2015.282052.the Cambridge Text
2015.282052.the Cambridge Text
2015.282052.the Cambridge Text
EDITORS
Volumes i-vi Volumes vii-xt
'
?• I, : A D CO C K, ' M,A.,
TORONTO
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS
• ‘
Macmillan
TOKYO
Maruzen Company Ltd
EDITED BY
S. A. COOK, Litt.D., F.B.A.
F. E. ADCOeK, M.A., F.B.A.
M. P. CHARLESWORTH, M.A.
ISr. H. BAYNES, M.A., F.B.A.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFACE
The next three chapters deal with Pagan Philosophy and the
Christian Church, together with the progress of the Church in
the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire. These complete
the picture of Christianity as a religious movement. At this point
the transition of art from the classical to the late-classical is
described. Next Latin literature is taken up from the point at
which it was left in Volume xi, and in the survey are included
the works of Christian authors writing in Latin. The second part
of the volume is completed by a review of the philosophy and
letters of the Greek-speaking parts of the Empire. There follow
two closing chapters; in these the Great Persecution under Dio-
cletian and its antecedents are considered and then the career of
Constantine is outlined up to the Council of Nicaea, the point at
which the Cambridge Medieval History opens. The volume ends
with a short Epilogue.
It has already been pointed out that the advance in the study
of this period has been due to criticism of sources and in particular
to the use of numismatic evidence. The literary sources are briefly
indicated in an Appendix to which Mr Mattingly has contributed
a review of the evidence that is supplied by the study of coins.
In three Notes the authors of chapters v—vi and vn treat of
particular problems, and then follow the bibliographies, which are
the work of the authors of the several chapters, except for the
General Bibliography and that to chapters xin—xv in which, in
the absence of a bibliography from Professor Burkitt, will be seen
the co-operation of several scholars besides Professor Lietzmann,
the author of chapter xv. To these scholars, as indeed to all the
writers who have taken great pains with the bibliographical
material, students will, we hope, be grateful. Between the several
bibliographies there has been a certain amount of interlocking, as
also between these and the General Bibliography, which precedes
them. Here and there a very recent book or an article about to
be published may fail to be entered in a bibliography, though
additions have been allowed as late as possible.
The varied character of the sources for this period has presented
formal difficulties in the methods of reference, and we are indebted
to the contributors for their willingness to see their own practice
modified to secure such uniformity as is possible. If any form of
reference is not immediately clear to the reader, assistance will be
found in the details given in the Index of Passages. In the use
of capitals and italics in the text of the chapters the practice of
former volumes has been followed, and lack of uniformity is
rather apparent than real. ; >
.
viii PREFACE
On the title-page of this volume appear not three but four names
U
arranged in the order dictated by the conventions of the niversity
The fourth name is that of Professor N. H. Baynes, who has the
chief responsibility for the planning of the volume, though in this,
as in earlier volumes, we have always had before us the original
scheme as drafted by Professor Bury. The part Professor Bury
played in the editing of the first half of this work and the width
and depth of his historical judgment have not been forgotten by
us, and we wish to take this final opportunity of placing on record
our sense of his services to this work. The Ancient History has been
an enterprise of the University through its Press, but it has been
helped by many scholars of many Universities. Only the Editors
know how greatly this help has exceeded the sum of the chapters
which appear under the names of the several contributors. What
is true of the whole is true of this volume, and we are also much
their purpose, and it is not claimed for them that they make
reference to an atlas superfluous. Care has been taken to secure,
as far as possible, a convenient grouping of the geographical
material, and attention is called to the consolidated Index to the
maps which appears at the end of the volume. Map 2 is based
upon the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain, with the
permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. For the
plans which accompany this volume we acknowledge the courtesy
of H. Lamartin, Brussels, for Plan i ; Propylaen Verlag, Berlin,
for Plan 2; Verlag Heinrich Veller, Berlin, for Plan 3; Verlag R.
Oldenbourg, Munich, for Plan 5. Plan 4 is taken from D. S.
Robertson, Greek and Roman Architecture.
We have once more to thank Mr C. T. Seltman for his assist-
ance with the plans and for his co-operation in settling the illustra-
tions. These, together with those to Volume xi, appear in Volume
of Plates V, which he has prepared for publication at the same
time as the present volume. Our debt to him is not limited to
this, and we would acknowledge his generous help, especially in
numismatic questions, throughout the whole of our task. For
translations in this volume we have to thank him, and also Mr Boys
Smith, Professor Fletcher, Mr H. P. W. Gatty, Mr G. T. Griffith,
Mr R. D. McLellan, Mr Mattingly and Mr D. E, W. Wormell.
Professor G. B, A. Fletcher has once more prepared the
Chronological Table to the volume, and we are again indebted
to him for his vigilant reading of the text. The General Index,
Index to Maps and Index to Passages are the work of Mr J.
Stevenson of St John’s College, whose knowledge and watchful-
ness have been of great assistance to us in helping to control the
many details both of form and substance that appear in a book
of this complexity. We have advised him to omit from the General
Index certain classes of items which appeared to us to be of no
practical value, and for any such omissions we accept the responsi-
bility.
In the prefaces to previous volumes we have expressed our
thanks to the Staff of the University Press. A composite work
of this kind gives rise to problems which may make demands on
the resourcemlness of a Press, and this has been especially true
of the present volume. We have therefore good reason to appre-
ciate the unfailing helpfulness of the Staff of the Press, in this as
in other volumes, and we take our leave of them with a due sense
of gratitude.
The figure that best marks the transition from the ancient to
the medieval world is that of Constantine, and for this reason Urc
X PREFACE
have chosen to place on the Gover his portrait from a medallion,
which is reproduced by the kind permission of the Director of
'
PAGE..
* . i
Pertinax * * .
'
»
'
,
*'
, 2,
Julianos:
Severus in
The Legions
Rome .... . .
.
.
,
'
.
'
.
'
* |
'
^ ...
....
o
m
bs
Finance
The
.....
Senate and Equites
Praetorian Prefects
Os4^
QO'<k
Militarization of government so
Regimentation . • ,
•
>-4
The Army . . * .
'
, bd
h
IV. Severus and Britain
)
V. Caiacama • . ,
'
,
'
'
, . .
Caracalia m
Sole Ruler ^
XI! CONTENTS
mcE
VL ''MaCRIHUS'AN.D ElA.CABAI.TJS .
' . , ,
^
:v *
'
50
was Emperor
'
''An • .» .
'
*, ^'
,
• 5
Tke women of the Severan HomeEoH . . . ,
. * 51
Inpuius 8 acerdm Augustus . . , . ,
^
54
The death of Ekgabalns- . , , . ,
. .
,
56
.
CHAPTERTI
THE SENATE AND 'THE ARMY
By W.-Eksslin, Phil.Dr.
Professor of Ancient History in' the University of Erlangen
. . 57
A New Order? .
'
. • • • * ,
*. * .. 58
Cassius Dio; the Ftia Aiexmdri . . * ,
.
'
. , 59
Reforms . . . . . ,
. ,
.
'
. * .
* 60
The Praetorian Prefect . , * . *
'
» 61
Ulpiaii. . . ,
^
'
.
'
, '
'
'
7;. ^2'
The empress-mother
Finances and economy
Public works .
.
.
.
.
.
.
,
.
,
.
...
.
.
.
'
.
'
.
63
65
66
Criminal Law . , . . . . , . . '67
. . 68
The Persian danger . .». . 69
The fall of Alexander Severus . . . . . . 7^
73
A soldier Emperor .... . . .
'
,..,74
Persecution ofthe Church' ^ •» '
- "«
'
^
.........
,
,
;
•
Financial stress .
'
... .
^
76:'
The Gordiani 77
The Senate, Pupienus and Balbinus . . . . . 78
The death of Maximinus and his Rivals ... . . . 80
"
IV. Gordian III .
^
. . . .
.
;
. ^ V
The general direction of Policy
'
. . . ,
^
''.'84
'.Frontier De.feEce . .
'
:' ,:
.'"
Administration
Wars on the Danube
The Millennium of Rome
.
Frontier
* .
.
* ,
......
*
*
.
*
• *
•
•
•
*
•
89^
90
9^
Further 'invasions •* .* • .
. . 92
The rise of Decius ^ . 93
and
'
CHAPTER III
^
PAGE
I; ,
The mhds between the Roman Eunm aho Chiia' „
,
> :
. 96
The culture of Chinese Turkestan . ,
.. , . ,
,
. 97
Contacts with the Empire '
.
'
. . . . .
V - 98
IL ,
The CmiizATioN OP THE Steppes . . , .
'
. .
. 99
The culture of the Steppes ,
. ... .
'
. . 100
The art of the Nomads . - . . . . 102
, . .
. 104
The dismemberment of Chi, m .
'
CHAPTER 1 ¥
SASSANID PERSIA
By Arthur Cnm^Tm&m
Professor of Iranian Philology in University of Copenhagen,
and W, Ehsslih^
IL
....
ORCANIZATIOIf an© AOMiNISTRATlOM OF THE SaSSANIAN StATI
........
The structure of Sassankn Society
Official
1
114
14
Fiit-wowhi]^ . .
C.A.H. fll
xiv CONTENTS
.men
'V. ...
"'..The^ArtS' ' ,
‘
,
Reliefs . ,
... .
'
'
.Tainting . , ...
..'... '.
. .
.• •
. ... . '
.* 126
ArdasWPs earliest attacks . ... .... '
..
* ^^7
The .Roman connter-offensive .. .. ..
^28
.
.
.Shapiir’s initi.al successes and d.efeat .'
.
. .
..
;
. .
.
..* ...
.'
..
•
'
13 ^
The of Ar.menia
loss '
..
'.
..
'
.
.... „ . '.
. .
^3^'.
..*
.
'•
^33
The breakdown of Valerian’s defensive . . . . . ^35
Shapnr the Victorious . . . . • * • - ^37
CHAPTER V
THE INVASIONS OF PEOPLES FROM THE RHINE
TO THE BLACK SEA
By A. AlpSldi
I. The Movements
Rhine . .
of the Peoples on the Black Sea, Danube and
, . . . . . ... 138
Sarmatae and Dacians
Carpi
Goths .
.....
.
. . .
. . .
. .
139
140
.14.1
...
''
... ...'
149
The Battle of Naissus . . .
149
.
""..15.0..
i *
'
.r 54^
The wars of Aurelian , 156
The German pressure on the Rhine 157^
Postumus on the Rhine 158
IV. The Eppeci's op Rome’s Strucgle with the Germanic World 159
The effects of the German Invasions 160
The Germans and the Empire .
CONTENTS XV
CHAPTER VI
the' CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE (a.d. '249-270)
By A. Alf^ldi
PAO'E'
'
L ,
Introduction: The Age of Decius, Gallus and Aemidianus, .
,
165,
Decius . , . . •
. . ,
. ... . .
'
166
'
Gallus 167
^
'
'
.. . , . . .
. ,
, ,
;
Aemiliamis .
'
,
'
. . ... ..
169
IL ,
The Roman East from. Yaderian to.'The Accession op Aursoan 169
Valerian in tlie East '
.
'
. . . 170
The capture of Valerian. . . .
'
., .171,
'
Macrianus .
'
, . . . . .
'
. . . 172
Odenathos of Palmyra.. .. .. . . ..... .
174
The death of Odenathns '
. . . . . . 176
Zenobia
The Palmyrene invasion of Egypt .... .
.
'
,
,
.
,,
178
180
IIL The West from the Joint Reign of Vauerian and Gaelienus tO'
the Proclamation OF Aureeian . - . . .
'
. 181
Galiieniis in the West . . . . . . 181
A year of calamity . .
'
. . . . .. 182
Rebellion in the Danube Provinces . .
'
. , .184
The rise of Postomus .. . . . ,. .
'
. .
,185
The .claims of Fostumus , .. ., ,. . .. .
. , ':i87
The ‘Gallienic Renaissance’ . . . . . . .188
The death of Gallienas '
. ''.,190
Claudius . .. . ,
i
QuintiHus . 192
IV. The Chief Political Factors 193
The challenge
'
. of Christianity ..
'
.
'
. 19.4
.
.
The 'Senate' .., ... . .
'
. . '195
,
.The infi'Uence .of the senatorial class . . .. . .;
197
The position of Rome . . .198
The troops of the border provinces . . . . .199
V. The State and the Church. .......
The Illyrian emperors
.......
. . •
. , . . . . 200
20a
The Decian Persecution
Sacrifice a test
Valerian
.......
..........
of loyalty
202
204
205
Gallienus’ toleration 207
VI. The Army and its Transformation
The Legions
....... 208
208
Tkt JuxiUa . . .
"
. . . . . 210
Tht numeri . • * 21
The new strategy . * ,
. ^
. . . . 213
%ecialist troops . . . . 215
The Cavalry . . , ^
. . . . 216
Germans in the Army ^ » 21S
Economic elects f
XYt CONTENTS
,
.PAGE
•
,
. .; .
.
. 222
"'
The picture of GaHienas .
'
•*. '
*".: . . « 235
Governing tendencies . . . ,, . .
:
. . .'• 225
,
The true picture; Decins . . . . , ,. . . 228
The tme picture: Galliis and Valerian * . . * . 229
The trae picture: Galliemis . ... . ... . ... .230'
,
The trne picture: Clandins . . . * .
'
« ,
2 $!
CHAPTER ¥II
THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE
By F. Oertel, Phil.Dr.
GoVERHING TENnEN.CIES . . .
. 232
The prosperity of the first century 233
The economic expansion of the Empire 23 s ,.
IL Production .. , - ... „
237
Decentralization .
237
Recession in Italy . . 238
Advances in the newer provinces . 240
The older provinces . - • 242
III. Interchange and Commerce' .. .
244
Italy and commerce • V •
24s
The heirs to Italian trade * , 247
Commercial interdependence 248
IV. Prosperity: Progress and Retrogression 249
Economic progress and its limits 250
'
Retarding factors . ,
.
. 252
State-socialist tendencies 254
V* The Burdens of State demands
Financial system
The growth
....
of State claims .
256
257
258
VI. The Great Crisis and the Restoration 259
Economic decline 260
Inflation 262
Taxation 263
Rigid State-socialism 265
Currency 266
The breaking of the bourgeoisie 267
Stabilization : restoration 269
FIL Economic System in the State-socialistic era 270
Production and interchange . 271
economy
'
State . •
. . 275
Feudal and city economy 274
Decline in production and trade 276
Limits of the decline . .
'
.
278
The reaction against Staus-iodalism 280
CONTENTS xvii
, CHAPTER VIO
BRITAIN-
By R, G.. -COLLINGWOOD, M.A.y F.S.A., F.B.A. ,
V.
PAGE
L CiTiESj.Films, Villages . . . ,
,
„ . . *. , zBz
; The decay of the towns ,
. ,
» . . . 283
The vila-system . ^ . . 285
The later phase of the villas - . ':. ,
,
, . . . 286
293
: ' *;"
Art . y, > ; V''
• „
:
293
.Religion .".''294,
Praeparam imngeiim . ... * . ... .
. .
.:
. .
"
296
,
CHAPTER IX :
. 300
Aurelkn and the East
The fall of Palmyra .......
The fall of the Gallic Empire
...
.....
. . . . 301
m
306
Coinage reform . . .
307
Frontier policy
Religions policy
The death of Anrelmn
........
. •
.
'
.
,
. -
, .
.
'
- ^
.
308
309.
310
Coinage of AnrelisB . . _
.
.
^
, . 311
The death of TaciHis .
. 312
TiefaEofFlormn 3^3
Ptdficatioii . . . .... .
.
31S
'
; ,
.319
xvi CONTENTS
PAGE
F. Carijs'anb his Sons: ‘Praesxoia Reipoblicae’ 32 f
Persianwar of Caras . *
.
' * 331
Nmnerian in the. East . . . 322
Carinns in, the West • . ,
'
323
327
'
'
IX.
The rise of Maxentius ....
Constantine and Maxentius: Filii Augustorum
PAGE
in. The Court AN& ITS Ceremohial. Dress and Insignia .
. . . .. .•^61
'
Prmkymsk . . .
'
.
'
.. 362
'
The emperor
dress of the ,
> . . . , . '[".$64,,
• • ... . . 370
,
Co-rnlers . .
'
. .
;
. ..
371
'
. . .. .; 372
The Senate and the currency . .
'
. .
"
373
The Senate and the Capita.I '
... . . . ...
374
The composition of the Senate . . . • * * 375
VI. Changes in the Administration of the Empire and- in the Arm.y . 376
The in administration
The proieciores , ...
..... .
. . .
. . . .
377
378
Military changes
The Praetorian Prefect
The departmental chiefs
.... ....
. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
379
380
381
The staffs of the . . . . . . * . 382
.CHAPTER XI .
.
:
:.THE REFORMS. .OF DIOCLETIAN '...-
-
r
By W. Ensslin
. 383..
Angiisti and Ca'es.a.rs .- . . . ... . ..
-
.. . .. .384'
The position of Rome ,
'
. .. ... . . 386
The sanctity of the autocrat .
'
. . ... , *
3^7
The . - . . . . . . .388
IL Administrative Reforms . . .
'
. .
*
. . .389
Central administration , , , . . . . . . .389
Provincial administration . \ . . .
. . , . . 390
The sabdivision of provinces . . ... , , 391
Proconsuls . . ,
. 392
The vicariate and dimfsts .
•
. . . .
* .
, 393
Separation of military and civil authority , . .
- 395
.
....
. . .
’
.
396
396
Increase of legions ^
. . . 397
The distribution of forces * • * .
• * . ,
• -
> 39 ^
, I
3QC CONTENTS
PAGE
IV. '
. 399
Tke bases of taxalioE
'
'
.
'
,
* ••
'
* • •
'
* 4*^^
, Methods of coleetion , . . . .
. ,
,
•«
* 40!
, Taxation Mild' m ... - . .
. •
•'
•
.
• 4*^2
,
,
. '
. 403
The Edict on 'Prices . . . , ,.• 405
V. ,
CoHSERYATIVE TlNBENCiES IN DiOCEETIAn’s GOVERNMENT . . ,
. 405
Law .
, . , . . . . ,
* . 406
Religion .
, , • , . * ,
» 407
CHAPTER XII
THE BEVELOPMENT OF PAGANISM IN, THE ROMAN EMPIRE
By A. D, Nock, M. A., Hon.XL.D. (Birmingham)
Frothingham Professor of the History of Relig,ion in Harvard 1[Jn.iYersity
I. Int&oouction . 409
The first wave of Oriental cults . ,
409
Characteristics of Roman religion '
'
. '4 1'
4^9
Philosophic trends . .
,421,
'
421
IV. The Western Provinces . . . . 422
Oriental cults in the West . 4^^
The cult of Cybele . 423
Atds, Isis, Sarapis , . 4^,5
Syrian cults . 427
Mithraism , . . . . . 428
V. Tendencies in Popular Piety . ip .
• • 43*
Native culte . # m- . 432
Religion in the Army • 433
Pagan theology • . • • 435
Syncretism • . . . m p '
• 437
'
. 440
Neoplatonism ,,',442
-TTr,:"
The maintenance of Christian orthodoi^:'
'
,: „
. 446
Revivals and survivals of paganism •
I;;-:;:::: • 447
VIIL Conclusion 4 '.'
m . . . 448
The limits of Orientalism • • • 448
CONTENTS xsi
CHAPTER XIII
'
,
.
PAGAN ^PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHRISTIAN ..CHURCH
By tbe iate F- G. .BuRKiTTy D.D., Hoe, D.Litt. (Oxoe.), Hoa.'D,.D.'(EdmbErglij .
PAGE
L :
The PoRMATioN OP THE Canon . ,, . .450
The Old Testament '
,
, 451
Marcion . . . , .
^ . * "45^
IL '
454
'
Prophecy >
'
* 45$
Montanus , .
, ,
, .
* 456
The challenge of .Montanism
'
. * , • 4 S^
IIL ,
The Apologists , , . . . ... .
;
* ,
•
,
.
'
. • ,
^
* «, 462
Justin . . ./ .
. . . . , , .. 464
Tatian, Athenagoras . .
’
. . , . .
'
. ,466
47.1
47 ^
^
^
..'
"Sophia*,"/' .... . .
.-A:;,
'
V.
^
IEENAEOS...,
/TheT/r^i>ii‘':of'Ireme'U.s
"
*’,.'475
CHAPTER, XIV
THE. CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE'.EASW
'
By F.,C..BTOiciTT
L Greemfearing Christianitt . ,
'
. . , , . 476
Julius Africantis 477
The Alexandrian School , . , . . . .478
Clement of Alexandria
'
. • .
'
. . . 479
Origen ^
. . . .481
The Hixaph . . . . . 4^4
The €mim Celsum . . . . . . - .485
Dionysius of Alexandria .
'
.
.
' . ^
. 487
The churches of Asia Minor . . 48S
*„'*. .
.
Firmilmn , . . . . . , 489
Paul of Sam«ata 490
» Additions to «ctiom i-iii of this chapter have been made by Profea»r J. M. Ciwd*
» Additions to section t of this chapter have been made by Pmfewor Creed.
C . , , , '
XXI! CONTENTS
PAGE
II Striac-speaicing 'Christianity ,
492
,
...
.Tatian’s Bmtessaron '
. ,
493
'
..Bardaisau ,
. .
'
*
'
49*^
'S;^riac 'asceticism * ,
499
Aphraates and Ephraim 501
""
...'Rabbnla ,
. -
.
'
. 502
504'
IIL Manx and the Manichees
The documents of Mani 504
'
CHAPTER XV
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WEST
By Hans Lietzmann, Hon. D.TheoL (Bonn), Hon. Dr.PhiL (Jenay Athens)
Professor of Church History in the University of Berlin
.
.
.
...
.
. .
. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
515
516
518
Early Persecutions , , , . . . . . 4 . . .
5:19
The Decian Persecution .. . . . . •
. 521
Toleration . . . . . . . . .522
Hr' '."'T he Inner .'Life' op'THE Church .', ... . , '523
The Sunday service 523
The Early Eucharist . . , . . . .
.524
The development of the Eucharist 526
'
^
^Passover.and .Easter .. :
.
.: .
' '. .
528';
The Catacombs 529
''
'^
III.'', '.TEg^"'EoMAN; hurch, 'v:- :.. ..
',53 '0'^
. ;
.
"
'
The Roman 'S^ec"" v ,,., .
....: .^ ":..
. ,•' S'J.!'
The claim of the Roman church .532
Theological
Hippolytus
Fabian
..........
conflicts
...
'
'
.
. '//'vv
,
7 ,
'
553
534
53^^^
142:
The acceptance of Roman authority ^543-
CONTENTS xx:iii
CHAPTER XVI
,
,
THE TRANSITION’ TO, LATE^CMSSICAL ART
By G. Eodenwaldt, PhiL Dr.
Professor of Classical Archaeology ia the University of Berlin
PAGE
L :
Feom SipTiMitrs Sey.ee.iis TO Eiaoabalus , . .
544
Antonine aiid Sevems.'Portraitiire .. ... 545
'
.
.... .
.
. .
.
,
\ .
.
548
549
55°
Architecture . . . . . . . ,
. 5SI
'
.
.
•
...
•
'..
...
. ,
.
552
553
556
The ‘Gailienic. Renaissance’,
'
. . . ,
556
Other sarcophagi . . .
567
The Christian Basilica . . . . 569
CHAPTER XVir
THE LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST FROM
THE ANTONINES TO CONSTANTINE
By E. K. Rand, A.M.j Pli.D*rHon. Xltt.B. pidanchester, TiiB.ity;ColIegei» DaHls,
Western Reserre), .Hon. .LL.,D. .(Glasgow^
Pope Professor of Latin in tlie University of Harvard
I. Ihtropuctioh .
.........
.
.
Fronto as teacher . . . . • • - *
*574
Fronlo as stylist 575
Fronto as critic , . . . 576
AulusGellius 577
Apuleius . . 579
TmMimm&^Msis , » . 582
Antonine poete . . . . .. ,
584
The Pimigiimm Femm ,
. .
/ .
•,
• •
.
xxiv CONTENTS
'
RACE
III. The Age of the Seveei and the Rise of Christian Latin Literatijs,e'
„ Tke Sever! and letters . . .
... . 588
'
,
Tertullian . • 590
Tke style of Tertuilian .
'
. • 592
,
S. Perpetiia 594
Minucius Felix . . .
* . - ^ ,
.. .
595
. • 599
Cyprian , . . . « . 600
Novatian .
. . . 602
Commodian • 603
. . 607
Lactandiis * . . . . 609
CHAPTER XVIII
LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE
EASTERN HALF OF THE EMPIRE
By J. Bidez
Membre de i’Acaddmie Royale de Belgique, Hon. D.Litt. (Athens, Brussels, Lille,
> * ,'6ii
Tke circle of Julia Domna
Pkilostratus
Heiiodorus;
....
Da^^ms and Ckl&i
. .
.
.
... 61.4
.
613
dis
Metkodins , , . . , . . . diy
Longinus . 618
Dexippus,'' v'.
619
II. Alexandria: Plotinus . . . 619
Atkenaeus . . * , . . . . 620
Al^andrian learning . 621
Ammonius Saccas . . . 622
Plotinus . . . * • . . .623
Plotinus’ natural pkilosopliy * . 624
Plotinus’ contemplation . 626
III. Porphyry . . 629
Porpkyry as interpreter . . 630
Porpkyiy’s polemic . . . 631
Porpkyry as savant 634
IV. • • • *535
Tke mobilization of paganism . . . 636
lambiickus tkeurge , - . . . 638
.
CONTENTS xx¥:
Eusebios as liistorian , . .
'
* * *
Eusebius as ckronographer
'
. * ,
Eusebius’ polemic • :• * • •
CHAPTER XIX
THE GREAT PERSECUTION
By N. H, Baynes, M.A., Hon. D.D. (St Andrews), F.B.A*
Professor of Byzantine History in the Unipersity of .London
L '
. 651:
Lactantius, Ainobius . . . •
652
. . ,
.
'
,
'
. ,
. 654
The standpoint of the State . . . .
. 654
The Persecution of Decks ,
. 656
Toleration . . ... . . . . . .
659
The loyalty of the Christian . . . 660
* 662
Galerius and the Persecution 664
. . . .665
.'
.
The Vicenaalia'.. .; ... '. -.
667 :
. .
'
. . . - 675
The failure of the Persecution . . . • • 677
CHAPTER XX
CONSTANTINE
By N. H. Baynes
L The Rise of Constantine
The Persecution in the West
....... ^ . . .
678
679
Constantine invades Italy
The Vision of the Cross
.
.
.
......681
. . . -
683
. . 6S4
Consiantine and the 685
'
,
* .
. 691
'
,
. 692
"
The'de,feat ofLicimnS' . .
695
' , . .
699
EPILOGUE ,
.
'
.
"
. . . .
,,
. 700
APPENDIX ON SOURCES; A ^
. ..
. 710
NOTES: ,
. ,
721
2. Herodianus, king of Palmyra . ... . . 724
3. Inflation ill the second and third cento ries . . . . 724
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
General Bibliography . . .
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
... .
73 ^
735 .
. . . . .
738
Chapter IV 74Tf
Chapters
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
V-VI
......
. . . •
. .
746
7 SO
755
: Chapter IX ; :
'
. . .
756
Chapter X ,
.
'
. ,
. . .
"
. . 760
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapters XIII-XV
...... . . .
, 762
764
767
Chapter XVI . . . ... 778
Chapter XVII 780
Chapter XVIII 784
Chapter XIX 789
Chapter XX 796
GENERAL INDEX .
' . Sot
CONTENTS .''xx¥ii
. . .FACIHG.PAGE' .
I
n''
'
.11
'
3, Roman Africa . . . . - .
53 >
:
,19
4. Roman Britain . ..'37
5, Roman Britain the frontier country
: * ... .
j. 42
6. The Roiiian Empire; the Eastern proidnces '
.
!>?.
8s
,
7. The Ancient Far East . .
• .
.
.
$> 97
8. The Sassanian Empire'. '>...; ... n 109
*" ;
.
'
» * *; ft 164
10. The Empire under Diocletian . : v . * '
n 408
Plans
'
.
'
Note. To the principal litera^ sources, Cassius Dio, Hezndian, and the
Scriptores Historiae Augustae (S.H.A.), references are given in the footnotes
only where it is desired to emphasize a piece of evidence or to draw attention
to the terms in which it is expressed. The references to Dio foUow the book-
divisions as given above the left-hand pages of Boissevain’s edition. For Latin
inscriptions references are ^ven to CJ.l.,, Epk Ep., or Ann. ipig.^ossAy for
inscriptions not conuined in Dessau. In coin references M.-S. mdicajto
Mattingly and Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage. See for coins Vol-
ume of Plates V, where :dso will be found (i86, 230) portraits of Several
C^racalla and Elagabalus. ^ Dn 31 December jga (wd. 3®3)*
cjuH.xn 'Vv;
2 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
® All four are included in the ledoaary types of the coinage of 193. They
must be the Gailkam exerdtm ofS.H,A. Sev. 5> 3* . :: : t r
6 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
-
Dessau Ti40fcf. Dio Lxxv, 6,
:
8 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
that Severus had passed the Cilician Gates. His army did itself no
discredit on the plain of Issus, where the final battle of the war
was fought, but in the end victory rested with the Illyrian legion-
aries. It would now be about April of 1 94'^. Niger rode back to
Antioch, but fled from the city when it surrendered. According
to Dio, he was making for the Euphrates in the hope of finding
refuge with the Parthians when he was overtaken and killed. By
the order of Severus his head was sent to Byzantium to be dis-
played to the townsmen as an invitation to cease fighting for a
cause already lost, but they continued to man their walls and for
two years more postponed their punishment.
Meanwhile Severus was in Syria distributing rewards and
penalties. Laodicea becomes a ‘colonia’ with the lus Italictim.
The elevation of Laodicea was the humiliation of Antioch, which
was indeed ‘attributed’ to the rival city*, which now displaced it,
though not for long, as the official capital of Syria. The Pales-
tinian city of Neapolis forfeited its political existence for its sup-
port of Niger. Cities which had supplied him with funds had to
pay a fine of four times the amount, while those which had suffered
by resisting him, such as Laodicea and Tyre, were handsomely
indemnified. Senators who had favoured his cause had their pro-
perty confiscated and were banished, while his adherents in general
were treated with merciless severity, until it was found that
refugees from his army were being driven across the Tigris to
take service with the barbarians, whereupon a general amnesty
was declared. Many of these refugees were skilled mechanics who
^ For the recognition of Severus in Egypt by February, cf. Wilcken,
Chrest. 96, pag. iv, I. 6; B.G.U. 326. C.l.L. in, 6580, shows him (as
Imp. HI) in control of the Egyptian legion, II Traiana, before the battle of
Issus. L. Mantennius Sabinus,who had been Prefect of Egypt since 193
(Chrest. 49o)j continued in his office by Severus (I.G.R.R. 1, 1062).
The same is true of the governor of Arabia, P. Aelius Severianus Maximus
(Dessau 5842; C.l.L. nr, 13612, etc.).
® On this vexed question see G. A. Harrer, in y.R.S. x,
1920, pp. 1 62—8,
whose conclusions are here adopted.
® Herodian in,
6, 9. ^
I, n] THE FIRST PARTHIAN EXPEDITION 9
taught their new masters the use of armour and the manufacture
of arms. By such instruction, Herodian notes, the Romans made
the barbarians more formidable enemies. It is a remark that
admits of a wide and various application to the history of the
Roman frontiers, but the incident has more than a military sig-
nificance: it shows that the imperial frontiers, long before they
failed as military lines, were ceasing to be spiritual boundaries.
There had been correspondence between Niger and the Parthian
king, one of whose vassals, Barsemius of Hatra, had sent Niger a
force of archers. It was not only the military integrity of the
Empire that Severus was vindicating when, after his triumph over
his rival, he led an army across the Euphrates.
There were indeed good military reasons for the expedition.
The Parthian king, Vologases IV, had held out promises to Niger,
but had not sent him any actual help. Apparently he saw another
way of profiting by the civil war, and we may recognize his in-
fluence at work in an attempt made by certain of his vassals to
shake off the control which the Roman government had exercised
in Mesopotamia ever since the expedition of Lucius Verus. Roman
garrisons in Mesopotamia had been taken prisoner, the important
stronghold of Nisibis had been besieged, and Osrhoene had re-
nounced Roman suzerainty. Severus decided to take advantage
of the occasion, and of the internal weakness of Parthia at this
time, to make a settlement of the Eastern frontier by resuming, in
some measure, the annexationist policy of Trajan. He may have
crossed the Euphrates about September*- (194). By the early part
of 195 he had punished Osrhoene for its defection by reducing it
to a province under the charge of a procurator^. Having advanced
eastwards to Nisibis, he ordered his generals to overrun the terri-
tory of the Skenite, or Mesopotamian, Arabs, and then sent them
upon an expedition across the Tigris into Adiabene. Before the
end of August he had assumed the titles of Arabicus and Adia-
benicus®.
Besides making Osrhoene a province, he had prepared for the
formation of a province between Osrhoene and the Tigris by the
erection of Nisibis into a colony and the establishment there of a
resident procurator; and the fact that the titles Arabicus and
Adiabenicus, when first conferred, were each combined with the
1The dry season; cf. Db ixxv, 2 (p. 339 Boissevain).
®This would be the ocrasion of his assumpdon of the style Imp, F, the
first of three salutations of 195. Fot a prx. provinc. Osrhognae in the reign of
'
i,'
® C£ Dessau
i6 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
'
,
Sn " •
' it
i8 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
Soon after, Severus set out upon the return journey to the West,
following in the reverse direction the route by which he had come
east to the victory at Issus. Weknow from Herodian that he
visited the legionary headquarters of Moesia and Pannonia. An
inscription recording that he and Caracalla reconstructed the
canabae oi legion VII Claudia at Viminacium^ suggests that
he was especially interested in the remodelling of the civil settle-
ments attached to the legionary camps which would now be
necessary as the result of his grant to the legionaries of legal
recognition of the unions they contracted with native women, and
the permission this carried with it to live with them and their
families®. The increased importance of such settlements is seen in
the fact that, in the reign of Severus, two of them, those at Car-
nuntum and Aquincum, both previously ‘municipia,’ received the
status of ‘coloniae.’ His movements in this region are reflected
also in an improvement of the road-system, especially in Pannonia,
Noricum and Raetia. One of the stretches of road now repaired,
that from Celeia to Aquileia, would be on the route by which he
entered Italy. Since he had reached Sirmium by 18 March®,
he had time to be in Rome by 13 April, the anniversary of
his proclamation at Carnuntum, and presumably the opening
day of the festival of his Decennalia, which he celebrated this
year (202).
given a seat in the Senate and obtained the consulship itself in 203,
with the Emperor’s brother, P. Septimius Geta, as his colleague.
He now exercised a power unequalled even by that held under
Tiberius by Aeiius Sejanus. The fact that his enmity drove
Severus’ masterful wife, Julia Domna, to take cover in the company
of philosophers is a measure of the influence he had asserted over
Severus himself by an overpowering force of personality. And if
relations between the two men became strained, and not for the
first time, yet the Emperor does not appear to have been able to
treat his Prefect with decision, and an occasion which presented
itself in 203 for his personal intervention in Africa may have been
welcomed as offering an escape from an ascendancy which he was
unable to confront.
Ever since the time of Marcus Aurelius the desert tribes had
been seriously troubling the African provinces and had even
carried their raids into Spain. To ensure a stricter policing of the
frontier, Severus had been developing in Tripoli the system,
begun by Commodus, of establishing outposts beyond the limes
on oases commanding the caravan routes from the interior. On
the Numidian frontier also outposts were being established, pro-
bably as a preliminary to extending effective control to the line of
the Oued Djedi (Nigris), while in eastern Mauretania (Caesari-
ensis) a new limes was formed by a line of forts along the rim of the
high plateaux dominating the province on the south^. In Tripoli
the extension of the frontier system seems to have involved opera-
tions against the desert tribes^.
The military base for Tripoli as well as Numidia was the head-
quarters of the legion III Augusta at Lambaesis. A number of
inscriptions which indicate the presence of Severus there in 203®
testify to his concern to improve the amenities of military life
and to his interest in the erection or reconstruction of buildings
by which camp and canabae were being adapted to the changed
conditions*. Already the settlement had received a municipal
constitution; under Severus or Caracalla it becomes a ‘colonia,’
like the settlements at Aquincum and Carnuntum on the Danube.
And it was in the reign of Severus that the military area of
1E. Fabridus in P.W. s.v. Limes, cols. 665-9; see also the articles of
J. Carcopino in Revue archeologique^ v"“ ser. xx, 1024, pp. 216 f??., and
yi. 1925, pp. losqq.
® Aurelius Victor, Cues, xx, 19.
® For this and other evidence for a journey to
Africa in 203-204
Hasebroek, op. cit. pp. 132—5.
* See above, p. 19.
I, III] SEVERUS IN AFRICA: BRIGANDAGE 21
I have had a hand (J. Carcopino, Syria, vi, 1925, p. 148, n. 5).
V
® Philostratus, Fit, Soph, ir, 20, 2.
® Dessau 5050 a; Not. degli Scmn, 1931, p. 313.
I
* Chrm. Pasck, ed. Bind., i, p. 496} a. Dio txxvii,
3, 3. y * ;
: , j
® Tertullian, 2, 8. <
. y;
22 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [ghap.
For Asia cf. the Lydian inscriptions, Keil and Premerstein, Driite Reise,
^
in Denhchriftm der Wien. Ahad. lvii, 1914— 15, nos. 9, 28, 55.
® For the activity of the Kolletimes in Egypt and an edict of the Prefect,
Subatianus Aquila, see P. Oxy. vni, 1 1 00. This dates from 206. Cf. P. Oxy.
xn, 1408 for an edict against brigandage issued by the Prefect, Baebius
Juncinus, in 210—14.
® Dessau 1406; C.l.L^. vin,
9360.
Cf. Dessau 429 (from Sicca Veneria in Africa) and 430 (from Ephesus).
The African inscription dates from 208, From tb. 1 153 we learn that about
the ^me time detachments of ail the four legions on the Rhine had to be
mobilized to suppress disorder.
® Fabricius, op. col.
cit. 645.
I, in] THE FRONTIERS: LEGISLATION 23
Papinian (Aemilius Papinianus), one of the two Praetorian Prefects
whom he had appointed in place of Plautianus. Other members of
the council were Paul and Ulpian. The association of the Emperor
with these great jurists enriched the law with numerous constitu-
tions^ which made many of its rules more equitable and reinforced
the humanitarian tendency which had shown itself under the
Antonines and which was to influence the growth of the law
throughout the whole period of the Severan dynasty; for although
Papinian, on the death of Severus, was dismissed by Caracalla,
who soon afterwards had the satisfaction of seeing him killed by
the Guard, Paul and Ulpian survived into the reign of Severus
Alexander to give continuity to the imperial legislation.
The humanitarian tendency of the jurists, as we shall see, was
so directed by the Emperor as to serve a political policy. There
was a political motive also when he chose to indulge his native
taste for cruelty. If the execution of certain prominent sena-
tors like Quintillus and Apronianus showed him to be ready,
during these last years in Italy, to give audience to dubious in-
formers and to listen to stories of dreams and magical practices
as evidence of treasonable ambition, this was not malice looking
for pretexts but a credulous apprehension of opposition to his
rule. And more than any of his predecessors Severus regarded his
own authority as the guarantee of political unity. For, with a
fateful harmony, his own nature and experience had conspired
with the necessities of the time to suggest to him a structure of the
State in which the keystone was the religio-dynastic power of
himself and his family.
The picture of Severus which has been transmitted by the his-
torians is made up of qualities which they have occasion to remark
upon in their narrative of his wars, but they are the qualities dis-
cernible also in his civil policy. Like the conduct of his wars, this
bears the impress of a single personality, which found in its
associates, even in the least tractable among them, congenial in-
fluences and appropriate agents. It is noted by Dio that, until the
decisive encounter at Lyons, Severus had not been present at any
of the battles of the civil wars. But he was always the motive and
directive force. The rapidity and range of the movements of his
troops reflected his own decision of character and his power to
plan with foresight and upon a large scale. When he took com-
mand himself, as at Lyons and in his foreign wars, his presence
was the more felt because he expressed a dynamic personality with a
^ See A. de Ceuleneer, Bssai sur la me et le rl^e de Septime Sivlre,
pp. 271-290.
'
'
"
^
^ ,
—
to place the provinces on the same level as Italy. The rule that
Punic or Celtic, or indeed any native language, could be used in
I, m] ITALY AND THE PROVINCES 25
the use of the Imga as a measure of distance not only on the roads rep^red
in Gaul, where it had already been displacing the Roman mile passus (A.
Grenier, Jrckhlogk gallo-^omaine, n, pp. 97-101), but also in the Rhine
area (K. Schumacher, Siedelmgs- tmd Ktdturgeschkhte der Rheinlande, ii,
pp. 228, 230). ® Dig. XLVII, 22 , I. ® U. XXXV, 2, 89.
* This policy diowed itself also in the position now aligned to provincial
mints. See H. Mattingly, ‘The Coinage of Septimius Severus and hisTime
Num. Ckr. 5th ser, xii, 1932, f^. 178, 185-^; M.-S. iv, i, pp. 58-9.
® A. V, Domaszewski, Die Rangerdmeng dee romschen Heeres, p. 172, ,
own to fulfil; and it is to the Severan jurists that the Digest refers
for their systematic formulation^. A
stricter control was exercised
by government over the guilds of merchants and shippers
officials
who did service for the annona (mercatores frumentarii, olearii\
naviculariif'^ while the guilds which undertook to provide a. fire-
brigade in their city (Jabri, centonarii^ dendrofhort) were reminded
that their exemption was confined to working members, and did
not apply to wealthy adkcti seeking an escape from municipal
burdens®. If exemption from such burdens was now extended by
Severus to soldiers who had served their time^ and to the coloni on
imperial domains, the veterans had military obligations imposed
upon them (p. 32), while the relief granted to the coloni was to
ensure that the imperial treasury should receive its full share of
the fruits of their labour®. And the peasantry in general, besides
providing labour, had to support requisitions in kind and, in the
imperial provinces, especially in the frontier areas, had to supply
the recruits for the army, and in particular for the garrisons of
their own neighbourhood.
was indeed upon a militarized peasantry that this structure of
It
the State was based. The documents which attest the emperor’s
concern to protect the rural population from the oppression of
officials only serve to show the variety of obligations for which it
was made liable; and if he encouraged it, by grants of political
status, to form itself into communities, that was because the com-
munal organization provided a means of exacting these obliga-
tions®, just as the collegial organization was now being employed
to ensure the services due to be rendered by the trading and in-
dustrial population. Many of the peasant communities, indeed,
were assimilated were the Thracian
to military garrisons; such
foundations which, like Forum Pizi, served as stations for the cursus
1 Dig. L, esp. 5 and 6, mainly drawn from the writings of Ulpian, Papin-
ian, Paul, Modestinus and Callistratus.
® 3-9. Dessau 6987, which shows friction between the navi-
lb. L, 6, 6,
cularii of Arles and the officials of the annona, dates from 201.
® Jnn, Spig. 1920, nos. 69-70, set up in 205, The rescript of Severus and
Germany, the Alpine region, the Danube area, Cappadocia, Syria and
Africa. Besides the numerous milestones of Severus and Caracalla, there is
the Antonine Itinerary, which takes its name from Caracalla, to testify to the
concern shown at this time for the road-system of the Empire; and the Tabula
Peutingeriana also may date from this period. '
,>
,
36, 52, 59, etc Ih. pp, 208-9, nos. 858-9, for the assimilation of Julia as
mater Augg. to Cybele as mater deum. For the djmastic propaganda bn the
coinage cf. J. Vogt, Die Alexandrmschm Mibezen, i, pp, ; I
36 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
(both of 207). It would seem to have been now that Caracalla assumed the
stylelmp.IL Cf. C./.Z. x, 5909 (of 207).
« C.I.L. VII,
513 (Eph. Epig. ni, p. 132). ’ Dessau 2618.
® Trans, of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiq. and Jrch. Society,
'
N.S. XXX, 1930, p. 199 (cf. y.R.S. XIX, 1929, p. 214, no. 3); Jrch. Jel.
4th set. XVI, 1939. The dedication to Victory referred to above comes from
the Wall fort of Benwell.
® Jrch. Jel. 4th ser. ix,
1932^ pp. 233-4.
I, 17] THE DEFENCES OF BRITAIN 39
a rock near Brampton legionaries have recorded that they were
quarrying stone therein 207^. Together, these inscriptions indicate
that Severus was responsible for the restoration of the Wall and
its stations which excavation has shown to have followed upon a
Cf. the ‘Bridge’ type on the coinage of 208 (M.-.S. iv, i, p. 120, no.
1
225, p. 198, no. 786) and 209 (ib. p. 284, no. 441, where for tr. p. xi
should be read tr. p. xii). ® M.-S. iv, i, p. 121, no,
231, p. 198, no. 788,
® Birrens as an outpost to the Tyne-Solway Wall does not come into the
reckoning in this connection. The same is true of Risingham and High
Roch^er. From High Rochester the main land-route northwards ran by
Chew Green, Cappuck and Newstead. The negative evidence of excava-
tion on these sites, especially at Newstead, must be regarded as significant.
* G. MaMonald, Proc. Sec. jtntiq. of Scotland, ur, 19 1 7-8, pp. 213—6.
® I. A. Richmond, alrch. Ael. 4th ser. xi,
1934, pp. 98—9.
® M.-S. IV, i, p. 120, nos. 228-9; see Volume of Plates v, 230, c.
’ Macdonald, op. at. pp. 264-^76.
L IV] CAMPAIGNING IN SCOTLAND 41
gives Caledonia as his immediate objective, and refers operations
against the Maeatae to a subsequent campaign.
When the operations of 209 were over, Severus raised Geta to
the rank of Augustus^ and all three August! assumed the title of
‘Britannicus^,’ as if they regarded the Caledonian campaign as
decisive. It resulted, Dio tells us, in the Britons being compelled
to cede a considerable part of their territory®. This suggests that
from a base at Cramond troops may have been stationed along
the line of the Wall from Forth to Clyde, which had been evacuated
a generation beforeh If none of the excavated forts on the Wall
has yielded coins or other objects of Severan date, this negative
evidence is hardly conclusive against an occupation which cannot
have lasted much more than a year (p. 42) j and it is possible that
the second, and more perfunctory, of the two restorations which
have been noted in these forts, and which has been explained
as a mere episode in their abandonment early in the reign of
Commodus®, may in reality represent a brief re-occupation in
209—2 II. If there was some re-occupation of the Forth-Clyde
line at this time, the territory which would thus be cut off would
be that of the Maeatae, and we know from Dio® that for some
reason they suddenly awoke from the quiescence into which they
had been bribed by Virius Lupus. In 210 Severus sent a force
into their territory upon a campaign of merciless repression.
Caracalla must have been in command to judge by his prominence
in the coinage which commemorated it.
In 2 1 1 the Emperor apparently looked forward to an immediate
return to Rome'^. But the trouble in Britain was not yet over. The
Caledonians had decided to come to the aid of their kinsmen, and
the Emperor made up his mind that he must once more take the
field himself. While he was busy with preparations, he died at
Y ork on 4 F ebruary Caracalla at once made peace with the enemy.
.
any part of enemy country, for Dio tells us that any troops that
had been posted there were withdrawn^. On the other hand, the
long freedom which the province was now to enjoy from barbarian
inroads must be attributed in a large measure to the effect pro-
duced by the northern campaigns of the last years of Severus.
Some credit must be allowed also to the vigilance that was
exercised under his immediate successors^. And this was a time
when a new development was taking place in Britain, as else-
where, at the legionary fortresses. Excavation at York has indi-
cated that the troops there were ceasing to be quartered in the
barracks, and similar evidence has come from Caerleon®, The
disuse of the barracks would mean an access of importance for
the adjoining settlements, and it will have been in the Severan
period that the settlement at York received the status of a
‘colonia^.’
V. CARACALLA
In the coinage of 2 1 1 Caracalla and Geta are still connected
with military events in Britain, and it would seem to have been
late in the year before they left the island for Rome, where they
deposited the ashes of their father in the mausoleum of the Anto-
nines and celebrated his deification. Caracalla’s passion to be sole
ruler, which had made him await his father’s death with im-
patience, now made intolerable to him the nominal equality which
1 Dio Lxxvm, 1,1. The history of Birrens would seem to run parallel
with that of the stations on the Tyne-Solway Wall, to which it served as an
outpost. As part of the Wall system it would not be regarded as in enemy
country, and a continued occupation there would not be a contradiction of
Dio’s statement, which is borne out by what is known of the other Roman
sites of Scotland.
^ Brides evidence fora rebuilding of the amphitheatre at Caerleon under
from the site of the headquarters building recording restoration under Severus
(V . E. Nash-Williams, Catalogue of the Roman Stones found at Caerleon,
p. 5 > no. 2 = C.I.L, VII, 106), and with the evidence for a rebuilding of the
amphi&eatre under Caracalla or Elagabalus (R. E. M. Wheeler, ‘The Roman
Amphitheatre at Caerleon’, Archaeologia, nxxvni, 1928, p. 154).
* It was a ‘colonia’ before
237 (y.R.S. xi, 1921, p. 102).
I, v] CARACALLA AND GETA 43
Geta enjoyed by his recent elevation to the rank of Augustus ; nor
did the brothers require the added motive of jealousy for hating
one another. Such was their mutual dread and animosity that they
themselves proposed, according to Herodian, that they should be
separated by the waters of the Propontis, with Europe and North
Africa to be ruled by Caracalla, the Asiatic provinces and Egypt
by Geta^. But this was not to the mind of their mother, who felt
their proposed partition of the Empire like a threat of personal
mutilation to herself, and who seems to have believed that she
could maintain between them some semblance of the ‘Concordia’
which the coinage still proclaimed. Her sons were under no
illusion as to each other’s intentions, and they took their precautions
accordingly. At the end of February^ 212, however, Geta was
persuaded to meet his brother in their mother’s apartment in the
palace, where Caracalla, by pretending a desire for reconciliation,
had induced Julia to call them together. Centurions whom he had
instructed entered the apartment, and when Geta ran to his mother
for protection he was murdered in her arms. If any of the frontier
armies were inclined to show hostility to Caracalla, they soon
thought better of it^. In Italy the Alban legion threatened trouble
for a moment, but it was quieted by a promise of increased pay.
It would be influenced also by the decided attitude of the Prae-
torians, who were persuaded by a liberal donative to recognize
Caracalla as sole emperor. The Senate could do nothing but
accept Caracalla’s story of a plot formed against his life by Geta.
To celebrate his escape from this alleged plot he issued an edict of
amnesty in favour of all who, for whatever reason, had been con-
demned to exile*, but Geta’s associates, and many who were merely
suspected of looking upon his murder with disfavour, were treated
as his accomplices and put to death. Among them was the jurist
Papinian. The agents of the imperial secret service, the speculatores
and frumentarii, spread everywhere a sense of insecurity by an
assiduous espionage®. Geta’s name was ordered to be erased from
all monuments®, and the surviving inscriptions of the period testify
by their mutilation to the rigour with which the order was
executed.
® Dio xxxvin, 2,
Herodian iv, 3, 5-9
^
5 with S.H.A. Geta 3, i.
In inscriptions of 212-3 there are protestations of loyalty from several
®
frontiers, including the British frontier, for which see E. B. Birley, Jrch,
Jel. 4th ser., xi, 1934, pp. 127-31.
3, 3; Mitteis, CArwt 3785 Dig. l, 2, 3, i; Caei. ^ust. x^
* Dio txxviH,
61, X. ® Dio xxxviii, 17, 1-2.
i i
^ Caracalk’s dependence
upon those about him may explain the emer-
gence about this time of the fireedman remembrancer of the palace as an
equestrian maguter with an officiitm. Cf. P-W. s.v. Scrinium, col.
897 sq.
* Dessau
1157; M. Marchettti Dhs,. epig. s.v. Hispania, p. 807x7.
® Dessau 1159, ‘ Eutropius vin, 20.
I, V] CARACALLA AS SOLE RULER 45
habits of a plain soldier, and to the militarist policy which he
inherited he gave a more brutal form. ‘No one ought to have
money but myself,’ he is reported to have said, ‘and I must have
it to give to the soldiers.’ Actually, he raised the pay of the
legionaries from 500 to 750 denarii, with corresponding increases
for the other branches of the service (see below, p. 262).
This increase of fifty per cent, in the pay of the soldiers, along
with the frequent donatives with which Caracalla indulged them,
soon turned the surplus which Severus had left in the treasury into
a deficit. He followed his father’s example of depreciating the
coinage. The weight of the aureus was reduced, and alongside the
denarius a new silver coin was put in circulation, the ‘Antoni-
nianus,’ which appears to have been rated as a double denarius,
though it weighed little more than a denarius and a half, and con-
tained no higher a proportion of pure metal than the older coin
now did (p. 262). Demands upon the rich and upon the cities for
aurum coronarium ^Lnd. other extraordinary contributions became
more frequent,and he increased the regular taxation, raising from
five to ten per cent, the duties on manumissions and inheritances,
and suppressing in the case of the latter the exception in favour of
near relatives^.
Since its imposition by Augustus the duty on inheritances had
been payable only by those who possessed the Roman citizenship.
According to Dio^, it was in order to increase the revenue from this
duty that the citizenship was extended by the Constitutio Anto-‘
and Aurelius Victor. In Dio and S.H.A. the form is Caracallus. The name
does not ckpuf in Herodian nor do^ it appear on coins or in inscriptions,
i,* Trap Arm "Iff Tpfp arparoveSa (Herodian iv, 8, 1). For
I Adiutrix in Lower Pannonia in 228 cf. Dessau
2375. For a consular
le^te of the province before the end of the reign of Caracalla cf, ib. 1159.
On the other hand, Dessau 2382shows T Adiutrix still in Upper Pannonia in
212 or 213.
I, v] THE WARS OF CARACALLA 49
Alexander’s spearmen. The winter he spent in Nicomedia,
training his Macedonians in the formation of the phalanx and
carousing in a fashion that accorded better with the tradition
of his hero than with the state of his own health. Julia Domna,
watching the behaviour of her son from under cover of her
coterie of philosophers, emerged to take charge of official busi-^
ness. By the time they arrived at Antioch, about May of 215,
Caracalla was in a condition of nervous agitation which unfitted
him for serious military operations’-. As it happened, Vologases,
conscious of the precariousness of his own position, was careful to
avoid giving a pretext for hostilities. Sending an expedition into
Armenia under his freedman Theocritus, who led the troops to
disaster, Caracalla himself left Antioch for Alexandria, where he
directed personally a carefully contrived massacre of the inhabi-
tants. According to Dio and Herodian, they had incurred his
displeasure by certain pleasantries at his expense®, especially on
the forbidden subject of the death of Geta. This may have
sharpened his exasperation, but the nature of the measures which
he took to ensure their good behaviour while he carried on his
projected campaign in Parthia indicates that there had been a
serious outbreak of sedition, aggravated by the turbulence of
fugitives from the villages (p. 22)®.
The winter of 2 1 5—2 1 6 was again spent at Antioch. About May
216* Caracalla sent the kings of OsrhoSne and Armenia friendly
invitations to visit him, and, when they complied, kept them
prisoners; and Osrhoene was then incorporated in the province of
Mesopotamia. By now the situation had changed in Parthia, where
Vologases had been displaced by Artabanus (V). At the moment
the new ruler was in no better case than his brother had been to
oppose invasion. He had no choice, however, but to refuse a
demand from Caracalla for the hand of his daughter, since this
was only another way, as he knew, of demanding his kingdom®;
for Caracalla, in his r61e as a second Alexander, indulged the
ambition of uniting Romans and Parthians under a single diadem®.
In the summer of 2 16 he marched through Mesopotamia, crossed
the Tigris, and advanced to the eastern borders of Adiabene. He
never saw an enemy, Dio tells us, and the only effect of his de-
monstration was to provoke preparations for resistance. He retired
•Cf. G. F. Hill, y.R.S. VI, igiSi t6o-ij Dio lxxix, 27, 4, ri? , ;
‘
^ H^ipdian V,
6-8; S.H.A. Op. Macr. 9, 3; Vol. of Plates v, 168, r, d.
> :
3,
i t
^ Iho Lxxx, where mention is made of III Gallica, in Syria
7, 1—3,
Phoeflice, the h^on which had taken the lead in proclaiming Elagabalus,
arid of ly Scyffuca, one of the legions in Syria Coele. Ill Gdlica was dis-
banded (cf. Dessau 2657 with 2314-5)^
I, vi] THE WOMEN OF THE SEVERAN HOUSEHOLD 53
strengthened in them by their attachment to their dynasty. The
dynasty which they held together not only maintained internal
peace almost unbroken for nearly forty years, but gave to those
years a character in which it both expressed itself and drew out the
logical consequence for Roman culture of the imperial achieve-
ment and policy. The palace where they held court at Rome was a
meeting-place of East and West, and the Oriental element, now
entrenched within the Roman citizenship and government, invaded
also the whole field of Roman culture and religion. This is a matter
to be dealt with elsewhere in this volume (pp. 417, 613), though
there is one incident in the religious interchanges which must be
given a place here because it is almost the whole story of the reign
of Elagabalus.
In letters written from Antioch to Rome in his name Elagabalus
was made to assume the various imperial titles without waiting for
the decree of the Senate, but the implied denial of the Senate and
People as the source of his authority was modified by conciliatory
promises. Here we may recognize the hand of Julia Maesa,
despotic by policy as by family tradition, but experienced and
wary, with two astute advisers in Gannys and Comazon. By the
middle of July Elagabalus had been recognized by the Senate^,
and with this the stage was set for his appearance at Rome.
The following month Maesa and Soaemias sailed with the
young emperor to Bithynia, where they spent the winter (218—219)
at Nicomedia. Here Elagabalus insisted upon celebrating in
public the bizarre ritual of his cult, in which he made a resplendent
but very un-Roman figure. This perturbed Maesa, who knew the
capital and could judge how such performances were likely to be
received there. Remonstrance only provoked a furious resentment
which resulted in Gannys being killed.
A slow progress through the Danubian provinces brought the
procession to the gates of Rome in the late summer or the autumn
of 2 1 9®. The imperial family was accompanied by a troop of ex-
pectant Syrians, not many of whom can have been disappointed.
Some of them entered the Senate to reinforce the Oriental element
already preponderant there, and to help to justify the Emperor’s
description of its members as his mancipia togata^, Comazon,
Praetorian Prefect in 2 1 8, was consul in 220 with the Emperor as
his colleague, and more than once was Prefect of the City. For his
'"i- r/i'.
® S.H.A, iif/. 20, I. ;
:
54 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
1
,
Dio Lxxx, 4, 1-2.
For a characteristic career of this period cf. Dessau 1329.
;
®
. ,
'
,
56 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap. I, vi
his birthday. It is true that he, like his predecessor, was dedicated
Phoenician
to the service of the Sun God of Eraesa, but his mother, Julia
Maraaea, who had gone to Rome with her imperial nephew, had
been sensible enough to keep her son away from the practices of
his cousin. Julia Maesa was therefore able to play him off against
Elagabalus, when the Augustus had fallen into contempt and the
position reached its crisis. The over-tension of a despotism that
was alien in character led to Elagabalus’ bloody end, but this
was not due merely to race-hatred, for Rome was already
permeated with Oriental elements and was used to them. By
intelligent management the Syrian princesses achieved their
purpose Alexander was proclaimed Augustus, and was accepted
:
® Dig.s,g, I pr. ; , i:
62 THE SENATE. AND THE ARMY [CHAF.
» Cf. A. Stein, P.W. r.iu. Sallustius (4), ;col 19105 M. Fluss, jid,
-
humani^.’ One may presume that the Praetorians, who with the
collapse of the Caesar Sallustius had lost an opportunity of showing
their power, now became refractory. Their anger was finally
discharged upon Ulpian, whose death may thus be placed in the
year 228. This may also explain why the Emperor suggested to
Cassius Dio, his colleague in the consulship for 229, that he
should spend his consulate outside Rome; for Dio had gained the
dislike of his Pannonian troops by his strict enforcement of
military discipline, and thus was rendered suspect to the Prae-
torians also. Dio’s proud resolution is proved by his showing
himself nevertheless to the soldiers in Rome and in Campania in
the company of the Emperor before leaving for his Bithynian
home. Small wonder, then, that he concluded his history with
the words of the Iliad
‘
And Zeus drew Hector to safety from the shafts and dust, from blood-
shed, slaughter, and the din of strife.*’
Examples of this weakness of the Emperor in the
sort prove the
face of the soldiers. He
did not even venture to proceed directly
against Epagathus, the chief culprit in the murder of Ulpian, and
he was only brought to book when Alexander had got him out
of the way by promoting him to the governorship of Egypt.
But the tension between the soldiery and the government could
not be lessened, since the imperious Mamaea, who doubtless
knew how to appreciate the power of money, was suspected of
having become miserly to the detriment of the troops.
Disorder in the finances assuredly demanded the cutting down
of expenses to bare necessities. But recognition of the crisis and
efforts to meet it could do but little to better conditions as a whole.
Many taxes may have been abolished, or at least reduced; but
whether the aurum eoronarium was among these must remain
uncertain®. In any event, in view of the needs of the State, no
^ Dessau 485. She appears as Dea Panthea with the attributes of Diana,
Victoria and Felicitas on a medallion in the British Museum. See Volume
of Plates V, 230, i.
* .'’EicTO/ja S’ €K ^ekicov v-rraye Zev re
9 e/c KOviris:
lKrdvBpoKTacrir)9eKd’a?iiaTo9exr€KvSoi/xov. J/rW XI, 163-4.
® So lon^ as the attribution of P. Fsyiim
20 (Bruns’, no. 96) to Severus
Alocander is not proved beyond doubt. For references see W, Ensslin,
Kite xvm, 1923, p. 129 sq. and M. Rostovtzeff, Sec. and Been. Hist.
p. 6l i,
n. 56; Germ. Ed. n, p, 350, n. 56,
'
cjuH. xa
'
.
>
. ' .
^
3
.
\
.
' ^
® /A rk, 22,
5; cf. EX,
'
... >
and sensible of his imperial duties he may have been. The last of
these Syrian emperors could not his rdle, since he was neither
fulfil
^
Accepting the very probable supplement in P. Par. 69 by U. Wilckcn,
PhU. LIU, 1894, p, 95 = Chrestomaihie 1, no. 41, col. in, 14.
® It is useless to speak of the nullity of an enforced legal transaction
by pointing to paragraphs of modern criminal law, as is done by O. T.
Schulz, F
im Prinzipat zum Dominat, p. 54 sq.
II, in] MAXIMINUS THRAX 73
urgent tasks on the frontier, did not visit Rome either at this time
or later were bound to prejudice his popularity, even though he
made the expected gesture to the inhabitants of the capital by
granting them a donative on taking over the government.
The prosecution of the war against the Germans appeared to
Maximinus to be his first and most important task, but before he
joined battle he had to deal with opposition in his own army.
A number, of centurions and senatorial officers had planned his
removal. It was their intention to deliver the Emperor into the
enemy’s hands by breaking down the bridge after he had crossed
to the right bank of the Rhine. A distinguished senator named
Magnus was to take his place. The plot became known, and
Maximinus had the real or suspected culprits put to death without
trial. ThehistorianHerodian^jWhois biassed against this emperor,
iv.-- it
i
78 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
troops, the legio III Augusta and its auxiliaries, Gordian II fell
at the head of his poorly armed militia. His father thereupon
committed suicide, and their African followers were visited with
terrible punishment. But with this episode, which had ended in
a trial of strength decided in favour of the army, the game was by
no means over.
recognition of the Gordians the Senate had once more
With the
assumed a political r6le, and it could not now retreat. The senators
assembled in solemn session in the temple of Juppiter on the
Capitol. .None could or wished to think of a restoration of a
Republican rdgime. But an attempt was made to set up a princi-
pate in conformity with the revived prestige of the Senate. Thus
the two most highly respected members of the Committee of
Twenty, M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus and D. Caelius Calvinus
Balbinus, were elected to the imperial dignity, Pupienus had
climbed the ladder of office from humble beginnings, and had
made a reputation as an efficient officer and provincial governor.
He had twice been consul suffectus, and as City Prefect he had
displayed both prudence and firmness. It was the irony of
fate that the Senate, to defend itself against the soldier-emperor,
should have required the services of a man at whose birth also
there had been no dream of his elevation to the imperial throne.
Balbinus was of noble birth: he was quite young when he became
a member of the Salian priesthood of the Palatine. He too had
been twice consul, and in 213 Was even consul ordinarius. This
double election of two emperors was a new departure constitu-
tionally. In their complete equality of rights —so that on each of
them was bestowed for the first time even the hitherto indivisible
dignity of Pontifex Maximus (vol. xi, p. 415) —we see, not so
much an indication that the Senate considered the double princi-
pate as the general rule^, but rather a memory of the duality and
equality in power of the highest magistracy of the Republic. The
close relation of the new Augusti to the Senate can be seen in the
—
legend on the coins ‘patres senatus’ though this, it must be
admitted, was not its first appearance — and still more in the
retention of the Committee of Twenty®. But the proceedings of
the Senate met with no undivided approval. The election of
Pupienus, who since his City Prefecture was anything but liked
by the populace, was answered with rioting. And followers of the
Gordiaiis, relyingon the dynastic tradition, demanded and forced
the elevation to the Caesarship of M. Antonius Gordianus, a
^ For another view see E. Kornemann, Doppelprinzipai und Rekks-
tdlung im Imperittm Rommum, p. 96. ® Dessau
8979.
II, III] THE SENATE. PUPIENUS AND BALBINUS 79
grandson of Gordian I by the marriage between his daughter
Maecia Faustina and Junius Balbus. Both the Gordians were now
consecrated. A donative oi 1^0 denarii per head contributed to
the further appeasement of the people’s temper. Pupienus set
about gathering an army in North Italy, while Balbinus stayed
in Rome. But it is an error to see in this an endeavour to separate
civil and military power even as between the two emperors.
Maximinus had received the news of the African rising while
he was at Sirmium. After two days’ consultation with his intimates
he addressed the army in a speech which had been prepared for
him. He described the impotence and the military weakness of
his opponents and uttered violent threats against Rome and the
Senate. A generous donative did not fail of its effect. The fol-
lowing day the whole army began its march, in its ranks being
many Germans, for the most part cavalry, with which the tribes
on the right bank of the Rhine had furnished him either voluntarily
or under compulsion. The unforeseen departure and the huge
baggage-train were hindrances to his progress. On the fall of the
Gordians, the situation remained unaltered, but that fall at least
disclosed the fact that the appeal made %
the Senate to the
provinces had not met everywhere with approval. Thus, besides
the provinces whose defence he had secured, Dacia and Spain and,
according to the inscriptions on coins, Asia Minor also, stood
firmly by Maximinus. The Pannonian regiments, which formed
•the advance guard, found Emona evacuated. All supplies had
been carried away or destroyed in accordance with orders. This
action on the part of the enemy, which was repeated as the army
progressed, led to a shortage of food with its unfavourable con-
sequences. Aquileia was the first town to offer resistance, which
had been organized, on the instructions of the Senate, by the
consulars Crispinus^ and Menophilus. An attack by the advanced
guard was repelled. Negotiations, which were conducted by
Maximinus through a tribune who was a native of the town, came
to nothing. The Emperor then ordered a general attack, which
was, however, delayed because floods from the melting snows had
destroyed the bridge over the Isonzo. Not until a pontoon bridge
had been improvised from casks was it possible on the third day
to force the passage. In spite of the energy of Maximinus, all
efforts were in vain. The defenders maintained a stubborn
resistance, inspired by their confidence in their local patron deity,
XII ^
82 ,
THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
J Cod. just. HI, 3, 1 5 IX, 20, 4; cf. Townsend, op. cit. pp. 66 sqq. and on
this W.Ensdin, Phil. Woch. lvi, 1936, col. 1314.
® Cod. Just. IX, 2, 6. Cod. Just, nu, 40, 13.
II, IV] THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF POLICY 83
precautions against straining the law in favour of those who were
in the employ of the Stated. Among other things steps were taken
against attempts to obtain the support of the fiscus by the cession
to it of part of any property in dispute^. significant case ofA
governmental intervention has been preserved in the inscription
of Scaptopare®, commemorating a petition of the inhabitants of
f this and another village in the territory of Pautalia in Thrace.
Their complaints were directed against the oppression and extor-
tion of soldiers, minor imperial functionaries and others. The
local hot springs and the proximity of a much-frequented market
had previously in times of peace brought a good income to the
villagers. Conditions were now entirely changed; they were so
t impoverished by excessive billeting and requisitions that they
threatened to leave their homes. The Emperor ordered an examina-
tion of the case, and the erection of the inscription proves that the
villagers of Scaptopare were satisfied with the success of their
appeal. Also the repeated reminders of the prohibition against
I
money-lending by imperial officials, either in their own names or
through men of straw, point again to the beneficent aims of the
f government^. Under Severus Alexander the right of inflicting
punishments had been withdrawn from the financial procurators,
and now it was also taken from the supervisors of municipal
administration called curatores reipublicae^. To lighten the burdens
,
of town-councillors a period of respite was decreed between the
taking over of the separate offices and duties®. At the same time
it is clear that the honour of belonging to the municipal council
I
were condemned to exile for a period were to be ordered on their
j
return to resume membership of the ordo, and were to be excluded
!
from its honours only for as many years as their exile had lastedL
i
In other respects, too, the government was little disposed to free
men from services and duties. For instance, of the freedmen in
the service of a senatorial palronus only one was released from the
^
'
obligation of taking over the duties of guardian and tutor®. Care
I for public education is shown in the decree allowing the muni-
cipalities to dismiss the grammatici and rhetors appointed by them,
I
if they were proved incompetent®.
I
r
•
,
84 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
,
' '
, , .
A
, ,
- .
. ;
88 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
pp. 397 sqq., 614 sqq.i Germ. eA il, pp. 159, 165, 354 sqq.
II, V] PHILIP THE ARABIAN 89
who should be above all a benevolent prince
^SacriXeus): the best man should be emperor: he should be the
master, not the servant, of the soldiery. How
far the reality
corresponded with this ideal it is impossible to say; but at least
it is certain that the reality fell short of the ideal in one respect;
1 Johannes Antioch, frag. 148, F.H.G. iv, 598. Cf. Wittig, P.W. s.v.
Messius (9), col. 1250, who, on insufficient grounds, assumes the year 249.
^ XVI, 90, p. 81,91^. Mommsen.
® Dessau 510; cf. E. Stein, op. cit. col. 763.
* So we may interpret the coins of Upper Moesia from Viminacium
carrying the year xi for Philip and Otadlia. G. Elmer, Num. Z., N.F.
xxvra, IQ2?, p. 2Q, regards these coins as genuine. For another view see
Wittig, 0^. d/. col. 1267.
94 the senate and THE ARMY [chap.
The latter, however, did not trust Decius, and gathered an army.
The Emperor had already stationed auxiliary troops in the fortified
Concordia in Venetia^ and a strong detachment of the legion
XIII Gemina at Aquileia^. Apart from the troops in garrison in
Italy we have no information about the composition of the army
at whose head Philip, now in ill health, marched to meet Decius.
But numerically it is said to have been superior to that of his
opponent when the two forces met in September near Verona.
Philip met his death in the battle, and the fortune of war
decided in favour of the Pannonian Decius. On receipt of this
news in Rome the Praetorians put the young Philip to death
in their camp. A late tradition declares that the Philips were
deified^*, but the fictitious claim of the Emperor Licinius Licinianus
to be related to the house of Philip may have given rise to the
story. The erasure of their names from inscriptions proves the
contrary for the time of their downfall.
But in the Christian tradition the fact that Philip fell at the
hands of Decius has brought him the place of honour as the first
Christian emperor. It is true that at the beginning of 249 a pagan
mob attacked the Christians in Alexandria (p. 520 but for this
there was certainly no official responsibility. Thus Dionysius,
the
contemporary bishop of Alexandria, could the conduct of the
call
Emperor a benevolent toleration. That Philip observed such
a principle is shown by the fact that in his reign the bishop of
Rome, Fabianus, could transfer to the capital the bones ofPontianus,
who had died in exile in Sardinia. Letters which Origen sent to
the Emperor and his wife prove only that they took an interest in
religious questions ; and from the fact that Eusebius knows of these
letters but does not use them in proof of Philip’s Christianity
it is clear that the Emperor was not a Christian, neither bap-
Rome _
was not overthrown in a day. It was the work of
produced the great tidal wave which in the
centuries that
dawn of the Middle Ages was to sweep away those solid
barriers (as they seemed) which the Roman Empire had erected
wherever its frontiers stretched. For centuries before this decisive
event, the great plains of Eastern Europe and the steppes or high
plateaux of central Asia, which one day were to impart the final
impetus, obscure as they are and often silent, were in fact the
scene of vast upheavals of peoples which presaged ruin for distant
lands. It is truer to say that one knows that it happened than how
ithappened, for certainly the scanty archaeological or historical
evidence at our disposal for the period before the middle of the
fourth century (the subject of this chapter) for the most part is
neither very clear nor very conclusive. The task is to bring order
out of this chaos as best one can, and to elucidate the handful of
facts which represents the sum of our present knowledge.
had they had the will to resist they lacked the power, scattered as
they were in their little cities on an attenuated line more than a
thousand miles long.
This group is to-day one of the best known of any, thanks to the
notable discoveries of Aurel Stein, Grtinwedel, A. von Le Coq,
Pelliot and Hackin, who have excavated considerable remains of
their ancient civilizations (though none, unfortunately, belonging
to the period now under review), and have drawn from their hiding-
places very many precious manuscripts^ which illustrate the in^-
tellectual side of their culture. Here indeed, in the very heart of
Asia, survived the culture of the ancient Sacae from beyond the
Oxus, of whom the most westerly branches spoke the East-
Iranian language, while their kinsmen in the North-East, at
Kucha, Karashahr and Turfan, spoke a different language formerly
known as Tocharish but now more correctly called the Kuchean
or Turfanese language, which seems to be nearer to the pure
Indo-European group. But this interesting group of peoples does
not itself play any active part in our period. Extraordinarily im-
pressionable as it is, it engages our interest here only because it
helps us to reconstruct some of the links in the long chain which
runs over great deserts and high mountain-passes, and joins to-
gether the different populations scattered over those vast lands
between the two Empires of Rome and China. For the Indo-
Europeans of this central zone, which corresponds roughly to
Chinese Turkestan, form a stable mass which hitherto has defied
alike the nomads of the steppes and the armies of China; but they
are also a pole of attraction, because the great routes across Asia
go through their lands, and thus, while they lose nothing of their
own individuality, they are a possible connecting-link between the
Western and Eastern civilizations.
The chief of these Asiatic routes is the famous ‘Silk-route,’
known to us mainly through what is said of it by the Greek geo-
grapher Ptolemy in the second century of our era, a route which
for some time linked up the Chinese Empire with the world of
Parthia and Rome. Starting in Syria it climbed to the Iranian
^ As an example of this may be dted the Manichaean documents
referred to below, p.
504 17. • : : ;
, ,
.
: ^ ,
-
98 THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND [chap.
Roman names of the places which marked the course of the ‘ Silk-
route,’ Issedon Scythicaand IssedonSerica, which may be Kashgar
and Kucha, or Kucha and Lou-lan, north of the Lop-Nor. It was
along this route that Buddhist missionaries from North-West
India and Afghanistan, which then formed the Indo-Scythian
Empire, brought to the Tarim basin the elements of what is called
the Graeco-Buddhist civilization. From the first century to the
fifth, Indian monks, in fact, unceasingly made their way by the
passes of the Pamirs from Kashgar to Tun-huang, whether by
Yarkand and Khotan on the south or by Kucha, Karashahr and
Turfan on the north, as they pressed on to preach the gospel of
Buddha, at first in all the Indo-European oases of the Tarim and
later in China itself. These brought with them, as they had brought
to the Indo-Scythian Empire of the Punjab and Afghanistan, that
Graeco-Roman art in which they then found their means of
expression.
It may, moreover, be observed how other elements of Graeco-
romanization became added at the same time to the Graeco-
Roman images of Buddha that were imported into this Tarim
region. These elements were brought by trade all along the route
from Antioch to Si-an-fu. Sir Aurel Stein, in his exploration of the
oases mentioned above, has found —
though for a period earlier
—
than the fourth century striking evidence of this double in-
fluence. At Rawak, near Khotan, he has discovered bas-reliefs of
the first century of our era carved in stucco with figures of bodhi-
sattvas, notable for their truly hellenic nobility and harmonious
proportions®. At Rawak, too, and also at Yotkan (formerly Khotan)
and in the valley of the Niya between Khotan and the Lop-Nor, he
has found Roman sealings of the same period representing Pallas
Athenaarmed with thethunderbolt and wearing the aegis® and also
^ Vol. XI, p. 122. ® Volume of Plates v, 132, a, b, c. ® lb. 1^2, d.
'
'T.
I
III, II] CONTACTS WITH THE EMPIRE 99
Zeus, an Eros, a Heracles, and four-horsed chariots, finally Indo-
I
j
particular effect of Roman Asia Minor. Among the fragments of
frescoes brought from this region by Sir Aurel Stein may be noted
I
a Buddha followed by his monks which is in a purely Roman tradi-
tion, beardless ‘angels’ or genii, some winged some wingless,
in red mantles that recall the art of Pompeii, and figures also beard-
less and wearing on their heads the Phrygian cap which gives them
the appearance of Mithras. These frescoes, which belong to the
third century of our era, afford striking analogies with the painting
I
'
bears an inscription in Indian characters which gives the name of
the painter Tita, which may well be an indianized form of Titus.
; one hand the Sarmatian, certainly the stronger of the two, rising
near the Roman frontiers or, more exactly, from the regions
occupied by the nomad Goths, and on the other hand the Turko-
Mongol stream, rising near the frontiers of the Chinese Empire
or, more exactly, from around the modern Ordos in lands occupied
at that time by the eastern Hsiung-nu. The meeting of these two
streams, reinforced by tributaries which in the same way rose
\ either in the West or in the East, produced a kind of hybrid civili-
zation common, as it seems, to all the nomads between the
1 Roman Empire and China; and this, in fact, is an early symptom,
I
and a clear one, of that close intercourse between widely differing
peoples which has been suggested above, and which may be em-
phasized here.
