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Transformation and Survival in the Western Senatorial
Aristocracy, c. A.D. 400–700
S. J. B. Barnish
Papers of the British School at Rome / Volume 56 / November 1988, pp 120 - 155
DOI: 10.1017/S0068246200009582, Published online: 09 August 2013
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0068246200009582
How to cite this article:
S. J. B. Barnish (1988). Transformation and Survival in the Western Senatorial Aristocracy, c. A.D.
400–700. Papers of the British School at Rome, 56, pp 120-155 doi:10.1017/S0068246200009582
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TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL IN THE
WESTERN SENATORIAL ARISTOCRACY, c. A.D. 400-700
The last three hundred years in the life of the Roman Senate present us with a
paradox. During much of the fifth century, the institution's strength in Italy was
apparently growing; it increasingly dominated the great civilian offices; in 455-72, it
gave Rome three emperors; from 476-535, it was assiduously patronised by the
barbarian kings, and its families continued the traditions of consular munificence
with devotion. Despite the fragmentation of the empire and disappearance of the
emperor, it seems as vigorous as ever.1 Yet, it notoriously failed to recover from the
Gothic wars as it had from earlier disasters; and, by the time of Gregory the Great, it
was a shadow of its former self. Plague, massacre, grave impoverishment, with the
eclipse of Rome and Ravenna, its social and political centres, in the shadow of
Constantinople, may seem enough to account for this. However, it has been
suggested that so sudden a collapse—a contrast with the social and political
resilience of the Gallo-Roman senators 70 years back—was due to long-standing
weaknesses, social and economic: earlier prosperity was an illusion.2
In this paper, I mean to consider the bases of the Italian senatorial class,
economic, demographic, and in social values, and to compare it with its Gallic
kindred. The demographic part of the problem is twofold: 1. how far was the
aristocratic element in the Roman Senate dominant and self-renewing? 2. How
stable in wealth and numbers were the families from which senators were chiefly
drawn? These questions are related to a third and more basic one: how far were
noble status, high office, and the Senate interdependent?
OFFICE AND THE ARISTOCRACY
As a preliminary, we must establish what the means of senatorial recruitment were.
It has generally been argued that both the Roman and the Constantinopolitan
Senates became increasingly exclusive at this time, until, by c. 450, membership was
restricted to consuls, former consuls, and holders, present and past, of active or
honorary illustris offices of state (the active were 6-8 in number for civilians in the
western empire).3 A. Chastagnol, however, has claimed that the Senate still included
'Cf. Alan Cameron and D. Schauer, 'The Last Consul: Basilius and his Diptych', JRS 72 (1982),
126-45, 138 f., for a positive estimate of senatorial wealth and activity under the Ostrogoths. On the
control of offices and administrative policy by the fifth century nobility, cf., e.g., E. Stein, Histoire du
Bos-Empire I (Bruges, 1959), 337^7, J. F. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court A.D. 364-425
(Oxford, 1975), 357-62.
2
Cf. C. Wickham, Early Mediaeval Italy (London, 1981), 15-19, 27, T. S. Brown, Gentlemen and
Officers [British School at Rome, 1984), chap. 2, esp. 25 ff, P. Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint
Augustine (London, 1972), 232 ff.
3
Cf, e.g., A. H. M.Jones, The Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1964), 527-32, 540 ff., 545-59. Illustres:
the praetorian prefects of Italy and Gaul, prefect of Rome, magister officiorum, quaestor palatii, comites
sacrarum largilionum, priuatarum and patrimonii. The prefecture of Gaul was in abeyance from 476-50; the
comitivapatrimonii is first attested under Glycerius in 473 (cf. his edict, G. Haenel, Corpus Legum (Leipzig,
1857), 260, also in PL 56, 896 ff.).
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
121
all three senatorial ranks, illustrate, spectabilate, and clarissimate, although only
illustres retained the ius sententiae dicendi, and that appointment (conferment of the
laticlavia dignitas, followed by senatorial vote) took place into the clarissimate.4 There
is an interesting ambiguity in the evidence. In 507—12, Armentarius, already a
darissimus, was, with his son, nominated by Theoderic to the Senate, where he would
be able to use his legal eloquence. Only then did they reach the album ordinis. (The
procedure, in my view, is not appointment to any kind oiillustris office, but is related
to the fourth century adlectio to the Senate, though now inter illustres?) By contrast,
Cassiodorus' formulae for creating spectabiles and clarissimi are verbally quite distinct
from hisformula for a senatorial nomination like that of Armentarius, and are given a
greatly inferior place in his collection.6 C. 533, however, the Senate is stated to
contain a. primus ordo and a reliquus senatus, apparently both qualified to vote.7 It may
be, therefore, that full membership was again expanded in the late Ostrogothic
period; or the distinction may be between greater and lesser illustres. Through most
of this era, however, it seems that senatorial membership depended largely, but not
entirely, on a handful of offices.
At the same time, we must notice that basic senatorial status (the clarissimate)
continued to be heritable from clarissimi and spectabiles, as well as illustres, by children
born after their father's promotion, probably for three generations, at least in the
male line; while the two lesser ranks could be reached through a large number of
administrative and other posts, as well as by direct appointment.8 This should have
produced a substantial class of clarissimi, with small hope or ambition of achieving
high office or senatorial membership. Not all clarissimate families will ever have
been connected with the Senate proper; and, for many of those that were, the link
will have been a distant one. A devaluation of senatorial status will have been the
result, and there are signs of this in the late fifth century use of the title darissimus by
leading town councillors of basically curial family.9 This devaluation did not become
marked, however, until the mid sixth century, when the senatorial order was falling
into ruin.10
4
'Sidoine Apollinaire et le Senat de Rome', Ada Ant. Hung. 26 (1978), 57-70, 58-63.
Cassiodorus, Variae III. 33; with Var. IV. 14, formula de his qui referendi sunt in senatu, the procedure
used for Armentarius, contrast VI. 11, formula illustratus vacantis; on adlectio, cf. Jones, op. cit., 541. The
formulae cannot be dated.
6
Var. VII. 37-8; VI. 14; see also Jones n. 16 to p. 530, on Var. VI. 16. 3-4, 12. 4, 15. 2-3, VIII.
17.7.
'Far. IX. 21.5.
e
Cod. Theod. XII. 1. 58, 74, Cod. lust. XII. 1. 11., a. 364, 371, 377, confine status inheritance to
post-promotion children; the last, probably interpolated to fit the post-450 conditions, shows that
clarissimi could still transmit their status; Digest L. 1. 22. 5 shows the generations; cf. Jones, op. cit., 530
and nn. 17, 19; on clarissimate and spectabilate-giving posts, ibid., 547 ff. K. Hopkins and G. Burton in
K. Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge, 1983), deal at length with the problems of senatorial
membership and status transmission in the early empire.
9
Cf. P. ltd. (ed. J. O. Tjader) 10-11 (a. 489), III. 4—Melminius Cassianus v.c, curial magistrate
of Ravenna; V. 1, V. 5 f.—Fl. Annianus, decemprimus of Syracuse, both v.c. and vir laudabilis. The
Melminii are well attested as a fifth/sixth century Ravenna family, curial, never senatorial in rank.
Compare, perhaps, Avitus, Horn vi, MGHed., p. 110,1. 26 f; but contrast PLREII, Alethius 2, genuine
5
darissimus, and princeps cunae.
10
Cf. P. ltd. 31; F. Deichmann, Felix Ravenna 3. 5 (1951), 23, n.32.
122
S.J. B. BARNISH
How far was noble status in general linked with the clarissimate, and dependent
on the not far distant tenure of high office? T. D. Barnes has argued that families
reached nobilitas by tenure of the ordinary consulship and urban and praetorian
prefectures; perhaps also through the lesser illustris posts. The evidence, however, is
vague and ambiguous." Ancient family counted in its own right: thus, Jerome can
unite achievement and ancestry, speaking of Marcella's 'inlustrem familia, alti
sanguinis decus et stemmata per consules et praefectos praetorio decurrentes'.12 But
even old houses needed to repeat state service to maintain their status. When urging
a friend to take up a career and aim at the consulate, Sidonius Apollinaris pointed
out that otherwise, for all his consular descent, he would 'prove to be that obscure
hard-working type who has less claim to be praised by the censor than to be preyed
upon by the tax assessor'.13 Another friend of senatorial blood was warned that, if
he did not visit Rome and enter the militia Palatina, he would find himself a contemptible rustic, without respect or precedence in the provincial assemblies. By
contrast, the praetorian prefect Arvandus, though of plebeian origin, could win the
sympathetic friendship of political opponents from the nobility, and charge them
with disgracing their prefect fathers.14
There were other qualifications for nobility. For an earlier Gaul, Ausonius, it
could derive from full senatorial race, but also from old aristocratic stock among the
provincial curiae, or from professional attainments which did not necessarily include
the tenure of office.15 In one letter of Cassiodorus, nobilitas is the prerogative of full
senatorial families; but elsewhere, it is the product of ancestral wealth or native
genius, and can be found in the provincial gentry, at least down to spectabilis, and
perhaps to curial level.'6 For Boethius, it is a combination of good birth with
inherited morality, and is not always attached to riches, the key to political success.17
We can only say that there were many nobiles, but some were more noble than others;
that between a Decian consul, and Patricius, the father of St. Augustine, small town
decurion, and definitely a non-noble, there was a large "grey area". This might be
"'Who Were the Nobility of the Roman Empire?'. Phoenix 28 (1974), 444-9, citing Ammianus,
Symmachus, Prudentius and Sidonius. The Gallic evidence is discussed by J. D. Harries, Bishops,
Senators, and their Cities in Southern and Central Gaul, A.D.
407-76 (D. Phil Diss., Oxford, 1981,
unpublished), 41-84 the best and fullest treatment that I know.
l2
Ep. 127. 1.
"Ep. VIII. 8 (tr. W. B. Anderson, Loeb).
14
Assemblies: Ep. I. 6.4. Spectabiles, and probably clarissimi, as well as illustres, were members of the
provincial assemblies, in which the first had the ius sententiae dicendi; cf. Var. VII. 37, Chastagnol, AAH
26, 61. Initially, at least, decurions were members of the Concilium VII Provinciarum, founded in 418, at
Aries; cf. Epistulae Arelatenses Genuinae 8 {MGHEpp. III). Such councils, formal or informal, could play
an important political role; cf. Hydatius, Chron. 163 (Tranoy), Sidonius, Carm. VII. 521-75, Ep. I. 7.
4 f, 10, PVII.7.2, Ennodius 80. 53, 81 (Vogel, MGH). Arvandus: Sidonius, Ep. I. 7; but contrast I. 11.
5, on Paeonius, another parvenu.
15
Prof. Burd. iv. 2, xvi. 9, xiii. 9, xviii. 5, xxii. 21, xxiv. 3 f, xxvi. 3-6, Parentalia'w. 4, ix. 5, xiv. 6, xix.
3, xxx. 2, Epigr. xlv, Gratiarum Actio iv.
"•Var. I. 41, VI. 21.3-4, 23. 1, VII. 2. 3, 37, VIII. 19. 6, 31.8, XII. 24. 3; note also III. 12. 3, VIII.
16.2.
l7
Cons. Phil. II, pr. iv, III, pr. vi; note also III, pr. ii. For the moral dimension of nobilitas, cf.
Valerian of Cimiez, PL 52. 736; and note Edictum Theoderici 59, where nobilitas is left undefined, but is
distinct from mere wealth.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
123
occupied by proud and venerable curial families like those mentioned by Ausonius
or Libanius. It might be occupied by rising professionals like Augustine, for it was
education that united the upper-class grades: Augustine and Ausonius were more
learned than most senators, and this brought them nobilitas, on one criterion. Indeed,
Sidonius feared that it would remain the sole sign of nobilitas, with the abolition or
disuse of official ranks under the Visigoths.18
The grey area will also have been occupied by many of the minor clarissimi
mentioned above. These will often have been barely conscious of their status, unable
to make much use of its privileges, and achieving little of the respect to which they
were entitled. For those, however, who could fairly be called members of the
senatorial class, especially in Italy, the shrunken Senate will long have remained the
focus of their order, of high importance for their self definition. It will also long have
been something of a goal and a role-model for the other inhabitants of the grey area
though ever less so, as access to it became harder. Study of illustris office-holders
should, therefore, yield useful insights into the recruitment and survival of that class,
and into government policies towards it. A variety of sources—laws, inscriptions,
consular diptychs, manuscript titles and subscriptions, papal letters, the Variae of
Cassiodorus, and the private works of Sidonius and Ennodius—give us much
information on high-ranking personnel at this time. From this, I have tried to
approach our first demographic question statistically, dividing the period into six: A,
395^-32, from the death of Theodosius I to the precarious ascendancy established by
Aetius; B, 433-54, dominated by Aetius; C, 456-72, dominated by Ricimer; D,
476-90, the reign of Odoacer; E, 491-526, the reign of Theoderic;19 and F, 527-36,
the post-Theoderican Gothic period. In the main, I have followed PLRE on dates,
careers, and family relationships. There are, however, some important caveats.
Firstly, in A and much of B, senatorial membership was less dependent on
illustris office.20 However, the men and families who reached those offices need not
have been very different, and some investigation of them seems necessary, if only for
comparative purposes. Secondly, D: here our chief source is the Colosseum inscriptions, recording senatorial seat-holders. These are generally dated 476-83; 21 but
Alan Cameron has lately argued that they extend for some years perhaps before, and
certainly after this time, even into the early sixth century.22 For simplicity's sake, I
have followed the usual chronology, which is not so erroneous as seriously to affect
my conclusions. However, attempts to distinguish the state of the Senate under
Odoacer from that under Theoderic, or, like Chastagnol, to calculate its numbers,
are dangerous.23 Thirdly, late Roman nomenclature: saints' names and others of
religious type are increasingly common, and multi-nominate aristocrats are usually
iB
19
Ep. VIII. 3. 2; cf. Ausonius, Prof. Burd. xxvi. 3-6..
I assume that Theoderic effectively controlled Italian appointments after 490, at latest.
20
Cf. Jones, op. cit., 529.
21
Cf. A. Chastagnol, Le Senat Romain sous le Regne d'Odoacre (Bonn, 1966), 28-44. and S. Priuli, in
Epigrafia e Ordine Senatorio I (Titulii, 1982), 575-89. Note that Priuli, 587 f., places a number of clarissimi
in these inscriptions well back in the 4th c. I have not yet found a detailed justification of this theory
and, in any case, it does not directly affect the prosopography of office-holders.
22
JRS 72, 144f.
"His estimate (Le Senat, 47) of 300-600 should probably be reduced.
124
S.J. B. BARNISH
referred to by their final name only.2* These tendencies, the reasons for which will be
discussed later, all too often make the family connections of known individuals a
matter for conjecture, more or less informed, and distinctions between families
rather arbitrary. Nevertheless, I do not believe that the risk of misattribution should
disastrously weaken our overall impressions of the official and senatorial classes. (See
Tables 1-2A.)
TABLE 1
A
B
11/35 = 31.5% 13/23 = 56.5%
39
17
64
18
5 = 45-5%
7 = 54%
12 = 31%
12 = 70.5%
44 = 68-5%
10 = 55.5%
35 = 54.5% s
15 = 83-5%
29 = 45.5% 2
3=16-5%
1.
