Page 50 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

assemblies came to the attention of the emperor without active inves-
tigation on the part of his bureaucracy; the imperial court’s role was
essentially passive and reactive, typical of Roman imperial government. 69
Imperial bureaucracy and provincial embassies were recognised as being
complementary elements of administration. A subscriptio of the emperor
Caracalla in 213 states that ‘those who are performing the duties of an
embassy enjoy the same privilege as those who are absent on behalf of the
state’. Success in pleading the case of an embassy could lead to reimburse-
ment of costs by the emperor. In the fourth century, imperial sponsoring
and control of embassies was regularised. The costs of embassies were no
longer the burden of either the envoy or his community, but were reim-
bursed from imperial funds. Envoys were issued with warrants (evectiones)
permitting them to travel by the cursus publicus. 70 Imperial legislation
controlled the expenses of embassies and provided legal protection for
envoys. In this way, the appeals of provincial communities were coopted
into the structure of imperial administration. 71
Embassies from provincial cities originated as appeals to Rome from
free cities and communities. The extension of Roman power and the
process of provincialisation transferred the business of most important
political affairs from the cities, the traditional units of social organisation
of much of the Mediterranean world, to the imperial authorities. In the
late first century ad, Plutarch observed:

Nowadays, then, when the affairs of the cities no longer include leadership in
wars, nor the overthrowing of tyrannies, nor acts of alliances, what opening for
a conspicuous and brilliantpublic career could a young man find? There remain
the public lawsuits and embassies to the emperor, which demand a man of ardent
temperament and one who possesses both courage and intellect. 72
The incorporation of regions into the Roman empire turned cities’ em-
bassies to Rome from ‘foreign’ to ‘internal’ communications, but con-
temporary sources do not make this distinction. The diplomatic forms of
foreign embassies were always maintained in approaches to the emperors
from provincial bodies and, indeed, from the Senate. Before Caesar and
Augustus, missions to Rome had approached the Senate; by the mid-
second century, provincial embassies, like missions from foreign powers,

69
Peter Garnsey and Richard Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy,Society and Culture (Berkeley,
1987), chap. 2: ‘GovernmentWithoutBureaucracy’, 20–40;Hauken, Petition and Response, 298.
70
Caracalla: Cod. Just. ii, 53.1, cited in Millar, Emperor in the Roman World, 383. Fourth century:
CTh viii, 5.32, xii, 12.6.9, cited in Matthews, ‘Gesandtschaft’, 664.
71
Millar, Emperor in the Roman World, 363; Matthews, ‘Gesandtschaft’, 663–4.
72
Plutarch, Precepts of Statecraft,in Moralia x, trans. Harold North Fowler (LCL; London, 1936),
805a–b, cited in Reynolds, ‘Cities’, 28; cf. Strabo, Geography, trans. H. L. Jones, vi (LCL; London,
1929), xiv, 3.3, cited in Jones, Kinship Diplomacy, 106.
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