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

Tatianus. 151 The law prohibited appeals from defendants who had been convicted and
also from those who had confessed, and if the office staffs reported an appeal then they
would be collectively fined thirty pounds of gold. The governor himself would also be
liable for the same amount “unless he performs his duty after decision has been
rendered.” 152 Moreover “nor shall it be suggested that any person of the bishops or
clergy or anyone of the people are intervening or have intervened.” 153 Curiously,
appellants were not to be punished. This law would appear to be similar to CTh.
9.40.15 in that it was not necessary for the law to mention clerics and bishops and thus
imply that they were attempting to evade or manipulate justice; therefore, like the
previous law, this law was also somewhat anti-clerical in tone and sentiment, if not in
practice.
CTh. 2.8.20 of 17 April 392 was issued to Proculus, Prefect of the City of
Constantinople, and son of Tatianus 5. 154 It ordered that circus games were to be
prohibited on Sundays, except on the birthdays of the emperors “in order that no
concourse of people to the spectacles may divert men from the reverend mysteries of
the Christian law.” There is epigraphic evidence suggesting that Proculus, like his
father, was a pagan and therefore this pro-Christian law appears out of place. 155
However, this was only six months before Proculus was dismissed from his
post and executed due to the machinations of Rufinus who had been Theodosius'
Magister Officiorum since 388. 156 Rufinus had accompanied Theodosius to the West to
suppress Maximus in 388 and returned with him in 391 to Constantinople. Rufinus
appears to have been an ambitious individual; he may have enhanced the position of
151
Sirm. 9 indicates that laws were to be cascaded down from the receiving Praetorian Prefect to the
governors under his jurisdiction. See Matthews (2000) 186; Honoré (1998) 137-138 discusses the
different sources from which the compilers of the code may have obtained the laws.
152
Non ignaro ipso etiam iudicante, nisi post sententiam dictam im plev erit suas partes, eadem se m ulta, qua
officium , esse plectendum
153
Nec ulla episcoporum v el clericorum v el populi suggeratur interv enire aut interv enisse persona
154
Proculus 6 PLRE 1.746-747
155
SEG 7.195 records, inter alia, that he celebrated a pagan cult in Heliopolis in Phoenice.
156 Flavius Rufinus 18 PLRE 1.778-781
204