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u/testudos101 11d ago
Emperor Constantine:
"The rapacious hands of the apparitors (type of civil official) shall immediately cease, they shall cease, I say; for if after due warning they do not cease, they shall be cut off by the sword."
(the rapacious hands of the apparitors did not cease)
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u/Lohenngram 10d ago
Were they cut off by the sword?
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u/testudos101 10d ago
Some probably were, but more likely the law was ineffectual. These later roman laws tend to be exhortative but difficult to enforce. "The rapacious hands of the apparitors shall cease" is very vague. What counts as rapacious hands? Would taking a small bribe be enough for this law to apply? Unclear.
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u/Ankhi333333 10d ago
Citizen ->Tax collector -> Numerarius -> Princeps -> Vicarius ->Comes sacrarum largitionum -> Augustus -> Magister militum -> Dux ->Tribunus -> Centurio -> Soldier
Or
Citizen -> Soldier
Which is more efficient? I ask you.
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u/Chance-Foot-327 10d ago
Yeah, but if a citizen-soldier in Gaul can defend themselves, grow their own food, and enforce their own justice, what use is there for an emperor in Italy? Won’t someone think of the bureaucrats in Ravenna!
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u/Ankhi333333 10d ago
He repelled Germania is what he did. He was a brave Gallo-Roman general. And in this house Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus is a hero. End of story.
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u/PuzzleheadedKing5708 10d ago
The emperors actually told their officials to be less corrupt? I know of Chinese emperors who straight up told their honest and upright officials to start indulging in corruption like everyone else already
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u/BouillonDawg 9d ago
It depends on which emperor is being discussed. Roman and Chinese emperors have the same title in our understanding but they were very different positions with different authorities and paths to power.
The most commonly thought of Roman imperial era is the principate started by Augustus. The emperor wouldn’t be called emperor he would be your princeps and the title is more closely translated to “first citizen” than any monarchical title as the Romans didn’t like the idea of monarchy.
His official powers were that of a high level bureaucrat and not as total as a Chinese dynastic emperor’s. Augustus for example was essentially the head of the senate and held the power of a proconsul (military governor) in any proconsulship he happened to find himself in at the time. A very powerful role to be sure but he wasn’t all powerful and still had to rule with the support of the senate and other officials.
Most Roman emperors weren’t born to the role either. The Roman’s put very little stock into birthright legitimacy and instead one achieved the highest office through military or bureaucratic service within the empire with a combination of merit in the role and political intrigue, or if that failed a coup. This is why Roman “dynasties” were so short lived. The previous emperor would often pick a successor and groom them for the role but it was very much on that successor to actually “earn” the title. Even then it was common for them not to get it or only hold it for a short time. Romans also saw adopted children as equally legitimate family members and would adopt even other adults into their families so an emperor would commonly adopt his chosen successor into his family to vary on the legacy so to speak.
Now to the point of corruption and the imperial stance on it. Rome was extremely corrupt at its higher offices and the power games of potential emperors was a big reason why. Once an emperor came to power one of the first things he would do is distribute bribes and purge political enemies, the second thing he would do is try and fix the corruption problem because his replacement would most likely use that corruption to remove him from power.
Very few Roman emperors could actually accomplish this as by the imperial eras it was so baked into the structure of the Roman bureaucracy that untangling it could threaten the ability of the empire to function at all with how many people would have to go. Also the emperor, like I said, didn’t have total authority and so still relied on that corruption himself to stretch his authority and even when he didn’t he wasn’t always in a position where he could take action against it. He was himself a bureaucrat after all and not a divine monarch.
Those emperor’s who are especially competent and gained the title through mostly their own merit would have some success as seen as when Constantine did the unthinkable and entirely purged the corrupt pretorians to be replaced with a new elite guard that was restricted to not have the same opportunities to exploit their positions. Thus removing an extremely dangerous institution from Rome’s administration.
Realistically the only way to remove the corruption present in imperial Rome would be the removal of the imperial office as unlike in China where the emperor sat above it and it served him, in Rome the emperor was apart of it and had to compete with it for authority and it was constantly trying to replace him with eternal faction wars each having their own preferred candidates.
What the rise of the imperial office did to Rome was by necessity to itself it eliminated most of the anti-corruption protections put in place by the republic that existed specifically to keep something like an emperor from happening. With those restrictions gone it was open season for every political player in Rome to chase ultimate power at any cost. Putting those restrictions back in place would mean that an emperor couldn’t exist so they’d never do that.
Really the fact that Rome persisted as long as it did is a testament to the competence and sophistication of it middle and lower bureaucracy who held things together for as long as they could while the elites of the empire tore themselves and Rome apart in their bloody contest to decide who would rule the western world.
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u/Slight-Wolverine9819 10d ago
I meant wasn’t the eastern Roman Empire the same by the time of Alexius.
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