While Galla Placidia was living with the Goths, Roman power over the western provinces disintegrated still further. From 383 onwards the most northern province of the empire, marked by the border at Hadrian’s Wall, gradually slipped beyond imperial control, and in 410, while the Goths were besieging Rome, Honorius responded to appeals for military assistance with a letter advising the cities of Britain that they must take care of their own defences. Although this may have been considered a temporary measure at the time, it proved to be permanent. Britain was abandoned to its indigenous inhabitants and the numerous hostile forces that raided and, later, settled in it. The emperor’s letter was a clear sign that the old Roman world was shrinking back into its heartland of Italy even as it was expanding in a new eastern centre in Constantinople.
The Gothic attack on Rome in 410 confirmed that the city’s overly long walls were impossible to defend without a much larger military garrison. It was also too dependent on its port at Ostia to survive a long siege. In contrast, Ravenna was clearly more secure and defendable, and as non-Roman militias continued to break through imperial defences, Honorius’ decision to move from Milan to Ravenna seemed vindicated. The emperor therefore began to enhance his new capital and court with suitably impressive buildings. Although few literary sources mention this activity, archaeological evidence suggests that he resided in a large suburban villa dating back to the first century ad, which lay to the south-east of the present church of S. Apollinare Nuovo, beyond the original city walls. It was centred on a large peristyle courtyard with reception and living rooms on the north and south sides, enlarged in the early fifth century by an apsed dining room. The discovery of floor mosaics with circus scenes, including a victorious charioteer of the Green faction, suggests appropriate decoration.1 The factions, Green, Blue, White and Red, organized chariot racing and other public entertainments in the circus of Ravenna modelled on Rome and other imperial capitals like Thessalonike. Although no trace of such a large structure has so far been found, a site close to the palace has been identified and mosaics of Hippodrome scenes reflect the pervasive love of such traditional sports. Later, Valentinian III celebrated New Year with games and chariot races in the circus at Ravenna, and in the middle of the seventh century the head of a rebel was displayed there. Honorius enhanced his palace with earlier Roman sculptures and statues of himself. A massive porphyry statue (now headless) might be one of these.2
New bridges over the many canals and tributaries of the Po that flowed around, through and under the city of Ravenna, as well as new fortifications around the harbour at Classis, are impossible to date precisely, but it seems quite reasonable to associate them with the arrival of the imperial court from Milan. An extensive new ring of stout brick fortifications, consolidated with re-used marble and other classical remains (spolia), was constructed to incorporate the new government buildings, villas for the courtiers, military garrison and public monuments within the city area. There is no consensus about their date, but if Honorius did not order their construction, the city presumably had adequate defences that were later expanded by Valentinian III. Honorius’ building activity may have involved the adaptation and plundering of older buildings as much as new construction to accommodate his court and administrative offices.3
One of the key institutions associated with this immediate activity is the imperial mint, recorded in 402, the year of the court’s move to Ravenna. Because the control of precious metals was always of major importance to rulers, mints were often situated within imperial residences. The first gold coins, solidi, issued in Honorius’ name at Ravenna were probably struck in a building recently excavated, the Moneta aurea (for gold coinage), which seems to have been very close to, if not part of, Honorius’ palace.4 There was also another mint where bronze coins for everyday use were produced. A related monument was the Miliarium aureum, the golden milestone that was probably erected in the Forum of Ravenna, to mark the spot from which all distances should be measured. Rome provided the model for this central marker in the Forum at the very heart of the old capital, which was copied in Constantinople and now in Ravenna.
