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Flavius Athanasius, Dux Et Augustalis Thebaidis – a Case Study on Landholding and Power in Late Antique Egypt

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Imperium and Officium Working Papers (IOWP) Flavius Athanasius, dux et Augustalis Thebaidis – A case study on landholding and power in Late Antique Egypt Version 01 March 2013 Anna Maria Kaiser (University of Vienna, Department of Ancient History, Papyrology and Epigraphy) Abstract: From 565 to 567/568 CE Flavius Triadius Marianus Michaelius Gabrielius Constantinus Theodorus Martyrius Iulianus Athanasius was dux et Augustalis Thebaidis. Papyri mention him explicitly in this function, as the highest civil and military authority in the Thebaid, the southernmost province of the Eastern Roman Empire. Flavius Athanasius might be not the most typical dux et Augustalis Thebaidis concerning his career, but most typical concerning his powerful standing in society. And he has the benefit of being one of the better- known duces et Augustales Thebaidis in the second half of the 6th century. This article will focus first on his official competence as dux et Augustalis: The geographic area(s) of responsibility, the civil and military branches of power will be treated. Second will be his civil branch of power; documents show his own domus gloriosa and prove his involvement with the domus divina, the estates of members of the imperial family itself. We will end with a look at his integration in the network of power – both in the Egyptian provinces and beyond. © Anna Maria Kaiser 2013 [email protected] Anna Kaiser 1 Flavius Athanasius, dux et Augustalis Thebaidis – A case study on landholding and power in Late Antique Egypt* Anna Maria Kaiser From 565 to 567/568 CE Flavius Triadius Marianus Michaelius Gabrielius Constantinus Theodorus Martyrius Iulianus Athanasius was dux et Augustalis Thebaidis. Papyri mention him explicitly in this function, as the highest civil and military authority in the Thebaid, the southernmost province of the Eastern Roman Empire.11 Flavius Athanasius might be not the most typical dux et Augustalis Thebaidis concerning his career, but most typical concerning his powerful standing in society. And he has the benefit of being one of the better-known duces et Augustales Thebaidis in the second half of the 6th century. This article will focus first on his official competence as dux et Augustalis: The geographic area(s) of responsibility, the civil and military branches of power will be treated. Second will be his civil branch of power; documents show his own domus gloriosa and prove his involvement with the domus divina, the estates of members of the imperial family itself. We will end with a look at his integration in the network of power – both in the Egyptian provinces and beyond. Life and family connections It is especially the archive of Dioscoros, the famous notary-poet from Aphrodite, which illuminates our knowledge of Flavius Athanasius. In his fundamental work Héllenisme dans l’Égypte du VIe siècle. La bibliothèque et l’oevre de Dioscore d’Aphrodité, Jean-Luc Fournet traced the person Flavius Athanasius as detailed as the papyri from the archive of Dioscoros allow. We will therefore give the personal information on Flavius Athanasius just a quick glance before we have a look at the fundaments his power as dux et Augustalis Thebaidis was based on. With his famous Edict XIII the emperor Justinian reunited in 539 the previously separated civil and military authorities in the provinces again – in the persons of the duces et Augustales.2 These duces et Augustales had a subordinated praeses each, but the praeses, who * This article developed as part of the project “The Framework of Imperial Power in Late Antique Egypt (284-641 AD)” conducted in the National Research Network (NFN) “Imperium and Officium – Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom“ (S10805–G18), funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).1 Papyri are cited according to the “Checklist of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets“, http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html, June 2011. Place and date of papyri and ostraca are taken from the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis (http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~gv0/, April 2008), if not declared otherwise. All dates mentioned are CE, if not indicated. The abbreviation BL refers to the Berichtigungsliste der Griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Ägypten, Vol. I- XII (1913-1922 to 2009). 