Chapter XXIII: Appendix: Some Byzantine Authorities (22)

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.

A flagrant instance[1678] is seen in the efforts made to thwart his reforming energy during the winter of 357-8. After defeating and humbling aggressive German tribes, he set himself to relieve the distress of the landowners, who had suffered great losses. There was at the time a great need of money. The praetorian prefect of the Gauls, Florentius, proposed to raise the sums required[1679] by an additional levy, and procured from Constantius an order to that effect. Julian would rather die than allow this. He knew what would happen in carrying it out, and that such ‘precautions’ (_provisiones_)[1680] or rather destructions (_eversiones_) had often brought provinces into the extremities of want. The Prefect, to whose department the matter in strictness belonged, protested loudly, relying on the powers given him by Constantius. But Julian stood firm, and tried to soothe him by calmly proving that there was no necessity for the proposed measure. Careful calculations shewed that the normal impost (_capitatio_) would produce enough to furnish the needful supplies, and something to spare. He would have nothing to do with the order[1681] for an extra levy. The Prefect duly reported this to Constantius, who reprimanded the Caesar for his obstinacy. Julian replied that the provincials had been exposed to ravages from various quarters, and that if they were still able to render the usual dues[1682] the government had reason to be thankful. To wring more out of men in distress by punishments was impossible. And he did manage to prevent extraordinary exactions in Gaul. In the winter of 358-9 he continued the same policy. He saw to the equitable assessment[1683] of the tribute, and kept at bay the horde of rascally officials who made fortunes[1684] out of injuring the people. The corruption of the law-courts he checked by hearing the important cases himself. No wonder that in an age of Christian emperors the virtuous pagan earned a reputation as a restorer of Roman greatness far beyond the boundaries of Gaul. Whether the fact that adherents of polytheism were now chiefly to be found among rustics (_pagani_) had anything to do with Julian’s clear appreciation of the sufferings of countryfolk, is a question on which I cannot venture to offer an opinion.

That all or most of the corn levied by imperial taxation was in the frontier Provinces required for the military commissariat is well known, and the granaries for storing it were a leading feature of permanent camps and garrison towns. The feeding of armies in the field, always wasteful, no doubt consumed a great deal. In the case of Gaul (for to live on the country was starvation to a force invading wild Germany) the quantity to be brought up to the front seems to have been normally more than Gaul could spare. It was usual to rely on the harvests[1685] of Britain. Transport was the main difficulty. Saxon pirates infested the narrow seas, and the navigation of the Rhine was blocked by Franks. Julian’s energy cleared away these obstacles, and saw to the erection or repair of granaries in the Rhineland towns to receive the British corn. These measures enabled him to do without making extra demands on the farmers of Gaul, a step sometimes unavoidable when there was war on the frontiers. Of course such commandeering was very unpopular, and wise generals avoided it whenever possible. Ammianus draws particular attention[1686] to this matter when narrating the campaign of Theodosius in Mauretania (373). He forbade the levy of supplies from the provincials, announcing that he would make the stores of the enemy[1687] provide the commissariat, and the landowners were delighted.

Among the interesting references that occur in the course of the work are some that throw further light on the conditions of life in the parts of the empire subject to invasion. It is not necessary to cite the frequent mention of various kinds of fortified posts from great strongholds to mere blockhouses. These remind us that the strength of the imperial armies could never be so maintained as to guard the frontier at all times on all points. Barbarian raiders slipped through[1688] the inevitable gaps, and wide stretches of country were laid waste long before sufficient forces could be gathered to expel them. We do not need the descriptions of their cruel ravages to convince us that agriculture near the Danube or Rhine borders was a perilous calling. If the farmer were not carried away into bondage or slain, he was left robbed of his all, and in imminent danger of starving: for the barbarians ate up everything, and hunger was a principal motive in leading them to come and warning them to return home. Naturally it was the custom in these border-lands to provide fortified refuges here and there in which local farmers could find temporary shelter with their belongings, and homesteads of any importance were more or less equipped for defence. This was the state of things even in Mauretania. We read of a farm[1689] (_fundus_) which the brother of Firmus the rebel leader (373) ‘built up after the fashion of a city’; also of one girt with a strong[1690] wall, a very secure refuge for the Moors, to destroy which Theodosius had to employ battering-rams. These are not the only instances. And forts (_castella_) and walled towns are often referred to. Along the northern borders the necessity for such precautions was much greater. Still it seems that few if any in the latter part of the fourth century foresaw that frontier defences would at no distant date give way before the barbarian flood. A high imperial official, with whose corrupt connivance[1691] gross wrongs had been perpetrated (370) in Africa, on being superseded in office withdrew to his native Rhineland, and ‘devoted himself[1692] to rural affairs.’ The retired ease for which he apparently hoped was soon ended, though not by barbarian raiders. The malignity of a praetorian prefect tracked him to his retreat and by persecution drove him to suicide.

