Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

administration in operation 191
manner characteristic of late Roman society: infringements of the rights of
Aphrodito might well have entailed extra taxes for the family of Dioscorus
(see above). For Dioscorus, public duties and private interests naturally
interlocked.
The careers of John and Dioscorus provide evidence for the type of
person who joined the administration. Anyone who had completed all
stages of the educational system was likely to possess the resources to purchase
a position, though education might have raised expectations above
what the individual could realistically hope to obtain: for many it was necessary
to wait in the unsalaried ranks of the supernumerarii attached to the
officia, or of lawyers waiting for registration at the bar. 126 Personal contacts
also mattered, whether through kinship, regional solidarity, shared factional
allegiance or the favour which a timely panegyric might procure: John
Lydus was lucky, whereas Augustine, for example, was less fortunate, until
his Manichee connections at Rome helped him secure his position at Milan.
An unlikely potential recruit to the administration was the future holy man,
Theodore of Sykeon: his father was a Hippodrome entertainer, who performed
acrobatics on camels, and so was undoubtedly attached to one of
the factions; he also had official connections, since he had met Theodore’s
mother, the prostitute Mary, while travelling through Galatia on imperial
orders; when Theodore was still only six, his mother decided to journey to
Constantinople to secure his entry into imperial service and so kitted him
out with a gold belt and expensive clothing. 127 Granted the long queues of
supernumeraries attached to all desirable administrative posts, Mary was
probably starting her employment drive none too soon. Advancement up
the career structure was, in many cases, achieved through seniority, with
progression being so slow that senior officials might be too ancient to
perform their duties properly. There are, however, examples of exceptional
abilities being rewarded: the reforming praetorian prefects Polycarp,
Marinus, John the Cappadocian and Peter Barsymes. These individuals had
experience in subordinate financial positions or in related areas (Peter was
a banker), and in each case it was probably their administrative talent which
brought them to imperial attention and resulted in exalted office. 128
Another example of such apparently rare professionalism is John the
Paphlagonian, a former tractator in the scrinium Orientis, who, as comes sacrarum
largitionum, conducted Anastasius’ currency reform (see below); the
careers of Basilides in the first decade of Justinian’s reign and of Magnus
under Justin II might also suggest that hierarchy and precedence were no
longer of supreme importance in the choice of major ministers.
126 For these, see Jones, LRE 510, 585, 598, 604. 127 Life 5.
128 Note John Lydus, De Mag. iii.57 on John’s appointment as logothete ‘because he had promised
to do things beyond belief on behalf of the government’; Procop. Secret History 22.1 on the intensive
search before Peter’s appointment. Epinicus (see PLRE ii) is another example.
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