kind. The date is 391 or 392, and the subject is the ‘protections’
(_patrocinia_)[1620] of villages. The pressure of imperial taxation
and the abuses accompanying its collection had driven the villagers
to seek help in resisting the visits of the tax-gatherers. This help
was generally found in placing the village under the protection of
some powerful person, commonly a retired soldier, who acted as a
rallying-centre and leader, probably in most cases backed by some
retainers of his own class. Of course these men did not undertake
opposition to the public authorities for nothing. But it seems that
their exactions were, at least in the earlier stages, found to be less
burdensome than those of the official collectors. The situation thus
created was as follows. The local senators (_curiales_) whose turn it
was to collect the dues from the district under their municipality (a
duty that they were not allowed to shirk) went out to the villages for
the purpose. They were beaten off[1621] by use of force, often wounded
as well as foiled. They were still bound to pay over the tax, which they
had not received, to the imperial treasury. In these latter days default
of payment rendered them liable to cruel scourging. So the unhappy
_curiales_ had to sell their own property to make up the amount due.
The loss of their means strikes them out of the _curia_ for lack of the
legal qualification. And this was not only a loss to their particular
city: it damaged imperial interests, bound up as the whole system was
with maintaining unimpaired the supply of qualified _curiales_. The evil
of these ‘protections’ was, according to Libanius, great and widespread.
The protectors had become a great curse to the villagers themselves by
their tyranny and exactions. Their lawless sway had turned[1622] farmers
into brigands, and taught them to use iron not for tools of tillage but
for weapons of bloodshed. And the trouble was not confined to villages
where the land belonged to a number of small owners: it extended also to
those[1623] under one big proprietor. The argument that the villagers
have a right to seek help in resistance to extortion, is only sound if
the means employed are fair. To justify this limitation two significant
analogies[1624] are applied. Cities near the imperial frontier must not
call in the foreign enemy to aid them in settling their differences with
each other: they must seek help within the empire. A slave must not
invoke the aid of casual bystanders against ill-usage: he stands in no
relation to outsiders, and must look to his master for redress. The full
bearing of these considerations is seen when we remember that the farmers
are serf-tenants. They are owned[1625] by masters, as the municipal city
exists only in and for the empire, and the slave has no legal personality
apart from his lord.
It is a fact, says[1626] Libanius, that through such evasion of their
liabilities on the part of the rustics many houses have been ruined. He
is surely referring to the _curiales_ and other landlords resident in the
city, the numbers of which class it was the imperial policy to maintain
at full strength. In moral indignation[1627] he urges the iniquity of
beggaring poor souls who have nothing to live on but the income from
their lands. ‘Say I have an estate, inherited or bought, farmed by
sensible tenants who humbly faced the ups and downs of Fortune under
my considerate care. Must you then stir them up by agitation, arousing
unlooked-for conflicts, and reducing men of good family to indigence?’
This appeal would not sound overdrawn in the society of that age, though
it might fall somewhat coldly upon modern ears. But the most notable
point in this oration is the nature of the remedy[1628] for which the
writer pleads, and which none but the emperor can supply. It is simply to
enforce the existing law. Some years before, probably in 368, the emperor
Valens had strictly forbidden[1629] the ‘protections’ that were the cause
of this trouble. So now the appeal to Theodosius is ‘give the law sinews,
make it a law indeed[1630] and not a bare exhortation.’ For, if it is not
to be observed, it had better be repealed. That a leading writer of the
day could so state the case to the ruler of the Roman world is a fact to
be borne in mind by readers of the imperial laws.
LIII. SYMMACHUS
In passing on to =Q. Aurelius Symmachus=[1631] (about 345-405) we find
ourselves in very different surroundings. The scene is in Italy, and
the author a man of the highest station in what was still regarded as
the true centre of the Roman world. He was _praefectus urbi_ in 384-5,
consul in 391, and the leading figure in Roman society and literary
circles. From the bulky collection of his letters, and the forty reports
(_relationes_) addressed to the emperor by him as city prefect, we get
much interesting evidence as to the condition of rural Italy and the
anxieties of the corn-supply of Rome. With his championship of the old
religion, by which he is best known, we have here nothing to do; and
his literary affectations, characteristic of most writers of the later
Empire, do not discredit him as a witness. A remarkable feature of his
letters is their general triviality and absence of direct reference to
the momentous events that were happening in many parts of the empire.