This last episode may remind us that the weakening of the empire was not wholly due to failure of an economic kind or to decay of military skill. The farmers might raise crops enough, the armies might prove their superiority in the field, but nevertheless the great organism was in decline. A general mistrust, fatal to loyal cooperation for the common good, was the moral canker by which the exertions of farmer and soldier were hampered and rendered vain. Officials seeking to ruin each other, emperors turning to murders and confiscations as a source of revenue, all classes bound fast in rigid corporations or gilds under laws which it was their study to evade; the failure of individual enterprise, lacking the joy of individual freedom, and the stimulus of expected reward; in short, everyone ready to sacrifice his neighbour to save his own skin: how was a society characterized by such phenomena to maintain a moral advantage over the rude barbarians? That it was now protected by alien swords, that aliens were even commanding[1693] the Roman armies, was not the main cause of its overthrow. As a rule these barbarians kept their bargain, and shed their blood freely for the empire that enlisted them in masses. But we must distinguish between two or three different classes of these alien defenders. The mere mercenaries need not detain us. More significant were the contingents taken over in large bodies by agreement with the tribes. A good instance[1694] is that of the year 376, when a vast host of Goths sought leave to pass the Danube with the hope of settling on vacant lands south of the river. We are told that the Roman commanders on that front got over their first alarm and took the line that really the emperor was in luck. Here was a huge supply of recruits[1695] brought to him from the ends of the earth, an unlooked-for reinforcement ready to be blended with his own troops, and to make up an unconquerable army. Instead of spending the yearly payments of the provinces[1696] on filling up the ranks, the treasury would gain a great sum of gold. It would seem that they reported to the emperor in favour of the request, for Valens granted the petition of a Gothic embassy. Arrangements were made for transporting them over the river, and it was understood that they had leave to settle in the parts of Thrace. But now troubles began. Greedy Roman officials fleeced and maltreated the hungry horde, who were at length driven into rebellion. With the sequel, the great battle (378) near Adrianople, and the death of Valens, we are not here concerned. But the account[1697] of their ravages in Thrace gives us a picture of the countryside in a harassed province and of the slave labour employed. The rebels, unable to take fortified places by regular siege, overran the country in raiding bands. Captives guided them to places stocked with food. But they were especially encouraged and strengthened by the great number of people of their own race who came pouring in to join them. Ammianus describes[1698] these deserters as men who had long before been sold (into slavery of course) by traders, and with them very many whom at the time of their passing the river, when they were perishing of hunger, they had bartered for thin wine or worthless scraps of bread.

This scene may serve to remind us that slavery and the sale of slaves to Roman dealers were recognized features of German tribal life as described by Tacitus. It also gives us a glimpse of the way in which opportunities of imperial advantage could be wasted or turned into calamities by the unpatriotic and selfish greed of Roman officials. In this case potential recruits were turned into actual enemies; and the barbarian slaves, who should have been tilling Thracian fields in the interest of Rome, were left to guide and recruit the hostile army of their kinsmen. It must not be supposed that all schemes for raising barbarian troops in large bodies were thus by gross mismanagement brought to a disastrous end. The value of sound flesh and blood in the ranks was well understood, and a successful campaign against German tribes could be made profitable from this point of view. Thus in 377, when Gratian had a whole tribe at his mercy, he required of them a contingent[1699] of sturdy recruits to be incorporated in Roman army-units, on delivery of whom he set free the rest to return to their native homes. That such recruits became under Roman discipline so far Romanized as to provide efficient armies is clear from the victories that still delayed the fall of the empire. But ‘Roman’ was becoming more than ever a mere name-label: there had never been a Roman nation. Of the third class of alien soldiery little need be said. Military colonists of barbarian origin had for a long time past been brought into the empire, some as frontier guards holding land on condition of army service, others more in the interior, even[1700] in Italy; and these latter undoubtedly furnished many recruits, on whatever terms. The general result may be summed up in saying that, when the barbarian invaders at last came to stay, they found their kindred already there at home.

