Ravenna, the midwife of Europe
- Thread starter AndreaConti
- Start date
The main difference between the most ancient Roman Empire and the later one in the Pars Orientis is that the Scandinavian mercenaries did not have a specific unit, but were distributed among the various Alae... It is not said (I'm thinking about it) that ITL things don't change with a Scholae Scantinarum!
In my opinion, the evolution of Scandinavian society is also influenced by the economic crisis that occurred in those parts in the 5th century, due to climate change and the collapse of trade with the Roman Empire... Probably, in a Christianized Scandinavia ., more urbanized and relatively wealthy, the Viking epic will be different
Moving on to another topic: @Acamapichtli in your opinion, could a Hunnic state that continues to exist, Christianized and with a greater presence of Roman immigrants, have an evolution similar to that of the Magyars?
In my opinion, yes, they could develop similarly to the Magyars (or even the Bulgars) did OTL. Although Roman presence in such a Hunnic state may accelerate it, Christianization would take at least a century. For instance, the First Bulgarian Empire was established in 681, and Christianity was officially adopted in 864.
34 De Civitate Dei
34 De Civitate Dei
I don't know if it's true, but they say that in China, if you really hate someone, you curse them like this: [1]
May you live in interesting times! [2]
The Roman citizens of the 5th century were, despite themselves, forced to live in interesting times... In a few years they had seen the unimaginable for previous generations: the limes violated, with thousands of barbarians who had settled in the imperial territories, Rome, symbol of culture and order and the safety of living in the civilized world, had been put to the sword and fire (the fact that it wasn't exactly like that and that Alaric's was more a mafia extortion against the senatorial class than actual looting made little difference in the eyes of the imperial subjects). Probably, their feelings could be well described by a poem by Yeats, [3] entitled The Second Coming
Things fall apart, the center can't hold.
Pure anarchy spreads across the world
The bloody tide rises everywhere
The ceremony of innocence drowned.
Yet, in a few years, things change again: the new arrivals integrate into the imperial system, so much so that the leader of the barbarians becomes the father of the next emperor. The winters are longer, the summers warmer and shorter, the rains have decreased and the fields are less productive, yet human ingenuity does not give up, experimenting with new crops and new tools for working the land. Epidemics come and go, but life goes on.
How to interpret these events? The temptation to hypothesize that History makes no sense, a succession of random events unrelated to each other, appears in daily reflection, denying the idea that the Universe, created by God, responds to an immanent order. This thought torments a theologian, in the Province of Africa, tormented by the economic crisis and the war against the Moors, called Augustinus. In 410 in his episcopal see of Hippona, elderly and in poor health, when the terrible news of the sacking of Rome reached him. The reflection on these dramatic events is at the origins of De Civitate Dei, his masterpiece to the composition of which he dedicated thirteen years of his life, interspersed with his controversy on Grace with Pelagius
Let's remember his famous incipit [4]
Meanwhile, Rome was put to fire and sword with the invasion of the Goths who militated under King Alaric; the occupation caused an enormous disaster. The worshipers of the many false gods, who with a name in use we call pagans, attempted to attribute the disaster to the Christian religion and began to insult the true God with greater acrimony and insolence than usual. For this reason I, burning with the zeal of the house of God, have decided to write the books of The City of God against these insults because they are errors. The work kept me busy for many years. Other commitments stood in the way that it was not appropriate to postpone and which required an immediate solution from me.
Finally this great work, De Civitate Dei, was completed in twenty-two books. The first five refute those who want human affairs to be so prosperous that they consider it necessary to worship the many gods that pagans used to worship. They therefore maintain that these misfortunes occur in large numbers following the prohibition of polytheistic worship. The other five contain the refutation of those who they admit that there has never been a shortage of disasters and there will never be a shortage of disasters among men and that they, now large, now small, vary according to places, times and people. They argue, however, that polytheism and related sacral practices are useful for the life that comes after death. The next five books contain the refutation of what I consider to be the most pernicious opinion: the fact that God does not exist and if he exists, as the followers of Epicurus claim, he is indifferent to human affairs. With these ten fifteen books, therefore, these three unfounded opinions contrary to the Christian religion are rejected. Someone could reply that we had refuted the errors of others without affirming our truths
If Augustinus uses the traditional arguments of apologetics to argue against pagans, to refute those who deny the meaning of History, he carries forward a reasoning that creatively re-elaborates the Platonic tradition. In particular, the theologian asks himself two questions: if the world is a meaningless reality, why does Man, instead of living like a beast, in a state of nature, strive to build an orderly and just society? At the same time, if Pelagius, his black beast, is right, if Original Sin has no impact on the human intellect and his ability to discern good from evil, why is this attempt always a failure? [5]
The answer he gives to these dilemmas is in line with all his previous reflections. Man, due to Adam's fault, alone is unable, even in the political and social sphere, to know and realize Good and Justice. If Man were to rely on his strength alone, the State would be nothing more than a band of bandits, as highlighted in a famous quote
If justice is not respected, what are states if not great gangs of thieves? Because even the gangs of brigands, what are they if not small states? It is still a group of individuals that is governed by the command of a leader, is bound by a social pact and the spoils are divided according to the law of the convention. If the evil band increases with the addition of perverse men so much so that it possesses territories, establishes residences, occupies cities, subjugates peoples, it more openly assumes the name of State which is now granted to it in the reality of the facts not from the reduction of the ambition to possess but from greater security in impunity. With finesse and truth at the same time, a captured pirate responded in this sense to Alexander the Great. The king asked him what idea had come into his head to infest the sea. And he with frank bravado: "The same as you for infesting the whole world; but I am considered a pirate because I do it with a small ship, you a leader because you do it with a large fleet. [6]
This does not happen, because God exists who is the Supreme Good and the Supreme Justice, which Augustinus defines as follows
The supreme good, above which there is nothing, is God; therefore it is an immutable good, that is, truly eternal and truly immortal. All other goods are solely from that, but are not part of that. What is part of that is identified with it, while what has been done starting from that is not identified with it. If therefore he alone is immutable, everything he has done, having done it from nothing, can change. In fact, his omnipotence is such that he can create from nothing, that is, from absolute non-being, goods, large and small, celestial and earthly, spiritual and corporeal. And due to his justice he did not equate things made from nothing to what he generated as part of himself. Therefore, since all goods, both large and small, in the various degrees of reality, cannot exist except from God, and since every nature, as such, is a good, every nature cannot exist except from starting from the supreme and true God: in fact, all goods, even if not supreme, but still close to the supreme good, and all goods, even the extreme ones, distant from the supreme good, cannot exist except starting from the same very good. Therefore every spirit, even a mutable one, and every body depend on God: this is the condition of every created nature. Every nature, in fact, is spirit or body. God is immutable spirit. The mutable spirit is a created nature, but superior to the body. The body, however, is not spirit, with the exception of the wind, in a certain sense called spirit, because it is invisible to us, even though its strength is not slight. [7]
Supreme Good which, through Saving and Vivifying Grace, enlightens Man so that he can build his society as an imperfect mirror of the Celestial Jerusalem, which is the Platonic Idea of the City: politics thus becomes an instrument for realizing the Kingdom of God on Earth, objective always present in the heart of Man, but never achieved, because as the theologian specifies
In this life of ours, dear brothers, we are on a journey like pilgrims, far from the heavenly Jerusalem which is the homeland of the saints: the apostle Paul teaches us this clearly: As long as we live in the body, we are pilgrims, far from the Lord. And since every pilgrim undoubtedly has a homeland, we must know which is the homeland towards which we must hasten, putting aside the allurements and pleasures of this life, towards which we are headed and in which alone we can find rest. God has arranged that we should not have true quiet elsewhere because, if we had quiet here too, we would have no desire to return there. He says our homeland is the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly one which - as the Apostle still teaches - is a slave together with all its children: it was given as a sign of the future revelation to carnal men who in it adore the only God, to but they still ask for earthly happiness. But there is the other Jerusalem, which the Apostle says is located in heaven: The Jerusalem above is our mother. It is called mother as a metropolis, which precisely means mother-city. Therefore we must hurry towards it, knowing full well that we are pilgrims and still on the journey. [8]
The next step of Augustinian reflection is almost immediate: then, if it is divine Grace it is what allows Man to give birth to civil society and politics, how is it possible that even pagans, as in Athens and ancient Rome can they create an orderly state, despite all its limitations linked to original sin? To respond to this dilemma, Agostinus takes a position, which in concrete terms brings him closer to Pelagius. God, being infinite Good and Supreme Love, bestows His Grace on every Man. A pagan will receive it in a lesser way than a Jew, and a Jew in a lesser way than a Christian, who lives in the fullness of truth and faith. In a famous passage, Augustinus writes
Even among the inhabitants of Babylon there are people who are committed to peace and the good of the community, even though they do not share the biblical faith, that is, they do not know the hope of the Eternal City to which we aspire. They carry within them a spark of desire for the unknown, for the greater, for the transcendent, for true Redemption. Even among the persecutors, among the non-believers, there are people with this spark, with a kind of faith, of hope, as much as is possible in the circumstances in which they live. With this faith even in an unknown reality, they are truly on their way towards the true Jerusalem, towards Christ.
They do not know Christ, nor God, and yet they desire the unknown, the eternal. Men who, moved by love for Babylon, work hard to guarantee its peace, harboring no other hope in their hearts, rather placing all their joy in this, without promising themselves anything else. And we see them making every effort to make themselves useful to earthly society. Now, if they work with a pure conscience in these tasks, God will not allow them to perish with Babylon, having predestined them to be citizens of Jerusalem: provided, however, that, living in Babylon, they do not aspire to its pride, fleeting pomp and irritability. arrogance... He sees their subservience and will show them that other city, towards which they must truly sigh and direct all their efforts [9]
Precisely through this universal Grace and not through Ethics, as supported by Pelagius, every man, Christian, Jew or pagan, can reach Salvation. History, therefore, is not chaos, but the instrument with which God, through grace, acts for the Salvation of Humanity and pushes it to build a society ever closer to that unattainable model which is the Celestial Jerusalem. God acts in history, as he acts in the lives of men, even if his action is discreet and invisible to most. Everything that exists and happens in the world has a cause and a meaning. “Nothing – says Augustinus – happens by chance in the world”. Everything is Providence. Providence is the action of God in history. Nothing happens that God does not want or allow. Everything that happens in the world happens only for the good of souls subject to the will of God, who through daily action try to bring Good out of physical and moral evil.
Theological theses which paradoxically will be ignored in the immediate future, but which will have disruptive effects in the evolution of the different variants of Christianity. [10]
[1] I understand that for many it may seem like a boring post, but it is also interesting to understand how different contingent situations can change ideas and philosophical reflections
[2] Honestly, I never understood if it was an urban legend
[3] Yes Yeats will also be there in this world
[4] As can be understood from the incipit, the book will be different both in content and length
[5] Yes, Pelagius, whether you like it or not, continue to persecute Augustinus!
[6] Quote also present in the OTL version of De Civitate Dei
[7] Citation that OTL is instead in another Augustinian work, De Sommo Bene
[8] Citation that OTL is instead in another Augustinian work, Commentary on the Psalter
[9] Let's say I heavily modified the original quote
[10] Yes, there will be many butterflies in the future
Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the survey for the Best Ancient Timeline !
I don't know if it's true, but they say that in China, if you really hate someone, you curse them like this: [1]
May you live in interesting times! [2]
The Roman citizens of the 5th century were, despite themselves, forced to live in interesting times... In a few years they had seen the unimaginable for previous generations: the limes violated, with thousands of barbarians who had settled in the imperial territories, Rome, symbol of culture and order and the safety of living in the civilized world, had been put to the sword and fire (the fact that it wasn't exactly like that and that Alaric's was more a mafia extortion against the senatorial class than actual looting made little difference in the eyes of the imperial subjects). Probably, their feelings could be well described by a poem by Yeats, [3] entitled The Second Coming
Things fall apart, the center can't hold.
