Roman Civilization: Selected Readings Vol. 2 the Empire

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ROMAN CIVILIZATION SOURCEBOOK II: THE EMPIRE

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY

NAPHTALI LEWIS & MEYER REINHOLD

I

•

HARPER TORCHBOOKS Harper & Row, Publishers New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London

ROMAN CIVILIZATION:

THE EMPIRE

Copyright 1955 Colu111biaUniversity Press Revised Bibliography copyright© 1966 by Columbia University Press Printed in the United States of A111erica. This book was originally published in 1955 by Columbia Uni-versity Press in its Records of Civilization series, and is here reprinted by arrangement. First HARPER TORCHBOOK edition published 1966 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 10 East 53rd Street New York, N.Y. 10022. Library of Congress catalog card number: 51-14589 85 8~ 87 88 89 90

20

CONTENTS USED IN CITING

ABBREVIATIONS

I. II.

2

SOURCES

THE AUGUSTAN AGE THE ROMAN PEACE

3 (A.D.

14-192):

IMPERIAL

POLICY AND

Bo

ADMINISTRATION III.

THE ROMAN PEACE (A.D.

14-192):

IV.

THE ROMAN PEACE (A.D.

14-192):

V.

ECONOMIC

LIFE

156

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

222

SCIENCE AND PSEUDO SCIENCE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

297

14-192):

LIFE IN THE MUNICI-

THE CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

AND THE EMERGENCE

THE ROMAN PEACE

(A.D.

p ALITIES AND PROVINCES

VI.

OF THE

BYZANTINE

THE

REFORMS

STATE,

A.D.

4 19

193-337

OF DIOCLETIAN

455

THE AGE OF CONSTANTINE VII. VIII. IX.

THE ROMAN ROMAN

475

ARMY

49° 53 2

LAW

THE CONFLICT TIANITY

OF RELIGIONS AND THE TRIUMPH

552 611

EPILOGUE GLOSSARY OF FREQUENT

OF CHRIS-

TERMS

613

BIBLIOGRAPHY

617

INDEX OF AUTHORS AND DOCUMENTS

639

GENERAL

642

INDEX

RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION, SOURCES AND STUDIES EDITED

UNDER

THE

AUSPICES

OF THE

COLUMBIA

DEPARTMENT

UNIVERSITY

GENERAL

EDITOR

W. T. H. JACKSON, Professor of German and History PAST

EDITORS

1915-1926 JAMES T. SHOTWELL, Bryce Professor Emeritus of the History of International Relations

1926-1953 AUSTIN P. EVANS, Late Professor of History

1953-1962 JACQUES BARZUN, Seth Low Professor of History

OF HISTORY,

PREFACE "THE LIMITLESS MAJESTYOF ROME"under the Caesars, from the age of Augustus to Constantine and the triumph of Christianity, is the subject of the present volume. In these three and a half centuries Rome's ecumenical sway, extending across three continents from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian and Red seas, embraced many peoples of diverse cultural origins and different stages of social development. The source materials from this far-flung, many-faceted Roman world are rich and extensive, ranging from the activities of the highest levels of government to the lives of the humblest peasants and slaves. Besides a multitude of archaeological remains, there are extant an abundant literature in Latin and Greek and many tens of thousands of inscribed and written documents. Except for the works of the principal authors, however, the written records of the Romar_iEmpire are for the most part accessible only to specialists. Of the six hundred or so selections from the literary, epigraphical, and papyrological sources included in this volume, more than two hundred are now for the first time made available in English translation. As in Volume I, translations not otherwise identified are our own; those borrowed by us with little or no change are preceded by the notation From . . . ; those borrowed but considerably revised by us are indicated by the phrase Adapted from . ... Copyright material is reproduced or adapted by us from the following works with the permission of their respective publishers: Cambridge University PressW. D. Lowe, Petronii Cena Trimalchionis; Clarendon Press, OxfordE. G. Hardy, Three Spanish Charters and Other Documents, and F. de S. Zulueta, The Institutes of Gaius; Egypt Exploration Society-A. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part XVII; Free Press-S. Levin, Aelius Aristides: To Rome; Harvard University Press-the translations of the Loeb Classical Library, and M. H. Morgan, Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture; Johns Hopkins Press-A. C. Johnson, Roman Egypt to the Reign of Diocletian, and T. Frank, Rome and Italy of the Empire (Vols. II and V, respectively, of An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome); McGraw-Hill Book Co.-M. R. Cohen and I. E. Drabkin, A Source Book of Greek Science; National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.-American Standard Version Bible; Philological Quarterly-M. Hadas's translation from the Babylonian Talmud in Vol. VIII (1929); Princeton University Press-C. Pharr, The Theo-

