THE INTEGRATION OF MAURETANIA TINGITANA IN THE DIOCESE OF HISPANIAE Joey van Kuijck Student number: S4154630 Teacher: Dr. D. Slootjes Date of Submission: 15-06-2015 The Integration of Mauretania Tingitana in the Diocese of Hispaniae THE INTEGRATION OF MAURETANIA TINGITANA IN THE DIOCESE OF HISPANIAE CONTENTS Introduction 03 Status Quaestionis 04 Part one: 06 The situation of Mauretania Tingitana at the time of Diocletian and Maximian Part two: 10 Reasoning behind the decision to merge Tingitania into the diocese of Hispaniae Conclusion 14 Bibliography 17 Appendix 20 2 The Integration of Mauretania Tingitana in the Diocese of Hispaniae Introduction When the crisis of the third century ended due to the ascension of emperor Diocletian (r. 284- 305), it became evident that the Roman empire was too vast to rule by means of the traditional administrative structures. The creation of the diarchy in 286, which became the tetrarchy in 293, was one of Diocletian’s numerous reforms to stabilise the Empire. His reform program, which was continued by his successor emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306-337), had to increase the absolute power of the emperor and reduce the chance of a coup d’état. In order to achieve this, Diocletian started to split the vast provinces into smaller ones, resulting in a considerable increase in number of provinces. However, the idea of splitting up provinces was not entirely new. Some of Diocletian’s predecessors, such as Aurelian (r. 270-275), had already started to split up several provinces, although less extensively, in order to make them more manageable.1 The creation of the dioceses was the next step to extend and improve not only the functioning of the administrative structure, but the hierarchy of the empire as well. The head of a diocese was a vicarius or the so-called vicar, who became the superior of the governor.2 It is uncertain which emperor installed the dioceses but most scholars estimated that it occurred around the years 293-314.3 According to the Laterculus Veronensis or the so-called Verona List, which was probably written in the first quarter of the fourth century, the empire contained twelve dioceses: Oriens, Pontica, Asiana, Thracia, Moesiae, Pannoniae, Britanniae, Galliae, Viennensis, Italia, Africa and Hispaniae.4 The latter contained the provinces of Baetica, Carthaginiensis, Gallaecia, Lusitania, Mauretania Tingitana and Tarraconensis.5 The provinces of Hispaniae are all situated in present-day Spain and Portugal except for the province of Mauretania Tingitana, which was roughly situated in modern northern Morocco. This unique diocese did not geographically change until the conquest of the Vandals, Alans and Sueves in 409.6 The diocese of Hispaniae is unique due to the fact that it is not an interconnected geographical territory; the strait of Gibraltar divides it. The reason behind this 1 Daniëlle Slootjes, ‘Late antique administrative structures: On the meaning of dioceses and their borders in the fourth century AD’, in: Lee Brice and Daniëlle Slootjes (ed.), Aspects of ancient institutions and geography: Studies in honor of Richard J.A. Talbert (Leiden 2014) 177-195, here 186. 2 Daniëlle Slootjes, The governor and his subjects in the later Roman Empire (Leiden, 2006), 17-18. 3 Karl L. Noethlichs, ‘Zur Entstehung der Diözese als Mittelinstanz des spätrömischen Verwaltungssystems’, Historia 31 (1982), 70-81, here 75; Joachim Migl, Die Ordnung der Ämter. Prätorianerpräfektur und Vikariat in der Regionalverwaltung des Römischen Reiches von Konstantin bis zur Valentinianischen Dynastie (Frankfurt am Main, 1994), 54; Constantin Zuckerman, ‘Sur la liste de Vérone et la province de Grande Arménie, la división de l’empire et la date de création des diocèses’, in: Gilbert Dragon (red.), Travaux et Mémoires 14 (Paris, 2002), 617-637, here 636. Cf. William Seston, Dioclétien et la tétrachie (Paris, 1946), 334; Arnold H. M. Jones, John R. Martindale and John Morris, The prosopography of the later Roman Empire, 3 volumes (Cambridge, 1971; reprinted 1975), I: 31; Timothy D. Barnes, The new Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Harvard, 1982), 224-225; Michael F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c.300–1450 (Cambridge, 1985), 373-374; Michael Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities (Baltimore, 2004), 72; Elio lo Cascio, 'The new state of Diocletian and Constantine: From the tetrarchy to the reunification of the empire', The Cambridge Ancient History 12 (2002), 170-183, here 181; Jill Harries, Imperial Rome AD 284-363: The new empire (Edinburgh, 2012), 53. 4 Barnes, The new Empire, 205-208. 5 Ibidem, 208. 6 Javier Acre, El último siglo de la España Romana, 284- 409 (Madrid, 2009), 42. 