In the late fourth century, before the onslaughts that would lead to its dismemberment, the Roman Empire still stretched from northern Britain to the Sahara desert in Africa, and from Europe’s Atlantic shores to Syria. Most of the empire’s inhabitants, lowly farmers and artisans, would never see much of the world beyond their own immediate environs; but for those with talent, connections, and privilege it was possible to pursue a career that would bring appointments across the length and breadth of the empire (Marcone 1998).
Consider, for example, the case ofNummius Aemilianus Dexter (PLREi: 251). He was governor of Asia in the ad 380s, when, on the main street of the province’s metropolis of Ephesus, he erected a statue, known from the commemorative inscription on its base, in honor of the deceased father of the reigning eastern Augustus, Theodosius I (ad 379-95). In ad 387 he served as comes rerum privatarum (controller of the emperor’s private finances) at Constantinople. Later still, in ad 395, we find him mentioned in a number of imperial laws as praetorian prefect of Italy. Dexter, however, hailed from the far west of the empire, from Barcelona in Spain, where his father, Pacianus, had been bishop. It was there that the provincials of Asia paid for the erection of a statue of him, with an inscription on its base recording that this gift sought to honor him for good deeds performed by him during his governorship. Through his term of office in Asia, Dexter forged a link between the cities of Ephesus and Barcelona. By the standards of the Roman elite in the age of Theodosius, his career was by no means unique. Several other Spaniards are known to have filled important positions in the eastern administration of Theodosius, himself a Spaniard (Matthews 1975: 108-12). Through such appointments, the unity of the empire was articulated by personal connections and obedience to the emperor (Kehy 2004: 192-203).
That unity, moreover, was self-consciously promoted by the state, even when (as was customary from the late third century onward) more than one emperor ruled concurrently. The effective separation of the empire into eastern and western halves after Theodosius’ death in ad 395 did little to undercut those ideals. Imperial unity was the theme of a series of events orchestrated by the eastern emperor Theodosius II in the middle years of his long reign (ad 408-50). In ad 437, his daughter Eudoxia was married to the western emperor Valentinian III (ad 425-55) amid splendid pomp in Constantinople. Around the same time occurred the publication of his great compendium of fourth - and fifth-century imperial law, the Theodosian Code ( Codex Theodosianus). Copies of this were then given to the senator Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus (PLRE ii: 452-4), who had traveled from Rome to attend the imperial wedding. On returning to Rome the following year, Faustus convened a special meeting of the senate at which, amid chanted acclamations celebrating the virtues of imperial government, the law code was promulgated for the western empire. In a variety of ways, then, the events of ad 437-8 sought to emphasize that the parts of the empire, east and west, were inextricably bound together (Matthews 2000: 1-9, 31-49).
By the middle of the fifth century, such assertions of unity were almost poignantly optimistic. Already by this stage, several western provinces had fallen out of imperial control into the hands of barbarian overlords. As the senators of Rome were acclaiming the Theodosian Code, a bitter struggle for the mastery of Roman Africa was coming to a close; within a year, that region and its greatest city, Carthage, would fall under the sway of the Vandals. Within forty years, moreover, there would not even be an emperor in the west. Hence the events of ad 437-8 give a striking indication of how the unity of a divided empire, however much it might have formed the bedrock of imperial aspirations, was confounded by the harsh realities of fragmentation.
Intimations of that fragility, moreover, were already apparent in the days of Dexter and Theodosius I. Behind the facade of unity suggested by the presence of a Spanish emperor and Spanish officials in the late-fourth-century east lay a real tension. While the proconsulship of Asia was given to other men from the west like Dexter, the presence of westerners throughout the east was, for the most part, limited. Instead, most administrative posts in the eastern provinces went to men from those regions themselves (Matthews 1975: 114-15). What we are presented with, then, is something of a dichotomy between a strong western presence at Theodosius’ imperial court in Constantinople and in a few other posts (such as the governorship of Asia), and an administration of the eastern provinces that relied heavily on local grandees (Heather 1998: 204-8). The ties of unity that linked Ephesus and Barcelona through the figure of Dexter were perhaps exceptional rather than customary.
World History