2.
3
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
C
6/12 = 50%
7
17
3 = 50%
6 = 8%
13 = 76.5%
13 = 76.5%
4 = 23.5%
D
12/12
16
10
6 = 50%
12 = 75%
6 = 60%
9 = 90%
1 = 10%
E
F
P30/31
4/4
10
3
29
16
18-19 = 58-63 %
4
7 = 70%'
2=66.5%
19 = 65.5%
13 = 81%
23 = 79.5%
9 = 56%
6 = 20.5%
7 = 44%
Key:
1. Non-imperial/royal civilian consuls.
2. Known prefects of Rome.
3. Known civilian illustres with illustris offices not held at Rome, in or outside any of these periods.
4. Consuls as in 1., apparently lacking such offices, in or outside any of these periods.
5. City prefects apparently lacking such offices, in or outside any of these periods.
6. Active civilian illustres, lacking, in or outside any of these periods, both the consulship and the city
prefecture.
7. Active illustres (city prefects excluded) of major Italian or Gallic families.
8. Active illustres (city prefects excluded) very hard or impossible to link with such familes.
Note 1: Artemidorus, city prefect 509-10, had held sub-illustris offices at Ravenna—Var. I. 43.
Note 2: The discrepancy between figures 7-8 for A and B-E may be partly due to a source distortion:
the gradual decline in the fifth century of laws addressed to illustres by a single name, which
often conceals the man's family very effectively. We do better when laws are replaced by
epistolary sources.
Note 3: Appointments made by usurpers are omitted; although these might give a family long-term
status; cf. Sidonius, Ep. III. 12, V. 9, with PLRE II, Apollinaris 1, Rusticus 9.
Since the ordinary consulship (so far as non-imperial civilians were concerned)
and city prefecture were by now almost monopolised by the great families, their role
in the manning of the illustris offices at court is clearly of more interest, and the
similarity of the percentages through much of the period gives some confidence in
the viability of the statistical approach, despite the small size of our samples. From
these figures, it looks as if the aristocracy had acquired administrative dominance by
433, at latest, and perhaps earlier, and had the demographic strength to maintain it
for many years. Yet, it never achieved a monopoly, thanks either to official policy, or
to a shortage of candidates from its ranks. This impression of stability may be
confirmed by examining 'dynastic' successions, in which a consul or illustris was
preceded by an ascendant relative of similar rank. (See Tables 2B-3.)
A high proportion of the major families produced such 'dynasties', and the
24
Cf. Alan Cameron, 'Polyonymy in the Roman Aristocracy', JRS 75 (1985), 164-82.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
125
TABLE 2A
Major families in offices of senatorial rank.
A. ANICII, Acilii Glabriones, Auchenii Bassi, Olybrii/Probini, Petronii, Symmachi; ANNII;
ATTICI Nonii; AVITI Mariniani; ? BASILII; DECII Albini; EXUPERANTII; FIRMINI;
?GABINII/RUFII Probiani; GRACCHI; MACROBII; MAGNI/AVITI; MALLII/MANLII;
MEMMII, Aemilii Trygetii, PCaeciliani; MESSALLAE Avieni; PMINERVII (cf. ALETHII);
LIBERII; PALLADII; PETRONII; QUINTILII Laeti Furii; RUFII Volusiani; VENANTII;
ANDROMACHI; NICOMACHI Flaviani; RUTILII.
B. ANICII, Acilii Glabriones, Petronii; BOETHII (PMANLII); CASSIODORI; CORVINI;
DECII Acinatii; FIRMINI; FLORIANI; MEMMII Aemilii Trygetii, Symmachi; PATERII;
PPIERII; RUFII Postumii Festi, Praetextati, Caecinae, POpiliones; TARRUTENII Marciani;
PAUXENTII; PBASSI.
C. ACONII Probiani; CAMILLI; DECII, Basilii; ENNODII; MACROBII; MAGNI; RUFII
Synesii Gennadii; RUSTICII Helpidii Domnuli; MESSII; PSEVERINI; PRAETEXTATI.
D. ANDROMACHI; ANICII Acilii Aginatii; BOETHII; CASSIODORI; CORVINI;
PDYNAMII; DECII Basilii; POPILIONES; PPIERII; RUFII Achilii Maecii, PFesti Agerii,
Sividii, Synesii; PSEVERINI; VALERII Messallae; VENANTII FAUSTI Severini, Glabriones;
MEMMII Aemilii Trygetii, Symmachi.
E. ANICII Acilii Aginantii, Petronii Maximi, Olybriones; BOETHII-SYMMACHI;
CASSIODORI; CORVINI; PCATULINI; DECII Basilii; PFLORIANI; LIBERII; PMAGNI
Felices; RUFII Aproniani Asterii, Petronii; RUSTICII Helpidii Domnuli; PSEVERINI;
VENANTII Opiliones; VOLUSIANI.
F. ANICII Olybriones (Vigilii); CASSIODORI; CORVINI; DECII Basilii; LIBERII; ? House of
ORESTES AND ROMULUS; OPILIONES; RUFII Petronii Nicomachi, PSALVENTII,
PSILVERII.
A: 31 possibly office-holding families in a 37 year period; B: 20 in 22 years; C: 11 in 16 years; D: 19 in 14
years; E: 18 in 36 years; F: 10 in 10 years.
'dynasts' held a large number, though not, save in D (probably a misleading
contrast) the majority of illustris posts. The Decii are the outstanding example of
fertility and office-holding combined: six generations of consuls, and/or high officials,
descended from Aginatius, vicarius Romae in 368-70. 'Dynasties' of two generations
numbered eleven, compared with eight for those over two; in the B, D a,nd E periods,
the numbers of families employed in office seems very similar. It does not seem easy
to distinguish, as Hopkins and Burton do for the earlier empire, between a 'grand
set' and a 'power set' of senators: too many 'grand set' families, producing consuls
and city prefects, also had court illustres to their credit; although some 'power set',
civil service families may have reached the prestige offices at Rome only belatedly
and weakly.25 There does seem, however, to be a marked tendency after A to
"'Grand set' and 'power set': cf. Death and Renewal, 171-5. Examples of senatorial families late or
never in the prestige offices would be the Firmini, Cassiodori, Rusticii Helpidii, Liberii; yet these had
the tastes and connections of the highest nobiles. For obvious reasons, Gauls seldom reached the
consulship or p.u. On the growing 4th-5th c. overlap between court and extra-court careers, see
A. Chastagnol, Tituli 4 (1982), 177, 189.
126
S.J. B. BARNISH
TABLE 2B
Families showing dynastic successions; arrows denote extension into other periods.
A.
ANICII, Olybrii/Probini, Auchenii Bassi, Acilii Glabriones, Symmachi, AVITI Mariniani;
D E C n Albini; PFIRMINI; PMAGNI/AVITI; MESSALLAE Avieni; MEMMII
Aemilii Trygetii; NICOMACHI Flaviani; ?RUTILII; PMANLII/MALLII.
B.
ANICII, Acilii Glabriones, Auchenii Bassi; AVITI Mariniani; BOETHII
( PManlii);
CASSIODORI; CORVINI; DECII Aginatii (Albini); PFIRMINI; PFLORIANI; MEMMII
Aemilii Trygetii, Symmachi; RUFII Postumii Festi, Praetextati, Caecinae.
C.
DECII Basilii (Albini); PMACROBII; MAGNI; PSEVERINI.
D.
ANICII Acilii; BOETHII; CASSIODORI; CORVINI; DECII Basilii; PMAGNI Felices;
MEMMII Aemilii Trygetii, Symmachi; PPIERII; POPILIONES; RUFII Achilii Maecii,
Petronii.
E.
ANICII POlybrii; BOETHII-SYMMACHI; CASSIODORI; DECII Basilii; CORVINI;
•?
PMAGNI Felices; OPILIONES; RUFII Aproniani Asterii, Petronii Nicomachi.
F.
PANICII Olybriones; OPILIONES; DECII Basilii; PRUFII Petronii Nicomachi, CORVINI.
separate court-type and Rome-type illustres. The distinction between military and
civilian illustres is of more obvious importance. A handful of leading soldiers in the
fifth century can be attributed, certainly or conjecturally, to the Gallic, or, less often,
to the Italian aristocracies;26 but only one magister militum, the Catholic barbarian,
Fl. Theodobius Valila, owner of property at Rome and Tivoli, maintained a seat in
26
Gauls: Avitus, Ecdicius, Aegidius, Syagrius, PNepotianus, PMessianus, Arborius, PAgrippinus;
Italians: PLitorius, PPierius, PAemilianus. Aetius, and perhaps Majorian, belong to the fringes of the
Italian nobility; Astyrius and Merobaudes represent that of Spain.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
127
the Colosseum. Another, Sigisvultus, may have founded a senatorial family.27 But,
although, under Theoderic, Goths were appointed to illustris and spectabilis offices,
they seldom seem to have taken up their seats in the Senate;28 and royal propaganda
usually distinguished between Gothic soldiers and Roman civilians.29
Despite this appearance of a strong, self-renewing aristocracy, a further contrast
with the earlier empire, there are signs of weakness. (See Tables 2C—E.)
TABLE 2C
Major families with last known direct official members; those with non-official representatives in later
periods/generations denoted by *.
A.
ANNII; PGRACCHI (but cf. MAECII); ?GABINII/RUFII Probiani (but cf. ACONII
Probiani); FAUSTINI*;
EXUPERANTII;
MACROBII*;
MEMMII
Caeciliani*;
MINERVII/ALETHII*; QUINTILII Laeti Furii*; PALLADII*; RUTILII; ?RUFII
Volusiani*.
B.
? AUXENTII; BASSI Herculii;
TARRUTENII Marciani ?*.
C.
ACONII; MESSII: ENNODII*; CAMILLI*.
FIRMINI*;
PATERII*;
PETRONII
Perpennae;
D. ANDROMACHI: DYNAMII; MEMMII Aemilii Trygetii; RUFII Achilii Sividii, ?Festi Agerii,
Synesii, Valerii Messallae; VENANTII Glabriones, Fausti Severini?*.
E.
ANICII Acilii Aginantii*, Petronii; CATULINI; LIBERII*; ?MAGNI Felices; RUFII
Aproniani Asterii; RUSTICII Helpidii Domnuli ??*; VENANTII ??Opiliones; VOLUSIANI.
F.
CASSIODORI; CORVINI; DECII Basilii; OPILIONES ?*; SEVERINI; SILVERII; RUFII
Petronii Nicomachi.
TABLE 2D
Families which may be those of established nobiles re-emerging into high office.
A.
B.
?AUXENTII; PBASSI Herculii; ?PETRONII Perpennae; ?TARRUTENII Marciani.
C.
PACONII Probiani; PMESSII.
D. PANDROMACHI; PDYNAMII; PLIBERII; PRUFII Valerii Messallae.
E.
PCATULINI; PRUFII Aproniani Asterii; PVOLUSIANI.
F.
PAMPELII; PHOUSE OF ORESTES & ROMULUS (perhaps intermarried with the Corvini);
SILVERII, SALVENTII (PRAETEXTATI).
"For Valila, see PLREII, s.v. The Liber Pontificalis describes Pope Boniface II (530-2) as a Roman,
and son of Sigisbuldus. The general Sigisvultus had Volusianus, bearer of a senatorial name, as his
cancellarius at Ravenna; cf. Constantius, V. Germani 38.
28
Cf. A. H. M.Jones, The Roman Economy (Oxford, 1974), 371 f.
29
Cf, esp. Var. VI. 1, the consul's/0™""'0* VI. 24, VIII. 46.
128
S.J. B. BARNISH
TABLE 2E
Families which may have been new, but were to become well embedded in the senatorial aristocracy.
A.
MANLII/MALLII.
B.
CASSIODORI; ?BOETHII; ??OPILIONES.
C.
?HOUSE OF ROMULUS AND ORESTES; PRUSTICII Helpidii Domnuli; PSEVERINI.
D.
??LIBERII.
E.
?North Italian VIGILII, merging with ANICII Olybrii; ??House OF HONORATUS AND
DECORATUS.
F.
(Avitus, Bergantinus, Clementianus and Fidelis may well represent provincial gentry reaching the
Senate; of these, Clementianus, at least, may have established his house in the residue of the high
aristocracy—cf. Greg. Mag., Reg. Ep. III. 1, X. 6-7.)
TABLE 3
Men with ascendant or descendant relatives in adjoining generations holding active (non-Rome) offices
of senatorial rank (cf. Table 1).
A
B
9 = 82%
7 = 54%
11=28%
3=17-5%
2 = 3%
6 = 33.5%
22/115=19% 11/36 = 30-5%
1.
2.
3.
4.
C
4 = 67%
1 = 14%
4 = 23-5%
7/21=33.5%
D
E
F
10 = 83%
13 = 42-3%
4=100%
6 = 37-5%
3 = 30%
1 = 33%'
5 = 50%
13 = 45%
5 = 31%
13/20 = 65% 21/45 = 47% 9/24 = 37-5%
Key:
1. Consuls;
2. City prefects;
3. Other active illustres;
4. Total of office-holders of this 'dynastic' type.
Note 1: The city prefect Salventius seems to have succeeded or preceded a brother in that office—CIL
VI. 32038.
In all periods, a number of houses dropped out of office-holding, although
many of these continued without known official representatives. While a few families
re-emerged as office-holders to replace them, and a few more may have come to
establish themselves in the high aristocracy, the rate of failure seems the greater.30 In
general too, aristocratic dominance of the administration may be deceptively
impressive. If we take the number of court illustris appointments to be made in each
period, assuming a two-year average tenure of office (perhaps over-generous),31 this
gives the results shown in Table 4.
On this basis, it would seem that some 60-80 per cent of official appointments
30
The tables give the impression that this was particularly so in D. This is probably an illusion, due
to too narrow a date-range for the Colosseum inscriptions. So too the impression that Odoacer made
most use of the great families in relation to his length of reign.
31
Sidonius, Ep. I. 7. 11 suggests that the prae. prae. Gall, held office for less than 3 years. I suspect
that the average, except, perhaps, in E, was less than 2, but we are ill informed on this.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
129
TABLE 4
A
114
44 = 38.5%
1.
2.
B
66
19 = 29%
C
51
17 = 3'10/
> /o
D
45
9 = 200//O
E
105
29 = 27-5%
F
30
10 = 33%
Key:
1. Number of illustris (active, non-Rome) appointments to be made in the period (in E-F, the
praetorian prefecture of Gaul is excluded from these calculations, as Liberius held it throughout its
revival).
2. Appointments certainly or conjecturally made from leading families.
TABLE 5
A
6
B
3
C
3
D
1
E
5
F
2
Number of illustris (active, non-Rome) offices held by an individual who had already held such.
were not made from the high families. Equally, however, only a few of those known
can be called novi homines.32 And, since known high nobiles are far more numerous
than non-nobiles, it is reasonable to assume that the origins of unknown office-holders
should be divided in a similar ratio. On the other hand, high nobiles are likely to be
better represented in two of our prime prosopographical sources, the Colosseum
inscriptions, reflecting Roman residence, and the letters of the well-connected
Ennodius. Furthermore, the average tenure of office seems to have lengthened
considerably over the period (praetorian prefectures are the best evidenced); while
the Ostrogothic rulers seem to have been more willing than their predecessors (in BD) to appoint individuals repeatedly to court illustris offices. This suggests that the
pool of available aristocrats was tending to shrink. (See Table 5.)
