Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/224

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many years' service in some official post, could alone free them from the municipal bond.^[1]

Life under accustomed conditions, though with restricted liberty, may be supportable or even pleasant, but the Byzantine subject could seldom realize the extent of his obligations or foresee to what exactions he might have to submit. He might review with satisfaction a series of admirable laws which seemed to promise him tranquillity and freedom from oppression, but experience soon taught him that it was against the interest of the authorities to administer them with equity. By an ineradicable tradition, dating from the first centuries of the expansion of the Empire, it was presumed that the control of a province offered a fair field to a placeman for enriching himself.^[2] Hence the prevalence of a universal corruption and a guilty collusion between the Rector and all the

↑ Fathers of a dozen children were released or not called upon; Cod. Theod., XII, i, 55; Cod., X, xxxi, 24. Otherwise disease or decrepit old age seem to have the only effective claims for relief, apart from interest, bribery, etc. The general result of this political economy was that the Empire resembled a great factory, in which each one had a special place, and was excluded from everywhere else. "In England a resident of Leeds is at home in Manchester, and has judicially the same position as a citizen of Manchester, whereas in the Roman Empire a citizen of Thessalonica was an alien in Dyrrachium; a citizen of Corinth an alien in Patras"; Bury, Later Rom. Emp., i, p. 38.
↑ The Verrine sequence of Cicero's speeches remains a picture up to this date of the usual tyranny of a Roman governor. Few went to the provinces with any other idea but that of rapine. "Cessent jam nunc rapaces officialium manus," says Constantine, "cessent inquam: nam si moniti non cessaverint, gladiis praecidentur," etc.; Cod. Theod., I, vii, 1. The revolution of two centuries brings no improvement: "Confluunt huc (Constantinople) omnes ingemiscentes, sacerdotes, et curiales, et officiales, et possessores, et populi, et agricolae, judicum furta merito et injustitias accusantes," etc.; Novel., viii, Pro. For this law, ineffective as ever, all are enjoined to return thanks to God! a vain parade of legislation.

[1] Fathers of a dozen children were released or not called upon; Cod. Theod., XII, i, 55; Cod., X, xxxi, 24. Otherwise disease or decrepit old age seem to have the only effective claims for relief, apart from interest, bribery, etc. The general result of this political economy was that the Empire resembled a great factory, in which each one had a special place, and was excluded from everywhere else. "In England a resident of Leeds is at home in Manchester, and has judicially the same position as a citizen of Manchester, whereas in the Roman Empire a citizen of Thessalonica was an alien in Dyrrachium; a citizen of Corinth an alien in Patras"; Bury, Later Rom. Emp., i, p. 38.

[2] The Verrine sequence of Cicero's speeches remains a picture up to this date of the usual tyranny of a Roman governor. Few went to the provinces with any other idea but that of rapine. "Cessent jam nunc rapaces officialium manus," says Constantine, "cessent inquam: nam si moniti non cessaverint, gladiis praecidentur," etc.; Cod. Theod., I, vii, 1. The revolution of two centuries brings no improvement: "Confluunt huc (Constantinople) omnes ingemiscentes, sacerdotes, et curiales, et officiales, et possessores, et populi, et agricolae, judicum furta merito et injustitias accusantes," etc.; Novel., viii, Pro. For this law, ineffective as ever, all are enjoined to return thanks to God! a vain parade of legislation.

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