Narratu Sunt Digna: Aspects of the Socio-Economic Life of Rome's Plebs, 275- 455 Ce

NARRATU SUNT DIGNA: ASPECTS OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC LIFE OF ROME'S PLEBS, 275- 455 CE

John Fabiano

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Classics University of Toronto

NARRATU SUNT DIGNA: ASPECTS OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC LIFE OF ROME'S PLEBS, 275- 455 CE John Fabiano

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Classics University of Toronto

2020

ABSTRACT This dissertation provides a wide-ranging analysis of the socio-economic life of the non-elite urban population of Rome and their interactions with the institutions and administration of the city from

275 until 455 CE. The traditional view holds that during this period the life of the plebs Romana became measurably worse, as empire-wide reforms precipitated a continual numerical decline in the city's population and shrinking economic opportunity. I demonstrate, on the contrary, that a large portion of the city's population experienced vitality on a level not hitherto appreciated by historians of the later Roman empire.

I first address the issue of the size of Rome's population. Through a close reading of various complex pieces of epigraphic and legal evidence pertaining to the city's food supply, I propose that

Rome not only maintained a high population throughout the fourth century, but that there was also likely an increase in the number of those entitled to free food distributions, the so-called plebs frumentaria. The consequence of this argument is that a larger portion of population now possessed the opportunity to acquire wealth well above the level of subsistence.

I then consider by what means Rome's plebs might access and control their wealth. Work, labour, and urban commerce prove to be useful heuristic categories. The epigraphic record reveals that members of the plebs Romana continued to identify with their work as they had during the

earlier Empire, while juridical and literary texts disclose that this same population came to be defined by and fix to their work. It is here that this dissertation intersects with the broader scholarly discourse on work and labour, as I show that membership in professional associations — collegia and corpora — was imposed on all craftsmen, artisans, and entrepreneurs. Far from functioning as restrictive and oppressive institutions, these associations formed an increasingly interdependent relationship with the administrative apparatus of the city, which members both collectively and individually exploited to their political and economic benefit.

The study concludes with systematic analysis of the construction industry in Rome as a case study both of collegial activity and of population dynamics. Late-antique Rome, it is shown, was a city in which a section of its non-elite population, its plebs, were able to turn the new demands imposed on them by the city and the state to their social and economic advantage.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation is the product of the teaching, advice, and support of many people, and it is only appropriate that my appreciation of their efforts is placed here in the beginning pages, even if my gratitude comes nowhere near repaying their contributions.

I am indebted most of all to my supervisor, Christer Bruun, without whom this project would have never come to fruition. His unwavering support and patient supervision provided me the confidence to pursue my work, while his inexhaustible knowledge of the Roman world and meticulous reading challenged me to improve it. From him I also learned the careful craft of the epigrapher and the due caution required when reconstructing social, political and economic context. But above all else, he taught me how to be a historian, and for this I will be eternally grateful.

I am also obliged to Kevin Wilkinson and Seth Bernard. Throughout the entire project, and even before, they have offered invaluable lessons on how to be a scholar and teacher, while their insightful comments have improved this thesis immeasurably. In the final stage of the project,

Christel Freu offered stimulating and generous commentary, for which I also owe a debt of gratitude.

The Department of Classics at the University of Toronto proved to be a perfect home to undertake this project. I am grateful to the many friends and colleagues who made it so by providing continual inspiration, mentorship, and friendship, not least Boris Chrubasik, Ben

Akrigg, Eph Lytle, Marion Durand, Brad Hald, Jody Cundy, Jeff Easton, and Drew Davis. I would be remiss without also thanking Coral Gavrilovic and Ann-Marie Matti, whose patience and empathy were always very welcomed and much-needed.

Finally, to my family, the debt I owe for the countless hours they spent listening to me drone on about my research, for the personal sacrifices they have all made to my benefit, and for the unflagging confidence they all had in my ability, always far outstripping my own, no words can express. So to Mom, Dad, Kristin, Martin, Mark, and Ray for your selflessness and love, I can only thank you. Brigitte, ma chérie, tu m'as donné l'inspiration et le courage dont j'ai eu besoin pour terminer cette thèse. Je t'en remercie. It is to you all that I dedicate this dissertation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES ix

LIST OF APPENDICES x

INTRODUCTION 1 A "Worthy" Pursuit: the motivation and aim of the present dissertation 1 Definitions and Terminology: an overview 6 Plebs, plebs urbana, and plebs Romana 6 Labor, ars, and vocatio or labour, work, and professions: work and the language of work 8 Sources for the Study of the Plebs Romana in Late Antiquity 10 Chapter Structure 18

CHAPTER ONE. Viewing the Plebs in Late Antiquity: Plebeius Labor and the Stratification of Society 23 A Binary Late Roman Society? 27 Stratification of Late-Antique Society: defining a "middle class" 34 Plebeius Labor: Work, Profession, and Plebs in Late Antiquity 44 Conclusion 50

CHAPTER TWO. Pork, People, and the Plebs Frumentaria: the Demographic Profile of Fourth-Century Rome 52 Interpreting Population Dynamics: models and approaches 55 The size of the plebs frumentaria in late-antique Rome 62 Calculating the size of the population from the size of the plebs frumentaria 84 Inclusive exclusion and reconciling 317,000 beneficiaries 96 Valentinian I and Valens: the great benefactors of Rome’s plebs 102 Continuity, Maintenance, and Growth 108 Conclusion 113

CHAPTER THREE. From Taxation to Occupational Obligation: a Profile of late Rome’s Middling Population 115 The Plebs Romana and the non-elite relationship with occupation 117 Obnoxius vocationi: late-antique taxation and obligatory occupations 123 Iugatio-capitatio: an overview of the tetrarchic tax system 124 Capitatio plebeia and the collatio lustralis: from urban to occupational taxation 128 Functiones and munera: from occupation to obligation 135

Constituting Rome’s collegia and corpora: tax, munera, and the nature of Rome’s late- antique associations 137 Rome’s Working plebs: the numerical significance of the city’s collegia and corpora 147 A Universal Tax? The collatio lustralis at Rome 148 The numerical significance of collegiati and corporati at Rome 150 Conclusion 162

CHAPTER FOUR. Membra Aeternae Urbis: The Advantages of Being a collegiatus in Late- Antique Rome 165 Membra aeternae Urbis: the public identity and status of collegia and corpora in late- antique Rome 167 Public display and imperial recognition: collegia and the adventus 169 Evecti honoribus: the advantages of patronage 171 Other patroni: the intersection of the late-antique collegial order and the administrative order 177 Marshaling the people: the corpus omnium mancipum and contract labour 182 The Economic Advantages of Being a collegiatius: wealth and monopolies 194 Conclusion 207

CHAPTER FIVE. Building and Builders: the organizational structure and economic impact of Rome’s building industry on its population from Aurelian's to Honorius' wall 209 Building Rome: an overview of the organization of construction up to the Severan Period 211 Sub dispositione viri illustris praefecti urbis: the administration of public building in fourth-century Rome 225 Sunt qui fabriles manus augustis operibus adcommodent: Builders and Craftsmen in fourth-century Rome 236 Collegia, corpora, and craftsmen 236 Obnoxietas and the marshaling of labour in the building industry 244 Economic, Social, Demographic Developments in the Late-Antique Building Industry at Rome: Builders and the Elite 253 Demand, from the Tetrarchy to Constantine 253 Counting bricks I: labour for Aurelian’s wall 257 Private construction, ecclesiastic building, and a new imperial interest: building from the mid-fourth century to the early fifth century 263 Counting bricks II: the Honorian wall 272 Fourth-Century Building and Labour Migration 276 Economic Opportunities: compulsion, contracts, and collectives 280 Conclusion 292

CONCLUSION 295

Appendix 1: Edicts Pertaining to the Number of Beneficiaries of Pork 304

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Appendix 2: Job Titles Attested at Rome in the 4th and 5th Centuries 311

Appendix 3: Catalogue of Inscriptions of Collegia and Corpora 316

Appendix 4: Ambrosino 1939, 85-94= Emerita 8, 1940, 134-139 = AE 1941, 68 327

Appendix 5: Building attestations in Rome from the Tetrarchy until 425 CE 330

Bibliography 343

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LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1 Compensation in Amphorae 70 Table 1.2 The percentage of "levamen" granted to the suarii in 363/367/452 72-74 Table 1.3 The obsonia and the beneficiaries 75-76 Table 5.1 The Size of the Aurelian Wall 260 Table 5.2 Labour Estimates in Man-Days 261-262

Figure 0.1 Schematic Representation of Rome's Population 7 Figure 3.1 Iustus and Asellus, Tomb of Trebius Iustus 122 Figure 3.2 Builders at Work, Tomb of Trebius Iustus 123 Figure 5.1 Building Inscriptions at Rome, 284-410 270 Figure 5.2 Iustus and Magister Generosus, Tomb of Trebius Iustus 289

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1 Edicts Pertaining to the Number of Beneficiaries of Pork 303

Appendix 2 Job Titles Attested at Rome in the 4th and 5th Centuries 310 Appendix 3 Catalogue of Inscriptions of Collegia and Corpora 315 Appendix 4 Ambrosino 1939, 85-94= Emerita 8, 1940, 134-139 = AE 1941, 68 326 Appendix 5 Building attestations in Rome from the Tetrarchy until 425 CE 329

INTRODUCTION

A "Worthy" Pursuit: the motivation and aim of the present dissertation Rome was a megalopolis, even in Late Antiquity. It was home to the wealthiest inhabitants of the Empire and it possessed an "innumerable" population, its plebs, who "flowed into" Rome from every corner of the world.1 These were the words chosen by the fourth-century historian

Ammianus Marcellinus to describe the city. Himself a foreigner in Rome, Ammianus went to great lengths to present to his readers an image of the now defunct imperial seat still befitting its ancient stature. Occurring throughout his work are narratives of the city’s history, judgements of the city’s prefects, and acrimonious attacks on the social pretensions of the city’s elite. On occasion he turns to the plebs, yet when he does, it is only, in Tacitean fashion, to contrast the lofty houses of the elite with the despicable and otiose behaviour of the plebs. As if in apologetic anticipation of his critics’ censure for this elision of urban minutiae, Ammianus remarks that of the affairs that happen among lowly and obscure people, "not all things are worthy of narrating."2 And so, with the exception of his digression, which tells us more about Ammianus’ elitist sentiments than about

Rome’s population, Rome’s plebs receive little attention in one of our more meticulous witnesses to the fourth-century city’s affairs.

In his omission, Ammianus is not alone. While the social, economic, and political life of

Rome’s population in the early Empire has received its due attention in recent decades,3 the

1 Amm. 14.6.26 refers to Rome’s innumeram plebem; At 16.10.6 For Ammianus' amazement at the ‘great number’ of the plebs: cum se vertisset ad plebem, stupebat qua celebritate omne quod ubique et hominum genus confluxerit Romam. Also when describing Constantius II’s impression upon entering the city, which is likely Ammianus’s own, the author describes the senatorial elite of Rome “as a body of kings” and Rome, as a result, the “sanctuary of the whole world”, 16.10.5: Cumque urbi propinquaret, senatus officia reverendasque patriciae stirpis effigies ore sereno contemplans non ut Cineas ille Pyrri legatus in unum coactam multitudinem regum sed asylum mundi totius adesse existimabat. This assessment is similar to Olympiodorus’, made a little more than a decade later, when he astonishes over the staggering wealth of Rome’s elite, see Fr. 41.1-2, Blockley. 2 Amm. 28.1.15: non omnia narratu sunt digna, quae per squalidas transiere personas. 3 E.g. see Purcell 1994; Millar 1998; Mouritsen 2001; Virlouvet 2009; Courrier 2014 and 2017.

statement of Moses Finley, made nearly forty years ago, that the plebs urbana of the later Empire have received remarkably little scrutiny remains nearly as apt today.4 The same is not true of other non-elite cadres of the later Roman world. Emblematic of the historiographical trend that eschews elite perspectives and embraces a bottom-up approach to writing history, work on reconstructing the lived experience of the indigent, rural, and slave populations has begun to provide a more complete image of the social world of Late Antiquity. Most notable perhaps is the work of Kyle

Harper on late Roman slavery,5 but of equal importance have been the studies of Cam Grey on the rural poor and peasant farmers that populated the late-antique countryside and that of Christel Freu, whose lexicographical study and social history of poverty in Late Antiquity bridges the gap between the literary representation of the poor and the complex reality of poverty in the late Roman

West.

The recent work of Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira does go some way in redressing the elision of the late Roman plebs urbana in modern historiography.6 His aim was to reconstitute the mechanisms of popular participation and collective action in the cities of late Roman North Africa.

In so doing, he sketches an image of plebeian life, wherein work, habitation, and other communal activities created symmetrical ties of horizontal solidarity, through which the urban population could exert their influence and impose their will. This plebs urbana is a long way from Ramsey

MacMullen’s late Roman urban masses, who often engaged in riotous behaviour, coaxed to do so

4 Finley 1980, 147. 5 Harper 2011. Grey (2011) has made similar contributions to our knowledge of the rural poor and peasants, overturning many of misconceptions, and demonstrating that peasants developed sophisticated strategies to avert risks of subsistence failure and social exploitation. Freu (2007) reconstructs the image of the poor in an excellent socio- cultural history of the late-antique West. To these can be added a long list of prior studies that express the traditional view: on the poor, see Patlagean 1977; on the urban masses, MacMullen 1990; and on the rural poor, Carrié 1982, MacMullen 1990, Marcone 1998, 357, and Giardina 2007, 749-753. 6 Oliveira 2012 and 2018.

by a climate of schismatic religious discord and at the behest of the ruling elite, accepting the latter’s superiority.7

The scholarship briefly adumbrated here all converges in a particular way: each contribution retraces social, economic, and political aspects of late-antique society that are only faintly visible in the evidence, challenging entrenched positions that govern histories of Late

Antiquity. In the case of Rome, recent work, which has tended to focus primarily on the elite, has also rewritten, in some ways, the socio-political and economic history of the city.8 No longer is later Rome’s narrative one of inexorable decline, of a city unmoored from its imperial anchorage, adrift on the periphery of empire. Instead, the senatorial elite displayed what can only be termed a continued vitality, which was closely connected with the socio-economic life of the Urbs; they succeeded in rearticulating their relationship with the imperial court, controlling access to resources, and wielding authority with greater autonomy than in the previous centuries. While these results have done much to advance our understanding of the most visible and influential group in Rome, the life of the non-elite population, its political role, and its social and economic organization remains a sorely understudied topic.

Nicolas Purcell’s 1999 study still remains the exception to the general lack of historical attention directed toward late-antique Rome’s plebs. Purcell presents three ways of approaching late Rome’s urban population: demographically, institutionally, and behaviorally, which he suggests can be otherwise considered as the population, the demos, and the crowd. In holding apart and articulating each category, Purcell paints a rather bleak image of life in the Urbs. His population— an elite, both resident and foreign, a demos, casual labourers of various origins,

7 MacMullen 1990 and 2003. 8 McEvoy 2010; Weisweiler, 2011 & 2012; Chenault 2012; Machado 2012 and 2019.

slaves, and ex-slaves9—was in secular decline, had only shrinking economic opportunities, and was engaged in increasingly circumscribed symmetrical and asymmetrical relationships. Most affected was the demos, the body of the population at whom the traditional euergetic enterprises were directed and the object of patronal attention. Purcell’s demos is the plebs Romana, the collectivity of those entitled to Rome’s various commoda.10 According to this view, this plebs, stuck in a web of economic dependence and ruled by the elite of the city, could not but suffer the worst when administrative, structural, and demographic shifts pushed elite interest elsewhere. The result, if we are following Purcell, was that Rome’s population was a "dwindling, etiolated, and symbolic body in a Rome that was a backwater of history."11

There is no doubt that late-antique Rome’s political standing and its religious identity were in transition. Beginning in the late third century and progressing throughout the course of the fourth century, Rome was abandoned by the imperial court. This loss was compounded by empire-wide reforms that affected the administrative apparatus and the economic conditions of the Urbs. Less certain are the presupposed deleterious effects that these changes wrought on Rome’s plebs. As recent work on other sections of late-antique populations has so clearly revealed, we still have much to learn about late-antique society.

In pursuit of this aim, this dissertation studies the life of Rome’s plebs from the late third to the mid-fifth century in order to better apprehend their social and economic horizons. Purcell’s various Romes are heuristically useful categories in this regard and, as such, it is from his study that I take my lead, considering Rome’s population both demographically and institutionally. If indeed the various ties of dependence did break down in Late Antiquity, what came in their stead?

9 Purcell 1999, 135. 10 Purcell 1999, 147-148. 11 Purcell 1999, 137.

This is not an inquiry into Patlageanian charity towards Rome’s new plebs Dei,12 but rather one that scrutinizes the structural and legal reforms that occurred in the administration of the city and the impact these externally generated changes had upon the structure of interactions, particularly among Rome's plebs as defined by Purcell.

Work and labour are instructive in this regard. One recent observer of late-antique society suggests that occupation and professional activity reveal most about urban society, as "late Roman urbanites participated in a range of activities and performed a variety of services, which allowed them to earn a living or maintain their status."13 The structures of work and labour were also the subject of legal change in Late Antiquity. There was an increasing recognition in the late imperial state of the need to organize and control certain work deemed indispensable to the functioning of urban life. The result is that a number of trades became compulsory and hereditary. There is debate over the extent to which work was made compulsory and what types of work might be subject to this constraint. The communis opinio remains that it was limited to trades associated with the annona,14 but it is my contention that this view is too narrow. Compulsion was effected through the late-antique corporate system, in which professional associations—the collegia and corpora of the early Empire— became nexuses for the control and organization of labour. Fiscal changes also demanded new levies from most urban workers, namely the cities’ craftsmen and artisans.15 I will demonstrate how the pre-existing networks of professional associations served as mechanisms for both collecting taxes and distributing these burdens. In a world where the professional activity and

12 On “Patlageanian charity” or almsgiving and the replacement of traditional euergetism by Christian charity from the fourth to the seventh century see the now the canonical work of Patlagean 1977. The phrase ‘plebs dei’ comes from the dedicatory inscription that adorned the fifth-century basilica S. Maria Maggiore (ICUR II 71). The label was the basis for Brown’s (1982) inquiry into the population of Rome, wherein he argues that the for the majority of the fourth century the elite maintained their traditional role as euergetai in the city, but as the population declined all that remained was a unentitled poor, the care of whom became the mandate of the church. 13 Sessa 2018, 55. 14 Most strongly advocated for by Sirks 1991a. 15 Carrié 2002.

occupation of the amorphous mass of the "population" dictated the vicissitudes of urban life, considering the way in which work and labour were organized represents the best lens through which we can study the late Roman plebs both demographically and institutionally.

Definitions and Terminology: an overview

Plebs, plebs urbana, and plebs Romana

One of the most intractable problems when writing a history of Rome’s plebs is how to define and classify this large body of Rome’s population. In legal terms, plebs and plebeius refer to the ensemble of free citizens that did not possess a certain dignitas,16 while in urban contexts, the plebs urbana constitutes the entire group of free inhabitants living within the walls of each city who had not attained either decurional, senatorial, or some other imperial level of prestige.17 At

Rome, the plebs urbana, for which I will use the term the plebs Romana, was a very large body.

Like elsewhere, the plebs Romana was a subset of the urban population. It was constituted by all those free Roman citizens living at Rome within the "built-up area."18 Excluded for most of

Rome’s history were slaves, foreigners (peregrini), and members of the equestrian and senatorial order.

The plebs Romana was an entitled body, by which I mean that they partook in and had access to Rome’s various commoda. The most exclusive privilege was the distribution of 60 modii of grain (c. 393kg) gratis per year, which was changed to bread by the fourth century, when a ration of pork was also added. The right to receive these handouts, the frumentationes, belonged only to the city’s plebs frumentaria. The number of this exclusive group fluctuated between

16 Yavetz 1969, 299-300; Seyfarth 1969, 9-11; Garnsey 1970, 222; Grodzynski 1987, 189-198. Gaius defines the plebs as the ceteri cives sine senatoribus, see Dig 50.16.238. 17 Lepelley 1979-81 vol. 1, 40; Veyne 2000, 1172-3. 18 Purcell 1994, 646. For continentia tecta or continentia aedificia to define the labile boundary of Rome see Dig. 50.16.2; 50.16.87; 50.16. 139; and 50.16.154.

150,000 and 320,000 from the inception of the grain distribution until our period of inquiry and presents similar problems of definition and classification. Recently Cyril Courrier has followed

Elio Lo Cascio in attempting to make the case that the plebs frumentaria of the early Empire was, in fact, a demographically stable entity, whose standard of living was well above subsistence.19

This stability allowed this group to form various attachments to the city and created a large body of the population which was professionally active and operated, at times, independent of the networks of clientage. Also visible within this group was the extraordinarily wealthy plebeian, who, while a constituent part of the plebs, could press up against the property qualification of the elite. Paul Veyne assigned to this body the label of the plebs media.20

We might say that at Rome there existed a population, within which was a plebs Romana, further divisible into a plebs frumentaria and a so-called plebs media (Fig. 0.1). These are the various plebes that this project scrutinizes. How far these classifications changed or remained the same throughout the fourth century CE is the subject of chapter one, while chapter two faces the quantitative conundrum of the size of Rome’s population.

Figure 0.1: Schematic Representation of Rome's Population

Plebs Romana = all other Senators inhabitants

Slaves (15%-20%) Plebs Frumentaria

Plebs media "Foreigners"

19 Lo Cascio 1997, 2000, 2001, and 2006; Courrier 2014. 20 Veyne 2000 and 2005. See also Courrier 2014, 368-400.

Labor, ars, and vocatio or labour, work, and professions: work and the language of work

In the early Empire, as in the later Empire, the plebs worked. In fact, Veyne defined the plebs media as "the weaver, the fuller, the butcher, or the baker", who had of a certain level of wealth, owned or rented his workshop, and possessed two or three slaves and the tools, animals, and necessities to complete their work.21 Lo Cascio and Courrier argued that one attachment that the plebs frumentaria formed with Rome was defined by its occupation. It was this need to work that separated the plebs Romana from the elite in the latter’s discourse. The same problems that often plague the pursuit of reconstructing the life of the plebs have also beset the study of labour in Roman antiquity, as our evidence for labour is, as has recently been stated, often either "vague, unrepresentative, or ideologically coloured."22 There are also problems with definitions and terminology, which are rendered more difficult by the opprobrium attached to work in elite Roman discourse. The semantic relationships between what we might today call "work," "labour," "job," or "profession" only imperfectly correlate with the Latin or Greek terminology.23 For the Romans, labor was grievous exertion of the body or mind to complete opera, performed in the service of another.24 Different was ars or artificium. These terms connote skill and knowledge, which take time and training to acquire.25 Layered in between labor and ars are words that can address human ingenuity or, more simply, human activity like industria.26 The activities that encompass "work"

21 Veyne 2000, 1184 and 2005, 138. 22 Harper 2008, 97. 23 Finley 1985, 81; Tran 2016, 246: “There are no Greek or Latin words that express the entire expanse of the modern concept of work.” 24 Cicero Tusc. 2.15.35: Interest aliquid inter laborem et dolorem. Sunt finitima omnino, sed tamen differt aliquid. Labor est functio quaedam vel animi vel corporis gravioris operis et muneris. While Cicero’s definition remains the most useful, writing over four centuries later, Ambrose classifies labores similarly, see Chapter 1, 43-45. Labor carries similar semantic value to the Greek term πόνος, e.g. Lucian Somn. 9: εἰ καὶ μηδέπω εἰς τέλος μου πεπείρασαι. ἡλίκα μὲν οὖν τὰ ἀγαθὰ ποριῇ λιθοξόος γενόμενος, αὕτη προείρηκεν· οὐδὲν γὰρ ὅτι μὴ ἐργάτης ἔσῃ τῷ σώματι πονῶν κἀν τούτῳ τὴν ἅπασαν ἐλπίδα τοῦ βίου τεθειμένος. 25 Tran 2016, 251. These terms might be equivalent or, at least, similar to the Greek τέχνη. 26 Verboven and Laes 2016, 1-3.

and "labour" are thus defined on a labile semantic scale in our ancient sources, slipping upwards or downwards in value depending on the author’s own pretensions.

When I discuss work, labour, trade, or professions I therefore adopt modern definitions.

"Labour" is considered to be an activity performed in the social context of duties and that aims to satisfy societal need.27 It is different from "work," however. Both are done with a view to fulfilling socially recognized needs,28 but labour indicates the onerous efforts one is required to complete for one's survival. Labour is born from necessity. This meaning too seems to come closest to the terms labor in our ancient sources. "Work", on the other hand, is seen as the effort that adds value to goods and services, an independent and active effort as opposed to dependent labour. If work and labour are associated with certain effort, "occupation," "trade," and "profession" are the synonyms for actual spheres of activity. These latter terms all mean a particular action in which one is engaged and which requires a knowledge of some subject. They are vocations that involve prolonged training and a formal qualification.29 A profession, occupation, or trade, therefore, is something at which one works, not labours.30

When we read in the law codes, for example, that in 369 the linen-weavers (linteones) were required to select suitable workers to complete their obligatory munera, we are told that these workers were to be taken only from those bound to the vocatio.31 Similarly, an early fourth-century

27 This definition is adopted from Laes 2011, 152. 28 Lis and Soly 2012, 1-3. 29 The Oxford English Dictionary defines each term accordingly: 1) Occupation: "The state of having one's time or attention occupied; what a person is engaged in; employment, business; work"; or: "A particular action or course of action in which a person is engaged, esp. habitually; a particular job or profession; a particular pursuit or activity"; 2) Trade: "Any regular occupation, profession, or business, esp. when undertaken as a means of making one's living or earning money. In later use usually: an occupation involving manual labour or the buying and selling of goods, e.g. that of a craftsperson or shopkeeper, as distinct from a learned profession; spec. a skilled manual occupation, esp. one requiring an apprenticeship or other training, as that of a builder, plumber, electrician, etc."; 3) Profession: "An occupation in which a professed knowledge of some subject, field, or science is applied; a vocation or career, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification"; or: "More widely: any occupation by which a person regularly earns a living." 30 A paraphrase of the notion advanced by Verboven and Laes 2016. 31 CTh 13.5.13. See Chapter 3, 132-135 for discussion.

inscription grants immunities to builders in exchange for certain work, but the concessions were restricted only to artifices. Throughout, I consider the work of these artifices a profession, trade, or occupation and the men that worked as the linen-weaver and faber, or for that matter the late- antique pistor, calcis coctor, coriarius, or caudicarius, not as labourers.32 Always in our sources it is this latter type of person who is most despised. Cicero most famously wrote that the daily labour (operae) of the mercennarius was most sordid and akin to slavery.33 Four centuries later, these Ciceronian echoes are still heard when Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, sermonised that the mercennarius and his synonym, the operator, lived closer to slavery than freedom.34 Throughout this project, when I speak of work, trade, or profession I do not follow the moral discourse of

Cicero or Ambrose directly, but I respect their definitions only in so far as they correspond with the modern definitions I have chosen to adopt. The linen-weaver and those who acquired skill or possessed capital worked and were occupied in various professions. The mercennarii or the operarii, on the other hand, laboured for their daily subsistence.

Sources for the Study of the Plebs Romana in Late Antiquity

The evidence for the plebs Romana, its activities and its historical significance is fragmentary and sparse.35 This is especially clear when we read of the plebs in our literary sources.

Here, the disorder or lowly position of the plebs is a common theme. This was, after all, the

32 Christel Freu (2019, 97-103) has recently surveyed the occurrences of the term professio in late-antique literary and juridical sources. She has made a case that the term professio is used when referring to work that is connected to public and state service. Professiones in this sense can be any of the artes liberales, including the work of grammarians, rhetoricians, doctors, and lawyers, or the work of bankers and that of some of those in the imperial fabricae, so long as these individuals worked on behalf of the state and received their salaries, sometimes in the form of annona rations, from the state. While, in general, I find her argument convincing, it raises questions about the terminology of those artes or trades, whose work became munera precisely because of its public utility. In any case, professio is fundamentally different from ars. The former (pp. 95-97) designates a "profession" of a certain type of professional, while the latter (ars) is the technical know-how, which can be used also to describe a trade. Note that when I use the modern term "profession", I do not refer to a professio, but all work that is done after the acquisition of some ars. 33 Cic. De Off. 1.150. 34 Ambr. De Noe 29. 107: aliud est operatorem terrae esse, alius agricolam: alius enim mercennarii, alius tamquam familias loco fungitur…Et scias quos operari terram magis sevile quam liberum sit… 35 Purcell 1994, 647.

conventional model of history: to recount the lofty deeds of the elite to the virtual exclusion of others. It was only when the others encroached on or violated the elite sphere that ancient authors deigned to mention their actions. It need not be stated that the bulk of the population was not the elite, and so our literary sources often offer perilously little aid in reconstructing the life of the plebs.

We cannot, however, refuse to listen when our sources do speak, however steeped in elite pretentions they might be. This is particularly true of Rome. The accounts of Ammianus, like that which opened this introduction, are often revealing and at times permit us to see segments of

Rome’s population in more vibrant colours. This is nowhere more true than in Ammianus’ most stylized and vitriolic digression about the plebs.36 Behind all the hostility, we see in full resolution both the socio-political networks and the social topography of the city’s population. Such is the situation also with the enormous body of writings by Symmachus. Urban prefect in 384,

Symmachus came from a blue-blooded senatorial family that had long been involved in the socio- political and economic life of the Urbs. His letters, comprising ten books, although written nearly without exception to members of his own social class, reveal the web of interactions that the city’s administrative elite might engage in with the plebs of Rome. In addition, his forty-nine Relationes, reports written to the emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius, and Arcadius during his short urban prefecture in 384, reveal the complex administrative hierarchies, judicial processes, and social relations that prevailed in Rome, and how different social categories operated within or without these various structures. I therefore consult and analyze these texts throughout this dissertation, particularly when we turn to matters of the city’s administration.

36 Amm. 28.4.28-35.

The vexing Kaisergeschichten of the Historia Augusta also prove useful. Although it is alleged to be the work of six different authors who lived during the reign of Constantine, this text was most likely the product of a single author who mingled with the senatorial families of the

Symmachi and Nichomachi Flaviani in Rome.37 Despite its difficulty as a historical source, with its exaggerations and fabrications, the text can provide some meaningful insights when the urban population is mentioned. Since the urban agglomerate is rarely the focus, the population and the people within it serve often only as the backdrop of the author’s larger historical narratives. For this reason, we can fairly assume that the author is unlikely to have invented mundane details or made claims alien to fourth-century sensibility. Throughout this project, little credence is then given to claims in the HA that ascribe specific events to specific emperors or persons. But, when it comes to the city of Rome, it remains unlikely that many of the urban images constructed or institutions discussed were not part of Roman life by the late fourth century.38

The preoccupation of all these sources tends to be with questions of power, status, and reputation, both the author’s own and that of the Empire or the city of Rome. It is too often the case that in discussions of the city’s populations, when they are not about the indistinct masses, the subjects tend not to descend too far from the lower levels of the upper echelons that the authors occupy. When Symmachus speaks of Rome’s corpora it may very well be because the men that occupied this social stratum pressed up against the barrier of the elite. Caution then is due in ascribing this group’s status and aims to the rest of the population.

37 On the date of the HA see Cameron 2011, 743-782, who argues persuasively for its composition ante 380. Most recently, Savino (2017, 256-258) supports the position advanced by Alföldy, Chastagnol, and others that the work was written in or soon after 395. 38 Of urban populations more generally, the fifth-century compilation of twelve imperial panegyrics—the Panegyrici Latini— that were delivered from the third through the fourth century also provide valuable images of populations, their wants and needs, refracted through their interactions with imperial power.

A unique late-antique development and an addition to the literary evidence are the abundant works that were produced by Christian authorities throughout the late Empire. Scholars have suggested that the congregations to whom Augustine directed his sermons and Ambrose his homilies were in fact true microcosms of society.39 Historians thus often see these texts as invaluable sources for social or cultural history, since the works of Christian authors are thought to contain a treasure trove of information about daily life that is otherwise absent from our sources.

Often at the centre of these texts are the poor and the plebs.40 Augustine could write that poverty and the work done by the many members of the plebs was one way to serve God.41 While it is true that Christian sources do indeed betray more explicit concern for the marginalized groups in society, we must not forget that they may aim to speak to variously composed audiences at various times. When the bishop of Milan told his congregation of the prodigal son reduced to the poverty of a wage-labourer, he was no doubt telling a cautionary tale to the elite.42 The one-time bishop of

Constantinople, Gregory of Nazianzus, certainly also envisioned an elite audience when, in his autobiographical poem, he criticized those who through the banausic arts had managed to ascend the church hierarchy.43

Augustine and Ambrose or Gregory represent both old and new attitudes in the way

Christian discourse portrayed society. These different views should give pause to anyone wishing to mine Christian sources indiscriminately for the realia of social life. Éric Rebillard has recently reminded readers of the need to be mindful of the rhetorical objectives that Christian sources might

39 While the social composition of congregations in Late Antiquity is much debated, on their variability and, at times, representativeness see now Rousseau 1997, Freu 2007, and Rebillard 2018. The latter suggests the existence of primary and secondary audiences that cut across social strata. For the traditional view, wherein the elite are seen to be the only audience, see MacMullen 1989; MacMullen 1981 and 2009 advance this view more vehemently. 40 A well-known example among the many, where the urban poor are the central focus of attention, is Gregory of Nyssa’s portrait of the indigent in De pauperibus amandis. See Brown 2002, notably chp.1 for discussion of this phenomenon 41 See Chp. 1, 45-46. 42 Amb. Iob 1.3.6. 43 Gregory of Nazianzus PG 37. 1166-1227.

conceal and the textual devices that served the aims of the preacher.44 These sources therefore only imperfectly reflect the social and economic life of the plebs, even if the tensions between Christian comportment, the elite station of many Christian authors, and the diverse composition of the various audiences have the potential to reveal a little more of plebeian life.

Among the many pertinent Christian texts relevant to life in the western portion of the

Empire, and Rome in particular, are the 244 imperial, senatorial, and papal letters in the so-called

Collectio Avellana. This compilation (CSEL volume 35) contains documents dating from 367 until

553. The first 50 documents that deal with the schisms between Ursinus and Damasus (366-67) and Eulalius and Boniface (418-419) contain 23 letters addressed variously to urban prefects, vicarii, the bishops of Rome, the senate, and even the populus and, therefore, consistently have

Rome, and by extension the different categories of Rome’s population, at the center or in the background of their focus. Even if it is not their aim, these sources tend to illuminate indirectly the very structures and groups that are the object of this dissertation.

If the light cast by the historiographical, rhetorical, and epistolary literature is only shone on the plebs obliquely, the two massive legal codifications undertaken by Theodosius II in the middle of the fifth century and Justinian only a century later often place the plebs squarely in the spotlight. The status of the plebs relative to other sections of the population,45 their dress,46 and their work and employment all find direct expression in the laws. Concerning work, for example, we can count at least ten titles in book eleven of the Justinian Code that deal exclusively with professional associations, and to this can be added the material in books ten and twelve, and elsewhere, in which an oblique or direct mention of collegia and corpora in association with public

44 Rebillard 2018, 90-91. 45 E.g. CTh 9.45.5, which speaks of an ordo plebeiorum; CTh 9.31.1, in which the plebes are distinguished from the curiales and the possessores; CTh 16.5.52 establishes a hierarchy of financial penalties according to social position, the plebei are singled out and defined relative to other sections of the population. 46 CTh 14.10.2.

administration occurs. The Theodosian Code is no different. No fewer than fifteen titles in books thirteen and fourteen are devoted to constitutions issued regarding professional associations. The high number of references in these legal texts indicates a particular concern about the organization of work and labour, and the plebs more generally, at both the local and the empire-wide level.

Although these legal texts are revealing, we need to be circumspect in judging how far the laws reflect reality. There are two main challenges when using the preserved constitutions to reconstruct social or economic conditions. The first concerns the aims of the legislation. The regularity with which certain conditions and issues are addressed are often seen as a product of the general inefficiency of the late Roman legal machinery to enforce their laws. On this view, the constitutions represented only a notional vision of the Empire that was never realized. Throughout this project, I take the opposite view. The legislator’s and, subsequently, the compilers’ interest in particular subjects and the pervasiveness of such texts in the codices in my view reveal the normative vision of the socio-economic and political relationships in the Roman world and reflect the expectations of citizens, cities, and the imperial government.

The second challenge when working with legal texts is that the codices themselves are the incomplete product of their compilers. The Justinian Code was compiled in the sixth century and borrowed heavily from previous codices—like that of Hermogenian, Gregorian, and of course the

Theodosian Code.47 In so doing, the compilers removed constitutions from their original contexts and inserted them into new ones, to which they added new constitutions up to the first decades of the sixth century. This process inevitably has had a profound impact on how we can understand each constitution. Much of the same is true for the earlier Theodosian Code. Promulgated in 438, the compilers were given the mandate to assemble excerpts and fragments of imperial laws from

47 Honoré 1994 and 2010 remain the best studies on the compilation of the Codex Justinianus. See also, Corcoran 1996.

all across the empire to constitute a body of "general laws."48 Not surprisingly, the collection was not comprehensive and many of the constitutions that the codex originally contained have suffered in the transmission of the text. Notwithstanding these issues, the majority of the laws up to 379 that we have are from the west. Given the bias toward the western half of the Empire in the

Theodosian Code, this codex is given a privileged role throughout my dissertation, though I remain sensitive to the potentially illusory picture that it might transmit. This same circumspection is adopted when ascribing import at Rome to laws that were promulgated elsewhere. When multiple constitutions converge on the same matter, however, I adopt the position advanced by John

Matthews that the constitutions were intended to have authority "in all relevant circumstances."49

For the earlier Empire, epigraphic testimonia represent the main body of information for

Rome’s plebs and also the various professional associations of the ancient world. It remains the case in the later Empire that inscriptions can and do offer precious glimpses of the social, economic, and working life of Rome’s population. Of particular interest are the nearly 30,000 inscriptions that fill the ten volumes of the Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae (ICUR). This corpus includes epitaphs from Rome dated between the late third and eighth century, which come mostly from the catacombs. These Christian inscriptions are often more laconic than the epitaphs we find in the earlier Empire, mostly recording only the name of the deceased and the date of death as well as the dedicator.50 A certain number of these inscriptions, however, still include enough information, like the profession of the deceased, to allow scholars to consider aspects of the population’s experience and activity in the Urbs. In addition to ICUR, volume six of the Corpus

Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) is a prime source of evidence in the chapters in which I examine

48 CTh 1.1.5. On the compilation and transmission of the Theodosian Code and its use as a historical source, see Honoré 1986 and 1998; Harries 1999, 19-26; Matthews 2000, 55-84. 49 Matthews 2000, 70. 50 See Mazzoleni 2015 for an overview of the Christian epigraphic habit in Rome. See also various contributions in Bolle, Machado, and Witschel 2017 for comprehensive studies on the different "epigraphic cultures" of Late Antiquity.

Rome’s professional associations. While the number of collegial inscriptions from the fourth century is smaller than the number dated to the second century, a record of twenty-four inscriptions has been compiled (appendix 3) that offer valuable insight into the relationship, and its re- articulation, between Rome’s professional associations and the city’s other social categories over the course of the fourth century. Inscriptions from CIL VI also contribute over half of almost 130 attestations of building activity in the city in the fourth century that form the basis of my discussion in Chapter Five.

Despite the obvious utility of the epigraphic record, which provides manifold insights into the vibrant nature of urban society, we must be aware of its limitations. The extant record is hardly representative of the actual make-up of any ancient society. The expense of erecting a stone privileged a particular milieu, while the likelihood that someone would set up an inscription is largely conditioned by variable epigraphic habits, which fluctuated over time and space. Building or public inscriptions too have their challenges. It is often asked how accurately these inscriptions reflect the actual intervention at building sites or the associated economic input. Apart from these general issues, there are also specific problems with individual inscriptions, in their language, restoration, and context. I will approach these problems wherever they are met and whenever they are pertinent throughout.

Aware of the caveats inherent in the epigraphic record, I rely on inscriptions to complement and correct the literary evidence in all its forms. The result is a rich body of sources that grant access to certain aspects of the life of Rome’s plebs. I take therefore an integrative approach.

Where the sources contradict and coalesce, we are forced to ask why, and it is the response that is often most revealing. The various plebes that all the sources reveal tend then to lead us in the direction of properly reconstructing a more complete image of Rome’s late-antique plebs.

Chapter Structure

Much of this introductory chapter has been given to the definition of the terms which will be used throughout this dissertation. Chapter One seeks to enrich and deepen these definitions. At the core of the chapter is the question of how we can describe and classify the late-antique plebs.

This dissertation as a whole moves therefore from the general to the particular. In the first part of

Chapter One, I reassert the view that insists on the heterogeneity of the plebs urbana. Although this body is often portrayed as an undifferentiated mass, economic stratification clearly existed among the plebs in the later Empire as it had in the early Empire. I challenge the notion that is often still held that legal and economic shifts so visible in the late-antique record all but stamped out this heterogeneity by the later Empire, leaving in its stead an oppressive binary system of rich and poor. This discussion leads unavoidably to the notion of class in Roman society. In the final sections of the chapter, I make a case for the existence of an economically distinct, large, and vibrant middling stratum that could otherwise be termed a professional class, since the members of this group were closely associated with their work, professions, or trade.

Chapter Two returns the focus directly to Rome. Before considering the qualitative aspects of Rome's plebs—that is, how they were organized, how they pooled and utilized their resources, and how they interacted with various other social categories and institutions— in this chapter I confront the quantitative conundrum of the size of Rome's population. There are two competing positions concerning the size of Rome's population in the fourth century. The first holds that

Rome's population remained relatively large from the high Empire until the sack of 410 or that of

455 CE.51 The second position maintains that beginning in the late third century and accelerating

51 Mazzarino 1951, Lo Cascio 1999, and Meneghini 2013.

into the fourth, Rome's population declined.52 In the context of the late-antique Urbs, those who advocate for a "high count" rely almost exclusively on numbers that can be obtained from certain limited epigraphic and legal evidence regarding the city's food supply, namely the distribution of free bread and pork. The numerical data provides methodological problems when determining the aggregate population, not the least of which pertain to the questions of how the data should be applied and how representative the figures are of the city's total population. I ultimately argue that the confluence of evidence, however problematic, is enough to support the view that Rome maintained a high population through the fourth century. I suggest that part of the picture is that

Rome may have experienced an enlargement of the plebs frumentaria, a development in late- antique Rome that has not previously been proposed.

In Chapter Three I graft the model of the late-antique plebs urbana established in Chapter

One onto the late-antique city of Rome and ask how far we can discern a middling professional class in the city and by what criteria it can be defined. The late-imperial state, it is argued, came to designate part of the population by their work and, as a result, it also came to demand fiscal contributions from Rome’s working population. It is here that the chapter intersects with the larger scholarly discourse on late-antique work, as fixity and obligation to one’s occupation were largely organized through professional associations, or collegia and corpora. At its core, this chapter challenges the scholarly notion that still maintains that voluntary professional associations persisted into Late Antiquity. Instead, considering closely the epigraphic and juridical evidence, I build upon the work of Jean-Michel Carrié and assert that practicing a profession required obligatory membership in a collegium or corpus. If we follow this narrative, the outcome is

52 The prime example is Purcell 1999, but the statement is repeated by many without scrutiny of the material, see Chp. 2, p. 53, fn. 2.

inevitable: Rome was a city in which a certain and possibly a considerable part of its population was bound to a professional association.

Chapter Four considers the economic and administrative developments that arose from the legal and socio-political changes posited in the previous chapter. At the center of this inquiry are

Rome’s collegia and corpora. If Rome still sustained a large non-elite free population, as is commonly thought, and many inhabitants were compulsory members in the many collegia and corpora that still operated in the city, then these professional associations can be viewed as nexuses of social and economic control. I argue, however, against the prevailing view that the ties of horizontal solidarity that were thought to define professional associations in the early Empire all but disintegrated in the late Empire, when the late-antique corporate system allegedly became an oppressive tool that further isolated individual workers. Instead, I contend that Rome’s collegia and corpora became rather more integrated into the late-antique city’s administrative apparatus. I aim to demonstrate that this development was primarily the product of the close interaction between collegia and the urban prefecture revealed in the both the legal codices and imperial/prefectural correspondence. Overlooked epigraphic evidence also attests to the continued vitality of occupational associations. Rome's associations controlled the fiscal and physical resources of the plebs, and this chapter maintains that they were a significant and visible group in the population. Collegia and corpora could and did act as protective agencies for their membership's economic interests, while individual corporati, in turn, exploited these institutions for their own gain and, perhaps, even to the detriment of the wider plebs.

Chapter Five presents a systematic analysis of the construction industry in Rome as a case study both of collegial activity and of population dynamics. I rely on literary, epigraphic and juridical evidence to chart the organization and control of building activities in both the public and the private spheres. The evidence demonstrates both change and continuity in the control and

management of public and private building from the High Empire through to the fourth century.

The fourth century also witnessed a comprehensive reform in the organization of work and labour, which had significant impact on the economic trajectory of builders. By the late fourth century,

Rome’s association of builders is shown to act as a protective body for its members, who exercised greater control over their economic horizons than previously realized. A quantitative analysis of the construction industry woven into the fabric of the chapter demonstrates the value of using this sector as a measurable unit for estimating and describing the urban population of Rome. The case study in this final chapter neatly discloses the extent to which demographic, fiscal, and legal changes, of the kind that were traced at Rome in the previous chapters, impacted upon the socio- political and economic dynamics of Rome’s population, while also measuring the level of interaction between its various constituent parts.

This dissertation lays out a path for moving beyond the pessimistic appraisal that has come to dominate narratives of the late-antique plebs Romana. By seeking to reconstruct the tessellated composition of Rome’s plebs, we are able to see in greater relief their responses to the administrative and structural changes of the later Empire. The privileged and entitled plebs of

Rome found new means to form both vertical and horizontal ties that contributed, in some cases, to broadening its economic prospects. Some contingents within the plebs Romana were able to adapt to the new demands of the state and of the city, and through the very mechanisms that were imposed on them for the control and organization of the plebs, they capitalized on opportunities for economic growth and, concomitantly, for upward social mobility. Much like the social elite,

Rome’s plebs can be said to have experienced vitality in the fourth century CE. In other words, although the legal and structural conditions of the Empire had changed, the plebs Romana continued to have access to a broad horizon of opportunities. This is not to say that the entire body of the plebs was collectively prosperous. There no doubt remained many who toiled for their daily

subsistence and lived lives of drudgery. The important thing is that the plebs Romana was not an amorphous mass, individuals could and did experience the vicissitudes of life in the metropolis, both positive and negative. In attempting to capture an image of this plebeian life, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate that the history of Rome’s plebs is indeed worth narrating.

CHAPTER ONE

Viewing the Plebs in Late Antiquity: Plebeius Labor and the Stratification of Society

In 412, the emperor Honorius issued an edict demanding that all Donatists return to orthodoxy. This constitution threatened monetary punishments for all who continued to disregard it. The fines were set according to rank and listed in descending order: from the holders of high imperial office, the illustres, the law passes to the lesser senatorial aristocracy and then to the municipal order, which itself consisted of principales and simple decurions:

...nisi ex die prolatae legis omnes donatistae... catholicae se, a qua sacrilege descivere, reddiderint, tunc illustres singillatim poenae nomine fisco nostro auri pondo quinquaginta cogantur inferre, spectabiles auri pondo quadraginta, senatores auri pondo triginta, clarissimi auri pondo viginti, sacerdotales auri pondo triginta, principales auri pondo viginti, decuriones auri pondo quinque...1

...Unless from the day of the promulgation of the law all Donatists...return to orthodoxy, from which they have sacrilegiously deviated, then individually all persons of illustris rank are compelled to pay fifty pounds of gold to our fisc as a penalty; those of spectabilis rank forty pounds of gold; senators, thirty pounds of gold; clarissimi, twenty pounds of gold; bishops, thirty pounds of gold; leading men of towns, twenty pounds of gold; and decurions, five pounds of gold.

This edict discloses the complex hierarchization of the elite that is a well-known feature of Late

Antiquity, which began with the creation of a new administrative aristocracy under Constantine and was formalized by the reign of Valentinian I.2 At the top of the pyramid sat the illustres,

1 CTh 16.5.52. The whole constitution is longer: Cassatis, quae pragmaticis vel adnotatione manus nostrae potuerint impetrari, et manentibus his, quae iam dudum super hoc definita sunt, et veterum principum sanctione servata, nisi ex die prolatae legis omnes donatistae, tam sacerdotes quam clerici laicique, catholicae se, a qua sacrilege descivere, reddiderint, tunc illustres singillatim poenae nomine fisco nostro auri pondo quinquaginta cogantur inferre, spectabiles auri pondo quadraginta, senatores auri pondo triginta, clarissimi auri pondo viginti, sacerdotales auri pondo triginta, principales auri pondo viginti, decuriones auri pondo quinque, negotiatores auri pondo quinque, plebei auri pondo quinque, circumcelliones argenti pondo decem. 2 Valentinian issued a series of laws that addressed the rank and status of the elite. CTh 6.5.2 praises Valentinian for assigning “each rank and fixed and deserved place.” In CTh 6.7.1, Valentinian sets the precedence for elite privileges. For discussion on the division of the elite into the categories of illustres, spectabiles, and clarissimi see Jones 1964,

followed by the spectabiles, and then the clarissimi. At the local level too a hierarchy existed in which those who had served in the imperial administration, the honorati, sat above the leading and ordinary decurions.3 To this was added the burgeoning ecclesiastical order, which competed with the traditional ordines at local and imperial levels. The verticality that was a feature of Roman society only became more accentuated in Late Antiquity with the formalization of ranks, privileges, and honours that divvied up the elite. But what of the members of society below these upper echelons? A view that is often stated, and one that Arnaldo Marcone expressed in Cambridge

Ancient History, is that while the hierarchy of the upper stratum was more elaborated, the lower classes remained "relatively homogenous."4

If different terminology was developed to denote the shifting privileges of the elite, the undifferentiated mass remained the plebs. Just as in our literary sources of the early Empire, in the later Roman world the plebs are often indiscriminately labeled the multitudo, the turba, or the populus.5 All the terms seem to bespeak this supposed homogeneity. The main characteristic of this plebs was their poverty, and the late-antique world is presumed to be one in which the gap between the rich and the poor widened.6 The rich were the powerful, the potentiores, and the poor,

528-530, Schmidt-Hofner 2010, and Dillon 2015. For the development of these titles as witnessed in the epigraphic record, see Salway 2014, 378-386 and 2015, 199-220. 3 The Album of Timgad (CIL VIII 17824 = 2403 = ILS 6122 = AE 1948, 118) is the example par excellence, dating to 362/3, that clearly demonstrates the social and legal distinctions that existed at the local level. 4 Marcone 1998, 356. MacMullen (1990, 257) suggests this is the perception emanating out of legal and elite sources, while Freu (2007, 32-45) argues that in the late Roman literary discourse there existed only a homogenous group of pauperes commensurate to the plebs, but she acknowledges that the plebs remains heterogenous in terms of revenue, access to property, and work they completed. 5 E.g. Ammianus refers to the plebs Romana as the turba and the multitude (14.6.25 and 27.3.6), as does Jerome (Ep. 66.5). 6 Again, a view expressed in the Cambridge Ancient History (Marcone 1998, 357), but also stated elsewhere. Peter Brown (1971, 34), for example, long ago claimed of the late-antique world that “the prosperity of the Mediterranean world seems to have drained to the top.” de Ste. Croix (1981, 453-66) took Brown’s view a step further, suggesting that the condition of the slave and the free converged in Late Antiquity as the propertied class increasingly oppressed the latter. Shaw (1984, 238) in his review of de St. Croix originally accepted this position, if not the explanation, as a certain truth. More recently, Banaji (2016, 15) writes that the "enormous power of the aristocracy" in the late Empire was "greater than anything known from previous centuries" and was "enforced" and "encouraged" by the state in the economic sphere. The net result was a progressively polarized society, on the one end of which was the mass of labourers and, on the other, the elite. Harper (2015a, 57-61) has recently re-evaluated the notion that senatorial wealth

the plebs, were the weak, the tenuiores. The condition of the latter group is said to have worsened in every sector of life. It was even codified in law, which by the second century came to recognize two distinct groups: the honestiores and the humiliores. The former group enjoyed privileges unavailable to the latter group thanks to their social prestige.7 But the legal homogeneity of the plebs does not mean that differences did not exist within the mass of the population. The life of the plebs urbana may have been marginally better than their rural counterparts, for example. At

Rome, and some other late-antique metropoles for that matter, we might also speak of even more privileged sections of plebes, such as those who received free distributions of foodstuffs.8

The Introduction to this thesis suggested on the basis of terminology alone that there was considerable variability within the plebs, and recent work which has concerned itself with economic stratification in the Roman world speaks of a hierarchy of wealth even among the undifferentiated mass. This chapter then sets out to consider the hierarchization among the plebs in Late Antiquity. The aim is to provide a more nuanced vision of the later Roman plebs urbana, while also establishing a more concrete description of the population that this project scrutinizes.

The evidence this chapter considers, therefore, often brings us far outside of the city of Rome. This should not present an obstacle, however. Rome was unique in many ways, but where legal evidence is adduced it often reveals a certain level of "generality", if not universality. The same holds true for ideologies expressed in the literary record. While it is more difficult to assess the value of a particular ancient author's view outside of both their social milieu and physical locale, there is enough consistency across certain opinions, even when Rome is not of immediate and proximate

in the West was greater in Late Antiquity than in the preceding centuries. His preliminary conclusions suggest that late-Roman elites were not "scales of magnitude wealthier than their peers of the early empire." 7 See discussion below, pp 25-27. 8 In his short general study of the plebs in late antiquity, even Wolfgang Seyfarth (1969, 7-18) concluded that there was little to no perceptible change from the preceding centuries in the life of plebs Romana during the fourth century.

concern, that general observations remain useful. It is the task of the subsequent chapters to assess how far and how precisely we can ascribe these general aspects to Rome.

In pursuit of the aim of establishing a more refined image of the late-antique plebs urbana,

I first consider the concept of a binary society in Late Antiquity, in which the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite created a unified mass of a more oppressed poor.

While our sources do in places provide an image of an impoverished plebs, I demonstrate that there remains abundant testimony of individuals in plebe who possessed considerable wealth so as to be counted among the locupletes. Even if the wealthy among the plebs were atypical, the literary sources present an image of late-Roman urban society that fits rather uneasily with the model of a binary system. I argue therefore that there existed in Late Antiquity a middling stratum among the plebs, who might be described as a "middle class" in an economic sense.

A conspicuous feature of this so-called middle class that will become visible in this thesis is its association with work. In this chapter, I also engage with the ancient discourse on labour in

Late Antiquity with the aim of elucidating the various conceptions of "plebeian labour" that prevail in our sources. Elite notions of the indignity of work continue to pervade the literary sources, but they are tempered somewhat by Christian literature of the late fourth century. Here work and labour are elevated so as to be a path to attain virtue. The result is that the life of the plebs urbana and the world of work are assimilated. I argue, however, that there are gradations of work and that it was the urban craftsman, the merchant, the banker, or even the doctor, that were most able in Late

Antiquity to escape the travails of conjunctural poverty and establish themselves within a middling stratum. This chapter, therefore, serves as an extended introduction to the subject of this project, providing important classifications and foregrounding certain assumptions that persist in the later chapters.

A Binary Late Roman Society?

Roman imperial society was structured according to political functions and social status, arranged according to ordines, at one end of which sat the senators, the equestrians, and the decurions and at the other, the plebs. In the course of the second century these groups were given a more rigid juridical definition: members of the privileged ordines—that is, the senators, equestrians, decurions, and often veterans— came to be considered honestiores and the rest of the population, humiliores.9 The privileged honestiores enjoyed differential treatment under the law, primarily in the form of milder punishments that also guaranteed them physical inviolability. What appears principally to have been a penal or legal distinction has been used by some scholars to advance the notion of an increasingly binary system already during the High Empire, consisting only of an upper and a lower class. De Robertis, for example, posited an initial legal tripartition between slaves, honestiores, and humiliores, which was reduced to two classes as slaves came to be subsumed into the humiliores.10

Even as legal categories, however, the juridical testimonia fail to provide a coherent definition of either group. To be an honestior one had to possess dignitas and honor. Each term is itself protean and neither is clearly defined in the legal discourse in relation to one’s status as an honestior.11 Dignitas, for example, could either indicate a position in office, close to honor, or the status one possessed from holding office.12 Dignitas was inheritable and therefore sometimes

9 On the status of honestiores and humiliores in general, see Cardascia 1950, Garnsey 1970, and Rilinger 1988. 10 De Robertis (1939, 67) placed the beginning of this transition in the second century. Cardascia (1950, 326-337) argued that the two categories—honestiores and humiliores— could be assimilated to modern social classes. While using different terms, Gagé (1964, 417-424) also imagined a binary social system in the Roman world made up of potentiores and tenuiores. 11 See the now classic work of Garnsey 1970, 221-233 on the ‘vocabulary of privilege’ for a more extensive discussion of the terms associated with the status of honestiores. 12 See e.g. Dig. 26.10.3.16: Sed sciendum est non omnes hac severitate debere tractari, sed utique humiliores: ceterum eos, qui sunt in aliqua dignitate positi....; for the definition of honor as an office, see Dig 48.8.16.

detached from office; it may simply attest to a quality in one’s life or a past condition.13 In other words, those among the honestiores had to be in possession of some honor or dignitas, but these two characteristics tended to be derived from a confluence of character, birth, office, and wealth.14

Humiliores, on the other hand, are defined by the negative. If you were without the qualifications of the honestiores, you remained outside this privileged group. However, the absence of one desirable quality did not preclude the possession of another. In this sense, a humilior might very well be wealthy, but still lack the necessary office or birth to be counted among the honestiores. The binary system then fails to properly express the complex social realities that persisted in Roman society. In this sense, honestiores and humiliores remained purely juridical categories.15 Instead, a person in Roman society of the High Empire could still be the subject of various classifications—social, legal, and economic— with each condition often dependent upon or intersecting with another.16

In Late Antiquity, the scholarly view exists that the two classifications converged, and dignitas ceded its pride of place to wealth. The result was that late-antique society was marked by an increasing gap between the rich and the poor and by the concomitant division of society into two classes: a wealthy and powerful (divites/potentiores) and a poor and powerless (pauperes / tenuiores).17 It is no surprise that this view has developed, since the traditional reconstruction

13 On the inheritability of dignitas see Garnsey 1970, 224 and also Marcone 1998, 359. The latter cites the Gesta apud Zenophilum 185ff, which suggests that a grammarian possessed dignitas because he is the son of a decurion and grandson of a soldier. On dignitas deriving from one’s past position see Dig. 50.2.14. 14 Garnsey 1970, 234. 15 Garnsey (1970, 280) suggests society was much more complex than legal codes allow, and that the binary system could not include all citizens, rendering it a theoretical construct; Rilinger 1988, 264-266. 16 An example germane to this inquiry is Pliny’s claim that there existed within the plebs a plebs media and plebs humilis, see Nat. 26.1.3 and Veyne 2000, 1170-1174 for discussion. Friesen (2004, 323-361), for example, proposes the heuristic value of a seven-layer ‘poverty scale’ in Roman urban contexts, ranging from below subsistence to imperial elites. 17 De Robertis 1939, 65-86. Restated by Marcone 1998, 339 and 356-361 and Banaji 2016. Alföldy (2011 [repr. 1975], 141) claims that there was a gradual convergence of the classifications (social, economic, and legal) and the identification of the poor with those without legal and political power. Most famously, Evelyne Patlagaen ascribed this division in late-Roman cities to particular demographic trends, which apparently saw the influx of an

seems to find support in various sources. The clearest and most succinct witness is found in the fourth-century De rebus bellicis. A keen observer of the social world of late Roman society, the anonymous author of the treatise criticizes the greed and prodigality that infected society with the introduction of the Constantinian solidus:

Ex hac auri copia priuatae potentium repletae domus in perniciem pauperum clariores effectae, tenuioribus uidelicet uiolentia oppressis.18

From the abundance of gold, the private houses of the powerful were crammed, made more splendid to the destruction of the poor, with the poorer classes even oppressed by violence.

The passage depicts a society marked by the simple dualism: rich and powerful, poor and oppressed. Ambrose too constructs a similar image of urban society and, in so doing, he seems to bring into relief the late Roman plebs urbana:

Sedent in foribus tabernarum homines tunicam non habentes nec sumptum sequentis diei. De imperatoribus et potestatibus iudicant, immo regnare sibi videntur et exercitibus imperare. Fiunt ebrietate divites qui sunt veritate inopes. Aurum donant, dispensant pecunias populis, civitates aedificant qui non habent cauponi unde potus suis corporibus pretium solvant. Fervet enim vinum in his, nesciunt quid loquantur. Divites sunt, dum inebriantus; mox ubi vinum digesserint, cernunt se esse mendicos. Uno die bibunt multorum dierum labores...omnes sibi in vino aequales videntur, nullus inferior. Non pauper diviti cedit.19

Sitting at the doors of taverns are men without tunics and no money for the next day. They judge emperors and men of power; Rather they have the impression of ruling and commanding the armies. Drunkenness makes them rich, they who are poor in truth. They give gold, they give money to the crowds, they build cities, those who do not have enough to pay the innkeeper for the drink for their bodies. The wine makes them inflamed, they do not know what they say. They are rich as unprecedented number of poor immigrants, which the urban economy could not sustain. Brown (1982), while agreeing, instead suggests it was the ideological shift emanating from the Christian church that facilitated this change. In a recent study of the language used to discuss the poor in the late-antique west, Freu (2007, most notably 32-36) has argued somewhat in support of this binary distinction, suggesting there was only rich and poor in society, but the latter existed on a spectrum of poverty. She also emphasizes repeatedly the oppression and dependency that underpinned the increasing chasm between the rich and poor in late Roman society. These readings are supported to some degree by testimonia like that found in CTh 7.18.1, which uses plebeius and humilior as synonyms (si plebeiae et humilioris condicionis est). There are those who disagree, however. Already in 1987, in a study of the terminology applied to those of low status in the Theodosian Code, Grodzynski (189-211) argued that the plebs or populus never were collectively identified with the poor by the jurists. A position that Carrié (2003, 78-79 and fn. 25) restates more forcefully. 18 De reb. bell. 2.4. 19 Ambrose De Hel. 12.42.

long as they are drunk; soon, when they have digested their wine, they realize that they are beggars. In a day, they drank everything they earned through the work of many days...All seem equal with wine, none is inferior. The poor do not cede to the rich.

Inveighing against the ills of drunkenness, Ambrose envisions the urban body, the populus. His populus is divided into the elite, the emperor and the magistrates, and a population of poor. Christel

Freu argues that, for Ambrose, this is the social reality most recognizable to his urban audience.20

His pauperes represent the totality of the population outside of the groups of rank and tend to be interchangeable with the plebs.21

The image of the plebs as the dispossessed, the downtrodden, and the poor, who stood on the opposite side of an ever-expanding fissure that divided late-antique society into an oppressive binary system, is supported elsewhere in the evidence. An edict issued in 363, for example, certainly seems to conflate the plebs with the poor, suggesting that through poverty one would be cast down into "plebeian baseness:"

Quidam scelerate proscriptorum facultates occultant, hos praecipimus, si locupletes sint, proscriptione puniri, si per egestatem abiecti sunt in faecem vilitatemque plebeiam, damnatione capitali debita luere detrimenta.22

If anyone should wickedly conceal the wealth of the proscribed, if they are rich, we order them to be punished by proscriptions; if they are cast down through extreme poverty into drudgery and plebeian baseness, they pay the debts owed with capital punishment.

In historiographical literature too, the word plebs became synonymous with pauper.23 We will remember that when Ammianus aims his acrimony at Rome’s plebs, he characterizes them by their

20 Freu 2007, 70- 71. 21 Freu (2007, 258-259) comes to this conclusion, stating “les plebei tendaient à se confondre avec les pauperes dans l'esprit de l'évêque milanais.” She cites two further passages from the works of Ambrose: Amb. Ps 118. 20, 17 (= CSEL 62) and Amb. Ep. ec. 14.85 (= CSEL 82.3). Freu elsewhere suggests (2007, 270) that Ambrose's use of the word pauperes does not have a precise sociological meaning, but rather that it is theological: the entire plebs is a pauper, who is loved by God. 22 CTh 9.42.5. 23 For a number of references to authors other than Ammianus, see Freu 2007, 253-271, particularly 265-270.

slothful and loathsome behaviour. The plebs as a collective are always otiosa and deses,24 but elsewhere they are clearly associated with and defined by their poverty. After his first Roman digression on the city’s elite, when he speaks of the city’s "innumerable" plebs, he describes the group as base and poor (ima and paupertina).25 In other places, he contrasts the plebs with the rich

(locupletes), and describes the plebs as egens, infima, and as pauperes.26 For Ammianus, like his near contemporaries Ambrose and the author of the De rebus bellicis, society was composed of those with imperial, senatorial, or decurional rank—that is, the powerful— and the poor.27 In Late

Antiquity, then, the prevailing model of society is such that wealth disparity was thought to have increased and, along with it, social distinctions became more sharp. The pauperes, the greater majority of the population, become defined as the plebs, a fact that Ammianus discloses about

Rome, too.

While the binary model of late-antique society continues to find expression in the scholarship, more recently, following the work on the earlier Empire, there has been a recognition that the dichotomy of rich or poor is too simplistic.28 Late-antique society certainly included a rich and poor segment, but there also existed a vibrant and sometimes prosperous middling stratum comprising a large portion of society. In fact, John Chrysostom could write of his experience of almsgiving in the fourth century and observe, however rhetorically, that the majority of a city’s population was of a middling sort:

24 Amm. 28.4.28. In his first digression, he also mentions the plebs’ idleness: cum otiosis plebeiis (14.6.17) 25 Amm. 14.6.26: “innumeram plebem”; 14.6.25: “ex turba vero imae sortis et paupertinae.” 26 See Amm. 30.8.9 for comparison between the rich (locupletes) and the plebs (romanae plebei). Here too the plebs is egens and infima. The plebs is qualified again by the latter adjective at 27.3.8 and is then referred to as the pauperes at 27.3.10. 27 Ammianus even presents late-Roman society as one constituted by honorati, primates urbium, and the plebes, see Amm. 14.7.1. 28 Hirschfeld 2001, 258; Demandt 2007 (1989), 329; Harper 2011, 41 and 49-56 and 2017; Carlà 2016, 58-63. Brown (2012, 21-25) adopts and adapts to the late-antique world Scheidel’s claim that there existed a “substantial middle” in Roman society. For Brown, however, this middle was constituted by the provincial aristocracies, the “courtiers, bureaucrats, and military men, whose “incomes amounted to thousands of gold coins,” and the clergy (pp. 31-52).

Ὅτι γὰρ φειδομένως σπείρομεν, ἐξετάσωμεν, εἰ δοκεῖ, τίνες εἰσὶ πλείους ἐν τῇ πόλει, πένητες ἢ πλούσιοι· καὶ τίνες οὔτε πένητες, οὔτε πλούσιοι, ἀλλ᾽ οἱ μέσην χώραν ἔχοντες. Οἷον, ἔστι τὸ δέκατον μέρος πλουσίων, και τὸ δέκατον πενήτων τῶν οὐδὲν ὅλως ἐχόντων· οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν μέσων εἰσίν. Διέλωμεν τοίνυν εἰς τοὺς δεομένους τὸ πᾶν πλῆθος τῆς πόλεως, καὶ ὄψεσθε τὴν αἰσχύνην ὅση. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ σφόδρα πλουτοῦντες ὀλίγοι· οἱ δὲ μετ᾽ἐκείνους πολλοί· πάλιν οἱ πέντες πολλῷ τούτων ἐλάττους.29

For proof that we sow sparingly, let us inquire, if it seems good, who are more numerous in the city, the poor or the rich; and who, neither poor, nor rich, occupies a middle place. As a tenth part is of the rich and a tenth of the poor, possessing absolutely nothing, the remaining are of the middle. Let us now divide from the whole multitude of the city those in need, and you will see how great a disgrace it is. For, on the one hand, the wealthy are exceedingly few and, on the other, there are many after those men; and again the poor are fewer than these men by far.

To the mind of the Antiochene bishop of Constantinople it appeared that only a small portion of a city’s population occupied the highest and lowest social rungs, but the rest of the population, the largest portion, to which perhaps Chrysostom himself originally belonged, fell somewhere in between.

A constitution of 383 also suggests that within the plebs, albeit of an unnamed provincial town in Moesia, there were men who possessed considerable wealth, on the level at least of decurions:

Concessum curialibus provinciae Mysiae, ut, si quos e plebe idoneos habent, ad decurionatus munia devocent, ne personae famulantium facultate locupletes onera, pro quibus patrimonia requiruntur, obscuritate nominis vilioris evadant.30

It is granted to the curials of the province of Moesia that, if they have any person who is suitable from among the plebs, they should be summoned to the duties of the decurions, lest people who are rich, but possess the position like that of slaves, should evade the burdens, for which their wealth is sought, because of the obscurity of their base name.

The law reveals two distinctions: one of rank and the other economic. On the one hand, the plebs remains base and undistinguished. On the other, members of the plebs could be rich and meet the

29 John Chrys. Hom. Matt. 66.3. 30 CTh 12.1.96.

qualification to be included among cities’ elite.31 This condition is also made plain in other constitutions.32 This situation immediately recalls Horace’s acerbic quip made more than three centuries earlier. The poet claimed that despite upstanding qualities, if a person did not meet the census qualification, falling short even by a fraction, he remained among the plebs:

est animus tibi, sunt mores, est lingua fidesque, sed quadringentis sex septem milia desunt plebs eris.33

You have sense, possess morals, eloquence and honour, but if you fall short of 400,000 by six or seven thousand, you’ll be one of the plebs.

What this passage discloses is that the plebs, while socially delimited by a lack of rank, are also economically defined. More importantly, Horace’s plebs was a heterogenous body, in which economic position could vary greatly. In Late Antiquity, the law codes continue to recognize this heterogeneity of the plebs, the members of whom could be wealthy.

While these latter testimonia are not entirely probative, they nonetheless all point to a late- antique society that was complex. Any attempt to reduce it, in either economic or social terms, to a simple dichotomy ought to be critically evaluated. To be sure, there existed a system of rank that became increasingly complex by the second half of the fourth century, in which an elite was defined as juridically distinct and possessing dignitas. Standing opposite this group was the plebs, defined broadly as all those who were free but lacked dignitas. Within the plebs, however, if John

31 Freu (2007, 73-75) argues that in the juridical and administrative language idoneus identifies a person who is rich and, because of his fortune, is suitable for fiscal and liturgical obligations to the state, see e.g. CTh 12.3.1 where inopes and idoneus are presented as opposite conditions, with the latter qualifying the individuals "idoneos facultatibus" for specific liturgies. Locuples, while similar, always connotes wealth strictly in an economic sense. 32 E.g. CTh 12.1.5, issued to the pretorian prefect of Gaul, Flavius Sallustius, outlines the groups from which decurions could be adlected: "it is permitted to legally nominate the sons of decurions not yet assigned to the curia and plebeian citizens of the city, whom a more handsome fortune has qualified them to undertake the munera of decurion." (Decurionum enim filios necdum curiae mancipatos et plebeios eiusdem oppidi cives, quos ad decurionum subeunda munera splendidior fortuna subvexit, licet nominare sollemniter). Also, CTh 12.1.133 issued in 393 CE to the dux et corrector of Tripolitania permits anyone from the plebs who is suitable (idoneus) in wealth or assets to be elected to the curia: Quicumque ex numero plebeiorum praesentibus singularum ordinibus civitatum agro vel pecunia idonei comprobantur, muniis curialibus adgregentur. 33 Hor. Ep. 1.1.56-58.

Chrysostom was correct, there existed a large middling stratum, a portion of which may have lived well enough above subsistence to qualify as a middle class in the economic sense.

Stratification of Late-Antique Society: defining a "middle class"

Identifying the precise contours of an economically vibrant group among the wider plebs urbana is not easy. This problem extends to the application of the term "middle class" to any section of the population in the ancient world. Despite the general recognition of the existence of a group within the population of a middling level of wealth,34 it is regularly stated that the ancient world lacked a notion of "class" in the modern sense and, therefore, that there was no ancient middle class.35 In response, some scholars have assigned, often critically, this rejection to the authors’ ideological views or their historical aims.36 Even when the case is made for use of the term "class", few would maintain that classes existed in the ancient world in a Marxist sense.37

34 E.g. see Kehoe 2007, 543-569, Scheidel and Friesen 2009, Longenecker 2009, Mayer 2012, and, for Rome, Courrier 2014, 299-365. The latter addresses, in particular, Veyne’s plebs media and suggests the term does not designate a ‘middling plebs’, but a wealthy category infra equestrian. 35 Alföldy (2011 [repr. 1975], 196-217) posits only the existence of an Oberschichten and Unterschicten, although he recognizes considerable degrees of rank and complexity among the upper classes, going so far as to suggest that decurions constituted a group closest to a middle class; Balzarini (1988, 160) rejects the use of social class, arguing that it did not develop until the industrial era. Freu 2007, 41 and fn. 94, where she by and large agrees, suggesting there can be no distinction between “the Marxist sense and general sense” of class. MacMullen 1974, 85-90 and 1988, 104-120; Brunt (1987, 383) claims “there is no evidence for a middle class in the city of Rome”; Dupont 1989, 44; Purcell 1994, 668: “It is impossible to talk of a middle class”; Finley 1999 (repr. 1975), 49-51, where he suggests that only the vague categories of upper and lower class existed, but everything else that needs to be rendered in clearer light should be defined by the word ‘status’. Courrier (2014, 299-365), while acknowledging a middling level of wealth existed, outright rejects an ancient notion of a modern middle class. There are exceptions, however. Most notable are De Ste. Croix 1981 and Harris repr. 2011 (1988). Mayer (2012, 2-8) acknowledges that ‘class’ is anachronistic, but nevertheless suggests that ‘middle-class’ is a useful anachronism, even if his book fails to clearly define his Roman middle class. 36 E.g. Harris 2011, 20, who criticizes historians that reject the term class, suggesting they are intent on showing they are not Marxists. Morley (2006, 29), citing as an example the term ‘bourgeoisie’, argues that scholars often express concern over appropriate vocabulary to describe the ancient economy, but do so with objections to a term’s ability to properly depict a past reality, which, to Morley, is something that can never be determined. Instead, the disavowal of certain terms and the use of others should be read as a rhetorical choice, made by scholars with a view to constructing and legitimizing their reconstruction of the past. 37 Both Rostovtzeff and de Ste. Croix 1981 are the classical exceptions. de Ste. Croix (1981, 43), however, effaces the important Marxist component of "class consciousness", instead suggesting that class is the collective and unconscious social expression of exploitation. See Shaw 1984 for a critical and thought-provoking review of de Ste. Croix's position. Despite his disavowal of the applicability the Marxist conception of class, Mayer's (2012) middle class seems to approach, somewhat uncritically, this very concept in that they show pride in their commercial achievements, have awareness of their group status, and collectively refuse the culture of the elite.

There was no group in plebe who shared class consciousness and expressed a desire for developing common strategies. There were groups, however, who found themselves in analogous situations, particularly in economic terms. When I use the term middle class, I refer then to those who, having escaped the travails of conjunctural poverty, were in economically comparable situations and shared, in general terms, a means of acquisition, but lacked the necessary dignitas to extricate themselves from the wider plebs.

Over the past decade there has been significant scholarly interest in the effort to quantify the stratification of Roman society by using parametric modeling, all with an aim to establishing economic classes. Scheidel and Friesen, for example, considering the distribution of wealth in the entire Roman Empire, posited that the disproportionate majority of the population could be classified as non-elite, while a "middling sector", living between two to ten times above subsistence, constituted between 6-12% of the population.38 This group along with the elite controlled about 50% of the empire’s wealth, leaving 90% of the population to eke out an existence near subsistence or in abject poverty. In urban contexts, it has been proposed that 17% of the population belonged to middling groups, living well above subsistence, while 25% lived at or just below subsistence.39

It must be stated that these types of exercises are inherently conjectural, as we lack sufficient evidence to accurately measure general levels of prosperity within Roman society. As a result, always one’s economic position is measured against subsistence and real wages tend to be

38 Scheidel and Freisen 2009, 61-91, and notably 82-88. Marco Maiuro (2012, 17-145) addresses the scale of property ownership in the early Roman empire and, in so doing, he modifies Scheidel and Freisen's model for the stratification of wealth in Roman society. Starting with the level of wealth, relative to subsistence, of a veteran he argues that society became increasingly stratified over the course of the first century and into the second century, as non-elite classes were squeezed out of their access to land, and thus wealth, by the elite and the imperial house. 39 Longenecker 2009, 264. He revises the model of Friesen 2004, who estimated only a 7% "middling group," and also Scheidel 2006, 44-54, who conjectured some 20-25% of urban populations to be middle class "in purely economic terms."

converted into what has been labelled the "consumption basket."40 There have also been manifold attempts to quantify subsistence living in the Roman world. All of these endeavours consider basic physiological and biological needs and are usually expressed in the required caloric intake. Since an individual’s calorie requirement is a product of energy expenditure, an absolute amount of caloric intake varies based on sex, age, workload, climate, and a number of other considerations.

Keith Hopkins endeavoured first to calculate a basic level of subsistence for daily life in Rome.

He concluded that one would require around 2,000 calories a day in order to meet subsistence needs, a wheat equivalent, including basic clothing and shelter requirements, of 250kg per year.41

This amount served only as a low average, which considered the probable age composition of a population with high levels of mortality.42 In other words, minimum necessary calorie consumption varied; a relatively sedentary geriatric, a child, or an inactive woman might require less, while a physically active male or a nursing woman would need much more.43 Hopkins admitted that his estimates were speculative and given the variables inherent in the calculation, scholarly opinion remains divided over the threshold. Dominic Rathbone suggests a caloric intake on the order of 2,650 per day to the amount of 335kg of wheat annually.44 Carrié calculates 263kg of wheat annually for approximately 2,400 calories per day, while most recently Scheidel and

Friesen set a gross minimal subsistence level at a much higher 390kg wheat equivalent per person.45

40 Allen 2009; Scheidel and Friesen 2009. To measure stratification the ‘consumption basket’ is divided further to the level of ‘respectability basket’ and ‘bare bones basket.’ 41 Hopkins 1980. 42 Hopkins 1980, 118. 43 See Garnsey repr. 2011 (1989), 229-235, who assumes the minimum range of 1,625 - 2,012 kcals, if not more. 44 Rathbone 1991, 165 and 2009, which assumes a slightly higher level of subsistence closer to 400kg wheat equivalent per year. 45 Carrié 2003; Scheidel and Friesen 2009.

One of the most complete documents that discloses wages and prices that has often been used as evidence to measure societal stratification and standards of living in the ancient world is a product of Late Antiquity, namely Diocletian’s famous Edict on Maximum Prices. Issued in

Antioch in 301 CE, the edict’s self-proclaimed aim was to curb the greed that had infiltrated the markets throughout the Empire, a problem that was conceived to have affected the whole world.46

In pursuit of its aim, the edict attempts to set maximum prices for a variety of goods and services.

The edict’s inclusion of a comprehensive list of wages and prices, unparalleled in scale by any other document from the ancient world, makes it tempting to use in broader historical analyses.

But we must be aware of the edict’s limitations before insisting on its usefulness. On the one hand, the edict is clearly prescriptive, seeking only to establish maxima. On the other, despite its rhetoric of universality, the edict only reflects a view of the economy as seen through the lens of imperial administrators and one that is conditioned by local considerations, namely those created by the presence of the imperial comitatenses in Alexandria or Antioch.47 Fragments of the edict that have been found in almost 40 locations outside of its purported place of promulgation speak to its diffusion, but there is very little evidence for the direct impact of the prescriptions of the edict.48

In fact, its almost immediate repeal would seem to attest to its ineffectiveness.49 Some scholars have demonstrated that certain prices in the edict appear realistic, but this does not apply to every element.50 It is better, therefore, to imagine that the edict only reflects a notional view of the

46 PE Pr. I.8-9 and II.9-13. 47 On this point see still the seminal work of Corcoran 1996, 205-233. See, in particular, 215-219 on the "localized economy disruptions" created by imperial presence. 48 See Corcoran 1996, 229-232 for discussion on the promulgation of the edict, the find spots, and its general applicability. 49 Lact. Mort. Pers. 7.6-7: Idem cum variis iniquitatibus immensam faceret caritatem, legem pretiis rerum venalium statuere conatus est; tunc ob exigua et vilia multus sanguis effusus, nec venale quicquam metu apparebat et caritas multo deterius exarsit, donec lex necessitate ipsa post multorum exitium solveretur. Corcoran 1996, 232-233. 50 Scheidel 1996 on the price of slaves and Bernard 2016 on wages for skilled builders. Consistency across other wages can also be found. For example, the wages of a weaver in 304 CE in P. Oxy. LXIII 4353 are congruent with those in the edict. While this suggests that prices in the edict are realistic, it does little to demonstrate the general applicability of the wages in the edict, however, since P. Oxy. LXIII 4353 is both chronologically and geographically proximate to

economy at a certain time and place. As this certain time falls within the period of inquiry here, the edict remains a valuable piece of evidence to consider stratification of Roman society at least for the early fourth century.

The Edict on Maximum Prices cites over a thousand prices for goods and services in its appended list that includes some 65 occupations at which people worked or laboured. Wages for occupations are listed in either daily incomes or in piece work and often include pastus, or a food maintenance.51 Groen-Vallinga and Tacoma have recently called attention to the stratification of wages that exists in the edict.52 The lowest daily wage belongs to the female weaver (γερδία), who earned a maximum of sixteen denarii per day. Only slightly more prosperous than her was the general rural wage-labourer (operarius rusticus), who brought in nine denarii more daily. Despite the clear presence of those who earned a relatively paltry wage, nearly 50% of the workers whose wages were paid daily could earn 50 denarii or more.53 This higher earning group was composed of various skilled workers: builders (different fabri, lapidarius, marmorarius, etc), painters (pictor parietarius and imaginarius), and bakers, among others. Clearly a premium was placed on skill.

The edict also sets the price for a modius of wheat (6.55kg) equivalent to approximately 67 denarii.54 These data permit us to calculate the standard of living for a number of those who earned their wages through work or labour. A faber, for example, earning the maximum wage and working

it. Commodity prices are even more problematic. Morelli (2004, 57-68) has demonstrated, for example, that market prices for textiles in Egypt jumped by 50% compared with those in the edict already by 327 and continued to increase vertiginously thereafter, whereas vestis militaris remained remarkably consistent with the prices in the edict across the fourth century. 51 This is an admittedly over-simplified version of the payment and wage options that prevailed in Roman society. Contracts could and were established for longer periods and evidence from locatio-conductio contracts show that workers could be paid per period of work, per quantity of material produced or per task performed. In Late Antiquity the various contractual arrangements are thought to have expanded to include the broader application of paramone contracts, or long-term binding contracts for unspecified work, see Freu 2015, 271-275. 52 Groen-Vallinga and Tacoma 2016. 53 15 of 31. See Groen-Vallinga and Tacoma 2016 table 6.2 and appendix 1. 54 The edict lists the value of 1 castrensis modius at 100 denarii communes. A single castrensis modius was equal to 1.5 Italic modii. See Duncan-Jones 1976 and Rathbone 2009, 301. For the weight of the modius, we follow the standard set by Hopkins (1980, 188) of 6.55kg.

220 days a year, excluding his pastus, would make 11,000 denarii per annum.55 This amount could purchase a little over 160 modii of wheat, just short of 1,100kg. A faber, or the pistor for that matter, could therefore acquire about 180% above Scheidel and Friesen’s gross minimum subsistence amount of 390kg wheat equivalent. On the other hand, the operarius would be much more vulnerable. Assuming he could find consistent work, which would have been rendered difficult by various factors, including competing slave labour, the operarius would only be able to acquire 37% more than minimum subsistence, while the γερδία or those earning a maximum of twenty denarii a day would toil at or below minimum subsistence levels. The edict seems to disclose a society in which the general level of prosperity was low,56 but also one in which significant stratification existed among the working population. Those who worked in a profession possessed the possibility of living a life well above subsistence and well within the middling stratum of society.

While the edict provides evidence for the continued stratification of later Roman society in economic terms, it presents no data that permit the quantification of the population in the various strata. Its manifold problems of applicability are only exacerbated as we turn our sight to the longer fourth and early fifth century. Monetary reforms that prevailed in the Empire shortly after the edict was repealed rendered its unit of account, the denarius communis, obsolete. I refer mainly to

Constantine’s institution of the solidus. Struck at 72 to a pound, the gold solidus was introduced in 310 and by the second half of the fourth century had become the standard unit of account throughout the Empire, successfully reorganizing and rationalizing the monetary system.57 In our

55 A 220-day construction season is adopted from DeLaine 1997, 105 and Erdkamp 2013, 39. 56 Groen-Vallinga and Tacoma 2016, 118-122; Polichetti (2002) argued that the wages cited in the Edict could scarcely pay for many of the items; Allen (2009, 337-343), on the contrary, advances a "guardedly optimistic view" of Roman living standards. He observes that, while the real wages in the Edict were low compared to 15th century western Europe, the average unskilled male labourer during the time of Diocletian could obtain 110% of his bare bones subsistence basket. 57 Mattingly 1946; Callu 1969, 472 and 2003; Bruun 1976; Depeyrot 1992; Corbier 2005, 335-338.

case, the trouble exists in defining the outer limits of our economic classes in relation to solidi. In pursuit of this aim we must turn to disparate pieces of evidence that permit comparisons to be drawn.

Nearly two decades ago Carrié sought to define, in economic terms, a notional "poverty threshold" in Late Antiquity in solidi. Primarily considering evidence for wages in late-antique

Egypt, he set this threshold at four solidi annually for a family.58 Any amount below this threshold would constitute a life below subsistence and render a family impoverished. While admittingly questioning the representativeness of the evidence from Egypt, he nevertheless insisted on the applicability of the so-called "threshold of poverty" to the wider Roman world based on his data’s correspondence to a late third-century rescript of Hermogenian.59 This rescript established who could not initiate a legal accusation. The barrier set was monetary: those who "on account of their poverty" did not possess 50 aurei could not litigate (nonnulli propter paupertatem, ut sunt qui minus quam quinquaginta aureos habent).60 It is now generally agreed that the 50 aurei was the amount of capital a person possessed,61 and Carrié argues that the threshold of poverty must have been equal to the revenue returned on this amount, which he calculates at the notional level four solidi a year.62

The edict of the governor of Numidia, Ulpius Marsicianus, issued in 362/3 goes some way in validating Carrié’s conclusion. This edict, known as the ordo salutationis, was preserved on a limestone slab that was affixed to the curia in the municipal town of Timgad.63 It includes among

58 Carrié 2003, 88-99. 59 Carrié 2003, 91 and 100. 60 Dig. 48.2.10: some on account of poverty, such as those who possess less than fifty aurei. 61 Both Durliat 1990, 541 and Carlà 2016, 57 reach this conclusion. Cf. Patlagean 1974, 66, who argued that fifty aurei was too high a threshold for poverty, imagined the amount to simply constitute monetary assets. 62 Carrie 2003, 91. His estimates are based on the ‘généralmente accepté’ rate of 8% return on cultivated land. Duncan- Jones (1982, 33 and 133) sets the average rate at 5-6%, although it could reach 8%. With Duncan-Jones’ numbers, Scheidel and Friesen (2009, 75) agree. 63 CIL VIII 17896 = 2387 = AE 1949, 133. For discussion of the edict, its context, location, and date see Chastagnol 1978, 75-78.

its efforts to deal with certain municipal concerns the various fees and schedules for litigating a case before the governor. By adding up the prescribed legal and administrative amounts,

Christopher Kelly has reckoned the minimum total cost of litigation for a citizen in mid-fourth century Numidia at 81 modii, which would increase to 121 modii for a resident of Timgad, once tariffs and surcharges for distance are added.64 Near contemporary evidence permits us to speculate on the price of a modius of wheat relative to a solidus in mid-fourth century North Africa.

Ammianus reports that a proconsul of Africa in the late 360s, a certain Hymetius, purchased wheat at 30 modii per solidus from the imperial storehouses and sold it to the citizens at the inflated rate of ten modii per solidus.65 A later edict of Valentinian III would seem to lend some credibility to the lower price, as it fixed the purchase of wheat in Numidia at 40 modii per solidus.66 At these prices it would have cost a mid-fourth century citizen between two and four solidi to bring a case before the governor of Numidia. This number correlates with the limits set by Hermogenian some half a century prior and serves to render Carrié’s conjectured theoretical "threshold of poverty" for a family relatively secure. One additional measure can be added. At a rate of 30-40 modii per solidus, two solidi would be sufficient to purchase Scheidel and Friesen’s minimum subsistence wheat equivalence, while four solidi would be enough for two people, if not a family.

