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Empire and City, Augustus to Julian: Obligations, Excuses and Status

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Fergus Millar
Fergus Millar
Affiliation:
University College London
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Extract

The early Roman Empire rested on a network of cities, which were capable both of conspicuous expenditure locally, in the form of public buildings, shows and festivals, and of carrying many of the functions of government; but by the fourth century their capacity to perform these roles had drastically declined. Both the capacity and the decline depended in part on the availability or inavailability of the richer classes to undertake expenditures associated with public offices or with liturgies. These remarks are of course mere commonplaces. They have become so, in the first place, because precisely these changes were noted, and the issues relating to them consciously formulated, in the fourth century itself. So Libanius writes in his Funeral Oration for Julian:

He showed the same care also in relation to the councils in the cities, which formerly flourished in both numbers and wealth, but by that time had come to nothing, since their members, except for a very few, had switched course, some into military service, some into the Senate … The remainder were all but sunk, and for the majority of them undertaking public services (to leitourgein) ended in beggary. Yet who does not know that the vitality of its council is the soul of a city ? But Constantius, while in theory aiding the councils, in practice was their enemy, by moving elsewhere men who sought to evade them, and granting illegal exemptions (ateleiai).

Three points should be noted here: Libanius assumes an evolution which was, if not universal, at any rate general throughout the Empire; the crisis is regarded as having been caused by the availability of roles or statuses which offered an alternative to the obligations of city councillors ; and this availability itself is seen as a product of imperial actions, which (as Libanius goes on to say) Julian had taken steps to reverse.

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Research Article
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The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 73 , November 1983 , pp. 76 - 96
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Copyright © Fergus Millar 1983. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

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71 Dr. J. Rea has kindly re-read the papyrus for me from a photograph and assures me that only minor amendments of the published text are required: (1) Ζηναγένει for Ζηνογένει in line 2, see P. Oxy. 3246; (2) in l. 25 (not translated here) BERJAYA see Berichtigungsliste I, p. 313, and P. Oxy. XLV, p. xviii under 3105, ll. 3–4.

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78 e.g. ‘ex protectoribus’; CIL III, 7440; VI, 32945; ILS 5695 (A.D. 280). Examples of the Greek form (which seem to be more common) in H. J. Mason, Greek Terms for Roman Institutions (1074), s.v. ἀπό. Note Bryonianus Lollianus of Side, δουκηνάριος, ἀπὸ ἐπιτρόπων, etc. (AE 1966, 471); see C. Foss, ZPE XXVI (1977), 161; J.-M. Carrié, ZPE XXXV (1979), 213. Note also AE 1965, 195, ‘ex p(rimi) p(ili)’; AE 1966, 429, ἀπὸ ἐπιτρόπων; 446, ἀπὸ δουκηναρίας; AE 1972, 579, ἀπὸ ἐπιτροπῆν δουκηναρίας.

79 CTh VII, 21, 1 (either Constantine or Constantius).

80 See ERW, 109.

81 e.g. CTh XII, 1, 4 (praesidatus, 317); XII, 1, 20 (procurationes and curae civitatium, 331); XII, 1, 14 (honores, 326 or 353).

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86 Libanius, Or. XVIII, 148, Loeb trans.

87 AE 1979, 506.