Pure anarchy spreads across the world
The bloody tide rises everywhere
The ceremony of innocence drowned.
Yet, in a few years, things change again: the new arrivals integrate into the imperial system, so much so that the leader of the barbarians becomes the father of the next emperor. The winters are longer, the summers warmer and shorter, the rains have decreased and the fields are less productive, yet human ingenuity does not give up, experimenting with new crops and new tools for working the land. Epidemics come and go, but life goes on.
How to interpret these events? The temptation to hypothesize that History makes no sense, a succession of random events unrelated to each other, appears in daily reflection, denying the idea that the Universe, created by God, responds to an immanent order. This thought torments a theologian, in the Province of Africa, tormented by the economic crisis and the war against the Moors, called Augustinus. In 410 in his episcopal see of Hippona, elderly and in poor health, when the terrible news of the sacking of Rome reached him. The reflection on these dramatic events is at the origins of De Civitate Dei, his masterpiece to the composition of which he dedicated thirteen years of his life, interspersed with his controversy on Grace with Pelagius
Let's remember his famous incipit [4]
Meanwhile, Rome was put to fire and sword with the invasion of the Goths who militated under King Alaric; the occupation caused an enormous disaster. The worshipers of the many false gods, who with a name in use we call pagans, attempted to attribute the disaster to the Christian religion and began to insult the true God with greater acrimony and insolence than usual. For this reason I, burning with the zeal of the house of God, have decided to write the books of The City of God against these insults because they are errors. The work kept me busy for many years. Other commitments stood in the way that it was not appropriate to postpone and which required an immediate solution from me.
Finally this great work, De Civitate Dei, was completed in twenty-two books. The first five refute those who want human affairs to be so prosperous that they consider it necessary to worship the many gods that pagans used to worship. They therefore maintain that these misfortunes occur in large numbers following the prohibition of polytheistic worship. The other five contain the refutation of those who they admit that there has never been a shortage of disasters and there will never be a shortage of disasters among men and that they, now large, now small, vary according to places, times and people. They argue, however, that polytheism and related sacral practices are useful for the life that comes after death. The next five books contain the refutation of what I consider to be the most pernicious opinion: the fact that God does not exist and if he exists, as the followers of Epicurus claim, he is indifferent to human affairs. With these ten fifteen books, therefore, these three unfounded opinions contrary to the Christian religion are rejected. Someone could reply that we had refuted the errors of others without affirming our truths
If Augustinus uses the traditional arguments of apologetics to argue against pagans, to refute those who deny the meaning of History, he carries forward a reasoning that creatively re-elaborates the Platonic tradition. In particular, the theologian asks himself two questions: if the world is a meaningless reality, why does Man, instead of living like a beast, in a state of nature, strive to build an orderly and just society? At the same time, if Pelagius, his black beast, is right, if Original Sin has no impact on the human intellect and his ability to discern good from evil, why is this attempt always a failure? [5]
The answer he gives to these dilemmas is in line with all his previous reflections. Man, due to Adam's fault, alone is unable, even in the political and social sphere, to know and realize Good and Justice. If Man were to rely on his strength alone, the State would be nothing more than a band of bandits, as highlighted in a famous quote
If justice is not respected, what are states if not great gangs of thieves? Because even the gangs of brigands, what are they if not small states? It is still a group of individuals that is governed by the command of a leader, is bound by a social pact and the spoils are divided according to the law of the convention. If the evil band increases with the addition of perverse men so much so that it possesses territories, establishes residences, occupies cities, subjugates peoples, it more openly assumes the name of State which is now granted to it in the reality of the facts not from the reduction of the ambition to possess but from greater security in impunity. With finesse and truth at the same time, a captured pirate responded in this sense to Alexander the Great. The king asked him what idea had come into his head to infest the sea. And he with frank bravado: "The same as you for infesting the whole world; but I am considered a pirate because I do it with a small ship, you a leader because you do it with a large fleet. [6]
This does not happen, because God exists who is the Supreme Good and the Supreme Justice, which Augustinus defines as follows
The supreme good, above which there is nothing, is God; therefore it is an immutable good, that is, truly eternal and truly immortal. All other goods are solely from that, but are not part of that. What is part of that is identified with it, while what has been done starting from that is not identified with it. If therefore he alone is immutable, everything he has done, having done it from nothing, can change. In fact, his omnipotence is such that he can create from nothing, that is, from absolute non-being, goods, large and small, celestial and earthly, spiritual and corporeal. And due to his justice he did not equate things made from nothing to what he generated as part of himself. Therefore, since all goods, both large and small, in the various degrees of reality, cannot exist except from God, and since every nature, as such, is a good, every nature cannot exist except from starting from the supreme and true God: in fact, all goods, even if not supreme, but still close to the supreme good, and all goods, even the extreme ones, distant from the supreme good, cannot exist except starting from the same very good. Therefore every spirit, even a mutable one, and every body depend on God: this is the condition of every created nature. Every nature, in fact, is spirit or body. God is immutable spirit. The mutable spirit is a created nature, but superior to the body. The body, however, is not spirit, with the exception of the wind, in a certain sense called spirit, because it is invisible to us, even though its strength is not slight. [7]
Supreme Good which, through Saving and Vivifying Grace, enlightens Man so that he can build his society as an imperfect mirror of the Celestial Jerusalem, which is the Platonic Idea of the City: politics thus becomes an instrument for realizing the Kingdom of God on Earth, objective always present in the heart of Man, but never achieved, because as the theologian specifies
In this life of ours, dear brothers, we are on a journey like pilgrims, far from the heavenly Jerusalem which is the homeland of the saints: the apostle Paul teaches us this clearly: As long as we live in the body, we are pilgrims, far from the Lord. And since every pilgrim undoubtedly has a homeland, we must know which is the homeland towards which we must hasten, putting aside the allurements and pleasures of this life, towards which we are headed and in which alone we can find rest. God has arranged that we should not have true quiet elsewhere because, if we had quiet here too, we would have no desire to return there. He says our homeland is the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly one which - as the Apostle still teaches - is a slave together with all its children: it was given as a sign of the future revelation to carnal men who in it adore the only God, to but they still ask for earthly happiness. But there is the other Jerusalem, which the Apostle says is located in heaven: The Jerusalem above is our mother. It is called mother as a metropolis, which precisely means mother-city. Therefore we must hurry towards it, knowing full well that we are pilgrims and still on the journey. [8]
The next step of Augustinian reflection is almost immediate: then, if it is divine Grace it is what allows Man to give birth to civil society and politics, how is it possible that even pagans, as in Athens and ancient Rome can they create an orderly state, despite all its limitations linked to original sin? To respond to this dilemma, Agostinus takes a position, which in concrete terms brings him closer to Pelagius. God, being infinite Good and Supreme Love, bestows His Grace on every Man. A pagan will receive it in a lesser way than a Jew, and a Jew in a lesser way than a Christian, who lives in the fullness of truth and faith. In a famous passage, Augustinus writes
Even among the inhabitants of Babylon there are people who are committed to peace and the good of the community, even though they do not share the biblical faith, that is, they do not know the hope of the Eternal City to which we aspire. They carry within them a spark of desire for the unknown, for the greater, for the transcendent, for true Redemption. Even among the persecutors, among the non-believers, there are people with this spark, with a kind of faith, of hope, as much as is possible in the circumstances in which they live. With this faith even in an unknown reality, they are truly on their way towards the true Jerusalem, towards Christ.
They do not know Christ, nor God, and yet they desire the unknown, the eternal. Men who, moved by love for Babylon, work hard to guarantee its peace, harboring no other hope in their hearts, rather placing all their joy in this, without promising themselves anything else. And we see them making every effort to make themselves useful to earthly society. Now, if they work with a pure conscience in these tasks, God will not allow them to perish with Babylon, having predestined them to be citizens of Jerusalem: provided, however, that, living in Babylon, they do not aspire to its pride, fleeting pomp and irritability. arrogance... He sees their subservience and will show them that other city, towards which they must truly sigh and direct all their efforts [9]
Precisely through this universal Grace and not through Ethics, as supported by Pelagius, every man, Christian, Jew or pagan, can reach Salvation. History, therefore, is not chaos, but the instrument with which God, through grace, acts for the Salvation of Humanity and pushes it to build a society ever closer to that unattainable model which is the Celestial Jerusalem. God acts in history, as he acts in the lives of men, even if his action is discreet and invisible to most. Everything that exists and happens in the world has a cause and a meaning. “Nothing – says Augustinus – happens by chance in the world”. Everything is Providence. Providence is the action of God in history. Nothing happens that God does not want or allow. Everything that happens in the world happens only for the good of souls subject to the will of God, who through daily action try to bring Good out of physical and moral evil.
Theological theses which paradoxically will be ignored in the immediate future, but which will have disruptive effects in the evolution of the different variants of Christianity. [10]
[1] I understand that for many it may seem like a boring post, but it is also interesting to understand how different contingent situations can change ideas and philosophical reflections
[2] Honestly, I never understood if it was an urban legend
[3] Yes Yeats will also be there in this world
[4] As can be understood from the incipit, the book will be different both in content and length
[5] Yes, Pelagius, whether you like it or not, continue to persecute Augustinus!
[6] Quote also present in the OTL version of De Civitate Dei
[7] Citation that OTL is instead in another Augustinian work, De Sommo Bene
[8] Citation that OTL is instead in another Augustinian work, Commentary on the Psalter
[9] Let's say I heavily modified the original quote
[10] Yes, there will be many butterflies in the future
Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the survey for the Best Ancient Timeline !
Where are my men killing each other with sticks and stones? I thought that was the sum total of human history?
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Methinks the future of Christianity in TTL (say a little over an millennium from current point in story) is less likely to be influenced by such concepts as “the Sovereign Elect”.
36 The Empire is founded on Law
36 The Empire is founded on Law
As highlighted other times, if Honorius was a strongly accentuating personality obsessed with micro management, he was in fact one of the emperors who legislated the most, addressing the disparate aspects of daily life, Galla Placidia was very different. Unlike her half-brother, she had enough trust in her collaborators to know how to delegate and possessed the ability to abstract from the contingent, focusing more on general principles than on specific details.
Precisely this aspect of her character pushed Galla Placidia, rather than to promulgate new laws and decretalia, to want to rationalize and systematize existing Roman law, with the support of the Quaestor sacri palatii Paolinus of Pella. Galla Placidia's objective was therefore to clarify the contradictions due to the large number of legal provisions issued by the imperial courts over the course of four centuries, which included the imperial decrees, called costitutiones, which were the result of judicial decisions taken directly by the emperor or by magistrates in his name and the rescripti, the imperial responses to individual petitions. [1]
The opportunity to publicly enunciate this reform program occurred in May 426, when the Roman Senate, on the proposal of Anicius Probus, doubled the chairs dedicated to the teaching of imperial laws and statutes in Hadrian's Auditoria. On May 23, Galla Placidia, to support this initiative, issued the so-called Privilegius Romanus in which, in addition to providing imperial patronage to the chairs of law
Galla Placidia took the opportunity and in early September went to visit Rome: according to Anicius Severus, it was the very young Theodosius who delivered the inaugural oration. Thanks to the Roman historian's account, a couple of honorary inscriptions found in the Auditoria and the fragments of the acta senatorum found in recent years, we have a fairly precise idea of the contents of this speech, probably written by Paolinus of Pella.
In the first part of the speech, Theodosius exposed a series of reforms that the regency is introducing, regarding testamentary law, guaranteeing for example the right of widows to inherit their children's assets in the event of their death, donations, transfers of property and something that was becoming current again due to the Suebi trade, on the protection of slaves and on their emancipation procedure. In the second part, however, two general principles were enunciated which will have an enormous impact on the future evolution of Roman Law. The first is the so-called citation principle, which sought to clarify which legal authorities took precedence over others and how any discrepancies between these authorities should be resolved.