To get a clear view of it, one should turn to this same central
region of Asia, not indeed to the settled Indo-European popula-
tion of the Tarim, which remained unaffected by the various nomad
civilizations, but to the Turko-Mongol peoples who frequented
the high pastures round or between the upper Irtysh and the
Tarbagatai Mountains on the one hand, and the upper Orkhon
and the northern bend of the Huang-ho on the other. It is here
'
r-c-
loo THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND [chap.
that one can get the best impression of that art which for want of a
better name is called or miscalled ‘the art of the steppes^.’ In the
period under review, it had long since acquired its essential
character; but it continued to develop in matters of detail, for the
sufficient reason that the nomads who were its exponents were
always on the move. It appears most plainly in bronze plates for
harness or armour, standard-staffs with the most interesting
stylized animal decoration depicting, among other things, in
arresting foreshortening, deer (cervidae) or wild beasts, strangely
entwined in mortal combat^; and finally, jewels and ornaments
originally encrusted with glass beads, though usually only the
sockets still survive. Naturally the products of this art are nearly
always very difficult to date, but there seems very little doubt that
in the third and fourth centuries it was still very far from being
worked out, and throughout this period we encounter it constantly,
with local variants or perhaps with one or other of its component
elements predominating, over the length and breadth of the regions
between China and the Roman Empire. The discoveries of the last
fifty years, some of them very recent, allow us now to define,
though still very imperfectly, some of its typical manifestations,
and they fall into four main groups.
The Sarmatian group, which comes first, is close to the lands
inhabited by the Goths or by peoples of Graeco-Roman civiliza-
tion, and hence naturally shows clear traces of having been
directly influenced by Hellenistic art. Iranian art, too, made its
influence felt upon it,but in spite of the combination of influences
this group furnishes (in the south-west) the farthest outpost of
‘the art of the steppes.’ This point has been developed in another
chapter devoted to the Sarmatian peoples®, both those of them who
became amalgamated with the Goths and those who, farther East,
kept their independence under the name of Alans; but it will
perhaps be useful to emphasize the great interest of some of the
treasures found at Novocherkask and now thought (with high
One of the
probability) to belong to the third century of our era^.
most interesting a diadem of gold, with decoration in pearls,
is
—
{panUshmn bdnbishn). Her name the ‘Fire of Anahita’ may —
have been given to her to commemorate Ardashir’s coronation at
the fire-temple of Anahita at Stakhr. For this city remained the
holy city of the dynasty: four centuries later, according to Tabari,
the last Sassanid King, Yazdgard III, was crowned in that same
temple. But the capital of the Empire and the seat of the new
dynasty, as of its predecessor, was Ctesiphon.
Ardashir adopted, in its main lines, the organization and ad-
ministrative institutions of the Parthian State, as is attested by the
survival under the Sassanids of political and bureaucratic termin-
ology in the north-western dialect (Arsacid Pahlavi). What
differentiated the new Empire from that of the Parthians was, first
of all, a strong centralization, which substituted a unified State for
a loose congeries of vassal kingdoms. Such of its governors as
were of the royal stock bore the title of shah, but were none the less
no more than high officials in the Great King’s service. The feudal
system did not cease to exist. The vaspuhrs, the chiefs of the
feudal nobility, marched to war at the head of the levy of their
subjects, but these armies of peasants were ill organized and of
slight military value. Mercenaries also became more important.
The aristocratic mail-clad cavalry, which formed the elite of the
army, was probably recruited from the lesser feudal nobles who
were directly dependent on the crown. Furthermore, the fiefs of
the great families were scattered throughout all the corners of the
Empire. The administrative division into cantons was not or-
ganically connected with the several kinds of provincial govern-
meats, which were all rather military in character. This was aimed
at preventing the governments from being feudal in tradition and
from becoming hereditary principalities.
The second characteristic of the Sassanid State is the creation of
an official Church resting on Mazdean doctrine, which had been
for centuries the common faith of the Iranian people and which
the Parthian kings had followed with a zeal that grew as iranism
prevailed over hellenism. The organization of the Mazdean or, —
one may Zoroastrian— religion into a State Church, like the
say,
centralization of the royal power which it completed, was doubt-
less an innovation, but one which consummated a slow evolution.
This powerful Church was a very distinctive element in the civil-
ization of the Sassanian period. The Avesta^ the Holy Writ of
Mazdeism, had probably been set down in Aramaic characters in
the Arsacid period. According to the Zoroastrian tradition
Ardashir I caused a high clerical official {ehrbadhan ehrbadbi),
Tansar, his chief helper in the task of organizing the Mazdean
Church, to have the scattered texts of this Arsacid Avesta col-
lected and to produce a new edition of it which was authorized
and made canonicaP.
Ardashir, who died in a.d. 241, was followed by his son,
Shapur I, who was not formally crowned till 242 It seems that
the peoples of the Caspian provinces in the northern and eastern
marches had taken advantage of the change of kings to rise in
rebellion, for the Chronicle of Arbela states that Shapur, in the
first year of his reign, fought against and reduced to obedience the
Chorasmians, the Medes of the mountains {i.e. of Atropatene),
the Gelae, the Dailamites and the Hyrcanians. Furthermore, the
Pahlavi work ‘The cities of the Iranian Empire’ {Shahrestdneha t
Erdmhahdf relates that he defeated a king named Pahlezagh in
Khorassan, the eastern area of the kingdom, where he proceeded
to found the strong city of Nev-Shapur (Nishapur). He took the
title of King of Kings of Iran and Non-Iran.’
‘
The war against Rome ended with the peace of a.d. 244
(p. 1 31). The Arab fortress of Hatra, south of what had been
Nineveh, which had held out against the attacks of Ardashir, was
reduced by Shapur. In Armenia the king Tiridates of a collateral
holm, 1937), adopts a highly sceptical view of the details of the traditional
narrative concerning the composition and collecting of the Avesta.
2 Volume of Plates V, 234, b.
® J. Markwart —
G. Messina, ACatalogue of the Provincial Capitals of
Eranshahr,y^. 12,52—3.
II2 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
with the use of foreign sources. But, in any eVent, the inclusion of
treatises of this kind among the sacred writings at Shapur’s orders
is evidence of his broadmindedness^.
C.A.H. xn
1 14 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
was not attended with success and the peace that was made in 298
restored Tiridates to his throne and cost Persia five cantons of
Lesser Armenia.
Narses died in 302. The reign of his son, Hormizd IT (302-
309) passed without great events and was followed by internal
wars which ended in the accession of Shapur II, Hormizd’s infant
son. During his minority his mother ruled jointly with the great
nobles, whose power notably increased at the expense of the royal
prerogative. But when the young king came of age, he displayed
remarkable strength and vigour and contrived to check the ambi-
Already well advanced in middle life,
tions of the feudal notables.
aftersubduing with merciless harshness the rebellious Arab tribes,
he began in 356 the war of revenge upon Rome.
from about the beginning of the fifth century, this title was re-
placed by that of marzban. Several other titles of administrative
officials for the provinces are found in the inscriptions of the third
century: for example, a Saghastan-handarzbadh, ‘Director of
Education in Sacastene,’ and a shatrpav-dmdrkdr, ‘Superintendent
bidhakhsh is named after the hargobadh and the chief of the Sassanid clan and
before the hazarobadh-, the KbZ gives the names of a bidhakhsh and a bidh-
akhshSn, in both instances immediately before the name of a hazarobadh.
e Paik. and KbZ.
^ KbZ'LlA^
ii8 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
original Principle, which produced the Good and the Bad Spirit
(Ormuzd and Ahriman)^. Of these rival systems the second,
‘Zervanism’ {%ervan=- Time), was ultimately triumphant, and
‘
Vayism {vayu — Space) has only left faint traces in the tradition.
’
of the Sassanid era is frankly Zervanist. But the Parsees after the
fall of the Sassanids gave up Zervanism: the cosmogony myths of
the Sassanid Avesta have disappeared, and the Pahlavi religious
books have been so recast and edited that but few traces of
Zervanism survive.
But it is not only the Zervanist view which differentiates
Sassanid Mazdeism from medieval and modern Parseeism. Occa-
Mazdeism are: H. S. Nyberg, youm. Amt, 1931, li, pp. i sqq. and 193 sqq. ;
E. Benveniste, Monde Orient. 1932, pp. lyo sqq.', Christensen, Ulran
136—54, and Nyberg, Irons fomtida religioner (1937).
sous les Sassanides, pp.
See A. V. Williams Jackson, J.A.O.S.i 1921, pp. 81 sqq.‘, E. Herz&d,
^
Arch. Mitt, aus Iran, i, pp. 182 sqq.', A. Pagiiaro, Orient. Stud, in Honour of
C. E. Pavry, p. 383.
120 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
the king who issued it. Upon the votive monument of Shapur I,
^ By M. Sprengling.
® See the Bibliography to this chapter, I, b.
® Herzfeld, Arch. Hist, of Iran, pp. 88 sqq.
* Volume of Plates V, 140, «. See G. Salles and R. Ghirshman, Rev.des
V. THE ARTS
Practically nothing is known of any literary activity during the
first century of the Sassanian era. The only fact that demands
notice is the reshaping and editing of the which has
already been mentioned (see above, p. ria).
In architecture, the ancient Sassanid palaces preserved the
arrangement of the rooms practically as it had been under the
Achaemenids. But the exterior of the buildings was entirely
altered. The essential features of this new architecture have been
briefly summarized thus^: ‘The pillared halls, with a flat roof,
were henceforth and for ever replaced by vaulted and domed
rooms. The Sassanids transformed the square and octagon in
their rooms into the round and the cupola by introducing for this
purpose in the four corners pendentives, angle-brackets which are
equally adapted to the square and to the dome. This profound
talent for construction enabled them to create new proportions
the great hall at Ctesiphon has a diameter of nearly eighty feet.’
There still exist considerable remains of two large palaces,
which allow us to form some idea of this third-century architec-
ture; one, the palace at Firuzabad (Ardashir-Khvarreh), south of
Stakhr, built by Ardashir I, the other the palace at Ctesiphon, now
called the Taq-e-Kesra, which Herzfeld regards as the work of
Shapur P. The outer walls of Firuzabad were windowless, but
furnished with blind arcading and loft7 attached columns. At
Taq the north wing collapsed in 1888 ; in the centre of the fafade
of this was a lofty arch that opened on to a huge elliptical vault
extending over the whole depth of the building, which formed the
hall of audience^; here, too, the outer wall was windowless, but
ornamented with niches, attached columns, and blind arcading in
four storeys. Herzfeld regards this as an imitation of a Roman
1 See below, pp. 504 sqq.
® See L. Morgenstern, EsthStiques d’Orient et d’Occldent, 91.
p.
® See Herzfeld, Jrch. Hist, cf Iran, p. 94.
^ Volume of Plates V, 140,
IV, V] ARCHITECTURE IZ3
theatre. None the less, this colossal ruin, rising in the midst of the
desert, produces an overwhelming effect.
The rock-hewn sculptures of the first Sassanid kings usually
represent the investiture of the king by Ormuzd or depict scenes
of triumph or battle. The arrangement of the figures is formal.
Some reliefs have an accompanying inscription: in others the
shape of the crown affords us a means of identifying the king,
since each king had a crown peculiar to him, and the shape of these
crowns is known from coins. The king's hair falls in regular
ringlets and the end of the beard is knotted into a ring; behind his
head pleated ribbons float out; he usually wears a necklace, ear-
rings and other ornaments. If he is on horseback the harness of
the royal mount is furnished with various ornaments, and a large
pear-shaped ball, attached to the horse’s flanks by chains, hangs
loosely down.
In most of these investiture reliefs Ormuzd is seen, in archaic
dress, a mural crown on his head, stretching out to the king the
ribboned ring, symbol of royal power. Ardashir I has left two
such reliefs; one, in a poor state of preservation, at Naqsh-e-
Rajab, where both god and king are on foot; in the second, at
Naqsh-e-Rostam^, they are both on horseback the same attitude
is found in the relief of Shapur I at Naqsh-e-Rajab and that of
—
Vahram I on the rock of Shapur® one of the finest works of art
of this whole period. On the relief of Narses at Naqsh-e-Rostam,
the king and the goddess Anahita, who is bestowing the royal ring
on him, are both on foot^.
The triumph of Shapur I over Valerian is depicted no less than
five times, at Naqsh-e-Rostam and at Shapur®. In the rock-hewn
carvings at Shapur, the chief scene, common to all these reliefs,
showing the Roman Emperor throwing himself on his knees before
the Great King on horseback, forms the centre of a vast composi-
tion in which Persian soldiers and Roman prisoners are depicted
in several ranks one above the other. The workmanship of these
Plates, V, 142, a.
13 and 41. It should be observed that the relief of
® Felsreltefs, pis.
Vahram has an inscription of Narses, who annexed this monument for
I
himself: Herzfeld, Faikuli p. i73ASee Volume of Plates v, 142, b.
* Felsreltefs, pi. 9.
® Felsreliefs, pis. 7, 44, 45 and 43; Herzfeld, Jrch. Hist, of Iran,
pp. 83-86, pi. II below and 12, above) see Volume of Plates, v, 148.
124 SAS8ANID PERSIA [chap.
de HAc, des inscriptions, xuii, 1932, pp. 167 sqq.i Rostovtzeff, Caravan
Cities, pp. 194-5, 21 1, and pL 35.
Herzfeld, Arch. Hist, of Iran, p. 80.
A. and Y. Godard and J . Hackin, Les antiquitis houddhiques de BSmiySn,
pp. 65 sqq, and pL 42.
A. von le Coq, Chotscho, Berlin, 19 1 3, with plates (esp. pi. 5).
IV, V] ART 125
their desks, furnish us with some further ideas upon this branch of
Sassanid art^.
The French excavations at Shapur have brought to light a
hitherto unprecedented piece of work. It is a monument dedi-
cated in honour of Shapur I, and clearly carried out by Roman
workmen So far there have been uncovered the lower part of
two columns, on the shaft of one of which is a Pahlavi inscriptioii
(referred to as Sh. Shap.), two Corinthian capitals which crowned
these columns, a knee in marble (probably the remains of a statue
of Shapur, of which the inscription speaks), and the torso of a
woman, dressed in antique costume, also in marble®.
Carved and chased silver cups were a speciality of the Sassanid
Empire. Among existing examples two at least belong to the early
period of Sassanian art*. One, in the British Museum, represents
Shapur I hunting deer; the other, in the Hermitage Museum at
Leningrad, shows us Vahram I hunting wild boars®.
224 the siege and capture of Nisibis. That, however, is inconsistent with the
testaments of Syncellus and Zonaras, who place the capture of the city under
IV, VI] SHAPUR’S INITIAL SUCCESSES AND DEFEAT 131
the districts which lay to the north-east and to the east. Thus
the way was opened for operations against Armenia. At first
Shapur was content to seek to remove Chosroes, whose courage
and energy had created difficulties in the past and were still to be
feared in the future. In this he was successful and Ghosroes was
murdered. Tiridates, a minor, succeeded his dead father as king
of Armenia shortly before a.d. 25a. For in this year a Persian
army appeared in Armenia and compelled Tiridates to take flight
into Roman territory in this expulsion relatives of the young
:
^Malalas, xii, p. 296, 1 2 sqq. (ed. Bonn). Cf. A. Schenk Graf von Stauffen-
berg, Die romische Kaisergeschichte bet Malalas, 'yj'X sq.
® Christensen, op. cit. p. 215.
® Malalas, XII, p. 296,9 (ed. Bonn; i, 391, n. i, ed. Oxford), where theSrt'
of the MSS. is corrected into rtS'. Since, however, the 314th year of the
Antiochene Era would bring us to a,d. 265—6 C. Muller in F.H.G. iv, 192
emended to tS' and in this he is followed by A. Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
{op. cit. p. 366, n. 89) reading W. This would give a.d. 255/6. But if we
see in the S a misunderstanding of an original Z, the sign for ‘year’, we
might rather emend the text to tZ and this 310th year would then correspond
to A.D. 261/2, which at least agrees better with the account of Malalas, who
also places the fall of Antioch after the capture of the Emperor.
'
'
^
134 - SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
of Valerian, yet does not place the fall of the city of Antioch until
after Valerian’s overthrow^. According to this tradition the
Persians spread devastation throughout Syria up to the -walls of
Antioch, while Cappadocia was likewise overrun. The leadership
in the latter campaign was in the hands of Hormizd^, the son of
Shapur, who was supported by a Roman deserter from Antioch
with the Syrian name Mariades, i.e. Maryid'a, ‘My Lord dis-
name which
cerns,’ a in half-graecized form becomes Kyriades^.
Tyana was captured at this time, and Caesarea (Mazaca) may
already have had to endure the Persian onset. By the time that
Valerian reached Antioch (probably 256) the Persians had con-
veyed the booty won in these campaigns across the Euphrates.
The fall of Doura must also be placed in this or the following
year, when the town fell after a formal siege through the under-
mining of part of the city-wall, as the excavations have proved*.
From his headquarters in Antioch in a.d. 257 the Emperor
successfully met a renewed Persian invasion. It is to this that the
coin legends Victoria Parthica^ and Restitutor Orientis^ must refer.
Valerian then summoned to his support Successianus, who had
victoriously defended the town of Pityus, far distant on the
east shore of the Black Sea, against the attacks of the Borani,
the neighbours of the Goths in the Crimea'^. Successianus was
created Praetorian Prefect. The view that the attacks of these
barbarians, which were shortly after repeated in alliance -with the
Goths, were instigated by Shapur has little probability®. They
can be adequately explained by the difficult position of the Empire
at this time of which these tribes can hardly have remained
in ignorance. Another Gothic foray into Asia Minor caused
Valerian together with his main army to march northward to
In A.D. 260 Shapur none the less once more took the field and
encamped before Edessa which defended itself with resolution.
Finally the Emperor decided to attack the enemy. But sickness
still prevailed in his army, and the spirit of his men was depressed.
1 M.-S. V, i, p. 39, no. 22; p. 58, no. 2625 p. 60, no. 291.
2 For references see L. Wickert in P.W. s.v. Licinius (Valerianus),
col. 492.
® F. Sarre, Die Kunst des alien Persien, p. 41 j see Volume of Plates v,
'148.
136 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
and Egypt, too, suffered under the plundering raids of the neigh-
bouring peoples, though, despite considerable devastation, the
damage done by these inroads was mainly of a local character.
Again, the assaults of the New Persian Empire must definitely be
counted among the barbarian invasions. Shapur. might claim to be
the heir of the great and highly-civilized empire of the Achaemenids,
but his imperialism was predatory. His savage devastations dis-
qualified him from putting himself at the head of the anti-Roman
reaction in the East; one has only to remember the case of
Mariades (p. 171). This was indeed a great piece of good fortune
for Rome. But the Persian wars have already been described;
the movements of peoples in the Danube basin must now be con-
sidered^.
Note. The excellent contemporary sources, above all Dexippus, for the
period covered by this and the following chapter are almost all lost. com- A
parison of the secondary sources shows that the more detailed Byzantine
authors (Zosimus, Zonaras, Syncellus) go back to the same sources as the
Latin, compendia of the fourth century (Aurelius Victor, the Epitome de
CaesaribuSy Eutropius, Rufius Festus and the Chronicon of Jerome; further
the lives in the Historia Augusta from Gallienus to Aurelian). The order of
events in the Byzantine authors is decisive (see, for an example, Note i
at the end of the volume). The Latin compendia have mainly been used to
check and supplement the gaps in the Byzantine writers, also the fragments
of Dexippus and Petrus Patricias, the statements of Cedrenus and other
Byzantine writers and scattered observations in Ammianus Marceliinus, and
the rest of Latin literature. The evidence of coins is most important. For
these see the bibliography, where also will be found relevant collections of
inscriptions and archaeological publications, etc. For portraits of Decius and
Gallienus see Volume of Plates, v, 186, di 196, h.
Besnier, UEmp. rom. p. 1 80). But the compendia of the late fourth century
show the two invasions as quite distinct from one another (cf. Eutropius rs,
7; Jerome, Chron. p. 220, 24 Helm); only Orosius (vii, 22, 7) and
Jordanes {Romana, 287 m) confuse them. It may be added that Ravenna
lies on the natural continuation of the imperial road from Pannonia to
Aquileia.
2 Cf C. Putsch, P.W. s.v. Carpi, cols. 1608, 1610.
Dio Lxxrai, 16,
®
7 (p. 395 Boissevain); C.I.L. m, 14416; A. von
Domaszewski, Wectd, Zeits. Korr.-BL 1900, p. 147. ,
j,.:
HO INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
This title must refer to successes over free Dacians and not to victories
^
^ Wittig, P.W. s.v. Messius (9) col. 1269. The coins with Exercitus
Inlyricus, etc. do not belong to this context, cf. p. 1 66, n. 2.
^ C.l.L. ir, 4949. ® C.l.L. Ill, 1176.
* Dexippus, frag. 26, 8-10 (F.G.H. n, p. 469 s^.).
® Dexippus, frag. 26 ad init. {F.G.H. il.
p, 468).
* The correct form of the name is given in the Ann. Spig.
1932, no. 28;
Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxix, 2, calls him Lucius Priscus in error.
’ The siege of Philippopolis in Dexippus, frag.
27 {F.G.H. ii, p. 470),
which ended without success, must be placed later, perhaps in 268.
V, i] THE WARS OF DECIUS 145
at OescuSj where Callus stood with his corps still intact, and pre-
pared to renew the war. It was still the summer of 250, but
Decius was so weak that for nearly a whole year, up to his tragic
death, he was not in a position to cross the mountains, but was
forced to leave the Goths to wreak their fury on Thrace. He re-
stricted himself from the first to the task of awaiting the with-
drawal of the enemy, in order to beset them on their return. Yet
he failed even to hold the Balkan passes— obviously the most ad-
—
vantageous course but sent Callus to the mouth of the Danube,
m order to prevent the Goths from crossing, if they took that
route; he himself probably remained farther upstream, in order
to keep a watch on the western crossings. It must not be forgotten,
that it was scarcely possible for him to bring up troops from other
parts of the Empire; the risings of pretenders in Rome, Gaul and
the East made such a course inadvisable if not impossible.
In May 251, when Herennius Etruscus was made Augustus,
new and notable coin-types suddenly appear on the Antoniniani
of the mint of Rome^, one for Decius, the other for his elder son,
both celebrating a ‘Victoria Germanica.’ These must refer to the
Gothic war^. The victorious engagement thus celebrated can,
as things lay, only relate to battles north of the Balkan range. The
Goths chose the shortest and most convenient road to the Black
Sea and, in view of the defensive attitude of the Romans®, must
have reached the Dobrudja before it came to a battle.
The Romans had the better of the fighting, but the Goths still
retained all their booty and captives^. Kniva once again displayed
his talent for command when, a month later (June 251), the
decision fell. He succeeded in luring the Emperor, who walked
incautiously into the trap laid for him®, into a marshy place near
Abrittus (Aptaat-Kalessi) in the Dobrudja and in inflicting upon
him a decisive defeat. After Herennius Etruscus had died bravely,
Decius fought on, until he too fell on the field of honour.
The Illyrian provinces had already suffered terribly from these
invasions. There is no record of the number of cities that perished.
It is probable that Marcianopolis, for example, met its fate. On
® As Rappaport, op. cit. pp. 43 sqq., well suggests. Confusion of the names
‘Gallus’ and ‘Gallienus’ probably contributed to making the Byzantine
authors enter under earlier years these expeditions that really fell under
Valerian and Gallienus.
® When Orosius (vii,
23, i) and Jordanes {Ro/nana, 288 m) maintain
that the Goths continued their devastations for 15 years until 269, that is a
subsequent calculation based on the years of the reign of Gallienus, who is
made the scapegoat.
* Zosimus I, 24, I .
® The thread of the history is given by Zosimus, who returns three times
under Gallus to the Gothic inroads. In i, 26, i he gives the general, anti-
cipatory, description which has been mentioned above; in i, 27, i,with aWwi
he marks the invasion of the Goths and their comrades in the following year,
an invasion which spent its fury on the mainland, and finally, in i, 28, i, he
describes the first expedition by sea in the next year to that. The correctness
of the continuation after 253 (see Alfoldi in Berytus, iv, 1937, pp. 53 sqq.)
confirms the earlier date also.
® That it was actually a different group of Goths
—
— perhaps, the later
Ostrogoths that made these expeditions, cannot be strictly proved, but
appears a necessary assumption. . Cf. Schmidt, op. cit. i®, p. 130 sq.
V, I] THE GOTHS IN GREEK LANDS 147
into the European provinces, and in 253 made a first expedition
by sea to Asia Minor^, which spread fire and sword as far as
Ephesus and Pessinus. In the spring of the same year the Goths
under Kniva stirred again and demanded an increase of their sub-
sidies. But the governor of Lower Moesia, Aemilius Aemilianus,
succeeded in inducing his troops by liberal promises to undertake
a counter-attack on the Gothic territory north of the Danube;
success brought him proclamation as emperor, and death.
But this bold stroke had no lasting effects. Aemilianus was
not even able to clear Thrace of the hostile bands^. In 2 j'4 the
Goths again crossed the Danube, ‘as is their custom,’ laid waste
Thrace, and pushed on to Thessalonica, but were driven off
with heavy loss®. Greece was seized with panic; Thermopylae
and the Isthmus were fortified; the walls of Athens, which since
Sulla’s time had fallen into decay, were restored. But there
was no one able to curb the robber bands in the field. For at the
same time the Marcomanni made havoc of Pannonia, while, of
the two emperors, one had perforce to take the field against the
Germans on the Rhine, and the other was tied down in the
East. The position in Illyricum was terrible enough^. The details
cannot be followed in the authorities. The activity of the mint of
Viminacium between 253 and 257 points to some degree of order
in Upper Moesia during this period; but the transference of its
activitT’ to Cologne shows that the Rhinelands were regarded as of
more importance than the payment of the Danube troops. The
Gothic peril became so constant that the glacis of the Balkan
range was fortified in order to observe and fend off the raiders
(‘ latrunculi ’)®. The usurpations of 260, in which the desperation
p. 470). , ;
-
150 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
where the road to Italy crosses the Drave, as a regular garrison for
Poetovio. What other troops there may have been in Transylvania,
and whether detachments of legions were among them, is un-
known. But there is first-hand evidence to prove that until the
beginning of 270 the abandonment of the province was not even
considered. Types of the very first issue of Aurelian, on the model
of Decius, represent the reliance of the Emperor on the might of
Illyricumj among them is a Dacia Felix^. Then comes a sudden,
unexpected change, necessitated by events of a novel character.
The facts are clear. Aurelian after his proclamation hastened
to Rome®, thence to fight in Pannonia, only to return to North
Italy for a severe campaign against the invading Juthungi. In the
winter of 270—1 he arranged affairs in Rome and Italy and pre-
pared for an expedition against Palmyra. On his way to the East
he first cleared the Danube lands and Thrace of marauding bands®,
then crossed to the northern bank and swiftly defeated the
Goths in a series of great battles, in the course of which the
chieftain Gannabaudes lost his life^. The importance of the victory
is underlined in what Ammianus Marcellinus says of the Goths
an Illyrian), because the reverse Pannama appears with the same officina mark
from the same mint in the latest of his issues.
® The sequence of events in Zosimus i, 48 sq., to which the statements of
Maximus in 272 (C.I.L. ni, 7586). But cf. S.H.A. Jurel. 30, 4.
* S.H.A. Aurel. 22, 1—2: contra Zenohtam . . Ater jiexit. multa in itinere
ac magna bellorum genera confecii. nam in Thraciis et in lllyrico occurrentes
harharos vicit, Gothorum quin etiam ducem Cannahan sive Cannabauden cum
quinque milibus hominum trans Dantmium interemit', Orosius vii, 23, 4:
expeditione in Danuvium suscepta Gothos magnis proeliis profligavit dicionem-
que Romanamantiquisternunu statmt,c.i.!\so%\xtxo^i\i%xs., 13, i and Jordanes,
Ramona 290 m. ® xxxi,
-
5, 17.
V, III] THE WITHDRAWAL FROM DACIA 153
the Gallic Empire was still independent, it was only by the army
of the Danube that the East could be subdued. If the Illyrian
troops, already weakened by losses, were to be withdrawn (and
they did in the sequel bear the brunt of the fighting against
Zenobia^), without surrendering the Danubian provinces to the
mercy of the Goths, there was but one course open and that
Aurelian took. He ordered the withdrawal of the Roman popula-
tion (‘Romanos’) from Dacia, transferred the legions of Dacia to
Moesia, to the two gates of Gothic invasions, Ratiaria and Oescus,
and named the country Dacia Ripensis. Behind it he carved out of
Moesia and Thrace a Dacia Mediterranea, the capital of which,
Serdica, received a great new imperial mint. This organized migra-
tion of Romans from Dacia to the south side of the Danube, where
farmers and recruits for the army were much needed, a migration
protected by the prestige of Aurelian’s victories, removed Roman
civilization from Dacian soil as completely as Trajan had driven
out the earlier Dacian inhabitants of the land^ (vol. xi, p. 553).
This strategic withdrawal re-established the Danube frontier
for a considerable time, while it also supplied a home to a large
section of the Goths, in which they succeeded in forming an in-
dependent State as the Visigoths, destined thereafter to be ousted
by the Huns and to exercise a deep influence on the fortunes of
France and Spain. The other Goths in the Black Sea area, probably
ancestors of the Ostrogoths, stirred again in 276; Tacitus,
Florian and Probus were to be much plagued by their naval
expeditions. From the West Goths, too, came isolated plundering
raids southwards. But the great movement was at an end, and the
East German Gepidae, who had meanwhile pushed into Eastern
Hungary and had fought bitterly with the Goths and Vandals
for their settlements, were not in time to share actively in the
invasions*.
v; -
Kl. 217, I. Abh. 1937, pp. 176 sqq.-, Besnier, op. cit. pp. 243 sqq.% C. Dai-
coviciu, La Transylvanie dans T Antiquiti^ Bucharest, 1938.
® It appears to the present writer that the mentions of them in S.H.A.
are additions by the compiler of the work. ^ .
‘
V, III] ,
THE ALEMANNI 155
Noricum; his army, including the Praetorian Guard and the
II Parthica (from Albano), had not exceeded some ten thousand
men. Yet it sufficed to inflict a crushing defeat on the vastly
superior numbers of the Alemanni near Mikn^, The exact year
is not certain, but it must have been either 258 or 259*^. That
Gaul had been visited more than once by these invaders in the
years preceding is a very probable assumption^.
The blow thus sustained by the Alemanni certainly weakened
them and drove them from Italy; but none the less it was soon
found impossible to restore and defend the limes area in the angle
formed by the upper waters of the Rhine and Danube. Gallienus
did, indeed, refortify Vindonissa in 2 60, to bar the way southward
to the Alemanni^, and other forts were built at the same time^.
But the revolt of Postumus, at the end of 260®, set the Rhine
frontier and the Upper Danube in hostile opposition to one
another, and the intervening district along the between the
two fronts became a no man’s land. The latest inscription from
the Raetian limes dates from 256—7^; it is to these strips of land
along the frontier that the notice, sub principe Gallieno
‘
amissa . . .
Mogontiacense LXXX
leugas trans Rhenum Romani possederunt^ istae
civitates sub Gallieno imp,a harbaris occupatae sunt, Cf E. Ritterling, Bonn,
Jahrh, cvii, 1901, pp, 116 sqq, \ Norden, op, cit, pp. 24 sqq. Further details
in J. Steinhausen,.^rrA. Siedlungskunde desTrierer Landes 1938, pp.
he had called the troops from that province to join him, for the
Alemanni immediately afterwards broke through® and advanced
over the Brenner as far as Lake Garda. After the murder of
Gallienus the new emperor Claudius marched against them and
dealt them a heavy blow, though unable to exploit his victory
strategically, for he was already compelled to turn his arms against
the Goths, who had flooded into the Balkans. So it came about
that the half of the Alemanni who survived^ were able to escape
homewards, as it seems with no great difiiculty. The gate had not
been barred and bolted against their invasions. They were not
even deterred from invading Italy once again in the very next
year. Aurelian was engaged in mastering the Vandals in Pannonia,
when he received the tidings that the Alemanni, with their kins-
men, the Juthungi®, were plundering the fields round Milan
(see below, p. 298 jy.). One band was actually in possession of
Placentia when he arrived. Near this latter city the Emperor
sustained a defeat brought about, it appears, by a surprise attack
by night from Alemannic forces hiding in the woods. The Via
Aemilia in the direction of Bologna-Ancona was laid open to the
foe, and it was not till they had reached the key to Rome on the
Via Flaminia that Aurelian overtook them and defeated them
decisively on the Metaurus near Fanum Fortunae. As the enemy
streamed back northwards, he pursued and defeated them a
second time near Ticinum, not far from Milan. The vagrant
remnant seems then to have been wiped out®. These blows, it
must be presumed, fell mainly on the Alemanni; the Juthungi
withdrew in an orderly column to the Danube, where they were
overtaken and defeated by the Emperor. This severe, but victori-
^ The coin-finds (cf. e.g. Schmidt, op. at. ifl, i, pp. 245 sqq.) have not
yet been arranged under dates and mints according to the results of the most
recent research.
? Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxin, 17.
® P, Damerau, Kaiser Claudius II Goticus, p. 52 sq., where further
literature will be found. ^ [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxtv, 2.
® They were living at the time somewhere between Nuremberg and
Re^nsburg, north of the Danube: cfi Schmidt, op. cit. ifl, pp. 251 sqq.
« S.H,A- Jta-eL 18, 6.
V, in] THE WARS OF AURELIAN 157
ous campaign had the eiFect of finally frightening off the Alemanni
and their comrades, at least from Italy. But Raetia was not
secured against them until Aurelian, on his way to fight Tetricus
in Gaul, cleared Vindelicia of their marauding bands (p. 309).
Probus later threw back the Alemanni over the Neckar on to the
foot-hills of the Swabian Alps, a success that marked the complete
efficiency of the Roman defensive at least (p. 315)^. Raetia could
at last draw breath^.
In a rapid glance over the raids of the Germans of the Rhine,
the remarkable fact emerges that it was not any movements among
the German peoples themselves, but simply and solely the loosen-
ing of the Roman power that occasioned the storm on the limes.
The Franks are no newcomers to the Rhine® but only a new league
of Bructeri, Chamavi, Salii and others, who had united in order
to make head more easily against Rome. This banding together on
a considerable scale had in point of fact strengthened them con-
siderably and had laid the foundations of the r 61 e they were after-
wards to play in history. They became active rather later than the
Alemanni. As early as 231 they were giving trouble to the Legio’
I Minervia*, but the operations against the Alemanni by Severus
Alexander and Maximinus must have had their effects on them as
well. It is, however, chiefly the coin-hoards that show how fast
and far the sense of insecurity spread along the Rhine and in
Gaul®. From 253 onwards the situation became difficult in the
extreme. It is significant, indeed, that Galiienus thought less of
the raids of Marcomanni and Quadi, that even extended to Italy,
or of the imperilling of Greece by the Goths, than of the danger
on the Rhine®. It is at this point that the authorities first mention
the Franks as the opponents'^. In 254, at the latest, the Emperor
’ Zonaras xii,
24 596) 5 Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxni, 3. On these
invasions see also Schmidt, op. cit. iff, pp. if'^jsqq. and A. Vincent, Milanges
Pirenne, ii, pp. 669 sqq. . , , . , ;
158 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
1929, pp. 218 sqq.), the defeat of the Alemanni was included, as were
certainly also the wars with the East Germans, so far as they were successful;
the exact attributions are thus rendered more difficult. As the war with the
Alemanni was victoria quinta (cf. Num. Chron., loc. cit.) the successes on the
Rhine must all fall before it.
* This is proved by the transference of the imperial mint of Viminacium
to Cologne. On the place of the mint, see G. Elmer in the Bonn. Jahrb.
extra, 1938.
® See Sdimidt, op. cit. ii^ p. 250; Steinhausen, loc. cit.
® Cf. the sketch map in Manley, op. cit. p. 64 (fig. 2).
'
world-State, which was adapted for peace and had based its whole
mighty organization on a humane mode of life, their primitive
morality proved disastrous to the higher morality of the Empire,
little as they can be blamed for it.
It is an observed fact that, the greater the friction, the greater the
assimilation to one another of two surfaces in contact; and so even
these destructive wars produced a pronounced assimilation of the
opposing parties, which, for the Germans, acquired a decisive
historical importance.
In order to compete with the armies of Rome, East and West
Germans alike united in considerable leagues, which in several
instances, such as the Alemanni or the Franks, became the basis
for States destined to survive. The rise of this class of leaders is
illustrated by the appearance of such personalities as Kniva, the
great opponent of Decius. In the later campaigns it becomes
plain how quickly the East Germans had assimilated the military
technique of the classical world^.
The gold extorted from the Roman State or from individuals
produced a major economic change in the German world.
Gathered at first in mere greed and employed as ornament, this
valuable form of property gradually became a regular medium
of exchange and was the chief factor in raising the Germans to an
advanced stage of money economy®. The finds make it possible to
follow the process by which gold coinage, streaming into Germany,
1 ® Zosimus i,
Zosimus I, 33, 3.
Cf. 35, 2.
Dexippus, frag. 27, 10 (F.G.H. ii, p. 472).
®
^ Cf. Dexippus, frag. 29 (F.G.H. 11, p. 474). The siege of Philippopolis,
described by that writer, frag. 27 (F.G.H. ii, p. 470), must have occurred in
a later invasion, if only because it shows a highly developed technique; the
probable date is 268 or 269.
® Alfoldi, ‘Nachahmungen der rom. Goldmedaillons als germ. Hals-
schmuck,’ Num. KikdSny, xxviii/ix, 1933, pp- losqq., where the literature
is collected.
1 62 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
reached the North and, as early as the fifth century, filled the
whole of Scandinavia.
Even stronger in its elFects on Germany than the rivalry of
opposition was the slow and barely perceptible radiation of the
forms of ancient civilization. It will always be remarkable, that
this form of peaceful penetration, while beginning much earlier
with the West Germans, took a much firmer hold of the East
Germans, as the later history of the Goths and Vandals shows. It
is not possible here to describe the great influx of Roman export-
trade into free Germany, its passage as far as Scandinavia, and
the lively circulation of Roman money in the German sphere^;
but one fact can be stressed, that the definite settlement of the
Goths on the Black Sea and in the basin of the Danube had an
extremely invigorating efiect on the trade-routes leading from
these directions northwards. Plundering raids had already brought
great wealth from the Roman provinces to the Germans; but
the regular influx of gold, coined or in bars, was first due to the
relation of the tribes to the Empire as foederati and to the em-
ployment of individual Germans in the imperial army (see below,
p. 219).
The years spent in such service gave an education that could
not fail to have its consequences. German nobles now began to
reach high posts as officers, even if, in the first place, it was only
as leaders of their own people serving with Rome. Naulobatus,
the Herulian chieftain, who in 268 received consular insignia
from Gallienus, doubtless gave in return his services in the army^;
the ‘Pompeianus Dux, cognomine Francus,’ for example, who
played a part in the capture of Zenobia, was certainly a Frank^. How
rapidly these sturdy warriors made themselves at home at imperial
headquarters is illustrated by the anecdote about the Herulian
Andonoballus^; the debate as to which is preferable the old —
hostility or the friendship of the emperor —
reminds one at once
of the contest of Eriulf and Fravitta at the court of Theodosius
the Great. How the spirit of the ancient world came thus to
permeate the Germans cannot be shown in detail here. To this
—
must be added as early as the third century and with increasing
force thereafter — the Christian missions in West and East.
^ For a survey of the scattered literature and its results see O. Brogan,
y.R.S. XXVI, 1936, pp. 195 sqq.i cf. also the review by H. J. Eggers,
Germania, xx, 1936, pp. 146 sqq.
* For a different view see M. Bang, Die Germanen im romischen Dienst,
® For a different view see Schmidt, op. cit. n^,
p. 92. p. 439 n. 4.
1 (Ca^ius Dio, ed. Boissevain, in, p. 745).
* Petrus Patricius, frag. 17
V, iv] THE GERMANS AND THE EMPIRE 163
(in Staaten, Volker, Manner, pp. 96 sqq^% Th. Monunsen, Ges. Schriften,
VI, p. 229 sq.\ A. Graf Schenk v. Stauffenberg, Die IVdt ah Geschichte, n,
1936, pp. 159 . .
^ Dio Lxxix,
17, 3 (p. 421 Boissevain). ® Zosimus i, 30,-3.
1
64 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap. V, iv
1 E.g, Zosimus i,
46, 2; 68, 3; 71, 1-2; S.H.A. Prob. 18, 1-3. This is
becoming clearer from the results of excavations also in the Danube provinces.
^ Dio Lxxix,
3, 3; Herodian iv, 7, 3.
CHAPTER VI
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE (a.d. 249-270)
I. INTRODUCTION; THE AGE OF DECIUS,
GALLUS AND AEMILIANUS
Traianus, the ideal model of the emperor ‘by grace of the Senate^’.
Decius, however, at once emphasizes his absolute dependence on
the army of Illyricum,^ which had clothed him with the purple.
Decius had overcome Philip near Verona in September 249 (p.
94), In Rome, soon after the customary celebration of his arrival
and the solemn vows for the long continuance and happiness of
his rule, he initiated that campaign against Christianity that
threw large sections of the population into panic and misery (see
below, pp. 202 sqq^. He had still a short time left him for
buildings in the capital and for other occupations of peace. From
Syria was brought, according to the fashion of the times, the head
of the usurper, Jotapianus®, and as late as the end of December it
was still possible to discharge time-expired soldiers^. But signs
of disturbance soon appeared. In Gaul a civil war broke out, only
to be suppressed —
whether the Emperor himself visited the pro-
vince cannot be decided®. Thereupon followed the tidings of the
inroad of the Goths into the Balkans (see above, p. 143). About
April or June 250 Decius made his elder son, Herennius Etruscus,
Caesar, a youth who, to judge by his portraits, had hardly reached
—
man’s estate and sent him with an armed force to Moesia. Soon
afterwards he himself set out. Probably to ensure the loyalty of
the capital by a representative of his house he appointed his
second son, Hostilianus, Caesar®. P. Licinius Valerianus, a re-
spected member of the Senate, was, it appears, set at the boy’s side,
to direct the civil administration for him during the Gothic war.
The wife of Decius, Herennia Cupressenia Etruscilla, now raised
to the rank of Augusta, may well have lent her help and counsel to
the young prince. Simultaneously with the war the persecution
of the Christians proceeded on a grand scale. Towards the middle of
June the required sacrifices began, and the authorities, during some
The name Traianus only appears after the entry of Decius into Rome
(cf.K. Wittig, P. W. s.v. Messius (9), cols. 1 247 sqq.). But, as there was no
justification for the adoption of the name by Decius himself (such as the
motives that prompted Severus to take the name of Pertinax, or fictitious
relationship, as in the case of the adoption of the name of Antoninus by
Caracalla, Elagabalus, etc.), it is evident that this title of honour was voted
by those same people, who greeted the new emperor with the cry ''felidor
Auffisto, meliar Traiano.’
^ Cf. Alfoldi, Funftmdzwanxig yahre RSm.-Germ. Komm. p. i'2 sq.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxix, 2; 2k»simus i, 20, 2 (under Philip).
* Wittig, op. cit. col.
1267 sq. Whether these veterans were still kept on
the roll is another matter. ® Eutropius ix, 4.
* Wittig, op. cit. col. 1262. For another view see G, Elmer, Num.
Zeitschr. i 93S> P> 4° and K. Pink, ih. 1936, p. 19.
VI, I] DECIUS 167
weeks, gave certificates of compliance to the loyal who sacrificed
and began to persecute the recalcitrant (see p. 202). But the effects
of the long drawn-out war soon began to be acutely felt. The mob
of Rome, in its desire for a new r^gime^, went to the length of
proclaiming a rival emperor: the name of Decius was erased from
many inscriptions. But the pretender, Julius Valens Licinianus,
a man, it would appear, of senatorial rank, was soon crushed®. In
May 25'!, the two sons of the Emperor were proclaimed Augusti.
But, very soon after the joyful celebration of that event®, the
whole Empire was shaken by the news of the destruction of the
Roman expeditionary force (about the beginning of June), and
the heroic deaths of Decius and his elder son at Abrittus in the
Dobrudja.
It was some slight consolation that Julius Priscus, the governor
of Thrace, who had surrendered with his mutinous troops to the
Goths at Philippopolis and had been proclaimed emperor, had
in the meantime vanished from the scene. The wrecks of the de-
feated army in the Dobrudja proclaimed the legate of Lower
Moesia, C. Vibius Afinius Trebonianus Gallus, second emperor,
as the surviving son of Decius was still a child*. Gallus, in the
disastrous position in which he stood, had lost the power to dictate
to the enemy the terms of peace. The flower of the population of
— —
Thrace so far as it still survived was carried off by the Goths,
and with it went the wealth of the provinces; besides all this,
the raiders received annual subsidies, to induce them not to
return.
Gallus treated his fallen predecessors with all respect and had
them consecrated by the Senate; Hostilianus he adopted as his son.
Only Etruscilla was forced into retirement, but the wife of the new
emperor, Afinia Gemina Baebiana, did not become Augusta, so as
not to encroach on her prerogative.® Gallus, however, at the same
time made his own son, Volusianus, Caesar and, not long after-
wards, Augustus; had not the son of Decius died of the plague,
fact that the activities assumed by him for a ‘Moneta Comitatensis’ simply
represent the latest issues of the mint of Rome; cf. Alfoldi in 'Ntm. KozlSny,
xxxrv, 5, 1938. The suspicions suggested in Zosimus i, 25, 2 seem to be
unfounded. ® Zonaras xii, 21 (p. 589); Zosimus i, 25, i.
® Zosimus (i,
27, l) writes: rSav KpaTovvrmv .ordvra Se ra t)}? 'Vw/aoj';
. .
against the Roman provinces of the East that was to last nearly a
decade^. Early in 253 the Persian bands swarmed over Mesopo-
tamia and Syria, captured Antioch and made good their retire-
ment with an immense booty and a countless host of captives.
When Valerian hastened to the spot in the winter of 253—4, he
was already too late. But the priest-king of Emesa, Sulpicius
Uranius Antoninus, who, owing to the impotence of the central
government, had been set up as a pretender and had successfully
organized the defence of his own small home-land, now vanished
from the scene at the Emperor’s approach. The gallant commander
of Pityus, the Successianus who had conducted an admirable
defence of that city against an assault of the Borani early in 254,
was appointed Praetorian Prefect and joined the Emperor in re-
building Antioch from its ruins.
Egypt, too, gained a moment of relief. How loosely the govern-
ment had been holding the reins can still be seen from the decay
of the coinage of Alexandria under Decius^. In the second
Egyptian year of Gallus (August 30, 251—August 29, 252) no
coins were issued —
an omission without parallel between 216
and the end of the autonomous issues in 296®. But even the
presence of Valerian failed to bring any real stabilization. In
255 Pityus and Trapezus fell victims to an unexpected renewal
of the attack of the Borani by sea, and in 256 the Goths launched
their second great naval expedition, which, having sailed along the
west coast of the Black Sea, scared the demoralized garrison out of
Chalcedon. The conquest of this key-position placed the great
cities of Bithynia at the mercy of the Goths (see above, p. 148).
In this crisis Valerian proved utterly incompetent. Out of dread
of usurpations he could not bring himself to entrust any of his
generals with an expeditionary force against the Goths; all he did
was to send a certain Felix to Byzantium to direct the defence of
that important strategic centre, preparatory to undertaking the
campaign himself. Setting out from Antioch, however, he got no
farther than Cappadocia, while the passage of his army proved a
sore burden to the cities. As his general headquarters he chose
Samosata, a fortress in a commanding position on the Upper
Euphrates, covered against Persian attack by the strong advanced
bastion of Edessa. But even from this favourable position he was
unable to prevent the renewal of the Persian invasions. Hormizd,
^ For details in the account that follows, see A. Alfiildi, in Berpus iv,
1 937, p. S3 sq. For a somewhat different chronology see above, pp. 1 33 sqq.
® J. G. Milne, Catalogue of Alexandrian Coins. . p. xxiv.
® Id., AHistory of Egypt tender Roman Rule% p. 71.
VI, n] VALERIAN IN THE EAST 171
son of Shapur, first led an army against the frontier of the Eu-
phrates, Therecent excavations at Doura-Europos, the point at
which he broke through, have given us an amazingly vivid picture
of the siege and of the mine-warfare that shattered the nerve of
the garrison of the fort. The latest coins found in the purses of
the soldiers who fell in this underground war can be dated to the
year 255, and appear to show that the fortress fell in that year
(see, however, p. 134).
Under these catastrophic conditions the spirit of hostility to
Rome in the East found violent expression. Mariades, a Syrian
noble of Antioch, led Shapur in 258 or 259 against his native
city. The local knowledge of the traitor led to a complete surprise.
The well-to-do were able, it is true, to escape; the officials saved
the mint and the State treasure, but the masses, who shared the
sympathies of Mariades, stayed on the spot. It must have been
through treachery that the range of hills near the city fell without
a blow into the hands of the Persians. Shapur made good his
retirement a second time unscathed with his booty, after burning
the city and laying waste the surrounding country.
In this fearful crisis Valerian found a vent for the general em-
bitterment. Since August 237 he had been engaged in per-
secuting the Christians with a success denied him against his
foreign enemies (see below, p. 205 jy.), and he now proceeded to
intensify the harshness of his measures against them. Hatred was
again allowed to run riot against a background of general dis-
aster and danger, exactly as under Decius.
The surprise attack on Antioch was followed by an even more
terrifying and devastating invasion by Shapur in 260. He had
pushed past Commagenian Antioch as far as Cappadocia, before
the fatal clash with the ageing Emperor took place. The Roman
army was decimated by the plague; it was even more seriously
depressed by the complete inertia and feebleness of its commander-
in-chief. In his lack of all resolution he seems to have postponed
the actual decision; it looks as if he shut himself up behind the
walls of Samosata. Finally he risked an engagement in Mesopo-
tamia, only to suffer defeat. The Persians then beset Edessa,
where the starving garrison, mutinous though it might be, still
gallantly repelled the enemy. Then, of a sudden, came the terrible
tidings that the Emperor had fallen into the hands of Shapur. A
whole series of picturesque and even fantastic stories was spun
about Valerian’s capture and the humiliations to which he was
subjected. When the Emperor died is not recorded. The jubilation
among the Persians was immense (see pp. 135 sqq^.
172 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
doubt that he had taken the side of the Macriani and only
first
raised his own of revolt after their fail. As the mint of
flag
Alexandria lay in the quarter that resumed its allegiance to
Gallienus, it was not at his disposal, but it is quite possible that
he took the purple. It may be that he was encouraged to do so by
a successful blow at the Blemmyes on the southern frontier of
Egypt; Odenathus was unable to attack him, as he was at that
very moment advancing into Persia (see below).
The detachment of Alexandria was highly dangerous to Italy:
it seems as if Rome looked in vain for the Egyptian corn-fleet. It
scribed by the new title King of Kings.’ This was not incompatible
‘
—
176 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
with his subordination to his Roman suzerain, for the same title
had long been allowed, together with the absolute grant of in-
dependent sovereignty, involved in a separate coinage in gold, to
the kings of Bosporus. But what the name did emphasize the
more strongly was a rivalry with the Great Kings of Persia.
The boundaries of the realm of Odenathus in his new position
were to the north the Taurus mountains, to the south the Arabian
Gulf; it extended also to Cilicia, Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia.
Asia Minor and Egypt were not included and had to be seized
by force later, as will soon appear.
More particularly after the conferment of the title of imperator
the position of the mighty sheik fell little short of imperial auto-
cracy. From the Roman point of view, therefore, it could only be
regarded as a temporary concession, demanded by the necessities
of the moment. Friction with the governors must have been an
everyday occurrence. Two significant cases are known. A Roman
official, Quirinus by name^, could not stomach the fact of Odena-
thus’ conducting the war of Rome (against Shapur) ; Odenathus,
in revenge, sought to put him to death. It is not impossible
that this ‘C^irinus’ is the same as Aurelius Quirinius, who is re-
corded as head of the financial administration of Egypt in 262.
The second instance was far more serious in its effects. A
Rufinus is mentioned, who had had the ‘elder Odenathus’ put to
death and was called to account for it before Gallienus by ‘the
younger Odenathus.’ In the ‘elder Odenathus’ we must, with
Mommsen, recognize the prince of Palmyra; in the younger
Odenathus, his son falsely so-called, Vaballathus Athenodorus
the more so as another tradition makes the Emperor get rid of our
Odenathus®. In that case, the instigator of the murder would be
the Cocceius Rufinus, who is known as governor of Roman
Arabia at this time, and the political character of the deed is
further to be seen in the fact that the eldest son of the king,
Hairanes-Herodes, was killed along with him®. It is known from
other sources that the murderer himself was a kinsman of the
prince, who, of course, may have been prompted by personal
rancour; but behind him stood the plotter, who imagined himself
to be acting in the interests of Rome.
With Odenathus vanished from the scene yet a third leading
personality of Palmyra —
and this, too, can be no mere coincidence.
^ Not Carinus, cf. Petrus Patricius, frag. 1 68 (Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevain,
m, p. 744).
® Johann. Antioch, frag. 152, 2 (F. if. G. iv, 599).
® See Note 2 at the eno of the Volume.
VI, n] THE DEATH OF ODENATHUS 177
It was Septimius Vorodes, who had received from Gallienus the
dignity of a iuridicus and a procurator ducenarius and who had
stood at the side of his king as military governor (argapetes) of
Palmyra. The latest inscription that mentions him was set up in
April 267 ; it was just about that time that Odenathus was stabbed.
In one way or another he seems to have been involved in the plot.
Odenathus, indeed, was originally no convinced adherent of
Rome. But, grievously insulted by Shapur and at bitter war with
him, and loaded by Gallienus with unprecedented distinctions, he
maintained a firm loyalty to Rome. Yet, after all, it appears as if
the second victory over Persia widened the horizon of his
ambition and as if he were meditating a breach with Rome^. For
this he had to pay with his life, as had many another barbarian
king in the course of the Empire.
There are many other indications which suggest that Gallienus
intended to make a thorough settlement with Palmyra immediately
after the death of Odenathus. In the year 267 a new mint
was established in the west of Asia Minor, the die-engravers of
which were in part detailed from Siscia, and so attest the initia-
tive of the Emperor. As in this period the foundation of mints
was without exception designed to provide pay for the troops,
this new mint points to the establishment of a base of operations
in Asia Minor. Further, the new issue of 268 at Siscia has the
reverse type Orient Augusti, which sounds like an advertisement
of the claim to the East (p. 1 87). The Vita also reports that
Gallienus sent Heraclianus with an army to the East, but that the
Palmyrenes defeated him. Even if this goes too far and an open
clash cannot yet have occurred, it is clear that Gallienus was only
prevented by the terrible raid of the Goths on Asia Minor in 267
and the great Herulian invasion of 268 (p. 149) from making a
final reckoning with Zenobia, the wife of the dead prince, who
carried on the government in the name of her son, Herodianus, a
minor, and, after him, of her third son, Vaballathus (p. 178).
The complete failure of Valerian, the inability of Gallienus to
transfer his activities to the East, the terrible German invasions of
267 and 268, must all have fostered the conviction in Palmyra
that Rome was no longer capable of holding the reins of the East.
The important part that the soldiers of Palmyra had for decades
maintained in the Roman army must have heightened their con-
sciousness of their native worth. The achievements of Odenathus
followed, to confirm the conviction that it was the mission of
^ In the episode of Rufinus (Petrus Patridus, frag. 166 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, nij p. 744)) this is twice em|diasized. ® 1
3, 4-5, i
178 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
® For another view see H. Mattingly, Nvm. Chrm. 1936, p* 101 sq.
’
'
'
1
^,
'
la-a
—
i8o THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
^
Malaias xii, p, 299, 4 (Bonn). Cf. A. Graf Schenk v. Stauffenberg, Die
rom. Kaisergeschichte bet Malaias, p- 379 sq.
® &M.A. Probus,
9, I. For another view see A. Stein, in Klio, xxix,
1936, PP. ^37 W;
^ On the first of his own reverse types at Rome as distinct from
those of Quintillus which continued dll then, at latest, the summer of 270*
VI, m] PALMYRA AND EGYPT; THE WEST i8i
another view see J. G. Milne, Am. Egypt, iv, igiq,p. 155 5 B. Laffranchi,
Gemina), the XIII Gemina (which can hardly have been still at
itsold post in Apulum) and the garrison of Durostorum in Lower
Moesia were implicated in the revolt. But the reign of Regalianus
cannot have lasted more than a few weeks. Grallienus returned in
haste and made an end of him.
Meanwhile (in September), Macrianus had broken with Galli-
enus, had proclaimed his sons emperors and drawn the East to his
side (p. i‘]i sq^. This was yet another immediate result of the
catastrophe of Valerian. But the general consternation thus
produced had further, indirect consequences. Just before the end
of 260 followed a fourth usurpation. M. Cassianius Latinius
Postumus, who was possibly governor of one or other Germania^,
had quarrelled with another high officer, Silvanus. Silvanus was
in Cologne directing the government in the name of the Caesar
Saloninus (who, capable and attractive, was still quite a boy),
and even issuing commands to Postumus himself. The quarrel
was about the booty taken from German invaders, which Postumus
wished to distribute among his soldiers, but which Silvanus
—
sought to have delivered to the court of the Caesar, probably to
secure the return of the stolen property to its owners. It is a
pretty picture of demoralization. Postumus marched on Cologne
and invested the city. While the siege was still in progress, the
mint went on striking large gold pieces in the name of Gallienus for
the New Year of 261^ and, in defiance, the young Caesar was
proclaimed Augustus^. But not long afterwards the garrison sur-
rendered both the prince and his tutor, and Postumus had them
put to death. The usurper then succeeded in occupying the passes
of the Alps^ and any thought of crushing him was frustrated by a
new threat. Macrianus was advancing with an army, 30,000
strong®. Aureolus defeated this force in Pannonia®, where
Gallienus, the persistent absentee, was held responsible for the
desperate misery of the times and where the garrisons again
joined this new rival; but the Oriental troops soon abandoned the
contest and the two Macriani both fell (summer, 261). Meanwhile
yet another rebellion, the fifth in a few months, had been disposed
of. A certain Valens, probably proconsul of Achaea’, who had
^ Cf. Petrus Patricius, frag. 165 (Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevain m, p. 74.3).
® See Alfoldi in a forthcoming number of y.R.S,
® M.-S. V, i, p. 123, nos. 3, 14.
* Petrus Patricius, frag. 165 (Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevain ni, p. 743).
® S.H.A. Gall, duo, 2, 6. The number is exaggerated, ib. Trig. tyr. 12, 13.
® Zonaras xn, 24 599): cf. Alfoldi, Berpus v, 1938.
A. Stein, P.W. r.v. Fulvius (82), col. 261. p., '
i,';
—
i86 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
—
succeeded in re-assembling his army he could call upon large
bands of free Germans— but suffered a second severe defeat. He
threw himself into a fortified city in Gaul and was besieged there
by the Emperor. Luck again came to his aid. Gallienus was
seriously wounded by an arrow and was incapacitated from
directing the operations. He was presumably carried back to
Rome; the foothills of the Alps in the South of Gaul seem to
have remained in his hands, or at least the most important
passes.
Theattempt to re-unite the whole of the West in one hand had
failed,and the failure involved a terrible weakening of the armed
forces of the Empire. The continuance of the conflict meant that
a large part of the troops on both sides was directed inwards,
whilst the frontier-defence suffered enormously; the district
along the limes of Raetia and Germany was doomed to perish
between the rival powers (p. 1 55), The lasting sense of insecurity
1 See Alfoldi, Shda i.
2 For criticism of the sources and the details of this war see Al&ldi,
Zeitschr.f. Num. xl, 1930, pp. i sff.
;
* Zosimus I, 40, I .
i88 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
successor Victorinas^, the fifth time just before his death in 269.
His bronze issues often bear the formula S{enatui) Cipnsult(^\ one
of his senators, as is well known, was Tetricus, whom he entrusted
with the governorship of Aquitania and who afterwards sat on his
throne. He had his own Praetorian Guard, stationed in Trfeves^,
for he had chosen that city as his residence and adorned it with
buildings®. Here, too, under his care, a new imperial mint was
established^. Both at this mint and at Cologne a precisely regu-
lated coinage in gold was produced, clear evidence of an efficient
economic administration, while his small change was just as bad
an inflation-coinage as that of his antagonist.
What Gallienus was doing in the years from 263—267 is
unknown. There seems to have been no serious warfare, and the
effects of that inner consolidation that has been observed in the
empire of Postumus were not unfelt on the other side. The epi-
demic of usurpations of 260 had been mastered, and, until the
new flood of German invasions (in 267), there was a respite that
made progress possible. These short years, indeed, permitted the
ripening of that reaction of the ancient spirit, whose very soul
Gallienus was®, a reaction that even found expression in the art
both of his court and that of Postumus. Under the patronage of
Gallienus the circle of Neoplatonists that gathered about Plotinus
succeeded in framing a philosophy suited to an educated man and
in finding an expression for the political and patriotic necessity
of polytheism which remained valid to the end of paganism. In
art, again, the reaction of the classical antique against the modern
primitivism breaks for a brief moment of high intensity and signifi-
cance into flower; the observations on aesthetics found in
Plotinus show how close must have been the connection between
the Neoplatonists and this new bloom of art. The whole movement
had a pronounced hellenic character; was not the court of Galli-
enus crowded with Greek men of letters.?®
^ The fact that Postumus and Victorinus were colleagues in the consul-
ship has misled the author of the S.H.A. into regarding Victorinus as co-
regent with Postumus. {Gall, dm 7, i; Trig. tyr. 6, 1—3.) The truth is
given by Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxiii, 9—125 Eutropius ix, 95 cf. Epit.
XXXIV, 3. The same order of events is reflected in the coins) cf. P. H. Webb
in M.-S. V, ii, p. 324 ry.
® C.I.L. XIII, 3679; cf. E. Kruger, j^rch. An%. 1933, cols. 687 sm.
® O. Hirschfeld in C./.Z/.xiii,p.5o4b; R. Rau, P.W. j.'u.Treveri, C0L2340.
^ CJ.L. VI, 1641; c£ G. Elmer, Bonn, Jahrk cxmi, 1938,
® See below, p* 231.
® Alfdldi, Fmfmdzwmzig yahre Rom,^Germ. Komm» p. 29 and also
CJ,L, XXV, 5340 (M. Jur* Hermogenes, procurator a studiis).
VI, ra] THE ‘GALLIENIC RENAISSANCE’ 189
It was in definite harmony with these cultural endeavours that
Gallienus strove to lead the masses away from the mystery-
religions to the cult of Demeter of Eleusis^. It was perhaps while
engaged in measures of defence against the new German peril in
the Aegean that he journeyed to Athens, allowed himself, like
Hadrian, to be elected as eponymous archon and received
initiation at Eleusis. On the aurei of Rome appears at this time
the solemn religious type that represents Gallienus in the guise of
—
Demeter a combination that strikes the modern mind as
ridiculous, but that is not so alien from ancient sentiment or
'
1 Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 22 sq. and Zeitschr. f. Num. xxxviii, 1928, pp.
174 sqq. ® See Volume of Plates v, 236, k.
® Alfoldi, Num. Chron. 1929, p. 266 sq.
* For details see AlfSldi, Zeitschr. f. Num. xxxvu, 1927, pp. 198 sqq.
igo THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Kaiser Claudius 11 Gothicus, p. 45. G. Barbieri, Studi ital. di filol. class, xi,
1934. pp- 329 m,-
* The parallelism of Zosimus i, 4^^ 'r®*' Se arpaTtmT&v KeXevaei t&v
^ ovfievav rjcrvxaerdvTwv with S.H.A. Gall, duo IS, 3 sic tnilitihus sedatis
Claudius etc. shows the common source, and makes the narrative of the
Vita credible apart from such fictitious additions as the meaningless con-
—
demnation of CMIienus’ memory tyrannum militari iudicio in fastos publkos
rettulerunt.
® A. Pap, vn, 1923, pp. ‘iosqq.-, Wickert,
Stein, Arch. f. r/f. col. 362;
for another view see Damerau, op. cit. p, 27.
VI, in] THE DEATH OF GALLIENUS 191
to bring to action and repel the Alemanni (p. 156), who had
already reached Lake Garda. It is probable that he then went to
Rome to pay his respects to the Senate and People^. Certainly at
this stage —
if not an even earlier one— an alliance was concluded
between emperor and Senate. After the measures taken by
Gallienus, there must be some real significance in the reappear-
ance of the type of Genius Senatus on issues of Rome with the
Emperor’s titles at the New Year of 269. The extravagant honours
paid to Claudius after his death^ and the choice of his insignificant
brother by the Senate to succeed him are clear witnesses to a
strong bond between emperor and Senate. The lost biographical
history of the emperors, of the middle of the fourth century,
sought to explain the enthusiasm of the patres by the legendary
account of the solemn devotion by Claudius of his own life to the
service of the State, on the model of the heroic sacrifice of the
Decii®. But, in point of fact, that enthusiasm had a far more
prosaic foundation.
Claudius had now a splendid opportunity to attack Postumus.
A little time back, Italy had been exposed to the usurper by the
adhesion of Aureolus ; now Postumus, in his turn, found his rear
exposed to Claudius. The fact that he did not come to the assistance
of Aureolus is indeed remarkable. He was beyond doubt pre-
vented from so doing. For, although it was not till some four or
five months later that he was able finally to dispose of his rival,
Ulpius Cornelius Laelianus, the revolt of the latter may well have
begun earlier. Some idea of this clash of forces is given by the
fact that the mint of Cologne was still striking a plentiful issue for
Postumus for the New Year of 269, while the legion XXX
Ulpia of Vetera (Xanten) went over to Laelianus and both Mainz
and the capital Treves, where his coins were struck, also joined
him^. Laelianus was shut up in Mainz and died when the city
was taken; but Postumus himself, when he denied his barbaric
troops the satisfaction of sacking the city, had to pay for his
refusal with his life. It is remarkable that at so appropriate a
moment the legions of the Rhine did not return to their allegiance
p. 58. Cod. Just, in, 34, 6 does not imply that
^ Damerau, op. at.
the martyrs see P. Allard, Rev. des questions hist. n.s. xxxiv, 1 905, pp. 235 sqq.
Vr, v] THE DECIAN PERSECUTION 203
recovery. But it cannot be doubted that the general result might
have been far different had Decius not met his death in battle and
had he been able, with iron hand, to persecute not for a year but a
decade, and leave no breathing-space to the Church.
It is in place here to consider what motives impelled the
Emperor to turn executioner. It is true that the Christians were
exposed to penalties before Decius, if they were denounced, and that
before his time there had been sporadic persecutions (pp. 515 sqq.^
654 sqq^. The hatred of the mob against Christianity was of old
standing, and if the Christians saw in the worship of the heathen
gods the cause of the troubles and evils that beset the world, it
cannot be doubted that the pagans repaid them in their own coin.
At the end of Philip’s reign Origen could declare that wars,
famines and plagues were attributed to the increasing number of
the Christians^, and even that the cessation of persecution was
made responsible for the disorders that followed. The feeling of
the mob was whipped up by agitators from the lettered classes as
in Alexandria and elsewhere. Thus there was a widespread
popular hostility to the Church which might well induce Decius
to act. It is also not impossible that the Emperor bore in mind
that the strongest supporters of his predecessor had been the
Eastern archers, among whom the partly Christian Osrhoenians
played a leading role. His own power rested on the soldiery from
Illyricum where Christianity had made hardly any progress.
Finally, his good relations with the Senate urged him along the
path of persecution. Thus to other motives may be added the
general direction of policy that followed his accession.
It may further be pointed out that the Christian community
was ever more strongly claiming to be an imperium in imperio.
Despite the humanity and tolerance of the Roman State, the
Church was resolute to yield no whit of its ideals in order to obey
the Roman laws. Thus was removed the possibility of an under-
standing, and the claims of the Church to dominion, illustrated
by the illusion that certain recent emperors had even been
Christians, were too high to admit of reconciliation. Immediately
before the Decian persecution Origen had declared that Christ
(and therefore also His followers) was stronger than the emperor
and all his officers, stronger than the Senate and the Roman People®.
He looked for a day when the heathen cults should disappear and
loyalty to the sovereign be no longer attested by pagan cult-acts.
This does not, he argues, mean anarchy as even the barbarians
will lose their savagery through the teaching of the Church. It is
thus true of Decius that his opponents prescribed for him in full
measure the principle of his action^.
Finally, the change that had converted the Principate based on
Republican and juristic concepts into an absolutism which rested
on a theological basis made the claim of the emperor to worship
wholly irreconcilable with the claim of the Christians. In the
view of the present writer, the offering demanded of the Christians
by Decius was something other than an expiatory supplication of
the gods, and its purpose was not to restore thepw deorum but to
attest loyalty to the Emperor, whose reign was assumed to bring
divinely-ordained happiness in which an attempt to deprecate
disaster had no place (p. 194). Indeed, to declare the need for
world-wide offerings to appease the gods would refute the courtly
insistence on the Golden Age which the ruling emperor was
supposed to restore to earth. For in this period the sane logic of
mankind had yielded to such idealizing theories. The primary
purpose of the offering was the welfare of the emperor and it
was a matter of subsidiary importance what god received it; this
was no innovation but was in the tradition of the Empire^. Only
the precise registration of those who make offerings and the
certificates were new. Furthermore, the anniversary of Decius’
proclamation as emperor fell about the middle of June, and the
offering ordered about that time (p. 166) may be regarded as the
traditional expression of loyalty on this occasion. In the early
Empire, needless to say, such offerings to the Emperor-Saviour
were spontaneous, and compulsion was employed only in the
absence of goodwill or in times of great danger. But what was
once offered in gratitude from below was later on commanded
from above. This test of loyalty, as the sources show, was eagerly
welcomed by the pagans, who might well regard refusal as a
denial of the general goodwill to the sovereign inspired by the
occasion. The idea of the renewal of felicity on earth by the
Saviour-ruler clashed with the Christian doctrine
—
‘tempora
Christianis semper, et nunc vel maxime, non auro sed ferro transi-
guntur’®. It seems, therefore, that by such action Decius was de-
termined to demand religious ways of expression of loyalty towards
the emperor, and this is further emphasized by the appearance on
coins of Decius of the busts of all the consecrated emperors^.
supplication to Apollo salutaris becau^of the pestilence that had broken out
is not here accepted.
* See Eusebius, Hist. EccL vn, 10, 2-9 and 22, 12—23, *
4
2o6 the crisis of THE EMPIRE [chap.
tium’®.
^ Vegetius, re milit. 2, 2. ® Arrian, Tact. 33, 2. ® Ib.
4, 4.
* Ik 4, 3; 7; 44, I, ^ Ib. ® Tacitus, Hist, n, 22.
4, 4.
—
VI, vi] Tm JUZILU in
The practice of filling up the auxilia with recruits from the
region in which they were stationed militated against the main-
tenance of their national character, but the practice was far from
uniform. It has been shown that in the third century the Oriental
bowmen received recruits from their home countries^ as also the
ala nova of cataphracts^. At the beginning of that century the
cohors III Balavorum mtlliaria^ which had been stationed in
Pannonia for a long while, still made dedications to its tribal
goddess Vagdavercustis®, and so must have retained its national
character. Soldiers’ sons joined their fathers’ formations and
thus assisted a continuity of race that must not be underrated.
However much the auxilia might be romanized, there were
openings for national characteristics, especially when, as early as
Hadrian, arose the fixed institution of the numeric which were
separated off, not because of their alien character but because of
their special functions in the strategy of that emperor.
Hadrian’s strategic conception, that is, the police supervision
and fixing of the frontiers in the unyielding line of a single
cordon instead of a defensive battle-zone in depth, was inspired by
high civilizing ideals; but it failed to meet the military needs of
the Empire and led directly to the collapse of the defence in the
stern times of the third century. The Roman army was far too
small to guard the whole line that encircled the world-empire. To
fill up the gaps Hadrian created the numeri as a kind of militia
which cost less than the troops of the line, were worse equipped
and not trained to equal efficiency.
For a while these served their purpose and their presence was
attested on almost all the frontiers, sometimes supported by first-
line troops. But the peoples within the Empire soon failed to
supply men to hold the gaps in the defences, the more as inva-
sions, especially those of the Germans, ever more often broke into it.
At the same time, the constant elaboration of the defensive lines
called for more garrison troops. The result was that the late
second century already saw the first settling of barbarians from with-
out the Empire, who were no longer organized as numeri. It was
still possible to follow the old pattern and place these new settlers
58, 1933, p. 58, no. 176. Cf. also L. de Regibus, Historia ix, 1934, pp.
456^77. _
H. Webb, M.-S. v, ii, pp. 386 sqq. 5 cf. Ritterling, op. cit. cols. 1 344,
* P.
1375. For other views see J. de Witte, Rev. num. 1884, pp. i()'i,sqq.\ A.
Blanchet, Mus. Beige, xxvn, 1923, pp. 169 sqq. and Rev. num. 1933, p. 228;
Sir C. Oman, Num, Chron. 1924, pp. K'\sqq.\ H. Mattingly, Trans. Inf.
Num. Congr. 1936, pp. 214 sqq.
® Dessau 546; cf. C.I.L. ni, p. 2328^®^.
® B. Saria, Strena Buliciana, pp. 249 sqq. Further literature is given in
Alfbldi, Die Gotenhewegungen md die Aufgabe der Provmz Dacien, see above,
p. 138 n. I.
’ Vulic, op. cif, for another view, Saria, Klio, xxx, 1937, pp. 352 sqq.
VI. VI] THE NEW STRATEGY 215
troops on this mobile footing were of course used also in offensive
operations, as for instance the advance to Southern Gaul under
Claudius II.
Some emperors after Gallienus may have regarded this separat-
ing off of mobile troops as a transitory innovation, but he can
hardly have done so. At all events, the continuous state of war
often prevented the vexillaliones from returning to their parent
legions on the frontier, and what began as exceptional continued
till it was confirmed in the definitive new organization of Dio-
(P- 303)-
The other important specialist troops of this period, the
Orientah archers, seem to have been mainly cavalry, armed with
the most dreaded weapon of antiquity, the composite bow of the
Iranian and Turkish nomads^. The best archer regiments after
Caracalla’s annexation of their country were the Osrhoenians.
Caracalla used them against the Germans, probably as irregulars®,
and so too Severus Alexander and Maximinus they distinguished :
^ J. Werner and K. Stade, Germania xvii, 1933, pp. 1 10 and 289. This
bow is described in Ammian. Marc, xxii, 8, 37.
® C.l.L. XI,
304; but see Dessau 2540, where a ''numerusMosroenorum' is
mentioned.
® See vol. X, p. 61, vol. xi, p. 119 sq. Volume of Plates iv, 26^ and v,
ordinis contumelia.’ The fact that so few edicts from the sole
reign of Callienus are preserved in the law books of Justinian
compared with the rather ample material from his joint reign
with his father shows that the patres might tolerate the shame
brought on the State by the father, but could never forgive
their own humiliation by the son. A generation later, it is true,
a panegyrist could still debate whether the instability of the
1 de mart. pers. 5, 15 5, 5.
—
234 the crisis of the empire [chap.
on one side and the other, to be a mere copper piece, coated with
silver. The only difference is that the inflation in Gaul brought
with it a great outburst of private coinage (of a rude and barbarous
character), intended to exploit for itself, instead of for the State,
the difference between nominal and metal value. In the lands
governed by Gallienus this mischief was successfully averted,
except in Rome, where from 268 to 270 similar abuses flourished
though on a more modest scale. On the other hand, Postumus
continued to turn out his aurei at the normal weight, whereas the
procurator of the mint of Rome let the weight of the gold coins
fall so low, that in many issues they were disks as thin as paper.
In other mints, on the contrary, order reigned in this field even
under Gallienus. But the corruption now established was
^ H. U. von Schoenebeck, RSm. Mitt, li, 1936, p. 256.
® Alfoldi,Funfundzwanzig Jahre RSm.-Germ. Komm. pp. 35 sqq G. . ;
Rodenwaldt, Arch. Anx. 1931, cols. sqq. and J.D.A.l. li, 1936, pp.
82 sqq.
VI, vii] GOVERNING TENDENCIES 227
—
Rome and the East. As a general he was a failure a failure that
made possible and provoked the terrible invasions by the Germans.
Zosimus 1,26, 2; 37, 3; Zonarasxii, 21 (p. 590); Aurelius Victor,
XXX, 25 XXXIII, 5; S.H.A. Ga//. duo 5, 5; Eusebius, Hht. Eccl. vii, 21, isqq.\
Johann. Ant. frag. 151 (F.H.G. iv, p. 598); Cramer, Anecd. ii, p. 289;
Cedrenus i, p. 452, i^sqq. (Bonn); Jerome, Chron.’^. 219, 41??. Helm;
Orosius VII, 21, 5; 22, 2-3; 27, 10; Jordanes, Getica, xix, 104, m.; Vita
Cypr. 9; Cyprian, de mart. 14, 16; ad Demetr. 5, 10; K. Pink, Num.
Zeitschr. 1936, p. 25. H. Oppermann, Plotins Leben, P- 5 i sq-
® H. Nesselhauf, Germania xxi,
1937, p. 175.
® See the anecdote in Zonaras xn, 606).
27
vr, rii] THE TRUE PICTURE; DECTUS 229
His attacks on the Church were not such as to break its power,
but only to shed blood and create mischief. And yet his whole
activity shows his iron hardness, still seen in his portraits^. In
his campaign against the Christians, in his persistence after his
failures against Kniva, in his heroic death, the same abundant
energy is revealed. It was not without good reason that he was
named ‘reparator disciplinae militaris.’ His extraordinary force of
will, his sincere loyalty to the Senate and his death on the field of
honour have transfigured his person and ensured the vigorous
survival of his conception of Roman conservatism and of his
political methods. His reliance on the Illyrians, as representatives
of a constructive patriotism, was justified by the future.
Trebonianus Gallus came of an old Etruscan family of Perusia
and, as governor of Lower Moesia, was assisted by accident to the
throne. His slackness must have been in part responsible for the
ill-success of the campaigns of Decius after whose death he seems
(to judge by what Dexippus tells us) to have taken no serious
steps to check the German invasions. His listless reign contri-
buted largely to mature the ill results of the disaster of Abrittus.
Nor did the revolt of Aemilianus have any other result.
It was a further misfortune for the Empire that Valerian was
now able to seize the throne. He had already (in 253) had a
brilliant career; in 238 he had been a notable defender of the
Senate and, later, as confidant of Decius, had taken a share in
administration at Rome during his absence. His rule was
generally acclaimed with high hopes. At the beginning he did
indeed strive to restore order and it seems that he really was a
good administrator; the whole management of the persecution of
the Christians suggests the skilful politician. It is probable enough
that history would have had much good to say of him, had his
feeble hands held the reins of power in a time blessed with peace.