Returning to the constitution that served to open this chapter, we might also consider the other end of the spectrum. As was mentioned above, the edict laid out fines for all ranks of society who refused to reject Donatism. At the very top, the edict prescribes a fine of 50 pounds of gold for offending illustres and, at the lowest senatorial level, twenty pounds for a clarissimus. These amounts represent 3,600 solidi and 1,440 solidi, respectively. Compared to the meagre four solidi

64 Kelly 2004, 139-140. 65 Amm. 18.1.17-18. 66 Val. Nov. 13.4 (445).

that constituted the threshold of poverty, these were exorbitant sums. But the amounts do not appear inconsistent with scales of wealth in Late Antiquity. In fact, if we have recourse to

Olympiodorus, who catalogues the wealth of the elite in the form of senatorial houses at Rome around the same time, the fines could be easily furnished. Olympiodorus states that the wealthiest homes might earn upwards of the 4,000 pounds of gold, or 288,000 solidi, while others earned at least 1,000 pounds.67 While these numbers should not be pressed for their precision, a source independent of Olympiodorus seems to offer some validation of his figures. In the mid-fifth century Vita Melaniae Iunioris, we learn that the younger Melania’s husband, Pinianus, earned

120,000 solidi annually, not yet even counting his wife’s property!68

Much more modest fortunes of the Empire’s elites are also attested. Ausonius, who was praetorian prefect of Gaul and later made consul by the emperor Gratian in 379, wrote a poem about his "little estate" (de herediolo) not far from Bordeaux. In it Ausonius boasted about the specific sizes and types of land his "little estate" possessed, from which details his annual income has been calculated at around 1,000 solidi.69 According to Brown, this poem was not intended to be an accurate account of Ausonius’ wealth, but rather represented rhetoric that was reflective of the level of wealth deemed appropriate for a man of Ausonius’ station.70 If some fraction of

Olympiodorus’ numbers then represents the threshold for the wealthiest citizens of Rome, and the much lower 1,000 solidi was considered appropriate for the Empire’s provincial elites, while four

67 Olymp. Fr. 42.1 Blockley. 68 Vita Mel. Iun. 15. 69 Ausonius De herediolo 21-28: the estate possessed 200 iugera of cultivated land, 100 iugera of vineyard, a 50 iugera meadow, and 700 iugera of forest (Agri bis centum colo iugera, vinea centum/ iugeribus colitur prataque dimidio/ Silva supra duplum, quam prata et vinea et arvum). Brown (2012, 191) makes the rough estimate, stressing its conjectural nature (574, fn.17), from the calculations made by Cracco Ruggini (1961, 416-417) for the productivity of a iugerum in modii of wheat and the subsequent value in solidi. 70 Brown 2012, 191-193. When speaking of Ausonius’ station, Brown suggests that this was the expectation of wealth that was formed of the nobility of service. In support of the rhetorical reading of the poem, Brown notes that Ausonius’ highly detailed account of his single ‘little estate’ conveniently omits that Ausonius owned at least six other estates.

solidi marked subsistence, the rest of the population, the majority, especially in urban contexts, fell somewhere in between.

It is possible to still render the levels within this majority more distinctly and bring into higher relief the population this project seeks to investigate. Juridical evidence was cited above that implied that the plebs could and did accumulate wealth on the level of the curial class. An edict dated to 342 places the minimum property qualification for a decurion in the East at 25 iugera of land, which may be equivalent to 125-250 solidi.71 Nearly a century later, a novella of

Valentinian III permits anyone whose assets fell below 300 solidi to join the clergy. Those, however, who possessed 300 or more were assigned to curiae, so long as they did not serve the imperial administration.72 Various testimonia reveal a number of groups of people who possessed wealth on this scale, but lacked the concomitant dignitas, with the result that they remained counted among the wider plebs. This is true, for example, of "doctors and professors", two groups of middling social status that were made commensurate by the compilers of the Theodosian

Code.73 In the case of doctors, yearly salaries of up 100 solidi are attested,74 while one category of professor, the Latin grammatici, might earn up to 80 solidi a year.75 Near the bottom rung of the social ladder, freedmen who likely owned draft animals and hauled various goods, could possess assets on the order of 150 solidi.76 Similarly, bakers, although they engaged in sordid work, could

71 CTh 12.1.33. The communis opinio is now that a iugerum was valued between 5-10 solidi in Late Antiquity, see Chp. 3, p. 158, fn. 169. 72 Nov. Val. 3.4. (439 CE). 73 CTh 13.3 is titled De medicis et professoribus. 74 In the fourth century doctors were divided between those who served cities or the court (archiatri) and other doctors (medici). Their fees were divided into mercedes, paid by the patient, and salaria, paid by the state. In the case of the former, their position lead to higher status, including permission to enter the senate and exemption from munera curialia and senatorial munera, while simple medici received fewer privileges (exempted from munera in 333). Nevertheless, in terms of mercedes, the different designation did not much alter their earning potential, which ranged from 35-100 solidi a year. See Carlà 2016, 70-74 on the status of physicians in Late Antiquity and for a complete list of testimonia of their salary. 75 Lenski (forthcoming, 143), cites CTh 13.3.11, a law of Gratian from 367 that establishes the salary of Latin rhetores and grammatici. 76 CTh 14.3.10, see discussion in Chp. 3, p. 156-158.

obtain the wealth on the scale of a senator, and skilled builders are attested earning a solidus a day.77

Here is a group of people whose yearly income ranged from tens to several hundred solidi, living ten to a hundred times above subsistence. A conspicuous and corresponding feature of each group is that they represent a professional category. In other words, all of these men worked, in some way or other, for their income and wealth. It is clear that our middle class, defined by economic terms, were workers.78

Plebeius Labor: Work, Profession, and Plebs in Late Antiquity

The observation that our middle class was also a professional class should not be surprising.

Work was already a defining feature in the early Empire and was characteristic of Veyne’s plebs media.79 For Emmanuel Mayer too, work formed a significant component of the identity of his

Roman middle class, while Cyril Courrier suggests that work was a formative part of the so-called

"plebeian habitus".80 Yet the literary discourse of the elite has tended to leave the impression that in Roman society the work of the plebs was despised. In his De officis, Cicero famously enumerates what he considers sordid or lowly work. Reprehensible were those occupations that satiated the pleasures of others, but generally all those who worked for a wage deservedly incurred ill-repute.81

Worst of all was the mercennarius, who, according to Cicero, was essentially a slave. A little over

77 CTh 14.3.4 speaks of pistores who become senators, for discussion see Chp. 4, p. 174. Greg. Nyss. Ep. 25.12 cites the bishop’s promise to pay builders a single solidus a day, see Chp. 5, p. 281. 78 This is perhaps a banal conclusion, as it may be foolish, at least to the present author, to deny that such a segment existed in any society. Nevertheless, if the foregoing discussion is any indication, it is a statement that needs to be made. Another particularly germane example might come from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Rome. Here, even in a much smaller and less prosperous Rome, there was still a group of skilled artisans and entrepreneurs, perhaps numbering of a few thousand, that lived well above poverty, see Maire Vigueur 2016, 454, who scrutinizes evidence from the tax registration lists. Maire Vigueur even suggests that within this group a small number of artisans could ascend the social ladder. 79 See Introduction, p. 8. 80 Mayer 2012, 78-116 and Courrier 2014, 232-292 and 2017, 112-120. 81 Cic. De Off. 1.150.

a century later, the younger Seneca adduces a similarly condemnatory view about labour. We are told that common professions, those particularly associated with manual work, are base, sordid, and mean, possessing no virtue.82

These two authors and the view that emanates from their oft-cited texts have served as the starting point in understanding perceptions of work from the first century BCE until the High

Empire. Yet even in these authors there remained a hierarchical vision of the working world of the plebs urbana in Roman society. Nicolas Tran has demonstrated that while the literary elite might have classified work as sordid and vile, urban crafts and trade were grouped among a heterogenous collection of artes, which included also the likes of rhetoricians and doctors.83 Artes required knowledge or some skill.84 Cicero could distinguish between the worker who possessed some skill because of his ars, an artifex, and the labourer who did not. The mercennarius was so abhorrent because he earned his wage through his labour (operae), rather than his ars:85

lliberales autem et sordidi quaestus mercennariorum omnium, quorum operae, non quorum artes emuntur

Base and sordid also are the profits of all wage-labourers, whose labour, not skilled work are bought.

82 Sen. Ep. 88.20: nam et hae viles ex professo artes quae manu constant ad instrumenta vitae plurimum conferunt tamen ad virtutem non pertinent (for even these base skills mentioned, which are done by hand bring much to the furtherance of life, but have nothing to do with virtue); 88.21: sunt vulgares et sordidae...Vulgares opificum, quae manu constant et ad instruendam vitam occupatae sunt, in quibus nulla decoris, nulla honesti simulatio est (there are those that are mean and sordid...The mean sort are of the craftsmen, which are performed by hand and are occupied with the means of life, in which there is no appearance of beauty or integrity). Lis and Soly (2012, 13-53 and 2016, 264-71) have suggested that this view is not entirely consistent with our sources. Instead, they argue that manual work and labour long possessed positive connotations, which became more pronounced in the first and second centuries CE. I do not remain entirely convinced. Most of the texts they cite valorize manual agricultural labour, which is not surprising. When it is urban crafts, it is the skill that is praised, something with which I agree, not the labour itself. An exception can perhaps be found in the tenets of Stoic philosophy, where there are references to the honourability of all occupations (Lis and Soly 2016, 265; Max. Tyr. Or. 15.2-4). 83 Tran 2016, 249-250. See Seneca De. Ben. 6.15.1-8, in which the medicus and praeceptor are lauded for their artes, as is the faber. 84 Cic., De Or. 2.30: ars enim earum rerum est quae sciuntur. See Tran 2016, 250 for discussion. 85 An argument convincingly advanced by Tran 2016, 250.

The younger Seneca too makes this distinction. According to him, the faber deserves praise for the service he renders by means of his outstanding skill (incredibili arte). On the other end of the spectrum is the mercennarius, because unlike the faber he offers no benefit and is concerned solely with his own wage.86 While we cannot go so far as to suggest that artifices came to possess a privileged position in society because of their artes, after all they remain artes sordidae, it is evident there existed a division between plebeian work and labour in the literary sources.

The literary topos and subsequent belief in the baseness of certain labour persisted in elite circles in Late Antiquity. The example par excellence comes from Libanius who impugns the lowly origins of many of Constantinople’s senators. The dubious common trait shared among these men was that all of their ancestors purportedly engaged in manual labour. One’s father sold sausages, another’s was a fuller, and still more had fathers who made a living with their hands

(ἀπὸ τῶν χειρῶν ζῶντος).87 There is, perhaps, also some irony in Libanius’ rebuke of the status of

Constantinople’s senators: the impetus for his speech was the Senate’s refusal of Libanius’ protégé on the grounds that his father was also a tradesman. The low status of workers, more generally, was also codified in laws. People who practiced certain occupations were excluded from military service,88 merchants were associated with the plebs infima among society’s humiliores,89 and the curial class was reminded not to aspire to the work (officium) of craftsmen.90 And in a statement that hearkens back to Seneca and Cicero before him, Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, caustically remarked that the mercennarius and his synonym, the operator (operarius), lived closer to slavery than freedom.91

86 Sen. De. Ben. 14.1-4. 87 Lib. Or. 42. 24-25. 88 CTh 7.13.8. 89 CTh. 16.5.52. 90 CTh 12.1.62. 91 Ambr. De Noe 29. 107: aliud est operatorem terrae ese, alius agricolam: alius enim mercennarii, alius tamquam familias loco fungitur…Et scias quos operari terram magis sevile quam liberum sit…

Yet the variability that we have seen concerning the perceived value of certain occupations in the early Empire became even more kaleidoscopic in the later Empire. This evolution was in large part due to the contribution made by Christian literature to the discourse on labour. Certainly,

Christian authors continued to distinguish between honourable and dishonourable occupations.

John Chrysostom could say to his congregation that agricultural labour, carpentry, weaving, cobbling, and metal-working were all exceedingly necessary (ἀναγκαῖαι σφόδρα), while cooks and confectioners and thousands of other occupations of this ilk (μυρίων ἑτέρων τοιούτων) were useless (ματαιοτεχνίας) and thus reprehensible.92

Just like Ambrose’s claim above, in Chrysostom’s latter assertion we are almost able to hear the voice of Cicero resonating some four centuries later. Nevertheless, from Chrysostom, we learn that there existed a marked difference in the Christian discourse on labour. Afterall, labour and work were not to be despised, instead they were thought to grant human beings dignity.93 This position is well attested by Chrysostom’s near contemporaries in the late fourth and fifth century west. Augustine praises human ingenuity, which itself was a gift from God, as it gave rise to the numerous artes that supplied the necessary accoutrements of life.94 In his tract on ecclesiastical work, Augustine talks about the value of work done honestly and innocently. It is work, such as

92 John Chrysostom In ep. 2 ad Cor. Hom. 15.4, Ἔστι τέχνη γεωργικὴ, ἔστιν ὑφαντικὴ, οἰκοδομική· αἳ καὶ ἀναγκαῖαι σφόδρα εἰσὶ, καὶ μάλιστα συνέχουσιν ἡμῶν τὸν βίον. Αἱ γὰρ δὴ ἄλλαι διάκονοι τούτων εἰσὶν, ἡ χαλκευτικὴ, ἡ τεκτονική, ἡ ποιμαντική. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τούτων αὐτῶν τῶν τεχνῶν ἀναγκαιοτέρα πασῶν ἡ γεωργικὴ… Αἰσχύνθητε οἱ τῶν περιττῶν χρῄζοντες τεχνῶν, καὶ μαγείρων καὶ πλακουντοποιῶν καὶ ποικιλτῶν καὶ μυρίων ἑτέρων τοιούτων, ἵνα ζῆτε· αἰσχύνθητε οἱ τὰς ματαιοτεχνίας εἰσαγαγόντες τῷ βίῳ. This passage should be compared to Cicero (De. Off. 1.150), for whom the minime artes probandae were those which served culinary pleasure. See, Bond 2012, 162-168, who argued that occupations catering to the sensual pleasures continued to be disreputable in Late Antiquity. While correct, Bond omits Chrysostom’s testimony which seems particularly relevant to her argument. 93 John Chrysostom Hom. 2.23. 94 Aug. De. Civ. Dei 22.24. He subsequently enumerates all the amazing achievements of human industry (humana industria) and all are related to labour, Vestimentorum et aedificiorum ad opera quam mirabilia, quam stupenda industria humana pervenerit; quo in agricultura, quo in navigatione profecerit; quae in fabricatione quorumque vasorum vel etiam statuarum et picturarum varietate excogitaverit et impleverit; quae in theatris mirabilia spectantibus, audientibus incredibilia facienda et exhibenda molita sit; in capiendis occidendis domandis inrationabilibus animantibus quae et quanta reppererit; adversus ipsos homines tot genera venenorum, tot armorum, tot machinamentorum, et pro salute mortali tuenda atque reparanda quot medicamenta atque adiumenta conprehenderit,

that of builders, shoemakers, and farmers, that far from being shunned, should be pursued. After all, he states that "the man…to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed, who herself bore Christ, was a carpenter."95 For Augustine, then, to work for your livelihood was a mark of respectability.96

Ambrose at times espouses similar views when he exhorts that there is no means to acquire virtue without work.97 Both bishops provided an image of work for late-antique society that overturned traditional elite perceptions, but it remains unclear how far Christian thought would have actually affected reality. In fact, once one recognizes the heterogeneity in the perception of labour that prevailed in the early Empire, the late-antique evolution does not appear so novel, save for the one qualification that in Christian literature the positive value of manual labour becomes increasingly emphasized.

The Christian reassessment of work did, however, have the effect of rearticulating the position of the urban craftsman or artisan so that the late Roman plebs urbana or the populus came to be assimilated with work.98 Augustine, for example, in his reconstruction of monastic life, presents a tableau of late-antique society at the turn of the fourth century; it is one composed of the elite—senators and domini—, slaves and the freed, and the plebs. The mode of life for the latter group could be either rustic or urban, and Augustine’s plebs urbana was all engaged in the work of craftsmen, artisans, or "opifices", all subject to a life of "plebeian labour" (plebeio labore).99

95 Aug. De. op. mon. 13.14.18-20: si ecclesiam dei (dixerint), homo ille iustus et ad testimonium coniugalis semper mansurae virginitatis electus, cui desponsata erat virgo Maria, quae peperit Christum faber fuit. 96 Aug. De. op. mon. 13.14.25-26: magis autem laboret manibus suis bonum, ut habeat unde tribuere cui opus est. 97 Ambrose Ep. 2.12: nulla sine labore virtus, quia labor processus virtutis est. 98 MacCormick (2001) demonstrates that this reassessment of the artisan extends to the inversion of views of dependency. For Cicero, for example, it was the dependency of the manual labourer that made him sordid. In Christian thought, subordination to God was a necessity and, as such, dependency was not condemned. Further, the implication in Christian literature is that work cannot be sordid, because the plebs could not all be base and sordid. Afterall, according to Augustine, Jesus selected the plebs and the poor as his disciples and God accepts both the senator and the plebs. See August. Serm 360: venit dominus Iesus Christus ad salutem…non tantum plebeiorum, sed et regum; August. Serm. 198: Non elegit reges, aut senatores, aut philosophos, aut oratores. Immo vero elegit plebeios, pauperes, indoctos, piscatores. See Oliviera 2012, 33-34 for more thorough discussion on Augustine’s image of the plebs. 99 August. De op. mon. 22.25.20-23 and 25.32-33.

Ammianus reveals that Rome’s plebs was also defined by their plebeian labour. In his narrative of the prefecture of the much-maligned Lampadius, Ammianus discloses that Rome possessed two non-elite populations: the plebs, on the one hand, and the indigent mass (egentes) on the other.100

Not able to bear the disturbance of the former, Lampadius threatened to direct his largesse to the latter group. A few lines later, when Ammianus recounts the further maladministration of the same prefect, we learn what distinguishes the plebs Romana from the city’s beggars.101 The whole assemblage of the plebs (collecta plebs) assailed Lampadius’ house because he had illegally seized the materials of their artisanal production. The plebs Romana, like Augustine’s plebs urbana, then were all craftsmen and artisans. They too needed to work.

Ambrose’ plebs urbana are similarly dependent upon labour. In his literary reconstruction of the social components of his urban cadre laid out above, the plebs relied on daily wages, which they earned through their labour (uno die bibunt multorum dierum labores). However, Ambrose’s plebs were equivalent to the poor, as they seemed to live in conjunctural poverty. When they had drained their meagre earnings, they were reduced to begging. They were thus the daily-wage labourers who usually completed menial and heavy tasks. These men are the mercennarii and operarii and, as the Edict on Maximum Prices disclosed, they would have likely laboured only to meet their basic subsistence needs.

Ambrose’s plebs urbana, while still marked by the necessity to toil in plebeian labour, were not our economically defined middle class. In Late Antiquity, I argue that the middle class is the portion of the urban population in plebe who possessed a "modest fortune", which, as

Augustine and Ammianus suggest, they earned by their work as skilled craftsmen or artisans.102

100 Amm. 27.3.6. 101 Amm. 27.3.8-11. 102 Augustine (Serm. 107.9) wrote that a plebeian might possess a bonum peculium, which he had worked to earn and saved earnestly: Cavete ab omni cupiditate: et non mihi dicat, ego homo pauper sum, plebeius, mediocris, gregalis...Ecco dico et pauperi qui timere debeat. Vocat te dives et potens, ut pro illo dicas falsum testimonuim. Quid

These men constituted a professional class that lived above subsistence and could, if the law codes are any indication, experience upward social mobility because of their economic success. When we speak of profession, trade, occupation and the work one performs in completing associated duties, it is not the menial tasks of the mercennarius to which we refer, but the professions of a group of economically stable urban artisans and of other well-defined professional categories, such as merchants, financiers, and doctors.

Conclusion

This chapter opened with an edict issued by the emperor of Honorius in 412 CE to the praetorian prefect of Africa.103 This constitution disclosed the complex hierarchy of the elite.

Below the privileged ordines, however, the edict also imposed a monetary punishment for the empire’s plebei. The fine was a non-negligible sum of five pounds of gold, or 360 solidi. This was the same amount prescribed for offending decurions. Perhaps a telling correlation: in 412 a plebeius might be expected to have access to a level of wealth commensurate to the local elite.

What was initially omitted in the introduction serves only to accentuate the conclusions reached in this chapter. In setting out to provide a more nuanced description of the late-antique plebs urbana, I argued that in the later Roman world there existed in plebe a section of the population that did not live in conjunctural poverty. This group lived well above subsistence, sometimes earning yearly incomes a hundred times above subsistence, and might very well be labelled a middle class in economic terms. This conclusion leads to a rejection of the binary model of a late-antique society, but it is a view well supported by both the representation of late Roman society found in the codices and the image of the city found in our literary sources.

facturus es modo? Dic mihi. Habes bonum peculium: laboristi, acquisisti, sevasti. This plebs is always for Augustine the opifex, or craftsman 103 CTh 16.5.52.

Another feature that is readily observable in the evidence is the assimilation between the plebs and work. According to Augustine, Ambrose, and Ammianus, the plebs worked and the life of members of the plebs in late Roman cities was conditioned by "plebeian labour." When we speak of the late Roman plebs urbana it is not incorrect then to mention the urban craftsman or artisan in the same breath. It should not be surprising that our economically defined middle class are also strongly associated with work. They are those who work, but not as a simple day-labourer.

They are defined by a stable occupation, a profession or trade, that allowed them to avoid conjunctural poverty.

In the following chapters, I move from the general to the particular and ask how far this model of the plebs prevailed in the city of Rome. In an attempt to consider the population both demographically and institutionally, I hope to elucidate the ways in which Rome’s plebs advanced to the middle stratum and how, once there, individuals were able to employ their resources and defend their collective interests so as to advance their positions both collectively and individually.

As I will demonstrate, late-antique society continued to feature more economic opportunity and social mobility, even among the humbler, than previously allowed in histories of Late Antiquity.104

104 MacMullen 1964; Jones (1974, 396) famously writes that the most abhorrent feature of Late Antiquity was its "system of castes." More recently, Marcone (1998, 363-365) conceded to the high degree of social mobility among late Roman society’s most privileged but suggested that society’s lower layers might only experience "horizontal mobility which was nothing but a flight from one’s obligations."

CHAPTER TWO

Pork, People, and the Plebs Frumentaria: the Demographic Profile of Fourth-Century Rome

Sometime during the 530s the Praetorian Prefect of Italy, Cassiodorus, composed a letter to the cancellarius of Lucania and Bruttium that addressed the tax that these provinces paid to supply Rome with pork and cattle. The letter provided Cassiodorus an occasion to reflect on

Rome's size:

It is evident how great was the population of the city of Rome, seeing that it was fed by provisions furnished from far flung regions, and that this imported abundance served it alone, while the surrounding provinces sufficed only for the sustenance of Rome’s foreigners. For how could a people that ruled the world be small in number! The vast extent of the walls bear witness to the former crowds of citizens, as does the massive capacity of their spectacle buildings, the marvelous size of their public baths, and that great number of mills, which especially provided for food.1

The passage presents a Rome that at Cassiodorius’ time was of diminished grandeur, but also suggests that the scale of the Urbs and the number of its inhabitants was of interest to this sixth- century administrator. So too now for modern historians of the ancient world, pondering the size of the population of Rome remains an interesting, albeit problematic, task. Any project, however, that purports to deal with the qualitative aspects of Rome's population, —that is, how the people were organized, how they interacted across various social categories, and of course their economic outlook— will inevitably be faced with this quantitative conundrum: just how big was Rome's population? When answering this question, literary reflections like Cassiodorus' offer no more than

1 Cass. Var. 11.39: Apparet, quantus in Romana civitate fuerit populus, ut eum etiam de longinquis regionibus copia provisa satiaret, quatenus circumiectae provinciae peregrinorum victui sufficerent, cum illi se ubertas advecta servaret. nam quam brevi numero esse poterat, qui mundi regimina possidebat. Testantur enim turbas civium amplissima spatia murorum, spectaculorum distensus amplexus, mirabilis magnitudo thermarum et illa numerositas molarum, quam specialiter contributam constat ad victum.

impressions. Evidence that allows us to move beyond these types of statements is fragmentary and sparse. Thus, demographers and historians have looked to create plausible ranges. The numbers presented may vary considerably. Estimates as low as below half a million and as high as one and a half million have been put forward. This range has been reached in the main through two methodological approaches, both of which Cassiodorus lingers on: the scale of food importation and distribution and the physical remains of the City.

We will do well to remember that Cassiodorus’ distant past was not, however, the first three hundred years of the Empire, but likely the fourth century, a period when Rome ceased to be the seat of empire and is assumed by many to be well past its apogee. In both studies on the late

Empire and on Rome in general, scholars continue to remark on the numerical decline of the city's population throughout the fourth century.2 These statements, common though they are, are often unsupported by anything other than impressionistic evidence and aprioristic assumptions.

Where numbers exist, namely the beneficiaries of the late-antique frumentationes, they suggest that a privileged segment of the population, the so-called plebs frumentaria, had at the very least numerically remained stable into the fourth century.3 While this group is decidedly

2 Undoubtedly, this view is influenced by the notion of decline in Late Antiquity, about which the scholarship is long and varied, see p. 61, fn. 30 below for bibliography. On Rome, see for example: Chastagnol (1953, 21) places the population as low as 300,000 at the time of Constantine. Robinson 1994, 7; Purcell 1999, 144 (see below); and Sirks 1991, 255, who says the population of Rome was "gradually declining." Lo Cascio’s (1997, 1999a, 2013) estimates imply some measure of population decline by the fourth century, citing a population of c. 700,000 in Severan Rome and 600,000 in the fourth century. Noy 2000, 15: “it is unclear whether this level (650,000-800,000) was maintained in the 3rd and 4th centuries, or whether the decline continued to a figure under 500,000 in the 4th century." Nicolet (2000, 280) suggests that the decline in Rome’s population was caused by the establishment of Constantinople. Also, Sidwell 2006 , 170, who assumes a population of more than 660,000 for the early fourth century, but 600,000 for the end of the century; Van Dam 2010, 21: "The Baths of Caracalla provided for 1600 bathers; a century later, even as the size of Rome was beginning to diminish, the new Baths of Diocletian could accommodate twice as many"; and Machado 2012, 144: "As utilitarian and multiresidential buildings converted into houses, the suggest not only a change in the real estate market (and a demographic decline) but also a different strategy in the use of space." Finally, see also Laes 2015, 92. 3 Durliat 1990, 57-64; Lo Cascio 1997, 63-76; 1999a; and 2013, although he implies that there was likely a decrease to 150,000 beneficiaries in the third century, which remained consistent into the fourth century. On the other hand, Chastagnol (1953, 222) despairs at ever knowing the number of the beneficiaries in the fourth century, but suggests an astonishingly low population figure. Barnish (1987, 163) follows Chastagnol in regard to the elusiveness of the number of beneficiaries. See full discussion below.

different from the total population of Rome, attempts at extrapolating a plausible range for the latter often begin from the number of the plebs frumentaria. These attempts are beset with various issues, the most prominent being to determine what proportion of the population this group actually constituted. In this regard, we are confronted by the same issues for the late-antique city that are present for earlier periods.4

Notwithstanding the inherent difficulties of the task, establishing a plausible range for the size of the population is of the utmost importance for this project, as it has a major impact upon our understanding of Rome from the late third to the fifth century CE. Did the population of Rome experience decline, as is assumed by many? If not, was it consistent with what came before or is there a possibility to speak of change of some other type in Late Antiquity? The answers to these questions impact upon other aspects of urban life and determine how we understand the socio- economic dynamics of the population. Therefore, the question of the size and composition of

Rome’s population needs to be considered first. In pursuit of this aim, this chapter makes a case that from the reign of Diocletian and through the fourth century, Rome at the very least maintained a population of around 800,000 people, a number that it had reached during the early third century.5

Demographic decline will be seen to occur only in the early fifth century and, even then, it was interrupted by cycles of intermittent growth. Further, it is argued that a large sub-section of this population, the so-called plebs frumentaria, constituted a greater proportion of the overall population than it had previously, and so it formed an increasingly significant and privileged middling sub-section of the population.

4 Add to this that one of the most problematic pieces of evidence for the population of Rome, the topographic catalogues of the Notitia and Curiosum, belongs to the fourth century, and there seems to be even less consensus among historians as to the size of Rome's urban agglomeration. In fact, estimates range from 300,000 to 1,000,000. 5 Although still debated, the majority opinion seems to place the population at 800,000 or slightly higher, while Lo Cascio (1997, 45; 2001, 183) sets the population variously in different publications between 650,000-750,000 in the early third century CE (202-211).

This chapter then serves as an introduction to a socio-economic analysis of a sub-section of Rome’s population, which I argue constitutes a structurally significant, economically stable group. This group lived well above subsistence and could exercise some political authority due to their socio-economic condition and is referred to throughout this thesis as a middling or middle class. The chapter also provides an overview of the different social categories of the urban agglomerate with the aim of quantifying what proportion of the population might have belonged to each so as to facilitate a better understanding of social, political, and economic conditions that prevailed at Rome over the course of the long fourth century.

Interpreting Population Dynamics: models and approaches

It is an irrefutable fact that the demographic regime of antiquity was one of high mortality.

Yet scholars have traditionally been divided about how to approach Rome's population. On the one hand, the view is held that Rome experienced a particularly disproportionate ratio of deaths to births. The excessive number of deaths was precipitated by the dismal living conditions in a premodern urban environment. This view accords well with the dire portrait of the sanitary conditions in Rome that Alex Scobie vividly painted in the 1980s.6 In ancient Rome, death and disease lurked around every corner: in contaminated water, in food, and in the city’s filthy streets, while Rome’s density and its poorly-ventilated, over-crowded insulae, which housed the majority of the urban population, made the population more susceptible to endemic disease. Still worse, Rome is thought to have suffered from a high incidence of malaria (plasmodium falciparum), which Walter

Scheidel, among others, argues would have created an even more pronounced surplus of deaths.7

In this view, Rome was bound by the iron law of the so-called "urban graveyard effect", in which

6 Scobie 1986. 7 Scheidel 1994 and 2003; Sallares 2002.

the appalling living conditions of the pre-industrial city precipitated excess mortality and an inability of the city’s population to reproduce itself.8

This model of the "urban graveyard" rests mainly on the foundation of evidence for the population of seventeenth- to eighteenth-century London. During this period, London grew at an exceptional rate and by the nineteenth century became the first European city to reach a size comparable to imperial Rome. Interested in formulating a model to understand London's spectacular development, Anthony Wrigley published an influential article in which he compared the registrations of baptisms and burials in London recorded in parish registers and the Bills of

Mortality and Marriage Duty Act of 1694. From this evidence, Wrigley observed that deaths were exceeding births in the city by a wide margin. In fact, he estimated that London had an average surplus of deaths of about 10 per 1,000 per year.9

It is often taken for granted that the demographic structures of Rome were such that the city must have experienced the same phenomenon of urban natural decrease on a similar scale.

Thus, Wrigley’s numbers have been applied to Rome, where surplus mortality is also set by some scholars at 10 per 1,000 p.a. at a minimum.10 Acceptance of this theory requires, as a corollary, that Rome experienced high levels of continual immigration, which would have been the only way to combat such a natural deficit. Growth or maintenance of Rome’s population thus would have been the result of a sizeable number of migrants annually moving from the countryside to the city.

At the lowest of estimates this number is set at 10,000 immigrants per year.11 Yet, these new

8 For Rome’s susceptibility to the “iron law” of preindustrial megalopolises see Pleket (1993, 17): “...the iron law that the population of large pre-industrial megalopolises was incapable of reproducing itself sufficiently. In this respect Rome fully obey the demographic law according to which big cities largely depended on immigration for keeping the population up to mark. Life in such cities was far from healthy and as a result mortality rates vastly exceeded birth rates.” 9 Wrigley 1967, 46. For Wrigley this was regarded as a minimal estimate. 10 Morley 1996, 41 and 2003, 150. Cf. Scheidel 2003, 174-175, who conjectures a surplus of deaths more than double pre-modern London. 11 Morley (1996, 43-46) suggests the Rome required some 15,000 migrants, but Jongman (2003, 107-109) arrives at the smaller deficit 10,000. Both scholars extrapolate from Wrigley’s surplus of deaths at 10 per 1000 p.a.

"imported" inhabitants are thought to have been even more vulnerable to the already virulent pathogenic environment of Rome.12 In other words, Rome was a massive demographic black hole.13

Against this position, which has come to represent near scholarly consensus, Elio Lo

Cascio has systematically sought to demonstrate that the applicability of the urban graveyard theory to Rome requires reconsideration.14 His objections rest on series of interrelated arguments: that the imbalance of deaths to births in premodern records is a partial result of the process of migration; that the phenomenon of urban natural decrease is not an "iron law"; and that the quality of living conditions in other pre-industrial urban centres makes a poor comparison for Rome. On the first point, Lo Cascio observed that the excess mortality recorded for London could have been caused in part by the fact that immigrants to the city would be more likely to have their deaths recorded there than their births, regardless of any differences in mortality regime between the city and their natal communities.15 In other words, the death registers were simply longer than birth registers because people died in the city who happened to be born elsewhere.

Lo Cascio also employs the comparative approach to argue that not every city seems bound to the law of urban natural decrease. Between 1500 and 1675, for example, multiple cities in the northern Netherlands experienced significant growth, with some, like Amsterdam, even doubling over a fifty-year period.16 This growth occurred without a strong shift in the ratio between rural and urban populations, which has led to the conclusion that births could outnumber deaths in pre-

12 Scheidel 2003, 175-176. He sees Morley’s estimates of immigrants as ‘hardly applicable’ and rather suggests immigration on a much higher level in order to sustain the population and even affect some growth in the long term. 13 Hopkins (1995/6, 60) calls Rome ‘a huge death-trap’ and Scheidel (2003, 176) labels the city a ‘vorax populorum’. See also Scheidel 2004, 16, which restates this view. 14 See, in particular, Lo Cascio 2006, 2013, and 2016. Lo Cascio vehemently denies the usefulness of early modern London as an inferential model for Rome. On this point, Hin (2013, 211) is in agreement. 15 Lo Cascio 2006, 54. Hin (2013, 228), following Lo Cascio, makes the same observation. 16 Van der Woude 1982, 56. The population rose from 100,000 in 1622 to 200,000 by 1670.

industrial urban environs. This conjecture was said to be borne out in the records of early nineteenth-century Dutch cities, since many return a high surplus of births.17

A similar objection to the general applicability of the urban graveyard effect is offered by

Rome itself, but in the seventeenth century. Demographic tables that were drawn up each year beginning in 1614 are able to shed some light on the natural trends of the population. In the second half of the seventeenth century, after the plague of 1656, the population experienced growth to around 135,000 people, attaining a level above the pre-plague population. During this period, births or baptisms outnumbered burials, which might imply some level of natural increase.18 While both of these examples deal with cities smaller than seventeenth-century London or ancient Rome, they nevertheless cast doubt on the general and unquestionable application of urban natural decrease, a conclusion that Lo Cascio emphasizes.

When considering ancient Rome, with a population far exceeding 100,000- 200,000, one must still reckon with issues of overcrowding and general sanitation. Lo Cascio suggests that scholars have often been too pessimistic, adopting uncritically Scobie’s grim reconstruction of the

17 Van der Woude 1982, 59-60 and table 1. Van der Woude bases this argument on the correlation between the demographic patterns of the mid to late seventeenth and early nineteenth century in the Netherlands and the fact that cities in the nineteenth century did not enjoy better demographic conditions than in the seventeenth, but rather likely were subject to both raising and declining standards of living. Van der Woude's observations are somewhat compelling, as if an iron law of urban natural decrease did exist, extrapolated as it was from London, then similar patterns should have prevailed in the northern Netherlands, since this area had been highly urbanized (some 45%) from the late Middle Ages onward (p. 56). It may be worthwhile here to make mention of the fact that from the reign of Augustus until the end of the first century CE, the population of Rome’s suburbium, construed by Robert Witcher as the area extending 50 km around the city, may have grown alongside the population of the city itself. Estimates place the population in the former area at another 50% of the total population of Rome, which is to say that Rome may not have been consuming its periphery (Witcher 2005, 124-132). Witcher relies on archaeological survey data, which he rightly suggests leads to speculative figures. It should be noted that both Osborne (2004) and Scheidel (2007) roundly criticize the applicability of survey data to answer questions of demography. Scheidel (2007, 22-25), in particular, takes aim at Witcher’s argument, suggesting that as many as 80% of rural sites would be rendered invisible to survey, and therefore even Witcher’s "informed estimate" is highly flawed. In another publication concerning settlement patterns in Etruria, Witcher (2006, 121) suggests that survey data reveal growth near Rome, stagnation in the interior, and mixed trends on the coast, while John Patterson (2006, 72-88), similarly relying on survey data, suggests that in peninsular Italy decline had begun as early as the first century CE, whereas elsewhere continuity appears to be the norm. 18 Sonnino 1997, 56-57. See also Lo Cascio (2006, 55), who summarizes the data of Sonnino and Schiavoni 1982.

ancient Urbs. In general, he argues that access to certain commoda, including free grain and abundant clean water, would mitigate some of the most severe conditions faced by those living in pre-industrial urban centers. Lo Cascio is not the only dissenting voice against the crowd of believers in the urban graveyard theory’s applicability to Rome. Cyril Courrier has also argued that the model of an insalubrious city that consumes its population is outdated.19 Like Lo Cascio, he suggests that the positive aspects of the city are overlooked, arguing instead that a core section of Rome’s population, its plebs frumentaria, far from eking out a precarious existence, lived well above subsistence and shows evidence of generational continuity.20 On this view, a considerable portion of Rome's population enjoyed an acceptable living standard and effectively reproduced itself. These people were the city’s plebs frumentaria, who, with the assistance of the frumentationes, constituted a permanent entity.

This latter position does not deny that Rome was the host of a large number of immigrants, rather it suggests that the migration model proposed by Allan Sharlin might better characterize

Rome’s demographic regime. According to this model, migrants are the portion of the population that experiences the surplus of deaths, as they often were subjected to sub-standard living conditions, experienced lower levels of fertility, and were most vulnerable to local infectious pathogens.21 Saskia Hin, while skeptical of the validity of the urban graveyard theory as a productive model for Rome, also impugns uncritical acceptance of Sharlin’s model. Bidirectional and short-term seasonal migration would likely reduce the difference in disease regime between

19 Courrier argues this most forcefully in his 2014 monograph: La Plèbe de Rome et sa culture (fin du IIe siècle av. J.- C – fin du Ier siècle ap. J.-C.), but also elsewhere, see, for example, Courrier 2017. 20 Courrier 2014, 121-125 and 2017, 113. 21 Sharlin 1978 and 1981. He derived his model from empirical observations about Frankfurt am Main. The low level of fertility is suggested by skewed sex ratios among migrants, in which men outnumber women. The sex ratio of immigrants in Rome is beginning to receive new attention, see Prowse’s and Foubert’s contributions to the debate in the Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire 2016 and Bruun’s critical evaluation of Prowse’s conclusions. Tacoma (2016, 149-150) points out that, in general, ancient historians have not paid much attention to Sharlin’s model.

the city and its surroundings.22 Not all migrants therefore would have experienced disproportionately higher mortality than inhabitants of Rome when exposed to the city’s pathogenic environment.

Both models clearly possess their limits for accurately reconstructing Rome’s population, with the result that the profile of Rome’s demographic structure remains difficult to resolve: was

Rome’s population characterized by stability or was it constantly shifting on all levels, as waves of immigration flowed into the city? However one chooses to answer this question, and thus which of the foregoing interpretative models one accepts, has major consequences for how Rome and its late-antique population are understood.23 The view of Rome as an urban sink has gained the most traction, with the result that the third century is thought to mark the beginning of a gradual and inexorable decline in the number of the city’s inhabitants.24 In fact, it is on this assumption that

Purcell builds his now well-known picture of Rome’s late-antique population.25 Rome, we are told by this most pessimistic of observers, "saw a further diminution in numbers of residents" every year of the fourth century, so that now the population was a "dwindling" and "etiolated" body.26

This is a view that also maintains that conditions of the late Empire were such that Rome could not have sustained its earlier size, because new cities, the army, and an expanding clergy all competed for the limited human resources, while economic pressures and foreign hostilities

22 Hin 2013, 224-228. She argues (p. 227) that the urban graveyard effect has been overestimated and she cites the epidemic of small pox in 1733 Quebec as comparandum on the impact of shared disease pool in cases of seasonal and reciprocal rural-urban migration. Here, Canadians who migrated from the St. Lawrence Valley to Québec did not experience increased risk of mortality. Instead, the evidence suggests that the risk of mortality from the contraction of the disease was comparatively lower for immigrants than for resident populations. 23 This chapter does not purport to solve the issue, it only brings the potential for disagreement to the fore. In so doing, the reader will hopefully be satisfied that I have considered how both of these models’ impact upon Rome’s population in the fourth century. More recently, Tacoma (2016) has suggested that perhaps a hybrid model, which combines both theories, would be more useful for explaining Rome’s demographic regime. 24 First proposed by Beloch 1886, 394, but the trope of a declining Rome has been adopted by others, see fn. 2 above for examples. 25 Purcell 1999, 140-144. 26 Purcell 1999, 137 and 144-149.

challenged the very structures of the Empire. A number of objections can be raised against these assertions. Not least of these is that the army of the late Empire appears not to have been much larger than its imperial predecessors,27 while the largest metropoles of the second century CE already housed likely two million people without affecting the relative size of the other cities of some importance.28 In addition, as will be demonstrated below,29 evidence for continued migration to Rome in the fourth century remains strong. Despite these objections, one must address the view that still maintains that Late Antiquity was a period of decline, especially in the Roman West.30

27 John Lydus Mes. 1.27 records a very precise number of 435,266 men. In general, see Campbell 2005, 123-124 and Lee 2007, 77. 28 During the Principate, Rome led the way with at least 800,000 inhabitants, but Alexandria and Antioch are said to have been nearly similar in size to each other, and the best estimate of the former places its population around 500,000. For the population of Alexandria see, Delia 1988. For literary references to the size of Antioch see Downey 1958. For example, Strabo 16.2.5, where he states Antioch and Alexandria were close in size: οὐ πολύ τε λείπεται καὶ δυνάμει καὶ μεγέθει Σελευκείας τῆς ἐπὶ τῷ Τίγρει καὶ Ἀλεξανδρείας τῆς πρὸς Αἰγύπτῳ. To these two cities, Scheidel (2007, 78 and fn. 177) would also add Ephesus and Carthage along with Rome. They constituted the five most populated metropoles during the Principate. On metropoles in the ancient Mediterranean, in general, see Nicolet, Ilbert, and Depaule 2000. In Late Antiquity, scholars have emphasized that the establishment of Constantinople would have greatly affected the population size of Rome, see p. 53, fn. 2 above. This is unlikely; evidence suggests that the East experienced demographic growth and population pressure from the fourth to sixth centuries CE (see Scheidel 2007, 65 and the debate of decline in Late Antiquity fn. 30 below). Constantinople would likely benefit from these conditions, while migrants from the East continue to travel west in high numbers, see the discussion below. A potentially more problematic competitor for Rome would be the growth of Mediolanum and Ravenna. Procop. Goth.6.21.39, for example, would place 300,000 male citizens in Mediolanum during the sixth century. This is clearly an exaggeration, but the city likely contained a large population. 29 Pp. 91-96. 30 For a good review of the debate from its Gibbonian origin to modern scholarship see Marcone 2008; James 2008; Ando 2008 and 2009; Rebenich 2009; and the contributions in Lizzi Testa 2017. The discussion about the decline of the Roman empire is centered around two questions: why did the Roman empire decline and when did this occur. In pursuit of answering these questions, the end of the Roman empire has been assigned variously to different administrative or cataclysmic events: the reign of Diocletian; that of Constantine; the battle of Adrianople; the subsequent and final division of the empire in 395 CE; the sack of Rome in 410; or the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 CE. In all cases, the Roman empire and antiquity, more generally, were assumed to meet an abrupt end. It was not until the early 20th century, under the influence of the art historian Alois Riegl, that Late Antiquity became a distinct period, which was not marked by a dichotomy between prosperity and decline —of course, not all art historians accepted this position (most famously, Berenson 1954 on the “decline in form” and the Arch of Constantine). Yet the concept of a distinct Late Antiquity did not enter the anglophone world until the middle of the 20th century (Friedlaender 1945) and was not made famous until Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity. In his long durée cultural history of the Late Antiquity, Brown eschews the notion of decline for language of continuity and transformation, taking a global perspective to suggest the chronological limits of this new Late Antiquity extended to the 8th century CE. Brown’s paradigm of continuity has been so influential that the word "decline" is often anathema. That said, in recent years, and especially in anglophone scholarship (though Brown’s view is famously also advanced by Henri-Irénée Marrou), the difference between decline and transformation has been questioned (Liebeschuetz 2001a; 2001b; 2001c; 2006), and the notion of decline has been restated more forcefully, particularly in the Roman West (Heather 2005 and Ward-Perkins 2005).

On this front, I will restate more forcefully what I adumbrated in the introduction above: decline does not appear to have been a feature of the fourth century, particularly when it comes to Rome.

In making this claim, I put myself firmly on the side of scholars who have recently argued that economic recovery and prosperity were features of the fourth century.31

The size of the plebs frumentaria in late-antique Rome

Notwithstanding the view expressed in this dissertation, the majority opinion on the demographic structures of Rome outlined above correlates well with the excerpt of Cassiodorus that served to open this chapter and, thus, weaves itself well into a coherent narrative of decline.

But the evidence we do possess for the late Empire warns against accepting such a tidy account.

We know that a select body of Rome’s citizens for the entire period under consideration continued to receive free food distributions, or frumentationes. This group, with their family units, constituted the plebs frumentaria. From the time of Augustus on, a numerus clausus for this body of recipients was established at 200,000 people, all of whom received approximately 60 modii of grain yearly.32

Due to the lack of statistics that accurate demographic modelling requires, since at least Beloch’s

Die Bevölkerung scholars have approached the size of Rome’s population largely through correlating the number of this plebs frumentaria and the frumentationes allotted to them with the annual supply and consumption of grain at Rome. From this body of entitled beneficiaries, by calculating the estimated caloric intake, the conjectured size of the slave and immigrant population, and, more recently, by considering model life tables, attempts have been made to extrapolate the size of the total population. Using this methodology, a general consensus has been reached that

31 Despite the readoption of the language of ‘decline’, it is now the case that the fourth century is also seen as a period of prosperity (McCormick 2001, 1-119; Jongman 2007; Ando 2008, 38; and Harper 2017, 161-163; for regional studies see, Lepelly 1979-1981; Bagnall 1993; and Kulikowski 2004). 32 On the establishment of a numerus clausus and the amount of distribution, see Rickman 1980, 181-185; Virlouvet 1995, 198-202; Lo Cascio 1997, 23-31; Erdkamp 2013, 264-265; Bernard 2016b, 54-59.

early imperial Rome was home to 800,000-1,000,000 inhabitants.33 If the same model is pressed into service for the later Empire, we should be able to arrive at a plausible range for this period in a similar way.

In the later third century, under Aurelian, we are told that bread was substituted for the grain that was previously distributed.34 The careful conversions of Jean Durliat and Carrié from baked bread to modii suggest that the same amount of 60 modii per person was available well into the fourth century.35 There is less consensus over the number of recipients. Two controversial passages from the Historia Augusta regarding the amount of grain left in storage after the death of

Septimius Severus are at the center of a debate over the size of the grain distributions in late- antique Rome and also concern the number of beneficiaries. The passages claim that, upon his death, Severus left in the canon frumentarius a seven-year supply so that it would be possible to distribute 75,000 modii daily:

Rei frumentariae, quam minimam reppererat, ita consuluit, ut excedens vita septem annorum canonem populo Romano relinqueret.36

He thus saw to the care of the grain supply, which he had found at the lowest level, so that when he died he left behind to the Roman people the amount of the

33 Hopkins (1978, 96-98) and Scobie (1986, 399-433) both put the number between 800,000 and 1,000,000. Similarly, Lo Cascio (1997, 23-38) suggests that a population of 1,000,000 most likely at the time of Augustus with enough food supplied to satisfy the caloric intake of 1,500,000 inhabitants. Morley (1996, 35) first conjectured a figure just over 800,000 for Augustan Rome, but he later (2013, 29-31) joined the consensus while emphasizing the complete inability of ever coming to a definitive resolution. Scheidel (2000, 51-52 and 2003, 1-26) estimates the upper limit at 800,000 to 1,000,000. Storey (1997, 966–978), remains the outlier, contending that the population was 450,000, for reasons of unprecedented levels of population density in the ancient world. 34 HA Aur. 35.1, 48.1; Zosimus I.61.3. Some would have it that this change occurred earlier, perhaps under Septimius Severus, see Erdkamp 2013, 265. 35 Carrié 1975, 1012-1014 and 1045-1046; Durliat 1990, 61-64. Aurelian distributed two pounds of panis siligineus to each beneficiary daily (HA. Aur. 35.1). During the empire 60 modii (393kg) were distributed yearly or 0.16 modii daily, which equals about 1.1kg. 1kg of flour produces 1.5kg of bread and 1.1kg of wheat obtains 0.66kg of medium flour that produces 0.99kg of white bread (panis siligineus), almost exactly 2 pounds. CTh 14.17.5, dated to 369, orders that the distribution of 50 ounces of bread of lesser quality (panis sordidus) be replaced with 36 ounces (triginta et sex uncias) of better-quality bread. The former would have been baked with coarse grain. 1.1kg of wheat makes 0.88kg of coarse grain, which, in turn, would produce roughly 1.3kg of bread. While the 36 ounces of better-quality bread (panis mundus), made of medium grain, would produce 0.96kg of bread, again almost equal to two pounds. The correlation between the three amounts of bread produced by 1.1kg of wheat suggests the amount of the yearly per person distribution remained at 60 modii of wheat per year. 36 HA Sev. 8.5.

canon for seven years.

Moriens septem annorum canonem, ita ut cotidiana septuaginta quinque milia modium expendi possent, reliquit.37

When he died, he left the amount of the canon enough for seven years, thus that everyday 75,000 modii would be able to be distributed.

A.H.M. Jones interpreted these passages to mean that he left behind 27,000,000 modii (75,000 x

365) seven times over and that the annual amount (some 190,000 tons) was enough to feed the entire population.38 This is an assumption that likely derives from our other fragmentary evidence for the amount of grain shipped to Rome to meet the needs of the annona. A passage from a scholium of Lucan claims that in the late first century BCE Rome required 80,000 modii of grain for the annona daily, while the later fourth-century anonymous Epitome de Caesaribus sets the amount of grain supplied by Egypt to Rome at 20,000,000 modii annually during the reign of

Augustus.39 On Jones’ interpretation, the number in the HA would seem to square with the other sources and this is almost certainly the origin of his conjecture.

Boudewijn Sirks, on the other hand, assumed that the 75,000 modii constitutes the amount that could be distributed daily to only the beneficiaries of the frumentationes, if the full seven-year amount Septimius Severus purportedly left behind were distributed in one year.40 He proceeded from this conjecture to argue that the passage reveals only enough grain for c. 65,000 people at 60 modii each (75,000 x 365/7 = 3,910,000; 3,910,000/60 = c. 65,000). The passage then could not

37 HA Sev. 23.2. 38 Jones 1964, 696-699. Rickman (1980, 234) is in agreement with Jones. 39 Scholium on Lucan 1. 319: Roma volebat omni die LXXX milia modiorum annonae; Epit. De Caes. 1.6. The passage from the Epitome is often read against the claims of Josephus (Bell. Iud. 2.383, 386), who suggested that Rome was supplied by Egypt for only four months and North Africa for the remainder of the year. The result is that some scholars argue that Rome required sixty million modii of grain a year (or c. 400,000 tons). This has been roundly criticized: based on likely calorific requirements something closer to thirty million modii per year (200,000 tons) would be sufficient to feed the population. There is a long bibliography on this topic, but Rickman 1980 (who, on p. 263, places the annual requirement at forty million modii per year), Garnsey and Saller 1987, Garnsey 1988, and Erdkamp 2005 remain the best accounts. 40 Sirks 1991b, 217-225.

reflect the situation during the reign of Septimius Severus, but rather that of the author of the

Historia Augusta’s own time, which Sirks places in the early fifth century, a point that remains itself a matter of debate.41 He subsequently works back from this number for the early fifth century and argues that in the mid-fourth century the number of beneficiaries would amount to only 80,000 people, a quantity that corresponds conveniently to the number of beneficiaries in

Constantinople.42

Unfortunately, Sirks’ interpretation is not tenable. First, the view requires that the concept of canon only constitutes the amount distributed to beneficiaries. The term canon frumentarius, however, refers to the entire quantity of grain brought to Rome for both distributions and sale.43

Lo Cascio has laid bare a complex system of subventions that evinces a volume of grain that was still brought to Rome in the fourth century on a scale not in line with a steep reduction in beneficiaries.44 To this objection can be added another. If Sirk’s view were to be accepted, the number of recipients of free bread, as we will see, would be less than half the total of those who received the pork distributions in 419 and a quarter of those who did so in 367. Sirks himself recognizes these discrepancies and believes that the numbers need not coincide, but this is logistically (and logically) problematic. The people who received pork were likely identical with those who received bread, constituting the exclusive plebs frumentaria. It must be that the account in the Historia Augusta that a seven-year supply was left behind is simply spurious or that Jones' interpretation is closer to the truth.

In any case, these passages seem to offer little in the way of reliable evidence for the

41 See Introduction fn. 37. 42 Sirks 1991b, 222 and fn. 31. He reaches this number of beneficiaries by interpreting CTh 11.14.1 with CTh 14.15, both of which speak of the mixing of 200,000 modii of new grain with old grain, but not that this amount constituted half, to suggest that 400,000 modii represented the amount of monthly distributions in 364, when these constitutions were issued. 43 Rickman 1980, 201-234; Lo Cascio 1999a, 164-165. 44 Lo Cascio 1999a, 166-170.

number of beneficiaries of gratis food distributions in fourth-century Rome. The evidence is better for the free distribution of pork, which the Historia Augusta records that Aurelian added at the same time the grain distribution was converted to handouts of bread.45 This addition to the frumentationes, and the evidence that attests to it, allowed Santo Mazzarino, in 1951, to first challenge Beloch’s position of Rome’s demographic decline in the fourth century. At the time of his publication his evidence consisted of two constitutions from the Theodosian Code and one edict among the Novellae of Valentinian III. To these a prefectural edict which corresponds to the earliest of the constitutions in the codex has since been added. When read in conjunction, this evidence contains the requisite numerical information to calculate the number of the recipients of the free pork distributions (obsonia) for 367, 419 and 452 CE.46

As with the canon frumentarius, which was financed by taxes both of cash and kind mostly from Egypt and then North Africa,47 Rome’s pork supply was acquired largely from taxes levied in the Italian provinces of Campania, Lucania and Bruttium, Samnium, and Sardinia.48 During the reign of Diocletian, the system of taxation in the Empire underwent a series of reforms, one of which was the abolishment of the ius Italicum, making the new provinces in the diocese of Italy now subject to tax. Tax was assessed and the burden distributed through a system known as the iugatio-capitatio.49 The collection of all tax eventually came within the ambit of the duties of the praetorian prefect and was handled by local curial tax-collectors (susceptores), who were elected by the municipal curiae.50 As part of the tax for which they were liable, possessores or land-owners in the pork-supplying provinces of Italia Suburbicaria would need to pay a set amount in pigs.

45 HA Aur. 35.2: nam idem Aurelianus et porcinam carnem populo Romano distribuit, quae hodieque dividitur. 46 CTh 14.4.4; 14.4.10; Nov. Val. 36. 47 Cracco Ruggini 1961, 129-13; Tengström 1974, 9-12. When needed grain was also supplied from elsewhere. 48 CTh 14.4.3; 14.4.4; Nov. Val. 36. Barnish 1987; Lo Cascio 1999a, 173. 49 For an overview of this system see Chp. 3, pp. 122-127. 50 Jones 1964, 456-457. This is an over-simplification of a complex administrative process, in which a litany of bureaucrats (e.g. scriniarii and numerarii) in the scrinia of the praetorian prefect partook before the task even reached

Despite the fact that tax collection was generally the remit of the curiae, an edict issued in

324 suggests that at first members of Rome's corpus suariorum would collect the pork-tax directly from the landowners in either live pigs (i.e. in kind) or cash.51 Much of the discussion of the corpus suariorum will be reserved for the subsequent chapters. It is enough here to note that the corpus suariorum were swineherds upon whom, at least from the early fourth century, the duty rested to deliver pigs to Rome as part of the system of the annona.52 This task was obligatory and was assigned to the corpus and distributed to individual members, who were bound to the munus and the corpus. If the tax was paid in live pigs, the suarii would probably drive the pigs on hoof to

Rome. Taxes paid in cash, however, were likely used to purchase pigs on the local market before their transfer to Rome.53

Subsequently, however, the responsibility of collecting the commuted cash payment

(exactio nummaria) was transferred from the suarii to the various municipal curiae and the staff of the provincial governors because the suarii seem to have been exploiting their mandate.54 Lo

the municipal susceptores. Often after taxes were assessed, for example, responsibility for the oversight of collection would pass from the praetorian prefect's officium to the vicars or the other provincial governors. Yet members of the prefect's own staff, the so-called canonicarii, might still be involved to supervise the provincial governors' task. Even at the municipal level more officials were involved. Before the elected susceptores collected the tax from individual taxpayers, a tabularius civitatis would issue individual demand notes. The complexity of the system is impossible to summarize, but Jones (1964, 451-458) provides many of the details. 51 CTh 14.4.2: In arbitrio suo possessor habeat, ne suario pecuniam solvat, quod ideo permissum est, ne in aestimando porcorum pondere licentia suariis praebeatur. Quod si iuste porcos suarius aestimaverit, huic pecuniam possessor, cui pensitationis utriusque copia est indulta, numerabit. "The landowner shall have it in his own power whether he should pay the suarius cash, which decision is permitted so that license not be granted to the suarii in estimating the weight of the pigs. But if the suarius should estimate the pigs justly, to this man the possessor, to whom the opportunity of both payments is granted, will pay cash" (trans. by Pharr, adapted by author). 52 CTh 14.4.1, 14.4.5, 14.4.7 and discussion in Chp. 3, pp. 135-140. 53 CTh 14.4.3, which establishes a commuted tax payment tariffed at the purchase price for pigs on the market in Campania implies the purchase of pigs on the market from tax paid in cash. But it is also possible when purchase occurred, it was done on markets closer to Rome. 54 CTh 14.4.3 (362/3) Nam quia maiorum potestatum officiales solent esse provincialibus perniciosi, per ordinarios iudices adque curias etiam hanc exactionem convenit celebrari. "For because the officers of higher magistrates are accustomed to being ruinous to provincials, it is decided that this payment should be collected through the governors of the provinces and the curiae" (trans. by Pharr). Here the higher magistrate in question is the urban prefect of Rome; the edict is addressed to Flavius Apronianus (prefect in 362/3) and twice it prohibits the collection of cash both by the suarii and the prefect’s officium (Exactio autem nummaria non per officium tuum vel ipsos suarios...) because of the potential for fraudulent behaviour (deceptio). CTh 14.4.2, although issued 40 years prior, might allude to one potential form of fraud when it suggests that some suarii had not been justly estimating the weight of pigs.

Cascio rightly suggests that two edicts issued in 324 and 362 imply the unscrupulousness of the suarii, who seem to have been estimating the weight of pigs to extract higher commuted payments so as to profit when purchasing live pigs on the market.55 The responsibility of the curiae for the collection of tax was then also extended to taxes in kind, either live pigs or pork meat.56 Once collected, the various municipal ordines would subsequently transfer the taxes to the suarii, who would transport the pigs to be slaughtered for pork distribution at Rome.57

Among the constitutions that pertain to the collection and distribution of pork is one issued in 367 to the praetorian prefect Praetextatus. The law concerns the collection of the pigs by members of the corpus suariorum and the compensation, which they were conceded in this context. The constitution grants the suarii 17,000 amphorae of wine to compensate for a 15% loss

(singulas et semis decimas), which arose from the difference between the collection (susceptio) of pigs and the distribution (erogatio) of meat at Rome (table 1.1). Lo Cascio believes that this percentage compensated for the difference in weight between a live pig and the amount of pork it produces, while others have suggested that it accounts for the weight loss suffered in transferring

55 Lo Cascio 1999a, 173 referring to CTh 14.4.2 and CTh 14.4.3. This seems like a reasonable and correct conjecture. CTh 14.4.2 (326) permits the suarii to estimate the weight of pigs, presumably by eye (CTh 14.4.4 requires the use of scales), and landowners to pay in cash, while CTh 14.4.3 (362) removes the right of the suarii to collect commuted payments. 56 CIL VI 1771 distinguishes a tax that is proprium from one which is labelled annonae, both of which are collected by the ordines. Lo Cascio (1999a, 175 and fn. 58-59) argues that the proprium tax must be the commuted payment and the portion labelled annonae perhaps the payment in pigs. It is possible that pork meat was also supplied in laridum (cured-pork). CTh 7.4.2 (355) preserves an edict that orders the use of the entire pig for distributions to soldiers in Africa, which can be allotted in fresh meat (caro) or cured-pork (laridum), while the Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium suggests that Lucania distributed a large quantity of laridum to other provinces (Exp. 53: lardum multum aliis provinciis mittit). 57 CTh 14.4.4.3 (367): Illud quoque salubris Constantinianae legis forma compescat, videlicet ut cum possessore, cui commodioris pretii beneficia indulta a veteribus principibus praerogativa providit, proprium ordo decidat ac transigat isque ordo suariis, quibuscum habet vini emolumenta communia, aut legitimum pretium, id est Romani fori, cui carnem fuerat illaturus, tradat, aut carnem debitam subministret. "The salutary regulation of the law of Constantine shall also restrain that well-known practice whereby a particular (municipal) ordo should decide and agree as to their due share with the possessor, to whom the prerogative granted by the past emperors provides a more advantageous price, and the same ordo shall transfer to the suarii, with whom there is a common emolument of wine, either the established price, that is to say the price of the Roman Forum, to where the meat should have been carried, or the meat owed" (trans. by Pharr, adapted by author).

live pigs to Rome.58 This latter view is perhaps more probable: the pigs would likely be driven on hoof to Rome, at times a significant distance. From the pig-rich Lucania, for example, this journey would cover nearly 400km to reach Rome, on which route the pigs would have lost weight at varying rates.59 Moreover, a 15% payment might not even compensate for the difference between a live pig and the meat derived from it, as a pig produces between 60% and 90% of its weight in pork when slaughtered.60 Whatever the reason for the compensation, the amphorae were to be paid to the suarii by landowners of Lucania and Bruttium, who, since they would have been responsible for the cost of the wine’s transportation from their estates to the wine’s destination, were able to commute their 15% payment into pigs at the rate of 70 pounds per amphora.

An inscription datable to a few years before this constitution records a prefectural edict of

Flavius Turcius Apronianus, which confirms both the compensation and the number of amphorae paid to the suarii.61 The inscription attests the allocation of 25,000 amphorae of wine to the suarii and the municipal ordines. This payment is explicitly stated to constitute a relief (levamen) for the losses suffered by both the municipal ordines and the suarii. Though the inscription does not explicitly say so, it is surmised from the constitution of 367 that the losses in question were those effected by a difference in weight between collection of pigs and distribution of meat. The

58 Lo Cascio (1999a, 176-77). Jones (1964, 703), who is followed by Barnish (1987, 162), believes the loss that is compensated for is the weight loss suffered by the pigs in transit. 59 I select Lucania as the example since the Novella of Valentinian assigns the highest tax-rate to Lucania for the pork supply (see below) and because archaeological work has tied the fate of the Lucanian hinterland with the supply of pork in the fifth and sixth century, see Barnish 1987. Using Stanford's Orbis network it is estimated that a walk from Palinurus in Lucania to Rome would take c.12 days by foot, walking a maximum of 30km per day. This does not account for the additional difficulty of herding pigs. 60 Durliat (1990, 98) suggests that a pig, when fattened in a traditional way, produces only c. 60% of its weight in pork. Against this view, I have obtained estimates from pig lessors in modern southern Bavaria, who still fatten their Turopolje pigs on wide pannage and slaughter them in traditional ways. Here pigs can produce nearly 90% of their weight when slaughtered. All parts of the pig are used except for some glands, the nails of the trotters, some skin, and the eyes. Interestingly CTh 7.4.2 suggests that all parts of the pig should be used for distributions save for the snout and nails of the trotters: ungulas orisque tantummodo summitatem praecidi amputarique praecipimus, ne porcina integra separetur, sed erogationi proficiat annonariae. 61 CIL VI 1771. The urban prefecture of Apronianus is dated to between 362-364. The date of the inscription comes from a constitution that was issued to him from the emperor Julian regarding the suarii and the collection of pigs in 363 (CTh 14.4.3).

subvention was paid from the proceeds collected for the canon vinarius and was distributed unevenly: two-thirds were allotted to the suarii and the remaining third to the municipal ordines.

The compensation recorded in the inscription amounts to 16,666 amphorae for the suarii, correlating with the 17,000 amphorae mentioned in the constitution of 367.

Table 1.1. Compensation in Amphorae

CTh 14.4.4 (367) CIL VI 1771 (363/4) Per singulas et semis decimas, quibus suariorum Ex auctoritate/Turci Aproniani v(iri) dispendia sarciuntur, damnum, quod inter c(larissimi)/praef(ecti) urb(i)…cum suarios damnis susceptionem et erogationem necessario evenit, videremus /adfectos et eos etiam ordines /qui vini, hoc est septem et decem milium amphorarum suariam faciunt, providimus /his levamen ex titulo perceptione relevetur. canonico/vinario, ut viginti quinque milia /amforum annua consequantur/sub ea divisione, ut duae partes “Through the 15 percent, by which the expenses of /suariis, tertia vero his ordinibus /proficiat… the suarii are compensated, the loss, which necessarily occurs between the collection and According to the authority of Turcius Apronianus, distribution, should be mitigated from wine, in the vir clarissimus and urban prefect …Since we have amount of 17,000 amphorae” seen that the suarii are affected by losses and also the ordines, who provide the tax in pigs, we provided a relief to these groups from the taxes belonging to the canon vinarius with the result that 25,000 amphorae (of wine) are allotted annually according to this division: two parts are assigned to the suarii and a third to the ordines… Amphorae 2/3 of 25,000 = 25,000 x 0.66666667 = 17,000 16,666

Eighty-five years later, in 452, Valentinian III also issued an edict regarding the collection of the canon suarius (table 1.2). He was concerned with establishing the commutation of the pig tax into payments of solidi, a process known as adaeratio, which became more common from the late fourth century onwards.62 Because supply from Sardinia was increasingly interrupted by the difficulties of transportation by sea, the emperor established fixed payments from Lucania,

Samnium, and Campania in the amount of 13,750 solidi in total.63 Another 950 solidi were exacted

62 See Barnish 1987, 166-169 and 180 on the chronological development of adaeratio and its economic impact in relation to the supply of pork to Rome. 63 Lucania was assessed at 6,400, Samnium at 5,400, and Campania at 1,950. It is unclear what caused the difficulties in transportation from Sardinia. The Vandals and Valentinian III had signed a treaty in 442 which included the betrothal of Valentinian’s daughter to Gaiseric’s son. This treaty appears to have been upheld until 455. Perhaps the

from the boarii and pecuarii, for a total of 14,700 solidi.

This entire sum was to be paid to the suarii for the provisioning of the pork supply.

Furthermore, the suarii were ordered to provide an additional 100,000 pounds, which they were to purchase at a regulated rate of 240 pounds per solidus. The edict reveals that the total weight collected would amount to 3,628,000 pounds of pork.64 Clearly, the 14,700 solidi were supposed to be used for the purchase of pork at the fixed rate of 240 pounds per solidus, as then the entire commutation schedule would equal 3,528,000 pounds of pork (240 x 14,700). When the suarii’s additional 100,000 pounds are included, the total weight procured equals the total stipulated in the edict. This amount was demanded by the state to ensure the distribution of obsonia for 150 days each year.65

The text of the Novella also reveals important information missing from the constitution of

367. The total amount of 3,628,000 pounds was collected in 452 along with an additional 20%

(duarum decimarum ratione). The text does not specify what this 20% constitutes, but the sum can only be the compensation the suarii were similarly awarded in the 360s for the losses they incurred

fluctuation in the tax payment (inlatio fluctuabat) was rather assessed over the medium term. In this case the Vandal control of the sea prior to 442 may have previously affected the regularity at which the tax could be paid. 64 The total weight cited in the edict is 3,629,000. This amount creates problems and, in fact, appears to be a calculation error. This issue has led to different interpretations of the edict: Jones (1964, 446 and 703, fn. 35) comes to two inconsistent conclusions. He first suggests that 3,528,000 lbs. (p. 446) would be purchased with the addition of 100,000 lb. bonus amounting to 3,628,000 lbs. He then calculates (fn. 35) a 3,000,000 lb. collection plus the duae decimae, to his mind 10% plus 10%. For the latter calculation he borrows the 4,000 rations cited in CTh 14.4.10 and multiplies this number by the 5lb ration distributed over 150 days, which equals 3,000,000 lbs. (4,000 x 5 x 150). To this amount he adds 10% plus 10 % (3,000,000 + 300,000 + 330,000) to arrive at 3,630,000 lbs. After reaching the latter sum he remarks, “I do not know by what arithmetical error the imperial accountants reached the curious figure of 3,629,000.” Lo Cascio (1997 and 1999a), on the other hand, also implies an error in the total amount found in the edict, but calculates the corrected amount at 3,628,000 (14,700 solidi x 240 per pound + 100,000 pounds from suarii), with the duae decimae representing a compensatory additional amount of 20%. Although I disagree with Lo Cascio’s interpretation of the sale of the additional 100,000 lbs (see below, pp. 81-83), I follow his calculations. 65 The 150-day, five-month distribution period might have been established in order to ensure the sufficient supply of pigs. In conversation with pig farmers, I have learned that pigs, fattened in traditional ways can take up to 12 months, if not a bit longer, to reach a size large enough for slaughter (c. 120 kg). In the modern meat industry, the maximum age of a pig before slaughter is seven months.

between collection and delivery of the pork.66 The edict of 367 discloses that the suarii received

17,000 amphorae to compensate a 15% loss, but we saw in the prefectural edict inscribed a few

years earlier that both the municipal ordines and the suarii together were allotted 25,000 amphorae,

two-thirds to the latter and a third to the former. Two-thirds of 25,000 equals almost exactly the

17,000 amphorae cited in the slightly later edict. If 17,000 (16,666) amphorae represents a 15%

compensation, the additional one third paid to the municipal ordines necessarily amounts to 8,333

amphorae or a 7.5% compensation (table 1.2). This total of 22.5% is quite close to the 20%

(duarum decimarum) mentioned in Valentinian III’s Novella. Both Mazzarino and Lo Cascio,

therefore, rightly suggested that both percentages must refer to the same compensatory amount.67

The amount of 17,000 amphorae therefore can be used to determine the total pork supply

for 367. Instead of the amphorae, the Lucanian and Bruttian landowners could commute the

payment at a rate of 70 pounds of pork per amphora.68 This payment of 17,000 amphorae

represented 15% of the total collection of tax in pigs. In 367 therefore the supply of pork required

for Rome was nearly 8,000,000 pounds (17,000 x 70/.15= 7,933,333). This means that the supply

and, possibly, the number of beneficiaries in 367 had been over twice the size of what it was in

452.

Table 1.2. The percentage of "levamen" granted to the suarii in 363/367/452

CTh 14.4.4 (367) CIL VI 1771 (363/4) Nov. Val. 36.2 (452)

66 See above pp. 68-70. Lo Cascio (1999a, 177) argues that the suarii and the curiae were required to acquire a larger quantity in live pigs than the weight requisitioned in pork to make available the amount of meat requested by the state. The additional percentage would compensate for this difference. Whether we accept that the compensation was for the difference between pork and live pigs or to compensate for the loss in weight in transferring the pigs, the conjecture remains possible. 67 Mazzarino 1951, unaware of the inscription, believed the 20% stated in Nov. Val. 36 attested to an increase in compensation from the 15% stated in CTh 14.4.4. Lo Cascio 1999a, 177-178 and 2013, 416. 68 CTh 14.4.4.

Per singulas et semis decimas, Ex auctoritate/Turci Aproniani v(iri) …de vicinis provinciis, id est de Lucania sex quibus suariorum dispendia c(larissimi)/praef(ecti) urb(i)…cum milia quadringentorum, Samnio quinque sarciuntur, damnum, quod inter suarios damnis videremus /adfectos et milia quadringentorum, Campania mille susceptionem et erogationem eos etiam ordines /qui suariam faciunt, nongentorum quinquaginta solidorum debita necessario evenit, vini, hoc est providimus /his levamen ex titulo emolumenta oporteat decerni. De boariorum septem et decem milium canonico/vinario, ut viginti quinque etiam vel pecuariorum praestatione amphorarum perceptione relevetur. milia /amforum annua consequantur/sub nongentos quinquaginta solidos exactos sibi ea divisione, ut duae partes /suariis, noverint profuturos. Centum milia aequi “Through the 15 percent, by which tertia vero his ordinibus /proficiat… ponderis porcinae de interpretiis iuxta the expenses of the suarii are priora constituta praebeant, ducena compensated, the loss, which According to the authority of Turcius quadragena pondo ad solidos secundum necessarily occurs between the Apronianus, vir clarissimus and urban promissionem suam inlaturi, quoniam certa collection and distribution, should prefect …Since we have seen that the emolumenta amota solita dubitatione be mitigated from wine, in the suarii are affected by loses and also the percipiunt, ita ut centum quinquaginta amount of 17,000 amphorae” ordines, who provide the tax in pigs, we diebus obsoniorum praebitionem sine ulla provided a relief to these groups from causatione singulis annis a se noverint the taxes belonging to the canon procurandam, quae quantitas in tricies vinarius with the result that 25,000 sexies centenis viginti novem milibus libris amphorae (of wine) are allotted cum duarum decimarum ratione colligitur. annually according to this division: two parts are assigned to the suarii and a …owed emoluments must be decreed from third to the ordines… the neighbouring provinces. From Lucania 6,400 solidi; from Samnium 5,400 solidi, from Campania 1,950 solidi. They shall know that 950 solidi exacted from the payment of the boarii and pecuarii will be paid to them. In accordance with prior constitutions, from the profits they earn purchasing on local markets (interpretia), they (suarii) shall furnish 100,000 pounds of pork, weighed fairly, bought at 240 pounds per solidus following their promise, since they collect certain emoluments that remove customary concern, thus that they know for 150 days a supply of rations (obsonia) must be supplied by them without hesitation, which amount, set at 3,629,000 pounds, is collected along with the calculation of 20 percent.

The levamen of the suarii (367) (363/4) (452) 25,000, 1/3 to the ordines and 2/3 to the 17,000 = 15% paid in relief suarii. 3,628,000 collected along with the calculation of 20% Suarii 25,000 x 0.66666667 = 16,666 = 15%, as This additional collection is coincidentally it is nearly identical to the 15% specified almost identical to the 22.5% levamen in 367 allotted to the suarii and ordines

Ordines This must be the "certa emolumenta", which 25,000 x 0.333333 = 8,333 = this amount alleviate their concern, that they collect. must equal 7.5% or 1/3 of 25,000.

Total percentage paid in relief= 21.5%

15% = 2/3 of total levamen of 22.5% in 360s = 20% levamen/emolumenta in 452

An intervening constitution provides further contextualization for the preceding and

subsequent edicts and for the size of the pork supply. In 419, Honorius and Theodosius II issued

an edict which sought to join the corpora of the suarii and pecuarii together. In addition to

reaffirming certain privileges and granting new ones to these associations, the text also discloses

information about the distribution of pork. For a period of five months, each beneficiary was to

receive five pounds of pork monthly, and 4,000 obsonia, each a five-pound ration of pork, were

distributed daily for the entire five-month period to the people of Rome (Table 1.3). In 419, then,

the canon suarius was comprised of approximately 3,000,000 pounds of pork. The number of

beneficiaries, who received 25 pounds over a five-month period, was therefore 120,000. A five-

month period for the distribution, and likely also the 25 pound per person total, must have been a

consistent feature of the free pork supply to the city, as Valentinian’s Novella also stipulates a

period of 150 days, or exactly five months (150/30 = 5), for the distribution. Depending on how

we reckon the additional contribution of the suarii, we can assume that in 452 there were either

141,120 or 145,120 (3,528,000 or 3,628,000/ 25) beneficiaries of the free distributions.69 The same

duration and weight of distributions can likely be assumed for 367 and, therefore, the canon in 367

would be sufficient for approximately 317,000 recipients (7,933,333/25).

Table 1.3. The obsonia and the beneficiaries

CTh 14.4.4 (367) CTh 14.4.10 (419) Nov. Val. 36.2 (452)

69 The passage in Nov. Val. 36 is unclear and this impacts upon the number of beneficiaries. It says that the suarii, centum milia aequi ponderis porcinae de interpretiis iuxta priora constituta praebeant, ducena quadragena pondo ad solidos secundum promissionem suam inlaturi...Jones (1964, 703) thinks the amount must be the purchasing price of the suarii, not the selling price, as the HA Aur. 38 and 45 claims the pork distribution was free. I tend to agree with Jones, if not his reasoning. If this sum did alternatively represent a selling price, an additional 4,000 people received pork at a subsidized price.

Per singulas et semis decimas, …Per quinque autem menses quinas in …de vicinis provinciis, id est de Lucania sex quibus suariorum dispendia obsoniis libras carnis possessor accipiat, milia quadringentorum, Samnio quinque sarciuntur, damnum, quod inter ne per minutias exigui ponderis amplius milia quadringentorum, Campania mille susceptionem et erogationem fraus occulta decerpat… Quattuor milia nongentorum quinquaginta solidorum debita necessario evenit, vini, hoc est sane obsoniorum, amputatis superfluis emolumenta oporteat decerni. De boariorum septem et decem milium ac domus nostrae perceptionibus, diurna etiam vel pecuariorum praestatione amphorarum perceptione relevetur. sublimitas tua decernat, quibus copiis nongentos quinquaginta solidos exactos sibi Cui rei illud provisionis accedat, ut populus animetur. noverint profuturos.Centum milia aequi Lucanus possessor et Brittius, quos ponderis porcinae de interpretiis iuxta longae subvectionis damna Moreover, a possessor will receive five priora constituta praebeant, ducena quatiebant, possit, si velit, speciem pounds of meat in rations (obsonia) for quadragena pondo ad solidos secundum moderata, hoc est septuagenarum five months, so that on account of the promissionem suam inlaturi, quoniam certa librarum compensatione dissolvere, smallness of the light weight hidden emolumenta amota solita dubitatione fraud may not snatch more…Your percipiunt, ita ut centum quinquaginta sublimity shall decree 4000 rations diebus obsoniorum praebitionem sine ulla “Through the 15 percent, by which daily, with the remaining people causatione singulis annis a se noverint the expenses of the suarii are removed and also those of your house procurandam, quae quantitas in tricies compensated, the loss, which (officiales) receiving rations, by which sexies centenis viginti novem milibus libris necessarily occurs between the abundance the people may be enlivened. cum duarum decimarum ratione colligitur. collection and distribution, should be mitigated from wine, in the …owed emoluments must be decreed from amount of 17,000 amphorae. To the neighbouring provinces. From Lucania which this is added as a provision, 6,400 solidi; from Samnium 5,400 solidi, that the Lucanian and Bruttian from Campania 1,950 solidi. They shall landholder, whom the expense of know that 950 solidi exacted from the the long delivery effects, is able, if payment of the boarii and pecuarii will be he wishes, to pay in kind at a paid to them. In accordance with prior controlled price, this is at a constitutions, from the profits they earn commutation of 70 pounds of pork. purchasing on local markets (interpretia), they (suarii) shall furnish 100,000 pounds of pork, weighed fairly, bought at 240 pounds per solidus following their promise, since they collect certain emoluments that remove customary concern, thus that they know for 150 days a supply of rations (obsonia) must be supplied by them without hesitation, which amount, set at 3,629,000 pounds, is collected along with the calculation of 20 percent. (367) (419) (452)

17,000 amphora= 15% of the 3,629,000 pounds (or 3,628,000: 14,700 supply 4000 daily rations solidi x 240 per pound + 100,000 pounds from suarii) 17,000 x 70 pounds of pork = 5 pounds for 5 months = 25 pounds 1,190,000 Distributed over 150 days (150/30 = approx. 5 months = 150 days (30 x 5) 5 months) 1,190,000/ .15 = 7,933,333 = 600,000 rations (4000 x 150) Assuming the amount of ration per person is If the amount of the distribution the same, as there is nothing to suggest remained the same over the same 600,000 rations per month for 5 months otherwise period, and there is no reason not to assume this, given both the = 3,000,000 pounds of pork = 145,160 (or 145,120) beneficiaries continuity between the edicts of (3,629,000 (3,628,000)/ 25) 419 and 452 in distribution amount = 120,000 beneficiaries (600,000/5) and the continuity in other numbers

(see table 2) between all three constitutions, then:

7,933,333/25= c. 317,333 beneficiaries

Without considering all the details, a few very broad patterns can be identified. First, the

size of the canon and the likely number of recipients in the late fourth century were over two and

a half times greater than in 419 and over two times greater than in 452. And second, between 419

and 452 the pork requisition appears to have grown nearly 20% after a precipitous drop in the late

fourth and early fifth century. As suggested above, Mazzarino was led to conclude that these

changes reflected broader demographic trends. The recipients of the obsonia were thought to be

the same as the core group who received bread distributions, Rome’s plebs frumentaria. Therefore,

in 367, he averred that Rome was still a city of the same size as its Augustan predecessor. This is

to say that during the reign of Valentinian I, Rome maintained a population of 800,000-1,000,000,

or perhaps even more, but subsequently the city suffered demographic contraction, likely as a

result of the sack in 410.70 Following his reasoning, the population would then have rebounded

slightly over the second quarter of the fifth century.71

Mazzarino’s conclusions have been subjected to criticism of various kinds. Almost

immediately, in his review of Mazzarino’s book, Jones suggested that the constitution of 367 was

misinterpreted and that the text must be corrupt.72 Instead of the per singulas et semis decimas,

Jones subsequently proposed the text should read praeter singulas et semis decimas, which would

70 Mazzarino 1951, 219-236. He (p.238) applied Beloch’s assumptions (1886, 391-412), based on the latter’s observations of the population of Rome in the 19th century, that for every 1000 men there were 796 women and 137 male children under the age of ten. Therefore, for Mazzarino, men to whom the free distributions were allotted constituted 51.7% of the population before counting slaves, wealthy and peregrini. 71 This is, in fact, what Lo Cascio (1997, 75 and 2013, 412-413) proposes. 72 Jones 1953, 115.

impact both the understanding of the duae decimae in the Novella of 452 and the overall size of the canon.73 Yet, as both Sam Barnish and Lo Cascio have pointed out, there is no good textual reason to suggest this emendation.74 The manuscript is neither corrupt nor does the preposition per cause a grammatical problem.75

In the same year, André Chastagnol published an article on the supply of meat to fifth- century Rome. He acknowledged in a note at the end of the article that he and Mazzarino had reached similar conclusions about the fifth century distribution.76 He expressed serious doubts, however, regarding the latter’s conclusions for 367. Chastagnol argued that the interpretation of the 15% compensation in the constitution of 367 remained debatable. His view rests on a clause at the end of the constitution that stipulates that the 15% was not to be paid by those who commuted their payments to cash, but only concerned the amount that was delivered in kind (Porro decimae semis, quam statuimus, non petantur ab his, a quibus fuerit pecunia ministranda). From here he moves, somewhat inexplicably, to the suggestion that only a third of the taxpayers at that time would have preferred not to commute their payment into cash. There is nothing in the text of CTh

14.4.4 to support this conjecture. The 15% in both the constitution and the earlier edict of Turcius

Apronianus seems to constitute a relief in relation to the entire canon, while the constitution of

367 establishes a disadvantageous commutation rate—namely, the price paid for pork at Rome, rather than that on the local market—which would have likely discouraged the process of

73 Jones 1964, 703 fn. 37. 74 Barnish 1987, 163 fn. 36; Lo Cascio 1997, 66-67 and fn. 229. 75 Jones (1964, 703 fn. 37) simply states he would ‘prefer’ reading praeter instead of per. 76 Chastagnol 1953, 22. Although Chastagnol does suggest the same number of beneficiaries in 419 and 452, he (20) thinks it likely that the annual distribution in 452 was thirty pounds per person, so that the total number of beneficiaries would be the same. Chastagnol offers no evidence for this per person increase and rather suggests it as he thinks a priori that Rome’s population would not have grown between 419 and 452. Without evidence for such a per person increase, this conclusion should be disregarded in favour of the likely scenario that the mechanisms for distribution and the portions remained similar, as would be suggested by the other similarities in the distribution, which seem to have been consistent across the three laws.

commutation.77 Chastagnol’s rejection of Mazzarino’s solution is based on his general assumption regarding the size of Rome’s population in the late fourth century, which he places at 300,000.78

A number of years later, Durliat returned to what remained, for some, an unresolved issue.

In a study that systematically examined the provisioning of Rome and Constantinople from the fourth to the seventh centuries, he came to the conclusion as regards Rome’s fourth-century pork distribution that the 15% compensation must equal the same percentage of the entire canon.79 But for Durliat the conclusion that the number of recipients of obsonia in 367 was around 320,000 remained unacceptable.80 He was convinced that the numerus clausus set at 200,000 grain recipients by Augustus must represent the largest possible number. Neither could the social or political conditions during the empire’s manifold crises in the third and fourth centuries have allowed for a 60% increase in the number of beneficiaries, nor would such an increase, if it did occur, have gone unnoticed by our written sources.81 What then to make of the “apparemment irréfutable” conclusion that follows from close scrutiny of numbers that there were 320,000 beneficiaries in 367?82 Durliat suggests that the total weight in Roman pounds must relate to the weight of live pigs and not the amount of pork meat that was distributed once the pigs were butchered. He notes that a pig when fattened in the traditional way only produces approximately

60% of its weight in meat. The number of beneficiaries should thus be reckoned from this amount.83

77 CTh 14.4.4.3: ...proprium ordo decidat ac transigat isque ordo suariis, quibuscum habet vini emolumenta communia, aut legitimum pretium, id est Romani fori, cui carnem fuerat illaturus, tradat, aut carnem debitam subministret. Admittedly, it was the municipal ordines that had to ensure that the suarii received the value of meat in Rome. The ordines would likely be inclined to exact the tax in kind. 78 Chastagnol 1953, 21. 79 Durliat 1990, 94-96. 80 Durliat 1990, 96: “Une telle conclusion était évidemment inadmissible.” 81 Durliat 1990, 63 and 96-97. 82 Durliat 1990, 96: "Il en découle la conclusion apparemment irréfutable que 8 000 000: 25 = 320 000 et qu'on obtenait ainsi le nombre des bénéficiaires de l'annone romaine au IVe siècle." 83 Durliat 1990, 97-99.

Through a series of, as we shall see, incorrect assumptions and dubious calculations, Durliat then manufactured support for his conjecture. He first assumes a price of butchered pork meat on the market of 125 pounds per solidus. He derived this number from the amount at which foodstuffs are tariffed in Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices and by converting these amounts, represented in denarii communes, to solidi. In the edict, a pound of pork is valued at twelve denarii and Durliat assumes the value of a modius of wheat at 50 denarii.84 He then suggests the value of 30 modii of wheat at one solidus, and he therefore reaches his tariffed rate of pork at one solidus for 125 pounds

(1500 denarii = 30 modii = 1 solidus; 12 denarii = 1lb pork, 1 solidus (1500/12) = 125 lbs).85

Following a doubtful conjecture made by Jones, he then assumes a reduction of the suarii’s purchase price of pork from the 240 pounds stated in the Novella to 200 pounds per solidus.86 125 pounds amounts to 62.5% of 200. For Durliat, this correlation produces an unassailable confirmation: pigs purchased alive at 200 pounds per solidus were delivered to Rome, but when butchered the same pig represented only 62.5% value, almost exactly the percentage of pork meat a pig produces.87 The total number of beneficiaries should rather be calculated from an amount of

5,000,000 pounds (8,000,000 x 0.625). If, in 367, the beneficiaries each received 25 pounds of

84 This assumption appears also to be incorrect. The edict values a modius castrensis at 100 denarii. It is estimated that 1 castrensis modius is equal to 1.5 italic modii, see Chp.1, p. 38, fn.54. This suggests that an italic modius was valued at sixty-seven denarii. Durliat (1990, 503) acknowledges this issue and assumes instead the value of one civic modius, which he sets at 50 denarii. 85 Durliat 1990, 493-505, and in particular 503 for his calculation. 86 A solution first proposed by Jones 1964, 446, who interprets duae decimae in the novella of 452 as an additional amount. Therefore, 14,700 solidi x 200 = 2,940,000 x 1.20 = 3,528,000 + the additional 100,000 pounds = 3,628,000 of the total canon stipulated. But the novella suggests that the canon, in the amount of 3,628,000, is collected along with the 20%. 200 pounds per solidus would be equal to the official commutation rate in sixth century Egypt. But it is unclear why this amount is the measuring stick. In Illyricum in 387 the army bought pork at 80 pounds per solidus (CTh 8.4.17), while in 445 pork was sold in Mauretania at 270 pounds per solidus (Nov. Val. 13.4). Both prices are similar to those found in Italy around the same dates (70 pounds per solidus in CTh 14.4.4 of 367 and 240 in Nov. Val. 36). See Cracco Ruggini 1961, 363 for a table of prices for pork from 301 until VI century. 87 See fn. 60 above. Durliat does not cite form where he derives his estimate that a pig produces approximately 60% of its weight when slaughtered. It may very well be true, but much higher percentages can be found.

pork then the number of recipients would be 200,000 (5,000,000/25), the same number of the plebs frumentaria established by the numerus clausus of Augustus over three centuries prior.

While a novel interpretation, problems abound with Durliat’s position. The first rests on his acceptance of the adjusted purchase rate of 200 pounds per solidus, which is the result of a misinterpretation of duae decimae in the Novella of 452. This 20%, as argued above, cannot be anything other than the compensation for the loss (damnum) that the municipal ordines and suarii suffered, which means that the 240 pounds per solidus must be retained as the purchase price.88

Second, Durliat’s mathematical sleight of hand conceals that Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum

Prices explicitly values one pound of gold at 72,000 denarii. At this valuation, one solidus (1/72 of a pound under Constantine) would equal approximately 83 pounds of pork (or 100 pounds), not

125.89 On these two objections alone, Durliat’s estimate for the same number of plebs frumentaria crumbles, and it remains better to still consider 8,000,000 pounds as the total weight of the canon suarius delivered to the people of Rome in 367.

