’s) was subsequently invited on the good advice of OUP’s readers. The book is structured in sections: our general historical introduction, which also contextualizes the individual contributions, is paired with introductory chapters on the representation of cities in Late Antiquity and on the buildings and infrastructure of the two cities. Sections follow on topography

vi Preface and archaeology; political history (as seen through the imperial presence in the two cities in the fift h century); literary representation (focusing on the characteristically late antique genre of panegyric); and religion. The epilogue, finally, is a provocative and wide-ranging essay on the Romanness of Byzantium. Within sections in particular, contributors have carefully read and reflected on each other’s chapters. Colleagues and institutions alike make Edinburgh a fine place to research Late Antiquity: we should particularly like to thank Tom Brown, Sara Parvis, Ursula Rothe, and Karen Howie for various acts of assistance, and the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology and the Centre for Medieval Studies for financial sponsorship. Our contributors joined in the spirit of collective enterprise and generously commented on each other’s work, and patiently endured the wait for publication. We should also like to thank the various conference speakers whose work is appearing elsewhere. OUP’s reviewers made many valuable suggestions, and we are grateful to Stefan Vranka and his team at OUP New York for their help in bringing the book to publication. We are also grateful to those institutions and individuals who shared photographs and plans and waived reproduction rights, where applicable. Elif Keser-Kayaalp deserves special acknowledgement for producing such excellent plans and drawings. Although this is a large book, we are aware there are many important topics that could have been investigated and have not been: the subject could have filled many large books. We hope that others will be stimulated to write them. Lucy Grig Gavin Kelly Edinburgh, 21 April 2011

Contents

Preface v List of Figures ix List of Abbreviations xi Contributors xiii Part I

Introduction: Rome and Constantinople in Context

1. Introduction: From Rome to Constantinople 3 Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly 2. Competing Capitals, Competing Representations: Late Antique Cityscapes in Words and Pictures 31 Lucy Grig 3. Old and New Rome Compared: The Rise of Constantinople 53 Bryan Ward-Perkins

Part II

Urban Space and Urban Development in Comparative Perspective

4. The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 81 John Matthews 5. Water and Late Antique Constantinople: “It would be abominable for the inhabitants of this Beautiful City to be compelled to purchase water.” 116 James Crow 6. Aristocratic Houses and the Making of Late Antique Rome and Constantinople 136 Carlos Machado

Part III

Emperors in the City

7. Valentinian III and the City of Rome (425–55): Patronage, Politics, Power 161 Mark Humphries

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viii Contents 8. Playing the Ritual Game in Constantinople (379–457) 183 Peter Van Nuffelen

Part IV

Panegyric

9. Bright Lights, Big City: Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 203 Roger Rees 10. A Tale of Two Cities: Themistius on Rome and Constantinople 223 John Vanderspoel 11. Claudian and Constantinople 241 Gavin Kelly 12. Epic Panegyric and Political Communication in the Fift h-Century West Andrew Gillett

Part V

265

Christian Capitals?

13. There but Not There: Constantinople in the Itinerarium Burdigalense 293 Benet Salway 14. Virgilizing Christianity in Late Antique Rome 325 John Curran 15. “Two Romes, Beacons of the Whole World”: Canonizing Constantinople 345 Neil McLynn 16. Between Petrine Ideology and Realpolitik: The See of Constantinople in Roman Geo-Ecclesiology (449–536) 364 Philippe Blaudeau

Part VI

Epilogue

17. From Rome to New Rome, from Empire to Nation-State: Reopening the Question of Byzantium’s Roman Identity 387 Anthony Kaldellis

Bibliography 405 Index 437 Index Locorum 449

List of Figures

1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6

3.1

3.2

3.3 3.4 3.5

Map of late antique Rome. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp xiv Map of late antique Constantinople. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp xv The Madaba map: vignette of Jerusalem. Photograph: Ursula Rothe 35 City Gate coin from Laodicea ad Mare. HCR 8020. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford 43 Roma and Constantinopolis coin, minted in Rome 355–57. HCR 8021. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford 45 Roma and Constantinopolis coin, minted in Constantinople in 415. ©Trustees of the British Museum 45 Roma and Constantinopolis diptych. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 46–47 Rome at the center of the Peutinger map, from Angerer and Göschl, Tabula Peutingeriana itineraria. Image created by the Ancient World Mapping Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 49 The columns of Arcadius and Marcus Aurelius, reproduced to the same scale (based on Konrad, “Arkadiossäule,” 369 Abb. 39, combined with Piranesi’s engraving of the Marcus column, and an anonymous drawing of that of Arcadius.) 58 Three obelisks in Constantinople, and some of those of Rome, all reproduced to the same scale. (For the full image of the obelisks of Rome, from an engraving of 1823 by G. B. Cipriani, see D’Onofrio, Obelischi, pl. 3.) 61 The early fift h-century walls of Rome and Constantinople compared. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp 63 The “Long Walls” (from Silivri to Evcik) and aqueducts of Constantinople. Courtesy of James Crow 64 The aqueducts of Rome and Constantinople compared. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp 65

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List of Figures

3.6 The cistern “of Philoxenos” (Binbirdirek), in an engraving by Thomas Allom of ca. 1838. The cistern appears in this engraving, as today, fi lled with earth to about a third of its original height (the “rings” that one can see on the columns are, in reality, the bands used to join two superimposed column drums of equal height). (Allom and Walsh, Constantinople, facing p.14.) 67 3.7 Hypothetical reconstruction of the area of the Crypta Balbi in the fi ft h century. (From D. Manacorda, Crypta Balbi, 45, fig. 47.) 69 3.8 The inscription, possibly of the Patrician Decius, in the Forum of Augustus. The arrow in the photograph shows the column drum on which it appears. 70 3.9 The two aristocratic houses excavated near the hippodrome in Constantinople. After Bardill, “The Palace of Lausus”, Fig. 1 73 3.10 The plans, all drawn to the same scale, of two fift h-century churches in Rome (S. Maria Maggiore and S. Stefano Rotondo), compared with those of a fift h and an early sixth-century church in Constantinople (the Theotokos Chalkoprateia and S. Polyeuktos). Plans prepared by Elif Keser-Kayaalp 76 3.11 Plans and sections, at the same scale, of S. Paolo fuori-le-mura (Rome) and S. Sophia (Constantinople). Based on the drawings in Fletcher, History of Architecture 77 3.12 S. Sophia and the Pantheon compared. Sections drawn by Elif KeserKayaalp 78 5.1 Outline maps showing the development of the Constantinople water supply system in Thrace from Hadrian to Süleyman the Magnificent. Drawn by Richard Bayliss 119 5.2 Map showing the projected course of the main aqueduct channels and major cisterns. Drawn by Richard Bayliss 120 5.3 Aqueduct bridge at Nikol dere. Photograph: James Crow 132 5.4 Aqueduct bridge at Talas, showing the sixth-century reconstruction. Photograph: James Crow 132 6.1 Fragment 538 of marble plan, with structures on Via in Arcione marked. From Tucci, “Tra il Quirinale e l’Acquedotto Vergine,” p. 21, fig. 1 142 6.2 Structures on Via in Arcione. From Tucci, “Tra il Quirinale e l’Acquedotto Vergine,” p. 23. fig. 4 144 6.3 The house of Gaudentius on the Caelian Hill. From Pavolini, “La topografia antica,” p. 478 146 13.1 Analytical diagram of the routes described by the Bordeaux Itinerary. Drawing by R.W.B. Salway 298

List of Abbreviations

For abbreviations of titles of ancient works, please see the Index Locorum. Abbreviations of journal titles in the bibliography are generally as in Année Philologique, with the standard alterations for English usage. AE ACO AASS

ChLA

CCL CIL Frag. Vat. ILS ILCV LTUR

L’Année Épigraphique: Revue des publications épigraphiques relatives à l’antiquité romaine. Paris, 1888–. E. Schwartz, ed. Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum. Berlin, 1959. J. Bolland et al., ed. Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur. Original edn, 67 vols, Antwerp and Brussels, 1643–1940; second edition, 43 vols, Venice; third edition, 60 vols, Paris. A. Bruckner and R. Marichal, eds. Chartae Latinae Antiquiores: Facsimile-Edition of the Latin Charters prior to the Ninth Century. Vols. 1–4. Olten & Lausanne 1954–1967; vols 5–49. Dietikon-Zurich 1975–1998. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. Turnhout, 1954–. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1862–. T. Mommsen, ed. Fragmenta Vaticana. Collectio librorum iuris anteiustiniani in usum scholarum vol. 3. Berlin, 1890. H. Dessau, ed. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. 3 vols, Berlin, 1892–1916. Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres. Berlin, 1924– 1967. E.M. Steinby, ed. Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. Rome, 1993–2000.

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List of Abbreviations

MAMA

Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, vols I-IX. Manchester, 1928–1988; vol. X. London, 1993. OGIS W. Dittenberger, ed. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae: Supplementum Sylloges Inscriptionum Graecarum. 2 vols. Leipzig 1903–1905. P.Abinn. H.I. Bell, V. Martin, E.G. Turner, D. van Berchem, eds. The Abinnaeus Archive: Papers of a Roman Officer in the Reign of Constantius II, nos. 1–82. Oxford, 1962. P.Herm. B.R. Rees, ed. Papyri from Hermopolis and Other Documents of the Byzantine Period (Egypt Exploration Society, Graeco-Roman Memoirs 42), ed. B.R. Rees, nos. 1–85. London 1964. P.Lond. F.G. Kenyon et al., eds. Greek Papyri in the British Museum. Seven volumes. London, 1893–. P.Ryl. A.S. Hunt et al. Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, four volumes. Manchester, 1911–1952. PG Patrologia Graeca (J.-P. Migne, ed. Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca. Paris, 1857–1866). PL Patrologia Latina (J.-P. Migne, ed. Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina. Paris, 1844–1855). PCBE 2 C. Pietri and L. Pietri, Prosopographie Chrétienne du Bas-Empire 2. Italie (313–604). Rome, 1999. PLRE 1 A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, and J. Morris, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire I A.D. 260–395. Cambridge, UK, 1971. [NB references in the text take the form ‘PLRE 1, 522 (“Lupus 5”).’] PLRE 2 J.R. Martindale, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire II A.D. 395–527. Cambridge, UK, 1980. PLRE 3a, PLRE 3b J.R. Martindale, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire III A.D. 527–641. 2 vols, Cambridge, UK, 1992. RE A.F. Pauly and G. Wissowa (eds) Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Munich, 1894–1972. RIC H. Mattingly et al. (eds) Roman Imperial Coinage. London, 1923–1981. SB F. Preisigke et al., Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten. Strassburg and elsewhere, 1915–.

Contributors

PHILIPPE BLAUDEAU, University of Angers JAMES CROW, University of Edinburgh JOHN CURRAN, Queen’s University, Belfast ANDREW GILLETT, Macquarie University LUCY GRIG, University of Edinburgh MARK HUMPHRIES, Swansea University ANTHONY KALDELLIS, Ohio State University GAVIN KELLY, University of Edinburgh CARLOS MACHADO, Universidade Federal de Sâo Paulo JOHN MATTHEWS, Yale University NEIL McLYNN, Corpus Christi College, Oxford ROGER REES, University of St Andrews BENET SALWAY, University College London JOHN VANDERSPOEL, University of Calgary PETER VAN NUFFELEN, Ghent University BRYAN WARD-PERKINS, Trinity College, Oxford

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Figure 1.1 Map of late antique Rome. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp.

Figure 1.2 Map of late antique Constantinople. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp.

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PA RT I

Introduction: Rome and Constantinople in Context

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1

Introduction From Rome to Constantinople LUCY GRIG AND GAVIN KELLY Therefore we have resolved that it is fitting that my rule and the power of my kingdom be transferred and transmuted to the regions of the east and that in the province of Byzantia, on an excellent site, a city be built in my name and my rule be established there; since it is not right that the earthly emperor should have power where the princedom of priests and the head of the Christian religion has been established by the heavenly emperor. —Donation of Constantine 18

T

he emperor Constantine is commonly credited with two of the most profound changes in world history: his personal conversion led to the Roman state’s adoption of Christianity; and his foundation of Constantinople, the New Rome, on the site of Byzantium in 324 was to displace the old Rome as the capital of the empire. As his actions seem to have had such enormous effects, it is tempting to merge in one’s mind the intentions and actions of Constantine, the progress of his religion and his city in the period following his death, and the eventual result, as though linked in a somehow inevitable progression. The tendency towards teleological interpretation has been helped by the limited and partisan nature of the evidence on Constantine. The early medieval Roman forgery quoted above claimed that, after Constantine’s baptism by Pope Sylvester had cured his leprosy, he had handed authority over the west to the popes and transferred his own seat of power to Constantinople. It can serve as a reminder that Constantine’s conversion and his foundation of Constantinople alike were from the beginning ideologically charged subjects, and that they have always attracted mythmaking and teleological explanations. The Donation of Constantine was exposed as a forgery by Giorgio Valla in the fifteenth century,1 but not all myths are as easily unmasked. And certain ways of thinking die a slow death. Early Byzantines (who called themselves not Byzantines but Romans, Rōmaioi) thought that Constantine had considered building at Troy before Byzantium, that Constantinople had been founded following a long formal We would like to thank Mark Humphries, Anthony Kaldellis, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe and John Vanderspoel for their helpful comments and scholarly discussion. 1. See Bowersock’s convenient text and translation of Valla, On the Donation of Constantine.

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processus from Rome, that Constantine had removed the Palladium, a sacred object originally brought to Rome from Troy, and placed it below the column that bore his statue in Constantinople—stories which are still sometimes believed.2 The myth of translatio imperii—the transfer of Roman power from Rome to Constantinople—lives on, mildly metamorphosed, in countless modern works on Roman history, which tell us (in these or similar words) that the foundation of Constantinople as an eastern capital confi rmed the eclipse of Rome and inexorably shifted the center of gravity of Roman power to the east. We may legitimately ask whether Constantinople was founded as a “capital” (if indeed that is not too anachronistic a term) and whether the rise of Constantinople and Rome’s decline in significance were either simultaneous or causally related. Too often both the eclipse of the old Rome and the growth of the New Rome are seen as swift and inevitable. Th is is not of course the only scholarly perspective, and some modern scholarship on early Constantinople, in what we shall suggest is an equally overstated reaction, understates the significance of the city and its status as a Second Rome in its earliest decades. Other narratives exist on the more detailed scale: in the study of fourth-and fi ft h-century Rome, an odd dualism assumes both that there was a pagan reaction and that, simultaneously, Rome grew into a papal city. Both these narratives are now receiving increasingly forceful challenges. Undoubted pagan resentment should not be seen as reaction, and many cultural contests thought to be between polytheist and Christian aristocrats in fact had no confessional basis.3 The growth of the bishop of Rome’s power in the city (the myth peddled in the Donation of Constantine!) belongs significantly later.4 There are good reasons for looking at the two Romes together. Constantinople’s identity as New or Second Rome is attested very early in its history, and many of the city’s institutions were modeled on those of Rome and were unparalleled elsewhere: the corn-dole, the senate, administration by a city prefect.5 As a number of the contributions to this book will show, Constantinople’s status as the New Rome was taken seriously, if not always accepted, from an early date. Even if one disregards the ideological associations and administrative similarities, a comparative study of the two greatest metropoleis of the late antique Mediterranean world will still have value. There has been relatively little effort,

2. Sozomen 2.3.1–3, Zosimus 2.30.1 (Troy); Malalas 13.7 (319 Bonn) (the processus); Malalas 13.7 (320 Bonn) = Chron. Pasch. s.a. 328 (528 Bonn) (the Palladium). All are given credit in Bassett, The Urban Image, 33, 54, 68–69, and 205–206. 3. See, e.g., Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, and Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital. 4. See, e.g., Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope?” 5. See sections 1 and 2 below.

From Rome to Constantinople

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in the substantial scholarship on both cities, to look at them together—certainly far less than there should have been.6 The reasons for this doubtless lie in part in the institutional division within the academy between classicists and Byzantinists.7 There have always been scholars with the capacity and expertise to cover both, but Rome tends to have its own specialists, so vast is the array of literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence, while early Constantinople has often been studied by specialists in later Byzantine history looking backwards. More to the point, it is hard to write about the two cities in a similar way because the nature of the surviving evidence is so different. In most areas we know much more about Rome. Literary sources tell us far less about Constantinople, especially in the fourth century, when many of them are hostile to the city, viewing it as an interloper in the rankings of the empire’s cities. The situation is perhaps most extreme in archaeology. This is partly because the earliest buildings in Constantinople were soon replaced, and because the scope for excavation has been limited; in Rome, by contrast, large areas of the late antique city were not rebuilt, and since the Renaissance, there has always been great interest in the ancient past.8 Constantinople is better documented archaeologically than it was, but the gaps outweigh the certainties, and topography is still understood more from literary sources than from material remains (see figures 1.1 and 1.2, pp. xiv–xv). The Roman epigraphic habit does not seem to have been matched in Constantinople; when combined with the western bias of the legislation in the Theodosian Code and the fact that we do not have eastern equivalents of Symmachus’ Relationes, the Collectio Avellana, or Cassiodorus’ Variae, this means that far less can be said about the elite or the government of Constantinople.9 This book arises from the belief that, despite these difficulties of evidence, the study of each of the two Romes can illuminate each other and that, despite the progress already made in combating teleological interpretations or the accretion of legend, more can be done. The chronological focus is the early fourth to the early sixth centuries (though some chapters range later). It has not been our collective aim to write a comprehensive comparative urban history of the two Romes. Rather, the authors span a broad range of disciplinary approaches, 6. Van Dam, Rome and Constantinople, a lively essayistic account, is a most welcome recent addition to scholarship on the two cities. See also Roma, Costantinopoli, Mosca and Elia, Politica retorica e simbolismo del primato (conference proceedings); Jones, Later Roman Empire, 687–711; Errington, Roman Imperial Policy, 111–68 (both on administration); Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (on religion and topography); Toynbee, “Roma and Constantinopolis” I and II (on art and numismatics). 7. Kaldellis q.v. is inter alia a Byzantinist’s polemic against attempts to deny the Romanness of the Byzantine world. 8. For much more comprehensive discussion of this issue, see Ward-Perkins q.v., section 1. 9. A point made by Jones, Later Roman Empire, 689. The evidential imbalance is reinforced by the accidental loss of the Notitia Dignitatum’s section on the prefect of Constantinople.

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many of them making revisionist arguments about important literary and material evidence, and they approach topics both synchronically and diachronically. The editors hope that the diverse approaches and strengths of the international group of scholars involved in this volume will offer a fresh and stimulating reappraisal of the two cities, both individually and together. The aims of this introduction are several: to sketch out the trajectories of the two cities in the period; to survey (inevitably selectively) the scholarship on the two cities; and to locate in this historical and historiographical context the chapters that will follow. Some subjects that are not treated specifically in the rest of the book are given slightly more detailed attention here (for example, the foundation of Constantinople), while others that receive detailed treatment are here mentioned only briefly.10 In particular, in the two other introductory chapters by Grig and Ward-Perkins, readers will find detailed discussion respectively of visual representations of the two cities and their rivals, and a comparison of Rome’s and Constantinople’s built environments. 1. The Foundation of Constantinople and its Background “Rome is wherever the emperor is.” The words are addressed to Commodus in Herodian’s history (1.6.5), perhaps reflecting the attitudes of the time of writing in the mid-third century more than the late second-century setting. In fact, we can trace back to the very beginnings of the Roman monarchy the thought that the prerogatives of Rome might be usurped by another imperial city: legend has Julius Caesar contemplating rebuilding Troy, and the accusation of wishing to put Alexandria in Rome’s place was leveled at Marcus Antonius.11 Temporary imperial courts elsewhere than Rome became increasingly common in the first two centuries of our era. But it is in the third century that the possibility of other Romes becomes distinct. Military crisis increasingly kept emperors campaigning on the frontiers; it became rarer for them to have a senatorial origin and the links with Rome which that involved. The same trend applies to their high officials, especially after Gallienus (253–68).12 The climax in this separation comes with Diocletian and his colleagues. Diocletian’s visit to Rome with Maximian in November 303, to celebrate a joint triumph and Vicennalia (the twentieth anniversary of accession), is emblematic in

10. For example, it would be pointless to say much about Constantinopolitan topography in the light of Matthews q.v. 11. Nicolaus, Life of Augustus 68; Dio 50.4.1; for similar rumors about Caligula and Nero see Suetonius, Gaius 49 and Dio 63.26.2. 12. Jones, Later Roman Empire, 24–25.

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several ways. It may well have been Diocletian’s first visit of his reign.13 The alienation was more than just geographical. Diocletian took umbrage at the free speech of the plebs in the circus, and left in a huff a mere eleven days before the New Year and the expected celebrations of his consulship.14 Difficulties in interacting at close quarters with the Roman aristocracy are also attested for the two emperors to reside at length in Rome in this period, Carinus (283–85) and Maxentius (306– 12).15 For the next century, imperial visits were notoriously rare and brief (see section 3 below). The emperors’ absence from Rome did not prevent the completion of public buildings in their name: Diocletian and Maximian were responsible for baths on a magnificent scale and the so-called Decennalia monument in the forum to memorialize their visit. Even if Rome and the senate were in a weaker political position than either before or after, the city was not notably diminished in physical or economic terms. Diocletian, Maximian, and the other tetrarchs instead traveled between and resided in a series of smaller but still sizable cities nearer the frontiers, which were aggrandized with major public building projects such as palaces and hippodromes (often side by side as though they were little Romes), basilicas, and baths: they included Trier, Milan, and Aquileia in the west; Sirmium, Thessalonica, and Serdica in the Balkans; Nicomedia and Antioch in the east.16 It is common and convenient to call these provincial cities “tetrarchic capitals,” but both words are potentially misleading.17 The role of such cities antedated the tetrarchic governments of 293–311 and continued after them: Antioch, for example, had long been a temporary residence of emperors and usurpers, and fourth-century emperors like Constantius, Julian, and Valens spent more time there than at Constantinople. Their status as “capitals” was pro tempore and dependent on the imperial presence. There are comparisons of Milan and Trier to Rome in the surviving panegyrics (e.g., Pan. Lat. 11(3).12.2: “Rome sent the luminaries of her senate to Milan, most blessed of cities in that time, freely sharing the appearance of her greatness, so that there and then the seat of empire seemed to be where each of you [i.e., Diocletian and Maximian] had come together”). Glorious buildings there might be, which it is clear were on a different scale from what had stood there before.18 Trier had a Circus Maximus 13. See Barnes, New Empire, 50, 59. Diocletian’s only other attested visit, in summer 285 after the defeat of Carinus, is in a late and questionable source (Zonaras 12.31). 14. Lactantius, DMP 17.2. 15. E.g., Eutr. 9.19, 10.4 (though both passages may represent stereotypical polemics). 16. See Barnes, New Empire, 47–64, on imperial movements; Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 40–53, is excellent on tetrarchic capitals. A list of features can be found in a satirical passage of Lactantius (DMP 7.8–10, at 9): basilicas, a circus, a mint, an arms factory, houses for the emperor’s wife and daughter. 17. See Vanderspoel q.v., 224 nn.5 and 6. 18. See Mayer, Rom ist dort, wo der Kaiser ist, 28–68. Mayer extends the study of imperial cities into the fourth and fi ft h centuries, including detailed coverage of Constantinople.

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which seemed to rival the Roman one, “basilicas and a forum, kingly works, and a seat of justice which rose to the heavens”—but it is made clear that all this is the result of Constantine’s presence (Pan. Lat. 6(7).22.5). Of course, the thought of other cities being rivals to Rome was not exclusive to the tetrarchic capitals (among which, for example, Alexandria and Carthage, two of the greatest cities of the empire but far from the major frontiers, never numbered). And the contest between Rome and its potential rivals is not merely a feature of the tetrarchy, but as Lucy Grig’s chapter makes clear, a broad and nuanced feature of late antique cultural poetics in general. Is it reasonable to see Constantinople in its immediate chronological context as “in essence . . . a tetrarchic capital, comparable with Thessalonica or Serdica, with its palace, its hippodrome, and its walls”?19 Surviving subscriptions of laws suggest that Byzantium, on the route from the Balkans to the east, was already an occasional imperial stop under Diocletian, though insignificant compared to Heraclea and Nicomedia nearby. It has also recently been tantalizingly hypothesized that Licinius may have expended effort on developing Byzantium’s amenities before Constantine got there, and that Constantine, as with Maxentius’ developments in Rome, claimed the credit for Licinius’ in Constantinople.20 When in the autumn of 324, probably on 8 November, Constantine chose to celebrate his defeat of Licinius, the last of his rivals, by founding a city opposite the site of the naval battle of Chrysopolis, was he doing anything consciously different from what his immediate predecessors had done, Diocletian in Nicomedia, or Galerius in Thessalonica?21 And if we argue that he was, are we guilty of retrojecting Constantinople’s later greatness on to its foundation? These are questions for which the considerable volume of scholarship on the foundation and early years of Constantinople provides no consensus.22 The problem arises from the nature of the surviving evidence: the fourthcentury sources cast only occasional light, and the later ones (as we have already seen) are not to be trusted. The topographical tradition dominant in Constantinople scholarship is at its most speculative when dealing with questions of chronology in the earliest years of the city, 23 and Gilbert Dagron’s classic Naissance d’une capitale stands alone as an attempt to wrest a political history out of the sources. Exactly how Constantinople was conceived by its 19. Averil Cameron, “The Reign of Constantine,” 104. 20. Stephenson, Constantine, 194–96. 21. 8 November 324 was the day on which Constantius II was named Caesar. Themistius refers to Constantinople as being the same age as Constantius’ rule and to Constantine “together girding the city with its circuit of walls and his son with the purple” (Or. 4.58b). See Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 111–12. 22. For a perspective somewhat different from ours, see Vanderspoel q.v., nn.5 and 6. 23. This tradition goes back to Pierre Gilles in the sixteenth century; the leading twentieth-century exponents are Janin (Constantinople byzantine) and above all Cyril Mango, Le développement urbain, and many other works.

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founder and perceived by others must have shifted in its earliest years, between its foundation in late 324, its dedication on 11 May 330 (after which it became Constantine’s main residence), and Constantine’s death seven years later.24 But even in that very early period of its history, and from the limited contemporary evidence that we possess, it is clear that, if there were similarities between Constantinople and the tetrarchic capitals, there were also some differences, apparent from the city’s earliest days. Th is was not so much the extension as the replacement of an older city, whether physical or symbolic. In sheer scale, Constantine’s city quadrupled the size of its predecessor: even if we decline to believe that Constantine followed an angel’s guidance about where his walls should stand (Philostorgius 2.9), the fact that they stood so far out from the old city walls of Byzantium was an impressive statement of intent. Constantine’s new forum stood outside the city gate of the previous city. The extent to which physical traces of old Byzantium still marked the city is a matter of debate which we pass over here (see, however, Matthews q.v.); but it is striking that the name and identity of Byzantium was almost wholly suppressed. Renaming ancient cities was not uncommon, but few renamings were as successful as this one: in surviving Greek and Latin literature, references to “Byzantion”/“Byzantium” when Constantinople is meant are vanishingly rare until the very end of the fi ft h century.25 Constantine’s adornment of his city with statues and other works of art from all over the Mediterranean world (“practically stripping other cities bare,” in Jerome’s words26) is also indicative: this was a new city, and it was also one favored above other cities.27 Not only was it considered a new city, but it had a new population, “the intoxicated multitude which Constantine transported to Byzantium by emptying other cities.”28 They were enticed in by striking measures on Constantine’s part: estates in Asia Minor were bestowed upon some of the leading men who chose to settle in the new city; those who built houses were entitled to bread distributions.29 Constantine established the corn-dole for 80,000 persons as 24. For detailed discussion of these various points, see, e.g., Calderone, “Costantinopoli: la ‘seconda Roma,’” 727–33. 25. Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography, 279. This suggests that Claudian’s use in Latin of the adjectives Byzantius and Byzantinus in his In Eutropium (a.d. 399) is in itself polemical: see Kelly q.v., 246. The fact that Constantine’s city was named after himself is comparable to Hellenistic precedents rather than to the tetrarchs. 26. Chron. s.a. 324. 27. Well brought out in Bassett, The Urban Image, ch. 3. The religious implications of this treatment of pagan statues are a matter of much speculative debate, normally depending on the individual’s understanding of Constantine. See now Wilkinson, “Palladas and the Foundation of Constantinople,” 180–81, Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 23–25. 28. Eunapius VS 6.2.9 = 462. See also Origo Constantini 30. 29. Zos. 2.31.3, Soz. 2.3.4, CTh 14.17.12; 5.14.36. For a recent discussion, see Elia, “Sui ‘privilegia urbis Constantinopolitanae.’”

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early as 332, requiring corn to be delivered from Egypt, as had happened previously only in Rome.30 The political significance of the distributions—and the fact that the population was evidently too large to rely on local resources— is clear from the fact that charges of interfering with the corn supply, through magic or through ordinary corruption, led separately to the execution of the  polytheist philosopher Sopater and the exile of bishop Athanasius of Alexandria.31 A further way in which Constantine may have intended his new city to be distinct is more controversial (and in this ties in with the general scholarly controversy about Constantine in general and his religious policies in particular). Was Constantine founding a city that was free from pagan cult?32 It is relatively straightforward to dismiss stories of polytheists, including Sopater, playing a religious role in the dedication of the city: they are not found before the sixth century and are presumably attempts by Hellenic, perhaps non-Christian, intellectuals to create a Hellenic past for their city. 33 Eusebius claims in his Life of Constantine that the emperor made his new foundation free from pagan cult (3.48). The work, though indubitably propagandistic, is by a contemporary and has often been wrongly disbelieved on other subjects. The possibility is in keeping with the other evidence for the belligerence of Constantine towards polytheism in the east in the latter part of his reign;34 it may fi nd support in an oration of Himerius addressed to Constantine’s polytheist nephew, Julian in early 362 (Or. 41.8, cf. 41.14), which praises him for introducing rites from abroad (xenas) into the city. Th is could, but need not, mean that Constantinople had previously not experienced polytheist rites when Julian introduced them. 35 On the other hand, it is clear (see section 4 below) that if it was Constantine’s intention to found a Christian capital, this is not particularly reflected in the fi rst halfcentury of the city’s history.36 It is sometimes alleged that Constantine himself 30. Chron. Pasch. s.a. 332 (531 Bonn), and Jones, Later Roman Empire, 696–97 and n.20. 31. Eunapius. VS 6.2.10–11 = 463; Athanasius Apol. contra Arianos 9.3–4. 32. The question tends to divide those who focus mainly on textual evidence (Jones, Later Roman Empire, 83; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 222 and Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 126–31) from topographical studies like Mango’s Le développement urbain (which is nonetheless mainly based on textual sources). 33. Lydus De Mensibus 4.2. For the thought world of these early sixth-century intellectuals, see Kaldellis, “Republican Theory and Political Dissidence in Ioannes Lydos,” “The Works and Days of Hesychios.” Lydus’ testimony is taken seriously by, e.g., Cracco Ruggini, “Vettio Agorio Pretestato.” 34. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 222. Wilkinson, “Palladas and the Age of Constantine.” The same author’s “Palladas and the Foundation of Constantinople” suggests that at least one contemporary pagan viewed Constantinople in a way not unlike Eusebius. See now Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion, and Power, 111–13, 126–131, for a forceful restatement of the case for Constantinople as an explicitly Christian foundation. 35. Penella, Man and the Word, 62 n.69, mentions but does not support this interpretation. 36. See Ward-Perkins q.v., 60–62, and Matthews q.v., 115.

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built pagan shrines on the basis of Zosimus 2.31.2–3, but what is described seems more like desacralized statues decorating a portico. 37 It is safe to say that Constantinople was probably seen as a predominantly Christian city, and that any pagan shrines surviving from Byzantium, or built under Julian, had a low profi le. Whether Constantinople was called New or Second Rome at this stage is another question debated by scholarship. The fact that other cities were compared to Rome (see the tetrarchic examples above, or Constantine’s reference to Serdica as “my Rome”38) is often adduced. So is the fact that there is little “New Rome” ideology extant in the period before that title is cited in the Council of Constantinople in 381. But this is largely a function of the lack of evidence for Constantinople (and perhaps the fact that many of the relevant writers disliked the city’s pretensions). It is clear that the title dates back to Constantine.39 A speech of Themistius, as a Constantinopolitan ambassador to Constantius II on his visit to Rome in 357, sees Rome and Constantinople as cities that share their Fortune (tychē) and name, the old and the New Rome (Or. 3.42a, 42c).40 The ideology does not read like an invention of the moment. Three pieces of contemporary evidence suggest that the idea of Constantinople as a New or Second Rome does go back to its founder. Firstly, though the church historian Socrates (ca. 440) was some way from being a contemporary, he cites a Constantinian inscription on the Strategion calling the city “Second Rome” (HE 1.16.1). Secondly, a law of Constantine’s refers to the city quam aeterno nomine iubente deo donavimus (“which I have given an eternal name at God’s bidding,” CTh 13.5.7, 1 December 334), which it is plausible to take as referring to its status as New Rome. Thirdly, in a poem that must date to before 326, Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius referred to Constantinople as altera Roma (Carm. 4.6)—“Second Rome.” 41 The evidence of coinage can also be adduced, in particular the populus Romanus bronze coins from the Constantinopolitan mint in the early 330s.42

37. Suggested by Bassett, The Urban Image, 34, 155–56, but see Toynbee, “Roma and Constantinopolis I,” 136; Jones, Later Roman Empire, 1081 n.16. 38. Anon. post Dionem (Petrus Patricius?), fr. 15.1 (Exc. Vat. 190). 39. Questioning of this point goes back to Dölger, “Rom in der Gedankenwelt der Byzantiner,” 13–17, who, like others, makes too much of the distinction between Constantinople being a Second Rome and a New Rome. 40. See Vanderspoel q.v., 225–32. 41. The rendering “another Rome” (e.g., Potter, The Roman Empire, 383) is too weak: alter usually has the sense of the second in a series, or of one of two. Barnes, “Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius,” 179, argues that the poem refers to Constantinople and was written in late 324 but before its foundation. Cf. also Opt. 18.34: Roma soror. 42. See in general Toynbee, “Roma and Constantinopolis I,” and Calderone, “Costantinopoli: la ‘seconda Roma,’” 747–48.

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The fact that the idea of Constantinople as the New Rome can be found very soon after its foundation need not convey that much in itself.43 But it is also clear that Constantinople had institutions which were characteristic of Rome and Rome alone. “Palace, hippodrome and walls” might be features shared with the tetrarchic capitals; the corn-dole was not, and it gave a distinction to the people of Constantinople. Nor was the senate: for all of the controversy about the growth of the senate of Constantinople (see section 2 below), it seems to be clear that Constantine created the senate, a synedrion rather than a boule, even if founded on a smaller scale than Rome’s and with a secondary status.44 Within its founder’s lifetime, then, Constantinople was conceived of as being New Rome and had (some) institutions to match. Though evidence is slight and fragmentary, the presence in Constantinople of the sole Augustus and his court quickly made it a major destination itself. Benet Salway’s chapter on the Bordeaux Itinerary adds a new piece to this evidence. In Salway’s reinterpretation, the author is not primarily a pilgrim, but a member of one of the many embassies to Constantinople on public business: the plan to visit the Christian sites of the Holy Land (the other major site of Constantine’s building projects) was an afterthought—perhaps inspired by the Christian atmosphere of Constantine’s court? 2. Constantinople in the Fourth Century In the mid-fourth century—let us say the years from Constantine’s death in 337 to Theodosius’ arrival in the city in 380—Constantinople moves occasionally into focus. There is no continuous narrative available from any source. Ammianus, who detailed every prefecture of Rome, had a dislike of the new city, which probably arose both from his admiration of Rome and from his long residence in Antioch, and which may have deterred him from recognizing Constantinople’s political importance.45 Hostility is evident in other contemporaries from the cities of the east, Libanius of Antioch and Eunapius of Sardis. The most important author for Constantinople in this period is certainly Themistius, the polytheist philosopher who acted as a spokesman of the senate and a panegyrist of a succession of emperors. His philosophical panegyrics are not the most pellucid source of information, but our understanding of Themistius the politician has been very much advanced by John Vanderspoel’s important 43. Another tradition which seems to coexist with the idea of Constantinople as New Rome is that of the city as an Athenian foundation. (Byzantium was traditionally thought to be a colony of Megara, but cf. Himerius Or. 41.2–3 and Amm. 22.8.8.) In later Byzantine thought the city became a New Jerusalem. 44. Origo Constantini 30 (part 1 of the Anonymus Valesianus): ibi senatum constituit secundi ordinis, claros vocavit. 45. See Kelly, “The New Rome and the Old.”

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book of 1995, and by the annotated partial translation published in 2001 by Heather and Moncur.46 In his contribution to this volume, Vanderspoel restates his argument that Themistius’ engagement with a succession of emperors was that of an independent agent, and he shows how his evidence illuminates the developing relationship of the two Romes. It is clear that Constantinople continued to grow both physically and in esteem. Julian, the first Roman emperor to be born there, called Constantinople “a city that as far surpasses all others as it is itself inferior to Rome” in his first panegyric of Constantius, probably from 356 (Or. 1.8bc). As early as 355, Libanius of Antioch seems to acknowledge that his own great city may have been overtaken in size by the upstart (Ep. 399); later in his career his name for it is simply hē megalē polis, the big city.47 Why did Constantinople continue to grow, after first the death of its founder and then the extinction of his dynasty? A. H. M. Jones suggested that “Constantinople owed its phenomenal growth first and foremost to the fact that it was the seat of the emperor and his court.”48 But this explanation will not do for the middle years of the fourth century. In the forty-three years between Constantine’s death in May 337 and Theodosius’ move to the city in November 380, emperors wintered in Constantinople only five or six times: Constantius in 359–60, Julian in 361–62, Valens in 364–65, 366–67, and 370–71, and perhaps 369–70 as well.49 The longest continuous residence may have been that of the usurper Procopius, acclaimed in the city in September 365 and suppressed in May the following year. Emperors naturally visited the city at other times too, as Constantinople was on the land route from the eastern to the western provinces. But these visits are astonishingly few in number. Other than his residence in 359–60, Constantius had no long stays in the city.50 And it seems that Valens to some extent avoided staying in the city where he had been proclaimed emperor in 364, especially after its support for Procopius. During his first Gothic war of 367–69, he seems to have wintered in Marcianople in Thrace rather than make the relatively 46. Themistius and the Imperial Court and Politics, Philosophy, and Empire. De Salvo, “Temistio e Costantinopoli” usefully collects the relevant texts. There are complete translations of the political speeches into German by Portmann and Leppin and of all the speeches into Italian by Maisano; a complete English translation of this difficult author is a desideratum (though Penella has usefully translated the Private Orations). 47. Cf. Crow q.v., 116–18, for Libanius’ comparisons of Antioch and Constantinople. 48. Jones, Later Roman Empire, 688. 49. For imperial movements, see Seeck, Regesten, updated by Barnes for Constantine in New Empire, 68–80, for Constantius in Athanasius and Constantius, 218–24, and for Valens in Ammianus Marcellinus, 247–54. Specifically on Constantinople see Dagron, Naissance, 76–84. 50. Constantius had two brief visits in 337 (the first for his father’s funeral), made a quick midwinter visit in early 342 to depose a bishop after serious riots, another visit in either late 343 or 349, and presumably passed through late in 350 on his way to encounter the western usurpers (Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius, App. 9). Gallus Caesar passed through on his way to and from the east in 351 and 354.

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short journey to Constantinople. His last visit, just before his death at Adrianople, saw him jeered by the crowds, and he left after twelve days, allegedly promising to plough the city into the ground.51 The fact that the emperors between Constantine and Theodosius spent so little time there does not mean that Constantinople was neglected. It still needed amenities proportionate to its greatness: a second aqueduct, reservoirs, harbors (and as James Crow shows in his chapter on Constantinople’s water supply, the need was practical as well as symbolic).52 The credit went to the emperors under whom they were completed (Julian’s harbor, the Aqueduct of Valens).53 Imperial visits, rare though they might be, were made to coincide with important ceremonials which brought honor to emperor and city alike. Constantius’ first visit in a decade saw the first prefect of the city of Constantinople appointed in place of the proconsul, on 11 December 359 (an honor that put Constantinople on an equal status with Rome alone); he assumed the consulate there on 1 January 360, and attended the dedication of the Great Church, the first S. Sophia, on 15 February.54 Valentinian chose Constantinople for the elevation of his brother Valens, the first of many imperial proclamations to take place in the suburb of Hebdomon: the fact that the date was Palm Sunday, 28 March 364, must have added to the effect of the two emperors’ subsequent procession back into the city.55 Six years later, Valens returned from the first Gothic war to a triumph and the dedication, on Easter Sunday 370, of the Church of the Holy Apostles. The imperial mausoleum attached to the church, which then housed the remains of Constantine, Constantius, and Jovian, and which was to receive many more imperial corpses in the coming centuries, was yet another symbolic way in which Constantinople had taken over a prerogative of Rome.56 It is tempting to see the senate as an institution crucial to Constantinople’s development in these years, independent of the emperor, and as striking evidence of its superiority over other eastern cities. The growth of the senate played an important part in the social and physical mobility that characterized the generations after the death of Constantine.57 The senate’s importance as a body may have been less significant than the presence in the city of both former office-holders and leading men from the cities of the Greek east, expected to 51. Socrates, HE 4.38.5. Th is last point seems likely to be a post eventum fiction. See Vanderspoel q.v., 233–37, for the possibility that Valens may have in some way downgraded the status of Constantinople and/or its senators. 52. See also Mango, Le développement urbain, 37–42. 53. Valens also built granaries. 54. Consularia Constantinopolitana s.a. 359, 360; see also McLynn, “The Transformation of Imperial Churchgoing,” 248–50. 55. McLynn, “The Transformation of Imperial Churchgoing,” 251. 56. See Grierson, “The Tombs and Obits of the Byzantine Emperors”; Kelly, “The New Rome and the Old”; Croke, “Reinventing Constantinople,” 252–54. 57. See Jones, Later Roman Empire, 525–30; Heather, “New Men for New Constantines?”

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have a base in the city while preserving and adding to their distinction at home. By any standards, these were groups of opinion-formers whom it was important to conciliate. Controversy remains about the stages and pace of the senate’s development, but as mentioned above, the evidence for its germ being created under Constantine is sound, even if aggrandizement and equality with Rome occurred only later.58 A number of indicators coincide on the late 350s as the real moment of growth for the Constantinopolitan senate, and recent scholarship, including works by Dagron, Heather, and Vanderspoel, has tended to agree on this as the crucial period.59 In 357 or 358, the philosopher Themistius was given the role of recruiting new senators, and much later, in the mid-380s, he claimed that his activities had increased the size of the senate from barely 300 to 2,000 (Or. 34.13), an extraordinary figure. Other legislation from this period has been interpreted as showing the transfer of eastern senators from the Roman to the Constantinopolitan senate.60 And in his correspondence from the late 350s and early 360s, Libanius makes plenty of references to the recruitment drive— displaying resentment of other cities’ councilors being poached for the bigger council in Constantinople, but also using his connections in the big city, where he had taught until a few years before, to smooth the way for his friends.61 The appointment of the first prefect of the city in 359 was also a measure that enhanced the senate’s status. Claudius Mamertinus’ panegyric for Julian, discussed in Roger Rees’s chapter, can be added as evidence of imperial solicitude for the Constantinopolitan senate. Julian walked his new consul to his inauguration, where the consul explained the emperor’s old Roman civilitas to these new Roman senators.62 The emphasis on the late 350s, and on 357 in particular, as the moment for the eastern senate’s coming of age is not unreasonable. Nevertheless, this is another case in which the biases in the survival of evidence should be remembered. For example, we do not know how quickly the remarkable growth in the senate attested by Themistius happened, and some scholars see this as a process of very few years, while others see it as occupying the nearly thirty years between 357/8 and the mid-380s.63 Libanius’ correspondence is unhelpfully 58. Origo Constantini 30 (see n.44 above); CTh 6.4.5 of 340 creates a new praetorship in Constantinople—that is, a route into the senate—but it is in addition to already existing ones (Chastagnol, “Remarques sur les sénateurs de Constantinople,” 346–47). 59. See Dagron, Naissance, ch. 4; Heather, “New Men for New Constantines”; Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, ch. 3. See also Vanderspoel q.v., 224, 234–35. 60. CTh 6.4.11. See Chastagnol, “Remarques sur les sénateurs de Constantinople,” 346–47; Skinner, “The Early Development of the Senate of Constantinople,” 130–41. 61. See Petit, “Les sénateurs de Constantinople.” 62. Pan. Lat. 3(11).28–30; cf. Amm. 22.7.1. 63. Chastagnol, “Remarques sur les sénateurs de Constantinople,” 350–53, for 358–59; Dagron, Naissance, 130, for 357–360/1; Jones, Later Roman Empire, 527, for 358–85; Heather, “New Men for

16 Grig and Kelly skewed, as almost all of his letters written between 365 and the late 380s are missing. Late in his life, in 390, he wrote a speech (much cited by scholars) for his friend Thalassius, unfairly rejected for the senate because of his father’s manufacturing background. Libanius complained that the senate had had members far humbler in its early years—sons of coppersmiths, sausage makers, bath attendants, and fullers; whatever allowances we make for his rhetoric, it seems credible that the initial wave of expansion and the concomitant opportunities for social mobility had waned.64 We are also short of evidence for the period in which most of Libanius’ lowborn senators belong, before the mid350s; but, as a recent article by Alexander Skinner has reestablished, there is no reason to believe a senate equal in formal status to Rome’s (as opposed to size or prestige) is the product of the late 350s; instead, the best interpretation of the limited evidence is to see a Constantinian foundation, with the first expansion belonging to the early years of Constantius’ reign when he was an eastern emperor with an uneasy relationship with his western counterpart, Constans.65 Constantinople’s growth despite the emperors’ absence can be explained by the practical need to provide an infrastructure to match the population, by the political opportunities available to rulers from cultivating the support of the senatorial elite present there, and by the momentum caused by the senate’s growth. The fact of the emperors’ (comparative) absence did not mean the city was insignificant to them: indeed, its ongoing distinctness despite imperial distance is a phenomenon reminiscent of Rome in the same period (see below). But once an emperor moved to the city and established it as a base for his dynasty, it comes into clearer focus and seems more like the Constantinople of middle Byzantine history. Theodosius had been elected as a soldier emperor in 379, but when after unsuccessful campaigns he came to Constantinople in the following year, he established the city as a permanent court more than any previous emperor, even Constantine. As a recent study by Brian Croke emphasizes, many of the defining ceremonials and physical characteristics of Constantinople as the ruling city (hē basileuousa polis) date from Theodosius’ reign.66 If there could not be victories, there could still be triumphs, and other imperial ceremonies too: his son Arcadius was proclaimed Augustus there in 383, so that an emperor was left in the city even when Theodosius ventured to the west. As under Constantine, new material culture, both built and imported, New Constantines,” 13, for “over thirty years rather than six”; Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 108, for “some time after 357.” 64. Or. 42: translated in Norman, Antioch as a Centre of Hellenic Culture, 145–67; see also Petit, “Les sénateurs de Constantinople.” 65. Skinner, “The Early Development of the Senate of Constantinople”; see also his “The Birth of a ‘Byzantine’ Senatorial Perspective.” Chastagnol, “Remarques sur les sénateurs de Constantinople,” 343–47, also argues for Constantine as founder. 66. “Reinventing Constantinople.” See also Matthews, Western Aristocracies, ch. 5.

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glorified the city: a new forum, a golden gate, an Egyptian obelisk in the circus, the head of John the Baptist, bodies of dead emperors to fill the mausoleum of the Church of the Apostles. The church of Constantinople both participated in and benefited from these developments. Within a few days of entering the city, Theodosius had installed a Nicene bishop, Gregory of Nazianzus, in the cathedral. Within a few months, in 381, the council of Constantinople had gathered: an important moment in the Constantinopolitan church’s development even if, as Neil McLynn argues in his provocative chapter, the third canon of the council, which conferred exalted rank on the see of Constantinople as New Rome, was not as momentous a change as has sometimes been perceived. The year of Theodosius’ death, 395, is sometimes seen as a decisive moment when eastern and western empires finally divided and Constantinople was definitively established as the capital of the east.67 The point on the empire’s division is overstated.68 It ignores not only the continuing rhetoric of unity but also the fact that the empire had been divided for the majority of the previous hundred years, with separate government and legislation even when the two regimes had a good relationship.69 Indeed, the divided nature of the fourthcentury empire is a central underlying cause of Constantinople’s, and its senate’s, development. Nonetheless, the accession of Arcadius and Honorius in east and west in 395—weak young emperors who never grew up politically— and the long minority of Theodosius II after 408 ensured that the trend of the reign of Theodosius I continued. Though the east in the first half of the fift h century is somewhat worse attested, and far less studied, than in the fourth century, the Theodosian period in Constantinople is both far better attested and far more widely studied than the preceding era. Constantinople was now simply central to imperial and ecclesiastical politics. Among recent scholarship illuminating a broad range of individual sources and episodes, one might list the work of Cameron and Long in interpreting Synesius, Liebeschuetz on Chrysostom, Van Nuffelen on the church historians Socrates and Sozomen, and most recently Millar’s use of a rich panoply of evidence, above all the church councils, to illuminate the functioning of “The Greek Roman Empire” of Theodosius II’s reign.70 In this volume, John Matthews’ translation and 67. See, e.g., Demougeot, De l’unité à la division. 68. Vanderspoel q.v., 238–40, defends the importance of 395. Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, refers to “twin empires.” 69. Errington’s Roman Imperial Policy sees the fundamental moment of change as the accession of Valentinian and Valens in 364, but it is possible to take it much further back. The tendency towards separately governed partes imperii is exemplified (and complicated) by the transformation of the praetorian prefecture in the early to mid-fourth century into an entity of civilian government with regional divisions (often three, sometimes more); the prefects themselves sometimes accompanied emperors and sometimes held authority in their absence. 70. Respectively, Barbarians and Politics, Barbarians and Bishops, Un héritage de paix, and A Greek Roman Empire.

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study of a shorter but highly significant text, the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, gives a vivid picture of the state of the city and its population just after its hundredth year: still showing physical traces of old Byzantium, blessed with every civic amenity, but not particularly advanced in church building. The title Urbs Constantinopolitana nova Roma did not now appear overstated. 3. Urbs Aeterna : Rome in the Fourth Century Roma aeterna, aurea Roma: poets and orators proclaimed the glory of the city of Rome with renewed vigor in the century after Constantine, precisely the period of its supposed eclipse. In marked contrast to Constantinople, sources abound: rich testimony is provided by panegyric, epistolography, historiography, poetry, and epigraphy, not to mention the built environment. As ever, our clearest insights are into aristocratic culture, whether through inscriptions, letters from a wide range of figures (from Jerome to Symmachus), or the archaeological traces of their increasingly imposing residences. Scholarship on the late antique city of Rome has itself been enjoying something of a golden age as scholars of both literary and material culture have provided important reassessments, finally giving due weight to secular developments alongside the ever-vexed question of the city’s Christianization. In the past, highly specialized studies suffered from lack of contextualization; interdisciplinary and syncretic accounts are now presenting fuller pictures of the city. This period was of course crucial in the religious transformation of the city, as shown by both prosopographical and topographical evidence. Traditionally the history of late antique Rome has suffered from “papalization,” with an overconcentration on Christian, and especially papal, sources and a marked tendency to take the Christian literary texts at face value. More recent work on the “Christianization” of Rome has sought to give a more nuanced picture. Pietri’s monumental Roma Christiana obviously gave priority to Christian affairs (though not without a broader context), while Curran’s important monograph Pagan City and Christian Capital provides a persuasive account of changes in topography and society in Rome during the fourth century. Bowes’s study of religious change in Rome (and elsewhere) with an innovative focus on private religion has added considerable nuance to the picture.71 However, we can also look to an increasing volume of scholarship that views the city and its society from a more avowedly secular angle. Increasingly, the aristocrats of fourth- and fift h-century Rome are coming to the fore, as patrons and as political and cultural actors;72 it has

71. Bowes, Private Worship, 63–103. Many other works could of course be listed here but note for varying methodology and source material Salzman, Christian Aristocracy; Grig, “Portraits, Pontiffs and the Christianization of Fourth-Century Rome.” 72. Recent scholarship in this vein includes Cracco Ruggini “Rome in Late Antiquity”; Lizzi Testa, Senatori, popolo, papi; and Machado, Urban Space and q.v.

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become clear that the period represented a heyday for this elite, not least as the emperor was so rarely in the city.73 The rise in importance of the prefect of the city, a position increasingly dominated by the most prestigious aristocratic families, is a striking instance of this.74 We have already mentioned the difficulties experienced by Diocletian and other emperors in dealing with Rome, and if imperial residence in Rome was the exception rather than the rule in the later third century, for most of the fourth century it was virtually unknown. A number of factors contributed to this, above all the preservation of quasi-republican forms of behavior which affected interactions with both senate and people. Diocletian was not the only emperor who suffered from the free speech of the plebs. Religious tensions may also have played a part. The (late-fift h-century?) pagan historian Zosimus has Constantine jeered for refusing to sacrifice, and founding Constantinople because of his rejection. The latter is anachronistic fiction, but Constantine’s bad reception at his Vicennalia in 326 seems to be independently verified.75 At any rate, imperial visits were risky, and remarkably rare.76 This is the background to perhaps the most famous set-piece description of Rome in late antique literature: Ammianus Marcellinus (16.10) on Constantius II’s visit to the city in 357. The visit itself stood out because it was over thirty years since the last visit by a legitimate emperor, by Constantine in 326, and over thirty years before the next, by Theodosius I in 389. Ammianus portrays the haughtiness of Constantius’ formal triumph, but then his success in developing a successful and respectful relationship with the Roman people. Still, Constantius spent only one month of twenty-four years as Augustus in the city. It is clear that the special position of Rome as the emperor’s city could no longer be taken for granted. This fact is illuminated by the section of this book devoted to panegyric. Panegyric is in many ways the characteristic genre of the late empire, and the period saw, on the one hand, its development into subgenres like the epic verse panegyrics of Claudian and his successors (treated here by Gavin Kelly and Andrew Gillett) and the philosophical panegyrics of Themistius (discussed by John Vanderspoel) and, on the other, its insinuation into other genres. One thinks of famous passages in praise of Rome in the historian Ammianus (who also wrote passages of invective—anti-panegyric—against the city) or

73. See now Chenault, Rome Without Emperors. Th is situation is markedly different for the fi ft h century; see here Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” which challenged the assumption that Ravenna was the primary seat of imperial government in the fi ft h century; see too Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope?” and q.v. For a cautious defense of Ravenna’s importance, see Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity, esp. 1–5 and 46–51. 74. The crucial works here remain Chastagnol, Fastes and La préfecture. It would be impossible to write similar works on the prefecture of Constantinople. 75. Zosimus 2.29.5–30.4; Wiemer, “Libanios und Zosimos.” 76. For a list, see Demandt, Die Spätantike, 376, n.7 (1989 edn., = 424 n.21 in 2007 edn.). The suggestion that Gratian visited in 376 is, however, dubious.

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the poet Rutilius Namatianus,77 or indeed Prudentius’ adaptation of the traditional praises of Roma aeterna towards a Christianized depiction of Roma renovata.78 As these examples remind us, panegyrics could be addressed both to rulers and to cities; they are typically used to negotiate a relationship between them. At a time when this relationship was up in the air, panegyrics and panegyrical writings provide a vital source for these tensions between emperors and imperial cities. This is shown in the first place by Roger Rees’s chapter. Rees focuses on the place of Rome in the Panegyrici Latini, a collection of imperial panegyrics assembled by the orator Pacatus under Theodosius I, but headed by Pliny’s panegyric of Trajan from a.d. 100, and otherwise featuring panegyrics given in Gaul or by Gauls between 289 and Pacatus’ own encomium of Theodosius I, delivered on a rare imperial visit to Rome in 389. Even though the collection brings together panegyrics given in other cities, the speeches share a concern with Rome, and they illustrate the endurance of the ideology and iconography of the urbs Roma, but also the transformation in the city’s status and the differing agendas of east and west. Rees considers the place of Rome in Pacatus’ motivations as collector; but the emperor was not to be lured to the city permanently. The best-known promoter of the late antique city of Rome was a native Greek speaker from Alexandria, the poet Claudius Claudianus, who arrived in Rome in 394, and became, in a series of panegyrical and invective poems, the spokesman of Stilicho, the power behind the emperor Honorius. Much has been written on the relationship between Claudian and Rome, on his famous ekphrases of the city,79 and representation of the senate’s interests through the goddess Roma. The poet’s treatment of Constantinople has received far less attention. Gavin Kelly’s chapter examines Claudian’s anti-Byzantine polemic, most notably in the In Eutropium, written at a time of tension between Honorius’ western court and that of Constantinople. The goddess Roma plays a role here in asserting the superiority of the old Rome, with whom, for Claudian, there could be no equal; Constantinople could only ever be an “ersatz Rome.” The genre founded by Claudian is also the subject of Andrew Gillett’s chapter. Gillett looks at the delivery of epic verse panegyric from Claudian in the 390s to Sidonius Apollinaris in the 450s and 460s. As Gillett clearly shows, this was a new style of panegyric which functioned as a new pattern of communication and negotiation between the imperial court and the western generalissimos 77. Amm. 14.6.2–6 and 16.10 for praises of Rome, 14.6.7–26 and 28.4 for invective (though the noun invective is anachronistic, it usefully covers the techniques of vituperatio or psogos, which rhetorical handbooks treated as the exact opposite of panegyric). 78. On the myth of Roma Aeterna, see Paschoud, Roma Aeterna and Brodka, Die Romideologie; and on the links between traditional and Christian praises of Rome, see Roberts, “Rome Personified.” 79. See, for example, Stil. 3.130–68 and 6Cos. 39–52 (a passage discussed at several points in this book).

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on the one hand, and the senate of Rome on the other, and which clearly maintained continuing importance through the late fourth and fifth centuries. The significance of such poets in fifth-century politics is evidenced not least by the statues of Claudian and the verse panegyrists who came after him, erected in the Forum of Trajan. While panegyrical poetry was a prestigious genre in our period, the cento is a late antique form which has been much derided, both in Late Antiquity and today. John Curran’s chapter takes us into the literary salons of the city of Rome, looking at the elite culture of late antique Rome through a study of the Virgilian cento of the aristocratic matrona Proba. This study illuminates “a distinctive social milieu: the generation after conversion and the politics of that  world.” This study also reminds us of the important role played by the co-option, or rather negotiation, of the classical literary tradition in the Christianization of Rome. The predilection of the late antique Roman aristocracy for literary culture is something of a cliché and has been subjected to sustained attack by Alan Cameron,80 but nevertheless it remains the case that members of this elite liked to present themselves as bearers of literary and cultural values. A vital source of evidence for this ethos is epigraphy, with a number of surviving honorific inscriptions, often in verse, presenting the claims to literary culture of the honorand as a crucial and inherent part of his nobilitas.81 A particularly prominent theme in the most recent scholarship is the late antique city’s interest in, and relationship to, the classical past. This late antique antiquarianism took in the built environment as much as the literary tradition. Ralf Behrwald, for instance, has shown the persistence of the idea of Roma aeterna, as a result of which the historic monuments of the city took on a newly nostalgic esteem as ornamenta, a development where rivalry with the upstart Constantinople was clearly relevant.82 Meanwhile, Steffen Diefenbach has added a new element to our understanding of the city’s late antique transformation by focusing on the subject of cultural memory.83 This perspective has yielded important new insights for our interpretation of the changing topography of the fourth-century city. The study of topographical change in late antique Rome has been dominated by Krautheimer’s analysis of what he called “political topography.” Krautheimer made much of the idea of “an inherent contradiction” at the heart of 80. See Alan Cameron, “Poetry and Literary Culture in Late Antiquity,” and, particularly, The Last Pagans of Rome, esp. 399–420. 81. See here Niquet, Monumenta virtutum titulique, 167–72. Examples include the statue base of Anicius Auchenius Bassus (I) that once stood in the Forum of Trajan: eloquentia and disertitudo: CIL 6.1679; Sextus Petronius Probus was praised as the litterarum et eloquentiae lumen: CIL 6.1751; Cf. CIL 6.1779d, lines 5–12, praising Praetextatus’ studiis, including translating poetry and prose. 82. Behrwald, Die Stadt als Museum? 83. Diefenbach, Römische Erinnerungsräume.

22 Grig and Kelly Constantine’s building program, arguing that the emperor built his church on private land in the outskirts of the city in order to avoid aggravating the dominant pagan aristocracy.84 This picture has undergone important modifications in recent years, not least through recent archaeological discoveries that have both highlighted the importance of the Lateran region and brought to light the early history of S. Marco. Diefenbach has offered a compelling reinterpretation of Constantine’s project, arguing that Constantine built his churches on the outskirts not from fear of pagan reaction but as an active choice in his selfrepresentation. In his secular building projects in the centro storico—including the Basilica Nova and the baths—Constantine chose to present himself as the city’s liberator from the tyrant Maxentius, while in the extra-mural sites he was able to draw considerable benefit from associating the cult of the imperial dead with the cult of the martyrs.85 Our understanding of the built environment of late antique Rome has improved hugely in recent years, thanks to the wealth of archaeological scholarship focused on late antique Rome. This focus is clearly overdue: Christian archaeology had long labored to track the history of Rome’s churches and catacombs, but its separation from “Roman” archaeology led to a distorted and disjointed picture of the city.86 This is slowly changing. For instance, the extension of the Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae project into the Suburbium, encompassing both Christian and secular structures, has greatly added to our knowledge and understanding of the late antique city.87 Other important work elsewhere is also helping to present a far clearer picture of the development of secular space, both public88 and private.89 The changing relationship between public and private space is one of the most fascinating trajectories in our period. Carlos Machado’s chapter on housing in the late antique city of Rome demonstrates how elite houses shaped not just the physical environment but also institutions and society. A boom in aristocratic housing in the fourth century involved the progressive takeover, on an unprecedented scale, of public space by private interests. This in turn is related to the important change in the political standing of the city for a reason already mentioned: the progressive physical and political distancing of the imperial court. Rome’s aristocrats were quick to take advantage of this situation. Indeed, this chapter neatly demonstrates, along with other recent studies, how this period can be seen as a golden age for the aristocrats of Rome. Machado’s study clearly shows one of the key themes of this volume—that “at least from 84. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals, 25; 28–31; See also his Rome, 22. 85. Diefenbach, Römische Erinnerungsräume, ch. 3. Related to this is Constantine’s erection of church buildings on sites associated with the pro-Maxentian equites singulares. 86. Marazzi, “Rome in Transition,” argues for an end to this dichotomy. 87. Regina et al., Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae: Suburbium. 88. See Bauer, Stadt, Platz und Denkmal. 89. The work of Guidobaldi here is crucial; see, e.g., “L’edilizia abitativa unifamiliare.”

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the early fourth to the middle of the fift h century, the evolution of Rome’s urban space was much more complex than concepts such as ‘Christianization’ suggest.” Here again we see an important corrective to the influential but overly teleological picture drawn by Krautheimer. For Krautheimer, Rome refused to become Constantine’s Christian capital, and this was an important reason for the emperor’s decision “to abandon the West altogether” and set up a capital at Byzantium.90 Nonetheless, Krautheimer saw a pagan-Christian conflict as over by the end of the fourth century, from which point he saw the city as “under papal rule”;91 his description of the bishop of Rome as “ de facto ruler of Rome in the fift h century”92 is seriously challenged by Mark Humphries.93 4. Christian Capitals It is now possible to paint a far more nuanced picture of Rome as a “Christian capital,” and several chapters in this book illuminate the picture still further. Again, we know significantly less about Constantinople for most of the fourth and fift h centuries, but it is clear that the shape of Christianity in these two cities also differed greatly. The cities’ respective statuses as Christian capitals were of course highly unequal, at least at the start of our period. Whatever we think of Eusebius’ claim that in Constantinople, Constantine created a city free from idol worship (VC 3.48), it is clear that the pagan past was far less prominent in the New Rome than in the old. As discussed above, the “Christianization” of the city of Rome has been the subject of a great deal of scholarship and can be looked at from a wide range of perspectives, taking in a host of sources, archaeological as well as literary. We know very little indeed about the Christian community in Byzantium, but it seems likely it was small and lacking in importance, even on a local scale, with no particular traditions of its own that survived. That is, Constantinople also lacked a significant Christian past. For example, Constantinople was lacking in prominent martyrs, though there were two local ones, Mokios and Akakios. In 356–57 Constantius II moved apostolic—and therefore world-class—relics of Timothy, Luke, and Andrew to Constantinople.94 This was a clear attempt to give Constantinople more clout as a holy city, and further prestigious relic translations would follow under Theodosius I.95 The activities of Ambrose in providing martyrs for the 90. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals, 39–40. 91. Ibid., 3–4. 92. Ibid., 120–21. Pietri, Roma Christiana, 1653, claimed that the Rome of Leo I was already a Christian capital, and saw the reign of Damasus as the key period for the Christian “conquest” of urban space and the city itself. 93. Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope,” and q.v. 94. See Burgess, “The Passio S. Artemii,” for confirmation of this date, but also the suggestion that these relics may have arrived in Constantine’s reign and simply been reinstalled under Constantius. 95. See here Ward-Perkins, “The Cities,” 401 and q.v.

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churches of another imperial city on the make, Milan, provides a nice comparison. Ultimately, from the sixth century on, Constantinople would of course trump even these biblical saints by declaring the Virgin Mary to be the city’s special patron.96 In our period, however, Peter and Paul would easily trump the imported martyrs of Constantinople. Ward-Perkins provides a useful discussion, and comparison, of the late antique churches of Rome and Constantinople in his chapter. It seems clear that Constantine got off to a slow start in his new city.97 Church building in Constantinople made a significant step forward under Constantius II, but it is arguably under the Theodosians that the real momentum can be found. Even in Rome, however, which boasted an impressive number of Constantinian basilicas, progress in building was, inevitably, slow. It is therefore likely that in general Roman Christians would have worshiped in the same places as Christians of the third century—that is, in the houses of the elite.98 We need to imagine (and can do no more) the same thing happening in Constantinople. The hierarchy and organization of the late antique church increasingly mirrored the state’s. Bishops of provincial capitals had special statuses, as “metropolitan”—this in theory included the right and duty to confi rm all episcopal elections in their own provinces, courtesy of the fourth canon of Nicaea. The bishops of the traditional “big” cities of empire—Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome—were one step up again as so-called patriarchates, but this system was never very clear-cut and shifted in accordance with changes in geopolitics. In the last quarter of the fourth century, a forceful bishop like Ambrose of Milan was able to extend his authority some way beyond his own see; in the same period the status of the church at Constantinople seemed increasingly inappropriate, given the city’s political importance. Th is is, of course, an important context of the Council of Constantinople in 381. The famous third canon of the Council, asserting that “[t]he bishop of Constantinople shall have the prerogatives of honor after the bishop of Rome through its being New Rome,” has traditionally been accorded great importance as a turning point in the history of the church. However, in his importantly revisionist chapter, Neil McLynn argues powerfully that the canon has been consistently viewed with hindsight, or at

96. See Averil Cameron, “The Theotokos in Sixth-Century Constantinople,” and Limberis, Divine Heiress. 97. We cannot be certain that Constantine built the Church of S. Mokios, for instance, as the evidence dates from the mid-fi ft h-century, “well after the Constantinian myth machine was set into motion,” as Bowes has it: Private Worship, 107. Whether it was Constantine or Constantius II who began S. Sophia is also unclear. 98. Bowes, Private Worship, 72–73.

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least in overly teleological terms. He goes on to argue that perhaps the formula was deliberately designed to mean little in practice, not least because no one actually expected Rome to intervene in the affairs of Constantinople in any case. In fact, the two sees would mean very little to each other, at least in the short term. Therefore, McLynn suggests, we should reevaluate the third canon as “a dog that consistently refused to bark.” The relationship between the two sees, however, continued to oscillate and played a significant part in the doctrinal and disciplinary controversies that shook the church. Pope Leo I insisted on the divine origin of Rome’s primacy, on its crucial status as sedes Petri, which trumped the earthly origins of Constantinople’s status, as regia civitas or basileuousa polis, every time.99 Constantinople was officially awarded the status of patriarchate at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, but this was not recognized by Rome. The schism in the east that followed this council did not affect relations with the west, and in a sense Rome can be seen as a “third wheel” in the crucial relationship between Alexandria and Constantinople. However, Rome remained a key player, and the attempt of Emperor Zeno in 482 to reconcile Chalcedonian and antiChalcedonian parties with the promulgation of the Henoticon, or act of union, had the effect of provoking the Acacian Schism, between east and west, which lasted from 484 to 519. Philippe Blaudeau notes that the great doctrinal conflicts of the fift h and sixth centuries have too often been analyzed through the narrow of prism of doctrinal history or, alternatively, tackled in an overly reductive manner as socio-national disputes. Instead, it is suggested, we should consider these controversies as part of a theological “great game.” Blaudeau’s chapter takes up the relationship between Rome and Constantinople in the aftermath of the Acacian Schism, at the moment of a new rapprochement. His careful examination of the period’s “geo-ecclesiology” unpicks the negotiations, posturing, and false starts that accompanied the establishment of a new entente cordiale between the two churches. 5. The Transformation of Rome and Constantinople in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries By 519, Rome and Constantinople were inescapably heading in opposite directions. But in looking at the two cities in the period before this, it is important, and our aim in this book, to eschew a teleological narrative. It is especially important to avoid assuming decline as part of Rome’s story before it actually happens, whether looking at such areas as the fate of the physical fabric of the

99. See, e.g., Leo, Ep. 104.3 and Maccarone, “Roma città di Pietro e di Paolo.”

26 Grig and Kelly city or examining the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical power. It is easy to take the Gothic sack of Rome in 410 as seriously as Jerome did and to mock the upbeat take of Orosius as delusion;100 it is also an easy and understandable step to take the sack of Rome as a metaphor for the fate of the whole western empire. Both of these steps are simplifications which suit a general historical trend. As far as concerns the city, another convenient simplification has been to ignore the presence of emperors in Rome in the fifth century: as Andrew Gillett pointed out, the portrayal of Ravenna, with its decadent associations, as the principal western residence in the fifth century suits a narrative of decline; conversely, scholars have placed the transformation of Rome into a papal city anachronistically early. In his chapter, Mark Humphries, following on his own earlier work and that of Gillett, shows the continuing importance of Rome to emperors in the fifth century, focusing in particular on the stays of Valentinian III (425–55) in the city.101 The activities of Roman bishops were “embedded in secular networks,” and Valentinian seems to have made the largest imperial donations to the Roman church of any emperor since Constantine. He also made his presence felt in more traditional arenas of imperial self-representation, such as the Forum of Trajan and the Colosseum. Moreover, we can trace the serious effort made to interact with the senatorial aristocracy and city government. Overall, Humphries shows, it is a mistake to see this period as one that witnessed a swift eclipse of secular power networks by ecclesiastical ones. Constantinople in the same period was the sole imperial residence and permanent metropolis of an eastern empire that was booming and, for the most part, far less exposed to external military threats than the west. Peter Van Nuffelen’s chapter provides a subtle account of the often tense interaction between emperor and bishop in what was increasingly becoming a Christian capital. His particular focus is on ritual interaction in Constantinople under the Theodosian emperors; the chapter therefore has a bearing on the vexed question of how far it is possible to project later Byzantine Christian ritual back into late antique Constantinople.102 He provides close readings of imperial participation in ecclesiastical ritual, situations which emperors could not generally control and which often threatened to get out of hand. The downfall of John Chrysostom in 403–404 is a particularly stark example of conflict, but Van Nuffelen shows consistently that rituals, “as much as occasions for the display of imperial and ecclesiastical virtue, . . . could be occasions for challenge and competition, entailing the possibility of gain and the risk of defeat.”

100. E.g., Jerome, Commentary on Ezechiel, praef. 1, praef. 3; Orosius Hist. 7.39–40. 101. Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna”; Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope?” 102. See Croke’s convincing argument in “Reinventing Constantinople” that the origin of many Byzantine rituals can be placed in the reign of Theodosius I.

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The last years of the western empire witnessed considerable deterioration in the fabric and population of the city of Rome. Population estimates vary, but a steep decline from the mid-fift h century and through the sixth century seems likely.103 Disasters hit the city, including floods and plague as well as the Gothic sack in 410, the Vandal sack of 455, and earthquakes in 422 and 508; the conquest of north Africa, traditional source of grain for Rome, by the Vandals in the 430s must also have increased the downward pressure on population. Recent archaeological work, most notably in the area of the Crypta Balbi and the Imperial Fora, has brought about a huge advance in our understanding of the transformation of Rome in the late antique and early medieval periods, illustrating processes of decay, abandonment, and reuse.104 These processes were, of course, uneven: the Forum of Trajan saw broad continuity in its maintenance of space until the ninth century, and the palace occupation of the Palatine likewise continued into the early medieval period. The Gothic king Theodoric (493–526) invested both time and resources in restoration and building in Rome, albeit carefully selecting areas that suited his attempts to portray himself in the imperial tradition.105 The opposing trajectories of the two cities in terms of infrastructure can be seen in James Crow’s chapter, which focuses on the water supply of Constantinople from the fourth to the seventh centuries. Rivalry between the two cities is again apparent (notably under Arcadius and Honorius); but ultimately, while major investment in infrastructure ceased at Rome (the last major secular project being the heightening of the walls in 403), it continued at Constantinople. The aqueducts of Rome, once considered one of the true wonders of the world, were still functioning when they were cut during the siege of 537. Bryan WardPerkins’ chapter compares the two cities from the fourth through to the sixth centuries, taking in such important categories as churches, housing, and infrastructure, and he provides a uniquely clear overview of the twin trajectories. The picture is undeniable: “Rome, by the early sixth century, was a city living on former, and now decaying, grandeur. Constantinople by contrast was a boom town.” Justinian’s rebuilding of S. Sophia after the Nika riots of 532 would, in its grandeur of scale and command of space, clearly symbolize the status of Constantinople as simply “the greatest city of the Mediterranean.” The reign of Justinian constitutes a clear turning point in relations between the old Roman Empire and the new. It is above all the reconquest of much of the western Mediterranean from the mid-530s onwards that is responsible for 103. See in particular Durliat, De la ville antique à la ville byzantine, 110–25, and, for a brief summary, Van Dam, Rome and Constantinople, 50. 104. See here particularly Arena et al., Roma dall’Antichità al Medioevo; Meneghini, and Santangeli Valenzani, Roma nell’altomedioevo and I Fori Imperiali. 105. See here Della Valle, “Teodorico e Roma.” Theodoric’s building activity in Ravenna was of course far more substantial.

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this: the Gothic kingdom of Italy was toppled, but at the expense of a generation of devastating conflict across Italy. Rome itself suffered three major sieges and changed hands five times; paradoxically, it is often considered that the reconquest of the west struck the fatal blow to Roman civilization there.106 Justinian (who never visited his western conquests) famously represented himself very much in the traditional Roman mold; nonetheless, the idea of the supremacy of the New Rome over the old was expressed clearly in the political ideology of the time. Paul the Silentiary delivered a panegyrical ekphrasis on the great Church of S. Sophia in December 562 or January 563, in which he proclaimed this primacy in powerful terms: But come, fruitful Rome, and garland our life-giving emperor, clothing him abundantly with pure hymns, not because he has fitted your yokeband on the nations of the earth, nor because he has extended the immeasurable spaces of your throne beyond the outermost boundaries, over against the shores of Ocean, but because, by raising this infinite temple about your arm [i.e. as an armlet, adorning personified Rome], he has made you more brilliant than your mother on the Tiber who bore you. Give way, I say, renowned Roman Capitol, give way! My emperor has so far overtopped that wonder as great God is superior to an idol! (145–54)107 A yet more dramatic instance of superiority is proclaimed in the panegyric written by Corippus in 565 for the coronation of Justin II. Corippus describes the vestment laid over Justinian’s coffin, depicting, alongside the former emperor trampling on the neck of the king of the Vandals, antiquam . . . Romam, bare-breasted, with hands outstretched to “the loft y parent of empire and liberty” (Iust. 1.288–90). Averil Cameron has rightly commented that there “could be nothing more classic either in Latin literature or in visual art than Corippus’ description of Old Rome and nothing more symbolic or poignant than the fact that he represents Old Rome in the guise of the conquered, paying homage to New Rome in the figure of Justinian.”108 6. Retrospects The journey from old to New Rome treated in this book, and this introductory chapter, is a long one, with many absorbing stops and diversions on the way, as well as many equally fascinating points where we could have stopped but did not. As contemporaries contemplated the past of their cities, they reshaped it, partly to explain the cities’ present conditions. These aetiologies usually, if not 106. See recently O’Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire. 107. Bell, Three Political Voices. 108. Averil Cameron, “Old and New Rome.”

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exclusively, began from the developments set in motion by Constantine’s conversion. The tale of Constantine’s leprosy cured by his baptism by Pope Sylvester, and of his consequent foundation of Constantinople, was current in both east and west, but it developed in distinct ways. In the east, we have the story of Constantine’s senators coming back from campaign in Persia to find their Roman mansions perfectly reconstructed in the New Rome; in the west, Constantine’s departure was used to justify and to backdate papal power, with the myth of the Donation of Constantine enduring through the Middle Ages. The broader pattern is, as one would expect, that east and west paid ever less attention to each other. In the early sixth century, the use of the name Byzantion for Constantinople becomes common; Hesychius of Miletus’ foundation myth stresses the pre-Roman and pre-Constantinian Byzantion; and the same tendency is found in other later texts in the Patria collection, even if their tendency is Christianizing while Hesychius’ is Hellenizing.109 The process by which Constantinople could be termed “Second Rome,” “New Rome,” even simply “Rome” without any qualifier at all has been traced through to its logical conclusion by Glen Bowersock, in his examination of the trio of city personifications on a late sixth-century mosaic from Madaba (the same town as the wonderful map discussed in Grig’s chapter): Rome, Gregoria, and Madaba represented in traditional guise as Tyches. This is an odd grouping, but Bowersock has an intriguing interpretation: first, he suggests that “Gregoria” is actually Antioch, but also, more relevant for us, that “Rome” is actually Constantinople.110 It is clear that most people in the late antique near east “had no awareness of the Italian city of all. For them Rome was, quite simply, Constantinople.”111 For modern scholars, too, the journey ends at two very distinct destinations, which we tend to call the early medieval and middle Byzantine periods. As we have seen, the patterns of late antique political thought tend to leave their mark on modern scholarly perceptions, and the very use of the name “Byzantines” for the eastern Romans arguably reflects the tendency of westerners from the fift h and sixth centuries onward to dismiss them as “Greeks.” But the people generally labeled “Byzantines” called themselves Rōmaioi and their homeland Rōmanía. (The Turkish word for Constantinople is Rum and the adjective rumeli, the Arabic is Rūm and rūmiya.) In the final chapter in this collection, Anthony Kaldellis argues that we should take these designations seriously, building on his important recent book on Hellenism in Byzantium. He provides a fascinating complement to the rest of the studies by looking afresh at the

109. See Kaldellis, “The Works and Days of Hesychios”; Preger, Patria; Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire and “Représentations de l’ancienne et de la nouvelle Rome.” 110. Bowersock, Mosaics as History, 81–88. 111. Bowersock, “Old and New Rome in the Late Antique Near East,” 47.

30 Grig and Kelly issue of the Roman status of Constantinople in the fully fledged Byzantine Empire. Kaldellis takes seriously the claim of the Byzantines to be Roman, arguing strongly that “what we call Byzantium was the nation-state of the Romans.” The importance of Constantinople in the formulation of this Roman identity is actually de-centered by Kaldellis, who points out that it survived the loss of the city in 1204. He lays out an argument that “creates theoretical space for a new interpretation of Byzantium,” and it is to be hoped that other scholars will take up the challenge. Medieval visitors to Rome and Constantinople provide imaginary topographies which are both oddly familiar and strangely different. For medieval Rome we have a series of descriptions and pilgrim guides, clearly related to the ancient genre of descriptio urbis.112 The twelft h-century Mirabilia Urbis Romae claimed authority on several grounds in its conclusion: These and many other temples and palaces of the emperors, consuls, senators, and prefects of pagan times were in this city of Rome, as we read in the oldest annals and see with our own eyes and have heard from the old. We have taken care to put into writing for the memory of posterity as best we could, how great was their beauty of gold and silver, bronze and ivory and precious stones.113 The author wanted to show that Christian Rome superseded its pagan antecedent, but also presented a beguiling and mythical image of this pagan Rome, including the fabulous temple “called Olovitreum, made entirely of crystal and gold by the art of mathematics.”114 Medieval Arab accounts of Rome were, unsurprisingly, very far removed from the “real” Italian city, being largely described with the topography of Constantinople.115 Arab accounts of Constantinople, meanwhile, tend to be meager and repetitive, often obviously second-hand; nonetheless, the city was a fabled one of marvels and luxury. The traveling scholar al-Harawi (d. 1215) describes “ bronze and marble statues, columns, amazing talismans, . . . and antiquities the like of which do not have their equal in the lands of Islam,” and concludes: “this city is even greater than its reputation; may God, in His grace and generosity, deign to make of it a land of Islam.”116

112. These texts are conveniently assembled in Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico. See also Kinney, “Fact and Fiction in the Mirabilia urbis Romae.” 113. Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 3:65. 114. Ibid., 3:64. 115. See further De Simone and Mandala, L’immagine araba di Roma. 116. Sourdel-Thomine, Al-Harawi, Kitab al-isharat ila ma’rifat al-ziyarat, 56–57; see Hillenbrand, “Some medieval Muslim views of Constantinople.”

2

Competing Capitals, Competing Representations Late Antique Cityscapes in Words and Pictures LUCY GRIG

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or many natives, inhabitants, even mere visitors, the ancient city of Rome was simply the Urbs: the one, the only. The image of the city itself, nonetheless, was far from simple, particularly in Late Antiquity. At this time the very image of the city, its iconicity, its symbolism and its redolent historical topography, were all being repeatedly challenged. One particularly lively area of contestation in terms of urban image and urban meaning was the challenge brought by Christianity. Late antique Christians dared to claim that traditional readings of the historical and sacred topography of the city were wrong and had to be rewritten. The image of the city itself was to be re-imagined, redrawn, and re-inscribed. Although this process has its own long and complex story,1 it is not the subject of this chapter, which focuses on another ideological challenge, every bit as potent, to traditionalist images of Rome. My concern is rather with Rome’s decline in status, once unthinkable, in the course of the fourth century and beyond. How was the ultimate Urbs, the caput mundi, to be represented when she had an upstart twin (or bastard child) in Constantinople, or, even more shockingly, when she could at times be represented as just one of a parade of capital cities? This chapter sets out to capture the anomalous status of the city of Rome in Late Antiquity by examining its depiction—in particular its visualization—in literary texts, as well as visual images proper, and by comparing these depictions with those of other late antique imperial capitals. My examination will proceed from the contention that all these representations are intrinsically ideological and that different representations therefore both produce and reflect different ideological meanings; indeed, they inevitably produce different cities. Focusing on both texts and images helps sharpen cases of particularity 1. The bibliography is large, but see most recently and relevantly Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital; Fraschetti, La conversione; and Roberts, “Rome Personified.”

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and differentiation. I shall show how these various representations both contrast and compete, as traditions of civic rivalry and epideictic rhetoric take on a new ideological charge in the fourth and fift h centuries. The ideological elements of civic representation are of course particularly contested in Late Antiquity: at stake is not just the pecking order of the cities but the very image of the cities themselves. What image of the city would prevail? Definitive answers will not always be possible, and indeed I shall show how far urban representations in antiquity, and especially Late Antiquity, resisted closure and completion. I shall contend that, ironically, Roman ideology traditionally required that the city of Rome almost avoid representation in order to retain her primacy.2 The city of Rome could not be encapsulated in a mere image, and could not be compared with other cities. The moment Rome was represented as “a city,” still less as one among others, her primacy, her claim to ultimate power, was threatened, leaving the field wide open for her rivals. For the time being, at least, Rome retains her primacy, in that the chapter proper begins with a vista of the eternal city: Ammianus Marcellinus’ account of the visit of Constantius II to Rome. This text provides a useful springboard from which to explore several key themes. The famous account provides a vivid and highly individual description of the urban fabric of Rome.3 As is well known, this description is used to characterize the proud emperor, but Ammianus’ depiction of the city is also telling and should be understood as a claim for the primacy of Rome (16.10.13): So then [the emperor] entered Rome, the home of empire and of every virtue, and when he had come to the Rostra, and saw the most renowned forum of ancient dominion, he stood amazed, and on every side on which his eyes rested he was dazzled by the concentration of marvelous sights. Constantius has various imperial duties to perform: he addresses the senate and people, visits the palace, and gives games. Then, and only then it seems, he allows himself to feast his eyes on a sweeping panorama of the city, and we follow the direction of his gaze. Constantius’ vista is sweeping, as though from a great height. At first we seem to be presented with an omniscient, totalizing view, but Ammianus soon makes it clear that the imperial view is, in fact, deeply subjective (16.10.16): Then, as he surveyed the sections of the city and its suburbs, lying within the summits of the seven hills, along their slopes, or on level ground, he thought that whatever first met his gaze towered above all the rest.4 [my emphasis] 2. Th is is a central argument of Favro, “IconiCITY,” an article that I have found very stimulating in preparing this chapter. For a different, but equally stimulating, approach to the size of Rome, see Van Dam, Rome and Constantionople, 1–45. 3. See, for instance, Kelly, “The New Rome and the Old,” 598–603; Klein, “Rombesuch”; Roberts, “Rome Personified,” 182–85. 4. “There is no single point of view from which one can grasp the city as a whole,” Raban, Soft City, 242.

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All individual vistas are partial; what our gaze flickers over seems momentarily complete, quirks of our own viewing appear most important, but this is just an optical illusion. However, when the gaze belongs to the emperor, there is undoubtedly an added power dynamic: imperial power can impose its own vision upon its subject. Within this text, however, even this overweening power is circumscribed by another—that of its apparently omniscient narrator: Ammianus lets us know how incomplete even Constantius’ view of the city is. In addition he has a trick of his own: this vision of the city is doubly incomplete. The monuments that Constantius looks at, the ensemble of buildings that make up his Roman cityscape, are of course only a partial collection. Unsurprisingly, given that our narrator is Ammianus, this vista is far from visibly late antique; in fact the selection given here is solidly early imperial. We find ourselves in the city of Augustus, the Flavians, of Trajan and his successors. Appropriately, the first monument that Constantius/Ammianus/we look at is the Capitoline temple, supreme metonym for the imperium of Rome throughout imperial literature (16.10.14): [He saw] the temple of Tarpeian Jupiter, so far surpassing [sc. other structures] as divine things surpass those of earth; the baths built up like provinces; the huge mass of Tiburtine stone that makes up the amphitheatre, to whose top human eyesight barely ascends; the Pantheon like a whole rounded city-district, vaulted with loft y beauty; and the elevated columns which rise with platforms to which one may climb, which bear the images of former emperors; the Temple of the City, the Forum of Peace, the Theatre of Pompey, the Odeon, the Stadium, and in amongst these the other adornments of the Eternal City. It scarcely needs to be said that this is a description that stresses power and size, and indeed the equivalence between the two: Rome is presented as a city on a super-human scale. The description climaxes when it reaches the unique (singularem sub omni caelo, 16.10.15) structure of the Forum of Trajan, which Ammianus/Constantius decides is perhaps the supreme glory of the city’s many glories. However, after experiencing a veritable cascade of such superlative monuments, and at the end of his visit, the emperor concludes, awed and amazed, that Rome is in fact impossible to describe adequately (16.10.17): So then, when the emperor had viewed many things with awe and astonishment, he complained that Fame was either feeble or spiteful, because while she tends to exaggerate everything else, descriptions of Rome are shabby. Ultimately the greatness of Rome, as summed up by the Forum of Trajan, is revealed by the fact that she is, in the final analysis, too great to describe: nec relatu effabiles (16.10.15). This is a telling conclusion, to which I shall return.

34 Grig This passage from Ammianus, so rich in its own right, can be profitably linked with a whole host of other texts, and indeed images.5 First, we can consider the loft y perspective employed by Ammianus. From what vantage point is Constantius supposed to be looking? Ammianus is not specific. When Claudian describes the panorama taken in by a later emperor, Honorius, he sets it from the Palatine: it is a vista that is explicitly imperial and with more of a hint of the divine.6 Constantius’ view, meanwhile, is, in its own way, almost too good to be true. This impossibly loft y perspective can be profitably paralleled with the bird’s-eye view in visual art.7 The bird’s-eye perspective, sometimes “mixed”—that is, together with elevation views—has been seen as quintessentially late antique and, moreover, symptomatic of the decline of late antique art. However, despite the paucity of surviving examples, it seems that use of this perspective goes much further back, to Hellenistic precedents, and that it should most probably be understood as characteristic of Roman art in general.8 The effects of the bird’s-eye perspective on the viewer’s perception are interesting. One is to enable the viewer really to visualize the city involved. To illustrate this, there is perhaps no better example than the famous Madaba map, dating from the early sixth century, still to be seen in the Church of S. George in Madaba, in modern Jordan.9 It is a map of the Holy Land, featuring over 122 topographical vignettes in total. The star turn, of course, is the city of Jerusalem, labeled “the holy city Jerusa[lem]” (see figure 2.1). We have a depiction here that goes far beyond the mere generic and combines abstraction on the one hand with near accurate topographic detail on the other, clearly in order to create a particular effect. The city is depicted as an elliptical form, dominated by its central cardo maximus, with a freestanding column prominent at one end; also notable is the big cupola-topped Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, built by Constantine. The choice of the bird’s-eye perspective here seems deliberate: it is by no means used for all the topographical vignettes on the map. It seems to work here to enable the viewer really to “visualize” the

5. It shares an interesting congruence of focus with the account in the Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium 55, which also praises the Forum of Trajan but is far more openly hostile to Constantinople (50). 6. Claudian, 6Cos. 39–52. Claudian is nicely ambiguous in this palace regarding who is doing the looking—the emperor, the poet, or, indeed, the Palatine. For more on Claudian on Rome, see Long, “Claudian and the City.” 7. See Wataghin Cantino, “Veduta dall’alto.” 8. Rare examples include a recently discovered late-fi rst/early-second-century fresco from the Cryptoporticus of the baths of Trajan; see La Rocca, “The Newly Discovered City Fresco,” esp. 23. La Rocca suggests that this painting in an example of the “chorographical genre,” produced by a painter who specialized in topographical maps. 9. On the map, see Avi-Yonah, Madaba Mosaic Map; Piccirillo and Alliata, Madaba Map Centenary; and now also Bowersock, Mosaics as History, 1–29.

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Figure 2.1 The Madaba map: vignette of Jerusalem. Photograph: Ursula Rothe.

place, albeit from a distance. One commentator has observed that “the viewer has no sense of participation in the street; instead, his or her gaze is directed at it, observing it from a distance and reifying it.”10 Why would this effect be desired? One particular use of the bird’s-eye perspective, it has been suggested, is to evoke the religious gaze in particular.11 Jerusalem is of course a special case: it is a “real” place with an actual topography, but it is also deeply spiritually redolent. The cityscape evokes both a sacred yet “real” topography (the “historical” sites of the biblical past) and the “heavenly” Jerusalem (a topography that transcends existence in historical time).12 A blurring of the heavenly and the earthly city is evident in examples from late antique and early Byzantine art. Interpretation is left to the viewer, and our attempts to recreate the late antique gaze can only be speculative.13 Images can be ambiguous, such as the

10. Pullan, “Representation”; see also Bertelli, “Visual Images.” 11. See Petsalis-Diomedes, “Landscape, Transformation.” 12. See here Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage; Markus, End of Ancient Christianity, 139–55; and Walker, Holy City, Holy Places? 13. For instance, Bowersock, Mosaics as History, 17–25, convincingly argues against the orthodoxy of seeing the Madaba map as a purely exegetical image.

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third-century fresco from the Cubiculum of the Aurelii in Rome, which depicts a city that seems more heavenly than earthly.14 Meanwhile, generic “heavenly” cities are frequently represented on fourth-century sarcophagi of the “city gate” type and in apse mosaics, such as those of S. Maria Maggiore and S. Pudenziana in Rome.15 Therefore, images of cities could (designedly) produce meditative, religious viewing. The distancing effect of the bird’s-eye perspective could also have other effects, or implications, including some rather more comparable with Ammianus’ description of Constantius’ Roman panorama. Some art historians have stressed the totalizing nature of the bird’s-eye perspective: you, the omniscient viewer, can take in—indeed, possess—a whole area, cityscape, or landscape, a view that in reality would rarely have been possible. Therefore, it favors an inherently imperialist view and scholars have stressed a (putative) origin in military art, whereby this “totalizing” vista works “to convey conquest.”16 This interpretation lays stress on ancient accounts describing images of conquered provinces that were carried in triumphal processions.17 While such images themselves have not survived, we can compare surviving images from triumphal art, such as the use of mixed perspective (both head-on and aerial) in the depiction of the Parthian campaign on the Arch of Septimius Severus. Some scholars would go as far as to claim that, in Roman art, the bird’s-eye view was considered suitable for the portrayal of subject nations alone.18 However, as even the smattering of examples discussed above demonstrates, we need to imagine a rather more complex picture. The situation is further nuanced when we take into account literary as well as visual accounts. Ammianus and Claudian’s descriptions suggest that the bird’s-eye view is indeed appropriate for a dominator, but that it is suitable even for the ultimate Urbs—for Rome herself. Nonetheless, the domination of the bird’s-eye view can never be absolute. Even the loftiest perspective, as we have seen, ultimately remains far from total; even the imperial vision has its limits. A striking feature of Constantius’ urban panorama (according to Ammianus), and hence of the picture of Rome as a whole, was that it was made up of a veritable multiplicity of marvels. Favro argues that the ancient city of Rome, as caput mundi, consistently resisted visual encapsulation, or “iconicity”: no single

14. In this fresco we fi rst see a rider on horseback approaching a walled city, then we see inside the city, where there is a beautiful garden peopled by white-robed figures, as well as the more conventionally architectural colonnaded courtyards. See Petsalis-Diomedes, “Landscape, Transformation.” 15. See Lawrence, “City-Gate Sarcophagi”; Deckers, “Tradition und Adaption.” 16. Favro, “IconiCity,” 21. 17. E.g., Ovid, Ars Am. 1.219–28; Josephus, Bell. Iud. 7.5. See also Holliday, “Roman Triumphal Painting,” 137–39. 18. Favro, “IconiCity,” 34.

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image could stand for Rome. This was crucial to Rome.19 Indeed, in Ammianus’ account, as in earlier imperial writings, we can see that the iconicity works the other way round: it is Rome that encapsulates the rest of the world. (The Roman baths are described as “as big as provinces,” after all.)20 Rather than one image standing for Rome, instead the city of Rome was evoked as more than the sum of its parts, as more than an assemblage of marvelous monuments, each resisting iconic reduction. Ammianus was of course not the only author to evoke Rome as a city crammed full of must-sees, ultimately indescribable, fundamentally immeasurable. This theme can be found in the works of imperial authors writing in both Latin and Greek. Pliny the Elder described the difficulty of accurately measuring the extent of so great a city (NH 3.5.66–67): A measurement running from the milestone set up at the head of the Roman Forum to each of the city gates—which today number thirtyseven if the Twelve Gates are counted as one and the seven of the old gates that no longer exist are omitted—gives a total of 20.765 miles in a straight line. But the measurement of all the thoroughfares block by block, from the same milestone to the outermost edge of the buildings including the Praetorian Camp, totals a little more than sixty miles. And if one should consider in addition the height of the buildings, he would assuredly form a fitting appraisal and would admit that no city has existed in the whole world that could be compared with Rome in size.21 Aelius Aristides makes the point again in a slightly different way, stressing the incompleteness of even the totalizing view (On Rome 6): For it is Rome who first proved that oratory cannot reach every goal. About her not only is it impossible to speak properly, but it is impossible even to see her properly.  .  . . For beholding so many hills occupied by buildings, or on plains so many meadows completely urbanized, or so much land brought under the name of one city, who could survey her accurately? And from what point of observation? While the inadequacy of verbal description for cities is a common trope,22 it could nonetheless bear real ideological force. Rome is frequently evoked as a city that cannot be summed up, pinned down, or adequately described.

19. Ibid., passim. 20. Cf. elsewhere (22.9.3), Ammianus is paying a compliment to Nicomedia when he describes that city as resembling a regio (i.e., one-fourteenth!) of Rome. 21. See Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture, 41–74. 22. Cf. Achilles Tatius 5.1.1–5, on Alexandria.

38 Grig Nonetheless, a group of late antique texts suggests a new attempt to quantify the city: these are the various versions of “inventories” or “regionaries” dating from the fourth and fifth centuries.23 There are two, very similar, Roman inventories: the Curiosum and the Notitia Urbis Romae. It is significant, too, that closely comparable texts were also produced for Constantinople and Alexandria. The nature and purpose of these texts have been variously interpreted, though most scholars have assumed that the texts are basically administrative. Each text enumerates, region by region, the significant buildings and monuments of its respective city, and as a consequence, each has been endlessly mined by scholars of topography and archaeology. Recently, in a provocative article, Javier Arce attacked the near-canonical status of the two Roman texts as sources for the history of the urban fabric and population of the late antique city. Arce described their listings as “caprichosa” and “fantásticas” and refused to assign to the texts any official status, or administrative use, at all.24 While most scholars would not wish to go quite as far (in denying any validity at all to the texts’ listings), it is clear that Arce’s central insight is correct: these texts are blatantly ideological. This ideological engagement is apparent not least in terms of the choices made by the compilers of the lists, which are far from neutral. The Curiosum and Notitia present a particular—indeed, particularized—vision of their city. They offer what is arguably an antiquarian’s Rome; newfangled Christianity is nowhere to be found in the cityscape evoked. This is despite the estimated dates of the texts: the Curiosum can be dated to ca. 334–57 and the Notitia to after 358. The Rome of the inventories is a city of many temples but no churches (Ammianus would doubtless have approved). The ideological intent of the inventories is also apparent in another field: the urban inventories are ideological in that they are written to present, in a context of civic rivalry, their particular city’s claim to primacy. Generically, as well as ideologically, they are clearly to be related to epideictic rhetoric: they show a debt to the laudes urbium, which owe their own existence to the classical tradition of civic rivalry. 25 Th is is made especially clear by a competitor of the Roman accounts: the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae of ca. 425, by some degree the most obviously rhetorical (i.e., panegyrical) of the group.26 In the preface, the author explains his motives for composing the text, explaining that while other authors have tended to write about distant places

23. 24. 25. 26.

See Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topographico, Vol. 1, 63–258. Arce, “El inventario de Roma,” esp. 17–18. Ibid., 16. See Matthews q.v. on this text.

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(in itself an interesting statement about genre),27 Constantinople has been neglected. Such a perfect city (to which nothing can be added) deserves a detailed account, the author claims, though it will never be sufficient. As with Ammianus’ account of Rome, the superlative, indescribable nature of Constantinople is stressed, heightened by the litotes: neither praise nor even love is enough for so great a city; the reader of the account is imagined as an admirer who will inevitably be filled with astonishment.28 The Constantinople Notitia is clearly modeled on the Roman version. It again presents an inventory of the buildings and monuments of the city, region by region (fourteen, of course, modeled on Rome). It is striking that, unlike in the Roman inventories, churches here are conspicuously present: churches in fact head the list of buildings in seven out of fourteen regiones. The “grand total” list that finishes off the Notitia, moreover—the so-called Collectio Civitatis—is also key in helping us understand the ideological claims of the text. The first category of building enumerated undoubtedly constitutes the author’s trump card in constructing the city’s claim to greatness: palatia quinque. It is clearly stressed that Constantinople is the home of emperors. The next category enumerated is ecclesiastical, ecclesias quattuordecim, again stressing the importance of Christian cult buildings in this representation of Constantinople. The sacred buildings, cult sites, or images in a city had always been of great importance when it came to civic self-representation and promotion. Examples from the Greek east are perhaps the most famous in this regard—for instance, the celebrated cult of Artemis of Ephesus. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman state offered new opportunities in this regard, just as it posed problems at the same time. Christian writers liked to play with the idea of the rivalry of cities based on their possession of holy relics, just as their “pagan” predecessors had lauded their cities’ prestigious temples, cults, or images. The poet Paulinus of Nola provides some particularly striking examples of this. The city he was most keen to promote was his adopted patria, Nola, an obscure Campanian town blessed only with the remains of St. Felix (a saint, moreover very much of Paulinus’ own construction!). While Paulinus was serious about promoting Nola as a holy city, he did so not least through playful literary allusion, toying with the poetry of his old friend Ausonius, another writer interested in the civic pecking order. 27. Th is recalls the Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium, closely contemporary with the Roman inventories. Th is text, as noted above at n.5, is hostile to Constantinople and proclaims the supremacy of Rome. 28. Universis igitur eius partibus diligenter inspectis, corporum quoque eidem inservientium recensito numero, fidem rerum omnium notitia circumscribente signavi, ut admirantis intentio singulis edocta monumentis, amplitudine quoque tantae felicitatis attonita fateatur, huic urbem nec laudem sufficere nec amorem. Not. Const. praef. 229.

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Some time at the end of the fourth century, Ausonius composed his Ordo Urbium Nobilium, a sequence of poems that featured twenty famous cities.29 Again, this work certainly had its roots in traditional rhetorical literature. The relative status of cities in antiquity was, as noted above, a traditionally popular topic for epideictic rhetoric, and the cities of Asia Minor in particular had a (not always very honorable) tradition of civic rivalry.30 There was of course no canonical rating of cities—they strove for relative position. As Ausonius points out, cities have different claims to fame and prestige; he puts Constantinople and Carthage in joint “second place,” the former on the grounds of its recent power, the latter on its historic glories. From the point of view of an easterner, or even an Italian, Ausonius’ list is eccentrically western, with a definite preference for his native Gaul. This personal touch is most clearly demonstrated by the dedication of the last and longest poem of the Ordo to Ausonius’ own native city, Bordeaux—last though definitely not least, framed to act, somewhat hubristically, as a pendant to Rome.31 Nola, of course, did not make it into Ausonius’ Ordo—why would it?32 The Nolan apologist, however, in something of a clever referential sleight of hand, makes a strong claim for her special status. He claims that Nola has, in fact, become a second Rome (Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 13.26–30): You have won the title of city second to Rome herself (postque ipsam titulos Romam sortita secundos), once first only in dominion and conquering arms, but now first in the world through the apostles’ tombs.33 Paulinus here is echoing a line of his friend Ausonius’ Mosella;34 we might well consider that a playful challenge to the Ordo is intended. Obviously, the idea that Nola takes second place only to Rome in any kind of ranking is hyperbolic (though no less than placing Bordeaux as a pendant to Rome!), but then the genre of the laudes urbis was not one in which modesty was ever thought appropriate. While Paulinus was most interested in promoting the claims of Nola, he also was willing to tackle a more obvious pairing: that of Rome and Constantinople.

29. The cities included are in order: Rome; Constantinople and Carthage (joint); Antioch and Alexandria (also joint); Trier, Milan, Capua, Aquileia, Arles, Seville, Cordoba, Tarragona, Braga, Athens, Catania, Syracuse, Toulouse, Narbonne, and Bordeaux. 30. Th is can still be traced in extant coins and inscriptions; see Robert, “La titulaire.” Ausonius makes reference to civic rivalry in his account of Antioch and Alexandria: Ordo 15–16 (IV.V.1–2). 31. See Miles, “Rivalling Rome,” 123–26. 32. Its near neighbor Capua did, however, as seemingly referred to by Paulinus; see Guttilla, “Dalla Capua di Ausonio.” 33. Tr. Walsh. Cf. Carm. 14.85–88. 34. aut Italum populos aquilonigenasque Britannos / praefecturarum titulo tenuere secundo; quique caput rerum Romam, populumque patresque, / tantum non primo rexit sub nomine, quamvis / par fuerit primis. Ausonius, Mos. 407–11.

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In Carm. 19, Paulinus considers Constantinople’s claim to be a rival to Rome, a claim that, once again, he considers solely by reference to the saintly relics possessed by the respective cities. In the following passage, Paulinus pairs twin patron saints, imagined as twin towers, fortifying their cities: Peter and Paul in Rome, Andrew and Timothy in Constantinople (Carm. 19.329–42):35 When Constantine was founding the city named after himself, and was the first of the Roman kings to proclaim himself a Christian, the god-sent idea came to him that since he was then embarking on that splendid enterprise of building a city which would rival Rome, he should likewise emulate Romulus’ city with a further endowment—he would eagerly defend his walls with the bodies of apostles. He then removed Andrew from the Greeks and Timothy from Asia; and so with twin towers [ geminis turribus] stands forth Constantinople, rivaling with her head the Great Rome, and more genuinely rivaling the walls of Rome through the eminence that God bestowed on her, for He counterbalanced Peter and Paul with a protection just as great, since Constantinople gained the disciple of Paul and the brother of Peter. Interestingly, this passage might be said to be subtly coming down in favor of the supremacy of Rome in that, in another allusive sleight of hand, it seems to echo Claudian’s bitter comment about Constantinople in his invective poem against Rufinus.36 Another Christian poet interested in constructing an image of a truly Christian Rome (a vision markedly different from that of Claudian) is Prudentius.37 Prudentius, too, makes use of the idea of saintly patrons as city fortifications in his hymn to the virgin martyr St. Agnes (Prudentius, Per. 14.1–4): The tomb of Agnes lies in the home of Romulus, a brave girl and glorious martyr. Laid within the sight of their towers, the virgin watches over the well-being of Rome’s citizens. Both poets evoke the towers that crowned the city walls; both associate the protecting power of the martyrs with these fortifications. While both towers and walls stand for the inviolability of the city, they also stand for the city itself, a commonplace enough metonym, to be related to visual as well as literary imagery. The use of the architectural image or icon was popular in the visual representation of cities in Antiquity. Some cities were known for or by their famous

35. Tr. Walsh (slightly altered). 36. Compare ut quoniam Romanae . . . aemula (332–33) with Urbs etiam, magnae quae ducitur aemula Romae: “the city too which is thought to be the rival of great Rome”; Claudian, In Rufinum 2.54. Th is bitterness is noted by Dagron, Naissance, 53. See further Kelly q.v., 249. 37. See Roberts, “Rome Personified.”

42 Grig monuments, such as the temple of Artemis in Ephesus or the lighthouse at Ostia, which were replicated across various media.38 More widespread than the use of specific local highlights, however, was the depiction of city fortifications, notably gates, particularly in provincial coinage issues.39 This visual shorthand—the representation of the city by or as its fortifications—only increased in Late Antiquity. Many examples of images of cities, more or less canonically represented as polygonal fortified structures across a wide range of media, date from this period. Manuscript illustrations are particularly arresting, including illustrations from the famous Vatican Virgil, the Vienna Genesis, and the Notitia Dignitatum.40 The frequent visual representation of cities in Late Antiquity as strong, impermeable and forbidding, as safe and secure within their walls, seems particularly striking, and indeed ironic in a period when some cities were actually falling. A poignant literary reminder of this is given by the poet Rutilius Namatianus, who wrote De Reditu Suo in or soon after 417. This travelog poem describes the author’s departure from Rome and his return journey to his native Gaul. While sailing alongside the coast of Italy, Rutilius sees unrecognizable ruins of formerly proud fortified settlements (1.409–14): You cannot recognize the monuments of an earlier age; greedy time has devoured their loft y fortifications. Only traces remain now that the walls are lost: homes lie buried under a wide paving of rubble. Let us not be indignant because mortal frames dissolve: from these examples we discern that towns can die. Rutilius’ poem is very much a post-410 text: even while he recalls “that towns can die,” he maintains, or at least proclaims, an optimistic confidence that the city of Rome will enjoy a glorious recovery.41 Visual representations of cities of the Roman Empire, as if preserved in antiquarian aspic, present a similar hope.42 Such images are more than simply “nostalgic”;43 they are protreptic and performative—they are indeed, like all cityscapes, ideological. The “city gate” icon, popular though it was, also combined with a still more ubiquitous type of urban icon of the imperial and late antique period: the city Tyche.44 These figures, based on the famous Tyche of Antioch, carried an attribute (normally a rudder or cornucopia) and wore a “mural crown,” which depicted the city’s walls and/or other fortifications.45 On this example, a second-century 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

Favro, “IconiCity,” 22–24. Many examples can be seen in Sear, Greek Imperial Coins, e.g. nos. 1124, 2124, 3652, 3794. See Ehrensperger-Katz, “Représentations de villes fortifiés.” The first section of the poem (1.1–164) is a eulogy to Rome and her greatness. See again Bertelli, “Visual Images,” esp. 128–29. As discussed by Trout, “Theolinda’s Rome,” 137. See Broucke, “Tyche and the Fortune of Cities.” See Christof, Das Glück der Stadt.

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Figure 2.2 City Gate coin from Laodicea ad Mare. HCR 8020. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

coin from Laodicea in Syria, the Tyche’s crown is very clearly delineated so that we can see the twin towers of the city gate, the walls, and even a lighthouse (see figure 2.2).46 These representations were, however, usually highly generic: in order to identify a particular city, further contextual information (whether text or an additional image or symbol) would be required. While traditionally Tyches were associated with the Greek east in particular, in the late antique period we see their use to depict the full geographical range of imperial capitals.47 These visual shorthands tended away from particularity and towards uniformity: was there a space for Rome in this body of images? Traditionally, of course, Rome was different. For one thing, she always claimed to be more than just a city: Rome was not just an urbs, even the Urbs. While other cities were represented by largely anonymous Tyches, the goddess Roma never simply “stood” for the city of Rome in the same simple way that, say, the Tyche of Antioch stood for Antioch.48 Rome had always stood aloof from the community of Tyches, a seemingly contented band of second-rankers. Nonetheless, in the fourth century, Roma began to appear in a new guise, in a whole series of official images from coins to consular diptychs, more or less twinned with her upstart “sister,” Constantinopolis.49 When Constantinople was (re)founded, the city was endowed with a new Tyche, the first representations of which are found in silver medallions minted

46. Sear, Greek Imperial Coins, no. 1497. 47. See Shelton, “Imperial Tyches.” 48. “The divinity of Rome . . . never quite fitted into the framework provided by the category of personifications. Rome was too tangible, too present as a city,” MacCormack, “Roma, Constantinopolis,” 140. Moreover, Roma was generally a representation of Rome to the outside world, rather than a divinity for the city itself (the construction of the temple of Venus and Roma in the city of Rome by Hadrian had marked a significant development). 49. The precise familial relationship between Rome and Constantinople was variously coined: in late antique and early Byzantine texts, Rome was Constantinople’s mother, e.g., Paul. Sil., H. Soph. 164–67.

44 Grig in 330.50 Here, Constantinopolis is shown seated on a throne, wearing a mural crown and veil, holding a branch and cornucopia, with her feet resting on a prow, in a reference to the maritime location of the city. Thus far she appears as a standard Greek-type Tyche, but this image, though popular, was not to be definitive. The anomalous, special status of Constantinopolis could be represented by several variations in her depiction: sometimes she wears a helmet (like Roma), sometimes her cornucopia is replaced by the sceptre, or even the Victory-on-globe, representing sovereignty.51 Just as the image of Constantinopolis varies, so too do images that depict Rome and Constantinople together. Examining these images can help us pinpoint changes in the (relative) depiction of each city. Coins depicting Roma and Constantinopolis together begin with the vota issues of Constantius II from 343 onward. To begin with, the two figures are very much not identical twins, with Roma’s superiority made evident in several ways, as shown in the solidus of Constantius II, minted in Rome, in 355–57, shown in figure 2.3.52 Roma wears her traditional helmet while Constantinople wears the Tyche’s mural crown; Roma is definitively in the superior position, seated to the right of Constantinopolis (our left), as well as being depicted frontally while Constantinopolis is in profile, turning to face her “big sister.” Over time, however, Constantinopolis grew to look more like Roma and less like a generic Tyche.53 However, by 415, this solidus of Theodosius II (see figure 2.4), minted in Constantinople, represents the two cities as more evenly matched: twins facing one another, wearing matching helmets and holding their sceptres in the same attitude.54 Images of the twinned personifications of Rome and Constantinople were not limited to coinage, but also appeared in some distinctively late antique media. Coin representations may well have influenced a gold glass, which presents the two as identical twins, each bearing a globe and a sceptre, while an anonymous female figure prostrates herself at their feet.55 A medium that naturally favored pairing imagery was the ivory diptych: figure 2.5 is a beautiful example from the fift h century, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in

50. See Toynbee, “Roma and Constantinopolis I,” pl. X, no. I. 51. Ibid., for discussion and illustration of these various types. 52. Kent, RIC 8.291; see further on issues from the Rome mint Kent, “Urbs Roma and Constantinopolis Medallions.” 53. Alan Cameron, “Esquiline Treasure,” 140–41, dates the appearance of this new iconography to the 380s and would like to link this development to Canon 3 of the Council of Constantinople, but this linkage does seem a little forced. I tend to agree with Dagron, Naissance, 60, who sees the evolution as more complex and ambiguous. Toynbee, “Roma and Constantinopolis II,” demonstrates continuing variety in the representation of the two cities at this time. See further Bühl, Constantinopolis und Roma. 54. Kent, RIC 10.207. 55. Morey, Gold Glass, 21–22; pl. XV no. 9.

Figure 2.3 Roma and Constantinopolis coin, minted in Rome 355–57. HCR 8021. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Figure 2.4 Roma and Constantinopolis coin, minted in Constantinople in 415. ©Trustees of the British Museum.

46

Figure 2.5 Roma and Constantinopolis diptych. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

47

Figure 2.5 (continued)

48 Grig Vienna; it clearly differentiates the two personifications along traditional lines: Roma wears a helmet and Constantinopolis a crown, Roma carries the Victory-on-globe and Constantinopolis the cornucopia.56 All of these images played on the natural affinity between Rome and Constantinople as twin cities, often depicted as sharing sovereignty over the globe. However, the two did not only feature as a double act but could also appear as just two members of a whole group of cities. The most famous “grouping” of this sort is probably the set of four gilded silver statuettes (generally considered to be chair fittings) from the Esquiline treasure, which feature personifications of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria.57 The “canonical” status of this particular foursome is far from clear, even in Rome itself: in the Roman “Codex Calendar” of 354, Trier replaces Alexandria.58 Nonetheless, it is the “Esquiline four” that is singled out for special treatment in what must be the most intriguing single visual representation of the shifting late antique urban ordo: the Peutinger map. The so-called Tabula Peutingeriana is notoriously difficult to define or pin down: its antiquity, status, nature, and purpose have all been much debated.59 However, it is generally agreed that the document represents a late fourth-century original (what we are left with is a twelft h-century copy). It is a parchment map of the classical oecumene, showing major roads with distances between the cities, of the Empire and beyond, stretching as far as Sri Lanka. It is sometimes described as a chart rather than a standard or geographical map, or perhaps is best described as a document about travel, which it depicts as movement from one city to another (see figure 2.6).60 The original was a linear representation nearly 7 meters long, but only 34 centimeters wide, which would have worked best when displayed as a continuous whole; the effect was spoiled when the parchment was split up into eleven sections in the nineteenth century. In its original format, one could clearly have seen the late Roman world depicted as a collection of networked cities, each represented by shorthand convention and by inscription. The cities featured on the map can be grouped into three levels of importance, according to the manner of depiction. Each city in the lowliest and by far largest tier is shown as two small towers, recalling the “twin towers” ubiquitous in both text and image, as we have seen. The second category is much 56. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike, no. 38. Roma and Constantinopolis also appear as secondary, flanking figures on other diptychs, e.g., nos. 15, 31 and 35. 57. See Shelton, “Imperial Tyches,” nos. 30 and 32, portrayed on this book’s dustjacket. 58. See the brief discussion in Salzman, On Roman Time, 27–28; other groupings are discussed by Shelton “Imperial Tyches,” and Toynbee, “Roma and Constantinopolis I.” Late antique threesomes, rather than quartets, of leading Tyches are discussed by Bowersock, Mosaics as History, 81–84. 59. For useful and insightful discussion see Salway, “Nature and Genesis.” 60. As noted by Favro, “IconiCity,” 27.

Figure 2.6 Rome at the center of the Peutinger map, from Angerer and Göschl, Tabula Peutingeriana itineraria. Image created by the Ancient World Mapping Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

50 Grig less populous, comprising only six cities, which are represented by a variation on the same theme—as miniature walled cities. Scholars have tried and failed to make sense of the grounds on which cities are depicted on one “level” or another. Among many others, the “bottom” group includes a holy city (Jerusalem) and a onetime imperial capital (Milan). Other imperial (and summer) capitals, however, make the second grade: Ravenna, Aquileia, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Thessalonica, and Ancyra. None of this makes assigning a precise date to the document possible. The seemingly unclear principles of selection here might be best explained, Salway suggests, by imagining the Peutinger map as a personal, rather than official, document, influenced by individual taste and local knowledge.61 The depiction of the “top tier” of cities featured on the Peutinger map intriguingly combines different urban icons bearing various ideological complexions. The top rank seems to have once consisted of four imperial capitals: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria. However, Alexandria’s representation seems to have been left incomplete in the copying of the map; although there is an image of its most famous landmark, the Pharos, there is nothing else, not even a name label, left to mark the city. Each of the other three cities, however, is depicted, in the first instance, by a slightly eccentric and subtly differentiated personification.62 Rome, the only personification to be circled, sits, like all three, on a throne, holding a shield and sceptre, but is distinguished by the fact that she is holding a globe; unusually, she wears a crown. Constantinople and Antioch are both wearing helmets, but Antioch is further distinguished by the addition of a nimbus, as well as by the presence of a small figure seeking protection at her feet.63 Each city is depicted with some degree of geographical precision: Antioch on the Orontes, Constantinople on the Bosporus, and Rome on the Tiber, clearly located above the port of Rome. Finally, each city is represented by an architectural icon, a famous urban monument. The choices here are intriguing. Antioch’s symbol appears to be the temple of Apollo at Daphne (destroyed by fire in 362 and hence problematic for the dating of the map!); the building is

61. Salway, “Nature and Genesis,” 125. 62. While most scholars describe these figures as female, to this observer they appear strangely male. Such a puzzling features (like the aforementioned lacunose state of Alexandria’s depiction) does remind us that inaccuracies in transmission might have distorted the map, further hampering, of course, its scholarly interpretation. 63. We might wish to compare here the prostate figure at the feet of Roma and Constantinopolis on the gold glass discussed above. However, Bowersock suggests that the figure on the Peutinger map is in fact a personification of the Orontes, as on the Esquiline Tyche of Antioch; Bowersock, Mosaics as History, 20.

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clearly located at the famous grove, and is connected to an aqueduct.64 Constantinople is represented by perhaps the ultimate symbol of its imperial namesake, the Constantinian column, to which the personification is pointing. It appears that the imperial, specifically Constantinian, status of the city is thereby being highlighted. However, Rome’s architectural icon is slightly off center, but its identity is very clear, being labeled ad sanctum Petrum: the Basilica of S. Peter, a rather different kind of imperial monument. The ordo of cities represented on this map has several interesting nuances. It is notable that while four cities clearly share top billing, one is nonetheless more equal than the others. Rome is twice distinguished: by the details of her personification and by her geographical representation. Though not central in terms of the geographical extent of both empire and oecumene, Rome is nonetheless represented as the center from which all key roads originate. In a document all about travel, Rome is clearly represented as the key city from and toward which one travels. Rome is hence set, as so often, in a position of precarious supremacy: perilously close to assimilation as just one of several cities, and yet just about maintaining her position as caput mundi. The Tabula Peutingeriana is rare in providing an architectural icon to stand for the city of Rome—in this case, S. Peter. While Rome had traditionally lacked an architectural icon as such, it is rather intriguing that when one finally appears it is so unambiguously Christian.65 The choice of S. Peter suggests the victory of one particular ideological cityscape of Rome: it is scarcely the urban icon that Ammianus, Claudian, or even Ausonius would have favored. In time, of course, it would be as a Christian capital that Rome would stake her (much contested) claim to supremacy, but this would be a hesitant and long drawn out process. This brief chapter has presented an often synchronic account of the late antique ordo urbium, seeking to avoid an overly teleological view. We know how the story developed, but for much of the late antique period the picture would have been much less clear. None of the late antique representations of cities examined in this brief survey can lay claim to defi nitive, nor even (probably) any “official” status: there was no official ordo. Hence, it is fitting that the cityscapes examined provide fleeting, often very personal, or eccentric, certainly partial, vistas.

64. An interesting comparison piece is provided by the so-called topographical border of the Megalalopsychia mosaic from Antioch. Th is appears to depict several churches, as well as the springs of Pallas and Castalia, along with a number of private dwellings; see Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements, 326–37, and pl. lxxix–lxxx. 65. The map shows some interest in Christianity, most strikingly in the comments made on biblical landscapes, although Jerusalem gets no special treatment. S. Peter’s is one of several Christian churches featured; interestingly, the Church of S. Irene is depicted close to Constantinople.

52

Grig

At several points it has been suggested that Rome’s ultimate greatness lay in denying representation all together. Perhaps it was best for her partisans to say almost nothing at all; therefore, I shall leave the last word (except it never was) to Ausonius. In his Ordo Urbium Nobilium, Rome is part, and yet set apart, from the parade of cities. Rome receives the briefest poem of all, but it is also the first. In fact, the very brevity serves only to confirm her supremacy: Rome has no need of description; she simply is (Prima urbes inter, divum domus, aurea Roma). But the sands upon which her supremacy was built would inevitably shift. All representations of cities, however antiquarian, totalizing, or intertextually sophisticated, were there to be contested, in a mostly civilized certamen.

3

Old and New Rome Compared The Rise of Constantinople BRYAN WARD-PERKINS

The late antique urban histories of Constantinople and Rome are normally, and quite reasonably, viewed separately from each other; but there is a case for comparing them directly, since Constantinople was increasingly described as a “new” or “second” Rome, and provided with facilities and an administration to match and rival those of the old capital. Already during Constantine’s lifetime it was referred to as altera Roma (the other, or “a second” Rome) and as the old capital’s “sister”; and in 357, the orator Themistius, addressing Rome’s proud senate in Greek, called Constantinople nea Rōmē (new Rome).1 The eastern city was granted the entirely exceptional honor of its own senate even at the time of its dedication in 330, and although this body was initially of lower status to that of Rome, it was raised to equal rank by Constantius II at the end of the 350s.2 The same emperor put the imperial administration of Constantinople on an equal footing with that of Rome, through the creation of a Constantinopolitan “prefect of the city”; and in 381, at a church council held in Constantinople, its bishop, although lacking any claims to

I am very grateful to the numerous people who have provided information for this chapter and useful criticism of its ideas, as well as correcting some egregious errors: in particular, Marilena Amerise, Peter Bell, Robert Coates-Stephens, Jim Crow, Lellia Cracco Ruggini, Ulrich Gehn, Lucy Grig, Mark Humphries, Gavin Kelly, Gitte Lønstrup, Carlos Machado, Cyril Mango, Marlia Mundell Mango, Yuri Marano, Neil McLynn, Claire Sotinel, and Roger Tomlin. My knowledge of Constantinople is heavily dependent on the many wonderful lectures that Cyril Mango has given in Oxford. The most original contributions of this article are the comparative drawings, figures 3.3, 3.5, and 3.10–12, which are by Elif Keser-Kayaalp (who prepared all the figures for publication). 1. References during Constantine’s lifetime; Optatianus Porfyrius, Carm. 4.6 and 18.34. Nea Rōmē: Themistius, Or. 3.42a, c (357). A little later, in 379, Themistius also referred to Constantinople as deutera Rōmē (second Rome, in Greek): Or.14.184a. Since Latin lacks both defi nite and indefi nite articles, the precise strength of nova Roma was conveniently vague—“New Rome,” not necessarily “the New Rome.” See further Grig and Kelly’s introduction q.v., section 1. 2. For more on this, see (with slightly different perspectives) Grig and Kelly’s introduction q.v., section 2; and Vanderspoel q.v., 234–37.

53

54 Ward-Perkins apostolic succession, was decreed to be second only to the bishop of Rome, and above even the ancient and proud sees of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria.3 Imitation, and a degree of rivalry with Old Rome, is implicit in the texts that describe the new city. For instance, a Latin description of Constantinople written in around 425, the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, divides the city into fourteen regions, in clear emulation of the old capital, and bears the title Urbs Constantinopolitana nova Roma (“The City of Constantinople, New Rome”).4 Comparing the two cities is therefore not a gratuitous modern exercise in league table creation, but a venerable practice that dates back to Late Antiquity. In tracing the trajectories of Rome and Constantinople, the fi ft h century is likely to be the key period, since it was a time of great change in the status and influence of both cities—but in opposite directions. In the fourth century, Rome was still the symbolic heart of a powerful empire and the home of a fabulously rich aristocracy with estates all over the Mediterranean, even though, with the fall of Maxentius in 312, it lost its role as an imperial residence. In the fi rst decade of the fi ft h century, however, its good fortune ended as the western empire began to unravel. The loss of empire did bring some of the very last emperors back to the city, perhaps in the hope of benefiting from the reflected glory of its past. 5 But by 476, Rome was a city with a wonderful past but with a role in the present that was restricted to a kingdom of Italy—wealth no longer flowed to it from the rest of the empire, and its aristocracy had lost all but their Italian estates. Furthermore, the city had suffered two serious sacks—at the hands of the Goths in 410 and of the Vandals in 455. By contrast, Constantinople’s status, power, and wealth rose markedly during the fi ft h century. The eastern empire continued to thrive economically in all but its Balkan provinces, and Constantinople became the permanent residence and true capital of the emperors, who withdrew entirely from Antioch, the favored imperial residence of the fourth century, and also abandoned campaigning in person. The new balance of resources and power between Rome and Constantinople was made crystal clear when an expedition launched by an emperor living in Constantinople, Justinian, captured the old capital in 536, turning it into a provincial city on the fringes of an eastern empire.

3. Senate and prefecture: Dagron, Naissance, 120–35 and 215. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 1, 32 (Canon 3), where Constantinople is again referred to as nea Rōmē. See further McLynn q.v. 4. 425 description: Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, 229 (Preface). 5. Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna.”