But the ageing Emperor was quite unequal to those military tasks
that faced him. For eight years in the East he had no triumphs to
chronicle save over the Christians, — against Germans and
Persians he was too irresolute and weak; in the end, his own
hesitancy and impotence betrayed him into the hands of Shapur.
—
His antithesis and the contrast grew more and more pro-
—
nounced is to be seen in his son Gallienus. At the age of about 35
Gallienus was raised by the Senate to the rank of Augustus at his
father’s request. But his greatness was first seen when he
succeeded in mastering the chaos that followed on his father’s
captivity. Nor did he stop there: with sure hand he gripped the
^ See Volume of Plates v, 186, d. ;
230 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Aristides is not far from the truth when (in his encomium of
Rome, delivered in 156) he declares that ‘every Greek and
barbarian can easily traveT to whatever destination he chooses,
and that neither the Cilician Gates nor the tracks of the desert
need make him afraid^.’
Moreover, the long peace continued not only beyond the frontiers
but also within the Empire and thus maintained, especially under
the ‘constitutional monarchy,’ the social and economic position of
the bourgeoisie. For economic policy remained liberal. If we pass
over the normal State-socialist element and the normal intervention
of the State for purposes of control (see p. 2 j’y sg,), such as are to be
found under the most liberal r%imes, and if we disregard the special
position of the emperor, who as the private owner of domains and
of large-scale concerns manufacturing bricks and textiles, occu-
pied an intermediate position, the old basic principle that the
chief economic unit was not the State but the individual remained
for the time being true, and was applied mutatis mutandis even in
Egypt. Free trade prevailed in actual fact, as what custom dues
there were did not hamper commerce. The State indirectly pro-
tected, and directly encouraged, economic progress.
The reasons for the expansion of the Empire were not wholly
military, but partly economic. Just as the possibilities of exploitation
had been among the motives behind the Nubian and Arabian ex-
peditions of Augustus and the occupation of Noricum, so now
British lead and tin, Dacian gold, and the rich land in Africa, in
the Decumates agri, and in the Wetterau, drew the Romans on.
Commercial interests had their say in the incorporation of Trans-
jordania and Arabia Petraea, in the conversion of Doura into a
fortress (by L. Verus), and even in the rivalry with Parthia. The
Roman garrisons which were posted to protect Olbia, Cher-
sonesus, and Palmyra were designed largely to further a com-
mercial policy. The construction of several roads or canals in
Egypt, in the approaches to the Caspian, in Bithynia, in Africa,
and in Britain were inspired by the same motive. In this connec-
tion Trajan’s canal linking the Nile and the Red Sea is very im-
portant; and the improvement in harbour facilities (another
reform with which Trajan is specially connected), and the creation
of a fleet on the Red Sea have also a background of economic
policy. The circumnavigation of the Black Sea by Arrian acting
•under Hadrian’s orders continues the earlier series of similar
1 XXVI K, 100. Cf. Irenaeus, adv. Haer. iv, 46, 3; Ps.-Aristides xxxvK,
37 (a.d.247, see above, p. 88 sq^.
VII, i] THE ECONOMIC EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE 235
exploratory voyages. When the Chinese general Pan Ch’ao, as
Chinese annals tell us, dispatched agents in a.d. 97 on a mission
of exploration from Turkestan to Ta-ts’in^ (though this venture
met with no success), and when, conversely, Marcus Aurelius sent
a mission, starting in all probability from Ctesiphon, to China
which arrived there in 166^, it was once again commercial policy
which inspired these efforts.
With the government adopting this attitude, the bourgeois
population could, and necessarily would, grow in numbers in the
regions already available. And in districts freshly opened to ex-
ploitation a new bourgeoisie came into being consisting of
immigrant foreigners or of members of the indigenous population
who acquired Mediterranean culture. Urbanization advanced in
Gaul, Germany, Britain, the Danubian regions, including Dacia
and Thrace, and also in Spain and Africa. Even Egypt received
a city in due form (Antinoopolis); and the bourgeois of the
Egyptian meiropoleis^ among whom we must reckon the land-
owning veterans, only became important in the second century,
when, after the re-partition of the great ousiai of the magnates in
the second half of the first century (vol. x, p. 293), still more of
them found a livelihood as farmers and landowners. Vespasian,
Trajan, and Hadrian, influenced in part by the recruiting pro-
blem, namely the difficulty of securing adequate enlistment in Italy,
strongly encouraged this development. It is at least clear that the
power of assimilation possessed by the Graeco-Roman city-culture
was not weakened until the time of Hadrian, and in some cases not
even after him, though the bourgeois population never formed the
majority, which was always and unquestionably composed of
workers on the land. Thus while the increase in the number of cities
meant a further rise in consumption and in the demands resulting
from city-culture, the increase in the numbers of the bourgeois
population meant an extension of economic activity and of an
order that was capitalistic in method. Again, primitive forms of
economy which were based on hunting, pasturage and unorganized
corn-growing, gave place to systematic agriculture and horticul-
ture and the production of wine and oil. The vine was cultivated
more and more on the Moselle and in the Wetterau, the olive in
^ See above, p. 104, and the translation in F. Hirth, CMnaand the Roman
Orient, pp. 39 and 42, cf. pp. 214 sqq. and 1 75 sq. Which part of the Roman
world isTa-ts’in is in dispute. Perhaps Syria. For theidentification with South
Arabia see A. Herrmann, Die Verkehrswege zwischen China, Indien, vnd
Rom um 100 n. Chr. p. 8.
® See Honigmann in P.W., s.v. Ctesiphon, Suppl. iv, col. iiii. '
236 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
II. PRODUCTION
We consider production first,
but begin with an illustration of
its negative side, since Italy was affected by this. An inevitable
result of decentralization was that Italy, originally the chief pro-
ductive centre, whose period of greatest prosperity in the early
years of the Empire has been described^, suffered a recession,
though Northern Italy was not affected like the rest. So many
causes contributed to this process that it is not easy to determine
which was the most decisive. The growing independence of the
provinces, and their emancipation from the domination of a single
economic centre are doubtless an important factor, especially in
the West; but it can hardly have been crucial, since, as we shall
see, Gaul (together with Germany) and Northern Italy in some
sense took the place formerly occupied by peninsular Italy. There
must then have been other contributory forces at work. The
problem of recruiting labour should be mentioned here. It has been
suggested elsewhere that Italy was dependent on slaves to a very
large extent for her resources of labour. The imperial peace,
however, was unfavourable to the import of slaves in large
numbers, and they became dearer. Hence, Italian production for
export was handicapped by comparison with many provinces,
such as the Three Gauls, Germany, Asia Minor, and Egypt,
where the problem was simpler, since the lowest class of the in-
digenous population provided an abundant reservoir of labour.
Northern Italy and Istria also enjoyed more favourable conditions
on the whole than the rest of Italy, A
further important factor is
the depopulation of Italy, which manifested itself in the shortage
of recruits, and in the well-known remedial legislation of Nerva,
must have hastened to fill the gaps, high officials who were
anxious to invest in land the profits saved or perhaps extorted
during their careers, and who were persuaded by the artificial
means of imperial decrees to spend their wealth in Italy
Thus conditions came into being which resembled those of the
second century b.c. Free and unfree, agricultural and non-
agricultural labourers, and also small peasant farmers, who had
before been ruined by the new big agricultural capitalists (so that
here the factors at work have a reciprocal action) —
such were the
men who may have furnished material whence the ro/oOT-tenants
were drawn. The development was unhealthy, as was that of the
secondcentury B.c. ; the emperors from Claudius to Marcus Aurelius
fought it, but the forces at work were stronger than the power of
the emperors, and it was the destiny of Rome, as of so many other
victors in history, to be ultimately destroyed by the results of her
own victory.
The positive side of decentralization is almost more important
than the negative. The north-eastern region of Upper Italy, and
the more recently civilized areas profited most. Upper Italy
(including Istria) differs from the rest of the peninsula® because
of its proximity to the Danubian lands. There the demand for the
amenities of civilization was so great, that despite the beginnings
of emancipation and self-sufficiency (pp. 240 ^yy.), and despite
Gallo-German competition, which was very fierce from the second
century onwards, there was still an opening for North Italian
export. So the production of wine and oil (the latter especially in
Istria) flourished here, being carried on in large-scale agricultural
productive units, like the ‘uilla of Brioni Grande. There was also
a vigorous industry producing articles for large-scale export,
comprising pottery and bricks, textiles (mass-produced in the
time of Pertinax)®, and the traditional metal, amber, and glass
wares, for which Aquileia remained the unchallenged centre
throughout her history.
Among the more recently civilized regions Gaul marched in
1 Pliny, Ef. vi, 19, 4; S.H.A. Marcus, ii, 8.
2 This only generally true; an exact geographical delimitation is not
is
possible. Cf. what is said of the Fortis lamps (of Mutina) above, p. 238, and
the wool-weaving business of Pertinax (in Liguria); see below, n. 3.
3, 3 sqq. The Emperor’s father had a private taherna
® S.H.A. Pert.
coadiliaria in a villa in Liguria, which was greatly enlarged by Pertinax.
240 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
centuries. There was also a large export of corn, and after the
Neronian confiscations it was also grown on the great estates of the
imperial Patrimonium. Mining, the organization of which is well
known from the lex metalli Vipascensis^, dating from the time of
Hadrian (the beginnings perhaps go back to the Flavians), is pro-
bably already declining somewhat by the second century, owing
to partial exhaustion of the veins of silver; and tin production also
appears to have receded. But these were hardly crucial changes,
and on the whole the old industry maintained its former position.
In Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, Macedonia, Greece, Crete,
and Cyrenaica, things remained essentially unaltered.
The East gained rather than lost, especially Eastern industry.
For although the market was somewhat contracted through the
tendency to independence and the competition of the West^, this
was amply compensated by the cessation of Italian predominance
and by the possibilities of export to the East, where the frontiers
had been advanced, and to the lands beyond the frontiers in the
South-east, where trade was protected. Indeed the East as a
whole gained in importance from Trajan’s time and from the
organization of peace under Trajan and Hadrian. The traditional
production of Asia Minor and Syria flourished, and was further
stimulated by the proximity of the armies. Even Egyptian in-
dustry on occasion —
as in a.d. 138 —
was drawn upon for military
supplies In the form of textiles for the Cappadocian army®. The
agricultural produce of Asia Minor (corn and wine) continued to
be exported and the fisheries, the quarries, in fact industry in
general, especially the manufacture for export of its famous
woollen goods with its subsidiary of purple dye works, maintained
production. In Syria also the old-established centres flourished.
The strong impulses which affected trade here (p. 246) naturally
benefited also the old-established Syrian industries (linen, silk,
glass, and dyed woollens). Similarly, Egypt maintained its level
of activity in agriculture and Industry ; indeed, the fact that the
bourgeoisie did not achieve its full development until the second
century must have especially accelerated economic development
1 Bruns, Fontes^, 1 12; E. SchSnbauer, ‘Beitr. zur Geschichte des Berg-
baurechtes,’ Munch.
Beitr. %. Pap.-Forsch. Xii, 1929, pp. 33 sqq.
2 Cf. the supersession in the Rhineland of Alexandrine glass by that of
Cologne (vol. xi, p. 539). ^ B.G.U. 1564. j.
244 the economic LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
1 Often the same persons are both: those concerned with industry (as
with commerce) are found as owners of the villa e rusticae, e.g. at Treves.
® The old-established trading communities of the East also suffer in some
degree through the rise of a strong competition from the traders of the West.
VII, m] ITALY AND COMMERCE 245
in the military districts, was no means small. The large-scale
organization of the annona cvoicahj the emperors, the massive
ruins of Ostia, and, to some extent, the remains of the ‘Monte
Testaccio,’ the frequent evidence of import to Rome and Italy
from the provinces and from regions outside the Empire, which
supplied Italy with the necessities of life, raw materials, and
manufactured goods, articles of mass consumption and luxuries,
all emphatically prove the contrary. In contrast, however, with
earlier conditions more non-Italians than Italians were responsible
for the commercial activity. Moreover, imports were paid for to an
even greater extent by the proceeds of taxation both direct and in-
direct (^.^. converted into officials’ salaries) drawn from the Empire
as a whole, or by non-Italian sources of revenue {e.g, from the
revenues accruing to the emperor, which were spent in Italy),
than by income derived from the export trade. Hence the
balance of trade was definitely more unfavourable than it had
—
been at the beginning of Imperial times if, indeed, it was then
unfavourable at alT. The rise of Ostia (an importing harbour-
town), which was enlarged by Trajan and equipped with great
new warehouses, may be contrasted with the decline of Puteoli
(traditionally an exporting harbour-town) in the second century^,
to illustrate the change.
The second factor, the new part played by internal trade {t.e.
by provincial and local trade), which now might become the
most important branch of trade as a whole, and whose advance is
one of the most striking features of the age, affects the whole
Empire. That was the effect of the improvement and extension of
the transport system, which now reached remote districts by water
and by land. In the older regions, such as Italy and the chief
countries of the East, there had always been considerable internal
trade. This still maintained itself, and became more extensive so
as to include within its scope the other parts of the East. A
similar development occurred in the provinces of the West,
where Gaul had already led the way. Here again, as in the East,
river or lake transport was more important than road traffic,
Lyons and Trbves are perfect illustrations of this. The silver
patera of Capheaton is meant to depict the interconnection be-
tween road, river, and sea transport in Britain®, and an African
mosaic is crowded with river vessels as well as sea-going ships*.
If in these factors certain negative sides of decentralization
pp. 24 sqq.).
;
industry, any more than did the large concerns run by specialists
in some particular line of business (brickyards, potteries, builders’
and glaziers’ workshops), in the cities or the countryside of the
new or old provinces. The step from the manufactory to the
factory (see vol. x, p. 391, n. i) and the machine as the funda-
mental means of production was still not made. In businesses the
personal element predominates throughout. Often every imagin-
able —
form of business activity is united in one hand industrial,
commercial, agricultural, and banking. A
crucial piece of
evidence is that large-scale’ industry practically never succeeded
‘
^ The Gallic funeral stelae showing craftsmen may therefore partly reflect
real small-scale industry and need not be for the most part merely evidence
of large-scale production. ® Augustine, fw. vn, 4.
® Cf. the trading firm of Nebucelus and Co. (in the first half of the third
century). Rep. Dura, iv, p. 142 ry. * Ga^tn, protrept. i, 38.
® Cf. the merchants of the Moselle and their nillae rusticae. -•
252 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
social-political measures see above, pp. 239} 252 and below, p. 261:
•'
*
—
256 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
licence, b7whose aid the first periods of crisis in the second century-
had been surmounted, foreshadows the decline. Nevertheless the
level of economic activity was more or less maintained down
to the time of the Antonines. There were two reasons for this.
First, the bourgeoisie, which was responsible for meeting the
many demands, was temporarily able to shift a sufficient part of its
burden on to the lower class and lower middle-class, a process
which gave rise to revolutionary movements, peasant revolts, and
what may have been strikes, or something like them^. Secondly,
the capital resources, into which the State on occasion made in-
roads with scant ceremony, were dissipated only by slow degrees.
It becomes increasingly clear, however, once we have grasped the
obstacles with which economic activity had to cope, why it was
inevitable for the above-mentioned stagnation to ensue and by a
gradual process, though already as early as the second century, to
merge into retrogression, which is in fact inherent in stagnation.
The progressive change in agricultural production from the
middle-sized specialized farm to the diffusely organized large-
scale unit, the frequent nationalization of landed property, dating
from the end of the first century, and the coming into being of
the colonate, all testily to such a retrogression. The decline in
achievement in the industrial and technical spheres (p. 2 5 3), and the
gradual spread of oikos-economj on the great estates, point in the
same direction. The development of State-controlled commerce
and the withdrawal of ships from service crippled free trade, and the
intellectual and spiritual deficiency which became marked in cul-
tural life as awhole during the second half of the second century
affected the economic life of the community just as profoundly as
it did the other branches of human activity. Whole regions began
^ Dessau 6987.
® Wilcken, Chrest. 402 (a.d. 250).
® P.S.I. 292 (third century).
* P. Oxy. xir, 1409.
® S.H.A. Aurel. 38, 2 for the number of workers at the mint.
® P. Oxy. XII, 1411; it is uncertain whether the devalued billon Anto-
the second half of the third century, or the strike of the monetarii
at Rome in Aurelian’s time. Since, however, the masses turned
upon the well-to-do alone as those who were squeezing them to
the last drop 2 — to turn upon the soldiery who did the same they
—
were too weak the ruin of the bourgeoisie was hastened in this
way too. Thus the end of it all was discontent, depopulation, flight,
and banditry among those who had been uprooted, and together
with this a shortage of labour. It is estimated that the numb^ers of
the population fell by approximately one third, from seventy to fifty
1 S.H.A. Prob. 20, 6; 23, 2 sqq. See Rostovtzeff, op. cit. pp. 416 sqq.,
Germ. Ed. ii, pp. 176 sqq.
^
For an illustration see the late parallel in Libanius, Or. xlvii (r. a.d. 395).
268 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
wesen, pp. lio sqq.) is accepted, the complete devaluation of the billon-
double denarius goes back not to Diocletian but to Aurelian, who had made
it equal to^ of the Septimius Severus denarius, which still contained 50 per
cent, of silver. Giesecke thus interprets the much debated legend xx. i.
^ This inflation goes back to Constantine and was about sixfold in the
Empire in the years 310-335. It then once more died away. In Egypt,
which suffered exploitation, it continued and rose by the year 400 to 45,000
,
found in the province of Shan-si {The Jcademy 'xxtx, 1886, p. 316). The
Chinese annals (see above, p, 235, n. i) speak of connections also in the third
century.
THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
1 S.H.A. Aurel. 48, i (Rome). Cf. RostovtzefF, op. cit. p. 618, n. 39;
Germ. ed. ir, p. 359.
,
^ Mickwitz, op. cit. pp. 165 sqq. ® Cf. also Libanius, Or. xlii, 21
28o the economic LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Verulam, one of the chief towns of Britain and in the heart of its
most peaceful district, have altered the perspective in which the
evidence of the villas must be placed.
Verulam, when its magnificent walls were laid out under
Hadrian, was a large and rapidly-growing town®. It continued to
grow for some time, but reached its high-water mark about the
end of the second century, and a decline set in. By the middle of
the century, the process of decay has become evident. By about
275 the walls were to some extent in ruins, the theatre had fallen
into disuseand was being quarried for building-materials, and so
severe was the general dilapidation that, as the excavator writes,
238, 240, 242. The most important inscriptions are cited in the notes.
1 Claudius died in January, a.d. 270, and Quintillus reigned for some
three months, up to about April 270. Cf. Zosimus, i, 47 (oXiyov; re
Eeaxravrov /aijms). Are the seventeen days, given by some historians, a
confusion with seventy-seven days (Chronographer of a.d. 354) • The coins,
which are not uncommon, suggest that th^ reign lasted months rather than
weeks.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
tact and flexibility as lie was firm in courage and purpose. The
long account of his early career in the Augustan History makes
heavy demands on our credulity,^ but certainly by the end of the
reign of Gallienus he was a leading figure among the Illyrian
officers and took a prominent part in the plot against Gallienus
and the subsequent execution of Aureolus. Appointed master
of the horse by Claudius, he distinguished himself in the great
Gothic war and, whether or not marked out by him for the
succession,^ had, as we have seen, no difficulty in securing it
after his death. The task awaiting him was one to tax even his
powers. The restoration of the Empire, begun by Claudius, w'as
as yet far from complete. The Gallic Empire in the West, the
Palmyrenes in the East still marred the imperial unity, if the
Danube front was assured, Italy was still exposed to invasion
from north and north-east. Behind the problems of military-
recovery lay those of political and economic life. The govern-
ment of the provinces, the relation of Emperor and Senate, the
ruined coinage— all these demanded attention, as soon as a
breathing-space could be obtained from war. The Empire was
in a state of transition. The old Empire of the princeps and Senate,
of Rome and Italy as queens of the provinces, was dead or dying;
a new society, with new social and new religious ideals, was being
born. If Aurelian was only partially successful, the wonder
remains that in so few years, with such limited natural gifts, he
could accomplish so much.
For the moment it seemed doubtful whether the new emperor
was to be allowed to approach his major tasks. The Juthungi
(Scythians) had invaded Italy through Raetia, and Aurelian
had to march direct from Sirmium against them. He caught them
on their retreat and defeated them as they crossed the Danube.
They then sent envoys to minimize this reverse and to demand
the customary subsidies. Dexippus -well describes their reception
in state by Aurelian, in the presence of statues of the deified
emperors and of the insignia of the Roman army, and the resolute
answer given to their elaborate and sophisticated pleadings. In
the end, it seems, they were glad to return home without further
^ S.H.A. Aurel.
3 sqq. The passage is in the author’s most suspect vein,
tendencious and thickly sown with forged documents, e.g., those relating to
the supposed adoption of Aurelian by Ulpius Crinitus and his nomination to
the consulship. It is of small value for history.
^ Coins of Aurelian sho-wing him tr. pot. vii. cos.
11 (M.-S. v, i,
p. 285, no. 186) apparently belong to a.d. 274, as in 275 Aurelian was
cos. III. The high tribunician count looks like a continuation of the count
of Claudius II.
—
IX, I] THE FIRST TASKS OF AURELIAN 299
loss. appears that Aurelian now visited Rome and received
It
the recognition of the Senate, but that almost immediately after-
wards an, invasion of Vandals called army and emperor to Pan-
nonia. Over this enemy Aurelian gained no uncertain victory^
An embassy was heard by Aurelian and peace was granted by
the will of the army; but, to secure supplies and safe return, the
Vandals bound themselves to give 2000 cavalry to the Roman
service. A body of 500 that broke faith was summarily de-
stroyed^. Meanwhile the Juthungi (‘Marcomanni’), uncon-
vinced by Aurelian’s arguments or arms, again invaded Italy,
and, this time, the danger was acute. Aurelian, coming on them
near Placentia, dared to propose their capitulation, but was
caught in an ambush and so heavily defeated that his cause
seemed almost hopeless. The barbarians, however, scattered to
plunder, while Aurelian put the cities of Northern Italy in a state
of defence and concentrated his forces. Three striking victories
on the Metaurus, at Fanum Fortunae and near Ticinum com- —
pleted their discomfiture, and all that was left of the great host
wandered home. The favour of the gods, sought by the consulta-
tion of the Sibylline books, had again saved Rome^. Aurelian
was to have time to show his true worth.
The Senate had looked on without enthusiasm at the first
labours of an emperor who was not of its own choice. Some
of its members had even ventured to conspire against him.
Now it could only accept him for better or worse: thanks-
givings were decreed for his victories, and none dared
question the stern revenge which he took on his enemies.
^ S.H.A. Aurel. 22, 2. It has been conjectured that this Cannabas was
the same as the Kniva of the Gothic list of kings (P.W. s.v. Domitius (36),
col. 1378). For Aurelian as Gothicus Maximus (tr.p. iu-a.d. 271--2)
cf. Dessau 8925.
S.H.A. Aurel. 24, 2—9, where much
^ is made of the apparition of the
pagan saint.
IX, i] AURELIAN AND THE EAST 303
The oracles of Seleuceia and Aphaca returned discouraging
answers to her inquiries. The priests were probably good judges
of politics, and condemned Zenobia for her rashness in challenging
rather than conciliating her great antagonist^.
Egypt had surrendered without a blow, and it was at Antioch
in Syria that Zabdas, Palmyra’s best general, had concentrated
his forces. Now, as Aurelian approached, he marched out north-
wards to meet him on the banks of the Orontes. Aurelian brought
with him troops from Raetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia and
Moesia, with barbarian auxiliaries, while local levies, including
‘
clubmen from Palestine, joined him later. Zabdas had the re-
’
^ Zosimus I,
57
^ Zosimus r, 50 Iqq. is our main authority — —
an excellent one for the
war. He gives three main battles: (i) on the Orontes, (2) capture of the
post, at Daphne,(3) Emesa. S.H.A. Jurel. 25, 2-3,
gives only the last
decisive battle. Eutropius ix, 13 writes. ZsKsfoWw. .baud longe ab Antiochia
.
sine gravi proelio cepit. Jordanes, Romana, 290 sq. M., puts the main battle at
Hymmae near Antioch.
—
304 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
70,000 men, using similar tactics, but incurring even greater risks
than before from the Palmyrene clibanarii. Palestinian ‘clubmen’
played an important part in the victory, beating down the riders
whose armour they could not pierce. While the issue still hung
in the balance, Aurelian, we hear, was conscious of a divine helper
in his army, whom he afterwards recognized as the Sun-God,
Elagabalus, of Emesa^.
Zenobia’s wider ambitions had sustained a decisive check,
but she could still claim that ‘almost all the fallen were Romans’^
and might even hope to tire out her conqueror, till he should be
recalled by troubles on the Danube and North Italian front. She
withdrew 80 miles to Palmyra and prepared for a siege. An
expeditionary force from Egypt may now have joined Aurelian,
while Persian assistance may have attempted to reach Zenobia®.
Aurelian, in his pursuit, was harried by the nomads of the desert,
and was himself wounded in the fighting round the walls of
Palmyra. For a moment he hesitated and offered moderate terms
of surrender which Zenobia was unwise enough to decline in
undiplomatic language. He now bent his will to the task. The
desert tribes were beaten or bribed into submission; Aurelian
seems to have entrusted them with the profitable task of furnishing
his army with supplies. The Persian relief force did not appear
perhaps it was actually defeated by the Romans. Zenobia herself
escaped on a dromedary to seek the hoped-for help, but was over-
taken by Roman cavalry at the Euphrates and brought back
captive. The peace party in Palmyra gained the upper hand and
opened the gates of the city. Its imperial power was, of course, at
an end, but it was spared from pillage and had only to receive
a garrison of 600 archers under Sandarion. An able officer,
Marcellinus, was left in general control as prefect of Mesopo-
tamia and governor ‘totius Orientis.’
Aurelian, now adding the title of ‘Parthicus Maximus’ to
those of ‘Germanicus’ and ‘Gothicus Maximus’ that he already
bore, moved to Emesa and there held a trial of Zenobia and her
counsellors. The Queen, humbled at last, condescended to save
1 This story, occurring only in S.H.A. Aurel. 25, 4—6, should be treated
there that ill news from Palmyra reached him. The city had risen
under a certain Apsaeus and set up a king Antiochus, who claimed
kinship with Zenobia, after an attempt to induce Marcellinus to
betray his master had failed. Sandarion and his archers were
massacred. Aurelian from the first had relied on speed of move-
ment, and this resource did not fail him now. He marched post
haste to the rebel city and struck down resistance before it had
had time to take root. Judgment this time was stern and final.
Antiochus was spared, more in contempt than mercy, but Palmyra
was pillaged, its treasures carried off, its walls dismantled, and it was
desert village.^ It had flashed like a meteor
left to relapse into a little
and like a meteor it passed into night.
across the political firmament
Egypt, meanwhile, had felt the impulse of the revolt. certainA
Firmus, a man of great wealth and wide commercial connections,
whose personality seems to have made a great impression on his
age, established himself for a moment less as emperor than as
—
governor in another’s interest perhaps for Marcellinus, should
he desert Aurelian, or, failing him, for Antiochus. His aim
certainly was ‘to defend what was left of the cause of Zenobia.’
The troublesome tribe of the Blemmyes lent some support to his
revolt. Aurelian moved at once against this new enemy, besieged
him at Bruchium and forced him to commit suicide®. The first
part of Aurelian ’s programme was at last complete. The ‘restitutor
Ori ends’ could now think of completing his claim to be ‘restitutor
orbis,’ by bringing the West back to its allegiance.
Little is recorded of the Gallic empire from the death of
PostumusinA.D. 268^tothe defeat ofTetricus in 274. There may,
indeed, have been an unwritten compact between the Roman and
Gallic rulers to maintain the status quo while Claudius dealt with
1 According to Zosimus (i,59) Zenobia died by illness or by voluntary
starvation; this conflicts with the general tradition and should be rejected.
2 S.H.A. Aurel. 31 (he gives Achilleus instead of Antiochus) : Zosimus i,
60 sq.
S.H.A. Aurel. 32, 2-3; ^ad. tyr. (Firmus etc.) 1-6. Zosimus i,
®
dole of two pounds of baked bread, adding one ounce to the ration
from a special tax on Egypt. He made also free distributions of
pork, oil and salt, and is even credited with a scheme for dis-
tributing free wine as well, and with planning extensive plantations
in the east and north-east of Italy to supply it^. On three occasions
he gave largess, to the value of 500 denarii in all The clearing of
the bed and the repair of the banks of the Tiber and the building
of new barracks— perhaps for the ‘collegia suariorum’ in the —
‘
Campus Agrippae,’ all attest the same range of interests. Two
lasting effects of these policies were the extension of the powers
of the ‘praefectus annonae,’ and possibly the establishment on a
public footing of such guilds as the butchers and bakers of Rome
and the ‘navicularii’ of the Nile and Tiber®.
It is definitely stated that Aurelian consulted the Senate about
the building of the walls of Rome (p. 300). But the senators,
excluded from the camps by Gallienus, were losing their grip of
public life, while, in the provinces, knights were replacing them
not only in the command of the army, but also in the civil govern-
ment, Perhaps Aurelian, busied as he was with wars, simply
allowed these tendencies to follow their natural course. Of the
defence of the frontiers again only too little is known. Though
Probus was left in Gaul in a.d. 274, the Alemanni again appear
in the a^i decumates in the following year. The ‘limes Raeticus’
was apparently restored and Vindelicia, as we hear vaguely, was
freed from ‘obsidio barbarica.’ On the Danube old Dacia had
been abandoned as a dangerous liability and the legions, XIII
Gemina and V Macedonica, went to their new stations at Ratiaria
and Oescus. As late as 274 Aurelian had to drive back bar-
barians from the Danube. To the East two new legions, I Illyri-
corum and IV Martia, were sent, the one to Syria Phoenice, the other
to Arabia, to strengthen the Roman grip on lands where the old
corps had suffered heavily under the Palmyrene rule and the war
of recovery^ Egypt continued restless to the end of the reign
and in 27 5 Probus was dispatched to deal with a new incursion
of the Blemmyes.
Dessau 1210 the earliest known inscription of a ‘pontifex dei Solis.’ For
is
the evidence of the coins, which is important, see M.-S. v, i, pp. 265 sqq.
and especially Volume of Plates, v, 238, c, d.
2 Lactantius, de mart. pers. 6; Constantine, Oratio ad Sanctorum Coetum
24; Zonaras xii, 27 (p. 606).
310 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
— —
ment of the metals gold, silver and bronze perhaps veils a
policy which had real economic importance®. Old as he was,
Tacitus showed himself ready to bear the burdens of his office.
The Maeotidae, the Goths from the northern shores of the Black
Sea, who claimed to have been called in to assist Aurelian in his
campaign against Persia, invaded Asia Minor and penetrated as
far as Cilicia. Tacitus took the field against them and actually
reached Tyana, while Florian gained a victory (‘Victoria Gothica’),
which is commemorated on coins*. But the indulgence of Tacitus
to his kindred, already shown in his favouring of Florian, bore
evil fruit. A
kinsman, Maximinus, appointed to the governorship
of Syria, made himself hated by his oppressions and was murdered.
The discontent spread to the entourage of Tacitus. mustWe
suppose that the army was already repenting of its moderation
and turning its eyes towards Probus, the natural successor of
Aurelian, who held a high command in Syria and Egypt. The
strain was too much for the aged Emperor, who collapsed and
died at Tyana, c. April 276®.
Florian, without waiting for the approval of the Senate,
snatched the Empire as his natural inheritance®, and was generally
senatus seu militum consulto. S.H.A. Tac. 14, i, says that he seized Empire
IX, III] TACITUS AND FLORIAN 313
recognized, except in Syria and Egypt, which now came out
openly in defence of their own candidate. Probus. The usurpation
of Elorian was necessary if he was to have any chance of holding
power, and would no doubt have been condoned had it been
successful. He led his army to Tarsus, in the hope that the
numbers and quality of his troops would be decisive. But Probus
cleverly delayed the decision, and the soldiers of Florian, suffering
severely from an uncongenial climate, began to waver in their
loyalty. After a bare three months of rule, during most of which
Probus had contested his claim, he died at Tarsus, betrayed by
his own men (f. end of June, 276)^
The coinage of these two short reigns, which seemed little
more than an interregnum between Aurelian and Probus, has
a life and colour of its own^. The Golden Age, always hoped for
and never realized, is characterized in new terms. The Sun-God
is less prominent than under Aurelian, though he still appears as
the director of the loyal troops in their allegiance. The stress falls
more on the old divine protectors of Rome, and particularly on
‘Roma Aeterna’ herself. dementia Temporum,’ a watchword of
‘
quasi hereditarium, although Tacitus had promised that the ‘best man’
should succeed him.
1 For the war with Probus cf. [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxvi; Zosimus i,
vindicatae (for the number, 'as against the sixty given elsewhere, cf. Julian,
Conv. [Caes-I 314, a-b, possibly significant for the date of the biography);
Orosius VII, 24; Zonaras xii, 29 (p. 609). ® S.H.A. Prob. 14.
® The order of events is far from certain; fighting was perhaps going on
limitis orientaiis ducatum and describes his visit to Egypt; Jordanes, Romana,
293 M, says that he was magister militum, sent to restore Antioch, and that
he rebelled there. Zonaras xii, 29 (p. 609) calls him a Moor; Zosimus i,
66 agrees and says that he was governor of Syria. Two gold coins of
Saturninus, apparently of the mint of Antioch, are known: cf. Babelon,
Melanges, 3, pp. ibj sqq. and Bull, de Num. 1895, p. 107.
.
3i6 the imperial recovery [chap.
1 Zosimus I, 66; cf. Zonaras xii, 29 (p. 609), which explains the account
of Zosimus.
^ Cf. the great Blackmoor hoard (Nam. Chron. 1877, pp. go
apparently buried after the rout of Allectus, but still consisting mainly of
coins of the Gallic Empire.
® S.H.A. Proh. 20,
3 {brevi milites necessarios non futuroi)-, ib. 22, 4 and
23,, expands the theme in rhetorical vein.
^
[CHAP.
Cams was then forced to assume the purple. The death of ProbuS
removed the occasion of a civil war. Our tradition, out of kindness
to the memory of both men, tries to veil the tragedy, but there can
hardly be a doubt that the ‘Concordia Militum’ had once more
failed in the moment of crisis^. Senate and People mourned their
loss and awarded to Probus the posthumous honour of conse-
cration^; but the decision of the troops could not now be questioned
and Cams was accepted as the new ruler of the Roman world.
Of few reigns of such note as that of Probus have we so slight
and unsatisfactory a record. A little longer than that of Aurelian
and almost as notable, it can be told to-day in half the space. The
eulogies lavished on Probus are poor compensation for the lack
of detailed account of his administration. To the Senate Probus
from the first showed all possible respect. He sought its approval
for his elevation, and, if his biographer is correct, allowed it to
coinage. But cf. ‘sub divo Probo,’ Pan, vni (v), 18, 3 and C.I.L. i®, p. 255.
® S.H.A. Prob. 13, I
; these rights are said to have been given by Probus
1 See Blatt. fur Miinzfreunde, 1923, p. 313 sq. against M.-S. v, ii,
worthy that Rome still applied the old name to the new enemy,
even as she continued to call the Goths Germans. The Persians
were distracted by factions, and Cams, urged on, it may be, by
the perfidious advice of Aper, his Praetorian Prefect, who nursed
his own secret ambitions, refused to rest on his laurels and tried to
pass the bounds set by fate for Roman conquest eastward. Near
Ctesiphon he met his death under circumstances that arouse
grave suspicion— according to the official version, by a stroke of
lightning, more probably by the treachery of Aper^. Cams has no
Alexandrian coins of the year 2 8 3—4, and his death must, therefore,
fall at about the end of July 283. He had reigned a little over
ten months.
The two Caesars, sons and natural heirs of Carus, succeeded
unopposed, the one in the East, the other in the West. The Persian
war was brought to an end, possibly after a minor reverse®;
Mesopotamia, at least, remained under Roman rule. Numerian,
who appears to have been entirely under the influence of his
father-in-law, Aper, had no thought but to bring his army safely
home. On the journey, he began to suffer from an inflammation
of the eyes, which gave an excuse for conveying him in a closed
litter. When the army had reached the neighbourhood of Nico-
media, the stench of corruption from the litter betrayed to the
troops the fact that their young Emperor was dead^. Aper had
no doubt hoped that the death would be attributed to natural
causes and that he would succeed to the vacant throne. But the
officers of the Eastern army had other views. On Carinus they
—
based no hopes now, if not earlier, his true character as an
emperor was fully realized. But they had a rival claimant to Aper
in their own midst in the person of Diodes, commander of the
protectores domestici, A council of the army appointed him its
emperor to avenge the death of Numerian, and his first act was
to brand Aper as the murderer and strike him down with his
—
own hand ‘Gloriare, Aper, Aeneae magni dextra cadis®.’
^ Zonaras xn,
30 (p. 6io)j Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxviii; Epit. xxxviii;
Eutropius IX, 18; S.H.A. Carus, 8, i.
^ His death was attributed to fulminis ictus-, to disease S.H.A. Carus,
8,
® Zonaras XII,
2; 8, 7. 30 (p. 61 1).
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxvxa, b-, Epit. xxxviii; Eutropius ix, 18;
13, 3.
IX, iv] 323
Diodes had many years before received an oracle from a Druidess
in Gaul that he would be emperor, ‘when he had killed his boar.’
Superstitious as he certainly was, he may have brooded long over
the oracle and come to the conclusion that the ‘fatalis aper’ was
none other than the Praetorian Prefect. In striking him down he
fulfilled the omen of his rule^. The date will be late in the autumn
of 284—probably November 17.
Garinus in the West had ruled with little opposition from home
or abroad, but had alienated men’s sympathies by his cruelty and
lust®. The magnificent shows with which he delighted the mob
of Rome were a poor substitute for sound government®. The new
threat to his position roused him to a display of unexpected energy
and resource. Even before the elevation of Diodes, Julianus
‘corrector Venetiae’ had revolted and extended his power as far
as Siscia. His coins of that mint promise ‘Libertas Publica,’
constitutional government in place of the tyranny of Garinus,
and acclaim the ‘Happiness of the Age,’ ‘the Victory of the
Augustus,’ ‘Juppiter the Preserver,’ and ‘the Pannoniae of Au-
gustus.’ He fell without any serious struggle in the fields of
Verona and left the stage clear for the clash of two mightier
rivals*. Diodes marched west and encountered Garinus in the
valley of the Margus. The decisive battle was fiercely contested
and the advantage rested with the troops of Garinus, but the
Emperor was killed in the hour of victory by an officer whose
wife he had seduced, and Diodes was accepted by the leaderless
army®. The war had been difficult and laborious, and Diodes was
politic enough to avert further bloodshed by a generous pardon
of the hostile faction (spring 285). The dynasty of Garus, surely
founded as it seemed on his two sons, had passed away, and the
fate of the Empire was in the hands of an almost unknown
officer.But the Roman destiny was making no mistake. The man
had been found with the right qualities of mind and
at last
character to set the seal of completion on the great task of restora-
1 Ih. 14, 3.
S.H.A. Cams,
^ i 6 sqq.-, Epit. xxxvni, 7; Eutropiusix, 19, i; Eunapius,
frag. 4 (F.H.G. iv, p. 14). No doubt the Act that Garinus was the rival of
Diocletian caused his memory to be treated with scant respect.
® S.H.A. Cams, 19.
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, lo; Julianus revolted Cars nwrte cognita-,
Epit. xxxvni. For M.-S. v, ii, pp. 579, 593 sq.
his coins cf.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, il, at Marcus in Moesia; Epit. xxxvni,
tion for which Claudius, Aurelian and Probus had spent their
last breath.
The coins of the dynasty of Cams’- hold out to the world a new
vision of the Golden Age, blessed in the plenty and security of its
peace and safeguarded by the valour and victory of the emperor,
and the loyalty of his troops. Lugdunum, Rome, Siscia and
Cyzicus, each presents its own picture of the promise of the
reign. The mint of which had already been closed
Serdica,
towards the end of the reign of Probus, strikes no coins. Antioch
and Tripolis celebrate the new dynasty with a narrow range of
types. The coinage of Carinus andNumerianasAugusti Carinus —
seems to have borne the title a little before his father’s death
continues to celebrate the same themes, with increasing stress on
the winning of universal peace by the victories in Persia and on the
eternity of Rome assured by the dynasty. The last phase of Carinus,
when threatened by the elevation of Diodes, is marked by an in-
sistence on the 'Loyalty of the Troops’ and the 'Peace of the
Army.’ An ‘adventus’ type at Ticinum may mark a stage of his
advance to take the field against his rival®. Perhaps the most marked
feature of the whole coinage is the stress laid on the security of the
house of Carus, with his two young sons, the hope of the State and
the princvpes iuventutis. Diodes, as he pondered the problems of
imperial government, will not have failed to contrast the strength
of Carus, with his two heirs, with the loneliness of Claudius,
Aurelian and Probus, and, when the time came, found means to
provide himself with a like protection.
frontier armies had given way repeatedly under the great bar-
barian invasions, and the emperors had been compelled to scrape
together a field-army, with cavalry as an important and inde-
pendent arm. This essential force must be strengthened and made
permanent. The ‘loyal and harmonious’ troops had come to be a
menace to peaceful society. They must be brought back to the
old Roman discipline. Emperor after emperor had fallen by the
swords of his commilitones.’ His person must be withdrawn
‘
7 '
1 Costa, op. cit. pp. 1805 sqq.-, cf. passages collected above (p. 328, n. 7),
2
S.H.A. Carinus, 18, 3.
330 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
the Genius of each emperor, itself divine and an obj ect of worship,
was now declared to be the very Genius of Juppiter and Hercules
themselves. Juppiter and Hercules are actually at work, as
Victoria and Virtus had long been, in the spirits of their earthly
representatives^.
Although we are still three years short of the reform of Dio-
publicae.’ While the types still bear on such natural themes as the
imperial vows, the Golden Age, the eternity of Rome, the virtues
and exploits of the emperors, the religious interest is definitely
to the fore, and, as we should expect, is focussed on the two
figures of Juppiter and Hercules. Other deities —
Mars, Minerva,
Sol —
have their honours, but of a lower order. The labours of
Hercules are once more used as symbols of the exertions of
Maximian for the good of the Empire, and Juppiter and Hercules
are commonly associated in a single type, as the divine patterns
of the two Emperors on earth. Not far behind in importance
is the ‘Concordia Augustorum,’ the keystone of Diocletian’s
—
building a legend especially common in the Eastern mints,
which prefer to concentrate on a few themes of central importance.
The unusual type of the three Fates, ‘Fatis Victricibus®,’ reflects
the superstition which lay deep in the character of Diocletian.
He had a firm belief in aivination, he loved to probe into the
future and he attributed his own rise to the mysterious workings of
destiny. The divine world is related very closely to the human, and
the divine powers appear again and again as ‘Preservers’ or
‘Companions’ of the Emperors. The old paganism had always
been weak in theory, and even the elaborate reinterpretation
which the new Pythagoreans were applying to it could hardly
produce a satisfactory system of thought. It was not on its in-
tellectual side a creed for which any sensible government would
^
‘The Roman “Virtues,” ’
Cf. Mattingly, Theol. Rev, xxx, 1937,
pp. lo^sqq. M.-S. v,ii,pp. 2P4rjj.; see Volumeof Plates v, 24.0,0-/.
2
® See Volume of Plates V, 240, <4.
IX, VI] THE COINAGE OF THE TETRARCHY 331
persecute. But paganism as a background to the historical
mission of Rome and her emperors had an altogether different
power. For this paganism the most religious emperors might
one day strike a blow.
Empire there were many things that needed attention and cor-
rection. He re-organized the d^efences of the island and laid the
foundations of a new age of prosperity. The Saxon pirates
in particular, who had been allied to the British emperors, were
now fended off by a Count of the Saxon Shore with an efficient
fleet and strong, well-distributed forts behind him. It must
have been in this new settlement of Constantins that Britain was
divided into the four provinces of Flavia Caesariensis, Maxima
Caesariensis and Britannia Prima and Secunda. In 297 the
Western Caesar established the Salian Franks on the island of
the Batavians. A little later, perhaps in 298, Constantins is found
again in Gaul, heavily engaged with a marauding horde of
Alemanni. He ended the campaigns by a brilliant and spectacular
victory near the ‘city of the Lingones,’ made all the more notable
by a sudden reversal of fortune. Beaten at first in the field and
narrowly rescued by ropes thrown down from the walls of the
city, he received reinforcements the same day and led them out
to break and scatter the enemy. After this exploit, the West
enjoyed some years of uninterrupted peace.
Diocletian and his Caesar had been equally busy in Illyricum
and the East. Galerius was set to serve his apprenticeship on the
banks of the Danube, warding off invaders and clearing ground
for cultivation by deforestation and irrigation. In 294 and 295
he had to deal with Goths on the move westwards towards the
territory of the Burgundians. At about this time forts were built
at Aquincum and Bononia on the Danube. In 296 or 297 there
—
was fighting against various peoples Marcomanni, Sarmatae,
—
Bastarnae and Carpi and the whole of the last-named people
was transferred to settlements within the Empire^. It was no
doubt to make room for such new immigrants as these that
Galerius spent his labours on land-reclamation® that does honour
to this rough soldier, but seems to have embittered his spirit, as
he saw others enjoying higher honours at less cost.
Diocletian, no doubt, was in the background, directing and
^ Orosius VII, 25, 8; Eutropius ix, 23.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 43.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xi.,
9 sqq. (reported at the end of his life, but
obviously to be referred to an earlier date).
IX, VI] POLICY IN WEST AND EAST 335
294—
encouraging his Caesar: we find him wintering at Nicomedia,
5— 5. 296—7 Egypt demanded his personal intervention.
That turbulent province had already needed correction earlier in
the reign; now, the capital, Alexandria, broke out in revolt and
created an emperor of its own. The Achilleus of our literary
Malalas xii,p. 308 ry. (Bonn); Zonaras xii, 31 (p. 614). For the coinage of
Domitius Domitianus, see Cohen, vn, pp. 53 rj’y.; W. Kubitschek, ‘Zur
Geschichte des Usurpators Achilleus’, Sitz. d. Ah, d. Whs. Wieriy 1928,
pp. I sqq.', U. Wilcken, Sitz. d. Ah. d. Whs. Berlin^ 1927, pp. 270—276.
There seems, on the whole, to be no sufficient reason for associating the revolt
of Achilleus at all closely with the earlier revolt of Coptos.
2 Kubitschek, op. cit. ® Eutropius ix, 23.
pp. 21 sqq.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
from May 13 to 17, and an arch, that still stands, was erected
at Thessalonica, to immortalize the victory. Galerius boasted
himself a son of Mars and, forgetting something of his old sub-
servience to Diocletian, began to force his claims and policies on
the senior Emperor. The Persian victory was to bear fruit in
other fields.
The middle period of the reign of Diocletian {c. 293 to 299)
saw the crucial test of his policy and administration. The Tetrarchy
sustained the trial as perfectly as its author could have desired.
Augusti and Caesars loyally supported one another in all diffi-
culties, distributing labours and covering one another’s rear
during campaigns. The recovery of Britain, the crushing of re-
volts in Mauretania and Egypt, and the crowning victory over
Persia, established confidence in the government and raised
Roman prestige to a height which it had not reached since the
days of Septimius Severus. The divine splendours of Juppiter
and Hercules already invested the two imperial houses. To these
were now added the glories of the kingdoms of this earth. Though,
as has been recently shown®, Oriental forms had already invaded
the Roman court, Diocletian took some decisive step in this
direction which struck the imagination of his own and later times.
He appears against a background of ceremonial and adoration as
of the Persian palace, arrayed in garments embroidered with gold
and jewelry, and gives full official recognition to practices which
before had been experimental. Persian kings were not as readily
murdered by their bodyguards as the Roman imperatores^ who
were only marked out by the purple cloak and mixed freely with
their comrades. Diocletian was astute enough to be taught by
an enemy and to add to the mysterious awe of religion the
splendours of Persian royalty.
Even before the conclusion of the great wars those changes
in administration which support Diocletian’s claim to be the
second founder of the Empire had begun to take shape. These
changes are described and discussed elsewhere in this volume
(chap, xi), but it is to be remembered that they were the con-
stant preoccupation of the Emperor. One side of this activity
^ Petrus Patricius, frags. 13, 14 (F.H.G. iv, p. 188 jy.).
® A. Alfeldi, in Rom. Mitt. xtxK, 1934, pp. i sqq.
cji.H. xn zz
^
now ‘a State within the State,’ too strong and too well disciplined
to be ignored. Could Diocletian in his devotion to the old
sanctities of public life and in his revival of pagan worship main-
tain a strict neutrality in face of a growing and ambitious Church .?
At first the problem was not urgent : the Church had lost some-
thing of its fighting spirit and was not quick to give provocation.
When about 295 Diocletian began something like a purge of the
1 P. Ryl. Inv. 650.
IX. VI] COINAGE REFORM AND PERSECUTION 339
army, seeking to remove from it its Christian elements, it was
still doubtful whether that repression would be further extended,
security that he had won for it. Maximian laid aside the purple
in quite another mood, loyal to the last to his great colleague, but
openly fretting at the unwelcome necessity. His talents and
inclinations were all for an active life retirement for him meant
;
—
whatever reason personal ambition, anger at the treachery
shown to Severus, or intrigue in the interests of Constantine,
—
now his* son-in-law he summoned the troops to a meeting and
tried to tear the purple from the shoulders of his son. But the
scheme miscarried. Maxentius took refuge with the soldiers,
who refused to listen to the father and drove him out, ‘like a
second Tarquin,’ to seek refuge in exile at the court of Con-
stantine^.
Galerius then proceeded to seek a solution on his own lines.
The whole system of Diocletian was threatened, now that the
West had broken away under two Augusti and one senior
^ Lactantius, de mart, pers, 27.
^ Zosimus 1I5 105 Origo Consimt, imp, p.
7 sq,
® Zosimus n, 10*
^ Lactantius, de mart pers, 285 Eutropius x, 3, i.
IX, IX] THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST 347
Augustus of its own. What more fitting than that the authority
and wisdom of ‘lovius’ himself should be called in to safeguard
what he had built.? Diocletian was nominated to the consulship
of 308 with Galerius and was called to a conference at Carnuntum
at which Maximian also was present. Diocletian would neither
return to the helm himself nor suffer Maximian to remain there.
Licinius, a trusted comrade-in-arms of Galerius, was set up as the
second Augustus at his side; Maximin Daia was still to be the
Caesar of the East, while Constantine was reduced to the same
rank in the West. Maxentius was declared a public enemy
(November 308)^. The forms of the Tetrarchy were thus re-
stored, but the restoration was as short-lived as it was artificial.
Maximian fled once more to Constantine in Gaul. Maxentius
maintained himself in Rome and Italy. Constantine refused to
submit to degradation, and Maximin Daia, hitherto a submissive
follower of Galerius, protested against the promotion of Licinius
over his head. Galerius tried to satisfy their claims by bestowing
on them the title of ‘filii Augustorum’ in place of that of Caesar.
The concession was only accepted as a step to full recognition,
and both Constantine and Maximin are soon found claiming the
title of Augustus^. The system of two August! and two Caesars
was at an end, and six Augusti together divided amongst them-
selves the rule of the Roman world. The primacy of Galerius,
it is true, remained unquestioned, but the new system, resting on
The emperor received, now and for the future, full freedom of
action ; and the limitation that he should rule in accordance with
the interests of the State, lost importance, inasmuch as he was
left to judge whether the condition was fulfilled. This legal
formulation and foundation of the emperor’s power had done
all that a law could do to make the Principate an autocracy
(vol. XI, p. 408). For, indeed, the provision, that State interests
should be regarded, which was still maintained to debar the
Principate from becoming an open absolutism, was not a barrier
strong enough to prevent self-willed men from setting up an
autocratic regime^. At all events, it seemed later that the lex de
^
Dessau 244; Bruns, Pontes'^ 56, 11 21 sqq..
® A. von Premerstein, Vom Werden und Wesen des Prinzlpats, aus dem
Nachlassherausgegeben von H. Volkmann, Bay. Abh. N.F. Heft 1 5, 1937,
pp. 176 sqq. ® von Premerstein, op. cit. pp. 187 sqq.
* von Premerstein, op. cit. p. 192.
x,i] THE POWERS OF THE FIRST 353
imferio or lex regia marked the transference of full sovereignty
to the emperor. Even Ulpian^ in his day declares that what the
princeps has decided has the force of law, because, by the lex {regia)
concerning the imperial powers, the People has transferred to
him all its own power and competence. And such a champion
of unlimited absolutism as Justinian I could still recognize in
this law the foundation of the imperial sovereignty, when he de-
clared that by the old law, described as the lex regia, all the rights
and powers of the Roman People had been transferred to the
emperor^. If we turn back to Cassius Dio, even for him the
position of the first princeps is already a complete monarchy, just
because People and Senate have made over all power to him®.
The systematic description of the imperial power which he gives
in this connection contains in a different form a similar statement
of the unlimited power of the monarch^. When we take the
words which Dio uses to express the significance for his own day
of the Senate’s decree in favour of Augustus, we find that for him
the emperor is truly absolute (awroTeXijs ovrm) and not subject
‘
’ ‘
^ Dig. I,
4, I, pr.; cf. Dio Chrys. Or. in, 43, o Be v6 /ji.o<; jSaaiXea)^
Boyu.ai von Premerstein, op. cit. p. 177.
* Const. Deo auctore
§ 7 = Cod. Just, i, 17, i, 7.
® Dio uii, 17, I ; cf. vol. X, p. 589.
* Dio uix, 18, I ; cf Lxxvi, 14, 6.
® M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Grundriss der Sozialokonomik,
^ Dessau 418.
E.g. Dessau 420, 422, 431, 448 ry., 454, 458. Cf. Alfoldi, op. cit.
®
sanides, p. 88.
* Cohen^ iv, p. iie^sq., nos. 116 sqq.', Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 109, n. 3.
® Cohen® iv, pp. 1 15 sqq., nos. 122 sqq., no. 140 sq.
® Cohen® iv, p. 1 14, no. no sq.‘, Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 1 15.
Cohen® iv, p. 494, no. 43 sq.‘, Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 126.
® Cf. Alfoldi, op. cit. pp. 104, 106. ®Cf. Dessau 453.
See above, p. 319; Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 98; cf. Dessau 3811.
358 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
and invariably used after the second half of the third century, is
thereafter to be connected with the Oriental Sun-god^^. Aeter-
nitas Augusti is regularly used oh coins from the reign of Gordian
III, together ferpetuitas ixora. that of Severus Alexander^^;
and both imply not only a claim to divinity hereafter but also
the recognition of the true divinity of the living emperor, who
is ‘deus et dominus natus.’ This appears first on the imperial
coins of Aurelian either in the dedicatory form of words deo et '
2 Ih. v, ii, pp. 19, 109, no. 841; p. 114, no. 885; pp. 133, 145, no. 96;
p. 146, no. 99 sq.
® E.g. Cohen® iv, p. 179, no. 335; p. 182, no. 366; p. 184, nos. 401 sqq.-,
V, p. no, no. 157; p. 165, no. 42; M.-S. Index ir in v, i, p. 383; v, ii,
Cf. F. Pfister, P.W. s.v. Numen, col. 1285 sq. Dessau 627.
36o OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
^
Cohen® V, p. 48, no. 269; p. 51, no. 284; M.-S. v, i, p. 358, no. 90.
® Cohen® iv, p. 421, no. 190; M.-S. v, i, p. 103, no. 440; Index iv,
p. 375; V, ii,p. 640; pp. 163 lyy., nos. 202, 206, 209; p. 177, no. 314; p. 191,
nos. 376, 380; p. 202, nos. 406, 470.
® M.-S. V, ii, pp. 255 sqq., nos. 321 ryy., 328 sq.
^ Ib. p. 288, no. 583.
® Cohen® v, p. 66, no. 496; M.-S. v, i, Index iv,
p. 375,
® M.-S. V, ii, p. 61, no. 4041^.; p. 167, no. 225, p. 338, no. 17.
’ Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, xux,
1934, pp. I sqq,-, ib. L, 1935, pp. i sqq.
® Dessau 1190
,.36:2:;,.' 'THE END .OF: THE/PRINCIP ATE Ickap.:
which dates from the middle of the third century; and the holder
of the court office a cognitionibus is sometimes fro curator
sacmrum cognitionum^ itom which, even before Diocletian, the title
magister sacrarum cognitionum^ is probably derived. But this use
of the word may not yet have been strictly oifficiah In the same
sense, the description of an imperial rescript of 10^ sacrae m
litter may be mentioned; as also the use of theta efhtolehj the
proconsul of Asia^ and as early as the reign of Commodus a pro-
;
Philip the younger as Caesar, are both represented with it® makes
it probable that the change had taken place by their time. It
can be shown that from being an emblem in the portrayal of
emperors, it had become a real part of the insignia from the
fourth century, though coins which show the Augustus giving it
to his co-regent may point to an earlier date'^. Nor was the
wearing of the diadem, in which the change to autocracy is
most emphatically expressed, a use regular since Constantine,
^ Tacitus, Ann. xii, 56.
® Herodian ii, 8, 6; v, 3, 12; vi, 8, 5.
® Aurelius Victor, Cues, xxxm, 28; Epit. xxxiv, 2; cf, Alfoldi, op. at.
p. 50 sq.
* Alfoldi, op. at. p. 58 sq. with Rom. Mitt. XLix, p. io8.
® Alfoldi, op. at. pp. 1 1 2 sqq.
® Cohen^ iv, p. 186, no. ^iisq.s v. p. 165, no. 46; cf. Alfoldi, op. at.
p. 120.
’ E.g, Tetricus to his son, M.-S. Y, ii, p, 416, no. 204 sq.y cf. for Carus
and his sons and for Diocletian see above, p. 361, nn. 2 sqq.
366 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
wholly without precedent in the third century. Apart from the coin-
types that show the emperor with the headband of the sun-god,
there are many others that show the radiate diadem, that is the
royal diadem with rays attached, which indicated the sovereign,
and the Romans thus grew accustomed to the sight of the once
forbidden royal headgear. The first known official use of the
diadem without rays is on a commemorative medal of Gallienus^;
according to the literary sources Aurelian wore the diadem‘d.
Finally, besides the chair of office, the sella curulis, which the
emperors as consuls still retained in later times, the throne had
become a special mark of distinction. This sign of monarchy, too,
had a religious origin ; and as the court took on a sacral colouring,
it became so integral a part of the imperial splendour® that this
Senate (by now a totally changed body) are named as electors, but
the greatest emphasis is laid upon the divine favour. When
Marcianus announced his assumption of office to Pope Leo I,
he said he had come to it by God’s Providence and the choice of
‘
A. Thiel, Epistolae Roman, pontificum, 1868, p. 830 = Mansi, op. tit. vm,
® See vol. X, p. 151 ; vol. xi,
434 A. pp. 410, 41 5.
* The evidence is collected in E. Kornemann, Doppelprinzipat und
Rekhsteilmg tm Imperium Romanum, p. 86.
® J. Vogt, Die Alexandrinuchen Mim%en, i, p. 166 sq.
® R. Cagnat, Cours d’ epig^aphie latine'^, 168. Rostovtzeff, op. tit.
p.
p. 598, n. 31.
X, IV] DYNASTIC SUCCESSION 371
to Gordian III It thus became the rule
as the legitimate heir^.
emperor to be created Caesar and finally
for the sons of the
Augustus. There was in general no real co-regency, although
all the imperial almost always including even the
honours,
pontificate since Philip his son®, were conferred upon the
and
Junior, thus creating a kind of fictitious co-regency or rather
partnership. This practice seemed to secure the succession ; this
combination of dynastic successor with partner was intended to
ensure that, when the Augustus-father died, the Augustus-son
should pass automatically to the throne®. Though, indeed, stern
reality often refuted this doctrine. The idea that membership of
the imperial family gave a man some claim to the throne induced
Florian to put himself forward as Augustus after the death of
his step-brother Tacitus, and he was recognized even though his
predecessor had declined, in accordance with the older usage, to
nominate his successor; and this holds good even if we doubt the
truth of Tacitus’ solemn renunciation in favour of a free election
by the Senate*.
The idea of a division of the Empire appears once during the
joint rule of the hostile brothers Caracalla and Geta (p. 43) and
it might appear that a necessary connection between dual rule and
such division should be presumed®. But the idea of the unity of the
Empire was too strong, even in this case of bitter enmity®; and
there was in fact no division when circumstances necessitated the
separate action of the co-rulers in the East and the West, as with
Valerian and Gallienus or Carus and Carinus’’. What this does
show is that it might be necessary, both for the safety of the Empire
and of the emperors personally, to mark out separate spheres
of activity, while maintaining without limitation the Augustus-
father ’s authority over the whole. This was a precedent that
could be used by Diocletian in his re-organization of the Empire,
especially in the form devised by Carus®, when he left Carinus
behind as Caesar in the West with extended powers which
approached joint-sovereignty. But there was still a difference
between Augustus and Caesar; and there was thus no question
of a division of the Empire.
1 Herodian vii, 10, 6. ®Schulz, op. cit. p. 258.
® Kornemann, op. cit. p. 92. E. Stein, Geschichte des spatrSmischen
Reiches, i, p. 48.
^
S.H.A. Trtf. 14, I. * Cf. Kornemann, op. cit. pp. 88 sqq.
® V. Ehrenberg, Deutsche Lit. Zeitung,
1^31, p. 559 -
Kornemann, op. cit. p. 102 for Valerian-Gallienus, whereas in the
case of Carus-Carinus (p. 109) he speaks of division of the Empire,
® Kornemann, op. cit. p. 108.
372 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
for this form of citation in imperial rescripts cf. Cod. Just, v, 71, 9.
® Dig. i, 4, I with I, 2, 2, 12. ® Cod. Just. I,
14, 3.
“ Mommsen, op. ck. ii®, p. 884. Dig. i, 3, 31 (Ulpian).
X, V] THE POSITION OF THE SENATE 373
could justify himself by appeal to the kx de impem\ a fact which
reveals the legal basis from which the emperor could at any time
undermine the surviving rights of the Senate. Thus he could him-
self grant privileges which had formerly needed to be confirmed
by a dispensation from the Senate®, though that did not prevent
him from declaring himself bound, of his own free will, by the
relevant laws in a civil case (see above, p. 68). We
have also
seen (p. 65) how the Senate lost importance, from the time of
Severus Alexander onwards, in the administration of the laws
affecting the collegia. Formally the granting of pardons and
quashing of undetermined cases were prerogatives of the Senate;
but in fact and even by law the former right was exercised by the
emperor. Co-operation of emperor and Senate, whereby the Senate
probably acted on the emperor’s suggestion, still existed under
Pertinax® and was known to Ulpian*, although in a later work he
speaks of the princeps only®; the emperor’s sovereignty in such
cases was fully admitted by the reign of Caracalla®. The judicial
competence of the Senate continually lost importance in face
of imperial competition. Even the right of the Senate to be
sole judge of its own members in criminal cases, legally secured
under Septimius Severus, was precarious (vol. xi, p. 422), since
even Severus did not consider himself bound to respect it’. But
the emperors continued to send cases to the Senate for trial; and
even after Diocletian the Senate still pronounced judgment, when
thus invited to do so®.
Turning to financial matters, the independent importance of
the senatorial aerarium as a separate institution was already so re-
duced (vol. XI, p. 423) that according to Dio the emperor’s power
over it was as unlimited as over the fiscus^. But as late as 204
the Senate voted the funds for the Secular Games and in spite
of the curtailing of its right, the aerarium lasted until it became a
municipal instead of a State treasury^. It is very uncertain how
far, if at all, the continued minting of bronze coins with the Senate’s
^ M.-S. V,i, p.
339, no. 126; see Volume of Plates v, 238,1-.
® Cf. P. Lambredits, La composition du sinat remain de Septime Severe
d DiocUtien, pp. 79 sqci- ® Dio nxxvii, 5, 5 (p. 360 Boissevain).
THE END OE THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
already been but lightly enforced, was less and less observed^.
The growing preference shown for the equites was a more efl^ective
weapon. A fusion of classes was prepared by the approximation
of the rank of many equestrian offices to that of the senators, by
the ever increasing inclusion of equites in the Senate, and by the
abandonment of the rule that Praetorian Prefects in office might
not be senators. The fusion was complete when it was admitted
that the administrative service of the Empire could only be staffed
by imperial officers. The senators were still distinguished by the
title of clarissimus and they ranked first In the Empire after the
emperor and his family, while the Caesars from Geta onwards bore
the special title of nobilissmus. The equites were never given a
special tide as such.But they could achieve, in the imperial service,
the successive ranks of vir egregius, vir perfectissimus and vir
eminentissimus\ and the last was finally reserved for Praetorian
Prefects (see above, p. 6 1 )^.
^ Dig. 1,1%, 1.
® von Domaszewski, Rhein. Mus. LViii, 1903, p. 228.
® Cf. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Ferwaltungsheamten^, pp. 385 sqq.
^ Lambrechts, op. cit. p. 103. ® O’Brien Moore, op. cit. col.
795,
* Aurelius Victor, C«ei. xxxur, 34. : T i
378 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
from the time of Severus Alexander its holders were ea officio senators
(see above, p. 61). These Prefects commanded the Praetorian
Guard and the troops garrisoned in Italy; as members of the im-
perial staff, they controlled recruiting and armament; they were
the officers responsible for the commissariat; and they thus had a
share in the collection of the special contribution which had become
necessary for this purpose. As they stood in a peculiar sense in
the emperor’s service, special duties could be laid on them. Their
jurisdiction, as representatives of the emperor, often in a sense
competed with his, since appeals could be addressed to them, so
that in practice they often were an ultimate court. Appeals to
the emperor were still possible; but the right was disputed
and they were forbidden by Constantine^, The Prefects were
criminal judges for the whole of Italy with the exception of
the area within a hundred miles of Rome, which was subject to
the City Prefect, and of persons who were exempted from the
jurisdiction of the provincial governors. Their right to condemn
prisoners to deforiatio proves most clearly that they represented
the emperor^. To help them carry out their constantly increasing
duties, the emperor appointed deputies for them, vice praefectorum
praetorio, later vicarii, at first probably with roving commissions,
but in particular cases with fixed areas to look after The Prefects
also had, as representing the sovereign, a general oversight over
the State post and the political and financial mechanism of
government^. From the reign of Maximinus Thrax onwards
(see above, p, 74), they had the right to publish ordinances
binding on everyone, so long as they did not modify existing laws;
and although this was not quite the same as a secondary right to
make laws®, it yet gave them power to issue general instructions
that must be obeyed. Finally, they were the most important
members of the permanent imperial consilium, which advised the
emperor in his legal decisions. It is not surprising that this
diversity of duties, not to mention the danger likely to arise from
putting so much power in one man’s hands, caused the office to
be divided between colleagues; and that, besides soldiers, we find
lawyers and experts in administration being appointed to this post.
In these troublous times, much was demanded of the State
finances. But the economic system was breaking down largely
under the pressure of taxation, and money could only be raised by
1 Dig. I, II, I, i; Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 974.
® Dig. XXXII, I, I, 4 (Ulpian); Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 973.
® Cf. Stein, op. cit. i, p. 55. ^ Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 1120.
^ Cf. Stade, op. cit. p. 50 sq.-, Ensslin, op. at cols. 2498 sqq.
2 Lactantius, de mart. pers. 20, 4; 35, 4-
® lb. 26, 4; cf, E. Stein, Geschkhte des spatrSm. Reiches, i, p. 100, n. I.
* So O. Seeck, Geschkhte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, i®, p. 36, with
ment of the City^, while Roma aeterna still appears, even if more
rarely, in the legends on coins, though the palatium in Rome was
deserted. The consciousness that, in times not long past, the idea
that he who has Rome has the Empire was still powerful, may
have helped to produce the result that the City did not in any
sense become the preferred residence of the Augustus of the
West. At the same time, the influence which the Senate had ever
and again brought to bear was thus most readily set wholly aside.
Now it really became true that Rome was where the emperor
was. We
may still, to be sure, read in a panegyric of the time,
written in connection with the meeting of the emperors in Milan
(p. 328), that sovereign Rome had gladly granted, by sending
the bright luminaries of her Senate to Milan, the semblance of her
majestic splendour to that city, so that the seat of the imperial
government seemed to be there, whither both emperors had
come®. But in this connection, we must not forget that it is said,
in another panegyric, that Rome herself would appear more
reverend (‘augustior’) if the emperors were present in the City®.
Emperor and court were now, for good and all, surrounded by
the ceremonial forms which, reaching far back in their origins,
at this time received the final shape that was to continue into
the future. The authority of the imperial ofifice was to be raised
into something inviolate and sacred and thereby to be secured
from attack. Without actually calling himself a god, Diocletian
of two Augusti, for which the regulations for the order of pre-
cedence at court provided, it would seem, no ruling^. It is worth
observing that proskynesis was demanded even from the blood-
relations of the emperors®. The tradition that Diocletian intro-
duced this ceremony may well contain a measure of truth so far
as it was he who prescribed the procedure which was followed
in the fourth century, namely, that of kneeling down and
kissing a corner of the imperial robe. The emperor seldom
showed himself in public; and his rare appearances became
festive occasions. The overloaded splendour of the dress and the
jewellery used as the expression of absolutist state then received
their firmly fixed fashion. The diadem alone was not worn by
Diocletian as a regular part of the insignia, if he ever wore it at all.
That was reserved for Constantine®, It is possible that, besides
regulating the court ceremonial, in which the admissionales were
employed (see p, 363), Diocletian also drew up new rules for the
other court servants and among them for the chamberlains whose
duties lay in the sacrum cubiculum, the cubicularii^. Yet such
hints as we possess for the development of the position of the
highest chamberlain, the a cubiculo, into that of praepositus sacri
cMculi point to Constantine as the innovator®. In any event,
there is no reason to ascribe to Diocletian the introduction of
eunuchs as chamberlains®.
now Rome and the area as far as the hundredth milestone remained
excepted.
As in the case of the division of Italy, so also the subdivision
of the provinces was carried out gradually. The division of Egypt
into three and, at the same time, the complete assimilation of it
1
J. B. Bury, J.R.S. xiii, 1923, p. 13^; who, however, goes too Ar in
attributing the establishment of other provinces to Aurelius and Probus; cf.
Stein, op. cit. p. 65, n. 3.
^ J. G. C. Anderson, J.R.S. xxii, 1932, pp. 24 sqq.
® Dio Lit, 22, I. * C.I.L. VI, 1418 sq.i Dessau 1212.
® A. von Premerstein, P.W. s.v. Corrector, col. 1654.
392 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
^ M.
Gelzer, Studien %ur by%. Verwaltung J'gyptens, p. 5.
®
Dessau 1214; cf. Ensslin, Byz. Zeitschr. xxxvi, 1936, p. 320.
® Helvius Dionysius once more provides an exception as iudex sacrarum
cognitionum totius orientis, which describes the vicariate of the East (Dessau
1211).
* Cf. H. M. D. Parker, A History of the Roman World from a.d. 138
to 337, p.264; Stein, op. cit. p. 104.
XI, II] THE VICARIATE AND DIOECESES 395
In the course of the reform, military authority, with a very few
exceptions, was separated from the civil. Generals, as duces with
the rank of viri perfectissimi, took command in the provinces that
still had senatorial governors. As early as the year 289 we find
1 Zosimus
II, 34, 15 Paneg. ix (iv), 18, 4.
Parker, op. cit. pp. 275 and 367, n. 70; Besnier, op. cit. p. 309, n. 188.
* Dio LV, * Lactantius, de mart. pers. 7, 2.
23 sq.
® E. Ritterling, P.W. s.v. Legio, coL 1356.
398 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
1
57074 ed. A. E. R. Boak, Early Byzantine Papyri
P. Cair. Inv. no.
no. i; de Papyrol. ii, 1933, pp. I eqq.
jPt.
® This may be an attempt to translate iugum.
® Ensslin, P.W. s.v. Superindictio, col. 933. ,
! V
4oa the reforms of DIOCLETIAN [chap.
longer necessary for the nomination of a son who was still subject
to parental authority^.
Diocletian’s reform of the coinage proves that he did not
intend to change the existing economic system, and it was much
rather directed to making ends meet and to creating an easier
circulation of money, with the security necessary for this. In the
first place, his minting of coins was a continuation of the methods
of previous reigns, although in the case of gold coins the standard
used at the beginning, of 70 aurei to the pound, was soon set at
60 (see p. 330). After the naming of the Caesars, a reform of the
coinage was planned and, even before 295/6, was so far carried
into effect, that in Alexandria the new imperial coinage was
already being minted, although the old provincial coins were not
yet wholly given up®. Soon after this, the last relics of a local
system were cleared away. The difficulty of changing money was
to be disposed of by this means. All mints, of which the number
was increased, struck, under a strict imperial control, Empire coins
of uniform types. The separate mints distinguished their coins
with the abbreviations of the names of the towns in which they
were situated, together with special marks for the officinae and
^ Mickwitz, op. dt. pp. 115 sqq. ® Cod. Just, x, 32, 4-13.
® J. Vogt, Die Alexandrmischen Munzen, i, pp. 225
404 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
V. CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES
IN DIOCLETIAN’S GOVERNMENT
In spite of the many connections with earlier tendencies, we
have, in general, had to deal with innovations in the administration
of the Empire, in the reform of taxation and in the regulation of
the coinage. But on the other hand, in one thing Diocletian
followed wholly in the steps of his Illyrian and Pannonian
predecessors and compatriots, namely, in his attempt to maintain
and invigorate the idea of Rome. It would be wrong to believe
that in this he was inspired by memories of the historical glories
of Ancient Rome or that he was moved by a romantic passion for
the past. He lacked almost all the qualities of a romantic. But
T he interactions of Greek,
and institutions and
Macedonian, and Oriental ways
their consequences for religion
already been described (vol, vn, pp. i jyy.)* There was give and
have
must indeed have existed, but was probably no more than a bull-
chase followed by a solemn sacrifice^ ; the priests of the Egyptian
deities as established in Greek cities were commonly annual
functionaries, comparable with the priests of Zeus and Apollo,
and not a professional clergy with a distinctive character.
Oriental cults sometimes came to Greece as a result of political
considerations, but in a far larger measure they were brought by
soldiers, trading groups or individuals, and slaves: then they
gained new adherents, not only among the unprivileged but also
among citizens of distinction. We can suggest reasons why the
ground thus gained was not lost. The traditional gods of the city-
state might, like the city-state itself, appear old and weary. The
novelty of the Oriental gods could be a virtue®, and they might
well appear less parochial and more adapted to men’s needs in the
new world of dynasts, and in the still larger oikoumene and kosmos
ruled by the decrees of Fate. They had also the prestige of the
seventh century b.c. cf. G. KSrte, Jth. Mitt, xxiii, 1898, pp. 97 sq^.
2 Cf vol XI, p.
579 sq., on the success of Alexander of Abonuteichos.
410 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
ancient East, and over and above this not only did their cult-
dramas impress the eye and ear, but also their mythology echoed
natural human emotions. Isis as wife and mother and widow, the
mourning Attis, the young Adonis cut off in his prime—they
need not avert their eyes, like Artemis, from the dying Hippolytus,
The half-Oriental gods were credited with a great readiness to help
their worshippers. They were epekooi, ‘ready to aid,’ an epithet
applied to them far more frequently than to the Olympians^.
New religious forces came into play, and new religious forms
were created. Nevertheless, the depth of the new development
was not equal to its extension. Various reasons for this may occur
to us. First, we have to reckon with the religious education which
the average citizen underwent as boy, as ephebe and as adult, he
:
performed many functions in civic ritual, and they set their mark
on him. Secondly, rulers rarely sought to make innovations in re-
ligion. Thirdly, the political world in which a man lived was not,
as later under Roman rule, a large entity with a widespread social
stratification, but an aggregate of civic and regional units. You
were not a subject of a Seleucid or Ptolemaic empire; you were a
citizen of Alexandria or Antioch, or a member of a Syrian poli-
teuma, or a tribesman of the Trokondenoi. No centre sent forth
impulses comparable with those to be exercised by Rome.
A static equilibrium was thus attained, more Hellenic in the
older Greek cities, less new Greek cities of Asia
Hellenic in the
Minor and Syria, still and sometimes progressively less
less
Hellenic in the towns of the Fayum and of the eastern frontier.
The preservation of this equilibrium in the older Hellenic area
was further ensured by a decline in the infiltration of new popu-
lation elements. Till the middle of the second century b.c. the
older Greek cities had kept some significance in politics and in
trade; then the change was rapid and complete.
Rhodes was impoverished by Rome, Corinth destroyed ; Delos,
which had received Egyptian cults early and Syrian cults later, was
ruined by Mithridates. The population dropped and was still too
large. After Sulla Greece was a land for tourists, students, and
antiquarians, Athens a university city with a starving proletariate.
The tramp of soldiers seldom echoed south of the Egnatian Way;
the Syrian trader would not come, for who could buy his wares?
Foreign slaves could not be imported, save by the few who were
very rich^. The three main avenues for new cults were closed; in
^ O. Weinreich, Jth. Mitt, xxxvn, 1912, pp. 1 sqq.
® Note, however, Ditt.® 1042, where a slave founds a temple of Men
Tyrannos at Sunium.
XII, I] CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN RELIGION 4x1
had faded, and the importance of Sol in the City is due to Aurelian,
who on his return from Syria built the great temple of Sol Invictus,
introduced the celebration of his birthday {natalis Invictt) on
December 25, and established the college of fontifices Solis.
Liberal as Aurelian was to other cults in the City, he thus in-
corporated in Roman constitutional form emotions and ideas which
had been constantly gaining in strength (see below, p. 4I7^y.).
It was a creative act, like the Ptolemaic creation of the cult of
Sarapis: it made what was potentially a ‘cosmopolitan religion^,’
and it gave a new concentration and emphasis to official piety.
Thereafter Sol was very prominent.
Diocletian’s main policy was Roman (see above, p. 407). While
the Jovii and Herculii restored a temple at Carnuntum, probably in
307, d(eo) s(oli) i(nvicto) m(ithrae) favtori imperii svi®, Dio-
cletian and Maximian made a dedication at Aquileia deo soli® and
Diocletian built an Iseum and a Sarapeum in Rome'^ ; nevertheless
the very titles Jovii and Herculii for the rulers, Jovia and Herculia
for legions, show the Roman emphasis of dynastic policy. Of
course paganism as a whole was strengthened and deliberately
given shape (as above all by Maximinus Daia) the revival of private
:
these emperors see F. Cumont, C.R. Ac. Inscr. 1914, pp. is/] sqq.