This view is shared by Lo Cascio. In three separate essays, he argued vigorously in support of Mazzarino’s conclusions and the applicability of the evidence for the pork distributions for establishing both a densely populated late-antique Rome and the number of the plebs frumentaria.90 For him, the constitutions of the fifth century are unimpeachable. The numbers presented there relate clearly to the distributions; both texts mention obsonia (rations) and, thus, he deduces that the numbers in question can easily be pressed to determine the number of recipients

88 This conclusion, first suggested by Lo Cascio 1997, 70, is easily inferred from the reading of the edict of Turcius Apronianus (CIL VI 1770), which Durliat was well aware of, he cites it on page 96. 89 One pound of gold is equal to either 60 or 72 solidi, which means a single solidus is equal to either 1000 or 1200 denarii. See Lo Cascio 1997, 69 fn. 232. The objections to Durliat’s calculations do not address his problematic valuation of wine relative to solidi. He values an amphora of wine at a third of a solidus. See Lo Cascio 1997, 65 and 69 fn. 232, where the author provides evidence for the value of an amphora at approximately two solidi, while comparative evidence in Egypt shows the equivalence of 96 to 120 of pork to 48 sestarii (or an amphora) of wine. 90 Lo Cascio 1997, 63-76; 1999a; and 2013.

both in 419 and 452. In the case of the former, he argues that the amounts stipulated, namely the

4,000 obsonia of five pounds each, distributed daily for five months, nearly constituted the whole canon suarius, which he takes to mean the entire supply of pork to the city in the same sense as the canon frumentarius relates to the entire amount of grain transported to the city.91 For 452, he suggests that the majority of the canon too must have been assigned to free distributions. Here again the argument hinges on the presence of the obsonia in Valentinian III's novella:

Centum milia aequi ponderis porcinae de interpretiis iuxta priora constituta praebeant, ducena quadragena pondo ad solidos secundum promissionem suam inlaturi, quoniam certa emolumenta amota solita dubitatione percipiunt, ita ut centum quinquaginta diebus obsoniorum praebitionem sine ulla causatione singulis annis a se noverint procurandam, quae quantitas in tricies sexies centenis viginti octo milibus libris cum duarum decimarum ratione colligitur

"(the suarii), according to previous constitutions, should provide 100,000 weighed pounds of pork from their interpretia, they will pay 240 pounds per solidus for it abiding by their promise, since when they cease from their usual delay they receive certain payments, thus that they recognize that within 150 days every year the distribution of obsonia must be administered by them without any excuse, which distribution in the sum of 3,628,000 pounds is collected together with an additional 20%."92

Lo Cascio takes this passage to mean that the suarii collect 3,528,000 pounds for the free distribution but sold 100,000 more at a fixed rate. In 452, therefore, there remained a small amount of the canon made available for sale. It seems that Lo Cascio would have inlaturi mean "furnish" here and the additional amount was then unconnected to the amount assigned for the obsonia. But the passage presents problems for such an understanding. The 100,000 pounds are furnished because of the suarii’s interpretia, which were established by previous laws. One of the previous

91 Lo Cascio 1999a, 173. 92 Nov. Val. 36.2, trans. by author. Pharr, admitting (fn. 16) the passage is "obscure" and his translation "conjectural", translates the section under consideration as: "According to the former constitutions, from their profits, they shall furnish one hundred thousand pounds of pork of just weight, and they shall deliver two hundred and forty pounds per solidus according to their promise, since they receive definite emoluments and the customary doubt has been eliminated." However, the verb inferre can mean "to pay a tax" (e.g. Plin. Pan. 39.6 and Plin. Ep. 2.11.20), which in this case seems like the most appropriate use of the verb.

constitutions in question is likely CTh 14.4.4 and the interpretia then must be the profit the suarii acquired by receiving the commuted payments for the tax in pigs according the market price of pork in Rome, while they purchased pigs, perhaps at a lower rate, on the local markets.93 In turn, in 452, the suarii were required also to purchase their 100,000 pounds of pork at the prevailing fixed rate (240 pounds). To make this purchase more tolerable, the suarii were reminded that they already received in addition to profits from the interpretia certain emoluments, likely the 15% relief. The whole amount, then, of 3,628,000 was needed by the state to ensure the distribution of the obsonia for five months. This is not to deny that sale on the market existed, it likely still did, but it appears that the entire amount in question in the law of 452 was destined for free distributions, just as has been the case in 419.

The distinction between obsonia and the apparent small amount still supplied for sale, at least in 452, was the reason why Lo Cascio could suggest that 8,000,000 pounds in the constitution of 367 could not be used for establishing the number of beneficiaries. In the edict of 367 the word obsonia does not appear and therefore he concludes that the number is not associated with the free distribution but the full supply of the city at that time. But philological arguments ex silentio cut both ways. The constitution of 367 makes mention neither of obsonia nor of a canon. While this omission is not at all conclusive per se, it serves to undermine the evidence that Lo Cascio uses to reach his conclusion. He states that the association of 8,000,000 pounds with the total amount consumed in the city can be deduced from the similarity between the meaning of canon frumentarius and the canon suarius.94 In the case of the former, there is clear evidence that the

"canon" refers to the entire amount of grain supplied to the city and not just the free distributions,

93 See p. 68, fn. 57 above. For the existence of difference in prices between local markets in Campania and Rome and an attempt to mitigate differences in purchase prices for the suarii see CTh 14.4.2 and 3. 94 Lo Cascio 1997, 73 and fn. 242 “Ciò che me sembra doversi dedurre dalle leggi raccolte in CTh XIV 15.”

and that in the fourth century the canon frumentarius still contained a significant surplus beyond what was allotted for free distributions.95

Certainly then the canon suarius must mean the entire supply of pork to the city. On this point, I am in agreement with Lo Cascio. However, unlike the title in the Theodosian Code that uses the term "canon frumentarius", the very evidence Lo Cascio cites to support his claim, in the constitutions that address the supply of pork to the city the word canon never appears. This includes CTh 14.4.4 issued in 367. In each case where numbers are involved, they correspond with the other laws that have been discussed, which are considered to cite only the number of recipients: they always refer to the amount requisitioned for free distribution and the compensation granted to the suarii, or municipal curiae, to ensure their solvency.

Much like Durliat, Lo Cascio’s desire to see a larger proportion of the 8,000,000 pounds contributing to the total provisioning of the city rests on his entrenched a priori beliefs: for him, the fourth-century population could not have been more than 600,000-700,000 people. This estimate is the product of perceived larger demographic trends. Lo Cascio believes that the decreasing number of slaves coming into Italy after the Augustan age curbed population growth.

Subsequently, two major demographic shocks caused by outbreaks of epidemics limited the ability of the empire and its capital to return to previous levels of population.96 Clearly his view about the nature of the numbers in the law of 367 and the resultant population is based on aprioristic

95 Lo Cascio 1999a, 164-172. 96 First Augustan levels and then Severan levels. Lo Cascio makes this claim and traces the demographic patterns in multiple publications, but a useful synthesis of his position is found in Lo Cascio and Malanima 2005, 7-13. Note, however, that even Lo Cascio is not steadfast in his conviction, as in 1994b and 1999b, 170 he suggested population growth actually occurred through the second century, although he denies this in every other publication. The two pandemics in question are the Antonine plague at the end of the second century and that of Cyprian in the middle of the third century. Lo Cascio, in general, follows the maximalist interpretation of the demographic impact of both events. For the Antonine plague this position is most famously advanced by Duncan-Jones 1996 and Scheidel 2002, while Kyle Harper's studies (2015b and 2017), wherein he argues the so-called "plague of Cyprian" was a massive mortality event with major demographic and economic consequences, remain the most complete analysis of the 3rd- century pandemic. Recent work by Haldon, Huebner, et al., however, suggests that some evidence that underpins Harper's conclusions and, in turn, the demographic impact of the 3rd-century plague still requires consideration.

assumptions about when the city of Rome’s population reached its zenith and not on the strength of the evidence. In short, it appears better at the moment to accept, as Mazzarino did, that Rome in 367 could count among its plebs frumentaria 317,000 people, which number shrunk precipitously in the early fifth century, before experiencing a false spring in the decades leading up the sack of 455.

Calculating the size of the population from the size of the plebs frumentaria

If Rome did indeed count 317,000 people among its plebs frumentaria, what conclusions can be drawn about the size of the total population? 317,000 members is almost equal to the highest attested maximum of the plebs frumentaria that we have. In 46 BCE, Caesar reduced the number of recipients of frumentationes from 320,000 to 150,000.97 If the number of people who received largesse in cash (congiaria) can be correlated with the same group who received the frumentationes, this number seems to have risen again quite rapidly.98 In 23 BCE, Augustus distributed frumentationes to 250,000 recipients, the same number on whom he bestowed largesse in 12 BCE. By 5 BCE this number had returned once again to 320,000, before very quickly being reduced to 200,000.99 At this time, we learn from Cassius Dio, Augustus instituted a fixed number of recipients.100 This so-called numerus clausus of 200,000 recipients has thus come to represent the number entitled to frumentationes for the subsequent two to three centuries.101

97 Suet. Div. Iul. 41.3 98 This is the prevailing opinion, see Virlouvet 1995 and Lo Cascio 1997. Cassius Dio explicitly states that Caesar granted largesse in cash to the recipients of the grain dole (43.21.3- 4; 55.26.3) and Augustus likewise links these two groups in his Res Gestae (15). In the second century CE, Fronto makes it clear that it was only the plebs frumentaria who received congiaria (Princ. His. 210 H) 99 All of the foregoing numbers are taken from RG 15. 100 Dio 50.10.1 (Xiph. 100. 31). 101 The history of the plebs frumentaria and the stability of their number have been the subjects of many long and detailed studies. What is presented concerning the early empire here is by necessity a simplified and cursory account, and while the number may have fluctuated in the short term there is no reasonable evidence for marked decline or permanent increase to this number. For more detailed studies see Rickman 1980; Garnsey 1988; Virlouvet 1991 and 1995; and, for a brief overview, Bernard 2016, 54-65. Lo Cascio (1997, 47-58) disputes both the meaning of numerus clausus and the fixity of the number of recipients. He suggests that the former meant that the group was socially closed, as it were, accepting no additions from freedmen or migrants. He believes, however, (1997, 35) that already

Moving from this number to the total population is fraught with issues and, thus, becomes an exercise in establishing a plausible range. As outlined above, such estimates are reached in the main by considering what percentage of the population the plebs frumentaria constituted. This body was a subset of the entire urban population who were entitled to receive frumentationes.

Barriers to entry into this exclusive group included domicile, sex, status, and age; Roman male citizens who lived in Rome (domicilium Romae), were free,102 and had reached either the age of

11 or 17 were the winners of the lottery.103 The qualifications are thought to have remained the same in Late Antiquity, with residence at Rome becoming an increasingly stringent requirement.104

What proportion of the total population this group constituted, however, is largely dependent on the demographic profile of said total population. There is a growing consensus that ancient population structures are consistent with a mean life expectancy at birth in the mid- twenties.105 Such a regime is most consistent with the Coale and Demeny model life table "West

3" for preindustrial societies so that the plebs frumentaria might constitute between 60.4-77.1% of the total free male population.106 Depending on the age of eligibility, the total male population

by Caligula’s reign the number was reduced to 150,000 recipients. This view is based on the testimonia from Cassius Dio and the Fasti Ostienses which may attest to the distribution of congiaria to 150,000 people in 37 CE. He argued that the lower number held true at least in 202 CE, at which time Cassius Dio (76.1.1) attests to the distribution of largesse by Septimius Severus to those who receive free grain. Calculations place this number back at 200,000 people, but Lo Cascio (1997, 46) would have it slightly lower (170,000-180,000), maintaining that the Augustan period remained the zenith for this number and Rome’s population. 102 There is debate whether free means ingenui or liberti: Lo Cascio believes only ingenui would be permitted to receive frumentationes. Bernard 2016b, 62-63 and fn. 64, with demographic considerations, thinks it highly unlikely that liberti would be excluded from the plebs frumentaria. Evidence from third century Oxyrhynchus suggest that liberti were admitted to the distributions by performing liturgies, see Rea 1972, 4. This may confirm their inclusion at least for the late empire. Carrié (1975, 999 -1008) assumes the inclusion of liberti in Late Antiquity. 103 Again there is debate over the age at which males become eligible recipients. There is no probative evidence. If we see correlation between congiaria and frumentationes than Suetonius (Aug 41.2) offers the most useful testimony, which reports that children below the age of 11 did not receive the largesse. 14 is often assumed from a fragment of Ulpian (11.28 = FIRA II, 276) that cites this age as the end of impuberty, while P.Oxy 2902 and CIL VI 10226 might be used to suggest the age of 16 for eligibility. 104 Carrié 1975, 1001-1008. 105 Bagnall and Frier 1994, 75-110; Scheidel 2008, 38-41. In fact, most put forward the estimate that e0 is between 20 and 30 years. 106 e0 = 25 for women, whereas e0 = low twenties for males. The tables are also regionally based, and the “West” model, although not at all associated with the disease regime of Italy, is recommended by Coale and Demeny (1983) for use where there is no reliable information available for mortality levels of populations. It therefore is the most

with 200,000 included among the beneficiaries would then number around 260,000-330,000.107 A population with 317,000 beneficiaries would theoretically include 410,000-525,000 total free males. Add to this women, who may have composed anywhere between 42% to exactly half the population, and a total free population on the order of 706,000-1,050,000 can be conjectured.108

The social structures and population dynamics in the ancient world were such that slaves were a prominent feature in a city’s demographic profile. In fact, Kyle Harper has made the case that late Roman society could still by definition be considered a true slave society.109 In estimating a total population number, we must also then contend with Rome’s slave population. Hard numbers are particularly elusive, but a few anecdotes may reveal the extent of slave ownership. In one of his diatribes against Rome’s wealthy elite, Ammianus suggests that in ostentatious displays these people led a multitude of slaves through the streets wherever they went, and that each was accompanied in the bath by 50 slave attendants.110 When Melania the Younger divested herself of all her possessions to pursue an ascetic life outside of Rome, she apparently freed 8,000 slaves,

generic and makes no claim to represent anything like the true extent of the population. Hin (2013, 109-118) addresses the problematic application of the Coale and Demeny life tables to Roman society through comparison to other life table models (particularly, Woods 2007). While suggesting there are better approaches than direct reading of the Princeton tables, Hin (p. 118) suggests that the use of "the Coale and Demeny Model by previous studies has not...led to mistaken ideas of life expectancy at birth." 107 The tables are organized in 5-year cohorts after the first year, so the numbers here are calculated from 1-9 and from 14-19 years, see Coale and Demeny 1983, 107. Note that this assumes a stationary population (net zero growth). 108 Determining the sex ratio in Rome is a fraught exercise. There are those that believe that the inherent demographic structure of Rome, with its high levels of immigration, would create a very skewed sex ratio (e.g. Hin 2013, 240-245). This presupposes that most migrants would be young males. The only evidence we have for sex ratios come from the epigraphic record, which is roundly thought to overrepresent males (see MacMullen 1982 on the epigraphic habit and Parkin 1992 for a very critical assessment about the value of epigraphy for demography). Nevertheless, the sex ratio derived from Latin inscriptions from Rome in the first three centuries of CE has a mean of 134 men to 100 women (excluding soldiers), or about 42%, see Scheidel 2012, 105. Given the inherent problems with determining sex ratio in antiquity and that Roman society was not one in which the population declined continuously, a near equal sex ratio is also often posited. For these reasons, I assume the entirely speculative reconstruction, in which women constitute 42%-50% of the population. 109 Harper 2011, 33-38, with the explicit statement on p. 38 that his book is "an extended comment on the claim that Roman imperial society of the fourth century was a slave society." Harper’s position was established against the formerly entrenched communis opinio that late Roman society was no longer a slave society, see Grey 2011, 45 and fn. 14 for bibliography. 110 Amm. 28.4.8-9.

taking only a fraction of her familia with her.111 Jerome testifies to numerous eunuchs trailing virgins through the city, and he describes the flow of slaves out of the city after its sack in 410.112

Zosimus gives a number to the latter group, suggesting that almost all the barbarian slaves fled, amounting to some 40,000 people.113 Perhaps these slaves were those captured in 406 when

Stilicho defeated Radagaisus in northern Italy. Orosius claims in his invective against pagans that a multitude of these men were sold at the lowest of prices.114 In 394, Symmachus sought to have

20 slaves purchased for him to bestow as gifts on the charioteer factions.115 Below Rome’s lofty senators, slavery is also attested. A slave collar enjoins whomever should happen upon the slave adorned by it to return the bearer to his dominus Bonifatius, a linarius.116 A prefectural edict addressing the city’s builders suggests that they also possessed multiple slaves.117 All of this is consistent with a considerable presence of slaves in the late-antique city of Rome, but on what scale?

In his work on slavery in Late Antiquity, Harper reconstructed the orders of magnitude of slave ownership among various "classes."118 The first of these classes was the top 500-600 families that controlled an exorbitant amount of the Empire’s wealth. While the senatorial order certainly expanded and thrived in many cities across the late Empire, this group still resided in Rome and possessed a mean of 250 slaves each. His second group were the aristocratic infra illustres, namely, the various senators carrying the rank of spectabilis and clarissimus, the remnants of the equestrian

111 Pall. Laus. His. 61. She took along fifteen eunuchs and sixty virgins, both free and slaves. 112 Jer. Ep. 107.11; 130.6: “colluviem servorum” 113 Zosimus 5.42.3 claims it was almost all the slaves that fled, “σχεδόν ἅπαντες”; That he refers to only barbarian slaves is inferred from 5.40.3 when he reports that Alaric demanded the return of “οἰκέται βάρβαροι.” 114 Orosius Adv. Pag. 7.37; Orosius claims the size of the invading force was 200,000 men, but Heather (2006, 198) has estimated that it was closer to 20,000. 115 Symm. Ep. 2.78. 116 CIL XV 7184, Tene me quia fugi et revoca me domino meo Bonifatio linario ((:alpha)) ((:christogramma)) ((:omega)) ((:crux)). 117 AE 1941, 68. 118 For what follows in this paragraph see Harper 2011, 43-56 with table on 59.

order, which continued to exist on a seriously diminished scale long into the fourth century, as well as wealthy businessmen and the decurional elite. The latter are not included in calculations concerning Rome, but the members of this group are estimated to possess a mean of 20 slaves in the "core", but a mere six in the periphery. The third and final class to consider in the urban setting was that of a "bourgeois" middling stratum. This was not a bourgeoisie in the Marxist sense, but rather a group that enjoyed a lifestyle safely above subsistence and that possessed consumerist habits.119 Here a plausible mean level of slave ownership is established at two slaves per family.

Plugging these numbers into Harper’s model returns an astronomical number of slaves in the city of Rome. The 600 illustrious families would own 150,000 alone. By 400 CE, the number of men infra illustres, at least those associated with the imperial bureaucracy, has been calculated at approximately 2700 individuals.120 Certainly all of these would not have lived in Rome, but half would not be out of the realm of possibility considering the composition of both the officium of the urban prefect and the urban vicar.121 At this level, we might imagine slave ownership within a plausible range of 8,100- 27,000 slaves.

The third tier constitutes the largest proportion of the urban slave owners and may have consisted of up to 20% of the urban population, more if they were commensurate with the plebs frumentaria.122 Depending on how we estimate the number of the beneficiaries of the frumentationes in the fourth century, Harper’s bourgeoisie in Rome might own between 44,800-

119 Harper 2011, 41. 120 Heather 1998, 189. 121 For the structure of the officia of the urban vicar and the urban prefect see the Notitia Dignitatum. This estimate might even be too low, as newly made clarissimi are thought to have poured into Rome and contested with the old guard both in political and religious spheres, see Lizzi Testa 2001, 2004, 2015, 415-422 and Brown 2012, 249. Also included in Harper’s “Elite” are the extraordinarily wealthy business men. These men have not been included, but definitely were part of the urban population of the Urbs, the Codex Theodosianus attests to navicularii, for example, with enough wealth to meet the senatorial census. 122 Harper 2011, 56.

105,000 slaves.123 For the fourth-century city, a range of the possible would then extend from

202,900-282,000 total slaves. On this estimate, Rome might have possessed a population that included over 20% slaves. This approximation is largely accepted already for the Augustan period,124 while Bagnall and Frier demonstrated through census returns in Roman Egypt that 21% of urban households owned slaves and that slaves constituted 11% of the census population.125

Therefore our minimum and maximum, while necessarily speculative, would appear to be of a plausible order of magnitude.

If slavery did not abate in Late Antiquity then this had consequences for the profile of the total population. This statement is true not only in relation to the proportion of slaves, but also for the number of those slaves who were subsequently freed. Manumission was an important feature of Roman slave society. It was part of a system of incentives and coercion that characterized dominus-slave relations. In the late fourth century, Ambrose could compare his congregation’s relationship with Jesus in terms of manumission; Claudian could assign manumission an integral role in consular celebrations; and John Chrysostom could recognize the frequency of testamentary manumission.126 The evidence from the law codes also shows a preoccupation with persons of freed status that evinces the high incidence of manumission. In the early fourth century,

Constantine even introduced a new form of manumission (manumissio in ecclesia) which

123 The minimum is set at 448,000 x .20. 448,000 is a population in which 260,000 males represents 58% of the total population, while the maximum is 1,050,000 x .20, with 1,050,000 the total population if 525,000 males represented 50% of the population (see minimum and maximum figures conjectured above, p. 86). From here the totals of around 89,000 or 210,000 are somewhat crudely divided by two to represent households of one dominus. This mean was established in Roman Egypt by Bagnall and Frier (1994, 60) examining the census returns and employed also by Harper (2011, 43, fn. 45) for Late Antiquity. 124 Brunt 1971, 382-383; Lo Cascio (1999b, 166) places slaves and foreigners at 200,000; Scheidel (2005, 67) sets the minima at 220,000 and the maxima at 440,000 slaves; Morley (1996, 38) suggests a range of 100,000-200,000, but subsequently(2013, 40-42) has posited a wider range of 5-30 percent of a population of close to one million. It is worth pointing out that there are historical analogues for such a high concentration of slaves in urban contexts. 1849 census returns from Rio de Janeiro, for example, disclose a population composed of 38 percent slaves, see Karasch 1987, xxi. 125 Bagnall and Frier 1994, 53 and 70-71. 126 Ambr. Iac.1.3.12; Claud. De quart. cons. Hon., 612–15; Ioh. Chrys. In Mt. 13.4.

supplemented the forms that prevailed in the early Empire, namely manumission before a magistrate or ex testamento.127 A series of laws covering a period of over 100 years (from the early fourth century to the middle of the fifth century) concerned with the status of Junian Latins also attest that informal manumission continued as before. It must have been on a large enough scale that Latin status remained a recognized and widespread outcome.128 The evidence gives the impression that manumission in the late Empire remained structurally significant and, therefore, freedmen would constitute a considerable, if not predominant, contingent in any population. But just how large this contingent was is near impossible to pin down, as our evidence does not reveal the statistical frequency at which manumission occurred.

For the early Empire, some scholars have also despaired of reconciling the anecdotal evidence with any statistical analysis, simply conceding that manumission was structurally significant and more widespread in Rome than in other slave societies.129 Others are equally skeptical about ever establishing numbers with any claim to accuracy but nevertheless endeavour to establish plausible proportions. Of note are Garnsey and de Ligt, who attempt to extrapolate the potential rate of manumission and the number of freedmen in first-century CE Rome from evidence found in the civic album of Herculaneum. There, 58.5% of the servile population over

25 appeared to have obtained their freedom and the total population was constituted by two-thirds slaves and freedmen.130 Acknowledging the imprecision of the numbers and assuming a median slave population in late first century CE Rome of 200,000, they estimate a minimum of 100,000 freedmen in Rome.131 For Late Antiquity, we lack any real numbers for urban manumission. A

127 CJ. 1.13.1 (316); CTh. 4.7.1 (321) = CJ. 1.13.2; CTh 2.8.1 (321). See Harper 2011, 468-485 for a detailed study of manumission practices in late antiquity. 128 CTh 2.22.1 (320); CTh 4.12.3 (320); CTh 4.6.3(336), CTh 9.24.1 (326); Nov. Marc. 4.1.1 (454). 129 Mouritsen 2011, 141. 130 Garnsey and de Ligt 2012, 88; 2016, 87. 131 To me this seems this well within the limits of plausibility. Nicolet (1994, 605) thought Rome of the late Republic had double the amount. Purcell (1994, 797) imagines the plebs urbana to be composed largely of people of servile

census inscription from the island of Thera, dated to the 370s, nonetheless is able to reveal something of the demographic profile of slavery. In an incisive analysis of this text, Harper shows that for rural slaves manumission occurred at structurally significant levels, but that it was a gendered system. After the age of 30, men appear to have had much greater opportunity to obtain freedom than women.132 While this text is an important piece of evidence, it leaves us no closer to establishing plausible estimates for the freed population in Rome over the fourth century.

Any secondary inferences from already speculative numbers only increase the margin of error, as the outcome simply depends on the input. Instead, what we can say is that the incidence of manumission was high, yet manumission was not a guaranteed outcome. Moreover, if manumission was significant in rural settings, then in cities, among the familiae urbanae, manumission was likely also a significant occurrence.133 As such, accepting a 2:1 ratio of slave to ex-slave, as has been conservatively done for the first century, is not unreasonable. Based on our thin data and on the above-mentioned informed assumptions, we can now reckon that fourth century Rome had a population of between c. 750,000-1,424,000 inhabitants. Although the upper limit is implausible, this range nonetheless depends on the number of beneficiaries, while over

30% of the population could have been constituted by slaves and freedmen.

To the range so far established, migrants and resident foreigners must still be added. In

Ammianus’ account of Constantius' adventus to the city in 357, the historian commented on the emperor's astonishment at seeing such an agglomeration of peoples in the city:

origins. Tacoma (2016, 67), however, sets the percentage of freedmen relative to slaves at the lower range of 30-45%. He bases his estimate on the evidence adduced by Mouritsen (2011 and 2013), who finds that in the columbarium of the Volusii freedmen comprised 45% of the people interred and in the columbarium of the Statilii only 30%. This would produce a range of 60,000-90,000 freedmen living in the city of Rome if plugged into our conjectural model, numbers that are equally plausible. 132 Harper 2008, 109-115; 2011, 244-246. The total number of slaves for whom an age is testified is 87. There is a nearly a 19% decrease in the number of slaves overall after the age of 30. Of those to whom a sex can be attributed, before the age of thirty women constitute 59.5% and after nearly 65% (see table in Harper 2009, 209). All of this is consistent with increased incidence of manumission after the age of 30 that is also more likely for men. 133 Wiedemann 1985, 163; Harper 2011, 244.

Unde cum se vertisset ad plebem, stupebat qua celebritate omne quod ubique et hominum genus confluxerit Romam.134

When he turned to the plebs, he was amazed in what number and from all places every race of man had flowed to Rome.

This was Constantius II’s first time in Rome and it appears to have been illuminating: Rome was a city to the emperor’s amazement packed full of peoples from other places. In outlining the demographic profile of Rome it was suggested above that regardless of which model we accept,

Rome was a magnet for migrants. In fact, if the prevailing demographic regime was one characterized by an inordinately unfavourable death to birth ratio, migration to the city was the only way Rome would have sustained its population size. On the lowest of estimates several thousands of immigrants or more were required yearly. It has been argued that Rome experienced a decline in the number of migrants in the course of the third to fourth century because of the pull from competing centers.135 The direct result would then be the slow, but inexorable demographic decline of the city. But due to Constantius II’s impression alone, this interpretation deserves re- evaluation.

Just as for our slave population, anecdotal evidence abounds for the significant presence of foreigners in Rome, but again we must ask on what scale they were present. The best avenue to access data to address this question is through the epigraphic record. With the caveat that the epigraphic evidence is an imperfect witness, some general observations can be made.136 First, it appears that Rome continued to attract migrants from the third through to the fifth centuries. The evidence in the main is found among the near 30,000 inscriptions found in Rome’s catacombs.

Among these, a set of 230 texts provide secure attestations of foreigners who resided in Rome

134 Amm. 16.10.6 135 See p. 53, fn. 2 and p. 61, fn. 28. 136 See Introduction (p. 16-17) on the value of the epigraphic record as evidence.

based either on the appearance of a different origo or an ethnic onomastic indicator.137 Most attestations, when datable, seem to gather in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.138 This corpus of 230 texts is somewhat smaller than the corresponding dataset of foreigners recorded from the preceding three centuries at Rome.139 The discrepancy can be ascribed to the changing nature of

Christian commemoration, which among other differences tended to be more laconic, and the fact that the data comes from a much smaller chronological span.

A second feature is that late-antique Rome continued to pull in migrants from all corners of the Empire. Of the 230 securely attested immigrants, 11 % traveled to Rome from Africa, an additional 5% from Egypt, 18% from the dioceses and provinces of Illyricum, and 6% from Gaul and Spain. Most striking, however, is that at this time approximately 50% of migrants seemed to have travelled from Syria or provinces in Asia Minor. This is a proportional increase from the preceding three centuries when those from Asia Minor and Syria constituted only about 33% of securely attested immigrants.140 If competing centers were indeed an issue that impinged on late- antique Rome’s attraction, one would expect that migrants from the East would proportionally have been less inclined to come, as Constantinople is often posited as a drain on Rome’s potential population. Clearly the numbers indicate that this was not the case.141

137 The numbers are taken from the evidence collected by Nuzzo (1999, 2002, 2006a and 2006b) and Noy (2000b). The latter cites only 195 attestations, in part because he excludes peninsular Italians. 138 Nuzzo 1999, 699-710; for the consular dates see ICUR I 300 (345) and ICUR II 5064 (534). 139 Noy 2000a, 60. The number 230 represents a decline compared to the overall number of foreigners epigraphically attested at Rome from the first to third century, which is given as 1089. However, the latter number includes immigrants brought to Rome likely because of military enlistment. Once this group is subtracted, the number is reduced by more than 50% to only 521. This number, representing "civilian" immigrants, should be seen as the more suitable comparison for late-antique Rome, as Constantine eliminated the main contingent of soldiers in Rome when he disbanded the praetorian guard and the equites singulares after his defeat of Maxentius in 312. As such, the 230 and 521 counted in ICUR and CIL VI, respectively, amount to are equally statistically marginal: 521 represents approximately 1.4% of inscriptions in CIL VI and 230 to 0.8% in ICUR. 140 Percentages for the first three centuries at Rome are based on Noy’s (2000a, 59-60) numbers. There are 177 clear attestations of people from Syria or Asia minor among the 521 immigrants attested epigraphically. 141 A similar pattern is discerned in peninsular Italy when Rome is excluded over the longer chronological period of the fourth to seventh centuries. Of the 259 foreigners attested epigraphically, 110 have an eastern origin, a little more than 42% of the total, see Handley 2011, 82-85 and appendix 121-130.

The same conclusions can be reached through evidence less useful for statistical analysis.

Our juridical evidence, for example, points to a large number of immigrants still coming to Rome.

We learn that Greek merchants were numerous enough in the late fourth and early fifth century to raise the ire of Rome’s tabernarii,142 and that Rome continued to prove attractive for peninsular

Italians seeking wages and work.143 In 370, the number of students migrating to Rome also raised enough concern that Valentinian I, Valens, and Gratian issued an edict enjoining all students who came to the city to register with the officium censualium.144 It is perhaps the case that all those immigrating to Rome would have to register in a similar way. After Alaric’s sack of the city, in

414 the urban prefect purportedly registered (τετάχθαι) people coming back into the city.145 In the literary record, we can easily recall stories like that of Augustine’s friend Alypius, who was sent to Rome from North Africa by his wealthy parents to study,146 while four separate sources attest to the expulsion of foreigners in significant numbers, possibly on multiple occasions, in the late fourth century.147 That immigrants could be subject to forced removal from the city implies a mechanism for controlling immigration. Perhaps this is further testimony that a register did exist and, in any case, it shows that migrants retained a presence in the city.148

The evidence discussed thus far is consistent with the claim that Rome was a city that still experienced a significant amount of immigration. But Rome was a porous city, and just as often

142 Nov. Val. 5. 143 CTh 12.1.62 and CTh 14.2.2. ICUR VI 9237 records a casarius from Praeneste and ICUR IV 12330, a marmorarius named Puteolanus, an ethnic which may indicate his original home in Puteoli. 144 CTh 14.9.1. 145 Olymp. Fr. 25, Blockley. Debate persists regarding on what list these individuals would have been included and who in fact they were, but the fragment of Olympiodorus from which the information derives makes clear that it was people coming into the city that were subject to registration on lists, see p. 112 below. 146 Augustine, Conf. 6.8. 147 Amm. 14.6.19; Libanius Or. 11. 174 (360). Here Libanius could be referring to the same expulsion attested by Ammianus, although he makes it appear as though it were a regular occurrence; Amm. 21.12.24 seems to suggest that scarcity was a frequent problem; Ambrose de Off. 3.46-49 (376); Symmachus Ep. 2.7.3 (384). 148 Noy (2000b, 18) makes this observation, but does not recognize that the evidence from Olympiodorus may support it. See Moatti 2013, 81-83, who seems to think such registers were likely. Tacoma (2016, 86-92 and 153) argues that registers surely existed, but that their accuracy was very doubtful.

as migrants came to Rome, people also must have left. A certain Annius Innocentius serves as an illustrative example: he lived at Rome and died in Sardinia, but the epitaph set up by his brother recorded that he travelled to Greece and often (saepe) to Campania, Calabria, and Apulia. Rome may have been his origo but he spent his life travelling and labouring (saepe laboravit) across the

Empire.149 People who worked in agriculture might also live in the city, only to leave daily to work in the countryside.150 A Honorian edict from 409 even prohibits the plebs urbana from giving their children over to rusticani.151 The rural periphery and the city were thus engaged in a far more symbiotic relationship than generally recognized, in which movement was a consistent feature.

If the demographic regime of Rome was one characterized by high mortality, it also was one of considerable mobility. People continued to come to Rome from all regions of the

Mediterranean world, whether permanently or not. This fact makes establishing a number of foreigners in Rome a difficult exercise. For the period preceding ours, again there is little to no consensus on the number of migrants who resided either temporarily or permanently in Rome.

Even those who advocate for the necessity of immigration to ensure a stable population still tend to set the proportion of free migrants in the city at 5%.152 More recently, some scholars have cited stable isotope analyses of skeletal remains both in Rome and Italy to suggest that the proportion of migrants could be as high as 30%.153 Given the lack of evidence that can be subjected to

149 ICUR IV 11805. Innocentius is certainly not the only example. Melania the Elder is perhaps a much more famous émigré; she moved to Rome in the 360s and left for the East a decade later before returning to Rome around 400, see Wilkinson 2012, 167-179 for a detailed study on the travel of Melania. 150 Grey 2011, 48 for late antiquity. Erdkamp 2016 on the porousness of the city and the implications of seasonal wage labour on temporary migration. 151 CTh 9. 31.1. 152 Morley 1996, 37, though he makes this claim with hesitation; Noy (2000a, 15-29) sets the minimum at five percent for those coming from outside of Rome; Scheidel (2004, 14) follows Noy. 153 Killgrove (2010a, 255-258) argued, after her strontium and oxygen isotopic analyses of the burial sites of Casal Bertone and Castellaccio Europarco near Rome, that 29% and 37% of the individuals respectively were of non-local origin. Prowse (2007) posited a similar figure of 33% immigrants was produced by the analysis of Isola Sacra at Ostia/Portus. Hin 2013, 234-237; Tacoma 2016, 63-72; and Lo Cascio 2016, 30 all discuss the implications of Killgrove's and Prowse's results. See Bruun 2010 and 2016 for warnings against the uncritical application of this evidence.

statistical analysis, a definitive answer appears elusive. Accepting the agreed minimum becomes the most prudent choice, and since the evidence for late-antique Rome suggests that the flow of migration was hardly stemmed, it is reasonable to consider this a minimum for our period as well.

This suggests a number of migrants in late-antique Rome in the order of 35,000-70,000, for a total population of 785,000-1,494,000 inhabitants.

Inclusive exclusion and reconciling 317,000 beneficiaries

We have seen above that the maximum number of inhabitants of Rome that scholars think were entitled to the distribution of first grain and later pork varies between 200,000 and 317,000.

We have also seen that when these figures are used for estimating the total population of Rome, we end up with a population that ranges from 785,000 to 1,494,000. If 317,000 is accepted as the number of beneficiaries, as I have argued the evidence best supports, then the range for the total number of inhabitants of Rome in the mid-fourth century would have been between 1,101,500 -

1,494,000. Both the maximum and minimum numbers are undoubtedly very large, and although they include slaves and immigrants, it is no wonder that many scholars have treated the higher number of beneficiaries that this range derives from with such skepticism. As Durliat rightly questioned: how could an Empire that had experienced so many crises by the fourth century, and a city which was no longer its sole capital, still support so many beneficiaries?

Solutions to reconcile the numbers with this problem have been manifold. For Durliat, it meant insisting that the size of the plebs frumentaria had remained at the level it was under

Augustus, or 200,000. His conclusion was derived by means of unreliable calculations based on unsubstantiated numbers. Nevertheless, he arrived at a plausible total population of Rome in the fourth century in the range of 700,000-900,000 people.154 For Lo Cascio, the same evidence that

154 Durliat 1990, 116. Carrié (1975, 1068) also assumes that the number of beneficiaries could not have increased relative to the preceding centuries, but suggests a possible reduction. But here Carrié relies on Chastagnol’s (1953,

he had used to establish only the number of those entitled to frumentationes in the early fifth century was said to produce instead the entire population in 367. The result was a population that was still large, around 600,000 people, but not on the scale of the preceding centuries.155 Some scholars have presented even lower figures for the total population in 367, but the argument conducted above showed that they are too speculative and implausible to warrant further discussion here.

We need not despair, however, of making an estimate of the total population from the numbers we possess pertaining to pork distributions and the plebs frumentaria. The problem that is represented by an almost 60% increase in beneficiaries in 367 from the Augustan numerus clausus is actually mitigated, at least in part, if we contend with these numbers in a different way: it is possible that the higher number of recipients was more inclusive.156 It was stated above that the criteria for membership in the exclusive group of the plebs frumentaria remained unchanged in the late Empire. While partially true, when the annona was established in Constantinople,

Constantine also granted rations known as panis aedium to those who invested to build houses in the city. The motivation is thought to have been to increase the population, and the right was reaffirmed by Constantius II and persisted at least through the fourth century.157 Since the motivation in Constantinople was to grow a fledgling Imperial capital, the institution of a similar distribution in the long-established city of Rome was perhaps unnecessary. A constitution issued

22) criticism, which, as was argued above, does not consider the entire constitution of 452 on which his rejection is based. 155 Lo Cascio 1997, 74; 1999a, 178-79; 2001, 185ff; and 2013, 416-418. 156 Tacoma (2016, 155) offered this solution when confronted by the major discrepancy in the late Republic and early Empire reported in the numbers who received frumentationes and congiaria. This approach might be even more applicable for late-antique Rome. The multiplier often used to determine the wider plebs frumentaria is around 2.5 (Hopkins 1978, 97; Morley 1996, 37; Scheidel 2004, 14), but Tacoma suggests that a lower multiplier of 2 should be used to explain the discrepancies in the late Republic and early Empire (150,000-320,000). In other words, the higher number is more inclusive. 157 CTh 14.17.1 (364) and CTh 14.17.12 (393).

in 369 reveals, however, that by this date the panis aedium seems also to have existed in Rome.158

In the edict, Valentinian I and Valens established the distribution to beneficiaries of bread of a better quality, and explicitly exclude from this privilege slaves, anyone among the imperial administration, and those who already receive the panes aedificiorum.

Debate persists around the meaning of panes aedificiorum. It has been argued that aedificia here must mean public buildings and therefore the panes aedificiorum would be equivalent to the annona palatina established in Constantinople for distribution to members of the city and imperial administration.159 The text would seem to preclude this meaning, however. Officiales, namely imperial and city administrators, are explicitly excluded in the edict in addition to individuals who receive the panes aedificiorum. Bread distributions tied to the ownership of a house are attested also in Alexandria in the mid-fourth century.160 It would be hard to explain such a privilege in

Alexandria if it did not also exist in Rome, especially when there is a constitution that appears to explicitly attest to it. It is best, therefore, to posit that in addition to the pre-existing criteria for inclusion among the plebs frumentaria, access to the frumentationes was extended at some point in Rome to those who owned a house.161

The establishment of the distribution of panis aedium at Constantinople was clearly a

Constantinian initiative.162 At Rome we remain less certain. The only attestation of the distribution there comes from the aforementioned edict from 369.163 Regardless of the date of its inception, distribution to property owners represents a considerable alteration to the criterion of those

158 CTh 14.17.5. 159 Durliat 1990, 64-65. For the various distributions in Constantinople, including Palatine, see CTh 14.17.7. 160 P.Abinn 22 and 63 with commentary of Martin and Van Berchem 1942 and Carrié 1975, 1090-1094. 161 Carrié (1975, 1091- 1092) argues that the privilege is only associated with domus and not insulae. 162 CTh 14.17.12 (393): Si quae speciatim annonae domus in hac urbe habentibus divae memoriae Constantini vel Constantii largitate concessae sunt adque in heredes proprios iure successionis vel in extraneos venditionis titulo transierunt. 163 Both pieces of evidence that attest to the same right in Alexandria establish that it existed by 350, see fn. 160.

permitted to receive the frumentationes. From the middle of the first century BCE onwards it is assumed that owners of property in Rome were excluded from the frumentationes. The evidence comes from the famous Tabula Heracleensis, a bronze tablet on which a series of heterogenous laws concerned with declarations, maintenance at Rome, and municipal regulations are inscribed.164 While the content of the whole text is a subject of much debate, it is generally agreed that the inscription prescribes the exclusion of proprietors at Rome from the distribution of grain.165

The inclusion of these people then in the plebs frumentaria in the fourth century can only have increased the number of the people so entitled, even if we cannot establish a definitive number.

Throughout it has been assumed that the recipients of bread and pork were identical. The constitution of 419 concerning the canon suarius mentions the distribution of the obsonia to the people at a rate of 4,000 rations per day for 150 days.166 It explicitly excludes a somewhat ambiguous group of superflui and those who receive rations from the imperial house (domus nostrae perceptionibus), but permits the same distributions to possessores. Like the superflui, the identity of the possessores is uncertain. In the constitution of 367, we learned that the compensation for losses paid to the suarii and the ordines was from the possessores of land in

Lucania and Bruttium. The edict of 419 deals exclusively with Rome, which suggests that the right to pork rations was granted to owners, possessores, of homes in Rome. The exclusions mentioned above attest to a separate distribution for officiales, not unlike the annona palatina in

Constantinople. The constitution of 419 then may bear witness to the same three-tier distribution of pork as the laws imply for bread. It is not a stretch to suggest that the 317,000 beneficiaries

164 Roman Statutes Vol I. 24. 165 Brunt (1971, 519) recognized that the professiones mentioned in the tabula were related to Caesar’s reduction of grain-recipients, but how it did was far from clear; Nicolet 1987; Lo Cascio 1990, 292-304; Crawford 1996, 359-362 and 378-383; Courrier 2014, 352-356; Crawford (1996, 360) does not see Lo Cascio’s attempt to unite the entire inscription and link it to the a Caesarian census as convincing, though (362) he does assign to the whole text a Caesarian date. 166 CTh 14.4.10.

derived from the law of 367 included the normal body of the plebs frumentaria, which now encompassed those who received distributions while possessing a house and those who received the annona officialis.

A papyrus dossier from the city of Oxyrhynchus sheds light on one further change that may have occurred in Rome. This dossier includes 48 texts relating to grain distributions in

Oxyrhynchus between 268-271 CE.167 From these texts it has been estimated that the number of recipients of the siteresion in the third century must have numbered around 4,000, 900 of whom belonged to a group labelled ῥεμβοί, while the rest were adult male citizens (ἐπικριθέντες).168 The latter group is equivalent to the plebs frumentaria, it would seem, but the ῥεμβοί comprised two separate groups: ἄνδρες λελειτουργηκότες and ἀπελεύθεροι λελειτουργηκότες.169 These men, either free or freed, were admitted to the grain distributions after having completed some liturgy.

Rea suggests that these men could be considered the "liturgists and the freedmen,"170 but the dossier makes clear that both groups admitted among the ῥεμβοί were required to complete liturgies.171 Another solution has recently been put forward: ῥεμβοί could be a group of mobile people, as ῥέμβος means roaming.172 As such, these men arriving in Oxyrhynchus would be required to complete service for the nome, at which point they would become eligible for a spot among those who received the grain. Their maximum number has been suggested to be 900 and, as such, they would constitute a little over 20% of all recipients.

It is generally accepted that the structure of the grain distributions at Oxyrhynchus assumed the form under which they existed in Rome.173 At Rome, inclusion on the list was hereditary and

167 Rea 1973. 168 Carrié 1975, 1015; Nowak 2017, 218-219. 169 P. Oxy. XL 2927, II. 7-8. 170 Rea 1973, 4 171 Carrié 1975, 1016 comes to a similar conclusion. 172 Bernard 2016b, 64. 173 Rea 1973; Lo Cascio 1997; Carrié 1998, 272; Bernard 2016b, 57.

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when spots became free, a place would be assigned by lot (subsortitio) to someone previously excluded, but who met the eligibility criteria. This was the case for the Oxyrhynchite ἐπικριθέντες, but not the ῥεμβοί. I would contend, therefore, that we should include among our 317,000 beneficiaries also peregrini or incolae, who like the ῥεμβοί completed certain liturgies that ensured their access to the frumentationes.174

A constitution issued to the urban prefect in 391 prohibits new burdens to be assigned to the city’s incolae. The edict does not specify to what initial liturgy new burdens might be added, but it makes it clear that incolae were subject to some liturgy.175 One might suggest that completion of that liturgy made them eligible for the frumentationes. For this latter conjecture there exists no positive evidence but based on the comparandum from Oxyrhynchus it becomes at the very least plausible.176 At Oxyrhynchus the ῥεμβοί constituted approximately 20% of all those eligible. If we assume the same for Rome we would arrive at a little over 60,000 recipients who were peregrini or incolae. While this number must be viewed as entirely speculative, it is worth noting that it fits within our range of foreigners who were conjectured to have resided at Rome in the fourth century.

The Oxyrhynchus papyri also attest to the presence of freedmen among the recipients.

Carrié accepts that freedmen were part of the plebs frumentaria in the late Empire, and, despite some disagreement, there is clear evidence also for their inclusion in the preceding centuries.177

With all these groups of people now included we can more plausibly reach a total of 317,000

174 Virlouvet (1995, 241) thinks it possible that in the early empire cives without domicilium could purchase tesserae frumentariae and thus gain access to the grain distributions. 175 CTh 14.2.2. A good case can be made that the service to which no others should be added was associated with the necessary work of the city’s collegia and corpora, but this discussion will be reserved for the subsequent chapter (p.154-155). 176 It should also be noted that Cassiodorus’ text, which served to open this chapter, points directly to Rome’s foreigners (peregrini) when discussing food supply. The text is rhetorical and, admittedly, makes no mention of free food distribution, but the letter is related to the supply of pork from Campania and should, therefore, at least prompt the consideration of peregrini in Rome’s food distributions. 177 For an overview of the evidence see Bernard 2016b, 62-63. Lo Cascio, who continues to strongly argue against the inclusion of freedmen among the plebs frumentaria, concedes (2006, 68) that by the Severan period liberti could purchase access to the frumentationes.

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beneficiaries. The result of a more inclusive figure is a wider plebs frumentaria, which constitutes a much larger portion of the population.178 We might assume that most freedmen who possessed domicilium Romae, were formally manumitted, and had completed some liturgy could now access the frumentationes.179 The same applied to migrants so long as members of this group had completed a service for the city. The latter situation would account also for the fact that when

Rome was faced with a scarcity of food in the fourth century, it was the peregrini who were systematically removed.180

Valentinian I and Valens: the great benefactors of Rome’s plebs?

We would do well to remember that the distributions of food at Rome were never a genuine charitable endeavour. The plebs frumentaria was an entitled group of people who received largesse in the form of food from the Empire’s preeminent euergetist. Any extension of the frumentationes to a wider group requires explanation, especially since it would likely place an undue burden on the finances of the imperial purse. I suggest that the augmentation to the beneficiaries of frumentationes at Rome that this chapter proposes may belong to a general policy detectable in the legislation of Valentinian I and Valens that displays specific concern for the masses and that the increase corresponds with larger fiscal reforms of the same emperors.

When Valentinian I and Valens were inaugurated as emperors it seems that they inherited an Empire on the brink of financial collapse.181 In his short three-year reign, Julian had unwittingly

178 Considering the entire population, this conclusion requires a multiplier of 2, like that suggested by Tacoma (fn. 156 above), be adopted to establish the wider plebs frumentaria (317,000 x 2.0 = 634,000). Add to this the population of slaves, estimated at close to 20% of the population and the total population becomes closer to 800,000 (634,000 x 0.2 = 126,800; 126,800 + 634,000 = 760,800). 179 The case of the freedman Tib. Claudius Ianuarius from the first century might suggest this evolution is not so novel. According to Virlouvet’s (2009, 61-64) incisive study of the inscription, Ianuarius was granted his right to the frumentationes because of his service to the city of Rome and the annona, in particular as a curator at the Porticus Minucia. 180 See below p. 109-111. 181 Much of what follows on the fiscal administration of Valentinian I and Valens is summarized from Lenski 2002, 286-307. There has been reason, however, to question Lenski's dire reconstruction of the state of the empire's finances

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wreaked havoc on the economy. We are told that he cut tributes, discharged the obligation of curiae to pay crown gold (aurum coronarium), and remitted fiscal debts for whomever petitioned for this benefit. In addition to these various tax cuts, he also relinquished important imperial revenues by returning temple properties to temples and civic estates to cities that had been confiscated under Constantine.182 If this were not enough, he mounted an economically and militarily disastrous campaign against Persia, the expenses of which are much remarked upon in our sources.183

After Jovian’s short eight-month interlude, this was the empire Valentinan I and Valens came to govern. In order to meet these mounting financial issues, these emperors immediately focused on a fiscal reform. They issued laws overturning Julian’s remission of the aurum coronarium and demanded that it be paid twice;184 they exacted the payments of back taxes with ruthless efficiency; and they re-appropriated civic estates for the benefit of the res privata.185 Of particular interest were also the taxes in kind. The taxes that supplied and funded the annona had largely been paid in kind. Like all taxes subsequent to the reign of Diocletian, taxes in kind were apportioned according to each origo’s allotment of capita.186 Prior to the reign of Valentinian I

at the beginning of Valentinian I's and Valens' reign. Analysis of trace elements in solidi suggest that the middle decades of the fourth century saw a massive increase in the amount of coins struck. J.-P. Callu (1989, 223-233) argued, now over thirty years ago, that this expansion was the result of the exploitation of a new source of gold, likely found in the Caucasus. Much more recently, metrological analysis of Roman solidi has proved this conjecture: platinum levels, an element which could not be refined from gold by ancient smelting practices, in Roman solidi increased over 2000% from the early fourth century by 370 CE (Hinds, Bevan, and Burgess 2014, 1799). Not only were more solidi being struck, but they were being done so at a much purer level. Interestingly, Kulikowski (2019, 54) points out that this new coinage barely circulated in the West. During the reigns of Valentinian I and Valens the East and West remained very much connected and, therefore, any major increase in the imperial purse would mean both halves of the Empire might benefit. In other words, the imperial coffers may have been overflowing with cash. Add to this Valentinian I's and Valen's reforms that were meant to extract more money and it is perhaps easy to envision how their various 'social welfare' policies might have been funded. But given the dearth of this new coinage in the West and the potential difficulties that Julian's maladministration may have caused, I remain hesitant to adopt this argument wholesale. 182 For the long and varied list of sources that attest to Julian’s fiscal policies see Lenski 2002, 289. 183 Amm. 30.8.8; Lib. Or. 18. 168-170. 184 CTh 12.13.2 (364). 185 Jones 1964, 732-737; Lenski 2002, 295-296. 186 Chp. 3, p. 122-127 for explanation and further discussion of the tetrarchic tax system.

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and Valens all collection was the remit of the praetorian prefect and was handed over to municipal curiae. Included in the emperors’ scrupulous attention to the tax system was the institution of a new scheme for the collection of taxes in-kind to limit corruption and ensure their delivery. The emperors attempted to strip this duty from the decurions and assign it to a corpus of tax collectors drawn from former imperial administrators (honorati).187 They also ensured that the horrea in which supplies were stored were maintained and strictly regulated with checks and balances for all requisitions.188 The same concern over the proper means to measure and control annona goods might also be partially reflected in the imperial edict issued in 367 that required all pigs to be weighed by scale as opposed to the presumed prevailing method of estimation.189

At first glance, an increase in the number of beneficiaries of gratis food in Rome may seem paradoxical to Valentinian I’s and Valen’s measures to right the fiscal crisis of the Empire outlined above, but it actually fits well with their attention to the collection of taxes to supply the annona.

Moreover, it is worth noting that Ammianus explicitly, and with all his characteristic hostility, compares Valentinian I’s wide-ranging and stringent fiscal policies to those of another emperor:

Aurelian.190 Aurelian, like Valentinian I and Valens, had inherited an Empire in financial disarray and needed to initiate fiscal reform as a corrective. It is noteworthy that Aurelian was also the last emperor to make wide-ranging changes to Rome’s frumentationes, probably being the author of the conversion of the distribution of grain to bread and adding the free distribution of pork.

187 CTh 12.6.7 (365). A novel reform that ultimately failed, as curial tax collectors reappear in our sources after the Valentinian edict, see Jones 1964, 457 fn. 111. 188 See Lenski 2002, 297-298. CTh 7.4.11 orders that actuarii produce pittacia (receipts) when requisitioning supplies so as to control supplies, eliminate fraudulence, and maintain surpluses. 189 CTh 14.4.4, see text and translation in Appendix 1.2. Note that CIL VI, 1770 (363/4) prescribes the same method for the weighing of sheep. 190 Amm. 30.8.8.

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If this correlation between the fourth-century emperors and Aurelian is not enough,

Valentinian I and Valens also displayed a special interest in the Empire’s plebs.191 Their concern for the well-being of the masses is often thought to be most evident in their extension of the ambit of duties of the defensor civitatis. Although formerly a local judge that arbitrated small cases, a series of constitutions dated to the 360s reveals that Valentinian I and Valens rearticulated the responsibilities of the defensor.192 In addition to his duty as a judge, the defensor was now to become a protector against the various abuses that the plebs might suffer.193 Valentinian I and

Valens were clear, however, that their interest in the protection of the plebs went far beyond the office of the defensor. They boasted, in fact, that they had undertaken numerous initiatives on behalf of the plebs (cum multa pro plebe a nobis studiose statuta sint).194 Although this claim is certainly rhetorical, language that seeks to protect the tenuiores and rusticani abounds in these emperors’ legislative action.195

Their preoccupation with the city of Rome is also well attested, and their attention to the annona, in particular, is noteworthy. At the beginning of their reign, these emperors issued an unprecedented 22 constitutions that the compilers saw fit to include in the Theodosian Code, all attempting to address provisioning issues in the Urbs. It is unclear why the annona at Rome required such attention, but it fits within a broader concern for the welfare of the masses that has been detected in their reforms.196 Valentinian I’s and Valen’s edict issued to the people of Rome in 369 is perhaps best understood in this context. This is the same law that attests the existence of

191 Jones 1964, 141-146; Lenski 2002, 279-286; Frakes 2018, 130. 192 Frakes 2001, 84-85 and 2018, 127-129; Dillon 2012, 147. 193 CTh 1.29.1 (364): Admodum utiliter edimus, ut plebs omnis Illyrici officiis patronorum contra potentium defendatur iniurias (We have decreed quite beneficially that all the plebeians of Illyricum shall be defended by the office of patrons against the outrages of the powerful). 194 CTh 1.29.3 195 For a list see Lenski 2002, 281 fn. 111. 196 Lenski 2002, 279-286. Schmidt-Hofner 2015, 67-99

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the panis aedificiorum at Rome. In the constitution, the emperors prescribe the free distribution of

36 ounces of panis mundus, which had been formerly purchased in the form of 50 ounces of lesser quality bread:

Civis Romanus, qui in viginti panibus sordidis, qui nunc dicuntur ardinienses, quinquaginta uncias comparabat, triginta et sex uncias in bucellis sex mundis sine pretio consequatur, ita ut ius in his nullus habeat officialis, nullus servus, nemo qui aedificiorum percipiat panem. Quorum si quis se aliqua ratione fortasse inmerserit, adquisito pane privabitur proprium nihilo minus perditurus aut dabit pro condicione supplicium... Popularibus enim, quibus non est aliunde solacium, quibus idem panis hodieque distrahitur, et eorum successoribus clementia nostra deputavit in quo nunc emitur loco propriis gradibus erogandum.197

The Roman citizen, who was buying 50 ounces in 20 loaves of panis sordidus, which is now called Ardiniensis, should get 36 ounces in six pieces of panis mundis at no cost, in a way that no officialis, no slave, and no one who receives the panis aedificiorum should have a right to these distributions. If anyone (from these groups) should by chance acquire for themselves any ration, he will be deprived of the bread he acquired, and no less he will lose his own right to bread and will be punished according to his condition...For our clemency allotted this bread to the people and their successors, for whom there is no relief otherwise and from whom the same bread is currently prevented from being distributed from the appropriate steps where it is now purchased.

This edict has been interpreted to suggest a return to the practice of free distributions of bread, which apparently had for some unknown interval lapsed.198 This is one possible explanation, but the text appears rather to extend free bread of better quality to a section of the population that had previously been purchasing it at a reduced rate. The reason provided by the legislator was to provide a relief (solacium) to an otherwise vulnerable population. It is perhaps to this alteration in the structure of the distributions, or at least to the formalization of it, which a letter sent to the prefect Olybrius in 370 by Valentinian I, Valens, and Gratian also alludes:

…procul dubio sublimitas tua perspicit, quam gratae nobis litterae tuae fuerint, cum et eos esse compressos, qui sanctissimam legem tumulta et seditione

197 CTh 14.17.5. While this was a reduction in the amount of bread, nevertheless, if we follow Carrié's and Durliat's conversions of grain to baked bread, it did not mean a reduction in the amount of grain distributed per person, which remained a 60 modii per year (see Chp. 2. fn. 35). 198 E.g. Jones 1964, 696.

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miscuerant, et annonam communis omnium patriae paulatim in statum pristinum redire coepisse testatae sunt.199

…without doubt your loftiness sees how pleasing your letter was to us, since it testified that those men were repressed, who had disturbed the most sanctified law through tumult and sedition, and that the annona of the common fatherland of all has begun to return little by little to its former condition.

If nothing else, the letter speaks to the general breakdown of the system of frumentationes and the emperors’ efforts to restore the distributions to their former (and better) circumstances (in statum pristinum redire). The 22 constitutions issued by Valentinian I and Valens then were an overall attempt to reform the system, which may have included the widening of the plebs frumentaria that can be calculated from the recipients of the obsonia in 367. The result of this for the population of

Rome is unavoidable: Rome by the middle of the fourth century was the size of its Severan predecessor. The city had a population, as Mazzarino suggested, that numbered up to 800,000 inhabitants.

The widening of the plebs frumentaria has implications for our understanding of the overall prosperity of Rome’s late-antique population. The reasoning behind this statement should be plain.

The frumentationes provided the basic calorific intake for those who received the distributions.

During the early Empire the grain alone, at 60 modii or 393kg of wheat a year, is thought to have represented double the basic requirement of any recipient.200 Even for those scholars that adhere to higher estimates for subsistence requirements, the 393kg distribution could meet the conjectured minimal gross subsistence in wheat equivalence required for the food, shelter and clothing of a single person.201 By the later Empire, as we have seen, the cost of converting this wheat to bread was even assumed by the state and to this was added the free distribution of 25 pounds of pork.

199 Avell. Coll. 35.10 200 Virlouvet 1995; Garnsey 1998, 229-230 and 238; Lo Cascio 2006, 64; Courrier 2014, 48-51. 201 Scheidel and Friesen 2009, 83. See also Chp. 1, pp. 35-36.

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These additions meant that later Rome’s plebs frumentaria were fed almost entirely by the state.

One consequence of this process is that this privileged section of the population was free to spend whatever additional money they possessed to increase their standard of living. As a recipient of the frumentationes, even a daily-wage labourer, who working every day might just make enough for subsistence, could earn as much as double the amount of base subsistence. Skilled craftsmen, who could potentially already earn three-times subsistence, would be far better off.202 The net result is that a wider plebs frumentaria implies also the opportunity for a wider portion of the population to move themselves squarely into the middle class of the population.

Continuity, Maintenance, and Growth

If we accept a plebs frumentaria with 317,000 beneficiaries and a population of the whole around 800,000 in 367, then by 419, when we can next find a number for those that had access to the frumentationes, we have to reckon with a massive population decline. At this time, Rome counted 120,000 people among its beneficiaries, constituting with their corresponding families

267,000-369,000 people.203 This entire body in 419 is nearly equal to or smaller than only the beneficiaries in 367, which would perhaps indicate a population loss of up to 50%. A potential cause that effected such loss is the sack of 410.204 Roberto Meneghini has argued that as many as

20,000 people may have died during the 58-day siege.205 If true, the crowds of those departing the

202 On the wages of wage labourers (mercennarii and operarii) and skilled workers relative to subsistence see Chp. 1, pp. 36-43. 203 See above on pp. 85-86 for calculations. 204 Lo Cascio (2013, 417-18) already makes this claim. 205 Meneghini 2013, 405. He suggests that a food shortage, caused by a blockade, would have lowered the daily caloric intake of Rome's population. As a result, the epidemic that struck the population and caused death would only have made conditions worse. He argues that this epidemic was "petechial" typhus. Assuming a population of 700,000- 900,000, which Durliat proposed, Meneghini then uses comparative data from various cities in Italy from 1817, labeled the "year of Typhus" that was compiled between 1865-1894. These data reveal a relative percentage of deaths of the entire population at a range of 8.35-21.4% over a twelve-month period. From this data, Meneghini extrapolates a monthly possible percentage of relative deaths between .019-1.78%. Based on Durliat's population size, this renders a wide range of deaths in 408 between 100-150 to a maximum of 10,700-14,200. However, Menghini narrows this range further. The data of Italian towns in 1817 suggested the highest mortality rates occurred in the second and third weeks after the onset of the disease. He then suggests the epidemic might have raged as much as a full month in Rome.

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city would have exacerbated the loss of population. In a letter to Demetrias in 414, Jerome curses the multitude of deserters and slaves that poured out of the city because of the Gothic sack.206 If any credence is lent to Zosimus’ account, we will remember that Jerome’s fleeing slaves could have been as many as 40,000 in number. There is also adequate testimony for the flight of some of Rome’s elite. Paulinus of Nola received wealthy refugees from Rome in southern Italy,207 while the famous domus Pinciana and an elite domus on the Aventine appear to fall into disrepair after

410.208 Similar patterns are attested in the archaeological record elsewhere in Rome.209

It would be wrong, however, to place all of the weight of such a large demographic contraction on a single event. It was noted above that four separate late fourth-century sources attest to the expulsion of foreigners from Rome. The first account is found in Ammianus

Marcellinus.210 Near the end of his first vitriolic digression about the decadence of Rome, he notes that at some recent point all of Rome’s peregrini, except for 6,000 entertainers, were expelled from

To these deaths, Meneghini adds the percentage of natural deaths (calculated at 4% per annum) at a monthly percentage of 0.33% to arrive at a figure of 4,000-5,300 natural deaths in 58 days. In total then, he suggests that as many as 5,000 to 20,000 people died in the 58-day siege in 408. Meneghini then moves to the impression from the literary record. He claims that the narrative of the siege found in Jerome, Augustine, Zosimus, Sozomen, Osorius (p. 403) suggests that the amount of deceased likely surpassed the normal margins. Thus, he (p. 405) conjectured a range of around 10,000-20,000 people that died and remained unburied in the siege. He also finds support for his conclusions from two intramural burial sites that date to the end of the fourth or early fifth century. One is a single tomb in Lungotevere Testaccio and the other a necropolis in the piazza del Colosseo, at the entrance of the baths of Titus. The latter was later destroyed by a paved road and perhaps relates to the reopening of the Amphitheatre under the prefect Iunius Valerius Bellicius. I agree with Meneghini’s basic point that disease mortality is worse in times of food shortage, but his quantitative argument must be regarded as nothing more than informed conjecture. 206 Jer. Ep. 130.6: tunc lugubres vestes Italia mutavit et semiruta urbis Romae moenia pristinum ex parte recepere fulgorem propitium sibi aestimantes deum in alumnae conversione perfecta. putares extinctam Gothorum manum et conluviem perfugarum atque servorum domini desuper intonantis fulmine concidisse (Then Italy changed its mourning clothes and the half-demolished walls of Rome recovered in part their past splendor, believing in full conversion of their alumna that God's was propitious towards them. You would think that the Goths had been annihilated and that the heterogeneous mass of deserters and slaves had fallen by a thunderbolt from God above). 207 Gerontius, Vita Melaniae 19. 208 See Christie 2006, 240-241 and Machado 2012, 119-120. Procop. Goth. 3.2.27 relates the flight of Anicia Faltonia Proba, who purportedly owned the domus on the Pincian hill. After letting Alaric and the Goths into Rome, she spent the rest of her days after the sack in North Africa. 209 See contributions in Lipps, Machado, and von Rummel 2013: Pavolini (2013, 163-184) on the Celian, Quaranta et al. (2013, 185-214 on the Aventine; and Liverani (2013, 277-294) on the Esquiline. 210 Amm. 14.6.19.

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the city because of a scarcity of food. At this point in his history Ammianus is narrating events from the 350s, but the expulsion seems to have been near contemporaneous with the time of his composition (haud ita dudum)— that is, in the 380s or 390s. Ammianus’ expulsion has been linked to events in 383/4 addressed by both Symmachus and Ambrose. During the former's urban prefecture in 384 there was a crisis in the food supply at Rome. A letter written by Symmachus reveals that the prefect was forced, much to his lament, to expel foreigners from the city.211

Ambrose subsequently, when outlining proper Christian comportment, castigated Symmachus’ action and suggested that in an earlier similar crisis, a different prefect had refused to do as

Symmachus had done.212 The earlier food shortage has been placed in 376 and tentatively associated with the prefecture of Aradius Rufinus.213

Rome would seem to have been in the throes of constant food shortage in the 370s and

380s. This might be reasonably linked to an empire-wide food crisis. Basil of Caesarea provides a vivid account of a food shortage that struck Cappadocia in the late 360s, and Symmachus reveals that the dearth in Rome in the 380s was likely Empire wide.214 But over 20 years earlier, in 356,

Libanius makes the accusation that such expulsions were a common occurrence at Rome. In his oration praising his native city of Antioch, he claimed that, even in times of scarcity, Antioch had never driven out foreigners, a thing which Rome was apparently wont to do.215 Later, Themistius, again praising his own city of Constantinople, implies the same: according to him, Rome continually expelled its foreigners (οὔκουν δεῖ ἡμῖν ξενηλασίας συνεχοῦς).216 A conspicuous

211 Symm. 2.7.3: Defectum timemus annonae pulsis omnibus, quos exerto et pleno ubere Roma susceperat. Fac ut his remediis conualescamus. Quanto nobis odio prouinciarum constat ista securitas? 212 Ambrose de Off. 3.46-49. 213 Cracco Ruggini 1961, 118-119; Kelly 2008, 137. 214 Basil of Caesarea Dest. Horr. 4; Symmachus Rel. 3.15. See Harper 2017, 170-172 for the increased regularity of food supply crises in the late fourth century. 215 Libanius Or. 11. 174. 216 Themistius Or. 18.222a

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aspect of all our accounts is that expulsions of people living in Rome was a feature only common in the second half of the fourth century, either shortly before or precisely when the number of entitlements and the size of the plebs frumentaria were conjectured to have been at their highest.

It is a coincidence worth noting that the last testimony we have of extensive expulsions of this kind is from the reign of Augustus.217

There is a series of historical circumstances that also bear on Rome’s turn of fortune. In

397 Gildo, the African comes et magister utriusque militiae, rebelled, shifting his allegiance to the eastern court. At this time, Gildo blocked the export of grain to Rome and the city was gripped by a severe famine. As the leading member of the Senate, Symmachus reports in a letter to Stilicho that the city declared Gildo a public enemy and also alerted the generalissimo of the pressing grain problem in the city.218 At the same time, there appears to have been increasing concern over the manpower of the army in the West. Two constitutions and a letter from Symmachus to his son-in- law, the younger Nicomachus Flavianus, detail the pressure that the conscription of soldiers placed on Rome and its elite.219 After Gildo’s defeat in 398, the problems did not abate. For the entire first decade of the fifth century, the invasions of Alaric and Radagaisus plagued the Western

Empire. Claudian’s poem celebrating the victory of Stilicho over Alaric in 402 near Verona explicitly states that Italians were fleeing the peninsula,220 and in the face of Radagaisus’ invasion in 405 a superindiction was levied on owners of homes and shops.221 In these conditions, Rome was not likely to be left untouched. We must then see Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410 as the

217 Suetonius Aug. 42.3; Dio 55.26.1. 218 Symm. Ep. 4.5. 219 CTh 7.13.12 and 13; Symm. Ep. 6.64. 220 Claud. Get. 213-226. 221 CTh 11.20.3

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culmination of these problems, which only served as the single largest exogenous shock to a population that already began shrinking in the early years of the fifth century.

If the early years of the fifth century and the sack of 410 effected serious demographic decline, it was not irreversible. Rome’s inhabitants returned to the city in large numbers. In 414, the urban prefect Caecina Decius Albinus complained to the emperor that the portion of supplies distributed freely was becoming insufficient:

Ὅτι μετὰ τὴν ὑπὸ Γότθων ἅλωσιν τῆς ῾Ρώμης Ἀλβῖνος ὁ τῆς ῾Ρώμης ἔπαρχος, ἤδη ταύτης πάλιν ἀποκαθισταμένης, ἔγραψε μὴ ἐξαρκεῖν τὸ χορηγούμενον μέρος τῷ δήμῳ εἰς πλῆθος ἤδη τῆς πόλεως ἐπιδιδούσης· ἔγραψε γὰρ καὶ ἐν μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ τετάχθαι ἀριθμὸν χιλιάδων δεκατεσσάρων.

After the sack of Rome by the Goth, because the city was already recovering once more, Albinus, the prefect of the city, wrote that the supplies allotted to the inhabitants were insufficient for the increased population of the city. For he wrote that in one day a count of 14,000 were entered on the rolls.222

The reason for the deficiency depends on how we interpret the final clause of this fragment.

Scholars have suggested, on the one hand, that the 14,000 represented the number of people being enrolled in the city’s register in a single day, indictive of the scale at which people were returning to Rome.223 On the other hand, this number has been interpreted to allude to the amount of modii now being distributed daily.224 There seems no sound reason to accept the latter notion, as the passage clearly links the shortage with a restoration of the city (ἤδη ταύτης πάλιν

ἀποκαθισταμένης). The emperor Honorius was even present in the city in 416 and praised the rapidity with which the city had recovered and repopulated.225 Perhaps there was some rhetorical

222 Olymp. Frag. 25, Blockley. Trans. Blockley with adaption by author. 223 Chastagnol 1960, 292-293; Blockley 1983, 189 translates it as “14,000 persons had been entered on the rolls”; Lo Cascio 2013, 412-413 412 224 Carrié 1975, 1069 and fn. 2. 225 Philostorgius 12.5. Purcell (1999, 149) argues that the language here (συνοικισμόν) invokes re-foundation and rhetorically suggests a remedy of “secular decline.” Lo Cascio (2013, 413) finds Purcell’s argument unconvincing, in

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flourish in these words, but the number of beneficiaries in 452, up a little over 20,000 from 419, indicate some level of demographic recovery.

While Rome and Italy would not witness the same period of stability that they enjoyed from the tetrarchy to Theodosius, imperial interest returned to the city in the second quarter of the fifth century. Valentinian III resided in Rome for eight years of his reign.226 This was more than any emperor since Maxentius. And a glance at his Novellae reveals a similar level of interest in the city as Valentinian I and Valens had displayed. Valentinian III even explicitly stated that his concern was that the "city was able to be inhabited by a greater multitude."227 Marginal growth after the travails of the early fifth century therefore seems plausible, but Rome would never again return to its mid-fourth century glory.

Conclusion

This chapter began with the statement of Cassiodorus made in the sixth century. A native of southern Italy, when this man was reminiscing about Rome’s former glory, it was not the distant

Rome of the first century CE that he had in mind, but Rome of a little over a century before his time. The baths he considered were those of Diocletian, built at the beginning of the fourth century, and those of Constantine; the wall, that of both Aurelian and Honorius; the food supply, the bread baked at the bakeries, which were scattered through all of Rome’s regions, and the pork that came from Cassiodorus’ native Calabria; and the “vast numbers of people” were at the least the 800,000 persons that still inhabited the Urbs. By interrogating the socio-political conditions that prevailed

which Purcell claims that those registered in the city were not ‘Romani di Roma’, but new inhabitants. Lo Cascio is correct to suggest that nothing in the language indicates this position. 226 Humphries 2012, 161-182. 227 Nov. Val. 5. Idcirco hoc edicto singuli universique cognoscant pantapolis ad urbem Romam redeundi negotiandique licentiam restitutam, ut cura pervigili ubertas populo ministretur et in rebus suspectis a maiore multitudine civitas possit habitari…

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in Rome during the long fourth century, this chapter has addressed the question of whether Rome’s population in the fourth century was really declining. The same methodology often used to estimate Rome’s earlier population, namely the number of beneficiaries of the frumentationes, was employed for the fourth century, where we have good evidence for the number of pork rations

(obsonia). The result was that by the middle of the fourth century, Rome counted 317,000 members of its most privileged population.

The implications for the total population are manifold. In the fourth century the frumentationes were likely more inclusive so that the plebs frumentaria now constituted a wider sub-section of the population. Literary, epigraphic, and juridical evidence all attest a Rome in the second half of the fourth century with a population only slightly below its historical maximum.

Decline was, therefore, not a feature of the fourth century. Instead the combined evidence strongly implies prosperity in the city of Rome and claims that continue to suggest decline from the third century onward can no longer be accepted without careful consideration. As a corollary of accepting this new interpretation, we are left with a large body of the urban population, some

317,000, who received unprecedented entitlements. Far from a "dwindling" and "etiolated" body, the subsequent chapters will demonstrate that this group of people, which comprised the plebs frumentaria, the plebs media, and our middle class, was well placed to experience levels of social integration and economic vitality on an impressive scale. Much like one recent observer of the late-antique world has said of the rest of the Empire,228 Rome of the fourth century was a city dominated by its productive and politically active middling stratum.

228 Harper 2017, 183.

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CHAPTER THREE

From Taxation to Occupational Obligation: a Profile of late Rome’s Middling Population

In his second digression on the decadence of Rome, after excoriating the elite for a second time, Ammianus turns, for the first time, to the plebs, immediately revealing their most odious feature, their idleness:1

Nunc ad otiosam plebem veniamus et desidem. In qua nitent, ut nominibus cultis, quidam calceorum expertes, ut Messores, Statarii, Semicupae, et Serapini, et Cicimbricus cum Gluturino et Trulla, et Lucanicus cum Porclaca et Salsula, similesque innumeri.

Now let us turn to the idle and slothful plebs. Among which some stand out as though they possess cultivated names, but are without any share of status, such as Messores, the Statarii, the Semicupae, the Serapini, and Cicimbricus with Gluturinus, and Trulla, and Lucanicus with Porclaca and Salsula, and innumerable others.

The names of Ammianus’ plebs are purposefully satirized to convey his point.2 Ammianus’ readers would believe that Gluturinus, no doubt, was a gourmand and that Semicupa’s paunch was obvious. But a few of the names assigned to his idle population belie Ammianus’ claim. Messor,

Lucanicus along with his Porclaca, and Trulla can all rightfully be said to carry names that allude to work.3 The relationship between Rome’s plebs and work has long been a topic in modern scholarship. During the early Empire professional occupation was one aspect that constituted what

Courrier has called the "plebeian habitus."4 At Rome, the size of the city and the efforts required

1 Amm. 28.4.28. See Introduction (p. 1) and Chp. 1 (pp. 48) on Ammianus and Rome’s plebs. 2 On Ammianus “Satiricus” see Rees 1999; Kelly 2008; Ross 2015. Ammianus’ satirical character is now well-studied, but Ross (2015, notably pg. 366) argues that it is in his Roman digressions in particular that Ammianus “suspends his traditional historiographic persona to take on the mask of the satirist.” 3 Messor is an attested cognomen in late antiquity (ICUR IX 24716), but is also associated with the work of harvesting or measuring grain (CIL VIII 11824 messor as harvester and CIL VI 33883: mesores machinarii frumenti publici); Lucanicus and Porclaca are allusions to the pork supply at Rome and perhaps the functio suaria, see Barnish 1985, 166; for Trulla, den Boeft et al. (vol. 9, 217) accept the Oxford Latin Dictionary’s definition of ladle. However, the word appears only two other times in a late-antique context: Palladius Op. Ag. 1.13.2 and 1.15. In both cases it means trowel and is clearly associated with builders (tectores). 4 Courrier 2014 and 2017, 118. See also Chp. 1, p. 44.

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to maintain the urban entitlements created unparalleled opportunities for a wage-seeking population. The result was that a significant portion of its inhabitants identified closely with their occupation.5 From Ammianus’ remarks, it would appear that late-antique Rome was no different.

In Chapter One, I engaged with the discourse on labour in Late Antiquity and argued that work and labour came to define the condition of the plebs urbana in both elite and Christian rhetoric. In the latter case, however, Christian authors expressed new opinions about work, and labour in particular, as a certain dignity was assigned to urban craftsmen and artisans. How far this

Christian discourse influenced the mentality of the plebs Romana remains difficult to assess.

Outside of literary topoi, however, there is good evidence at Rome that for a significant portion of the population there remained a close connection between occupational activity and individual status or identity. The labyrinthine catacombs that dotted Rome’s suburbium with increasing regularity in the fourth century disclose hundreds of occupational affiliations of their interred population. The net result, I will argue, is that Rome’s plebs urbana can be said still to have identified closely both with their work and with their labour; to borrow Courrier’s terminology, occupation still formed one aspect of Rome’s late-antique "plebeian habitus."

The bulk of this chapter considers the social, political, and fiscal implications of this claim.

The relationship between the late imperial state and the cities changed dramatically. Diocletian and his successors implemented a new system of taxation that sought to extract funds more efficiently by reaching into cities to organize the collection and allotment of taxes. The new system also impinged upon individual occupational activity; a person’s profession was legally subject to the completion of liturgies and the assessment of certain taxes, and Rome was not left untouched.

The previous chapter imagined a Rome that still possessed up to 800,000 inhabitants, nearly forty

5 Joshel 1992; Lo Cascio 2006 and 2013; Mayer 2012; Tran 2013 and 2016; Lo Cascio 2006 and 2013; Courrier 2014 and 2017.

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percent of whom had access to an unprecedented number of entitlements. In order to supply and maintain a city of this size, the imperial administration relied on a system of liturgies that were demanded with increasing inflexibility throughout the fourth century. This chapter explores the way in which late-imperial fiscality shaped how Rome’s population was defined. I argue that just as the population continued to identify with their occupation, the state came to identify this urban population by both their work and their labour, fixing them to their occupation. It is here that this chapter intersects with the larger scholarly discourse on late-antique work and labour, as fixity and obligation to one’s occupation were largely organized through professional associations, or collegia and corpora. The outcome is that Rome was a city in which a certain and possibly large part of its population, its "middle class", as I identify it, became tied to occupational organizations.

The Plebs Romana and the non-elite relationship with occupation

For some time scholars have recognized that the literary topos of the lowly wage-labourer that the elite so clearly formulated does not accurately reflect the plebeian experience.6 In other words, the elite’s view of the dependent mercennarius and the sordid craftsman did not much impact the attitudes of the working plebs. Instead, Roman society was characterized by a dichotomy in the discourse on work and labour; aristocratic social culture disparaged the requirement of having to work or labour to make a living, and therefore despised work itself, while plebeian culture valued work and ceded to it a pride of place in identity construction. The latter is mostly deduced from the multitude of occupational titles that proliferated in inscriptions from the early Empire onward. From the city of Rome, Sandra Joshel collected 1470 inscriptions that contained at least one job title.7 A large proportion of these inscriptions commemorated freedmen,8

6 De Robertis 1963; Treggiari 1975 and 1980; Joshel 1992; Tran 2011, 126-132 and 2016; Lis and Soly 2012; Courrier 2014, 286-292; Bond 2016. See Chp.1 (pp. 44-49) for discussion. 7 Joshel 1992, 69. 8 Freedmen counted for about 60%: Joshel 1992, 46 and 60-61.

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and some of the individuals had been able to accrue significant levels of wealth. In all cases, occupation was their most important commemorative feature. Occupation, thus, is rightly considered to be tied to personal identity, as it was work that provided the deceased their financial success and their self-publicized social value.

Often accompanying the occupational titles in these inscriptions, or sometimes instead of them, were images of implements of craft or of actual work.9 Like the inscriptions, the images of work were a means to advertise the deceased’s socio-economic success and elevate him above the mass of his peers. The most obvious example is the ostentatious tomb of M. Vergilius Eurysaces.

This monument, built in the late first century BCE off the Via Labicana, advertises prominently in the frieze that wraps around the top of the monument Eurysaces’ occupation as a baker and contractor, which an inscription halfway down on two faces discloses (pistoris redemptoris).10

Eurysaces’ monument is but one example, the tomb of Q. Haterius Tychicus with its relief image of a crane is another, and a number of other examples all attest the importance assigned to occupation for non-elite identity.11 Nicolas Tran has demonstrated that in addition to displaying the wealth acquired through their professions, the plebs used work to differentiate themselves in further ways.12 Among the working plebs, skill and expertise were valued and acquisition of them set those in possession of some artes apart from the mass of labourers. As we saw, these particular virtues among workers were also praised by the very elite that disparaged manual labour in general.13 The acquisition of an ars thus became another way in which work was inextricably

9 Mayer 2012, 114-120; Lis and Soly 2012, 81-87; Courrier 2014, 193-262, esp. table 21 and 368-400. 10 In general, on the tomb of Eurysaces see Petersen 2003 and 2006. CIL VI 1958 = ILS 7460 = ILLRP 805. 11 In Italy, for example, at least fourteen tombs feature scenes of baking or milling, see Zimmer 1982, 106-120. See Mayer 2012, 114-120 for additional examples. 12 Tran 2011 and 2016. 13 See Chp. 1, pp. 44-47. Ars or skill and learning even among craftsmen were praised by the likes of Cicero and Seneca, and also later authors.

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intertwined with the identity of individuals below the elite, as it was emphasized in order to establish social position.

In the case of imperial Rome, it has been argued that the demographic stability of the plebs frumentaria—understood as this population group's capability to reproduce itself with some degree of natural growth—facilitated the development of attachments to the Urbs, one of the most prominent of these connections being professional activity.14 The plebs frumentaria, according to this model, because of their fixity and resulting generational continuity, were also likely to develop the professional sense of pride witnessed in the inscriptional and iconographic evidence.15 Yet, as was outlined in Chapter One, the plebs frumentaria were only one group within the hierarchy of the plebs Romana. Scholars have suggested that there also existed a discrete middling stratum, the so-called plebs media, located below the equestrian order but above the remaining plebs.16 This group leaned more heavily on and derived additional benefits from its occupational success.

Members of this plebs media closely identified with their occupation in the epigraphic record as they could hardly omit commemorating the very activity that enabled them to arrive at their elevated status: their métiers. The picture that emerges is complex but appears logical. Most important, for our purposes, is that work, labour, and occupation became a means to express and construct identity among the plebs Romana.

How does this all evolve in Late Antiquity? Evidence that a similar value was attached to work and labour in non-elite identity construction is seen in the many thousands of burials that are

14 Lo Cascio 2006; Courrier 2014, 121-125 and 2017, 113. See Lo Cascio and Courrier also for the subsequent argument about the professional activity of the plebs frumentaria. 15 This statement above on the fixity and professional attachment of the plebs frumentaria paraphrases Courrier 2017, 188 fn. 66. 16 On the plebs media see Veyne 2000 and 2005, who argued from two references in our sources that the plebs media were equivalent to a small wealthy group of plebs infra-elite. These men formed strong attachment to work, whether crafts or commerce and were defined economically. For further elaboration on the perception of work and labour among the plebs media see Courrier 2014, 368-400 and Lis and Soly 2016, 263.

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found in the catacombs that populate Rome’s extramural environment. As places for interment, catacombs developed in Rome in the third century and were used with increasing regularity from the late third into the late fourth century.17 Comprising as many as half a million burial places at sixty different burial sites, the catacombs’ subterranean corridors extend for a combined 1,000 kilometers under Rome’s suburbium. In these catacombs, rectangular burial places (loculi) were dug into the tuff walls and were covered with a stone slab once the body was deposited. Those interred in the loculi were not usually members of the elite, nor did the catacombs tend to contain the burials of the indigent, a fact which is disclosed by inscriptions that suggest that burials were sold and not simply allotted to the poor.18 In other words, the loculi were the graves of those with just enough money to purchase a burial to the moderately wealthy infra-elite population, a veritable middle class.

In the catacombs, late Rome’s primarily non-elite population chose to highlight their occupation as an important commemorative feature. Fabrizio Bisconti has meticulously collected

779 iconographic attestations in the catacombs pertaining to occupations, which he divided into

24 discrete categories of work.19 Bisconti’s study is complemented in this dissertation by a survey of the inscriptions that are contained in the volumes of the Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, which include only inscriptions from Rome dated between the late third and eighth century, mostly from the catacombs. The resulting 210 epitaphs provide 120 different job titles.20 As Christian

17 Pergola 1986; Shaw 1996; Fiocchi Niccolai 1999, 25-48; Rebillard 2009, 32-36. 18 Shaw 1996, 102. There are exceptions. For example, more than 30 clarissimi are attested epigraphically across the catacombs. On the sale of loculi see Guyon 1974. It seems that the poor were often still buried in mass public graves, such as the earlier puticuli well into the fourth century, see Rebillard 2009, 119-122 for discussion and references. 19 Bisconti 2000a. 20 See Appendix 2. I have omitted ecclesiastical job titles. My total is somewhat smaller than Laes 2015, 87, who cites 232 inscriptions with at least one job title. I suspect this is because Laes’ total includes fossores (for whom I have found 22 attestations). I have chosen to omit this occupation from my data as their work associates them squarely with the creation of the catacombs, which may suggest that they are overrepresented. If the collegial inscriptions are added, the number of attested professions increases to 128, while the juridical evidence adds an additional 8 to bring the total to 136.

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Laes has indicated, this is only a fraction of the nearly 30,000 entries included in the ICUR volumes, but the percentage of epitaphs yielding a job title is not far from the result of Joshel’s study on the earlier Empire when changes in the epigraphic habit are considered.21

More elaborate tombs also attest to a stratum at the top of late-antique Rome’s middle class that was concerned with commemorating by what means its members had acquired their wealth.

The best-known example comes from the recently re-excavated and restored hypogeum of Trebius

Iustus. Dated to the early- to mid-fourth century, the family tomb of Trebius Iustus is located just off the Via Latina near the second milestone.22 Inside, images of Iustus’ familia are depicted on the walls.23 On the back-center wall is an image of Iustus himself, seated and holding precious objects. Below this image is an apsidal niche into which a burial is set, slightly above which one finds another image of Iustus, seated, with a painted inscription overhead. The inscription states that Iustus and his wife, Honoratia Saeverina, set up the tomb for their deceased son Asellus (Fig.

3.1).24 Below the niche is an image of Asellus addressing a group of individuals. The scenes on the back wall are accompanied by an image to the left of builders at work (Fig. 3.2). Like the tomb of Eurysaces some centuries before, the hypogeum of Trebius Iustus was built to display Iustus’ wealth and status, and the images on the adjoining walls disclose how he acquired his wealth and,

21 Laes 2015, 87. Joshel’s sample constitutes 2.4% of the total inscriptional evidence of the city, while the late-antique material represents 0.8%. If we also account for Bisconti’s iconographic representations, adding them to the total number of ICUR entries, the total number of occupational attestations this percentage would increase to about 3%. 22 On the topography of the second mile of the Via Latina and the precise location of the hypogeum see Rea 2004, 19- 51. 23 Rea 2004, 149-157. 24 CIL VI 37833 = ICUR VI 15844 = ILCV 1631.

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thus, what he could not fail to display: his métier.25 The so-called tomb of the pistores (or mensores) in the catacomb of Domitilla conveys a similar message.26

Figure 3.1: Iustus and Asellus, Tomb of Trebius Iustus

Image reproduced from the Epigraphic Database Roma (072508) Trebius Iustus et Horonatia Saeverina filio maerenti fecerunt, Trebiọ Ịụsto, signo Asellus, qui vixit ạnnos XXI, mesẹṣ ṾỊỊII, diis XXV

25 To be sure, Iustus’ hypogeum was inward facing and closed, whereas Eurysaces’ image and text were displayed on the outer façade of his tomb for all to see. This difference does little to weaken the conclusions here. Even if, like the inward-turned Roman mausolea, this hypogeum was meant to be accessed only by those of Iustus’ familia, the fact that he chose to display his commercial activity merely suggests that it was more intimately connected to his self- fashioned identity. See Mayer (2012, 104-105 and 120-121) on the audience and messages of private commemorations in the Roman world. On the other hand, Rebillard (2009, 32-36) has cast doubt on the exclusive familial nature of small to moderate later Roman hypogea. While we cannot say with confidence that Iustus’ familia was the only audience, DNA analysis of eleven of the thirty-nine people interred reveals a relationship of matrilineal descent, see Rea 2004, 129-132. Bisconti (2004, 146-147) has also argued that the main aim of the fresco programme of the tomb was “the emphatic display of the wealth of the deceased.” 26 Pergola 1990; Rebillard 2009, 55-56.

