The Fall of the Roman Empire (15 page)

7

The People against the Emperor

The rulers who poured forth these constant torrents of ineffectual edicts often lived very cloistered lives. Isolated among their advisors and courtiers, they lost contact with the rest of their subjects. And this was another of the fatal disunities that brought the Empire down.

The Emperor's position was exceedingly elevated and withdrawn. A fourth-century philosopher and rhetorician, Themistius, put the matter succinctly: 'you are the living law, and superior to the written law.' It is true that rulers reserved the right to depart from any individual measure which in a special case seemed to be operating unjustly. Yet great ecclesiastics such as Ambrose would have wished to qualify Themistius' statement, owing to their insistence on the independent rights of the church. And others, too, disliked the situation. So Valentinian in considered it advisable to declare publicly that he considered himself bound by the laws.

Nevertheless, the formal powers of an Emperor were virtually unlimited. And they were ostentatiously symbolized by a portentous solemnity, befitting his role as God's regent upon earth. Since this was his unutterably august status, everything relating to him was pronounced sacred. A series of successive edicts even restricted the numbers of those who were entitled to touch his purple robes, and who were permitted to perform their obeisances before His Serenity in person. Those unqualified to obtain such access prostrated themselves before his holy images and portraits instead. His edicts, written in gold on purple parchment and received by his ministers with reverently covered hands, were formally 'adored'. Since they were heavenly and consecrated, breaches of their provisions were sacrilegious, and could be punished accordingly.

Ceremonial reached fantastic levels of elaboration. Particularly grandiose were Imperial Arrivals and Entries into cities. As the carriage of Constantius n drew him into Rome in 357, Ammianus describes his hieratic, icon-like posture.

. . . For he both stooped when passing through lofty gates (although he was very short), and as if his neck were in a clamp he kept the gaze of his eyes straight ahead, and turned his face neither to right nor to left, but (as if he were a lay figure) neither did he nod when the wheel jolted nor was he ever seen to spit, or to wipe or rub his face or nose, or move his hands about.

The immobile grandeur is a far cry from the relative accessibility with which rulers in earlier days had felt obliged to humour their subjects.

Moreover, an Emperor of these later times was surrounded and cut off from the outside world by a far more extensive court than hitherto. Julian tried to cut down the numbers of his courtiers to reasonable limits, but soon afterwards they became even more numerous than before, especially under Theodosius I. Obviously, their proximity to the Emperor's person gave them enormous influence. They showed their strength at its greatest when they prompted Valentinian III to bring down the virtual master of the Western world, Aetius. But they often immobilized both themselves and the Emperor by quarrels within their own ranks.

This Imperial court, with the cabinet or council (Consistory) at its centre, was inevitably the focus of violent criticism from outside. The historian Olympiodorus attacked it for bribery and embezzlement. Anti-Germans deplored the large number of courtiers who were Germans. And the aristocracy felt implacable hostility against the influence of the ruler's personal chamberlains.

Many of these chamberlains were eunuchs, a class which had often been favoured by ancient monarchs because of its freedom from any sexual loyalties and hereditary ambitions that might weaken its fidelity to the throne. Under Theodosius I, the eunuchs were the people from whom promotion had to be purchased. But attacks against eunuch power were traditional; and under Valentinian in they reached their crescendo. The lofty eminence of these personages, and their influence over Emperors, deepened the rift between the court and the world. It was considered particularly scandalous when one such eunuch, Eutropius, became the chief adviser and general of Arcadius in the East. The poet Claudian lavished ferocious abuse on this development, declaring that not even a nation of barbarians would have tolerated a eunuch as consul and commander-in-chief.

The court was wherever the Emperors were. Until the death of Theodosius i, they still took the field in major wars and spent their lives travelling from one end of the Empire to the other. They often dwelt at Treveri (Trier) close to the German border, or at Sirmium not far from the Danubian front. When they were in Italy they did not usually live at Rome, which was insufficiently central to deal with urgent frontier needs, but established their headquarters at Mediolanum (Milan).