Whatever the case, it seems likely that some illustris appointments were being
made from sub-senatorial levels of society, although these cannot be quantified.
Cassiodorus' formula commending candidates (? adlected) for election to the Senate
shows some awareness among the authorities that external replenishment, by the
grafting of new stock, was needed: 'Optamus quidem curiam senatus amplissimi
naturali fecunditate compleri subolemque eius tantum crescere . . . Sed minus
amantis est non amplius aliquid quaerere, unde tantum numerum possit augere'.
Yet, although the 'germen alienum' is inferior in distinction to existing senators, he is
still 'natalium splendore conspicuum'.33 Despite these pious hopes, echoed elsewhere
in the Variae3* few families, as we have noted, moved upwards to permanently lofty
status. One reason may have been the inability, seen earlier, of children to inherit
senatorial rank achieved after their birth. A fair number of new clarissimi will have
been lesser bureaucrats, promoted only after long service, and unlikely to beget
32
See table 1.
Far. VI. 14.
34
Cf. Var. VI. 11, VIII. 19, but contrast I. 41.
33
130
S.J. B. BARNISH
further children. Those who did so will have found it hard to take root in the higher
nobility. Yet, some houses seem to have done so. What, in fact, were their origins,
and how did they achieve their potential for upward mobility?
Ennodius' letters show two possible channels for advancement. While deacon of
Milan, he acted as patron to a string of proteges drawn from the north Italian
aristocracy, many, but, so far as we know, not all with senatorial forbears. These
were usually educated in Deuterius' school of rhetoric at Milan, the 'limen
nobilitatis', which gained a new auditorium. Some then passed on to Rome, where
they pursued their studies under the supervision of leading senators or clergy'
distinguished for their learning; and some followed careers which varied legal
advocacy with government service.35 Only a minority, however, are attested in high
office, and some may have spent all their lifes as lawyers, or as gentlemen of leisure.
Would Arator have reached the comitiva privatarum without the chance which sent
this cultivated ex-advocate on an embassy to Theoderic from the province of
Dalmatia?36 The same combination of public higher education for the provincial
gentry with senatorial patronage is attested for the Sicilians, and may be guessed at
for the young Tuscan poet Maximian, a student at the university of Rome.37
Another road to advancement lay in the actual membership of some great
household, as with the well-born orphaned brothers Castorius and Florus, brought
up by the great Anician senator Faustus Niger; Florus became a distinguished
advocate at Ravenna.38 So too, Arator, another orphan, and perhaps a relative of
Ennodius, was initially looked after by bishop Laurentius of Milan39; while at least
one civil servant of Theoderic had his children educated in the royal palace.40
LOCAL TIES
By such means, the leading aristocrats of Rome might dominate the local aristocracies, and frequently control the careers and activities of provincial illustres.*]
35
Deuterian pupils: Lupicinus, Arator, the son of Eusebius, Partenius, Paterius, Severus, Ambrosius; cf. Ennodius 69, 84—5, 124, 94, 451, 261. Roman recommendations for Partenius, Simplicianus,
Pertinax, Beatus, Fidelis, Marcellus, Georgius, Solatius, Ambrosius—225-8, 368-9, 282, 292, 362, 398,
405-6, 416-17, 424—6, 428, 452. Arator, Ambrosius, Fidelis, and possibly Partenius are attested in high
office. The perhaps Anician illustris Eugenes may have been another pupil of Deuterius; cf. 213.
Simplicianus and Beatus were nobilissimi; Arator a v.c; Paterius and Severus had consular ancestors;
Ambrosius' father was a sublimis; Eusebius a nobilissimus; Lupicinus was nephew of Ennodius, and so of a
major Gallo-Italian family; Fidelis' father was a Milanese advocate of high reputation, but nonsenatorial (Far. VIII. 19. 5f.).
36
Far. VIII. 12.
37
Var. I. 39, IV. 6, Maximian, Eleg. I. 25-44, 59-76 (student life at Rome), III. 47-94 (? family
friendship with Boethius).
38
Ennod. 16.
39
Ennod. 85.
40
Cf. Var. VIII. 21, the children of Cyprian; note also IV. 4, where count Senarius began his
palatine career 'In ipso quippe adulescentiae flore'.
41
J. Sundwall, in his fundamental study Abhandlungen zur Geschichte des Ausgehenden Rb'mertums
(Helsinki, 1919), chap. 3, analysed the politics of much of the Gothic period in terms of tension between
nobiles and novi homines. To me, these considerations seem at least partly to vitiate his very influential
account.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
131
Why, though, did the provincials fail to become integrated with the great families?
Snobbery may be a partial explanation, but it is certainly inadequate, for some did
move up the ladder. We should look rather to Italian 'campanilismo', to the
conflicting claims of Roman society and the home town. These can be amply, if
anecdotally, illustrated. C. 395, bishop Gaudentius of Brescia dedicated his
inaugural sermon to Benivolus, ex magister memoriae, and leader of the local honorati*2
Decoratus (coupled with Florus by Ennodius—were they related?)43 was a native
and benefactor of Spoleto, of noble ancestry, at least by local standards. Not of
senatorial rank, though his ancestors had borne the fasces, as a lawyer, 'praestabat
viribus consularibus se patronum', defended a patrician in a famous case and
eventually became quaestor palatii. He was buried at Spoleto, his fellow-citizens
recording his birth and charities in a fulsome epitaph.44 His brother Honoratus left
him his Roman practice, working as a barrister in Spoleto, despite the venality and
stupidity of provincial courts, but eventually succeeded him as quaestor. Hosius may
have been a similar type: pater urbis of Milan, where he was buried, he was a
patrician, ex comes privatarum, ex comes largitionum, and descendant of a governor of
Venetia and Istria.45 The Cassiodori, who may have come to Italy from the east
early in the fifth century, were firmly rooted in the soil of Bruttium. The writer's
grandfather, though son of an illustris, tribunus et notarius under Aetius, and probable
marriage connection of the Boethian house, preferred Bruttian otium to illustris rank.
His son, illustris minister of Odoacer and Theoderic, used the Bruttian pastures to
supply remounts for the Gothic cavalry. Cassiodorus himself retired to a monastery
on his ancestral estates at Squillace, but not before he had achieved a notable secular
career, and had mingled in literary and religious circles at Rome.46 Again, the
spectabilis Philagrius was a resident native of Syracuse, but spent long at Theoderic's
court, and sent his sons to be educated at Rome, with a royal commendation to a
leading senator.47 Then there is Mallius Theodorus and his descendants. This
learned Christian Platonist and civil servant of Theodosius I and Honorius reached
the consulship in 399. A lawyer by early profession, he was clearly of high education,
but Claudian, who calls him Manlius, says nothing of his birth. We should suppose
him to have belonged to the provincial gentry, possibly of Milan, where he lived,
and which he preferred to Rome.48 His sister or niece Manlia Daedalia was probably
a nun there;49 but later members of the family may not have shared his opinion. His
"Tract, xvi, praef. (CSEL, 8).
13
Ennod. 311, 315—they may have been legal partners.
"Var. V. 3-4, De Rossi, ICUR I. II, p. 113, no. 78; despite the doubts oiPLRE II, the identity of
these Decorati seems highly probable. Decoratus may also have practised at Ravenna (Ennod., above).
For a comparable Spoletan family, see PLRE II, Domitius 4—6.
45
C/L V. 6253. As pater urbis, he may have acted as curator civitatis, an office which would usually
have belonged to a leading decurion; cf. Jones, LRE, 726, 755.
46
Var. I. 3—4, IX. 24—5 Institutiones I, praef., 33. 2 f. The Boethian marriage connection is suggested
by the Ordo Generis; its date by the support which both families gave Aetius.
47
Var. I. 39; cf. IV. 6.
48
Cf. Th. Birt, index nominum to the MGH Claudian, s.v. Manlius and Theodorus.
49
Cf. P. Courcelle, 'Symboles Funeraires du Neo-Platonisme Latin', REA 46 (1944), 65-93, 66-70;
she is described as 'clara genus' in her epitaph.
132
S.J. B. BARNISH
son seems to have reached the prefectures of Italy and Gaul; and, at some point in the
fifth century the house may well have intermarried with the Anician Boethii. The
philosopher (a man of similar tastes to Claudian's consul) and his father shared the
name Manlius/Mallius, not otherwise attested among the Roman aristocracy since
the early fourth century. The former was a correspondent and probable kinsman of
the north Italian Ennodius, and owned property at Milan. This was allegedly in a
run-down condition, neglected by the owner and his agent.50 If this link is correct,
then one leading provincial family had moved its centre of gravity decisively to Rome.
Finally, we might compare Fidelis: his father was a Milanese advocate, famous for his
eloquence, but of no great family; he himself became quaestor palatii under Athalaric,
and a leading figure in the Roman Senate. He played a prominent part in the revolt of
Rome from the Goths, and also in the rebellion of Liguria, where he had much
influence.51 His rise seems similar to that of Theodorus, and, despite his post at
Ravenna, he fixed one foot at Rome and another in his home province.
There were, however, leaders of provincial society who may have eschewed
the excitements of both Rome and Ravenna. In 535, the loyalties of Naples, one
of the greatest Italian cities, were swayed by the rhetoricians Pastor and
Asclepiodotus.52 We know nothing of their families, and they are referred to in no
other context. Tullianus and Deopheron raised a peasant army to fight the Goths
in Lucania and Bruttium. Their father Venantius had probably governed that province, with doubtful honesty, but no illustres or nobiles active at Rome or the court are
attested from that family.53 Correspondingly, a good many Roman senatorial houses
may have avoided both the court and the provinces. The Colosseum inscriptions
give us 34 illustres and spectabiles; but 54 clarissimi, of whom 49 may never have
reached higher rank, and many others whose rank is indeterminate, but will often
have been no higher than clarissimus. Rome and Ostia show some possible examples
of the town-houses of these lesser senators, miniature versions of the great palaces.54
Of these, a large number may have been officials of the second rank who had retired
to Rome;55 but many must have inherited their senatorial status, and some at least
seem to belong to families that had ceased to be concerned in office-holding.56 Was
50
Ennod. 370, 408, 415, 418. Most MS titles and subscriptions give the form Manlius, as does the
consular diptych, but a number have Mallius. Spellings with 'nl' and '11' seem virtually
interchangeable—cf. il(n)lustris, col(n)latio, etc.; Isidore, Etymologiae I. xxxii. 8.
51
Cf. above, n. 35; Procopius, Wars V. xiv. 5, xx. 19 f., VI. xii. 27 f., 34 f. Belisarius made himprae.
prae. Ital.
52
Wars V. viii. 19-41.
"Wars VII. xviii. 20-3, xxii. 20f. VII. xxx. 6, Var. III. 8, 46; we may surmise a successful contest
for local influence with the Cassiodori, who were perhaps too busy outside the province.
54
Cf. Chastagnol, Le Sinat, 47, 74-8. But Priuli (above, n. 21) would redate 37 clarissimi to the 4th c.
If correct, does the resultant number, 17, reflect diminished clarissimus activity, or is it due to epigraphic
chance? For houses, see F. Guidobaldi in Societd Romana e Itnpero Tardoantico II, ed. A. Giardina (Rome —
Bari, 1982), chap. 4.
55
Cf. PLRE II, Valentinianus 3, an ex-silentiary who died at Rome in 519, with the retirement
rank ofillustris.
56
E.g. the Mariniani, Barbari Probiani, Palladii. Note Fl. Messius Phoebus Severus, cos. and/>.a, in
470, under peculiar circumstances. He was clearly a leading noble, but might easily never have held
office. No earlier member of his family is attested in office, or elsewhere, though a grandson may have
been a protege of Ennodius (Damascius, Vita hidori (Zintzen) 11, 94-8, Ennod. 451, PLRE II, Severus
15, 19). The Barbari Probiani and Palladii would be eliminated by Priuli.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
133
this lack of interest, dangerous, in the long run, to their social position, due to the
upper-class ideal of otium? Or was there a promotion bottle-neck, eased by short
tenures of the few illustris offices (less short under the Goths), but compounded by the
grip which a few great families and their provincial clients had on them? We cannot
tell, but it is possible that the Ostrogothic period saw, if not pressure for office from
the hereditary clarissimi, at least pressure for a re-expansion of senatorial membership
without the need for illustris rank.57 It may be that suffragia for the great posts, and
their risks and burdens, were now beyond the means of many potential holders;58
while the lesser palatine offices were too frequently unprofitable, at least during the
crisis years of the fifth century.59 In the fourth century, many senators considered
one or two provincial governorships a sufficient career, and others, though able to
hold them, just preferred to enjoy their incomes in peace.60 In the fifth century these
posts became ever fewer in number, and we have less and less evidence for their
holders.
This evidence had been derived chiefly from the inscriptions set up by grateful
provincials, or by the governors themselves, at Rome or in the provinces, to record
benefactions and patronal relationships. These reflect a strong interest of the
senatorial aristocracy in Africa and southern Italy, especially Campania and
Samnium. c. 400, they virtually dry up.61 Thereafter, most of the illustres seem to be
connected with northern to north-central Italy, the only clear exceptions being the
Symmachi, Cassiodori and Decii; and even the Decii had strong interests in Gaul
and northern Italy.62 (Aristocratic epitaphs and other inscriptions seem rare in the
north before the late fourth century.) Among the growing economic and political
pressures of the fifth century, did the aristocracy tend to leave the southern towns to
their own devices, concentrating, instead, on their northern patronage nexuses,
nearer to the court? Great secular estates still flourished in the fifth/sixth century
south—their prosperity may even have increased—and the urban rich may have
lived in some style.63 Yet, the social base of the gentry may have been weaker, or
more rustic, than in the north. Southern churches built at this time, unlike northern
basilicas, have shown little sign of activity by the lay aristocracy, let alone those
fascinating lists of donors, where a great noble sometimes figures among men and
"See above.
Cf. P. Ital. 48, B14aloan to Agapitus, for suffragium for the prefecture. Var. VI. 10-11, formulae for
the conferment of honorary appointments suggest both lack of money and a preference for otium as
deterrents from active office.
59
Cf. Nov. Val. 7. 3, 22; also, for their attempts to increase profits, 1. 3, 7. 1, 32.
60
Cf. Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium lv. In period A, 48 governors are, or may conjecturally be,
linked with senatorial families; only 11 reached illustris or consular rank.
61
Cf. B. Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1984), 22-8.
62
Symmachi and Sicily: cf. Symmachus, Ep. IX. 52; Var. IV. 6. Decii and Campania: cf. CIL X.