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Figure 3.2: Builders at Work, Tomb of Trebius Iustus

Image reproduced from the Epigraphic Database Roma (072508)

While not representative of the entire population of the late-antique Urbs, the iconographic and epigraphic evidence from the catacombs provides a substantial body of securely dated evidence that reveals a similar identification with work, occupations, and labour as has been found in earlier evidence. As a result, we can imagine that a portion of the population of Rome in the late

Empire identified closely with the occupational activity in which they were engaged.

Obnoxius vocationi: late-antique taxation and obligatory occupations

The previous section made the case for assuming that a middling subsection of late- antique

Rome’s non-elite population identified closely with their occupation, just as a portion of the plebs

Romana had during the Principate. In what follows, I will argue that reforms in the way in which fiscal and liturgical obligations were assessed and allocated impacted upon the relationship

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between the imperial administration and cities. One result of these changes was that the administrative elite and the state came to identify people by their work over the course of the fourth century. This change concerned the very same people who already were inclined to identify with their work. As a result, this group of the population became fixed to their occupation.

Iugatio-capitatio: an overview of the tetrarchic tax system

Diocletian’s elevation to the imperial purple looked little different to that of other emperors after the middle of the third century: he was acclaimed by the army far from Rome after the death

(or assassination) of his predecessor. His formative years witnessed a succession of weak emperors and military defeats that exposed the fragile fiscal system of the Principate. It is without doubt that these experiences shaped his subsequent policies, foremost among which was his reform of taxation.

Prior to Diocletian’s reorganization, the fiscal system of the Principate is said to have been characterized by a diversity of practices in the assessment and collection of taxes.27 In general, regular assessments consisted of a tax on land (tributum soli) and a poll tax (tributum capitis).

These taxes were levied unevenly throughout the Empire and liability was often tied to status:

Roman citizens neither paid the tributum capitis nor the tributum soli on property located in Italy.

The burden of regular taxation therefore rested entirely on the provinces, but remittance from this taxation was also granted to entire communities spread out across the Empire.28 Various types of irregular taxation were added to these tributa,29 and the collection of taxation, as well as the

27 Given the complexity of the matter, this is a very brief and hardly sufficient overview of the taxation system that prevailed during the Principate. For detailed studies, see: Jones and Brunt 1974; Hopkins 1980 and 1995/96; Shaw 1988; and Duncan-Jones 1990 and 1994; Corbier 2005. On tributum in the Republic, which continued into the Empire, see Nicolet 1976. 28 Even where the tributum soli was assessed, it was done unevenly and in different ways, e.g. see Rathbone (1996 312-313) on Roman Egypt. 29 E.g. custom dues (portoria); the 5% inheritance tax (vicesima herreditatum); 5% manumission tax (vicesima libertatis); the 4% slave tax (quinta et vicesima venalium mancipiorum). In Egypt there was also a tax levied from

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distribution of the assessments to individual taxpayers, primarily devolved onto the municipal councils. The bulk of the revenues was directed toward the constituents that were thought integral to the legitimization of imperial power: the army and the plebs urbana.

While this system worked, the taxation was never meant to maximize revenues. Rather the system was largely redistributive, ensuring that the aforementioned constituents remained gratified. The structure of this fiscal system also meant that the state had little capacity to rapidly increase its revenues. This meant that any external pressure that required immediate and large expenditures could have catastrophic consequences. The continued burden of military campaigns from the late second century onward, coupled with the subsequent internal disintegration of the imperial order all imperiled the Empire’s stability and its finances. Under these conditions it is presumed that Diocletian saw reform of the former fiscal system as one corrective for the ills that beset the Empire when he was acclaimed emperor in 284.

Much has been written on the complex system of taxation that Diocletian implemented.

Although certain aspects of it remain debated, the basic structure of the system appears relatively clear. Taxation was based on a universal method for distributing and assessing tax burdens, called the iugatio-capitatio. Described as a system of "macro-fiscalité" by Carrié, it sought to unite diverse schemes of land tax assessment by means of using the abstract fiscal units of the caput and iugum.30 The iugum was a unit for measuring the total taxable non-animate assets of a taxpayer,31 and the caput either a unit of taxable animate objects, including children, slaves, women, and

craftsmen, the χειρωνάζιον. Strabo (17.1.3) suggests that it existed in Egypt under the Ptolemies and papyrological evidence indicates that it was still exacted under Roman rule. Rathbone (1993, 97) conjectures that after 70 CE it was lumped together with the tributum capitis, but ostraca from Elephantine, for example, show it was still collected in the second century CE and a tax-receipt dated to 276 CE (BGU 1.9) might attest to its continued collection throughout the third century, see Hoogendijk and Muhs (2008, 290 and 299-300) for the ostraca. 30 Carrié 1993, 139. 31 Taxpayer is generally defined as any man (or woman) in possession of land. We know, for example, that women paid the capitatio plebeia, see below (pp. 128-129).

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livestock, or the number of abstract units that constituted the total tax burden.32 Each taxpayer was required to make a declaration of taxable assets, which was entered into the municipal census rolls and called either a iugatio or a professio.33 The total number of iugationes constituted a municipality’s total assessment, the iugum sive caput or capitatio.34 The tax burden that was imposed was expressed in the abstract unit of capita.

In order to carry out the implementation of this system, Diocletian initiated an empire-wide census. Lactantius reports with contempt that censitores spread out through the entire Empire, measuring each spot of land, counting vines and trees, and registering humans and animals.35 In addition to recording units of assessment for tax liability, the census also came to determine where one was required to pay taxes. Here Diocletian’s system adapted the administrative unit of the origo. During the Empire, origo denoted the municipality to which one belonged and where one was responsible for munera. The tetrarchic tax reforms extended the concept of origo to include a full ambit of fiscal obligations. To whatever origo a person was registered, he would be liable to discharge both liturgical and fiscal burdens there.36 Origines continued to be tied to municipalities, but after the fiscal reforms an origo could also be any land on which a colonus, labourer, or slave

32 Goffart (1974, 22ff) proposes three potential meanings: taxable animate assets, a fraction derived from the number of taxpayers in a household and the number of total taxpayers in an origo, and abstract unit of total liability. Carrié (1994, 43-52 and on page 45-46 in particular) suggests a caput was both a variable calculation and an abstract unit of liability. Grey (2007a, 368; 2007b, 160, fn. 33; and 2011, 190-191) argues that capita were only abstract units that make up the total tax liability. Although he concedes (2007a, 368 fn. 63) that in places where bivalent tax-systems prevailed, which distinguished between human and landed elements, capitatio might be modified. Bransbourg (2015, 267) sees caput as possibly an ‘abstract workforce-related taxation unit representing well over a man.’ Harper (2008, 98-99) clearly demonstrates in the Greek census inscriptions from Thera, Lesbos, Magnesia, and Tralles that capita represent a variable ratio of animate units. Evidence could support all three. Lactantius 23.2. claims that hominum capita notabantur, in civitatibus urbanae ac rusticate plebes adunatae, while CTh 7. 20.4 (325), 7.13.7 (375), and 13.11.2 (386) all also support the notion of a caput as an animate unit. Pan. Lat. VIII clearly presents capita as a number of abstract units, both land and persons, that constitute an entire tax burden, see Nixon and Rodgers 1994, 256-263. And, Grey (2007a, 368 fn. 58) cites CTh 11.16.4 (328). 33 professio: CTh 11.28.13; professio and iugatio: CTh 5.11.8; and iugatio: CTh 5.11.9, CTh 15.1.49. 34 For iuga seu capita see CTh. 7.6.3 (377). 35 Lact. 23.1-2: Censitoribus ubique diffusis et omnia exagitantibus hostilis tumultus et captivitatis horrendae species erant. Agri glebatim metiebantur, vites et arbores numerabantur, animalia omnis generis scribebantur, hominum capita notabantur 36 CTh 8.21.3. Jones 1964, 68-69; Grey 2011a, 191-192.

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was registered through a tax declaration (iugatio).37 A portion of a munus or a tax would then be assigned to each of these origines and registered on a municipal tax list. Estates and other entities that were made origines acted as "sub-collectivities" within a municipality.38 The system had multiple aims: the first was to establish the productive capacity of each unit of land for tax assessment; the second was to identify those who were responsible for the burden that was assessed on that land; and the third was to ensure that those who did not own land were visible on the municipal and imperial census lists, so that they might be compelled to complete munera or fulfill tax burdens.

These new regulations also impacted on Italy, to which Diocletian extended direct taxation, abolishing a privilege the region had long enjoyed.39 The decision to eliminate the so-called ius

Italicum can be seen as both a culmination in the long process of the universalization of the Empire and as an attempt to level the uneven system of legal statuses and privileges that characterized the taxation system of the Principate. As the Empire became more ecumenical, with subsequent emperors less connected to Italy and with the global extension of Roman citizenship effected by the Edict of Caracalla in 212, it was likely increasingly difficult, and perhaps unnecessary, to justify Italy’s immunity from taxation. Moreover, Diocletian, himself from the province of

Dalmatia and not acquainted with Rome, seemed to distinguish little between the Roman citizens of Italy and those elsewhere. His new taxation system therefore was one in which all citizens were meant to contribute, regardless of where they lived. It is likely for these reasons that he did away

37 See Carrié 1983, 218 and Grey 2007b, 170-172, with the accompanying footnotes for an exhaustive list of constitutions from both the Codex Theodosianus and Justinianus that attest to this arrangement. I cite only CTh 5.17.1 as a single example. A general edict of Constantine, it stipulates that coloni sui iuris be recalled to their origines, which are evidently country estates. 38 Grey 2011a, 196. 39 Aur. Vic. 39.31. Lact. 26.2 censures Severus for extending tax even to Rome on Galerius’ order.

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with the ius Italicum along with the categories of cities immune from taxation that were a hallmark of the early Empire.40

This new system therefore altered the way in which the imperial administration interacted with the Empire’s cities. Previously the minimum unit of taxation was the city. A total tax burden was imposed on a municipality, and the collection of this assessment, as well as how the burdens might be distributed among its citizens, was left to the discretion of the municipalities. The innovation of Diocletian’s system was that the imperial administration now determined the allocations and assessment of tax burdens in each city right down to the individual. Individual fiscal and liturgical obligations were no longer demanded by one’s city, but instead were determined by the Roman state.41

Capitatio plebeia and the collatio lustralis: from urban to occupational taxation

Like in the preceding period, land remained the prime fiscal unit in the new system of taxation. However, Lactantius’ scathing commentary on the tetrarchic innovations reveals the effect of the new taxation system on urban populations. He records the dire scenes throughout cities, where the urban plebs was all crammed into the forum and registered on the census record as liable to pay taxes, regardless of age, sex, or status.42 To Lactantius’ mind, neither any person nor any city was spared. This included Rome, where we are told that it was Galerius’ folly in

40 Bransbourg 2010, 709, 738-739, 813. 41 Grey 2011a, 195. 42 Lact. 23.2-3: in civitatibus urbanae ac rusticae plebes adunatae, fora omnia gregibus familiarum referta; unus quisque cum liberis, cum servis aderant, tormenta ac verbera personabant, filii adversus parentes suspendebantur, fidelissimi quique servi contra dominos vexabantur, uxores adversus maritos. Si omnia defecerant, ipsi contra se torquebantur et cum dolor vicerat, adscribebantur quae non habebantur. Nulla aetatis, valitudinis excusatio, aegri et debiles deferebantur, aestimabantur aetates singulorum, parvulis adiciebantur anni, senibus detrahebantur.

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attempting to levy this tax on the population of the Urbs that led to Maxentius’ successful usurpation.43

Even if the vitriolic nature of Lactantius’ text should caution against wholesale acceptance of his account, there is some corroborating evidence from various parts of the Empire for the assessment of an "urban poll-tax", which was collected in addition to the land taxes discussed above. The evidence, however, is inconsistent at best and seems to reflect a process of reform, which included reconsideration over the best way to extract taxes from urban populations. In a speech in praise of Constantine, likely delivered in Trier in 311, the anonymous orator of Autun may allude to the presence of an urban poll-tax there,44 while four laws from the middle decades of the fourth century, all addressed to a praetorian prefect of Gaul, support the existence of an urban tax in the Gallic provinces called the capitatio plebeia. A constitution of 343 seeks to enforce the obligation for those who formerly worked for the imperial administration to pay a capitatio plebeia.45 In 368 we are told that virgins of the church were to be exempt from the same capitatio plebeia, and in 370 widows and orphans of both sex were spared from the exactio plebis.46 These laws paint a clear picture, both through exemptions and impositions, that an urban tax, the capitatio plebeia, was levied in Gaul on most, if not on all of the urban inhabitants at least until 370.

An edict dated to 374, issued to the vicarius of Africa by Valentinian I, Valens, and

Gratian, has been cited as also attesting to the capitatio plebeia.47 The constitution exempts

43 Lact. 26.1-2: Compositae ei res quodam modo iam videbantur, cum subito illi alius terror adlatus est, generum ipsius Maxentium Romae factum imperatorem. Cuius motus haec fuit causa. Cum statuisset censibus institutis orbem terrae devorare, ad hanc usque prosiluit insaniam, ut ab hac captivitate ne populum quidem Romanum fieri vellet immunem. Ordinabantur iam censitores qui Romam missi describerent plebem. 44 Pan. Lat. VIII 5.11-12, iacebat illa civitas non tam moenium ruinis quam virium defectione prostrata; and 6.1, habemus enim, ut dixi, et hominum numerum qui delati sunt et agrorum modum. The relation to city population and an urban poll-tax is by no means certain here. Jones (1964, 1040-1041 and n.15) argues in favour of this relationship and Barnes (1982, 234) accepts the interpretation. Nixon and Rodgers (1994, 258) advocate for caution. 45 CTh 12.1.36 (343). CTh 11.23.2 (362) also attests to the existence of an urban poll tax. 46 CTh 13.10.4 (368); CTh 13.10.6 (370). 47 Jones 1964 vol III, 8 fn. 48.

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painters from the assessment on their person (capitis censione) and also suggests that women, children, and slaves would be included on the census rolls (in censuali). The edict would be the latest testimony of an urban poll tax, although it actually speaks of exemptions from declaring capita in certain taxpayers’ iugationes. The reason for this interpretation is found in this edict’s comparison with a constitution issued to the comes Orientis in 381,48 which sought to remit clergy from the capite census. In the East, as early as 311, the capitatio plebeia was abolished in all the provinces of the Oriens and Lycia and Pamphylia. The remission in the constitution of 381 must relate to the abstract unit of the caput, not to an urban poll tax.49 It is, therefore, likely the case that the African constitution does not relate to the capitatio plebeia either. In Egypt too the last attestation we have of an urban poll-tax (ἐπικεφάλαιον πόλεως) comes early, in 319/20 CE.50 The evidence suggests that the tetrarchic tax system initially included, in addition to land taxes, a head tax on urban inhabitants, but it was quickly repealed in the East, while the only secure attestation for its exaction in the West comes from Gaul, where it may have only continued until 370 CE.

While there does not seem to have been a universally assessed capitatio plebeia or urban poll tax in Late Antiquity, urban populations were certainly not immune from tax. Urban dwellers who owned land in the territory of the municipality would no doubt, as possessores, be burdened with their share of the capitatio of their city.51 But even those who lived in urban properties leased from rent-seeking proprietors came to be burdened by other quasi-urban taxes. In the course of the first decades of the fourth century, additional taxes were added to the assessments of origines,

48 For example, CTh 16.2.26 (381) is written in similar language. Issued to the comes Orientis it exempted clergy from the capite census, which is thought to relate to the abstract unit of the caput, not an urban poll tax. There is good reason for this, as a constitution of 311 (see discussion above) remits all urban plebs from the capitatio plebeia in the East. It is therefore likely the case that the African constitution does not relate to the capitatio plebeia. 49 CTh 13.10.2. 50 P. Oxy. LV 3789; Carrié 1992, 51; Bagnall 1993, 154. 51 Harper (2015a) demonstrates that 25-30% of the land in Egypt and more in the Greek census inscriptions was owned by urban inhabitants. This is a pattern that is consistent across multiple places in the later Roman world.

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perhaps at first on a quinquennial basis.52 One of these taxes was the collatio lustralis or

χρυσάργυρον. This tax is first attested in the juridical evidence in 356. The constitution in question was issued at Rome and demands that all negotiatores pay the collatio lustralis in silver and gold.53

While the first legal indication of the assessment does not appear until the reign of Constantius II, the literary record points to its earlier establishment. The seventh-century Chronicon Paschale records that Constantine remitted a tax of gold and silver for his vicennalia in 325/326 and

Eusebius implies that Licinius began earlier to levy taxes in gold and silver throughout his eastern provinces.54 Both testimonies have led to the general view that the collatio lustralis was implemented at least by 325, if not as early as 314. Roland Delmaire suggests that the first indiction of the collatio lustralis may correlate with the abolition of the capitatio plebeia in the East, which occurred in 313. In this way the collatio lustralis would compensate for the loss of a wholesale urban tax by instead taxing the richest members of the plebes urbanae.55

The belief was long held that the collatio lustralis was levied on a five-year cycle that coincided with the quinquennial anniversaries of emperors and, thus, that the tax was linked to military donatives.56 The adjective lustralis would seem to imply a requisition every lustrum and

Libanius, in a speech against the consularis of Syria, Florentius, refers to "the terrible fifth year" in which the "unbearable tax in gold and silver" was requisitioned.57 But Delmaire has convincingly demonstrated that both assumptions are wrong. From 314 until the tax’s abolition in

52 Jones (1964, 429-433) provides an overview of the additional indictions, which included the collatio equorum, the vestis militaris, the aurum oblaticium, the aurum tironicum, and collatio glebis. The most comprehensive study remains Delmaire 1989. 53 CTh 13.1.1. 54 Chron. Pasc. 525 b; Eus. HE. 10.8.12. 55 Delmaire 1989, 356. 56 Jones 1964, 431. In other words, in order to help acquire cash to pay the exorbitant donatives to the armies the State established a regular indiction from urban populations. 57 Lib. Or. 46.22: Λεγέσθω τοίνυν καὶ τὸ τἄλλα πάντα νενικηκός. τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἀφόρητος φόρος, ἄργυρος καὶ χρυσός, φρίττειν προσιούσας ποιῶν τὰς δεινὰς πεντετηρίδας.

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498 it was assessed at four-year intervals and did not coincide with any imperial celebrations.58

Following Delmaire, Roger Bagnall revisited the papyrological evidence from Egypt, where he demonstrated that the collection of the tax fit neither with a 4-year, nor a 5-year assessment cycle.

Instead, in Egypt, it would appear that the tax was assessed on a four-year basis, but collected annually.59 Annual collection is also conceded elsewhere by Delmaire before the end of the fourth century.60 But it may have been the case, like in Egypt, that the tax was assessed in a 4-year cycle and apportioned for annual collection.

The constitution from 356 that began the discussion of the collatio lustralis suggests that it was requisitioned from negotiatores:61

Negotiatores omnes protinus convenit aurum argentumque praebere, clericos excipi tantum, qui copiatae appellantur, nec alium quemquam esse inmunem ab huius collationis obsequio.

All negotiatores must pay immediately the gold and silver, only clerics, who are called copiatae, should be exempted, and no one else should be immune from the obligation of this tax payment.

A negotiator is traditionally defined as a merchant or one who engages in commerce.62 The

Augustan jurist Labeo, cited by Marcian, defines negotiator more ambiguously as someone engaged in work or in charge of conducting business.63A second constitution in the Theodosian

58 Delmaire 1985, 120-129 and 1989, 357-360. 59 Bagnall 1992, 15-17. 60 Delmaire 1989, 359 : “Les documents postérieurs doivent être écartés car à partir de la fin du IVe siècle le chrysargyre peut être payé annuellement.” He makes this concession largely on the basis of the papyrological evidence, which Bagnall demonstrates show signs of annual collection much earlier than the late fourth century. 61 CTh 13.1.1. 62 OLD s.v. negotiator; Brepols Database of Latin Dictionaries online s.v. negotiator. The later derives data from the CSEL, the CCSL, and the MGH. 63 Dig. 32.65. Broekaert (2013, 15-23) traces the evolution of the term negotiator from the Republic to the Empire. He argues (p. 16) that initially the term designated a person managing negotia abroad, who might engage in money- lending, commerce, or agricultural exploitation. By the beginning of the imperial period, there was a shift in the meaning and the term became more restrictive (p. 19-20), which might be reflected in the Labeian meaning. In other words, negotiatores were engaged in commerce and they often designated their sphere of activity. In this sense a mercator and negotiator were the same, even if the later occupies a primacy of place in the sources (p. 21-22). It will be clear from what follows that in the late-antique codices, the term negotiator returns to a broader application, but lacks the association with work done abroad.

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Code issued four years after the first that addressed the collatio lustralis sought to clarify upon whom the burden of this taxation rested. Addressed to the praetorian prefect of Italy and Africa, it states that "everyone was bound to the burden of the tax, who seemed to engage in the skill of conducting business (sollertiam negotiandi)."64The definition then seems to come closest to the

Labeian meaning; the tax was not just limited to merchants, but imposed on all those who conducted some form of business. This view is borne out in our literary and further juridical evidence. Libanius presents the image of a lamenting cobbler beset by the tax, which was also assessed on his tools.65 Rhetorical flourish aside, Procopius of Gaza makes claims consistent with

Libanius’. In praising the emperor Anastasius’ abolition of the collatio lustralis, Procopius enumerates craftsmen, manual labourers (αὐτουργός; ταῖς χερσὶ πᾶσαν πεποιημένος), farmers

(γεωργός), fishermen (ἁλιεύς), and merchants (ἔμπορος) among those assessed.66

A series of laws issued beginning with Valentinian I and Valens sheds further light on the full ambit of those liable for the collatio lustralis both through grants of exemption and orders of assessment. In 364 and 374, respectively, we are told that those who engaged in business

(negotiantes) on their own land, coloni, and other peasants (ceteros rusticanos) were exempt from the tax.67 Also in 374, fabri and potters (figulos), who worked in rural settings, and painting instructors (picturae professores) were exempted.68 In 372, on the other hand, the tax was imposed on purple-dye workers (conchyliolegulus) and, in 400, on money-lenders and usurers.69 We may take all this testimony as evidence that in the language of our juridical sources, the term

64 CTh 13.1.2: universi, qui negotiandi videntur exercere sollertiam, ad onus collationis adstringantur. 65 Lib. Or. 46.22. 66 Proc. Gaza Pan. 13; See CJ 11.1.1 for Anastasius’ remission of the tax. Matino (2005, 28-29) dates the delivery of the panegyric to the first decade of the sixth century. 67 CTh 13.1.6 and 13.1.10. It should be noted that Constantine had already remitted navicularii (CTh 13.5.5, which was reaffirmed in 386, CTh 13.5.17) and doctors/archiatri (CTh 13.3.2). 68 CTh 13.1.10; (painters) 13.4.4. 69 CTh 13.1.9 and CTh 13.1.18: qui studentes fenori crescentis in dies singulos pecuniae accessione laetantur

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"negotiator" possessed a broader definition that included or could include urban craftsmen, artisans, general merchants, and even doctors and teachers.70 Thus, the collatio lustralis was levied on each person who earned money, either selling goods or their services.71

The urban nature of the tax is another feature that distinctly emerges from the laws. In 364 and 374, we saw above that individuals working in the countryside were exempt from the collatio lustralis. Earlier, in 361, Constantius II wrote to the Senate of Rome to affirm that peasants

(rusticani) and coloni working their land and selling the produce they cultivated were not subject to the tax.72 The urban character of the tax is reaffirmed in evidence from the fifth century. In 447,

Valentinian III issued an edict to curb the practice of those who avoided the cities (declinatis urbibus) and instead conducted their business (exercent negotiationis officium) in ports, villages, and the countryside.73 The reason stated both for their illicit business (furtiva negotiatio) and the promulgation of the edict was that by working outside of the city, people evaded the payment of the collatio lustralis (aurariam functionem) to the detriment of the imperial fisc.74 Delmaire already conjectured that the collatio lustralis compensated for the urban poll tax in the East. Carrié took this a step further, suggesting that the collatio lustralis was analogous to the capitatio plebeia.

His position is based entirely on papyrological evidence, where, in the tetrarchic period, tax

70 Giardina 1981, 146 already alluded to the possibility of a more ambiguous definition of negotiator in late antiquity: "Del resto il termine negotiator ha in quest'epoca una forte dose di ambiguità, e non distingue il semplice venditore dall'artigiano, sia che questi vendesse direttamente, come spesso accadeva, i propri prodotti, sia che vendesse a un intermediario." Both Jones (1964, 431-432) and Carrié (2002) express similar opinions. 71 One might even say those who sold themselves, as the tax may have been extended to prostitution: CJ 11. 41.7. Delmaire (1989, 367) suggests the possibility, but also indicates that the interpretation is only conjectural based on the ambiguity of the Latin text. Proc. Gaza Pan. 13 also mentions prostitutes: αἱ γὰρ ἐπι τῶν οἰκημάτων γυναῖκες. In general, however, I share the view of Delmaire (1989, 360-367) regarding the extent of the assessment of the tax. 72 CTh 13.1.3. 73 Nov. Val. 24. 74 I use the term "imperial fisc" for expediency. The Novella in question cites the losses incurred by the emperors' (nostrum) "aerarium," but, specifically, this tax would have been paid into the sacrae largitiones, see Delmaire 1989, 347-357.

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receipts for the ἐπικεφάλαιον πόλεως include the occupation of the payer.75 The situation in Gaul would seem to offer an objection as both taxes appear to have been levied there simultaneously.76

If there was a relationship between the collatio lustralis and the capitatio plebeia, our existing evidence remains insufficient to trace it. Notwithstanding this issue, we can say with some degree of certainty that the collatio lustralis was solely an urban tax for non-landholding individuals, who worked in some occupation to earn money.

Functiones and munera: from occupation to obligation

Diocletian’s new system of taxation recalibrated the relationship between the Roman state, the cities, and individuals. Every individual, both in the countryside and in the cities, belonged to an administrative unit, an origo, which in turn belonged to a city.77 Each origo would be laden with both fiscal burdens and liturgies, and these would be apportioned by the state to individuals both based on the land they owned and, as we have seen, the work they performed. In the case of liturgical obligations tied to work, the most obvious example in the case of Rome is associated with the annona. Much has already been said about the annona in Late Antiquity in the preceding chapter. We know, for example, that at Rome free distribution of bread and pork were available to a large subsection of the population. The imperial government facilitated the supply of these staples for the city’s population and in Late Antiquity sought, in addition, to provide subsidized oil and wine.

In order to effect the transport of the large quantities of grain required to feed Rome's population (some thirty million modii) already during the reign of Trajan corpora naviculariorum

75 Carrié 1994, 51-52, 60-61 and 2002, 316-317. P. Oxy 42. 3036-45 are receipts for the payment of the ἐπικεφάλαιον πόλεως, among which a merchant (3041), donkey-driver (3042), and weaver (3044) made payments. 76 CTh 13.1.11 (collatio lustralis in Gaul). See above for evidence for the capitatio plebeia there. 77 If one was not attached to an origo, one would be excluded from certain public benefits and rights. Such people, called vagi, could not, for example, purchase land and could be forced into military service. See Grey 2003 and 2011, 192.

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were founded. These corpora were legal entities with whom the state could enter into contracts for the transport of grain.78 Under the Severans, the fiscal duty to discharge this task, or functio, was transformed into a munus, or a liturgical obligation for the navicularii.79 In the same way, the state came to impose non-negotiable obligations on the corpus pistorum and, later, with the inclusion of pork among the frumentationes, the corpus suariorum.80 A series of constitutions issued under

Constantine reveal that at some point in the course of the third to fourth century these munera became tied to the property of the individual (munera patrimonialia) and were hereditary as long as an heir was financially solvent (idoneus). From a strict legal perspective, a munus patrimoniale was not a personal obligation, but one tied to land. Yet the juridical testimonia of the fourth century demonstrate that individuals subject to the hereditary munus became referred to as obnoxii and were compelled to fulfill the munus so long as they retained the patrimonium, which was the basis for this obligation.81 This was the case for the navicularii at Rome by 314 CE,82 by 315 for the pistores, and by 334 for the suarii.83 If someone were to alienate the property, in theory he would also free himself of the obligated liturgy. Yet this course of action too was prohibited at least by the middle of the fourth century.84 As such, the munera came to be tied to individuals who were, in turn, bound to their occupation (obnoxii vocationi).85

78 Sirks 1991, 10-23 and 128-129. 79 De Salvo 1992. Lo Cascio (2002) agrees that the foundations of the corporate system were laid with Septimius Severus. Functio is a rather protean term in the codices, but in general it is some fiscal task or service. In CTh 11.12.3, for example, functiones are both public services (functionibus publicis) and taxes (vectigalium...functio est). In CTh 11.1.14 and 36 functiones are taxes tied to land, while 13.1.11, 13,18-19 extend the term functio to taxes not tied to land. Functiones could also be services rendered, as in CTh 13.1.17 (alienae functionis), 13.5.14, 18, and 35. Functiones were different from munera (CTh 13.3.3), in that one could be bound to a functio, that is a service or tax, but it was not obligatory in and of itself (CTh 13.5.14.3: obnoxii functioni; CTh 13.1.36: obnoxium publicae functioni). Munera, on the other hand, were compulsory duties and, thus, inherently obligatory. 80 Jones 1974, 396-418; Pistores: Sirks 1991, 130-142, 1998, 334-337, and Bond 2012, 156; suarii: Sirks 1991, 141- 142 and 1998, 334. 81 Sirks 1991, 325. 82 CTh 13.5.1 & 3. 83 CTh 13.5.2 & 14.3.1-2 for pistores; 14.4.1 for suarii. 84 CTh 14.3.13 and 14.4.5. 85 CTh 13.5.13. CTh. 14.3.12 discloses that the munus pistorum became a munus personale by 370.

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The date of the introduction of the system of obnoxietas is debated. Boudewijn Sirks would see this development and the introduction of compulsory munera occurring under the Severans.86

While this is possible, the majority of our evidence comes from the fourth century and there is good reason to think that the new system developed along with the new taxation system which more personally defined fiscal and liturgical obligations. We will see that this process is intimately connected with the development of the late-antique corporate system and that the evidence is also more consistent with a later development. For now, it is sufficient to have demonstrated that, as with taxation, Diocletian’s system sought to utilize an administrative system based on origo to assess liturgies, and that it was done ad personam.87 Thus liturgies were a way, like the tax burden, by which the state could interact with individuals. In both cases, it appears that occupation became both a fiscal and liturgical category for the purpose of assigning and assessing obligations. In cities, craftsmen, workers, and merchants were assessed a tax on their person and tools (collatio lustralis), while in certain occupations, liturgical obligations (munera) tied people to their work. In both cases, imperial legal parlance came to define people by both their work and their labour. It would not be misleading then to say that in late-antique urban centers occupation became a main feature of the identification of a certain portion of the population. In Rome, I have argued that many people chose to identify with their occupation and the preceding argument has shown that the state, in turn, defined this population in the same way, assessing and demanding fiscal and liturgical payments according to occupation.

Constituting Rome’s collegia and corpora: tax, munera, and the nature of Rome’s late- antique associations

86 Sirks 1991, 142-145, 170-175, and 325-328. Lo Cascio (2002, 104-105) finds Sirks' dating convincing, but does not agree with Sirk's reasoning for a Severan date. 87 E.g. CTh 12.1.12; 12.5.1; 14.3.14; 14.4.7-8.

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The same constitutions that define those who inherited property tied to a munus as obnoxii vocationi also disclose that membership in a corpus for these individuals was obligatory.88 The relationship between occupations and associations in the Roman world was one that was established already in the Principate, if not before.89 Yet the connection became legally better defined under the Severans, and by the late Empire, when the state came to levy tax and liturgies on individuals directly, collegia and corpora became loci for controlling and ensuring the discharge of these obligations. In what follows I trace this process in the evidence and argue that the imposition of certain munera in the late Empire also demanded that individuals belong to a professional association. This view has already been accepted for corpora associated with the annona, but there is good evidence that munera were imposed on the members of other corpora and collegia as well, which made membership in a professional association necessary for all those who practiced a craft or laid claim to an occupation. I argue thus that the changes in the fiscal system that occurred in the late Empire were responsible also for the ways in which people in

Rome, and in other urban centers, came to be organized. The very same process that witnessed the state reaching into cities to control taxation, also led to the forced organization of populations into associations—collegia and corpora—, through which obligations that were traditionally civic could be more readily imposed and extracted.

Collegia, corpora, koina, synodoi, or thiasoi were vital social units in the ancient

Mediterranean world. One traditional view holds that these associations were only social and religious clubs.90 For a long time, however, it has been clearly understood that associations had no single raison d’etre. In the Roman world, collegia were largely multifunctional: members of

88 CTh 13.5.2; CTh 14.3.2 (pistrini consortio teneatur obnoxius); CTh 14.3.13 (corpori obnoxium). Note that the they needed also to be found solvent (idoneus: CTh 14.3.1), once a member of the corpus, they would become obnoxius muneri or functioni (CTh 14.3.12 and CTh 13.5.14: perpetuo sint obnoxii functioni). 89 Verboven 2016, 176. 90 Waltzing 1895-1900 I, 322; MacMullen 1974, 75; Finley 1985, 138.

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collegia did engage in convivial and cultic activity, but collegia could also constitute a formal structure for members to attain social capital even though they were not part of the political leadership of cities,91 they institutionalized networks of trust,92 and they interacted closely with the privileged ordines.93 This multifunctionality continued long into Late Antiquity. A constitution issued in 415 suggests that at least until that time, and probably after, associations retained a religious aspect.94 Moreover, their continued funerary function has long been demonstrated.95

Notwithstanding these facts, occupational affiliation, although always a main qualification for membership in some associations, became of increased interest to imperial administrators in the third century. Callistratus, writing at the turn of that century, characterizes professional collegia and corpora as distinctive, composed of those who practiced the same occupation:96

Quibusdam collegiis vel corporibus, quibus ius coeundi lege permissum est, immunitas tribuitur: scilicet eis collegiis vel corporibus, in quibus artificii sui causa unusquisque adsumitur, ut fabrorum corpus est et si qua eandem rationem originis habent, id est idcirco instituta sunt, ut necessariam operam publicis utilitatibus exhiberent, nec omnibus promiscue, qui adsumpti sunt in his collegiis, immunitas datur, sed artificibus dumtaxat.

Immunity is granted to certain collegia and corpora, to whom the right of meeting has been permitted by law; namely to those collegia and corpora in which each member is enrolled on the basis of his craft, such as the guild of builders and if any other (corpus) possesses the same reason for existence, that is to say, those instituted to provide service required for public needs. Nor is immunity given indiscriminately to everyone enrolled in these collegia, but only to craftsmen.

Under the Severans then there appears to have been a concern over legally defining what constituted membership in collegia, and more importantly upon whom benefits emanating from

91 Verboven 2007. 92 Broekaert 2011; Venticinque 2016; Hawkins 2016. For a critical assessment of this position see Liu 2016. 93 Van Nijf 1997; Verboven 2016. 94CTh 16.10.20 (415 CE). See Diosono 2016, 262-268 on this constitution, which orders the confiscation of properties from the collegia of the dendrophorii and frediani which fund pagan worship. The edict calls these groups professiones gentilicae. 95 E.g. Salamito 1987, 1015-16 on the dendrophorii and Rebillard 1999, 280-282 and 2009, 55-56. 96 Dig. 50.6.6.12 (trans. Watson 1998, 434).

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the state would be conferred.97 It is clear from the excerpt cited above that professional collegia or corpora began to experience a privileged position in relation to the state and that proper membership was limited to craftsmen. The Historia Augusta even credits Severus Alexander with the creation of corpora for every profession.98

It is, perhaps, not surprising that some have argued that it is under the Severans that the functiones of certain corpora were first turned into munera.99 These munera were tied to property and completely alienable, but with the changes introduced by the reformed tax system of the tetrarchy they came to be apportioned to individuals.100 Although tied to individuals and land in the case of the annona, the burden to complete the liturgies was assigned wholesale to corpora.101

The Diocletianic tax reforms provided the mechanism to support these allocations with the principle of the origo. Just as a landed estate could function as an origo, to which all men working the land belonged, so too could a corpus assume the role of an origo. A number of constitutions, for example, stipulate that the munus of the navicularii, which was assigned to the corpus, was to be completed by those registered in the corpus qua origo.102 The implication is that the origo in which the navicularius was registered was his corpus. An edict issued to the urban prefect of Rome

97 This is supported in the Solva inscription (AE 1920, 69), which states that only those who practice a trade in a collegium can receive benefits (privilegium). The inscription is dated by a consular date to 205 CE. See Liu 2009, 57- 62 for a detailed discussion of this inscription. 98 HA Alex. Sev. 33.2: corpora omnium constituit vinariorum, lupinariorum, caligariorum et omnino omnium artium hisque ex sese defensores dedit et iussit, qui ad quos iudices pertinerent. This admittedly likely reflects a fourth- century situation. 99 fn. 86 above. Lo Cascio (2002) argues that a drop in population after the Antonine plague may have been what stimulated Severan interest to intervene in the way labour for tasks was defined and organized, particularly those associated with the annona and pertaining to the population’s well-being. 100 E.g. CTh. 14.3.12, but see discussion with references above. 101 CJ 10.43.1 (283/4) reveals the munera were signed to particular corpora. CTh 14.3.2 cites the oneribus familiae pistoris; CTh 14.3.14: patrimonium is bound to the functio and corpus, but unalienable by the individual so also now a munus personale; CTh 14.4.7. 102 CTh 13.5.12 and 13.5.22. The phrase corpus qua origo is my own, but both constitutions imply this relationship. In CTh 13.5.22, for example, the provincial magistrates are to consider the resources of the Naviculariorum vires ac debitas huic necessitati origines. It seems highly implausible that origines here means cities. It might mean estates, but we know that the munus of navicularii was tied to estates that belonged to their corpora, so in essence the corpus became the origo.

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in 369 discloses a similar arrangement for the city’s pistores. Here, mills and bakehouses (pistrina) were assigned to the corpus pistorum according to origo,103 while an edict of 372 binds the pistores to the munus of the corpus by the principle of the origo:

...non alia lege adque ratione eundem ipsum pistoriae necessitati et corpori praecipimus adstringi, quam si eodem munere originis vinculo teneretur. 104

...We order by the same law and reason that the very same man be bound to the duty of the pistores and the corpus, not otherwise than if he were held by the bond of origo with the same munus.

The result was that both individuals and associations were encumbered with liturgical obligations and, thus, the individual was bound (obnoxius) to his association. The new relationship meant that whenever the state made particular functiones into munera, they could be assigned to corpora or collegia, and individual collegiati were apportioned their share of the burden, obligating them to the association.

This was the case for all those corpora who served the annona, but what of other associations? 105 If we take the lead from the aforementioned excerpt of Callistratus, one criterion for a collegium to receive certain benefits was its service for the public good.106 This was certainly the case with corpora who served the annona, and likely one of the main reasons their services were transformed into munera. In exchange, these corpora received immunity from various other

103 CTh 14.3.13: Non ea sola pistrini sint vel fuisse videantur, quae in originem adscripta corpori dotis nomen et speciem etiam nunc retentant, sed etiam ea...: “not only do they own or appear to own the properties of a pristrinum, which, assigned to the corpus according to origo, retain the name and appearance of an endowment, but also those...” 104 CTh 14.3.14: non alia lege adque ratione eundem ipsum pistoriae necessitati et corpori praecipimus adstringi, quam si eodem munere originis vinculo teneretur. The duty of the suarii is also called the orginariam functionem (CTh 14.4.8). More compelling are two laws of Honorius that recall all collegiati and corporati back to their origines as units linked to, but separate from their municipalities, CTh 14.7.1 and 2. 105 While only the suarii, navicularii and pistores have been addressed. CTh 14.4.9 makes it clear that munera were also imposed on the caudicarii and mensores, while CTh 14.4.6 includes the porcinarii, perhaps pork butchers, as opposed to suarii, who collected the canon which consisted of pigs or pork. 106 Certainly, it was the necessity of their service that was one criterion that bound people to collegia and these collegia, in turn, to civic munera. CTh 16.2.39, issued c. 408, for example, requires all lapsed or expelled clergy in the West to be bound (obligentur), depending on their dignitas and wealth, to either the curiae or the collegia of their respective cities so as to complete the publicae necessitates.

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duties, including munera sordida, certain taxes, and tutela.107 Long before the fourth century,

Cicero commended the building of particular monuments because of their public benefit and, as we saw, Callistratus chose building as his example of work serving public utilitas.108 CTh 14.6.2, issued in 364 by Valentinian I and Valens to the urban prefect Symmachus, confirms the old and long-standing (prisca adque inveterata) exemption from extraordinary munera granted to lime- burners (coctores calcis) and freight-carters (vecturarii). The emperors confirmed this privilege for the purpose of providing some relief from the burden of their public munus (ad leniendum opus quod sustinent publicis operis). A subsequent constitution discloses the nature of their liturgy: the vecturarii and coctores calcis were to supply Rome annually with three-thousand cartloads of lime for the repair of buildings.109 In return, the coctores and vecturarii were first remunerated at a similar rate of one amphora for every three cartloads of lime, but this was later commuted and seemingly increased to a solidus for each cartload.110

These constitutions place the work of these individuals within the very framework of reciprocal exchange that saw the exemption of one task given for the imposition of another. In this case, the collegiati or corporati were involved in the building sector.111 There is an earlier

107 Sirks 1991; FV 236 & 237. 108 Cic. De Off. 2.60. 109 CTh 14.6.3. See Chp. 5, p. 247-248 for further discussion. 110 CTh 14.6.1 (359): coctoribus calcis per ternas vehes singulae amphorae vini praebeantur. The vecturarii were given an amphora for every 2,900lbs of lime. This is roughly equivalent to three cartloads: CTh 8.5.8 (357) limits a four-wheeled cart to 1,000 pounds (c. 350 kg) on the cursus publicus. A number close to the limit of a wagon load set in Diocletian’s Prices Edict (17) at 393kg. Three cartloads then would be around 2,900lbs of lime, making the vecturarii’s and coctores calcis’ payment equivalent. CTh 14.6.3 reveals this payment had become a solidus per cartload by 365. This could reflect a marginal increase in their remuneration during the reign Valentinian I, as an amphora of wine was valued at two solidi, at the highest estimate (Chp. 2, fn. 89). 111 It must be admitted that no collegium or corpus of coctores calcis, calcarii, calcarenses, or vectuarii are found in the extant evidence. There is good reason to assume that these constitutions refer to corpora. First, the constitutions themselves were inserted by the compilers between constitutions addressed to the suarii, whom we know formed a corpus, and other corporati and collegiati. Certainly, this is not enough, but in the epigraphic record we have testimony of a negotians calcarius from Campania (CIL X 3947=ILS 7537). It will be demonstrated that all negotiatores were obligated, by the fourth century, to form collegia or corpora, see below (pp.144-147). Taken together it is reasonable, if not preferred, to see the coctores calcis and vectuarii as corpora. Nov. Val. 5.2-4 also connects vecturarii and coctores with the city’s corporati and confirms their immunity from a superindiction on land and the collatio tironum so that they might better complete their obligatory duties (solitae functiones).

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indication that builders had long since been classified as obnoxii vocationi. An inscription dated to the first decade of the fourth century records an imperial epistula that binds all fabri in Rome to their occupation.112 The inscription does not disclose the munus, but it is likely associated with the maintenance of the city.113 Whatever the liturgy was, it was hereditary and made membership in the collegium obligatory for all skilled builders.

Throughout the course of the fourth century a number of associations and their members were burdened with liturgies, not just those who served the annona, but also those whose work was related to the maintenance of the city. The date when this arrangement was introduced is debated and is usually assigned based on the evidence related to the annona. Certainly, all of the surviving constitutions cluster in the Constantinian period. This led Waltzing to see this transition occurring under Diocletian; De Robertis dated it more cautiously to the early fourth century, while

Sirks would place it in the third century.114 Others would see the beginning of this process occurring under Aurelian, who reorganized annona distributions with the addition of the obsonia and the creation of the arca vinaria, potentially constituted a new corpus naviculariorum at Rome, and possibly changed the means of marshaling labour in the building industry.115 Once the wider

112 See Chp. 5, pp. 246. 113 The munus may have gone through cycles of exemption and exaction. For example, CTh 13.4.2 (337) exempts craftsmen (artifices atrium) from all munera (universis muneribus), but CTh 14.2.1 (364) is forced to reassert certain privilegia of corpora, because they had wavered, and, again, thirty years later, CTh 14.2.3 (397) reaffirms suffragia of corpora. Also, in 384 Symmachus implies that a munus existed associated with builders. The first constitution must be considered in the context of education and training, and the apparent lapses in privileges may speak to an imbalance between law and reality. For now, it is enough to note that burdens were imposed in collegia of builders in the early fourth century that made members obnoxii. For more detailed discussion of compulsory labour in building in late- antique Rome see Chp. 5, pp. 244-253. 114 Sirks (1991, 293-294 & 326-328) believes that the constitutions cited describe a situation that had been long established and that munus patrimonii and obnoxius vocationi likely developed in the late third century; Waltzing 1895-1900 II, 268-271. De Robertis (1981, 163) claims it would be a wasted effort to determine under what emperor this occurred. On the same page (163), however, he claims that at the beginning of the fourth century membership in professional associations was obligatory and hereditary, while only two pages later (165) he attributes the conclusion of the process to Diocletian and Constantine. 115 Dey 2011, 103. For the addition of a new collegium naviculariorum see HA. Aur. 47.2-3: epistula data ad praefectum annonae urbis etiam ipse gloriatur...navicularios Niliacos apud Aegyptum novos et Romae amnicos posui (In a letter given to the prefect of the annona of Rome, he boasts: “...I placed new navicularii on the Nile in Egypt and on the river in Rome...). We must be cautious of adopting this position, since the HA is a notoriously problematic

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application of the system of liturgies is recognized, both for associations serving the annona and others providing for the maintenance of the city, and accepting that it was the architecture of

Diocletian’s tax system that provided the mechanisms for tying an individual both to his work and to an association, it is best to place these developments within the roughly twenty years it took to effect the implementation of the tax system (287-312).

There were two ways in which the late imperial state assessed and taxed its working urban population. I have argued that one aspect, the assigning of obligatory liturgies (munera), both required that people be tied to their work and imposed membership in a corpus or collegium. There are grounds to suggest that a second aspect, the urban trade tax in gold and silver (collatio lustralis), also came to require membership in an association. The result was that, in theory, the entire urban population of craftsmen, artisans, and businessmen in the Empire was expected to be members in one of the many associations that existed in the Mediterranean.

Jean-Michel Carrié posited that in addition to specific liturgical obligations, a more universal munus was assigned to the late empire’s collegia and corpora: the duty to collect the collatio lustralis. He was first to argue that the outcome was the compulsory membership in a professional association for all craftsmen.116 The largest part of Carrié’s argument is derived from

source, but given Aurelian's focus on the fabric of Rome, Dey argues that it is not radical to assume that Aurelian also concerned himself with administrative reform there. The epigraphic record might lend credibility to the HA's account. A corpus who identifies itself as composed of caudicarii-navicularii appears in the epigraphic record for the first time in the early fourth century (CIL VI 1639). Caudicarii are traditionally associated with bringing cargo up the Tiber from Ostia and the corpus naviculariorum that Aurelian is credited with establishing is called the navicularii amnicii— that is, the river navicularii or, perhaps, the caudicarii-navicularii. For Aurelian's intervention in the building industry see Chp. 5, pp. 245-246. 116 Carrié 2002, 316, "De l'autre, c'est l'ensemble des associations professionnelles qui a dû logiquement soumettre à l'affiliation obligatoire les artisans de son domaine, à partir du moment où l'impôt commercial a pris la forme unifiée du chrysargyre et que les métiers urbains ont été, comme les grands domaines, intégrés aux schémas de répartition de la capitatio et institués percepteurs de la part dont chacun d'eux était collectivement redevable." Venticinque (2016, 214-228) questions Carrié's conclusions, denying that the collection of the chyrsargyron (collatio lustralis) would have led to obligatory membership in an association. Venticinque's objections are unconvincing, however. The papyrological evidence he cites that discloses individual craftsmen paying taxes all likely dates after 498 CE when the tax was abolished. Even if the evidence were to predate 498, it is unclear whether the tax-registers he relies on record the payment of land tax or the chyrsargyron, a fact which he himself admits.

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the papyrological evidence of Egypt. Here κεφαλαιωταί were elected by associations to collect the

χρυσάργυρον from their members.117 A constitution issued during the reign of Constantius II sheds light on one aspect of the process elsewhere in the Empire. The edict discloses the existence of matriculae negotiatorum, which preserved the names of all people subject to the munera (munia) and taxes (pensiones) of tradesmen.118 Each city possessed a list of those liable to the tax, which may not have been unlike the census rolls on which iugationes, or individual tax declarations, would be registered.

As was the case in Egypt, two further constitutions imply that it was the duty of elected members of a corpus to collect the collatio lustralis. The earlier of the two, dated to 399 and addressed to the governor of Numidia, promulgates that decurions (municipes) should be released from the burden (onere) of collecting the collatio lustralis (aurum lustrale), as this tax was not levied from them (a curialibus alienae functionis distributione reiecta).119 Instead, association members (called mancipes) were to be elected (eligere) by their own corpus to collect the tax. A constitution issued a few years later to the proconsul of Africa confirms this process.120 Although the first constitution was addressed to a governor of a North African province, the universal application of the arrangement seems clear enough, as the emperors suggest the same process of collection occurred in nearly all other cities (sicut in omnibus fere civitatibus). Like curiae or boulai whose munus it was to collect the land tax levied on cities, corpora and collegia were also now charged with the munus of collecting the collatio lustralis.121

117 Carrié 2002, 316. PSI XII 1265 and P. Mert II 95, for example. 118 CTh 16.2.15. While issued to the praetorian prefect of Italy and Africa, the law likely has ecumenical application since it addresses the rights of clergy decided at that the synod of Ariminum with eastern and western bishops present. 119 CTh 13.1.17. 120 CTh 12.6.29. 121 It could be noted that a much later law (CJ 10.19.9) establishes corpora (συστήματα) of cities and individual tax payers as two separate fiscal entities for the exaction of tax. CTh 11.20.3, although discussing a superindiction, speaks of tax as a munus.

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The collection of the collatio lustralis by corpora themselves seems to have been a universal feature of the tax system by the end of the fourth century. Even so, it has been repeatedly stated that membership in a corpus or collegium was never made obligatory for all professionals.122

Yet this view is espoused without considering the collatio lustralis. Because this was the only tax levied on individual inhabitants in the cities, rather than on property, the freedom not to join a professional association would then amount to the freedom not to pay any tax. I share the opinion of Carrié that such a choice was unlikely and, therefore, also the view that the imposition of the collatio lustralis and the munus to collect it was the main impetus for the creation of "associations professionnelles d'un nouveau type"— that is, associations that were obligatory for all those practicing a profession.123

For Carrié, however, the establishment of new types of professional associations also generated a diverse taxonomy of collegia based on their services, which manifested itself in terminological differences: a person could belong to a collegium or corpus, but the two were not, in legal terms, the same.124 On the one hand, there were the corpora that served the annona. These associations were distinguished from collegia in that they had a permanent arrangement whereby they were obligated to provide service to the state and, in exchange, they received certain exemptions from the state. On the other hand, there were two kinds of collegia: those that were obligated toward their city, completing ministeria and only sometimes receiving fiscal immunities;125 and the others, whether newly established or pre-existing, that only served to collect taxes. Whatever the merits of these distinctions, the taxonomy seems to fall apart when it comes

122 Sirks 1993, 160-161 and 1995, 284; Venticinque 2016, 204-207; Verboven 2016, 186; Oliveira 2018, who writes: "obligatory and imposed membership, however, was never extended to all occupational collegia;" Liu (2009, 280- 281) warns of overgeneralization and argues that the work of the centonarii never become a munus even in the fourth century. However, she does not take into consideration the implications of a universal collatio lustralis. 123 Carrié 2002, 317. 124 Carrié 2002, 324-328. 125 Carrie (2002, 327) cites, for example, CTh 12.19.1, which refers to the ministeria of collegia in Gaul.

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to Rome.126 Inscriptions, for example, apply the term collegium and corpus to the same association,127 and in the oft-cited Digest passage of Gaius regarding the legal definition of a corpus it is stipulated that the collegia of Rome could form corpora.128 In addition, we know that collegia, called such in both the juridical and epigraphic testimonia, were obligated by the state to perform services at Rome and received immunities and pay in turn.129

These conclusions lead to the position which I outlined earlier: the tax system that was implemented by Diocletian and adjusted throughout the course of the fourth century shifted the relationship between the state and the Empire’s inhabitants. In the case of the collatio lustralis and certain liturgies associated with occupations, efficiency required the constitution of a corpus or collegium and any person who practiced an associated trade, craft, or occupation was required to join.130 At Rome, this also seemed to dissolve any legal distinction that may have existed between a collegium and a corpus.

Rome’s Working plebs: the numerical significance of the city’s collegia and corpora

126 CTh 7.21.3, which conflates corpora and collegia in cities in general, presents an obstacle to such a neat division. While it is beyond the scope of this project to pursue this point, it is a topic that deserves more scholarly attention, not least because it pertains to the functioning of cities in Late Antiquity. Carrié (2002, 324) acknowledged the potential uniqueness of the capitals. 127 Cracco Ruggini (1976) catalogues multiple inscriptions that use collegium and corpus indiscriminately for the same association. At Rome, for example, the pistores and the suarii are identified as both a corpus and collegium (pistores: CIL VI 1692 and 1739; suarii: CIL VI 1690 and 1693). 128 Dig. 3.4.1. 129 CTh 12.1.62 calls the association of fabri of Rome a collegium, while we can confidently state that obligatory munera were imposed on these craftsmen, see above (pp.142-143) and Chp. 5 (pp. 244-253). 130 CTh 16.2.39, issued in 408 to Theodorus, the praetorian prefect of Italy, demonstrates that another group was obligated to join an association. Lapsed clergy, or those thought unworthy, were assigned, based on their birth status and their wealth to either their municipal curia or a collegium. One final constitution of a later date might further prove the point. CTh 12.1.179 issued in 415 to Seleucus, the praetorian prefect of Italia and Africa, orders, among other things, that people who were unburdened (vacantes), likely by municipal munera, and not belonging to a corpus by any previous arrangement (nulla veterum dispositione corporis societati coniunctos) be joined to the curiae and collegia of all cities. The only way this legislation could be effective is if the numbers affected across Italy were small. If the foregoing is accepted, I suspect this to be likely. This legislation is the final attempt to impose obligatory membership and, thus, munera on the remaining suitable section of the non-elite free population, and without a doubt it also applied to Rome. The constitution also again emphasizes that the maintenance of the city (or cities) was of prime importance for the emperors and the administrative apparatus and imposing compulsory membership in collegia and corpora was one way to effect such service.

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A Universal Tax? The collatio lustralis at Rome

If the collatio lustralis was universal, Rome cannot have remained unaffected. The city had long enjoyed immunity from taxes, but this was associated with the ius Italicum and Italy’s concomitant freedom from taxation. As was outlined above, this right was abolished by the tetrarchy when they subjected Italy to tax. If we are to believe Lactantius, Rome was also subjected to the census during this time. The result was a riot of the population and the successful usurpation of Maxentius. We hear of no such riot in relation to the collatio lustralis, but there is good reason to believe that Rome’s negotiatores were also subjected to the collatio lustralis and all its attendant implications. The first constitution that mentions the collatio lustralis was issued by Constantius

II and was addressed to Flavius Taurus, then the praetorian prefect for Italy and Africa. He was thus, at that time, responsible for the taxes levied from the diocese of Italy, in which Rome was included.131 Title One of Book 13 in the Theodosian Code, which deals with the collatio lustralis, contains an additional twenty constitutions after the one just mentioned. Of the total number of constitutions, eighteen are addressed to different officials and bodies that range from the praetorian prefect in the East to the proconsul of Africa, the vicar of Italy, the comes sacrarum largitionum in the West, and the Senate.132 Rome is not given special exemption in any of the enactments. If such an exemption did exist, one would expect to find it under this title. CTh 11.20.3, for example, which concerns the requisition of a special tax on rents—a superindictio— and is addressed to the praetorian prefect of Italy, expressly offers an exemption to Rome (excepta scilicet aeternabili

131 Jones 1964, 425-432. 132 CTh 13.1.1-2 addressed to Flavius Taurus; 3 to the Senate; 4-5 to Saturninus Secundus Salutius (praefectus praetorio Orientis); 6 to Florentius (comes sacrarum largitionum in the west); 7 to S. Petronius Probus (PPO Illyrici, Italiae et Africae); 8 to Petronius Claudius (proconsul Africae); 9 to Leontius (consularis Phoenices); 10 to Italicus (Vicarius Italiae); 11 to Decimus Hilarianus Hesperius (PPO Italiae at Galliarum or Italiae et Africae); 13 to Postumiuanus (PPO Orientis); 14 to Principius (PPO Italiae); 15 to Maternus Cynegius (PPO Orientis); 16 to Clearchus (PU Constantinople); 17 to Ianuarius (Consularis Numidiae); 18 to Pompeianus (Proconsularis Africae); 19 to Septiminus (Proconsularis Africae); 20 to Anthemius (PPO Orientis); 21 to Flavius Monaxius (PPO Orientis).

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urbe). There is no good reason therefore to suggest that the collatio lustralis was not also levied from the negotiatores of Rome.

An edict of Constantius II to the Senate may even be said to offer positive proof for the tax’s relevance in the Urbs.133 The constitution grants exemptions to rusticani and coloni who worked the land of Rome’s elite. The implication is that the collatio lustralis was assessed in

Rome, which made the edict promulgating the remission necessary. A later Relatio of Symmachus presents an image of the city’s corpora laden with both fiscal obligations and liturgies. In this

Relatio, Symmachus addresses the emperor Valentinian II as urban prefect, imploring the emperor not to impose the collatio equorum on the corporati of the city. In the process he refers to the corporati as the corporatos negotiatores— thus, the negotiatores that are members of corpora. He refers to the same corpora in the subsequent section, suggesting it was these (horum corporum) upon whom the city relied.134 The use of the demonstrative connects the previous mentioned corporatos negotiatores to corpora who service the city, and Symmachus then lists a series of separate tasks, which were completed by various corpora. In addition to liturgies, he also connects fiscal obligations to Rome’ corpora, suggesting that in the past additional taxes (speratum emolumentum) were requested to manage public finances (tractandae pecuniae publicae). The previous emperor, Valentinian I, wisely rescinded this demand and Symmachus suggests that this action should be repeated by the current emperor, as the additional tax (collatio equorum), which was unaccustomed (insolita), may have caused the other accustomed taxes and liturgies to languish

(consueta cessabunt).

133 CTh 13.1.3. The constitution grants exemptions to rusticani and coloni. While the senators of Rome owned land throughout the Empire, an edict issued in 395 makes it clear that taxes must be paid in the city of Rome for those senators residing in Rome (CTh 6.2.16). As this edict was addressed to the Senate at Rome, the implication is that the tax was assessed in Rome, and the land tied to this origo. 134 Symm. Rel. 14.3.

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The Relatio clearly demonstrates that the city’s associations were expected to both pay taxes and complete liturgies, the reference to them as corporatos negotiatores makes it plausible that their fiscal obligation was the collatio lustralis, levied as it was on all negotiatores. While

Symmachus never explicitly mentions the collatio lustralis, the Historia Augusta offers further evidence for its requisition at Rome when it praises Severus Alexander for abstaining from the distribution of gold, which permitted him to remit the aurum negotiatorium.135 The author, likely a contemporary of Symmachus, erroneously assigned to the third-century a tax only implemented in the fourth century, but by doing so he goes some way to confirm the existence of collatio lustralis at Rome in the late fourth century.

The numerical significance of collegiati and corporati at Rome

The preceding argument has suggested that by the fourth century the state used the fiscal system to tie people to their occupations and that the same system used collegia and corpora to ensure the collection, apportionment, and completion of fiscal obligations and liturgies. At the same time, the state strove to make membership in associations compulsory for all those working in a craft or trade. This was the case at Rome, and the process impacted not just those associated with the annona, but rather all professional associations. The obligation was driven by the state’s need to collect taxes, but it was also closely connected with the functioning of the city. Given this situation, it seems that a considerable portion of the non-elite free population, or at least the adult males within Rome's plebs, would have been associated with one of these collegia or corpora. In second-century CE Italy, for example, it is already thought that one in three free adult males was

135 HA Sev. Alex. 32.5: aurum negotiatorium et coronarium Romae remisit. Chastagnol (1994, 596) writes, in the short commentary in his edition of the Historia Augusta, that the chrysargyron was only created under Constantine, making the passage an anachronism. In a more recent commentary, Bertrand-Dagenbach (2014, 123) also claims the reference to aurum negotiatorium is anachronistic as the collato lustralis was requisitioned entirely in gold only after 372. One need not be this precise: the collatio lustralis was not introduced until 313/4 at the earliest.

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a member of a professional association, while in cities in third-century Egypt it has been suggested that up to 25% of men engaged in some artisanal or commercial activity.136 But just how many people were obligated to join the collegia and corpora at Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries remains in question. The answer is relevant for how we understand certain socio-political and economic relationships in the Urbs. I argue that there is evidence to make some informed conjectures that permit us to claim that professional associations were a numerically and historically significant group in the late-antique Urbs.

There are two opposing positions concerning the demographic significance of collegia and corpora in the late-antique city. On the one hand, Carrié posited that in the late-antique world artisans and merchants, and by extension their associations, were equivalent to the plebs urbana and must include the majority of the urban population.137 Cracco Ruggini espoused a similar view, though one less universal than Carrié’s, as she only discussed major urban centres, Rome among them.138 At the other end of the spectrum, the numerical and historical importance of the collegia and corpora in Rome has been deemed insignificant.139

Nicholas Purcell is the most vigorous proponent of this latter view, but his argument is vitiated by the use of unrepresentative evidence. Purcell suggests that the numbers enrolled in collegia and corpora were not on the scale of the Antonine period, citing two pieces of evidence: an inscription from Samnium, which allegedly lists all the collegiati of a small city, and the Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae.140 Objections can be raised against the utility of both. First, the value

136 See MacMullen 1966, 174 and Verboven 2016, 181-182 on collegiati in Italy and Alston 2002, 334-337 on third- century Egypt. 137 Carrié 2002, 316 and 318. 138 Cracco Ruggini 1971, 143. Cameron (1976, 84-87 and 310-311) also proposed that collegia (termed guilds) were meaningful demographic and socio-political units in Late Antiquity, particularly in Constantinople. 139 Purcell 1999, 146. 140 Purcell 1999, 146 and fn. 75. CIL IX 2998= ILS 6122. Note that Purcell positions this within an argument that also suggests a slow erosion of the number of collegiati over the course of the fourth century.

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of the inscription as an indicator of the number of collegiati in late-antique cities is marginal at best. It was set up by Autonius Iustinianus, the rector provinciae, in the second half of the fourth century, and it records his order to inscribe the names of both decuriones and collegiati of all collegia in Anxanum (modern Lanciano):

[In honorem --- A]ug(usti), Anxiano adstante ordine/ [---]ribus Autonius Iustinianus rector /[provinciae nomin]a tam decurionum quam etiam collegia=/[torum collegiorum o]mnium publici incidi praecepi ut /[i(nfra) s(cripta) s(unt)]

In honour of the house (?) of Augustus, with the municipal (?) ordo of Anxianum offering assistance, I, Autonius Iustinianus, governor of the province, ordered that names of the decurions as well as the names of the collegiati of all the collegia of the public be inscribed as they are written below.

The rest of the inscription is fragmentary. There is no way to discern if the few people listed on the stone are, in fact, decuriones or collegiati.141 The inscription is part of a series of dedications by various cities in Samnium to Autonius in gratitude for his efforts in their restoration after an earthquake.142 In this light, the inscription seems to be part of a similar effort, perhaps of marshaling labour and funds to restore the fabric of the city, but also maybe to register the number of individuals subject to liturgies and tax still remaining in the city after the disaster.143

The second number Purcell cites as proof of the numerical insignificance of Rome's collegia relates to the 560 collegiati in Constantinople mentioned in the Notitia urbis

Constantinopolitanae. Although Purcell does not explicitly state this point, it can be inferred from his application of this number as evidence that he assumes that it represents the total number of collegiati in the eastern capital. This is incorrect. The Notitia itself states that these men, each assigned to a specific regio, were appointed from diverse corpora to bring assistance in the case

141 Additionally, of the mere eleven names still remaining, four include the prepositional phrase cum filiis. How many sons did each have and how many more also added their sons to the list? The inscription is too fragmentary to answer these questions and, thus, is of little value for the numerical significance of collegiati. 142 CIL IX 2638 = ILS 5588; CIL X 4858; Bounocore 1992, 484-486. See Cappelletti 1999, 29-41 for discussion. 143 In this case, the inscription might constitute a fragment of city’s album, which included a matriculum negotiatorum.

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of fire.144 This qualification makes it evident that the 560 were only a subset of the entire number of corporati in the city.

The opposite view, which argues for the numerical significance of collegia and corpora in

Late Antiquity, finds support in an inscription from a small town in the late-antique province of

Campania that mentions the collatio lustralis.145 In 408, the universus populus Interamnatium dedicated a statue to their patron M. Sentius Redemptus because, among other things, he freed them from the payment of the collatio lustralis (indictio auri argentique). The inscription seems to equate the craftsmen and associations upon whom the tax was levied with the whole urban population of Interamna, implying that the burden of the tax affected them all collectively. A letter of Augustine implies that a similar situation obtained in the cities of North Africa. Writing on behalf of two bishops seeking to remedy the issue of a dwindling number of recruits for the clergy,

Augustine equates the plebs urbana in North Africa with the collegiati:

Nos autem in tantas coartamus angustias, ut non inueniatur, unde fiat ordinatio clericorum, maxime in ciuitatibus, ubi aut ordinis uiri sunt aut plebeii, quos a collegiatis non apud nos posse discerni nouit sanctitas uestra, cum posset ita omnibus necessitatibus consuli, ut numerus constitueretur quotam partem hominum de quanta uniuersitate ordinari liceret.

We are constrained in such a difficult situation so that it cannot be ascertained from whence an ordination of clerics might happen, especially in cities where either the men are members of the ordo or plebs, the latter your holiness knows are not able to be distinguished from the collegiati among us, although it may be possible that all our needs are cared for thus so that a number is established from a small part of men in the whole population that it is permitted to ordain.146

Augustine presents a city composed of three groups: the decurions, the clerics, and the plebs. To

Augustine, the latter group appears to have been composed of craftsmen and merchants.147 Perhaps

144 The total cited at the end of the Notitia is 560 collegiati, but the entry in regio one makes it clear that these 560 were only a subsection of coporati in the city: Notitia Urb. Cons. III, 21: collegiatos viginiti quinque, qui e diversis corporibus ordinati incendiorum solent casibus subvenire; Matthews 2012, 87 and 113. 145 CIL X 5349. 146 Augustin, Ep. 22. 2 (BA 46B, p. 348). Translation adapted from Lancel. 147 Oliveira 2012, 35.

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this is not surprising since, as I argued in Chapter One, the vision of Augustine’s city includes a plebs whose life is defined by their "plebeian labour."148 However, what he discloses here is that those men that constituted his plebs were all members in the cities’ collegia. To be sure, this view elides the somewhat more indistinct portion of the population that was comprised of daily labourers and any unemployed poor, but it nevertheless presents a city with a plebs that is synonymous with the collegiati. The situation in Augustine’s North Africa might be said to be similar, if not perfectly analogous, to that of the small Campanian city of Interamna. It would seem to follow that comparable legal and political structures likely prevailed elsewhere, including at

Rome.149

Two constitutions regarding obligatory membership for certain groups within Rome’s population can be marshalled in support of a high number of collegiati in the Urbs. This evidence demonstrates that some members from two marginal, though likely large, groups of Rome's population were obligated to join professional associations— namely, peregrini and freedmen.150

In 364 Valentinian I and Valens promulgated an edict granting advantages to members of the equestrian ordo that also discloses information about Rome’s foreign inhabitants:151

Equites Romani, quos secundi gradus in urbe omnium optinere volumus dignitatem, ex indigenis Romanis et civibus eligantur, vel his peregrinis, quos corporatis non oportet adnecti. Et quia vacuos huiusmodi viros esse privilegiis non oportet, corporalium eos iniuriarum et prosecutionum formido non vexet, ab indictionibus quoque, quae senatorium ordinem manent, habebuntur immunes.

148 Chp. 1, pp. 44-49. 149 CTh 13.1.9 might also disclose the legal assimilation of the plebs urbana and the collegiati outside of the western half of the empire. Issued to the consularis of Phoenicia in 372, this edict enforced the conchylioleguli (the purple- dye dealers) to pay the collatio lustralis (pensitatio auri). The reasoning offered was that the benefit to one group, in the form of a remission, would harm the whole plebs (Beneficium enim quibusdam datum plebis iniuria est). Carrié (2002, 318) suggest that the text implies the equivalence of the plebs urbana with the urban artisans and merchants. 150 See Chp. 2 for questions about immigration into Rome (pp. 91-96) and its population of freedmen (pp. 89-91) in late antiquity. 151 CTh. 6.37.1. (trans. Pharr; adapted by author).

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Equites Romani, whom we wish to possess the honour of second rank of all in the City, should be elected from locally-born Romans and citizens, or from those foreign residents, who are not obligated to be bound to the corporati. And because it is not appropriate for men of this kind to be without privileges, the fear of corporal punishment and of official attendance shall not trouble them, and they will also be considered immune from the tax, which is imposed on the senatorial order.

Of interest is the second relative clause, which states that the status of eques Romanus might be granted to certain peregrini. The use of the demonstrative (his) in the preceding clause serves to circumscribe the group of peregrini suitable for this status: only "those" who were not obligated to membership among the city's corporati were acceptable candidates. The logical implication is that the obligation to join a corpus must have been imposed on some peregrini or else those promulgating the edict would not have been required to include this additional stipulation.

Two further constitutions support this reading. The first was issued in 370 to the urban prefect of Rome and orders that those entering the city of Rome in the pursuit of learning must register with the magister census.152 The constitution further regulates that every month the officium censualium must register the place of origin of foreigners that come to Rome and must investigate whether they must be sent back to their province because the permitted period to reside in Rome had expired. In the context of the late-antique tax machinery, it seems likely that this was because the person residing in Rome over a medium term was, as a member of a different origo, obligated to meet another administrative unit’s fiscal assessments and liturgies.153 The implications then relate to tax assessments at Rome and in the provinces. It is interesting, therefore, that a single exclusion is granted in the edict of 370: only those who are attached to a corpus are exempt from being removed from Rome (his dumtaxat exceptis, qui corporatorum sunt oneribus adiuncti). This must be because, as a member of a corpus, the individual was subject to the collatio lustralis of

152 CTh 14.9.1. 153 CJ 10.40.3-7 confirm this reading.

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Rome and other liturgies assigned to the association. Both constitutions are consistent in establishing that the one valid reason for a peregrinus to remain in Rome was membership in a corpus (or collegium).

A third and final edict, included under the title concerned with the privileges of corporati in Rome, would seem to confirm this point.154 Valentinian II, Theodosius, and Arcadius addressed the urban prefect, Alypius, ordering that the incolae of the city should endure no new burdens.

This is a particularly confounding constitution, mostly because of the term incolae. In his translation of the text, Pharr took incolae to mean "inhabitants."155 This is one possible meaning, but more precisely the term actually means those who possess a domicile outside of their origo.

The term appears six other times in the Theodosian Code and in at least four of these occurrences incola is used to denote someone living in a city different from their origo.156 The term in all probability means the same here and may be synonymous with peregrinus in so far as in Late

Antiquity a peregrinus who was granted leave to remain in a city became an incola.157 The purpose of this constitution therefore was to reaffirm that peregrini who reside in the city of Rome would not be laden with any new burdens except for those already assigned to the corpora, membership in which both earlier constitutions made a requirement for peregrini without a certain dignitas seeking to permanently remain in Rome.158

154 CTh 14.2.2; A synthesis of CTh 14.2.2-4 is included under the same heading in the Codex Justinianus as 11.15.1. 155 Pharr 1952, 406. 156 CTh 9.21.2; 10.10.25; 12.1.52; 12.1.137 all make this distinction. CTh 9.17.6 implies that the sarcophagus of the dead will be the domicilium of the incolae, while 15.1.34 separates ordines and incolae but without further distinction. On incolae, see Jones 1964, 712. 157 On the peregrini in Late Antiquity, see Mathisen 2012. 158 After all, CTh 14.2.1 already confirms the privileges conferred on all corpora and CTh 14.2.3 does the same. While the former was issued in 364, nearly thirty years before 14.2.2, the latter (14.2.3) was issued in 397, a mere six years after 14.2.2, and as such would seem redundant if it addressed simply all corporati as 14.2.2. The assured privileges are outlined CTh 13.4.2 issued in 337 that already exempted craftsmen (artifices) from additional munera.

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The preceding argument demonstrates that for some peregrini membership in a corpus was almost always obligatory in Rome. It also ties this necessity to the collatio lustralis and supports the notion that this tax forced those practicing a trade to join a collegium or corpus, even within the walls of Rome. The numerical implications of this argument are less secure. It has been argued that throughout the fourth century Rome was still the host of a large number of immigrants, perhaps as many as 70,000 at any one time.159 A portion of these people, admittedly an unknown number, came to Rome for employment.160 It was these people who would have been obligated to join

Rome’s associations, and it may also have been these people who received access to the frumentationes as part of the wider plebs frumentaria.161

Two further constitutions attest the obligatory membership in professional associations for another sector of the population: freedmen. CTh 14.3.9 and 10 deal with membership in the previously unattested corpus catabolensium. The compilers of the codex included these constitutions under the heading concerning pistores, although only secondary mention is made of the pistores. CTh 14.3.9 sets out the requirements for being obliged to the service of the catabolenses:162

Ex libertinis catabolensium corpori statuimus sociari eum, cuius tota substantia triginta librarum argenti aestimatione colligitur. Idque pondus sive ipsum per se habet non seu in aliis quibuscumque speciebus vel in aedificiis adque agris dictae adscriptionis merita non transit, iubemus ab inquietudine istius molestiae segregari.

159 See Chp. 2, pp. 95-96. 160 Noy 1999. See also discussion in Chp. 5 (pp. 276-280) on the possibility of skilled builders immigrating to Rome. 161 Chp. 2, pp. 100-102. It was, after all, the incolae, who had completed some liturgy associated with a collegium or corpus at Rome, who were likely equivalent to the ῥεμβοί λελειτουργηκότες at Oxyrhynchos. 162 This reading is problematic. Manuscripts V & W include a non after habet. Mommsen and Koptev both remove it, assuming it an error, but its removal makes the constitution contradictory. Pharr's (1952) translation reads slightly differently, since he adds a non before sociari to account for the removal of the non after habet: "We decree that a freedman shall not be attached to the guild of packanimal drivers if his entire substance by appraisal is valued at thirty pounds of silver. If the freedman has this weight of silver itself or its value in other commodities or in buildings or farms and he does not exceed the amount of the aforesaid assessment, we command that he shall be freed from the annoyance of the burden." Even on this reading the last clause become contradictory, as such the non after habet is preferred.

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From the freedmen, we decree that he be attached to the corpus catabolensium, whose whole property is reckoned by appraisal at thirty pounds of silver. If he does not have this weight either in and of itself or in whatever other kind of manner or in buildings and does not cross the value of the aforementioned limit in land, we order that he be freed from the annoyance of this burden.

Thus, any freedman who possesses a value in wealth or assets of 30 pounds of silver was obligated to join the corpus.

A second constitution, CTh 14.3.10, supports this reading and the obligatory membership of wealthy freedmen in this corpus:

Libertini, qui a dominis cuiuscumque honoris aut meriti aliquid testamento vel donatione meruerunt, si aliqua pistrinis obnoxia consecuti sunt, pistorum corpori copulentur. Si vero libera ab hoc nexu isdem sunt corporibus derelicta, catabolensium necessitatibus obsequantur. Quin etiam si qui ex his aliis se corporibus crediderint inserendos, ab his incunctanter abstracti ei, cui hac lege sociati sunt, muneri deputentur. Si autem a clarissimis viris aliquos acceperint fundos, sic praedicto corpori pareant, ut glebae, ex qua lucrata ea sunt corpora, nullum praeiudicium comparetur.

Freedmen, who obtained anything by will or gift from their masters, of whatever rank or importance he might have, should be bound to the corpus pistorum, if anything they acquired is legally tied to the pistrina. If, however, what is bequeathed is free from this bond to these aforementioned corpora, the freedmen should be obligated to the duties of the catabolenses. Furthermore, if there are any freedmen who believe that he may be enrolled in other corpora, from these without delay they should be removed and assigned to the munus, to which they have been joined by this law. If, however, they should receive some land from a senator, this should be granted to the aforementioned corpus so that no damage might occur from the glebal tax, from which these corpora gain.

This edict stipulates that all freedmen must be assigned alone to the catabolenses, presumably only if they met the wealth requirement prescribed in the previous edict. Yet there existed an additional exception: freedmen who inherit property bound to the corpus pistorum must perform the duty of this corpus. No doubt it was this clause that prompted the compilers to include the constitutions dealing with the catabolenses along with those outlining the munus pistorum. This has led reputable scholars to assume that the corpus catabolensium was composed only of freedmen of

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pistores.163 But this view ignores the rest of the constitution and other legislation concerning the munus pistorum. The edict clearly states that, should a freedman be left property free from the duty of the pistores, then he should be bound to the necessary duties of the catabolenses. The final sentence of the constitution also exempts the corpus catabolensium from the glebal tax should a freedman inherit senatorial land.164 Both points should give pause to the identification of the catabolenses as the freedmen of the pistores, since senators were prohibited from possessing land bound to the munus pistorum.165

A better interpretation is that, like certain peregrini, for whom long term residence in the city was tied to the practice of a profession, which in turn required membership in a corpus or collegium, the constitutions stipulate that all freedmen, with a certain amount of wealth, were obligated to join the corpus catabolensium.166 As with peregrini before them, there is some difficulty in extrapolating any numerical information with any degree of certainty. In Chapter Two, following now well-established views, I argued that Rome would still be a city with a considerable number of slaves and that high incidence of manumission likely resulted in a proportionately large number of freedmen in the city, perhaps as many as 100,000.167 Certainly not all these freedmen would be forced to join the catabolenses. As the constitution of 370 clearly dictates, membership in the corpus catabolensium required assets in land, buildings, cash, or other commodities to the amount of 30 pounds of silver. This was equivalent to about 150 solidi.168 A worth of 150 solidi would place the wealth of our eligible catabolenses on a par with a relatively large group of small

163 Sirks 1999, 303; Purcell 1999. 164 This was a tax levied annually on senators, likely instituted by Constantine. The tax was assessed on land and not on persons and was apparently tariffed at three rates. A law of 398 implied that land acquired by people infra senatorem that was burdened by the tax, were still required to pay it (CTh 6.2.21). See Jones 1964, 431 and 1175 fn. 51 for discussion and sources. 165 CTh. 14.3.4. 166 Cracco Ruggini (1971) states the same without considering the implications. 167 See Chp. 2, pp. 90-91. 168 CTh 13.2.1 (397) set the value of one pound of silver at five solidi, a few years later the value of silver was dropped to four solidi per pound (CTh 8.4.27). Since our constitution is dated to 370, I take the higher value.

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estate landowners elsewhere in the late Roman world.169 We need not therefore imagine the wealth qualification as an impossible barrier. If a freedman was bequeathed or owned any land, it might push him over the minimum wealth qualification and require membership in the corpus. The membership lists of the corpus catabolensium may very well have been substantial.

The evidence presented thus far suggests that a portion of two groups within Rome's population, which may have been demographically significant, were legally bound to membership in professional associations. However, the evidence, although very suggestive of the numerical significance of Rome's associations, is at best impressionistic. While we lack the fuller collegial alba of the earlier Empire, some disparate numbers have still survived for late-antique associations at Rome. An early fifth-century inscription, possibly a collegial album, preserves the names of 115 individuals, all members of the corpus tabernariorum.170 The number of members was likely higher, since the inscription is fragmentary and includes among the members multiple unnamed and uncounted heredes of past corporati.171 I estimate the minimum membership in this association at 130 and conjecture a membership of a significantly higher maximum.172

An edict of 369 orders the selection of sixty navicularii and linteones judged financially solvent for the task of furnishing wood for the baths at Rome. The selection of a combined sixty

169 All claims here are made in comparison to landed wealth. We assume a cost of between 5-10 solidi per iugerum of land. Harper (2015a) posits a range of 5-10 solidi per iugerum in late antiquity; Duncan-Jones (1990) instead 5 solidi per iugerum. The highest attested per solidum price in late antiquity is 7.9 solidi per iugerum (Harper 2015a, 16), so it is reasonable to employ a range of 5-10 solidi per iugerum. This would return a range of 15-30 iugera of land for a catabolensis who met the wealth qualification. In the mid fourth century census returns from the Hermopolite nome in Egypt, 18 percent of all 742 landholders possessed between 20-49 arourai (= c.22-53 iugera; 1 iugerum = 0.2518 ha and 1 aroura = 0.2767 ha, therefore 1.09 iugera = 1 aroura), and 20 percent owned between 11-20 iugera. Harper (2015a) has shown that similar levels of middling landed wealth obtain elsewhere. In the Greek census inscriptions, for example, 45 of 77 registered landholdings were below 50 iugera. 170 CIL VI 9920= 33817. 171 This includes: hh(eredes) Leonis, hh(eredes)Sabiniani, hh(eredes) Pipini, hh(eredes) Heliodori, hh(eredes) Constantini, and hh(eredes) Romani. We must assume by the plural that we are dealing with at least two people in each case. 172 CIL VI 9103, another fragmentary inscription, may constitute a second related album. The inscription is a fragment that includes the name of eight individuals, some listed as tabernarii, arranged seemingly by vici. The arrangement is similar to the lists found on CIL VI 41328-330, yet the names of two of the tabernarii on the fragment correspond to names found on the album discussed above.

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suitable members from each of the two professions (vocatio) implies a much larger membership, since the same law explicitly requires that suitable members replace any of the sixty who had lapsed from providing their obligatory duties. Speculating about the exact number is not possible, but it is enough to suggest that these corpora were fairly large.173 Less direct testimony can be culled from Rome’s mid-fourth century regionary catalogues, the Curiosum and Notitia. These documents suggest that Rome possessed 254 pistrina, in each of which at least one pistor must have worked and for whom membership in the corpus pistorum surely was necessary.174 From these few figures a mean of just above 160 members can be conjectured for associations in the

Urbs.175 Of course, some associations would have had far fewer members and some, likely, far more, but we must proceed by way of plausible conjecture where evidence is lacking.

An account in the Historia Augusta of an imperial adventus to Rome in the mid-third century adds an additional insight. It suggests there may have been as many as a 100 separate collegia in Rome at that time.176 In the fourth century we know that multiple associations were integrated into single associations,177 but we also know that previously unattested associations appear.178 It is perhaps not a coincidence that the late-antique record of Rome returns 136 discrete job titles.179 If all professions were obligated to form collegia or corpora, it may be reasonably

173 CTh 13.5.13. 174 See the Curiosum and Notitia (Nordh 1949). Jones (1964, 699) claims the number is actually 274, and 254 reflects incorrect addition. 175 The Curiosum and Notitia also cite 290 horrea. The Codex Theodosianus suggests these too were under the care of pistores (14.3.16) or mensores (14.4.9). The latter talks of a single patronus, but a later constitution (14.23.1) speaks of the patroni horreorum. Can we expect a mensor or pistor to be in charge of each of the 290 horrea? If so, this would slightly raise our mean of corporati to almost 190. Not very consequential since the margin of error in the types of conjectures made here are much more significant. There are 65 attestations of people who worked in breadmaking found in the catacombs. 176 SHA Gallieni 8.7, see Chp. 4, p. 169. 177 Builders (Fabiano 2019; AE 1941, 68), pecuarii and suarii (CTh 14.4.10); coriarii and magnarii (CIL VI 1117). 178 The new, previously unattested associations, alluded to include the corpus catabolensium, the corpus omnium mancipum, corpus tabernariorum, and the collegium forensium. 179 See Appendix 2 for the list of job titles and Appendix 3 for collegial inscriptions. Waltzing (1895-1900 IV, 68) catalogues 164 collegia in Rome.

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assumed that at least the 100 professional associations attested in the Historia Augusta were still operating in the fourth century, more so if we concede that the HA might better reflect a fourth- century reality. Thus, by conservative estimates, we can conjecture that tens of thousands of

Rome's fourth-century inhabitants—perhaps a minimum of 60,000— were members of its professional associations or attached to these members as part of their familia.180 Although admittedly speculative, such an order of magnitude is plausible and may also represent a highly conservative estimate. What should be clear is that, contrary to some scholarly opinion, collegia and corpora were, in addition to essential fiscal units, important socio-political units, which seemed to have served to organize a demographically important section of late-antique Rome’s population.

Conclusion

While the conclusions reached here about the numbers of Rome’s corpora and collegia are necessarily speculative, they are not inconsistent with the narrative that I have argued that the evidence discloses for late-antique Rome. Rome was a city with a population that identified with its occupation. The numerous occupational affiliations carved into the tuff walls of catacombs or inscribed on the marble slabs covering funerary loculi reveal a situation very much consistent with the preceding centuries. A considerable body of the population, perhaps intersecting with the plebs frumentaria, but certainly with the plebs media, if the case of Trebius Iustus is at all indicative, continued to commemorate their occupation as integral to their social position.

180 For the size of Rome's population, see Chp. 2, where we also assume a family unit of 4 based on numbers from Bagnall and Harper. As such 64,000 people may have been affiliated with collegia, on a low estimate. 100 x 160 = 16,000 x 4= 64,000. 64,000/800,000 x 100 = 8%. It may also not be a coincidence that these percentages are not far from the Harper's (2011, 49-59) total percentage of the "bourgeoisie" (3%) relative to the total population in the late Roman world. Harper associates this group with the urban professionals and labels them a "middling population." More importantly, he suggests that in urban contexts, as much as much as 20% of the population was "middling." Our model of the population of Rome returned a higher percentage of the wider middling plebs frumentaria. But our corpora and collegia, with perhaps 8% of the population are not far from the estimate of Harper's model bourgeoisie.

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Just as people identified with their occupation, late-imperial fiscal and legal parlance began to identify these people by their occupation. Liturgies that were off-loaded on professional associations were apportioned to individual members, who were responsible for discharging the obligations.181 And taxes that were traditionally only tied to land became tied also to individuals, with the result that people became bound to their occupations and membership in particular professional associations was, in a sense, legally prescribed. This appears to have occurred with all collegia and corpora concerned with the provisioning and maintenance of the city. If this were not enough, under Constantine, a tax was levied on all urban craftsmen, artisans, and merchants, the so-called collatio lustralis. Over the course of the fourth century, the burden to collect the tax fell on the corpora and collegia, with the result that membership in associations became obligatory for all urban inhabitants who sold their goods, themselves, or their skill to earn a living. Not only was this a feature of smaller urban centres, but this situation also prevailed in Rome. In the

Empire’s largest city, membership in a corpus or collegium was imposed on a significant section of the urban population.

It was this very proliferation of state regulations concerning occupations that late-imperial fiscality introduced that has led to narratives of the late imperial coercive state and an increasingly oppressed non-elite population, who as if indentured labourers worked to enrich the state and its elite to their own detriment. The current chapter has traced the fiscal machinery that has given rise to this narrative and has demonstrated that a number of people were indeed bound to their work and to associations. In the subsequent chapter, I will re-evaluate the socio-political and economic implications of this new arrangement. It will be argued that the very same system instead provided

181 Like with tax on craftsmen, Egypt also provides examples of liturgies assigned to craftsmen throughout the early Empire, but these, as far as I have found, are assigned directly to individuals and not related to their craft per se. It is not until the early fourth century that we see an association, in this case weavers, upon whom a tax/liturgy is imposed (P. Ryl IV 645). For discussion and the evidence of liturgies assigned to craftsmen in Roman Egypt see van Minnen 1987 and Venticinque 2016, 133-154.

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the requisite circumstances for the economic and political success of those for whom work and labour were now so concretely tied to their person.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Membra Aeternae Urbis: The Advantages of Being a collegiatus in Late-Antique Rome

It has long been argued that the late-antique state became a coercive and authoritarian body.1 This view has more recently been subjected to scrutiny, and while it remains true that the state in the late Roman world was somewhat more imposing, it never approached anything like a modern totalitarian regime.2 The model of a coercive state, however, has persisted in discussions about work and labour, and in particular when considering the relationship between the state and professional associations. Waltzing was the first to suggest that members of late Roman collegia and corpora, who had previously been free, essentially became slaves, bound to their professions and obligations.3 Subsequent scholarship for a long time only reiterated this view, with the status of collegia and corpora in the late Empire characterized as "un vasto sistema vincolistico" and as transitioning from free associations to Zwangsverbände.4 This position is mainly constructed on the basis of the juridical evidence and has recently undergone revision, although a tendency to accept the old model still persists.5

1 This notion is famously advanced by Mikhail Rostovtzeff in his monumental work, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, see in particular pp. 477-480. Various other authors have defined Late Antiquity in similar terms. Petit (1974, vol. III, 167-175), for example, describes the 4th century state as "totalitarisme" and the term Zwangsstaat or "coercive-state" was widely used to describe the Roman government in the 4th century, e.g. Riliinger 1985 and Heuß 1986. 2For an early rejection of this view, but also a survey of the literature see Demandt 1989. For an overview of the imperial system in the late Roman Empire see C. Kelly 2004. 3 Waltzing Vol. II, 272 "comme celle de l'esclave...";481, "Les membres des corporations ne sont pas des citoyens libres...ce sont des serviteurs de l'État..." 4 De Robertis 1971 Vol II, 135. The term Zwangsverbände is Kornemann's (1904, 442). Waltzing Vol. II 268-271; Cracco Ruggini 1976, 83-84, although (1971, 155) she does call attention to the stratification and, therefore, different treatment of collegia; MacMullen 1976, 160; Rickman 1980, 90-92; and in a modified form, De Martino 1979. All accept the process occurred and date it to Diocletian or later. Sirks (1991, 130ff and 1995, 283) accepts the model for corpora servicing the annona, and Diosono (2015) agrees. 5 For the revisionist position, see in particular Carrié 2002, and to a lesser extant Liu 2009, 279-294. Diosono (2015) perpetuates the bleak and anachronistic model with statements such as "no collegium could escape the obligations imposed by the state" and that "the collegia were fixed in their public role." Most recently, Sessa (2018, 60) seems to advance a view similar to Diosono.

