THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 231
The Roman Government of Theodoric’s Realm
15-5. The Roman Government of Theodoric’s Realm
As the Anonymus Valesii saw very clearly, Theodoric made no attempt to found a new State: he ruled two nations together without seeking to blend them, to allow one to absorb the other, or to make either subordinate. The Goths retained their own rights, their own laws, and their own officials; the Italians continued to be governed as they had been in the past, and the rule of Theodoric offers us the spectacle of a government purely Roman in character.
The Goths had established themselves almost imperceptibly in Italy, as their king had been careful to maintain continuity of government, and Theodoric appears in the pages of contemporary writers as a sovereign whose habits and traditions were altogether Roman. The works of Ennodius abound in evidence of this: his Panegyric in particular, in which he represents Italy and Rome as loud in their praise of Theodoric because he had revived the old tradition and because he himself was a Roman prince whose ambition it was to place Italy in harmony with her past; this is the idea which dominates the pages of the famous prosopopoeia of the Adige.
The government of Theodoric was then wholly Roman; he published laws and appointed consuls. He maintained and enforced Roman law and the edictum Theodorici was derived exclusively from Roman sources. he even imitated the imperial policy of encouraging barbarians in Italy, as when, for example, he established the Alemanni as guardians of the frontier. He also had a Court, officials and an administrative organisation similar to that of Byzantium; he respected the Senate, restored the consular office, and though himself an Arian intervened as arbitrator, much as a Caesar would have done, in the affairs of the Church. Theodoric had a royal palace at Ravenna and there held his Court (Aula) surrounded by the chief men of Italy and his Gothic nobles. To enjoy interest at Court was all-important. No career was open to the man who did not attend there. “He was unknown to his master,” says Ennodius. The Court was at once the home of good manners and the source of enlightenment, the centre of state affairs and a school of administration for the younger men.
The Court and the service of the palatium entailed certain functions nearly all of which were discharged by Romans: the comes rerum privatarum, (Apronianus held the office in the time of Ennodius) had charge of the privy purse, and in his double capacity of censor and magistrate was responsible for the preservation of tombs and the administration of private justice: the comes patrimonii (Julianus) as steward of the royal domains, had under his orders the troublesome band of farmers of the revenue (conductores) and inspectors (chartularii) , he had moreover supreme charge of the royal commissariat. The palace with its magnificent gardens and sumptuously decorated apartments was thronged with Roman nobles who came there in search of preferment. It was guarded by picked troops, and Ravenna was the headquarters of an important military district where the chief commands were filled by such men as Constantius, Agapitus and Honoratus. There was not a Goth among them.
If from the Court we turn to the officials we find again that they are all Romans. Among the ministers of the Court of Theodoric, as would have been the case under the Roman administration, the most important was the praetorian praefect Paustus, a personage of high consequence who in right of his office enjoyed a considerable police authority and extensive patronage; he was at the head of the postal administration, and to him was the final appeal in all criminal matters which arose in the provinces. His powers were almost legislative in character; in the forum his jurisdiction was supreme and his person sacred. The comes sacrarum largitionum discharged the duties of finance minister; the quaestor, Eugenetes, was responsible in matters relating to jurisprudence and the framing of laws. Then came the treasury counsel Marcellus, who filled a position coveted by the rising members of the Bar, and who acted as a sort of attorney-general with respect to the estates of intestates and unclaimed assets; next came the magister officiorum and then the peraequator whose business it was to adjust the incidence of taxation in the royal cities. Finally the vicarius, the deputy in each diocese of the praetorian praefect.
We have here only specified some of those officials whose personal characters have been depicted for us in the letters of Ennodius. If we complete — and with the help of Cassiodorus it is possible to do so — the catalogue of government departments, both administrative and provincial, which existed in Italy under Theodoric we might well imagine it to be a record, not of the reign of a barbarian king, but of the times of Valentinian and Honorius. It was the Romans alone who struggled — and they did so with the greatest eagerness — to obtain these posts.
Did, for example, the office of Treasury Counsel fall vacant, the whole province was agitated by intrigues, and even bishops joined in the contest. The crowd of candidates for a minor office such as peraequator was so great that Ennodius could not refrain from bantering Paustus on the subject.
The cursus honorum of the principal officers of state, during the forty years from Odovacar to the death of Theodoric, proves that very little was altered in Italy during that period, except the nationality of the ruler of the country. We find, for instance, that Faustus was successively Consul, Quaestor, Patrician, and Praetorian Praefect, and was moreover entrusted with missions to Anastasius; while Liberius, who had remained faithful to Odovacar, and had even refused to surrender Caesena to Theodoric, was nevertheless employed by the latter sovereign, who made him a Patrician and Praefect of Ligurian Gaul. Senarius, again, was employed first as a soldier, and then as a diplomatist, and Count of the patrimonium; Agapitus, another official, obtained the rank of Patrician, held a military appointment at Ravenna, and was in turn Consul, Legate in the East, and Pracfect of the city; while Eugenetes, whom Ennodius styles “the honour of Italy,” became a vir illustris and was employed as an advocate, a Quaestor, and as Master of the Offices; other examples might also be quoted.
The readiness of these Italian noblemen to serve successively under both Odovacar and Theodoric arose from no feeling of indifference on their part, but must rather be attributed to the fact that these rulers were in no sense hostile to tradition, and because they continued the form of administration established by the Roman Empire.
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