Much of the information about this most important period in Ravenna’s growth was recorded four hundred years later, by a ninth-century local cleric named Agnellus. He is the first historian of Ravenna, a proud native of the city, assiduous in his efforts to recount the lives of all its bishops. His record of forty-six church leaders, from the mythical founder St Apollinaris to Archbishop George, Agnellus’ own contemporary, is based on the similar one for all the bishops of Rome (the Liber pontificalis, Book of the Pontiffs), and is paralleled in other comparable lists.5 It includes much curious detail derived from local witnesses, as well as inherited wisdom, often invented and entirely unreliable. Despite this, Agnellus was clearly determined to find out about the bishops of Ravenna, tracing their history from buildings, tombs, inscriptions, mosaic decoration and liturgical objects, such as altar coverings, that he had seen. His particular care in copying verses inscribed on buildings that no longer exist preserved many striking accounts of what individual bishops intended to achieve through their patronage. These antiquarian interests also led him to include many amusing anecdotes and stories that he learned from older citizens, probably enhanced by oral transmission and elaborated at every re-telling. Nonetheless, Agnellus is a consummate local historian and without his Book of the Pontiffs of Ravenna the history of the city would be very bald.
For the lives of the early bishops of Ravenna Agnellus found very little secure information and resorted to inventing suitably uplifting stories and short sermons attributed to these holy leaders or designed to characterize their activity. Since their dates are not documented, working out the order in which they held the see has provoked much debate. Wherever he found the tomb of a bishop, however, Agnellus recorded where it was and, in this way, associated church leaders with particular buildings, such as the church of St Probus in Classis, where many of the earliest bishops were buried.6 He identified some in monasteries, preserving valuable information about the growth of such shrines, chapels or actual monastic communities in or near Ravenna, such as Bishop Liberius, ‘the third of that name’, who was buried in the chapel of St Pulio that he founded, ‘not far from the Porta Novara’, or Florentius, the fourteenth bishop, buried in another dedicated to St Petronilla, ‘clinging to the walls of the church of the Holy Apostles’.7 From the time of Bishop Ursus, however, Agnellus recorded much more detail, probably because Ravenna underwent such a major transformation in the early fifth century. And by the second half of the eighth century, when Agnellus was growing up in the city, he writes from first-hand experience.
Agnellus’ Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis draws on what must have been one of the most useful records of local events, the Annals of Ravenna, a year-by-year account of the most important events in the city, written in the fifth century but now lost. It followed the format shared with other city chronicles, which served as a form of calendar based on the names of the two Roman consuls appointed for each year on the first day of January. The tragedy for historians of Ravenna is that only half a page of the unique manuscript of the Annals, with its tiny images, survives in the archive of the cathedral of Merseburg (Plates 17 and 18).8 What would have been a vital record of life in Ravenna and one of the rare illustrated annalistic chronicles of the late Roman empire has been consumed by time. From this fragment, however, we can extract useful entries for particular years and drawings that document events such as earthquakes. It is a reminder of the many texts, such as the Histories written by Archbishop Maximian, that have been lost.
This lack of contemporary historical records is partially relieved by a series of documents written on papyrus, which formed the city’s basic writing material and continued to be imported from Egypt well into the eighth century. The surviving papyri, some in the archiepiscopal palace of Ravenna, others scattered in many European museums, reflect the activities of traditional Roman municipal government through regular meetings, at which legal documents were witnessed and registered in the city’s archive (gesta municipalia). From the earliest one preserved, dated 433, through to the late sixth century they record the participation of several local families who served on the city council, which maintained some basic legal functions. Every year the council elected its own officials who then presided over its meetings. The repetition of family names among these quinquinealis, decemviri, praesidii, etc. reflects the domination of a local elite, trained to manage the city’s finances, from taxation to purchase of grain and other basic foodstuffs. We can thus glimpse the families who had probably participated in local government for decades if not centuries. Names like Melminius and Pompulius recur as sons and grandsons fulfilled the same inherited roles, while fascinating information derives from the lists of less prominent members who witnessed the decisions recorded by municipal scribes. Funerary inscriptions also provide names of individual citizens and sometimes their professions, for instance, the tribute by Aurelia Domitia to her incomparable husband, or the tiny sarcophagus prepared by her parents for Licinia Valeria who lived only one year, six months and six days.9
Similar records on papyrus were kept in all major Italian cities but not many survive. In Rome, almost none; in Naples, a few. Those from Ravenna preserve a wide range of local issues. Because legal formulas had to be employed, the working methods are clear and individuals with specific tasks can be identified. Part of the 433 record has been reconstructed from six tiny fragments of papyrus later re-used in a book binding. It concerns a dispute between two individuals (the younger one named Lagalianus) and a church (not named), which is represented by a notary (notarius), Contius. The two men had appealed to the emperors, Theodosius II and Valentinian III, and received a rescript (order) that imposed the payment of a fixed sum. Contius assisted at the court hearing when the rescript was read aloud and Lagalianus’ father-in-law agreed to pay the fine. The rescript was entered in the official court record (gesta municipalia). The older man also signed a cautio (promise to pay) and swore under oath that he would do so within the time limit, and then the cautio was also entered in the gesta.10 Such a procedure guaranteed the legality of decisions taken.