Old and New Rome Compared 55 1. The Available Evidence Comparing the two cities is more difficult than we might expect. Textual references are useful, but scattered and seldom readily comparable; so we are heavily dependent on archaeology. However, the evidence this has produced so far is uneven in quality, currently greatly favoring Rome over Constantinople. For instance, in Rome, for very obvious ideological reasons, there has been a powerful tradition of Christian archaeology since at least the sixteenth century, enabling us to know more about the early churches of Rome than those of any other city. There is, of course, no comparable tradition in Istanbul, where research into the Christian past has never been a high priority. One of Constantinople’s most important, and most mysterious, early churches was Constantine’s Holy Apostles, which dominated the city from high ground and served as the burial place of the imperial dynasty. It would be a fascinating building to excavate, but its remains lie under the mosque of Mehmet the Conqueror, built here at least in part to destroy the very memory of the Holy Apostles and seal it underground forever. Even without deliberate assaults on their memory, very large and important churches have disappeared in Istanbul, seemingly into thin air. In the sixth century, Procopius, who knew the buildings of Constantinople well, recorded that the church of S. Mokios, very possibly also built by Constantine, was the largest in the city (“to which all other shrines yield in size”); but its remains have never been found.6 Such a state of affairs is impossible to imagine in Rome. In Rome, the secular remains of ancient times have also received far more attention from European scholarship, and care from the city’s rulers, than have those of Constantinople. Countless excavations have been carried out in Rome specifically to shed light on its glory days, whereas in Istanbul even some spectacular monuments of the Roman past have been left to slumber in peace. For instance, it is known that broken fragments of a sculpted column, erected by Theodosius I, survive in the foundations of a sixteenth-century Ottoman bath house. They are still there, and there they will remain for the foreseeable future; only a very few carved fragments, exposed by chance, are visible.7 In Rome, Mussolini, or an earlier ruler, would have demolished the bath house and grubbed out its foundations, in the hope of sticking together again Theodosius’ broken column. In Istanbul, at least in the early years of Ottoman rule, some remains of the Byzantine past were deliberately targeted for destruction. When Pierre Gilles visited the city in 1544–48, the column with a colossal bronze statue

6. Procopius, Buildings 1.4.27 (tr. Dewing). For more testimonies to its great size, Mango, Le développement urbain, 35 n.72, also discussing its date (it is fi rst attested in 402). 7. Becatti, La Colonna, tav. 50–55; Kollwitz, Oströmische Plastik, 3–16 and Taf. 1 and 2; MüllerWiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 265.

56 Ward-Perkins of Justinian on horseback, which had stood in Constantinople’s central square, had recently been demolished, and Gilles himself saw the sad remains of the statue, broken up and about to disappear into the Sultan’s cannon foundry.8 The contrast with the treatment of antiquities in sixteenth-century Rome is eloquent; for only a few years earlier, in 1538, the great equestrian bronze of Marcus Aurelius had been moved from the Lateran, to be displayed in splendor in the middle of Michelangelo’s newly designed square on the Capitol. A further example of the sketchy nature of the archaeological record from Istanbul, and the problems that this raises, is the current near total lack of evidence for the numerous public bath buildings (thermae) known to have existed in fourth- and fift h-century Constantinople. Eight thermae are listed in the Notitia of about 425. The majority, from their names, were imperial foundations, which should certainly have been built on a grandiose scale; and some scraps of literary evidence suggest that they were indeed large. For instance, there was room to display at least eighty statues in the baths of Zeuxippus in around a.d. 500; and in 365, two legions passing through the city (at this date each perhaps numbering a thousand men) were based, and probably billeted, in a bath building.9 However, except for a small part of the baths of Zeuxippus, excavated in 1928, no physical evidence for any of them is known, and travelers’ accounts suggest that they had already disappeared by the sixteenth century— in the 1540s, the determined and thorough Pierre Gilles searched in vain for remains of the many baths he had read about in ancient sources: “No remains of the baths of Zeuxippus survive, nor of the many other baths.”10 Have the baths of Constantinople disappeared because they were much smaller than the massive structures of Rome and other imperial cities (like Trier, Arles, and Milan), whose remains are still prominent within the modern cityscape; or have they just been demolished much more completely?11 Admittedly, for the late antique city of Rome, the intense antiquarian and archaeological activity of the past has been a mixed blessing, since all early “excavations” were in reality treasure hunts, or, at best, clearances down to classical levels, involving untold destruction to the archaeological record of late and post-imperial times. However, in the last thirty to forty years, there has

8. Gilles, Antiquities, 2.17 (Musto, 97–98). On Pierre Gilles, see further Matthews q.v. 9. Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, 230, 231, 233, 235, 237, 240 and 242 (= Regions 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 13 and the summary), listing baths named after Constantius II and Arcadius, two after Honorius, and a further three after women of the imperial family. Baths of Zeuxippus: these statues are listed in a long poem preserved in the Palatine Anthology (Book 2). The 365 events in the “Anastasianas balneas”: Ammianus Marcellinus 26.6.14. 10. Excavated remains of the baths of Zeuxippus: Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 51; Casson and Talbot Rice, Second Report, 10–17. Gilles, Antiquities, 2.7 (Musto, 72). 11. The imperial baths of Antioch have also completely disappeared—but here the deposits of alluvium and rubble covering much of the ancient city are very deep indeed, much deeper than in Istanbul.

Old and New Rome Compared 57 been a silent revolution within Italian archaeology, bringing careful stratigraphic investigation to the fore, so that we are now getting reliable information on the transformation, and eventual abandonment, of Rome’s classical heritage, as well as on its days of splendor. The recent excavations in Constantinople’s harbor of Theodosius suggest that this revolution in archaeological technique has now reached the urban archaeology of Istanbul; but as yet the results for the late antique history of this city are slight. 2. Monuments, Saints, Walls, and Aqueducts In one respect, of course, Constantinople could never hope to match Rome—in the number, size, and splendor of its traditional secular monuments. Rome, since late republican times, had been endowed with an extraordinary array of monuments: theatres, amphitheatres, circuses, bath buildings, secular basilicas, triumphal arches and columns, monumental squares, and more—in staggering number as well as size. The small city of Byzantion, which had not even been a provincial capital before Constantine selected it for greatness, could never catch up with this grandiosity. Emperors in Constantinople did however make serious efforts to rival the old capital. In the 380s Theodosius I and in 402 Arcadius each ordered for his new forum a great column in marble, decorated with spiral reliefs of military triumph. There can be no doubt that these monuments were built in emulation of the famous columns of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan in Rome. That of Theodosius, as we have learned above, disappeared in the early sixteenth century, and few details of it are known. However, that of Arcadius survived until the early eighteenth century and was drawn by various travelers—for instance, it dominates the skyline of the city in a view by Melchior Lorichs of 1559—and its base still survives in situ.12 Even more importantly, it was thoroughly described, and its height calculated, by the intrepid adventurer and antiquary Pierre Gilles in the 1540s. He feared the suspicion of the locals if he tried to measure the column by the most obvious and reliable means available—dropping a line from top to bottom. So instead, as he ascended the interior spiral staircase, he carefully measured the height of the enormous blocks that made up the column, its base, and its capital.13 Thanks to Pierre Gilles’s determination and ingenuity, we know roughly how tall Arcadius’ column was and can place it, set to the same scale, alongside that of Marcus Aurelius in Rome (see figure 3.1). Unsurprisingly, but

12. Kollwitz, Oströmische Plastik, 17–62; Giglioli, La Colonna; Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 250–53. 13. Gilles, Antiquities, 4.7 (Musto, 197–99). The full Latin text is also given in the footnotes of Becatti, La Colonna, 154–57.

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Figure 3.1 The columns of Arcadius and Marcus Aurelius, reproduced to the same scale (based on Konrad, “Arkadiossäule,” 369 Abb. 39, combined with Piranesi’s engraving of the Marcus column, and an anonymous drawing of that of Arcadius).

impressively, we find that Arcadius (and presumably Theodosius before him) did not skimp—theirs were columns of over 100 Roman feet, the same size, if not slightly larger, than their models in Rome.14 Indeed, the columns of Constantinople had a considerable scenic advantage over their western cousins and rivals. Both were set on high ground overlooking the Propontis, making them clearly visible to anyone approaching Constantinople by sea, and both were sited on the Mesē, the main route by land into the heart of the city; whereas the

14. The size of the two columns given in figure 3.1 is based on Konrad, “Arkadiossäule,” 369 Abb.39. According to Konrad’s calculations, which look convincing, the heights of the three recorded spiral columns (to the tops of their capitals) are, or were, as follows: Trajan 35.1 meters (with a lower base than the other two); Marcus Aurelius 40.1 meters; Arcadius 41.8 meters. Images of Arcadius’ column can make it look smaller than its Roman cousins because it had only thirteen (broad) spirals of decoration, as against the 23 and 21 (narrower) bands of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. The very bottom of the column survives in situ, and is in fact broader (at approximately 4.1 m) than the columns of Trajan (3.67 m) and Marcus (3.8 m). These figures are from Konrad “Arkadiossäule,” 330; Galinier La colonne, 5 (Trajan); and Caprino et al., La colonna, 20 (Marcus).

Old and New Rome Compared 59 columns of Rome, both sited in the valley bottom, would always have been somewhat lost, as they are today, in the maze of streets that make up the city. In exploring the obvious emulation, and the implicit rivalry, that existed between Constantinople and Rome, the obelisks of the two cities are particularly instructive. In Rome, ever since the conquest of Egypt by OctavianAugustus, emperors had been bringing obelisks to the city—the last to arrive, the largest of all (which now stands outside the Lateran), was brought by Constantius II to adorn the Circus Maximus after his visit to the city in 357. According to the inscription carved on its new base, this obelisk had been intended for Constantinople by Constantine, but abandoned by him in Egypt—implicitly, by bringing it to Rome, Constantius was correcting an error of judgment by his father and recognizing the true primacy of the old capital.15 Unsurprisingly, emperors in Constantinople decided that their “new Rome” also needed obelisks. In 390, under Theodosius I, an Egyptian obelisk was erected on the spina of the hippodrome, which still stands there today. It is a impressive object, even in its incomplete state (its lower part is missing, broken off and presumably left behind in Egypt), and it is set on a huge block of Proconnesian marble carved on all four sides with scenes of imperial ceremonial.16 Another three, possibly four, obelisks also reached Constantinople, including a remarkable monolith of Egyptian porphyry, which must have been especially quarried to adorn the city, since no obelisks in this highly prized stone (the color of imperial purple) were available from ancient Egypt.17 But, despite these impressive efforts by its rulers, Constantinople could never quite match the three centuries of head start that Rome had had in the assembling of obelisks. Four, possibly five, are recorded in the eastern city, but fully fourteen still survive in Rome today, four of them larger than the hippodrome obelisk—and many more once existed.18 That Constantinople felt itself under pressure from Rome when it came to obelisks, is shown by a second remarkable object on the spina of its hippodrome—a “false” obelisk, built of squared blocks of stone and once sheathed in bronze. It is almost certainly of late antique date (though it is not recorded

15. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary, 2:142–43; Iversen, Obelisks, 1:155–64. For the inscription (and the dubious story it tells), CIL 6.1163 = ILS 736; Kelly, Ammianus, 225–30. 16. Bruns, Der Obelisk; Iversen, Obelisks, 2:9–33; Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 65–66 and 68. In fact, this obelisk had already been destined for Constantinople by Constantius II and Julian, following Constantius’ equivalent gift to Rome (see Julian Ep. 48 Wright = 58 Bidez). 17. Iverson, Obelisks, 2:34–50. The arrival of none of these obelisks can be dated, but all must have reached Constantinople in Late Antiquity. The porphyry obelisk is broken and missing at both ends (the surviving portion is 4.13 m high). 18. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary, 2:130–62; Iversen, Obelisks, 1:178 and 182–84.

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unequivocally before the tenth century), and it is 32 meters tall—the same height as Constantius II’s obelisk in the Circus Maximus, the largest in Rome and indeed the largest known from Egypt (see figure 3.2).19 This coincidence of height can hardly be due to chance. Size, when it came to obelisks, clearly mattered; and in the absence of a real obelisk to rival Rome’s greatest, the rulers of Constantinople felt obliged to build their own.20 The lesser scale and number of the secular monuments of Constantinople reflect a broader reality within which the city was bound to lag behind Rome— namely its lack of a remarkable past. Byzantion, given its position on the land route that linked the Balkans with the eastern provinces, and on the sea route between the Aegean and the Black Sea, was a site of considerable strategic importance and had had its moments in history—for instance, being besieged, badly damaged, and then substantially rebuilt by Septimius Severus at the end of the second century. But it was always a minor town, with nothing remotely to match the glories of the western city, which had begun with the rivalry of Romulus and Remus, deep in the distant past. In any historical contest, it would take centuries of both triumph and miraculous escape (as from the Persian and Avar siege of 626) for Constantinople to even begin to look Rome in the eye. Byzantion’s minor role, and lack of a good history before Constantine, is fully demonstrated in Constantinople’s poor Christian credentials. It could boast only two local martyrs, Akakios and Mokios, neither household names; although, as we have seen, someone (possibly Constantine himself) did his best for the latter by building him a very large church. But there is no evidence that even Constantine considered his new city as an important Christian center, and he concentrated his principal ecclesiastical building in the eastern half of his empire in the Holy Land.21 Only later in the fourth century did emperors begin to correct Constantinople’s

19. Janin, Constantinople byzantine, 192, for the height and date of the masonry obelisk. It is certainly earlier than the tenth century, since it was restored under Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913–59), who recorded his work in a surviving inscription (which also refers to the bronze plates that once coated it). A late antique date for such a large, solid and archaizing structure is almost certain and is supported by two pieces of evidence: a relief on the base of Theodosius’ obelisk, showing two obelisks in the hippodrome (his own, and one other, that could be this one: Bruns, Der Obelisk, Abb. 35 and 70); and the reference in the Notitia of ca. 425 to a “Colossus” somewhere (unspecified) within the city (Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 243 (the summary): “Colossum unum”). Th is could be our obelisk, since Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his repair inscription drew a close parallel between it (in its bronze covering) and the famous bronze Colossus of Rhodes. Matthews q.v., 112, supports this view. 20. Many centuries later, Washington, D.C., the New Rome of the nineteenth century, was given an obelisk that out-obelisks both Rome and Constantinople. The Washington Monument, built (like the Constantinopolitan obelisk) of ashlar blocks, and completed in 1884, stands an impressive 169 meters high and was briefly (before the Eiffel Tower was fi nished in 1889) the tallest man-made structure on the planet. 21. Nor does Constantinople feature among the special sees (Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome) mentioned in the canons of the Council of Nicaea (325).

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Figure 3.2 Three obelisks in Constantinople, and some of those of Rome, all reproduced to the same scale. (For the full image of the obelisks of Rome, from an engraving of 1823 by G. B. Cipriani, see D’Onofrio, Obelischi, pl. 3.)

Christian deficit, by shipping in bodies and body parts from better endowed areas of the empire. In 356, Constantius II brought to Constantinople the body of Timothy (an apostle of Paul), and in the following year those of the evangelist Luke and the apostle Andrew (brother to Peter). These are the very first recorded instances of saints being moved far from their original resting places, a fact that shows both how highly emperors respected Constantinople and how serious was the need to enhance its saintly standing. In 391, Theodosius I added the head of John the Baptist; in 406, the body of the prophet Samuel arrived; and in 415, those of Jesus’ foster-father Joseph and of John the Baptist’s father Zacharias.22

22. Dagron, Naissance, 459. The dates are those given in the Consularia Constantinopolitana (for the bodies of Timothy, Luke, and Andrew) and the Chronicon Paschale. The bodies of Andrew and Luke may have reached Constantinople as early as 336; Burgess, “The Passio S. Artemii.”

62 Ward-Perkins But however many saints were brought into the city, it could never match Rome’s Christian history and Christian relics. Rome was universally accepted to be the resting place of a host of martyrs, including the two most prestigious followers of Jesus—Paul, the hero of the book of Acts, who took Christianity to the gentiles, and Peter, to whom Christ addressed the portentous words: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. . . . And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:18–19). Rome’s apostolic position was unassailable, and the bishops of Rome, who had established to everyone’s satisfaction that Peter had founded their see and was their direct predecessor, exploited this historical position to the full. They increasingly called their bishopric an “apostolic see,” and Peter the “prince of the apostles.”23 Other bishops might fret at Rome’s claims to determine doctrine and good practice, but they did not, and could not, dispute its saintly patrimony and the extraordinary status that flowed from this. Here, for instance, is John Chrysostom, native of the great see of Antioch and later bishop of Constantinople itself, writing about Rome: Heaven, when the sun is emitting its rays, is not as resplendent as the city of the Romans radiating everywhere in the universe the light of these two lamps [Peter and Paul]. . . . With what two crowns is it adorned. . . . With what golden chains is it girded. . . . I admire this city, not because of its multitude of gold, not because of its columns, not because of its pomp, but because of these two pillars of the church.24 There was no fully satisfactory answer to Rome’s superiority in saints. But in the sixth century, Constantinople did come up with what was at least a partial solution to the problem—the adoption of the Virgin Mary as its special patron. She was, of course, a peculiarly well placed intercessor, and her body was not available to any city, since it was coming to be accepted that she, like Christ, had ascended directly into heaven. She did, however, leave on earth some special relics—her robe and her girdle—both of which were claimed by Constantinople.25 While Rome was always going to outshine Constantinople in its wealth of traditional monuments and in the richness of its secular and Christian past, in other areas it could be caught, and even overtaken. At the beginning of the fifth century, when it became clear that security was not going to be restored rapidly

23. Pietri, Roma Christiana, 1505–10 and 1463–66. See Blaudeau q.v. on Petrine ideology in the fi ft h and sixth centuries. 24. John Chrysostom, Homily 36 (PG 63.846–47); I have used the translation of Dvornik, The Idea of Apostolicity, 145. 25. The process of building up the Virgin and her relics as the special protectors of Constantinople began in the late fi ft h century and was complete by 600: Mango, “The Origins of the Blachernae Shrine.”

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Figure 3.3 The early fifth-century walls of Rome and Constantinople compared. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp.

to the Balkans, and in the face of the Gothic threat inside Italy, both Constantinople and Rome were given spectacularly enhanced walls (see figure 3.3). The work in Rome, ordered by Honorius and completed in 403, consisted of the massive heightening of an earlier circuit (built by Aurelian in the third century). The land walls of Constantinople, built around 413 under Theodosius II, were completely new, offering a triple line of defense: a substantial moat with a low first defensive wall (or proteichisma); an intermediate wall with towers (which even on its own would not have disgraced the city); and, finally, a much taller wall reinforced with huge towers, large enough to support powerful artillery pieces.26 With these new fortifications, the two cities were perhaps close to level-pegging in terms of their defenses, the most impressive of the entire empire. The walls of Rome, with over 300 towers, were necessarily much longer than the land walls of Constantinople with their ninety-six towers, and they were taller, but they were only a single line of fortification, unlike the formidable triple barrier erected by Theodosius II. But within a hundred years the defenses of Constantinople would definitively overtake those of the old capital. Under the

26. Rome: Richmond, The City Wall, is still the best single source, but his chronology is refi ned by Cozza, “Osservazioni.” Constantinople: Die Landmauer (by Krischen, Die Landmauer, vol. 1; and Meyer-Plath and Schneider, Die Landmauer, vol. 2); Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 286–300.

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Figure 3.4 The “Long Walls” (from Silivri to Evcik) and aqueducts of Constantinople. Courtesy of James Crow.

emperor Anastasius, at the very beginning of the sixth century, Constantinople was given a completely new forward line of defense—a wall, some 46 kilometers long, reaching from sea to sea and protecting a substantial slice of the city’s hinterland (see figure 3.4).27 By contrast, the defenses of Rome changed very little after the early fift h century (indeed, they were still substantially in their late Roman form when defended by papal troops, and breached, in 1870). The water supply of Constantinople never quite matched that of Rome, but it came close. Rome acquired eleven aqueducts through late republican and early imperial times, with some of them (like the Aqua Claudia) carried into the city on spectacular rows of arches. The amounts flowing into Rome, and the number of different sources tapped, even allowed for the selective use of different qualities of water: the impure water of the Alsietina, for instance, was used primarily for irrigation and powering mills, saving the prized waters of aqueducts like the Marcia for drinking.28 Praise for Rome’s water supply was a

27. Crow, “The Anastasian Wall”; Crow and Ricci, “Investigating the Hinterland.” Anastasius’ wall was similar to Hadrian’s in Britain, though less than half its length (the north British wall was around 117 km long). 28. Ashby, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, remains the essential survey. For the very different quality of the Marcia and the Alsietina, Frontinus, De Aquaeductu, 1.11–13.

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Figure 3.5 The aqueducts of Rome and Constantinople compared. Drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp.

commonplace—Pliny wrote that there was “nothing more wonderful in the whole world,” while Frontinus drew a favorable contrast between Rome’s “many massive and indispensable structures bringing in so much water,” and “the obviously idle pyramids and the inert but famous buildings of the Greeks.”29 While it is entirely possible that there was decay to the system in the fift h century, much of it was certainly still functioning in the early sixth century, since the Romans are recorded to have been “distressed by their inability to bathe” when the aqueducts were cut during a siege in 537.30 Constantinople could never rival the full sophistication of Rome’s water supply, but its aqueducts were steadily enhanced through the fourth and fifth centuries. After its early dependence on local supply, brought in along fairly short channels, by the early sixth century the city had acquired much the longest aqueduct of the ancient world—around 120 kilometers as the crow flies, but over 250 kilometers long if followed along its winding course (see figures 3.4 and 3.5).31 Constantinopolitans could now glory in what their hydraulic engineers had achieved, in the way that writers had long gloried in the water supply of Rome. For instance, the rhetor Themistius lauded the skilled engineering of the aqueduct of

29. Pliny, NH 36.24.123 (tr. Eichholz); Frontinus, De Aquaeductu 1.16 (tr. Bennett). 30. Procopius, Wars 5.20.5 (= Gothic War 1.20.5), trans. Dewing. 31. The combined length of the various aqueduct channels of Constantinople perhaps exceeded the combined length of Rome’s aqueducts (Crow et al., The Water Supply, 1). However, in terms of the quantity and variety of water provided, Rome was certainly better endowed than Constantinople, which, for instance, was said to “suffer from scarcity of water as a general thing” during the summer months, even under Justinian, when the city’s aqueduct system was at its most extensive: Procopius, Buildings 1.11.10–15.

66 Ward-Perkins Valens (with its tunnels and bridges) by praising the emperor for introducing the Thracian water nymphs into the city, who “undeterred by rocks, mountains or ravines, skirted these obstacles, burrowed under them or flew through the air.”32 Constantinople also acquired a remarkable number of huge cisterns, more impressive even than those of Rome, primarily to store water during the dry summer months—though this was an achievement forced on the city by its lack of alternative sources of fresh water (while Rome could, if necessary, supplement or replace its aqueduct water from wells, and from the Tiber).33 The best known Constantinopolitan cisterns are two spectacular underground structures, the Basilica Cistern (or Yerebatan Sarayı), built by Justinian, and that “of Philoxenos” (or Binbirdirek; see figure 3.6), both in the center of town and both now major tourist attractions. The Basilica Cistern has 366 columns supporting its vaults (in 12 rows of 28), while that of Philoxenos has 224 double columns (448 in all, justifying, with only a touch of hyberbole, its Turkish name, “the thousand and one columns”).34 But just as impressive in their way are three huge open-air cisterns built near the Theodosian walls, all of the fift h and very early sixth centuries, which between them could hold around 600,000 cubic meters of water.35 To form an idea of their size (which is very difficult to capture even in photographs), we need only know that they are all of roughly the same dimensions and that one of them, the cistern of Aetius (built in 421) now holds within it a medium-sized football stadium. The defenses and the water supply of Constantinople were both enhanced during the fifth and early sixth centuries, which highlights an obvious and very relevant contrast with Rome. While Constantinople’s infrastructure grew, with a concomitant gain in security and comfort, that of Rome stood still: the very last major secular building project known in the old capital is the extension of the city walls completed in 403.36 Furthermore, there is good evidence to show that the monumental patrimony of the old capital, on which we have dwelt above, did not just stagnate, but began to crumble. In 443, a prefect of the city

32. The translation is based on Mango, “The Water Supply,” 13 (the passage is also translated in Crow et al., The Water Supply, 224). Towards the end of the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus, again referring to its tunnels and bridges, described Constantinople’s aqueduct as “an underground and overhead river” (Or. 33.6; Crow et al., The Water Supply, 226). 33. Over 160 cisterns are listed in the recent bibliography compiled by Jonathan Bardill: Crow et al., The Water Supply, 144–55 (though not all will be late Roman in date). 34. For the numbers of columns: Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 68–70. (Because of the cool damp conditions within it, the Philoxenos Cistern was used in early modern times for spinning silk—hence the wheel in the foreground of figure 3.6). 35. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 128–32. 36. In the future it may also be possible to compare the harbor facilities of Constantinople (which were progressively added to through the fourth and fi ft h centuries) with Rome’s spectacular, but perhaps decaying, harbors at Portus.

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Figure 3.6 The cistern “of Philoxenos” (Binbirdirek), in an engraving by Thomas Allom of ca. 1838. The cistern appears in this engraving, as today, fi lled with earth to about a third of its original height (the “rings” that one can see on the columns are, in reality, the bands used to join two superimposed column drums of equal height). (Allom and Walsh, Constantinople, facing p.14.)

carried out a repair to the baths of Constantine and celebrated his work in the traditional manner, with an inscription. But the wording of this inscription is far from traditional—in it the prefect emphasizes the very limited cost of his repair: “he restored [the baths] with a small sum (parvo sumptu), as much as the scarcity of public funds would allow (quantum publicae patiebantur angustiae).”37 This is an extraordinary statement, making a virtue of petty repair, after centuries of inscriptions that had praised the huge sums and massive efforts expended on the beautification of Rome. Funds must have been very scarce indeed. Archaeological evidence points in the same direction. Some areas of Rome certainly survived as monumental spaces through the fift h and early sixth centuries. For example, as late as 608 a statue to the emperor Phocas was dedicated in the heart of the Forum, opposite the Senate House. This dedication, in reality, was almost certainly the rededication of a much older statue, adding a new inscription to its base; but it shows that an area of the Forum was still decorous enough in the early seventh century for the honoring of an emperor in the tradition manner.38 Recent excavations have uncovered elsewhere a similar

37. CIL 6.1750 = ILS 5703. 38. CIL 6.1200 = ILS 837.

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picture of the survival of some Roman monuments in their ancient form until very late dates. For instance, the paved square in front of the Pantheon is now known to have been kept clean at its Roman level into the tenth century, with even the addition of a small fountain, probably in the late eighth century. Only after 900 did the square’s fine paving, monumental form, and fountain disappear under a mass of dumped rubble.39 However, excavations elsewhere in Rome have revealed monuments that were already in ruins, or at least beginning to fall apart, in the fi ft h century. For instance, the massive Basilica Aemilia, right next to the Senate House, was never rebuilt after a disastrous fire in the early fift h century (very possibly caused by the Gothic sack of 410). Its facade was rebuilt in a new form, so that from the outside the building looked suitably decorous; but behind this facade was an empty burnt-out shell.40 Decay, rather than out-and-out destruction, was however probably more typical of the state of Rome’s monuments in the fift h century. For instance, the extensive excavations in the area of the Crypta Balbi have shown that during the fift h century rubbish was being dumped within the monumental buildings of early imperial times, that these were beginning to crumble, and that new rough tracks were being formed, cutting across the monumental areas (see figure 3.7).41 Unfortunately, unless the excavations were carried out very recently, with suitable care and attention dedicated to the chronology of abandonment (as at the Crypta Balbi and Pantheon), evidence of the later history of monuments has invariably been destroyed. However, even a reexamination of early excavations can occasionally turn up fascinating scraps of evidence. In the Forum of Augustus, for instance, which was cleared under Mussolini (with scant attention to its later history), an observant scholar recently noticed an inscription carved on one of the huge collapsed column drums of the temple of Mars Ultor. The inscription, which can only have been added to the column drum after it had fallen (since it is on one of the hidden surfaces), reads “PAT DECI,” with a clear abbreviation mark over the “PAT” (see figure 3.8). This can reasonably be expanded to read Pat(ricii) Dec(i)i (Of the Patrician Decius), perhaps a mark of ownership. If the name has been interpreted correctly, the inscription could well be of the

39. Virgili, “Strutture,” 204–7; Virgili and Battistelli, “Indagini,” 151–52: the fountain (in front of what had become the church of S. Maria ad Martyres) was perhaps added by Pope Hadrian I at the time of his repairs to the Aqua Virgo. Recent work has shown that the marble paving of the Forum of Trajan was largely in place until the ninth century, when it was systematically removed. By then the forum was almost certainly already in a poor state of repair (as shown by the presence of a kiln of around a.d. 700, established to convert Trajanic marble into lime), but it cannot have been covered in deep rubble: Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani, Fori Imperiali, 122–23. 40. Machado, “Building the Past,” 174–75. 41. Manacorda, “Trasformazioni,” 31–38; Manacorda, Crypta Balbi, 44–52.

Figure 3.7 Hypothetical reconstruction of the area of the Crypta Balbi in the fi ft h century. (From D. Manacorda, Crypta Balbi, 45, fig. 47.)

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Figure 3.8 The inscription, possibly of the Patrician Decius, in the Forum of Augustus. The arrow in the photograph shows the column drum on which it appears.

second half of the fifth century, or of the early sixth, since there are three prominent aristocratic Decii recorded in Rome in that period (consuls, respectively, in 486, 493, and 529). Furthermore, the letter forms of the inscription (such as its distinctive “A”) would suit such a date. If this dating and interpretation are correct (and there are several “ifs” involved here), the inscription is evidence that, by around 500 at the latest, one of the columns of Augustus’ temple of Mars Ultor had already collapsed (or perhaps even been torn down), with its marble drums lying around to be claimed by a rich and powerful aristocrat.42 Overall, the archaeological evidence suggests that islands of monumentality were maintained in Rome into the sixth century, and even beyond (as at the Pantheon), but almost certainly within a context of widespread decay. This is a picture supported by the written evidence of Procopius, who saw the city during the Gothic wars of the 530s and 540s. At one point, he describes how the

42. Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani, “Episodi di trasformazione,” 78–81; Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani, Roma nell’altomedioevo, 71. For a similar inscription, that is possible evidence of considerable ruination and spoliation at the Colosseum by the early sixth century, even though the arena was still in use, see Rea and Pani, “GERONTI V S”; Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani, Roma nell’altomedioevo, 71–72.

Old and New Rome Compared 71 besieged inhabitants of Rome were reduced to eating the nettles that grew in great quantity among the city’s ruins (ἐν τοῖς ἐρειπίοις); but, at the same time, he also notes how “the Romans love their city above all the men we know . . . and preserved [its] buildings and most of its adornments, such as could through the excellence of their workmanship withstand so long a lapse of time and such neglect.”43 Rome was crumbling, even though efforts were being made to slow the decay. We have from Constantinople no detailed evidence for the state of its secular monuments, similar to that which has been emerging from Rome. But, when the center of the city burned during the Nika riots of 532, it was rebuilt by Justinian, most famously with his Church of S. Sophia, but also with a new entrance to the imperial palace, new baths of Zeuxippus, and new colonnades down to the Forum of Constantine, as well as with a monumental column and bronze statue of the emperor.44 Unlike in Rome, where fire in the early fift h century led to the abandonment of the Basilica Aemilia, even though this was in the heart of the Forum Romanum, in Constantinople the fire of 532 was followed by a complete rebuilding, in the case of S. Sophia on a very much grander scale. 3. The Houses of the Rich, and of the Not So Rich A similar picture of fifth-century decay can now also be told about the sumptuous houses of the Rome’s aristocracy.45 At the very beginning of the fifth century, these domūs must have outshone the equivalent aristocratic residences of Constantinople, since they made a profound impact on Olympiodorus, an eastern writer who knew Constantinople well: “each of the great houses of Rome contained within itself . . . everything which a medium sized city could hold, a hippodrome, fora, temples, fountains, and different kinds of baths.  .  . . One house is a town, the city hides ten thousand towns.”46 Furthermore, Rome contained a very large number of domūs—1,790 are listed in fourth-century descriptions of the city. Archaeological evidence confirms that, while many of these houses were old in origin, they were carefully maintained, and further embellished, during the fourth century. For instance, the “House of the Symmachi”

43. Procopius Wars 7.17.13 (= Gothic Wars 3.17.13), and Wars 8.22.5–6 (= Gothic Wars 4.22.5–6). 44. Procopius Wars 1.24.9 (= Persian Wars); Buildings 1.10.3. 45. For an account of these developments, see Machado q.v., and his forthcoming Urban Space and Power in Late Antique Rome. 46. Numbers of domūs: Curiosum Urbis Romae and Notitia Urbis Romae, 162 and 188 (ed. Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 1.63–192). For the quotation: Olympiodorus, fr. 41.1, tr. Blockley. For the archaeological evidence for Rome’s domūs, through the fourth and fi ft h centuries: Guidobaldi, “L’edilizia abitativa unifamiliare”; Ensoli and La Rocca, Aurea Roma, 134–55; Machado, “Between Memory and Oblivion.”

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(on the Caelian hill) gained a sumptuous new marble floor for one of its reception rooms, while the house of Junius Bassus on the Esquiline was enhanced by a new hall, decorated with sophisticated opus sectile work. The evidence from Constantinople is far more sketchy than that from Rome, though some fift y fourth- and fift h-century aristocratic houses are recorded in written sources.47 From some of their names, and above all from the insignificance of pre-Constantinian Byzantion, we can deduce that the city’s rich houses must have been new buildings of late Roman times. The only ones that have been partially excavated and published are two houses just north of the hippodrome, which are impressive in both size and complexity (see figure 3.9). The first, built for the imperial eunuch Antiochus (as an inscription attests), probably in the 430s, had a symmetrical suite of rooms with complex ground plans opening off a large D-shaped portico. The second, which is of about the same date, had a long dining hall with multiple apses (in which semicircular couches would have been placed), preceded by a large rotunda, itself opening off a much smaller portico. This second house used to be attributed to Lausus, another very distinguished official of the 420s and 430s. The attribution is doubtful, though Lausus is known from textual evidence to have owned a spectacular mansion somewhere in this area, large enough to house a famous collection of antique sculpture, including some huge pieces, like Pheidias’ Zeus from Olympia.48 The textual evidence for the house of Lausus, and the excavated evidence from near the hippodrome, although very patchy, is sufficient to give an impression of the rich aristocratic housing that sprung up in Constantinople and to show that at least some of this development occurred in the fift h century. By contrast, recent archaeological work in Rome has shown that here the condition of the aristocratic domūs changed markedly for the worse during the fift h century. The scanty textual evidence is admittedly somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the Life of the ascetic aristocrat Melania provides telling detail of how one rich house in Rome was badly damaged during the Gothic sack of 410. Melania and her husband had earlier tried to sell their principal residence in the city, but had not found a buyer for “such a large and splendid building.” However, “after it was partly destroyed by the enemy, it was sold for virtually nothing, since it had been damaged by fire.”49 On the other hand, the book of papal biographies, the Liber Pontificalis, points to a rather different situation when it records that Sixtus III (432–40) gave his new

47. Dagron, Naissance, 91. 48. For these two houses, see Mango, Vickers, and Francis, “The Palace of Lausus,” 89–98; Bardill, “The Palace of Lausus,” 67–69. 49. Vita Sanctae Melaniae 14.2.

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Figure 3.9 The two aristocratic houses excavated near the hippodrome in Constantinople. After Bardill, “The Palace of Lausus”, Fig. 1.

foundation of S. Maria Maggiore two domūs within the city, one of which (with a bath and bakery attached) brought in an annual income of 154 solidi, while the other rendered 104. These are very large sums, larger than earlier rents recorded in the Liber Pontificalis, and hardly suggestive of a dramatic collapse in demand for expensive housing.50 While the textual evidence is inconclusive, recent excavations in Rome seem to point unequivocally to marked decay among its aristocratic houses. For instance, of two great domūs excavated recently on the Caelian, the “House of Gaudentius” and the massive “House of the Symmachi,” only the unimpressive service areas of the former seem to have been used during the fifth century,

50. LP 46.3 (1:233 Duchesne).

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while the latter appears to have been wholly abandoned.51 Similarly, a recent re-examination of the evidence for a large house excavated in 1947–49 by Termini, Rome’s central railway station, suggests that the greater part of it was abandoned and walled off sometime between the mid-fifth and the early sixth century.52 Some wealthy houses must have survived through the fifth century to draw the rents recorded in the Liber Pontificalis and to house an aristocracy still wealthy enough to hold expensive games in Ostrogothic times, but as yet archaeological evidence of these buildings is almost nonexistent. Presumably, as with the public monuments, some impressive private houses persisted—but within a wider context of decay. Of more ordinary housing in this period, we know almost nothing from either city, and it is therefore impossible to come to any realistic estimates of overall population. However, we can be certain that, by 500, the population of Rome was sadly decayed from what it had been earlier. In the 530s Cassiodorus, observing its massive buildings and its shrunken population, had this to say about the city: “It is clear how large the population of Rome once was: the vast space enclosed by the walls bears testimony to a mass of citizens, as does the extensive enclosure of the entertainment buildings, the marvelous size of the bath buildings, and the great number of mills.”53 Rome, by the early sixth century, was a city living on former, and now decaying, grandeur. Constantinople by contrast was a boom town, adding, through the fifth and into the sixth century, to its water supply and defenses, to its aristocratic domūs, and almost certainly to its population. 4. The Buildings of the Church During the fourth and very early fifth centuries, both Rome and Constantinople acquired a number of large and sumptuously decorated churches. In Rome these included two five-aisled basilicas around 100 meters long, one built for St. Peter by Constantine, the other for St. Paul, ordered by Valentinian II and Theodosius.54 For Constantinople we know very much less, but the Holy Apostles was unquestionably an impressive building, and so, too, almost certainly was the Church of S. Sophia as rebuilt following a fire in 404.55 During the fift h century, the new churches of Constantinople should have continued to be large (and even increased in size), while those of Rome should have got smaller and smaller, if both cities’ churches had followed the pattern

51. Pavolini et al., “La topografia antica,” 453–55, 493–54. 52. Santangeli Valenzani and Meneghini, “Fasi tarde.” 53. Cassiodorus, Variae 11.39. 54. Krautheimer et al., Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, 5:93–279. 55. For the Holy Apostles, Eusebius, VC 4.58–59. For S. Sophia, Schneider, Grabung im Westhof ; Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 134–43.

Old and New Rome Compared 75 that we have traced for secular monuments, aqueducts, walls, and aristocratic housing. The surviving evidence, however, does not immediately support this picture. From fift h-century Rome, two very large churches survive—S. Maria Maggiore, built and lavishly decorated with mosaics by Pope Sixtus III in the 430s, and S. Stefano Rotondo, erected by Pope Simplicius sometime between 468 and 483, as well as a sumptuous redecoration of the Lateran Baptistery, also carried out by Sixtus III.56 None of this was on quite the imperial scale of S. Peter’s and S. Paul’s: S. Maria Maggiore has three rather than five aisles and is around 70 rather than 100 meters long. But none the less these churches seem to point in a very different direction to the stagnation and decay documented for the secular monuments and aristocratic houses of Rome, some of which, although standing on the Caelian Hill right next to S. Stefano, were falling into ruins in the very period that this impressive church was being erected.57 Furthermore, both S. Maria Maggiore and S. Stefano are considerably larger than the two fift h-century churches of Constantinople that are known in more or less their complete form, the churches of S. John Stoudios of about 450 and of the Theotokos Chalkoprateia of the later fift h century. These churches are a little under 50 meters long, although both were once preceded by atria, off which, in the case of the Chalkoprateia, opened an annexed suite of rooms (probably a baptistery). The Roman churches are only rivaled in scale in the 520s, when the fabulously rich Anicia Juliana built the great Church of S. Polyeuktos, known from excavations in the 1960s (see figure 3.10).58 However, there are special circumstances that may explain, and that certainly nuance, this anomalous pattern. First, the two surviving churches from Constantinople may be unrepresentative of the full range of ecclesiastical buildings constructed within the fift h-century city, since, as we have seen, we know so very little about the Christian archaeology of the city. If the great fourth-century Basilica of S. Mokios could disappear without trace and the Church of S. Polyeuktos only be discovered by chance in 1960, it is very possible that substantial Constantinopolitan churches of the fift h century have been lost without trace. Second, although Rome’s surviving fift h-century churches are

56. S. Maria Maggiore: LP 46.3 (1:232–33 Duchesne); Krautheimer et al., Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, 3:1–60. S. Stefano, LP 49.1 (1:249 Duchesne); Krautheimer et al., Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, 4:199–240. Baptistery, LP 46.7 (1:234 Duchesne). 57. Melania’s house and the houses of the Symmachi and of Gaudentius were all in the immediate vicinity of S. Stefano. 58. Chalkoprateia, Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 76–80; Kleiss, “Neue Befunde”; Kleiss, “Grabungen.” S. John Stoudios, Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 147–52. The Church of S. John, the best preserved fi ft h-century church of Constantinople, is just a little smaller than the Chalkoprateia; the plans of both are reproduced, side by side, in Müller-Wiener, “Costantinopoli,” 160. S. Polyeuktos, Harrison, Excavations; Harrison, Temple.

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Figure 3.10 The plans, all drawn to the same scale, of two fi ft h-century churches in Rome (S. Maria Maggiore and S. Stefano Rotondo), compared with those of a fi ft h and an early sixthcentury church in Constantinople (the Theotokos Chalkoprateia and S. Polyeuktos). Plans prepared by Elif Keser-Kayaalp.

larger than those known from Constantinople, their marble elements (bases, columns, and capitals) are almost all reused pieces, taken from abandoned classical buildings. By contrast, in Constantinople, marble is carved in the latest styles and newly quarried, generally at nearby at Proconnesos, but sometimes much farther afield—the Church of S. John Stoudios, for instance, has a set of exotic verde antico columns brought to the city from Thessaly. Already in the fift h century, if one was interested in the latest fashion in marble decoration and marble carving, it was certainly to Constantinople that one looked, not to Rome. Third, the size of Rome’s churches may reflect local circumstances, rather than broader well-being within the city. The three impressive projects of the fift h century that we have considered—S. Maria Maggiore, S. Stefano, and the Lateran Baptistery—were all papal commissions, and the popes during the fift h century were accumulating more and more gifts and more and more wealth. The size of these churches probably reflects increasing papal wealth and papal prestige, rather than general prosperity within the city.59

59. Pietri, “Evergétisme”; Marazzi, “Rome in Transition,” 35–38.

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Figure 3.11 Plans and sections, at the same scale, of S. Paolo fuori-le-mura (Rome) and S. Sophia (Constantinople). Based on the drawings in Fletcher, History of Architecture.

Though it may not have occurred in the fifth century, the primacy of Constantinople over Rome in church building was conclusively established by Justinian, when he rebuilt S. Sophia following the Nika riots of 532. This astonishing church, erected in less than six years, is not only very large in plan, it is also hugely tall, and covered, of course, not with a timber roof, but with a great mosaiced dome. In plan, S. Sophia is not dissimilar in size to the great imperial churches of fourth-century Rome, but in terms of height, engineering panache, and the sheer volume of space enclosed, it massively outdoes them (see figures 3.11 and 3.12). Furthermore, people in Constantinople were well aware that this was a building that outshone even Rome. At the second dedication of S. Sophia, probably in January 563, the orator Paul the Silentiary heaped praise on the Emperor Justinian, who “by raising this infinite temple . . . has made you [Constantinople] more brilliant than your mother on the Tiber who bore you”; and he imagines old Rome attending the ceremony of rededication: “But you too, first born Latin Rome, come, singing in harmony with fresh-budding Rome; come, rejoicing that you see your child surpassing her mother, for this is the delight of parents.”60

60. Paul the Silentiary, Description of Hagia Sophia 150–51, 164–67, tr. Bell.

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Figure 3.12 S. Sophia and the Pantheon compared. Sections drawn by Elif Keser-Kayaalp.

Whether the citizens of old Rome, contemplating their outsized child on the Bosporus, were really so delighted is hard to tell; and when precisely Constantinople overtook Rome in size and wealth is uncertain—it may even have been as early as the first half of the fift h century. What is beyond dispute is that by the early sixth century, Constantinople, not Rome, was the greatest city of the Mediterranean—a development that closely reflected the continuous strength of the eastern empire and the disintegration of the west. The geopolitics of the Mediterranean would never be the same again.

PA RT I I

Urban Space and Urban Development in Comparative Perspective

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4

The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae JOHN MATTHEWS

1. Introduction The French antiquarian and diplomat Petrus Gyllius, known to us as Pierre Gilles, is described by Cyril Mango as the founder of the scholarly study of Constantinople, which in no way overstates the value of his work to historians of the city.1 Gilles’s visit to Constantinople, arising from the diplomatic connections between King François I and Süleyman the Magnificent, lasted from 1544 to 1548, when he embarked on an eventful period of service in the Ottoman army in its campaign against Persia. He returned to the capital in 1550. A century since the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, much more of the ancient city was still visible than could be seen even a short time later. In his book The Antiquities of Constantinople, published posthumously in Latin in 1561 and in an English translation in 1729, Gilles shows us Byzantine Constantinople literally disappearing before his eyes.2 He watched workmen removing the pillars at the southern end of the Hippodrome, which we still see on contemporary images of the structure; he describes how the columns were squared off for paving a bath house, while the carved capitals, pedestals, and entablatures were roughed out for use in everyday building.3 He wrote of a great fire in the Grand Bezestan (the Bazaar) that had revealed the fine commercial buildings that had been hidden behind the merchants’ stalls, as well as a “nymphaeum” with forty-five pillars and a brick roof. One of the most important roads of Constantine’s city can be traced through the Grand Bazaar, and it is not impossible that Gilles was looking at a relic of the Roman and Byzantine city;

1. Cyril Mango’s Introduction to Mango and Dagron, Constantinople and its Hinterland, 1. 2. Originally entitled De Topographia Constantinopoleos. Gilles citations will be by book and chapter, and by page number in Musto’s edition of 1988 (which offers a revised version of John Ball’s 1729 translation). 3. Gilles, Antiquities 2.13 (Musto, 83–84).

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the “nymphaeum” may have been a Byzantine cistern.4 One of Gilles’s most famous descriptions is of his discovery of the huge underground cistern now known as the Cistern of the Basilica,5 and one of his most eloquent that of the great equestrian statue of Justinian, one of the Seven Wonders of the City in Byzantine texts, being broken up for the foundries.6 Justinian’s leg, says Gilles, exceeded the author’s own height and his nose was more than nine inches long! He did not venture in public view to measure the legs of Justinian’s horse, but he found one of the hoofs to be nine inches in height.7 By the time its sad fate overtook it, Justinian’s statue was a thousand years old—still more, if it was in fact a recycled statue of Theodosius.8 Gilles laments the state of affairs, blaming both the Muslim Ottomans for their uncaring destruction of the ancient city and the “profound ignorance” of their Greek Christian subjects for their indifference to their vanishing antiquities.9 Yet, at the same time as he presents this picture of neglect and indifference, he offers what may be our best chance of recovering the fourth- and early fift h-century city. Relying on “an ancient manuscript written over one thousand years ago by a gentleman more noble by his birth than his writings,” Gilles constructed a survey of the city that is still an important guide to its configuration.10 The manuscript is the text now known as the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, a regional inventory of the city dedicated to the emperor Theodosius II.11 In its few pages, the text identifies more buildings and institutions in more parts of the city than are known from any other single source, and quantifies its physical and human resources in a way that permits at least a preliminary description of the population of the city and its distribution. Its perspective is free from the distortions and fantasies that affect so many of our sources for the history of Constantinople, and it is contemporary with the later part of the period that it covers. It is not too much to claim it as the single most

4. Ibid. 1.10 (Musto, 30–31). For the road, Uzunçarşi Caddesi or “Longmarket Street”, see Mango, Le développement urbain, 30–31; Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 366, 396. The line of the road is visible in plans of the Bazaar, running at a slight angle to the central galleries. 5. Gilles, Antiquities, 2.20 (Musto, 111–12). 6. Ibid., 2.17 (Musto, 97–98). On the “Seven Wonders of Byzantium,” see esp. Downey, “Constantine the Rhodian.” 7. Gilles, Antiquities 2.17 (Musto, 97–98). 8. On the attribution of the statue to Theodosius, see Manners, “Constructing the Image of a City,” 86, citing Mango, “Justinian’s Equestrian Statue.” Malalas 18.94 (482 Bonn), s.a. 542, states that it was a statue of Arcadius from the Forum Tauri (sc. of Theodosius). 9. Gilles, Antiquities 2.1 (Musto, 51–52). 10. Ibid., 51. 11. Gilles does not say how or when he “accidentally fell upon” this text, the manuscript tradition of which is entirely western. A translation of the Notitia was included as an appendix in Ball’s 1729 translation of Gilles, but not in Musto’s reprint of 1988.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 83 important source for the early history of the city of Constantine. Of the anonymous gentleman whom we have to thank for it, nothing is known, unless we infer from three indications in his preface—he is at leisure, has a warm admiration for the city, and access to the documentary information that he presents—that he is a retired member of the administrative office of the urban prefect of Constantinople. The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae is one of a dossier of texts of a broadly technical and administrative nature, transmitted by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century copyists from a lost Carolingian manuscript once in the Cathedral Library of Speyer.12 Several of the documents are illustrated, either in combination with the written text or as a frontispiece to it. Among the fully illustrated texts, the most notable are the late fourth- to early fift h-century Notitia Dignitatum, with nearly a hundred illustrations to accompany the court and provincial offices of eastern and western empires with their insignia, registers of military units with their shield devices and other symbols of power, and the so-called Anonymus de Rebus Bellicis, with illustrations to clarify the descriptions of the inventions offered for the emperor’s consideration. The Notitia of Constantinople is among the texts that possess an illustration only as a frontispiece. The picture, shown in only one copy of the Speyer manuscript though others preserve the space for it, shows the city on its peninsula, portrayed in the “modernizing” style in which the images are transmitted, but representing authentic details—namely S. Sophia, the equestrian statue of Justinian whose last days were witnessed by Pierre Gilles, and a representation of the spiral staircase, named Kochlias after the Greek word for a snail, that communicated between the imperial palace and the Hippodrome.13 The dossier also contains an illustration that once served as frontispiece to a parallel text relating to the city of Rome. It shows a seated figure with the caption Urbs quae aliquando desolata nunc clariosior piissimo imperio restaurata (“The city of Rome, once desolate, now restored to a greater glory by the most Holy Empire”), referring no doubt to a Carolingian restoration of the city—a description that must go back to the exemplar of the extant manuscripts. The text that once followed the illustration, corresponding to that for Constantinople, is lost, though related texts in the form of regional catalogues of the city are found elsewhere.14

12. Edited by Seeck, in his Notitia Dignitatum of 1876, 228–43. On the history of these texts, see Reeve, “Notitia Dignitatum,” in Reynolds, Texts and Transmission, 253–57, and, more detailed, Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, 6–17. 13. Procopius, Wars 1.24.42. 14. Edited by Nordh, Libellus de Regionibus Urbis Romae; see esp. Hermansen, “The Population of Ancient Rome.”

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Like its Roman counterparts, the Notitia of the city of Constantinople is a list of the physical and administrative resources of the city, arranged under the Fourteen Regions into which it was divided, each Region being prefaced by a brief topographical description (a feature not found in the Roman analogies). The most recent monuments are palaces, houses, and baths named after members of the Theodosian dynasty—namely, the Augustae Galla Placidia (who held this rank from 421 or 425 until her death in 450), Theodosius II’s sister Pulcheria (Augusta from 414 to 453), his wife Eudocia (Augusta from 423 to 443 though living on in exile to 460), and the “nobilissimae” Marina (403–49) and Arcadia (400–44). The range of dates defined by these references is narrowed by the fact that the writer does not seem to know of the renaming of the “Constantinian” baths after Theodosius, which took place upon their long-delayed completion in 427.15 These indications are consistent with other elements in the text. Its dedicatory preface describes the emperor Theodosius as having by his care brought the city to such a pitch of perfection as could not be surpassed (ita virtus et cura decoravit, ut eius perfectioni, quamvis sit quispiam diligens, nihil possit adiungere), and in its summary at the end mentions the “double line of walls” by which the city was guarded (duplici muro acies turrium extensa custodit). This clearly refers to the outer wall begun by Theodosius II and repaired or rebuilt at various later times; a law of 4 April 413, preserved in the Theodosian Code refers to the construction of a new wall “for the protection of the most splendid city” and delegates the upkeep of its towers to the owners of the land on which they stood.16 Despite this mention of the later walls in the preface, the configuration of the city laid out in the text of the Notitia is that of an earlier period. The most concise proof of this is at the very end of the text, when the “length” of the city (its east-west measurement) is given as 14,075 Roman feet, from the Porta Aurea to the sea at the eastern end of the promontory. This measurement can only begin from the Constantinian wall, from which point it is quite accurate.17 The Porta Aurea itself, the original Golden Gate, is the first of the monuments listed under the Twelft h Region, which is described, in the topographical sketch of the Region preceding its list of amenities, as “ennobled by the loft y grandeur of the walls” (quam moenium sublimior decorat ornatus).

15. Chron. Pasch. s.a. 427 (580–81 Bonn). 16. CTh 15.1.51, ad munitionem splendidissimae urbis. The classic study is Millingen, Byzantine Constantinople (1899). Later works were performed by the praetorian prefects Cyrus in 439–41 (PLRE 2, 338 [“Cyrus 7”]), Constantinus in 447 (ibid. 317 [“Constantinus 22”]), and Pusaeus in 465 (ibid. 930). 17. As is emphatically noted by Millingen, Byzantine Constantinople, 16–18 and 30–33.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 85 The explanation of the contradiction between the preface, which mentions the Theodosian walls, and the text of the Notitia, which takes no notice of them, could lie within the text itself, if it were subject to revision from the fourth into the early fift h century. It is a feature of documentary lists—the Notitia Dignitatum is an example—that they are not always updated consistently and that their revisions may leave traces of earlier situations that no longer apply. It may be that the compiler, working with a survey of the city based on its fourth-century configuration, was unable to do more than indicate the existence of the Theodosian walls, as it were, hors de texte. Possibly also, at the time that he compiled his text, these walls were seen as an outer defense of the urban area as it still existed in the early fift h century with, as yet, relatively little development between the two circuits.18 Only later were the Theodosian walls seen as the primary defense of the city; and it was only then that the name of the Golden Gate, the main ceremonial entrance to the city, migrated to where its remains are now seen, at the southern end of the later wall. Such sources as the Chronicon Paschale show that the “old,” or “Troadensian,” walls (named after the colonnades that led to them) continued to be a feature of the later city, and some versions of Buondelmonti’s manuscript plan of the city suggest that the Constantinian Golden Gate, labeled “porta antiquissima pulchra,” still existed in the fifteenth century.19 In the following translation of the Notitia, I retain at the head of each entry the Latin text of the topographical introductions to the Regions; this is laid out by clauses, not in order to create a new type of Latin poetry but to make clear how these sometimes awkward texts are articulated. Aware that they are arbitrary distinctions, I follow the transmitted text in showing where numbers are written out either in words or in Latin numerals. The translation follows the text in making the important distinction between gradūs, “steps” from which bread distributions were made, and scalae, quaysides or embarkation points for ferries. Even though it is hard to imagine that they are significant, it also reproduces the different ways in which the Notitia describes the porticūs, or colonnades, of the city. In Region I, they are defined as “continuous” (perpetuae), in Regions II–VII as “grand” (magnae), and in Regions VIII–XIV as “greater” (maiores).20

18. Mango, Le développement urbain, 49–50. 19. Chron. Pasch. s.a. 451 (590 Bonn) (“Troadesian walls”), s.a. 459 (593 Bonn) (cistern of Aspar near the “old wall”); for Buondelmonti, see Mango, Le développement urbain, 35–36, with Manners, “Constructing the Image of a City,” and the exhibition catalogue also edited by Manners, European Cartographers and the Ottoman World, esp. his chapter, “Mapping the City: Civitates Orbis Terrarum,” at 67–78. 20. Scholars have generally referred to the Notitia by page numbers in Seeck’s edition, which are therefore added here for convenience in the right-hand margin: the page begins, unless indicated, at the beginning of the line.

86 Matthews 2. Translation The City of Constantinople, New Rome

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It is often the case that men of learning, inspired according to the measure of their intellectual capacity by a restless desire for the unknown, apply their inquiring minds at one time to the customs of foreign peoples, at another to the secrets of the earth, lest, to the detriment of general knowledge, anything should remain unknown; for they think it a mark of indolence if anything that exists in the world of men should lie hidden from them. While such men of learning grasp the measure of the lands in miles, the seas in stades, the heavens by conjecture, I considered it ignorant and neglectful, free as I am from every worldly duty, that knowledge of the city of Constantinople, which is a training ground for life itself, should lie hidden. This city, surpassing the praise won by its founder, did the virtuous care of the invincible emperor Theodosius, rendering spotless and new the face of antiquity, so enhance that nothing could be added to its perfection, be a man never so diligent. And so, after careful inspection of all its quarters, and after reviewing the numbers of the associations of men who serve it, I have put my pen to a faithful account of every detail within the confines of a register or list; so that the attention of the admirer, instructed in all its monuments and fi lled with astonishment at the fullness of such great felicity, may confess that for this city no praise or devotion is adequate. First Region

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Prima regio longa situ plana in angustum producitur a palatii inferiore parte contra theatrum maius euntibus, dextro latere declivis in mare descendit, regiis nobiliumque domiciliis clara. The First Region reaches out in length before those leaving the lower part of the palace in the direction of the Great Theatre. It is on level ground and becomes progressively narrower, while on its right flank it descends downhill to the sea. It is distinguished by the residences of the royal family and the nobility. Contained in it are: The aforesaid Great Palace Lusorium Palace of Placidia House of Placidia Augusta House of the Most Noble Marina

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 87 Baths of Arcadius Streets or alleys,21 twenty-nine Houses, one hundred & eighteen Continuous colonnades, two Private baths, fifteen Public bakeries, four Private bakeries, fifteen Steps ( gradūs), four One curator, with responsibility for the whole Region22 One public slave, who serves the general needs of the Region and is its messenger Twenty-five collegiati appointed from among the various guilds, whose duty is to bring assistance in cases of fire Five vicomagistri, to whom is entrusted the night watch of the city Second Region

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Secunda regio ab initio theatri minoris post aequalitatem sui latenter molli sublevata clivo, mox ad mare praecipitiis abrupta descendit. The Second Region, starting from the Little Theatre, rises from level ground in a gentle, almost imperceptible ascent, then suddenly falls in steep cliffs to the sea. Contained in it are: Great Church Old Church Senate House Court-house, built with porphyry steps Baths of Zeuxippus Theatre Amphitheatre Streets or alleys, thirty-four Houses, ninety-eight

21. Vici sive angiportus,”abbreviated as “vici ” simply in Regions III–XIV (XIII has no entry); sive connects the two words and does not contrast them. Cassius Dio’s word for the Augustan vicomagistri of Rome, στενωπάρχοι (55.8.8), derives from στενωπός, the Greek equivalent of angiportus. 22. Th is and the following explanations are designed to stand for all the Regions and are not repeated for each one.

88

Matthews Grand colonnades, four Private baths, thirteen Private bakeries, four Steps, four One curator One public slave Collegiati, thirty-five Five vicomagistri Third Region

Tertia regio plana quidem in superiore parte, utpote in ea circi spatio largius explicato, sed ab eius extrema parte nimis prono clivo mare usque descendit. The Third Region is level in its upper part, in that it holds there the broad expanse of the Circus, from the far end of which it descends in a very steep gradient to the sea. Contained in it are: The aforesaid Circus Maximus [232] House of Pulcheria Augusta New harbor Semicircular colonnade, which from the resemblance in its construction is called by the Greek name Sigma Tribunal of the Forum of Constantine Streets, seven Houses, ninety-four Grand colonnades, five Private baths, eleven Private bakeries, nine [Steps. . . . ] One curator One public slave Collegiati, twenty-one Five vicomagistri Fourth Region

Regio quarta a miliario aureo

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 89 collibus dextra laevaque surgentibus ad planitiem usque valle ducente perducitur. The Fourth Region begins from the Golden Milestone, and with hills rising to right and left, follows the valley to level ground. Contained in it are: The aforesaid Golden Milestone Augusteum Basilica Nymphaeum Colonnade of Fanio Marble galley, in commemoration of the naval victory Church or Martyrium of S. Menas Stadium Quay (scala) of Timasius Streets, 35 Houses, three hundred & seventy-five Grand colonnades, four Private baths, seven Private bakeries, five Steps, seven One curator One public slave Collegiati, 40 Five vicomagistri

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Fifth Region

Regionis quintae non modica pars in obliquioribus posita locis planitie excipiente producitur; in qua necessaria civitatis aedificia continentur. Of the Fifth Region, a considerable part lies on hillsides which give way to level ground. In this Region are contained the buildings that supply the city with its necessities. Contained in it are: Baths of Honorius Cistern of Theodosius Prytaneum Baths of Eudocia

90

Matthews

Strategium, containing the Forum of Theodosius and a square Theban obelisk Olive-oil warehouses Nymphaeum Troadensian warehouses Warehouses of Valens Warehouses of Constantius Portus Prosphorianus Chalcedon quay (scala) Streets, twenty-three Houses, one hundred & eight-four Grand colonnades, seven Private baths, eleven Public bakeries, seven Private bakeries, two Steps, nine Meat-markets, two One curator One public slave Collegiati, forty Five vicomagistri

[234]

Sixth Region

Regio sexta, brevi peracta planitie, reliqua in devexo consistit; a foro namque Constantini scalam usque sive traiectum Sycenum porrigitur spatiis suis. The Sixth Region after a short stretch of level ground lies for the rest downhill. Its area extends from the Forum of Constantine as far as the quay and ferry crossing to Sycae. Contained in it are: Porphyry column of Constantine Senate House in the same place Shipyard Harbor Sycae quay (scala) Streets, twenty-two Houses, four hundred & eighty-four

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 91 Private baths, nine Public bakery, one Private bakeries, seventeen Steps, seventeen One curator One public slave Collegiati, forty-nine Five vicomagistri

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Seventh Region

Regio septima, in conparatione superioris planior, quamvis et ipsa circa lateris sui extremitatem habeatur in mare declivior. Haec a parte dextera columnae Constantini usque ad forum Theodosii continuis extensa porticibus et de latere aliis quoque pari ratione porrectis, usque ad mare velut se ipsam inclinat et ita deducitur. The Seventh Region is more level in comparison with the preceding, although it too falls away to the sea at the furthest point of its flank. This Region runs with continuous colonnades from the right-hand side of the Column of Constantine up to the Forum of Theodosius, with other colonnades extending similarly to the side. The whole Region descends to the sea and there comes to an end. Contained in it are: Three churches, namely: Irene, Anastasia, and S. Paul Column of Theodosius, with a staircase inside leading to the top Two great equestrian statues Part of the aforementioned Forum Baths of Carosa Streets, eight-five Houses, seven hundred & eleven Grand colonnades, six Private baths, eleven Private bakeries, twelve Steps, sixteen One curator One public slave Collegiati, eighty Five vicomagistri

[236]

92 Matthews Eighth Region

Octava regio ex parte tauri, nulla maris vicinitate contermina; angustior magis quam lata spatia sua in longitudinem producta conpensat. The Eighth Region, beginning from the Bull, at no point touches the sea. It is somewhat narrow rather than wide in shape but compensates for this by its extension in length. Contained in it are: Part of the Forum of Constantine Left-hand colonnade, as far as the Bull Basilica of Theodosius Capitolium Streets, twenty-one Houses, one hundred & eight Greater colonnades, five Private baths, ten Private bakeries, five Steps, five Meat-markets, two One Curator One public slave Collegiati, seventeen Five vicomagistri Ninth Region

Regio nona prona omnis et in notum deflexa extensi maris litoribus terminatur. The Ninth Region lies entirely downhill, falling away in a southerly direction and ending in a long reach of the seashore. Contained in it are: Two churches, Caenopolis and Homonoea Alexandrian warehouses House of the Most Noble Arcadia Baths of Anastasia Warehouse of Theodosius

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Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 93 Streets, sixteen Houses, one hundred & sixteen Greater colonnades, two Private baths, sixteen Private bakeries, fifteen Public bakeries, four Steps, four One curator One public slave Collegiati, thirty-eight Five vicomagistri Tenth Region

Regio decima in aliud civitatis latus versa, a nona regione platea magna velut fluvio interveniente dividitur. Est vero tractu planior nec usquam praeter maritima loca inaequalis, longitudini eius latitudine non cedente. The Tenth Region lies over to the other side of the city, being separated from the Ninth [Eighth?] Region23 by a wide road that is like a river flowing between them. Its surface is quite level and nowhere hilly except for the parts by the sea. It is as wide as it is long. Contained in it are: Church or Martyrium of S. Acacius Baths of Constantine House of Placidia Augusta House of Eudocia Augusta House of the Most Noble Arcadia Greater nymphaeum Streets, twenty Houses, six hundred & thirty-six Greater colonnades, six Private baths, [22] Public bakeries, two Private bakeries, sixteen Steps, twelve One curator 23. See below for discussion of this problem.

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94

Matthews One public slave Collegiati, ninety Five vicomagistri Eleventh Region

Regio undecima spatio diff usa liberiore, nulla parte mari sociatur; est vero eius extensio tam plana, quam etiam collibus inaequalis. The Eleventh Region is rather large in extent, and nowhere touches the sea. Its area is partly level, partly hilly and uneven. Contained in it are: Martyrium of the Apostles Palace of Flaccilla House of Pulcheria Augusta Brazen Ox Cistern of Arcadius Cistern of Modestus Streets, eight Houses, five hundred & three Greater colonnades, four Private baths, fourteen Public bakery, one Private bakeries, three Steps, seven One curator One public slave Collegiati, thirty-seven Five vicomagistri

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Twelfth Region

Regio duodecima portam a civitate petentibus in longum plana omnis consistit, sed latere sinistro mollioribus clivis deducta maris confinio terminatur; quam moenium sublimior decorat ornatus. The Twelfth Region is entirely level as it extends before those approaching the gate from inside the city, but on the left side it descends in gentle slopes and terminates at the sea. This region is enhanced by the loft y splendor of the city walls.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 95 Contained in it are: Golden Gate Troadensian colonnades Forum of Theodosius Column of the same (itidem),24 with staircase inside Mint Harbor of Theodosius Streets, eleven Houses, three hundred & sixty-three Greater colonnades, three Private baths, five Private bakeries, five Steps, nine One curator One public slave Seventeen collegiati Five vicomagistri Thirteenth Region

[240]

Tertiadecima regio Sycena est, quae sinu maris angusto divisa societatem urbis navigiis frequentibus promeretur; tota lateri montis adfi xa praeter unius plateae tractum, quam subiacentium eidem monti litorum tantum praestat aequalitas. The Thirteenth Region comprises Sycae, which is separated by a narrow inlet of the sea but maintains its connections to the city by frequent ferries. The entire Region clings to the side of a mountain except for the course of a single main street, space for which is barely provided by the level ground of the sea-shores lying under the aforesaid mountain. Contained in it are: Church Baths of Honorius Forum of Honorius Theatre Docks

24. Both the forum and the column are attributed to Theodosius (II), although the episodes portrayed on the column belong to the time of Arcadius.

96 Matthews Houses, four hundred & thirty-one Greater colonnade, one Private baths, five Public bakery, one Private bakeries, four Steps, eight One curator One public slave Collegiati, thirty-four Five vicomagistri Fourteenth Region

Regio sane licet in urbis quartadecima numeretur parte, tamen quia spatio interiecto divisa est, muro proprio vallata alterius quodammodo speciem civitatis ostendit. [241] Est vero progressis a porta modicum situ planum, dextro autem latere in clivum surgente usque ad medium fere plateae spatium nimis pronum; unde mare usque mediocris haec, quae civitatis continet partem, explicatur aequalitas. The Region that makes up the Fourteenth part of the city is so counted, despite the fact that it is separated from it by some distance lying between them and is protected by a wall of its own, [241] in a way giving the appearance of a separate town. To those advancing from the city gate, the ground is level for a certain distance, but then with a hillside rising to the right it descends very steeply to a distance of about half-way along on the road. From this point as far as the sea there then extends a modest level area, which contains (this) part of the city.25 Contained in it are: Church Palace Nymphaeum Baths Theatre Lusorium Bridge on wooden piles

25. See below for the identification of Region XIV.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 97 Streets, eleven Houses, one hundred & sixty-seven Greater colonnades, two Private baths, five Public bakery, one Private bakery, one Steps, five [no curator or vicomagistri listed; for the public slave and numbers of collegiati, see the grand totals in the “Collectio Civitatis” below] [One public slave] [Collegiati, thirty-seven] Now that we know it in its separate parts, it seems appropriate also to describe the configuration of the city taken in its entirety, to make clear the unique glory of its magnificence, the product of the labor of the human hand, supported also by the collaboration of the elements and the happy gift s of nature. For here indeed, by the consideration of divine providence for the homesteads of so many men of future [242] ages, a spacious tract of land extending in length to form a promontory, facing the outlet of the Pontic Sea, offering harbors in the recesses of its shores, elongated in shape, is securely defended by the sea flowing on all sides; and the one space left open by the encircling sea is guarded by a double wall with an extended array of towers. Bounded by these, the city contains in itself all those things mentioned individually, which, the more fi rmly to establish the record of them, I will now gather together in summary. There are contained in the city of Constantinople: Palaces, five Churches, fourteen Sacred Houses of the Augustae, six Most Noble houses, three Baths, eight Basilicas, two Forums, four Senate Houses, two Warehouses, five Theatres, two Lusoria, 2 Harbors, four Circus, one Cisterns, four Nymphaea, four

98 Matthews Streets, three hundred & twenty-two Houses, four thousand, three hundred & eighty-eight Colonnades, fift y-two Private baths, one hundred & fift y-three Public bakeries, twenty Private bakeries, one hundred & twenty Steps ( gradūs), one hundred & seventeen Meat-markets, five Curators, thirteen Public slaves, fourteen Collegiati, five hundred & sixty Vicomagistri, sixty-five Porphyry column Columns with stairs inside, two One colossus One golden tetrapylon Augusteum Capitolium Mint Maritime steps, three

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The overall length of the city from the Golden Gate in a straight line as far as the sea-shore is fourteen thousand & seventy-five feet, and its breadth is six thousand, one hundred and fift y feet. Explanatory Notes

Each Region, with a single exception, possessed a curator and five vicomagistri. These officials are not listed for Region XIV, and since the grand total at the end of the document gives thirteen curators and sixty-five vicomagistri, it seems that this Region did not possess them—a reflection, perhaps, of its special status, as described below. On the other hand, the grand total gives fourteen vernaculi, or public messengers, for the entire city, from which it can be concluded that Region XIV possessed one like the others, and the number of collegiati listed in the grand total, 560, only reaches this total if thirty-seven collegiati are assumed for Region XIV. The figure for private baths in Region X can be supplied from the grand total. There are some discrepancies, however, between the grand totals and the figures for the separate Regions. The number of twenty public bakeries given in the grand total is not consistent with the sum of the separate Regions, which gives twenty-one, and the number of private bakeries, listed in the grand total as 120, when taken Region by Region reaches only 113. Public baths (thermae) are given in the grand total as eight but nine are found under the separate

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 99 Regions. It is impossible to know where such discrepancies originated or how to correct them. The missing number of streets and alleys in Region XIII cannot be supplied from the grand total, which takes no account of it; the total of 322 is accurate for the other thirteen Regions. An especially interesting discrepancy is in the number of churches. They are given in the grand total as fourteen, but only twelve can be found in the entries for the Regions. Seven of these churches occur in just three Regions (II, VII, IX), and six Regions (I, III, V, VI, VIII, XII) have no church listed. Certain features appearing in the grand total, notably the Colossus and the “golden Tetrapylon,” are not listed under the individual Regions; they are discussed below. 3. The Fourteen Regions It is not clear whether it was Constantine or a successor who conceived the idea of organizing the city under the fourteen Regions described in the Notitia. Cyril Mango produced arguments for Theodosius I as their originator, and there is no reason in principle to object to this, the idea of a New Rome, part of the Constantinian conception of his new city, being applied progressively over time.26 It was, for instance, not until the time of Constantius, with the promotion of its senate to the rank of clarissimus and its governor to praefectus, that the institutional status of the new city was made equal to that of Rome. Whatever their date of origin, however, the Regions were laid out to conform to the primary features of the Constantinian city plan, which was itself not drawn upon a perfectly clean sheet. If the new Forum of Constantine was a focal point of the city envisaged by him, it is also evident that the work of his planners exploited the urban design that was there already. In presenting Constantinople as it was after a century of development as an imperial capital, the Notitia also records many items surviving from the Greco-Roman past. Hidden away in its Regional catalogues of the fourth and early fifth centuries is a distinct image of the earlier city. Region I, the palace area, adjoined the Hippodrome, which composed a large part of Region III and ran up to the Zeuxippon and Augusteum in Region IV; these two, if not the Hippodrome itself, were originally Severan foundations, the Augusteum being a reconfiguration of the Severan colonnaded forum, or Tetrastoon.27 In these eastern sectors of the promontory, Constantine’s projects fit naturally into an urban framework established for Byzantium

26. In his article, “Le mystère de la XIVe Région de Constantinople,” 455. At some time after 381, Regium ceased to have an independent bishop, which might mark the moment of the absorption of the community into the urban framework of the Notitia. As explained above, Region XIV also lacked a vicomagister. 27. Zosimus 2.31.2; Mango, The Brazen House, 42–47.

100 Matthews in the Severan period.28 It is farther west, in the undeveloped territory outside the Severan city, that Constantine’s enterprise appears as a new and original creation. Beginning from the Severan city gate,29 as many as than four Regions (III, VI, VII, VIII) took their bearings from the new Forum of Constantine that lay just beyond it, and these and several other Regions were defined by the main thoroughfares laid out for the new city. The most important of these was of course the great colonnaded avenue known as the Mesē, which linked its cardinal points. Taking its departure from the Augusteum, and running along the double colonnade, also of Severan origin, to the old city gate, the avenue led on through the Forum of Constantine and the (present or future) site of the Forum of Theodosius, and some distance after this divided. Its southern branch led to the Golden Gate, its northern extension led past the mausoleum of Constantine, later the Church of the Apostles, keeping that monument to its right.30 The basic configuration of the city, a sort of rotated letter Y, can be seen in relation to these points of reference.31 The Regions were laid out in an orderly pattern running from the eastern end of the promontory to the Constantinian walls, with two “extra-mural” Regions (XIII and XIV) located outside them. The only serious question as to the location of the intramural Regions concerns Regions VII and VIII, but this question is easily resolved (see below), to leave Region VII facing the Golden Horn to the north and VIII facing the Propontis to the south. In the following survey, I take the intramural Regions in three groups (I–VI, VII–IX, X–XII), followed by the two extramural Regions (XIII and XIV). It is the purpose of the survey only to locate the Regions and describe their basic characters. The only advantage claimed over the more detailed descriptions of Gilles, Janin, Berger, and others is that it is offered in conjunction with the text of the Notitia, and that it gives full weight to the topographical introductions to the Regions.32

28. The pre-Constantinian origins of these institutions, widely claimed in Byzantine sources and accepted by modern historians, are reviewed more skeptically by Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 412–13, and by Mango, “Septime Sévère et Byzance”; my view is that a strong case can be made from the sources. For a survey of the public spaces and institutions of Constantinople, with a review of the sources, see also Bauer, Stadt, Platz und Denkmal, 143–268 (the Hippodrome, 247–54); and of course Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls. 29. It is not clear whether the Severan gate, or any of the classical Roman wall circuit, survived the Constantinian rebuilding. See below on the boundary of Regions V and VI. 30. The Mesē, properly speaking, ran from the Golden Milestone to the point where it divided. Beyond this point it ceased in any real sense to follow a “middle” course through the city. 31. The configuration is well described by Sarah Bassett, The Urban Image, 22–26. 32. See Chapter IV of Janin’s Constantinople byzantine, “Les régions urbaines”; also C. Mango’s Le développement urbain and Berger’s “Regionen und Straßen.” The last of these is a German translation and commentary on the Notitia, but the text is split up into the separate Regions and is not set out as a list or catalogue, which I think is important in interpreting it.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 101 Regions I–VI

Region I, beginning in the triangular wedge of land between the Hippodrome and the Propontis, runs from the “lower part” of the Great Palace toward the northeast, with the acropolis of Byzantium to the left and the coast of the promontory to the right. Between the acropolis and sea, the Region then advanced in a narrowing configuration towards the Theatrum Maius (“Greater Theatre”), which was itself not in this Region but is listed, as an amphitheatre, under Region II.33 Not all the locations of its amenities are exactly known, but that of the Great Palace itself (the first entry in the entire document) is an established point of reference.34 Like the palaces of Thessalonica and Antioch (and, in its later periods, Rome), it adjoined the Hippodrome, to which it was connected by a corridor leading directly from the palace to the imperial box (kathisma). From here the emperor could view the races, give audience, and meet the assembled people; on the pedestal of the obelisk of Theodosius, which still stands in its original location in the Hippodrome, the emperor and his supporters are shown in just this attitude, in the very place where they assumed it. Region I has here a precise if somewhat theoretical boundary, for the Hippodrome itself was assigned to Region III. The border between Regions I and III thus ran exactly along the southeastern side of the Hippodrome. Region III, adjoining Region I to the west, is dominated by the Hippodrome or “Circus Maximus,” beyond which it falls away steeply to the southern shore (an obvious feature to a visitor). Included in this coastal part of the Region were the “New harbor” and the semi-circular colonnade known from its shape as the Sigma (the Greek letter); both of these amenities are described by Zosimus as the gift of Julian, though given the time-scale for the construction of a harbor, it is obvious that another emperor (or emperors) also had a hand in it.35

33. The identification of the “Greater Theatre” as the Amphitheatre of Constantinople is important for the topography of Regions I and II. I fi nd it hard to believe (with Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 359) that the “Theatrum Minus” of the Notitia can be the amphitheatre (see below, nn.38, 41). 34. See Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 358. The Palatium Placidianum was connected with a daughter of Valentinian I who died in 394, and the Domus Placidiae Augustae with Galla Placidia, Theodosius’ daughter by his second wife; its location is shown to be near the (later) Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus by its use as the lodging of papal legates, located near that church. The “nobilissima Marina” was a sister of Theodosius II. For the Arcadianae, overlooking the Propontis shore, see Procopius, Buildings 1.11.1–2. 35. Zosimus 3.11.3; as noted by his commentator François Paschoud (and others), Julian can hardly have initiated and built a new harbor and portico in a six-month stay in the city. See Gilles, Antiquities 2.15 (Musto, 92), for the name Caterga Limena or “Port of the Th ree-Decked Galleys,” and the statement that some people claim to have seen “some three-decked galleys that have been sunk there”—if so, a striking anticipation of what has recently been discovered in the excavations of the Theodosian harbor (see below).

102 Matthews The location of the harbor, shown in its later form on the Vavassore map, is enshrined to the present day in the street name Kadırgalimanı, or “galley harbor,” which may represent its northern limit.36 To the north, the Third Region was bounded by the Mesē in its first stretch along the colonnade from the Golden Milestone to the Forum of Constantine. It included a tribunal or speakers’ platform, which evidently stood on the south side of the forum, but not the forum itself, which was divided among Regions VI, VII, and VIII.37 The starting point of Region II is the Theatrum Minus (Lesser Theatre), from where it rose in the “gentle ascent” known to thousands of tourists to the plateau now covered by the Topkapı Palace, beyond which it falls away sharply to the sea. This is exactly what one sees as one follows the route described. Its amenities begin with two churches, Ecclesia Magna, and Ecclesia Antiqua. Their axiomatic identification as S. Sophia and S. Irene means, if we follow the description of the Notitia, that the Lesser Theatre from which the Region takes its departure stood below them, somewhere to the east of the Augusteum.38 No trace of the theatre survives (it is often placed much farther to the north); like the amphitheatre, it was one of the continuing resources of Greco-Roman Byzantium. The Region also contained a Senate House and tribunal, distinct from the later foundations in the Forum of Constantine. The general location of the Senate House is known, since accounts of the Nika Riot of 532 refer to it as facing the Church of S. Sophia, with reference to the danger it suffered from the conflagration; it must then have stood not far from that church, on the eastern side of the Augusteum.39 With that side of the Augusteum so occupied, it would be obvious, even if nothing else showed it, that the extensive bath complex known as the Thermae Zeuxippi, or Zeuxippon, extended on its southern side in the space between the Augusteum and the northern end of the Hippodrome (in Region III) and the imperial palace (in Region I). The extent

36. See Mango, Le développement urbain, 38–39, on these locations. 37. It is suggested (Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 361 and others) that the Domus Pulcheriae Augustae listed under this Region may be the confiscated mansion of the praepositus sacri cubiculi Antiochus, partially excavated in the 1960s between the northwestern side of the Hippodrome and the Mesē and still visible as incorporated in the (also ruined) Church of S. Euphemia. See PLRE 2, 102 (“Antiochus 5”) for Antiochus’ dismissal in 421 and the confiscation of his property. For these and the other visible remains in this part of the city, see Bardill, “The Palace of Lausus.” 38. An imprint of the theatre was detected in a depression in the hillside below the kitchens of the Seraglio, cf. Martiny, “The Great Theatre, Byzantium,” but the status of this observation is uncertain, and the Notitia shows that the theatre stood to the south of this location. The depression, if it is not a natural feature, might rather be a trace of the amphitheatre of Byzantium, to which might then be attributed the remains of seating apparently discovered in 1959 (Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 359). 39. Procopius, Buildings 1.2.1 (in archaizing language); “Before the Senate House (bouleutērion) [there was] a sort of market-place (agora), which the people of Byzantium call the Augustaion”; cf. Chron. Pasch. s.a. 531 (621 Bonn) (tr. Whitby and Whitby), “the Senate House by the Augustaion, as it is called” (to distinguish it from the Senate House in Constantine’s Forum).

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 103 and character of the Zeuxippon are shown by the eighty statues of Greek and Roman (just four of the latter) gods, heroes, and literary eminences it still contained in the time of the sixth-century poet Christodorus, whose “tedious poem” on the subject (Cyril Mango’s expression) occupies the whole second book of the Anthologia Palatina.40 To include all these amenities, Region II must have wrapped itself around the northern, eastern, and southern sides of the Augusteum, the monuments listed under it being located on these three sides while the Augusteum itself was in Region IV. As well as the Theatrum Minus already mentioned, Region II contained the Theatrum Maius, or Amphitheatre. The location of this structure was in the northerly part of the Region, since Region I, as we saw, extended towards it as it ran along the coast below the acropolis. To satisfy this description, the Amphitheatre must have stood below the acropolis to the east, somewhere below the kitchens of the Topkapı Palace.41 This location is confirmed in a law in the Theodosian Code, forbidding lime burning along the shore of the promontory between the Amphitheatre and the harbor of Julian.42 Region IV is easily identified, and is described, as following the valley running northward from the Augusteum to the Golden Horn, with the acropolis to the right.43 Region IV also contained the Miliarium, the “Golden Milestone” from which departed the Mesē and the road system springing from it; the reference to a “Golden Tetrapylon” in the Collectio Civitatis defines the architectural form of this structure as a quadriform arch. It might be said that the whole Roman Empire of the later period pivoted on this spot, but it was also a focal point of the Severan city, standing at the point where the Tetrastoon issued into the double colonnade (also of Severan origin). On the western (more precisely the northwestern) side of the Augusteum stood a basilica with its precinct, the location and orientation of which are now marked by the so-called Cistern of the Basilica (Yerebatan Sarayi); if we may compare the architectural ensemble of forum, basilica, and colonnade found at Severan Lepcis Magna, we might

40. “Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder,” 57. 41. See above, nn.33, 38. The sources work consistently if the “Lesser Theatre” of the Notitia is the classical theatre, and the “Greater Theatre” is the Roman amphitheatre of Region II. Otherwise known as Cynegion (Greek Kυνήγιον), an arena for venationes, one of the most important uses of large amphitheatres in the later period, its location by the sea to the east of the acropolis is confirmed by the existence of a gate named after it; Gilles, Antiquities 4.4 (Musto, 190–91) (a very clear description). Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 359 (plans at 353, 390), puts the amphitheatre just above the site of S. Irene (“in der alten Stadtmitte”), but I do not see how this can be right (he does not cite CTh 14.6.5, see next n.). 42. CTh 14.6.5 (4 October 419) to Aetius, prefect of the city of Constantinople; the kilns are to be removed in order to maintain the salubritas of the city and imperial palace. 43. Cf. Mango, Le développement urbain, 19, for the importance of this street (a processional route from the Hippodrome to the Strategion).

104 Matthews imagine that the basilica, too, was a foundation of that period.44 Of the other items listed under Region IV, the marble warship (Liburna) commemorating a naval victory was apparently near the Senate House,45 while the Scala Timasii, named after a general of Theodosius I, was a set of steps forming a quayside, one of three such “scalae” mentioned by the Notitia. The Stadium of Region IV, a survival, no doubt, from the ancient Greek city, was located near to the sea on the northern side of the acropolis, where Justinian built guesthouses.46 Continuing westward, the three Regions V–VII form a sequence along the northern side of the peninsula. All are bounded by the Golden Horn, with the Mesē as their southern limit. With Region V, the character of the city changes and we enter a commercial district; for here, as the Notitia says, were situated the buildings that provided the city with its necessities. No fewer than four horrea (warehouses or granaries) are listed, as well as two sets of public baths of the Theodosian dynasty, named (or renamed) after Honorius and Eudocia respectively.47 The Region also contained a Prytaneum, whose name suggests that it too was a part of the ancient Greek city and a very important area also known by its Greek name, Strategium. If these were the local names for the council house and agora of the Greek city (the latter named after its chief magistrates),48 we can see how far the expansion of the Roman period had moved the city’s center of gravity from its ancient site. The Strategium was an expansive tract of land, because a Forum of Theodosius, with a Theban obelisk, was built within its limits; it was perhaps because of this that a part of the area, not incorporated in the new forum but functioning as a market, was later known as the Lesser Strategion.49 The name of the harbor listed in this Region, Prosphorianus

44. J. B. Ward-Perkins, “Severan Art and Architecture at Leptis Magna”; Mattingly, Tripolitania, 120–22, identifying as elements of the scheme (1) a broad and lavishly ornamented colonnaded street, (2) an enormous new forum and basilica complex adjoining the colonnaded street, and (3) a quadriform arch at the main road junction. Leptis also had a (second-century) circus. 45. Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 362, citing Chron. Pasch. s.a. 532 (632 Bonn) on the Nika Riot). Cameron and Long, Barbarians and Politics, 238 with n.170, connect the liburna with the defeat of Fravitta by Gainas in 400. 46. Procopius, Buildings 1.11.27 (see Janin, Constantinople Byzantine, 429–30), again archaizing; “very close to the sea, in the place called the Stadium (for in ancient times, I suppose, it was given over to games of some kind)” (tr. Dewing). 47. The absence from the Notitia of the famous “baths of Achilles” in this Region might be explained by their being renamed after Eudocia after her marriage to Theodosius in 421 (Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 363). 48. That is, two stratēgoi, the stratēgion being their “Amstlocal”; RE 3 (1899), col. 1144 (Kubitschek). 49. See Mango, “The Triumphal Way,” 177–28, with his appendix, “The Situation of the Strategion,” at 187–88; M. M. Mango, “Commercial Map of Constantinople,” 198. The obelisk may be the second of the two seen by Pierre Gilles—one the well-known Theodosian obelisk in the Hippodrome, the other, thirty feet in length, lying on its side near the Sultan’s glassworks overlooking the Golden Horn; Gilles, Antiquities 2.11 (Musto, 76–77); Mango, “The Triumphal Way,” 188.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 105 (“import harbor”), suggests that it is the commercial harbor of the Greek city, adjacent to the military dockyard and harbor (neorium and portus) of Region VI.50 Region V also included the Chalcedonian quay, indicating the crossing to Chalcedon and the continuation into Asia Minor of the main highway from the west to Constantinople. Moving into Region VI, we find the dockyard and the second (the military) harbor just mentioned. Both dockyard and harbors were enclosed by the preConstantinian walls of the city; so much is clear from Cassius Dio’s account of the Severan siege of the city.51 Another maritime facility was the Scala Sycena, from where, then as now, sailed the ferries that, according to the introduction to Region XIII, connected that Region with the main city. At its southern limit at the Mesē, Region VI included the part of the Forum of Constantine containing the porphyry column of the emperor and his new senate building, which therefore stood on the northern side of the forum, with the column at its center. This gives us a firm point of reference, for Constantine’s column still stands in its original location, an emblematic sight in present-day Istanbul. An image of it, with indications of its location at the end of the double colonnades from the Augusteum, is shown on the early fift h-century column of Arcadius (band E 1). Of those so far described, Regions II, IV (in part), V, and VI cover the Greek and Greco-Roman city of Byzantium as it had developed on and around the ancient acropolis, and behind the harbors and commercial facilities on the Golden Horn. The remaining portions of Regions II and IV follow the development of the city to the southern side of the acropolis and, with the part of Region III occupied by the Hippodrome and the part of Region I advancing up the coast toward the amphitheatre, reflect its expansion during the Roman period. Regions VII–IX

Continuing westward from Region VI, we cross the hypothetical line of the Roman walls of Byzantium, which may have provided the limit between Regions VI and VII; even if the walls did not still exist, their course would provide as natural a point of division as they had earlier provided a line of defense. From this point, the series of largely commercial Regions that began in Regions V and VI continues into Region VII, one of the two intramural Regions whose locations have in the past been questioned. This question is simply resolved

50. Gilles, Antiquities 3.1 (Musto, 125–26), discusses the variant “Bosphorianus,” an obvious corruption of the true form of the name. For the interpretation of these installations as the commercial and military harbors of Byzantium, see Mango, Le développement urbain, 14–15. 51. Cassius Dio 75.10.5, referring to “the harbors” of the city; Zosimus 2.30.3. The neorion is shown by Janin, Constantinople Byzantine, on his Map I (cf. Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 365) at present-day Bahçekapı, where there was a city gate named after it; cf. Gilles, Antiquities, 1.20 (Musto, 47).

106 Matthews once we grasp the point of view from which the Notitia presents it. Region VII extends from the right of the column of Constantine toward the Forum of Theodosius and is defined by the colonnade running between the two; Region VIII contains the corresponding left-hand colonnade. Since the organization of the Regions is viewed from east to west, and this Region is explicitly described in this way, it is clear that Region VII is to the north of the Mesē and reaches to the Golden Horn.52 It includes the column of Theodosius that stood in his Forum (in its northern part, evidently), and part of the Forum itself, as well as two equestrian statues (of his sons Arcadius and Honorius).53 The Notitia also mentions the colonnaded streets that led off the Mesē at right angles to the Golden Horn. This is important for our conception of the street plan of Constantinople, particularly since the Notitia lists six colonnades under Region VII; depending on how one counts colonnades (singly or in pairs), this indicates that at least three main streets led north from this stretch of the Mesē.54 Another very interesting feature is the presence of three churches, of S. Irene, Anastasia, and Paul (the fourth-century bishop of the name), in what, from its general character and from the number of residences listed for it, seems to have been a heavily populated working-class area. This will be helpful information when we consider the social distribution of the population of Constantinople.55 We now return, on the other side of the Mesē, to two Regions on the southern shore of the promontory, balancing the series we have seen to the north. Region VIII is one of the four Regions that took their starting point from the Forum of Constantine. As we just saw, it faced Region VII across the Mesē, from the Forum of Constantine as far as the Forum of Theodosius. It also included the Basilica of Theodosius, which therefore stood on the southern side of the forum of that emperor. Since we know from the Byzantine writer Cedrenus the dimensions of the basilica,56 and that it was built alongside rather than

52. The question is settled by the first three entries in Region VIII, where the east-west orientation is explicit: Partem fori Constantini; porticum sinistram taurum usque; basilicam Theodosianam— that is, Region VIII is to the left of the Mesē as one faces the statue of the bull that gave to the forum of Theodosius its alternative name. 53. See above n.8 on the possible re-use of one of these statues to become the equestrian statue of Justinian in the Augusteum. 54. That is including the right-hand colonnade of the Mesē itself under the total of the six given for the Region. The five others might then indicate three other streets, one of them forming the boundary of the Region, so with only one colonnade counted under it (2, 2, 1). Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 366, 397, seems to exclude the Mesē from the count and produces four streets, two of them forming boundaries between Regions (so 1, 2, 2, 1), but to exclude the Mesē seems to me an unnatural assumption. 55. See Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 365–66, 397, for the location of these churches. 56. Cedrenus, 1.609 Bonn. The stated dimensions give 240 x 84 Roman or 232 x 78 English feet (70 x 24 m).

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 107 frontally to the forum, we have a guide to the dimensions of the forum itself. The triumphal Arch of Theodosius, of which substantial fragments remain though it is not mentioned by the Notitia, stood at its southwestern corner, which means that the Mesē entered and left the forum at this point. Region VIII also included the location known as the Capitolium; whatever the date and nature of this institution, it is obviously part of the nomenclature of a New Rome. The Region was elongated in shape, running in a narrow strip along the southern side of the Mesē from the Forum of Constantine to the Capitolium, and it was one of only two Regions that did not touch the sea. From this and other indications we can see that it was among the smallest of the Regions, but it still contained two meat markets as well as the other public buildings mentioned here. Region IX, adjoining VIII to the south, was a commercial district corresponding to those that we saw on the northern side of the peninsula and contained two sets of warehouses. One of them was called Alexandrina, no doubt after the source of the grain imported to the city, and the other was named after Theodosius, in association with the large new harbor of Theodosius listed under Region XII, the site of a spectacular excavation;57 to be close to the harbor, the Horreum Theodosianum will have been located toward the western limit of the Region. A special point of interest is in the two churches attributed to Region IX, Caenopolis and Homonoea. Homonoea (“Concord”) perhaps has something to do with the endlessly frustrated attempts of Constantine and his successors to establish unity in the eastern churches, but the name of Caenopolis (Greek Kαινόπολις) cannot easily be understood as a fourth-century innovation, since the Region in which it stands is deeply embedded within the city of Constantine; what sense would it make to give the name “New City” to this or any particular part of the Constantinian foundation? Caenopolis must be an existing name reflecting urban settlement beyond the walls of Greco-Roman Byzantium.58

57. For an accessible description of the work as it was progressing in 2007 (and spectacular photographs), see Rose and Aydingün, “Under Istanbul.” I would express my thanks for the tour of the excavations (and the preparatory lunch), generously offered by their director Metin Gokcay, and to Scott Redford of Koç University, Istanbul, for his help in bringing it about. 58. See also Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 368, for this view of Caenopolis. An alternative view is that the name represents land won from the sea, but the location of the two churches (Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 368–69, 397) works against this idea; they are too far to the north. The episode described at Chron. Pasch. s.a. 407 (570 Bonn), when tiles from the Basilica of Theodosius blew down to Caenopolis in a storm, also suggests not too great a distance between them (I have seen tiles flying in a Yorkshire gale, but not this far). Janin’s Map I (in Constantinople Byzantine) locates the district at the 40–50 m contour level.

108 Matthews Regions X–XII

As we move farther west and approach the Constantinian walls, the peninsula widens both to north and south, and the last three intramural Regions are best viewed as a sequence following the course of the walls in a southwesterly and southerly arc. There is little distinctive about the way they are characterized in the Notitia, and they lie apart from the administrative and commercial parts of the city that we have seen so far. Other indications, too, suggest that they were less intensively developed than the more central Regions; they are also larger, and have interesting numbers of streets and houses that will be mentioned later. Beginning in the north, Region X was, according to the Notitia, separated from Region IX (or VIII, see below) by a wide avenue, presumably the Mesē, dividing them “like a river” (platea magna velut fluvio dividitur). It is described as a spacious Region, relatively flat except where it fell away to the sea. It contained a Church of S. Acacius, baths and three imperial mansions, and a large nymphaeum or water basin; this is no doubt connected with the spectacular aqueduct attributed to the emperor Valens that fed into it.59 The story of the Constantinian baths listed by the Notitia under this Region is a complicated one, the essence of which is that, even if he might have begun them, these baths were considered a foundation not of Constantine but of his successor Constantius (and they were not completed until many years later).60 Since we know from descriptions of imperial processions that the baths stood on the righthand side of the northern branch of the Mesē to one leaving the city, as also, farther out along the road, did the Church of the Apostles (originally the mausoleum of Constantine), the boundary between Regions X and XI must have veered northward beyond the baths to allow the church to belong to Region XI. There is a difficulty about the boundary between Regions X and IX, in that the elongated Region VIII, stretching from the forum of Constantine to that of Theodosius and on to the Capitolium, lies between them. The solution adopted by Berger is to suppose either that the compiler of the Notitia made an error, and should have written that Region X was divided “as if by a river” from Region VIII (and not IX), or that the text has been corrupted to the same effect. Alternatively, if the Capitolium lay not as far west as it is usually placed, the text

59. Mango, “The Water Supply”; Le développement urbain, 20. Our information on the water supply of the city and its distribution has been transformed by the stunning work of Crow, Bardill, and Bayliss, The Water Supply; (and see Crow q.v.) on this issue, 118–21 (aqueduct) and 127 (nymphaeum). 60. Eusebius, VC 4.59, claims that Constantine built baths near his mausoleum, but whether these baths have anything to do with the “Constantinianae” of the Notitia is unclear (Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 370, distinguishes them).

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 109 could stand with revised Regional boundaries. The question cannot be resolved within the scope of the present survey.61 Region XI, which is also noted as unusually spacious, as well as one of only two Regions to be landlocked, contained palaces of Theodosius I’s wife Flaccilla and Theodosius II’s sister Pulcheria, two water cisterns, and the Martyrium of the Apostles. This very important monument, whether in its original form as the mausoleum of Constantine or later as the Church of the Apostles, was one of the cardinal points of the city. Lying in some part of the site now occupied by the mosque of Mehmet the Conqueror, it stood, at just over 60 meters above sea level, at one of the highest points of the city within the Constantinian wall. The cisterns should also be at a high elevation in order to generate sufficient water pressure for its effective distribution. The Region also contained a “Brazen Ox,” marking the location of the later Bous, or Forum Bovis.62 This confirms the considerable extension of the Region as it reached down from the heights of Church of the Apostles to the southern branch of the Mesē. The last of the intramural Regions, Region XII, lying in the southwest corner of the city, is rather distinctively introduced as “glorified by the loft y splendor of the city walls.” It is not clear why this Region in particular is so honored, since the walls formed the limits of all three Regions X–XII; except that Region XII also includes in an emphatic position—the entry in the Notitia begins with it—the Porta Aurea, or Golden Gate. This is another cardinal point of Constantine’s city, the entrance to it from the west along the realigned route from Regium (see below). Region XII also included another Forum of Theodosius, completed under the second emperor of that name and known to us as the Forum of Arcadius, who had begun its construction in 402/3.63 The location of the Forum is fi xed by the Column of Arcadius, whose dilapidated but still imposing base is to be seen in situ along the southern extension of the Mesē (Cerrahpaşa Caddesi). Between the Golden Gate and the Forum are the “porticus Troadenses.” It is not clear whether these colonnades ran all the way from the division of the Mesē to the Golden Gate, but likely that they did; one should see them from the point of view of one entering the city, as an architectural enhancement to the Golden Gate itself.64 There were also in this Region the

61. Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 368; yet Chron. Pasch. s.a. 407 (570 Bonn), cited by Berger at n.98, might suggest a location very close to the forum of Theodosius, in which case Region IX might have come up to the Mesē and faced Region X between that point and its division at the Philadelphion. 62. If the “Bous” was in fact a forum; M. M. Mango, “Commercial Map of Constantinople,” 192. 63. The date is given by Theophanes’ Chronicle (AM 5895); Chron. Pasch. s.a. 421 (579 Bonn) records the placing of a statue of Arcadius (who had died in 408) on the summit; see above, n.24. 64. It may be recalled (above, n.19) that Chron. Pasch., s.a. 451 (590 Bonn), referred to the Constantinian as the “Troadesian walls.”

110

Matthews

extremely important harbor named after the first Theodosius and its associated warehouses (see above), and the mint. This was an institution of the time of Constantine, who began to strike coin in the city and certainly planned to go on doing so. Given the physical movements of men and materials involved in large-scale minting, a situation by the city walls and the most heavily supervised main gate would offer obvious attractions. Regions XIII–XIV

These, in the broadest of outlines, are the mainland or intra-urban Regions of Constantinople. Two remain, of which Region XIII, Sycena, covers the settlement across the Golden Horn at Sycae, now Galata. The introduction to this Region mentioned the “frequent ferries” that connected it with the main part of the city; we saw that Region VI contained the Scala Sycena from which the crossing began. Region XIII was crammed in up the hillside, and it possessed a single main street running along the more level land by the shore; again, visitors will appreciate the accuracy of this description. It contained a church and theatre—the latter evoking the earlier existence of Sycae as a separate community—and shipyards.65 If Region XIII is an anomaly, Region XIV is still more so, for while not, like Region XIII, lying over the water, it was separated by some distance from the main city and possessed its own wall and gate. We have here an urban community outside the city of Constantine but incorporated with it. Like Region XIII, it had a church and theatre, and a palace and a “lusorium,” or sports field,66 and there was a wooden bridge built on piles. Historians have generally located Region XIV in the district to the north of the city later known as Blachernae. These interpretations have been challenged in typically concise and forceful papers—though with different results, acknowledged with a nice touch of humor—by Cyril Mango. Mango had first argued that, since the Notitia mentions in its preface the “double line of walls” by which the city was defended, the point from which the separation of the Region was measured must have been the Theodosian walls. These came right up to, if they did not include, Blachernae, which could not then have been described as a separate community in relation to them.67 Region XIV would, therefore, have to be located

65. The theatre was restored by Justinian, when, in another recognition of its quasi-independent status, Sycae was renamed Justinianopolis (Chron. Pasch. s.a. 528 (618 Bonn); Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 373). 66. Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 357, calls it a “Sportplatz,” possibly the same as the “Polofeld” mentioned by later (eighth-century) Byzantine sources. Whether or not the fourth- and fi ft h-century emperors already played polo (a Persian sport), the connection between lusorium and palace is significant. For something similar in fi ft h-century Antioch, see my The Journey of Theophanes, 84. 67. Mango, “Fourteenth Region of Constantinople.” Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 374, supports Blachernae, but only in relation to Silâhtaraga, not Eyüp.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 111 farther to the north of the Constantinian city. In his earlier paper, Mango pointed to two locations—the suburb of Eyüp or the more distant location of Silâhtaraga at the head of the Golden Horn—in both of which a bridge existed at one time or another. In the latter case, this would be only to cross the river Barbyses, which one hesitates to think of as a major landmark, and in a later addendum to his paper Mango allowed that this location, which he initially thought of as the more likely of his suggestions, was “perhaps too distant to be identified as the XIVth Region.”68 As to the point of separation of Region XIV from the main city, it is true that the preface to the Notitia mentions the double fortifications of Constantinople, but as we saw earlier, this does not express the perspectives of the text itself. The twelve intra-urban Regions of the city are there conceived as lying within the walls of Constantine, and they were clearly laid out before the Theodosian walls were built. Taking the wall of Constantine rather than those of Theodosius as the point from which the separation of Region XIV is measured, Blachernae or somewhere near it comes back into play, and in terms of distance from the city is the more likely candidate.69 This was not, however, Mango’s last word on the subject, and he has recently offered a new solution, paradoxical perhaps, but convincing.70 Region XIV is now located at the settlement of Rhegion—in Latin texts as Regium, causing some confusion with the southern Italian city Reggio di Calabria.71 At twelve (Roman) miles from Constantinople, this seems somewhat far from the city, but outweighing this objection is the substance of the entry in the Notitia. Region XIV has a palace and “lusorium,” otherwise found in combination in Region I, as well as a city wall, theatre, nymphaeum, baths, and a church. The place was both a separate community and an imperial residence. A palace is known to have existed there and the other resources are appropriate for this newly established status. Furthermore, Regium, with the coastal lagoons between it and Constantinople, is the most likely location for a bridge built on wooden piles, crossing a relatively large, shallow body of water; it is difficult to imagine such a structure as crossing the deeper waters of the Golden Horn.72

68. Mango, “Addenda,” 6. 69. I earlier thought the location of Region XIV to indicate not Blachernae precisely, but the district known as Balat in the valley descending to the sea to its south. 70. Mango, “Le mystère de la XIVe Région.” 71. Already noted, with precedents (Gothofredus and Mamboury), in my Western Aristocracies, 178 n.2. 72. Its description in the Notitia, “pons sublicius sive [‘that is to say’] ligneus,” invites comparison with the Pons Sublicius at Rome, but there can be little similarity between them except for their mode of construction; LTUR IV, 112–13 (F. Coarelli). A similar case, where the name is a point of similarity between very different establishments, might be the Capitolium (see above).

112 Matthews The development of Regium and the construction of its bridge are implied already in 333 by the Pilgrim of Bordeaux, who approached the city by this route.73 This is the first attestation of a direct route between Regium and Constantinople, which had earlier been approached by a more northerly route joining the Hadrianople road and approaching by way of the imperial residence at Melanthias. Though separated from it by half a day’s journey, Regium was an integral part of the city. 4. Conclusion Even from such a summary description as that presented here, it will be clear that the Notitia is a unique source for the urban development of Constantinople in the first century of its existence. Not only this, but behind the resources of the Constantinian and later periods are significant traces of Greco-Roman Byzantium, reinforcing the conclusion given by earlier sources (for example, Cassius Dio’s narrative of Septimius Severus’ siege) that it was a most important urban center long before Constantine put his hand to it. The Notitia is not just a list of contemporary resources; it also shows us a historical urban landscape as it stood at a point in time. At the same time, the Notitia is not a complete record, and it contains discrepancies. It is the Collectio Civitatis and not the main text of the Notitia that, in describing the Miliarium Aureum of the Augusteum as a “Golden Tetrapylon,” reveals the form of this important structure. The Collectio also mentions a significant monument that is absent from the main text. This is the “Colossus,” the stone-built obelisk, 32 meters high, still to be seen on the spina of the Hippodrome and identified on the basis of a dedicatory inscription of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, comparing the structure with the Colossus of Rhodes.74 The column was originally covered with bronze plaques for which the fi xing marks can still be seen, and Porphyrogenitus’ inscription records the work undertaken by him as the restoration of a decayed monument. From what moment before the composition of the Notitia it originally derives is impossible to say.75 There is no mention, either in the main text of the Notitia or the Collectio Civitatis, of the famous obelisk of Theodosius, whose bilingual verse inscription, with a depiction of the method used, records its erection by the urban prefect of 390 in the short space of thirty days;76 nor of the Bronze

73. Itin. Burd. 570.7–8 (CCL 175, p. 8); for the date, 571.6. See my “Cultural Landscape,” 193. 74. See further Ward-Perkins q.v, 53. 75. Janin, Constantinople Byzantine, 192–93 (with the text of the inscription). Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 360–61, argues that the comparison with the Colossus of Rhodes means that the built obelisk was not itself called Colossus, but this seem to me not logical. 76. For the inscription, CIL 3.737 = ILS 821; PLRE 1, 746–47 (“Proculus 6”).

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 113 Tetrapylon that stood at a crossroad of the Mesē, halfway between the Forum of Constantine and that of Theodosius.77 It marked the intersection of the Mesē with the road still traceable in the Grand Bazaar (see above) and its continuation southward to the Propontis shore. Also missing is any mention of the aesthetic embellishments of the city. The columns of Theodosius and Arcadius are noted for the internal staircases that led to their summit, but not for the sculptured decoration that led Vavassore’s and other later images to identify them by the phrase “colonna istoriata”; nor is there any reference to the statue of Constantine placed on top of his famous column—an interesting omission since the statue, showing Constantine in the guise of Apollo the Sun God, was somewhat controversial. Nothing is said, either, of the mysterious “Column of the Goths” on the northern side of the Acropolis.78 The Notitia does not mention the Arch of Theodosius that formed the ceremonial entrance to his Forum, though it lists the column and equestrian statues that also stood there, and the statue of the bull that gave to the Forum its alternative name. As well as the regional lists of the Notitia, the Collectio Civitatis at the end of the text compiles grand totals of the monuments and resources of the entire city; palaces and great houses, churches, public and private baths and bakeries, colonnades, houses, streets and alleys, and among its human resources the numbers of collegiati, or corporations of men deployed against fire and other urban hazards. It also gives the total of 117 gradūs (“steps”) throughout the city, a figure that can be made up for the separate Regions if a missing number is assigned to Region III.79 The term gradus has a special meaning in relation to the public distributions of bread established by Constantine after the example of Rome, where the bread was given out from such steps and was hence known as panis gradilis. In every case (except for the missing entry in Region III), both in the main text of the Notitia and in the Collectio Civitatis, the number of gradūs immediately follows that of public and private bakeries and belongs with it. The distributions were organized like those at Rome; there were many points of distribution throughout the city, to which both the bakeries and the citizens qualified to receive the bread were attached for the handing out of the dole.80

77. Berger, “Regionen und Straßen,” 366, sees the missing Bronze Tetrapylon in the “Golden Tetrapylon” of the Collectio Civitatis, but the latter is surely the same as the “Golden Miliarium” of Region IV (see above). 78. It is uncertain whether it is a monument of Claudius II “Gothicus” or of Constantine. 79. Seeck, in his edition (232), inserts in the apparatus “Gradus undecim” to conform with the Collectio, but my own count requires only 10. 80. Chastagnol, La préfecture, 315, cf. Jones, Later Roman Empire, 696. The evidence for Rome and Constantinople is set out at CTh 14.15–17.

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It is natural to take the numbers of gradūs in connection with those given for “houses” (domūs) for the fourteen Regions individually, and with the grand total of 4,388 listed in the Collectio Civitatis. What is unclear is how we should define the term domus, a problem that is not much helped by the comparable entries for the analogous Notitia (or Curiosum) of the city of Rome.81 Here, the accommodation of the people is given under two categories: domūs, of which there were 1,790; and insulae, which yield the huge figure of 46,602. In the case of Rome, given the sheer numbers, it seems clear we should accept the interpretation of insula as an individual apartment rather than an entire apartment block, but this is not much of a help for Constantinople, since no insulae are listed. On the other hand, the number of domūs, at 4,388, is much larger than that for Rome. The Theodosian Code contains intriguing evidence about the houses of Constantinople, classifying them by the diameter of waterpipe to which they were entitled,82 but it seems impossible either that the city, with its rapidly growing population, did not contain significant numbers of insulae (as it did in the later fift h century) or that such accommodation is not envisaged under the term domus. It may be best to understand domus not as a specific type of accommodation but as a classification by residence, such as might, for example, have qualified a family for the bread distributions. This interpretation might explain why the number of domūs for Constantinople is so much higher than that for Rome. If it includes insulae, it would also, of course, imply a very much smaller population. Setting aside this and other problems raised by the figures, it is possible to discern at least in outline the distribution of the population of Constantinople. In the southeastern corner of the promontory was the palace quarter and the noble houses around it, with all that this implies regarding the numbers of servants and attendants that they contained. North of this quarter, and of the monumental development around the Augusteum, was the acropolis and the ancient Greek city of Byzantium and the remains of its old institutions, with a larger but still limited population compared with that of the palace quarter. The Mesē, a spine of development to the west, linked together the main fora of the city (of Constantine, Theodosius, and Arcadius) as they attracted more of its social and commercial activity. On the shores of the peninsula were the harbors and other commercial installations, and it is here that we find high population levels implying multi-occupation and the presence of apartments and apartment blocks. An index of this is the very high numbers of collegiati assigned to some of these Regions, reflecting the increased risk of fire in the more crowded conditions. Notable too is the absence of great houses in these

81. Above, n.14. See also Machado q.v., 155. 82. CTh 15.2.3.

Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 115 Regions—it was just not their part of town. This pattern of denser occupation continues to the Regions by the wall of Constantine, where it seems to give place to a different pattern of development, with large numbers of domūs distributed among small numbers of streets. Whatever its explanation, this seems to be a later pattern of development affecting these Regions (X–XII). The transitions between the different residential zones were of course more gradual gradual than their Regional presentation might imply. The patterns of occupation did not change abruptly at the boundaries of Regions, but the distribution of population implied by the Notitia is in general terms convincing. A final word on the distribution of churches. The main text of the Notitia gives twelve of these, though fourteen are counted in the Collectio Civitatis. It seems impossible to know the correct figure or the cause of the discrepancy, but neither seems to be a large number for the early fift h century. As noted earlier, five churches were in two relatively commercial and highly populated Regions, suggesting a high level of Christianization among the common people of Constantinople; we get a glimpse of this in the fervent support of the populace for Bishop Paul (whose church is listed in Region VII) when, afraid of his influence, the emperor Constantius moved against him. Two churches, Ecclesia Magna and Ecclesia Antiqua, stand side by side in Region II, adjoining the monumental and not very heavily populated quarter of the Augusteum and palace at the foot of the Acropolis, and two were in the extra-mural townships of Sycae (Region XIII) and Regium (if that is the correct understanding of Region XIV). The memorial Church of S. Mocius was outside the wall of Constantine and may for this reason have avoided mention by the Notitia, but the Church of the Apostles, which is listed under Region XI, was not dedicated as such until 370; it had begun as Constantine’s mausoleum. This leaves a single church in each of Regions IV, X and XI, and there were no less than six Regions (I, III, V, VI, VIII, XII) with no church at all. It should of course be added that no pagan temples are noted (a passage of Malalas shows three of the greatest being decommissioned under Theodosius),83 but it does not look as if the Christianization of the new city had much to do with any targeted program of church building initiated by Constantine. If this were the case anywhere, it was at Rome, which is, perhaps, something of a paradox.84

83. Malalas, 13.38 (Thurn = 13.39 Jeff reys et al., 346 Bonn) (precise year unclear). 84. Dagron, Naissance, 388–409; Mango, Le développement urbain, 35–36.

5

Water and Late Antique Constantinople “It would be abominable for the inhabitants of this Beautiful City to be compelled to purchase water.” 1 JAMES CROW

1. Introduction What city then brooks comparison with ours? She is more prosperous than the oldest states, while to the rest she is superior either in size or origin or fertility of the land. Moreover, if she be inferior in respect of her walls, she yet surpasses that town in her supply of water, the mild winters, the wit of her inhabitants, the pursuit of philosophy; and in the most noble feature of all, in Greek education and oratory, she rises superior to a city still greater. The city in question is not Constantinople but Antioch, as described by the orator Libanius, in part of his great encomium, the Antiochikos, offered on the occasion of the Olympiad in a.d. 356.2 This is a bravura work of late antique rhetoric evoking a pageant of foundation myths, religion, history, urban fabric, and topography; and above all he takes pride in the cultural superiority of his native city. As in a great symphony, certain themes recur to be reworked as variations, honed and crafted to differing effect. One key theme is water. Springs are associated with the city’s foundation; well watered by river and springs, the city is provided with a range of aqueducts passing easily across the countryside, unimpeded by physical barriers (Or. 11.243). Thus, water flows in the fertile territories of the cities and throughout the city itself, which he hails as the very “capital of the Nymphs” (Or. 11.241). In the conclusion, Libanius

1. Codex Justinianus 11.42.7. 2. Libanius, Or. 11.270; for a commentary and translation, see Norman, Antioch as Centre of Hellenic Culture, 3–65; see also Festugière, Antioche païenne et chrétienne, 54–55, for an archaeological commentary on the text.

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draws a comparison with the two other great cities of the empire, Constantinople and Rome (Carthage and Alexandria are omitted). As is apparent in the opening quotation, neither is named: the “city still greater” is Rome, dismissed as no rival to Antioch in Hellenic culture (paideia). Libanius’ hostility to Constantinople, where he had lived until 354, is displayed in a description of the palace at Antioch, where he makes a disdainful comparison with those Th racian cities “composed of a few hovels” (Or. 11.207). Of the anonymous Constantinople he remarks that only the city walls are superior, while in all other respects he proclaims his own city’s pre-eminence. The specific mention of the water supply is the rhetorical stiletto thrust. As he knew well from his time spent in the city, whatever the strategic advantages of the location on the Bosporus and its extensive and well-protected natural harbors, a crucial defect that emerged in the decades after Constantine’s foundation was that, unlike old Rome, the site was singularly deficient in local springs and aquifers.3 It was surely Libanius’ intention to emphasize the abundance of water sources from Antioch in order to expose the deficiencies of her upstart rival. As part of an extended section on water (Or. 11.240–48), he wrote: “now our chief advantage is that our city has an abundant water supply. There could be disagreement in other matters, but when we mention our water supply, everyone concedes to this point” (Or. 11.244). Later in the same section he claims (Or. 11.247): so we have no fights around our public fountains, as to who will draw water before his neighbor, which is a nuisance to many a wealthy town. There they push and jostle around the fountain, and there is weeping and wailing when bowls are broken and at the injuries received around the springs. We, however, have all the fountains inside our houses, and the public ones are for show. While the last claim is clearly rhetorical hyperbole, and his allusion to the daily free-for-all at the public fountains may be a literary topos, it finds resonances and confirmation in later descriptions of the distribution of water in Constantinople (see below). 2. The New Thracian Water Supply System Later accounts of Constantinople’s foundation invariably give Constantine the credit for providing the first water channels from “Bulgaria” and of creating the first network of deep sewers for the city,4 but the earliest specific reference

3. See Mango, “The Water Supply,” 9–10; Procopius in his description of the city in Book 1 of the Buildings makes light of this by extolling the significance of the maritime setting of the city (Buildings 1.5.2–13). 4. Anon. Patria 1.69–70 (149 Preger); unless otherwise stated relevant texts are collected in translation in Crow et al., The Water Supply, 221–47.

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to the reconnaissance for the new water sources is an oration of Themistius addressed to Constantius II in 357. He praises the emperor for not extending the circuit of the city, but for “searching more bountiful sources of water and building baths that bear his name.”5 Work on the Constantinian baths in Region X began possibly a few years before in 345, and about 360 Libanius wrote from Antioch to Honoratus, prefect of the city, and mentioned “the abundant reservoirs built, by which it is possible for you to rival even us.”6 Clearly the major project to provide a new water supply was progressing, and in another letter addressed to the prefect Modestus in ca. 363, Libanius recommends the skills of Elpidius who “can make you well-watered” (katarytos).7 What had been an opportunity for Libanius to express Antiochene superiority, as evinced in the Antiochikos, had apparently within a decade become a more fruitful collaboration. The work of design and construction probably extended over nearly two decades, and in two orations from Valens’ reign Themistius celebrated the arrival of the new waters to the city in 373. The Thracian nymphs were welcomed as waters passing through rounded channels “flying high up through the air or run underneath steep jutting hills, in the earth and in the air more than a thousand stadia uphill and downhill”8 (see figure 5.1). This motif was echoed a few years later by Gregory of Nazianzus who, protesting against the arrogance of the Arian majority of the city, wrote that among their celebrated wonders was “that marvelous work, the underground and overhead river.”9 A new water supply was required to ensure that channeled water could be led and distributed to the new parts of the city enclosed by the Constantinian walls. These districts were located at a higher elevation than those parts of the city that occupied the former town of Byzantium at the end of the peninsula, east of Constantine’s new column and forum. Like the Bithynian city of Nicaea, it seems that Byzantium had benefited from imperial patronage under Hadrian with the provision of a new water supply.10 This is attested in a number of later Byzantine sources, which clearly distinguish between the Aqueduct of Hadrian and the channels described as either the Aqueduct of Valens (or Valentinian) or the city’s aqueduct. Thus, the Hadrianic line provided water for the lower area of old Byzantium including the Strategion and the Baths of Achilles, the

5. Themistius, Or. 4.58b, trans. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 223. 6. Libanius Ep. 251, trans. Bradbury. 7. Libanius Ep. 827, trans. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 223; see Mango, “The Water Supply,” 14, n.23. 8. Themistius, Or. 11.151c-152a (to Valens in 373) and Or. 13.168a-c (to Gratian in 376). The quotation is from 168b. 9. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 33.6; trans. in Crow et al., The Water Supply, 226. 10. The course of the Aqueduct of Hadrian is discussed in more detail in Crow et al., The Water Supply, 10–14, 116–17, Fig. 2.2.

Figure 5.1 Outline maps showing the development of the Constantinople water supply system in Th race from Hadrian to Süleyman the Magnificent. Drawn by Richard Bayliss.

120 Crow

Figure 5.2 Map showing the projected course of the main aqueduct channels and major cisterns. Drawn by Richard Bayliss.

Zeuxippus Baths and the imperial palace (see figure 5.2). The channels are not known with certainty, but, like the Ottoman channels sourced from the Belgrade forest and the valley of the Alibey dere (Kırkçeşme),11 they will have followed the approximately 30 meter contour along the hillsides above the Golden Horn. The new city was to develop westward on the higher ground along the third, fourth, and fift h hills: in the vicinity of the Forum of Theodosius, the Apostoleion, and toward the southwest to the Forum of Arcadius. These districts were at a much higher elevation, and to ensure water for thermae, nymphaea, and other public and domestic use, it was necessary to channel water into the city at an elevation of at least 59 meters above sea level, about 30 meters higher than the Aqueduct of Hadrian. To achieve a constant and copious flow to the high level parts of the new city, the surveyors were obliged to seek out higher, distant springs. Before the recent archaeological surveys of the water channels in Th race, it was reasonable to question Themistius’ claim that the aqueduct was 1,000 stades in length. But the most recent estimate suggests that the total length

11. The Kırkçeşme (“forty springs”) entered the city at approximately 35 meters above sea level; see Crow et al., The Water Supply, 115.

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of the fourth-century channels known have originated from springs at Danımandere and Pınarca was even greater than this figure (figure 5.1).12 From our fieldwork over the past decade, it is clear now that the system that continued to develop throughout the fi ft h and sixth centuries came to rival that of imperial Rome.13 In one sense, military and political events quickly overcame the original plans for the long-distance Th racian Aqueduct, for within five years of “welcoming” the waters to the city, Valens, together with much of his field army, lay dead on the battlefield near Adrianople (Edirne). It was no longer possible to assume that the Roman frontiers on the lower Danube could ensure the security of the imperial capital, and over the following century two great fortification systems of the city emerged: the Theodosian land walls of the city, completed by 413,14 and the Anastasian long walls of Th race, constructed 65 kilometers to the west during fi rst decade of the sixth century.15 A major difference between Rome and Constantinople is that there is extensive surviving evidence for the use of water storage within the walls of the latter city. While Rome from Augustus until Aurelian had been essentially an open city, reliant on the frontier garrisons for its security, Constantinople acquired increasingly complex systems of fortifications. Thus the large number of cisterns and reservoirs, of which over 150 are known, dating from the fourth century to middle Byzantium and beyond, was necessitated partly by the need for security but also by the particular character of the water sources available to the city.16 The course of the two main aqueduct channels can be proposed with some certainty within the city, but evidence for the circulation and delivery of this water supply remains obscure. By contrast, the textual evidence from imperial Rome portrays a network of storage centers and distribution hubs. Frontinus’ treatise on the aqueducts of Rome may be understood to describe a hierarchy of water distribution; he notes munera (display fountains) and lacūs (public fountains), and castella and castra. The former pair correspond to the nymphaea and fountains (phialai) known from the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae and other Byzantine sources, but the interpretation of the latter structures has been a matter of debate and uncertainty.

12. 1,000 stades equals 185 kilometers; the estimated length of the channel from Danımandere is 215 kilometers. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 26–27, Fig. 2.1. 13. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 1. 14. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 268–311; also discussion in Crow, “Infrastructures,” 122–25. 15. Crow, “Long Walls,” 109–24. 16. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 17, for a discussion of Procopius, Buildings 1.11.10–12; for a hydrological perspective, see Bono, Bayliss, and Crow, “The Water Supply of Constantinople.”

122 Crow An elegant solution has recently been developed by Andrew Wilson, suggesting that since castella are the diminutive of castra, Frontinus is describing a hierarchy of distribution with reservoir cisterns (castra), which in turn sourced the larger number of castella as points of distribution.17 We can expect that a similar hierarchy applied in Constantinople, although texts such as the law codes only refer to castella.18 The term survives in Greek until the eleventh century, when kastellos was employed by Skylitzes in his account of the restorations to the aqueducts and reservoirs undertaken by Romanus III (1028–34).19 Comparison between Rome and Constantinople reveals not only the differing political and natural environments reflected in the evolution of the hydraulic infrastructures of the two cities but also diverse approaches by scholars to the physical remains of the two systems.20 For Rome, until very recently the extensive physical remnants have often served as an illustration for the text of Frontinus,21 whereas for Constantinople the fragmentary sources compel a more inclusive and holistic approach to both written sources and physical remains. From Theodosius I onward, the law codes provide the main written account concerned with the management and financing of the newly established system, and there is no mention of any major rebuilding or extensions.22 The archaeological evidence from outside the city, however, clearly demonstrates that the fourth-century system was radically rebuilt and extended to incorporate three main springs: beyond Vize (ancient Bizye) at Pazarlı, at Ergane and near Bınkılıc, confirming the sixth-century account of Hesychius, who noted that the source of the aqueduct was at Bizye (see figure 5.1).23 Major rebuilding was associated with this extension and for part of the central length, 15 kilometers either side of the later, sixth-century Anastasian wall, the two channels can be seen to run in parallel. As they flow eastward, one channel is significantly

17. Wilson, “The Castra of Frontinus.” Frontinus records 247 castella and 18 castra (De Aquaeductu 2.78–86). 18. Thus, an edict of 395 was concerned to punish illegal procurement of water from an aqueduct rather than from the reservoirs (ex castellis aquae, CTh 15.2.6). Note that Rodgers prefers to translate castellum as tank, Frontinus, De Aquaeductu, Commentary, 134–35. 19. Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, Romanos 17 (389 Thurn, 504 Bonn). 20. For pioneering work on the Constantinople water supply which includes a comparison with the known Roman reservoirs recorded by Lanciani, see Forchheimer and Strzygowski, Die Byzantinischen Wasserbehälter. 21. See the comments in Crow et al., The Water Supply; recent studies of Rome by Wilson, “The Castra of Frontinus,” and Tucci, “Ideology and Technology in Rome’s Water Supply,” reflect a greater awareness of the range of physical remains. 22. The imperial edicts relating to water are discussed in Mango, “The Water Supply”; Baldini Lippolis, “Private Space,” 27–28; and Crow et al., The Water Supply. For Late Antique Rome, see Ward-Perkins, Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, ch. 2; see also Coates-Stephens, “The Water-Supply of Rome.” 23. Hesychius, fr. 4.9, trans. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 227–28.