In particular, Theodosius stated how the opinions of Papinianus, Gaius, Ulpianus, Modestinus and Paolus, jurists who lived between the 1st and 2nd centuries, could be cited as procedural sources and in case of contradictions, the opinion of Papinianus should prevail. Declaration, which in the following years would have a series of impacts in the field of law: the first concerned the formalization of the process through which the judge decided on disputes. [4]
In his decisions, the judge had to abide by the opinion of the five jurists when agreement emerged between them; if the opinions among the jurists were discordant, the judge should have followed the majority criterion, applying the opinion expressed on the topic by the majority of the five jurists; had there been a tie, Papinianus' opinion would have prevailed. If Papinianus had not addressed the issue, the judge was free to decide according to his own will, then communicating his decision to the Imperial Court, so that it could be traced and set a precedent for similar decisions.
If this standardized the decision-making process, reducing the margins of arbitrariness on the part of the judges, it also led to the need to have handbooks to support the trials, which could be consulted by the judges and which, for the most common legal cases, collected the aforementioned opinions , the so-called Iura. The first to be compiled, between 425 and 438, are the Romanae Sententiae, certified by the professors of Hadrian's Auditoria, so that no one could interpolate or invent the opinions of the jurists
At the same time, the problem arose was that the social conditions of the 4th century were very different from those of the 2nd century: therefore, the decisions of these jurists had to be contextualized and adapted to a new reality: this task was carried out by a new category of legal manuals, the so-called Commentaria, which began to be compiled first in Hispania, then in Gaul, due to the need to deal with the legislators. The second principle stated how the law should be common to the Emperor and the common people: the Emperor, according to Theodosius, should not be a sovereign absolutus, above the law, but he had to respect it.
In the meantime, the funds promised by the Suebi were starting to arrive in Ravenna, both as loans and as a marriage dowry: which, in addition to restoring the imperial coffers, in difficulty since the death of Honorius, made it possible to finance Bonifacius' Campania in Africa , and in Galla Placidia to dedicate himself to his favorite passion, construction. In fact, at the end of October 426, Augusta gave the order, always with a view to promoting her identification as the new Helen, mother of Theodosius, the new Constantinus who would bring the Empire back to glory and prosperity, to build in Ravenna a basilica dedicated to the Holy Cross, also to try to propose the image of the city, capital by chance and unwillingly, as the heir of Rome
At the same time, given the origins and preferences of the imperial family, architects and workers from Mediolanum were used for the construction of this church. As evidence of this, in addition to the construction technique, bricks alternating with layers of mortar, the Latin cross plan, which in addition to recalling the title, referred to the Basilica apostolorum and the Basilica virginum of Mediolanum. The church has a single nave 11 meters wide, with a large transept arranged in a north-south direction and a narthex; a singular characteristic of the plan is that it is not strictly rectilinear, with non-orthogonal junction angles and with the end parts of the transepts distorted; this depends on the fact that in the construction, the foundations of a previous domus were used, abandoned in the 3rd century, which in the following centuries caused numerous collapses and restorations, which partially altered the original architecture [5]
Other Milanese characteristics are the two porticoes, 4 meters wide, which ran parallel to the central nave, supported by two rows of columns that went from each transept to the narthex, the lack of naves and the decoration of the external walls decorated with pilasters and blind arches, while the presence of the narthex recalls the churches that Galla Placidia had admired on her visit to Constantinople. On the sides of the narthex there are two chapels, also in the shape of a cross, which similarly to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, act as a chapel of relics and as a baptistery.
If the floor of the porticoes is decorated with geometric and vegetal figures, the interior of the church was decorated with opus sectile panels, decorated with a motif of hexagons and triangles, with an effect of starry triangles and with a motif of hexagons, squares and triangles , in both cases rendered with two different modules. The black is obtained with slabs of antique black, the light colors from different types of marble, some also coloured. The remains of the internal mosaics, if in the apse recall apocalyptic themes, with the four living people praising the trisághion, and the 'imperial' image of Christ in the act of trampling the symbols of evil, more original are the three original mosaics which are remained, which represent Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai, King David and King Solomon, almost a reference to the legal interests of the court of Ravenna of that period.
[1] Very similar to what happens OTL
[2] The magistrate's secretary
[3] Decision that OLT will be made by Theodosius II in Constantinople
[4] OTL version of the Law on Citations
[5] Information taken from recent excavation reports
As highlighted other times, if Honorius was a strongly accentuating personality obsessed with micro management, he was in fact one of the emperors who legislated the most, addressing the disparate aspects of daily life, Galla Placidia was very different. Unlike her half-brother, she had enough trust in her collaborators to know how to delegate and possessed the ability to abstract from the contingent, focusing more on general principles than on specific details.
Precisely this aspect of her character pushed Galla Placidia, rather than to promulgate new laws and decretalia, to want to rationalize and systematize existing Roman law, with the support of the Quaestor sacri palatii Paolinus of Pella. Galla Placidia's objective was therefore to clarify the contradictions due to the large number of legal provisions issued by the imperial courts over the course of four centuries, which included the imperial decrees, called costitutiones, which were the result of judicial decisions taken directly by the emperor or by magistrates in his name and the rescripti, the imperial responses to individual petitions. [1]
The opportunity to publicly enunciate this reform program occurred in May 426, when the Roman Senate, on the proposal of Anicius Probus, doubled the chairs dedicated to the teaching of imperial laws and statutes in Hadrian's Auditoria. On May 23, Galla Placidia, to support this initiative, issued the so-called Privilegius Romanus in which, in addition to providing imperial patronage to the chairs of law
- To carry out the function of advocatus and absessor, [2] was mandatory to attend schools recognized by the imperial court in the provincial capitals, thus eliminating any recognition of the training provided by private law teachers.
- To obtain the function of magistrate and to make a career in the imperial bureaucracy, he was obliged to attend the chairs of law in Rome
- The professors of the Roman chairs of law were equal in status to provincial governors. [3]
- It established the training course, salaries and requirements to become a law professor recognized by the Empire
- It allowed access to legal training not only to Roman citizens, but also to foederati, decision taken at Athausf's suggestion, to promote integration between the different peoples of the Empire
Galla Placidia took the opportunity and in early September went to visit Rome: according to Anicius Severus, it was the very young Theodosius who delivered the inaugural oration. Thanks to the Roman historian's account, a couple of honorary inscriptions found in the Auditoria and the fragments of the acta senatorum found in recent years, we have a fairly precise idea of the contents of this speech, probably written by Paolinus of Pella.
In the first part of the speech, Theodosius exposed a series of reforms that the regency is introducing, regarding testamentary law, guaranteeing for example the right of widows to inherit their children's assets in the event of their death, donations, transfers of property and something that was becoming current again due to the Suebi trade, on the protection of slaves and on their emancipation procedure. In the second part, however, two general principles were enunciated which will have an enormous impact on the future evolution of Roman Law. The first is the so-called citation principle, which sought to clarify which legal authorities took precedence over others and how any discrepancies between these authorities should be resolved.
In particular, Theodosius stated how the opinions of Papinianus, Gaius, Ulpianus, Modestinus and Paolus, jurists who lived between the 1st and 2nd centuries, could be cited as procedural sources and in case of contradictions, the opinion of Papinianus should prevail. Declaration, which in the following years would have a series of impacts in the field of law: the first concerned the formalization of the process through which the judge decided on disputes. [4]
In his decisions, the judge had to abide by the opinion of the five jurists when agreement emerged between them; if the opinions among the jurists were discordant, the judge should have followed the majority criterion, applying the opinion expressed on the topic by the majority of the five jurists; had there been a tie, Papinianus' opinion would have prevailed. If Papinianus had not addressed the issue, the judge was free to decide according to his own will, then communicating his decision to the Imperial Court, so that it could be traced and set a precedent for similar decisions.
If this standardized the decision-making process, reducing the margins of arbitrariness on the part of the judges, it also led to the need to have handbooks to support the trials, which could be consulted by the judges and which, for the most common legal cases, collected the aforementioned opinions , the so-called Iura. The first to be compiled, between 425 and 438, are the Romanae Sententiae, certified by the professors of Hadrian's Auditoria, so that no one could interpolate or invent the opinions of the jurists
At the same time, the problem arose was that the social conditions of the 4th century were very different from those of the 2nd century: therefore, the decisions of these jurists had to be contextualized and adapted to a new reality: this task was carried out by a new category of legal manuals, the so-called Commentaria, which began to be compiled first in Hispania, then in Gaul, due to the need to deal with the legislators. The second principle stated how the law should be common to the Emperor and the common people: the Emperor, according to Theodosius, should not be a sovereign absolutus, above the law, but he had to respect it.
In the meantime, the funds promised by the Suebi were starting to arrive in Ravenna, both as loans and as a marriage dowry: which, in addition to restoring the imperial coffers, in difficulty since the death of Honorius, made it possible to finance Bonifacius' Campania in Africa , and in Galla Placidia to dedicate himself to his favorite passion, construction. In fact, at the end of October 426, Augusta gave the order, always with a view to promoting her identification as the new Helen, mother of Theodosius, the new Constantinus who would bring the Empire back to glory and prosperity, to build in Ravenna a basilica dedicated to the Holy Cross, also to try to propose the image of the city, capital by chance and unwillingly, as the heir of Rome
At the same time, given the origins and preferences of the imperial family, architects and workers from Mediolanum were used for the construction of this church. As evidence of this, in addition to the construction technique, bricks alternating with layers of mortar, the Latin cross plan, which in addition to recalling the title, referred to the Basilica apostolorum and the Basilica virginum of Mediolanum. The church has a single nave 11 meters wide, with a large transept arranged in a north-south direction and a narthex; a singular characteristic of the plan is that it is not strictly rectilinear, with non-orthogonal junction angles and with the end parts of the transepts distorted; this depends on the fact that in the construction, the foundations of a previous domus were used, abandoned in the 3rd century, which in the following centuries caused numerous collapses and restorations, which partially altered the original architecture [5]
Other Milanese characteristics are the two porticoes, 4 meters wide, which ran parallel to the central nave, supported by two rows of columns that went from each transept to the narthex, the lack of naves and the decoration of the external walls decorated with pilasters and blind arches, while the presence of the narthex recalls the churches that Galla Placidia had admired on her visit to Constantinople. On the sides of the narthex there are two chapels, also in the shape of a cross, which similarly to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, act as a chapel of relics and as a baptistery.
If the floor of the porticoes is decorated with geometric and vegetal figures, the interior of the church was decorated with opus sectile panels, decorated with a motif of hexagons and triangles, with an effect of starry triangles and with a motif of hexagons, squares and triangles , in both cases rendered with two different modules. The black is obtained with slabs of antique black, the light colors from different types of marble, some also coloured. The remains of the internal mosaics, if in the apse recall apocalyptic themes, with the four living people praising the trisághion, and the 'imperial' image of Christ in the act of trampling the symbols of evil, more original are the three original mosaics which are remained, which represent Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai, King David and King Solomon, almost a reference to the legal interests of the court of Ravenna of that period.
[1] Very similar to what happens OTL
[2] The magistrate's secretary
[3] Decision that OLT will be made by Theodosius II in Constantinople
[4] OTL version of the Law on Citations
[5] Information taken from recent excavation reports
We can thank Galla for naming her son Theodosius as it ensures that the codex won’t change its name, even if comes from the west instead of the east.
I’m actually more interested in the reforms of the legal profession. It doesn’t just take another step towards the professionalisation of the legal profession, but it ensures that the well-off have reasons to stay in the cities which would keep them afloat.
Same with the requirement for government officials to study in Rome, the centre of the empire (if not necessarily the capital). Young ambitious men from the provinces will travel down to Rome and return as officials, strengthening the ties between imperial centre and outlying provinces. This, in addition to the pacification of the empire and the expanding trade routes, will likely stimulate the private movement within the state, further revitalising it.
I’m actually more interested in the reforms of the legal profession. It doesn’t just take another step towards the professionalisation of the legal profession, but it ensures that the well-off have reasons to stay in the cities which would keep them afloat.
