Everyday Life in Byzantium Page 10
33 A Roman consul
When the consulship was abolished both Rome and Constantinople were given their own city prefects. Though of lower standing than the praetorian prefects, the Constantinopolitan prefect or ‘eparch’, as he was called, ranked eighteenth among the first 60 court officials yet, within Constantinople, his importance was almost as great as the emperor’s, for he was regarded as first among the civil officials and as father of the city. This gave him precedence over all the court officials and entitled him to become a senator. He was also the only official permitted to wear the toga instead of military uniform. In return, it fell to him to maintain order and the smooth running of life in Constantinople, to see that the factions were at peace with each other, to control the city’s industrial guilds, to ensure that it possessed adequate supplies of corn, and to see that the weights and measures used by the shopkeepers were checked. To help him in all this, the eparch was assisted by two senior officials, one of whom—the Logothete of the Praetorium—was responsible for the law courts whilst the other —the Symponus—was charged with maintaining law and order. His junior assistants were very numerous.
34 An eparch dispensing justice
The eparch’s control of the judiciary gave him great powers, but also made him one of the busiest of the country’s administrative officers. It obliged him to countersign all the decrees issued by the emperor, to draft the texts of all laws submitted to the emperor, and to ensure the correct application of all regulations. At all times new laws were issued in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord Master. Byzantium had taken over Rome’s legal system to use it as the basis of its own, but from quite an early date a commission was set up in Constantinople to examine the old laws with a view to either amending or discarding them; when it was in session the eparch became directly concerned and the volume of work he had to deal with greatly increased. The initiative for reforming the legal code rested with individual emperors. Each, in his capacity of sovereign, stood at the head of the judiciary, but some emperors were more interested in modernising the system than others. Theodosius was the first emperor to attempt to streamline the code. In 438 he edited a collection of all the edicts issued by Constantine I and the latter’s successors on the Byzantine throne, giving them the form of a Codex bearing his own name as its title. By assembling these laws in a single volume, Theodosius made it far simpler for them to be referred to and checked; this improvement in its turn helped lawyers to avoid errors resulting from confused or mistaken interpretations of regulations. Furthermore the Codex was quickly accepted in Byzantium, though not in Rome, as the basis of the country’s legal system. As a result, even though the original text had been written in Latin, the book’s appearance marked the first separation of the constitutions applied in the western and eastern sections of the Empire, and, as such, it had the effect of encouraging the use of the Greek language in Byzantium at the expense of the Latin. Inevitably Latin gradually fell into disuse even among members of the governing class. By the sixth century Greek was being so widely spoken that Emperor Heraclius (610-41) proclaimed it the country’s official language and within the space of a generation Latin was known only to a handful of scholars.
The most far-reaching and enduring measures taken to classify, co-ordinate and rationalise the country’s laws were undertaken at the wish of Emperor Justinian. As a start all the Roman laws which had been passed since the time of Hadrian (117-38) were collected and published in the year 529 under the title of Codex Justinianus. These laws remained in force throughout the whole of Byzantium’s existence, coming into use in western Europe in the twelfth century. Even today students of jurisprudence are obliged to study Justinian’s Codex because some principles laid down in it remain valid in certain European countries at the present time. Four years after its appearance, once again at Justinian’s order, a digest of the pronouncements made by Roman jurists of the classical period was issued. Together with the Codex this volume came to serve as the basis for all Byzantine law, and copies of both works were distributed to all members of the legal profession to ensure the uniform application of the law throughout the Empire. In addition, once again at Justinian’s wish, a text-book on law was produced for use in all schools of jurisprudence. The head of the legal faculty at the university of Constantinople was given the title of nomophylax (guardian of the laws). As no form of printing or of reproducing texts mechanically, such as by block-printing, was known to the Byzantines, all books were in manuscript form, that is to say they were transcribed by hand. Many men earned their living as scribes. The original Justinianic law books were written in Latin, but they were quickly translated into Greek which had by then established itself as the language of the people. Each copy, whatever its language, stressed the supreme authority and powers of the emperor in all legal matters.