LV. CLAUDIAN.

In =Claudian=, who wrote about 400, we have another oriental Greek, who wrote chiefly in Latin with far more mastery of that language than Ammianus. Stilicho his patron, the great barbarian head of the Roman army, was at the height of his power, and Claudian’s most congenial occupation was to sing his praises and denounce his opponents. He was also poet laureate of the feeble emperor Honorius. Writing mainly on contemporary themes, he is, if allowance be made for his bias, a witness worth citing; but the passages relevant to the present subject are naturally few. In common with other writers of the later ages of Rome he is constantly looking back to a great and glorious past, contrasting painfully with that present which he nevertheless is striving to glorify. Thus he not only refers with enthusiasm[1701] to the old heroes of Roman history and legend, the common material of Roman literature, but even dreams[1702] of a golden age to be, when the earth of her own accord shall render all good things in abundance to a people living happily in communistic brotherhood. This fancy however is no more than a piece of unreal rhetoric, an echo of Vergil. It is inspired by the victories of Stilicho, and the world-dominion under which this beatific vision is to be realized is—the rule of Honorius.

In January 395 the great Theodosius died, and the empire was divided between his two sons. In November, Rufinus, who dominated Arcadius at Constantinople, was murdered. His place was soon taken by the eunuch Eutropius. On these two personages Claudian poured out a flood of invective, speaking for Stilicho and the West. The greed of Rufinus is depicted[1703] as ruinous to the landed interests. ‘The fertility of his land was the ruin of the landlord: a good crop[1704] made the farmers tremble. He drives men from their homes, and thrusts them out of their ancestral borders, either robbing the living or seizing the estates of the dead.’ The jealousy of the West expresses itself in a passage[1705] referring to the famine created in Rome by the rebellion of Gildo in Africa. Honorius (that is Stilicho) is effusively praised for its relief by importations from other Provinces, chiefly from Gaul. That, owing to the claim of the New Rome to the corn of Egypt, the Old Rome should be so dependent on Africa, is a situation indignantly resented[1706] in eloquent lines. A symptom ominous of imperial failure was the attempt to wrest eastern Illyricum from the rule of Arcadius (407-8) an enterprise[1707] secretly concerted between Stilicho and Alaric. Fugitives from Epirus sought refuge in Italy. Stilicho treated them as prisoners of war from an enemy’s country, and handed them over to Italian landlords as slaves or _coloni_. When Alaric and his Goths moved towards Italy, some of these refugees, aided by a law issued for their protection, found their way home again. Claudian unblushingly declares[1708] that none but Stilicho will be able to heal the empire’s wound: ‘at length the _colonus_ will return to his own borders and the court will once more be enriched by the tributes of Illyricum.’

A Roman view of the intruding barbarians and their capacity of peaceful settlement is in one place[1709] put into the mouth of Bellona the war-goddess. She addresses a Gothic chief in bitter sarcasm. ‘Go and be a thorough ploughman, cleaving the soil: teach your comrades to lay aside the sword and toil at the hoe. Your Gruthungians[1710] will make fine cultivators, and tend vineyards in accordance with the seasons.’ She taunts him with degenerating from the good old habits of his race, war and plunder, and scornfully describes him as one captured[1711] by the glamour of fair dealing, who had rather live as a serf on what is granted him than as a lord on what he takes by force. In short, he is a coward. Now no doubt there were Goths and others, Huns in particular, of this war-loving work-hating type approved by the war-goddess. But abundant evidence shews that many, perhaps most, of the barbarians were quite ready to settle down in peace and produce their own food. When Claudian himself speaks[1712] of the ‘Teuton’s ploughshare’ as one of the agencies producing corn that relieved famine in Rome, he is most likely referring to the many Germans already settled in Gaul as well as to inhabitants of the ‘Germanies,’ the two provinces along the Rhine.