For centuries, free-born men of all major cities within the Roman empire who owned a certain amount of property had been obliged to serve on the local council, which ran the city. Each council was expected to enrol one hundred members whose chief task was to collect taxes, and the city’s autonomy was guaranteed only so long as the necessary sum was raised to finance local defence, provision of food, maintenance of facilities, security and festivities. The system had functioned effectively while prominent families competed to be on the council, but as the cost of curial duty rose, men who qualified were less prepared to serve. Ever since Constantine I declared that Christian clergy would be exempt from this service, many of curial status had been ordained in order to escape their responsibilities. Others tried to claim a similar exemption after fifteen years’ service in the imperial administration, a privilege rescinded in 436 when Valentinian III set the qualifying level at an annual salary of 300 solidi, which was the equivalent of owning about 150 jugera of land. Yet repeated laws against the ordination of members of professional colleges, and skilled craftsmen who had fled to the country and married rural women, indicate that many were still trying to avoid curial responsibilities. In 458 these rural curiales were again ordered to return to their cities.11
Cities therefore often failed to maintain the normal figure of one hundred councillors. Many fourth- and fifth-century writers record the difficulty of finding enough local men with property, and of free birth, to qualify for duty. In Ravenna this may already have been the case before 402 when the arrival of the imperial court from Milan demoted the status of councillors. The curia was subordinated to imperial administration, although it continued to perform certain everyday tasks, registering trade agreements, transfers of property and, above all, wills by which local citizens disposed of their goods, especially gifts to the church of Ravenna.12
Although Agnellus knew quite a lot about Emperor Honorius, he records nothing about the arrival of the court that might clarify the situation of the church of Ravenna in 402. It appears, however, that Ursus was bishop in 402, because when he died (on 13 April, Easter Sunday, probably in 426) he is said to have held the office for twenty-six years and some months and days (numbers not preserved). Agnellus often found the length of each bishop’s episcopate inscribed on his tomb, though in the case of Ursus he had not seen it in person. ‘Some assert’, he says, that Ursus was buried in the major church of the city dedicated to the Anastasis (Resurrection), founded by him and called the Ursiana after him. He also notes that Ursus’ successor, Peter, held the bishopric when ‘the empress Galla Placidia offered many gifts to the church of Ravenna’ (which indicates a date of c. 426–50).13
As the cathedral church of Ravenna was constantly embellished and (eventually) destroyed, Agnellus’ early ninth-century description of it is the only record of its decoration at that date. From personal observation of the cathedral, he describes the rows of columns on the north and south sides of the church, indicating that the original building was a typical early Christian basilica. The walls were covered by most precious stones (probably coloured marbles), and the vault with multicoloured mosaics. He also records the names of individuals involved:
Euserius and Paul decorated one wall surface, on the north side, next to the altar of St Anastasia, which Agatho made . . . Satius and Stephen decorated the other wall on the south side . . . and they carved (inciserunt) in stucco different allegorical images of men and animals and quadrupeds, and they arranged them with greatest skill.14
So here some of the patrons who paid for the original work are named, and possibly some of the painters, sculptors and carvers who recorded their activity in dedicatory inscriptions.