6850-1, Var. II. 32-3, J. Moorhead, 'The Decii under Theoderic', Historia 33 (1984), 107-15, HOff;
Decii and Gaul—Sidonius, Ep. I. 9. 2-6, ''Var. II. 3; Decii and northern Italy—Ennod. 58-9, 279, ?230,
75. Note esp. 279, linking the Decian Albinus with four illustres of strongly north Italian connections.
Gelasius, Ep. 41 (Thiel) shows Decian concern for estates in Valeria. Even without the northern weight
of Ennodius' evidence, we would still get this impression of a strong northern orientation among the
nobiles; but even a Faustus Niger might still have patronage links with Sicily—cf. Ennod. 121.
63
Cf. Barnish, PBSR 55 (1987), 157-85, esp. 168-72.
58
134
S.J. B. BARNISH
women of lower, even artisan status.64 Outside Campania there are few of the upper
class epitaphs, senatorial, bureaucratic or curial, which are now frequent and widely
distributed in the north.65 Estates like S. Giovanni di Ruoti and San Vincenzo al
Volturno may have belonged to landlords with small interest in the old urban social
structures of the region, and the Church, in its architectural activity, may have been
moving into a partial vacuum. During the Gothic wars, the aristocracy, both north
and south, wielded important political influence in the provinces. In the south, this
seems to have been exercised primarily among the rural tenantry; in the north, it is
closely linked with the cities—Milan and Verona.66
GALLO-ROMANS AND ITALIANS
The northern nobility differed from the southern, excepting perhaps the Decii, in
another important respect: it formed part of a great arc of senatorial kindred and
patronage which extended from Gaul to Dalmatia, and may have been strengthened
during the turmoils of the fifth century by the movement of refugees and others, such
as Ennodius.67 His family, the Magni Felices, were primarily a major Gallic house,
but they intermarried with the Anician house of Faustus Niger, the Corvini.68 They
were also related to the Firmini, another Gallic house with branches on both sides of
the Alps;69 and perhaps to Liberius, praetorian prefect of Italy and Gaul under the
Ostrogoths.70 Liberius was another connection of Faustus Niger, and may also have
64
Southern churches: cf. C. D. Fonseca, Settimane di Centra di Studio mil'Alto Medioevo 28, 1195 f., C.
D'Angela, Arch. Med. 3 (1976), 475-83, Puglia Paleocristiana III, ed. A. Quacquarelli (Bari, 1979),
207-15 (R. Moreno Cassano), 59f, 68 (M. Cagiano de Azevedo), 163 (D. De Bernardi Ferrero),
412-48 (M. Trinci Cecchelli). Northern mosaic donation inscriptions: cf. Diehl, /Z.CF219a 1864-90, P.
L. Zovatto, Palladia n.s. 15 (1965), 11, M. Mirabella Roberti, Aquileia Mstra 38 (1967), 67ff.,G.
Cuscito, ibid., 44 (1973), 127-66, eund., in Scritti Storici in Memoria di P. L. £ovatto, ed.
A. Tagliaferri (Milan, 1972), 237-58, eund., in G. Cuscito and L. Galli, Parenzo (Milan, 1976), 73 ff.,
80ff.,87. Note also CIL V. 3100, XI. 2089. Rome and environs are excluded.
"Fifth/sixth century southern epitaphs of these ranks: CIL IX. 1378, 2074, X. 1343, ?1346, 1350,
1355, 1535, 1537, 4500, 4502, 4505, 4630; these are mostly from a restricted area of Campania.
Northern: V. 694, ?1658, 3897, 5230, 5414, 5420, 6268, 6398, 6732, XI. ?17O7, 1713, 2585, 7587. From
Ravenna: XI. 308, 310, 313, 316, 317; cf. III. 2659, 9513, 9515-9, 9527, 9532, ?9540, 14239.8, ILCV
250(3), from Salona. Ravenna and Salona are probably atypical because of their administrative
importance. Rome and environs are excluded. Cf. also CIL V. 5415, 6176, XI. 941, epitaphs of
barbarians of senatorial rank in the north.
66
Cf. Procop., Wars VI. xxi. 40ff.,VII. iii. 6ff.,VII. xxii. 2 ff, 20 f.
67
Cf. Rutilius, De Reditu Suo I, 490ff.,541 ff, for Gallic nobles taking refuge in early fifth century
Italy. For ties between north Italy and Dalmatia, cf. above, 7 on Arator. Var. V. 14—15 and IX. 9 give
Severinus, v.i., commissions in Dalmatia; he shares a name with Boethius, and with the Gaul-linked
consul of 461—Sidonius, Ep. I. 11. 10. Note also Harries, 49 f., 218-24.
68
Cf. PLRE II, stemmata 15 and 19, with individual entries; the link with Faustus was probably
through his wife Cynegia, as one of his sons used the name Ennodius. This may connect the author's
family with the Spanish house which rose under Theodosius I. (Matthews, 110 ff, 142ff.).For another
Gallic tie with the Anicii, cf. Venantius Fortunatus, Carm. IV. 5.
69
Cf. stemma 19; on the Firmini, and on Ennodius' house in general, cf. B. Twyman, 'Aetius and
the Aristocracy', Historia 19 (1970), 480-93, 485 ff.
'"Liberius was a frequent correspondent and patron of Ennodius and his relatives, and they shared
the name Felix.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
135
been linked with the Venantii Opiliones, again a family which is likely to have been
represented in both Gaul and northern Italy.71 We can probably trace another
important lineage of African origin, but with similar ties, the Helpidii Domnuli,
functioning in Gaul and at Ravenna and Spoleto.72 In the 550's, the memory of the
noble Ennodius, now a senator in heaven, still linked the leading clergy of northern
Italy with bishop Nicetius of Trier, and so with King Theodebald.73
To these Transalpine links, we should, perhaps relate a good deal in the
political history of the times, and not only in the fifth century, when Gaul was still
part of the empire. Theoderic's intervention against Clovis; his relations with the
Visigoths; the prolonged Ostrogothic revival of the Gallic prefecture under Liberius;
the aid which northern nobiles who had been honoured by the Goths gave to the
Byzantines, following the Gothic evacuation of Provence;74 Frankish rule and
possible coin-minting in northern Italy under Theodebert;75 and the assault on the
Roman nobility by the Lombards at the time when their incursions into Frankish
territory were being resisted by the Gallo-Roman aristocrats Salonius, Sagittarius,
Amatus and Eunius Mummolus:76 all these may be connected with the northern
cousinhood. Negotiations of c. 580, precluding a joint Franco^Byzantine attack on
the Lombards, were handled by, among others, a bishop Ennodius, bishop Laurentius of Milan, and the patricians Italica and Venantius (POpilio).77 To the cousinhood, also, we should perhaps ascribe some of the strength of the Gallo-Romans,
their ability to retain their Roman identity and traditions for many years after the
disappearance of Roman power in Gaul. Is it wholly chance that little fusion with
the Franks seems to have been achieved until the late sixth century, when the
Roman Senate and the Italian aristocracy were so gravely weakened?78
There were, however, other factors at work among the Gallo-Romans, points in
which they resembled, and others in which they differed sharply from their Italian
"Relation to Faustus: Ennod. 429; his link with the Venantii Opiliones (cf. CIL V. 3100 for their
church at Padua) is suggested by the name of his son, Venantius; the presence with him of an Opilio,
v.c.jv.i. at the Council of Orange in 529; and his joint embassy with an Opilio to Byzantium, although
the two men quarrelled. Venantius Opilio, the consul of 524, and probable church builder was also a
friend of Ennodius, and linked with Faustus Niger (Ennod. 150). Note, though, that both Venantius
and Opilio are very common names.
"Cf. PLRE II, Domnulus 1-2, Helpidius 6-7; Helpidius 6 was a frequent correspondent of
Ennodius.
13
Epistulae Austrasiacae {MGH Epp. 3), 5-6; cf. 21.
74
In Ep. Austrasiacae 19, Theodebert refers to a request from Justinian to send 3000 men to help the
patrician Bregantinus, probably Bergantinus, ex com. patr. under Athalaric, and active in the Byzantine
cause (Procop. VI. xxi. 41).
" O n this, see R. Collins in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society, ed. P. Wormald
(Oxford, 1983), chap. 1.
76
Cf. Greg. Tur., Lib. Hist. IV. 42, 44, Paulus Diac, Hist. Lang. II. 31 f, III. 1-9. Salonius and
Sagittarius have same names as correspondents of Sidonius; Amatus may be linked with Amatius,
prefect of Gaul in 425; Mummolus son of Peonius with Paeonius, prefect 456-7.
77
Ep. Austr. 25, 38-9, 46; cf. 40-1, Greg. Tur., L. H. X. 2-3. Gregory represents the campaign as a
recovery of Theodebert's empire. Italica and Venantius lived partly in Syracuse, and were friends of
Pope Gregory.
78
Cf. K. Stroheker, Der senatorische Adel im spdtantiken Gallien (Tubingen, 1948), 134 f., attributing
this chronology to the decline of Roman education.
136
S.J. B. BARNISH
kinsmen. Some of these are reflected in the history of the house of Ausonius. His
Parentalia gives us our one detailed picture of an extended upper-class, late Roman
family over several generations, and its study affords useful parallels to the senatorial
demography of Rome. (See Table 6, with comment.)
TABLE 6
1. Number of persons in the Ausonian kindred: 61. (This is a rather arbitrary figure, based on the
family tree in the Loeb Ausonius (ed. H. G. Evelyn-White), I, p. 58, adding some omitted but
inferable spouses, but not their parents, and including Paulinus of Pella's two sons, married
daughter and son-in-law.
2. Number whose age at death is known or roughly guessable: 37. (Note also 3 who died married, but
without more indication of age.)
3. Their average life-span: 42.
4. Number of marriages: 20.
5. Number of childless marriages: ?3.
6. Number of known children: ?41.
7. Average of children per marriage: 21.
8. Average of children per fertile marriage: 2-4.
9. Probable number of male children: 22 (/41 =54%).
9A. Number of named deceased males: 24 (40 = 60%).
10. Numbers apparently dying childless: 18 (/40 = 45%).
11. Number of old/mature maids/bachelors: 6 (/40= 15%).
12. Number of second marriages known: 1.
13. Average male life-span: 47.
14. Average female life-span: 35.
Note first, that the lower chronological limit of the Parentalia distorts these figures—we have very little
information on marriages, and/or children of members of the family mentioned, subsequent to the date
of composition; similarly on their age at death. Second, ages at death are often very conjectural;
R. Etienne, Bordeaux Antique, 367, reviewing the same evidence has more cautiously produced only 14
male and 12 female ages, with average life-spans of 44 and 33-7 years.
It is evident that figures 7 and 8 are very low. Hopkins and Burton {Death and Renewal, 73 f., 95)
suppose that 5-6 births per marriage were needed for a static population. Yet, for two centuries or more
after Ausonius, the Gallo-Roman aristocracy seems to have maintained itself satisfactorily; and so, over
the generations examined here, did the joined houses of Caecilius Argicius Arborius and PJulia. Tracing
the direct line, we find 4 persons in the first generation; 9 in the second; 5 in the third; 6 in the fourth; 11
in the fifth; 3 in the sixth. (Note the caution above, on the evidence for the lower generations.) Counting
the whole tree, with spouses marrying into the family, their parents and known siblings, gives 10 in
generation 1; 20 in 2; 18 in 3; 13 in 4; 14 in 5; 4 in 6; 12 families married into the main line, and all
marriages, where details are known, seem to have been on much the same social level. The estimate of
necessary fertility in Death and Renewal is partly based on its estimate of life-expectancy: 25-30 years for
the senatorial class (70 ff.). This is far lower than my figures 3 and 13-14. Hopkins and Burton use
comparisons with the European aristocracies of the late sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries. But such
nobles, I believe, especially in France, were as likely to be involved in wars as the late republican
nobility, and far more so than that of Ausonian Gaul. Their standards of personal hygiene were
probably also much lower; and, unlike members of Ausonius' family (cf. Par. vi, Pers. iv), their
acquaintance with the arts of medicine is likely to have been small. However, we must allow for
Ausonius' probable omission of cradle deaths (though note Par. x—xi, xxviii—ix, for small children). The
U.N. model life tables used by Hopkins and Burton (72), comparing life expectancy at birth with age of
death may give some help here. With the figures for 30 and 35 years life expectancies (A and B), I shall
compare the received Ausonian family statistics (C); and the alterations made by assuming 6 and 8
unrecorded male cradle deaths (E and D). The figure for known male deaths at which age can be
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
137
estimated is 23, in relation to which cradle deaths would be 26 and 35%; revised male life-spans would
be 37-5 and 35, to match the U.N. 35 and 30.
Age
1.
10.
20.
40.
60.
Percentage Surviving Age
A
74-4
58-9
54-1
39-2
19-4
B
77-5
64-6
60-3
46-4
26-3
U.N. FIGURES
C
100
91
70
48
35
D
73
66
52
35-5
26
E
79
73
55
38
27-5
AUSONIAN FIGURES
The figures in columns A and D are, on the whole, fairly comparable; likewise those in B and E a.
fact which inspires some confidence in the use of the Parentalia. However, since the revised male lifespans (above) are less comparable, it does seem as if the Gallo-Roman gentry may have been better at
keeping alive than the U.N. populations compared. Hence, I would infer a life-expectancy of at least
35, and perhaps higher; and, in consequence, would be inclined to reduce Hopkins' and Burton's
estimate of necessary fertility, though some discrepancy with the Ausonian figures would probably still
remain. It is striking that the number of known male children is only two less than the number of known
male deaths; similarly with the females—22:24; 16:18. This is a further indication that the family was
successful in replacing its numbers. Note, however, that rather fewer females seem to have been born
(or perhaps just to have deserved record) than males, and that they probably had a much shorter
average life-span. This will have been a distinct handicap to reproduction. (Cf above.)
Not only does the Ausonian house show a high capacity for self-replacement; its
marriages are consistent with its social standing, made mostly within that class of
educated, landed and established gentry of curial and secondary rank from which it
had originated.79 (In this respect, in its pride of ancestry, and in its fertility, it is very
comparable with the curial families of fourth century Antioch.80) The chance of
imperial patronage made possible a brief rise to a higher level, but this proved
disastrous for Ausonius' grandson, Paulinus of Pella, exposing him to political
intrigue in the upheavals of early fifth century Gaul.81 Only one name in the
Ausonian stemma can be linked with the leading families of Sidonius' Gaul, though
the house may have survived into the mid sixth century.82 These impressions of longterm social and demographic stability correspond well to what we have seen or
surmised in Italy. However, Arvandus and Paeonius are examples of climbing
parvenus in the fifth' century;83 towards the end of the century, the Visigoths were
79
On Ausonius' ancestry and the record of his family, cf. Matthews, 69-87, in some contrast with
K. Hopkins, 'Social Mobility in the Later Roman Empire', CQ,n.s. 11 (1961), 239-49. Note Harries,
48, on possible senatorial descent of Iulianus [Par. XXII).
80
Cf. R. Etienne, Bordeaux Antique (Bordeaux, 1962), 371 f., P. Petit, Libanius et la Vie Munuipale a
Antioche (Paris, 1955), 325—9; these families perhaps show a stronger civic loyalty than do the Gallic,
and their social and economic positions are only very roughly comparable.
"'Paulinus, Euch. 194-219, 290-327.
82
Cf. PLRE II, Hesperius 2; the Auxanius of Sidonius, Ep. 1. 7. 6 f., and Ausanius of Greg. Tur.,
Lib. Hist. III. 36, might be Ausonii.
