The imperial regime of Late Antiquity used no less propaganda than the less authoritarian Augustan regime of the first two centuries, and this propaganda was addressed not only to the highest groups of the society - for example, the privileged group of citizens inhabiting the city of Rome - but also to a wider range of the population.
As we have seen, the attitude of Jovian at the beginning of his reign shows that propaganda and rumor mattered almost as much as the spreading of imperial orders or the gathering of information for the emperor. This was true not only in periods of political or military crisis. The care the imperial administration took to inform the population of the Roman world of the laws of the empire, the name and image of the rulers, or the fate of the army, though no novelty in Late Antiquity, tended to increase.
As Ammianus bitterly notes, all victories were imperial, even when the emperor had not been present at the action. It was not really an ‘‘arrogant lie,’’ as Ammianus claims, when Constantius celebrated Julian’s victories in Gaul on his own behalf (Amm. Marc. 16. 12. 69) or, if it was a lie, it was no more than all emperors had done since Augustus. But the practice may have become more systematic and more sophisticated than it had ever been before. Ammianus speaks of the laureatae litterae, the letters wreathed in laurel, which were sent to the provinces to proclaim imperial victory. Such letters were occasions of public celebration and had become so frequent and so expensive that at least two laws were published to control these excesses (Cod. Theod. 8. 11. 2, ad 365; 12. 13. 4, ad 379). A Greek inscription in Rome dating from the fourth century probably offers testimony to such a celebration, in this case over the announcement of a victory by an angelliaphoros, a ‘‘bearer of news’’ (Mazzarino 1974; inscription IGRom. 69; see Herodian 8. 6. 6-8).
The accession of new emperors or the gaining of military victories were not the only occasions for the central power to send information to the population of the empire. The promulgation of the new consuls is compared in texts of law to other ‘‘auspicious announcements,’’ such as victories or triumphs; the main difference is that it happened at regular intervals, every year, and was announced, in the words of a law of AD 365, ‘‘throughout the Empire’’ (Cod. Theod. 8. 11. 1, ad 364; 8. 11. 2, AD 365; 8. 11. 3, ad 369; Bagnall et al. 1987: 26). The consular system was used by the emperors to date their laws, edicts, letters of all sorts and, in most of the provinces of the empire, it was used to date contracts, testaments, or other private acts with legal force, and quite often, especially in the fourth century, funerary inscriptions (Bagnall et al. 1987: 58-84, also 28-9). The dissemination of the official formula, which was used with a remarkable uniformity, is attested by Egyptian papyri and tells a lot about the capacity of the Later Roman Empire to control massive diffusion of information on a regular basis (Bagnall et al. 1987: 26, 67-9). In the same way, the imperial law had to be disseminated in all provinces, as is expressly stated in the first book of the Theodosian Code:. ‘‘We do not permit any person either to be ignorant of or to pretend ignorance of the constitutions which have been carefully weighed with long deliberation by Our Serenity’’ ( Cod. Theod. 1. 1. 2). The correct dissemination of the law was even more important in a divided empire. To insure that ‘‘any law in one part of this very closely united Empire [shall] be valid in the other part, on condition that it does not rest upon doubtful trustworthiness or upon a private assertion,’’ ‘‘from that part of the Empire in which it will be established, it shall be transmitted with the sacred imperial letters, it shall be received in the bureaus of the other part of the Empire also, and it shall be published with the due formality of edicts’’ (Cod. Theod. 1. 1. 5). We should remember that the imperial law expresses an ideal image of the empire rather than a realistic one, but the principle of law itself rests on an efficient network of communication (see Humfress, ch. 25). The Theodosian Code itself was promulgated in Constantinople on October 29, ad 437, was presented to the Roman Senate on December 25, ad 438, and was due to go into effect on January 1, ad 439, a very short delay indeed (Nov. Theod. 1).
It was not only new information that was disseminated all over the empire. The emperor used various kinds of media to convey what he wanted the people to know or to believe. Coins or milestones were used as support for basic imperial messages. In Late Antiquity, the legends and images on coins or medallions systematically advertised imperial ideology - genealogical claims, religious affiliation, affirmation of power over barbarians (Ando 2000: 215-28). Milestones also served as a common medium for propaganda. The name of the emperor who had ordered the construction or the repair of the road, which was usually inscribed on these markers, became more and more important. In the classical period, the main inscription was the distance to the nearest city; in Late Antiquity, it was formulaic praise of the emperor. Systematic studies of milestones have been carried out in Italy and Africa; in both cases, there are peaks in their production during the
Reign of Maxentius (ad 294-306) and of Magnus Maximus (ad 383-8). It has
Been noted that in the reign of Magnus Maximus, the inscriptions are almost
Completely uniform, with expressions also used on coins (Italy: Laurence 2004;
Africa: Salama 1987). This suggests that these emperors, who both had great difficulty in asserting their legitimacy (they are both labeled ‘‘tyrant’’ by official historiography), worked out new ways to make their claims known to as many inhabitants of the empire as possible. To put it simply, they had a policy of communication.
It is difficult to understand why such an authoritarian regime was so eager to advertise its virtues. Clifford Ando does not hesitate to speak of‘‘mass communication,’’ ‘‘public opinion,’’ and ‘‘consensus’’ in his analysis of provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire (Ando 2000). I am more hesitant. We need to be sure of who the actual addressees of such sophisticated political communication were. All the sources we have, including inscriptions, can only testify to the reaction of an urban elite of literate men, who were, as members of the local curiae, personally involved in the administration of the empire; their loyalty was indeed necessary to its survival. Some sources occasionally mention more ordinary people, like the crowds gathered to listen to imperial announcements. But did the imperial power care about their reactions? I would not exclude the possibility that the main recipient of all the ideological discourse was the imperial administration itself, and that it is all a question of self-justification and self-perception (for the earlier period, see Eck 1998).
World History
