CHAPTER 1
The Constantinian inheritance
The empire’s geopolitical context
In the mid-fourth century the Roman empire encompassed almost as much territory as it had during the second century – the period often regarded as the peak of Roman power.1 Although the mid-third century had been a turbulent period for the empire, not least on its frontiers, it had survived surprisingly well territorially, with only minimal losses of land: the most substantial of these had been that of the province of Dacia north of the lower Danube (modern Romania), with the other significant area being the region known as the Agri Decumates, the wedge of territory between the upper reaches of the Rhine and the Danube (the Black Forest region of modern Germany). The Mediterranean Sea remained a ‘Roman lake’ in the fourth century, and the empire continued to control virtually the same amount of land mass as it had for a number of centuries, with all that that implied for tax revenues in an age when government income derived overwhelmingly from agricultural production.
Nevertheless, the empire of the fourth century did find itself in significantly changed geopolitical circumstances from the empire of the second century. To the east, the Parthian Arsacid rulers had been replaced by the Sasanian Persians. A leading aristocratic family from Persis in southern Iran (modern Fars), the Sasanians had overthrown the Arsacids in the 220s and quickly proved themselves much more politically adept and militarily aggressive neighbours, so much so that by the fourth century they had staked a strong claim for Persia to be recognised as the Roman empire’s political and military equal – a claim which the Romans found themselves reluctantly having to concede.2 This was certainly a novelty compared with earlier centuries when the Roman empire had effectively been the sole ‘superpower’ of the Mediterranean and Near East.
Significant changes were also taking place along the empire’s northern frontiers. Where emperors of the first and second centuries had, for the most part, faced small, fragmented barbarian tribes rarely able to pose serious problems for the empire, emperors of the fourth century had to confront more significant military threats from this direction – the result, it seems, of the smaller groups of earlier centuries amalgamating into larger groupings, notably Franks on the lower Rhine, Alamanni in the former Agri Decumates, and Goths on the lower Danube.3 None of these tribal groupings constituted a military threat on the same scale as Sasanian Persia in the east, but significant incursions into Roman territory during the third century had created major problems for the empire, particularly if they happened to coincide with Persian aggression. So it was that the fourth-century empire found itself facing the possibility of major conflict on more than one frontier at the same time – an unfamiliar prospect prior to the third century.
Fortunately, the most economically valuable regions of the empire were far removed from these potential trouble spots. Egypt had always been the most productive part of the empire since its acquisition by Augustus in 30 BC. This may seem surprising given that 90 per cent of it comprised desert; however, this apparent handicap was more than offset by the extraordinary fertility of the Nile valley from which, during the first three centuries AD, the Roman authorities were able to extract sufficient surplus to supply about two-thirds of the grain needed by the population of the city of Rome (conventionally estimated to have been about one million inhabitants in this period) – though one of Constantine’s legacies was the redirecting of this surplus to his new foundation at Constantinople (pp. 71, 76 below). To the west, the provinces of north Africa (modern Tunisia and Algeria) were the most important region economically for the western Mediterranean – highly productive in both wheat and olive oil. Neither of these regions was obviously vulnerable to any military threat in the fourth century: their southern perimeters faced desert from which nomadic tribesmen sometimes made raids, but never on anything like a scale to jeopardise their underlying security.4
Government and army in the fourth century
The altered geopolitical circumstances of the empire had been of sufficient magnitude during the third century to bring about major changes in the political and military character of the empire. One of the most significant areas of change was the social profile of emperors. During the first two centuries AD, all emperors were of senatorial origin – that is, from the social elite of the empire. Over the course of the third century, however, strategic exigencies had increasingly demanded that men of proven military experience be in charge of the empire, with the result that emperors were increasingly drawn from those who had made a career in the army and therefore came from less elevated social backgrounds. In parallel with this, there developed a greater emphasis on court ceremonial and on the emperor as dominus (‘master’) rather than princeps (‘leading citizen’), perhaps reflecting increased concern on the part of these individuals to legitimate their position.5 Just as the empire’s strategic difficulties facilitated the emergence of these military emperors, so also there was an increase in the size of the army, even if the scale of that increase is difficult to determine.6 A larger army required more resources, and hence tighter administrative control over the provinces. This need prompted the reorganisation of the empire into a larger number of smaller provinces, which in turn entailed an increase in the number of administrative officials.
