David Hume - The Dark Ages

The felicity of the eternal Emperors proceeds so far as to adorn with the ornaments of peace those whom it defends by warfare. Last year when we loyally attended the celebration of the most fortunate of all ceremonies, and when the marriage had been happily concluded, the most sacred Prince, our Lord Theodosius, was fain to add this dignity also to his world, and ordered the precepts of the laws to be collected and drawn up in a compendious form of sixteen books, which he wished to be consecrated by his most sacred name. Which thing the eternal Prince, our Lord Valentinian, approved with the loyalty of a colleague and the affection of a son. And all the senators cried out in the usual form, “Well spoken!” ( nove diserte, vere diserte ). But instead of following the course of the gesta in the Roman senate-house, it will be more instructive to read the Imperial constitution which introduced the great code to the Roman world.

The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, Augusti, to Florentius, Praetorian Prefect of the East. Our clemency has often been at a loss to understand the cause of the fact that, when so many rewards are held out for the maintenance of arts and (liberal) studies, so few are found who are endowed with a full knowledge of the Civil Law, and even they so seldom; we are astonished that amid so many whose faces have grown pale from late lucubrations hardly one or two have attained to sound and complete learning. When we consider the enormous multitude of books, the diverse modes of process and the difficulty of legal cases, and further the huge mass of imperial constitutions, which hidden as it were under a rampart of gross mist and darkness precludes men’s intellects from gaining a knowledge of them, we feel that we have met a real need of our age, and dispelling the darkness have given light to the laws by a short compilation. We selected noble men of approved faith, lawyers of well-known learning; and clearing away interpretations, we have published the constitutions of our predecessors, so that men may no longer have to await formidable responses from expert lawyers as from an inner shrine, when it is really quite plain what action is to be adopted in suing for an inheritance, or what is to be the weight of a donation. These details, unveiled by the assiduity of the learned, have been brought into open day under the radiant splendour of our name. Nor let those to whom we have consigned the divine secrets of our heart imagine that they have obtained a poor reward. For if our mind’s eye rightly foresees the future, their names will descend to posterity linked with ours. Thus having swept away the cloud of volumes, on which many wasted their lives and explained nothing in the end, we establish a compendious knowledge of the Imperial constitutions since the time of the divine Constantine, and allow no one after the first day of next January to use any authority in the practice of law except these books which bear our name and are kept in the sacred bureaux. None of the older Emperors, however, has been deprived of his immortality, the name of no author of a constitution has fallen to the ground; nay rather they enjoy a borrowed light in that their august decrees are associated with us. The glory of the originators, duly refined (filed), remains and will remain for ever; nor has any brilliance passed thereby to our name except the light of brevity ( nisi lux sola brevitatis ). And though the undertaking of the whole work was due to our auspicious initiation, we nevertheless deemed it more worthy of the imperial majesty ( magis imperatorium ) and more illustrious, to put envy to flight and allow the memory of the authors to survive perennially. It is enough and more than enough to satisfy our consciences, that we have unveiled the laws and redeemed the works our ancestors from the injustice of obscurity. We further enact that henceforward no constitution can be passed in the West ( in partibus occidentis ) or in any other place, by the unconquerable Emperor, the son of our clemency, the everlasting Augustus, Valentinian, or possess any validity, except the same by a divine pragmatica be communicated of us. The same precaution is to be observed in the acts which are promulgated by us in the East ( per Orientem ); and those are to be condemned as spurious which are not recorded in the Theodosian Code, excepting special documents in the official bureaux. It would be a long tale to relate all that has been contributed to the completion of this work by labours of Antiochus, the all-sublime prefect and consul; by the illustrious Maximin, ex-quaestor of our palace, eminent in all departments of literature; by the illustrious Martyrius, count and quaestor, the faithful interpreter of our clemency; by Sperantius, Apollodorus, and Theodore, all respectable men and counts of our sacred consistory; by the respectable Epigenes, count and magister memoriae; by the respectable Procopius, count, and magister libellorum. These men may be compared to any of the ancients. It remains, O Florentius, most dear and affectionate relative, for your illustrious and magnificent authority, whose delight and constant practice is to please Emperors, to cause the decrees of our August Majesty to come to the knowledge of all peoples and all provinces. Dated 15 February at Constantinople (438). 84The code of Theodosius was superseded at the end of a hundred years by the Code of Justinian, and to the jurist it is less indispensable than to the historian. The historian must always remember with gratitude the name of Theodosius and that of Antiochus, if we may credit this minister with having originated the idea of the work. For the full record of legislation which it preserves furnishes clear and authentic information on the social conditions of the Empire, without which our other historical sources would present many insoluble problems. 85

The last ten years of the reign were unfortunate. The Illyrian provinces suffered terribly from the depredations of the Huns, and the payments which a weak government made to buy off the invaders depleted the treasury. 86The eunuch Chrysaphius, having succeeded in removing from the Palace the rival influences of the Emperor’s wife and sister, completely swayed the mind of his sovran and seems to have controlled the policy of the government. It is said, and we can easily believe it, that Theodosius at this time was in the habit of signing state papers without reading them. 87

The power of Chrysaphius remained unshaken 88until a few months before the Emperor’s death, when he fell out of favour and the influence of Pulcheria again re-asserted itself. 89Theodosius died on July 28, A.D. 450, of a spinal injury caused by a fall from his horse. 90

§ 6. The Reign of Marcian (A.D. 450-457)

As Theodosius had no male issue and had not co-opted a colleague, the government of the eastern half of the Empire ought automatically to have devolved upon his cousin and western colleague Valentinian III. But this devolution would not have pleased Theodosius himself, and would not have been tolerated by his subjects. And we are told that on his death-bed Theodosius indicated a successor. Among the senators who were present on that occasion were Aspar, Master of Soldiers, and Marcian, a distinguished officer who had served as Aspar’s aide-de-camp in more than one campaign. The Emperor said to Marcian, “It has been revealed to me that you will reign after me.” 91We may conjecture that this choice had been arranged beforehand by Pulcheria and her brother. For Pulcheria agreed to become the nominal wife of Marcian, and thus the Theodosian dynasty was formally preserved. 92

Marcian was crowned in the Hebdomon by the Empress (August 25), 93and it is possible that on this occasion the Patriarch Anatolius took part in the coronation ceremony. 94The first act of the new reign was the execution of Chrysaphius, 95and it is worthy of notice that Chrysaphius had favoured the Green faction of the Circus, and that Marcian patronised the Blues. His reign was a period of calm, all the more striking when it is contrasted with the storms which accompanied the dismemberment of the Empire in the west. In later times it was looked back to as a golden age. 96The domestic policy of Marcian was marked by financial economy, which was the more necessary, as during the last years of his predecessor the treasury was emptied by the large sums which were paid to the Huns.