Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the cities of the east 221
buildings and the enforcement of building regulations is the responsibility
of bishop, pater and possessores. 107 In short, the duty of protecting the interests
of the city and its citizens from the abuses of local as well as imperial
functionaries is assigned to the bishop 108 and to semi-imperial officials like
the defensor or pater and to ‘leading citizens’ or possessores. Decurions as such
have no function. Contrary to what is stated as a general fact by some literary
sources, 109 the curiae, and certainly the decurions, have not disappeared.
110 But their status has become subordinate, almost contemptible. So
Justinian ordered clergy caught taking part in an illegal game of dice to be
enrolled in the city council. 111
Who then were these notables who played so prominent a part in running
the city and in safeguarding its interests? It is striking that they are never
defined. They are regularly described by a rather indefinite general term like
proteuontes, andres dokimoi or primates, though not incidentally principales, 112 or
sometimes by a more comprehensive description, as, for instance, possessores
et habitatores. The lack of formal definition and the coexistence of narrower
and wider descriptions suggest that we are not dealing with permanent constitutional
bodies of fixed composition, but with a de facto oligarchical group,
who in practice decided for themselves who was to be one of themselves
and who was not. (The five primates of Alexandria may have been an exception.)
113 Most cities will have included among their inhabitants a number of
individuals who would have been recognized as outstanding in wealth and
influence – above all, the men holding titles real, honorary or assumed, from
‘most glorious’ and ‘illustrious’ downwards, leading members of the provincial
officium, principales of the council, and men of outstanding wealth who
did not fall into any of these categories. Some of these will have had the
right to sit with the provincial governor during sessions of his court, others
will have attended regularly by invitation. 114 Such men were self-evidently
the leading citizens and they will have made the decisions needed for the
administration of the city. Who convened these men and thus also decided
who was to be invited and who not presumably depended on the particular
circumstances of each city. In a provincial capital the initiative might most
often have been taken by the provincial governor. Elsewhere, the convenor
may often have been the bishop, or else the defensor or the pater or another
of the principal magistrates. In Egypt, about which we have by far the most
information, the bishops of cities other than Alexandria seem to have
played a comparatively small part in municipal affairs. 115
107 CJ i.4.26.9–10; Nov. 17.4 (535); Nov. 25.4. 108 Just. Nov. 86.1–4 (539); 134.3 (556), 128.17.
109 John Lydus, De Mag. i.28, iii.46, iii.49;Evagr.HE iii.42.
110 Just. Nov. 38 pr.; Ed. xiii.15 (538/9); Nov. 128.7; 163.2 (575). 111 CJ i.4.33.12.
112 References to principales in C.Th. (Jones, LRE iii.230 n. 41) have generally not been taken over
into CJ. 113 CJ x.32.57 (436). 114 Lib. Or. li, lii.
115 Individuals simultaneously holding three principal offices logisteia, proedria and pateria: P.Oxy. 2780
(553); SB xii.11079.7–8; Sijpesteijn (1986).
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