Same with the requirement for government officials to study in Rome, the centre of the empire (if not necessarily the capital). Young ambitious men from the provinces will travel down to Rome and return as officials, strengthening the ties between imperial centre and outlying provinces. This, in addition to the pacification of the empire and the expanding trade routes, will likely stimulate the private movement within the state, further revitalising it.
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Well is very good if the West would begin a century before OTL the reform and the reclassification of Roman jurisprudence - it also shows how the court and the government are much more stable and therefore the Pars Occidentalis than in our timeline. Also it makes sense Rome would become or better relaunch itself as legalistic center, it would give an additional boost to its full recovery and economy even if isn't anymore the permanent capital.
However as long the Ravenna-Milan-Rome urban balance works well for Italy, I suppose it can work for a while still, albeit still I am curious which other Italian and Imperial cities will emerge or consolidate in the next decades.
And well, Augustine is already way more lucky than OTL and he won't die while his bishopric would be sieged, but giving the stronger exchanges between Rome and Constantinople TTL, maybe the Filioque issue could be handled, imagine if he would receive a message from Galla Placidia essentially saying "you made a linguistic mistake, study better Greek"...
However as long the Ravenna-Milan-Rome urban balance works well for Italy, I suppose it can work for a while still, albeit still I am curious which other Italian and Imperial cities will emerge or consolidate in the next decades.
And well, Augustine is already way more lucky than OTL and he won't die while his bishopric would be sieged, but giving the stronger exchanges between Rome and Constantinople TTL, maybe the Filioque issue could be handled, imagine if he would receive a message from Galla Placidia essentially saying "you made a linguistic mistake, study better Greek"...
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37 Peace in Africa
37 Peace in Africa
The Suebi gold, in addition to giving Galla Placidia the opportunity to return to dedicating herself to her passion for construction, allowed the Empire to finally close the story of the war against the Mauri in Africa. First, funds were sent to pay for Comes Bonifacius's African army; despite the efforts of Anicius Petronius Maximus, who had taxed the possible and the impossible and despite his proverbial greed, which Anicius Severus, giving rise to family rivalries, had compared to that of Licinius Crassus, he had not enriched himself unduly, the funds they were starting to run out, the soldiers' pay was late and despite the efforts of the Comes Bonifacius, the militias, also due to the long and tiring war, were on the verge of mutiny.
The arrival of the money from Ravenna was welcomed by the African army, to use a metaphor from Cassiodorus,
"like rain from farmers after the long summer drought"
Added to this was Flavius Castinus' decision to send reinforcements to Africa: despite Athaulf's willingness to send a Goth contingent to help the Comes Bonifacius, the Magister Praesentialis was aware, from Flavius Aetius' reports, of the precarious situation in Gaul; to avoid triggering a new revolt in Aquitaine, something the Empire did not need, Flavius Castinus thanked the Augustus Consort and looked for an alternative solution. He organized a relief army with the five auxilia palatina of the Vandals, integrated by a contingent of Alan cavalry , who, unlike the Goths, were very enthusiastic about fighting outside Gaul, under the command of Flavius Galliones, who had been Comes tractus Argentoratensis [1] and who, despite having retired to private life a year ago, was esteemed by Flavius Castinus and Flavius Aetius as a prudent and expert officer. Another decision of the Magister Prasentialis was to aggregate the Scandinavian mercenaries into the Schola Scantinaviarum, [2] a unit that will have a long history in the imperial army, placed under the command of Suaxes, who according to what Anicius Severus says, belonged to the gens iutorum.[3]
The command of the expedition was entrusted to Flavius Egnatius Mavortius,[4] a man with an adventurous life: he had fought in Hispania, he had been Comes litoris Saxonici for Britannias, he had fought against the Saxon pirates, signed a peace treaty with the Picts which had given a minimum of breath to the newly recovered province of Britain, he had learned, in his role, the rudiments of the Scandinavian language and had accompanied Flavius Aetius on his embassy to Rua.
According to Cassiodorus' story, Mavortius had recounted his events in a sort of autobiography, unfortunately lost: Anicius Severus also tells us how the general was also a protector of culture, having edited an edition of the poems of Propertius and Catullus. To complement his complex personality, he was also known for his religious piety, so much so that in his old age he became the bishop of Puteoli and was venerated by popular piety as a saint. [5]
The arrival of these varied reinforcements at the end of March 427 convinced Comes Bonifacius to launch his final offensive against the Mauri, whose main army, to overcome the lack of water, was camped in Libya near of the Cynips river, [6] which from the sources of Mount Gyri flowed near Leptis Magna, a city that Petronius Maximus was trying to relaunch economically, building a new port, to replace the one silted up due to poor maintenance in the 4th century. [7]
For once, Anicius Severus is not short of information on these events, probably using Mavortius' story as a primary source. For centuries, however, the incipit of that chapter of that chapter of the Res Gestae Getarum perplexed scholars, with its declaration
Here true things are told and not the fairy tales that the ignorance of the soldiers and the credulity of the plebs have spread
The mystery was solved in 1511 when Christiern Pedersen, a Danish scholar living in Rome, searched far and wide in Denmark for an existing copy of Saxo Gramaticus' work, the Gesta Danorum, of which all traces had been lost and of which only a summary from 1342, the Chronica Jutensis, was known. In the fourth chapter, we talk about how the semi-legendary king of the Danes Hadingus, as a young man, served under the emperor Honorius and under Galla Placida and that he had fought in Africa those who Saxo had, with an anachronism, defined sarakénos. Again according to Saxo, Handigus, while leading his soldiers to drink near the Cynips river, clashed with a linnormr, a 120 foot long, wingless, two-legged dragon with poisonous breath, summoned by magicians in the service of the Sarakenos, to put the Romans to death. Armed with a spear, a shield and covered in shaggy woolen clothes treated with tar and sand, Hadingus engaged the monster in combat, to distract him, while the Romans finished him off with stones thrown with onagers. [8]
It was easy for scholars to identify this story with "the untrue things" mentioned by Anicius Severus, also because the story suspiciously resembled what Cassius Dio told about Atilius Regolus
While Regulus was encamped beside the Bagrada River, a dragon [δράκων] of enormous size appeared, the length of which was said to be 120 feet -for its skin was brought back to Rome for exhibition-, and the rest of its body had dimensions correspondents. This killed many of the soldiers who approached it and also some who were drinking by the river. Regulus defeated them with a large number of soldiers and catapults
Even if the Roman soldiers, in both cases, had encountered an enormous snake, as claimed by some cryptozoologists, the story would have been unrealistic, since the measurement of 120 feet, or 35 metres, reiterated in the sources, does not find confirmation in any of the large African reptiles: the largest African snake is the Seba Python, or African Rock Python, whose largest documented specimen measured 7.5 meters. The mystery was unraveled in 1973 by the discovery of a codex in the Alan language, which was a sort of collection of wonders and edifying stories, which were supposed to brighten the evenings of some noble foederatus.
Well, in this codex, of which we have lost the first pages and of which we do not know the title and the author, the same story is told in a slightly different form: the Scandinavian soldiers who go drinking encounter a 12 foot long crocodile, i.e. 3.5 meters, among the largest
among the West African crocodiles, who at the time also lived in North Africa and ran away in fear, shouting that they had seen an unprecedented monster. The Alans, intrigued, go to see what the fuss is about and after laughing, they start throwing stones at him to chase him away. The poor crocodile, annoyed more by the commotion than by the stone-throwing, goes away snorting.
It is easy to imagine that the Scandinavian soldiers, to minimize the shame, invented an epic fight with the unprecedented beast and that the story, as often happens, was made bigger by passing from word to mouth. After this event, which probably alleviated the boredom of a long march, the Roman army camped to rest on 14 April 427. The Mauri, instead of retreating, taking advantage of their numerical superiority, decided to face the comes Bonifacius: come on data provided by Anicius Severus, the Mauri could count on 25,000 men compared to 12,000 Roman soldiers.
Comes Bonifacius' troops then faced two Maurian columns converging on them from the north and west. The Roman army instead marched in this order. Leading the way, the African cavalry, followed by the infantry, made up of lancers, spataxes and archers. At a certain distance followed the Alan cavalry, much heavier in weapons and armor than the African one, then to close the line, the heavy infantry of the Vandals and Scandinavians. Comes' good fortune was that his troops were made up of well-trained veterans, capable of implementing even complex tactics, unlike the enemy; when the two Maurian forces were in full view, the African cavalry and light infantry turned and moved away.
The Moors, imagining that the Romans had panicked upon seeing their large number and that they were escaping, emitted their war cry and began to chase them in a disorderly manner, not realizing the presence of the Alans, Vandals and Scandinavians; as soon as the Mauri approached within about 2000 feet of the African light infantry and cavalry, the Roman troops turned to face the enemy who had lost formation and cohesion. The first Mauri column suddenly found itself not chasing a shaken enemy, but being the target of arrows and breaking before Roman spears. What made the situation worse was the fact that they were attacked from behind by the heavy Vandal and Scandinavian infantry, who closed them in a steel grip: the Mauri panicked and were routed. At least part of this column was hindered by the other formation which, unaware of the maneuver ordered by Comes Bonifacius, was still charging towards the Romans
According to what Anicius Severus tells, the Mauri even began to fight among themselves, when the second column tried to prevent those of the first from fleeing, accusing their companions of cowardice and betrayal. Taking advantage of this confusion, the Alan cavalry charged, trapping the enemy on the banks of the Cynips River. A massacre similar to those suffered by the Romans at Cannae began, completed by the intervention of the spataxes, who eliminated the wounded. The following three months were spent, with the African cavalry supported by that of Alana, rounding up the disbanded Moors, definitively eliminating their threat. The news of the victory of Cydas was welcomed in Ravenna with such exultation that Comes Bonifacius was granted the triumph in Rome, celebrated on 8 September 427. [9]
In the meantime, however, new concerns had arisen for Galla Placidia, due to the resourcefulness of Oktar, who decided in May 427 to carry out a raid into Germania Magna, plundering the territories of the Thuringians and the Saxons. In theory, the Hun king had not violated the treaty of foederatus, because the Thuringians and Saxons had no alliance with the Empire and could, especially the latter, be considered as enemies due to their pirate activity in the North Sea. of Ravenna: but these raids, altering the balance beyond the Limes, could have triggered a new unwanted migration towards Gaul. In October an embassy was therefore sent to Pannonia I, with rich gifts to invite Octar to suspend these expeditions: the Hun king gladly accepted the gold and suspended all war activity.
In reality, as will be seen in subsequent years, this was nothing more than a temporary truce: the reason was not, as Anicius Severus wrote, the Hun king's ambition and hunger for power, but was structural. The Hunnic society, confined to Pannonia, was changing profoundly: the pasture was now insufficient to support a nomadic society, which was progressively becoming sedentarized. To support this economic change, specialized farmers and artisans were needed: if Rua had no problems obtaining the workforce, thanks to his Germanic subjects and the continuous flow of Romans who moved across the border to escape imperial taxes; Octar was not so lucky and had to obtain human resources by plundering his neighbors, a problem of which Ravenna lacked any awareness.
