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Between Emperor, Court, and Senatorial Order: the Codification of the Codex Theodosianus

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BETWEEN EMPEROR, COURT, AND SENATORIAL ORDER: THE CODIFICATION OF THE CODEX THEODOSIANUS For Jochen Bleicken Most sacred emperor, when the defenses of the State have been prop- erly provided both at home and abroad with the assistance of Divine Providence, one task designed to cure our civilian woes awaits Your Serene Majesty: Throw light upon the confused and contradictory rulings of the laws by a judgement of Your August Dignity and put a stop to dishonest litigation. For what is so alien to decent conduct as to give vent to one's passion for strife in the very place, where the decisions of Justice distinguish what is due to every single man?1 With this piece of advice an unknown author, presumably a well-educated and high ranking civil servant, closes his memorandum De rebus belli- cis. At this stage, legal affairs seem to have been suffering a fundamen- tal crisis due to the vast number of confused or even contradictory laws. What was the solution? In the final chapter of his libellus the Anonymus, for his part, called for decisive state intervention: The «most sacred Emperor», as he addresses him, should attempt to solve the legum vel iuris confusio by means of an august and solemn decision. The author of the memorandum calls for the legal order to be founded anew on a firmly institutionalized base consisting of a canon of normative texts authorized and legitimized by the Emperor. The Anonymus hereby develops a concept which led to the code being the one and only legitimate repre- sentative of the normative canon2. 1 De reb. bell. 21: Divina providentia, sacratissime imperator, domi forisque rei publicae praesidiis comparatis, restat unum de tua serenitate remedium ad civilium curarum medicinam, ut confusas legum contrariasque sententias, improbitatis reiecto liti- gio, iudicio augustae dignationis illumines. quid enim sic ab honestate consistit alienum quam ibidem studia exerceri certandi ubi, iustitia profitente, discernuntur merita singulo- rum? M. BRETONE, Geschichte des römischen Rechts, München 1992, p. 239-240; E.A. THOMPSON, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, Oxford 1952, p. 1-21; H. BRANDT, Zeitkritik in der Spätantike, München 1988, p. 125-133, 150. Cf. Jill HARRIES, The Back- ground of the Code, in: Jill HARRIES – I. WOOD (eds.), The Theodosian Code, London 1993, p. 1-16, 1. This paper is dedicated to Jochen Bleicken (Hamburg) on the occasion of his 75th birthday (September 3, 2001). 2 Aleida ASSMANN – J. ASSMANN (eds.), Kanon und Zensur. Beiträge zur Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation, München 1987, p. 7-27; J. ASSMANN, Das kulturelle 284 D. SCHLINKERT For a few years, however, this project remained a mere political scheme. Yet, the crisis of law continued and juridical uncertainty increased3. Throughout the fourth decade of the fifth century an attempt was made in the eastern part of the Empire to solve the problems caused by the overall diversity of legislation. In March 429 Theodosius II appointed two commissions to codify the laws valid at that time which had been enacted since the reign of Constantine. It was an ambitious and time-consuming project, requiring almost a decade from 429 until 438 to complete. The Emperor justified his decision by «the mass of imperial constitutions which shut off from human ingenuity a knowledge of them- selves by a wall». The abundance of these constitutions appeared to him, «as though they were submerged in a thick cloud of obscurity». Fur- thermore, he declared that he had «completed a true undertaking of the times and […] dispelled the darkness and given the light of brevity to the laws by means of a compendium»4. In order to achieve this objective he delegated the main responsibility for the task to a small group of noble senators, who attained key positions in organizing and collecting the code from different sources, particularly from centrally maintained or local archival collections and other intermediate sources5. Who were these Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, München 1992, p. 103-129. Cf. D. SIMON, Verordnetes Vergessen, in: G. SMITH – A. MARGALIT (eds.), Amnestie oder die Politik der Erinnerung in der Demokratie, Frankfurt 1997, p. 21-36: «Denn Kodifikationen des Rechts huldigen dem Mythos des Neuanfangs. Gleichgültig ob sie — mehr rückwärtsgerichtet — die bestehende als Unordnung emp- fundene Lage beseitigen und klare normative Verhältnisse schaffen wollen oder ob sie — die Zukunft fest im Blick — Gesellschaftsentwürfe durch Gesetze zu verwirklichen beab- sichtigen: Immer wähnen sich die Ingenieure der Kodifikationen in der Stunde Null. (…) Die Stunde Null ist aber eine memoriafeindliche Konstruktion, die vom Pathos des Vergessens zehrt». 3 S.