The Source:
Olivier Hekster, Caesar rules: the Emperor in the changing Roman world (c. 50 BC–AD 565), Cambridge University Press 2022
Further excerpts: Chapter 3, Being around the Emperor
Institutional Entourage: Senators and Bishops
Roman emperorship did not formally exist, at least not at the beginning of the principate. This made it difficult to name and depict the emperor. It also meant that there were no official assistants or advisors. There was no system in place to appoint people to the various tasks that needed to be done to govern the empire.
Consequently, the way in which these positions had been filled during the Republic remained important. That had been a system in which senators took on the most important positions. These same senators had been instrumental in the process through which Augustus had acquired his powers, not by taking them but by having them bestowed upon him. Senators, then, were a strongly institutionally embedded group, who had played a major part in the construction of the principate.
Not coincidentally, the Res Gestae emphasised the importance of senatorial support, a message which was also inscribed on a golden shield in the senate house. Importantly, also, Augustus only accepted the honorific title of pater patriae after senators had confirmed the offer by a delegation of the plebs.
This made Roman emperorship a system in which, at least in the eyes of certain groups, power was derived from and supported by the traditional Republican elite, shaped as it was in traditional Republican magistracies. Emperors could execute and exile individual senators and magistrates but they would then need to be replaced by other, similar councillors.
The emperor needed to publicly interact with the traditional elite, and show them due deference. Inevitably, this gave that elite an enormous status, and encouraged emperors to be judged on Republican criteria, making it more difficult to place their superior power in open view. … Emperors were continuously assessed by people surrounding them, and senatorial authors such as Pliny and Cassius Dio found it both laudable and normal that those people could challenge the emperor if he fell short of their expectations. These and other elite authors also described emperors who claimed to rule with senators positively, whereas they portrayed those who explicitly ruled over senators in negative terms. They only did so after the emperor’s death. Challenging a reigning emperor carried enormous risks. Not only senatorial authors used the relationship between the ruler and his councillors as a benchmark for good rule. Other authors, too, saw ‘aristocratic rule’ as the best way to guarantee successful emperorship.
At the same time, the role of senators changed drastically during the principate. Any decisions of real importance came into the hands of the emperor. Though senators remained important in the administration and organisation of the empire (as governors, priests, holders of various Roman magistracies, and generals), they did so under the direct command of the emperor, exemplified through the emperors’ inclusion in all major priesthoods and, especially, the development of extraordinary imperium for emperors and selected members of their family.
Before there was an emperor, senatorial considerations carried much authority. If senators reached consensus, their advice was invariably followed by the people’s assemblies who technically passed laws. After the reign of Augustus, senatorial decrees formally took on legal status, but this boost of their formal powers was only minor compensation for the loss of informal authority. The senate still represented an institution of great power, yet it had become rapidly clear that senators could no longer rule without an emperor – as early as the death of Caligula, it was clear that the question was not if but by whom the late emperor would be replaced. Still, for a long time only senators could become emperor, showing their continued position at the top of the political elite.
One consequence was a shift in which the senate developed a new corporate identity. During the Republic, individual senators had competed fiercely for important positions. After Augustus had come to power, the senate instead presented itself with a new cohesion (although in reality competition within the senate remained, now centred on gaining the emperor’s favour). As a group, they represented a traditional elite whose position had come under threat by the arrival of a monarch. …
… Coins with the letter S(ENATUS) C(ONSULTUM) – ‘by order of the senate’ – on them, or the arrival of an iconographical personification of the Genius of the Senate further showed how the senate as a whole was given prominence although the power of its individual members decreased. This was both an advantage to senators, who could continue to make sense of their public importance, and to the emperor, who could boost his legitimacy through the support of the traditional elite.
This notion of the senate as an integral part of Roman rule would continue for centuries, and even survive the transfer to Constantinople as imperial capital. Both Rome and Constantinople would hold an important senate. In practice, however, non-senators rapidly replaced senators in important aspects of the imperial entourage. For example, from the early empire onwards, emperors made use of a so-called consilium principis, a ‘council of the princeps’. This resembled the family councils which had been normal in the Republic, and the Republican practice by senior magistrates to ask advice on judicial questions from a consilium. At the beginning of imperial rule the council consisted of senators drawn by lot, but appointments to this council by the emperor rapidly established itself as the norm. Rather than being a permanent body, the council could be called together by the emperor on a case-by-case basis. Membership could shift from one council to the next, depending on specific expertise.