In 402, however, Honorius, while residing at that city, received a severe shock. For during Alaric's invasion of Italy in that year, the young Emperor was besieged for a while within its walls and came within measurable distance of capture by the barbarian enemy. He therefore decided, soon afterwards, to move the government of the Western Empire to Ravenna on the east coast of Italy. He selected Ravenna because it was practically inaccessible to invaders by land, being almost completely surrounded by stretches of water and marsh. On the other hand, it was beside the Adriatic (which has now receded a number of miles), so that communications could be kept open.

The advantages of Ravenna were purely strategic. There were no natural amenities, and not even any water that was drinkable. Although the Emperor Julius Nepos personified the place as a goddess on his coins, Sidonius declared that 'the movement of ships stirs up the filthy sediment in the canals, and the sluggish flow is fouled by the bargemen's poles, piercing the bottom slime'. Nevertheless, under the direction of Honorius' half-sister Placidia, a glittering capital was built, notable especially for the mosaic-filled interiors of its churches and mausoleums.

Many of the buildings we see today date from the period after the downfall of the Western Empire, when Germans and Byzantines ruled the city in turn. But there are also surviving constructions of great beauty which belong to the epoch of the last Western Emperors. One is a cruciform mausoleum, with its interior filled with blue mosaics, which was the burial place of either Placidia or her husband Constantius III. There is an octagonal edifice too, known as the Baptistry of the Orthodox, or sometimes described as the Baptistry of Neon owing to a tradition that it was decorated by an archbishop of that name in the middle of the fifth century; but it may be some decades earlier.

Wherever they were, Emperors tended to be cut off from the world by their scheming courts and elaborate pomp. At Constantinople, for example, in 400, Synesius upbraided its ruler for his pomp-encrusted remoteness. 'You hide in your apartments,' he declared, 'in case men should discover that you too are human!' And he went on to urge a clean break with the palace clique and all its stultifying ceremonials. His criticism applied even more strongly to Ravenna, where geography further encouraged the tendency to seclusion. The pagan historian Zosimus painted a vivid contrast between the rest of Italy, a defenceless prey to the Visigoths, and the court of Ravenna, which continued the pursuit of its rituals and intrigues as if it were playing some insubstantial, ghostly game.

Moreover, once Ravenna had become the capital, Western Emperors, with a few short-lived exceptions, never again went out and commanded the Roman army in wars. Honorius stayed behind in safe seclusion, and so did Valentinian in. The latter sometimes visited Rome, because he enjoyed its luxuries, and a few of his transient successors resided there for a time. But for the most part the rulers preferred to remain in the shadows of Ravenna, leading a sedentary life entirely separated from the hard realities of the waning Empire.

Their chief or only contact with the world came from their courtiers. The numerous speeches these men delivered in praise of their masters have left us many sickening examples of servility. Valentinian I, Valens and Gratian even found themselves compared with the Trinity. One of the worst offenders was the poet Ausonius, whose effusion in honour of Gratian's consulship presents the young Emperor's uninteresting personality in a ludicrously unrecognizable form.

. . . There is no place, I say, Most Gracious Emperor, but stamps my consciousness with the wondrous image of your most worshipful Majesty. Not the court, which was so formidable when you came to the throne, and which you have made so agreeable. Not the Forum and basilicas, which once re-echoed with legal business, but now with the taking of vows for your well-being - for under your rule who is there whose property is not secure? Not the Senate-house, now as happy in the business of passing resolutions in your honour as it was formerly gloomy and troubled with complaints. Not the public highways, where the sight of so many joyous faces suffers no one to be alone in showing delight.

Not the universal privacy of the home - the very bed, destined for our repose, is made more restful as we reflect upon your benefits: slumber, which blots out everything, nevertheless presents your picture to our gaze!

