Christopher Kelly, Ruling the Later Roman Empire
Classical bureaucratic politics with self-interests and institutional pathologies
Christopher Kelly wrote:
CHAPTER 5
AUTOCRACY AND BUREAUCRACY
… The later Roman Empire was before all things a monarchical state. The position of the emperor, so brilliantly emphasized by courtly ceremony and its surrounding litany of praise, was central both to its system of rule and to contemporary political thought. Imperial intervention (real or imaginary) at any time, at any place, or on any pretext could never be entirely excluded. Indeed, given the restrictions imposed by the vastness of empire, the slowness of communication, and the technological limitations of a preindustrial state, it might convincingly be argued that later Roman emperors were remarkably successful in imposing their will on the Mediterranean world. But such assertions should not be too crudely phrased. The exercise of imperial power in the later Empire involved the continual and often difficult negotiation of sometimes conflicting sets of interest and advantage. Emperors moved to strengthen and justify their own position by (for example) arrogating to themselves certain ceremonies, symbols, and language, and insisting on their exclusivity, and by ensuring that those close to the imperial person or loyal to imperial policy were well rewarded. Those who benefited (and those who sought or hoped to benefit) were keen to collude in the promotion of an image of imperial power whose continued efficacy guaranteed them further advancement. By contrast, those excluded or disadvantaged tended to portray emperors as misinformed fools or murderous despots.
Paradoxically, the same tactics which might help to secure an emperor’s position could also weaken it. The concentration of imperial power at the center exacerbated its tendency to drain away at the edges of empire. Strong men in provinces far distant from Constantinople frequently could do as they pleased. Those who enjoyed influential connections were often able to deflect unwelcome inquiries into their activities. In the imperial capital, the confinement of emperors within a court society difficult of access increased their dependence on family, followers, and officials for information and advice. Emperors risked being trapped by the very advantages of centralization which had made both their court and the imperial bureaucracy attractive. …
… Emperors as far as they were able (and sometimes with greater success than their governors) also moved to counter the twin threats of ignorance and isolation. The continual rise and fall of favorites, the reliance on certain groups of well-tested officials who could be sent into the provinces on confidential missions, the brief tenure of most senior administrative posts, and the unpredictable shifts in imperial policy ensured that the advantages of loyalty could be broadly (if unevenly) distributed. New men might always hope for advancement, often by exposing the faults of those already in office. Importantly, too, emperors ensured that the penalties for flouting or misdirecting imperial power were severe and memorable. Just as the attractions of loyalty were both displayed and enhanced by the splendor of the emperor and his retinue, and by the ranks, titles, and praise lavished (at least temporarily) on trusted officials, the consequences of disfavor were also loudly proclaimed. By widely advertising the beneficial or punitive consequences of imperial intervention, emperors sought to maintain the belief that similar actions could be repeated without warning anywhere in the empire. Threats and inducements, and the hopes or fears they inspired, were vital to the maintenance of imperial authority. They helped to bridge that perilous gap between the concentration of power around an emperor and his court, and the equally pressing need for some effective degree of control over the empire as a whole.
The development of an elaborate and hierarchically structured administration was also an important factor in the establishment and maintenance of imperial power. It improved the collection and collation of information from all parts of the empire. It permitted the more effective enforcement of imperial regulations and the more efficient assessment and allocation of revenue. That emperors, of necessity, relied on bureaucrats to manage the day-to-day operations of government was also recognized. …
… [There were] central structural tensions which shaped later Roman government. For emperors, as for provincial governors, the clear advantages of government by bureaucracy continually had to be set against the threat that, in the face of such an impressive administrative machine, the range and extent of imperial power might be significantly limited. It might be channeled in directions determined by the information or advice provided by officials, or simply dissipated in an endless, labyrinthine round of obscurantist regulation. Both emperors and bureaucrats responded to these pressures by shuffling, often unpredictably, between competing concerns. Departmental rivalries were exploited by arbitrary shifts in jurisdiction and personnel, and by carefully ill-defined administrative duties. Officials’ fee-income was restricted by the promulgation of minutely detailed schedules of charges. Personal networks within departments were weakened by the more powerful attractions of imperial influence or by the outright sale of offices. Appointment and promotion were based on a set of often conflicting and ambiguous criteria: seniority, merit, money, inheritance, imperial favor. Complexity and inaccessibility were countered by moralizing edicts decrying “the miasma of detailed computations confused with inexplicable obscurity.” Importantly, too, officials’ dependence on fees as the main element in their annual income ensured that they remained highly and personally vulnerable to sudden turns in imperial policy. And in the face of such deliberate uncertainties, emperors made it clear that in matters of doubt only they could rule definitively.
By comparison with a modern state, the system which emerged was hardly “efficient.” Faced with the confusing and often-contradictory imperial pronouncements on the diverse and changing responsibilities of officials and their departments, or on the various requirements for appointment and promotion, or on the different means of gaining access to the courts, it is often tempting to recommend ways in which the operation of later Roman government might have been reformed. It is easy, for example, to agree … that the appointment of officials might have been better managed if the significant role played by personal connections and influence had been properly formalized. “If the system of suffragium had been rationally organised, so that the great officers of state regularly recommended candidates for the lower posts ‘under their disposition,’ it might have been a reasonable method of selection.” Certainly, any such scheme would have greatly enhanced administrative efficiency. But in so doing it would also have risked restricting the ability of all those involved to advance, undercut, and play off one tactic against another.