83
Cf. Sidonius, Ep. I. 7. 11, 11. 5 f., above, n. 76.
138
S.J. B. BARNISH
again appointing Romans to quasi-illustris and spectabilis posts;84 and, c. 600, what
Gregory of Tours calls the senatores were a blend of the old curial and clarissimus
Gallic families with men who had risen through the devious and dangerous channels
of Frankish service. Increasingly, too, these senatores show in their nomenclature signs
of Germanic blood and intermarriage.85 It is very possible that the contemporary
Italian nobility was similarly blending with the Lombards, and with the soldiers and
administrators who had emigrated from the east;86 but, if so, they were rapidly losing
that sense of aristocratic identity which is still strong in Venantius Fortunatus and
Gregory of Tours.
MOBILES AND THE CHURCH
In Gregory's case, at least, this sense was closely connected with aristocratic control of the southern-central Gallic Church, where already in Sidonius' day good
birth had been a major advantage to would-be bishops.87 Italian senatorial families
do not seem to have been so closely involved with the episcopate.88 This is not to say
that they were indifferent to Church politics and administration. In the fifth to sixth
centuries, many Italian bishops, predominantly in the north-centre, bear names
which suggest senatorial blood,89 and Gallic type episcopal dynasties are also
attested.90 On the other hand, we could contrast the episcopal epitaphs in ILCVfrom
Gaul and Italy: of the former, 11 out of 17 mention the deceased's high birth, and, or
secular honours; of the latter, only two out of 57 (those of the Gallic Ennodius, and of
Celsus of Vercelli).91 A supply of well qualified clergy from Africa and the east, less
available in Gaul, may have been partly responsible for this phenomenon;92 but I
suspect that leading Italian families preferred to nominate and manipulate bishops,
rather than to supply them. This process may not always have been successful. In the
Laurentian schism (499-507), the senators and Roman clergy seem, on the whole, to
have favoured the anti-Pope Laurentius, the bishops, especially northern, the
legitimate Symmachus.93 In the context of this struggle, we find the great Liberius in
conflict with a local worthy called Avitus, himself a relative of Faustus Niger, to
secure the election of a new bishop of Aquileia.94 The young deacon Epiphanius was
84
Cf. K. Stroheker, 91. We should note much devaluation of senatorial ranks among the nobiles
addressed by Avitus and Ruricius. Cf. Harries, 54, 'expression not of office but of nostalgia.'
85
Cf. F. Gillard, 'The Senators of Sixth Century Gaul', Speculum 54 (1979), 685-97, below.
86
Cf. T. S. Brown, 107 f, 194 f., though with reservations, esp. in Chap. 9; Wickham 67-72, 74 ff.
87
Cf. Sidonius, Ep. VII. 9. 14, 17 f, 24, IV. 25. 2. See Harries, 27-39, 63-9, for reservations.
88
Cf. Brown, 34 f., 181 ff.
89
Cf. P. Llewellyn, 'The Roman Clergy during the Laurentian Schism', Am. Soc. 8 (1977), 242-75,
256 f.
90
Cf. CIL X. 4163, for Narni; W. H. C. Frend in Latin Literature of the Fourth Century (London, 1974),
ed. J. W. Binns, 123, for Aeclanum and Beneventum.
9
>ILCV 1. 2, chap. 2; ?add bps. Benignus and Senator of Milan—Ennod. 204-5. Note Ennod. 80.
35, Bonosus, priest of Pavia, 'tarn nobilis sanctitate quam sanguine'—and a Gaul.
92
Cf. J. A. Moorhead, The Catholic Episcopate in Ostrogothic Italy (D. Phil. Diss., Liverpool, 1974,
unpublished), 186ff.,on origins. R. Collins, Early Medieval Spain (London, 1983), 98, contrasts the
foreign intake of the Spanish episcopate with the Gallic.
93
Cf. Moorhead, 24-31, eund., 'The Laurentian Schism,' Church Hist. 47 (1978), 125-36.
94
Ennod. 174, 177 f.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
139
groomed by his bishop for succession to the see of Pavia, but his election was secured
by the approval of the eloquent illustris Rusticius of Milan.95 The Cassiodori were
predictably involved in the episcopal politics of Squillace.96 Glycerius initiated his
brief reign by an election law to curb simony, patrocinium, and the creation of
tyrannopolitas bishops.97 The Senate did so again c. 532, 'ab splendore suo cupiens
maculam foedissimae suspicionis abradere'. Interestingly, this consultum was followed
by a royal edict setting a scale of suffragia in cases where papal and other episcopal
elections were appealed to the Ostrogothic court. This measure ensured that only
candidates with money or wealthy backers stood much chance of success.98 In
provincial, if not in papal,99 elections, we may see the senators as serving and using
their clients among the lesser aristocrats in a way which paralleled their secular
patronage. Epiphanius, Rusticius' candidate, was of decent birth, with episcopal
connections, a most skilful orator, and trusted by the gentry of Liguria:100 we could
envisage a worldly career for him which would have led to spectabilis, even illustris
rank, but probably not to a dynasty established among the high nobility.
In Gaul, it may be, its episcopal role gave the aristocracy an alternative, though
inevitably unsatisfactory, focus for its traditions, as links with the Senate became
more tenuous. Sidonius remarks that for a nobility faced with Visigothic takeover,
exile and entry to the Church were alternative solutions.101 It gave them a second
hierarchy to use and reward their educational qualifications.102 It provided control
of devolved, local government; and also, because it was a united body, operating
with provincial councils and archbishoprics, and wielding influence at secular
courts, it helped to unite them, to preserve their sense of identity and political power.
Indeed, we may see it as an equivalent to the lost provincial governorships with the
advantage of more posts and life-long tenure. It also bound the great rural estates to
the towns in which the bishops mainly functioned, so contributing to both the
survival of the city, and of the civitas territory.103 In Italy such a focus was for long
less needed, and the senators exercised only at second-hand a local influence and
control which their Gallic cousins wielded directly. When the Senate as an
institution was so suddenly and drastically weakened in the Gothic wars, they found
themselves lacking a substitute, and with their provincial power-bases undermined.
95
Ennod. 80. 32-9.
Cf. Gelasius, Ep. 38 (Thiel).
"Above, n. 3.
9S
Var. IX. 15-16, on which cf. L. Duchesne, 'La Succession du Pape Felix I V , MAH 3 (1883),
240-66, A. von Harnack, 'Der erste Deutsche Papst und die beiden letzten Dekrete des romischen
Senats', Sitz. Preuss. Akad., 1924, 24-39.
"Much late fifth/sixth century papal politics involved senatorial manipulation. Ennod. 49. 134
suggests actual senatorial candidates for the papacy; and cf. von Harnack, above, PLREII, stemma 25,
of Pope Vigilius; but J. T. Milik, 'La Famiglia di Felice III Papa', Epigraphica 28. 1 (1966), 140 ff.,
indicates one papal dynasty drawn from the lesser nobility.
100
Ennod. 80.7, 53ff.
101
Ep. II. 1.4.
102
Cf. Ep. VII. 9. 24, 'uxor illi de Palladiorum stirpe descendit, qui aut litterarum aut altarium
cathedras cum sui ordinis laude tenuerunt'.
103
Cf. Ep. VII. 15, recalling two priests from their country estates to their town house and duties at
Vienne. On cities and civitates, cf. E.James, The Origins of France (London, 1982), 45-8, esp. Note also
96
R. Van Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul, 153-6,
140
S.J. B. BARNISH
Bishoprics may have had other advantages for the Gallic nobility on which
Italian senators partly missed out: a means of providing for unwanted heirs.
Glycerius condemned the purchasing of bishoprics for unsuitable minors, the wealth
of the diocese being commonly pledged in the process; and Majorian condemned the
compulsory ordination of children as priests with their parents' collusion, and the
consecration of female children as a means of increasing their brothers' inheritance.104 To this 'strategy of heir exclusion' we will return later. Here I shall note
that heirs were still hoped and planned for by the rich—for bishop Gaudentius of
Brescia, c. 400, they went with potentia and divitiae105—yet, partible inheritance had
always been common among the Roman aristocracy. Both through the division of
estates, and the encouragement of low fertility, it may have been responsible for the
rapid turn-over of noble families in the earlier empire.106 The later aristocracy seems
to have been more stable, a contrast perhaps connected with the fourth century
combination of empire-wide office-holding and estate expansion.107 Like its predecessor, however, it was still very liable to the complementary risks of economic and
biological failure; and I would suggest that, in the fifth to sixth century west,
political and economic conditions were making it ever more necessary to ensure the
unity of family property, while legal, social and religious developments were
rendering it harder to do so.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC PRESSURES
Control of the far-flung senatorial estates attested in the Life of Melania will have
been gravely weakened by political fragmentation in the fifth century. Paulinus of
Pella remained the owner of large properties in Epirus, but the rents which reached
him in Aquitaine steadily diminished.108 This effect, though, should not be exaggerated. There are indications that Italian senators under the Ostrogoths still had
interests in the eastern empire, and even in Africa;109 while their relations with Gaul
suggest strongly that land-holding straddled the Alps. It is arguable, furthermore,
that the fifth century tendency to commute taxation in kind to money (adaeratio)
combined with reorganisation and decreases in state demands to produce livelier
trade and more profitable farming in the western Mediterranean.110 On the whole,
104
105
Glycerius, above, n. 3; Majorian, Nov. 11 and 6.
Tract, xiii. 35 (CSEL 68); cf. Jerome, ep. 66. 3, 108; 4-5, E. Patlagean, Pauvrete Economique el
Pauvrete Sociale a Byzance, 152 ff.
l06
Cf. Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 76 ff., 96 ff., P. Garnsey and R. Sailer, The Roman Empire
(London, 1987), 142-5.
107
On this, cf. M. T. W. Arnheim, The Senatorial Aristocracy in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1972),
chaps. 3-4, 6-7. Owing to the separation of military and civilian offices and careers, the nobiles could
now hold power with less risk to themselves and the emperor than in the early empire, a risk which may
formerly have affected their survival (cf. Hopkins, D and R, 166-70, 175, 196).
im
Euch. 270 ff, 408-19, 481 f; cf. Pope Celestine I, in PL 50, 546.
109
Africa: cf. Ennod. 150, for Opilio; the east: cf. Coll. Avellana 228, for Agapitus; Chron. Paschale, I,
p. 623, Dindorf, for Symmachus' house at Constantinople, below, on the eastern marriage of the
Boethii. Wickham, 17, sees the effects of imperial disintegration on private revenues as serious.
"°Cf. Barnish, PBSR 55, 1987, 168-73, 179 f.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
141
though, it is likely that many great families lost much of their wealth, particularly
those with extensive holdings in Africa.
The 'potlatch' pressures on them may not, however, have diminished very
significantly. On the one hand, governors' building activities in southern Italy seem
to have halted; while in Rome the Church was increasingly the major architectural
benefactor. Significantly, it often inherited and adapted fourth century senatorial
mansions.111 The emperor Marcian excluded clarissimi and spectabiles resident in the
provinces from the praetorship, a measure soon followed by the west;112 and, in our
periods B and C, when Italy and Sicily were much exposed to the Vandals, there is a
marked dearth of western consuls from the senatorial families.113 On the other hand,
the consulship revived under Odoacer and Theoderic; games and chariot-racing
continued; and some senators gave praetorian displays.114 The period following the
Visigothic sack had seen a similar assertion of Roman tradition by the nobility.115
Even during the pax Ostrogothica, however, the cost of such traditions may have
been almost unacceptably high. Boethius took pride in the largesse which he
distributed at his sons' consular games in 522, but to him the praetorship was now
'an empty name and a heavy burden to the senatorial census'. Turcius Rufius
Apronianus Asterius recorded with pride the glory earned by his games in 494, but
also with regret—'in quaestum famae census iactura cucurrit'. Other consuls, Felix
the Gaul in 511, the Anician Maximus in 523, needed royal prompting to pay their
bills. Cassiodorus' consular formula points out that consuls, unlike other officials,
were formally volunteers, and insists on the duty of largesse; and he asks elsewhere
'Quid si expensas consulatus pauper nobilis expavescat?'116 By the late 520s,
standards in the carving of consular diptychs were in decline, and we can detect
other signs of a wider economic crisis in Italy and through much of the Mediterranean.117 Indeed, we may ask how far, at this period, senatorial generosity was
equal to that shown c. 400. In 519, Eutharic, son-in-law of Theoderic, celebrated his
consulship with peculiar lavishness, 'stupente etiam Symmacho orientis legato', and
to the amazement of the 'praesens aetas' at the variety of wild beasts sent from
Africa.118 Apparently, it was a rare feat for Italy to acquire these exotica, or to
impress an easterner; yet eastern consular expenses were not high, and were carefully
limited.119 We should notice the sequences of western senatorial consuls: 11 from
480-90, but only 4-5 from 491 500; 11 from 501-11, but 5 from 512-19; 10-11 from
m
Cf. Ward-Perkins, chaps. 3-4, pp. 236-41, Guidobaldi (above n. 54) 230 ff.
" 2 C.J XII. 2. 1; cf. Jones, LRE, 529.
" 3 13 consuls in B, 6 in C, 12 in D, 27-9 in E. The withdrawal of competition by monarchs and
generals is, of course, another factor. 490 is excluded, as Faustus iunior may well have been nominated
by Odoacer.
"4Cf. Var. I. 20, 27, 30-3, III. 39, 51, V. 42, Boethius, C. Ph. I l l , prose iv.
"5Cf. Matthews, chaps. 14-15.
ll6
Cf. O. Jahn, Berichte Sachs. Gesellsch. der Wissensch.,ph.-h.cl. 3 (1851), 348 f.; Boethius, C. Ph. I l l ,
pr. iv, II, pr. iii. But Boethius' complaint was an old one; cf. Zosimus II. 38, from Eunapius.; Var. III.
39, V. 42, VI. 1, 10.
"7Cf. Cameron and Schauer JAS 72, 136 f., Barnish, PBSR 55, 1987, 176-9, 180, 182.
"8Cassiod., Chron., s.a. Asterius' games (Jahn) lasted 3 days, with 'ludos currusque simul
variumque ferarum/certamen'.
119
Cf. Cameron and Schauer, 139-42.
142
S.J. B. BARNISH
520-30, but 1 from 531 5. Are the more broken series the products of temporary
economic exhaustion among the major families, compounded in the 490s by the
effects of the Ostrogothic invasion, and Theoderic's relations with the east?120
Careful estate management, for which Felix was noted,121 and improved
marketing might finance a consular year; so too might government service. Under
Odoacer and Theoderic, the Decii held a string of consulships and praetorian
prefectures. Apronianus Asterius had recently held the comitiva privatarum, and a
relative discharged the same office c. 507; the family seems to have reemerged into
public prominence after a long period of obscurity.122 The sons of Boethius were
nominated to the consulship about the same time as he was made magister qfficiorum.