Byzantine law did not remain unchanged after Justinian’s death. Throughout succeeding centuries it was often amended to conform to changes in outlook. Leo III, the Isaurian (717-41) was one of the first of Justinian’s successors to find it necessary to introduce minor changes. His amendments appeared in 739 in a volume entitled the Ecloga; the changes incorporated in it had been rendered desirable by the more enlightened and humanistic outlook brought by Christianity. Though many of Leo’s reforms strike us as barbarous today, in the eighth century they were considered far more merciful than the laws which they replaced. In many instances where the Justinianic Code prescribed death or a ruinous fine as the only permissible punishments, Leo substituted such penalties as the cutting off of noses or hands and the tearing out of tongues—measures which today fill us with disgust. A thousand years ago, however, even the kindest and most cultivated Christians lived in a society where mutilations were not only normal but also figured prominently in paintings illustrating the tortures inflicted on saints and martyrs of the faith, and the blunting of sensibilities which resulted may help to explain why such punishments were considered more humane and vastly preferable to death or destitution.
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THE ADMINISTRATION AND ITS OFFICIALS
35 Torture on the wheel, from an illumination
Basil I (867-86) also found it necessary to revise some of the older laws in force at the time of his accession. In 879 he issued his amendments to the legal code in a volume entitled the Epanagoge. In it an attempt was made for the first time in Byzantine history to define the parts to be played in the country’s legal system respectively by the emperor, the patriarch, and the state, and to outline the duties of each. Basil’s successors Leo VI, ‘the Wise’, and Alexander I (886-913) applied themselves to completing the revision of the Justinianic Code undertaken by Basil, but the task was left unfinished at their deaths and never again seriously attempted.
Throughout Byzantine history a pronouncement of the supreme, that is to say of the imperial, court or of the senate when acting at the emperor’s request as a high court, was regarded as final. But those issued by ordinary courts of law, whether civil or ecclesiastic, could on appeal be heard anew in another local court. After the emperor’s return to Constantinople in 1261 the old distinctions between the civil and religious courts became blurred and eventually they were replaced by regional courts in which both clerics and laymen were represented. Unfortunately, by 1296, the entire legal profession had become so corrupt that Andronicus II found it necessary to create a new high court. He appointed 12 judges and eight prominent officials to serve on it. However, the measure proved ineffective; corruption persisted and, in 1329, Andronicus III appointed four men with the title of ‘supreme justices of the Romans’ and invested them with even greater powers than those enjoyed by members of the high court. He hoped thereby to ensure fair judgments. Yet within eight years charges of corruption were being levied against these men. By then, however, Byzantium was on a decline which no one could arrest and the supreme justices remained in office, dispensing their duties each according to his lights during the last years before the onslaught of the Ottoman Turks.
From the start the inhabitants of Constantinople as well as of all other towns of any size and pretensions were grouped in factions not unlike the political parties of today. These never numbered more than four in any one city and it has been suggested that originally each group represented a geographical rather than a political division, corresponding to that section of the town situated at a major point of the compass. Each faction in due course acquired a distinguishing colour worn by its members on their shoulders. Constantinople’s four factions were known as the Blues, Greens, Whites, and Reds, but by Justinian’s day the Whites and the Reds had merged respectively into the Blues and Greens. It has been established that each did live in a separate part of the town—which tends to support the suggestion that originally the divisions were drawn on geographical lines. It seems probable that, rather like present-day Mods and Rockers, the factions quickly acquired social and ideological characteristics in addition to regional distinctions. According to Procopius, the Blues (at any rate in Constantinople) included many wild young aristocrats who trimmed their beards in the Persian style and partially shaved their heads in imitation of the Huns. They wore narrow tunics with puffed-out shoulders but with the sleeves gathered into long tight cuffs at the wrist, close-fitting hose and shoes similar in style to those worn by the men referred to by the Byzantines as ‘barbarians’. When in battle dress they wore a cuirass. The Greens were not as interested in their appearance as were the Blues.