His attention is almost wholly absorbed by matters with which he was
immediately connected, his public duties, his private affairs, the
interests of his relatives and friends, or the exchange of compliments.
His time is mostly passed either in Rome or at one or other of his
numerous country seats: for he was one of the great landlords of his
day, and the condition of Italian agriculture was of great importance to
him. As a representative of the landed interest and as a self-conscious
letter-writer he resembles the younger Pliny, but is weaker and set in a
less happy age.
A topic constantly recurring[1632] in his correspondence is the
apprehension of famine in Rome and the disturbances certain to arise
therefrom. The distribution of imperial powers among several seats of
government (of which Rome was not one) since the changes of Diocletian
had left to the ancient capital only a sort of traditional primacy. The
central bureaus were elsewhere, and Rome was only the effective capital
of the southern division of Italy. Yet the moral force of her great past
was still a living influence that expressed itself in various ways,
notably in the growth of the Papacy out of the Roman bishopric. For
centuries it had been the licensed lodging of a pauperized mob, fed by
doles to keep them quiet, enjoying luxurious baths at nominal cost, and
entertained with exciting or bloody shows in the circus or amphitheatre.
This rabble had either to be kept alive and amused or got rid of; but the
latter alternative would surely have reduced Rome to the condition of a
dead city. It was morally impossible for a Roman emperor to initiate so
ominous a policy. So the wasteful abomination dragged on, and every hitch
in the corn-supply alarmed not only the _praefectus annonae_ but the
_praefectus urbi_ with the prospect of bread riots. And the assignment
of the Egyptian corn to supply Constantinople made Rome more than ever
dependent on the fortunes of the African[1633] harvest. When this failed,
it was only by great departmental energy that temporary shortage was
made good by importations[1634] from Macedonia Sardinia or Spain or even
by some surplus from Egypt. Even lower Italy, where little corn was
grown, was at a pinch made to yield some. But bad seasons were not the
only cause of short supplies. The acts of enemies might starve out Rome,
as the rebellion of Gildo in Africa (397-8) nearly did. Moreover the
slackness and greed of officials[1635] sometimes ruined the efficiency of
the department, and ‘profiteering’ was practised by unscrupulous[1636]
capitalists. Nor even with good harvests abroad were the prefects
always at ease, since the corn-fleets might be delayed or scattered
by foul weather, and meanwhile the consumption did not cease. And it
sometimes happened that the cargoes were damaged and the public health
suffered[1637] from unwholesome food. Among these various cares the
_praefectura annonae_ was no bed of roses. No wonder the worthy Symmachus
tells us of private charity[1638] to relieve the necessities of the poor,
and even gives a hint of voluntary rationing at the tables of the rich.
But in appealing to the gods for succour he rather suggests that human
benevolence would be unequal to the strain.
That agriculture was not on a sound footing in most of Italy is evident
from several passages in the letters. In one of the earliest (before
376) he tells his father that, though he finds Campania charming, he
should like to join him at Praeneste. ‘But’ he adds ‘I am in trouble
about my property. I must go and inspect it wherever it lies, not in
hope of making it remunerative, but in order to realize the promise
of the land by further outlay. For things are nowadays come to such a
pass[1639] that an owner has to feed the farm that once fed him.’ Some
of the references to the management of estates are rather obscure. In
speaking of one near Tibur he mentions[1640] stewards (_vilicorum_)
and complains of their neglect. ‘The land is badly farmed, and great
part of the returns (_fructuum_) is in arrear (_debetur_): the _coloni_
have no means left[1641] to enable them to clear their accounts or to
carry on cultivation.’ The exact status of these stewards and tenants
and their relations to each other are far from clear, and the case may
have been a peculiar one. Again, writing to bespeak the good offices of
an influential man on behalf of an applicant, he says ‘I do this for
him rather as a duty[1642] than as an act of free grace, for he is a
farm-tenant of mine.’ The tenant’s name is Theodulus, which invites a
conjecture that this was a case of an oriental Greek slave placed as
tenant on a farm, either for his master’s account, or for his own at
a rent, and afterwards manumitted. A reference to _servi_, dependants
(_obnoxii_)[1643] who are owing him rents which his agents on the distant
estate in question do not take the trouble to collect, may point to the
same sort of arrangement. In another passage he mentions[1644] a man who
was for a long time _colonus_ under a certain landlord, but here too the
lack of detail forbids inference as to the exact nature of the relation.