Yet, over half the consuls lacked active high office at court. This is probably an
indicator of the continuing strength of many senatorial fortunes; but, as we have
noted, the suffragia required from office seekers might themselves be a daunting
expense.123 This was, perhaps, especially true in Gaul, where I would suspect a lower
level of liquidity. When, in 441, the praetorian prefect helped found a church at
Narbonne, his contribution came to only 2100 solidi, very small beer.124 Arvandus'
first tenure of the prefecture was highly popular, his second oppressive—the result,
we may surmise, of earlier integrity, combined with the payment of repeated suffragia
for his post. It is not surprising that he was heavily in debt, and discovered in
treasonable correspondence with Euric: the formation of barbarian kingdoms in
Gaul must have promised many senators a hope of less expensive advancement.125 In
addition to the costs of office, there was the burden of taxation. The settlement of
barbarian warriors may have done away with the conscription of valued coloni from
senatorial estates;126 but the complaints of Boethius (coincident with his sons'
consulships and his own office) show that government levies were still severely felt
under Theoderic, and his senators were as active in evasion and non-cooperation as
those of Majorian had been.127 One consequence of taxation, paid or unpaid, may
have been the expansion and concentration of great estates at the expense of the
lesser gentry, particularly the curiales, who underwrote the taxes which the senators
refused to pay.128 Much of the documentary evidence from late Roman Italy,
especially the Ravenna papyri, suggests that small properties remained the rule, and
minor land-owners common.129 Land-holding in the territory of Ravenna must,
however, always have been exceptionally fluid. Many north Italian texts show the
120
Note Speciosus, cos. 496, who may never have taken up his office.
Var. II. 2. 3 f.; cf. IX. 23. 4, commending the Decian consuls for their generosity with their
property 'sub moderatione'.
122
No known representatives of distinction since Turcius Apronianus 8 (PLRE I), c. 400.
123
Cf. above, n. 58.
'"C7Z.XII. 5336, AE 1928, 5.
'"Sidonius, Ep. I. 7. 3, 5; note that Arvandus still felt a proper pride in his official and senatorial
rank.
126
Cf. Stein II. 43.
127
Var. II. 24-5, Nov. Maj. 2. 4.
128
Cf. Var. II. 24. 2, V. 14. 1, IX. 2.
129
Cf. Brown, 191 ff., 198; L. C. Ruggini, Economia e Societd nell'Italia Annonaria (Milan, 1961),
409ff.;fora later period, Wickham, 104 ff.
121
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
143
building-up of large estates and huge game-parks by unscrupulous potentes,130
perhaps to the long-term detriment of their provincial support. In some parts of
Italy, archaeology indicates a marked decline in settlement numbers, and some
expansion of surviving sites through this period; in others, though, dispersed
settlement patterns proved relatively stable.131 It is likely that regional conditions
varied greatly; and the larger and more concentrated holdings must always have
been vulnerable to the pressures of partible inheritance.132
In these circumstances, it seems possible that the traditional Roman patterns of
reproduction and inheritance became a luxury ever harder to afford. Majorian's
sixth novel, addressed to the prefect of Italy, and so primarily to the problems of the
Italian aristocracy, gives us a useful focus. Its chief concern was for the birth-rate of
the nobility—witness such phrases as 'si nobilium feminarum amplectenda generositas procreatis liberis multiplicata subcrescat'; 'Viduarum . . . quae nulla prole
suscepta fecunditatem suam reparationemque familiae repudiata coniugii iteratione
condemnant'; 'per quos familiae origo reparatur'; 'utilitas filiorum, quos et numerosius procreari pro Romani nominis optamus augmento et procreatis conpetentia
commoda perire non patimur'.
Apparently,133 he perceived a threat to upper-class survival, and ascribed it to a
number of causes: first, girls whom their parents forced to take the veil, to avoid
expenditure on their dowries, or a share in the inheritance, at their brothers' cost. In
line with the Council of Chalcedon, he forbade consecration as nuns for women
under 40.134 Second, childless widows still capable of child-bearing refused marriage
with the excuse of a religious vocation, but in reality for power among fortunehunters. Widows under 40 were now to remarry within five years, or divide their
property with their kindred. Third, financially unequal marriages affected the birthrate: henceforward, the wife should bring no less in dowry than she had received as
sponsalicia largitas if the marriage was to be legally valid, a condition already made,
though less forcefully, by Valentinian III in 452.135 In addition, Majorian decreed
that mothers should divide their sponsalicia largitas equally among their children; he
condemned the disherison of children by their mothers through the machinations of
130
Cf., e.g., Ambrose, Hexaemeron V. 14, 27, Expos. Ps. cxviii, 6. 32, 8. 5, De Nabuthe 3. 12, 10. 45,
Zeno of Verona, Tract. I. v. 8, Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 48, Var. III. 20, IV. 10, 39, V. 12, Procop., Wars
I. iii. 1-5, 29, xi. 7f., P. Ital. 7, 49; Ruggini, 23-35. The northern bishops usually link such landgrabbing with speculation in grain and other victuals in a regional economy which presumably was
stimulated and sometimes depressed by the requirements of court and army. Cf., also, Var. IX. 2, 18.
131
Cf. Barnish, PBSR 55, 1987, 169, 175, A. M. Small, 'Late Antique Settlements in Apulia and
Lucania', forthcoming.
132
Cf. Wickham, above, n. 129.
133
His legislation has Augustan echoes, and appeals overtly to Roman tradition. We should,
perhaps, see it as, to some extent, an exercise in legitimation and propaganda, its archaizing character
corresponding to much in Sidonius' imperial panegyrics; as a response to a real crisis, it would then be
doubtful. Glycerius was more up to date, but still less realistic, in ascribing the ills of the empire to
episcipal simony!
134
Canon xv, ordination of deaconesses. Note Petit, 328 f.: the problems of Libanius' curial friend
Agroecus, with a brother and five unmarried sisters.
133
.M Val. 35. 9; contrast the western interpretatio to N. Theod. 4. 14, showing that the latter might
provide the former for a poor wife. For the east, N. Justiniani 97. 1, 119. 1 show that the two were
expected to be equal, but 97. 1-2 shows pressures for inequality. See further, below.
144
S.J. B. BARNISH
legacy-hunters; and he legislated against the extortion from would-be bride-grooms
of gifts (? pre-betrothal) by their prospective fathers-in-law. In 463, Libius Severus,
who had supplanted Majorian, did away with the 'capitibus iniustis legis divi
Maioriani', retaining only the provision of equal inheritance of the sponsalicia
largitas.136 However, in Gaul, at least, where Majorian seems to have been popular,
and where pressures for expenditure were less, the legal tradition preserved his
novel.137 We must suppose that some people in the west perceived it as doing a useful
job in their society.
The Church, and especially monastic life might threaten the survival of
individual noble houses, although the pious deacon Ennodius could make a mildly
bawdy and paganising joke out of the danger.138 Yet, it also had its uses for overfertile families, as we noticed in connection with Majorian's law of 460 against
compulsory ordinations, which will have prevented the boys from marrying, and
establishing their own families at the expense of their kindred.139 So too, the fifth to
sixth century expansion of monastic life in the west often meant the parental
dedication of children, with consequences for the estate. The sixth century Italian
rules of the Master and St. Benedict both accept the practice for the sons oinobiles.
The Master urges strongly that no part of his inheritance should be retained for the
postulant, lest he return to his family, become co-heir with his brothers, and get
married. His parents should give all his property to the poor; but, if this is too hard
for them, they should allow him a third, the poor a third, and keep the rest; or,
failing this, they should keep the entire property. St. Benedict prescribed either
complete disherison, or a donation to the monastery, the parents keeping the
usufruct; Caesarius of Aries took a similar line.140 A common theme in the
hagiography of the time is the conversion of a young man or woman at, or shortly
before marriage and the assumption of family responsibilities, whether through a
pact of mutual chastity, or the adoption of monastic life, seemingly in reaction
against the worldly pressures of the kin-group.141 These considerations are the
reverse side of the coin; and, like the secular power of the regular clergy, they help to
show why families often accepted, approved, or enforced such 'dropping out'.142
Wealthy widows, enjoying their new-found independence, at once exploiting and
preyed upon by fortune-hunters, were a very ancient feature of senatorial life.143
136
>: Sev. 1.
Cf. P. M. Meyer and Th. Mommsen, Leges Novellae, LXf., 166, F. Brandileone, Scritti di storia del
diritloprivate Italiano, ed. G. Ermini (Bologna, 1931), 144 f., n. 3.
138
Ennod. 388. 41-94, epithalamium of Maximus, v.s.: Venus and Cupid deplore the impact of the
cult of'frigida . . . virginitas' on their realm, and retaliate against Maximus, 'spes unica generis summi',
who has long refused to marry under the influence of a devout mother. Cf. R. Mathisen, 'Epistolography, Literary Circles & Family Ties in Late Roman Gaul, 'TAPA 111 (1981), 95-109, 101 on
Avitus, Ep. 52.
139
On the general effect of Christianity on fertility in the east, cf. E. Patlagean, Structure Sociale,
137
Famille, Chretienle a Byzance (London, 1981), chaps. 8 - 9 .
<i0Reg. Ben. 59 (cf. 58); Reg. Mag. 91 (pp. 398 ff, De Vogue); Caesarius, Epp. II. 6, 8, I I I (pp. 139,
142, 150 f, Morin); cf, also Salvian Ad Ecclesiam I I I . 6.
14i
Cf. S. Dill, Roman Society in Gaul in the Merovingian Age (London, 1926), 358 ff.
142
Note N. Just. 123. 41, prohibiting the disherison of ungrateful children who enter monasteries.
' 43 Cf, e.g., Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 235-47; for late antiquity, Jerome, Ep. 23. 13.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
145
Christianity may have increased their number. It showed a growing dislike of second
marriages, which may have had some effect on imperial marriage legislation; it gave
the widow more to do with her life; and its representatives entered the inheritance
hunt with a strong moral advantage over their competitors.144 Christians, however,
are apt to pick out and develop only those elements of their faith which jump with
their prior inclinations. I myself suspect that the trend was against the remarriage of
widows even without religous assistance. In the third to sixth century Roman
senatorial prosopography, much of it ante-dating the conversion of that aristocracy,
I have found only one second marriage, and that following a divorce.145 Admittedly,
people were sometimes pressed to remarry,146 and we are poorly informed on
senatorial marriage partners, but the house of Ausonius gives the same impression. A
Christian family, but not conspicuously devout, it has several cases of early
bereavement, but only one of second marriage.147 Marital choice and mutual
affection may often have been responsible, as for Ausonius himself,148 but the late
antique world was one in which kin-arranged marriages were certainly common.149
A law dealing with these may give us a partial explanation.
Addressing the Senate in 371, Valentinian I forbade the marriage of widows
under 25 against their fathers' will, with the help of go-betweens and marriagebrokers; he forbade the purchase and private fixing of noble marriages: a family
council should be held, and, if the woman disliked her suitor, a judicial cognitio would
examine his birth and character; however, her close relatives were not to hinder a
suitable match in the hope of inheriting her property.150 Here we should notice first,
the pressures for marriage within a class, a barrier to its external recruitment, and
the wish of some members to break out. In 468, Anthemius, concerned for the
'splendor senatoriae generositatis' had to legislate against the marriage of senatorial
women with slaves and freemen; while, by contrast, in the east Marcian had
permitted senators to marry humble but free-born women of good character.151
Second, we should notice the desire of the kindred to keep property within the
family. This was, I suspect, accentuated not only by economic pressures, but by late
Roman changes in the property rights of married and formerly married partners.
144
Cf. M. Humbert, Le Re'mariage a Rome (Milan, 1972), chap. 3, M. Lightman and W. Zeisel,
'Univira: an Example of Continuity and Change in Roman Society', Church Hist. 46 (1977), 19-32,
J . Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 61 fF.
145
In this I have used the stemmata in PLRE I—II and Arnheim; the exception is Fabiola (Jerome,
Ep. 77. 3 f.). (Cf. Jones, LRE, 970-9 on the failures or very limited successes of the Church in moral
questions, especially the divorce laws; note also J. Gaudemet, 'Les Transformations de la Vie Familiale
au Bas-Empire et l'influence du Christianisme, Romanitas 5 (1962), 58-85, Averil Cameron, JRS 76
(1986), 269, on Goody).
146
Cf. Jerome, Ep. 54. 5 (also 54. 15), 127. 2, 130. 1 (also 130. 9).
147
Ausonius' daughter Ausonia may have remarried, to become mother of Paulinus of Pella.
148
Cf. Aus., Par. viii-ix, Epigr. xl.
149
The marriage of Melania and Pinianus is a good example; cf. also Greg. Tur., Vita Patrum i. 1, ix.
1, xvi. 1, xx. 1, Lib. Hist. I. 47. Sidonius, Ep. II. 4 is interesting on match-making among the nobiles. On
legal evidence, see S. Treggiari, Class. Views n.s. 1.1 (1982), 42 f.
lb0
C.Tn. III. 7. 1.
1, N. Marc. 4.
146
S.J. B. BARNISH
Patria potestas exercised over a sine manu married woman by her father, through
which he could recover her dowry by compelling her to divorce, had become
obsolete perhaps as early as the Antonines, certainly by the time of Diocletian. In the
fifth century, the paterfamilias also lost control of dowry brought to his married son.
The husband's own rights of property over the dowry had also long been growing
weaker: increasingly it was treated as a sort of trust for the wife herself, or for the
offspring of the marriage.152 It also tended, more and more, to be matched by the
eastern influenced donatio ante nuptias (in the west usually referred to as sponsalicia
largitas, though distinct from betrothal gifts), a settlement by the groom on his
prospective bride, which, again, was becoming largely a trust for the children.153
Where there were no children, familial rights of reversion over the marriage portions
became weaker. By Valentinian Ill's 35th novel of 452, when a wife died childless,
her family recovered only half her dowry, where once her father would have
vindicated the entire dos profedicia. In similar circumstances, the husband's family
would recover only half the sponsalium. Again, when a child predeceased its parents,
its share of the dos and donatio went not to those parents, or to its siblings, but to its
own children.154
These developments favoured fertile marriages and nuclear families over the
property interests of more extensive kin groups. They must have reflected a real
social concern, if not for reproduction, at least for the welfare of any children born to
a marriage, to judge by the legislators' language. At the same time, they must have
diminished the will of kindreds to form marriage bonds. (Hence, perhaps, the use of
concubinage, despite Christian pressure, as a means of producing heirs. On the
whole it was tolerated by imperial laws; and even, perhaps, encouraged, to maintain
the curial order.155) There were still loop-holes by which marriage contracts could
be a source of family profit, but these exceptions illustrate the rule: the extravagant
pre-betrothal gifts condemned by Majorian, made to the benefit of the bride's father;
or, more interestingly, the emperor's prohibition of unequal dos and donatio. Since the
latter was often used to pay the former,156 where dowry was the less, the death of a
childless wife would profit her family, not her husband. Hence, maybe, the
disincentive to reproduction noted by Majorian. It is true that children produced
were now being better protected, particularly in the event of parental remarriage; in
theory, their portions of the paternal or maternal marriage goods will have made
them more eligible for marriages of their own. However, we should recall the
152
Cf. P. E. Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage (Oxford, 1930), 122 f., 177-82; on the late imperial
protection of children's rights, Humbert, chap. 3. iv.
