Late Roman Imperial Policy and Bureaucracy

Jutta shared this interesting review of a book on late Roman antiquity:

R. Malcolm Errington. Roman Imperial Policy from Julian to Theodosius.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. xii + 336 pp.
Notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-3038-3.

Reviewed for H-HRE by Michael Blodgett, History Department, California State University Channel Island

Policy, Administration, and Empire

R. Malcolm Errington is extending the work of Fergus Millar, The
Emperor in the Roman World (1977), into late antiquity. Specifically,
he argues that Millar's basic thesis--that the Roman imperial government
was inherently reactive, that it was fundamentally a system of
bureaucratic responses to local challenges--can be tested by studying
Roman actions in the late third and early fourth centuries. It was
during this period, Errington argues, that the Roman Empire formally
split, specifically during the reign of Valentinian I and Valens,
although the size of the Roman Empire had led to the development of
regional differences for decades if not centuries. The political
organization of the Roman Empire encouraged these regional differences,
as local bureaucracies responded to local conditions. Centralization, in
this context, came in the form of dynastic unity. Thus, as the Roman
Empire was being pulled apart by centrifugal local forces, Roman
emperors--Constantine I, Valentinian I and Valens, and Theodosius
I--were trying to maintain unity through dynastic relationships.

Errington makes a profound point while discussing the impact of local
conditions on Roman bureaucratic development. The Eastern Empire faced a
foreign empire--Persia--that was in conflict with the empire, but that
conflict was usually managed diplomatically. This does not mean that the
Eastern Empire could not find itself at war with Persia, nor does it
imply that Constantinople could maintain a smaller military force. But,
it did mean that methods other than violence could have been used to
manage the Persian relationship. The Western Empire, however, faced
local kings, clans, and tribes that had no greater political
organization. The result was that the Western Empire tended to have few
options other than violence to manage relations with the peoples along
its borders.

This observation has important implications for Roman history in the
fifth century. First, it helps to explain the greater importance that
military men had in the Western Empire during the fifth century relative
to the Eastern Empire. In an environment where diplomatic skills could
not contain foreign threats, it is not accidental that bureaucrats lost
power in the Roman government relative to men like Aetius. In contrast,
in Constantinople, which faced a threat that could be contained
diplomatically, bureaucrats appear to have enjoyed much greater power
than their counterparts in Ravenna. Errington's observation suggests
that anything that threatened the ability of the Western Empire to
maintain military force--such as the loss of Africa in the fifth
century--would mean that Ravenna had few alternatives on which to fall
back. Does this, perhaps, suggest why, in the fifth century, Ravenna was
willing to allow the creation of foreign kingdoms--Goth, Hun, and
Vandal--either inside Roman territory or along its borders? It is, after
all, easier to manage relations with settled kingdoms than with mobile
clans and tribes.

In terms of religious policy, Errington argues that the religious split
between the Eastern and Western Empires can be understood within the
context of challenge and response. Regardless of dynastic relationships,
the emperors in both Ravenna and Constantinople were primarily
interested in responding to local demands and maintaining peace in their
respective empires, rather than in imposing a single, unified religious
stance on the entire empire. Thus, decisions by eastern and western
bureaucracies (and the emperors who sat at the apex of those
bureaucracies) tended to mirror local interests rather than a single
imperial policy and had the effect of encouraging the development of
differences in eastern and western churches.

Errington has implicitly tackled an important question--Roman Empire or
empires?--and has suggested that the very nature of the Roman Empire,
particularly its size, had a centrifugal force that ultimately ripped
the Roman Empire apart. Dynastic relationships were an attempt to
maintain unity within the empire, and Errington points out that Roman
political history in the fourth and early fifth centuries can be
understood in the context of maintaining dynastic power. This is an
excellent work of political history covering a period when our sources
tend to be religious, and is highly recommended.