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The Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis and the Ethics of Empire in Late Antiquity a Problem in Intellectual History

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The Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis and the Ethics of Empire in Late Antiquity a Problem in Intellectual History The Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis and the Ethics of Empire in Late Antiquity A Problem in Intellectual History Connor Grubaugh The Anonymous and Contemporary Treatments of His Work Scholars of the later Roman Empire have settled very little about the anonymous fourth-century treatise preserved under the title De Rebus Bellicis (On Military Affairs).1 Not only the pamphlet’s date and authorship but also the meaning and significance of its seemingly simple policy recommendations have been disputed ever since E. A. Thompson published the first modern edition of the text with an English translation in 1952. But fascination with the De Rebus Bellicis stretches back much further, to its first publication—with the Notitia Dignitatum, beside which it was discovered in the famous (though now lost) Codex Spirensis—by 1 The authoritative modern edition with an English translation is E.A. Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952). Subsequent English-language studies in order of publication are Revilo P. Oliver, “A Note on the De Rebus Bellicis,” Classical Philology 50, no. 2 (April 1955): 113-18; Barry Baldwin, “The De Rebus Bellicis,” Eirene 16 (1978): 23-39; Thomas Wiedemann, “Petitioning a Fourth-Century Emperor: The De Rebus Bellicis,” Florilegium 1 (1979): 140-50; De Rebus Bellicis, ed. M.W.C. Hassall and Robert Ireland, vols. 1-2 (Oxford: British Archeological Reports, 1979); A. E. Astin, “Observations on the De Rebus Bellicis,” in Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, ed. Carl Deroux, vol. 3 (Bruxelles: Latomus, 1983), 388-439; Masatoshi Ichikawa, “What Kind of Largess did the Anonymous Author of the De Rebus Bellicis Want to Reduce?” Kodai 4 (1993): 75-78; J.H.W.D. Liebeschuetz, “Realism and Phantasy: The Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis and its Afterlife,” in The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East, ed. E. Dabrowa (Krákow: Uniwersytet Jagiellonskîego, 1994), 119-39. Santo Mazzarino is widely credited with sparking interest in the text with his comments in Aspetti Sociali del Quarto Secolo (Rome: Bretschneider, 1951). Andrea Giardina has produced a critical edition with an Italian translation under the title Anonimo: Le Cose Della Guerra (Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, 1989). Clio’s Scroll 17, no. 1 (Fall 2015): 3-25 4 | Clio’s Scroll Gelenius in 1552.2 Then as now, an inability to make sense of the text as a single, coherent work has led scholars to narrowly focus on certain of its more striking aspects. As Thompson documents, Renaissance readers (possibly including Leonardo da Vinci) took interest in the text chiefly for its practical and technical insights, while Enlightenment scholars tended to spurn it for its clumsy style; a few nineteenth-century German classicists reexamined the Anonymous’s fanciful machinery, but only in the twentieth century have historians attempted to place the De Rebus Bellicis in its fourth-century setting.3 Unfortunately, such efforts have yielded little progress. Consider the dating of the treatise: The Anonymous’s allusion to the “age of Constantine” (Constantini temporibus) situates his text sometime after the emperor’s death in 337, and his view of the barbarian threat, as emanating from the frontiers, indicates that he crafted his treatise before the incursion of the Goths and their decisive victory at Adrianople in 378.4 Because the Anonymous addresses his work to two “most sacred emperors” with two or more sons, most scholars follow Thompson in dating the text to the joint reign of Valentinian I and Valens, sometime between the birth of Valens’s son in 366 and Valentinian’s death in 375.5 Yet there is anything but consensus on the issue. Santo Mazzarino favored the reign of Constantius II from 353 to 360, though Alan Cameron has argued convincingly against this possibility.6 Barry Baldwin and A.E. Astin, meanwhile, have defended the periods 384-387 and 383-395, respectively.7 For the purposes of this article, Thompson’s dating will suffice, though (as we shall see) precision on the matter is largely beside the point. 2 Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, 17. 3 Ibid., 19-21. 4 De Rebus Bellicis 2.1, 6.1. Thompson translates “Above all it must be recognized that wild nations are pressing upon the Roman Empire and howling round about it everywhere, and treacherous barbarians, covered by natural positions, are assailing every frontier.” Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, 113. Throughout this article, gendered pronouns are used when referring to the Anonymous author of De Rebus Bellicis with the acknowledgment that works of this kind in their time come from spaces exclusively of men. 5 Preface to De Rebus Bellicis 1, 8 (“most sacred emperors”); Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, 2 (“dating the text”). 