Already during the reign of Tiberius, non-senators were asked to be part of an imperial consilium. This was a problem for senators, who lost easy access to the emperor. Increasingly, discussing matters in the consilium principis came to represent the way in which emperors could show that they listened to their councillors, effectively sidestepping the senate as an advisory body. The expectation that emperors would include senators in the group to which he listened remained.
‘Good’ emperors still filled their councils with senior senators and high-ranking other members of the elite. Nothing, however, formally stopped an emperor from excluding senators from his advisory board. But those emperors who omitted senators from their group of councillors gained negative reputations, probably because of a senatorial bias in our source material. The importance of notional senatorial influence continued for a long time. After Constantine moved to his new capital, the council was renamed as consistorium. Its procedures became formalised as was, to an extent, its membership. There were now ex officio members, but that only marginally hid the fact that the emperor could (and did) still co-opt anyone he wanted, and could of course decide to simply not convene his councillors. Almost anyone could advise the emperor, but senators still held enormous status.
Senators were also replaced in other positions of imperial support. Equestrians took on important positions in the organisation of the military and administration of the state from the beginning of the principate onwards, through institutionalised magistracies (such as the prefect of Egypt) and important ‘secretarial’ positions.
There were also other people at the court who were integral to the imperial entourage. Yet none of this diminished the idea of senators as the most important advisors to the emperor. They remained relevant players in the political landscape. The inclusion of non-senators in the government of the empire was a way of keeping potential rivals away from positions of power.
There are prohibitions by Marcus Aurelius against people governing their province of origin and by Gallienus against any senator governing a province. These were understandable actions, considering the historical precedents of senators revolting because of the strength of their provincial positions. From 260 onwards senators were no longer given legionary commands.
These measures show how well into the third century, high-ranking senators were conceived as candidates for supreme power. The idea of a non-senator becoming emperor was still absurd. When Macrinus (217–18) became the first equestrian to obtain the purple, Cassius Dio explicitly stated that he ought to have given up his claim for someone of senatorial status. Roman emperors were also expected to come to Rome to be acclaimed by senators.
Certainly in the city of Rome, the senate was perceived as a crucial factor in giving the emperor legitimacy, and occasionally even as an actual counterbalance to imperial power. Senators distinguished themselves from other members of the imperial entourage in that they held status independent of the emperor. This was especially noticeable during an emperor’s absence from Rome. At the beginning of the principate, when Tiberius spent years away from Rome but still lived in the Italian peninsula, senators struggled with their relative position of power. And after his successor Caligula was assassinated, they were unable to put forward their own candidate to the throne. Yet the expectation that they held some sort of control remained, as is clear from the proclamation to the throne of senatorial favourites … in periods of dynastic uncertainty.
Senatorial influence in the Italian peninsula increased when emperors were more systematically absent, through the creation of new senatorial posts and the role of high-ranking senators replacing the emperors on legal matters, as iudices vice Caesaris. There was also a loss of influence, however, as the urban-based elite had fewer possibilities to (regularly) meet with the absent emperor, losing the advantages of immediate imperial vicinity. With the more structural disappearance of the emperor from Rome, it became more difficult for senators to influence relations between the distant emperors and the city of Rome. It did not stop them from trying. The fourth and the fifth centuries saw regular attempts by senators to bring emperors back to Rome, with much more success than often assumed. When emperors arrived in Rome, they were inevitably met by a senatorial delegation, visited the Forum and gave a speech in the senate house.
In the city itself, the relationship between (absent) emperors and senators was emphasised through the erection by senators of monuments that stressed the emperor’s importance, many of them in the area around the senate building. These showed the continuous link between emperor and senate. From the fourth century onwards, furthermore, a practice developed in which senatorial statues stood next to imperial monuments. Base inscriptions described how senators had honoured the emperor, or had been allowed to be honoured themselves by the emperor. This illustrated the superior position of the emperor, whose status had risen far above that of Roman senators. It was a major change from the early empire, when it was proclaimed that emperors ruled courtesy of the senate.