The Ursiana was built and embellished in accordance with the most fashionable style by local craftsmen, or others who accompanied the imperial court from Milan where comparable late fourth- and early fifth-century building and decoration is known (for example, S. Aquilino). They employed many different materials – marble plaques, mosaic, fresco and carved stucco – and displayed images of personifications (allegorical figures), birds (probably) and four-footed animals. To the east of the cathedral, Bishop Ursus built a baptistery decorated in similar style, which was used at the major feast of Easter when those who had been prepared for entry into the Christian community were admitted. In the middle of the fifth century this baptistery would be rebuilt with new mosaic decoration by Bishop Neon and is now known as the Baptistery of the Orthodox.
It seems likely that it was the arrival of the emperor and his entourage in 402 that promoted the construction of such a grand and lavishly decorated new basilica in the city previously dominated by mainly pagan monuments. As at Rome, many of the early Christian churches were attached to cemeteries outside the city walls, and the decision to build within the city reflected a new determination to replace the ancient gods: Agnellus notes that the Ursiana was situated in an area previously called Herculana (and therefore dedicated to Hercules) near the Vincileonian gate. He also mentions that Ursus built the bishop’s residence, episcopium, attached to the church, close to the south-east wall where the Fossa Amnis canal left the city under the Bridge of the Millers, and a tower which may have been part of the aqueduct. Agnellus says the place was called Organaria because it was constructed entirely from a built device (organa, possibly connected with the work of millers or water-powered millstones).15 This would echo the mills on the Janiculum in Rome and along the Tiber that operated on water power.
Honorius added to Ravenna’s status by elevating the bishop of his new capital at the expense of Milan, using the argument formulated by his father Theodosius that the city where the emperor resided clearly had to be the ecclesiastical capital. He transferred six subordinate bishops from Milan to Ravenna, which thus gained considerably in territory as well as taxes and personal donations and legacies, but he did not grant the bishop independence from Rome.16 Instead, he endorsed its subordination, perpetuating a rivalry between Ravenna and Rome, personified by many later bishops, which came to a head in the mid-seventh century.
In the aftermath of the disastrous sack of Rome, Honorius appointed Constantius as his leading military general, and the Roman poet Rutilius Namatianus took the chief civilian post of magister officiorum, master of offices. In 411 the emperor sent Constantius to defeat the upstart Constantine III, who was still holding power in Arles, and his victory the following year was marked by the public display in Ravenna of the usurper’s head. The little fragment of the Annals of Ravenna includes a drawing of the heads of Constantine and two supporters set up on poles under the year 412.17 Constantius also campaigned in North Africa to protect the provinces whose resources were so rich that their defence was central to all imperial strategy: they produced the wheat that had traditionally fed the city of Rome, as well as oil, wine and high-quality ceramic tableware, which was distributed throughout the Roman world. In 413, Honorius dispatched a naval force to blockade the coast of southern Gaul, which successfully forced the Goths established there to negotiate a peace treaty.
During the next decade Honorius celebrated his generals’ victories and his additional consulships in Rome and in Ravenna. While his new capital provided a safe base for the court and became the hub of the traditional, imperial style of bureaucratic government, Rome remained the centre of imperial ritual and provided the more appropriate setting for the mausoleum Honorius constructed. In 407/8 he buried his first wife, Maria, there. With the murder of Stilicho, who had served as his guardian and very successful military commander, Honorius had shaken off the influence of an experienced adviser, repudiated his second wife, Thermantia, and also permitted the death of Serena. After the sack of Rome he visited the city on several occasions to reassure the survivors, to restore his authority with the aristocracy, and to distribute high-ranking titles to prominent senators. But he did not remarry and therefore had no heir to succeed to his imperial position. Fortunately for the dynasty, his half-sister Galla Placidia was able to fill this gap, as we shall see.