The Justice of Constantine: Law, Communication, and Control

6. Constantine and the Imperial Bureaucracy

6 Constantine and the Imperial Bureaucracy The Efficacy of Imperial Legislation The edicts to the provincials in September 325 and November 331 are a testament to the value perceived in communication under the reign of Constantine . By means of universal edicts, Constantine could inform both administrators and subjects of the law, of his expectations of the imperial bureaucracy, of available legal remedies, and of the consequences of disobedience . His edicts communicate power, and the messages they disseminated sought to inspire loyalty and demonstrate and strengthen the authority of the emperor. The personal, populist strain of the edicts of Constantine conveys this message above all. A recurring question asked of such documents is whether the principles enunciated therein in words were realized in fact. The famous assessment of A. H. M. Jones in the preface to The Later Roman Empire captures the uneasiness felt by many scholars who have pondered the efficacy of late antique legislation: “The laws, in my view, are clues to the difficulties of the empire, and records of the aspirations of the government and not its achievement.”1 Subsequent scholarship has indeed become ever more sensitive to the limitations of normative texts as historical evidence. Each constitution , taken alone, gives us no direct evidence of its enforcement. There is often no sign, positive or negative, by which to judge whether imperial constitutions were obeyed.2 We have no evidence, for example, that any / 156 / 1. Jones, LRE, viii. 2. See the discussion by S. Schmidt-Hofner, Reagieren und Gestalten. Der Regierungsstil des spätrömischen Kaisers am Beispiel der Gesetzgebung Valentinians I. (Munich, 2008), 21–35; still valuable : J. Gaudemet, “La législation du IVème siècle programme d’enquête,” AARC 1 (1975), 143–59. provincial ever approached Constantine to denounce a high official, as described in the edict CTh. 9.1.4, discussed in the preceding chapter. This uncertainty attaches most notoriously to the repetition of various ordinances, whether by later emperors or even by the emperor who first instituted them. The interpretation of such repetitions largely follows the optimism or pessimism of the interpreter. Where earlier scholars considered the repetition of the imperial legislation a sign of its ineffectiveness,3 recent scholars see in it a confirmation of the vigor of the law and consistency of policy.4 Where proof fails, plausibility warrants a hearing. The edicts of the preceding chapter show clearly that metus legum, fear of the laws and the threat of punishment, ranked high among the means with which Constantine sought to intimidate his administrators into doing right.5 The texts of this chapter are of a different nature. The reservation expressed by Jones—that the preserved laws are records of the aspirations of the government, not its achievement—is most appropriate to public edicts. Although edicts are constitutive of law, they remain statements. Most imperial constitutions preserved in the Codex Theodosianus are official letters, which were issued in response to the inquiries of imperial officials themselves.6 If these constiConstantine and the Imperial Bureaucracy / 157 3. E.g., De Marini Avonzo, “Giustizia II,” 1062 with n. 107: “ . . . la ripetizione delle stesse o di analoghe direttive è palese riprova della loro inefficacia”; C. Dupont, “Constantin et les constitutions impériales,” in St. Volterra, vol. 1 (Milan, 1971), 554–55; J. Gaudemet, “Quelque aspects de la politique législative au Ve siècle,” in St. Volterra, vol. 1 (Milan, 1971), 225–34 (= Études, vol. 1 [1979], 201–12); J. Gaudemet, “Recherches sur la législation du Bas-Empire,” in St. Scherillo, vol. 2 (Milan, 1972), 693–715 (= Études, vol. 1 [1979], 213–37), concluding (693/215): “Mais il est évident que le rappel d’une mesure antérieure, son renouvellement par le législateur prouvent que celui-ci y tient et, sans doute, que la société l’observait peu ou mal”; K. L. Noethlichs, Beamtentum und Dienstvergehen. Zur Staatsverwaltung in der Spätantike (Wiesbaden, 1981), 109–10; A. Demandt , “Grenzen Spätrömischer Staatsgewalt,” in Usurpation in der Spätantike. Akten des Kolloquiums “Staatsreich und Staatlichkeit” 6.–10. März 1996 Solothurn/Bern, ed. F. Paschoud and J. Szidat (Stuttgart, 1997), 155–63; most recently, D. Slootjes, The Governor and His Subjects in the Later Roman Empire (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 61 (with reference to Jones, LRE, 502). 4. Above all J. Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999), 77–98; J. Karayannopulos, Das Finanzwesen des frühbyzantinischen Staates (Munich, 1958), 228...