The senate had instead become a monarchical aristocracy, bound to the emperor. But apparently it was still important to both emperors and senators to visually present a continuous link between emperor and senators. They may have become junior partners in government, but were still undeniably part of that government, the ‘best part of the human race’ to whom emperors had to relate.
… Proximity to senators was an important reason to be in the capital [Rome]. …
…Clearly, as embodiments of Rome’s glorious past, senators remained a relevant though sometimes problematic group to put forward representative claims.
In many ways, then, Roman senators constituted a core group of imperial support. Senators formed a link to the past, and their visible vicinity to the emperor expressed continuity of rule. They were needed as a symbol. The senate functioned as some sort of visible counterbalance to the emperor’s supreme power, even if individual senators were wholly dependent on the emperor for their careers and even their lives, and even after senators had lost many of their actual positions of power. The idea of such a counterbalance was more important than its practical application. Senators rarely exercised independent power, and certainly could not nullify an imperial decision (at least not as long as that emperor was in power). Yet emperors were supposed to listen to senatorial advice and take it seriously. ‘Good’ emperors were supposed to abide to senatorial norms, and in that sense senators really did form a check on unlimited power.
This need for the senate in a representative role goes some way in explaining why Constantine needed senators in Constantinople. He may even have instituted a new senate, although it is possible that the formalisation of such a second senate in Constantinople only took place under Constantius II. Expectations, in any case, necessitated some sort of senatorial support and proximity.
Senators in Constantinople were even more dependent on the emperor than their Roman counterparts had been. The number of senators in Constantinople was increased enormously, rising from about 600 to, ultimately, some 2,000. This probably reduced the entry threshold to the senate in terms of both cash and status.
Moreover, senatorial status was now granted to high-ranking equestrians, and lower equestrian officeholders were subsequently elevated. Still, the status of the new senate echoed that of Rome. Almost the entirety of book six of the Theodosian Code and much of book twelve of the Justinian Code deal with senatorial matters.
Becoming a senator was, more than before, an imperial gift, and the emperor controlled how senators should behave. It may be more than coincidental that the sole surviving letter of Constantine to the senate addressed it as ‘his own senate (senatui suo)’. The possessive pronoun is telling. Yet none of that diminished the need to have a prominent senate in the new capital, representing an age-old balance of power – even if only a fictitious one.
A final indication of how strongly such symbolic links to the past remained a factor in thinking about imperial rule is the long-lasting importance of the consulate. In 537, Justinian ordered that dating ought to be according to imperial regnal years, instead of using consular years. Consuls were, however, still included in dating formulae. The law explicitly mentioned that this was not abolished, perhaps anticipating protest. It [the law] also argued that Roman history had always been dominated by monarchs, from Aeneas, Romulus and Numa to Caesar and Augustus, so that first naming the emperor fitted precedent. Four years later, the office was abolished altogether, ending a millennium-old tradition. The reaction was widespread and negative. The emperor was blamed for personal greed and immorality.
That even after Justianian’s death people pushed for the reinstatement of the consulate shows the strength of the opposition to its abolition. But apparently, Justinian thought that the disturbance caused by the continuity of the office was greater than the unrest caused by its end. The emperor’s motivation cannot be retraced with certainty. It may have been to emphatically show that he held supreme authority, or an attempt to thwart attempts by former consuls to rebel against his regime. Alternatively, he may have intended to diminish the status of the powerful western generals who held the position.
What is clear, however, both from the emperor’s actions and the various reactions, is that the Roman past remained important in sixth-century Constantinople. Traditional magistracies bestowed status, even if their practical importance had diminished. Emperors could disrupt tradition, as Justinian showed. But their reputation suffered. Roman rulers were expected to continue existing practices.
The relationship between emperors and senators shows at least a semblance of continuity over the centuries. Senatorial involvement in governing the empire suggested a check on supreme rule. The senate personified the ancient res publica, a concept that retained its importance throughout Roman history, even if its meaning shifted significantly, ranging from a political structure to a semi-synonym for the Roman state.
[THE BISHOPS]
Over time, another apparent check on supreme rule developed, with the arrival of a group of people whose position was, like that of senators, separate from the emperor. Christian bishops would come to collaborate strongly with the emperor and were an inevitable part of his entourage from at least the late-fourth century onwards.
