There is no political power without information; spreading news and exercising political control are closely related (see Map 3 on travel and communication in the late empire). The emperor must know and must inform. He must know about his potential resources in order to be able to spend them and, what is perhaps more important in the Roman Empire, to avoid fraud. He must know as much as possible about his entourage, in order to prevent plots and other political threats. He must also know something about the opinion of the citizens, in order to avoid revolts and all kinds of unrest that might challenge his power. He must know about the policies of foreign countries, naturally in time of war, but also in peacetime, to prevent or prepare for conflict. In addition, the emperor must publicize his decisions, so that they can acquire the force of law governing the whole empire. The larger the empire, the more crucial it is for the central power to know what happens in its territory and to be able to circulate its decisions. The larger the empire, the more difficult the task. We have plenty of documents about public information, made necessary not only by the need for ‘‘disseminating the knowledge of Roman rules and Roman procedures,’’ but also to inspire the ‘‘provincial loyalty’’ required for the survival of the empire (Ando 2000: 78). For a long time, the well-known imperial policy ofleaving as much autonomy as possible to the cities helped to limit the need for exchanging information between center and periphery. The delicate balance between central power and local autonomy was one of the keys to Roman success, and it is certainly one of the most fascinating objects of study in political history. Nevertheless, imperial power took care to improve the traditional ways of transmitting information. Much work has been devoted to the cursus publicus, which is often seen as emblematic of Roman control over the territory. The cursus publicus was a sophisticated system of relais de postes under the care of the imperial authorities. The faster system, the cursus velox, allowed official envoys (so the evidence of the Theodosian Code suggests) to travel anything between 50 and 80 km per day (Stoffel 1994: 163; see Ramsay 1925). Such speed would seem slow nowadays, but it was superior by far to any other means of communication, and that is precisely what mattered: the important point in matters of political information is not so much absolute but relative speed; to be the first to know is the key to efficiency (Van Creveld 1985: 22, quoted in Lee 1993: 163).
Ancient historians were very conscious that relative speed was important. Let us examine a significant example ofpolitical information, related by Ammianus: the double announcement of Julian’s death and of the peace of Nisibis in AD 363 (Amm. Marc. 25. 8-10; see Zos. Hist. eccles. 3. 33. 1; 3. 35. 1-2 ; Chauvot 1988: 133-5). From Ur, in Chaldea, the newly elected emperor Jovian sent the military tribune Memoridus and the notarius Procopius to Illyricum and Gaul to announce the death of Julian, and the elevation of Jovian to the rank of Augustus (Amm. Marc. 25. 8. 8; all translations by John C. Rolfe). First, they were to go to Sirmium to meet Lucillianus, Jovian’s stepfather, to bring him the official documents (codicilles) that would give him new authority as magister equitum etpeditum, and to ask him to go to Milan to ‘‘attend to any difficulties there, or if... any new dangers should arise, to resist them’’ (25. 8. 9).
Beside these official instructions and documents, the messengers had also been given a secret letter (secretiores... litteras) to be given to Lucillianus, carrying more complex instructions: he was to organize a group of trustworthy people who might work for the emperor, to avoid any movement of protest against him. The two messengers had their own ‘‘secret mission’’ too: they were expected to ‘‘set the course of events in a favourable light, and wherever they went, to agree with each other in spreading the report that the Parthian campaign had been brought to a successful end [extollere seriem gestorum in melius, et rumores quaqua irent, uerbis diffundere concinentibus, procinctum Parthicum exituprospero terminatum]’ (25. 8. 12).
Speed was decisive for the success of the mission. The emissaries were to ‘‘hasten their journey by adding night to day, to put into the hands of the governors and the military commanders of the provinces the messages of the new emperor, to secretly sound the sentiments of all of them, and to return speedily with their replies, in order that as soon as it was learned how matters stood in the distant provinces, timely and careful plans might be made for safeguarding the imperial power’’ (25. 8. 12). According to Ammianus, they fulfilled their mission in four months - that is, they covered an average of 65 km per day: not much less than the maximum speed of the cursus velox; and the difference can easily be explained by the fact that the same men did the whole journey, without relays, and that they had to stop in Illyricum (Chauvot 1988: 133; Stoffel 1994: 163). And yet, even at such a speed, they were too slow, since ‘‘meanwhile rumour, the swiftest messenger of sad events, outstripping these messengers, flew through provinces and nations’’ (25. 8. 13).
This story tells us much about the importance of information in the Roman political world. Political allegiance in the provinces - essential to the unity of the empire - depended on the capacity of the imperial authorities to control the spreading of news. To succeed, the emperor had to be able to convey his decisions at a distance (here, the appointment of new officers, precise orders given to Lupicinus), to control the quality of the news (here, to give a positive interpretation of the military situation, a goal he can reach only, in this case, through manipulation), and to get reliable information in order to make wise political decisions. If any one of the three conditions was lacking, the power of the emperor was under threat.
Actually, not all three of the tasks given to the messenger were fulfilled in our example with the same success. The performative information was dutifully and efficiently transmitted: Lupicillus did indeed become magister militum, he did indeed go to Milan and settle things there. The propaganda information did not go as well: not only does Ammianus note that rumor was swifter than official messengers but, when Lucillianus arrived in Rheims to take control of the army (Amm. Marc. 25. 10. 6-7), a subordinate official who had cause to fear the new general ‘‘falsely asserted that Julian was still alive and that a man of no distinction had raised a rebellion; in consequence of his falsehoods a veritable storm broke out among the soldiery and Lucillianus and Seniauchus were killed.’’ This episode suggests that the two imperial envoys had failed in spreading the news of Jovian’s legitimacy, to say nothing of alleged success in Persia. It suggests, too, that neither the rumor of the disaster endured by the Roman army in its war with Persia, correct as it was, nor the official news brought by the messengers, had reached the Gallic army. Finally, the gathering of information was only partially successful. Indeed, the two messengers could transmit the ‘‘sad news’’ of Lupicinus’ ultimate failure, but they did not know that ‘‘the Gallic army embraced with favour the rule of Jovian’’; it took other imperial messengers to carry this message to the emperor, more or less at the same time (Amm. Marc. 25. 10. 8).
Such an episode demonstrates how important and complex a role information played in political matters. Did this role change in Late Antiquity? The reorganization of the imperial administration in the late third and fourth centuries certainly increased the need for political information but, in many respects, continuity is more striking than change. We do not know of any particular technical or institutional innovation: the cursus publicus was organized in the reign of Augustus and the new body of agentes in rebus, created at the beginning of the fourth century (Seeck 1901; Reincke 1935), was the direct successor of the frumentarii known in the High Empire. Yet the Late Roman Empire improved its control of information, while the pattern of news spreading changed mainly under the influence of the political fragmentation of the empire. A third change in the field was the birth of a new information network between Christian churches, which sometimes interfered with other channels of communication. But this is too vast a subject to be addressed in this chapter (see Leyerle (ch. 8), Haines-Eitzen (ch. 17), and Lim (ch. 33)).
World History