Vlll

PREFACE

dosian Code; Bernard Quaritch Ltd.-B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, Vol. II; University of California Press-B. P. Grenfell, A. S. Hunt, and E. J. Goodspeed, The Tebtunis Papyri, Part II; University of Chicago Press-E. J.Goodspeed, The New Testament, An American Translation; University of Michigan Press-H. C. Youtie and 0. M. Pearl, Michigan Papyri, Vol. VI; Yale University PressE. R. Goodenough's translations of Diotogenes and Ecphantes in Yale ClassicalStudies, Vol. I (1928). The complexities and similarities of the official imperial nomenclature frequently make it difficult for the reader to recognize which of several emperors is meant in a given text. In such cases we have adopted the typographical device of setting in capitals the name by which the emperor in question is commonly known today-e.g., Tiberius CLAUDIUS Caesar Augustus Germanicus; Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus [CARACALLA] Augustus. In the preparation of the Bibliography, which is intended to assist the reader interested in exploring further the topics treated in this volume, it seemed to us impractical to prepare a vademecum to the vast international bibliography on Roman civilization. We recognize indeed that many contributions of fundamental and decisive importance are thus omitted. But our decision to restrict the Bibliography to selected books and articles in English was dictated not only by considerations of space but even more by the needs of the students in our colleges, for whom this work is primarily intended. The realities of the American educational scene-in which this collection of source materials in English translation finds its very raison d'etre-are that only a most exiguous number of our students have any acquaintance with either Latin or Greek, and very few possess facility in the use of any foreign language. This book has profited at every turn from the efforts of our editor, Mr. J. Christopher Herold, and we would record here our deep gratitude to him for his devoted care. Our thanks are due to the emeritus general editor of the Records of Civilization, Professor Austin P. Evans, for his careful examination of our manuscript, and to the other members of the staff of the Columbia University Press who participated in the publication of this volume. Finally, it is our pleasure to record our thanks to the libraries of Dartmouth College and the University of Wisconsin for their traditional hospitality. N.L. M.R. September, 1954

ROMAN CIVILIZATION

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN CITING SOURCES Abbott-Johnson=

ADA = AE = C/L = Dessau = Dittenberger = Ehrenberg-Jones=

ESAR = Evelyn

White-Oliver=

FIRA = JG= /GRR

=

LCL = Mitteis =

OGIS = SB

=

SEG = Select Papyri= Wilcken =

F. F. Abbott and A. C. Johnson, Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (Princecon, 1926) Regia Academia ltalica, Acta Divi Augusti, Pars Prior (Rome, 1945) L'Annee Epigraphique (Paris, 1888-) Corpus lnscriptionum Latinarum ( 16 vols., Berlin, 1862-) H. Dcssau, /nscriptiones Latinae Selectae (3 vols., Berlin, 1892-1916) W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (3d ed., 4 vols., Leipzig, 1915-1924) V. Ehrenberg and A. H. M. Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (Oxford, 1949) T. Frank, ed., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (5 vols., Baltimore, 1933-1940) H. G. Evelyn White and J. H. Oliver, The Temple of Hibis in El Khargeh Oasis, Part II: Greek Inscriptions (New York, 1938) Fontes Juris Romani Antejustiniani (2d ed., 3 vols., Florence, 1940-1943) /nscriptiones Graecae ( 14 vols., Berlin, 1873-) /nscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes (3 vols., Paris, 1906-1927) Loeb Classical Library "Juristischer Tei!, Zweite Halfte: Chrestomathie," m L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, Grundziige und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde (Leipzig and Berlin, 1912) W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (2 vols., Leipzig, 1903-1905) Scrmmelbuch Griechischer Urkunden aus Agypten (5 vols. to date, Strasbourg and elsewhere, 1915-) Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum ( 11 vols. to date, Leiden, 1923-) A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar, Select Papyri (2 vols., London, 1932-1934; Loeb Classical Library) "Historischer Tei!, Zweite Halfte: Chrestomathie," in L. Mitteis and U. ,vilcken, Grundziige und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde (Leipzig and Berlin, 1912)

CHAPTER I THE AUGUSTAN AGE 1.

"The Republic Restored": Establishment of the Principate

In January of 27 B.c. a major reorganization of the Roman government took place. Octavian laid down his de facto military dictatorship, and constitutional government was reestablished. In an historic, carefully staged meeting of the senate-"having first briefed his most intimate friends among the senators," as Dio Cassius puts it (Lm. ii. 7)-he proclaimed the "restoration of the Republic" and offered to retire to private life. His renunciation was, of course, not accepted; instead, a series of powers was voted him which firmly established him as ruler of the Roman Empire. He consented to accept the proconsular power ( a special extended military command) for ten years, and the consulship annually together with the tribunician power (which gave him effective control of the civil government). He was also awarded the honorary title of Augustus, which, together with the designation Imperator, subsequently became a fixed part of the official nomenclature of the emperors. Avoiding all official appellations suggestive of autocracy, Augustus preferred the informal title of princeps for himself in his new position. With its strong republican overtones-the leading senator under the Republic had been known as princeps senatus-this title had the effect of designating Augustus as "first citizen," primus inter pares, rather than a ruler over subjects. The senate, moreover, in theory retained its traditional functions, and was to be the "partner in government" of the princeps; and the popular assemblies were to continue to meet as in the past. Thus, officially, the Principate, as the new regime is called, was the Republic restored. In reality, however, the trappings of republican government formed a politically expedient constitutional fa