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The preceding chapter sought to demonstrate how late-imperial fiscality shaped the relationship between cities, individuals, and the imperial administration. It was argued that fiscal obligations and liturgies were apportioned to individuals, who in turn discharged their obligations to the state. Individuals thus came to be defined by their work and were fixed to a profession, while membership in a collegium or corpus became obligatory for anyone exercising a profession. The evidence that was advanced to support these claims is often used to support the model of an oppressive state. In this chapter, I will lay out the argument against the view that insists upon the oppressive conditions of late-antique associative work and labour, which created an increasingly beleaguered middle class. Instead, I will demonstrate that membership in Rome's professional associations actually afforded collegiati greater opportunity, both social and economic.

The same fiscal structures, which have been taken as evidence to support the negative view, actually inserted Rome's professional associations into the mechanisms for the city’s maintenance, provisioning, and administration, making the relationship between the city and its collegia one of increasing dependence. I argue that collegiati and corporati exploited this new relationship and that all of Rome's collegia and corpora, which were both composed of Rome's plebs and constituted, in part, the middling stratum, show high levels of vitality in the course of the fourth century. This vitality is also witnessed in the economic sphere, and I argue that late-antique Rome’s professional associations sought to protect the economic interests of their members. This latter view is contrary to an influential model, which rejects the notion of collegia as economic actors, and views them as only convivial and social bodies.6 Only in the past decades has this rejection of the economic role of collegia been challenged and it has not yet been extended to Late Antiquity.

6 This view was first inferred by Waltzing (1895-1900, vol. I, 322), but subsequently echoed by many others: Jones 1974, 44; MacMullen 1974, 75; Ausbüttel 1982, 99; Garnsey and Saller 1987, 156-158, for example. Finley (1985, 138) remains the most explicit denunciation of the economic role of collegia.

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Neither the traditional model nor the view which avers that the increased state control of professional associations led to the weakening of the corporate system in the later western Empire appreciate the dynamics of the relationship between public administration and the members of professional associations, especially in the city of Rome.7 Rome underwent significant change in the course of the fourth century, and I argue these changes had important implications for the role and status of the city’s collegiati and corporati. In turn, because of the numerical and fiscal significance of these groups, which the previous chapter outlined, professional associations are a lens through which the social organization of Rome's late-antique population can be viewed.

Membra aeternae Urbis: the public identity and status of collegia and corpora in late- antique Rome

We can say with some degree of certainty that in Rome by the fourth century occupation had come to be the main reason for the formation of and individual membership in collegia and corpora.8 In fact, membership in a collegium or corpus was by and large obligatory, not just for those who worked for the annona, but rather for all those who were professionally active (not, of course, for day-labourers). This was related to tax collection, but the development also seems closely connected with the service of the city's inhabitants and the maintenance of the city's fabric.

The outcome was, I argued, that a significant portion of the non-elite free population, particularly the city’s middle class, was associated with one of the city's collegia or corpora. If collegiati and corporati were a numerically significant section of the population, then their socio-political position in the city may have been equally important. Carrié argued that in the municipalities and

7 Epstein (1998, 686) claims it is integral to consider the privileges, restrictions, and the economic capacity of professional associations in relation to their socio-political environment. He applies this to craft guilds in pre-industrial Europe in regard to their capacity to regulate trade and control economic interests to great effect. The same holds true for Roman professional associations, according to van Nijf 1997, 16-17, who believes that Medieval guilds and ancient collegia were fundamentally similar in terms of economic concerns. 8 See Chp. 3, pp. 135-147.

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provincial cities of the late-antique world, professional associations constituted a second ordo.9

Already from the early second century onward, cities relied on professional associations to function. Collegia, it is argued, interacted closely with the administrative order—particularly local curiae—but ultimately constituted a formal structure for members to attain social capital and honour outside of the traditional political structures of the cities.10 The prevailing view thus denies that members of professional associations were ever formally integrated in any direct or official capacity into city administration.11

In what follows I first argue that, in Rome, changes in the socio-political landscape from the late third century through the fourth century affected the relationship between the city's political leadership and its collegia and corpora. The evidence suggests that collegia and corpora obtained a public indentity and continued to interact closely with the urban administrative bodies, becoming recognized as one among many other government and civic institutions. The result is that as the city's potentates—that is, its senatorial elite—became increasingly charged with the care of the city over the course of the fourth century, the city's most illustrious citizens and its economically vital middle class ended up in closer interaction through the institutional structure of the professional associations.12 Collegiati and corporati came therefore to be integrated to a greater degree into the city's administration and also experienced more opportunity for upward social mobility.

9 Carrié 2002, 320. 10 E.g. Patterson 1992; Verboven 2007 and 2016. 11 Verboven 2016, 174 and Carrié 2002, 319-321. 12 Both Purcell (1999) and Liu (2009, 291-293) have recognized this. The former suggests this is a reflection of a declining population, but, as we have seen, this is mistaken. The latter, admittedly and to no fault, does not explore the matter fully.

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Public display and imperial recognition: collegia and the adventus

The public function of professional associations and, in turn, their recognized social position in cities, Rome in particular, is something clearly attested in extant sources and it occurs with increasing regularity in Late Antiquity. This is particularly the case in imperial displays, such as the ceremonial adventus. In late-antique cities, especially in the West, there were few more important imperial ceremonies than the adventus. For Rome, these became more irregular throughout the course of the fourth century when emperors tended to visit the Urbs less frequently, if at all. Given their importance, and eventual rarity, the adventus of an emperor was an important locus of political negotiation. It represented an opportunity for interaction between urban and imperial officials.13 Social units in the city would take part in the processions, as representatives of its socio-political order. Already in the third century we have evidence for the recognition of collegia and corpora as members of the civic community through their participation in such imperial ceremonies. In 262, Gallienus returned from the East and celebrated his decennalia. The

Historia Augusta records his adventus:

After the complete slaughter of the soldiers at Byzantium, Gallienus went with a rapid march hastily to Rome and, after summoning the senate, he celebrated his decennalia with an unheard sort of games, processions, and pleasures...He, dressed in toga picta and tunic embroidered with palms, in the midst of senators, as I said, with all the priests dressed in the togae praetextae, sought the Capitolium. On either side of him five hundred gold-gilded spears followed, and besides these one hundred banners, which belonged to the collegia, the standards of the cohorts, the images of the temples and the standards of all the legions.14

13 See MacCormack 1981, 17-89 on imperial adventus. Also, van Nijf 1997, 201-204 and Humphries 2007, 29-34. 14 HA Gallieni, 7.4-8.7, Interfectis sane militibus apud Byzantium Gallienus, quasi magnum aliquid gessisset, Romam cursu rapido convolavit convocatisque patribus decennia celebravit novo genere ludorum, nova specie pomparum, exquisito genere voluptatum...Ipse medius cum picta toga et tunica palmata inter patres, ut diximus, omnibus sacerdotibus praetextatis Capitolium petit. Hastae auratae altrinsecus quingenae, vexilla centena praeter ea, quae collegiorum erant, dracones et signa templorum omniumque legionum ibant. Ibant praeterea gentes simulatae, ut Gothi, Sarmatae, Franci, Persae, ita ut non minus quam duceni globis singulis ducerentur.

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Here the vexilla, the banners of the collegia, and thus the collegia themselves found a place among the various groups who joined the procession as representatives of the city of Rome. About ten years later, in 273, Aurelian also entered Rome in triumph. Again, the HA gives an account of the procession,15 and again we are informed that the city's collegia took part:16

Iam populus ipse Romanus, iam vexilla collegiorum atque castrorum et cataphractarii milites et opes regiae et omnis exercitus et senatus (etsi aliquantulo tristior, quod senatores triumphari videbant) multum pompae addiderant.

Then the Roman people itself, then the banners of the collegia and the castra, the mailed-soldiers, the royal treasure, the whole army and the senate, although somewhat more sadly since they saw senators led in triumph, added to the splendour.

Both testimonies plainly suggest that collegia were recognized as visible social units, which apparently actively cultivated their public identity in public ceremonies already in the third century.17 The exclusivity of this right is reflected in the circumscribed number of social groups that participated in the adventus. In both accounts it is only the senatorial elite, urban cohorts, imperial soldiery, and collegia that took part. It is a conspicuous aspect of each that collegia find a position among a contingent of the military, which was the single largest state institution in the

Roman empire. This relationship places collegia squarely within the purview of the state and strongly implies state recognition of these associations. Both accounts also speak of multiple banners (as many as one hundred in Gallienus' procession), such that each separate collegium advertised its own collective identity and likely were officially recognized as akin to other important government institutions.

15 HA Aur. 33-35. 16 HA Aur. 34.4. 17 Waltzing (Vol. I, 237-240) long ago addressed the role of the collegia in public processions. Their participation in imperial ceremony, however, as opposed to religious, was something that only seemed to develop from the later third century on. Van Nijf (1997, 203) suggests that professional associations took part in the funeral procession of Pertinax. This position is based on a questionable translation of Cassius Dio's account.

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For the fourth century we have two literary accounts of imperial adventūs to Rome, but neither unfortunately makes mention of collegia, corpora, or their vexilla. This is not an obstacle to accepting that professional associations still took part in these ceremonies. The Historia Augusta is, in fact, a product of the later fourth century.18 Without pressing the point too far, it is fair to suggest that a fourth-century writer, especially one perhaps inventing or distorting some facts, would not include fine details that seemed alien to fourth century sensibilities. Besides this, in a panegyric composed for Constantine's adventus to Autun in 311, the panegyrist informs us that the whole city met the emperor in procession, carrying both the images of the gods and the standards of the collegia (omnia signa collegiorum).19 In the fourth century, then, if not already in the third, professional associations possessed a recognized corporate identity in Roman cities, included among which, if the Historia Augusta is any indication, was Rome.

Evecti honoribus: the advantages of patronage

The recognition that professional associations counted among the select social orders is reaffirmed in their interaction with Rome's most illustrious citizens, its senatorial leaders.

Symmachus, in his Relatio 14, refers to the city's corpora explicitly as members or appendages of the Urbs (membra aeternae urbis). That other senators may have presumed the same can be surmised from the increased appearance of members of the senatorial class as patrons of professional associations in the epigraphic record.20 Between the late third and early fifth century,

18 Cameron 2012, 743-782 on the date of the Historia Augusta and a thorough assessment of much of the scholarship. 19 Pan. Lat. V (VIII). 8, omnes enim ex agris omnium aetatum homines convolaverunt ut viderent quem superstitem sibi libenter optarent...Exornavimus vias quibus in palatium pervenitur paupere quidem supellectili sed omnium signa collegiorum, omnium deorum nostrorum simulacra protulimus... 20 Clemente (1972), 183-84 claims there are many attestations of senators as collegial patrons in Italy (other than Rome and Ostia), yet he can only cite eleven definitive examples out of 147 inscriptions, two of which are dated to the fourth century and seven to the Severan age or later. This is opposed to 62 patrons from among the members of the municipal elite. Clemente (186) recognizes this trend and states that the interest of the elite in the patronage of collegia was consolidated only in the fourth century. This accords well with Liu's (2009, 22) conclusions regarding

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twelve inscriptions from Rome name senators as patrons of corpora.21 Seven different senators are included, as some are found as patrons of multiple associations, and eleven different corpora count among the clients. These inscriptions represent the total number of extant dedications erected by associations, and they are all made to senators.22

At first sight this number might seem quite small, but it nearly matches the total of all inscriptions dedicated to patrons by collegia and corpora at Rome during the preceding three centuries.23 The change in this pattern of patronage has been explained by a shift in the demographic landscape of Rome in the fourth century: a shrinking population led to an

"increasingly circumscribed" elite and a "seriously reduced" number of association members, while continual status inflation eliminated the equestrian ordo.24 This explanation is unconvincing.

Rome's population did not shrink; the equestrian order persisted late into the fourth century; the new imperial bureaucracy continuously added numbers to Rome's clarissimi; and there is little evidence that Rome was deficient in its number of collegiati and corporati.25

The increased number of explicitly attested senatorial patrons is better seen as a reflection of the increased importance of the professional associations in the cura Romanae urbis and the

the patronage of the centonarii in the west. In a total of 75 inscriptions, only three senatorial patrons are known, who can all be dated to the fourth century and are senators of local origin. For Rome see below, fn. 24. 21 See numbers 3,5,9,11-17, and 21-22 in appendix 3. 22 CIL VI 9765= ILCV 629 is a dedication by the corpus pastillariorum to a certain Marcellus. The inscription is dated by consular year to 435, but nothing can be said of Marcellus' social status. 23 The seminal study remains Clemente (1972). He finds twenty-four inscriptions from Rome dedicated by various collegia to patrons (section V, 206-209). Of these, eight are dated variously between the end of the third to the early fifth century. In every case the patron is of senatorial rank. Included among these are two inscriptions Clemente suggests were dedicated by "mithraic collegia" (CIL VI 2151 and 1675). Neither inscription explicitly identifies its group as a collegium. I have therefore removed them from the count, leaving a total of twenty-two inscriptions. I add six additional inscriptions (appendix 3, 14-17, 21, and 22) to this, bringing the total to twenty-eight. Therefore, twelve of the twenty-eight date to the late empire and all have a senatorial patron. The remaining sixteen pose problems for dating and identifying the status of the patron, but Clemente, I think rightly, suggests it likely that all predate the fourth century, and there is little evidence that any are senatorial patrons. 24 Purcell 1999, 146. 25 For support of the second and third claims see Dillon (2015), who argues convincingly for a longer existence of the equestrian class than previously accepted and provides evidence for Rome's ever expending clarissimate. See Chp. 2, pp. 84-96 for a detailed analysis of the population of Rome and evidence to support the first claim. For the demographic significance of collegia and corpora, see Chp. 3, pp. 150-162.

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administrative changes that left Rome's elite as the caretakers of the city.26 The inscriptions reflect this situation. All the dedicatees, except for one, were urban prefects or prefects of the annona and the majority of the corpora represented (7/11) are directly linked to the service of the annona. The remaining four corpora (the fabri tignarii, magnarii, coriarii, and the anomalous omnes mancipes) can all also be linked to the integral urban services, namely, the upkeep of public buildings and the supply of essential products in a consumer city. The patronage links between the senatorial elite and Rome's professional associations became more distinct in the fourth century, because it was these groups who, through governing on the one hand, and provisioning on the other, were responsible for delivering urban services.

The bonds of patronage which were created between these two groups, a collective (the corpus) and an individual (an imperial official), also must have allowed for more contact between members of the elite and individual corporati. The impact of this on the individual members of professional associations is hard to measure, as we have nearly no explicit testimony of it. Yet certain references in the juridical evidence might shed light on the wider potential consequences of these new bonds of patronage.27

In 395 Arcadius and Honorius issued an edict to the praetorian prefect Nummius

Aemilianus Dexter that prescribed fines for those aiding curials and collegiati absconding from their duties:28

Multos animadvertimus, ut debita praestatione patriam defraudarent, sub umbra potentium latitare. Oportet igitur statui multam, ut, quisquis in praescripti iuris formam inciderit, pro curiali quinque auri libras fisco nostro cogatur inferre, pro

26 Lizzi Testa 2004, 327-381 and 2015, 417-423. Mazzarino 1973, vol.III, 679; The civilian aristocracy of Rome ceased to exist as there was no longer a distinction between bureaucracy and senators. 27 Liu (2009, 292), while not exploring the evidence, first raised the possibility that certain constitutions in the Theodosian Code may illuminate the effects of these new patronage relationships. She cites two constitutions: CTh 14.4.2 and 14.4.10 as examples with no further discussion. 28 CTh 12.1.146.

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collegiato unam. Omnes igitur quos tegunt expellant, ne clementia nostra ob contumaciam dissimulantium in maiorem indignationem exurgat.

So that they might cheat their city of its due exaction, we observe that many men are hiding under the shadow of powerful men. It is necessary, therefore, that a fine be established so that if any man should go against the rule of prescribed law, he shall be compelled to pay five pounds of gold to our fisc for a curialis and one pound for a collegiatus. Therefore, they must expel all whom they conceal lest Our Clemency should be roused to a greater indignation on account of the obstinance of those disregarding our law.

This edict repeats concerns from earlier legislation. In 362 Julian imposed a similar, though smaller fine, but only on the potentes who offered their protection to decurions trying to shirk their duties.29

The tenor of both laws suggests that first decurions and later collegiati both exploited networks of personal patronage to avoid their munera. Aside from actually "hiding" collegiati among their familia in their domus in the literal sense, various constitutions allude to the advantages of the umbra potentium for individual collegiati and corporati. In 319, Constantine addressed the prefect of the annona regarding the munus naviculariorum. Of concern was the equal distribution of the burden. In the first lines, Constantine speaks to the issues of irregular exemptions:

Si quis navicularius per obreptionem vel quacumque ratione inmunitatem impetraverit, ad excusationem eum admitti nullo modo volumus.30

If any navicularius has procured an exemption either surreptitiously or by whatever method, we decree that he not be permitted to the exemption in any way.

A later edict reveals that nearly a century later navicularii were still attempting to evade their compulsory duties by questionable means.31 Many men, we are told, were protecting their ships by claiming that they were owned by others (Multi naves suas diversorum nominibus et titulis tuentur). They did this to avoid their compulsory public duty. But this strategy proved ineffective,

29 CTh 12.1.50. 30 CTh 13.5.3. 31 CTh 13.7.2.

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since the duty of transportation of goods could not even be avoided by the privileges of rank

(subvectionem sine dignitatis privilegio celebrare).

The last clause cited gives meaning to the first lines of the legislation; the diverse names that the ship owners relied on for protection were men who possessed rank, either among the senatorial aristocracy or the imperial bureaucracy. Symmachus' Relatio 44 reveals one such potential patron at the top of the imperial bureaucracy. Writing to the emperors to protect the interest of the mancipes salinarum, he states that individual mancipes had evaded their duty by acquiring rescripts elicited unfairly (inique elicita rescripta) under the protection (muniri suffragio) of Macedonicus, comes sacrarum largitionum in 381 and magister officiorum in 383.32

Like navicularii who procured exemptions per obreptionem with the help of people of high rank, the mancipes relied on a comes and magister officiorum to acquire unjustly elicited exemptions.

In 334, 408, and again in 419 the procuring of exemptions through various means, all surreptitiously, was also a problem among the suarii of Rome.33 Similarly, on multiple occasions in the fourth and early fifth centuries, the imperial administration thought it necessary to address the issue of illicit exemptions obtained by the city's pistores.34 The language in the legislation is always similar: exemptions were obtained subterfugiendo, aliqua subreptione, callida fraude, versutiae genere, or with the aid of subrepticia rescripta. The language cannot but recall the actions of the navicularii and the mancipes just mentioned. All the legislation evinces the same process of acquisition of irregular exemptions by certain corporati through the same mechanisms—that is, through the individual patronage of the Empire's elite.

32 Symm. Rel. 44.1. 33 CTh 14.4.1; 4.8; 4.10. 34 CTh 14.3.6; 3.20; 3.21.

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Exemption from their munera was not the only opportunity that Rome's collegiati and corporati seized with the help of their new affinity with the city's most illustrious elite. The same legislation from 334 which annuls exemptions procured through the cunning of the suarii also recalls suarii who have managed to receive promotion to an administrative office (honoribus evecti).35 The edict is addressed to the pretorian prefect of Italy and honores cannot refer to decurional offices; this would hardly constitute a release from duties. Instead, it must mean advancement to positions within the imperial or urban administration, and eventually among the clarissimi. A constitution dated to 408 and addressed to the urban prefect illustrates this.36 The same suarii who elicited exemptions through their callida fraus— that is, by exploiting their new networks of patronage— also managed throughout the fourth century to acquire imperial dispensation to take up posts in the various administrative offices of the city (ad diversa se officia contulisse).

This kind of upward social mobility appears to be a complete novelty for corporati in the city of Rome, and it was not simply limited to low-level administrative positions. An edict of 364, issued to the elder Symmachus as urban prefect, speaks of pistores who are made senators (qui e pistoribus facti sunt senatores).37 Such social elevation is not an invention by imperial legislators, as the well-known case of the pistor Terentius attests. Ammianus reports the story of this pistor of humble origin, who brought the urban prefect Orfitus to court for peculation.38 We learn elsewhere that Orfitus was convicted and, for his efforts, Terentius was made corrector of Campania and

Tuscia. Purcell expresses his bemusement at this tale, considering the preposterousness of a pistor like Eurysaces prosecuting T. Statilius Taurus in the Augustan age. The possibility of this event is

35 CTh 14.4.1. 36 CTh 14.4.8. 37 CTh 14.3.4. 38 Amm. 27.3.2.

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chalked up to the "vast inflation of honours" that was apparently rampant in the fourth century.39

That Terentius had access to information and the appropriate avenues to legal recourse may instead support the new dynamic that has been proposed between Rome's elite and its corporati.

Reward of rank and honours was not something particular to Terentius, either. An edict promulgated in 380 confirms the equestrian rank (dignitatem) that Constantine and later Julian had conferred on all in the corpus naviculariorum for the importance of their service, while an inscription dated to the first decade of the fourth century reveals that the five praepositi of the corpus magnariorum had also obtained equestrian rank.40 A constitution of the early fifth century awards the even higher title of comes tertii ordinis to any elected corporatus who fulfilled the task of guarding the storehouses, likely at Portus (portuensium conditorum), for a period of five years.41

Symmachus' claim that the collegiati and corporati were membra aeternae urbis does not appear to be a rhetorical flourish. Rome's professional associations possessed a recognized public identity and as collectives they formed bonds of patronage with the city's most illustrious citizens.

Members of associations could also exploit these vertical ties for personal advantage, procuring privileges from the imperial administration that may have otherwise been unobtainable. Their enhanced status also led to new honours and upward social mobility for some members of Rome’s plebs.

Other patroni: the intersection of the late-antique collegial order and the administrative order

Even if it is granted that associations possessed a strong civic identity and that their members leveraged their position relative to the elite for previously unattested honours,

39 Purcell 1999, 146. 40 CTh 13.5.16 (361); CIL VI 1696, see Appendix 3. 41 CTh 14.4.9 (417). CTh 14.4.10 issued in 419 offers this same reward to the three principales of the newly amalgamated corpus of the suarii and pecuarii.

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Symmachus reveals that corporati were considered membra for an additional reason: it was they who sustained the burdens of the management of the city (horum corporum ministerio tantae urbis onera sustineri). Certainly, Symmachus here refers to the provisioning and maintenance of the city, but I would like to offer an additional possibility, not previously considered. The position of

Rome's professional associations relative to the elite made these collectives a unique nexus of communication between the elite and the rest of Rome's population. I suggest that in order to marshal the remainder of the population for particular tasks and to maintain order throughout the city, Rome's corpora and collegia were integrated into the administrative apparatus to a greater degree than previously acknowledged. In particular, a new internal hierarchy that seems to have developed in the fourth century meant that professional associations began to intersect with the traditional civic structures instead of operating outside of them.

Much has been written about the internal organization of collegia in the ancient world.42

They were often organized after the example of cities;43 they had their own internal hierarchy; and they elected magistrates, often called quinquennales, from within their ranks. We assume that these structures persisted into Late Antiquity, but we do not have the same epigraphic testimony to confirm it.44 What we do know from the juridical evidence is that in addition to, or maybe in lieu of, their magistrates, professional associations came to include high-ranking members who were referred to as patroni. These men were different than senatorial or elite patrons as they were elevated from within a collegium or corpus and seemed to function as some type of collegial

42 Waltzing (Vol I, 334-515) provides a detailed study of the organization of collegia. Royden (1988) offers a catalogue and study of the magistrates of collegia in Italy up the third century. Tran (2006) examines the social composition of collegia in Italy and Gaul in the first two centuries of the empire, while also considering their internal organization. Multiple studies exist that discuss the organization of individual collegia. For the fabri tignarii, for example, see Pearse (1974) and Delaine (1997, 2000, and 2003). 43 Dig 3.4.1. pr.-2 (Gaius 3 ad ed. provinc.). This excerpt suggests that collegia possessed the right of corpus habere. They were legally allowed to hold property in common and did so according to the exemplum rei publicae. 44 AE 2001, 270, likely datable to the fourth century, probably attests to the existence of magistri quinquennales in an unnamed collegium.

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magistrate. The earliest attestation we have of patroni as members of professional associations dates to 355.45 The constitution in question was issued by Constantius to Orfitus and concerns the patrimonia of pistores when transferred in the case of a marriage.46 It adds the prohibition that no persons established (constitutos) as a patron of the pistores (patronos pistoribus) can be summoned to perform the work of another association. Again in 367 and 370 we have reference to the patroni of the pistores. We learn that the term of service for the patroni pistorum was five years—perhaps suggesting that they replaced the quinquennales—, and that they were assigned to

(consignet) this position by members in the administration of the annona.47 The legislation leads to the conclusion that patroni of this type, who were likely established before 355, since the earliest constitution presumes that their position already existed, were members of their corpus, who served for a limited number of years, and were appointed to their position by some official attached to the city's administration.48

If the earliest attested new patroni are found among the pistores, by the fifth century all corpora had them (patronos corporum singulorum).49 The same constitution that discloses their presence in all associations, also shows them working in that capacity for the city's administration:

45 An inscription dedicated to Constantine may first reveal the presence of patroni in collegia, in this case the corpus coriariorum, see Appendix 3, no.1. 46 CTh 14.3.2. 47 CTh 14.3.7 (367): Idem aa.(Valentinian and Valens) ad Viventium praefectum urbi. Post quinquenni tempus emensum unus prior e patronis pistorum otio et quiete donetur, ita ut ei qui sequitur officinam cum animalibus servis molis fundis dotalibus, pistrinorum postremo omnem enthecam tradat adque consignet; CTh 14.3.12 (370): Idem aa. ad Claudium proconsulem Africae. Secundum parentis nostri Constantini divale praeceptum omnibus lustris pistores ex officio, quod ei corpori constat addictum, ad urbem sacratissimam destinentur. In quo illud convenit praecaveri, ne quis hanc, quae personalis est, functionem pretio putet esse taxandam. Veniant suo tempore, quos causa constringit et ita veniant, ut eos officium, quod tibi paret, pistorum patronis adque annonae praefecto aput publica monumenta consignet. Quod si quis iudicum statuto tempore personam, quae est destinanda, non miserit, ipse profecto remanebit obnoxius functioni, cui subtraxisse probatur obnoxium. In officium quoque poena competens exeretur, quod aut dissimulatione neglexerit aut fraude subtraxerit iudicem suum super vi legis et consuetudinis admonere. 48 CTh 14.3.12 suggests they were appointed by the officium of the proconsul of Africa. But this was only for patroni that were sent to Rome from that province. The same constitution says they were assigned to the officium of the praefectus annonae, while 14.3.2 also claims they are established. The latter constitution was addressed to the urban prefect and, thus, the appointments must have been made by someone in the Urbs. I suggest that at least for the patroni of the pistores it was the officium of the praefectus annonae who appointed them. 49 CTh 14.4.9.

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ad excludendas patronorum caudicariorum fraudes et portuensium furta mensorum unus e patronis totius consensu corporis eligatur, qui per quinquennium custodiam portuensium suscipiat conditorum... Cui praemia ista deferimus, ut, si optima fide administraverit munus iniunctum, post expletas lustralis sollicitudinis metas comitivae tertii ordinis honore cumuletur idque non iam ex codicillis nostris, sed constituti istius consequatur indulto.

In order to eliminate the fraudulent practices of the patroni of the caudicarii and the thievery of the mensores at Portus, one of the patroni shall be choosen by the consent of the whole corpus, who shall take up the custody of the storehouses at Portus for a five-year period...to whom we grant these rewards that, if with the utmost faith he should have administered this assigned duty, he shall receive the title of comes of the third order and this not only from our letters, but acquired from the indulgence of this constitution.

The edict reveals that a single patronus from one of the three that had already been appointed is elected (eligatur) by the common consensus of the whole corpus—probably the mensores here—

(totius consensu corporis) to serve as the custodian of public storehouses at Portus (custodiam portuensium conditorum).50 It appears that patroni were leading members of professional associations and that all corpora in the Urbs had them. If the case of the pistores is at all indicative of larger trends, these men were appointed to their position by officials in the administrative apparatus of the city. Yet, when given the responsibility of a task, one patronus (maybe more) would be chosen by the consent of his entire collective.

This discussion about the internal structure of professional associations has relevance for the integration of the corporati and collegiati in the administrative apparatus of the Urbs, even beyond the provisioning of the city. An edict from Egypt may prove instructive. In 392 the emperors Arcadius and Honorius addressed the praefectus Augustalis, who was the governor of

50 Sirks 1991, 264 and 377 suggests the patronus was elected from the suarii. There is no clear reason for this conjecture, as far as I can tell. Sirks himself seems unsure as he also writes (1991, 283) that the corpus pistorum would supply the patrons. This must relate to CTh 14.3.16. Even if the identification were correct, it would not detract from my point.

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the diocese of Egypt,51 ordering that his office enforce the rule that διοικηταί (dioecetae) and

ἀρχιγέρoντες (archigerontes) be elected (deligatur) from the number of workers

(ergasiotanorum).52 The constitution was included under the title labeled by the compilers de

Alexandrinae plebis primatibus and, thus, it is reasonable to envision these men, the primates plebis, as the leading members of professional associations who must have had a role in controlling and organizing the population, or just their labour. They are equivalent perhaps to the patroni corporum in Rome. The possible equivalence is important. Two constitutions from Rome that have already been introduced identify the leading patroni in corpora as primi patroni and principales patroni.53 Based on the comparison between the primates plebis in Alexandria and Rome's patroni corporum, I suggest that the terms patroni, principales, and primates in these contexts may have been interchangeable.

The semantic similarity of these terms permits comparison with primates that appear in another contemporary context. I refer here to two entries in the Collectio Avellana— a compendium of papal and imperial letters from the Urbs that date from 367 until 553— which are roughly contemporary with the legislation that deals with patroni corporum. On March 15, 419,

Honorius wrote to the urban prefect Aurelius Anicius Symmachus concerning the turbulent election of the new bishop of Rome. He ordered that the rivals for the bishopric retire from the city for the holy days and appointed Achilleus, bishop of Spoleto, to preside over the Easter liturgies.54

51 The office praefectus Augustalis seems to have been created in the 380s when the diocese of Egypt was established by incorporating the provinces of Egypt and Cyrenaica, formerly part of the diocese of the Oriens. On the Augustal prefect see, Jones 1964, 141-143 and Errington 2002. 52 CTh 14.27.1. 53 CTh 14.4.9 (tres primos patronos corporum singulorum); CTh 14.4.10 (tres huius corporis principales); Note also Nov. Val. 20, which is much later, but identifies corporati who have arrived at the first place among his own (ad primum inter suos). Symm. Rel. 27.1 refers to the leading members of the association of doctors as the primi collegii medicorum. This is particularly interesting as we know that one primus/primas was assigned to twelve of the fourteen regiones of Rome, elected by the other members. However, we also know that the primi collegii medicorum were more regularly called archiatri. 54 CSEL 35, 21.

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Ten days later in another letter, again written to Symmachus, we learn that one of the rivals for the bishopric defied the order and returned to Rome; the emperor ordered that he be expelled.55

Other than the due observance of the liturgies, the main concern in the emperor's letters was the control of the population, which was labeled insolens, inconditus, and insanus and thought to be constantly desirous of tumult (cupiditates incentorum). In order to control the people and ensure that they remained calm (disciplinae publicae quietique prospicias and spiritum plebis inconditae domuerunt), Honorius recommended that the prefect rely on the primates regionum.56

The phrase might easily be interpreted as "leading men of the regions",57 but I have already suggested that primates was a synonym for the patroni corporum in Rome. Moreover, Symmachus wrote in response to Honorius that when the bishop refused to leave the city and locked himself in the Lateran, he sent all the corpora of the city and his own officium to expel the recalcitrant bishop.58 Hence it appears that the urban prefect relied on the primates/principales/patroni of the city's corpora. As in 417, when one patronus of the mensores was elected to be the custodian of city storehouses at Portus, two years later it is possible that we have testimony of patroni corporum in positions that allowed them to assist the administrative apparatus, which was tasked with controlling the city's raucous population.

Marshaling the people: the corpus omnium mancipum and contract labour

The case made here for the integration of corporati into the administrative apparatus of the

Urbs is bolstered by evidence that is considerably more concrete: the case of the corpus omnium

55 CSEL 35, 31. 56 CSEL 35, 21.2 & 31.6. 57 In fact, Jones (1964, 694) associates these primates with the vicomagistri, but they could just as readily be the senatorial curatores that the Notitia records for each regio. However, the marshalling of the corporati to drive out the bishop Eulalius suggests rather that primates should be more directly associated with corpora. 58 CSEL 35, 32.3.

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mancipum. Numerous constitutions in the Theodosian Code make some reference to mancipes and the duty of mancipatus. These references are scattered throughout, found in various books and under various titles, all seemingly unrelated.59 This variety is also mirrored in the literary record, where in four cases mancipes are assigned to two separate tasks in the city of Rome.60 Perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been some confusion among modern scholars regarding the meaning of the word and the role of the manceps in late-antique Rome. Sirks proposes three different kinds of mancipes,61 while Carrié in one article presented two solutions, first surmising that mancipes were a group that worked with the state to ensure the functioning of certain public services and then suggesting that they were simply pistores.62 While this latter view has garnered general acceptance,63 it neglects a single but important inscription dedicated by a corpus consisting of the omnes mancipes. Based on this inscription, its content and context, along with the juridical evidence, I argue that in the late-antique Urbs, mancipes were general labour contractors who found short-term labourers for work in pistrina, on construction projects, and for general tasks, such as the maintenance of baths at Rome. These contractors worked with various collegia and corpora, with their members perhaps supplied by them, and with the administrative apparatus to ensure the completion of work that served the public good. More importantly, perhaps like the primates/patroni corporum, they were responsibile for gathering large groups of people to work for the maintenance and administration of the city, making them an important cog in the administration of the Urbs.

59 CTh 11.20.3, 12.16.2, 13.1.17, 14.3.18, 14.5.1, and CJ 4.61.11. 60 Symm Rel. 44, Ep. 9. 103 & 105, and Soc. HE V. 18. 61 Sirks 1991, 352 fn. 146. 62 Carrie 2002, 324 and then fn. 89. 63 Waltzing Vol II, 227; Sirks 1991, 351; Garnsey and Whittaker 1998, 319. Lo Cascio 1999, 171 fn. 43. Bond (2016, 158) suggests mancipes ran the bake-houses, but "were not themselves bakers." Various scholars have suggested two variations, mancipes salinarum and thermarum, must be the same, see Roda 1981, 235, and ignore mancipes pistorum.

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The inscription in question, found on the base of a statue reused in the church of S. Prisca on the Aventine, records a dedication by the corpus omnium mancipum to Memmius Vitrasius

Orfitus, Symmachus’ father-in-law and twice urban prefect of Rome.64 This base represents one of four statue bases dedicated by various professional associations to the same man.65 While the other three professional associations who dedicated a statue to Orfitus are well known, this base remains the only attestation of the corpus omnium mancipum. It is surprising that scholars who discuss mancipes in the context of fourth-century Rome by and large ignore this inscription.

Waltzing was aware of its existence, but he maintained that the professional activity of this corpus was highly problematic, while hazarding the guess that they might be pistores.66 His conjecture derives from the reading of a single edict in the Theodosian Code and a passage from the fifth- century church historian Socrates.67 The former was issued by Valentinian II, Theodosius, and

Arcadius to the urban prefect in 386 to deal with the issue of mancipes illicitly joining the scribes and fiscal clerks (decurias) of Rome.68 The constitution also confirms a no longer extant law regarding mancipes (lex super mancipibus), but nowhere does it mention anything about pistores.

This relationship has simply been inferred from the compilers' inclusion of the edict under Title

Three in Book Fourteen of the Theodosian Code, which deals with pistores. Yet it was already argued in chapter three that the catabolenses, who are included under the same Title Three, were not associated with only pistores, but were constituted by a wider body of eligible freedmen.69

64 CIL VI 1742. Orfitus was prefect of Rome from December 353 until 355 and again from 357 until 359. PLRE I, 651-653. 65 CIL VI 1739-41, which include the navicularii, the pistores, and the susceptores of Ostia and Portus. Clearly Orfitus was a patron to the guilds in the city, an increasingly common role played by the urban prefects throughout the course of the fourth century. 66 Waltzing Vol. II, 227. 67 Waltzing Vol. II, 83. The edict is CTh 14.3.18. 68 See CTh 14.1 on the decuriae of Rome. 69 Chp. 3, pp. 158-160.

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The same could be true of the mancipes. Socrates' account does make a compelling case for their association with the city’s pistores, but not as members of their corpus. When writing about Theodosius I's adventus to Rome in 389, the church historian praises the emperor's sense of justice, which amounted to putting a stop to shameful activities in the city. One of these, we are told, was perpetrated by those in charge (προϊστάμενοι) of the large pistrina in the city, whom the

Romans called mancipes.70 From this anecdote and the aforementioned constitution, Sirks argued that the patroni pistorum and mancipes performed identical tasks and acted as supervisors of state pistrina.71 While this is an ingenious solution to explain an otherwise complicated situation apparent in the legislation, in which the munus pistorum is seemingly associated with pistores, patroni, and mancipes, it does not consider the entire body of evidence regarding mancipes.

If mancipes and pistores were simply synonyms, why would both dedicate a statue at the same time to the same patron? I do not deny that mancipes were associated with Rome's pistrina, but it may be that Socrates, an easterner who may have been unfamiliar with the particulars of the city's adminstration, got the position of the mancipes relative to Rome's pistrina slightly wrong.

His entire account deals exclusively with the illegal recruitment of labour for Rome's pistrina.72

We know from other constitutions that the milling of wheat and the making of bread constituted different jobs—CTh 14.4.9, for example, speaks of the lowest duties in a pistrinum (ad pristini etiam munia prima)—and that many were labour-intensive and carried a mark of ill-repute. It could be then that mancipes worked alongside patroni/pistores and helped recruit the labour that each pistrinum required. This interpretation would fit with the most common definition of manceps,73 and helps distinguish between the pistores and conductores officinarum placed side by side in the

70 Soc. HE V. 18.3. 71 Sirks 1991, 339-341 & 351-354. 72 Soc. HE V.18.4. Through trap doors in tabernae (καπηλεϊα). 73 T.L.L VIII, s.v. manceps, 251-252.

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management of pistrina in CTh 14.17.3, which is an otherwise confounding distinction.74 The view that mancipes were labour contractors associated with pistrina also accounts for our other sources, which mention another prominent group of mancipes in late-antique Rome, namely the mancipes salinarum.

The first mention we have of these mancipes comes in 370 in an edict addressed to the urban prefect Olybrius.75 It confirms the rights granted to the mancipes thermarum, who cared for the maintenance of the baths at Rome, to share in the management and profits of the salt-flats:

Quidquid erga mancipes, qui thermarum exhibitionem Romae curant, in exercitio compendiisque salinarum scitis priorum principum cautum est, aeterna sanctione firmamus

Whatever was ordered by the decrees of prior emperors toward the mancipes, who care for the maintenance of the baths of Rome, regarding the administration and profits of the salt-flats, we confirm by eternal sanction.

Just over a decade later, in 384, Symmachus sought to alleviate the burden of the duty (functio) of transporting wood (lignorum) to Rome for certain mancipes. In his Relatio he refers to this group as the mancipes salinarum, and in a later epistula, likely written to the urban prefect,76 Symmachus reveals explicitly that the ligna which the mancipes salinarum provided were used in Rome's baths

(qui exercent lavacra praebitione lignorum).77 There cannot be any doubt that the mancipes salinarum and thermarum were the same men,78 but their exact relation to the work in the salt-flats is less clear. The edict cited above gives the mancipes the right to administer and share in the

74 Tengström (1974, 78-79) equates mancipes with these conductores, and suggests they are synonymus with redemptores. He then suggests a divide in Rome's pistrina similar to massive praedia, which had possessores and conductores. For him, the pistores managed the distribution of bread and contracted out the operation of the pistrina to the mancipes/conductores. Sirks (1991, 341, fn.118) claims there is no reason to presume manceps refers to redemptor, and rather suggests that conductores and pistores are the same men. The latter interpretation is highly unsatisfactory, the constitution clearly distinguishes between the two groups of men: quae diurna pistores alimentis popularibus praebent, omnia ea gradibus distribuant, non ex officinarum conductoribus promant. 75 CTh 14.5.1. 76 Roda 1981, 237. 77 Symm. Ep. 9. 103, but also 9.105. 78 CTh 11.20.3 (400) further establishes this connection.

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profits of the salt-flats, while a constitution included in the Justinian Code, issued by Honorius nearly thirty years later, seems to grant a group of mancipes a monopoly over the sale of salt:79

Si quis sine persona mancipum, id est salinarum conductorum, sales emerit vendereve temptaverit, sive propria audacia sive nostro munitus oraculo, sales ipsi una cum eorum pretio mancipibus addicantur.

If anyone has purchased or attempted to sell salt, either by his own audacity or emboldened by our enactment, without the involvement of mancipes, that is, the contractors of the salt-flats, the salt itself together with the price shall be delivered to the mancipes.

In this case, the mancipes are better seen as those who contract the right to manage the salt-flats and retail the product.80 The mancipes salinarum did not seem then to extract the salt itself from the flats, they simply shared in the administration and profits derived therefrom. Instead, another group, the corpus salariorum, who dedicated a statue to Constantine and have been conflated with the mancipes, may have provided the labour organized by the mancipes for the extraction and conveyance of the salt.81

In both cases, each group of mancipes, who have been tied in past scholarship to individual and divergent professions, can be assigned to the similar task of labour recruitment and administration. To these, a group of mancipes engaged in a third profession can be added. The oft- ignored inscription that began this discussion, dedicated to Orfitus, alludes to a connection with building in the Urbs.

Honori. / Memmio Vitrasio Orfito, v(iro) c(larissimo), / nobilitate actibusque ad exem/plum praecipuo, praefecto urbi /et iterum praefecto urbi, procon/suli Africae ac tertio sacrarum / cognitionum iudici, comiti in / consistorio ordinis primi,

79 CJ 4.61.11. 80 CIL VI 1016b-c, dated to late second century, records the resolution over the payment of retail taxes between mancipes and mercatores, suggesting they both participated in the sale of goods in the fora. It is fitting that both the mancipes salinarum and the mancipes pistorum are referred to as conductores in unrelated constutiones (see above pg. 37, fn. 114). 81 CIL VI 1152= AE 2000, 43. Admittedly, the relationship of the salarii with the salt-flats is uncertain. Waltzing (Vol. II, 227) admits they could be responsible for the extraction, supply, or simply sale of salt. They could be associated with the saccarii salarii totius urbis campi salinarum Romanarum attested under the Severans in CIL XIV 4285 = CIL XI 7725.

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le/gato secundo difficillimis tem/poribus petitu senatus et p(opuli) R(omani), /(comiti ordinis secundi expedition(es) / bellicas gubernanti, consulari Sicil(iae), / pontifici Solis, pontifici Vestae, / XVviro s(acris) f(aciundis), consuli, praetori, q(uaestori) k(andidato), om/nibusq(ue) perfuncto honorib(us) intra / aetatis primordia. Ob providentiam / et statum optimum urbi Romae ab eo / redditum, corpus omnium manci/pum statuam sub aere constituit.

In honour of Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus,82 vir clarissimus, distinguished as an example by birth and deeds, prefect of the city and again prefect of the city, proconsul of Africa and three times judge in the imperial court of appeal, count of the first order in the imperial consistory, a legate in difficult times by request with the consent of the Senate and Roman people, count of the second order directing military expeditions, consularis of the province of Sicily, priest of the Sun, priest of the goddess Vesta, member of the college of fifteen men offering sacrifices, suffect consul, praetor, quaestor candidatus and all offices he performed at an early age. On account of his providence and because of the return of the city of Rome to the best condition through him, the corporation of all contractors set up a bronze statue.

Composed of nineteen lines, the first sixteen are filled by the various titles and offices of Orfitus.

The reason for the dedication begins in the sixteenth line and extends to the eighteenth. Because he returned Rome to the best condition, statum optimum, the mancipes dedicated a bronze statue to Orfitus. The use of the term of statum optimum is unattested in any other dedication by associative groups to patrons in the fourth century. More regularly the inscriptions attest to the outstanding munificence of or gratitude owed to a patron.83 Instead, this language finds its closest parallel in the phrase statum pristinum, a combination that is most regularly found in building inscriptions. The phrase is present in no less than nine inscriptions from across the Roman world datable to the fourth century, three of which are from Rome and its environs.84 Ad pristinam or in pristinum statum simply mean to restore to its former condition, but continued appeals in our

82 Chastagnol (1962, 140) suggests honori is a signum, but according to Tantillo (2014) this is not the case. Rather honori is a dative and part of phrase, often including memoria or genius and followed by the genitive of the dedicatee. The collocation in the incipit of inscriptions came to be so common that it was shortened to simply the dative honori. 83 CIL VI 1673, 1690, 1696, 1741, 1759. On one occasion a collegial association thanks a patron for returning their utility to the city, but never for having returned the city to its best state. CIL VI 1741. 84 BCTH 1907, 274; CIL VI 1242; 1682 = ILS 1220; CIL VIII, 20836 = ILS 638; CIL VIII 21665 = ILS 4501; CIL X 6565 = ILS 5632; CIL XIV 135; ILTun 00622 = AE 1934, 133; AE 2010, 1782. To this can be added three inscriptions that contain the similar phrase ad pristinam: CIL VIII 2656, 24044, and ILS 5693.

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literary sources to the superiority of the past make it plausible to draw a connection between optimum and pristinum.85 It is more significant that in a number of rebuilding inscriptions the dedicator claims to have restored the building to a better or more beautiful state.86

The career of the subject of the dedication also makes its association with the building industry highly plausible. As mentioned, Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus was urban prefect twice, but one of his prefectures was later mired in scandal. Two brief notices in Ammianus reveal that

Orfitus was charged with peculation after his second prefecture.87 Nothing is said of the details of his embezzlement. In 384, however, fifteen years after Orfitus died, during the urban prefecture of

Symmachus the issue of the money Orfitus was said to have embezzled was raised again. We learn from Relatio 34 that in 382 Gratian had ordered a review of imperial finances at Rome.88 The result of this investigation was that an extraordinary debt of 11,446 solidi from the time of Orfitus’ prefecture was uncovered,89 which was said to have been owed to the arca vinaria.90 This arca was established by Aurelian in the 270s and by the fourth century its funds had become earmarked for public construction.91 Orfitus seemed to know this when he claimed, again according to

85 The notion that old Rome represented the best Rome in late-antique thought is witnessed in Amm. 14.6 and 31.5.14. In the latter he speaks of the sobria vetustas. 86 CIL VIII 266 0= ILS 5787 "ad meliorem statum...restituerunt" (284-293 CE); CIL VI 31793 "...[curator operum publicorum] aedium restituta et m[eliorem statum]" (4th century); CIL X 6656= ILS 5702 "r[e]paravi in meliorem civitatis effigiem" (379/382 CE); ILAfr 275 "ad melio[rem] cult[um] res[titui]t..." (376/77 CE); AE 1991, 1641 "in meliorem statum redduxi itemque dedicavi" (375-378 CE). 87 Amm. 27.3 & 7. He was convicted and exiled but was recalled to Rome in 367 because of the efforts of the praetorian prefect of Italy Vulcacius Rufinus. 88 Symm. Rel. 34 for all that follows. 89 This amount was demanded from Orfitus’ heirs, one of whom happened to be Symmachus’ wife. The entire contents of the Relatio then constitute a defense of Orfitus himself and his heirs, attempting to disassociate them from the debt. In the course of his argument Symmachus reveals pertinent details about the debt. He states that the investigation and report by his predecessors uncovered that Orfitus had already paid back 11,446 solidi. This total, however, was paid to the fiscus and not the arca vinaria, yet both Sallustius Aventius and Anicius Auchenius Bassus blame the error of payment on the mismanagement of officiales in the officium urbanum. 90 To put the amount in context: the cost to repair a small collapse affecting a portion of the bridge in the “affair of the bridge and basilica” was estimated to be around 20 solidi;Constantine endowed the Lateran with a revenue of 25,000 solidi, while we know from Olympiodorus that Symmachus spent 144,000 solidi on his son Memmius’ games. By all accounts 11,000 solidi is a significant amount, if not staggering. 91 For Aurelian’s establishment of the arca vinaria see SHA. Aur. 48. See also Dey 2011, 106-107 for discussion. For a detailed and convincing argument on this point see Chastagnol 1960, 339-346. See also CTh 14.6.3 and 4.4 for

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Symmachus, that the funds missing from the arca vinaria had been allocated to public building.92

The material record confirms Orfitus' assertion. During his second prefecture he is known to have overseen the construction of a temple to Apollo,93 while evidence from a recent comprehensive study of the quadrifrontal arch in the Forum Boarium has dated its construction to the second prefecture of Orfitus.94

All the evidence together quite plausibly suggests an allocation of funds under Orfitus to building activities in Rome. If we are to imagine that Orfitus misappropriated over 11,000 solidi and that any significant portion of this went toward building, then some of the primary beneficiaries would have been contractors. Both the continuous existence of contracting in relation to building in the fourth century and the importance of contractors throughout the duration of the

Empire in organizing men and supplies is discussed in Chapter Five.95 It is enough here to suggest that the mancipes in our inscription had a connection to building in the Urbs; they were contractors responsible for organizing and supplying labourers. Ample material evidence corroborates that manceps was a term often used for a contractor in the building industry.96 Moreover, this

payments from the arca, and Symm. Ep. 7.96.3 with CTh 12.6.26, which clearly associate funds from the arca vinaria with public construction. Also, Anon. Val. 67 claims that 200 pounds of gold were allocated to the repair of walls and and buildings paid from the arca vinaria. 92 Symm. Ep. 9.150. Ob reliqua arcae uinariae quae multis praefectis superiores principes exigenda mandarunt et quae magna ex parte conlata imperiali constat aerario soceri mei Orfiti olim praefecti et ante annos quindecim sine ulla tituli huius conuentione demortui pulsatur hereditas obtentu epistulae qua diuus Constantius id quod operibus publicis constabat inpensum integrari per eum statuit minatus ipsi atque officio, ut fieri adsolet, sub condicione dispendium, si exactioni cura competens defuisset. 93 CIL VI 45= ILS 3222. 94 For recent redating of the arch see Mateos, Pizzo, and Ventura 2017. They argue (pp. 256-261), based on the reuse of Constantinian inscriptions in the arch's construction and by reassociating with the arch another monumental inscription that has long been dated to the reign of Constantius II, that the construction of the arch must also date to the reign of Constantius II. They suggest (p. 267) therefore that is was probably built by Orfitus between 353 aand 357. This is to say nothing of the erection of the Lateran Obelisk in the Circus Maximus, which, although sent to Rome by the initiative of Constantius II, the prefect would likely have been responsible to oversee its installation after the emperor left Rome. On the obelisk see Amm. 17.4.6-17. 95 Chp. 5, pp. 219-222 and pp. 280-290. 96 See fn. 68 for definition of manceps as contractor in general. In addition, one of the few examples of a locatio- conductio contract that have come down to us is found in two fragmentary inscriptions stipulating repairs on the Via Caecilia from the first century BCE (ILLRP 465 & 465a). In addition to work to be done and the cost of the work, the inscription also specifies to whom the contract was assigned. These men, undoubtedly contractors, are identified as mancupes. Also in the first century BCE, redemptores and mancipes appear side by side in section 93 of the Lex

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interpretation solves an otherwise intractable problem: redemptores who were associated with both private and public construction and were previously well-attested, disappear from the evidence at

Rome after the beginning of the third century.97 Thus, there is good reason to associate fourth- century mancipes with the marshaling of men for construction, and under these circumstances it would not be surprising to see their association honouring Orfitus for restoring Rome to its “best condition.”

Three groups of mancipes, then, can be seen operating in Rome in the fourth century, and a task common to omnes mancipes can be discerned from the evidence. Mancipes appear to be responsible for organizing and supplying the manpower required for jobs integral to the maintenance and sustenance of the Urbs.98 Mancipes found labourers for the pistrina, however knavishly; they administered the supply of wood to Rome for the operation of baths; and they marshaled the mass of the population to complete public and private building projects. This common task of general labour contractor facilitated the formation of a corpus for all mancipes in the city, the corpus omnium mancipum. Holleran already posited the possible existence of general labour contractors in the city of Rome.99 Comparative evidence links these groups to the task of gathering labourers who are then hired out to different employers, primarily in short-term seasonal employment.100 The evidence for mancipes operarum in anecdotal evidence lends plausibility to

Ursonensis in relation to obtaining public contracts: see CIL II.5 1022= II 5439= ILS 6087= AE 1946, 123 &163; 1951, 48; 1952,120; 1997,826; 1998,742. While these both constitute early examples, six inscriptions datable to the imperial period refer to mancipes who are associated with construction in some capacity: CIL VI 8554, 8469, 8893; CIL XIV 2864; CIL VIII 12377; CIL IX 4796. 97 For the occurrence of redemptores in the material record and their disappearance see Chp. 5, 221. Approaching the issues of mancipes from another perspective, Tengström (1974, 78) already suggested that mancipes were synonymous with redemptores. 98 Shaw (2013, 73-79) reached similar conclusions about mancipes in late Roman North Africa. For him, these men organized rural seasonal labour. 99 Holleran 2016, 103. 100 This was the very nature of construction work in antiquity, see Bernard (2016a, 64), for example, among others. Hawkins (2016, 37-38) argues that most demand in Rome was seasonal and uncertain, which would affect artisans’ livelihood. This includes builders and also those who moved goods to Rome and in the ports of Ostia and Portus. Yet, both building and dock work would have generated considerable employment for labourers.

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the existence of this type of contracting in the Roman world.101 Finally, this interpretation gives meaning to an edict issued in 398:102

Quicumque vel rescripti adversus veteres sanctiones subreptiva defensione munitur vel de minusculis corporibus aut certe otiosis idoneus adprobatur, functioni mancipatus est addicendus.

Whoever is protected by the surreptitious defense of a rescript against ancient sanctions or whoever from the smaller corpora or at least inactive should be proved suitable (financially solvent), he must be assigned to the compulsory duty of contractor.

If we accept the previous definitions of mancipes as pistores or salarii, this constitution would be confounding. Why should members of inactive corpora, or those that were too small, be joined to pistores and salarii in particular? There is no evidence of anything equivalent occurring. In the cases where corpora are amalgamated or members from one are annexed to another, it is always a matter of course that the involved corpora share a similar task.103 The consititution instead fits better with the existence of an association of general contractors and suggests perhaps how it was formed. Members of the omnes mancipes were supplied from various corpora.104 This arrangement finds similarity in the Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae, where collegiati were supplied from the city's various corpora to form a fire brigade.105After all we do have testimony of individual corpora already having to elect mancipes for the collection of the collatio lustralis.106

The corpus omnium mancipum then was formed by various corporati who were assigned to the duty of mancipatus, which Socrates' anecdote, along with the other evidence reviewed, suggests

101 Suet. Ves. 1.4. 102 CTh 12.16.1 (389). 103 CTh 4.4.10 the pecuarii and suarii and AE 1941, 61 concerning all all fabri. CTh 14.8.1 perhaps provides an exception as it involves the centonarii, dendrophori and fabri. While considered the tria collegia principalia, these associations likely had very different occupational functions. Liu argues, however, that their relative ubiquity in all cities may suggest why the three are associated, see Chp. 5, pp. 241-242. 104 It is interesting that the constitution requires that the corporati be idonei, or financially solvent. It is, perhaps, the case that one needed to be able to provide surety as a manceps. 105 Notitia Urb. Cons. III, 21. 106 CTh 13.1.17.

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was primarily a task of recruiting labour.107 These new corporati would be relied on by the administrative apparatus to make sure that the service which the city required would be completed.

Like the patroni corporum, who were used to control and engage with the population at large, the omnes mancipes had the role of marshaling labourers for the city's benefit.108 That the only attestation of this corpus comes in the context of a dedication to an urban prefect suggests a close relationship between this corpus and the administration of the Urbs.

As a significant group of the population, Rome's corporati and collegiati constituted a distinct component in the fourth-century Urbs. While membership was largely obligatory, it facilitated opportunities for the acquisition of status in the city. This observation is not a novelty, as collegia functioned in a similar way already in the High Empire, but modulations in social relations meant that recognition increasingly came from the city's most illustrious elite. As a result, members of professional associations had access to the upper echelons of Rome's social hierarchy.

They therefore recieved access to new and higher-status social networks, which opened up avenues for upward social mobility, and they were likely able to exploit these relationships for personal gain. As in all patronage relationships, however, the benefits were reciprocal. The administrative elite then relied increasingly on corporati and collegiati to fulfill the administrative duties of the cura Urbis. The appearance of the omnes mancipes and the position of the patroni corporum

107 It is possible that the same the mancipes were responsible for recieving the and maintaining the collatio lustralis that had been collected. CTh. 12.6.29 suggests that in Africa a single manceps negotiatorum would be placed in charge of guarding (tuendam) of the collection (ratio) of the collatio lustralis. 108 This may have included the employment of the city's able-bodied mendicants. Grey and Parkin, (2003, 294-296) address the issue of the urban poor outlined in CTh 14.18.1 (382). They argue that the law had more to do with controlling the potential threat of the mob than acquisition of agricultural labour. In fact, they (p.296) relate the colonatus perpetuus in the law to urban labour, or opus publicum in perpetuum. We have already argued that corporati were used to control the urban population, perhaps the benefit then of denouncing an able-bodied mendicant would be drumming up ready sources of labour. Libanius (Or. 46.21) talks of association members in Antioch trying to move mendicants off the street, and later, Nov. Just. 80.5 suggests that able bodied beggars should be assigned to public works, the bakeries, and various other crafts. It is interesting that the term προεστῶτες τῶν ἀρτοποιητιῶν ἐργαστηρίων, almost the identical to that which appears in Socrates' account, is employed in Nov. Just. While speculative, perhaps already in 382, Rome's corporati, in their capacity as mancipes or otherwise, sought labour from the able-bodied beggars of the city, and perhaps this was an expectation of the urban prefecture.

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demonstrate that this went far beyond the provisioning of the city. Rome's elite relied on professional associations to control and organize the rest of the population. Since membership was obligatory for all workers and entrepeneurs, corpora and collegia represented ready mechanisms through which Rome's urban population could be organized, marshaled, and leveraged for labour and resources. All these factors meant that corpora and collegia were integrated into the administration of Rome to an unprecedented level that persisted into the fifth century.109

The Economic Advantages of Being a collegiatius: wealth and monopolies

From the argument that has been advanced on the previous pages, it seems that collegiati and corporati were integrated into the provisioning and maintenance of the city to such a degree as to suggest they were an appendage (membra) of the administrative apparatus. Because of this, the benefits that collegiati and corporati could acquire were significant. Their members were able to obtain ranks and honours previously unattested, while the associations themselves were consistently a visible and important part of the city's social and economic life. In this section it will be argued that these changes in the local socio-political networks allowed for many collegiati and corporati to exert considerable influence over their own economic situation. This influence was effected primarily through professional associations at Rome, which, I argue, worked for the economic interest of their members.

For many years after the publication of Waltzing's multi-volume Corporations professionnelles it was generally accepted that Rome's collegia, although often organized around a shared profession, primarily functioned as social and religious clubs. This view reached its

109 Nov. Val. 20.1 (445) and Nov. Maj 7.3 (458). The former stipulates a term of service must be completed in the officium that was taken up (coepti officii) by corporati of the city of Rome, while the latter reaffirms these stipulations. It is not entirely clear what the term officium means in this context, but it could be that by this time certain duties of corporati had fully been integrated into the administrative apparatus of the city. See also, Nov. Val 36.5, in which the emperor awards a primate (prior corporis) of the corpus suariorum, pecuariorum, and boariorum the belt of service (cingulum). On the cingulum as part of the outfit worn by members of the imperial adiminstration see Kelly 2004, 20- 21, 30, and 23.

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culmination in Finley's influential The Ancient Economy, in which the author denied any economic impact of Rome's professional associations, averring "they never became regulatory or protective agencies in their respective trades."110 Recent attempts to understand the ancient economy through new paradigms have caused a shift in this position. Professional associations, or collegia, are now sometimes seen as entities that institutionalized trust networks and, thus, facilitated access to markets by lowering transaction costs. Along these lines, Cameron Hawkins has argued that collegia in the West, during the Principate, acted as private-order enforcement networks that provided economic opportunity for members.111 Similarily, being a collegiatus has been suggested to have increased trust and strengthened business partnerships, both of which helped combat market imperfections.112 Other scholars have also demonstrated that professional associations, at least in Roman Egypt, acted as cartels, which could set prices and control access to the market.113

These views, however, have not been extended to Late Antiquity and, in particular, not to late-antique Rome. Sirks has claimed repeatedly that late Roman professional associations did not work in the common interest of their members.114 Carrié has also denied that late-antique collegia and corpora worked to protect the economic opportunities of their members in a way analogous to guilds.115 It has even been argued that the late-antique corporate system ceased to provide a mechanism for association members to offer each other mutual aid, with professional associations instead becoming exclusively extractive institutions.116 The result is that, even in recent

110 Finley 1985, 138. See above (Chp. 4, fn. 6) for additional scholars who made this claim. 111 Hawkins (2016, 68-81) argues this was done through reputation mechanisms and communal sanctions. 112 Broekaert 2011, 226-230 on trust networks; 2011, 235-242 on the potential financial support and partnerships that collegia facilitated. Venticinque (2016, Ch. 1-3) reaches similar conclusions, with a similar methodological approach for Roman Egypt. 113 van Nijf 1997, 12-18, Gibbs 2011, 293-298, although he admits (308) that professional associations had more than one raison d'être. 114 Sirks 1993, 161 and 1995, 283-284. 115 Carrié 2002, 328-329. 116 Freu 2007, 324-329. Freu accepts Carrié’s thesis that collegia and corpora became tax organizations and suggests that, as a result, they no longer served to create horizontal solidarity. On this interpretation, collegia and corpora were simply extractive bodies.

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scholarship, the life and economic horizons of Rome's late-antique corporati are characterized as bleak at best.117 This view still privileges the juridical sources and often does not consider the actions which generated the content of the legislation. It also tends to ignore other evidence, literary and epigraphic, which although limited, can be read along with the juridical evidence to demonstrate the opportunities that lay open for late-antique Rome's corporati and how they, in turn, exploited these opportunities.

With these considerations in mind, I argue that Rome's corpora and collegia in Late

Antiquity did work in the economic interest of their members. Moreover, their new position both relative to the city and to its elite afforded them new opportunities, while the obligatory nature of membership made it more difficult for administrators to deny associations their demands, since this could have had grevious effects on the maintenance and provisioning of the city. In a way, I return to the argument made many years ago by Gunnar Mickwitz that asserted that increased state intervention through the establishment of compulsory membership provided to professional associations the means to obtain economic advantages, namely the monopolization of markets through the formation of price cartels.118 Mickwitz, however, situated this evolution in the fifth century. He accepted that there developed a system in the fourth century in which public services were devolved on to corpora, and while he maintained that these groups were fundamentally different from the voluntary associations of the High Empire, he argued that they did not yet exhibit monopolistic tendencies. The evidence, however, points to these developments already occurring among Rome's craftsmen and entrepeneurs throughout the course of the fourth century.

At Rome the prosperity of some fourth-century corporati is clear enough. On the grandest

117 See fn. 4 and 5 in this chapter. 118 Mickwitz, repr. 1968, 174-200.

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scale pistores could acquire enough wealth to enter the ranks of the clarissimi. 119 The same was true of the navicularii, who sometimes belonged to the landholding elite, but often remained among the plebs.120 Less affluent corporati and collegiati still possessed enough wealth to build or purchase elaborate burials for themselves and their family.121 While it is clear that individual members of associations could acquire wealth, it remains the case that the role of the professional associations in the acquisition and preservation of this wealth is less easy to prove.

For fourth-century Rome, however, we have strong evidence for the measures professional associations took to protect the interests of their collectives. In the literary record, this evidence comes in the form of Q. Aurelius Symmachus' detailed reports to the emperors Valentinian II,

Theodosius, and Arcadius during his short urban prefecture in 384. In four of his forty-nine

Relationes he addresses affairs concerning the city's associations. In Relatio 14, as we saw in the previous chapter, Symmachus petitioned Valentinian II not to impose another tax, this time the collatio equorum, on Rome's corpora. The impetus of the petition in this instance is presented as the result of Symmachus' own benevolence and his concern for the cura Urbis (quod si adiciantur insolita [obsequia] forsitan consueta cessabunt), not one arising from the membra of his urbs aeterna. One might imagine, however, that the original complaint came from below. Perhaps

Rome's various corpora all petitioned the prefect to protect their interests?

119 While these general patterns are indicative of the presence of wealthy corporati, it remains difficult to name individuals with any certainty. Following the argument put forward here, however, people like Terentius, the pistor then senator, would have been required to be a member in the corpus pistorum. In addition, Nov. Val. 36.5 praises a certain Baonius, a leading member of the corpus suariorum et pecuariorum, for his dignitas and awards him the cingulum of imperial service. That he is individually recognized in an imperial constitution implies both status and wealth, which the constitution (36.9) suggests he acquired in his capacity as a suarius. 120 CTh 13.5.14.4. In the sixth century John of Ephesus categorizes the shipowners of Alexandria as the wealthy class of the city. CTh 13.5.5. (326) speaks of navicularii who are decurions, plebei, or possessing another higher dignitas (potioris alterius dignitatis) 121 The tomb of the builder Trebius Iustus is one example and the cubiculum of the mensor in the catacomb of Domitilla is the other. See Rebillard (2009, 55) on the identification of cubiculum as belonging to the mensores.

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In the absence of direct testimony, we can only speculate, but various other examples point this way. In the same year, all the members of Rome's collegium medicorum, when faced with a potential interloper pilfering one of the few prestigious positions of archiater, gathered before the urban prefect's tribunal to resolve the matter (adhibitum est iudicio omne collegium medicorum).122

We are told that a certain Ioannes, a former palatine official, appeared in Rome and claimed a position among the archiatri to which he had been appointed in an irregular manner. Symmachus could not decide what to do because the most influential members of the collegium medicorum

(the potentissimi) were undecided as to whether or not the appointment should be honoured. CTh

13.3.8 offers insight into the implications of the decision for the members of the collegium. One archiater was assigned to each regio, not by favour or patronage, but by election by the association

(consortio) of doctors. The elected member received payment from public funds.123 The conundrum reported in the Relatio, then, was undoubtedly related to economic concerns. The appointment of an individual from outside the collegium to the position of archiater threatened the prospects of current members. Even if the action to approach the praefectus was motivated by the potential loss of individual financial benefits, the omne collegium was the mechanism through which to do it.

Relatio 44 is another example that demonstrates the process. Here the mancipes salinarum—members of the corpus omnium mancipum— were not able to bear the burden of their munus, so they petitioned as a collective to have members from other corpora added to their number.124 While their petition was not directly connected to their economic interests, we know that these mancipes were granted a monopoly over the sale of salt in Rome.125 Yet their right to

122 Symm. Rel. 27.2. 123 CTh 13.3.1.2 and 13.3.8. 124 Symm. Rel. 14. 1; 14.3 makes it clear it was the entire corpus who sought a resolution to their plight, quos sui corporis...adsensus. For a discussion of the munus of the mancipes salinarum see above, pg. 17-18. 125 CJ 4.61.11.

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administer and exploit the salt-flats was given in exchange for the completion of their munus.126

Any inability to complete their munus may have threatened their economic prospects at Rome.

Their petition to annex more members to complete their munus was, thus, a way to protect their economic boon.

Like the mancipes, the money-changers of Rome, the corpus collectariorum, were equally burdened by their munus. They were responsible for selling solidi to the city, for which they were paid a fixed rate from the arca vinaria.127 As base metal coinage continued to become devalued throughout the fourth century, the collectarii were paid increasingly less relative to the value of gold. This inequitable rate of exchange caused the members of the corpus financial losses. As a remedy, they petitioned (petunt) as a collective to have the fixed rate of exchange increased.128

This case is an unequivocal example of a corpus acting to protect the economic interests of their members.

From the Relationes of Symachus alone we have three instances of Rome's corpora acting in the collective interest of their members, either protecting potential individual financial benefits or the economic interests of the association as a whole. In each case, the associations petitioned the urban prefect, who then brought the concern to the emperor. We see here an example of the new relationship between the urban prefecture and the city's corpora. The same dynamics are at play in a dedication of the corpus coriariorum to the urban prefect L. Amnius Manius Caesonius

Nicomachus Anicius Paulinus in 334. The dedicators honoured Paulinus with a statue for restoring and embellishing their insulae.129 The corpus collectively owned property, in this case multiple insulae, from which they must have derived rent. Paulinus' intervention allowed the corpus to

126 CTh 14.5.1. 127 Symm. Rel. 29.1. 128 Symm. Rel. 29.2. 129 CIL VI 1682 = ILS 1220 = AE 2014, 124.

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continue to reap the benefits from their collective ownership. Although the corpus praised Paulinus for his foresight and integrity, we are reminded in the inscription that Paulinus acted in accordance with the laws of previous emperors (secundum leges principum priorum). Like the associations in

Symmachus' Relationes, the corpus coriariorum likely petitioned Paulinus to adhere to existing law and look after their collective interest.

In addition to using their new position relative to the administrative elite to protect their economic interests, collegia and corpora also sought ways to extract profit from obligatory duties.

The clearest example is well-attested among the ranks of the navicularii. When a navicularius delivered his cargo to Rome's ports, he would be issued a receipt (securitas) which he had to return to officials in his port of departure within two years.130 Two years was a long time and navicularii speculated on fluctuations in grain prices. In periods of shortage they might sell annona grain at a high price and within the allotted two years purchase it back when prices dropped. By 396 the imperial administration was wise to the scheme of the navicularii and limited the time period to a single year.131 The measures did little to curtail the profiteering of the navicularii, however.132 On display here is the unsteady balance between the state's needs and the means by which the necessary goods were acquired in Late Antiquity. The reliance on a group of collectives for the provisioning and maintenance of Rome left considerable room for their members to extract profits.

Closer to Rome, this extended to collegia and corpora leveraging this reliance on their service to secure monopolies for themselves, or at least limit access to the market for others.

130 CTh 13.5.21. 131 CTh 13.5.26. 132 CTh 13.5.33, issued in 409, establishes the death penalty for any navicularius selling annona grain. The implication is that even after the reduction of time to a single year, navicularii were still profiting from their speculation. In Rome’s hinterlands, Lo Cascio (1997) has argued that the suarii were also profiting off their munus. Two edicts from the 360s seem to attempt to redress the profiteering of the suarii. One (CIL VI 1770) stipulates the use of scales by the suarii, who had been previously making estimations by eye, to determine the exact weight of pigs and the other (CTh 14.4.4) removes the right of the suarii to exact payments in cash from landowners. These edicts imply the abuse of the suarii for their financial gain. For additional discussion see Chp. 2, pp. 66-68.

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I have already mentioned that certain mancipes were granted the right to control the sale of salt. Any person found selling salt or buying it without the involvement of a manceps would have to compensate the manceps; the buyer would be required to hand over the purchased salt and the seller the price he received for it.133 There is no mention in the law of a professional association, but it is likely these mancipes were members of the corpus omnium mancipum. In 364 a similar arrangement was secured by the saccarii. Valentinian I and Valens wrote to the urban prefect forbidding private persons to unload their cargo.134 The right to do this was granted exclusively to the saccarii and those who, in declaring their profession, would be joined to the corpus. The punishment was not the payment of compensatiion to the saccarii, but rather a fine payable to the fiscus. Nevertheless, the saccarii undoudtedly benefited from their control of this activity.

Already in the fourth century, then, there is evidence for imperially sanctioned monopolistic behaviour. Yet the means by which these exclusive rights were procured by workers remain obscure. Was it the result of imperial good will toward these particular groups? Given the process witnessed in Symmachus' Relationes, whereby collectives petitioned the administrative elite to protect their economic interest, I suggest a similar process occurred with the granting of exclusive rights to perform certain services. I have repeatedly stated that the imperial administration imposed obligatory membership and munera on Rome's collegia and corpora. The case of the navicularii demonstrates that the reliance on the service offered by collegia and corpora placed their members in a unique position to benefit. If we consider this alongside the fact that all those practicing a profession would be required to join a collegium or corpus, the imperial or city administration would be unable to resist demands from their associations unless they were willing

133 CJ 4.61.11. 134 CTh 14.22.1. See Freu 2009, 317-232 ono this constitution and the composition of the corpus of the saccarii

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to resort to coercive measures.135 The result was the continual conferral of benefits, perhaps including certain exclusive rights. The case of Rome's tabernarii will prove the point.

In 375, the praefectus urbi Tarracius Bassus issued an edict regarding the city's tabernarii.

The edict was subsequently inscribed and set up in various places in the city. Three fragments survive that allow the contents to be restored with some conjectures (translation below) :136

[Ex aucto]ritate Tarraci B[assi v(iri) c(larissimi) p(raefecti) u(rbi)]/ nomịna aẹre ị[ncisa taber]nariorum qui sibi pecun[iam publicam(?) locum indebitum (?) in] spectaculis et panem populi/ contra disciplinam Romanam dereḷ[ictis edictis praef(ectorum) urbi(?)] vindicare consueverant.

This preamble is followed by the promised list of names, organized in at least twelve columns, that contain both the derelict tabernarii and the various toponyms, perhaps of the locations of the tabernae belonging to these men. For our purpose the list is of little consequence. More important is the preamble. Here Tarracius Bassus announces that he will put on display the names of tabernarii who had been accustomed to usurp certain privileges ignoring in some way Roman disciplina, or law. The acquisition of certain benefits seems not to have been the issue—after all they were accustomed (consueverant) to do this—but rather it is their dereliction of some duty along with their continual usurpation of privileges that is contrary to Roman disciplina.

The pertinent portion of the text, after derel, has been a subject of debate and has produced various restorations.137 Alföldy most recently, and with the most thorough analysis of the stone,

135 One avenue for recourse the administration did have was corporal punishment. Libanius (Or. 1. 206-10) recounts the story of Philagrius, comes Orientis, ordering bakers in Antioch to be flogged publicly in 382. These bakers had reportedly worked together to artificially inflate the price of bread. Even in this scenario, however, Libanius interceded to stop the flogging (Or. 34.4). Intervention by elite patrons, the type conjectured above, would then also limit the ability to coerce work. 136 CIL VI 41328-330. 41328 was found in the basilica Julia, 41329 near S. Pietro in vincolo, 41330 on the Via Appia near the Villa of Maxentius. Tabernariorum has been the accepted reading in line two since Chastagnol 1960, 273. It was originally proposed by Hirschfeld 1913, 584-585, and is certain since names in the appended list are also found on CIL VI 9920, set up by the corpus tabernariorum. 137 Mazzarino (1959, II 788) proposed it be restored as de re l[udicra] by way of hypothesis, associating pecunia spectaculis with the distribution of contorniates, which only occured during spectacles. He is followed by Pennestri

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proposed derel[ictis edictis praef(ectorum urbi)].138 While Alföldy is certainly right about the space available on each fragment of the preamble, there seems to be no solid foundation for his conjectured restoration, as no previous edicta exist in the extant evidence, either epigraphic or juridical. On the other hand, the contents of the preamble read strikingly like various constitutions which attempt to limit decuriones and collegiati illegally joining other corpora in order not to fulfill their obligatory munera. In particular, CTh 12.1.162, issued to the vicarius of Rome in 399, orders the removal of decuriones who, relictis urbibus, had transferred themselves into the corpus centonariorum. Clyde Pharr and other commentators assume the ablative absolute refers to the physical abandonment of cities. Liu, however, considering various pieces of evidence pertaining to the centonarii, has offered the plausible solution that the phrase (relictis urbibus) means something akin to "with the cities not being served." In this way, the phrase is synonymous with many others in the Theodosian Code that address the avoidance of various munera.139

I have already stated that in Late Antiquity the imposition of munera was accompanied by the granting of certain benefits. These benefits varied from exemption from munera sordida, certain taxes, and tutela, to the receipt of panis gradilis. I suggest therefore that the phrase should be restored as derel[icta urbe aeterna(?)]:140

[Ex aucto]ritate Tarraci B[assi v(iri) c(larissimi) p(raefecti) u(rbi)]/ nomịna aẹre ị[ncisa taber]nariorum qui sibi pecun[iam publicam(?) locum indebitum (?) in]

1989, 302 and Cavallaro 1984, 142-143 fn. 52. Hülsen (1891, 349-358) and Waltzing (Vol. II, 109) both conjecture that the tabernarii continued to claim privileges granted to cives Romani even though they have illegally changed their domicile. On these grounds Hülsen restored derel[icta or ictis]. Chastagnol (1960, 274) rejects Hülsen's restoration and, thus, his interpretation claiming that the space on the stone is not sufficient to permit all the letters. He opts to leave a space of ca. 11 letters after de re. Cracco Ruggini (1961, 120-121) follows Chastagnol's reading. 138 Alföldy (2000, 5056-5060) = CIL VI 41328, 41329, 41330. 139 Liu 2009, 289-290. 140 Purcell (1999, 144) restores derel[icta urbe Roma], following Hülsen's (1891, 349-358) and Waltzing's (Vol. II, 109) hypothesis. While Purcell's interpretation appears to miss the mark, his restoration may be correct. However, I opt for aeterna since it better fits the space on the stone as outlined in Alföldy's analysis and because another praefectus urbi, Symmachus, uses the collocation urbs aeterna when referring to Rome in his Relationes—e.g . Rel. 14 & 18— and never urbs Roma.

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spectaculis et panem populi/ contra disciplinam Romanam derel[icta urbe aeterna(?)] vindicare consueverant.141

According to the authority of Tarracius Bassus, vir clarissimus, and urban prefect. Inscribed in bronze are the names of the tabernarii, who, although they have not served the city, had been accustomed to claim for themselves public money, an undeserved seat during spectacles, and public bread contrary to Roman law.

The issue addressed in the prefectural edict was therefore that tabernarii continued to lay claim to certain benefits without fulfilling their obligatory duties. The list of names was an attempt to recall errant tabernarii to their task.

Assigning a single duty to tabernarii is fraught with issues. Tabernarius is a designation given to anyone operating in a taberna, which was a multifunctional space. The inscription itself cites, among those who had been negligent, a fullo, a gallicarius, and an ex-collegiatus. However,

CTh 11.10.1 and 2, issued in 369 and 370, assign to tabernarii the duty (obsequium) of attending

(prosecutio) to the animals entering into the cities, because it was these men who derived profit from the movement of people and livestock into cities. Both laws suggest that none should be free from this task. Along with whatever other work at which they plied their trade, tabernarii were bound to the duty of prosecutio, and this was true by 369 at the latest, just six years before Bassus' edict. The problem then was that Rome's tabernarii were not fulfilling the munus recently imposed on them. Our negligent tabernarii and Bassus' edict are better contextualized in the world of late- antique associative labour, and thus it is likely that once the collective duty was imposed so too was membership in a corpus or collegium on the city's tabernarii.

A second, often ignored inscription confirms that by the early fifth century such a corpus did exist. Found in the Campus Martius, this inscription was set up in honour of Arcadius,

141 CIL VI 41328-330. 41328 was found in the basilica Julia, 41329 near S. Pietro in vincolo, 41330 on the Via Appia near the Villa of Maxentius. Tabernariorum has been the accepted reading in line two since Chastagnol (1960), 273. It was originally proposed by Hirschfeld 1913, 584-585, and is certain since names in the appended list are also found on CIL VI 9920, set up by the corpus tabernariorum.

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Honorius, and Theodosius according to an edict (ex auctoritate) of the urban prefect Postumius

Lampadius.142 The dedicator was the corpus tabernariorum and the remainder of the inscription, after the preamble, includes a fragmentary list of the individual corporati. This is the first and only attestation in the extant record of a corpus of tabernarii. Yet the appearance of heredes among the members implies that the corpus had been established for some time.143 As suggested, it is possible that this occurred already in the 360s, if not before. Symmachus counts caupones among the corporati who sustained the burdens of the city in 384.144 There is good reason to assume that these corporati caupones are members in the corpus tabernariorum, as CTh 11.10.1 uses the terms almost synonymously when imposing the obligatory duty of attendance (qui caupona vel propola vel tabernaria lucrum familiare sectetur).

Therefore, at some point in the fourth century and certainly by the 360s, Rome's tabernarii were obligated to perform a munus and constituted a corpus. However, the content of Lampadius’ prefectural edict that elicited the dedication, which attests the corpus, is unknown; it was never inscribed on the stone and we do not have a corresponding constitution in the Theodosian or the

Justinian Code.145 We must look to a later period for a possible answer. In 440 CE, the emperors

Valentinian III and Theodosius II issued an edict to the people of Rome.146 Among other things concerning the care of the city, this edict expressly permitted Greek merchants (pantapolae), who previously had been expelled from the city, to return, because of the benefit their work provided

142 CIL VI 9920. CIL VI 9103, another fragmentary inscription, found in the basilica Julia may be related to the corpus tabernariorum. It includes two lists, on which three tabernarii appear. Two, Ursus and Herculius, also appear on CIL VI 9920. For the phrase ex auctoritate designating a prefectural edict in late antiquity, see Feissel 2009. 143 CIL VI 9920. Hülsen agrees with previous commentators that hh plus the name in the genitive in lines 12, column II, line 18, column I, line 19, column II, and line 8 & 9 column III should be expanded to h(eredes). More importantly, the existence of heredes in the inscription might imply the munus of the tabernarii was a munus patrimoniale. Hülsen simply assumes this. 144 Symm. Rel. 14.3. 145 While we should not expect to find corroborating constitutions in the codices for each inscribed edict we find in Late Antiquity, it is not an unattested possibilty. The edict of Turcius Apronianus, preserved in CIL VI, 1771, corresponds with an imperial epistula to the same Apronianus while he was urban prefect (CTh 14.4.3). 146 Nov. Val. 5.

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to the city of Rome. The reason for their initial expulsion was said to be the general dissent and great ill-will (dissensio et maxima invidia) of the tabernarii. The cause of the dissent of Rome's tabernarii may also be gleaned from the law: the pantapolae were not adhering to established prices (statua pretia) and thus were perhaps undercutting the business of the tabernarii.

If we consider Symmachus' Relationes again, when faced with potential economic hardship, corpora petitioned the urban prefect to redress the issue. We know our tabernarii formed a corpus and it could be that in the early fifth century they petitioned the urban prefect Lampadius as a collective because their economic interests were threatened by a group particularly adept at generating business; Valentinian's Novella does, after all, call the pantapolae skilled in acquiring profit (emendis vendendisque mercibus diligentiam). In response, the emperors may have granted the tabernarii a monopoly over the sale of retail goods, expelling the pantapolae from the city.

We need only cite the exclusive privileges granted to the saccarii in 364 and the mancipes in 398 and this reconstruction becomes more likely. In return for the generosity of granting a monopoly to the tabernarii, the corpus set up an inscription to the emperors, citing the prefectural edict of

Lampadius which was likely derived from the emperors’ response to the tabernarii's petition.

The case of the tabernarii neatly demonstrates the full extent of the exchanges between the emperor, the urban prefect, and Rome's corpora that are only preserved in fragments in the literary, epigraphic, and juridical evidence. I have argued that all these discrete glimpses demonstrate how

Rome's collegia and corpora acted in the economic interest of their members. Throughout the course of the fourth century and into the fifth century, Rome's professional associations were bound to particular duties and those who practiced a profession were obligated to join associations to ensure the completion of the necessary duties. The result was that the city relied more heavily on its collegia and corpora. Far from creating a bleak and dire outlook for the corporati, the evidence reveals a broad horizon of economic opportunities. Collegia and corpora protected and

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advanced the interests of their members and they did so by also influencing the imperial and administrative elite.

Conclusion At the outset of this chapter, I claimed that Rome's professional associations were a lens through which we can observe the late-antique population, its organization and its impact on urban developments. Acceptance of this assertion also entails the acceptance of a series of conclusions, which, in places, conflict with firmly entrenched assumptions about the associative phenomenon and the "corporations professionnelles" of the late-antique Urbs. Careful study of the various and complex pieces of evidence seems to validate my hypothesis. Rome's collegia and corpora were primarily perceived as professional associations, as membership in these associations was intimately tied to the practice of a craft or trade. This relationship largely derived from the imposition of munera, professional duties essential for the needs of the city and generally tied to the professional function of a corpus or collegium. Munera also came to include the collection of a tax (collatio lutstralis) and, as a consequence, the state made membership in collegia and corpora obligatory for anyone exercising a profession. This narrative is not novel. In fact, it is this very structure that has led to the belief in a late-antique system characterized by state-controlled, oppressive work and labour, which were imposed on the population. On the contrary, in Rome the opportunities offered to corporati and collegiati exceeded those of previous periods. The members of Rome's associations were a significant and visible group in the population, they could experience upward social mobility, acquire significant wealth, and found themselves in contact with Rome's most illustrious citizens. As collectives, too, they experienced new levels of integration into the administrative apparatus, while also acting as protective agencies for their members’ economic interests.

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In the next chapter, I move on from Rome's collegia and corpora, although they are never far removed from the picture, which in itself speaks to their integration in the late-antique Urbs.

This subsequent and final chapter examines the building industry and argues for its demographic, economic, and organizational significance. Many of my claims about the vitality of Rome's professional associations will be tested, as some of the historically largest and best-attested collegia from preceding centuries are those associated with building. It will become abundantly clear that during the fourth century this middling section of Rome's non-elite urban population experienced new levels of vitality, and this in turn had an impact on the social, political, and economic structures of the Urbs.

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CHAPTER FIVE

Building and Builders: the organizational structure and economic impact of Rome’s building industry on its population from Aurelian's to Honorius' wall

Late-antique sources are replete with testimony of building at Rome, describing both the monuments themselves and the process of their creation, destruction, and repair. In fact, Rome is often presented as a pastiche of monuments. This is nowhere more apparent than in Ammianus' postcard tour of Rome's expansive architecture during Constantius II's adventus, which begins with the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline and ends in the Forum of Trajan, omitting all other aspects of Rome’s built-up urban landscape. Yet Rome was not just monumental structures. Pressed up against them in the dense urban fabric were sprawling domus, packed tenements, fountains, and porticoes. If anything, our sources make clear that Rome was a living city; it was a place in need of constant repair and construction.1

Throughout the fourth century, the role of the elite and the emperors in both the care and continued monumentalization of the city is well-attested, and we are reminded that these men relied on the hands of the many to realize their aims. It has long been suggested that the free urban population provided a significant portion of labour for construction projects.2 Today it is increasingly argued that Rome possessed a labour market, in which free people, freedmen, and slaves all could work side-by-side, both as unskilled and skilled labour.3 The building industry was

1 In recent scholarship, it is argued that Rome witnessed continual monumentalization as a reinvigorated elite engaged in unprecedented private construction, see Chenault 2012, 103-132; Machado 2012, 136-158 and 2019; Weisweiler 2012, 319-350. At the same time traditional imperial projects and an increasingly visible episcopate continued to reshape the fabric of Rome, see Dey 2011 and Curran 2000. 2 Brunt 1980 and DeLaine 1997 and 2000. See Bernard 2016 for a nuanced assessment, in which he by and large accepts this claim for Rome, but not for smaller urban centers. In the fifth century, one must also refer to corvée labour of free citizens. Grey and Parkin (2003) address the role of the urban poor and suggest that the colonatus perpetuus was a source of urban labour. See Digest 45.1.137.3 which may confirm the use of free unskilled day-labourers. On finding employment in the city of Rome, in general, and the importance of the construction industry see Holleran 2016 and Erdkamp 2016. 3 Pleket 1988; Temin 2004 and 2013; Bang 2007; Tacoma 2018.

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unlikely to have been different.4 Therefore the record of building in Rome, both private and public, is significant if we are to understand the organization, scale, and socio-economic prospects of

Rome's urban population.

Past scholarship has tended to emphasize a decrease in the scale of construction after the first decades of the fourth century, which has then been linked to evidence that indicates the attenuation of the city's population during the same period. In chapter two, it was established that the view of a decreasing Rome is no longer tenable. Instead, I argued that fourth-century Rome retained a population size commensurate with its Severan predecessor, if not slightly larger, and that late-imperial fiscality tied a large portion of this population to their profession. The result was that a select sub-section, that is a middle class, of the population experienced significant levels of political integration and wielded greater economic influence than previously acknowledged in historical treatments of the late-antique city. In what follows, I will argue, similarly, that demand in the construction industry at Rome was hardly reduced throughout the fourth and into the fifth century. This view leaves open many questions about how construction work was administered, who controlled the production and distribution of material, and, most importantly, who did the work and how they were organized. This chapter attempts to answer these questions.