K. Stade, Der Politiker Diocletian, p. 1 07.
® Geffcken, op. cit. p. 29 sq.
XII, n] COIN EVIDENCE 415
Let us now turn to the evidence of coins and medallions for
alien cults^. They cannot tell us the whole of official policy: we
must not forget that, apart from the issue which shows the sisters
of Gaius personified as Virtues, they give no sign of the eccentri-
cities of that emperor. The Roman temple of Isis appears on coins
of Vespasian, that of Sarapis and that of Cybele on those of
Domitian. Attis is used by Hadrian, but only as a type for
Phrygia; Isis and Sarapis are represented as welcoming Hadrian
and Sabina, which is simply a record of their visit to Alexandria.
Hadrian was interested in provinces and regions as entities, with
their own traditions, as we see in his so-called ‘province’ series'^.
Medallions of Hadrian, on the other hand, and of both Faustinas®
represent Isis, and medallions of Hadrian and of his wife Sabina
show Cybele. So do medallions of Antoninus, the two Faustinas,
and Lucilla; and Cybele assumes special importance in connection
with the apotheosis of the elder Faustina, who is herself shown as
riding, like the goddess, in a chariot drawn by lions. On some
issues of this period Attis is associated with Cybele, These facts
assume importance in view of the contemporary rise of the
taurobolium (see below, p. 424 sq.). At the same time, while matri
DEVM SALVTARi occurs on a consecration-coin of Faustina I and
MATRI MAGNAE on coins of Faustina II and Lucilla, legends
naming the deities represented are otherwise lacking.
This fact adds significance to certain issues of Commodus. Not
only is he, in 192, represented as faced by Sarapis and Isis and
again as clasping hands with them over an altar^, but, at about the
same time, coins with a typeof Cybele bear the legend matri dev(m)
coNSERv. AVG., and others showing Sarapis have serapidi conserv,
avg. These have no parallel under any earlier princefs. Contrast
them with the conventional ivppiter conservator of 18 1 and
182. Even other legends of the end of Commodus’ principate,
I. o. M. sponsor, sec. avg. and lovi defens, salvtis avg., imply a
T
A. Alfeldi, ‘ Insignien und racht der romischen Kaiser ’ (in Rom. Mitt.
2
L, 1935), p. 107 sq., an article which should be consulted for this whole
range of ideas.
XII, Ii] THE THIRD CENTURY 417
ideas were not wholly new, but their numismatic formulation
anticipates the attitudes of Aurelian —
and of Constantine ^the men
with a mission and authority. This Imperial self-consciousness, in
stronger men, was a major fact of history.
Cybele appears on Julia Domna’s coins from i93-'6 with
MATRi DEVM and MATRi MAGNAE and JuHa while still living was
represented as Cybele. Cybele comes again on Caracalla’s coins
of 213 (matri devm), and thereafter nearly drops out of the
repertory of Roman types into which influential empresses^ had
brought her. Isis is represented on coins of Julia Domna with the
legend saecvu felicitas and on Caracalla’s coins of 215, where
she is shown welcoming him —
^a transparent allusion to his visit
showing Sarapis, both alone and with Isis, and having in each
case coNSER. avg.; issues of Claudius Gothicus showing Isis Faria
with SALVS AVG. (a legend coupled also with an Apollo type), and a
Cabirus with deo cabiro, which has been thought to refer to the
repulse of the Gothic attack on Thessalonica, a seat of Cabiric cult.
Under Aurelian the pre-eminence of Sol, as the fountain-head
® Cf. Milne, op. cit. p. xxxix, for coins with Zeus and Heracles as almost
the sole output of the Alexandrian mint in Diocletian’s seventh year.
® Maurice, op. cit. i, p.
247, cf. N. H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and
the Christian Church, pp. 97 sqq.
* F. Cumont, Haru. Theol. Rev. xxvi,
1933, p. 1585 E. Breccia, Mem.
inst.frang. Caire, ixvii, 1934—7, pp. sqq.
® F. Cumont, Syria, xiv, 1933, pp. 382 sqq.
XII, hi] the near east 419
legionaries^; in the same way, the sacred cave of Mithras on
Andros was built by a veteran and three soldiers of the Praetorian
Guard (a.d. 202—9). Attis, for whom the native Greek generally felt
a certain repugnance, has left few traces in Egypt and apparently
none in Syria®. The taurobolium was not celebrated at Athens till
the fourth century (see below, p. 425); a Tavpo$(6 \Lop) is men-
tioned as part of a celebration, apparently of the Traianeia, at
Pergamum in a.d, 105, but we may doubt whether it included the
bath of blood®.
All this is in striking contrast with the vitality of local cults,
more or less hellenized, and of Greek cults. Dionysus was
worshipped widely in Asia Minor and Syria and, it seems, at many
points in Egypt; in Syria he appears well into the hinterland, as in
the Druse country; he merges with the Arab god Dusares, and the
god of some antipathetic Arab tribe was identified with his old
enemy Lycurgus. The actors’ guild (the holy synod of the crafts-
men of Dionysus) was everywhere, and may have counted for
something in this but it is far from being the whole story. The
;
only religious epics written under the Empire were concerned with
the conquests of Dionysus, whose cult flourished strongly in the
Western provinces also, and was closely linked to men’s hopes of
immortality. Heracles was found wherever there were Greeks and
was identified with native gods at Tarsus, in Phoenicia, in Egypt,
in Parthia; he. Aphrodite and Nike are the only Greek religious
types in the art of Doura. The goddess between the two riders
(Helen and the Dioscuri, or an equivalent) is found all over the
Near East, appearing even at Palmyra; she had local affinities in
Anatolia, Artemis Ephesia was worshipped at places widely
distributed over Asia Minor and Syria, as well as in Crete.
In fact the static equilibrium described earlier (p. 410) was very
generally maintained local cults, whether purely Greek in origin
:
of about the same date (J. L. Caskey, .dm. youm. Arch. 2nd Ser. xxxix,
1935, pp. 589 ryy.) were clearly of the simple bull-chase variety.
'
420 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
Egypt that the Semitic and Anatolian gods were more capricious,
more to be feared, less completely to be controlled, and that the
Semite was capable also of a strong sentiment of dependence on a
hereditary god and of a passionate dogmatism best known in
Judaism but occasionally approached at Palmyra. Christianity
encountered this vigour and this inertia; the inertia lasted longer.
The of these manifestations was strong. Against it we
spirit
must life—the philosophical trend to
set other factors in religious
henotheism, powerful in East and West alike, the name of Zeus,
the popular tendency to think of the gods as simply power, the
importance of such figures as Nemesis and Tyche, and the
disposition, old in the East, to invest the gods with celestial
attributes and functions. As being behind phenomena in general
and the stars in particular, they could give escape from the iron
bondage of Fate’s decrees. Fate and magic were part of a world
picture which was nearly universaF. Furthermore, many gods
were treated as solar. The philosophic theory which supported this
has already been treated of (vol. xi, p. 646) further, in Asia Minor
;
and the Near East as a whole, the Sun was widely regarded as the
all-seeing god of justice, bringing light and avenging hidden deeds
of darkness; in a hymn found at Susa, at latest of the first century
B.C., he is identified with Dionysus and is the universal lord^.
This mood was not confined to the educated, but it did not
overshadow localism, and learned pagan polemic against Chris-
tianity, while allowing the unity of the divine nature, commonly
stressed the inherent natural rights of national tradition. Such
tradition increasingly asserted itself even against the old supremacy
appear.
® F. Cumont, Memoires de la Mission archhlogique en Perse, xx, 1928,
pp. 89 sqq.and M. P. Nilsson, Arch.f. Religimswiss. xxx, 1933, p. 164, and
cf. ib. pp. 141 sqq. for the thinking involved and for the importance of the
solar calendar as making its diffusion possible.
422 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap,
of Greek culture. The East took its revenge for the conquests of
Alexander. We
see the rise of Syriac, which had become a literary
language by the addition of Greek words to the vocabulary of
Aramaic, the similar emergence of Coptic from Demotic, the use
of Neophrygian as a language for inscriptions, and the birth, or at
least the epigraphic self-expression, of that strange brotherhood
known as the Xenoi Tekmoreioi^. Meanwhile Philo of Byblus,
the writer of Corpus Hermeticum xvi, and the gnostics whom
Plotinus attacked^ professed to be in cultural rebellion against
Hellas. We
can hardly devise a formula to cover these various
phenomena without becoming fanciful: but it remains true that a
certain shift of balance had Tong been happening. From about
200 B.c. the native was asserting himself against the Hellene in
Egypt; in the next century Rome’s cynical laissez-fairem breaking
the Seleucids and ignoring the Euphrates allowed Parthia to
become an apparent counterweight; and then with Mithridates
(and perhaps again with Cleopatra) the East was born as a cause
if not as an entity®. In the third century the Empire found a rival
in the Sassanian kingdom, militant in politics and in religion.
Mani’s disciples carried his words westwards, but his face was set
to the East. The end of all this was Islam.
use of a ram. In either rite the vires or testicles of the animal were
preserved in a vessel called a kernos. The use and significance of
this bath are so far knov?n to us only from the Western half of the
Roman Empire. At first it may well have been a rite regarded as
effective in itself, and not attached to a particular deity. The
earliest certain known instance in the West, dated in a.d. 134
and found at Puteoli, is associated with the Semitic Venus
Caelestis^: here it is a private ceremony. In later years numerous
commemorative altars dedicated to the great Idaean Mother of the
gods and Attis describe the ceremony as having been performed
on behalf of the Empire or the Emperor or both ex vaticinatione
archigalli And. mdic.z.te that it was under the authority of the
quindecimviri^. The special connotation of the act as done for the
public well-being^ was perhaps due to a specific act of the
quindecimviri, romanizing the practice just as Cybele’s public
ceremonies had been earlier adapted. There is no doubt of the
official endorsement of the practice, for the legal provision is
‘ qui in portu pro salute imperatoris sacrum facit ex vaticinatione
(dated 319) members of the college were present and made the traditlo.
Graillot {pp. cit. p. 229) remarks that there is no evidence that the quin-
decimviri thus supervised any of the other cults introduced in accordance with
the Sibylline books, (They can have had no concern with Oriental cults
independently introduced at Rome.)
® F. Cumont, Religions orientale^, 58.
•
p.
^ Cumont, op. cit. p. 224.
426 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
1 O.G.I.S. 595; G. La Piana, Harv. TheoL Rev. xx, 1927, pp. 256 sqq.
® F. Cumont, Syria, v, 1924, p. 342 sq.
s Ik vni, 1927, pp. 330 sqq.
_
when not of the army, are for the most part Oriental in origin. Of
course, the eunuch priests who begged for the Syrian goddess
circulated widely, and men gave to them fearing the power of their
curse, perhaps hoping for a blessing^; but this did not establish
cultus or religious habits, and this goddess does not seem often
to have received from non-Syrians a devotion such as was paid
willingly to Isis by non-Egyptians. Dacia has one inscription to
Dea Suria, Germany none. An exception is the dedication to the
Syrian goddess found by the Roman Wall in Britain, identifying
her with Justice and speaking of the revelation by which the
soldier responsible for the record had learned her might^ ; but the
wording makes it clear that Julia Domna’s prestige had opened
the channel of grace.
We pass to Mithraism. Mithras, the Persian god of light,
appears as the object of a special cult at Gurob in the Fayhm in
the third century b.c. (doubtless at some shrine maintained by a
group of Persians who had remained in Egypt after the end of
their rule); the nature of this worship is unknown. Plutarch tells
how the pirates, against whom Pompey warred, celebrated certain
secret sacrifices to Mithras on the Cilician mountains. The cult,
as we know it, certainly took its rise in parts of Asia Minor where
Iranian elements had remained strong in the population, as in
Cappadocia.
We learn something from allegorical explanations of Mithraism,
as in Porphyry, and from Christian attacks on it, but our know-
ledge is in the main derived from the material remains of the wor-
ship ; from the temples at Doura, at Rome, Ostia and other sites in
Italy, in Britain, and along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. They
are built in a shape intended to give the likeness of a cave, with a
bas-relief on a pedestal in a niche at the end, benches for the
worshippers to recline, sculptured and sometimes pictorial deco-
rations, and a water-supply for purifications®. The iconography has
local variations but is on the whole curiously constant. The bas-relief
shows Mithras slaying the bull, from which comes the life of the
earth’s crops. The formal model is the earlier type of Nike sacri-
ficing a bull, but the scene has a cosmic significance and its place in
the centre of the shrine emphasizes that Mithraism had a mythical
^ But at Augusta Treverorum two altars have the phrase ‘‘in suo posuif
(S. J-Axschcke, Die Erforschung des Tempelbezirkes im Althachtale Trier,
p. 36). Inferences from the juxtaposition of shrines are insecure.
® E.g. the domus Augustana whose pater et sacerdos is mentioned early in
Everywhere, above the emperor, there was Fate and its decrees,
written in or by the stars in their courses^. Everywhere there were
similar attempts to break these decrees by magic the same —
formulas in Syria and Egypt and Moesia and the Rhineland and
Italy. Everywhere those who sought an interpretation of life
looked to philosophy.
absence of clear evidence for Mithras at Puteoli can be explained from the
fact that at the time when Mithraism was rising the commercial importance
of Puteoli was declining; contrast the place which it occupied at Ostia.
R. M. Peterson, The cults of Campania, p, 214, remarks on the smaller de-
velopment of Oriental cults at Neapolis, which was not a great port in the
late Republic and under the Empire, and which also had a firmly rooted
Greek civilization. L. R. Taylor, Local cults in Etruria, p. 249, notes that
the only Syrian worship represented in Etruria is that of Juppiter Dolichenus
(on his dissemination cf. above, p. 427; Sol juvans at Pyrgi, Taylor, op. cit.
p. 127, maybe an old local indigenous cult). On the other hand, Mithraism
was here more widely diffused than in Southern Italy.
® There was creativeness also: cf M. P. Nilsson, ‘Zur Deutung der
^ J. Toutain, Les cultes patens dans I'empire romain, i, pp. 466 sqq.
Caracalla seems to have taken an interest in the Celtic Apollo Grannus
(Dio Lxxviir, 15, 6).
* On the other hand, the Carthaginian cult of Caelestis, which was
cji.H.xn -28
434 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
were distinct, and the result was not a composite product such as
Hermanubis. Juppitersummusexsuperantissimus was highest, but
that would for many imply gods, as well as men and things, below
him. There are dedications (from the second century b.c. onwards)
and art-types of a pantheistic kind^ ; some of these imply a concept
of divine unity, but others involve no more than the old desire to
ensure safety by neglecting no god; in a certain number we may
suspect an element oi jeu d'esprifi. The habit of grouping and
identifying deities may have contributed to a decline in attention
to the minutiae oi the custom which assigned one victim to one god
and one to another. Nevertheless, subordination and identification
did not destroy the gods; sometimes in the last struggle with
Christianity supplied an apologia for their worship. The de-
it
Cf. a papyrus of a.d. 150-200 (W. Schubart, Hermes, lv, 1920, pp.
^
^ Deorum concilium, g; luppiter trag. 8 (where the alien gods are described
as having much richer statues than the Greek gods).
® Cf. Origen, contra Celsum, 1, 9.
® Apulee, Apologie: Florida, ed. P. Vallette, p. vii.
* Apuleius carried to considerable lengths a tendency for which there
VIIL CONCLUSION
We have considered the early wave which carried Egyptian and
Syrian and Anatolian worships to regions outside their homes, and
the later wave which carried similar worships (though in a some-
what different form) and Mithraism through the Latin part of the
world. We have also sought to estimate the diffusion and inten-
siveness of these cults, and our observations have led us to reject
any idea of a substantial concomitant orientalization of life. Two
objections might be raised; first, is this likely in view of the
Oriental influence which has been so often assumed in art, law,
and political forms.? Second, what of the enormous change in
intellectual outlook and spiritual atmosphere between Augustus
and Constantine.? Is not the result something much more
Oriental than Greek or Roman in type and temper And could .?
sin, a hatred of the body, and a yearning for salvation was left to
a hypochondriac few. Nevertheless, even before the end of the
Periclean age, new forms of individualism and new external condi-
tions threatened the old harmony. Great achievements and
glittering prizes were still in store, but no new satisfying adjust-
ment. The cosmopolitan minority of intellectuals were driven in
on themselves. Philosophy could no more build a city; she did but
strive to give man shelter under a wall, ‘as in a storm.’ The
brilliant success of the Roman Principate in its first two centuries
gave a new hope but did not kill a sense of futility and disintegra-
tion. After Marcus Aurelius the days were darkened; coarser
natures and cruder ways had to serve the needs of harder times.
Meanwhile a new order was coming to birth.
CHAPTER XIII
‘argument from prophecy,’ i.e. the assertion that this or that event
in the career of Jesus Christ had been indicated by Hebrew
Prophets long ago, seems to have had real weight.
The difficulty felt by the Christians was rather this if the Bible
:
was the very word of God, by what right did Christians disobey so
many of the plain commands found in it ? Christians ate pork and
hare, and disregarded all the ritual laws of the Pentateuch: was
the Pentateuch after all God’s book ^ One answer to this question
was given in the Epistle of Barnabas.) a very early document, per-
haps Alexandrian, which maintained that all the so-called food-
laws were misinterpreted by the Jews and that they were really
moral commands to avoid the society of various types of sinners.
The Bible, on this view, was wholly moral, but obscurely ex-
pressed. Another view, given by one Ptolemaeus, a disciple of
Valentinus the gnostic^, was that we have to distinguish different
elements in the Jewish code. There are elements which come
merely from the ‘tradition of the elders,’ others that were added by
Moses because of the hardness of the Israelites’ hearts, others that
are really divine. Of this last class, some were figurative, like the
command to eat unleavened bread at Passover, now fulfilled in
Christ; other things are permanent, like the Decalogue. A very
similar theory to this is to be found in the Didascalia, a manual for
Christians written somewhere in the East during the first half of
1 See the note by G. Tyrrell in Christianity at the Cross-Roads, p. 18, on
the third century. In this work we are taught that the good Law
is the Ten Words and the Judgments, given before the Israelites
made the golden calf and served idols. But the rest was given
because the Lord was angry with them, and so He laid on the
Israelites new and burdensome laws, from which Jesus has delivered
Christians.
A more radical solution was championed by Marcion of Pontus.
According to the Chronicle of Edessa he left the Catholic Church
in A.D. 38, so that we may place his career between 100 and 170,
1
the development of the Church. In the first place, the rival Church
^ Lk. iii, I. ® I Cor. vi, 20.
XIII, I] MARCION 453
that he founded lasted for centuries. Its organization was very
much that of the Great Church, so like, in fact, that it is thought
probable that he was a pioneer and that many features of the
Catholic hierarchy were adapted from the Marcionite system.
It is certain, at least, that the Marcionites produced their share of
martyrs, for instance the presbyter Metrodorus, who met his death
in the Decian persecution.
The sacramental theory of the Marcionites, which refused
baptism and the Eucharist to married persons, we meet with again
in the Syriac-speaking Church of Mesopotamia^. But some
words must here be given to the Marcionite Bible, which is very
closely connected with the origin of the Canon of the New
Testament. Marcion rejected the God of the Jews as his God, and
so rejected the Old Testament which told him of that God. He
made great use of it, it is true, in his story of the formation of
Adam, but it had for him no authority. He was left without a
Bible. In its place he put an account of the words and deeds of
Jesus, and a collection of the writings of His true apostle Paul.
The elaborate investigations, made during the nineteenth
century, of the relation of the Marcionite ‘Gospel’ to the tale told
by Luke in his First Volume (i.e. the gospel) have substantially con-
firmed the allegations of Tertullian and Epiphanius, that Marcion
took ‘Luke’ and arbitrarily altered it, mostly by cutting out inci-
dents which he regarded as Jewish perversion of the true Gospel^.
Where the Church Fathers are wrong is in their natural assump-
tion that Marcion chose out one of the four Canonical Gospels
and mutilated it. In Marcion ’s day these works existed, but they
were not yet ‘canonical.’ It is likely that Marcion regarded his
procedure as that of extracting from a bulky historical work® those
records of the Lord Jesus which seemed to him to be genuine.
Marcion’s Apostolicon’ consisted of ten letters of Paul, Le. the
‘
blessed Paul the Apostle’ in which the Apostle had charged them
concerning the evils of partisanship (i Cor. i. 1 1 sqq^. Ignatius,
likewise, certainly knew i Corinthians he probably knew Ephes-
;
ians also, and he may have known other Pauline letters. Decisive
evidence is lacking, but it is not unlikely that a collection of
Pauline Epistles, of the same compass as Marcion’s, was already
in existence when Ignatius wrote. There is, at any rate,good reason
to think that the compiler of the Pastoral Epistles was familiar
with the rest of the Pauline Corpus in its entirety^. But for
—
Marcion now left without the Bible of the Church, that is the
Old Testament—the writings of Paul the one true Apostle at-
tained a new position of paramount authority. True they, like
St Luke’s Gospel, could not be accepted as they stood, but re-
quired to be purged of many a judaizing corruption. Thus purged,
they were made to form a second constituent part of Marcion’s
new Canon of Scripture. Marcion was the first formally to
‘canonize’ the Pauline Epistles.
The Catholic Church could not fall behind the heretic in the
authority which it bestowed upon the writings of the Apostle.
For it too the Pauline Epistles became Scripture. Indeed, there
is evidence that Marcion’s edition of the Pauline letters directly
® Cf. the stories of the Syrian bishop who led out men, women and
children of his flock to meet Christ in the desert, and of the bishop in
Pontus who disorganized the life of many of his people by his confident
prophecy that the Judgment would come upon the earth within a year, re-
lated by Hippolytus, In Daniel, iv, 18, 19.
* Scriptor anon. ap. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 16, 7. Unfortunately the
proconsulship of Gratus cannot be fixed, and the date of the rise of Mont-
anism is uncertain. Epiphanius would fix it in a.d. 156—7 (Haer. xlviii, i)
and this date is adopted by Bonwetsch, Harnack and others; Eusebius in 1 72
in the Armenian version of the Chronicon under Olympiad 238, i. (Cf.
de Labriolle, La crise Montaniste, p. 570 and cf. Hist. Eccl. iv, 27.) The
text of Epiphanius, Haer. li, 33 as commented on by Holl, Berlin Corpus n,
p. 307 would support the dating of Eusebius. Cf. the full discussion in de
Labriolle, op. cit. pp. 569-89. It may be that the two datings refer to different
events in Montanist history; so H. J. Lawlor and J. E. L. Oulton, The
Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, n, p. 1 80 sq.
XIII, Ii] MONT ANUS 457
writers from whose works Eusebius has happily preserved ex-
tensive extracts. Tertullian —
the one convert to Montanism of
first-rate importance— provides us with evidence of Montanist
belief and practice in Africa at the beginning of the third century
(p. 537 jy.). But except for scanty fragments preserved mainly in
Tertullian and in Epiphanius, the collections of Oracles, which for
Montanist believers had the authority of direct revelations, have
perished. Slender as the sources of our knowledge are, they yet
enable us to recover the main characteristics of the teaching and
mission of Montanus and his associates.
The fundamental convictions of the New Prophecy in its
earliest form were, first that the Heavenly Jerusalem was shortly
to descend upon the earth —
its arrival was expected at the little
—
Phrygian township of Pepuza ^and that Montanus himself was
indwelt by that Paraclete of whom Jesus had promised that He
should come after Him to carry on His work. Concerning the
Paraclete Jesus in St John’s Gospel had said: ‘I have yet many
'.hings to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now; but when he,
foe Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth’
(xvi, 12—13). These words afforded a scriptural basis for the
Montanist claim, which so shocked the common sentiment of the
—
Church, that the apostolic teaching nay the teaching of Christ
—
Himself ^was incomplete and that a fuller revelation had now
been vouchsafed which the Church was called upon to accept^.
Yet bolder language is attributed to Montanus: Epiphanius
quotes him as saying: T am neither an angel, nor a messenger,
but I am come the Lord God, the Father^.’ There is probably
some misunderstanding here. Montanus no doubt thought him-
self to be the medium through which God spoke, but it is unlikely
that he thought himself to be personally God. His own view of
the divine activity is expressed in another oracle: ‘Behold man
isas a lyre and I hover over him as a plectrum. Man sleeps, and
I wake; behold it is the Lord who removes the hearts of man and
,
i
458 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
the first originators of the movement. For the Montanist hierarchy see
Jerome, Ep. 41, 3, and Cod. Just, i, 5 j 20. The texts are discussed in
de Labriolle, La crise Montanistet pp. 495—507. The title Kotvcovo^ has been
found in an inscription dated a.d. 514—15 from the neighbourhood of
Philadelphia {Byzantion, ii, 1925, p. 330).
XIII, Ii] THE CHALLENGE OF MONTANISM 459
neutral formulae, the makers of these monuments boldly pro-
fessed their faith as ‘Christians addressing Christians.’ It has
been conjectured that they were Montanists^.
Montanism forced the Church to wrestle with the problem of
the legitimacy of ecstasy in prophecy and the place of prophecy
amongst orthodox Christians® ; it contributed towards the estab-
lishment of a closed canon of scripture to which no new revela-
tions could be added. This is an idea which in the last quarter of
the second century found expression in the works of Irenaeus and
the so-called Muratorian Canon,’ which enumerates the books of
‘
the Christians are; whence they are derived; who Jesus Christ
was, and what are the commands which He has ‘graven in the
hearts of Christians.’ Finally, he proclaims the judgment which
God is to bring upon the world.
The extensive genuine works of Justin give the best picture of
the attitude of second-century Christians to their chief opponents.
In his apology he begins by asserting that Christians are not
‘atheists,’ as was generally supposed; their morals are excellent,
following the ethical teaching of Christ, which is illustrated by
extracts from the Gospels (mostly from Matthew and Luke);
Christ was spoken of by prophets who had lived centuries before
Him. Those who are persuaded that the truth is \yith the Chris-
tians are admitted to their Society by a bath, called also ‘illumina-
tion’ and ‘rebirth,’ and are then allowed to partake of the Chris-
tian ritual meal called ‘Eucharist,’ which is described in general
terms. It takes place on Sundays after they have read in their
sacred books and heard a discourse from their president. Justin
has already mentioned that they prayed for the Imperial power.
In the other chief work of Justin, the Dialogue with the Jew
Trypho, we have Justin’s attitude towards the Old Testament.
At the opening of the first apology^ Justin had expressed the
main lines of his theology: Christians are not ‘atheists,’ they wor-
ship the Creator of all things, put their Master Jesus Christ in the
second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third. In the Dia-
logue this theory is expanded. Christ is the Word (Logos) of God,
who sometimes appeared in various forms to Biblical heroes of old
time, in the shape of a man to Abraham, as fire in the bush to
Moses, and finally was born as a human being of the Virgin Mary,
Christian theology —
^almost by accident —
the perennial problem
of the relations between faith and reason, ‘natural religion’ and
revelation.
The long Dialogue with Trypho ends with friendly speeches;
it isnot stated that Trypho is converted to Christianity. The ob-
ject of the work is mainly an expression in dialogue form of
Justin’s own theology, and thereby of the Church’s attitude to
paganism on the one side and to Judaism on the other. As against
Judaism the Church was determined to hold on to the Old Testa-
ment, interpreting it from a Christian standpoint. The Christian’s
Master was born a Jew; Justin is persuaded that the Israelite
sacred Book spoke of Him, it is therefore the sacred Book of the
Christians; in fact, the Christians are the true Israel and the Jews
are ignorant and blinded heretics. The sacred Book gives the true
origin of man and the earth, and the true account of what will
happen in the future. Justin is not afraid to find elements in the
Graeco-Roman mythology which illustrate the relation of Christ
to the Father of alP, but in general he borrows little from heathen
religion or heathen science. He holds firm to the original
Christian expectation of the coming judgment, the coming resur-
1 See 1, 21 yj. :
466, PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [ chap .
the fixed stars, revolving night after night round the Pole. These,
once their invariable configuration had been noted, must be
thought of as fixed in a rigid though transparent sphere rotating
round the Earth. And if the stars are fixed in a sphere of this kind,
it seemed reasonable to explain the more unaccountable move-
on the Earth and its inhabitants. And along with this belief there
was another, intimately bound up with the scientific character of
the Ptolemaic system. Whatever might be the rules of the courses
of the planets, the very observations that had led to the construc-
tion of the system had taught the comparative regularity and in-
evitableness with which the heavenly bodies, planets included, do
move. If then the planets (or their spheres) had an influence on
men, that influence came inevitably and inexorably. ‘Astrology,’
the natural child of Ptolemaic astronomy, is a doctrine of Fate, of
inevitable and inexorable Fate.
The soma-sema doctrine may be described as the reverse or
back-view of the Immortality of the Soul.’ The immortality of the
‘
human soul is not a doctrine taught in the Bible, either in the Old
or New Testament. A vivid belief that the God of all the earth
will in the end do right led most Jews to believe, from the time of
the Maccabaean rising onwards, that martyred saints would not
be unrewarded and that notorious sinners and persecutors, such
as Antiochus Epiphanes, would receive in their own persons the
due punishment for their evil deeds. So arose the belief in the
Resurrection of the Dead. It is a moral doctrine, not a physical
theory. The Greek notion of the immortality of the soul, on the
other hand, is not in itself moral but logical and psychological.
The soul of man, the Psyche, the queer inhabitant of the human
body that in dreams seems to be able to wander outside at will,
only to be imperiously called back on waking, was held by many
Xni, IV] THE 80MJ-SEMA DOCTRINE 469
Greeks to be immortal. But it was imprisoned in a mortal body,
like a bird in a cage. This body was of earth, of the same or similar
substance as stones and mud and other inanimate things. The soul
on the other hand was ‘ethereal, /.<?. its true nature and abode was
’
the Upper Air, in the pure region high above the clouds. The
body enclosed it like a tomb if only the body were dissolved, the
:
immortal soul was free to mount up to its true home. But, as has
been seen, the victorious Ptolemaic system with its attendant
Astrology had brought in the Spheres, translucent walls of crystal
cutting off Earth from Heaven beyond, cutting off the Soul in
its upward flight. How could the Soul get through.!*
There is yet another problem with which thinkers of this period
were occupied. If there be one God, the ultimate Source of every-
thing, how does this variegated and partly evil world come about,-’
How can One become Two, and part at least of the Two be in
opposition to its original
Christianity, the religion which is essentially a belief that ‘Jesus
appeared in Judaea’ (to use the phrase employed by Mani [p. 5o8p
was a divinely-sent Deliverer of man, had first to explain how this
Jesus was fitted to the Old Testament, the divine vehicle of truth.
But when Christianity had become established in the Graeco-Roman
world and was beginning to attract some of the educated classes
who were uninfluenced by Judaism, it is the questions sketched
above to which ‘Jesus’ required to be fitted. Was it not possible
to set forth the r&le of Jesus in a way that satisfied the cultivated
ideas of modern enlightened society.? This is the setting in which
the various Gnostic sects appeared.
The most famous of the gnostics is Valentinus, whose activity
may be dated about 1 30-1 50. He had a number of disciples, who
were divided into an Eastern and a Western school. His doctrine
survived in Egypt, and both the document called ‘the Apocryphon
of John’ and that called ‘Pistis Sophia^’ seem to be ultiinately
derived from Valentinus’ construction. It is with a description
of Valentinus’ system, probably as set out by his disciple
Ptolemaeus, that Irenaeus begins in his great treatise ‘Against
Heresies’; it is mainly from Irenaeus, rather than from the later
‘Fathers’ who used Irenaeus, that we are able to get a fair estimate
of what Valentinus was attempting to enunciate by his curious
mythology^.
He taught that there was an original Forefather, called also The
Deep (Bythos). With this primordial essence dwelt a Thought
^ See below, p. 472.
2 por the following paragraphs, see Burkitt, op. at. pp. 42 sqq.
470 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
(Ennoia), called also Grace, for it was not conditioned, and Silence,
for made no sign of its existence. Somehow the immeasurable
it
Deep made its own Thought fecund, and so Mind (Nous) came
into being; and though it was called Unique it had a correlative
side to it It will be noticed that the Pairs are very-
called Truth,
much like the Hegelian Thesis and Antithesis that between them
bring forth a Synthesis. In other words the Valentinian heavenly
hierarchy, known as the Pleroma, is rather philosophical descrip-
tion than mythology. After all, human beings only know of two
kinds of fresh production: there is the thought or idea that seems
to be self-produced from a man’s consciousness, and there is the
new individual that comes from generation in plants and animals.
By the first process the ultimate Forefather of Valentinian theo-
logy conceived His original Thought, and by something analogous
to the second the dumb Thought produced what could be called
Nous. In other words Nous was ‘begotten, not made.’ Nous,
Mind, is an intelligent Understanding, the inevitable counterpart
of which is Truth. For if there be nothing true to understand
there can be no intelligent understanding.
It must also be pointed out that the original Bythos, the hidden
Deep that produced the first Thought out of itself, corresponds in
many ways to the Subliminal Self of modern psychologists. There
is in the human personality an inner treasure-house within us,
impulses good and bad which proceed not so much from our
conscious reasoning powers as from what is called ‘the abysmal
depths of personality,’ i.e. from something corresponding to the
Valentinian word Bythos. It was by a process analogous to that by
which new notions come into our minds out of the unknown
activities of our unconscious selves that the Valentinian Fore-
father produced His first unexpressed Thought.
Many more pairs of Aeons, according to Valentinus, were
formed by a process of a similar kind, the last of which was Design
and Sophia. The last is usually translated ‘Wisdom,’ but a more
appropriate English term is Philosophy. As we are soon to learn,
Sophia's conduct was not marked by true Wisdom, Sophia took no
pleasure in Design. The first Forefather could properly be per-
ceived by Nous alone, by the pure Intelligence. But somehow
Sophia had got a glimpse of this exalted Forefather, and she desired
to have direct intercourse with Him. This was not designed for
her: her search for the Unsearchable was labour and sorrow, and
(to continue the tale) her unauthorized passion somehow made
her fecund with a formless monster. In pain and terror Sophia
cried out for help to be sent to her from the Father and all the
XIII, ir] VALENTINUS 471
Aeons, and so the Father sent to her a new Being called Horos,
who separated her from the monster that she had conceived, and
restored her to her proper condition among the Aeons. Her
monstrous offspring, on the other hand, fell outside the heavenlf
Society (the Pleroma), and became the cause of this sensible and
material world.
It is evident that Valentinus’ account of the origin of things
and of the mixture of good and evil found in this our world was
psychological, akin to the mental processes of our own mind,
which are indeed the only mental processes we know of. ‘ Sophia
is Philosophy. Philosophy sometimes seems to have a glimpse of
the Deep, that is, of Ultimate Reality; it desires to have direct
^ It is not yet published, but a very full account of it is given by Prof. Carl
V. IRENAEUS
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons at the end of the second century, is
a milestone in the history of the Christian Church. He was a
native of Asia Minor and had in his youth known Polycarp, bishop
of Smyrna, who was martyred in February, 1 5 5 or 1 56, at the age
of 86^. This Polycarp is a link between the ‘apostolic’ age, which,
so to speak, ended with Ignatius, and the age of Irenaeus, which
marks the fully developed Catholic system. It seems that Irenaeus’
statement that Polycarp was acquainted with the Apostle John is
mistaken^, but he may well have known the mysterious Elder
John of Ephesus, who had ‘seen the Lord.’ He must also have
known Ariston, first bishop of Smyrna, of whom the same is said,
but Polycarp’s immediate predecessor was one Bucolus.
The long period of Polycarp’s episcopacy almost covers the
period between the writing of the later books of the New Testa-
ment and their acceptance as canonical. This is why the theory
that Polycarp’s ‘Epistle’ to the Philippians consists of two letters
run together is important. The last two chapters are a short letter
written soon after Ignatius had passed through Philippi, before he
had arrived in Rome for martyrdom in the first twelve Polycarp
:
son of Eber^ and 2500 from Peleg to Jesus Christ^. Thus when
the book appeared in the fourth year of Elagabalus, a d . 221, its
.
of the division of the earth which is said to have taken place in the days of
Peleg. Julius interprets it also of the division of time.
® Fragments in Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae\ n,
pp. 244, 245, 306.
® See C. H. Roberts, jin unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel.
* D. de Bruyne in Revue binidictine, XL, 1928,
pp. 196 sqq.
XIV, I] THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL 479
acknowledging the Rule of Faith, the fourfold Gospel and a
Canon of other New Testament scriptures in the main identical
with that received elsewhere. Again Clement and his successor
Origen are at one with the Great Church in repudiating the aber-
rations of the gnostic systems and the gnostic attitude of ex-
clusiveness in relation to the faith of ordinary Christians. But they
stand for a new type of Christianity which is zealous to claim the
title of gnostic for the fully instructed believer. With this goes a
but his works have not been preserved^. His successor, known as
Clement of Alexandria, occupied the chair for about the last twenty
years of the second century. He describes himself as an Athenian,
was a pagan by birth and had picked up a varied knowledge of
Classical lore (perhaps rather from extracts and florilegia than
from a study of originals), and we have from him a very great part
of a sort of Introduction to Christianity that throws a vivid light
on the intellectual conditions of the age which witnessed a move-
ment of Greek culture towards the new religion and an influencing
of the new religion by Greek culture. The Address to Greeks sets
forth the attraction of Christianity, the Tutor explains the general
way of life and conduct appropriate for Christians, the Misc-
1 Clement {Ed. Proph. 56) says that Pantaenus taught that the Prophets
used the present sometimes for the future and sometimes for the past.
—
24 sf. 4 s^q. ,
, '
: ,
488 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
and the Epistles: the style of the Apocalypse (he says) is different,
indeed barbarous, and the themes specially characteristic of the
Gospel are absent from it. No more able piece of literary criticism
is to be found in ancient Christian literature, except the critique of
did not have the Holy Spirit; therefore, they maintained, their
baptism should be repeated. Years later a compromise was
,
deposed.
It is instructive to observe that in condemning Paul the Council
condemned the use of the very word which in the next century was
to become the watchword of orthodoxy on the Person of the Son
of God: homoousios. It was natural that they should do so. The
Eastern Bishops present at the Council were as a whole Origenist,
and as disciples of Origen they held the Logos to be an ousia
distinct from, and subordinate to, the ousia of the Father. Paul’s
doctrine merged the Logos in the Godhead and the condemnation
of homoousios was no doubt intended to rule out this tendency. The
decision was to prove a cause of some embarrassment to the
champions of Nicene orthodoxy. The fact is that in the next
century the doctrinal issues had shifted. Danger then threatened
from an accentuation of the subordinationist element in Origen’s
theology.
— —
The Logos was left so far distinct from nay inferior
to essence of the Godhead, that his true Divinity was im-
^the
perilled or directly denied. Against such a tendency it seemed
necessary to assert what the Council of 268 had denied the —
homoousion of the Son with the Father. Neither in 268 nor in 325
had theologians hit upon the distinction in meaning between
ousia and hypostasis whereby the later orthodoxy sought to
satisfy the legitimate interests of both tendencies in theological
doctrine.
Paul’s deposition was not easily achieved. In 268 Roman writs
did not run in Antioch. Power was in the hands of Zenobia^,
and Paul refused to give up the Church buildings. But four years
later Aurelian had crushed Zenobia and on being petitioned
he] assigned ownership to those who could show that they were
in communion with the bishops of Rome and Italy. No doubt
in this Aurelian had in view the ‘restoring and cementing the
See above, p. 302. r >
:
492 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
career had lived with his wife. The exaltation of virginity is not a
vital constituent of Christianity, though the tendency does shew
itself here and there in the New Testament, e.g. i Cor. vii and
Apoc. xiv. 4, as well as Matt. xix. 12^. But that is explicable by
the early Christian idea that the world was just about to come to
an end, so that no man, believer or unbeliever, would ever have
any grandchildren.
In any case this tendency persisted, and the unmarried life, if
strictly continent, became the ideal. Tt was not in this world that
the primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves
either agreeable or useful^.’The further discussion of the question
isa matter for ethics and philosophy. It is necessary to draw atten-
tion to it here, in order to render the organization of the early
orthodox Syriac-speaking Church and of the heretical Manichees
less extraordinary and fantastic.
11 . SYRIAC-SPEAKING CHRISTIANITY
Roman Empire dates from about a.d. i 60—
Christianity east of the
170. The Christian Religion started in an Oriental land, and during
the period covered by the Book of Acts the Aramaic-speaking
community at Jerusalem may have seemed as important as the
little Greek-speaking communities founded by Paul in the mari-
in which the wording of the text before translation into Arabic had
been assimilated to that of the Syriac Vulgate known as the
Peshitta. From these, and some minor authorities, the order of
the incidents can be securely made out, always with the same
result: Ephraim and the Arabic agree together against Victor of
Capua and the Dutch Harmonies, and practically in all cases the
Latin order is more primitive (and less satisfactory) than that of
the Syriac. The Syriac Diatessaron^ indeed, has all the character-
istics of a second and revised edition.
As mentioned above, the ‘historical’ work which embodies the
native tradition about Addai, the founder of Christianity in
Edessa, makes Palut his priest or ‘elder’ to have been ordained
bishop by Serapion about 180. ‘Addai,’ therefore, and his mis-
sion, cannot belong to apostolic times, but must be placed in the
1 [Professor Burkitt’s view, stated in the text, that the original Diatessaron
was a Latin composition, is not accepted by ail sdiolars. Since Professor
Burkitt wrote this chapter, the discovery at Doura of a tiny fragment of the
Diatessaron in Greek (describing the Burial of Christ) has established what
had hitherto been uncertain, that the Diatessaron existed in Greek. (See
Studies and Documents, III. A Greek Fragment of Tatian’ 5 Diatessaron from
Doura. Edited by C. H. Kraeling, 1935.) It is also established that this
Greek Diatessaron was in use at least as early as the first half of the third
—
century probably about 222. Further, it is hard to resist Dr Kraeling’s
argument Qb. pp. 15 sqq.) that the Greek should be regarded as the original
of the Syriac and not •uice versa.A similar type of argument to that advanced
by Dr Kraeling against the conjecture that the Syriac is prior to the Greek,
would militate against the conjecture that the Greek is based upon a Latin
original. The textual problems call for further investigation in the light of
this new discovery, but it seems highly probable that the Greek Diatessaron
is Tatian’s original Diatessaron, and that the versions, Latin and Syriac,
depend ultimately upon the Greek. For Professor Burkitt’s view of the new
discovery and its bearing upon his theory of an original Latin Diatessaron
reference should be made to an article published posthumously in Joum.
Tkeol. Stud. XXXVI, 1935, pp. 255 sqq., ‘The Doura Fragment of Tatian.’
J.M.C.] ,
^96 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
last third of the second century. That is the decisive reason for
rejecting the chronology assumed in the work of Meshiha-zeka,
a chronicler of the early sixth century, who compiled a bio-
graphical of the bishops of Adiabene from the earliest times.
list
being from the pure substances and the Dark, their enemy, He
constituted this World and set it in the midst, that no further
mixture might be made from them and that which had been mixed
already, which (mixture) now is being refined by conception and
birth until the process is complete^.’ What this doctrine asserts, is
that things were originally something then
in equilibrium, that
occurred to disturb this equilibrium, whereby general disaster was
threatened, but that God came to the rescue and confined within
certain limits the damage done and provided for its eventual
reparation.
This corresponds in a sense to the ordinary Christian doctrine
of the ‘Fall,’ but it differs from it inasmuch as it puts the Fall
before the construction of our World —
nay more, it makes the
Fall to be the cause of this World, not a regrettable incident
occurring after this World had been made. In this the Bardcs-
anian doctrine agrees with Manichaeism^: in fact, the religion of
Mani becomes more comprehensible if the ideas of Bardaisan are
recognized as one of its formative elements.
The World and its inhabitants having been the result of a pre-
mundane accident, not surprising that Bardaisan did not be-
it is
Lord only raises Souls: the effect of Adam’s sin was to prevent
Souls after death from what Bardaisan called ‘crossing over,’
while on the other hand the Life or Salvation brought by our Lord
was that He enabled Souls to cross over into the Kingdom, or as
Bardaisan also called it ‘the Bridal-Chamber of Light.’ The Body,
he said, is incapable of thought, while the Soul is merely ignorant
Reason, where it works by its inherent energy till the whole Soul
becomes rational and therefore divine. This Reason he regards as
a ‘stranger’ in the Soul, i,e. it is a gift from God, not a mere
natural development.
Did Bardaisan know Greek? Or rather, seeing that Bardaisan
lived part of his life at the court ofEdessa and therefore probably
could speak Greek, had he a first-hand knowledge of Greek litera-
ture and philosophy ? It is difficult to say for certain, but it would
seem that he had little or no first-hand knowledge of Greek
writings, and that a good deal of the vaguely Hellenic air of the
‘
Bardaisanian theories opposed by Ephraim, from whom we get
’
1 416 Sel. Era. ^ See Burkitt, Euphemia and the Goth, p. 30.
® For this persecution in general see below, pp. 664 sqq.
XIV, ri] APHRAATES 501
sake that taketh a wife ? This is the meaning: that when a man not
yet hath taken a wife, he loveth and honoureth God his Father,
and the Holy Spirit his Mother, and he hath no other love. But
when a man taketh a wife he forsaketh his Father and his Mother,
those namely that are signified above, and his mind is united with
this world^.’ As we see from this quotation, the Christian com-
munity that Aphraates has in mind is unmarried, and he seems to
know no other. His name for them is Sons and Daughters of the
Covenant^, a word which in later days became one of the many
Syriac terms for monk or kanonikos, but with Aphraates is still the
word for a baptized Christian.
At a later period the theory of the Christian life changed. In
the Syriac-speaking Church, especially from the time that Chris-
tianity became the State religion of the Roman Empire, the mass
of the adherents wished to make the most of both worlds. They
wished to obtain the benefits of baptism all their lives, and had
also their young children baptized in infancy. Thus a Christian
community came into being, of which the greater number were
actually baptized, though only a minority of them were specially
addicted to religion. In this way the Bnai Kyama became a mon-
astic order in the Society, instead of being the Society itself.
: y / / : i; (if -v A
For another view of the Sons of the Covenant, see R. H. Connolly
^ in
Joum. Theol. Stud, xxxvi, 1935, p. 234^
.
most widely famous of Syriac writers. His earlier life was spent
at Nisibisj but after that town was abandoned to the Persians by
Jovian in 363 he migrated to Edessa, and died there in 373. Vast
quantities of extant literature are ascribed to him, and though
much spurious the genuine remainder is very voluminous^.
is
and the Acts. these books read ye in the Church of God and
. . :
among the MSS. which reached the British Museum from the Nitrian
Library in 1842: he edited the fragment in 1858. Syr. S was discovered in
the Convent on Mount Sinai by Mrs Lewis of Cambridge in 1892: the text
was published in 1 894. Justinian’s Convent on Mount Sinai is the same
first
place where the famous ‘Sinai Codex’ (ji{) of the Greek Bible came from,
but the Syriac MS. of the Gospels had been turned into a palimpsest some-
where in the district of Antioch in a.d. 778, and doubtless reached Sinai as
a refugee with other Syriac books containing Georgian writing.
504 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
death his religion had taken root all over the East, and in the suc-
ceeding century it had spread throughout the Roman Empire.
A few years ago our knowledge of Manichaeism was very
scanty. Besides the writings of Augustine in Latin and other
controversial writings in Greek we had an elaborate account of it
in Arabic®. In 1912 and 1921 were published C. W. Mitchell’s
Refutations of Ephraim Ephraim died only a hundred years after
:
Mani-Fund, p. 47), Mani had gone on a voyage to India and preached there.
* I.e. in the Eiljrist: see G. Fiugel, Mam, 1862.
XIV, m] THE DOCUMENTS OF MANI 50S
fortunately they are allfragments, bits of torn books and rolls,
but they are of Manichees, not mere refuta-
at least the writings
tions. Some are in a sort of Persian, more are in a Turkish dialect,
and it should be added that from the same region comes an
account of the Manichaean religion written in Chinese. As recently
as 1931 the yet more surprising discovery of a small Manichaean
Library has been made in Egypt, from near Lycopolis, consisting
of about half-a-dozen volumes in Coptic, containing hymns,
letters, some historical accounts of the tragic deaths of Mani and
his successor Sisinnius, and a lengthy work called the Chapters
or First Principles (Ke^aXata). Unfortunately the volumes are
badly preserved: the papyrus leaves are stuck together, and the
process of restoration, which is necessarily slow, has to precede
decipherment and publication.
All our documents, however, tell very much the same story,
they give very much the same picture of the religion of the
all
Manichees. We
begin, as the Manichees themselves did, by the
Two Principles and the Three Moments. The Two Principles, or
Roots, are the Light and the Dark. The contrast between the
Light and the Dark is the fundamental distinction for Manichee
thought, more fundamental than that between Good and Bad, or
God and Man. The Three Moments are the Past, the Present,
and the Future. Light and Dark are two absolutely different
eternal Existences. In the beginning they were separate, as they
should be. But in the Past the Dark made an incursion on the
Light and some of the Light became mingled with the Dark, as
it is still in the Present, in this world around us; nevertheless a
means of refining this Light from the Dark has been called into
being, and of pi'otecting the whole realm of Light from any
further invasion, so that in the Future Light and Dark will be
happily separated.
Light and Dark are the proper designations of the two Prin-
ciples, but to Mani with the idea of Light was conjoined every-
thing that was orderly, peaceful, intelligent, clear, while with that
of Dark was conjoined everything that was anarchic, turbulent,
material, muddy. The usual Manichaean presentation of the pri-
mordial condition of Light and Dark is that of two contiguous
realms or states, existing side by side from all eternity without
any commixture. Opposite the realm of the Light, in which dwelt
the Father of Greatness, was the realm of the Dark, a region of
suffocating smoke, of destructive fire, of scorching wind, of
poisonous water, in a word, of ‘darkness that might be felt’; for
the Dark to Mani, as to Bardaisan, was not ‘privation mere of
5o6 the church in the EAST [chap.
sky from their skins, and out of their excrement he compacted the
earth, and out of their bones he moulded and piled up the
mountains,’ so that ‘in rain and dew the pure Elements yet re-
maining in them might be squeezed out.’ Thus to Mani our earth
with the visible heavens above us is formed of the dismembered
parts of the evil demons of Darkness. It is held together and
guarded by five Beings, especially evoked for the purpose by the
Light: these are the Splenditenens, who holds the world suspended
like a chandelier; the ‘King of Honour,’ whose rays collect the
fragments of emitted light; the ‘Adamas,’ with shield and spear
driving off any rescue-party of the demons of the Dark; the ‘King
of Glory,’ who rotates the heavenly spheres that surround the
world; and the gigantic ‘Atlas,’ on whose shoulders the whole
mass is supported.
Meanwhile the Archons, though fettered and dismembered,
produced not only plants and animals but also a being made in the
image of the Divine Messenger of the Light that had appeared to
them. This was Adam, truly a microcosm, the image of the world,
of God and matter, of Light and Dark. To him, as he lay inert on
the ground, appeared Jesus the Ziwana —
exactly what this epithet
means is doubtful, but in any case it denotes a heavenly Being
who roused him from his slumber and made him realise his true
nature. ‘Jesus,’ says Mani^, ‘made him stand upright and taste
of the Tree of Life. .when he said “Woe, woe, to the creator of
.
reaped nor winnowed nor ground thee, nor set thee in an oven; it
was another did this, and brought to me: I eat thee innocently.”
And when he has said this for himself, he says to the disciple
‘T have prayed for thee.”’ On the other hand, it was one of the
first duties of the mere Hearers to provide food for the Elect, so
that in a country where there were any Manichees the Elect were
sure not to starve. Women as well as men entered the ranks of the
Elect.
There is a difference between the inner attitude of the Manichee
ascetic and the orthodox Christian monk. The latter, whether
hermit or coenobite, had retired from the world with a conscious-
ness of sin and a sense of personal unworthiness. It is not for no-
thing that ‘mourner’ is one of the Syriac technical terms for a
Christian monk. The Manichee Elect does not appear to have
been a ‘mourner.’ He was indeed fenced about with tabus, but
by virtue of his profession he was already Righteous: he was
called Zaddtka^ ‘the righteous’ (in Arabic Zindtk), by his co-
religionists. And though he was forbidden to prepare his food
himself, yet a sacramental, even physical, benefit accrued to the
Universe through his eating it. This came to pass through the
particles of Light contained in the food passing into his own pure
body, which at his death would be conveyed somehow into the
realms of Light. Exactly how this was effected our documents do
not tell us it may be doubted if Mani himself had a consistent
:
—
Fihrisfi-^ ‘in four great things God, His Light, His Power, His
Wisdom. And God is the King of the Paradise of Light, His Light
is the Sun and Moon, His Power is the Five Angels, viz. the Air,
the Law’s Majesty, to the pure Elect Ones, from trespass, from
sin escaping, we pray Mafidstdr Mrza V
There is a real difference between Christian and Manichee
ethics. It can be expressed in a single sentence: Christianity is
concerned with persons, Manichaeism with things. Christian
sympathy goes out to men and women, who even in a fallen state
are regarded as the image of God, and for whom Christ has died.
The sympathy of the Manichee was directed, not towards men,
but towards the Light imprisoned in men. Men were, to some
extent and at second hand, in the image of God, but they were
only a sort of pirated copy, made by the evil dark Archons to
imitate the Messenger of the Light who had appeared to them.
The third of the four Homilies (published in 1934^) is of
historical interest. It gives an account of the ‘crucifixion’ (i.e. the
martyrdom) of Mani by Vahram I (Varanes, Bahram), grandson
of Shapur, Mani’s patron. It mentions one Innaeus, chief of the
Manichees after Mani’s successor Sisinnius, who pleased
Vahram II and secured for the Manichees some peace from
persecution. There seems to be another part of this work at
Berlin, so that we may hope in future to be able to know some-
thing of the course of Manichee history before Islam overwhelmed
Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism alike.
Meanwhile perhaps the most instructive product of the won-
derful recovery of specimens of Manichaean literature during the
present century are the many examples of Manichee hymns,
which, like Christian hymns, more accurately depict the hopes
and aspirations of those who used them than books of formal in-
struction or controversy. No doubt the Manichaeans’ ethic is
ascetic, ‘a fugitive and cloistered virtue,’ but their hymns prove
that their religion inspired in them genuine emotion, full of
loyalty to Mani and to Jesus. Ainen, to thee, first born Apostle,
‘
Divine Lord Mani our Saviour!’ Or again: ‘Thou art God and
Full Moon, Jesus Lord, Full Moon of waxing gloijl. .Mani, .
—
mism with ultimate optimism perhaps the most favourable
atmosphere for the religious sentiment. It is true that the Mani-
chees thought of our world as the result of an accident, and that
no true improvement is possible till it is altogether abolished. This
world, they thought, is bad to begin with, and it will go from bad
to worse. But they believed that Light is really greater and
stronger than the Dark, that in the end all that was good in their
being would be collected in the domain of Light, a realm alto-
gether swayed by Intelligence, Reason, Mind, good Imagination,
and good Intention. Though at the same time there would
always exist another region, dark, and dominated by unregulated
desire, it would only be peopled by beings for whom such a
region was appropriate, and that they would be separated off for
ever from invading the region of Light and so producing another
Smudge, such as our world essentially is, according to the
Manichaean view.
^ See the account in the Life
of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza, by Mark the
Deacon, trans. by G. F. Hill, pp. 94-101.
:
CHAPTER XV
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WEST
I. THE CHRISTIAN PERSECUTIONS
their refusal to join in the worship of the pagan gods^. Yet there
was something further. Not all professions were permissible for
the Christian. Not only were the trades of immorality or such
activities as were connected with pagan worship forbidden to him,
but also participation in public offices and military service, which
meant that a considerable part of civic activity was denied to the
Christian. In such things their inward indifference to the life of
the State became outwardly perceptible too.
In personal intercourse the Christians’ attitude to this world
and all its might and splendour naturally showed itself in a
thousand ways and soon gave rise throughout the world to funda-
mental mistrust and to illusions, born of hatred, which by degrees
gained ever sharper definition. Not only were some of those tales
of atrocities related of the Jews transferred to the Christians, but
newly invented abominations were added to them. It was known
that the Christian gatherings for worship culminated in a common
meal which was called Aga-pe, i.e. ‘Love-feast,’ and that no un-
initiated person was admitted. And since it was also known that
amongst themselves the Christians called each other brother and
sister, it was easy for prurient imaginations to fabricate stories of
secret nocturnal orgies, which in the loathsome darkness gave
free rein to incestuous lustsand converted the horrible crime of
Oedipus into an act of worship. It was also learned that at this
sacred meal the flesh of the Son of Man was eaten and his blood
drunk. From this arose, as may be readily conceived, the con-
tention that the Christians slaughtered and devoured children.
But even where such tales were not credited, the conviction of the
hostility of Christianity to the State, indeed of its fundamental
hatred of mankind and of coarse superstition opposed to all
its
culture, was firmly rooted. About the year i8o the Platonic
philosopher Celsus gives well-considered and pointed expression
to the repugnance felt by the educated classes of his time to
Christianity.
anti-Christian sentiments were the driving force behind
These
allthe Christian persecutions before the year 250: they exercised
a decisive influence upon the attitude of the authorities and in
consequence upon their estimate of the legal position. In general,
the principle laid down by Trajan in his rescript to Pliny (vol. xi,
p. 255 that the Christians were not to be sought out, held
good for the whole empire. But if valid accusations came before
the authorities, the Christian had then to offer sacrifice or die.
This seems strange, but it shows us clearly that the question of the
^ Tertullian, Jpel. 42. ® Pliny, Ep, x, and 97
96 (97) (98).
XV, i] ANTI-CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT 517
toleration of GKristianity was dealt with, not from a juridical, but
from a political, point of view. The ChristiansVhostile attitude to
the State was regarded as judicially well-established. But this
attitude as such was not punished, and the authorities gave every
Christian who was denounced the opportunity of giving evidence
to the contrary by offering sacrifice before the statue of the em-
peror. Only when he would not obey the order to sacrifice, and
thereby violated the reverence due to the majesty of the Empire
and its tutelary gods, was he condemned to deatL
Since, then, the State did not seek out the Christians, the
Christians remained tolerated, and they made the fullest use of
this situation: their uncommonly successful expansion, whether
we reckon it in time or by its extent, affords clear evidence of this.
Official action was only taken against the Christians when special
provocation so roused popular feeling that it resulted in definable
charges against definite persons: granted that those who made
accusations were sometimes raving mobs who with howls of
execration at last dragged the mishandled victim of their frenzy
before the tribunal. The Christians vainly asked again and again
that their legal position should be made clear, demanding proof of
the atrocities or other crimes attributed to them by the populace.
The authorities, as far as we can see, took no steps in the matter,
and they likewise studiously avoided all discussion of religious
questions. They were not conducting religious prosecutions, but
using their powers to secure tranquillity, and punishing the
provocative disloyalty of those who refused to offer sacrifice.
Whoever offered sacrifice returned home unmolested, and the
officials did not concern themselves with his Christian beliefs
or his previous activities.
We hear repeatedly that special Imperial edicts had prohibited
the profession of Christianity. But we never hear that these edicts
had made it the duty of the officials to stage Christian persecutions.
These edicts then were only repetitions of Trajan’s directions.
And the manner in which they were carried out was left as before
to the political judgment of the provincial authorities. About the
year 21^ the famous jurist Ulpian prepared a collection of such
anti-Christian edicts, not of course with an antiquarian or histori-
cal interest, but in order to clarify criminal procedure by system-
atization of the law^. As may be readily understood, this collect-
ion has perished without leaving a trace. But we have preserved
in Eusebius^ two Imperial edicts which deal with the Christian
question in a manner that departs so widely from the uniform
^ Lactantius, Div. Inst, v, ii, ig. ® Hist. Eccl. iv,
g and 13.
518 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST Ichap,
(Jbh. sacks. GeseU. d. Whs. xxvii, 1909, 23, pp. izb sqq.).
® Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, i, 3-3, 3.
XV, 1] EARLY MARTYRDOMS AND ACTA 519
them^. In it we moving in its
are given a full description, deeply
terrible plainness, of a persecution which overtook the two com-
munities in A.D. 177, What incident actually occasioned it we do
not learn. But suddenly throngs of people rush through the
streets, break into the houses, and drag the Christians together
into the market-place with every kind of maltreatment, until the
governor appears and so restores order to the proceedings. In
these two cities there is a regular hunting-out of the Christians:
they are thrown in crowds into the prisons, interrogated, tortured,
and whoever denies Christ is set free. But the suspicion of the
rabble remains alert, and so even these apostates are re-arrested
and now regain their hold upon the faith and courage shown by
their companions. They now confess steadfastly and suffer the
same fate. Every torment that bloodthirsty imagination can
devise is enacted in the darkness of the prison-cell or amid the
hatred and publicity of the arena. Their mangled limbs are roasted
to cinders on red-hot chairs, the brave slave-girl Blandina meets
her end at the stake, the ninety-year-old bishop Pothinus, brutally
mishandled, dies in prison, and round him rows of unfortunates
gasp out their lives stretched in the stocks. But the communities
of the two Gallic cities do not break down under this persecution.
From the steadfastly endured sufferings of the martyrs they had
won the assurance of heavenly succour and come to know how in
the most fearful pains of death a heavenly radiance enlightens the
eyes that have been granted the vision of the glory of God beyond
the reach of human sight. When earthly torments threaten to
overwhelm the body, then God’s mercy lifts its witnesses above all
such pains and makes them equal to the angels. He who has
come victorious through this conflict is already here on earth
transported into the world to come, bearing witness by his deeds,
words, and looks to the truth of the living Christ.
What the communities of Gaul wrote to their fellow-Christians
in Asia Minor was the universal experience of Christendom
wherever martyrs won the crown of victory. And so every one of
these testimonies in blood became a seed from which there sprang
in a thousand hearts new fruit for Christianity. Thus in the
martyr 1 the old enthusiasm of primitive Christianity revived, and
the reverence which the community already paid to their bravery
and contempt of death from purely human motives was united
with the recognition of the holy Spirit who revealed himself in the
^On the connotation of ‘martyr’ see F. Jackson and K. Lake, The
Beginnings of Christianity, vol. V, note v and H. v. Campenhausen, Die Idee
des Martyriums in der alien Kirche.
520 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
martyrs. Thus too these men and women became authorities em-
powered to give a decisive ruling on important questions of the
community. This became especially evident in the days of the
Decian persecution, and in many places led to conflicts with the
episcopate, which felt its authority impaired by the claims of
the martyrs, A living picture of the enthusiastic temper of the
martyrs is given us by a document from North Africa, which in
its own way is unique, the Passion of Perpetua and her com-
; 525 ;
kiss of peacCj the deacons place the offering in the form of bread
and wine and water upon the altar-table, the bishop lays his hands
upon it, Rtid the Euckarisjtia begins with the following dialogue
Hearts up (az^ct)
Congregation We
have them to the Lord 7rpo<? top Kvpiop),
Bishop: Let us give thanks to the Lord.
Congregation: It is meet and right
Bishop: Wethank Thee, God, through Thy beloved Servant Jesus
Christ whom in the last times Thou hast sent us as Saviour and Re-
deemer and Messenger of Thy counsel, the Logos who comes from
Thee, through whom Thou hast made all things, whom Thou wast
pleased to send from heaven into the womb of the virgin, and in her
body he became flesh and was shown forth as Thy Son, born of the
holy Spirit and the virgin. To fulfil Thy will and to prepare Thee a
holy people, he stretched out his hands, when he suffered, that he might
release from suffering those who have believed on Thee.
And when he delivered himself to a voluntary passion, to loose
death and to break asunder the bands of the devil, and to trample hell
and to enlighten the righteous and to set up the boundary stone and to
manifest the resurrection, he took a loaf, gave thanks, and spake,
‘Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you.’ Likewise also the
cup and said, ‘This is my blood which is poured out for you. As often
as you do this, you make my commemoration.’
Remembering therefore his death and resurrection, we offer to Thee
the loaf and the cup and give thanks to Thee that Thou hast counted
us worthy to stand before Thee and to do Thee priestly service.
And we beseech Thee, that Thou send down Thy holy Spirit upon
this offering of the church. Unite it and grant to all the saints who
partake of it to their fulfilling with holy Spirit, to their strengthening of
faith in truth, that we may praise and glorify Thee through Thy
Servant Jesus Christ, through whom to Thee be glory and honour in
Thy holy church now and ever, Amerf.
This prayer can be regarded as the pattern, and in a certain
sense even as the foundation, of all Eucharistic prayers that have
come down to us; and even in the modern liturgical forms of most
of the Christian confessions its formulas or ideas can be clearly
recognized, even though in varying degrees. The actual Euchar-
istia, i.e. the thanksgiving of tihe person praying, relates to the
Homer, p. 139 sq., p. 245, p. 307 sq.\ Connolly, p. 176; and cf. H. Lietz-
mann, Messe md Herrmmahl, eine Studie %ur Geschichte der Liturgie, pp.
174 sqq. and also pp. 158 sq^,, p. 42 sq., p. 57 sq., p. 80 sq.
1 Justin knows of a similar prayer for the descent of the Logos {Apol.
I, 66, 2). See above, p, 523. 2 Cyprian, Ep. 63, 14.
XV, Ii] THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUCHARIST 5^7
again offered as once upon Golgotha. Here we have quite plainly
before our eyes an idea of primitive religion transferred to a
Christian cult. The solemn rehearsal or the dramatic re-enactment
of some event from the history of the gods releases the same divine
forces and produces the same effects as were once displayed at the
time of the original occurrence. This view underlies many actions
of the mystery religions, and it is found at the most varied levels of
ritual practice down to ordinary healing-magic. It was under the
influence of this idea that the community attempted to reach an
understanding of the miraculous character of the Eucharist.
Ideas derived from primitive religion soon surrounded also
the rite of baptism with ceremonial additions. The water is
cleansed by solemn exorcism from the elemental spirits that
dwell in it^ ; but the candidate too has had driven out of him the evil
spirit which dwells in him in that he is a pagan®. As early as the
beginning of the third century we find the custom by which the
candidate in a solemn formula renounces Satan and all his service
and all his works, and then gives his oath of allegiance {sacra-
mentum) to his new lord Jesus by the recitation of the creed. After
the baptism, which cleanses the pagan from his sins, he is an-
ointed and receives the holy Spirit by the laying on of the
bishop’s hands. In this way he is finally received into the Christian
fellowship and, immediately after his baptism, joins in the
Eucharist®. In Egypt, Rome, and Carthage it was the custom to
deliver to the candidates at their first communion, in addition to
bread and wine, a cup of milk and honey, to give them a foretaste
of the heavenly food of which the blessed partake in the Kingdom
of God^. In this rite, too, borrowing from the ancient mystery
cults springs to the eye. Along with these two great acts of the
liturgical life, we find already at the beginning of the third century
a number of special rites in process of development: thus the
ceremonial of consecration for bishops, priests, and deacons, and
many forms of blessing fruits and flowers®.
1 Hippolytus, Chttrch Order, i Funk; Connolly, p. 183; Cyprian,
and the community can ‘break the fast,’ i.e. join together in the
Eucharistic meaP.
By the side of this original form of the Passover celebration,
there arose as early as the second century another, which em-
phasized opposition to Judaism more strongly: from being a
commemoration of the death it came to be a yearly celebration of
the resurrection, in which as it were the weekly celebrations of the
resurrection on Sundays reached their culmination. This was
marked by the choice of the day. Instead of the night of the full
moon of the Jewish Passover, the night preceding the following
Sunday was chosen, and this Sunday with its celebration of the
Eucharist was made into the Christian festival of rejoicing,
preceded by the night of Christ’s rest in the grave, which was kept
with fasting and prayer. The custom also soon grew up of bap-
tizing the catechumens of the year on this night of Easter Eve. The
reason for this was that those seeking baptism were every year
formed into a group and together instructed in the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity.
In connection with this practice a tradition of instruction was
developed, which took many varying forms in the different dis-
tricts, but increasingly came to adopt the threefold creed, ex-
pounding the individual clauses in greater detail. In consequence,
this confession became the rule of faith and could be treated as a
secured formulation of the content of Christian truth; for in the
minds of the community the interpretation given of its clauses in
^ Epist, Jpost. 15 Schmidt.
XV, xi] PASSOVER AND EASTER 529
the instruction of catechumens was inseparably bound up with its
wording!. In the conflict with gnosticism, this instruction in the
Christian doctrine of the Church, thus linked with the baptismal
confession, was of the greatest service.
The of Easter introduced a period of fifty days, which
festival
was observed as a time of Christian rejoicing, and concluded with
the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost too was originally no other than
the Old Testament day taken over from Judaism (Lev. xxiii,
15— 21), but it was observed in the Church as the festival of the
outpouring of the holy Spirit upon the Apostles (Acts ii). Beyond
these two days, Easter and Pentecost, the Church year was not
developed during the third century. The festival of Epiphany on
January 6, which makes its appearance amongst the gnostic
followers of Basilides in Egypt, remained for the time being un-
known to the Church®.
On the other hand, in the middle of the second century the
custom was already growing up in the individual communities of
celebrating the anniversaries of the deaths of their own outstand-
ing martyrs®. In the third century this custom spread more
widely and became established: the Decian persecution supplied
abundant material for the development of these community
celebrations, and thus arose within the churches the first begin-
nings of calendars of saints. Towards the end of the second century
we can begin to trace also the Christians’ peculiar style of burial,
which, apparently under the influence of Jewish models, developed
uniformly in different places, namely the burial of the dead in so-
called catacombs^. These are underground cemeteries such as
were frequently employed in the East and were not entirely un-
known even in the West. But the Christians clearly extended
them systematically under pressure of their distressed condition
in relation to the State and developed them into immense
constructions which in the persecutions of the third century could
be used as refuges for the persecuted communities or as secret
places for common worship. They always take the form of long
horizontal galleries driven into the earth, sometimes in several
storeys one above the other, and their walls are provided with
rectangular recesses, in which the bodies were laid without
coffins and wrapped only in cloths. A slab fixed with mortar shuts
off the grave from the corridor. Well-to-do families possessed
rectangular burial chambers branching off from these corridors,
and where the catacombs were constructed in particularly firm
soil, or were bored into the rock, we find also larger chambers and
hall-like structures, in which more spacious graves occur, with
semicircular vaulting (Arcosolia), or canopied graves. In these
chambers consecrated to the dead we meet also with the first
certain traces of a peculiar Christian art, and the rich abundance of
the catacomb pictures, found in various districts of the Roman
Empire and extending over more than three centuries, affords
information on the earliest motifs and their manifold developments
in early Christian art. But we must always remember that owing
to this limited nature of the material we know only one phase,
though certainly an essential one, of the development of art, and
that we have also to reckon with the growth of the Christian
artistic impulse in the realm of the living (p. 565). This is brought
vividly before our eyes in the period after Constantine by the
surviving monuments.
expedient at once to choose a successor, and for the time being the
government of the community was left in the hands of the college
of presbyters and deacons. To this period belongs a correspond-
ence with the bishop of Carthage, which gives us the most
valuable insight into the inner history of the Church in the West^.
until the day when Augustine’s life drew to its close in his epi-
scopal city of Hippo Regius, during its siege by the Vandals,
It must be admitted that the writings of this first of the Latin
Fathers tell us little enough about the rise of the African church
and of all that Christianity did and suffered about the year 200 in
the spiritually most alive of the provinces of the West. But in-
stead we become the more accurately acquainted with the move-
ments of thought amidst which Tertullian lived, and with the
theological dangers which he strove to avert from the church. We
see clearly how all the controversial issues which disturbed the
Roman church after the middle of the second century were also
carried over to Africa. But the writings of Tertullian do not leave
1 Cyprian, Ep. 8, 9, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37.
2 Tertullian, Prawrr. 36.
2 On Tertullian, see also below, pp. $()o°sqq.
XV, IV] THE AFRICAN CHURCH; TERTULLI AN 537
the impression that the problems involved in the conflict of
gnosticism, Marcionism, and Monarchianism with the Logos
theology, problems which originated entirely in Greek thought,
seriously disturbed the African church. Tertullian deals with all
these questions in his own vehement fashion, but nowhere makes
mention of any ecclesiastical counter-measures adopted by his
countrymen. For him it is a purely theoretical conflict, which in
his own fashion he brings to a victorious issue; and as its outcome
he puts forth a series of simple formulations which, taken in
conjunction with the baptismal confession xh& regula fidei^
contain the epitome of the faith. This method was evidently
suited to the sentiments and to the comprehension of African
churchmen, and his formulas of the one Substance and three
Persons of the Trinity, and of the two Substances in Christ^, did
in fact anticipate the final issue of the dogmatic controversies of
the fourth and fifth centuries.
The African church was more vitally affected by the Christian
persecutions, and in his apologetic writings Tertullian not only
combated paganism in theoretical debate but appealed with legal
arguments to the conscience of the State officials and with moral
arguments to his readers among the pagan public. He can write
with flaming eloquence in defence of the standards of Christian
life and can describe with wonderful effect the true sense of
Christian fellowship. Because in his own experience the Christian
religion had brought him deliverance from moral inferiority, he
knew how to present this aspect of Christianity in all its force; but,
on the other hand, he was passionately sensitive when he saw this
aspect of it imperilled in the Church itself.
Thus he went over to Montanism at the time when it was
winning adherents in Africa and became a fanatical protagonist of
the new movement. This in the meantime had lost its original
character and become a movement of reaction in favour of the
ideals of the Primitive Church, combining a tradition of harsh
austerity with the cultivation and recognition of spiritual pro-
phetism in opposition to the new-formed officialdom of the Church.
This brought him into sharp opposition to the native church of
Africa, with its hierarchical organization, and to many customs of
the community, which seemed to him illegitimate concessions to
the world.
But in a vigorous pamphlet he also attacked the Roman bishop
Callistus, on the ground that Callistus wished to allow the restora-
tion of repentant sinners to the Church, even in cases of transgres-
^ Tertullian, adhrPrax. o,, 6, ii.
538 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
cases was conducted in bitter earnest, and to those who had offered
sacrifice for any reason short of the direst compulsion restoration
was still denied. When, however, in the spring of a.d. 253 a
new persecution threatened, a judicious leniency was exercised,
and those who hitherto had still been excluded were received
again into the Church in order that the new conflict might be met
by a united Christendom. But the conflict did not come.
Meanwhile, in Rome too the problem of the treatment of the
lapsed had given rise to a serious difference of opinion. During
the vacancy of the see, the highly esteemed presbyter Novatian,
who had also won recognition as a theological writer, had been the
spiritual leader of the church^ ; when, however, the episcopal see
came to be filled, he was not elected, but instead the presbyter
Cornelius (March 251). The election did not meet with unani-
mous approval, and a section of the clergy under the leadership of
Novatian refused to recognize Cornelius: and these opponents
had a considerable section of the community behind them.
Cornelius showed a far-reaching leniency towards the lapsed.
1 Cyprian, Epp. 30 and 36; cf. 55, 5. Novatian was the author of an
one of the late Antonine age, the other of the period between
1 Volume of Plates V, i68,i?. ^ li. 168, i,
® Ib. 168, c,d.
546 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
there are, besides landscapes and paintings with small figure sub-
jects, some almost monumental figures, each over three feet high,
of eleven apostles or prophets. During Caracalla’s reign there was
probably a break in purely illusionistic art in painting as well as in
sculpture. Perhaps we possess a mere fragment of this inter-
mediate phase in a small piece of fresco in the Baths of Caracalla
which preserves a delicately and cleanly modelled head.
In architecture, as in the other arts, the first decades of the third
century show a belated flowering after the wealth of the Hadrianic
and Antonine periods. The impoverishment of the provinces and
the consequences of social upheavals only began to take effect
1 S.H.A. Carac. 5. 2 Volume of Plates v, 178.
® Ib. 180, a, b.
XVI, i] SARCOPHAGI AND ARCHITECTURE 551
gradually and in varying degrees in the several provinces. In
Greece proper no building of importance appears to have been
erected. The workshops of Athens were kept going by the manu-
facture of copies of statues and of sarcophagi for export. The
flourishing life of Asia Minor was hit more violently by the ravages
of the wars and their consequences. But in Ephesus in the reign
of Severus there was still the wealthy sophist, Flavius Damianus,
who could afford to build a large hall and to erect the new Palaestra
of the Eastern Gymnasium and fill it with costly sculptures.
Moreover, the Baths by the harbour carried on the Ephesian style
of the gymnasium. After this period, however, building activity
in Asia Minor almost ceased until the end of the century.
It is intelligible that in the provinces of Syria and Africa, which
had suffered little from the wars, the zeal for building should
continue from the second century. In Syria this period witnessed
the new buildings of the temple of Juppiter Damascenus and the
completion of the Propylaea at Heliopolis (Baalbek)^. This
kind of activity was still greater in Africa, the province that was
most closely bound to the dynasty. There is only need to mention
the Capitolium (a.d. 208)^ and the Arch of Severus at Lambaesis,
the temple of Minerva at Tebessa, and the triumphal arches set
up for Caracalla, one at Tebessa in 214, the other at Djemila.
But as in Ephesus, so in Syria and Africa, there is an absence of
all architectural novelty. Old plans are completed; new buildings
classical art, but for the fact that this tendency was thrust aside
’
teristic featuresof the face. It was the current that had set in with
the portrait of Decius, but had been stayed awhile by the classical
reaction.
In the paintings of the Catacombs we may perhaps perceive
about the middle of the century an increased use of the illusionistic
manner in the production of figures and a loosening in decorative
matter. Then comes a tendency to a firmer drawing of figure-
subjects. But the style of the age of Gallienus is not as yet really
to be grasped. Popular paintings of campaigns and hunting-scenes
continued to be turned out, as we learn from a few chance re-
ferences. After his German victories Maximinus not only sent a
written report to the Senate and People, but had pictures painted
‘ut erat bellum ipsum gestum,’ and had them set up in front of
the Curia ‘ut facta eius pictura loqueretur^.’ Gordian organized
3 silva, a hunt for which the whole Circus was transformed into
.
CHAPTER XVII
THE LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST
FROM THE ANTONINES TO
CONSTANTINE
1. INTRODUCTION
N the age of the Antonin es Latin literature enters a new period
I of its career. one, but only one, of the literatures of
It is
Rome. The other Greek. From the time of the Punic Wars
is
delight that Pompey deserved his title of ‘The Great’ not so much
for his own achievements as for the speech on the Manilian Law.
The orations of Cicero have the true clarion-call and nothing is
more perfect than his letters®.
1 ad. M. Ant. de eloq. iv (p. 153 N; ii, p. 80 Loeb).
2
de orat. i, 43, 193; cf. on archaic art, /A iii, 25, 98.