In many ways, they were to take a similar position to senators in their interactions with the emperor. As was the case for senators, the bishops’ hierarchical position preceded these imperial interactions. The senate had been important before there were emperors. Bishops had gained their position of power well before emperors embraced Christianity. Ultimately, like senators, bishops could put pressure on the emperor and (as a corporate group) could not be simply set aside. That would leave the emperor open to accusations of arrogance and abuse of power.
The role of bishops was different from that of senators in two important ways. First, bishops did not on the whole reside in Rome (or later Constantinople), as senators did. Consequently, many bishops did not have the geographic proximity to emperors that (most) senators had. That was of course different for those bishops whose sees were in capital cities … A subset of bishops, then, was close to the emperor.
A second difference between senators and bishops was that the bishops’ role related especially to the emperor’s religious activities. Bishops increasingly took over the position that members of the ancient pagan priestly colleges had held. Tertullian [c.160–c.240] appears to be our earliest indication of the notion of bishops as such.
This equation was especially championed by the bishops of Rome, where senatorial priests had been most influential. Damasus [330–384] pushed the notion in the fourth century, Leo in the fifth, and Hormisdas in the sixth. It was never formalised, but shows how at least some bishops were interested in being considered as alternatives to senators. Christian bishops might have been a new group in late antiquity, but in their relation to the emperor, they fitted into a long-established pattern of balancing power.
To an extent, this image may be the result of Christian sources trying to strengthen bishops’ profiles. But surviving letters from the court and legal evidence show how intensively emperors and at least the more prominent bishops interacted. In doing so, they cohered to existing expectations about the relationship between emperors and an institutionalised elite. The institution was different, but the pattern was the same.
Numbers were similar, too. Recent calculations of the number of bishops around 400 estimate that there was a maximum of 900–1,000 bishops in the eastern empire, with the number most likely lower, and about 1,000 bishops in the western empire, with about 800 of them in North Africa.
This is comparable in scope to the number of senators. The regional distribution between bishops and senators within the empire was very different, even taking into consideration former senatorial officials who returned to their provincial place of origin, where they could form a link between local elites in the imperial centre. This gave bishops a stronger local base than most senators, although of course it also meant that the vast majority of them had no regular access to the emperor.
Yet a fictitious discussion (On Political Science) between two officials at the court of Justinian by an unknown author from the first half of the sixth century explicitly incorporates bishops into the political hierarchy of late antiquity, directly after discussing senators:
“A second law will deal with the senate . . . and also, in the way we’ve said, the political order. The third law will govern the selection of high priests [bishops] – to take place with the greatest respect and fear of the divine . . .” [Dialogus Scientiae Politicae, 5.18–5.19]
Moreover, bishops could claim competing authority derived from the power of a supreme god which senators could not. Christianity ultimately made it impossible for emperors to claim absolute divinity themselves, and although they retained some of their superhuman status, it was firmly derived from the same supreme god with whom the bishops claimed to communicate. The balance between imperial power and the bishops’ authority was explicitly addressed by Justinian in 535:
“There are two greatest gifts which God, in his love for man, has granted from On-high: the priesthood and the imperial dignity. The former serves divine things, while the latter directs and administers human affairs; both, however, proceed from the same origin and adorn the life of mankind. Hence, nothing should be such a source of care to the emperors as the dignity of the priests, since it is for their (imperial) welfare that they constantly implore God. For if the priesthood is in every way free from blame and possesses access to God, and if the emperors administer equitably and judiciously the state entrusted to their care, general har- mony will result and whatever is beneficial will be bestowed upon the human race.” [Justinian, Novella]
Justinian, at the end of the period with which this book deals, formulates the joint dependence on a supreme god by emperors and bishops in positive terms. Yet from Constantine’s conversion onwards, there had also been clear competition as to who perceived most clearly the divine will of that superior being. Furthermore, when emperors had embraced Christianity, the imperial cult had suffered. Traces of it remained in many parts of the empire up to the sixth century, but the emperor was no longer universally present as an object of cult throughout the empire.
