Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

188 7. government and administration
court, 111 which the emperor tended to rotate quite rapidly among the interested
nobility. Anastasius is criticized by John of Antioch for transforming
the entire empire into an aristocracy through his sale of office; Justin II’s
anti-corruption measure to have provincial governors chosen by local grandees,
clerical and secular, will presumably have resulted in the selection of
similarly wealthy individuals. 112 In each case imperial action may have
encouraged family traditions of public service; some minor offices became
quasi-hereditary, with sons having the reversion right of precedence in purchasing
their fathers’ posts, whose value might be included in the inherited
estate. 113
Bribery or gift-giving was an integral part of the late Roman patronage
system, but there is also evidence for more extreme abuse of official position.
In Egypt, the pagarch Menas’ attempts to annex the right to collect
the taxes of Aphrodito involved the exploitation of a group of violent
shepherds, damage to irrigation works and threats to Christian women. In
southern Italy, the misdeeds of a tribune at Otranto and a duke of
Campania each prompted part of the local population to desert to the
Lombards. 114 In all these instances we never have more than one side of
the case, and it is possible that self-interest has distorted the presentation:
at Aphrodito Dioscorus had to whip up official sympathy against a member
of the administrative structure, the pagarch, and so might have exploited
traditional complaints, while pope Gregory was attempting to persuade
officials to behave in ways that better suited the interests of the church.
Feuding between higher and lower, central and provincial officials might
add to administrative disorder, and the ruler might find it hard to protect
the party of lower status: Theoderic was often forced to give special protection,
usually enforced by a Goth, to subjects, even of high status, who
were being harassed by great men, and the church of Ravenna offered protection
against violent attacks, in return for the grant of estates. 115
Abuses there certainly were, but attempts to investigate and regulate
them would not necessarily be welcomed: Gregory’s keenness to restrict
Leontius’ activities in Sicily has already been noted, while the unpopular
activities of Justinian’s emissary, the logothete Alexander ‘the Scissors’,
whose cost-cutting achieved notoriety through Procopius’ account in the
Secret History, can be regarded as an attempt to overhaul an administrative
system in which a decade of warfare, as well as a long period of
Ostrogothic rule, had permitted abuses to arise. Alexander’s mission is one
111 Cass. Variae ix.24.6; xi.1.18 imply bribery was used in competition for the magisterium officiorum.
112 John of Antioch fr. 215, though note Theophanes 143.18; Nov. 149; important discussion in
Jones, LRE 391–6.
113 CJ iii.28.30.2–3; Jones, LRE 577, 581. For a comparative discussion, see Doyle (1996).
114 MacCoull, Dioscorus 23–8; Greg.Reg. ix.205; x.5.
115 Feuding: Cass. Variae iii.27; John Lydus, De Mag. iii.50. Protection: Cass. Variae i.15, 37; iii.27;
iv.27; vii.39; P. Ital. 13.
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