A curious passage[1713] in the poem on the Gothic war and Stilicho’s defeat of Alaric at Pollentia (402) is of interest in connexion with the Roman army and the recruiting system. Of the confidence revived in Rome by the appearance of Stilicho and his troops a vivid picture is drawn, and he continues ‘henceforth[1714] no more pitiful conscription, no more of reapers laying down the sickle and wielding the inglorious javelin ... nor the mean clamorous jangling of amateur leaders: no, this is the presence of a genuine manhood, a genuine commander, a scene of war in real life.’ If this means anything, it implies that hasty levies[1715] of raw countrymen were notoriously unfit to face hordes of barbarian tribesmen in the field. True, no doubt; professional training had been the basis of efficiency in Roman armies ever since the days of Marius. But the words surely suggest further that conscription within the empire was in Claudian’s time not found a success, that is in producing a supply of fit recruits to keep the legions up to strength. This also was doubtless true, as much other evidence attests, and was the main reason why the ‘Roman’ soldiery of the period were mostly barbarians. But here, as usual, the witness of the court-poet is in the form of admission rather than statement. His business was to be more Roman than Rome. It remains only to mention two similes, one of which perhaps refers to free labour. An old crone[1716] has ‘poor girls’ under her engaged in weaving. They beg for a little holiday, but she keeps them at work ‘to earn their joint livelihood.’ This may be a scene from life, but is more likely an echo from earlier poetry. When he illustrates[1717] the effect of Stilicho’s coming on the peoples rising against Rome by comparing them to slaves, deceived by false report of their lord’s death, and caught revelling by him when he unexpectedly returns, it is a scene that might be enacted in any age. The little poem on the old man of Verona is famous as a picture of humble contentment in rustic life. But the main point of it as evidence is that the case is exceptional.

LVI. VEGETIUS.

=Vegetius=, a contemporary of Ammianus and Claudian, is credited with two surviving works, one on the military system, the other on veterinary practice. Both are largely compilations, and belong to the class of technical writings which formed a great part of the literature of this age. In discussing army matters the author looks back with regret to the sounder conditions of the past. Speaking[1718] of the quality of recruits, he says ‘It can surely never have been matter of doubt that the common countryfolk are more fit (than townsfolk) to bear arms, reared as they are in toil under the open sky, able to stand the heat of the sun and caring not for the shade, with no experience of baths or knowledge of luxuries, straightforward and frugal, with limbs hardened to endure any kind of toil; for the wearing of armour, digging of trenches, and carrying their kit, are continuations of rustic habit.’ It is true that sometimes town-bred recruits have to be levied, but they need long and careful training to fit them for active service. True, the Romans of old went out to war from the city. But luxury was unknown in those days: the farmer of today was the warrior of tomorrow, by change of weapons. Cincinnatus went straight from the plough to be dictator. A little after, speaking[1719] of the standard of height, he tells us that it has always been usual to have a standard tested by actual measurement, below which no recruit was passed for service in certain crack units. But there were then[1720] larger numbers to draw from, and more men followed the combatant service, for the civil service[1721] had not as yet carried off the pick of those in military age. Therefore, if circumstances require it, strength rather than height should be the first consideration. I am loth to infer much[1722] from this passage, the period referred to in ‘then’ being undefined. What it does shew is that in the writer’s own time a considerable number of men of military age (Romans being meant) were attracted by the civil career of the new imperial service, which in all its grades was technically styled[1723] a _militia_. Nor does it appear certain that in preferring the rustic recruit to the urban Vegetius implies the existence of a plentiful supply of the former among the subjects of the empire. His words rather suggest to me the opposite conclusion, which is in agreement with the evidence from other sources.

Turning to the veterinary work (_ars mulomedicinae_) we come upon a chapter devoted[1724] to the management of horses. It is well to keep a free space near the stable for the beasts to get exercise by rolling, for they need exercise. ‘And for this end it is very helpful to have them mounted[1725] often and ridden gently. Unskilful riders spoil both their paces and their temper. Most mischievous is the recklessness[1726] of slaves. When the master is not there, they urge his horses to gallop, using spur as well as whip, in matches of speed with their mates or in fiercely-contested races against outsiders: it never occurs to them to halt or check their mounts. For they give no thought[1727] to what is their master’s loss, being well content that it falls on him. A careful owner will most strictly forbid such doings, and will only allow his cattle to be handled by suitable grooms who are gentle and understand their management.’ We must bear in mind that the horse was not used in agriculture or as an ordinary beast of burden. Horse-breeding was kept up to supply chargers for war, racers for the circus, mounts for men of the wealthier classes in hunting or occasionally for exercise, for solemn processions and such like. When Vegetius treats of a stable or stud of horses, he has in mind the establishment of a gentleman of means, and it is worth noting that such an establishment could be contemplated by a writer of about 400 AD. This harmonizes with the picture of Italian conditions that we get from the letters of Symmachus and other sources. A few rich were very rich, the many poor usually very poor. The carelessness, wastefulness, thievishness, of slaves is a very old story, and in the middle of the fourth century had been bitterly referred to[1728] by the emperor Julian. That Vegetius does not advise the owner of these slave grooms to make a _vilicus_ responsible for seeing that his orders are obeyed, is probably due to the rigidly technical character of the treatise: he is not writing on the management of estates.