® de orat. in, 6, 24. ^ Ep. 16-18.
ii, ® Epist. Mor. 114, 13 rf
2, 1
* ad M. Caes. ii, i (p. 25 1 10 Loeb); ad Ferum Imp. ii, I
N; i, p.
(p. 124 N; n, p. 138 Loeb) (E. Hauler, Wien. Stud, xxv, 19035 P- ^63).
’ GelHus, N.A. ii, 26.
8 ad M. Ant. de eloq. in (p. 149 N; li, p. 74 Loeb); ad Ant. Imp. il, 5
576 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
chronological order the excerpts from the Latin authors; the value
of his contribution to our knowledge of Latin literature would be
set in striking relief. The quotations from Ennius alone make
Gellius the rival of Cicero in preserving nearly all our significant
fragments of the father of Latin poetry, and were it not for Gellius^,
our knowledge of the Romans’ love-poetry before Catullus would
be well-nigh a blank. He rivals Cicero again in his citations of
the laws of the Twelve Tables. He quotes plentifully from Cato
and gives us valuable information about the works of Varro. He
sketches the contemporaneous developments of Greek and Roman
civilization through the Punic Wars, and he discourses on the
meaning of humanitas in a passage® with which all who write to-day
on ancient humanism must reckon. Some of the anecdotes make
the past suddenly alive with human interest®.
Despite the breadth of Gellius’ reading, we find on examining
his quotations, that his interests in Latin literature were virtually
those of Fronto. Of the writers of the Silver Age there appears
^ N.A. XIX, 9; II, 24, 8. ® N.A. XVII, 21; xiii, 17 (16).
® E.g. N.J. I, 23; XX, I, 13.
XVII, n] AULUS GELLIUS 579
the same neglect. He finds Valerius Maximus, Pliny the Eider
and Suetonius useful for anecdotes and marvels. He pays tribute
to the greatest scholar of the Empire, Valerius Probus. As a
Virgilian he cites Annaeus Cornutus, and as a more ardent
student of philosophy than Pronto, he speaks highly of Musonius
Rufus and Epictetus. He weighs the pros and cons for Seneca
with a certain tolerance, but concludes that he is a bad model for
the young^. There is no word on Lucan or Persius, Juvenal or
Tacitus: Gellius no less than Pronto champions a revival of
Republican Rome in letters.
The prose of Gellius shows a quiet absence of style, as befits
so learned a man. Like Pronto he is interested in ancient ex-
pressions and he consequently has certain seasonings of archaic
phrases and constructions in his informal diction, but, like Pronto,
he inveighs against those who either make a cult of antique usage
or condescend to vulgarisms®. The African quality in the style of
either Pronto or Gellius is no longer the subject of ardent debate.
Doubtless the early Republican Latinity introduced into Africa
in 146 B.c. had developed certain local peculiarities in its sub-
sequent history, but its literary centres were not shut off from
Augustan and post-Augustan influences. The quest of Africitas’ ‘
I
— —
584 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
tareque tibi sit.’ A new world has entered with the simple change
of ‘bonum’ to ‘salutare.’
The interests of the circle of Fronto found expression in poetry
as well as prose. The poets of the day, so far as the scanty frag-
ments of their works permit a judgment, cultivated a simple vivid
style and the shorter forms of verse, in which some novelties
appear.As harbingers of the new movement we may regard the
Emperor Hadrian and his friend Florus, who exchanged trifles
of an Anacreontic nature that of a sudden could set forth true
pathos, as in the Emperor’s address to his dying soul
—
pallidula, ‘
rigida, nudula.’
One is pleasantly pictured by Aulus
of the Antonine poets
Gellius Annianus. This gentleman possessed an estate in the
Faliscan territory in Etruria, where Gellius dined with him. The
poet could talk learnedly of the effect of the waning moon on
oysters, quoting Lucilius; he could cite Plautus and Terence on
the proper accentuation of certain words, and he admired Virgil
here are traits that bespeak the age of Fronto^. He also wrote
Fescennine verse presumably of a salacious sort. It is cited by
Ausonius in his apology for his own indecent Cento Nuptialis.
Annianus also composed, apparently with his estate in mind, what
he called a carmen Faliscum^, modelled on the work of Septimius
Serenus, the inventor of this form®. Since Serenus was a recent
writer for Terentianus Maurus, all three poets were contem-
poraries, or very nearly so, with Terentianus the last in the series.
Terentianus Maurus performed what at first would seem a
highly unpoetical task in writing a metrical treatise on metre
{de Litteris, Syllabis,M.etris\'vt\.th each metre described in specimens
of itself. But the poet, a master of his subject, is amazingly skilful
in turning technicalities into neat verse. He must have smiled
frequently at his success. He pursues the theory that the dactylic
hexameter and the iambic trimeter contain the other forms of
verse in embryo, and he deftly assists at their delivery. His chief
sources are Virgil, Horace, and Catullus, but he uses the primi-
tives too, such as Livius Andronicus^, and though generally
eschewing the authors of the Silver Age, does not disdain examples
from Pomponius Secundus, the tragedian of the time of Tiberius,
farther afield than FrontOj but the scope of his reading in poetry
is virtually the samCj and he seems to be speaking with Frontons
voice in bis encomiums of the ‘striking '
novitas inopina^.—
: The Septimius Serenus that Annianus' renamed'
'
verse o
^'
of Cons. Phil. Ill, m, i is called faliscum (ed, Peiper, 1871, p, xxyii). Some
good and ancient source was apparently followed by Lupus in this work, 1
586 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
This poet, a modern with eyes on the past, seems to have anticipated
Macaulay’s plan of celebrating the heroes of his country ^here —
—
Camillus ^not in an epic but in lays of ancient Rome®.
We may turn from these tantalizing fragments to a poem
complete, or nearly so, and one of the most remarkable in the
whole range of Latin verse, the Pervigilium Veneris. Not all
would agree that it is a product of the Antonine Age, where
Waiter Pater and others have put it; in fact there has been some-
thing of a drift since Pater’s time towards the assumption of a
later date —
^but none of the later dates proposed has been definitely
established. It may be said, with due caution, that nothing in the
atmosphere, style or grammar of the poem jars with the age of
Pronto and Apuleius or with the poetry just discussed.
But waiving all questions of date and authorship, we may centre
our attention on the poem itself. It is included in an anthology
of occasional verse contained in the famous Codex Salmasianus,
which was put together at Carthage, about a.d. 532. That is not
proof that the poem was written in Africa. In the Salmasianus
the poem bears at the beginning the phrase ‘sunt vero versus
xxn,’ which means not that the poem had twenty-two verses (it
has ninety-three) or twenty-two strophes, but that there were
^ Ep, 53, 8, 17. ^ Terentianus Maurus, op. cit. 1. 2448,
® Gramm. Lat. ii, 426 K. ^ Livy v, 27.
® The poem on the Lupercalia by Marianus ("Baehrens, Poefae Lat. Min.
VI, 384) may be of the same sort.
XVII, n] THE PERFIGILIUM VENERIS 587
twenty-two poems in the division of the anthology that it heads.
The presence of the frequent refrain:
eras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit eras amet
Loveless hearts shall love to-morrow, hearts that have loved shall love again?-
The poem with its supple verse, gorgeous colouring and mystic
over-tones is fittingly called by Dr Mackail ‘one of the finest
flowers of Latin poetry.’ It accords with Hadrian’s interest in the
cult of Venus; it is what a poet, growing old and sad, might well
have written when Hadrian was about to pass off the scene, or a
few years later. It is not liturgy, though there is perhaps a sug-
gestion of liturgy mingled with reflection and seasoned with
memories of Virgil, of Lucretius and possibly of Catullus. Its
style in poetry suggests what Apuleius achieved in the prose of
romance.
The Age of the Antonines, so far as Latin literature is concerned,
means the reign of Antoninus Pius and the earlier part of that of
Marcus Aurelius. They both were men of culture and patrons of
learning, but Fronto’s pupil, ‘the only Emperor who had mastered
the schemata^ renounced the pomps and vanities of rhetoric and
applied himself with equal zeal to the business of State and the
perfection of a Stoic character (see vol. xr, chap. ix). He ren-
dered unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto the
Infinite the things that are the Infinite’s, preparing his soul as
conscientiously for its extinction as a Christian prepares his for
its immortality. Had he lived a century or two later, he doubt-
less would have ended his days in a monastery; his spiritual
experience was, unknown to himself, typical of the great revolution
then slowly and surely at work in all society. The colleague and
adoptive brother of Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, had a good
education and Fronto had made him, too, an orator, but his
insignificant career ended in a.d. 169. Under Commodus there
was little hope for the Muses. The descent from the philosopher-
king to the king-gladiator, his son, one of the ‘little chicks’ of
whom Fronto was fond, is one of the painful ironies of history.
of sentimentality had none the less an inner eye for visions, and
why he could chide the Church for obtuseness when the Spirit
would guide it into new truth.
Considered as literary products, the works of Tertullian suggest
Cicero and Seneca as their chief models for both subject and form.
De Patientia^ like De dementia or De Amkitia, is a philosophical
essay, though the writer is a priest instructing catechumens, not
a man of letters conducting a conversazione. The apologetic works
are arguments for the defence, like those in Cicero’s orations.
Ad Nationes, written to the pagans at large, refutes their slanders
and attacks their superstitions. The Apologeticum, written in the
latter part of the year 197 to provincial magistrates who tried
cases against Christians, is addressed to an imaginary court. The
charge that Tertullian refutes is that the Christians are disloyal
to the State and to the Emperor, its head. The answer is that they
best render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s by invoking in
his behalf the blessing of the one true God. The praise of the
Emperor at the expense of the gods in this great and simple
passage^ is suggestive of the tone in which Richelieu addressed
his monarch. With the same learning and the same mastery of the
law that Apuleius had shown in his own apologia speaks out with
an intensity prompted by the graver danger and the nobler cause.
At the same time he has by no means renounced Rhetoric with
other pomps of the world. He is as honest as she allows him to be.
The Christian and the Sophist engage his spirit in a new suasoria
and the Sophist too often wins the day.
The Apologeticum is of all Tertullian’s works the most carefully
composed and the best mirror of his mind, with its weaknesses
and its strength. Despite his legal and rhetorical quibblings there
is enough sound sense in the work to convert an intelligent pagan
to the reality of Christian life, although the attack here and else-
where on the pagan culture in which Tertullian had been reared
is bitter and persistent. It was not the moment for a Christian
Greek and of the law and of the rhetorical tradition should not be
forgotten. Despite his archaisms his oratorical model is not the
simple Cato. His longer sentences are almost strophes with
parallelisms, assonances, rhymes and metrical clausulae®. We
must reckon also with his fondness for Seneca, and a trace of the
gorgeously romantic colouring of Apuleius may perhaps be de-
tected here and there, particularly in the Ds Pallio"^. He has been
^ de Sped. 18. ^ de Idol. 10.
® Apol. ly, de Test. Anim., passim. * de Anima 20.
® See particularly, H. Hoppe, De Sermone Tertullianeo,
pp. 46—72.
® For examples see the beginning of the de Pudicitia and de Patientia\
E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, pp. 610 sqq.i Hoppe, Syntax und Stil des
Tertullian, pp. 8— ii, 154—60.
’ Hoppe, op. cit. p. 23; Norden, op. cit. p. 614.
XVII, m] THE STYLE OF TERTULLIAN 593
called in a clever epigram
barbarizing Tacitus^,’ but the phrase,
‘a
like some epigrams, is faulty in both its parts. Tertullian was not
a barbarian, and he certainly did not model his style on that of
Tacitus, whom he called, in an epigram of his own, no tacit person
but a mendacious chatter-box^. He started, like Tacitus, with the
rhetoric of the schools, breaking through it, as Tacitus did in a
different way, by the force of his native genius. At its best, his
style is straightforward, strong and simple, the product of honest
conviction and Christian humility. The Paraclete gave him at the
right moment what he should say. He coins new words. His is
a living and a growing language®. It contains in the germ those
two antithetic styles, the ornate and the plain, which are displayed
in the history of Christian Latin literature, sometimes in the work
of the same writer, for instance Fortunatus, down into and through
the Middle Ages.
Judged solely as a man of letters, Tertullian, like Jerome,
deserves a high rank among the writers of satire. If he is not a
barbarizing Tacitus he may well be entitled a Christian Juvenal.
Like Juvenal, he did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. His
invective is no less tart, as when he describes the theatre as the
Devil’s church, or the Bishop of Rome as pastor moechorum, or
—
when he scolds the belles of Carthage ^who, doubtless, loved to
hear him scold —
for dosing their hair with saffron like victims led
to the altar, or when he ridicules the first families of Carthage for
objecting to his use of the simple pallium —
^the national garb
are the thrusts of sarcasm and wit that enliven many a page in
Tertullian.
If, further, we take
in the larger and ancient sense of the
‘
satire ’
1 Dessau 2933. ® Octav. 9, 6; 31, 2. ® Sat. ir, i, 86; de orat. i, 62, 265.
38-1
596 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
With the art that conceals art, Minucius has covered in this
dialogue the range of ancient history and Greek philosophy. He
knows his authors, especially the Romans, intimately, though he
mentions or cites but few. In the phrase: ‘sed quatenus indul-
gentes insano atque inepto labori ultra humilitatis nostrae ter-
minos evagamur et in terram proiecti caelum ipsum et ipsa
sidera audaci cupiditate transcendimus’ (5, 6), a familiar echo of
Virgil and two echoes of Horace catch the ear^. If the reader
will turn to the edition of the learned Boenig, he will note re-
miniscences, or possible reminiscences, of virtually all the chief
authors of Rome from Ennius to Tacitus and Juvenal. ‘Quid
gentilium litterarum dimisit intactum?’ remarks Jerome. As in
Tertullian, Fronto’s literary prescriptions have no more weight.
Seneca, unnamed, is present. The epigram ‘Nobody can be as
poor as when he was born’ comes from him^ and the chapter in
which it occurs and that following are shot through with phrases
of Seneca wisely conjoined with those of St Paul. The cultivated
pagan reader who knew his Seneca might well be tempted to
search the Christian scriptures.
Above all, the master of Minucius Felix is Cicero. The plan of
the work is modelled on the De Natura Deorum; hardly a page
fails to contain some glance at the arguments and the spirit of
Cicero’s works. The omission of Cicero’s name, like that of
Seneca’s, is not an attempt to conceal the writer’s borrowings, but
an invitation to compare. With balanced periods and metrical
clausulae his is a Ciceronian style, with some flavour of Seneca
and Tertullian^. If Tertullian is the founder of Christian Latinity,
Minucius is the first in the line of Christian Ciceros.
Pleased by the style of the Octavius^ a pagan reader would also
admire its dramatic character. The surrender of Caecilius is no
foregone conclusion. He is allowed to argue with learned acumen
and with an almost blasphemous satire at the expense of the
Christian’s transcendent <^d^. Indeed, Minucius goes so far in
his tolerance towards the adversary that he has been accused
himself either of an ignorance of Christian dogma or of the delicate
scepticism of a Renan. But Minucius is not telling his readers the
whole story. He is tempting them to enquire further. As St Paul
cites ‘certain of your own poets,’ so Minucius® summons Virgil
and the host of Greek philosophers to testify to the indwelling
presence of the one God. That there is no mention of the name of
be sure that the elder Maximinus wore his wife’s bracelet for a
ring, smashed horses’ teeth with his fist or their legs with his heel,
and consumed a keg of wine and sixty pounds of meat a day, yet
from these stories we may perhaps with some confidence infer
that this giant barbarian set people’s tongues wagging.
In this third century Marius Maximus and Aelius Junius
Cordus may not have stood alone; indeed if all the names cited
in the Historia Augusta are those of genuine writers they lived in
what was veritably an aetas Suetoniana. Gargilius Martialis is
credited with biographies of Severus Alexander and other em-
perors'^. Cassiodorus included in his select monastic library his
work on gardens and the medicinal properties of plants, which is
also mentioned by Servius. It is possible that this writer is to be
identified with the man whose military career is attested by a fine
inscription of a.d. 260®,
^ D. Magie, The Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Loeb), i, p. xxi; Schanz-
yourself are not ruined you will ruin others.' After the exordium
of Tertullian, a woman would feel indignant or amused, or both;
after Cyprian’s she would reverently obey the call of noblesse oblige,
Cyprian has translated his master not only into an urbane Cicero-
nian diction, but into a wise urbanity of soul. Here speaks a great
Christian teacher and father of his flock. Tertullian’s disordered
outbursts give place in Cyprian to a reasoned and effective art.
The Church did well in canonizing Cyprian, quite apart from
his heroic death. He, like Tertullian, held open the Christian
mind for revelations from the Paraclete, but the vision must come
from within the united Church. Cyprian’s greatness was recog-
nized at once by the deacon Pontius, the author of his biography,
and many others pay in their turn a homage that some writers
to-day seem reluctant to apply. Lactantius emphasizes his
eloquence, the happy gift for explanation and his powers of
persuasion^. Jerome recommends the reading of Cyprian along
with the Bible^, and finds it unnecessary to speak of his works,
‘cum sole clariora sint®.’ Prudentius finds the spirit of the prophets
alive in him again and asserts that his fame shall endure as long
as men and books survive. With a fine perception of the literary
art of Cyprian, he weaves for his ‘martyr’s crown’ not, as were
also fitting, a simple ballad, but a stately Horatian odeL
Novatian, the schismatic, a man of cultivation and the most
celebrated of the Roman clergy of his day, wrote two letters to
Cyprian®, and also a discourse on the Trinity which has been
preserved among the writings of Tertullian, In his work De cibis
ludakis, which shows the symbolic character of the animals whose
flesh the Jews refused to eat, Novatian paved the way for the
wholesale allegorization of animals that prevailed in the Middle
^ Div. Inst. Yy I, 25. ® Ep. 107, 12.
® de Fir. III. 67. * Peristeph. 13. ® Cyprian, Ep. 30; 36.
—
XVII, IV] NOVATIAN 603
Ages. He was the first Christian author who wrote exclusively
in Latin.
CoMMODiAN, whose date seems now to have been definitely
placed in the third century, though perhaps later than he is here
treated^, is the first to be recorded in the history of Christian
poetry, although his poetry seems curiously and wonderfully
made. The titles of his two v^oxks, Instructiones and Carmen
Apologeticum, bespeak that secondary inspiration of the Muse
which consists of the metaphrase of subjects long popular in prose.
'Th.e Instrucliones consists of eighty short sections divided into two
books. Acrostics indicate the subjects of the several sections, the
Lst of which bears the mysterious title Nomen Gasei, which might
mean, ‘The name of the inhabitant of Gaza.’ The acrostic,
beginning at the last line and reading backwards, reveals the poet
as CoMMoDiANus Mendigus Christi. The other poem, not
known till its discovery by Cardinal Pitra in 1852, bears no
ascription, but its style marks it as the product of the same author.
The words in its subscription Tractatus Sancti Episcopi may —
indicate that the Beggar of Christ was also a Bishop.
Both poems are composed in what seems like rude hexameters
of thirteen to seventeen syllables which may always be divided
into six feet, but which ride rough-shod over quantity up to the
last two feet. Since some sixty fairly decent hexameters are found
in the course of the two poems,® Commodian might possibly have
employed throughout a more or less regular hexameter had he so
chosen. Though he censures the study of the pagan authors, he
himself had read some of them; Terence, Lucretius, Virgil,
Horace, and perhaps also Sallust, Cicero, Tibullus and Ovid, may
be traced in his verse. In the very passage that expresses his
condemnation of the pagans, he finds a phrase of Virgil useful®.
His grammatical forms and syntax, however, are barbarous
enough. On the whole it would appear that Commodian is not
a person of cultivation who condescended to an ultra-humble style,
but one who, after a certain schooling, adopted a ’diction that
seemed natural to him. The same sort of limping hexameter is
found in African inscriptions of the period’*.
Moreover, as has recently been pointed out®, it is better not to
1 1 1 2 : ianua leti.
^ II, 32: non longe ah hiatihus mortis et faucihus. Cf. Lucretius V,
that clears the ancient fables away. The second, de Origine Erroris,
deals with that primitive idolatry which nevertheless showed
flashes of the vision of the one, true God. The third, De Falsa
Sapientia^ would be called to-day ‘An Introduction to Philosophy’
— ^written from a Catholic point of view. Master Cicero and the
New Academy are much in evidence, yet Lucretius, whom he
doubtless learned to admire from Arnobius, is treated, despite his
patent falsities, with understanding and even courtesy. The fourth
book, De Vera Sapientia et Religiom^ presents in an informal
fashion the doctrines of the Christian faith. The fifth, De lustitia^
deals with personal ethics, and the principles of social justice.
The sixth, De Fero CultUy is not an exposition of liturgy (as one
might hope) but a plea for the sincerity of worship. The seventh,
De Vita Beata, is a new interpretation of Cicero’s arguments on
immortality in the Tusculans, set forth in Christian terms.
Despite slight imperfections in its theology, this ‘Training of
the Christian’ at once became a standard work and a monument
of the reign of Constantine. Jerome, Augustine, Cassiodorus and
Isidore acclaimed it. A steady stream of manuscript copies flowed
down through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance; it was
among the first books printed in Italy.
CHAPTER XVIIl
LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE
HALF OF THE EMPIRE
I. THE GREEK NOVEL AND RHETORIC
required that all the poesy of which the age was capable should
appear in prose in order to make it musical and florid.
With the Greek orators of this generation the art of speaking
and writing concerned itself less and less with the mind, and
speakers set themselves up more and more as ‘melodists' and
rivals of lyric poets. Even their delivery consisted of a rhythmical
declamation of a very artificial kind. They followed a prosody
which the living language of their day no longer obeyed, and by a
form of virtuosity exploited the tone and modulations of their
speech, in this way securing their effects on audiences by means
which were largely musical. At a time when so much pleasure
was taken in listening to various wind and string instruments, the
lecturer was delighted if his singing and rhythmical eloquence
was accompanied by the rapturous sounds of the flute. He was
carried away by the music of his own voice, and cared little if his
phrases were fine-sounding that they were almost devoid of
meaning. An adequate idea of these speakers can be formed by
perusing the Lives oj the Sophists as told by their fellow-member
and admirer Philos tratus, an orator who was a native of Lemnos.
One seldom finds an idea of any note or a flash of wit.
Philostratus would have small claim to the space here given
to him were it not for the fact that, in speaking of him, one cannot
help touching on two people of an attractiveness widely different
—
from his the beautiful and spirited Julia Domna, the intelligent
and self-willed Empress to whom the orator owed the subject of
at least one of his chief works, and, with her, the Emperor
Septimius Severus himself.
The grandson of an orator resident at Rome in the reign of
Domitian, but born into a family which continued to speak
Punic, the young Septimius Severus at the age of eighteen was
capable of expressing himself in Greek with sufficient fluency to
take part, in spite of his rustic accenP, in public declamations at
his native town of Leptis Magna. Having completed at Athens his
equipment of literature and philosophy, Septimius arrived at
Rome to make himself an orator and advocatus fisci before be-
coming a member of the Senate and commanding the legions of
Pannonia who ultimately raised him to the rank of emperor. As
part of the extraordinary industry of this hard-working man must
be mentioned here the memoirs which he, like Marcus Aurelius,
wrote in Greek, and the fragments of his letters addressed to the
Senate, without any literary grace or charm, but concise, clear and
^ His pronunciation of Latin is said to have remained faulty, see above,
p. 24-
XVIII, I] THE CIRCLE OF JULIA DOMNA 613
to the point. It is not surprising that one so well educated de-
lighted to surround himself with men of letters and preferably with
Greeks, while his wife, Julia Domna, the daughter of the High
Priest of the Sun at Emesa, held a real literary salon upon the
Palatine^. Besides her sister, Julia Maesa, and her two nieces,
Soaemias and the half-Christian Mamaea, many famous writers
—
and scholars were to be met at her house the poet Oppian, who
has already been mentioned; Aelian, the honey-tongued story-
teller, engaged in collecting the anecdotes of his Varia Historian
Gordian, who was a poet before he was an emperor; the learned
doctor Sammonicus Serenus, who owned a magnificent collection
of books ; sometimes Galen when his great age permitted him to
be present; and many other intimates of the Palatine who figure
in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus.
But Julia Domna, the impassioned Syrian, tem^raire jusqu’a
‘
^ R. M.
Rattenbury, Les Ethiopiques AHiliodore, i, p. xxi, also observes
that in theJethiopka the religion seems less artificial than elsewhere.
Compare the preface by the translator, J. Maillon, p. Ixxxvi, who calls
attention to the same admiration for the gymnosophists and the same distinction
'
is one of the most attractive works that have come down from
antiquity. Translated by Amyot, admired by Goethe, and imi-
tated by Bernardin de S. Pierre, the author of Paul et Virginie,
this delightful source of inspiration may still be traced in our
own day. After ‘le petit berger avec sa flute et ses chhvres’ of a
great painter, Corot, it has found expression in ‘ la symphonie
chor%raphique of an equally great musician. Ravel.
’
decorate his tale, it may be said that Longus had before him the
Idylls of Theocritus, so strong is the bucolic tradition in his
scenery. Here we end by being faced with what
again, therefore,
has been called by one scholar the ‘ Hellenistic
sea,’ the common
source in whose vast waters were absorbed and mingled for a
time the most varied currents and elements of the literatures
of the world.
It has been already observed (vol. xi, p. 707) that ‘the only
literary form of the time which would show much power of
development was the romance, which appeals largely through its
opportunities of self-identification with hero or heroine.’ Our
picture would be seriously incomplete if we were to leave this
field of romantic literature without noticing its productions out-
side scholarly circles. Everywhere in this age, even among the
least educated sections of the population, tales were invented and
wonders sought out. Among the Christians, too, edification was
sought in the recital of adventures: travels of the Evangelists in
the remotest countries, acts of the apostles (Andrew, John or
Thomas) and even of the earliest evangelists, the life of Joseph the
carpenter, stories of the childhood of Jesus, or Conversions or
Confessions such as those of Cyprian of Antioch. The work of
which Rufinus has left us a Latin translation with the title S.
dementis Recognitiones is one of the best examples of this
type of composition. The title alone is almost enough to
show the affinity of this edifying narrative with the romantic
literature of the age.
In the third century delight in romantic fiction left its mark
XVIII, i] DJPHNIS JND CHLOE-. MYrcnODWS 617
even on works of the most profound theological speculation. Men
still continued to enjoy reading Plato, and this preserved a taste
and their principle, or rather the very law of their being, and it is
true to say that existence and thought are the same thing.
By synthesizing the ‘rational-creative Logoi' of the Stoics with
the Platonic Idea, and introducing them to the intelligible world
whence these ‘‘Logoi' shape sensible beings and reflect themselves
in them, Plotinus reached his famous doctrine of the creative
activity of contemplation. It is by contemplating the one that
the soul gives unity —
^and therefore being —to each of its pro-
ductions^.
To say that the one is the principle of being is for him the
same as saying that the only true reality is contemplation. Not
only is intelligence contemplation of its object, but nature also is
contemplation, silent, unspeaking, unconscious contemplation of
the intelligible pattern which it strives to imitate; an animal, a
plant, any object has its form^ in the Aristotelian sense, only in so
1 Enneads, iv, 9, 3; yiadfin.^ etc. ® Ik m, 8, etc.
XVIII, Ii] PLOTINUS’ NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 625
far asit contemplates the ideal pattern which is reflected in it. To
:C.A.HiXII
6z6 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
(the trinity of the soul, the spirit (vows) and the One) —
a specially
gifted man may experience, in a rapture, intuition of the Absolute.
This Absolute, the father of beings, inconceivable except as pure
goodness, cannot but bestow existence on all things, and while it
keeps itself intact, unchanging, and indivisible throughout its
constant production, on everything which emanates from it, it
leaves its mark with a more or less vague or conscious desire to
return to it. Here if a man wishes to understand he needs the help
of comparisons and parallels.
Conceive a spring having no alien source; giving itself to all rivers, yet not
exhausted therein, but itself abiding at rest; and the rivers that have gone out
from it journeying a while together in one flood before they run their
several courses, yet each as it were already conscious in what place its own
waters shall find issue. Or conceive the life of a great plant pervading every
part, whilst the source of that life itself endures undispersed, having its seat,
as it were, in the root^.
bility of this union lies in the activity of pure thought, and, far
beyond the human spirit, in the mysterious accord of the individual
with the first Being, an accord beyond all reason. Only an
imperfect idea of Plotinus can be gained without reading in their
context some of the flashes of his ‘quivering and vibrating’ style,
whereby is expressed the wealth of contradictory ideas and
difficulties which come before him as soon as he tries to speak of
this being in rapture with God in which consciousness of person-
ality fades away®.
^ Emeads, in, 8, lo, trans. Dodds, op. cit. p. 54.
® Here may be quoted only one example, ^osen because in it has been
happily noticed the presence of an admost romantic lyricism which is ordi-
XVIII, u] PLOTINUS’ CONTEMPLATION 627
The teaching and vocation of this philosophy were renunciation
of this world and detachment from all activity in it for the sake of
a better. At the same time, this renunciation of the world did not
at all imply condemnation of it, nor a horror or deep dislike or
denial. In the eyes of Plotinus the world is beautiful, as should be
the work and reflection of the divinity which is immanent in it.
A last ray of the Greek spirit in its decline thus shines where the
philosopher glorifies the splendour of the cosmos. On this theme
he sometimes raises his voice in a way that can be explained only
by the antipathy which his eyes observed in his own audience.
In Plotinus’ day ‘gnosis,’ a religious philosophy of Oriental
inspiration, was spreading everywhere in various forms (ch. xiii).
It condemned a world created by the spirit of evil and given up
to a cruel Destiny, and stressed the need of the worship of saving
gods who would intervene in person here on earth and distribute
their favours and mercy to gatherings of the faithful and elect.
Dwelling on apocalypses and revelations, they set against Platonic
cosmology, ruled by pure Intelligence, the dualism of the armies
of Good and Evil. Compared with the immense antiquity of the
traditions to which they appealed, whether they were Syrian,
Chaldaean or Iranian, the seven centuries of Greek thought
seemed nothing but the first phase of a philosophy still in its
infancy. These ‘gnostics’ appeared to have everything in their
favour. They went straight to men’s souls in all they said. They
set forth a fine display of theology and speculative fancies. They
claimed that Plato himself was a pupil of their ancient wisdom and
that Christ gave them the mystical benefit of his death and
redemption. They forced their way into Plotinus’ audiences and
argued against him. Their persuasive tones shook the faith of his
pupils, and Plotinus felt the need of breaking free from the hold
which threatened to fetter him. Plato’s position as the supreme
director of thought was seriously menaced, and the dogma of the
goodness of the world was openly flouted. Plotinus replied, and
an echo of his vehement refutations may be heard in the Enneads^.
Plotinus, in fact, refused to look upon the soul as a prisoner in a
God of the gnostics, but to that state of ecstatic union with the One
which it is the aim of philosophy to achieve. To find God Plotinus
has no need to enter a temple or bow down before an image. His
prayer is not a cry of despair, nor an avowal of repentance, nor an
entreaty designed to move to pity a being who can help if he will.
‘
The gift of the intellect is not like a present which can be taken
away. ’ After a divorce from unity the soul has only to turn again
towards the lost communion and our fulness is re-established to-
gether with the desired equilibrium. Our destiny is entirely in the
life within us; it depends on that, and on nothing else.
At Medinet Madi in the Fayum a library has lately been
discovered which proves that Manichaean writings could be read
in Egypt in the time of Ammonius Saccas, and in order to explain
the vigour of Plotinus’ resistance to the invasion of gnosticism
from the Near East his attempt to go and observe the philosophy
of India on the spot has been called in evidence; writers have even
tried to credit him with some of the understanding of Hindu
asceticism which Man! had won in the course of his travels a
century before and of which he took account in founding his
cosmopolitan religioiA. It is undeniable that there was some kind
of contact between Plotinus and Indian thought. But it is another
matter to say that without this contact Plotinus could not have
conceived a type of idealism to which many independent thinkers
since his time have approached. Rather may it be said that
Plotinus’ fundamental achievement was to bring to life in the
heart of Platonism the activity of certain affinities with Asia as
old as the first philosophic conversations in the gardens of the
Academy. As far back as the time of Eudoxus of Cnidus Plato
was sufficiently open-minded not to refuse to consider the ideas of
the East^. Plotinus brought to his work as a Greek thinker the
same readiness to learn.
III. PORPHYRY
In order to eharacterize the work of his pupil Porphyry it must
be emphasized that Plotinus stands at the beginning of a new era.
Men were ceasing to observe the external world and to try to
understand it, utilize it or improve it. They were turning away
from nature because they could no longer see in it anything but
change, deterioration, corruption, materiality, coarseness and
meanness. They were driven in upon themselves. In the inmost
consciousness of life and the being of the soul they believed they
were in touch with the eternal, the unchanging and the divine.
Instead of deifying the world and uniting themselves with God by the
heightening of the senses or by the contemplation of the stars, they
began to draw fancies from their inner impulses or sought benefit
in meditation. The idea of the beauty of the heavens and of the
world went out of fashion and was replaced by that of the Infinite.
Plotinus was one of the chief authors of this revolution. He
gave it theoretical justification. He clad the ascetic in the cloak of
Platonic philosophy. He expressed the new teaching of the value
of things by means of some of the most striking images which
could appeal to men’s minds. But there was nothing of the
popularizer in the head of the Neoplatonic school, and a long
initiation was necessary in order to penetrate his thought. He
needed assistants capable of giving a kind of ijreliminary in-
.
of publishing them to Porphyry. His pupil accepted it, but did not
carry it out at once. For a long time after the death of Plotinus
he was content to expound his master’s teachings orally. To those
who like Longinus asked for the written word he sent indifferent
copies. But he was urged ever more strongly to produce an
accurate definitive text. There was inevitably a loud demand
for such a publication on the part of the growing number of the
admirers of Plotinus. Furthermore, in issuing the works of the
last great pagan thinker, Porphyry was taking thought not only of
the needs of the Platonic school but also for the Hellenism to which
he was devoted. Plotinus was the true interpreter of Plato. His
works supplemented those of the master of masters and were to
supply men who were specially gifted and eager to learn with a
selection of pious meditations which they needed. When Por-
phyry published his collection of Plotinus’ lectures in six Enneads
or divisions, each consisting of nine chapters, he added notes at the
request of some friends who desired explanations. If to-day we
may hope to restore to life the oral teaching of Plotinus, it is
mainly due to the explanations that have by chance been handed
down to us by the most understanding and attentive of his
auditors^. Porphyry also provided his edition with summaries and
arguments, and at the beginning of the work gave an account of
the philosopher’s life.
In the short work thus devoted to the biography of his master.
Porphyry does not always speak in the tone or spirit that might
be desired. In more than one place the philosopher is looked at
through the idle fancies and hallucinations of silly imaginations
obsessed by the marvellous, and many a story casts a halo round
his head which he himself would not have permitted. But on the
whole Porphyry succeeds in bringing his hero to life before us, in
body and in soul. In his Life of Plotinus he is still practising the
art of the older biographers, and there is a contrast between his
way of showing forth the merits of an ascetic and the manner
which is soon to distinguish the first products of Christian
—
hagiography for example the life of Antony the Hermit by
Athanasius. The souls which Porphyry sets himself to win for his
faith are not the simple souls of ‘the poor in spirit.’
The fame of Porphyry is very largely due to his great work
Against the Christians. During the reign of Severus Alexander and
Gallienus the new religion had enjoyed toleration. After all,
neither the observances of the believers nor their faith nor their
^ P. Henry, ‘Vers la reconstitution de I’enseignement oral de Plotin.’
Bull. Acad. Belg., Classe des Leitres, 1937, pp. ^lOsqq.
XVIII, III] PORPHYRY AS INTERPRETER 631
attitude to society were any longer a cause of trouble. Set beside .
which could seem in fact dead, but which, even during its old age,
still had so brilliant a hierophant! The Neoplatonist depicted it in
the beliefs of the Greeks,’ did not find favour in his eyes.
Porphyry repeats, follows up and enlarges all that the ingenuity
of Celsus had discovered by way of argument. He brings against
the books of Daniel a proof of spuriousness that many modern
scholars consider conclusive. He attacks the genealogy of Jesus.
He claims to show by the contradictions of the synoptists that
their narratives cannot claim to be believed. He criticizes many
passages in the Acts of the Apostles. He finds that Peter is
XVIII, m] PORPHYRY’S POLEMIC 633
contradicted by Paul. Paul he attacks with special fury. The
philhellene sees in him nothing but coarse rhetoric and intolerable
incoherence. Porphyry’s whole polemic is elaborated with an
abundance of arguments in which contemporary controversialists
might find many of their favourite themes. Whenever rationalism
came into conflict with Christian revelation, it was enough to
repeat what had been said by Porphyry.
Porphyry, like his predecessor Celsus, was particularly shocked
to see among the Christians revolutionaries breaking with all their
ancestral inheritance, even with the ordinances of the Old Testa-
ment, and threatening the established order of things. He puts
them down as ‘barbarians.’ But, in spite of this, he seems less
concerned than Celsus to defend the Roman State. His special
originality comes out in the breadth of view with which he now
and then comprehends the struggle. Since Celsus the horizon
of Platonism had been widely extended. Porphyry has not the
same contempt as Celsus either for the Jews or for Orientals. His
humanity is such that he feels a measure of sympathy even with
the person of Christ and some parts of his teaching. He keeps his
wrath for the disciples of Jesus, for the distortions of which they
were the originators and for the ‘myths’ of the Evangelists. As
early as his day the canon of the writings of the New Testament
had been determined. He knows it and directs his attacks at it,
and it is this which gives his criticism a forcefulness and thrust
which places it far above that of his predecessors. In him are
found hardly any of the crude aspersions to which pagan polemic
of the first centuries had recourse. Nor is he malevolent in tone
like Julian. His controversy rarely sinks to the futile. He makes a
careful study of the points at issue and tries to foresee objections.
In the main he seems much less concerned with the effect he will
have on the public than with the particular error which he is
seeking to demonstrate.
Porphyry certainly endeavours to expose what he holds to be
weaknesses in the arguments used to prove the divine origin of
Christianity; but apart from this the work which he conceived is
one of deep philosophy and not mere polemic. He speaks as a
profoundly religious man. The need of revelation, redemption,
asceticism and immortality inspires him with a faith like that of
his opponents. In his desire to convince and to find what he calls
auniversal(‘ catholic’) way of salvation^, he goes so far as tojettison
the theurgy and observances of pagan worship. He shows him-
self still filled with the lofty and conciliatory thought of Plotinus.
^ See de Regressu, frag. 12 (Bidez, Fie de Porphyrey App. ii, p. 42*ry .).
634 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
IV. lAMBLICHUS
All that is known of the early education of the philosopher
Iamblighus can soon be told. Born about 250 at Chalcis in Coele-
Syria, this Semite was at first, doubtless at Rome, the pupil of
Porphyry and of the mathematician Anatolius; he then returned
to Asia, and it is now known that, following the example of the
Neoplatonist Amelius, he went to teach at Apamea^. Details con-
cerning the life of lamblichus are scanty, but of his works, which
consisted of ponderous commentaries on Aristotle and Plato, a
life of Alypius, an essay on the gods, and other writings, there
1 Bidez, ‘Le philosophe Jamblique et son ecole,’ R.ev. des Etudes grecques
^
xxxn, 1919, p. 31 sq. Eunapius, Fit. Soph. p. 458, 9 sq. (Didot).
636 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
the external world. The master took little thought for the general
public. It was enough for him if his mysticism was available to a
chosen few. But as soon as lamblichus took over the management
of the school, at a time when paganism in its hour of danger was
calling more and more urgently for all the forces of Hellenism to
come to its help, the Neoplatonists threw themselves into the
struggle and they soon found that Porphyry had been too
yielding. In their desire to take more account of the needs
of their time they ceased to concern themselves only with an
elite and set to work to extend their field of propaganda. The
system of Plotinus was too remote for many minds hence, in order
;
toAnehOi the de mysteriis that he published under the name of the Egyptian
prophet, Abammon. See Bidez in Milanges Desrousseaux, p. 1 2 jy.
XVIII, IV] lAMBLICHUS 637
the other philosophers
— — Epicurus and the Cynics alone being
excepted -as well as the Orphics and the followers of Hermes
Trismegistus and with them the Jews, gnostics and Chaldaeans,
have all to be made to agree, and woe betide anyone who disturbs
this united front! The ‘queries’ that Porphyry had submitted to
the Egyptian priest Anebo will be regarded as blasphemous;
lamblichus will dispose of them and condemn them with equal
severity and unction. The enlightened intellectualism of a
Plotinus and a Porphyry drew its power and insight from the free
effort of individual thought. lamblichus is inspired by a mob
fanaticism. Plotinus and Porphyry had rejected the help of
saving gods: lamblichus appeals to every form of redemption and
revelation borne witness to by ancient tradition. Plotinus and
Porphyry had laid great stress on silent prayer and banished living
sacrifice from the worship of the gods. In his desire to found a
pagan Catholic church lamblichus is sensitive to the danger to
which his plan would be exposed by the smallest concession to the
revolutionary Evangelists: just as he pours scorn on the monks, so
he persists in the search for clever sophistries to show that,
religion being made for the people and the people having need of
visible divinities to worship, like those which can be seen in the
sky, the fire and smoke of sacrifice are symbols bearing, by their
very antiquity, incomparable power to strengthen the prayers and
raise towards the gods of the world the souls of the faithful
gathered in the temples.
Egypt had long been for Greek religious feeling the Holy Land.
But at the time when the Sassanids were making the voice of
Zoroaster speak with a fresh accent, when the sacred books of the
Hebrews, thanks to their hellenizing interpreters, were universally
reverenced, when the prophet Mani claimed to renew the ancient
predications of Buddha, Jesus and Zoroaster, it was impossible
to put a comprehensive religious syncretism under the exclusive
patronage of the old priesthoods of the country of the Pharaohs.
In the Second Century two holy men called Julian, who styled
themselves Chaldaeans, drew up the extraordinaiy series of oracles
known as logia Chaldaica in which re-appeared, with the very spirit
‘ ’
doctrine of the Trinity— the Father, the Son {Logos or fVord) and
—
Holy Ghost and of the salvation secured for men by free sub-
mission (or assimilation, 6|xoio>cris) to the divine will, was to him
the natural development of Judaism and at the same time the
clear revelation of the ideas and aspirations imperfectly ex-
pressed in the doctrines of the Platonic school. Nominally
directed against the Jews, tht Bemonstratio quite as much as
the Praeparatio is really aimed at Porphyry’s treatise Against
curiosity to the search for the truth, as the title he chose (ia-Topia)
might lead one to think. The time was really past even for the
historia of Greek learning, and Porphyry had not succeeded in
1 I, I, 5-6.
Hist. Reel.
* E. Schwartz in P.W. s.v, Eusebios, col. 1406 sq.
® Cf. Schwartz, ‘Uber Kirchengeschichte,’ Nachr. d. K. Gesellsch. d.
Whs. ssMGottingen, 1908, p. in especially, excellently summarized by
A. Puech, Histoire de la Litt.gr. chrit. ni, p. 181.
644 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
was but one more poisonous superstition from the East, the
fruitful mother of queer and revolting cults. Scorn —
or perhaps
a scornful pity —
for such delusion was all that could be expected.
But in thesecond century some notice had perforce to be taken
of the sect: a governor such as Pliny might be constrained to
acknowledge that the superstition appeared morally guiltless;
only the perverse obstinacy of the Christians offended the Roman’s
sense for discipline. The first writer seriously to attack the new
faith was, so far as we know, Fronto, the tutor of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius; his work is lost, yet it probably furnished to
Minucius much material for his statement of the pagans’ case.
But the world of culture still remained unconcerned, and when
about 180 Celsus published his True Discourse against the
Christians it may well have passed unnoticed^: pagan writers do
not mention the treatise, and it was only seventy years later that
the attention of Origen was called to the work; it is from his
^ “Celse s’etait adresse k des esprits trop peu alarms.” J. Bidez, Fie de
Porphyre,'^. b<).
648 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
elaborate reply that the greater part of Gelsus’ attack can be re-
covered. But the remarkable fact is that in its conception the True
Dwfoam was something more than a criticism in developing :
had neither time nor money for the endowment of religion, and
the liberality of private citizens was paralysed. The evidence of
1 de Labriolle, op. tit. pp. 223 The attitude of Porphyry to Jesus has
been much discussed, see Bidez, 77 and de Labriolle, op. cit. pp.
op. at. p.
279 sqq. who gives references to the judgments of Harnack and Geffcken.
® An illuminating study of this aspect of the work of the early apologists
how far the exclusiveness of that cult survived its founder’s death.
Philosophy does not proclaim a sole god Plotinus is no mono-
:
the gods, Porphyry sought in his later years to arouse the cultured
pagan world from its religious lethargy by propounding startling
questions {a-rropLaC) which formed a challenge to its traditions
(in his letter to Anebo). His De abstinentia went further: here the
ascetic and religious enthusiast undermined the whole basis of the
public worship of the gods in his last work, his ‘letter’ to his wife
:
to many gods and to many local cults that he made his dedications.
The pagan revival of Diocletian is essentially polytheistic. Lac-
tantius knew what he was doing when he levelled his sarcasms
against the gods and especially against Juppiter and Hercules
the patrons of the reigning Jovian and Herculian dynasties.
of the Pax Romana had been bought at so high a price that even
a municipal fire-brigade in an Asian city was too perilous an asso-
ciation to receive imperial sanction. And in Christianity the
Caesars were faced by no municipal association, but by a far-flung
secret brotherhood. These ‘Bolsheviks’ must be suppressed. The
Roman persecutions of the Christians, as has been pointed out^,
have been judged by their effects and treated as the prototype of
religious intolerance. With regard to its motives the procedure of
the Roman State can be censured only as an excess of political
intolerance; in its results it constituted an undeniable violation
of the Christian’s liberty of conscience.
The persecutions of the Christians have been considered else-
where in this volume in their effects upon the life of the Church
(pp. place a brief retrospect is necessary in
wWch that repression may be viewed from the standpoint of the
Roman State. What was at first the precise legal basis for the per-
secution perhaps impossible for us to determine; was it
it is
^ In the view of the present writer, the contention that Christianity viras a
religio licita as maintained by G. Kruger, Die Rechtsstellung der vorkonstan-
tinischen Kirchen, Stuttgart, 1935, is untenable. Under what title (if any) the
Christian church held its property in the pre-Constantinian period is still un-
certain. To the references given in N. H. Baynes, ‘Constantine and the
Christian Churcli,’ Free, of the British Academy, xv, 71 ry. add L. Schnorr
V. Carolsfeld, Gesch. d. juristischen Person, x, especially iv Abschnitt, §18;
P. W. Duff, Personality in Roman Private Law, Cambridge, 1938, pp.
ibqsqq.
® Cf, Mandell Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance, London, 1895,
Thus it was that even as late as the first half of the third century,
when some disaster or natural catastrophe such as an earthqualce
suggested that the gods were angered with men, the populace
might demand a persecution of the Christians in order to placate
the wrath of an outraged Heaven, and then it is the attitude of the
provincial governor which determines the severity of the repres-
sion it is to the provincial governors that Tertullian addresses his
:
apologia.
During the early decades of the third century national Roman
feeling had been weakened ; the Seven had favoured the provinces
at the expense of Rome. When Caracalla had extended Roman
citizenship to the provincial population, the Empire became a
cosmopolis, and universalism could afford to be tolerant towards a
faith which had from the first claimed the whole inhabited world
for its Lord. Under a Syrian dynasty Origen could be summoned
to the imperial court. It might have seemed that the reconciliation
between the Roman State and the Christian Church would be
realized through a peaceful evolution and mutual understanding.
But the crisis of the third century brought other men and other
ways of thought to the fore. In the rude soldiery of the Danube
lands the Empire found its defenders, and on their side the Danu-
bian soldiers adopted with the enthusiastic conviction of the newly
converted the belief in the imperial traditions of Rome and its
pagan past^. It is this new romanism of the Danube lands which
revives the hostility of the Roman State towards those who had
abandoned the worship of the Roman gods. The millenary cele-
bration of the founding of Rome had recalled the pagan traditions
forcibly to men’s minds: Roman greatness had ever been de-
—
pendent on the favour of the divine powers on the maintenance
of the Pax Deorum’. now that the Empire was threatened with
unexampled perils, how could success be more surely guaranteed
than by a massive demonstration of an Empire’s loyalty? It may
be suggested that some such thought led the Pannonian Emperor
Decius to issue his command that the entire population of the
Roman world should by the act of sacrifice attest its devotion to
the gods (see pp. 202, 521). The situation is changed: persecution
becomes once more the policy of the Roman State, though that
policy is now no longer sustained by any widespread hatred and
animosity against the Christians. The initiative in repression has
passed from the people to the central government.
C.A.H. XU 42
:
Texte md Unters, xiv, Heft 4, 1896, _p. 17. See also above p. 447 and S. A.
Cook, The Religion of Ancient Palestine in the light of archaeology, p. 1 86.
XIX, Ii] GHRISTIANS AND THE ROMAN STATE 659
pagan ruler and Christian subject was open, for even the pros-
kynesis — the prostration before the emperor— which had now
become obligatory in court ceremonial —
was not the worship of
a god, but merely the outward symbol of homage to a human
master. The cult of the emperors plays a very subordinate part
in the last great persecution^.
After the death of Valerian the Roman State had shown itself
ready to_ trust the Christian and to welcome him to its service,
and the individual Christian, whatever might be the official view
of the Church, was clearly prepared to respond to these advances.
The appeal with which Celsus had ended his True Discourse
seemed in a fair way to be answered. It is no easy task to form
any picture of the life of the ordinary Christian in the third cen-
tury how far did the views held by the leaders of Christian
:
royale de Belgique, Bulletin: Classe des Lettres etc., 1921, pp. 150-66.
2 Note that Maximilian and Marcellus were both Africans (see below),
3 There were soldiers of the xiith legion stationed in Melitene, a district
42 -a
:
his task of re-organization and reform his effort is to unite all the
:
Some modern scholars have argued that the new reign began
with a persecution of the Christians: have we such evidence as
would constrain us to adopt this view? To the present writer this
appears to be a point of crucial import for the understanding of
Diocletian’s religious policy. Two considerations have to be borne
in mind: the contemporary historians Lactantius and Eusebius
have no knowledge of such persecution; Maximian, who was
appointed by Diocletian to rule the Western provinces of the
Empire, always followed faithfully the lead of the senior Augustus;
he cannot be thought to have originated a course of action to
which Diocletian was opposed. Nor is it likely, as some late
accounts of Christian martyrdoms would imply, that Diocletian
himself visited Rome shortly after his victory on the Margus
and there began an attack upon the Christians at the beginning
of his reign; for such a visit we have no independent evidence
save a statement in Zonaras^, and it would appear otherwise
improbable. The martyrdom of the Quattuor Coronati has been
placed at this time in Rome, but the Roman Passio deserves no
credence; S. Genesius, the converted actor, whose martyrdom
appears to be dated early in Diocletian’s reign, is probably not a
historical character: the S. Genesius whose cult was later cele-
brated in Rome may well have been S. Genesius of Arles, and the
story of S. Genesius the actor is, it has been plausibly suggested,
an adaptation of an Eastern legend. The Acta of S. Sebastian
cannot be used as a historical source^. The presumption would
thus appear to be unfavourable to the view that the new order
was inaugurated by religious oppression. For a persecution con-
ducted by Maximian in Gaul no reliance can be placed upon
the stories of the exploits of the ubiquitous Rictiovarus®; he has
all the appearance of being the creation of a hagiographer’s
imagination; it is possible that S. Maurice may have suffered
martyrdom for some breach of military discipline, but until we
can determine upon what sources the fifth-century account of
the sufferings of the Christians in the Theban Legion is based, the
historical student cannot use that document^. So far as the present
days of the reign cf. the carefully guarded statement of the evidence in C. Jul-
lian, Mhtoire de la Gaule, Vii, pp. 67—72. He notes that ‘'aucun de ces martyrs
ne parait appartenir d la cour ou h Varmie.' It is of course possible that a pro-
vincial governor may have proceeded against some Gallic Christians during
these years.
^ See above, p. 659.
® It is indeed stated in the Acta that this was done apud signa legimis, but
there is no statement that any cult of the signa influenced Marcellus. It
might be suggested that there was some connection with the new form of the
religion of the army of which Domaszewsld found evidence during the reign
—
of Diocletian the worship of the genii: thus by the side of the genius
castrorum (which even precedes Juppiter O.M. in G.l.L. m, iiiii) we
find the genius legionis, the genius cohortium vigilum, the genius co-
hortium praetoriarum {C.l.L. vi, 216) while the genius Populi Romani of
the coinage would be, in Domaszewski’s view, that of the signa of the Roman
army: cf. Westdeutsche Zeitschr. 14,11895, pp. 1 13-14. For the Acta of
Maximilian and Marcellus see the Bibliography.
de mart. pers. 1 1 ; aliquanto tempore.
“ Div. Inst. IV, 27, 4, sacrificantibus dominis.
664 the great PERSECUTION [chap.
the demons. The augurs failed to find the customary marks on the
livers and repeated the sacrifice without result until the chief augur
Tagis pronounced that no answer had been obtained because of
the presence at the rite of profane persons. Diocletian was furious
and ordered that all in the palace should sacrifice and on refusal
be beaten letters were sent to the military commanders that the
:
^
Diy. Inst, iv, 27, 3 This may indeed be a reference to the letter of
Dionysius (pr^rved by Eusebius) attributing the persecution of the Chris-
tians by Valerian to the instigation of the magician Macrianus.
^ Cf. Delehaye, op. cif.
p, 5 on Eusebius Hist. Eccl. vin, 4.
® Cf. A. Fliche and V. Martin (Edd.), Histoire de P£glise, ii,
p, 458.
— ;
might then be set at liberty. Every effort was made to enforce the
order For in one case a man’s hands would be held and he would
:
‘
he was so altered that men did not recognize him. During the
incapacity of the Augustus, Galerius seized his opportunity: he
1 Eusebius, Hist. EccL viii, 6, 9. ® Meyer, op. cit. p. 166.
® Ih. pp. 166—8. * Eusebius, de mart. Pal. i, 4.
® Not ail students of Eusebius would agree with this interpretation. To
the present writer it would seem difficult to explain the texts otherwise than
in the way here adopted.
668 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
authority before making any move. Of these facts surely only one
interpretation is possible: the Roman East was sick of blood-
shed.
It was in this year (311) that the unexpected happened:
Galerius, the author of the persecution, suffering from a horrible ill-
ness, issued an edict which was published in Nicomedia on 30 April.
By that edict the persecution was stayed and the Christians
were accorded legal recognition. Origen had written we have
— —
only the Latin translation of the homily ^ ‘decreverunt [if. prin-
cipes Romani] legibus suis ut non sint Christiani’: now for the
first time that principle is explicitly revoked: Galerius determines
‘ut denuo Christiani sint’ — the tolerance which Christianity had
in fact enjoyed in the early years of Diocletian’s reign is restored
and based upon direct imperial enactment. The Latin text of
is
moment with the text of the palinode issued by the author of the
:
he was dead.
Lactantius and Eusebius agree that it was the fatal illness of
Galerius —
an illness which reminded Christian apologists of the
sufferings of another persecutor, Herod of Judaea which led to —
the issue of the edict. Modern students have not been content
with that explanation. To one it has seemed that it must have been
inspired by Licinius, another has maintained that Galerius yielded
to the insistence of Constantine. It might not be easy to find any
evidence in our authorities for either of these views. Is it not
somewhat strange that both Lactantius and Eusebius should have
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vni, ii. Lactantius, Div. Inst, v, ii, 10.
® Sir W. M.Ramsaj, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ir, pp. 502—9.
® “Christianity was
the reli^on of an educated people and the last and
worst evil of the long struck was that in Diocletian’s persecution the nnore
cultured section of the Church was to a large extent killed out:. .educa-.
tion deteriorated and the quality of society in general was depreciated.” Sir
W. M. Ramsay, Pauline and other Studies, p. 1 15.
XIX, IV] ROMAN GOVERNORS AND CHRISTIANS 675
been in that country during the persecution.
Here, he expressly states, Christians formed the majority of the
population Christ went down into Egypt because idolatry took
its rise and the Egyptians were formerly the most super-
there,
stitious of peoples ; because of Christ’s visit the word of the gospel
teaching flourished amongst the Egyptians more than anywhere
else^. The spirit of idolatry which in Egypt is still active (elcreVt
vvv) keeps the Egyptians in a ferment plotting against the Chris-
tians in order to extinguish Christianity and blot it out. Countless
times (jnupta Se ocra) have they enquired of their gods against
us in oracles and prophecies and of the demons that lurk in the
statues and of the ^engastrimuthoV vfho were once so powerful
amongst them, and yet have no profit from them. Believing in
these demons and being set in action by them, they raise per-
secution against the church of God*. In ‘every place and town
and countryside’ a Christian altar is to be found: nay more, every
town and every house is divided by a civil war waged between
Christians and idolaters^. These statements are made in proof of
the fulfilment of a prophecy of Isaiah®, but they are too definite
not to be based upon facts which were known to Eusebius, and
they serve to explain the ferocity of the persecution in Egypt.
Elsewhere the reluctance of governors to impose the death
penalty is often striking. There is an instructive chapter in the
Divine Institutes^', governors would boast that they had not put
to death any Christians they would resort to any torture in order
:
1 Christ has ransomed the souls of the Egyptians so that tou? irXeiov<;
rjStj T&v /car’ AiyvTTTOv koX ravTf]'; cuTrrjkXdgdai voaov. Praef.
Evang. in, 5 r./.
2 ho KoX Trdvrmv dvdpcoTrtov fjbSXXov irap' AlyvirTiot? lagyaev 6 ryf
evayyeXiKrj<; avrov BtBaaKaXCa'i X6yo<;. Demonstr. Evang. vi, 20, 9: cf. ib.
IX, 2 , 4 and IX, 2 , 6, fivpia TrXydt) of the inhabitants deserting paganism
eri icai vvv tov t&v okwv opoXoyei fvovov elBevac 6eov.
® Demonstr. Evang. vi, 20, 16— iq*
* Demonstr. Evang. viii, 5. ® Isaiah xix, 1-4. y, II.
676 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
taken no steps to execute the early edicts: he acts only after the
issue of the fourth edict and enforces both the first and fourth
edicts at one and the same time. It is interesting to observe a
business-like and conscientious Roman official at his work in
Africa making an inventory of confiscated property. There is no
violence, simply the scrupulous performance of a tiresome duty^.
And it must never be forgotten that Christians were at times
provocative. When Hierocles in Egypt had condemned a Chris-
tian virgin to confinement in a brothel, Aedesius knocked him
down and continued beating him as he lay on the ground. care- A
ful study of The Martyrs of Palestine reveals a surprising number
of cases where Christians compelled the governor to take notice of
them, while their refusal to answer the formal questions concern-
ing their place of origin must often have been exasperating®. On
one occasion several of the accused replied that their home city
lay in the East : it belonged to the Christians alone, and was called
Jerusalem®. The governor became alarmed and thought that the
sectaries were creating for themselves a centre hostile to Rome
where the disaffected could assemble and live as Christians, much
as Plotinus almost persuaded Gallienus to allow him to found a
state where men should dwell under Plato’s laws'^. Platonopolis
would have been situated in Campania: the Jerusalem of the
Christians, however, was in Heaven. During the persecution
governors were guilty of hideous brutalities, but it must be re-
membered that many of them must have found the task which the
government imposed on them a sorry duty. And some of the
simple stories of Christian confession under extreme torture are
still to the modern reader things of wonder and of beauty: to
the East he saw the change of policy which was the work of
Galerius and the beginnings of the bloody persecution; after the
abdication of Diocletian he was kept in the East by Galerius as a
useful hostage. But Galerius could not refuse the demand of Con-
stantius, now senior Augustus, that his son should join his father
in Gaul, and when Constantius died at York (July 306) Constan-
tine was hailed as emperor by the soldiers. Constantine sought
the recognition of Galerius, and the latter acknowledged him as
Note, The principal sources for the reign of Constantine down to the
Council of Nicaea are the Anonymus Valesii, a fragment of a history
probably written by a contemporary; the Latin Panegyric! for the official
expression of the policy of the rulers of the Roman West: the bitter
pamphlet of Lactantius — mortihus persecutorum— which is yet of great
historical value; the Church History of Eusebius and his Fits Constantini,
the latter a panegyric rather than a biography; the documents on the
Donatist Controversy preserved by Optatus are of outstanding importance.
a
^ See A. Riese, Die Inschrift des Clematius und die kolnischen Martyrien,
Bonner Jahrbiicher, cxviii, 1909, p. 236. Even if, as W. Levison has con-
tended Ursula- Legendejb.cxsxu, 1927, p. 1), the Clematius
inscription is throughout genuine, it is impossible to tell in what persecution
the virgins of Cologne were martyred, while it is only a guess which has dated
the martyrdom of S. Alban to the great persecution: Gildas (Chronicon c. x),
having reached the persecution of Diocletian, writes that S. Alban died ‘supra
dicto ut conicimus persecutionis tempore.’
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii, 14, i.
® For Marcellinus cf. J. Wilpert, Rom. ^artalschr. xxii, 1908, pp.
91 sqq.
68o THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
him troops to guard the frontier of the Rhine, and, though we can
form no precise numerical estimate of the strength of the army of
invasion, it was less than 40,000 men. Maxentius, we are told, had
‘Constantine moved all his forces nearer to the city and encamped
in the neighbourhood “regione” of the Milvian Bridge^.’ The real
difficulty of the battle, if we accept this statement of Lactantius,
is to understand how it was that, in face of the superior numbers
not come into close contact with Constantine until a.d. 325 which
is the probable date of the last edition of his History. It has been
versa X
littera [I],’ Byzantion 11, 1925, pp.406 n. 2,407. The question of the
form of the monogram thus described by Lactantius is matter of dispute and
cannot be fully discussed here (see N. H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and
the Christian Church, pp. 60 sqq.)i it may well have been that of the star with
a knob on one of the radial arms This would explain the language used by
Lactantius: the sign read as a monogram was not a XP in the ordinary form
of the second letter, and therefore could not be so described. The present
writer is not convinced that the sign in this form was regarded as an Apolli-
nine symbol (so Seston). Later the monogram | became an essential part
of the Christian standard, the Labarum.
684 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
singulari signo^’ the victory had been won, and the interpretation
given by Eusebius to the traditional imagery of the statue may
after all have rightly interpreted the ambiguity of the inscription.
It is through concessions to the past that Constantine mediated
the transition to the Christian Empire of the future that Empire —
which his sons educated in the Christian faith might one day
behold as accomplished fact.
Discussion continues concerning the vision recounted by Lac-
tan tius; but whatever conclusions criticism may reach it is at least
obvious that Lactantius is endeavouring to describe a definite
form of the Christian monogram, and that description cannot be
lightly dismissed. It must ultimately be explained, and not ex-
plained away. Certain it is that after the victory Constantine acts
just as he might have been expected to act if the story in Lac-
tantius were true. Created senior Augustus by the Senate, he
writes to his Eastern colleague Maximin bidding him stay the
1 Cf. Baynes, op. cit. pp. 95 sqq.
* Rufinus, translating Eusebius (cf. Hist Eccl. ix, 9, 10—13).
:
relegated to the mines returned with joy, and the pagans them-
selves shared in the general rejoicing. But in Nicomedia men soon
learned that the concession had been wrung from Maximin, and
Alexandria was martyred; about the same time Silvanus, who had
been bishop for forty years, suffered death at Emesa; on January 7,
3 12 Lucian was martyred at Nicomedia.
The example of Nicomedia was followed in Antioch where
Theotecnus, curator of the city, instigated a similar demonstra-
tion, and the pagans in other cities likewise forwarded their peti-
tions. These requests were graciously answered by Maximin in a
rescript issued c. June 312; in return for their devotion to the
gods the Emperor would forthwith grant any boon for which the
cities might ask®. Maximin now developed a constructive policy
and planned to create a pagan Church: priests of the gods were
appointed in each city and those who had distinguished themselves
in the public service were made provincial high-priests (pontifices)\
propaganda should support the pagan counter-reformation: to
discredit the Christian faith forged Acts of Pilate were circulated
throughout the Eastern provinces ; they were to be studied in the
schools and learnt by heart
—
‘children in the schools had every
day on their lips the names of Jesus and Pilate®.’ At Damascus a
Roman general forced prostitutes under the threat of torture to
state that they had formerly been Christians and that they had
witnessed deeds of shame committed even in the Christian
churches. These confessions were published at the Emperor’s
command. From an inscription we learn that in Pisidia members
of the governor’s civil staff were ordered to sacrifice, and the right
to resign from the service was denied them^. Sheep and cattle
were carried off from the fields for daily sacrifice the soldiers, fed
:
EccL Hist X, 5. On these texts cf. Baynes, Constantine and the Christian
Churchy pp. 69 sqq,
® roh re Xpt<rrtai‘Oi<g, It would appear that some words have dropped
out here.
690 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
appeared to have been added, it may well perchance have come about that
after a short time many were repelled from practising their religion, Thus^
when I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, had met at
Mediolanum (Milan) and were discu^ing all those matters which relate
to the advantage and security of the State, amongst the other things which
we saw would benefit the majority of men we were convinced that first
of ail those conditions by which reverence for the Divinity is secured should
be put in order by us to the end that we might give to the Christians and to
all men the right to follow freely whatever religion each had wished, so that
thereby whatever of Divinity there be^ in the heavenly seat may be favour-
able and propitious to us and to all those who are placed under our authority.
And so by a salutary and most fitting line of reasoning we came to the con-
clusion that we should adopt this policy —
namely our view should be that
to no one whatsoever should we deny liberty to follow either the religion
of the Christians or any other cult which of his own free choice he has
thought to be best adapted for himself, in order that the supreme Divinity*'^,
to whose service we render our free obedience, may bestow upon us in all
things his wonted favour and benevolence. Wherefore we would that your
Devotion should know that it is our will that ail those conditions should
be altogether removed which were contained in our former letters addressed
to you concerning the Christians [and which seemed to be entirely perverse
—
and alien from our clemency^] these should be removed and now in free-
dom and without restriction let all those who desire to follow the aforesaid
religion of the Christians hasten to follow the s;ime without any molesta-
tion or interference. Wehave felt that the fullest information should be
furnished on this matter to your Carefulness that you might be assured that
we have given to the aforesaid Christians complete and unrestricted liberty
to follow their religion. Further, when you see that this indulgence has
been granted by us to the aforesaid Christians, your Devotion will under-
stand that to others also a similar free and unhindered liberty of religion
and cult has been granted, for such a grant is befitting to the peace of our
times, so that it may be open to every man to worship as he will This has
been done by us so that we should not seem to have done dishonour to any
religion
;td;the:'presentvya^itef5::j:;:;;;-;'-;^
692 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
reached Sirmium. Here the bridge over the Save was destroyed,
and Licinius, having lost, it is said, 20,000 men in the battle at
Cibake, made for Thrace where he collected reinforcements. At
Adrianople the frontier Valens was created Augustus^, and
then envoys were sent to Constantine, who was by this time in
Philippopolis^, to treat for peace. Constantine rejected the pro-
posals, and at Campus Mardiensis^, which probably lay somewhere
between Philippopolis and Adrianople, a second battle was fought
with great determination on both sides, but with indecisive result.
After the battle Constantine lost touch with Licinius: thinking
that the latter would make for Byzantium, he marched with all
speed for that city only to find that Licinius was at Beroea and
that his own lines of communication were thus broken, and re-
inforcements from the West could be intercepted. But by Con-
stantine’s march Licinius w'as similarly cut off from contact with
his base in Asia, and thus it was Licinius who once more sought to
negotiate a peace: he sent the comes Mestrianus^ to Constantine
and after diplomatic delays a new partition of the Roman world
was agreed upon: Constantine gained the provinces of Pannonia,
Iliyricum, Macedonia, Greece and Moesia, while in Europe
Licinius retained only Thrace. Licinius sacrificed his newly
created Augustus Valens, and an attempt to secure the recogni-
tion of his own son as Caesar was defeated by Constantine®.
When in the early spring of 3 1 3 Licinius had returned to the
East to meet the invasion of Maximin, Constantine had been
recalled from Milan to Gaul to repel Germans and Franks on the
Rhine; at the end of the campaign Ludi Francici (15—20 July)
celebrated his success. Henceforth the peace of Gaul was un-
disturbed: it was the religious divisions in Africa which claimed
the Emperor’s attention. The Donatists challenged Constantine’s
decision to exclude them from participation in the imperial bene-
factions : they prayed him to appoint bishops from Gaul to deter-
mine the issue between themselves and the Catholics it was a step :
—
muntone excludaniur presumably this means ‘when they have taken part in
pagan ceremonies.’
2 On the appearance in this year of the Christian standard borne by Con-
® The best study of the campaign is by E. Pears, Eng. Hist. Rev. xxiv.
696 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
crews of Licinius’ ships: the galleys were dashed upon the rocks
and islets south of the entrance to the Dardanelles. One hundred
and thirty ships were lost. Crispus could sail to Byzantium un-
molested. Before his arrival Licinius had crossed to the Asiatic
shore. Constantine then collected as many light transports as he
could find, and without raising the suspicions of Licinius by
moving his fleet from Byzantium, he effected a landing on the
Asiatic coast at a point ‘near the mouth of the Pontus,’ perhaps
in the neighbourhood of the village of Riva. Hence he pressed
on to Scutari (Chrysopolis) where Licinius had fixed his camp.
Here on September 18, 324 the battle was fought which sealed
His wife Constantia appealed to the generosity
the fate of Licinius.
of her brother: Constantine spared his rival and banished him to
Salonica. The era of persecution was closed.
puted. Cf. F. Dolger, Zeits.f. Kirchengesch, nvi, 3. Folge, vi, 1937, PP- ^
to another history —
the story of Etirope’s Middle Age. Eusebius
had celebrated the issue of the first Edict of Toleration by pub-
lishing his History of the Church ; after Constantine’s victory over
every rival the bishop of Caesarea formulated for the first time
the theory of Christian sovereignty which was to remain the un-
questioned foundation for the political thought of the East
Roman world. But in that formulation there is no complete
1
‘An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance,’ p. 108, in Harvard Political
Classics, I, 1918.
XX, IV] THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGE 699
breach with the past; many threads are gathered up and woven
into the new pattern. The Iranian conception of kingly power
as a trust from God had, since Aurelian’s day, once more taken
the place of an identification of the ruler with deity. And this
view of the Emperor as deriving his authority from God had
close parallels in Jewish and Christian thought: ‘thou couldest
have no power at all against me except it were given thee from
above.’ And when once the God-kingship had been abandoned,
the rest of the Hellenistic theory of sovereignty could be adopted
with hardly any change of language. The emperor’s aim, for
the Christian as for the pagan, is the imitation of God, just as
the earthly State should be a copy of the heavenly order. Pre-
cisely as the Greek king has for guiding principle the divine
Logos, so for the Christian emperor there is a divine Logos, the
Word of God, to lead and counsel him. Thus the theory of
Christian sovereignty as Eusebius set it forth is itself a symbol
of the way in which the past of the ancient world was carried
over into the Christian Empire. But though the transition is
thus mediated there is none the less at this time a break and a
turning-point in Roman history; the first Christian emperor
was, indeed, as Ammianus described him, a ‘turbator rerum,’ a
revolutionary. Constantine sitting amongst the Christian bishops
at the oecumenical council of Nicaea is in his own person the
beginning of Europe’s Middle Age.
EPILOGUE
The third century of our era witnessed what must have seemed
for a time to be the break-up of that strong system which for
generations had held together the civilized world, a system in
which the internationalism of the ancient world had culminated.
What the Roman Empire made fact had, it is true, been preceded
by partial approximations, and its debt to these is not to be
underrated, hard though it often is to define it with certainty. The
effect of the past is deeper and more extensive than is accounted
for by tradition and memory, by institutions and conscious
culture. Particularly among the ancient peoples of the Near East,
who had largely come to be subjects of the Roman Empire, there
were deep-seated instincts that reflected their life centuries before
Rome was even a name to them. These peoples had seen the rise
and fall of empires, the dignity of Egypt, the force of the As-
syrians, the sophistication of Babylonia, and, as the archives of the
fourteenth and thirteenth centuries show, the world of the Near
East had known an age of precocious internationalism from the
Aegean to Babylonia. The Iranian Empire of Persia had proved
that a people, small in numbers but heirs of that internationalism,
could dominate, if not wholly govern, a great range of countries,
the power of the Great King radiating along roads which fore-
shadowed the achievements of the Romans. The politic wisdom of
toleration, and that not in religion only, was known to the
Persians, and some of their statecraft was taken over by their
final conquerors and became part of the general heritage of
imperial ideas.
Apart from experiments in the art of imperial government, the
earliest period of known ancient history saw adventures in culture.
Two thousand years before Rome became a city, ordered life in
Crete had sheltered an art which was later matched by Greece of
the Mycenaean age. And at the time when the labyrinthine palace
of Cnossus was rising in secure splendour, a king in Babylon,
Hammurabi, was elaborating a code in which men were subtly
enmeshed in niceties of law, nicetieswhich never entirely lost
their hold. Masterful Pharaohs built their tombs to commemorate
the past and to challenge the future. Whatever might be the
disasters that broke upon the empires of the Tigris and the Nile,
the idea may well have penetrated the minds of men that external
EPILOGUE 701
grandeur and culture linked with power were to be defended as a
possession or acquired as a prize. The ancient world was adept in
taking its captors captive. Civilizations might appear to die, but
civilization seemed to have in itself the seeds of immortality. In
general, culture was bound up with authority. As time went on,
art in Persia, for example, was the handmaid of an imperial
sovereignty, the formal expression of a political fact.
In the meantime, in a small land that was of slight political
importance, there was developed a new form of religion, authori-
tarian in its monotheism, which in Judaism by slow degrees raised
up new values that outlived mundane vicissitudes, and ended by
exalting the figure of the martyr rather than of the conqueror.
Overlaid though it was by the racial and the legalistic, Jewish
religion was destined to burn through to be a light from the East,
so that from Judaism there was to proceed a religious movement
which, in part by continuity and in part by conflict, was to become
a power able to mould the Roman Empire itself. Nor was this the
only contribution which the Eastern world was to make. Mith-
raism had its roots in ancient Persian belief, the religiosity of
Egypt was long lived, the wisdom of the Babylonians continued
to appeal to those who sought to rationalize, or at least dignify,
fatalism.
But in ail this something was still lacking, the claim of an
unfettered intellectualism and of political ideas whereby nothing
passed unchallenged. There grew up in Greek lands the city-
state, in which culture belonged to the citizens, in which the
citizen was the measure of all things human and almost all things
divine. First in Ionia and then in Greece physical and ethical
speculation, freed from the mythological elements of the past, led
on to systems of philosophy which were to affect profoundly the
culture of the ancient world. Despite comparatively transient
autocracies, the Greek States were tenaciously republican, and
when they had to accept the hegemony of a king, they retained
institutions which continued to be theirs for centuries after they
had become parts of the Roman Empire. Under Alexander the
Great and his successors the Greek city-state spread over the
Eastern world, and though the Greeks were too few to recreate
the East in their own image, their culture and ways of thinking
set standards to which a great Western power might appeal.
This power presently arose. On the banks of the Tiber another
city grew to strength at the cost or for the advantage of its
neighbours. The Italian peninsula, under Roman control, became
the political centre of the Mediterranean world. Never wholly .
702 EPILOGUE
untouched by things Greek, Roman civilization acquired a
Hellenic element which fitted the Republic to compound its
instinctive statecraft with the more intellectualized practice of the
Hellenistic monarchies which it supplanted. Destructive as
Rome’s power was to much that was finest in Greek life, relentless
as was her advance to domination, yet she preserved Hellenic ideas
and added to them her own. Policy and the chances of war
brought the Western Mediterranean lands within the range of
Roman control, and to the peoples of those lands Rome could
bring a civilization that was Graeco-Roman and not Roman alone.
All Italy became Roman, and the Italo-Roman people was able
to set on the West a stamp still visible to-day.
In the Near East Rome had put an end to the wars of the rival
Greek monarchies. The dream of the restoration of the single
empire of Alexander the Great had now become accomplished
fact. That which the Greeks had failed to effect had been achieved
by Rome. And when the Hellenistic kingdoms had been over-
thrown, the conqueror was content to leave the Greek East to live
its own life and think its own thoughts within a world secured by
as it seemed to be. Its ideals were too static, and the world did not
stand still. Rome had contributed few vital and original ideas to
form the content of the peace which she had established. The
Greek world of thought was living on an inherited capital, and a
rhetorical education made words of greater importance than the
—
EPILOGUE 703
thoughts which they expressed. Imperial intervention in municipal
affairs,however well-intentioned, tended to paralyse the generosity
and patriotism of the city’s benefactors, while the peasants, ex-
ploited by the city-dwellers, were also the victims of the greed
and violence of an undisciplined soldiery. The opening decades of
the third century saw in Persia the overthrow of Parthian rule
and the establishment of the Sassanid dynasty supported by a
newly awakened national sentiment. Antioch lay too near to
enemy territory ; Persian raiders crossed the Euphrates and sacked
the capital of the Roman East. Throughout the length of the
—
Empire’s northern frontier from the Rhine to the Black Sea
the barbarian world was on the move. Germanic tribes which
lived by war saw before them an empire to plunder. An Empire
organized on a peace footing, as Augustus had conceived it, could
not stand the strain. The defensive system fixed by Hadrian and
his successors was broken down. Small wonder that when the
central government failed them provincial armies should seek to
defend the land from which they had been recruited that —
Postumus should found an empire of the Gauls, that Rome’s ally
the prince of Palmyra should seize the opportunity of the Empire’s
weakness to establish an independent kingdom, that on every
hand generals made a bid for the purple and still further dis-
organized the Roman defence. It looked as though the unification
of the Mediterranean world was at an end.
The third century is thus a period of crisis, of experiment and
of transition. The military crisis brought economic chaos in its
train. Every new emperor was forced to purchase the loyalty of
his army; the world had, indeed, learned the art of spending, but
not of saving. Any great emergency found little in the imperial
treasury but hope, and the coming of the Golden Age of pros-
perity, so often proclaimed, was as often delayed, for the needs of
the State had grown greatly and the power to meet them by
ordinary taxation had declined. In both the military and economic
spheres emperors tried expedient after expedient: in the army
they resorted to special formations of picked troops, or to the
introduction of new weapons or of defensive armour borrowed from
their enemies: to meet growing expenditure they raised extra-
ordinary contributions in kind from the provinces through which
the armies marched, and debasement of the coinage was con-
tinuously carried to greater lengths. All, it seemed, to little effect.