In the first part, I rely on literary, epigraphic, and juridical evidence to chart the organization of building administration and the control of the building production in both the public and the private sphere. The evidence demonstrates some degree of continuity in the control and management of building from the High Empire through to the fourth century, although by the middle of the fourth century the administrative developments led to the control of the city's resources falling increasingly under the purview of the city’s elite. Further down the social

4 DeLaine (1997; 2000, 129-130; 2018, 480) makes a strong case for the large amount of unskilled labour many large imperial projects would have required.

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spectrum, I argue that administrative reforms affected the way in which labour was organized and levied for new construction, maintenance, and repair. It will be shown that by the beginning of the fourth century, collegia and corpora associated with building undergo serious reforms in their organizational structure, and certain forms of work affiliated with the construction sector were transformed into obligatory duties and made compulsory.

In the second half of the chapter, I turn to the building record of the Urbs to demonstrate the impact of the reform of labour organization. Here a sharp increase in demand at the beginning of the fourth century is seen as the stimulus for reform, while continuous demand thereafter serves to reconfigure the socio-economic conditions of builders in the subsequent centuries. By tracing the evidence in one of the largest urban industries, this chapter aims to demonstrate the mutually advantageous relationship that developed between the city's elite and its corporati. It is shown that a significant section of the city's non-elite urban population was integrated in the public administration to a greater degree than previously acknowledged and that this provided greater access to resources and wealth for this group. Scrutiny of the mechanisms for organizing and extracting labour in the building industry will serve also to demonstrate the ways in which poorer sectors of the city’s population were integrated into the city’s labour force. This chapter therefore constitutes a case study that discloses the extent to which demographic, fiscal, and legal changes, which have been traced in the previous chapters, impacted upon the socio-political and economic dynamics of Rome’s population.

Building Rome: an overview of the organization of construction up to the Severan Period

The question of the organization of builders at Rome during the Principate has been approached through concentrated analyses of excavated monuments, by evaluating the legal evidence, and by examining the social structures of various professions in epigraphy and

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literature.5 The impetus motivating previous reseach has consistently been an interest in the administration of the construction industry and the latter’s scale, both as a creator of jobs and as a measurement of economic success. The importance of the building industry for employment and economic development remains debated, as the gaps in our evidence do not permit a full account of either imperial policy or construction activity. There is no way of fully understanding the mechanisms for marshaling labour and organizing construction projects in either the public or the private sphere. What follows is a synthesis of the various studies and the accompanying evidence with an aim to provide a synoptic view of the construction industry over the course of the first three hundred years of the Principate. This work will provide a basis against which the subsequent century can be measured.

In the public sphere, like in many other aspects of city life, the administration of public building was continually the object of reform from the late first century BCE through to the middle of the first century CE. Suetonius writes that Augustus devised a series of boards to facilitate public administration: the cura aquarum, the cura viarum, the cura alvei Tiberis, and the cura operum publicorum.6 The earliest and best attested of these curae is the cura aquarum, which was established in 11 BCE.7 Suetonius’ claim that Augustus established all these boards and the definitive evidence for the permanent creation of the cura aquarum after the death of Agrippa has led to the assumption that the other boards were established at the same time.8

5 E.g. Delaine 1997 & 2000; Lancaster 1998 & 2002; Kolb 1993; Martin 1989; Pearse 1974. 6 Suet. Divi Aug. 37.1. In addition to the various curae, Suetonius cites a multitude of Augustan reforms, the impetus for which was supposedly that Augustus wanted to create more opportunity for more men to participate in the administration of the the State: Quoque plures partem administrandae rei p. caperent, nova officia excogitavit: curam operum publicorum, viarum, aquarum, alvei Tiberis, frumenti populo dividundi, praefecturam urbis, triumviratum legendi senatus et alterum recognoscendi turmas equitum, quotiensque opus esset. (So that more men might take part in the administration of the State, he devised new duties: the office of public buildings, of the roads, of the aqueducts, of the Tiber banks, of the distribution of grain to the people; the prefecture of the city; the three men for selecting senators and another group for reviewing the body of equites, whenever there was need. 7 Front. Aq. 98. For the most comprehensive study on the administration of the water supply at Rome see Bruun 1991. 8 Kolb 1993, 23-25.

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In the case of the cura operum publicorum, this claim is complicated by the lack of corroborating evidence and, in places, even conflicting evidence.9 Much like the cura aquarum, which came to be headed by a single curator,10 the cura operum publicorum was placed under the auspices of a curator operum publicorum, who had a colleague called the curator aedium sacrarum. The fragmentary and sometimes contradictory evidence limits our ability to understand the duties entrusted to its head official. Frontinus' account of the cura aquarum provides some clues by way of comparanda. He suggests that by the end of the first century the ambit of duties assigned to the curator aquarum included the building and maintenance of the city's water supply system.11 In order to realize this work, the cura was equipped with an imperial familia of roughly

700 slaves.12 However, this did not preclude the use of private contractors when cost, and perhaps time restraints, militated against the service of the slave gangs.13 If the cura aquarum can be used as any indication, then it could be suggested that the curatores operum publicorum saw to the maintenance, and possibly construction, of public buildings and perhaps also maintained a permanent slave gang for labour. In both cases the extant evidence presents obstacles.

The evidence pertaining to the cura operum publicorum and its curatores indicates that they participated in maintenance of the city’s loca publica, including its buildings, and that they

9 See Bruun 1996, 735-736 and also Eck 1992, 240. The former suggests that the overlap between the duties assigned to the curator operum publicorum and the curatores locorum publicorum iudicandorum implies a more complex situation, while the latter demonstrates the continued existence of the curatores loc. pub. in 20 CE. Bruun (1996, 736) also reminds us that the first epigraphic attestation of curator operum publicorum does not come until shortly after 14 CE. 10 Initially there may have been three curatores. Front. Aq. 99 suggests that Messala Corvinus was first appointed as curator and that he was given two senatorial adiutores. 11 Front. Aq. 99: (Augustus) constituit et rei continendae exercendaeque curatorem... (Augustus established a curator both for the maintenance and oversight of the cura...); Front. Aq. 106: the curator is responsible for assigning the location for the construction of new castella; Front. Aq. 119: the curator is to determine whether construction or extension of aqueducts (uia non semper opus aut facere aut ampliare quaerentibus credendum est. Ideoque non solum scientia peritorum sed et proprio usu curator instructus esse debet). 12 Front. Aq.118. 13 Front. Aq. 119. The epigraphic evidence attests to at least one of these contractors: L. Paquedius Festus CIL XIV 3530.

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oversaw the allocation of public land for construction, but it says little about ex novo construction.14 In the case of the latter, it appears that emperors could appoint specialized officials as occasions arose,15 while juridical sources also point to the curatores’ role in facilitating the payment of contractors engaged in public work.16 Three individuals identified as contractors of imperial works in the epigraphic record confirm the existence of such an occupation.17

The role of private contractors in public building is not unanticipated; as mentioned,

Frontinus suggested that the curator aquarum often relied on contractors' services. None of these attestations indicate whether they pertain to ex novo construction or repair. Anne Kolb has argued that the office of the cura operum publicorum was likely responsible for new public construction.

She suggests that the attestation from at least the mid-first century of two curatores, the curator operum publicorum and the curator aedium sacrarum, leaves room for the oversight of both the maintenance of existing buildings and the construction of new ones.18 She admits, however, that there is little evidence for this conjecture,19 a point which has led others to suggest that the curator operum publicorum and his entire office could not claim responsibility for new construction.20

14 For the care of loca publica, see Gordon 1952, 280-283 and Kolb 1993, 35. In Roman law, the owner of land was also the owner of what was built over it. In this case, maintence of loca publica extended to maintenance of the buildings built on it, see, for example, Dig. 43.8.2. Bruun (1996, 738) agrees that the main task of the curator operum publicorum was the oversight of maintenance and repairs to public buildings. See also Lancaster 2002, 372. Martin (1989, 62) suggests that these officials were in charge of organizing labourers and supplies. The latter case is perhaps demonstrated by a number of curatores who also owned figlinae, see Steinby 1983, 220-221. 15 For example, Vespasian appointed the equestrian Lucius Vestinus to oversee the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, see Tac. His. 4.53. Suetonius (Tit. 8) claims that Titus did the same, appointing many equestrians (complures ex equestri ordine) to see to the building of monuments and temples. 16 Dig. 50.8.11 and 50.10.2.1. Although it must be admitted that both address arrangements in provincial cities that may not reflect the situation in Rome. 17 CIL VI 4694, 9034, and CIL XIV 3530 for the position redemptor operum Caesaris. The first of these redemptores is attested under the Flavians, a libertus Augusti, Ti. Claudius Onesimus, see CIL VI 9034. A fourth is no doubt associated with the domus Augusta (CIL VI 607 = 30801b). 18 Kolb 1993, 54. 19 Kolb 1993, 55. In fact, she points out, "daß keine Quellen vorleigen, die die Ausführung von Neubauten unter der Leitung der curatores operum publicorum belegen." 20 Syme (repr. 2002 [1939], 403) first suggested that the various curatores, including the curator operum publicorum, were created as “casual” employment. Eck (1993, 391) argues that special appointments were made by the emperor for new construction. Bruun (1996, 737) rejects Kolb's suggestion based on the lack of evidence and the presumed annual tenure of curatores. Cf. DeLaine 2018, 476, where she appears to wholesale accept the role of the curatores in

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Given the state of the evidence the question about the oversight of new public construction remains open, but there seems to be a consensus that the curatores of the cura operum publicorum, at the very least, saw to the administration of the maintenance of preexisting public buildings.

Who was physically responsible for realizing and repairing these buildings is another matter. Without the aid of certain basic technological innovations, the construction of buildings was naturally labour intensive. I have already noted that the cura aquarum was equipped with a gang of public slaves for the maintenance of the aqueducts. This arrangement could likewise have existed within the cura operum publicorum, but there is a dearth of evidence in this regard. In the columbaria of the Imperial family in the early Principate only five slaves connected with building are attested, while the epigraphic record may contain another twelve possible persons, both freedmen and slaves.21 An inscription of the mid-second century that can be connected to the cura operum publicorum in only an oblique manner references a familia Caesaris.22 At Rome there is also some evidence for servi publici involved in the maintenance of public structures.23 This arrangement certainly obtained in municipalities, and it is argued that the organization of civic familiae publicae were modeled after the structures in Rome.24 Nevertheless, it remains impossible to say if the maintenance board at Rome had access to a permanent familia. Forced or corvée labour was an additional means for procuring manpower for public construction projects

the construction of public buildings. Elsewhere (2000, 136 fn. 8), DeLaine is more measured, suggesting that the prevailing opinion was that the curatores were only involved with maintenance. 21 See Pearse 1974, 63-67, for discussion, epigraphic references, and a comparison chart. 22 AE 1917/18, 111. It is an inscription set up by a procurator operum publicorum on behalf of the safety of the imperial house. The place for the dedication was marked out by the curatores operum publicorum and aedium sacrarum for liberti and the familia Caesaris. The inscription then only implies that the curatores assigned the space (locus adsignatus) for the dedication of the temple of Silvanus, which the inscription attests. But the presence of a procurator operum publicorum as the dedicator may still associate the familia Caesaris with construction of the monument. We might also add AE 1972, 35, which is a funerary monument for Titus Flavius Aug. lib. Vitalis, a freedman of either Vespasian or Titus and an adiutor tabulariorum operum publicorum. But it is likely that the latter inscription relates to the office that dealt with the finances of public construction, see Pearse 1974, 52. 23 Eder 1980, 91 and 16, who cites CIL I 1067 = CIL VI 2338; CIL VI 2347 = 4431 = ILS 1971; and CIL VI 37175 = ILS 9029. 24 Weiss 2004, 188.

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throughout the Roman Empire, but this practice is not attested at Rome until the middle of the fifth century CE.25 Instead, it is commonly argued that the free population must have constituted a significant portion of the labour force in the construction industry at Rome for much of the Empire.

Peter Brunt first advanced the thesis that Rome's building industry relied heavily on wage- labour from the city's free population.26 An oft-cited anecdote about Vespasian's refusal to adopt certain transport technology for fear it might prevent the employment of his plebicula is used to suggest that Rome was a city built, quite literally, on free wage-labour.27 A passage preserved in the Digest reaffirms the use of free wage-labour in the construction industry:

Item qui insulam fieri spopondit, non utique conquisitis undique fabris et plurimis operis adhibitis festinare debet nec rursus utroque aut altero contentus esse, sed modus adhibendus est secundum rationem diligentis aedificatoris et temporum locorumque.28

Similarly, one who promises that an insula will be built need not hasten to procure craftsmen from everywhere and to employ numerous labourers, nor should he be satisfied with one or two. A mean must be set in accordance with the standard of a conscientious builder at that place and time.

Neither of these sources provide information about the scale of labour or the organization of the workforce. A number of studies that engage in analyses of excavated monuments that have been carried out in the last few decades provide some insight into the composition of the workforce.29

25 Nov. Val. 5.2-3. See also discussion below, pp. 248-249. Scheidel (2018, 252-254) suggests that corvée labour was generally eschewed in the Roman empire, especially in Rome, for labour market solutions, which included contracting. However, he argues tolerance for the use of corvée increased “with the distance from Rome’s citizen core” and as “egalitarian traditions were eroded in the later stages of the Roman empire.” The Lex Irnitana suggest that corvée labour was imposed on incolae and municipes, see tablet IXA, chp. LXXXIII. It is also present in the earlier lex coloniae genetivae (chp. XCVIII). In this case, labour is demanded from every adult male (singulos homines puberes), but only for five days. Bernard (2018, 111 and fn.119) suggests that where evidence does appear (the law just cited and six inscriptions [ILS 5590; 5630; 6887-9; ILAlg 2.1.3596]), man-days of corvée labour are historically well below other pre-industrial societies. 26 Brunt 1980, 87. A point that has since been consistently repeated, e.g. DeLaine 2000, 122 and Wilson 2006, 229. 27 Suet. Vesp. 18. Casson 1978; Brunt 1980; Steinby 1983; Skydsgaard 1983; DeLaine (2000, 123) claims that the passage “hints at the not insignificant numbers which might be involved in public works.” 28 Dig. 45.1.137.3. Trans. Watson 1985, vol. IV, 189. Italics my own. 29 The most prominent is Delaine's (1997) cost-analysis on the Baths of Caracalla, but Delaine (2000) on Hadrianic construction in Ostia, Lancaster (1998) on the Markets of Trajan, and (2002) on the Colosseum are also useful examples. See now Pakkanen 2014 for a case study on the cost and construction of shipsheds in the ancient Mediterranean; Russell and Barker 2012 for an evaluation of theoretical approaches to labour costs in stone working;

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In every case a large percentage of the workforce required was unskilled, likely engaged in the transport of materials or general hard labour.30 Yet a significant portion of skilled work was still required,31 and, on the whole, it has been suggested that the construction industry could have accounted for the employment of 4-6% of Rome's total population, or nearly 20% of its adult males.32 Architectural analyses also points to how this mass of workers and labourers may have been organized at the construction site. At the Markets of Trajan, for example, distinct horizontal joins in the brick courses demonstrate the presence of discrete work groups operating on various sections simultaneously.33 The same is true of the Aurelian wall.34 The sheer number of workers and labourers required in each of these projects and the way in which the work seems to have been divided necessitates ready mechanisms for the organization and procurement of the labourers.

The city's many professional associations— collegia and corpora— are instructive in this regard. At Rome we find various titles and types of builders in our sources. Each of these builders, as far as can be discerned, could be characterized by a specified set of skills,35 and most of them

and Bernard 2018, 75-116, who produces a careful study of the the labour processes and costs for building Rome’s fourth-century BCE wall. In addition to these studies, Dey (2011) adds considerably to our understanding of large- scale building organization in his analysis of the Aurelian wall, while Mateos, Pizzo, and Ventura's (2017) recent work of the quadrifrons arch in the Forum Boarium should also be considered. 30 Delaine (1997, 196) suggests that up to 27% of the estimated minimum of c. 16,000 labourers needed for the baths of Caracalla fit into the category of unskilled. Dey (2011) does not provide figures for the Aurelian wall, but echoes Delaine's conclusions. Bianchi and Meneghini (2002) calculated that it would have taken 1000 unskilled labourers a full year to level the slope of the Quirinal to build the Forum of Trajan. 31 Delaine (1997, 196) posits 4,600, or 29% of the total estimated labour force, skilled brick layers were required for the Baths of Caracalla. Add to this c. 23% of various other skilled craftsmen, and it means that c. 52% of labourers or over 8,000 workers skilled in some building trade were required. Lancaster (1998, 307) posits that a maximum of 144 pairs of masons could have worked simultaneously on the completion of a single level of the north wing of the Trajan's Markets. 32 DeLaine 1997, 198-201; 2000, 135; 2018, 473. 33 In the case of the brick walls, these joins result in what Lancaster (1998, 291-306) calls "pigs" or disjunctions that appear between courses. At the Colosseum there is also strong evidence for distinct work groups, see Rea, Bester, and Lancaster 2002, 341-375. In the literary record too, Statius (Sil. IV.3. 40-55) implies the division of tasks and the simultaneity of work on the construction of the Via Domitiana: o quantae partier manus laborant. Hi caedunt nemus exuuntque montes, hi ferro scolopas trabesque levant, illi saxa ligant opusque texunt... 34 Medri 2015, 12 and Esposito, Mancini, and Vitti 2017, 119. 35 There are as many as 43 separate occupational titles associated with building at Rome. See Bernard (2016), 73, fn. 67.

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organized themselves into professional collegia.36 The largest and best attested is that of the fabri tignarii.37 This was an association of some antiquity; it was reorganized under Augustus in 7 BCE, and a series of extent alba permit numerical inferences about its size and composition.38 By the second century CE the collegium fabrum tignariorum numbered around 1300 members. These members were divided among sixty decuriae, and at the head of each was a decurio.39 From these decuriones, every 5 years, 6 magistrates, the magistri quinquennales, were elected to serve as the leaders of the collegium. All attested members were either freeborn or freed, and each was required to pay a fee, or summa honoraria, upon entrance to the association.

Both the status of its members and the financial obligation for membership has led to the belief that most of the collegiati were men of some substance. Because of their moderate to good socio-economic status Janet DeLaine has argued that each member was likely the owner of a small

"firm" composed of eight to ten workers, and that the decuriae may have functioned as a ready-

36 E.g. the corpora fabrum subaedianorum (CIL VI 9559); conlegium fabrum ferrarium (CIL VI 1892= ILS 1915) collegae marmorarii (CIL VI 9550); collegium pavimentariorum (CIL VI 243, 19 CE); collegium structorum (CIL VI 444= ILS 7280). Outside of Rome there is evidence too for the existence of various building associations. For example, CIL XIII 1734= ILS 7263 attests to the simultaneous existence of the corpus fabrum tignariorum and the that of the artificum tectorum at Lugdunum, while Verboven (2016, 178, fn. 30) suggests eight cities in Italy had both collegia fabrum and fabrum tignariorum. Kolb (2008, 103) finds 37 different occupational titles associated with building in Italy. 37 Admittedly the association of the fabri tignarii with the construction industry has met opposition. In his pioneering study, Waltzing (Vol. II, 119) rejects the possibility. Martin (1989, 65) exercises caution. Pearse (1974, 122) suggests that if a building worker were to join a collegium it would likely be the collegium fabrum or fabrum tignariorum. Liu (2009, 114-115) adopts this position, positing a regional differentiation in duties. Delaine (1997, 199-200) posits a clear link to the building industry, while Verboven (2016, 178-180) argues convincingly for the tignarii's association with building. 38 These have been found across Rome and date from the second lustrum of the collegium (2 BCE-3 CE) to the forty- eighth lustrum (229-233CE). CIL VI 30982= AE 1975, 13 (2nd lustrum 2 BCE- 3CE; found at S. Giorgio al Velabro); AE 1941, 71= 1949, 192 (1st-18th lustri; Santa Prassede); CIL VI 148 = 30703= XIV 5 (27th lustrum; S. Maria della Consolazione); CIL VI 10299= AE 1981, 25 = InscrIt-13-01 (42th-48th lustri; southern slope of the Palatine). It is still debated whether the latter list is associated with the tignarii. Royden (1988, 168) and Panciera (1981, rep. 2006) think this must be the case. 39 CIL VI 1060 and 10300 list the decuriones of the 24-60 decuriae and CIL VI 9405 lists all 22 members of the tenth decuria. From these numbers we arrive at 1320 members. If we add the six magistri quiquennales, then we can count nearly 1330 members as a minimum in the collegium in the middle of the second century CE, the date at which CIL VI 10300 was orginally set up. That 22 members in a decuria was the common complete number is corroborated by CIL XIV 4569 from Ostia, which preserves the complete list of members from decuria 16 of the local collegium fabrum tignuariorum.

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made structure for participation in projects at worksites.40 By these estimates the amount of individuals from the tignarii alone that were associated with building in Rome, on a low calculation, was upwards of 10,000. This size made them a significant collective body in the Urbs, providing a ready source of labour for public construction projects.

How the sizable labour force of the collegium was pressed into service is revealed in the person of Ti. Claudius Onesimus. Onesimus was a magister quinquennalis of the tignarii in the eighteenth lustrum. The same inscription that attests this also records him as a libertus Augusti and a redemptor operum Caesaris, or a contractor of imperial works.41 It was already suggested that contractors had a role in the construction and maintenance of public buildings on the grounds of

Frontinus' claim that the curator aquarum at times relied on private contractors and the substantiation of this claim in the epigraphic and juridical record. While Onesimus cannot be connected to any specific project, as a freedman of either Claudius or Nero, he likely operated as a contractor of imperial works under the Flavians.42 The famous Haterii family, who also boasted of a redemptor operum Caesaris, may also be connected to the collegium fabrum tignariorum through a certain Q. Haterius Evagogus, who is commemorated as a decurio of Rome’s tignarii.43

As contractors, these men may have relied on the ready made structures of their collegium’s decuriae, as DeLaine suggests, to levy manpower and organize labour for imperial and public projects.

Evidence primarily from the sphere of private building suggests that the letting out of

40 Delaine (1997, 200-205) reaches this conclusion through a convincing quantitative analysis of building in Rome. She strengthens her position by applying the same methodology to the Hadrianic building programme at Ostia paired with a more nuanced understanding of the tignuarii there (2000 and 2003). 41 CIL VI 9034. 42 Horster 2001, 190f. This would make Onesimus a contemporary of another redemptor also closely associated with imperial work under the Flavians, Q. Haterius Tychicus. Coarelli (1979, 266-269) argues that Tychicus, who is identified in CIL VI 607 as a redemptor is the same Q. Haterius commemorated on a funerary monument of the Haterii family, which associates them directly with construction of the Flavian monuments. 43 CIL VI 9408.

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construction work was most commonly achieved by a locatio-conductio contract, in which a contractor provided securities for a job and was paid in intervals until the job was completed.44

That this prevailed in the public sphere is clear enough from the first century BCE contract for the repair of the Via Caecilia and the slightly earlier lex parieti faciundo from Puteoli.45 Once having obtained a contract, contractors would often engage craftsmen who were specialists and operated their own "firms" through a series of subcontracting relationships.46 The scale of many public projects makes it unlikely that a single contractor could provide sufficient financial guarantees for the completion of entire projects.47 This particular obstacle implies that contracts may have been let out for portions, instead of for entire buildings. All of this aligns well with the aforementioned epigraphic testimony and the archaeological evidence, which demonstrate that groups of workers were employed to construct only a small portion of the building in question.48

In all, the evidence reveals a consistent pattern: builders were organized into discrete groups—perhaps the "firms" of eight to ten, or more, conjectured by DeLaine— and they worked simultaneously with other workers on small portions of large public projects. They were hired by a contractor, who either engaged workers through subcontracting relationships or was an entrepreneur, owning the "firm," and the evidence readily attests the relationship of these contractors to building collegia and, particularly, to the collegium fabrum tignariorum.

So far the account has focused entirely on the public sphere, yet similar structures are attested in the private sphere, where the literary sources tend to complement the evidence

44 The best evidence for this is from the private sphere, which is discussed below. For an overview of contracts and law in the building industry see Martin 1989. Contracts could also be made by way of stipulatio, which was essentially a verbal agreement concluded by question and answer. 45 ILLRP 465 = CIL VI 3824; FIRA III2 153 (105 BCE). 46 Hawkins 2016, 86-89. 47 Brunt 1980, 86. Lancaster (2002, 371) agrees in the case of the Colosseum. 48 See fn. 33 above. This can be supplemented with evidence from the Colosseum, which demonstrates similar segmentation of labour, see Lancaster 2002, 361-370.

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concerning the public process of contracting, even if much of it is confined to the Republic. In 56

BCE, Cicero wrote to his brother Quintus about the progress of the work on his Palatine domus.

In the first of two letters about the matter, Cicero claims to have paid the contractor, redemptor, half of his money.49 It appears that when the contractor had fulfilled the obligations of the contract,

Cicero engaged in a probatio, or an inspection of the work. When he was satisfied with the job, he then paid the contractor the remainder of the agreed fee.50 In a subsequent letter Cicero again addresses the same matter. He states that he was being reassured by the contractor, Longidius, that the work would be completed, and that construction was being handled by a whole group of builders (multis structoribus).51 Here we have evidence for a group of builders under the employ of a contractor, perhaps by means of an additional locatio operarum, who himself has likely hired on a contractual basis.52 The organization of construction labour in the private sphere, then, appears to align with the model for public projects. Contractors, called here redemptores, were hired by means of contracts to complete specific work. These contractors either owned small building

"firms" of workers or hired labourers with additional locationes operarum.

This arrangement appears to persist throughout the Empire. While our literary sources might remain silent on the matter, the frequency of redemptores in the epigraphic record through to the third century CE points to continuation.53 In the case of Cicero’s villas cited above, the

49 Cic. Q,fr. 2.4.2. (56 BCE) 50 The passage is indicative of the traditional contractual arrangement made by way of a locatio-conductio operis. 51 Cic. Q.fr.2.6.3. Structoribus here must be a generalizing term for builders, as Cicero is referring to the construction, in general, of Quintus’ house. This is corroborated in a letter to Atticus (ad Att. 14.3) where Cicero again uses the term structores in the general context of building his house. This is the interpretation favoured also by Anderson 1997, 35. 52 Hor. Ep. 2.2.72-73 includes a redemptor clearly associated with the construction industry. Horace’s redemptor is accompanied by mules and geruli. In this case, we might have an example of a contractor subcontracting out additional workers, but it may also demonstrate the opposite: a contractor in possession of a number of slaves working as his transporters. 53 Twenty-five inscriptions, datable through to the third century, identify redemptores associated in some way with the construction industry: CIL III 14195; IV 1190; VI 607, 9034, 9794, 9851, 9852, 9854, 33873, 37148, 37821, 38456; IX 4694; X 1549, 3821; XI 4127; XIV 2091, 3530, XV 7150; AE 1925, 87; 1972, 21; 2005, 1662. There are no attestestations after the Severan period, though ICUR V, 13497 may be an exception. It is a fragmentary inscription dated to the 5th century in which the deceased may be identified as a redemptor.

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contractor may be said to have hired builders that were free, rather than slave-labourers. This was at least the case some twelve years later, when, in a letter to Atticus, Cicero suggests that builders

(structores) working on his villa had set out to Rome for their grain distribution (ad frumentum), a right from which slaves were excluded.54

Contracting and free wage-labour, then, play a role both in the public and private sphere of the construction industry. Evidence for slave labour in public construction at Rome, however, is slim and uneven, though it must have existed. The same is true of private construction. There is the singular attestation from the Late Republic of Crassus' gang of 500 slave builders and architects, but an operation on this scale appears to be unique.55 During the early Empire, our sources still attest to senatorial slave ownership on a massive scale,56 but in early imperial aristocratic familial columbaria, where slave and freedmen occupations are listed, builders are decidedly underrepresented among these large familiae.57 Even in the famous columbarium of the

Statilii Tauri, often cited as evidence for the maintenance of a familia of builders by a family with a particular interest in building, builders make up only 10 of the 170 attested occupations.58

If this evidence is at all a reflection of reality, it appears that it was the preference in the building industry to hire wage-labourers rather than maintain a group of slaves. This choice was likely one of economic viability. The decision to coerce slave labourers or employ wage labourers was one largely determined by two factors: the thickness of the labour market and the price of

54 Ad. Att. 14.3 (44 BCE). On the frumentationes in Rome see Chp. 2, pp. 62-84. 55 Plut. Crass. 2.4. 56 One only needs to cite Tacitus’ account of L. Pendanius Secundus’ 400 slaves to support this claim, see Tac. Ann. 14.43-44. 57 Columbaria associated with the imperial family are excluded. Among the columbaria of the L. Arruntus, the Volusii, C. Annius Pollio, and the Iunii Silani only a single profession tied to building is attested: CIL VI 7411 records a Castor who was a plumbarius of the familia C. Anni Pollionis 58 Only 3 fabri (CIL VI 6283-5); 3 fabri tignarii (6363-6365); 1 faber structor parietarius (6354); 1 structor (6353); 1 marmorarius (6318); 1 mensor (6321). See Caldelli and Ricci 1999 for a comprehensive study on the columbarium of the Statilii Tauri.

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slaves.59 Scheidel argues that imperial Rome was a mature slave market that had reached a high equilibrium, in which a stabilizing slave population was deployed in roles which required training and skill that tended to correlate with higher slaves prices.60 The Roman world also experienced high rates of urbanization during the Empire. Conventional estimates that consider cities with a population mean of 2,000 inhabitants—perhaps, as many as 1,800 cities— produce minimum urbanization rates as high as nearly 20%.61 This rate would imply that many cities would have relatively thick labour markets. With a population approaching 1,000,000, of which only some

20% were slaves, Rome would be an example par excellence of the thick urban labour market.

The effects of such markets on the type of labour an employer would seek to utilize are perhaps best reflected in evidence from Egypt, in the form of the estate of Aurelius Appianus.

Although it derives from a rural context, Roman Egypt was by all measures a thick labour market.

In an excellent study of this estate, Dominic Rathbone reveals that two types of labour prevailed: long-term dependent wage labour that was supplemented by daily wage labour, depending on the seasonal intensity of the work.62 The latter could account for between about 30-80% of the labour.63 Like agriculture, which was subject to seasonal fluctuations in intensity, the construction industry was also characteristically seasonal.64 This correlation might suggest a preference for free

59 Scheidel 2005 and 2008, 105-126; Harper 2010, 208- 217. 60 Scheidel 2005, 2-11. 61 See Wilson 2011, 180-193 for the model to calculate rates of urbanization and his estimates, which result in a minimum range of 10.4-19.5%, depending on the size of the total population. Morley (2011, 148-150) provides a model for urbanization rates in Imperial Italy. He acknowledges the conjectural nature of the estimates and as such renders a number of possibilities based on the threshold for what constitutes a city and the various population models for Roman Italy. He suggests then that urbanization rates in Italy, excluding Rome, ranged from 7-18%, but including Rome (with a population of 800,000-1,000,000) from 19-32%. If nothing else, his model confirms the implications of Rome’s population on the rate of urbanization. 62 Rathbone 1991, 91-102 63 Rathbone 1991, 148-166. 64 Front. Aq.123; Brunt 1980, 93; DeLaine 1997, 105; 2000, 122, where she cites Dig. 45.1.137.3. Bernard 2016, 64, who cites Volpe 2002 and the construction "journals" of the baths of Trajan. Volpe published 28 inscriptions found in one of the cryptoporticoes of the baths that record dates to monitor work. The walls of this cryptoportico, measuring 38m x 14m, were built in less than 2 months.

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wage labour also in this industry, especially at Rome. Certainly this is what Brunt concluded long ago.65 I remain more cautious, as other sectors of Roman industry seem to imply that slave and free-wage labour were structurally equivalent, if imperfect, substitutes.66

A number of general conclusions arise from this cursory overview of the organization of building from the first to early third century. In the public sphere, building repair and maintenance was organized and controlled by a board, the cura operum publicorum, set up, perhaps, by

Augustus. By the middle of the first century, this board was headed by two curatores and this arrangement remained by and large the case through to the first two decades of the third century.67

Ex novo construction was primarily overseen by the emperor and officials appointed by him for the task. In both cases, it appears likely that a good portion of the labour was supplied by wage- labourers. Professional associations, the largest of which was the collegium fabrum tignariorum, provided ready mechanisms to procure these labourers, already organized into "firms." 68 Labour was marshaled through a system of contracts, and contractors, who could be entrepreneurs at the head of small firms, regularly factored in the process. Both contractors and free labourers also loom large in the evidence for the private building industry,69 while there is a dearth of attestations for slaves, perhaps unsurprisingly, whose occupations can be securely linked to building. In this way it seems that the private building industry takes its cue from the public building industry, or vice versa, where preference for organizing workers through a series of contracting relationships

65 See above, pp. 216-217. See also Kehoe 2012, 114-125 on contract labour and its economic impact. 66 Tacoma 2018, 431. Contra Temin 2004, 513-538, who argues that slave labour and free labour are near perfect substitutes. 67 CIL VI 864; 31128; 3741=31127, 31338, 40645; 1352; AE 1973, 72 attests to the continued authority of the curatores in relation to the administration of public building at Rome. See Kolb 1993 and Daguet-Gagey 2015 for public building at Rome and the administrative continuity between the first and third centuries. 68 A number of alba of the tignarii at Rome date to the Severan period and attest to vitality of the tignarii through to the Severan period. Also, at Ostia the collegium remodeled their schola near the forum and dedicated a temple to Pertinax. 69 CIL XI 4127, dated to 218 CE, cites a redemptor and attests to the persistence of these structures into the third century.

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is the norm.

Sub dispositione viri illustris praefecti urbis: the administration of public building in fourth- century Rome

As is the case in many respects, any post-Severan third-century development in the management of public works or the organization of labour at Rome is near impossible to recover due to the paucity of evidence, perhaps resulting from the upheavals of the “third century crisis.”70

A renewed interest in the epigraphic habit from the tetrarchic period on, however, allows some things to be said about the administration of public works from the late third century through the fourth century, while the Notitia Dignitatum may provide confirmation of what the administrative hierarchy looked like at Rome by the fifth century CE.71 Accordingly, in what follows, I chart the development of the administrative structures of public building at Rome through the course of the fourth century. In choosing to first illustrate the organization and function of various administrative bodies, this section looks to establish the essential socio-political framework created by city-wide reforms over the course of the fourth century, from which the city's middling population would come to benefit.

When the Notitia was composed in the first decades of the fifth century the administration of public building was under the control of the urban prefect, to whom two curatores, the curator operum maximorum and curator operum publicorum were assigned. It took some time for this arrangement to take shape. Instead, it would appear that throughout the third century the cura operum publicorum continued to exist as it had, along with its two earlier established curatores: the curator operum publicorum and the curator aedium sacrarum. The epigraphic record is a

70 Kolb (1993, 262-264) cites Clodius Pompeianus (69) and a Clodius (70) as ὑπατικοί τῶν ναῶν, dating the former to 244 and the latter to 280. But these are the only two officials known after the Severan period. For Pompeianus see IG XIV 1045 = IGUR I 130 and for Clodius see IG XIV 993 = IGUR I 168. 71 Seeck (ed.) repr. 1962 (1876), Notitia dignitatum; accedunt Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae et latercula provinciarum; Ireland (ed.) 1998. Notitia Dignitatum.

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witness to this reasonable degree of contintuity. A small marble base found in front of the curia in

Rome, for example, records as the individual in charge of the dedication (curante) a certain

Cethegius Pelagius.72 Cethegius is identified as the curator aedium sacrarum, a position which he probably held sometime between 280 and 296 CE.73 Subsequent to this, in 299, Valerius Comazon is recorded allocating a space (τόπος ἐδόθη) for the construction of a temple of Serapis in his capacity as ὑπατικὸς ἱερῶν ναῶν or consularis aedium sacrarum.74 Between 306 and 312 CE, a certain Furius Octavianus dedicated a statue on behalf of Maxentius to Mars and the founders of

Rome, again as curator aedium sacrarum.75 Comazon and Octavianus were both of senatorial rank, while Cethegius is identified as a vir perfectissimus. Cethegius represents the sole example of a sub-senatorial member holding this position, and this would suggest that sometime during the third century equestrians gained access to the office, which then subsequently became, once again, the preserve of the senatorial elite. Despite this, the office still functioned through to the first decade of the fourth century as it had in the preceding periods.

In addition to the curator aedium sacrarum, we know that the position of the curator operum publicorum also persisted. L. Aelius Helvius Dionysius is identified as curator operum publicorum in an inscription dedicated to him under the tetrarchs.76 The inscription must predate

296 CE, and it is possible that Dionysius simultaneously served as curator aedium sacrarum and curator operum publicorum. After the three attestations in the late third and early fourth century, we lose sight of both officials until the late 320s and 330s, when the offices appear with the new

72 CIL VI 37123= AE 1900, 87. 73 For Cethegius see PLRE I, Pelagius 3. 280-296. Though the dedicatee is no longer preserved, the base has been dated between 280 and 340 CE. This range can likely be narrowed within the dates cited above. The tenure of the last potentially attested curator aedium sacrarum in the third century is placed in 280 CE, while it is likely that L. Aelius Helvius Dionysus was curator aedium sacrarum before 296. See fn. 71 -above on the potential attestation of a curator aedium in 280. 74 IG XIV 1026 = IGUR I 191-192. 75 CIL VI 33856. The role of the emperor is still very clear at this time, as Octavianus saw to the erection of the statue at the behest of the emperor in his capacity as curator. 76 CIL VI 31901a= VI 1673 = ILS 1211.

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title of consularis.77 L. Crepereius Madalianus is identified as consularis aedium sacrarum in an inscription dedicated to him by the decurional council and people of Flavia Constantiniana

Portus.78 After the latter attestation, the office of the curator or consularis aedium sacrarum disappears from the record. There is good reason to believe that this is a direct result of the abolition of the office, which may have occurred in 331 when Constantine is said to have issued an edict transferring temple property to churches.79

The development of the curatorship of the opera publica is slightly more complex. When this office reappears in the epigraphic record, Q. Flavius Maesius Egnatius Lollianus signo

Mavortius is recorded as both consularis and curator operum publicorum. The former is found in a dedicatory inscription from Puteoli,80 and the latter in an inscription datable to around the same time dedicated by the the people of Sessa Aurunca.81 It seems likely that Mavortius held this office, as either consularis or curator, in the 320s,82 but the matter is complicated by a later dedication to the same man made by his son in 355.83 This inscription records Mavortius as curator operum maximorum, which is the first attestation of this office.84 This inscription, like the other two, also

77 A Hierocles Perpetuus is recorded as a curator in an inscription likely dated between 312-337 (CIL VI 1223). The inscription commemorates the repair of some monument, perhaps the via sacra. The office of curator operum publicorum has been restored. Neither this restoration, nor the date of the inscription is certain. A fragmentary statue base, found in the Forum, records the dedication made by another curator operum publicorum to an unkown emperor, CIL VI 40831 = AE 1999, 167. Unfortunately, neither the name of the empreror nor of the curator is extant: ------/[-- -]ṛṭịạnus v(ir) [c(larissimus)]/ [cur(ator) o]per(um) publicor(um) devot[us]/ numina maiestaṭịq(ue) eius. 78 CIL XIV 4449= AE 2007, 163. Madalianus was suffect consul in 335, prefect of the annona likely in 337, and vicar of Italy in 341. He was thus probably consularis aedium sacrarum in the late 320s or early 330s. Chastagnol (1960, 45) would make him consularis near to 330. For the date of his prefecture see CIL VI 1151, a dedication to defied Constantine as prefect of the annona, and for his vicariate, see CTh 16.10.2. Also on the career of Madalianus see Lenski 2016, 146-147. 79 Jerome Chron. s.a. 331: edicto Constantini gentilium templa subversa sunt. See the discussion in Lenski 2016, 170- 171. Chastagnol (1960, 52-53) suggests the office was abolished in 331. 80 AE 1977, 198. On the date of his office see below. 81 CIL X 4752 = ILS 1223. Both inscriptions were dedicated before Mavortius held the urban prefecture in 342. 82 Both inscriptions record the additional offices of curator alvei Tiberis and curator aquarum. He held the latter office in 328, as CIL VI 36951, a statue base bearing a statue dedicated to Constantine by Mavortius as curator aquarum, is datable to that year. In each case, his cursus appears in ascending order and both his curatorship of the Tiber banks and his position at the head of the cura operum publicorum are cited before his curatorship of the water supply. 83 The inscription is dated by Mavortius' ordinary consulship, which he held in 355, see PLRE I, Lollianus 5. 84 See CIL VI 1723=1757=37112= ILS 1232, and the Notitia for the structure. CIL X 6441 to an unknown dedicatee records the anomalous office of the praefectus operum maximorum. It is dated to the second half of the fourth century.

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records that Mavortius was curator alvei Tiberis and curator aquarum. Absent is the office of curator operum publicorum that both of the earlier, aforementioned inscriptions attested. Instead, it seems to be replaced by the office of curator operum maximorum. The problem should be apparent: in three different inscriptions Mavortius is recorded as being curator operum publicorum, consularis operum publicorum, and curator operum maximorum, all at the same time, likely in the 320s. To reconcile this issue Jones simply suggests that all three were likely synonymous, while Chastagnol believes the later inscription represents an error by the dedicator, assigning to his father an office that only came into existence at a later date.85 While the evidence does not permit an entirely satisfactory resolution, Chastagnol appears to come closest to the mark.

The 320s were evidently a period of reform, in which the ambit of some imperials administrators’ duties seems to have been redefined. This is clearly evident as regards the administration of building and public space in the Urbs. But is it possible to say more about the development of this process? At some point during their reign, Diocletian and Maximiam saw to the maintenance of the city’s water supply. Two inscriptions record that they undertook the cleaning and rebuilding of all of the water-channels in the city and rebuilt 110 feet of the Tiber banks, which had apparently collapsed. The former work was administered by the curator aquarum, at this time L. Aelius Helvius Dionysius, and the latter by M. Acilius Balbus Sabinus, the curator alvei Tiberis riparum et cloacarum sacrae urbis.86 Sabinus’ work on the banks finds an almost direct parallel in an earlier inscription, dated to 161 CE, in which Aulus Platorius Nepos

Calpurnianus is recorded as overseeing (curante) the repair of the Tiber banks.87 These curatores,

85 Jones 1964, 691; Chastagnol 1960, 45. 86 CIL VI 1242 = 31556 = ILS 5894 (M. Acilius Balbus Sabinus) ; CIL VI 773 = ILS 626 (L. Aelius Helvius Dionysus). 87 CIL VI 40867 and 40868.

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then, display some degree of continuity in respect to their responsibilites from the preceding period, a trend that the epigraphic record attests until 324.

In this year, Constantine, Constans, and Constantine II repaired the Pons Signinus, and the official in charge was again the curator alvei Tiberis et cloacarum sacrae Urbis,88 while sometime before this date Constantine repaired the Aqua Virgo with a certain Centullus Valerianus, the curator aquarum, managing the project.89 After this date, however, epigraphic testimonia reveal a shift in the administration of this kind of work. In 367 the construction on the Pons Valentinianus was completed. The inscriptions that commemorate the work all disclose that a former urban prefect, L. Aurelius Avianus Symmachus, had been responsible for the bridge’s construction, which we know started during his urban prefecture in 364.90 In 365, another urban prefect, C.

Caeionius Rufius Volusianus Lampadius, saw to the repair of thirteen bridges, the Tiber banks, and a castellum aquae.91 In the case of the castellum, the care of the project was put in the hands of a consularis aquarum, who was now answerable to the urban prefect. The pattern is plain: at the same time as the cura operum publicorum seems to have been undergoing reforms, the cura aquarum and the cura alvei Tiberis also underwent reorganization, coming under the control of the urban prefecture.92

We might use this evidence in pursuit of an additional argument where the epigraphic record remains silent. I stated above that there is no epigraphic testimony of the curatores operum publicorum and aedium sacrarum after the 320s. The reason in the case of the curator aedium sacrarum was that this official likely ceased to exist by 331. Yet, if credence can be lent to the

88 CIL VI 40770. 89 CIL VI 31564. 90 CIL VI 31402-31412; Amm. 27.3.3-4. 91 CIL VI 31963= 3866= ILS 5791 (castellum); CIL VI 40793 (bridges and banks). 92 We might also add a new inscription that attests to the work of Iunius Pomponius Ammonius, an urban prefect under Valentinian I and Valens, on the Aqua Claudia.

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Notitia, the curator operum publicorum was still functioning in the city through to the early fifth century. But like with the other curae, the cura operum publicorum became attached to the urban prefecture in a development that saw the widening of the scope of the latter office. An imperial edict issued in 364 to the urban prefect, which sought to prohibit the construction of new buildings, demonstrates that the oversight of public works had come within the ambit of the urban prefect’s duties by this time.93 But again, it is the period after the 320s that seems pivotal. In 334 Anicius

Paulinus is commemorated for restoring the insulae of the coriarii as urban prefect.94 In 344/5, Q.

Rusticus, then urban prefect, saw to the repair of the baths of Agrippa on behalf of Constantius II and Constans.95

It would seem that by the 330s, at the latest, the urban prefecture assumed responsibily for the cura operum publicorum.96 Yet the relevant curatores are rarely mentioned in our sources.

Two later inscriptions that record the repair of temples (in one of the cases possibly the construction) by urban prefects record that an unspecified comes and then a consularis oversaw the projects.97 It is possible that these individuals were a comes and consularis operum publicorum or operum maximorum. After all the Notitia suggests that the curator alvei Tiberis became the comes riparum et alvei Tiberis et cloacarum and we know that the curator aquarum was referred

93 CTh 15.1.11. 94 CIL VI 1682 = ILS 1220. 95 CIL VI 1165, [dd(omini) nn(ostri) Constantius] / [ac Cons]tans triumphatores Augusti / termas vetustate labefactas restauraverunt / Q(uinto) Rustico v(iro) [c(larissimo) praef(ecto) urbi]/------. 96 Chastagnol (1960, 53) sees this process occurring sometime between 312 and 344 and argues that a date close to 331 is most likely. He links this to a new aggressive policy of Christianization that accompanied the founding of Constantinople. Such a policy is most explicitly attested in the removal of the curator aedium sacrarum, see above. Coarelli (1986, 29-34) rejects this and instead suggests the reorganization occurred under the tetrarchs. 97 CIL VI 45 = CIL VI 39807: Apollini sancto/Memmius Vitrasius/ Orfitus v(ir) c(larissimus)/ bis praef(ectus) urbi/ aedem providit/ curante Fl. Claudius/ Evangelo v(iro) c(larissimo) comite; CIL VI 102 = ILS 4003: [Deorum C]onsentium sacrosancta simulacra, cum omni lo[ci totius adornatio]ne cultu in f[ormam antiquam restituto]/ [V]ettius Praetextatus v(ir) c(larissimus) pra[efectus u]rbi [reposuit]/ curante Longeio [---v(iro) c(larissimo) c]onsul[are].

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to as consularis by the 360s, while we already saw above that Mavortius was given the title of consularis operum publicorum in the 320s.

If the other curae are any indication, the primary concern of the officials of the cura operum publicorum was likely the maintenance of the city’s monuments. By 355 these monuments seem to have been divided between those of greater importance (maxima opera) and other buildings.

The curator operum maximorum, as the title implies, may have been responsible for those buildings of greater importance. What constituted a significant building is perhaps attested in the literary record. Already during the Republic, Cicero could write that walls, shipyards, ports (or storehouses), and aqueducts were better investments because these represented a public benefit.98

An edict issued to the praetorian prefect of the East in 384 would seem to suggest that this reasoning prevailed also in Late Antiquity, as it lists the repair or construction of walls, storehouses, and aqueducts as singularly important.99 So when the decision was made to include another administrative post in the cura operum publicorum— the curator operum maximorum—it is likely that this administrator became responsible for maintenance of Rome’s relatively new wall and maybe its public storehouses.

At the same time, as we have seen, the curator alvei Tiberis and the curator/consularis aquarum continued to operate in their respective spheres, while the curator aedium sacrarum ceased to exist. In this case, maintenance and oversight of loca sacra may have been assigned to another existing official, likely the curator operum publicorum. While the evidence does not permit an affirmative answer for the latter conjecture, in the very same passage of Cicero’s De

98 Cic. De Off. 2.60. 99 CJ 8.11.7. I opt here for the translation of portus as storehouses. Dig. 50.16.59 provides a definition of portus as storehouse: Portus appellatus est conclusus locus, quo importantur merces et inde exportantur: eaque nihilo minus statio est conclusa atque munita. Inde angiportum dictum est. In the edict cited above then, portus may mean the entire port complex, including storehouses. Since it was addressed to the praetorian prefect of the Oriens, Maternus Cynegius, whose jurisdiction covered the entire prefecture of the Oriens, “portus et aquae ductus et murorum” may have even extended to mean the storehouses, walls, and aqueducts of all Eastern cities, not simply ports of port cities.

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officiis cited above, theaters, porticoes, and temples are juxtaposed with the aforementioned worthier buildings. It may be the case that the lesser curator was responsible for buildings of this nature. This would make it much more probable that the undefined consularis, who oversaw

Praetextatus’ repair of the porticus of the Dei Consentes, was actually the consularis operum publicorum.100

In terms of the maintenance of the city’s structures and the administration of this process, the fourth century seems to have been a period of constant reform at the highest levels. The image that our sources reveal regarding the administration of ex novo construction is even more varied.

The emperors of the tetrarchic period continued to be acknowledged as responsible for the construction of major public works in the Urbs.101 During the principate, as was outlined above, it appears that the emperor would appoint people to oversee new projects. For the late-antique city the assumption has been that with the withdrawal of the imperial presence, this responsibility too fell to the urban prefect.102 The evidence for the dedication of the Pons Valentinianus supports the view that the prefect was charged with oversight of new construction.103 Ammianius writes that the elder Symmachus ‘founded’ (condidit) the bridge, which has been taken to mean that the bridge in question was built ex novo.104 The inscriptions may corroborate this interpretation as they commemorate the ‘establishment’ and ‘completion’ of the bridge (institui...perfecti).105 Instituere does not appear on any other building inscription in Rome throughout the fourth or fifth century.

100 CIL VI 102 = ILS 4003. 101 See below for tetrarchic building, pp. 253-257. 102 Chastagnol 1960, 43-52. 103 The indentification of Rome’s late-antique bridges is a fraught issue. The Pons Valentinianus is often assimilated with the earlier Pons Aurelius, which was likely built spanning the Tiber near the current Ponte Sisto. On the location of this bridge see the LTUR IV, 107-108 s.v. Pons Agrippae; Pons Aurelius; Pons Valentiniani or Babić 2014, 260-266. 104 Amm. 27.3.3; Babic (2014, 263) finds that nowhere else in the Res Gestae does Ammianus use the phrase condere pontem. Boeft et al. (2009, 45) suggest that Ammianus “chose the unusual condidit to emphasize that Symmachus did not simply repair the existing bridge, but built a new one to replace [the old one].” 105 CIL VI 31402-404.

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Aurelius Victor writes that Constantine established (institutum) his eponymous baths,106 while both an inscription that records Lampadius’ work on the bridges and Tiber banks and an inscription that cites the ex novo construction of a stabulum employ the verb constituere, a close cognate of instituere.107 In the former case, it must be admitted that repair work is commemorated, not new construction, but it is worth noting that Ammianus vituperates this very Lampadius for inscribing his own name “not as the restorer of old buildings, but as the founder.”108

The case of the construction of a new forum on the Palatine is more certain. An inscription mentions its dedication to the people of Rome by Valentinian I, Valens, and Gratian.109 The dedication is dated by the urban prefecture of Flavius Eupraxis, who is recorded as overseeing

(curante) the forum’s dedication and, perhaps, its construction, in 374.110 So it would seem that the urban prefect was also in charge of ex novo construction. But the situation is not so straightforward. The urban prefect would often need to contend with other administrators, sometimes those appointed by the emperors, in this sphere. The inscription that adorned the aforementioned stabulum records that the vicarius, Valerius Anthidius, had been charged with the oversight of the building’s construction.111

106 Aur. Vict. Caes. 40.26. 107 CIL VI 1774 and 40793. 108 Amm. 27.3.7: non ut veterum instaurator, sed conditor. There remains resistance to the view that this bridge was built ex novo and the aforementioned law issued in 364 by Valentinian I that proscribed new construction would seem to militate against it. Matthews (repr, 1990, 22) argues that the language in the inscription likely overstated the prefect’s contribution. 109 On this forum, see LTUR II, 311-312. Both its exact location and nature are unknown. 110 CIL VI 1177 = 31252= ILS 776 =AE 1997 106: Forum populo Romano suo [dono dederunt] / domini et principes nostri [Imppp(eratores) Caesss(ares)] / Valentinianus Valens et [Gratianus Auggg(usti)] / curante Flavio Eupraxi[o] v(iro) c(larissimo) [praef(ecto) urbi]. 111 CIL VI 1774. Perhaps this is not surprising as the vicarius of Rome often assumed the duties of the urban prefect. This occurred, for example, in 359 when, after the death of a prefect, the vicarius Artemius took over the responsibility of the urban prefecture until another prefect was appointed (Amm. 17.11.5). This fact notwithstanding, Sinnigen (1959) argues that vicars were instituted to purposefully undermine the power of prefects. Anthidius is recorded as agens v(ice) praef(ectorum) praet(orio) in the inscription. A law of 381 (CTh 9.38.6), however, is addressed to the same man as vicarius and Arnhiem (1970, 593-606) has made a clear case that agens vice praefectorum praetorio was often the title assigned to vicarii in the epigraphic record.

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Symmachus’ well-known account of the building of a bridge and a basilica in Rome reveals the often complex processes that could occur in the management of new construction in the city.

In 382 the emperors commissioned the construction of a bridge and a basilica. The bridge stretched across the Tiber near the northern extremity of the Aventine and the basilica is often associated with the construction of S. Paolo fuori la mura.112 We are told that the construction of both had been assigned first to Cyriades, the comes et mechanicus, and then to Auxentius, a vir clarissimus and illustris.113 Neither was able to complete the projects within the appropriate time and

Auxentius accused Cyriades of misappropriation of funds, citing the exorbitant cost of the monuments’ construction (qui [Cyriades]...super basilicae atque pontis inmodico sumptu...Auxentii voce perstrictus est...).114 Cyriades then issued a retaliatory countersuit against

Auxentius. It was only at this point that the urban prefect and, as Symmachus reveals, the vicarius became involved.

Until the point at which the project went awry, Auxentius and Cyriades seem to have had complete oversight. Symmachus writes that his predecessor, Auchenius Bassus, inspected the bridge (pontis opere perspecto) only when it was near completion (sub actorum confectione).115

This type of final inspection is reminiscent of the censorial probatio from earlier periods.

Otherwise, Auxentius and Cyriades are described as administrators (actores), appointed by the emperors (aeternitas vestra officium...mutasset), with complete authority of the administration and

112 This association is made generally because a near contemporaneous letter written to Sallustius by the emperors Theodosius, Valentinan II and Arcadius commissions the construction of the basilica of St. Paul, CSEL 35.3. Sallustius’ prefecture, however, has been redated to 386 and therefore the basilica referenced by Symmachus is likely another, see Vera 1978, 45-94 and Liverani 2003. Liverani (2003, 76) suggests that the nova basilica in Symmachus is the basilica Piniani, which may have been a secular or Christian basilica. The repair of a basilica Piniani is attested in an early fifth century inscription (CIL VI 40805) and Valerius Pinianus was urban prefect in 385. 113 Symm Rel. 26.1 claimes that Auchenius Bassus was first charged with the oversight. Bassus was urban prefect in 383/4. Symm. Ep. 5.76: “... discussionem pontis ac basilicae nouae praeceptio augusta mandauit.” Cyriades, comes et mechanicus: Symm. Ep. 5.76.1; Rel. 25.1 (comes et mechinicae professor); Rel. 26.1. Auxentius, vir clarissimus and inlustres: Symm Rel. 26.1. 114 Symm. Rel. 25.2. 115 Symm. Rel. 26.2.

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oversight of the new buildings (cura atque administratione coeptorum).116 Auxentius was then succeeded by a certain Aphrodisius, also of senatorial rank, who was assigned to the administration of new construction or the cura novarum molitionum (...Aphrodisio cui post Auxentium v.c. novarum molitionum cura legata est).117 Liverani has argued that Symmachus’ narrative reveals the creation of a new administrative office in late-antique Rome, the curator novarum molitionum, which like the curatores operum publicorum and maximorum was a sentatorial post attached to the urban prefecture, but whose authority extended to ex novo construction.118 Certainly this interpretation fits with the tightening of imperial control over fiscal contributions to building that the law codes so clearly show from the 360s onward.119

While we cannot say with confidence that there existed in late-antique Rome a curator specifically charged with the oversight of new construction, a few conclusions can be drawn about the the administration of ex novo construction. The emperor remained the most important individual responsible for the initiation of new construction. In some cases, oversight of projects was assigned to select officials, all of sentorial rank. These individuals retained complete authority over the management of the construction process, though they were still under the purview of the urban prefecture. When a project encountered problems imperial authority intervened, and the urban prefect was forced to collaborate with imperial officials more directly beholden to the

116 Symm Rel. 25.2 (aeternitas vestra officium...mutasset and cura atque administratione coeptorum); Rel. 26.2 (actores). CIL VI 1696, found south of Maxentius' Basilica Nova, might also point to the process of the emperor still selecting specific individuals to see to construction projects, as was the case during the Principate, see above, fn. 15. It was dedicated to Attius Insteius Tertullus, urban prefect in 307-308, by the corpus magnariorum. In his cursus, Tertullus is cited as a praepositus fabri[---]. Various resolutions have been conjectured for the missing text. Most recently, Coarelli (2010) has suggested praeposito fabri[cae basilicae]. This reading is a change from what Coarelli first proposed in 1986. Then he suggested praeposito fabri[cae muri et portarum]. Both readings are entirely conjectural, but given the inscription's location, the amount of time it took to construct the basilica, and the assumption that curatores only saw to maintenance and repair, the 2010 emendation is at least possible. 117 Symm. Rel. 26.3. 118 Liverani 2003, 77; Marano (2013, 24 fn. 129) repeats his argument. 119 CTh 15.1.3 (362); 15.1.11 (364); 15.1.14 (365); 15.1.15 (365); 15.1.16 (365); 15.1.17 (365); 15.l.19 (376); 15.1.21(380); 15.l.27 (390); 15.l.29 (393).

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diocesan administration, such as the vicarius. In other cases, new construction seems to have been the preserve of the urban perfect or, again, the vicarius. The management and administrative strategies adopted for new construction appear much more varied than those employed for the maintenance of the city’s fabric. This conclusion should not come as a surprise given the investment that often accompanied ex novo construction. Even so, it is a point that that has been consistently overlooked when considering public building in late-antique Rome.

The fourth century is revealed to be a period in which the maintenance of the city’s fabric and the administration of the processes and the people involved in it were of constant concern. The transition from the cura operum publicorum of the Principate to the arrangement reflected in the fifth-century Notitia appears to be anything but straightforward. Public building and the curae associated with it did come under the purview of the urban prefecture. Yet, as the preceding account revealed, throughout the century the prefect was continually required to negiotiate with other administrators and officials appointed directly by the emperors to ensure Rome’s upkeep.

Under the tetrarchy, then during the reign of Constantine, and even into the late fourth century, the various curae in the prefect’s charge were subjected to a series of changes. As we will see, this occurred alongside concomitant changes to how the labour and manpower for realizing these projects were organized and procured.

Sunt qui fabriles manus augustis operibus adcommodent: Builders and Craftsmen in fourth- century Rome

Collegia, corpora, and craftsmen

During the Principate the construction industry kept occupied a large portion of the

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population, at times perhaps up to 20% of all the adult males that lived in the city.120 Suetonius’ anecdote about Vespasian’s concern with finding employment for the plebicula may point to an imperial and administrative awareness of this.121 In Late Antiquity there is a basis for the claim that construction still employed a significant number of those working in the Urbs. I again turn here to Bisconti’s work on the evidence of occupations in Rome’s catacombs. As stated in chapter three, Bisconti found 779 attestations that pertain to the work of those interred. He divided these into twenty-four discrete categories.122 The construction industry accounted for slightly over 26% of all occupations, or 203 attestations, with the next closest industry only amounting to 9% of the overall total. While this is a relatively small sample size, it is striking that the percentage of the attestations aligns with general estimates for the proportion of people in the city that the construction industry would have engaged. Given the importance that construction seems to have still retained among the late-antique population, we may also assume that similar structures prevailed among those working and labouring in this industry.

It has been suggested that at Rome during the first three centuries CE labour and manpower for building was often levied and organized through the collegia and corpora of the city. At Rome there is an abundance of evidence for the existence of specialized building associations that helped facilitate this process,123 but none was larger than the collegium fabrum tignariorum. It is curious then that building collegia find so little expression in our late-antique evidence. If one examines both the Theodosian Code and the Justinian Code, which contain over 25 titles with constitutions pertaining to collegia and corpora, only a single reference to a collegium fabrorum at Rome can

120 DeLaine 1997, 198-201; 2000, 135; 2018, 473. It is a coincidence worth noting that in the late-Roman cities of Hermopolis and Arsinoe in Egypt, Van Minnen (2007, 221-223) revealed that c. 17% of all crafts attested in these places belong to the construction sector. For a later comparandum, Metzger Habel (2013, 2) suggest that in baroque Rome some 30% of all wage-earners worked in the construction sector. 121 Suet. Vesp. 18. See above p. 9. 122 Bisconti 2000, 203; Chp. 3, pp.119-121. 123 See above, including fn. 36 for list of specialized building collegia.

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be found.124 The epigraphic record too reflects this paucity of evidence. The collegium fabrum tignariorum are last attested in the late third century, while no other building collegium at all is found.125 The evidence from the catacombs makes certain that the absence of these collegia from the inscribed record of the city does not imply that their craftsmen and artisans ceased to operate.

In fact, the legal and fiscal reforms outlined in Chapter Three require that these very workers were tied to an association. We must consider the shifts in the overall epigraphic habit at Rome in the period under consideration as one possible explanation for the disappearance of building collegia from epigraphic testimonia.126 Yet, as was already demonstrated in the case of other collegia and corpora, Rome’s professional and social collectives remained vigorous contributors to the late- antique epigraphic landscape.127

I have recently argued elsewhere that a fragmentary inscription found in 1937 offers a partial explanation for the absence of these building collegia from the epigraphic record, particularly the formerly well-attested collegium fabrum tignariorum.128 This inscription, comprising three fragments, was found in the area adjacent to Sant'Omobono, which is located in the ancient Velabrum, just off the famous vicus Iugarius. The inscription was first published in

124CTh 12.1.62 (364) addressed the the urban prefect mentions a collegium fabrorum. CTh 14.8.1, not directed specifically at Rome, also contains mention of corpora fabrorum. For titles including legislation concerning collegia see CTh 12.1 & 16 13.1 & 3-6; 14.1-9, 15,17,21-22 & 24, et al. CJ 10.35.2-3; 10.42.8; 11.2-3; 11.14-18; 11.23 & 25; 12.49, et al. 125 Last attestation is found in the aforementioned dedication to L. Helvius Aelius Dionysus, CIL VI 31901a = 1673 = ILS 1211. There are twenty-nine inscriptions which include reference to the tignarii at Rome from the first three centuries CE, which are nearly equally distributed over these three centuries (ten inscriptions dated to the first century, ten to the second, eight to the third, and an additional one datable to either the first or second century). This may reflect what appears to be rather consistent levels of prosperity of the collegium before the fourth century. Other collegia do not have such high numbers, but they are also dispersed across the first three centuries with no attestations thereafter. For example, consider the collegium structorum (AE 1937, 161; CIL VI 444; and CIL VI 33235) or collegium fabrum subaedianorom (CIL VI 9558, 9559, 33875, 3376, and AE 1994, 200), both of which are well attested prior to the fourth century. 126 For considerations about the late-antique epigraphic habit, see Bolle, Machado, and Witschel 2017; in particular, note the introduction with its extensive bibliography (15–30). 127 For example, there are at least twenty–three extant inscriptions from Rome all dated to the fourth century (and one to the early fifth) that record a collegium or corpus as the dedicator, see Appendix 3. 128 Fabiano 2019, 67-85.

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1939, and the location of its recovery associates it firmly with the collegium fabrum tignarium, as there is good reason to posit the existence of their schola in this area. The original editor dated the inscription to the Constantinian period. This date was primarily established based on a false correlation between Constantine and the legal reforms that saw the imposition of munera patrimonalia, a development which as we have seen can be dated at least as early as the tetrarchic period, if not earlier.129 Instead the inscription and its contents are better dated also to the tetrarchic period and it can be reasonably said to provide evidence for the legal status and organizational change among building collegia at this date.

The inscription now consists of 28 lines, all only partially preserved. Although lacunose, the general nature of the inscription and its contents can be reconstructed.130 Addressed to an official, likely the urban prefect, it records a series of edicts that pertain to a body called the fabri artifices (fabris artficibus numẹ[rantur ---]).131 Of particular interest are lines 7-9, restored as follows: discrepantia separati fu[erunt ---] ++ere AQ[---] / vel filios vel servos habere [---] admodum art[ifices] / diversae peritiae in urbe +[--- h]ạbentes semel add[icti].

These lines order a group of artifices, presumably the fabri to whom the inscription pertains, who were separated by the dissimilarity of their craft (discrepantia separati), to be bound to their duties together with their sons and slaves ([--- h]ạbentes semel add[icti]). The fabri artifices are addressed as a single body throughout the text and, in addition to the imposition of this hereditary obligation, it seems that the inscription records the order for fabri of varying specializations

(artif[ices]/ diversae peritiae) to form a single collegium, a proposition based on lines 21-26:

129 Fabiano 2019, 79-80; Chp. 3, pp. 135-137. 130 Sections included in the following paragraphs have been published in the Journal of Late Antiquity 12.1 (2019) by the current author and are reproduced with permission from Johns Hopkins University Press. 131 In fact, its contents actually reflect a much more complex legislative process, again see Fabiano 2019. See Appendix 4 for edition published in Fabiano 2019.

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obtentu huiuṣce dum se ad ipsum t[---] / quippe cum id magis velimus ut A[---] / collegiis necessariis dumtaxa[t ---] / perseveret quam patiamur utị [---] / ita ut non ex aliis collegiis hoṃ[ines ---] / libentius in eo numero [---].

For the collegium to be preserved (preseveret), the emperor(s) permitted (patiamur) members from other necessary collegia, who plied their trade in diverse building professions, to join into a single collegium (libentius in eo numero [adsumantur?---]). Craftsmen from other collegia, the work of which was not deemed necessary, were not, however, granted the same privilege (non ex aliis collegiis).132

The distinction between necessary collegia and other collegia is one made according to the type of work a collegium’s members performed. This is inferred from the well-known excerpt of

Callistratus, preserved in the Digest already cited in Chapter Three.133 In addition to establishing the conditions for members of the collegia and corpora to receive immunitas, it stipulates that immunitas will be given to certain members (artifices) of the collegia or corpora that were permitted by law to gather together for the sake of their occupation. The passage presents the corpus fabrorum and those like the fabri who perform work necessary for the public good

(necessariam operam publicis utilitatibus) as the example. The collegia and corpora that included members who performed this necessary work, thus, were themselves thought to be necessaria.

Already then in the early third century, all the work of the fabri was considered necessary and so too must have been their collegia. Lines 21 to 26 of our inscription therefore appear to permit the skilled builders (artifices fabri) to amalgamate so long as other craftsmen, those not specifically related to the necessary work of building, were not annexed to their number.

132 The exclusion of members from other collegia is inferred from the construction of dumtaxat with the dative, which appears regularly in the Digest. In cases where some privilege is being granted, the construction always establishes the limits to the acquisition of the privilege. For instance, see Dig 50.6.6.12 below: immunity is granted not to all but only artifices (nec omnibus promiscue . . . immunitas datur, sed artificibus dumtaxat). Adsumantur is conjectured as a possible restoration as the verb is used with the preposition in to denote membership in a group. Again, see Dig 50.6.6.12 133 Dig 50.6.6.12; Chp. 3, p. 139. Also, on the public necessity of collegia, see Chp. 3, p. 141 and fn. 106.

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Amalgamation of multiple collegia, whose associated professional tasks appeared similar, is regularly attested in the late-antique sources. An edict promulgated in 419 records the imperial order instructing the corpus pecuariorum and the corpus suariorum to be joined (suariis pecuarii iungantur: sub hac tamen condicione decreti corpora volumus miscere). In this case, the reason for their amalgamation was so that the formerly separate corpora could mutually share the burden of their munera (mixtae corporum vices alternis fungantur officiis).134 For a similar reason, in 384, the corpus mancipum petitioned the urban prefect to have members from other corpora annexed to their number (et aliis corporibus...iusta supplementa incunctanter acciperent).135 It is possible that the corpus caudicariorum and the corpus piscatorum were also joined at some point in the fourth century, as both became responsible for bringing food to Rome along the Tiber.136

A constitution from 329 demonstrates that corpora fabrorum in various cities could at times also require additions to their number:

Imp. Constantinus A. ad Euagrium praefectum praetorio. ad omnes iudices litteras dare tuam convenit gravitatem, ut, in quibuscumque oppidis dendrofori fuerint, centonariorum atque fabrorum collegiis adnectantur, quoniam haec corpora frequentia hominum multiplicari expediet. dat. xiiii kal. octob. Naisso, accepta viii id. Novemb. Constantino A. iiii et Licinio iiii conss.137

Emperor Constantine Augustus to Evagrius, praetorian prefect. It is appropriate that your dignity give letters to all officials so that in whatever towns there may be dendrophori, they may be annexed to the collegia of the centonarii and fabri, since it is expedient that these corpora be enlarged by a multitude of men. Issued on the 14th day before kalends of October at Naissus, received 8 days before the ides of November in the fourth consulship of Constantine Augustus and Licinius

134 CTh 14.4.10. 135 Symm. Rel 44. It is perhaps the case that the city’s mancipes were already amalgated previously to form the corpus omnium mancipum, only attested a single time in the epigraphic record (Chp. 4, pp. 182-194). If this is accepted, as I think the evidence insists, it suggests that while a single corpus may have similar economic interests, in this case contracting, they may have different munera. 136 CIL VI 41382= AE 1926 124 dated to 400 attests perhaps to a single corpus caudicariorum seu piscatorum, while the caudicarii had been previously independent, see Appendix 3, nos. 6, 7, and 22. 137 CTh 14.8.1. On the date, which is incorrectly recorded in the manuscripts, see Salamito 1987, 993–97.

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Here it is the collegium dendrophorum which has been annexed to the fabri and the centonarii.

The stated reason for this is that the numbers of both the fabri and the centonarii needed to be increased (quoniam haec corpora frequentia hominum multiplicari expediet). Jinyu Liu has suggested that the choice to incorporate dendrophorii was made as all three collegia were likely to be found in most cities.138 The date of the legislation is consistent with what appears to have been an imperial interest in building more generally.139 It also reveals, however, that associations of builders, like other collegia in the late Empire, could have additional collegia or their members joined to them. The reasons, while not all precisely the same, were similar: important collegia were often joined together, or members from one annexed to another, to help facilitate the completion of their munera or to simply fill out a particular association’s numbers.140 It is one of these processes that the fragmentary inscription found near Sant’Omobono likely attests. The inscription then records the integration of all skilled builders in the Urbs into a single collegium, perhaps now composed of various specialized craftsmen, and supports the view that the building industry was reformed at all levels early in the fourth century.

The hypothesis of an amalgamation of all builders is not an entirely unique proposition.

Verboven has recently suggested that after their reorganization in 7 BCE, the collegium fabrum tignariorum at Rome likely included a diverse membership. He draws comparisons with the

Florentine Maestri (more correctly, Arte) di Pietra e Legname, positing that the tignarii similarly

138 Liu 2009, 284; Carrié 2002, 315 has used this to argue that the collegium fabrum and centonariorum likely grew to include all relevant trades. The situation seems to have been considerably more complex than this, as clearly the centonarii, dendrophorii, and fabri continued to be attested as separate collegia. 139 For the administrative reform in the building industry at Rome in the 320s, see pp. 225-232 in this chapter. For Constantine’s policy and general interest in urban public building see Lewin 2001, 27-37. 140 Discussion of the amalgamation of corpora in Late Antiquity is not novel. Carrié (2002, 316) suggests that collection of taxes was the prime motivation for the amalgmations of associations, but he alludes to the potential economic advantages for collegia. Cracco Ruggini (1971, 143) argues that in large urban centers and with trades that provided the greatest utilitas publica the state encouraged “la coagulazione in entità più larghe.” Both points are in need of fresh consideration.

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may have included carpenters, masons, plasterers, and even plumbers.141 Hawkins, relying on

Gaius' juridical definition of faber tignarius, takes a similar view.142 While both positions are plausible, the comparison of the Arte di Pietra e Legname with collegia in the Principate is problematic. This Arte was imposed by the Ordinances of Justice in 1293 and was part of a political reorganization that reduced the number of guilds in Florence. Moreover, the fact remains that specialized builders and specialized building collegia still appear in the epigraphic record at Rome through the High Empire.143

A more attractive parallel might come from another late-antique context in the eastern half of the Empire, though any sort of connection remains speculative. In 459 CE, the association of builders (οἰκοδόμοι) at Sardis commissioned an inscription outlining stipulations regarding the completion of construction projects.144 Long ago, Buckler suggested that the inscription offers the first evidence for the presence of "amalgamated societies" in antiquity, in this case comprising all builders and "generic artisans."145 This view has since been replaced by the more moderate position that the inscription attests to an association that brought together different specialists connected with the building industry.146 Peter Garnsey argued that this process might have been stimulated by a proliferation of demand for building, creating advantageous economic conditions for builders.147 The same conditions likely existed in early fourth century Rome with the initiation of the tetrarch's massive building programme and Maxentius' no less ambitious aspirations during his

141 Verboven 2016, 178. At Lugdunum, CIL 13.1734 = ILS 7263 attests to the existence of the corpus fabrum tignariorum, which included artifices tectores, while AE 1994, 184 may reference a group of marmorarii who constituted a division (centuria or centurio) of a collegium fabrum. 142 Hawkins 2016, 112-113. Dig. 50.16.235.1: fabros tignarios dicimus non eos dumtaxat, qui tigna dolarent, sed omnes qui aedificarent. 143 See pp. 217-218 and fn. 36 in this chapter. 144 Sardis VII 1.18= CIG 3467. 145 Buckler 1953, 983. 146 Garnsey 1998, 79 and Di Branco 2000, 193. The latter rejects the collective interest implied in the text and simply suggests it attests to workers of high degrees of specialization. 147 Garnsey (1998, 86) cites the Harvard excavations that reveal massive expansion in the fifth century at Sardis.

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short six-year reign. This is to say nothing of the undertaking of Aurelian's massive enceinte a mere few decades previous. As a result, I suggest that it is the same arrangement that can be seen at Rome, even if it anticipated that at Sardis by a century.

I have argued thus far that over the course of the first half of the fourth century the administration of building at Rome underwent continuous change and reform. This process was traced in the office of the urban prefect through to the early fifth century. The same process is now observable among the skilled builders in the Urbs. Under the tetrarchs, or Maxentius, all of the skilled builders were amalgamated into a single collegium. Taken together, the evidence is enough to argue that the first half of the fourth century was a significant period for the reform of the building industry in Rome, from top to bottom. I will use the remainder of this chapter to evaluate the causes and then the impact of the reform which I suggested took place. I argue, in particular, that the reforms were related to an increased and then continual demand for construction in the

Urbs and, more importantly, that the new administrative structure also generated new means for procuring and organizing labour for public projects. Both factors, in turn, led to new economic prospects for the association of builders at Rome, which can only be witnessed over the course of the entire fourth century.

Obnoxietas and the marshaling of labour in the building industry

As outlined in the preceding chapter, many collegia and corpora had long performed essential services for the Urbs and in return for these services they received immunities from taxation and other liturgies.148 This reciprocal exchange was for a long time optional, as individual corporati could decide whether to take up state contracts or not. Over the course of the third and into the fourth century, however, associations' essential, but voluntary, services were made

148 See Chp. 3, pp. 135-147 for discussion of these developments, which are only summarized here.

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compulsory and tied to property, and members of certain collegia and corpora were bound to them in perpetuity so long as they retained the obligated patrimonium. In Chapter 3, it was suggested that this same legal process that occurred in regard to other collegia and corpora, particularly those which served the annona, also prevailed within the construction industry. The question remains how this change bears on the process of procuring labour and levying manpower for both maintenance and ex novo construction in the period under consideration. While above it was suggested that labour for construction, both private and public, was primarily contracted out, it appears that this process was supplemented by the system of compulsory labour throughout the fourth century. In fact, at the same time that all building collegia appear to have been amalgamated in Rome, arguably the work of builders also became a munus and the collegium fabrum were mobilized for public service like those corpora which were associated with the annona.

Already by the third century builders are defined as the example par excellence of craftsmen whose work was beneficial to public utility. And it was this very "public usefulness" that was a criterion for the imposition of obligatory work.149 It should not be surprising, then, that when we see large-scale building resume at Rome in the last decades of the third century, we have our first evidence for the introduction of compulsory labour into the construction industry. John

Malalas, in his sixth century Chronographia, states that Aurelian compelled collegia to work on the construction of his wall at Rome and that they were awarded with the title Aurelianoi for their service.150 There is no indication that this system of conscripted labour for public monuments was made permanent, nor is there certainty that it even occurred under Aurelian. Yet the preponderance of changes instituted by Aurelian and the massive undertaking of his wall would suggest there is

149 See Chp. 3, pp. 141-142. 150 Malalas Chron. L.XII. O396. ...καὶ ἠνάγκαζε τά συνέργεια Ῥώμης ὑπουργε͂iv τῷ κτίσματι...ἐξ ἐνείνου τοῦ χρόνου οἱ τῆς πόλεως πάσης ἐργαστηριακοὶ Αὐρηλιανοὶ χρηματίζουσι..." (Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, ed. Dindorfii, L. (1831) Bonn: Ed. Weber).

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some truth in Malalas' claim.151 Even if we cannot definitely say that this development occurred under Aurelian, the beginning of the fourth century likely marked a change in the way in which labour was organized and obtained for public projects.

The fragmentary inscription from Sant'Omobono discussed above again provides the evidence for how matters developed. Rodolfo Ambrosino, when he first published the inscription, reached a series of important conclusions about the stone's content. Above all, he suggested that the inscription was related to the imposition of compulsory corporate labour on the city's fabri.152

He argued this on the grounds of certain juridical phrases in the text. In particular, he pointed out that obsequio in line 15 and addicti in line 9 are related to the legal concept of obnoxius vocationi and muneri codified in the Theodosian Code.153 Not only does the inscription seem to establish that the members of the collegium were bound to their labour ([---hạ]bentes semel add[icti---]), but also that their work became hereditary and, as such, likely tied to their property.154 This certainly recalls the hereditary obligation of munera patrimonialia.155 In return, the members of the newly amalgamated collegium fabrum/fabrorum would enjoy immunitas for their service

(perfrui...immunitate).156 If indeed Aurelian did not make this process permanent, as am I inclined to believe, then by the fourth century the Sant'Omobono inscription suggests that it was so.

151 Dey (2011, 102-105; 2017, 33-34) argues that while Aurelian may not have imposed the compulsory system, he likely reorganized the fabri to ensure efficiency in the completion of public works. Perhaps this is the case, Aurelian did apparently engage with the administration of collegia. SHA Aur. 47 makes claims to his reorganization of the grain supply to Rome, for which he added to the number of the navicularii. 152 Ambrosino (1939), 98-99, asserts that the inscription was addressed to all fabri, who existed in a hierarchical arrangement of multiple building collegia at Rome. He suggests that general term of fabri is a product of the public nature of the text, as opposed to the personal and private enrollment of different fabri in specialized collegia. 153 Ambrosino (1939), 88-89 & 90-91. For detailed discussion and laws see Chp. 3, pp. 135-137. 154 Line 8: vel filios vel servos habere [---] ạdmodum art[ific---]; line 16: et deinceps sicut fecistiut fịḷios vel servo[s ---]. 155 See Chp. 3, p. 136. 156 Line 4 may also imply the same: ṇecessarium posset coṇ[cedi immunitatem munerum? ---in]. See Fabiano (2019, 69) for discussion of restoration.

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While the inscription reveals the imposition of compulsory obligations, it does not specify what the munus of the builders might entail. The one clear attestation we have for the scope of compulsory work comes from a series of constitutions issued in the 360s relating to the corpus of the vecturarii. It was noted in chapter three that these edicts, preserved in the Theodosian Code, serve as additional evidence for the imposition of munera on those working in the construction sector, as the production and conveyance of a certain amount of lime was made obligatory in return for unspecified exemptions and payment.157 One of these constitutions specifically outlines the use to which the lime was to be put.158 Of the three thousand cartloads, fifteen hundred were assigned to the aqueducts and the other fifteen hundred to the general maintenance and repair of buildings

(sartis tectis), while the impetus for the promulgation of the edict was stated to be the desire to restore the appearance of the city (statum urbis aeternae reformare cupientes). This constitution was issued in 365 CE and comes at a time of renewed concern with building in the Urbs.

Between 364 and 376, four constitutions are preserved—two to the urban prefect, one to the praetorian perfect of Italy, and another to the Senate of Rome—attempting to limit new construction and facilitate repair work in the city.159 These laws have been interpreted to indicate a decrease in the interest in or the capacity for ex novo construction in the Urbs. The last of these constitutions was issued to the Senate, however, and suggests that it was only the office of the urban prefecture and other officials that could not undertake new work. Should anyone else wish to do so, it was permitted so long as it was funded sua pecunia. It seems, therefore, that the laws were simply meant to limit to what public funds could be applied; maintenance was funded by the imperial coffers, often through various subventions and, at least in the case of the vecturarii and

157 CTh 14.6.1-3; Chp. 3, pp. 141-143. 158 CTh 14.6.3. 159 CTh 15.1.11, 12, 16, and 19.

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coctores calcis, their work to supply material for the city’s maintenance was made compulsory.

For new construction, the same edict explicitly states that provisions would be made by imperial sanction for adding to the annual amounts of lime.160 In this way, ex novo construction would also demand compulsory labour and contributions, but only when initiated by the imperial house.

How well does this paradigm of obligatory service apply to the collegium of builders? The only literary reference we have for the compulsion of collegia to complete construction work at

Rome is Malalas’ statement regarding Aurelian. In this case, the project that the collegia were compelled to work on was the ex novo construction of the city walls. The law codes, on the other hand, are preoccupied with the repair of buildings, not new construction, and, more precisely, with walls, aqueducts, storehouses, ports, bridges, and roads.

The relevant imperial constitutions also seem to reveal an increasing tendency to rely on corvée labour from the entire population. An edict issued to the praetorian prefect of the Oriens in

384, for example, suggests that corvée labour was required for the repair of aqueducts, ports (or storehouses), and walls.161 The constitution has been consistently taken to suggest that all people were required to perform service, though this interpretation is far from certain.162 We are on safer ground in an edict of the early fifth century, in which all people in the province of Illyricum were

160 CTh 14.6.3: ...si quando necessitas novi operis extiterit, id ipsum in notitiam nostram suggestionibus iudicum perferendum quid addendum vel quatenus inferendum sit, nostrae deliberationis moderamine sanciatur. 161 CJ 8.11.7: Ad portus et aquae ductus et murorum instaurationem sive extructionem omnes certatim facta operarum collatione instare debent neque aliquis ab huiusmodi consortio dignitatis privilegiis excusari. This law is the same as CTh 15.1.23, with the exemption that the latter does not include walls: Ad portus et aquaeductus instaurationem omnes certatim facta operarum collatione instare debent neque aliquis ab huiuscemodi consortio dignitatis privilegiis excusari. 162 The prevailing interpretation is certainly possible, and perhaps even likely, but it requires the acceptance of a somewhat difficult translation of consortio as ‘common duty’ (e.g., see Pharr’s (1952) translation or Frier’s (2016) translation of the Justinian Code). I see no reason for accepting this translation without question, not least because one would be hard pressed to find a similar meaning anywhere else of the same word. Instead, aliquis ab huiusmodi consortio could very well mean “anyone from an association of this kind”, that is, the kind of association assigned with the munus of repairing monuments. Of course, this point cannot be pressed further without additional evidence.

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compelled to contribute to the construction of walls, regardless of rank (sine ullo privilegio).163 In

423 this compulsory labour was extended to all people, again regardless of rank, in all provinces for the repair of roads, bridges, and buildings belonging to the res privata or the church.164

Collegia and corpora are never explicitly singled out in any of the aforementioned constitutions, but an edict of 400 orders the praetorian prefect of Gaul to recall members of collegia who had deserted the care of the cities, because the fabric of these cities, now lacking the contribution of the collegiati, had suffered (destitutae ministeriis civitates splendorem...amiserunt).165 The language in the edict is similar to that found in the earlier constitution addressing the work of the vecturarii. In both cases, the concern is the renewal of the appearance of the city (cultum or statum), which is only effected by the work of the collegiati.166

An almost contemporary edict also assigns all public buildings and those under the ownership of temples to collegiati for their care.167 This was also the case in Rome by at least 440, when the city’s corporati were granted exemption from military service in exchange for their continual maintenance and repair of walls, towers, and gates.168 Throughout the fourth century and into the fifth, then, the state aimed to compel individuals to contribute to the maintenance of various buildings, and this burden, in the cities of at least Gaul and Italy, fell on the collegia and corpora.

Rome was not excepted, and one can make the case that the munus assigned to the collegium of builders was the maintenance of particular public structures—walls, storehouses, public

163 CTh 15.1.49 (412). The edict specifically claims that it only applies to the province of Illyricum (Quod in partibus dumtaxat Illyricianis nostram clementiam statuisse tua sublimitas recognoscat), which may imply that other arrangements prevailed elsewhere. 164 CTh 15.3.6. 165 CTh 12.19.1. 166 CTh 14.6.3: Statum urbis aeternae reformare cupientes ac providere publicorum moenium dignitati iubemus, ut calcis coctoribus vectoribusque per singulas vehes singuli solidi praebeantur...; CTh 12.19.1: Destitutae ministeriis civitates splendorem, quo pridem nituerant, amiserunt: plurimi siquidem collegiati cultum urbium deserentes agrestem vitam secuti in secreta sese et devia contulerunt. 167 CTh 15.1.41 (401). This privilege was also extended to curiales alongside the corpora. 168 Nov. Val. 5.2.

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buildings— and to supply labour for large ex novo construction undertaken by the imperial house.169

Confirmation might be found in the literary efforts of Symmachus. In his frequently cited

Relatio 14, Symmachus claimed that it was the labour of the city’s corpora (corporum ministerio) that was responsible for the upkeep of the city (tantae urbis onera sustineri). Of particular importance, he singled out those individuals whose workmen like hands (fabriles manus) built and repaired Rome’s venerable monuments.170 Both the longevity of this arrangement and the compulsory nature of it are made clear in the same Relatio. Symmachus speaks of the imposition of munera (munus exiguum...mandare temptasset) on corpora, ordered against their will (iuberet invitis). In return, however, he is also quick to point out that their obligatory service granted the city’s corpora certain immunities (iugi obsequio immunitatis nomen emerunt), and that this arrangement was long-established (vetus privilegium).171 This passage would seem to confirm that builders were rather integrated into public service in the Urbs through the same system of compulsory duty witnessed for corpora serving the annona, and it is likely that their service included both repair and ex novo imperial construction.

If this arrangement was established for the city’s building collegium by the tetrarchic period at the latest and extended through to the fifth century, the work of the vecturarii and the coctores calcis provides good evidence that obligatory service to the city was a feature of the wider late- antique construction industry. But it is possible that the arrangement extended also to other

169 This conclusion must be squared with the Constantinian edict that seems to offer exemption to craftsmen in the building industry. This edict (CTh 13.4.2) issued in 337 seems to grant exemption to artifices in every city (singulas civitates) from all munera. The law, however, was actually issued after Constantine’s death by his sons and only to the praetorian prefect of Gaul. More importantly, the exemption was predicated on certain conditions and is better situated within a Constantinian programme to provide skilled builders in various cities. It need not, therefore, be an indication that compulsory work ceased in the building industry. In fact, Symmachus provides clear evidence to the contrary. See detailed discussion below (pp. 285-286) on this legislation. 170 Symm. Rel. 14.3. 171 Symm. Rel 14.2.

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suppliers and producers of building materials. Ammianus reports a riot that occurred during the urban prefecture of Lampadius in 365:

Hic praefectus exagitatus et motibus crebris, uno omnium maximo, cum collecta plebs infima domum eius prope Constantinianum lavacrum iniectis facibus incenderat et malleolis, ni vicinorum et familiarum veloci concursu a summis tectorum culminibus petita saxis et tegulis abscessisset. eaque vi territus ipse ... secessit a Mulvium pontem... ut lenimenta ibidem tumultus opperiens, quem causa concitaverat gravis. aedificia erigere exoriens nova, vel vetusta quaedam instaurans, non ex titulis solitis parari iubebat inpensas sed, si ferrum quaerebatur aut plumbum aut aes aut quicquam simile, apparitores inmittebantur, qui velut ementes diversa raperent species, nulla pretia persolvendo, unde accensorum iracundiam pauperum damna deflentium crebra aegre potuit celeri vitare digressu.172

This prefect (Lampadius) was disturbed by frequent outbreaks, but the greatest one of all happened when a mob of the plebs infima would have set fire to his house near to the baths of Constantine by hurling firebrands and darts, if they had not been driven off, sought by rocks and tiles from the highest roofs of the buildings, by the aid of the neighbours and his relations. But the prefect himself terrified by such violence... fled to the Milvian bridge...so as to await some end of the tumult, which a serious cause had incited. He, preparing to erect new buildings, or to restore some old ones, ordered that the contributions not be acquired from the customary taxes, but if he required iron, or lead, or bronze, or anything similar, his apparitores were sent, and as if purchasing the various supplies, they seized them not paying any price. Whence, by his swift departure he was barely able to avoid the rage of the incensed poor, lamenting frequent losses.

