J. B. Bury - History of the Later Roman Empire; from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, Volume 1 (1923).pdf - Byzantium - alibi251

J. B. Bury

Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1923

PREFACE

The first of these two volumes might be entitled the "German Conquest of

Western Europe," and the second the "Age of Justinian." The first covers more

than one hundred and twenty years, the second somewhat less than fifty. This

disparity is a striking illustration of the fact that perspective and proportion are

unavoidably lost in an attempt to tell the story of any considerable period of

ancient or early medieval history as fully as our sources allow. Perspective can

be preserved only in an outline. The fifth century was one of the most critical

periods in the history of Europe. It was crammed with events of great moment,

and the changes which it witnessed transformed Europe more radically than

any set of political events that have happened since. At that time hundreds of

people were writing abundantly on all kinds of subjects, and many of their

writings have survived; but among these there is no history of contemporary

events, and the story has had to be pieced together from fragments, jejune

chronicles, incidental references in poets, rhetoricians, and theologians.

Inscribed stones which supply so much information for the first four centuries

of the Roman Empire are rare. Nowhere, since the time of Alexander the Great,

do we feel so strongly that the meagreness of the sources flouts the magnitude

of the events.

Battles, for instance, were being fought continually, but no full account of a

single battle is extant. We know much more of the Syrian campaigns of

Thothmes III in the fifteenth century B.C. than we know of the campaigns of

Stilicho or Aetius or Theoderic. The Roman emperors, statesmen, and generals

are dim figures, some of them mere names. And as to the barbarian leaders who

were forging the destinies of Europe — Alaric, Athaulf, Wallia, Gaiseric, Attila,

and the rest — we can form little or no idea of their personalities; toi\ de\ skiai\

a)i/ssousin. Historians of the Church are somewhat better off. The personalities

of Augustine and Jerome, for instance, do emerge. Yet here, too, there is much

obscurity. To understand the history of the Ecumenical Councils, we want much

more than the official Acts. We want the background, and of it we can only see

enough to know that these Councils resembled modern political conventions,

that the arts of lobbying were practised, and that intimidation and bribery were

employed to force theological arguments.

Although we know little of the details of the process by which the western

provinces of the Empire became German kingdoms, one fact stands out. The

change of masters was not the result of anything that could be called a

cataclysm. The German peoples, who were much fewer in numbers than is often

imagined, at first settled in the provinces as dependents, and a change which

meant virtually conquest was disguised for a shorter or longer time by their

recognition of the nominal rights of the Emperor. Britain, of which we know

less than of any other part of the Empire at this period, seems to have been the

only exception to this rule. The consequence was that the immense revolution

was accomplished with far less violence and upheaval than might have been

expected. This is the leading fact which it is the chief duty of the historian to

make clear.

When we come to the age of Justinian we know better how and why things

happened, because we have the guidance of a gifted contemporary historian

whose works we possess in their entirety, and we have a large collection of the

Emperor's laws. The story of Justinian's Italian wars was fully related by my

friend the late Mr. Hodgkin in his attractive volume on the Imperial Restoration;

and, more recently, Justinian and the Byzantine Civilisation of the Sixth

Century have been the subject of a richly illustrated book by my friend

M. Charles Diehl. I do not compete with them; but I believe that in my second

volume the reader will find a fuller account of the events of the reign than in

any other single work. I have endeavoured to supply the material which will

enable him to form his own judgment on Justinian, and to have an opinion on

the "question" of Theodora, of whom perhaps the utmost that we can safely say

is that she was, in the words used by Swinburne of Mary Stuart, "something

better than innocent."

The present work does not cover quite half the period which was the subject of

my Later Roman Empire, published in 1889 and long out of print, as it is written

on a much larger scale. Western affairs have been treated as fully as Eastern,

and the exciting story of Justinian's reconquest of Italy has been told at length.

I have to thank my wife for help of various kinds; Mr. Ashby, the Director of the

British School at Rome, for reading the proof-sheets of Vol. I; and Mr. Norman

Baynes for reading those of some chapters of Vol. II. I must also record my

obligations, not for the first time, to the readers of Messrs. R. and R. Clark,

whose care and learning have sensibly facilitated the progress of the book

through the press.

J. B. BURY

CHAPTER I

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE MONARCHY

The continuity of history, which means the control of the present and future by

the past, has become a commonplace, and chronological limits, which used to

be considered important, are now recognised to have little significance except

as convenient landmarks in a historical survey. Yet there are what we may call

culminating epochs, in which the accumulating tendencies of the past, reaching

a certain point, suddenly effect a visible transformation which seems to turn the

world in a new direction. Such a culminating epoch occurred in the history of

the Roman Empire at the beginning of the fourth century. The reign of

Constantine the Great inaugurated a new age in a much fuller sense than the

reign of Augustus, the founder of the Empire. The anarchy of the third century,

when it almost seemed that the days of the Roman Empire were numbered, had

displayed the defects of the irregular and heterogeneous system of government

which Augustus had established to administer his immense dominion. His

successors had introduced modifications and improvements here and there, but

events made it clearer and clearer that a new system, more centralised and more

uniform, was required, if the Empire was to be held together. To Diocletian, who

rescued the Roman world at the brink of the abyss, belongs the credit of having

framed a new system of administrative machinery. Constantine developed and

completed the work of Diocletian by measures which were more radical and

more far-reaching. The foundation of Constantinople as a second Rome

inaugurated a permanent division between the Eastern and Western, the Greek

and the Latin, halves of the Empire — a division to which events had already

pointed — and p2affected decisively the whole subsequent history of Europe.

Still more evidently and notoriously did Constantine mould the future by

accepting Christianity as the State religion.

In the present work the history of the Roman Empire is taken up at a point

about sixty years after Constantine's death, when the fundamental changes

which he introduced have been firmly established and their consequences have

emerged into full evidence. The new system of government has been elaborated

in detail, and the Christian Church has become so strong that no enemies could

prevail against it. Constantinople, created in the likeness of Rome, has become

her peer and will soon be fully equipped for the great rôle which she is to play in

Europe and Hither Asia for more than a thousand years. She definitely assumes

now her historical position. For after the death of Theodosius the Great, who

had ruled alone for a short time over a dominion extending from Scotland to

Mesopotamia, the division of the Empire into two geographical portions, an

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