Many of the senior officials had unfamiliar titles, or familiar titles with novel responsibilities. The most obvious example of the latter was the office of praetorian prefect. During the early centuries AD, this post had originated in the command of the emperor’s bodyguard. Early in the fourth century, however, the office was stripped of its military role, and instead designated the most senior civilian posting, with responsibility for oversight of, on the one hand, justice, and on the other, taxation on agricultural produce (two tasks which many peasants must have felt were mutually incompatible). Taxation on agriculture was the main source of government revenues and was now paid in kind, to facilitate its primary purpose, namely feeding the army – hence the Latin phrase which referred to it, the annona militaris. Taxes in gold and silver were also levied on other sectors of the economy, and were overseen by a financial official bearing the new title of comes sacrarum largitionum (‘count of the sacred largesses’). Another financial official, the comes rei privatae (‘count of the privy purse’) was responsible for income from the very substantial imperial estates. The quaestor sacri palatii (‘quaestor of the sacred palace’) was the emperor’s chief legal adviser, while the magister officiorum (‘master of the offices’) was the senior official in charge of the central administration, who also oversaw maintenance of the imperial communications system – that is, the empire-wide network of roads and official way stations, horses and wagons; this official also increasingly came to play an important role in the conduct of diplomacy. The use of the epithet ‘sacred’ in some of these titles is another reflection of the more distant and overbearing conception of imperial power which had developed by the fourth century.7
The Roman army of the mid-fourth century also looked different from the army of the early centuries AD. Its senior commanders no longer combined military and civilian duties, as provincial governors had often done in the past; they now bore the title of magister (lit. ‘master’), and they were experienced career soldiers, in contrast with the senatorial commanders of earlier centuries whose military experience could be quite variable. The army itself now comprised many more smaller-sized units, divided into two broad categories: those troops assigned to the permanent field armies (comitatenses, because they had their origin in the troops which accompanied the emperor) commanded by a magister, and those troops stationed in frontier provinces (limitanei, derived from limes, the term for frontier provinces) under the command of a dux (lit. ‘leader’).8 Responsibility for the evolution of this structure has been much debated, but important elements of it undoubtedly owe much to Constantine.9 It has sometimes been seen as a response to the strategic problem of dealing with simultaneous threats on different frontiers.
Another important difference in the character of government by the fourth century was the emperor’s base of operations. The strategic crises of the third century had required emperors to exchange the comforts and safety of the city of Rome for a peripatetic life on the frontiers, and as emperors increasingly came from the ranks of the army rather than the senatorial elite, this change of focus proved less and less of a hardship. Emperors in the late third and early fourth century spent most of their time in centres near the northern or eastern frontiers – locations such as Trier, Milan, Sirmium and Antioch – and rarely visited Rome, except perhaps for important ceremonial occasions. As a result, what would once have been unthinkable began to come to pass – the city of Rome became largely peripheral to the central issues which emperors faced.
This highly significant development was advanced by the decision of the Emperor Constantine (306–37) to establish a new imperial centre in the eastern Mediterranean on the site of the ancient city of Byzantium, which lay at the communications crossroads between Europe and Asia, and the Black Sea and the Aegean. This new imperial centre, which he named Constantinople (‘the city of Constantine’), can be seen as having a number of purposes in Constantine’s reckoning. Its name served to memorialise its founder, as many cities had done previously (most famously, Alexandria), but it also fulfilled a strategic need in the sense that it provided a base with easier access than Rome to the two principal strategic concerns of fourth-century emperors – the eastern frontier with Persia, and the lower Danube. In the event, Constantinople did not function as a regular imperial base any more regularly than Rome until towards the end of the fourth century.