-A. FUSCO, Constitutiones principum und Kodifikation in der Spätantike, Chiron 4 (1974), p. 612-616; O. SEECK, Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, Stuttgart 1920, VI, p. 131-183. J. BLEICKEN, Das römische Recht, in: J. MARTIN (ed.), Das alte Rom, Gütersloh 1994, p. 154ff. 4 NTh I 1 (438): quod ne a quoquam ulterius sedula ambiguitate tractetur, si copia inmensa librorum, si actionum diversitas difficultasque causarum animis nostris occurrat, si denique moles constitutionum divalium, quae velut sub crassa demersae caligine obscu- ritatis vallo sui notitiam humanis ingeniis interclusit, verum egimus negotium temporis nostri et discussis tenebris conpendio brevitatis lumen legibus dedimus (…). Cf. the metaphor of light at the end of I 1: quae singula prudentium detecta vigiliis in apertum lucemque deducta sunt nominis nostri radiante splendore; 1.4 and CTh I 1.6 (435): quod ut brevitate constrictum claritate luceat, adgressuris hoc opus (…). 5 On the controversy on central versus local archives as main sources for the codifi- cation see J. MATTHEWS, The Making of the Code, and B. SIRKS, The Sources of the Code, in: J. HARRIES – I. WOOD, Theodosian Code (n. 1), p. 19-44 and 45-67. BETWEEN EMPEROR, COURT, AND SENATORIAL ORDER 285 nobiles viri?6 What were their interests?7 Were they able to bring out the process of canonization by codification? Arcadius died in May 408, leaving the throne to his seven-year-old son Theodosius. Contemporary historians agree that he reigned rather than ruled. He was apparently a puppet controlled by his influential sis- ter Pulcheria, his wife Eudoxia, as well as by other powerful counselors at court as well. He even seems to have played the fool for a camarilla of castrated men under the direction of the omnipotent court eunuch Anti- ochus and, later on, Chrysaphius8. This image of the Emperor is without any doubt the result of prejudice and is probably misleading9. Neverthe- less, even under a weak emperor the political order of Late Antiquity could obviously remain stable. An emperor’s dominant character was no longer indispensable to the stability of the empire. Far more important was the imperial court, which was the political ‘command module’ of the Empire and was in a position to guarantee, or undermine, monarchical sta- bility and continuity. Especially the example of the ‘weak infant emperor’ Theodosius proves that the imperial court (sacer comitatus) was already so firmly established and functioning as the leading political institution in Constantinople10, that the Emperor himself scarcely emerges as a personality or force. We do not know if he actually ruled or was ruled or whether he ruled at all. Be that as it may, the persons serving at his court 6 D. SCHLINKERT, Ordo senatorius und nobilitas. Die Konstitution des Senatsadels in der Spätantike, Stuttgart 1996 [hereafter Ordo]. 7 Marie Theres FÖGEN, Die Enteignung der Wahrsager, Frankfurt 1993, p. 14: «Kaiser und ihre Beamte sind mächtige, aber keine kommunikativ isolierten Repräsentanten ihrer Gesellschaft. Was sie in hochoffiziellen Dokumenten artikulieren, ihre Meinungen, Wün- sche und Bedürfnisse, haben auch sie erworben und gelernt. Wir müssen also fahnden nach den Kollaborateuren». Cf. D. NÖRR, Zu den geistigen und sozialen Grundlagen der spätantiken Kodifikationsbewegung, ZRG 80 (1963), p. 128-130. 8 A. LIPPOLD, art. Theodosius II., in: RE Suppl. XIII (1973), col. 1040-1044; A.H.M. JONES, The Later Roman Empire, Oxford 1964, p. 173-174, 177-182 [hereafter LRE]; D. SIMON, Lobpreis des Eunuchen, München 1994, p. 6-9. Cf. Jill HARRIES, ‘Pius princeps’: Theo- dosius II and Fifth-Century Constantinople, in: P. MAGDALINO (ed.), New Constantines, Aldershot 1994, p. 35-44. 9 D. SCHLINKERT, Der Hofeunuch in der Spätantike: Ein gefährlicher Außenseiter?, Hermes 122 (1994), p. 342-359; Helga SCHOLTEN, Der Eunuch in Kaisernähe, Frankfurt 1995; D. SCHLINKERT, Gnomon 69 (1997), p. 226-230; ID., Ordo, p. 237-284. 10 D. SCHLINKERT, Vom Haus zum Hof. Aspekte höfischer Herrschaft in der Spätantike, Klio 78 (1996), p. 454-482; A.H.M. JONES, LRE, p. 49-51, 366-373. Cf. A. CHASTAGNOL, L’évolution politique, sociale et économique du monde romain de Dioclétien à Julien, Paris 1982, p. 191-193; J.H.G.W. LIEBESCHUETZ, From Diocletian to the Arab Conquest, Nor- folk 1990, p. 457-459; K.L. NOETHLICHS, Strukturen und Funktionen des spätantiken Kaiserhofes, in: A. WINTERLING (ed.), Comitatus, Berlin 1998, p. 13-49. J. MARTIN, Das 286 D. SCHLINKERT were the ones who dictated the imperial policies for a long time11. It is in this inner circle of the imperial family, intimates and friends, that we have to look for those who called the Emperor’s attention to defects in judicial practice. They advised him to solve the legal crisis by codifying general laws12. Where else if not in the «sacred council» (sacrum consistorium), the center of politics and communication between the «most sacred Emperor» and his administrative élite at court, should this decision have been made?13 At the core of the political system was the sacrum consistorium. It was the institution where the exclusive group of the comites consistoriani, the leading organ of the state apparatus in Late Antiquity, assembled14.
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