Meanwhile, in Constantinople they were celebrating for completely different reasons: the Sasanians had to face the first raids of a new unexpected enemy, easing the pressure on the Eastern frontiers, the Hephthalites, who Anicius Severus describes as follows, giving a series of information that archeology is confirming
The Hephthalites are improperly called White Huns, because they do not share anything with the Hun people, nor do they occupy a land bordering them, or even close to them, but they live north of Persia, in the land once occupied by the Kingdom of Bactria. They have never been nomads, but they have long since settled in a fertile country; nor is their appearance similar to that of the Huns, having a white body and being tall. Their language is similar to that spoken by our foederate Alans and their king commands dozens of different peoples with justice and legality no less than that of the Romans and Persians. The only thing the Huns have in common with the Hephthalites is their incredible skill as horsemen. [10]
[1] The commander of the Comitatensian troops who were stationed around Strasbourg
[2] Thanks for the idea @Anarch King of Dipsodes
[3] Belonging to the Jute people
[4] Obviously, the biography is totally invented: we know little more about this Roman commander than his name
[5] Inspired by the bizarre story of San Mamozio (unfortunately the English Wikipedia page does not yet exist)
[6] Our Wadi Taraglat
[7] Butterflies arriving
[8] Totally invented story
[9] Inspired by the Battle of Bagradas
[10] Inspired by Procopius
The Suebi gold, in addition to giving Galla Placidia the opportunity to return to dedicating herself to her passion for construction, allowed the Empire to finally close the story of the war against the Mauri in Africa. First, funds were sent to pay for Comes Bonifacius's African army; despite the efforts of Anicius Petronius Maximus, who had taxed the possible and the impossible and despite his proverbial greed, which Anicius Severus, giving rise to family rivalries, had compared to that of Licinius Crassus, he had not enriched himself unduly, the funds they were starting to run out, the soldiers' pay was late and despite the efforts of the Comes Bonifacius, the militias, also due to the long and tiring war, were on the verge of mutiny.
The arrival of the money from Ravenna was welcomed by the African army, to use a metaphor from Cassiodorus,
"like rain from farmers after the long summer drought"
Added to this was Flavius Castinus' decision to send reinforcements to Africa: despite Athaulf's willingness to send a Goth contingent to help the Comes Bonifacius, the Magister Praesentialis was aware, from Flavius Aetius' reports, of the precarious situation in Gaul; to avoid triggering a new revolt in Aquitaine, something the Empire did not need, Flavius Castinus thanked the Augustus Consort and looked for an alternative solution. He organized a relief army with the five auxilia palatina of the Vandals, integrated by a contingent of Alan cavalry , who, unlike the Goths, were very enthusiastic about fighting outside Gaul, under the command of Flavius Galliones, who had been Comes tractus Argentoratensis [1] and who, despite having retired to private life a year ago, was esteemed by Flavius Castinus and Flavius Aetius as a prudent and expert officer. Another decision of the Magister Prasentialis was to aggregate the Scandinavian mercenaries into the Schola Scantinaviarum, [2] a unit that will have a long history in the imperial army, placed under the command of Suaxes, who according to what Anicius Severus says, belonged to the gens iutorum.[3]
The command of the expedition was entrusted to Flavius Egnatius Mavortius,[4] a man with an adventurous life: he had fought in Hispania, he had been Comes litoris Saxonici for Britannias, he had fought against the Saxon pirates, signed a peace treaty with the Picts which had given a minimum of breath to the newly recovered province of Britain, he had learned, in his role, the rudiments of the Scandinavian language and had accompanied Flavius Aetius on his embassy to Rua.
According to Cassiodorus' story, Mavortius had recounted his events in a sort of autobiography, unfortunately lost: Anicius Severus also tells us how the general was also a protector of culture, having edited an edition of the poems of Propertius and Catullus. To complement his complex personality, he was also known for his religious piety, so much so that in his old age he became the bishop of Puteoli and was venerated by popular piety as a saint. [5]
The arrival of these varied reinforcements at the end of March 427 convinced Comes Bonifacius to launch his final offensive against the Mauri, whose main army, to overcome the lack of water, was camped in Libya near of the Cynips river, [6] which from the sources of Mount Gyri flowed near Leptis Magna, a city that Petronius Maximus was trying to relaunch economically, building a new port, to replace the one silted up due to poor maintenance in the 4th century. [7]
For once, Anicius Severus is not short of information on these events, probably using Mavortius' story as a primary source. For centuries, however, the incipit of that chapter of that chapter of the Res Gestae Getarum perplexed scholars, with its declaration
Here true things are told and not the fairy tales that the ignorance of the soldiers and the credulity of the plebs have spread
The mystery was solved in 1511 when Christiern Pedersen, a Danish scholar living in Rome, searched far and wide in Denmark for an existing copy of Saxo Gramaticus' work, the Gesta Danorum, of which all traces had been lost and of which only a summary from 1342, the Chronica Jutensis, was known. In the fourth chapter, we talk about how the semi-legendary king of the Danes Hadingus, as a young man, served under the emperor Honorius and under Galla Placida and that he had fought in Africa those who Saxo had, with an anachronism, defined sarakénos. Again according to Saxo, Handigus, while leading his soldiers to drink near the Cynips river, clashed with a linnormr, a 120 foot long, wingless, two-legged dragon with poisonous breath, summoned by magicians in the service of the Sarakenos, to put the Romans to death. Armed with a spear, a shield and covered in shaggy woolen clothes treated with tar and sand, Hadingus engaged the monster in combat, to distract him, while the Romans finished him off with stones thrown with onagers. [8]
It was easy for scholars to identify this story with "the untrue things" mentioned by Anicius Severus, also because the story suspiciously resembled what Cassius Dio told about Atilius Regolus
While Regulus was encamped beside the Bagrada River, a dragon [δράκων] of enormous size appeared, the length of which was said to be 120 feet -for its skin was brought back to Rome for exhibition-, and the rest of its body had dimensions correspondents. This killed many of the soldiers who approached it and also some who were drinking by the river. Regulus defeated them with a large number of soldiers and catapults
Even if the Roman soldiers, in both cases, had encountered an enormous snake, as claimed by some cryptozoologists, the story would have been unrealistic, since the measurement of 120 feet, or 35 metres, reiterated in the sources, does not find confirmation in any of the large African reptiles: the largest African snake is the Seba Python, or African Rock Python, whose largest documented specimen measured 7.5 meters. The mystery was unraveled in 1973 by the discovery of a codex in the Alan language, which was a sort of collection of wonders and edifying stories, which were supposed to brighten the evenings of some noble foederatus.
Well, in this codex, of which we have lost the first pages and of which we do not know the title and the author, the same story is told in a slightly different form: the Scandinavian soldiers who go drinking encounter a 12 foot long crocodile, i.e. 3.5 meters, among the largest
among the West African crocodiles, who at the time also lived in North Africa and ran away in fear, shouting that they had seen an unprecedented monster. The Alans, intrigued, go to see what the fuss is about and after laughing, they start throwing stones at him to chase him away. The poor crocodile, annoyed more by the commotion than by the stone-throwing, goes away snorting.
It is easy to imagine that the Scandinavian soldiers, to minimize the shame, invented an epic fight with the unprecedented beast and that the story, as often happens, was made bigger by passing from word to mouth. After this event, which probably alleviated the boredom of a long march, the Roman army camped to rest on 14 April 427. The Mauri, instead of retreating, taking advantage of their numerical superiority, decided to face the comes Bonifacius: come on data provided by Anicius Severus, the Mauri could count on 25,000 men compared to 12,000 Roman soldiers.
Comes Bonifacius' troops then faced two Maurian columns converging on them from the north and west. The Roman army instead marched in this order. Leading the way, the African cavalry, followed by the infantry, made up of lancers, spataxes and archers. At a certain distance followed the Alan cavalry, much heavier in weapons and armor than the African one, then to close the line, the heavy infantry of the Vandals and Scandinavians. Comes' good fortune was that his troops were made up of well-trained veterans, capable of implementing even complex tactics, unlike the enemy; when the two Maurian forces were in full view, the African cavalry and light infantry turned and moved away.
The Moors, imagining that the Romans had panicked upon seeing their large number and that they were escaping, emitted their war cry and began to chase them in a disorderly manner, not realizing the presence of the Alans, Vandals and Scandinavians; as soon as the Mauri approached within about 2000 feet of the African light infantry and cavalry, the Roman troops turned to face the enemy who had lost formation and cohesion. The first Mauri column suddenly found itself not chasing a shaken enemy, but being the target of arrows and breaking before Roman spears. What made the situation worse was the fact that they were attacked from behind by the heavy Vandal and Scandinavian infantry, who closed them in a steel grip: the Mauri panicked and were routed. At least part of this column was hindered by the other formation which, unaware of the maneuver ordered by Comes Bonifacius, was still charging towards the Romans
According to what Anicius Severus tells, the Mauri even began to fight among themselves, when the second column tried to prevent those of the first from fleeing, accusing their companions of cowardice and betrayal. Taking advantage of this confusion, the Alan cavalry charged, trapping the enemy on the banks of the Cynips River. A massacre similar to those suffered by the Romans at Cannae began, completed by the intervention of the spataxes, who eliminated the wounded. The following three months were spent, with the African cavalry supported by that of Alana, rounding up the disbanded Moors, definitively eliminating their threat. The news of the victory of Cydas was welcomed in Ravenna with such exultation that Comes Bonifacius was granted the triumph in Rome, celebrated on 8 September 427. [9]
In the meantime, however, new concerns had arisen for Galla Placidia, due to the resourcefulness of Oktar, who decided in May 427 to carry out a raid into Germania Magna, plundering the territories of the Thuringians and the Saxons. In theory, the Hun king had not violated the treaty of foederatus, because the Thuringians and Saxons had no alliance with the Empire and could, especially the latter, be considered as enemies due to their pirate activity in the North Sea. of Ravenna: but these raids, altering the balance beyond the Limes, could have triggered a new unwanted migration towards Gaul. In October an embassy was therefore sent to Pannonia I, with rich gifts to invite Octar to suspend these expeditions: the Hun king gladly accepted the gold and suspended all war activity.
In reality, as will be seen in subsequent years, this was nothing more than a temporary truce: the reason was not, as Anicius Severus wrote, the Hun king's ambition and hunger for power, but was structural. The Hunnic society, confined to Pannonia, was changing profoundly: the pasture was now insufficient to support a nomadic society, which was progressively becoming sedentarized. To support this economic change, specialized farmers and artisans were needed: if Rua had no problems obtaining the workforce, thanks to his Germanic subjects and the continuous flow of Romans who moved across the border to escape imperial taxes; Octar was not so lucky and had to obtain human resources by plundering his neighbors, a problem of which Ravenna lacked any awareness.
Meanwhile, in Constantinople they were celebrating for completely different reasons: the Sasanians had to face the first raids of a new unexpected enemy, easing the pressure on the Eastern frontiers, the Hephthalites, who Anicius Severus describes as follows, giving a series of information that archeology is confirming
The Hephthalites are improperly called White Huns, because they do not share anything with the Hun people, nor do they occupy a land bordering them, or even close to them, but they live north of Persia, in the land once occupied by the Kingdom of Bactria. They have never been nomads, but they have long since settled in a fertile country; nor is their appearance similar to that of the Huns, having a white body and being tall. Their language is similar to that spoken by our foederate Alans and their king commands dozens of different peoples with justice and legality no less than that of the Romans and Persians. The only thing the Huns have in common with the Hephthalites is their incredible skill as horsemen. [10]
[1] The commander of the Comitatensian troops who were stationed around Strasbourg
[2] Thanks for the idea @Anarch King of Dipsodes
[3] Belonging to the Jute people
[4] Obviously, the biography is totally invented: we know little more about this Roman commander than his name
[5] Inspired by the bizarre story of San Mamozio (unfortunately the English Wikipedia page does not yet exist)
[6] Our Wadi Taraglat
[7] Butterflies arriving
[8] Totally invented story
[9] Inspired by the Battle of Bagradas
[10] Inspired by Procopius
And that's a wrap. For the first time in a long time the empire is pacified. I'm sure it'll stay that way for decades to come.
While they are in peace the Romans should also look at straightening out their tax code, can't have their farmers flee abroad to avoid paying their "fair" share. Even if in this special case it might actually be to the advantage of Constantinopel and Ravenna.
Or perhaps it is time for the imperial courts to enlarge their revenue services to hound their taxpayers even when they try to move their valuables abroad.
While they are in peace the Romans should also look at straightening out their tax code, can't have their farmers flee abroad to avoid paying their "fair" share. Even if in this special case it might actually be to the advantage of Constantinopel and Ravenna.
