Religious Intolerance in the Later Roman Empire - Bad request ...

CTh 9.16.8 of 12 December 370 or 373 was addressed to the same Modestus
who received CTh 16.2.19 and CTh 12.1.63; it was Valens’ second and final law on
traditional practices. It was directed against astrology, and was apparently an attempt
to eradicate its existence completely, but only through a long term strategy. As such,
Valens ordered an abolition of the teaching of astrology, both publicly and privately.
Teachers and pupils were to be treated equally; he ordered that “each of the two
persons involved shall be stricken with a capital sentence. For the crime of learning
forbidden doctrines is not unlike that of teaching them.” The thrust of the law was
thus against the teaching and learning of astrology, but it may also have intended to
prevent its practice, although the law does not actually say so: as far as it goes is to
prescribe capital punishment for anyone “apprehended in this forbidden
charlatanry.” 206 Whether those “apprehended” were engaged in its practice or in
learning or teaching is impossible to ascertain. It is uncertain when this law was
issued; the text indicates that it was passed during the consulships of Valentinian and
Valens, and would therefore have been either 370 or 373 and since it was issued from
Constantinople then it came from Valens’ eastern government. 207
During the period of the magic trials in Rome, and beginning in early 372, a
series of similar trials began in Antioch. 208 Unlike those in the west, the eastern
investigations did reveal a conspiracy against the emperor, but the sources do not
specifically indicate that astrology itself played a part in the actual conspiracy itself.
Initially there was an accusation that two men Palladius and Heliodorus who is
described by Ammianus as a “reader of horoscopes” 209 were intending to poison the
count Fortunatian; this is the only reference to astrology throughout Ammianus’
account of the circumstances preceding the conspiracy. Interrogation of Palladius
206
Cesset m athem aticorum tractatus. Nam si qui publice aut priv atim in die noctuque deprehensus fuerit in
cohibito errore v ersari, capitali sententia feriatur uterque. Neque enim culpa dissim ilis est prohibit adiscere
quam docere
207
Lenski (2002) 219 n42 believes that it is a mistake to place the law in 373 and that it should be dated
to 370, but he does not expand on this.
208
Amm. Marc. 29.1-2; Eunap VS 480-481; Matthews (1989) 219-226; Lenski (2002) 223-234
209
Amm. Marc. 29.1.5: fatorum per genituras interpretatem
144