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

CTh 9.16.5 of 4 December 357, which, like CTh 9.16.4 was also addressed to
“the People,” was issued in Milan and therefore it is reasonable to suggest that it was
directed towards the West and may have been a further response to Magnentius’
usurpation. It was directed against necromants, and, like CTh 16.10.5 and 16.10.6 was
short, but also less specific; the law reads more like a clerical rant against one aspect of
‘fringe’ religious activity which had always been beyond the pale, and in contrast to
other laws issued at this time, it ordered no specific punishment, although it possibly
compensates for this dearth with harsh rhetoric. As such, it appears, superficially at
least, that Constantius was more intolerant of soothsayers, diviners and astrologers (in
CTh 9.16.4) than of necromants. The law complained of “Many persons” who were
“disturbing the elements by magic arts” and “jeopardize the lives of innocent persons
by summoning the spirits of the dead.” This enabled them to destroy their enemies by
“evil arts.” Although the offence is apparently quite clear, there is no correspondingly
clear punishment: the law simply prescribes “A deadly curse shall annihilate such
persons since they are foreign to nature.” 173
One reason for the unwillingness of the legislators to prescribe a specific
punishment against necromants may have arisen from a longstanding belief that magic
should not be dealt with in courts, essentially because the accused was potentially a
dangerous person and therefore, for reasons of security, he should not be publicly
challenged; hence he should be dealt with from afar and preferably by use of his own
practices, that is through a curse as CTh 9.16.5 effectively does. 174 However, if this was
the preferred method of dealing with necromants in 357, it was not a method that
appears to have either proved lasting or which was possibly not widespread. Writing
of events just two years later during the treason trials at Scythopolis in 359, Ammianus
indicates that necromants, and others, were rounded up by the notary Paul ‘the chain’
173 In full the law reads: Multi m agicis artibus ausi elem enta turbare v itas in sontium labefactare n on
dubitant et m anibus accitis audent v entilare, ut quisque suos conficiat m alis artibus inim icos. Hos, quoniam
naturae peregrini sunt, feralis pestis absum at.
174 See Lib. Declam atio 41.8 in Ogden (2002) 291. I am grateful to Daniel Ogden for drawing this passage
to my attention. On necromancy in general see Ogden (2002) 179-209 and esp 199-201, 202-206 for
examples of necromancy in the fourth century.
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