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higher than the other, although eventually they run at the same level. One (higher) represents the fourth-century channel and the other a wider and taller channel from Vize. Many of the original aqueduct bridges were replaced by monumental, grander structures often decorated with Christian symbols and invocations. The Thracian long-distance system was termed in the ancient sources as the Aqueduct of Valens, or the city’s aqueduct, and we can be sure that these waters were delivered across the 971 meter aqueduct bridge, the Bozdoğan Kemeri, into the heart of the new city through the forum of Theodosius and on toward the Binbirdirek covered cistern. The decades following the extension and rebuilding of the aqueduct saw the excavation of huge open reservoirs in the zone between the Constantinian and Theodosian walls.24 One problem for this second main phase has been establishing a secure chronology. The earliest period of the Thracian aqueducts is well documented in the sources already noted. The most secure component within the city, the Bozdoğan Kemeri, is no earlier than the fourth century, since a chrismon decorates one of the keystones of one of the lower arches. In the forests outside the city where the aqueducts are best preserved there is clear evidence that narrow channels and more slender bridges of the initial fourth-century construction preceded the building of the grandiose structures such as Kurşunlugerme and Büyükgerme, associated with the broader, taller channels. But, as noted before, no texts record this major rebuilding program, which involved at least six major bridges and many smaller ones, together with miles of new channels. The bridge at Kurşunlugerme is extensively decorated with crosses and a wide range of other Christian symbols and invocations, but none has any direct chronological significance. However, comparison of the distinctive form of the chrisma used on the keystones of the new bridge draws an exact parallel with the decoration of the base of the Column of Marcian in the city.25 The column is dated by an inscription to 450–52 and provides a comparative date for the completion of the work at Kurşunlugerme and the second phase of the system as a whole. The two distinct phases of the construction of the Thracian Aqueduct system represent a huge endeavor lasting over a century. In the absence of historical texts, the details of this enormous investment and technological achievement, as represented in this second phase, can only be realized through a study of the archaeological evidence. But looking at the great bridge at Kurşunlugerme adorned by sculpted crosses and inscriptions, one can only marvel at the ambition

24. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 15, 128–32. 25. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 54–55. The drawing of the column base (Fig. 35) misleadingly reconstructs the form of the knot which is otherwise identical to the example from Kurşunlugerme; see Crow et al., The Water Supply, 172, Fig. 7.16.

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and faith that came to define the new Christian Roman capital. This was to be a defining period, when the city acquired the basic infrastructures that were to ensure its resilience for over a millennium: massive fortifications, a complex of water channels, cisterns and sewers, harbors, and granaries. 3. The Water Supply from Anastasius to Heraclius The later history of the water supply system, after the completion of the second phase of the Aqueduct of Valens, requires an understanding of the written sources, the topography of the city and its cisterns, and the structural evidence surviving in the wooded landscapes beyond the contemporary sprawl of modern Istanbul. The final element of the fift h-century phase of the development of the water supply was the excavation of the Mokios reservoir located between the walls of Constantine and Theodosius, the third of the three great open pools in the outer, less densely populated region of the city. The dating derived from the written sources is less secure than for the reservoirs of Aspar and Aetios, but the study of the brickstamps from Mokios suggests a date that correlates with the traditional attribution to Anastasius (491–518), found in the Patria.26 This reign marked a radical change in the outer defenses of the city with the construction of the long walls from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. Although this line, over 65 kilometers west of the Theodosian wall, could only protect the springs at Pınarca and the Aqueduct of Hadrian in the Forest of Belgrade, it did provide real security for these springs; about fifteen years before, in 486, an aqueduct is known to have been cut by Theodoric the Amal, a rebellious former consul and magister militum praesentalis.27 Throughout the later fourth and fift h centuries, a significant number of imperial edicts demonstrate continuing concern for the distribution and regulation of water usage; the collection of edicts in the Theodosian Code seems to be very specifically a Constantinopolitan compilation, focused on the specific needs of the new system. These include imperial measures diverting funds formerly expended on public donatives into the maintenance of the aqueducts and providing for the day-to-day services and repairs by teams of hydrophylakes.28 Events surrounding the deposition of the patriarch Macedonius in 511 provide a different perspective from these imperial edicts, with additional

26. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 132; see Haarer, Anastasius I, 231. 27. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 230; the text refers to “the city’s aqueduct,” a term which in other sixth-century texts corresponds to the Valens line. 28. See Crow et al., The Water Supply, 16; the edicts are collected at 226–31, with a preliminary discussion of administration of the late antique system at 211–13. From the nine edicts in the Theodosian Code (15.2.1–9), only three are not relevant to Constantinople, and of those preserved in the Justinianic Code, only one from eleven edicts (11.33.1–11).

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insights into the provision and consumption of the city’s water supply and especially into the emperor’s role. By 500, the city housed a larger number of monastic communities, which in the ongoing and divisive Christological disputes identified with one of other of the two factions—the pro-Chalcedonians and the so-called Monophysites. One historical source for these events, itself inevitably partisan, is the Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah of Mytilene. Despite its name, the work survives as a Syriac epitome, and the last six books (7–12) were completed in 569, based on reports from the Monophysite communities in the capital.29 In book 7 chapter 7, the chronicler discusses in detail the circumstances leading up to the fall of the patriarch Macedonius, who was a strong supporter of the Chalcedonian doctrine, including measures taken by Anastasius (a Monophysite sympathizer) against the patriarch’s supporters. The chronicle reports (7.7):30 Macedonius . . . [was attached] to the monks of the Akoimetai [Monastery] who were about one thousand and who made excessive use of baths and bodily refreshments. They appeared honourable to people outside, adorned in the habit of chastity, but like whitewashed tombs on the inside they were filled with defilement because they agreed to the wish of Macedonius. The Akoimetai, the pro-Chalcedonian “sleepless monks,” supported Macedonius. By singling out baths, the hostile chronicle creates an image of nonChristian indulgence at odds with the Akoimetai’s external reputation for ceaseless prayer and liturgy, from which their name derived. But having prepared the reader for the worthlessness of this “multitude,” the chronicle goes on to relate how the monks continued their support for the patriarch and the Chalcedonian faction. Infuriated by their persistent opposition the emperor acted against them, so that (7.8): That same day [25 July] the emperor [Anastasius] gave the order and the water that entered the baths was denied to their monasteries, conceding to them only enough to drink. He also suspended the allowance that they received from the treasury. The majority of Constantinopolitan monasteries were located in the zone between the Constantinian and Theodosian land walls, regions less densely occupied with housing.31 It has already been noted that the explicit reference in

29. See Haarer, Anastasius I, 268–69; see 147–52 for an account of Macedonius’ fall and exile. I am grateful to Geoff rey Greatrex, author of a commentary on Pseudo-Zachariah, for drawing my attention to the account of these events. 30. Tr. Phenix and Horn, in Greatrex et al.’s edition. 31. See Hatlie, Monks and Monasteries, 95.

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a previous chapter to the monastic baths was clearly preparation by the chronicler for the “just fate” to follow, no doubt perceived as a rightful settlement of old scores. But the text also provides an important insight into how the public water supply was distributed throughout the city to differing levels of society and could be directed to enforce imperial policy. An edict of Theodosius II and Valentinian III, preserved in the Justinianic Code, concerned the specific revenues, destined for the repairs of the aqueducts, which were levied on the landing quays of the city and on laborers called the Cyzacenii.32 It concluded that “it should be remembered that none of those who have the right to use the water shall be subjected to any expenses for repairs, as it would be abominable for the inhabitants of this Beautiful City to be compelled to purchase water,” an important statement of the continuing Roman principle of free water distribution for the citizens of a city. It is clear from the chronicle’s account that the communities of the Akoimetai (for more than one monastery is implied) continued to retain their basic water right common to all residents of the city. But due to their dogged support for the patriarch against the will of the emperor, they forfeited the privilege of piped water for bathing, together with the subsidy from the imperial treasury. An edict addressed to the city prefect Clearchus in 382, shortly after the Thracian waters reached the upper parts of the new town, enumerates the range of pipe diameters appropriate for the great houses in the city. Another edict addressed to Cyrus specifically notes the lead pipes ( fistulae) provisioning the thermae of Achilles in the Strategion.33 The events surrounding Macedonius’ fall show that the scale of water provision to monastic houses was clearly substantial, and comparable to, if not greater than, many of the elite houses within the city. Further evidence for this is provided in the account of the restoration of the nunnery of S. Olympias, which reportedly housed over 250 nuns. Unlike the communities of the Akoimetai, it was located near to the south side of the Great Church, occupying the mansions and houses belonging to its noble founder. Like many buildings in this quarter of the city, it was destroyed in the great fire following the Nika riot, and following its rebuilding, Justinian is said to have granted an allocation of

32. CJ 11.42.7; Crow et al., The Water Supply, 227. Note that Scott’s translation of “ladders” for scalis should read “quays” or “landing stages.” The role of the Cyzacenii is not otherwise attested; however, in this context they are likely to be boatmen or shore porters originating from Cyzicus, on the other side of the sea of Marmora, who probably held a monopoly over this trade. 33. CTh 15.2.3: pipes of 3, 2, 1 1/2, and 1/2 inch diameter are specified according to the status of the houses; CJ 11.42.6 (Cyrus). Note that an individual named Cyrus is not attested as praetorian prefect until the reign of Theodosius II. Unlike the numerous stamped lead fistulae known from imperial Rome and also from the Church of S. Lorenzo fuori-le-mura, see Ward-Perkins, Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 137; only one is known from Constantinople, Crow et al., The Water Supply, 227.

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piped water measured at three oungias (inches) per day and civic bread.34 The supply pipe for S. Olympias was thus equivalent to the largest diameter noted in the edict of 382, which states that “if houses are furnished with very elegant baths, We decree they may have no more than two inches of water, or if by reason of high rank, more than this is required, by no means shall they possess more than three inches each.”35 The nunnery was thus equivalent to the greatest domus in the city, which after all is what had preceded it on the site in the late fourth century. Large numbers of Constantinopolitan religious communities could have benefited from imperial benevolence of this type, and they will have surely created a significant further demand on the new water supply of the imperial capital throughout the fift h and sixth centuries.36 Justinian’s major recorded achievement involving the water supply was the construction of the greatest of the covered cisterns below the courtyard and south stoa of the Basilica of Illus, the Yerebatan Saray or Basilica Cistern: a monument that continues to amaze tourists, presidents, and fi lmmakers in modern times.37 Work probably commenced in 527–28, but the completion of the building works was not reached until 541, when the city prefect Longinus is recorded to have finished the paving of the central courtyard,38 although the cistern probably functioned some years before that. Accounts by Procopius and other contemporaries are very important for our understanding of the main distribution channels within the city and particular problems in the sources in the hinterland. Malalas’ account of the initial building of the Basilica Cistern in 527 specifically states that the intention was to bring water from the Aqueduct of Hadrian into the new cistern; he continues by stating that Justinian “also reconstructed the city’s aqueduct.”39 Thus, a clear distinction is made between the Aqueduct of Hadrian and the “city’s aqueduct.”40 The contour map of the city shown in figure 5.2 allows us to compare the routes of the two differing lines of water channels. The Basilica Cistern can be seen to be at an elevation that could be supplied by the gravity-fed channels looping around the northern slopes above the Golden Horn, and included in its length the larger covered cistern at Unkapanı. This line entered the city close to the Blachernai, at approximately the same height as the channels from the main Ottoman lines of Cebeciköy and Kırkçeşme. It would have been able to

34. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 233. 35. CTh 15.2.3. 36. For S. Olympias, see Hatlie, Monks and Monasteries, 72, who also discusses the demographic effect of the large numbers of monasteries in the later fi ft h and sixth centuries 94–95, appendix 1. 37. Crow et al., The Water Supply, esp. 17–18, fig. 9.1, map 15, sources 232–33. 38. Malalas, Chronicle 18.91 (482 Bonn). 39. Malalas, Chronicle 18.17 (436 Bonn). 40. Malalas, Chronicle 18.17 (436 Bonn).

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supply all of the earlier city of Byzantium apart from the acropolis, now occupied by the Topkapı Sarayı,41 and would have sourced the later Great Palace, the Baths of Zeuxippos, and the baths at the Strategion. The huge volume of the Basilica Cistern appears to be a new measure intended to ensure greater water storage and a more regular supply within the city. Procopius does not specify which aqueduct filled the cistern, but he states quite clearly that because of the great variation of the winter and summer flow in the aqueduct channel the emperor “made a suitable storage reservoir for the summer season, to contain the water that had been wasted because of its very abundance during the other seasons.”42 In some ways this statement seems rather surprising, given the very large number of cisterns known within the city, since it might be expected that construction of the cisterns followed quite closely with the provision of the new water supply line crossing the Aqueduct of Valens. However, only a few are noted in historical sources and even fewer can be readily dated. 43 If the Basilica Cistern was fi lled by Hadrian’s Aqueduct, the comparable castellum aquae for Valens’ Aqueduct was the similarly vast covered cistern of the Binbirdirek, situated east of the Forum of Constantine and at an elevation about 18 meters higher than the Basilica Cistern.44 The ancient name of the Binbirdirek is not certain, but it is thought to date to the late fift h or early sixth century. It was intended to fulfi ll exactly the same purpose as Procopius describes for the Basilica Cistern: to ensure a balanced supply throughout the year. The construction of these large cisterns within the heart of the city is at odds with the three huge open reservoirs situated in the region beyond the Constantinian walls, whose function and role in the city’s water storage and distribution system remains uncertain. In Rome, at least two of the castella for aqueduct lines are known—the terminal castellum of the Aqua Claudia and the piscina of the Aqua Alexandrina; both are close to the entry point to the city at the Porta Maggiore.45 By contrast, the two great covered cisterns in Constantinople are located at the end of the peninsula. Their precise situation in a crowded city will have been determined by available open ground, such as the great courtyard in the Basilica of Illus, where it was necessary to demolish the south portico in order to facilitate the work of excavation. Unfortunately, the sources are silent concerning the Binbidirek Cistern, where the far greater depth presumably represents the more constricted

41. See Crow et al., The Water Supply, esp. 114–17, fig. 2.2. 42. Procopius, Buildings 1.11.14 43. See Bardill’s concordance of cisterns in Crow et al., The Water Supply, 143–55, and maps 12–15. 44. Crow et al., The Water Supply, map 15, the height difference is estimated from the contours reproduced on this map. 45. For a recent discussion of Rome’s cisterns, see Wilson, “The Castra of Frontinus,” 441–42.

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footprint required by the presence of existing adjacent structures. Among the best known cisterns from imperial Rome are the reservoirs such as the Sette Sale, great holding tanks for the Baths of Trajan, although their size is insignificant compared with the greatest cisterns of the New Rome.46 Further imperial concern for cisterns is documented in the aftermath of the Nika riot in January 532, when Justinian constructed granaries, bakeries, and a cistern to ensure supplies in a time of crisis.47 The location of this cistern is not known, although several survive in the area of the city devastated by the great fire.48 Another theme notable in the sources for Justinian’s reign is drought and the urban crises that ensued, a problem previously unnoted by Constantinople’s historians and chroniclers. This may reflect the differing character of the historical accounts from the later fourth century onward. After 500, apart from some exceptions like Procopius, the main sources are chronicles such as Malalas and the Chronicon Paschale, explicitly Christian accounts that inevitably privilege natural disasters and spectacular events indicative of divine action. Earthquakes and other natural disasters become a constant theme.49 In his entry for 562/3, Theophanes reports a number of urban concerns including street mobs in Pittakia and problems facing shipping reaching the city; furthermore, he adds that there was a drought in November 562 and “water became scarce, resulting in many fights around the fountains.” At the conclusion of the same entry in the Chronicle is the statement that “in August (563) there was shortage of water, so the public baths were closed and murders occurred round the fountains”; whether Theophanes has compounded the same events is unclear.50 The Secret History describes similar public disorder earlier in the reign (this is evident as Theodora is clearly still alive), when as a result of damage to the city’s aqueduct the water supply was greatly reduced and the baths were closed and “a great crowd hung around the fountains with their tongues hanging out.”51 Although the only direct textual reference for work on the aqueducts during Justinian’s long reign is found in the accounts of the building of the Basilica

46. The capacity of the Sette Sale is estimated at 7,000 m3 (Wilson, “The Castra of Frontinus” 442), compared with 43,200 m3 for the Binbirdirek Cistern (Forchheimer and Strzygowski, Die Byzantinischen Wasserbehälter, 141). 47. Malalas, Chronicle 18.71 (477 Bonn). 48. Crow et al., The Water Supply, map 15. 49. Arjava, “The Mystery Cloud.” 50. Theophanes, AM 6055 (trans. Mango and Scott). 51. Procopius, Secret History 26.23, trans. Williamson, 171–72; the question of the water supply for baths is not considered in a recent discussion of the Byzantine baths of Constantinople; Yegül, “Baths of Constantinople,” 170–95. This study provides a helpful summary of the known archaeological remains but is unreliable on historical and topographical details. The question of drought in Justinianic Constantinople is considered in Magdalino, “Medieval Constantinople,” 54, n.205; and Arjava, “The Mystery Cloud.”

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cistern discussed above, a recently discovered inscription records the work of repairs on a small aqueduct bridge from the valley of Elkaf dere, near Belgrat köy. The work was undertaken by Longinus, ex-consul and prefect of Constantinople. The only prefect of the city with this name is recorded under Justinian and was also engaged in the completion of the work to the Basilica Cistern in 541–42.52 Longinus’ involvement with the aqueducts outside the city may have arisen from his status as a consul, since an edict of Leo I required the consuls to contribute 100 pounds of gold at the beginning of every consulate for the maintenance of the city’s aqueducts and to “abstain from the vile practice of scattering money among the populace.”53 Another Longinus with the same titles, but now also magister militum, is recorded in an inscription from Chalcis in Syria in 550–51, engaged with Isidore in the construction of the city walls, although it is not certain he is the same individual.54 The work recorded at Elkaf dere is likely to have occurred within a few years of his retirement from the position of city prefect, probably within the decade ending in 550. In the earlier study of the aqueducts written with Bardill and Bayliss, we argued that this inscription effectively dated all the work as belonging to a distinct third phase of rebuilding and repairs. This work is best evidenced at the bridge at Talas, where work of the third style replaces and envelops construction of the second phase.55 At Talas, the third phase can be recognized by regular courses of smooth blockwork supported with regular vertical, tapering buttresses and distinctive chamfered stringcourses (see figure 5.3). This new work rises shear like the face of a dam and covers the earlier bridge constructed of stone blocks with bossed faces, similar to the facing blocks found at the great aqueducts such as Kurşunlugerme and Büyükgerme belonging to the second period. Further fieldwork conducted during 2007 and 2008 at a number of bridges near the villages of Karaman dere and Çift lik köy has provided additional examples of this major phase of restoration.56 It is now clear that more than ten bridges can be recognized as having undergone repairs in this phase of restoration, defined in the west by Luka dere (K17.1)

52. PLRE 3B, 795–96 (“Longinus 2”). 53. The edict is preserved in the Codex Justinianus (13.3.2), so can be assumed to have remained relevant; for continuing consular largesse in Rome, see Ward-Perkins, Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 102; he also notes (40) that in the early fi ft h century, the office of the praefectus urbi of Rome included a consularis aquarum. 54. Denis Feissel is reluctant to identify the two individuals as the same Longinus, compare his “Bulletin épigraphique,” 600, with his “Édifices de Justinien,” 55. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 101–104. 56. This fieldwork was undertaken in collaboration with Prof. Derya Maktav of Istanbul Technical University with the aid of grants from the British Academy and TUBITAK. For the location of these bridges, see Crow et al., The Water Supply, map 5, ch. 3. See interim reports in Anatolian Archaeology 2008.

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and to the east by the substructure at Kara tepe (K29.4). The direct distance is over 14 kilometers, but in practice a very much longer, sinuous course around the steeply wooded hills. Although this group of structures has many building features in common that differentiate them from earlier and later construction programs, there are at the same time significant differences, which suggest that the structures in this sector may have undergone rebuilding as part of a number of distinct projects over a number of decades.57 Thus, the chamfered string course from Talas and Leylek kale indicates that they and other bridges are of a similar program, while at the dated example from Elkaf dere, the chamfered blocks are found as springers for the single vault; but the facing blocks are dressed in a different manner, as are those from the nearby bridge at Nikol dere (see figure 5.4), which may have been rebuilt as part of a realignment associated with a new tunnel for the water channel below the Anastasian wall.58 The differences in construction details are such as to suggest that in practice we are observing a range of work all belonging to a defined period of time, but not all necessarily directly associated with the Longinus inscription in the time of Justinian. In addition to the problems of drought and water provision noted in the texts concerning Justinian’s reign, there is textual evidence that the aqueducts continued to be maintained in the later sixth century. Repairs in 575–76 during the reign of Justin II “supplied the city with abundant water.” Within the city, only two cisterns are recorded as being constructed after the reign of Justinian. The Cistern of the Forty Martyrs was constructed on the Mesē in 609 and would therefore have been fed by the long-distance supply line.59 A number of surviving cisterns have been presented as possible contenders for the Cistern of Bonus, built in the reign of Heraclius (610–42), but none is conclusively identified.60 The Fildamı, or “Elephant’s Cistern,” a huge open-air reservoir near the Hebdomon, is also thought to date after Justinian.61 Most significant in these later textual references is the continuing scale of investment. Justin II’s work (565–78) was carried out on both the Aqueducts of the city and Hadrian; and under Maurice (582–602), Theophylact Simocatta records that he not only remitted a third of taxes for the city’s population but also bestowed thirty talents (3,000 pounds) of gold for the renovation of the aqueducts, a theme repeated by John of Nikiu.62 The

57. Later construction is very different in character and can be associated with the reestablishment of the system under Constantine V and with repairs by later emperors; see Crow et al., The Water Supply, 103–107. 58. See Crow et al., The Water Supply: for Talas and Leylek kale, see Figs 3.56, 4.21, 4.22, 4.23; for Elkaf dere, see Figs. 2.4, 3.42, 3.43; and note the different facing stones used at Nicol dere, Fig. 3.45. 59. Theophanes AM 6068; Crow et al., The Water Supply, 19. 60. Mango, “The Water supply,” 36; for the palace and cistern of Bonus, see the discussion in Featherstone, “All Saints,” nn.30, 33. 61. Bardill, Brickstamps of Constantinople, 39. 62. Theophylact, Hist. 8.13.7, John of Nikiu, 95.16–17. Crow et al., The Water Supply, 234.

Figure 5.3 Aqueduct bridge at Nikol dere. Photograph: James Crow.

Figure 5.4 Aqueduct bridge at Talas, showing the sixth-century reconstruction. Photograph: James Crow.

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figure quoted is huge—thirty times the sum required for admission to the honorary consulate—but it could reflect a significant imperial investment, apparent at Talas and in many of the bridges in Thrace discussed above. These works can be attributed to an extensive and continuing need for maintenance and investment by Justinian’s successors and can be seen to validate Magdalino’s observation that “the emperors took on the type of public benefaction which had previously been dependant on private initiative,” or, in this instance, what had formerly been public initiative but reliant on private funding.63 The reign of Heraclius, as in so many aspects of the history of the city, marks a transition towards a new, more challenging age. Henceforth, historical texts are more limited and there are no further references to the management of the water supply until Theophanes’ account of Constantine V’s restoration of the Valens aqueduct in 765.64 Throughout the sixth century the Anastasian wall had effectively deterred the majority of the city’s western attackers, and while it was not fully garrisoned or maintained after natural disasters such as the earthquake of 557, the land walls of the city remained a secure and reliable bulwark. Rome, by contrast, was recaptured by the Byzantines after periods of Gothic rule, and the Gothic siege in 537 is especially well documented. Not only do the aqueducts figure in Procopius’ account,65 but recent archaeological investigations on the Janiculum also have revealed the extensive blocking to ensure that the Aqua Traiana’s channel could not be infi ltrated by an invader.66 Significantly, the excavation revealed that the channel was never cleared and although it was not an impermeable barrier, another branch of the aqueduct was reinstated in later times, allowing settlement to continue in the lower part of Trastevere throughout the early Middle Ages while the higher ground within the city wall was largely abandoned.67 In many senses, these events anticipate what happened in Constantinople over the next century. In 626, the city was threatened for the first time by enemies on both sides of the Bosporus. Later accounts record that the Avars cut the city’s main aqueduct at this time,68 and from the previous account of the distribution of the two main channels (figure 5.2), it can be seen that water

63. Magdalino, “Medieval Constantinople,” 54. 64. For a recent account of Constantine V’s building work in the capital and elsewhere see Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, 161–162; note that their attribution of the bridge inscription from Vize to Kirklareli is probably too distant from the main areas of known later restoration to the aqueducts. 65. Procopius Wars 5.19.8–9. 66. Wilson, “Water Mills on the Janiculum,” 232–34, Fig 5. 67. Ibid., 244. 68. Theophanes, AM 6258.

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distribution will have been restricted to the Hadrianic Aqueduct along the hillsides overlooking the Golden Horn, but including the Blachernai and the area of the old city, together with the Great Palace. This disruption of the high-level water channels would have had a dramatic impact on many of the great cisterns, on the great Baths of the Constantinianae and Anastasianae, and on settlement across the elevated parts of the city.69 4. Conclusion Crossing the broad valley between the third and fourth hills, the long multiarched bridge, the Bozdoğan Kemeri or Aqueduct of Valens, served to assert the power of Byzantine rulers to harness the distant water resources of Thrace. Stored water was hidden below ground in vast sunken cisterns, but the great bridge served as a visual reminder of the orator’s imagery of the “underground and overground river” that drew the waters to the city.70 The great investment undertaken from Constantius II to Theodosius II ensured that Constantinople could no longer be held up to ridicule by rival cities, and in Themistius’ words, “the city is truly a city and no longer a sketch.”71 Water was a key resource for displaying power, expressed through the provision of free-flowing fountains for the population of the city and for urban baths and nymphaea: traditional components of classical euergetism. As in imperial Rome, fountains were free, but pipes for private luxury were regulated. While Constantinople lacked a Frontinus to document the city’s hydraulic achievements, the Theodosian and Justinianic Codes reveal a continuing need to manage and control these resources. The management of this vast infrastructure and its equitable distribution continued to be a challenge to the city’s rulers—in particular in ensuring adequate regulation and limiting abuse. Control of water distribution provided an opportunity for the exercise of imperial power, as witnessed in the case of the Akoimetai (although this instance hardly represented the excesses of a vicious autocrat). Paul Magdalino has recently argued that throughout the sixth century the city came to adopt a more explicitly Christian character, with greater emphasis on ecclesiastical buildings.72 The archaeological evidence from outside the city demonstrates a continuing concern to ensure the preservation of

69. The demographic consequences of these changes are considered in Magdalino, “Medieval Constantinople,” 18–19. Ward-Perkins notes baths continuing to function without aqueducts at Rome: S. Paolo fuori-le-mura constructed by Pope Symmachus in 498–514; restored in the late sixth or early seventh century, From Classical Antiquity, 137, n.60, 149 n.109. 70. See n.9. 71. Or. 11.151a. 72. Magdalino, “Medieval Constantinople,” 19–20.

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the infrastructure, which was largely overshadowed by the great Christian monuments of Justinian. Major disruption in the early seventh century was followed by a period of neglect, with a consequent impact on the water distribution to many parts of the city during a period of demographic decline. But Constantine V’s restoration in 767 marked a significant revival in both the city’s fortunes and those of the long-distance water channels, which would continue to function for another half millennium and would amaze and astonish the first crusader visitors.73

73. Theophanes, AM 6258; Odo of Deuil, De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem.

6

Aristocratic Houses and the Making of Late Antique Rome and Constantinople CARLOS MACHADO

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ow can we define the importance of aristocratic houses in late antique Rome and Constantinople? To state that houses are a significant component of any cityscape is nothing more than a truism. The dwellings of the rich and poor are as essential as streets, public monuments, and official buildings in defining the image of a city.1 This is particularly true in the case of ancient Rome, where powerful house owners and their clients met daily for the morning ritual of salutatio, and where the house of the first citizen came to assume the role of main government center.2 It is necessary, however, to move beyond vague generalities and ask more specific questions. What was the impact of aristocratic houses on their physical setting? How did they affect the balance between a loosely defined public sphere and the private (or perhaps we should say domestic) interests of their owners? To what extent did they shape the structure and topography of power in the Eternal City? What do they reveal about the character and specificity of late antique Rome? The question of how to define the relationship between aristocratic houses and urban space is of crucial importance for studies of the urbanism and architecture of Rome in Late Antiquity. During this period the city experienced dramatic changes in its political standing, religious identity, and monumental outlook. The progressive physical and political distancing of the imperial court, especially during the fourth century, had an undeniable impact on the

Th is chapter is dedicated to the memory of Lucos Cozza, master of Roman topography. I would like to thank Elizabeth O’Keeffe for reading and improving the text. Thanks are also due to Bryan Ward-Perkins and Robert Coates-Stephens, as well as to the editors, for their comments and suggestions. 1. There is a long bibliography on “the image of the city.” For a recent discussion, and bibliography, see Carl et al., “Viewpoint.” 2. See the remarks of Wiseman, “Conspicui postes tectaque digna deo,” on the political importance of houses. On the imperial palace, see Royo, Domus Imperatoriae.

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status and monumental apparatus of the Urbs. Although fift h-century western emperors spent considerable periods in the former capital, their control over the city and its elite was less powerful than in previous centuries.3 This process was paralleled by the rising influence of the Church. From the reign of Constantine onward, the construction of a network of Christian buildings led to the development of a specifically Christian topography.4 This process was directed by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in large part sponsored by members of the imperial family and of the Roman aristocracy.5 The political and religious transformations taking place in late antique Rome offered new opportunities for aristocrats to exercise their power and influence. An examination of aristocratic houses might help us understand their role in shaping the city’s institutions, society, and physical environment.6 Fourth-century Rome was marked by a significant boom in aristocratic housing. This process is attested to by the continuous discovery and identification of late antique houses in different parts of the modern city,7 and it had a powerful impact on the cityscape. From the beginning of the fourth century onwards, the balance between public and private structures leaned toward the latter. We can appreciate the importance of domūs in the definition of urban space by considering the information preserved in the Regionary Catalogues, the Notitia and Curiosum Urbis Romae.8 Whether these texts are seen as literary fabrications or as administrative lists,9 it is remarkable that they both record 1,790 domūs in Rome—a number that even if inaccurate is still plausible.10

3. For emperors in fi ft h-century Rome, see Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” and Humphries q.v. For the decreased influence of the imperial court and the rising influence of aristocrats, see Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 375–76. 4. The classical study is Krautheimer, Rome; see also Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital. 5. On the patronage of the Church and ecclesiastical buildings, see most recently the essays collected in Cooper and Hillner, Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage, especially the introduction. For aristocratic patronage, see Hillner “Families, Patronage.” 6. There is a long bibliography on late antique Rome and its aristocracy. See, for example, Chastagnol, La préfecture. I dealt with these aspects in Machado, Urban Space. 7. See the fundamental works of Guidobaldi, on which much of what follows is based; especially “L’edilizia abitativa unifamiliare” and “Le domus tardoantiche.” For the idea of a fourth-century boom, see Guidobaldi, “Le domus tardoantiche,” 59 and “Le abitazioni private,” 156–58. 8. Published in Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 63–192, with a useful introduction. The following discussion is based on the considerations of Guidobaldi, “Le domus tardoantiche,” 55 and Guilhembet, “La densité des domus.” 9. For the catalogues as panegyrics, see Arce, “El inventario de Roma.” For their use as administrative lists, see Chastagnol, “Les régionnaires.” 10. See the considerations of Guidobaldi, “Le domus tardoantiche,” 55. For the numbers, see Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico, 162 (Curiosum) and 188 (Notitia). It should also be observed that both lists record the same numbers of domūs for all regions, except Region VI, for which the Curiosum has a lacuna (Notitia gives 146) and Region XI, for which the Curiosum records 88 and the Notitia 89. The final sums of the numbers given per region are 1,535 (Curiosum) and 1,682 (Notitia).

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The number of houses recorded by the fourth-century Regionary Catalogues is certainly more reliable than the exaggerated 10,000 domūs mentioned by Olympiodorus of Thebes in the fift h century (fr. 41.1). The problem, of course, is not only one of numbers but also of the precise meaning of these texts. In the first place, it is not clear what we should understand by domus or oikos. Olympiodorus famously remarked that, in the case of Rome, “every house (oikos) is a city,” in terms of its size and magnificence—a powerful reminder of the fact that even the word “house” refers to different types of social and architectural units. In the second place, houses were continually built, refurbished, and demolished. Numbers of dwellings—especially if isolated from a series—might provide us with a picture in a given moment, but they are not of much help in describing social and historical processes. Having to choose between a city in which each individual house was counted and preserved in a catalogue, and a city made up of 10,000 cities, the scholar feels like Italo Calvino’s Great Khan, who listens perplexed to the accounts of fantastic città invisibili described by Marco Polo, while trying to understand his own kingdom. The aim of this chapter is to approach these issues by focusing on the dynamics that defined the role of aristocratic housing in the material fabric and political life of late antique Rome. More specifically, it will deal with four specific questions: what was the impact of domūs on the urban fabric? What was their relationship with the city’s public spaces and resources? What role did houses play in the political interactions between the imperial court and Roman aristocrats? And finally, how did these developments affect the making of late antique Rome’s urban space? In order to deal with these questions, this chapter is divided into three parts: first, it will discuss (very briefly) the impact of the establishment of the Principate on early imperial Rome’s urban space, focusing on aristocratic houses. The second part is dedicated to the decline of this earlier urbanistic order, and will analyze the impact of late antique aristocratic houses on the city’s urban fabric. The third part will consider imperial responses to these developments, as well as the development of a specifically late antique order. For comparative purposes, this part will also briefly discuss the evidence available for Constantinople, a city that underwent a very different political and urban development during this same period. In the conclusion, I shall return to the wider issue of the transformations that shaped the city’s urban space, and the role that houses played in this context. 1. Controlling Space: Early Imperial Rome The failure of the Pisonian conspiracy, in a.d. 65, provided the emperor Nero with the opportunity to start a series of prosecutions and executions that shook the senatorial aristocracy. Even those who were not connected to the conspirators

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suffered in this process. This is the case of the consul M. Julius Vestinus Atticus. Soldiers were sent to seize his “citadel” (occupare velut arcem eius) and suppress his corps of youths. The citadel, we are told, was the consul’s house, overlooking the Roman Forum (Tacitus Annals 15.69.1). Nero and the elite more generally were well aware of the importance of aristocratic residences in urban space. For example, the accusations against Seneca included an attack on the luxury of his private property; feeling threatened, the formerly powerful imperial tutor closed his house and stopped receiving his clients. Ultimately, however, these precautions did not save him.11 The reign of Nero is emblematic of some of the processes that transformed Rome’s urban space in the first century a.d. Whereas republican Rome had for centuries been an open arena for aristocratic competition, the establishment of the Principate could be characterized as the dominance of one house (and family) over the others. This was a process with remarkable social, political, and urbanistic consequences.12 Aristocratic houses were still centers of power, and they played an integral role in the political events that marked the first centuries of imperial history. Examples abound. When Cn. Calpurnius Piso returned to Rome in a.d. 20 after the death of Germanicus the previous year, his magnificent entrance into the city was crowned with a well-attended banquet in his house, lavishly decorated for the occasion (Tac. Ann. 3.9.3). Tacitus tells us that Sejanus tried to convince Tiberius to leave Rome because, among other reasons, the praetorian prefect did not want to miss the throngs of clients that frequented his house (Ann. 4.41.1). The young Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus was inspired to nurture imperial ambitions (which led to his downfall) by the imagines of ancestors in his atrium (Ann. 2.27.2). Scholars have placed great emphasis on the impact of the Principate on the physical appearance of Rome, a republican city turned imperial.13 The imposition of a new urbanistic order was a fundamental step in the formation of imperial Rome. This process was most clearly seen in the monumentalization of the city center and in the creation of new public spaces,14 and it had a direct impact on the republican landscape of property. This development was already taking place at the time of Julius Caesar himself. Two of his most important

11. For the accusations, see Tacitus Ann. 14.52.2; for Seneca’s attempt to escape imperial wrath by closing his house, Ann. 14.56.3, whereas his death is narrated in 15.60.2–64.4. For the troubled context of Nero’s reign and his prosecutions, see Griffi n, Nero, 112–18, and especially 164–82, on the conspiracies. The subject of aristocratic housing at the time of Nero was analyzed by Guilhembet, “Les sénateurs et leurs domus.” 12. Th is section owes a great deal to Wallace-Hadrill, “Emperors and Houses.” See now also Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 269–75. 13. See, for example, the fundamental study of Zanker, Power of Images. 14. Wallace-Hadrill, “Emperors and Houses” and “The Streets of Rome”; Guidobaldi, “Le abitazioni private.”

140 Machado projects, the building of a theatre on the slope of the Capitol (never completed) and the construction of a new forum (completed by Augustus), involved the acquisition and demolition of houses in the area.15 Augustus boasted of having built his forum and the temple of Mars Ultor on private ground; Suetonius tells us that the forum built was actually narrower than originally planned because the princeps chose not to eject the neighboring house owners, probably referring to houses that the emperor did not manage to buy.16 Rome’s first emperor could thus emphasize his private generosity as a form of self-aggrandizement, while at the same time presenting himself as the embodiment of the idea of the civilis princeps.17 But even Augustus could use building projects as an aggressive assertion of his power over the interests of the city’s elite. For example, the splendid house of Vedius Pollio on the Esquiline, a symbol of its owner’s social ambitions and arrogant character, was demolished to make way for a porticus celebrating the empress Livia (Dio 54.23.6). The impact of the court on Rome’s urban space became more visible as time passed. In the course of the first century a.d., central parts of the city were progressively cleared of the threatening presence of senatorial domūs, and converted into more appropriate spaces for the celebration of the imperial regime. The houses that had limited the area of Augustus’ forum were demolished a few decades later, during the construction of the Forum Transitorium.18 The late republican and early imperial houses that once occupied the northern slope of the Palatine, toward the Sacra Via, were destroyed by the fire of a.d. 64. The area was later incorporated into the porticus leading to Nero’s Domus Aurea.19 By the end of the first century, the Palatine hill itself had been converted into an imperial theme park, consisting of monuments connected to the origins of Rome surrounded by magnificent imperial palaces.20 We should be careful not to oversimplify the establishment of an imperial urbanistic order. In the first place, it was never completed. The Palatine and the

15. See, for the theatre, Dio 43.49.3 and Ciancio Rossetto, “Theatrum Marcelli”; Augustus would later build the theatre of Marcellus, in the vicinity. For the Forum, see Cicero Att. 4.16.8, and Morselli, “Forum Iulium.” 16. Res Gestae 21.1; Suetonius, Aug. 56.2. 17. On the concept of civilis princeps, see Wallace-Hadrill, “Civilis Princeps” (1982); see also, of particular importance for this discussion, Wallace-Hadrill, “The Streets of Rome,” 194, emphasizing imperial display. 18. On these houses, see Tortorici, Argiletum, with bibliography, and especially pp. 66–74. One of the houses demolished during the construction of the Forum was discovered in 1995–97; see La Rocca, “Das Forum Transitorium,” 4. 19. The houses are referred to by, among others, Ovid Met. 1.168–76. See Coarelli, “La casa dell’aristocrazia,” and Carandini, “Domus e horrea.” For the properties in this area, see Palombi, “Cic., ad Quint. fr.” 20. See, on the area in general, Royo, Domus Imperatoriae, and especially pp. 120–43, for the republican houses in the area.

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area around the Roman Forum, for example, were still partially occupied by private houses in later centuries.21 In the second place, the development of Rome’s imperial image assumed different forms, from violent conflicts and outright confiscations to more subtle types of interaction. Just as Caesar and Augustus bought property in the area where they built their self-glorifying fora, Tiberius paid compensation to a senator whose house was damaged during the construction of an aqueduct and a public road (Tac. Ann. 1.75.2). Emperors, good and bad, distributed houses to their closest associates. It was a form of rewarding the upright or dividing the booty gained in yet another campaign of political persecution.22 Good emperors visited their friends, partly as a sign of deference but also as a way of showing their commitment to an aristocratic ideal of civility.23 More than just a political game, the relationship between senatorial houses and imperial power involved a constant reconfiguration of the limits between what was considered “private” and what was considered “public.” As scholars have emphasized, the presence of the emperor and his court was fundamental to the shaping of early imperial Rome. Urban space was ordered, catalogued, and controlled, and this is made clear in the fragmentary remains of the Severan Marble Plan, the Forma Urbis. This large cadastral record (18 x 13 m) was carved in marble and fi xed to one of the walls of the Temple of Peace.24 Fragment 538a-o (see figure 6.1) is a good example of the well-ordered street plan that characterized parts of the city. This fragment (or rather, group of fragments), first assembled in 1960, was identified in the mid1990s, and refers to the area of the northwest slope of the Quirinal hill, roughly between modern-day Via del Traforo and Via della Panetteria.25 The fragment shows five streets running parallel to the Via Flaminia (modern Via del Corso), and a group of city blocks with insulae and tabernae that open onto the street.26 We have here a strikingly detailed view of Rome’s urban plan,

21. The Regionary Catalogues record 89 houses for Region X (Palatium), and 130 for Region VIII (Forum Romanum). For an analysis of aristocratic housing in early imperial Rome, see Eck, “Cum dignitate otium,” and Guilhembet, “Les résidences aristocratiques.” 22. Respectively, Alexander Severus (HA Alex. Sev. 39.5) and Nero (Tacitus Ann. 13.18), for example, though caution is advisable when dealing with the HA. 23. HA Ant. Pius 11.8. For more examples of imperial visits to senators, see Wallace-Hadrill, “Civilis Princeps,” 40. 24. The fundamental publication is Carettoni et al., La pianta marmorea. There were earlier versions, however, possibly pre-Augustan: see Rodríguez-Almeida, Formae urbis. On the relationship between the Forma Urbis and imperial control, see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 301–12. 25. The fragments were assembled in Carettoni et al., La pianta marmorea, 1:147. See Tucci, “Tra il Quirinale e l’acquedotto Vergine” for the identification of the fragments. 26. See discussion in Tucci, “Tra il Quirinale e l’acquedotto Vergine,” 29. See also, for this area, Lissi Caronna, “Un complesso edilizio,” 360–61; Insalacco, La città dell’acqua, 8–12; and Gros, L’architecture romaine, 115.

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Figure 6.1 Fragment 538 of marble plan, with structures on Via in Arcione marked. From Tucci, “Tra il Quirinale e l’Acquedotto Vergine,” p. 21, fig. 1.

recording properties, boundaries, and the use of space—information conveniently at the disposal of imperial officials, perhaps even the urban prefect himself.27 The urban space of early imperial Rome was eminently public. The authorities had the power, interests, and means to define and enforce a specific urbanistic order: spaces and buildings belonging to the community were preserved by state officials from illegal or illegitimate appropriations by private individuals, while the identification of court and state required that alternative powerful

27. A good example of use of the Marble Plan for the study of domestic architecture and urbanism can be found in Gros, L’architecture romaine, 118–21. For the suggestion that the Temple of Peace might have been one of the headquarters of the urban prefect, see the considerations of Gatti in Carettoni et al., La pianta marmorea, 1:216; also Coarelli, “L’Urbs e il suburbio,” 23.

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agents (and their spaces) be checked and controlled. The public character of imperial Rome should be seen as the result of a complex political interaction in which the emperor (more often than not) had the upper hand. It is to the erosion of this order that we must now turn, and try to understand the means by which this process unfolded. 2. Aristocratic Houses in Late Antique Rome Between 1969 and 1973, works carried out underneath a building in modernday Via in Arcione revealed a group of three Hadrianic insulae, built along parallel streets (see figure 6.2).28 The discovery of these structures represents an important contribution to our knowledge of the evolution of the topography of Region VII, Via Lata. We know what these structures looked like in the early empire because they partially survived, and also because they are shown in the already mentioned fragment 538a-o of the Marble Plan (figure 6.1: marked). In the course of the fourth century (or later), two of the insulae (figure 6.2: B1 and B2) underwent important transformations, and at least one of them was converted into a large domus (B2). This was equipped with an apsidal vestibule (room 22) and a fountain, and was decorated with marble opus sectile on the pavement and walls, besides being furnished with an impressive collection of statues—elements that were typical of other late Roman houses.29 In the same vicinity, towards the Trevi Fountain, excavations revealed a small part of an ancient neighborhood, 9 meters below the modern street level. The structures uncovered consist mainly of two insulae of Neronian date, oriented according to a street called Vicus Caprarius in medieval sources.30 One of the buildings was later converted into an aristocratic house, providing us with another example of a multistoried residential building adapted for the use of a single owner. The communal corridor that once gave access to the stairway was repaved in the mid-fourth century with bipedales bricks (dated by two stamps), partially blocked by a wall, and equipped with a small latrine. A reception room

28. Published in Lissi Caronna, “Un complesso edilizio.” 29. Ibid., 363–65, suggests a fourth-century date for the transformation. The dating should remain uncertain, however, since it is based on building technique (opus vittatum, together with the Hadrianic opus testaceum) and decoration, which can be compared to different houses in Ostia. For the statues, see Lissi Caronna, “Maroniti,” 163–66: the collection includes one of Artemis hunting a deer and accompanied by a dog; a group consisting of a male and a female figure, possibly Mars and Venus; and a female figure, possibly Fortune holding a cornucopia. The fountain is not mentioned in the publications, but can still be seen in room 25, probably part of a courtyard. For the typical decorative and architectural features of late antique domus in Rome, see Guidobaldi, “L’edilizia abitativa unifamiliare,” 205–19. 30. Publication in Insalacco, La città dell’acqua; the discoveries were also published in Forma Urbis 5.3 (March 2000) 5–12 and again in Forma Urbis 8.2 (Feb. 2003) 4–27.

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Figure 6.2 Structures on Via in Arcione. From Tucci, “Tra il Quirinale e l’Acquedotto Vergine,” p. 23, fig. 4.

and a courtyard, lavishly decorated with reused material, were adapted into the previous structure.31 The houses in the Trevi area and on Via in Arcione are good examples of the dramatic changes that shaped urban space in late antique Rome. As utilitarian and multiresidential buildings converted into houses, they suggest not only a change in the real estate market (and a demographic decline) but also a different strategy in the use of space. The building of an apsidal vestibule, invading (and nearly blocking) an earlier street, attests to the decay of the earlier urbanistic order, as well as to the assertion of private interests over public spaces. The use of spolia and the presence of latrines and fountains indicate some of the ways in which the resources of the city (ornaments and water, in this case) were cannibalized. These transformations are well documented for late antique Rome, and it is worth considering them in greater detail as a way to understand the impact of aristocratic housing in the making of the city. The practice of converting insulae was not specific to Rome, nor to Late Antiquity. It has been documented in cities like Ostia, for example.32 The house 31. See especially Insalacco, La città dell’acqua, 20 and 30 (for the changes) and 35–37 for the decoration. 32. For examples at Ostia, see Becatti, Case ostiensi, 6 (domus di Amore e Psiche), 9 (domus sul Decumano), 10 (domus del Ninfeo), among many others. The phenomenon was analyzed by Pavolini, “L’edilizia commerciale,” 252–69, esp. 265–69.

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on the Caelian hill named after its fourth-century owner Gaudentius, was built in the late second century by adapting two insulae,33 an indication that this practice was already taking place in earlier periods. What is specific to late antique Rome is the extent of this process. It affected every neighborhood of the city, from Trastevere to the Caelian hill and beyond.34 It also represented a shift in the balance between early imperial urbanism and aristocratic housing. More importantly, the building of aristocratic residences at the expense of apartment blocks signals a transformation in the very status of the city as head of the empire. During the early empire, the Urbs had become the main center of immigration for people from all over the Mediterranean, attracted by the privileges and benefits showered upon the population of the city. It has been argued that reasonably priced accommodation and magnificent imperial complexes dedicated to the distribution of imperial commoda (such as baths and circuses) were the urbanistic response to the needs of the city as an imperial capital. Rome was, in the words of Purcell, “the city of wonders at the heart of a mobile world.”35 The diminished status of the city as a political center can be seen, in this sense, as directly linked to the collapse of this early imperial model of urban development and political interactions between emperor, city, and populus Romanus.36 The adaptation of insulae into houses, as well as the appropriation of public spaces and buildings by aristocratic house owners, is a crucial aspect of these transformations. The house of Gaudentius, mentioned above, is a good case in point. Built in the late Antonine period, it was thoroughly refurbished in the course of the fourth century (see figure 6.3). The mosaic inscription, from which we know the name of the owner, is datable to this phase, and so is the luxurious marble decoration.37 It was also during this period that the street running alongside the house was blocked by a wall, restricting access and limiting the flow of people through this area (figure 6.3: V).38 Also on the Caelian, the construction

33. For the domus of Gaudentius, see Spinola in Pavolini et al., “La topografia antica,” 474–75. 34. E.g., see Fogagnolo, “Trastevere (1)” and “Trastevere (2)” for Trastevere; Meneghini, “La domus degli Artemii” for the house of the Artemii on Via del Corso; Colini, Storia e topografia, 164–95, and Pavolini, Archeologia e topografia, 31–41, for the domus underneath SS. Giovanni e Paolo, on the Caelian. 35. See Purcell, “Rome and Italy,” 405–12, esp. 405 for the quotation. Also Guidobaldi, “Le abitazioni private,” 144, who refers to apartment blocks and bathing complexes as “un binomio.” 36. There is a long bibliography on these changes. See, for example, Purcell, “The Populace of Rome.” 37. The mosaic inscription (Gaudentius vivas) is located in the triclinium. For this house, see Spinola in Pavolini et al., “La topografia antica,” 473–83; and Spinola, “La domus di Gaudentius.” On Gaudentius, see PLRE 2, 493 (“Gaudentius 3”). 38. See Spinola in Pavolini et al., “La topografia antica,” 476.

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Figure 6.3 The house of Gaudentius on the Caelian Hill. From Pavolini, “La topografia antica,” p. 478.

of the fourth-century apse of a private reception room (later converted into the Church of SS. Quattro Coronati) led to the partial incorporation of two early imperial insulae and to the obstruction of the street that ran between them.39 As the example of the house in Via in Arcione suggests, this process was not exactly unusual in late antique Rome, even if this was precisely the type of practice that early imperial lawmakers tried to curb.40 As evidence from other periods of Roman history shows, the private appropriation of public spaces involved more than simple changes in the layout of 39. Pavolini, “Nuovi contributi,” 72–77, esp. 77. On the identification of this structure as a domus, see Guidobaldi, “L’edilizia abitativa unifamiliare,” 192. 40. See, e.g., Dig. 43.7.1; 43.8.2; 43.10.1; 43.11.2.

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streets. According to Pliny, the legendary Publius Valerius Publicola was honored with decrees granting him a house equipped with doors that opened outward, “so that the portals could be flung open on to the public highway,” an honor greater than a triumph.41 The idea of extending a house over public space was also put into practice during Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, when he extended linen awnings from his house right up to the Capitol, through the Sacra Via and the Roman Forum. Pliny (again) tells us that this initiative of Caesar attracted more attention than the gladiatorial games organized at the same time (NH 19.23). More than a thousand years later, the political and legal struggles that shaped the baroque piazzas of Rome illustrate the same point. For families such as the Borghese and Barberini, the incorporation of older structures and the refurbishment of public squares, in order to create appropriate settings for their palaces, were essential steps in claiming a dominant position in Rome’s city-space and society.42 Building a large house in a public space as a statement of power is most emphatically suggested by the fourth-century domus built on top of the Sette Salle, the enormous cistern that supplied the Baths of Trajan.43 The late antique house adapted an earlier (Trajanic) building, which might have been used as headquarters or residence of personnel attached to the bath complex.44 In this case, the presence of a residence on top of the monument was not a major innovation, but its adaptation and refurbishment for private use certainly were. The acquisition and adaptation of a magnificent domus on top of an important public structure, visible to all, was a clear statement of the owner’s prestige and power. Other examples of such practices are known,45 and they point to the increased role of private house owners in defining urban space. The appropriation of urban resources can also be detected in more subtle forms—for example, through the spoliation and reuse of building material and the (irregular) appropriation of the city’s water supply. The domus on the Vicus Caprarius, mentioned earlier, is a good example of these practices. At least part of the marble pavement consisted of reused slabs, previously part of funerary monuments.46 The second-century statue of a deceased girl, discovered in one of the rooms of the house, probably also came from a necropolis. Furthermore, the conversion of the insula into a domus involved the provision of adequate water supply. Besides the private latrine mentioned earlier, a travertine basin

41. Pliny NH 36.112. See also Plutarch Publ. 20.2–3. 42. A process analyzed by Connors, “Alliance and Enmity.” 43. See Cozza, “I recenti scavi,” and Volpe, “La domus delle Sette Sale.” 44. See De Fine Licht, “Scavi alle Sette Sale,” 198, and more recently Volpe, “La domus delle Sette Sale,” 160. 45. Collected in Guidobaldi, “Le domus tardoantiche,” 56–57. 46. For what follows, see Insalacco, Le città dell’acqua, 35–37.

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and lead pipes were found on the ground floor.47 It should be remembered that this complex was conveniently located a few hundred meters away from the Aqua Virgo, and it is not a coincidence that the building next to it had been converted into a large cistern at the beginning of the second century.48 At least since the early empire, Roman lawmakers had shown great concern with the building and decoration of the houses of the Roman elite. Emperors tried to curb the spoliation of preexisting buildings; Hadrian, for example, is said to have forbidden the demolition of private houses for this purpose.49 In  spite of such initiatives, the reuse of building material reached new and unprecedented levels in Late Antiquity. The use of spolia in late Roman architecture has been thoroughly studied in the case of official monuments and churches.50 Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the evidence for domestic buildings. The Vicus Caprarius is important for being illustrative not only of the practice of reuse but also of the details of how it was carried out. Important parallels can be drawn with the better studied and better preserved elite houses of Ostia, and it is worth considering them for comparative purposes. Based on the material found in houses and other buildings here, Pensabene observed that there must have been an organized system for the distribution of reused marble. This system was connected to deposits that supplied both public and private builders. This is suggested, for example, by the employment of fragments of the fasti of Ostia in the revetment of fountains and nymphaea in domestic structures. The reuse of marble slabs with funerary inscriptions, some of them taken from the same necropolis, indicates that the spoliation of parts of the city was a well-organized activity.51 Although our information for Rome is not so coherent, the house on the Vicus Caprarius suggests that the same type of enterprise existed in the capital of the empire. In other words, the spoliation of preexisting structures, especially funerary monuments, was a complex enterprise, involving not only the destruction of monuments but also the storage and distribution of this material. This particular practice openly defied a law addressed by Constantius II and Julian to the urban prefect Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus (357–59) against those who, seeking private profit, despoiled tombs, taking the material for reuse in their own houses (CTh 9.17.3).

47. Ibid., 30. 48. Ibid., 25–30. 49. HA Hadr. 18.2; see Robinson, Ancient Rome, 45, for further examples. 50. For Rome, in general, see Pensabene, “Monumenti di Roma” and “Reimpiego e depositi di marmi.” 51. Pensabene, “Depositi e magazzini di marmi,” 37. Th is reuse of inscribed marble had already been observed in several houses by Becatti, Case ostiensi. For the fasti of Ostia, see Bargagli and Grosso, I fasti ostienses, 13–17.

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Rome’s water supply was also a cause for conflict between private interests and public authorities. A law promulgated in 389 established that permission for the use of water in private houses could be granted only by imperial favor, and that this should not affect the main conduits of supply for the city.52 The working of this system of distribution can be better understood through a law addressed to the urban prefect of Constantinople in 382, Clearchus, stating that the volume of water at the disposal of any owner varied according to his status and the size and wealth of his house (CTh 15.2.3). This was not something new. Private houses were already provided with a supply of water in the early empire, and the study of the fistulae aquariae has allowed scholars to observe that members of the upper strata of the senatorial order were among the main beneficiaries of such a luxury.53 The illegal appropriation of water was already common at that time, a situation that had not changed by the end of antiquity.54 A striking example of the appropriation of public resources (especially water) by a house owner is offered by the fate of the Aqua Virgo.55 The inscription recording extensive restoration during Constantine’s reign was discovered in 1881, during works for the construction of modern Palazzo delle Esposizioni, on Via Nazionale, a few hundred meters south of the aqueduct.56 The large marble slab (1.0 x 0.98 m) onto which the inscription had been carved, now in the Capitoline Museums, had been cut in two and reused as part of a late antique pavement (described as pavimento dei tempi bassi).57 It is impossible to be sure of the provenance of this inscription. However, as Lanciani showed, this area was densely occupied by aristocratic houses, some of them still in use during Late Antiquity. For example, the house of Betitius Perpetuus, governor of Sicily during Constantine’s reign, was discovered in 1888 right behind the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.58 The most likely provenance for the fourth-century inscription is the early third-century insula discovered in 1958 beneath the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.

52. CTh 15.2.5, addressed to Ceionius Rufius Albinus, urban prefect between 389 and 391. 53. Bruun, “Acquedotti e condizioni sociali,” 145–49. It has been noted, however, that the evidence suggests that personal proximity to the emperor, rather than an inherent social privilege, was the main criterion for such favor (145). See also Eck, “Cum dignitate otium” for the use of fistulae in the study of housing. 54. For the Theodosian Code, see, e.g., 14.15.14 and 15.2.9 (Rome). See also 15.2.2–8 for other parts of the empire. Ostrogothic period: Cassiodorus Var. 3.31. 55. What follows is based on a suggestion of Robert Coates-Stephens (pers. comm). 56. CIL 6.31564. Lanciani, “Supplementi,” 197 and untitled note in NSc (1881) 319–20 for the discovery. 57. Lanciani, “Supplementi,” 197. 58. See Lanciani, Notes from Rome, 158 and 215–18 (218, for Perpetuus’ house, identified by CIL 6.31904).

150 Machado The building was subsequently restructured on six different occasions, and the late antique works included the erection of partition walls of opus vittatum and the employment of reused marble.59 In all likelihood this was an earlier insula adapted into an aristocratic house, as in the case of the house of Gaudentius and the house near the Trevi Fountain, discussed earlier. This transformation probably took place during the fourth century, or in the first decade of the fi ft h century at the latest. The Liber Pontificalis tells us that the aristocratic lady Vestina donated funds for the construction of the Church of S. Vitale (located next to the Palazzo delle Esposizioni) in the pontificate of Innocent I (401–17). She also donated the houses adjoining the area to support this foundation, and the building beneath Palazzo delle Esposizioni was probably part of the donations. It is more likely that the adaptation of this insula was carried out by a secular builder and house owner, rather than by a bishop: the latter would have rented the house to others as a source of income for the church.60 In the case of the house underneath Palazzo delle Esposizioni and the Aqua Virgo we can see the same elements at work that we saw in other late antique contexts. The fact that the inscribed marble slab from the aqueduct was identified as adequate for reuse, removed from the public monument to which it was affi xed, sawed in two, and employed at some distance from its original location reinforces the idea that the spoliation of public monuments was an organized activity. More importantly, it indicates the extent to which aristocratic houses could be involved in the “cannibalization” of public structures that were of great importance for the survival of the city—in this case an aqueduct, a structure explicitly protected by the law of 389 mentioned above (CTh 15.2.5). The fact that this took place in the city center, only a few decades after the Constantinian works, shows that this was not a marginal activity conducted in out-of-theway or abandoned areas. While the private appropriation of public spaces and resources was not a new phenomenon in Late Antiquity, the extent to which it was carried out certainly was novel. There were limits to this practice, however. Public authorities still tried to regulate the activity of private builders. Ammianus Marcellinus famously praised the urban prefect Praetextatus for removing all the maeniana from the city, and for separating private buildings from sacred ones (27.9.10). Legislation collected in the Theodosian Code illustrates similar efforts: establishing the minimal distance between private and public structures; protecting warehouses from private interests; forbidding the encroachment of public

59. See references in Coates-Stephens, “Housing in Early Medieval Rome,” 244 n.7. See also Coates-Stephens, “Epigraphy as Spolia,” 284. 60. LP 42.3–7 (1:200–21 Duchesne).

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buildings; and affirming the right of the public over individual interests.61 These laws were addressed to officials in different parts of the empire, showing that this concern was not specific to Rome. Later, the Ostrogothic administration displayed the same concern, sending government representatives to Rome on temporary assignments to oversee the local administration.62 The case of late antique Rome was so particular because the enforcement of public authority was usually left to precisely the same agents who were interested in contravening it. For most of the period under consideration here, the urban prefecture was occupied by members of the senatorial aristocracy—that is, the local elite.63 In fact, the whole office of the urban prefecture seems to have been involved in the spoliation and dilapidation of public monuments, as is explicitly affirmed in a Novel of Majorian, dated to 458.64 Perhaps as important as the collusion between aristocratic house owners and public authorities is the fact that the conceptual and juridical framework that defi ned public property underwent important changes in Late Antiquity. Th is can be seen, for example, in the ambiguous status of the properties of pagan temples, oscillating between “sacred” and “public” until they were defi nitively confiscated, under Gratian.65 The fact that distinctions between private and public could be defined in an original way is illustrated by a law of 396 (from Constantinople) stating that ownership of a house was a display of affection for the city.66 It was, in this case, a condition for entitlement to public distributions of bread. In sixth-century Rome, the Ostrogothic king Theodoric praised Symmachus, a former urban prefect and consul, for the beauty of his private buildings, true monuments of the city.67 It is in this sense that we should understand Theodoric’s concession granted to the vir inlustris Albinus, to extend his house

61. See, for example, CTh 4.24 (distance between buildings), 15.1.12 (warehouses), 15.1.38 (encroachment), and 15.1.41 (public access). See Chastagnol, La préfecture, 368–71, for the power of prefects over private buildings. Further examples in Dubouloz, “Acception et défence des loca publica,” 60. 62. It is the case of the vir spectabilis Iohannes, sent to Rome to investigate the abuse of public structures (including the sewers!): Cass. Var. 3.30 and 31. See Fauvinet-Ranson, Decor civitatis, 106–17, and Dubouloz, “Acception et défence des loca publica,” 68. 63. As observed by Guidobaldi, “Le domus tardoantiche,” 57, who speaks of a “città dei praefecti.” For the career of urban prefects, see Chastagnol, Fastes. See also Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 15–16 and 357, on the dominance of Roman aristocrats over this office. For the Ostrogothic period, see Dubouloz, “Acception et défence des loca publica,” 62–71. 64. Nov. Maj. 4.1. The same is seen in CTh 15.2.9, from 400. 65. Symmachus Rel. 3; Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 205–206, is a good discussion of these measures, with references to relevant legislation. 66. CTh 14.17.13. 67. Cass. Var. 4.51. See Fauvinet-Ranson, Decor civitatis, 133–41, and Barnish, Cassiodorus, 79–82. On Symmachus, see PLRE 2, 1044–6 (“Symmachus 9”).

152 Machado into the porticus Curba in the Forum of Nerva—a way of preserving a public structure and renovating the city.68 Such initiatives reveal a specific conception of urban space, one of increasing identification between the public and private spheres (and spaces). It is not a coincidence that Olympiodorus’ panegyric to Rome should pay so much attention to the dwellings of the aristocracy.69 The same point was made by Claudian when describing Honorius’ visit to the city to celebrate his sixth consulship. The emperor could see from his palace traditional public spaces (such as the Roman Forum), classical monuments (triumphal arches and temples), and houses “resting on the enormous hills.”70 The greatness of Rome was due to the splendor of its great houses as much as to the magnificence of its monuments. 3. Emperor, Aristocrats, and Domestic Spaces Although frequently neglected, the late antique and early medieval Gesta Martyrum are an important source for our understanding of the role of houses in Rome’s urban life.71 We can see, in the biographies of these Christian heroes, the same tensions that characterized the coexistence of emperors and senatorial houses in the early empire. Christians are shown using houses in conspiratorial fashion, for holding meetings and also for hiding from public authorities. Envious neighbors and persecuting soldiers, acting on behalf of evil rulers, are depicted as a threat to homeowners. These texts also show houses confiscated and used as settings for executions.72 There were, of course, less gruesome stories, too. Diocletian rewarded Cyriacus for the miraculous cure of his daughter (through exorcism) by giving him a house, showing that private residences could still be used as a token of imperial generosity.73 We should, of course, be aware of the dangers of taking information preserved in martyr acts at face value. As scholars have shown, these texts belonged to a

68. Cass. Var. 4.30; see Fauvinet-Ranson, Decor civitatis, 127–31. On the definition of private buildings as part of the ornaments of a city, see Dubouloz, “Acception et défence des loca publica,” 57. 69. Fr. 41.1; see Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 384, for the context of Olympiodorus’ visit, and Alan Cameron, Claudian, 355–56, for the literary character of Olympiodorus’ observations about Rome. 70. Claudian, 6Cos. 39–52, esp. v. 49: . . . subnixasque iugis inmanibus aedes; aedes in this case refers to houses, as Claudian had just mentioned temples. 71. Current consensus is that these texts should be dated to between the fi ft h and eighth centuries. For the problems involved in the nature and date of these texts, the classic work is still Dufourcq, Études sur les ‘Gesta Martyrum’; see more recently Pilsworth, “Dating the Gesta Martyrum.” 72. E.g., Acta Xysti Papae 14 (Delehaye, “Recherches sur le légendier romain,” 83) for Christians meeting and hiding; Acta S. Simplicii et soc. 2 (AASS Iul. VII, p. 36) for betrayal by a neighbor; Acta S. Susannae 4 (AASS Aug. II, p. 632) for imperial intervention; Acta S. Marcelli Papae 23 (AASS Ian. II, p. 9) for confiscation; and Acta S. Caeciliae 31 (Delehaye, Étude sur le légendier romain, 219) for execution. 73. Acta S. Marcelli Papae 12 (AASS Ian. II, p. 7).

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specific literary genre, with its own cultural and religious agendas.74 However, it would be wrong to dismiss them as pure religious fabrications, unconnected to the context and culture in which they were composed. As different types of evidence show, aristocratic houses were a prominent element in the tension between their owners and the imperial court. In fact, there are striking similarities between the ways in which such buildings appear in Christian literature and the information preserved in secular texts. Ammianus shows us that, during Valentinian’s “reign of terror,” houses were (unsurprisingly) used as places of refuge and hiding.75 The Theodosian Code collected a number of laws directed against heretics and soothsayers who sought shelter in the houses of their patrons, and the urban prefect Symmachus complained of a senator who avoided the prefect’s court by keeping himself and a key witness locked up in his house.76 Aristocratic houses provided a shelter and a base for aristocratic life, and it is not a surprise that Roman emperors in Late Antiquity tried to control these spaces and what went on inside them. Ammianus tells us of the agents of the Caesar Gallus, who infi ltrated residences in Antioch, disguised as clients, and investigated their secrets.77 The confiscation of private property was amply used as punishment in imperial law, and seems to have been the standard practice of evil rulers as well as greedy officials.78 Senators who took part in conspiracies and usurpations were also punished, as can be inferred from a letter of Symmachus (Ep. 2.52.2). Probably written in 388, after the defeat of Magnus Maximus’ usurpation (which he had supported), it refers to imperial troops lodged in one of his properties in Ostia. The military occupation of senatorial domūs, militaris inpressio, seems to have been a common form of punishing aristocrats involved in rebellions against the court.79 As the actions of the imperial court and its officials show, aristocratic house owners still lived under an imperial regime, being subject to considerable political, legal, economic, and social constraints. If the examples of private appropriation

74. See, for example, Grig, Making Martyrs. 75. Amm. Marc. 28.1.49; for the persecutions, see Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 56–61; see Lizzi Testa, Senatori, popolo, papi, for a subtle analysis of this passage in Ammianus and the involvement of the senatorial class. 76. See Maier, “The Topography of Heresy” for references to the Theodosian Code; for the case of Symmachus, see Rel. 23.10. 77. Amm. Marc. 14.1.6–7: the passage refers to Antioch, but HA Hadr. 11.3–4 suggests that the same was the case for Rome. One should consider the existence of informers, also, such as mentioned by Ammianus 28.1.49 and 56 (in the latter case a tortured slave). 78. Imperial confiscations: CTh 16.5.18; 16.5.34; 16.5.40. Eusebius VC 1.35.1–2 shows Maxentius confiscating properties of Roman senators; for a much later example of a greedy official, see Greg. I Ep. 1.63. 79. On militaris inpressio, see Roda, “Militaris inpressio.” The Nika rebellion in Constantinople was also followed by the confiscation of senatorial property; see Chron. Pasch. s.a. 531 (628 Bonn) (transl. Whitby and Whitby, Chronicon Paschale, 126).

154 Machado of public spaces and resources discussed in the previous section can be taken as an indication of the social and political ambitions of aristocratic house owners, these were still subject, on occasions, to more or less abrupt interventions by the central government. The city of Symmachus and his colleagues was not a republican city, and the imperial court still had a considerable grip over it. The decline of the early imperial urbanistic and political order was the result of a complex interaction between powerful local interests and a political center that, although conscious of the importance of Rome, had as its main focus of attention the government and defense of a vast empire. As a consequence, late antique Rome’s urban space was more fragmented and exposed to senatorial interests than it had been since the first century a.d. It is worth considering, in this context, the information available for Constantinople, a city founded with the explicit aim of becoming a New Rome.80 As has been discussed in this volume, the evidence available for Constantine’s city poses a series of difficulties of its own, being much more limited than that for Rome. This problem is particularly acute in the case of archaeological remains. It is not a coincidence that most general studies focus on the great imperial and Christian projects, as these are more often mentioned in (usually later) texts. Furthermore, archaeological excavations focused primarily on structures such as walls, aqueducts, churches, fora, and palaces, contributing to a rather partial view of the city’s urban development.81 Houses and private structures have traditionally received far less attention in studies of Constantinopolitan urbanism, but this situation is beginning to change. Scholars are now more aware of the importance of houses for the definition of the imperial capital, showing renewed interest for topics such as their architectural definition, topography, and impact on city life.82 Aristocratic houses played a fundamental role in the development of the city, a process that was started by Constantine himself when he decided to build residences for the senators who accompanied him.83 The organization of court and bureaucracy, together with the consolidation of the senate and of a specifically eastern senatorial order in the course of the fourth century, represented a further impulse for the development of aristocratic housing in the city.84 By the time of the Theodosian dynasty, the presence of aristocrats represented a powerful

80. Of the endless bibliography on the foundation and urban development of Constantinople, see, for example, Mango, Le développement urbain, and more recently, Ward-Perkins, “Constantinople.” Dagron, Naissance is particularly useful, esp. 45 for the “New Rome.” 81. See the considerations of Mango, Le développement urbain, 7–11. 82. See, for example, Baldini Lippolis, “Case e palazzi”; Greatrex and Bardill, “Antiochus the Praepositus”; Bardill, “The Palace of Lausus”; Dark, “Houses, Streets and Shops”; and Bowes, Private Worship. 83. Eusebius VC 3.48; Zosimus 2.31.2; Evagrius HE 3.41. See Baldini Lippolis, “Case e palazzi,” 293–97. 84. A process analyzed in Dagron, Naissance, 119–46.

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marker in the topography of the city, be it through public or private building.85 The discovery in the mid-twentieth century of the splendid early fifth-century palace of the praepositus Antiochus is a good illustration of this fact.86 The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, compiled around 425, recorded 4,388 domūs, with the highest density of houses in the regions within the Constantinian walls.87 It is not clear to what type of architectural unit the sources refer when mentioning domūs or oikoi in Constantinople. The evidence available suggests something much more complex than the houses known from Rome and Ostia: the Constantinopolitan oikos was a splendid residence, adjoined by multistoried buildings organized around a courtyard, sometimes furnished with a private church or chapel.88 It is not clear what this residential complex would have actually looked like, as the poor archaeological evidence available consists of parts of reception rooms and porticoes similar to those found in other cities of the empire.89 In any case, these impressive multifamilial and multipurpose complexes must have had a considerable impact on daily life, bringing together aristocrats, tenants, and clients. More importantly, there is no evidence for serious imperial control over private building; the existing evidence suggests that house owners had a considerable degree of freedom to build.90 From Constantine to Valens, imperial urbanism was more concerned with buildings related to the city’s infrastructure as well as with the palace and other spaces for imperial display. Outside the areas favored by imperial projects, the expansion of the city was mainly the product of private investment and interests. There is no evidence to prove this hypothesis, but it is indirectly reinforced by the important role played by aristocratic churches and by the lack of a consistent plan for the development of the street system.91 Constantinople remained an occasional imperial residence for most of the fourth century, and this might help explain the pattern of imperial building. In fact, the establishment of the Theodosian dynasty and its court can be considered the period when old Byzantium became an imperial capital.92 It is not a

85. The evidence is conveniently collected in Janin, Constantinople byzantine, part 2: “Les quartiers et ses localités.” See also Dagron, Naissance, 91. For the Theodosian court and housing in Constantinople, see Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 119–20. 86. On Antiochus’ palace, see Greatrex and Bardill, “Antiochus the Praepositus,” 193–96. 87. Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae 243 (Summary). See Baldini Lippolis, “Case e palazzi,” 282–83. 88. Discussed by Dagron, Naissance, 527–30. See Bowes, Private Worship, 104, who describes these houses as “miniature neighbourhoods.” See too Dark, “Houses, Streets and Shops,” 86, for different types of houses. See also Matthews q.v., 114–15. 89. See discussion in Baldini Lippolis, “Case e palazzi”; also Bowes, Private Worship, 104–105. 90. Noted by Dagron, Naissance, 91–92, and Bowes, Private Worship, 104. 91. See for churches, Bowes, Private Worship, 106–16; for streets, Berger, “Streets and Public Spaces,” 166. 92. Point made by Ward-Perkins, “Constantinople,” 63, among others.

156 Machado coincidence that from the end of the fourth century onward a string of laws tried to impose urbanistic order over the city and its builders.93 Laws addressed to the urban prefect of Constantinople determined that houses encroaching onto public monuments would be demolished in order to preserve public splendor; a minimum distance for building was established.94 A law of 393 regulated the demolition of private buildings for the beginning of new works, to be made only when compensation did not exceed fift y pounds of silver (CTh 15.1.30, from 393). However, as an edict of 412 observed, private interests could be neglected in favor of useful and beautiful public monuments (CTh 15.1.50). In 398, the urban prefect was ordered to destroy structures attached to public or private buildings that increased the threat of fire (CTh 15.1.39). The early fift h-century legislation sought to bring order and avoid physical damage to the urban fabric while at the same time preserving public monuments and laying the juridical framework for building further imperial works.95 Although private buildings remained crucial components of the cityscape, the primacy of the imperial image was to be guaranteed. The building of a series of imperial fora by the Theodosian dynasty along the Mesē, the city’s main processional route, should be seen as part of this process.96 The area around the palace was also more closely associated with the court, as indicated by a law of 409 ordering the clearance of the area for those closely connected to the imperial center (CTh 15.1.47). Writing in the early fift h century, Synesius tells us that the house adjoining the palace that had once belonged to Flavius Ablabius, praetorian prefect and consul during Constantine’s reign, was acquired by the imperial family.97 The Constantinopolitan Notitia is also datable to the Theodosian period, reinforcing the impression that this was a time of increased official control over the city-space. It is revealing that the only houses whose ownership is identified in this document are those belonging to the imperial family. Although the evidence for studying the evolution of Constantinople’s urban space is rather poor when compared to Rome, there is enough information to argue that the city was increasingly shaped by an imperial urbanistic order, just as in the case of first- and second-century Rome. This is the opposite of the process observed in the case of the Urbs in Late Antiquity, where in spite of government efforts private builders pursued their interests at the expense of the imperial city.

93. Attitude described as “cura dell’immagine urbana” by Müller-Wiener, “Costantinopoli,” 158–59. 94. CTh 15.1.25 (from 389) and 15.1.46 (from 406). 95. Policy discussed in Baldini Lippolis, “Case e palazzi,” 281–82, with further references. 96. See Bauer, Stadt, Platz und Denkmal, 143–217. 97. Syn. Ep. 61. On Ablabius, see PLRE 1, 3–4 (“Ablabius 4.”)

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3. Conclusion Scholars dealing with the urban development of late antique Rome have for a long time focused on the impact of Christianity and on the conversion of public spaces for Christian use. By the time of Gregory the Great, if not earlier, the old capital of the empire was a city of distinctly marked Christian character. The festivals, rituals, and spaces that defined the self-perception of the populus Romanus were closely controlled by the church and its leader, the bishop. But we should not let the conclusion of this process obscure the fact that, at least from the early fourth to the middle of the fift h century, the evolution of Rome’s urban space was much more complex than concepts such as “Christianization” suggest. During this period, Roman aristocrats were able to take advantage of the changing circumstances of the world in which they lived. Their houses invaded the city-space, changing the layout of streets, privatizing public spaces, and transforming the appearance of the city, a process that continued into later centuries, as Cassiodorus’ Variae show. As the evidence discussed in this chapter shows, late Roman aristocratic houses were well integrated into the image of the city, occupying a prominent place in its topography. According to the texts of the period, it was entirely to the credit of their aristocratic owners that this happened.98 The building of these splendid residences had, in reality, a powerfully disruptive impact on the city plan. Apartment blocks were converted into houses, public structures were privatized or incorporated into domestic buildings, and streets were blocked. It is interesting to compare the expansion of domūs to the building of residential enclaves in modern global cities, such as Los Angeles or São Paulo. In these cases, parts of the city are set apart from the outside world by walls and guards, creating spaces that are safe and exclusive. This type of residence involves a specific form of relationship between private agents (including homeowners, builders, and those operating in the real estate market) and the public sphere, in which private enclaves exist in spite of the public urban realm that surrounds them.99 In late antique Rome, aristocratic houses were built as an appropriation (albeit partial) of the public sphere, incorporating and redefining it. The late antique domus was not isolated from public or civic life; it represented, instead, an eruption of private interests into the public arena. Rather than being a sign of the decline of urban life, these domūs attest to the vitality of late Roman society in the context of decay of a classical landscape.100

98. See, for further discussions of this aspect, Machado, “Between Memory and Oblivion.” 99. For a discussion of São Paulo, Los Angeles, and modern global cities, see Caldeira, City of Walls, esp. 256–338. 100. A point well-argued by Ward-Perkins, “The Cities,” 382.

158 Machado The aristocratic appropriation of late antique Rome was not a straightforward process, nor did it lead to the complete takeover of the city by the senatorial elite. Imperial officials were expected to maintain a certain urbanistic order, even if—as we saw above—they did not always behave in this way. The circumstances of imperial power could disrupt political life in the Urbs, most dramatically through the confiscation of those very houses that formed the basis of aristocratic power. Perhaps more importantly, from the beginning of the fift h century onward, a number of houses were abandoned or passed into the hands of the church, a process that involved families of different standing, in different quarters of the city.101 However, in spite of these limitations, the houses of the late Roman aristocracy played a crucial role in giving form to the city’s urban space. The fragmentation and decline of the early imperial urbanistic order was irreversible, and should be considered one of the key developments in the making of late antique Rome.

101. For the process of abandonment and destruction of houses and “the end of the Roman domus,” see Machado, “Between Memory and Oblivion.”

PA RT I I I

Emperors in the City

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7

Valentinian III and the City of Rome (425–55) Patronage, Politics, Power MARK HUMPHRIES

1. Introduction On 3 March 440, the emperor Valentinian III issued to the people of Rome a law that began with the following grandiloquent statement: “Our constant care for the city of Rome, which we justly venerate as the head of our empire, abides with us to such an extent, that we make wise provision in all ways for her peace and abundance.”1 This chapter aims to explore the broader context of this statement, which might otherwise be assumed to be mere rhetoric. What is most immediately striking about Valentinian’s dealings with Rome is the sheer length of time that he spent in the city, a factor recently brought into sharp focus in an important study of fift h-century emperors and Rome by Andrew Gillett.2 We can reconstruct the chronology of Valentinian’s presence in the city from stray references in chronicles and other narratives, but primarily from the dating clauses of legislation issued in his name and preserved in the Theodosian Code and his own leges novellae. This enables the following reconstruction.3

I am grateful to Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly for inviting me to write this chapter, and for comments from them, from audiences at Lampeter and Maynooth, and from readers for the press, which did much to improve the argument. In particular, I am grateful to Frank Clover, Andrew Gillett, Anthony Kaldellis, Carlos Machado, Ralph Mathisen, and Claire Sotinel for subsequent help. None of the aforementioned should be held accountable for the failings of the fi nished version. 1. Nov. Val. 5: Urbis Romae, quam merito caput nostri veneramur imperii, in tantum nos cura non deserit, ut quieti eius atque abundantiae modis omnibus consulamus. No idiomatic English translation can convey the rhetorical impact of placing the words urbis Romae at the beginning of the sentence. 2. Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 148–57, esp. 142–48, updating Seeck, Regesten, 350–52, 368–78, 384–400. 3. It should be borne in mind that those dates derived from legal evidence given represent only the first and last attested presences at Rome, and it is possible that emperor and court were in the city both before the fi rst attested and after the last attested date for each visit.

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Humphries

At the beginning of his reign, Valentinian spent four months in Rome, from 23 October 425, until 24 February 426. He was there also for three months between 24 January and 20 March 440; for a further two and a half years, from 18 January 445 to 3 June 447; and, finally, for five years from 21 February 450 until his assassination on 16 March 455. We might also note that there are isolated references to his presence at Rome on 13 August 442 and 13 March 443, although we cannot be precisely sure how long each of these visits might have lasted.4 All told, he spent at least eight of his twenty-nine and a half years as emperor in the city, or to put it another way, over a quarter of his total reign. Moreover, the majority of visits occurred during the last fi fteen years of the reign, when Valentinian himself was an adult.5 Not since the regime of Maxentius (306–12) had an emperor spent so much time in the ancient heart of the empire.6 Clearly this calls for analysis, but hitherto scholars have rarely addressed the matter. In general, they regard Ravenna as the major imperial residence in Italy during the fift h century. Ravenna’s perceived centrality in the western empire is expressed in various ways: for instance, Valentinian’s dealings with his eastern co-emperor Theodosius II have been described by using the shorthand “relations between Ravenna and Constantinople.”7 Only recently has the assumption that Ravenna was the primary seat of imperial government in the fift h century been challenged, and the importance of Rome to fift h-century emperors reasserted.8 In this context, Valentinian’s extensive presences at Rome seem worthy of detailed consideration. Why, then, have Valentinian’s stays in Rome elicited so little analysis? There are other reasons for this neglect, quite apart from the assumed importance of Ravenna. Valentinian himself most often lurks in the shadows cast by more weighty contemporaries: his mother, Galla Placidia; his eastern co-rulers, Theodosius II and Marcian; the bishop of Rome, Leo the Great; his great general, Aetius; and his formidable enemy, Attila the Hun. Equally, Valentinian has been regarded as weak and ineffectual. Sidonius Apollinaris excoriated him, not long after his death, as a semivir amens, “mad eunuch.”9 A century later,

4. Nov. Val. 2.2 (442) and 11 (443). In 442, we have no reference to Valentinian’s whereabouts until the law of 13 August (indeed, we have no secure evidence for his presence in 441 after 20 March, when he issued Nov. Val. 10 at Ravenna); he is found at Spoleto on 27 September 442 (Nov. Val. 7.2), presumably en route from Rome to Ravenna. In 443, similarly, we have no record of Valentinian’s place of residence until the law of 13 March; he was in Ravenna by 25 May (Nov. Val. 6.2). 5. Valentinian was born on 2 July 419: PLRE 2, 1138–39 (“Valentinianus 4”). 6. For Maxentius, see Cullhed, Conservator Urbis Suae. On imperial stays, see Grig and Kelly’s introduction q.v., 19. 7. Honoré, Law and the Crisis of Empire, 251–52. 8. Esp. Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna”; Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope?” 9. Carm. 7.359.

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Procopius decried Valentinian as effeminate, dominated by his mother, and given over to the frivolous delights of sorcery and love affairs, while all around him the territory of the western empire was collapsing.10 Modern historians have been content to reiterate such verdicts.11 Yet it is not only Valentinian’s perceived weakness that explains why historians have neglected his regime in Rome. A basic problem here is one of entrenched historiographical discourses and the sources upon which they are based. According to traditional analyses, Rome declined as an imperial city after Constantine (especially with the foundation of Constantinople) and began its metamorphosis into a papal one. This model has its obvious attractions, given that ecclesiastical documentation soon comes to dominate the historical record, while secular narratives are either fragmentary or perfunctory. In such accounts, the fift h century tends to be dominated more by popes like Xystus III and Leo the Great than by an emperor like Valentinian.12 There are signs, however, that this perspective is beginning to change. Federico Marazzi has criticized teleological, Christianizing narratives of the city’s history and has called for analyses that give equal weight to the secular and religious aspects of its late antique development.13 Moreover, the wealth of evidence from new archaeological excavations for Rome’s secular and ecclesiastical fabric in Late Antiquity means that the city’s history throughout this period is being reappraised.14 This chapter offers a contribution to this reassessment by analyzing Valentinian’s dealings with Rome. It seeks to demonstrate that his reign witnessed an imperial presence in the city that was more intrusive than anything seen in over a century, and that Valentinian’s activities provide a further basis for questioning models that present the eclipse of imperial Rome by Christian Rome in a straightforwardly linear manner.

10. Procopius Wars 1.3.10. Bury, Later Roman Empire, 1:250, n.3, argued that this notice was dependent on Priscus of Panium’s now largely lost history; Blockley, Fragmentary Classicising Historians, 1:52 and 115–16, was more skeptical. More recently, however, Treadgold, Early Byzantine Historians, 215–16, has argued that it probably depends on a lost history by Eustathius of Epiphania. 11. A recent example is Honoré, Law and the Crisis of Empire, 258–66, esp. 260, 263, which offers a close reading of Valentinian’s laws: while Honoré acknowledges the emperor’s candor and flexibility, he nonetheless portrays him as impetuous and inexpert. Th is image of Valentinian has also entered popular culture: the Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher’s Tragedy of Valentinian (ca. 1610–14) portrays him as a tyrannical voluptuary, while the recent television fi lm Attila (sometimes Attila the Hun: USA/Lithuania co-production distributed by Universal Studios, 2001) presents Valentinian as a bumbling, immature fool. 12. E.g., Krautheimer, “Architecture of Sixtus III”; Rome, esp. 45–58, which never mentions Valentinian. For critique, see Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope?” 21–26. 13. Marazzi, “Rome in Transition,” 37–38. 14. For convenient surveys, see Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani, Roma nell’altomedioevo; Ensoli and La Rocca, Aurea Roma; Manacorda, Crypta Balbi.

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Valentinian’s connections with Rome were established early, and firmly. During the two years since the death of Honorius (Valentinian’s uncle), Italy had been ruled by the usurper John, the former primicerius notariorum. John had been proclaimed at Rome on 20 November 423, some three months after Honorius’ death.15 Efforts by John to secure recognition from Constantinople had been rebuffed, and late in 424 Theodosius II determined to restore legitimate government to the west, proclaiming Valentinian Caesar.16 A major military expedition was sent to Italy by way of the Dalmatian coast. John quickly lost control of Italy outside of Ravenna, and was compelled to send Aetius to call on the Huns for assistance.17 As John’s regime crumbled, Rome swift ly went over to the side of Valentinian, even before the new emperor’s entourage arrived in the city. On 17 July 425, a law was issued from Aquileia in Valentinian’s name ordering “Manicheaeans, heretics, schismatics, astrologers” and other religious delinquents to leave Rome.18 The law’s addressee was the urban prefect of Rome, Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus, who had previously held this office under Honorius and who was to have a glittering career under Valentinian.19 His dedication to the new regime was made clear in an inscription that he set up sometime in mid-425 honoring Valentinian as Caesar, a rank conferred upon him by Theodosius at the beginning of the campaign to reassert legitimate control over the west.20 Faustus may well have been still in the post on 23 October 425, when, at Rome itself (and exactly a year since he had been made Caesar), Valentinian was elevated as Augustus. Details of this event are sketchy, but it clearly involved carefully managed ceremonial.21 A summary of Olympiodorus of Thebes, whose history concluded with Valentinian’s restoration, tells us that Helion, the eastern magister officiorum who had been sent as Theodosius’ representative on the expedition, “placed the imperial robe upon Valentinian.”22 The event was celebrated in solidi issued by the city’s mints. Their reverses proclaimed Victoria

15. For sources and discussion, see PLRE 2, 594–5, (“Ioannes 6”). Bury’s assertion that “he was not acknowledged at Rome” (Later Roman Empire 1:223) is flatly contradicted by the numismatic evidence: Kent, RIC 10.158–9, 361 (nos. 1909–10, 1912–23). 16. For this and what follows, the most thorough modern account remains Kaegi, Byzantium and the Decline of Rome, 19–26; see also Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, 54–55. 17. Sources and discussion in PLRE 2, 21–9 (“Aetius 7”), at p.22. 18. CTh 16.5.62; the same interval is allowed to Gallic bishops accused of fl irting with heresy (Const. Sirm. 6). 19. PLRE 2, 452–4 (“Faustus 8”). 20. CIL 6.1676. Valentinian as Caesar: Olympiodorus fr. 43.1 (Blockley). 21. Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 385. 22. Olympiodorus fr. 43.1 (Blockley).

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Augustorum and showed Theodosius and Valentinian holding crosses; Valentinian’s cross rested on a human-headed serpent, presumably representing John; and from above, the hand of God is shown placing a crown on the young emperor’s head.23 We may surmise further ceremonial celebrations in January 426, when Valentinian entered the consulship. The announcement of Valentinian’s consulship would surely have struck a chord with those who recalled that the previous year it had been John who had claimed the west’s ordinary consulship. This had, quite naturally, never been acknowledged in the east, where Theodosius had appointed Valentinian as consul for the west.24 Hence the acclamation of Valentinian as consul for the second time in 426 effectively consigned John’s western consulship of 425 to oblivion. It cohered neatly, therefore, with the condemnation of the usurper in imperial legislation as a tyrannus and infaustus praesumptor.25 Once again, Valentinian’s second consulship was commemorated in coinage minted at Rome. A solidus was issued showing, on the obverse, a bust of Valentinian in consular robes, holding an eagle-tipped sceptre in his left hand, and the mappa, with which he would inaugurate his consular games, in his right; on the reverse, this iconography was repeated, but with emperor shown full-length, facing, and seated on a throne, with the legend Victoria Augustorum.26 The new emperor was a mere child of six years and three months at the time of his coronation, but efforts were made on his behalf to assert control over Italy and Africa, generally by means of issuing laws.27 The aforementioned law of 17 July 425, for instance, was one of a number of proclamations that dealt with religious sectarians in the west.28 Rome itself received special attention. A law of 24 February 426, including partial remission of the aurum oblaticium offered to the emperor by the senators, was read before the senate by the primicerius notariorum Theodosius.29 A further sign of favor towards the senate was shown later in the year, when, on 7 November, a miniature legal code, of which twelve fragments survive in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian, was addressed to them. Its contents sought to reaffirm the rule of law, with special attention being paid to the definition of the relationship between rescripts and general law, as well as to questions of inheritance and succession—topics very likely to have been of special interest to senatorial aristocrats.30

23. Kent, RIC 10.363 (nos. 2001–2). 24. Bagnall et al., Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, 384–87. 25. CTh 16.2.47; Const. Sirm. 6. 26. Kent, RIC 10.368 (no. 2032). 27. Honoré, Law and the Crisis of Empire, 248–49. 28. For a reconstruction of the wider legal context, see Gaudemet, “La première mesure.” 29. CTh 6.2.25. Cf. Honoré, Law and the Crisis of Empire, 249; PLRE 2, 1101 (“Theodosius 7”). For remission of the aurum oblaticium, see Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 356. 30. Honoré, Law and the Crisis of Empire, 249–51.

166 Humphries After these early contacts with Rome in 425–26, Valentinian is not known with any certainty to have resided in the city until the 440s; but this reflects the nature of the evidence for the 430s generally, when there is a gap of six years between the last constitution of Valentinian preserved in the Theodosian Code and the first of his leges novellae.31 It has been suggested that Valentinian may have visited the city on intervening ceremonial occasions. He was consul again in 430 and 435, and commemorative coins were issued by Roman mints;32 celebrations in Rome are possible.33 A further visit to Rome may have occurred in 437, just before Valentinian traveled to Constantinople to wed Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius II.34 The presence of two distinguished Roman senators, Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus and Rufius Antonius Agrypnius Volusianus,35 could imply a visit to Rome; but there is no reason they could not have been summoned to Ravenna. Yet even when the emperor was not living at Rome in this period, his authority will have been asserted in the city by other means. 3. Valentinian III and the Roman Church To attribute to Valentinian such influence in Rome might seem to fly in the face of standard interpretations of the city’s development during his reign, which is usually regarded as being marked by a papal takeover of urban space. As noted earlier, this period is associated above all with the activities of contemporary popes, especially Xystus III and Leo the Great. Xystus’ pontificate has been described as witnessing a “renaissance” in ecclesiastical building, with the construction of impressive churches like S. Stefano Rotondo and S. Maria Maggiore, and the renovation of many others.36 Such projects appear to give physical form to developments in civic leadership and ideology pointing firmly in the direction of the papal supremacy of the Middle Ages, in which process Xystus’ successor Leo the Great occupies a pivotal role.37 After all, did he not play an instrumental part in persuading Attila not to march his Hunnic armies on Rome? And was he not also a staunch champion of the Roman church’s Petrine authority, not least in his debate with Hilary of Arles? At one level, the answer to both of these questions must be in the affirmative; but as will be seen, it is important not to lose sight of the broader currents of secular history within which such developments took place.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 145. Kent, RIC 10.368–69 (nos. 2033–34). Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 144 and n.50. Ibid., 145. Matthews, Laying Down the Law, 1–9; cf. PLRE 2, 452–54 (“Faustus 8”); 1184–85 (“Volusianus 6”). Krautheimer, “Architecture of Sixtus III.” The classic study remains Ullmann, “Leo I.”

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Consider first, however, the building projects. As Andrew Gillett has pointed out, the Liber Pontificalis contains records for donations to churches by Valentinian III that represent the largest imperial investment in the Roman church since the time of Constantine.38 Of course, the Liber Pontificalis is a notoriously unreliable source, particularly for periods earlier than the sixth century.39 Nevertheless, there is significant evidence from other sources to show that Valentinian and his family were generous patrons of church building in Rome in precisely the period that is usually associated with a papal conquest of urban space. Imperial patronage is recorded for building work at S. Pietro in Vincolo, the restoration of mosaics at S. Croce in Gerusalemme and S. Paolo fuori-le-mura, and gold and silver donations are also recorded for this last church, as well as S. Peter on the Vatican and S. Giovanni in Laterano.40 This patronage of church building at Rome far exceeds the more celebrated projects sponsored by Valentinian and his family at Ravenna.41 In short, an era of ecclesiastical building that is often regarded as being dominated by the bishops of Rome in fact saw substantial contributions made by the imperial family. That the activities of Rome’s bishops were embedded in secular networks is also apparent from Leo’s participation in the embassy that persuaded Attila the Hun to spare Rome in 452. The customary portrayal of the embassy, derived from a medieval hagiographical account of the encounter, lays emphasis on the role of Leo and the supernatural assistance lent by the apostles Peter and Paul.42 The contemporary account in Prosper of Aquitaine’s Chronicle, though written by an ardent admirer of the pope,43 casts the event in different light: he notes that the embassy was sent only after debate at Rome involving the emperor, senate, and people, and that Leo was accompanied by a former consul, Gennadius Avienus (consul posterior 450), and a former prefect, Trygetius.44 Avienus was an important figure—indeed, Sidonius Apollinaris, writing of his visit to Rome in 467–68, regarded him one of the two most influential senators in the city.45 Trygetius was a skilled and experienced diplomat, having previously negotiated with the Vandals at Hippo in 435.46 Thus Leo was acting in concert with the secular administration.

38. Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 145. 39. Noble, “Paradoxes and Possibilities.” 40. Sources collated in Ward-Perkins, Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 237. 41. Ibid., 241. 42. Pletti, “Attila,” 144–47. 43. Gillett, Envoys, 114–15. 44. Prosper, Chron. c. 1367, s.a. 452: consilia principis ac senatus populique Romani. PLRE 2, 193–94 (“Avienus 4”); 1129 (“Trygetius 1”). 45. Sidonius Ep. 1.9.2. 46. Prosper Chron. c. 1321, s.a. 435.

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A similar instance of co-operation may be seen in the assertion of the Roman church’s Petrine supremacy. In traditional analyses of this process, initiative is presented as lying with fift h-century popes, such as Boniface I and Celestine I, and culminating with Leo I, under whom “the first phase of papal history comes to a conclusion” and “the primatial monarchic theme of the papacy receive[s] its final theoretical stamp.”47 A key episode in this development was Leo’s condemnation of the southern Gallic bishop Hilary of Arles in 445.48 Hilary had been seeking to build up the metropolitan authority of the see of Arles over the Gallic episcopate,49 and in the course of these activities had deposed two rivals, Celidonius, bishop of Besançon, and Projectus, bishop of an unidentified southern Gallic see.50 They had appealed to Leo to intervene on their behalf. In response, Hilary sought to defend his actions by traveling to Rome, where Leo convened a council of bishops. When, however, it became clear that the aggrandizing ambitions of the bishops of Arles and Rome were set on course for collision, Hilary returned to Gaul. In Hilary’s absence, Leo issued a letter from the Roman synod to the bishops of southern Gaul, condemning Hilary, ordering the restoration of Celidonius and Projectus, and depriving the see of Arles of its metropolitan authority.51 Leo’s was not the only condemnation of Hilary: on 8 July 445, Valentinian issued a law (his seventeenth novella) that upheld Leo’s assertions of Roman primacy in the face of Hilary’s activities. In most analyses, Valentinian’s seventeenth novella is presented as little more than an imperial imprimatur in which the emperor is thought to have endorsed Leo.52 In part, this interpretation is supported by the way in which the texts are usually read, where Valentinian’s law is seen as secondary to Leo’s letter to the bishops of Viennensis. This is the case with the only complete modern edition of Leo’s letters, where the imperial law appears after the papal letter.53 While both Leo’s letter and Valentinian’s law pertain to the same case,

47. Ullmann, Short History, 19; this substantially reiterates the conclusions of the more detailed analysis of Leo’s contribution to the idea of Roman primacy offered in Ullmann, “Leo I.” 48. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 141–72, and Heinzelmann, “The ‘Affair’ of Hilary of Arles.” 49. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 101–22; cf. Frye, “Bishops as Pawns,” for the origins of Arelate ecclesiastical influence. 50. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 152, speculates that Projectus may have been bishop of Aix. 51. Leo Ep. 10. 52. Ullmann, Short History, 27; cf. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 164–66; Heinzelmann, “The ‘Affair’ of Hilary of Arles,” 241–42. 53. The documents are numbered Leo Ep. 10 (Leo’s letter to Gaul) and 11 (Nov. Val. 17), in, for example, PL 54.628–40. Th is association between papal letter and imperial novella first appears in the edition of the Ballerini brothers (Venice, 1755–57). It has proved very influential: for instance, the numbering of the documents in the translation of Hunt, Leo the Great, 37–48, lists them as letters 10 and 11; indeed, Hunt does not even offer a translation of Nov. Val. 17, but merely provides a summary in which the emperor is said to have endorsed Leo’s views.

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there is no manuscript justification for editing letter and law together.54 Closer perusal of the texts shows that the law was not directly inspired by Leo’s extant letter, even if the emperor’s action was prompted by representation from the bishop of Rome. Leo’s letter was addressed to the bishops of southern Gaul, but Valentinian’s novella was clearly inspired by a quite different written petition (relatio) addressed by Leo to the emperor;55 hence the relationship between the two documents is looser than is usually assumed. If we read the law on its own terms, a rather different picture of Valentinian’s role in the dispute emerges. Its language is chiefly concerned with imperial authority, not least an insistence on the unity of the empire, which Hilary, by his dissent, was threatening.56 Why, then, was Valentinian involved? It should be recalled that even before Leo’s Roman synod had reached a decision hostile to Hilary, Hilary himself had departed from Rome, thus effectively removing himself from Leo’s clutches. While Leo certainly made efforts to cultivate the support of factions in the Gallic church opposed to Hilary,57 there was little, given the distance between Arles and Rome, that Leo could actually do to undermine Hilary. Perhaps this explains how Valentinian’s seventeenth novella should be read—as another instance of papal-imperial cooperation, where the pope could not act without the support of the emperor. After all, the law was issued to the magister militum Aetius, who, as Valentinian’s chief agent in Gaul, would have been well placed to enforce the emperor’s will.58 Indeed, a broader analysis of Valentinian’s novellae dealing with ecclesiastical matters suggests that the imperial administration did not supinely follow church leadership in such affairs.59 Various laws actually imposed restrictions on the social role of the church, rather than increasing its clout. In a law issued at Rome on 15 April 452, we find the emperor setting out various restrictions on the functions of episcopal courts, particularly in areas where they might be regarded as encroaching on the jurisdiction of secular courts.60 Another, of 14 April 445—and so just three months before Valentinian was apparently shoring up papal prerogatives—ordered Auxentius, prefect of Rome, to pursue guild members who had attempted to evade their duties to the city by joining the clergy.61 From such rulings, it is clear that Valentinian’s regime maintained a

54. For the textual tradition of Leo’s letters, see Jasper and Fuhrmann, Papal Letters, 41–58. 55. Nov. Val. 17, preamble: venerablilis viri Leonis Romani papae fideli relatione comperimus. 56. Musumeci, “Politica ecclesiastica,” 451–57; note esp. Nov. Val. 17.2: Hilary acting et contra imperii maiestatem et contra reverentiam apostolicae sedis. 57. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 162–64. 58. See Heinzelmann, “The ‘Affair’ of Hilary of Arles.” 59. Musumeci, “Politica ecclesiastica.” 60. Nov. Val. 35; cf. Musumeci, “Politica ecclesiastica,” 467–81. 61. Nov. Val. 20.

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certain independence of action from the church. Even if Leo could appeal to the emperor and his family to intercede on his behalf on various matters, this did not mean that Valentinian passively gave an imprimatur to an unchallenged papal authority. On the contrary, it is clear that Leo’s assertions of Roman primacy needed the support of the emperor if they were to succeed. 4. Imperial Authority and Urban Space in Valentinian’s Rome If the development of the Roman church in the mid-fifth century did not occur independently of imperial action, there is reason to suppose that such interactions provided important opportunities for Valentinian to display his authority. His dedications to the Roman church will have presented him both as pious and as a generous patron. Furthermore, he could use ecclesiastical space for ceremonial displays of his authority: for instance, when Valentinian and his family visited Rome early in 450, they visited S. Peter’s on the day after their arrival to attend a vigil, probably at the feast of cathedra Petri.62 Our sources for this event give little more than the bald facts of the imperial presence in the church, but it is not difficult to imagine that it had some striking ceremonial impact: Merobaudes’ ekphrasis of a mosaic in (probably) Ravenna depicting Valentinian’s family provides us with enough details to help us visualize the scene.63 Some time later that same year,64 S. Peter’s hosted another imperial ceremony, when Valentinian’s mother Galla Placidia, together with Leo and the assembled senate, presided over the reburial of Placidia’s long-dead son Theodosius, most probably in the building later known as the Chapel of S. Petronilla, which seems to have been conceived, perhaps in imitation of Constantinople, as a dynastic mausoleum for the western empire.65 Once again it emerges that the Roman church provided a space in which the authority of emperor and bishop could intersect and overlap. Valentinian could assert his authority in other spaces, too. For example, nine of his novellae come from copies posted in the Forum of Trajan.66 We can see the procedure of formulation, dispatch, and posting of several pieces of legislation in great detail, with laws being issued by the emperor, received by

62. Leo Ep. 55–58. Discussion of chronology in Susman, “Culto di S. Pietro,” 21–26. 63. Merobaudes Carm. 1 and 2; cf. Clover, Merobaudes, 16–28. 64. The date must be before Galla Placidia died on 27 November: PLRE 2, 888–89 (“Placidia 4”). 65. Continuation to Prosper in the Codex Reichenaviensis, c. 12 (Chron. Min. 1.489): Theodosius cum magna pompa a Placidia et Leone et omni senatu deductus et in mausoleo ad apostulum Petrum depositus est. PLRE 2, 1100 (“Theodosius 5”), omits this reburial. On the mausoleum itself, see Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 167–74. 66. Nov. Val. 2.2, 11, 19, 21.1, 21.2, 23, 25, 27, 31.

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officials, and then posted in public.67 A law concerning wills issued at Rome late in 446 gives a particularly hectic sequence: it was handed down by the emperor on 26 December, received by the praetorian prefect Albinus the following day, and posted in Trajan’s Forum on the day after that.68 Such vignettes give us some insight into the operation of Valentinian’s administration in Rome and of the impact it had on the city, in terms not only of physical space but also of the imperial functionaries scurrying around doing the court’s business. Furthermore, by the time of Valentinian’s presence in Rome, the Forum of Trajan had become an important locus of civic activity, perhaps becoming more important as a center of administration than the Forum Romanum itself.69 It was in Trajan’s Forum, furthermore, that a select number of courtiers and senatorial aristocrats were honored with statues celebrating their loyal service to the emperor.70 With such laws and statues standing side by side, the Forum of Trajan would have been a space in which the benefits of Valentinian’s care for the city would have been strikingly evident. This was not the only space in which imperial authority was celebrated alongside statements of aristocratic prestige. Valentinian’s reign saw several restorations of the Colosseum, in large part probably enforced by the occurrence of earthquakes in 429 and 443.71 These interventions—carried out by officials in the emperor’s name—provided another opportunity to display Valentinian’s authority. An architrave bearing an original dedication inscription of the Colosseum was recut to accommodate a text set up by the urban prefect Rufius Caecina Felix Lampadius, proclaiming the restoration of the building (after which earthquake we cannot be certain) and honoring the safety of the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III.72 Another inscription—or, rather, two identical inscriptions facing each other—honoring the emperors was cut in monumental letters 30 centimeters tall along the face of the balustrade overlooking the arena of the Colosseum.73 If Silvia Orlandi’s restorations

67. In addition to Nov. Val. 21.2 (see next note), note also the following. Dates in parentheses indicate issue / reception / posting; a question mark indicates that the precise date in a sequence is not recorded; unless otherwise stated, all refer to laws issued at Rome and posted in the Forum of Trajan. Nov. Val. 11 (13 March 443 /?/?), 19 (8December 445 /? /12 December 445), 21.1 (21 October 446 /? /?), 23 (13 March 447 /27 March 447 /6 April 447), 25 (3 June 447 /? /9 June 447), 27 (17 June 447 [at Ravenna] /? /20 July 447 [at Rome, Forum of Trajan]), 31 (31 January 451 /3 February 451 /?). Note also 1.3, issued at Rome on 5 March 450, and read to the senate on 14 March 450. 68. Nov. Val. 21.2: dat. vii kal. Ian. Rom(ae) Aetio III et Symmacho vv. cc. conss. Acc(epta) vi kal. Ian. Rom(ae). Prop(osita) v kal. Ian. in foro Traiani conss. s(upra)s(criptis). 69. Packer, Forum of Trajan, 1:8–10. 70. See Gillett q.v., 284–87. 71. 429: see n.74 below. 443: Fast. Vind. Post. s.a. 443 (c. 557); Paul. Diac., Hist. Rom. 13.16. 72. Orlandi, Iscrizioni del Colosseo, 42–46. 73. Ibid., 87–118.

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of the fragmentary text are correct, then it would seem to record a wholesale overhaul of the building during the urban prefecture of Flavius Paulus (who is otherwise known from the Gesta Senatus recording the promulgation of  the  Theodosian Code to the west in December 438) after earthquake damage.74 Of course, the epigraphic presence of Valentinian in the Colosseum ought to be expected. His grandfather Theodosius I had decreed that any official who failed to name the emperor in inscriptions dedicating public buildings would be regarded as a traitor.75 But to regard the placing of Valentinian’s name together with that of Theodosius II as merely a loyal habit would be to underestimate their significance. The inscriptions set up by Lampadius and those on the balustrade were not undertaken lightly: each required the erasure of pre-existing texts in order to make the symbolic presence of the reigning emperor visible for all to see.76 These interventions in Valentinian’s name fit a broader pattern of activity in the fift h-century Colosseum. Restorations of the Colosseum are recorded also in the name of Honorius and Theodosius II (in an inscription partially erased to make way for that honoring Valentinian).77 Further work was undertaken under Anthemius, Odovacer, and beyond.78 Moreover, numerous inscriptions from the upper edge of the balustrade record the seating arrangements for senators in the fift h century.79 As with Valentinian’s presence in the Forum of Trajan, then, we are dealing with statements in honor of the emperor in a locus of intense elite activity in the fift h century. Whether these restorations of the Colosseum were associated with spectacles watched by the emperor, we cannot say in the absence of explicit evidence. Yet we know of other instances when Valentinian presided over ceremonial events in public spaces. A poem of Sidonius Apollinaris describes him hosting circus games at which his friend Consentius of Narbonne was victorious on 1 January in an unknown year;80 since it is likely that these were games celebrating one of Valentinian’s own consulships, then the year might be one of any of the quinquennial consulships he held from 430 onwards, and most

74. Ibid., 103–109. Th is hypothesis is even more attractive if the inscription can be reconstructed to read decennio post (terrae motum?) . . . dedicavit, since 438 would be precisely the tenth year after the earthquake of 429. 75. CTh 15.1.31. 76. Orlandi, Iscrizioni del Colosseo, 42–43, 86–87. 77. Ibid., 67–87. 78. Ibid., 47–57. 79. Ibid., 568–69. 80. Sidonius, Carm. 23.307–11 and 423; cf. Ward-Perkins, Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 104–105.

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probably, given the chronology of Consentius’ career, after 440.81 Moreover, coins issued by Roman mints and proclaiming imperial vota survive for Valentinian’s consulships of 430, 435, and 455; all of these issues show, on either the obverse or reverse (and frequently on both), the emperor in consular robes and holding a mappa, about to start circus games.82 The continuation of the circus games occurred in the face of ecclesiastical opposition: a sermon preached by Leo toward the end of Valentinian’s reign (or perhaps just afterwards) reiterated the customary condemnations of such spectacles as a scandalous waste of resources and a worrying distraction from true piety.83 Another instance of imperial ceremonial is known from a continuation of the chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine: on 30 March 452, icons of the eastern emperor Marcian were received at Rome.84 Marcian had been emperor at Constantinople for over a year and a half by this stage, since soon after the death of Theodosius II on 28 July 450, but at first Valentinian did not recognize his legitimacy.85 In 452, however, a rapprochement between Rome and Constantinople was reached. Only then would Valentinian consent to the presence of images of the new eastern emperor in Rome; prior to that, Valentinian alone would have been the dominant imperial presence in the city. This point is emphasized by Valentinian’s legislation from these years: from mid-450 until early 452, all laws were issued in Valentinian’s name alone; only on 29 June 452 is Marcian named as co-emperor.86 Perhaps we can say something further about the visibility of Valentinian’s presence in the city. Excavations at the Villa Medici on the Pincian hill have revealed an elegant semi-circular pavilion, sumptuously decorated in opus sectile, oriented south to look out over the city. Later evidence shows that this was

81. For the consulships, see Bagnall et al., Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, 394, 404, 414, 424, 434, 444. PLRE 2, 308–9 (“Consentius 2”), speculates the occasion was “the inauguration of an imperial consulship and if so probably 440, 445, or 450” (p. 309). 82. Kent, RIC 10.368–71 (nos. 2033–34, 2038–46). 83. Leo Serm. 84. 84. Continuation to Prosper in the Codex Reichenaviensis, c. 21 (Chron. Min. 1.490): iconica Marciani imperatoris Romam ingressa III kal. Aprilis. Cf. Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope?” 44–45. 85. Valentinian never issued coins in Marcian’s name, but it is worth noting that he had rarely issued them in the name of Theodosius II, either: Kent, RIC 10.160. 86. Nov. Val. 36. Intriguingly, a law issued just over two weeks after the reception of the icons is issued in Valentinian’s name alone (Nov. Val. 35, dat. xvii kal. Mai, i.e., 15 April). One wonders if the date of the law has become seriously corrupt, and that kal. Mai should read kal. Mart., an easy error to make, thus giving a date in the second half of February. Most of the MSS for the law give mai, but one gives mađ (= mart?), and two even yield ian. Certainly the MSS show considerable variety in reporting the precise day (variously xvii, xvi, vii, and vi kal., and one omits the numeral altogether). In any case, a date of xvii kal. Mart. is flatly impossible because of the number of days in February; but a restored date of xvi, or vii, or vi kal. Mart. is a faint possibility. The variants in the MSS are set out in the app. crit. of Mommsen and Krueger, Codex Theodosianus, 2:148.

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an imperial possession, and the excavators postulated that this it was part of a palatial complex built by Honorius—but Valentinian’s lengthier presence in Rome must make him a likely contender for construction of the building.87 The case of the Villa Medici building is speculative, but there is enough evidence to suggest that Rome in Valentinian’s day was a city where the emperor could still make a significant demonstration of his authority, and where the bishops of Rome were not the only grandees dominating society. Whether through legislative activity, ceremonial, or acts of patronage, Valentinian was a visible and potent presence. Moreover, he was not the only secular individual involved in such acts. Rich senators also engaged in acts of patronage—for example, when Rufius Viventius Gallus made donations to the fabric of S. Peter’s,88 just as Valentinian did. Thus, the roles of emperor and papacy need to be seen against a wider nexus of power relationships that also involved senators. 5. Valentinian and the Senate Examination of the relationship between Valentinian and the senatorial aristocracy provides further clues to the emperor’s impact on Rome. The sources, however, lack narrative coherence: there are laws, inscriptions, and a few fragments of otherwise lost narratives. The last of these dwell on negative aspects, concentrating on a scurrilous account of Valentinian’s dealings with the senator Petronius Maximus. John of Antioch tells of the emperor’s penchant for gambling with Maximus and then, when the senator was unable to pay his debts, of Valentinian’s seduction of his wife.89 Such an account gives the impression of poor relations between emperor and senate; indeed, John of Antioch uses the story to explain Valentinian’s assassination, in which, he alleges, Petronius Maximus played an important role. A broader conspectus of the available sources suggests a more complex relationship. At the outset of Valentinian’s reign, those ministers acting on Valentinian’s behalf had taken various measures to cultivate the goodwill of the senate for the new regime after the fall of the usurper John (see above, 164–65). Such solicitude for senatorial interests is visible also later in the reign. In 440–41, Valentinian intervened in a case of disputed property rights between the viri inlustres Auxiliaris, a former praetorian prefect of Gaul, and Apollodorus.90 A law of 9 June 440 was prompted by representation from Auxiliaris, claiming

87. Honorius: Broise et al., “Rome: Pincio,” 448. But Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 138, shows that Honorius’ visits to Rome after 408 were brief and rare. 88. ILCV 94, 1759; cf. PLRE 2, 492 (“Gallus 3”). 89. Joh. Ant. fr. 200–201 (Müller) = fr. 293.2 and 293.1 (Roberto) = spurious and fr. 224 (Mariev). 90. Nov. Val. 8.1–2. See also PLRE 2, 119 (“Apollodorus 4”); 206 (“Auxiliaris 1”).

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that some of his property has been seized unjustly by Apollodorus; Valentinian ordered the urban prefect to see to its restoration.91 Although Valentinian wished the dispute closed at this point,92 the case rumbled on. Apollodorus in turn made representation to the emperor, forcing him to issue to the urban prefect another edict on 27 January 441, commanding that the earlier order be rescinded and that copies of the new ruling be posted in public in order that the annulment of the previous law be widely known.93 On occasion, such legislative activity was conducted before the senate itself. A law of 5 March 450, which dealt with the harsh implementation of the fiscal regime in the provinces, mentioning especially Sardinia, was cast in the form of an oration to Rome’s magistrates and senators;94 it included, at the end, a personal greeting to the senate written in the emperor’s own hand;95 finally, the law was read before the senate on 14 March by the senator and former urban prefect Postumianus.96 Further light may be shed on the emperor’s dealings with the senatorial aristocracy at Rome by examination of the individuals holding various high administrative posts. Many years ago, Briggs Twyman suggested a close connection between the interests of Italian senators and Valentinian, noting that the majority of Valentinian’s praetorian prefects in Italy came from distinguished senatorial clans, particularly the Anicii, Caeionii, and Petronii.97 In terms of assessing the impact of Valentinian’s administration at Rome, further conclusions may be drawn from a parallel analysis of the pattern of office holding for the position of urban prefect. Here, however, there are many difficulties, in that the precise dates of many urban prefectures are uncertain. In what follows, therefore, some observations will necessarily be speculative; nevertheless, it seems that certain patterns can be discerned. (For further details of the identification of urban prefects, see the chapter appendix, Praefecti urbis Romae, 425–55, at 179–82.) In the first place, it is clear that, of the securely attested urban prefects, all but one are senators of Rome—the exception is Pierius, addressed in a law of 440. Moreover, many were, even by Roman senatorial standards, substantial figures in terms of the life of the city. Several enjoyed stellar careers under Valentinian. That of Petronius Maximus (PVR for the second time at some point

91. Nov. Val. 8.1. 92. Nov. Val. 8.1.3: quem ulterius prosequi lites causasque non patimur earum rerum. 93. Nov. Val. 8.2. 94. Nov. Val. 1.3. 95. Et manu divina. Optamus vos felicissimos ac florentissimos nostrique amantissimos per multos annos bene valere, sanctissimi ordinis patres conscripti. Another example is provided by Nov. Val. 9.1. For a striking contemporary parallel in an original document, perhaps our only known sample of the handwriting of a Roman emperor (Theodosius II), see Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, 22–23 and fig. iii. 96. recitata in senatu p. v. inl. scs. Postumianum. On the formula, see PLRE 2, 901–2 (“Postumianus 4”). 97. Twyman, “Aetius,” 482, 484.

176 Humphries between 421 and 439), for example, extended over three decades, included two praetorian prefectures and two consulships (433, 443), and culminated in his becoming emperor after Valentinian’s murder.98 Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus was urban prefect on no fewer than three occasions (the first between 408 and 423, the second in 425, the third between 425 and 437), served twice as praetorian prefect of Italy (437–38 and 442), and was consul in 438; he was also one of two senators to attend Valentinian’s wedding at Constantinople in 437 and was entrusted by Theodosius II with communicating the Theodosian Code to the west.99 Other consulars among the certainly identifiable prefects include Fl. Albinus (PVR 427, consul 444), Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus (PVR twice before his consulship in 448), Valerius Faltonius Adelphius (PVR sometime before holding a consulship in 451), and Opilio (PVR at some point between 450 and 453, and consul in 453). In addition to their political influence, several of these individuals were men of wealth and property who practiced euergetism on a grand scale. Petronius Maximus built on the Caelian hill a structure described in dedicatory inscriptions as a “forum,” some time after he held his second consulship in 443 but before he was awarded the rank of patricius, first attested in December 445.100 Similar activities are recorded for another prefect, Fl. Eurycles Epityncanus (PVR 450), mentioned as conditor huius fori in a number of inscriptions found near the arch of Gallienus and the Church of SS. Vitus and Modestus on the slopes of the Esquiline.101 Other prefects held significant properties: Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus owned the Domus ad Palmam where the Theodosian Code was promulgated to the west in December 438;102 Valerius Faltonius Adelphius (PVR sometime before 451) held property at Ostia;103 and a building inscription of Opilio (PVR 450/3) from Vicus Augustanus in Latium is suggestive, perhaps, of a suburban estate.104 Urban prefects under Valentinian were appointed, then, from among the most distinguished ranks of the senatorial aristocracy. In the early part of the reign, it seems also that political motivations for appointments are apparent. Among the prefects known to have held office soon after Valentinian’s restoration were Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus and Petronius Maximus, both of whom had held the office previously in the later years of Honorius;105 so too

98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

PLRE 2, 749–51 (“Maximus 22”). See above, p. 172. CIL 6.1197–8 (ILS 807–8). CIL 6.1662 (ILS 5357), 31888. Gesta Senatus 1. PLRE 2, 8–9 (“Adelfius 3”). CIL 14.2046. PLRE 2, 452–4 (“Faustus 8”), 749–51 (“Maximus 22”).

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perhaps was Flavius Albinus attested in 426, if he is the same as the Albinus mentioned in a law of 414.106 Such instances suggest that after John’s usurpation there was a concern to seek out adherents of Honorius’ government for the prefecture. Other cliques can be surmised. A number of great senatorial clans are represented in the urban prefecture, such as the Petronii, the Acilii Glabriones, and the Nicomachi.107 Some individuals, such as Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus, Auxentius, and Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus, held the office more than once under Valentinian. Different members of single families can perhaps be seen holding the office repeatedly at intervals. Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus’ brother, Rufius Viventius Gallus, possibly held the office under Valentinian.108 Similarly, if Petronius Perpenna Magnus Quadratianus was related to Petronius Maximus, then we can see one clan dominating a slew of official positions, including urban and praetorian prefectures, as well as the consulship.109 6. Valentinian and the Government of Rome Mention of Petronius Maximus raises once more the spectre of the negative source tradition on Valentinian: it was Maximus’ wife that Valentinian seduced; it was Maximus who drove Valentinian to murder Aetius in 454; and the following year, it was Maximus who engineered Valentinian’s assassination. Such vignettes—and others, of Valentinian playing draughts, or practicing archery in the Campus Martius—give the impression of an inept administration; but other, less anecdotal evidence suggests that Valentinian’s government at Rome was conscientious. Numerous of the leges novellae issued during Valentinian’s residences at Rome legislated for a variety of problems confronting the city’s inhabitants, such as its provisioning,110 problems of currency fluctuations,111 and the rights of freedmen and the status of resident foreigners.112 A closer look at some laws associated with the visit of 440 will show something of the nature of the imperial administration of Rome more positively than might be deduced from the negative literary tradition.

106. PLRE 2, 50–51 (“Albinus 7”), 53 (“Albinus 10”). 107. See the table on p. 181. 108. PLRE 2, 492 (“Gallus 3”). 109. PLRE 2, 931–32 (“Quadratianus 2”). 110. Here, and in the following notes, I append the year of issue of such laws in parentheses: Nov. Val. 5 (440), 29 (450), and 36, esp. §§ 2 and 9 (452). 111. Nov. Val. 16 (445). 112. Nov. Val. 25 (447) and 31 (451).

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As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the law of 3 March 440, spoke of “rightly venerating” (merito . . . veneramur) Rome as “the head of our empire.”113 Beyond its opening rhetoric, the law demonstrates how Valentinian’s administration oversaw the government of the city. Like many of his laws, the edict dealt with a number of different issues at once.114 The preamble and first clause addressed a dispute between local shopkeepers (tabernarii) and Greek tradesmen (pantopolae) in the city. Valentinian was concerned, given problems of supply, to permit the pantopolae to stay, and argued that the objections of the tabernarii arose from envy (invidia). In the next two clauses, the emperor sought to make arrangements for the defense of the city. No Roman citizen and no one from the ranks of the trade guilds (de corporatis) would be enlisted in the army, but would be expected to perform guard duties. This would be overseen by the urban prefect, who would also supervise necessary repairs to the city walls, and no one was to be exempted from assisting in this task. The final clause makes arrangements for the repair of the city’s aqueducts; those who cooperated would be exempted from furnishing recruits and paying certain taxes. Although the law addressed several issues, it nevertheless reveals a cogent program. All of its provisions were concerned with the security and provisioning of the city of Rome at a time of potential crisis,115 when an attack by the Vandals was expected.116 Valentinian issued other laws in response to this problem. A couple of weeks after issuing the edict just discussed, another law, addressed to Sigisvult, the magister militum in Italy,117 made arrangements for conscription into the army.118 Some months later, on 24 June, a further law was addressed from Ravenna to the people of Rome.119 While assuring them that military assistance was forthcoming from Aetius and Theodosius II and that Italian coastal defenses were being mounted by Sigisvult, it also enjoined the local population to take up arms in the event of a sudden Vandal onslaught. It is in these circumstances that we encounter Pierius, the only prefect of the city who cannot be demonstrated to have had origins from a Roman senatorial

113. Nov. Val. 5. 114. Honoré, Law and the Crisis of Empire, 260. 115. The mood of the city is implied by totam sollicitudinem omnemque formidinem vestris animis censuimus auferendam (Nov. Val. 5.2). 116. Cf. Nov. Val. 9.1 (24 June 440): Gensericus hostis imperii nostri non parvam classem de Karthaginensi portu nuntiatus est eduxisse, cuius repentinus excursus et fortuita depraedatio cunctis est litoribus formidanda. 117. His presence in Italy is implied by Nov. Val. 9: cumque vir illustrissimus magister militum Sigisvuldus tam militum atque [sic] foederatorum tuitionem urbibus ac litoribus non desinat ordinare; cf. PLRE 2, 1010. 118. Nov. Val. 6.1. 119. Nov. Val. 9: ad populum Romae.

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family.120 The name is rare, and the origins of this individual cannot be determined with certainty—is it possible that, given the dangers threatening Rome in this year, that Valentinian’s administration decided to impose an outsider, perhaps from the military, as urban prefect? From this sequence of laws in the first half of 440, we get some sense of the provisions made for the defense and sustenance of Rome. Furthermore, if the chronological and geographical details given in the dating clauses of these laws are correct, then we can observe Valentinian and his court traveling to Rome during the early months of the crisis. The laws of 3 and 20 March were issued there, and while the law of 24 June was issued with the emperor once more in Ravenna, it included a personal note, written by Valentinian himself, ordering publication of the law to “Our most loving Roman people.”121 In both his presence and actions, Valentinian was highlighting his special care for the Urbs and its inhabitants at a time of danger. But 440 saw something else, too. It was very likely in the context of the visit that Valentinian was first apprised of the property dispute between Auxiliaris and Apollodorus (see chapter appendix, 180, 182). If that is so, then here we have senators exploiting the presence of the emperor for their own ends. In any event, Valentinian’s increasingly constant presence in the city from 440, and his permanent residence there after 450, meant that the Roman senate was once more able to be a major player in close proximity to the politics of high imperial power. One of them saw the potential for even greater political action. Whether or not John of Antioch is right about Petronius Maximus’ involvement in Valentinian’s murder on 16 March 455, the following day the senator found himself elevated to the imperial throne. To be sure, his reign would be short, and would end in violence; but for the first time since the third century, a Roman senator had become Augustus. After decades as a backwater intermittently used by emperors for ceremonial occasions, Rome became once more under Valentinian III, in a very tangible sense, the center of power, the “head of our empire” as the emperor had phrased it in his law of 3 March 440. Chapter Appendix: Praefecti urbis Romae , 425–55 The fasti for the urban prefecture of Rome presented at PLRE 2, 1252–55, list some twenty-eight individuals who possibly held the position under Valentinian—a reasonable tally for a reign of twenty-nine and a half years. Closer scrutiny, however, indicates that the identification of certain individuals as prefects during

120. Nov. Val. 8.1 (9 June 440); PLRE 2, 885 (“Pierius 4”). 121. Nov. Val. 9.1: et manu divina: proponatur amantissimo nostro populo romano.

