A. D. Lee

Government and administration

The late Roman period saw the development, for the first time in the Roman world, of complex bureaucratic structures which permitted emperors, who had now abandoned the campaigning or peripatetic style of most of their predecessors during the first four centuries of imperial history, to retain their authority. The emperor and his court with its glittering ceremonies in Constantinople was the focus for the eastern empire, and from there issued the laws which announced imperial wishes. The armies, though no longer directly commanded by emperors, strove to preserve the frontiers and maintain law and order inside them. But the smooth functioning of this system required administrative structures which had to become more complex and intrusive as the curial elites in individual cities, who had traditionally performed many vital tasks in the areas of revenue generation, dissemination of imperial wishes and preservation of local order, slowly declined in authority or surrendered control of some of these duties; here was a cyclical process, with administrative developments responding to, but also encouraging, a weakening of the curial class. The impact of administration is reflected in a story from the Life of Theodore of Sykeon: devils being exorcized cried out: ‘Oh violence! Why have you come here, you iron-eater, why have you quitted Galatia and come into Gordiane? There was no need for you to cross the frontier. We know you have come, but we shall not obey you as did the demons of Galatia, for we are much tougher than they, and not milder’.

Information and Frontiers: Roman Foreign Relations in Late Antiquity

Preface Chronological list of selected Roman emperors (early third to early seventh century) Chronolocial list of Sasanian kings (2205-628) Maps List of abbreviations Introduction Part I. Contexts: 1. The protagonists 2. At the interface: the frontier regions Part II. Information and Uncertainty: 3. Background knowledge and assumptions 4. Strategic intelligence Part III. Sources of Information: 5. Diffusion of information 6. Information-gathering Select bibliography Index of sources General index.

Treaty-making in Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity – broadly defined here as the third to the early seventh century ad – is a period which offers a geopolitical scenario full of intriguing dynamics and possibilities in relation to diplomacy and foreign relations. In contrast to the early Roman Empire of the first two centuries ad , the late Roman Empire was no longer a great power without serious rivals. To the east there was now another major state of substance in the form of Persia, ruled by the centralising and ambitious Sasanian dynasty, while to the north the fragmented Germanic tribes of earlier centuries had coalesced into larger units capable of presenting the empire with more serious challenges. In these changed circumstances, warfare assumed renewed importance in protecting the empires interests, but so too did diplomacy, a subject about which much relevant source material has survived from these centuries. There are a number of major historians whose narratives include substantial focus on war and peace, notably Ammianus Marcellinus for the third quarter of the fourth century and Procopius for the first half of the sixth. There are also a number of other historians whose work survives only in the form of excerpts. These are more valuable than one might otherwise suspect, because many of these excerpts are preserved as a result of their inclusion in handbooks produced by a later Byzantine emperor (Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–59)) for the purpose of providing his son with guidance on the conduct of foreign affairs – so their content is helpfully skewed in favour of diplomacy.

The eastern empire: Theodosius to Anastasius

When he assumed sole rulership of the eastern half of the Roman empire in 408, Theodosius II became head of a state which during the short reign of his father Arcadius (395–408) had experienced an extraordinary array of crises. Gothic troops in Roman employ had risen in revolt under the leadership of Alaric in 395 and spent much time during the following years freely plundering the Balkan provinces until Alaric eventually decided to move westwards (401). Also in 395, nomadic Huns had invaded the empire through the Caucasus, bringing widespread destruction to Syria and eastern Asia Minor until 397. Another Goth named Gainas, who held a command in the Roman army, instigated a revolt which was only suppressed in 400 with much bloodshed in and around Constantinople. Within a few years there was further turmoil in the capital over the bitterly contested deposition and exile of the bishop John Chrysostom (403–4), while eastern Asia Minor suffered a prolonged bout of raiding by Isaurian brigands (403–6). In addition to all this, relations with the western half of the empire throughout Arcadius’ reign were characterized by antagonism and mutual suspicion, the result of the ambitions and rivalries of dominant individuals, such as Eutropius and Stilicho, at the courts of Arcadius in Constantinople and his younger brother Honorius in the west.