So long as four factions existed the Blues and Whites often sided together; in 602 in Constantinople they numbered some 900 men as compared to 1,500 Greens and Reds. Rivalry between the Blues and Greens persisted until the end perhaps because, even though membership was in each case open to all freemen, the Blues included many landowners and senators of Romano-Greek origin, whilst the Greens were largely made up of businessmen, industrialists and civil servants. Each worshipped in its own church: the Blues, who belonged to the established Church, in the Dagisteus, and the Greens, who sympathised with the Eastern heretical sects, in the Diaconissa. Each had its own organs, choirs and other essential musical instruments, yet all the factions had to perform similar duties. They had a specially important part to play in the Hippodrome games; they also had the honour of lining the routes followed by royal processions, and certain functions to perform during specific imperial ceremonies. Among the most important was their task of maintaining the town’s defensive walls in good repair and of acting as a militia or police force. In times of national danger they also had the right to enrol and arm supporters. It was this privilege which made them so dangerous an element in Constantinople during periods of political unrest.
Established originally to serve as a police force, it was only gradually that the factions came to be linked with the Circus, to rank there as athletes competing in the Hippodrome games. Like the Agora in Athens or the Forum in Rome, Byzantine hippodromes were used for political meetings. When these occurred, the athletic teams drawn from and backed by each faction came to represent the nation’s leading political parties, so that, just as players in present-day international football matches stand for their respective countries, so did the athletes of Byzantium represent particular political parties. By Justinian’s reign only the Blues and the Greens remained, and both were extremely powerful. They had a great many followers made up of people who shared their political opinions. Since these supporters did not hesitate to make their political views known, and to fight for their side if need be, the political importance of the factions cannot be exaggerated. When the people felt that they had been too sorely tried the factions joined forces with them in overthrowing the emperor, the government, or both.
Justinian had unwisely increased the importance of the factions during his uncle’s reign by making use of them to further his own ends. Instead of maintaining discipline the factions became unruly, but Justinian did nothing to curb them till he came to the throne. In January 532 he decided to punish them for their lawlessness. The orders he issued led to rioting which seemed little worse than outbreaks of a similar kind to which the Constantinopolitans had become accustomed. Some mutineers were arrested and tried; seven were found guilty of murder and were therefore condemned to death by the eparch, four of them by execution, three by hanging. Two of the latter, one a Blue, the other a Green, fell from the noose twice without being killed. Monks from a neighbouring monastery could not endure the painful spectacle or countenance a third attempt; seizing the men they rowed them across the Golden Horn to sanctuary in the church of the monastery of St Laurentius. The eparch sent some soldiers to surround the church. The factions petitioned the emperor for mercy, but received no reply. Three days later a large race-meeting was held in the Hippodrome. On the third day, at the end of the twenty-second race, a great cry of ‘Long live the humane Greens and Blues!’ showed the public that the factions had joined forces on the issue. At the end of the last race a great cry of `Nike meaning ‘Victory!’ went up—it was the watchword of the factions and the signal for the worst rising in Byzantine history. The mob supporting the factions broke into the prisons, releasing the inmates, killing the guards and firing the buildings; it then moved on to set fire to the great gate of the Chalke, to the Great Palace itself, to the senate house and even to Constantine’s cathedral of Haghia Sophia. On the next day, the races having been cancelled, the mob moved to the north of the Hippodrome, to the great baths of Zeuxippus, demanding the dismissal of three officials. Alarmed by the scale of the disturbances Justinian agreed. The factions were now ready for peace, but peace could not be restored, for the vast crowd of countrymen who had come to Constantinople for the Christmas festivities, angered by the heavy taxes which had been imposed on them, took advantage of the disorders to try to depose Justinian. The rebellion raged all week and but for Theodora’s intervention it would probably have succeeded.