CHRISTIAN WRITERS

LVII. LACTANTIUS.

When we turn to the Christian writers, whom it is convenient to take by themselves, we pass into a different atmosphere. Of rhetoric there is plenty, for most of them had been subjected to the same literary influences as their Pagan contemporaries. But there is a marked difference of spirit, more especially in one respect very important from the point of view of the present inquiry. Christianity might counsel submission to the powers that be: it might recognize slavery as an institution: it might enjoin on the slave to render something beyond eye-service to his legal master. But it could never shake off the fundamental doctrine of the equal position of all men before their Almighty Ruler, and the prospect of coming life in another world, in which the standards and privileges dominating the present one would go for nothing. Therefore a Christian writer differed from the Pagan in his attitude towards the poor and oppressed. He could sympathize with them, not as a kindly though condescending patron, but as one conscious of no abiding superiority in himself. The warmth with which the Christian witnesses speak is genuine enough. The picture may be somewhat overdrawn or too highly coloured, and we must allow for some exaggeration, but in general it is surely true to fact.

First comes =Lactantius=, who has already[1729] been once quoted. Writing under Constantine, he speaks of the Diocletian or Galerian persecution as a contemporary. The passage[1730] to be cited here describes the appalling cruelty of the fiscal exactions ordered by Galerius to meet the pressing need of the government for more money. It was after the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in 305. The troubles that ensued had no doubt helped to render financial necessities extreme. The remark, that he now practised against all men the lessons of cruelty learnt in tormenting the Christians, must refer to Galerius. The account of the census[1731], presumably that of 307, is as follows. ‘What brought disaster on the people and mourning on all alike, was the sudden letting loose of the census on the provinces and cities. Census-officers, sparing nothing, spread all over the land, and the scenes were such as when an enemy invades a country and enslaves the inhabitants. There was measuring of fields clod by clod, counting of vines and fruit trees, cataloguing of every sort of animals, recording of the human[1732] heads. In the municipalities (_civitatibus_) the common folk of town and country put on the same[1733] footing, everywhere the market-place crammed with the households assembled, every householder with his children and slaves. The sounds of scourging and torturing filled the air. Sons were being strung up to betray parents; all the most trusty slaves tortured to give evidence against their masters, and wives against husbands. If all these means had failed, men were tortured for evidence against themselves, and when they broke down under the stress of pain they were credited with admissions[1734] never made by them. No plea of age or infirmity availed them: informations were laid against the invalids and cripples: the ages of individuals were recorded by guess, years added to those of the young and subtracted from those of the old. All the world was filled with mourning and grief.’ In short, Romans and Roman subjects were dealt with as men of old dealt with conquered foes. ‘The next step was the paying[1735] of moneys for heads, a ransom for a life. But the whole business was not entrusted to the same body of officials (_censitoribus_); one batch was followed by others, who were expected to make further discoveries: a continual doubling of demands went on, not that they discovered more, but that they made additions arbitrarily, for fear they might seem to have been sent to no purpose. All the while the numbers of live stock were falling, and mankind dying; yet none the less tribute was being paid on behalf of the dead, for one had to pay for leave to live or even to die. The only survivors were the beggars from whom nothing could be wrung, immune for the time from wrongs of any sort by their pitiful destitution.’ He goes on to declare that, in order to prevent evasion of the census on pretence of indigence, a number of these poor wretches were taken out to sea and drowned.

In this picture[1736] we may reasonably detect high colouring and perhaps downright exaggeration. Probably the grouping together of horrors reported piecemeal from various quarters has given to the description as a whole a somewhat deceptive universality. That the imperial system, though gradually losing ground, held its own against unorganized barbarism for several more centuries, seems proof positive that no utter destruction of the economic fabric took place in the census to which Lactantius refers. But that the pressure exerted by the central power, and the responsive severity of officials, were extreme, and that the opportunities for extortion were seized and cruelly used, may fairly be taken for fact on his authority. This was not the beginning of sufferings to the unhappy tillers of the soil, nor was it the end. One census might be more ruinous to their wellbeing than another: it was always exhausting, and kept the farmers in terror. But they had not as yet reached the stage of thinking it better to bear the yoke of barbarian chieftains than to remain under the corrupt and senseless maladministration of imperial Rome.