Or perhaps it is time for the imperial courts to enlarge their revenue services to hound their taxpayers even when they try to move their valuables abroad.
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And that's a wrap. For the first time in a long time the empire is pacified. I'm sure it'll stay that way for decades to come.
While they are in peace the Romans should also look at straightening out their tax code, can't have their farmers flee abroad to avoid paying their "fair" share. Even if in this special case it might actually be to the advantage of Constantinopel and Ravenna.
Or perhaps it is time for the imperial courts to enlarge their revenue services to hound their taxpayers even when they try to move their valuables abroad.
Well, not properly from the moment while indeed Africa and Numidia finally would have some respite and recover, the Huns are still proving to be a nuisance and Pannonia is turning into the weak flank of the West (in the sense would stand as the base point of future Hunnic raids not only against Germania Magna but also against Italia.
In such sense, seeing a solution towards Illyricum may give a (not strong, but still better than nothing) line of defense for Italia, but still won't solve the issue, which besides we would likely see exploding as foreshadowed by Attila - that would be the catalyst which would show us if the TTL WRE would survive (and evolve) respect to OTL but of course we would have to see...
Anyway, still returning to the Magna Germania situation, while I can see a potential outcome but happening way later than we are right now, it makes me wonder giving the Hunnic issues, if Ravenna shouldn't work more towards Raetia and Noricum - the survival of Augusta Vindelicorum TTL might be decisive for the retaining and the eventual recovery and prosperity beyond the end of the barbaric invasions of the provinces north of the Alpes... Raetia can indeed prosper from a renewed exchange - but above all established stable connection - between Magna Germania and West Rome... But I digress.
But I also agree the last chapter highlighted the necessity for Ravenna to fix the taxation issue and therefore find new stable and proper ways to get fair taxes from Italia and the other provinces, albeit it would be a cyclic scourge that to periods of getting much money there would be ones to get few and West Rome won't escape this, but the issue is to get sufficient money to keep the state work till and a little beyond the critical year I won't name here... Still, it might be the trumpet card the Empire could play later for the final recovery of Pannonia, if Roman citizens would indeed move towards Hunnic Pannonia, even if to escape from Ravenna's taxes, because could help to make the urban realities there still kicking and two in particular (of course I am talking of Vindobona and Aquincum), as well to help the Huns (or whatever will remain of them in the next years) to civilize (and therefore to contract the extension of their influence across Central and Eastern Europe towards the same Pannonia)...
Btw, I forgot to add how I found very interesting, as well relevant, of the chapter, is how the interactions between Scandinavia and the Western Empire continue to grow thanks mostly to the newfound stabilization in Gaul and Hispania, and the renovation of the northern trade maritime routes at hand of the Suebs and the Gallic Goths. Which makes sense also in the supposition the barbaric federates would be way more open than the Romans to interact with Hibernians, Caledonians and Scandinavians having a more close cultural gap, even if the same federates are Romanizing way faster but that would be obvious giving as for now the West is still united TTL, and everyone, Romans and Federates, accept still the rule and the supremacy of Ravenna...
And well, the Scandinavians essentially for now are taking centuries ahead the Varangian path, and with the West rather than the East, which of course would make later more appetible if a true Viking age would emerge - and likely would - at least four centuries later from now... However, much would depend also by how Christianity and Norse Religion would interact and interwine, one might think, with an existing and compact Western Empire through the ages, Christianity would spread way stronger in North Europe, but paradoxally, I wonder if instead the Scandinavians might cling more to their rites to resist cultural assimilation or accept a sort of syncretization - which happened besides OTL at a certain point when Christ was considered the "God of the South"...
And well, the Scandinavians essentially for now are taking centuries ahead the Varangian path, and with the West rather than the East, which of course would make later more appetible if a true Viking age would emerge - and likely would - at least four centuries later from now... However, much would depend also by how Christianity and Norse Religion would interact and interwine, one might think, with an existing and compact Western Empire through the ages, Christianity would spread way stronger in North Europe, but paradoxally, I wonder if instead the Scandinavians might cling more to their rites to resist cultural assimilation or accept a sort of syncretization - which happened besides OTL at a certain point when Christ was considered the "God of the South"...
38 The bishop of Arelate
38 The bishop of Arelate
After the crisis of the early 5th century, Arelate was in full economic and urban development, as demonstrated by recent archaeological excavations. [1] The Duplex Arelas [2] as Ausonius calls it, on one side extends along the river towards the South, passing the Circus, with the construction of a new neighbourhood, full of shops, warehouses and insulae [3] inhabited by foederati, given the presence of inscriptions in Gothic and Alan language, on the other it also extends on the right bank of the river, in the Camargue, in the neighborhood called Insula Gallica, where there are shipbuilding yards, the arsenal (building with large brick ashlars), warehouses and docks , as well as rich peristyle villas, adorned with mosaics
As proof of the city's growth, the cryptoporticus of the Forum was expanded with a fourth gallery, which became a sort of commercial centre, with shops of Suebi merchants, as evidenced by the ancient sources and archaeological finds. The immense water mill, located on the Rhone, which serves to feed the entire city, underwent a further expansion. The theatre, renovated, changes its intended use, becoming the venue for the meetings of the Concilium Galliae, while both the Amphitheater and the Circus acquire new life, in which new shows are celebrated, financed by the local aristocracy, both Gallo-Roman and Gallo-Roman. sia foederata, who thus wants to demonstrate his adherence to Roman culture.
A similar development occurs in ecclesiastical architecture: the cathedral, which in 314 had been the seat of the Council against the Donatists and was then built on the outskirts of the city, leaning against the eastern bastion, was moved to the centre, next to the Forum, to be dedicated to Stefano Protomartire. This recovery of the city depends on a series of factors: first of all its geographical position, which is characterized by its large bridge over the Rhone, a wooden bridge with movable parts to allow navigation of the river, which made it a fundamental hub in the trade between Italy and Hispania, whose economy, both due to the restoration of imperial authority and due to the commercial activism of the Suebi, was growing strongly.
Added to this is the effect of its institutional role, as the seat of the Council of Gaul, which Sidonius Apollinaris defined as alter Senatus, [4] of the prefecture of the praetorium of Gaul and the primatial seat of the Gallic church, which effectively made it a hub of local traffic : this impacts the economy of Aquitaine Gothic and the Loire valley, in which agricultural production in some way, in addition to exports to Ireland and Scandinavia, is oriented towards providing foodstuffs to support the growth of the population of Arelate. Economic vitality also demonstrated by the grand resumption of the activity of the mint, which resumed continuously minting both bronze coins (for which four workshops were intended, indicated by the Latin initials P S T and Q), and gold coins [5]
This affects Goths and Alans differently. The former, committed to enriching themselves as landowners, become less and less inclined to fight for the Empire and oriented towards a peaceful life: the latter, however, supported by agricultural revenues, tend to structure themselves more and more like a military elite at the service of the imperial army, which becomes an instrument of social growth for the Alans. This phenomenon, as well as by the reforms of Flavius Aetius in previous years, is accentuated by a further decision of Athaulf, who, to simplify the life of Roman officials and foederati taxpayers, made his own the proposal of the Questor thesauroum Flavius Iunius Quartus Palladius, to initiate a tax rationalization reform.
First of all, the fiscus barbaricus was eliminated: [6] the taxes directed to the comes foederati were collected directly by the imperial administration, which in turn redistributed them to those directly interested. The foederati would only pay taxes once. At the same time, duplicate tributes are cancelled, the same taxes paid twice, to the Empire and to the Comes, reducing the tax burden on the foederati by approximately 15% (the only exception are the Suebi, who, in the fantasy that put into finding ways to evade taxes, they are worthy competitors of the Roman senators). Finally, to prevent imperial officials from unduly pocketing quotas intended for the foederati, this crime was punished not with the provisions of Roman law, but with the law of the foederati, which was much more severe and with fewer protections for the accused... This reform fiscal, in addition to having a positive impact on the Gaul economy, it helped to calm the discontent of the Goths of Aquitaine, avoiding new revolts in the medium term.
At the same time, the growth of the city of Arelate, after the scandal of the assassination of Patroclus, also increased the importance of its bishop, sanctioned by the Notitia Dignitatum, which objectively competed with that of Rome; the new bishop Euladius, who was an excellent administrator, a good diplomat, maintaining good neighborly relations with the Arian church, and alien to political intrigue, unlike his predecessor, seemed to be a good choice to mend relations with Rome. The problem is that his health was very poor, it would seem that he suffered from tuberculosis, so much so that he died suddenly in March 427.
Thus, with a rather unexpected choice, the one to be surprised, as Anicius Severus testifies, is Galla Placidia so much so that in the Commentarii, he quotes a line from the Augusta, on God's strange sense of humor, Onoratus is elected as his successor.
This was the last descendant of a Roman consular family, which had been established in its large estates in Gaul for at least three generations,
Having received a solid pagan education, Onoratus converted to Christianity with his older brother Venantius. Initially, this was a political decision, to make a career in the imperial bureaucracy, but the two brothers proclaimed themselves disciples of Caprasius, a hermit who lived in a cave on the island of Lerinus, who according to Cassiodorus, had made this choice more out of antipathy towards compared to the rest of the human race, than by faith. Although Capriasus did not want to deal with Honorius and Venantius, whom he probably considered nothing more than two nuisances, the brothers try to imitate his style of outlook, which was hindered by their father. So, Onoratus and Venantius had no choice but to abandon their native land and, taking Caprasius with them by force, who only wanted to stay calm in his cave, they set sail for Greece in search of a desert suitable for ascetic life, in Arcadia.
The arduous undertaking proved disastrous: Venantius, who was not used to ascetic privations, soon died and the other two, who fell ill, were forced to retrace their steps. Having finally arrived in Gaul, they retired to a hermitic life in the hills above Fréjus, in the Provençal hinterland. Thanks to some disciples of Saint Martin of Tours, Onoratus learned of the Rule of Saint Pacomius, founder of cenobitic monasticism in the East. At the insistence of Capriasus, who missed his old cave and probably wondered what he had done wrong, to suffer these unwanted vicissitudes, Onoratus decided to return to Lerinus, founding a monastic community which in just twenty years became a famous monastery.
The new community followed the Pachomian rule: some monks preferred community life, while others opted to become anchorites, living in cells arranged around the main buildings. Soon Onorato received priestly ordination and remained as spiritual father at the monastery he founded, with his fame spreading throughout Gaul.
Probably the faithful of Arelate, tired of the intrigues and scandals of previous years, had decided to see what the effect of having a holy bishop was; Onoratus, however, had no intention of leaving his Lerinus, an opinion also shared by the rest of the monks, so much so that they wrote a protest against the community of Arleate, which ended with the famous phrase
Who gave you the desire to possess this man for yourselves to the detriment of those to whom God had granted him in his desert?
In the end, only Flavius Aetius, to go and get him by force, convinces Onoratus to accept the appointment. Despite all these discussions, Onoratus immediately decided to give his own imprint to the Gallic church: animated by a strong ascetic spirit he began to promote a reform of ecclesiastical discipline inspired by monastic rigorism. In accordance with this orientation he chooses the bishops not among the clerics trained within the Gallic church, but among the monks who were generally lay people, or made their choice fall on foreign people; this activism, however, was not appreciated by the bishop of Rome Coelestinus, who, like his predecessors, tried in every way to limit the autonomy and influence of the church of Arelate.
In January 428, an event occurred that offered Coelestinus the opportunity to intervene and make Rome's authority felt. The monk Daniel, accused in Alexandria of a series of crimes, including having been Hypatia's lover, a pity that at the time Daniel was not even in Egypt, to avoid the local tradition of lynching, had fled to Arelate. [7]
Daniel, from what Georgius Florentius [8] tells us, whose testimony, however, dating back to the following century, must be taken with appropriate caution, had, at his own risk and peril, entered into controversy with Bishop Cyrillus: Daniel, follower of the Aristotelian tradition , underlined the humanity of Christ and the union of his two natures, which remained intact in one person, Cyrillus, follower of Platon, gives absolute precedence to the divinity of Christ. [9] Since the bishop of Alexandria had failed to convince Daniel to renounce his ideas, he had accused his opponent of being a pro-Arian heretic; the various Egyptian presbyters, to acquire merits towards their bishop, had escalated the situation, adding accusation after accusation.