Christian leaders could become locally more visible than the emperor, and their opinion could decide religious policy. Bishops, with some regularity, actively disturbed and demolished local pagan centres of cult, sometimes against the emperors’ inclinations.
At Gaza, for instance, the famous temple of Zeus Marneion was demolished by St Porphyry (c.347–420), the local bishop, although emperor Arcadius had originally argued against closure of local shrines and temples: ‘I know full well that this city is dedicated to idolatry; nonetheless, it loyally fulfils its tax duties and brings in high income’.
But the bishop … changed the emperor’s mind and managed to put forward his own religious policy. Likewise, the destruction of the ancient Serapeion of Alexandria was initiated by the local bishop Theophilus, without an imperial edict backing up these momentous anti-pagan actions. This was an important affair that reverberated through the empire. By claiming divine inspiration and authority, bishops could become much more activistic than the emperor, and remove themselves from imperial control.
This relative autonomy also applied to a bishop’s legal authority. With the rise of Christianity, the bishop was increasingly approached as a legal authority. This placed them well beyond the position that local community leaders had previously held, but encroached on the monopoly of state officials.
Constantine officially recognised this status, allowing the so-called audienta episcopalis, which further boosted the number of people who approached bishops as judges. This position of power was codified in law. Bishops were even attributed higher moral authority than other judges, certainly by fellow Christians.
Like senators, bishops could not be simply ignored. There were of course different categories of bishops. Bishops in small communities on the periphery of the empire were vastly outranked by metropolitans – holding the see of a provincial capital. The former were much less likely to be regularly in touch with the emperor. The same differentiation of status, however, would apply within the group of senators, especially from the third century onwards.
Emperors could ignore bishops (and senators) individually, but not as a group. That did not make bishops and senators exactly the same in their relation to the emperor. Senators formed a fairly homogenous group in the capital whereas bishops were much more geographically dispersed. Bishops, however, did increasingly form a recognisable category; one to which the emperor had to relate. The actual interaction was between the emperor and the most prominent bishops, but emperors could not easily exclude those bishops from their proximity.
None of this granted individual bishops protection against imperial power. Emperors could certainly dispose of bishops and exile them. The important fifth-century theologian Theodoret (c. 393–c. 458/66) who was bishop of Cyrrhus (in modern Syria) blames various emperors for not listening to bishops before they banished them, but never denies the emperor’s authority to take these actions. Constantine banished the important bishop John Archaph against the wishes of the Synod of Tyre (335), which the emperor himself had convened. The power of the emperor to do so was never challenged.
Ultimately, no bishop could openly go against imperial wishes without consequences. Macedonius, who held the episcopal see of Constantinople from 342 to 360 (with an interruption between 346 and 351), managed for a long time to influence religious policy more strongly than the emperor Constantius II. Yet, when Macedonius removed the coffin of Constantius’ father Constantine from his mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles, the emperor immediately removed Macedonius from his post. The bishop may have tried to cut down the developing cult of Constantine and strengthen the pre-eminence of the Christian church. But he had failed to consult the emperor, who did not respond well to such an intervention in imperial prerogatives.
Similarly, John Chrysostom (c. 347–407) was deposed from the episcopal see in Constantinople after he openly disapproved of the erection of a statue of Eudoxia near the Hagia Sophia, and seems to have insulted the empress in the process. He was also suspected of sympathising with Arianism, against imperial wishes. Consequently, John was expelled from his position, confined to his house and then exiled. Armed soldiers entered churches, taking Chrysostom’s supporters to prison. They apparently forced some of the faithful to flee naked from the baptisteries where they were about to be baptised. Protests by Chrysostom’s friends, the bishop of Rome and even the emperor’s brother Honorius, emperor of the west, were of no effect. Honorius did exchange letters with his brother, but a mission to Arcadius failed miserably after being faced with ill-treatment, attempted bribery and the actual theft of some of the mission’s documents. Chrysostom remained banished and ultimately died in 407 on his way from one place of exile to the next.
In the struggle for power between emperor and bishops, might remained with the emperor. Still, there was a major difference between the power that emperors held over senators and over bishops.