Religious trends
Given the increasing importance of Constantinople during late antiquity and its significance in the medieval world, Constantine’s decision to establish a new capital there was one of his most important legacies. It was not, however, the most important one, for that accolade must go to his decision in 312 to lend his support to the Christian church. Coming so soon after a period in which emperors had actively attacked Christianity, this dramatic volte face in official policy was, in the long term, to have consequences of enduring and fundamental significance for world history. Within the more immediate context of the early fourth century, it had the initial effect of creating a ‘level playing field’ between Christianity and other religious traditions in the Roman empire, particularly when viewed against the background of recent persecution of Christians. The playing field did not, however, remain level for very long. Even if, from a legal point of view, Constantine did not soon discriminate against pagan sacrifice – a question about which the state of the surviving evidence leaves scope for debate – he certainly began very quickly to give practical expression to his support for the church by channelling significant material resources in its direction which facilitated the construction of church buildings and the expansion of its charitable activities. Indeed it could be argued that, even without any practical support of this nature, the very fact of the emperor making it known that he favoured a particular religion automatically gave that religion an important advantage over its rivals and was likely to have an effect on the religious loyalties of inhabitants of the empire.
That Constantine’s conversion to Christianity did not necessarily spell the end for traditional pagan cults is demonstrated above all by the life and reign of his nephew Julian, who, having been brought up as a Christian, effectively read his way into understanding of and sympathy with pagan cults, secretly renounced Christianity in favour of paganism in the early 350s, and upon becoming emperor in 361, set about trying to undo the consequences of Constantine’s support for the church. More will be said about Julian towards the end of this chapter, but his life makes it clear that although many inhabitants of the empire may well have adopted Christianity in the wake of Constantine’s support for it, significant numbers remained dedicated devotees of traditional cults. These encompassed a huge diversity of beliefs and practices, ranging from state-sanctioned cults associated with well-known deities such as Jupiter and Mars, through those of eastern origin which had spread widely around the Mediterranean world such as those of Isis and Mithras, to those which were much more localised and parochial. Another important influence on paganism, at least among intellectuals (including Julian), was Neoplatonism, which viewed the plethora of pagan deities as manifestations of one overarching and all-encompassing being. This elite quasi-monotheism was matched at the popular level by widespread reverence for ‘the highest god’. In the midst of all this, the imperial cult continued to be acknowledged, even by the Christian Constantine and his sons, all of whom also continued to hold the ancient pagan office of pontifex maximus (‘chief priest’). These anomalies may reflect their concern not to alienate the still substantial numbers of non-Christians in the empire and/or their recognition that the imperial cult and the office of pontifex maximus were as much to do with politics and political loyalties as with religion.10
The contrast between a fissiparous and variegated paganism and a monolithic Christianity should not be drawn too starkly, since Christianity had its own divisions. This is hardly surprising in a religion which set great store on exclusivity and having a monopoly on truth, since disagreements about the details of that truth were bound to arise. In the early fourth century, the focus of much debate within the church, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean, concerned the nature of the Trinity, especially the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. An Alexandrian clergyman, Arius, took the view that God the Father must have created God the Son, implying that the Son was in some sense inferior to the Father. The philosophical rationality of this view met with considerable sympathy and support among many Christian leaders in the eastern Mediterranean, but also generated fierce arguments. Constantine attempted to resolve these by calling the first ecumenical (i.e., empire-wide) church council at Nicaea in 325 but the agreed formula which emerged, with its statement that Christ was ‘of the same substance’ (homoousios) as the Father, used terminology not found in scripture, and proved insufficient to resolve the issue definitively.