LVIII. SULPICIUS SEVERUS.

The life and doings of the famous saint of Gaul, Martin of Tours, a Pannonian by birth, were chronicled by =Sulpicius Severus=, writing soon after 400, in an enthusiastic biography still in existence. In another work occurs a passage[1737] narrating one of his hero’s many miracles; and the story is too artlessly illustrative of the behaviour of the military and the state of things on the public roads, not to be mentioned here. Martin was travelling on his ecclesiastical duties, riding on an ass with friends in company. The rest being for a moment detained, Martin went on alone for a space. Just then a government car (_fiscalis raeda_) occupied by a party of soldiers was coming along the road. The mules drawing it shied at the unfamiliar figure of the saint in his rough and dark dress. They got entangled in their harness, and the difficulty of disentangling them infuriated the soldiers, who were in a hurry. Down they jumped and fell upon Martin with whips and staves. He said not a word, but took their blows with marvellous patience, and his apparent indifference only enraged them the more. His companions picked him up all battered and bloody, and were hastening to quit the scene of the assault, when the soldiers, on trying to make a fresh start, were the victims of a miracle. No amount of beating would induce the mules to stir. Supernatural influence was suspected and made certain by discovery of the saint’s identity. Abject repentance was followed by gracious forgiveness, and mules and soldiers resumed their journey. Now the point of interest to us is the matter-of-fact way in which this encounter is narrated. That a party of the military should bully peaceful civilians on the high road is too commonplace an event to evoke any special comment or censure. But it is clearly an edifying fact that violence offered to a holy man did not escape divine punishment. There is no suggestion that similar brutality to an ordinary rustic would have met with any punishment human or divine. Laws framed for the protection of provincials[1738] against illegal exactions and to prevent encroachments of the military[1739] remained on the statute-book, but in remote country parts they were dead letters. It is interesting to recall that Martin had in his youth served for some years as a soldier. As the son of a veteran, his enrolment[1740] came in the ordinary course. But, though he is said to have been efficient, he did not like the profession and got his discharge with relief. His life covered about the last three quarters of the fourth century.

LIX. SALVIAN.

The calamities that befel the Roman world in the fourth century led to much recrimination between Pagan and Christian, each blaming the other for misfortunes generally regarded as the signal expression of divine wrath. Symmachus had been answered by Ambrose, and Christian interpretation of the course of human history produced its classic in Augustine’s great work _de civitate Dei_ early in the fifth century. About the same time Orosius wrote his earnest but grotesque _historiae adversus paganos_, an arbitrary and superficial distortion of history, interesting as a specimen of partisan composition. But it is not till the middle of the century that we come upon a Christian author who gives us a graphic picture of the sufferings of the people in a Province of the empire, and a working theory of their causes, strictly from a pious Christian’s point of view. This is =Salvian=, an elder of the Church at Massalia. His evidence is cited by all historians, and must be repeated here. The main thesis is that all the woes and calamities of the age are judgments of God provoked by the gross immorality[1741] of the Roman world. So far from imputing all vices and crimes to the Heathen and the Pagan, he regards them as shared by all men: but he draws a sharp line between those who sin in ignorance, knowing no better, and those who profess the principles of a pure Christianity and yet sin against the light that is in them. For the barbarians are either Heathen or Heretics (he is thinking of the Arians), while in the empire the Orthodox church prevails. And yet the barbarians prosper, while the empire decays. Why? simply because even in their religious darkness the barbarians are morally superior to the Romans. For our present purpose it is the economic and social phenomena as depicted by Salvian that are of interest, and I proceed to give an abstract of the passage[1742] in which he expounds his indictment of Roman administration and the corrupt influences by which it is perverted from the promotion of prosperity and happiness to a cause of misery and ruin.