3 The Integration of Mauretania Tingitana in the Diocese of Hispaniae decision is still not clear, since scholars have not found a satisfying explanation. There are some hypotheses, but there is no consensus between them. This study aims to critically compare the current theses, analysing their individual strengths and weaknesses, in order to create a clear overview which will facilitate further research on this subject. In addition, this essay attempts to bridge the gap between the existing theses. The central question of this essay is: what were the reasons for integrating the province of Mauretania Tingitana in the newly created diocese of Hispaniae? The answer to this question will be a hypothesis that tries to eliminate the less plausible explanations and which will build upon the more plausible ones. This will hopefully renew the scholarly debate around Mauretania Tingitana and hence provide more insight in the reasoning behind the choices that were made concerning the creation of the Roman dioceses. Status Quaestionis Over the last decades, several studies were published on the creation of the dioceses. The traditional view is that they were created during the reign of emperor Diocletian after the installation of the tetrarchy. This view is still often heard and there are many modern scholars who agree that it was Diocletian who created the dioceses. However, the supporting evidence for this statement is scant and deviates greatly. Supporters of this view often refer to the Acta Marcelli, the hagiography of Saint Marcellus of Tangier, in which Aurelius Agriconlanus is referred to as agentem vice praefectorum, which they translate to vicar.7 Another propagator of this view is Elio lo Cascio, who argued that during the reign of Diocletian the creation of new mints became decentralised in various regions, which accorded with the new system of dioceses-based tax collection.8 There are also scholars who do not see strong evidence that it was Diocletian who created the dioceses. The first among them was Karl Leo Noethlichs, who concluded that there was no evidence in the ancient sources for the existence of dioceses during the reign of Diocletian.9 Therefore, the dioceses were a construction of the emperors Constantine and Licinius (r. 308-324). Joachim Migl agrees with Noethlichs and adds that the installation of the dioceses was a pragmatic solution for imperial control of tax collection.10 The most recent work written about the creation of the dioceses connects the Verona List to it. This list makes the first ancient notation of the dioceses. Constantin Zuckerman argued that it was written in the summer of 314 and that at the same time the dioceses were created; since this happened together with other extensive contemporary administrative reforms of emperors Constantine and Licinius.11 7 Seston, Dioclétien et la tétrachie, 334; Jones, Martindale and Morris, The prosopography of the later Roman Empire, I: 31; Barnes, The new Empire, 224-225; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, 72. The idea that agentem vice praefectorum meant the same as vicar is the general consensus after the article of Michael Arnheim. See Michael T.W Arnheim, 'Vicars in the later Roman Empire', Historia 19 (1970), 593-606. 8 Cascio, 'The new state of Diocletian and Constantine’, 181. 9 Noethlichs, ‘Zur Entstehung der Diözese’, 72. 10 Migl, Die Ordnung der Ämter, 54-69. 11 Zuckerman, ‘Sur la liste de Vérone et la province de Grande Arménie’, 636. 4 The Integration of Mauretania Tingitana in the Diocese of Hispaniae Besides the questions when the dioceses were made and by whom, there is a problem to answer the question how the dioceses were made as well. Did the emperors make the decisions themselves or were there more people involved? In addition, what were the reasons to decide which provinces were to be included in a diocese? Noethlichs clarified that the provinces did not necessarily belong geographically to each other and that the size of a diocese was not a guiding principle as the dioceses differed in size.12 For example, the dioceses of Africa, Oriens and Galliae were around ca. 400.000 km² each, while the dioceses of Thracia and Asiana were only ca. 200.000 km² respectively.13 At the same time we do not know the choices made concerning the demarcation of these dioceses. Despite these uncertainties, it is certain that the borders of the dioceses correspond with provincial borders and that the borders of the later prefectures correspond with those of the dioceses. Daniëlle Slootjes adds the notion that the borders of the provinces were most likely based on local city borders.14 If this is correct, it gives an insight into the thought and decision making process of how the dioceses were composed. The line of reasoning of these scholars seems logical, but they do not answer the question how the Romans determined the size of a diocese. Hispaniae is, as was said before, unique due to the strait of Gibraltar that separates the provinces. If Noethlichs was right with his latter thesis, then why was the province of Mauretania Tingitana integrated into the Diocese of Hispaniae? In 1954, Brian H.