Now, a normal bishop, Daniel having ended up on the other side of the Mediterranean, would have dropped the matter, but everything can be said about Cyrillus, except that he was not resentful. To have the dissenting monk punished, the bishop of Alexandria sent a letter to Rome, listing all the crimes of which Daniel had been guilty. Coelestinus, who had rather vague ideas of Cyrillus's bad character and for political reasons, sent a subdeacon to Arles with the request that the accused be sent to Rome for trial; Onoratus, who had realized that Daniel's Christological ideas were in line with Nicean theology and not wanting to open a controversy with the Arian church, turned a deaf ear to the request. The story would have ended there, if Onoratus, who was both holy and not very political, seeing that Daniel was a skilled preacher and full of charity for the faithful, appointed him bishop.
Now, Coelestinus' level of touchiness was not equal to that of Cyrillus, the bishop of Rome had his own bad temper and took this affair as a personal affront, so, in February 428, he sent an epistle full of fire and flames, [10] directed to the Gallic church. The first issue addressed was of a disciplinary nature and obviously concerned the question of the episcopal ordination of the monks, who were lay people, which had taken place in violation of a rule, sanctioned by the Council of Serdica, which prohibited the appointment of non-consecrated persons as bishops.
The canon was practically ignored during the 4th century, as in the case of Ambrosius in Milan, but the bishops of Rome in the 5th century had reiterated it several times. For Coelestinus, the ecclesiastical "curriculum" is proof of the candidate's preparation for the task of bishop and a guarantee for the Churches against unpleasant surprises. The rule, according to which "whoever wishes to be a teacher must first be a disciple", also applies, and above all, to the difficult task of the episcopate.
Furthermore, Coelestinus reiterated the need for the bishop to be preferably chosen from among the clerics of the same Church, to more easily obtain the necessary consent of the clergy and the people that he will have to govern, a concept reiterated in the phrase
.. a priest from another Church is not elected unless someone from the local Church is deemed worthy, which in our opinion cannot occur. It is necessary to reconsider the custom of preferring those of other Churches, nor to appeal to foreigners for fear that it does not appear to have established a new college from which to extract the new bishops
By reaffirming the condition of this consent, the Rome bishop intended to erect an obstacle to the repetition of ordinations of foreigners or lay people and, therefore, of monks, and to reiterate the distinction between the monastic state of life and the episcopal office, invalidating the decisions of Onoratus . Not content with this, Coelestinus also formulates in the letter a harsh criticism of the "presumptuous innovations" introduced into Gaul by the bishop-monks. They exhibited their ascetic rigor in their external ways of living and also in the style of their dress (they were called "palliati" due to the monastic cloak they wore). And they also wanted to impose this entirely external lifestyle on the faithful, which replaced the ancient customs of the Church based on the valorization of the internal dispositions of the Christian. Coelestinus judges this reform as "superstition", because it exalts the literal sense of the Holy Scriptures and ignores its spiritual meaning.
In the same letter Coelestinus addresses the theme of penance at the point of death, which in Gaul, also due to the rigorist line supported by the monks, continued to be denied, giving the reason that the penitent would not have had the possibility of carrying out the works of penance that usually the Church imposed on him for a certain period, before readmitting him into communion. In Rome for some time the refusal of penance "in extremis" had been considered contrary to the evangelical spirit. At the beginning of the fifth century, in fact, the traditional rigorist tendency persisted, but the push for a more lenient attitude was growing. Pope Innocent had already intervened in this conflict, in 405, with the letter in which, responding to a specific question from Esuperius of Toulouse, he explained why the Church had rightly decided to grant penance and viaticum to the dying. Coelestinus expresses himself with greater severity than those who despair of God's mercy, recalling that Jesus accepted the repentance of the thief dying on the cross, whom the bishop of Rome, accepting the tradition derived from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, calls Dismas.
If Patroclus had still been there, a schism would probably have broken out, but Onoratus had a completely different ambition in life than to quarrel with the bishop of Rome, being, through the inspiration of Pelagius, that the church, in addition to being the mystical body of Christ is also the community of Christians rooted in the apostolic succession and founded on the primacy of Peter, a totality that surpasses the parts and a time that comes before space. For this reason, through Flavius Aetius, who despite not being a model Christian, had taken a liking to the strange bishop of Arelate, proposed a compromise to Coelestinus.
The Primate of Gaul, as prescribed in the Notitia Dignitatum, would have continued to freely appoint his bishops, but the monks, before accessing the episcopal seat, would have had to be consecrated; also being convinced of the words of Paul of Tarsus
Even if I spoke the languages of men and angels, but did not have Love, I am like resounding bronze or a tinkling cymbal.
And if I had the gift of prophecy and knew all mysteries and all science, and possessed the fullness of faith so as to move mountains, but did not have Love, I am nothing.
And even if I distributed all my substances and gave my body to be burned, but did not have Love, nothing benefits me.
And since penance at the point of death was an act of love granted by the Church to her faithful, he accepted Rome's position. Compromise which was accepted by Coelestinus, also because the object of the dispute, Daniel had died in the odor of sanctity: thus, with the utmost satisfaction of both parties, the controversy was concluded with a new epistle from the bishop of Rome, dated May 428, aimed at reconciliation with the Gallic church. [11]
[1] The ITL changes further accentuate a phenomenon that also occurs OTL
[2] The double Arles
[3] In the late ancient period, as evidenced by the excavations of Rome, Tindari and Ostia antica, to cite the best-known examples, improvements in finishing were made to resemble our modern condominiums more and more... And I am almost tempted to have them introduced by Theodosius III a specific law on condominium disputes!
[4] Another Senate
[5] OTL the minting of bronze coins ceases with Iohannes Primicerius
[6] Which as you can guess, has a slightly different meaning from OTL
[7] I fictionalized what happens a little OTL too
[8] Obviously the life and works of Gregory of Tours will be slightly different
[9] The Royal Rumble of Cyrillus versus Nestorius is approaching... Now even if like OTL, it is much more likely that the Arian bishops will attend the show by eating lupins and hazelnuts and throwing the peels at the two contenders, to make the Timeline more fun, I would like let them also intervene in the controversy... So suggestions are welcomed
[10] Epistle with very similar contents, which also ships OTL
[11] Crisis that also OTL; in a different way it is avoided, also because Coelestinus' priority becomes understanding what the hell the eastern bishops have invented this time, to fight over the nature of Christ!
After the crisis of the early 5th century, Arelate was in full economic and urban development, as demonstrated by recent archaeological excavations. [1] The Duplex Arelas [2] as Ausonius calls it, on one side extends along the river towards the South, passing the Circus, with the construction of a new neighbourhood, full of shops, warehouses and insulae [3] inhabited by foederati, given the presence of inscriptions in Gothic and Alan language, on the other it also extends on the right bank of the river, in the Camargue, in the neighborhood called Insula Gallica, where there are shipbuilding yards, the arsenal (building with large brick ashlars), warehouses and docks , as well as rich peristyle villas, adorned with mosaics
As proof of the city's growth, the cryptoporticus of the Forum was expanded with a fourth gallery, which became a sort of commercial centre, with shops of Suebi merchants, as evidenced by the ancient sources and archaeological finds. The immense water mill, located on the Rhone, which serves to feed the entire city, underwent a further expansion. The theatre, renovated, changes its intended use, becoming the venue for the meetings of the Concilium Galliae, while both the Amphitheater and the Circus acquire new life, in which new shows are celebrated, financed by the local aristocracy, both Gallo-Roman and Gallo-Roman. sia foederata, who thus wants to demonstrate his adherence to Roman culture.
A similar development occurs in ecclesiastical architecture: the cathedral, which in 314 had been the seat of the Council against the Donatists and was then built on the outskirts of the city, leaning against the eastern bastion, was moved to the centre, next to the Forum, to be dedicated to Stefano Protomartire. This recovery of the city depends on a series of factors: first of all its geographical position, which is characterized by its large bridge over the Rhone, a wooden bridge with movable parts to allow navigation of the river, which made it a fundamental hub in the trade between Italy and Hispania, whose economy, both due to the restoration of imperial authority and due to the commercial activism of the Suebi, was growing strongly.
Added to this is the effect of its institutional role, as the seat of the Council of Gaul, which Sidonius Apollinaris defined as alter Senatus, [4] of the prefecture of the praetorium of Gaul and the primatial seat of the Gallic church, which effectively made it a hub of local traffic : this impacts the economy of Aquitaine Gothic and the Loire valley, in which agricultural production in some way, in addition to exports to Ireland and Scandinavia, is oriented towards providing foodstuffs to support the growth of the population of Arelate. Economic vitality also demonstrated by the grand resumption of the activity of the mint, which resumed continuously minting both bronze coins (for which four workshops were intended, indicated by the Latin initials P S T and Q), and gold coins [5]
This affects Goths and Alans differently. The former, committed to enriching themselves as landowners, become less and less inclined to fight for the Empire and oriented towards a peaceful life: the latter, however, supported by agricultural revenues, tend to structure themselves more and more like a military elite at the service of the imperial army, which becomes an instrument of social growth for the Alans. This phenomenon, as well as by the reforms of Flavius Aetius in previous years, is accentuated by a further decision of Athaulf, who, to simplify the life of Roman officials and foederati taxpayers, made his own the proposal of the Questor thesauroum Flavius Iunius Quartus Palladius, to initiate a tax rationalization reform.
First of all, the fiscus barbaricus was eliminated: [6] the taxes directed to the comes foederati were collected directly by the imperial administration, which in turn redistributed them to those directly interested. The foederati would only pay taxes once. At the same time, duplicate tributes are cancelled, the same taxes paid twice, to the Empire and to the Comes, reducing the tax burden on the foederati by approximately 15% (the only exception are the Suebi, who, in the fantasy that put into finding ways to evade taxes, they are worthy competitors of the Roman senators). Finally, to prevent imperial officials from unduly pocketing quotas intended for the foederati, this crime was punished not with the provisions of Roman law, but with the law of the foederati, which was much more severe and with fewer protections for the accused... This reform fiscal, in addition to having a positive impact on the Gaul economy, it helped to calm the discontent of the Goths of Aquitaine, avoiding new revolts in the medium term.
At the same time, the growth of the city of Arelate, after the scandal of the assassination of Patroclus, also increased the importance of its bishop, sanctioned by the Notitia Dignitatum, which objectively competed with that of Rome; the new bishop Euladius, who was an excellent administrator, a good diplomat, maintaining good neighborly relations with the Arian church, and alien to political intrigue, unlike his predecessor, seemed to be a good choice to mend relations with Rome. The problem is that his health was very poor, it would seem that he suffered from tuberculosis, so much so that he died suddenly in March 427.
Thus, with a rather unexpected choice, the one to be surprised, as Anicius Severus testifies, is Galla Placidia so much so that in the Commentarii, he quotes a line from the Augusta, on God's strange sense of humor, Onoratus is elected as his successor.
This was the last descendant of a Roman consular family, which had been established in its large estates in Gaul for at least three generations,
Having received a solid pagan education, Onoratus converted to Christianity with his older brother Venantius. Initially, this was a political decision, to make a career in the imperial bureaucracy, but the two brothers proclaimed themselves disciples of Caprasius, a hermit who lived in a cave on the island of Lerinus, who according to Cassiodorus, had made this choice more out of antipathy towards compared to the rest of the human race, than by faith. Although Capriasus did not want to deal with Honorius and Venantius, whom he probably considered nothing more than two nuisances, the brothers try to imitate his style of outlook, which was hindered by their father. So, Onoratus and Venantius had no choice but to abandon their native land and, taking Caprasius with them by force, who only wanted to stay calm in his cave, they set sail for Greece in search of a desert suitable for ascetic life, in Arcadia.