According to Ammianus, the impetus for the riot was the illegal seizure of construction material from Rome’s impoverished artisans, whom he equates with the plebs infima. What raised their ire was that the material was taken in addition to the accustomed tituli (solitis titulis) without compensation. The passage has been related to an edict from 349 regarding the illegal despoliation of monuments for their materials.173 This constitution is quite specific in prescribing that buildings ought to be constructed from taxes and other imposts (nam ex vectigalibus vel aliis titulis aedificare debuerunt). Here the word used to describe these imposts is tituli. Elsewhere in

172 Amm. 27.3.8-10. 173 CTh 9.17.2; see Marié 1984, fn. 179.

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Ammianus titulus is used to refer to taxation imposed under certain pretexts.174 It is possible that the ‘iron, lead, bronze, and other similar materials’ that were obtained by Lampadius’ men had been collected in some quantity as taxation or requisitioned like pork from the suarii and lime from the coctores, and it was these tituli that should have been used. The production and supply of these materials would then be similar to what took place in regard to lime, and the craftsmen who furnished them, possibly the ferrarii and the aerarii,175 would then be subject to the same compulsory supply as the vecturarii and coctores calcis. Perhaps these are the frequent losses lamented by Ammianus’ pauperes?

As in many other areas, then, also in the mobilization of labour in the building industry the fourth century seems to be a watershed. Along with the changes in the administration of building in the Urbs, corpora began to become pressed into service for the maintenance of existing monuments and, possibly, the construction of new ones. If the system that prevailed in the annona is any indication, this service was obligatory and was assigned to the corpora and then apportioned to the corporati themselves. The newly amalgamated fabri became part of a system of compulsory corporate or collegiate labour, as did perhaps craftsmen who worked and supplied various building materials. As a consequence, they were inserted into a system of public administration that relied on the obligatory service of a portion of the population. It is possible that the system of compulsory corporate labour replaced the state-maintained slave gangs of the High Empire or the many public slaves, although it may be the case that they worked alongside them.176 In this light, the

174 den Boeft et al. 2009, op. cit. 3.10 (pg. 60-61). They cite Ammianus 19.11.3 and 30.5.6. 175 There is reference to these craftsmen in inscriptions from the catacombs; for the ferrarii see ICUR II 5208 and VI 15605; for an aerarius, ICUR VI 15774. 176 Cassiodorus (Var. III. 31) complains that slaves who had previously been assigned to the care of the aqueducts had passed into the ownership of private citizens. Could this reflect a relatively recent trend, perhaps in the late 5th century? Or did the dissolution of slave gangs servicing aqueducts occur much earlier? Cassiodorus has a penchant to aggrandize Rome and his antiquarian knowledge of the city's institutions was impressive. Lenski (2006, 351-353) suggests that the system of obligatory labour that developed in the later empire may have rendered the work and therefore the need for servi publici superfluous, though he may take it a step too far in suggesting that late-antique corporati were of “quasi-servile” status.

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amalgamation of all the skilled builders into a single association might have simply been driven by the need to better exact compulsory labour. Yet this system also left room for reciprocal benefits, and the image in Ammianus’ narrative of the humble craftsmen is likely the product of

Ammianus’ own elitist prejudice.177 In the remaining pages, I will argue, instead, that frequent demand from an increasingly circumscribed number of associations also granted builders some level of economic influence.

Economic, Social, Demographic Developments in the Late-Antique Building Industry at Rome: Builders and the Elite

Demand, from the Tetrarchy to Constantine

When considering demand in the building industry at Rome during the period that stretches from the end of the third into the early fifth century, the most visible monument is undoubtedly the

Aurelian (and Honorian) wall. The massive enceinte begun in 271 by Aurelian was the largest undertaking ever witnessed in the Urbs, enclosing the city with its 19km course. It was not complete until the reign of Probus in 276 and witnessed various minor interventions in the century- long period up to its refurbishment and heightening by Honorius between 401 and 403.178

Given its chronological termini, the wall represents a unique monument that can provide insight into the demand and organization of labour at the beginning and near the end of our period of inquiry. We are compelled to ask if the number of construction workers required by the wall's undertaking was sustained by demand throughout the fourth century, when there is thought to have

177 See Introduction (pp. 1-2), Chp. 1, pp. 30-31 and p. 48, and Freu 2007, 299-324 on the image of the poor craftsmen in late-antique texts, particular in Italy. 178 The list of scholarship on the Aurelian wall is long and varied: Richmond 1930 remains fundamental. He is followed by Lugli 1930-8; Colini (1944) first identified the Honorian phase of the wall; Cozza (1987) wrote a series of articles pertaining to various segments of the wall (Cozza 2008 contains bibliography with all of his contributions); Coates- Stephens (1995, 1998, 1999, 2004) has greatly advanced our understanding of the later phases of the wall, the wall’s construction process, and the material impact of the wall on the topography of and subsequent construction in the city; Dey (2011) provides a comprehensive study on the history, planning, construction, and phasing of the wall. Medri et al. 2017 represents the most recent work on the wall, and includes, among other things, the results of prelimary architectural analyses of the wall’s fabric.

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been a decline in large construction projects,179 or whether the construction of the wall when its height was raised a hundred years later can tell us anything about the impact of construction on demographic trends in the city in the fifth century. Demand in large-scale public construction swells in the early decades of the fourth century, but it is then supplanted by a proliferation of private construction, repair, and ecclesiastical projects. I will argue that, although there is a shift in the sphere of building activity, demand overall remains significant to the degree that it arguably was still an important factor in sustaining the city’s large population, but also in stimulating migration into the city and in permitting the reorganized builders to promote their economic advantage.

The narrative of demand must begin in the 270s with the construction of Aurelian's wall.

At the same time, Aurelian also set out to build his temple of Sol in the Campus Agrippae.180 The two projects mark a renewed vigour in large-scale building projects in the Urbs. This same vigour was taken up by subsequent emperors. From the mid 290s through to the 320s the city of Rome experienced building on a scale not seen since the Severan period, if even then. Around 298/9 the tetrarchs began construction on the enormous Baths of Diocletian, which were completed a mere seven to eight years later.181 They also undertook a rebuilding of the Forum Romanum that was

179 Pensabene 1986, 300 and Dareggi 2005, 347-348. Both suggests that building slowed after Constantine. 180 The Notitia places the templum Solis et castra in Regio VII Via Lata and the Chronographer of 354 claims the that temple was built in the campus Agrippae (templum solis et castra in campo Agrippae dedicavit). Its precise location remains unknown and has spurred debate, see Salzman 2017, 72-74. 181 CIL VI 1130= 31242= ILS 646. Bauer (2012, 46) suggests only seven years, which he derives from the inscription: construction was begun in 298 and was finished after the abdication of Diocletian (March 305) and before the death of Constantius (July 306). The complex’s precinct measured 356m x 316m and the bathing block 250m x 180 m. This can be compared to the Baths of Caracalla, of which the precinct measured about 340 m x 328 m and the bathing block 220 m x 114 m. By these measurements the Baths of Diocletian were marginally larger than those of his Severan predecessors. A fragment of Olympiodorus suggests that the baths could accommodate twice the number of bathers as the Baths of Caracalla (Olymp. Frg. 41.1). This is likely hyberbole, but the scale of the baths would seem to indicate a similar amount of labour was required in the construction of both, which we know from DeLaine’s excellent work on the Baths of Carcalla was substantial. However, it should be noted that Lissi Caronna (1976, 22) found no evidence for the construction of massive substructures for Diocletian’s baths during excavation in the Piazza dell’esedra, likely because of the relatively level terrain between the Quirinal and Viminal where the baths were situated. This would have impacted somewhat on the number of unskilled labourers required in the initial phases of construction.

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precipitated by a devastating fire in 283.182 Far from limiting their intervention to the centre of the city and the Viminal, the tetrarch's imprint on the topography extended to virtually every region.183

In fact, the intensity of their building activity may have stimulated the reform of brick manufacture that saw the industry revitalized, which is suggested by some to have been in decline for many years.184

The tetrarchs' ambition was subsequently matched, if not surpassed by Maxentius. In his short six-year reign, Maxentius undertook an astonishing assortment of projects along the Sacra

Via. He repaired Hadrian's Temple of Venus and Roma, built the monumental cross-vaulted

Basilica Nova and the so-called Temple of Romulus, while also possibly beginning construction on the Baths of Constantine on the Quirinal.185 Like the tetrarchs before him, Maxentius' interests were not limited to the center of the city. Literary sources credit him with reinforcing the Aurelian wall, but his interventions here were minimal.186 Beyond the wall, located at the third milestone on the Via Appia, he also built his palatial circus and mausoleum complex.

182 Chron. 354, 148M. This rebuilding included the reorientation of the forum, the construction of new rostra, and the repair of the Basilica Julia and the Curia. But the repair and reconstruction did not end here. The same chronographer also cites repairs that were required and carried out in the Forum of Caesar and two temples, one which may have been the Temple of Concordia in the Forum Romanum. For this see La Rocca 2001, 171-214 and Machado 2006, 164. Machado suggests, following Platner and Ashby (1929, 136), that the entire area in front of the curia was repaved, adorned with statues, and a marble fountain; the LTUR (II, 342-34) does not mention the curia, instead focusing on the reorientation of the forum during the reign of the tetrarchs after the supposed fire. 183 This includes the construction of the Arcus Novus spanning the via Flaminia, repairs to the Theatre of Pompey and the temple of Isis and Serapis in the Campus Martius, In addition two unknown porticoes and a number of nymphaea. CIL VI 773= ILS 626 records the repair of an aqueduct by the curator aquarum L. Aelius Helvius Dionysus. CIL VI 1242= 31556= ILS 5894 records the repair of 110 feet of river bank that had collapsed during the reign of Maximian and Diocletian, probably before 293. For a complete and thorough discussions of tetrarchic building, which need not be covered in depth here, see Coarelli 1999, 23-33 and Bauer 2012, 3-86. 184 Only two brick stamps are datable with any certainy to the third century between the end of the Severan dynasty and the tetrarchic period, see Steinby 1986, 109. By comparison bricks with tetrarchic stamps are found all across Rome, while new imperial officinae seem to be attested on stamps from bricks in the Baths of Diocletian, see Bloch 1968, 311-316 and Bauer 2012, 55-56. Both points would suggest some reorganization under the tetrarchs. Cf. Dey 2011, 95, who argues that while brick production probably declined in the course of the third century, it never ceased. More importantly, even if Diocletian is thought to have reorganized the figlinae, production must have ramped up already under Aurelian. 185 This is proposed by Steinby (1986, 141) based on brickstamps. Dumser (2006) rejects this position, suggesting that establishing anything other than a terminus post quem by brick stamps alone is untenable. On Maxentius’ building in Rome now see Curran 2000, 43-68 and Leppin and Ziemssen 2007, 52-122 for the most thorough accounts. 186 Dey (2011) has proven this decisively.

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If the extent of Maxentius' imprint on the city remains somewhat unclear, it is because his successor, Constantine, initially sought to erase it from the record. Much has been said about

Constantine's engagement with the city of Rome, but it is generally accepted now that he participated in traditional forms of imperial euergetism, even if some of his energy was expended on new Christian projects. Like his tetrarchic predecessors, Constantine showed interest in both the center and the periphery. In the traditional centre of the city, Constantine's work was mainly limited to the appropriation of Maxentius' projects, many of which were already near completion.187 The most comprehensive was his reorientation and completion of the Basilica

Nova. Added to this must be the Baths of Constantine on the Quirinal and the monumental arch that still stands alongside the road that formerly traversed the Colosseum valley.

No doubt these works required large amounts of labour, but it is his benefactions to the burgeoning Christian community which appear as the most remarkable. His earliest and only intramural foundation was the Lateran Basilica, the first papal basilica built on a monumental scale in Rome. Situated on the apex of the Caelian hill,188 this basilica was likely completed before 324, after which point Constantine initiated his work on another massive basilica, that of St. Peter on the Vatican. The date of the construction of St. Peter's is debated,189 but the terracing of the hill

187 Aur. Vic. Caes. 40.26-28. 188 Krautheimer 1983, 16 and Curran 2000, 96. Repeated sondages under the modern S. Giovanni in Laterano from the 1930s through to the 1980s have provided concrete evidence that the church was built on top of the Castra Nova of the equites singulares, Maxentius' loyal bodyguard. In this way the Lateran has been argued to be an expression of Constantine's triumph over Maxentius, as it was founded in the tradition of manubial temples. Excavations continue under the Lateran on the Caelian at present. This will no doubt turn up more evidence of the reconfiguring of the site under Constantine. Liverani (2009a) states that the clearing of the site for the basilica included, in addition to the Castra, baths and a large trapezoidal structure (maybe a market). The basilica itself measured approximately 100 m from the inner facade to the apex of the apse and spanned a total width of approximately 56 m. 189 For a summary of the scholarship on the debate up to the turn of the millennium, see Curran 2000, 109-114, especially fn. 197. In 2002, Bowersock made the radical argument that construction on the basilica was not begun until the reign of Constans, which was subsequently accepted by a number of historians. To my mind, Liverani (2015, 485-504) convincingly overturns Bowersock's conclusions and effectively establishes a Constantinian date for the beginning of construction of the basilica, although the date of its completion and the contributions made to it by Constans and Constantius remain open for debate. See also, Liverani 2009a, 11-12.

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and the leveling of the cemetery on it, both of which were required for the basilica's foundation, seem to have been started shortly after 324.190 The impact of these two monumental structures on the topography of Rome has been emphasized by previous scholars,191 and what is important here is the sheer amount of labour these projects likely required. To these monumental foundations should also be added a series of martyrial basilicae and mausolea on the roads just outside the

Aurelian wall.192

Counting bricks I: labour for Aurelian’s wall

In all, the last decades of the third century and first quarter of the fourth century are remarkable for the scale of work in the Urbs. The intensity of urban development is highlighted by Aurelian's wall. No complete quantitative study of the labour and material required to build the wall has been conducted, such as that of DeLaine on the Baths of Caracalla, but it is generally agreed that the amount of labour required would be at least equal to that conjectured for Caracalla's bath building.193 Recent quantitative analyses of the fabric of the Aurelian wall, however, have been undertaken. The preliminary results suggest that the wall was built primarily from repurposed bricks and that nearly twelve and a half million bricks would have been required for the construction of the wall’s external circuit alone.194 Since the wall was faced in brick on both sides,

190 All the properties assigned to it in the Liber Pontificalis are from the East so they must date after the defeat of Licinius. In addition, a coin minted in Arles between 317 and 320 was found in one of the mausolea underlying the basilica, suggesting it was still in use at this time, see Curran 2000, 110. When complete, the central basilica measured nearly 200 meters in length and a height of nearly 40 meters. The central basilica measured approximately 90 meters by 66 meters, which was proceded by an atrium and narthex with an apse protruding on its west end. 191 Fraschetti 1999, 9-63; Liverani 2009a, 10-16. 192 See Appendix 5 for catalogue of buildings. 193 Coates-Stephens (2001, 232) calls it "the single greatest building project ever to be carried out in the city;" Dey 2011, 113 and 2017, 32. 194 Medri and Pallottino (2015, 16-18), admitting the conjectural nature of their numbers, estimate the total amount of bricks required for the construction of the wall's external circuit was 12,464,000 with an average of 82 bricks per m2. For the sake of comparision, DeLaine's (1997, 124-126) calculations suggest that the Baths of Caracalla required the much smaller figure of 7,000,000 bricks. On the reuse of the bricks see Medri and Pallottino 2015, 16 and Medri et al. 2016, 6. Their conclusion contributes to an ongoing debate about the materials used for the Aurelianic phase of the wall. Lanciani (1892, 90-91) thought that the bricks were by and large new. Richmond (1930, 58), who is followed by Heres (1982, 52), thought that the majority of the bricks for the wall's construction were reused. Prior to the study of Medri et al., Dey (2011, 93-94) expressed his doubt over Richmond's conclusions. Dey argues that the complete

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the total number of bricks needed for its completion can be estimated at well over twenty million.195 Both observations permit some basic calculations for the amount of labour in man-days that the raising of the wall's brick curtains would have required.

In her original calculations for laying brick facing and the core for brick walls in the Baths of Caracalla, DeLaine estimates that for every 1m3 of a 2m thick wall 4.18 man-days of skilled work and 2.09 man-days of unskilled labour were required.196 This formula reflects the overall rate of individual actions per unit volume of brickwork and is adapted from Pegoretti's formula from the 19th century.197 I followed this approach since, as DeLaine has indicated, Pegoretti's formula corrects for different proportions of brick and mortar, which is an advantage when the size and nature of different elements are unknown, such as the ratio of aggregate and mortar in a wall's core.198 Using similar manuals for construction in the 19th century, Simon Barker has conjectured

absence of Aurelianic brick stamps in the wall is not conclusive evidence for the absence of brick production. In fact, he suggests that the amount of labour required to recover bricks from beds of mortar, clean the bricks, and transport them would not be any less-labour intensive than new production (see 2011, 94). Barker (2010, 2011, and 2017), however, has demonstrated by scrutiny of 19th-century building manuals that provide data for brick wall demolition rates that the reuse of bricks might be more economical than new brick production. 195 An order of maginitude nearly two times the estimated 12,000,000 bricks required for the external wall is not out of proportion, although it must be allowed that certain portions of the wall were outfitted with internal galleries open at the rear, see Dey 2011, 20. 196 DeLaine 1997, appendix 5. Note that the thickness of the wall should not impact too greatly the amount of labour for completion. DeLaine (2006, 238-239) notes that it is the size of the aggregate in the core and the quality of the facing that are more immediate factors. For this reason, I have chosen not to account for the additional ca. 1.5m thickness of the Aurelian wall as it yields a higher ratio of mortar to brick than comparative Hadrianic structures, suggesting their brickwork might not have been as fine, see Medri et al. 2016, 7. 197 Pegoretti 1863-64 and 1869. 198 DeLaine 2001, 235. A second approach to calculate work-rate values for individual actions in brickwork is by piecework rate. This is expressed by the number of bricks laid each day. Rates vary from 400 pieces per day to 1000 pieces per day for brick based on the finish of the wall—that is, whether it is an internal wall, will be covered, or if it is facework—, while cores could be laid faster. The rates per man day when the requisite knowledge is obtainable are slightly lower than those resulting from Pegoretti's formula. For example, DeLaine (2001, 237) suggests something like 3 md/1m3 for raising concrete-core brick walls in the Baths of Caracalla. For an overview of the two methodologies see DeLaine 2001, 234-240. Even faster work rates are attested. Rita Volpe's (2002 and 2010, 86) study of painted inscriptions on the brick substructures of the Baths of Trajan, for example, indicate that a group of workers might complete 10 m2 of facing per day. But on the elevation of the south-west exedra that the same substructures support, brickwork seemed to progress much slower. Federica Rossi (2012, 77) estimates that it took at least 10 to 11 work crews about two months to raise the interior portion of the 15m high elevation which had a surface area of c. 705m2 (with a diameter of 30m, the semi-circular wall would measure some 47m x 15m = 705m2). All the evidence indicates that work-rates are highly variable and dependent on a number of factors, which Volpe (2002, 386) herself acknowledges.

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labour constants for the salvaging of bricks by combining the estimated time in man-days per brick and per metric amount of materials to remove bricks from mortar beds and subsequently clean, separate, and move them from a demolition site.199 Barker's conjectured labour constants are primarily adopted from Pegoretti's labour constants and altered for the variabilties of mortar tenacity and coverage. He suggests that the dismantling of a wall would take one skilled worker and one unskilled labourer a combined 0.00048 man-days per brick, while the cleaning of mortar from their surface would require 0.00014 man-days of unskilled labour per brick.200 The subsequent removal of the bricks from the demolition site would take an additional 0.104 man- days, or a little over one hour, for every cubic meter of brick.

Aurelian’s wall measured some 18,837.5 m in length, was 7 m tall, and 3.5 m thick.201

Included in its length was an estimated 383 towers separating 378 segments of curtain walls and

4,600m of river wall. Only a small section of the latter is preserved, and it is considerably thinner and lower than the land walls.202 Built with a concrete core and brick facing on either side, the total volume of the wall can be calculated at approximately 484,186 m3, while the exterior wall facing can be estimated at approximately 130,586 m2 (table 5.1). The wall’s construction likely began in 271 after Aurelian defeated the combined forces of the Marcomanni and Alamanni near

Fano, whose presence near Rome, the first foreign threat since Hannibal, perhaps served as

199 Barker 2010, 95-96. He compares rates from the labour constants in the 19th-century handbooks of Pegoretti, Ponza, Morisot, Rea, and Hurst, and reaches the conclusions that in a ten-hour day approximately 1,470 bricks could be salvaged. 200 Based on these numbers it would take approximately 17 seconds per brick to dismantle a wall and an additional five seconds to clean the mortar from each brick's surface: 1 man-day = 10 hours; 0.1 man-days = 60 minutes; 0.01 man-days = 6 minutes (360 seconds); 0.00166667 man-days = 1 minute (60 seconds), then 0.00048 man-days = c. 17 seconds, while 0.00014 = c. 5 seconds. The proposed speed at which each of these tasks could be completed strain credulity and so are accepted here as the absolute minimum possible estimate of time to complete each task. 201 Medri et al. (2015, 26) suggest that the wall is 9 m high at the curtains, 10.5 m at the towers. On average each tower projected about 3 m from the wall and was 6.70 m across its face, while Dey (2017, 14) suggests that the wall was only 7 m high, plus the parapet of 1 m, and between 3.5-3.7 meters thick. Dey's (2011, 27) reconstruction shows these quadrangular towers projecting between 3.5-3.75 m from the wall and measuring between 7.5-7.75m across. Between the towers, each curtain measured approximately 29.6 m in length. I have adopted the lower estimates. 202 Dey 2017, 15. The only sections of the riverwall that remain may actually date to the Honorian rebuild.

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motivation for the wall’s construction.203 Once begun, it was completed early in the reign of

Probus, likely in 276.204

Table 5.1. The Size of the Aurelian Wall

The Size of the Aurelian Wall Volume Part of Wall Number Length Height Thickness Total Curtain 378 30m 7m 3.5m 277,830m3 Towers 383 Projection from wall: 10.5m 3.5m 178,756m3 3m + 3m Length of Front: 6.70m

River Wall 1 4600m 5m 1.2m 27,600m3

Total 484,186m3

Surface Area of Exterior Wall Part of Wall Number Length Height Total

Curtain 378 30m 7m 79,380m2 Towers 383 12.70m 10.5m 51,073m2

Total 130,453m2

In the short five-year period, assuming 220 days of construction per year, simply salvaging brick, raising the core, and facing the wall would have required well over 3,000 labourers (table

5.2).205 To these numbers must be added the demolition of existing structures that had obstructed the wall’s course, the slaking of lime and the production of mortar, the transportation of the material, and the sinking of a 4m wide foundation.206 It is easy to imagine that at least double the

203 Dey (2017, 29-39) argues that Aurelian was as motivated to construct the walls for internal security as he was by external threats. 204 Dey 2017, 14. 205 DeLaine (1997, 105) calculates a total of 220 working days per year. Allen (2009) conjectures full employment at 250 days per year. 206 The wall ran through unoccupied imperial land for up to as much as 8km of its course. On the planning of the wall, see Dey 2011, 72-87, in particular p. 73, fn. 9 on the estimates of imperial property through which the wall ran. Demolition was not limited to the path of the wall. Estimates built on comparative evidence suggest that the demolition

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amount of labourers would have been required once these additional tasks are considered,207 which would place the construction of the wall in the same sphere in terms of labour-time required as monuments like the Baths of Caracalla. Only about a decade after the wall’s completion,

Caracalla's baths were matched in size by those of Diocletian, while the tetrarchs also saw to the repair of a significant number of additional monuments. Add to this Maxentius' extensive and ambitious initiatives in his short six-year reign and Constantine's attention to both the traditional monuments and new Christian foundations, and there is enough evidence to suggest that the labour of thousands of workers would have been required in the first decades of the fourth century.208

Table 5.2. Labour Estimates in Man-Days

Labour Estimates (man-days) Type Action Amount Total Number of Labourers Core and Brick-Facing 484,186m3 1,100 days (220 x 5) Skilled 4.18 + 0.13 (7-1) md/1m3 2,401,562md 2,183

Unskilled 2.09 + 0.065 (7-1) md/1m3 1,200,781md 1,092

Labour Estimates for Salvaging Bricks (man-days) Action Labour Man-Days per Action Skilled Unskilled Skilled Unskilled Dismantle Brick 0.00024b x 0.00024b x 14,400 Facing 30,000,000209 30,000,000 Remove material 0.0104 md/1m3 0.104 md/1m3 23,040 m3 of 23,040 m3 of brick from site brick210 = 240 = 2,396 of buildings at least within 50 m of the exterior of the wall also occurred and as much as 10 m from the interior of the wall, see Dey 2011, 165-169. On the size of the foundation see Dey 2011, 19. No excavation has been carried out on the foundations to date, so it is impossible to state their depth. 207 In fact, Medri (2015, 18) posits the presence of two large workforces, one for construction and the other for demolition. 208 This is based on DeLaine's minimum estimate of 16,000 workers engaged in Severan projects throughout Rome. She estimates as many as 20,000, which, if accepted, would be equally plausible for the late third and early fourth century, see p. 217 and fns. 30 and 31 in this chapter. 209 Barker (2011, 97) follows Pegoretti's (1864, 164) recovery rate of 4 out of 5 salvageable bricks. Based on this rate, 25% more bricks than the total amount required for the structure would need to be dismantled from preexisted or destroyed structures. For the Aurelian wall, c. 24,000,000 x 1.25 = 30,000,000. 210 Average brick size in the Aurelian wall is taken from Medri 2015,15, which itself is the average size of bricks in tower A18: 18 cm x 3.8 cm x 14cm = 0.00096m3. This average size is corroborated by a larger sample in Medri et al. 2016, 7. The volume of bricks is then 23,040m3 (0.00096 x 24,000,000).

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Separation and 0.00014 per 3,360 Cleaning Brick brick Total man-days 20,396

It is against this background that the reorganization of Rome’s builders must be set. If there is any truth to Malalas' statement about Aurelian's need to compel workers for the construction of his wall, then it should not come as a surprise to see the need to do the same within a decade, not should it surprise that the Romans found a permanent solution. By the time we enter the fourth century, the corporatization of labour was well under way, while, as we have seen, changes were beginning at the highest level of the administrative apparatus. The solution was then to make the construction work compulsory, while also amalgamating all builders in the Urbs into a single association. We have already seen that demand in fifth century Sardis likely contributed to the amalgamation of all builders there.211 The correlative relationship between demand and reorganization of work groups espoused here is also witnessed in nineteenth-century London.

While scale and socio-economic differences must be taken into account, here excessive demand in the building industry led, for the first time, to the formation of large building firms that united

"workmen representing all the building trades."212 The intense demand, then, created by tetrarchic and Constantinian projects provided the appropriate impetus for the reorganization of builders. In turn, the amalgamation of all the builders into a single association made it easier for the office of the urban prefecture and the cura operum publicorum to marshal labour for the exaction of compulsory work and ambitious public projects, as responsibility was increasingly falling to these offices.213

211 See p. 243 and fn. 146 above. 212 Cooney 1955, 1970, and 1993. This process eventually replaced the previous system, in which a series of subcontracting relationships were the norm, though in the early 1900s it was again seen as ineffective. 213 It is perhaps here that the later corpus omnium mancipum also find a role, functioning on behalf of the administrative apparatus. If the correlative relationship to demand does not prove convincing, there is comparative evidence for the amalgamation of builders into single guilds occurring in periods of political re-organization. In 1355, after the mass

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Private construction, ecclesiastic building, and a new imperial interest: building from the mid- fourth century to the early fifth century

The situation which prevailed durng the first three decades of the fourth century is thought to have changed dramatically in the post-Constaninian period. In fact, the middle decades of the fourth century have been characterized as a period of urban stagnation in Rome; no new projects were undertaken and the fabric of the city began to slowly decay. While it is true that the demand for large-scale imperial projects of the sort undertaken in the early fourth century may have waned in the middle decades of the century, private construction by members of the elite, public construction by a newly authoritative urban prefecture, and new ecclesiastical projects undertaken by an increasingly visible episcopate provided a significant source of demand. In 358, for example,

11 separate inscriptions record the consul Naeratis Cerealis as a conditor balnearum.214 It is traditionally assumed that all of these inscriptions refer to a single balneum, which was identified as the lavish bathing complex attached to a large domus that was excavated in 1870s just east of

Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline.215 Although the provenance of many of the inscriptions is unknown, they were first attested displayed in contexts across the city— on the Caelian, Esquiline, near the Vatican, on the left bank of the Tiber in the Campus Martius, and in the Villa Borghese.

While there is no archaeological confirmation, the plural balnearum and the dispersion of the inscriptions may suggest the establishment of multiple bathing facilities.

The balnea of Cerealis are but one example of private construction on a lavish scale.

Writing to his father in 377, Symmachus reports on the renovations of an urban domus of the

Symmachi, perhaps the Transtiberim domus, which was burned down in 364 when the elder

shock of the Black Death and the expulsion of the oligarchic Noveschi, all separate building guilds were amalgated in Siena. Similarly, in 1293 at Florence the issuing of the Ordinances of Justice reduced the number of guilds in the city and created the amalgamated guild of builders, the Arte di Pietra e Legname. See both Goldthwaite 1980, 248-250 and Norman 1995, 124 on Florentine and Sienese builders' guilds. 214 CIL VI 1744, 1744a-i, and 1745. 215 Lanciani 2000, 374. It is suggested that the baths might also have been open to the public.

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Symmachus was driven from the city.216 Another letter written later to Nicomachus Flavianus also discusses in detail the repair on an urban domus and we know from the archaeological record that the Symmachi owned many houses in the city, the largest of which may have been their enormous domus on the Caelian.217 The multiple letters written by Symmachus that address or refer to the repair of his houses suggest that for the wealthiest of Rome, the enrichment of their lofty domus was a constant and important process. In fact, Federico Guidobaldi has argued extensively that domus proliferated in fourth-century Rome, both the palatial domus of Rome's wealthiest elite and new forms of urban townhomes. He has found approximately 250 attestations, both epigraphic and archaeological, of fourth-century domūs in Rome.218 The scale of the fourth-century interventions seems to vary in each case and is often unrecoverable. On the one hand, domūs like that uncovered along the ancient Vicus Patricius in the Subura shows continual occupation from the Republic until

Late Antiquity. Here, fourth-century work was limited to repaving with opus sectile and the installation of marble revetment on the walls.219 Elsewhere interventions could be more drastic.

The so-called house of Gaudentius on the Caelian provides a good example.220 Originally built in the second century, during the course of the fourth century it too received new marble decoration, but a series of new rooms were also added and a wall built to obstruct a small street abutting the west side of the house.221

New construction also occurred, at which point homes often appropriated old structures or were squeezed into the existing urban fabric. Again on the Caelian, in the early fourth century, the

216Symm. Ep. 1.12; Amm. 27.3.4. 217 Symm. Ep. 6.70. See Pavolini, Carignani, et al. 1993, 483-502 and Machado 2018, 51 on the house of Symmachus on the Caelian. 218 See LTUR II, s.v. domus; Guidobaldi 1986, 1999, and 2000. See now also Machado 2019, 233-262 on the proliferation of the elite urban domus in late-antique Rome and the impact this had on the topography of the city. 219 Andrews 2014, 83-86. 220 An inscription on the mosaic in the triclinium has led to the association of the domus with Gaudentius, vicarius Africae in 409. 221 Machado (2012), 146.

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domus under SS. Giovanni e Paolo was built, appropriating a Severan insula.222 Included in the construction was restructuring and redecoration of the entire former insula and the addition of a balneum. The domus was extended north to obstruct a small street that ran behind the insula and connected to the clivus Scauri to the south. A similar process is seen under the modern via in

Arcione and near the neighbourhood of the Trevi fountain, on the ancient vicus Caprarius, where both a Hadrianic and a Neronian insula were converted into domūs. Brickstamps found during the excavations of the latter of these domūs provide a terminus post quem of the mid-fourth for its construction.223 It is domūs like the last two mentioned that Brown argues were primarily the homes of a new elite, the clarissmi that were created from service in the ever-expanding imperial bureaucracy.224 From the end of Constantine's reign onward, this new elite began to compete for space in the already crowded Urbs, perhaps appropriating it when necessary.225 Whatever the case, the evidence is consistent with the claims of private building on a significant scale in the middle decades of the fourth century.

Even if the scope of private building in each case remains speculative and, on the whole, may not be equivalent to the scale of public building projects in the preceding decades,226 there is ample epigraphic evidence for a flurry of public projects overseen by the urban prefects and

Rome's administrative bodies beginning in the second half of the fourth century. In 352, the urban prefect, Septimius Mnaesa, dedicated a building on the Aventine, while later in the 350s, Memmius

Vitrasius Orfitus, twice urban prefect, dedicated a temple to Apollo and a triumphal arch in the

222 LTUR II, 117-118 and III, 105-106. 223 See Machado 2006, 143-144. One was uncovered under the modern Via in Arcione and the other in the area of the Trevi. 224 Brown 2012, 248-250. 225 For a complete assessment of this process, including its extent, see Machado 2012, 143-152; 2019, 62-95 and 201- 231 226 While private construction might be difficult to reconcile in scale with large public projects, Purcell (1994, 671) has claimed that private building in the 1st cent BCE kept employment high in times when "public building was not booming."

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Forum Boarium.227 In 365 Caeionius Rufius Volusianus Lampadius claimed to have restored thirteen bridges and the banks of the Tiber,228 while another inscription boasts of his construction of a castellum of the Aqua Claudia.229 Two years later, in 367, Praetextatus famously restored the porticus of the Dei Consentes in the Forum Romanum, while also building a gilded structure— perhaps an arch— behind the Curia and maybe even initiating the restoration of the Temple of

Saturn.230 In the middle decades of the fourth century the urban prefects and their office appear to take on the role previously reserved for the emperor, as they continue to build anew and engage in the consistent repair of the city's infrastructure.

If the demand from Rome's elite, both in the private and public sphere still appears insufficient to require the thousands of workers and labourers that the projects of the early fourth century would have created and sustained, the vigour of Rome's fourth-century bishops and the increasing need for new Christian spaces in the Urbs afford further opportunity. Although not a member of the bishopric, the daughter of Constantine, Constantina, commissioned a basilica and mausoleum complex on the via Nomentana, which was completed before her death in 354.231 In addition to this, construction on Constantine's Vatican basilica was likely not complete until the late 340s.232

227 Mateos, Pizzo, and Ventura 2017, 237-274. Recently, in a systematic analysis of the arch's fabric, it has been demonstrated that its erection was a substantial and coordinated undertaking that involved the systematic relocation and reuse of spolia along with the construction ex novo. For the aedes, see CIL VI 45. While the number of projects seem to increase in the later fourth century, construction and repair initiated by the city’s administrative elite are still attested earlier. In 331, for example, Junius Bassus dedicated basilica on the Esquiline that was build a solo (CIL VI 1737) and a few years later, in 334, Amnius Anicius Paulinus, as both consul and urban prefect, engaged in various building projects around the city, CIL VI 1682 & CIL VI 1652. 228 CIL VI 40793. 229 CIL VI 31963= 3866= ILS 5791. 230 CIL VI 102; 937; 41378: [---? came?]ram auro fulgentem, quam Ve[ttius Agorius Praetextatus ? vir inlustri]ṣ (?) cons[truxerat?], F̅ l̅(avius) Ianu[arius ? v(ir) c(larissimus)] pr[aef(ectus) urbi ---? provi]dentia pro Genio senatus amplissimi resta[ura]vit. 231 LP 34.23; ICUR VIII 20752= ILCV 1768; Amm. 14.1.2. Both she and Julian's wife, Helena, were buried in the mausoleum. For Helena see Amm 21.1.5. 232 ICUR II 4094 and 4095 attest to the influence of likely Constantinus. Also, Ambrose, de virginitate 3, 1-3 suggests that Liberius was the first Bishop of Rome to celebrate the Easter liturgy at St. Peter's in 352. The evidence thus points only to the basilica's completion in the early 350s.

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Contemporaneously to these commissions we see a sharp increase in the number of ecclesiastical projects that were initiated by an increasingly visible episcopate. The prime witness of their construction activity remains the Liber Pontificalis (LP), the composition of which presents issues for historians who use the text as a source for social or narrative history. Louis

Duschene’s critical edition of the LP provides the best discussion of the complex history of the text, which seems to have been constructed in two stages. The first, and that which concerns us for the purpose of this dissertation, included the lives of the popes up to Felix (526-530) and was written in the 530s. However, this edition is only preserved in two surviving eighth-century epitomes, and it is only one of these epitomes that places emphasis on the dedications of basilicas.233 In addition to the difficulties of using the LP because of its transmission, scholars have also demonstrated how strongly the schismatic biases of the various authors of the LP have influenced the composition of its papal vitae.234 Given the problems present in this text, wherever possible additional testimonia—literary, epigraphic, and archaeological—are sought to contextualize and confirm the construction of various basilicas.235

The Liber Pontificalis records that Julius (337-352), bishop of Rome, built two basilicas in the 340s: one next to the forum of Trajan and the other across the Tiber.236 There is no archaeological trace of the former, but excavations under S. Maria in Trastevere uncovered remains of walls and part of an apse that have been associated with the fourth century church.237

A basilica is also attributed to Julius' successor Liberius. He is said to have constructed a basilica on the Esquiline near to the macellum Liviae.238 Again the exact location of the basilica is unknown

233 See now McKitterick 2019, 167-186. This is the Cononian epitome, written in the late eighth or early ninth century. 234 Davis 1989, xiv-xvi; Blair-Dixon 2007, 66-70. 235 Duschene 1955, 7-9; Davis 2000, xii-xvi. Mommsen (1989, xviii) suggested that the first part of the LP was not composed before the seventh century, but this view is no longer accepted. 236 LP 36.2 and MGH I. 76. 237 Brandenburg 2005, 112-13; LTUR III, 219-220. 238 LP 37.7.

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and there is no way to know anything about its form or size, but it can be surmised that it was relatively large. It was at least large enough to serve as the venue for the violent struggle in 366 that Ammianus claims left 137 people dead.239

Liberius' successor, Damasus, undertook a massive coordinated programme to enlarge and embellish the Christian topography of the Urbs. Included in this was the renovation of a number of Christian sites in the suburbium, but also the construction of at least three basilicas within the

Aurelian walls. The first basilica assigned to him depends on a no longer extant inscription.240 It is the basilica of S. Anastasia at the southwest corner of the Palatine. Excavations of the site revealed that the mid-fourth century basilica was inserted into the first floor of a large imperial insula and that a new foundation was added for the construction of an apse.241 At some point this was converted into a large three-nave basilica, but the phasing remains uncertain. In addition to this, the Liber Pontificalis records the construction of another basilica by Damasus in the Campus

Martius near the Theatre of Pompey. A dedicatory inscription set up by Damasus suggests that this basilica was composed of three aisles.242

Damasus' pontificate (366-384) straddled the middle decades of the fourth century and extended well into the last quarter. His successor Siricius possibly built two basilicas, including

San Clemente on the Caelian,243 while Anastasius, who was only bishop of Rome for three years between 399-402, is said to have built a basilica on the Aventine. Evidently, the topographic impact of the episcopate and their vigour to create new Christian spaces continued in the last quarter of

239 Amm. 27.3.13. 240 ILCV 1782. 241 ICUR IV 12303; Brandenburg 2005, 134-135; LTUR I, 37-38, where it is suggested that the basilica was enlarged in the sixth century on the grounds that bricks produced under Theodoric were found in the wall of the right nave. 242 Ferrua 1942, Epigrammata no. 57, ...Archivis fateor volui nova condere tecta addere praeterea dextra laevaq(ue) columnas quae Damasi teneant proprium per saecula nomen. Brandenburg (2005, 136) suggests that excavations below the Palazzo della Cancelleria next to modern S. Lorenzo in Damaso have revealed portions of the south aisle of the fourth-century structure with column bases and polychrome marble flooring preserved in situ. 243titulus pudentis: ICUR 1, 3200= ILCV 1270 (lector de Pudentiana); ILCV 1772a (398); Brandenburg 2005, 138. Basilica of San Clemente: Brandenburg 2005, 144; LTUR I, 278-279.

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the fourth century. In almost every case cited above the scale of the work is near impossible to recover, but even in this cursory overview the quantity of projects attested should at least inspire confidence that there was still significant demand for building in the Urbs.

It is also in the second half of the fourth century that imperial interest appears to have returned to Rome. During the reign of Valentinian I and Valens an unprecedented amount of legislation has been preserved in the Theodosian Code.244 Their law-making policy has been associated with the emperors’ attempts to consolidate their reign in a moment of political crisis and was aimed at three main groups, one of which, as outlined in Chapter Two, was the city of

Rome itself. 245 A significant feature of this legislation was its attention to public building, with which five constitutions deal directly.246 The first of them was issued to the prefect of Rome and has been discussed above.247 It explicitly proscribes new construction with imperial funds unless expressly allowed by the emperors. Another, issued to the praetorian prefect of Italy, Africa, and

Illyricum, prohibits the transfer of materials from small towns to large cities, no doubt including

Rome.248 While both edicts could be read as an attempt by the imperial administration to curtail building activity, they are better seen as part of a systematic programme that sought to redirect

244 Schmidt-Hofner 2015. Valentinian and Valens in 364-365 promulgated an inordinate amount of imperial constitutions (ca. 80). 245 Chp. 2, pp.105-106. In light of this, Schmidt-Hofner (2015, 67-99) argues the edicts do not carry any legislative or administrative purpose. Most of these constitutions repeat already long-established laws about matters that could have been dealt with in ad personam in rescripts. Yet the emperors chose to disseminate these laws to the wider population in the form of authoritative decrees. In addition to Rome, the remaining two groups were the army and the landholding aristocracy. In the case of Rome in 364-365, twenty-five constitutions that were issued were included in the code’s compilation; this amounts to the most in Late Antiquity. This practice demonstrated the emperors’ renewed commitment to the largest, and still symbolically significant, city. 246 CTh 15.1.11, 14-17. 247 CTh 15.1.11 (364 CE); Additional discussion on p. 247 above. 248 CTh 15.1.14, Idem aa. ad Mamertinum praefectum praetorio. praesumptionem iudicum ulterius prohibemus, qui in eversionem abditorum oppidorum metropoles vel splendidissimas civitates ornare se fingunt transferendorum signorum vel marmorum vel columnarum materiam requirentes. quod post legem nostram sine poena admittere non licebit, praesertim cum neque novam constitui fabricam iusserimus, antequam vetera reformentur, et, si adeo aliquid fuerit inchoandum, ab aliis civitatibus conveniat temperari. dat. kal. ian. Mediolano Valentiniano et Valente conss.

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what appears to be a renewed vigour in ex novo construction in the Urbs to the maintenance of old structures.

The epigraphic record only serves to support the claim that the aim of imperial legislation was not to eliminate building in the city.

0 284-312 312-337 337-361 361-410

Emperor Elite Ecclesiastical

Figure 5.1. Building Inscriptions at Rome, 284-410

As is evident from the table, between 365 and 400 seven secular imperial projects are attested, which can be contrasted with only a singular attestation between Constantine’s death and the end of his dynasty. In 366 the elder Symmachus dedicated to Valentinian I his repair (maybe construction) and embellishment of a bridge that spanned the Tiber connecting the Transtiberim region to the Campus Martius.249 In 370 the restoration of the pons Cestius, now pons Gratianus, was complete, while a third bridge crossing the Tiber in the area of the Aventine was built by

249 A project which Ammianus claims that Symmachus prided himself on, see Amm. 27.3.3; LTUR IV, 107-108, where the bridge is associated with the Pons Agrippae. This identification is, however, complex and far from certain. Dey (2011, 181-183), who is followed by Babic 2014 and Liverani 2016, suggests that the Pons Valentiniani should rather be associated with the Pons Aurelius, constructed some 140 m downstream of the earlier Pons Agrippae, where pylons now attributed with this latter bridge were found under the surface of the Tiber.

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Theodosius in the 380s.250 Between 379 and 383, Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius commemorated the completion of the porticus maximae in the Campus Martius with the dedication of a newly constructed arch, and a few years earlier (between 369 and 375) Gratian, Valens and

Valentinian I had another porticus constructed and dedicated on the Esquiline.251 Valentinian I,

Valens, and Gratian are also credited with the construction of a new forum on the Palatine in 374, and it would appear that, in terms of secular monuments, imperial interest focused on the adornment of the city's thoroughfares.252 Yet just as Constantine had split his attention between the city's centre and its peripheral regions, so too did the later emperors. In 383, Theodosius,

Valentinian II, and Arcadius wrote a letter to the city prefect Sallustius instructing him to supervise the construction of a basilica to St. Paul on the via Ostiensis.253 The basilica was not complete until

390, but when constructed it was larger than the Constantinian basilica on the Vatican.

A number of patterns are revealed from a survey of these building attestations. First, the beginning of the fourth century was a period of intense construction activity. Building spread to all regions of the city and must have created a considerable demand for labour. Second, there is a

250 Symm. Rel. 25 and 26; LTUR IV, 111-1112. 251 CIL IV 1178. The inscription records the porticus near the macellum Liviae, the location of which is contested, though it is thought to be situated on the Esquiline. Dey (2015, 71-73) suggests that the same emperors were responsible for the construction of a porticoed colonnade on the right bank of the Tiber leading to St. Peter’s, another stretching from the porta Ostiensis to the basilica of St. Paul, and a third running the length of the via Tiburtina, from the porta Tiburtina to the basilica San Lorenzo. The colonnade leading to St. Peter’s is first attested by Procopius in the 6th century (BG 1.22.21), but Dey suggests that Gratian and Valentinian II completed what he calls a “nearly continuous colonnaded panorama stretching all the way from the Via Tecta in the intramural heart of the city...to the Vatican.” The other two colonnades are known also from later testimonia (St. Paul’s: Procop. BG 2.4.9; San Lorenzo: LP I, 396 and 508), but given that Valentinian II commissioned the new basilica of St. Paul, Dey (72-3) imagines a coordinated effort with the bishop Damasus that sought to monumentalize extramural routes. I do not share the same confidence in the narrative, given the state of the evidence. In fact, Liverani (2007, 93), while also admittedly speculative, conjectures that the construction of the colonnaded portico to St. Peter’s was completed only c. 500 CE. 252 An arch of Honorius is also attested, though its location in disputed. The most recent opinion is that it was in the Forum Romanum, see Kalas 2015, 95. Liverani (2009a) suggests it might be the Arco di Portogallo that spanned the Via Lata. 253 CSEL 35, 46-7; Symm, Ep. 4.70 & 5.76; Rel. 25; ICUR 02, 04778c = ILCV 01857c = AE 1959, 64 = AE 2000, 187. The LP credits Constantine with an earlier basilica on this very spot, but this is not supported by the archaeological record. Curran (2000, 105-109) rejects that Constantine ever initiated a basilica here. A second basilica was constructed almost at the same time, see fn. 112 in this chapter.

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clear change in the sphere of building in the middle decades of the fourth century. Imperial interest in public building waned, but a burgeoning episcopate and a vibrant social elite supplanted the demand that the early-fourth century imperial projects created. Finally, beginning with the reign of Valentinian I, emperors and members of the the senatorial and ecclesiastical elite all began once again investing in the city’s urban fabric and commemorating this renewed interest in the very period that coincides with the cessation of large public projects.254

Counting bricks II: the Honorian wall

That all of this building activity created enough demand to sustain a large number of workers and labourers in the construction sector is illustrated by a study of the process of the heightening of the Aurelian wall under Honorius. An inscription commemorating this work was once displayed above three of the wall's gates.255 It credits Honorius and Arcadius with the restoration of the walls, gates, and towers and for the removal of a large amount of debris

(immensis ruderibus) from around the wall. While uncertainty remains regarding the nature of the ruderes,256 the Honorian interventions on the wall are quite clear: the curtain around the entire circuit was raised by as much as seven meters and the towers perhaps as much as doubled in height, a doubling that was equalled when increasing the thickness of the wall.257 Recent work on the

Honorian phase of the wall has suggested that work was not limited simply to the raising of the wall, but should be seen as an entirely “new work” that incorporated the pre-existing structure.258

However perceived, this was an immense undertaking and it seems to have been completed

254 For a clear representation of this late fourth century efflorescence in building in the Urbs in the epigraphic testimony (table 5.3). 255 porta Portuensis: CIL VI 1188; porta Praenestina: CIL VI 1189; porta Tiburtina: CIL VI 1190. 256 See Dey 2011, 166, fn. 20 for the debate. 257 The Aurelian wall with parapet generally was built to 8m in height. In places it extended to 10m. The Honorian wall was raised to 15m and many of the gates up to 23m. For most of its length a second-level gallery was added behind the wall and enclosed with an arcaded gallery, see Dey 2011, 34; Esposito et al. 2017, 115-119. 258 Esposito et al. 2017, 115: "...la nuova cinta non si limitò a soprelevare la muraglia precedente, ma fu, di fatto, una nuova opera, che inglobava la costruzione preeesistente…"

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rather quickly. The motivation for reinforcing the wall and raising the elevation was, in this case, clearly related to external factors. In 401, the Visigoths, led by Alaric, invaded northern Italy defeating a Roman army led by Stilicho at Pollentia in 402. This new foreign threat led to a general

Honorian campaign of refortification of Italian cities, foremost among which was Rome.259 The above mentioned inscriptions that attest to the Honorian interventions clearly demonstrate that the wall was well underway, if not nearing completion, in 402/3, while Claudian’s consular panegyric delivered for Honorius in January 404 makes clear that the wall was, at that time, recently completed (recens perfecta).260 The same panegyrist also lends credence to the position that the

Visigoths’ arrival was the stimulus for the wall’s construction, as he suggests rumour and fear were their main architects (audito...rumore Getarum profecitque opifex decori timor). The evidence leads to the general conclusion that the Honorian phase of the wall began in 401 and was completed within a mere three years.261

A recent architectural analysis of the elevation and of the wall’s fabric has demonstrated that, like its Aurelian predecessor, the builders of the Honorian wall primarily employed reused material for the brick facing. Surface abrasion on some bricks point to the salvaging and cleaning process, while increasing variability in the size of the bricks suggests that a wider range of materials was used.262 These materials may very well have been drawn largely from the ruderes

259 Christie 2006, 319-348. Outside of the walls of Rome, the largest undertaking appears to have been the building of Ravenna’s near five-kilometer circuit. For a detailed architectural study of this wall see Synder (forthcoming). 260 Claudian Pan. 28.42-49: sic oculis placitum tuis insignior auctis/collibus et nota maior se Roma videndam/ obtulit. addebant pulchrum nova moenia vultum/ audito perfecta recens rumore Getarum,/ profecitque opifex decori timor, et vice mira, quam pax intulerat, bello discussa senectus / erexit subitas turres cunctosque coegit / septem continuo colles iuvenescere muro. 261 This is a conclusion already reached by Dey 2011, 45-48 and repeated with further discussion in Dey 2017a 37-38 and 2017b, 25. 262 Esposito et al. 2017, 120; Esposito (2017, 121) suggests that the bricks range from 2-5 cm in thickness, between 7 to over 20 cm in length, and include flat tile and roof tiles with the sides removed. See also, Medri et al. 2016, 6-7 on the size range of the bricks. This may also be reflected in the average size of the module in each phase of the wall. Dey (2011, 25, 42, and 283-284) calculates average module of the Aurelian phase was between 25-30cm, but could reach as high as 34 cm. For the Honorian phase the module ranged from 29-34cm.

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that the inscription commemorating the wall’s construction mention.263 The builders compensated for the increasing variability in the size of the material used for facing with the thickness of the mortar beds, which, while differing, facilitated the courses’ horizontal alignment. This type of alteration may testify to a well-organized and trained workforce,264 a view further supported by the presence of visible joints where two work groups joined sections of the walls, ensuring the better bonding of the core and curtain.265 Like with the construction of its Aurelian predecessor, the construction of the Honorian wall was a well-organized and well-executed project.

Since the wall was doubled in height and width, was constructed almost entirely of brick- faced concrete, and the bricks were throughout re-used material, we can make some plausible conjectures about the amount of labour that would have been required for its completion based on the numbers from the Aurelianic phase. The newly raised portions of the Honorian wall would be nearly equivalent in their volume to the Aurelian wall, while its significant increase in height would have added to the number of man-days required for its construction. Potlug holes, for example, present at regular intervals perforate only the Honorian section of the wall and are entirely absent from the Aurelianic phase, which indicates that perhaps more complex scaffolding (e.g. cantilevered scaffolding) was required for the later phase.266 In general, to erect scaffolding

263 Coates-Stephens (2001, 232) suggests that the material for a series of large foundation walls composed almost entirely of re-used statuary and dated to the post-Constantinian period may have derived from the large swathe of destruction likely brought about by the construction of the Aurelian wall. It is possible that a large amount of material remained around the wall for over a century and was salvaged and reused in the Honorian phase. In fact, Coates- Stephens (2004, 87) already suggested that ruderibus likely means ‘ruins’ of pre-Aurelianic structures. In general, the existence of organized spoliation and the reuse of this material was proposed by Pensabene (e.g. 2000). 264 Esposito 2017, 115. Contrary to Heres 1982, 103-104, who claims the masonry is badly leveled, made with irregular bricks placed haphazardly in very wide mortar beds. 265 Mancini 2017, 119. Both observations (of the mortar beds and the joints) are consistent with Dey’s (2011, 101) claim that architectural analysis of the Honorian phase of the wall points to the work of professional, or well-trained builders. 266 Dey 2011, 16 and 43. He suggests that the Aurelian phase may have only required simple ground-anchored scaffolding; Mancini 2017, 118.

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required 0.063 mandays/m2 of skilled and unskilled labour combined.267 Assuming that the exterior wall facing of the Honorian phase can be calculated around 130,000 m2, then the erection of scaffolding alone may have required approximately an additional 8,000 man-days of labour.

This is a small portion of the overall labour, but indicative of the additional challenges that may have faced with the builders of the much larger Honorian wall. Overall, the raising of the core and curtains of the Honorian wall and the salvaging of reused bricks would have required the work of over 5,000 labourers over the three-year period of its construction.268 Again, this number can only be considered a rough minimum, as many phases of the construction process have been omitted from this overview.

Much like the wall’s initial construction, the fifth-century raising and reconstruction was a monumental undertaking and the amount of work and labour required for its rapid completion likely astonishing. We should remember that in order to complete the Aurelian wall in the third century new measures may have required the compulsion of the city’s collegia. And, as we saw above, in 400, throughout the Gallic provinces, collegiati were recalled to their cities, now in a state of physical decay because of the absence of the collegiati’s labour (ministeriis).269 There is no indication in our sources that the construction of Honorius’ wall required a similar intervention by the emperor or the city’s administration. It is only in 412, after the sack of the city, that we witness legislative action meant to recall errant corporati to their duties (functiones) at Rome, and later still for the imposition of corvée labour on all of the city’s citizens.270 The conclusion would

267 Christer Bruun in personal conversation calculated that this amounts to roughly thirty-seven minutes to erect scaffolding to cover a square meter of the wall’s facing. 1 man-day = 10 hours; 0.1 man-days = 60 minutes; 0.01 man- days = 6 minutes (360 seconds), then 0.063 man-days = 37.8 minutes (360 x 6.3 = 2,268/60= 37.8). 268 See table 5.2 for numbers related to the construction of thee Aurelian wall, from which the caluclations here are derived. 269 See fn. 164 and 165 in this chapter. 270 For corvée labour see above (pp. 248-249). CTh 14.2.4 issued in 412 demands that provincial governors compel Rome’s corporati to return to the city: Cura rectorum provinciarum corporati urbis Romae, qui in peregrina transgressi sunt, redire cogantur, ut servire possint functionibus, quas imposuit antiqua sollemnitas. Note that CJ 11.15.1 contains the exact same clause. This edict is dated earlier to 391, but this date appears to be assigned by the

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then seem inevitable: at the beginning of the fifth century there remained a sizeable force of ready builders, both skilled workers and unskilled labourers, to undertake the construction of Honorius’ walls.271 This fact suggests that Rome supported a thriving building industry throughout the fourth century, which, in turn, engaged a demographically significant number of people.

Fourth-Century Building and Labour Migration

That the record of building at Rome is significant in discussions of the city’s population is generally recognized. The earlier sections of this chapter aimed to demonstrate, among other things, that the labour demand generated by various construction projects across the fourth century provided for the continued provisioning of work for a large body of the city’s workers and labourers. Despite this, it has been questioned whether these construction projects would have generated enough opportunity for wage-labour so as to "encourage an influx in casual labourers" or for such wage-labour migration to be tolerated by the existing population.272 It is hard to definitely refute this position, as evidence is slim for the effect that demand generated by construction projects had on wage-labour migration to Rome in Late Antiquity. An edict issued by

Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian II evinces a keen awareness among imperial administrators of the correlation between building initiatives and populations. These emperors attempted to compel local decurions to repair or construct ex novo buildings, particularly domūs, so as to increase the number of their respective cities’ populations.273

Perhaps it is not surprising that itinerant and migrate labourers continue to feature in the

compilers in error. The Justinian law includes, verbatim, an edict promulgated in 391 regarding incolae, but also conflates and combines with it, again copying the previous edicts verbatim, legislation that was issued separately in in 364, 397, and 412 and assigns it all to 391. 271 For the initial construction Medri (2015, 18) suggests the presence of two large workforces, one for construction and the other for demolition. This could be the case again with the heigthening. Given the short time of completion, one group may have been responsible for the clearing of the ruderes and the other for the heightening. 272 Purcell 1999, 143. 273 CJ 8.10.8: singularum urbium curiales etiam inviti vel reparare intra civitates quas olim habuerint domus vel ex novo aedificare cogantur, illic semper muniis inservituri et aucturi propriarum frequentiam civitatum.

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landscape of late-antique Italy. Our sources give only occasional glimpses of the regularity of mobility of these craftsmen and merchants.274 Valentinian III’s attempt to prohibit the movement of itinerant craftsmen and merchants in 447 was already discussed in Chapter Three.275 Around the same time, in the little known Vita Germani, we learn that the bishop of Auxerre, Germanus, encountered a group of itinerant craftsmen (artifices) returning to Italy from work across the

Alps.276 In both of these cases, wage-labour migration was temporary, but a law dated to 400 suggests that permanent migration to cities by labourers was also a feature of the late-antique West, though the legislation includes in its scope only the cities of Gaul.277

At Rome, in the fourth century, similar evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, I am hard- pressed to believe that the same type of migration did not occur in the Empire’s largest city. This applies not least to the building industry, which remained vigorous in late-antique Rome. The epigraphic record provides some examples of individuals who, as craftsmen in the building industry, immigrated to Rome,278 but the diffusion of certain local or regional building techniques

274 Garnsey and Whittaker (1998, 325) recognize that geographic mobility of urban craftsman was an endemic and consistent feature of the ancient world. The eastern portion of the empire during the fifth and sixth centuries, perhaps, provides the best evidence for the migration of labourers. The famous Isaurian builders are attested working in Syria and Constantinople, while Procopius suggests that the same Isaurians were frequently employed in military engineering projects in regions as far flung as Italy. The same is true of their regional counterparts in Syria and Armenia. 275 Chp. 3, p. 134; Nov. Val. 24.1.1. 276 Constantius, Vita Germ. 31: decursis itaque civitatibus Gallicanis, dum Alpes Italiam ingressurus exsuperat, casu artificibus ex opere mercennario domum redeuntibus itineris conscendunt sociatur. 277 CTh 12.19.2. Here collegia and corpora are presented as institutional mechanisms to incorporate craftsmen into the cities’ social and fiscal life. 278 In particular, the fourth-century epitaphs of two marmorarii: one is inscribed in Greek and includes the name of a certain Aurelius Agathias Syros (ICUR I 1860). Both the language of the inscription and the name of our marmorarius suggest that he migrated from the East; the second commemorates a certain Puteolanus (ICUR IV 12330), who likely migrated to Rome from Puteoli, probably in search of work. It should be noted that the appearance of marmorarii in the epigraphic record poses no problem to the posited amalgamation of all builders, nor any attestations of individual builders at all. In fact, an inscription from Rome may attest to a group of marmorarii who constituted a division (centuria or centurio) of a collegium fabrum, see AE 1994, 183. Two named fabri also appear in inscriptions datable to the fourth century, a Eupandrius and a Renatus (ILCV 3785 = ICUR I 2223; ICUR X 27157). ICUR IV 12176 may be a third faber, but the restoration is conjectural. Renatus could be North African. Kajanto (1963, 111-112) suggest that names that are related in meaning (Renovatus, -ta and Reparatus, -ta) are much more regularly attested in North Africa. However, Renatus is equally represented at Rome.

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may provide a better opportunity for conjecture. In the middle decades of the fourth century terracotta vaulting tubes are attested in the archaeological record for the first time. They appear in the construction of the Syrian temple on the Janiculum, which has a terminus post quem of 357, and in the fourth-century phases of the north-west side of the crypt of Balbus. These tubes are a product of North Africa. They were used there already in the second century and appear with increasing regularity and a greater geographical distribution under the Severans. Also under the

Severans, these North African vaulting tubes first appear in areas outside of Africa. Examples all come from military contexts and Lynne Lancaster has credited their diffusion to miltary connections, suggesting the presence of North African architects or craftsmen within the legions.279

Of course, their appearance in Rome is well outside a military context. Instead, it should be tied to the reliance of the Urbs on North African grain for the annona. Over 150 vaulting tubes were found during the excavations of an early fourth century ship near the Sicilian island of

Levanzo. The ship's other cargo is reasonably thought to be grain.280 Vaulting tubes are attested at an additional thirteen sites of ships that were wrecked while making the journey from Africa to

Rome, and all are datable between the late third and fourth century. It is clear enough that a long established North African building technique was transferred to Rome in the fourth century, but did labourers come along with this technology? An affirmative answer is possible. Noy has found that 7% of all clearly attestated immigrants who came to Rome between the third and sixth century were of African origin,281 a number which he admits is limited by the constraints of definite data.282 More important is that 69% of Noy's immigrants were male, and the majority were in their

279 Lancaster 2015, 109-111. 280 Royal 2015. 281 Noy 2000a, 59. 282 Noy 2000b, 17-18 and 2000b, 5-10. The evidence, which is mainly epigraphic, requires that the foreigner or their commemorator identity themselves as such. This is challenged by the degree of the individual at integration at Rome.

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twenties.283 This suggests that the expectation of work opportunities was a major pull factor that brought these men to Rome.284 Although none of these men can be explicitly related to the construction industry, CTh 13.4.1, sent to the proconsul of Africa, urges the recruitment of young men in African provinces to be trained as architects. The cited reason was that in 334 there was great demand and not enough supply. It is possible that these architects were sent to Rome and perhaps also labourers came along with them to help fulfill the demand that the Urbs was still generating. After all, in other sectors of city maintenance and provisioning people from the African dioceses were sent to Rome.285

In Chapter Two, I argued that continual immigration to Rome was a feature of the fourth century so much so that population pressure, and, in particular, pressure on the food supply, in the late fourth century may have led to the expulsion of foreigners on multiple occasions.286 What number of these immigrants came to Rome as skilled craftsmen and how many simply came in search of work and found employment in the building sector remains unrecoverable. The evidence discussed here can hardly be taken as proof of mass wage-labour migration to Rome facilitated by demand in the building industry. But given the established scale of construction in the city, we can say with some confidence that immigration, whether permanent or temporary, might have been

For a particular period, dating often fragmentary or brief inscriptions is impossible with any precision. So for late antiquity, Noy limits himself to Christian and Jewish epitaphs, which explicity use non-Italian ethnic indicators. This certainly means the actual number of immigrants must have been larger. 283 Noy 2000a, 61 & 65. 284 While this is a commonly accepted fact, it is worthwhile noting that Hin (2013, 216) states that cities acted as “nodes of labour opportunity”, suggesting that labour-opporunity, real of perceived, was always a pull factor in centripetal migration. Erdkamp (2016, 38-40) reiterates the pull factor of the urban construction industry at Rome. People may have believed that jobs were more readily available in cities than countrysides and more abundant in large, rather than small, cities. As late as the sixth century this thought may have prevailed in Italy, afterall Cassiodorus writes that children were sold by their parents in Lucania to offer them a better life, even as slaves, Var. 8.33.4:... praesto sunt pueri ac puellae diverso sexu atque aetate conspicui, quos non fecit captivitas esse sub pretio, sed libertas: hos merito parentes vendunt, quoniam de ipsa famulatione proficiunt. dubium quippe non est servos posse meliorari, qui de labore agrorum ad urbana servitia transferuntur. 285 CTh 14.3.13 and 17. 286 See discussion in Chp. 2, p. 109 and fn. 214.

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encouraged. In fact, the city's dependence on the provinces of Africa and the appearance of North

African vaulting tubes in the archaeological record at Rome, for the first time in the fourth century, might be used to suggest that construction in the city remained a pull factor that brought labourers to Rome still in the fourth century.

Economic Opportunities: compulsion, contracts, and collectives

The current understanding of socio-economic relationships in Rome’s building industry is still often conditioned by the same model of late-antique society that advances the argument for the virtual "enslavement" of the working population.287 This view holds that a decrease in material production, already in the fourth century, coupled with an elite monopoly over the remaining manufacture and the requisition of said building materials, led to the exploitation of an increasingly oppressed inferior class by a production-controlling elite.288 Whether we speak of production or the provisioning and supply of materials, the role of the elite remains undeniable. Less clear are the dire consequences postulated for the workers and labourers who produced, shaped, and employed these materials.

In the previous chapter, it was suggested that the corporatization of labour—that is, the conversion of the work of collegia and corpora into hereditary and compulsory munera—led to

287 See Chp. 4, pp. 165-167. 288 On the view of this division in late-antique society in general see Chp. 1, pp. 25-32. Santangeli Valenzani (2007, 445-446) ties this development to the view that Rome experienced a decrease in the specialization of the work force. While he places the culmination of this process in the eigthth century, he argues that it had begun in the fourth century. He connects this process to the increased use of spolia, which was a trend that proliferated in the post-Constantinian period, see Coates-Stephens 2001 and 2002; Pensabene 1992; Pensabene and Panella (1995) among others on decorative reuse of spolia; and Marano 2013. However, the choice to use spolia was not necessarily a new feature in the Roman world and it was often motivated by economic and technical concerns, which included the availability of materials and their proximity to worksites, see Marano 2013, 3-6; Barker 2011; Barker and Marano 2017. One example in which proximity to the work site may have factored is the construction of the Honorian wall. Here the ruderes may have provided a ready source of material, which would have mitigated the need to organize the logistics of supply through the crowded city. Dareggi (2005, 349) argues that increasing control over resources by the state and the limited number of artisans led to a decrease in manpower and general shift in socio-economic conditions.

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greater socio-economic advantages for the members of these associations. Corporati and collegiati used the immunities granted in return for their duty to advance their economic prospects and to form closer relationships with the city's elite. Both advantages led to upward social mobility and some level of integration into the city's administration. A case will be made that this latter trend is also identifiable in the building industry. While the completion of certain work—repair of walls, aqueducts, storehouses, and ports and the ex novo construction of imperial monuments—was made compulsory, there remained a portion of work that was contracted out. As such, I argue that the amalgation of builders into a single association allowed members to exploit the elite's engagement in the building industry to their benefit. Like other corpora whose work became tied to the administration of the Urbs, the skilled builders of the city were able to further their own economic interests by leveraging their close association with the prefecture. This rapport was a direct result of reforms that have been traced in the administration of building at Rome and the elite's dependency on the work and labour of a more tightly controlled collective of workers.

The economic engagement of members of the elite in the building industry throughout the fourth century is clearly reflected in our sources. Ammianus' account of the elder Symmachus' exile from Rome offers insight by way of an anecdote. For apparently suggesting that he would rather quench his lime-kilns with wine than sell the latter at a low price, the house of the elder

Symmachus was burnt to the ground and he was driven out of the city by an angry mob.289 The ire of the population was likely roused by the fact that in the late-antique city the imperial administration had made it the responsibility of the large estate holders to provide wine for public sale at a subsidized price.290 Both Alan Cameron and Michele Salzman suggest that Symmachus' actions may have been misinterpreted and, as such, may not have warranted the reaction of the

289 Amm 27.3.4. 290 CTh 11.2.2; Mazzarino 1951, 381.

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population.291 Throwing wine on lime-kilns was part of a procedure to create a certain type of mortar (maltha). Symmachus was, thus, privileging one form of commerce over another; he felt he stood to profit more from the sale of mortar than wine.

The production of other materials suggests the same. In particular, beginning in the middle of the fourth century, brick stamps attest many members of the city's elite once again engaged in the brick production.292 A good number of these men served as urban prefects and in at least one case also as a consularis operum maximorum.293 In addition to this, a certain Rufius Volusianus, either the urban prefect under Maxentius or the perfect whom Ammianus vituperated for his appetite for building in the Urbs, has been connected with marble production or distribution in

Ostia.294 In all, the elite concern with the control of building materials suggests that building was still a lucrative enterprise. That the men attested in our evidence seem also to have held administrative positions that permitted control over building in the city would, at first sight, support the potential for an exploitative elite monopoly.

Ammianus' account of Caeonius Rufius Volusianus Lampadius' prefecture may support this position.295 It will be recalled that the prefect, in his desire to build new buildings and repair old ones, requisitioned materials from artisans, which he had his apparitores seize. Lampadius' actions incensed the artisans and they retaliated. Banding together they besieged his house and

291 Cameron 1964, 21; Roda 1981, 257; Roberts and Salzman 2011, 2. On the production of maltha see, Martin 1976, 22 and Palladius Op. Ag. 1.17.2. 292 For a full list see Steinby 1986, 132-136, where she cites nine identifiable senators dating from the reign of Constantine into the fifth century. They are attested by multiple brick stamps and include families like the Symmachi and the Anicii, but also particularly prominent senators like Q. Flavius Maesius Lollianus (CIL XV 1688) and Q. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, who was consul in 379 and urban prefect before in 369, PLRE I, 640-642. 293 Urban prefects: C. Caeionius Rufius Volusianus, Q. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, and multiple Symmachi. Consularis operum publicorum/maximorum: Q. Flavius Maesius Lollianus. 294 Forty-seven unworked marble columns were found in the so-called Temple of the Fabri Navales and five bear an inscription indicated they were owned by a Volusianus. Becatti (1948 II, 201) imagines this Volusianus to have owned an officina responsible for the supply of marble, while Pensabene (1999, 147) and Barker (2013, 238-239) rather assume that Volusianus was the customer. 295 Amm. 27.3.7-10. See discussion on pp. 251-253 above.

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forced the prefect to flee the city. On the one hand, the whole account might be thought to confirm the thesis of an increasingly oppressive and exploitative elite. On the other, such collaborative action by the artisans has been associated with the new syndicalist spirit of late-antique corporati, whose readiness to offer resistance was one outcome of their increasingly entrenched position in production and supply.296

The account of the artisans’ reaction to the requisition of their material may also prefigure the behaviour of skilled builders, whom we witness on occasion working collectively in an obstructionist manner to advance their own interests. The evidence for this comes, in the main, from the eastern portion of the Empire in the form of the two well-known edicts of the emperor

Leo.297 It has been long recognized that these edicts bear witness to the strong position of builders, who began to forcibly and, perhaps, collectively obstruct the completion of projects in order to extract some benefit for themselves.298 The culmination of the legislation was the strict prohibition of monopolies, which builders in particular seemed to be exercising.

Far from only affecting the metropolis of Constantinople, this situation seems to have been both persistent and widespread in the eastern portion of the Empire. This trend appears already in the late fourth century. In a letter to the bishop of Iconium, written around 375 CE, Gregory, the bishop of Nyssa, makes a request to procure skilled craftsmen to build a martyrial basilica. Gregory gives meticulous details about the nature of the task. The bishop even stipulates the details of the contract, both the daily amount paid to the builders, an exorbitant one solidus, and the required

296 In particular see Cracco-Ruggini 1971, 167-168 and 1976, who speaks of the “riottosità” of corporati in the fourth century as a reaction to state control and exploitation. 297 CJ VIII. 10.12.9 and CJ IV. 49.1-2 (484 CE). Similarly aggressive collective action is testified among donkey- sellers (onomangones) in 4th century Oxyrhychus, who are often cited as the prime example of associations monopolizing labour or acting collectively to advance the interests of their members, see P. Oxy. XLIV 3192 and discussion in Adams 2007, 94; Gibbs 2011, 297; and Verboven 2016, 182-183. 298 For the fundamental work that outlines this development, see Mickwitz 1936, 188-204. Mickwitz, however, is interested in the shift of the nature of guilds in general, writing a continuous history of the economy. In the fifth century, primarily in the East, Mickwitz argued that crafts were forcibly organized, but turned this compulsion to their advantage.

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amount of work to be completed on those days.299 His excessive description, we are told, reflects his anxiety over the potential for the craftsmen (τεχνίταις) to exploit ambiguous contracts.300

Perhaps Gregory’s concerns also reveal the stronger socio-political and economic position that builders might have obtained in the fourth century, which seems, if the later imperial legislation is any indication, to result in the increasing inability of the state and individuals to regulate skilled workers in the building industry.301

The aforementioned mid-fifth century inscription from Sardis not only seems to confirm the increasing authority of builders in the late-antique East, but more importantly it reveals the mechanisms through which they sought to further establish their autonomy. Like the later legislation, this text primarily focuses on the deleterious actions of builders leaving projects unfinished and obstructing their completion. In order to remedy the issue the local magistrate was forced to intervene, imposing on the builders of Sardis an oath (ἐξομοσία) to strengthen their obligation to fulfill contracts.302 What sets the Sardis inscription apart from the imperial constitutions is that it is explicitly addressed to an association of builders.303 The inscription serves

299 Greg. Nyss. Ep. 25.12. The wage, set at one solidus a day to each worker in addition to daily maintenance, would seem to reflect an astronomical increase in wages for skilled builders over the course of the fourth century. Cracco Ruggini (1980, 57 fn. 32) argues that it represents a fourfold increase, valuing a solidus in the late fourth century at 200 denarii. This is a somewhat problematic calculation. In Diocletian’s Price Edict the daily rate for skilled workers is between 50-75 denarii communes or 2-3 nummi. The Diocletianic gold coin, struck at 60 to a pound, was equivalent to 48 nummi. The nummus drastically decreased in value throughout the course of the fourth century so as to no longer be a reasonable measure of value for the solidus. For example, a law of 445 (Nov. Val. 16) suggest that one solidus was equal to 7,200 nummi. Diocletian also instituted a silver coin, the argenteus, struck at 96 to the pound, and equal to 100 denarii communes. To earn a single argenteus a skilled labourer would be required to work for two days in 301 CE. A law of 397 (CTh 13.2.1) sets the value of one pound of silver at 5 solidi. This means that one solidus amounts to nearly 19 argentei. This is roughly fourtyfold or a 4,000 percent increase. Such an astronomical increase is unlikely, and it seems attempting to reach any correlation is impaired by our meagre data. It is better to simply suggest that a substantial increase in daily pay seems to have occurred. At 25.10, builders are referred to as οἰκοδόμοι and at 25.12 as τεχνίται. 300 Greg. Nyss. Ep. 25. 15. 301 A proposition suggested already by Di Branco (2000, 193) in his study of the Sardis inscription. 302 Di Branco (2000, 189-192) argues convincingly that the document represents a cautio iuratoria: a public oath strengthening the simple stipulationes that were made between the employer and contracted worker. 303 Sardis VII. 1.18 = CIG 3467. Line 45 stipulates that abandoned work needs to be taken up by another member (τις ἐξ ἡμῶν) under the penalty of a communal fine should this not occur. In addition, lines 54 and 55 establishes the communal property of the association as a guarantee that the association members adhere to the regulations.

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a dual scholarly purpose: it both demonstrates that the issues addressed by later imperial legislation were for a long time ubiquitous in the East and also that the networks of builders whose influence the laws attempted to curtail likely consisted of professional associations. As such it offers direct attestation of associations’ influence in contractual arrangements and of the mechanisms associations could and did employ to the disadvantage of those who contracted them.

If the example from Sardis, and later those at Constantinople, are any indication, associations of builders were able to leverage their relative strength to collectively control the labour market. Their degree of success would seem to indicate that certain socio-political and economic conditions prevailed in the East so as to afford members of the artisanal classes, in particular those in the building sector, improved economic potential and a new level of prominence.304 I argue that the same conditions prevailed in the West, and in Rome in particular, somewhat earlier, which meant that Rome's builders acquired similar advantages.

A group of constitutions that cluster in the middle of the fourth century evince a degree of imperial concern over the status of skilled builders and architects in the West. The first was promulgated in 334 CE, when Constantine issued an edict to the praetorian prefect of Africa concerned with the recruitment of architects, for which there was considerable need (architectis quam plurimis opus est).305 To address the dearth of men practicing the profession (sed quia non sunt), the praetorian prefect was encouraged to compel young men of eighteen years of age to pursue this vocation. In return, the imperial edict granted immunity from munera personalia both to the boys and their fathers, while also guaranteeing a salary (salarium) for the young men.

304 Garnsey (1998, 86-87) advocates for the economic importance of builders. Zanini (2006), 379-382. 305 CTh 13.4.1: Imp. Constantinus A. ad Felicem. Architectis quam plurimis opus est; sed quia non sunt, sublimitas tua in provinciis Africanis ad hoc studium eos impellat, qui ad annos ferme duodeviginti nati liberales litteras degustaverint. Quibus ut hoc gratum sit, tam ipsos quam eorum parentes ab his, quae personis iniungi solent, volumus esse inmunes ipsisque qui discent salarium competens statui.

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"Architects" had long held a privileged position in the building industry and in some ways the edict simply reaffirms this status. However, a constitution promulgated only a few years later sees similar privileges afforded to craftsmen firmly associated with manual work. In 337, the sons of Constantine issued this edict to the praetorian prefect of Gaul, which granted to skilled craftsmen

(artifices artium) immunity from all munera (universis muneribus).306 35 different professions were included among those to whom the exemption was extended, of which the majority worked in the building sector. The privilege was conceded, however, only on the condition that these men spend their leisure learning their craft (ediscendis artibus) and apprenticing their sons (suos filios erudire). The central concern of this edict reflects that of the earlier constitution regarding architects and both fit within a larger Constantinian programme that aimed to ensure a steady supply of builders.307 In order to achieve this objective, however, concessions needed to be granted, which likely advantaged the craftsmen.308 In fact, the legislative action represented in these laws, while aimed increasing the number of skilled craftsmen, has been suggested to have had the additional effect of elevating the social position and status of these men.309 Given the imperial attention lavished on this group, it would not be unjustified to suggest that skilled craftsmen in the building industry in the West reached a socio-political level in the fourth century commensurate with that which the evidence indicates that their eastern counterparts attained slightly later.

306 CTh. 13.4.2. 307 This "programme" is also reflected in CTh 14.8.1, issued by Constantine in 329 CE and cited on p. 241. In fact, in both this law and CTh 13.4.1 the emperor cites the great need for builders and architects as his main impetus. 308 The height of the potential benefits that a craftsman could and did receive are found in in CTh 13.4.4, an edict of Valentinian I dated to 374. This constitution addressed the status of professores picturae in the diocese of Africa and included in a long list of privileges, such as the exemption from all taxation, inclusive of the collatio lustralis, the ability to change their domicilium at will, and payment for work on imperial projects that was compulsory. This law is the last imperial intervention until the fifth century that sought to define the socio-political and economic position of craftsmen associated with building in the west. 309 Dareggi 2005, 344-345 and 350.

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This same socio-political transformation seems to have been felt also at Rome. We have already argued that throughout the fourth century builders experienced greater integration into the administrative apparatus of the Urbs. Symmachus’ open acknowledgment of Rome’s reliance on builders to sustain its urban fabric has been much discussed and his writings generally reveal the extent to which builders were also closely tied to the urban prefecture. In his twenty-fifth Relatio, for example, in the process of attempting to reconcile the case concerning the construction of the bridge, Symmachus needed to determine the cost for its completion. In order to do so, we are told, he sought directly the magistrates or masters of the building trade (fabrilis artis magistros).310

Symmachus seems often to have consulted with craftsmen about matters germane to their expertise. At some point he even addresses a letter to a mosaicist to procure a sample of his work, which was considered to have been particularly innovative.311 Symmachus’ literary efforts then reveal the close association a member of the elite might have with craftsmen and the types of relationships that might exist.

To better appreciate the potential economic outcomes that resulted from these types of relationships it is best to set them against the changes that occurred in the building industry, which this chapter has charted over the course of the fourth century and early fifth century: concern for the upkeep of the city’s fabric came primarily within the purview of the urban prefect and the various members of the elite that functioned under his auspices. At a lower level, diverse groups of fabri, or skilled builders, at Rome were amalgamated into a single association and various munera came to be exacted from this group. The shift in the function and composition of a certain sector of Rome’s labour force and the means through which work and labour were extracted meant that members of the elite relied increasingly on a single body of craftsmen. The socio-economic

310 Symm Rel. 25.2. 311 Symm. Ep. 8.42.

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conditions by the late fourth century in Rome, then, appear such that the Sardis inscription and the body of evidence from the East become reasonable comparanda. The result is that the accounts of

Symmachus can also be said to demonstrate the ability of the skilled builders to obtain a certain degree of economic influence. The amalgamated association was able to assert and maybe control the value of its members' work even when interacting with the highest level of the urban administration. After all, Symmachus had no option but to consult these craftsmen (artifices) during his tenure in public office, accepting their estimate for his project's completion and conveying it to the emperor.312

The results of these new potential economic opportunities can be seen in two places: the oft-mentioned ornate tomb of Trebius Iustus and an imperial constitution from 364 that seems to confirm the privileged status of builders. It may be recalled from Chapter Three that both the size and decoration of the tomb of Trebius Iustus indicate that he was a man of comparative wealth. In fact, an anthropological study of the tombs remains suggests he was of a middling socio-economic standing.313 The frescoes painted on the left and right wall of the builders at work disclose how he arrived at his economic station. These images also allow us to make some inferences about the organization of labour in late-antique Rome. On the left wall, there are five men depicted, all dressed in short, sleeveless tunics; two individuals stand on scaffolding and lay bricks on a partially constructed wall, two others carry bricks and mortar up a ladder, while a fifth man either mixes mortar or slakes lime with a hoe (Fig. 3.2). Both of the men laying the courses of brick are bearded, while the other three men are not, perhaps indicating their youth. The worker standing on the inner face of the wall appears to be giving directions to the others, perhaps marking him out as the person

312 Symm. Rel. 26.4. 313 Rea (2004, 155) states the family likely only rose to a middling social economic standing in Iustus’ lifetime during the reign of Constantine. This is confirmed both by the decoration of the tomb and her anthropological study of the remains.

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in charge.314 On the opposite wall, two men stand in conversation. One is dressed in a short, long- sleeved tunic, wears calcei on his feet, and holds a trowel and a measuring rod in his hands (Fig.

5.2). An inscription below identifies him as magister Generosus. The other also holds a measuring rod and has been conjectured to be Trebius Iustus himself.315

Figure 5.2: Iustus and Magister Generosus, Tomb of Trebius Iustus

Image reproduced from the Epigraphic Database Roma (149099)

Whether the builders in these frescoes are slaves or free labourers has been debated.316 The

Sant’Omobono inscription makes clear the presence of slaves among builders, but we also know that free-wage labour was a feature of the construction industry.317 Based on Harper’s view of the slave economy in the later Roman world, a man of Trebius Iustus’ middling position in an urban

314 Paparatti 2004, 92. 315 Bisconti 2004, 146. 316 DeLaine 2000, 126; Santangeli Valenzani 2007, 440. 317 Line six to eight suggest that fabri along with their sons and slaves, vel filios vel servos habere, were joined together and bound to their service. This can be supplemented with Digest 17.1.26.8 in which a faber purchases and trains a slave before selling him at double the price. On operarii or mercenarii, see Introduction and Chp. 1, pp. 42-48. Two inscriptions from Rome’s catacombs also attest to men who boast of their work as labourers: ICUR I 813 (operarius) and ICUR VIII 22138 (laboranti).

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environment might be expected to own one to five slaves, with a mean of perhaps two.318 Besides

Iustus himself and his son, Asellus, only two other individuals of the 21 depicted in the tomb are named. These are the aforementioned magister Generosus and a man carrying supplies named

Valerius, while the names of three others were erased at some point. Silvia Orlandi has suggested that the erasures must have occurred when these individuals were removed from Iustus’ familia, perhaps indicating that the named persons were his slaves.319 None of our builders, except for

Generosus, are given an identification. Generosus’ clothing and depiction relative to Iustus would suggest that he was of a more elevated economic status and belie an attribution of servile status.

Little can be said for certain, but it seems possible that Iustus’ builders were all or mostly free.

The following reconstruction can be suggested: Iustus was the head of a small building firm, perhaps an architectus,320 a man of middling comparative wealth and non-elite status. He possessed two to five slaves and had in his employ a trained craftsman, Generosus, who acted as a supervisor for the firm, overseeing the labour of the less reliable wage-labourers. If nothing else, the size of this firm, six to eight workers or labourers, corresponds well with the numbers that have been conjectured for enterprises during the High Empire. Therefore, it can be confidently argued that the model of building firms that was proposed for the early Empire persisted into the late

Empire. In men like Iustus, then, we see the potential for the accumulation of wealth by craftsmen, who would be required to be members of city’s association of fabri. Iustus and his fellow collegiati might then leverage their position relative to the administrative apparatus in order to secure higher wages or richer contracts. Iustus also had under his employ both skilled craftsmen, also necessarily

318 Harper 2011, 49-60. 319 Orlandi 2004b, 83. The three named individuals were depicted beside Asellus. Curiously a mule is also named, while the name of the man driving the mule was also subject to an erasure. It can be restored as [[Fortunatus]]. 320 Bisconti 2004, 142. Bisconti (2000, 161-183) demonstrates that this type of rod was a common attribute for those who identified as archtecti.

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joined to the same collegium, and a group of labourers, who might have been slaves, free wage- labourers, or a mix of the two.

The advantages that seemed to accrue to Rome’s association of builders came to be recognized even outside of Rome in a way that supports the claim of their socio-economic advancement. In 364 Valentinian I and Valens were forced to issue an edict that ordered the removal of all municipal decurions from the collegium fabrorum at Rome:

Idem aa. ad Symmachum praefectum Urbi. Municipalis, qui ad fabrorum collegium alia officia illusurus irrepsit, statui pristino reformetur, nec in posterum decurionum quis originem trahens ad hoc officium adspirare audeat.321

The same emperors [Valentinian and Valens] to Symmachus, urban prefect. Any decurion, who, attempting to evade their other duties, steal into the collegium fabrorum, should be returned to his previous condition, nor in the future should any decurion assuming this origo dare to aspire to this association.

This edict is one of only ten constitutions concerning decurions addressed to Rome’s urban prefect in title one of book twelve of the Theodosian Code.322 The remaining 182 are directed at praetorian prefects, vicars, and provincial governors. Nearly every one of the ten constitutions is concerned with the transfer of decurions to the Senate or some Palatine office in Rome.323 Among the exceptions is the edict cited above, which pertains to the enrollment of decurions in a collegium fabrorum. Only a single collegium is mentioned and, given that the urban prefect is the addressee, we are on safe ground to assume that this collegium is that of Rome’s fabri. It would seem that members of various municipal curiae were transferring their origo and claiming to belong among

321 CTh 12.1.62. 322 CTh 12.1.48; 1.67; 1.130; 1.152; 1.153; 1.154; 1.155; 1.160. CTh 12.1.156 is also addressed to the urban prefect, but this constitution does not concern decurions but rather corporati. CTh 12.1.68 is addressed to a Severus, who is incorrectly cited as an urban prefect. This is likely Placidius Severus, whom we know from CTh 1.6.3 and CTh 10.4.2 all of the same date, that Severus was vicarius, not prefect, see PLRE I 836. 323 Decurions entering the senate at Rome: CTh 12.1.48; 1.130; 1.155; and 1.160; Decurions either entering or completing palatine service: CTh 12.1.67 and 1.154. CTh 12.1.153 orders that exemptions from decurional munera no longer be valid for those either discharged from the protectores and domestici or any other kind of discharge (quaslibet alias obtinent missiones). The latter inclusion might refer those from the palatine service, to whom CTh 12.1.67 had granted exemption. CTh 12.1.152, the final exception, deals with an unknown corpus togatorum.

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the city’s fabri.324

We should remember that at the same time there was the beginnings of renewed imperial interest in the construction and maintenance of monuments at Rome. Not only did Valentinian I and his successors initiate new construction in the Urbs, but they also showed particular concern for the finances associated with building. Read in this light, the constitution concerning the collegium fabrorum reflects the advantages experienced by builders in the Urbs. At a time when there was an increase in construction activity, membership in the collegium fabrum/ fabrorum offered greater opportunities, both financially and politically, than what was the case for the municipal elite.

If Trebius Iustus is any indication, members could accumulate relative wealth and operated in a nexus of economic reliance. Contractors or builders relied on access to the elite to make financial gain. Below these men of middling socio-economic status there remained a group that relied on collegiati and corporati for wage-labour employment. This reconstruction vitiates the idea of a polarized model of elite exploitation of the lower classes that was stated to have formed in the late Empire, at least in fourth- and early fifth-century Rome.325 It suggests instead that similar to the conclusions reached in previous chapters about other corporati and collegiati, Rome was a city in which a vibrant middle class pursued economic advancement and political integration to a level that previous scholarship has yet to accept for Late Antiquity.