2 Iust.Ed. XIII; see also P.Oxy. LXIII 4400 (Oxyrhynchos, 6th c.). Germaine Rouillard, L’administration civile de l’Égypte byzantine (Paris: Geuthner, 19282); Roger Rémondon, “L’Édit XIII de Justinien a-t-il été promulgé en 539?,” CdÉ 30 (1955): 112-121; Arnold H.M. Jones, The later Roman Empire Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom Flavius Athanasius, dux et Augustalis Thebaidis 2 was the civil governor of a province before Justinian’s Edict XIII and still was concerned with civil matters afterwards, seems to have been almost entirely eclipsed by the dux et Augustalis. That is the case in the archive of Dioscoros at least. In these documents the duces et Augustales are the omnipotent and most important persons in the province.3 Their birthday anniversaries and weddings are celebrated by the public in quite the same way as the birthdays of the emperors themselves, on a smaller scale of course.4 The duces et Augustales received encomia and epithalamia celebrating special occasions. These poems relate information we usually do not come across in documentary papyri.5 It is therefore the literary papyri from the Dioscoros-archive that supply the private background of Flavius Athanasius. Athanasius seems to have been a native Egyptian. It is likely that he even came from the Thebaid itself.6 His birthday seems to have been between September 28th and October 27th, in the month Phaophi.7 Among his ancestors were a certain Eustochius, Kyrillos and Kometas.8 His genealogy is said to be worth of a dux.9 That will not only have been pure flattery of Dioscoros. His ancestors might have been governors of neighbour provinces themselves, maybe in the province Arcadia, immediately to the north of the Thebaid.10 284-602. A social economic and administrative survey. Vol. I-III (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964), 281 (LRE); Anna M. Demicheli, L’Editto XIII di Giustiniano. In terma di amministrazione e fiscalità dell’Egitto bizantino (Torino: Giappichelli, 2000); James G. Keenan, “Egypt,” in The Cambridge Ancient History. Second Edition. Vol. XIV. Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600, ed. Averil Cameron et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 613; Wolfram Brandes, “Die τράπεζα/arca der praefectura praetorio per Orientem und die Datierung von Justinians Edikt 13,” Fontes Minores 11 (2005): 229-234; Bernhard Palme, “The Imperial Presence: Government and Army,” in Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, ed. Roger S. Bagnall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 248. Constantin Zuckerman (Du village à l’empire. Autour du registre fiscal d’Aphroditô [525/526] [Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2004], 52) opts for dating the edict to fall 538. 3 Jean-Luc Fournet, Hellénisme dans l’Égypte du VIe siècle. La bibliothèque et l’oeuvre de Dioscore d’Aphrodité. Vol. I-II (Le Caire: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1999), 326. 4 Fournet, Hellénisme, 326-327; Bernhard Palme, “Dioskoros und die staatlichen Autoritäten,” in Les archives de Dioscore d’Aphrodité cent ans après leur découverte. Histoire et culture dans l’Égypte byzantine. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (8-10 décembre 2005), ed. Jean-Luc Fournet (Paris: De Boccard, 2008), 214. 5 Fournet, Hellénisme, 327; Palme, “Dioskoros,” 214. 6 P.Aphrod.Lit. 10,5 = P.Cair.Masp. I 67097 V, E and B-C (end 565/beginning 566, date: Fournet, Hellénisme): “en effet, voilà le stratège, et ce n’est pas un étranger” (transl.: Fournet, Hellénisme). Fournet, Hellénisme, 327, followed by Palme, “Dioskoros,” 214. This information can be understood in two ways: Either it’s not a stranger coming, but the strategos, who already had had a military appointment in the Thebais (cf. P.Oxy. XVI 1920 = P.Oxy. I 154 R [introd.] = Sel.Pap. II 408 [Oxyrhynchos, after 563]) or it’s not a stranger coming, but the dux (strategos as denomination), who is no stranger at all, but originating from the Thebaid. It is the second possibility that seems most likely to Fournet (Hellénisme, 513-514). 7 P.Aphrod.Lit. IV 24 = P.Cair.Masp. II 67178 V (566, date: Fournet, Hellénisme). Fournet, Hellénisme, 602- 603. Athanasius is not mentioned by name in this encomion, but he can be identified through Kallinikos and Dorotheos, who both worked in his officium. 8 Fournet, Hellénisme, 329. P.Aphrod.Lit. 10,34 = P.Cair.Masp. I 67097 V, E and B-C (end 565/beginning 566, date: Fournet, Hellénisme). 9 Fournet, Hellénisme, 329. P.Aphrod.Lit. 10,8-9 = P.Cair.Masp. I 67097 V, E and B-C (end 565/beginning 566, date: Fournet, Hellénisme). 10 P.Aphrod.Lit. 10,9 = P.Cair.Masp. I 67097 V, E and B-C (end 565/beginning 566, date: Fournet, Hellénisme). Fournet, Hellénisme, 327; followed by Palme, “Dioskoros,” 214. The unsecure identification of the named Eustochius, Kyrillas and Kometas is discussed by Fournet as well (Hellénisme, 519-520). Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom Anna Kaiser 3 Long names like Flavius Triadius Marianus Michaelius Gabrielius Constantinus Theodorus Martyrius Iulianus Athanasius are characteristic for high-ranking persons in Late Antiquity and appear regularly from the second half of the 6th century onwards. The last name is the actual first name, Athanasius in this case, the second to last is the name of the father, Iulianus. The other names might be connected to famous ancestors or might be seen as homage to prominent people adored by the bearer of the name.11 Giovanni R.
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