Senators were, with some regularity, forced to commit suicide or simply executed. There are few, if any, examples, of emperors killing bishops after Constantine’s conversion. Quite possibly, Constantius II played a part in the murder of Paul of Constantinople, who was installed and deposed three times from his see, before he was strangled in Cappadocia (c. 350). Constantius’ role is not explicitly mentioned in the sources, and the case is extraordinary as it also involves a struggle for authority between Constantius and his brother Constans, the western emperor. On the whole, emperors were not involved in the deaths of bishops.
One reason may be that senators, unlike bishops, were potential competitors to the throne. Equally importantly, bishops had much more potential to rapidly mobilise people over a wide area than senators ever had.
Several violent conflicts in the fourth and fifth century between Christians and pagans, and often also between different groups of Christians, made clear how volatile the local populace could become when religiously motivated. Emperors needed to take care that such violence would not turn on them, especially when it involved affairs in the capital.
This is even mentioned explicitly in an extraordinary case during the reign of Valens (364–78). Discussion about the succession of Eudoxius as bishop of Constantinople (360–70) grew so fierce that the emperor sent in troops to end ‘popular tumult’ in the capital. Certain church leaders complained about ‘the ill-usage to which they had been subjected’, to the annoyance of the emperor, who gave his prefect a secret order to put these men to death. The prefect ‘fearing that he should excite the populace to a seditious movement’ pretended to exile them, but had their ship set on fire in the middle of the Astacian Gulf, burning the persons on board alive. The veracity of the story is less important than the fear of popular uprising following the execution of Christian leaders that seems to be a given. It was much safer to depose bishops than to kill them.
Emperors could not only depose and banish bishops. They could also play a major part in their appointment. Inevitably, this applied much more to the main dioceses than to lesser sees. Imperial activity was, moreover, most noticeable when there was dispute about a bishop’s legitimacy. The events after the death of Rome’s bishop Zosimus in 418 are exemplary. Two different successors, Eulalius and Boniface were anointed (by two different groups and in two different churches), after which Emperor Honorius was approached for a solution. He first ordered Boniface to be banished, but after violence in Rome and a new petition, Honorius reconsidered and called both would-be-bishops to him. The emperor ordered all parties to stay out of Rome and sent private letters of consultation to influential bishops such as Augustine and Paulinus of Nola. Ultimately, the emperor decided that Boniface was the rightful successor and had Eulalius arrested and removed from the city.
The potential of violence surrounding bishops is clear in this narrative, as is the undoubted supremacy of the emperor. Prominent bishops such as Augustine might have expected to be consulted in these matters, but accepted the emperor as arbiter. That the emperor had to be consulted in the first case was because of the enormous potential for conflict on how bishops were elected. Occasionally, recommendation by a predecessor was the crucial factor, but acclamation by the local populace, or popularity among fellow bishops could also be decisive. Even miraculous appointments could be seen as legitimate. This gave the emperor quite a lot of leeway in whom to appoint.
Imperial interests focused on a relatively small number of positions. The sees of the bishops of the important cities Alexandria, Antioch, Aquileia, Arles, Carthage, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Milan, Ravenna and Rome saw regular interventions from the eastern court and the Latin successor kingdoms. The other episcopal sees did not.
On the whole, bishops in the majority of local sees were elected by the local population and the clergy, making it ‘a form of democratic activity’. Disapproval of a candidate could lead to outbreaks of mob violence, once again showing the popular support that bishops could have at their disposal.
The relationship between emperor and bishops in the late empire was in many ways analogous to that of emperor and senators in the earlier empire. Again, this did not mean that all bishops were expected to have access to the emperor, but the more prominent bishops held their positions as representatives of a well-established category of people.
Bishops, moreover, seem to have held a dominance over the emperor that senators never did. No senator ever forbade an emperor anything. Bishops occasionally could.
Probably the most famous example of this took place in 390, when St Ambrose, the bishop of Milan (c. 340–97) prohibited Theodosius from entering the basilica in Milan and literally brought the emperor to his knees in an act of penance. This event, however, took place in volatile circumstances and was not as much of an imperial loss of face as is often maintained. Theodosius had just defeated the usurper Magnus Maximus (383–8), who had made the western emperor Valentinian II (375–92) flee to Theodosius’ court. Theodosius consequently became de facto ruler over the whole of the empire, celebrated by a triumphal entry into Rome in 389. Formally, though, he reinstated Valentinian in the west.