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Valentinian’s reign is less secure than the list implies. In a large proportion of cases, precise dates for a prefecture are lacking, and this in itself reflects the nature of the evidence for tenure of the prefecture. In the table on p. 181, I set out a summary of the prefects listed by PLRE, distinguishing between (a) prefects who are securely attested as holding office under Valentinian; (b) prefects who possibly held office in his reign; and (c) prefects for whom the evidence is either very meager or highly contestable. The criteria for making these distinctions are as follows. 1. Prefects securely dated to 425–55. For several prefects in PLRE’s list, we can identify their period of tenure with some degree of accuracy. The dating clauses in laws, both in the Theodosian Code and the leges novellae, provide the securest evidence for locating a prefect in Valentinian’s reign. In the case of a number of inscriptions, there are reasonable dating criteria that allow us to fix an individual’s prefecture between 425 and 455, either because the inscription itself gives or alludes to a precise date, or because it gives a list of career appointments that allow an urban prefecture to fall under Valentinian. 2. Possible prefects. For a large number of the names listed in PLRE 2’s fasti, the evidence is not at all decisive. Several prefectures are attested only epigraphically, with no clear indication of date, and these can at best be dated on grounds of style to the early or mid-fift h century; this, however, leaves considerable margin for error: for instance, Paulinus 9 is listed as a possible prefect here, but a more trusting attitude to the source could allow him to be counted among the securely attested prefects; here I have erred on the side of caution. 3. Uncertain prefects. In a number of other cases, the evidence for prefects listed in PLRE’s fasti is either very meager or highly contestable. In this category we might include those persons identified as prefects in the apocryphal Gesta de Purgatione Xysti, prepared in the context of the trial of bishop Symmachus of Rome in 501, accepted by Twyman, “Aetius,” 494–503, but rejected as entirely spurious by Barnes, “Patricii,” 163–65. Other evidence is highly ambiguous. For example, the Neuthius to whom CJ 12.1.15 is addressed is described only as “p(raefectus) v(rbi),” and could have held office at either Rome or Constantinople (PLRE 2, 1253, 1255). The vilicus mentioned by Sidonius (Carm. 9.310) could well be an urban prefect on the analogy of Juvenal (Sat. 4.77), and is identified as such in PLRE 2, 1222, Anonymus 15; the designation is so vague, however, that we can neither know who this individual was nor rule out the possibility that he is identical with one of the prefects otherwise known. Rather more complicated is the case of PLRE’s identification of an Auxiliaris as a prefect of Rome (PLRE 2, 206, “Auxiliaris 2”); he is mentioned by Honoratus Life of Hilary of Arles 22.27 (ed. Jacob, p. 140) as a prefect (“Auxiliaris tunc praefecti . . . sententia”), and described as meeting at Rome in 445 a delegation supporting Hilary of Arles in his dispute with Leo. He would appear, on the balance of probabilities, to be the same Auxiliaris who had served as praetorian prefect in

Analytical table of praefecti urbis Romae under Valentinian III (Numbers in parentheses refer to the list in PLRE) (a) Prefects securely dated to 425–455 Securely dated in legal texts (CTh/

Epigraphic evidence that is narrowly

Nov. Val.)

datable

(1) Petronius Maximus 22 (I, 420–1 [CTh]; II, 421/39 [inscr.]) (2, 4) Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus 8 (I, 408/23 [inscr.]; II, 425 [CTh]; III, 425/37 [inscr.]) (3) Fl. Albinus 10 (426 [CTh]; Possibly identifiable with Albinus 7, PVR 414 [CTh], in which case PVR II in 426) (15) Fl. Paulus 31 (438 [Gesta Senatus]) (16) Pierius 4 (440 [NV]) (17, 19) Auxentius 6 (I, 441 [NV]; II, 445 [NV]; possibly identical with either no. (5) or no. (6) in PLRE’s list of possible prefects) (18) Storacius (443 [NV]) (23) Fl. Eurycles Epityncanus (450 [NV, inscr.])

(9) Rufius Caecina Felix Lampadius 6 (429/450 [inscr. repairs to Flavian amphitheatre under Theodosius II and Valentinian III; after earthquake of 429 or 443]) (10) Appius Nicomachus Dexter 3 (pre-432 [described as ex praef. urb., inscr. restoring statue of Nicomachus Flavianus in 431–2]) (22) Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus 4 (PVR twice pre-448 [inscr. mentions two terms as PVR before cos. in 448]) (24) Valerius Faltonius Adelphius 3 (pre-451 [cos. in 451; name to be restored on inscr. from Lateran mentioning his wife and describing her husband as p.u.]) (25) Opilio 1 (450/453 [mag.off. 449–50; cos. 453])

(b) Possible prefects

(c) Uncertain prefects

Evidence (epigraphic or literary) lacking a secure date

Evidence very meagre or highly contestable

(5) Fonteius Litorius Auxentius 9 (?425/450 [identical with Auxentius 6?]) (6) Fl. Olbius Auxentius Draucus (?425/450 [identical with Auxentius 6?]) (8) Paulinus 9 (425/455 [unprovenanced inscr.]) (13) Iulius Agrius Tarrutenius Marcianus 20 (ea./mid 5th c.?) (14) Petronius Perpenna Magnus Quadratianus 2 (ea./mid 5th c.? Possibly before 443 if indentical with Quadratianus 1 [PPO Italiae, 443]) (26) Rufius Viventius Gallus 3 (mid-5th c. inscr. mentions him as ex pr. urb. Likely to be brother of Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus 4 [see no. 22], in which case he could be PVR under Valentinian; see PLRE ii. 492) (28) Trygetius 1 (Prosp., Chron. s.a. 452: vir praefectorius: PPO? PVR? Honorary title?)

(7) Neuthius (426/443 [PVC instead?]) (11) Fl. Peregrinus Saturninus 7 (ea./ mid 5th c.? [based purely on language of inscr; but other details could suggest late-5th c.]) (12) Euthymius 2 (ea./mid 5th c.? Cf. Barnes (1975) 164) (20) Auxiliaris 2 (?445) (21) Honoratus 1 (?443/449: cf. Barnes (1975) 164) (27) Anonymus 15 (mid-5th c. [mentioned by Sid. Ap., Carm. 9. 310 as vilicus of Rome])

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Gaul, ca. 435/437 (PLRE 2, 206, “Auxiliaris 1”). Indeed, only two individuals by the name of Auxiliaris are listed in PLRE 2, the second being our putative urban prefect: Martindale noted in PLRE 2, 206, that the two are likely to be the same person; so too do Heinzelman, “Gallische Prosopographie,” 566 (followed by Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 167 n.110), and Jacob, Honorat, 124–25, n.2. Given that contacts between Italian and Gallic aristocracies were very limited at this time (Mathisen, “Fifth-century visitors,” 234–37), it seems improbable that Hilary would have known an Auxiliaris at Rome who had not served previously in Gaul; indeed, we can surmise from the vita of Germanus of Auxerre that Auxiliaris 1, while praetorian prefect in Gaul, had met Hilary (Vit. Germ. 23–24). Furthermore, and as Ralph Mathisen points out to me (pers. comm.), the usual pattern of office holding was that the urban prefecture was held before a praetorian prefecture; this leaves open the possibility that Honoratus was simply in error in using the formula tunc praefecti and should have written quondam praefecti, or that his text has become corrupt, and that it should read tunc ex praefecto. If so, Auxiliaris may be discounted from our list of urban prefects under Valentinian. On the basis of this analysis, it is possible to arrive at more conservative fasti for the urban prefecture under Valentinian III. Indeed, of the twenty-eight prefects listed in PLRE ’s fasti, it is noteworthy that only eight prefectures can be dated precisely to specific years: Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus’ second prefecture in 425; Flavius Albinus, possibly for the second time, in 426; Flavius Paulus in 438; Pierius in 440; Auxentius’ two prefectures in 441 and 445; Storacius in 443; and Flavius Eurycles Epityncanus in 450. This lack of certainty might seem cause for concern, especially given the precision with which we know the fasti for the urban prefecture down to the death of Honorius, as set out in detail in Chastagnol, Fastes. It is wholly consonant, however, with our often imprecise knowledge for Roman prosopography in the mid-fift h century. For instance, the interval between the securely datable prefectures of Flavius Albinus in 426 and Flavius Paulus in 438 reflects the gap in the survival of Valentinian’s laws noted in the chapter (p. 166). Note also that Orlandi, Iscrizioni del Colosseo, 568–69, lists only five individuals who can be identified and dated with precision in the Colosseum inscriptions for the period 420–50, whereas there were twenty-one such individuals for the period 290–402, eight for 467– 90, and five for 507–21.

8

Playing the Ritual Game in Constantinople (379–457) PETER VAN NUFFELEN

S

ince the seminal study of a. alföldi on “monarchic representation in the Roman Empire,”1 the ceremonial aspect of public life in Late Antiquity has been widely recognized. The work done by Sabine MacCormack on the adventus ceremony and by Michael McCormick on victory celebrations has amply justified the label of “ceremonial state” for the later Roman Empire.2 Three elements seem to distinguish the later from the earlier Roman Empire: an increased emphasis on ceremonies and their public performance3 (or at least a higher propensity in our sources to record them, which is equally significant); the slow Christianization of public ceremonies, a process which accelerated in the sixth century;4 and the development of Constantinople, from the time of Theodosius I (379–95), as the permanent residence of the emperor and thus the focal point of imperial ceremony.5 The last element marks an important contrast with Rome, which became progressively less important as an imperial city—although it regained importance in the fifth century, as is shown by Mark Humphries in his chapter in this book. If frequency and form are generally seen to have changed in Late Antiquity, scholars tend to ascribe the same role and function to public ceremonies in

I wish to thank audiences in Edinburgh, Aachen, and Oldenburg, as well as N. McLynn and the editors for their comments on this paper. The fi nal version of this chapter was prepared while residing in the Classics Department of the University of Cincinnati as a Margo Tytus Summer Fellow. 1. Alföldi, Monarchische Repräsentation. 2. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony; McCormick, Eternal Victory. On the adventus, see Dufraigne, Adventus Augusti. 3. Borg and Witschel, “Veränderungen im Repräsentationsverhalten.” 4. Averil Cameron, “The Virgin’s Robe” and “Images of Authority,” sees Christianization of public life as characteristic of the late sixth century. For Meier, “Sind wir nicht alle heilig?,” it starts already under Justinian. 5. The impact of Theodosius I on Constantinople and its ceremonial life is now set out in admirable detail by Croke, “Reinventing Constantinople.”

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Late Antiquity as they do to those of the early Roman Empire: to project an ideal image of the emperor and in that way ensure his legitimacy among his subjects. In a recent paper on acclamations, public shouts of approval or discontent, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer sums up their role as follows: “The main impetus for the increase and expansion of acclamations in all areas of public life was undoubtedly the intention of the late antique emperor to have as many people as possible participate in as many ceremonies as possible, which guaranteed him again and again the necessary and desired legitimacy.”6 This statement betrays two assumptions, neither of which can be maintained: first, that all acclamations are ultimately aimed at the emperor, albeit via his subordinates; and secondly, that they are basically staged expressions of support. In fact, acclamations are a widespread phenomenon in Late Antiquity and, for example, extremely important in the church as well, where one cannot automatically assume a focus on the emperor. They also turn up in local contexts, concerned with local issues, in which, again, loyalty to the emperor is hardly an issue.7 Wiemer’s reduction of acclamations to mere exercises in loyalty to the emperor hardly makes sense of these faces of the phenomenon. He also is mistaken, in my opinion, in reducing acclamations to staged messages of loyalty. In fact, no formal distinction can be drawn between shouts of support and insults: both were voiced in similar ways and identical contexts. Indeed, when Julian entered the theatre in Antioch during his stay there in the winter of 362–63, he was expecting acclamations, not complaints and insults for food shortages.8 Acclamations clearly could be spontaneous and used by the people to express disgruntlement as well as support.9 A similar interpretation underpins studies of imperial participation in ecclesiastical rituals—in particular, those of processions in the city of Constantinople. Although under Christian influence the Kaiserideal changed and incorporated Christian virtues such as piety, it is argued, the same mechanisms of display remained: emperors took part in Christian rituals in order to

6. Wiemer, “Akklamationen,” 60: “Die hauptsächliche Triebkraft für die Zunahme und Ausbreitung der Akklamationen über alle Bereiche des öffentlichen Lebens war zweifellos das Bestreben des spätantiken Kaisertumes, möglichst weite Kreise der Reichsbevölkerung an möglichst zahlreichen Zeremonien zu beteiligen, die ihnen die nötige und gewünschte Akzeptanz stets auf neue sicherten.” 7. An example from Egypt is extensively analyzed by Kruse, “The Magistrate and the Ocean.” 8. Julian Misopogon 339b. On this episode, see Van Hoof and Van Nuffelen, “Monarchy and Mass Communication.” 9. For further discussion of Wiemer’s interpretation, see Van Nuffelen, “Beyond Bureaucracy.” Acclamations have been intensely studied in their political, religious, and performative context: see, e.g., Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, 192–233; Matthews, Laying Down the Law, 3–54; Roueché, “Acclamations at the council of Chalcedon,” “Acclamations,” Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity; Alan Cameron, Circus Factions, 237–54.

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present themselves as ideal emperors. Processions are considered to have been staged with a focus on the emperor, in order to maximize his positive image among the population. In this view, the permanent imperial presence in Constantinople led to the creation of a civic ceremonial in Constantinople. This joined emperor and city in a patterned ceremonial relationship and included both secular and religious occasions, which aimed at fostering loyalty.10 While correctly assessing the potential that many ecclesiastical rituals had for the prominent display of Christian piety on the part of the emperor, such an interpretation tends to overemphasize the control emperors exercised on Christian ritual in the capital. This chapter argues that we need to understand imperial participation in public ceremonies in a much more dynamic way. This implies, first, that many ceremonies were not staged—in particular ecclesiastical rituals (although emperors may have wished that all ceremonies could follow a script 11). As a consequence, the emperor often needed to improvise and react to unforeseen circumstances. Secondly, according to the traditional interpretation, ceremonies tended to be without risk or competition for the emperor, as they were staged to allow him to make the best possible impression. Yet competition there surely was, in particular between the emperor and the bishop of Constantinople during ecclesiastical rituals. The unattractive prospect of defeat was not the only source of risk: public ceremonies were occasions when people could make demands through petitions or acclamations, or express their displeasure through insults. The emperor had to know how to deal with these, without losing face or causing a riot. The political capital offered by ceremonies was not simply waiting to be pocketed by the emperor: it had to be gained through a successful performance. Thirdly, because the meaning of ceremonies was not always fi xed in advance, they had to be interpreted:12 depending on one’s perspective, one could judge that the emperor had won the competition with the bishop, or vice versa. Most of the sources I shall be using in this chapter clearly take sides and describe ceremonies with the intention of guiding the interpretation of the reader—for example, by depicting the emperor either as

10. See, in particular, Martin, “Zum Selbstverständnis,” further developed by McCormick, Eternal Victory, 159–60; Diefenbach, “Frömmigkeit und Kaiserakzeptanz,” 63–64, and “Zwischen Liturgie und Civilitas,” 28; Croke, Count Marcellinus, 121; Meier, Das andere Zeitalter Justinians, 496, 500, 564; Wiemer, “Akklamationen,” 63. Croke, “Reinventing Constantinople,” 251, 260, argues that Theodosius blended Christian and secular ceremonial. In my view, the evidence does not suggest blending but, rather, imperial participation in both religious and secular ceremonial. The Christianization of public ceremonial was a slow process: see the works cited in n.5. 11. Cf. CTh 8.11.4 (383): Theodosius I requests that public appearances of the emperor in cities be properly prepared. 12. Th is is one of the key arguments of Buc, The Dangers of Ritual.

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peripheral or as central to a procession. This makes it hard to find out what precisely happened on a specific occasion, but the sources can be taken to indicate the range of possibilities. In order to substantiate this interpretation, this chapter focuses on public ceremonies in Constantinople under the Theodosian dynasty (379–457). One reason for this is that the material is uniquely rich—in contrast with Rome in this period, where, as Mark Humphries shows,13 we can notice the presence of the emperor but hardly witness real interaction with the city. It is also the period when the “civic ceremonial” that bound emperor and city together was developing. Indeed, we shall see that in this period certain parts of the city were invested with a new, ceremonial meaning (in particular, the Hebdomon as the destination of processions). But this was not a ceremonial domestication of the city: ceremony did not guarantee loyalty of the people and the church. Rather, the emperor had to perform well on each occasion. One can argue that the stakes were actually raised in Constantinople: if the emperor lost face, he could not leave the city for another one, as when Julian decided after shortcircuiting with Antioch to abandon it for Tarsus. The Theodosian emperors had to regain what they had lost in front of the same audience. In this chapter, I shall focus mainly on ecclesiastical rituals, for which, again, material is more plentiful. They also illustrate most clearly the importance of improvisation and competition. In a first section, I shall discuss socalled rituals of humility, which show the emperor participating in spontaneous processions. The next section shows how the emperor and the bishop each tried to control the ceremony, against unforeseen circumstances or in competition with each other. The final section revisits the downfall of John Chrysostom (403–4) and shows how competition for authority as expressed in ceremonies was one of the most important causes of his conflict with the empress Eudoxia. 1. Rituals of Humility In 447, a terrible earthquake struck Constantinople. It had been preceded by hail in July of the year before, and the Huns were putting pressure on the empire.14 In recent memory, divine wrath had rarely been felt with such intensity. The sixth-century chronicler John Malalas describes how, after the terrible earthquake of 26 January 447, the entire city, including the emperor, senate, people, and clergy, joined in a barefoot procession of prayer.15 We can assume they went to the Hebdomon, as that was the direction taken by the annual procession that

13. See Humphries q.v., 161–63. 14. Callinicus Life of Hypatius 52. 15. Malalas, Chron. 14.22 (363 Bonn).

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commemorated the event.16 Malalas assumes that the procession was a spontaneous reaction to events, for he stresses it was the first time God’s displeasure made itself felt in that way. After such a major catastrophe there was evidently little time for staging an elaborate ceremony. But contrary to what Malalas seems to assume, it was not the first time that the people of Constantinople had responded in this way to such a major crisis. In his Sermon on the Fall of Rome, Augustine recounts events of 396 in dramatic detail.17 God warned a civil servant in a dream that Constantinople would be destroyed by fire in heaven. Informed by the man, Bishop Nectarius immediately admonished the people to repent. On the day predicted, all fled to the churches. Although the sky smelled of sulphur, a divine voice announced remittance until the following Saturday and advised the citizens to leave the city on that day. The inhabitants of Constantinople obeyed. Continuing their prayers outside the city walls, they saw an enormous cloud of smoke but nothing happened. Their faith had saved them. Augustine has surely dramatized the story to drive home the point that Rome in 410 did not repent as Constantinople had more than a decade earlier. The divine order to leave the city sounds like the embellishment of what was, in reality, the usual Constantinopolitan practice in calamitous circumstances. In 438, for example, the bishop Proclus led the people of Constantinople to the Hebdomon to end a series of earthquakes.18 These brief stories merit detailed comment. It is obvious that we are not dealing with staged imperial ceremonies, as the processions are presented as collective exercises in repentance and humility, spurred on by impending catastrophes and led by the bishop of the city. As such they were not new, nor specific to Constantinople.19 That the processions always took the same direction need not indicate that they were organized. The Hebdomon seems to have fulfilled for Constantinople a role similar to, for example, the White Tower in modern Thessaloniki, where football fans rally to vent their joy after victory. It was the military focus of the city (aptly located outside the walls), and its shrine of John the Baptist received visits from emperors at symbolically important moments.20 The reason for directing the processions there may have been that it was the only space large enough to receive all the people, but one can equally argue that the processions invested a primarily military place with new, religious meanings.

16. Theodore Lector HE E 365 and 366. Cf. Croke, “Two Earthquakes.” 17. CCL 46.258–59. See also Marcellinus comes, Chron. s.a. 396; Gregory of Nyssa, Epitaphios on Flacilla, GNO 9.478.20–479.1. Cf. Grattarola, “Il terremoto.” 18. Theophanes Chron. AM 5930. 19. Sozomen HE 8.6.8; John Lydus, De Mag. 3.76, De Mens. 4.67; Procopius Wars 6.4.27; Agathias History 2.16.3, 5.3.6, 5.5.4. Cf. Laniado, “La liturgie”; Voicu, “Due terremoti.” 20. Sozomen HE 7.24.8–9 (Theodosius I); Zosimus 5.7.4–6, Philostorgius HE 11.3 (Rufi nus); Marcellinus comes, Chron. s.a. 515 (Anastasius); John of Ephesus HE 125.11–12, 199.14 (ed. Brooks) (Tiberius).

188 Van Nuffelen In all three instances, the bishop leads the ritual. The emperor plays only a subordinate role: it is the bishop who intercedes with God, not the emperor.21 Assimilated to the ordinary people, the latter walks barefoot and joins in the hymns and prayers. The obvious Christian element (in the eyes of God and in our sins we are equal) does not need comment. But an additional interpretation can be advanced. Years ago, Victor Turner used the term communitas to characterize such phenomena: in moments of crisis, social structures are abolished and each person is seen as a naked individual, not the personification of his social role.22 Such rituals, Turner argued, not only help to overcome the crisis but also affirm the integrity of the community. Although Turner may have gone too far in assuming that all elements of hierarchy disappear in such moments, the processions in Constantinople can be interpreted as fulfilling the same role. In the face of divine wrath, emperor and citizens reaffirm their common destiny and their shared community, and all obey the bishop as intercessor with God. Imperial behavior in such a ritual was quite different from that in a public ceremony such as the adventus. Whereas the latter aimed at lifting the emperor above all mortals, in the former he was expected to display humility in equal measure to his most humble subject. It is important to note how this differs from the ancient ideal of civilitas,23 whereby the emperor would behave as being an equal to his citizens—for instance, by tolerating jokes at his own expense.24 In rituals of collective repentance the emperor was made equal to his subjects in their shared human frailty and not in their common citizenship; they all collectively dropped to the lowest rank of humankind. Rather than celebrating the emperor’s elevation, they reestablished a sense of community. 2. Controlling the Message As a central Christian virtue, humility was routinely displayed by monks and other holy men.25 As the emperor tried to present himself as the embodiment of all virtues,26 public humiliation, either individually or in group, would from

21. In moments of crisis, lines are drawn more clearly. There was a tendency to lift the emperor above the ordinary believer by allowing him entrance to the bema, in particular during great festivities. See McLynn, “The Transformation of Imperial Churchgoing,” and for later periods, Letter to Cosmas 8 (Patrologia Orientalis 13.279) and Canon 69 of the council in Trullo (692). 22. Turner, The Ritual Process, 148. For responses to Turner’s concepts, see Alexander, Victor Turner Revisited. 23. See Wallace-Hadrill, “Civilis Princeps”; Bellen, “Christianissimus imperator,” 165. Diefenbach, “Zwischen Liturgie und Civilitas,” 31–39 discusses the parallels and differences between civilitas and humilitas. 24. See Claudian 6Cos. 57–61 (Theodosius I). 25. See now Burrus, Saving Shame, with earlier literature. 26. For a different example, see Van Nuffelen, “Unstained Rule.”

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this period onward become a standard part of imperial behavior.27 Against opposition from her servants, for example, Flacilla, the wife of Theodosius I, is said to have visited hospitals and even deigned to wash a cup.28 Yet it is hard to see how the “rituals of humility” just discussed could have been staged for imperial self-presentation: their improvised character implied that the message could not have been carefully prepared. Moreover, the emperor is depicted as playing a peripheral role. In the examples discussed hitherto, the emperor acquiesced in that role, but on other occasions he attempted to move from the periphery to the center and to wrest symbolic control from the bishop leading the ritual. A good example is the behavior of the emperor Marcian (450–57) during a procession held to commemorate the 447 earthquake. As a liturgical commemoration, this was obviously a prepared ceremony, unlike the original and spontaneous procession of 447. It comprised a procession from the Forum of Theodosius to the Hebdomon during which psalms were sung. The emperor was, apparently, supposed to participate; he certainly did so again in 457 (Theodore Lector, HE E 366). In principle, he was a mere participant in a ritual that served to thank God for his mercy toward the city. Yet the seventh-century epitome of the sixth-century historian Theodore Lector describes how not everything went according to plan, at least for the bishop (HE E 365): Having gone out on foot during the litany held in the Campus, Marcian distributed numerous gifts to the needy. He urged bishop Anatolius to sing psalms from the forum Tauri (Theodosian Forum) to the Campus, as was the custom of the bishops of the city. The bishop, seeing that Marcian went on foot, went as well on foot while singing the psalms. For all its brevity, the fragment is revealing. Marcian persuades Anatolius to go the full distance (meaning either that the procession should start in the forum as it used to or that the singing should begin there). Moreover, he goes on foot (as did everybody in the original procession) rather than being carried in a chariot, setting an example for the bishop. The story depicts Marcian as upholding the traditional form of the procession, whereas the bishop is more lax. Even while Anatolius leads the procession, Marcian clearly has morally the upper hand: he has shown how a true Christian is supposed to act. The conspicuous donations to the poor convey the point all the more clearly: Marcian is

27. E.g., Malalas Chron. 14.26 (366 Bonn) (Theodosius II), 14.43 (372 Bonn) (Leo I), 16.19 (407–8 Bonn) (Anastasius); Theodore Lector HE E413 (Basiliscus); Theophanes AM 6094 (Maurice); Averil Cameron, “The Virgin’s Robe,” par. 3 (Heraclius). 28. Theodoret HE 5.19, imitating Helena (HE 1.18.8). For more examples, see Finn, Almsgiving, 108–10; Van Nuffelen, “Le plus beau vêtement,” 179–80.

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seizing the occasion in order to make to the gathered population of Constantinople the statement that their sovereign knows the value of humility. One can understand his actions as consistent with the supposed piety of the Theodosian court, but much more seems to be at stake. Marcian’s position as an emperor was uncertain: catapulted by Aspar onto the imperial throne, married to the former consecrated virgin Pulcheria, and responsible for the council of Chalcedon and its subsequent troubles, it was not just the monophysites who found fault with him.29 Acting out one’s Christian virtues in competition with the bishop of the city was a good communication strategy to counter that negative image.30 Earlier members of the dynasty were actors equally consummate as Marcian. When news of the death of the western usurper John (425) reached Constantinople, Theodosius II was presiding over the races in the Hippodrome. As the church historian Socrates tells us, he announced to the people: “Let us then, if you wish, set aside our enjoyment, go to church, and send up prayers of thanks to God, for his hand has killed the tyrant.” The races halted, and all went through the middle of the Hippodrome to the church while singing psalms. Socrates claims that the entire city became a single church.31 A few years earlier, Theodosius had acted in a similar way. During an extremely severe winter, a storm interrupted the races. The emperor seized the occasion to admonish the people and the entire Hippodrome started to sing hymns. Having laid his regalia down, Theodosius left the Hippodrome “as a private citizen” (Socrates HE 7.22.14–19). Such pious initiatives are usually understood as a reflection of the piety of the Theodosian court. But more can be said. In Socrates’ story, no clergy are mentioned: it is the emperor who seems to assume the role of the bishop in leading the people to church. We can presume that priests were involved, but the point of the story is that the focus of the ritual is entirely on the emperor. I do not think we should understand Theodosius as seeing himself like a bishop, although it has been argued that Socrates thought this to be the case.32 The point is a less specific, but more important one: by assuming the position the bishop usually occupied, Theodosius put himself at the center of attention and could thereby pocket all the capital related to such a position. Socrates, favorably disposed toward the emperor, obviously wished to

29. Burgess, “The Accession of Marcian.” 30. See also Marcellinus comes, Chron. s.a. 452: Marcian ends the spargatio during the consular festivities. 31. Socrates HE 7.23.11–12. Diefenbach, “Frömmigkeit und Kaiserakzeptanz,” 47 and “Zwischen Liturgie und Civilitas,” 25, thinks this also happened in 423, but that is based on a misunderstanding of Theodore Lector HE E 320. 32. See Leppin, Von Constantin dem Grossen zu Theodosius II, 294–96. I am not convinced: Van Nuffelen, Un héritage de paix, 117–23.

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show that Theodosius’ piety was key to the death of the usurper. But other sources confirm that Theodosius was a consummate actor, who appreciated the value of conspicuous humility.33 The ecclesiastical nature of processions such as the “rituals of humility” discussed earlier made it harder for the emperor to control them because their scope was determined by liturgical, rather than imperial, needs. This lack of control created a unique set of problems for the emperor, in particular because ecclesiastical rituals could be used to challenge the emperor’s authority, as is shown by the examples of Basil and Valens, and Ambrose and Theodosius I.34 This does not mean, as the behavior of Marcian and Theodosius II illustrates, that emperors would not occasionally attempt to move to the center of the ritual and try to control the message it conveyed. The struggle for control did not always pitch bishops against emperors, as illustrated by an anecdote preserved in Mark the Deacon’s life of Porphyry, bishop of Gaza (died ca. 420).35 Porphyry had tried to obtain imperial support for the suppression of paganism in Gaza, but the emperor was reluctant to upset public order in a tax-paying city. Porphyry and his followers turned to Eudoxia, who advised them to petition her newly born son Theodosius after his baptism (402). The baptism of the heir to the throne was obviously a great ceremonial occasion. After the liturgical service, the future emperor was carried in procession from the church to the imperial palace. The route was lined by people, who saw an impressive parade of courtiers pass. Right at a key moment in the event, when Arcadius and his son emerged from the church, Porphyry halted the cortège: We exclaimed, saying: “We appeal to your piety,” while also holding out the sheet. When the man who was carrying the baby saw this, and recognized our business (for he had been previously instructed by her majesty), he ordered that the sheet be received and given to him; and upon receiving it, he halted in his path. He ordered silence and, after opening it, read it out in part. He then rolled it up, placed his hand under the head of the baby, made it nod in front of all, and shouted: “The power of his majesty has granted the petition.” All who saw this were amazed

33. Theodoret HE 5.36.1–2. 34. See McLynn, “The Transformation of Imperial Churchgoing,” 254–55. 35. The historical value of the life has been disputed on the grounds that the Greek text is a late translation of a Georgian original. The priority of the Greek has been reaffi rmed by Trombley, Hellenic Religion, 1:246–82, who dates the life to after 415 (see also Rapp, “Life”). His arguments are challenged by Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography, 260–84, who argues strongly for a sixth-century date for the Greek text. For my argument it suffices that the scene was deemed possible by the author and thus had at least some verisimilitude, be it in the fi ft h or sixth century.

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and paid obeisance to the emperor, calling him blessed that he was worthy in his lifetime to see his son exercize imperial authority. Upon hearing this the emperor was swollen in his pride.36 Petitioners usually lined up when the emperor appeared in public, as the text makes clear by emphasizing that the chamberlain fi rst had to recognize Porphyry before accepting the petition. Less habitual was the fact that the heir apparent, still only an infant, granted the request. Apparently taken by surprise, Arcadius could hardly do other than express marvel and assent, but it is rather doubtful that he was taken in by his wife’s tricks. Mark the Deacon candidly informs us that Eudoxia had to convince her husband actually to grant the petition, once they had returned to the palace. The point of the story is, therefore, not the divine favor shown by this precocious behavior of Theodosius, as its miraculous aspect is explicitly denied. Mark rather betrays an acute awareness of the powerful occasions that were public ceremonies and how these could be shrewdly manipulated. Eudoxia clearly knew that it would be difficult for her husband to go back on a decision now publicly associated with the supposedly miraculous action of the future emperor. What had been granted in the public eye could not be undone without serious loss of prestige.37 The story as told and commented on by Mark the Deacon illustrates three key characteristics of the interpretation of public rituals that I propose. First, even when ceremonies are staged, the script could be thwarted. Our sources regularly record ceremonies that went seriously wrong. Marcellinus comes, for example, records the stoning of Theodosius II in 431 during the annual visit to the granaries by the famished population of Constantinople (Chron. s.a. 431). Secondly, Mark explicitly acknowledges the theatricality involved: Porphyry and the man holding Theodosius act out their roles at a key moment in the ceremony to maximize the effect. The late antique emperor had to act out his virtues in a conspicuous and dramatic way. For example, clemency (of which the most prominent expression in Late Antiquity was the refusal to execute criminals38) was not a virtue to be hidden in the palace. Theodosius II was said to forgive all those condemned to death and would recall them on their way to be executed outside the walls “before they even reached the city gates.” Significantly, grace did not come immediately, only at a dramatic moment

36. Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyry 48, tr. Rapp, “Life,” 67. 37. Another example of how the mind of an emperor could be changed is the procession staged by Dalmatius and his monks in 431. The encounter between Dalmatius and Theodosius II effectively tipped the balance against Nestorius: see Nestorius, Book of Heracleidas 2.1; Nau, Le Livre d’ Heraclide, 241, with Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, 217–19. 38. Van Nuffelen, “Unstained Rule.”

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when death was nigh (Socrates HE 7.22.11).39 Theatricality also implies improvisation skills: if Arcadius had been quick-witted, he might have been able to brush aside Porphyry’s petition. Public ceremonies therefore demanded a set of qualities from the emperor different from those needed for the day-to-day running of the empire: on the public stage one did not reflect, waver, or bargain, but showed decisive action that caught the eye and the imagination. Anastasius, for example, was able to quench an uprising by publicly laying down his diadem in the Hippodrome in 512; things went horribly wrong in 532 when Justinian reacted waveringly in what became the Nika riot.40 Thirdly, Mark the Deacon recognizes that one could compete for the control of a ceremony. Momentarily taking control away from Arcadius, Porphyry and Eudoxia twisted a public occasion for their own ends. The other examples discussed above also involve competition for control of the ceremony and its symbolic focus: Marcian wrested control from Anatolius, at least on a symbolic level, and Theodosius assumed the role one would expect from the bishop. Such control yielded benefits ranging from increased popularity through the display of virtue, over establishing one’s authority over the bishop, to the more tangible results of having granted a petition. Imperial participation in ceremonies was thus much more than merely appearing and acting out a script: emperors and bishops alike had to “play the ritual game.” With this term I wish to designate the various actions undertaken to control the focus of the ritual and its message: not just the staging of the ceremony but also the theatrical responses within the ritual, in order to respond to elements of surprise or to acquire control of the ritual. 3. Occasions for Conflict In Constantinople, ecclesiastical ceremonies in particular could give rise to conflicts, as both emperor and bishop could vie for their control. Imperial participation in church ceremonies was much more common there than it was in Rome, where imperial presence was less common in the late fourth and early fift h centuries.41 Conflict was obviously not a necessary feature of rituals;

39. Another variation on this theme is the mock execution, as staged by the Gothic commander Gainas: Zosimus 5.18.7–9. 40. For these and other examples, see Greatrex, “The Nika Riot”; Van Nuffelen, “Beyond Bureaucracy.” Meier, “Die Inszenierung einer Katastrophe,” suggests that during the Nika riot Justinian let things get out of hand on purpose to root out opposition. 41. McLynn, “The Transformation of Imperial Churchgoing,” argues that from Theodosius I onward, emperors tended to limit their presence in church to important feasts. Th is still leaves plenty of occasions when emperor and bishop had to interact, while possibly also raising the stakes: the fewer the occasions, the more important they may have become.

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indeed, at first sight the ecclesiastical life of Constantinople seems to have been dominated by the pious Theodosian dynasty and, in particular, its women.42 The anecdotes relating to Theodosius II took place under Bishop Atticus (406– 25), and the church historian Sozomen recounts how Pulcheria, Theodosius’ virgin sister, eclipsed Bishop Proclus (434–46) during the miraculous fi nding of the relics of the forty martyrs from Sebasteia: in a dream the martyrs revealed their location to Pulcheria herself, and she and her collaborators were the main actors in their retrieval (HE 9.2). While one cannot deny that the emphatic display of Christian virtues is a characteristic of late antique emperors from the Theodosian dynasty onwards, this cannot be the entire explanation. Our sources have an interest in reporting these stories: both Socrates and Sozomen, for example, had panegyrical aims and the latter even dedicated his history to Theodosius II. But the way this image dominates the contemporary sources also suggests that the emperors were at least allowed by the bishops to act out their piety, even in ecclesiastical rituals. It is significant that the three bishops with the longest tenure under the Theodosian dynasty—Nectarius (381–98), Atticus, and Proclus—were all closely linked to the imperial house. Nectarius was a senator and chosen by Theodosius I; Atticus was an intimate of Anthemius, the dominating figure early in Theodosius’ reign.43 Proclus, in turn, was a protégé of Atticus and elected with imperial support.44 These bishops, part of the Constantinopolitan establishment, may not have been inclined to put up any obstacles to imperial domination of ecclesiastical ritual. This irenic picture changes when we consider the two outsiders that occupied the see of Constantinople: John Chrysostom (398–404) and Nestorius (428–31), both called from Antioch. Less used to dealing with constant imperial presence, both bishops clashed with the imperial family, resulting in their deposition. Nestorius quickly upset ecclesiastical peace in the capital by starting to persecute various heresies. More than this, the encroachment of female piety into ecclesiastical ceremony was swift ly reversed: the bishop removed Pulcheria’s portrait that hung above the altar of the Great Church, as well as her robe that covered the altar. On Easter Sunday 428, he refused her access to the sanctuary of the church, where she used to take communion with the emperor and the priests.45 Boundaries that had been overstepped needed to be patrolled again: a powerful way of doing so was making sure that each knew what his (or in this case, her) place was in the ritual.

42. Holum, Theodosian Empresses; Harries, “Pius Princeps.” 43. Van Nuffelen, Un héritage de paix, 15–18; Croke, “Reinventing Constantinople,” 252–53. 44. Socrates, HE 7.41. 45. Letter to Cosmas 5–8 (Patrologia Orientalis 13.278–79). Cf. Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 152–54.

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John Chrysostom was good at creating enemies, and the alienation of the clergy and monks of Constantinople was an important reason for his downfall. Significantly, however, there is no clear explanation for why he clashed with the empress Eudoxia in particular. The much-discussed misogynistic sermons only became an issue after the empress was already displeased with him.46 In the following, necessarily brief, sketch I shall suggest that the confl ict of authority between John and the imperial couple was in particular shaped through John’s perception that Eudoxia was undermining his authority by her ceremonial actions. Although John’s outspokenness may have caused a fair degree of disgruntlement among the elite from the start, his relations with the imperial couple did not start to deteriorate until halfway through his episcopacy (from 401 onwards).47 Then a series of apparently minor incidents, all involving a ceremonial element, seems to have built up tension.48 In 401, the Long Brothers, monastic leaders from Egypt, arrived in the capital to seek justice from both the emperor and John Chrysostom after they had been excommunicated by Theophilus of Alexandria for Origenism. In the account of Sozomen, John received them with due reverence and admonished Theophilus to restore communion or to send an arbiter to judge their case. He himself, however, refused to take communion with them, stating that this would be improper before their case had been judged.49 The bishop was either being careful not to become entangled in a theological debate and the internal problems of the Egyptian church or he had little sympathy for the cause of the Long Brothers and tried to hide behind church rules. At any rate, growing increasingly disaffected with John, the Egyptian monks turned to the empress. Petitioning Eudoxia in a traditional way by halting her carriage,50 during the feast of John the Baptist (24 June 402), they put their grievances to her. Showing great respect for them, she took immediate action: she asked them to pray for her, while promising she would ensure that a synod was convoked with Theophilus present. This turn of

46. See the list of misogynistic sermons made by Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomus, 215–17. 47. The only earlier incident was John’s involvement in the confl ict between the emperor and the Gothic general Gainas (400). The sources differ greatly, however, in their assessment of John’s role: some make him act in accordance with Arcadius’ wishes, others depict him as defending Christianity against a wavering emperor (Ps.-Martyrius Epitaphios 485a; Sozomen HE 8.4; Theodoret HE 5.32; Zosimus 5.19). The latter position, found in sources favorable to John, probably reflects a post factum attempt to depict John as more powerful than his later enemy Arcadius. The various versions are discussed by Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomos, 281–96. 48. Eudoxia’s actions have been interpreted as betraying a desire to affi rm a new form of female basileia: Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 58–66, followed by Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomos, 227. On Eudoxia, see Mayer, “Doing Violence,” who exaggeratedly claims that “Eudoxia has been the victim of a deliberate smear campaign” (213). 49. Sozomen HE. 8.13.3–4. See also Palladius Dialogue 7.61–116; Socrates HE 6.9.9–10. 50. On the ritual form of petitions, see Van Nuffelen, “Beyond Bureaucracy.”

196

Van Nuffelen

events put John in an awkward position. Although Eudoxia was not convoking a council herself, and thus not showing that she “had an authority in ecclesiastical matters that overrode that of bishops,”51 her involvement implied that John’s hold over ecclesiastical affairs in Constantinople was open to challenge: petitioners could bypass John and force his hand. Another, possibly apocryphal, anecdote about Porphyry of Gaza makes the same point. Porphyry’s biographer says that Porphyry turned to Eudoxia when noticing that John was unable to influence the emperor because of existing tensions.52 John was clearly perceived as losing his position of defender of Christianity at court.53 At about the same time, John entered into open conflict with Severian of Gabala, a Syrian bishop who had come to Constantinople to make a career as preacher, and whose popularity among the congregation and at court seems to have caused disquiet to John and his followers. After a conflict with his deacon, John ordered him to return to his bishopric, at which point Eudoxia intervened and requested Severian to stay. John and Severian were reconciled only when Eudoxia, in a dramatic gesture, put her son, the future emperor Theodosius II, on the knees of John in the Church of the Apostles and, by swearing on his head, reconciled John with Severian (Socrates HE 6.11). This symbolic action forced John’s hand: he made his peace with Severian but remained disgruntled with him. Again, the empress was encroaching on John’s authority. Not only did her action show that she, better than John, understood the Christian virtue of humility and reconciliation, but her action gave again the impression that John was not in full control of ecclesiastical affairs in Constantinople. Moreover, this time Eudoxia did not act from a position of disinterest: the empress was one of Severian’s patrons at court.54 Eudoxia, who, as we have seen, knew how to play the ritual game, had clearly become a challenge to John’s authority—at a moment when he actively sought to affirm his authority in the face of resistance from local clergy and monks.55 Our sources tend to interpret all interaction between John and the imperial couple as leading straight to the open conflict of 403–4 and it is tempting to do likewise. However, Arcadius and Eudoxia continued to take part in processions,

51. Mayer, “Doing Violence,” 212. The sources state that Eudoxia promised to wield her influence to have a council convoked by the bishops: Palladius Dial. 8.154–56; Sozomen HE 8.14.3–5, 8.16.3; Socrates HE 6.10.12, 6.15.5. 52. Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyry 37. The reason alleged by Mark for the tension is likely not to be historical: John is said to have reproached Eudoxia for having illegally appropriated a property. See Van Ommeslaeghe, “Jean Chrysostome”; Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomos, 224. 53. Eudoxia is also said to have appealed to Epiphanius of Cyprus to pray for her sick child. If true, it was another blow to John’s prestige that she turned to Epiphanius and not him (Sozomen HE 8.15.1–2). 54. Cf. Socrates HE 6.11.20; Gennadius De Viris Illustribus 21. 55. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 208–23.

Ritual in Constantinople

197

led by John, at the occasion of the transfer of relics, possibly right until John’s condemnation by the Synod of the Oak (autumn 403). Possibly in 403, the relics of Phocas were transferred from Pontus in presence of the imperial couple.56 Between 400 and 402, relics of unknown saints were transferred to the Church of S. Thomas at Drypia, west of the city center. Remarkably, both Eudoxia and Arcadius took part in the festivities. In his sermon held in the presence of the empress, John Chrysostom praised Eudoxia for her burning love for the martyrs, which made her follow the entire procession on foot (even at night time). She left all imperial pomp behind and mixed with ordinary citizens. Arcadius had not followed the entire procession—John claims that Eudoxia had counseled him to do so, to avoid crushing the people with his bodyguard. In another sermon, held after the emperor had left again, he also received his share of praise for having come, as “the benefactor of all on earth,” to enjoy the benefactions of the martyr. “For that reason he laid down his diadem, and all his bodyguards laid down either their shields or their spears, and having left behind this attire, they all came with a subdued mind, as if they entered from earth into heaven. There status and pride and all the exterior appearance of status are absent, and only a good life and the fruits of virtues shine.”57 John plays on familiar oppositions: the emperor as earthly benefactor versus God as the universal; earthly power versus divine power; status and appearance versus virtue. The sermon has been interpreted as an attempt by John to undercut the imperial ideal of a valiant victor.58 But the contrasts made by John are traditional,59 and, as we have seen, praise for imperial humility was nothing unusual and very well suited for the occasion. If not constantly visible, animosity there was, and it was exploited by John’s enemies. They reported to Eudoxia that the bishop had insulted the empress in a sermon. No trace of this can be found in extant sermons, and it is probable that they extrapolated this from general criticism of the vanity of upper-class women.60 Anyway, Eudoxia did not bother to check the story, as John’s known parrhesia made it plausible. In that state of mind, the imperial couple was not

56. John Chrysostom, De S.Hieromartyre Phoca (PG 50.699–706). The traditional date is 403–404, but it is unlikely that Arcadius would participate in ceremonies led by John after his condemnation in 403, especially since he refused communion with John from Christmas 403 onward. 57. John Chrysostom, Homilia quod Frequenter Conveniendum Est (PG 63.467–72 and 473–77, esp. 473). See Kelly, Golden Mouth, 140–41. 58. Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomos, 194–204, 213–18. 59. John’s Comparatio Regis et Monachi (PG 47.387–92) is constructed out of such oppositions. 60. Palladius Dial. 8.247; Socrates HE 6.15.1–3. The allegation is taken to be true, on the authority of Socrates, by Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 72–74; Kelly, Golden Mouth, 211; Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomos, 224–26. But Socrates can be shown to reflect the opinions of John’s enemies: Van Nuffelen, Un héritage de paix, 27–28; Maraval, Socrate, 324 n.2.

198

Van Nuffelen

inclined to intervene in favor of John against the machinations of Theophilus of Alexandria, who twisted the purpose of the synod of the Oak from an adjudication of his dispute with the Long Brothers to a trial of John. In the autumn of 403, John was deposed. When this news reached the city, the masses ran out in his support. It took three days for John to yield to imperial pressure and go into exile. Popular violence, but also the sudden death of one of Eudoxia’s children, forced the emperor to review the sentence and recall John. Against John’s own wishes that a synod should first overturn the decisions, the populace forced him onto his episcopal throne. Before his exile, John seems to have been prudent in his dealings with the empress, and all bridges had not been burned: the driving force behind John’s deposition was clearly Theophilus, not Eudoxia. John’s exultant return changed that. He preached a triumphant sermon, which praised the people for their support and depicted Eudoxia as a suppliant to her husband, even though he also pledged collaboration with the empress for the common good of the people.61 A few months later came his famous outburst at the dedication of a silver statue of the empress close to the main church. In a sermon, he objected to the usual festivities during such a ceremony. The imperial couple was not amused and decided to arrange for another council (or at least a gathering of bishops) to confirm the original deposition.62 The council duly did so—on the pretext that he had returned to his see without the annulment of his earlier deposition. Several months of stalemate followed, with John refusing to leave his church until he finally yielded to imperial force on 20 June 404. A consummate player of the ritual game, Eudoxia had become a challenge to John, who was acutely sensitive to his authority in ecclesiastical matters.63 The empress encroached on his territory, not through open challenges but by diverting attention onto herself. Such a transgression of symbolic boundaries (especially by a woman) was hard to bear for the bishop. Neither John nor Eudoxia allowed their ceremonial relationship to settle down, which resulted in a tension that could only end with the elimination of one of the contenders. John was not a match for Eudoxia. Especially when reading the account of Socrates, who was not a great fan of John, but tried to do justice to what he thought were the facts,64 it seems as if John did not know how to play the game.

61. John Chrysostom, Homilia post Reditum (PG 52.444–47). See Ps.-Martyrius, Epitaphios 502a—503b for an impression of John’s entry. 62. Socrates HE 6.18.1–5; Sozomen HE 8.18.5–6. Socrates claims that when John learned about the synod, he called Eudoxia Herodias. Th is sermon is, however, a fake (In Decollationem Iohannis (PG 59.485–90)). 63. See his statement in Hom. 3 in Acta Apostolorum (PG 60.41). 64. Van Nuffelen, Un héritage de paix, 27–37.

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Eudoxia constantly gained the initiative through her dramatic gestures. Although John had huge popular support, he was unable to direct it skillfully: he could not withstand popular pressure to be immediately reinstalled after his first exile, providing his enemies with the legal pretext for his second exile.65 Rather than using his authority to stop the festivities during the dedication of Eudoxia’s statue, he resorted to invective. He did not face the emperor along with the support of the people, as Ambrose of Milan had against Theodosius I, when Arcadius refused to attend the Christmas service in 403 (and then the Easter one as well) and forbade him entrance to church.66 Significantly, John’s strongest weapon, his sermons, was of no avail in this conflict as the imperial couple hardly ever were present to listen to them. On the contrary, his enemies could easily distort his words when reporting them at court. Socrates also suggests a legalist streak in John’s character, in that throughout the troubles of his episcopacy he respected procedures and rules. But being in the right is of little avail: one has to be publicly recognized in having justice on one’s side. And that demanded, I suggest, the skill to play the ritual game. Socrates’ judgment that John was “easy to maneuver because of his simplicity” (HE 6.3.13: δι’ ἁπλότητα . . . εὐχερ ής) probably was not far off the mark. 4. Conclusion The origin of the conflict between Eudoxia and John is often sought in two conflicting conceptions of the role of the emperor (and, by extension, of the imperial couple) in ecclesiastical affairs.67 Apart from betraying the intellectualist assumption that concepts and thoughts are the prime cause of events, even those defending such a view find it difficult to prove that John’s ideas about the emperor were decisively different from those of his contemporaries. What was different, however, was the location of the conflict: Constantinople.68 John’s conflict with Eudoxia illustrates how ceremonies were not merely well-staged exercises in public relations for the emperor: as much as occasions for the display of imperial and ecclesiastical virtue, they could be occasions for challenge and competition, entailing the possibility of gain and the risk of defeat. Personality probably more than ideology (both John and Eudoxia are depicted as hard-headed and stubborn) made it hard for both to develop a balanced, public relationship. The tensions were exacerbated by the unique demands

65. Socrates HE 6.16.9–11; Ps.-Martyrius, Epitaphios 501a. 66. Socrates HE 6.18.7, 12–13; Palladius Dial. 9.126–34. 67. Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 48–78; Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomos, 206–29. 68. Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomos, 204. Groß-Albenhausen, Imperator christianissimus, 202–204, argues that John’s views change depending on the specific situation he fi nds himself in.

200 Van Nuffelen Constantinople placed on the bishop. Permanently confronted with the emperor, the bishop had to know how to play the ritual game and manage the presence of the emperor while not losing his own authority. It is probably not accidental that the two outsiders on the episcopal throne of Constantinople, John Chrysostom and Nestorius, found this a difficult balance to strike: coming from a city, Antioch, without permanent imperial presence since 378, they had had little opportunity to see how one dealt with the emperor. John’s conflict with Eudoxia clearly illustrates that the civic ceremonial that developed in Constantinople from the late fourth century onwards did not simply domesticate the city: while writing imperial presence in the urban structure of Constantinople, it also provided a stage where the relationships between emperor, city, and bishop constantly had to be renegotiated.

PA RT I V

Panegyric

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9

Bright Lights, Big City Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini ROGER REES

1. The Editor Latinius (or Latinus) Pacatus Drepanius was a celebrated figure in late-fourthcentury Gaul. Likely to have been born in Aginium, it is often assumed he became professor of rhetoric at Bordeaux and enjoyed success in both politics and poetry.1 In the political arena, he was proconsul of Africa in 390, and quite probably comes rei privatae in 393; 2 and his poetry was, according to the opinion of his friend and fellow Gaul, Ausonius, surpassed only by Virgil’s.3 We may be as suspicious of Ausonius’ taste in this judgment as we are in reading some of his own poetry, but we have no means of gainsaying him—with the possible exception of a poem entitled De Cereo Paschali, Pacatus’ poetry is lost to us, along with further details of his political career.4 Instead, Pacatus is best known to us now as the author of a prose panegyric delivered to Theodosius at Rome in 389. The speech survives in the collection known as the XII Panegyrici

Most of the work for this contribution was conducted on research leave in 2006, in La Martinie and Mandigant, France. I would like to thank Ted Nixon for his robust criticism of an early draft , and Gavin Kelly for his detailed response to a later one. For various kindnesses, my thanks too to Roy Gibson, Lucy Grig, Tom Harrison, Jill Harries, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Mark Vessey, Stephanie Winder, and Greg Woolf. 1. Sidonius Ep. 8.11.1–2; Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 3:49; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 437; Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 49–51. 2. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” 1079. 3. Ausonius Eclogues, praef. 12. In the same poem Pacatus is characterized as nec doctum minus et magis benignum (“no less learned and more generous,” 8) than Catullus’ dedicatee, Cornelius Nepos. Pacatus was also the addressee of Ausonius’ Technopaegnion, where he is characterized as bonus, doctus, facilis vir (“a good, learned and well-natured man,” 14.21) and Ludus Septem Sapientum, where he is again a doctus vir (“learned man,” 1.16). 4. Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, attributes to Pacatus this poem, previously associated with the ninth-century Florus of Lyon.

203

204 Rees MSS

Date

Author/Emperor

Location

1 2 3

100 389 362

Rome Rome Constantinople

4 5 6 7

321 311 310 307

8 9 10 11 12

297 298 289 291 313

Pliny to Trajan Pacatus to Theodosius Claudius Mamertinus to Julian Nazarius to Constantine Anon. to Constantine Anon. to Constantine Anon. to Constantine and Maximian Anon. to Constantius Eumenius to Constantius Anon. to Maximian Anon. to Maximian Anon. to Constantine

Rome (?) Trier Trier Trier Trier Autun (?) Trier Trier Trier

Latini, and since René Pichon’s suggestion in 1906, Pacatus has widely been accepted as the probable editor of the collection, which is arranged as above.5 It can be a bewildering collection, with such a range of authors, places, emperors, and dates.6 That said, genre and Gaul provide some unity: except Eumenius’, all speeches are formal panegyrics, and Pliny aside, all the orators were either Gallic or spoke in Gaul (or both).7 Pichon’s hypothesis that Pacatus was the collection’s editor is based on the fact that, in argumentation and phrasing, Pacatus was indebted to the other speeches in the collection.8 His recurrent and diverse intertextual engagement with them gives the Panegyrici Latini a distinct collectivity. Further, the position of his speech, the latest in time, as the second in the collection’s order adds weight to the hypothesis that he was the editor—exercising an editor’s prerogative, perhaps in this case in an attempt to promote himself as a sensitive reader and author of accomplished

5. Pichon, Les dernier écrivains profanes, 285–91, “L’origine du recueil des Panegyrici Latini,” 244–49; Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 1:xv–xvi; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 6 and n.18; Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 62–63. On controversies concerning the order of the speeches, see Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 4–5; Barnes, “Emperors, Panegyrics,” 540, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 181–83; Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 20–21, n.79. 6. Studies of the speeches’ ideological content, such as the ethical or religious values they promote, have not identified significant constants: e.g., on virtues, Born, “The Perfect Prince”; Storch, “The XII Panegyrici Latini ”; Seager, “Some Imperial Virtues”; and Lassandro, Sacratissimus imperator, 91–102; on religion, Béranger, “L’expression de la divinité”; Rodgers, “Divine Insinuation.” 7. Pichon, Les dernier écrivains profanes, 29; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 3–8, 146; Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 135–36; Vessey, “Reinventing History,” 272. 8. Pichon, Les dernier écrivains profanes, 137, “L’origine du recueil des Panegyrici Latini,” 244–47; Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 3.60–61; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 6; Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 62–63.

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 205 literary panegyric.9 Even if Pichon’s hypothesis is wrong and somebody else was the collection’s editor, clearly that person, whoever he was, admired Pacatus’ speech, and wanted it to enjoy special critical attention, so prominently placed in the collection.10 The collection’s internal arrangement of speeches has drawn further comment from scholars, as well it might—it is certainly idiosyncratic. Pliny’s Panegyricus is fi rst in manuscript sequence and date, but there is then a great leap in time to Pacatus’ speech, written nearly 300 years later; chronological sequencing is then reversed from Claudius Mamertinus’ speech to Julian through five speeches (4–8) addressed to Constantine, Maximian, and Constantius; chronological order then resumes with Eumenius (9) before a leap back of nine years to the fi rst of two speeches to Maximian (10–11), themselves arranged chronologically; the collection then closes with a leap forward twenty-two years to another speech to Constantine. Abrupt forward and reverse chronological trajectories collide as some orators are named and others remain anonymous; even speeches to Constantine, the collection’s most frequently addressed emperor, are not all grouped together.11 Manuscripts have been fundamental to development of theories about the shape of the final collection. At the head of 5(8) they read incipiunt Panegirici diversorum vii (“seven panegyrics by different hands begin”); then at the end of 5(8) the manuscripts read finit primus incipit secundus, (“the first ends, the second begins”; at the end of 6(7) they read finit secundus incipit tercius (“the second ends, the third begins”), and so on, confirming the sense of a subset within the wider collection.12 On the grounds that, of these seven, the last two in manuscript order (10(2) and 11(3)) are the earliest in time, are in chronological sequence themselves, are both addressed to Maximian, probably in Trier, and are possibly by the same author, it has been suggested that they were originally preserved as a pair themselves; and that in time, to create the “seven,” they were

9. Pichon, “L’origine du recueil des Panegyrici Latini,” 247; Lunn-Rockliffe “Commemorating the Usurper,” 316–17. 10. Accordingly, for convenience in what follows, I accept the theory that Pacatus assembled the collection. I am not persuaded by L’Huillier’s suggestion, based upon the infrequency of vocative addresses in the speech, that Pacatus did not actually deliver his speech (L’empire des mots, 169). 11. Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 1:xi: “La composition singulière de ce recueil ne brille ni par la logique . . . ni par le respect de la chronologie.” Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 64, speculates that the combination of named and anonymous authors signals a hierarchy in selecting and ordering speeches. See Vessey, “Reinventing History,” 272. 12. The first numeral denotes the position of a speech in the MSS, the second (in parenthesis) its chronological position in the collection. Surprisingly, the pattern of finit . . . incipit is broken in the manuscripts between 10(2) and 11(3)—i.e., the sixth and seventh speeches of the subset. Here, it seems, a scribe sought to equate the author of 11(3) with that of 10(2). See Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 193–204.

206 Rees added to the other five (5–11), an origin for which may well have been Autun.13 But a result of this scholarly disentangling of the “seven” has been to downplay any imaginative turn in editorial decisions about the complete collection’s contents and sequence. In effect, the current communis opinio is a mechanistic reconstruction whereby Pacatus added his own speech, and a few others (usually identified as 1(1), 3(11), 4(10) and 12(9)), to a collection that had been evolving in Gaul over several decades, and made no attempt to sequence the contents in a meaningful way. At once, therefore, Pacatus has been identified as the collection’s editor and denied significant editorial discretion. The original editor’s role was further downplayed by the twentieth century’s two magisterial translation and commentary projects on the Panegyrici. Édouard Galletier (1949–55, three volumes) and Ted Nixon and Barbara Saylor Rodgers (1994) distracted attention from the original organization of the collection by resequencing the speeches to produce a chronological order.14 They had sound reasons for this resequencing, as chronological order better articulates a historical narrative within which political, ideological, and cultural changes can be tracked;15 but there are losses as well as gains, since the imposition of a new sequence within a collection serves to efface original editorial design.16 Paradoxically, just as modern commentaries have marginalized Pacatus’ role as editor, recent decades have seen a significant rise in the individual speeches’ stock as works of literary merit. Pliny was concerned about the literary quality of his speech, as his two letters (3.13 and 3.18) which comment on his Panegyricus make clear, and the treatises of Menander Rhetor confirm that in the late third century, epideictic oratory was a skill that tolerated considerable ornamentation.17 The eleven speeches that follow Pliny’s fairly swagger 13. E.g., Brandt, Eumenius von Augustodunum; Pichon, “L’origine du recueil des Panegyrici Latini ”; Baehrens, “Zur quaestio Eumeniana”; Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 1:xi–xiv, xix; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 5; Seeck, “Studien zur Geschichte Diocletians und Constantins,” extended a theory dating back to the sixteenth century attributing to Eumenius not just speech 9(5) but also all of the diversorum vii. The theory of the corpus Eumenianum was dismantled by Pichon. Barnes has recently conjectured that Nazarius, the author of 4(10), took the collection of seven, and put his own at the front and 12(9) at the end, to create a new corpus of nine speeches (Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 183). 14. Galletier’s introduction has a very useful survey of editions and translations of the panegyrics from the fi fteenth to the twentieth centuries, which include several publications that disguised the collection’s original editorial design (1.lvi–lxx). Different authors, for example, excluded Pliny’s Panegyricus or other speeches, or included Pliny’s Letters or Ausonius’ Gratiarum Actio. See Vessey, “Reinventing History,” 273. 15. Both commentary projects exclude Pliny’s Panegyricus to focus on the late antique speeches. 16. In an analogous case, Mary Beard has demonstrated the distracting effect that the resequencing to chronological order in the vast commentary projects by Tyrrell and Purser and by Shackleton Bailey has had on critical appreciation of Cicero’s letters; Beard, “Ciceronian Correspondences,” esp. 106–16. 17. On the style of Pliny’s Panegyricus, see Gamberini, Stylistic Theory; Rees, “Pliny’s Paradoxical Trajan”; Hutchinson, “Politics and the Sublime”; on the education of Late Antiquity’s panegyrical orators, Russell, “The Panegyrists and Their Teachers.”

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 207 along, the relative brevity of most of them a relief after his gargantuan effort, their frequent allusions to the canonical greats such as Cicero and Virgil a hallmark of literary panache.18 In the apparent absence of other integrated political or ideological motivations, literary factors have been asserted as the fundamental qualification for inclusion in the collection. Nixon and Rodgers observe unequivocally “The rationale for the collection was clearly literary . . . it served no political or historical purpose.”19 According to this, the collection could then have served as an educational aid, as models to inspire students of rhetoric—that is, to be a handbook of working examples of good panegyrical practice, ultimately to function similarly to treatises such as Menander Rhetor’s.20 A relevant (and frustrating) unknown is the original distribution of the collection—if it were intended to sit in the short loan section of the libraries of rhetorical schools, its reach would be much more limited than if a copy of it were (also) forwarded to the imperial court or courts.21 But even if the original circulation was not wide, an ideologically charged collection could still have functioned as an opinion-former as readily as it could as an exemplar of good rhetorical practice. No doubt there was a qualifying standard of literary sophistication for inclusion in the collection, but even so, certain oddities in the Panegyrici Latini remain unaccounted for:22 the inclusion of anonymous speeches concerned with episodes by 389 long since gathering dust, including two (4 and 12) celebrating the same event (the Battle of the Milvian Bridge of 312), and the idiosyncratic, apparently chaotic sequence of the speeches. The result is that Pacatus is characterized as a magpie collector of old speeches, more eccentric than Ausonius gives away in his insistent image of a learned, good, generous and well-natured friend. It is the combination of Pacatus’ personal and perhaps representative aspirations under the emperor Theodosius in 389 and the potential for carefully edited literary collections to be more than the sum of their parts that prompt

18. On literary qualities, Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 1:xxx–xxxvii; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 14–26; on aspects of rhetoric, L’Huillier, L’empire des mots; on clausulae, Oberhelman and Hall, “A New Statistical Analysis” and “Meter in Accentual Clausulae”; on Ciceronian models, Klotz, “Studien zu den Panegyrici Latini ”; on Virgilian intertexts, Rees, “Praising in Prose.” 19. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 7, reprised at 33; accepted by Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 22, and Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 64. 20. Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 64, suggests that the variety of occasions the speeches celebrate might also have been the inspiration for their selection—the resulting collection thus encompassing a range of working examples. 21. Current knowledge of the immediate afterlife of the collection is too thin to support confident speculation about its original distribution; Rees, “Pliny’s Paradoxical Trajan,” n.3; Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 84. 22. On lost speeches, Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 19.

208 Rees this reconsideration of Pacatus’ selection for and structuring of the XII Panegyrici Latini.23 Turcan-Verkerk recently suggested that, with Pliny’s Panegyricus (1(1)) addressed to an emperor of Spanish origin and a speech celebrating the victory of the first Christian emperor (12(9)), the collection’s opening and close were carefully synthesized for the Spanish Christian Theodosius.24 Without denying the collection an educational function or literary value, this attractive insight identifies ideological-political significance in editorial decisions about the collection’s bookends. But can an ideological-political reading extend to the fundamental editorial decisions of selection and arrangement of all the collection’s speeches? It must start with Pacatus addressing Theodosius, at Rome. 2. The Speeches Pacatus on Theodosius (2(12))

By the time Pacatus delivered his panegyric, Theodosius had been emperor for ten years. According to Pacatus, it was when Theodosius had been elevated to the throne on 19 January 379, that Romana lux (“Roman light”) had begun to shine (2(12).3.2). On his accession, Theodosius was thirty-three, with considerable military experience behind him, including the positions of dux Moesiae and magister equitum.25 From his accession until autumn 380, Theodosius was based in Thessalonica, overseeing the campaign against the Goths; in November 380, he moved to Constantinople. In the west, the emperor Gratian based his court in northern Italy, for the most part with his half-brother Valentinian II (an emperor since 375 but still only nine years old in 380 and under the thumb of his mother, Justina). But in the summer of 383, the Spanish soldier and comes Britanniarum Magnus Maximus invaded Gaul from Britain; Gratian was preparing his military response to the usurpation, and he looked set for a battle near Paris, when he was forced to flee southward again by the defection to Maximus of some of his key officers. Gratian was overtaken and killed at Lyon on 25 August 383. There was little that Valentinian, aged twelve and now the head of the imperial court at Milan, and Theodosius, occupied with

23. Beard (“Ciceronian Correspondences”) urged that critical assessment of ancient book organization should not be limited to poetry collections, where its artful effects have been recognized for decades, such as in the case of Horace, Virgil, and the Augustan elegists, but extended to prose collections. See, for example, Arethusa 13.1 (1980), dedicated to Augustan poetry books, or more recently, Gaertner, Ovid. Epistulae ex Ponto Book 1, 2–5, with further bibliography. 24. Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 65. 25. There are considerable scholarly differences: Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 88–100; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 517–19; Sivan, “Was Theodosius I a Usurper?”; and Errington, “The Accession of Theodosius I.”

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 209 negotiations with Persia, could do; and Maximus was able to extend and consolidate his rule in Britain, Spain, and Gaul, with his court at Trier.26 No doubt Valentinian and Theodosius were keen to gauge the level of support for Maximus that there was in the west. A period of brittle peace ended in the summer of 387, when Maximus invaded northern Italy. Valentinian had no realistic hope of meeting the challenge and fled to Theodosius, while Maximus moved his court to Milan. The following summer, Theodosius mobilized his forces against the usurper, and Maximus was killed at Aquileia. In the aftermath, Valentinian could be restored. Theodosius journeyed from Thessalonica to Emona to Aquileia to Milan; and from there in the summer of 389, for the first time in his life, to Rome, where he stayed from 13 June to 30 August.27 It was during this stay that Pacatus delivered his panegyric; perhaps this was the first opportunity western Gaul had had to voice its reaction to the defeat of Maximus. The political stakes could hardly have been higher as Pacatus rose to speak. Theodosius’ stay at Rome coincided with the first anniversary of the victory over Maximus. Pacatus does not mention any celebration, but there may well have been some formal recognition of the success;28 Pacatus may, too, have taken his lead from several of the earlier speeches that include narratives of imperial victories secured some time previously, because narrative of and reflections on Theodosius’ campaign against Maximus take up about half of the speech (chapters 23–46).29 This seems a very considered maneuver on Pacatus’ part, himself a Gaul: to dwell at length on the province’s delight at Theodosius’ victory as a means of overriding suspicion about Gallic loyalty to the imperial center appears an entirely diplomatic procedure. In fact, the province had a markedly checkered history of loyalty to the imperial center, and over the decades there must have been plenty of panegyrics delivered to usurpers in the many cities of Gaul.30 Although, as with speeches to “legitimate” emperors, nothing is known of their survival after delivery, their exclusion from the XII should hardly be considered coincidental, but could suggest instead, against current orthodoxy, that criteria other than the purely literary were borne in mind when the collection was assembled. By itself, Pacatus’ speech purports to

26. Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 173–82, 223–25. 27. te urbi dies primus invexerit (“the day that fi rst brought you to the city,” 47.3). Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 443. 28. See Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 514, on 46.4 triumphum. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 310; Sogno, Q. Aurelius Symmachus, 120. 29. See 8(4) (297) on Constantius’ victory over Allectus in 296, and 4(10) and 12(9) (321 and 313, respectively) on Constantine’s successful Italian campaign of 312. 30. E.g., Postumus, Tetricus, Carausius, Magnentius, Decentius, Silvanus, and Magnus Maximus.

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articulate Gallic delight that Theodosius conquered Maximus; collectively, the Panegyrici could be seen to boast an enduring record of Gallic loyalty.31 Pacatus addressed Theodosius in the Senate House (1.3–4). The celebrations at Rome, if such they were, would not have been without sharp political animus; an unprecedented visit by the emperor of the east to the urbs aeterna, spiritual heartland of the western empire. The vivid combination of Pacatus’ personal elation and his professed devotion to Theodosius is apparent from his opening chapter to his close. At the outset he attempts an elaborate conceit (Pan. Lat. 2(12).1.2): nam cum te semper ultra omnes retro principes laudari oportuerit, nunc porro ultra quam alias praedicatus es in ea urbe conveniat dicendo celebrari, cuius et libertatem armatus adseruisti et auxisti dignitatem togatus, quo tandem modo consequi maiestatem utriusque vestrum oratione mea potero hoc praecipue in tempore, quo ita mutuo ambo crevistis, ut nec tu fueris adhuc maior nec illa felicior? For since it was right before to praise you beyond all emperors, from now on let it be proper to celebrate you in speech, more than you have been acclaimed in other places, in that city whose liberty you have defended under arms and whose dignity you have increased wearing a toga; how will I be able to match the majesty of both of you in my speech, particularly at this time when both of you [i.e., Theodosius and Rome] have so grown together that you have never been greater and the city more blessed? It is a commonplace of panegyric for the speaker at the outset to confess rhetorical inadequacy, but Pacatus’ words here have very topical urgency, invigorating a potentially hackneyed formula. The exaltation of Theodosius elevates him beyond his fellow emperor, Valentinian II;32 and his presence in Rome is presented as the culmination of his and the city’s glory. At the speech’s close, Pacatus reprises the sentiment of the inextricability of emperor and city in sharper, more explicit terms (Pan.Lat. 2(12).47.5): Romam vidi, Theodosium vidi, et utrumque simul vidi; vidi illum principis patrem, vidi illum principis vindicem, vidi illum principis restitutorem! I have seen Rome, I have seen Theodosius, and I have seen both of them together; I have seen that father of an emperor, I have seen that avenger of an emperor, I have seen that restorer of an emperor.

31. Pichon, Les dernier écrivains profanes, 36; Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 23; Vessey, “Reinventing History,” 270–71. 32. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 310–11.

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 211 Arcadius, Theodosius’ son, had been referred to earlier in the speech (16.4), as had Gratian, the emperor killed by Maximus (24.4, 28.5, 42.3).33 However, this is the speech’s only reference to Valentinian II, and the reminder that he owed his rule to Theodosius is an assertive note on which to close the speech. Pacatus’ insistence on the importance of Theodosius’ presence in Rome, which was part of Valentinian’s territory, might also have endeared him to the senators who sat in audience to his speech. This focus on Rome and Theodosius brings the speech full-circle and, furthermore, Pacatus claims, his witnessing of city and emperor together will make him something of a celebrity back in  Gaul (46.5–6).34 The exaggeration is manifest, but the essential conceit is founded upon Theodosius and Rome (utrumque simul, 47.5, echoing maiestatem utriusque, 1.2) as ideological landmarks, to the pointed exclusion or marginalization of Milan, Valentinian II, and Constantinople. Pacatus’ speech presents the empire as a community of cities looking to Rome and Theodosius for their lead, and in the tense context of 389, this model exerts considerable political leverage. Almost three centuries before, when Pliny wrote his Panegyricus to Trajan, the emperor’s presence in Rome had been conventional and, of itself, unremarkable; and Pliny elaborated praise out of the civilis nature of Trajan’s original adventus there (a quality implicitly to contrast with Domitian’s tyranny).35 In 389, Pacatus cast Theodosius as a civilis princeps (47.3), modeled, it seems, on Pliny’s picture of Trajan.36 The echo of Pliny’s quendam triumphum [sed] de superbia principum egisti (Panegyricus 22.2) in nunc de superbia triumpharis (47.3) adds more than inter-textual richness;37 it revives an aspect of a political culture from a time gone by and works to normalize what was by 389 extraordinary. The argument for Trajan’s civilitas in Pliny is recurrent and exhaustive, and the equivalent in the speech of 389 is much less elaborate, but the fact that Pacatus holds it back to a climactic position in the final chapter is a measure of its importance.

33. Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 3:114, and Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 515–16, identify the fi rst principis here as Honorius, but as Gavin Kelly pointed out to me, Honorius was not yet emperor in 389. 34. Vessey, “Reinventing History,” 272: “Only Pacatus, of this Gallic company, could truly rub shoulders with Pliny, having, like him, spoken in the sacred presence of the emperor himself and in the Eternal City.” 35. Wallace-Hadrill, “Civilis Princeps”; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 515; Rees, “Pliny’s Paradoxical Trajan.” 36. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus, 234. Also in a Roman context, Theodosius’ civilitas was to be urged again in 404 by Claudian 6Cos. 59. The questions of how Theodosius knew it diplomatic to demonstrate civilitas in Rome and/or how Pacatus and Claudian knew it worthy to be memorialized must remain moot, but the congruence of the texts suggests deliberately managed presentation rather than careless or subconscious echo. 37. Panegyricus 22.2: “you performed a sort of triumph, but over the arrogance of emperors”; Pacatus 47.3: “now you triumph over arrogance.” Pichon, “L’origine du recueil des Panegyrici Latini,” 244–45.

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Seen in this light, the inclusion in the collection of Pliny’s otherwise anomalous Panegyricus makes perfect sense—as a radical work of epideixis, and the source of much pride to Pliny, it could be a literary exemplar certainly, but at the same time it could serve as a normative authority on ideological aspects of being a Roman emperor. By including it and giving it primacy, Pacatus enshrined its terms as canonical; and then by shadowing and even echoing them, he accepted those terms himself in his very different political climate. Rome is central to the argument: quietly taken for granted by Pliny, but in the changed circumstances of his own time more consciously, and more pointedly, urged by Pacatus is the idea that imperial legitimacy (or superiority, in the case of a multiplicity of emperors) is best staged and celebrated at Rome. In summer 389, the argument was delicately coercive, since Theodosius had made the effort to be in Rome, but had been based in Constantinople for almost a decade, the first emperor since Constantine to have lived there long term. The juxtaposition of the two speeches at the head of the collection makes more conspicuous the ideological continuity that Pacatus’ speech asserts—that is, an editorial design seems to be at work, and an assertion of Rome seems to be part of its thrust. Claudius Mamertinus on Julian (3(11))

After Pacatus’ speech, the collection reverses its chronology with a panegyric delivered to Julian in 362.38 That it survived the twenty-seven years before the collection can first have been put together was probably largely due to the consul prior for that year, Claudius Mamertinus, who wrote it—that is, it is reasonable to assume that he, like Pliny before him, was pleased with his speech and its preservation was his deliberate intention.39 The hypothesis is supported by the fact that, although it seems most likely that Claudius Mamertinus was Gallic, the speech was delivered in Constantinople, far from Gaul—that it was available in Gaul in 389 can hardly have been accidental.40 The speech was delivered on 1 January 362, in front of Julian, who himself had only been in the city for three weeks, and the Senate of Constantinople, which had many new members as a result of the recruitment drive initiated by Constantius II and undertaken by Themistius. They came from the curial

38. Blockley, “The Panegyric of Claudius Mamertinus.” 39. Pacatus’ literary debt to Claudius Mamertinus can be seen in various echoes—see Pichon, “L’origine du recueil des Panegyrici Latini,” 244; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 6–7. 40. On Claudius Mamertinus, Lieu, The Emperor Julian, 4–6; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 386–89; García Ruiz, Claudio Mamertino. Panegírico, 22–24. It seems from the echo of 3(11).30.1 in posteros venturis saeculis vix credenda miracula in Symmachus’ panegyric of 368/69, at Trier (Or. 3.5 viserent posteri vix credenda miracula) that Claudius Mamertinus’ speech was available in northeastern Gaul within six or seven years of its delivery at Constantinople.

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 213 classes of eastern cities, and generally owed their new appointments to their work in the imperial service rather than to any ancestral wealth.41 Unlike his emperor, Claudius Mamertinus was quite possibly not bilingual; the majority of his senatorial audience would have been dominant Greek speakers who had learned enough Latin to conduct their work in the imperial administration.42 Therefore, much as a consular gratiarum actio was commonplace, when Claudius Mamertinus rose to address the new emperor and the new senators in Constantinople in Latin, there can have been very little that felt familiar. Although he made some conventional introductory remarks about his own lack of eloquence, Claudius Mamertinus offered no apology for his language.43 In addition, where a more diplomatic visitor from the west might have paid a deferential tribute to Greek eloquence, his apparently flattering exclamation o facundia potens Graecia! (“O Greece, powerfully eloquent!” 8.1) is made to look sneeringly insincere by the focus on exaggeration and mythologizing that he cited as examples of this national trait. If this took some brass neck, Claudius Mamertinus showed even greater daring when he used his Latinity to poke some fun at Julian’s predecessor Constantius II.44 Julian had been sole emperor for less than two months when Claudius Mamertinus spoke at Constantinople in thanks for his consulship.45 Although he had been born in Constantinople some thirty years earlier, Julian had spent little of his adult life there, and he had been acclaimed emperor by his troops in the west. Further, after the death, by illness, of his cousin and imperial rival, Constantius II, on 3 November 361, Julian had set up a court at Chalcedon to try those suspected of malpractice under Constantius.46 Julian did not serve on the panel of judges himself, but his emerging favorite Claudius Mamertinus did, and the sentences passed were ruthless. Thus, some of the senate in attendance at the speech on 1 January would have been distinctly suspicious of the new emperor and his Latin-speaking sidekick consul. Confident in Julian’s approval of him, Claudius Mamertinus made minimal effort to allay the senate’s likely diffidence and instead neatly ridiculed the city’s name and Constantius’ lack of political judgment. First the city is cast as nominis novi sed antiquissimae nobilitatis (“of new name but most ancient nobility,” 2.3), a mealy-mouthed reference to the renaming of Byzantium by the father of Constantius II (at least according

41. Heather, “New Men for New Constantines?” 12–13; Jones, Later Roman Empire, 133–34. 42. Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, 13–25, 84–93. 43. 3(11).1.1–2; Lieu, The Emperor Julian, Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, García Ruiz, Claudio Mamertino. Panegírico, ad loc. 44. Cf. Pichon, Les dernier écrivains profanes, 118–21. 45. Lieu, The Emperor Julian, 3; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 397; García Ruiz, Claudio Mamertino. Panegírico, 22. 46. Lieu, The Emperor Julian, 3–4; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 435; García Ruiz, Claudio Mamertino. Panegírico, 22.

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to the stipulations on birthplace set down by Menander Rhetor’s basilikos logos). Then, in the following chapter, Claudius Mamertinus punned in Latin to accentuate the moral weakness of Julian’s predecessor (Pan. Lat. 3(11).3.2): testor immortalem deum, testor ad vicem numinis mihi sanctam conscientiam meam me multa constanter in hac potissimum urbe fuisse dicturum de his quae adversus optimum imperatorem inclementer et impie cogitata atque suscepta sunt, si etiamnunc hominum coetus divus Constantius frequentaret. I summon as witness the immortal god; instead of a divinity I summon my own conscience, sacred to me, that in this city above all I would have said many things with constancy about those intemperate and faithless schemes pursued against the best of Emperors, if even now divine Constantius lived amongst men. In Constantinople, in front of Constantius, Claudius Mamertinus would have spoken with constancy about the iniquities facing Julian. There are parallels for playing on imperial names in surviving panegyric, including as a possible inspiration for Mamertinus a commendation of the constantia of Constantius I, but the mockery in the consul’s tone in 362 is unusual in the genre and bold in the performance context.47 The consul was more tactful than to vaunt Rome over Constantinople explicitly, but his anecdote about Julian’s concern for grain supply in 358 subtly insists upon the emperor’s concern for both cities—in the speech’s setting in Constantinople, this may have seemed an assertive reminder of the existence and importance of the ancient capital (14.5–6). In the lines that follow, Mamertinus defended his appointment to the consulship with an elliptical comment about Rome’s obedience to Julian (15.4), and then extended his reference to the ancient city with details about Republican electioneering procedures (16). Like Pacatus a generation later, Claudius Mamertinus made particular play of his addressee’s civilitas.48 In fact, the virtue is elaborated on three occasions: first, when the consul observes that Julian has “gained in civilitas” (civilior factus, 27.3) by becoming emperor; secondly, in reference to his “modest attitude” in the imperial court earlier that day (civilis animi, 28.1); and finally, at the beginning of the peroration when Julian’s civilitas is linked with his justice and moderation (iuste, moderate, civiliter, 31.1).49 In the context of the XII Panegyrici, this insistence on Julian’s civilitas extends the virtue’s importance into the

47. Pan. Lat. 8(4).14.3; 12(9).2.1; Ausonius, Grat. Act. expands on his grates to Gratian. For constanter, see also 3(11).21.5 and constantis 26.1. 48. See above at n.35. 49. García Ruiz, Claudio Mamertino. Panegírico, 147.

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 215 collection’s third consecutive speech; what marks this as particularly deliberate on the editor’s behalf is that no other surviving panegyric dated to the years between Pliny’s and Claudius Mamertinus’ extols the quality.50 Sandwiching Pacatus’ speech, the two provide authoritative precedents for his own acclamation of civilitas, in Theodosius. But in the setting of Constantinople in 362, Claudius Mamertinus’ concentration on Julian’s civilitas, newly increased he claims, will also have constituted a lesson in appropriate imperial deportment, not so much for Julian’s benefit as for his senators’, themselves only recently recruited;51 Julian’s purported demeanor in the orator’s narrative replay of his approach on foot to the curia functions as a precisely timed rehearsal of traditional Roman imperial protocol (28–30). This careful revival of the civilitas so admired by Pliny in Trajan replaces the developments in imperial ceremonial in the later third and fourth centuries; at the same time, it asserts a model of traditional western emperorship in the very center of eastern power. In ambition and detail, Mamertinus’ was an assured, cocky display. The cumulative effect of his brazen Latinity and his concomitant, unashamedly western perspectives was an insistence on Rome, itself tantamount to a downplaying of Constantinople—the consul colonized Constantinople with his Latin flag and claimed it in the name of the west. For Pacatus, addressing at Rome the emperor usually based at Constantinople, Claudius Mamertinus’ Latin speech from Constantinople would be an ideal counterpoint, placed third in the collection for optimum effect. Nazarius on Constantine (4(10))

The author of the fourth speech is named Nazarius in the manuscript title, and is generally identified with a famous rhetor and a professor mentioned by Jerome and Ausonius, respectively.52 What is not clear is where Nazarius came from or where he delivered his speech, although Gaul and Rome, respectively, are strong possibilities. The speech is securely dated to 321, when, of course, there was as yet no Constantinople to rival Rome, but in truth Constantine had spent little time in Rome since defeating Maxentius and was not even there to hear Nazarius in person (3.1).53 Nonetheless, the speech was addressed to him, and was dominated by narrative of his campaign against Maxentius, culminating with the battle of the Milvian Bridge, in 312. Why Nazarius focused on events from nine years before remains a mystery—perhaps he felt that matters

50. Rees, “The Private Lives of Public Figures,” 93. 51. On panegyric as protreptic, see Braund, “Praise and Protreptic.” 52. Jerome Chron. s.a. 324, Aus. Prof. Burd. 4; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 334–38; Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 183–84. 53. Constantine had been twice at Rome as emperor when Nazarius spoke, October 312–January 313, and July–September 315; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 385, n.181.

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from intervening years, such as Constantine’s first clash with Licinius, were less appropriate—but if he delivered his address in Rome, his glorification of Constantine’s recovery of the city would certainly have been apposite. At the same time, the gushing note on which Nazarius closed, begging the emperor to make Rome felicior by blessing the city with his presence (38.6), may have been thought the more likely to succeed for the lengths Nazarius took earlier in the speech to document Constantine’s liberation and enrichment of Rome (e.g., 3.3, 27.5, 31.1, 33.6).54 Three separate apostrophes to the city (13.1, 26.5, 35.1), elaborate description of Constantine’s improvements to the city (35.4–5), and strident echoes of Virgil (whose canonical Aeneid enshrined the foundation of Rome55) are marked rhetorical conceits to embellish the ideological argument that Rome is “the citadel of all peoples and the queen of nations” (arcem omnium gentium et terrarum reginam, 35.1) and the only appropriate place for a true emperor to be. Pacatus’ speech, too, included narrative of his emperor’s victory over a western usurper—the parallels are precise, the accumulated argument cogent. By the time the collection was put together nearly seventy years after Nazarius had spoken, Rome did not enjoy the political clout it once had, but the inclusion of the speech would have added historical authority to Pacatus’ claim on Theodosius at Rome. Anonymous on Constantine (12(9))

Constantine’s successful campaign to recover Rome from Maxentius is also the subject of the final panegyric in the collection, 12(9). The speech is much shorter than Nazarius,’ but like his, it is markedly deferential toward the city and quick to approach a poetic, Virgilian register.56 The city is sacred (1.1), a model of oratory (1.2), and had been in need of liberation from Maxentius (2.4, 3.3), enjoyed majesty (3.7, 15.1, 16.2), and had stretched suppliant hands toward Constantine (14.2). Fittingly, the city is apostrophized too (20.3). Elevating as these features are, the speech’s inclusion by Pacatus is significant, if the assumption is right that he had many panegyrics from which to choose for his collection.57 Although it is very likely that 12(9) was delivered in Trier, it is not part of the manuscripts’ diversorum vii, themselves focused on Trier and Autun.58 Interestingly, too, much as the (anonymous) author of 12(9) knew the “seven” (as intertexts from all but one of them prove59), and in turn, Pacatus

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

N.B. Pacatus’ designation of Rome as felicior for Theodosius’ presence (1.2), quoted above. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 338; Rees, “Praising in Prose,” 39–44. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 289; Rees, “Praising in Prose,” 39–44. Rees, “Latin Panegyric,” 144. See above, n.13; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 289–90. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 289.

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 217 borrowed extensively from him, no debt to this speech has been traced in the other two works in the collection that postdate it—that is, those of Nazarius and Claudius Mamertinus.60 This distinctive record of survival and influence would seem to reveal a very conscious selection of the speech on Pacatus’ behalf; from a wide range available, he chose an old speech that was not canonical. That 12(9) covers much the same ground as Nazarius’ speech demands extra pause for thought, as the recovery of Rome in 312 is therefore the only event in the XII to be the centerpiece of two speeches. Its position as the last of the XII is also conspicuous since, delivered in 313, its placement disrupts the essentially reverse chronological momentum the collection builds from Pacatus’ speech onward. The effect of this is for the two speeches on the recovery of Rome to sandwich the diversorum vii, which in three stages maintain the reverse chronological trajectory. In this way, the deliberate separation of speeches 4(10) and 12(9) by the diversorum vii serves to accentuate the iteration of the recovery of Rome and in retroversion makes the collection’s closing note resonate with Nazarius. Viewed as such, 12(9) is an indispensable component in the structuring of the collection to function as more than the sum of its parts.61 The Diversorum vii (5(8)–11(3))

Within the so-called diversorum vii, the reverse chronological trajectory established by the preceding three speeches is maintained in the fi rst instance with speeches from 311 (5(8)), 310 (6(7)) and 307 (7(6));62 there are then two pairs of speeches, with the internal sequence of each pair chronological—8(4) dated to 297 and 9(5) to 298, and 10(2) and 11(3) to 289 and 291, respectively.63 The effect of this organization of the seven is to present them as three subgroups, the first consisting of three speeches to Constantine, the second a pair to his father Constantius (the first directly, the second via an official), and finally a pair to Constantius’ father-in-law Maximian. The seven came from east and northeast Gaul, many decades before Pacatus was born; how he came to select these speeches—by appropriating an earlier collection wholesale, or by selecting each one on its individual merits—is probably intractable, but one effect of their inclusion in the XII is to extend the temporal and geographical range of Gallic loyalty to Rome as an ideological-political icon far beyond

60. Ibid., 6. 61. See above, n.24, for Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, on the selection and position of this speech. Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 183, also notes the speech’s position. 62. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 179–85; 212–14; 255–56. 63. Barnes, “Emperors, Panegyrics”; Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 20–21.

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Pacatus’ Bordeaux of 389.64 This selection prioritizes Gallic commitment to three generations of an imperial house, an important ideological point that, as demonstrated above, Pacatus made in his own way to Theodosius; within the context of the XII, bookended by the Milvian Bridge narratives, the sequence draws attention to the fluctuating politics of Gaul in the run-up to 312 and the steady reliability of the Gallic response. Of the diversorum vii, the three speeches to Constantine were addressed during Maxentius’ reign at Rome (306–12); these six years saw frequent changes in diplomatic relations between the various claimants to the throne, including Maximian, father of Maxentius and after 307, father-in-law to Constantine. The speeches, almost certainly delivered at Trier, plot some of these fluctuations, and as a trio, they demonstrate the persistence of Gallic devotion to Constantine in the tense years of Maxentius’ occupation of Rome. The city features very little in the speeches of 311 and 310. In 311, the orator has a decided emphasis on urban culture in general, reminding Constantine of the role played by Autun since Roman colonization of Gaul, the city now renamed Flavia in dedication to Constantine (5(8).1.1, 14.5). Constantine himself is labeled dominus urbium (14.5), but Rome is nowhere mentioned. The speech from 310 celebrated the birthday of the city of Trier (6(7).22.4), and Constantine’s presence alone is said to inspire cities to grow (22.6). The speaker’s belief that Trier’s Circus Maximus rivals the Roman version (22.5) more exposes his provincial naivety than scores a telling hit for Gaul or Constantine, and overall the lack of reference to Rome in these two speeches, no doubt a diplomatic response to Maxentius’ ongoing control of the city, generates a sense of unfulfi lled political ambition, an uncomfortable void filled by parochial preoccupations. The third speech of the three, that of 307, essentially ignores Maxentius but nonetheless uses Rome to applaud Maximian’s return to power after his retirement from office in 305. With unusual precision, the orator refers to Maximian’s first two visits to Rome, moving effortlessly from the joy of the Roman people to personification of the city itself (7(6).8.7–865). The emotional pitch is raised further in a passage of prosopopoeia, in which a suppliant Rome is seen to have begged Maximian to come out of retirement, contrasting the discharge from duty he had granted himself with the freedom (libertas) the city had lost—a reference, it seems, to Maxentius’ rule as a tyranny (11.1). Rome, apostrophized as the domina gentium (11.7), is said to be in Maximian’s debt for his acquiescence 64. The intertextual relationships between some of the “seven,” and the fact that Nazarius and Claudius Mamertinus seem to have known them, incline me to the conclusion that they existed as (part of?) a collection long before Pacatus included them in his XII. We should remember that if Pacatus lifted speeches from an earlier collection, he still had the opportunity to select and organize them according to his own wishes within the XII. 65. In 298/99 and 303–304; Nixon, “The Panegyric of 307”; cf. Barnes, New Empire 58–60; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 201–202.

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 219 to the request. In this insistent and dramatic argument, the orator brashly invokes Rome as the authorizing agent of imperial legitimacy, validating the rule of Maximian and casting his son Maxentius as a usurper from whom the city wants to be freed. The trio of speeches reveals the role of Rome—as an actuality and an icon—amid some difficult cold-war posturing. Throughout, political loyalty is to individuals not places, and the three speeches document Gaul’s obdurate commitment to Constantine; but at the same time, the works are premised on the sense that for Constantine’s imperial ideal to be fully realized, Rome needs to be recovered. Placed after Nazarius’ speech in the collection, the speeches give testimony to why Constantine’s campaign against Maxentius was necessary. The remaining four speeches from the diversorum vii are in a sense from a different era, a less fraught one, but still they reveal a province in an unsettled, transitional phase. Trier was gaining prestige as Gaul’s capital, and served as Maximian’s imperial seat until 293, and thereafter for Constantius.66 Rome itself was not yet held by Maxentius, but neither was it a tetrarchic capital. Eumenius, the orator of the speech from 298, sought imperial permission to invest in the school at Autun, perhaps the location for his speech.67 His argument mentions a temple at Rome (9(5).7), but more generally appeals to a policy of provincial urban renewal (16.5, 18.1–2, 18.4–5). In 297, the orator who narrates the recovery of Britain from Allectus contrasts Constantius’ active pursuit of glory in the field with the luxury of staying at Rome that, he says, earlier emperors had enjoyed (8(4).14.1–3).68 Otherwise, the two orators ignore Rome to focus on affairs in Gaul, perhaps unsure how to respond at length to the ancient city’s new status. The earliest of the diversorum vii, the speeches of 289 and 291, document a different phase again. Trier is assumed to have been the location for the delivery of both speeches, addressed to Maximian, in the time of his Dyarchy with Diocletian.69 This was early in Maximian’s reign—early, that is, in Trier’s period as a provincial capital—but the idea of Rome is fundamental to both. The occasion for the speech of 289 was Rome’s birthday, 21 April; in a neatly circular structure, Rome is the starting and end point (10(2).1.1, 13.1). The city, cast as the domina gentium (“mistress of nations,” 1.4, 14.3) and imperii vestri mater (“mother of your rule,” 14.4), legitimizes the emperors, and the orator insistently imagines their presence there (13.4, 14.1, 14.4). In fact, in 289, Maximian was yet to visit Rome.70 It also seems likely from the curious topographical

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

Barnes, New Empire, 56–61. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 146–48. Cecconi, “Delicata Felicitas.” Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 27–94. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 74 and above n.65.

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details of Rome that the orator mentions that he himself was not familiar with the city and relied on borrowed knowledge.71 That a speech occasioned by Rome’s birthday, when neither speaker nor addressee had been there, should be so premised upon the city’s status as the home of empire is particularly revealing of the ideological hold Rome had over notions of imperium. Little had changed two years later: the orator (perhaps the same man72) notes how Rome, again the gentium domina and now also the sedes imperii (“seat of empire,” 11(3).12.1–2), had strained to catch a glimpse of the emperors when they met in Milan. In the closing lines, the speaker foresees Maximian’s victory in a forthcoming sea battle with Carausius in terms of the naval trophies that will adorn the rostra at Rome, an imaginative conceit weakened by his location of the rostra in the Campus Martius (19.673)—again it seems, an appeal to Rome as the rightful place of empire was irresistible, even if some of the detail was shaky. The diversorum vii document the response of the provincial elite to a changing political landscape over a thirty-year period, starting a century before Pacatus included them in his collection. What precisely Rome meant to Gaul in those three decades of change is impossible to say, other than that the seven speeches in various ways share a vague and sometimes naïve dedication to the city as the heartland of their cultural identity and political loyalty, even when occupied by a hostile party. None is as direct or insistent as the capital city panegyrics in the collection, but together they are indicative of Gaul’s enduring commitment, even when facing adversity, to the idea and reality of Rome; but when seen in the context of the framing speeches 4(10) and 12(9) celebrating the battle of the Milvian Bridge, the commitment to the idea and reality of Rome is seen to be conditional—conditional that is, on the right emperor controlling the city. This was, of course, the perfect principle for Pacatus to be seen to be supporting. The diversorum vii are ideally placed to set the precedent. 3. Conclusions Of Theodosius’ extended stay in Rome in 389, Neil McLynn remarks: “His purpose was to establish himself and his dynasty as the focus of political authority.”74 Primed or not (we do not know), Pacatus responded in his speech—and his subsequent collection—by championing the claim and adding his own Gallic perspective. The literary caliber of these twelve speeches can be seen to work in

71. The Ara Maxima and the Palatine (1.3); the pomerium (13.2); the temples of Jupiter Stator and Hercules Victor (13.4). 72. Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 193–204. 73. Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 103. 74. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 310.

Pacatus and the Panegyrici Latini 221 tandem with a political-ideological motivation. If the collection is viewed as a self-conscious advertisement of Gallic Latinity and at the same time a manifesto for Gaul’s clear preference for Rome over Constantinople (as for Theodosius over Valentinian II), persuasive sense can be made of its most puzzling features. Five of the speeches are to Constantine, but all predate the consecration of Constantinople. Pacatus’ aside, one speech only postdates 326, and that is the impudent assertion of western, Latin culture that Claudius Mamertinus delivered in Constantinople itself. Pliny’s Panegyricus is privileged as a benchmark of generic achievement and imperial conduct—Trajan was of course optimus in Late Antiquity.75 Pacatus’ speech comes second with self-regard as part of the agenda no doubt, but juxtaposed with Pliny’s to argue for Theodosius’ excellence by reference to the traditional standards articulated by Pliny. The speech to Julian is an insidious assertion of western superiority over Constantinople, safe in the knowledge of the speaker’s good standing with that emperor; and the inclusion of two speeches celebrating the recovery of Rome, separated by seven speeches giving readings from the Gallic political barometer in the decades running up to 312, affirms and celebrates Constantine’s success at the Milvian Bridge as a— even the—decisive moment in imperial history. The success of any anthology of multiple authors’ work is dependant to some extent on the intrinsic quality of individual contributions, but an editor has the potential to generate meaningful textual, thematic, and structural connections that overarch the particular and enhance the collective. In the case of the Panegyrici, the editor’s inclusion of the other eleven speeches gives the critical reader the means to evaluate their intertextual and thematic connections; at the same time, the selection of twelve speeches, rather than, say, eleven or thirteen, suggests the editor’s affiliation to a compositional technique canonized in classical literary aesthetics. The powerful collectivity of the XII Panegyrici Latini is effected by three means: the selection of speeches, their arrangement, and their internal economy of allusive connections. Pacatus’ editorial achievement is to have marshaled an organic collectivity, itself promoting a sense that his speech is somehow a literary culmination of Gallic loyalty to imperial ideology generally and, with special currency, to Theodosius at Rome. Édouard Galletier’s suggestion that Theodosius himself may have commissioned Pacatus to edit a collection of panegyrics has not proved persuasive.76 The hypothesis depends upon a supposed parallelism between the Panegyrici and perhaps the latest edition of Ausonius’ poems in his lifetime—invited, as its opening letter reveals, by the emperor.77 This is meager support indeed for

75. Nixon, “The Use of the Past.” 76. Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 1.xv–xvi; Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 65. 77. N.B. the more hesitant remarks of Green, The Works of Ausonius, xliii–xliv, 240–41.

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the idea that Pacatus may have been similarly invited to edit a panegyrical collection—a very different type of project—but regardless of the friendship between Ausonius and Pacatus, Theodosius’ supportive interest in Ausonius’ poetry is an index of the standing Gallic Latin could enjoy in imperial circles. With a Latin-speaking westerner on the throne, favorable to the literary output of his friend, Pacatus could have had reason to believe his collection would have a receptive audience. If vestiges of Pacatus’ editorial design have been correctly identified above, the Panegyrici Latini stand not only as a collection of literary interest but also as an example of the ways a provincial aristocrat could hope to exert political influence. It remains an imaginative and bold enterprise, an oratorical assertion perhaps to complement the lobbying and petition that political patronage encouraged. The collection thus figures Pacatus as his own representative and as spokesperson for Gaul, in both cases urging a sense of loyalty while attempting to steer imperial ideology markedly westward towards Rome. It is tempting to speculate about Pacatus’ wider agenda here. The reason for his presence in Rome is not made explicit—he may have been there simply to deliver his speech; nor is it known when his speech or the collection were first published, or how widely either was distributed. John Matthews suggested that Pacatus would have been too busy to edit and publish the collection until after he demitted political office in 393;78 against this, if it survives as originally delivered, its frequent allusions to the earlier speeches support the conclusion that it—and they—would have been ready for publication immediately after he spoke. Besides, at the close of his speech, Pacatus colorfully predicts details of his own reception back in Gaul, as if his return there were to be casually assumed (47.5). In fact, very soon after delivery of his speech, he was appointed to the proconsulship of Africa, and may not have had time (or inclination) to return to Gaul in between.79 It seems likely, too, that he moved from his proconsulship to the position of Theodosius’ comes rei privatae in 393.80 This would have taken him to Constantinople, the very place ingeniously undermined by the XII Panegyrici Latini; while I assume Pacatus realized his collection’s attempt to draw Theodosius to Rome had failed, behind his desk in New Rome, far from the glow of the Romana lux, I hope Ausonius’ learned friend had the grace to smile at the irony.

78. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” 1088; Galletier, Les panégyriques latins, 1:xv; Turcan-Verkerk, Un poète latin chrétien redécouvert, 58. 79. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” 1078; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 439. 80. Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of Theodosius,” 1079.

10

A Tale of Two Cities Themistius on Rome and Constantinople JOHN VANDERSPOEL

F

rom the moment that he was added to the senate at Constantinople in a.d. 355, Themistius became the city’s most eloquent1 spokesperson—at any rate, among those authors whose writings survive. Even earlier, he had become, so wrote the emperor Constantius II in a letter announcing the appointment, a de facto citizen whose love of the city rivaled its natives, despite his origin in Paphlagonia. His perspective, in one way, is more surprising than we might think, for in antiquity individuals tended to retain a close relationship with their native towns and were typically identified with their origins.2 Yet, from a different point of view, his love for Constantinople is not surprising at all. His father Eugenius taught philosophy at Byzantium / Constantinople, but since the date of that position cannot be determined, we do not know with certainty where Themistius resided with his father before his training in rhetoric in Neocaesarea; he did study philosophy at Constantinople from the early 330s. After teaching elsewhere during part of the 340s, Themistius returned to Constantinople as a teacher of philosophy before the end of the decade and resided there for the rest of his life. Thus, apart from his infancy (perhaps) and possibly some of his childhood,3 his training in rhetoric, and a few years as a teacher elsewhere,

1. Though we may legitimately question the sincerity of remarks by practitioners of an ego-driven pursuit like rhetoric, Libanius (Ep. 241) calls Themistius the best orator of his times and Gregory of Nazianzus (Ep. 24) designates him the “king of words.” 2. For example, though he served as bishop at three different places (Berytus, Nicomedia, and Constantinople), Eusebius is identified as Eusebius of Nicomedia throughout his life. Similarly, Porphyry of Tyre retains his identification as Tyrian despite his long residence in the west. 3. Curiously, Themistius was probably living at Constantinople when Julian was born there in 332, left for his early teaching career about the time that Julian was sent to Macellum, and returned not long before Julian’s reappearance at his birthplace. Equally curiously, but at different times, given their respective ages, both spent (part of) their childhood in the city, both were sent elsewhere (Neocaesarea and Macellum) for some of their education, and both returned to continue their education at Constantinople.

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Themistius lived at Constantinople; his total residency will add up to more than fifty of his approximately seventy years.4 Themistius is thus a prime example of the class of transplanted inhabitants that comprised a large proportion of Constantinople’s population during the fourth century a.d. Indeed, he was himself responsible for the migration of many of the eastern elite to the city, when he was appointed to begin the process of finding some 1,700 new members for the city’s senate in 357. While the city undoubtedly grew in size and population after its refoundation as a dynastic seat in the late 320s,5 its transformation into the capital6 of the east in 357 must have increased its attraction as a desirable abode for those who wanted or needed access to power, even when the emperor was not in residence. Once Constantinople became a capital, it also became the mother-city of the east, whether or not the inhabitants of Antioch or Alexandria liked the idea. Many did not; Byzantium had never been as important as these important cities, and Libanius, among others, regarded Constantinople as an unworthy upstart,

4. For the details of Themistius’ early life and the evidence for them, see Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, ch. 2; biographical details of his life after the late 340s may be found in the later chapters of the book. 5. I have argued, at Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, chs. 3 and 4, that Constantine originally intended Constantinople to be a dynastic city, like Nicomedia for Diocletian and Thessalonica for Galerius, and that it only became a capital when its civic structures matched those of Rome. Rather than address the issue in detail here (though see some remarks below), I refer readers to that discussion. See now also De Salvo, “Temistio e Costantinopoli,” 131–54, who adds some additional evidence and remarks, while pointing out that the development of Constantinople occurred in three phases. Lançon, Rome in Late Antiquity, 35, cites Dagron, Naissance, 27, for the view that Constantinople was founded as a new Rome, not as a capital. But different emperors had considered various cities their Rome previously; for example, Constantine had earlier called Serdica his “Rome” (Anon. post Dionem fr. 15.1); see Dagron, Naissance, 27, and Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 72. As it happens, Dagron, Naissance, 27–29, concludes by suggesting that Constantinople was to be a dynastic capital (which may, or may not, differ much from my preference for the term “dynastic city”). On the later establishment of the formal equality of the senates of Rome and Constantinople, see also Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 122. Errington, Roman Imperial Policy, 142–43, is somewhat agnostic on the importance of changes at Constantinople during the reign of Constantius and (144–48) places much more weight on the impact of Theodosius in the transformation of the city into a capital. For Rome’s development, especially in terms of its urban geography, in the fourth century a.d., see Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital. 6. I use this term for convenience, though I agree with the introduction to this volume (p. 4) that it may be anachronistic. My use of the term is specifically limited to the period after Constantinople had gained the same institutions as Rome, in particular those that made Rome (and subsequently Constantinople) different from other cities. The Introduction also places considerable emphasis on the view that Constantine founded Constantinople as a “New Rome.” Certainly there is some evidence for that terminology, but the city nevertheless did not match Rome in terms of its institutions for quite some time, and I remain of the view that something dynastic was more important to Constantine. He did, after all, name the city Constantinople, not Nova Roma (which he could have done), It seems to me that “New Rome” was a concept reflecting the emotional significance of a city whose actual status was defi ned better by its name Constantinople.

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while necessarily, but grudgingly, granting its prominence in the realm of imperial politics and its role as the wellspring of the administration of the east.7 Even the emperor Valens viewed Constantinople with suspicion. Partly, this was because the city had supported, quite strongly, the usurpation of Procopius: a fact that Themistius, despite his best efforts, could not quite deny.8 On the other hand, perhaps Valens, co-founder (in effect) of a new dynasty, simply found it difficult to see the capital that it had become in place of the dynastic city that it had been only a few years earlier. If that is so, the city noticed and perhaps emulated the emperor’s attitude; its support for Procopius may have rested heavily on his familial relationship with Julian—and the fact that he prominently displayed Constantius’ widow and daughter at his public appearances.9 Themistius did attempt to induce a more favorable attitude from Valens by pointing out that he owed his throne to the city, given his accession at the Hebdomon,10 but was unsuccessful. Angered by the citizens’ complaints when passing through Constantinople on his way to Hadrianople, Valens threatened to destroy it and plough the site upon his return.11 As the capital, the city had expected more attention from its emperor than it received, and it reacted strongly to his failure to provide it. Valens, in turn, reacted angrily to his unpopularity in the city.12 While the attitude of a Libanius was of little consequence to anything other than his own (sometimes precarious) state of mind, Valens’ failure to acknowledge the importance of his capital did matter. With a senate now drawn from the entire east, Constantinople spoke for the east as Rome had once done for the entire empire. It had become the metropolis of the east and was now one of two metropoleis of the empire. That, at any rate, was the view of Themistius, at least in public when speaking at Rome. His first visit to the western capital occurred in the spring of 357, when Constantius was also at Rome,13 and he delivered an oration that provides the earliest evidence for the transformation of Constantinople into a capital. In that speech, he addresses the newly found prominence of his city while attempting to be very careful not to offend the sensibilities of his western audience, for he constantly points out that Rome 7. See Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 57–58, for brief discussion of Libanius’ view. 8. See Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, ch. 8. In his attempt to excuse the city’s behavior, Themistius focuses on the deceptions perpetrated by Procopius. 9. Curiously, perhaps, that daughter later married Valens’ nephew Gratian. 10. At Or. 6.82d, Themistius notes that Valens himself had called Constantinople the “mother of his empire.” 11. Soc. HE 4.38.5. 12. Valens’ Arianism was perhaps also a factor in the negative relationship between emperor and capital. 13. See Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, ch. 4; also, Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 114–15.

226 Vanderspoel was to remain the superior metropolis. Indeed, at one point, Themistius promises not to ask for further honors for Constantinople in his speech (Or. 3.46d). Nevertheless, he does exactly that a few minutes later, when he remarks that the city deserved greater honors from the emperor (48c). The careful orchestration of the early portion of the speech appears to have fallen apart at its end. In fact, Themistius’ closing words could not have comforted Rome in any way. He points out that God was clearly directing the course of the eastern city and of Constantius, as evidenced by the fact that Constantius alone of his brothers had honored the city and that he had survived them to become sole emperor. The clear implication is that the fortunes of Constantinople and of emperors were inextricably linked and that an emperor’s attitude to Rome (or any other city, for that matter) was irrelevant to his fortunes. Had these remarks been made in the eastern city, they might be passed off as merely the words of an enthusiastic resident. At Rome, such sentiments would surely have caused serious offense.14 No wonder that Roma, half a century later, complained that she had too rarely witnessed the adventus and attentions of emperors in the fourth century!15 Somehow, it seems unlikely that Themistius fell prey to an overabundance of enthusiasm for his city and became oblivious, within the space of a few minutes, to the offense that he would cause among his hosts. He was certainly not the type of man to become a victim of his own sentiments. In addition, the evidence suggests that he was received well enough at Rome when he traveled there again in the 370s,16 and his works were read and respected, even translated, by some prominent aristocrats in the west—Symmachus, for example, and Vettius Agorius Praetextatus;17 this would surely be less likely if he had given significant offense in 357. Two interpretive options seem possible: either the senators (and others) at Rome did not take offense at Themistius’ remarks or the philosopher did not actually make the remarks in question at Rome.

14. I had not seen this problem in my previous work on this speech, but as Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy and Empire, 123, point out, the issue of the expansion of the eastern senate required “sensitive handling to minimize potential opposition in the west.” The solution is a suggestion that Constantius employed Themistius, as a philosopher with parrhesia, to announce this unpopular measure, in order to deflect the responsibility for the measure away from himself. Th is suggestion reflects the key difference between Heather’s and Moncur’s view of Themistius and mine; for them, the philosopher was simply a mouthpiece for the court, whereas I credit him with greater independence and an ability to express himself in a manner that could entice emperors to consider his perspective. Naturally, as is usual in politics, discussions behind closed doors would usually have preceded Themistius’ public expressions of his views on policy, thereby creating the impression of full agreement between emperor and philosopher. 15. At any rate, in the imagination of Claudian (6Cos., esp. 388–95), on whom see Kelly and Gillett q.v. 16. Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 179–85. 17. See Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 24–25, with n.89.

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Since the giving and taking of offense are difficult to understand at the best of times, never mind across a period of more than a millennium and a half, readers may decide for themselves whether Themistius’ linking of imperial fortunes to those of his city exclusively should be construed as a gaffe of gigantic proportions if those words were uttered at Rome. Here, I shall examine only the possibility that the last part of the speech was never delivered at Rome. Several points can be made at the outset. First, in the latter portion of the speech, Themistius offers not even the tiniest hint that he was in the west: the subjects are Constantinople and Constantius exclusively. Secondly, Themistius probably delivered the oration a second time at the eastern capital, most likely in its senate (which features prominently at Or. 3.48a), at some point after his return from the west;18 it would be entirely appropriate for the senate to hear what its representative had said in a speech accompanying the delivery of crown gold to which its members had contributed. Thirdly, Themistius’ claim that he was not asking for further honors for Constantinople falls in the latter part of the speech;19 if this portion of the oration was not delivered at Rome, western senators were spared the indignity of listening, in their own chambers, to an orator asking for further honors that would decrease the exclusivity of the Roman senate. Naturally, these brief points cannot establish the possibility that Themistius did not deliver the full extant speech at Rome, and no evidence currently available can prove this suggestion beyond doubt. Nevertheless, one further point may be relevant to this discussion. Oration 3 was Themistius’ fourth (and last extant) speech delivered as a panegyric of Constantius. Curiously, it ends differently from each of those that had preceded it; equally curiously, the other three all end similarly to each other. For that reason, it is important to consider the conclusions of all four orations at some length. Themistius concludes his first speech in a manner that is entirely consistent with his theme: as a philosopher, he is able to see the inner truth that others can perceive only dimly at best. His final sentences restate his perspective (Or. 1.18ab; trans. Moncur):20

18. For a second delivery, see Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 123. Oration 5, originally delivered at Ancyra, is said by Socrates to have been repeated at Constantinople (see Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 153–54, and Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 123), and it is legitimate to suppose that the philosopher repeated other orations delivered outside of Constantinople when he traveled as the senate’s representative, even if specific evidence is lacking. Possibly, the senate heard the speech before Themistius left, but that seems less likely (and see below). 19. I defer, for the moment, the issue of whether further honors were involved, but see below. 20. For convenience, where the relevant passages are available in that volume, I use the translation of Moncur in Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire. Other translations are my own.

228 Vanderspoel This, then, is the true and honest and pure offering to you from philosophy your comrade,21 and it does not flow from the tip of the tongue, while the spirit sounds the opposite from within, but whatever dwells within, this also comes forth from the lips. Philosophy is free from those reasons why man feigns his praises. For her, money is of no consideration at all, nor does she require honor, keeping what is of value within her. Whether or not this constitutes a “bid for favor,”22 the orator ends with a reaffirmation that his praises are those of a philosopher, with the implication that they represent the absolute truth, not mere flattery—an implication dependent on the generally accepted view that philosophers were bound by their profession to speak only the truth. The second oration concludes in a manner that is somewhat different, but philosophy remains a significant element in the closing words. Almost the entire speech had been given over to an attempt to argue, from an assessment of his actions, that the emperor Constantius was a philosopher. Not surprisingly, the speech progressed to a positive conclusion, and Themistius concludes with a final proof of his theme (Or. 2.39d-40b): In any case, gentlemen, were I inclined to over-refine and to draw out the speech, rest assured that it would take me a long time to reach the end. Yet, to what I have said I do need to add a seal that the emperor himself recently added, a postscript that is absolutely outstanding and new. For indeed he is such a noble philosopher that he even made a philosopher his co-ruler [i.e., Julian], not because he is a relative through family ties, but as his next of kin in terms of virtue. And thus I no longer need to long, like the very wise Plato in reference to the entire human race, that philosophy will join kingship and journey alongside it and that they never be separated or torn asunder. Indeed, it is possible to enjoy and take one’s fill of an unexpected marvel. Constantius’ performance as a philosopher, Themistius intimates, made his subjects more fortunate than Plato, who was never to see what he had so longed to see. It hardly matters whether the audience took Themistius seriously; panegyric

21. Moncur translates “contemporary,” while Downey, “Themistius’ First Oration,” 69, has “comrade.” Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 96, n.151, note that Themistius was probably born c.317, as Constantius was (so too Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 31, and that Constantinople, refounded in 324, was called “contemporary” with Constantius, who was appointed Caesar that year, suggesting that Themistius might mean “contemporary” when he uses ἡλι κιῶτις. I prefer “comrade,” since that more clearly suggests that philosophy accompanies Constantius. The use of “contemporary” could imply that philosophy did not exist until 317 (obviously wrong) or that Themistius is equating himself with philosophy, which he would never have done. 22. As Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 96–97, n.152, suggest.

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was endemic in the fourth century, and panegyrists were expected to deliver fine turns of phrases and themes. No doubt, the members of the audience left with smiles on their faces, impressed by the orator’s daring and pleased at the conceit that they could experience what Plato never did. In the chronological sequence, Themistius composed and delivered Oration 4 before Oration 3, and the former is thus the third panegyric of Constantius in the orator’s career. Delivered in the senate at Constantinople, probably on 1 January 357,23 the speech is devoted to an account of the emperor’s benefits to the city. As in Oration 2, Constantius is once again regarded (by Themistius) as a philosopher, and the closing words repeat some of the sentiments that closed the earlier speeches (Or. 4.62c-d): Anyway, as I’ve said, if, from our point of view, any of the qualities is missing,24 we can praise something else and not what the son of Ariston [i.e., Plato] supposed; for if he sketched kingly characteristics in general terms in his treatises, he lacked a true example. But God has given us the possibility of seeing the shape in which these characteristics have flashed forth and shone. We are, it seems, not more flattering than the divine Plato, but happier, since we have observed in a waking state what he saw in his dreams. This conclusion reflects some sentiments from both previous sets of final words; in particular, Themistius mentions the lack of flattery, the notion that Constantius is a philosopher, and the suggestion that the contemporary world had seen something that Plato had never witnessed. While the words of the three conclusions are different, the core elements did not change much from one speech to another, but merely reflect the somewhat different central themes of the orations. The consistency of approach in the conclusions is made even more evident when the conclusion of Oration 3 as extant is taken into consideration. As noted above, Oration 3 was delivered at Rome and was given to accompany the gift of crown gold. For the most part, its theme is the argument that Constantinople was only giving back to the emperor some small proportion of the benefits he had bestowed upon the city. It ends with the following words (Or. 3.48c-d; trans. Moncur):

23. See the discussion of the circumstances of Orations 4 and 3 at Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 96–97, 101–102, with references to earlier work. 24. In the previous paragraph, Themistius had opposed the notion that anyone might think a kingly quality missing in Constantius by offering examples to counter such suggestions. Here, he reiterates the possibility of a missing quality, but offers an additional point of praise rather than a counter-example.

230 Vanderspoel With all these good things and those that appear so flowing together into the one place from the orchestrator of human happiness, each man has the ready enjoyment of what above everything else captivates him. And the city [i.e. Constantinople] deserves to achieve both this and still greater honor from you. For it seems clear that God is guiding her course and granting deserved reward to those who understand his intention. What proof of this can I give? That you alone of all your brothers exerted yourself on her behalf and out of all of them it is you who alone have fallen heir to the kingship. Let it be said at the outset that Themistius was entitled to end his speeches in whatever manner he saw fit. That being granted, these final words differ dramatically from the conclusions of the orator’s earlier panegyrics of the emperor. Moreover, these words were very likely to offend any sensitive senator at Rome who heard them, particularly since Themistius in the preceding paragraphs discusses the increased importance of the eastern senate. And that senator might be equally dismayed at the suggestion that ties to Constantinople were far more important than ties to Rome in ensuring the success of a regime. Could Themistius really have been as oblivious to the potential reaction of his audience as his final words might suggest? In theory, yes; but in practice this does not harmonize well at all with his generally careful handling of sensitive issues. That raises the question of whether the final paragraphs of this speech were ever delivered at Rome. Perhaps Themistius added some further material specifically for his different audience when he gave the speech a second time (if, indeed, he did so; see above) in the senate at Constantinople. Does the oration offer anything to support that point? Just before the final paragraphs that discuss honors for Constantinople, Themistius had delivered a few sentences that are remarkably similar to the themes of the conclusions treated above (Or. 3.46b-c; trans. Moncur): But in sketching you in that speech, O divine being, like an exact image of the form, Plato has somehow managed to hit upon the perfect example. And even if nothing of what has been said is the case but only the enthusiasm for philosophy, which, just like Justice as the poets say, you brought back as she was departing from mankind and turned her around, restoring her to favor and regard, I would not hesitate to bear witness to this. Now you accept these words from a philosopher while philosophy accepts the truth from you and return thanks to her for her praises because she does not lie. Here we see all the key elements included in the closing words of the three earlier speeches: the lack of flattery, Plato’s vision of a philosopher-king and his failure to witness a living example unlike the orator and his contemporaries,

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and Constantius’ imagined (by Themistius) status as philosopher. If the three earlier conclusions can be said to have ended their respective orations in a suitable manner, these three sentences must also be regarded as a suitable conclusion for an oration. Naturally, their suitability does not guarantee that Themistius employed these sentences to end a speech. It may be argued, for example, that these words could close a section of an oration as part of a transition to another theme. Indeed, that is exactly the situation in Oration 3 in its extant form, if the speech is to be regarded as a single performance. On the other hand, a highly suitable closing immediately precedes the portion of the extant speech that treats the theme of further honors for the city of Constantinople and its senate and proposes that the fortunes of the throne and those of Constantinople are closely linked. Since this final portion of the speech would most likely offend a Roman audience, it seems prudent to suggest that those words were never spoken in the senate at Rome, but were added for a second delivery at Constantinople. If this suggestion is valid, Themistius need not be accused of offending his Roman audience by taking up a theme that will have generated ill will against the orator, against the city that had sent him as its official ambassador, and against the emperor who was in the process of increasing the status and importance of Constantinople. That simply would not be an acceptable outcome for any panegyrist, never mind one as politically astute as Themistius was. While orators might on occasion criticize surreptitiously,25 they would certainly not want to offend their audiences or the regime in a very public manner.26 Inevitably, certainty in regard to suggestions of this nature cannot easily be achieved. But the circumstances in which the speech was delivered and three sentences that point (on the basis of the three earlier orations) to a conclusion at 46c rather than 48cd argue for the suggestion just offered, that at Rome Themistius ended at 46c and that he added the remaining material for a second delivery at Constantinople. This suggestion, which will be the working hypothesis in what follows, has some significant implications for any study of Themistius’ attitude to Rome and by extension for any consideration of his views on Constantinople. Most obviously and as noted already, this hypothesis absolves Themistius from the charge of insensitivity to his audience at Rome. At the same time, it contributes to the view that the philosopher was an aggressive spokesperson for his adopted city because there is no longer any need to find excuses to temper the impact of

25. On this issue, see the fully nuanced treatment of some Latin panegyrics by Rees, Layers of Loyalty. See also his chapter on the Latin panegyrics in the present volume. 26. While there is little evidence, discussions in private were probably less congenial at times. For an example, see Amm. Marc. 14.1.8–9, where Gallus’ praetorian prefect Thalassius did not attempt to curb the Caesar’s excesses as other officials had sometimes done (implying occasional opposition to an emperor in private), but opposed him in a manner that exacerbated the situation.

232 Vanderspoel his remarks at the end of Oration 3. Moreover, a different assessment of his attitude towards Rome may be in order: while he does acknowledge, more than once, the western city’s preeminence as the metropolis of the empire, remarks to that effect may simply represent a concession to history to avoid causing offense in some quarters; they do not necessarily reflect Themistius’ own view of the ideal relationship of Constantinople to Rome. This latter point in particular will be the focus of the rest of this chapter. In the remainder of his panegyrics (as extant), Themistius did not regularly discuss the status of the two cities in the same context. While he offers his thoughts on the importance of Constantinople on several occasions, especially in speeches to Valens (whose tense relationship with the city has been noted above), a direct comparison with Rome occurs only once more, in his first speech to Theodosius in 379. Curiously, perhaps, Oration 14 also addresses the issue of crown gold. On the other hand, the circumstances themselves possibly contributed to a desire for comparison: cities sometimes employed the delivery of crown gold as a device to accentuate (for their own benefit, of course) their rivalries with each other.27 On this occasion, Themistius and the senatorial delegation brought with them only a crown of goodwill; the crown gold itself was to be handed over, the orator remarked, when Theodosius entered the city after his victory over the Goths.28 In 379, Themistius seems to take pride in the fact that Constantinople was the first city to confirm the accession of Theodosius.29 He follows up his statement to that effect with the remark that it was entirely appropriate for Rome to join Constantinople in this regard.30 Then, he promotes Constantinople very

27. The Theodosian Code offers a series of rescripts on crown gold (12.13.1–6). Julian made such gifts completely voluntary, while Valentinian enforced contributions from all but senators in a fi rst rescript, from decurions only in a second. In August 379, Theodosius instructed his treasurer to accept whatever gifts were voluntarily offered by city councils; in 384, he affi rmed the voluntary nature of contributions and, in 387, informed a satrap that contributions taken illegally should be returned and that satraps were welcome to contribute from their own resources. 28. Theodosius arrived on 24 November 380 (see Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 199, with references), as if celebrating a triumph, though a treaty with the Goths was not signed until 3 October 382. Presumably, he had accomplished enough by late 380 to make a triumphal entry a viable proposition; certainly, the Gothic chieftain Athanaric joined the emperor in January 381 and ate at the emperor’s table; briefly, however, for he died after a couple of weeks. Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 227, n.59, suggest that two crowns of gold were now due to the emperor, one for his accession, a second for his victory over the Goths. There is no specific evidence to indicate that he received either or both, but it is impossible to think that he did not. 29. He had noted this to Valens as well, at Or. 9.128b (delivered 1 January 369), as part of his effort to change the emperor’s mind about Constantinople. 30. As Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 227, n.62, point out, Themistius’ meaning is difficult to follow here, but the main point is fairly obvious: Constantinople is taking the lead among the cities congratulating the new emperor.

