THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 011

The Economic Failure of Constantine

1-11. The Economic Failure of Constantine

We know little of Constantine's declining years, except that they were generally years of peace. The civil wars were ended at Chrysopolis: now there was not even a pretender, unless we count as such Calocerus the camel-driver in Cyprus, who was put down without much difficulty, and duly burned in the market-place of Tarsus in 335. If the Rhine was not entirely quiet, the troubles there were not serious. The Jews, to be sure, were never loyal, and the Christian Empire had already shown marked hostility to them. A rising mentioned only by Chrysostom is most likely a legend: but there may have been already some signs of the great outbreak put down by Ursicinus in 352. However, upon the whole there was peace. The old emperor never again took the field in person. His last war was with the Goths; and that was conducted by the younger Constantine.

On a broad view, the legions of the Danube faced the Germans in its upper course and the Goths lower down, with the Sarmatians between them; and each of these names stands for sundry tribes and groups of tribes, whose mutual enmities were diligently fostered by the policy of Rome. In 331 the Sarmatians and the Vandals had somehow got mixed up together, and suffered a great defeat from the Goths. They asked Constantine for help, and he was very willing to check the growth of the Gothic power. Araric the Gothic king replied by carrying the war into the Roman province of Moesia, from which he was driven out with heavy loss. The younger Constantine gained a great victory over him, 20 April 332; and when peace was made, the Goths returned to their old position as servants and allies of Rome. But when the Sarmatians themselves made inroads on Roman territory, Constantine left them to their fate. They were soon in difficulties with Geberic the new Gothic king, and with their own slaves, the Limigantes, who drove them out of their country. Some fled to the Quadi, some found refuge among the Gothic tribes, but 300,000 of them sought shelter in the Empire, and were given lands by Constantine, chiefly in Pannonia.

The most interesting circumstance of the Gothic war is the help which Constantine received from Cherson, the last of the Greek republics. It stood where Sebastopol now stands. The story is told only by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (911-959), but the learned emperor was an excellent antiquarian, and used original authorities. Cherson and the Goths were old enemies, Rome and Cherson old allies. The republic decided for war, and its first magistrate Diogenes struck a decisive blow by attacking the rear of the Goths. Cherson received a rich reward from Constantine, and remained in generally friendly relations to the Empire till its annexation in 829, and even till its capture by the Russians in 988.

The settlement of the Danube was the last of Constantine's great services to the Empire. The Edict of Milan had removed the standing danger of Christian disaffection in the East, the defeat of Licinius had put an end to the civil wars, the reform of the administration completed Diocletian's work of reducing the army to permanent obedience, the Council of Nicaea had secured the active alliance of the Christian churches, the foundation of Constantinople made the seat of power safe for centuries; and now the consolidation of the northern frontier seemed to enlist all the most dangerous enemies of Rome in her defence. The Empire gained three hundred thousand settlers for the wastes of the Gothic march, and a firm peace of more than thirty years with the greatest of the northern nations. Henceforth the Rhine was guarded by the Franks, the Danube covered by the Goths, and the Euphrates flanked by the Christian kingdom of Armenia. The Empire was already dangerously dependent on barbarian help inside and outside its frontiers; but the Roman peace never seemed more secure than when the skilful policy of Constantine had formed its chief barbarian enemies into a covering ring of friendly client states.

At all events, the years of peace were not a time of healthful recovery. The Empire had not gained strength in the long peace of the Antonines; and it had gone a long way downhill since the second century. When Diocletian came to the throne in 284, he found three great problems before him. The first was military — how to stop the continual mutinies which cut off the emperors before they could do their work. This he solved, though at the cost of leaving behind him a period of civil war. The second was religious — how to deal with the Christians. Diocletian went wrong on this, and left his mistake to be repaired by Constantine. The third and hardest was mainly economic — to restore the dwindled agriculture, commerce, and population of the Empire.

On this Diocletian and Constantine went wrong together. They not only failed to cure the evil, but greatly increased it. Not much was gained by remitting taxes that could not be paid, and settling barbarian colonists and barbarian serfs in the wasted provinces. Serious economic difficulties have moral causes, and there was no radical cure short of a complete change in the temper of society. Yet much might have been done by a permanent reduction of taxation and a reform of its incidence and of the methods of collection. Instead of this, the machinery of government (and its expense) was greatly increased. The army had to be held in check by courts of Oriental splendour and a vast establishment of corrupt officials. We can see the growth of officialism even in the language, if we compare the Latin words in Athanasius with those in the New Testament. So heavier taxes had to be levied from a smaller and poorer population.

Taxation under the Empire had never been light ; in the third century it grew heavy, under Diocletian it was crushing, and in the later years of Constantine the burden was further increased by the enormous expenditure which built up the new capital like the city in a fairy tale. We are within sight of the time when the whole policy of the government was dictated by dire financial need. We have already reached a state of things like that we see in Russia. The strongest of the emperors had never been able to put down brigandage; and now disorder was rampant in the mountains, and often elsewhere. The great army of officials was all-powerful for oppression, and very little controlled by the emperor. He might displace an official at a moment's notice, or “deliver him to the avenging flames,” but he could enforce no reform against the passive resistance of the officials and the landowners.

So things drifted on from bad to worse.

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