'"Literature on the donatio ante nuptias is voluminous, and much about it is uncertain. Cf, inter al.,
Corbett, 205-10, Humbert, 418 f., 425-41, M. Kaser, Das romische Privatrecht II (Munich, 1959),
134-41, D. Herlihy, 'The Medieval Marriage Market', Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976), 3-27,
5 ff. The practice may partly have grown out of betrothal gifts, but JV. Just. 123. 37, 39 shows it distinct
from sponsaliajarrae. Western cases of the donatio a.n. may be Jerome, Ep. 127. 2, and the controversy in
Sidonius, Ep. VII. 2. 6-8. Ed. Theoderici 59 suggests that a standard donatio may have been j of the
groom's patrimonium.
154
£".J. V. 9. 7-8 (a. 478, 528, eastern). Note that married daughters were more likely than
married sons to have surviving parents; cf. R. Sailer, C. Ph. 82 (1987), 30 ff.
155
Cf. C.J. V. 27, JV. Just. 74, 89, JV. Theod. 22. 2. 11.
156
Cf. Corbett 207; JV. Theod. 14. 3 ( = C J V. 9. 5. 1), with interpretatw.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
147
tendency, prohibited by both Majorian and Severus, for an unequal division of the
sponsalicia largitas. In the fourth century, Ambrose had denounced the rich who,
fearing partition of their estates, aborted children, or divided the patrimony
unequally, against the law of nature.157 In these, and in the ecclesiastical methods of
heir exclusion, is evidence of the trend against partible inheritance: social and
economic pressures may have been forcing some approach to primogeniture on the
senatorial class.
Donatio ante nuptias has other interesting implications. Where its equality with,
and distinction from, dos was genuinely observed, it must have been a severe check
on social mobility by marriage, perhaps reflecting late Roman class consciousness.158
Increasingly, though, in the late and post-Roman west, it fused with and replaced
true dowry from the woman's side, rinding its counterpart in the marriage payments
of the Germanic settlers; not until the twelfth century was dowry revived in western
Europe.159 One factor in the change may have been a shortage of women to men,
which reversed the situation in the earlier empire. This was due to men marrying at
a lower age, and to Christian pressure towards female virginity.160 As to the latter,
pressure towards male virginity, noted above, was also strong, and the comparative
effects of the two are impossible to quantify; but I think it unlikely that nuns much
outnumbered monks in late antiquity. As to the former, in the aristocracy, at least,
any fall in the male marriage age may be linked with the earlier age in the late
empire at which official careers could be begun. It is similarily possible that the
opportunities for office-holding which Constantine had reopened to senators stimulated the production of males at the expense of females.161 Moreover, a female heir
will have been less fitted than her brother to defend an estate threatened by a
lawsuit, the aggression of an influential neighbour, or the flight of coloni. This type of
insecurity is well attested, and may have encouraged over-insurance in boy children.
An indication of aristocratic priorities may be found in the case of Melania and
Pinianus: their first child, a daughter, was immediately consecrated to God, and the
couple went on in the vain attempt to produce two sons.162 It is possible, then, to use
the language of 1066 and All That, that the late Roman nobility 'died of a surfeit of
males!'
It is reasonable to suppose that the new married-property regulations reflected,
157
Hexaemeron V. 58. Note JV. Just. 92, prohibiting excessive inter vivos donations by parents to one
child at the expense of others.
158
Cf. Sidonius, Ep. VII. 2. 6-8, where a young man on the make wins a well dowried bride by
pretending to have money himself. Note I. 11.5: Paeonius marries his daughter above her station by
giving her a fine dowry. Ennod. 438. 22ff.,a betrothal equal in birth, but not in wealth.
159
Cf. Herlihy, MRS 6, 5ff;in Leges Burg. 24. 1-2, 62. 2, dos and donatio nuptialis seem synonymous.
Greg. Tur., Lib. Hist. I. 47 uses dos to mean bride-price in a Roman context. Isidore, Etymologiae V. 24.
25 f. suggests that decline from the 'antiquus . . . ritus' of mutual purchase to purchase by the husband
was associated with a decline in female status.
160
Cf. D. Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge Mass. & London, 1985), 17-21, revising causes
suggested in MRS 6, 10-17. Evidence for sex-ratios is very scanty. In the upper classes, the Ausonian
stemma shows 24 females to 28 males.
161
Age of office-holders: cf. Jones, LRE, 382,558. Constantine and the nobiles: cf. Arnheim, ch. 2.
162
V. Melaniae Graeca, 1, 6. Is the family of Avitus of Vienne comparable; cf. his carm. vi, Mathisen,
TAPA 111, 101?
148
S.J. B. BARNISH
as well as caused, some weakness in the old Roman gentes. Divorces, when family
alliances were reshuffled, so frequent in the late Republic and early principate, are
only once attested in the senatorial aristocracy of late antiquity.163 Probably, again,
for family reasons, aristocratic Roman girls had usually been married off in their
early teens, with an adverse effect on their child-bearing capacities. In the Christian
era, the marriage age may in general have risen; though, interestingly, there are
exceptions at the highest social level.164 At all levels, the tria nomina system by which
family identities had been preserved, was being replaced, either by single names,
often of Christian significance, or by strings ofgentilicia.165 Some have ascribed this to
a general decay of aristocratic values,166 but the explanation seems rather facile. In
fact, the old nomenclature and the agnatic Roman gentes were already in decline by
the second century A.D., thanks, perhaps, to the rapid turn-over of senatorial
families.167 In our period, both Gaul and Italy show a keen and imaginative interest
in genealogy,168 and of this, senatorial polyonymy may be one symptom. There may
even have been a stronger sense of unity among the nobiles, which made them, both
by intermarriage and by sympathy, all kinsmen. 'Curia Romana completur paene
vestra familia', wrote Cassiodorus of the prolific Decii.169 Nomenclature now partly
matches the new dos-and-donatio marriage system, by combining names drawn from
the paternal and maternal families for their children.170 Admittedly, even before the
Gothic wars, aristocrats, like lesser men, are increasingly attested by one name
only;171 but this apparent symptom of declining interest in ancestry may be an
illusion due to changing sources. Throughout late antiquity, imperial laws, official
documents and private letters usually address leading figures by a single name; their
full styles are likely to be found in manuscript subscriptions, consular diptychs, and
inscriptions, chiefly dedicatory. As noted, the last of these decline steeply in number
163
Above, n. 145.
Cf. K. Hopkins, 'Age of Roman Girls at Marriage', Population Studies 18 (1965), 309-27, M.
Durry, 'Le Mariage des Filles Impuberes a Rome', CRAI, 1955, 84—91, but Patlagean, Pauvrete 146,
supposes Christian females most often married at 12-16; on the physical effects, see V. Higgins in San
Vincenzo al Volturno, ed. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell {BAR IS 252, Oxford, 1985), 115. The younger
Melania was married at 13-14. (V. Mel. Gr. 1), Maria, empress of Honorius, at 13 (Ensslin, P-WX.IV.
1712), but Blesilla at 18-19 (Jerome, Ep. 39. 1). Melania may show the interaction of Christian values
with the trauma of early marriage which Plutarch (Lycurgus and JVuma. iv. 1) noted among Roman
women. Ausonius, epit. xxxv, 'in tumulum sedecennis matronae' implies that a mother at 16 was
unusual. Zosimus V. 28 shows that there was some feeling against early marriage and consummation.
See now B. D. Shaw, JRS 77 (1987), 30-46.
165
Cf. M. Heinzelmann in Famille et Parente dans {'Occident Medieval, ed. G. Duby and J. Le Goff
(Rome, 1977), 19-24.
166
Cf. Brown, 20, 35, 164 f., 183 f.
167
Cf. R. Sailer, 'Familia, Domus and the Roman Conception of the Family', Phoenix 38 (1984),
336-65, 348 f. Heinzelmann notes the probable effect of the Constitutio Antoniniana.
168
Cf. Heinzelmann, 24; for Gaul, C. Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule VIII (Paris, 1926), 128ff.;for
Italy, the genealogical work of Cassiodorus on his own house, or on the Amals, or, earlier, Jerome, Ep.
108. 1, 3 f., Ambrose, De Nabuthe 13. 54, Exp. Ps. i, 46, Ausonius epig. xlv.
'^Var. IX. 22. 5. Cf. Mathisen, TAPA 111, 98 f., 102 and nn, 16, 27, on loose employment of
kinship terms by nobiles.
170
Cf. Heinzelmann, 21 ff.
171
Cf. Heinzelmann, 23 f.
164
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
149
in the fifth century; the first two continue, and still show the enduring practice of
polyonymy among the nobiles.
In addition to the celestial attractions or worldly utility of a celibate life,
Christianity may have affected senatorial family survival in three other ways: its
pressure against levirate and first-cousin marriages, by which property might be
retained within the family; its pressure against adoption; and its charitable appeal,
which might lead to the dispersal of great fortunes.172 As to the first, even in the early
principate, senatorial matches seem to have been made outside the immediate family
circle.173 As for adoption, not usually being made from a lower social level, it will
hardly have contributed to the survival of the class as a whole, and its disuse may
even be taken as a sign of increased demographic strength. Certainly, although it
continued to occur in the late Roman aristocracy,174 we can point to no specific
cases, even before the triumph of Christianity. Christian pressure, indeed, was
probably ineffective—Justinian could legislate on adoption without embarrassment
or disapproval.175 More important, perhaps, was provincial failure, after the
Constitutio Antoniniana to understand the Roman laws which meant the complete
transfer of the adoptee to the potestas of his adoptive father. As a result, his
inheritance rights in both his old and new families came to be weakened, presumably
making adoption less attractive as a means of heir creation.176 The flow of senatorial
wealth into Christian charities can also be overestimated; we know only two cases
when this happened on a large scale, those of Melania and Pinianus, and of Paulinus
and Therasia. The first instance notoriously demonstrates the sheer difficulty of such
a sell-out; and at least two of the four families involved seem to have survived the
crisis with wealth and status unimpaired.177 A more subtle threat to senatorial status
lay in the alternative which religion offered to secular largesse. Yet, Ennodius points
out how Christian nobles could combine the old and new generosity in their consular
processions; while many Gallic nobles must have found episcopal charities a road to
popular favour for themselves and their families.178
ARISTOCRATIC DECLINE AND RESILIENCE AFTER THE
OSTROGOTHS
We have, then, a picture of an aristocracy which had its weaknesses, economic,
demographic, and in its social power-base. The degree of these weaknesses, however,
172
Cf. Goody, 48-65, 72 ff., chap. 5, P. Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine
(London, 1972), 232. For a general critique of Goody, see Cameron, above, n. 145, D. Herlihy,
Medieval Households, 11 ff.
"3Cf. Garnsey and Sailer, 146 f., against Goody. Note, though, Symmachus, Ep. IX. 133,
procuring a license for a first-cousin marriage, cf. Var. VII, 46. The requirement must have reduced the
number of such marriages.
"4Cf. Salvian, AdEcc. III. 9 f., Digest I. 9. 5.
" 5 C.J VIII. 47. 10.
"6Cf. H. Jolowicz and B. Nicholas, Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law (Oxford, 1972),
471 f.
177
Cf. Matthews, 153, 343, 170, PLRE II, Maximus 17, 24-5, Volusianus 1, 3, 5-6.
l78
Ennod. 49. 129-38; the context is the Laurentian schism, perhaps partly caused by aristocratic
claims to control the endowments of the titular churches and other Church property. Cf. Harries, 102,
on Sidonius, Ep. III. 1.
150
S.J. B. BARNISH
seems very doubtful, and throughout the fifth century the class showed considerable
strength and resilience. Why, then, as we asked at the outset, did it so notoriously
crumble in Italy under the impact of the Gothic wars and of Byzantine rule? There
are easy explanations: in a fragile demographic situation, plague and massacre could
have lasting effects, and the earlier success of the senatorial core families in replacing
their numbers without much external recruitment may have been fatal." 9 It is clear
that the Italian and Mediterranean-wide economy, already perhaps declining
before the wars, was gravely weakened by and during them.180 The illustris
appointments needed to keep up numbers in the Senate proper fell under Justinian,
and I believe that many senators may have transferred their allegiance, or had it
transferred, to the Senate of Constantinople.18' Of these, some remained in Italy,
especially, perhaps, in Sicily and the south, cut off from both capitals, to look after
their estates.182 Others left for Gaul, or shifted the balance of their interests to the
eastern empire; the Boethii, descendants of Italian provincial gentry, apparently
forming a marriage alliance with the great Egyptian house of the Apiones.183
Finally, the Lombard invasions gave the senatorial class its coup de grace,184
These reasons are certainly valid, but not really sufficient. As we observed, some
of them affected the Gallic nobility in the fifth century; yet that class retained much
of its traditions and political influence for well over a century. Why did the Italians
not follow the example of their cousins, and come to dominate the administrative,
and even the military offices of the new Byzantine and Lombard regimes? After all,
they had already given a civil service to the Goths.
The Byzantines, of course, unlike the barbarians, were able to supply their own
administrators, often, perhaps, of a higher competence, and with a greater allegiance
to the ruler than the average Roman noble.185 They may also have had political
reasons for distrusting the Romans, who had hardly pulled their weight in the
Gothic wars, and many of whom were opposing Justinian in the Three Chapters
schism. Moreover, in Italy, as elsewhere in the Justinianic empire, the administration was becoming more militarised, the old barriers between soldier and civilian
were breaking down.186 The Italian aristocracy of the fifth century may have
supplied several magistri militum, and might have found little difficulty in adapting to
this situation, as the Gallo-Romans had done.187 Theoderic, however, had presented
'"Note D.Herlihy, Cities and Society in Medieval Italy (London, 1980) chap. 12, 149-55; outbreaks of
bubonic plague stimulated marriages and births in fourteenth-fifteenth century Florence. But the
overall demographic trend is likely to have been downwards; cf. J. Hatcher, Plague, Population and the
English Economy (London, 1977), 1-73, Z. Razi, Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish (Cambridge,
1980), 92-135.
180
Cf. Barnish, PBSR 55, (1987), 181 f.
181
Justinian, Sand. Pragm. 27 {CJC III, App. 7) may imply that those Italian senators who chose to
attend the court thereby made Constantinople their official residence, and needed permission to reside
in Italy.
182
Cf. Sand. Pragm. 27; T. S. Brown, 23 f., 27.
183
Cf. Pelagius I, Epp. Arel. Gen. 53; T. S. Brown, 29 f.
184
In general, on the end of the Senate, cf. T. S. Brown, chap. 2, E. Stein, 'La Disparition du Senat
de Rome a la Fin du Sixieme Siecle', Bull. Acad. Beige, Cl. des Lettres 5.25 (1939), 308-27.
185
Cf. Procop., Wars VII. i. 32, xxi. 14, Anec. xxiv. 9.
186
Cf. T. S. Brown, 8 ff., 36, 46-58.
187
Cf. above.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
151
his barbarians as the defenders of civilian Romans. Under his rule, few Goths
became active senators, few leading Romans saw military service,188 and the Senate,
which may have acquiesced or co-operated in barbarian settlement in the hope of an
easy life, was too much sheltered from a warlike world.'89
Another success of the Italian nobility was, perhaps, even more important in its
final decay: the maintenance of the Senate itself. The gentry were too well integrated
into a lofty, highly regulated, and therefore vulnerable political structure; and we
have already surmised that the social attractions of Rome and its Curia too often
distracted them from the grass-roots politics of their cities and dioceses. Sometimes
they succeeded in replacing remote control, or the lack of it, by direct participation.
