Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

194 7. government and administration
evolve gradually, through the introduction of a new official or procedure
which ran alongside existing arrangements until the innovation either demonstrated
its effectiveness by marginalizing its predecessor or proved
unequal to the task. Such an approach is illustrated by the introduction by
Anastasius of vindices to supervise the collection of taxes by town councils:
though they began as monitors of local arrangements, their superior
authority contributed to undermining that of the local curiae (as Evagrius
complained), which consequently declined further in power and attractiveness.
135 This tendency for change to be gradual could also explain some of
the apparent administrative anomalies of the seventh century, when the
praetorian prefecture and elements of provincial administration under its
authority persisted long after the appearance of the systems that would
replace them.
Major administrative change might creep up on the empire for a variety
of reasons, and it is difficult to be specific about causes and effects. A
good example is the question of adaeratio, the practice of commuting into
gold coin taxes and payments which were assessed in kind. This habit
emerged in the western empire during the fifth century, but rather more
gradually in the east, where commutation of the land-tax into gold
remained restricted until Anastasius switched most into gold, while
leaving sufficient to be collected in kind for the needs of the field armies.
It is interesting that adaeratio was regarded as a privilege, since the most
obvious beneficiary of the practice would appear to be the state: it could
obtain the gold which it needed to pay troops, especially non-Roman mercenaries,
136 and also save on the expense and labour of the cursus clabularis
and corvées; the state could then, in theory, choose where to purchase the
goods and services which it needed, hence permitting armies to move
rapidly to respond to crises, though in practice this flexibility will have
been constrained by the facts of supply and demand. Benefits for taxpayers
are less clear: the combined consequences of demands for tax payments
in coin and the removal in Asiana of the state post, which had
provided the means for injecting coinage into local economies, are
reported, in similar terms, by Procopius and John Lydus; 137 both reports
are tendentious and may exaggerate a transitional local crisis. If Asiana
failed to adjust to the new tax regime in the medium term, it may have
been exceptional: the emperor Leo had already introduced a similar
change in the Oriens diocese in 467/8, while the picture of rural life in
Galatia in the late sixth century in the Life of Theodore of Sykeon suggests
a moderately prosperous and tax-paying peasant economy – these
135 Evagr. HE iii.42; Priscian, Pan. Anast. 193 presented the panegyrical claim that the vindices protected
the farmers from the rapacity of the curiales. For further discussion of the fate of the curiales, see
ch. 8 (Liebeschuetz), pp. 219,22 below. 136 Carrié (1995) 35–9.
137 Procop. Secret History 30; John Lydus, De Mag. iii.61; Hendy, Studies 294–9.
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