Yet the threatened dissolution of the world which Rome had
unified was in fact averted; and the restoration of the closing
decades of the third century was essentially the work of (the
704 EPILOGUE
Balkan soldiery and of the Illyrian emperors. Here in the Balkan
peninsula pagan Rome had found her last great mission field and
her converts were enthusiastic in defence of the Roman tradition
as they conceived it. The history of the third century is for us a
thing of shreds and patches; we can best understand it through
studying the solutions which the emperors of the restoration
brought to the problems that were its legacy. One of the most
pressing of those problems was the safeguarding of the emperor’s
authority, for though there had been an increase in autocratic
power there had also been an increase in the emperor’s dependence
upon his troops by their will he was made and as readily unmade.
:
king, and consequently Lord and God. In the third century this
conception had gained ground; the imperial house had become
the divina the emperor enjoyed the favour of the God who
:
was his companion on the throne. Yet that favour was readily
transferable and conferred no fixity of tenure it might be a sail,
:
but it was not an anchor. The Unconquered Sun had been unable
to save Aurelian from assassination. Diocletian, by admitting and
regularizing at his court a ceremonial which was appropriate to
Greek conceptions of the imperial authority, was seeking to free
the emperor from subjection to the passions of his soldiery. Here
is the beginning of that ‘imperial liturgy,’ the strange mixture of
irreconcilable antithesis.
It is worthy of note that in the last great attack upon the
Church the has in general passed wholly into the hands
initiative
of the State. It is only in exceptional cases that popular hostility
is actively engaged. This fact serves to explain the unforced
classical literature from the pagan faith which rendered it easy for
the Church to appropriate the culture of the fourth-century world,
and which among pagans opened the way for the victorious
expansion of the Church.
When once the failure of the persecution had been avowed, a
toleration granted by express enactment was the natural result of
the situation thus created what could not have been expected was
:
708 EPILOGUE
Constantine was realized, and a common religious belief became
the cement which bound together the folk of East Rome. To the
unquestioned acceptance of such beliefs as these the personal
experience and the personality of Constantine must have con-
tributed not a little.
The Near East had remained a Greek world when Diocletian
:
the effort failed. But throughout the Empire Latin remained the
language of Roman law, and Latin was in consequence studied in
the Roman law schools, as at Berytus. Not only were both
Diocletian and Constaixtine very active as legislators, but at this
time a first beginning was made with the codification of the law of
the Empire. There were two collections of the constitutions of the
emperors, the Codex Gregorianus and the Codex Hermogeniaxus,
the latter containing only constitutions issued during the reign of
Diocletian. Both, however, were the work of private citizens and
unofficial. It was long before the example thus set was followed
by the State and imperial authority issued the codifications of
Theodosius and Justinian. In the sphere of law, as elsewhere,
Constantine was an innovator and it was he who first conferred
upon the bishops judicial powers. The original extent of that
grant has been disputed, but during the fourth century more and
more of a bishop’s time was occupied by what were really affairs of
State. The Emperor had given his support to the Christian Church
the Church should in turn provide the State with a less corrupt
administration of justice than that of its own lay judges. And
because the Church had not remodelled the law of pagan Rome,
it was forced to supplement imperial legislation ; it had standards
LITERARY AUTHORITIES
Cassius Dio Cocceianus (see voi. xi, p. 855) had held important posts
both in the provinces and in Rome; he was twice consul, the second time as
colleague of Severus Alexander in 229. He spent ten years in collecting
”
material and then wrote a complete ‘annalistic’ history of Rome down to the
year 229 in eighty books (lxxiii, 23, 5)^, Of events after 1 80 he was himself
a contemporary and eyewitness (lxxiii, 4, 2), After a.d. 46 (lx, 28, 3)
save for the incomplete texts of books 79 and 80 and for fragments preserved
—
by Constantine Porphyrogenitus we possess his history only in the com-
pendium of Johannes Xiphiiinus (eleventh century). For Dio’s own view of
the Imperial constitution in the third century the speech put into the mouth
of Maecenas (lii, 14-40) is of the highest interest (see above, p, 59 sq,),
Herodian, a Syrian Greek, wrote in the third century a history of the
years 1 80—238 in eight books. For the latter part of the period he speaks as a
contemporary observer. He supplements the history of Dio, wdiose work he
did not use. His style is rhetorical, and the lengthy speeches which he is fond
of inserting are a weariness to the reader.
The Historia Augusta (see voI. xi, p. 856) is a collection of lives
(written ostensibly by six authors) of the Roman emperors from Hadrian
down to Numerianus, though the biographies from 244 to 253 are missing.
The collection purports to be dated to the reigns of Diocletian and Constan-
tine, and some scholars still accept this dating (see above, p. 598). But it is
now generally held tliat the work in its present form is a product of the
second half or the fourth century, whether of the reign of Julian the Apostate
(see above, p. 58), or of the reign of Theodosius. It has also been proposed to
date the collection to the early years of the fifth century, though the sugges-
tion that it was compiled in Merovingian Gaul has won no wide support^.
The date of composition is of significance, as far as the present volume is
concerned, mainly for the reign of Severus Alexander of whom the Historia
Augusta has a singular biography of otherwise unexampled length. If this is
in reality an anachronistic picture of the imperial ideals of J ulian the Apostate,
this fact must necessarily influence the use made of the life in writing the
history of the reign. In the same way if the main ‘tendency’ of the Historia
Augusta is hostility to Christianity (p. 223), this will similarly affect the
student’s judgment of the historical value of not a few parts of the collection.
These questions are still under discussion, and it is thus only natural that
a difference of view is reflected in different chapters of the present volume.
^ References from Dio are given according to Boissevain’s edition, books
being cited by the numbers on the left-hand pages of that work. Where
,
any doubt can arise because of this notation, a reference is given to the page
of Boissevain’s edition.
^ For representative works in the controversy about the character, value,
date and purpose of the Historia Augusta, see below, p. 730*
APPENDIX ON SOURCES 71
Also the acceptance or rejection of details given in the w'ork is bound to be
governed by considerations of general probability and by the extent to which
the sources that have been used can be controlled by their re-appearance in
later historical writings (see below, p. ).
In the poverty of our other sources for the history of the third century an
increased importance attaches to the later brief epitomes of the history of the
Empire. Sextus Aureuus Victor, an African, wrote (c. 360) a historia
—
abbreviata—th^ Caesar es which covered the period from Augustus to
Gonstantius; another short history of the Empire (down to Theodosius)
which purports to be an Epitome of the Caesares is really an independent
work of which only the earliest part is in any way derived from Aurelius
Victor. In the reign of Valens Eutropius wrote his Bremarmm ab urbe
cofidita one of the most important and hotly disputed literary problems of the
5
fourth century is the question whether the writers or compiler of the Historia
Augusta used the Breviarium of Eutropius, or whether Eutropius and the
Historia Augusta both drew upon a (lost) common source. On the answer to
this question depends in large measure the precise dating of the Historia
Augusta,
Rufius Festus in his Breviarium (probably written after 369 and dedi-
Emperor Valens) sketched the growth and expansion of Rome’s
cated to the
Empire and then in the second part of his compendium gave an outline of the
relations of Rome with the East. The Persian wars of the fourth century
would naturally awake an interest in such a subject.
Ammianus Marcellinus, the last true historian of the ancient world, a
soldier writing in Rome and, though a Greek, in the Latin language, com-
posed, towards the close of the fourth century, a history of the Empire from
Nerva down to a.d. 378. Unfortunately the thirteen books which brought
the history down to the year 353 are lost, and for the period covered by the
present volume it is only in chance references to earlier events that the work
is of service. Our reconstruction of the course of the third-century develop-
ment would be far more securely founded than it in fact is if we possessed the
lost books of one who wrote with impartiality and with personal knowledge
alike of the Roman West and the Roman East.
Of later works the Historia Nova of Zosimus (written in Greek between
450 and 501) is of importance since, for his account of the movements of the
Goths in the third century, he drew upon the Scythica of Dexippus, an
Athenian who played a leading part in the history of his city during the years
253 to 276 and had himself lived through the Gothic invasions. Further,
Zosimus is of interest since he represents the pagan point of view, using as a
source the lost history of Eunapius. But as a writer he is hurried and careless;
his use of his sources is exasperating and the effort to obtain from his work
any clear chronology appears at times to be a hopeless task. Similarly for
— —
Gothic history the work of Jordanes Getica published in a.o. 551 is
significant, since it preserves extracts from the lost work on that subject of
Cassiodorus, though here again the extracts are unskilfully put together.
But Greek historiography continued for many centuries, and some names
must be mentioned however briefly. Petrus Patricius, born r. 500, was
ambassador for Justinian to the Gothic court in Italy and to Persia, and thus
his work, de legatiomhus^ of which only fragments remain, was written with
\
offensive of- the Roman State against the Christian Church, while both
Tertullian and Cyprian are important witnesses for the development of the
authority claimed hj the Bishops of Rome. But the outstanding historical
work from the Christian side is the Church History of Eusebius, Bishop of
Caesarea in Palestine, which has preserved for us many original documents
either in whole or in part; here the methods of Alexandrian scholarship are
—
APPENDIX ON SOURCES 713
appropriated in the service of the Church by one who had been trained in the
tradition of Origen. Further, Eusebius alone has left us a detailed history of
the course of the Great Persecution within a single province of the Empire,
In his martyrihus Palaesiinae he gave a complete list of all the martyrs
who died in Palestine; hehoped that others might imitate his example and
make from their own personal knowledge similar local records; had they done
so, we might to-day have been in a position to write an account of the
Persecution as a whole. —
It should be noted that from a study of the manu-
script tradition E. Scliwartz has distinguished the successive editions of the
Ecclesmstical History which were issued between 31 1 and 325 (see his article
in P.W.i.'^;. Eusebios).
The work which is commonly known under the Latin title Fita Constantini
is in fact entitled e/!? rov jSiov rov fiaicapvov K.(ov(TTavrLvov /SacriXico^:
itdoes not profess to give a complete biographical record, but only deals
with the Emperor’s actions so far as they advanced the Christian religion
raTi’po^ TOP deo^tXrj (Twrelvovra /3 iov (i, 1 1). The critics of this panegyric
written after Constantine’s death have often failed to take account of the
author’s express object in writing the work.
There has been long dispute whether the philosophic and highly cultured
student of Cicero, Lactantius, who as a teacher was summoned from Africa
to Nicomedia by Diocletian, could have been the author both of the Divine
Institutesand of the bitter and impassioned pamphlet On The Deaths of the
Persecutors. But the Lactantian authorship of the De mortibus persecutorum
is now generally accepted. The account of the inception and course of the
Persecution is vividly dramatic, but, though the story as Lactantius told it has
often been questioned, there is, it would seem, no adequate reason to doubt its
substantial truth. In his view that Galerius was the moving spirit in setting on
foot the Great Persecution Lactantius is supported by Eusebius, and it is
not easy to reject this agreement of the two contemporary writers (see above,
p. 665).
For a period of history where our sources are so meagre the student must
seek to base his chronology on ail the available evidence whether of inscrip-
tions, papyri, coins (see below) or the dating of imperial constitutions. In the
economic crisis, however, of the third century there was little money to spend
on such expensive memorials as inscriptions, and thus the constitutions cited
in the Code of Justinian acquire an added importance. But there are
difficulties: it is often uncertain whether the text of such constitutions in its
present form can be trusted, while it is unfortunate that none of the imperial
orders which introduced the Diocletio-Constantinian reforms have been
preserved. (For the introduction into Egj^t of the new system of taxation
see the recently published papyrus cited on p. 338).
N. H. B.
(2) COINS
The ancient coin, like the modern, was primarily a means of exchange,
and, in the absence of a developed system of banking, was even more important
commercially than the modern. It was, at the same time, less efficient for
its immediate purpose, inasmuch as it was less accurately struck and adjusted
to weight, and frequently lacked date and mark of value. Unlike the
modern, the ancient coin had often something of a medaliic character
714 •
APPENDIX ON, SOURCES:
that is to say, it., referred directly to particular historical happenings of the
time. Even apart from this, it was, in a far higher degree than the modern
coin, an expression of the State in .its religious and symbolical aspect.
What true of ancient coins as a whole is true in a pre-eminent degree of
is
the coinage of the Roman Empire. It has a function quite distinct from the
commercial. It supplies an almost continuous commentary on events and
policies, keeps before the public the emperor, his features, titles, achievements,
travels, and at the same time sketches in a background of thought and senti-
ment which the foreground. The Roman
helps to explain the events that fill
imperial coinage is, in fact, a series of medals, .imr,rating the history, and
suggesting the atmosphere of political life, reign by reign.
A coinage of this character must obviously be considered seriously as a
source for history. Even if the literary authorities were much more satis-
factory and unbroken than they actually are, the coinage would supply
still
an invaluable check on accuracy and would add its own colour to the
historical narrative. The accidental gaps in the tradition make numismatic
evidence doubly valuable, as it may restore to us facts either completely lost
or, at least, obscured in the literary tradition.
When we speak of * Roman Imperial Coins’ we usually mean the coinage,
with Latin legends and in Roman denominations, issued by Roman authority,
regularly in Rome, less regularly in the provinces as well. In the Early
Empire Rome is the one great centre. The division of the coinage into the
two branches. Imperial gold and silver and senatorial aes, affords a means of
forming some conclusions of interest about the relations of princeps and
Senate. Provincial mints arise, at first, from rebellions in the provinces and
seldom from any other cause. In the second century of our era Rome seems
to enjoy a monopoly of Imperial coinage that is almost complete. But in the
third century there begins to appear a series of provincial mints, striking
imperial denominations for military purposes, which finally develops into the
system of Diocletian. Other coinage was struck, more or less directly by
Roman authority, for certain provinces and, locally, by Roman permission,
at a very great number of city-mints. These mints were always predominantly,
after the Early Empire exclusively. Eastern. Any part of this coinage may
occasionally yield material of value for history, and will some day yield more,
when it has been collected and adequately annotated. For the time we are
concerned primarily with the Imperial and senatorial mints of Rome and
with mints of a similar character in the provinces. The greatest of all Greek
mints, that of the second city of the Empire, Alexandria, will also give
much help, particularly for chronology.
Before we can appraise the value of such a coinage for history, we must ask
the question, what order of validity can it claim? Does it represent official
opinion? Does it reflect public opinion in any vital sense? If it is official,
does it represent the higher officialdom or merely some unimportant bureau,
left to work without much direction from higher quarters? Was the coinage
considered to be of sufficient importance to be treated seriously as an instru-
ment of politico ?
The first problem is, who controlled the mints? The imperial mint of
Rome was run byimperial freedmen and slaves. But, from the reign of Trajan
onwards, it is under a procurator monetae^ answerable, if not to the emperor
^
less, control, even if less formal, will have been just as real.
It is known that the emperors took pains to report news to the Roman
public in the form of the acta diurna, officially edited by a special officer. In
so far as the coins record definite events, we may think of them as very short,
carefully selected extracts from those acta^ illustrated with suitable types.
But this does not exhaust their content. They deal also with hopes, aspira-
tions, promises and prayers, and, to give due expression to these, a dose
acquaintance with the general thought and feeling of the age and with the
symbolical expression of it was essential.
A few examples from history may be selected to illustrate these points.
The coinage struck for Agrippa and Tiberius under Augustus, for Ger-
manicus and Drusus under Tiberius, for Nero under Claudius, had in each
case serious political significance and was certainly controlled and directed
7i6 appendix on.- sources
with due care. The ‘constitutionar. coinage of the first period of the reign
of Nero gives place to a self-assertive*. self-advertising coinage after the sup-
pression of the conspiracy of Piso (voL x,. pp* 726 sqq.). There is an abrupt
change in th.e tone of the coinage when-Nerva succeeds Domitian, a scarcely
less abrupt* and less to be expected change* when Trajan succeeds Nerva. In
neither case can it be accidental*. The adoption of Hadrian by Trajan is most
carefully and judiciously brought to the notice of the public on the coins.
Septimius Severus marks his acceptance of Aibinus as Caesar by striking for
him at the mints of Rome, When* in a.d. 195, Aibinus breaks with Severus*
this coinage at Rome ceases and is replaced by a little coinage for Aibinus
at Lugdununi* with the title of Augustus. The Palmyrene ascendency in the
East, the Gallic and British empires in the West* find their full commemora-
tion in the coinage. Many of the pretenders of the Great Anarchy have left
a numismatic record of their short-lived efforts. The Sun-worship of Aurelian
is written large on the coins of his reign* and the praise of the Jovian and
Herculian dynasties fills a great part of the coinage of the reign of Diocletian,
These examples represent no more than an arbitrary selection from an
almost inexhaustible stock. They fully Justify the assertion that the coinage
was very seriously regarded as one of the most effective means of publicity
and propaganda. Knowing as much as we do of the close personal attention
that a conscientious emperor might devote to the details of administration*
we may be sure that not infrequently decisions on major points of coinage-
policy were taken direct by him.
One or two objections may be raised. ‘This view,^ it may be urged,
‘implies that the Roman regarded his coins with a close attention that seems
hardly thinkable, when we reflect how casually we regard them to-day,^
The answer to this is to be seen in a marked and notable difference between
ancient and modern usage. The Roman studied his coins attentively, because
he knew that he would find on them something worthy of his attention.
There were also far fewer rival claims on that attention.
A more serious objection may be found in the rare instances in which coin-
age does not represent history as we know it from other sources. Take,
for example, the reign of Gaius. The coinage faithfully represents his first
phase of constitutionalism, based on the great inheritance of Augustus; it does
not reflect his later phase of megalomania. The apparent exception only
confirms the rule. Had Gaius lived longer, his vagaries might have spread
to the coinage. As it was, his subordinates, realizing that he was unbalanced,
succeeded in keeping his extravagances from finding official expression on the
coins. A similar explanation may be advanced to explain the akence of coins
for many of the pretenders of the third century. In some cases* coins may
have been struck in such limited quantities that none have chanced to
survive. Accident may still restore such issues to our knowledge. But* in
others* the absence of coinage maybe real and significant. The pretenders
may never have laid claim to the rank of emperor, and the absence of
coins is a warning not to take too readily at face-value such lists as that
of the jfugustan History with its ‘Thirty Tyrants.’
This much agreed, what may we reasonably expect to learn from the
Imperial coinage? From accidental error it will be as good as free. Where
the same type and legend are attested by a number of dies, such error is
appendix on ..sources:
automatically eliminated. In this respect the coin takes precedence of even
the best single inscription. The coin may also be trusted, in general, to be
true in point of fact. What purpose would there be in commemorating on the
coinage a largesse that had not been given or an act of State that had not hap-
pened? How far the com will be true in spirit and interpretatioii is a harder
matter to decide. We must obviously expect to find the official point of view,
with such deviations from absolute veracity as that must involve. But, for
one thing, this official point of view is so inadequately represented in the
literary tradition that the consistent expression of it on the coins has a value
of its own. And, further, we have just seen reason to suppose that occasional
extravagances of imperial government may have been evened out by the sane
tradition of the imperial service. That a regard for public opinion formed a
continuous check on the coinage may be assumed with confidence and,
occasionally, demonstrated in detail. The frequent advertisement of ‘libertas’
and the ‘optimus status rerum’ under the ‘optimus princeps’ shows that the
administration was conscious of having clients to consider, with definite
tastes and requirements of their own. The provincial mints of the third
century show, as might have been expected, traces of special needs and wishes.
One great advantage of the coinage, particularly in the third century, is that
it is continuous, where the literary tradition is so broken. It is, in fact, the
only surviving continuous source for the period. In considering its historical
use, it is the third century that is here most in point, and it may be con-
sidered under the following headings: (i) Chronology. (2) Current events
at home and abroad. (3) The emperor and his subjects. (4) Religion.
(5) The background of thought and sentiment in the empire.
(1) Chronology. Imperial coinage is often dated by the tribunician power,
the consulships, the titles of honour and the imperatorial acclamations of the
emperor. In some reigns, as those of Antoninus Pius to Commodus, or of
Septimius Severus to Maximinus Thrax the record is almost unbroken. But,
even where dated coins are rare, the undated can usually be placed within a
year or so of their true date by comparison with the dated material. In many
instances this exact chronology is still to be attained, but it is already certain
that it may reasonably be hoped for in the future. Thus for almost all
questions of dates numismatic evidence is of cardinal importance. It can be
used in conjunction with our other authorities to establish a true chronology;
when the coins and the other authorities disagree, it is to the coins that we
must give the preference. A few examples will suffice. The coins show,
that Valerian reckoned the beginning of his reign from a date before the
end of August A, D. 253. They provide the true limits of date for the Gallic
Empire, a.b, 258--9 to 274 and the true order of the Gallic emperors,
Postumus, Laelianus, Marius, Victorinus, Tetricus. They prove that Vic-
torinus was never adopted as co-regent by Postumus (seep. 188, n. i).
The high tribunician numbers of Aurelian, tr. p. vi and vii, with cos. n,
seem to point to a reckoning continued from that of Claudius II. Finally,
they enable us to fix the death of Carus with some precision in July 283, and
show that Maximian can only have been Caesar for a very short time.
(2) Current events at home and abroad. The content
of the Imperial
coinage varied appreciably from age to age, and the period of maximum
historical interest was already past by the third century. General references
7 i8 APPENDIX:.ON SOURCES ,
to victories^ vows, largesses, arrivals and ^departures still: occur, but they begin
to assume less particular form than', in the earlier '''reigns,. Claudius '.'for
'
and captives, not with such elaborate pictorial designs' as the ‘Imperator’
types or the rex parthis batvs of Trajan.
Even so, the coins have something to add to history.': The coinage of
Postumus at the mint of Milan, at the very moment when that city was in
the ..hands of Aureolu'S, reveals a -fact otherwise unrecorded, that' Aureolus
.was 'acting in' the name of Postumus (p. 189). It th,rows a new, light both
:
on the activities of Aureolus and on the -relations of the Gallic Empire with
Rome. The coins of Carausius supply valuable' evidence for the character
of the peace which he won from Rome (see p. 333)-
The absence of coinage can be as significant as its presence. The fact that
Aurelian strikes no coins for Vaballathus at any of his own mints is strongly
against the theory that he ever recognized him as his co-ruler in the East.
The absence of coins of Carausius in mints of the Empire defines clearly
the limits of the ‘peace’ with the Empire achieved by that hardy rebel.
As has already been suggested, the fact that so many of the ‘Thirty Tyrants’
have left no coinage suggests grave doubts of the reality of their usurpations.
On the other hand, the discovery of coins of Domitianus and Saturninus in
recent years is a warningthat gaps maybe accidental and that, where issues
are in their very nature rare, chance may have played a large part in survival
or the reverse. The rare gold coins of Uranius Antoninus add a curious little
chapter to the history of the East in the early third century (p. 70),
(3) The emper&r and his subjects. The emperor is the centre of the coinage,
senatorial as well as Imperial. His portrait replaces the original deity or city-
type of the obverse. His family relationships, his marriages, his children, his
heirs, his vows and largesses, his comings and goings still fill up a large part
of the canvas. The decline of the Senate is shown in the disappearance of its
mark,S. C., from the coinage and in the general fall of the aes coinage as a
whole. In the references to the emperor, as elsewhere, the general tends to
replace the particular. Vows and largesses are no longer chronicled with so
much detail and such a type as adventvs avgvsti seems to assume a wider
symbolical significance, not so much the entry of the emperor into his capital
city in actual presence, as the ‘advent’ of the saviour to his waiting world.
In one respect the coins have a quite exceptional importance. They outrun
the legal facts and theories and show the actual process by which the princeps
passed into the dominus et deus of the Late Empire. Whatever the constitu-
tional theory, the emperor on coins continually appeared with attributes,
borrowed from the gods, and with suggestions of Eastern royalty. The gradual
invasion of the coinage by such forms has recently been demonstrated in a
remarkable paper^. By the reign of Aurelian they are becoming explicit,
so much so, in fact, that Diocletian seems rather to impose some slight check
on them than to promote their further development. The extraordinary
demonstrations of fervour and loyalty at the mint of Serdica show clearly
that coinage could faithfully mirror local feeling.
Aeterna,’ in which the stress falls on the divine mission of Rome and her
emperors. A touch of mysticism seems here to fall on the material world.
The eternal overshadows the temporal and men find consolation, amid scenes
of change, in contemplating the permanent assurance of happiness and peace.
Yet another theme is that of ‘Concordia,’ in the Imperial House, in the
State, above all, in the army. Here the ‘Concordia’ types have at times a
peculiar and sinister significance of their own. They are the comment of the
mint on the terrible facts of the military anarchy, an instance of what is
now called wish-fulfilment.
course it is; how can an ‘apologia pro vita sua’. be otherwise? But it enables
us to fill in the background which the ..literary authorities so often leave
empty, and to realize the mood in; which Rome of the third century faced
and surmounted the strange vicissitudes of the times. So much the coins
can already give. They will have more to give in future: for we can
already see before us an ideal, realizable, if only partly realized —
an exact
chronology and attribution to mints and a complete annotation, based
on comparison with the whole of the evidence for, the Empire.
But, apart from the evidence of the. coins as medals, they have, naturally,
their own significance for economic .history* The great inflation and collapse
.
of the third century, the reform of Aurelian and the more drastic reform of
Diocletian represent important chapters in economic history (chaps, vii, ix).
We can already make some use of them, and shall be able to make more when
numismatists can agree better on their facts and interpretations. Already the
coins suggest interesting conclusions about the policy of the emperors in face
of the army and the population, about the causes of discontent, par-
civil
ticularly in the West from Aurelian
to Carausius, and, perhaps, about the
inner meaning of the great rise in prices that called forth the Eduium de
maximis pretiisof Diocletian.
Finally, there is the evidence of coin- finds, whether in hoards or in chance
deposits on sites. For frontier districts such evidence, when complete, should
be decisive for the date of the Roman abandonment. It can already be used to
control thedate of the Roman abandonment of Dacia (p. 30i,n. i). Atpresent,
however, the evidence is not fully available and there is doubt in places of its
exact bearing. Do the multitudinous hoards of Tetricus and his fellows mark
the course of barbarian invasions or do they rather show the refusal of the
Western provincial to give up his old coins for the money of the reform of
Aurelian?
Here, as at many other points, numismatic evidence must be used with
due caution. But it is beyond doubt that in the coins lies a treasure, partly
won, partly awaiting further study as a condition of its full exploitation; a
treasure which, failing new discoveries of inscriptions or manuscripts, oifers
almost our only chance of penetrating the thick darkness that still envelops
so much of the history of the third century.
NOTES
I. THE SOURCES FOR THE GOTHIC INVASIONS OF
THE YEARS 260-270
The statements of ancient authors about the Gothic wars under Valerian
and Galiienus show an unprecedented state of confusion, for the reasons that
follow. First, the late compendia and, with special exaggeration, the Historia
jlugusta have represented Galiienus, according to a literary convention, as a
tyrant sinking ever lower and lower, and thus have made it seem as if the
heaviest disasters fell at the end of his reign. Next the compiler of the Historia
jiugustahzs divided up piece-meal the several accounts of the Gothic wars
and scattered them throughout his text, often with repetitions; and he did
not flinch from seeking to enhance the credibility of his procedure by
repeated arbitrary insertions of datings by consuls. The result is that scholars
have been so far misled that modern accounts are full of Gothic wars which
never happened. Fortunately, it is possible to show that the compiler drew
his material from the very compendia which served as sources for the By-
zantine authors whose works have been preserved.^
These authors, then, must supply the due to a judgment of the source-
material, as also for the chronological order of events. For the Gothic wars
of Galiienus and Claudius II the decisive evidence is the fact that the state-
ments of the Vita Gallieni coincide with the narrative in Syncellus and so
must be arranged and reconstructed according to the order given by the latter,
whereas in the Vita Clauiii the source followed by Syncellus is exchanged for
that followed by Zosimus. All other statements —or almost all —
can be
grouped round this two-fold core; and by this process three, and only three,
invasions between 260 and 270 can be distinguished.^ These are as follows.
(Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevaiii, in, p/745), Cedreiiu.s, i, p. 454, 12 sqq. etc.
coincide with this account. The surprising fact then emerges that the first,
larger half of his narrative coincides with the account of the expedition of
268 given in Syncellus p. 717 and the sources that correspond with it (see B
above). The points of likeness are too numerous to be accidental, as will be
seen from the table which follows.
B 1
I. The barbarian fleet takes Byzan- Naval battle off Byzantium (S.H.A,
tium and Chrysopolisj it is here Claud. 9, 7).
defeated in a naval engagement
(Syncellus 717 sqq.\ S.H.A. :
Gall, dm 1 3, 6—7).
j
6. The imperial army destroys 3000 The Dalmatian cavalry of the Em-
barbarians ‘Nessus’ (Syn-
at peror (Claudius) annihilates 3000
cellus, loc. cit.)y Gallienus wins Germans (Zosimus i, 43, 2). The
a victory in Illyricum (S.H.A. Emperor wins a victory at ‘Naissus’
Gall- duo 12,0; cf. Zonaras xii, (Zosimus I, 43, 2).
24 [p- 596I).
10).
^ The text says: the aureus (xpvaov<l) was dealt in at eleven instead of
fifteen drachmae. Segre's interpretation (at 1 1 1 instead of 115 drachmae in
copper), despite all, remains, in the view of the present writer, more probable
than that proposed by W. K. Prentice and A. C. Johnson in Jmer. Journ.
of Arch. XXXVIII, 1934, p- 52 (that gold stood to silver in the relation of 1 i:
instead of 15:1).
NOTES 725
possible; fourth, the characterof the coins as issued by the State influences
their nominal value (W, Giesecke, Antikes Geldwesen^ p, 248) so long at
least as the State remains powerful and can command confidence. A de-
crease in the value of money, which happens by very small stages and which
is taken in hand by a powerful state concurrently with a prudent increase in
the money in circulation, does not, therefore, of necessity result in any im-
mediate, rise in 'prices \
Very far-reaching conclusions have been drawn concerning the fall
of prices in the second century from P. Bad. 79 (probably of the time of
Antoninus Pius) because it was taken to give a price for wheat of 6 drachmas
an arfabey but the difficulties of interpretation which the text offers are such
that the papyrus cannot for the present be used with profit.
{b) From Commodus to A.D, 256. Under Commodus the alloy of the
denarius reached 30 per cent, and more, under Septimius Severus about
50 per cent, by A.D. 256 about 60 per cent In accordance with this,
instead of 25 denarii being equivalent to an aureus in the reign of Anto-
ninus Pius, 50 denarii in the time of Severus Alexander and about 60 in
A.D. 244/5 became equivalent to an aureus, which itself, as it seems, now was
issued in an irregularly smaller weight. Cf. Mickwitz, op. cit. p. 35; F. Hei-
chelheim in Klio xxviy 1933, p. 102. For the same reason the legionary pay
rose from 300 denarii (under Domitian) to 375 (under Commodus), to 500
(under Septimius Severus), to 750 (under Caracalla); the price of bread at
Ephesus doubled between the time of Trajan and the beginning of the
third century; and the price of corn in Egypt rose to double or two-and-a-
half times. Heichelheim, op. dt. p. 102 sq.y Mickwitz, op. dt. pp. sqq.y
48-
For the great inflation after a.d. 256 see above, p. 266.
FR. o.
Musde beige.
N. J. £ Wiss.: Neue Jahrbiicher fur Wissenschaft und Jugendbildung.
N. J.KI. Alt. Neue Jahrbucher fiir das Massische Altertum.
N.J.P. Neue Jahrbucher fur Philologie.
Not. arch. Notiziario archeologico del Ministero delle Colonie.
N. S.A. Notizie degli Scavi di AntichitL
Num. Chr. Numismatic Chronicle.
Niim. Z. Numismatische Zeitschrift
O. G.I.S. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Seiectae.
Phil, Philologus.
Phil. Woch. Philoiogische Wochenschrift.
P. LR. Prosopographia Imperii Romani.
P.W. Pauly-Wissowa-Kroli’s Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Alter-
tu mswissenschaft.
Rend. Line. Rendiconti della reale Accademia dei Lincei.
Rev.' Arch. Revue archdologique.
Rev. Beige Revue Beige de philosophie et d’histoire.
Rev. E. A. Revue des etudes anciennes.
Rev. E. G. Revue des dtudes grecques.
Rev. E, L. Revue des etudes latines.
Rev. H. Revue historique.
Rev. Hist. Rel. Revue de Fhistoire des religions.
Rev. N. Revue numismatique.
Rev. Phil. Revue de philologie, de littdrature et d’histoire anciennes.
R. -G. K. Ber. Berichte der Romisch-Germanischen Kommission.
Rh. Mus. Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologie.
Riv, Fii. Rivista di filologia.
Riv. stor. ant. Rivista di storia antica.
R5m. Mitt. Mitteilungen des deutschen arch. Inst. Rdmische Abteilung.
Sachs. Abh. Abhandlungen d. sachs. Akad. d. Wissenschaften zu Leipzig.
S. B. Sitzungsberichte.
S.E.G, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.
Suppl. Supplementband.
Sjmb. Osl. Symbolae Osloenses.
Wien Anz. Anzeiger d. Akad. d. Wissenschaften in Wien.
Wien S.B. Sitzungsberichte d. Akad. d. Wissenschaften in Wien.
Wien. St. Wiener Studien.
Z. D. Pal.-V. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins.
Z. d. Sav.“Stift. Zeitschrift d. Savigny-Stiftung f. Rechtsgeschichte, Romani-
stische Abteilung.
Z.N. Zeitschrift fur Numismatik.
For Papyri see the list of titles and abbreviations given in VoL x, pp. 922 ryy.
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:
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ed. 3, Storia economica e sodale deW tmpero Romano. Florence, 1933.
A history of the Ancient World. Voi. ii, Rome. Oxford, 1927.
Seeck, O. GescMchte des Untergangs der antiken Welt. 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1921.
Stein, E. GescMchte des spatromiscken Reiches. Vol, i, Yimmy 1928.
Stevenson, G. H. The Roman Empire. London, 1930.
Stuart Jones, H. The Roman Empire^ ^.c. 29-A.n. 476. 3rd Impression, London,
1916.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY im
II. Works op Reference, Dictionaries, etc.
vol. Ill, edd. P. de Rohden et H. Dessau, 1898. Vol. i of the 2nd edition, edd.
E. Groaget A. Stein, Berlin-Leipzig, 1933; vol. ii, 1936. (P.LR.)
Liibker, Friedrich. Reallexihn des klassischen Aliertums fur Gymnasien, Ed. 8
(bf J: Geffcken and E. Ziebarth). Leipzig, 1914. (Lubker.)
Marquardt, J. Romiscke Staatsverwaliung, Leipzig. Ed. 2. Vol. i, 1881; vol. ii,
1884; vol. HI, 1885.
Mommsen, Th. Romisckes Staatsreckt, Leipzig. Vol.
i (ed. 3), 1887; vol. ii, i (ed.
3), 1887; vol. II, 2 (ed, 3), 1887; vol. Ill, I, 1887; vol. Ill, 2, 1888.
von Muller, Iwan. Handbuck der Altertumswissensckaft, (In course of revision
under editorship of W. Otto.) Munich, 1886- (Mullers Handbuch.)
Platner, S. B. A
Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, (Completed and revised
by T. Ashby.) Oxford, 1929.
Sandys, Sir J. E. A
Companion to Latin Studies, Ed. 3. Cambridge, 1929.
Stuart Jones, H. A
Companion to Roman History. Oxford, 1912.
Wissowa, G. Paulfs Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissensckaft, Neue
Bearbeitung. (Under editorship of W. Kroll.) Stuttgart, 1 894- . (P.W.)
III. Chronology
IV. Numismatics
730 GENERAL
Matdngly, H. and E. A, SydeEham. The Romm Impinai'Coimge. London^ foI. tw^,
part i (Pertinaz to Geta), 19,36; voi. t, by P. H. Webb, part' i (¥alerian to
,
'
1932-
Schniz, O. Th. Die Rechtsilte! mi Regkrmgsprogramme auf r^mischn 'kaiser-
mmzen,Caesar bis Semrus, (Stndien zur Gescliichte iind Kulta.r 'des
‘uon
Altertums, xin, 4.) Paderborn, 1925.
Vogt, J. Die alexandriniscken Miinzxn: Grundiegung einer akxandriMtschn
KaisergescMckte, Part i. Text; Partxi, Miinzyerzeiclinis.. Stuttgart, 1924,
A. Genera!
,T90'r.
Peter, H. Die giscMcktiiche Literatur Uber die romlscke Kaiserzeit bis Tke&dosius
I und'ibre ^§elien, Leipzig, 1897. 2 to1s»
Rosenberg, A. Einleisung urn! ^telien hmde zur romiscken GescMcbie, Berlin, X921;
Wa'Clismntli, C. Einkitung in das Studlum der alien GescMckte, Leipzig, 1895,
B. Special
(For treatment of particular portions of the Sources see the bibliographies to the
relevant chapters.)
Schultz, H. Art. in P.W. sjo. Herodianus (3).
Schwartz, E. Art. in P.W, s.v. Cassius (40) Dio Cocceianus.
(Items 3-13, on the Historla Augusta^ are in chronological order to show the
progress of the discussion.)
Enmann, A. Eine verlorerie GescMckte der rdmhcken Kaiser. Phil. Siippl. iv, 1884,
P* 337 ._,
'
Dessau, H. Uber Zeit und Fersonlickkeit der Scriptores His toriae Augustae. Hermes,
XXIV, 1889, p. 337. Cf. ib, xxvii, 1892, p. 561.
.De Sanctis, G. Git Scriptores Hhtoriae Augustae. Riv. stor. ant. i, 1896, p- po.
Tropea, G. Siudi sugii Scriptores Histortae Augustae. Messina, 1899.
Lecrivain, C. £tudes sur PHistoire Auguste. Paris, 1904.
Seeck, O. Poiiiiscke Tendenzgeschickte im 5 Jahrhundert. Rh. Mus. nxvn, 1912,
P-59I;'
Mommsen, Th. Die Scriptores Mstorlae Augustae. Ges.Schrift vn,, 1 909, pp. joz-i 2,
Hohl, E. Das Problem der Hisiorta Augusta. N.J. KL Alt. xxxin, 1914, p. 698.
von Domaszewski, A. Dk
Personennamen bet den Scriptores Htsioriae Au^stai.
Held. S.B. 1918, 13 Abh.
Baynes, N. The Eistoria Augusta, its date and purpose. (With Bibliography.)
Oxford, 1926,
Hohl, E. Berichi uber die Literatur zu den Scriptores Bistoriae Augustae fur dk Jake
1924-1935. Bursian, Band cclvi, 1937, pp. 127-156.
CHAPTER I
(1) Texts
Codex Justinianus^
rec. TL Mommsen, ed. 14, Berlin, 1922.
Dio Lxxiv-Lxxx (lxxix, 2, 2-LXxx, 8, 3, in the original text, mutilated; the rest
in the abridgement of Xiphilinus, supplemented bj citations of Dio in the
Excerpta Constantiniana and elsewhere), ed. U. P. Boissevain, vol. iii, Berlin,
1901.
Herodian ii-v, ed. K. Stavenhagen, Leipzig, 1922.
Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed. E. Hohl, i, Leipzig, 1927.
Philostratus and Tertullian olFer an occasional item for the general history of the
period. See also Aurelius Victor, the Chronographer of 354, the Chronicle
and the Ckronicon Easekale; the Epitome de Caesaribus, Eutropius, Festus, Orosius,
and Zosimus.
For the later (Greek) tradition see the Excerpta Constantiniana^ F.H.G. iv,
Malalas, Suidas, Georgius Syncellus, and Zonaras.
(2) Coins *
Mattingly, H. The Coinage of Septimius Severus and Ms Times. Num.Chr. 5th ser.,
xn, 1932, p. 177.
Inscriptions
The more important inscriptions will be found in Dessau, Ditt.®, I.G.R.R., and
O-G.LS., supplemented by Ann. epig., Eph. Ep., and S.E.G. See also
Hasebroek,], Op. cit. pp. 174-94. (Epigraphic material for the reign of Severus.)
de Ruggiero, E. Dizionario epigrafico di Antichita romane, Rome, 1895-, s.vv,
Caracalla, Elagabalus (the god), Geta, Heliogabalus, etc.
(4) Osiraca
pp. 802-5.
(5)
See especially B.G.U. 902; Mitteis- Wilcken, Grundzuge und Ckrestomatkie^ i, ii,
22, 96, ryr, 245, 407, 408, 461, 490; n, ii, 375, 377 (= P. Giessen 40^), 378;
P. Lond. 351; P. Oxy. 1100, 1405, 1406, 1408, 1905; P.S.L loi, 102, 105, 249,
683; Preisigke, SammelhucM S, 4284; Rostovtzeff, C.R. Ac. Inscr. 1933, p. 316 «
Ann. epig. 1933, no. 107 (from Doura). See also, for chronology, B.G.U. 326;
732 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mitteis-Wilcken^ §p. ck. i, ii, 96; P. Gremf* 60; P. Oxj, 719^ 1725; and, for tke date
of tlie Egyptian jonrney of Sevems, tEe imperial rescripts published at Alexandria in
199-200 {}. Plasebroekj §p, «/. p. 119).
For the literature on P* Giessen 40^ see below under B (d) the ^
Constitutio
Antoniniaaa,-'
B. Modehn Works
(a) Criticism of tke Sources
In addition to the works of Baynes, Leo, Peter and Rosenberg cited in the General
Bibliography (p. 730), see
Baaz, E. De Herodiam fontikus it amioritaie. Diss. Berlin, 1909,
Hasebroek, J. Die Fdlsckung der Vita Ni^i md
Vita A!Um in den SM.A. Diss.
Heidelberg, Leipzig/Berlin, 1916.
Honn, K. ^ellentmtersuchungm zu den Viten des BelkgaSahs md
des Semrus
Alexander im Corpus der S,ff.A. Berlin, X911.
Reosch, W. Der Mstoriscke Wert der Caracaliavka in den Scriptores Historiae
Angustae. Klio, Beiheft xxw, 193X.
Roos, A. G. HerodiaAs Methd of Composition, J.R.S. v, 191 5, p. 191.
Schulz, H. Art. in P.W. s,v, Herodianus (3).
Schulz, O. Th. Beiirage zur Krittk unserer iiterarischen tfkerliefirnng fur die Zeit
mm Commodus* Sturze Ms auf den Tod des M, Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalk),
Diss. Leipzig, 1903.
Schwartz, E. Art. in P.W. sxt, Cassius (40) Dio Cocceianus.
Yan Sickle, C. E. The Headings of Rescripts of the Semri in the Justinian Code,
C.P. xKiii, 1928, p. 370.
Smits, J. S. P. De fontihus e ^uiius res a Heliogahalo et Alexandro Severo gestae
colliguntur, Diss. Amsterdam, 1908.
Werner, R. Der historische Wert der Pertinaxmta in den Scriptores Historiae
Angus iae, Klio, xxyi, 1933, p. 283. (But cf. G. Barbierik criticisms in Stud,
itai, di fii, class, xni, 1936, p. 183,)
if) General
See also the relevant pages of works in the Genera! Bibliography (pp, 728-30) not
included in this list In the works cited here, and in the footnotes to the chapter,
references vriH be found to monographs and articles dealing with special topics.
9 ; X 46 x 8 ,.p."i .
— — The
:
Life and Reign of the Emperor Lucius Beptimius Severus, Oxford, 1918.
Reuscli, W. Art
P.W. Pescennius (2) Niger.
in
Revilie, J. La Religion a Rome sous les Sdperes, Paris, 1886.
von Rohden, P, Art, in P.W. s,p, Aurelius 46 (Caracalla).
Scbulz, O. Tb. Der rmische Kaiser Caracalla: Genie, WaJmsinn oder Verhrechen.
Leipzig, 1909.
—— Fom Prinzipat zum Dominat, Pader born, 1919.
Stein, A. Der romische Ritters tand, Munich, 1927.
Williams, M. G.
Studies in the lives of Roman empresses: i. Julia Domna, A.J.A,
2 nd ser. VI,
1902, p. 259.
von WotSiVSL, A, Arts, in 'F,W, s,vv, Clodius (17) Albinus, Didius (8) lulianus,
(c) Britain
References to the more important texts and inscriptions and to the coin evidence
will be found in the footnotes to section IV of the chapter. The following bibliography
relates especially to the archaeological evidence.
For evidence of destruction at the legionary headquarters at York and Chester in
and of a subsequent restoration, see S. N. Miller in J,R,B, xv,
the late second century,
1925, p, 176; XVIII, 1928, p. 61, and J. P. Droop and R. Newstead in Liverpool
Ann, of Arch, xviii, 1931, p. 7 and xxiii, 1936, pp. 5-6 (cf. the fragmentary inr
scription, XVII, 1927, p. 212, no. 3).
For Wales see V. E. Nash- Williams in Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1931, p, 157
(cf. id,, Catalogue of the Roman inscribed and sculptured stones found at Caerleon,
For a review of tlie Fterature oii'tlie Comtitutio which appeared betweenthe publica-
tion of P. Giessen 40, in igi'O, and 1934. $ee
Jones, A. M- Amtker Interpreiaiwu qf ike ^ConsiUutk JMimmmmJ' xxvi,
1936, pp. 223-7.
For. views .of the Constitotio since 1934 see, besides Jones, «V. pp. 2..27-3;,
Rome, 1935, p. 3.
Kreller,H. Romiscke RecktsgescMcMe Grundrisse des Deuisckes .Meekies* Heransg.
i.ii
von H.
Stoll nnd H. Lange. Tubingen, 1936, p. 33,
KiiMer, B. Art. in P.W. r.s?. Peregrinos^ coM. 64I-3.
Knnkel, W. Rmischs Primirecki auf Grund des Werkes mn Pm! Jors. Ed. 2,
Berlin, 1935, p. 57, n. 10.
Schdnbaner, E, Reicksnckt^ V&iksncht und Prmin%ia!ricM. Ptudkn uber die
Bedeutung der Constkuiio Antoninima fur die romiscke Reekiseniwkklmg.
Z.d. Sav.-Stift. Lvn, 1937, p. 309.
Schniz, F, Prindpies of .Roman Law. Oxford, 1936, esp. p. 123, n. 3.
We.iss,E, Grundzuge der rdmiscken ReckisgescMckte. Reichenberg, 1936, p., 104.
TO CHAPTER II 735
CHAPTER II
(i) Inscriptions
For inscriptions compare the selection in Dessau, iii. Index iii, pp. 293-7, Ditt ®
888, and O.G.LS. 519, 578, 640, with the references given in the footnotes to the
chapter. Besides these see also the books and articles hj K. Honn, A. Jard^ P* W.
Townsend, W. Thiele, and M. G. Williams (under Modern Works).
(2) Coins
In addition to the works of Cohen, Mattingiy-Sydenham, and Vogt cited in the
General Bibliography (IV) see
Bosch, CL Die kleinasiatiscken Miinzen der romiscken Kaiser^eit, Teil ii, Bd. i
Bithynien, i.Haifte, Stuttgart, 1935, pp. 52-7, 205-6.
Elmer, G. Die Munzpragung von Viminacium und die 'Leitrechnung der Provinz
Ober-Moesien.Num. Z. (N.F.), xxviii, 1935, p, 35.
Pink, K. Der Aufbau der romiscken Munzpragung in der Kaiserzeit. iii. Von
Alexander Severus bis Philippus. Ib. p. 12.
(3) Papyi
P. Berl. Bibl.i, with U. Wilcken’s revision in R
Deissmann, Lickt vom Osten^
Stuttgart, 1909, p. 277. P. Par. 69 cf, U. Wilcken, PkiL liii, i 894, p. 8 1 « Ckresto-
:
mathie^ i, 2, no. 41, Yale CoU. of Papyri, no. 156 = P, W. Townsend, A.J,Pk, li,
1930, p. 62. C. C, Torrey, A
Syriac Parchment from Edessa of the year 243
Zeits. f. Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete, x, 1935, p. 33: cf. A. R. Bellinger and
C. B. Welles, A Third-Century Contract of Sale from Edessa in Osrkoene^ Yale Class.
Stud. V, 1935? P-93* Compare F. Hohmann, Zur Chronologie der Papyrusurkunden
{Romische Kaiserzeii\ Greifswald, 19 ii, pp. 15-17, and O. W. Reinmuth, The
Prefect of Egypt from Augustus to Diocletian^ Klio, Beiheft xxxiv, 1935, p. 138.
(4) Texts
Codex Justint anus, rec. P, Krueger, ed. 9, Berlin, 1915: index pp. 491-3,
Corpus legum ah imperatoribus Romanis ante Justinianum latarum, von G, HaeneL
•
Leipzig, 1857.
Digesta, rec. Th. Mommsen, ed. 14, Berlin, 1922. (The references will be found in
the footnotes to the chapter.)
Dio ixxvin, 30, 3 : lxxix, 17, 2 ry.; 19 Xf.: lxxx, 1-5, ed. U. P, Boissevain, voL iii,
Berlin, 1901.
€ts fiacriXia= Ps.-Aristides, or, 9 (ed. L. Dindorf), =* or. 35 (ed. B. Keil), See
E. Groag, Studien zur rom, Kaisergeschichte, ii, Linz, 1918, p. 13, and M.
RostovtzeiF, The Soc, and Econ, History of the Rom. Emp, Oxford, 1926, p. 397
(and cf. p. 614, note 15).
Eusebius, Hist. eccL (ed. E. Schwartz), vi, 21-3; 28 xy.; 34; 59.
Herodian v-vin, ed. K. Stavenhagen, Leipzig, 1922*
'
736 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jordanes^ Geiim 83-90; Romm& 280-3 (ed- Tli. MommseE)*
Orosiiis, Hisrnrme adversm Fagams^rn^ 18,6-21, 2 (ed. C. ZaEgemeister,. Leipzig,
;;i889). ^ /"V, ; ,
CaesdriSuSf and Eutropins: for the later Greek tradition see John of Antioch, Malalas,
Georgius Sjncellus, and Zonaras.
B. Modern Wor.k:s
¥on -DomEszew^ski, A. I^te Daten der scripiores historlM Augustae .mm Bemtms
Alexander Ms Cams, S.B. Heidelberger Akad. 1917, Abh. l.
Herzog, E. Geschkhie und System der romiseken Staatsmffmsung, ¥oL ii, Leipzig, .i,
Baynes, N. H. The Hisiorta Augusta^ its Date and Purpose. Oxford, 1926.
Bihlmeyer, K. Die ^syrischen'* Kaiser xu Rom (21 1-235) und das Ckrhtenium.
Rottenburg, 1916, pp. 68-166.
Honn, K. ^ellemmtersuchungen xu den Fiten des Hellogabalus und des Semrus
Alexander im Corpus der S, H. A. Leipzig/Berlin, 1911.
Homo, L. Les primleges administratifs du sinat romain sous rEmpire et ieur
pariiion graduelle au cours du IIP sikle. Rev. H. cxxxvii, 1921, p. 16 1;
'CXXXV.m,.. 1921, p.". I. ' .
TO CHAPTER II 737
(c) Maximinus Tkrax^ the Gordians^ Pupknus and BalMnus
Bersanetti, H
G. M. Massimmo Trace e la reta stradale delP impero romano. Atti III
Congr, nazionale di Stiidi Romani, I, 1934, p. 590.
Studi in Massimino il Trace, I rapporti fra Massmim e il Benato, Rivista-
Indo-Greco-ItaliGa, xvm, 1934, p. 89.
Brusin, G. Gli Beam di A(puileia, IJdine, 1934, pp. 73-6,
Cklderini, A. Milan, 1930, pp. 52--61.
Carcopino, J.
Le ^ Limes'^ de Numldie et sa garde Byrienne, Syria, vi, 1925, pp. 30-
.57; 118-^149. :
UhHiorn, G. and F. Gorres. Art. s.v. Philippus Arabs in Realencyklop. fiir protest.
CHAPTER ill
p. 377 *
. / ,
Paris, 1896 (to be used with caution);, L, Halplien, Les Barkzres^ de$ gramks
invasions aux con^uiiis turques du XP sieck (to!, v oi Peupies et Chilisaiions)^ Paris,
1926; ed. 3, revised and enlarged, 1936; E. H. Parker, .// ikousand years of the
Tartars, ed. 2, London, 1924; P, Pelliot, La Haute Ask, Paris, 1931*
IL Archaeology
(<2) Genera!
Andersson, J. G. Der PFeg iiSer die Steppen. Museum of Far Eastern .Antiquities,
Stockholm, I, 1929, p, 152.
Borovka, G. Scythian Art (trans, by V. G. Childe). London, 1928,
Janse, O. Rev. des aits asiatiqties, ix, 1935, p. 9.
Rostovtzeff, .M. Uart greco-sarmate ei Part chimis de Pipofue des Han,, Aretjiiise,
April, 1924, p. 81.
The animal style in South Russia and China, Princeton,. N.J., 19,29.
Le centre de PAsk, la Russie, ia Chine et k style aztimaP Senii.ii* Konda-
kovianum, Prague, 1929.
(h) Russia
Ebert, M.Sudrussiand in Aliertmn, Bonn— Leipzig, 1921,
Minns, E, H., d’t’y/iM/rx.tf Tg’df G/wix. .'Cambridge, 1913;
Rostovtzeil) M, Iranians and Greeh in South Russia, Oxford, 1922.
Une trouvaille de Plpoque grico-sarmaie de Kerick, Mon. et Mem. Fiot,
XXVI, 1923, pp. 99 Iff.
Skytkien und der Bosporus, i, Berlin, 1931.
Schmidt, A. V. Kacka. Beitrage zur Erforschung der Kuiiuren Osirussiands in rkr
Zeit der Foikerwanderurtg (iii-v jahrh.), Eurasia septentrionalis ariliqua, 1,
X927,p. 18.
Tallgren, A. M. Etudes archiokgi^ues .sur la Russk orkniak durant Panckn age du
fer, Ib. VII, 1932, p. 7.
Musie de Finlande a Helsingfors, Helsingfors, vol. i
Collection Zaoussai’lop au
(Catalogue raisonne de la collection de Page du bronze), 1916; vol 11 (Moiio-
graphies de la section du Page dn fer de Fdpoque de Bolgary), 1918.
Tolstoi, J., Kondakov, N* and S. Reinach. Antifuitis de ia Russk miridknak, Paris,
1891.
(<r) Siberia
Adrianov, A. Has Martjanmscke Staatmuseum in Minussimk, (Text in Russian.)
Minusinsk, 1924,
Heikel, A. Antiquitis de la BlMrie oeetdeniak, Helsingfors, 1894.
Martin, T. R. Uige du bronze m
Musk de MimussmsL Stockholm, 1 893,
^
(d) Mongolia
Werner, J. 2,ur S tellung der Ordosbronzen. Eur. septent. ant. ix (Minns volume),
1934, p. 259.-
^.BIBLIOGRAPHY; ,
SMratori, K, Bur "fmgine 4es Himg-mu. : Joum. As.iatiqi2e, ccii, 1923,, p. 71,
•—
.
Gronsset, R. U Iran exterkur. Son art. Cahiers 'de .la Soc. d. Et. Iraniennes de
Paris, Cahier no. 2, Paris, iqj'i.
Herrmann, A. Die alten Seldenstrassen zvsiscken China' und Byrkn. Berlin, 1910'
(Qnellen und Porschongeii 20.r alten Gesch. u. Geogr., Heft 21).
Dk Verkehrsteege zwischen China, Indkn und Rom um 100 n. Chr. Qeb.
Leipzig, 1922.
von Le Coq, A. Biideratlas zur Kunst- und Kulturgesckkkte Miiteiaskm, Berlin,
1925.
——
.
-
Buried treasures of Chinese Turkestan. London, 1928.
Die Buddhistiscke Spdtantike in Mittelaskn. 7 vols. Berlin, 1922-31.
Levi, S. Le mkharkn B, iangue de Koutcha. Jonra. Asiatiqne, (nth Ser.), 1913, ii,
1930;(from the end of the Han to the end of the T’ang), 1936.
II
CHAPTER IV .
SASSANID PERSIA
SECTIONS I~V
L ,
Ancient Sources
Tlie notices in classical authors such as Dio Cassius, Herodian, Dexippus, Tre-
bellius Pollio, Lactantius, Vopiscus, Eusebius, Rufinus, and Aurelius Victor deal
mainly with the political contacts of Iran with Rome. Ammianus Mar cellinus supplies
some information about the military and administrative organization of the Sassanid
Empire. A summary of the history of the Sassanid dynasty is to be found in Agathias,
book n.
For religion see especially C. Clemen, Fontes Historiae Religionis Persicae^ Bonn,
1920.
B. Syrian
The Chronicle of Arbela. For editions and commentaries see the Bibliography
to chapter of volume xi, p. 877,
iii
Acts of the Persian Martyrs. Jcta Sanctorum Martyrum^ ed. St. Assemanus,
vol. I, Rome, 1748; P. Bedjan, Acta Mariyrum et Sanctorum^ vols. ii and iv,
Paris, 1891, 1894; G. Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syrischen Akten persiscker
Martyrery Leipzig, 1880. (Abh. f. die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vii, 3.)
C. Armenian
vol. I, Paris, 1867, pp. 209 sqq,\ Des Faustus von Byzanz, Gesckichte [
Eznik of Kolb. The Venice edition, reprint of 1914; French trans. by Le Vaillant I
de Florival, Paris, 1853; V. Langlois, op. cit. ii, pp. 375 Eznik, Wider \
Elisaus Vardapet und seine Gesckichte des Armenischen KriegeSy i-n, Vienna,
I932“6 (in Armenian, with German resume). ;
Both the Pahlavi Khvadhaynamagh Q Book of Kings’), composed towards the end ^
of the Sassanian era, and the Arabic translations and adaptations, of which the most
famous was the work of Ibn-el-Moqaffa‘ (died c. a.d. y6o)y have perished. But these j
Arabic translations formed the chief source for the summaries of ancient Iranian |
i
742 BIBLIOGRAPHY
history that are found in the Arab' chronicles (such as tliose of Ya^qubl,
still to be
Ibii C^itciba, Eutychiiis,Dlnawarl, Tabari, Hamza of Ispahan, Ta^aiibi,
and Birnni) and in tlie Persian (the SM.lmIineii of Fiidausf, the IhlrsnSmeli, and the
Mojmiluh-tawEriHi). A short Pahkid- Hstorical romance, of which the text survives,
the Karnamagh (‘Book of Great Deeds’) of.Ardashir Pabliagan, is a mixture of
historical fact and older legends, among- which' ...several features of the legendary
history of Cyrus the Great are recognizable. -.Nearly all the details of the political and
organizing work of Ardashir supplied by o'nr Persian and Arab sources derive iroiri
Pahlavi works of the sixth century; these really describe institutions in the time of
.
Chosroes I, but try to enhance their, credit by attributing, them to the foonder of the
dynasty; see A. Christensen, Les gesies ies rm dans li$ traditions ie ti Imn
Paris, 1936, chap. iii.
presentation of offerings for the souls of a large number of royal personages, princes
and others, of both sexes; they are named with their titles, beginning with
Prince Sassan, Kings Pabhagh and Shapur of Persis, and the King of Kings
Ardashir L M, Sprengling, of the University of Chicago, who has published
a preliminary report together with a provisional translation {Jmer. Jmrn, &f
Bern. Lang, and Lit. nni, no. 2, January, 1937), is inclined to date the composition
of it to the reign of Narses. In the opinion of the present writer, it should be
attributed to Shapur I; but any discussion of this topic would exceed the bounds
of this bibliography.
N. Rjb. Krt. and N. Rst. Krt. Two' inscriptions,
Naqsh-e-Rajab and Naqsli-e-*
at
Rostam respectively, in which the Mobadi Karier Hormizd
gives an account of
his pious life and career of service to the empire under the reigns of Shapur I,
Hormizd I, Vahram I and Vahram II. -Text and provisional translation in
' "
Herzfeld,
'
pp. 89-^3.',
TO CHAPTER IV 743
Paik.^ The lengtliy inscription of Narses at Paikuli, to the North of Qasr-e-Shirin
in Kurdistan, was engraved on the stones of a square tower; this collapsed, and
the stones which remain were scattered on the ground. Herzfeld has tried to
arrange the fragments of this inscription in order; it contains the names and the
titles of client-kings and great nobles, and gives us a rough idea of the extent and
—
Drouin, Oisermtionssuriesmonnaiesd ligendesenpeklm. Rev. Arch. 1 884 and 1885.
Les iigendes des monnaies sassanides. Ih,
Paruck 'FmdiOn]eQ, D. ]. Sasanian Coins. Bombay, 1924. (Including 23 photo-
graphic plates, and a reproduction oi ^2 plates from Dorn’s book.)
Vasmer, R. Sassanian Coins in the Ermitage. Num. Chr, 1928, p. 249.
Herzfeld, E. Kushano-Sasanian Coins. Mem. of the Arch. Survey of India, no. 38,
1930; see also I, p. 35.
(r) Seals
political and social history, religion, laws, art and archaeology. All subjects dealt
with in the same author’s Uempb'e des Sassanides, 1907, will be found here in a
revised and up-to-date form.)
A. Political History
von Gutschmid, A. Geschickte Irans und seiner Nachbarldnder von Alexander dem
Grossen his zum Untergang der Arsadden. Tubingen, 1888.
Herzfeld, E. Paikuli. i, Berlin, 1924, pp. 35-51.
Justi, F. Geschickte Irans. Gi'undriss d. iran. Philologie, ii, Strassburg, 1896-1904.
Marquart (Markwart), J. Erdnsahr nach der Geographic des Ps. 'Moses Xorenadi.
Berlin, 1901. Gdtt. Abh. 1901, no. 2.
J
Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of Eranshahr. Analecta Orientalia,
by G. Messina, iii, Rome, 1931.
ed.
Noldeke, Th. TABARt. Geschickte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden.
Aus der arab. Chronik des Tabari ubersetzt, Leyden, 1879.
Taqizadeh, S. H. Some Chronological Data relating to the Sasanian Period. Bull,
of the School of Orient. Stud, ix, i, 1937, pp. 125-39.
^ ^ ^
,
Streck,M. Seieuda und Ktesipkm, (Der alte Orient, xvi, 3-4.) Leipzig, 1917.
Tavadia, |. C. Bur saxpan, A
Dimer Speech in Middk Persian, Journ. of the
K« R, Cama Orient, Inst, xxix, 1935.
The Pahlavi book of law, which has been the subject of studies by Chr. Bartho-
,
iomae and by M,. A.Pagliaro, is concerned with the 'latest period of Sassaiiian history.
C. Religions
'
' .
^ ^ ^
For excavations at Seleuceia-Ctesiphon see Ed. Meyer, in the Mitt. d. dents cken
Orient-Gesellsckaft, no. 67, 1929; O. Reuther, Die deutsche Ktesiphon-Expedition
1928/29, Berlin, 1930; J. M. Upton in the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum^
1932, pp. 188 Jff.; E. Kiihnel and O. Wachtsmuth, Die Ktesiphon-Expedition
1931-2, Berlin, 1933; J. Heinrich Schmidt, V
expedition de Ctisiphon en 193 1-2,
Syria, xv, 1934, p. i.
I. Ancient Sources
(A) Texts
Apart from the relevant passages in the continuous histories of Aurelius Victor,
the Epitome de Caesaribus, Eusebius, Eutropius, Malalas, Orosius, the Scriptores
Historiae Jtigustae, Georgius Syncellus, Zonaras and Zosimus, detailed reference
may be made here to more special sources:
Agathangelus. Chapters i-ni (Fr. trans. by V. Langlois) in F.H.G. voL v, 2, pp. 1 10—
22: 26/7: IV, 23/4: pp. 121 sq.*. pp. 2^6 sqq.
Agathias. ii (ed. B. G. Niebuhr, Bonn, 1828): Hist. Graeci Min. (ed. L. Dindorf),
pp. 224177. and 330^77.
11,
pp. 429-31.
Tabari. In Noldeke’s translation, pp. 1-42. (See II A above.)
(^Inscription
Dessau 8879. Cf. ib. 8878, note i = C.I.G. 1253, and O.G.I.S. 640.
746 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTERS V AND VI
A, Ancient Sources
(x) Texts
In addition to the continnoas narrative histories O'ther authors should be consulted:
among Roman writers Lactantius, Jordanes, andOrosias, the Chronographer of 354,
the Chmick of Jerome, and the of Cassiodoriis; among Byzantine writers
the Jnon^mus (ed. Sathas), Cedrenus,, Malalas, Leo Grain maticos, and John of
,
.
In addition to the works mentioned in the General Bibliography, v, a (p. 730) the
following should be consulted:
Alfdidi, ,
A. Das Problem Jes ^‘perweibikkiefF Kaisers Gaiiimus, Z.N. xxxvni,
1928, p. 156.
,
Der Rechssireii ssxischn ier romisckest Kirch und dem Fereln der Popinmiu
Klio, XXXI, 1938, p. 249.
Hartke, W, De saecuH quarti ixeuntis klsimarum.scriptorl^^^^ qnmsskms. Diss.
Berlin, ,1932. • • •
Peter, H. Die romisckm sogenmnten ireissig Tyrannen. Sachs. Abh. xxvn, no. 6,
-1909.
Reitzenstein, R. Dk Nackrkhen uber den Tod Cyprians, S.B. der Heidelbergcr
Akad. Phil-hist. Kl. 1913, no, 14 (cf. G.G.A" X919, p,205).
Schenk, A. (Graf von Stauffenberg), Dk rmisch KaisergescMcbte bei Makks,
Stuttgart, 1931,
.
,
B. Modern Works
Apart from the relevant pages of the general histories see also
von Domaszewski, A. Die Rede des Aristides €k ^acnXia. Phil, lxv, 1906,
p. 344’
F^vrier, ]. G. Essai surPhistoire politique et iconemique de Palmyre. Pans, 1931.
748 /-BIBLIOGRAPHY ::
libelli.)
^
, .
Blndan, A. Die agyptlschen Liheiii and die Chrisienperfdgnng its Kaisers Diclus.
Rom. Qimrtalschrift, Snpplementheft xxvii. Freiburg i/B. 193 x. (German
translation of Libelli.)
BiMmejer, K, Die Christemerfolgung des Kaisers Decius. Theol. Quartalsdirift,
xcii, 1910, p. 19.
De Reglbns, L. Deck e ia crisi delf impero romam ne! Ill Secok. Didaskaleion,
;N.S. Ill, 1923, Fasc. 3, p. I.
Fanihaber, L. Die Libeill in der Chrisienmrfolgung des Kaisers Decius. Zeits. £
kath. Theologie, xun, 19x9, pp. 439, 617.
Foucart, P. Les certijicats de sacrifice pendant la persecution de Decks (250). J.d.
Sav. 1908, p, 169.
Fran chi de’ Cavalieri, P. Stndi e Testi, xix, p. 45 ; xxn, 1909, p. 77 with Appendices
ii and hi.
Grosse, R. Romiscke MUitargeschichte von GalUenus bis zum Beginn der byzantin--
Tkemenverfassmg. BtiYm,
iscken
Kornemann, E, Die unsichtbaren Grenzen des romiscken Kaiserreickes, In ‘Staaten,
Vdlker, Manner/ Leipzig, 1934, pp. 96-116.
Darmie romaine d^Mgypte, QmOy 1(^1%.
Macdonald, Sir G. Tke Roman Wall in Scotland, 'Ei. 2, Oxford, 1934.
Mommsen, Tb. .Die Conscriptionsordnung der Kaiserzeit, Ges. Scliriften, vi,
''
PP-30 Jff.
romische Militdrwesen seit Diocletian, Ib. vi, pp. 206 sqq,
Ritterling, E. Kastell Niederbieber, BJ. 120, 1911, p, 359.
------ Zum romiscken Heermesen des ausgekenden 111 Jakrhunderts,
,
Festschrift
Hirschfeid, 1903, pp, 345 ^77.
—~ Zwei Munzfunde aus Niederbieber, BJ, 107, 1901, p. 95.
Seyrig, H. Armes et costumes iraniens de Palmyre. Syria, xviii, 1937, p. 4.
Stein, E. Die kaiserlichen Beamten und Truppenkorper im romiscken Deutsckland
unter dem Prinzipat. Vienna, 1932.
van de Weerd, H. and P, Lambrechts. Note sur les corps d^archers au Haut-Empire,
Laureae Aquincenses, Budapest, 1938.
Arts, in F. W. s,vv. ala, cohors (Cichorius), exercitus (Liebenam), exploratores
(Fiebiger), legio (Ritterling), limes (Fabricius) and numerus (Rowell).
Die Ckristenverfolgungen in der Mitte des 111 Jakrh, Klio, xxxi, 1 93 8, p, 3 23,
,
'
: ,
,
:
CHAPTER VII
h 'Ahcieot Sources
The literary sources now are secondary to the documentary, but among them
Aristides’ speech ER' 'Poj/av|j (xxvi, Kell), of a.d. 56, \rith Dio Chrysostom’s speeches
1
pp. io4ify.)aiid the Nofiiia dignitisium (cd. Seecfc, 1876), Llbaniiis’ speeches and
Ausonius, can be brought in to supplement them. In addition tfiere is a of
scattered notices in Arrian {Peripius Ponti Euxim\ Aristides, the geographer Ptolemy,
Dio Cassius and so on down to the Church Fathers, to Zosinios and Malalas. Nor
can we neglect the numerous observations in the Historia Jngusia^ in spite of their
doubtful value. Even foreign sources, such as the CMmse Jmmis published by
F. Hirth {China and the Roman Orkni^ Leipzig-Munich, 1 883), are of importitnee.
Far more valuable, however, is the immense and still not full}' exploited documen-
tary material: here we have sources from Roman law, e.g, book l of the Digest, but
above all Roman and Greek inscriptions: tliese contain not only documents of unique
value, such as the Edictum Diode tiani de pretiis (ed. Mommsen and Bliimner, Berlin,
1 893), but also such records as the Spanish Mine- Law of Vipasca (Dessau, 6891), the
674) and Palmyra ipb, 629), the huge mass of the Gallic inscriptions, and so on.
Equally important are the Egj'ptian papyri, which supply an immense ainounl of
information preciselyfor the economic history of the second and third centuries and for
the economic crisis of the third centur}' {eg. minutes of the to%vn-council of Oxyrhyn-
chus) : and to these can now be added tlxe parchments and papyri of Dura-Europus (see
below iiB, 3). Coins, too, by their differences in W’'eight and purit}’, mirror similar
changes in economic life, while the widely-scattered coin-finds outside the Empire
illustrate the great extent of commerce. Last, but not least, there is an Immense wealth
—
of archaeological material: this wealth, whether it be African or German mosaics, the
monuments of Treves, villas in Gaul, Germany, and Britain, the magnificent new’ dis-
coveries at Dura, Gallo-German sculptures,remaiiisof buildings throughout the whole
empire, whether it be artistic or commercial products, found within or beyond the
boundaries of the empire,— in its totality gives a clear Impression of tlie economic
standards of the time.
Generally, see T. Frank, An Economic Burvey of ancient Rome^ section a b, 3.
IL Modern Works
This Bibliography is supplementary to that for Chapter xni of VoL x, given on
pp. 944—5 of that volume,
A. General
Apart from the relevant pages of the general histories cited in the General Biblio-
graphy, I, such as Besnier, Gibbon, Lot, Mommsen, and above all the works
of Friedlander-Wissowa and Rostovtzeff {Saciai Meonmte mi the following
works, additional to those given in Volume x, should be noted
TO CHAPTER VII 751
Grosse, R. Romische Militdrgeschichte von Gallienus bis zum Beginn der byzanti^
nischen Themenverfassung,
Berlin, 1920.
Hartmann, L. M. Der
Untergang der anti ken Welt, Weltgeschichte in gemein-
verstandlicher Darstellung, Vol. iii, ed. 2, Gotha, 1921, pp. 201 sqq,
Hasebroek, J. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Septimius Severus,
Heidelberg, 1921.
Heitland, W. E. Last words on the Roman municipalities, Cambridge, 1928.
Hirschfeld, O. Die kaiserlichen Verwaltu 7igsbeamten. Ed. 2, Berlin, 1905.
—— Die Sicherheitspolizei im romischen Kaiserreich, KLleine Schriften, Berlin,
^913? PP*
Die dgyptische Polizei der romischen Kaiserzeit nach Papyrusurkunden^
Ib. pp. 613 sqq,
Die agentes in rebus, Ib. pp. 624 sqq.
Kornemann, E. Staat und Wirtschaft im Altertum, Schriften der Industrie- u.
Handelskammer, Breslau, Heft 13, 1929.
Das Problem des Untergangs der antiken Welt, Vergangenheit u. Gegenwart,
xii, 1922, pp. 193 and 241.
Kreller, H. Lex Rhodia, Untersuchungen zur ^ellengeschichte des romischen
Seerechtes, Zeits. f. d. ges. Plandels-Recht u. Konkursrecht, lxxxv, 1921,9. 257.
Laum, B. Stiftungen in der grie chischen und romischen Antike, 2 vols, Leipzig, 1914.
Liebenam, W. Stddteverwaltung im romischen Kaiserreiche, Leipzig, 1900.
Martroye, F. Les patronages d'agriculteurs et de vici au et au P
siecles. Rev.
B. SPECIAL' 'Topics
Bolin, St* Fynden av romerskamynt i det fria German kn* Lnnd, 1926.
Die Funde romischr und byzantiniscier Munz£n im frekn Germankn. Rom*-
German. Commission 1929 (1930), p. 86.
Brogan, O. Trade between th Roman Empire and th free Germans. J.R.S, xxvi,
1936,?, 195.
EIcboIm, G* Zur GescMche des rdmischgermantschn Handeh* Acta arclmcoL vi,
1 935 ^ P* 49 -
3. Particular areas
(Supplementary to those given in VoL x, p. 945,) For the relevant works for the
several provinces in the period of that Volume, see the Bibliographies to chapters
xii-xvi of Vol, XI, pp. 903 sqq. (including a reference back, for Egypt, to Vol. x,
edited by Tenney Frank,
pp. 922 sqql). To these may be added the great work
An economic survey of ancient Rome. VoL ii: Johnson, A. C., Roman Egypt (with
Bibliography), Baltimore, 1936. Vol. in: ColHngwood, R. G., Roman Britain (and
see Bibliography to Chap. viii). van Nostrand, ].],^Roman Spain (with Bibliography).
Scramuzza, V. M., Roman Sicily (with Bibliography). Grenier, A., La Gaule
c.A,H. xri 4$
754 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Romaine. Baltimore, 1937. VoL ivt Haywood, M., R Hekhellieim,
Fn Roman Syria (with Bibliography). Larsea, J. A. O., Rmm Greea (with Bifalio-
Frank, T. Th
people of Ostia, C.J.'xxix, 1933/34, p. 481.
Gnirs, A. Forschngen iikr anti hn FilknSau in Stidistrien. Jahresh. xviii, 1915,
Beiblatt, p. loi.
Hertlein, Fr., 0 . Paret and P. Goessler. Die Romer in Wriirttemhrg, 3 vols, Stutt-
192 8-3 2.
gart,
Jullian,. C, Hisioin de la Gauk. Vol. vii, Paris, 1926; voL vni, Paris, 1926*
Kromayer, J. Die mrisckaftikke Entwkkelung ItaUem im 2. und 1, Jahrkmdert t\
Cir. NJ.KLAlt xxxiii, 1914, p* 145.
Ledroit, J, Die romisch ScBffakrt im SiromgeMet des Rkeines, KuitiirgescliichtL
Wegweiser durch das rdm.-gerin. Zentralmnseum JsV. 12, Mainz, 1930.
Martin, V, Les papyrus et rMstotre administraiwe de Pigypte grko-rommm. Papyri
und Altertniiiswisseiischaft, Munich,, 1934,^ pp, 102 iff,
fscalit/ romaine en£gypte aux trois premiers sikks de Empire, Biscours
Geneve' 192 sAGeneva,:- 1926^:^'
:
Odtmun^'E:,r.Rdmis€h/'Fiiienim Rkemiand,/f,D',Al,
O^Ttd^ E,:::Der Nk^ Kuitur in J'gypien, N,J..KLAJt
XLY, 1920, p. 361.
Rostovtzeff,. M. Franians^ and: Greeks in Souik Russia, Oxford, 1922.
Schumacher,: md
KuIturgeseMcFte der Rkeiniande, Vol,.n, Die-
Tomische' Periode'.;' Mainz,' 1923. .
CHAPTER VIII
BRITAIN
A. Ancient Sources
The
evidence from tlie literary sources is not large: it has been collected in Monu^-
menta Historka Britannica^ Yoh 1
The inscriptions were collected by E. Hubner in vol. yii oiCJ.L. Supplements
and additions to tills were published by Hubner in Epk. Epig,Yoh. iii and iv, and
by F. Haverfield, ii). vols. vii and ix. A new Corpus of the inscriptions, edited by
R. G. Gollingwood, is in preparation. Since 1921 an annual report upon Roman
Britain, summarizing the results of excavations and publishing the new inscriptions,
has been given in J.RB, by R. G, Collin gwood and Miss M. V. Taylor. For a survey
of the results attained between 1914 and 1928 see Sir G. Macdonald, Roman Britain
1914-1928, British Academy Proceedings, n.d. [1931].
B. Modern Works
L General
CoUingwood, R. G. Roman Britain. Ed. 3. Oxford, 1934.
The Archaeology of Roman Britain. London, 1930. (Ed. 2 in preparation.)
CoUingwood, R. G. and J. N. L. Myres. Roman Britain and the English Settlements,
Oxford, 1936.
Haverfield, F. The Romanization of Roman Britain. Ed. 4 (revised by George
Macdonald). Oxford, 1924.
The Roman Occupation of Britain. (Revised by George Macdonald.) Oxford,
1924.
II. Special Topics
The topics discussed in this chapter are all treated at greater length by the
writer in Roman Britain and the English Settlements^ and concern
(so far as they
economic matters) in the section upon Britain in Tenney EmvTsAn Economic Survey
of Ancient Rome, vol. iii, 1937, pp- i~ii8.
The History of towns: R. E. M. Wheeler, Report on Excavatio?is at Verulamium
(Soc. of Antiquaries, 1936); Sir G. Macdonald, Roman Britain 1914-1928,
ch. mil. '
. .
.
.
The Celtic revival in art: E. T. Leeds, Celtic Ornament, 1933, ch. vi.
756 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER IX
'
(i) Inscriptions
For inscriptions see tlie selection in .Dessatij' iii^ Index Hi, pp. 301-8, and O.G.I.S.
569, 612, 718 and 719, and Appendix III in. L. .Homo’s Essm sur is rlgfie ik
penur JurHien (270-275), pp. 3 50x77.' (see B. I, i) and tlie refctcncrs given in tia;
footnotes to tlie cliapter.