By the end of the sixth century, the senators seem to have taken over Naples from the
likes of Pastor and Asclepiodotus.190 But more often, I suspect, they failed. Their
time was too short to establish that supply of bishops which the Gauls had achieved
in the fourth to fifth centuries.
Campania and Sicily were the best havens for the aristocracy, but it should
have been northern Italy that saved it. There conditions were best suited for
reproducing the Gallic solutions. As we have seen, northern nobles had long supplied
most of the high officials, and had some connection with society and politics, secular
and ecclesiastical, in the local towns. Urban life, indeed, though in decline, was
probably more vigorous in northern Italy than in Gaul; and church donor
inscriptions give us evidence lacking across the Alps for a 'middle class' of artisans,
professionals and lesser bureaucrats, sometimes linked in their benefactions with the
nobiles.191 In Ravenna, at least, if only among the sub-noble classes, traditions of
government service were continuing under the Byzantines.192
Into this society, the Lombards burst in 568. Resistance was initially slight, and
there may even have been a brief honeymoon period with the Romans under Alboin.
This was brutally ended during and after the reign of Cleph with, we are told, the
massacre and expropriation of many potentes and nobiles.193 So major a clash between
barbarians and native Romans in the Mediterranean world can only be paralleled
in Vandal Africa. There, however, Roman culture, provincial councils, senatorial
ranks and administrative roles survived;194 to some extent, the same may even have
been true of Lombard territory. The character of the administration, the codification of Lombard law, the rapid urbanisation of the barbarian aristocracy, all attest
188
Possible Gothic senators: Arigern, Tuluin; Italians with military experience: Liberius, Constantius, Cyprian; cf. also Var. IX. 23. 3.
189
Cf. P. Brown, 233.
190
Cf. Gregorius Magnus, Reg. Ep. (CCSL) IX. 47, 53, 77, 94-5: Theodorus, vir. mag., maior populi
and patronus civitatis, Rusticus v.c, Domitius vir mag., Faustus, vir mag.jvir glor.; all these names are
paralleled in the fifth/sixth century Senate.
191
Cf. above, n. 64. Gallic donor inscriptions tend to show nobles and clergy only; cf. CIL XII.
5336-7, AE 1928, 5; appendix, p. 186, to Avitus, ed. R. Peiper (MGH).
192
Cf. T. S. Brown, 77; and note 29 f, senators who 'may have seen their future as lying at
Ravenna'.
193
Paulus, Hist. Lang. II. 12, 25-7, 31-2. Auct. Havn. Extrema 5, Chron. Min. II.
194
Cf. F. M. Clover in Excavations at Carthage 1978 VII, ed. J. H. Humphrey (Ann Arbor, 1982),
12-22.
152
S.J. B. BARNISH
the continuing strength of Roman values and institutions in the north.195 The region
produced a sixth to seventh century copy of Cassiodorus' panegyrics of the royal
Ostrogoths; and the Lombard king Liutprand (712—44) arguably revived the
traditions of Theoderic, and transmitted them to the Carolingians.196 Yet, where all
the other major barbarian kingdoms had made some attempt to exact the land-tax
on which the Roman order rested, the Lombards either could not, or did not want
to.197 We should, perhaps, call their system mediaeval rather than post-Roman. In
part this vital difference must have been due to their political divisions; but was it
also linked with their persecution of the nobiles?198
For nearly 40 years after their invasion, the Lombards were almost continually
at war with the Byzantines, and sometimes with the Franks; from 574 to 584, they
were kingless, and ruled by a large number of independent dukes; the archbishop of
Milan was in permanent exile at Genoa; and the northern Catholic churches were
divided within themselves and from Rome and Constantinople by the Three
Chapters schism. These were not favourable conditions for the compromises and cooperation that had taken place between Romans and Franks or Visigoths in fifth
century Gaul, even under Euric. Justinian had resolutely fought his war against the
Ostrogoths a outrance. This fierce opposition between barbarians and emperor's men
was, perhaps, another damnosa haereditas which he bequeathed to the Roman world.
For the surviving Roman senators it meant isolation: cut off by politics from their
cousins in Roman or Frankish territory, even, maybe, from those in rival dukedoms,
they could do little to keep alive the traditions of the Senate.200
The Vandals, and their subjects with them, had similarly faced a generation of
imperial hostility. This, however, was not quite so steady—African corn continued
to reach Rome for a long period through treaty arrangements with Aetius.201
Moreover, by comparison with Geiseric, the northern Lombard rulers were small
men in a marginal territory. They could not hope to play his part in imperial
dynastic politics,202 and this inferiority will have weakened the sense of Roman
identity among their subjects.
Another source of demoralisation may have been the values of Christianity:
distrust of birth and riches, worldly success, rhetorical education, and the glories of
195
Cf. Wickham, 36-43, 68ff.,86ff.;? contrast the south, Wickham, 148 ff.
' 96 Cf. E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiguiores, no. 342; H. Lowe, Von Cassiodor zu Dante (Berlin, etc.,
1973), chap. 2, P. A. B. Llewellyn, 'The Popes and the Constitution in the eighth century.', EHR 101
(1986), 42-67, 55 ff.
197
Cf. Wickham, 39 ff.
198
Both divisions and persecution may have been the result of their failure to tax: central authority,
and good relations with the Romans seemed less important to them. But we do not know just how soon
and absolutely non-taxation became the rule.
199
On Lombard fear of Byzantines, cf. J. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West3 (London, 1967),
60 ff: but note that the Byzantines probably mademuch use of Lombard rebels and mercenaries.
200
On the role of provincial concilia in preserving upper class values, cf. Sidonius, Ep. I. 6, VII. 4,
Epistulae Arelatenses Genuinae 8 (humana conversatio); for informal contacts, cf. his letters passim, and those
of Symmachus, Ruricius, Avitus, Ennodius.
2
°'Cf. G. Zecchini, Aezio (Rome, 1983), 180, Procop., Wars III. iv. 13.
202
Cf. F. Clover, 'Geiseric and Attila', Historia 22 (1973), 104-17, 'The Family and Early Career of
Anicius Olybrius', ibid. 27 (1978), 169-96.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
153
Rome itself.203 When things went well, or not too ill, this tension could be happily
ignored, as it was by Prudentius, Sidonius, Ennodius, Cassiodorus, or Gregory of
Tours. For Gregory and the Gauls, indeed, the two value systems reinforced each
other: the more aristocratic a saint or bishop, the more spectacular his renunciation,
when he humbled himself as a conversus.204 In a context of imperial failure, oppression
and barbarian invasion, latent conflicts came into the open. The senate may have
emerged little weakened by the Visigothic sack of 410, but the same event inspired
the De Civitate Dei. Of all theologians, Augustine had the most influence in the west,
not least in senatorial circles.205 His challenge to conventional Roman patriotism,
and his denial of a necessary identity oiRomanitas with Christianity cannot have gone
unheeded, even in times of prosperity. By c. 550, how many pious senators did it
deter from committing themselves to a new ordo renascendi? In these conditions, too,
the old quarrel between Christianity and the rhetorical education which was so
closely linked to office, influence and senatorial values may have been sharpened,
'qui nostris servit studiis mox imperat orbi', Ennodius had made Rhetoric say to his
student proteges; while, as the Roman order crumbled in Gaul, Sidonius had written
to one teacher of oratory, 'nam iam remotis gradibus dignitatum . . . solum erit
posthac nobilitatis indicium litteras nosse'.206 To Pope Gregory the Great, though,
classical culture was, at best, the handmaid of scriptural learning, and bishop
Desiderius of Vienne, heir to the tradition of Sidonius and Ennodius, who gave
instruction in it, was savagely condemned.207
However, we might contrast Arator, on his escape from the shipwreck of the
Gothic court to the diaconate of the Roman Church. He produced his De Actibus
Apostolorum in 544, in war-time Rome, reciting it not in Trajan's Forum, but in the
church of S. Pietro in Vincoli. A copy was deposited in the papal archives, and the
work was dedicated to Pope Vigilus and to abbot Florianus. A third dedicatee,
though, was Parthenius, magister officiorum and patrician of Theodebert, who received
a poem commemorating his family honours and his secular career. He and Arator
had read Caesar and the pagan poets together at Ravenna; and, although Arator
now congratulated himself on his move from profane to sacred letters, he remembered their studies with pride. Indeed, Vigilius, that senatorial Pope, was hailed as
champion of 'publica libertas'; while the lay nobility of Rome attended the
recitations of the De Actibus, and heard titles such as 'thunderer' and 'ruler of
Olympus' given to God.208
203
Cf. T. S. Brown, 34f., 183, P. Wormald, JRS 66 (1976), 225f.
204
Cf. L. Pietri, 'L'ordine senatorio in Gallia del 476 al fine del VI secolo.', Societa Romana e Impero
Tardoantico I, ed. A. Giardina (Rome-Bari, 1986), 307-23, 321 ff.
205
Cf. H. Chadwick, Boethius (Oxford, 1981), 175ff., 190-202, 248ff., 'Pietri, 'Aristocratie et Societe
Clericale dans PItalie Chretienne au Temps d'Odoacre et de Theoderic', MEFR 93 (1981), 416-67,
442.
206
Ennod. 452. 17, Sidonius, Ep. VIII. 3 (cf. Ennodius' description (85.6, 94.8) of Deuterius as
sustainer 'ruiturae libertatis'.) On fifth/sixth century teaching of rhetoric in Gaul, cf. P. Riche, 'La
Survivance des Ecoles Publiques en Gaule au ve Siecle', Moyen Age 63 (1957), 420-36.
2<
"Reg. Ep. XI. 34; cf. P. Riche, Education et Culture dans I'Occident Barbare (Paris, 1962), 195-200, J.
Richards, Consul of God (London, 1980), 27ff.
™De Actibus, ed. A. McKinlay {CSEL 72), pp. XXVIII, 1-5, 150ff. Mathisen, TAPA 111, 102f.,
identifies this Parthenius with the nephew of Ennodius and pupil of Deuterius.
154
S. J. B. BARNISH
Even for Pope Gregory, fifty years later, although Rome was in ruins, its Senate
gone, justly punished for its vainglory and imperial rapacity, and under the shadow
of the Day ofJudgement, it was still a city comparable with Jerusalem in its fate, and
its Pope was still an obedient servant of the emperor and his Christiana Respublica.209
And, north in Lombard territory, where the continuing ideal of Rome was hardly
present, a few senatorial families like his own may also have been upholding their
class traditions of nomenclature, secular service, and religious generosity, although
this family is our sole example.
Albinus (born ? c. 630)
I
I
Liceria (nun)
Senator
(famulus Dei)
=
I
I
Theodelinda
(religiosa)
Sindelinda (nun)
Burnenghus
(cousin of Senator)
I
Adelinda
In 714, Senator and Theodelinda, who had piously refused to marry off their
daughter, established her in a convent at Pavia, endowing it with their entire estate,
which included their parental town house and coloniae. Some of the property had
come to them 'ex regio dono'. Their relatives Burnenghus and Adelinda were
founders of churches at Piacenza and Pavia.210 Property acquired partly through
inheritance, partly, we may surmise, through official service, and vanishing, along
with the family, through Christian, especially female, devotion, is a very traditional
phenomenon. The town-house converted to a convent has plenty of parallels in late
antique Rome. But that one family should wait until the eighth century before it
foundered in religion suggests that chastity and charity posed only a limited threat to
the Roman upper class as a whole.
For the names used in this kindred take us far back in time. Albinus is well
represented among fifth to sixth century senators. The Decian patrician Albinus who
was accused of treason under Theoderic was a correspondent of Ennodius, and
shielded by Boethius, and so with north Italian connections.211 A Senator was bishop
of Milan in the fifth century, and perhaps of noble birth; another bishop Senator was
a correspondent of Ennodius;212 there may be a connection with a fifth to sixth
century Pavian couple, Ennia Valeria and Campanianus, bearers of senatorialsounding names, and grandparents of a Senator.213 The name Senator may be a
family one, but its use in the seventh century may also have been meant to convey
some reminiscence of upper-class rank, at Roman or curial level. The Licerii had
probably been a leading fifth to sixth century family in Gaul and northern Italy,
209
Cf. Horn, in Ezech. II. 6. 22 f., Reg. Ep. III. 61, XI, 29, Richards, 222-7; for the Christiana!sancta
Respublica, cf. Reg. Ep. I. 73, V. 38, VI. 64, IX. 68, XIII. 32, II. 47. Cf, also, T. S. Brown, 145, 156, 176.
210
L. Schiaparelli, Codice Diplomatico Longobardo I (Rome, 1929), no. 18 with n. 3, p. 58 f. As the
convent seems to have got the whole estate, 1 take Sindelinda to have been the sole surviving child.
211
Ennod. 57-8, 279 (cf. 230); Boethius, C. Ph. I, pr. iv; Anonymus Valesianus 85ff.,above, n. 62.
212
Cf. PLRE II, Senator 3, Ennod. 205, 66.
213
Cf. D. Bullough, 'Urban Change in Early Medieval Italy: the Example of Pavia', PBSR 34
(1966), 82-129, 93, on CIL V 6465; PLRE II, Campanianus 1-4; T. S. Brown, 255, Campana,
Campanianus.
TRANSFORMATION AND SURVIVAL
155
again linked by kinship with Ennodius.214 The house of the seventh century Albinus,
however, was also allied with a family of Lombard names, if not of Lombard stock.
Senator's wife, again, had a Lombard name, and their daughter combined the
nomenclature of both parents in a Germanic-sounding compound.215
In the senatorial society of Merovingian Gaul, a similar slow loss of Roman
identity through intermarriage and confused nomenclature seems probable.216 A
classic example of this tendency is the will of bishop Bertram of Le Mans.217 Like the
Senator donation, it seems to show a family of mixed stock, predominantly Roman,
but increasingly Frankish, with property owed both to inheritance and to royal
service, and bequeathed to the Church. It dates, however, a hundred years earlier.
Despite the conventional picture, it seems, then, at least possible that some north
Italian nobles proved as resilient as their Gallic kindred218. And, when we recall that
their fourth to sixth century ancestors had proudly, though mendaciously derived
their families from the Republic, the life-span of their class identity is not to be
despised.219
S.J. B. BARNISH
214
Cf. Twyman, Historia 19, 484 ff., PLRE II, stemma 19. I suspect the emperor Glycerius,
nominee of the Burgundian Gundobad, to have been connected with the Licerii.
215
On Romano-Lombard nomenclature, cf. Wickham, 68 f.
216
Cf. James, 76 f., 127 f.
217
Pardessus, Diplomata, no. 230.
218
It is possible that some Gallo-Roman families retained their importance even into the
Carolingian era; see K. F. Werner, 'Important Noble Families in the Time of Charlemagne', in The
Medieval Nobility, ed. T. Reuter (Amsterdam, etc., 1979), ch. 6, esp. 153-60, 183.
219
1 must thank Dr. J. D. Harries for advice on this article, and for leave to cite her thesis.