During the opening phase of Byzantine history, before the Empire possessed a separate department of finance, its monetary affairs were controlled by the praetorian prefect’s finance officers. It fell to them, acting on his behalf, to collect the nation’s most important tax, the annona. Levied in rural districts, it was a combination of a poll and land tax, being based on a piece of land of definite value and of a size to be worked by one man. In the eighth century, when the praetorian prefect ceased to be responsible for country districts he automatically stopped collecting the annona. Local treasury officials were appointed to do so and at the same time the post of sacellarius was created, its holder acting as the nation’s senior finance officer. By the seventh century, however, the nation’s monetary affairs had become so complicated that the finance department which had grown up during the preceding centuries was split into two; logothetes or accountants worked in one section and chartularii or actuaries in the other. The chief logothete’s office became increasingly important from the eighth century onwards and, in the twelfth, when the post of sacellarius was abolished in favour of that of ‘great’ logothete, the holder of the latter came to rank as equal in importance to the lord chancellor. However, since their duties brought them into close daily contact with the emperor, the head of the imperial chancery, the official who dealt with all petitions, and the imperial secretary continued to wield great influence.
It seems probable that the post of sacellarius was abolished because the themes and their respective governors had become so numerous and so powerful that by the twelfth century they often succeeded in forestalling the central government’s treasury officials; the latter often stepped in first to collect the taxes imposed on the peasants and then retained these for themselves. These taxes, certainly until the thirteenth century, must have been exceedingly valuable. Though we have no means of estimating their exact worth or the purchasing power of money at the time it is thought that in the ninth century, when the Empire was at the height of its prosperity, the nation’s annual budget, assessed both in money and kind, must far have exceeded in value 100 million pre-war French gold francs. Basil I (867-86) left his heir a
personal fortune thought to represent 24 million pre-war gold francs, though its purchasing value must have been far higher. Nevertheless, in the eleventh century, the country was in economic difficulties, though it was still drawing vast revenues from both urban and rural Crown lands, from the taxes imposed on imports, exports and consumer goods, from the duties levied on wines and stone quarries as well as on cultivated land and grazing, and on urban dwellings no less than from the sums raised from licences imposed on private industries. The economic crisis was partly, perhaps even largely, caused by the outrageous extravagance of Constantine VIII, Empress Zoe and Constantine IX, all of whom were so engrossed in their personal affairs that they permitted the civilian aristocracy to gain control of the government machine; having done so, the latter created an excessive number of civil service posts. Some of these were genuinely needed, for, throughout its history, Byzantine life with all its intricate ramifications continued to be as elaborately controlled as it is now in countries where the state is accepted as the sole authority. Every aspect of daily existence was regulated by the state, the government fixing prices and wages, issuing trading licences, travel permits and so on. With the years an ever-increasing number of government departments and officials were needed to deal with these tasks. Their growth, between the foundation of Byzantium in the fourth century and the tenth century when the administrative machine had fully evolved, is startling. A government department such as that responsible for the army’s equipment had by then been so expanded as to enable it to assume control of the factories which produced it; the department which provided the army with horses was in charge of the Anatolian farms where many of the animals were bred; and the one which dealt with foreign visitors had grown into a sort of Ministry of Housing to enable it to provide the new arrivals with dwellings. Examples such as these could be multiplied many times over. The growth of the civil service increased the cost of the administrative organisation. To make matters worse, the rise in expenditure corresponded with a fall in the country’s revenue, caused mainly by the country-dwellers’ refusal to pay their taxes, partly too because the government had started to employ private contractors as tax collectors, many of whom proved to be dishonest. That the government was able to continue to function so long is a matter of wonder. The achievement must to a large extent be attributed to the efficiency and devotion of the bulk of the officials: although many key appointments were held by corrupt and selfish men, less concerned with the state’s well-being than their own, who added to their personal fortunes by trafficking in state appointments and by evading payment of their taxes, yet the majority remained above reproach. This is all the more remarkable since junior officials were never well paid. As late as the eighth century a notary’s average earnings seldom exceeded two nomismata a month, though this was supplemented by goods in kind.