Another appalling flatterer is Claudian, who forecasts that the dim young sons of Theodosius I are going to equal the Scipios and Metelluses and Camilluses of old. His reiteration of the almost non-existent merits of the boy Honorius are painful indeed.

While kindness and severity, combined

With tranquil ease, pervade your lofty mind,

No terrors swiftly round you spread affright,

Nor novelties astonishment excite.

Your knowledge and capacity are clear;

In every word superior charms appear;

Your answers raise ambassadors' surprise;

And, wrapped in manners grave, youth hidden lies.

In every feature is your father seen:

Majestic ease conjoined with modest mien.

Now on you is a parent's helmet placed;

The lance your ancestors had often graced

At once so dexterously by you is thrown

The Romans fondly glow such powers to own.

What noble elegance in every air

Whene'er the shield, or armour gilt, you wear!

Such adulation overflowed all too easily into the business of the state. When the Code of Theodosius II was presented to his Senators in 438, they cried out in unison: 'Through you we hold our honours, our property, everything!' And they shouted it not once, but twenty-eight times. But that was nothing. Nine years earlier, when the edict ordering the Code had been read out in the Senate of Valentinian III at Rome, there were no less than three hundred and fifty-two repetitions of the cries acclaiming himself and his colleague. And at introspective Ravenna, the habitual obsequiousness around the bejewelled figures of the Emperors was more intensive still.

Yet at the same time, even at sequestered Ravenna, there did remain a persistent, uncomfortable, sometimes acute, awareness of the ruler's urgent need to make some impression upon the surrounding Roman world. And the government reached out to make contact with that world by the most readily available and traditional method - through the designs and inscriptions stamped on the coinage.

Ever since the beginning of the Roman Empire there had been an astonishing proliferation of official propaganda on these issues, which fulfilled the same purpose, from the viewpoint of official publicity, as modern newspapers, radio and television. A number of mints had been habitually used, but as the Empire finally dwindled the output was mainly from mints in Italy itself, especially Rome, Mediolanum (Milan) and Ravenna. The messages, however, that appear on the products of the different mints are at this epoch almost entirely uniform, proceeding from a single, universally valid directive which emanated from the Emperor's bureau itself, often in synchronized collusion with his Eastern colleague - at times when relations between the two capitals were good enough for this to be practicable.

These designs and inscriptions are fewer and less varied than those of earlier Roman times, so that at first sight they bear a somewhat stereotyped air. Yet the highly selective range of slogans and pictures upon which the government chose to concentrate, imprinting them on thousands and millions of coins that enjoyed an extensive circulation, is always revealing. For these, evidently, were the themes that the authorities had decided were most likely to gain support for their regime and for the defence of the Empire.

Every coin, just as hitherto, depicted on its obverse side the head of one of the Emperors themselves or of a prince or princess of his house. But in contrast with earlier epochs, these 'portraits', like the marble portrait-busts of the same rulers, lack all individuality, and have instead become generalized representations, not of a particular person any longer, but of a mighty symbolic monarchy. Often, too, the features are no longer in profile but frontal, like the blank and awe-inspiring faces on the Byzantine mosaics which were now inaugurating their long history.

The supreme priority of defence needs is reflected in an increasing number of coin-portraits of military type, displaying the ruler equipped with spear, shield, and gem-encrusted helmet. When these military emblems do not appear, the plain heads of an earlier tradition are very often replaced by busts adorned with the trappings of power-sceptre and orb, and the Imperial mantle heavily embroidered and studded with precious stones. Moreover, the laurel wreath of old Rome is replaced by a diadem of autocratic monarchy, intertwined with pearls and flowers. In the Imperial nomenclature on the coins, the venerable title 'Augustus' is retained, but the traditional Tmperator' has been replaced by 'Our Lord', and traditional epithets alluding to the Emperor's piety and blessedness have become almost invariable. The designation 'Perpetual' is also employed. It was a term that seemed somewhat ironical when Emperors were succeeding each other at the rate of almost one a year; but at least it was a reminder of the hoped-for eternity of their office.