Читать книгу Why Rome Fell - Michael Arnheim - Страница 8

Only a handful of Roman emperors are household names, and, of those, two, Augustus and Constantine, are pre-eminent but for very different reasons. Augustus established a form of government that would last for nigh on three centuries, and become a byword for stability, justice, and peace.

Constantine cast a long shadow by embracing Christianity and by establishing a new capital in Constantinople. Less well known, but long-lasting nevertheless, were his administrative and military reforms, including in particular his appointment to high civil (but not military) office in the West members of the senatorial aristocracy, who had been virtually excluded from any appointments under Diocletian.

A comparative thematic view will clarify the issues to be tackled in this study:

 Monarchy: From Augustus’s victory over Antony in 31 BCE, Rome was a monarchy: First, the so-called Principate, which lasted until 284 then the “Dominate” under Diocletian and early Constantine until 312 in the empire as a whole and perpetuated in the East, or Byzantine Empire, until 1453, and, in the West, the new Constantinian model of monarchy, from around 312 until the fall of the western empire, conventionally dated to 476, and beyond, in the “barbarian” successor states in the West.

 Power structure: There is a natural antipathy between monarchy and aristocracy or oligarchy. Strong monarchy ideally needs support from the lower classes against the aristocracy, which, however, should not be unduly antagonized.This was well understood by Augustus, who cultivated the support of the Roman plebs urbana, which he had inherited from his adoptive father Julius Caesar, together with that of the army, and the equites (the second class in the state), while conciliating the senatorial aristocracy by allowing them to retain the bulk of provincial governorships.The power of the emperor in the Dominate, as established by Diocletian, depended largely on the army and, also to some extent, on eunuch chamberlains. As perpetuated in Byzantium, the emperor came to be dependent on eunuch chamberlains and on the Church, with which he had a symbiotic relationship (sometimes inaccurately characterized as caesaropapism).The model of government introduced by Constantine in the West had strict separation between civil and military officials. As far as the army was concerned, the emperor came to depend increasingly on “barbarian” military officials. On the civil side, members of the senatorial aristocracy exercised renewed influence through imperial appointments right up to the level of praetorian prefect—albeit mostly only for intermittent short periods—which, however, enabled them to combine office, landholding, and wealth in the same areas, and, to some extent, develop into a centrifugal force. The enhanced position of the aristocracy did not, however, rise to the level of power-sharing with the emperor (and later “barbarian” kings), let alone a hybrid power structure or oligarchy of any kind.

 Social Mobility: From the early Principate onward, the emperor elevated “new men,” first from around Italy, and then from the provinces, to senatorial status. In the late third century this stopped, and emperors started appointing equestrians directly to governorships without bothering to make them senators first. This culminated under Diocletian, when the senatorial career became a cul-de-sac. This was reversed by Constantine, who not only appointed men of senatorial birth to office again, but also made a number of previously equestrian posts carry automatic senatorial status. But contrary to a common impression, this did not actually create “fusion,” the creation of a “service aristocracy,” or an “aristocracy of office” in the West, though it did have this effect in the East. The difference was that the West already had a traditional hereditary senatorial aristocracy, which the East lacked. A high proportion of men appointed to senatorial posts in the West were of noble origin already, and in any case, they formed a proud caste, which in the fifth century added influential bishoprics (especially in Gaul) to their existing clutch of office, land, and wealth.

 Aristocratic Ethos: Stratified or hierarchical societies, which have always been the norm in most periods, have given rise to a general sense that people are unequal, and that birth and pedigrees matter. Four hundred and fifty years of aristocratic rule under the Roman Republic inculcated this aristocratic ethos into the very marrow of society, and it was not dispelled by the monarchical regime that followed it, down to the Middle Ages, and even into the West of today with its supposedly egalitarian ethos.