That slave labour was still employed on some Italian farms appears from
a request[1645] for help in recovering some runaways. They may have been
house slaves, but if a neighbouring landlord gave them shelter no doubt
he made them pay for it in work. The control of slaves in the country
was never easy, and the quasi-military discipline described by Columella
was a confession of this. And it was only on a large scale that a staff
of overseers sufficient to work it could be provided. The time for it
was indeed gone by. Slaves employed in hunting[1646] are mentioned by
Symmachus as by Pliny. No doubt they took to this occupation with zest.
The degeneracy of hunting by deputy is contemptuously noted as a sign of
the times by the soldier critic[1647] Ammianus. But it was no new thing.
That the general state of the countryside was hardly favourable to the
quiet development of agriculture may be gathered from many notices. For
instance, when he would have been glad to be out of Rome for the good of
his health, he complains[1648] that the prevalence of brigandage in the
country near forces him to stay in the city. A friend urges him to come
back to Rome for fear of a violent raid on an estate apparently suburban:
he can only reply[1649] that a breach of possession during his absence
will not hold good in law. Whether the _militaris impressio_[1650] on
his farm at Ostia, to which he casually refers, was the raid of foreign
foes suddenly landing on that coast, or the lawless outrage of imperial
troops, is not certain: I rather suspect the latter. For, fifteen years
later (398), after the overthrow of Gildo, he writes[1651] that the
soldiers are all back from Africa, and the Appian way is clear: here the
meaning seems plain. And his endeavour[1652] to prevent the commandeering
of an old friend’s house at Ariminum for military quarters is significant
of the high-handed treatment of civilians by army men in those days, of
which we have other evidence. Nevertheless men were still willing to buy
estates. Symmachus himself was still adding to his vast possessions.
We see him in treaty[1653] for a place in Samnium, where there was
apparently some queer practice on the part of the seller: in another case
he is annoyed[1654] that his partner in a joint purchase has contrived
to secure the whole bargain as sole transferee, and rather sulkily
offers to waive his legal claims on being reimbursed what he has already
paid to the transferor. It seems strange that a man who, beside his
numerous properties in Italy, owned estates[1655] in Mauretania (where he
complains that the governors allow his interests to suffer) and in Sicily
(where the lessee is called _conductor_, probably a tenant in chief
subletting to _coloni_), should have had an appetite for more investments
of doubtful economic value. But other investments were evidently very
hard to find in an age when industry and commerce were fettered by the
compulsory gild-system. And a man of influence like Symmachus was better
able than one of the common herd to protect his own interests by the
favour of powerful officials.
We get glimpses of the condition of agriculture in Italy under the strain
of events. It must be borne in mind that Italy was no longer exempt from
the land-burdens of the imperial system. For many years, certainly from
383 to 398, Rome was hardly ever free from the fear of famine. It was
necessary to scrape together all the spare food that could be found in
the country in order to eke out the often interrupted importations from
abroad. The decline of food-production in rich Campania is indicated by
many scattered references. The district was probably too much given over
to vines, and a great part of it occupied by unproductive villas. In 396
Symmachus is relieved to know that the corn-supply of Rome is assured,
at least for twenty days. He goes on to mention[1656] that corn has been
transferred from Apulia to Campania. Whether this was for Campanian
consumption, or eventually to be forwarded to Rome, is not stated. I am
inclined to the former alternative by the consideration of the quarrel
between Tarracina and Puteoli referred to below. That corn should have
been brought from Apulia[1657] is a striking fact. A great part of that
province was taken up by pastures and oliveyards. It can only have had
corn to spare by reason of sparse population and good crops. If we had
the whole story of this affair, the explanation might prove to be simpler
than it can be now. In 397 he writes[1658] to a friend that the Apulians
are having a bad time. They are erroneously supposed to be in for a good
harvest, and so are being required to supply corn. This will be stripping
the province without materially helping the state. For winter is coming
on, and there is not time left to bring such a great crop of ripeness.
Symmachus had friends dependent on property in Apulia. Writing some four
years later[1659] he refers to this estate as rated for taxation on a
higher scale than its income would warrant: he asks the local governor to
see that it shall not be crushed by ‘public burdens.’
For to Symmachus, as to all or most men in this passive and cruelly
selfish age, the first thought was to protect their own interests and
those of their friends by engaging the favour of the powerful. Many of
the passages cited above illustrate this, and many more could be given.
