The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK III 193
collection of taxes from local councillors and appointed the so-called
vindices over each city, at the suggestion, they say, of Marinus the
Syrian who exercised the highest of o⁄ces which men of old called the
prefect of the palace. As a result of this the revenues were greatly
reduced and the £ower of the cities lapsed: for in former times the nobility
were inscribed in the cities’ albums, since each city regarded and de¢ned
those in the councils as a sort of senate. 168 [145]
43 There rebelled against Anastasius Vitalian, a Thracian by race, who
after ravaging Thrace and Moesia as far as Odessus and Anchialus
pressed on to the imperial city with an innumerable horde of Hunnic
tribes. The emperor sent Hypatius to meet him. And after Hypatius was
betrayed by his own men, taken captive, and released for a large
ransom, Cyril undertook the campaign. At ¢rst the battle was evenly
balanced, and then it experienced various alternations in pursuits and
retreats; although Cyril had held the upper hand, a pursuit had to turn
was collected in kind to meet military needs without the regular compulsory purchase
(coemptio) of extra supplies. The object was to improve the e⁄ciency of the system and preserve
taxpayers from extortionate military demands (cf. Malalas 394:8^10), but coemptio
was allowed in certain circumstances and this may be the point of Evagrius’ objection in
the second part of the sentence. See Jones, LRE 235, 460; Stein, Bas-Empire II. 210^15 for
discussion of Anastasius’ various measures to improve urban administration.
168 Marinus (PLRE II. 726^8, s.v. Marinus 7) served for most of Anastasius’ reign as a
¢nancial o⁄cial in the praetorian prefecture, becoming one of Anastasius’ key ¢nancial advisers
and, eventually in 512, praetorian prefect. His reform (also noted by Malalas 400:11^
21) was undoubtedly intended to improve the e⁄ciency of tax collection, and reduce the
scope for corruption and unfair allocation by the city councillors, the members of the local
curiae, ‘the nobility’ whose names were recorded in local lists. These councillors had previously
controlled taxation (Jones, LRE 236), and, not unnaturally, the new supervisors
were unpopular with the men whose self-enrichment they were intended to curb; these
vindices are praised by Priscian, Laud. Anast. 193^5, for helping farmers by striking at the
injustice of the curiales. The vindices extended their powers to include the allocation as well
as the collection of revenues. Upholders of the traditional rights of the propertied classes
accused Marinus and his men of enriching themselves from the taxes they now controlled
(John Lydus, De Mag. iii.49).
At some point in the sixth century the curiae in the eastern part of the empire ceased to be
maintained, a consequence of their diminished role and importance. Most modern scholarship
accepts Evagrius’ gloomy assessment of the consequences, with talk of a loss of civic
autonomy and vitality (e.g. Jones, LRE 755^66); for a more optimistic assessment of the
maintenance of a vital urban society in the eastern provinces, in spite of the decline of the
curia as an institution, see Whittow, ‘City’, esp. 11^12.