6 Mazzarino, Aspetti Sociali del Quarto Secolo, 72ff; Alan Cameron, “The Date of the Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis,” in Aspects of the De Rebus Bellicis, ed. Hassall, 1-10. 7 Baldwin, “The De Rebus Bellicis,” 23-29; Astin, “Observations on the De Rebus Bellicis,” 394- 97. The Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis | 5 Even more disputed is the authorship of the treatise, particularly the Anonymous’s native language and locale. While numerous scholars, including Thompson, have argued for the western origins of the Anonymous at least partially on the grounds that he wrote in Latin, Cameron rightly points out the Anonymous could hardly have done otherwise, given that Valens certainly, and possibly Valentinian as well, did not know Greek.8 Conversely, the Anonymous’s generally cumbersome and obscure Latin style is hardly evidence for eastern origins, as he himself denies membership in the highest strata of Roman society, and, calling himself only a “private citizen” (privato), engages in no small measure of rhetorical maneuvering to justify the boldness of his petition from such humble origins.9 Although the Anonymous must have been a man of some leisure in order to write such a treatise in the first place, it is unlikely that he achieved anything beyond the minimal level of education expected of late-Roman provincial elites.10 Cameron argues on the basis of the plural “usurpers” (tyrannos) that the Anonymous must be addressing primarily the eastern emperor Valens (who faced the usurpers Procopius and Marcellus) rather than the western emperor Valentinian (who faced only Firmus, a Moor who was more an ‘invader’ than a ‘usurper’ anyway).11 Yet difficulties in assigning a date to the text and an identity to its author pale in comparison with the demands of interpreting its actual content, a brief summary of which now follows. In a lengthy preface, the Anonymous promises to reveal the “interests” (commoda) of various classes of persons under the emperors’ rule, including civil and military 8 Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, 2-3; Astin, “Observations on the De Rebus Bellicis,” 399; Baldwin, “The De Rebus Bellicis,” 32-33; Wiedemann, “Petitioning a Fourth- Century Emperor,” 143 (“numerous schoalrs”); Cameron, “The Date of the Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis,” 7. For two ancient accounts of the emperors’ linguistic ineptitude and general lack of education, see Ammianus, Res Gestae 31.14; and Themistius, Oration 6.71c. 9 Preface to De Rebus Bellicis 3-4, 10. 10 Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, 4; Baldwin, “The De Rebus Bellicis,” 32-33. Although in later in his writing (pp. 34-39), Baldwin defends the Anonymous’s style as classically inadequate, yet sufficient for the standards of the fourth century. 11 De Rebus Bellicis 2.3 (“usurpers”); Cameron, “The Date of the Anonymous De Rebus Bellicis,” 3-4. See Ammianus, Res Gestae 26.5-10, 29.5. Wiedemann, however, disputes these claims by pointing out the widespread use of the rhetorical plural in “Petitioning a Fourth- Century Emperor,” 142-43. 6 | Clio’s Scroll officials (militiam clementiae vestrae tractantibus), leisured elites (otio privato contentis), peasant farmers (terrae cultoribus), and merchants (negiatoribus mercium lucra tractantibus).12 He also pledges to show how “taxes can be reduced by a half” in such a way that “the amount of your gold and silver may be doubled without hardship to the taxpayer, and the soldier gratified by the heaping on him of rewards beyond your customary lavishness.”13 Chapters I-V then outline the Anonymous’s clever administrative reforms, while the greater part of the work in Chapters VI- XIX describes a variety of military machines designed to reduce expenditure and save manpower. Chapters XX-XXI, finally, conclude the work with a stereotypically stylized plea for strong defense and good governance. The primary object of the Anonymous’s reproach is the imperial system of “public grants” (largitiones), subsidies paid by the emperor to civil servants and military personnel, as well as unruly tribes on the empire’s frontiers.14 Such grants, in the Anonymous’s view, have become “extravagant” (profusa) and “unrestrained” (immoderata) in recent years, sapping the resources of the taxpayer and inhibiting the emperor’s war efforts.15 A strange numismatic history follows, illustrating the decline of Rome from an austere age of bronze and clay currency to the present time of silver and gold.16 This decline began with the reign of Constantine and his introduction of the golden solidus, in part funded by his pillaging of the pagan temples.17 It is in commenting on this development that the Anonymous’s agenda becomes particularly impenetrable: This store of gold meant that the houses of the powerful were crammed full and their splendor enhanced to the destruction of the poor (in perniciem pauperum), the poorer classes of course being held down by force (tenuoribus vidilicet violentia opressis). But the poor were driven by their afflictions (afflicta paupertas) into various criminal enterprises, and losing sight of all respect for law, all feelings of loyalty, they entrusted their revenge to crime.…Therefore, Most Excellent Emperor, you will take care in your 12 Preface to De Rebus Bellicis 6.
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