The candour of some of his applications is remarkable. On behalf of one
dependant in trouble he says[1660] to the person addressed ‘but he will
get more help from the partiality of your judgment, for he really has
some right on his side.’ To another he writes[1661] that of course right
is always to be considered, but in dealing with _nobiles probabilesque
personas_ a judge should feel free to qualify strict rules, letting
the fairness of his decision appear[1662] in the distinction made. This
proposition introduces a request on behalf of his sister. Some farms of
hers are overburdened with the dues exacted by the state, and are now
empty for lack of tenants. Only the governor’s sanction can give them
the relief needed to restore them to solvency; and Symmachus trusts that
his friend will do the right thing by the lady. In another case[1663]
he asks favour for a dependant, significantly adding a request that
his friend will see to it that the case does not come before another
judge. Now, what chance of asserting their own rights had humble folk
in general, and poor working farmers in particular, when governors and
judges of all sorts were solicited like this by men whose goodwill was
worth securing,—men for the most part unscrupulous greedy and prone to
bear grudges, not such as the virtuous and kindly Symmachus? Perhaps
nothing shews the selfishness of the rich more than their attempts to
shirk the duty of furnishing recruits for the army. Yet we find in one
letter[1664] a request to a provincial governor to check the activities
of the recruiting agents. That the writer accuses these latter of
overstepping their legal powers can only be viewed with some suspicion,
considering his readiness to use private influence. Early in 398, when a
force was being raised to operate against Gildo, it was thought necessary
to enlist slaves from the city households. The protests[1665] of their
owners, in which Symmachus shared, were loud: the compensation allowance
was too low, and so forth. Yet, if any one was interested in suppressing
the rebel, it was surely these wealthy men.
That the obligation of providing for the sustenance of the idle populace
of Rome was not only a worry to officials but a heavy burden on farmers
in the Provinces whence the supplies were drawn, needs no detailed
proof. But they were used to the burden, and bore it quietly in average
years. A very bad season might produce dearth even in Africa, and call
for exceptional measures[1666] of relief on the part of emperors. So
Trajan had relieved Egypt. It was however an extreme step to ease the
pressure in Rome by expelling[1667] all temporary residents, as was
actually done during the famine of 383. These would be nearly all from
the Provinces, and Symmachus uneasily refers[1668] to the resentment that
the expulsion was certain to provoke. But in this age a rebellion of
provincials to gain redress of their own particular grievances was not a
conceivable policy. When discontent expressed itself in something more
than a local riot, it needed a head in the form of a pretender making a
bid for imperial power. But we are not to suppose that Rome, and later
Constantinople, stood quite alone in receipt of food-favours. The case
of two Italian municipalities, reported on[1669] by Symmachus in 384-5,
proves the contrary, and we have no ground for assuming that they were
the only instances. The important port-town of Puteoli was granted 150000
_modii_ of corn yearly towards the feeding of the city by Constantine.
Constans cut down the allowance to 75000. Constantius raised it again
to 100000. Under Julian a complication arose. The governor of Campania
found Tarracina in sore straits (evidently for food) because of the
failure[1670] of the supplies due from the towns long assigned for that
purpose. Now Tarracina had a special claim to support, since it provided
Rome with firewood for heating the baths and lime for the repair of the
walls. It seems that the governor felt bound to keep this town alive, but
had no new resources on which he could draw. So he took 5700 _modii_ from
the allowance of Puteoli and gave them to Tarracina. Final settlement was
referred to Julian, but not reached before his death in the Persian war
(363). The next stage was that a deputation from Capua[1671] addressed
the emperor Gratian, confining themselves to complaint of their own
losses. By this one-sided representation they procured an imperial order,
that the amount of corn allowance which Cerealis[1672] had claimed for
the people of Rome should be given back to all the cities deprived of it
by his act. But under this order the total recovered for sustenance of
the provincials only reached 38000 _modii_ of corn that had been added
to the stores of the eternal city. So Puteoli refused to hand over even
the 5700 to Tarracina. And the provincial governor did not go carefully
into the terms of the order, but ruled in favour of Puteoli. An appeal
followed, and it came out that the grant of 5700 to Tarracina was not an
ordinary bounty but an earmarked[1673] sum granted in consideration of
services to Rome. The governor did not feel able either to confirm it or
to take it away. Therefore the matter was referred to the emperors for
a final settlement. This strange story gives us a momentary glimpse of
things that make no figure in general histories. The abject dependence
of the municipalities on imperial favour stands out clearly: not less
so the precarious nature of such favours, a feature of the time amply
illustrated by the later imperial laws, numbers of which were simply
issued to withdraw privileges previously granted, under the stress of
needs that made it impossible to maintain them. Again, we see that
in addition to the normal jealousy of neighbours the competition for
imperial favour was an influence tending to hinder rather than promote
cohesion: tending in fact to weaken the fabric now menaced by the tribal
barbarians. Above all, this affair strongly suggests the partiality of
the central government to town populations. The farmers of the municipal
territories were certainly liable to the land-burdens, and were the
ultimate basis of imperial finance: but of them there is not a word.
