The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

192
EVAGRIUS
in short whether a tyrant overpowered an emperor, with the single exception
of Basiliscus’ expulsion of Zeno, by whom he was deposed and his
life was removed. I am persuaded, indeed, if you talk about Valens, who
had committed so many wrongs against Christians. For concerning
anyone else, not even you can speak. 165 Let no one think that these
things are irrelevant to the ecclesiastical history, but quite certainly
necessary and essential, since the historians of the Hellenes deliberately
distort precision. But let us move to the remainder of Anastasius’
actions. 166
42 And so the aforesaid matters were corrected by Anastasius in a
manner worthy of an emperor; but he acted unworthily of these in
devising the so-called gold impost, and by disposing the military
expenses onto the tax-payers most heavily. 167 He also removed the
165 Just as Christianity brought temporal bene¢ts to the empire in which it was centred,
so the manner of the individual ruler’s death would re£ect his attitude towards religious
matters (cf. i. n. 77 above for the same principle applied to church leaders). The contrast
drawn by Evagrius would have been less impressive if he had included the Christian rulers
of the Western Empire in the fourth and ¢fth centuries, since many of them had less peaceful
ends than the rulers in Constantinople.
Eusebius, Oration to the Saints 24^5, noted the ¢tting reward for the persecutors Decius,
Valerian, Aurelian and Diocletian.
166 The long anti-pagan digression sparked o¡ by Anastasius’ abolition of the Chrysargyron
tax is now at an end. Allen, Evagrius 62^3, 161, regards this, together with the long
refutation of pagan accusations of Christian inconsistency at i.11, as little more than rhetorical
exercises which were not intended to combat contemporary pagans. This assessment
may be too negative. Kaegi, Byzantium 217^23, suggests that the empire’s contemporary
problems may have resuscitated such pagan complaints. The Antioch in which Evagrius
lived and worked was disrupted by a major pagan scandal (see v.18), and, although one
would not expect crypto-pagans to choose to read an ecclesiastical history, the educated
audience for whom Evagrius wrote might well have appreciated a reminder of some historical
proofs of the rectitude of Christianity. Evagrius also here pays attention to the reputation
of Constantine, which was perhaps a matter of contemporary interest since, after a gap
of over 200 years, the name Constantine had re-entered the imperial line as part of the full
imperial titulature of both Tiberius and Maurice (see Whitby, ‘Constantine’).
167 For Anastasius’ proper behaviour in abolishing the Chrysargyron, cf. iii.39, p. 137:8.
Most sources mention Anastasius’ reputation for insatiable greed: Malalas 408:16 (though
also noting gifts to taxpayers: 409:11^13); Oracle of Baalbek 168; John Lydus, De Mag.
iii.46; Anth. Gr. xi.271; John of Antioch fr. 215.
Evagrius here refers to two aspects of a substantial reform of the basic land tax, which
had previously been collected in kind, except in places where, unsystematically, it had been
commuted to gold. In order to reduce waste and unnecessary expenditure, Anastasius overhauled
the system: he commuted most payments to gold but intended to ensure that enough