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aggressively, to the detriment of Rome, which he does, however, call one of the two metropoleis of the world (Or. 14.182a-b; trans. Moncur): And yet of the two mother cities of the world—I mean that of Romulus and that of Constantine—it is ours, I would say, that is in greater harmony with you. For she had no association with the race of rulers and yet she became a partner in empire with the great city (κοινωνὸς γέγονε τῇ μεγάλῃ πό λει τῆς βασιλεῖας) through her virtue. Themistius goes on to explain: with no previous close ties to Rome, Constantinople was chosen as a dynastic city (and subsequently became a capital), just as Theodosius had no family connection to Gratian or the previous dynasty, but was nevertheless chosen emperor because of his virtue (military, in particular). In the passage quoted, the orator is doing something that he had done, or had attempted to do, in regard to previous emperors: in effect, he was attempting to bind the emperors closely to Constantinople by emphasizing some feature that linked emperors to the city. The suggestion that his ties to Constantinople had assured Constantius’ success as emperor has been noted above. In another speech to Constantius, Themistius had praised the emperor for choosing a Caesar, Julian, who had been born at what was then still a dynastic city (Or. 4.58d–59b). Though Julian passed through Constantinople relatively quickly in 361–62, his complaints about his removal to Macellum reveal his attachment to the city of his birth.31 The characterization of Jovian as a new Constantine (Or. 5.70d) and as a worthy successor to Constantine’s dynasty in effect link him, too, to the city of Constantine—more tenuously, however, than the other emperors addressed by Themistius (and with good reason: no extant evidence supports any close association of Jovian with Constantinople). As for Valens, Themistius, as noted above, trotted out the significance of his coronation at the Hebdomon, to little positive effect, as best as can be determined. Be that as it may, he did attempt to bind Valens to Constantinople, as he had done with a series of earlier emperors. From that point of view, Themistius’ remarks about the great harmony between Theodosius and the capital were nothing new. Yet, it is possible to suggest that his intent went somewhat beyond his earlier claims in reference to previous emperors. Later in Oration 14, the orator asks the new emperor to confirm all the privileges that had previously been granted to the city and especially to its leading citizens, the senators. Perhaps that was little more than a conventional request, as a newly important city sought to maintain its status under a new regime. Nevertheless, Themistius seems to be asking for a little more than that. In the passage quoted, he essentially equates Constantinople

31. See especially Julian Ep. ad Ath. 272b–d.

234 Vanderspoel with Rome: both are called “mother-cities of the world,” with no indication at all that one supersedes the other (as there had been in Or. 3), and Constantinople is called a “partner in empire,” with no suggestion that it was in any way a junior partner. Perhaps the difference from Oration 3 can be explained by the circumstances of delivery; Oration 3 was, after all, delivered at Rome. On the other hand, Valens’ apparent dislike for the city and especially his threat to destroy it and plough the site must surely have caused some anxiety at Constantinople in the context of the accession to the eastern throne of another Latin-speaking westerner.32 Or was the concern more specific: had Valens downgraded the status of the city and/or its senators? The answer to that question is not easy to determine, for little in the evidence addresses the issue. Certainly, Themistius’ request that Theodosius confi rm the city’s earlier privileges might point in that direction, if he is taken to refer to the status granted by Constantius rather than by earlier emperors in general. There is, perhaps, just a little more. At the beginning of Valens’ reign, Themistius had asked the emperor to honor the city with gift s, of buildings in particular (Or. 6.83a); he says nothing about the city’s status or that of its senators. Apparently, he was happy enough on these points at that time. By 379, early in the reign of a new emperor, the orator asked for the honor and privileges of the senators and the city to be confi rmed, suggesting that he was no longer happy with the situation. On that reading of these bits of evidence, Themistius was asking either for additional honors and privileges (though he only claims what earlier emperors had granted) or for the restoration of honors and privileges that had been downgraded from the level that the city and its senators had once enjoyed. Given the relationship between Valens and Constantinople, the second possibility would seem to be the more likely situation. That conclusion is, however, difficult to prove because the evidence is too meager to permit a full reconstruction of the changing status of Constantinople and its senators. Though it seems very likely that Constantius had transformed the city from a dynastic center to an eastern capital,33 that remains an interpretation incapable of compelling proof. Clearly, the emperor, perhaps in emulation of his father, who is sometimes said to have raised the number of

32. Valens, it is quite clear, was unable to communicate in Greek: see Or. 6.71c, with Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy and Empire, 180 n.133; and Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 157, n.10. The introduction to this volume, p. 14 n.51, is skeptical about Valens’ threat; the emperor could never, of course, have carried out this threat, which was at most an angry response to criticism. 33. See Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, ch. 3, for a more detailed discussion that argues for a change in status to that of eastern capital in 357, and n.5 above for references to other views.

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senators at Rome to 2000,34 had decided to increase the number of senators in the east to a similar number. By the early 360s, Constantinople was also, like Rome, under the governance of a praefectus urbi instead of the provincial governor of Europa.35 These two points establish some sort of case for a significant enhancement of the status of Constantinople and its senators in the late 350s to early 360s—that is, the last years of Constantius’ reign—even if some enhancement of the senate’s standing had occurred earlier.36 Yet, from Themistius’ Oration 14 it is clear that Theodosius had already added to the number of senators in the east by the spring of 379, a process that could be taken as an enhancement to make the eastern senate’s status the equivalent to that of Rome, in conjunction with the decision taken at the Council of Constantinople in 381 to grant the city’s bishop a status virtually equal to that of the bishop of Rome.37 This second view, however, does not allow much significance to the changes that began in 357. More likely, therefore, Theodosius’ new appointments represent the addition of some adherents and friends of the new emperor, or appointments to establish a favorable relationship with the senate, or perhaps simply a filling of some vacancies, whether these were places envisaged in 357 but not yet filled (since the process of increasing the senate no doubt took some years) or a result of retirements and deaths; naturally, some combination of all three reasons is not impossible.

34. E.g., Lançon, Rome in Late Antiquity, 48. More likely, perhaps, Constantine granted the status generously enough that the number increased dramatically, but even then a level of 2000 senators would have taken some time to achieve. 35. Naturally, the proconsul of Europa would play a significant role in the city’s governance and interact with its council, as provincial governors did, for example, at Antioch (as attested in the letters and speeches of Libanius). The last proconsul of Europa with authority at Constantinople may have been Clearchus (PLRE 1, 211–12, “Clearchus 1”), who seems to have occupied some important office at or near Constantinople in 359 (the fi rst prefect of the city was Honoratus, from late 359). 36. Recently, Skinner, “The early development of the senate of Constantinople,” 128–48, has argued that the senate of Constantinople became an imperial senate early in the reign of Constantius, with foreshadowing of that status during the reign of Constantine; see also the Introduction to this volume. It is indeed likely that Constantius thought it useful to have an advisory body of fully fledged senators during his disharmony with his brother Constans during much of the 340s. But this need not have been a formally-constituted eastern senate with a status equal to that of Rome, nor does it need to have been the same body as the city’s council: the evidence can just as easily support a suggestion that members of the imperial senate, especially those from the east, were permitted to meet at Constantinople (if they so chose, since some easterners were still serving at Rome) as a locally available subset of a single imperial senate. It seems to me very unlikely that Constantius would have granted additional special status early in the 340s to the locally based senators of a city whose grain distribution he halved in punishment for the murder of the magister equitum Hermogenes in 342. If Constantius had granted enhanced status in the late 330s, he perhaps did not reduce it in 342. In the fi nal analysis, though, whatever increase in status Constantius may have granted earlier, the most significant change in the status of Constantinople and, in some ways at least, of its senate unquestionably occurred in 357. 37. For this suggestion, see Heather and Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire, 222.

236 Vanderspoel While it is possible that the senate of Constantinople lost some of its privileges during the reign of Valens, no evidence can be adduced to support that suggestion. Indeed, Themistius several times led official delegations from the city to the court of Valens, and he nowhere implies that he was leading little more than the type of delegation often sent by cities’ councils to the court. On the other hand, the status of cities was at the pleasure of the emperor, and the longstanding dispute between Nicaea and Nicomedia was solved during Valens’ reign: Nicaea remained the metropolis of Bithynia, while Nicomedia enjoyed the privileges of the status without the title.38 Thus, Valens did address at least once the status of cities in his portion of the empire, and it is not unreasonable to suggest that he may have done something to punish Constantinople for its support of the usurper Procopius, just as Constantius had punished the city in 342 for the murder of the magister equitum Hermogenes by halving the grain distribution in the city.39 What Valens may have done cannot be recovered, but perhaps the best suggestion is that he suspended the addition of new senators to the eastern senate. It would add some additional weight to the appointment of new senators by Theodosius at the very beginning of his reign, if the new emperor sought immediately to incur favor with the eastern capital by reinstituting a process that the previous emperor had suspended. Themistius’ words in Oration 14 suggest that greater honors for the city’s senate were on the senators’ minds in 379, and a resumption of the process to make Constantinople’s senate the equivalent to the Roman body would certainly qualify as a gift of greater honors, if an equal number of senators had not yet been achieved. Though neither he nor some others at Constantinople would perhaps care all that much on religious grounds per se, Themistius and his compatriots in the senate would certainly have approved Canon 3 of the Council of Constantinople in 381, which, in theory, made Rome and Constantinople virtually equal as the sources for Christian religious authority in the west and the east, respectively: the equality would matter at an emotional level in terms of civic pride, even if the religion did not. Canon 3, it may be suggested, indicates that Theodosius was quite interested in raising Constantinople as closely as possible to the status of Rome.40 Though that action does not prove that there was any 38. Both had disputed and claimed the title since the early empire; for the fourth century arrangement, see Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, 135, with notes referring to earlier work. 39. For discussion of the circumstances, see Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius, 68. 40. McLynn q.v. correctly argues that Canon 3 had almost no impact whatsoever in religious terms. No one at Constantinople could have supposed that the bishop of Rome, or of Antioch or Alexandria, for that matter, would voluntarily grant any authority to Constantinople, and no one may even have expected Canon 3 to have any real impact. Rather, Canon 3 seems to be a symbolic gesture granted to Theodosius by bishops grateful for his orthodoxy, perhaps because the emperor himself had asked for it, as a means to gain or retain his popularity in the city, or even to appeal to the civic pride of the local Arians in an effort to induce them toward orthodoxy. In short, at Constantinople, Canon 3 was all about civic pride.

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lowering of Constantinople’s political status during the reign of Valens, it does imply that Theodosius was not willing to allow Constantinople’s status to be lower than that of Rome, except (naturally) for Rome’s greater antiquity as an imperial capital. As a final point here, it could perhaps be noted that Constantinople’s senators may have only perceived a decline in the city’s status when contemplating the attitude of Valens to the city, even if the emperor’s attitude had not extended to any specific action to degrade the city’s political status. Whether that is true or not, Theodosius’ actions in 379 and 381 most certainly dispelled any doubts that any Constantinopolitan senator might have about the city’s virtual equality with Rome. The attitude at Rome toward Constantinople’s rising (or rising, declining, rising) status cannot be determined. Most likely, it was not a favorable view, since Rome’s status as imperial capital declined, in regard to the east at least, in direct proportion to Constantinople’s ascent. As noted earlier, and assuming that the end of Oration 3 was not delivered at Rome, Themistius appears to have handled his western counterparts as carefully as possible, presumably because they were sensitive on this issue. This is especially true whenever the orator makes some kind of comparison between Rome and Constantinople, mainly in Oration 3. Elsewhere, Themistius from time to time mentions Rome quite favorably, though there are few extended discussions. One example occurs in Oration 13, delivered at Rome at Valens’ request,41 to induce the city’s senators and inhabitants toward a favorable attitude to Gratian.42 Themistius has absolutely nothing but positive things to say about Rome and says nothing at all about his own city; that is hardly surprising, given his brief. Any remarks about Constantinople’s importance could turn his audience against his request; meanwhile, if Constantinople’s status had declined somewhat (as suggested above), he would certainly not want to admit this in “hostile” territory. Otherwise, Themistius’ casual references to Rome, unsurprisingly, show an awareness of the city’s importance to the history of the empire. He makes these statements in a manner that does little to indicate his view of the city, except that he is generally positive. In other words, Themistius is not opposed to the idea that Rome was an important city, nor does he begrudge the significance of the longstanding capital, the long-time metropolis, of the empire. In the new circumstances of the fourth century, however, he clearly thinks that the empire should have two capitals, two metropoleis, whose status should be as equal as possible.

41. Whatever Valens’ attitude to Constantinople, his attitude to Themistius appears to have remained positive; the orator was perhaps even targeted to become the tutor to Valentinianus Galates, Valens’ son. See Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 172, where I suggest that Themistius offered to undertake the responsibility. Lenski, Failure of Empire, 95, suggests that this was a fi rm plan. 42. On this speech and its circumstances, Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 179–84.

238 Vanderspoel That perspective raises a final question: how far were Themistius and presumably his compatriots willing to go in the division of authority between west and east? Did they see (or foresee) a more formal or semi-formal separation of the western empire from the eastern, as happened in 395, when the officials of Arcadius refused to countenance the authority over the east claimed by the officials of Honorius, Stilicho in particular? It could certainly be argued that an empire with two equal capitals was not one empire but two and that the interest at Constantinople in achieving an equal status with Rome indicates also a desire for a formal or semi-formal separation from the west. There is almost no evidence to bring to the discussion of this possibility. At best, there is Themistius’ Oration 9 on the consulship of Valentinianus Galates, the very young son of Valens. At the end of the speech, he asks that the child be added to the imperial college. Because the boy soon died, the request was never fulfilled, but the request itself may have some bearing on the perspective of Themistius, his fellow-senators, and the inhabitants of Constantinople and the east. Since 367, when Valentinian had appointed Gratian as Augustus in the west, the structure of the imperial college had been unbalanced: two Augusti in the west, only one, Valens, in the east.43 At first glance, it could seem that Themistius was simply asking Valens to address the issue of balance within the imperial college to restore the concept of a tetrarchy (though with four Augusti)44 or perhaps a dyarchy (with two pairs of Augusti). On the other hand, in the context of Constantinople’s quest for equal status with Rome, an equality that implies separate authority of two capitals over west and east separately, it is possible to suggest that Themistius’ request hints at a desire to see the west and the east as separate, but equal, empires, certainly still linked by history and presumably by harmony between the two courts. The possibility that the east was looking for greater autonomy within the empire is a more difficult proposition: the insistence by Constantius, Theodosius, and Themistius on a status for Constantinople that matched Rome’s in every way hints at an unwillingness in the east to achieve autonomy within an encompassing structure. When Diocletian introduced the Tetrarchy, he also introduced the concept of regionality of government, perhaps unwittingly, for he seems to have thought in terms of regional administrative responsibility rather than four separate governments. Be that as it may, his plan survived him: even after Constantine had reunited the empire under a sole Augustus, regionality remained in the regional Caesars (at times) and regional prefectures, through the reigns as

43. Though the west had two prefectures to the east’s one, that is not a relevant point. Themistius’ specific request was that Valentinianus Galates be added to the imperial college; since there was no prefecture for him, the issue was the balance within the imperial college. 44. See Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 172, for this suggestion.

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Augusti of Constantine’s sons, Julian, and Jovian. The persistent concept of regionality throughout this entire period may well have awakened all manner of desires for autonomy and independence. When Valentinian and Valens divided up the generals and the soldiers of the army that had marched into Persia with Julian and divided the empire between themselves essentially along linguistic lines in 364, the concept of regionality was taken to another level. Though they remained more or less harmonious, a Greek empire and a Latin one were created. Or, more accurately, perhaps, the concept of two empires became a more realistic possibility, with the fact that Constantinople, arguably, had already achieved the status of capital in the 350s adding some considerable impetus to any thoughts in this direction, a direction that Diocletian’s introduction of the concept of regionality probably made inevitable. Valens’ attitude to Constantinople probably slowed down the process somewhat, but even during his reign, the east asked for its political structure to be made exactly like that of the west with two Augusti. On Theodosius’ accession, the process resumed its inevitable course: for the most part, he ruled as an eastern emperor with little regard for his western counterparts Gratian (whose assassination he did not avenge) and Valentinian II (whom, essentially, he ignored for as long as possible and thereafter sidelined). In time, and now with two sons to succeed him, he did eventually gain control of the entire empire. His two sons, however, were completely unwilling to cooperate with each other. Or perhaps, given their youth, the blame is best placed on their respective officials. At any rate, it is clear that the east was no longer willing to remain under western authority. The west was quite unwilling to let the east go its own way, but faced with too many internal problems, had little choice in the matter. Thus, despite some incidents of cooperation during the fift h century, Diocletian’s introduction of the concept of regionality of government led to the creation of what can now be called separate empires in 395.45 This was not a linear process, but it was a process nevertheless. Some stages of the process can be identified in passages from the orations of Themistius that address the status of the city of Constantinople and its rise to the level of eastern capital. In fact, Constantinople achieved its status before the eastern empire did. As for the attitude of Themistius to all this, he does not tell us. But his role in the events

45. See the Introduction for a slightly different perspective that emphasizes the points that division in some sense occurred earlier and that the rhetoric of unity endures after 395. The difference of view is mainly one of emphasis: some previous divisions and some previous rhetoric notwithstanding, in my view, the hard lines and harsh words between the two courts from 395 onward represent a real division stronger than any earlier division, and one that rhetoric of unity can no longer mask.

240 Vanderspoel and his arguments for an elevated status for Constantinople and equality of the eastern political structure with that of the west suggest that he approved. Most likely, he would not have favored the hard lines taken by the two courts from 395 onward: he talks too much about harmony to have approved that kind of disharmony. And so, in the final analysis, the separation of empires in 395 would not have made him turn over in his grave, but the manner in which this was achieved might have made him squirm at least a little.

11

Claudian and Constantinople GAVIN KELLY

1. Introduction and Historical Context Eἰν ἑνὶ Bιργιλίοιο νόον καὶ Mοῦσαν Ὁμήρου Kλαυδιανὸν Ῥώμη καὶ βασιλῆς ἔθεσαν. Virgil’s mind and Homer’s muse in one man: Claudian was set in place by Rome and the emperors —Inscription beneath a statue of Claudian in the Forum of Trajan

Rome holds a special place in the poetry of Claudian of Alexandria, and did so from the moment when he fi rst arrived in the west. It was in Rome, at the start of a.d. 395, that he delivered his Panegyric on Olybrius and Probinus, the young aristocratic brothers who were consuls for the year. He later described this poem as his debut in Latin, the moment when he “fi rst drank from Roman fountains”—a metaphor with a hint of the literal about it—and when “the Greek muse yielded to the Latin toga.”1 Rome is central to the poem. The goddess Roma and the personified river Tiber are among the principal characters, and ekphrases offer distinct, dazzling, and topographically accurate views of the city.2 The poem launched a brilliant career. Soon Claudian was based at court in Milan, the public voice of Stilicho, magister militum and guardian of the youthful western emperor Honorius; his panegyrics of the two also panegyrize the eternal city, with the goddess, or personification, Roma a central and recurring character. Claudian was rewarded for his efforts. He gained the post of tribunus et notarius, which implied proximity to

I am grateful to audiences in Cambridge and Lampeter for many useful suggestions, and to those who have read drafts of this chapter, especially Lucy Grig, Andrew Gillett, and Catherine Ware. 1. Romanos bibimus primum te consule fontes, / et Latiae cessit Graia Thalia togae (Carm. Min. 41.13–14). He had written previously written Greek poetry (see Alan Cameron, Claudian, 1–29). 2. See Long, “Claudian and the City.”

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242 Kelly the emperor and carried senatorial rank, and a bronze statue in the Forum of Trajan. Both the inscription on the statue base, and Claudian himself, in the preface to the Gothic War, tell us that he was honored by imperial decree at the senate’s request. He was neither the first nor the last man of letters to receive this honor.3 However, one feature of Claudian’s inscription is unique, and it is tempting to attribute it to the poet himself: a space follows the official inscription, and then comes the Greek elegiac couplet quoted at the head of this chapter. The epigram, whose authorship is not known, expresses the reason for the statue slightly differently. Rome and the emperors had put him up there: Kλαυδιανὸν Ῥώμη καὶ βασιλῆς ἔθεσαν. The special place of Rome in Claudian’s poetry has always been a subject of fascination and treated in scholarship to the point of saturation. In part it is because it seems such a striking paradox that a poet from Egypt should have praised eternal Rome so magnificently and so hyperbolically, only a few years before the Gothic sack of the city (a feature in which Claudian can be compared with Ammianus Marcellinus, probably a Syrian, and Rutilius Namatianus, a Gaul). It is also because Claudian, a pagan writing for a Christian court, seems to offer an insight into the views and ideologies of Rome’s aristocracy.4 There are problems with this: whereas it seems clear that Claudian promoted the policies of the court (i.e., Stilicho) and that members of the Roman senatorial class were vitally important in his intended audience, there has been noisy disagreement as to how closely he was identifiable with, or independent from, either Stilicho or the senate, and also about the significance of his apparent paganism, both to himself and to senators.5 The subject of this chapter, Claudian’s portrayal of Constantinople, has attracted far less attention than Rome. It has not been wholly neglected, but much remains to be said.6 The subject is of clear importance. Claudian’s career coincides with a crisis in the relationship of the

3. imperatores senatu petente statuam . . . erigi collocarique iusserunt (CIL 6.1710, ILS 2949); Get. praef. 7–14, esp. 9 adnuit hunc princeps titulum poscente senatu. Note how the emperor consents to the senate’s request here, rather than ordering it at the senate’s request, as in the inscription: the effect is to exalt the role of the senate, before whom the poem is being delivered. For the inscription in full and further discussion, and examples of other statues to litterateurs, see Gillett q.v. 4. Claudian’s paganism, attested by Augustine Civ. Dei 5.26 and Orosius Hist. 7.35.21, has sometimes been doubted. There should be no doubt, not so much because of “pagan imagery” and the fact that he attacked the cult of the martyrs as because of the virulence with which he did so (see Vanderspoel, “Claudian, Christ”); his versification of part of the Nicene creed (Carm. Min. 22) can be seen as transparent hack work commissioned for Easter (Alan Cameron, Claudian, 214–16). 5. See Alan Cameron, Claudian; critical reactions to his work include Gnilka’s “Dichtung und Geschichte” and his Review (1977), and Döpp’s Review (1975) and his Zeitgeschichte in Dichtungen Claudians. 6. Marsili, “Roma nella poesia di Claudiano,” focuses on the subject, but is both sketchy and caricatured; others who touch on it include Wes, Das Ende der Kaisertums, 16–17; Paschoud, Roma Aeterna, 147–49; Dagron, Naissance, 72–73. Cameron’s three pages (Claudian, 366–69) are stimulating but understated.

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western empire with the eastern court at Constantinople, and partly as a result, he describes many events at Constantinople—though it is the manner rather than the content of the descriptions that is remarkable. On 17 January 395, barely a fortnight after Claudian had made his Latin and Roman debut in the panegyric of the two young consuls, the emperor Theodosius died in Milan. His two sons were already full Augusti: Arcadius, who had been left in Constantinople, since 383, and Honorius, who had been with Theodosius in Milan, since 393. They now took over territorial responsibility for the east and the west respectively. The age of the emperors (17/18 and 10 at accession to sole rule) seriously weakened the imperial office: neither showed much inclination or any ability to assert control over their governments subsequently. De facto Arcadius remained under the control of the eastern praetorian prefect Rufinus, and Honorius now came under that of Stilicho. But Stilicho alleged that Theodosius had commended the guardianship of both sons to his care, which neither Rufinus nor his successors at the eastern court were willing to accept. When Rufinus was lynched in November 395 by troops returning from the west, the strings of the puppet Arcadius came under the control of Eutropius, the eunuch chamberlain. Claudian’s poems are an eloquent, but deeply partial, source of information for the period. As early as his panegyric for the third consulship of Honorius in 396 he insists forcefully on Stilicho’s right to act as guardian of the eastern as well as the western emperor, and this remains a constant motif thereafter ( 3Cos. 151–53).7 Yet more interesting is the series of epic invectives which he launched at around the same time. First came two books against Rufinus, the first describing his villain’s origins as an emissary of hell, sent to destroy the Roman state, and the second recounting his fall after attempting to thwart Stilicho (and naturally much of the action, including the lynching, is set in Constantinople). The next crisis to be recorded was the war against Gildo, magister militum of Africa and a native prince, who in 397 had attempted to change the allegiance of the African diocese from the western to the eastern part of the empire. This was a threat to both western prestige and Rome’s food supply, and Stilicho had him declared a public enemy (of the eastern court’s matching declaration of Stilicho as hostis publicus we hear not a word from Claudian). The western court’s grievance against the east is still carefully understated in the first book against Gildo: the deified emperor Theodosius visits the dreaming Arcadius in Constantinople, while his father Count Theodosius simultaneously visits Honorius in Milan, so that any suggestion of serious division between the courts is neutralized. After the swift resolution of that crisis (so swift that there 7. Claudian’s great nineteenth-century editor Birt, xxviii, thought that this claim was invented by Claudian, but it is taken for granted by Ambrose in the funeral oration (De Ob. Theod. 5), only forty days after Theodosius’ death.

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is no second book against Gildo), a third supervened. Stilicho refused to recognize the eastern consul of the year 399, Eutropius. Although the power behind the eastern throne for the last three years, the eunuch had never previously been explicitly mentioned by Claudian.8 Sometime in early 399, he published the first book against Eutropius, a savage satirical invective on the eunuch’s rise to prominence: although the focus is on Eutropius himself and his status as a eunuch—pathic, backstabbing, corrupt, and hideously ugly—the eastern court and the senate of Constantinople come in for a fair degree of mockery. Eutropius fell from favor for internal reasons in August 399 (he failed to suppress a revolt by Gothic auxiliaries): the second book, apparently started before but completed after this event, extends the individual criticisms of the first book to become far more comprehensively anti-eastern and more virulently anti-Constantinopolitan. Some similar sentiments can be seen in the three books on Stilicho’s consulship of 400: thereafter, eastern politics continues as a playing out of court rivalries in the power vacuum left by Arcadius, but Claudian’s later poems, the Gothic War (402) and the Panegyric on the Sixth Consulship of Honorius (404), focus almost exclusively on western themes (though they are not utterly barren for the purposes of this study, as we shall see). The birth in 401 of Arcadius’ son Theodosius, and his swift elevation to Augustus in the following year, may have deterred Stilicho for the time being from further pretensions to eastern dominance, and Alaric’s invasion of Italy in 401 also gave him something else to concentrate on. It is worth making two points about Claudian’s political poems. First, as Alan Cameron has demonstrated, these poems can reasonably be called propaganda, and the separate publication of the individual books means that we can trace the developing and sometimes contradictory changes in western policy towards the east. The swift suppression of Gildo, not by force of Stilicho’s arms but by his own brother, precluded a second book on Gildo; the second book against Eutropius seems to have been written partly before and partly after the news of its subject’s fall.9 Individual characters in his oeuvre feature prominently and fade away. So we need to consider whether supposed themes are not simply fulfilling short-term purposes—which is Cameron’s opinion of the remarkable antiConstantinopolitanism of In Eutropium 2.10 Cameron’s views have met with a mixed reception. His brilliant demolition of treasured historical fantasies by a 8. The consular panegyric of Manlius Theodorus (399) briefly hints at the purity and masculinity of consuls in Italy as opposed to those elsewhere (266–69). 9. Alan Cameron, Claudian, 133–44; Schweckendiek, Claudians Invektive gegen Eutrop, 23–25; Long, Claudian’s In Eutropium, 149–77; Döpp, “Claudian’s Invective,” and Zeitgeschichte in Dichtungen Claudians, 161–74, esp. 166–67, tries unpersuasively to put the fi rst book after Eutropius’ fall. 10. Cameron, Claudian, opposed by Gnilka, “Dichtung und Geschichte,” and reasserted in Cameron, “Claudian Revisited.”

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close reading of the sources is admired and resented. Some take the view that describing literature as propaganda is a slur on its status as literature; others worry about how far the poet’s own opinions are identifiable behind his inarguable status as a hired pen—a romantic but not wholly unreasonable concern.11 Cameron has fairly been taken to task for focusing entirely on the short-term rather than the long-term aims of Claudian’s work. Which brings me to my second point: as Andrew Gillett shows in this volume, one of the distinct features of Claudian’s epic panegyrics is that, though not lacking some of the occasional features of traditional panegyrics, they are innovative in forming an ongoing series. Claudian strives thematically and structurally and intra-textually to present his works for Stilicho as a single oeuvre.12 So when we read Claudian, and here in particular In Eutropium, we should be alert to the possibility that the aim and meaning might have developed during composition—even that the aim and meaning of the published text of In Eutropium 1 might be changed by the publication of the second book. In treating my theme I shall examine first how Claudian describes the New Rome in comparison to the old, in terms of nomenclature, topography, and use of personifications: it will be found that he alludes to but does not accept the idea of Constantinople as New Rome (section 2). I shall move on to look particularly closely at the overt anti-Constantinopolitanism of In Eutropium (section 3), and consider to what extent it is an isolated feature, within Claudian’s oeuvre and within fourth-century western thought, and whether it represents, as has sometimes been suggested, a sign of the definitive break between west and east. I shall conclude (section 4) by briefly considering the reception of Claudian’s attitude, especially that of the In Eutropium. It is my consistent aim to use Claudian’s intertextuality—both his imitation of predecessors and how subsequent poets interpreted him—as a key to understanding. 2. Claudian’s Constantinople: Topography, Nomenclature, Metonymy, and Personification “Mostly Constantinople is simply a place where certain narrated events happen,” writes Jacqueline Long in an elegant study of Claudian’s Roman topography.13 Her conclusion, that Claudian uses topography meaningfully and with all its historical associations only in Rome, is unarguable. For Constantinople, like Milan, there is simply much less to say. The narrated events that occur there (Long lists the birth of Honorius, the death of Rufinus, the visit to Arcadius of Theodosius’ ghost, the wedding of Stilicho and Serena, and 11. See, e.g., reviews of Cameron by Gnilka and Döpp (esp. 32). 12. Gillett q.v., 269–71, 282–83. 13. Long, “Claudian and the City,” 14.

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we might add the acclamation of Honorius and the consulship of Eutropius) are all significant, and yet the sense of Constantinopolitan topography is generally limited. Constantinople stands in Thrace,14 near the opening of the Black Sea,15 where Asia meets Europe.16 The city looms high over the Bosporus and looks across the strait at Chalcedon.17 Few locations within the city are specified. The great walls for which Constantinople was already famous are mentioned only in passing, and the same goes for the harbor and the Great Palace. There is one more defined location, itself not named: the Hebdomon, a plain outside the city walls facing southeast over the Bosporus. There Rufinus was murdered in late 395 (Ruf. 2.348–50). It was also there that Honorius, like many emperors after him, had been acclaimed Augustus (4Cos. 170–80). Honorius’ acclamation is made to transform the gray winter weather (the date was 23 January 393): “Phoebus scattered the clouds, and together the sceptre was given to you and day to the world. Bosporus, free from gloom, lets Chalcedon be seen on the opposite side” (175– 77). And Honorius’ rays scattered the clouds not just close by but over the whole of Thrace and the Black Sea. The transformation of the landscape is, of course, primarily a metaphorical one, with the advent of Honorius’ lux imperii (182); but although Claudian does not specifically place the scene at the Hebdomon, it is worth noting that the distant view across to Chalcedon fits its seaside location— and the distance of ten miles across the strait that might make a clear winter view of Chalcedon remarkable. Claudian, we may conclude, appears neither ignorant of Constantinopolitan topography, nor particularly interested in it. More interesting is the question of how Claudian names Constantinople. Although he refers to the city at one point in relation to its founders Byzas and Constantine (Eutr. 2.83), he never uses the name Constantinopolis. It would have occupied the first half of a hexameter, and though Ausonius and Paulinus of Nola are willing to place it there, its absence can perhaps best by explained as a question of metrical elegance.18 Similarly, fitting “Byzantium” into hexameters would have required elision of the final m into a short vowel, quite out of keeping with his exceptionally smooth prosody; the adjectives Byzantius and Byzantinus both feature, however, applied to the senate, the aristocrats, and their characteristic vice of luxuries (Eutr. 2 praef. 57, 2.136, 514).19

14. 4Cos. 179. 15. Gild. 225. 16. Ruf. 1.175. 17. Ruf. 1.174, 2.55, Eutr. 2.27–8, 4Cos. 177. 18. Contrast Ausonius, Ordo Urbium Nobilium 2, Paulinus Carm. 19.338. Claudian is occasionally willing to fi ll the first half of a hexameter with a single word—e.g., Bellerophonteas, 4Cos. 560. Perhaps Constantinopolis is rather prosaic in comparison? 19. On the implications of using “Byzantium” for Constantinople, see Introduction q.v., 9 and n.25.

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However, the city had a third name, less formally bestowed, but almost as prominent: New, or Second, Rome. Though some have quarreled with the details, the notion of Constantinople as the Second Rome (altera Roma) is certainly Constantinian, attested within a year or two of its foundation in 324 by the poet Optatianus Porphyrius (4.5–6).20 Does Claudian use this name? The answer seems to be yes and no. A first example: the principal threat posed by Gildo’s revolt lay in the shortage of African corn caused at Rome, and Claudian’s In Gildonem opens with an enfeebled Roma making her way to Jupiter, fearing destruction and exhausted from starvation (17–18). She can scarcely lift her shield, her gray hair shows beneath the helmet, and her spear is covered in rust (23–25). She begins her customary querelae, asking for sustenance. Having described how in the past both Egypt and Africa had supplied her, she continues (Gild. 60–63): cum subiit par Roma mihi diuisaque sumpsit aequales Aurora togas, Aegyptia rura in partem cessere nouae. spes unica nobis restabat Libyae. When a Rome equal to me arose and divided Aurora assumed equal togas, Egypt’s fields yielded to the part of the new [Rome]. Only the hope of Libya was left us.21 The reference is to the establishment of Constantinople, its senate (togae in Claudian are a standard metonymy for the senate), and its corn-dole. One might question whether all the Egyptian grain which had previously been sent to Rome in fact went to Constantinople, but what interests me most is the language: the name of New Rome is clearly referenced but not spelled out, with the adjective, nouae, given but the name left to be supplied. The idea of a “Rome equal to me” in the mouth of personified Roma hints at the possibility of a personification of Constantinople, though no such ever appears. Another (?) personification is also suggested, Aurora, the goddess of the dawn: whether she is identifiable with the other Roma, or represents the east more generally is not clear. (Aurora will reappear later in Claudian’s oeuvre and in this chapter.) The same manner of referring to the New Rome by the adjective but not the noun is found again fift y lines later (Gild. 113–15):

20. For further discussion, see the introduction q.v., 11 and n.41. 21. Th is obvious interpretation is briefly given by Cameron, Claudian, 368, Olechowska’s commentary ad loc., and Levy ad Ruf. 2.54–55. Some MSS, and Hall’s edition, have in partem . . . nouam. Th is reading looks more like an emendation of nouae than vice versa, but adopting it only marginally affects the argument.

248 Kelly . . . Libyam Gildo tenet, altera Nilum. ast ego, quae terras iuuenis pontumque subegi, deseror: emeritae iam praemia nulla senectae. Gildo has Libya, the second [Rome] the Nile. But I who in my youth subdued the lands and sea, I am deserted: there are no rewards for a deserving old age. Here again, the noun to be understood with altera is indubitably Roma, a reading backed up by the personified Roma’s reference to the achievements of her youth in the following lines (Platnauer’s translation “another,” with a footnote suggesting that the eastern empire is meant, is too vague).22 And the same willingness to suggest the idea of Constantinople as the New Rome, without actually naming her, can be identified more faintly in a later poem. The speaker is Mars, complaining to Bellona of the eunuch Eutropius’ eastern consulship and praising Stilicho for not accepting the appointment in the west. Tradition and law would have been done for (Eutr. 2.126–28), . . . ni memor imperii Stilicho morumque priorum turpe relegasset defenso Thybride nomen intactamque nouo seruasset crimine Romam. .  .  . had not Stilicho, heedful of empire and the morals of the past, defended the Tiber and banished the shameful name, and kept Rome untouched by this new crime. Mars makes it clear that he speaks as the father of Romulus, and that he intends to overthrow Eutropius through military means. A strong antithesis between east and west is maintained throughout the passage, and in the final line the word “new”, kept apart from Rome grammatically and in the chiastic structure of the line, hints at New Rome. In the Panegyric on the Sixth Consulship of Honorius, Claudian’s last poem, the poet conjures up the young Honorius’ conversations with his father. When playfully asked by Theodosius “which battlements [moenia] you would prefer” (82), a clear metonymy for the choice between Rome and Constantinople. Honorius would let his brother keep the wealth and obedience of the east, saying “contingat mea Roma mihi” (87). While this can be translated “let me have my beloved Rome” (so Platnauer), the words mea Roma suggest the existence of

22. Readers following my argument in the Loeb will fi nd a number of its misinterpretations tacitly corrected in this chapter: a replacement is overdue. For Barth’s reading iuuenis, see Alan Cameron, “Claudian and the Ages of Rome,” and for the idea of Rome’s old age, cf. Symmachus Rel. 3.9–10 and above all, Amm. 14.6.4–5.

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that other Rome, particularly if one is open to a possible bilingual play on words, whereby mea Roma sounds like Nέα Ῥώμη. And finally, an open reference to Constantinople’s pretensions to the status of Rome can be found in an earlier poem (Ruf. 2.54–55): urbs etiam, magnae quae ducitur aemula Romae et Chalcedonias contra despectat harenas . . . And the city, which is considered a rival to the great Rome, and looks down over the Chalcedonian strand . . . This has sometimes been read as a hostile description: a difficult position to sustain unless one takes into consideration the views later expressed in In Eutropium and De Consulatu Stilichonis.23 But quae ducitur is certainly equivocal, implying doubts as to whether this rivalry stands up. A contemporary imitation of this passage in a hymn of Paulinus of Nola implies such an interpretation. When Constantine had become the first Christian emperor and founded the city which rivaled Rome, he had not only given it walls to match those of Rome but had decided to protect those walls with the bodies of apostles to match Peter and Paul, Sts. Timothy and Andrew, who make new towers in her mural crown (Carm. 19.337–38): . . . geminis ita turribus extat Constantinopolis, magnae caput aemula Romae. Thus with twin towers [Timothy and Andrew] stands forth Constantinople, rivalling with her head the Great Rome.24 Equivocal though it may be, Claudian’s presentation of Constantinople mostly matches this passage of In Rufinum: most often she is urbs, the identity of the urbs either being evident from the context, from an adjective like Eous, or from some adjacent metonymy such as reference to the Bosporus (see, e.g., Gild. 226). Occasionally some general metonymy is used of which Constantinople is the obvious implication: thus Serena left Spain to go to the east (litus ad Eoum, Carm. Min. 30.114), or Honorius came to Italy Eoa . . . ab aula (6Cos. 90). Sometimes, rather than words that faintly denote Constantinople, Claudian uses what can more precisely be called metonymies.25 Constantinople’s great land walls, famous even before the fift h-century extension, were an obvious

23. See, e.g., Paschoud, Roma Aeterna, 147, corrected by Cameron, Claudian, 368; Dagron, Naissance, 53. 24. The translation of Ruggiero is rather approximate: “Così da due torri è protetta Costantinopoli, emula come capitale della grande Roma . . .” See also Grig’s discussion of this passage q.v., 41. 25. See further Roberts, “Rome Personified,” 242–52.

250 Kelly candidate (we have seen how his father asked Honorius which walls he would prefer if given a choice between Rome and Constantinople). But the favorite metonymy is the Bosporus, which is identified with Constantinople rather as the Tiber stands for Rome. Bosporus is Honorius’ nutritor, and Honorius its alumnus (6Cos. 88, 4Cos. 129), just as senators can be described as Thybridis et Latii suboles, “offspring of Tiber and Latium” (4Cos. 578). The parallel is not exact. The Tiber does not permit or require such elaborate geographical descriptions as Ruf. 1.174–75: . . . celsa qua Bosphorus urbe splendet et Odrysiis Asiam discriminat oris. . . . where Bosporus with its loft y city glitters and parts Asia from the Thracian shores. More importantly, Tiber is a river god and a personification established in Virgil and given voice by Claudian in his Panegyric on Olybrius and Probinus (236–62). Even though he is nowhere else given voice as a personification, he is often presented as such (e.g., Theod. 200, 6Cos. 265, 425, 520, Get. 578). The fact that the Bosporus is not a river (and as such presentable with horns and hair of reeds) but simply a channel of water contributes to the feeling that Constantinople is less characterized than Rome. And this points us towards a difference whose significance I shall argue for below, that while Rome is openly represented by two personifications (Roma and Tiberinus), Constantinople has none—at least not openly. 3. In Eutropium I turn now to focus on the poem that takes center stage in any investigation of Claudian’s attitudes to Constantinople, In Eutropium. In this work, Constantinople is not only a place where narrated events happen—the eunuch of the title’s resistible rise to supreme power, his consulship, and the run-up to his fall from grace. Unlike in the In Rufinum, the city is not just the background, and its people are not hapless victims. Rather, Constantinople and its people (and to a lesser extent the east as a whole) are seen as culpable, the sort of city and the sort of population who could allow a eunuch’s consulship to happen. What to make of this anti-Constantinopolitan invective has been a subject of fierce academic debate. Christiansen and Gnilka, for example, followed the hints of earlier scholarship to see this as a crucial moment or the crucial moment in the political separation of the two parts of the empire. Gnilka was writing in response to the minimalist interpretation of Alan Cameron, and the “propaganda” theory on Claudian which lay behind it. Cameron’s analysis showed that the two books were written at different times and argued that anti-Byzantinism

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was only a feature of the second book, for short-term propaganda purposes, with no wider application.26 I shall focus here on reading the text in close detail, with occasional reference to the scholarship, rather than the reverse process. The Structure of the Poem: Division and Unity

A summary of the work may serve the dual purpose of reminding readers and letting certain patterns be illustrated.27 Book 1 has no surviving preface: the proem opens with a spectacular list of traditional portents—all trumped by Eutropius (omnia cesserunt eunucho consule monstra, 1.8). The eunuch consul is a prodigy, which must be sacrificed to save the state (1.19–23). After complaining at Fortune for permitting his rise, the poet recounts Eutropius’ career, from birth and immediate castration, to being successively catamite, pimp, and lady’s maid, before eventually being manumitted from sheer disgust (1.23–137). Next come his entry to the palace, his ascent to power (1.138–69), his cruelty and corruption as master of the empire (1.169–222), his decision to campaign in Armenia (1.229–84), and his resultant aspirations to the consulate (1.284–99). His inauguration as consul in Constantinople is accompanied by the fawning Constantinopolitan senate (1.300–345); but the consulship is received elsewhere with horror, and the goddess Roma goes in disgust to find Honorius, and begs him not to let the west be soiled as the east has; her closing remarks are addressed to Stilicho too (1.371–513). The structure of the book resembles a panegyric in reverse, covering the origins and career of its dedicatee in set patterns.28 And Roma’s request plainly situates the work at the beginning of the year 399, when the western court did indeed decide not to recognize Eutropius’ consulship.29 The second book is preceded by a preface in elegiacs. Eutropius is on his way to exile in Cyprus: the date must be late summer or early autumn, before his recall and execution. The first lines of the book itself introduce a new theme: war in Phrygia and disaster across the whole eastern empire (2.1–2). The long proem to the book (2.1–94) consciously harks back to the first book: it is argued that the omens and prodigies were all too true (see esp. 2.24–54). But whereas in the first book invective was closely focused on Eutropius, here it spreads to the east as a whole, and its capital in particular. The narrative

26. That division of the two partes imperii belongs in the period 395–410 is the central argument of Demougeot, De l’unité à la division, and in the same spirit Christiansen, “Claudian and the East”; anti-Byzantinism was a particular focus for Gnilka’s hostile review of Cameron’s Claudian. See already Stein, Geschichte des spätrömischen Reiches I, 337 (= Histoire du bas-empire I, 219) for a warning against oversimplification. 27. I am indebted here to the summaries of Fargues, Claudien, Invectives, 9–11, and Long, Claudian’s In Eutropium, 42–44. 28. See Long, Claudian’s In Eutropium, esp. 34–38. 29. See n.9 above.

252 Kelly which follows shows far less of Eutropius. As he departs on the court’s customary summer holiday to Ancyra,30 Mars and Bellona look on in disgust, and Mars decides to rouse the Goths in Phrygia into revolt (2.95–177); Bellona pretends to be the wife of their Gothic chief Tarbigilus and urges him to rebel; a geographical digression on Phrygia follows and the metaphorical effect of the rebellion is shown in the despair of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, whose mural crown crashes to the ground (2.238–303). When Eutropius hears of the rebellion, and bribery fails, he calls a council, whose variegated membership is explicitly characterized as representative of the frivolous and uppity Constantinopolitans (2.304–375, esp. 326–41). A member of the council, Leo, boldly offers to go against the Goths, suffers military disaster, and dies from fear (2.376–461). The Constantinopolitans find out that Asia Minor is devastated and hear rumors that the Persians are coming (2.462–84). They are horrified and repentant (2.485–526); Aurora goes to seek Stilicho; deploring the successive perfidy of Rufinus and Eutropius, she appeals to him to intervene and save her (2.526–602). There are evident oddities in the narrative of the second book, not least the openness of the ending. Eutropius’ actual fall from power is not described—it provides a splendidly dramatic scenario even in John Chrysostom’s sermons, so Claudian could certainly have made more of it than he does.31 Indeed, there are indications that much of the book was probably written before Eutropius’ fall was known of in the west, though it was clearly completed afterwards.32 Not only were the two books written at separate times: to many readers they have also seemed different generically, Book 1 an invective and Book 2 a parody of epic,33 and the fact that only Book 2 has a preface adds further to the feeling of disunity. But the possibility of such analysis should not blind us to the fact that there are also a number of very careful parallelisms of structure designed to tie Book 2 closely to Book 1. Both books open with the poet’s persona lamenting the disaster; if the portents listed in at the opening of Book 1 are only items which are surpassed by Eutropius, by the opening of Book 2 they have become a reality; the affirmation that Eutropius must be sacrificed to atone (quodcumque parant hoc omine fata, Eutropius ceruice luat, 1.21–22) has become the suggestion that Constantinople should be sacrificed: unam pro mundo furiis concedimus urbem (2.39). This change matches the expanded concern of Book 2 with the corruption of the whole east, rather than just Eutropius. In the narrative 30. Arcadius’ summer progresses to Ancyra are attested by legislation in the two previous years, 397 and 398, and again in 405; there is scope for other unattested visits. See Seeck, Regesten, 285–315. 31. See John Chrysostom’s homilies In Eutropium and De Capto Eutropio (PG 52.391–99). Eutropius’ dramatic search for sanctuary in Chrysostom’s cathedral is referred to at Eutr. 2 praef. 25–32. 32. See n.9 above. 33. Long, Claudian’s In Eutropium, 17–50.

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sections that follow, there are a number of further parallelisms and links between the two books: the role played by Mars and Bellona in the second book is foreshadowed by a swift mention in the first.34 The magnificent Juvenalian simile comparing Eutropius to a monkey covered in silks but for his naked buttocks and back (1.303–306) finds a counterpart at the same stage of Book 2 (310– 16), with the famous image of the ostrich closing its eyes and turning away its head from its pursuers (not, alas, actually burying it in the sand).35 Both books conclude with the speech of a personification: Roma addressing Honorius (and Stilicho) at the end of Book 1 in indignation, and Aurora pleading with Stilicho for forgiveness at the end of Book 2: at both points Stilicho is asked to intervene in the east. Indeed, even the odd openness of the ending of the second book reflects that of the first. If, as seems likely, the second book was not planned when the first was finished, Claudian wrote it to reflect the first closely. He also takes care to integrate the work in his political oeuvre more generally: one may cite Aurora’s references near the end of Book 2 to Rufinus (esp. 2.550, Rufini castratus . . . heres), and note that the split between a first book devoted to invective against an individual and a second to a broader political narrative is closely matched in the In Rufinum.36 Anti-Eastern and Anti-Byzantine Polemic

. . . incumbas utinam, Neptune, tridenti pollutumque solum toto cum crimine mergas. unam pro mundo furiis concedimus urbem. Would that you would lean on your trident, Neptune, and drown the polluted land complete with the crime. One city we yield to the furies in exchange for the world. (Eutr. 2.37–39) Claudian’s wish for earthquake and wave to destroy Constantinople, if that is what it takes to remove divine anger from mankind, is the acme of the poem’s anti-Byzantine sentiment. The violence of the sentiments must be tempered by remembering that the poet’s persona throughout both books is strongly reminiscent of Juvenalian satire, a genre where the indignant and outrageous is the norm, and that the ending of the poem will backtrack on the extreme views

34. 1.238–39 erubuit Mauors auersaque risit Enyo / dedecus Eoum cf. 2.103–59, esp. Mars’ fi rst words to Bellona (= Enyo) (2.112–13): “Necdum mollitiae, necdum, germana, mederi, / possumus Eoae,” where necdum perhaps reminds us of their previous appearance. 35. Both similes, and especially the second, may reflect the unusual physique sometimes perceived in eunuchs, who are thought to have small heads in proportion to their bodies. 36. An argument made by Fargues, Claudien, Invectives, 8–12; and reinforced by Döpp, Zeitgeschichte in Dichtungen Claudians, 164, though see also Schmidt, Politik und Dichtung, 59–62.

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found here.37 But anti-Byzantine and anti-eastern sentiment extends throughout the poem (though it will become apparent that Alan Cameron is right to note a contrast between the two books). Book 1 focuses on Eutropius rather than those around him, and the descriptions of Eutropius’ consulate as dedecus Eoum (1.306), facinus Eoum (1.371), and the image of the Eous rector consulque futurus as an attendant assisting his mistress’ toilet (1.105) are no exception to this: they cannot be read as necessarily reflecting badly on the east as a whole. The speech of Roma, however, makes a more emphatic contrast between east and west than has been found earlier in the book or in Claudian’s oeuvre. The envy of discors Oriens is blamed for the dissension (1.396), and Roma rakes up the Gildo incident in a way far more critical of the east than a year before in the In Gildonem (1.399–411), and names Eutropius’ consulship as repens isdem clades a partibus, “a sudden catastrophe from the same region” (1.412). Eunuchs, it is suggested, are a characteristically eastern phenomenon, only fit for Aurora (i.e., the east), who is accustomed to enjoy female rule (1.427–28). The second book picks up on these references and expands its theme to the entire east, preserving the east-west antithesis, but then its polemic takes up a narrower focus on Constantinople, beginning from the initial omen of the recent earthquake (2.24–39), and moving on to the indignant description of Eutropius’ service as consul amid the fawning of the senate (2.58–94), Mars’s tirade (2.112–59, esp. 133–37), and the magnificent council scene (2.324–408). Mars’s indignant exclamation o patribus plebes, o digni consule patres (“Plebs worthy of the senators, senators worthy of their consul,” 2.137) characterizes much of Book 2’s tone. Claudian’s anti-Byzantine polemic tends to focus on both elite and general population, although, as both alike have similar faults (frivolity, servility, luxury) and the elite are of low origins, they frequently blend and blur. These criticisms do not exist in a cultural vacuum. To list all the parallels between Claudian’s criticisms and those of other contemporaries would take too long, but the council summoned by Eutropius exemplifies many of them (Eutr. 2.326–44):38 There came shameless youths and debauched old men: for them the greatest glory comes from eating and it’s fitting to variegate their disgraceful feasts; these call on their stomachs when it’s expensive and pass over their palate Juno’s star-feathered birds, or any green talking bird brought from the colorful Indies, foods sought from across empires; and

37. On Juvenal’s influence, see Fargues, Claudien, Invectives, 2–8, Long, “Juvenal Renewed.” 38. Of course, much invective in this passage also echoes models older than the fourth century: cf., e.g., Garambois-Vasquez, Les invectives de Claudien, 168–85.

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their profound gluttony not the Aegean, not deep Propontis, not the Maeotian straits can satisfy with faraway fish. Their fad is scented clothing; the greatest praise to raise a laugh with empty jests; there’s little that’s masculine in their adornment; their faces are made up; even silk itself weighs them down. If the Hun, if the Sarmatian should bang the gates, they’re rapt by the stage; accustomed to despise Rome, and wonder at their own (Bosporus overwhelm them!) “mansions” [Romam contemnere sueti / mirarique suas, quas Bosphorus obruat! aedes, 339–40]; learned in dancing and expert in charioteers. Some from the lowest plebs are generals; some, with marks of fetters on their shins and legs bruised with dark steel, are magistrates . . . Claudian suggests that the leaders of the east are of servile origin: Eutropius and Leo, the cook turned general, are the climax to which this passage leads. Such abuse is of course conventional against any opponent in ancient invective, but particularly well matched by contemporary anti-Byzantine invective.39 Constantinople’s elite had been recruited in a hurry from the ambitious of the eastern provinces. In a polemical piece on the senate of Constantinople, written less than a decade before Claudian, Libanius retorted that Constantine’s early senators had included the sons of a coppersmith, a sausage maker, a bath attendant, and a fuller.40 A probable contemporary, the author of the Historia Augusta, made a covert joke (covert in that he was pretending to write before the foundation of Constantinople) in the Life of Gallienus (6.9), that the destruction of Byzantium by Gallienus was such that no noble families are now to be found there.41 (Earlier on the work Claudian himself presents the idea of Byzantines of high birth in a way that looks suspiciously like an oxymoron: et Byzantinos proceres Graiosque Quirites, 2.136). Two other, linked themes of this passage, the city’s dedication to luxury and its fundamental unseriousness, can equally be paralleled in contemporary polemic: even Themistius, a defender of the city, acknowledges its luxury (truphē), which Libanius consistently returns to, just as he does to the devotion to theatre and racetrack.42 If the text I have followed is correct, Claudian exclaims that Bosporus should destroy the vaunted houses of the Byzantines (echoing the even more virulent outburst of 2.37–39)—and it may be that Claudian also alludes to

39. Low birth is a standard accusation of ancient invectives, and other criticisms listed here— addiction to luxury, frivolity—can be seen as norms of ancient polemic against a city (compare Julian’s Misopogon or Ammianus’ Roman digressions). Nonetheless the combination is distinctly characteristic of mid- and late-fourth-century attacks on Constantinople. 40. Lib. Or. 42.23–24. See also the introduction q.v. 41. See Chastagnol, “Constantinople en ombres chinoises.” 42. Themistius Or. 7.92bc, 4.58c, 24.307b. In Libanius, see (highlights only) Or. 1.52, 75–76, 215, 297, Ep. 399, Or. 30.37.

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the famously poor quality of house building in Constantinople, described (for example) in Zosimus 2.35.43 But the feature that perhaps sticks out most here is that to which the Byzantines’ misguided appreciation of their buildings is contrasted: their contempt of Rome. And this problem of whether Constantinople is a new Rome is a theme of the poem more generally. For example, the latter half of the proem to Book 2 (58–94) presents Eutropius in all his glory as consul, indignantly exclaiming that “a gelding dressed in Romulus’ attire sits in Augustus’ home” (2.62–63). Senate and people are shown fawning upon him (2.64–68), calling him father of the emperor (2.68–69); his image is on the door of the curia (2.74). This passage is notable for treating Eutropius in the context of Roman history, and the fact that the palace, curia, senate, and plebs are Constantinople’s rather than Rome’s is unimportant; if the passage were read in isolation, the only thing which would place it in Constantinople is the indignant response to the claim that Eutropius is third founder of the city after Byzas and Constantine (2.83). This portrayal of Constantinople as equivalent to Rome is, however, questioned fift y lines later, when Mars looks down disdainfully. Having emphasized how Stilicho has preserved the west from the blot of the eunuch’s consulate, he asks why the Byzantines do not complain discreetly or condemn it in their hearts. He picks up the theme of the senate’s adulation (2.135–37):44 “No, look at the cheering senate, the Byzantine aristos and the Grecian Romans [et Byzantinos proceres Graiosque Quirites]. O people worthy of such fathers, fathers worthy of such a consul . . .” Constantinople possesses institutions that are uniquely Roman in their nomenclature—senate, people, consulship—but senate and people, like the consulship and its holder, are deformed. For Quirites, the Roman people in assembly, to be Greek is a contradiction in terms (an allusion to Juvenal’s Satire 3 reinforces this).45 Claudian raises the constitutional status of Constantinople as a second Rome, and shows it instead as an ersatz Rome. To sum up so far: Claudian’s polemic on Constantinople involves not only traditional invective against arrivistes, luxury, and frivolity (for which most parallels are eastern) but also a questioning attitude towards Constantinople’s claims to be the equivalent of Rome—much the same conclusion as I reached 43. . . . mirarique suas, quas Bosphorus obruat!, aedes. The MSS offer obruit, alluit, obstruit, horruit; Birt printed his conjecture obruat! comparing 2.38–39. adluit, favored by Hall’s edition, makes sense but is banal; horruit is supported by Cameron, “Notes on Claudian’s Invectives,” 207–208 (“a gnomic perfect”), but seems to me second best to obruat. The hyperbaton in that case has the effect of putting aedes in scornful inverted commas. 44. Cf. 1. 306–9, 2. praef. 57–58, as well as 72. 45. non possum ferre, Quirites,/ Graecam Urbem (Juvenal 3.60–1). Observed by Gnilka, “Dichtung und Geschichte,” 116.

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in section 2 on how Claudian names Constantinople across his oeuvre. I turn now to another way in which Claudian suggests a parallelism, and an imbalance, between the two cities. Two Surrogates for Constantinople

As is discussed in Grig’s chapter, from the 340s onwards the Roman imperial coinage frequently displayed paired images of the goddess Roma and her eastern counterpart, the Tyche of Constantinople. This was surely the most distinct way in which the status of Constantinople was manifested across the whole empire. It is obviously true that Claudian’s descriptions of personifications presuppose real artistic representations—the horns and reedy crowns of rivergods, for example.46 Descriptions of Roma herself are obviously founded on visual representations as well as textual predecessors (OP 83–99; Gild. 21–25 and 209–12).47 For example, though Lucan’s description of Roma (1.186–89) is obviously a partial model for Claudian’s various depictions of the goddess, the fact that Claudian always portrays her in a helmet rather than, like Lucan, a mural crown, suggests that he has corrected his against the dominant contemporary iconography in the visual arts.48 In this context, one might expect there to be a personification which represented Constantinople. As we have seen (section 2 above), there is not. Claudian has personifications of Tiber, Eridanus (the Po), Gaul, Britain, Africa, Oenotria, and Hispania.49 However, even if there is not a straightforward personification of Constantinople in Claudian’s castlist, I would like to suggest that in the second book of In Eutropium two surrogates stand in for the absent personification of Constantinople. The first of these is Aurora. The name is that of the traditional goddess of the dawn, and some of Aurora’s appearances in Claudian’s oeuvre are simply and unproblematically in that guise (Epithalamium 270, 4Cos. 561, Stil. 2.473, DRP 2.46, Carm. Min. 53.34). It is also hardly surprising that the name of the goddess of the dawn could be used, like the adjective derived from her Greek equivalent Eos, as an alternative for what the Romans called Oriens: for all these words the “east” can represent the Levantine provinces, or the half of the empire run from Constantinople, or the east more generally, including beyond the imperial frontiers.

46. On this phenomenon, see Purgold, Archäologische Bemerkungen zu Claudian und Sidonius (1878): a new study would be desirable. 47. See Roberts, “Rome Personified,” 535–41, on Claudian’s Roma and her reception in Prudentius and Rutilius Namatianus. These passages, especially the fi rst, also provide a model for a number of passages in Sidonius: Carm. 7.45–49, 5.13–22, 2.391–99. 48. For some illustrations of this, Figs. 2.3 and 2.4. Cf. Sidonius Carm. 2.391–92 explain the discrepancy by showing Roma putting on a helmet which conceals her towers! It should be acknowledged, of course, that there are visual representations of Rome with a mural crown rather than a helmet. 49. See, for a longer list, Marsili, “Personificazioni e quadri allegorici in Claudiano,” 55.

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When Theodosius moved against the usurper Eugenius, he brought with him totam . . . Auroram, the whole east (Stil. 1.155). In an earlier poem, also describing the forces with which the west was regained ( 3Cos. 69), Claudian associates Aurora first with the Euphrates, the Orontes, and the Halys—major rivers of the eastern frontier and of Asia Minor—and then soldiers from beyond the imperial boundaries, Medes, Persians, and Arabs. Before his accession, Honorius happily conceded to his brother the throne of rich Aurora (diuitis Aurorae solium, 6Cos. 84), which he identified with the obedient Assyrians, the Nile, and the Tigris. If that were all, we might simply see Aurora as the goddess of the dawn, used to stand for the east in general. But some of her appearances, especially in In Eutropium, suggest that she is more a counterpart to Roma than to the west. We have already seen how in In Gildonem Aurora’s name is interchangeable with that of the New Rome (“When a Rome equal to me [par Roma mihi] arose and divided Aurora assumed equal togas, Egypt’s fields yielded to the part of the new [sc. Romae],” 60–62). Aurora’s significant presence in Book 2 of In Eutropium is another of the many features presaged in the first book: “let them [eunuchs] possess Aurora, who rejoices to endure such things, and cities accustomed to female rule” (1.427–29). In Book 2, Aurora’s role is much more prominent, and I would suggest that she does not just represent the east in general but is also meant to make us think of the Tyche of Constantinople. It may be significant that when she eventually makes her appearance, Claudian plays with the problem of identifying a goddess with a wholly separate existence with a representative of the political fortunes of the east. He points out that she does not resemble the normal Aurora (Eutr. 2.528–30): not crowned with rays about her hair, not flaming in face, not clothed with saffron day. She stands dark with grief, as she was when she covered Memnon with his Phrygian tomb. The long speech of petition to Stilicho that follows matches that of Roma to Honorius and Stilicho at the end of Book 1. She speaks for the whole east, but apologizes particularly for the outrages of the eastern court before pleading with Stilicho to intervene. As she is and is not the normal Aurora, so I suggest that she is and is not Constantinople. She is a surrogate. Claudian raises the possibility of a portrayal of Constantinople as the equal of Rome—and then refuses to confirm or deny. Such an interpretation of Aurora is confirmed by Sidonius’ Panegyric on Anthemius (a.d. 468). It was of this poem that Gibbon remarked that “this fabulous machinery [i.e., the use of allegorical personifications], which the genius of Claudian had used and abused, is the constant and miserable resource of the muse of Sidonius.”50 The indebtedness of Sidonius to Claudian in the panegyrics

50. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 3: xxxvi.383, n.63.

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can hardly be underestimated.51 The panegyric was written in very different circumstances, when a Greek aristocrat, Anthemius, was appointed to rule the west by the eastern emperor Leo. A prominent passage near the opening extols Constantinople as Anthemius’ birthplace (2.30–63); the actual appointment is later represented by Italy (Oenotria), complaining to the Tiber at the lack of an emperor, and Tiber asking Roma to go to ask Aurora for an emperor. It is plain that Sidonius uses Aurora (and therefore interprets Claudian as using Aurora) as a surrogate for Constantinople. Her appearance is that of the goddess of the dawn, and she lives in the far east, but in all but appearances, she is an allegorical extension of the will of the eastern emperor Leo and his court. Her resemblance to a personification of Constantinople is in fact so marked that some scholars have, straightforwardly but wrongly, identified them. The situation has been summarized somewhat more precisely by Madeleine Bonjour: the fact that Aurora is not an exact counterpart to Rome is a way of carefully disguising Rome’s political subordination.52 For Sidonius’ model Claudian, the fact that Aurora is not quite Constantinople is a way of asserting Rome’s superiority. This is not, I think, the only place where Claudian uses a surrogate to stand for Constantinople. When in Book 2 the Gothic troops in Phrygia rebel— which will lead to the fall of Eutropius’ regime—the personification chosen to represent Phrygia is, quite reasonably, Cybele, the Phrygian mother goddess. The omen that befalls her is that “the golden tower, immortal glory of her holy locks, slipped from her head, and rolling from her brow, the wall of her hair (crinalis murus) is profaned in the dust” (Eutr. 2.282–84). The appearance of Cybele here, as elsewhere, is strikingly reminiscent of that of the Tyche of a city, with her mural crown. Images of the two Romes on the coinage and elsewhere were usually (though not always) distinguished by the fact that Roma wore a helmet and Constantinopolis a mural crown. Cybele in particular has an association with the Tyche of Constantinople, because Zosimus tells us that in a great forum at Constantinople (the Tetrastoon) Constantine erected, as a pair to a statue of the Fortune of Rome, an altered statue of Cybele taken from near Cyzicus (2.31.2–3). Zosimus therefore implies that the most prominent statue of the Tyche of Constantinople was based on Cybele.53 I suggest that Claudian’s focus on Cybele, and in particular her mural crown, is designed to make the reader think of a metaphorical fall of Constantinople, which throughout this

51. Though see Watson, “Representing the Past,” 182, focusing on differences. See now my “Claudian and Sidonius.” 52. Bonjour, “Sidoine Apollinaire et l’empire,” 214–18. 53. For discussion of this and many other sources on the Tyche of Constantinople, see Ando, “The Palladium and the Pentateuch,” 399–404. See also Introduction q.v.

260 Kelly book is so closely identified with Eutropius, and whose destruction is actually mooted earlier in the book.54 The functions of these two surrogate Constantinoples are, it should be noted, contradictory. Cybele represents a metaphorical fall of the city, an idea tied to the most violent rhetoric of the poem; Aurora pleads for reconciliation and brings at least the possibility of a resolution to the poem and to the empire. However, they share an important feature: both are ways of not depicting a personification of Constantinople. It is implied that the poet could have created such a personification and thus implicitly accepted her equivalence with Rome—but that this course has been rejected. The Significance of In Eutropium

In Eutropium contains violent polemic against Constantinople and the east, and represents (Book 2 especially) a ratcheting up of hostility. To identify it as signaling the moment of dissolution between eastern and western empires would be rash and simplistic.55 There is certainly a strong antithesis in Claudian’s thought between the two partes imperii, but the close of the poem offers a softening of the antithesis and the possibility of a return towards unity. Failure to recognize each other’s appointments and a war of words was hardly unprecedented hostility. In fact, the less well attested but certainly uneasy relationship of Constantine’s sons after his death in 337 should remind us that there was always the potential for tensions to arise, especially when the emperors were children or youths who did not exercise full control over their courts. The civil war between Constantine II and Constans in 340, ending in the older brother’s death, is not so close a parallel as the cold war between Constantius II and Constans later in that decade, when we can see refusals of recognition, threats of civil war, and later on conciliation, with the presence of eastern nominees in western magistracies.56 Just because no emperor ever controlled the whole of both east and west after the crisis in their relationship in 395 does not mean that we should make the In Eutropium part of a teleological narrative of the separation of east and west. There are real problems, as Cameron has pointed out, with identifying the anti-Constantinopolitanism of the In Eutropium as uncomplicatedly representing the feelings of the western aristocracy or even of Claudian himself.

54. Catherine Ware points out to me that seeing the Cybele of In Eutropium as a surrogate for Constantinople gains additional appropriateness from the fact that her most prominent devotees were castrated men. 55. Christiansen, “Claudian and the East,” offers inappropriate constitutionalism, and even in those terms the wrong answer. 56. Indeed, Skinner, “The Early Development of the Senate of Constantinople,” argues that it was precisely that situation that led to the growing importance of Constantinople’s senate in the 340s.

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On the other hand, Cameron’s attempts to portray Claudian’s attacks on Constantinople as ephemeral and opportunistic propaganda cannot be wholly accepted, either. In a response to the attacks of Gnilka and Döpp, Cameron articulates three reasons Claudian’s attacks on the Byzantines cannot be taken seriously. The first of these is that Claudian was himself a Greek and an easterner.57 The fact is undeniable,58 but adds piquancy to the attack rather than disproving its existence. The second is to argue that hostility to Constantinople is only found in In Eutropium and only in the second book.59 The analysis above has shown that In Eutropium 2 offers a marked crescendo, but also that there are consistent elements in the presentation of Constantinople’s relationship to Rome throughout the oeuvre: we shall also see below that some of the attack is echoed in Claudian’s later poems. The third argument is that there is little evidence of western hostility to Constantinople and its senate in this period.60 Hostility may be too strong a word, but evidence exists that is strongly suggestive of resentment, at least: I have written elsewhere on such attitudes in Ammianus Marcellinus, and other western voices (Ausonius, the Historia Augusta, breviarists) can be added as parallels.61 However eccentric Claudian’s vituperation may seem, it would be reasonable to assume that it is evidence at least for what was perceived to be a potential line of attack. It was perhaps what modern propagandists call kite flying (or sending up a trial balloon)—an attempt to try out a line of criticism only hinted at before. Claudian’s later writings and his reception suggest that his view was not renounced, and did not pass unnoticed. 4. After In Eutropium per quem fracta diu translataque paene potestas non oblita sui seruilibus exulat aruis, in proprium sed ducta larem uictricia reddit fata solo fruiturque iterum, quibus haeserat olim, auspiciis capitique errantia membra reponit. Through [Stilicho] supreme power, long fractured and almost transferred, is not forgetful of itself, exiled in slavish lands, but, led back to its

57. Alan Cameron, “Claudian Revisited,” 136 (reprising his Claudian, 366–69). 58. Except for Christiansen, “Claudian: A Greek or a Latin?”; see now Mulligan, “The Poet from Egypt?” 59. Cameron, Claudian, had seen hostility as extending to Stil. 1–3. 60. Cameron, “Claudian Revisited,” 137. 61. See Kelly, “The New Rome and the Old,” esp. 588; Chastagnol, “Constantinople en ombres chinoises.”

262 Kelly own home, restores the victorious fates to their place and again enjoys the auspices to which it once adhered, and restores the errant limbs to the head. (Stil. 3.125–29) The year after Eutropius’ consulship was Stilicho’s. Early in 400, Stilicho came to Rome with Claudian, who pronounced the third book of his De Consulatu Stilichonis (the first two having been given in Milan at New Year). Immediately before the most famous passage of this work, and perhaps of Claudian’s oeuvre, the praises of eternal Rome (proxime dis consul, tantae qui prospicis urbi . . .), Claudian allusively praises Stilicho (plain language might have exposed the fiction) for restoring power and government of the empire to the city of Rome. The reference to transferred power must suggest Constantinople, especially as “slavish fields” summons up the eastern empire more generally by recalling Aurora’s memorable plea to Stilicho at the end of In Eutropium: eripe me tandem seruilibus, eripe, regnis (“free me, free me at last from slavish rule,” 2.593).62 In a later passage with intertextual links to this one, the praises of Rome are similarly tied to disapprobation of Constantinople’s claims of rivalry. Claudian’s poem on the sixth consulship of Honorius (404) includes a dazzling ekphrasis of Rome as seen from the Palatine (6Cos. 39–41):63 non alium certe decuit rectoribus orbis esse larem, nulloque magis se colle potestas aestimat et summi sentit fastigia iuris . . . In truth there ought to be no other home for the rulers of the world, on no hill can power’s majesty better take its own measure or sense the pinnacle of highest authority. Here too the obvious implication of non alium . . . larem and nullo . . . colle is plain. Whether we take the word larem as suggesting Rome itself (as I believe we should) or as more specifically referring to the Palatine (as Dewar suggests), the only alternative home for the rulers of the world was Arcadius’ palace in Constantinople.64 (The fact that the praises of Roma aeterna rely in part on 62. On the multivalence of this phrase, and associated problems, see Long’s survey (Claudian’s In Eutropium, 171–75). 63. On these and the following lines, see also Fargues Claudien. Études, 136–37; Roberts, “Rome Personified,” 546–48; Vout, “Sizing up Rome,” 307–11; and Grig q.v., 34 and n.6, 36. 64. Parallels can be found in Claudian for lar straightforwardly as palace, or as representing the city of Rome. Dewar ad loc. prefers the former, as what has preceded this passage focuses on the Palatine, and what follows is an ekphrasis of Rome as seen from the room on the Palatine where the panegyric is imagined as being delivered (and presumably was). But the ekphrasis of Rome ends with the rhetorical question agnoscisne tuos, princeps uenerande, penates? (53), where it is clear that the emperor is being asked if he recognizes Rome as a home, with the virtual synonym penates replacing larem. Lar is plainly Rome in Stil. 3.127 and 6Cos. 407, quoted above the next note, and also in Amm. 16.10.15. On that passage, see Kelly, “The New Rome and the Old” 603–7.

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contrasting Rome to Constantinople can also be seen forty-five lines later, in a passage already quoted, where Honorius expresses a preference for his Rome over the alternative, 87). The conclusion must be drawn that here, as elsewhere in his oeuvre, Claudian is keen to match his praises of Rome’s status by subtly impugning the status of Constantinople. Another important point should be made, though it cannot be developed here. Later in the poem, too, the goddess Roma begs for Honorius to come to the city, famously and not quite accurately pointing out that there had only been three imperial visits in the last century. She closes by asking (407–408): quem, precor, ad finem laribus seiuncta potestas exulat imperiumque suis a sedibus errat? Till when, I pray you, will power be an exile from its home, and imperial sway wander far from its own proper dwelling-place? This passage has an evident intratextual connection within Claudian’s oeuvre with the other two passages quoted in this section: it may be that it deserves to be taken more seriously than it normally is.65 It has usually been suggested that Claudian’s hints about Rome becoming an imperial residence again are nothing but fantasy (see for example Dewar’s fine commentary on the poem). But Andrew Gillett’s important study of Rome’s status as an imperial residence in the fift h century should make us question whether Honorius’ visit in late 403 was not in fact open-ended, a trial run at permanent residence there.66 He had only left Milan the previous year, and the status of Ravenna as an imperial residence was in no way established. Reread with this in mind, Claudian’s praises of eternal Rome look much less abstract. From this brief survey we can see that discreet but unmistakeable disapproval of Constantinople’s aspirations to the status of Rome can still be identified in the later works, even if not a major theme. Claudian wrote no more, as far as we know, after the poem for Honorius’ consulate in 404, but he had, as Gibbon remarked, “placed himself . . . among the poets of ancient Rome.” 67 There are indications too that his striking attitude towards Constantinople stood out in the eyes of posterity. In the sixth century, the Constantinopolitan bureaucrat John Lydus notoriously called Claudian “that Paphlagonian” (De Mag. 1.47), words sometimes misread as a statement of origin, but credibly 65. Note the recurrence in all three places of potestas and forms of lar, the idea in the first and the third passage of power in exile (exulat), and the suggestion of Constantinople as a rival in the fi rst and second. 66. See Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 139–40. We do not know how long Honorius remained in Rome, but he could have been there until early 405 (ibid., 138). My suggestion renders unnecessary Charlet’s argument (“Claudien et son public,” 7–9) that Claudian was going against the policy of Stilicho. 67. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 3: xxx.164.

264 Kelly identified by Birt as an insult to the author of the anti-Constantinopolitan polemic of the In Eutropium.68 And when Sidonius’ Roma asked his Aurora to make Anthemius consul, he included an allusion to the past relationship of the two characters in the work of his central model, Claudian (Carm. 2.478): si forte placet ueteres sopire querelas (“if perhaps it’s pleasing to calm these old complaints”). The word querela, complaint, is one particularly associated in Claudian with the querulous petitions of Roma,69 and the reference is surely not just to the querelae which Sidonius’ Roma has just passed over in an extended praeteritio: it is also an acknowledgment of how different Sidonius’ Roma is in her attitude to the east from her Claudianic predecessor. The interpretation of Claudian with the aid of allusions in and to other writers has been something of a theme of this chapter. It seems apt to close by returning to where I began, with the Greek epigram beneath Claudian’s statue in the Forum of Trajan. Whether it was written by Claudian himself we cannot tell. But its message confirms that of the oeuvre: although of eastern origins (and the poem acknowledges his bilingualism both by its own language and by the comparison to Homer and Virgil), Claudian’s political loyalties were firmly centered on the primacy of Rome. When the inscription attributes the statue’s erection to Rome and the emperors (Kλαυδιανὸν Ῥώμη καὶ βασιλῆς ἔθεσαν), the message echoes a theme running through the poet’s work: there might be two emperors, but there was only one Rome.70

68. Birt’s edition, iii–v; see, e.g., Cameron, Claudian, 245. See also Schamp, “Claudien le ‘Paphlagonien.’” 69. Gild. 27, Stil. 2.278, Get. 271, 6Cos. 361. See further Kelly, “Claudian and Sidonius.” 70. Cf. 6Cos. 41–42 non alium certe decuit rectoribus orbis / esse larem (“In truth there ought to be no other home for the rulers of the world”).

12

Epic Panegyric and Political Communication in the Fifth-Century West ANDREW GILLETT

E

pic, verse panegyric in Latin, a form of public oratory given its debut in Rome by Claudian in the 390s, provides an index to the politics of the imperial city over the next three generations. Both the first and the last known performances of epic panegyric in Claudian’s style occurred in Rome.1 The relatively brief and circumscribed life of this subgenre, its divergences from earlier panegyric, and its geographic locale, give insight into the political processes of the period. The style was not only a literary development, a twist in the well-worn conventions of formal eulogy, but also part of a western political reconfiguration centered on Rome, involving the newly emergent position of generalissimo and the resurgent political role of the Roman senatorial aristocracy. Stilicho as much as Claudian was responsible for the new practice of epic panegyric, and his role—as literary patron, honorand, and source of propaganda—was imitated throughout the fift h century, just as Claudian’s function

Th is chapter forms part of a project funded by the Australian Research Council. Early versions were delivered at the “Two Romes” symposium at the Celtic Conference in Classics, University of Wales Lampeter; the Yale University Greek and Roman Seminar; the Australian Society for Classical Studies conference, Macquarie University; and the “Medieval Prosopography” session, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. My thanks to the organizers and participants of those sessions, and particularly to Michael Kulikowski, John Matthews, Mark Humphries, Claire Sotinel, Walter Goffart, Bentley Layton, and Ramsay MacMullen. For helpful advice on various draft s, my thanks to my colleague C. E. V. Nixon, the anonymous readers, Ralph Mathisen, and especially Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly. 1. The term “epic panegyric” is used here for works in verse that are more specifically subdivided in modern discussions as panegyric, invective, historical epic, and mythological epic. For the term, cf. Hofman, “Überlegungen zu einer Theorie”; Schindler, Per carmina laudes, 2 and n.5 (regrettably received too late for thorough use here). Only Claudian is known to have employed all four genres (Alan Cameron, Claudian, 254–55, 260–65). A key feature of this subgenre was an ongoing relationship between poet and honorand; consequently Priscian and Corippus are not discussed here, despite linguistic debts to Claudian; Averil Cameron, Corippus: In laudem, 8. Schindler, Per carmina laudes, 215–309 identifies major differences in poetic imagery between fi ft h-century western poetic panegyrists (Claudian and Sidonius) and sixth-century authors (Priscian and Corippus), the latter abandoning Claudianic “divine apparatus” in response to a different social milieu.

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266 Gillett as poet was. Epic panegyric was used by the generalissimos and western emperors in ways quite different from that of earlier forms of encomia. The retention of an individual poet as the exclusive, ongoing mouthpiece of a leading political figure, and the narrative format of these poets’ works, provided a sequential “stream” of propaganda that could maintain and modify relations between political elites on a regular basis. Sidonius Apollinaris, the last attested exponent of the style, was conscious that it was distinct from other forms of poetry or panegyric, differentiated not so much by its form as by its political context, and practiced by an identified succession both of poets and of powerful patrons. Extant examples of this subgenre have been much studied as important historical sources for the late empire; the works of Claudian, Merobaudes, and Sidonius Apollinaris are often crucial testimony to political and military events. Shifting our view, however, from the texts themselves and the events behind them to the communicative framework within which they operated brings into focus two key aspects of fift h-century politics: the political significance of the Roman senatorial aristocracy as an active constituent of the imperial polity; and the need of the western generalissimos and imperial court for new forms of targeted and ongoing political communication to reach this audience at the imperial court and within the city of Rome. 1. Epic Panegyric and Its Practitioners Panegyric was one of the most common forms of public discourse in Roman imperial times, and one of the most regular accompaniments of public occasions.2 It was a highly formalized genre: most extant Latin and Greek panegyrics from the late empire adhere to conventions established during the early empire and outlined in the two handbooks attributed to Menander Rhetor. These conventions included not only literary structure but also the socio-political situations calling for such declamations.3 The traditional format of panegyric was a prose work arranged topically, starting with the honorand’s family and birthplace, through to his deeds “in war and peace,” and on to complimentary comparisons with great figures of history or literature; the individual author could make selections from these topics as appropriate. Panegyric was also an inherently political genre: the oral declamation of a panegyric constituted a vehicle of

2. MacCormack, “Latin Prose Panegyrics”; Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors, 1–3, 10–14, 26–33; Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 6–19, 23–25; Whitby, The Propaganda of Power ; Hägg and Rousseau, Greek Biography and Panegyric. For early encomia, see Pernot, La rhétorique. 3. Bowersock, Greek Sophists; Anderson, The Second Sophistic; Kennedy, New History of Classical Rhetoric, 230–56. Russell and Wilson’s Menander. For a fourth-century panegyrist whose works did not conform to these conventions, though in a very different way from Claudian, see Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 6–7 and q.v.

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communication and supplication to rulers from imperial subjects, in particular city councils (occasionally from an individual, in the case of an actio gratiarum). Nevertheless, presentation of panegyric was flexible, depending on circumstances: orations on behalf of a city might be delivered in situ to welcome an imperial visit there or at the imperial or prefectorial court as part of a municipal embassy; the speech might be presented by either an interested constituent, such as a senior member of a city council, or by a disinterested professional, a rhetor hired for the job. These prose panegyrics were occasional and ephemeral pieces. Each was a work intended to be delivered once only, at a specific event. Subsequent circulation in written form, as a display of the author’s literary skills and social standing or as a model for instruction, was a secondary phenomenon that acquired valence from the fact of the original delivery. The relationship between the panegyrist and the principal who had commissioned him—say, the city on behalf of which he spoke—could be permanent (if he were a citizen) or short-lived (if he were hired). But the relationship between panegyrist and honorand was, in the literal sense, occasional. Only the specific occasion brought them together; orator and subject did not expect to have an ongoing relationship. Contact between the panegyrist and honorand need not have been entirely transitory. Political circumstances or public office sometimes caused an individual panegyrist to present before the same honorand a second time, but this was a repetition rather than a prolongation of the occasional relationship.4 The honorand might grant the speaker a benefit as a sign of largesse, possibly extending into ongoing patronage (for example, the emperor Anthemius’ appointment of Sidonius Apollinaris as prefect of Rome); alternatively, an actio gratiarum might be delivered by an individual as public acknowledgment of major acts of patronage such as appointment to high office (as with Pliny to Trajan, Ausonius to Gratian, or Boethius to Theodoric). Nevertheless, even in these repeated or extended circumstances, the role of the panegyric in the relationship was occasional, the coin paid once to gain or consolidate a desideratum.

4. Both Symmachus and Themistius delivered multiple panegyrics before the same emperors (Symmachus to Valentinian I twice and once to his son Gratian, Themistius to successive emperors, for example to Valens three times and once to his son Valentinian Galates), a function of their status as representatives of the senate at Rome and Constantinople respectively rather than of a relationship between the panegyrists and honorands (see Vanderspoel q.v.). Augustine, as rhetor of Milan, delivered at least two panegyrics at the court of Valentinian II, the fi rst to the general Bauto on his consulship (1 January 385) and (more famously) at least one other to the emperor later the same year; Aug. Conf. 6.6; PLRE 2, 189. In the sixth century, Cassiodorus, quaestor to Theodoric, delivered a panegyric to the king and another to his intended heir Eutharic, a more likely example of patronage marked by repeated panegyrics. For publication and circulation of panegyrics, see Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court, 128–31 (Libanius on Themistius’ panegyric of Julian, rare contemporary attestation of circulation and contemporary reaction); Potter, Literary Texts, 27–28.

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Gillett

In the 390s, Claudian and Stilicho jointly introduced an alternative model for the operation of panegyric. Gavin Kelly in chapter 11 outlines the meteoric career of Claudius Claudianus; here we can consider how that career and Stilicho’s part in it impacted on the conventions of panegyric. Though all of Claudian’s major works are in his characteristic epic style, there was an important shift in context between his fi rst and later Latin works. Claudian’s fi rst panegyric, despite its novel format, was essentially a conventional public declamation. Apparently a private commission, it was composed in politically charged circumstances when, only four months after the emperor Theodosius I had suppressed Eugenius, Claudian delivered the consular panegyric for Olybrius and Probinus, two young brothers from the Anicius family nominated by the emperor to shore up support for his regime from the Roman aristocracy following two western usurpations in rapid succession. 5 The situation is loosely comparable to that of Pacatus’ oration to Theodosius in 389 following the earlier suppression of Magnus Maximus: a reaffi rmation of allegiance of western aristocracies to the emperor following the defeat of a usurper, mediated in part through panegyric, as Roger Rees elucidates above. Pacatus’ declamation is testimony to his status as a member of the Gallic aristocracy he represented, but the choice of the previously unknown Claudian, as a professional rhetor, was presumably due to his flamboyant literary prowess. In his oration, Claudian broke from the literary conventions of panegyric in several notable ways. His work was the fi rst known use of epic meter rather than prose for a Latin panegyric and the fi rst attested verse consular panegyric in Greek or Latin; 6 it was structured in part as a narrative, a story, rather than the conventional series of topics; and this narrative set current events in a mythic framework that foregrounded the city of Rome by mixing the newly victorious Theodosius with the goddess Roma and the personified Tiber. Even so, Claudian’s deviation from conventional panegyric is only partial: the mythological interlocutors are projections of the panegyrist, used to address the conventional themes of the honorands’ family status while glossing over their immature lack of achievement. Claudian’s fi rst Roman declamation was a variation on the form of panegyric, but much of its content, and especially the context of its delivery, was conventional: an occasional work, a one-off private commission, praising such standard aspects of its topic as were appropriate to include.

5. Alan Cameron, Claudian, 1–45, esp. 31. 6. Ibid., 245, 254–55. Near-contemporary Greek verse panegyric in Constantinople is attested by Synesius of Cyrene, De Regno 18 (lost laudatory poems on the praetorian prefect Aurelianus) and Socrates, HE 6.6.36 (a lost epic poem by one Eusebius on Gainas’ revolt).

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The story of epic panegyric might have ended there, a curiosity in late Latin letters, but for the intervention of Stilicho. Only a fortnight after the delivery of Claudian’s panegyric, Theodosius I died at Milan (17 January 395), leaving his senior general and son-in-law Stilicho as regent for the new western emperor Honorius.7 Stilicho snapped up Claudian. Over the years from 396 to 404, Claudian produced a steady series of panegyrics, invectives, and epic poems at Stilicho’s behest, a dozen-odd epideictic works advancing the interests of a single figure, in an alliance without parallel in earlier panegyric. Even after this output suddenly ended (perhaps because Claudian died), the generalissimo seems to have promoted Claudian’s work by sponsoring publication of deluxe omnibus editions of both his major and minor works.8 All Claudian’s major works (apart from De Raptu Proserpinae) promoted Stilicho’s claims as regent of Honorius and his other policies, whether or not Stilicho was their explicit subject. Through Claudian’s collected works can be traced the progress of Stilicho’s messages to the western elites: his claim to guardianship over both western and eastern emperors; his attempts to counter the hostility of Rufinus and Eutropius;9 his version of the indecisive dealings with Alaric. There are few figures in antiquity for whom it is possible to outline their political policies and ambitions with such certitude as with Stilicho, owing to the rare existence of a source that represents public propaganda issued at his direction over almost a decade.10 All Claudian’s panegyrical works were delivered either at the western imperial court (in Milan or Rome) or before the senate itself. The senatorial aristocracy of Rome was the “target audience” of his works, those delivered at the imperial court in Milan as much as those performed at Rome itself.11 The erection of a statue in his honor in the Forum of Trajan, and references to him by contemporary and later writers, attest Claudian’s acclamation as a literary luminary by the aristocracy of Rome and beyond.12 Claudian’s style—epic, recherché, recalling a wide range of Latin poets, foregrounding

7. Ibid., esp. 37–40; Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 253–83; O’Flynn, Generalissimos, 14–42. 8. Alan Cameron, Claudian, 227, 252, 417–18; Hall, “Claudian.” 9. See Kelly qv. 10. Alan Cameron, Claudian, 44–188, for poem-by-poem analysis, esp. 49–62, 120–21. 11. Ibid., xv-xvi, 232–33, 249. 12. Statue: see at n.73 below. Literary references: contemporary: Augustine Civ. Dei 5.26 (whence Orosius Hist. 7.35.21). Later western references: Prosper Chron. s.a. 395 (whence Cassiodorus, Chron. s.a. 395); Chron. Gall. a. 452 s.a. 395; Boethius, In Topica Ciceronis Commentaria 4–5 (= PL 64.1109, 1147). Later eastern references: Marcellinus comes, Chron. s.a. 399; John Lydus, De Mag. 1.47; Evagrius, HE 1.19 (cf. Cameron, Claudian 7–12); Suda K 1707. For literary imitation: Birt’s edition of Claudian, lxxvi–lxx; Alan Cameron, Claudian, 419; Den Hengst, “The Author’s Literary Culture”; Whitby, “Paul the Silentiary and Claudian.”

270 Gillett traditional Roman divinities—was particularly congenial to the senatorial aristocracy of Rome and to its provincial imitators. Not because of the superficial paganism suggested by its imagery and detailed knowledge of GrecoRoman mythology;13 by the time of his floruit, both the imperial court for which he wrote and the majority of the Roman senate at which his works were targeted were firmly Christian.14 Rather, it was because of its selfconscious appeal to classicizing, epic Latin literature. An older generation of scholars, in particular Momigliano, saw the Roman aristocracy of the late fourth and fifth century as avid cultivators of classicizing learning and literature. Alan Cameron has seriously challenged that view (instead characterizing this class as “land-grubbing philistines”), but it is safe to say at least that the aristocracy of Rome wished to be seen as learned patrons of letters, and a minority was.15 Claudian’s public declamations were not only more dramatically interesting than the over-familiar topoi of traditional panegyric, but also entailed the sort of allusive invocation of sources and compact syntax that marked his works as guessing games accessible only to an elite. In the case of Claudian’s panegyrics, the medium was part at least of the message. Claudian’s panegyrics were innovative in more than just literary style. Claudian and Stilicho together fundamentally shifted the role of the panegyrist. Instead of creating occasional pieces for a variety of honorands throughout his career, as authors of prose panegyrics characteristically did, or speaking on behalf of a suppliant to the honorand, Claudian acted consistently as the mouthpiece of one dominating political figure, Stilicho. In turn, Stilicho not only engineered rewards for Claudian—the usual response of an honorand—but also acted as his literary impresario, promoting not just his career but also his literary reputation. This constant attachment of the panegyrist to one figure, and use of his public declamations to contribute to a regular propaganda stream, altered the occasional relationship of the traditional panegyrist and his honorand into one that was exclusive and ongoing. Claudian himself described the exclusive, patronal, and continuous nature of this relationship in his portrait of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus and the poet Quintus Ennius, whom he compares to Stilicho and himself in his consular

13. Claudian, Carm. Min. 32, 50 provide evidence for both familiarity and hostility toward aspects of Christianity; Alan Cameron, Claudian 214–27; Vanderspoel, “Claudian, Christ.” But cf. Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 206–208; Kelly q.v., 242 and n.4. 14. Salzman, Christian Aristocracy, 78–80. 15. Alan Cameron, “The Last Pagans of Rome,” 109; The Last Pagans of Rome, 3.

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panegyric to Stilicho of February 400. In this depiction (not based on earlier accounts of Scipio and Ennius16), Scipio matches martial skill with literary patronage, and Ennius is the general’s constant panegyrist (Stil. 3 praef. 1, 3–7, 11–12):17 The elder Scipio . . . fought his battles not unmindful of the poet’s art; poets were ever the hero’s special care. For valor is always fain to seek alliance with the Muses that they may bear witness to his deeds; he loves song whose exploits deserve the meed of song. Therefore .  .  . the poet Ennius was ever at his side and in all his campaigns followed the trumpet’s call into the midst of the fray. Writing some four years into their association, Claudian characteristically used a historical exemplar to explain his exclusive relationship with Stilicho. 2. After Claudian It has long been recognized that Claudian’s style was highly influential during the fifth century and later. Fragments of epic panegyrics by Merobaudes, who wrote in the 430s and 440s, show close modeling on Claudian (though Merobaudes also wrote prose panegyric); Sidonius Apollinaris (in the 450s and 460s) wrote and published three imperial panegyrics that were dependent on Claudian in structure and detail.18 More generally, Claudian was part of a development in late antique epic verse, not restricted to the role of panegyric.19 But alongside this borrowing at a literary level there was a deeper continuity in the role that epic panegyric played in public discourse. A short passage of a poem by the Gallic magnate and litterateur Sidonius Apollinaris attests not only the names and careers of several practitioners of epic panegyric but also Sidonius’ consciousness of this style as a discrete subgenre, distinct not so much for its format as for its political context. The poem, Sidonius’ Carm. 9, written in the early to mid-460s, is a dedication to his friend

16. Though Ennius did produce laudes to Scipio Africanus (Cicero, Arch. 22; Ennius, Scipio fr.), there is no evidence that he in fact accompanied Scipio on campaign; he did, however, accompany M. Fulvius Nobilior to Anatolia. A late republican tradition that Ennius was particularly intimate with the Scipios (e.g., Cicero, De Or. 2.276; other evidence surveyed in Warmington’s text: xx, xxiv) provides Claudian with a springboard, but the portrait of Ennius as Scipio’s companion on campaign and regular encomiast seems to be Claudian’s own invention. 17. Tr. Platnauer. See also Dewar, “Hannibal and Alaric,” 350; Perrelli, I proemi Claudianei, 107–16; Felgentreu, Claudians Praefationes 119–29; Schindler, Per carmina laudes, 145. 18. Note also Sidonius Carm. 23, a non-imperial verse encomium. 19. E.g., Hajdú, “Corippus’s Attempt,” 167–75.

272 Gillett Magnus Felix and acts as an introduction to his minor poems.20 The poem is cast as an extended apologia following familiar modesty topoi, belittling Sidonius’ poetry in comparison to earlier poets. These poets are categorized in two ways: first by heroic or mythological subject, then by period of composition in a chronological sequence running up to contemporary poets of Italy and Gaul.21 In this sequence, after a brief list of Augustan and Silver Age poets (most included only as names or with clipped epithets22) and before late fourthcentury and contemporary Italian and Gallic poets, appears a more expansive comment on a group of authors (Carm. 9.274–301): [Here in my collection, the reader will not find works of the standard of Ovid or Juvenal]; nor that son of Egyptian Canopus who of the dusky bridegroom’s marriage and of the denizens of hell doth sing with his heavenly muse [274–76]; nor those who even in their earliest days were the greatest of our fathers’ comrades [277–78] of whom one, following Boniface and the headstrong Sebastian, abhorred in boyhood his native Cadurcans, loving Pandion’s Athens more; were you to read his varied poems, then would you think that Phoebus was giving utterance, and the Boeotian maids, their lips all moist with draughts of Hippocrene, and Amphion too and the son of Maia and the bard of Rhodope, all contributing to their melody [279–88]. Nor does the reader now find thee here, Quintianus, the second of the three, with thy thunderbolt, who spurning thy Ligurian soil and home didst change thine abode and give Gaul thy love, amid trumpet calls, standards, spears, and troops, singing the praises of Aetius and devoting yourself to study, a bard ivy-crowned in a belaureled camp [289–95]. Nor shall the reader here find that other, the third of the band, who leaving once for all his native Baetis betook

20. Initial publication of Carm. 9 prefacing a small collection of minor works preceded the publication of the extant expanded edition of Sidonius’ minor poems (Carm. 9–24) and of the three poetic panegyrics delivered to emperors with their attendant prefaces and postscripts, 469/472 (Carm. 1–8); Klotz, “Sidonius” in RE II.A col. 2233–34 (464/467 for publication of Carm. 9); Loyen’s edition, xxxi–xxxv (ca. 461); Schetter, “Zu Publikation,” 343–63 (462/466). Cf. also Stevens, Sidonius, 108 n.1; Anderson’s edition, vol. 1, lv n.1; Harries, Apollinaris Sidonius, 5–6. 21. Sid. Carm. 9.19–210 (heroic and mythological themes), 211–301 (Greek, then Roman poets in roughly chronological order), 302–10 (Italian poets, late fourth century and contemporary), 311–17 (contemporary Gallic poets). The four panegyrists stand at the end of the chronological survey of Roman poets, before the recent and contemporary Italian poets. The inclusion of contemporary Italian writers, conflated with authors of the time of Q. Aurelius Symmachus two generations earlier, may suggest an intention for the collection to circulate in Italy as well as Gaul; 302–10; Sid. Carm. 3; PLRE 2, 866 (“Petrus 10”). In late 467, after the initial publication of Carm. 9, Sidonius did secure a commission to deliver the consular panegyric of the emperor Anthemius: Sid. Ep. 1.9.5–6, Carm. 1.23–28. 22. E.g., Virgil and Horace are treated in four and five lines, respectively; Martial and Ovid with one and two. Lucan stands out as the recipient of twenty lines (239–58).

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himself to that place of thirst, well-watered Ravenna, and to whom the acclaiming citizens of Rome and the emperor so beloved for his graciousness set up a gleaming statue in Trajan’s Forum [296–301].23 Four poets are listed, the first by himself, the following three grouped together with a brief umbrella epithet. Only one is named, an indication of Sidonius’ expectation that his audience will be familiar with these authors. The “son of Egyptian Canopus” (274) is clearly Claudian, and his “song” (275–76) is the incomplete but much admired Rape of Proserpina.24 Sidonius groups the following three poets together explicitly on the basis that they flourished in the generation before his own (277–78), and implicitly by the circumstances of their careers: each, like Claudian, left his homeland as a young man and served as the panegyrist of a leading figure in western politics. The first, anonymous poet and the second, Quintianus, are known only from this poem; the third, unnamed by Sidonius but identifiable as Merobaudes, is known both from other contemporary references and from fragmentary remains of his prose and verse panegyrics. The first poet of this group of three, the anonymous (279–88), came from Aquitania (Cahors) in southwestern Gaul and was attached to the generals Boniface and Sebastian, whose careers, from the 420s to 450, are noted for civil conflict.25 Boniface as comes Africae from 423–24 was a partisan of Galla Placidia, first against her half-brother Honorius and then the usurper John. Under Valentinian III, Aetius contested Boniface’s position as senior general in open conflict between 427 and Boniface’s death in 432 (in the interim, north Africa had been invaded by the Vandals under Geiseric, a loss attributed by some to Boniface). His position as general passed to his son-in-law Sebastian, but Aetius had Sebastian exiled from the western court in 433. Sebastian took refuge successively at Constantinople, at Toulouse in the Gothic kingdom (444), in Barcelona under his own authority, then at Carthage under Vandal rule (445), finally to be executed there by Geiseric (450). Sidonius pithily sums up Sebastian as “headstrong” (praecipitem, 9.280). Sidonius’ description of the poet as “following” (secutus, 9.279) Boniface and Sebastian may imply not just physical attendance on the generals but also service in some official capacity; there is at least a suggested analogy with the other two poets, Quintianus and Merobaudes, who held military posts under Aetius. The poet’s floruit may conservatively be limited at Sebastian’s exile in

23. Tr. Anderson with minor changes. 24. Alan Cameron, Claudian, 2–3; PLRE 2, 299–300 (“Claudianus 5”). On Claudian’s disputed Egyptian origins, see Christiansen, “Claudian: A Greek or a Latin?”; Geiger, “Some Latin Authors”; Schamp, “Claudien le ‘Paphlagonien’”; Mulligan, “The Poet from Egypt?” 25. PLRE 2, 237–40 (“Bonifatius 3”), 983–4 (“Sebastianus 3”).

274 Gillett 433. It is unclear whether the anonymous accompanied Sebastian into exile: there is no attestation of him in Constantinople.26 Even had he accompanied Sebastian and produced works there, it is unlikely that any would have reached the west: Sidonius shows no knowledge of any eastern poet later than the playwright Menander,27 and notwithstanding Claudian’s invectives against Rufinus and Eutropius, partisan propaganda did not readily flow across the Mediterranean.28 Sidonius is likely to have known of the panegyrist of Boniface and Sebastian only until the latter’s exile in 433. The second poet, Quintianus (290–95), the only one of this group named by Sidonius,29 is described as a panegyrist of Aetius (laudans Aetium, 9.294). Following the death of his rival Boniface, Aetius was not only the leading general in the west but also held a position of influence equivalent to Stilicho’s, until his death in 454.30 Aetius is attested commanding in Gaul for much of his career, intermittently between ca. 425 and 453. Quintianus’ floruit cannot be dated with greater precision than these dates. His career as a panegyrist and that of the anonymous could, therefore, have coincided, overlapped, or followed one after the other. Sidonius indicates that Quintianus held military office while acting as Aetius’ panegyrist, a theme that recurs at greater length in the extant inscription to the statue of the third of Sidonius’ subjects, Merobaudes.31 Unlike the first two poets, Merobaudes’ work is at least partly extant: four short occasional poems; two panegyrics, one in prose and one in verse; and possibly a religious poem, De Christo. All but the last are preserved, fragmented, in a single manuscript, a fift h- or sixth-century uncial palimpsest, perhaps the remnants of an omnibus edition of epic and minor works like Claudian’s.32 Like Quintianus, Merobaudes held military office, serving as magister utriusque

26. Suda Θ 145 (Theodosius II) records Sebastian but not his poet (by contrast, Claudian was known in Constantinople: cf. Suda K 1707 [Claudian], Σ 1032 [Stilicho]; Alan Cameron, Claudian, 243–46; Whitby, “Paul the Silentiary and Claudian.” The poet’s preference for “Pandion’s Athens” (9.282) is presumably only a figurative description of his literary career, invoking the seat of Greek learning (complemented by the eastern place-names of the following passage) and paralleling the implied move of Claudian from Egypt in the previous lines and the explicit physical relocations of Quintianus and Merobaudes in the following lines. 27. Geiger, “Some Latin Authors,” 614–15, for the possibility that one Ampelius (Sid. Carm. 9.304) was Antiochene. 28. Invectives: see Kelly q.v. Restriction of communications: Claudian, Stil. 2.291–311; CTh 7.16.1; Eunapius fr. 66.2 [Blockley]; Bagnall et al., Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, s.a. 399. 29. Also the only poet in Carm. 9 addressed in the second person; throughout the rest of Carm. 9, the second person addresses Sidonius’ dedicatee, Magnus Felix. 30. PLRE 2, 21–29 (“Aetius 7”); O’Flynn, Generalissimos, 74–103; Zecchini, Aezio. 31. See n.74 below. In addition to this shared image, there are slight verbal echoes between Merobaudes’ inscription and Sidonius’ passage on Quintianus. Cf. Horace, Carm. 1.32.6–12, on Alcaeus, though stressing his hymns to gods and mythic poetry, not his accounts of politics and warfare. 32. Vollmer’s Merobaudes, i–iv; CLA 7, no.962.

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militiae in Italy and Spain. Merobaudes is conventionally described as the panegyrist of Aetius, but Sidonius’ description suggests some qualification to this.33 Whereas Sidonius describes Quintianus unambiguously as Aetius’ panegyrist, he associates Merobaudes with Ravenna and Rome, the residences of the western imperial court under Valentinian III.34 Two of the extant short poems of Merobaudes celebrate the family of Valentinian III (Carm. 1 and 2), and another concerns a son of Aetius (Carm. 4); both the prose and the verse panegyric praise Aetius (Pan. 1 and 2).35 Claudian’s talents had been employed for praise, notionally, of the emperor Honorius as well as Stilicho; Sidonius’ description suggests that Merobaudes likewise wrote panegyrics for the emperor as well as for his leading general. In one extant fragment, Merobaudes assumes that other contemporary authors also wrote works in praise of Aetius.36 Sidonius selects as key points of Merobaudes’ career his departure from his homeland in the southern Spanish province of Baetica, his implied service at the imperial court (not, as with Quintianus, specifying that it was military), and the erection in his honor of a statue in the Forum of Trajan by the Roman senate and the emperor.37 Sidonius does not mention here that this last was an honor shared by Claudian and himself, though it is perhaps unlikely that any of Sidonius’ regular correspondents, including the dedicatee of his Carm. 9, would have been unaware of this. Sidonius links the three poets by their contemporaneity, their youth at the commencement of their careers, their departure from their home provinces to pursue their careers, and their attachment to leading palatine figures, the generals Boniface, Sebastian, and Aetius and the emperor Valentinian III. Sidonius does not explicitly tie the three to Claudian, and indeed describes Claudian somewhat differently, identifying his poetry with the mythological De Raptu Proserpinae rather than with panegyrical works and making no reference to his connection with Stilicho, an obvious parallel with the three younger poets. Nor does Sidonius explicitly describe the works of Claudian, the anonymous, or Merobaudes as panegyrical; only Quintianus is attributed with laudes. But the failure to name the poets is probably a compliment: most of the major poets alluded to throughout Carm. 9, including Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan, are unnamed.

33. PLRE 2, 756–58 (“Merobaudes”); Clover, Merobaudes; Loyen, “L’oeuvre de Flavius Merobaudes.” 34. Ravenna: Sid. Carm. 9.298; Rome: 299, Quirites. Cf. Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna.” 35. Clover, Merobaudes, 16–59. 36. Merobaudes, Pan. 1.ii.a.15–18: vel ego vel alii . . . quotiens de actibus tuis aliqua disserimus . . . 37. PLRE 2, 757, reads the plural statuarum of Hydatius, Chron. 120 Burgess [128 Mommsen] as an indication that statues of Merobaudes were erected elsewhere also, but this misreads the text: Hydatius does not describe plural statues, but invokes as evidence of Merobaudes’ fame the abstraction testimonio . . . statuarum, “the evidence which statues proffer.”

276 Gillett Sidonius expects his readers to identify and respect the poets he mentions anonymously.38 The juxtaposition of the three poets with Claudian implies a connection, the more so as it requires an interruption of the otherwise more or less chronological order of Sidonius’ list of Latin poets. Sidonius jumps a quartercentury from Claudian to his account of the three contemporaries of Aetius and Valentinian III, but then reverses his chronology back to Claudian’s temporal peers—poets operating in Italy at the time of Q. Aurelius Symmachus—before again advancing in time to name poets of his own time.39 Sidonius presumably expected his reader already to be familiar with the connection. Sidonius too had briefly tasted the same mix of poetry and politics in his early career. As a young man, he followed his father-in-law Eparchius Avitus to Rome in 455. Avitus was a former military commander and prefect of Gaul who had been elevated as Augustus by Gallic forces after the death of Valentinian III and the short reign of Petronius Maximus. In Rome, on 1 January 456, Sidonius delivered a panegyric for Avitus’ accessional consulate.40 Poetic in form and mythological in narrative, the work imitated Claudian’s corpus closely. Both because of his kinship to Avitus, and because of the success of the work (measured by the erection of a statue of Sidonius in Trajan’s Forum41), Sidonius may reasonably have expected to deliver further imperial panegyrics for his fatherin-law. Avitus’ fall from power later in 456 frustrated any such expectations. In 458, Sidonius delivered a second epic verse panegyric, on Avitus’ supplanter, Majorian, not a consular panegyric but a petition for clemency for those elements in Gaul who had unsuccessfully opposed Majorian’s rule.42 After this reconciliation, Sidonius prospered under Majorian. But in late 467, probably several years after Sidonius had composed Carm. 9 as the preface to the first version of his collection of minor works, Sidonius was commissioned to deliver a second consular panegyric, to the emperor Anthemius.43 Sidonius’ panegyrics on Avitus and Majorian had been published individually soon after delivery, and all three were reissued in an omnibus edition, as was his already-published

38. Virgil: Sid. Carm. 9.217–20; Ovid: 269–70; Lucan: 239–58 (the longest passage on a single poet); also unnamed are Seneca: 232–38; and Juvenal: 271–73. Horace and Statius, however, are named: 221–25, 226–29. So too are most of the poets contemporary to Sidonius, but this is presumably a courtesy to his peers rather than tacit acknowledgment of minor status; 302–17. 39. Sid. Carm. 9.302–10. 40. PLRE 2, 115–18 (“Apollinaris 6”); Stevens, Sidonius; Harries, Apollinaris Sidonius. See now Prévot, “Deux fragments”; Montzamir, “Nouvel essai de reconstitution.” On his panegyrics, see Harrison, “The Verse Panegyrics of Sidonius”; Gillett, Envoys, 84–112; Watson, “Representing the Past.” 41. Sid. Carm. 8.8–10; Ep. 9.16.3 verse 21–28; see below at n.75. 42. Sid. Carm. 5; cf. Carm. 13. Stevens, Sidonius, 45–46, 181–85; Harries, Apollinaris Sidonius, 86–87. 43. Sid. Ep. 1.9.5–6; Carm. 1–2.

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collection of minor works, ca. 469.44 Sidonius’ last panegyric, on Anthemius, delivered in Rome on 1 January 468, ends with the poet looking forward to the delivery of future panegyrics on specific foreseen major occasions of Anthemius’ rule: a consulate of the generalissimo Ricimer, now Anthemius’ son-inlaw, and a further (quinquennial) consulate of Anthemius.45 Foretelling future felicities was a conventional way of predicting a long reign for the emperor and of concluding a panegyric.46 But here Sidonius is concerned not so much with future events themselves as with the ceremonial they would occasion and his possible role in them; more, he predicts that these ceremonies would serve as a means to relate, cumulatively, the outcome of the campaign against the Vandal kingdom in north Africa on which Anthemius and his eastern imperial colleague and sponsor Leo I were about to embark. This vision of a seriatim account of an honorand’s successes, issued at a sequence of specific public imperial ceremonies, reflects an understanding of the role of panegyric based on Claudian’s collected major works, not on the more traditional single occasional pieces exemplified by the third- and fourth-century Latin panegyrics or outlined by Menander’s handbook. Though no more epic verse panegyrics are extant after Anthemius’ consular eulogy, Sidonius made two inchoate attempts to perpetuate the tradition of Claudian and his early fift h-century successors in the expectation that it would continue. To summarize the features common to Claudian, the anonymous, Quintianus, Merobaudes, and Sidonius: each wrote verse panegyric, for consular celebrations and other occasions, on behalf of leading political figures, generalissimos or their emperors (in the case of Sidonius on Avitus, the subject was both). They gained renown far beyond that of mere litterateurs, as indicated by contemporary or near-contemporary references to Claudian and Merobaudes by Augustine, Orosius, Prosper, and Hydatius; by the statues erected in Rome by the senate to Claudian, Merobaudes, and Sidonius; and by Sidonius’ anonymous references. Each was identified primarily as the associate of particular individuals, generals, or emperors. Each left his homeland in order to attach himself to his patron; and each held office, either a civilian palatine position as with Claudian and Sidonius, or a military one as with Quintianus, Merobaudes, and perhaps the anonymous. In the cases of Quintianus and Merobaudes, the combination of military office and literary skills was exploited for additional acclaim. Claudian, Merobaudes, and Sidonius all wrote in epic meter (though Merobaudes at least also wrote in prose), setting their

44. Individual publication: Sid. Carm. 8 (panegyric on Avitus), 3 (on Majorian). Omnibus: Stevens, Sidonius, 100. 45. Sid. Carm. 2.540–43. 46. E.g., Pan. Lat. 10(2).14.1; 11(3).19.4–5; possibly 8(4).21; 6(7).22; 4(10).38.6.

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honorands amid mythological tableaux; it is likely from Sidonius’ grouping that this style was shared with the anonymous and Quintianus. The performances of their panegyrics that can be localized were delivered either in Rome, before the senate, or at the imperial court when in Milan or Ravenna (see chapter appendix). Several of Claudian’s works effectively form a seriatim account of Stilicho’s deeds, and Sidonius expected a similar series of narratives on Anthemius. The epic works of Claudian and Sidonius, and possibly Merobaudes, were reissued in omnibus editions along with their lesser poetry. Sidonius describes the anonymous, Quintianus, and Merobaudes as patribus .  .  . nostris .  .  . maximi sodales, “the greatest of our fathers’ comrades” (Carm. 9.277–78). The description emphasises three attributes: the poets’ fame; their contemporaneity a generation earlier; and companionship, though grammatically with patribus . . . nostris rather than with each other. Even so, the choice of a term invoking fellowship is striking, for camaraderie is not the obvious characteristic of the poets’ time or of their honorands. Boniface and Aetius were mortal rivals, and Aetius had Sebastian exiled; Aetius would be killed by Valentinian III, both recipients of Merobaudes’ works. As the careers of their honorands straddle three decades, the poets’ periods of literary productivity need not necessarily have coincided. But it is likely that at least the careers of the anonymous and of Merobaudes did: by the conservative estimate above, the anonymous flourished up to at least 433, while Merobaudes probably delivered the consular panegyric for Aetius’ first consulate in 432, and certainly had achieved renown by 435, when his statue was erected in Trajan’s Forum (see below). The poets were partisans of different and hostile factions within the western military aristocracy. If the three did flourish about the same time, it was probably not by chance. The year 432, in which Boniface was appointed at Rome as magister utriusque militiae (and perhaps patricius) and Merobaudes possibly celebrated Aetius’ first consulate there, may well have witnessed a “battle of the poets,” deployed by rival patrons preliminary to the eruption of their open conflict. Alan Cameron showed decisively that Claudian’s panegyrics should be understood as direct propaganda on behalf of Stilicho, aimed at the aristocracy of Rome (rather than as expressions of the ambitions of the Roman aristocracy itself or of a “pagan party”).47 The two imperial consular panegyrics of Sidonius, particularly the poem on Avitus, likewise represent their subjects’ unalloyed propaganda targeting the Roman senate (not statements of the aspirations of the Gallic aristocracy, either for independence or for greater involvement

47. Alan Cameron, Claudian, 42–45, 59, 228–52.

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with the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse, or Sidonius’ personal political ideals).48 The anonymous, Quintianus, and Merobaudes appear to have performed the same role, as propagandists for leading court figures presumably addressing the same, senatorial audience. The need for the western imperial court to address the senatorial aristocracy of Rome was a function of the resurgent importance of that body throughout the late fourth and fift h centuries, after centuries of eclipse.49 Whereas Rome rarely hosted emperors during the third and especially fourth centuries, Theodosius I, Honorius, and Valentinian III all used the city regularly for ceremonial occasions, even while residing at Milan or Ravenna. Valentinian alternated his residence between Ravenna and Rome throughout the 440s, and relocated his court to Rome permanently in 450. Even when not in residence, Valentinian maintained close ties and a striking degree of control over Rome’s aristocracy and church, as Mark Humphries discusses in this volume.50 After Valentinian’s death in 455, most of the short-lived western emperors to 476 resided primarily or exclusively at Rome, while maintaining a military presence at Ravenna, their interface with the eastern imperial court of Constantinople. In the “thick and fast turnover” of emperors after 455 (as Jordanes put it51), the city of Rome produced at least two senatorial claimants to the throne (Petronius Maximus in 455, Olybrius in 47252). Eastern writers saw the ambitious senate of Rome, not hostile barbarians or overweening generals, as the cause of the west’s political turmoil.53 Much imperial ceremonial was staged for the Roman aristocracy’s benefit, and the city was visited not only by the western emperors but also by the leading generals Stilicho, Boniface, Aetius, and Ricimer.54 Less happily, Rome’s rising importance made the city and its environs a site for military

48. Gillett, Envoys, 86 n.4. 49. For the latter fourth and early fi ft h centuries, see Matthews, Western Aristocracies. For the fi ft h century, see Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 163 n.145; Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, 55. 50. See also Humphries, “From Emperor to Pope?” 51. Jordanes, Getica 237: crebram mutationem Romanorum principum. 52. PLRE 2, 749–51 (“Maximus 22”), 796–98 (“Olybrius 6”). The background of the usurper John is unclear; PLRE 2, 594–95 (“Ioannes 6”). 53. E.g., Malalas, Chron. 13.49, 50; 14.7, 14, 33, 35, 45; 15.9; other references at Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 159 n.130. 54. Visits by emperors: Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 137–55. By generals: Stilicho (400, 402): Claudian, Get. praef.; Stil. 3.1–13, 30–33, 51, 64–71; 6Cos. 123–24, 431–33; Symmachus, Ep. 4.13; Barnes, “The Historical Setting,” 376; cf. the emphasis of Claudian, Stil. 1.325–32 on the authority of the senate supporting Stilicho’s campaign against Gildo. Boniface (432): Prosper, Chron. s.a. 432. Aetius (possibly 432 cf. n.62 below, 440/441, 446, 450, 454): Merobaudes, Pan. 2.33–34 with Clover, Merobaudes, 29–30, 54–55; Priscus, fr. 20.3 (Blockley) with Thompson, Attila, 221; Addit. ad Prosp. Haun. s.a. 454; cf. n.62 below. Ricimer (467, 472): Sid. Ep. 1.5.10, 1.9.1; Priscus, fr. 64; Paulus Diaconus, Historia Romana 15.4.

280 Gillett contest between rival emperors and generals, while the extreme wealth of its aristocracy made the city a target for extortion and raid.55 This renewed if hazardous eminence of Rome formed the political context of the subgenre of epic panegyric. It was a cultural artifact targeted at a particular audience as a means to deliver current propaganda; the panegyrists from Claudian to Sidonius were facilitators of relations between the Roman senatorial aristocracy on the one hand and the generalissimos and emperors on the other. 3. Epic Panegyric as Political Communication Epic panegyric was a literary subgenre and political tool, stretching from the mid-390s to at least the 460s, with at least five known exponents and eight known honorands.56 In self-reflective passages, Claudian describes the political context, and Sidonius identifies the exponents of the tradition. Epic did not displace prose or occasional panegyrics, which continued as parallel forms (as attested by Merobaudes) and flourished in the post-imperial west of the fift h and sixth centuries.57 Though a highly political genre, the literary qualities of epic panegyric were essential to its operation. Epic panegyric differed from its prose counterpart not just in its form but also in its pattern of communication and its function. Traditional panegyric of emperors involved three parties: the speaker and his principal, the addresseehonorand, and the audience.58 It was a communication from the principal represented by the speaker, to the honorand of the panegyric—for example, a suppliant city making a request for tax relief to the emperor. The bilateral relationship between principal and honorand was based on request, grant, and thanks. The role of other hearers during the performance of the panegyric, the audience (whether the imperial consistorium, the senate, or a municipal assembly), was that of witnesses to a public transaction that would redound to the reputation of the honorand once he had granted the request. Audience and honorand also had a bilateral relationship: the honorand granted the audience the

55. Rome was besieged by rival candidates for power in 408, 409 (Alaric and Attalus), 413 (Heraclius), 472 (Gundobad and Olybrius), 474 (Nepos), and 475 (Orestes). Extortion and raid: in 410 by Alaric, in 455 by Geiseric. 56. I.e., Stilicho and Honorius (Claudian), Boniface and Sebastian (the anonymous), Aetius (Quintianus), Aetius and Valentinian III (Merobaudes), Avitus and Anthemius (Sidonius). Note that Merobaudes, Pan. 1.ii.a.15–18 suggests other panegyrists also. 57. Fift h- and sixth-century Latin prose panegyrics in the West are preserved or attested by Ennodius, Boethius, and Cassiodorus in Italy. 58. Other models operated for different situations—e.g., in panegyrics praising cities, delivered at annual celebrations, the city leaders, represented by the panegyrist, addressed themselves through the topic of their city, reinforcing urban values: a “closed circuit” in terms of direction of communication.

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privilege of participation in an imperial process, while the audience “rewarded” the honorand with public witness of his munificence. The transactions involved in the speech itself—petition and bestowal, thanks for honors or gifts given, profession and acceptance of loyalty—were all species of supplication, in which the panegyrist and his principal acknowledged the superiority of the honorand by asking or giving thanks for the grant of a boon in the addressee’s power (in the case of a petition for taxation relief, an explicit benefit; in that of expressions of loyalty in aurum coronarium speeches, the implicit grant of security; gratiarum actiones, a subcategory of panegyric, were postfactum statements of this relationship). The panegyric was the medium of this exchange. The praise and political imagery that feature in prose panegyric were ideological feedback— themes selected by the author from current court propaganda (or suggested to him by the court) and from stock imagery in order to wrap his petition in a politically palatable envelope, one conducive to a warm reception because it reflected the court’s own views. The discourse of the panegyric served to buttress specific or generic ideologies of the imperial regime,59 but to the panegyrist and his principal the themes were a device, the price the panegyrist paid in order to win a sympathetic hearing.60 To see dissemination of these themes as the primary purpose of public declamation of panegyrics is to confuse form with purpose. Promulgation of imperially favored themes was an effect of the public presentation of traditional panegyric, but not its aim, which was fundamentally concerned instead with pursuing the agenda of its principals. By contrast, epic panegyric, with its constant relationship between panegyrist and honorand, reroutes the pattern of communication: the panegyrist speaks for the honorand to the audience. There is no longer a third party standing by. The roles of principal and honorand—formerly, petitioner and benefactor—are collapsed together. The “address” of the panegyrist to his honorand is purely fictive since the panegyrist is his topic’s mouthpiece.61 The audience (senate or consistory) has now become the second party of the transaction, the addressee and target of the themes, no longer merely a witness (see figure 12.1). Epic panegyric also presents a different pattern of communication in offering a sequence of presentations over time, not just “stand-alone” declamations for individual occasions. Traditional prose panegyric was a conventional

59. L’Huillier, L’empire des mots, esp. 73–79, 125–39. 60. Nixon, “Latin Panegyric.” For analyses of interplay of court propaganda and provincial supplication, see Nixon and Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors (e.g., 448–516 on Pacatus); Rees, Layers of Loyalty. 61. Hence much of the task of praising the honorand is not carried out by direct address from the poet to his subject, but in speeches delivered by a deity, especially Jupiter or Roma, thus creating an artificial if fictive distance between the panegyrist and his honorand.

282 Gillett petition Principal Panegyrist

grant

participation

Honorand

acknowledgement of munificence

Audience

participation Honorand Panegyrist

acceptance

Audience

Figure 12.1 Direction of communication: traditional and epic imperial panegyric.

if not mandatory element of periodic ceremonial: a familiar component of regular, recurring public occasions (consular festivities, imperial dies natalis commemorations, urban anniversaries) or a predictable element in special events (victory celebrations, imperial accession). But within this recurring pattern, the relationship between the parties involved in the panegyric (honorand, principal and panegyrist, and audience) was momentary: each occasion would see different permutations of speaker, honorand, and—while the court was itinerant—audience. The components were interchangeable. Claudianic panegyric, by contrast, comprised a running commentary. The same panegyrist represented the same honorand over years, and, because the western court was no longer peripatetic, it targeted the same audience: invitees to imperial ceremonies in Milan, Ravenna, and especially Rome.62 Once a panegyrist was

62. See chapter appendix for locations. Sid. Carm. 9.298–301 suggests that Merobaudes produced works in Ravenna and Rome. Merobaudes, Carm. 1–2 may have been delivered at Ravenna; Carm. 4 and Pan. 1 and 2 were probably delivered at Rome (Clover, Merobaudes, 19, 27, 29 nn.7–8, 34, 55). The lost panegyric to Aetius cannot be localized, but if it was for Aetius’ fi rst consulate in 432 (PLRE 2, 757), note that Rome was used as a venue for imperial ceremonial at this time—e.g., the appointment of Boniface as magister militum, 432 (Prosper, Chron. s.a. 432); possibly the quinquennial celebrations of Valentinian III (Pearse, RIC 9, 32, 165–69, 175, 383; Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna,” 144–45). Merobaudes’ statue was erected in Rome by the senate in 435 (CIL 6.1724 = ILS 2950), as was Aetius’ ca. 437/442 (AE 1950, no. 30; PLRE 2, 25), possibly suggesting their presence in the city.

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established, “branded” as the particular representative of his honorand, each of his declamations was not only an element of the occasion it accompanied but also part of an ongoing series—a serial commentary on the current regime. Stilicho fought Alaric four times; for each occasion, Claudian produced an interpretation, delivered as either consular panegyric or historical epic.63 This continuity was self-consciously underscored. Previous speeches were recalled and future ones expected, articulating the series.64 Claudian’s panegyric on the sixth consulate of Honorius in 404 continues directly the narrative of his epic De Bello Getico, delivered over a year before, also in Rome.65 Sidonius’ panegyric on Anthemius, which centers on the new emperor’s appointment in order to resist the Vandal kingdom of north Africa (a central theme also in Sidonius’ panegyric on Avitus, twelve years earlier), concludes with the hope that Sidonius will be able to continue the narration of the African campaign, in either of two future occasional panegyrics.66 The panegyrist has an ongoing relationship not only with his subject but also with his audience, to whom he expects to continue to provide updated messages. The panegyric is no longer only a celebration of the particular occasion on which it is delivered, but a recurring venue for the seriatim delivery of a sequential dramatization of the current regime’s propaganda. The function of the transaction conducted by the performance of the panegyric has changed, too. The imperial panegyrics of Claudian, Sidonius’ poem on Avitus, and what remains of Merobaudes’ panegyrics, all enclose no coyly disguised supplications. The message is no longer one of supplication, thanks, or expression of loyalty; the panegyrist asks nothing of the honorand, for he himself is a projection of the honorand. The themes of the works, their political messages, have now become the explicit business of panegyric. Their political messages are true and urgent propaganda, both about and on behalf of their honorands. What then is the nature of the transaction involved in their delivery? The audience still retains the privilege of inclusion in imperial processes, acknowledgment that it is a significant constituent of the imperial polity. But in return, more is demanded of it. The

63. Claudian, Eutr., 4Cos., Get., Stil. 1. Alan Cameron, Claudian 156–57. 64. Articulation: for Claudian, explicit references to delivery of earlier works include Get. praef. 1–6 (to OP); 6Cos. 122–26 (to Gild. and Get.). General references to the subject matter of earlier works: e.g., 3Cos. 15–16 (general reference to earlier deliveries at Rome); Eutr. 2.539–43 (Rufi nus); Stil. 1.3–10 (epithalamium of Honorius, Gildo, Eutropius), 140–41 (Theodosius’ commission to Stilicho, cf. 3Cos.); 246–69 (Gildo); Stil. 2.293–94 (Eutropius); Stil. 3.praef. 23–24 (earlier deliveries in Rome); 75–106 (Gildo). Future expectations: 4Cos. 650–51 (future epithalamium of Honorius); Theod., 336–37 (future consular panegyric of Theodorus’ son). For Sidonius: at n.45 above. 65. Claudian, 6Cos. 127ff.; cf. Get., ad fin. 66. Sid. Carm. 2.540–43.

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audience does not just passively witness the message of the panegyric; it must actively acknowledge it as true. Whereas the senatorial audiences of fourthcentury Latin panegyrics are, to us, “mute,”67 the enthusiastic reactions of audiences to epic works, recorded in several ways, mark acceptance. The erection of statues of the panegyrists, accepting them into the pantheon of literary greats, is a concrete expression of this acceptance; presumably other, ephemeral signs of acceptance were expressed on the occasions of public declamation of the panegyrics (both Claudian and Sidonius refer to acclamation68). The epic panegyrics functioned not, like modern advertising, by subliminal persuasion or by constant repetition of a message in order to change the perception of the audience. Rather, they operated by blunt assertion. A claim is put forth publicly: Stilicho’s commission of regency from Theodosius I, Aetius’ repression of barbarians,69 Avitus’ legitimacy, Anthemius’ nomination as emperor at the request of Rome to Constantinople—all claims susceptible to doubt and arising from these honorands themselves. The audience must publicly acknowledge the veracity of the claim; by failing to do so, it would, by default, publicly demur at the reigning power’s assertions. Sidonius’ panegyric for Avitus put forward before the senate a claim for Avitus’ legitimacy that was patently false. But the senate expressed its acceptance of Avitus’ assertion by acclaiming the poem and erecting a statue of Sidonius in honor of the panegyric.70 The poem functions not so much to sway hearers’ opinions as to offer a stand that the audience must expressly accept or risk being forced into an invidious, and therefore dangerous, stance. The transaction of assertion and acceptance sheds light on the literary reception of this form of propaganda. The epic panegyrists performed bluntly political functions; yet testimonials by contemporaries and later generations in the west focus on their literary standing. Acts to promote the reputation of the poets stressed literary rather than political roles. The acclamations following the delivery of the works were for the poet, not the honorand.71 The statues of Claudian, Merobaudes, and Sidonius stood in the Forum of Trajan, between the Greek and Latin collections of the Bibliotheca Ulpia and continuing the series of images of Greco-Roman writers installed in the libraries’ niches, stressing their literary

67. MacCormack, “Latin Prose Panegyrics,” 158–59; Rees, Layers of Loyalty, 15. 68. See n.71 below. 69. Merobaudes, Pan. 2 is too fragmentary for detailed analysis, but the evident theme of armed victory over barbarians, by a general known for his intimate ties to the Huns and settlement of allied barbarian groups in Gaul, may suggest an attempt to obscure his less militaristic policies. 70. Gillett, Envoys, 91. 71. Sid. Carm. 8.9–10: vel quod adhuc populo simul et plaudente senatu / ad nostrum reboat concave Roma sophos. Cf. Claud. Get. praef. 7–14; 6Cos. praef. 15–16.

