Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

218 8. administration and politics in the cities
notably by Anastasius, who got the bishop formally involved in urban
administration by giving him a part – inevitably a very influential part – in
the election of curator and defensor, and sitona. 82 Subsequently, Justinian
assigned the bishop a supervisory role in important aspects of urban
administration. 83
That emperors tried to base urban administration on the bishop is not
surprising. Over the years the bishop must have become the most powerful
individual in many, if not most, cities. 84 He was elected with at least the
consent of the citizen body. Once consecrated, he held the office for life,
as no secular civic functionary did. As the church grew in wealth, the
bishop came to control greater financial resources than all but the wealthiest
inhabitants, and these enabled him to fulfil his claim to be the guardian
of the poor and the sick. The bishop settled disputes between members of
his community more quickly than any public official and without any
charge. Cases involving church business and church personnel were normally
reserved for the jurisdiction of the bishop. 85 The religious character
of his office gave weight to the bishop’s intercession on behalf of individuals
with imperial officials. It also afforded him some protection from violence
at the hands of the provincial governor, something which even men
of standing in the city had to fear. So Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, was
able to excommunicate and bring about the dismissal of Andronicus, governor
of Libya. 86 The bishop was in a better position than almost anybody
else to start a demonstration or a riot, or to appease it.
That a bishop might have, or be well on the way to having, such power
did not mean that he automatically became an integral part of the city’s
government. In fact, it is safe to say that, up to the end of the fourth
century at least, the church and its head stood outside the machinery and
ceremony of civic government. Indeed, it represented a rival ideology, in
that the competitive giving for public entertainment and display which was
the essence of traditional civic politics was condemned as vanity and
seeking after vain glory by Christian preachers, while the calendar of civic
festivals was deeply suspect because of its pagan origin. Lepelley has shown
that this was the situation in the already strongly Christian cities of Africa
in the age of Augustine, and the situation was no different in Christian
Antioch. 87 It may well be that in 387, at the time of the riot of the statues,
bishop Flavian emerged as the natural spokesman of the city, and the one
most capable of winning a pardon from the emperor. 88 But very few laws
were actually addressed to bishops. It is clear that the bishop did not play a
82 See p. 220 below. 83 See p. 221 below.
84 Brown (1992) 46–158 is a brilliant reconstruction of the ‘rise of the bishop’, though the development
was probably slower and more sporadic. 85 Jaeger (1960); Hunt (1993) 151–4.
86 Syn. Ep. 57–8, 72–3, 79. 87 Lepelley, Cités i.391–42; Liebeschuetz (1972) 239–42.
88 Or. xix.28; John Chrys. Hom. de Statuis. 21; cf. Van de Paverd (1991); Brown (1992) 105–8.
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