Indeed, during the decades after Constantine’s death in 337, opponents of the Nicene Homoousian formula found reason to disagree with one another as well, so that Arian opinion separated out into three broad positions. The most extreme were the Anomoians, who argued that Christ was inferior to the Father to the extent that he was unlike (anomoios) him. Of the other two positions, the one closest to the Homoousian view was that of the Homoiousians, who accepted that Christ had ‘a substance like’ – but, crucially, not the same as – the Father’s (homoiousios), while the third position – the Homoians – baulked at the word ‘substance’ (ousia) and argued that Christ was simply ‘like’ (homoios) the Father. Constantius II (337–61), who inherited the eastern half of the empire from Constantine, was sympathetic to Arian views and eventually aligned himself with the Homoian position, whereas Constans (337–50), who ruled the west from 340 to 350, gave his support to the Nicene Homoousian position.11
Although church leaders in the western Mediterranean were also largely supportive of the Nicene position (the Balkan region of Illyricum was the primary exception), they had to contend with their own internal problems, notably in north Africa where a rival church had emerged in the form of the Donatists. At issue was a matter of conduct, rather than theology. During the final persecution of the church in the early years of the fourth century, the imperial authorities had required church leaders to hand over any copies of the Christian scriptures which they possessed to their local authorities, a measure which was enforced with particular vigour in north Africa. Many refused to comply and sometimes suffered martyrdom as a result, but others co-operated. After the persecution ended, the question arose of what to do about these so-called traditores (‘handers-over’): some took the more generous view that, after due repentance, they could be readmitted to communion, but others, no doubt embittered by the memory of those who had perished as a result of refusing to comply, adopted a hard-line stance that such individuals could only be readmitted to communion if they underwent the more rigorous process of re-baptism. The latter were outraged that some bishops who had complied simply resumed their posts, and so they began selecting alternative, untainted bishops for these posts. One of the earliest was a man named Donatus, from whom this movement took its name. As with the Arian controversy, Constantine also tried to resolve this dispute through church councils, but failed to reach any sort of agreement which could be presented as a resolution, however tenuous. He then resorted to forcible suppression of Donatists, but when this too failed, he effectively gave up, as the Arian dispute increasingly monopolised his attention. By the mid-fourth century, the Donatists had developed a parallel church structure in north Africa, and had also spawned their own armed wing, the circumcelliones, who believed that there was nothing wrong about using violence against rival Catholic Christians.12
Also lurking on the periphery of the church in this period was an intriguing movement known as Manichaeism. As with Arianism and Donatism, its name also derives from an individual, but in this instance, an individual from outside the empire. Mani had lived in Persia during the mid-third century where he grew up as a member of a Judaising Christian sect which laid strong emphasis on baptism. He developed his own religious views which owed most to Gnostic thinking (a strand of quasi-Christian thought which taught that salvation was gained through special knowledge) and envisaged the world as involved in a dualistic struggle between good and evil, with the cause of good upheld by the ‘Elect’, supported by ‘Hearers’. The Elect sought to release particles of light into the world through adhering to an ascetic, vegetarian regime. Christ held an important place in the Manichaean worldview, but so too did Mani, his ‘yoke-fellow’. Mani’s teachings achieved considerable success during the later third century, spreading eastwards into China and westwards into the Roman empire; indicative of their continuing appeal was the decade-long adherence of the young and intellectually gifted Augustine (354–430), prior to his conversion to Christianity and subsequent career as an influential bishop.13
Another important religious group in the empire of the mid-fourth century with a much longer and respected history was the Jews, who, over the course of centuries, had become dispersed around the Mediterranean. After a tradition of toleration by the Roman authorities, even despite various rebellions in the first and second centuries, the advent of emperors supporting Christianity was bound to be a dangerous time for Judaism, given the way in which Christianity had, over the years, come to define itself in contradistinction to the group out of which it had originally emerged. Although Constantine and his sons did not take any significant discriminatory measures against Jews, his interest after his acquisition of the eastern half of the empire in 324 in encouraging the development of the Holy Land as a focus for Christian devotion and pilgrimage, through sponsoring the construction of churches at sites associated with Christ, certainly impinged on Jewish communities still resident in the area, as well as claiming the region symbolically for Christianity.14