The all-pervading canker is the oppression of the poor by the rich. The heavy burdens of taxation are thrown upon the poor. When any relief is granted, it is intercepted by the rich. Franks Huns Vandals and Goths will have none of these iniquities, and Romans living among those barbarians also escape them. Hence the stream of migration sets from us to them, not from them to us. Indeed our poor folk would migrate in a body, but for the difficulty of transferring their few goods their poor hovels and their families. This drives them to take another course. They put themselves under the guardianship and protection of more powerful persons, surrendering[1743] to the rich like prisoners of war, and so to speak passing under their full authority and control. But this protection is made a pretext for spoliation. For the first condition of protection is the assignation[1744] of practically their whole substance to their protectors: the children’s inheritance is sacrificed to pay for the protection of their parents. The bargain is cruel and one-sided, a monstrous and intolerable wrong. For most of these poor wretches, stripped of their little belongings and expelled from their little farms, though they have lost their property, have still to bear the tribute on the properties lost: the possession is withdrawn, but the assessment[1745] remains: the ownership is gone, but the burden of taxation is crushing them still. The effects of this evil are incalculable. The intruders (_pervasores_) are settled down (_incubant_) on their properties, while they, poor souls, are paying the tributes on the intruders’ behalf. And this condition passes on to their children. So they who have been despoiled by the intrusion[1746] of individuals are being done to death by the pressure of the state (_publica adflictione_), and their livelihood is taken from them by squeezing as their property was by robbery. Some, wiser or taught by necessity, losing their homes and little farms through intrusions or driven by the tax-gatherers to abandon them through inability to keep them, find their way to the estates of the powerful, and become[1747] serf-tenants (_coloni_) of the rich. Like fugitives from the enemy or the law, not able to retain their social birthright, they bow themselves[1748] to the mean lot of mere sojourners: cast out of property and position, they have nothing left to call their own, and are no longer their own masters. Nay, it is even worse. For though they are admitted (to the rich men’s estates) as strangers (_advenae_), residence operates to make them[1749] natives of the place. They are transformed as by a Circe’s cup. The lord of the place, who admitted them as outside[1750] aliens, begins to treat them as his own (_proprios_): and so men of unquestioned free birth are being turned into slaves. When we are putting our brethren into bondage, is it strange[1751] that the barbarians are making bondsmen of us?

This is something beyond[1752] mere partisan polemic. It finds the source of misery and weakness in moral decay. Highly coloured, the picture is surely none the less true. The degradation of the rustic population presents itself in two stages. First, the farmer, still owning his little farm (_agellus_, _rescula_), finds that, what with legal burdens and illegal extortions, his position is intolerable. So he seeks the protection[1753] of a powerful neighbour, who exploits his necessities. Apparently he acquires control of the poor man’s land, but contrives to do it in such a form as to leave him still liable to payment of the imperial dues. That this iniquity was forbidden[1754] by law mattered not: corrupt officials shut their eyes to the doings of the rich. From the _curiales_ of the several communities no help was to be looked for. Salvian declares[1755] that they were tyrants to a man. And we must not forget that they themselves were forced into office and held responsible for paying in full the dues they were required to collect. The great machine ground all, and its cruel effects were passed on from stronger to weaker, till the peasant was reached and crushed by burdens that he could not transmit to others. The second stage is the inevitable sequel. The poor man’s lot is more intolerable than before. His lesson is learnt, and he takes the final step into the status of a rich man’s _colonus_. Henceforth his lord is liable[1756] for his dues, but he is himself the lord’s serf, bound to the soil on which his lord places him, nominally free, but unable to stir from the spot[1757] to which his labour gives a value. If he runs away, the hue and cry follows him, and he is brought ignominiously back to the servile punishment that awaits him—unless he can make his way to some barbarian tribe. Whether he would find himself so much better off in those surroundings as Salvian seems to imply, must be left doubtful. Any family that he might leave behind would remain in serfage under conditions hardly improved by his desertion.

LX. APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS.

The last of our array of witnesses is =Apollinaris Sidonius=[1758] (about 430-480), a writer whose life is singularly illustrative of the confused period in which the Roman empire was tottering and the series of luckless emperors was ended in the West. Britain had been finally lost in the time of Honorius. The Armorican provinces had rebelled, and even now the hold of Rome on them was slight and precarious. The rest of Gaul and much of Spain and Africa had been subject to barbarian inroads, and numbers of the invaders were settled in the country: for instance, the Western Goths were fully established in Aquitania. But the Roman civilization was by no means wiped out. Roman landlords still owned large estates: Romans of culture still peddled with a degenerate rhetoric and exchanged their compositions for mutual admiration. Panegyrics on shadowy emperors were still produced in verse and prose, and the modern reader may often be amazed to note the way in which the troubles of the time could be complacently ignored. Above all, there was the Church, closely connected with Rome, claiming to be Catholic and Orthodox, a stable organization, able to make itself respected by the barbarians. That the latter were Arian heretics was indeed a cause of friction, though the Arians were destined to go under. The conversion of the Franks under the Catholic form did not give Roman Christianity the upper hand till 496. But the power of bishops, ever growing[1759] since the days of Constantine, was throughout a powerful influence holding the various communities together, maintaining law and order, and doing much for the protection of their own people. A native of Lugudunum, the chief city of Gaul, Sidonius came of a noble and wealthy family, and his social position evidently helped him in his remarkable career. In 468 he was city prefect at Rome, barely eight years before Odovacar removed the last of the titular Western emperors. We find him anxiously concerned[1760] with the old food-question, like his predecessor Symmachus, and not less endeavouring to cooperate harmoniously with the _praefectus annonae_. For a hungry rabble, no doubt fewer in number, still hung about the Eternal city, though its services in the way of applause were no longer in appreciable demand.