The arduous undertaking proved disastrous: Venantius, who was not used to ascetic privations, soon died and the other two, who fell ill, were forced to retrace their steps. Having finally arrived in Gaul, they retired to a hermitic life in the hills above Fréjus, in the Provençal hinterland. Thanks to some disciples of Saint Martin of Tours, Onoratus learned of the Rule of Saint Pacomius, founder of cenobitic monasticism in the East. At the insistence of Capriasus, who missed his old cave and probably wondered what he had done wrong, to suffer these unwanted vicissitudes, Onoratus decided to return to Lerinus, founding a monastic community which in just twenty years became a famous monastery.
The new community followed the Pachomian rule: some monks preferred community life, while others opted to become anchorites, living in cells arranged around the main buildings. Soon Onorato received priestly ordination and remained as spiritual father at the monastery he founded, with his fame spreading throughout Gaul.
Probably the faithful of Arelate, tired of the intrigues and scandals of previous years, had decided to see what the effect of having a holy bishop was; Onoratus, however, had no intention of leaving his Lerinus, an opinion also shared by the rest of the monks, so much so that they wrote a protest against the community of Arleate, which ended with the famous phrase
Who gave you the desire to possess this man for yourselves to the detriment of those to whom God had granted him in his desert?
In the end, only Flavius Aetius, to go and get him by force, convinces Onoratus to accept the appointment. Despite all these discussions, Onoratus immediately decided to give his own imprint to the Gallic church: animated by a strong ascetic spirit he began to promote a reform of ecclesiastical discipline inspired by monastic rigorism. In accordance with this orientation he chooses the bishops not among the clerics trained within the Gallic church, but among the monks who were generally lay people, or made their choice fall on foreign people; this activism, however, was not appreciated by the bishop of Rome Coelestinus, who, like his predecessors, tried in every way to limit the autonomy and influence of the church of Arelate.
In January 428, an event occurred that offered Coelestinus the opportunity to intervene and make Rome's authority felt. The monk Daniel, accused in Alexandria of a series of crimes, including having been Hypatia's lover, a pity that at the time Daniel was not even in Egypt, to avoid the local tradition of lynching, had fled to Arelate. [7]
Daniel, from what Georgius Florentius [8] tells us, whose testimony, however, dating back to the following century, must be taken with appropriate caution, had, at his own risk and peril, entered into controversy with Bishop Cyrillus: Daniel, follower of the Aristotelian tradition , underlined the humanity of Christ and the union of his two natures, which remained intact in one person, Cyrillus, follower of Platon, gives absolute precedence to the divinity of Christ. [9] Since the bishop of Alexandria had failed to convince Daniel to renounce his ideas, he had accused his opponent of being a pro-Arian heretic; the various Egyptian presbyters, to acquire merits towards their bishop, had escalated the situation, adding accusation after accusation.
Now, a normal bishop, Daniel having ended up on the other side of the Mediterranean, would have dropped the matter, but everything can be said about Cyrillus, except that he was not resentful. To have the dissenting monk punished, the bishop of Alexandria sent a letter to Rome, listing all the crimes of which Daniel had been guilty. Coelestinus, who had rather vague ideas of Cyrillus's bad character and for political reasons, sent a subdeacon to Arles with the request that the accused be sent to Rome for trial; Onoratus, who had realized that Daniel's Christological ideas were in line with Nicean theology and not wanting to open a controversy with the Arian church, turned a deaf ear to the request. The story would have ended there, if Onoratus, who was both holy and not very political, seeing that Daniel was a skilled preacher and full of charity for the faithful, appointed him bishop.
Now, Coelestinus' level of touchiness was not equal to that of Cyrillus, the bishop of Rome had his own bad temper and took this affair as a personal affront, so, in February 428, he sent an epistle full of fire and flames, [10] directed to the Gallic church. The first issue addressed was of a disciplinary nature and obviously concerned the question of the episcopal ordination of the monks, who were lay people, which had taken place in violation of a rule, sanctioned by the Council of Serdica, which prohibited the appointment of non-consecrated persons as bishops.
The canon was practically ignored during the 4th century, as in the case of Ambrosius in Milan, but the bishops of Rome in the 5th century had reiterated it several times. For Coelestinus, the ecclesiastical "curriculum" is proof of the candidate's preparation for the task of bishop and a guarantee for the Churches against unpleasant surprises. The rule, according to which "whoever wishes to be a teacher must first be a disciple", also applies, and above all, to the difficult task of the episcopate.
Furthermore, Coelestinus reiterated the need for the bishop to be preferably chosen from among the clerics of the same Church, to more easily obtain the necessary consent of the clergy and the people that he will have to govern, a concept reiterated in the phrase
.. a priest from another Church is not elected unless someone from the local Church is deemed worthy, which in our opinion cannot occur. It is necessary to reconsider the custom of preferring those of other Churches, nor to appeal to foreigners for fear that it does not appear to have established a new college from which to extract the new bishops
By reaffirming the condition of this consent, the Rome bishop intended to erect an obstacle to the repetition of ordinations of foreigners or lay people and, therefore, of monks, and to reiterate the distinction between the monastic state of life and the episcopal office, invalidating the decisions of Onoratus . Not content with this, Coelestinus also formulates in the letter a harsh criticism of the "presumptuous innovations" introduced into Gaul by the bishop-monks. They exhibited their ascetic rigor in their external ways of living and also in the style of their dress (they were called "palliati" due to the monastic cloak they wore). And they also wanted to impose this entirely external lifestyle on the faithful, which replaced the ancient customs of the Church based on the valorization of the internal dispositions of the Christian. Coelestinus judges this reform as "superstition", because it exalts the literal sense of the Holy Scriptures and ignores its spiritual meaning.
In the same letter Coelestinus addresses the theme of penance at the point of death, which in Gaul, also due to the rigorist line supported by the monks, continued to be denied, giving the reason that the penitent would not have had the possibility of carrying out the works of penance that usually the Church imposed on him for a certain period, before readmitting him into communion. In Rome for some time the refusal of penance "in extremis" had been considered contrary to the evangelical spirit. At the beginning of the fifth century, in fact, the traditional rigorist tendency persisted, but the push for a more lenient attitude was growing. Pope Innocent had already intervened in this conflict, in 405, with the letter in which, responding to a specific question from Esuperius of Toulouse, he explained why the Church had rightly decided to grant penance and viaticum to the dying. Coelestinus expresses himself with greater severity than those who despair of God's mercy, recalling that Jesus accepted the repentance of the thief dying on the cross, whom the bishop of Rome, accepting the tradition derived from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, calls Dismas.
If Patroclus had still been there, a schism would probably have broken out, but Onoratus had a completely different ambition in life than to quarrel with the bishop of Rome, being, through the inspiration of Pelagius, that the church, in addition to being the mystical body of Christ is also the community of Christians rooted in the apostolic succession and founded on the primacy of Peter, a totality that surpasses the parts and a time that comes before space. For this reason, through Flavius Aetius, who despite not being a model Christian, had taken a liking to the strange bishop of Arelate, proposed a compromise to Coelestinus.
The Primate of Gaul, as prescribed in the Notitia Dignitatum, would have continued to freely appoint his bishops, but the monks, before accessing the episcopal seat, would have had to be consecrated; also being convinced of the words of Paul of Tarsus
Even if I spoke the languages of men and angels, but did not have Love, I am like resounding bronze or a tinkling cymbal.
And if I had the gift of prophecy and knew all mysteries and all science, and possessed the fullness of faith so as to move mountains, but did not have Love, I am nothing.
And even if I distributed all my substances and gave my body to be burned, but did not have Love, nothing benefits me.
And since penance at the point of death was an act of love granted by the Church to her faithful, he accepted Rome's position. Compromise which was accepted by Coelestinus, also because the object of the dispute, Daniel had died in the odor of sanctity: thus, with the utmost satisfaction of both parties, the controversy was concluded with a new epistle from the bishop of Rome, dated May 428, aimed at reconciliation with the Gallic church. [11]
[1] The ITL changes further accentuate a phenomenon that also occurs OTL
[2] The double Arles
[3] In the late ancient period, as evidenced by the excavations of Rome, Tindari and Ostia antica, to cite the best-known examples, improvements in finishing were made to resemble our modern condominiums more and more... And I am almost tempted to have them introduced by Theodosius III a specific law on condominium disputes!
[4] Another Senate
[5] OTL the minting of bronze coins ceases with Iohannes Primicerius
[6] Which as you can guess, has a slightly different meaning from OTL
[7] I fictionalized what happens a little OTL too
[8] Obviously the life and works of Gregory of Tours will be slightly different
[9] The Royal Rumble of Cyrillus versus Nestorius is approaching... Now even if like OTL, it is much more likely that the Arian bishops will attend the show by eating lupins and hazelnuts and throwing the peels at the two contenders, to make the Timeline more fun, I would like let them also intervene in the controversy... So suggestions are welcomed
[10] Epistle with very similar contents, which also ships OTL
[11] Crisis that also OTL; in a different way it is avoided, also because Coelestinus' priority becomes understanding what the hell the eastern bishops have invented this time, to fight over the nature of Christ!
Oh the Goths, as it so happens the fury of the Gothic warriors is tamed by the riches of Rome. It speaks to their further integration into society that they have started preferring the lifestyle of Roman nobility to the sword. By doing so they are leaving a hole in the power-structure to be filled by the Alans who, by virtue of the fifth century not being over yet, will very likely have a lot of opportunities to rise within the army.
It could serve as an interesting conflict between the foederati vying for the open spots within the imperial machine and coming into conflict not with the Roman overlords, but with each other. From spots in the government and the army, to rights and marriages to the imperial family, up to supporting different claimants to the throne.
On a different note, the taxation reform will tie the Goths even close to the state, now that it has assumed the responsibility of collecting and distributing their tax income. Without an emperor in Milan (or Ravenna, or Rome, or Trier) their money won't be getting into their pockets.
As for the church disputes, oh aren't early church disputes fun? Nothing can quite so easily get people talking than ensuring that you don't damn yourself and the whole world to eternal suffering.
It could serve as an interesting conflict between the foederati vying for the open spots within the imperial machine and coming into conflict not with the Roman overlords, but with each other. From spots in the government and the army, to rights and marriages to the imperial family, up to supporting different claimants to the throne.
On a different note, the taxation reform will tie the Goths even close to the state, now that it has assumed the responsibility of collecting and distributing their tax income. Without an emperor in Milan (or Ravenna, or Rome, or Trier) their money won't be getting into their pockets.
As for the church disputes, oh aren't early church disputes fun? Nothing can quite so easily get people talking than ensuring that you don't damn yourself and the whole world to eternal suffering.
Great updates! It is written in the life of St Genevieve that the man of Pelagius was created by the Christ of Nestorius, so there was apparently a connection that their contemporaries saw. On that note, what is Julian of Aeclanum doing TTL?
Are there any Roman Arians in TTL or is as in OTL an ethnic marker for the Goths/Vandals, etc? I could see the Arians promoting the monophysite position, and accidently making that position much less popular with the East Romans- "the heretics are backing this position? its clearly wrong," kinda thing.
In the Nestorian showdown, I would imagine that the Arians would back Nestorius as more in line with their understanding of God, though I think the Arians would say that Mary was the mother of Jesus just that he was not God.
Are there any Roman Arians in TTL or is as in OTL an ethnic marker for the Goths/Vandals, etc? I could see the Arians promoting the monophysite position, and accidently making that position much less popular with the East Romans- "the heretics are backing this position? its clearly wrong," kinda thing.
In the Nestorian showdown, I would imagine that the Arians would back Nestorius as more in line with their understanding of God, though I think the Arians would say that Mary was the mother of Jesus just that he was not God.