Conclusion

324 That the law pertains to decurions is clear enough. The first main clause orders municipales to return the former condition. But the second main clause clearly links these municipales with decurions by prohibiting the same action to be repeated in the future by any decurion (quis decurionum). The implication is that the municipales who were initially being recalled were, in fact, decurions. 325 See Chp. 1, pp. 25-32.

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This chapter set out to answer a number of questions pertaining to the building industry in fourth- and early fifth-century Rome. On the one hand, it investigated the administrative control of public and private building and its associated production in the city and, on the other, it attempted to both quantify and qualify the men who worked and laboured within this sector of

Rome’s economy. In both cases, the oft-cited statement of Q. Aurelius Symmachus makes it clear that by the last decades of the fourth century the city of Rome relied heavily on the collegium of builders to erect, repair, and otherwise ‘sustain’ (sustineri) the urban superstructure. By this time, the admintrative structures of the Urbs that prevailed during the early Empire had also been significantly altered. Rome was no longer the seat of the Empire, and the oversight of its maintenance had become the duty of the urban prefect, while the city’s fabric was appropriated, altered, and monumentalized by a revitalized elite. As regards public and private building, it is thought that this process led to the development of a system of oppression, whereby the production- controlling elite exploited the lower classes. The preceding argument has offered an alternative perspective.

Throughout the course of the fourth century the construction industry was subject to a series of reforms. These reforms permeated all levels, affecting the administrative elite and the city’s craftsmen and labourers. In the case of the latter group, already by the beginning of the fourth century, we find that the city’s various builders were amalgamated into a single association and that the members of this new collegium were pressed into service for the state. Far from being oppressed, these builders, mostly of the non-elite, middling free population that were part of the plebs Romana, received reciprocal benefits for their service and were integrated into the administrative apparatus to a greater degree than ever before. Many of these changes, it was argued, were initiated by intense demand in the first decades of the fourth century. However, by the middle decades of the fourth century there is a shift in the sphere of building activity. Imperial

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interest wanes and is supplanted by the demands and concerns of a vibrant elite and an increasingly visible episcopate. In the last decades of the fourth century through to the fifth century there is reinvigorated imperial interest in Rome. All four of the above conclusions—the devolution of near absolute administive control onto a resident elite, the formation of a single association of builders, the reliance of the Urbs on their work and labour, and the continual demand for building in the city—impacted the socio-economic potential of builders. It seems that by the second half of the fourth century, skilled builders enjoyed a relatively privileged position. They interacted closely with the elite and developed mechanisms that demonstrate a certain degree of economic influence.

By examining the organizational changes and modulations in administrative and social relations between corporati in the building industry and the elite, it appears that far from establishing an oppressive and exploitative system, the administrative changes in fourth century

Rome granted those associated with the building industry better access to resources and the potential for social mobility, while in return the city could rely on a portion of its plebs for its upkeep and monumentalization. This conjectured symbiotic relationship has consequences for the socio-political and economic realities of fourth-century Rome. It should now be clear that the socio-economic activities of builders needs to be considered in any narrative of the fourth century city.

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CONCLUSION

At the outset of this project, I made the claim that aspects of the social, political, and economic life of Rome's non-elite population is a worthy topic in need of discussion. I set out from the conviction that certain assumptions about the city of Rome and its urban population— the plebs

Romana— from the end of the third century through to the mid-fifth century CE are in need of re- evaluation. When read independently, each chapter might seem, in places, to take us far away from this focus on the population of Rome, since administrative change and the impact of particular reforms feature prominently throughout the dissertation. Yet the structures that were the result of these changes and the attention dedicated to them in the legal, epigraphic, and literary testimonia, in my view, tell us much about Rome's population over the course of the long fourth century.

Three particular periods stand out as the most important for Rome and its population: the reign of Diocletian, that of Constantine, and the early years of the reign of Valentinian I and

Valens. Each of these emperors inherited an Empire that was teetering on the brink, either economically or politically or both, and each government attempted to implement significant reforms to the Empire's fiscal and administrative structures as correctives. The most profound change for the city of Rome was the gradual and then almost permanent absence of the emperor(s).

Recent scholarship has emphasized the importance of Rome's senatorial elite, which was the social group that stepped in to fill this power vacuum.1 Although throughout the fourth century they competed with a burgeoning episcopal elite and the new administrative elite, which the bureaucracy of Constantine churned out, Rome's traditional senatorial families experienced a late- antique renaissance of sorts. This group were thrust into, and willingly accepted, the position of

1 The most recent example is Machado 2019.

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the caretakers of the city. They filled the top administrative posts, had direct access to the imperial court, and controlled space and resources in the city on a scale never witnessed during the High

Empire.

Scholars engaging with the social, political, and economic history of Rome have not as yet identified a similar increase in the influence wielded by groups further down on the social ladder.

Quite the contrary, in the most extensive treatment of the city's population to date, the late-antique plebs Romana is characterized by its shrinking size, social dependency, and resulting narrower economic opportunities. By considering the demographic and institutional assumptions implicit in this negative view, alongside the administrative changes that impacted upon Rome, I hope to have now raised some specific points in the preceding chapters that call this view into question. It has been possible to show that the socio-economic conditions under which late-antique Rome's plebs lived and worked were more favourable than hitherto believed.

Who belonged to this group of the population and how many members it included were the subjects of Chapter One and Two. Beginning with general aspects before moving to the particulars, a taxonomy of the late Empire's various demographic layers was provided, accompanied by an analysis of the economic relationships that prevailed between them. In the late-antique urban context, the complex hierarchy that existed among the elite population is well-known. In contrast, the late-antique plebs urbana is often represented in our sources as an undifferentiated mass. In some ways, this literary representation is no different than what we find for earlier periods when we know that such homogeneity was definitely not a feature of plebeian life. Nevertheless, scholarship on the plebs in Late Antiquity has at times uncritically accepted the image of a binary society. According to this view, the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite created a single monolithic mass of the poor, who were more oppressed than in the early Empire.

It is my contention that this view fits uneasily not only with what should be expected of any society

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but also, and more importantly, with our sources. The late-antique world was one in which we can witness significant hierarchization among the plebs urbana. This realization provides the framework within which I consider the plebs in the late-antique Urbs.

In Rome, as elsewhere, there developed what I call a distinct "middle class", composed of those who shared a certain level of economic stability but lacked the necessary dignitas to extricate themselves from the wider plebs. This group may have been rather large. Accounts proffered, like that of John Chrysostom, concerning Antioch or Constantinople, claim the existence of a middling stratum approaching nearly eighty percent of the total urban population. Numbers as high as this should be met with some skepticism, but according to some modern estimates "economic stability" was achieved with an income of around three times subsistence, a level which our sources indicate that some individuals or families might readily reach. A consistent feature of those who make up the economically distinct "middle class" is that they all worked at some trade or profession. An additional conspicuous feature in our sources is that this middling segment of Rome's urban population came to be defined by "plebeian labour." In fact, when we speak of the late Roman plebs urbana, it is not incorrect to mention the urban craftsmen, artisans, and entrepreneurs in the same breath.

At Rome, there were several other distinctions among the plebs: within the plebs Romana, we find the entitled plebs frumentaria, which benefitted from handouts of various foodstuffs, and perhaps also a so-called plebs media, which some scholars classify as those who lived well-above subsistence and had access to disposable income at a level just below the elite ordines. To consider the demographic make-up of these sub-sections is crucial to any social or economic history of

Rome, since the size of these contingents relative to each other and to the rest of the population impacts upon our understanding of the general levels of prosperity. Most scholars find it unproblematic to state that Rome of the fourth century was smaller than Rome of the third century,

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which itself was smaller than Rome of the first or second century. They hold that Rome continued this process of population decline uninterrupted throughout the fourth century. I have attempted to show that both of these views are untenable for several reasons. My argument is supported by the numbers of recipients of the frumentationes, particularly the pork dole, which are preserved in fragments of the legal and epigraphic record. When due consideration is given to this evidence, it is hard to resist the conclusion that after the reforms of Valentinian I and Valens in the 360s Rome could count approximately 320,000 people among its plebs frumentaria.

This group of privileged recipients would have to have constituted a larger portion of the total population than they did previously. If not, we would be forced to accept that the population of Rome had rebounded after a number of exogenous shocks in the third century to at least its accepted historical maximum. Such growth seems improbable. Instead, I argued that the changing nature of the annona distributions, such as the abolishment of the exclusion of proprietors from the lists and the inclusion of those who had completed liturgies for the city, and the increased concern of the mid-fourth-century emperors for the Empire's masses created a more inclusive and wider entitled plebs frumentaria at Rome. The demographic and economic implications of this argument are manifold. The first is that it now appears impossible to maintain that Rome's population was in decline throughout the fourth century. While attempting to extrapolate a total population size from the total of the plebs frumentaria is problematic at best, a plebs of nearly

320,000 (albeit with the criteria for inclusion having undergone changes) cannot imply a population of much less than 800,000. Such a number would suggest that mid-fourth-century

Rome should be considered equal in size to its early third-century predecessor. The second corollary of a wider plebs frumentaria is that late-antique Rome possessed a population within which a larger number of people could more easily advance into the "middle class" of the population, since their base subsistence was provided by the state. Presenting these arguments

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necessitates accepting the view that the fourth century was a period of general recovery and prosperity, a position that increasingly is becoming the consensus view.

These demographic changes were directly connected with empire-wide and city-specific administrative reforms. In the case of Rome, and Italy for that matter, the most marked changes related to taxation: from the reign of Diocletian on, Italy and the capital were subjected to tax.

Taxation was not limited to land ownership but also pendant on urban populations. During the reign of Constantine, urban workers, craftsmen, traders, and entrepreneurs became primary units of taxation among the non-elite urban population. They paid an annual amount in gold and silver to the imperial fisc. The burden of collecting this tax came to rest on the city's professional associations, its collegia and corpora. This development was recognized in modern scholarship almost two decades ago, but the implications for Rome's non-elite population have not been fully recognized. Late-antique Rome was a city, I argue, in which everyone who was engaged in some occupation was bound to a professional association.

The collection of taxes was not the only responsibility devolved on to Rome's working population. Collegia and corpora were assigned various duties or munera, all related to the provisioning and maintenance of the city. Members of professional associations were individually required to complete their portion of the assigned munera and in exchange they received certain privileges. The architecture of the new Diocletianic fiscal system first provided the mechanisms needed to ensure the completion and distribution of these burdens. Individual collegiati and corporati were registered in professional associations which now constituted their legal origo, and, just as taxes were assessed according to origines, munera were assigned to various professional associations and distributed to individual members. The prevailing scholarly opinion is that the apportionment of munera to professional associations was a feature only of the system of the annona and that this process never bound the non-elite population to their professions. I argued in

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Chapter Three that both assumptions are incorrect. The responsibility for all tasks that concerned the maintenance and provisioning of the city of Rome was incumbent on the city's working population. As a result of the imposition of munera, which included the collection of a tax assessed on everyone in Rome who was registered as having an occupation, Rome's craftsmen, artisans, traders, and entrepreneurs were indeed all bound to their occupation.

The fact of being bound to an occupation by fiscal and compulsory duties did not seem to affect the inclination of Rome's plebs to identify with their occupations. As has been well established for the early Empire, some members of Rome's population advertised their occupational status and skills to differentiate themselves from their peers and from the mass of unskilled labourers. Occupation, the acquisition of some ars, and the financial success derived therefrom intertwined to contribute to the identity of the city's non-elite population, which was advertised in funerary contexts in order to establish a person's social position. This trend continued in different contexts in the late-antique city. In the catacombs and in familial hypogea, some members of Rome's non-elite population continued to highlight their occupations as an important component of their identity. Some members of Rome's population, therefore, still recognized the social capital inherent in identification with work.

All of these observations reinforce the argument that in the urban context of Rome work and the structures associated with it, such as the professional associations, are useful heuristic tools when discussing the city's population. However, the outline just provided of the structural and fiscal reforms would seem to support the long-outdated model of a late-imperial Zwangsstaat, in which an increasingly totalitarian regime further encumbered a beleaguered population.2

According to this view, members of Rome's collegia and corpora only worked for the enrichment

2 See, first and foremost, Rostovtzeff repr. 1957, Vol. II, 502-534 for the now outmoded view of the late-antique coercive state. For early criticism of the Zwangsstaat theory, see Jones 1970, 79-86.

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of the state and were firmly tied to their social and economic station. It is perhaps a paradox that the same evidence used to advance this negative model actually suggests that more avenues for social and economic advancement existed for this sub-section of the city's population. Be that as it may, Rome's professional associations constituted the lens through which I considered the socio- economic prosperity of its working population. As institutions, the collegia and corpora controlled the fiscal and physical resources of Rome's plebs and they experienced new levels of integration into the administrative apparatus. Not only that, but they also acted as protective agencies for their members’ economic interests. Collegiati and corporati, in turn, were a significant and visible group in the population; they could experience upward social mobility, acquire significant wealth; and they found themselves in contact with Rome's most illustrious citizens. Members could and did exploit their institutions for their own gain, sometimes to the detriment of their fellow members and the wider plebs.

If the study of collegia and corpora gave access to the socio-economic potential of Rome's population, the building record of the city served to disclose the ways in which the broader administrative, demographic, and fiscal changes that are central to every chapter affected the socio- economic lives of Rome's population. The evidence I traced suggested that administrative reforms made an impact on the control and the organization of the production process. The responsibility for administrating the maintenance of the city's fabric weighed increasingly on the senatorial elite, while the duty to carry out the work was, like so many other services, devolved onto Rome's collegia and corpora. This latter process and the continual demand created by the vigorous efforts to maintain the appearance of the erstwhile capital, demanded new structures in order to organize the city's builders. The numerous specialized building collegia that existed during the High Empire

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were combined into a single and undoubtedly large association.3 The compulsory duty to maintain certain public structures of the city was assigned to this new collegium. The net result was not oppression and the impoverishment of the association's members. Rather, the reduction in the number of building associations and their direct interactions with the city's administrative elite granted members significant social prestige and greater economic opportunities. If comparative evidence from different places and different times is any indication, it is also possible that this new arrangement endowed builders with the mechanisms to influence and advance their own particular financial interests. In addition to this, a quantitative analysis of the Aurelian and the later Honorian wall seems to validate the conclusions reached about the demographic trends of late-antique Rome.

The general conclusion of this thesis is that Rome was a city in which a large portion of the population experienced vitality on a level not hitherto appreciated by historians of the later

Empire. Still, this dissertation may raise more questions than it answers, particularly when it comes to whether the results can be applied elsewhere in the later Roman West. As two keen observers of the ancient world claimed almost three decades ago, the behaviour of city-based craftsman in the West deserves reassessment.4 This is a topic that still merits a more comprehensive exploration.

What we can now say, however, with some degree of certainty is that late-antique Rome was a city in which a section of its non-elite population, its plebs, were able to turn the new demands imposed on them by the city and the state to their social and economic advantage. Their actions, while dictated by the structural aspects of the urban administration, also profoundly shaped the city's life. While it serves little purpose to censure Ammianus for his curt dismissal of the affairs of the plebs Romana that served to open this dissertation, I hope now to have demonstrated,

3 This may have functioned similar to the "sectoral" guilds of Medieval Europe, see Pfister 2008, 32 or Ogilvie 2019, 41. 4 Garnsey and Whittaker 1998, 322.

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contrary to this late fourth-century historian, that the study of certain social and economic aspects of the life of Rome's plebs is not only worthy, but also integral if we are to reach a more complete understanding of the late-antique Urbs.

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Appendix 1: Edicts Pertaining to the Number of Beneficiaries of Pork*

1. CIL VI 1771 (363/364)

Ex auctoritate/ Turci Aproniani, v(iri) c(larissimi), /praef(ecti) urb(i) /Licet formam dispositionis / acta contineant, ad fidem ta= / men gestorum plenius memoriae / tradendam tabulam placuit adfigi, / quae publicaret ordinem rerum / cum suarios damnis videremus / adfectos et eos etiam ordines, / qui suariam faciunt, providimus / his levamen ex titulo canonico / vinario, ut viginti quinque milia / amforum annua consequantur / sub ea divisione, ut duae partes / suariis, tertia vero his ordinibus / proficiat qui suariam recognos=/ cunt, ita ut idem ordines iuxta con=/ suetudinem tam proprium quod / appellatur, quam annonas exsol= / vant et moderatione adhibita / perinde a possesore suscipiant / adque accipere sunt soliti, anti=/ quo more praeeunte, interdicentes / ne [e]normia illa indebitaque prae= / stentur, quae tam tribun[u]s quam / patroni diversi et varia conseque=/ bantur officia; contra quod inter= / dictum si qui ausi fuerint de com= / muni largiri, et scribae quidem / c[e]terique poenae subiace[a]nt.

Translation:

Since we have seen that the suarii are affected by losses and also those ordines, who perform the swine-tax collection, we have provided this relief to these groups out of the taxes belonging to the canon vinarius with the result that 25,000 amphorae (of wine) are allotted annually according to this division: two parts are assigned to the suarii and a third to the ordines who review the swine-tax collection, thus that, likewise, the same ordines, according to custom, might pay out their own tax, which is demanded, as well as the tax in kind, and so that they might take from the taxpayer, with moderation, what they are accustomed to receive, following old custom, prohibiting that enormous and undue amounts be furnished, which not only the tribune, but also various patroni and various officials extorted. If any person should dare, contrary to this edict, whether scribae or others, to distribute from the public store, they will be subject to penalty.

2. CTh 14.4.4 (367 CE)

* All constitutions from the Theodosian Code and Novellae are the translations of Pharr 1952 with adaptions by the current author. CIL VI 1771 is translated by the author.

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Impp. Valentinianus et Valens aa. ad Praetextatum praefectum Urbi.

pr. Per singulas et semis decimas quibus suariorum dispendia sarciuntur damnum quod inter susceptionem et erogationem necessario evenit vini, hoc est septem et decem milium amphorarum, perceptione relevetur.

1. Cui rei illud provisionis accedat, ut Lucanus possessor et Brittius, quos longae subvectionis damna quatiebant, possit, si velit, speciem moderata, hoc est septuagenarum librarum, compensatione dissolvere quod ibi debebit inferre ubi vina fuerat traditurus.

2. Quibus in rebus illud quoque a decessore tuo salubriter institutum est, quo suariis aestimandi licentia denegetur pondusque porcorum trutinae examine, non oculorum libertate quaeratur, ita videlicet ut ne volenti quidem possessori tradere animal liceat cuius modum non prius ponderatione certa deciderit suarius. Animal vero a possessore tradendum ob digeriem prius unius noctis tantum ieiunitate vacuetur.

3. Illud quoque salubris Constantinianae legis forma compescat videlicet ut cum possessore, cui commodioris pretii beneficia indulta a veteribus principibus praerogativa providit, proprium ordo decidat ac transigat isque ordo suariis quibuscum habet vini emolumenta communia aut legitimum pretium, id est Romani fori cui carnem fuerat illaturus, tradat, aut carnem debitam subministret.

4. Porro decimae semis, quam statuimus, non petantur ab his a quibus fuerit pecunia ministranda. Haec autem omnia aeneae tabulae in foro suario collocandae ad aeternam memoriam oportebit insculpi.

Translation:

Emperors Valentinian and Valens to Praetextatus, urban prefect

Through the payment of one tenth and half of one tenth (15%), by which amount the losses of the suarii are compensated, the loss, which necessarily occurs between the collection and delivery [of pigs], shall be alleviated with the collection of wine in the amount of 17,000 amphorae.

1. To which stipulation the foresight should be added that the Lucanian and Bruttian land- owner, whom the losses from far transportation [of wine] vex, is able, if he should wish, to pay the regulated amount in kind by a commutation at a rate of seventy pounds [of pig per amphora], which will have to be delivered to the place where he would have delivered the wines.

2. In which matters this salutary law was established by your predecessor, namely that license of estimating the [the weight of pigs] is denied to the suarii and the weight of the pigs should be sought by the weighing of scales and not by the freedom of eyesight. Thus, obviously, so that it may not be permitted for any land-owner, even if he is willing, to hand over an animal, whose weight the suarius has not determined by reliable weighing. But the animal ought to

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be delivered by the land-owner emptied on account of their digestion by fasting for only one night.

3. The beneficial nature of the Constantinian law should also restrain this, namely that the municipal council (ordo) should decide and settle their own share with the possessor, for whom the privilege granted by past emperors provided the benefits of a more agreeable price, and this very municipal council should transfer to the suarii, with whom they share the common payments of wine, either the established price, that is, the price of the Roman forum, to which they would have delivered meat, or they should furnish the meat owed.

4. Further, the tenth and a half, which we have established, should not be sought from those by whom money was to be paid. It will be necessary that all of these things be inscribed on a bronze tablet that must be placed in the Forum Suarium for permanent record.

3. CTh 14.4.10 (419 CE)

Idem aa. Palladio praefecto praetorio.

pr. Suariis pecuarii iungantur: sub hac tamen condicione decreti corpora volumus miscere ut rescissis privilegiis quae impetrasse dicuntur mixtae corporum vices alternis fungantur officiis.

1. Quibus cum lege concedimus ut corpora externa iungamus e re est ut his quoque suas reddi iubeamus personas quas rescissis omnium privilegiis vinculis gratiosis sententiis si quas in abolitionem genuinae functionis callida fraude meruerunt, restitui cum facultatibus suis posthabita dilatione.

2. Nulla tamen eos corporis iniuriae formido percellat: nam praecipimus, ut tres huius corporis principales terti ordinis comitivam recipiant, quam sibi non iam ex codicillis nostris sed ex privilegio latae legis adsumant.

3. Per quinque autem menses quinas in obsoniis libras carnis possessor accipiat, ne per minutias exigui ponderis amplius fraus occulta decerpat. Possessores quoque qui pro larido millenos denarios in vicenis libris solebant conferre suariis in pretio exsolvant.

4. Primiscrinii quoque tam illustris urbanae sedis quam spectabilis vicariae potestatis, nisi anno militiae finali institerint, ad supplendam summam praeteritae dissimulationis artentur ut ex propriis facultatibus debita suariae functionis exsolvant quae neglexerunt flagitare dum militabant, privilegia etiam militiae perdituri.

5. Quattuor milia sane obsoniorum, amputatis superfluis ac domus nostrae perceptionibus diurna sublimitas tua decernat quibus copiis populus animetur.

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Translation:

The same Augusti (Honorius and Theodosius) to Palladius, praetorian prefect

Let the pecuarii be joined to the suarii. It is our will, however, that the corpora mix under this condition of the decree that, after the privileges, which they are said to have procured, are diminished, the mixed offices of the corpora should perform the duties alternately.

1. For whom, since we conceded by law that we should join different corpora together, it is an advantage that we should order also their own members to be returned to them, who, when the privileges of all kinds, bonds, and favourable judgements have been rescinded, if they have acquired any through shrewd fraud for the annulment of personal public duty, should be restored [to the corpus] along with their possessions without delay.

2. However, fear of bodily injury should not dishearten them, for we order that three principales from this corpus should receive the rank of comes of the third order, which they should assume not only from our rescripts, but also from the privilege of the promulgated law.

3. Moreover, for five months a householder (possessor) shall receive five pounds of meat in rations (obsonia) in order that concealed subterfuge may not appropriate more on account of the smallness of the amounts weighed out. Also, the householders, who are accustomed pay out a thousand denarii in salt-pork, may pay the suarii in cash.

4. Also, the primiscrinii of the illustrious office of the city as well as those of the outstanding office of the vicar, unless they are serving the final year of their service, should be made responsible for supplying the amount of past fraud with the result that from their own resources they should pay amounts outstanding from the duty of the suarii, amounts which they neglected to demand while they were in office, and they will even lose the privileges of imperial service.

5. Indeed, your highness should decree 4,000 obsonia (rations of meat) daily, with superfluii and the quantities received by our house removed, by which abundance the people may be well-disposed.

4. Nov. Val. 36 (452 CE)

Impp. Valentinianus et Marcianus aa. Firmino praefecto praetorio et patricio. Non miramur inter bellicas curas et obstrepentes lituos ordinatione magnifici viri parentis patriciique nostri Aeti formam publicae dispositionis in meliorem statum fuisse mutatam, cuius sollicitudini facillimum effectum praestitit amplitudinis vestrae in aeternum consulens laudanda provisio, quae sacrae urbis privilegiis et administrantis providentia et optimi civis adfectione subvenit et iam iamque occidui corporis functionem ita salubri dispositione constituit ut remotis dispendiis numquam defectum virium devotio servientis incurrat, quippe cui et permutatione provinciarum et exactionis qualitate et pretii moderata adaeratione prospexit, Firmine parens karissime atque amantissime.

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1. Unde inlustris et praecelsa magnitudo tua pragmatici nostri tenore conperto sciat secundum saluberrimam suggestionem suam, quae ex magnifici viri parentis patriciique nostri Aëti dispositione processit, patronis corporis suariorum intuitu sacrae urbis Romae in primis hoc beneficium praestari debere, ut delegatione, quae his intra provinciam Sardiniam praebebatur, de qua propter incertum navigationis inlatio fluctuabat, ad arcam praetorianam reducta cum aliis proventibus, sub refusione universorum titulorum, qui dispersi antehac plurimum in reliquis habere probabantur, de vicinis provinciis, id est de Lucania sex milia quadringentorum, Samnio quinque milia quadringentorum, Campania mille nongentorum quinquaginta solidorum debita emolumenta oporteat decerni.

2. De boariorum etiam vel pecuariorum praestatione nongentos quinquaginta solidos exactos sibi noverint profuturos. Centum milia aequi ponderis porcinae de interpretiis iuxta priora constituta praebeant, ducena quadragena pondo ad solidos secundum promissionem suam inlaturi, quoniam certa emolumenta amota solita dubitatione percipiunt, ita ut centum quinquaginta diebus obsoniorum praebitionem sine ulla causatione singulis annis a se noverint procurandam, quae quantitas in tricies sexies centenis viginti novem milibus libris cum duarum decimarum ratione colligitur.

3. In ipsorum autem patronorum sit arbitrio constitutum, utrum per praetorianum officium adiunctis ei quinque de corpore suo quos elegerint, quibus ducenariae militiae honorem praeberi iubemus, an per suos tantummodo, ne forte onerosi sint adparitores, id ipsum munus velint exactionis inpleri, non expectata deinceps praetorianae sedis annua delegatione, quae hactenus servabatur.

4. Nec ante quicquam de Lucania Samnioque provinciis arca praetoriana deposcat quam suariis exigentibus debitum omne solvatur. Moderatores provinciarum eorumque officia sub periculo facultatum suarum diligentiam et efficaciam huic operi commodabunt, ut ea ipsa quae providimus facilius inpleantur.

5. Baonio priori corporis cum dignitate lege concessa etiam cingulum militiae iubemus adiungi, quo in rebus ordinandis sub privilegio militari maior huic auctoritas suffragetur. Quod circa successores eius venientes per ordinem volumus custodiri. Quos ad nullum aliud praeterea onus convenit devocari, nisi ut huic officio vacantes a ceteris habeantur inmunes. Suarios ipsos nullius adparitionis neque iniuriae neque dispendiis subiacere manentibus circa eos, quae superiora scita sanxerunt.

6. Obnoxias sane suario, boario et pecuario corpori personas ad debita praecipimus cum agnatione, peculiis et praediis onera revocari amotis omnibus, quae sibi contra leges praesumptio et ambitio vindicavit.

7. In quibus exequendis memoratus Baonius vel successores eius fidelem operam commodare debebunt, ut statutis nostris congruus praestetur effectus. Devotos enim ob hoc non solum provisione, sed etiam honore duximus adiuvandos, ut splendidiores in ministerio urbis aeternae semper invigilent suisque conpendiis existiment adgregari quidquid iugis procurarit inlatio.

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Translation:

The emperors Valentinian (III) and Marcian Augusti to Firminus, Praetorian Prefect and Patrician.

We are not amazed that among martial concerns and blaring trumpets the nature of public organization has been changed for the better by the decree of our Aetius, a great man, father, and patrician, for the duty of whom the laudable foresight of your loftiness, taking consideration for the future, has furnished the easiest accomplishment. This foresight aids the privileges of the sacred City, both through the providence of administrating and through the affection of the best citizen, and it has established the function of a failing corpus with an arrangement so salutary that, once the losses have been removed, never may the devotion of the serving corpus incur a loss of strengths seeing that it has been provided for by a changing of provinces, by the nature of collection, and by the fair commutation of price, Firminus, dearest and most beloved father.

1. Whence your illustrious and lofty magnitude should know, once the tenor of our pragmatic sanction is learned, according to your most salutary suggestion, which proceeds from the decree of the great man, parent, and patrician, our Aetius, that, first of all, this benefit ought to be granted to the patroni of the corpus suariorum in consideration of the sacred City of Rome, namely, that after the tax levy, which was supplied to them in the province of Sardinia, from which place, because of the uncertainty of sailing, payment was fluctuating, was returned to the praetorian account along with other taxes, included in the sum of all tax accounts, which up until this point were dispersed and proven to be in arrears, that all owed emoluments must be decreed from other provinces: from Lucania 6,400 solidi, from Samnium 5,400 solidi, from Campania 1,950 solidi.

2. They should know that they will also benefit from the 950 solidi exacted in the tax payment from the boarii and pecuarii. According to previously established laws, they must supply 100,000 pounds of pork weighed justly from their interpretium, paying 240 pounds to a solidus abiding by their promise, since when they cease from their usual delay they receive certain payments, thus that they recognize that within 150 days every year the distribution of obsonia must be administered by them without any excuse, which distribution in the sum of 3,628,000 pounds is collected together with an additional two tenths (20%).

3. Moreover, it shall be established at the discretion of the patroni themselves whether they wish that this munus of collection either be fulfilled through the praetorian office with five members from their own corpus added to it, whom they select, and to whom we order that the office of ducenarius of the imperial service be granted, or that this munus be fulfilled through their own members only, lest the apparitores be burdensome, since thereafter the annual assignment [of tax collection] of the praetorian office need not be awaited, which up until this point was observed.

4. The praetorian account shall not demand anything from the provinces of Lucania and Samnium before all that they owe is paid to the suarii on their demand. Governors of provinces and their officia, under the threat to their own resources, shall contribute diligence and

309

efficiency to this work, so that these very things, which we have seen to, may be more easily fulfilled.

5. We also order that to Baonius, the leading man of the corpus, the dress (belt) of imperial service be added with the rank conceded by law, by which in arranging matters a greater authority may be added to this man through the privilege of imperial service. This also we wish to be upheld in respect to his successors following in order, who must be called away to no other burden besides, unless being unburdened for this duty they should be held immune from the rest. And we order that the suarii themselves should not endure any injury or losses of service, with those things remaining for them which previous decrees sanctioned.

6. We order that those bound to the corpus of the suarii, boarii, and pecuarii should be recalled to their owed burdens along with their children, property, and estates, since all privileges have been abolished, which audacity and flattery vindicated to them contrary to the laws.

7. In accomplishing these things, the aforementioned Baonius or his successors must employ faithful service so that proper effect is given to our statutes. For we consider that the devoted should be assisted not only by this provision, but also by office so that with greater distinction they may always be vigilant in the service of the Eternal City and may judge that whatever uninterrupted taxes provides, this adds to their own profits.

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Appendix 2: Job Titles Attested at Rome in the 4th and 5th Centuries*

Job Title Reference (all are from ICUR unless stated otherwise) Construction 1 architectus I 736 2 faber I 2223 3 faber stenturarius IV 11932 4 magister (building) VI 15457 5 quadratarius VIII 20794 6 (artifici) signarius VII 19054 7 marmorarius I 1761 8 collictarius VIII 21111 9 structor VII 20231c [---s]tructo[r---] 10 coctor calcis CTh 14.6.3 11 tessellarius VII 19041 12 circitor I 59

Agriculture or Livestock 13 massarus X 27411 14 caprinarius II 4290 15 pecuarius II 4779 16 suarius CTh 14.4 17 boarius Nov. Val. 36 18 pastor VII 18398 Vegetable dealers 19 pomarius II 6114 20 f(a)enarius II 5047 21 oliaria (olearius) III 6699 22 venditor hordeorum III 7751 23 venditor fabarum III 7864 24 ortolanus VIII 20830

* Only one reference is given for each profession. Often these professions are attested multiple times and across different types of evidence. For the purpose of the compilation here, a single attestation is enough to suggest the profession existed. When legal evidence is cited, it is only professions that are in constitutions addressed to the urban prefect, Senate, or people of Rome that are included.

311

Bread and Bakers 25 dulciarius I 3190 26 pistor II 4247 27 mensor II 6112 28 horrearius I 2121 29 molendinarius IV 11288 30 pastillarius (little loaf I 529 (patroni corporis) maker)

Butchers, Cooks, and Other Food dealers 31 popinarius II 5230 32 Vinifer/ vinarius VII 19790 (Greek) (οἰνοφόρος) 33 aquarius IV 11958 34 pernarius V 14193 35 suminarius IV 11850 (pork seller) 36 porcinarius III 652 37 confectuarius CIL VI 1690 38 lanius III 9093 39 salgamarius VIII 21111 40 coclearius I 225 41 culinarius/a I 798 42 casarius VI 9237 43 macellar(i)us IV 11376 44 obsonator IV 12329 45 lactearius V 14583 46 salarius CIL VI 1152 47 olearius CTh 14.24.1 48 cocus (coquus) V 14815 a-b (maybe a collegium cocorum) Metal Workers 49 ferrarius II 5208 50 flaturarius II 5209 51 fusor II 5330 52 aerarius VI 15774 53 aurifex I 1403 54 inaurator VII 19009 55 aurocalcarius IX 25266 56 clabarus (clavarius) IV 12476

312

57 armararius II 6440

Wool and Fabric workers 58 lintearius (linteo) VII 18676 (CTh 13.5.13) 59 linarius ILCV 642 60 lanarius VIII 21868a lanar[---] 61 bracarius II 4327 62 sarcinatrix ILCV 644 63 tinctor II 4283 64 centonarius CTh 14.8.2 65 fullo VI 16588 66 vestiarius VI 15795

Wood, Stone, Shoe, and Hide workers and dealers 67 cathedrarius V 13496 (categrarius) 68 coriarius CIL VI 1117 69 caligarius VI 16652a 70 sutor VIII 22393 71 solatarius CIL VI 1119

Fishermen or boatmen 72 piscator II 4468 73 caudicarius II 5758 74 navicularius CIL VI 1740

Transporters 75 catabolensis CTh 14.3.9 76 vecturarius CTh 14.6.1 77 susceptor CIL VI 1741 78 saccarius CTh 14.22.1 79 falancarius CIL VI 1785

Barber 80 tus(s)or I 1706

Teachers 81 magister (teaching) II 5020 (516 CE); IV 9894 82 scolasticus V 13697; IV 12214 (Greek) 83 rhetor VII 18802 84 grammaticus VIII 23413

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Medicine 85 medicus(ιατρος) I 1041; II 5695 (Greek) 86 archiater II 5203; IV 9483 (Greek) 87 mulomedicus II 5018 88 doctor IV 10888 89 obstetrix I 3843

Bankers and lenders 90 nummularius VIII 23104 91 argentarius I 756 92 collectarius I 477 93 numerarius I 752 94 monetarius I 998

Administrators, Accountants, and Scribes 95 actor I 494 96 arcarius I 1770 97 cartharius I 642 98 librarius I 2168 99 scriptor IV 12093 100 tabellarius (tabularius) VIII 22635 101 notarius IV 11461 102 manceps CIL VI 1742

Spectacle Performers 103 auriga II 4905 104 mimus V 13655 105 catadromarius V 13698 106 pantomimus II 5130 107 musicus V 13279 108 lyristra VII 17534 109 gymnicus I 1983 110 cursor IV 12603

Other craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and uncertain profession 111 clipearius I 40 112 magnarius CIL VI 1118 113 pictor I 2096 114 caelator V 13735

314

115 cabidarius II 5075 116 dactylacia II 5320 117 caps(ar)arius I 1160 118 cancellarius CIL VI 9226 119 strator VI 15810 120 ostiarius VII 20227 121 custos VIII 23185 122 spartarius II 5211 123 carbonarius I 420 124 cerularius II 5925m 125 elefantarius II 61111 = eborarius 126 eborarius X 26558 127 lagenarius V 15389 128 purpurarius X 27525 129 tabernarius CIL VI 9920 130 negotiator II 5210 131 scansorius VII 20058 132 montanarius VIII 22408 133 siricarius III 7583 134 vitutiarius CTh 14.7.2 135 cantabrarius CTh 14.7.2 136 fossor I 1606

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Appendix 3: Catalogue of Inscriptions of Collegia and Corpora

1. CIL VI 1117

Date: 287 & 312-337

Association: Corpus coriariorum, magnariorum and solatariorum

Magno et invicto/ imp(eratori), Caes(ari) C. Val(erio) Aurel(io) / [[[Diocletia]]]no <>no, pio fel(ici)/ invicto Aug(usto), pontie(ici)(!) max(imo)/ trib(unicia) potest(ate) co(n)s(uli) III, p(atri) p(atriae), proc(onsuli), / d(omino) n(ostro). Corpus cor(i)ariorum, / magnariorum, solatariorum / devoti numini maiestatiq(ue) / eius // Dedicatae / Kal(endis) Ian(uariis) / dd(ominis) nn(ostris) Diocletiano (Diocletiano) III et / Maximiano co(n)ss(ulibus), / curante Thessio Secundo p(atrono?) c(orporis) / cor(i)ariorum.

To the great and unconquered emperor, Caesar Caius Valerius Aurelius Diocletianus (later altered to Constantinus), pious, fortunate, unconquered Augustus, highest priest, with tribunician power, consul for the third time, father of the fatherland, proconsul, our lord. The corpus coriariorum, magnariorum and solatariorum, devoted to his divine spirit and majesty [set this up]. (On the side of the base) Dedicated on the Kalends of January, in the consulship of our lords Diocletian for the third time and Maximian, under the supervision of Thessius Secundus, patron(?) of the corpus coriariorum.

2. CIL VI 1118= VI 36885

Date: 312-337

Association: Corpus coriariorum, magnariorum and solatariorum

D(omino) n(ostro) Fl(avio) C[l(audio)] / <>/<> / <> Caes(ari) / d(omino) n(ostro) corpus coriariorum / magnariorum solata/riorum devoti Numini / maiestatiq(ue) eius

To our lord Flavius Claudius Constantinus, most noble caesar, to our lord. The corpus coriariorum, magnariorum and solatariorum, devoted to his divine spirit and majesty [set this up].

3. CIL VI 31901a= VI 1673 = ILS 1211

Date: ante quem of 296

Association: collegium fabrorum tignuariorum

L. Aelio Helvio /Dionysio, c(larissimo) v(iro)/ iudici sacrarum cog/ nitionum totius Orien(tis)/ praesidi Syriae Coele(s)/ correctori utriusq(ue)/ Italiae, curatori aq(uarum)/ et Miniciae,

316

curat(ori) /[aedium sacrarum et?] / operum publicoru[m]/ pontifici dei sol(is)/ [------]collegium/ fabrorum tignuar(iorum)/ multis in se patrociniis co[nlatis]/ -----. To Lucius Aelius Helvius Dionysius, vir clarissimus, judge in the imperial court of appeals of the entire East, praeses of Syria Coele, corrector of both Italys, curator of the aqueducts and of the Minicia, curator of sacred building and of public works, priest of the god Sol. The collegium fabrorum tignuariorum, having received many benefits of his patronage...

4. Ambrosino (1939), 85-94= Emerita 8, 1940, 134-139 =AE 1941, 68

Date: 301-312

Association: collegium/corpus fabrum artificum

-----/[---]SCIṬERES CO[---] /[l]ibentissime omnem IA[---]/ṇecessarium posset coṇ[cedi --- ]/fabris arteficibus(!) numẹ[rantur ---]/ac iucundissime re ipsa A[---]+H[---]/discrepantia separati fu[erunt ---]++ere AQ[---]/vel filios vel servos habere [---] ạdmodum art[ific---]/ ḍiversae peritiae in urbe +[--- h]ạbentes semel add[icti---]/[ad]moniti sunt ut in ạ[-c.2-][se]mper manere, ut magis M[---]/[---]cere secunḍụ[m] significatum gravitatis tu[ae]/[---]ỌF [---]batur indulta libentissime ben[---]/ [---]ṛọc[̣-c.2/3-] in personam eorum tụet[ur---]/ [---fabr]um cohorte ut scientes privilegia [---]/[---]ạntur efficere quo [ob]sequio fideli meri[t---]/et deinceps sicut fecisti ut fịḷios vel servo[s ---]/ dumtaxat potuerint invenịṛẹ iṣ[de]mqu[e ---]/suum ex nostra iussione congreg[at]ị [---]/ rint perfrui habeant immunitate C[---]/vel ad aliam se ab urbem(!) transfer[ant ---]/obtentu huiuṣce dum se ad ipsum T[---]/ quippe cum id magis velimus ut A[---]/ collegiis necessariis dumtaxa[t ---]/ perseveret quam patiamur utị[---]/ita ut non ex aliis collegiis hoṃ[ines ---]/libentius in eo numero [---]/ putavimus esse praestaṇ[dum ---]/ sedule industrieque prob[---]/-----

5. CIL VI 1696*

Date: 307-310

Association: corpus magnariorum

[Inlu]stri viro et omnium retro praefecto/[rum i]ndustriam supergresso, Attio Insteio Tertullo,/[quaestori k(andidato)], praetori k(andidato), consuli, correctori / [Venetiae et Hist]riae, praeposito fabri/[cas(?), proco(n)s(uli) Africae(?), praefecto ur]bis Romae, /[ob curam quam egit, ut fortunae eorum]/inopia ing[enti afflictae sollicitudine eius] / miseriae atque incomparabili [industria, cum in]/apertum periculum proruebant, recrea/tae atque confotae redditis pristinis/viribus, convalescerent et aeternum robur/ acciperent, atque (ob) eius aegregia (!) facta et in se/munificentiam singularem, corpus magna/riorum gravi metu et discrimine liberatum,/ei statuam aere insignem locavit, / curantibus / Flaviis Respecto Panckario Sabiniano Palass(io?)/et Florentino, v(iris) p(erfectissimis), p(rae)p(ositis) corp(oris) mag(nariorum), digno pat(rono).

* A large portion in the center of the inscription is missing. The reading adopted here is from CIL.

317

To a distinguished man who surpassed the diligence of all earlier prefects, Attius Insteius Tertullus, quaestor, praetor, suffect consul, corrector of Venetia et Histria, supervisor of the workshops (?), proconsul of Africa (?), prefect of the City of Rome. On account of the care which he took, with attention to their misery and with incomparable diligence, when they had brought the danger into the open, so that their fortunes, struck by grave poverty, might grow strong, restored and fostered to their former force, and might receive eternal vigour; and because of his outstanding deeds and singular munificence towards it, the corpus magnariorum, freed from fear and crisis, has set up [this] outstanding statue in bronze to him, under the supervision of Flavius Respectus, Flavius Panckarius, Flavius Sabinianus, Flavius Palassius, and Flavius Florentius, men of perfectissimus rank, supervisors of the corpus magnariorum, to a deserving patron.

6. CIL XIV 131=ILS 687

Date: 312-324

Association: corpus caudicariorum

Restitutori publicae/libertatis defensori/urbis Romae communis/omnium salutis auctori, /d(omino) n(ostro) Imp(eratori) Fl(avio) Val(erio) Constantino/pio felici invicto semper Aug(usto)/Codicari(i) nabiculari(i) (!)/infernates devoti n(umini) m(aiestati)q(ue) eius/ curante Aur(elio) Victoriano v(iro) p(erfectissimo)/(10) praef(ecto) ann(onae)

To the restorer of public freedom, defender of the City of Rome, author of the common welfare health of all, our lord emperor Flavius Valerius Constantinus, pious, fortunate, unconquered, forever Augustus. The caudicarii navicularii operating on the lower Tiber (?) devoted to his divine spirit and majesty (set this up), under the care of Aurelius Victorianus, of perfectissimus rank, prefect of the annona

7. CIL VI 1639= CIL XIV 185

Date: 312-324?

Association: corpus caudicariorum

------/[--- v(iro) p(erfectissimo)? praef(ecto) anno]=/[nae?, a(genti) v(ice)] praeff(ectorum) prae[t(orio) eemm. vv.]/codicari(i) nav[icularii ---]/ [---] infra pontem Su[blicium]/ foti auxil[io eius ---]/ [---] patrono p[ec(unia) sua?]/------

8. CIL VI 30884

Date: 333

Association: collegia (?) forensium

Dalmatio et Zenofilo/cons(ulibu)s coll(egia?) fore(n)s(ium) ad/ Genium loci n(ummos) CXX/ acceperunt a sena/tore S(e)veriano et Se/vero et Felic(i)ano tuto/re collegium quem/de suo fecerunt

318

During the consulship of Dalmatius and Zenophilus, the collegia forensium recieved 120 nummis for the genius of the place (forum?) from the senator Severianus and Severus and the tutor Felicianus, the collegium which they had set up from their own.

9. CIL VI 1682=ILS 1220=AE 2014, 124

Date: 334

Association: corpus coriariorum honori.† L. Ammio Manio Caesonio Nico/macho Anicio Paulino, v(iro) c(larissimo), cons(uli) ordinario,/pr(a)ef(ecto) urbi, iud(ici) sacrar(um) cognit(ionum), [pr]oconsuli/ prov(inciae) Asiae et Hellesponti vice sacra iudicanti,/legato Kart(h)acinis (!) sub procons(ule) Afric(a)e Anicio / Iuliano patre suo, cuius providentia adque / eutilitas (!) et integritas rei publicae corporis/coriariorum insulas ad pristinum statum / suum, secundum leges principum priorum,/impp(eratorum) [L.] Val(erii) Septimi Severi et M. Aur(eli) Antonini Augg(ustorum),/restaurari adque adornari pervigilant/ia sua providit. In mira memoria adque/in omnia iustitia sua, corpus coriariorum/patrono digno statuerunt.

In honour of L. Amnius Manius Caesonius Nicomachus Anicius Paulinus, vir clarissimus, consul, prefect of the City, judge in the imperial court of appeals, proconsul of the provinces of Asia and Hellespontus with judicial authority, legate of Carthage under the proconsul of Africa, Anicius Iulianus, his father; whose forethought, service and integrity in the state ensured, through his attentiveness, that the insulae of the corpus coriariorum be restored and embellished to their former condition according to the laws of previous rulers, the emperors Lucius Valerius Septimius Severus and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Augusti. In glorious memory and for all his integrity, the corpus coriariorum decreed [this] to a worthy patron

10. CIL VI 1152= AE 2000 43

Date: post quem of 337

Association: corpus salariorum

Divo/Constantino/Augusto/corpus/salariorum/posuerunt

To the deified (divo) Constantine. The corpus salariorum [set this up].

11. CIL VI 1692= CIL X 357h= ILS 1242= AE 1998 145

Date: 337-352 (Proculus was praefectus urbis in 337, iterum in 351/2, and consul in 340)

Association: corpus pistorum

† Tantillo 2014, 275-276.

319

Populonii./Ille ego sum Proculus/totus qui natus honori/Aut dic quis sit honos/quem mihi inesse negas/collegium pistorum/patrono prestantissimo.

Populonius. I am that man, (Valerius) Proculus, who was born wholly for honour or, if you deny it, say what honour may not reside within me. The collegium pistorum [set this up] to their most outstanding patron.

12. CIL VI 1690= ILS 1240

Date: 340

Association: corpus suariorum and confectuariorum

Populonii//L. Aradio Val(erio) Proculo,v(iro) c(larissimo)/auguri/ pontifici maiori/quindecemviro sacris faciundis/pontifici Flaviali/ praetori tutelari/legato pro praetore provinciae Numidiae/peraequatori census provinciae Calleciae/praesidi provinciae Byzacenae/consulari provinciae Europae et Thraciae/consulari provinciae Siciliae/comiti ordinis secundi/comiti ordinis primi/proconsuli provinciae Africae vice / sacra iudicanti eidemq(ue) iudicio sacro/per provincias Proconsularem et Numidiam Byzacium ac Tripolim/itemque Mauretaniam Sitifensem et Caesariensem/perfuncto officio praefecturae praetorio/comiti iterum ordinis primi intra palatium/praefecto urbi vice sacra iterum iudicanti/ consuli ordinario/Huic corpus suariorum et confecturariorum/ auctoribus patronis ex affectu eidem iure debito/statuam patrono digno ponendam censuit

Populonius. To Lucius Aradius Valerius Proculus, vir clarissimus, augur, pontifex maior, member of the college of 15 men for sacred affairs, priest of the gens Flavia, tutelary praetor, legate for the praetor of the province of Numidia, tax reviewer of the province of Gallaecia, praeses of the province of Byzacena, consularis of the province of Europa et Thracia, consularis of the province of Sicily, count of the second order, count of the first order, proconsul of the province of Africa and judge representing the emperor, while at the same time judge in the imperial court of appeal for the provinces of Africa Proconsularis, Numidia, Byzacena, and Tripolitania and likewise Mauretania Sitifensis and Mauretania Caesariensis, having performed the office of praetorian prefect, count of the first order inside the palace for the second time, prefect of the City, judge representing the Emperor for a second time, and consul ordinarius. To him, the corpus suariorum and confectuariorum, at the instigation of its patrons [and] out of affection towards him, decided, with proper duty, to set up a statue to their worthy patron.

13. CIL VI 1693 = ILS 1241

Date: 351/2

Association: collegium suariorum

Hic bis praefectus patriae/praefectus et idem/hic Libyae idem Libyae / proconsul et ante/ter vice qui sacra/discinxit iurgia iudex/consul et aeterno/decoravit nomine fastos/cetera quid memorem/tanto sub iudice gesta/cum Proculum videas/toto qui natus honori est/ Collegium suariorum patrono/pr(a)estantissimo.

320

This man [was] twice prefect of his fatherland, both the prefect at the proconsul at same time of Libya, and before three times judge representing the Emperor who stopped strife, and consul decorating the fasti with his eternal name. What other things, done by so great a judge, should I recall, when you see Proculus who was born for every honour. The collegium suariorum [set this up] to their most outstanding patron.

14. CIL VI 1739

Date: 357/9

Association: corpus pistorum (magnariorum et castrensariorum)

Honori/Memmio Vitrasio Orfito v(iro) c(larissimo)/nobilitate et actibus praecipuo/ praefecto urbi et iterum prae/fecto urbi proconsuli Africae/et tertio sacrarum cognitionum /iudici comiti ordinis primi iterum/intra consistorium legato secun/do difficillimis temporibus peti/tu senatus et p(opuli) R(omani), comiti ordinis/secundi expeditiones bellicas/gubernanti consulari provinciae/Siciliae, pontif(ici) deae Vestae XV/viro s(acris) f(aciundis) pontif(ici) dei Solis consuli/praetori q(uaestori) [k(andidato)]/Corpus pistorum magnariorum/et castrensariorum statuam/sub aere constituit.

In honour of Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus, vir clarissimus, distinguished by birth and deeds, prefect of the city, and again prefect of the city, proconsul of Africa and three times judge in the imperial court of appeal, count of the first order, and for the second time count in the imperial cabinet, a second legate in difficult times by petition of the Senate and Roman people, count of the second order directing military expeditions, consularis of the province of Sicily, priest of the goddess Vesta, member of the college of fifteen men for sacred affairs, priest of the Sun god, suffect consul, praetor, quaestor (quaestor candidatus). The corpus pistorum magnariorum et castrensariorum set up a bronze statue.

15. CIL VI 1740

Date: 357/9

Association: corpus naviculariorum

Honori/Mem[m]io Vitrasio Orfito v(iro) c(larissimo)/nobilitate et actibus prae/cipuo, praefecto urbi et/iterum praef(ecto) urb(i) [pro]co(n)s(uli) Africae/ac tertio sacrar(um) cognitionum/iudici, comiti ordinis primi/iterum intra consistorium leg/ato secundo difficillimis temp/oribus petitu senatus et p(opuli) R(omani)/com(iti) ord(inis) II expeditiones bel/licas gubernanti, co(n)s(ulari) provin(ciae)/Si[c]iliae pontif(ici) deae Vestae/XVviro s(acris) f(aciundis), pontif(ici) dei Solis/co(n)s(uli), praetori, q(uaestori) [k(andidato)]/Corpus naviculariorum/statuam sub aere/constituit.

321

order directing military expeditions, consularis of the province of Sicily, priest of the goddess Vesta, member of the college of fifteen men for sacred affairs, priest of the Sun god, suffect consul, praetor, quaestor (quaestor candidatus). The corpus naviculariorum set up a bronze statue.

16. CIL VI 1741= ILS 1243

Date: 357/9

Association: corpus susceptorum Ostiensium sive Portuensium

Honori/Memmio Vitrasio Orfito v(iro) c(larissimo)/genere nobili, domi forisque ad/ exemplum veterum continentia ius/titia constantia, providentia, omni/busque virtutibus semper inlustri, / praef(ecto) urbi non multo interposito/tempore iterum praef(ecto) urbi, proconsuli/Africae comiti ordinis primi item/comiti intra consistorium ordinis/primi legato petitu senatus populi/q(ue) Romani, comiti ordinis secundi/consulari provinciae Siciliae ponti/fici maiori Vestae quindecimviro s(acris) f(aciundis)/pontifici Solis, consuli praetori quae/stori atque his omnibus ab ipsa/iuventute perfuncto. Ob eius tem/poribus difficillimis egregias ac/salutares provisiones/susceptorum Ostiensium sive Portu/ensium antiquissimum corpus, ob/utilitatem urbis Romae recreatum/statuam constituit.

In honour of Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus, vir clarissimus, of noble birth, at home and in public an example of the ancient mores, always illustrious in moderation, justice, steadiness, foresight, and in all virtues; prefect of the City, and with little intervening time prefect of the city again, proconsul of Africa, count of the first order, and again count of the first order in the imperial consistory, legate by petition of the Senate and Roman people, count of the second order, consularis of the province of Sicily, higher priest of the goddess Vesta, member of the college of fifteen men for sacred affairs, priest of the Sun, suffect consul, praetor, quaestor, and having completed all these in his youth. On account of his outstanding and advantageous provisions in difficult times, the corpus antiquissimum susceptorum Ostiensium sive Portuensium, re-established for the utility of the city of Rome, set up a statue.

17. CIL VI 1742

Date: 357/9

Association: corpus omnium mancipum

Honori/Memmio Vitrasio Orfito v(iro) c(larissimo)/nobilitate actibusque ad exem/plum praecipuo praefecto urbi/et iterum praefecto urbi, procon/suli Africae ac tertio sacrarum/ cognitionum iudici, comiti in/consistorio ordinis primi, le/gato secundo difficillimis tem/poribus petitu senatus et p(opuli) R(omani)/comiti ordinis secundi expedition(es)/ bellicas gubernanti, consulari Sicil(iae)/pontifici Solis, pontifici Vestae/XVviro s(acris) f(aciundis), consuli, praetori, q(uaestori) k(andidato), om/nibusq(ue) perfuncto honorib(us) intra/aetatis primordia. Ob providentiam/et statum optimum urbi Romae ab eo/redditum, corpus omnium manci/pum statuam sub aere constituit.

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In honour of Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus, vir clarissimus, distinguished by birth and deeds and as an example, prefect of the City and again prefect of the City, proconsular of Africa and three times judge in the imperial court of appeal, count of the first order in the imperial consistory, a second legate in difficult times by petition of the Senate and Roman people, count of the second order directing military expeditions, consularis of the province of Sicily, priest of the Sun, priest of the goddess Vesta, member of the college of fifteen men for sacred affairs, suffect consul, praetor, quaestor candidatus and having fulfilled all honours at an early age. On account of his providence and the return to a better condition of the city of Rome through him, the corpus omnium mancipum set up a bronze statue.

18. CIL VI 1770= 31972= AE 1980 42

Date: 362/4

Association: corpus pecuariorum

Ex auctoritate /Turci Aproniani, v(iri) c(larissimi)/praefecti urbis /Ratio docuit utilitate sua/dente, consuetudine mi/candi summota sub exagio/potius pecora vendere, quam /digitis conludentibus trade/re, ut, adpenso pecore, capite /pedibus et sevo lactante et /subgulari lanio cedentibus /reliqua caro cum pelle et inte/raneis proficiat venditori, /sub conspectu publico fide pon/deris conprobata, ut quantum /caro occisi pecoris adpendat /et emptor norit et venditor /commodis omnibus et praeda/damnata, quam tribunus offi/cium cancellarius et scriba /de pecuariis capere consueve/rant quae forma interdicti /et dispositionis sub gladii pe/riculo perpetuo custodien/da mandatur

According to the authority of Turcius Apronianus, vir clarissimus, prefect of Rome. Since the custom of weighing by scale (micandi sub exagio) has been removed, more preferable in the sale of cattle than to intrust to playing fingers, reason has convinced me, although usefulness persuaded me, that when the cattle is weighed, with the head, feet, and milky fat removed by the butcher, the remaining meat with the hide and intestines should profit the seller, after the faith of the weight has been approved in the open so that however much the meat of the slaughtered cattle may weigh, both the seller and the buyer knows. The word of the decree and disposition protected in perpetuity under the punishment of death is ordered for all benefits and lost profit, which the tribune, officium, cancellarius and clerk had been accustomed to extract from the pecuarii.

19. CIL VI 1771

Date: 362/4

Association: corpus suariorum

Ex auctoritate/Turci Aproniani, v(iri) c(larissimi)/praef(ecti) urb(i). /Licet formam dispositionis/acta contineant, ad fidem ta/men gestorum plenius memoriae /tradendam tabulam placuit adfigi/quae publicaret ordinem rerum /cum suarios damnis videremus /adfectos et eos etiam ordines /qui suariam faciunt, providimus /his levamen ex titulo canonico/vinario, ut viginti quinque milia /amforum annua consequantur/sub ea divisione, ut duae partes /suariis, tertia vero his ordinibus /proficiat qui suariam recognos/cunt, ita ut idem ordines iuxta con/suetudinem tam

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proprium quod/appellatur, quam annonas exsol/vant et moderatione adhibita/perinde a possesore suscipiant/adque accipere sunt soliti, anti/quo more praeeunte, interdicentes /ne [e]normia illa indebitaque prae/stentur, quae tam tribun[u]s quam /patroni diversi et varia conseque/bantur officia; contra quod inter/dictum si qui ausi fuerint de com/muni largiri, et scribae quidem/c[e]terique poenae subiace[a]nt.

According to the edict of Turcus Apronianus, vir clarissimus and urban prefect. Although the senate records contain the nature of the decree, nevertheless for the purpose of handing down to memory a more accurate account of the matters, it is determined that a tabula should be affixed (in public) which records the matters. Since we have seen that the suarii are affected by losses and also those ordines, who perform the swine-tax collection, we have provided this relief to these groups out of the taxes belonging to the canon vinarius with the result that 25,000 amphorae (of wine) are allotted annually according to this division: two parts are assigned to the suarii and a third to the ordines who review the swine-tax collection, thus that, likewise, the same ordines, according to custom, might pay out their own tax, which is demanded, as well as the tax in kind and so that they might take from the taxpayer, with moderation, what they are accustomed to receive, following old custom, prohibiting that enormous and undue amounts be furnished, which not only the tribune, but also various patroni and various officials extorted. If any person should dare, contrary to this edict, whether scribae or others, to distribute from the public store, they will be subject to penalty.

20. CIL VI 41328= 41329= 41330=31899=1766=31894=ILS 6072= 6073

Date: 375

Association: (likely) corpus tabernariorum

[Ex aucto]ritate Tarraci B[assi v(iri) c(larissimi) p(raefecti) u(rbi)]/ nomịna aẹre ị[ncisa taber]nariorum qui sibi pecun[iam publicam(?) locum indebitum (?) in] spectaculis et panem populi/ contra disciplinam romanam dereḷ[icta urbe aeterna(?)] vindicare consueverant (only preamble)

According to the authority of Tarracius Bassus, vir clarissimus, and urban prefect. Inscribed in bronze are the names of the tabernarii, who, although the city of Rome was not served, had been accustomed to claim for themselves public money, an undeserved seat during spectacles, and public bread contrary to Roman law.

21. CIL VI 1759= ILS 1272

Date: 389

Association: corpus mensorum

Ragonio Vincentio Celso v(iro) c(larissimo)/a primo aetatis introitu in actu/publico fideli exercitatione versato/cuius primaevitas officio sedis urbanae/advocationis excercito(!) fidem iuncxit ingenio/prudentiae miscuit libertatem ita ut nemo de/eius industria nisi ille contra quem

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susceperat/formidaret cuius accessus aetatis amplissimi/honoris et qui solet seniorib(us) provenire orna/menta promeruit nam rexit annonariam potes/tatem urbis aerernae (!) ea aequitate ut inter omnes/qui ad eum animo litigantis intrassent parentem se/plerumq(ue) magis his quam iudicem praebuisset/hinc etiam factum est ut mensores nos Portuenses/quib(us) vetus fuit cum caudicariis diuturnumq/luctamen voti conpotes abiremus ut utrumq(ue)/corpus et beneficio se et victoria gratuletur/adfectum nam ut hoc esset, indicio iam posito/magistratu, statuam patrono praestantis/simo testimonium gratulationis exsolvimus/cum res, non adulatione privato sed iudicio/posito in otio et quiete reddatur//Dedicata VIII Kal(endas)/Sept(embres) Fl(avio)/ Timasio et Fl(avio) Promoto/vv(iris) cc(larissimis) conss(ulibus).

To Ragonius Vincentius Celsus, vir clarissimus, who from his entrance to public office at a very young age behaved with trustworthy skill, whose youth, in the office of an advocate at the seat of the City, combined trust with intelligence, mingled freedom with prudence in such a way, that nobody need be afraid of his diligence, except that man against whom he would apply it; his accession to the highest honour for his age, by which he was preferred over his elders, indeed merited decoration; for he administered the office of the Annona of the Eternal City with such a justice, that, to all who had approached him with dispute in mind, he showed himself much more like a father than a judge. From this it came about that we, the mensores of Portus, who had an ancient and lasting dispute with the caudiciarii, left with a decision, such that both corpora rejoiced over its gain and victory. Because of this, after announcing it to the magistrate, we fulfilled [our vow] and set up a statue to our most outstanding patron, as a witness to our joy, because the case was resolved not by private favour, but by a judgement made calmly and peaceably. [on the side] Dedicated on the eigth day before the kalends of September, in the consulship of Flavius Timasius and Flavius Promotus, viri clarissimi.

22. CIL VI 41382= AE 1926 124

Date: 400

Association: corpus caudicariorum and the corpus piscatorum

[Fl(avii) S]tilichoṇịs, v(iri) c(larissimi)/ Fl(avio) Stilichoni v(iro) c(larissimo) et inlustri/ magistro utriusque militiae/et consuli ordinario/pro virtutum veneratione inter cetera/ beneficia quae per eum urbi Romae delata s[unt]/[c]ạudicarii seu piscatores corporạt[i]/ [urbi]s Romae, per quos amnicis naṿ[igiis]/[alime]ṇta urbi devehuntur hoc mạ[xime] /[commoti, qu]od Gildone hoṣṭẹ p[ublicọ de]/[victo et ali]moniis Romạ[norum resti]/[tutis felicitat]ẹm aụ[xerit ---] / ------

(Statue of) Flavius Stilicho, vir clarissimus. To Flavius Stilicho, vir clarissimus and illustrus, master of all soldiers and consul ordinarius, out of veneration for his great virtues, among the other benefits which have been conferred through him upon the City of Rome, the corporati of the caudicarii and piscatores of the city of Rome, through whom food supplies are conveyed to the City on river boats, greatly moved, because with Gildo the public enemy defeated and the supply of the Romans restored he increased the blessedness…

23. CIL VI 9920=33817

Date: 403-408

325

Association: corpus tabernariorum

[Felic]i imperio ddd(ominorum) nnn(ostrorum) Arcadi Honori et Theodosi / ex auctoritate Postumi Lampadi v(iri) c(larissimi) praef(ecti) urb(i) / corpus tabernariorum / Quintilianus Exuperantius et Eusebius/ [-ca.2/3-]ạsellus nominatus Augustalis Mantanana et Herculius (only preamble)

To the blessed rule of our lords Arcadius, Honorius, and Theodosius from the authority of Postumius Lampadius, vir clarissimus and prefect of Rome, the corpus tabernariorum, Quintilianus, Exuperantius and Eusebius and ---asselus? nominated Augustalis Mantanana and Herculius...

24. AE 2001 270

Date: 4th century

Association: unknown

Hemeteri/ Immnunes ṃạ[g(istri) q(uin)q(uennales)?]/ honoṛ[ati---]/ coll[egiati---]/------

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Appendix 4: Ambrosino 1939, 85-94= Emerita 8, 1940, 134-139 = AE 1941, 68

----- [---]SCIṬERES CO[---] [l]ibentissime omnem IA[---] ṇecessarium posset coṇ[cedi ---] 5 fabris arteficibus(!) numẹ[rantur ---] ac iucundissime re ipsa A[---]+H[---] discrepantia separati fu[erunt ---]++ere AQ[---] vel filios vel servos habere [---] ạdmodum art[ific---] ḍiversae peritiae in urbe +[--- h]ạbentes semel add[icti---] 10 [ad]moniti sunt ut in ạ[-c.2-][se]mper manere, ut magis M[---] [---]cere secunḍụ[m] significatum gravitatis tu[ae] [---]ỌF [---]batur indulta libentissime ben[---] [--- ]ṛọc[̣-c.2/3-] in personam eorum tụet[ur---] [--- fabr]um cohorte ut scientes privilegia [---] 15 [---]ạntur efficere quo [ob]sequio fideli meri[t---] et deinceps sicut fecisti ut fịḷios vel servo[s ---] dumtaxat potuerint invenịṛẹ iṣ[de]mqu[e ---] suum ex nostra iussione congreg[at]ị [---] rint perfrui habeant immunitate C[---] 20 vel ad aliam se ab urbem(!) transfer[ant ---] obtentu huiuṣce dum se ad ipsum T[---] quippe cum id magis velimus ut A[---] collegiis necessariis dumtaxa[t ---] perseveret quam patiamur utị[---] 25 ita ut non ex aliis collegiis hoṃ[ines ---] libentius in eo numero [---] putavimus esse praestaṇ[dum ---] sedule industrieque prob[---] -----

Apparatus L.1: Emer. reads two i's in sciieres, both Ambr. and Carapellucci (EDR073463) suggest traces of a letter that cannot be read. AE reads an I followed by traces of a second letter. A 't' is visible on the stone after the 'i'. L.2: Emer. suggests the bottom part of an 'n' is visible and restores cọn[cedere]. L.3: Emer. perhaps ia[m---]. Emer. also conjectures [collegium]at the end of the line to agree with necessarium at the beginning of line 4. This reading is agreeable, but cannot be restored without evidence from the stone. L.4: Ambr. restores [in] at the end of the line, creating a prepositional phrase completed in the following line. L.6: Emer. reads MH near the end of the line; AE reads IH and EDR reads AH. Ambr. simply records traces of a letter before H. Traces are visible on the stone, but no letter can be restored L. 7: Ambr. suggests fu[erunt], followed by AE. Emer. suggests an 'i' is visible and posits fuị[ssent]. In the opinion of the author, there is no 'i' visible on the, making Ambr. and AE's

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reading preferable. At the end of the line Emer. posits [SC]IIERES, while EDR sees the traces of a single letter. There are, in fact traces of two letters before 'eres,' but neither can be stated for certain. L.10: Ambr., AE, and Emer. all suggest [se]mper. Emer. and EDR reads aṛ. This lead EDR to suggest aṛ[e]ạm permanere, instead of the accepted in a [-c.2-] [se]mper. There are no traces of any letter remaining on the stone after the 'a', and 'a' is only partially visible and read with difficulty. L.11: perhaps eff[icere] L.12: There is little disagreement regarding the beginning of this line. Ambr. reads FI...BATVR alone with AE. Emer. restores SEN...BATVR and EDR, FỊ[---]+atur. The stone is difficult to read but either an Ọ or Ḍ are can be restored before the F, and based on paleography in the rest of the text it is likely an Ọ, while batur is clearly visible. L.13: Ambr. and AE read roc, Emer roq. EDR reconstructs rog[a]ṭọ. No 't' or 'o' are visible on the stone, and 'c' appears to be the likely letter after the 'ro'. L.14: Emer. reads 'i', instead of 'e' after "cohort' and suggests the ablative plural cohortị[bus]. Emer. reading is incorrect as an 'e' is clearly visible on the stone and the spacing between it and the ut does not permit the remaining 'bus' to form the ablative plural. Emer. also postulates that [fabr]um could be restored, but does not include it. The Epitome de caesaribus writes that Hadrian mustered the city's builders, masons, and architects in cohorts according to the appearance of legions, see Ep. de Caes. 14.5. This makes the reconstruction in Emer. enticing and, in the author's opinion, likely. L.15: 'ob' no longer visible on the stone, but have been restored from context. L.16: Ambr. and AE read invenịṛẹ iṣ[de]mqu[e ---], EDR invenire idemqu[e ---], and Emer. the anomalous inverịṛị [---] MQV. Ambr. and AE reading is adopted here, as 'ire' can be restored from recognizable traces and the traces of an 's' are visible. 'de' must be restored from context. L.20: AE suggests either ad aliam se ab urbe or ad aliam se urbem to correct the lapicide's error. L.25: Emer. suggests hoṇ. If this is the case perhaps hoṇ[orati], but hoṃ[ines] is preferred.

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Photo by Author

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Appendix 5: Building attestations in Rome from the Tetrarchy until 425 CE*

Type of Building Person/ Location Date Source Type

Private Construction† Hypogeum M. Antonius 276-299 ICUR III 6555 fecit Restutus domus Domus under SS. early 4th Pavolini Giovanni e Paolo century "archeologia e on Caelian, off topografia," 31-4; Clivus Scauri Colini, "Storia e topografia," 164- 195 Crypta Balbi and unknown 4th century Manacorda 2001, restoration and Porticus Minucia 36-42. Includes renovation early 4th cent. restorations on north west portico of Crypta. Then private interventions in the same area in 2 phases in the 4th century; Restorations to the west side of the Porticus Minucia datable to the first half of the fourth century.

domus Gaudentius/ 4th century Spinola in Pavolini Caelian Hill et al., "La topografia antica," 478. balneum Naeratius Cerealis 358 CIL VI 1744a-i conditor balnearum domus Symmachi ante quem Symm. Ep. 1.12 repair 377 domus Vicus Caprarius post quem Insalaco 2005, "La mid-4th città dell'acqua," 20-30.

* I have excluded from this catalogue the so-called "tesserae monumentorum," small bronze tesserae appearing in the late fourth and fifth century that are often inscribed with the name of an urban prefect and a verb, such as fecit or reparavit. Given their peculiarity and that they cannot be attributed to any specific building in Rome, they have not been included. See Kulikowski 2017 for a discussion on these tesserae. † This table does not include all 250 possible fourth century domus, but only those specifically cited in the foregoing text.

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domus under Palazzo post quem LP 42.3-7; delle Esposizioni 324, ante Machado 2012, 12- quem 401 13; Coates-Stephens 2002, 284; CIL VI 31564 domus Subura, Vicus 4th cent Andrews 2014, 83- renovation Patricius (under 86 SS. Sergio e Bacco)

Public Construction by Urban Prefect or other magistrate (or senator) Porticus Herculea L. Aelius Helvius Before 296 CIL VI 256 & 255 a fundamentis Dionysus Arch of Constantine Senate Populusque 315 CIL VI 1139= dicavit (built) Romanus 31245= ILS 694= AE 1983 18

Sacra Via? Hierocles 312-337 CIL VI 1223 restituerit Perpetuus Basilica Junius Bassus 331 CIL VI 1737 a solo fecit (ordinary consul) Insulae Amnius Manius 334 CIL VI 1682 restaurari adque Caesonius adornari…providit Nicomachus Anicius Paulinus Uncertain Building Anicius Amnius 334-335 CIL VI 1652 (was uncertain Paulinus (Amnius found reused as Manius Caesonius column base in SS. Nicomachus Giovanni and Anicius Paulinus ) Paolo)

Uncertain; on Septimius Mnasea 352 CIL VI 41344= AE uncertain Architrave 1949 182 aedes of Apollo Memmius 357-359 CIL VI 45; D. providit aedem Vitrasius Orfitus Ambaglio in Museo dell'Istituto di Archeologia Materiali, 3, no 1987, 197-199 Arch in Forum Memmius 357-359 CIL VI, 30364, 4-7; built Boarium Vitrasius Orfitus Mateos, Pizza, & Ventura 2017, 237- 74. Forum L. Turcius 362-364? Palmer 1990, 45-46 Apronianus (Campus Martius) castellum C. Caeionius 365 CIL VI 31963= dedit et usui tradidit Rufius Volusianus 3866= ILS 5791 Lampadius Thirteen bridges and C. Caeionius 365 CIL VI 40793 constitui fierique Tiber bank Rufius Volusianus iusserunt Lampadius

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pons Aurelius L. Aurelius 365/66 CIL VI 31402-12 & instituti ex Avianius Amm. 27.3.3–4. utilitate…perfecti Symmachus dedicandi operis; condidit

Baths and the Aqua Iunius Pomponius 367 Orlandi and Crimi dominis nostris Claudia Ammonius 2017, 287-298 duobus) [Valentiniano et Valente ---] [--- Iunius Pom]ponius ̲ Ammo [nius v(ir) c(larissimus) et inl(ustris) praef(ectus) urb(i) --- ] [--- aquae Cla]udiae therm[as -- -] [--- u?]t desidera[- --]... cameram? Praetextatus 367-384 CIL VI 41378= AE construxerat (maybe 367?) 1953, 68d porticus of the Dei Praetextatus 367 CIL VI 102 reposuit Consentes Temple of Saturn Senatus late-4th CIL VI 937 (no restituit Populusque century possible dating Romanus criteria) Pensabene (1984, 67) suggests bricks and decoration suggest late 4th century (see also Machado 2006, 169)

Porticus of the Claudius 374 Amm. 29.6.19 instauravit vetera Temple of Bonus Hermogenianus plurima inter quae Eventus Caesarius (near the porticum excitavit baths of Agrippa ingentem in the Campus Martius) Uncertain Flavius Anigonius 367-375 CIL VI 1179 adornavit (praepositus)

repair of Basilica Gabinius Vettius 377 CIL VI reparatae Iulia Probianus 1156=1658c= 31248a= ILS 722 = 5537 rebuilding of L. Valerius 379-383 CIL VI 1184a= architrave block- Diocletianic rostra Septimus Bassus 31255= ILS 782 work uncertain Aqueduct of the Anio Valerius Anthidius 381 CIL VI 31945= avertit imminentem Novus (consular 3865 ruinam aquarum)

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Basilica Piniani Pinianus; 385-387; CIL VI 40805; Built; repaired Caecina Decius 425 Machado (2019, Acinatius Albinus 74) suggests it was likely built by Pinianus (PU 385- 87) Nympheum Flavius Philippus 391 CIL VI 31912= ILS revocavit 5733; CIL VI 1728a Secretarium Nicomachus 393/394 or CIL VI instituerat Flavianus younger 399/400 1718=31911= ILS 5522 Uncertain Nicomachus 393/394, CIL VI 41384 A. Scheithauer Flavianus younger 399/400, or conjectures that the (forum Caesaris) 403-408 fragment attests to the restoration of a basilica

Aqueduct of the Anio Senatus 398/99 CIL IX 4051= ILS extendendo, addito populusque 795 and purgandas Romanus and Quintilius Laetus (prefect) Arch of Honorius Senatus 399/400 CIL VI 1187= built populusque 31256=ILS 794; Romanus Kalas 2015, 93-96; Claudian Pan. de VI cons. Hon. 369- 373. Arch of Arcadius, Senatus 402-408 CIL VI 1196 (might Dedicated Honorius, and populusque be the same as the Theodosius romanus arch above)

Forum Acilius Glabrio Late-4th CIL VI 1678; fori conditor Sibidius century (Campus Martius) Baptistery Flavius Macrobius 402/403 CIL VI construxit Longinianus 41379=ILCV 92 (Quirinal) cameram? Flavius Ianuarius 410-418 CIL VI 41378= AE restauravit 1953 68d Secretarium Flavius Annius 412/414 CIL VI reparavit et ad Eucharius 1718=31911= ILS pristinam faciem Epifanius 5522 reduxit

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tepidarium/ Baths of Caecina Decius 414 CIL VI 1703 = ILS fulcivit a fundamentis Decius Acinatius Albinus 5715 and CIL VI 1659 (see also CIL VI 1192 dated to 402 and associated with Caecina Decius Albinus and same baths)

Curia Unknown 410-420 CIL VI 41387= AE reparavit 1953, 68 & CIL VI 41386 Uncertain; Aurelius Anicius 410-420 CIL VI Alföldy suggests the Architrave Symmachus 41376=39182 inscription attests to the restoration of a building after the sack in 410. Maybe the curia, which is attested in CIL VI 41387 & 41386 Uncertain (maybe Aurelius Anicius 418-420 CIL VI 36962 = AE restoration of Symmachus 1904, 208 Basilica Aemilia); Architrave Porticus Minucia? Anicius Acilius 421-423 CIL VI 1676 = AE restituit Glabrio Faustus 1997 108 Colosseum Iunius Valerius 421-423 CIL VI 32085-7; amph]itheatrum a Bellicius Orlandi 2004a, 67- f]undamento...restituit 86 et munivit Secretarium Iunius Valerius 421-423 CIL VI restituto/ perfecit Tellurensis Bellicius 31959=37114=ILS 5523 Uncertain Anicius Acilius 424/425 CIL VI 1677=ILS reparavit Glabrio Faustus 803 Public/Secular Imperial Works Arcus Novus Diocletian 293? MGH I. 146 built Temple of Isis and Diocletian and 286-293 ScAnt 2017, 135; repaired Serapis? Maximian MGH I. 146 Aqueduct cleaning Diocletian and 286-293 CIL VI 773= ILS perpurgatis et refectis and repair Maximian; L. 626; Coarelli 1999, Helvius Dionysius 26. temple/ nymphaeum Unknown early fourth CIL XV 1615a; built of Minerva Medica century; Coates-Stephen maybe late 2001, 222-227 fourth

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Tiber Banks Diocletian and 286-305 CIL VI 1242= restituerunt per pedes Maximian; with 31556= ILS 5894. CX Manius Acilius Balbus Sabinus (curator alvei tiberis) Baths of Alexander Diocletian 286-305 Steinby 1986, 141 repair Severus Baths of Caracalla Diocletian 286-305 Steinby 1986, 141 repair Emporium Diocletian 286-305 Steinby 1986, 141; repair CIL XV 1577 Nymphea (3) Diocletian and 286-305 MGH I. 146 fabricatae sunt Maximian porticus (2) Diocletian and 286-305 MGH I. 146 fabricatae sunt Maximian

Uncertain temples Diocletian and 286-305 MGH I. 146 fabricatae sunt; one (2) Maximian which may have been the Temple of Concordia in the Forum Romanum, see La Rocca, RomMitt 108 (2001), 171-214. They may also have been the "Templa duo nova Spei et Fortunae" cited in regio VII the Notitia

Forum Romanum Diocletian and 296-303 MGH I. 146; Repair after fire and (rostra, basilica Maximian; Paneg. 3.19; CIL new rostra Iulia, Curia & Constantinus and VI colonnade on south Galerius 1203=1204=1205; side of forum) CIL XV, 1569a & 1643b (brickstamps) Forum of Caesar Diocletian and 296-303 MGH I. 146 Repair after fire Maximian; Constantinus and Galerius

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Theater of Pompey Diocletian and 286-305 MGH I. 146; HA, rebuilt scaena and Maximian; Carinus 19.1 pegma Constantinus and Galerius

Baths of Diocletian Diocletian and 305/306 CIL VI 31463; CIL Maximian VI 1130= 31242= ILS 646; Also MGH I. 148

Basilica Nova Maxentius 306-312 Aur. Vic. De Caes. construxerat 40.26 Palatine Thermae Maxentius 306-312 MGH I. 148M fecit Circus and Villa Maxentius 306-312 MGH I. 148M fecit So-called Temple of Maxentius 306-312 CIL XV 1622 built Romulus (brickstamp also found in Palatine Baths and Basilica Nova); Heres (1982, 106) masonry similar to Basilica Nova

Temple of Venus Maxentius 306-312 MGH I 148; Aur. arsit et fabricatum and Rome Vic. De Caes. est; construxerat 40.26 Basilica Nova Constantine post quem Aur. Vic. De Caes added apse and new 312 40.26; Marlowe entrance 2006 Baths of Constantine Constatine (Maybe ante quem Aur. Vict. Caes. institutum Maxentius) 315? 40.26 (Steinby). Dumser (2006, 35) certaintly of date Circus Maximus Constantine ante quem Aur. Vic. Caes excultus mirifice; 321 40.27; Naz. Pan. sublimes porticus et Lat 4.35.5; may rutilantes auro have been a result columnae…dederunt; of a collapse- see MGH 146. Aqua Virgo Constantine; 312-324 CIL VI 31564= ILS renovatam Centullus 701 Valerianus (curator aquarum et Miniciae) Porticus Constantini Constantine? 313-337 Notitia, regio VII uncertain et Gypsiani Thermae Helena 317-324 CIL VI 31244= restituit, destructas 1136 incendio

336

Pons Signinus? Constantine, 324 CIL VI 40770 = AE restitui…iusserunt Crispus and 1975, 135 Constantine II termae Constantius and 344/45 CIL VI 1165 restauraverunt Constans; Q. Rusticus pons Cestius Gratian 370 CIL VI 1175= constitui dedicarique 31250= ILS 771 iusserunt porticus iuxta Gratian, Valens 369-375 CIL VI 1178 addi dedicarique macellum Liviae and Valentinian I iusserunt porticus maximae Gratian, 379-383 CIL VI 1184 fieri ornarique and arch Valentinian II, and iusserunt Theodosius forum Valentinian I, 374 CIL VI 1177 = dono dederunt Valens, Gratian; 31252= ILS 776 Flavius Eupraxius =AE 1997 106 Pons Theodosii Theodosius 382-387 Symm, Ep. 4.70 & built 5.76; Rel. 25 & 26 Theater of Pompey Arcadius and 395-402 CIL VI restituerunt Honorius 1191=31258= ILS 793 Honorian Wall Honorius and 401-402 CIL VI instauratos Arcadius; Flavius 1188=1189=1190= Macrobius 31257=ILS 797= Longinianus AE 1997 107

Basilicas Constructed by Imperial House San Sebastiano Maxentius/ early fourth Krautheimer, built (Basilica Constantine century Corpus IV, 136 Apostolorum) (Constantinian monogram); Heres 1982, 105-106 (masonry same as villa); incomplete aula floor of Villa of Maxentius has been argued to suggest Constantine relocated workers from villa to church

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Basilica and Unknown 305-350 opus vittatum built Mausoleum Tor de' construction and Schiavi tetrarchic brickstamps in rotunda. Brandenburg (2005, 60-62) Constantinian; Curran (2000, 102 fn. 65) rotunda 305- 309, basilica forty- two years after.

Lateran Basilica Constantine 312-324 LP 34.9-12 built Lateran Baptistery Constantine 312-324 LP 34.13-15 Basilica on the Via Constantine ante quem LP 34. 26-27 built Labicana (SS. 324/ 324-326 Marcellinus and for the Peter) & Mausoleum mausoleum of Helena San Lorenzo fuori le Constantine (Via post quem LP 34.24-25 built mura Tiburtina) 324 St. Peter's on the Constantine post quem LP 34.16-20; ICUR built vatican 324; complete II, 4095 & 4094; by 351 Ambrose, de virginitate 3, 1-3 (Liberius first bishop of Rome to take liturgy there c. 351) S. Croce in Helena and ante quem LP 34.22 built into existing Gerusalemme Constantine 330 structure of Sessorian Palace St. Agnese and Constantina 337-350 LP 34.23; ICUR built Mausoleum of VIII 20752= ILCV Constantina Augusta 1768; Amm. 14.1.2 & 21.1.5.

S. Paolo fuori le Theodosius, 383-390 Symm, Ep. 4.70 & built mura Valentinian II, and 5.76; Rel. 25; CSEL Arcadius 35, 46-7; ICUR II 4778c = ILCV 1857c = AE 1959, 64 = AE 2000, 187; ILCV 1761. Christian Basilicas Constructed by Bishop titulus Silvestri or Silvester 314-335 LP 34.3 & 34.33 fecit Equiti basilica Marcus 336 LP 35.3 fecit (Pallacinae- Campus Martius)

338

basilica Julius 337-352 MGH I. 76 fecit "basilica iuliam...iuxta forum divi Traiani;" LP 36.2 " una in urbe Roma iuxta forum" basilica Julius 337-352 MGH I. 76 fecit "basilica trans Tiberim...iuxta Callistum;" LP 36.2 "altera trans Tiberim" basilica Julius 337-352 MGH I. 76 fecit "basilicam in via Portese miliario III basilica Julius 337-352 MGH I. 76 fecit "basilicam in via Flaminia miliario II basilica Liberius 352-366 LP 37.7 "iuxta fecit (likely after macellum Liviae" 358) basilica Felix 355-365 LP 38.2 fecit basilicam via Aurelia basilica (Sant' Damasus 366-384 ILCV 1782; ornarat…tecta Anastasia) (South-West Mulryan 2011, 215- corner of Palatine, 216 near the Circus Maximus) basilica (San Damasus 366-384 LP 39.2; fecit…una beato Lorenzo in Damaso) Epigrammata no. Laurentio iuxta 57 theatrum; condere nova tecta titulus Fasciolae Damasus? ante quem ICUR 2, 4815 built, but uncertain 377 (lector tituli (near Baths of Fasiolae…Gratiano Caracalla, later SS. IIII et Merobaudes Nereo e Achilleo) conss) titulus Pudentis Damasus? Or ante quem ICUR 1, 3200= fundata (on Vicus Siricius? 384 or 398 ILCV 1270 (lector Patricius) (completed) de Pudentiana); ILCV 1772a (398); Brandenburg (2005, 138)

339

Basilica S. Clemente Siricius 384-399 Brandenburg 2005, 144; reconstruction of inscription of Cecchelli (1997), 166: S(alvo) Sir[icio] [ep)isc[opo] esscl[esiae sanctae] ga[---] praesbyter [sancto] martyr[i] [clem- enti] [h]oc v[oluit dedicatum] titulus Crescentiae Anastastius 399-402 LP 41.2; Fecit autem et Brandenburg 2005, basilicam, quae 152, brick basilica dicitur Crescentiana under S. Sisto Vecchio 47 x 25 m titulus Vestinae/ Innocentius; 401/2-417 LP 42.3; made in opus basilica s. Gervasi et Leopardus and Brandenburg 2005, vittatum, 51 m long Protasi Ursicinus 153 (Quirinal and with 14 m wide nave Viminal) titulus Pammachii Pammachius or 397-410 ICUR V 13122 (SS. Giovanni e Byzantius (titulus Byzanti); Paolo) De Rossi 1864-77, 11,150 (cultor Pammachius), see Cooper and Hilner 2007,143

Building of templa by Priestly colleges, Private citizens, or unknown Masiones of the Salii Plotius Acilius 270-350 CIL VI 2158 = ILS reparaverunt Lucilius and 4944 Vitrasius Praetextatus (pontifices Vestae) Syrian Temple ?? 361 Goodard 2008, 165; built (Janiculum) 2 Fel. Temp Reparatio coins of Constans and Constantius II (348- 357)

Temple of Flora or Nicomachus late 4th or Carmen contra composuit Venus (Maybe both) Flavianus younger early 5th paganos II, 112- or century 114 Q.Fabius Memmius Symmachus (Maybe Circus Maximus)

340

Templum and antrum Nonius Victor Second half CIL VI 754= ILS locavit; facit (Mithraeum) Olympius and his of 4th century 4269 grandson

Uncertain Building or dedicator Baths of Caracalla Unknown 326-333 CIL VI 40772 fieri diposuit ac dedicavit

Baths of Caracalla Unknown 4th century CIL VI 30374 reddiderunt

Porticus and? Unknown 301-400 LTUR V, pg. 51(Aventine) Uncertain Plotius Faustus 350-400 AE 2010, 185 Uncertain Ceionius Rufius 335/337, CIL VI 41375 Niquet conjectures Albinus/ Decius 389/391, or that this records the Acinatius Albinus 402 restoration or (Forum construction of a Romanum) public building in the Forum. Baths of Diocletian Unknown late 4th CIL VI 1131 & century 1131a

Walls, floor and a Anastasia c.f. and late 4th CIL VI 41331a = decorarunt vault? her husband century ICUR II 4097 Alföldy dates the (basilica of S. inscription to the Peter) dates of Damasus, but it may also be the case that the missing husband was Macrobius Longinianus, thus dating this inscription to the early fifth century Aula (enlarged or Gallus late 4th CIL VI 41336a= decus addidit aulae adorned) (Maybe Rufius century ICUR II 148= ILCV Viventius Gallus, 1759 son of the elder Anastasia, herself daughter of Constantine, and, perhaps, the husband of Anastasia in CIL VI 4133a. Uncertain C. Caeionius late 4th cent. CIL VI 36968= Rufius Volusianus 41344a Lampadius or Caeionius Rufius Albinus

341

Uncertain Unknown 4th cent. CIL VI 41363 ------/ [---iudex (Forum Romanum) sa]crarum cọ[gitionum---] Alföldy conjectures based on the letter size and type that this is a fragment of a building inscription Uncertain, Unknown vir 4th or 5th CIL VI 41352 Kramer suggests Architrave clarissimus and century either resoration or praefectus urbi construction ex novo (Forum Caesaris)

Theatre of Marcellus Petronius 420/421 CIL VI 1660a curavit (statue); Maximus Manacorda (2001, 45), suggests this indicates restoration

Uncertain Unknown 410-475 CIL VI 41388= AE repara[vit] [et (Regio XII) 1980 145 dedica?]vit (Found on the Esquiline) M.G.Schmidt suggests the repair of a building in the area of the Circus Maximus, either the Circus or the baths of Caracalla?

342

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