Civil war inevitably causes upheaval, and this one was no exception. Infamously, in the spring of 390, the inhabitants of Thessalonica complained about the presence of a local garrison, and were massacred without trial. Ambrose consequently refused the emperor entry into the Milan basilica until he had repented. When the emperor duly obliged, he could consign these events to history and added ‘a new role to the imperial repertoire’, that of the repentant Christian. It raised Ambrose’s status enormously, but did not make his position unassailable. Equally important, it allowed Theodosius to dispel accusations of tyranny that would usually be associated with the slaughter of innocents by imperial command. In some ways, the religious acceptance by Ambrose can be compared to a senatorial acclamation; a process that implied the right of senators not to acclaim the emperor.
Senatorial acclamation was a confirmation of the emperor’s status as ruler. Ambrose did not accept the emperor as head of the church. Yet bishops did seemingly accept that role for the emperor whenever they assembled at an imperially led synod.
It was the emperor who convened the various councils, from the first ecumenical church council at Nicaea (325) convened by Constantine to the second council at Constantinople in 553, convoked by Justinian. Bishops deliberated among themselves as well, and had their own motives for wanting to participate in synods, but only the emperor could call all church leaders together. The imperial supremacy was visualised through showing the emperor in a central position, dominant over the bishops (Figure 3.3).
In his shining purple robes, the emperor became an episcopus maximus among the bishops. Imperial officials, moreover, were tasked with controlling the council’s proceedings, and carry out its decisions. Ecclesiastical authorities obviously influenced what happened at the synods, but the decisions held a firm stamp of imperial authority.
The leading role of the emperor in religious matters also becomes clear in the great religious debates of the fourth to sixth century, most notably the struggle between Arianism and Donatism, and the Nestorian schism. Whatever the specific religious issues were, it was crucial to have the emperor on one’s side to emerge victorious.
Bishops and other members of the clergy, but also local dignitaries, continuously attempted to convince the emperor that they were right and their rivals wrong. As St Augustine noted: ‘They annoyed the emperor with daily appeals’. The anti-Donatist ‘Edict of Unity’ was put forth on February 12, 405 by the emperors Honorius, Arcadius and Theodosius II in separate laws, simultaneously issued. Bishops certainly had their say in religious disputes, but ultimately, the emperor decided.
Military might was an important reason for the emperor’s supremacy. During the Second Council of Ephesus (449), the emperor’s might was even expressed through armed soldiers in the church (Figure 3.3). Bishop Theodoret, who was excluded from the council by the court and subsequently excommunicated, describes the reaction of his supporters: ‘We were threatened with deposition. We were threatened with exile. Soldiers with clubs and swords stood by, and we took fright at the clubs and swords. We were intimidated into signing’. Theorodet may have exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the emperor could employ the threat of violence to push matters forward. This had been the case for Constantine at Nicaea and still applied at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, called by Marcian (450–7), to set aside the decisions of the Ephesian Synod of 449.
Roman emperors had systematically informed senators that they and the armies were well, emphasising the potential for imperial violence. Bringing soldiers into the church very much sent home the same message to bishops, with a very similar result.
A second reason for the acceptance by bishops of the emperor’s supremacy was discord between the bishops. As there had been competition between senators about gaining privileges, so bishops competed for prominence. Imperial support was instrumental, not only for individual clergymen to become bishops, but also in disputing which bishopric stood at the apex of the hierarchy. This was a continuous discussion between the different sees. Rome and Constantinople were obvious candidates for supremacy, but Antioch too claimed importance, as did Caesarea, Alexandria and Carthage, closely following imperial infrastructure. …
Rome’s supreme position over its eastern competitors was not a given. In the fifth century, it was no longer the imperial capital, and the sack of the city in 410 further diminished confidence in Rome’s institutions. But it retained historical status. Rome was steeped in sacred history, with the notion of St Peter as Rome’s first bishop perhaps the most important one in a Christian empire. Attempts to compare the sack of Rome to that of Troy or Jerusalem were used to further raise the city’s spiritual status in order to compensate for loss of political prominence. The bishop of Rome made use of Rome’s historical status to claim and retain supremacy in the Christian empire.