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associations.72 The bilingual inscription to the statue of Claudian makes this literary significance very clear, without any indication of its political context: [In Latin] [Statue] of Claudius Claudianus, vir clarissimus. To Claudius Claudianus, vir clarissimus, tribune and notary, among other worthy arts most glorious of poets: albeit that the poems written by him afford an eternal memorial, yet as witness of the confidence of their judgement our lords Arcadius and Honorius, most fortunate and learned emperors, at the request of the senate, ordered (this) statue to be erected and placed in the Forum of the divine Trajan. [In Greek] Virgil’s mind and Homer’s muse in one man: Claudian was set in place by Roma and the emperors.73 The inscription to the statue of Merobaudes dwells on his dual talents as general and poet. The opening phrases admit that the latter included panegyric, but only as a device to underscore Merobaudes’ own military career: [Statue dedicated] to Flavius Merobaudes, vir spectabilis, comes of the sacred consistorium. To Flavius Merobaudes: a man both courageous and learned, famed both for performing praiseworthy deeds and for praising the deeds of others; renowned for his knowledge of the military camp, outstanding for his eloquence and zeal for studies; who since childhood (has possessed) an equal concern for virtue as for eloquence; whose wit, destined as much for courage as for learning, wields equally the sword and the pen; suffering neither in comfort or in lettered seclusion that the vigor of his mind should grow idle from merely learned leisure, he soldiered in letters amidst arms and in the Alps he whetted his eloquence.

72. Sid. Ep. 9.16.3, verses 27–28. Statues for living contemporaries are attested for Honorius and Stilicho in the Forum Romanum (CIL 6.31256, 1730, 1731, 31988) and for Aetius in the Atrium Libertatis adjacent to the Bibliotheca Ulpia (AE 1950, no. 30, l. 10; Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, 41,176). Themistius had received two bronze statues at Constantinople, the fi rst dedicated by Constantius II; the dedicator of the second is unknown. 73. CIL 6.1710 = ILS 2949: [Cl.] Claudiani v.c. [Cl ]audio Claudiano v.c., tri[bu]no et notario, inter ceteras [de]centes artes prae[ g]loriosissimo [po]etarum, licet ad memoriam sempiternam carmina ab eodem scripta sufficient, adtamen testimonii gratia ob iudicii sui [ f ]idem, dd. nn. Arcadius et Honorius [ fe]licissimi ac doctissimi imperatores senatu petente statuam in foro divi Traiani erigi collocarique iusserunt. Eἰν ἑνὶ B ιρ γιλίοι ο νόον καὶ Mοῦσαν Ὁ μήρου, K λαυδι ανὸν Ῥώ μη καὶ βασιλῆς ἔθεσαν. Cf. Claudian, Get. praef. 7–9.

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Therefore to him accrues as reward not petty boughs (of laurel), nor idle ivy, the Muses’ honor for the brow, but a likeness cast of bronze, (the gesture) by which Antiquity was wont to honor men of rare kind, those tested in battle or the highest of poets. Th is Roma, together also with the most august princes Theodosius and Placidius Valentinian, the world’s lords, grant to him in the Ulpian forum, new glories rewarding a man of ancient nobility for both his soldierly activity and his verse, in the declamation of which glory swells for the triumphal empire. Dedicated on the third day before the Kalends of August in the fifteenth consulate of Theodosius and the fourth of Valentinian [30 July 435].74 The inscription of Sidonius’ statue is not extant, but his two references to the statue stress reward for poetic skills.75 None of these presentations of the statues mentions the honorands of the poets. This sequence of statues was an integral element of the public exchange in which epic panegyric was involved. Claudian’s statue marked the public acceptance by the senate of his and Stilicho’s propaganda, represented as a cultural, not a political, statement. The same permanently visible recognition of acceptance was required also by Claudian’s successors, but with increasing urgency. Claudian had composed works at Stilicho’s direction for five years before his statue was erected in Rome in 400; Merobaudes’ chronology is less clear, but the earliest guess for his first declamation on Aetius’ behalf is 432, three years before his statue was put in place in 435;76 Sidonius delivered his panegyric on Avitus on 1 January 456, and his statue had been set up before Avitus’ fall in October the same year. Over this course of time, the public attribution of responsibility for erecting the statues shifted away from the emperors onto the

74. CIL 6.1724 = ILS 2950: [Fl. Merob]audi v.s. com. s.c. Fl. Merobaudi aeque forti et docto viro, tam facere laudanda quam aliorum facta laudare praecipuo, castrensi experientia claro, facundia vel otiosorum studia supergresso; cui a crepundiis par virtutis et eloquentiae cura; ingenium ita fortitudini ut doctrinae natum stilo et gladio pariter exercuit, nec in umbra vel latebris mentis vigorem scholari tantum otio torpere passus, inter arma litteris militabat et in Alpibus acuebat eloquium: ideo illi cessit in praemium non verbena vilis, nec otiosa hedera, honor capitis Heliconius, sed imago aere formata, quo rari exempli viros seu in castris probatos seu optimos vatum antiquitas honorabat: quod huic quoque cum augustissimis Roma principibus Theodosio et Placido Valentiniano rerum dominis in foro Ulpio detulerunt, remunerantes in viro antiquae nobilitatis novae gloriae vel industriam militarem vel carmen, cuius praeconio gloria triumfali crevit imperio. (In latere) dedicata III kal. Aug. conss. dd. nn. Theodosio XV et Valentiniano IIII. Cf. Merobaudes, Pan. 1.ii.1.2–3; Sid. Carm. 9.299–301; and the fragmentary funerary inscription of Merobaudes (CIL 6.31983; ILCV 1.105b): Flavius Merobaudes orator. 75. Sid. Carm. 8.8–10; Ep. 9.16.3 verses 21–28. 76. PLRE 2, 757. 77. Claudian’s inscription and his own reference to his statue attribute it to the emperors, at the senate’s request. Merobaudes’ inscription and his own reference credits his statue equally to “Roma”

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senate and the city of Rome.77 Public expression of imperial favor was less important than the formal appearance of volition on the part of the Roman elite in acknowledging acquiescence in the current regime’s propaganda, in the form of literary acclamation. Publication of the poets’ work, though it also seems to have been politically motivated, confirmed the literary reception of the generalissimos’ propaganda. Stilicho apparently republished the individual panegyrics, invectives, and epics of Claudian in an omnibus edition after the poet’s death; he also issued a second omnibus of Claudian’s minor works, some of which were political in nature but many of which were not.78 Though the individual panegyrics were originally occasional pieces, they had not completely lost their political value to Stilicho; their “use-by” date did not expire with the ceremonial event at which they were first declaimed, and the literary value of the nonpolitical pieces could be exploited. Merobaudes’ poems and panegyrics, in prose and verse, may have been issued in a single omnibus edition, as the manuscript evidence suggests.79 Sidonius, perhaps in imitation of Claudian, reissued his panegyrics in an omnibus edition, together with an expanded omnibus of his minor and nonpolitical poems.80 The reputations of these figures impressed contemporaries and later authors as primarily literary. Claudian was described as a respected poet (albeit a pagan) by his contemporaries Augustine and Orosius, and a generation later by Prosper, rather than as a partisan of his patron. Merobaudes was recognized likewise by Hydatius.81 Strikingly, the poets’ reputations outlived their patrons. The honorands of Claudian, Merobaudes, and Sidonius were all overthrown and, in some cases, subjected to damnatio memoriae, yet the poets did not suffer likewise. Their statues and inscriptions in Rome were not defaced, and copies of their works continued in circulation.82 Stilicho, in his promotion of Claudian, exploited the Greco-Roman traditions of public literary presentation as a means of consolidating his propaganda

and the emperors; Sidonius likewise assigns it to the Quirites and emperor. Sidonius’ references to his own statue cites populus Quirini, senatus, and ordo iudiciorum with no reference to the emperor. References as for nn. 73–75 above. 78. See n.8 above. 79. Vollmer, Introduction to Merobaudes, Reliquiae iii–iv. 80. For conscious imitation of form of literary publication, cf. Sidonius’ letter collections: though published incrementally, the fi nal nine-book edition was cast as an imitation of Pliny’s collection of personal letters (without Book 10, Pliny’s letters in office); Sid. Ep. 9.1.1; Alan Cameron, “The Fate of Pliny’s Letters,” 289–98; Harries, Apollinaris Sidonius, 9. 81. References as at nn.12, 37 above. 82. Alan Cameron, Claudian, 227. Merobaudes’ statue still stood when Sidonius wrote Carm. 9, over a decade after the fall of Aetius. Sidonius’ statue still stood when he wrote Ep. 9.16.3, verses 21–28, in or after 480, over two decades after the fall of Avitus.

288 Gillett in two ways. Traditional panegyrics, like public speeches, were ephemeral, but the promotion of Claudian (and later of his imitators) as apogees of poetic art ensured that they and their messages remained prominent long after the occasions on which they declaimed. It made the heroic images of Stilicho and the other honorands part of the cultural background of the period—so much so that Claudian became both model and catalyst for a new movement of late antique epic, while Merobaudes was cited by Boethius as a rhetorical exemplar.83 The panegyrists provided the generalissimos with a means of garnering public acclamation, without trespassing on imperial prerogatives. The senate of Rome is prominent in evidence for praise of the panegyrists: as audience, in acclamation, and in the dedications of their statues.84 In acclaiming the panegyrist, the senatorial aristocracy expressed its support for the honorand. Just as the panegyric was a medium for the transaction between the honorand and the audience on the occasion of the work’s delivery, so too the person of the panegyrist himself was the medium for the ongoing relationship between honorand and audience. It was by praise of the spokesman, for his literary art, that the senate expresses its acquiescence to the generalissimo. Both panegyric and panegyrist were tokens in this communicative economy. 4. Rome and Epic Panegyric Epic panegyric is often thought of as the personal style of Claudian, palely reprised several generations later by Merobaudes and Sidonius Apollinaris. Though Claudian’s was certainly the creative mind that instigated this subgenre, the phenomenon of epic panegyric should be seen, not as an isolated flourish with later, wan echoes, but as a continuous practice, one that characterizes imperial politics in Rome during the early and mid-fift h century. Nor was it a literature of poets only: patrons and honorands were as significant as the authors in its operation. Epic panegyric was not a form of appeal or even of praise from subjects (the functions of traditional imperial panegyric), but of public relations and media manipulation by rulers. It is a reversal of the communicative directions of traditional panegyric. This subgenre casts light on the turbulent politics of Rome and the late antique west. Civil wars between generals dominate fift h-century western history (just as civil wars between emperors dominate fourth-century imperial history). But the generals’ military force was not the only tool in their arsenal, nor was everything decided on the battlefield. The generals’ patronage of epic

83. Claudian’s influence on a wide variety of later fi ft h- and sixth-century writers: Birt, Introduction to Claudian, lxxvi–lxxx; Alan Cameron, Claudian, 419; Hajdú, “Corippus’s Attempt.” On late epic, Toohey, Reading Epic, 211–23. Boethius: as at n.12 above. 84. Claudian, Get. praef. 7–9; 6Cos. praef. 21–26; Sid. Carm. 2.13–14; 8.9. For the statues, n.77 above.

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panegyrists indicates their need to communicate regularly with the civilian elite, to massage opinion, and to generate and maintain support in the city of Rome. The military leaders of the fift h-century west are obvious in our narrative sources. But the role of epic panegyric indicates that the generals as a class were not only occupied with their civil wars, their machinations on the imperial throne, and the defense against barbarian raiders but also constantly engaged with the civilian aristocracy of Rome, using a particular set of conventions and frameworks for communication first developed by Stilicho and Claudian. The development of epic panegyric, more broadly, stands as an example of the way in which the political and cultural changes of Late Antiquity prompted new uses of communication.

Chapter Appendix Dates and Places of Delivery of Known Epic Paneg yrics; Offices, Honors, and Publications (For dates and places of delivery of extant works: Cameron, Claudian, xv–xvi; Clover, Merobaudes, 19, 27, 29 nn.7–8, 34, 55; Stevens, Sidonius, xiii–xiv. For careers: PLRE 2, s.vv.) Claudian Olybrio et Probino consulibus January 395 Honorio Augusto III consuli January 396 In Rufinum 1 Early 397 (Claudian vir clarissimus, tribunus et notarius by early 397) In Rufinum 2 Late summer 397 Honorio Augusto IV consuli January 398 De bello Gildonico April 398 Mallio Theodoro consuli January 399 In Eutropium 1 Spring 399 In Eutropium 2 September 399 De consulatu Stilichonis 1–2 January 400 De consulatu Stilichonis 3 February 400 (statue of Claudian in Forum of Trajan, 400) Bellum Geticum Mid-402 Honorio Augusto VI consuli January 404 (omnibus edition of Claudian’s works issued by Stilicho, before 408)

Rome Milan Milan Milan Milan Milan Milan Milan Milan Milan Rome Rome Rome

Anonymous panegyric(s) to Boniface panegyric(s) to Sebastian

?413/432 ?432/444 (probably 433 at latest) (secutus Boniface and Sebastian implying military office?)

? ?

(continued)

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Quintianus panegyric(s) to Aetius (military post under Aetius in Gaul?)

?425/453

Gaul

?432 (before 435)

?Rome

ca. 435

Ravenna ?Ravenna

Merobaudes lost panegyric to Aetius (? I cons. Aetii) (military post by 435) (adlected to senate, probably 432/435) (vir spectabilis, comes sacri consistorii by 435) (statue of Merobaudes in Forum of Trajan, 435) lost works Carm. 1–2 (?patricius,?437,?Constantinople) Panegyricus 1 (prose gratiarum actio) to Aetius

?439?443 or soon ?Rome after (cf. inscription to base of statue of Aetius erected by senate in Rome between 437 and 442; AE 1950, no. 30) Carm. 4 ca. 441/442 Rome Panegyricus 2 (metrical, on Aetius’ third consulship) (?1 January) 446 Rome (?omnibus edition) Sidonius

Avito Augusto (Carm. 7) 1 January 456 (statue of Sidonius in forum of Trajan, 456) (publication of consular panegyric of Avitus, 456; Sid. Carm. 8) Maioriano Augusto ( gratiarum actio) (Carm. 5) 458 (?tribunus et notarius, 458) (publication of panegyric of Majorian, 458; Sid. Carm. 3) (Carm. 9 and first edition of minor poems, ca. 461/467) Anthemio Augusto bis consuli (Carm. 2) 1 January 468 (prefect of Rome, ?patricius, 468) (omnibus edition of poems, ca. 469)

Rome

Lyons

Rome

PA RT V

Christian Capitals?

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13

There but Not There Constantinople in the Itinerarium Burdigalense BENET SALWAY

T he Bordeaux Itinerary (Itinerarium Burdigalense) is a deceptively simple, much exploited, yet still enigmatic and surprisingly complex document.1 This Latin work preserves an eye-witness account of nearly two hundred and fift y days of travel, over nearly five thousand miles, spanning the length of the Roman Empire from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea. The narrator does not reveal his or her identity or the motivation for undertaking this journey at this time. However, the work is particularly notable for the explosion of commentary after Palestinian Caesarea on locations with scriptural, particularly Old Testament, associations, especially in Jerusalem and its environs, a section that is frequently treated as the core of the text.2 This sojourn in the Holy Land can be dated, on explicit evidence internal to the text, to the latter half of a.d. 333—that is, only nine years after the region had come under the direct rule of a Christian emperor for the first time. Given this context, it should not be an automatic assumption that the anonymous narrator was a Christian; but at least one turn of phrase explicitly indicates the religious identity of the author (and that of the intended readership) as Christian.3 Therefore, the inclusion of the commentary on places of interest in the

1. The most recent critical edition is that in Glorie, ed. Itineraria et alia geographica, vol. I (CCL 175), 1–26, which amalgamates and updates those by Geyer, Itinera Hierosolymitana (CSEL 39), 3–33, and Cuntz, Itineraria Romana, 86–102, all of which perpetuate numeration by the pages and lines of Wesseling, Vetera Romanorum Itineraria, 535–617. A complete English translation is provided by Aubrey Stewart in Stewart and Wilson, Bordeaux Pilgrim. 2. Itin. Burd. 585.4–599.9; on which see, e.g., Casson, Travel, 307–309; Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage, 84–85; Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places, 327–28. For detailed commentary on this section, see Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, 22–34; Bowman, “Mapping History’s Redemption,” 173–84; and Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 190–94. 3. Securely attested by the reference to the well at Sychar, where “Our Lord Jesus Christ” spoke to the Samaritan woman (Itin. Burd. 588.4–5: Dominus noster Iesus Christus cum ea locutus est ; see John 4:5–28). Elsewhere Jesus is more neutrally just “the Lord.”

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Holy Land has led to the quite reasonable assumption that the journey recorded was a pilgrimage. Indeed, the identification of this itinerary text as a religiously motivated work has been so strong that at the beginning of the last century Anton Elter went as far as attempting to prove that the great collection of itineraries to have survived from Roman antiquity, the so-called Antonine Itinerary (Itinerarium Antonini), was also assembled for the benefit of pilgrims.4 While the structure and content of the Antonine Itinerary render this implausible,5 in the Bordeaux Itinerary the attention given to the Holy Land, and the apparent privileging of Jerusalem as the final destination, do make it seem almost a precursor in textual form of the early medieval maps of the world that, orientated toward Paradise, feature Jerusalem as a focal point on their central axis.6 Understandably, then, the Bordeaux Itinerary has long been justifiably prized as the earliest surviving narrative of Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land.7 The discursive narrative section devoted to Palestine also looms large because of the contrast with the relatively unadorned lists of places and distances that precede and follow it.8 According to modern scholars, this binary division results either from the crude intrusion into a traditional “secular itinerary” (“itinerario laïco”) of a slightly more sophisticated “tour of the holy places” (itinerarium ad loca sancta),9 or from a calculated “shift in discourse” from a bare itinerary in the mold of the Antonine Itinerary to expansive periegesis.10 The contrast has seemed so extreme that Samuel Klein proposed that the work had been compiled by an armchair traveler in Bordeaux with access to secular itinerary material and a repertory of Jewish folk tales about the Holy Land.11 In fact, as noted by numerous scholars, the dichotomy is not so clear-cut. Right from the start the text is peppered with sporadic remarks on geographical features and historical landmarks, reported in a very matter-of-fact way. For instance, as John Matthews has emphasized, attention is drawn to the exotic, non-Mediterranean character

4. Elter, Itinerarstudien 1 and 2. Cf. the devastating review by Laing in Classical Philology. The standard modern edition of the itinerary is Cuntz, Itineraria Romana, 1–75 (terrestrial), 76–85 (maritime); on the terrestrial section, see now also Löhberg, Itinerarium provinciarum. 5. See Salway, “Travel,” 39–43; “Perception and description,” 182–88, 203–205. 6. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 195. On the medieval image of the world and orientation towards Paradise, see most recently Edson, “Maps in Context” and Scafi, Mapping Paradise. 7. E.g., Hamilton, “Jerusalem”; Kötting, Peregrinatio Religiosa, 89–110 and 343–354; Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage, 55–58, 83–86; Maraval, Lieux saints, 254–65. 8. Itin. Burd. 549.1–585.3 and 600.1–617.9. 9. Milani, “Strutture formulari,” 99; Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 190. 10. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 194–95. 11. Klein, “Sefer ha-Massa Itinerarium Burdig.”; on which see Stemberger, Jews and Christians, 88.

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of the initial point of departure with the comment “City of Bordeaux: where the river Garonne is (along which the Atlantic Ocean produces ebb and flow tides for a hundred leagues, more or less).”12 It is certainly the case that this phenomenon would be remarkable to those more familiar with the tame tides of the Mediterranean. Elsewhere the traveler sporadically notes some matters of contemporary physical and human geography,13 provincial frontiers,14 places of birth and burial of famous political, cultural, and religious figures,15 and events from secular and religious history.16 There appears to be no consistent pattern to what the traveler deemed noteworthy, though Jaś Elsner has interpreted the distribution of these comments as producing “a rising curve of mythologization,” leading up to the explosion of description after Caesarea.17 Moreover, although variously dismissed as “almost stenographic” and “spare and utilitarian,”18 even the basic itinerary stands out from the majority of surviving examples in offering a greater degree of granularity in terms of the intervals between stations, and the qualification of most of these stations as either change-over (mutatio), stop-over (mansio), or city (civitas).19 The mutationes and mansiones operated in support of the late Roman state postal system, the cursus publicus.20 Thus the Bordeaux Itinerary also has been much appreciated as a precious witness to its infrastructure.21

12. Itin. Burd. 549.7–9: Civitas Burdigala, ubi est fluvius Garonna, per quem facit mare Oceanum accessa et recessa per leugas plus minus centum; Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 181. 13. Physical and human geography: Garonne tide (Itin. Burd. 549.7–9), Col de Cabre (555.1), Col de Montgenèvre (556.1), Julian Alps (560.2), bridge over Drava (561.5), stud farm at Villa Palmati (577.6), city of Arad two miles offshore (582.11), Mount Carmel (585.1). 14. Frontiers: Alpes Cottiae (555.9), Italy (556.5), Italy and Noricum (560.10), Pannonia erior (561.5–6), Pannonia erior (562.8), Pannonia and Moesia (564.1), Moesia and aia (565.7), Dacia and Th race (567.9), Bithynia and Galatia (574.3), Galatia and Cappadocia (576.3), Cappadocia and Cilicia (579.1), Cilicia and Syria (581.2), Syria Coele and Phoenice (582.8), Syria Phoenice and Palestine (585.2), Europa and Rhodope (602.2), Rhodope and Macedonia (603.7), Macedonia and Epirus (607.2), Apulia and Campania (610.7). 15. Libyssa: Tomb of Hannibal (572.4–5), Tyana: birthplace of Apollonius (578.1), Tarsus: birthplace of Apostle Paul (579.3), Peripidis: tomb of Euripides (604.7), Pella: birthplace of Alexander the Great (606.1). 16. Viminacium: where Diocletian killed Carinus (564.9), Zarephath: where Elijah went up to the widow and asked for food (583.12; see 1 Kings 17:10–16 and Luke 4:25–26), Sycaminos: Mount Carmel, where Elijah sacrificed (585.1; see 1 Kings 18:19–21), Philippi: where Paul and Silas were incarcerated (604.1; see Acts 16:32–37). 17. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 189. 18. Wilken, Land Called Holy, 109; Hutton, “Religious Space,” 298. 19. See Salway, “Perception and Description,” 203–209. 20. See, most recently, Kolb, Transport, 210–13, for detailed discussion. 21. Jones, Later Roman Empire, 831–32; Chapman, Archaeological and Other Evidence, 68–69; Donner, Pilgerfahrt, 38; Calzolari, “Ricerche”; Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 64, 68–70.

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In contrast to the general consensus as to the purpose of the journey, the absence of any statement of authorship or explanatory preface to the text has provided scope for a wide variety of alternative interpretations as to the character of the author (or editor) and his or her intentions in recording the journey. Indeed, in the last fifteen years or so there has been an efflorescence of scholarship offering a variety of reevaluations and sophisticated interpretations of the Bordeaux Itinerary that have supplanted the traditionally low opinion of the text and of the cultural level of its author still prevalent in the 1980s and early 1990s.22 Since then, as well as a specifically female viewpoint, various theological and ideological agenda have been read into the structure and wording of the text,23 and most recently, Matthews has explored it in detail for clues as to its anonymous author’s “cultural landscape.”24 Probably most influential in shaping the general perception of the text in the last decade has been Elsner’s reading of it according to the principles of modal narratology, which examines the manner in which a story is related, emphasizing voice, point of view, rhythm, and frequency.25 Following this method, which he had previously applied successfully to more obviously literary works,26 Elsner identifies its structure and manner of telling as sophisticated expressions of the ideological geography of the newly Christianized empire. His analysis promoted Constantinople to a rank alongside Jerusalem in the structure of the itinerary, thereby embodying “the new Constantinian dispensation” for the Roman Empire.27 This interpretation has recently been rejected by Matthews, who has reasserted the view that the importance of Constantinople is purely a function of its actual role in the journey undertaken by the traveler.28 Common to both interpretations is the view that, although undeniably significant, Constantinople simply formed a staging post in the anonymous author’s onward journey to the ultimate destination and primary objective, Jerusalem. All of these approaches have provided genuinely useful insights, but even the most radical reinterpretations adhere to two questionable presuppositions: that the traveler intended the entire journey as a pilgrimage, and that he or she was

22. Low opinion: e.g., Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage, 58–59, 86; Campbell, Witness, 27; Wilken, Land Called Holy, 109–10. 23. Douglass, “A New Look” (cf. Weingarten, “Was the Pilgrim?”); Leyerle, “Landscape as Cartography,” 121–26; Bowman, “Mapping History’s Redemption”; Jacobs, “Most Beautiful Jewess” and Remains of the Jews, 109–17. 24. Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape.” 25. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” esp. 181, 186–90. 26. Elsner, “Pausanias,” “Hagiographical Geography.” 27. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” esp. 189, 194. 28. Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 191.

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the master of his or her own destiny as far as deciding the itinerary was concerned. The scholarly energy invested in sophisticated interpretation has not always been matched by a corresponding diligence in basic analysis of the text. Insufficient appreciation of its structural complexities (specifically its layered and patchwork nature) has been combined with a tendency to read the original motivations behind the recorded travel back straightforwardly from the emphases of the work as it was packaged and transmitted—that is, commentators have too often failed to preserve sufficiently the distinction between author and text. 2. Constantinople and the Bordeaux Itinerary In contrast to the emphasis placed on Jerusalem by the text as transmitted, superficially the work does not convey any strong association with Constantinople. In fact, Constantine’s new city is even absent from the list of destinations that feature in the phrase that heads the work in the two medieval manuscripts that transmit it in its fullest recension (“Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem and from Heraclea via Aulon and via the city of Rome to Milan thus”).29 Admittedly, this title is a reasonably representative summary of what follows. This comprises three distinct sections. In the first, the work opens with a detailed and continuous list of the stages of a route overland from the metropolis of Aquitania (via the Danube and Bosporus) to the Holy Land, culminating at Jerusalem. As already noted, the second section is marked by the interruption of the itinerary format by a description of the Judeo-Christian sights of the holy city and its environs. In the final section, the itinerary format is resumed for two separate segments, listing first the route from Jerusalem to Palestinian Caesarea, and then that continuously from Heraclea-Perinthus (Marmara Ereğlisi), via a crossing of the mouth of the Adriatic from Aulon (Vlöres) to Hydruntum (Otranto), to Rome and Milan. Although not contiguous, when grafted onto the route traced by the outward itinerary, these two final segments can be reassembled to complete an alternative route for return from Jerusalem to Bordeaux (see figure 13.1). However, just because the Itinerarium Burdigalense, as a literary text, describes a route from Bordeaux to Jerusalem and back does not mean necessarily that the Anonymus Burdigalensis, as a traveler, set out from Aquitania as a pilgrim with the Holy Land as his or her sole or primary goal. Admittedly,

29. Itin. Burd. 549.1–6: Itinerarium a Burdigala Hierusalem usque et ab Heraclea per Aulonam et per urbem Romam Mediolanum usque sic. Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare LII (olim 50) = CLA IV, no. 505 (eighth- or ninth-century) and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 4808 (ninth-century). The two manuscripts closely agree, though the Verona copy lacks 108 lines of the text between Itin. Burd. 601.1 and 611.8 because of the loss of two folia, not a deliberate omission (cf. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 190).

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Figure 13.1 Analytical diagram of the routes described by the Bordeaux Itinerary. Drawing by R.W.B. Salway.

readers are encouraged in this belief both by the work’s opening words (quoted above) and by the undeniable prominence of the discursive narrative of the Palestinian section, which occupies nearly a sixth of the entire text in its most recent critical edition.30 It is, however, telling that the title neatly reflects the content of the work after it had undergone a demonstrably drastic redaction. For, with commendable economy, the Itinerary does not recount any journeying that retraced a route taken in the outward direction. Thus the entire return journey from Caesarea in Palestine to Constantinople, and even the short onward section from Constantinople to Heraclea-Perinthus, is omitted.31 This is a much greater degree of consolidation than that found in the Antonine Itinerary collection.32 That a return leg beyond Milan to Bordeaux has also been excised is plausible but not demonstrable. The title is, therefore, patently a retrospective editorial description generated from the content of the text after editing down. It is not a programmatic statement that relates to the original course or purpose of the journey.33 Thus no significance should be accorded to the absence of any reference to Constantinople here. In fact, as I have argued briefly before elsewhere (but to little effect, as yet),34 there are inherent in the

30. The discursive narrative between Itin. Burd. 585.4 and 599.9 (Glorie, ed. Itineraria et alia geographica, vol. I, 13–20) occupies about 115 lines of the total 671. 31. Between Itin. Burd. 600.6 and 601.6 the description jumps from Caesarea to Heraclea, a route already covered in the outward journey, 570.2–585.5. 32. See Salway, “Perception and Description,” 186–88. 33. Cf. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 183. 34. Salway, “Travel,” 36; “Perception and Description,” 190. Cf. Hunt, “Holy Land Itineraries,” 97; Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 199 n.52.

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structure and wording of the text strong indications that the traveler’s initial, and perhaps primary, destination was Constantinople rather than Jerusalem. While the title may ignore Constantinople, one unique feature attaching to the city in the text suggests that it was a pivotal node rather than just a simple stage. This is the commemoration of the exact dates on which the anonymous traveler or travelers set out eastward from the Bosporus and then arrived back again at Constantinople from Jerusalem (30 May and 26 December, 333, respectively).35 This dating notice is extremely precious, not just because it certifies the work as the record of a specific journey, but also because it allows the journey to be analyzed within its proper, and very specific, historical context. As will be demonstrated, this reinforces the likelihood that Constantinople was a significant destination in its own right. Indeed it is plausible that without the trip to Constantinople first, there may never have been a pilgrimage at all. Essential support for this hypothesis will be provided by a detailed analysis of the structure of the work’s itinerary element. If convincingly demonstrated, this new understanding of the text will permit further insights into the character of the anonymous traveler and the nature of the original journey. However, before subjecting the structure to detailed analysis, it is advisable to review what can be surmised generally about the context of the work and the character of its components. 3. Author and Audience Beyond religious identity, there is no escaping the fact that the text provides no hard facts about the author. The only element of first-person narrative in the entire text is the plural statement “we traveled” (ambulavimus) from Chalcedon on the Bosporus and “we returned” (reversi sumus) to Constantinople (Itin. Burd. 571.6–7). Assuming that the text is a direct reflection of the narrator’s voice, the traveler was a Latin speaker; but we are not in any position to detect a particular regional origin on the basis of grammar or vocabulary.36 The style of the Latin does not suggest that the writer had received the level of literary education associated with later aristocratic pilgrims. This, combined with the conflation of biblical episodes and absence of explicit references to scripture, make it unlikely that the author was in holy orders.37 An origin in

35. Itin. Burd. 571.6–8: Item ambulavimus Dalmati{c}o et Zenophilo cons. III kal(endas) Iun(ias) a Calcedonia et reversi sumus Constantinopolim VII kal(endas) Ian(uarias) cons(ulatu) suprascripto. 36. The rare late Latin term monobilis, meaning monolith, used by the traveler at Itin. Burd. 595.3, certainly has a Gallic preponderance in its attestations (3 out of 5 recorded by TLL), being used also by Sidonius Apollinaris (Ep. 2.2.10) and the Life of Caesarius of Arles (1.57), but this is too small a sample to be conclusive. 37. Douglass, “A New Look,” 328–29. Cf. Chapman, Archaeological and Other Evidence, 69, who suggested he might even be a bishop.

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Gaul can only be an inference from the starting point in Bordeaux.38 As Elsner points out,39 the glossing of the Greek term basilica at its first appearance as dominicum (Itin. Burd. 594.2–3) assumes an audience to whom the usage of the word as a technical term for a church building is still unfamiliar; but there is no direct evidence for competence in Greek. The dubious accuracy of the traveler’s description of the Hebrew inscription on a subterranean tomb at Bethlehem (Itin. Burd. 598.8–9) is no evidence for facility in that language or support for assuming a Jewish background.40 As already noted, the text provides no clue to the traveler’s gender and, given the number of high profi le female pilgrims known from the fourth century (e.g., the empress Helena, Egeria, Paula, and Eustochium),41 female authorship cannot be discounted at this stage.42 The author’s social position and civic status remain open questions. We might be tempted to assume that the writer was a freeborn Roman citizen, but Roman freedman (or woman), Junian Latin, even slave or barbarian cannot be excluded as possibilities. Whatever the traveler’s standing, the journey recorded represents a major investment of time and resources. Given that the church infrastructure to support pilgrimage had yet to develop, unless he or she belonged to the leisured élite, the journey could hardly have been undertaken without some sort of public or private sponsorship. Obviously, whatever the intentions of the anonymous traveler when he or she set out, the way in which extensive commentary is reserved for places in the Holy Land undeniably shows that this part of the journey captured the traveler’s imagination in a manner for which we do not have evidence elsewhere. The traveler’s silence on Rome and, especially, Constantinople has proved puzzling for scholars.43 Although it is possible that the traveler was prompted to record notable features in relation to these and other locations, there is no warrant to suppose that the process of editing the source material was anything more sophisticated than simply chopping out repetition and splicing together the remainder. On balance it seems unlikely that extensive descriptive passages have been artfully omitted in the production of the fair copy or subsequently excised by the redactor (if distinct from the traveler). Mapping out the sporadic comments that do exist outside the Holy Land section might help localize the

38. Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 189. 39. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 193; Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 192. 40. Stemberger, Jews and Christians, 94–95, contra Donner, Pilgerfahrt, 63 n.110. 41. On whom, see especially Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage, 28–49, 87–90, 171–74; Stemberger, Jews and Christians, 95–105. 42. As proposed by Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places, 313, and Douglass, “A New Look,” 329–30. 43. E.g., Douglass, “A New Look,” 329; Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 193–94.

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origin of the author and/or that of the imagined readership. Laurie Douglass suggested that silences over Rome and Milan might indicate either city was home and that Bordeaux was a temporary posting.44 It is notable that, in contrast to the Gallic section, no comments of any kind are recorded between the western and eastern frontiers of northern Italy (Itin. Burd. 556.5, 560.10) on the outward journey and none again after the border of Apulia with Campania (Itin. Burd. 610.7) on the return. This suggests that the writer imagined an audience for whom central and northern Italy was familiar territory, whose features required no comment. It was presumably a consciousness on the part of the traveler of the relative privilege of his or her direct experience of the Holy Land in relation to such an audience that initially inspired him or her to make the extensive notes that are preserved. A wish to enable others to reproduce the experience no doubt motivated the traveler to transmit the detailed itinerary with these notes. And, although it was above all for the Holy Land section that the text was prized by its medieval monastic copyists (indeed, two of the four manuscript witnesses only preserve this section),45 the itinerary data would have remained of practical utility for some considerable time. For, while the Danube route would have become distinctly less comfortable for unarmed travelers within half a century (after the influx of the Goths in 376), the highway from Pannonia was not definitively cut until the capture of Sirmium and occupation of a swathe of territory south of the Danube by the Huns in 441.46 Even then, the Itinerary provided an alternative in the form of the southerly route from Rome to Heraclea via Aulon, which is that assumed by the late antique itinerary from Gades (Cadiz) to Constantinople preserved in the prelude to the Chronicon Albeldense of 883.47 The phraseology employed by the anonymous traveler certainly assumes that others will follow in his or her footsteps. The occasional secondperson verbs in the present tense, found throughout the text (e.g., Itin. Burd. 561.5–6: “you cross the bridge, you enter Pannonia Inferior”),48 might simply be a literary device to engage an armchair reader,49 but the dative present participles of verbs of motion, found only in the Holy Land section (e.g., “to those

44. Douglass, “A New Look,” 332–33. 45. Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, codex Sangallensis 732, pp. 104–14 (early ninth-century), which cleverly cuts the narrative in two and reverses the order of the sections to produce an account that starts from Jerusalem (www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/0732), and Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, ms. 1279, fols 124v and 130r (olim 70v–71r) (tenth-century, from the monastery of San Millán de Cogolla), which preserves only paraphrased excerpts. 46. On these events, see Heather, Fall of the Roman Empire, 158–90, 300–304. 47. PL 129.1127–28; Kubitschek, Itinerar-Studien, 4–5. 48. Itin. Burd. 561.5–6: transis pontem, intras Pannoniam Inferiorem. 49. So Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 195, who catalogues the instances.

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going towards the Nablus gate”)50 definitely read like the sort of practical orientation provided by a modern tourist guidebook. Rather than simply being “souvenir literature” (Erinnerungs-Literatur), as it was described by Wilhelm Kubitschek,51 it is clear that the work that the traveler produced aspired to be of practical utility to future pilgrims. However, is it a necessary conclusion that the anonymous traveler had this motivation when he or she originally left Bordeaux? 4. The Components of the Itinerary To reduce the risk of making exaggerated claims about authorial intentions on the basis of the narrative structure of text, it is necessary to establish a basic understanding of its nature. How much of the design and content of the transmitted text can plausibly be attributed to the anonymous traveler? Analysis of the elements of description within the itinerary sections, along with comparison with the travel memoranda generated by the journey of Theophanes of Hermopolis from the Egyptian Thebaid to Syrian Antioch and back in ca. a.d. 322 or 323,52 suggest a particular explanation for the process by which the text was generated. Artful literary composition in the manner of Pausanias seems most unlikely. It is no accident that in those sections outside the Holy Land, the text is structured as a list of place-names with distances attached in just the same way as other Roman itineraries, both those preserved in manuscript and those found inscribed on stone. The apparently chaotic mixture of oblique forms in which the place-names are preserved derives from the subjection of the names to the grammatical structure of the list, 53 combined with the higher than average likelihood of corruption in transmission of many obscure and unique proper nouns. The accompanying distances are measured in the appropriate standard units—that is, Gallic leagues (leugae) and Roman miles (milia passuum) for land travel, and Greek stades for the sea crossing from Aulon to Hydruntum.54 These two elements form the core of the text and have, no doubt, been inherited wholesale by the author

50. Itin. Burd. 593.1: euntibus ad portam Neapolitanam. The other instances are 588.7: euntibus Hierusalem, 591.7: exeuntibus Hierusalem, 596.4: descendentibus montem, 598.4: euntibus Bethleem, 598.9 deorsum descendentibus. 51. Kubitschek, “Itinerarien,” 2354–56. 52. The entire archive comprises ChLA 19.687, P.Herm. 2–6, P.Ryl. 4.607, 616–51, 713, and Moscadi, “Lettere,” no. 12. See Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, esp. xv–xvi; Rolandi, “Il viaggio di Teofane.” 53. See further Salway, “Travel,” 26–27. 54. Leagues: Itin. Burd. 549.10–551.2; stades: 609.4.

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of the Bordeaux Itinerary from his or her sources, rather than painstakingly assembled stage by stage as the journey was made. The tralatician nature of this central component does not undermine the status of the Itinerary as a faithful record of the places traversed. No doubt every traveler would check and amend whatever itinerary they were working from in the light of their own experience; but it is unlikely that they would rewrite it entirely from scratch. There is no evidence for a high degree of editorial intervention here. Indeed the fidelity of this aspect of the transmitted text to the original document utilized by the anonymous traveler is suggested by the transition from leagues to miles as the unit of measurement observed in the environs of Tolosa (Toulouse), as the route crosses the contemporary frontier from the province of Novempopulana into Narbonensis:55

mutatio mutatio civitas mutatio mutatio mansio mutatio

Bucconis ad Iovem Tholosa ad nonum ad vicesimum Elusione Sostomago

leug. VII leug. VII leug. VII mil. VIIII mil. XI mil. VIIII mil. VIIII.

As generally noted, in the retrospective calculation of the distance from Bordeaux all the way to Arles in the Rhône valley, the leagues used for the stages from Bordeaux as far as Toulouse are converted to miles according to the standard ratio of 1.5 miles to a league.56 The expression of the distances in the stages up to Toulouse in leagues, in contrast to miles beyond, is not the result of the author’s employing a local measure for literary effect here but simply a reflection of the reality on the ground. All new “milestones” erected after ca. 198 in the provinces of Gallia Comata (“Long-haired” Gaul), including Upper and Lower Germany, had used the league as the unit of measurement, while those in Mediterranean Narbonensis continued to use the Roman mile, as remained standard practice everywhere else throughout the empire.57 Although by 333 the area of second-century Aquitania (now the provinces of Aquitania and

55. Itin. Burd. 550.11–551.6, representing the stretch from L’Isle-Jourdain west of Toulouse to Castelnaudary west of Carcassonne. 56. E.g., Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 184. 57. Rathmann, Untersuchungen zu den Reichstraßen, 115–20. The transition at Lugdunum (Lyon) is signaled on the Peutinger map by the comment usq(ue) hic legas, on which see Talbert, Rome’s World, 115.

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Novempopulana) was grouped with Narbonensis in the administrative diocese of Viennensis,58 it had traditionally been one of the “Three Gauls” (Tres Galliae) of Gallia Comata. Thus, in preserving the use of leagues, the Bordeaux Itinerary no doubt reliably reflects its contemporary underlying source and the reality on the ground of a road demarcated by “league-stones.” The list of placenames and distances is not the result of authorial interpretation. In contrast, the other consistent element in the Bordeaux Itinerary does transpose the subjective experience of the anonymous traveler into the written record. As well as reporting much greater detail than the Antonine Itinerary, the Bordeaux Itinerary is, as illustrated in the extract above, also unique in its consistent labeling of every node along its route in one of a restricted number of ways, usually as either a mutatio (change-over), a mansio (stop-over), or a civitas (city). There are two isolated variations from this typology (vicus and castellum), both of which occur relatively early on and within two entries of each other, and there are two exceptions, where the prepositions ad and in are used to indicate landmarks.59 It is generally accepted that the alternating use of the most common terms—mutatio and mansio—in the Bordeaux Itinerary reflects the infrastructure of the state post system (cursus publicus), whether or not the traveler had a permit (evectio) to use it free of charge.60 By contrast, the terms civitas, mansio, and vicus are found, but only very sporadically, in the Antonine Itinerary, and mutatio does not occur there at all.61 Moreover, even where such characterizations are added to place-names in the Antonine Itinerary, they are subsumed to the structure of the list, being placed after the toponym— for example, “Beda, vicus, leug. XII; Ausava, vicus, leug. XII; Egorigo, vicus, leug. XII; Marcomago, vicus, leug. VIII” (Itin. Ant. 372.3–6). Thus the Bordeaux Itinerary is distinctive in placing these comments before each place-name. This suggests that these remarks were not integral to the original itinerary list but represent a secondary layer imposed on an existing underlying framework.62 This reinforces the impression that the traveler did not compose the itinerary

58. See the Laterculus Veronensis (“Verona List”) of a.d. 314 (Riese, Geographi Latini Minores, 128), which actually lists an Aquitanica Prima and Secunda, as well as a Narbonensis Prima and Secunda. However, both had probably been recombined in this period; see Sipilä, Reorganisation, 280, 283 nn.7–9. 59. Vicus Hebromago (Itin. Burd. 551.7) and castellum Carcassone (551.9) in Narbonensis; ad palatium Daphne (581.7) and in urbe Roma (612.4). On the vocabulary, see Milani, “Continuità,” 146–47. 60. Seeck, “Cursus publicus,” 1855–1856; Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 187; Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 188. 61. Civitas and vicus: Itin. Ant. 365.9–366.4, 372.3–373.1; mansio: Itin. Ant. 6.3, 94.2–3, 127.11, 129.1, 129.3, 305.5–6, 387.6, 439.11–14, 446.2–3. See further, Salway, “Perception and Description,” 203–205. 62. Cf. Stewart in Stewart and Wilson, Bordeaux Pilgrim, and Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 187, who translate them as integral with the core list.

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list from scratch, or even copy it already complete with labeled stations, but rather that he annotated an existing itinerary or set of itineraries that he had acquired or with which he had been provided. Th is also suggests a certain meticulousness, which is also witnessed in the calculation of distance totals (see below). An odd contrast with the precision of the figures for distances on land is raised by the careless treatment of the measurement of the crossing from Aulon to Hydruntum. If transmitted correctly, the author offers one hundred miles as the equivalent of one thousand stades, a ratio of 1:10. This is a very rough approximation when compared with the conventional equivalence of 1:8 found in the Greco-Roman geographers and attested in the distances recorded on the Claudian monument (the so-called Stadiasmus) from Patara in Lycia.63 Such uncharacteristic inaccuracy may be accounted for by a landlubber’s unfamiliarity with nautical matters, a westerner’s ignorance of the standard conversion for the Greek unit, or nonchalance because this distance had no implications for expenses or allowances. Recognizing the indications mutatio and mansio as the traveler’s annotations on the substructure of the itinerary serves as a warning not to treat them as objective statements of fi xed function within the cursus publicus—that is, as mutually exclusive categories. No doubt some mutationes were too basic to function as stopover points, but this does not mean that all were. So, just because the Anonymus Burdigalensis describes a specific station as a mutatio does not mean that it could not function as a mansio for another traveler. For example, whereas Ammianus describes the site of the supposed tomb of Euripides, near Macedonian Arethusa (modern Rendina) on the eastern Via Egnatia, in neutral terms as a “postal station,” the Bordeaux Itinerary reports it specifically as a mutatio.64 Modern scholars should not, therefore, be surprised when a location labeled a modest mutatio by the Bordeaux Itinerary is revealed by archaeology to have had elaborate facilities (e.g., Ad Quintum, modern Bradashesh in Albania) or to have been marked out as a significant place with a twin-turreted symbol on the Peutinger Map (e.g., Fanum Fugitivi, near Spoleto in Italy).65 Such deviations from the expected hierarchy of space remind us that the notations in the Bordeaux Itinerary are subjective comments reflecting the individual traveler’s experience.

63. Engels, “Eratosthenes’ stade”; Pothecary, “Strabo, Polybius, and the Stade.” For the text of the monumentum Patarense, see Şahin and Adak, Stadiasmus Patarensis; on its distance figures, see Salway, “Perception and Description,” 201–202. 64. Amm. Marc. 27.4.8: Arethusa cursualis est statio, in qua visitur Euripidis sepulcrum; Itin. Burd. 604.6–7: mutatio Peripidis, milia X, ibi positus est Euripidis poeta. 65. Cf. Chapman, Archaeological and Other Evidence, 171–73; Walbank, “Via Egnatia,” 16, on Ad Quintum (Itin. Burd. 608.3); and Talbert, Rome’s World, 121, on Fanum Fugitivi (Itin. Burd. 613.7).

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This understanding of the anatomy of the text—as a simple spine composed of place-names and distances, progressively clothed in notations of the traveler’s activities at each stage—is further confirmed when the additional layer of isolated notes is examined. Among these comments, which are more transparently additions by the traveler, are many minor dislocations. These are not to be confused with the couple of instances of more drastic displacement, which clearly derive from early defects in the manuscript tradition, and have long been recognized by editors.66 The minor dislocations are most obvious in the case of comments on provincial boundaries. For instance, the indications of the frontiers of the Alpes Cottiae, both on entering from Alpes Maritimae and on exiting into Italy (i.e., the regio of Liguria and Aemilia), would both accord better with other evidence if transposed one entry forward or back.67 Such inaccuracies might derive from errors in the traveler’s own observation in cases where there were perhaps no conspicuous clues to the transition from one territory to another. However, in at least two of these cases the provincial frontier coincided with that of a customs district. The post of stationarii waiting to collect portoria (customs dues) ought to have been an obvious visual signal.68 If the Anonymus Burdigalensis really did compose the text entirely afresh in the sequence of travel, then such a pattern of dislocations is hard to imagine. Similar minor dislocation is also to be found among the occasional comments on sites of historical or cultural interest. For instance, the Bordeaux Itinerary is out of step with other fourth-century evidence in placing its notice of Diocletian’s defeat of Carinus near the Danube in 285 at Viminacium rather than at nearby Margum.69 The simplest explanation for these dislocations is that all

66. The entry for the mansio at the Fluvius Frigidus, which stands at Itin. Burd. 557.11 (after Milan), belongs properly in the foothills of the Julian Alps between 560.1 and 2; and grand total at 601.1–3 belongs between 589.6 and 7. Another common defect is the presence of a couple of small lacunae in the route from Serdica to Constantinople (568.8 in Haemimontus and 569.2 in Th race). 67. Inde incipiunt Alpes Cottiae (Itin. Burd. 555.9), inde incipit Italia (556.5). The same is also true for the finis Italiae et Norci (560.10), of the frontier between Noricum (Mediterraneum) and Pannonia (Savensis)—i.e., intras Pannoniam eriorem (561.5–6), the fines Pannoniae et Misiae (Itin. Burd. 564.1, cf. Ptol. Geogr. 3.9.3), and the fines Galatiae et Cappadociae (576.3). See Salway, “Perception and Description,” 207–208; see Wilson in Stewart and Wilson, Bordeaux Pilgrim, 39–40. 68. On the statio of the quadragesima Galliarum at Fines Cotti (Avigliana) = mansio Ad Fines (Itin. Burd. 556.7), see France, Quadragesima, 326–28; on the statio of the portorium Illyrici at Atrans (Trojane) = mansio Hadrante (Itin. Burd. 560.9), see Ørsted, Roman Imperial Economy, 261, 281 nn.469, 283. Admittedly, the former may have moved forward with the creation of the diocese of Italy to embrace Alpes Cottiae, in which case it ought to have prompted comment on the entry into diocesis Italiae between mutatio Ramae and Brigantio (Briançon) at Itin. Burd. 556.10–11. 69. Itin. Burd. 564.8–9: civitas Viminacio, mil. X, ubi Diocletianus occidit Carinum. Cf. Aur. Victor 39.11: At Carinus ubi Moesiam contigit, illico Margum iuxta Diocletiano congressus . . .; and Eutropius 9.20.2: Postea Carinum omnium odio et detestatione viventem apud Margum ingenti proelio vicit, proditum ab exercitu suo quem fortiorem habebat, certe desertum, inter Viminacium atque Aureum montem.

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these notices existed as marginal scholia. Where these were insufficiently clearly keyed to the core itinerary, the scribe charged with integrating them with the main text sometimes inserted them after the wrong place-name in the fair copy. The Bordeaux Itinerary is, then, a multilayered text over whose form and content the anonymous traveler had varying degrees of control and input. At its most basic level lies a simple list of places and distances that the traveler adopted. This was overlaid with a layer of labeling providing individual characterization of each stage on the route, according to the function it served in the journey undertaken: changeover (mutatio); stopover (mansio); or urban center (civitas), where one might spend more than one night in order take advantage of its amenities.70 Finally, there is a range of individual comments on the physical, political, or cultural attributes of selected places en route. The expansive commentary on places in the Holy Land represents an egregious cluster of such entries, but it is essentially no different in kind. Rather than being “contained within the structure of an itinerary,” as Matthews puts it,71 the exegetical section has been grafted on top of it. Both inside and outside the Holy Land the choice of sights thought worthy of comment by the original narrator or the range of comments preserved by subsequent redactors might seem somewhat eclectic. It presumably reflects what one or both judged to be of potential interest to future readers. On evidence internal to the text, it seems highly unlikely that the traveler composed the work as a seamless narrative or an integrated whole. The conclusion seems inescapable that the traveler annotated the basic itinerary list, which was no doubt written on papyrus sheets or note tablets. To this he or she was occasionally compelled to add additional extraneous commentary cramped in the margin or, in the case of the Holy Land section, perhaps on loose leaves bundled together with the other memoranda. Such was the raw material that, eventually transformed into a fair copy, lies behind the text transmitted via the western manuscript tradition. Comparison with the dossier of Greek papyri relating to the near contemporary journey of Theophanes provides an instructive parallel. Here the survival of the original documents, recovered from the sands of Hermopolis Magna (El-Ashmunein), reveal that Theophanes, or rather his secretary, jotted down the details of the route from Egypt to Antioch and back, as well as the associated expenditure, on various scrap pieces of papyrus, such as the reverse of drafts of other documents. The separate parts of

70. See Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 51, 55, 60, on the evidence for Theophanes’ activities as Ascalon. 71. Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 190.

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Theophanes’ travel accounts were then brought together in a fair copy, which interestingly does not agree in every detail with the drafts.72 5. The Structure of the Itinerarium Burdigalense Having firmly established the nature of the Bordeaux Itinerary’s basic components, we can explore what the analysis of its overall structure reveals. As transmitted in its redacted version, it represents a consolidated and economical account of the route from Bordeaux to Jerusalem and back. However, it is clear from the internal organizational hierarchy of the text that, like the Antonine Itinerary, it is actually a collection of distinct components, even if on a much smaller scale. As already noted, the Bordeaux Itinerary comprises five separate sections (figure 13.1). As highlighted by Elsner,73 each section is opened by a statement of the points of initial departure and final destination and (in all but one case) closed by summary grand totals of mileages, given precisely to the individual mile. This is accompanied by totals for the number of intervening mutationes (changes) and mansiones (stop-overs), each introduced by the wording fit omnis summa (“this all makes in total”), a standard phrase from Roman accounting records.74 For example, “This makes the entire total from Bordeaux to Constantinople two thousand two hundred and twenty-one miles, 230 changes, 112 stopovers.”75 The full list of locations privileged by this treatment is Bordeaux, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Heraclea, Rome, and Milan—a list that broadly accords with the opening title but with one significant difference: it passes over Aulon and promotes Constantinople to the premier league. In this company, as already mentioned, Constantinople is further distinguished as the only location to which any dates of arrival and departure are attached; no dates are provided for arrival or departure from Jerusalem, for example. Within each of these major sections, shorter subsections are also defined by subtotals (more commonly introduced simply by fit).76 For example, “That makes from Constantinople to Nicomedia 58 miles, 7 changes, 3 stop-overs.”77

72. P.Ryl. 4.627–634 (fair copy); 635 [= 617 verso], 636 [= 621 verso], 637 [= 616 verso], 638 [=628 verso] (drafts). See the commentary of C. H. Roberts at P.Ryl. 4, p. 133, and Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, esp. 34–35. 73. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 189. 74. E.g., Fink, Roman Military Records, no. 68, pp. 243–49 = ChLA 1/48.7 recto, part 1 (pay record of legionaries, Jan.-Sept. a.d. 81): fit summ. (col. ii, 13); fit summa omnis (col. ii, 23; col. iii, 12, 22). 75. Itin. Burd. 571.3–5: Fit omnis summa a Burdigala Constantinopolim vicies bis centena viginti unum milia, mutationes CXXX, mansiones CXII. 76. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 188. 77. Itin. Burd. 572.8–9: Fit a Constantinopoli Nicomedia usque mil. LVIII, mutationes VII, mansiones III.

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With the exception of Aulon, which, as the embarkation point for the crossing of the Adriatic, forms a natural break, the terminal points of these intervening sections are all provincial and/or diocesan capitals. The political significance of these places might be explanation enough for punctuating the journey in this way. Alternatively, this pattern may be intimately connected with its very genesis, as the points at which the author acquired or was issued with the basic itinerary for the next section. This two-tier structure is obscured by the essentially arbitrary system of reference used to cite it (the page and line numbers of Peter Wesseling’s edition of 1735). It is easier to appreciate the author’s (or redactor’s) original articulation of the text by describing it with a system of reference matching its hierarchy. Accordingly, treating the tour of Jerusalem and trips to the Jordan and to Hebron as subsidiary to the main journey from Constantinople to Jerusalem, I propose the following classification. Each of the major sections is indicated by a Roman numeral (I–V), and each of the subsections by an Arabic numeral, in both cases coupled to an indication of the corresponding Wesseling reference: Section I (Itin. Burd. 549.1–571.5) From Bordeaux (549.2) 1. Bordeaux to Arles (549.7–553.2) 2. Arles to Milan (553.3–557.10 + 558.1–2) 3. Milan to Aquileia (558.3–559.12) 4. Aquileia to Sirmium (559.14–560.1 + 557.11 + 560.2–563.9) 5. Sirmium to Serdica (563.10–567.3) 6. Serdica to Constantinople (567.4–571.2) Grand totals Bordeaux to Constantinople (571.3–5) Section II (Itin. Burd. 571.6–589.6 + 601.1–3) “Similarly we traveled, Dalmatius and Zenophilus being consuls, on the third day before the kalends of June from Chalcedon and we returned (sc. from Jerusalem) to Constantinople on the seventh day before the kalends of January in the abovementioned consulship” (571.6–8).78 1. Constantinople to Nicomedia (571.9–572.9) 2. Nicomedia to Ancyra (573.1–575.7) 3. Ancyra to Tarsus (575.8–580.1) 4. Tarsus to Antioch (580.2–581.6)

78. Item ambulavimus Dalmati{c}o et Zenophilo cons. III kal. Iun. a Calcedonia et reversi sumus Constantinopolim VII kal. Ian. cons. suprascripto.

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5. Antioch to Tyre (581.7–584.3) 6. Tyre to Caesarea (584.4–585.6) 7. Caesarea to Jerusalem (585.7–589.6) Grand totals Constantinople to Jerusalem (601.1–3) Sections IIa + IIb + IIc (Itin. Burd. 589.7–599.9) a. Jerusalem and environs (589.7–596.3) b. Jerusalem to river Jordan (596.4–598.3) c. Jerusalem to Hebron (598.4–599.9) Section III (Itin. Burd. 600.1–600.6 + 601.4–5) Similarly from Jerusalem (600.1) 1. Jerusalem to Caesarea (600.2–6 + 601.4–5) Section IV (Itin. Burd. 601.6–612.9) Similarly from Heraclea (601.6) 1. Heraclea to Aulon (601.7–609.3) 2. Aulon to Capua (609.4–611.3) 3. Capua to Roma (611.4–612.6) Grand totals Heraclea to Rome (612.7–9) Section V (Itin. Burd. 612.10–617.8) From the city (sc. of Rome) to Milan (612.10) 1. Rome to Ariminum (612.11–615.5) 2. 79 to Milan (615.6–617.5) Grand totals Rome to Milan (617.6–8) The account from Bordeaux to Jerusalem and back to Caesarea (Sections I—III) forms an unbroken sequence, while as noted above there is a lacuna between Sections III and IV. Sections IV and V (Heraclea to Milan) form a second sequence that is possibly curtailed at Milan, where it rejoins the route traced on the outward journey in Section I.1–2. Two of the joints in this edited version are neat because they coincide with subsection breaks (that at Caesarea,

79. Accepting Glorie’s plausible restoration of a sub-total at this point, omitted in a lacuna: civitas Pisauro usque Ariminum , mutatio Conpetu milia XII (Itin. Burd. 615.4–8).

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uniting Section III with Section II.6, and that at Milan, where the end of Section V.2 meets Section I.2). However, the joint between Sections I and IV, at Heraclea-Perinthus, is more awkward because it is only an intermediary stage in the former (I.6). It might have been more “user-friendly” to begin Section IV at Constantinople, where Section I ends, but it is testimony to the rigorousness of the editing that such convenience is sacrificed to the principle of avoiding even minor overlap. Before this editing it seems most likely that the source material comprised the following units: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Bordeaux to Constantinople (preserved, with minor lacunae, as Section I) Constantinople to Jerusalem (preserved complete as Section II)80 Jerusalem to Constantinople (a fragment surviving as Section III) Constantinople to Rome (mostly preserved as Section IV) Rome to Milan/Bordeaux (wholly/partly preserved as Section V)

As can be appreciated by mapping out the result cartographically (figure 13.1), after editing and reassembly, it is natural to assume—just as the composer of the transmitted title did—that the anonymous traveler’s ultimate goal had always been to reach the farthest point of the account: Jerusalem and the Holy Land. However, looking at the above analysis of the internal hierarchization of the text provides grounds to think that the reality may have been otherwise. The wording of the comment inserted at the beginning of Section II (Itin. Burd. 571.6–8), quoted above, is pivotal. Not only does the fact of dating these actions make Constantinople, rather than Bordeaux or Jerusalem, the chief reference point for the account, as it is transmitted, but careful consideration of its phrasing sheds light on the structure of the original, unedited account. The conjunction item (“similarly”), which has not been used to open route sections prior to this point in the text, strongly suggests that a new start is indicated. The journey to and from Jerusalem and other sites in the Holy Land (Sections II and III) should be considered an extension—separate from the original trip from Bordeaux to Constantinople and back (Sections I, IV, and V). Whoever set down this record clearly conceived of these travels as forming two distinct sets of journeys: A. Sections I, IV, and V (Bordeaux to Constantinople, [Constantinople] to Milan/[Bordeaux]) B. Sections II and III (Constantinople to Jerusalem, Jerusalem to [Constantinople])

80. One minor omission perhaps (of Biblos between Itin. Burd. 583.7 and 8); see Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 69.

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Moreover, “similarly we traveled from Chalcedon” is a distinctly odd way to introduce the onward journey to Jerusalem, if that city had always been the explicit goal of the journey from Bordeaux, and Constantinople just a stage on the way. That is, the most natural way to read the phrasing of the entry is as introducing the reader to a new journey, one that was not anticipated at the beginning of the account in its original form. Indeed, the whole entry at Itin. Burd. 571.6–8 reads rather like an apologia directed at those back in Bordeaux anxious to know how an unanticipated extra seven months of absence (between 30 May and 26 December) are to be accounted for. In the full original form of the account, the item here presumably answered to a now lost equivalent opening statement, perhaps an indication of the date on which the traveler set out from Bordeaux. Unless a subsequent redactor has carefully transposed the reference to the consular year from the opening to this medial position in order to prevent a record of the year being lost, the obvious explanation for the naming of the consuls here is that it serves to indicate a different year from that in which the account of the journey opened. Given that the traveler only made it back to Constantinople just before the close of the year, the return home will have fallen in the following consular year. The clear implication, then, is that Constantinople was the destination specified at the outset of the journey and that this journey was recorded as having begun in the previous year (a.d. 332: Pacatianus et Hilarianus) and that the account terminated, after the interlude of the Jerusalem trip, in Milan or Bordeaux in 334 (Optatus et Paulinus). Whether planned from the outset or not, the structure of the compilation shows that the traveler conceived of the round-trip from Constantinople to Jerusalem as a separate enterprise, grafted on to the journey from Bordeaux to Constantinople and back to Milan. On this analysis it seems hard to deny that Constantinople was central to the purpose of travel on departure from Bordeaux, and was thus of equal, if not greater, importance than Jerusalem. What are the implications of acknowledging Constantinople as a primary destination for the Anonymus Burdigalensis? This is the question to be explored next. What follows might be dismissed as belonging to the realm of unprovable hypothesis, but it is intended to keep speculation within the bounds of the probable by continual reference to the contemporary context.81 6. Destination: Constantinople What might be inferred from establishing Constantinople as one of the traveler’s main objectives? This reorientation clearly has consequences for our understanding of the motivation for traveling there from Bordeaux. The dating notice

81. Cf. Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 199 n.52.

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puts the narrator in Constantinople on two occasions in 333; that may be nine years since Constantine laid the first foundations, but it is only three years after the emperor’s formal inauguration of the new city on 11 May 330.82 At this juncture the city had little to offer the religiously motivated traveler.83 The great churches were yet to be finished, or even started, and, even if the shrine of S. Euphemia over the water at Chalcedon did subsequently become internationally famous, the cult of the martyrs was yet to develop as a motive for travel.84 However, from 330, Constantinople had become a focus for ecclesiastical as well as secular affairs, the draw being the presence of the imperial court and the emperor Constantine himself.85 It is significant that the dates of the journey just happen to fall in one of the short periods in the fourth century when all matters requiring the authority of a senior emperor (Augustus) devolved upon one man. Before Constantine’s deposition of his colleague Licinius in September 324, a Gaul would not have to venture beyond Serdica (modern Sofya) to find the imperial court.86 And, with the accession of his three sons as Augusti in the autumn of 337, Gallic provincials once again had a source of the highest imperial authority close at hand in Trier.87 For the period 324 to 337, supreme political authority was concentrated in the hands of Constantine. Ever since the inauguration of Constantinople in 330, when not on campaign, Constantine had remained close to his new city, either in residence or nearby at Nicomedia in Bithynia.88 So, for a resident of Bordeaux for whom an approach to the emperor was essential, it would be reasonable to set out for the Bosporus region to find him there in the spring of 333. In fact, a series of five surviving laws attest Constantine’s presence in Constantinople between 17 October 332 and 5 May 333, and a sixth may indicate that he was still there on 15 July.89 Given that the anonymous traveler left Constantinople for Jerusalem on 30 May, it is highly probable that his or her presence in the capital coincided with the emperor’s. Since Constantinople had little yet to offer for those seeking spiritual edification, the most obvious explanation for a journey from Bordeaux to Constantinople begun in 332 or 333 is that it was inspired by mundane concerns that required imperial intervention. This opens up a variety of options for the purpose of the journey.

82. For the details, see Barnes, New Empire, 76–78. 83. See Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 193. 84. For Constantine’s churches in Constantinople, see Eusebius, VC 4.58. According to Egeria, the martyrium of Euphemia was well known to her long before she visited it in 384 (Itin. Egeriae 23.7). 85. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 53–7; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 224–44. 86. See Barnes, New Empire, 69–75. 87. Ibid., 84. 88. Ibid., 78–79. 89. CJ 6.1.6 (17 October 332), CTh 4.8.8 (26 October 332), CTh 3.20.5 (18 April 333), CTh 8.12.5 (4 May 333), Const. Sirm. 1 (5 May 333), and CTh 3.5.6 (15 July 333), on which see Barnes, New Empire, 79.

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One might seek out the emperor for a ruling on a private matter, on behalf of a municipality or regional council, as a member of the provincial or diocesan administration, or as an officer in the armed forces. Private petitioners needed to convey the libellus containing their preces (request) to the bureau of the magister libellorum and then await the posting of the emperor’s subscribed reply.90 This practice is copiously documented for the period up to 300 by the Codex Justinianus, but the imperial replies of Constantine’s reign were never formally collected. However, continuation of the practice is demonstrated by rescripts from the period in unofficial collections and petitions among the Egyptian papyri.91 Grander people and public corporations might be able to submit their supplications to the emperor by letter, but these still needed delivering, which might also entail presentation with a speech before the emperor.92 As it happens, two very nearly contemporary imperial letters responding to such public missions survive: a letter to the council of Orcistus in Galatia, issued from Constantinople in 331, granting relief from a subsidy to pagan cults;93 and another, either written between 25 December 333 and 18 September 335 (and thus very probably also from Constantinople), or between 22 May and 9 September 337 (and thus from Milan), to the Umbrians, granting them permission to hold a version of the annual provincial festival at Hispellum rather than jointly with the Tuscans at Volsinii.94 Particular categories of court case also demanded the attention of the emperor, necessitating journeys from the provinces. Prosecutions of public officials for extortion and maladministration under the Lex Iulia repetundarum might be brought by private individuals or public bodies,95 and, although imperial legislation attempted to limit scope for appeal to the emperor, lesser judges might refer cases for consultation to the emperor, which required the transfer of paperwork and sometimes, it seems, the need for the presence of the litigants themselves to chivvy the process along.96

90. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 537–49. 91. Rescripts: Frag. Vat. 27, 31–4, 39–40, 273–4, 287, 290–1. Petitions: P.Abinn. 1, P.Ryl. 4.617–621, and SB 6.9217 (re-edition of P.Lond. 3.878r). 92. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 375–94. 93. MAMA 7.305, col. 3; most recently discussed and translated by Van Dam, The Roman Revolution of Constantine, Appendix 1, 363–67. 94. CIL 11.5265; Van Dam, The Roman Revolution of Constantine, Appendix 2, 368–72 (dating to 333/335), cf. Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 20–23 (dating to 337). The date is inferred from the presence of Constans in, but absence of Dalmatius from, the heading. 95. On the continued functioning of the Lex Iulia, see CTh 9.27. 96. On limitation of appeal and referral of cases, see CTh 11.29–30. E.g., in a.d. 315, Constantine forbade litigants access to the emperor while a case was pending, except in the case of a litigant denied a copy of the judge’s report (opinio), or when the transmission of the documents in the case has been suppressed (CTh 11.30.6). By a ruling of 386, litigants were permitted to travel to the imperial court to chase up a referral only when nothing had been heard back after a year (CTh 11.30.17).

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In fact, private and public affairs might be interwoven in any one mission, as demonstrated by the example of the scholasticus, Theophanes.97 He was a lawyer in public employ, traveling to the bureau of the vicarius of Oriens at Antioch. He made the journey at the instigation of the governor of his home province, the Thebaid, but also under the patronage of the chief fi nance officer of all Egypt (the catholicus), based at Alexandria in Aegyptus Iovia. On his way he also met with officials of the governor of another province, Aegyptus Herculia, at Babylon (near modern Cairo). However, as the catholicus’ letters of introduction to the governors of Palaestina and Syria Phoenice make clear, Theophanes was undertaking the journey “without an official allowance” (sine ratione).98 So he was perhaps traveling not as a government agent but on private business, or on behalf of his city or province. Another cache of Egyptian papyri documents the range of circumstances that might bring a serving soldier to the imperial court in the 330s and 340s.99 Flavius Abinnaeus, a career soldier who had served in Egypt since 307, relates how he first came to Constantinople in the summer of 336, escorting a deputation from the tribe of the Blemmyes on the orders of his superior, the dux of the frontier of the Upper Thebaid. In 339–40, he delivered recruits to the emperor Constantius II at Hierapolis in Syria, for which he was rewarded with a letter of appointment as the commander of a unit at Dionysias back in Egypt. In the winter 341–42 he returned to the emperor, now at Antioch,100 to seek to have his imperially ordained tenure ratified against the claims of others, who only possessed letters of appointment obtained through intermediaries (per suff ragium). Finally, having been dismissed by the comes of Egypt in 344, Abinnaeus planned a further mission to the court to overturn the decision, before he was saved the effort by his superior’s fatal riding accident. Abinnaeus’ example demonstrates how direct access to the emperor could be key to gaining promotion and holding on to appointments. Petitioners on private business did not enjoy the same access to the cursus publicus, but might club together to share the costs involved in travel and/or take advantage of acquaintance with a government official to have their requests conveyed to the imperial court. A remarkable cluster of petitions to the emperor among Theophanes’ papers—one complete with imperial subscription— documents this co-operative exercise on earlier missions to the emperors

97. For detailed discussion of what follows, see Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 33–40. 98. Vitalis catholicus to Delphinius praeses Palaestinae: P.Ryl. 4.623 = ChLA 4.253; Vitalis catholicus to Achillius praeses Phoenices: Moscadi, “Lettere,” no. 1 = ChLA 19.687. 99. For what follows, see principally P.Abinn. 1 (ChLA 3.202) and 2 (ChLA 1.8), with Barnes, “Abinnaeus.” 100. Not Constantinople, pace Barnes, “Abinnaeus,” 369.

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Maximinus (a.d. 313) and then Licinius (ca. a.d. 317), probably visited at Antioch and Nicomedia respectively.101 A similar process is seen in the preparations for Abinnaeus’ mission to the imperial court in 345; one sponsor seeks to gain through his agency a letter of appointment as exactor civitatis.102 In addition to secular matters, Constantine’s patronage of the Christian church added ecclesiastical business to the range of matters that might regularly come to the imperial court with permission to use the cursus publicus, as Ammianus later complained.103 One such matter certainly reached the emperor’s cognizance in the late spring of 333, since one of the laws attesting Constantine in Constantinople at that time concerned the judicial privileges of bishops.104 Objection might be raised to the hypothesis that the Bordeaux traveler had important business at Constantinople on the grounds that, if he or she did, it is passed over in complete silence. Comparison with the case of Theophanes suggests that we should not expect it. For all their detail on travel and expenditure, the memoranda reveal nothing about the business conducted in the two and a half months at Antioch—nor do the letters of introduction written to ease his passage through the intervening provinces.105 And, after all, even in all the description lavished on the Holy Land, the traveler never discusses the purpose of the visit there. It might also be objected that it is hard to imagine the writer of the unadorned Latin of the Bordeaux Itinerary as the main protagonist in a private legal dispute, or as responsible for arguing a matter of public business or of church politics at the imperial court. Such observations would have force if the author of the Bordeaux Itinerary was the leader of the mission. However, there is no warrant in the text for such an assumption. He or she might equally well have served in the entourage of such a person. From the evidence of the memoranda of Theophanes’ journey, Matthews has estimated that the party that accompanied him to Antioch numbered about ten, apparently all men, some of them certainly slaves. This retinue included a household manager, cooks, a messenger, and simple attendants.106 Senior churchmen also traveled with a sizable entourage. In 314, Constantine granted the bishop of Syracuse a

101. P.Ryl. 4.617–621 (the last one with subscription). These account for 5 of the 6 imperial petitions in Greek known from late third- and fourth-century Egypt; see Kramer, “Eingabe,” 155–61, to whose list add P.Abinn. 1 (Latin). For the locations of Maximinus and Licinius (not at Thessalonica, pace Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 37), see Barnes, New Empire, 66–67, 80. 102. P.Abinn. 58–9, with Barnes, “Abinnaeus,” 372. 103. Amm. Marc. 21.16.18. An early example is that of Donatist bishops conveyed back to Africa by the cursus clabularis from Constantine’s court at Trier in February 315 (Optatus, De schismate Donatistarum, App. 8). 104. Const. Sirm. 1 to Ablabius praefectus praetorio (5 May 333). 105. Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 8–9, 89–121. 106. Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 165.

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permit to travel to the synod in Arles by the cursus publicus. This made allowance for him to be accompanied by two priests and three servants.107 The straightforward style of the Bordeaux Itinerary fits quite comfortably into the milieu of the technically proficient servant or slave. As is also clear from Theophanes’ papers, the travel accounts were not just written by clerks in his entourage but from their point of view, since Theophanes is addressed as “you.”108 The muted authorial voice of the Bordeaux Itinerary suits such a context well. It is easier to imagine a member of the lead traveler’s secretarial staff, rather than the leader of the mission him or herself, being charged with custody of the itineraries, punctiliously annotating them, and using them as the platform on which to attach his touristic observations. Whether answerable to a master or mistress, such roles were traditionally fi lled by male slaves or freedmen. There is, of course, no evidence to determine what type of business the traveler’s party had at Constantinople. However, indirect inference may allow us to exclude the possibility that the author’s superior was an agent of provincial or central imperial government. As already noted, the Itinerary regularly remarks on provincial boundaries. Indeed, Elsner commends the author for the “acute awareness of provincial boundaries,” which displays “implicit awareness of administrative . . . differences across the terrain which . . . the text traverses.”109 As it happens, the fortunate survival of a list of the civil provinces, drawn up on the occasion of their grouping into dioceses in ca. 314 (the so-called Verona List), means that we are relatively well informed as to the organization and nomenclature of the Roman provinces in the early fourth century.110 When the testimony of the Bordeaux Itinerary is measured against this list, the impression of diligence soon evaporates. As already discussed, the minor dislocation of boundary notices is not attributable to the original author. Still, as transmitted, the text records only two-thirds (twenty out of about thirty) of the provinces the traveler actually passed through. Most of the silences concern the provinces of Gaul and the regiones of Italy, which may be explained by their familiarity to both writer and intended audience.111 However, the writer also seems unfamiliar with recent developments in administrative geography. While editors have noted the misattribution of the epithets superior and inferior to the Pannonias

107. Letter of Constantine to Latronianus corrector Siciliae: Eusebius HE 10.5.22. 108. Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 49. There are two or three different hands at work in the memoranda (ibid. 195–96). 109. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 187–88. 110. Laterculus Veronensis (ed. Riese, Geographi Latini Minores, 127–28); on the date, see Barnes, “Emperors, Panegyrics,” 548–50, and Zuckerman, “Sur la liste de Vérone,” 620–28, 636–37. 111. Certainly missing are Aquitania, Novempopulana, Narbonensis, Viennensis, Alpes Maritimae, Haemimontus, and in Italy the regiones Liguria et Aemilia, Flaminia et Picenum, Tuscia et Umbria.

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as likely scribal error (Itin. Burd. 561.5–6; 562.8), that the province entered from Noricum was actually now Pannonia Savensis or Savia (a subdivision of the old Pannonia Superior) has not been remarked upon. There is similar unfamiliarity with the diocesan groupings, instituted nearly twenty years earlier. The names of three are preserved (Italia, Dacia, and Thracia), but both instances are problematic. The entry fines Daciae et Traciae (at Itin. Burd. 567.9) does accord with the boundary of dioceses named Dacia and Thrace, but this may be a lucky coincidence. The implication of the other entries is that this, too, is offered as a description of the provincial boundary, which was actually between Dacia (Mediterranea) and Haemimontus (a recent subdivision of Thrace), and, in any case, the diocese of Dacia may not yet have been carved out of the larger Moesiae recorded in the Verona List. The notices for the boundaries of Italy (at Itin. Burd. 556.5 and 560.10)—never a province in the imperial period and now a diocese comprising seven regiones, three islands (Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica), and two mainland provinces (Alpes Cottiae and Raetia)—might bring to mind the diocese at first sight. However, the traveler’s distinction of Italy from the Alpes Cottiae demonstrates that the traveler had in mind the old unitary Italy once defined by enjoyment of the privileges of the ius Italicum. Overall, then, the examination of awareness of boundaries suggests that the political geography held in the traveler’s head was twenty years out of date, at least as far as the more familiar European regions were concerned. The state of knowledge attested is appropriate to someone schooled before 314 (and thus born not much later than the beginning of the century) and out of touch with subsequent developments in provincial organization. Such inattentiveness to the contemporary political framework suggests that author was not likely to be traveling in the train of a government officer, whether a civil servant, like Theophanes, or a soldier, like Abinnaeus. The possibilities of a mission for private, for civic, and for ecclesiastical business still remain. If business is the most likely explanation of the traveler’s presence in Constantinople in 333, what other implications are there for our understanding of the text? Whatever its nature, business to be done at the imperial court was likely to be of a protracted nature. If not coming as a pilgrim, eager to hurry on to Jerusalem, the traveler might have spent a month, at least, in Constantinople before business there was concluded. Even if he had spent only a day in the city, the 112 days of travel recorded from Bordeaux imply a start date in early January. That the traveling party took the slightly shorter route to Milan via the Cottian Alps, rather than by the French Riviera,112 does not render this

112. The alternative offered by an Augustan milestone from Narbonne (CIL 12.5671 = 17/2.298) for the journey to Rome: (per) [F(orum)] Iu{i}li (m. p.) DCCCCXXI, (per) [Cott]i r(egnum) (m. p.) DCCCCII.

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impossible because this route exploits the all-winter Montgenèvre pass (1850 m, 6068 ft.) into Italy.113 Building in an extra month or two’s sojourn in Constantinople pushes back the probable departure from Bordeaux into the early winter or late autumn. This season may help to explain part of the rather zigzag route traced across Gaul. On the way to the Alpine passes, the route first heads southeast to the Mediterranean coast, rather than heading directly for the central Rhône valley via Vesunna Petrocoriorum (Périgueux) and Augustonemetum Arvernorum (Clermont-Ferrand).114 A wish to avoid the Massif Central in winter is comprehensible. Beyond Arles the route is less susceptible to a simple seasonal explanation. The route followed to the Montgenèvre pass—up the Rhône to Valentia (Valence) and then eastwards along the Drôme valley—is longer and climbs higher than the more direct route up the Durance valley to Vapincum (Gap), via Cabellio (Cavaillon) and Segustero (Sisteron).115 Perhaps the itinerary was simply dictated by the availability of routes served by the cursus publicus or the need to pick up other members of the traveling party en route. Nevertheless, it is notable that the Bordeaux Itinerary’s route takes in the capitals of four (of the then five) provinces of the diocese, as well as the diocesan capital itself.116 The traveler may have had little choice but to pass through most of these. Still, rather than follow the well-attested route from Bordeaux down the Garonne to Toulouse via Aginnum (Agen) and Lactora (Lectoure), the traveling party initially struck out southwards to Elusa (Eauze), capital of Novempopulana.117 This route, taking in the capitals of these Gallic provinces, may reflect the political or social obligations to be fulfi lled by the lead member of the party.118

113. Itin. Burd. 556.1: Inde ascendis Matronam. 114. Itin. Burd. 549.7–552.10; cf. the route Burdigala—Vesunna—Augustoritum—Aug(usto) nemetum—Vorocium—Lugdunum—Vienna that is outlined by the Tabula Peutingeriana (mapped out in CIL 17/2, p. lv). 115. Itin. Burd. 553.3–556.1; cf. (in reverse) Itin. Ant. 342.3–344.2 and 387.5–388.6 (Löhberg, Itinerarium provinciarum, 262–63, 289) a route that is again also outlined by the Tabula Peutingeriana (see CIL 17/2, p. lv). 116. Provinces: Aquitania (Burdigala: Itin. Burd. 549.7; Not. Gall. 13.1), Novempopulana (Elusa: Itin. Burd. 550.6; Not. Gall. 14.1); Narbonensis (Narbo Martius: Itin. Burd. 552.2; Not. Gall. 15.1), Alpes Maritimae (Eburodunum: Itin. Burd. 555.8; Not. Gall. 17.1); diocese: Viennensis (Arelate: Itin. Burd. 552.10; Delmaire, Largesses sacrées, 185). For the likely roll-call of provinces in the 330s, see Sipilä, Reorganisation, 280, 283 nn.7–9. 117. Itin. Burd. 549.7–550.6; cf. the route Burdigala—Aginnum—Lactora—Tolosa that is outlined by the Tabula Peutingeriana (mapped out in CIL 17/2, p. lv). 118. In this connection, note Theophanes’ possession of letters of introduction to the governors of provinces on his route (P.Ryl. 4.623 = ChLA 4.253, and Moscadi, “Lettere,” no. 1 = ChLA 19.687), and the hospitality offered by the governor to the noblewoman Paula, as family friend, at Antioch in 385 (Jerome, Ep. 108.7.3; Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage, 171–72).

320 Salway 7. Destination: Jerusalem Of course, establishing Constantinople as the initial objective of the journey from Bordeaux does raise questions about the traveler’s intentions in relation to Jerusalem. Assuming that the account of the Holy Land is constituted of notes taken at the time, by the time the traveler passed through Samaria, he certainly counted himself as a Christian.119 It is entirely possible that, once he knew that he would be traveling to Constantinople, he had made plans from the outset to take the opportunity to add on the extra trip to Jerusalem, a journey that may have been too much to undertake for its own sake all the way from Bordeaux. However, it is also possible that the opportunity and/or desire to visit the Holy Land were unforeseen, only arising during the period in Constantinople. The timing of the trip is certainly easier to understand if the Holy Land was not initially the ultimate objective. Otherwise, in planning the trip, one might expect more effort to coincide with one of the major Christian festivals with specific geographic resonance. However, despite all the months spent away from home, the traveler managed to miss both Easter in Jerusalem (probably spent in Constantinople) and Christmas in Bethlehem (spent at Chalcedon). In contrast, the chronology suggests that he witnessed the Jews’ annual mourning of the destruction of the temple, which he does in fact report.120 That the trip to Jerusalem was only decided upon after reaching the Bosporus is not so inconceivable in the contemporary context. After all, one has to appreciate that a visitor from the west, even a Christian one, would have found the cultural and political atmosphere of Constantinople in 333 a striking contrast to that still prevailing in the west. Constantine may have been the public champion of Christianity ever since his defeat of Maxentius outside Rome in 312, but it was only in 324, with the defeat of Licinius and acquisition of the eastern provinces, that he had become undisputed master of the Roman world and, crucially, ruler of that portion of it (the Greek east) in which the Christian community was most significant. In this newly acquired territory, which comprised the dioceses of Thrace, Pontica, Asiana, and Oriens (then including Egypt), Constantine could afford to adopt a more aggressively Christian stance.121 This was communicated through a flurry of letters and public statements in the winter and spring of 324–25.122 A ban on

119. Itin. Burd. 588.4–5; on which see n.3 above. 120. Itin. Burd. 591.5. The destructions in both 586 b.c. and a.d. 70 are commemorated together on 9 Av of the Jewish calendar, which fell in early August in a.d. 333 (see Jacobs, Remains of the Jews, 114). 121. For full discussion, see Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 245–60, and Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power, 18, 107–43. 122. Letters to the eastern provincials: Eusebius, VC 2.24–42, 48–60; letters to eastern bishops: ibid. 2.43–46; letter to Persian king Shapur: ibid. 4.9, and the Oratio ad sanctos: ibid. 5.

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blood sacrifice was introduced, certainly in Palestine and probably throughout Oriens, if not over all his eastern territories, and a handful of egregiously offensive pagan temples demolished.123 The emperor inaugurated a new era by rebranding himself to his Greek subjects as Constantine Augoustos, marking an end to the three-hundred-and-fifty-year sequence of emperors titled Sebastos, a term which carried strong overtones of the imperial cult.124 The union of east and west enabled Constantine to sponsor the first ecumenical council of the church, at Nicaea in 325, and the building of new, monumental churches on a wide scale, including at some key sites in the Holy Land. The anonymous traveler visited these, at Golgotha and Eleona (the Mount of Olives), in Jerusalem, at Bethlehem, and at Mamre (Terebinthos), the first and last of which he honored with his stock phrase of wonderment, mirae pulchritudinis (of amazing beauty).125 By the winter of 332–33 Constantine’s initial glow of satisfaction had given way to frustration at ongoing theological disputes. But, as a result he was, if anything, more deeply involved in church affairs than ever, having just dispatched letters to all the parties concerned in Alexandria, restating his position and summoning Arius to Constantinople in the hope of settling matters once and for all.126 The traveler’s first direct experience of this new world will have come on crossing into Haemimontus only fifteen or sixteen days’ journey before arriving at Constantinople. However, a stay of a month or so at Constantinople, in close proximity to the imperial court, would have given the new atmosphere the opportunity to cast its spell. Without an opening verb at the beginning of the text it is impossible to tell, but it may be that the “we” of ambulavimus and reversi sumus originally indicated a shift in subject—that is, that the traveler had fallen in with a new group for the new journey to Jerusalem. If, as seems likely, the narrator was a retainer or servant, then the key factor will have been how his employer or boss was affected by his (or indeed her) experience in Constantinople. If of some status, having succeeded in transacting business at court, the leader of the party may have been charged with some mission by the emperor, such as inspection of the imperially sponsored church-building works, which were still ongoing at this date.127 Certainly, the text of the itinerary continues to

123. Barnes, “From Toleration to Repression.” 124. Salway, “Constantine Augoustos not Sebastos.” 125. Golgotha: Itin. Burd. 594.2–4; Eleona: 595.5–6; Bethlehem: 598.7; Mamre: 599.5–6. Cf. 595.3, where mirae pulchritudinis is used of two monolithic stone monuments; and 599.8, where it is used of the Herodian memorial at Hebron. On Constantine’s churches, see Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places, 86–156. 126. Athanasius, De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi 38.9, 40.43; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 233. 127. Constantine sent the notaries Marianus to oversee the dedicatory celebrations of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher at Golgotha from 13 to 20 September 335 (Sozomen, HE 1.26; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 238).

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note the mansiones and mutationes for the journey beyond Constantinople in exactly the same way as it had done before. If the traveler’s party did indeed enjoy use of the cursus publicus to Constantinople, the same would appear to be true for the trip to Jerusalem. This need not be in relation to government business, however. As already noted, we know that Constantine was happy to authorize use of the cursus publicus to allow bishops to attend councils. In 333–34, Constantine granted the request of Bishop John of Memphis for an audience, rewarding his conciliatory attitude with permission to use the cursus publicus.128 And later in the mid-330s, Constantine also authorized Eusebius of Caesarea to send the fift y copies of scripture commissioned for Constantinople on two wagons of the cursus publicus, along with a deacon.129 Church business may have been the pretext under which the anonymous traveler used the cursus publicus to Palestine, but the timing does not suit any known meetings. The traveling party was probably already closing in again on Constantinople when Constantine summoned a council of bishops to meet at Caesarea, and will probably already have been back home when the great council of TyreJerusalem was called for the summer of 335.130 Still, on occasion, even lay persons of sufficient social eminence were successful in obtaining permits to use the service for private purposes.131 Whether or not he intended it, Constantine is on record as a supporter of cultural tourism, even by prominent pagans. In 326, when Nicagoras of Athens (torch-bearer of the Eleusinian mysteries) made a trip to Egypt with imperial patronage, he managed to take in the Pharaonic tombs at Thebes (Luxor).132 It would not be out of character for Constantine to have been moved to grant the use of the cursus publicus to visit the Holy Land. He might have been particularly receptive if the request came from a Christian visitor to his court, who having come such a distance expressed sufficient interest in seeing the setting of the Bible, especially if he was refreshingly untainted by the theological disputes of the Greek church. 8. Destination: Rome In rehabilitating the significance of Constantinople to the traveler, that of Rome is not to be ignored. Although Rome did not share the indignity of being passed over by the heading of the Bordeaux Itinerary, its significance is downplayed. It

128. Athanasius, Apol. contra Arianos 70; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 235. 129. Eusebius, VC 4.36.1–4. 130. Caesarea: Sozomen, HE 2.25.1, Theodoret, HE 2.28.1; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 234–35. Tyre-Jerusalem: Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 235–39. 131. Jones, Later Roman Empire, 830. 132. OGIS 721 = Baillet, Inscriptions, no. 1889, AE 1936, 148; on which see PLRE 1, 627 (“Nicagoras 1”), and Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 72, 322 n.103.

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is placed on a par with Aulon, as somewhere simply passed through (per Aulonam et per urbem Romam, Itin. Burd. 549.3–4) on the way to Milan. Elsner has already proposed that the return route deliberately took in Rome, but Matthews dismisses Rome as insignificant in the itinerary.133 In fact, observation of the hierarchy of the itinerary’s structure may vindicate Elsner. That Rome is, in fact, the occasion for a grand total summary places it on a par with Constantinople and Jerusalem as a destination in its own right.134 While the city no longer enjoyed the regular presence of an emperor, it remained a significant hub for the transaction of political, cultural, social, and, increasingly, ecclesiastical business. So, opening our minds to the possibility that the traveling party was not uniquely focused on pilgrimage, it is not hard to imagine how Rome might feature on their agenda, perhaps even as a follow-on from the business in Constantinople. 9. Conclusions No doubt many aspects of the Itinerarium Burdigalense will remain irretrievably mysterious. Nevertheless, stripping away the false expectations set up by its retrospectively concocted title, and setting aside the distraction of the excursus on the Holy Land, facilitates a more objective analysis of the underlying itinerary. From this it can be deduced that the Bordeaux Itinerary is not the record of a single extraordinary journey from one end of the empire to the other, focused solely on Jerusalem. Instead, it is revealed as a set of distinct but interlocking journeys, focused on Constantinople, Jerusalem, and perhaps Rome as destinations of primary significance. Among these, the dating of the entry at Constantinople shows it to be the lynchpin. How is our understanding of the document changed by this conclusion? If correct, the anonymous traveler did not privilege Jerusalem uniquely as a destination. This reevaluation does not throw doubt on the sincerity of the anonymous traveler’s Christian faith, only on the assumption that he left Bordeaux with the prime intention of completing a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The interpretation proposed here no doubt reflects this commentator’s particular obsessions. Nevertheless, I hope to have offered a reading of the Bordeaux Itinerary that accounts better for its particular style and content, and above all for the one first-person statement in the entire work. Limiting conjecture by close attention to the specific historical context, I propose that the

133. Elsner, “Politics and Salvation,” 183–84; Matthews, “The Cultural Landscape,” 193. 134. Itin. Burd. 612.7–9: Fit ab Heraclea per Aulona in urbe Roma usque milia undecies centena XIII, mutationes CXVII, mansiones XLVI.

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author is best understood as a male lay Christian, aged no younger than thirty or thirty-five, who traveled in the train of an employer or master/mistress, who had business in Constantinople. There, contact with the imperial court opened up the possibility of extending the trip to visit Palestine, where the holy sites were currently being monumentalized with imperially sponsored buildings. Having always had a mind to record details that might be unfamiliar to his circle at home (probably in northern Italy), the traveler was provoked by the unusual nature of this perhaps unanticipated experience to comment expansively on the Judeo-Christian heritage of the Holy Land. What emerges from this analysis, in place of a disingenuously naïve vehicle for elaborately encoded theological or ideological messages, is a pragmatic composition, readily comprehensible as the product of a specific combination of circumstances in the 330s. As a result, students of religious history are not deprived of the earliest first-hand account of Holy Land pilgrimage by a Latin Christian. However, the starting point for his novel undertaking was not Bordeaux but that new bubble of Latin culture in the Greek east, Constantinople.

14

Virgilizing Christianity in Late Antique Rome JOHN CURRAN

T

he cento of Proba has stimulated some energetic academic comment in recent years, particularly with regard to the date and identity of the poet herself. The profile of that debate, however, has unfortunately overshadowed aspects of the poem and its reception in Rome in Late Antiquity that between them offer an invaluable insight into the processes of “Christianization” with regard to the elite of the city. As will be seen, some older and still credible ideas on the significance of the poem are useful for appreciating its importance, but modern perspectives on the Christian upper class also prompt a revisiting of this unusual text. 1. Introduction Some brief fundamentals. According to the Oxford Latin Dictionary, a cento was “a patchwork quilt” or “cloak,” and in this sense the definition is a perfectly appropriate term to apply to poems of this type.1 The cento was a poem pieced together from fragments of the work or works of another poet, taken out of their original context and reassembled, frequently to serve a quite different artistic vision. The principles of cento composition were undeniably ancient, and it has been plausibly suggested that they have much in common with the memorization and rhetorical fluidity fundamental to the epic oral tradition.2 The artful imitation (mimēsis) of classical models in the cento theoretically served as an expression of respect for the great authors and prevented the worst excesses of the individual centonist.3 As Eva Stehliková has put it: “If Roman poetry (as, in

1. Cf. the defi nition (from centron [Gr.], “a goad or stitching needle”) in Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 471; Meconi, “The Christian Cento,” 109. For the cento form, see Bright, “Theory and Practice”; Salanitro, Osideo Geta, 18–60; Ermini, Il centone di Proba, 19–55. 2. Bright, “Theory and Practice,” 81: “The two most predictable responses to greatness are imitation and mockery.” Little surprise to fi nd early centones in Aristophanes: Peace 1090–93. For a basic bibliography on the early cento tradition, see Clark and Hatch, The Golden Bough, 153 n.6. For memorization and rhetoric, see Pavlovskis, “Proba and the Semiotics,” 70–84, at 71. 3. Meconi, “The Christian Cento,” 121 citing Lamacchia, “Technica centonaria.”

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fact, Roman literature as a whole) has one of its basic features in imitation, then centos represent the culmination, absurd at first sight yet entirely logical in the final analysis, of the line of evolution leading in this direction.” 4 In Latin literature, the specifically Virgilian cento seems to have come into vogue in the second century a.d. with Hosidius Geta’s Medea, mentioned by Tertullian as a notable recycling of pagan literature. 5 Ausonius, in a prose letter prefacing his own playful Cento Nuptialis, defi ned the cento as a poem made up of separate parts of other poems but put together in a way (paratactically) that suggests that the elements thus put together are naturally related.6 As such, then, cento composition was a skilled and technical literary exercise. The centonist had to reproduce the fragments precisely and preserve the caesurae in an individual line. As Bright has put it, “it is as if the centonist were speaking a language whose unit of vocabulary is not the word but the well-turned phrase.” 7 Specifically in the case of Proba, the poetess deploys full and half-lines of verse from Virgil’s Aeneid, Georgics, and Eclogues.8 Contributing to the genre thus required a powerful memory and recall of the works of Virgil, long, of course, the foundation of a Latin literary education. As no less a figure than Augustine himself put it: “Virgil certainly is held to be a great poet; in fact, he is regarded as the best and most renowned of all poets, and for that reason he is read by children at an early age—they take great draughts of his poetry into their unformed minds, so that they may not easily forget him.”9 Schnapp sums up Proba’s poem as “some 700 metrically correct dactylic hexameters.”10 In both Late Antiquity and more modern times, judgments on the cento generally and that of Proba in particular have been passed by those claiming to possess literary taste and authority. In the last years of the fourth century, Jerome writing to his friend, the senatorial lady Paula, dismissed the genre as “childish, and like the games of quack philosophers.”11 4. Stehliková, “Centones Christiani,” 11. 5. De Praescriptione Haereticorum 39. 6. Letter to Paulus introducing the Cento Nuptialis. The poem itself is a response to an epithalamion in lines and half-lines of Virgil sent to Ausonius by the emperor Valentinian. See Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, 68. Arguably the most famous example of the genre is the libretto of Handel’s Messiah (a point made by Pavlovskis, “Proba and the Semiotics,” 77 n.26). 7. Bright, “Theory and Practice,” 80. Cf. Meconi, “The Christian Cento,” 110: “. . . the cento is not a poetic genre per se but a technique or method of imitation and resemblance.” 8. For details of the manuscript tradition, see Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, 532–35; Kirsch, Die lateinische Versepik, 117–37. 9. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 1.3: Nempe apud Vergilium, quem propterea parvuli legunt, ut videlicet poeta magnus omniumque praeclarissimus atque optimus teneris ebibitus animis non facile oblivione possit aboleri . . . (trans. H. Bettenson). 10. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 100. 11. Ep. 53.7. See pp. 339–41, “Jerome’s Judgment.”

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But there is evidence that despite the status and learning of some of its ancient detractors, the cento of Proba attained an impressive popularity in Late Antiquity and beyond. Within a generation, it had apparently become a significant school text.12 And as Jane Stevenson has recently pointed out: “There are more manuscripts and editions of the Cento than of any other single work by a premodern woman.”13 Over thirty editions of the poem were published between 1475 and 1887.14 It was frequently catalogued in monastic libraries alongside Aldhelm and Symphosius’ riddles, Cyprian, Gregory and Fortunatus, or Adelard and Seneca—works frequently associated with the instruction of children and young adults.15 And Boccaccio included Proba in his De Claris Mulieribus, claiming of her performance that it was as if Virgil himself had turned prophet or evangelist.16 More recently, the poem (and the genre) have attracted varying literary judgments. Elizabeth Clark quoted one early-twentieth-century assessment (that of Domenico Comparetti): “the general poverty of ideas of the period. . . . The idea of such ‘Centos’ could only have arisen among people who had learnt Virgil mechanically and did not know of any better use to which to put all these verses with which they had loaded their brains.”17 In modern times, the cento writing of antiquity has been called a “despised” or “contemptible” activity and Shackleton Bailey refused to include any in his 1982 edition of the Anthologia Latina, damning them as opprobria litterarum.18 Michael Silk, in the latest edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary, has described the literary ambitions of the cento as “whimsical.”19 Hagith Sivan, by contrast, believes that the poem offers the modern reader unusually vivid and important material that sheds light on the complex phenomenon of “Christianization” in late antique Rome.20 What follows is a sampling of the ambitions and techniques of Proba’s cento in the context of some of the most important recent contributions to understanding this unique text.

12. See the introductory verses 14–15: haec tua semper / accipiunt doceatque suas augusta propago. For the popularity of the poem in the Renaissance, see Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, 159. 13. Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, 69. 14. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 118. 15. Cf. Sister A. Stanislaus, “The Scriptures in Hexameter,” 99–100, who recommended the use of Proba, Juvencus, and Sedulius for Latin teaching in secondary schools. 16. De Claris Mulieribus 95. For other testimonies, see Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 146 (Christine de Pizan [1365–ca. 1430]). 17. Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, 53. Cf. the notably kinder view of Ermini, Il centone di Proba, 161, that Christian centonists could express “the new doctrine with an art equal to antiquity.” 18. “Despised” according to Shanzer, “Date and Identity,” 75–96, at 75; “contemptible” according to Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 125. Shackleton Bailey, Anthologia Latina, praefatio. 19. OCD, 3rd ed., 309. 20. Sivan, “Anician Women,” 140, on the poem of Proba “as an instrument of Christianisation.”

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Curran 2. Proba’s Identity and the Date of the Cento

Writing in the seventh century, Isidore of Seville identified “Proba” as Faltonia Betitia Proba, wife of “Adelphius,” usually identified as the prefect of Rome in 351.21 Chastagnol and most recently Alan Cameron have her as the daughter of Petronius Probianus (PVR 329–31) and Demetrias, sister of Petronius Probinus (PVR 345–46), and aunt of Sextus Petronius Probus.22 She was well connected, in other words, to two senior, established, office-holding, powerful Roman senatorial families: the Petronii and the Anicii. The cento as we have it begins with an opening section (a non-Virgilian verse dedication, 1–15) by what appears to be a second hand.23 The dedication seems to indicate that the cento was republished some time after the marriage of Arcadius in April 395, and it makes reference to a hope that a minor Arcadius will in due course be born (13–14). It also refers to the recipient as a ruler of the east and an ornament to his brother (1–3).24 What is noteworthy is that Proba’s cento should have been deemed so suitable for republication as an expression of the distinctive diplomacy that was required of late senatorial families in dealing with emperors. The gesture succeeded presumably because of the conjunction of the fame of the cento with the status of the families from which its author came. But Sivan has suggested an even more precise and plausible context. She thinks it likely that the piece was presented to Arcadius in 395, a year when both western consuls were Anicii, and brothers, and this in an era when consulships were dominated by emperors, their relatives, and functionaries. The presentation of the poem was, in other words, “a spectacular recognition of the status of the Anicii in Rome.”25 The dedication to the cento of Proba (5) suggests that the 21. Vir. Ill. 18.22: “wife of the proconsul (sic) Adelphius . . . who formed a cento about Christ out of verses wrestled out of Virgil. We marvel not so much at her eagerness (studium) but we praise her ingenuity (ingenium). However, this little work has been placed among the apocryphal writings” (trans. Meconi). See Isidore, Orig. 1.39.26. PLRE 1, 732 (“Proba 2”); 1, 192–93 (“Clodius Celsinus signo Adelphius 6”). Adelphius had been the subject of a serious accusation (perhaps of sedition or treason) by a lieutenant of Magnentius: Ammianus 16.6.2. See now also Barnes, “An Urban Prefect.” 22. Chastagnol, Fastes, 82–83; Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 327–37. Recent attempts to suggest that the composer of the cento was Anicia Faltonia Proba have not displaced the orthodoxy. Though not crucial to the discussion here, the debate on the identity of Proba raises interesting questions on the interpretation of evidence illuminating society in fourth-century Rome. Upholders of the identity of Proba as Anicia Faltonia Proba (PLRE 1, “Proba 3”), wife of the great Christian aristocrat Petronius Probus, include Danuta Shanzer, “The Anonymous Carmen contra paganos,” and Barnes, “An Urban Prefect.” The more traditional identification (and that accepted here and by Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 469) has been defended above all by Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 327–37; Green, “Which Proba Wrote the Cento?” and Matthews, “The Poetess Proba.” 23. Sivan, “Anician Women,” 144. Not all of the manuscript versions of the cento have this dedication, suggesting to Sivan a number of archetypes, but the suggestion was energetically rejected by Green, “Proba’s Introduction,” 549 n.12. On Proba, see further Shanzer, “Date and Identity,” 87–88; Shanzer, “The Anonymous Carmen contra paganos,” 234–35. 24. See Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 476. 25. Sivan, “Anician Women,” 145; Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 179–80.

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dedicatee had himself ordered its copying. The claim might be rhetorical (Sivan thought this order unlikely for “the inert young emperor”), but as we have seen, there are grounds for believing that the work was popular at the time.26 But it is important to appreciate that Proba’s work took its place in a family known for literary compositions. Lactantius had sent “four books of letters” to a “Probus,” identified by Timothy Barnes as Petronius Probianus, consul of 322, leading Petronius of the period, author of verses himself and very probably the father of Proba.27 His son, Petronius Probinus, was prefect of the city in 345–46 and was also a poet.28 And a fift h-century calligrapher could present Theodosius II with a volume containing verses composed by three generations of Petronian men.29 The family continued to elicit the admiration of literary figures. Probus’ son Olybrius was commended by Claudian, Symmachus, and an unnamed rhetorician of the period.30 Claudian, delivering a panegyric on the occasion of the joint consulship of two sons of Anicia Faltonia Proba and Sex. Petronius Probus in a.d. 395, specifically praised the family for its attention to the education of its children.31 Proba thus took her place in the confident literary history of one of late Rome’s most distinguished families. She presents herself as a serious writer, referring to a previous poem (1–8), a work now artistically and piously disowned, about a civil war, identified variously as that between “Constantine” (sic, i.e., Constantius II) and Magnentius in 351–53 or that between Constantine and Maxentius, although it could even be some mythological conflict.32 The poet herself is unusually personally present in her own text. In the opening lines of the cento Proba gives herself a quite distinctive literary identity: vatis 26. Sivan, “Anician Women,” 145. Cf. Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 561, who explicitly acknowledges its popularity, and Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 129: [the poem was] “widely used for educational purposes in late antiquity and the Middle Ages,” citing Amatucci, Storia della letteratura, 147; Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, 29; Ermini, Il centone di Proba, 20. 27. Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 80. See PLRE 1, 733–34 (“Petronius Probianus 3”); 1144, stemma 24. Author of verses: Anth. Lat. 1.783. See Sivan, “Anician Women,” 151. For an assessment of the family in the fourth century, see Sivan, “Anician Women,” 151–54. and also Novak, “Anicianae domus culmen.” Their political adroitness may have included adopting Christianity in the wake of Constantine’s capture of Rome; also Novak, “Constantine and the Senate,” 296. 28. PLRE 1, 735 (“Petronius Probinus 2”); Anth. Lat. 1.783. 29. PLRE 1, 736–40 (“Probus 5”); Anth. Lat. 1.783. A new reading of the important texts by Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 364–65. Cf. Novak, “Constantine and the Senate,” 299, and Shanzer, “The Anonymous Carmen contra paganos,” 247. Sextus Petronius Probus and his wife were the subjects of grandiloquent Christian epitaphs at the shrine to Peter on the Vatican Hill in Rome: CIL 6.1756 a and b. 30. Claudian, Carm. Min. 40; Symmachus, Ep. 5.67; unnamed rhetoricican: Anth. Lat. 1.772 a. See Taegert, Claudius Claudianus Panegyricus, 28. 31. Claudian OP 150–51. See Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 365. 32. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 334–35. Sivan, “Anician Women,” 147, suggests that the repudiation of the earlier work and perhaps the pagan “classics” indicated that Proba was linking the present cento to a conversion to Christianity itself. For the adoption of a more sophisticated attention to Christian literature post-conversion, see Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 8–9.

330 Curran Proba (9), Proba the “seer” or “prophetess.” According to Stevenson, the choice of the term vatis was no accident. In Augustan literature, the term denoted a serious poet whose intention was to instruct, a poeta being by contrast a mere caster of verses.33 At verses 414–28, placed between Jesus’ baptism and temptation, Proba offers a kind of spiritual (auto)biography, transgressing “the rules of poetic decorum,” according to Schnapp.34 It is important to understand then that Proba’s poem was not (like perhaps earlier examples of aristocratic Christian poetry, now lost) a statement of conversion to Christianity but rather an expression of continuing allegiance to it. As such, it took its place in a distinctive social milieu: the generation after conversion and the politics of that world. Michele Salzman’s recent case against a simple “top-down” model of Christianization lends greater significance to Proba’s text as a document that illustrates the dynamics of the reception of Christian ideas on a more “horizontal” plane, leaving emperors appropriately remote from a seemingly vibrant and self-possessed number of wealthy and educated Roman households.35 3. The Literary Salons of Rome 36 The structure and interconnections of senatorial households, long a feature of the order, survived vigorously in fourth-century Rome. The perceived excesses of senators offered Ammianus a ready target in one of his satirical outbursts against the city, specifically, that the literary resources of the city’s high-born remained shut up in unused libraries while singers and dancers joined the flatterers and leisured parasites elsewhere in the cavernous halls.37 More sinisterly, when Valentinian I’s agents detected suspicious goings-on in Rome, their inquiries targeted a number of senatorial households, unearthing miscreants at all social levels.38 Ammianus’ individual perspective notwithstanding, it is clear that the great houses of Rome continued to be places associated with significant literary activity, much of it communal.39 Although

33. Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, 66. 34. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 120–21. In an interesting line of thought that it is not possible to pursue here, Schnapp suggests that this was an indication of literature moving away from the performative and into the much more private sphere of domestic contexts. 35. Salzman, Christian Aristocracy, xii. For the most recent study of “Christianization,” see Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 173–205; 783–801. 36. See now above all, Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 353–98; 399–420. 37. Ammianus 14.6.18; 28.4.12. See Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 263–65; 356–57. 38. Ammianus 28.1.1–10. See Potter, The Roman Empire, 539–40. 39. And for the continuing importance of emperors themselves as poets, see Ammianus 21.16.4 on Constantius II.

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the whole question of the literary activities of Roman senators has long been overshadowed by notions of a “late revival” of secular literature in the last years of the century, Alan Cameron has recently and rightly rejected the notion of any such revival; in fact, interest in such literature was persistently a feature of educated society during the fourth century, at Rome as elsewhere.40 It was demonstrably varied and energetic. Those who commissioned and erected the epitaph of the great Vettius Agorius Praetextatus praised him both as an editor of Aristotle and as a translator of Themistius’ Commentary.41 Before the grand senator’s death, Symmachus had sent a letter to Praetextatus teasing him that his rural otium was actually being spent reading and composing bucolic poems.42 Arusianus Messius, orator and aristocrat, dedicated his work Exempla Elocutionum ex Virgilio, Sallustio, Terentio, Cicerone Digesta to the (Christian) brothers Olybrius and Probinus, relatives of the Petronius Probianus eulogized by Avianius sometime before 387.43 The work of these senators was pleasant and sociable. The younger Nicomachus Flavianus and friends edited the first decade of Livy, leaving their names subscribed to the work.44 And more exotic texts could be commissioned by enthusiastic aristocrats from competent authorities, leaving Jerome to complain about the demands of the lady Paula.45 As Salzman rightly observes, “these shared literary activities provided a common language and value system that distinguished aristocrats from those below them in society.”46 The atmosphere of some of these activities was famously to be evoked in Macrobius’ Saturnalia. It is in this world of senatorial literary culture that the cento of Proba should be located. But what is unique and important about her poem is that it reveals an engagement with the language and values of Latin literature in the service of a very distinctive outlook: that of the elite Roman Christian matron.

40. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 399–420; Cameron, “Vergil illustrated,” esp. 503–504. 41. CIL 6.1779 = ILS 1259. 42. Ep. 1.53; cf. 4.18 (396) to Protadius and 3.23 to Marinianus. For a senatorial composer of humorous poems, see Epigrammata Bobiensia 65 (Anicius Probinus). 43. See PLRE 1, 600 (“Arusianus Messius”). 44. Symmachus Ep. 9.13. See Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 353–98, at 398: “It is precisely the fact that it was above all a social marker that explains why the traditional culture was so enthusiastically embraced by Christian members and would-be members of that same elite.” Cameron, “Vergil Illustrated,” 504, rightly stresses the informality of the process. See too Zetzel, Latin Textual Criticism, 238–39. 45. Palladius, Hist. Laus. 55; Jerome, Ep. 29.1. Among the leading Christian patrons were Apronianus, the elder Melania, and Pammachius; see Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 192; Cameron, “Vergil Illustrated,” 504. 46. Salzman, Christian Aristocracy, 48. And for the literary tastes of the age, see Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 405–20.

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Curran 4. The Aims of the Cento

According to Roger Green, “centos are essentially a frivolous genre, but Proba is not writing for fun.”47 In character, Proba’s cento is hardly a sophisticated exploration of Christian theology; nor is she seeing in Virgil’s verses a Christian puzzle to be deciphered.48 And she is far from being a sophisticated allegorist. Green concedes Robert Markus’ concept of a “symbiosis of Christianity and Classical culture” in this particular literary project, but he suggests that it is “a very strange one.”49 Green explores why Proba expressed herself in “this bizarre and essentially playful form, one despised then as now.”50 He revives an idea originally floated in Amatucci’s second edition of his history of Latin literature in 1955, that the cento of Proba could convincingly be placed in the context of Julian’s legislation on teachers of grammar and rhetoric (CTh 13.3.5, a.d. 362). In particular, the sentiment in verse 23 of the poem, Vergilium cecinisse loquar pia munera Christi (“May I tell how Virgil sang of Christ’s holy gifts”), was a direct response to Julian’s demand that such Christians should retire to their churches and there teach (the contemptible) Matthew and Luke.51 As the surviving text of the law makes clear, what troubled Julian were the implications of teachers teaching material in which they did not themselves believe. Green believes that the law and its ramifications made a major impact on literary society and prompted some Christians to begin to conceive of a specifically “Christian” literature, expunged of pagan contamination.52 The ecclesiastical historian Sozomen claimed that some Christian writers did indeed recast Christian stories into the form of odes, epics, comedies, and various other genres.53 In the Greekspeaking east of the empire, the Apollinarii (father and son) responded to Julian’s legislation by paraphrasing the Psalms in pseudo-Homeric hexameters and rewrote books of the Bible in iambic verse.54 Proba, however, was different.

47. Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 554. Cf. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 108: “With Proba’s cento virgilianus the genre attains a greater scope, increased prestige, and deeper cultural-historical motives.” 48. cf. Fulgentius later. See Wiesen, “Virgil, Minucius Felix and the Bible,” 72. Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 129, translated verse 23 (Vergilium cecinisse loquar pia munera Christi) as “That Virgil put to verse Christ’s sacred duties let me tell,” suggesting that in some way Virgil himself had foretold Christ. But this is an allusion as opposed to a self-conscious literary puzzle. See Meconi, “The Christian Cento,” who has Proba’s project self-consciously suggesting that Virgil was indeed an unwitting prophet of a world turned Christian. 49. Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 555. Markus, “Paganism, Christianity and the Latin Classics,” 3. 50. Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 555. 51. Julian Ep. 61 (Bidez) = 36 (Wright). Amatucci, Storia della letteratura, 131. Meconi, “The Christian Cento,” 114–15, supports the contention of Henri Marrou that Julian’s legislation in effect served to create “the parochial school system.” 52. Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 555–57. 53. HE 5.18. See Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 128. 54. See Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, 67.

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Green suggests that she proposed to meet Julian halfway, and by doing so aimed to keep the Christian tutors in their jobs. Her poem presented a Virgil without the gods, a Virgil that Christians could believe in and therefore not fall foul of Julian’s complaint against Christian teachers.55 Green’s views make an important contribution to the question of the date and timing of the cento, but his perspective runs the risk of overlooking the importance of the substance and structure of the work. As seen above, the poem took its place in the specific milieu of the senatorial salons of Rome. Proba’s decision to compose her poem might indeed have been a response to the legislation of Julian (although she does not suggest such a motive in the work). Significantly, however, the perception of the cento as a piece designed in part to re-present Virgil was expressed again by the “republishers” of 395, in the words of their opening lines: “making Maro worthier with sacred meaning.”56 In fact, as Salzman makes clear, for the elite of Rome to give serious attention to the ideas of Christianity, the latter needed to be seen as upholding the honor and esteem of the former.57 And the capacity of the piece to persist and indeed enjoy very significant popularity long after Julian’s legislation shows how successfully the cento achieved its aim. This in turn prompts the historian of late antique Rome to explore the particular values promoted by Proba in her poem.58 5. The Detectable Values of the Cento of Proba As examined above, Green made the significant point that while the cento was a “frivolous” genre, Proba herself was anything but frivolous. The cento required of its practitioners not only a powerful recall of literature but also a strong sense of artistic structure. Examination of the latter in Proba’s poem yields some significant results. The poem has two parts; the first covers some fourteen episodes set out in the first six chapters of Genesis (from Creation to the Flood). The second selects eighteen scenes from the life of Christ (drawn seemingly overwhelmingly from the Gospel of Matthew), among them the childhood of Christ, his baptism, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. As such, the cento actually presents a structure that according to Schnapp “underscores the symmetrical design of Christian salvation history.”59 These “symmetries” of design emphasize the parallelism of 55. Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 558. 56. dignare Maronem / mutatum in melius divino agnoscere sensu (3–4). The translation is from Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 108. 57. Salzman, Christian Aristocracy, 13, building upon Weberian analysis of the importance of religion as a means of honor enhancement. 58. Or, indeed, a re-examination. I owe much to Clark and Hatch, The Golden Bough and “Jesus as Hero.” 59. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 111. Cf. Clark and Hatch, The Golden Bough, 161–81.

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Old and New Testament history (each commences with a “birth” scene, then “banishment” (Fall of Man/Flight to Egypt; universal calamity (flood/crucifixion) and concluding with triumphal exodus/exit (the Jews escape Egypt/Christ leaves the world of men). The second part of the poem thus completes and fulfils the first; verses 333–45 state this explicitly. Verse 346 announces that the second half will deal with the arrival of the promissa dies that the Hebrew prophets had foretold. But as Proba well knew, Virgil’s Aeneid was itself regarded as just such a book, of commendably symmetrical design. Books 1–6 of the Aeneid are “an Odyssean epic,” 7–12 “its Iliadic counterpart.”60 Virgil heralded the structural break at Aeneid 7.43–4: maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo, maius opus moveo (“A greater order of things is being born, greater is the work that I attempt.”). And Proba selects the latter phrase precisely in introducing her own “part two” at verse 334. There are, therefore, grounds for regarding Proba’s engagement with Virgil’s Aeneid as being rather more than mere derivation, structurally speaking. In fact, as Karla Pollmann suggests, Proba is engaged in a sophisticated typology, using scenes, figures, and phrases from the hypo-text of Virgil’s various works to illuminate ideas in the hyper-text of her own poem.61 Schnapp goes rather further, suggesting that Proba’s cento actually encourages “comparative” reading: “what [some examples] reveal is a steady oscillation between patterns of intertextual consonance—associated with the impulse to allegorize Virgil’s works—and dissonance—associated with a counter-impulse to reflect ironically upon them.”62 Among the straightforward examples of “consonance” are Proba’s identification of Moses with Musaeus, her use of Jovian titles for the Christian God, and her describing the Garden of Eden using the language of the myth of a golden age. One “more complex” example of consonance is the reference to Christ as nova progenies (“new progeny,” 34), redeploying the seventh line of Virgil’s fourth Eclogue, which referred to “a new generation descending from heaven on high.” Proba’s line cannot in fact be fully “read” unless one has in mind the text of Virgil and her verse is thus a contribution to the developing idea of Virgil as himself an unwitting prophet of a Christian future for Rome.63 60. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 112. See too Kirsch, Die lateinische Versepik, 126 n.260. 61. Pollmann, “The Transformation of the Epic Genre,” 88. Cf. Stehliková, “Centones Christiani,” 12: “centos are texts devised on two separate planes, where pre-fabricated elements torn out of the context of a generally known literary work [prototext] induce associations with the latter, while simultaneously generating a new meaning within the new work [metatext].” 62. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 112. 63. Lactantius fi rst interpreted the fourth Eclogue as an allegory for Christian doctrine: Div. Inst. 7.24. The theme is explored in Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 469–70; Meconi, “The Christian Cento,” 112; see, too, Harrison, Augustine, 57: “pagan literature could legitimately be read as containing insight into the truth; it could be plundered for the truth it had appropriated from Christian sources; the truth could be reclaimed by its rightful owner, once cleansed of the dross which had become attached to it in its pagan dress.” For the susceptibility of Virgilian verse to sortes Virgilianae, see Pavlovkis, “Proba and the Semiotics,” 75. And for striking apparently abbreviated references to lines of Virgil in the coinage of the usurpers Carausius and Allectus, see http://www.kenelks.co.uk/coins/carausius/carausius.htm.

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By way of contrast, Proba expresses “dissonant” echoes of Virgil, attributable according to Schnapp neither to bad poetry nor to the strictures of the cento form.64 God’s “parting” of Light from Darkness drew upon a description in Virgil of how the god Sleep “parted the dusky air and cleft the gloom” (aera dimovit tenebrosum et dispulit umbras: Cento 65; Aeneid 5.839) to put Palinurus to sleep. But the Christian God’s parting was no mere spell but rather the opening actions of the process of Creation itself. Proba’s Virgilian line iamque dies, nisi fallor, adest (“now the day is here, unless I err,” Aeneid 5.49) is used in the original in the context of funeral games for Anchises but in Proba it heralds the day of Christ’s Crucifixion (596), athletic honors paling into utter insignificance alongside the winning by Christ of salvation for all humankind. Indeed, various Christian authors (and particularly Tertullian) had already made precisely this point.65 Turning to Proba’s detectable social values, the cento is a valuable statement from an elite Roman woman sounding her own views in a world at once dominated by men and now challenged by some voluble Christian ascetical ideas.66 She adopts Genesis 2’s account of creation (woman being fashioned from Adam’s rib) but, uniquely among late antique writers, makes Adam and Eve’s meeting into a romantic encounter.67 The lines describing the newly created Eve are atmospherically matrimonial (129–35):68 And suddenly awoke a wondrous gift— Imposing proof—and shone in brilliant light; Woman, a virgin she, unparalleled In figure and in comely breasts, now ready For a husband, ready now for wedlock. For him, a boundless quaking breaks his sleep;69 He calls his bones and limbs his wedded wife. Dazed by the Will divine he took and clasped Her hand in his, folded his arms around her. Elizabeth Clark read the verses as strongly upholding “filial piety and marital devotion,” social and domestic values “cherished by Roman aristocrats of all

64. Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 114. 65. Tertullian Ad Martyras 3.3 and De Spectaculis 30. Both cited in Schnapp, “Reading Lessons,” 116 n.28. 66. For a timely reassessment of the role of women in “Christianization,” see Cooper, “Insinuations of Womanly Influence.” 67. See Witke, Numen Litterarum, 195–98. 68. subitoque oritur mirabile donum -/ argumentum ingens—claraque in luce refulsit / insignis facie et pulchro pectore virgo, / iam matura viro, iam plenis nubilis annis. / olli somnum ingens rumpit pavor: ossaque et artus / coniugium vocat ac stupefactus numine pressit / excepitque manu dextramque amplexus inhaesit. 69. As Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 137, points out, this phrase is taken from Virgil’s account of the Fury Allecto’s attack upon Turnus while he slept (Cento 133; Aeneid 7.458).

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ages.” Michele Salzman has characterized her as “a typical Christian woman.”70 Not a single line even hints at an ascetic alternative.71 According to Proba, the purpose of created humans is to rule God’s earthy creation; Adam and Eve’s occupation and authority is assumed (139–46). When the couple “sins,” God punishes them with labor and mortality but does not lay Eve under eternal subjection to Adam (as in the Biblical account of Genesis 3), a perspective to be contrasted with influential teaching of church fathers on this point, explicitly invoking the biblical account.72 At the same time in Proba’s poem, however, God warns Adam explicitly about the threat posed by “woman”; Eve is called “hapless” (infelix) and clearly has a major role in bringing about great sin and unhappiness for human kind (200). By contrast, only Adam is described as “resembling God” “in countenance and shoulders” (120). Eve in some important sense does not, echoing the sentiment for example of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 11.7 that man “is the image and glory of God but woman is the glory of man.” In Proba’s account of the massacre of the innocents, she emphasises Mary’s initiative and bravery (there is no mention of Joseph and no Gospel offers any detail on Mary’s “mothering” of Jesus at this time) (369–79):73 Then shouts and strident squalling, The sobbing breath of babes in arms crescendoed. Corpses of sons lay strewn before their parents’ Eyes, flung at the doorway. But the mother, With good reason spurred to terror at Such plaintive sobs, ferrying her child Upon her breast, escaped the violent mob, And made her way again to the full stables And here, beneath the pitching, lowly roof, She began to nurse her son, her full paps Milking to his tender lips. Here, child, Your cradle will be the first to pour Out blossoms in profusion, just for you; And mixed with cheerful sow’s bread everywhere Will be the earth; and bit by bit the Egyptian bean Will overflow with delicate acanthus. 70. Salzman, Christian Aristocracy, 163–64. 71. Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 140. 72. Ibid., 132–33. 73. continuo auditae voces vagitus et ingens / infantumque animae flentes: ante ora parentum / corpora natorum sternuntur limine primo. / at mater gemitu non frustra exterrita tanto, / ipsa sinu prae se portans, turbante tumultu, / infantem fugiens plena ad praesaepia reddit. / hic natum angusti subter fastigia tecti / nutribat teneris inmulgens ubera labris. / hic tibi prima, puer, fundent cunabula flores, / mixtaque ridenti passim cum baccare tellus / molli paulatim colocasia fundet acantho.

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These lines feature the notable redeployment of verses from Virgil’s fourth Eclogue, which some Christians were already interpreting as foretelling the coming of Jesus.74 Clark rightly identifies the lines further as an “exaltation” of maternity, a point made all the more clearly when it is recognized that Mary is in fact the only female figure from the New Testament to appear in Proba’s text.75 Turning to Proba’s Jesus, we see that he is no suffering servant. At baptism, Proba has God the Father exhorting his son in terms that recall some of the most powerful expressions of filial love and duty in the words of Anchises to Aeneas (403–405):76 Son, my strength, you alone who are my mighty power And sweetest grace, great glory to your father, The beginning is from you and the end will be with you as well. In his work on earth, Proba’s Jesus is an epic hero, possessed of thunderous voice; “towering shanks”; “height and breadth of shoulder” (573, 556, 462), and (382–88): 77 . . . bearing character precocious, Heaven’s first born strode through the midst of cities and neighboring peoples. Him all the young, streaming from house and field, Gaping with minds thunder-struck, watched as he passed. Crowds of matrons marveled, ‘The Spirit is upon Him; what a countenance he has! What a voice, and the gait, as he passes!’ The passage incorporates a fragment of Aeneid 7 describing the admiration prompted by the great maiden-warrior Camilla, ally of Turnus.78 And on the point of crucifi xion, this Jesus is outraged and defiant (621–23):79 What makes you tie these bonds? Has overweening racial pride possessed you? Some day, for wrongs committed, you will pay With punishment unlike this one to me.