(2) Cmm
Besides the relevant parts of Cohm^
Descripthn kisiorique^ ^ilattingly, Ilanlhok
qf Roman Coins, IMattingly and Sjd.eiiham, Tke Romm Imperlai Coinage v, i
Evans, (Sir) Arthur. Some Notes on the Arras Hoard. Num. Chr. 1930, p., 221. .
F* ^3:5-'
Oman, (Sir) C, Tke Legionary Coins of Fictofmus, Carausius and Alkcitis. Xu in.
Chr, 1924, p. 53.
Pink, K. Th
Minting of Gold in tke Period of DiodeStart and tke Arras Hoard. Num,
Chr, 1934, p. X06.
von Sallet, A. Die Daten der AkxanirinisckinMunzen. Berlin, iSy-o.'
(3) Texts
I. The Emperors
1. Aurelian
Brambach, W. Beiirage %ur romischen Munzgeschickte.
1 Sestertius. Frankfurter
.
1924, p. 37.
Mattingly, H. Sestertius and Denarius under Aurelian. Num. Chr. 1927, p. 219.
Pridik, E. Zur Mimzreform des Kaisers Anrelianus. Numismatik (Munich), xxxiv,
1933, p, 160.
Richmond, I. A. The City- Wail of Imperial Rome. Oxford, 1930.
Schnabel, P. Die Ckrone logie Aurelians. Klio, xx, 1926, p. 363.
Stein,A. Zeiibestimmungen von Gallienus bis Aurelian. Klio, xxi, 1927, p. 197.
Sydenham, E. A. The Roman Monetary System. Num. Chr. 1919, p. 140.
Waltzing, J. P. ^tude historique sur les corporatio?is professionnelles chez les Remains
depuis les origines jusqu'a la chute de P Empire de POccidefit. 4 vols. Louvain,
1895-1900.
Webb, P. H. The Reform of Aurelian. Num. Chr. 1919, p. 235; 1927, p. 304.
Arts, in P.W. s.vv. Domitius (36) L. Anrelianus (E. Groag), Aurelius (84) Quintillus
(Henze).
2. Tacitus
3. Probus
Alfoldi, A. Die tribunicia potestas des Kaisers Probus. Blatter f. Munzfreunde, 1923,
p. 352.
Babelon, E. Le tyran Saturninus. Rev. N. 1896, p. 133,
Crecs, J. H. E. The Reign of the Emperor Probus. London, 1911.
Dannhauser, E. Untersuckungen zur Gesckichte des Kaisers Probus (276-282). Jena,
1909.
L6pauile, E. £tude historique sur M: Aurelius Probus dPapres la numlsmatique du
regne de cet empereur. Lyons, 1884.
Stein, A. Tenagbio Probus. Klio, xxix, 1936, p. 237.
Westermann, W. L. The Papyri and the Chronology of the Reign of the Emperor
Probus. Aeg. i, 1920, p. 297.
Art. in P.W. s.v Aurelius (194) M. Probus (Henze),
. ,
75,8 BIBLIOGRAPHY
4, Cams and Ms sms
Elmer, G. Bir Feidz&g des Kmsers Carimsgegm dk ^adi. Der Mlj.n2eiisaiiiiiiler,
Arts, in P.W* Aurelius (75) ,M.-' Otrinns, Aurelius (77) AL' Cams, Aurelius
(174) Numerras Numerianus. (Henze).
Cantareili, L. Per la s/ma ddf imferai&ri GmtanzQ Cimrj. Atti d. Pont. Accad.
roniana di archeologk, 1, 2 (Ser. 3),.:i9a-3,.-p:.-5'i.
Costa, G. €. Fakrins Estratto^daI. Diz. Epig. ii, pp. 1793“**
I. Ciromkg^
Stein, A. Zur Ckromkgk der rimiseken Kaiser mn Becius Ms Dmktian, Arch. Ftp.
VII, 1924, p. 30 (and see tin,
TO 2.CHAPTER IX 759
Ceremonial
Alfoldi, A, Die Jusgestaliung des monarchiscken Zeremonieils am romischen Kaiserkofe.
3.
Rom. Mitt XLix, 1934, p. 3.
Insignien uni Tracht der romischen Kaiser, Ib. l, 1935, p. 3.
The Goths
Bang, M. Die Germanen im romischen Diensthis xum Regierungsantritt Constantins I,
Berlin, 1906.
Bury, J. B. The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians, London, 1928, pp. 21-51.
Rappaport, B. Die Einfalle der Goten in das romische Reich bis auf Constantin,
Leipzig, 1899.
Ensslin, W. Die weltgeschichtliche Bedeutung der Kampfe zwischen Rom und Fersien,
N.J.f. Wiss. IV, 1928, p. 399.
N5ldeke, Th. TabarI. Geschichte der Ferser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden,
Aus der arab. Chronik des Tabari iibersetzt, Leyden, 1879.
Aufsdtze zur Fersischen Geschichte, Leipzig, 1887.
7.60' BIBLIOGRAPHY
,
CHAPTER X
: ; :
THE END OF THE PEMCIPATE^ \
Reference to the more important passages in the .Ancient Sources is given from
time to time in the footnotes. The list of works here- cited must be supplemented
by the bibliographies to other Chapters' (e.g. i, ii, vi, and ix), and the writer has
included here those that seemed to him 'of special worth. Also,, to avoid repetition^
wwks which contain matter upon the reforms, of Diocletian are mentioned here
'
only. . .
.
'
1938, p. 5.
— D Fwkerrschajt der P annonkr tm Romerreicke and die Rea him des Helienen-
ii
mms mter Gaiiknus. 25 Jahre Rdm.-Germ, Kommission, 1930, p. n.'
Anderson, J.
G. C. Tke Genesis of Diocletian^s Propindal Re-orgamsaiisn., J.R.S,
xxii, 1932, p. '24.
Babnt, E. Ch. Reckerckes sur ia Garde Impiriaie et sur k Corps d^Offiders de PJrmie
komame. Rev. H. cxiv, .1913, p. 225'andcxvi, 1914, p. 225.
Baynes, N. H. Tkree Notes on ike Riforms of Diocietian and Constantine. L Th
Effect of the Edict of Gallienus. J.R.S. xv, 1925, p. 193.
Besnier, M. Eistoire Romaine. Paris, 1937, pp. 109-17; 187-91; 244-63,
Charlesw'orth, M. P. Borne Observations on Rukr-Cuk espedalh in Rome. Har?.
Theoh.Rev, xxrin, 1935, p. 5.
Promdenfm and Aitemltas. Harv. TheoL Rev, xxix, 1936, p, 107.
Cheesman, G, L. The Juxi Ha of ike Roman Imperial Army. Oxford, 19 14*
Costa, G. Riligionee Poiitka neiP Impero Romano. Turin, 1923, pp. 32-87; 271-
87.
Delbrueck, R. Der spairomiseke Kaiserornat. Antike, viii, 1932, p. i.
Ferrero,G. The Ruin of ike Ancient Cimlisation and tke Triumph of Christianity,
Translated by the Hon. Lady Whitehead, New York, 1921.
Gmelin, U. Auctoritas, RSmischer Princeps md papstiicker Primat, In Geistige
Qrundiagen rdmischer Kirchenpoiitiki Forscliungen zur Kitchen- und Geistes-
geschichte, xi, Stuttgart, 1937, pp. 58-79.
Grosse, R. Romiscie Miiitargeschkkte mm Gal/knus his zum Beginn der Syzantim-
schen Tkemenverfassung, Berlin, X920.
Hahn, L. Das Kaiserturn, Leipzig, 1913.
Herzog, E, Gesekkhie md
Bystem derromischen Biaatsverfassung, IL Kaiserzeit Dk
mn der Dikiatur Cdsars his zum Regkrungsantriti Dmietians, i, GescMcht-
iiche tJhmkkt, 2 Bystem der Ferfassung der Kaiserzeit Leipzig, 1887-1891,
,
Hirschfeld, O. Dk
kalserlichen Ferwaltungsheamten, Ed. 2, Berlin, 1905.
Dk
RangtitilJer rMmhen Kaiserzeit BerL S.B. 1901, p.
579 (« Kleine
Schriften, Berlin, 1913, p* 646).
Dk
rBmiseke Btaatszeitung unddk Akkiamatknen im Bemat BerL S.B. 1905,
P' 93® (=*= Kleine Schriften, Berlin, 'I913, p. 682).
TO CHAPTER X 761
Jantere, K. Die romhche Weltreicksldee und die Entstehmg der meitlichn Mack
des Papstes, Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, Ser. B, voL zxi, Turku, 1936.
Karlowa, O. Romhche RechtsgescMchte, Yo\, i, Staatsrechi md
Rechtsquellen.
.
Leipzig, 1885.
Ke7es, C. W. The Rise of the Equites in the Third Century of the Roman Empire,
Princeton, N.J. 1915.
Kornemann, E, Doppelprinzipat und Reichsteihng im Imperium Romanum. Leipzig-
Berlin, 1930, pp, 78-123.
—
” — Fom antiken Btaai^ In Staaten, Volker, Manner. Leipzig,
1934, pp. iz-16.
Kruse, H. Studien zur ojfzielien Geltung dec KaiserhiIdes im fomischen Reiche,
Pader born, 1934.
Lambreclits, P. La Composition du Binat remain de Beptime Binire a Dioclitien (193-
284). Diss. Pann. Ser, I, fasc. 8, Budapest, 1937.
Mattingly, H. Roman Coins, London, 1928.
Mitteis, L. Reichsrecht und Foiksrecht in den ostUchen Promnzen des romischen
Kaherreiches, Leipzig, 1891.
Mommsen, Th. Romisches Btaatsreckt, 11, 2^; iii, 2. Leipzig, 1887-1888,
Pippidi, D. M.
Le ^Numen Augusti^ observations sur une forme occidentale du culte
impiriale.Rev. E.L. xi, 1931, p. 83.
Ritterling, E, 7sum romischen Heerwesen des ausgehenden dritten ahrhunderts. J
Festschrift ftir Otto Hirschfeld, Berlin, 1903, p. 345.
Art. s.v, legio in P,W. coll. 1329-62.
RostovtzefF, M. The Bocial and Economic History of the Roman Empire, Chs. ix—
XII, Oxford, 1926.
(Later additions are to be found in the German and Italian editions given in the
General Bibliography.)
Schulz, O. Th. Fom Prinzipat zum Dominat, Paderborn, 1919.
Stein, A. Der romische Ritterstand. Ein Beitrag zur Bozial- und Personengeschichte
des romischen Reiches, Munich, 1927.
Btellvertreter der Praefecti Praetorio, Hermes, lx, 1925, p. 94.
Stein, E. Geschichte des spatromischen Reiches, Vol. i, Fom romischen zum hyzantin-^
ischen Btaate. Vienna, 1928, pp, 1—93.
Zum Gebrauch des prokonsularischen Titels seiiens der romischen Kaiser, Klio,
XII, 1912, p. 392,
Die kaiserlichen Beam ten und Truppenkorper im romischen Deutschland unier
dem Prinzipat. Vienna, 1932.
Vogelstein, M. Kaiseridee-Romidee und das Ferhaltnis von Staat und Kirche seit
Constantin. Teil i: Fon Augustus bis Diocletian. Breslau, 1930, pp. 4-49.
Weber, M. Romhche Kaisergeschichte und Kirchengeschichte. Stuttgart, 1929.
J)ie Fereinheitlichung der religiosen Welt. In R. Laqueur, H. Koch and W.
Weber, Probleme der Bpatantike. Stuttgart, 1930, pp. 67 ryy.
Numerous articles in P.W. s.vv. a cognitionibus (v. Premerstein), ab epistolis
(Rostowzew), a libellis (v. Premerstein), a memoria (Fluss), a rationibus (Liebenam),
res privata (Liebenam), officium (Boak), perfectissimus (Ensslin), senatus (O’Brien
Moore, in SuppL vi), a studiis (Kubler); and in D.-S. s.vv. consilium principis
(Humbert), praefectus praetorio and praefectus urbi (Cagnat),
- '
762 BIBLIOGRAPHY
, .
CHAPTER XI
,
'THE REFORM'S OF DIOCLETIAN
'
.
.
764 V BIBLIOORAPHY:, ..
'
CHAPTER Xir ,
For detailed surveys of the modern literature, see the reports in Bursian (latest by
Fr. Plister, Supp. ccxxix, 1930: published separatriy as Die Rtiigim der Grin'/nff
uMdRfJmen Leipzig, 1930); Arch. Relig. (latest by O. Weinreicli, xxxiii, 1936, and
xxxiv, 1937); Year’s Work in Classical Studies (by H. J. Rose); J. E. A. (1937-
1936 by A. D. Nock, from 1937 by H. J. Rose, in the coilabr>rative bibliography of
Graeco-,Romaii Egypt); Jalirbuch fur .Liturgiewissenscliait (by O. CastJ and col-
'
laborators).
..Alfoldi,A. Dk
Jiisgestakimg Jes -mmareilsc^^^ Zeremmmk/s az*! romistikn Kaiser--
hfe, Rom. Mitt, xiix, 1934, .p. 3.-
—
— - Imigwkn and Trac^i der rBrnlsdan Kaiser. Ib. l, 1935, p. 3.
Fesiwai qf his in Rome under de Chist tan Emperm of tie IFik Century.
Diss. Pann. Ser. 11, fasc. 7, Budapest, 1937.
Belm, F. Das MidiraskHtgium DieSurg. Roniisch-germanische Forschungeii, 4
Berlin, 1928. (See the review by A. D. Nock in Gnomon, vi, 1930, p. 30.)
B,ide2, J. La vie de PEmpereur yuiien. Paris, .1930.
de Porpkyre. Ghent, I9i3.^-
Blinkenberg, Chr. ArcMoiogische Studien. Gopenhage.ii,. 1904.
Boissier, G. ' a vols. Paris, 1891.
Bonner, C. Borne 'Phases of Religious Feeling in Later Pagaztism. Harv. TfieoL Rev.
XXX, 1937, p. 119.
Bosch, CL Die kieinasiatiscken Munxen der romischen Kmserzeii, Tell n, Einzel-
uBtersuchungen. Bd. i; Bithpiien, i Halfte. -Spattgart, 1935. „
Breiich, A. Aspetti della morte neile iscrixkni sep&krali delP Impero rommo. Diss.
Pann. Ser. .4 fasc. 7, Budapest, 1937.
Calder, W. M. Notes on Anatolian religion. Journ. Manchester Egyptian and
Oriental Society, X4 1924, p. 19.
Chapoutliier, F, Les Dmeuns au service i^une dime. Paris, 1935.
Clemen, C. ReUghmgeschichtlkke Erklarung des Netmi Testaments. Ed. 2, Giessen,
1924.
Cook, S. A. The Religions of Ancient Palestine in the Light of Archaeology.
London, 1930. Chap. 114 The Graeco-Roman Age, pp. 153-230.
Cumont, F, Textes et monuments figuris relatifs aux mysieres de MUkra. 2 vols.
Brussels, 1894-1900.
~ — Les mystkes de Mi thru. Ed. 3, Brussels, 1913.
Mitkra en Strurk. In Scriiti in onore di Bartolomeo Nogara^ Citti del Vatlcano,
1937, p. 95.
—— Les religions orkntales Jans le paganisme remain. Ed. 4, Paris, 1929.
—— ^
Festugiere, A.-J. UIdial religieux des Grecs et PEvangUe. Ed. 2, Paris, 1931.
Festugiere, A.-J. and P. Fabre, Le monde grico-romain au temps de Notre Seigneur,
2 vols. Paris, 1935.
Geffcken, J. Der Ausgang des grieckisckromischen Heidentums, Heidelberg, 1920,
and Nackragy 1929 (included in reprint).
Gernet, L. and A. Boulanger. Le ginie grec dans la religion. Paris, 1932.
Gordon, A. E. The cults of Africa. Univ. of Calif. Publ. in Class. Arch, n, no. i,
Berkeley, Cal. 1934.
Graillot,H. Le Cuke de Cybele. Paris, 1912.
Halliday, W. R. The Pagan Background of early Christianity. Liverpool, 1925.
Haussleiter, J. Der
Vegetarismus in der Antike, Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche
und Vorarbeiten, XXIV, Berlin, 1935.
Hepding, H. Attis^ seine My then und sein Kult, Ib. i, Giessen, 1903,
Herter, H. De Priapo. Ib. xxiii, Giessen, 1932.
Hill, Sir G. F. Some Palestinian Cults in the Graeco-Roman Age, Proc. Brit. Acad.
V, 1912.
Hopfner, Th. Griechisch-dgyptischer Offenbarungszauber. Stud. z. Palaeographie u.
Papyruskunde, ed. C. Wessely, xxi, xxiii. Leipzig, 1922-24.
Jones, L. W. The Cults of Dacia, Univ. of Calif. Publ. in Class. Phil, ix, 1929,
no. 8. Berkeley, Cal. 1929.
Kan, A. H. De lovis Dolicheni cultu.. Groningen, X901.
,
by M.
P. Nilsson, Deutsche Lit.^Z, 1933, col. 250; L. Deubner, Gnomon, ix,
1933, p. 372; E. Loewy, Orient, X/V.-Z. xxxvu, 1954, col 485.)
Scott, W. and A. S. Fergoson. Hermetka, 4 vols. Oxford, 1925-36.
Seyrig, H. La triade Mlkp&iiiaim et les temples de Baalbek, Syria, x, 1929, p. 314
(and many other articles in the same periodical).
Swoboda, E. Die Sekiange im Mitkraskuit, Jahreshefte, xxx, 1936, p. 1. '
Section General, and Section II (i) are due to Professors Creed and Lietzmann,
I,
I. General
Historia Ecclesiastica. The best edition published in Gr. Chr. Schr.
is
together with the Latin translation of Rufinus. Edd. E. Schwartz and Th.
Mommsen. VoL ix, i and ii, Text; iii, Introduction, Indices, etc. Leipzig,
1903-1909. The text is conveniently reproduced in an Editio Minor: Eusebius
Kirchengeschichtey ed. E. Schwartz (Leipzig, 1908).
Lawlor, H. J. and J. E. L.
Oulton, The Ecclesiastical History and the Martyrs of
Palestine, 2 vols. London, 1927. Vol. i. Translation; vol. 11, Introduction
and Notes.
McGiffert, A. C. English translation, introduction and notes in vol. i of the 2nd
Series of Nicene and Post-Nlcene Fathers. Oxford, x 890.
Lake, K. and J. E. L. Oulton, Text and Translation, 2 vols. (Loeb). London,
1926, 1932.
Apostolic Fathers. Funk, F. X. Patres ApostoHci. 2 vols. Tubingen, 1901.
3rd ed. of vol. II, ed. F. Diekamp. Tubingen, 1913.
Bihlmeyer, K. Die Apostolischen Vater. Neubearbeitung der Funkschen Ausgabe,
I Teil (Didache, Barnabas, Clemens I, II, Ignatius, Polycarp, Quadratus,
Diognetus). Tubingen, 1924.
J, B. Lightfoot. The
Apostolic Fathers. Pt I, vols. i and 2, S. Clement of Pome.
London, 1890; Pt II, vols. x-3, B. Ignatius and S. Poly carp. 2nd ed. London,
1889. A posthumous work edited by J. R. Harmer, London, 1891, gives text
and translation of Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, the Didache, Barnabas, Hermas,
Diognetus, Papias.
Die apostolischen Filter in Handbuch scntm neuen Testament^ ed. H. Lietzmann.
Erganzungsband. 4 Pts. Tubingen, 1920-1923.
English translation by F. Crombie and others in The Ante-Nicene Christian
Library^ vol. i, Edinburgh, 1868.
Lake, K. The Apostolic Fathers*, text and translation. 2 vols. (Loeb). London,
;ri9t:2,/T^
English translations: The Epistles of St Ignatius, by J. H. Srawley. London,
1919; The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, by L. B. Radford, revised edition
by A. J. Maclean. London, 1922; The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,
by W. K. L. Clarke. London, 1937.
768 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dionysius of Alexandria. Fekoe, C. L, AIONYSIOY AEI^ANA. Th Lefiers
0£ier Rmaim Dw^ysim of Jiixa^drm. Ca.mbnd^e^ 1904: he has also
published an English translation of the Letters, and Treatises. London^ n.d.
(?i9iS)..
An English translation by S. D. F. -Sal-mond is published in Tie yhie-NieeMe
Ckrtsiim Liimry^ voL xx. Edinburgh, 1B71* ' . ,
Ewphaxil’s, ed. K. Holl, in Gr. Chr* Schr. vol, xxv (191 5), Ancoratus and Fanarion
Haer. i'“33; vol. xxxi (1922) Fanarion Haer. 34«-'64; voL xxxvii (1933)
Fanarion Haer. 65-80. De fide.
,
Hippolytus in Gr. Chr. Schr, vol. i (1897), edd* G. N. Bomvetscli and H. Adidis
(Commentarj on Daniel and Song of Solomon, etc.); yqI, xxvi (1916), ed. P«
Wendland (Refutatio omnium Haeresium); voL xxxvi (1929), edd. A. Bauer
and R. Helm (The Chronicle). Translation by j. Ff. AlacSfahon and S. D. F.
Salmond in Tke Jnti-Nkem Cirisitm Library^ vols. vi and ix. Edinburgh,
1 868-1 869. For an English translation of the Refutaiim ef aii liensksi
F. Legge, PMksephmem» z vols. .London, 1921.
Irbnaeus. Smeii Innaei epheopt Lugdumnsts iibros qumfue admrsus kaereses^ cd.
W. W. Harvey. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1857,
'
Kidd, B. J. A
History of the Church to a.d. 461. Vol. i, Oxford, 1922.
de Labriolle, P, Histoire de la literature latine chritienne, Ed. 2, Paris, 1924.
» La reaction patenne, £tude sur la polimique antichrdtienne du au vi^ siecle,
Paris, 1934.
Lawlor, H. J. Eusebiana, Essays on the Ecclesiastical History, Oxford, 1912.
Lietzmann, H. Geschichte der alten Kirche, Vol. ii, Ecclesia catkolica, Berlin, 1936.
•
Petrus und Paulus in Rom. Ed. 2. Berlin-Leipzig, 1927.
Loofs, F. Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte, Ed. 4. Halle, 1906.
Montgomery Hitchcock, F, R. Irenaeus of Lugdunum, Cambridge, 1914.
Muller, K. Kirchengeschichte, Vol. i, ed. 2, Tubingen, I924--I929.
Philotesia, P. Kleinert zum LXX
Geburtstag dargebracht von Ad, HarnackyH, DielSy
K, Holly etc, Berlin, 1907.
Preuschen, E. and G. Krtiger, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, I. Teil, Das
Aliertum, Ed. 2, Tubingen, 1923.
Puech, A. Histoire de la literature grecque chrdtienne. Vol. ii, Paris, 1928.
Ramsay, W. M. The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. Part I. 2 vols., Oxford,
1895, 1897.
Roberts, C. H. An unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel, Manchester, 1935.
Sanday, W. The Gospels in the Second Century. London, 1 876.
Schwartz, E. Kaiser Constantin und die christliche Kirche. Ed. 2, Leipzig, 1936.
Art. in PXR.s.v, Eusebius.
Tixeront, J. Histoire des Dogmes, Vol. i, ed. i l, Paris, 1930.
Turner, C. H. Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastical ii, 1890, p. 105.
C.A.H. XII: 49
BIBLIOGRAPHY
'
!!• Sficiai.Tcjwcs
ige,1897.^
ocryphai Neza Testament, Oxford, 1924.
OfCXHEiS IIAYA'OY (nach dem Papyrus der Hamburger Staats-
iversitats-Bibliothek unter Mitarbeit von W- Schubart), GJticIcstadt,
Ij. Die ditesten Apohgeten, (The most convenient text Includes all
f-century Apologists, except Theophilus.) Gdttingen, 1915.
tarum Christianorum saemli semndL Ed-
J. C. Th, Otto. Vols. 1-5
?vorks of S. Justin and works attributed to him). ¥oL i, Jena, 1S42;
l76;vol.ii, 3rd ed.^iSyj; voLiii, jrded. 1879; vol Hsrded. 1880;
1 e^. 1881; yoL vi,Tatian, 1851; vol. vii, Athenagoras, 1857; voL
philus of Antioch, 1E61 ; voL ix, Hermias, Aristides, Aristo, Miltiades,
pollnaris, 1872,
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV
Separate editions;
Justin Martyr; The Apologies of Justin Martyr. Ed. A. W. F. Blent. Cambridge,
Edinburgh, 1867, and of Tatian and Theophilus in vol. iii of the same library,
1867, There is a French translation (with Greek text and introduction) of St
Justin’sApologies by L. Pautigny in the series of Texies et Documents, edited by
H. Hemmer and P. Lejay, Paris, 1904, and there are German translations of
the Apologists in the Biblioihek der Kirchenvdier, vols. xn, xiv and xxxiii.
Munich, 19 1 3-1 917.
English translation of Justin Martyr: The Dialogue with Trypho by A. Lukyn
Williams. London, 1930.
and Hcpt Evxvd); and v, De Principiis (Il^pt *Apxw). Vols. ni, vi, vn, vin,
IX contain Homilies; vol. iv, Commentary.on John; vols. x, xi. Commentary
on Matthew.
77Z:'V .BIBLIOGRAPHY,, „
Paris, 1935. _ .
.
{d) Montanism
Anderson, J. G. C. Paganism and Christianity in the Upper Tembris Valley in
Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Promnces of the Roman Empire,
Aberdeen, 1906.
Bonwetsch, G. N. Texte zur Qeschkhie des Montanismus, Bonn, 1914.
Calder, W. M. Philadelphia and Montanism. Bull. John Ryl. Lib. yo, 1923, p.
309.
The Epigraphy of the Anatolian Heresies. Anatolian Studies, p. 59, Manchester,
1923.
The New Jerusalem of the Monianists. Byzantion, vi, 1931, p. 421.
Messenger Lectures (Cornell University) (to be published shortly).
Grdgoire, H, Du nouveau sur la kiirarchk de la secte montaniste d'^apres une inscription
grecque trauvie pres de Pkiladelpkk en Lydk. Byzantion, n, 1925, p. 329.
Notes ipigrafhiqueSy ib. vin, 1933, p. 49.
de Labriolle, P. La crise montaniste.
Paris, 1913.
Les sources de FMstoire duMontanisme. Fribourg (Suisse), Paris, 1913.
Schepelern, W. Der Montanismus und die phrygischen Kulte. Tubingen, 1929.
774 BIBLIOGEAPHY :
.
,V'
von Le Coq, A, TUrh'seie MamcMim 'ms CMtsch /--///. BerL AWi. 1912^ 1919,
;I922;
•—
.
.
Em mmuMmhs
Buck-Fmgmeni^ mi .Chmch, Festsckriit Thomsen* .
^ ^
(i) Captkn
AUberry, C. E. C. J
Mankkaean Tsalm'^Bmky 'Bt 11 Stuttgart, 1938. .
London, 1921.
Pognon, H. Inscriptions mandaites des Coupes de KhouaMr. Paris, 1 898. Appendix II t
Extraits du Livre des Scholies de Theodore bar Khouni, p. 125.
Sachau, E. ALBiruni: Chronology of Ancient Nations. London, 1879.
Zycha, J. Augustinus, Bcripia contra Mankhaeos (Opera, sect. 6, pars l et 2), in
C.S.E.L. xrv, 1891—2.
For the formulas of abjuration c£ Appendix Monumentmim ai Rim^itioms
Ckmentims. ^Migne, P.G. .1, 'CoL 1461 and Methodius, tw mr
dpvqxrem. Migne, P.G* c, coL 1321.
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV 775
(iii) General
Les £critures mankkiennes, 2 vols. Paris, 1918.
Alfaric, P.
Bardy, G. Manickitsme, Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, vol.
9, p. 1841,
./''Paris,.' I926....'.
Baur, F. C. Das manickaiscke Reiigionssystem. Tubingen, 1831; reprinted Got-
tingen, 1928,
de Beausobre, I. Histoire critique de Mamchie et du Manichiisme, VoL i, Amsterdam,
1734: voL II, Amsterdam, 1739.
Q. The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925.
Christensen, A. U
Iran sous les Sassanides, Paris, 1936. Chapter iv.
Cumont, F* Reckerckes sur le Manichiisme, Paris, voL i, 1908; vols. ii, in, 1912.
Kessler, K. ManL Forschungen uber die manickaiscke Religion. Berlin, 1889.
von Le Coq, A. Ckotscko. Berlin, 1911.
Die buddkistiscke Spatantike in Mittelasien. Pt. ii. Die manichaischer Minia-
.
;
turen. Berlin, .1923. ,.
— — 1929, p. 1959.
Urform und Fortbildungen des manickdiscken Systems. Leipzig, 1927*
von Wesendonk, O. G. Die Lekre des Mani. Leipzig, 1922,
Williams Jackson, A. V. Researekes in Manickaeism. New York, 1932.
Meyer, E. Unsprung und Anfmge des Ciristeniumsy voL in, pp,. 310 ryf. Stuttgart-
Berlin, 1923.
Mommsen, T, Der Religionsfrepe! nach romischem Reckt, H.Z. lxiv (N.F. xxviii),
i%^Qyp, ^%c^\f=^Qisamme!te BckriftenyWiyp, '
Library, ^111 and xni, Edinburgh, 1868, 1869. Canon Bayard has trans-
lated the letters into French, 2 vols., Paris, 1925, and T. A. Lacey has pub-
lished, in English, Belect Epistles of St Cyprian treating of the Episcopate,
London, n.d.
Liber Pontificalis, ed. Th. Mommsen. Pars i. Berlin, 1898 (containing St. Peter
to Pope Constantinus fyis).
Minucius Felix. Octavius, ed. by C. Halm in C.S.E.L. vol. ii, 1867.
Text:}. P. Waltzing, Leipzig, 1912: his edition and commentary, Bruges, 1909.
English translation by G. H. Rendall in Loeb Classical Library, Loridon, 1931,
and by J. H. Freese, London, n.d.
Novatian. On the Trinity, ed. W. Yorke Fausset, Cambridge, 1909. English trans-
lation by H. Moore, London, 1919.
778 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER XVI
THE TR.4NSITION TO LATE CLASSICAL ART
L GsHERAi . .
.
.
Tlie reader siioald consult tke Bibliography to Chapter xx in VoL xi, pp. 942-44.
Rivoira,G, T. Rmm
drckiiecture^ Oxford, 1925.
Robertson, D. S. J Hsndhok $/ Greek and Reman arcMticture. Cambridge, 1 929.
La RcMltmra Rmma, 2 ¥ois. Florence, 1923-26,
— Indent Rme. ,2 vols. London, 1929.
{d)' '
From Septmlm Bemrm to Elagabalm
Bartoccini, R, U areo fuadrifronte del Bemrl a Lepds. Africa ital. iv, 1931, p. 32.
Bendinelli, G. li monuminto' sepokrale degli JurelL .Mon, Ant. xxfi!!, 1922-23,
p. 2S9.
von Gerkan, A. Die Entwkkiung des grossen Tempels von BaalbeL Corolla flir
—— p. 119.
Zur KmstgescMckte der Jahre 220-270. J.D.A.I. li, 1936, pp. 82 sqq,
Rostovtzeff, M. Dura and the problem of Parthian Art, Yale Class. Stud, v, 1935,
pp. 155-301.
Strong, E. Apotheosis and After-life, London, 1915.
Cecchelli, C. Studi e scoperte italime sulF archeologia e f arte del tardo Impero.
Istit di Studi Romani. Rome, 1938.
Delbriick, R. Antike Pmfhyrwerke. BerKn, 1932.
Spdtaniihe KaiserforttMs, Berlin, 1933. ,
TO CHAPTER XVI 779
Egger, R. Btudt e scoperte austriacke suIP archeologia e /’ arte del tarde Impero.
Istit di Studi Romani. Rome, 1938.
Gerke, 'F. rPetrus md Pauhs. Riv. d. arch, crist x, 1933, p. 307.
Die ckristlichen Sarkopkage der mrkonstantiniscken Zeit, Studieii 2. spatant.
—
-
~
Kunstgesch. herausgeg. von Lietzmann und RodenwaMt, x, Berlin, 1938.
Studien viur Sarkopkagpiastik der theodosianiscken Renaissance, i. Rom,
Quartalsschrift, xLii, 1934, p. i.
Hinks, R. ^r/. London, 193$.
—— Raum und
Fidcke im spatantiken Relief, Arch. Anz. 1936, p. 238,
de Jerphanion, P. G, Studi e scoperte francese suIP archeologia e T arte del tardo
1931, P* 36-
Maurische Auxilien im Fries des Konstantinsbogens, Symb. Osl. xin, 1934?
p. 105.
inmctus imperator, Symb. Osl. xiv, 1935, p. 86.
Niemann, G. Der Palast Diokletians in Spalato, Vienna, 1910.
Riegi, A. Die spdtrdmische Kunstindustrie, Vienna, 1927, (New impression of the
original edition of 1901.)
Rodenwaldt, G. Fine spdtantike Kunststrdmung in Rom, Rom. Mitt, xxxvi-vii,
1921-22, p. 58.
Der BeIgrader Cameo, J.D.A.L xxxvii, 1922, p. 17.
Biudi e scoperte germaniche sulP archeologia e P arte del tardo Impero, Istit.
CHAPTER XVII
: THE LATIN LITERATURE OF THE: WEST FROM' ,
THE'ANTONINES TO
L Gbmeral Works on Latin Literature (Pagan and Ck&istian) ,
Full bibliographies of editions and works on' the various authors discussed in this
chapter are given in the large general literary histories of Schanz and Teuffel, and
in the HisiGtre of de Labriolle mentioned below. With a few exceptions only works
not mentioned there are given here. For texts of the Christian Latin writers see
(besides those mentioned below) Fairohgta Laima^. and the Corpus Seriprnmm
-
Pronto
Aulus QsUius
Africitas
Sister Wilfrid. Is there an Africitas? Class. Weekly, xxii (Dec. 17, 1928), pp. 73-8
(witii a bibliograpliy). See also Brock, op, pp. 161-261, 338-341.
Apuleius
For texts see the edition of the Metamorphoses by R. Helm, Leipzig, 1913; Apuleius
the Golden Ass, being the Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, with an English translation
by W.Adlington (1566) revised by S, Gaselee (Loeb), 1919; The Stor^ of Cupid
and Psyche as related by Apuleius, Qd., L. C. Purser, London, 1910; and ApuUe —
Apologie, Fbrides, texte 6tabli ettraduit par Paul Vallette {Collection des unwersitds
de France, Les Belles Lettres), Paris, 1924.
Haight, E. H. Apuleius and his Influence (with bibliography). New York, 1927.
Nock, A. D. Conversion, Oxford, 1933. Chap, ix, ‘The Conversion of Lucius,’
pp. 138-55.
Oldfather, Canter and Perry. Index Apuleianus, {Amer, Phil, Assoc, Monographs,
III.) Middletown, Conn., 1934.
Poetry
Pervigilium Veneris
For texts see Anthologia Latina (ed. A. Riese), No. 200; J. W. Mackail in Catullus
(Loeb), 1912; The Pervigilium Veneris, edited with introduction and notes by Sir
Cecil Clementi, ed. 3, Oxford, 1936 (with an excellent bibliography); Pervigilium
Veneris, edited by J. A. Fort, with a preface by J. W. Mackail, Oxford, X922, and
G. B. A. Fletcher, Notes and Additions to dementi’s Pervigilium Veneris, C.P. xxviii,
1935, pp. 209-16.
Martin, G. Transposition of Verses in the Pervigilium Veneris, C.P. xxx, 1935,
Rand, E. K. Sur le Pervigilium Veneris, Rev. E.L. xii, 1934, pp. 85-95.
Spirit and Plan of the Pervigilium Veneris, Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc, txv,
782,,. :
BIBLIOGRAPHY- :
'
III. :
The. Age of Tii.E Setiri ahb the. Rise of Christian. Latim LiTtmrum
(See also section, (i) of the bibliography to Chapters xiis.~xv.)
T^riml/im
TerMliian^ jipi}kg^ md
De SpecMcuHs^ edited and translated into English by
T. R. Glover (Loeb), 1931.
De praescriptime kaeretkorum^ texte lati'n, traduction fan^aise, introduction et index,
par P. de .LabrioIIe. Paris, 1907.
Tifiuiliam JpQkgeikum, Bonn, 1933..
Tertullimi de testimonk mimae USer cum fraefatime^ translailme^. admiaiimiiMS,
ed. W. A. J.C. Scholte, Amsterdam, 1934,*
Hoppe, H. De Sermone Teriuiiianee ^aestimes Sekciae, Mtrbu.rg, .1897.
Syntax and Siii des Teriuiiian. Leip2.ig, 190,3,
Schrijnen, J. Li htm ckriikn depenu iangue mmmme. Rev. .E. L* xii,: 1934,,
p.96.
Shortt, C. de L. Tke Induence qf Fhiimopky m the Mini ef Tertuiiian, -
Lond.os, 1933*
Robinson, J. .A.
—
M. MinucH Feikis Octavius^
,
De Jong, J. J,
ed.' P.. Wa.lt2ing.
recensnit etpraefatns est Herni. Boenig. Leipzig, 1903.
Ed. 2, Leipzig, ,1926.
Jpokgeikk in Ckisteniam in den Octopius van Minucius Felix, With
a summary in English. Maastricht, 1935.
Schmidt, G. Minucius Felix oder TertuUim. Leipzig, 1932.
Si Cyprian
Bayard, L. Tertuliianus et Si Cyprien, Paris, 1930.
Monceaux, P. St Cyprien^ iSnique de Carthage, Paris, 1914.
Cmmodian
Frank, T, Latin ^antitatwe Speech, A.J.Ph. xniv, 1924, p. 169.
Kiatwijk, A. Fr. van. Lexicon Commodianeumy cum Introductkni de Commodiam niia^
temporibusy sermone, Amsterdam, 1934 (with excellent bibliography).
Stuitevant, E. H. Commodian and Medkpal Rhythmic Terse, Language, ii,
4
(December, 1926).
Amobim
Arnobii aimrsus nationes libri Fll^mc. C. Marchesi* Turin, 1934,
GBhzxio% ArmbeFson csmre.
—— Le Jaiin d^Arnobe. VmSy 1921,
Guinagli, K. Bibiiograpby of Arnobiana, Class. Weekly, xxix,
9 (January 6, 1936),
pp. 69-70.
Lactantius
CHAPTER XVIII
Puech, .A. Histoire de la litt/raiure grecfue chritknne. Vol. .11, Paris, 1928.
Richtsteig, E. Berkhi uher die Literatur %ur sogenannien zweiien BopMsttk aus den
Jahren 1926-1930. Bursian, ccxxxiv, 1932 and ccxxxviii, 1933.
Rohde, E. Der grkc hue he Roman, Ed. 2, Leipzig, 1900.
Schmid, W. and O. Stahiin. Gesckkkte der grieckiseken Litteraiur. ii. Teil, 2. Band,
ed. 6, Munich, 1934.
vonWiiamowitz-Moellendorff, U. Die grkcMsc&e Litteraiur des Aitertums, Leipzig,
1912, pp. 188177.
]}gr Glauhe der Eelknen, VoL ii, Berlin, 1932.
(^) PMlosopky
Bidez, J. Fie de
Porpkyre, Ghent, 1918.
Bigg, C. Neoplatonism, London, 1895.
Tke Christian Piatonists of Alexandria, London, 19x3.
Brehier, E. Histoire de la PkUosophie, VoL i, ii, Paris, 1931, pp. 449177.
Dodds, E. R. Select passages illustratwe of Neoplatonism, London, 1923 (trans.) and
1924 (Greek texts).
Praechter, K. Ricktungen und Sckulen im Neuplaionismus (Robert’s Genethliakon,
pp. 105177.). Berlin, 1910.
Ukerwegs Gesckkkte der Pkilosopkk, VoL i, ed. 12, Berlin, r926.
Schissel, O. Das Ende des Platonismus im Altertum, Fulda, 1929.
Theiler, W. Die Forbereitung des Neuplaionismus (Problemata, I). Berlin, 1930.
Whittaker, T. The Neo-platonists. Cambridge, 1901.
Zeller, E. Die Pkilosopkk der Grkchen, VoL in, ed. 5
(a reprint of ed, 4), edited by
E. Weilmann, Leipzig, 1923.
^ts. in P.W. s,vv. Gnosis (Schulthess), Gnosis and Gnostiker (Bousset), Hermes
Trismegistos (Kroll).
(r) Science
IL Individual Authors
(^2) Poetry
Soterichus, Pisander, TrypHodorus, Zoticus, Nestor of Laranda, and the other
epic poets of tliis period are jkno-wn only by unimportant fragments.
Oppian. Balieutica {ytiiiiikt Cynegetica, which
not by Oppian); ed. F. S. Lehrs
is
in Poetae Bucolici et Didactiei, P2s6s> (Didot), 1862; ed. P. Boudreaux, Paris,
1908. Text, trans. and notes by A. W. Mair (Loeb). For some new views on
Pseudo'Oppian see W. Lameere, Apamie de Syrie et les Cynigitiques du Ps.~
Oppien, in BulL Institut. hist, beige de Rome,
C.A.H. XII 50
^
,786 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1934. G.TIiomley’s trails, of 1733 revised by J. M, Edmonds (Loeb). See
L. WoliF, S. Th
Greek romances in Eli%ahetkan prose fiction^ Diss. New
,
YorL 1912. Famous French tans, by Amyot, 1559, 1712, etc.-— '^corrig^e,
complete, etc. par Paul Louis Courier,^ ed.^ 5^ Pads, 1812.
Ckmentinat RecognUwnes^tA.E.. G. Gersdorff, Homiiiae, ed. J. B. Cotelerius,
reprinted in Migne, Patrol. Graeca, i, col. 1201x77. and n, coL 25 W*
'
(if) PMksophy
Numekius. Text (a, new collection of the fragments), ed. E. A. Leemans, Brussels,
^ 937 -' ,
'
OaiGEN. (The alleged pa^n philosopher.) See R. Cadiou, La jeunesse i*Origkne
(ch. vii, pp. 231x77.), Pads, 1935, and N. H. Baynes in JM.S. lvii, 1937,
p,' 110x7,:
Plotinus. The Emeads, Text, ed. H* F. Mueller, 2 vols., Berlin, 1878-801 text,
with French trans., introduction and notes, by E. Brdhier, 6 vols., Paris, 1924-
36; German tram, by R. Harder, Leipzig, voL i, 1930, n, 1936; English
trans. by St, MacKenna and B. S. Page, 5 vols. 1926-30 (c£ |. H. Stocks in
J.KB. LI, 1931, pp.
The following is a selection from the considerable literature that has gathered around
the great work of Plotinus:
Amou, Le disirde Dieu dam la phibsopkie de Plotin^ Pads, 1931; Mtiller, H. F.,
R,,
Orientalisches bet PhtinosP Hermes, 'xxix, 1914, pp. 70x77.; Br6hier, E., La
pUhsopkie de Plotin^ Paris, 1928; Inge, R., The Philosophy of Plotinus^ ed. 3,
London, 1929; Oppermann, H., Plotins Lehen^ Heidelberg, 1929; R, 1. Witt,
Plotinus^ etc., in C.Q, xxiv, pp. 198x77., and xzv, pp. 103x77. (other recent
publications, analysed by P. Henry, Bulletin Pevue Thlolog,^ Sept.-Dee. 1932);
De Corte, M., Aristote et Plotin^ Paris, 19355 Przyluski, J., Les trots hypostases
dans ITnde et a Alexandrie^ Melanges Cumont, 1936, ii, pp. 925; Henry, P.,
Plotin et POccident, Louvain, 1934, and Recherches sur ,/Vi/. perdue de Phtin
. ,
publiii par Eustochmsy Paris, 19355 the same writer*s recent paper, Fers la re-
constitution de Pemeignement oral de Plotin^ Bulletin Acad. R. Belg., Classe des
Lettres, 1937, pp, 310x77. makes new approaches to the problem; see also his
forthcoming work, Les itats du texte de Plotin,
PoRPHTRius. Hisior, philos,fragm,y Vita Pythagorae^ De antro nympharuMy De abstin,y
et Ad Marcelhm\ text, ed, 2, A, Nauck, Leipzig, 1886 . De pkUosopMa ex —
oraculis kaurienda^ ed. G. Wolff, Berlin, 1866 . — Isagogiy et In categmas
— — ^ —
TO CHAPTER XVIII ^
Arhtot,^ ed, A. Busse, Berlin, 1887.— /^//tf P/«?/:/;??i (prefixed to the text of
Ennead i), E. Brehier, Paris, i<^ 2 ^,—^aestiones Homericae, ed. H. Schrader,
Qd..
(/) Science
Mathematics. ' .
(2) Music.
PoRPHYRius. Kommentar zur Harmonklehre des Ptolemaios. Text, I. During,
Goteborg, 1932.
Alypius. Introductio in Musicam. Text, C. E. Ruelle, Paris, 1895.
Aristides Quintilianus. De muska libri. lTL, Text, A. lahnius, Berlin, 1882.
(3) Geography.
Dionysius of Byzantium. Anaplus Bospori Thracii. Text by C. Muller, Geograpki
graeci minoresy ii, p. 2x7. —
C. Wescher, Paris, 1874.
Such are the surviving works; to give some idea -of what is imssiiig, w^’e may
mention thecompietelossof the works of the head of die theological and ezegedcal
school of .Antioch, Lucian, tlie teacher of Arius, and especially of the ap&hgia for
Christianity that he presented to the emperor Maximin. On Us importance see
A. Hamack, Lucian der Mdreyrety in Herzog-Hauck, R^aiencycL /. praiest.
TheoUghy xi, pp. 654xyy., and the recent study by G, Bardy, Jkcherchts sur
S, Lucien d*Antmche^ Rev. E.A. xzxviii, 1936, p. 481 See also H. Lietzmann,
.
Geschichte der alien Kirche^ voL in, 1938, pp. \ ^\sqq, (for Eusebius).
(i) Mucellamms
Diogenes Laertius. De pkiiosopkorum mils. Text ed. Cobet, Paris, 1878. No new
edition has yet replaced this faulty text, but considerable portions have been
published with critical apparatus, notably in H. Diels’ Forsekraiihn See too La
Fie de Pytkagore^ A. Delatte, Brussels, 1922; E/uVm Epktuiae, ed. F. vonder
Muehll, Leipzig, 1922. There is an Eng. trans. by R. D. Hicks, 2 vols. (Loeb).
Aeeian. Farias Mstoriae et Historia animaUum^ ed. Hercher (Teubner), 1 864 and
1867; Epistolaem Epistolographi Graeci, ed. Hercher, Paris (Didot), 1873.
Athenaeus. DeipnosopMstae, Text, ed. Kaibel, 3 vols. (Teubner), 1887-90; Eng,
trans. by C. Burton Gulick, vols. i-v (Loeb), See Animadversimes inAtkenmum^
J,
Schweighaeuser, 9 vols. Strassburg, 1801-7.
TO CHAPTER XIX 789
CHAPTER XIX
THE GREAT PERSECUTION
This Bibliograpliy is supplementary to the Bibliographies for Chapters vi/ix,
and xin-xv; see too the Bibliographical notes in N. H. Baynes, Constantine the
Great and the Christian Churchy British Academy: Proceedings, voL xv, 1929.
As in the Bibliography to Chapters xiii-xv the following abbreviations are used:
Corpus Scriptorum EccIesiasticorum Latmorum,
Gx.Chr,%c]ii,==^GriechischeChristIicheSehrifsteIIer.
"VXJ,— Texte und Untersuchungen,
A. Ancient Sources
(a) Texts
For collections of Acts and Passions of the Martyrs see Bibl. to Chapters xiii-v,
iii(4
Arnobius. Adversus NatwneSy ed, C. Marches!. Turin, 1934..
Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History, See Bibliography, above, p. 767. De Martyrihus
Eaiaestinaei printed with the Ecclesiastical History (in vol. 2 of the edition by
E. Schwartz).
For the longer edition of the Martyrs of Palestine in Syriac see
B. Violet, Die paldstinischen Mdrtyrer des Eusebius von Casarea, T.U. xiv,
Heft 4, Leipzig, 1896 (with German translation).
— —
Of the Greek text of this longer second edition of the Martyrs of Palestine
H. Delehaye published some fragments in An. Boll, xvi, 1897, p. T13, These
fragments contain the Passion of St Pamphilus and of this text ‘une nouvelle
redaction abregee’ was published by H* Delehaye from Brit. Mus. Add. 36,589,
An. Boll. XXV, 1906, p. 499. This redaction is not included in Schwartz’s text,
cf.An Boll, xxvn, 1908, p. 203.
The Praeparatio Evangelica. Ed. E. H. Giiford. 4 vols. Oxford, 1903.
The Demonstratio Ev angelica, Ed. L A. Heikel. Gr. Chr. Schr., vol. xxiii.
Translations: The Praeparatio Evangelica, by E. H. Gifford, Vol. iii of his edition:
in two parts. Oxford, 1903.
The Demonstratio Evangelica, by W. J. Ferrar, 2 vols. London, 1920.
Lactantius. Opera, Ed. S, Brandt. 2 vols. C.S.E.L. Vienna, 1 890-1893.
De mortibus persecutorum, Ed. J. Pesenti. Turin, 1922.
Translation by W. Fletcher. Ante~Nicene Christian Library, vols. xxi-xxn.
Edinburgh, 1871.
Optatus. Ed. C. Ziwsa. C.S.E.L. vol. xxvi. Vienna, 1893.
Translation by O. R. Vassall-Phillips. London, 1917.
Urkunden %ur Entstehungsgeschichte des Donatismus, Ed. H. von Soden. Bonn,
1913.
Peter, Bp, of Alexandria. Fragments in M. J, Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae\ vol. iv.
Oxford, 1846.
Melitian Schism : the early years.
(i) Canonical Letter of S. Peter of Alexandria. M, J. 'Routh., Reliquiae Sacrae\
vol. IV, Oxford, 1846, pp. 23 sqq.; A. P. de Lagarde, Reliquiae iuris ecclesi-
astici antiquissimae, Greece edidit k, P. de L. Leipzig, 1856, pp. 63899
A Syriac version with additions in Reliquiae iuris ecclesiastici antiquissimae
790 BIBLIOGRAPHY
'Syriaci eSMi A.,R de, Lagarde, Leipzig,. 1-856: Greek translation of these
additions in E. Schwartz, Zur Gisck. des Jikanmius. Gdtt. Nach. 1905,
'
p.'i64.,'
(ii) Documents appended to the Histork Acephak of Athanasius. C£ P, Batiffol,
in B72. Zeits. X, 1901, p. 128.
(iii)Epiphanius, Opera, Ed. G. Dindorf. 5 vols. Leipzig, x859--6^; or in Gr.
Chr. Schr., ed. K. Holl. Vol. in, 1931. Hmt. §68. ^
(iv) Epistola ad Meletium. Routh, Reltfulae Bacrm^, Oxford, 1 846, ¥oL 4, p. 91.
(v) Bell, H. L Jezes and Christians in Egyfi,. London, 1924.
Gregoire, H. Ream! des Imeriptims p^ec^ues chrMennes d\*!sk Mimure, Ease, 1,
Paris, 1922.
lurisprudeMtiae anidusitnianae reiiqmas^ ed. E-. Seckel and B. Kiiebler, ed. 6, foI. 2,
Ease. Leipzig, 1927 (Mankhaean Edict, p. 38 1). For discussion of date
2.
of the edict c£ L. Poinssot in Nemeiks Archives ies Misskm sckmifquis a
voL xxi, Fasc. 8, 1913, at pp. 170-171.
iiitirmres^ N.S. ,
(The Letter of Theonas is a forgeij. Cf. P. Batiffol, Bull, crit.vii, tS86, p»:.i55;
A. Harnack, Theol. Literaturzeitung, XI, rB86, coL 319.)
i SMoi sitie Mri Admrsm Natknesr Didaskaleion, N.S. -ix, 1930, Fasc, ,3,
p. I.
Euseim.
Lawlor, H. J. Eusehiana, Oxford, 1912.
Puech, A. Histoire de la iittirature pecque chretienne, VoL iii, Paris, 1930.
Schwartz, E. Art. in P.W. sjc\ Eusebios.
Lactantius. -
-
Brandt, S. Vber die duaiistiseken Zusatze und die Kaiseranreden Bet Lactantius,
NeBst etner Untersuchung uber das Leben des Laciantius und die Enistehungs-
perkaitnisse seiner Prosaschriften, Wien S,B. PhiL-hist. Kl. cxvin, 1889 (1892),
Abh. 8; iA czix, 1889, Abh. t ; sb, exx, 1890, Abh. 51 ik exxv, 189X (1892),
Abh. 6 (with altered title).
Pichon, R. Lactanee, Paris, 190X. After reading this book Brandt admitted the
Lactantkn authorship of the De mart, pers, (Cf. j. G. P. Borleffs, Mnern.
(N.S.) Lynx, 1930, p, 223.)
Piganiol, A. Dates mnstantlniennes. Revue d*hist et de philos. religieuses, xii,
1932, p. 360,
(c) The Passions and Acta
For a discussion of early Martyria see A. Harnack, GescL d, akchrlstl. Litteratur
bis Eusebius, Teil ii, Band 11, Leipzig, X904, pp. 463-482. For the publications of
texts of Passions and Acta of the Martyrs it will suffice to refer to the bibliographies in
(i) Bibliotheca hagiographka Latina, z yols.- Brussels,.- 1898-1901.. Supplement, .
ed. 2, Brussels, 19x1. (ii) Bibliotheca hagiopaphka Graeca, Ed. 2, Brussels, 1909.
(iii) Sihliotkeca hagiograpkica Orkntalis, Brussels, 1910.
[In wffiat follows no reference is made to martyrs who ha?e merely hypothetically
been assigned to the period of the great persecution by modern schokrs.j
.
de r£giise ii, p. 467 n. 6); Delehaye, Les Passions, pp. i lo-r 14.
S. Dasius. Text by F. Cumont, An. Boll, xvi, 1897, p. ii ; discussion, ib. p. 5. See
further Parmentier and Cumont, Rev. Phil, xxi, 1897, p. 143; P. Wendland,
Hermes, xxxiii, 1 898, p. 176. For criticism of this curious Passion see Delehaye,
An. Boll. XXVII, 1908, p. 217; XXXI, 1912, p. 265; Les Passions, pp. 321-328.
For the martyr’s tomb at Durostorum cf. Cumont, An. Boll, xxvii, 1908, p. 369
(sarcophagus at Ancona: ? brought from Durostorum at Avar sack of the town
in A.D. 579).
S. Dioscoros. The Greek original two redactions An. Boll, xxiv, 1905,
is lost: text in
1899, p, 399; ib. xxin, 1904, p. ii; F. Bulic, Bull, di arch, e stork dalmata,
XXI, 1898, p. 1 13; ib. xxiii, 1900, p. 213. The acta are without historical
value: on a possible confused memory of the name of a praeses of Dalmatia
(M. Aurelius Julius a.d. 299) cf. Delehaye, An. Boll, xviii, 1889, p. 403; ib.
XXVII, 1908, p. 75. For the discovery of the sarcophagus of Primus, Domnio’s
grandson, in the basilica at Monastirine cf. Bulic, Nuovo Bull di arch, crist vi,
1900, p. 275.
S. Euplus. Texts: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi xlix, 1928, p. 47, 239. Dis-
cussion: ib. p. I.
S. Fabius. Text: An. Boll, ix, 1890, p, 123 (and see at p. 109). Discussion: Franchi
de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, lxv, 1935, p. 101 (cf. Delehaye, An. Boll, liv, 1936,
p. 300) and see Monceaux, Histoire* . . ni, p. 122.
S. Felix of Thibiuca. Text: An. Boll, xxxix, 1921, p. 247. Discussion: ib. pp. 241,
259. (Cf. ib. XVI, 1897, p. 19.) Monceaux, La Passio Fe/icis* Mtude critique
Siir ks relati/s m
mariyn ie FiBx^ Mfus Je TkBiuca^ Rev. Arch.
Ser. ¥oL v, 190;, p. 335 (c£ id. Hisi&ire, . . ni, p. 136).
Forty Martyrs of Sebastia. Thongh the Passio may not be aiithenticj it seems that the
Testament of the martyrs is genuine. See Bonwetsch, Nene kircMiche Zeits.
nij 1 892, p. 70; ; Hausleiter^ ib. p. 9781 N, Bonwetsch and R. Seeberg^ Stiidien
znr Gesch. d.Theologie iind Kirche, i,ij ^ ^97 (cf* Boll, xvii, 1898, p. 467);
Franchi de* Cavalieri, Stndi e Tesd, xxii^ 1909, p. 64; ib. xrix, 1928, p. 155.
On the Syrian legend W, Weyh in Bjz, Zeits. xxi, 191 2, p. 76 and on a Coptic
text D. P. Buckie, Bull. John Rylands Library, ti, 1921, p. 332 (cf. An. Boll.
XLi, 1923, p. 176). On Sarin (in the Testament): Cumont, An. Boll, xxv, 1906,
p. 241 and on Zimara ib. xxni, 1904, p. 448.
S. Genesius. On the Genesius legend cf, BerAa von der Lage, ztir Ge^esias-
kgenJej z pts., Berlin, 1898 and 1899. Beilage zuin Jahresbericht der
CkarlotteiiiSchu!e(cf. An.BolL xvni, 1S99, p. r86); P. Roasenda, Didaskalcion
N.S. Yii, 1929, Fasc. 2, p, 93. With the' Genesius legend cf. the Passion of
S. Porphyry the Mime: An. BolL xxix, 1910, p. 258. For possible confusion
TOth S. Genesius of Arles cf. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Stiidi e Testi, txv, 1935,
p. 203, For the name of the martyr at Rome cf. Bull. d. Commiss. arch. com. di
Roma, XXXII, 1904, p. 325, but this may be S. Genesiiis of Arles.
S. Marcellus. For text and discussion see Delehaye, An. Boll xw, 1923, p. 257 (cf.
A. Bonilauri, Didaskalcion, N.S, ix, 1930, Fasc. r, p. i). variant textA ms
published by M. Denicolai in Didaskaleion, v, 1916, p. 141 (martyrdom dated
to A.D. 29B). The Passio of Cassian is a pure plagiarism and valueless; An. Boll.
xUy p. 276.
[The Passio SS. Marcelli, Petri, etc., defended as authentic by H. Achelis, Dk
Mariyr§hgkn, Berlin, 1900, pp, 173-177, is regarded as **un racconto in-
ventato da cima a fondo’’ by Franchi de’ Ckvalieri, Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist.
XI, 1905, p. 237 at p. 267.]
SS. Maxima, Secundaand Donatilk. Text: An. Boll, ix, 1890, p. no. Discussion:
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, lxv, 1935, p. 75; cf. Delehaye, An. Boll
Liv, 1936, p. 296.
S. Maximilian. Text: Harnack in his Miiiita Ckrisii and Knopf only repeat the text
of Ruinart: texte laisse k ddsirer et devrait etre revue sur les manuscrits.”
Delehaye. Discussion : Delehaye, pp. 104-xio; Monceaux,
Histoire,., in, pp. 1 14-1 18,
SS. Phileas and Philoromns. Discussion ; Delehaye, An. Boll, xl, 1922, p. 299. But
dating on p. 3 1 2 is to be corrected ; the praefecture of Culcianus extended to
May 306; see papyrus re£ in O. W. Reinmuth, Tk
Frefect of Egypt, Klio
Beiheft 34, Leipzig, 1933, p. 139,
S. Philippus (of Heraclea). It appears that a Greek original has been misunderstood
by the translator of the Passion. Discussion: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi,
XIX, 1908, p. p4; ib. xxvn, 19x5,
97; Delehap, An. Boll xxxi, 1912,
p.
p. 243; J. Geffcken, Zmi grmhuehe
Afokgeten, Leipzig, 1907, p. 249.
[The Epistle of Psenosiris: this papyrus was thought to have reference to the great
persecution. See A. Deissmann, The Ephtle of Psenosms^ London, 1907 (cf.
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist vni, 1902, p. 1 5); but it should
probably be otherwise interpreted: see W. Cronert, De critici arte in papyris
exercenda § 22 in Raccolta di Scrkti in onore di Giacomo Lumbroso, Milan,
1925, pp. 514-528. Reference due to Dr H. I Bell]
S, Psodus. Text; An. Boll xl, 1922, p. 343. Discussion; Delehaye, ib. p. 314.
Quattuor Coronati. For earlier literature see ZeiHer, tes origines chritimnes dam ks
provinces danuMennes etc, pp. 88 iff. For text and full discussion Delehaye, in
JJJ 8 , Novembris, vol in, Brussels, 1,910, pp. 748 xff., and Les Passions,
6
TO CHAPTER XIX 793
pp. 328-344^ and cf. L. Duchesne, ilf//. i^arck. et d^MsL XKXi, 1911, p. 231;
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, xxiv, X912, p. 57; Delehaje, Le Quite des
^atre Couronnis d Rome^ kn. Boll, xxxii, 1913, p. 63. For topography cf. F,
Bulic in Bull, di arch, e stork dalmata, xxxi, 1908, p. in
(see An. Boll, xxix,
1910, p. 205). N. Vulic in Riv. di arch, crist. xi, 1934, p. 1 56. J, P. Kirsch in
Hist Jahrbuch, xxxviii, 1917, p. 72 denies the authenticity or value of the
Pannonian Passion, but this is an indefensible view: cf. Delehaye, Le Ligendier
-pp. 6 ^
remain,
SS. Saturninus, Dativus and companions. Text: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi,
Lxv, 193 5, p. 49. Discussion : ib. p. 3, Gf. Delehaye, Les Passions, pp. 1 14-1 1
and An. Boll. Liv, 1936, p. 293.
S. Sebastian, See Delehaye, Le Ligendier romaini Index x.e>.
S, Theagenes (under Licinius). Greek text: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, xxiv,
1912, p. 179. On the Passion see Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, xxii,
1909, p, loi; ib. XXIV, 1912, p. 161; ib. xxvii, 1915, p. 116 and A. Ehrhard,
Byz. Zeits. XXII, 1913, p. 500.
S. Theodotus of Ancyra. The Passion until recently was regarded as a valuable
historical source: as such it was discussed at length by Franchi de’ Cavalieri,
Studi e Testi, vi, 1901, p. 9; two texts printed p, 61 addenda p. 183. Delehaye
;
in An. Boll, xxn, 1903, p, 320 treated the whole Passio as a romance; Franchi
de’ Cavalieri replied, Nuovo BuH. di arch, crist. x, 1904, p. 27, but later he
himself published a shorter text, Studi e Testi, xxxiii, 1 9 20, p. i o 5, and on the
basis of that text came to the conclusion that the Passio was a homily and Theodotus
unhistorical. An attempt to distinguish a historical core in the Passio has since
been made by M. Astori in Didaskaleion, N.S. x, 1931, Fasc. 2-3, p. 53.
S. Tipasius. Text: An. Boll, ix, 1890, p. ir6 (and see p. 109). On the legendary
elements in the Passio cf. Monceaux, in Rev. Arch., 4me Serie, iv, 1904, p. 267.
B, .
Modern Works ..
. I.
Augar, F. Die Frau im romisdm CMstenproms. T,U. xxvin, Heft 4, 1905.
(C£ Franclii de’ Cavalieri, Stadi e Test!, txv, X93S, at p. 238.)
.Bardy, G* Les aSjectims d^un pMhsopke paien i'^apres FApoaiticus de Macaire de
Magndsk, Bull. d’Anc. litt. et d’archeoL chret. iii, 1913, p. 9?.
BatifFol, P. Les premiers cir/ikas it ia guerre. In L^Eglise et Ie Droii de Guerre.
Ed. 1920.
2, Paris,
Baynes, N, H, Tm
M&tes nn the Great Persecutim. C.Q. xviii, 1924^ p. 189.
(On the Fourth Edict and on the chronology of Book ix of the Church History
of Eusebius; and see Lawlor below,) ,
Costa, G.
Articles in Bilychnis, in, 1914, p. 85; iv, 1914, p. 292; v, 1915, p. 437;
VI, X915, p. 18; XIV, 1919, pp. 2, 95. For the most part reproduced in abbre-
viated form without notes in Reiigwne e Poiitka nelP Impero romano* Ed. 2,
Turin., 1923- '
^
795
Fliche, A. and V. Martin, edd. Histoire de P£gUse. Vols. ii, ni. Paris, 1935, 1936.
Florin, H. Untersuchungen %ur diocletiantschen Chnstenverfolgung. Diss. Giessen,
1928.'.
Franclii de’ Cavalieri, P. Ossewazloni sopra akunt Atti ii martlri da Bettimio Severe
a Massimino Daza. Nuovo Boll, di arch, crist. x, 1904, p. 5.
Gelzer, M. Der Urhehr der Christenverfoigung von 303. In Festschrift fiir
Eberhard Vischer : Vom Wesen und Wandel der Kirche, Basel, 1935, pp. 3 5-44.
Gregoire, H. Les ckritiens et Poracle de Dldymes. M^anges Holleaux. Paris, 1913,
.
.
pp.. 81,-91.
MrHqi, ]y Das Papsttum. Yol. i, Stuttgart-Berlin, 1934.
hr Militia Christi. Tubingen, 1905.
—— Kritik des Neuen Testaments von einem grtechiseken Philosophen des J Jahr-
hmderts (die im Apocriticus des Macarius Magnes enthaltene 8 treitsekrift),
T.U. XXXVII, Heft 4, 1911.
.
CHAPTER XX
CONSTANTINE
THs bibliograpiiy is^ in the main, complementary to the bibliography on chapter
XIX and the bibliographies to the other chapters there mentioned. For a fuller (critical)
bibliography see N. H. Baynes, Cmstmiim the Great mi
the Chrlstlm Church
:
fsee below, B, (^)]*
.
,
(i) Texts ;
{2) Inscriptions
.
For imperial support of the pagan counter-reformation which, it has been thought,
is attested by the inscriptions see
'
Sir W. M,
Ramsay, Pauline and Other Studies. London, 1 906, ch. iv.
The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia. London, n.d, ch. lx.
^ The Tekmonian Quest-Friends in Studies in the History and Art of the
i
^
Eastern Roman Provinces, London, 1906, pp. 30; sqq. (cf. ib. pp. 128, 200).
i/ For the Epitynchanos Inscription see: Sir W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of
n, 'Oxford, i897,,pp.-566-“7,, 790; de Stoop, .Reme de PInsiructmM
i’ fuMiqne en Belgiquiy m, 1909, p. 293 ; F. Cumont, Catalogue des smlpiuns et
inscriptions antiques(monuments lapidaires) des Musdes royaux du Cinquantenaire.
. Ed. 1913, pp, 158 sqq.\ H. Gr^goire, ByzanthUy viii, 1933, p. 49
2, Brussels,
: (cf. W. M. aider, J.R.S. 11, 1912, p. 244).
/Iil^ription of Eugenius: Text ed. W. M. Calder, J.R.S. x, 1920, p. 42; Biblio-
graphy, ib. p. 42, n. 2; E. Buonaiuti, La politka reiigiosa di Massimino in
Saggi
I'k'
'
1924, p. 345, There are difficulties in identifying this Eugenius with the bishop
of the same name whose epitaph has been published by aider (from Laodicea
G>mbus&): J.RM. x, 1920, p. 47; cf. P, Franchi de’ Cavalieri in Studi e Tesiit
\xuXy 1928, pp. loi sqq.
;SafIovics, La Table de Primllges de Brigetk. Archaeologia Htingarica, xx, 1936.
li
.
TO CHAPTER XX 797
B. Modern Works
(a) Criticism of the Sources
(h) General
1929, p. 1 3 1.
SalvatoreUi, L. Costantino il Grande in the series Profili, no. 103. Rome, 1928.
La politica degP imperatori romani e la mttoria del cristianesimo sotto
religiosa
Costantino, Saggi di storia e politica religiosa. Citta di Casteilo, 1914, p. 10 1.
Schwartz, E. Kaiser Konstantin und die christliche Kirche, Ed. 2. Leipzig, 1936.
Seeck, O. Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, Ed. 3. Vol. i, Berlin, 1910.
§esan, V. Kirche und Staat im romisch-byzantinischen R£iche etc. Vol. i, Czernowitz,
Stahelin, F. Constantin der Grosse und das Christentum, Zeits. f, Schweiz, Gesch.
xvii, 1937, p. 385.
C. Special Topics
[Vision of the Cross*, for a parallel vision on 17 Dec. 1826 c£ La Vie inteikctuelle
(Juvisy) V, 10 June, 1933, p. 182.]
798 :
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alfdldi, A. Th Beimif q,f CmsiaMtim mi/i iSe C.iriSiiaM^ Mm§gram. J.R.S. xxo^
1932, p. 9.
——
,,
m ^
GermaniM k-kmamtfhen
Mimidim\ Acta Archaeoiogica, ¥,.1934, p. 99.
BatiibI, P. Li$ Bspes ie la cowpersim ie 'Cmsimdn, Bull, d^anciennc litt, et d’arcli.
cliri^tiennes, III, 1913, pp. 178, 241 • .
.
Gag'^, J. La Virtus ii Consimiin^ i prapm i^um inscripilm discutie. Kev. E.L. xii,
934 iP- ^
39 ^- ,
—- religieuses, XVI,
La
1936, p. 250,
piskfs pmeme de 310 et Jes
origines- du ckrssme consiantimen, Aiinuaire de
de PliiloL et d^Hist. Orieutaies et Slaves, iv, 1936, p. 373.
flnst.
Wrzo!, L. Kmstaniins des Grossen personlkh Stelhng zum Ckrisimium. Weidenauer
.
Stodiea, i, 1906, p, 229.
(i) Military
{d) Constantinople
(J) Coinage
Maurice, J.
Numismatique Constantinienne. 3 vols. Paris, 1908-12.
Schultze, V. Die christlichen MUnzprdgungen unter den Konstantinern. Zeits. f.
{£) Chronology
Kase, E. H. A
Papyrus Roll in the Princeton Collection. Baltimore, 1933.
Kluge, E. Beitrage zur Chronologic der Geschichte Constantins des Gf'ossen. Hist.
Jahrbuch, XLii, 1922, p. 89.
Piganiol,A, Dates Constan tiniennes, Rev.d’hist.etdepbil. religieuses,xn,i932,p. 360.
Seston, W. Recherches sur la chronologic du regne de Constantin le Grand. Rev. E.A.
XXXIX, 1937, p. 197.
Sur les deux dates de la Table de Privileges de Brigetio. Byzantion, xii, 1937,
P- 477 -
Stein, E. Konstantin d. Gr. gelangte 3 24 zur Alleinherrschaft. Zeits. f. d. neutest
Wiss. XXX, 1931, p, 177.
(i) Miscellaneous
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, P. Della furca e della sua sostituzione alia croce nel dtritto
penale romano. Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist. xiii, 1907, p. 63.
Hartmann, W. Konstantin der Grosse als Christ und Philosoph in seinen Briefen und
Erlassen. Beilage zum Programm des stadtischen Gymnasiums zur Fiirsten-
walde. Flirstenwalde, Spree, 1902.
M. Die Kirche in den Bchriften Konstantins des Grossen. Historisch-
Pfattisch, J.
poHtische Blatter, cli, 1913? p* 753 -
Seuffert, L. Konstantins Gesetze und das Christentum. Wiirzburg, 1891.
GENERAL INDEX
When the mention of aname does not record k fact of historical importance, the name is
nsually omitted. Romans are indexed under the most familiar part of their name, whether
praenomen, mmen ox cognomen. If there is doubt, a cross-reference is given. References to
Roman Britain (Sites, etc.) are given under Britain.
C.A.H. XII
8o2 general index
Severijs, proclaimed Augustus, AndonobaEus, Herulian chief, 162
ii; in Gaul, la; defeat and suicide, of, Andros, cave of Mithras on, 417
i4iy. .Anebo, Porphyry and, 637
^
— Prefect in Carthage, revolt of, 349, •Antioch, supports Niger, 7177 attrihutci
68,117. to Laodicea, 8| restored to for.j..iie.r
— Severus, see under Severiis Alexa.nde.r dignity, i8; in l\rsian -.var of Severus
Alexandria, massacre by Caracalia at, 49, Alexander, 69, 1285 threatened by
6x9; disorders in, 173 if., 180; occupied Shapur I, 130.77 taken by Shapur, 135,
by Palmyrenes, iSc, 301 ly., 620; siege 1 70, 703 5 occupied by Zcmobia, 179, 302,
of, by Diocletian, 335; religion at, 4205 by Aurelian, 303 5 mint at, 1 79, 297, 3 1 1
Christian school at, iS, 477 iff.j pe.rsecU' 320.; pros|>erity of, 278; arms factory
tion of Christians in, 94, 520 if. j Church establis.hed. in, 336
of, a.nd .Rome, 524 if.4 Museum at, — i.n Pisidia, 687
6191777 manufactures from, 244; coi^- Antioch us, Palmyrene pretender, 305
age.,'minted at, 2 n., ,3:35, ^73i ^^3? Antomne liinersify, 33 n., 36 n,
301 jf,, ,403, 4,17
and II.,, 418#., 419 If., Antonines, .
714 .
.. 249 ff- .
,
'.
on studies at Alexandria, 6205 history of, •— Py thins, ideiitilied with Azix, 199
711 — Sdutaris, 205
Ammon, 4375 on coins, 416 ApoEomus of Tyaiia, 438, 6x3 iff., 642
Ammoaius Saccas, philosopher, 442, 482, Apologists, Christian, 460 iff., 639 iff.,
61 8, 621 sq,, 648 649 Iff.
Amphitheatrum Flavium, restored, 66 Appharban, Persian envoy, 336
mabolihn, maboMcae spedes, tax on Apronianus, senator, 23
Egyptian products, 65, 263, 273 Apsaeus, Palmyrene rebel, 305
Anahita, 1235 temple of, at Stakhr,’io9rf,, Apu!eius,^579 Iff.; religious ideas of, 4405
120 TertuEian and, 592
Anastasia, sister of Constantine, 691 Apulum, inscription at, 144; excavations
Anastasiiis, Emperor, 3 68 151
.at,
Anatolia, Christianity in, 488 jf., 660 ; .
Aquila, translator of Old Testament, 484 if.
2
Area Caesarea, birthplace of Severus Alex- 14, 33 sq., 3795 reorganization of, in third
ander, 57 century, 160, 261, by Gallienus, 182,
Architecture, buildings of early third cen- 213x77., sqq., by Diocletian, 217,
tury, 550^7^.; of middle third century, 396x77.5 as a cultural factor, 199x7.,
560^7.; under the Tetrarchy, 557^^9.5 261 X77.5 as an economic factor, 242 sq.,
Christian, 569 n. 246, 252, 261 sqq.', as a political factor,
Ardabau, village in Mysia, 456 199x7., 261 X77.5 gifts of money to, 201,
Ardashir of Persia, overthrows Parthian
I Z21 sq.', pay of, 45, 262 and n., 725;
kingdom, 69, 109 jy., 1265 attacks special levies in kind for, 399x7.5 legal
Armenia, 126 sq., Mesopotamia, 69, 1275 position of soldiers, 32, 845 marriages of
wars of, with Rome, 6<^ sq., izy sqq.^, soldiers legalized, 19, 32, 208, 4345
conquests of, in East, 130; captures Christiansand service in, 659 sq., 66% sqq.,
Nisibis and Carrhae, 86, 1305 crowned 693 Emperor-worship in, 3 56 concordia
5 5
King of Kings, 109; death of, iii, 130; militum on coins, 310, 318x77, 3245 of
coinage of, 120, 130; palace of, atFiruz- Odenathus, 1745 Persian, no
abad, 122; reliefs of, 123, 126; rebuilds Arnobius, apologist, life and work of,
Ctesiphon, 117; builds ports on Persian 607x77. 652x7.5 and Cicero, 607x77.,
Gulf, 1 18 Lucretius, 608 sq., Plato, 608 ; Decretum
Argaithus, Gothic chief, 92, 142 sq. Gelasianum and, 6075 Jerome on, 6075
argenteus, coin of Diocletian, 338, 404 Lactantius and, 652 sq.
Aristides, on the Pax Romana,
Aelius, Arras, gold hoard of, 333
233 sq.^ on and on
sea voyages, 236 Arrian, circumnavigates Black Sea, 234
trade, 249; religious ideas of, 440 Arsacid dynasty, 17, 69 sq., 109, 126
•— of Athens, apologist, 463 sq. Arsanene, 336
Aristobulus, Praetorian Prefect, 327 Arsinoe, cult of Juppiter at, 46 n.