The bishop of Constantinople, on the other hand, could boost immediate political relevance, and had easy access to the emperor. Again, prominent bishops turned to the emperor to settle matters. Rome remained at the episcopal summit, but the bishop of Constantinople managed to rise in seniority through the help of Theodosius, who at the Council of Constantinople of 381 promoted his see to second in status.
Grumbling about the relative positions of the bishoprics remained, however, and the issue was raised again explicitly in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, when under the auspices of Marcian (450–7), Anatolius of Constantinople was confirmed as second in the hierarchy of Roman bishops, before the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch. Importantly, the status of both Rome and Constantinople was explicitly linked to the emperor:
… [Written] reference to both imperial power and the senate is striking, showing the continuous role of senatorial status in mid-fifth-century Constantinople. The comparison between senators and bishops is also noticeable. After Chalcedon, bishops of Rome regularly tried to assert their authority over matters of church hierarchy. In doing so, they not only faced imperial resistance, but also continuous discord with other bishops, not helped by the major doctrinal debates that characterised fourth- and fifth- century Christianity.
Military and economic might on the part of the emperor, and discord amongst bishops assured imperial supremacy.
Justinian expressed his authority in church matters explicitly in 545, when he published Novel 131. Though the text recognises that he places into law ‘ecclesiastical rules which were adopted and confirmed by the four Holy Councils’, it is the emperor issuing the law. It reconfirms that ‘the most blessed archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, should hold the second place after the most holy apostolic see of Elder Rome, but that [he] precedes all others in honour’. Alexandria and Antioch fell under the aegis of the bishop of Constantinople. Through this law, Justinian asserted imperial control over the organisation of the Church, not even a decade after he had abolished the consulate to show his dominance in matters of state.
In a society in which imperial appointments and administrative reorganisations had been the norm for centuries, it was unsurprising that the emperor decided on which see should become dominant. This fitted historical precedent perfectly. Emperors had been crucial in inter-city competition from the very beginning of the principate.
As early as 31 BC, Octavian responded to an embassy of the Asian city of Rhosus which offered him honours and a gold crown with the statement: ‘When I come to those parts I will do my best to be of service to you and preserve the privileges of the city’. Such confirmation of privileges was important, especially in the Greek east, since any rights of cities were likely to be challenged by neighbouring cities. This competition between cities was notorious, famously expressed by Herodian who noted how ‘this continuous inter-city struggle and the desire to ruin a rival who seems to have grown too powerful is a long-standing weakness of the Greeks’.
Confirmation of status was prominently displayed to raise a city’s status, while negative imperial answers to requests were publicly displayed in competing cities. The emperor was the inevitable arbiter in this competition, and communication between various cities and the emperor can be traced with remarkable continuity over the centuries.
Cities consequently tried to flatter emperors into boosting their rights, recording verbatim the ever-more extensive acclamations on public inscriptions, milestones and even the reverses of coins. Emperors appreciated these tokens of allegiance and responded by, for instance, allowing a city to build a temple to the imperial cult (neokoros), the number of which raised a city’s status.
Imperial intervention was not only positive. Getting it wrong, for instance by acclaiming the wrong contender during civil war, could mean loss of status. Marcus Aurelius forbade the city of Antioch to organise any ‘spectacles, public meetings, and assemblies of any kind’ because they had supported a rebellion against the emperor. His successor Septimius Severus deprived Nicaea of the title of ‘first city’ after it had sided with Pescennius Niger in the civil war, to the great joy of nearby rival Nicomedia.
Imperial involvement in deciding which see held supremacy fitted these precedents perfectly. Emperors had decided on the relative status of cities for centuries, including at a religious level through allowing the construction of temples to the imperial cult. It was not only the emperor’s capacity for violence that made bishops turn to him to decide on internal rivalry. The emperor was the obvious person to turn to, because he was the figure to whom people had always turned in similar situations. The notion of being surrounded and advised by individuals who held independent status, like senators and bishops (even if only a subset of them would actually advise him), constrained the emperor. But the notion that the emperor was the ultimate arbitrator constrained senators and bishops. Emperors presented themselves as ‘special senators’ or ‘special bishops’ to live up to expectations, but these very expectations also allowed emperors to remain on top and keep the institutionally based group of people who surrounded them in check.
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