Lastly, we may suppose that inter-municipal disputes such as this were
not of very frequent occurrence: but we have no reason to believe that
this Campanian case was unique.
LIV. AMMIANUS.
In =Ammianus Marcellinus= (about 330 to 400) we have an oriental Greek
from Antioch who passed a great part of his life in the military service
of the empire. He had travelled much, campaigned in Gaul and the East,
and was an observant man of wide interests, and in his history impartial
to the best of his power. Whether in deliberate criticisms, or in casual
references, he is an exceptionally qualified and honest witness as to the
state of things in the empire. On one important point his evidence is of
special value. All through the surviving portion of his work (353-378)
he leaves us in no doubt that the internal evils of the empire were
weakening it more than the pressure of barbarians from without. He does
not argue this in a section devoted to the topic, but he takes occasion
to notice the abuses that impaired the prosperity of the Provinces or
led directly to grave disasters. The corruption jealousy greed cruelty
and general misrule of officials high and low was no secret to him.
That the ultimate sufferers from their misdeeds were the poor, and more
particularly the poor farmers, may be gathered from many passages. That
the centre of this all-pervading disease lay in the imperial court,
a focus of intrigue and jobbery that the very best of emperors could
never effectively check, he was surely aware. At least it is only on
this assumption that we get the full flavour of his references to
court-intrigues and his criticisms of emperors, his balanced discussions
of their good and bad qualities and the effects of their policy and
practice. In truth the whole system was breaking down. It lasted longer
in the East than in the West, because the eastern peoples were more
thoroughly tamed. They had been used to despotic government long before
the coming of Rome. And the assaults of external enemies were more
formidable and persistent in the North and West than in the South and
East. Yet, so long as the empire held together, imperial despotism was
inevitable. Neither Ammianus nor any other writer of that age did or
could offer a possible alternative. Christianity might capture the
empire and spread among the barbarians, but it had no constructive
solution for the problems of imperial government.
A remarkably plain-spoken passage[1674] occurs in reference to the
events of 356, where he describes the administration of Julian in Gaul.
By his victories over the Germans he relieved the impoverished Gauls,
but this was by no means his only benefit. For instance, where he found
at his first coming a tax-unit[1675] of 25 gold pieces demanded as the
_tributum_, at his departure (360) he left things so much improved that
seven of these sufficed to meet all dues. Great was the joy in Gaul. As
a particular example of his thoughtful care, Ammianus cites his policy
in the matter of arrears of tribute. There were occasions, especially
in provinces liable to invasion, when it was certain that such arrears
could not be recovered in the ordinary course. It was not to the interest
of the central government to ruin or turn adrift farmers whose places
it would not be easy to fill. This consideration was no doubt used to
procure from emperors orders of remission, _indulgentiae_[1676] as they
were called. Julian to the last would not give relief by thus waiving
the imperial rights. ‘For he was aware[1677] that the effect of that
step would be to put money into the pockets of the rich; the universal
practice, as everyone knows, being for the poor to be made to pay up
the due amount in full directly the order of collection is issued, and
allowed no time of grace.’ It seems then that it was not the amount of
the imperial taxation, but the iniquities perpetrated in connexion with
its collection, that were the real burden crushing the vitality of the
Provinces. So thought Julian, rightly: and in the next year we find him
firmly upholding his principles in the face of exceptional difficulties.
The emperor Constantius had felt compelled to make Julian Caesar, and
to place him at the head of the Western section of the empire. But his
jealousy and fear of the Caesar’s winning glory in Gaul led him to
surround Julian with officers devoted to himself and secretly encouraged
to hamper their titular chief in every possible way. The court of
Constantius was a hotbed of intrigue and calumny. Private reports of
the doings of Julian were being regularly received. Any reforms that he
was able to make in Gaul had to be effected in the teeth of imperial
malignity.