Ariston, first Bishop of Smyrna, 474 Art, see Chap. XVI 5 Roman tradition in,
Aristotle, used by Porphyry, 629 5525 *of the steppes,* 100 sqq., 1085 ‘bar-
Arius, Arian Heresy, 697 sq. barian,* 1085 Celtic, 2945 Parthian, 548,
Arles (Arelate), na^icularii of, 31 n., 266; 558x7.5 Sarmatian, 1005 Sassanian, 558
capital of Constantine, 691; Council of, X7,; in Britain, 293 X7.5 meaning and
296, 691, 693 and w.j wine exported from, features of ‘late classical,’ 561 sqq.', ‘Con-
1315 abandoned by Rome, 131X9.J traits of emperors, 545 sq., 552 sq.,
Roman protectorate over, 336; war of ^6%sq.', historical reliefs, 546x7.; paint-
Maximinus Daia with, 688 ing, 225, 560; miniature portraits, 560;
Army: for individual formations see under Christian art, 294, 550, 560, 565, 569 sq.
ala, Cohort and Legion j in Africa, 6 5 in Artabanus V, of Parthia, 48x77.; over-
Britain, 5, 10, 14, 36 sqq.t, on the thrown by Ardashir of Persia, 69, 109,
Danube, 3 sqq., 14, 24, 92, 143.^7., I 47 > 124, 126
zoosq., 656; in Egypt, 6, 8, 235, 3985 Artavasdes, King of the Armenians, 132;
in Illyricum, 6, 166, 2033 in Italy, 24, tetradrachm of, 126
945 in Mesopotamia, ii, 69, 3765 in Artemas, heretic, Paul of Samosata and, 490
Moesia, 6, 7 72.5 in Pannonia, 48, 64, 71, Artemis, 4105 Ephesian, 419
1735 in Raetia, 84, 189, 3565 on the Axval \Acta, 845 protocols, 366; brother-
Rhine, 3, 5, 14^7., 22 71, 169, 191, hood, dedications by, 4 1
1
barbarians, 149, 619, 7225 Gallienus and, auxsiia^ national characteristics in, 2x0x97
231; and art, 5515 studies at, 61 S sq, bound to the soil, 212; German, 218x9,,
Atropatene, 70, 126, 129, i%i 3795 mounted, 3795 399
Attis, 410, 4215 on coins, 4155 dedications Jmestay in X99., 117, iz2
to, in Western provinces, 425 ;
in art, 436 5 Avircius Marcellus, inscription of, 488 Xf.
liyiim to, 4.3 S n.j '446 Avitus, Alflus, poet, 586
oMctoritas primipis^ 352 sqq. Aziz, god of the O'srlioiniam, 199
Augusta Treverorum, see under Treves Azrila, Mankhaeau came for God, 512
Augustine, and Neoplatonism, 4431 and
Manichaeism, 504, 508 j and Orosius, 7129 bml of Emesa, s* Rome,
on Cyprian and Ambrose, 601 54x99., 412; Severus Alexander and, 571
Augustodunum (Autuii), siege of, 192 on coins of Eiagalabus, 417, 719
Augustus, 15, 26, 36; called deus under Baby las, Bishop of Antioch, martyr, 521
Gallienus, 194; basis of power of, 3525 Babydon, 700; capture of, by Septimius
as title in the Tetrarchy, 383 sqq. 5 coinage Severus, 16
of, 715 Bacchus, African, 432 ; temple of, at Rome,
Aurelian (L, Bomitius Aurelianus), Em- 413; on coins, 415
peror, birth and character of, zqj sq.^ Baden, 74
plots against Gallienus, 190, 298^ under Baebks Juncinus, Prefect of Egypt, 22 n*
Claudius, 2985 accession of, 179 rf., 2975 Baetica, see under Spain
revolte against, 3003 and the frontiers, Baetocaece in Syria, fair at, 271
308 defeats ¥andals, 139, 299, Carpi, Bagaudae, revolt of, 267, 287, 327
140, 305, Juthungi, 152, 156, 298x9., Baikal, Lake, treasures found near, lox
309, Goths, 152, 302, Akmaani, 156, 308 Balbinus, JD. Caelius Calvlnus, Emperor,
abandons Dacia, 252x9*, 302$ and 78x99.5 quarrel with Pupienus, 80x9.;
Palmyra, 301 destroys Palmyra, murdered, 8 1 5 oratory and poetry of, 598
3055 and Zenobia, 304 and Tetricus, Balbinus, sarcophagus of, 555
306x9.; triumph of, 3075 army reforms Ballista, see under Caliistus (Ballista)
of, 217 J7.5 social policy of, 307 ry,; cur- Balneum Surae, reconstruction of, S4
rency reforms of, 269, 307; and organiza- Barbeio, the Ali-Motksr, 473
tion of corporations, 2695 has vision of Bardaisan, 496 199., 506, 5105 theory of
the Sun-god, 304; establishes cult of ^Soi creation, 496 X9.5 on the wurrtetioo,
hwtuSf 309, 416, 651 ; and Christianity, 497Xf.; and the iffix o/TMomasp 498; visit
3095 and Paul of Samosata, 207, 303, 491 of Brahmans to, 614
19.; wears diadem as a god, 360, 366; Barsamja, Bishop of Mc«a, 5cx>
murder of, 3105 consecrate, 3125 coinage Ba«miiis of Hatra, 9
of, 152, 179, 227, 300x99., 307, jiorf., Basilides, gnostic, system of, 473
31:7, 320, 358x9., 417 716x994 assists
sq.i Bajwianus, plots against Constantine, 691
viticulture in Italy, 271; and trade, 273 Bassus, Junius, wcophagiis of, 570
j
builds wails of Rome, 300 — Fomponius, mmciw 175
GENERAL INDEX 805
Bastarnae, attacks of, 143, 149; settled, in sq,p Romano-Celtic temples in, 295;
Thrace by Pro bus, 139, 316, in Pan- coinage of, 7165 coin hoards in, 40, 314,
nonia, etc., by Diocletian, 1405 war of 317; mints in, 333
Gaierius with, 334 Britain, officials in:
Bavares, attack Numidia, 182 Aifenus Senecio, see under vSenecio,
Bei and Nebo, worship of, at Edessa, Alfenus
499ry. Claudius Paulinus, legatus pro praetore in
Belenus, local deity of Aquileia, 80 Britain, 37, 38
Beigic cloaks, 242 Ociatinius Adventus, procurator of
Beneventum, temple of Isis at, 413 ; arch at, Britain, 27 72.
:
SA^sq. Senedo, Aifenus, governor of Britain, 22,
Beroea (Macedonia), 88 27 36 X9.; restores defensive system,
— (Moesia), Decius defeated at, 144; in sq.
first war of Constantine and Licinius, 692 Virius Lupus, governor of Britain, i%n.,
Berytns, 8, law school at, 48 2, 708 37; deals with tribes beyond northern
Bithynia, 7, 53, 179 frontier, 38, 41
Black Sea, 145, 170; circumnavigation of, ^^itain, Roman sites, etc.:
^34 ,
Aberdeen, 40
Biandina, martyr at Lyons, 519 Aesica,on Hadrian’s Wall, 37
Blemmyes, 174; invade Egypt, 277, 308; Bath, 295
support Firmus, 305 j support Ptolemais, Benwell, 38 n.
316 Bewcasde, 39
Boethius, 597 Birdoswald, 39
Bononia, cenatorium of Juppiter Dolichenus Birrens, 39, 40 n., 42 n.
at, 427 Bowes, 38
Bonosus, revolt of, 316 and Brampton, 39
Borani, barbarian tribe, attacks of, 134, Brecon, 39
1^6 sq, Brigantes, 38, 283
Bosporus, kingdom of, assists barbarians, Caerleon, iqn.\ reconstruction at, 39,
1475 relations of, with Rome, 176, 261 42 n.\ barracks disused at, 42 and n.
Bostra, colonia metropolis, 88 Caersws, 39
Brigands, Brigandage, in Egypt, 21 and Caledonia, Caledonians, 40 sq., 292
2685 in Gaul, 267, 287, 327} in Italy, ii, Camden, 39
21, 44; in various provinces, 225 in Camelpn, 40
Umbria, 905 caused by economic de- Gapheaton, patera from, 245
pression, 267 ry. Cappuck, 4072.
Brigetio, legions at, 37 n,, 48 Carnanton, ingot of tin from, 290
Brioni Grande, villa at, 239, 250 Garnarvon, 39
Britain, 10, i2«., 14^9., 22, 27 43 Castor, pottery from, 290, 292, 294
Chap. I, 36 sqq.. Chap, vili; mutiny in, Catuvellauni, 283
suppressed by Pertinax, 1 5 Septimius Gharterhouse-on-Mendip, 288 X9.
Severus and, 36 sqq.'^ Postumus and, 187; Chester, 36 sqq.*, walls rebuilt, 39
Carausius takes possession of, 317, 327, Chesters, 27
331 sq. 5 Constantins and, 332^9., 344, 6785 Chew Green, 40 «.
relations with Gallicempire, 3075 army in, Corbridge, 284
5, 10, 14, 36 j‘^ 7. 5 defences of, reorganized, Cornwall, tin mines in, 289 sq,
3335 German captives in, 315, 317; re- Cramond, coin-finds at, 40 sq.
bellion threatened in, 317$ divided into Cranborne Chase villages, 287
two provinces, 15, 27, 36 ry., 391, into Dolaucothy, gold mine at, 288
four provinces, 333, 393; officids in, see Durotriges, 283
under Britain, officials; decline of cities Fens, drainage of, 287
in, 282 sq., 2935 villages in, 287; villas in, Fife, hoards in, 40
284 sqq ; roads in, 293 ; economic progress
.
Forest of Dean, continued activity of
of, 240 sq., 267, 271, 276 sq., 282; effect iron mines in, 289
of monetary crisis on, 285; internal trade Forth, R., and Firth of, 40
of, 271, 292; mines in, 240^9., 273, 288 Greta Bridge, 37
sqq.i pottery manufactured in, 290x9., High Rochester, 37, 39, 40 n,
2945 Samian ware in, 290; textile manu- Housesteads, 38
factures in, 291 X9.; religion in, 294x99., Ilkley; 38
432; god Nodens, at Lydney, 289, 296; Kincardineshire, hoards in, 40
Christianity in, 296, 679 art in, 293 Kinross, hoards in 40
j , 1 ' .
— (Palestine), 75
Mendips, lead mines of, 2SS if. Caesariani, 666
Momgomerysliire, 39 caiaMmf Greek name for Faiiscan ^’erse,
Pentre, lead mine at, 28S .(Baiiista), Praetorian Prefect, 136, 173;
Eedesciale, 39 defeats Persians, 1,72; klikd, 173
Ribbie, R., 37, Calpurnius, works of Nemesian attributed
Rismgham, 27 39, 40 n, to, 606
Scotland, 38 if., 42 n. Campi Catalaunii near Chaluiis, victor)^ of
Sikliester, 283, 296 Auteiian at, 306
Soltvay, 39 Campus Mardiensis, battle at, 692
Somerset, coal from, 292 — Martins, 66; temple of Isis and Sarapis
South Shields, 40 in, 4.1-3
Tay, R., 40 Candidus, Tilaerius Claudius, general of
Tyne, R., 39 if. Septimius Severus, 7
¥eru!am, rise and decline of, 282 if,; Cannabaudes, Gothic chieftain, 152, 302
..Comtanti'iis Chlo,ms.a.od,'2S4 .
of Constantius at, 344, 678 17 and character of, 44, 47; hatred of
Brixia, battle at, 682 Geta,^ 42 Iff.; reign of, 43 jff.; the
Bruchium, suburb of Alexandria, iSo, Antmiinimay 45 ^97 .,
depreciates coinage, 45, 262; iiicwuses pay
Bucois, Bishop of Smyrna, 474 of army, 45, 725; regroups Pannonia,48;
Buddha, in Mani's system, 508, 510, 637; repaid roads, 43; In Britain, 38, 40 iff.;
missionaries of, 98 if. invasion of Germany, 47 if., 154; expedi-
Buddhism, under Sassanid Empire, 12 tion to Parthia, 48 iff,; orders massacre at
Bull, Farnese, Alexandria, 49, 417, 619; murder of, 50;
;J46
Bulk Felix, brigand, 2 1 Ekgabaius reputed son of, 5a; order of
Burgundians, East German, 146 if,; de- precedence under, 363; coinage of, 36,
feated by Maximiaa, 328 42 if., 45, 356^ iff,, 41 6 if Arches of, in
Burz^n Mhir, temple of, 119 if. Africa, 351; Baths of, 6G 546, 550, 552;
Busiris, revolt of, 328, 335 portraits of, 545 if., 550; temples built
Byzantium, iE6, 692, 695 if.; in campaign
against Niger, 6 iff., 1 5 ; siege and all of,' Caramius, officer of Maximian, ««
IX taken by barbariaas, 723, by Maxi- Britain, 327; recogniad ruler of m
min, 6S8; besieged by Constotme, Britain, 331; loses Gesoriacum, 331 if.;
695; transformed into Constantinople, „ 'murdered, 332; coinage of, 317, 331 iff.,
696 if., 709 ; 718
1 ;
of, 321; and Probus, sqr, defeats bar- conception of the Empire, 698 sq tolera- . ;
barians, 3215 war with Persia, 113, 321 tion edict, of Galiienus, 184, 206 sq., 522,
19.5 murder of, 322; coinage of, 321, 648, 658, of Galerius, 671 sqq., of Con-
324? 359 ? 361 717 stantine and Licinius, 686, 689x9., of
Cassandreia (Potidaea), besieged by bar- Maximin, 689; property recovered by,
barians, 149 692 X9. ; calumnies against, $16, 595, 658,
Cassiodorus, 599, 6455 work of, used by 6873 pagan polemic against, 421, 647 sqq.,
Jordanes, 71 see also under Celsus, Hierocles, Por-
Cassius Dio, Index of passages; senator, phyry; Hzx/i)rz<2 Augusta, hostile ‘ten-
26; political activity of, 59, 64; governor- dency’ of, 191 223, 710; apologists
n.,
ships held by, 62; History of, 710; atti- for, ^60 sqq., 649x99.; as a third race,
tude to philosophy, 441 5 on defence of 444, 461, 464 ascetic ideal in, 492,
Byzantium, 1 1 ; on dreams and portents, 499; authority of martyrs, 519x9., 522,
35;on the Principate, 59^9., 352x99., 529, 538x9.; pagan sympathy for, 677;
710; on the Senate, 59^9*5 on wars of baptism, 527; Easter festival, 528x9.;
A.D. 193-7, 14 Eucharist, 523 X99.; Pentecost, 529;
^
Celtic language, 24, 25 n. 648 X9.; and the Old Testament, 445 sq.,
Censorinus, author, 600 4^0 sqq.', and pagan culture, 649 X99.,
centonarii, guild of, 31 and 265 674 and n., 706 X9,; and prophecy, 455
Cereres, goddesses, 432 X9.; and social life, 659 sqq.', and the cata-
Chaibones, barbarian tribe, 328 combs, 206, 529x9., 635; art, 550, 560,
Chalcedon, captured by barbarians, 148, 565,569x9., 705; basilicas, 569; sarco-
phagi, 557, 565
Charax, port on Persian Gulf, 118 Chrysopolis, see under Scutari
Chatti, settled at Zugmantel, 212 Cibiiae (Vinkovce), battle at, 691 sq.
Chin dynasty, 105 sq. Cicero, Apuleius and, 581; Arnobius and,
China, defences of, 104x9,; wars with bar- 608 sq,, 651; Pronto and, 5^ sqq.', Lac-
barians, 104x99.; Han dynasty, 104x9,; tantius and, 609 sq., 650; Minucius Felix
Chin dynasty, 105 xy.; trade with Roman and, 596; Tertuliian and, 589
empire, 247, 271 Cilicia, 7, 136; attacked by barbarians, 312
Chosroes I of Armenia, resists Persia, 126, Cilician Gates, 7 sq.
131; murdered, 132, 169 Circesium, 17
; 7 -
5;
Fausta, 346, 680; flees from Galerius, Crispinus, Rutilius Pudens, consular, at
343 proclaimed Augustus, and recog-
sq.”, siege of Aquileia, 79; in Persian war, 129
nized as Caesar, 344; filius Augustorum, Crispus, eldest son of Constantine, 609; be-
347; and Diocletian, 669, 678; and comes Caesar, 693, consul, 694; in war
Galerius, 678 ry.; and Licinius, 68 r, against Licinius, 695 X7,
691 and Maxentius, 350, 681 sqq.-,
sqq.*y Crocus, German allied king, 344
and Maximian, 346, 349, 6805 and Ctesiphon, 87, no, 117; captured, by
Maximin, 68^, 688; campaigns against Ardashir I, 126, by Carus, 322, by
barbarians, 348^7., 681; invades Italy, Galerius, 336, by Septimius Severus, 16;
681 ^77.; adopts Sol In^victus as patron palace at, 122
deity, 348, 680 ; and Apollo, 680 17.; and curatores, regionum urbis sacrae, 60; reipub-^
religious toleration, 686; vision of the licae, 8z
Cross, 683 sq.'y and the Church, 341, 673, curialesy compulsion applied to, 265;
684^77., 696x77.; adopts Christian Diocletian and, 267
monogram, 682 X7.; army reforms of, cursus honorum, changes in, under Severus
208 ; legislation of, 694, 708 ; forms transi- Alexander, 60; publicus, 25, 31
tion to Middle Ages, 700; Life of, by Cybele, in Crete, 418 ; at Rome, 412, 448 ; in
Eusebius, 713; Oratio ad Sanctos of, 666; Western provinces, 423 X77.; in the fourth
Arch of, 547, 565 sqq.y 705 ; colossal figure century, 447; in Neoplatonism, 631, 636;
563; ‘ Constantinian classicism’ in art,
of, and Isis, 437 X7,; on coins and medallions,
567; coinage of, 349, 351, 691 35^*? 357?4i5>4i7;4i9^-
— n, becomes Caesar, 693, consul, 694 Cynegetica,poem attributed to Oppian, 6 1
— Porphyrogenitus, Encyclopaedia of, 7x2 Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, life of, 600;
Constantinople, foundation and importance works of, 600x77.; works attributed to,
of, 696 sq.y 709 60 x; judgment of later authors on, 602;
Constantius Chlorus, Emperor, 285, 292; Eusebius on, 644; historical value of, 712
Praetorian Prefect, 328; becomes Caes^, in persecution of Decius, 538, 600;
325, 678 ; puts away Helena and marries synods held by, 539; martyrdom of, 206,
Theodora, 328; dominions of, 329, 342; 522, 541,. 600; on Christian worship,
defeats AJemanni, 334; expeditions to 526 X7. 1 and the lapsi, 538 X77.; and the
j 5
;.
Dacians (tree), aggressive spirit of, 1 39 xf, Didasmliaf on Old Testament, 451 if.
Dalmatia, xee alsQ under Illyria; eco- Digest, 30 xf.
nomic progress of, 2405 equites Daimatae^ Dio Cassius, see under Cassius Dio
zi6 of Prusa (Chrysostom), 253, 438
Damascus, iirrns factory established in, 336; Diodes, see under Diodetian
Christians persecuted in, 6S7 'Dlocletiani, family oft 324; kills A|Xt, 322;
Damis, on ApoHonius of Tyana, 614 becomes Eoi|wror, 3235 policy oft 325
Danube, R., Danubian provinces, army on, X99 .» 383 X99., 6614 and the frontiers, 213,
3 Xf/., 14, 24, 92, 143^ Xf., 147, 200 Xf., 3^8, 397x99.5 settles barbarians In the
6565 barbarian invasions on, 139 X99., Empire, 140 5 and Egypt, 3355 and Persia,
30S, 3345 boundary of, 47x9., 74, 153? 1 17, 3365 divides imperial power, 328 19.
iSf; forti locations on, 22; Galerius on, dominions oft 3291 illness oft 340, 667 if.;
.
p4| roads in, 6, 33 71.,, 66 f usurpations <vicennaim oft 340, 6675 al>ciicatk)n oft
in, 1475 economic progress of, 240 340, 66E5 at conference of Cariiuntisni,
.
Suria, temple of, at Rome, 4135 equi- 399 civil and niilitary power,
valent of Dea Caelestis, 4325 dedication 394 Xf4 Edict de maximis preiHs, 269 Xf.,
.
to, in Dacia, 428 ^
trait oft 553, 5605 buEdings oft at Rome, 4S7 sq.i on the demons, 664
198^ L* Aelius Helvius, career oft 393, 394 »
Decurions, demrimes^ 305 under Gordian Dionysus, 419; identified with JDusaro,
ill, 83 ; under Philip, 89 X9.3 computery,-
,
Dioscuri, 419 Firmus in, 277 X7., 305; taxation in, 65,
Diospoiis (Lydda), era of, iS 262 263, 265x7.; trade in, 243;
Djemila, arch at, 55 ij temple of Gens veterans settled in, 32
.
Ecbatana-Hamadan, taken by Ardashir I, Empire, idea of division of, 43, 371, 383;
126" theory of Christian, 698 sq,
Edessa, 50, 70, 130, 170, 498; situation of, Encolpius, historian, 589
493; attacked by Persians, 135 17 ° Encratites, heretics, 499
sqq*\ flood at, 496; arms factory esta- Epagathus, murderer of Ulpian, 64
blished at,336; Christianity in, 493, Ephesus, brigandage in, 22 zz.; attacked by
493x7., 500; Christians persecuted at, barbarians, 147, 169; temple of Diana
destroyed, 148; price of bread at, 725;
499 sq ; church at, 500 ; missionaries from,
,
12 1 ; paganism in, 500; worship of Bel buildings of Flavius Damianus at, 551;
and Nebo at, 499 ^7.; Chronicle of, 500 head of Septimius Severus from, 545;
Egnatia Mariniana, mother of Gallienus, Thermae at, 546
181 Ephraem Syrus, life and works of, 500 sqq .
Egypt, 170, 235x7., 273; recognizes Perti- on the Diatessaron^ 495; on Bardaisan and
nax, 2, Septimius Severus, 8 tz.; occupied Harmonius, 498; on Manichaeism, 502,
by Palmyra, iSo, 301 X7.; agriculture in, 504
252, 273, 2765 army in, 6, 8, 235, 398; Epictetus, 438
brigandage in, 22 and 268; debar- Epiphanius, on Tatian, 493
ment of coinage in, 266 ; disaffection in, Epistle of Barnabas on Old Testament, 451
divided by Diocletian, 3915 epistrategos, of Lower Egypt, 18
308, 338, 708 ;
ligion in, 420x7., 6755 cult of Juppiter Epona, goddess, 432 sq.
Capitolinus in, 46 zz., 420; Egyptian EquiteS) army made recruiting ground for,
cults in Italy, 412x77.; Christianity in, 16, 29, 220; provincials selected as, 25;
478x77., 674x7.; persecution of Chris- in civil careers, 29, 394; in command of
tians in, 481, 520x7., 674; revolt of legions, 17, 26, 3765 in command of
' ' . 1 -
376; in the imprial cabinet, 3S1 Feudalism, growth oft 273 ijg.; and State
392; as provincial governors, 376 iff.,- socMism, 280 If.
,
S97, 202," 30'E, 326, 376 If. I equim. Financesjieorgainicd, by Septiiiiius Severus,
^
(Visigoths), 153; sources for Gothic in- their power, 361 ; dedications to, at Rome,
.
literature, see Chap, xviil; and Roman Herennianus, see mder Herodianus
civilization, 7025 condition of, under the Herennius Pl^truscus, son of Decius, becomes
Empire, 410; Graeco-Roman culture, ..Caesar, 144, x66, Augustus, 145, 167;
—
571x7.5 Greek literature, 6x2x77,5 re- killed, 145, X675 coinage of, 14^,' 16711.
ligion in, 409 X77, ..Hermas, on prophecy, 4555 Shepherd of,
Greek traders, 246 530x7., accepted as canonical In AfevX-
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neo-. .andria, 542
caesarea, letter on barbarian raids, 148;: Hermetic writings, 441
„ and Origen, 48 2
,
,
jGkn^ Acts «f, 47 1 j Ap$cai}fs€ Dionysius Juvenal, 438; leriuliian and, 593 19.
of Alexandria on, 4S7 sqr^ Apocfjphm
469, 4735 Gospel of, in Egypt, 47S ‘Ka*ba of Zoroaster/ at Stakhr, 123
_
Jordanes, Getka of, 71 1 5 on the Gothic in- Kachka, discoverks near, ica
vasions, 721 Kaluga, province of, discoveries in, izi 19,
Jotapianus, usurper, 92 ry., 166, 169 Kan Ving, Chinese oilker, 104
Juan- Juan, barbarians, invadeMongolia, ig 6 Kapos, R,, discoveries near, 108
Juba, writer on metrics, 577 Khormu2U, Manichaean divine kdng, 512
Julia, Manichaean missionary, J14 KkuastMmifi^MMikh&tm document, 51 119,
— Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, 18, Kniva, king of the Goths, invades Moesia,
20,^24, 35, 43 sq., 49, 51,^117; and Apol- 143 1994 defeats Dccius, 144 19.
lonius of Tyana, 61 3 ry.j literary saim of, hUeiimeSf oppn;ssive activity of, in Egypt,
6135 of, 52, 3565 coinage of, 35 22 and fi.
.
Latin Literature, see Ch. XVii; elocutio Severus, 21, 24, 589; Arch of (Tetra-
noRjella, 5755 in Asiatic provinces, 7085 pyion), 545, reliefs on, 547 sq.
poetry, 584 589, 600, 603 sqqr^ leuga^ Celtic measure of distance,
Christian authors, 590 sqq.^ 600 ^*97., Lex, Leges, Aeiia Sentia, 45 sq. 5 Cornelia
607 ;f99, 5 decline of literature, 606; trans- de falsis, 67; Hadriana de rudibus agris,
iation of the Bible into, 494 2 generales, 372; imperii, de imperio,
Latins, Junian, 46 ,
regia, 68, 352 sq.\ Julia de aduiteriis, 67
Laurence, martyr, 522 Julia maiestatis, 675 metalli Vipascensis,
Law, Jurists and, 23; of commercial trans- -;243 „
actions, 248; criminal law, 67; codifica- Lezoux, terra sigillata manufactured at, 241
tion of, 708 ; see also under Lex Lian-Shu, trade connection of, with Tyre,
Legions, see also under Army 5 Praetorian 247/2.
Guard recruited from, 24; i Adiutrix, at Licinianus, Julius Valens, usurper, 167
Brigetio,48 and with Gdlienus in Italy, Licinius Licinianus, Emperor, 346 sqq.f
1545 I Illyri corum, in Syria Phoenice, 3953 claims descent from Philip, 94;
3085 1 Isaura, recruited by Probus, 316; character of, 3483 and the Church, 673,
I Minervia, and the Franks, 694^9.3 betrothed to Constantia, 6813
157; i Par-
thica, at Nisibis, 17, 26, 69, in Meso- and Constantine, 681, 691 ^99. 5 and
potamia, 127, 376; II Adiutrix, in Lower Maximin, 350, 681, 688 ^9. 5
defeat of, by
Pannonia, 37 «. j ii Augusta, at Caerieon, 695^9.5 litany used by
Constantine,
36 5 II Isaura, see 1 Isaura 5 ii Italica, with army of, 447, 688 sq.
Gailienus in Italy, 154; ii Parthica, at —
the younger, becomes Caesar, 693 sq.
Aibano, 24, 26,43, 155, 376, in Germany Lictors, attend emperors, 2^6 sq.
under Severus Alexander, 71, at siege Limes, in Africa, 20, 86; Chinese, 104x9.5
of Aquiieia, 80, with GaUienus in Italy, Dacian (Trajanic), 22, 140, 1505 in
1555 II Traiana, in Egypt, 6, 8 ?z., 70, Mauretania, 20, 21 «.5Moesian, 143, 1505
1285 III Augusta, in Africa, 6 and«., Pannonian, 150, 212, 2195 Raetian, 3,
20 sq,^ 27, 78, disbanded by Gordian III, :
47x9., 154^9.? 186, 308, 3565 between
845 III Cyrenaica, at Bostra, 127; ni Rhine and Danube, see under Raetian 3
Galiica, at Raphaneae, 52, 127, in Syria Wailachian, 142 n., Limites, 208
Phoenice, 52 70, moved to Danaba, Liu-ts’ung, son of Liu-yiian, 106
129} Isaura, see i Isaura^ iii Parthica,
III Liu-yuan, Hsiung-nu general, 106
see Parthica 5 iv Italica, recruited for
i logista thymelae, 85
Persian war, 655 iv Mar da, in Arabia, Logos, counsellor of kings, 6995
the, as
308} IV Scythica, in Coele Syria, 52 doctrine of, 445, 464 sq,, 483^9., 490,
127; V Macedonica, at Oescus, 308, in 5 ^ 3 > 533
Persian war of Galerius, 336, new legion Longinus, rhetorician, 178, 305, 618x9.,
formed from, 397 ; vi Ferrata, in Palesdne, 630, 632
127, moved to Syria Phoenice, 1295 vi Longiones (Lugii), invade Gaul, 314 19.
Victrix at York, 36; vii Claudia, at Vimi- Longus, Dapknis and Chloe of, 615 sq.
nacium, 19; vii Gemina, in Spain, 12 j x Lo-yang, capital of Chinese empire, 98, 106
Fretensis, in Jerusalem, 127; X Gemma, Lucian, 582; on religion, 439 sq.
in Upper Pannonia, 184, at Vindobona, of Antioch, martyr, 687
4 w.j XI Claudia, at Aquiieia,
398^ Xii Lueianus, conspiracy of, 345
Fulminata,in Melitene, 1275 xiii Gemina, Luciila,on coins, 41
detachment of, at Aquiieia, 94, at Me- Lucius, in Apuleius, 435, 581, 583
hadia, 151, at Poetovio, 152, in revolt — of Patrae, author, 582
of Regahanus, 185, at Ratiaria, 308, in Lucretius, Fronto on, 575; used by Arno-
Persian war of G^erius, 336, new legion bius, 608 sq., by Lactantius, 610
formed from, 3975 xiv Gemina, in Upper Ludovisi batde sarcophagus, 553 sq., 558,
Pannonia, 184; xv Apollinaris, in Cap- 565
padocia and Armenia, 127; xvi Flavia, Luke, Gospel of, and Marcion, 453 ^9.
at Samosata, 127 j xx Valeria Victrix, at Luna, divinity, 35^2., 50
Chester, 36; xxii Primigenia, at Mainz, Lychnidus, garrison at, 214 ^
825 XXX Ulpia, at Vetera, 191; Theban, Lycopolis in Egypt, Manichaean docu-
Christians in, 662 sq, ments discovered near, 505
Leo Grammaticus, 712 Lycurgus, enemy of Dionysus, 419
C.A,H* XII 5^
1
lion at, 855 mint at, 306, 311, 319, 324 Marcia, consort of Commodus, put to death
by Dldius Julianus, 4
Ma, ^far goddess, in Western provinces, 425 Marcianopolis, teieged by Goths, 92, 143,
Maccdo, commander of Osrhoenian arclien, 1491 destroyed, 145
"..73 .
MarcianiiS, officer of Gailieaus, i$Oy 1S9,
Macedonia, Macedoniam, 4, 6925 roman- 723
ized communities in, 5^ Caracaila and, Marcion of Ftmius, tlit‘ult.*gn‘al schirric of,
48 if,} ravaged by bjirbarians, 90 452 xf,; Bible of, 453 .ry*; at Rome, 531,
Macrianus (i), 136} Qnaxterai'aster-general 5335 attacked by IcTtuilian, 590, 593
in Persian war, 1725 sons of, pradaimed Marcomanai, invade Faniioiiia, 139, 147,
emperors, ijzsf.y 185, 202; defeat of, 1815 raid Italy, 139, 154 «*, 181 ; war of
1S5, 2145 ^he Christians, 205, 664 Galerius with, 334.
*— (ii) T. Fnivius Junius, son of (i), .pro- Marcus, gnostic, 472
claimed Augustus, 172 if,, 185} kJlieci, Margus, valley of the, batik in, 323, 662
173} see also under Quietus Mark di Capua, St, Mkhraeum at, 429
Macrinus, M. Opeiiius, Praetorian Prefect,. Mariadcs (Kyriades), Roman deserter,
50 if*; murders Cai-acaiia, 50; pr«Kdaiined .134x99,, 138, 171
ein|«ror, 505 defeated by Farthiam, 50, Mariaaus, poet, 5S6 n,
J27; defeated and put to death, 521 in- Marinianus, son of Gallienm, 1 89 if*
creases mobility of troops, 209 Marians, father of Philip, 87; consecrated,
Madauros, birthplace of Apulelus, 5S0 89
M,aeceiia8, ia Cassius Dio., 26 59 1^., 65 Marius, M. Aurelius, succ»or of Fostuinus,
Maecia Faustina, daughter of Gordian I, .
192 •
.
.
3S1, 390; studmmm^ 3S9 Mars, Coccidiiis, 432; Galerius as son of,
Magna Mater, see under Cybele ^3J7i invests emperors with tlieir power,
Magnus, senator, 73 36. 1 , 3 69 5 on coins, 3 1
.
3 3®^ 3 S L 3 59> 4 * *
Maukop, silver belt from, 10 Martial, on Oriental cults, 438
Main, R., victory of Caracaiia on, 4S Martialis, Q* Gargilius, .historian, killed in
Mainz, 71, 73; legion at, S2; siege of, 1915 Numidia, 182; biographies by, 599
cult society of Ma at,4255 dedications Massiiia, *adventu8 Imperatoruiii* at, 328
to Oriental dbides at, 434 Matres, Matroaae, goadesacs, 432 jf.
MaMas, Johannes, on Gadlienm, 2245 nni- Mattel, Ftdazzo, sarcophagus ia, 550, 554;
versa! history of, 71a Muses sarcophagus m, 555
MalcMon, presbyter of Antioch, and Paul Mauretania, ao, 22, 845 two Mauretaiiias,
of Samosata, 491 26#. 5 fortiied settlements on frontier of, 86
Mamaea, see under Julia Mamaea Mauri, Moors, disorders among, 68; revolt
Mani, Manichaeans, protected by Shapur I, of» jaS, supproasd by MMimiaa, 333x9.5
1 12, 504; abandoned by Vahram I, 113, Moorish javclinmcn, 73, 188, 199 Xf., im-
504, 5135 Mazdeaa clergy and, 1225 portance of, 215 If.; Mewrish twp# on
persecution of, by Diocletian, 339, 668 Northern frontkr, 90
jf.5 ^pcrsistencse of, 5045 discovery of
,
Maudoe, St, 662
Manichaean documents, 504^9., 508, 511, Maurus, Terendaaw, work on i»tre,
513, 6281 cosmogony of, 505 on tks 584 1|.
Fall, 472, 506; Bareki^ and, 496x9., Maxentms, Emperor, becoaM prmepSf 345,
506, 5105 Ephraiin aa^ 4025 quwrrdb with Mtedmiao, 3465 de-
507199*1 patatmgs and miniatuiwi of, clared public enemy, 3.085 of, in mh
124 19. Italy, 3491 Mttdiiiinw Dak, 61 if
;
:
4^':
Christianity, 447 and n. Kero, Eni|S€ror, access iuii «,ff, 369 Baths of, i
Modena, taken by Constantine, 682 enlarged, 665 coinage of. 7165 and in -
Modesiinus, Herennins, jurist, 30 fiatbn of coinage, 7 24
Moesia, 19, 147, 692 j ravaged by Bar- Nerva, Emperor, dedication to, by Septi-
.barians, fo, 140 iff., 167 if. j invaded by mius Severus, 13, 3555 coinage of, 716
,
in, 855 coinage, 85, 90, 93 141,. 147 Mkaea m Bithynia, 75 taken by barbarians,
Mofontiacum, see under Maiiu X4S5 Council of, 6931 697 If., 699
Monarchianism, see aim under Sabelliusj .at Nicagoras, sophist, 89
Rome,. 5335 and Montanism, 45-85 at-' Nicephorium, ill Persian war, 129
tacked by Tertullian, 590 Micomedia, supports Sepiimius Severus, 7;
mmetarii, strike of, idy, 300 and n. Caracalk winters in, 495 Eiigabalus
Mongolia, Hsiung-nu of, 103, 1055 Juan- 'winters in, 535 taken by Goths, 1485
J'ua.ri in,' 106 if. cathedral at, destnited, jxfrsecuiiun
Mont Gen^vre, pass of, 681 at, under Maxirrdn, 68619.5 toleration
Montaaism, Montaiius, 456 iff., 5371 in- edicts issued i'li, 6S9
459 and n, 5 later history of, 460
scriptions, Kicopolis, in Moesia, Icsieged by Kniva,
Moors, see under Mauri 1445 Roman victory at, 144
Mosaic cosmogony, 4415 Eusebius on, 641 Mger, C. Fesmmius, governor of Syria, 1 5,
Moses, classical writers borrow from, 4625 275 proclaimed em|>eror, 3, 5 if.; war
1.8,
,
,
PeroE, brother of Sbapiir I, coins of, 121 .. 'Fianifoor, discoveries at, xoi
Perpetua, ¥ibia, martj’r, Passim of, 520,. Tilate, Acts of, 687 .
organisation of, no sq, ; wars with Rome, bar b;irians occupy, 156, 299
.Placentia,
6 ^'sqq.^ 81, III, 113, 12 $ sqq.f 1% sqq., Aurelian defeated oeai*, 299
314, 321^9., 335 Probos and, 31.6; Pladdianus, Julius, officer of Claudius,
army of, iso 5 Iranian cavalry in Roman 192
army, 2 x 6 sqq,^ art, Iranian, lOO; com- Plague, outbreaks of, 167x7., 171, 1,98,
merce of, 1 17 ry* 5 language, East Iranian, If., 227 x7.., 260, 65.S, 6SS
205
97; religion, see under Mazdean Church, 'Plato,and Neoplatonism, -62 5, 629, 636 xyy.;
... Zoroastrianism; reliefs, 1x2 and gnosticism, 627; and Eastern ideas,
Persis, 109 628; Eusebius and, 641
Pertinax, P. Helvim, Emperor, carar of, i, Platonism,. Midd.Ie, 440 xy
5S85 reign of, 2; murder of, 3; Septimius Flato.nop0!is, 676 .
239 ambition:'of,'2S"
PermgiMum Veneris^ 5S6 sqq, Flautiila, wife of Caracalla, 19, 21
Peshilta, 502' ry, pkbs urbana^ Sf.iz
Pessinus, attacLedby barbarians, 147, 169 Pkroma, in system of Valentinus, 470
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, martyr, 687. .FHny the Elder,. 43S
Petra Pertusa {Umbria), brigandage in, 90 — the Younger, and Trajan, 259, 516 sq,
Peucini, barbarian tribe, 92 Plotinus, Neoplatonist, 442, 621 xyy., 65x1
‘Pfabigraben,* 48 621 xf.; on expedition of Gordian,
life of,
Phaeton sarcophagus, Borghese, 563 622; friend of Gallienus, 556, 605, 676;
Philip the Arabian (C. Julius Pbilippus),- teaching of, 622 xyy., 635 sqq ; opposition ,
Emperor, 87 ryy., 131, 165 ry.; family of, of, to gnosis, 627x9., 648; ana State
87; enters Rome, 88; celebrates secular service, 660
..
.
games, 91 5 character and policy of,, 89 Plutarch, religious' ideas 'o.f, 439, 44.6
makes peace with Persia, 131; victory Poetovio, .13; garrison of, 152; MIthraea
over 'Germans and Carpi, 90, 14219.1 at, ^422, 4%^
revolts against, 92 ry.; war with Becius, Political factors in third century, 193 xyy.
93 ry,, 1 65194 and the frontiers, 214; Folycai^, Bishw of Smyrna, Epistk i§ tke
and Christianity, 92, 9419.5
killed, 941 PMEppims of, 474; and Irenaeus, 474;
$ and temple at Heliopolis,
portrait of, 553 Rome, 5325 witoem for Pauline
visit of, to
561 ; coinage of, 90, 93, 417 corpus^ 454 «.
— Bishop of Heiadea, Fassio of, 676 Bishop of Ephesus, and the
Polycrates,
Philippopolis (Thrace), 692; ‘colonia* Quartodeciman controversy, 488, 532
founded at, 8S; fortilM by Philip, 1431 Fompeianus, Frankish offiar, 162
i44'‘if., 1495 tasen by
sieges of, 143x9., Pontianus, Bishop of Rome, deported to
Goths, 144, Sardinia, 75, 94, 534
—.(Tmehonitis}, cokftm founded at, 88 j^tsdfex maximmf 412
Philppti% Ivf • Julius Severus, son of Philip, Famtus, |wisecation of Christia^m in, 75
Emperor, becomes Caesar, 88, 365, Forphyrio, cofnmentator, 600
Auj^stus, 91 Pontifcx Maxim usr9X|' Porphyry, Bishop of cnccnmier of, Gm,
murdered, 94 ^
^55> ^5^? 185^97., 3695 defends volts against, 3 1 5 ^7. ; and the army, 317/7.;
Rhine frontier, 158, 187; Gallic empire and Persia, 3 14, 3 1 6 ; and the Senate, 3x8;
of, 187, 7035 seizes Britain and North triumph of, 317; encourages viticulture
Italy, 1875 killed, 1915 portrait of, 5573 in the provinces, 271, 317; killed, 317;
coinage of, 158, 187, 189, 226, 320, 359, consecrated, 318; portrait of, 353, 564;
363, 374, 418, 556, 55^^717 coinage of, 319 sq., 359> 7^9
Pothinus, Bishop of Lyons, martyr, 519 — Tenagino, Prefect of Egypt, 180, 314 n.
praefectus, Aegypti^ 22, 394, 400 sq.y aerarto Proclus, Neoplatonist, 638
Batumi, 715, gentium^ 21 1 legionis, Proculus, revolt of, 316 and n.
'^*]qy Mesopotamiae,q%f tirmibus, 72 j procurator, procuratores, activity of, 27; in
Prefect, of Annona, 28, 54, 401, powersof, charge of res pri<vata, 28, 381; functions
extended, 308 ; of the City, 28, 53, 62, 31 1, of, under Gordian III, 82 sq.*, sent as act-
380, 391, 395, ^icarius of, 394; of the ing governors to Imperial provinces, 26;
Praetorian Guard, powers of, enlarged, civilians as, 382; arcae expeditionis, 1725
28, controls Prefecture of Annona, 28, monetae, 714; patrimonii, 85; sacrarum
401, change in position and rank of, 60 J7., cognitionum, ^ice praesidis, 376
74, 379 and provincial administration, grower/, legionary cavalry, 216 sq., 379
82, appeal to the emperor from, 89, proshpnesis, 362 sq., 388, 659
power of, in third century, 201, 379:f7., protectores, emperor’s bodyguard, 219/7.,
under Diocletian, 388 rg., financial 378,39^
powers of, 381, ^carii of, 393 sq. Protesilaus, revelations of, 441
praeposith commanders of legionary detach- Protoctetus, Christian, 73
ments, 398 Procidentia deorum, on coins, 334, 360
praepositus equitibus Dalmatis comitafensibus, Provinces, division of, into smaller units, ii,
398; sacri cubkuUy 388 15, 21, 36/7., 390/77.; under
27,
praeseSf 26and 377, 392 sq., 395 Gordian III, 82sq.*, Diocletian and, 390
Praetorian Guard, also under Prefect; ^77.; procurators govern Imperial, 26;
and Pertinax, i, 3; puts Empire up for economic progress of, 239/77.; internal
auction, 3 ; and Septimius Severus, 4 ; re- trade of, 244 /77, ; prosperity of, 248 sqq.*,
constituted by Septimius, 5, 33; recruited mints in, 714, 717; see also under the
from legionaries, 24; murders Elagabalus, several provinces
56, Ulpian, 63 sq,<, Pupienus and Bai- Prudentius, on Cyprian, 602
binus, 81; under ^verus Alexander, 63 Prusa, taken by barbarians, 148
causes disorder, 6% sqq., 80; sup- Ptolemaeus, gnostic, on Old Testament,
pressed by Severus, 345; supports 451; used by Irenaeus, 469
Maxentius, 345, 349 Ptolemaic astronomy, and gnosticism,
Prastina MessaHinus, governor of Lower 467 sqq.
Moesia, 90 Ptolemais, revolt of, %i6
Praxeas, Monarchian, attacked by Ter- Ptolemy, geographer, 97 sq.
tullian,
593 Punic language, 24, 612
primipilh 25, 377 sq, Pupienus (M, Clodius Pupienus Maximus),
princeps, principate, see Chap. X; and auto- Emperor, qZ sqq.*, in campaign against
cracy, 1^1 sqq., 3875 basis of, sq.-^ Maximinus, 79/7.; quarrel with Balbinus,
Cassius Dio on, 352 sqq,^ 7 1 o ; in third cen- 80/7.; murdered, 81
tury, 383; change in the character of, 227; purpura, as symbol of sovereignty, 365 sq.
dedications by, 412; deification of, 372, Puteoli, decline of, 243 ; tauroboUum at, 423
7045 dynastic succession to, 370^7.; Tyrian group in, 427; Mithraism in,
y
C^attoor Coronati, martyrdom of, 66z victory at, 87, 1 31
Qnietos, T. Fiilvius JuiiiiH, son of Mae- Rhein^abern, terra thiyillaU mrmiifactured
Augustus, 136, 17a Jf.
rianus, proclaimed at, 241,19. ,
defeated and executed at Emesa, tyi sq. Rhetors, appointed iiy nninicip.ilities, S3
qum/ecim^ziri sacris fncmnditi 41 Rhine, E„ Lower, 12, rp|HT, 3 srp* 7; army
{^uinquegentanei, Moorish confederacvi at- on, 3 , 5, 1 4 19., 2 2 fl 7 u 1 69, 1 9 X , 2CS, 2411
tack Xumidia, iSji| revolt of, 313
Quiinilius, stmator, put to death, a
V barbarian pmsure rm, 157 if., 314, jsSj
Comiandiie and, 68i, 6925 forw esla-
— Xf. Aurelius, brrrthcr of Claudius, blishtd Ivyond, 315; fnmtkr of, 22, 72,
proclaimed ernfwror, 192, 297; commits 154199., 308
193; coinage of,
suicide, iBo and Rhineland, disorders in, 22; rcxids in, 25
192 297 and 31 importanre of, 14?, 157, 17.5
Quirinal, temples on, 413 Rictiovarus (Reciafarus), 662 and n.
Roads, in Britain, 40, 42 ?«.; from Euphrates
Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa, 500; .revision of crossings, 17; in Gaul, 14, repaircil by
Syriac Kew Testament by, 502 sq, Septiiniiis Severus, 25 fi.| In 'Roman
Raetia, see also under Limes army in, 84, Germany, repaired by Caracal la, 48 ; in
1S9, 3565 barbarian attacks on, 1.54 199.5 Northern presvinws, repaired by Septi-
Diocletian and, 3285 economic progress mius Severus, 13. 19, 33, by &venii
of, 2405 part of, evacuated by Gallienus, Alexander, 665 from Moesia to Dacia,
i555roaasiii, £3, i95secured by Aurelian, 143, 1515 from Pannonia to Ac|uilcia,
i37.,,by'Probmr.3i5 139 «. 5 in Rhineland, 25#. 5 built under
Raphaneae, legion at, 52, 127 Maxi minus, 74; built for purpoau of
Ratiaria, legion at, 153, 308 trade, 234; ease of travel by, 233 19.;
mim purpuraria^ 65" S/rafa Dimkikma^ 397; Viaei Aemilk;,
rationaiis Jtsd^ 28, 381, 390; official in 156, Appia, sarcophagus from, 549, 554,
charge of a mint, 715
.
Egnatia, 6, Flaminis, 6, 156, 682, Salaria,
Ravenna, raided by barbarians, 139 and », sarcophagus from, 557
Rawak, bas-reliefs and seals at, 9S Rogatianus, Mmator, refuses cilice, 660
Red Sea, fleet in, 233 .rf. 5 and Nile canal, Roma, goddess, invests eiiiprorH with their
234 power, 360 19., 3691 temple of Venus and
Red Tower Pass, 22 Roma, at Routes 412, 569
Regalian, revolt of, lyr, ^55 «.» 184^9.5 Roman People, and the efeciitw c€ em-
coins of, 184 perons, 368, 370
Religion, see ais^s under Christian ity^, SW5 Romanus, C, Julius, grammarian, 6co
attitude of the Empire to, 412, o? indi- Rome, Septimius StTcriis 45 Septi-
vidual emperors to, 41 2 ,199.5 and Imperial miiis &verus at, after victory over
unity, 705 J9. 5 and the Prindpate, 353 ^9. Albinus, 15; Elagabalus enters, 53;
the Tetrarchy and, 329 ^9.5 Solar cult Syrian rites in, 54 19.; disorders in, iincler
set up by Aurelian, 193, 309, 7195 Em- Severus Alexander, 63 19., under Pupknus
peror-worship, 194, 355 /99,, 370, 386 sq,t and Balbiiim, 8019,; 3495
431, 436, 65819.; gods as OTotectors of Alemamii reach, 154, 3745 revolt of
the emperor, 319; army ana, 433 jy,; in mmefarii ztf 267, 300 and w.| revolt at, in
third century, 649 19.5 paganism in murth favour of Maxentiua, 3455 walls
century, 447, 7055 vitality^ of local cults, 300, 374, 68 1 19.5 Christianity in, 530
41919., 433^ henothelsm, 420, 441, 199., 679 19., 7125 organization of Church
447; syncretism, 67, 437 19., 614 19.; and in, and Church of Alexandria,
philosophy, 67; Eg3rptiaii, in Western ^542 19.1 milknriiuiii of, 91, 6565 declining
provinces, 412 199.; Oriental, 409 199., tri import'ance of, tio; signiicanof of, 374
Greece, 409 iff., on Rhine frontier, 434, If., 3865 unifying forcr in culture, 5715
in Rome, 411^9., in Western provinces, '
172; Valerian’s headquarters at, 170 sq, Albinus, 10 X9. ; recognizes Macrinus, 50,
Samso, wife of Proculus, 316 Elagabalus, 53, Severus Alexander, 57,
Sandarion, officer of Aureiian, 304 sq. Maximinus, 72, 368; Julia Maesa inter-
Sadne, R., in campaign of Septimius venes in, 52 ; under Severus Alexander,
Severus against Albinus, 12 sqq, 58x99., 372; and the Gordians, 76x9.?
Saracens, invade Syria, 328 368; and Pupienus and Balbinus, 78 X9.,
Sarapis, Egyptian god, at Delos, 448; in 368; recognizes Philip, 88, Decius, 165,
Eastern provinces, 418; in Egypt, 420; Gallus, 168, Aemilianus, 168, 368; makes
. ,
S^4 \ .
ment of seiiatfjrs by equestrian oficiali, Severan Dynasty, religious policy of# 4x1
2619., 2S3, X97, 308, 326, 376 If.; erects; Severianus, brother- in -law* of Philip, 89 19,
statue of Constantine, 1S5; extent of .
Severina, wife of Aurellan# 310
authority of, 95, 19619.# 372199., 386#. •
271 sqq,, 278 sq. Ta-Ts*m, Chinese name for Roman Em-
Sute-socidism, growth of, 254x99.5 com- pire, 104 sq,, 235
pletion of, 2705 rise of new individualism tauroboUum, 407 , 415 , 446 «. 5 nature of,
against, 2805 and Christianity, 270 423 5 at Athens, 41 7, 425 5 at Ilium, 419^*5
Statilius Maximus, grammarian, 577 at Pergamum, 4195 in fourth century, 447
828 GENERAL INDEX
Taurus Mountain^y 6S9 Ttettitheus, C. Fiiriiw Sabinus Aqiiila,
Telx!ssri, buildiugi aU 551 Praetorian F^refert, 377; father-in-
Tefcmoreian guest-friends, sei under Xenol law of Gordian III, R5; ntlleci Misiiheiis,
Tembris, R., valley of^ Christian Inscrip- S5; career ar.ci character of, S517.; in
tions frortiy 45Sy 459 and w.y 660 Persian war, 8617., 131; death of, 87
Terme Museum, sarcophagus in, 549 Tmurtium, in under Toiirnus
Terminalia, festival of, 666! Tifidates, made King fd‘ Armenia by
Tertullian, ai, 35? life of, 5905 work of, Macrinus, 50; and Persia, iii 177., 132,
— II, son of I, 306; coins of, 306 «. Trade, between China and Iran, 11717.;
‘Teufelsniaiierd 4S between China and the Empire, 247 and
Theadelphia in Egypt, documents from, 26S a, I between East and West, 1171 com-
Theocritus, freedman of Caracalla, 49 petition in,24617.; dYeri id barbarian
Theodora, wife of Constantins, 328 invasions on, 261 if., 277; internal trade
Theododon, translator of Oid Testament, of provinces, 244x97.; internationa!
484 sq. »de,247iff., 336; interprovinciai trade,
Theodotiis, Aurelius, general of GaMknm, 24S If 4 as inotivc for expansion,
174 234; revival of, in fourth century, 379;
Theodulus, official martyr, 666 «. trade routes, 271, 379, *Silk* rmite, 97 if.,
Theophilus, Bishop of Aatioch, apologist, 104; see aiso under Caravan trade
467, 477 Traders, iiationalitt* of, 246/7,; activities
Theotecnus, curator of Antioch, 687 of, 247 xf 4 associations of, 31, 3 48, 251,
Therapeutae, 444 278 fin
Thessrtloiiica, 417, 69519.; attacked by Trajan, Emperor, 4, 9, 24, 233 if., 256 ly,
Goths, 147, f 49, 732 ; Arch of Galerius at, a59, 261; rescript to Pliny about riw
arS, 566 Christians, 516x7.; clebas«*s coinage, 724;
‘Thirty Tyrants/ of the Misima Augustus Traianeia, festival at Pergamuin, 419;
716 Arch of, at Beneventunii 546x7.1 Baths of,
Thmm^ Jets of Hymn of the Saul con- 5521 Cedumn of, 210, 546; Forum of.
tained in, 498 •568; eoifiage of, 716
Thrace, 6; ravaged by barbarians, 90, 145, Transjordan ia, 333, 236; economic cleveiop-
147, 149, 167, 721 ;
barbarians settled in, ment of,, 240
139, 316; economic progress of, 240; 'ae- Transylvania, barbarian invasions of, 140,
ligion in, 432 sq, .
Facing Facing
page page
I. Asia Minor, Armenia and 6. The Roman Empire: the
Syria 1 Eastern provinces . .
85
2. The Roman Empire: the 7. The Ancient Far East .
.
97
Western provinces . II 8. The Sassanian Empire . . 109
3. Roman Africa .
19 9. Decius and the Goths . , 164
4. Roman Britain 37 lo. The Empire under Diocletian 408
5. Roman Britain: the frontier
country • 42
C'ATthmmu i Cobk'iiCt. :
BirreRs» ^
Carnanton, 4 Coirhima JClipfVid'jrC'i”. i
Biskfi’u :»
Carnarvon, 4 CauKirna (Jh'ddi.i;, 1
Cud nit 2,
Bosnia, 2, 6 Cassandreia, 6 .
Crci limit 1
Bosporus, I, 6 Casscl, 2 Crvta, to
Bostra, 8 Castdl'um lliigensiuoi, 3 Croaiii, 2, i't
Byzantium, i, 6, 9 Chester, 4 .
Dee, III., 4
Chesterholm, 5 Demavend,
-
8
Cabul, 8 Gheviots,'.4 Derkmd Fans, i, 8
Cabtii, R., S Chew- Green, 4, ,5 :
Derwtmf, 5
Cabyie, 9 Chichester, 4 Diiiaric Alps, f>
INDEX OF MAPS
Durotriges, 4 Germania I, 10 Insulae, 10
Dzungaria, 7 Germania 11, 10 Interamna, 2
Germaniceia, i Intilene (Ingilene), i
Xyrnwegen, a
7'heis$, Mi,ran, 7 .
Thrace, 6 m Oenoaiida, i
Thracia, iCi ^
Mogontiacum, iVlainz, 2 Oescus, 6. i)
Thuburbo ,Mona, 4 Oescu?., R.^ 9
Tien~Shaii, ,
Morini, 2 0.raii., 3
^
.TraUfes,! „
. Neapolis (Africa), 3 Ostia, 2
TransylYaiii^f Oued Djedi, 3
Nemetes, 2 Oxus, K,, 7, 8
Transylfaniar,
Trapezms, 4 ..Nene, R.f 4 /...
Trent, Neocaesarea, i, 6 Faiaestina, lO'
4
Tres Nervii, 2 Palmyra, i:, 8
Treveri, a
'
Fappa, I
'
:
Newstead, 4, 5- Parapotamia, i
.
Nicaea, r,-.6 Paris, 2
.'.Nkomedia,i,6-'' Parium, 1
„ :
,Nicopo.Iis (Cilicia), I, Parlais, i
Nishapur, 8 Periathu% i, 6, 9
Nisibis, I, 8 Perm, 7
Niya, R,, 7 PcitIi«, I
. Noricum, 2, 6 Pci»polis, 8
Noricum mediterraneum,' Persia, 7
Persian Gulf, 7, 8
Morlcum ripenae, to Pe»i#, 8
North Tyw, H#, 5 Peshawar, $
Novae, 6, 9 Pasiati% If 6 .
INDEX OF MAPS
Peterborough, 4 Roma, 2, 6 Shott-esh"Sherqui, 3
Petra, 8 Romula (Recka), 6 Shott Melghir, 3
Phaselis, i Roshan, 7 Siagu, 3
Phazimon, i Rouen (Rotomagus), 2 Si-an-fu, 7
Philadelphia, i Roxolani, 6 Sicca Veneria, 3
Philippopolis, 6, 9 Ruhr, R., 2 Sicilia, 10
Phoenice, 10 , Rusgoniae, 3 Side (Pamphylia), i
Phraaspa, 8 Side (Pontus), i
Phrygia, i, 10 Saale, R., 2 Sieg, R., 2
Pisidia, i, 10 Sabrata, 3 Siga, 3
Pityus, 6 Sacae, 8 Siichester, 4
Pizus, 6 Sacaraucae, 8 Silures, 4
Placentia, 2 Sacastene, 8 Simitthu, 3
Po, ]?., 2 Sadouri (Ausum), 3 Singara, 8
Poetovio, 2, 6 Sagalassus, i Singidunum, 6
Pompeiopolis, i Sala, 3 Sinj, 2, 6
Pontus, I, 8 Salassi, 2 Sinope, i
Ponms Polemoniacus, i, 10 Saibacus Mif, i Sippar, 8
Potaissa, 6 Saldae, 3 Sirmium, 6
Praevaiitana, 10 Salonae, 2, 6 Siscia, 2, 6
Prague, 2, 6 Salzburg, 2, 6 Sitifi,3
Proconsularis Zeugitana, 10 Samosata, i, 8 Sittace, 8
Propontis, i, 6 Sangarius, R., i Smyrna, i
Prusa, I, 6 Sadne, R., 2 Sogdiana, 7, 8
Prusias (ad Hypium), i Sarajevo, 2, 6 Soioi (Pompeiopolis),
Punjab, 7 Sarapul, 7 Solway Firth, 4, ^
Pyramus, i?., i Sardes, i Sophene, i, 8
Pyrenees M^Sy 2 Sardinia, 10 South Shields, 5
Sarmizegethusa, 6 South Tyne, R., 5
Quadi, 2 Sarus, R., i Spasinu Charax, 8
Quetta, 8 Satala, i Stainmore Gap, 4
Quinquegentanei, 3 Savaria, 6 Stakhr (Istakhr), 8
Save, R., 2, 6 Strageath, 4, 5
Raeburnfoot, 5 Savensis, 10 Strymon, R., 9
Raetia, 2, 10 Scaptopare, 6 Su-chou, 7
Raphaneae, i Scarbantia, 2, 6 Suebi, 2
Rapidum, 3 Scordisci, 6 Sultan Dagh, i
Ratiaria, 6 Scythia, 10 Sura, I, 8
Ravenna, 2 Sebasteia, i Susa, 2
Recka (Romula), 6 Seine, R., 2 Susa (Seleuceia), 8
Red Sea, 8 Seistan, 8 Syedra, i
Red Tower Pass, 6 Seleuceia (on the Calycad- Synnada, i
Weald, 4
Tigris, It, I, 8 Urmia, i, 8 Werra, I., 2
Trapezes, 6' ,
,
Vemlamintn,-
. ' G.«ater,^"S'':
Treat, I.,' Vetera,
Ties, Tafcrii^ae, t . .
Vienna (Vienne),- 3 Zab, I., Lesser, S .
'
Vienna (Vindobona), 2, 6 'Zabdiceae', i
, TitTeri, 2; ^
'',;Tndeiitetii^ 42
'
'/ Vindelicia, z .Zeugma,, i| S'', :,,.:„
9 (F.H.G. v, 2,p. 115a) 126 UK, 257 sq. 3^3 XXXIV, 3~7 191
'
1,
iJexippus
;40,, i3. '
^^Scjikka
.VIII, 52, I
Cassius Dio, see under Dio ix, 2,-6 gjfrag- 3
Caaius
'
.
V 140, app
IX, ao, 4. .
. . 82
frag, ih 4
h p. 45 ^^ H m* 2a8 ix% a a* 5 67
(F.Gii. II, ,p. 45;7| t
59
h p. 454 2165 m\ IX, 3a, 5 $i
frag. 6, 10
h P- 4S4> etc* *JZZ, IX, 32,6. 91
(F.G JL II, 160
p, 459)
h p. 454 ? m* 722 IX, 47, 2 26
frag. 6, iD-fi
[IX, 47, xa 389
(iCGJl. II, 159
CMrmim Mimm IX, 49, 5 89!
''p.. 459)
frag. 25
(Mommsen) IX, 51, I 363, 373
(F.G.H. 11, |i. 466) 160
54^ IX, 51, 6 77
h 45 1
frag. 26, itd'imt
IX, 51,1 89. 373
(F.G J'L II, p. 468) 144
Claronkle of Ark4 a X, II, z Szj
frag, 26, 6
ch. 8 (Sachau, Eerl Akk,
iSfZ 4001
(F.G.H. .11, p. 469) IS 9
16. 400!
19x5, Nr, 6, p. 64) frag. 36, 8-10
X, 32, 4-13 403
{F.G.H. II, p« 46$ if.) 144
Cimnicm FmcMk 39 ? 3 90 ]
frag. 27
|X, 4'^, a 831
p. 470} C
(Dindorf) (F.G.H. II,
891
(F.G.H.
IX, p, 148, 21 sgq.
F? 5 S>i:'
. *» 7> 39 S> 398
frag. 29
ii'rp »"472),
X, 61, t 43
Cicero (F.G J'l ii,:p;474); i€i
61, a';./' 83
de i, 6a, 265 595 2 fi 5
j
C&dix Just, 2, 2, 12
I, Sf 20 45S'
Codex Theod. % 3 ? 31 68, 372 If.
tf i 3 » 3E %4 372'
l
I, 27.S 694
h h 33? 34
pn
66
I, 14, 3 I, 4, I 353
I,
I,
17»
26, 2
7 353
74 i
II,
.IV, 7, I
8, I 694
6941
1,4,
k
I
$f 17
29? m 46
17, I
iV, 402 it
I? 54> 3 83 I, 9, ipr*
[VI, 2Z, ipr. 363! I,
XI, I, S S» II, I, 1: 380
VI, 35, 1 389 I, iS, i
lly t 83 *6,
VI, 3 S>3 39°! III
Uf 26, 3 89 4? ^4 :'a6|
VII, 22, I 396 III, I, I, 10
3IE {32), *9 S73 ,''
43
L, 4, 3, 10 30 (p. 360 Boissevain) 375 41 370
L, 4? 1 8, 26 30
'
Ennapius
%'5;, 31 (p. 361 Boissevain) 3^6
I'j 5^ 8 66 Ilxxvii, ioj 6 38 [frag.4(F.H.G.rv,p 14) 323
h Sr '
7:
'
^
31 LXXVII, 15, 1-2 4x
L, 6, 12 31 LXXVII, 16, 3 39 Euripides
I 271 LXXVIII, I, I
42 \Eippolytu5, ^%sqq. 618
L, 12, 10 30 LXXVni,
43 2, 5
LXXVIII, 3, 3 43 For Eusebius, see below,
Dio Cassius :xviii, 5, p. 844
(Boissevain, see p. 700, n. I) (p. 378 Boissevain) 366
XXXVII, 18 421 LXXVIII, 9, 4~5 45, 262 Eutropius
XXXVII, 26, 3 60 LXXVIII, 15, 6 433 VIII, 20 44
Lii, 14-40 710 LXXVIII, 16, 7 vm, 22 53
LII, 20, 2 26 (p. 395 Boissevain) 139 IX, 7 139
LII, 20, 3 374 LXXVIII, 17, I~2 43 IX, II, I 183, 369
LII, 22, I 391 LXXVIII, 20, I 49 IX, 3 94
LII, 28, 3 Sqq* 65 LXXVIII, 22, I 49 IX, 4 16 6
LII, 31, I 60 LXXVIII, 23 613 IX, 9 188
LII, 32j I 60 LXXVIII, 23, 2 49 IX, 12 193
LIII, 17, I 353 XXXIX, I, I 49 IX, 13 ZOZiZoSsq. ,
II,
5 (p. 29 N) Z 3 gi V, 6, z *55
VIj r^i P-* 53 )
IV, 3, 3 (p. 63 K) 574 ;
;
2*_ 3
livi* 7* 2 s 4 ij
IV, (p* / 3 S 74 i
'
htM Grammaticus
ad Ferum Imp, Ivi, 7 > S .
(Bonn)
il, (p. i;24N)
’
75;'^"4 7 » ^ 215
1 5 p. S5 •'692
de craL h 43* ^93 lylm , «, s 36s
III, 6, 24 I, g 73, li!0 Xlagnus...
2'67
VIZ, 10 , 6 $n
Galen virx, I, 2-3 215; Livy
Pn^irepL I* 38 251 VIII, I, 9 ml ;V, 27 5S6
VHI, 6, 2 363, 368^
366
For Jerome, see below,
,
p. S45.: V* 33 ^ 60S
V| 373 608
H, 3» 3 366
Jofeannes Antiocbenns
K, 3, 3 . 366 Lupus Stwitm
frag* 148:
II, 4» ^ .
.
7
.
8| XVI,,90 M/ ,
93! ed. Oxford) 133
Ill, 7, 2 14] XIX, 104 M ,
22S'' xir,p, 296, 12 iff. 133
III, 8, 2 15 '
3 ^ 5 * 3 *® ra, , „ ,,335
tv, 5, I %66 sq,‘ ,,295 u .
'
322, 323,
IV, 7, 3 164]
Marimis
,
:,.:33:Si
IV, 8, I " 300 i*', :
Life of ProchSf 38 adfB» 638
'v.JiS'
1 4 4 y
i
X (n), 3. 3 395 in, 8 624
'
lily 623
XXX x (u), ro, 3 328 Ill, 8,4x99. 625
395*
X (IX), 13,4 386 in, 8, 10 626
Not. Dtgn. Or.
XI (in), 7, 2 328 IV, 9, 3 624
vn, 7(=42) 214 XI (lir), 10 sqq. 328 V, 5, 3 363
vm, 7(=39) 214 XI (m), II, 1-3 388 V, 8, 6 623
XXIX 395 XI (m), 12, 2 386 VI, adjin. 624
Oracula SibylMna
Persius Porphyry
(Rzach)
xirr, 89x^9. 1341
\Sat. II, 69 5*9 Be Abstinentiay IV
16 429
xiir, iig sqq . 17 IV, 614
134I
Petrus Patricius
Be RegressUy frag. 12
Origo Constant. imp. (Bidez, Vie de For-
frag. 8 (F .H.G. rv,
(Mommsen, Chron. Min. i) phyrey App. n, p.
p. 186 r^.) 141
42* sq.) &33
p. 7 343 frag. 12 (F.H.G* rv,
Life of Plotinus, 7 660
p. 8 345 p. 188) 2991 12 '
,
676
Orosius frag. 13 (F.H.G. rv,
p. 188x9.) 337
‘
316
33 307 5* S zzBl I if t -3 164
3^ 310 j, 6-6, J fzt! iS, 5 316
38 30a 1,2 721 ig, 8 241, 271
38. z 2661 273 6, 6 242 .20, .3 3x7
39 309; 188 zCf 5 275
39 t 7 301 g, i 21S 20^ 6 267
40. 3 368^ It, 2 72l| 2.T 31K
4 ^. n 312 1 .r-iS 605! .2:2, 4 3x7
46'~E 273 1 £ 2, 72x| *3 3^7
47 » 3 273 , 13,4-5 1771 23, 2 iff, 267
4S 30S i.
3 »^ 722! *,3 i 3 27s
48, I 277 13,6-7 y22i^/ad /)'r, (Firmui etc,)
i^
7» 7 .
iS,4
'
. 6,
*39 di ‘
prm, 6, 6 5 #
373
12, 3 19;; Prifims^ a, 7 599 Septimw#
12, 4 ,723t -
7,4 .
sh
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Sidonius Apoilinaris Zonaras Zosimus
589 25 (p .601) 190 h 59
XXI, 305
XII, 25 (p 602) 225, 230 1 , 60 If. 305
Stobaeus Xir, 26 (pL 604) 192, 217 I, 61 305 Iff., 309
EcL I, 3, 56 271, 614x11, 26 (p. 604 If.) 722 I, 61 If. 3^0
xn, 26 (p1. 605) 7221,63 3^^
Suetonius XII, 27 (p1.606) 228,3091,64 313
Claudius^ 17, 2 236 XII, 28 (p1.608) 3121, 66 3^5^ 3^7
238 XII, 29 (p .609) 315, 3m3^oi,ST sq.
'
'
Dow. 7, .2 315
Vesp.xA^ 363 XII, 29 (pK 610) 3181.68.1 159
XII, 30 (p>. 610) 3221.68.2 315
Syncelios 322 I, 68, 3 164
XII, 30 (p>. 61 1)
(Bonn) XXI, 30 (p>, 61I If.) 31^
3221,69
p. 674 199 XII, 31 (p). 613) 324IJ71 3 i^j 319
p. 705, 20 Iff, HSxii, 3i (pU 614) I, 71, I 31^
p. 234 ;
335, 662 I, 71, 1-2 164
p, 716, 16 Iff. 721 XII, 31 (p). 62417.) 328 n, 8 344
pp. 717 Iff.; 72^x11, 33 (p). 622) 349 n, 8, 2 343
p. 717, 9 Iff. 721 XII, 33 (p 623) 343 n? 9 ? 2 343
p. 720 722 If. XIII, I (p1. 1) 343 n, 10 347 ^9 -
P‘ 5 ^ 9 ^ §34 6^
4437-3^^
I7
?’ ,^8 Genesis
47S
h 377 I 154X925
Vegetius
I, 377 2 159? 374
^
De re militari, 2, 2
h 377 3 147, 228 Leviticus
It 39 * I 72^ •^9* xxin, 15-21 5^9
Virgil
I, 4®7 I 187, 7^1
Aen. VI, 135 596 190 Isaiah
40, 2
Georg. II, 502 ^®3
I,
I, 41 m
722
XIX, x-4 675
ly
I,
47
4^
48 If.
-^7* IS*,
5“’'
xn, 20 (p. 589) 145 I, 49 John
168, 228 I,
^*5^7 5® Iff.
50 ^97 303
xn, 21 590)
(p. XVI, 12-13 457
xir, 22 (p. 591) 147, 9 ^ I,
147’ ^196 5®> 1-2
50,
20
454...^^^
r
rm. Re&g, iwj 44S 7a, 541
13B, 19 5S0 74 541
rn 4 ^z\^P
74i I 541
1 .444» .
526!
Caidhgtis Libirimus 75 54^
1% 2S-21 j
80, 206
V* 24 47i,£V£ PmpL 56 479!
51
I.
54’^
Exce ex TkemhtQi Sa 527^
Acta Cyfrmni $4t
Ephesians Pmd. I, 45 527
194
iv, 13
Jtw miveturj^ 12-14
206
‘
4BC
,Fka €}prmm\ 9 228
,
, „
^3
\Ep. I ad Cer, xtvii, t 453,
543 Cyril of Jerusalem
.
^
666
62, I t$z *i>9-i3 676
%
'
Atbenagoras ,
54i:' 676
INDEX or PASSAGES REFERRED TO 845
Eusebius Jerome
Eusebius
\Praeparatio E<vmgelica \Ckron. (Helm)
Demonsiratio E^angelica
p. 216 , 10 sqq. 387
,
'
'
675 ,
^751|?7l.CD«rf.
VI, 6
I, II
653
713' 231 14
^ir. lU. 15
, W 607
605
'
IX, 2, 4
'^75 I, 14.
590 , 601
:
1, 28 683 58 597
I? 13 493 602
67
,
'
'
602
107, 12
- V iv,' 9 ,, 517
jFrag. I (F.G.H. n,p.48o) 7^^
. .
,
IV, 13 ' 5^7 Justin
IV, 26, 7 sqq. 461
Firmicus Maternus \Apol I, 13 4^4
IV, 27 45 ^ zisq. 4%
-- \pe etrore profancLrwn
V, I, 3 3 > 3 51^
religionum^ 5 447 65 x77 . 5^3
V, 3, 4 45 ^
9 4471 66 2 , 5 ^^
V, 16
pial c. Tryph. So sq. JifiS
V, 16, 7 45 ^ Gildas
V, 16 , 10 459 .
Lactantius
^ hronicoiti c. X ^79
V, 17/3 ^7 * 455 664
'7> 3
V, 18 , 2 458
Gregory Thaumaturgus 7» 4 663
V, 24 488 ,
X, 1037 m- V, 652
475 ^ «gne, P.G.
I.
V, 26 5
V, I: 22 597
V, 28 533
Hippolytus V, I 25 602
VI, 20 , 2 . 644
'‘hurchOrder ed. Connol ^ z 675
VI, 28 75 <
l 27 473 20 350
VIII, 17 671
ni, 3 , 2-3 533 20 , 4 385
IX, 7, I 687
685 m, 3, 3 531 24 544
IX, 9 , 10-13
III, 4> I 5^9 344
DC, 9a, 2 669
HI, II, 12 26 345
X, 5 689 455
IV, 46> 3 »34 26, 2 402
X, 5 , 2-6 673
846 INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Lactantias Pisiis S^pMa' I TertiilliaR
591
28 34fi Praedk. Peiri \ vel t
4S7
2.9-30 349 f P, Ckmmt M^x.f EirQm.
.
,
(Mofnmsen) Tatian
XIX, p, 24 Aphraates
If,. 534 J
xxi, p. 27 535 memtSy.m* J Oreei Frag- mm. VII, 20 (Wright,
ment of Taiim*s Biaiessarm p. 147 If. 5
Pari-
Mar^'rmm Pafyeafpi from Doura-t ed. Kraeling. sot, col. 345) 499
XVIII, 10 50 'I
i'7-iS. 529 "495
S37| p. 90 ,509
9, 6 595 30 5^9! F* 9$ 512
10,3-s 59® JpoL ,8 21
19-20 59S
5 37^1 Kipkaima
«9# 5 358 6
31# a
594! 15, 24 sm*
iff, (Scbmkii-
595 x6, 3 593 Poloteky,
;»ky, Atei-Fufif*/,
j
3^» 5 596
n : 592# 594: p- 47) 504
aS^ 35®,
pmkmes
,
to
He Gaspek 30 59 X Kkmstumifi
34 35, i-S Sit
Lietzmaan, Kkine Texte* 660
35 :
I, p. 16, 16 543 - -r-
37# 4 :
2
X937, no. 232 208 VII, 838 42
Archaeologia Aeliana^ 4th VII, 912 39 41S 355
419 12
ser. IX, 1932, pp. 233-4 38 VII, 964 42
B.^.A. xxm, 1918-19, VII, 1002 4*1 420 355
nos. 67 sqq. *56 VII, 1003 27 421 359
Bruns, Pontes'^ VII, 1042 42 422 355
42 425 10
(nos.) 56 35* VII, X044
61 *75 VII, 1045 42 426 359
42 429 22
86 362 VII, 1x64
430 22
1X2 *43 VII, XI 86 42
2 VII, 6580 8 431 417 355? 359
llg
240 VIII, 20 215 448 sq. 355
1 5, III, 6 sqq. 36<S
1 1 6, HI, 9 sqq. 240 VIII, 996 2151 451 47
VIII, 1578 36! 453 357
Byzantion, ll, 192,1 p- 33°
VIII, 2080 36 454 355
4,8
VIII, 2716 841 458 355
VI, 1931,?. 423
VIII, 2766 3 ^> 37 '
466 53? 56
459
VIII, 5180 36 470 359
C.LG. 5892 4*7
3041 478 51
C.I.L. n, 179 424 VIII, 9040
217 479 58
n, 4125 12 VIII, 9045
VIII, 9047 2I7| 480 58
II, 4949 144
VIII, 9317 121 48^ 359
III,1176 144
VIII, 9360 485 64
in, 1623 26
88
214 vm, 17726 505
HI, 2328^®®
509 90
in, 4121 694 IX, 687 393
X, 5909 ,.38|
510 93? 358
in, 5933 155 91
in, 5935 35^ XI, 304 216 sn
544 213
in, 6995 3^ XI, 1178 3141
X 58 546 214
HI, 7586 152 XI, 2914 !
428 585
V, 4007 437 ]
316
663 XIII, 6763 213 597
VI, 216
158 613 358
XIII, 6780
VI, 508 4*5 358
XIII, 7566 a 4*3 614
VI, 967 *57 .
638 39*
214 XIV, 5340
VI, 1645 . .
414
424 XVI, ,132 212 6$9
VI, 1675 664 398
VI, 2001 53? 5^ CR . Ac . Inscr.
mm
.
\
694 683
436
^
1906, p. 75? ^
VI, 2009 1X27 373
5*5 1914, pp. X47 sqq- 4141
VI, 3069 1X28 362
1917, pp. 275^??* 4*7
VI, 32326, 29 373
X ' . , '
-51
1141 7 4316 427! iV, 499 419
043 '^
5
'
..2185.
3 * * 935 ^ PP* 91 m* 427
2186, ri 7 SSx" 3 ^* 0.0JX KXK 27
2.1SS S3 SES 83,: 26S, 271] z$Z
519 90,
2324 .
52 .
64^ 278
48 Blilmaer) 764, IL x6 4*1
2441
'
248s 27 xrx, 27
242 s^f 1933* P‘ 58*
2540 2x6 XXX, X 269 1:75 214
2618 3 % 39 Epk £pm IX, 101.2. 37 \Trmiaetims ike Cum^
afij? Hemeid, Pm.JhtEy Glt»aiy i^£rimdmd Wesimar^
2762 37 m* 214 '
23S
. ^ f
ymmai ef mdmmm
381 357 l.GXI.1,776 32 Jrekami^i xxxviii, .
30 .
'v'
3*6 .
.
'
S
4x52 424 El, 67 30 1564 *43
4x53 4*4 El, 69 $o\Ckrimmaifyfi fWidteo)
4270 430 ,,EI, X 02O','. '271 22 49
4271 4*4 Ei,;x045 278! 35 »ss
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO 849
Papyri Papyri Papyri
Ckrestomathie (Wiicken) P. Lips^ 57 272 P. Oxy. XIV, 1659 54
41, col. Ill, 13 61 P. Oxy. XIV, 1662 265
41, col. m, 14 72 43 398 XVII, 2104 68
96 46 I, 43, col. I, 15 39 * XVII, 2106 269
96, frag. IV, 1 . 6 8 I, 43, col. II, 24 sqq. 398 P. Par. 69 72
,149 259 HI, 39 477 P. RyL II, 96 252
40a 266 111,405 474 Inv. 650 33S
490 2, 8 VIII, 1 1 00 22 P. Tebt. II, 287 263
551,29^. 263 XI, 1380 420 P. Tkead. 16 265, 268, 276
16. (Mittels), 378 43 i
xr, 1381, 170 435 P.S.L 249 50
Hermesp lv, 1930, ,
XII, 1406 18 292 265 sq.
pp. 188 sqq. XII, 1408 22 683 18
439 ;
?, Bad. 37 724 i
XII, 1409 266, 276 Bammelhuchp 4284 18, 280
79 724 i
XII, 1411 266 Btud. Pal.
P^Cair. no. 57074 XII, 1413 2651
XX, no. 58, col. II,
(ed. Boak, Early By- 1 XII, 1414, I~i6 272 11. 1 1 sqq. 276
%antine Papyrip no. i) 401 i XII, 1424 280 XX, 71, II 266
XXII, no. 177 373
P, Paytimp 20 (Bruns’,
no. 96)
P. Pkr. II
P, Giessen, 4-7
64
280
252
i
!
XII, 1433, 52
XII, 1441
XII, 1455
XII, 1476
263
54
2731
1361
—
40 45>47 XII, 1477 265, 268 Palimpsest, Brit. Mus.
P. Gnomon, § 102 273I XIV, 1631 2521
add. 14623 502