74. See above, n.63. 75. Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 133. 76. Nate, meae vires, mea magna potentia solus / et praedulce decus magnum rediture parenti, / a te principium, tibi desinet. The lines, respectively, are: Aeneid 1.664; Aeneid 11.155 and 10.507; Eclogues 8.11. 77. animumque gerens caelestis origo / per medias urbes graditur populosque propinquos. / illum omnis tectis agrisque eff usa iuventus / attonitis inhians animis prospectat euntem, / turbaque miratur matrum: “qui spiritus illi, / qui vultus vocisque sonus vel gressus eunti est!” Cf. 462; 556; 573. 78. 812–13: illam omnis tectis agrisque eff usa iuventus / turbaque miratur matrum. . . . 79. “quo vincula nectitis?” inquit. / “tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri? / post mihi non simili poena commissa luetis.”

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The resurrected Jesus is superbus, in a line taken from Aeneid 8.202, describing Hercules as the supreme avenger, having overcome Geryon the three-headed giant.80 As Pavlovskis points out, this is a significantly personal interpretation and presentation of Jesus. There are lines elsewhere in Virgil that Proba might have deployed to show Jesus as compassionate (e.g., Aeneid 2.42, 5.670–72, which Pavlovskis thinks parallel more loosely Luke 23.28–29 and 34).81 Pollmann goes further, suggesting that Proba opposes Eve and Christ as “a typological pair.” The serpent successfully tempts Eve but does not tempt Jesus: “This serves to strengthen Eve’s position and to see her as a representative of humanity in general and not as a negative counterpart to Adam.”82 When it comes to the actual teachings of Jesus, Proba offers further indication of her own values. She mentions Jesus and the rich young man, but the latter is not commanded to sell his possessions; he is urged to “learn . . . contempt for wealth” (disce . . . contemnere opes . . . 522). There is no question of renouncing riches. He is further urged in an injunction not mentioned in the Gospels to “let chaste home preserve its sense of modesty” (casta pudicitiam servet domus, 526). This kind of detail understandably made Clark speculate whether Proba had in mind as among her most important readers her own sons (“. . . we can safely assert, at a minimum, that Rome’s aristocratic young men would have made a natural audience for the Cento”) and of course, with Virgil the staple of a literary education for children generally, girls too.83 The Sermon on the Mount, recast by Proba, contains a denunciation of idolatry (489–90) not in the original. In Proba’s version, Jesus’ hearers are implored to share their goods with kin; the poor are not mentioned (475–81). And Proba’s Jesus lays particular opprobrium upon those who strike parents or defraud clientes (477–78). Elsewhere, those who sit tight on buried gold and do not share with kin are going to Hell (305–306; 475–81). Proba and her admirers thus fashioned a Jesus of their own: a savior in sympathy with the obligations of property, familia, and clientela—a figure who

80. 657–61: “Behold, under the heavens the song of day’s fi rst birds: / abandoning the tomb, walking forth, and glorified by the spoils, / he comes forth triumphantly and the earth trembles in excitement by the striking of his feet, / and still bearing the wounds, he enters the upper room / where such a large number of new disciples have flocked together.” (Ecce autem primi volucrum sub culmine cantus: / ingreditur linquens antrum, spoliisque superbus / ibat ovans, pulsuque pedum tremit excita tellus, / vulneraque illa gerens foribus sese intulit altis, / atque hic ingentem comitum adfluxisse novorum / invenit.) 81. Pavlovskis, “Proba and the Semiotics,” 76 n.23. 82. Pollmann, “Sex and Salvation,” 89. Cf. Clark and Hatch, The Golden Bough, 161–69; MargoniKögler, “Typologie in den christlichen Vergilcentonen,” 149. 83. Clark, “Faltonia Betitia Proba,” 146, with Cameron, “Vergil Illustrated,” 510, on Roman boys and girls learning Virgil by heart. For the enduring centrality of Virgil, see Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition.

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could be honored in the great churches of the city where the poor might be met and fed by high-born citizens of Rome.84 And like the wonders of Creation, Proba’s Jesus was drawn in honorable language taken from the greatest of all Latin poets. The overall artistic effect is, as we have seen, a resounding failure to modern authorities. Witke, for example, crushingly concludes: “Proba cannot see that her poem, sacrum carmen, perhaps uniting two great personal ideals, Vergil and Christianity, is inert because the old words cannot represent the new thing. There is a complete failure of communication. The Vergilian echoes are too loud; the figures of God, Adam and Eve are too dim, too confined in their odd language, to be bodied forth as poetic characterizations.”85 But Witke’s own expectations are arguably too aesthetic to appreciate Proba’s self-conscious structuring and the method behind her selections. In this case, it is important to be able to separate the identification of significant historical material on social attitudes from literary judgment. Bad taste should not be underestimated (then or now) as an important medium for conveying significant social values. 6. Jerome’s Judgment Proba was conspicuously absent from Jerome’s list of famous literary figures (De Viris Illustribus). Two centuries later, however, Isidore would have no difficulty including her in his own.86 It is almost impossible to believe that Proba and her work were unknown to Jerome. As we have seen, evidence elsewhere suggests that it was in fact popular and much copied. Jerome’s silence was therefore a judgment, but it is important to realize that it was not necessarily one based solely on literary merits. Notoriously, Jerome’s Letter 53 to Paulinus of Nola, dating, seemingly, to the early 390s, urged Paulinus to find an expert and trustworthy guide to the Scriptures.87 Jerome’s views on Proba’s form of poetry and its practitioners was influential then (as now) and probably did much to dissuade serious appreciation of the genre.88 To Paulinus, Jerome issued a warning about a number of unnamed people of status and influence at Rome: The art of interpreting the scriptures is the only one of which all men everywhere claim to be masters. “Taught or untaught we all write poetry.” The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one 84. See Grig, “Th rowing Parties.” 85. Witke, Numen Litterarum, 198. 86. cuius quidem non miramur studium, sed laudamus ingenium (18.22 = PL 83.1093). Cf. Gelasius who considered the work on a footing with the apocrypha : centrimetrum de Christo, Virgilianis compaginatum versibus, apocryphum (PL 59.162). 87. The precise date of the letter is not fi xed. See Sivan, “Anician Women,” 155 n.16, for references to on-going discussion of the date. 88. Pavlovskis, “Proba and the Semiotics,” 78–79.

340 Curran and all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them. Some with brows knit and bombastic words, balanced one against the other, philosophize concerning the sacred writings among weak women. Others—I blush to say it—learn of women what they are to teach men; and as if even this were not enough, they boldly explain to others what they themselves by no means understand. I say nothing of persons who, like myself, have been familiar with secular literature before they have come to the study of the holy scriptures. Such men when they charm the popular ear by the finish of their style suppose every word they say to be a law of God. They do not deign to notice what Prophets and apostles have intended but they adapt conflicting passages to suit their own meaning, as if it were a grand way of teaching—and not rather the faultiest of all—to misrepresent a writer’s views and to force the scriptures reluctantly to do their will. They forget that we have read centos from Homer and Virgil; but we never think of calling the Christless Maro a Christian because of his lines: “Now comes the Virgin back and Saturn’s reign, Now from high heaven comes a Child newborn” [iam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna / iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto]. Another line might be addressed by the Father to the Son: “Hail, only Son, my Might and Majesty” [nate, meae vires, mea magna potentia solus]. And yet another might follow the Savior’s words on the cross: “Such words he spake and there transfi xed remained” [talia perstabat memorans fixusque manebat]. But all this is puerile, and resembles the sleight-of-hand of a mountebank. It is idle to try to teach what you do not know, and—if I may speak with some warmth—is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.89 Scholars have been attracted to the identity of this “chatty old woman” ( garrula anus). The three Virgilian verses cited by Jerome as examples of the use and abuse of the technique of lifting lines from Virgil are all three actually used by Proba.90 Pavlovskis also noted in Jerome’s condemnation a certain self-conscious “heat”: ut cum stomacho loquar. Jerome knew that he was overstepping some boundary in passing such a strong comment, almost apologizing for it. Pavlovskis thought that what was objectionable to Jerome was the attempt to combine two mutually exclusive world views—Christianity and Classicism—a famous theme in the writings of Jerome and other Christian intellectuals of the period.91 But Jerome’s comment might also arise from his 89. Ep. 53.7. 90. The lines quoted are, respectively, Eclogues 4.6–7 (Cento 34); Aeneid 1.664 (Cento 403); Aeneid 2.650 (Cento 624). See Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 553, and Courcelle, “Les exégèses chrétiennes,” 310. 91. Pavlovskis, “Proba and the Semiotics,” 80. Jerome resolved the dilemma splendidly at Ep. 22. 29–30, invoking Deuteronomy 21:11–13. See Stevenson, Women Latin Poets, 68 n.55.

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knowledge that he was attacking, however obliquely, people whom he knew had been or were still prominent in Christian Rome. In these circumstances, Pavlovskis is surely right to suggest that “Jerome must have disliked not so much the cento as what it stood for.” As seen above, the voice sounding in Proba’s poem promoted the values of wealthy, self-confident and self-perceived Roman Christian litterati. And if this is true, then it might be time to put the garrula anus back in her original context, alongside “the doting old man” and “the wordy sophist.” Specifically, might it not be the case that Jerome’s remarks were a general satirical swipe at several generations of confidently Christian Roman Petronii, a family which, as we have seen, was notably proud of its own literary profi le in the society of Rome?92 7. Postscript: Damasus All of which leads, finally, to Damasus. Bishop of Rome between the autumn of 366 and December 384; Damasus was born in Rome but was of Spanish origin. His election to the episcopate of Rome was marked by violent sectarian conflict with the so-called anti-pope Ursinus, and this dispute preoccupied his early years as bishop.93 Seemingly, however, once the opposition had been overcome, Damasus revealed himself to be a dedicated and enthusiastic promoter of the cult of the martyrs of the Christian church in Rome. To this end, he employed one of the foremost craftsmen-artists of the day: Furius Dionysius Filocalus. Filocalus inscribed on great marble slabs verses in honor of the Christian dead, which had been composed by Damasus. Like centones, the poems of Damasus have not enjoyed the approval of literary critics or church historians. The great Louis Duchesne swept them aside with the judgment: “Never have worse verses been transcribed so exquisitely . . . they are empty of history, they are obscure, and contain scarcely anything but commonplaces.”94 The poems, or epigrammata, are pretentious pseudo-Virgilian verses in hexameters. As Duchesne correctly concluded, they are dense, banal, and frequently difficult to penetrate. But, like the centones at which we have looked, the bad taste of Damasus’ poems can, uniquely, afford us some fascinating glimpses of Roman society in the process of “Christianization.” According to the recent study of the bishop’s poems by Dennis Trout, Damasus was rather more than a ransacker of Latin literature. He had at the 92. See now Green, “Which Proba Wrote the Cento?” 274–75. 93. See Trout, “Damasus”; Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 350–51; Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 137–41; Guyon “Damase.” 94. Duchesne, Early History, 2:483. Although note that Giovanni Battitsta de Rossi dedicated the first vol. of Roma Sotterranea cristiana to Pius IX (pope 1846–78), whom he called a “second Damasus.” Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 311, concedes “a certain rugged dignity” to individual epigrams.

342 Curran same time a subtler aim: that of subverting as well as recalling.95 In Damasus’ hands, many of the most honorable Roman military virtues became the reward of those Christian martyrs despatched by Roman arms. At the Catacomb of Domitilla, the bishop set up an inscription in honor of the soldier-martyrs Nereus and Achilles, lauding their decision to renounce military life and pursue instead “the triumphs of Christ” (Christi portare triumfos).96 Elsewhere, the martyrs Nova, Felix and Philippus were celebrated for winning “the coronae of Christ” in martyrdom.97 Martyrs who had originally been foreign to Rome changed patria or even, in the case of the apostles Peter and Paul, became its cives.98 And in the case of the latter, Damasus may well have made a conscious attempt to recall and displace the Dioscuri themselves. In the words of his elogium in honor of the two apostles from the Via Appia: That here the saints formerly lived, you should know, whoever seek the names of Peter together with Paul. The east sent them as disciples, which we willingly acknowledge, because of the benefit of their blood, and following Christ through the stars they sought the heavenly shores and the realms of the pious. It is rather her own citizens that Rome has won to defend. Let Damasus relate these things as your praises, you new stars.99 Damasus’ efforts thus signified another ambitious engagement with specifically Roman civic identity. The bishop sought to provide what Trout considers to be  little short of “national cemeteries” for the Roman Christian community, emphasizing repeatedly in his elogia that it was in these very places (hic) that the very special Christian dead had made their sacrifices or now lay, or both.100 The inscriptions of Damasus “reveal the mechanisms of appropriation and subversion that underwrote it [‘this urban transformation’] from the outset.  .  . . Consequently Damasus’ elogia are not only the literary forerunners of Prudentius’ classicism but also the moral foundations of the supreme self-confidence

95. Trout, “Damasus,” 521. 96. Epig. Dam. 8. Cf. from the Catacomb of Praetextatus, Epig. Dam. 25 (honoring deacons Felicissimus and Agapitus). 97. Epig. Dam. 39. For other examples, see Trout, “Damasus,” 522–23. 98. Patria: the Carthaginian Saturninus (Epig. Dam. 46.4–5); the Greek Hermes (Epig. Dam. 48.1–2). Peter and Paul as cives: Epig. Dam. 20.6–7. 99. Epig. Dam. 20: Hic habitasse prius sanctos cognoscere debes / nomina quisq. Petri pariter Pauliq. requiris. / discipulos Oriens misit, quod sponte fatemur, / sanguinis ob meritum, Xpumq. per astra secuti / aetherios petiere sinus regnaque piorum: / Roma suos potius meruit defendere cives. / haec Damasus vestras referat nova sidera laudes. For the prominence and visibility of the Dioscuri in fourth-century Rome, see Trout, “Damasus,” 524. 100. Trout, “Damasus,” 527. See esp. Epig. Dam. 16, honoring those buried in the papal crypt at San Callisto. Cf., too, hic tumulus for the tomb of Gorgonius on the Via Labicana (Epig. Dam. 32.1) and 44.1 (Maurus, on the Via Salaria Nova).

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with which the latter poet’s Lawrence would demand the retro-conversion of even Iulus, Romulus, and Numa.”101 As with Proba, the ambition and self-possession of Damasus are striking. But so is their attraction, persistently, to the same phrases.102 In fact, Damasus’ own poetry clearly echoed that of Proba. The bishop’s fi rst modern editor (Ihm) saw him as an imitator of the poetess.103 What their common interests illustrate is a certain Christian milieu renegotiating a literary tradition. Which brings us fi nally to a unique, and most un-Virgilian, word. Damasus, as we saw, came to the chair of Peter by a very controversial route. His many enemies spent years railing against his worldliness, but amid all the accusations and insults, none quite has the force of that leveled against the bishop of Rome by a petitioner to the emperor ca. 367 (Collectio Avellana 1.9 (4.5)), who abused Damasus as the auriscalpius matronarum, or, “the earpick of matrons.”104 Given what we have seen of the convergent interests of poets like Damasus and Proba, it is more than likely that the ear-tickling was quite mutual, illustrating a crucial accessibility between the parties that is of the profoundest historical importance. 8. Conclusions Beyond the hostile judgment of literary commentators ancient and modern, the cento of Proba is a document that historians of late antique Rome can hardly ignore. Its very inception may well have been a response to the legislation of Julian, but a response that shows a striking self-possession in the face of imperial denunciation of Christians as participants in the literary tradition of Rome. But the cento was much more than simple protest. In recasting the great plan of the Christian God for his followers, Proba explored the moral, philosophical, and political agenda of upper-class Christian families like her own, in Rome. The composition required impressive skills and allowed Proba to make an ambitious contribution to the Christian apologetics of Rome’s elite: specifically, that the bedrock of Latin literature itself could be shown to yield before 101. Trout, “Damasus,” 520–21. Prudentius Per. 2.443–44; 455–56. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 351: “After Damasus, Rome could lay claim to a glorious Christian past that in its own way was as extensive and tangible as its pagan past.” 102. Selected list of “echoes” offered by Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 561. Among the common phrases: ex hoste tropaea (Epig. Dam. 1.16; 12.4. Cf. Proba 5, pia foedera (Epig. Dam. 2.5 with Proba 1); penetralia cordis (Epig. Dam. 11.5 with Proba 11); foedera pacis (Epig. Dam. 18.7; 48.4 with Proba 1). A number of the phrases derived from Lucan, whom Proba but not Damasus seems to have known more extensively: Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 561. 103. Ihm, “Die Epigramme des Damasus,” 195. See, too, Shanzer, “The Anonymous Carmen contra paganos,” 245. Green, “Proba’s Cento,” 561, suggests that others too, from Claudian to Prudentius, may have “echoed” phrases in Proba’s poem, showing its enduring influence. 104. See Fontaine, “Un sobriquet perfide de Damase”; Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, 186–87.

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the overarching plans of the Christian God. As Peter Brown long ago observed, the struggle to achieve tempora Christiana was waged in the literary salons of Rome just as it was in the churches and basilicae of the city.105 Those salons clearly and, to the eyes of some, controversially admitted clerics as senior as the bishop of Rome himself. And the resulting poetry, however undistinguished, is a body of material of unparalleled significance in tracing one of the most important themes in the “Christianization” of Rome.

105. Brown, “Aspects,” 9: “For Christians and pagans to live together, and, eventually, to accept whole-heartedly the tempora Christiana, a common ground had to be found in the classical culture of the age. The Vergilian canto [sic] of Proba is a symptom of this profound change. It is a type of ‘salonfähig ’ Christian literature which brought out the most waspish in Jerome; yet, in the eyes of Isidore of Seville, it gave Proba a place as the only woman ecclesiastical writer.”

15

“Two Romes, Beacons of the Whole World” Canonizing Constantinople NEIL McLYNN

The

first official formulation of the ecclesiastical relationship between Rome and Constantinople was the third of four canons (according to the divisions subsequently created within what was originally a single enactment) produced by the Council of Constantinople in 381.1 It consists of a single short sentence: The bishop of Constantinople shall have the prerogatives of honor after the bishop of Rome through its being New Rome.2 This rather cumbersome pronouncement marks not only the fi rst ever pairing of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople but also the first formal expression of Constantinople’s special status as a Christian city, and (more generally) the first canonical exercise in ranking major sees. But it is remarkable above all for its afterlife. Those who drafted it lit a long fuse, which would explode seventy years later, when their words were solemnly quoted in Canon 28 of the council of Chalcedon, and there interpreted to imply an equivalence between Constantinople’s authority and Rome’s, entitling the city’s bishop to consecrate metropolitan bishops in the surrounding dioceses of Pontica, Asiana, and Thrace.3 The trajectory that led from the one council to the other (and beyond) has been much discussed, and in recent scholarship there has been a notable sensitivity to the accidents that shaped this.4 But in such discussions attention

1. For the canons, see Ohme, Kanon ekklesiastikos, 521–28; cf. 539–41, for their original form as a single statement. 2. Tὸν Kωνσταντίνου πόλεως ἐπίσκοπον τὰ πρεσβεῖα ἔχειν τῆς τιμῆς μετὰ τὸν Ῥώμης ἐπίσκοπον διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὴν νέαν Ῥώμην; Joannou, Les canons des conciles, 47–48. 3. The proceedings of the stormy session where the canon was introduced are conveniently presented, with useful commentary, in Price and Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, 67–91; Matthews, “A Commentary on Canon XXVIII.” 4. Dagron, Naissance, 458–61; cf. Dvornik, Byzance et la primauté romaine, 38–46.

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is still, inevitably, focused on the intricate turns on the road to Chalcedon. In this chapter, the excitements of the future will be excluded from consideration: I shall attempt to keep the focus on 381, and ask what the bishops assembled at Constantinople might have thought they were doing when they produced this clause. The question has not previously been asked, because it has been assumed that the bishops’ business was straightforward. The council of 381 closed a chapter in ecclesiastical history (and continues to provide a convenient terminus for ecclesiastical historians) by pronouncing the “Arian” controversy definitively over; its administrative enactments are generally interpreted as the housecleaning required after fift y years of sectarian confusion.5 The canons, the most extensive published documents to survive from the council, exude a somewhat ponderous consensuality and conservatism.6 Canon 1 thus proclaims that the creed of Nicaea is “not to be set aside” but is to “have validity,” and is to remain authoritative. Constantinople 381 was the least exciting of the major councils, theologically, as all the bishops were on the same side about the central issues. There were no heretics to be confuted, excommunicated, and exiled, as at Nicaea, or later at Ephesus;7 although the reaffirmation of the Nicene faith in Canon 1 is followed by an impressive list of anathematized heresies, no effort was made to identify and condemn representatives of these.8 Canon 2 (by far the most detailed) likewise uses Nicaea as its benchmark, stating that the bishops of each province were to manage their own affairs without interference from outside, with the exception of those Egyptian and Syrian provinces whose traditional subordination to the jurisdiction of Alexandria and Antioch had been codified at Nicaea. Our third canon is presented as a rider to all this, and is connected grammatically. A fourth and final canon then provides a footnote to this footnote, clarifying the situation by declaring that the irregular consecration of Maximus the Cynic (who had been made bishop of Constantinople in 380) was entirely without validity. The 145-odd 5. For this perspective, see notably Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 805–23; Simonetti, La crisi ariana nel IV secolo, 528–42. 6. It is unlikely that a formal record was ever taken: Chrysos, “Die Akten des Konzils von Konstantinopel I (381).” The council attached its canons to a letter addressed to the emperor Theodosius, which refers to “concise definitions”: Benesevic, Syntagma XIV titulorum, 94–95, with Ohme, Kanon ekklesiastikos, 513–17; a further letter issued in 382 (on which see below, 355–56) refers to a tomos produced “by the ecumenical synod,” “in which we confessed our faith more broadly” (Theodoret HE 5.9.13, with Ohme, Kanon ekklesiastikos, 519–21). For sage discussion of the controversy over the relationship between the council’s published work and the creed attributed to it at the council of Chalcedon, see Kelly, Early Christian Creeds 296–331. 7. The only theological confrontation seems a distinct anti-climax: when thirty-six “Macedonianist” bishops were summoned and refused a peremptory demand that they sign the Nicene creed, they were taunted but were not subjected to disciplinary proceedings; instead they were permitted to return to their sees (Socrates HE 5.8.2, 7–11; Sozomen HE 7.7.2–5). 8. The most striking example is Apollinarism, one of whose leading exponents, Timothy of Beirut, signed the proceedings of the council. See further McLynn, “The Voice of Conscience.”

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 347 signatures attached to these canons stamp them with ecumenical unanimity.9 The historians Socrates and Sozomen, the two main narrative sources for the council, and both writing a decade before Chalcedon, implicate the emperor Theodosius in this happy consensus by conflating the second canon with an imperial letter (also preserved in the Theodosian Code, from which Sozomen cites it), which they took as a translation of the canon’s terms into imperial law, establishing the bishop of Constantinople among the standard-bearers of orthodoxy.10 Canon 3 has seemed to flow unproblematically from a new concordat between the eastern emperor and the eastern bishops. However, Socrates and Sozomen, unlike modern scholars, seem to have found it difficult to explain the council’s pronouncement on Constantinople. Socrates, in discussing the council’s achievement, clearly has its canons before him—and not much else.11 He evidently thought the third canon significant, since he promoted it to first place; but it is equally evident that he was puzzled by it, since he quotes it verbatim, in full, without explanation (HE 5.8.13). Contrast his handling of the council’s two other principal canons: he reduces the first to a six-word summary and frames the second, on metropolitan jurisdiction, within an institutional and historical context, inaccurately but sensibly adducing (as noted above) the terms of an imperial law as further explanation (5.8.14–20). Sozomen, writing shortly afterwards, restores the canons to their proper order, but he too loses his rhythm over Canon 3: the explanation that he offers (adducing not only Constantinople’s name of New Rome and its Romelike senate, its civic orders and its magistracies, but also its “contracts judged according to the practices of the Romans in Italy, and the rights and privileges which were equal for both cities in every respect,” HE 7.9.2–3), becomes so elaborate and obtrusive that his most recent editor felt compelled to supply parentheses—the longest such diversion in the whole text.12 Moreover, Socrates and Sozomen simplified their analytical task by separating these canons from the politics of the council. We cannot blame them, since our source material is genuinely schizophrenic. The impression of solid consensus created by the sonorously workmanlike canons stands in sharp contrast to the eyewitness testimony of Gregory Nazianzen, who was consecrated bishop of Constantinople at the beginning of the council and who makes it abundantly clear that its course did not run smooth.13 In his great autobiographical 9. King, “The 150 Fathers.” The purported Spanish bishop Agrius (no. 145), however, is a phantom. 10. Socrates HE 5.8.15–19; Sozomen HE 7.9.5–6; CTh 16.1.3. See Errington, “Christian Accounts,” 419–21, 440–42. 11. Van Nuffelen, Un héritage de paix, 386–88, argues for a written (“Theodosian”) source; I am not persuaded. 12. Bidez and Hansen, Sozomenus: Kirchengeschichte, 312. 13. Gregory’s perspective on the council is sympathetically described, with acute commentary, by McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 349–69.

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poem De Vita Sua, Gregory presents the proceedings as a tragedy of errors involving complex dealings between precisely the four sees named in the canons— Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople itself. Meletius, bishop of Antioch, died soon after the council began, and discussions concerning his successor proved viciously divisive, not least because of Gregory’s intervention on behalf of a candidate favored by Rome and the west, but by very few in the east. Timothy, bishop of Alexandria, was only summoned after the council had already begun and apparently also found himself at odds with the majority as soon as he arrived.14 Gregory describes the “bitter wind from the west” that Timothy whipped up, in concert with allies “from Macedonia”; other sources allow us to reduce this Macedonian contingent to the solitary figure of Acholius of Thessalonica, who is attested as a close ally of Damasus of Rome.15 A collateral victim of this west wind was Gregory himself. He presents himself as a convenient target for the newcomers’ animosity against the eastern bishops who had consecrated him, the object of pettifogging challenges to his eligibility for the see, which finally drove him to resign after only about a month in office. Despite the access they enjoyed to the most promising talents of the whole eastern church (Constantinople must have been full of eligible presbyters attending their bishops), the council then replaced Gregory with an unbaptized layman, the genial senator Nectarius. As already noted, yet another bishop of Constantinople was dealt with in the council’s fourth and final canon, concerning “Maximus the Cynic and the disturbance which had happened over him at Constantinople.” This declared that Maximus, whose attempted coup and ignominious expulsion the previous year Gregory also chronicled, was not now, nor had ever been, a genuine bishop. These twists in conciliar politics must obviously be relevant to the formulation of the canons. Because our sources keep the council’s legislation separate from its politics, however, we can only guess at the relationship between the two. Socrates and Sozomen themselves faced the same problem, and they solved it by placing the production of the canons at the end of the council, after Nectarius had been happily enthroned (Socrates HE 5.8.12–13; Sozomen HE 7.9.1). That this was only a guess is clear from Sozomen’s account of Canon 4, when he evidently supposes the abortive consecration of Maximus to have been attempted during the council, as an attempt by the Egyptian delegation to install a zealous Nicene during the vacancy (presumably) after Gregory’s

14. Greg. Naz. DVS 1798: Gregory’s language indicates that this was a belated invitation rather than an accidentally late arrival, as argued by Errington, “Church and State,” 43 n.114. 15. “Bitter wind,” φυσῶντες ἡμῖν ἑσπέριόν τε καὶ τραχύ. (Greg. Naz. DVS 1802). Acholius was the only westerner (and thus the only Macedonian) to attend: Ambrose, Ep. extra Coll . 9[13].7. For Damasus and Acholius, see especially Damasus Ep. 5–6; with Pietri, Roma Christiana , 786–89.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 349 resignation.16 In this case we have other sources to expose the error. But we should bear in mind how easily we, too, might go wrong in our own attempts to explain Canon 3. Neither Socrates nor Sozomen attempted to relate this to ecclesiastical politics. Modern scholars have been less reticent, proposing at least four different motives. The current favorite relates it to the balance of power in the eastern church, as an attempt to curtail the overweening influence of Alexandria.17 Some scholars, however, maintain that it was also intended as a blow against Rome itself.18 Others have opted for a Caesaropapist view, arguing that this canon was dictated to a compliant council by the emperor Theodosius himself, as a means to promote the standing of his chosen capital.19 Yet another approach would see the bishops opportunistically taking Rome’s name in vain, as a device to boost the prestige of Constantinople (but not necessarily at the expense of any particular rival).20 So rich a variety of suggestions by itself invites a reexamination of the question. And this seems especially worth attempting in the context of this volume because each of the answers that have been proposed (and any more that might be added) reveals certain assumptions about the workings of ecclesiastical geopolitics in Late Antiquity—about what Rome signified to Constantinople, and Constantinople to the bishops of the east. Questions can be asked about the assumptions inherent in each of the views so far mentioned, not least the current favorite, that Canon 3 was a riposte to Alexandrian aggrandizement. This view found influential expression in an essay by Norman Baynes, who traced the notorious conflicts between Constantinople and Alexandria, which began with the vendetta of Theophilus against Chrysostom and continued through the fift h century, back into the fourth century, discovering an ancestor for them in the struggles of Athanasius against his great enemy Eusebius of Nicomedia and (ultimately) Constantinople.21 But this case depends crucially upon the belief that the consecration of Maximus the Cynic, a year before the council, by a group of Egyptian bishops authorized by Peter of Alexandria, was a deliberate attempt to install an Alexandrian 16. Sozomen HE 7.9.4, describing the consecrators as οἱ τότε ἐξ Aἰγύπτου συνεληλύθοτες, “those who had come from Egypt”; this refers back to 7.7.6, where “those from Egypt” take the lead in demanding Gregory’s resignation. Theodoret has a more colorful version of the story: HE 5.8.3–6. 17. Joannou, Les canons des conciles, 43; Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 92–93; Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 807–808; Dvornik, Byzance et la primauté romaine, 38–39. 18. See Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 160–63. An anti-Roman agenda is also accepted as a secondary motive by Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 94. 19. Errington, Roman Imperial Policy, 229–30; cf. Errington, “Church and State,” 61; Stiernon, “La ‘Nouvelle Rome,’” 261. 20. Pietri, Roma Christiana, 858–60. 21. Baynes, “Alexandria and Constantinople” (reprinted in Byzantine Studies).

350 McLynn puppet.22 However, the evidence for the episode suggests otherwise. Although of Egyptian origin, Maximus was not an Egyptian cleric but a long-term resident of Constantinople, who had made his pitch to Peter while visiting Alexandria as a representative of the Nicene community. He is more plausibly seen, then, as a tenacious freelancer. The support that he received from Peter was only provisional: Maximus was left to fight his own battles, and was shrugged off when he lost these.23 Nor is there any reason to believe that Maximus would have reduced Constantinople to an Alexandrian satellite had his coup succeeded, any more than his (temporarily triumphant) rival Gregory subjected it to Cappadocian interests. Modern research has meanwhile steadily chipped away at fourth-century Alexandria’s traditional reputation for doctrinaire interventionism: a recent paper has reduced the most notorious example—their support for the Antiochene anti-bishop Paulinus—to a negotiation tactic.24 The church of Alexandria was arguably more plotted against than plotting throughout the fourth century, and there is no evidence that it cast any significant shadow over Constantinople before Theophilus marched against Chrysostom.25 Alexandria was in no position to impose itself upon the 381 council: the list of signatories includes only two Egyptian bishops, Timothy and the bishop of Oxyrhynchus, and although a large corps of invisible suffragans is often assumed in their train, there is no basis whatever for such an assumption.26 It is therefore for advocates of an anti-Alexandrian tendency to explain what sort of threat the assembled bishops can have seen in Timothy and his lone associate, and how Canon 3 might have responded to this.

22. Baynes, “Alexandria and Constantinople,” 149 (= Byzantine Studies, 104); Errington, Roman Imperial Policy, 219–20; “Church and State,” 38. The foundation for a partial rehabilitation of Maximus is sketched by Mossay, “Note sur Héron-Maxime.” 23. Modern scholarship has too readily translated Gregory’s claims that Peter “sent” the bishops who consecrated Maximus (DVS 851), and that they in turn “sent” sailors from the f leet ahead as scouts (DVS 844–45), into a well-organized chain of command (McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 314); but it should be noted that Ambrose of Milan, in subsequently making the case for Maximus, seems to say only that Peter’s “mandate” extended to performing the ceremony inside a private house (Ep. extra Coll . 9[13].3, ed. Zelzer, p. 202, where the word order given in the apparatus is to be preferred to that of the text), and also that he carefully separates this mandate from the letters of communion which Peter gave Maximus, presumably during the latter’s visit to Alexandria after his unsuccessful visit to the imperial court at Thessalonica (cf. DVS 1013–23). 24. Zachhuber, “The Antiochene Synod.” 25. The Historia Akephala provides a useful guide to contemporary Alexandrian perspectives: the text begins with the hatching of a conspiracy at Constantinople (1.2). 26. They are listed in second and third place after Nectarius: Turner, Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Iuris Antiquissimi, 2:434–35. For the assumption that a larger contingent is here disguised, see (for example) Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 97; Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 807; and McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 358 (envisaging “a new influx of voting members”). But Timothy’s presence among the signatories (unlike Acholius, whose absence has been variously interpreted) shows that he did not lead a boycott.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 351 The most detailed version of the anti-Alexandria hypothesis was presented by Adolf Ritter.27 He places the canons during the interval between the death of Meletius and the arrival of Timothy of Alexandria; he also removes Gregory of Constantinople from the scene, supposing him ill and absent.28 In other words, Ritter creates (much as had Socrates) a peaceful interlude where there were no prima donnas to prevent the mainstream bishops from consulting the interests of the church at large in a nonpartisan atmosphere. According to Ritter, the bishops sought simultaneously to build up Constantinople and to keep down Alexandria. Their work on provincial jurisdiction, in Canon 2, is thus understood as being designed principally to confine Alexandria within Egypt, with Canon 3 supplementing this by removing the Alexandrian Pope from his traditional place at Rome’s right hand. Ritter meanwhile sees the bishops confidently anticipating Constantinople’s future greatness: although declining to define a sphere of jurisdiction for the city, they leave the dioceses of Asiana, Pontica, and Thrace available for it. In other words, Constantinople is genuinely the germ of Chalcedon. The argument is subtle and carefully presented, but it depends ultimately upon some heft y assumptions about the Alexandrian threat, as perceived by the Anatolian bishops who amounted to a clear majority of the council’s membership.29 Regional interests are muffled beneath the sweet reason of Ritter’s indefinite pronoun.30 However, the explicit provision to safeguard the autonomy of provinces within the three dioceses of Asiana, Pontica, and Thrace seems to reflect a different agenda altogether, one which served the obvious interests of the bishops there. For these same bishops simultaneously to create a potential behemoth in their own backyards would be peculiar, to say the least. Discussion of the canons easily tends toward circularity. The scholars who have interpreted Canon 3 in the light of an assumed anti-Alexandrian agenda in Canon 2 are in the habit of reading Canon 2 in the light of this already colored understanding of Canon 3. By itself, however, the second canon does not take any obvious aim at Alexandria. The restrictions that it imposes apply to all bishops in all dioceses. Although the first case to be mentioned is the bishop of Alexandria, who is “to administer only the affairs of Egypt,” the wording serves to emphasize the privileges enjoyed by his see. The canonical authority of Alexandria over all

27. Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 85–96. 28. Ibid., 85–86. 29. See Turner, Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Iuris Antiquissimi 2:444–67, for the relevant portion of the signature lists. 30. Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 93: “Anscheinend hat man in Konstantinopel so sicher auf die Zukunft des hauptstädtischen Th ronos gesetzt, dass man nicht tat, um über die Übertragung des Ehrenprimats hinaus seine rechtliche Stellung irgendwie zu verändern. . . .”

352 McLynn the Egyptian provinces is positively acknowledged. By contrast, the bishop of Antioch is relegated to a subordinate clause, with his less clearly defined prerogatives to be “protected” as a potential restriction on the right of the bishops of Oriens to administer their own affairs. In summer 381, the new bishop of Alexandria was unlikely to have recognized any prohibition of “encroachments” beyond the borders of a diocese as aimed against himself:31 the most glaring recent example of such behavior (as Timothy himself apparently pointed out himself during the council) was Gregory Nazianzen’s own mission to Constantinople.32 And if Canon 2 is not taken as anti-Alexandrian in intent, the case for regarding Canon 3 in this light is much weakened. Central to the problem, perhaps, is the unduly narrow view that scholars have taken of the council’s legislative activity. The four canons produced in 381 in themselves amount to but a single page of text, and their brevity has encouraged such views as Ritter’s, whereby they are assigned to a distinct stage of the council’s proceedings and therefore explained in terms of a specific political agenda. However, the provisions drafted by the bishops were only part of their legislative work. It has been demonstrated that the great canon collection that subsequently became a central pillar of ecclesiastical discipline, the “Antiochene collection,” which combined the disciplinary canons of Nicaea with those of the councils of Neocaesarea, Ancyra, Antioch, Gangra, and Laodicea, first entered general circulation immediately after the council of Constantinople, whose canons were appended to it.33 It is impossible that this should have happened unless the collection had been submitted to the council for validation. The fathers will therefore have spent much more time reading old canons than devising their new ones, whether their readings were critical or (as was more probably the case) ceremonial: many members of the council would be encountering this code for the first time. The new rulings that the bishops presented to Theodosius at the end of the council were their self-conscious contribution to the tradition that they were enshrining. More particularly, Nicaea had been established as the fountainhead of this tradition, and so legitimized

31. See above, n.23. In De Vita Sua, Gregory declines to implicate Timothy in the Maximus aff air (letting pass the opportunity for an ironical footnote when he introduces the incoming Egyptians at the council as “workers of the laws of God”: DVS 1800–1801). No contemporary will have associated Canon 2 directly with consecrations at Constantinople: no bishops from the province of Th race are known to have participated in the consecration of either Gregory or his immediate successor. 32. The Egyptians’ objection to Gregory’s consecration at Constantinople, that he was already bishop of Nazianzus (or Sasima), would also undermine the legitimacy of his earlier preaching campaign at the Anastasia; this helps explain the vehemence of his apologia. 33. L’Huillier, “L’ancienne collection canonique grecque.” See further Schwartz, “Über die Sammlung,” esp. 13–14; Selb, “Die Kanonessammlungen,”; Gaudemet, Les sources du droit de l’Église, 75–76.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 353 its miscellaneous components.34 The Nicene canons were therefore open before the bishops who framed the supplementary rulings in 381. They are referred to explicitly in the first two canons. They should also be used as the central point of reference in interpreting Canon 3. Two of the key terms in Canon 3 occur also in the equivalent sections of the canons of Nicaea. In both cases, moreover, the Nicene precedent encourages a minimalist reading of the clause.35 The first is the “prerogatives” or “first place,” presbeia, which are awarded to the bishop of Constantinople. The term was not in widespread currency during the fourth century, or even the fifth.36 But Canon 6 of Nicaea, after confirming the supra-provincial authority of Alexandria and Antioch on the model of the Roman see, had enacted that “in the other provinces, the prerogatives (presbeia) for the churches are to be safeguarded.” This opaque expression has plausibly been interpreted as applying to the metropolitan sees in each province, whose seniority (outside the Egyptian or Syrian provinces) was thus protected from subordination to any higher authority.37 But these prerogatives are notably less determinate than the exousia, the Roman-style jurisdiction, which is recognized for Alexandria and Antioch. Metropolitans were to be protected from interference from outside their provinces, but their rights over their own suffragans were restricted, as far as the canon is concerned, to their involvement in episcopal appointments.38 Presbeia are a poor substitute for exousia. The same fundamental principle was reaffirmed a few years after Nicaea, when the powers of metropolitans were strengthened at a council of Antioch (in canons which were also included in the collection): however strong the voice of metropolitans in collective provincial business, each bishop retained exousia over his own see.39

34. Ohme, Kanon ekklesiastikos, 527–32, suggests that the Nicene creed was included as well as the canons, suppressing the homoian creed of Constantinople (360), which (he argues) had prefaced the earlier collection. 35. For a vigorous argument in favor of a strong reading, see Daley, “Position and Patronage,” who has (at 553) the bishops “attempting, in a rather daring way, to assure and confi rm” for both Rome and Constantinople “a position of eminent and coordinated power within the rapidly evolving institutional structures of the Christian Church.” Daley’s analysis depends explicitly on Chalcedon for the “broader context” (534; cf. 539–49). 36. Athanasius uses the term only in relation to the “precedence” that errant (“Arian”) clergy claimed, as teachers, from the laity (De Synodis 2); Gregory Nazianzen uses it of the “first place,” which (with the “victory prize”) was not easily awarded among the virtues (Or. 14.1). Socrates HE 1.39.4, uses the term of (unspecified) privileges awarded by Constantine to Constantinople; Sozomen reproduces him verbatim at HE 2.34.2. Socrates otherwise uses the term only of the privileges of Antioch, citing Canon 2 of Constantinople (5.8.18); Sozomen also uses it of the status denied to the holy spirit by the Macedonianists (4.27.1). For Theodoret, who seems not to have known of Canon 3, see n.76. 37. L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils, 49, revising the punctuation of Joannou’s edition. 38. Even here the canon does not prescribe either a deciding voice or a veto, merely consultation. Their opinion ( gnōmē) had to be registered; but in contested decisions, the majority should prevail. 39. Antioch Canon 9: Joannou, Les canons des conciles, 110–11. For the context of the council, see Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 108–10.

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Moreover, the fathers of 381 further defined Constantinople’s presbeia as prerogatives “of honor.” This formulation again comes from the Nicene playbook. Canon 7 had declared that “Because of the ancient tradition and custom that the bishop of Aelia (Jerusalem) should be honored” (timasthai), he should hold “what follows from the honor” (akolouthia tēs timēs). But the Nicene canon had almost immediately backtracked, and in defining the award had minimized it: the rights of the metropolitan see of Palestine, Caesarea, were not to be infringed.40 Honor was not to trump the existing hierarchy.41 And Cyril of Jerusalem, who was present at Constantinople, knew all too well how fragile such honor could be, having been exiled three times from his see as a result of quarrels with the metropolitan at Caesarea. Only with his nephew’s election to the metropolitan throne had Cyril’s own position become secure.42 The same Antiochene canon that glossed Nicaea on episcopal autonomy had also decreed that the metropolitan bishop held “the responsibility for the whole province” and was therefore “to be preeminent in honor” within it, so that his suff ragans were to do nothing “beyond the ordinary” without him. But even here the basis of the metropolitan’s responsibility, and therefore his “honor,” was explained pragmatically, by reference to the volume of business that provincials conducted in his city.43 Honor was thus descriptive rather than prescriptive, empty unless earned. The bishops at Constantinople also explained that city’s claim to honor, but the grounds were not pragmatic. The final and most resonant phase locates these prerogatives of honor “after Rome, inasmuch as it is New Rome.” Here, the canonists of 381 devise their own terminology. It has generally been assumed that since they put Constantinople second to Rome, they thereby promoted it above Antioch and Alexandria.44 The mainstream bishops of the East, on the

40. L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils, 54–56. Daley’s argument that the assertion of Constantinople’s right to honor proves that the award to Jerusalem must have been “of some practical import” (“Position and Patronage,” 536) is circular; there is no trace in the sources of any concrete rights exercised by Jerusalem. 41. Daley, “Position and Patronage,” 531–32, appeals to “classical” conceptions of honor as equivalent to “rank” or “office,” but draws from an unduly selective sample of citations. Cicero and Aristotle are less relevant than the two Gregories of Nazianzus and Nyssa (both of whom participated in the council), neither of whose correspondence offers any support for this reading: when Nazianzen accuses Basil of “doing outrage through honor” (Ep. 48.4), he is thinking of his empty title as bishop of Sasima, not the exercise of his office there. 42. Drijvers, Cyril of Jerusalem, 32–34. 43. Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 109, argues that “metropolitan bishops are given considerable addition of power” by the council, and relates this to the anti-Nicene purge implemented during the subsequent few years; but the relevant canons (14, 16, 20) all provide for the metropolitan acting in a collegiate capacity. 44. L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils, 122; cf. Errington, “Church and State,” 61; Dvornik, Byzance et la primauté romaine, 38–39.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 355 other hand, had consistently refused ever to accept any meaningful Roman primacy. The bishops of the council of Antioch in 341 (which only received its “Arian” label retrospectively) famously declared that Rome’s claim to honor (philotimia) as the “metropolis of piety” did not mean that they themselves were relegated to second place.45 Basil of Caesarea, too, had carefully avoided any such concession during his tangled dealings with Damasus during the 370s.46 It would therefore have been most odd if his Nicene coalition had succumbed in 381, when for the first time in a generation they could look to patronage and protection from an emperor sympathetic to their cause, and so had no need for Rome’s support. Gregory Nazianzen would moreover describe (and deplore) vehement assertions of eastern primacy from council members.47 All this encourages a more restrictive reading of the canon, which might instead be read as creating a self-contained class for the two Romes, with Constantinople (naturally) in second place. Being second to Rome did not, for contemporaries, mean being first among other cities.48 And Rome could safely be awarded seniority: no churchman in 381 could have imagined that representatives of the Roman bishop would ever attempt to impose Rome’s authority upon the east. In awarding the bishop of Constantinople second place to Rome, they were therefore awarding him nothing. We therefore face the paradoxical conclusion that the sonorous terms of Canon 3 seem to signify surprisingly little. It remains to consider whether this might not in fact have been the legislators’ intention—whether in its original context the clause was designed not to advance the church of Constantinople but to neutralize it. And the one text that offers guidance to the bishops’ views about the status of the two Romes is at least compatible with such an interpretation. A year after the council, in the summer of 382, a second synod convened at Constantinople, apparently consisting mostly of the bishops who had attended in 381—at least, they were happy to speak in the previous council’s name.49 The council is directly attested only by the long letter that it addressed to a western council which had been simultaneously summoned to Rome by

45. Sozomen HE 3.8.5, citing Athanasius Apol. contra Arianos 25.2. 46. The carefully limited scope of Basil’s suggestion to Athanasius (Ep. 69.1) that Damasus should exercise initiative (authentēsai) is given undue significance by Pouchet, Basile le Grand, 250–51. 47. DVS 1690–99, alleging that the claim was based on the geography of Jesus’ birth. 48. Another version of the same arithmetic is offered in Julian Or. 1.8c: to be second to Rome is better than (and therefore different from) being first among all other cities. Cf. Greg. Naz. Carm. 2.1.10.4–6, discussed below, p. 357. 49. Th is council has suffered from being treated as a mere footnote to that of 381: the best discussion is still Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 209–13. It most probably produced two canons (5–6) attributed to the 381 council in the canon collections: L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils, 123–31. Gregory Nazianzen refused his invitation (and gleefully predicted trouble): Ep. 130–33, 135–36.

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the (senior) emperor Gratian, and to which the easterners assembled at Constantinople had also been invited, explaining their reasons for failing to attend.50 The relationship between Rome and Constantinople is clearly on the authors’ minds. Their letter is addressed from one “megalopolis” to another; but they carefully decline to acknowledge any particular status for either Rome, preferring instead to construct an elaborate trope around the “royal” command behind the invitation that they had received, as reflecting the now harmonious orthodoxy of the two emperors, which in turn meant that the westerners no longer “played the king” separately, but instead desired “that we should share the kingship with you, as the apostle said.”51 The eastern bishops discuss three episcopal appointments that their western colleagues had disputed—of Nectarius at Constantinople, of Flavian at Antioch, and (in this case a confirmation of status rather than consecration) of Cyril at Jerusalem (Theodoret HE 5.9.13–17). All three cases are justified explicitly by reference to the canons of Nicaea concerning the participation of bishops from the relevant province and of such neighbors as were appropriate.52 But for Constantinople the further explanation is given that emergency treatment was needed for a church “newly made, as it were,” which the assembled bishops had rescued as if from the lion’s mouth: they had chosen a bishop, with Theodosius in attendance, and with the approval of the clergy and the whole city. By contrast, canonical conventions are invoked directly in the other two cases, in each of which the authority of the see concerned is also underlined: the bishop of “the most senior and truly apostolic” church of Antioch had been elected “canonically” by the bishops of his province and the diocese of Oriens, and they recognized Cyril of Jerusalem, “the mother of all churches,” as having been long since elected “canonically,” and “by the [bishops] of his province.” All three sees are clearly deemed special, but Constantinople’s distinctive situation is expressed by two dramatic similes rather than in terms either of Christian tradition or of a legalistic framework. In thus presenting the city’s church as a rescued victim rather than a repository of privilege, the bishops apparently forgot the canonical status that they had themselves awarded it a year previously. It was they, constituted as “the ecumenical synod,” who had legitimized the appointment of Nectarius; no intrinsic authority is assigned to his see.53 A second witness to the council of 381 is Gregory Nazianzen, who was made and unmade bishop of Constantinople during its course; and although he never refers directly to the council’s legislative work, he does echo the language

50. Theodoret HE 5.9.1–18. 51. Ibid., 5.9.8. The reference is to 1 Cor. 4:8. 52. Ibid., 5.9.14. 53. The suggestion by Errington, “Church and State,” 42, that the term “ecumenical” is a later insertion is misplaced: the word appears twice in the letter, and both times is integrated into the context.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 357 of Canon 3. In De Vita Sua, the enormous autobiographical poem that he addressed to the people of Constantinople about a year after the council (at about the same time, probably, as the invitations for the second session were circulating),54 Gregory recalled his arrival there in 379 with an evocation of the city (DVS 562–67): Nature has not given us two suns; but it has given two Romes, beacons of the whole world, one an ancient power and one a new, differing from each other only to this extent, that the one outshines the sun, the other the evening star, but they hold up beauty to match beauty, a balanced pair.55 Taken by itself, this might admittedly seem merely a rhetorical arabesque— routine flattery for the people of Constantinople. However, Gregory had employed the same conceptual framework at the very beginning of the poem, when he announced his theme and appealed to men who were, he said: “the name for nobility in the world, you who inhabit a second universe, as I see it, enfolded in a beauty involving earth and sea, a new-made Rome, seat of a second nobility, city of Constantine and a monument of power” (DVS 12–16).56 The two passages are presented as successive prologues to Gregory’s account;57 the repeated emphasis on Constantinople’s relationship with Rome therefore invites close analysis. The explicit twinning of Constantinople with Rome in both passages is a new feature of Gregory’s rhetoric, and indeed in Christian literature: the “two Romes” had been a useful trope for secular orators for a generation, but Christian authors had previously eschewed such terminology.58 Gregory himself had saluted Constantinople variously in his previous writings, but the Roman connection had been explicitly invoked only once before, and that was again after the council of 381. In a brief poem, produced shortly after his resignation, he had appealed first to the bishops, then to the laws, to the emperors and to the city itself: “O glorious seat of great Constantine, a younger Rome, as far excelling the cities as the starry heavens excel the earth” (Carm. 2.1.10 4–6). Here the

54. The argument that the poem was still unfi nished in 388, advanced by Bernardi, Grégoire de Nazianze, 236–37, and reaffirmed in the new edition (Tuilier, Bady, and Bernardi, Poèmes personnels II, 1, 1–11, 178 n.217), depends on an impossibly strained reading of DVS 1132: “the authority now ruling over Italy” must refer to a western sovereign, not to the temporary presence of Theodosius’ court. For a date in early 382, see Jungck, De vita sua, 13. 55. Tuilier, Bady, and Bernardi, Poèmes personnels II, 1, 1–11, 81; Jungck, De vita sua, 80–81; for προλάμπειν, see Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. 2, 3, 5. I prefer the translation “outshine,” by White, Autobiographical Poems, 53, against “brille face au” in Tuilier, Bady, Bernardi. 56. I follow Tuilier, Bady, and Bernardi, Poèmes personnels II, 1, 1–11, 57, and read ὄνομα for ὄμμα at DVS 16. 57. Tuilier, Bady, and Bernardi, Poèmes personnels II, 1, 1–11, 159 n.98. 58. Fenster, Laudes Constantinopolitanae, 28–54, for references in Themistius, Himerius, and Libanius.

358 McLynn invocation of Rome is incidental, with the emphasis on Constantinople’s relationship with the eastern cities: there is no room in the final image for its elder sibling. Moreover, in all the works produced before his departure from Constantinople, including some twenty speeches delivered in the city itself, Gregory had only once twinned Constantinople with its western counterpart, and there the allusion had been entirely implicit. When first awarded the cathedral following Theodosius’ arrival in November 380, he had surveyed his new flock and offered admonitions to each element, starting with the emperors, the palatine staff and the nobly born (Or. 36.11); he then moved to “the wise ones and philosophers,” the wealthy, the luxurious, and finally to “You, the Great City” (12). Here he had addressed the citizens of the capital as “the first immediately after the first, or not even yielding precedence on this,” urging them to “show yourselves the first, for me, not in wickedness, but in goodness; not in laxity, but in good order.” The allusion to Rome, while unmistakable and emphatic, is also indirect: Gregory could evidently take his people’s sibling rivalry for granted. And here again the elder Rome provides only a subsidiary point, as Gregory considers how shameful it would be for Constantinople to be “master of the cities” but a victim to pleasures. Constantinople here faces east, not west. Its shame consists in its passion for “circuses and theatres and race-tracks and hunting-enclosures,” which made it “first among cities as a city of sports fans,” when it should more properly have been so as a model for every virtue (12). The primacy that Gregory envisages for Constantinople here, as a “city of God,” is over its Asian hinterland—over cities like his own Nazianzus.59 This is a variation on a theme that Gregory exploited throughout his period in the city—the sophisticated metropolis and its provincial satellites.60 In matching Constantinople with Rome in his autobiography, then, Gregory seems to be alluding deliberately to the new framework established by Canon 3. However, this conception of Constantinople’s special status proves to be utterly inconsequential within the argument of the poem itself. At first, when the image of the two beacons is introduced, Gregory seems interested in exploiting the parallel: he contrasts Rome’s success in holding the west to orthodoxy with Constantinople’s failure to do the same to the east—and he identifies as the source of its trouble Alexandria, “the frivolous city full of all evils,” which had spawned Arius. But then he immediately shifts his focus to the flickering Nicene lamp that had remained in Constantinople and his own mission to rekindle this, blithely indifferent (even when presenting the story of Maximus’

59. At Or. 43.14, speaking at Caesarea after his return from Constantinople, he similarly presents Byzantium as “the city which sits at the head of the East.” His perspective had changed: when commemorating his brother fi fteen years previously he had referred to it as “the city which now sits at the head of Europe”: Or. 7.8). 60. For Constantinople’s claims to superiority (and a robust provincial retort), see Or. 33.6–7.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 359 consecration as an Alexandrian-sponsored coup d’état) to any possibility that this new light might have rightfully outshone Alexandria. Canon 3, and the ideology that scholars have assumed to be implicit in it, should have suited Gregory’s purposes very well, but he does not once apply it to his own case. In describing the initiatives he took as bishop of Constantinople he never claims any primacy for his see, or any special relationship with Rome. His downfall was triggered by his proposal that the council should endorse Paulinus (the candidate supported by Rome) for the succession of Antioch; yet in recounting this, it seems not to occur to him that Rome (and still more Rome and Constantinople together) might have had a special claim on the council’s obedience—he fails even to mention Rome’s interest in the question.61 A splendid opportunity to tax the bishops of the council with their inconsistency, in acknowledging the superior status of his see while refusing to follow his ex cathedra pronouncements, here goes begging. Furthermore, when he describes how his legitimacy was attacked by the bishops of Alexandria and Thessalonica, he again fails to invoke any “prerogatives” that might have provided immunity from such attacks. Yet the question of Gregory’s honor, and the slights to which it was subjected, informs the whole poem.62 In other words, Gregory frames his account with a formal nod to the status recognized in Canon 3, but his actual argument denies any substance to this status. Instead, the geopolitical conceptions that shape the argument of De Vita Sua are consistent with those found in Gregory’s earlier writings. He accepted the throne of Constantinople, he said, in order to act as a “chorus leader,” to operate between, and independently of, the rival choirs of east and west (DVS 1533–38). He had invoked the same polarity in an earlier speech, when he had defined his personal mission at Constantinople as the pacification of a world divided between two warring halves.63 Most striking, however, is the valedictory speech in which he announced his resignation, which should be accepted as a close approximation to what he actually said rather than a later composition.64 Here he first invokes the city as the “eye of the universe” and “a sort of link between eastern and western parts” (Or. 42.10), and then at the conclusion

61. In advocating appeasement at the council, Gregory (quoting himself in his autobiography) twice speaks of “westerners” in general, not of Rome in particular: DVS 1612, 1637; these westerners call themselves “guardians of laws” rather than exercising any acknowledged authority (DVS 1615). For Damasus’ support for Paulinus, see especially Pietri, Roma Christiana, 792–811. 62. DVS 896: “Thus did Alexandria honor my hard work”; cf. 862: Peter of Alexandria “honored me with tokens of installation.” McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 359 n.255, acutely sums up the purpose behind De Vita Sua: “He does not want rehabilitation, only the ‘restoration of honor.’” 63. Or. 22.14: Gregory’s rhetoric here is interpreted too narrowly, as a commentary on the Antiochene schism, by McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 249. 64. See McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 361–66, against Bernardi, “La composition et la publication du discours 42.”

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bids farewell successively to “the Great City, lover of Christ” and to “East and West, for whom we have fought and by whom we have been fought” (27). Set against all this the Roman trope of De Vita Sua appears decorative rather than substantive, something grafted on to a well-established and clearly defined view of Constantinople’s place. Several inferences are suggested by all this. The first is that the final formulation of Canon 3 was subsequent to Gregory’s departure from the city, and that the terms resonated sufficiently for him to echo them the following year, but not to make him change his established view of Constantinople’s place in church politics. A corollary to this would be that Canon 3 did not in fact serve to reinforce Constantinople’s hierarchical position—or at least that Gregory (despite his very close interest in the question) did not notice any such reinforcement. Such a reading would corroborate the conclusion reached earlier from the language of the canon—that the impressive phraseology amounted to very little. But this naturally raises the question: why should the bishops have produced so sonorously ineffectual a ruling? Reasons might be sought in the circumstances created by Gregory’s sudden resignation. Scholars have tended to follow Gregory’s lead and to accentuate his own personal response, minimizing the political disruption that his dramatic gesture might have caused.65 Yet the canons themselves offer an important hint of the aftershocks that were triggered. Canon 4, denying any validity to Maximus’ consecration or subsequent acts, is generally assigned to the beginning of the council and treated as a piece of house cleaning.66 However, this does not explain its inclusion among the council’s published decrees, still less its position as the final item of business.67 Moreover, the validity of Maximus’ appointments is unlikely to have been an issue as long as Gregory was bishop—the pretender’s men would have received short shrift had they presented their credentials at his cathedral. However, with Gregory’s resignation (which his enemies evidently seized on as an admission that he had had no right to operate at Constantinople at all) old questions could be reopened, and Maximus’ partisans might well have thought it worthwhile to bring their claims before the council. Canon 4 can thus be seen as a product of the same discussion that produced Canon 3. As the bishops prepared to elect their second bishop of Constantinople in two months, they thus faced questions about the character and status of the post—not least,

65. McGuckin, Saint Gregory, 359; Errington, Roman Imperial Policy, 226, imagines Theodosius’ “relief” at having been “able to correct his initial misjudgement so quickly and (for him) so painlessly.” 66. Thus Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 49–53. 67. There is no reason to suppose that canons were listed other than in their order upon the agenda: for the case of Serdica (where three different versions exist), see Hess, The Early Development of Canon Law, 116.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 361 perhaps, from the emperor, who was apparently drafted to take a conspicuous role in the selection processs.68 Gregory’s tenure had been uncomfortable for his friends and his enemies alike. He had used the bully pulpit of Constantinople to considerable effect, to claim a voice in questions over which he had no conceivable jurisdiction.69 None of the regional interests identifiable at the council had any reason to support the institutionalization of such claims—least of all Gregory’s former allies, who are often left out of calculations. But the bishop list of Constantinople shows that the two largest provincial contingents were, in fact, those of Lycaonia and Pisidia, led respectively by Gregory’s cousin Amphilochius of Iconium and by another ex-rhetorician, Optimus of Pisidian Antioch, both of whom had witnessed his will only shortly beforehand.70 We must suppose that eventually Amphilochius and Optimus, however reluctantly, had abandoned Gregory.71 But the last thing either will have wanted would be to boost the authority of his successor, for their provinces were in what would become the capital’s hinterland, one in Pontica and the other in Asiana, the two dioceses which would eventually fall subject to Constantinople’s jurisdiction. The bishops who devised Canon 3, then, are unlikely to have been seeking to create a new tier of patriarchal authority. The regular visits of Amphilochius and Optimus to Constantinople in subsequent years might suggest, on the contrary, their enduring interest in establishing their own influence there.72 These visits can be related to the ecclesiological ineptitude of Nectarius, the innocuous layman who was chosen to replace Gregory.73 It is tempting to suggest 68. Theodosius’ role is described by Sozomen HE 7.8.4–7. It is generally assumed that the emperor had claimed this right for himself (e.g., Errington, “Church and State,” 58); I consider it more probable that the council took steps to deflect the responsibility for a contentious and invidious appointment. 69. Gregory’s attempted intervention in the Antiochene succession had no basis in convention, and would have been inadmissible under the terms of Canon 2 of Constantinople. 70. The contingents, 13 for Lycaonia and 15 for Pisidia, are enumerated in the conciliar subscription list: Turner, Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Iuris Antiquissima 2:452–55 (Lycaonia, nos. 92–104), 454–57 (Pisidia, nos. 105–19). Five Pisidian sees are represented by presbyters, which might suggest a concerted drive to get the vote out. Gregory’s will is edited with a helpful commentary by Beaucamp: “Le testament de Grégoire de Nazianze.” A second Lycaonian and two Pisidians also signed. 71. Gregory describes bishops among those expressing their dismay when his resignation was announced (DVS 1913–18); however, conciliar arithmetic suggests that his key allies had by then distanced themselves (cf. his account of the machinations of his “dearest friends”: DVS 1766–71). 72. Palladius Dialogus de Vita Iohannis Chrysostomi 17, including the information that both men received gift s from the wealthy deaconess Olympias, and that Optimus died in the city. 73. Sozomen shows Nectarius seeking to recruit a kitchen cabinet from his native Cilicia: HE 7.10.1–3. He also shows him forced to rely upon a schismatic bishop to navigate Theodosius’ planned “Conference of the Sects”: 7.12.1–12. Palladius Dial. 17 alleges that Nectarius took advice on ecclesiastical matters from Olympias.

362 McLynn that the same thinking lay behind the choice of this distinguished nonentity as the new bishop of Constantinople as behind the formulation of his privileges. In 381 it could not have been anticipated that a Theodosian dynasty would put down roots in Constantinople during the next two generations that would transform the city into a genuine imperial capital; nor did anything in previous experience prepare churchmen for the effects of such prolonged interaction between a city’s church and a resident court. By the time of Chalcedon, Constantinople had established itself as the effective metropolitan see of all Anatolia, having achieved its ascendancy on very much the basis set out in Canon 9 of Antioch—it was now the place where bishops converged to conduct their business.74 But the Anatolian bishops of 381 cannot have foreseen this development, still less intended to give it a canonical basis. Constantinople’s ascendancy was the by-product of a thaw in relations with Persia that could not then have been anticipated.75 All precedent suggested that Theodosius would spend the bulk of his reign looking eastward from Antioch; and these expectations will have conditioned both his own involvement in the council’s business (making it still less likely that he should seek to take sides in controversies where all parties in any case looked to him as referee) and the bishops’ geopolitical provisions. There existed, no doubt, a constituency at Constantinople itself which was receptive to the see’s aggrandizement. The population there seems, from the rebukes that Gregory so frequently administered on the score during his ministry, to have been no less sensitive to questions of civic status than were the smalltown patriots amply attested elsewhere. The most plausible interpretation of Gregory’s allusions to Canon 3 is as an instinctive appeal to the same sentiments that he had previously deplored. Once the council’s formulations had entered circulation, they became available as a component of Constantinople’s Christian identity, and therefore as a potential tool for those seeking favor there. Gregory’s passing appeal to the twin Romes might therefore be taken as a shrewd compliment, a contribution to a local discourse that eventually, in the course of two generations, hardened into a distinctive claim to primacy. It is striking (and perhaps no coincidence) that Gregory was exploiting this theme at exactly the same time that invitations were being circulated for the rival councils of Rome and Constantinople in the summer of 382, when the eastern bishops would so signally fail to assert the privileges of New Rome. But for Gregory, as we have seen, this was no more than incidental: he was no more prescient than his peers. And perhaps the strongest evidence for how

74. Dagron, Naissance, 461–73; Hajjar, “Le synode permanent”; Karlin-Hayter, “Activity of the Bishop of Constantinople.” 75. For the Persian brinksmanship of Valens, see Lenski, Failure of Empire, 182–85; cf. 185–96, for the ideological underpinnings of his forward policy.

“Two Romes, Beacons of the World” 363 little one Rome meant to the other ecclesiastically during the decades after 381 is the invisibility of its “prerogatives of honor” either as talisman or as target. Theodoret of Cyrrhus would use the phrase in a context (an alleged Jewish objection to the Son’s equality with the Father) that must betray his ignorance of the canon.76 On the other hand, when Jerome, that alert exponent of Roman supremacy, and (with Acholius of Thessalonica) one of only two men known to have been present both at Constantinople during the council of 381 and at Rome for that of 382, mentioned the rivalry between the two cities a decade later, he used as his point of reference not their episcopal claims but their futile wrangling over empty names and their empty granaries.77 Such silences as this are significant. Canon 3 is a dog that consistently refused to bark during controversies to whose outcome, according to the conventional understanding of its significance, it ought to have been directly relevant.78 This suggests that students of ecclesiastical politics have paid insufficient attention to the controversy concerning another text from the same council which would also resurface with explosive effect at Chalcedon, the “creed of the 150 fathers.” “The seemingly absolute silence regarding a Constantinopolitan creed which apparently reigned from 381 to 451” has exercised the ingenuity of successive generations of theologians, whose various solutions have helped transform our understanding of the character and function of fourth-century conciliar creeds.79 The problem of Canon 3 invites similarly creative reexamination of the relationship between Constantinople and other sees as this developed during the two generations after 381.

76. [Cyril] De Sancta et Vivifica Trinitate 15 (PG 75, 1168b). For this work, see Clayton, The Christology of Theodoret, 108–11. 77. Jerome Comm. In Naum Prophetam 3.13/17 (CCSL 76a, 573): Cerne Romam et Constantinopolim cum priori nomine inopiam pristinam commutantem. He proceeds to discuss rioting in Alexandria. 78. Elm, “The Dog that Did Not Bark,” focuses on the (calculated) absence of doctrine from confl ict between Theophilus of Alexandria and John Chrysostom; equally striking, from the perspective of this chapter, is the failure of John and his supporters to exploit any claim to superior patriarchal authority for Constantinople. 79. Quotation from Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 307; Kelly’s discussion of the controversy at 296–331 is magisterial. See also Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 812–20; Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 132–208.

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Between Petrine Ideology and Realpolitik The See of Constantinople in Roman Geo-Ecclesiology (449–536) PHILIPPE BLAUDEAU

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n the whole, it is an easier thing to convene a general council of the church than to ensure that it will be generally accepted. This rule applies to efforts of the Council of Chalcedon (451) no less than to Vatican II (1962–65). Indeed, Chalcedon offers one of the most notable illustrations of this problem in Christian antiquity.1 In the eastern empire, a rival theological model was promoted by the supporters of the deposed Dioscorus of Alexandria, supposedly continuing the ambitious aims of the archbishops Theophilus (385–412) and Cyril (412–44). This model remained sufficiently prominent for emperors from Marcian to Zeno (450–91) to judge it at least credible. Accordingly, those rulers sought variously to crush the Alexandrian alternative (sometimes but improperly called “monophysite”), to circumvent it, to restrict it, or, on the contrary, to establish it in the place of the church’s official teaching on the two natures of Christ.2 But the Council of Chalcedon also opened up a period of tension in the relationship between the sees of Constantinople and Rome. The Christological controversy stirred up by the teachings of Eutyches in 448 resulted in a major geo-ecclesiological upheaval, in the form of a victorious alliance between Constantinople and Rome to Alexandria’s detriment; but it was not accompanied by a clear harmonization of the claims made by each of the two partners. Crystallized by the quarrel surrounding Canon 28, the conflict that followed varied in intensity in the thirty years after the Council, depending largely on the varying degree of imperial initiatives or support, the uneven involvement of the parties, and the different political and military situations in east and west. In a previous article, I highlighted the vicissitudes

Translated by Déborah Natanson and the editors. 1. For a particularly close look at this issue, see Grillmeier, “Das Konzil des Chalkedon.” 2. See Blaudeau, Alexandrie et Constantinople.

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of this relationship, in which the need to maintain the best relationship possible with the emperor was always a complicating factor.3 After a period (451– 57) during which, exceptionally, Pope Leo had at his disposal a permanent representative with recognized status in Constantinople, Julian of Cos, Rome could rely only on delegations, which were irregular and were therefore paid less and less attention, since they had no network of trustworthy correspondents and loyal agents with adequate connections to rely on. Then, largely under Pope Simplicius (468–83), we can trace the search for a new relationship that Rome saw as likely to compensate for these problems. The idea was to delegate to the bishop of Constantinople a role as the apostolic see’s representative for ecclesiastical matters in the eastern empire. This function was poorly defined and was not accompanied by a corresponding reevaluation of hierarchy, jurisdictions, and protocol for the Constantinopolitan church. It therefore only briefly satisfied the archbishop of Constantinople, Acacius (471–90), who was keen to have his see’s influence buttressed by impressive titulature. The Acacian schism opened with the solemn condemnation pronounced by Pope Felix (484), but also laid bare Rome’s failings in effective communication.4 There is no doubt that the modus vivendi wisely maintained with the Ostrogothic king of Italy Theodoric5 permitted Pope Gelasius (492–96) to give up nothing and, moreover, to reinforce a discourse that conferred on his see and no other an ecclesiastical ministry of universal scope. In principle the imperial partner would have to agree and cooperate to make this model function optimally.6 But the reality of the exchange with the court of Constantinople seems very far from this. Except for a brief glimpse under Pope Anastasius (496–98), no real opportunity for cooperation appeared until after the death in July 518 of the emperor of the same name. The emperor Anastasius had memorably refused to receive the legation led by Ennodius of Pavia and Peregrinus of Misenum in 517: “we can tolerate being insulted and despised, but not being commanded.”7 It is also important to point out that the emperor Justin (518–27) and his nephew Justinian, in their correspondence and their government, show a firm and increasingly obvious intention not to be reduced to the simple role of subordinate, while Rome formulated the relevant decisions regarding general ecclesiastical politics with ever greater clarity.8

3. Blaudeau, “Vice mea.” 4. Blaudeau, “Condamnation et absolution.” 5. On Theodoric, see Amory, People and Identity, esp. 195–200. 6. Toubert, “La doctrine gélasienne des deux pouvoirs,” 524–25. 7. Ep. 38 (Letter of 11 July 517) = CA 138 (565.13–14). (References to letters in the Collectio Avellana are given first by their chronological numbering in Thiel, Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum, with date, then by document number and chapter in Günther’s edition of the CA, and finally by page and line number(s) in the same edition). See also Speigl, “Die Synode von Heracleia,” 60–61; Speigl, “Synoden unter Kaiser Justinos,” 3. 8. Magi, La sede romana, 35–103.

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A key period, then, was inaugurated by the letters from Constantinople in August and September 518,9 which informed Pope Hormisdas not only of the accession of an unexpected emperor but also of his intention to restore unity to the churches. Indeed, after the disappointments and the reciprocal distrust, after the maneuvering and the vehement declarations, the time had come when the pope was offered a historic opportunity that, he would later acknowledge, was indeed provoked by Justin and not himself.10 So Hormisdas had to adapt the principles that supposedly sustained the mission of Peter’s successor to an eastern empire where the promise of union put forward by Zeno’s Henoticon was nothing but a memory. It was a delicate enterprise: it required an embassy of balanced composition, obedient, informed, able to follow the painful lessons of history so that Rome’s voice could be better heard, but also able to evaluate the situation and its nuances so as to give the pope a constantly updated analysis of the situation. With such high stakes, the papacy was also being asked to reconsider the relationship it maintained with the see of Constantinople. An entente cordiale was in itself important in order to give credence to the image of harmony restored, in circumstances when Rome did not wish to appear to step back from past intransigence. This intransigence focused on the figure of Acacius, but was also obviously conditioned by the unacceptable (and in any case incomplete) attempt to establish Constantinople as the religious capital of the empire. It is, therefore, this discrepancy between Petrine ideology, not to say Petrinology,11 and Realpolitik on the Roman side that I wish to study here, at a decisive moment that promised to close a thirty-five-year schism and to restore a unity of destiny. It is our good fortune that Roman intentions, the certainties from which they proceeded, the resistance which they provoked, and the adaptations which they displayed are exceptionally well documented, thanks to the renowned Collectio Avellana. However, this collection does not include all of the letters exchanged throughout the discussions begun in 518. Günther’s exceptionally useful study shows that we are missing all letters written or received by the magister militum Vitalian, though they are attested at the heart of the corpus.12 He was probably eliminated by Justinian’s faction around mid-July 520, and his correspondence subsequently disappeared, as was to be expected, from the Roman register on which the relevant section (Ep. 105–243) depends. Other 9. Ep. 41–44 (CA 141, 143, 146, 147). 10. Ep. 140 (26 March 521) = CA 238.5–9, 735.5–27. 11. Th is word was coined by W. Ullmann to underline the ideological importance of the enterprise undertaken by Leo the Great: the pope, as a successor of Peter (and not only of his direct predecessor), is given objective powers—whatever his personal merit and charisma—from the chief of the apostles, himself the sole vicar of Christ. Thus the nature of the office remains sacrosanct and inalienable. Cf. Ullmann, “Leo I,” 41–50, and above all Ullmann, Gelasius I, 61–87. 12. Günther, Chronologie der Briefe des Papstes Hormisdas, 3, 28–29.

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letters, including some from the pope himself, are indicated by preserved dispatch notes but are now missing. The reason for their omission is not always clear. Be that as it may, the dossier remains remarkable,13 and despite the brutal interruption after 1 May 521, allows us to follow the process and its ups and downs with surprising detail for nearly three years (518–21). This collection long interested scholars who, in the period up to the 1950s,14 wanted to know if they could identify a clear winner from studying the frictions attested between Rome and the imperial church. The most famous historian of the ancient papacy, E. Caspar, came down clearly in favor of Justinian, without sparing Hormisdas.15 This conclusion provoked Ernst Stein in a review to complain vigorously against the injustice thus done to the pope.16 Although this tendency to pick sides is now unfashionable, the sheer quality of these works is nevertheless a stimulus to a geo-ecclesiological investigation. I shall underline how the papacy tried to find common ground between the orthodox faith that it professed and the cohesion that it aspired to secure in the church of the eastern empire, and point out the place reserved for the church of Constantinople in this endeavor of communication and representation. It will be necessary first to distinguish the intellectual underpinning of the relationship that the bishop of Rome set out to establish with his Constantinopolitan colleague, then to examine the remit and mission that were recognized as belonging to the bishop and church of Constantinople, and finally to question the nature of this renewed partnership and its potential developments, which often emerged at the suggestion of one of the Roman legates, Dioscorus, a deacon originally from Alexandria. 1. Rome and Petrine Ecclesiology In reaction to the disciplinary decree improperly but generally called “Canon 28” of Chalcedon, Leo the Great was led to reaffirm an apostolic, more specifically Petrine, conception of the ecclesiastical order (the legates to the council had perhaps given the impression that, except for Roman pre-eminence, this area was negotiable). In his letter to the bishop of Constantinople Anatolius (22 May 452), Pope Leo reproached his colleague at length as the undeserving beneficiary of a decision irrelevant to the purposes for which the council was called. More specifically, he wrote: May the rights of the Archbishops (primatuum) of the provinces not be torn away; may the metropolitan bishops (antistites) not be defrauded of

13. 14. 15. 16.

On the Collectio Avellana, cf. recently Jasper and Fuhrmann, Papal Letters. See also Vasiliev, Justin the First, 206. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums 2, esp. 177–81. Stein, “La période byzantine de la papauté,” 137–39.

368 Blaudeau the privileges established in ancient times. Let none of the honor of the see of Alexandria be lost, honor which it earned through the holy Mark, the evangelist of blessed Peter; and though Dioscorus collapses through the obstinacy of his impiety, let the splendor of such a church not be obscured by foreign darkness. Let the church of Antioch too, where for the first time the name of Christian appeared when the blessed apostle Peter preached there, remain in its rank established by the fathers and, having been placed in third position, let it never come to be below itself.17 This arrangement, already formulated by Pope Damasus (366–84), conferred the top rank only on the three sees very closely related to Peter’s preaching, and established Rome’s claim to primacy and its bishop’s role as established heir of the objective powers of Christ’s vicar. In such an allocation, while Jerusalem was conceded an honorary yet subordinate position in accordance with a certain reading of the Nicene canons, no place of importance was reserved for Constantinople. Beyond that, the eviction of John Talaia, dyophysite archbishop of Alexandria, who fled to Rome in 483,18 allowed the popes, first Felix, then most importantly Gelasius, to make it clear, as the schism intensified, that, in accordance with the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, only the first see (Rome) might hear the case of the holder of the second (Alexandria) or judge Acacius. When the Dardanian bishops testified to the vigorous opposition to this from Constantinople, where the legitimacy of the 484 condemnation of Acacius was contested, Gelasius replied vigorously with a long letter obviously meant to be distributed by its recipients. The tone is biting: “Of which see was [Acacius] bishop? Of which metropolitan city was he in charge? Was it not of a district (paroeciae) of the church of Heraclea?”19 The bishop of Constantinople is thus reduced to the simple role of suff ragan, while any concession to the notion of compromise between the centers of political and ecclesiastical power, no doubt yet again suggested by those who argued with him, is firmly ruled out: But we laughed at the fact that they want a prerogative to be provided to Acacius, on the grounds of having been bishop of the royal city (regiae civitatis). But didn’t an emperor live in many periods in Ravenna, in Milan, in Sirmium, in Trier? Have the priests of those towns usurped anything to add to their honors, beyond the measure handed down to them of old? . . . The power of secular rule is different from the distribution of ecclesiastical honors.20

17. 18. 19. 20.

Leo Ep. 106, ACO 2.4 (Collectio Grimanica), 61.23–30. On this episode, cf. Blaudeau, Alexandrie et Constantinople, 207–25, 472–81. Gelasius, Ep. 26 (1 February 496 (495?)) = CA 95.27 (378.17–18). CA 95.53 (387.16–19), 54 (388.10–11).

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Reassured by this body of juridico-hierarchical principle, which in itself seemed conclusive and irrevocable, Hormisdas could thus square up to a new line of argument that appears already to have taken shape in spring of 519. It aimed to raise the see of Constantinople to the level of its pontifical partner, in the name of their common status as “Roman,” while simultaneously fully accepting the status of the elder of the two Romes as an apostolic seat. The first clear expression of this solution,21 which would protect the interests of the capital’s church, appears in the very letter in which the bishop of Constantinople, John (sometimes known as Kappadokes, “the Cappadocian”), abides by Hormisdas’ formula of satisfaction (that is of Constantinopolitan repentance) (29 March 519, letter of 22 April). Having failed to get the legates to compose a specific message22 with which he could have better ensured the prestige of his office, the Constantinopolitan prelate did not give up on the idea “that the most holy churches of God, that is to say yours of the elder and this one of the New Rome, are one; I define that see, the blessed apostle Peter’s, and this see, my august city’s, as being one.”23 “Archbishop” John’s successor,24 Epiphanius, made the same claim, to shared vocation and glory, in September 520. He was, however, well aware that the pope had not taken this presentation of matters seriously. So he simultaneously resorted to a second category of promotion, to qualify his own see as a patriarchate and thus establish it on the same level as Rome. He therefore expressed the hope that “provided that each of the two churches is one, without doubt the glory in praise that is thereby shared also lays open the benefits which arise from

21. A letter from Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to the bishop of Constantinople (where, we note, he is called papa) already seems to reflect a Constantinopolitan propagandist position of this sort, if we accept that an expression, redolent of courtly rhetoric, refers to Rome and Constantinople rather than, as usually thought, Peter and Andrew: “and you have this harmony with the Roman bishop which it is appropriate, like (velut) the twin princes of the apostles, to offer to the world” (Ep. 9 (42.9–15 Peiper)). Despite the communis opinio, found in Shanzer and Wood, Avitus, 136, reference to Andrew in these terms is in fact not very plausible, considering what Battifol, Cathedra Petri, 194, and Dvornik, The Idea of Apostolicity, 160, tell us. The reference is rather to the contemporary holders of the two sees of Rome and Constantinople, united in the supreme apostolic service of the church. Th is missive, based on a hasty understanding of Anastasius’ conciliar invitations, must date to 515 (cf. PLRE 2, 658–59 (“Laurentius 9”), Shanzer and Wood, Avitus, 136). It is probable that in writing it, Avitus had no pretensions of adhering to a program and was only adapting honorifics, but their Constantinopolitan origin might have fulfi lled other goals, at a time when a new union with the papacy seemed on the cards. 22. Suggestio of Dioscorus (Ep. 65 = CA 167). 23. Ep. 61 = CA 159.2, 608.5–8. He mentions his attachment to this model again in a second letter from 22 April: “rightly understanding that both churches, as of the older so of the New Rome, are one, and rightfully establishing that the single see of each of them is an indivisible union” (Ep. 67 = CA 161.5, 613.9–11). 24. Although he is given the rank of archbishop, in accordance with long-established usage, by his successor Epiphanius (Ep. 121 = CA 195.1, 652.18) and by the bishops who consecrated Epiphanius (Ep. 131 = CA 234.5, 711.23–24), it is no more acknowledged by Rome than that of patriarch, also used on the same occasions.

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vigilance for both of the patriarchal sees, so that in accordance with custom, the Lord and founder of all things, Christ our true God, be magnified.”25 Strengthened by a similar formulation from the synod of bishops who participated in his consecration,26 Epiphanius’ initiative was a bold one: for the first time in this kind of correspondence, it conferred on the pontifical see a title whose exact scope was not yet fully clarified, but whose use, shared equally by the two Romes, was audacious, if not provocative. Acacius had in all likelihood already assumed the title of patriarch, and added to it the term “ecumenical.” This claim, denounced firmly if obliquely by Pope Felix, reappears in a series of eastern letters composed on the initiative of Bishop John or addressed to him.27 It may be, therefore, that Epiphanius was floating this formulation so that, if it received no opposition, it would create the idea of supreme co-direction in the name of the two principles expressed (unity of the sees and a patriarchal rank that was distinct but joined by the same claim to universal oversight). Unsurprisingly, Hormisdas no more followed up this suggestion than he accepted Epiphanius’ rank of archbishop: he only noted that his colleague had reached the sacerdotal office in the most happy (felicissima) Constantinople.28 There was therefore no chance of any transmission of the apostolic legacy to the church of a city to which the pope would only concede a name commemorating its founder Constantine. While his correspondents exalted the New Rome, the pope invariably answered that, in his eyes, it was only Constantinople. Faced in his exchanges with the emperor with the repeated use of the expression “royal city” (regia civitas), which underlined the power of the imperial capital,29 Hormisdas sedulously avoided using a name that he knew would be perceived in ecclesiastical circles as an opening potentially leading to a transfer of status that his predecessor Gelasius had absolutely refused to consider. In his eyes, Rome’s uniqueness rested firmly on its Christian refoundation. If he allowed sanctuaria of the most blessed Peter and Paul to be sent to Constantinople,30 it was because they were needed to consecrate a building that was an imperial and not an episcopal

25. Ep. 130 = CA 233.6, 708.29–709.3; see also Magi, La sede romana, 96. 26. Ep. 131 = CA 234.4–5, 711.17–26. 27. For the title of ecumenical patriarch, cf. the addresses of John II’s letters to John of Jerusalem, Grumel, Regestes, no. 208, ACO 3, 76.27, and to Epiphanius of Tyre, Regestes no. 209, ACO 3, 77.1.. Letters from the permanent synod (20 July 518, ACO 3, 62.19–20), from the monks of Antioch (ACO 3, 60.3–4), and finally from the bishop of second Syria (ACO 3, 90.27–28), had already given it to him, after popular acclamations in Constantinople had exalted John’s function in order to obtain more easily from him the complete restoration of Chalcedonian teachings, the condemnation of Severus, and the celebration of the memory of the late bishops of Constantinople Euphemius and Macedonius (ACO 3, 71.33–34, 72.32–33). See also Salaville, “La fête de Chalcédoine”; Speigl, “Synoden unter Kaiser Justinos,” 3–8; Blaudeau “Une métropole.” 28. Ep. 139 = CA 240.1, 739.16. 29. Ep. 66 = CA 160.3, 611.16–17 (Justin); Ep. 116 = CA 192.3, 650.2–3 (Justin); Ep. 119 = CA 199.1, 658.18 (Justin); Ep. 145 = CA 241.1, 741.4; Ep. 120 = CA 196.2, 655.13 (Justinian). 30. Ep. 90 (2 September 519) = CA 190.4, 648.3–7.

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foundation. Since the legates pointed out the strength of the pontifical tradition of retaining apostolic relics,31 Hormisdas could suggest to Justinian what a favor sending contact relics was: they attested the irreducible uniqueness of the see of  Rome, as keeper of precious remains, especially those of the prince of the apostles. 2. Rome and the Apostolic Praedicatio The development of the Petrine program let the pope proclaim that his see had a mission to transmit and to clarify the faith, and consequently to admonish, if not condemn, those who deviated; the church of Constantinople could not boast of such prerogatives. Thus we see declared with striking brevity the certainty that “in the apostolic see the catholic religion is always kept inviolate.”32 The catholic religion could, of course, be clarified by a council, since the aim of such a collegiate authority is to propagate the truth and destroy heresy, but it was up to the apostolic see to summarize the catholic faith and, more than that, to explain it and to ensure its praedicatio.33 That was why it was necessary for those returning to the Roman communion in particular to acknowledge the decisive contribution that Leo had made to the Christological teaching of the church. Specified by the formula of satisfaction, this requirement was regularly reaffirmed by the legates and successively accepted by John and Epiphanius: John was allowed no interpretative ability at the time of signing the formula. So the holders of the see of Constantinople contributed nothing in terms of doctrine, and that was particularly important, as, in the pope’s eyes, the stain of heresy was deeply pervasive. Alongside pious bishops (John Chrysostom, Flavian), whom the city had failed to keep, were ranged the heresiarch Nestorius, whom the formula readily reminds us “was bishop of Constantinople,”34 and more recently Acacius, also complacently marked out as “once bishop of Constantinople.”35 Such regrettable examples called into question the process of electing a candidate to the see of Constantinople, especially when the emperor himself supported the faction hostile to Rome. For this reason, Bishop John, chosen at the end of Anastasius’ reign,36 only

31. Ep. 77 = CA 218, 679–80. 32. The text quoted here is as reproduced by John in his letter mentioning his acceptance (Ep. 61 = CA 159.3, 608.19–20). On the text of this piece, cf. Günther’s apparatus criticus at CA App. 4, 800, used by Grillmeier, Christ, 2:1, 323, n.22 (=Jesus der Christus, 365 n.22, Le Christ, 451, n.22), despite Schwartz, Publizistische Sammlungen, Urk. 109, 169. 33. Cf. Sieben, Konzilsidee, 138–43; Wojtowytsch, Papsttum und Konzile, 349. 34. Ep. 61 = CA 159.4, 608.23–24. 35. Ep. 61 = CA 159.5, 609.10–11. 36. Theodore Lector, HE, E 523 (M), 151: “Bishop Timothy died. John the Cappadocian, originally from Kaloneia in Cappadocia, was chosen by the emperor as leader of the church. Ordained on the third day of Easter [17 April 518], he immediately donned the apostolic vestments.”

372 Blaudeau gradually won Hormisdas’ respect, despite repeatedly asserting that he conformed to Rome’s conditions. Furthermore (the pope’s correspondence would have us believe), since it was not properly controlled by its bishop, Constantinople was the center of numerous movements that were always ready to attack the truth of the faith, and therefore were suspected of long having tried to trick the pope’s representatives. When the African bishop Possessor asked for clarifications in the affair of the Theopaschite slogan promoted by the Scythian monks, he was not only referring to current events when he mentioned “the many traps among which the church in Constantinople labours”;37 he was also using a topos he knew to be readily acceptable in Rome. A place where heresy abounded and aroused terrible violence, the city could not always find a regulating authority in ecclesiastical institutions able to restore peace with a reminder of the faith. The papacy therefore had to use its mastery of dogma to end the long-enduring crises. The apostolic see pretended not to care about the fears of public discord, which, if its correspondents were to be believed, would doubtless occur if there were a return to Roman orthodoxy. Such arguments, in the pope’s eyes, bordered on spinelessness and indicated a structural problem. Hence the joy of the deacon Dioscorus, the most trusted figure in Hormisdas’ embassy, when he made clear, on 22 April, 519, after the reunion of the two sees was accomplished, that: nothing followed in accordance with their enemies’ prayers, no sedition, no shedding of blood, no turmoil, which as though spreading fear the enemies were predicting beforehand. The very churchmen of Constantinople themselves, marveling and giving thanks to God, declare that they do not remember at any time such a multitude having received communion.38 And Hormisdas himself emphasized this more generally by indicating that “those who not long ago advanced under the Devil’s command are vanquished for the accomplishment of their own salvation, with no blood spilt.”39 As well as being crippled on a doctrinal level, the see of Constantinople was considered incapable of controlling the shared calendar of Christian festivals. This point confirmed symbolically the extended competence of the apostolic see, especially as St. Mark’s throne in Alexandria was disqualified, according to Rome, because of its seizure by heretics. The calculation of the day of Easter and its general adoption allowed a restored union to be confirmed on the pope’s terms.40 So John accepted the exactitude of the Roman calculation for the year

37. Ep. 115 = CA 230.2, 695.12–13. 38. Ep. 65 = CA 167.14, 621.5–10. 39. Ep. 79 = CA 168.6, 623.11–13. 40. Hormisdas’ letters (end of 519) that must have made this recommendation are lost. We know their content from the replies of the legates (Ep. 110 = CA 185) and John (Ep. 109 = CA 182).

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520, though indicating that the recommended result, 19 April, was also reached when using the tables kept by his church.41 So in Roman eyes, the church of Constantinople did indeed seem destined for a secondary position, if we only consider the principles of hierarchical and magisterial organization and the inevitable insistence on their relevance. But we should not believe that the Roman claims did not arouse resistance on the Constantinopolitan side. Repeatedly, the two bishops imply that their Christology had gained a fullness of meaning that could not be reduced to the simple pontifical formulas. Above all, the reproach against Rome from the time of the Acacian schism, that of arrogance, was not forgotten. Unspoken during John’s episcopate, it reappeared with the necessary rhetorical precautions from the pen of his successor Epiphanius. He urged Hormisdas to show humility and allow the petitions of those in Pontus, in Oriens, and in Jerusalem who were unwilling to suppress all mention of those bishops who, although judged of pious memory, had not distanced themselves from Acacius.42 There is no doubt that this invitation to be moderate, expressed more firmly by Justinian, also extended, in the mind of the Constantinopolitan bishop, to the nature of the exchanges between the two sees.43 For he knew quite well that there were important attributes that placed his own church in a distinct position of considerable importance and that could not be discredited by the pope. 3. Constantinople: Acknowledgment of a Role The death of Bishop John (February 520) gave the Roman legates occasion to witness how his successor was chosen. The suggestio of deacon Dioscorus is informative: A certain Epiphanius, priest and formerly [John’s] syncellus, has succeeded him. His beginnings seem good, for he says reasonable things and promises that he will keep the rules of the Fathers, and not to destroy the peace and unity that have been established but rather to increase them. Those are then the things he promises; what he can accomplish, we do not know for now; since we have transmitted this letter on the fourth day after his ordination when an opportunity presented itself.44 It must be noted that the special representative of the apostolic see was not familiar with the newly elected bishop, any more than the other members of the

41. Ep. 109 = CA 182.4, 638.2–4. 42. Ep. 130 = CA 233.5, 708.25; see also the letter from the bishops who consecrated Epiphanius (Ep. 131 = CA 234.8, 712.17–18). 43. Ep. 132 = CA 235.5, 716.9–10. 44. Ep. 111 = CA 222.2–4, 682.20–27.

374 Blaudeau legation. This suggests that, unlike the eventual choice for the episcopal throne of Antioch, a certain Paul (to whom we will return), the Roman emissaries were not consulted when the time came to choose the right cleric. If that is how things happened, it was because the emperor and his close entourage wished to show that the apostolic see could not normally aspire to have any power over this process. It was indeed Justin who decided to promote the syncellus, as the latter testifies in his letter of 9 July 520,45 soon confirmed by the missive sent by the synod of bishops responsible for the ordination.46 And, as if the lesson was not clear enough, a delay before Epiphanius wrote to Hormisdas played into this assertion of complete autonomy. But if the pope regretted his colleague’s dilatoriness and the apparent breach of the custom of dispatching a synodal with a profession of faith, he did not contest his elevation and does not seem even to have imagined that the most noteworthy cleric in the embassy, Dioscorus, could have been chosen instead.47 So Pope Hormisdas seems implicitly to have accepted the custom, going back to Gennadius in 458, of conferring the episcopate on a Constantinopolitan cleric, normally from the Great Church.48 It seems that Hormisdas did not wish to contest the original relationship, arising from the imperial will, which strongly conditioned the partnership between the emperor and the bishop of Constantinople. Similarly, he said nothing about the bishop of Constantinople’s participation in the coronation of the emperor. Of course, as Dagron has pointed out, it was really God himself who was seen as anointing the basileus, the capital’s bishop being only a ceremonial agent, albeit increasingly visible. When Justin was elevated following a stormy seizure of power, it was John who accomplished the principal gesture of the mutatio vestis through which the basileus assumed the insignia formerly kept by the chamberlains.49 Yet, without insisting on it, the bishop briefly evoked this role when he submitted to the pope’s formula. Praising the work undertaken by the emperor, he underlined that “all, at the time of his proclamation, loudly glorified God, the ruler of all things, because using my hands he adorned such a head with such a crown.”50 This was a way of restating the close and potentially intimate relationship between emperor and bishop. The pope was not unaware of this. It had even been underlined by his predecessor Simplicius.51 But the lessons of the past led Hormisdas to remember only the most practical consequences of this relationship, regularly observed during the processional celebrations in the city. In the Indiculus of 515, he reminded his emissaries that it was normally up to the 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Ep. 121 = CA 195.1, 652.20–21. Ep. 131 = CA 234.7, 712.6–8. Ep. 113 = CA 205, 664. Flusin, “Évêques et patriarches,” 519–21. Dagron, Emperor and Priest, 68–69, 81–83 (Empereur et prêtre, 88–90, 103–105). Ep. 67 = CA 161.2, 612.16–19. Blaudeau, “Vice mea,” 1088–92.

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bishop of the capital to introduce them to the emperor when they arrived.52 The bishop might, therefore, want to know their mandate in advance so as to be able to influence its content. In the circumstances of the renewed relationship in 518–19, however, John seems not to have contemplated acting in this manner: he had preferred to be represented by four bishops at the first reception.53 At any rate, the pope acknowledged that his Constantinopolitan colleague had formal access to the sovereign, reinforceable by many informal contacts. He therefore had significant influence at his disposal. Consequently, the pope encouraged him to exploit it: Also give encouragement (though his instincts are naturally right) to our son, the most clement emperor Justin, who has been bestowed by heaven on this Christian age, to accomplish what he deigned to promise in his royal letters, that when edicts have been sent to those who even now are turned by misleading error away from the breast of mother church, he might quash the devilish deceit both with the authority of religion and the restrained power of empire, and consider this the greatest of victories for himself over the common foe of all humanity, if with the aid of the heavenly deity he suppresses the poisons of the old serpent.54 For all that, the pope knew quite well that this close relationship was liable to work in reverse, particularly in the form of strong pressure on the bishop of Constantinople to help implement the emperor’s religious policies. The letters announcing the imperial intention of achieving reunion in September 518,55 or explaining its scope,56 show clearly how the desired restoration of ties could be attributed to the emperor. 4. Rome’s Need for Constantinople’s Influence This situation, then, led the pope to encourage his colleague to set an example for the eastern provinces by adhering to his famous formula.57 What did this mean? In the Indiculus given to the legates not long afterward, Hormisdas more explicitly discussed territorial categories, which were at first only assumed: 52. Ep. 7 = CA 116.25, 519.2–10. On the origins of this practice, see Chadwick, East and West, 34. 53. Ep. 64 (suggestio of the legates) = CA 223.3, 683.23–27; Ep. 65 (Dioscorus’ suggestio) = CA 167.6–9, 619.11–620.9. 54. Ep. 80 = CA 169.8, 626.14–23. 55. Ep. 42 (Justin, CA 143); Ep. 43 (John, CA 146); Ep. 44 (Justinian, CA 147). 56. Ep. 140 = CA 238.5–9, 735.3–27. 57. Early January 519: Ep. 47 = CA 145.6, 590.17–19. At this point, the Roman legation had not been formed, nor was it even certain that it would be sent; presumably, defi nitive permission from Theodoric had not been received. Cf. LP 54.2 (1:270 Duchesne), who notes that the embassy was sent cum consilio regis Theodorici; see also Günther, Chronologie der Briefe des Papstes Hormisdas, 20; Amory, People and Identity, 211.

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If in this area (pars), the emperor should make some difficulty, let the bishop of Constantinople with direct instructions make clear to his suffragan (paroecialibus) bishops or those other metropolitans in attendance, who will equally have been set straight by you, what he himself has done. You should ask this of him in every possible way so that, as the testimony of the deed spreads, it cannot escape anyone, even those situated far away.58 The orders to be obeyed are clear enough, but the specialized terms seem to reveal two distinct fields for the bishop of Constantinople’s intervention: his immediate sphere of responsibility and his authority over the metropolitans. Everything was done (on a provisional basis, since the legates had to be associated with what was to be done) as though Hormisdas acknowledged a double status for the bishop of Constantinople: direct super-metropolitan status in an area close at hand, definitely not limited to the province of Europa, or the Bosporus; indirect supra-metropolitan status that might plausibly correspond to the administrative dioceses of Thrace, Pontica, and Asiana. This means that the pope, without specifically acknowledging it, corroborated the areas where Constantinople had devolved responsibility as already defined by Canon 28.59 But it is not even certain that those instructions were restricted to those regions. The mention of the metropolitans present might imply that the papacy sought to exploit the central position of Constantinople, reinforced by the establishment of the permanent synod, to communicate to some prelates who had come from the civil diocese of Oriens. This inference in fact seems to be borne out by the threefold spatial division presented in Dioscorus’ suggestio of 19 June 519: after briefly rejoicing at the situation in the city founded by Constantine, he pointed out that hostile demonstrations, quickly controlled, had taken place in Ephesus (diocese of Asiana), then talks about the succession crisis in Antioch (diocese of Oriens).60 So even if there was no explicit acknowledgment of territorial responsibility in accordance with the disciplinary decree of 451, the papacy considered that various ecclesial spaces were likely to be susceptible to

58. Ep. 49 = CA 158.11, 607.3–7. 59. Let us recall that he confi rmed that “the metropolitans from the diocese of Pontus, of Asia, and of Th race, and only them, as well as the bishops of those parts of these dioceses occupied by barbarians” [or “as well as the bishops in barbarian lands who belong to the above-mentioned dioceses,” alternative translation suggested by Dagron, Naissance, 484] “will be consecrated by the holy see of Constantinople; of course, the metropolitans of the dioceses mentioned will consecrate the bishops of each province in a regular manner, with the bishops of their province, in accordance with the instructions of the canons, while, as has just been said, the metropolitans of those dioceses must be consecrated by the bishop of Constantinople, after a harmonious election performed in the accustomed way and notified to the aforementioned see.” (Joannou, Les canons des conciles, 1.1, 92–93). Cf. de Halleux, “Le décret chalcédonien,” 551 n.173. 60. Ep. 75 = CA 216.2–4, 675.4–20.

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the bishop of Constantinople’s instructions, admittedly backed up by the imperial power. It was in fact to this implicit understanding of the territorial division that the emperor referred when he had to admit that many more of the rebellious cities were located in Oriens than in Pontica.61 If it was, then, admitted that Constantinople’s collaboration could successfully extend to territories where its authority was already implanted, by contrast the pope never accepted that issues concerning Illyricum could escape his jurisdiction. When the bishop of Thessalonica, Dorotheus, played for time, the legates nonetheless conceded some involvement from Constantinople in securing agreement. But after violence was unleashed, especially against the Italian legate,62 another Bishop John, Hormisdas took the business back under his personal control and intended to ensure that Dorotheus was replaced by a bishop chosen by his own representatives.63 However, since the legates were ineffectual, the emperor ended up obstructing the Roman demands.64 He does not seem to have consulted the bishop of Constantinople John Kappadokes much, before deciding to let Dorotheus regain his see with impunity. Throughout the story, John Kappadokes never seems to have wanted to take advantage of Roman difficulties or to be disloyal. Nor did he succumb, unlike several dignitaries of the court, to the active corruption of which Dorotheus may have been guilty.65 Hormisdas, then, found in his colleague a particularly devoted interlocutor. Beyond the solicitation of the emperor and the court, he relied on the close understanding that seems to have characterized the relationship between John and Dioscorus in particular, without having to multiply other contacts. In fact, he does not seem to have developed other networks involving different members of the Constantinopolitan clergy, which we know to have been numerous and organized in tagmata.66 The quality of this relationship is further illustrated

61. Ep. 129 = CA 232.3, 701.16–702.2. See also Ep. 108 = CA 181.2, 636.12–19, and Magi, La sede romana, 67. 62. On that episode, cf. Blaudeau, “A Stereotype?” 63. Ep. 103 = CA 227.3–4, 692.11–21. 64. Ep. 110 (suggestio of the legates) = CA 185.2–3, 641.17–642.2. 65. Ep. 102 (indiculus of the Italian bishop John, the pope’s ambassador, and of the priest Epiphanius) = CA 186.1, 642.15–16. 66. If he particularly solicited archdeacon Theodosius to contribute to the legation’s success in late January 519 (Ep. 53 = CA 155), Hormisdas does not seem to have maintained a privileged relationship with him afterwards, unlike Leo, who managed to cultivate a steady relationship with Aetius (cf. Blaudeau, “Vice mea,” 1066, 1095–96). So it seems likely that Hormisdas asked Count Gratus about the holder of a clerical office of whose importance he knew, but that this approach was unsuccessful in comparison to the collaboration soon developed with John. Still more remarkable is the pope’s apparent lack of concern for the monks of Constantinople and its surroundings. Presumably the relationship, already strained after 484 (cf. Blaudeau, Alexandrie et Constantinople, 483–85), was further damaged by the failure of the 515 and 517 legations. However, there is reason to believe that Dioscorus developed much deeper contacts with the Chalcedonian establishments of the Akoimetai, of Dios, Bassianus, and Matrona in order to fight the Scythian claims. See my forthcoming book Le siège pontifical et l’Orient 448–536.

378 Blaudeau by the scrupulousness with which John tried to respect Rome’s prerogatives in the affair of the Scythian monks, much complicated by the implication of Vitalian and by Justinian’s about-face.67 So one can credibly perceive the outlines of the papal reorientation of the Rome/Constantinople relationship from late spring 519, facilitated by the suggestions of the deacon Dioscorus. This redefinition may undoubtedly seem modest. For all that, it was not negligible. 5. Reshaping the Partnership: Delegation of Responsibility Despite the much-heralded union, many difficulties appeared: the demands of the Scythian monks, problems in Illyricum, objections in Oriens to the condemnation of bishops hitherto venerated, miaphysite resistance and persecution. The pope experienced imperial requests and decisions that were less than obliging. He even suffered a vigorous refusal on the central point in the case of three bishops (Helias, Nicostratus, and Thomas)68 whose reinstallation Rome had demanded.69 Worse, Justinian was not afraid to turn the papacy’s favorite ideological arguments against them in his own letters. He pointed out that the pope Anastasius had made lesser demands regarding the condemnation of the deceased prelates,70 and encouraged Hormisdas to show that he was the successor of the apostle Peter.71 In those conditions, the pope accepted that he needed to rely more on the bishop of Constantinople in order to reach the two goals he had set himself: on the one hand, to reinforce the restoration

67. On Justinian’s about-face, cf. especially Ep. 78 and Ep. 89 (CA 187 and 191); on the sequence of events, see Fraisse-Coué, “L’incompréhension croissante,” 192–94; the legates immediately emphasize that in this business, “the catholic church in Constantinople deeply dreads” the Scythians and their teachings (Ep. 76 = CA 217.12, 679.16–17). The detailed report of the interviews held in Constantinople in spring 519 (Ep. 98 = CA 224.1–7, 685.3–686.20) shows that some meetings, demanded by Vitalian, took place in John’s presence but without the legates (see also Sotinel, “Le rôle des expertises,” 238–40), but that the bishop’s attitude was never questioned in any way. On the contrary, he seems to have always stuck to Chalcedonian Christological teaching, forcibly repeated on occasion (Ep. 98 = CA 224.4, 685.20–23). Involved in his turn, especially because of the arrival of some of the monks, Hormisdas too seems to have had some difficulty in determining which course of action to take—and gave thought for a while to leaving John to pass judgment (cf. Ep. 90 = CA 190.3, 647.23, cf. also Ep. 98 = CA 224.1, 685.5–6), which was to acknowledge his jurisdiction in Th race—before deciding to reject the Scythian arguments and the individuals who had solicited his support. 68. Ep. 114 = CA 193, 650–51. 69. Cf. in particular Ep. 93 (to Justin) = CA 202.2–3, 661.11–27, Ep. 94 (to Euphemia) = CA 203.4, 662.18–24, Ep. 95 (to Justinian) = CA 207.4–5, 666.22–667.10, Ep. 96 (to the ambassadors) = CA 211.3, 670.9–13, Ep. 103 (to the ambassadors) = CA 227.4, 692.21–2, Ep. 105 (to Dioscorus) = CA 175.4, 632.4–9, Ep. 106 (to John and Dioscorus) = CA 171.1, 627.21–628.3. 70. Ep. 132 = CA 235.4, 715.25–716.2, see also Ep. 129 (Justin to Hormisdas, also sent on 9 September 520) = CA 232.6, 702.21–25. 71. Ep. 132 = CA 235.5, 716.9–10 and Günther’s observations in the apparatus criticus.

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of communion with Rome where it had been admitted and to spread it to the churches controlled by Antioch; on the other, not to give up on its application even as far away as Egypt. The first of those two challenges was the more important; indeed, if the general invitations from the pope to the emperor, to John, and also to his legates72 sound like so many recommendations for action both in Antioch and Alexandria after the union was restored in Constantinople, it is because it was in fact the Syrian file that worried his emissaries. Its urgency was certainly pushed by the emperor, but the fundamental aspect of this question was obvious to all. For though it cannot be claimed with certainty that this set of priorities corresponded to precise instructions, it certainly revealed the pope’s awareness that some parts of the Roman east (second Syria, maritime Phoenicia, even Arabia) were more permeable not only to Chalcedonian teaching but also to the influence and the help of Constantinople.73 Based on recent experience, this observation was reinforced by the developments related in deacon Dioscorus’ letters (suggestiones), which were richer in detail than the emissaries’ joint reports.74 It was therefore a concerted effort when the legates tried to ensure that the consecration of a new bishop in Antioch helped repair the evils supposedly committed by Severus, the miaphysite former holder of this see. However, after many difficulties, the emperor, having been unable to obtain the pope’s agreement to elevate Dioscorus to this dignity, imposed a certain Paul, priest of the church of Constantinople.75 The emperor’s eagerness and the local obstacles appear to have been so great that they even considered consecrating him in the capital. If the legates prevented such an initiative, not only because it went against tradition but also because it recalled unpleasant precedents from Acacius’ time, it also seems that John Kappadokes in no way tried to take advantage of the situation to exalt his see at Antioch’s expense.76 Similarly, he informed Hormisdas of the Theopaschite request (in their insistence on the experience of suffering on the part of the Word,77 they show themselves quite close to the theses defended by the Scythian monks), addressed to the emperor

72. Ep. 79 = CA 168.10, 624.2–6, Ep. 80 = CA 169.9, 626.23–26, Ep. 87 = CA 170.2, 627.14–17. 73. Cf. Blaudeau, “Une métropole.” 74. See Ep. 65 = CA 167.16–17, 621.16–27, Ep. 75 = CA 216.4, 675.10–20. The notes from the legates’ reports about Antioch (Ep. 64 = CA 223.7, 684.20–23, Ep. 76 = CA 217.4, 677.21–28) involve Dioscorus, who most probably was behind them. On his particular responsibility in those matters, cf. Sotinel, “Le rôle des expertises,” esp. 237, which does not mean that Germanus, bishop of Capua, was only a foil (Carcione, “S. Germano di Capua,” 34–43). Indeed in formal terms he was the leader of the embassy. It must also be remembered that Dioscorus’ unusual position (PCBE 2, 571–72)—he was a cleric not originally ordained for the liturgical service of the church of Rome—gave him a notable independence in ministry, which made him a potential candidate for a great eastern see. 75. Ep. 75 = CA 216.4, 675.12–13; Ep. 76 = CA 217.4, 677.23–25. 76. Ep. 75 = CA 216.4, 675.14–20. 77. Ep. 136 = CA 183.3, 639.9–13. See also Magi, La sede romana, 69.

380 Blaudeau by the clergy and abbots of Jerusalem, Antioch, and second Syria as well as landowners (possessoribus) in the province of Syria.78 Rather than exploit this questioning of the pope’s line in order to present himself as a mediator, John stressed how little he liked this approach on a theological level. It all looks as if he was generally happy to fulfill the pope’s expectations while making it clear that, in the east, it was to him that ecclesiastical staff and Chalcedonian networks should turn in order to receive a proper hearing. Influenced perhaps by this situation, especially as it had no doubt been confi rmed by Dioscorus on his return, Hormisdas agreed to delegate, albeit with authority strictly limited to the disciplinary field. Th is benefited John’s successor, Epiphanius, at a time after the legation’s departure from Constantinople around 10 July 520, when the pope was no longer represented by an accredited embassy. The emperor’s fi rm requests, expressed as early as 9 July 520,79 then repeated on 9 September 520, underlined the seriousness of a growing phenomenon: But there have been some cities and churches both in Pontica and Asiana and particularly in Oriens, whose clergy and people, when tested with all sorts of threats and persuasions, nevertheless could not be turned to remove and reject the names of bishops whose reputation flourished among them. But they think life is harder than death if they are to condemn those individuals when dead in whose life they gloried when they were alive.80 For good measure, Epiphanius, while being careful to mention the very significant number of bishops who had submitted to his jurisdiction, was equally insistent, recognizing the genuine convictions of the protestors: Our most faithful and pious emperors, rejoicing at the unity and concord of the holy churches of God, have sent to your blessedness, taking up the supplications both of Pontus and the province of Asia and especially of Oriens, among whom it seems difficult and impossible to keep silent about the names of their former priests; and there is such obduracy, that they are prepared to undergo any danger for such a deed.81 Faced with this situation, Hormisdas took time to think, and his decision showed some capacity for reassessing his geo-ecclesiological preconceptions. This relative flexibility may also have aimed to compensate somewhat for the indirect but clear rejection of the Scythian propositions. At any rate, even if he

78. The letter in question (CA 232a) is finally shared by Justin following his own letter on 9 September 520 (Ep. 129 = CA 232). 79. Ep. 116 = CA 192.3, 650.5–9. 80. Ep. 129 = CA 232.3, 701.16–23. 81. Ep. 130 = CA 233.5, 708.16–23.

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did not deny the validity of his own previous demands, Hormisdas entrusted Epiphanius with admitting to communion with him those judged worthy of it, so long as the apostolic see was informed and the writings of the bishops concerned were sent on to him.82 The concession remained limited: the pope admitted that a minimal application of the condemnations prescribed in the formula should be tolerated in the most delicate cases. The justification for this compromise should be noted: “For thus we will be free from the mistake of Severus, or his accomplices, or those like him, and we will not suffer the loss of those who could have been saved.”83 We should remember that the formula itself was very careful to reproduce the traditional Roman teaching on Eutychianism and made no mention of the leader of the anti-Chalcedonians. So, probably on the advice of Dioscorus, who had already made similar points,84 the pope admitted that the rifts in Oriens were more complex and durable than expected. Consequently, the delegation of authority to Epiphanius was extended in order that the greatest possible number might be restored to orthodoxy. It should be emphasized that the pope made his colleague responsible for a mission that would normally have been that of his Antiochene counterpart. He may have known that the latter’s position was difficult, but nonetheless, Hormisdas gave the bishop of Constantinople a distinct role, which made much more use of his judgment and his decision-making than initially planned. 6. Reshaping the Partnership: A Change in Thought Processes But was this a simple operation dictated by circumstances, a concession which we can call tactical? The interruption in the Collectio Avellana does not help us decide. It seems obvious, at any rate, that the pope had to rebalance his conception of the various competencies within the imperial church. Hormisdas was apparently not very interested in the potential participation of the church of Jerusalem in restoring orthodoxy (which is confirmed by his implicit rejection of its status as a patriarchate) to the point where the emperor and Epiphanius pretended that they had to remind him of its symbolic importance.85 He failed absolutely to bring Alexandria back into the fold. We know, indeed, that Justin gave up on establishing a Chalcedonian hierarchy there, as the power of the miaphysite establishment and the strength of its supporters seemed so

82. Cf. Ep. 140 = CA 238.15–16, 737.24–738.7, Ep. 141 = CA 237.6, 726.20–728.3. 83. Ep. 141 = CA 237.6, 728.1–3. 84. Ep. 65 = CA 167.17, 621.22–27. 85. They did this in order to incite him to consider the Christological proposition, Theopaschite in nature, which is present in the letter given to the emperor by clergy and monks, mostly from Palestine and the east. Cf. Ep. 129 = CA 232.8, 703.13–15, Ep. 130 = CA 233.9, 709.24–710.1.

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substantial.86 That is why he discredited the pope’s project of making his legate Dioscorus, himself an Alexandrian, the holder of St. Mark’s see.87 However, the emperor’s refusal inevitably threw the pope’s thought processes off balance. With Alexandria long unattainable (which the papacy recognized as early as summer 519), with Antioch decidedly unstable, with Jerusalem in no position to contribute much, Constantinople’s stock continued to rise. Admittedly, this did not go so far as to change the underlying principles of Roman geo-ecclesiological thought, but perhaps enough to give credit to a subtle adjustment, proposed at an early stage by the deacon Dioscorus, which set the see of Constantinople apart. As early as 22 April 519, Dioscorus invited the pope to pray to God that the faithful (assiduas) churches be gathered, those whose participation was indispensable.88 The legate’s formulation, which was welcomed by his master, implicates not only Antioch but also Constantinople. Better still, it expressed a way of thinking that established the capital’s see in an already long and plausible history of the faith. So he echoed the demands of Bishop John, in his letter of September 518, insisting on the important contribution to faith of the Council of Constantinople in 381, as a way of indicating that this synod increased his throne’s prestige and inscribed it in the great tradition of the  church.89 The contribution of the council of 381 in doctrinal matters was increasingly acknowledged by Hormisdas, discreetly at first, even before the legation was dispatched,90 then more explicitly by his representatives,91 although the work of that council was still unrecognized at Rome on a canonical level.92

86. Cf. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, 247–54. Th is does not exclude other explanations. The economic importance of the Nile valley (principal source of Constantinople’s grain supply) also led to care being taken with its population. Vasiliev, Justin the First, 222–23. 87. Project revealed in a letter to Dioscorus, Ep. 105 = CA 175.2, 631.20–24. 88. Ep. 65 = CA 167.16, 621.19–21. 89. Ep. 43 = CA 146.2, 591.16. 90. Answering John, he speaks thus: “We readily accept your belovedness’ confession [of faith], through which the holy synods are approved” (Ep. 47 = CA 145.3, 589.24–25). 91. Ep. 76, CA 217.9, 678.26–27, Ep. 98 = CA 224.4, 686.3. 92. Leo ascribed no value to “the consent of some bishops given . . . sixty years ago and never brought to the knowledge of the apostolic see by his [Anatolius’] predecessors” (Leo to Anatolius, 22 May 452, ACO 2.4, 61.14–15). He thus confi rmed the position taken by his legate Lucentius, who rejected the so-called canons of the 150 fathers (ACO, 2.1.3, 95). Felix and the bishops of the synod he gathered in October 485 only recognized the three Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon in their letter renewing Acacius’ condemnation (letter from the Roman Council to the priest and Archimandrite of Constantinople, 5 October 485, Ep. 11 = CA 70.8, 158.11–14). Th is rigid attitude is obviously motivated by the desire to affi rm Roman authority by never allowing any advance from which Acacius could profit. Gelasius makes it known that he is aware of the 150 bishops’ work against heresy (1 February or 13 May 496, CA 95, esp. 6–8, 371 = Schwartz, Publizistische Sammlungen, Urk. 88), but it is only the restoration of communion in 519 that encourages the popes, starting with Hormisdas, to review their position more fundamentally. With increasing openness as the sixth century proceeds, as exemplified in the letter from John II to Justinian, they accept the importance of doctrinal explanation put together by the council of 381 and tend to stop rejecting its

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Upon examination, it thus seems that in Rome, as early as 519, they were ready to admit that Constantinople’s ecclesial seniority was not just a de facto situation, attributable solely to an imperial decision, but was part of centuries-old history; Rome granted Constantinople both the right and the obligation to take part in the construction of unity, as long as any political justification for its responsibility was simultaneously eliminated. The see of Constantinople could, therefore, be assigned an established place that raised it above the common episcopate, without, of course, endangering the Petrine order. In the pope’s eyes, he would have the responsibility of using its possibilities in order to consolidate it and thereby to be praised for such a contribution from the apostolic see. At the same time, the pope, aware of the complex relationship with the imperial throne, increasingly realized that the emperor, especially if that emperor were to be Justinian, would aim to impose a unified agenda and calendar on the decisions of the entire church. Certainly, Dioscorus would have wanted to deepen and give credit to the partnership between Rome and Constantinople, with the aim of increasingly strongly upholding the Chalcedonian doctrine of the two natures, if he himself had had the chance of developing an enduring policy of his own as pope. We know things did not turn out that way.93 He only lived a few days after the election in 530 which set him up as a rival to Boniface II, and he was harshly condemned by the surviving party, to the point where his supporters were forced to sign a letter of retraction in particularly humiliating terms.94 To be sure, this open dispute followed the specific fracture lines of the Roman church, and is not easily related to a confrontation between the supporters of the Gothic royal family and those of the empire.95 But did the resourceful diplomacy used during the legation of 519–20, with its adjustments accepted by Hormisdas, have to disappear with Dioscorus, the man who in many ways seemed one of its most credible supporters? The history of the papacy, soon to be faced with the Byzantine reconquest, would prove that this was not the case.

ecumenical status (cf. the letter from John II to the senators, after 25 March 534, ACO, 4.2, 206–10; Magi, La sede romana, 41, 125; Ritter, Das Konzil von Konstantinopel, 215–16). It is possible that the mention of the synod of 381 in a small group of manuscripts of the so-called Decretum Gelasianum (IV.1.2) indicates this evolution, but it might also be a late addition. Anyway, it does not have official pontifical recognition at this point. We should also recall that only Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon are honored in the principal tradition of Chapters 3–5 of the same Decretum, whose layout and publication should perhaps be situated more in the context of Rome (Wirbelauer, Zwei Päpste in Rom, 133 n.92, in the context of the struggle between Symmachus and Laurentius) than of Southern Gaul (communis opinio presented by Mordrek “Decretum Gelasianum,” col. 624, and repeated by Pohlkamp, “Textsfassungen,” 126–27). 93. PCBE 2, “Dioscoros,” 576. 94. ACO 4.2, 97–98. 95. Cf. Wirbelauer, “Die Nachfolgerbestimmung,” 417–21.

384 Blaudeau After tempering a new Illyrian disagreement caused by the succession crisis in Larissa,96 Pope Agapetus (535–36), faced with the necessity of going to Constantinople, must have thought about the policies followed by Hormisdas. He presumably reflected in particular on the lessons of Dioscorus’ legation, whose memory he had implicitly restored from the earlier condemnation inflicted post mortem by Boniface. Agapetus in fact had to be careful to bypass the Constantinopolitan archbishop Anthimus (535–36) while keeping both the favor of the emperor and the integrity of the see of Constantinople.97 Ultimately, this undertaking helped accelerate an important change: by defending and exemplifying a model of the papacy which was still rigid, despite modifications, Pope Agapetus encouraged the emperor Justinian to move in the opposite direction and reinforce and adjust the pentarchic idea,98 already developed as a substitute to Roman ecclesiology. Clearly part of a broader program of imperial government soon to be imposed on Italy, Justinian’s desired system was balanced and shrewd, even if it was not deeply rooted in tradition; it was, in fact, its capacity to be integrated empire-wide that Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) grasped. Less constricted by the emperors after Justinian’s death in 565, this model led to a relative pacification of inter-ecclesial relationships—even if the miaphysite resistance had by now been organized into a stable rival institution. It was left to Gregory, therefore, who, it should be recalled, had served as apocrisiary in Constantinople, to accomplish the aggiornamento that had been prepared since 519: to accept the recently established and functioning relationships between the four great eastern patriarchates. The step is of great importance: Gregory admitted that Constantinople had been promoted to be one of them. However, even while securing such an executive role for the church of the capital, he simultaneously exalted, in a way very different from Gelasius, the magnitude of service due to the sole apostolic see.

96. Without necessarily yielding on the substance. Cf. Agapetus to Justinian, 15 October 535, CA 88, esp. 10–14, 337–38; on this story, see also Magi, La sede romana, 119–22. Seized at the end of 531, Boniface, on the other hand, helped escalate the confrontation by providing Theodore, the representative of the plaintiff (Stephen of Larissa, bishop of Echinos), with a veritable collectio Anti-Constantinopolitana (so Silva-Tarouca, Collectio Thessalonicensis, XII–XIII), invalidating all Constantinopolitan claims to supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesial space of Illyricum. 97. Speigl, “Die Synode von 536,” 113–19. 98. That is, the church being represented at the highest level by the collectivity of the five sees of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

PA RT V I

Epilogue

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From Rome to New Rome, from Empire to Nation-State Reopening the Question of Byzantium’s Roman Identity ANTHONY KALDELLIS It may seem paradoxical to urge the nationality of the Empire while insisting on its cosmopolitan nature; certainly, if nationality implies a common ethnological past the Byzantines had none. But such a past is not necessary, as today the United States of America is witness; and in Byzantium the tradition inherited from the world-empire of Rome . . . [gave] the Byzantines a national unity that overpowered ethnological divergencies—a national unity far more real than any that was to exist in Western Europe till the days of the Reformation. Every Byzantine citizen, were his blood Greek or Armenian or Slav, was proudly and patriotically conscious that he was Ῥωμαῖος. . . . This nationality even tended to mould its people according to one fixed form; and it is as possible to talk of Byzantine characteristics as to talk of Roman and British characteristics. —Steven Runciman, The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and His Reign, 1929

W

hat we conventionally call “the Byzantine Empire” today has been called many other things in the annals of western scholarship, including the Empire of Constantinople, the Empire of the Greeks, the medieval Greek Empire, the Orthodox Empire, and, rarely but more correctly, the eastern Roman Empire. Until a.d. 800, western writers had continued to call it the imperium or respublica Romanorum. All those other terms that emerged after 800 were, in fact, invented specifically to avoid calling “the Byzantines” by their proper name—that is, Romans—and that continues to be their function today even though the need for such evasions has passed. Byzantine Studies is possibly the only field that actively denies the identity of its subjects, and it does so by continuing to ignore basic methodologies that have been in place in the social sciences since the mid-twentieth century. The Byzantines consistently called themselves Romans and could have been offended to be called something else. Moreover, their state had a proper name, Romanía, though we never use it, not because it can be confused with a separate modern country but because we do not believe that the Byzantines were Romans despite what they claimed. A leading historian has recently made this clear: “it does not

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matter that the Byzantines almost always called it the Roman Empire and themselves Romans.”1 This is, to put it mildly, an awkward position for scholars to be in vis-à-vis their subjects. I have a large fi le where I collect the reasons that so many have offered, usually in notes, parentheses, or prefaces, for why they do not regard the Byzantines as Romans. These reasons are wildly idiosyncratic and methodologically inconsistent, even contradictory. They are attempts by individual scholars to justify to themselves polemical conventions that they have internalized without knowing the purpose for which they were established in the first place. The irony is that they would have little sympathy for that purpose if they knew its history. While a few historians have resisted these conventions, including J. B. Bury, Steven Runciman (see above), and H.-G. Beck, their observations on the continuity of Roman history have not been taken up by the field in general. On the other hand, the field is undergoing massive changes, and there is reason to hope that newer generations of scholars will no longer passively accept this negative (and negating) stance. What we need is a rehabilitation of the Byzantines as Romans and an understanding of how that identity structured their culture and shaped (and was shaped by) their history. In the brief space available here I will offer a preliminary albeit novel answer to a big question: What exactly was the entity that we call “the Byzantine Empire” and in what way was it a “Roman” empire? What sort of thing was it—compared, that is, to roughly similar entities—and who did those who lived in it think that they were? This, then, is a question both of modern classification and of the subjective identity claims of our historical subjects. These two aspects should not be discussed independently of each other. I will begin by contrasting two views of Byzantium: that which prevails more or less universally in the scholarship and its exact opposite, which now seems (to me at least) to be closer to the truth. These are, respectively, the “multiethnic empire with a universal Christian ideology” and “the nation-state of the Roman people.” The theoretical issues involved in adjudicating between the two will then be discussed in the form of an essay of ideas, as it is impossible to present all the relevant evidence here. One additional point of concern will be to explain why the standard view, that which occludes the Roman dimension of Byzantium, emerged at all. And in keeping with the aims of this volume, special attention will be paid to the (allegedly) defining role of Constantinople in the articulation and evolution of Byzantine identity. Paradoxically, the City has been used to argue against the Byzantines’ claim that they were true 1. Angold, Byzantium, 2. Quotations to this effect can be offered from the works of many historians. Greek scholars have just as casually dismissed the Byzantines’ Roman identity—e.g., Vryonis, “Recent Scholarship on Continuity and Discontinuity.”

