Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

476 17. armies and society in the later roman world
personal intervention by a senior official – the comes excubitorum, curopalatus
or city prefect – would be backed up by action by the excubitores, who would
be supplemented, if necessary, by regular troops. 16
Rioting in the capital city had extra significance, since the manifestation
of anarchy on the streets had implications for the emperor’s reputation, but
other major cities in the eastern empire had analogous problems. After the
Vandal sack of Rome in 455, however, no city in the west had the critical
mass to sustain a comparable urban explosion, though a specific grievance
might provoke uproar, as when the inhabitants of Trier killed the unpopular
tax-gatherer Parthenius. 17 The riots at Antioch are best attested, though
even here the evidence only reveals exceptional cases of violence. 18 The
task of maintaining order fell to the comes Orientis and the prefect of the
watch. Their regular resources were insufficient to impose peace, as the
riots of 507 revealed when, in spite of the presence of a Gothic guard and
the support of the Blue faction, the prefect of the watch, Menas, was disembowelled
by the Greens and the comes Procopius fled the city. 19 A new
comes could restore order, but he presumably arrived with a draft of reinforcements
from outside, and there is no evidence that there was a large
garrison permanently stationed inside the city: certainly in 540 it was necessary
to move troops into Antioch in an attempt to thwart the Persian
attack. The troubles a century later at the end of Phocas’ reign highlight the
same issues. The comes Orientis Bonosus and the general Cottanas could not
initially quell Jewish disturbances in the city, during which the patriarch
Anastasius had been killed, but after withdrawing to gather troops they
could impose order with the help of the local Blues. 20
In Alexandria the standard problems of policing a megalopolis were
compounded by religious issues. The patriarch could organize considerable
violence through his patronage of monks and other ascetics, violence
which could be exported to other cities, as Dioscorus demonstrated at the
‘Robber’ synod of Ephesus in 449. Further, the doctrinal affiliation of the
mass of Egyptians was often at odds with the emperor’s preference, and
this opposition generated violence. Proterius, successor to the deposed
Dioscorus, could only be installed through the support of troops; initially
the rioters, led by members of urban guilds, forced the soldiers to retreat
into the Serapaeum, which was then set on fire with considerable casualties,
and order was only restored by the arrival of 2,000 reinforcements
from Constantinople; but Proterius was never accepted, as the emperor
Marcian admitted in a letter to the praetorian prefect in 455 when the penalties
against Manichees were extended to his opponents, and he was eventually
lynched by his flock in 457. 21 As at Antioch, there were limits to what
16 Malalas 394.11–395.5 (c. 500–7); 483.9–13 (547); 490.16–491.17 (561); Exc. de Insid. Malalas fr. 51
(565). 17 Greg. Tur. Hist. iii.36. 18 Isaac, Limits of Empire 270–7. 19 Malalas 395.20–398.4.
20 Theophanes 296.17–25; Doctrina Jacobi i.40. 21 Frend, Monophysite Movement 148–55.
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