One of Constantine’s most significant policies was his expanding the role and authority of bishops well beyond the ecclesiastical sphere by giving them legal authority in areas previously reserved for government officials, notably the power to manumit slaves and to hear legal cases, even about matters which had no connection with church affairs. Bishops certainly did not always welcome these additional responsibilities, but this was nevertheless one factor among a number which contributed to the increasingly high profile which bishops came to have beyond the parameters of church affairs, and which was to be one of the most important developments in the social history of the empire during late antiquity.15
Alongside the emerging importance of bishops in the early fourth century was another important development in Christianity which could be regarded as posing a potential challenge to the authority of bishops – the efflorescence of various modes of ascetic practice as alternative expressions of spirituality. There were of course well-established precedents for the basic principle of self-denial, not only within early Christianity, but also in pagan and Jewish contexts;16 what was different in the fourth century, however, was first, the novelty of some of the forms which ascetic practice took, and secondly, the scale of the phenomenon. The most famous individual Christian ascetic in the fourth century was Antony of Egypt, whose eremetic expression of ascetic endeavour – that is, withdrawing alone into the desert to battle demons and achieve union with God – was popularised through a biography written by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius wrote a life of Antony not only because of admiration for the man, but also as a way of ‘domesticating’ his influence and harnessing that influence in the interests of Nicene Christianity. A second major figure in the ascetic landscape was another Egyptian, Pachomius, who is credited with pioneering communal asceticism in the Nile valley. By the time of his death in the mid-fourth century there were reported to be seven Pachomian monasteries with about 7,000 inhabitants. Athanasius tried to domesticate Pachomius too, by having him ordained as a clergyman, but Pachomius resisted. Nevertheless, this form of asceticism was to have very wide-ranging and far-reaching influence beyond Egypt, serving as the inspiration for developments which led ultimately to the medieval monastery.17
Cultural horizons
‘Culture’ can refer to a diverse range of phenomena, depending on context. In respect of the Roman world of the mid-fourth century, it might refer to ‘high culture’, in the sense of literary works in Greek and Latin accessible only to those with the education (paideia) to appreciate the skill entailed; it might also refer to ‘popular culture’ in the sense of forms of popular entertainment which nonetheless drew upon the traditions of classical literature; and it might refer to cultural expressions unrelated to classical literature, but drawing instead on different indigenous traditions and languages.
Since access to ‘high culture’ depended on education, and education in the Roman world depended on wealth, high culture was necessarily the almost exclusive preserve of the elite and the very badge of their superiority. For those with the means to pursue a traditional education, this continued to involve mastering the archetypal exemplars of classical literary achievement, above all epic poetry – Homer in Greek, Virgil in Latin. But of course such education ranged more widely into other forms of poetry, prose writing and philosophical discourse. Some idea of the influence of classical models can be observed in historical writing, the most important instance of which from the fourth century is that of the historian Ammianus Marcellinus. Generally regarded as the last great Roman historian to have written in Latin, intriguingly he came from a Greek background, probably from Antioch. Although the first half of his history has not survived, it seems that he began it at the point where Tacitus concluded his Histories, with the start of the reign of the Emperor Nerva in 96, thereby implying a claim to be Tacitus’ successor. His style is also regarded as owing a considerable debt to the important Republican historian Sallust, and the surviving second half of Ammianus’ history contains innumerable allusions to classical literature.18