But efficiency is only one way of judging success. For emperors, the inevitable waste of time and resources caused by duplication, crosschecking, the transfer of personnel, the short tenure of posts, the uncertainties of appointment and advancement, and the arbitrary division of tasks had to be weighed against an ever-present threat of isolation in the face of a more compact and streamlined administration. For bureaucrats, whatever the costs in time, manpower, and clarity, it was also undoubtedly in their interests to ensure the maintenance of a highly complex set of protocols whose arcane workings were opaque and impenetrable for any but an expert long trained in their peculiarities. Similarly, there were clear attractions in the continued operation of an administrative apparatus which, while it offered the protective benefits of collegiality, well-ordered departmental structures, and predictable career paths, also allowed ambitious officials to advance their careers by a range of other, some markedly less formal, tactics … bureaucrats were not themselves always interested in upholding formal rules or routinized procedures. In an often hostile and highly competitive environment they depended for success on a much broader, and at times conflicting, set of strategies. In some circumstances, officials might recognize the superior merits of regularity or seniority in determining promotion; in others, they might give priority to those with connections, talent, or the ability to pay. Endless maneuvering between tactics and their varied combinations was fundamental to the institutional shape of later Roman bureaucracy. These possibilities and their combinations—inevitably seesawing between different sets of priorities—were of central importance to emperors and bureaucrats. There were limits to the level of order which both sought to impose and to the degree of certainty both found desirable. Predictablity is, after all, only one way of managing or exercising power.
Indeed, for all involved, loyalty or subversion, promotion or disgrace was often a matter of risk. The wide distribution of rewards (some undoubtedly illegally or immorally acquired) was important both in maintaining a broad level of support for the system as a whole and in ensuring a continued willingness among participants to play for the advantages to be won. Most expected that government would “give” if pressure was properly applied. Even emperors expected to be able to cut through their own administration and make contact directly with individuals in the provinces. In that sense, centralization, the growth of bureaucracy, and the set of tactical combinations deployed to limit some of their consequences together offered benefits to emperors as well as to those who sought to channel imperial power for their own ends. Such uncertainties also helped to resolve some of the contradictions between the rhetoric of ideal government (with its emphasis on an open accessibility to all) and the less accommodating reality of everyday practice. It promoted the possibility that access to emperors or their officials was always available in some new way as yet untried. Where there are no fixed rules, no option can be definitely excluded; no hope can be definitively dashed.
Of course, there were both successes and failures. Imperial power could be unfocused, misdirected, or simply ignored. Emperors were sometimes deceived, just causes were sometimes stymied, dishonest officials were sometimes caught and killed. In the face of competing and irreconcilable claims, emperors’ strength ultimately lay in ensuring that the chances of their succeeding in enforcing their will, though not always certain, could never entirely be discounted. Looked at from that point of view, inconsistencies and unpredictable changes in imperial policy should not always be understood as undisputed indications of emperors’ weakness, a growing loss of control, or the result of irresistible pressures from powerful provincials, courtiers, or officials. Sometimes these shifts were striking illustrations of imperial power. For emperors, an ability to exploit uncertainty, contradiction, and ambiguity could be the very stuff of autocracy.
Above all, in the later Roman Empire the centralization of government and the expansion of bureaucracy entailed the negotiation of the threats and advantages which both posed to imperial power. Emperors and bureaucrats (with varying degrees of success) were continually involved in a complex series of compromises, concessions, and trade-offs. For both, if taken too far, subversion, division, and disorganization were potentially self-defeating tactics. For emperors, to weaken the bureaucracy was to risk undercutting an important institution through which they ruled. To strengthen the bureaucracy was to risk the erosion of autocracy. Emperors were further hampered by the knowledge that if the bureaucracy ceased to function or was too greatly impaired in its workings, administrative chaos (and their own downfall) would result. These conflicts and options were rarely clear-cut. The political history of the later Roman Empire was in great part a product of the disputes and frictions which followed the establishment and growth of a bureaucracy with its own particular self-interests and institutional pathologies, and its problematic relationship with the exercise of imperial power. This was a knife-edge game whose results were frequently uncertain and sometimes unpredictable. In an unstable environment, the survival of individual emperors as significant players chiefly depended upon their success in preserving their own position in the face of these competing concerns. …
… No doubt for some in the later Roman Empire, imagining a world to come with an inexorable and inescapable angelic administration and a truly omnipotent ruler had its attractions. But from the point of view of those skilled in the complexities of this world, such dazzling visions of heavenly perfection must also have presented a sobering and, at times, a most unwelcome prospect.
The Source:
Christopher Kelly, Ruling the Later Roman Empire, Harvard University Press 2004 [pp. 225-231, 245]
Evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.