From about 471 Sidonius was bishop[1761] of Arverni (Clermont in Auvergne), and performed his difficult duties with efficiency and dignity, a sincerely pious man with a good deal of the _grand seigneur_ about him. Moving about on duty or seeking restful change, he was often visiting country houses, his own or those of friends, receiving or returning hospitality. His references to these visits lead to descriptions[1762] of many pleasant places, and pictures of life in the society of cultivated gentlemen to which he belonged. There is hardly any mention of the suffering farmers of whom Salvian speaks so eloquently. Yet I hesitate to charge Salvian with gross exaggeration and imaginative untruth. Not only do the two men look from different points of view. Sidonius is writing some twenty years later than Salvian, and much had happened in the meantime. The defeat of Attila in 451 by the armies of the Romans and Western Goths had not only saved Gaul from the Huns, but had greatly improved the relations between Goth and Roman. And it is to be noted that, in a passage[1763] mentioning the victory of the allies and the reception of Thorismund the Gothic king as a guest at Lugudunum, Sidonius praises his correspondent[1764] for his share in lightening the burdens of the landowners. Now Salvian knows nothing of the battle of 451, and indeed does not regard the Huns as being necessarily enemies of Rome. It seems certain that for the rustics things were changed for the better. Not that the farmer was his own master, but that the great Roman taxing-machine was no longer in effective action. A great part of Gaul had passed under Teutonic lords. If the subjects were exposed to their caprice, it was of a more personal character, varying with individuals and likely to be modified by their personal qualities. This was a very different thing from the pressure of the Roman official hierarchy, the lower grades of which were themselves squeezed to satisfy the demands of the higher, and not in a position to spare their victims, however merciful their own inclinations might be.

But though the establishment of barbarian kingdoms, once the raiding invasions were over, had its good side from the working farmer’s point of view, much of the old imperial system still lingered on. The power of the Catholic Church stood in the way of complete revolution, and the Church was already[1765] a landowner. Roman traditions died hard, and among them it is interesting to note the exertion of private interest on behalf of individuals and causes in which an honourable patron felt some concern. Thus we find Sidonius writing[1766] on behalf of a friend who wants to buy back an ancestral estate with which recent troubles have compelled him to part. Great stress is laid on the point that the man is not grasping at pecuniary profit but actuated by sentimental considerations: in short, the transaction proposed is not a commercial one. The person addressed is entreated to use his influence[1767] in the applicant’s favour; and we can only infer that he is asked to put pressure on the present owner to part with the property, probably to take for it less than the market price. Another letter[1768] is to a bishop, into whose district (_territorium_) the bearer, a deacon, fled for refuge to escape a Gothic raid. There he scratched a bit of church-land and sowed a little corn. He wants to get in his crop without deductions. The bishop is asked to treat him with the consideration usually shewn to the faithful[1769]; that is, not to require of him the season’s rent[1770]. If this favour is granted him, the squatter reckons that he will do as well as if he were farming in his own district, and will be duly grateful. Very likely a fair request, but Sidonius does not leave it to the mere sense of fairness in a brother bishop. To another bishop he writes a long letter[1771] of thanks for his thoughtful munificence. After the devastation of a Gothic raid, further damage had been suffered by fires among the crops. The ensuing distress affected many parts of Gaul, and to relieve it this worthy sent far and wide bountiful gifts of corn. The happy results of his action have earned the gratitude of numerous cities, and Sidonius is the mouthpiece of his own Arverni. The affair illustrates the beneficence of good ecclesiastics in troubled times. For Gaul was not enjoying tranquil repose. The barbarians were restless, and the relations[1772] between their kings and the failing empire were not always friendly. Religious differences too played a part in preventing the coalescence of Gallo-Roman and Teuton. The good bishop just referred to is praised by Sidonius as a successful converter of heretics.