Ammianus was pagan in his religious sympathies and the structure and focus of his history strongly suggest that it was inspired by his admiration for the Emperor Julian, to whom a disproportionate amount of his history is devoted and with an overwhelmingly approving attitude.19 However, Christian authors in this period were also often well educated and well versed in classical literature. A good example is provided by the rhetorician Lactantius from north Africa, who became tutor to Constantine’s son Crispus in the early fourth century. Although best known for his polemical tract about the fates of the emperors who had been presumptuous enough to persecute the church (De mortibus persecutorum [‘On the deaths of the persecutors’]), he wrote a much more substantial and thoughtful treatise entitled the Divine Institutes which presented a reasoned case for the claims of Christianity, but did so by deploying the full panoply of classical learning in a way which has permitted the reconstruction of the library of classical works on which Lactantius drew.20
Lactanius’ career highlights the continuing importance of oratory in classical paideia. Training in rhetoric was viewed as an important avenue of advancement for ambitious young men, whether in the legal field or in the imperial administration. So it was that a skilled rhetorician like Libanius found himself teaching a steady stream of young men from the wealthier families of Antioch and Syria. Although he bemoaned the fact that many of them then went on to work in the imperial bureaucracy, his voluminous correspondence shows that he also liked to maintain contact with them and exploit the influence which they might be able to exercise on his behalf in Constantinople and elsewhere, reflecting the continuing importance of ties of patronage in the late Roman world.21 Training in Roman law also continued to be an important avenue for success in the wider imperial world, with renowned schools in Rome, Beirut and, in due course, Constantinople.22
Access to education was of course limited to a relatively small proportion of the empire’s population. However, this did not prevent others, especially urban inhabitants, from enjoying popular entertainments which had their roots in classical culture but which were delivered through oral and visual media, above all in the theatre. The principal forms these took in the fourth century were pantomime, in which a skilled dancer depicted a story based on mythological themes to the accompaniment of music and singing, and mime, in which performers acted out comic scenarios, some of which drew on traditional comedy. Neither medium lent itself to preservation in the form of scripts, not least because the educated elite often adopted a disdainful attitude towards such forms of entertainment. However, a fair idea of their content can be derived from criticism of them by Christian writers concerned about inappropriate subject matter, whether references to pagan deities or dubious sexual morality, as well as from the occasional individual who wrote a defence of them as being based on reputable literary traditions.23
As for non-classical cultural traditions, although numerous indigenous languages clearly remained in use in the Roman world, the majority have not left any literature from the late Roman period (e.g., Punic in north Africa), which is why the most significant instances of this phenomenon relate to Syria and Egypt. In Syria, the Semitic language of Aramaic developed one of its regional dialects – Syriac – to a state where it became the medium for an increasingly significant literature. The impetus of Christianity in this was important, as was also the case in Egypt where the written version of indigenous Egyptian known as Coptic gradually superseded the previous common script known as Demotic, not least because it employed more easily comprehensible characters, most of them based on Greek letters. It is all too easy to think of the Roman empire as being a two-language world – Latin and Greek – so it is worth remembering that alternative cultural traditions also existed – and thrived.24
Julian’s legacy
In sketching the state of the Roman world in the mid-fourth century, much of this chapter has inevitably focused on aspects which betray the imprint of the Emperor Constantine. However, for understanding the more specific circumstances of the decades after 363, it is also important to rehearse some of the salient aspects of the life and reign of the Emperor Julian (361–3), who, despite the brevity of his reign, nevertheless left a major mark above all because of the way he went against the prevailing religious trends of his day. Although he took considerable care to avoid creating martyrs among the Christians of the empire, his attempts to undo Constantine’s support for the church, and the deaths of Christians which resulted from the over-enthusiasm of some pagan supporters, could not fail to leave a legacy of bitterness among Christians towards Julian’s memory. His notorious ban on Christians being teachers of classical literature also prompted great resentment among educated Christians. A central question for the post-Julianic period was how strongly emperors and/or church leaders would react against Julian’s policies.
