Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

196 7. government and administration
their tasks by the emperor himself. 143 It is notable that the dominance of
the prefecture in the east is associated with the careers of a series of astute
financial officials: Polycarp and Marinus under Anastasius, John the
Cappadocian and Peter Barsymes under Justinian. These reforming administrators
are precisely the professional appointees identified above: emperors
who wanted to introduce change knew that they had to sideline the
aristocratic amateurs and promote lower-ranking bureaucrats, even if they
lacked the liberal paideia prized by the cultured élite. 144 Marinus was responsible
for the introduction of vindices, officials charged with the supervision
of local collection of taxes. John was admitted, even by his enemies, to be
capable at identifying problems and devising solutions to them, while it was
his efficiency in securing revenues to meet Justinian’s considerable expenditures,
by improving the efficiency of the collection system, eliminating
abuses, reducing delays in judicial appeals and challenging the established
practices of career civil servants, which earned him the wrath of ‘victims’
like John Lydus. John, in fact, appears to have been a prudent controller of
imperial resources, and like any canny financier he was reluctant to endorse
major new commitments: he opposed Justinian’s plans for the Vandal expedition,
partly on financial grounds, and he may have been responsible for
ensuring that the experienced Archelaus was appointed to oversee the
logistical side of the campaign. 145 Peter Barsymes has a similarly unscrupulous
reputation, but two Justinianic laws addressed to him suggest that his
concern for the interests of the treasury extended to protection of the
rights of tax-payers, i.e. the people who were ultimately responsible for the
health of the treasury. 146 In part, such reformers were the victims of
Justinian’s determination to tighten up the whole tax-collecting system: the
same law which abolished suffragia gave governors considerable authority in
the rigorous exaction of taxes to support the wars of reconquest – unless
there was actually theft, provincials were forbidden, under pain of the most
severe penalty, to complain of their exactions and punishments. 147
Understanding the mechanics of adaeratio is complicated by the practice
of coemptio, the purchase of produce, often compulsory 148 and usually for
military needs. The development of coemptio was an inevitable consequence
of adaeratio: the state had to purchase the supplies which had formerly
been brought in as tax. In theory, it could be used to benefit the
tax-payer, since the state could adjust its demands to accord with local
fluctuations in harvests and trade, and could finance the storage of surplus
143 Millet (1925); CJ x.30.4.
144 Procop. Wars i.24.12 for the alleged illiteracy of John the Cappadocian.
145 Since the mid fifth century, there had developed the practice of appointing a special deputy praetorian
prefect to oversee the logistical arrangements for major campaigns: Jones, LRE 627–8, 673–4.
146 PLRE ii s.v. Marinus 7; PLRE iii s.v. Johannes 11; PLRE ii s.v. Archelaus 5; PLRE iii s.v. Peter
9; Nov. 128, 130. 147 Justinian, Nov. 8.
148 C.Th. xi.15.2 (a.d. 384) indicates that it was not always compulsory.
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