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Romans. Paul Magdalino has recently attempted to mediate between the two positions. While conceding that “Byzantium developed a relationship between capital and country comparable to that of a centralized modern nation state,” he adds that “the emperor was ‘emperor of the Romans’ because he held power in the ‘Reigning City’ [and that] provincial Byzantines were ‘Romaioi’ because the New Rome was their ‘common fatherland.’”2 But were the Romans of Byzantium Romans because of what their emperor and capital were called, or the reverse? Or was their relationship more dialectical? Before defining the role of New Rome in this ideological equation, we must compare different models of what Byzantium was. According to the dominant view, Byzantium was a multiethnic and multilingual empire whose various territories were united only in being subject to the capital, Constantinople. It was the opposite of a nation-state as its ideology promoted Christian ecumenism; it was an empire with “universal” ambitions (or pretensions), whether territorial or religious. The Byzantines may have claimed that they were Romans, but in fact this meant only that they were Orthodox Christians. They were the True Israel and their history as a community was symbolic and based in the Old Testament. (Constantinople is even called New Jerusalem in a few texts.3) In the political sphere, being Roman meant only (i.e., was defined and constituted by the fact) that one was subject to the emperor, who retained the title “emperor of the Romans” for reasons of propaganda. There were no “real” Romans here, as no one spoke Latin. Modern Greek (and Greek-American) nationalist historians have additionally claimed that Byzantium was “really” the medieval phase of the history of the Greek people.4 So whereas the Byzantines called themselves Romans, “in reality” many or most of them were actually Greeks who were only prevented from using their proper name by the (contingent) fact that the church had labeled pagans as Greeks, making that label (temporarily) undesirable. This picture is endorsed in most established scholarship. Every student of Byzantium begins his or her career with a ready-made set of formulas that purport to settle every major issue, allowing scholars to focus on only this emperor, that text, or that icon. But there is now growing dissatisfaction with this model, which takes literally claims made in a restricted set of panegyrical sources and excludes most of what the Byzantines had to say about themselves in order to uphold western narratives of the legacy of Rome. The alternative

2. Magdalino, “Byzantium = Constantinople,” 43. 3. See Fenster, Laudes Constantinopolitanae, 97–131. To leave room for the exposition of ideas that have not been advocated before, the references in the notes will be restricted to a minimum. 4. Th is thesis was proposed in the later nineteenth century by K. Paparrigopoulos and is still widely (though not unanimously) held in Greece. See, more recently, Vryonis, “Recent Scholarship on Continuity and Discontinuity.”

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offered here is a model for Byzantium in the middle period—that is, roughly between a.d. 700 and 1200. The ground was set for it by the Roman conquest of the Greek east in the second and first centuries b.c., while the trends that created it gathered force and transformed the ancient world into what we call Byzantium during the first seven centuries a.d. In the later period, by contrast, between 1204 and 1453, it began to fall apart. In sum, what we call Byzantium was the nation-state of the Romans. It was as much a nation-state as any in the modern period, though it did at times exercise imperial dominion over peoples along its borders. Its extensive core territories were governed, united, and transformed by a dense network of institutions that lay claim to exclusive power in their spheres (military, administrative, judicial, religious, and fiscal) as components of a single political entity whose identity was defined in terms of its population, the Roman people. The proper jurisdiction of those institutions was in theory coextensional with the borders of the state and included all Romans. Being Roman in Byzantium was not a matter of ethnicity, a “mere” legal fact, or an (arbitrary) designation of one’s political “loyalty” to the emperor and the state institutions. It was a national and civic identity that made those institutions possible and legitimate in the first place. In other words, the subjects of the emperor were not Romans because they were subject to the “Roman emperor,” but the opposite: he was the “emperor of the Romans” because his job was to govern the Roman people. He derived his authority and his title from them; they did not derive their collective name from him.5 Consider what Theodoros Daphnopates wrote to Symeon of Bulgaria in the early tenth century, when the latter began to refer to himself as emperor of the Romans: “Seizing some of our people prisoner through your raids and conquests will not make you emperor of the Romans. They are not with you of their own free will, but by force and war. They flee from you and come to us, people of their own kind. If some Bulgarians come to us, shall we call ourselves emperors of the Bulgarians? Of which Romans do you call yourself the emperor?”6 In another place, Daphnopates claimed “that it was abominable for the Romans to accept as emperor one who was not a Roman.”7 Being a Roman meant that one tacitly or openly identified with the social, cultural, and historical consensus that found political expression in the Roman politeia or koinon (which was how the Byzantines translated the Latin respublica of their ancestors). That consensus was formed by a common language, religion, art, social customs, and by the national exclusivity and Roman ideology of all branches of government. These Romans were a nation and Romanía was their state. 5. For a discussion of this reverse view, see Kaldellis, Review of Page, Being Byzantine. 6. Theodoros Daphnopates Ep. 5 (pp. 58–59, Darrouzès and Westerink). 7. Published in Jenkins, “The Peace with Bulgaria,” 291.

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This alternative model will certainly encounter opposition, though I am encouraged by its favorable reception at many academic gatherings. As it turns out, the “conventional” view of Byzantium has never been systematically proven or theoretically grounded in the first place, something that would require a critical review of the evidence and a scrutiny of the concepts involved (what do we mean by “multiethnic empire,” oikoumene, etc.?). We have only formulaic repetitions of a doctrine that has been established through accumulated authority and because it serves (or rather once served) powerful ideological interests. That the issue has generated no sustained discussions is freely admitted by advocates of the standard view, which in their mind is not a problem because the case is so obvious.8 It is anything but that. But Byzantine Studies is a notoriously conservative field that, with the exception of some isolated studies, has not yet given a high priority to the critical scrutiny of its origins and history.9 But the field does now have to evaluate critically the concepts on which it has erected its edifices. So let us review some of the major concepts that are in play in the two views contrasted above. We begin with “ethnicity.” Byzantium was clearly not a “multiethnic empire” in the same way that the Persian, (early) Roman, Ottoman, and Holy Roman empires were. In those empires it is possible to discern various groups that had a more or less conscious sense of their distinctiveness from each other and from the ruling group, whatever the exact basis of their cohesion in each case (religious, ethnic, tribal, political, etc.). What pass for such subgroups in Byzantium are an illusion. The vast majority of the population were Romans differentiated only by region—in other words, they were Romans from Greece, Thrace, Kappadokia, Paphlagonia, and so on. There may even have been stereotypes, usually negative (as these things usually go), attached to some of these regions. But being a “Paphlagonian” in Byzantium was not an ethnic identity that competed with the Roman norm; it only inflected it, and was like being from the Midwest or East Coast in the contemporary United States. There was and is no way to identify the ruling “Romans” of the empire as opposed to their Greek, Thracian, or Kilikian subjects; the very idea is absurd. Every Byzantinist will recognize that the following picture of Asia Minor in the mid-eleventh century, taken from a modern historical novel, is horribly wrong: the land, we hear, was populated “by ancient tribes who acknowledged the eastern emperor as their lord, paying him tribute, but no loyalty.”10 No such ancient tribes can be identified. Yet this is precisely the impression that we give to non-specialists by all our loose talk about the “multiethnic empire.”

8. E.g., Angold, “Autobiography,” 36. 9. Despite its valuable contributions, from a philosophical and critical point of view Cormack and Jeff reys, Through the Looking Glass, was a missed opportunity. 10. Rathbone, The Last English King, 21.

392 Kaldellis From a genetic point of view, the population was of course heterogeneous, being composed of the descendants of many ancient peoples and their mixtures, but this is true of all modern nations, whether they recognize it or not. Many Byzantine historians and intellectuals knew this, and, I suspect, so did many non-intellectuals. But they were not much interested in their ethnic background (as the majority of white America is not profoundly interested in the precise origin of its ancestors). There was, by contrast, a sharper sense that some people had been assimilated to Romanía from more recently incorporated groups, such as Scandinavians, Armenians, Slavs, Persians, and Arabs, and so on. Here our scholarship creates confusion by calling these people, in obedience to the needs of modern nationalism, “Armenians,” “Bulgarians,” “Arabs,” and so on. In the vast majority of cases, however, what they should be called are Romans of Armenian descent (or Slavic, or whatever it might be), and in most cases they should not be called that at all without good reason. There is every indication that they or their immediate descendents were fully assimilated to the customs, language, religion, and social consensus that maintained—and, in fact, constituted—the (Byzantine) Roman nation. It makes as much sense to call the emperors Herakleios or Basileios I “Armenians” as it does to call president Bill Clinton an “Englishman” or Barack Obama a “Kenyan”—even less so, in fact, as the former ethnic attributions are mostly conjectural on our part.11 There is no evidence that these emperors spoke their supposed “ancestral languages” or knew much about the customs of their supposed ancestor. Yet since Roman national claims have never been taken seriously, Byzantinists have filled the gap with modern ones. It is also no coincidence that modern historians will label a Byzantine as an “Armenian” (or the like) overwhelmingly in cases when a modern nation corresponding to that label still exists and presses its ethnic claims to the past. Peoples who have since lost their lobbying power—for example, Goths, Pechenegs, and many others—have curiously lost their right to similarly colonize the Byzantine “assimilated” subject. This discrepancy reveals the modern dynamic behind this ethnicizing discourse. There were in Byzantium, at all times, various groups that did not or did not want to assimilate fully to Roman society—for example, resident Arab and Latin merchants, some of the Jews of the empire, some of its Slavic subjects (the Bulgarians during the years 1018–1185), many Armenians in the eleventh century (and before), and others. Their existence and distinctive identities do not have to be denied by the national model for Roman society. All modern nations harbor such groups, sometimes up to half their population, without calling their existence as nations into question. They are called minorities and provide

11. See now Kaegi, Heraclius, 21: “We have no evidence on what Armenian consciousness, if any . . . Heraclius possessed.” Yet the ethnic model is maintained.

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many opportunities for fascinating research. Their history in Byzantium has yet to be written from a standpoint that is free of modern nationalism, but that is in part because the history of the (Byzantine) Roman nation has also not been written. Our sources make it abundantly clear that not all subjects of the emperor in Constantinople were Romans. Not everyone who served the emperor was regarded as a Roman.12 Instead of the “multiethnic empire,” we should consider the model of a national polity of the Romans exercising imperial dominion over other peoples at various times: peoples whom it did not accept as Romans unless they assimilated to the cultural (i.e., national) norms of the Roman politeia. The second key term is “nation.” Obviously, there is too much theoretical ground to cover here.13 I will address only some common concerns. Two different sets of scholars have denied that Byzantium was a nation, but independently of each other. On the one hand, many past theorists of the nation asserted that national identity and states were exclusively modern phenomena, sometimes by linking them to industrialism. This implicitly barred Byzantium from being a nation-state. However, those theorists were ignorant of the evidence for ancient and medieval societies, certainly at first hand. Their definitions, when applied to those societies, seemed in some cases to fit quite well. That is why a considerable (non-nationalist) literature has appeared in the past two decades that affirms the possibility of premodern nations.14 On the other hand, that Byzantium was a nation-state has been explicitly denied by some Byzantinists, though they have, conversely, generally been ignorant of the theoretical literature on nations and nation-states. In a study under preparation, I intend to argue that the Byzantines fit modern theoretical definitions for being a nation, and that they should join the rapidly expanding list of ancient and medieval peoples that are so understood. But some more common concerns may be allayed here in anticipation. First, we should be careful not to let the (legitimate) concern to avoid anachronism become an obstacle that prevents us from seeing genuine connections between different periods. One common way to appear sophisticated among scholars is to assert that this or that category of human existence as we know it—for example, “art,” “religion,” “atheism,” “mythology,” “national identity,” “economics,” or what have you—is really only a modern invention, dating from the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and so

12. Many examples in Page, Being Byzantine. 13. The theoretical literature is of two types. One views nations historically and categorizes them. The other performs a theoretical deconstruction of national ideology, to which it is often hostile. The result is a somewhat schizophrenic field. 14. There are now studies of ancient and medieval nations and nation-states as well as critiques of past modernist assumptions.

394 Kaldellis on. The effect is to destabilize human existence into a random set of incommensurable historical states divided by unbridgeable cognitive gaps. But most of these claims are so absolute that they can be refuted by only one solid counter-example or, better, by paying attention to the special way in which the category is defined to produce, through reverse engineering, the initially startling claim (e.g., “art” is defined in terms of the contingent circumstances of the past century, thus precluding premodern art by defi nition). Second, in the case of national identity, we must avoid the error of setting much higher standards for a premodern candidate to meet than are used in the discussion of modern cases. It seems silly to have to say it, but we must use the same standards. For example, a Byzantine whose loyalties were “ambiguous” or “local” would no more call Romanía into question than an ambiguous Frenchman calls the French nation into question. To prove conclusively that Byzantium actually was a nation-state I would have to bring forward and discuss evidence from the sources that validates modern models of national identity and statehood. Here I will simply cite a modern definition of a nation-state in which most Byzantinists will recognize the society they study through its sources. It is enough for now that Byzantium be recognized as something like a nation-state because this by itself refutes the view that it was totally unlike a nation-state. Nation-states, then, require a sense of political community, “however tenuous,” and “some common institutions and a single code of rights and duties for all the members of the community”; also, a territory controlled by the state and valorized by religious or historic associations; and “a measure of common values and traditions among the population, or at any rate its ‘core’ community.” Byzantium easily fulfi lls these requirements, with its single dominant language, religion, state apparatus, and homogeneous culture.15 As for the now-mandatory requirement of having an “imagined community,”16 it is likewise true that in the core regions, and regardless of whether they hailed from Naupaktos or Attaleia, or of whether they knew each other personally, the Byzantines overwhelmingly spoke the same language, prayed in the same type of churches, obeyed the same laws and magistrates, served in the same army, shared the same calendar, festivals, weights and measures, coins, taxes, courts, archives, social and political opportunities as every other Byzantine elsewhere; in a word, they shared what our sources repeatedly and emphatically call “Roman customs.” Official statements such as posted imperial rescripts, property assessments and tax receipts, annual loyalty oaths, and the tax census defi ned and continually reenacted and reinforced Roman 15. Smith, National Identity, 8–15. The defi nition is banal; its like can be found in many works on the subject. 16. Contributed to the debate by Anderson, Imagined Communities.

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identity in different contexts, collective and individual.17 Moreover, each Byzantine knew that he had all these things in common with all other Byzantines elsewhere and believed that they were all Romans by virtue of the very fact that they did so. There were no viable competing notions that could fracture this consensus—for instance, ethnic divisions or fixed social classes as existed in almost all other “empires,” certainly “multiethnic” ones. All this made Byzantium the most unified imagined community of its size in the Middle Ages. (And perhaps we should not call Byzantium an empire any more, as there is a tendency to assume that all empires are by definition “multiethnic” in a manner, presumably, that modern nations are not.18) Many historians who are beginning to think critically about the odd cluster of terms by which Byzantium has been traditionally defined are coming to similar conclusions. In a magisterial survey of the early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham notes that some national identities did exist and adds that “Byzantine ‘national identity’ has not been much considered by historians, for that empire was the ancestor of no modern nation state, but it is arguable that it was the most developed in Europe at the end of our period.”19 From ethnicity and nationality I turn to religion, certainly a major area of concern in Byzantine Studies, but one that has introduced a fundamental confusion of categories. Many Byzantinists assert that being Roman in Byzantium really meant that one was Orthodox Christian, that being Roman had no independent value for the Byzantines other than this. To be sure, Orthodoxy was a necessary component of Byzantine national identity, but it was hardly sufficient and was certainly not equated with what it meant to be Roman. This is shown by the fact that the Byzantines recognized the existence of other Orthodox peoples but did not consider them Romans. These peoples were routinely called “barbarians,” even if only in a neutral sense (like that used in modern book titles). Despite the brilliance and popularity of D. Obolensky’s study of The Byzantine Commonwealth, which traces the contours and history of a mostly religious continuum, its author could find no evidence that the Byzantines ever thought in such terms. For the Byzantines, Serbs and converted Rus’ were just as barbaric and non-Roman as the Latins and the Arabs; and Obolensky found little or no evidence that Orthodoxy translated into any kind of closer ties on the social and political levels, even in terms of military alliances against the non-Orthodox. Being Roman was not an analytical category equivalent to being Orthodox. This also explains how Byzantine writers could attack pagan or heretical emperors as “enemies of the Christians” while conceding that they were simultaneously good administrators of Roman affairs.

17. For a striking instance far from what I have called the core territories, see McCormick, “The Imperial Edge.” The historical basis for this development is discussed by Ando, Imperial Ideology. 18. E.g., by Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers, 38. 19. Wickham, Inheritance of Rome, 4–5.

396 Kaldellis The Byzantines also had a coherent view of their collective history as Romans. To be sure, the complexity of their culture enabled a number of “usable pasts,” depending on the specific site in which each text was operating. For example, as a Christian community they could imagine themselves as a New Israel, a group that could include non-Roman Christians. The history recorded in the Old Testament served as model for the history of any people chosen by God, and here there could be some slippage between the terms Roman and Christian as, in practice, most of the time there was no reason to distinguish them (especially when the empire was surrounded by non-Christian peoples). There was also the classical Greek past, which provided models of natural virtue, literature, and philosophy, and was always on the minds of the educated. These two pasts, however, were, respectively, symbolic and literary. A different kind of past, one that played a role in a national ideology, was the story of the Roman people from the Trojan War to the Byzantine present. When the Byzantines considered themselves as a national community, they turned not to Israel or Greece but to Rome. The history of Rome began for them with the Trojan War and continued through the period of the kings, the republic, and the empire of which they were the direct heirs. For the Byzantines there was no radical break in continuity between Romulus and, say, Constantine IX Monomachos—only a change in the type of regime by which the Roman polity was governed (from monarchy to aristocracy or democracy and then back to monarchy). The Roman nation, in their view, existed for centuries primarily in Italy, then around the Mediterranean, then primarily in the east: this was how the history of “Rome” was written by them. The ancestral language of the Romans, they knew, was Latin; then for centuries it was both Latin and Greek; and finally the nation became monolingual in Greek (in the tenth century, the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos dated the final transition to the early seventh century).20 Most of their governmental, political, legal, and military institutions, along with many of their social customs, were recognizably Roman in origin and had been transplanted to the east, just as Constantine had decided to found a New Rome on the Bosporos. A major component of my study in progress will be to show that the Byzantines had a specifically Roman view of their political sphere, what they called the politeia, which was a translation and extension of Latin respublica. This was the most important concept in the Byzantines’ political ontology (along with the basileia), and it referred not to the type of regime that governed the political sphere—only in modern times has “republic” come to designate non-monarchical regimes exclusively—but rather to its source of legitimacy, which was the Roman people.21 20. Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, On the Themes I pr. (p. 60, ed. Pertusi). 21. For the modern evolution of respublica, see Hankins, “Exclusivist Republicanism.” For its use in Cicero to refer to the source of political legitimacy, see Schofield, “Cicero’s Defi nition.”

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Romanía, then, was the only direct continuation of the ancient respublica, and not merely an ideological “reception” or “revival” such as we find in the medieval west and, in general, in any other time and place where the Roman legacy has been claimed. The imperial idea in the west was, anyhow, a bizarre distortion: being an emperor in the west meant that one ruled over more than one kingdom,22 whereas in the ancient and Byzantine Roman tradition it meant that one was the chief executive of a particular respublica—in this case, that of the Romans, namely of a national group. The Roman name is ubiquitous in historical narratives, appearing on almost every page. It is mentioned in connection with boundaries, laws, and customs. It was affi xed to the title of the sovereign, the capital (New Rome), and the name of the state itself (Romanía), and invoked in official documents, coins, sundry proclamations, ceremonies, and the Christian liturgy, not merely in the capital but throughout the national territory. In sum, the burden of proof rests entirely with those who assert that the Byzantines did not have a fully developed Roman identity, and it is unclear where they can find evidence of sufficient weight to maintain that denial given how strongly the Byzantines insisted on what they believed about themselves. A full elaboration of this model will have to present in detail the evidence for “Roman customs,” specifically for how the Byzantines marshaled them as markers of a coherent and recognizably “national” identity, and will also have to confront a range of secondary concepts that have been deployed in support of the traditional model (especially the alleged “universalism” of Byzantium). For now, in keeping with the theme of this volume, I turn to the problem of the relationship between New Rome and Romanía—that is, between the capital of the eastern empire and the nation-state of which it was the capital. Was it true, as Magdalino proposes, that “it was the status of Constantinople as the New Rome which made it legitimate for Byzantines to call themselves Romaioi and their state Romania”?23 There is no question that Constantinople was historically very important for Byzantium. Indeed, at times the Byzantine Empire was more like a vast citystate than an “empire” by any conventional understanding of that term; on some occasions, the very survival of the empire hinged on the survival of the capital. So much (and more) we may grant without, however, conceding the case that has been often made about the ideological importance of the City.24 We must be

22. Cf. Bachrach, “Pirenne and Charlemagne,” 219. 23. Magdalino, “Constantinople and the Outside World,” 151. 24. An article that is still often cited and reprinted that ascribes an (inordinate) ideological importance to Constantinople, and which claims that the Byzantines were unable to view their state in non-theological terms, is Alexander, “The Strength of Empire.”

398 Kaldellis very careful to distinguish between historical centrality (military or defensive, administrative, political, financial, ecclesiastical, etc.) and ideology—in this case, the ideology that had created and sustained Romanía. Now, Magdalino is not among those who deny that the Byzantines were Romans, though he has nowhere fully explained what they may have meant by that other than that their capital was New Rome. But when the Roman element is excised from Byzantium, what is left does appear to be an artificial territorial entity held together only by the center of power. Being subject to the regime in Constantinople wrongly acquires the status of a definition of what it meant to be a Roman in Byzantium, rather than, what I believe it was, only an indication—one way among many others of tracking who was a Roman. That is in part why so many studies have asserted that Byzantium was nothing other than Constantinople and the lands that it ruled. Michael Angold, for example, has recently repeated that, on the one hand, “abandoning Rome and the west to the barbarians meant that Romanitas—what it meant to be a Roman—was being drained of meaning,” while, on the other hand, “Byzantium was a single city, which was more or less identical with the empire. We can see that its imperial claims were largely an illusion kept alive by a mastery of ceremonial.”25 The problem here is partly caused by disciplinary boundaries. Magdalino and Angold are historians of the middle period of Byzantium, not the ancient Roman empire or even Late Antiquity. If they were, they would know that Roman identity had, long before Constantine founded New Rome, ceased to be linked to the physical city of Rome, and that the Byzantines’ abandonment of its empty shell in the eighth century was even more irrelevant to their own sense of being Roman. To flesh out this argument, we have to return to the period in which this volume begins: the fourth century. That was when New Rome was founded and also when we find the first instances of the Greek term Romanía to refer to the entirety of the Roman world—in Latin, the orbis Romanus, or what the Byzantines would call their national state thereafter (referring to the “needs of Romanía,” the “boundaries of Romanía,” etc.). This refutes a common misconception that places the origin of that term in the sixth century. In fact, our fourth-century sources, which are not government documents, refer to it in such offhand ways that we must conclude that it was in common use since at least 300, possibly before.26 Grant Parker has written that “the birth of the name Romanía in the fourth century testifies to the need to distinguish between the City and what had by now become a world empire. It is no coincidence that this came into use only once the city of Rome ceased to hold the

25. Angold, Byzantium, 20, 144, respectively. 26. Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 35; the Passion of St. Sabba 4.2, 8.1, tr. in Heather and Matthews, Goths, 114, 117.

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monopoly of power it did at the time of Augustus.”27 But what is a “world empire”? What we are really dealing with is the assumption of a primary Roman identity by the vast majority of the free population of the empire. By the time that Constantine decided to found New Rome, “Rome” had arguably already become only a symbolic center for the primary object of provincial loyalty, which was “Romanía.” The city of Rome itself (the one in Italy) had ceased to be the political capital of the empire, contained a tiny fraction of all Romans in the oikoumene, and did not supply a large number of the men who governed the empire and set its norms. According to one rhetorical cliché of Late Antiquity, Rome had made the world into a city, and that world had now became the common patris or patria of all.28 In the generations before Constantine, when emperors ceased to reside at Rome, we find a proliferation of provincial cities hosting the court and being called “New Romes.”29 Any place in Romanía could now claim the name, for the idea of Rome had been detached from the city itself. The marginalization of the center matched the Romanization of the provinces. That process was still ongoing in the early fourth century, but had progressed far enough that it must provide the context for the ideological significance of the new capital. Constantinople was meant by Constantine to be, or at any rate soon became, basically a branch office of Rome in the east.30 It was meant to be Rome and was even imagined as a replica of it (even physically and certainly institutionally); despite resentment, no one seriously disputed the claim then (except, in one specific sense, for the bishop of Rome) or denied that such a thing could be done. In Late Antiquity (as among modern historians), “it gradually came to be accepted that Rome might still be Rome without its western half—as indeed turned out to be the case.”31 And the Byzantines certainly continued to believe this strongly until 1453. It is not our right to refute them; at least, we are not acting as historians when we attempt to do so. The foundation of a Rome on the Bosporos meant something different in a.d. 330 than what it would have meant, say, in the first century a.d. It was not a branch office of a foreign power ruling over native “ethnics,” but an imperial city that rapidly became a capital for all the Romans of the east, many of whom were recruited to its senate, bureaucracy, and armies. It was precisely the preexistence of Romanía in the east—all those millions of Romans, who had internalized the norms of the politeia—that made the phenomenon that we know as

27. Parker, Making of Roman India, 207, citing previous scholarship. 28. For some sample quotations, Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, 46. The meaning behind this phrase is brought out by Ando, Imperial Ideology. 29. For some examples, Van Dam, The Roman Revolution of Constantine, 51–52; see also the Introduction q.v., 7–8, 11. 30. See Dagron, Naissance; Calderone, “Costantinopoli: la ‘seconda Roma.’” 31. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, 14, 101 (“Rome, by which we now mean Constantinople”).

400 Kaldellis Constantinople possible, not the reverse. Elder Rome had created a Roman world in the east, and it was this world that enabled the construction of, and gave meaning to, “New Rome,” at least the meaning it would have for the Byzantines. It was, then, not the case that the Byzantine were only called Romans because they happened to be ruled by a city that was called New Rome. The relationship between City and provincial Roman identity was more complex than that and had a much longer prehistory. Accordingly, this brings us to a complex and contested theoretical problem: the Romanization of the east. Romanization in general is a highly controversial term, and is approached differently depending on whether one is working primarily with archaeological or textual material and on whether one focuses on the policies of the center or adopts a postcolonial perspective.32 It is not my intention to advocate one or another definition or approach here as the only correct one, only to note that this debate has so far been conducted among classicists and ancient historians who have not considered the implications of the very existence of the Byzantine “Romans” whose polity was the result of whatever process was under way within the ancient empire. From this viewpoint, Romanization signals a profound ideological and political shift in the provincial populations, not something that can always be tracked through material remains. In the end, it was not so much about baths, hippodromes, arches, and shaving (though it was also about those things); it was about coming to believe that you were a Roman whereas before you might have been a Greek (or whatever), of shedding any prior national, tribal, ethnic, religious, and even civic identities and memories that potentially conflicted with being Roman.33 “New” Romans from Gaul, for instance, amazingly soon after the conquest looked back to Caesar as their “ancestor” and not to Vercingetorix.34 Rome now represented a system of normative values that the provincials accepted as exercising legitimate authority over them. But this “Rome” was not quite the same as the city of Rome; it was the collective society of Romans who lived throughout the empire, or, as the Byzantines called it, Romanía. This is what happened during Late Antiquity in the regions that concern us. In the second century a.d., there were still sophists and intellectuals who were trying to defend various notions of Greek identity in the face of what scholars call “Roman power.” To sketch a long process in a few strokes, in the second half of that century we find the first writer of Greek of eastern origin, Lucian, refer to the Romans in the first-person plural (in his satirical work on How

32. See the (not always impartial) synthesis in Hingley, Globalizing Roman Culture. For a critique of postcolonial approaches, see S. Dmitriev, “(Re-)constructing the Roman Empire.” 33. An excellent introduction to this process is Ando, Imperial Ideology. 34. Woolf, Becoming Roman; for the erasure of pre-Roman memories in the east, see Millar, Roman Near East; Wood, ‘We Have No King.’

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History Should Be Written).35 By the early third century, we have a Greekspeaking Roman senator from Bithynia (but resident in Rome), Dio Cassius, who wrote a history of his city (Rome) in Greek, where he betrays no sense that he was in any way less or differently Roman than his senatorial colleagues from Italy. He certainly knew Latin (the first Roman historian, Fabius Pictor, in the second century b.c., had also written his Roman history in Greek). Since a.d. 212, all free inhabitants of the empire were Roman citizens. By the fourth century we find the use of the term Romanía to designate the patris of all Romans throughout the empire. By then it was only Libanios and perhaps a few others who were willing to call themselves Greeks in a way that set them apart from Romans.36 After 400, there were hardly any enclaves of ethnic separatism in the lands that would become Byzantium, and even those (e.g., the Isaurians) did not hold out for long. Certainly there were no ethnic “Greeks” left. This aspect of Romanization—what might be, but has not yet been, dubbed “the making of Byzantium”—was one of the most far-reaching transformations that occurred in the ancient world, yet it has received amazingly little study, being overshadowed by its more attention-grabbing contemporary, Christianization. One reason for this is, again, a disciplinary break, this time operating in the opposite direction. The revival of interest in the Second Sophistic has enlisted the energies of classicists to study a “later” period, but classicists study that material looking back to antiquity and not forward to Byzantium. They generally know little about what happened after Philostratos, especially in terms of the dynamic between Greek and Roman identities that I sketched above (Philostratos coined the term Second Sophistic, wrote its history, and therefore functions as its terminus). This distorts our picture of the second century, which is treated as a period of a robust Greek cultural revival and, in some cases, opposition to “Roman power.” In reality, this aspect of the Second Sophistic disguised the death throes of Greek identity. On the other side of the great divide that is the mysterious third century, we have scholars of Late Antiquity and Byzantium. But they have not been interested in the question of the demise of Greek identity (the version of Greek identity that classicists are interested in, not its Christian redefinition) because by this time it was a mute question: almost all subjects were already Romans (in terms of identity, not merely legal status). And so the former group generally does not know (or has avoided) the fact that its subject dynamic was about to become extinct, while the latter do not care about it because by, say, a.d. 300, it had already become extinct (and other historical trends claim their interest in the fourth century, such as “holy men”).

35. In sections 14, 17, 29, 31, cited and discussed by Swain, Hellenism, 313. 36. For the debate over Hellenism on the pagan side in the fourth century, see Dagron, “L’empire romain d’orient.”

402 Kaldellis It is time for Byzantinists to claim more territory for their field and reach into the second century as a proto-Byzantine period, rather than concede more and more ground to “Late Antiquity.” For instance, Polymnia Athanassiadi has offered a striking interpretation of Ailios / Aelius Aristeides, a man steeped in Hellenic culture, also an admirer of Rome who wrote a programmatic statement on behalf of emerging Romanía, and who was renamed as Theodoros in a dream by his personal healing god, Asklepios (“tel un moine byzantin”)!37 This man was a Byzantine in all but name, incarnating in his person the complex articulation of Byzantine culture. If, then, we look past the chronological breaks imposed by the academic division of labor and consider what the sheer fact of Byzantium must mean for our understanding of ancient developments, we can discern crucial trends in the evolution of Roman identity even in antiquity itself that remain invisible if those breaks are respected. By looking at Byzantine Romanía we can devise a new context for interpreting the transition from pagan Rome on the Tiber to Christian New Rome on the Bosporos. A second line of reasoning, based in turn on the Byzantine evidence, would go as follows. The Byzantines did not forget the theoretical and historical independence of people, City, and territory. The overwhelming majority of Byzantine Romans did not live in the capital and yet were just as Roman as those who did. Moreover, a considerable proportion of the policymakers, officials, and even emperors in the capital were themselves of provincial origin. Constantinopolitans were not a separate class or ethnic group, their urban snobbery notwithstanding.38 So what went on in Constantinople in a very real sense gave historical and institutional expression to the broad consensus of Roman provincial society. It was the national capital. The Byzantines knew that the capital had been moved in the past without abolishing the basic continuity of the Roman polity. And when Constantinople was lost in 1204, the Byzantines regrouped at Nikaia and other places. They did not cease calling themselves Romans and explicitly proclaimed to their enemies that their being Romans had nothing to do with possessing the City (though certainly they desired it greatly). No less a figure than Ioannes III Doukas Batatzes declared to Pope Gregorius IX in 1239 that “he who is emperor rules over a nation (ethnos) and a people (laos) .  .  . and not over rocks and wooden beams, of which walls and towers are made [i.e., of the City].”39 The Byzantines’ Roman identity had deeper roots than our scholarship has yet imagined; it was not merely a function of Constantinople.

37. Athanassiadi, Vers la pensée unique, 37–38; the text is Sacred Tales 4.53. 38. Cf. Magdalino, “Byzantine Snobbery.” Th is essay is nicely complemented by Ševčenko, “Constantinople Viewed from the Eastern Provinces.” 39. Ioannes III Doukas Batatzes, Letter to Pope Gregorius IX (p. 375). For (Byzantine) Roman nationalism after 1204, see Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, ch. 6.

From Empire to Nation-State

403

We should not, however, underestimate the importance of Constantinople. Many Byzantine orators did sometimes give the impression that the empire was Constantinople, a City they praised in superlative terms. Men of the capital themselves, they sometimes forgot to talk about the rest of Romanía. On the level of ideology and rhetoric, Constantinople was not merely a place with the highest concentration of Romans but was also endowed with a significance that no other region in the empire possessed. Historically, too, the state did on occasion sacrifice provinces to protect the capital (though usually this made good strategic sense). And the passion with which they sought to regain it after 1204 revealed something more than strategic planning. Not all the territory of the nation was valorized equally. Constantinople held a unique and surpassing position. But this does not affect the overall argument. Modern nations likewise do not configure and valorize their territories in consistent ways. As centers of power and state formation, many modern capitals rival the role that Constantinople played in Romanía. And the ideological aspect is also not unparalleled. Consider the emotional importance of Kosovo for Serbia or Jerusalem for Israel—contested places labeled by spokesmen in either country as the “heartland of our nation and religion.” Holy places and nationalism are hardly incompatible. In 2006, a Serbian bishop called Kosovo “our spiritual and cultural cradle, our Jerusalem.”40 Constantinople was described in similar terms by some Byzantines, precisely as a New Jerusalem. But such expressions were in part made possible by the fact that they were under no pressure to imagine the Roman nation apart from its capital. After 1204, they were forced to make that leap, and then we see, again, what it was that mattered underneath the rhetoric. (The Serbs also have to cope with the loss of their “spiritual and cultural cradle,” yet just as in the Byzantine case, this will certainly not result in the dissolution of their nation.) Much work remains to be done. The present contribution only sketches the outlines of an argument that creates theoretical space for a new interpretation of Byzantium and provides a deeper background against which to understand the symbolic role of its capital, New Rome, in the articulation of its Roman identity. The primary evidence now has to be interrogated as to the historical modalities and ideologies of this identity; the institutions that created and sustained Romanía; the place of the emperor, capital, and state in its maintenance; the historical process through which it emerged in Late Antiquity; the history of its evolution and eventual dissolution; and the causes of the modern suppression of its very existence. Only then may we discuss its practical limitations and ideological contradictions, which all identities at such a level of

40. Kathimerini (English ed.), 29 June 2006.

404 Kaldellis abstraction exhibit, and determine its unique qualities against the background of modern theory. This will be a great labor, but it is a necessary one. A civilization as important as that of Byzantium can no longer be hidden behind denaturing labels and imprecise concepts. One day the Romans of Byzantium will take their place among the peoples who are known to have lived in this world.

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Index

Abinnaeus, missions to imperial court, 315–16, 318 Acacian Schism, 25, 365, 366, 368, 373 Acacius, bishop of Constantinople, 365, 366, 368, 370, 371, 373, 379 acclamations, 184, 185, 284, 288, 370n27 Acilii Glabriones, senatorial clan, 177 Adelphius, Claudius Celsinus, PVR, 328 and n21 Adelphius, Valerius Faltonius, PVR, 176, 181 adventus, imperial, 6–7, 14, 19, 183, 188, 211, 226 Aetius, general, 162, 164, 169, 177, 178, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 278, 279 and n54, 280n56, 282n62, 284, 285n72, 286, 290, 377n66 Aetius, PVC, 183n42 Africa, diocese/ proconsular province, 165, 203, 222, 243, 247, 311 in the Vandal Kingdom, 27, 273, 277, 283 Agapetus, bishop of Rome, 384 Akoimetai, 125–26, 134, 377n66 Alaric, king, magister militum, 244, 269, 280n55, 283 (see also Goths) Albinus, Ceionius Rufius, PVR, 149n52 Albinus, Flavius, PVR, 151–52, 171, 176, 177, 181, 182 Alexandria, 6, 8, 37n22, 38, 40nn29–30, 48, 50 and n62, 117, 224, 358, 315 artistic depiction, 50 see of, 10, 24, 25, 60n21, 195, 198, 346, 348–54, 358–59, 363n78, 364, 367, 368, 372, 381, 382 Tyche of, 48

Ambrose, bishop of Milan, 23–24, 191, 199, 243n7, 350n23 Ammianus Marcellinus, historian (see also Index Locorum) on Constantinople, 12, 56n9, 261 on Rome, 12, 19, 32–34, 36–37, 38, 39 and n6, 51n4, 153, 242, 255n39, 330 Syrian origin, 242 Anastasius, bishop of Rome, 365, 378 Anastasius, emperor, 64, 124–25, 187n20, 193, 365, 369n21, 371 Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, 189, 193, 367, 382n92 Ancyra, 52 and n30, 250, 309 Anicia Juliana, aristocrat, 75 Anicii, aristocratic clan, 175, 268, 328–29 Anonymous panegyrist of Boniface and Sebastian, 272–74, 277–78, 289 Anthemius, emperor, 172, 258–59, 264, 267, 276–77, 278, 283, 284 Anthemius, Praetorian Prefect of Oriens, 194 Anthimus, bishop of Constantinople, 384 Antioch, 7, 12–13, 40nn29–30, 54, 56n11, 116–17, 153, 184, 186, 194, 196, 200, 224, 235n35, 302, 307, 315–16, 309, 310, 315, 362 artistic depiction of, 50, 51n64 imperial presence in, 7, 54, 184, 186, 200, 315, 316 see of, 24, 54, 348–50, 352–54, 356, 359, 361n69, 374, 376, 379, 380, 381, 382, 384 Tyche of, 29, 42–43, 48, 50n63

437

438

Index

Antiochus, praepositus sacri cubiculi, 72, 102n37, 155 Antonine Itinerary (Itinerarium Antonini), 294, 298, 304, 308 Apollodorus, aristocrat, 174–75 Aquileia, 7, 29n40, 50, 164, 209, 309 Aquitania, 297, 303–4 Arcadius, emperor, 16, 17, 27, 56n9, 57–58, 82n8, 106, 109 and n63, 191–93, 195n47, 196–200, 211, 238, 243, 244, 245, 252n30, 262, 285, 328–29 aristocracy Constantinopolitan, 72, 155, 246, 252, 256 Gallic, 182, 208 Italian, 175, 182, 208, 268 Roman, 7, 18–19, 22, 26, 54, 74, 137, 138, 137, 151, 152, 174–77, 242, 265–66, 269–70, 279–80, 328–32 Arles, 40n29, 56, 168–69, 303, 309, 317 Aspar, magister militum, 190 Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, 194 Attila the Hun, 162, 166, 167 Augustine (see also Index Locorum) as panegyrist, 267n4 Aulon, 297, 301, 303, 308, 309, 310 Ausonius, 39–40, 51, 52, 203, 221–22, 246, 261, 267 (see also Index Locorum) Autun, 204, 206, 216, 218–19 Auxentius (Fonteius Litorius?), PVR, 169, 177, 181, 182 Auxiliaris, Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, 174–75, 179, 180–82 Avienus, Gennadius, aristocrat, 167 Avitus, bishop of Vienne, 269n21 Avitus, emperor, 276, 277 and n44, 278, 280n56, 283, 284, 286, 287 and n82, 290 Basil of Caesarea, bishop, 191, 355 Bassus, Junius, PVR, 72 Bauto, magister militum, 267n4 bishops, 24 (see also under various individuals, Alexandria, see of; Antioch, see of; Constantinople, see of; Rome, see of ) and secular power, 26, 53, 167–70, 183–200 Blemmyes, mission to Constantinople, 315 Boethius, panegyrics of, 267 and n4

Boniface, general, 272, 273–74, 278, 279n54 Boniface I, bishop of Rome, 168 Boniface II, bishop of Rome, 383, 384 Bordeaux, 40, 203, 218, 297 as final destination of Bordeaux Itinerary 300, 311, 312 as origin of Bordeaux traveler 313 as starting point of Bordeaux Itinerary 295, 297, 300, 302, 303, 308, 309, 311, 312 Bordeaux Itinerary, 12, 112, 293–324 (on narrator see Bordeaux traveler; see also Index Locorum s.v. Itinerarium Burdigalense) dating, 293, 298, 309, 311–12 geography distance totals in, 308–10 Gallic section, 301 Holy Land section, 293, 294, 295, 298, 300, 301, 307, 309, 310, 311 Italian sections, 301 landmarks in, 295 place-names in, 302, 304 route, 293, 297, 298, 301, 309–10 typology of stages, 295, 303, 304 units of distance, 302, 303–4, 305 history of editing and scholarship, 293n1, 296–97, 309 narrator. See Bordeaux traveler structure and text, 299, 302, 306–7, 308–12 analytical diagram, 298 (fig. 13.1), 311 audience of, 301 character of document, 293, 312 as pilgrim text, 294, 297, 302 redaction, 298, 300, 309, 311, 312 source material, 311 style of Latin, 299, 301–2 textual transmission and problems, 298, 300–301, 306–7 title, 297, 298, 311 tralatician elements in, 303, 305 Bordeaux traveler (anonymus Burdigalensis) accuracy, 305 character as author, narrative voice, 296, 299, 301–2 intentions, 296, 297, 299, 300, 313 marginal scholia, 307 religious identity, 293, 299, 300 as pilgrim, 294, 297

Index 439 status, gender, origin, linguistic ability, 300 subjective experience, 304, 307 visitor to Constantinople, 12, 297–99, 300, 311, 323–24 visitor to Italy, 301 visitor to Milan, 301 visitor to Rome, 300, 301 Büyükgerme, 123, 130 Byzantium/Byzantion (city), 8, 9, 23, 57, 60, 72, 118, 128, 155, 223, 224, 358n59 (see also Constantinople) destruction by Gallienus, 255 Greek city, 12n43, 104, 114 Severan city, 99–100, 103–4, 112 survival in the topography of Constantinople, 9, 11, 18, 102, 105, 107, 112 Byzantium (the eastern Roman Empire), 29–30, 387–404 as a nation? 393–96 Byzas, 246, 256 Cameron, Alan, 21, 244–45, 250–51, 254, 260, 261, 331 capital, concept of, 4, 7, 8, 224 and nn5–6 Carausius, usurper, 220 Carthage, 8, 40, 117 Cassiodorus, 267n4, 280n57 (see also Index Locorum) Ceionii, senatorial clan, 175 Celestine I, bishop of Rome, 168 Celidonius, bishop of Besançon, 168 Chalcedon, 213, 246, 299, 309, 312, 313 Council of. See Church councils Church councils (see also Index Locorum) of Chalcedon (451), 25, 190, 345–47, 363, 364, 367, 368 of Constantinople (381), 11, 17, 24–25, 44n53, 53–54, 235–36, 345–63, 382 of Ephesus (431), 346, 382n92 of Nicaea (325), 24, 60n21, 321, 346, 352–54, 356, 382n92 Synod of the Oak (403), 197–98 Vatican II (1962–65), 364 Christology, 364–84 Chrystostom, John. See John Chrysostom Cicero (see also Index Locorum), 206n16, 207, 396n21

civic rivalry, 38–41 between Rome and Constantinople, 21, 27, 32, 54, 59, 249, 262, 358, 363 civilitas, imperial, 15, 188 Claudian (Claudius Claudianus) 19–21, 241–64, 265–66 (for individual poems see Index Locorum) bilingualism, 241n1, 264 career, 241–43, 268, 269–70, 273, 289 on Constantinople, 9n25, 41, 241–61 literary reception, 269n12, 277, 287 by John Lydus, 63–64 by Sidonius, 258–59, 264, 272–73, 275–76, 277–78 origins, 261, 264, 273 and n24 “paganism”, 242 and n4, 260 and n13 publication of works, 287 political poems, as propaganda, 244–45, 250–51, 261, 265–66, 269–91, 274, 278, 280, 283–84, 286–88 political poems, as unified series, 245, 261–63, 269, 277–78, 283 relationship with Stilicho, 241, 242, 243–45, 262, 263n66, 268, 269–71, 277–78, 280, 283, 287–88, 289 and Roman aristocracy, 241, 242, 260, 269–70, 278, 280, 288–89, 329 on Rome, 20 and n79, 34 and n6, 36, 51, 152 and n30, 211n36, 226 and n15, 241–42, 245, 247, 246–50, 255–56, 250, 261–64 statue and inscription, 21, 241–42, 262, 264, 269, 277, 284–87, 289 style and metre, 246 and n18, 268, 269–70 text and translation, 247n21, 248 and n22, 256 and n43, 262 and n64 Clearchus, PVC, 126, 149 proconsul of Europa? 235n35 Codex Calendar of 354, 48 coinage iconography, 11, 40n30, 42, 43–44, fig. 2.2 (p. 43), figs. 2.3–2.4 (p. 45), 165, 166, 173, 257, 259 Consentius, Gallic aristocrat and charioteer, 172 Constans I, emperor, 260 Constantine I, emperor, 34, 53, 59, 74, 107, 163, 166, 204, 205, 215–16, 219, 233, 235nn34 and 36, 238, 249, 313, 314, 316, 320–21, 322, 357

440

Index

Constantine I (continued) Battle of the Milvian Bridge, 207, 209n29, 215, 218, 220–21, 329 at Constantinople, 9, 13n49, 14, 15, 16 and n65, 23, 24 and n97, 41, 55, 59, 60, 99, 108, 112, 113, 115, 117, 154, 212, 255, 259, 313, 314, 353n36 as founder of Constantinople, 3–4, 8–12, 19, 29, 60, 99–100, 117, 213, 224nn5–6, 246, 249, 256, 370, 398, 399 panegyrics to, 205, 215–17 (see also Nazarius) at Rome, 19, 22, 23, 29, 215–16 Constantine II, emperor, 260 Constantine V, emperor, 131n57, 133 and n64, 135 Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, emperor, 60n9, 112, 396 (see also Index Locorum) Constantinople (see also Byzantium, metonymy, personifications) anti-Constantinopolitanism, 12, 243, 244–45, 250–51, 253–57, 260–64 luxury, 246, 254–56 population, 9, 250, 252, 256 quality of building, 255–56 archaeological evidence, state of, 5, 55–57, 81, 82, 154 aristocracy. See aristocracy, Constantinopolitan association with imperial fortunes, 226, 233 called Byzantium, 9, 246 and n19, 358n59 “Christianization”, 23, 115 churches, 24, 74–77, 115 Caenopolis, 92, 107 Holy Apostles, 14, 17, 55, 74, 94, 100, 108, 109, 115, 196 Homonoea, 92, 107 S. Acacius, 93, 108 S. Anastasia, 106 S. Irene, 51n65, 102, 106 S. John Stoudios, 75 S. Mokios/Mocius, 15, 54, 60, 75, 175 S. Paul, 106 S. Polyeuktos, 75–76, fig. 3.10 (p. 76) S. Sophia, 14, 24n17, 27, 28, 71, 74, 77–78, fig. 3.11 (p. 77), fig. 3.12 (p. 78), 83, 87, 102 S. Thomas (at Drypia), 197

Theotokos Chalkoprateia, 75–76, fig. 3.10 (p. 76) civic topography amphitheatre, 87, 101 and n33, 102, 103 aqueducts, 64–66, fig. 3.4 (p. 64), fig. 3.5 (p. 65), 116–35 of “the city”, 124n27, 127 of Hadrian, 118, 120, 124, 127, 128, 133, 134 of Valens (or Valentinian), Bozdoğan Kemeri, 108, 118, 123, 128, 133, 134 Basilica of Illus, 127, 128 baths, 56 and n9, 84, 87, 89, 91, 91, 97, 98–99, 104, 118, 120, 126, 128, 129 and n51, 134 “of Constantine”, 94, 108 of Zeuxippus, 56, 71, 87, 102–3, 120, 128 Capitolium, 92, 107, 108, 111n82 cisterns, 66–67, fig. 3.6 (p. 67), fig 5.2 (p. 120), 109, 121, 127, 128–29 of Aetios, 124 of Aspar, 124 Basilica, 82, 127, 128 Binbirdirek, 123, 128 of Bonus, 131 Fildamı, 131 Forty Martyrs, 131 of Mokios, 124 Unkapanı, 127 columns, of Arcadius, 57–59, fig. 3.1 (p. 58), 95, 109 of Constantine, 4, 51, 90, 105, 113 of Marcian, 123 and n25 of Theodosius, 17, 55, 57, 91, 106, 113 “Colossus”, 60n19, 112 and n75 Fora of Arcadius, 57, 109, 120, 156 “Bovis”, 109 and n62 of Constantine, 9, 99, 100, 102, 105, 128 of Justinian, 71 of Theodosius (‘Tauri’,) 57, 90, 91, 95n24, 104, 106–7, 113, 120, 123, 156, 189 fountains, 129 Golden Gate, 84, 85, 95, 100, 109 gradūs, 85, 87, 98, 113–14

Index 441 harbors, 57, 66n36, 88, 90, 95, 97, 101–2, 104–5, 107, 110, 114, 117, 246 Hebdomon, 14, 18, 187, 189–90, 225, 233, 246 Hippodrome, 15, 60n19, 17, 88, 99, 101, 112, 191–93 houses, 71, 72, 73, fig. 7.3 (p. 73), 114–15, 154–56, 256 Mesē, 58, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106 and n54, 107, 108, 109, 113, 131, 156 Miliarium (Golden Milestone), 103, 112 obelisks, 59–61, fig. 3.2 (p. 61), 90, 104 and n49, 112 of Theodosius, 17, 59, 101, 112 ‘Palace’ of Antiochus, 72–73, fig. 3.9 (p. 73) Palace, Great, 71, 86, 99, 101 and n34, 120, 128, 134, 246, 251, 256, 262 ‘Palace’ of Lausus, 72–73, fig. 3.9 (p. 73) Pittakia, 129 regions, 99–112 Region XIV, difficulties of location, 110–11 Rhegion (Regium), 111–12 Senate House (Region II), 87, 102 and n39, 256 sewers, 117 statues, 9 and n27, 30, 71, 91, 106, 109n63, 113, 198, 199, 285n72 (see also columns) in the Baths of Zeuxippus, 56, 103 of Justinian, 56, 71, 82 “pagan”, 9n27, 11 of Rome and Cybele, 11, 259–60 theatre (‘Lesser’), 102 and n38 Strategion, 90, 104, 118, 128 Tetrastoon, 99, 103, 259 walls, 41, 62–64, 84, 85, fig. 3.3 (p. 63), 94, 105, 108, 109, 110, 117, 121, 130, 249–50 (see also metonymy) Long walls of Thrace, 63–64, fig. 3.4 (p. 64), 121, 122, 124, 133 corn dole, 9–10, 236 Council of. See Church councils as destination in Bordeaux Itinerary, 112, 296, 297, 308, 309, 310, 311 distribution of bread, 113–14

earthquakes, 129, 133, 186, 187, 189, 253, 254 epigraphy, 5 foundation, 3–4, 8–12, 247, 313 Christian?, 9n27, 10–11, 23 gives crown gold to emperors, 227, 229, 232 government, 53, 235 and n35 imperial presence, 13–14, 54, 155, 193, 224 (see also under individual emperors) importance to the Byzantine Empire, 402–3 literary depiction, 20, 30, 31–41, 246 as location for panegyrics, 204, 212–15 as metropolis (mother-city), 224, 225, 232, 233, 234 name, 213–14 as “New Jerusalem”, 389, 403 as New or Second Rome, 11–12, 24, 29, 53 and n1, 224n6, 245, 247–49, 256, 258, 345, 347, 370, 399–400 personification of (Constantinopolis). See Personifications population of, 9–10, 74, 82, 114–15, 224 as prime destination of Bordeaux Itinerary, 298–99, 311–12 relations with Rome, 232–33, 236–37 saints of the city, 60–62 (see also relics, saints) see of, 25, 53–54, 345–84 senate, 12, 14–15, 16, 53, 212–23, 223–24, 234–47, 244, 246, 247, 251, 254, 255, 256, 260n56 sojourn of Bordeaux Traveler, 312–19 Tyche of, 43–48, figs. 2.3–5 (pp. 45–47), 50, 257–60 (see also Tyches) urban prefecture, 53 urbanism, 154, 155, 156 Constantius I (“Chlorus”), emperor, 205, 217, 219 Constantius II, emperor, 59, 61, 234, 236, 238, 260 and Constantinople, 13 and n50, 14, 53, 59, 212, 223, 224n5, 226, 229, 234, 235 and n36, 236 visit to Rome, 11, 32–33, 225 in panegyric, 213–15, 226–31, 233 Curiosum Urbis Romae, 38 (see also Regionary Catalogues and Index Locorum)

442

Index

cursus publicus, 295, 304, 305 Cybele, 252, 259, 260 and n54 Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, 364 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, 353, 356 Cyrus, PVC, bishop of Cotyaeum, 126 Dagron, Gilbert, 8, 15, 44n53, 374 Damasus I, bishop of Rome, 23n92, 341–43, 348, 355, 359n61, 368 (see also Index Locorum) Decius, patrician, 68, 70 Dexter, Appius Nicomachus, PVR, 181 Diocletian, emperor, 6–8, 152, 219, 224n5, 238, 239, 306 Dioscorus, deacon, 367, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 384 Domitian, emperor, 211 domūs, individual. See Rome Donation of Constantine, myth of, 3–4, 29 Division of empire. See east-west relations Dorotheus, bishop of Thessalonica, 377 east-west relations, 242–44, 260 division in 395? 17, 238, 238–40, 250–51 and n26, 260 Egeria, Holy Land pilgrim, 300 Egypt, 247, 315 and food supply, 10, 247 ekphrasis. See Constantinople, Rome, literary description of Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, 365 Ennius, Quintus, 270–71 Ephesus, 376 (for Council see Church councils) Epiphanius, bishop of Constantinople, 369, 370, 371, 373, 374, 380, 381 Epityncanus, Flavius Eurycles, PVR, 176, 181, 182 Esquiline treasure, 48, 50n63 Eudocia, empress, 84, 104 and n47 Eudoxia, empress, 166, 186, 191–92, 195–200 Eugenius, usurper, 258, 268 Eumenius, orator, 206n13, 219 (see also Index Locorum: Pan.Lat. 9(5)) eunuchs, 72, 243, 244, 248, 250, 251, 253n35, 254, 256, 258 Eusebius of Caesarea, bishop, 10, 322 (see also Index Locorum) Eusebius of Nicomedia, bishop, 349

Eutharic, consul 519, 267n4 Eutropius, eunuch, praefectus sacri cubiculi, consul 399, 243, 244, 269 as portrayed by Claudian, 244, 248, 250–56, 259–60 Eutyches, archimandrite, 364 Faustus, Anicius Acilius Glabrio, PVR, 164, 166, 176–77, 181, 182 Felix II (III), bishop of Rome, 365, 368, 370 Filocalus, Furius Dionysius, draughtsman, 341 Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, 371 Forma Urbis. See Marble Plan Gainas, general, 104n45, 193n39, 195n47 Galla Placidia, empress, 84, 101n34, 162, 170 and n64, 273 Gallia Comata, 303–4 Gallus Caesar, 13n50, 153 Gallus, Rufius Viventius, aristocrat, 174, 177 Gaul, 208–9, 217–19, 300, 301 (see also Gallia Comata) panegyric and, 204, 206, 209–10, 215, 217–18, 220–22 Geiseric, king, 273, 280n55 Gelasius, bishop of Rome, 365, 368, 370 Gennadius, bishop of Constantinople, 374 Gesta Martyrum, 152 Gibbon, Edward, 258, 263 Gildo, magister militum per Africam, 243–44, 247–48, 254 Gilles, Pierre, 8n23, 55–56, 57, 81–83, 104n49, 105n50 Goths, 208, 232, 242, 244, 252, 259, 301, 383 Gothic Wars, 70, 133 Ostrogothic administration of Italy, 28, 74, 151, 365 Sack of Rome (410), 26, 54, 72 Gratian, emperor, 19n76, 151, 208, 225n9, 233, 237, 238, 239, 267 and n4, 356 Gregory I, bishop of Rome, 157, 384 Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop of Constantinople, 17, 347–48, 352, 355–62 (see also Index Locorum) Helion, eastern magister officiorum, 164 Helena, empress, 300 Henoticon, 366

Index 443 Heraclea, see of, 368 Hierapolis (Syria), 315 Hilary, bishop of Arles, 166, 168–69, 180 Holy Land (see also Jerusalem) in Bordeaux Itinerary, 293, 294, 297, 299, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312 Homer, 241, 264 Honoratus, PVC, 118, 235n35 Honorius, emperor, 17, 164, 238, 241, 243, 246, 250, 251, 253, 258, 273 and Constantinople, 245, 246 and Rome, 34, 63, 172, 174, 248–49, 263 and n66 Hormisdas, bishop of Rome, 366, 367, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 383 houses (see also under Constantinople, Rome) aristocratic houses, 136–58 in the Gesta Martyrum, 152 in the Codex Theodosianus, 150, 154 Huns, 186, 301 Itineraries. See Antonine Itinerary, Bordeaux Itinerary Itinerarium Antonini. See Antonine Itinerary Itinerarium Burdigalense. See Bordeaux Itinerary Ivory diptychs, 44–48, fig. 2.5 (pp. 46–47) Jerome, 9, 26, 215, 326, 331, 339–41, 363 (see also Index Locorum) Jerusalem (see also Holy Land) Church of the Holy Sepulcher, 34, 321n27 as destination in Bordeaux Itinerary, 293, 294, 297, 299, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312 Nablus gate, 302 see of, 354, 368, 380, 381, 382 visual depiction, 34–35, fig 2.1 (p. 35), 50 John, usurper, 163–65, 177, 190, 273 John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, 26, 62, 186, 194–200, 252 and n31, 349–50, 363n78, 371 (see also Index Locorum) John Kappadokes, bishop of Constantinople, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 377, 379 John Talaïa, bishop of Alexandria, 368 Jovian, emperor, 14, 233, 239

Julian, bishop of Cos, 365 Julian, emperor, 205, 213, 225, 228, 239, 332–33 (see also Index Locorum) and Antioch, 7, 184, 186, 233, 255n39 and Constantinople, 10–11, 13, 15, 101 and n35, 212–15 panegyric to, 212–15 Julius Caesar, dictator, 139, 147 Justin I, emperor, 365, 366, 374, 375, 381 Justin II, emperor, 131 Justinian I, emperor, 27–28, 54, 56, 66, 71, 77, 127, 129, 183n4, 196, 365, 367, 371, 373, 378, 383, 384 Krautheimer, Richard, 21–23, 163n12 Kurşunlugerme, 123, 130 Lampadius, Rufius Caecina Felix, PVR, 171, 181 league (leuga), Gallic, unit of measure in Bordeaux Itinerary, 302, 303 Leo I, bishop of Rome, 23n92, 25, 162, 163, 166–70, 180, 365, 367, 371 (see also Index Locorum) Leo I, emperor, 130, 189n27, 259, 277 Leo, general of Arcadius, 252, 255 Lex Iulia repetundarum, prosecutions under, 314 Liber Pontificalis, 72–73, 167 (see also Index Locorum) Libanius, 12, 15–16, 117, 118, 224–25, 255 and n42 (see also Index Locorum) Licinius, emperor, 8, 216, 313, 316, 320 Long Brothers, 195, 198 Longinus, PVC, consul, magister militum? 130 Lyon, 208, 290, 303 Macedonius II, bishop of Constantinople, 125 Macrobius, 331 Madaba map, 34–35, fig. 2.1 (p. 35) Tyche mosaic, 29 Magdalino, Paul, 133–34, 389 Magnus Maximus, emperor, 153, 208–11, 268 Majorian, emperor, 276, 277n94, 290 Mamertinus, Claudius, panegyrist, 212–15, 221 (see also Index Locorum: Pan. Lat. 3(11))

444

Index

mansio (stage in itinerary), 295, 303, 304, 305, 307, 308 maps, late antique, 34–35, 48–50 marble, from Proconnesus, 59, 76 Marble Plan, 141, Fig. 6.1 (142), 143 Marcian, emperor, 162, 173, 189–91, 193, 364 Marina, nobilissima, 84 Maurice, emperor, 131, 189n27 Maxentius, emperor, 153n78, 215, 320, 329 and Rome, 7, 8, 24, 52, 162, 216, 218–19 Maximian, emperor, 6, 7, 204, 205, 217–19 Maximus the Cynic, bishop of Constantinople, 346, 348–50, 358–60 Maximus, Petronius, emperor. See Petronius Maximus Melania, aristocrat, 72, 331n45 Meletius, bishop of Antioch, 348, 351 Menander Rhetor, 206–7, 214, 266 (see also Index Locorum) Merobaudes, magister militum, panegyrist, 266 (see also Index Locorum) career and works, 274–75, 277–79, 280, 283, 284n69 and Claudian, 271 literary references to, 287, 288 publication of works, 278, 287 in Rome, 282n62, 290 statue and inscription, 274, 275, 278, 284–87, 290 in works of Sidonius, 272–74 metonymy, 249–50, 258 Bosporus (=Constantinople), 250 Capitolium (=Rome), 33 Tiber (=Rome), 248, 250 (see also personifications) walls (=Constantinople or Rome), 41, 248–50 Milan, 7, 24, 211, 220, 368 in Bordeaux Itinerary, 297, 300, 301, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312 as imperial residence, 7, 50, 56, 208, 209, 241, 243, 245, 262, 263, 269, 314 presentation of panegyrics at, 262, 269, 278 mile, Roman (milia passuum), unit of measure in Bordeaux Itinerary, 302, 303, 305 Modestus, PVC, 118

Monophytism, 364 mutatio (stage in itinerary), 295, 303, 304, 305, 307, 308 Nazarius, panegyrist, 215–17 (see also Index Locorum: Pan. Lat. 4(10)) Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople, 187, 194, 348, 356, 361 Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, 192n37, 194, 371 Neuthius, PVC/PVR? 180, 181 New Rome. See Constantinople Nicaea, 236 (for council see Church councils) Nicomedia, 7, 8, 37n20, 50, 224n5, 236, 308, 309, 313, 316 Nicomachi, senatorial clan, 177 Nicomachus Flavianus, 331 Nika riot, 71, 102, 126, 129, 153n79, 193 Nikol dere, 131, fig. 5.3 (p. 132) Notitia Dignitatum, 5n9, 42, 83, 85 (see also Index Locorum) Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, 18, 38–39, 54, 81–115 (see also Regionary Catalogues and Index Locorum) translation, 86–98 Notitia Urbis Romae, 38–39, 83, 114 (see also Regionary Catalogues and Index Locorum) Odovacer, king of Italy, 172 Olybrius, emperor, 279 Olybrius, Anicius Hermogenianus, consul 395, 241, 268, 329, 331 Opilio, PVR, 176, 181 Ostia, 144 and n32, 148, 176 Ostrogoths. See Goths Pacatus, panegyrist, 268 (see also Index Locorum: Pan. Lat. 2(12)) in Constantinople, 222 as editor, 20, 203–8, 212, 215–17, 220–22 panegyric, 19–21, 203–90 of cities, 20, 31–52 passim, 115–16 of Constantinople, 118, 134, 259 of Rome, 19–20, 32–37, 241–42, 268n6 collections of, 20, 203–22 (see also individual authors) communication patterns in, 280–84, 288

Index 445 development and function, 266–68, 280–81 editing and publication, 204–8, 212, 212–22, 226–31, 269, 272n20, 274, 276, 278, 287, 289–90 epic verse, 19–21, 241–90 passim, esp. 268n6, 280–89 narrative, 209, 215–16, 218, 245, 252, 266, 268, 278, 283 oral delivery, 203, 205n10, 209, 212, 214, 215–16, 218, 219, 222, 226–31, 269, 278, 280, 283 in other genres, 19–20, 38, 137 and n9, 152, 194 philosophical, 19, 223–40 as source, 7, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 28 (see also Claudian, Mamertinus, Merobaudes, Pacatus, Panegyrici Latini, Sidonius, Themistius) Panegyrici Latini, 20, 203–22 (see also Index Locorum) Papacy. See Rome, see of, and individual entries for bishops “papalization” of the history of Rome, 18, 23 Paula, aristocrat, 300, 119n118, 326, 331 Paul, bishop of Antioch, 374, 379 Paul, bishop of Constantinople, 106, 115 Paulinus, bishop of Nola, 39–41, 339 (see also Index Locorum) Paulinus, possible PVR, 180, 181 Paulus, Flavius, PVR, 172, 181, 182 Peregrinus, bishop of Misenum, 365 personifications, 257, 258 (see also Tyches) Aurora, 247, 252, 253, 257–59, 264 Constantinople, 247, 257–60 Oenotria, 257, 259 Roma, 28, 241, 242, 247, 250, 256 and n48, 259, 263, 264 Tiber/ Tiberinus, 241, 250, 257, 259 (see also metonymy) Peter, bishop of Alexandria, 349–50, 359n62 Petronii, senatorial clan, 175, 177 Petronius Maximus, emperor, 174, 175–76, 179, 276, 279 Peutinger map. See Tabula Peutingeriana Phrygia, 215, 252, 258, 259 Pierius, PVR, 175, 178–79, 181, 182 pilgrimage (to Holy Land), 294, 300, 302

Pliny the Younger, 267 (see also Index Locorum) Porphyry of Gaza, bishop, 191, 196 Portoria (customs dues), 306 Possessor, African bishop, 372 Postumianus, Rufius Praetextatus, PVR, 175, 176–77, 181 Praetextatus, Vettius Agorius, Praetorian Prefect of Italy, 21n81, 150, 159, 226, 331 Proba, author of the Cento identified as Faltonia Betitia Proba, 328–29 or as Anicia Faltonia Proba, 328–29 Cento of, 21, 325–44 aims, 332–33, 343–44 aristocratic values, 335–39, 343–44 dating, 328–30 genre, 325–26 reception, 327 structure, 333–34 Probianus, Petronius, consul 322, 328, 329, 331 Probinus, Petronius, consul 341, 328 Probinus, Anicius, consul 395, 241, 268, 331 and n42 Probus, Sextus Claudius Petronius, consul 371, 21n81, 329 and n29 Procopius, usurper, 13 Projectus, Gallic bishop, 168 propaganda, 244–45, 250–51, 261, 266, 269, 278–79, 280–81, 283–84, 288–89 Prosper of Aquitaine, 167, 174 Prudentius, 20, 41, 342 (see also Index Locorum) Pulcheria, empress, 84, 190, 194 Quintianus, panegyrist, 272–73, 274, 277–78, 290 Quirites, 256 Ravenna, 26, 50, 167 as imperial residence, 19n73, 162, 263 and n66, 279, 368 Regionary catalogues, 38–39, 137 (see also individual entries) relics (see also saints), 23–24, 41, 60–62, 194, 370 Ricimer, general, 277, 279n54

446

Index

Romanus III, emperor, 122 Rome (see also metonymy, personifications) aristocracy. See aristocracy, Roman (see also Senate) artistic depiction, 38–59 (see also Tyches) in Bordeaux Itinerary, 297, 300, 301, 308, 310, 310, 311 Christian topography, 137 Catacomb of Domitilla, 342 “Christianization” of, 23, 157, 163 325, 343–44 churches, 24, 74–77 Lateran Baptistery, 75, 76 S. Croce in Gerusalemme, 166 S. Giovanni in Laterano, 166 S. Maria Maggiore, 36, 73, 75–76, fig. 3.10 (p. 76), 166 S. Paolo fuori le Mura, 74, 77, fig. 3.11 (p. 77), 134n69, 167 S. Peter, 51, 75, 167, 170, 174 S. Pietro in Vincolo, 167 S. Stefano Rotondo, 75–76, fig. 3.10 (p. 76), 166 Circus games, 7, 165, 172–73 civic topography aqueducts, 17, 27, 64–66, fig. 3.5 (p. 65), 121, 178 Aqua Alexandrina, 128 Aqua Claudia, 128 Aqua Traiana, 133 Aqua Virgo, 148, 149, 150, 168n39 Basilica Aemilia, 68 baths, 33, 66–67 of Constantine, 22, 67, 71 Campus Martius, 177, 220 Capitol, 28, 33, 140, 147 Circus Maximus, 7, 59–60 Colosseum, 26, 70n42, 171–72, 182 Column of Marcus Aurelius, 33, 57–58, fig. 3.1 (p. 58) complex of Via in Arcione, 143 Crypta Balbi, 27, 68, fig. 3.7 (p. 69) domūs. See houses Forum of Augustus, 68, 70, fig. 3.8 (p. 70), 140 Romanum, 7, 32, 67, 71, 171, 139, 141, 285n72 of Trajan, 21, 26, 27, 33, 68n39, 170–71, 241–42, 264, 275, 284 Transitorium (‘of Nerva’), 140, 152

houses, 22, 71, 75, 136, 137, 138, 139, 144, 151, 153, 157, 158 See also individual domūs House of Albinus iunior, 151 House of M. Julius Vestinus Atticus, 139 House of Junius Bassus, 72 House of Gaudentius, 73, 75n57, 144, 145, fig. 6.3 (p. 146) House of Marcus Scribonius Libo, 139 House of Melania, 72, 75n57 ad Palmam, 176 House of Cn.Calpurnius Piso, 139 House of Vedius Pollio, 140 House of Publius Valerius Publicola, 147 House of SS. Quattro Coronati, 146 House of Sejanus, 139 House of Seneca, 139 House of Sette Sale, 147 House of Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, 71–74, 151 House near Termini, 74 House under Via in Arcione, 143 House on Vicus Caprarius, 143, 147, 148 hills Caelian, 73, 75, 145–46, 176 Esquiline, 176 Palatine, 27, 34, 140, 262 and n62 Pincian, 173–74 obelisks, 59–61, fig. 3.2 (p. 61) Pantheon, 33, 68, 70, fig. 3.12 (p. 78) Porticus Curba, 152 Rostra, 32, 220 Senate House, 210 Sette Sale, 129 sewers, 151n62 statues, 21, 67, 143, 171 (see also under Claudian, Merobaudes, Sidonius) temple of Mars Ultor, 68, 70, fig. 3.8 (p. 70) Villa Medici, possible imperial palace at, 173–74 Vicus Caprarius, 143, 148 walls, 27, 41, 62–64, fig. 3.3 (p. 63), 66, 178

Index 447 earthquakes, 27, 171 epigraphy, 5, 21 and n81 food supply, 27, 177, 243, 247 foreigners resident at, 177–78 Gothic sack (410), 26, 54, 72 as metropolis (mother city), 225–26, 232, 233, 234, 237 imperial presence in, 6–7, 19, 279 (see also under individual emperors) literary depiction, 20, 30, 31–41, 218, 241, 262 and n64 as location for panegyric, 204, 212, 215–16, 265, 269, 276–77, 278, 288–89, 289–90 personification (Roma). See personifications and Tyche of population of, 27, 38, 74, 269, 275, 284–87 public space, 136, 138, 139, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 150, 152, 154, 157 public structures, 137, 147, 150, 152, 157 relations with Constantinople, 226, 230–32, 237 see of, 62, 364–84 bishopric (papacy), 166–70 Petrine ideology, 364–84 primacy of, 25, 52, 168 senate, 165, 171–72, 174–77, 242 and n3, 250 (see also aristocracy) trade guilds, 169, 178 Tyche of, 43–48, figs. 2.3–5 (pp. 45–46), 50, 226 (see also Tyches) urban prefecture, 14, 15, 19, 151, 164, 175–77, 178–79, 179–82 urbanism, 136, 139, 144, 144 Vandal sack (455), 54 water supply, 121–22, 129, 147, 149 Romulus, 248, 256 Rufinus, Fl., Praetorian Prefect of Oriens, 243, 246, 253 Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, 42, 242, 257n47 (see also Index Locorum) saints, 23–24, 41, 242n4, 368, 370 (see also relics) St. Agnes, 41 St. Akakios/Acacius, 23, 60 St. Andrew, 23, 41, 61, 249 St. Felix of Nola, 39 Felix and Philippus, 342

St. John the Baptist, 61 St. Luke, 23, 61 St. Mary the Virgin, 62 Nereus and Achilleus, 342 St. Mocius/Mokios, 23, 50, 54 St. Paul, 24, 41, 62, 249, 342 St. Peter, 24, 41, 62, 249, 342 St. Timothy, 23, 41, 61, 249 St. Zacharius, 61 Scipio, P. Cornelius Africanus, 270–1 Salzman, Michele, 330, 331 Sebastian, general, 272, 273–74, 278, 309 Serdica, 7, 11, 224n5, 313 Second Sophistic, 400–401 Serena, wife of Stilicho, 245, 249 Severian of Gabbala, 196 Severus, bishop of Antioch, 370n27, 379 Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont, poet, letter-writer (see also Index Locorum) career, 267, 272n21, 276–77 on panegyricists, 271–78, 280 as panegyrist, 20, 266, 278–79, 283–84, 288 publication of works, 272n20, 287 reception of Claudian, 258–59, 264, 271 in Rome, 290 statue, 276, 284, 286–87, 290 Sigisvult, magister militum, 178 Simplicius, bishop of Rome, 75, 365, 374 Sirmium, 7, 301, 368 Sixtus III, bishop of Rome, 163, 166 Socrates Scholasticus, 347–49 (see also Index Locorum) on John Chrysostom, 197–99 on Theodosius II, 190 Sozomen 347–49 (see also Index Locorum) spolia, 144, 147, 148 stade (stadium), as unit of distance in Bordeaux Itinerary, 302, 305 statues. See Constantinople, Rome, Claudian, Merobaudes, Sidonius, Themistius) Stilicho, magister utriusque militiae, 238, 241, 243–45, 248, 251, 253, 256, 258, 261, 262, 263n66, 238, 265–66, 279n54, 284 relationship with Claudian. See Claudian

448

Index

Storacius, PVR, 181, 182 Symeon of Bulgaria, 390 Symmachus, Q. Aurelius, consul 391, 153, 226, 276, 331 (see also Index Locorum) panegyrics, 267n4 Symmachus, bishop of Rome, 134n69, 180, 383n92 Talas 130, 131, fig 5.4 (p. 132), 133 Tetrarchy reintroduces regionalism, 238–40 tetrarchic capitals, 7–9, 219 Tabula Peutingeriana, 48–51, fig. 2.6 (p. 49), 305 Themistius (see also Index Locorum) and Constantinople, 65, 118, 120, 134, 255 senatorial representative, 11, 12, 223, 225 225–27, 232–37 recruitment of senators, 15, 212, 234–37 on role of Constantinople, 11, 53, 225–26, 233–34, 237 as panegyrist and philosopher, 12–13, 19, 223–40, 267n4 and Rome, 11, 53, 225–33, 234, 237–40 statues, 285n72 Theodoric, king, 27, 124, 151, 267, 365 Theodosius, half-brother of Valentinian III, 170 Theodosius, primicerius notariorum, 165 Theodosius I, emperor, 61, 122, 172, 185, 191, 193, 199, 232, 243, 245, 248, 258, 267, 349, 352, 358, 360n65, 361 and Constantinople, 16–17, 26n102, 99, 183, 212, 224n5, 233–37 and Rome, 19, 20, 203, 207–11, 216, 220–22, 279 Theodosius II, emperor, 84, 162, 164, 165, 175n95, 244, 286 and Constantinople, 84, 190–92, 194, 196 Theodosius, magister militum, 243 Theopaschism, 372, 379, 380 Theophanes scholasticus of Hermopolis, journey of, 302, 307–8, 315 Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, 195, 198, 349–50, 363n78 Thessalonica, 7, 8, 50, 101, 208–9

Tiber. See metonymy, personification Trajan, emperor, 211, 215 Timothy, bishop of Alexandria, 348, 350–52 Trier, 7, 40n29, 48, 56, as imperial residence, 209, 219, 313, 323, 368 as location of panegyric, 204–5, 216, 218–9 Trygetius, aristocrat, 167, 181 Tyches, 29, 42–48, fig. 2.2 (p. 43), fig. 2.3 (p. 45), fig. 2.4 (p. 45), fig. 2.5 (pp. 46–7) 46, 50 (see also Personifications, and Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Rome) Urban Prefecture. See Rome, Constantinople urban space, 136, 139, 140, 142, 144, 154 Valens, emperor, 7, 17n69, 191, 267n4, 362n75 and Constantinople, 13, 14 and n51, 134, 225, 232, 233–34, 236–37, 239 Valentinian I, emperor, 14, 17n69, 153, 232n27, 238, 239, 267n4, 330 Valentinian II, emperor, 74, 208–11, 220, 239, 267n4 Valentinian III, emperor, 26, 161–82, 225, 233, 273, 275, 276, 278, 279, 286 legislation, 161, 164–65, 169–71, 174–75, 177–79 in Rome, 162, 170, 177–79 Valentinian Galates, son of Valens, 237, 238, 239, 267n4 Vandal kingdom, 54, 167, 178, 283 Vestina, aristocrat, 150 Virgil, 203, 207, 216, 241, 250, 264, 272n22, 275, 276n38, 285, 326, 327, 332–33, 334–35, 340 (see also Index Locorum) visual depiction of cities, 34–36, 42–43, 48–51 Vitalian, magister militum, 366, 378 Volusianus, Rufius Antonius Agrypnius, aristocrat, 166 Zeno, emperor, 25, 364, 366

Index Locorum

Book titles are given unabbreviated except for Ep. (Epistulae) and Or. (Orationes) ACHILLES TATIUS Leucippe and Clitophon 5.1.1–5 37n22 ACTA CONCILIORUM OECUMENICORUM 2.1.3, 95 382n92 2.4, 61.14–15 382n92 3, 60.3–4 370n27 3, 62.19–20 370n27 3, 71.33–34 370n27 3, 72.32–33 370n27 3, 76.27 370n27 3, 77.1 370n27 3, 90.27–28 370n27 4.2, 97–98 383 and n94 4.2, 206–10 383n92 ACTA S. SIMPLICII ET SOC. 2 152 and n72 ACTA S. SUSANNAE 4 152 and n72 ACTA S. MARCELLI PAPAE 12 152 and n73 23 152 and n72 ACTA S. CAECILIAE 31 152 and n72 ACTA XYSTI PAPAE 14 152 and n72 ACTS OF CHURCH COUNCILS, see Church Councils ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 16:32–37 295n16 ADDITAMENTA AD CHRONICUM PROSPERI HAVNIENSIA s.a. 454 (Chron. Min. 1.303) 279n54

AELIUS ARISTIDES On Rome 6 37 AGATHIAS History 2.16.3, 5.3.6, 5.5.4 187n19 AL-HARAWI Kitab al-isharat ila ma’rifat al-ziyarat 56–57 30 and n116 AMBROSE De Obitu Theodosii 5 243n7 Epistulae extra Collectionem 9[13].3 350n23 9[13].7 348 AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS Res Gestae 14.1.6–7 153 and n77 14.1.8–9 231n26 14.6.2–6 19–20 and n77 14.6.7–26 19–20 and n77 14.6.4–5 248n22 14.6.18 330 and n37 16.6.2 328n21 16.10 19–20 and n77 16.10.13–17 32–34, 36–37, 39 16.10.13 32 16.10.14 33, 37 16.10.15 33 16.10.16 32 16.10.17 33 21.16.4 330 and n39 21.16.18 316 and n103 22.7.1 15 and n62 22.8.8 12n43 22.9.3 37n20 26.6.14 56n9 449

450

Index Locorum

Res Gestae (continued) 27.4.8 305 and n64 27.9.10 150 28.1.1–10 330 and n38 28.1.49 153 and nn75, 77 28.1.56 153n77 28.4 19–20 and n77 28.4.12 330 and n37 ANNÉE ÉPIGRAPHIQUE 1950 no.30 282n62, 285n72 ANONYMUS DE REBUS BELLICIS 83 ANONYMUS POST DIONEM (Petrus Patricius?) fr. 15.1 (= Excerpta Vaticana 190) 11 and n38, 224n5 ANONYMUS VALESIANUS PART 1, see Origo Constantini. ANTHOLOGIA LATINA 1.772a 329 and n30 1.783 329nn28, 29 ANTHOLOGIA PALATINA (GREEK ANTHOLOGY ) Book 2 56n9, 103 ARISTOPHANES Peace 1090–93 325n2 ATHANASIUS Apologia contra Arianos 9.3–4 10 25.2 355n45 70 322n128 De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi 38.9, 40.43 321n126 De Synodis 2 353n36 Historia Arianorum 35 398 and n26 AUGUSTINE Confessions 6.6 267n.4 De Civitate Dei 1.3 326 and n9 5.26 242n4, 269n12, 287 Sermon on the Fall of Rome (CCL 46.258–9) 187 and n17 AURELIUS VICTOR, see Victor AUSONIUS Cento Nuptialis 1 (Ausonius Paulo) 326 and n6 Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium 15.9 215n52 Eclogues, praef. 8, 12 203 and n3 Gratiarum Actio 206n14, 214n47 Ludus Septem Sapientum 1.16 203n3 Mosella 407–11 40n34

Ordo Urbium Nobilium 1 (I.1) 52 2 (II.III.1) 246n18 15–16 (IV.V.1–2) 40n30 Technopaegnion 14.21 (16.2 Green) 203n3 AVITUS OF VIENNE Ep. 9 (42.9–15 Peiper) 369 and n21 BASIL OF CAESAREA Ep. 69.1 355 and n46 BOCCACCIO De Claris Mulieribus 95 327 and n16 BOETHIUS In Topica Ciceronis Commentaria 4–5 (PL 64.1109, 1147) 269n12 CA, see Collectio Avellana CAESARIUS OF ARLES, LIFE OF 1.57 299n36 CALLINICUS Life of Hypatius 52 186n14 CANONS, see Church Councils CASSIODORUS Chronicle s.a. 395 269n12 Variae 5, 157 3.30 151 and n62 3.31 149n54, 151 and n62 4.30 151–52 and n68 4.51 151 and n67 11.39 74 and n53 CEDRENUS, GEORGIUS Compendium Historiarum 1.609 (Bonn) 106 and n56 CHARTAE LATINAE ANTIQUIORES (ChLA) 1.8 (= P.Abinn. 2) 315n99 1/48.7 recto 308n74 3.202 (=P.Abinn. 1) 314n91, 315n99 4.253 (= P.Ryl. 4.623) 315n98 19.667 302n52 19.687 (=Moscadi, “Lettere,” 1) 315n98, 319n118 CHURCH COUNCILS Nicaea (325) Canon 4 24 Canon 6 353 Canon 7 354 Antioch (341) Canon 9 353 and n39, 354, 362 Canon 14, 16, 20 354n43

Index Locorum 451 Constantinople (381) Canon 1 346, 347 Canon 2 346, 347, 351–52, 353n36 Canon 3 17, 24–25, 44n53, 54 and n3, 236 and n40, 345–63 Canon 4 346, 348–49, 360 Signature lists 351 and n29, 361 and n70 ‘Canons 5 and 6’ (382?) 355n49 Chalcedon (451) Canon 28 345, 364, 367, 376 and n59 Council in Trullo (692) Canon 69 188n21 CHRISTODORUS, see ANTHOLOGIA PALATINA CHRONICON ALBELDENSE (A.D. 883) PL 129.1127–28 301 and n47 CHRONICA GALLICA A. 452, s.a. 395 269n12 CHRONICON PASCHALE s.a. 328 (528 Bonn) 4 and n2 s.a. 332 (531 Bonn) 10n30 s.a. 391 (564 Bonn) 61 and n22 s.a. 400 (569 Bonn) 61 and n22 s.a. 407 (570 Bonn) 107n58, 109n61 s.a. 415 (572 Bonn) 61 and n22 s.a. 421 (579 Bonn) 109n63 s.a. 427 (580–81 Bonn) 84n15 s.a. 451 (590 Bonn) 85 and n19, 109n64 s.a. 459 (593 Bonn) 85n19 s.a. 528 (618 Bonn) 110n65 s.a. 531 (621 Bonn) 102n39 s.a. 531 (628 Bonn) 153n79 s.a. 532 (632 Bonn) 104n45 CICERO Pro Archia 22 271n16 Ad Atticum 4.16.8 140n15 De Oratore 2.276 271n16 CIL , see Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum CLAUDIAN Panegyricus Dictus Olybrio et Probino Consulibus (Panegyric on Olybrius and Probinus, OP) 241, 243, 268, 283n64, 289 83–99 257 150–51 329n31 236–62 250 In Rufinum 243, 250, 289 1.174–75 250

1.174 246 and n17 1.175 246 and n16 2.54–55 247n21, 249 2.54 41n36 2.55 246n17 2.348–50 246 In Gildonem 242–243, 283n64, 289 17–18 247 21–25 257 23–25 247 27 264n69 60–62 258 60–63 247 113–15 247–48 209–12 257 225 246 and n15 226 249 In Eutropium 20, 244, 245, 249, 250–61, 264, 283n63, 289 Summarized 251–52 1.8 251 1.21–22 252 1.105 254 1.238–39 253 and n34 1.303–306 253 1.306 254 1.306–9 256n44 1.371 254 1.396 254 1.399–411 254 1.412 254 1.427–28 254 1.427–29 258 2.praef. 25–32 252n31 2.praef. 57 9, 246 2.praef. 57–58 256n44 2.praef. 72 256n44 2.24–39 254 2.27–28 246 and n17 2.37–39 253, 254 2.38–39 256n43 2.39 252 2.58–94 254, 256 2.62–63 256 2.64–68 256 2.68–69 256 2.74 256 2.83 246 2.112–13 253 and n34 2.112–59 254

452

Index Locorum

In Eutropium (continued) 2.126–28 248 2.133–37 254 2.135–37 256 2.136 9, 246, 255 2.137 254 2.282–84 259 2.310–16 253 2.324–408 254 2.326–44 254–56 2.339–40 255–56 and n43 2.514 9, 246 2.528–30 258 2.539–43 283n64 2.550 253 2.593 262 and n62 Epithalamium 270 257 Panegyricus de Tertio Consulatu Honorii Augusti (Panegyric on the third consulship of Honorius, 3Cos.) 283n64, 289 15–16 283n64 69 258 151–53 243 Panegyricus de Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augusti (Panegyric on the fourth consulship of Honorius, 4Cos.) 283 and n63, 289 129 250 170–180 246 175–77 246 177 246 and n17 179 246 and n14 182 246 560 246n18 561 257 578 250 650–51 283n64 Panegyricus Dictus Manlio Theodoro Consuli (Theod.) 289 200 250 266–69 244n8 366–37 283n64 De Consulatu Stilichonis (Stil.) 249, 289 1 283 and n63 1.3–10 283n64 1.140–41 283n64 1.155 258 1.246–69 283n64

1.325–32 279n54 2.278 264n69 2.291–311 274n28 2.293–94 283n64 2.473 257 3.praef. 270–71 3.praef. 23–24 283n64 3.1–13, 30–33, 51, 64–71 279n54 3.75–106 283n64 3.125–29 261–62, 263 3.127 262n64 3.130 262 3.130–68 20 and n79 De Bello Getico (Gothic War, Get.) 244, 283 and n63, 283 and n65, 289 praef. 279n54 praef. 1–6 283n64 praef. 7–9 285n73, 287n77, 288n84 praef. 7–14 242 and n3, 284 and nn68, 71 271 264n69 578 250 Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti (Panegyric on the sixth consulship of Honorius, 6Cos.) 244, 289 praef. 15–16 284 and nn68, 71 praef. 21–26 288n84 39–41 262–63 39–52 20 and n79, 34 and n6, 36, 152 49 152n70 53 262n64 57–61 188n24 59 211n36 82 248 84 258 87 248–49, 263 88 250 90 249 122–26 283n64 123–24 279n54 127ff. 283 and n65 265 250 361 264n69 388–95 226n15 407 262n64 407–408 263 425 250 431–33 279n54 520 250

Index Locorum 453 De Raptu Proserpinae 2.46 257 Carmina Minora 22 242n4 30.114 249 32 270n13 40 329 and n30 41.13–14 241 and n1 50 270n13 53.34 257 CODEX IUSTINIANUS (CJ ) 6.1.1 313 and n89 11.33.1–11 124n28 11.42.6 126 and n33 11.42.7 116, 126 and n32 12.1.15 180 13.3.2 130 and n53 CODEX THEODOSIANUS Gesta Senatus 1 176n102 3.5.6 313 and n89 3.20.5 313 and n89 4.8.8 313 and n89 4.24 150–51 and n61 5.1.12 150–51 and n61 5.14.36 9n29 6.2.25 154 and n29 6.4.5 15 and n58 6.4.11 15 and n60 7.16.1 274n28 8.11.4 185 8.12.5 313 and n89 9.17.3 148 9.27 314n95 11.29–30, 11.30.6, 17 314n96 12.13.1–6 232n27 13.3.5 332 13.5.7 11 14.6.5 103 and nn41, 42 14.15–17 113n80 14.15.14 149 14.17.12 9n29 14.17.16 151 and n66 15.1.25 156 and n94 15.1.30 156 15.1.31 172 and n75 15.1.38 150–51 and n61 15.1.39 156 15.1.41 150–51 and n61 15.1.46 156 and n94 15.1.47 156

15.1.50 156 16.1.51 83 and n16 15.2.1–9 124 and n28 15.2.2–8 149n54 15.2.3 126 and n33, 127, 149n54 15.2.5 149 and n52, 150 15.2.6 122n18 15.2.9 149n54, 151n64 16.1.3 347 and n10 16.2.47 165 and n25 16.5.18, 34, 40 153n78 16.5.62 164–65 and n18 COLLECTIO AVELLANA 5 (references by document and section, by page and line in Günther’s edn., and where appropriate, letter number in Thiel’s Epistolae Romanorum pontificum). 1.9 (4.5) 343 70.8 (158.11–14) (Ep. 11) 382n92 88.10–14 (337–38) 384n96 95.6–8 (371) (Ep. 26) 382n92 95.27 (378.17–18) 368 and n19 95.53, 54 (387.16–19, 388.10–11) 368 and n20 116.25 (519.2–10) (Ep. 7) 374–755 and n52 138 (565.13–14) (Ep. 38) 365 and n7 141 (Ep. 41) 366 and n9 143 (Ep. 42) 366 and n9, 375 and n55 145.3 (589.24–25) (Ep. 47) 382 and n90 145.6 (590.17–19) 375n57 146 (Ep. 43) 366 and n9, 375 and n55 146.2 (591.16) 382 and n89 147 (Ep. 44) 366 and n9, 375 and n55 155 (Ep. 53) 377n66 158.11 (607.3–7) (Ep. 49) 376 and n58 159.2 (608.5–8) 369 and n23 159.3 (608.19–20) 371 and n32 159.4 (608.23–24) 371 and n34 159.5 (609.10–11) 371 and n35 160.3 (611.16–17) (Ep. 66) 370n29 161.2 (612.16–19) (Ep. 67) 374n50 161.5 (613.9–11) 369n23 167 (Ep. 65) 369 and n22 167.6–9 (619.11–620.9) 375n53 167.14 (621.5–10) 372 and n38 167.16–17 (621.16–27) 379 and n74 167.16 (621.19–21) 382 and n88

454

Index Locorum

COLLECTIO AVELLANA (continued) 167.17 (621.22–27) 381 and n84 168.6 (623.11–13) (Ep. 79) 372n39 168.10 (624.2–6) 379 and n72 169.8 (626.14–23) (Ep. 80) 375 and n54 169.9 (629.23–28) 379 and n72 170.2 (627.14–17) (Ep. 87) 379 and n72 171.1 (627.21–628.3) (Ep. 106) 378n69 175.2 (631.20–24) (Ep. 105) 382n87 175.4 (632.4–9) 378n69 181 (636.12–19) (Ep. 108) 377n61 182 (Ep. 109) 372n40 182.4 (638.2–4) 372–73 and n41 183.3 (639.9–13) Ep. 136) 379 and n77 185 (Ep. 110) 372n40 185.2–3 (641.17–642.2) 377n64 186.1 (642.15–16) (Ep. 102) 377n65 187 (Ep. 78) 378n67 190.3 (647.23) (Ep. 90) 378n67 190.4 (648.3–7) 370 and n30 191 (Ep. 89) 378n67 192.3 (650.2–3, 5–9) (Ep. 116) 370n29, 380 and n79 193 (650–651) (Ep. 114) 378n68 195.1 (652.18) (Ep. 121) 369n24 195.1 (652.20–21) 374 and n45 196.2 (655.13) 370n29 199.1 (658.18) (Ep. 119) 370n29 202.2–3 (661.11–27) (Ep. 93) 378n69 203.4 (662.18–24) (Ep. 94) 378n69 205 (664) (Ep. 113) 374 and n47 207.4–5 (666.22–667.10) (Ep. 95) 378n69 211.3 (670.9–13) (Ep. 96) 378n69 216.2–4 (675.4–20) (Ep. 75) 376 and n60 216.4 (675.10–20) 379 and n74, 379 and nn75–76 217.4 (677.21–28) (Ep. 76) 379 and nn74–75 217.9 (678.26–27) 382 and n91 217.12 (679.16–17) 378n67 218 (679–80) (Ep. 77) 371 and n31 222.2–4 (682.20–27) (Ep. 111) 373 and n44 223.3 (683.23–27) (Ep. 64) 375n53 223.7 (684.20–23) 379 and n74 224.1–7 (685.3–686.20) (Ep. 98) 378n67

224.4 (686.3) 382 and n91 227.3–4 (692.11–21) (Ep. 129) 377 and n63 227.4 (692.21–22) 378n69 230.2 (695.12–13) (Ep. 115) 372 and n37 232 (Ep. 129) 379–80 and n78 232.3 (701.16–702.2) (Ep. 129) 377 and n61, 380 and n80 232.6 (702.21–25) 378n70 232.8 (703.13–15) 381n85 232a 379–80 and n78 233.5 (708.16–23, 25) (Ep. 130) 373 and n42, 380n81 233.6 (708.29–709.3) 369–70 and n25 233.9 (709.24–710.1) 381n85 234.4–5 (711.17–26) (Ep. 131) 370n26 234.5 (711.23–24) 369n24 234.7 (712.6–8) 374 and n46 234.8 (712.17–18) 373n42 235.4 (715.25–716.2) (Ep. 132) 378 and n70 235.5 (716.9–10) 373 and n43, 378 and n71 237.6 (727.20–728.3 381n82 237.6 (728.1–3) 381 and n83 238.5–9 (735.5–27) (Ep. 140) 366 and n10, 375n56 238.15–16 (737.24–738.7) 381n82 240.1 (739.16) (Ep. 139) 370 and n28 241.1 (741.4) (Ep. 145) 370n29 CONSTANTINE VII PORPHYROGENNETOS On the Themes 1 Pr. (p.60 ed. Pertusi) 396 and n20 CONSTANTIUS, VITA GERMANI 23 182 CONSTITUTIONES SIRMONDIANAE 1 313 and n89, 316 and n104 6 164n18, 165 and n25 CONSULARIA CONSTANTINOPOLITANA (= Descriptio Consulum, Fasti Hydatiani) s.a. 356, 357 61 and n22 s.a. 359, 360 14n54 CONTINUATION TO PROSPER in the Codex Reichenaviensis c.12 (Chron. Min. 1.489) 170n65 c.21 (Chron. Min. 1.490) 173 and n84

Index Locorum 455 CORIPPUS, FL. CRESCONIUS In Laudem Iustini Minoris 1.288–90 28 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM LATINARUM (CIL) 3.737 (=ILS 781) 112 and n76 6.1162 (=ILS 736) 59 and n15 6.1197–8 (=ILS 807–8) 176 and n100 6.1200 (= ILS 837) 67 and n39 6.1662 (=ILS 5357) 176 and n101 6.1676 164 and n20 6.1679 21n81 6.1710 (=ILS 2949) 241, 242 and n3, 264, 285 and n73, 287n77 6.1724 (=ILS 2850) 282n62, 285–86 and n74, 287n77 6.1730 285n72 6.1731 285n72 6.1750 (= ILS 837) 67 and n37 6.1751 21n81 6.1765 a and b 329n29 6.1779 (=ILS 1259) 331 and n41 6.1779d, ll.5–12 (=ILS 1259) 21n81 6.31256 285n72 6.31564 149 and n56 6.31888 176 and n101 6.31988 285n72 11.5265 314n94 12.5671 (=17/2.298) 318n112 14.2046 176 and n104 CURIOSUM URBIS ROMAE 114, 137 162 71 and n46, 137 and n10 [CYRIL] De sancta et vivifica trinitate, see Theodoret DAMASUS Epigrammata (Epig. Dam.) 1.16 343n102 2.5 343n102 8 342 and n96 11.5 343n102 12.4 343n102 16 342n100 18.7 343n102 20 342 and n99 20.6–7 342n98 25 342n96 32.1 342n100 39 342 and n97 44.1 342n100

46.4–5 342n98 48.1–2 342n98 48.4 343n102 Epistulae 5–6 348 DECRETUM GELASIANUM IV.1–2, 3–5 383n92 DEUTERONOMY 21:11–13 340n91 DIGEST 43.7.1, 43.8.2, 43.10.1, 43.11.2 146 and n40 DIO, CASSIUS 43.49.3 140n15 50.4.1 6n11 54.23.6 140 55.8.8 87n21 63.26.2 6n11 75.10.5 105 and n51 DONATION OF CONSTANTINE 3, 4, 29 18 3 ENNIUS Scipio fr. 271n16 EPIGRAMMATA BOBIENSIA 65 (Anicius Probinus) 331n42 EPIGRAMMATA DAMASI, see Damasus EUNAPIUS Histories fr. 66.2 (Blockley) 274n28 Vitae Sophistarum 6.2.9 = 462 9 and n28 6.2.10–11 = 463 10 and n31 EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA Historia Ecclesiastica 10.5.22 316–17 and n107 Vita Constantini (Life of Constantine) 1.35.1–2 153n78 2.24–42 320n122 2.43–46 320n122 2.48–60 320n122 3.48 10, 23, 154n83 4.9 320n122 4.36.1–4 322n129 4.58–59 74n55 4.58 313n84 4.59 108n60 5 (Oratio ad sanctos) 320n122 EUTROPIUS Breviarium 9.19 7n15 9.20.2 306n69 10.4 7n15

456

Index Locorum

EVAGRIUS Historia Ecclesiastica 1.19 269n12 3.41 154n83 EXPOSITIO TOTIUS ORBIS ET GENTIUM 39n27 50, 55 34n5 FASTI VINDOBONENSES POSTERIORES s.a. 443 (c.557) 171n71 FRAGMENTA VATICANA 27, 31–34, 39–40, 273–74, 287, 290–91 314n91 FRONTINUS De Aquaeductu 1.16 65 2.78–86 121–22 and n17 GELASIUS (see also Collectio Avellana 95) PL 59.162 339n86 GENESIS 1–6 333 2 335 3 336 GENNASIUS De Viris Illustribus 21 196n54 GERONTIUS Vita Sanctae Melaniae 14.2 72 and n49 GESTA DE PURGATIONE XYSTI 180 GESTA SENATUS, see Codex Theodosianus GREEK ANTHOLOGY, see Anthologia Palatina GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS Carm. 2.1.10.4–6 355n48, 357–58 De Vita Sua 348, 356–59 12–16 357 and n56 562–67 357 844–45 350n23 851 350n23 862 359n62 896 359 and n62 1013–23 350n23 1132 357n54 1533–38 359 1612 359n61 1615 359n61 1637 359n61 1690–99 355 and n47 1776–71 361 and n71 1798 348 and n14 1800–1801 352n31 1802 348 and n15

1913–18 361 and n71 Ep. 24 223n1 Ep. 48.4 354 Ep. 130–33, 135–36 355n49 Or. 7.8 358n59 Or. 14.1 353n36 Or. 22.14 359 and n63 Or. 33.6 118 and n9, 134 and n70 Or. 33.6–7 358n60 Or. 36.11 358 Or. 42.10 359 Or. 42.27 360 Or. 43.14 358n59 GREGORY OF NYSSA Epitaphios on Flacilla GNO 9.478.20–479.1 187n17 GREGORY THE GREAT Ep. 1.63 153n78 HESYCHIUS OF MILETUS fr. 4 (=Patria of Constantinople) 29 4.9 122 and n23 HIMERIUS Or. 41.2–3 12n43 Or. 41.8, 14 10 HISTORIA AKEPHALA 1.2 350n25 HISTORIA AUGUSTA (HA) Hadrianus 11.3–4 153n77 18.2 148 Antoninus Pius 11.8 141n23 Alexander Severus 39.5 141n22 Gallieni Duo 6.9 255 HONORATUS Life of Hilary of Arles 22.27 180 HORACE Carmina 1.32.6–12 274n31 HOSIDIUS GETA Medea 326 HYDATIUS Chronicle 120 Burgess (=128 Mommsen) 275n37, 287 and n81 INSCRIPTIONES LATINAE SELECTAE (ILS), see Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum INSCRIPTIONES LATINAE CHRISTIANAE VETERES 94, 1759 174 and n88

Index Locorum 457 IOANNES III DOUKAS BATATZES Letter to Pope Gregorius IX p.375 (ed. Sakellion) 402 and n39 IO(H)ANNES, see also John ISIDORE De Viris Illustribus 18.22 (PL 83.1093) 328 and n21, 339 and n86 Origines 1.39.26 328n21 ITINERARIUM ANTONINI (ANTONINE ITINERARY ) 294 6.3 304n61 94.2–3 304n61 127.11 304n61 129.1, 3 304n61 305.5–6 304n61 342.3–344.2 319n115 365.9–366.4 304n61 372.3–6 304 372.3–373.1 304n61 387.5–488.6 319n115 387.6 304n61 439.11–14 304n61 446.2–3 304n61 ITINERARIUM BURDIGALENSE (THE BORDEAUX ITINERARY ) 12, 293–324 Summarized 297–99, 308–312 549.1–6 297 and n29 549.3–4 323 549.7 319 n116 549.7–9 295 and nn12, 13 549.7–550.6 319n117 549.7–552.10 319n114 549.10–551.2 302n54 550.6 319n116 550.11–551.6 303 and n55 551.7 304 and n59 551.9 304 and n59 552.2 319n116 552.10 319n116 553.3–556.1 319n115 555.1 295n13 555.8 319n116 555.9 295n14, 306n67 556.1 295n13, 319n113 556.5 295n14, 301, 306n67, 318 556.7 306n68 557.11 306n66 560.2 295n13 560.9 306n68

560.10 295n14, 301, 306n67 561.5 295n13, 318 561.5–6 295n14, 301 and n48, 306n67, 318 562.8 295n14, 318 564.1 295n14 564.8–9 306n69 564.9 295n16 565.7 295n14 567.9 295n14, 318 568.8 306n66 569.2 306n66 570.7–8 112 and n73 571.3–4 308n75 571.6–8 112 and n73, 299 and n35, 309 and n78, 311–12, 321 572.4–5 295n15 572.8–9 308 and n77 574.3 295n14 576.3 295n14, 306n67 577.6 295n13 578.1 295n15 579.1 295n14 579.3 295n15 581.2 295n14 581.7 304 and n59 582.8 295n14 582.11 295n13 583.7–8 311n80 583.12 295n16 585.1 295nn13 and 16 585.2 295n14 588.4–5 293 and n3, 320 and n119 588.7 302n50 589.6–7 306n66 591.5 320n120 591.7 302n50 592.2–4 321 and n125 593.1 301–302 and n50 594.2–3 300 595.3 299n36, 321n125 595.5–6 321n125 596.4 302n50 598.4 302n50 598.7 321n125 598.8–9 300 598.9 302n50 599.5–6 321 and n125 599.8 321n125 600.6 298n31

458

Index Locorum

ITINERARIUM (continued) 601.1–3 306 and n66 601.6 298n31 602.2 295n14 603.7 295n14 604.1 295n16 604.6–7 305 and n64 604.7 295n15 606.1 295n15 607.2 295n14 608.3 305 and n65 609.4 302n52 610.7 295n14, 301 612.4 304 and n59 612.7–9 323 and n134 613.7 305 and n64 615.4–8 310n79 ITINERARIUM EGERIAE 23.7 313n84 JEROME (HIERONYMUS) Chronicle s.a. 324 9 and n26, 215n52 Ep. 29.1 331 and n45 Ep. 53.7 326 and n11, 339–41 Ep. 108.7.3 319n118 De Viris Illustribus 80 329n27 Commentaria in Naum Prophetam 3.13/17 363 and n77 Commentaria in Hiezechielem, praef. 1, praef. 3 26 and n100 JOHN 4:5–28 293n3 JOHN OF ANTIOCH Historia Chronica fr. 200–201 (Müller) = fr. 293.2, 293.1 (Roberto) = spur. and fr. 224 (Mariev) 174 and n89 JOHN DUCAS III BATATZES, see Ioannes Doukas JOHN OF EPHESUS Historia Ecclesiastica 125.1–12, 199.14 (ed. Brooks) 187n20 JOHN OF NIKIU Chronicle 95.16–17 131 and n62 JOHN CHRYSOSTOM In Eutropium 252n31 De Capto Eutropio 252n31 De S. Hieromartyre Phoca 197n56 Homilia quod Frequenter Conveniendum Est (PG 63.473) 197 and n57 Comparatio Regis et Monachi 197n59

Homilia post Reditum 198 and n61 Homilia 3 in Acta Apostolorum (PG 60.41) 198n63 Homily 36 62 and n24 PS.-JOHN CHRYSOSTOM In Decollationem Iohannis 198n62 JOHN LYDUS De Magistratibus 1.47 263–64 and n68, 267n12 3.76 187n19 De Mensibus 4.2 10 and n33 4.67 187n19 JOHN MALALAS, see Malalas, John JORDANES Getica 237 279 and n51 JOSEPHUS Bellum Iudaicum 7.5 36n17 JULIAN Ep. 58 (Bidez) = 48 (Wright) 59n16 Ep. 61 (Bidez) = 36 (Wright) 332 and n51 Epistula ad Athenienses 272b–d 233 and n31 Misopogon 336b 184n8 Or. 1.8bc 13 1.8c 255n48 JUVENAL Saturae 3.60–61 256 and n45 4.77 180, 181 1 KINGS 17:10–16, 18:19–21

295n16

LACTANTIUS De Mortibus Persecutorum 7.8–10 7n16 17.2 7n14 Divinae Institutiones 7.24 334n63 LATERCULUS VERONENSIS 304n58, 317n110 LEO I (bishop of Rome) Ep. 10 168–169 and n53 Ep. 11 (in fact Nov. Val. 17) 168–69 and nn53–56 Ep. 55–58 170n62 Ep. 104.3 25n99 Ep. 106 (ACO 2.4, 61.23–30) 367–8 and n17 Sermon 84 173 and n83 LETTER TO COSMAS 5–8 (Patrologia Orientalis 13.278–79) 194n45 8 (PO 13.279) 188n21

Index Locorum 459 LIBANIUS Ep. 241 223n1 Ep. 251 118 and n6 Ep. 399 13, 255n42 Ep. 827 118 and n7 Or. 1.52 255n42 75–76 255n42 215 255n42 297 255n42 Or. 11.207 117 240–48 117 241 116 243 116 244 117 247 117 270 116–17 and n2 Or. 30.37 255n42 Or. 42 16 and n64 23–24 255 and n40 LIBER PONTIFICALIS 74, 167 42.3–7 (1:220–21 Duchesne) 150 and n60 46.3 (1:233 Duchesne) 72–73 and n50, 75n56 46.7 (1:234 Duchesne) 75n56 49.1 (1:249 Duchesne) 75n56 54.2 (1:270 Duchesne) 375n57 LUCAN De Bello Civili 1.186–89 157 LUCIAN How History Should Be Written 14, 17, 29, 31 400–401 and n35 LUKE 4:25–26 295n16 23:28–29, 34 338 LYDUS, JOHN, see John Lydus MALALAS, JOHN Chronicle 13.7 (319 Bonn) 3–4 and n2 13.7 (320 Bonn) 4 and n2 13.38/39 (346 Bonn) 115 and n83 13.49, 50 (350 Bonn) 279n53 14.7 (356 Bonn) 279n53 14.14 (360 Bonn) 279n53 14.22 (363 Bonn) 186 and n15 14.26 (366 Bonn) 189n27 14.33 (368 Bonn) 279n53 14.35 (369 Bonn) 279n53 14.43 (372 Bonn) 189n27 14.45 (375 Bonn) 279n53

15.9 (383 Bonn) 279n53 16.19 (407–408 Bonn) 189n27 18.17 (436 Bonn) 127nn39, 40 18.71 (477 Bonn) 129n47 18.91 (482 Bonn) 127n38 18.94 (482 Bonn) 82n8 MAMERTINUS, CLAUDIUS, see Panegyrici Latini 3(11) MATTHEW 16:18–19 62 MARCELLINUS COMES Chronicle s.a. 396 187n17 s.a. 399 269n12 s.a. 431 192 s.a. 452 190n30 s.a. 515 187n20 “MARK THE DEACON” Life of Porphyry of Gaza 37 196 and n52 48 191–193 PS.-MARTYRIUS Epitaphios for John Chrysostom 485a 195n47 501a 199n65 502a–503b 198n61 MENANDER RHETOR 206 MEROBAUDES Carmina 1 and 2 170 and n63, 275, 290 4 275, 282n62, 290 Panegyrici 282n62, 290 1.ii.a.2–3 286n74, 287n77 1.ii.a.15–18 275n37, 279, 280n56 2 284n69 2.33–34 279n54 MESSIUS, ARUSIANUS Exempla Elocutionum 331 MIRABILIA URBIS ROMAE 3.64, 65 (ed. Valentini and Zucchetti) 30 MONUMENTA ASIAE MINORIS ANTIQUA (MAMA) 7.304 314n93 MOSCADI, “LETTERE” no. 1 (= ChLA 19.687) 315n98, 319n118 no. 12 302n52 NESTORIUS Book of Heracleidas 2.1 192n37 NICOLAUS OF DAMASCUS Life of Augustus 68 6n11

460

Index Locorum

NOTITIA DIGNITATUM 5n9, 83, 85 NOTITIA GALLIARUM 13.1, 14.1, 15.1, 17.1 319n116 NOTITIA URBIS CONSTANTINOPOLITANAE 17–18, 81–115, translated 86–98 (Numbers in brackets are pages in Seeck’s edn.) Preface (229) 38–39, 54 and n4, 83, 84, 85, 110, 111 Region 1 (230) 56 and n9, 85, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 115 Region 2 (231) 56 and n9, 101, 102–103, 105, 115 Region 3 (231–32) 99, 100–101, 102, 105, 113, 115 Region 4 (232–33) 99, 103–104, 105, 114 Region 5 (233–34) 56 and n9, 104–105, 115 Region 6 (234–35) 100, 105, 110, 115 Region 7 (235–36) 56 and n9, 100, 105–106, 115 Region 8 (236) 100, 106–107, 108, 115 Region 9 (236–37) 56 and n9, 107, 108 Region 10 (237–38) 98, 108–109, 115 Region 11 (238–39) 108, 109, 115 Region 12 (239) 84, 107, 109–10, 115 Region 13 (240) 56 and n9, 99, 100, 105, 110, 115 Region 14 (240–41) 98, 99n26, 100, 110–12, 115 Summary (Collectio Civitatis, 241–43) 39, 56 and n9, 60n19, 84, 97, 98, 103, 112–15, 155 and n87 NOTITIA URBIS ROMAE 114, 137 188 71 and n46, 137 and n10 NOVELLAE MAIORIANI (Nov. Maj.) 4.1 151 and n64 NOVELLAE VALENTINIANI 1.3 171n67, 175 and nn94–96 2.2 162n4, 170n66 5 161 and n1, 177 and n110, 178 and n113, 179 4.2 178n115 6.1 178n118 6.2 162n4 7.2 162n4 8.1 175 and nn91, 92, 179 and n120 8.1–2 174n90 8.2 175 and n93

9 178 and nn117, 119 9.1 175n95, 178n116, 179 and n121 10 162n4 11 162n4, 170n66, 171n67 16 179 and n111 17 168–69nn53–56 19 170n66, 171n67 20 169 and n61 21.1 170n66, 171n67 21.2 170n66, 171 and nn67, 68 23 170n66, 171n67 25 170n66, 179 and n112 27 170n66 29 179 and n110 31 170n66, 171n67, 179 and n112 35 169 and n60, 173n86 36 173 and n86, 179 and n110 ODO OF DEUIL De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem 135n73 OLYMPIODORUS OF THEBES Historical Material fr. 41.1 71 and n46, 138, 152 and n69 fr. 43.1 164nn20, 22 OPTATIANUS PORPHYRIUS, PUBLILIUS Carmina 4.5–6 247 4.6 11 and n41, 53 and n1 18.34 11n34, 53 and n1 OPTATUS OF MILEVIS De Schismate Donatistarum, App. 8 316n103 ORIENTIS GRAECAE INSCRIPTIONES SELECTAE (OGIS) 721 322n132 ORIGO CONSTANTINI 30 9n28, 12n44, 15n58 OROSIUS Historia adversus Paganos 7.35.21 242n3, 269n12, 287 7.39–40 26 and n100 OVID Ars Amatoria 1.219–28 36n17 Metamorphoses 1.168–76 140n19 PACATUS De Cereo Paschali 203 Panegyric, see Panegyrici Latini 2(12) PALLADIUS Dialogus de Vita Iohannis Chysostomi 7.61–116 195n49

Index Locorum 461 8.154–56 196n51 8.247 197n60 9.126–34 199n66 17 361nn72, 73 PALLADIUS Lausiac History 55 331n45 XII PANEGYRICI LATINI 203–222 Summarized 204–206 1(1) (Pliny) 208, 211–12, 221 1(1).22.2 211 2(12) (Pacatus) 208–12, 268 2(12).1.2 210, 211, 216n54 2(12).1.2–4 210 2(12).3.2 208 2(12).24.4 211 2(12).28.5 211 2(12).42.3 211 2(12).46.5–6 211 2(12).47.3 209 and n27, 211 and n37 2(12).47.5 210–11, 222 3(11) (Claudius Mamertinus) 212–15, 217 3(11).1.1–2 213 and n43 3(11).2.3 213 3(11).3.2 214 3(11).8.1 213 3(11).14.5–6 214 3(11).15.4 214 3(11).16 214 3(11).21.5 214n47 3(11).26.1 214n47 3(11).27.3 214 3(11).28.1 214 3(11).28–30 15 and n62, 215 3(11).30.1 212n40 3(11).31.1 214 4(10) (Nazarius) 207, 209n29, 215–16, 217 4(10).3.1 215 4(10).3.3 216 4(10).13.1 216 4(10).26.5 216 4(10).27.5 216 4(10).31.1 216 4(10).33.6 216 4(10).35.1 216 4(10).35.4–5 216 4(10).38.6 216, 277n46 5(8) 217–19 5(8).1.1 218

5(8).14.5 218 6(7) 217–19 6(7).22 277n46 6(7).22.4 218 6(7).22.5 7, 218 6(7).22.6 218 7(6) 217–19 7(6).8.7–8 218 7(6).11.1 218 7(6).11.7 218–19 8(4) 209n29, 217, 219 8(4).14.1–3 219 8(4).14.3 214n47 8(4).21 277n46 9(5) (Eumenius) 217, 219 9(5).7 219 9(5).16.5 219 9(5).18.1–2, 4–5 219 10(2) 217 10(2).1.1 219 10(2).1.3 220n71 10(2).1.4 219 10(2).13.1 219 10(2).13.2 220n71 10(2).13.4 219, 220n71 10(2).14.1 219, 277n46 10(2).14.3, 4 219 11(3) 217 11(3).12.1–2 220 11(3).12.2 7 11(3).19.4–5 277n46 11(3).19.6 220 12(9) 207, 208, 209n29, 216–17 12(9).1.1 216 12(9).1.2 216 12(9).2.1 214n47 12(9).2.4 216 12(9).3.3 216 12(9).3.7 216 12(9).14.2 216 12(9).15.1 216 12(9).16.2 216 12(9).20.3 216 P.ABINN. (The Abinnaeus Archive) 1 (=ChLA 3.202) 314n91, 315n99, 316n101 2 (=ChLA 1.8) 315n99 58–59 316n102 P.HERM. (Papyri from Hermopolis) 2–6 302n52

462

Index Locorum

P.RYL. (Papyri in the John Rylands Library) 4.608, 616–51, 713 302n52 4.617–21 314n91, 316n101 4.623 (=ChLA 4.253) 315n98, 319n118 4.627–34. 635, 636, 637, 638 308 and n72 PASSION OF ST. SABBA 4.2, 8.1 398n26 PATRIA OF CONSTANTINOPLE (see also Hesychius) 29, 124 1.69–70 (149 Preger) 117 and n4 PAULINUS OF NOLA Carmina 13.26–30 40 14.85–88 40n33 19.329–42 41 19.227–38 249 and n24 19.338 246n18 PAUL 1 Corinthians 4:8 356 and n51 PAULUS DIACONUS Historia Romana 13.16 171n71 15.4 279n54 PAULUS SILENTIARIUS (PAUL THE SILENTIARY) Description of Hagia Sophia (H. Soph.) 145–54 28 150–51 77 and n60 164–67 43n49, 77 and n60 PHILOSTORGIUS Historia Ecclesiastica 2.9 9 11.3 187n20 PLINY THE ELDER Historia Naturalis (Natural History, NH ) 3.66–67 37 19.23 146 36.112 147 and n41 36. 123 65 and n29 PLINY THE YOUNGER Ep. 3.13 206 Ep. 3.18 206 Panegyricus, see Panegyrici Latini 1(1) PLUTARCH Life of Publicola 147n41 PRISCUS OF PANIUM History fr. 20.3 (Blockley) 279n54 fr. 64 279n54

PROBA Cento 21, 325–44 dedicatio 1–15 328–29 dedicatio 14–15 327n12 1–8 329 3–4 333 and n56 9 329–30 23 332 and n48 34 334, 340 and n90 65 335 120 336 129–35 335 and n68 139–46 336 200 336 305–306 338 333–45 334 334 334 346 334 369–79 336–37 and n73 382–88 337 and n77 403 340n90 403–405 337 and n76 414–28 330 462 337 and n77 475–81 338 477–78 338 489–90 338 522 338 526 338 556 337 and n77 573 337 and n77 596 335 621–23 337–38 and n79 624 340n90 857–61 338 and n80 PROCOPIUS Wars 1.3.10 163 and n10 1.24.9 71n44 1.24.42 83 and n13 5.19.8–9 133 and n65 5.20.5 65 and n30 6.4.27 187n19 7.17.13 70–71 and n43 8.22.5–6 71 and n43 Buildings 1.2.1 102n39 1.4.27 55 and n6 1.5.2–13 117n3 1.11.1–2 101n34 1.11.10–12 121n16

Index Locorum 463 1.11.10–15 65n31 1.11.14 128 and n42 1.11.27 104n46 Secret History 26.23 129 and n51 PROSPER OF AQUITAINE (see also Continuation to Prosper) Chronicle c.1205, s.a. 395 269n12, 287 and n81 c.1310, s.a. 432 279n54, 282n82 c.1321, s.a. 435 167n46 c.1367, s.a. 452 167 and n44, 181 PRUDENTIUS Peristephanon 2.443–44, 455–56 343n101 14.1–4 41 PSEUDO-ZACHARIAH OF MITYLENE Chronicle 7.7, 7.8 125 PTOLEMY Geography 3.9.3 306n67 RES GESTAE DIVI AUGUSTI 21.1 140n16 RUTILIUS NAMATIANUS De Reditu Suo 1.1–164 42n41 1.409–14 42 SAMMELBUCH GRIECHISCHER URKUNDEN AUS AEGYPTEN (SB) 6.9217 (= P.Lond. 3.878r) 314n91 SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS Ep. 1.5.10 279n54 Ep. 1.9.1 279n54 1.9.2 167 and n45 1.9.5–6 272n21, 276n43 Ep. 2.2.10 299n36 Ep. 8.11.1–2 203n1 Ep. 9.1.1 287n80 Ep. 9.16.3 verses 21–28 276n41, 286n75, 287nn77, 82 9.16.3 verses 27–28 285n72 Carmina 1.23–38 272n21 2 (Panegyric on Anthemius) 258–59 (general); 276 and n43, 290 2.13–14 288n84 2.30–63 259 2.391–92 257n48 2.391–99 257n47 2.478 264 2.540–43 277 and n44, 283 and n66

3 272n21, 277n44, 290 5 276 and n42, 290 5.13–22 257n47 7 283, 284, 290 7.45–49 257n47 7.359 162 and n9 8 276–77 and n44, 290 8.8–10 276n41, 286n75, 287n77 8.9 288n84 8.9–10 284 and nn68, 71 9 290 9.19–210, 302–10, 311–17 272n21 9.217–20 276n38 9.221–25 276n38 9.226–29 276n38 9.232–38 276n38 9.239–58 272n22, 276n38 9.269–70 276n38 9.271–73 276n38 9.274–301 271–78, esp. 272–73 9.274–76 273 9.277–78 273, 278 9.279–88 273–74 9.290–95 274 9.298–99 275 and n34 9.298–301 282n62 9.299–301 286n74, 287n77 9.302–10 276 and n39 9.304 274n27 9.310 180 13 276n42 23 271n18 23.307–11, 423 172 and n80 SKYLITZES, JOHN Synopsis Historiarum Romanos 17 (389 Thurn, 504 Bonn) and n19 SOCRATES Historia Ecclesiastica 1.16.1 11 1.39.4 353n36 4.38.5 14n51, 225n11 5.8.2, 7–11 346n7 5.8.12–13 348 5.8.13 347 5.8.14–20 347 5.8.15–19 347 and n10 5.8.18 353n36 6.3.13 199

122

464

Index Locorum

Historia (continued) 6.6.36 268n6 6.9.9–10 195n49 6.10.12 196n51 6.11 196 6.11.20 196n54 6.15.1–3 197n60 6.15.5 196n51 6.16.9–11 199n65 6.18.1–5 198n62 6.18.7, 12–13 198n66 7.22.11 192–93 7.22.14–19 190 7.23.11–12 190–91 and n31 7.41 194 and n44 SOZOMEN Historia Ecclesiastica 1.26 321n127 2.3.1–3 4 and n2 2.3.4 9n29 2.25.1 322n130 2.34.2 353n36 3.8.5 355n45 4.27.1 353n36 5.18 332 and n53 7.7.2–5 346n7 7.7.6 349n16 7.8.4–7 361n68 7.9.1 348 7.9.2–3 347 7.9.4 348–49 and n16 7.9.5–6 347 and n10 7.10.1–3 361n73 7.12.1–12 361n73 7.24.8–9 187n20 8.4 195n47 8.6.8 187n19 8.13.3–4 195 and n49 8.14.3–5 196n51 8.15.1–2 196n53 8.16.3 196n51 8.18.5–6 198n62 9.2 194 SUDA Θ 145 (Theodosius II) 274n26 K 1707 (Claudian) 269n12, 274n26 Σ 1032 (Stilicho) 274n26 SUETONIUS Augustus 56.2 140n17

Gaius 49 6n11 SYMMACHUS Or. 3.5 212n40 Relationes 5 Rel. 3 151n65 3.9–10 248n22 Rel. 23.10 153n76 Ep. 1.53 331 and n42 Ep. 2.52.2 153 Ep. 3.23 331n42 Ep. 4.13 279n54 Ep. 4.18 331n42 Ep. 5.67 329 and n30 Ep. 9.13 331n44 SYNESIUS De Regno 18 268n6 Ep. 61 156 and n97 TACITUS Annales 1.75.2 141 2.27.2 139 3.9.3 139 4.41.1 139 13.18 141n22 14.52.2 139n11 14.56.3 139n11 15.60.2–64.4 139n11 15.69.1 139 TERTULLIAN De Praescriptione Haereticorum 39 326 and n5 Ad Martyras 3.3 335 and n65 De Spectaculis 30 335 and n65 THEMISTIUS Or. 1.18ab 227–28 and n21 Or. 2.39d–40b 228–29 Or. 3 225–27, 229–32, 234 42a, c 11, 53 and n1 46bc 230–31 46d 226 48a 227 48c 226 48cd 229–30, 231 Or. 4.58b 8n21, 118 and n5 58c 255n42 58d–59 233 62cd 229 and n23 Or. 5.70d 233 Or. 6.71c 234n32

Index Locorum 465 82d 225n10 83a 234 Or. 7.92bc 255n42 Or. 9 238 128b 232n29 Or. 11.151a 134 and n71 151c–152a 118 and n8 Or. 13 237 168a-c 118 and n8 Or. 14 232–36 182ab 233 184a 53 and n1 Or. 24.307b 255n42 Or. 34.13 15 THEODORET [Cyril] De Sancta et Vivifica Trinitate 15 (PG 75, 1168b) 363 and n76 Historia Ecclesiastica 1.18.8 189n28 2.28.1 322n130 5.8.3–6 349n16 5.9.1–18 355–56 and n50 5.9.8 355 and n51 5.9.13 346n6 5.9.13–17 355 5.9.14 355 and n52 5.19 189n28 5.32 195n47 5.36.1–2 191n33 THEODORE LECTOR Historia Ecclesiastica E 253 371n36 E 320 190n31 E 365–366 187n16, 189–90 E 413 189n27 THEODOROS DAPHNOPATES Ep. 5, pp.58–59 390 On the Treaty of the Bulgarians p.291 390 THEODOSIAN CODE, see Codex Theodosianus THEOPHANES Chronicle AM 5895 109n63 AM 5930 187n18

AM 6055 129 and n50 AM 6068 131 and n59 AM 6094 189n27 AM 6258 133 and n64, 135 and n73 THEOPHYLACT SIMOCATTA History 8.13.7 131 and n62 VIRGIL Eclogue 4.6–7 340 and n90 4.7 334 8.11 337n76 Aeneid 1.664 337n76, 340 and n90 2.42 338 2.650 340 and n90 5.49 335 5.670–72 338 5.893 335 7.43–44 334 7.458 335n69 7.812–13 337 and n78 8.202 338 10.507 337n76 11.155 337n76 VICTOR, SEXTUS AURELIUS Liber de Caesaribus 39.11 306n69 VITA SANCTAE MELANIAE see GERONTIUS ZONARAS Epitome Historiarum 12.31 7n13 ZOSIMUS New History 2.29.5–30.4 19 and n75 2.30.1 4 and n2 2.30.3 105n51 2.31.2 99n27, 154n83 2.31.2–3 11, 259 2.31.3 9n29 2.35 256 3.11.3 101n35 5.7.4–6 187n20 5.18.7–9 193n39 5.19 195n47