Another important aspect of Julian’s legacy lay in the field of foreign relations. A range of possible objectives underlying Julian’s Persian expedition in 363 has been canvassed: perhaps replacing the Persian king Shapur II with another pro-Roman Persian prince, Hormizd, who had been living as an exile in the Roman empire for some decades and who participated in the expedition; perhaps redressing the balance between the empire and Persia in favour of the empire after a period in which Persia had been more dominant; or perhaps the desire of Julian, like many before him, to emulate Alexander the Great. Whatever the objectives, however, the actual outcome of the expedition – Julian’s death in battle and his army left stranded in Persian territory – had rather different consequences. The Persians were able to dictate terms in return for the safe withdrawal of the army. Although territorial losses were not perhaps as substantial as might have been expected, given that a decade or so previously Shapur had proclaimed his intention of recovering the lands once controlled by the Achaemenid Persians in the fifth century BC (i.e., all of Syria and Anatolia), they were nevertheless humiliating enough for the Romans since they entailed the surrender not only of the eastern half of northern Mesopotamia and territory beyond the Tigris (acquired by Diocletian at the end of the third century), but also of the fortress of Nisibis, which had withstood three concerted attempts by the Persians to capture it between 337 and 350. So Julian’s expedition resulted in the loss of the linchpin of Roman defences in northern Mesopotamia, and created the prospect of further difficulties on that frontier in the future. Moreover, the death of the emperor on campaign was bound to raise questions about the wisdom of the emperor’s leading the army in person and exposing himself to danger in this way. Although personal military leadership allowed the emperor to claim military glory for himself directly and maintain closer relations with his troops, the negative consequences of death on campaign might be thought to outweigh these, particularly when, as in the case of Julian, the lack of an obvious and clearly designated heir meant that his death precipitated a succession crisis – a crisis exacerbated by the fact that it occurred on foreign soil.
But Julian’s Persian plans were also linked to affairs on another frontier, the lower Danube. In 362, Julian’s advisers had urged him to act against the Gothic tribes which had established themselves in that region during the late third and early fourth century. Julian had ensured that the troops stationed in those parts were well supported and supplied, but he had declined to undertake an expedition against the Goths, reportedly dismissing them as fit prey for slave traders, whereas he sought ‘a better enemy’, by which he must have meant the Persians (Amm. Marc. 22.7.7–8). In other words, Julian’s preoccupation with Persia resulted in a degree of neglect of the Danube frontier which, in hindsight, could be seen to have unfortunate consequences for the empire. Of course, it is unclear how serious a threat the Goths were at this stage, but they had certainly proved themselves to be a problem in the mid-third century and the early fourth century during Constantine’s reign, and so perhaps Julian’s advisers were wise to suggest he should give focused attention there rather than Persia.
The Roman world of the mid-fourth century was one, then, which still owed an enormous debt to developments of the more distant past, and where, particularly in the area of cultural horizons, classical traditions continued to exercise a strong influence. However, more recent developments had also effected significant changes, and it was Constantine who was the most important influence in this respect. It was he who had engineered some of the most noteworthy aspects of the reorganisation of the administrative and military infrastructure of the empire; it was he who was responsible for the establishment of Constantinople as the new imperial base in the eastern Mediterranean; and it was he who, through lending his political authority and material support to the Christian church, set in train even more momentous changes to the religious complexion of the Mediterranean world. The Roman world of the mid-fourth century was, then, one in the process of adjusting to some very significant changes. More immediately, the Emperor Julian had tried, ultimately unsuccessfully, to undo some of these changes, most notably the growing power of the church. His efforts left a legacy of religious turmoil and bitterness, while his military aspirations had resulted in a significant defeat for the empire and bequeathed an uncertain future with regard to the imperial succession. In the summer of 363, therefore, the Roman empire was in a state of instability in a variety of respects. How would Julian’s successors respond to the challenges which they inherited?
1. Cf. Gibbon’s famous description of the ‘prosperous condition’ of the empire between the reigns of Nerva and Marcus Aurelius in the early chapters of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88). For good accounts of the empire’s history during the first half of the fourth century, see (in addition to the relevant sections of the general histories noted on p. 312 below) D. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395, London: Routledge, 2004, chs 8–13, and J. Harries, Imperial Rome AD 284 to 363: The New Empire, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
2. Cf. the language of diplomacy (emperor and shah as ‘brothers’ by the 350s: Amm. Marc. 17.5.3, 10), as well as other aspects of diplomatic practice (e.g., the role of hostages and conventions of treaty-making). For a comparison of their economic and military resources, see J. Howard-Johnston, ‘The two great powers in late antiquity: a comparison’ in Averil Cameron (ed.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, Princeton: Darwin Press, 1995, 157–222; for mutual cultural influence, M. C. Canepa, The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of King-ship between Rome and Sasanian Iran, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
3. For the Franks, see E. James, The Franks, Oxford: Blackwell, 1988; for the Goths, P. J. Heather, The Goths, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, and M. Kuliskowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars from the Third Century to Alaric, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007; and for the Alamanni, J. F. Drinkwater, The Alamanni and Rome, 213–496, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 (who is, however, sceptical about the scale of the threat they posed).
4. R. S. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, Princeton: Princeton University Press; D. J. Mattingly and R. B. Hitchner, ‘Roman Africa: an archaeological review’, JRS 85 (1995), 165–213.
5. P. Garnsey and C. Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World, Cambridge: Orchard Press, 2001, 25–33.
6. For an overview of the evidence and arguments, see A. D. Lee, War in Late Antiquity: A Social History, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007, 74–8.
7. For a magisterial description of late Roman government and bureaucracy, see Jones, LRE, chs 11–14, 16, and for a lively interpretative essay, C. Kelly, Ruling the Later Roman Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
8. B. Isaac, ‘The meaning of the terms limes and limitanei’, JRS 78 (1988), 125–47.
9. For the character and evolution of the army, see Jones, LRE, ch. 17, M. J. Nicasie, Twilight of Empire: The Roman Army from the Reign of Diocletian until the Battle of Adrianople, Amsterdam: Gieben, 1998, A.D. Lee, ‘The army’ in CAH2 13.211–37, and M. Whitby, ‘Emperors and armies, AD 235–395’ in S. Swain and M. Edwards (eds), Approaching Late Antiquity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 156–86.
10. For further details and references, see A. D. Lee, ‘Traditional religions’ in N. Lenski (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 159–79, and on pagan monotheism, S. Mitchell and P. van Nuffelen (eds), One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
11. L. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, chs 4–6 and Epilogue.
12. See W. H. C. Frend, The Donatist Church, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952; B. D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
13. S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China, 2nd edn, Tübingen: Mohr, 1992; N. Baker-Brian, Manichaeism, London: Continuum, 2011; P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, London: Faber, 1967, ch. 5.
14. F. Millar, ‘The Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora between paganism and Christianity, AD 312–438’, in J. Lieu et al. (eds), The Jews among Pagans and Christians, London: Routledge, 1992, 97–123; G. Stemberger, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the Fourth Century (tr. R. Tuschling), Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.
15. P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, ch. 3; J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, The Decline and Fall of the Roman City, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, ch. 4; C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
16. G. Clark, Christianity and Roman Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, ch. 4; R. Finn, Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, chs 1–3.
17. D. Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998; P. Rousseau, Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. For counter-currents to the popularity of asceticism in the later fourth century, see D. G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
18. See G. Kelly, Ammianus Marcellinus, the Allusive Historian, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
19. J. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus, London: Duckworth, 1989; Kelly, Ammianus.
20. R. Ogilvie, The Library of Lactantius, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978; A. Bowen and P. Garnsey, Lactantius: Divine Institutes, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003.
21. R. Cribiore, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
22. D. Liebs, ‘Roman law’, in CAH2 14.238–59, at 253–5.
23. T. D. Barnes, ‘Christians and the theater’ in W. J. Slater (ed.), Roman Theater and Society, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996, 161–80; R. Webb, Demons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
24. Punic: P. Brown, ‘Christianity and local culture in late Roman Africa’, JRS 58 (1968), 85–95; Syriac: S. Brock, ‘Syriac culture, 337–425’ in CAH2 13. ch. 23a; Coptic: M. Smith, ‘Coptic literature, 337–425’ in CAH2 13. ch. 23b, S. Emmel, ‘Coptic literature in the Byzantine and early Islamic world’ in R. S. Bagnall (ed.), Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300–700, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 83–102.