DECLINE AND DECADENCE

The decline and decadence theme has a rich past in legal scholarship. Roman­ists have pointed out that the law presented in the codifications starting from the Codex Gregorianus was the law of past Roman jurists, as legal innova­tion had died out centuries earlier.

The most commonly ascribed elements of decline are linked to the usual companions of bureaucracy: corruption, favouritism, bureaucratism and high taxes. Corruption was apparently rife, but so were attempts to stamp it out. Favouritism existed too, but only alongside the possibility of career advances regardless of birth. Bureaucratism, administrative inertia, infighting among officials and the abuse of power to further one's own personal interests were common features of the imperial system, but so were ambitious attempts by officials, judges and emperors to combat these weaknesses. The finan­cial burden of running such a sprawling administrative apparatus was a very serious problem that was never adequately addressed, and the Empire was continually striving to get more out of less. To make matters worse, inflation hampered efforts at effective tax-gathering. However, the system persisted until the Persian wars that led to the loss of the most profitable provinces and their revenue. The Arab invasion provided the final blow to the old Roman imperial administrative system, which was replaced by the Byzantine theme system.^[97]

The difference between the Early and Late Empire could be that an effort was made to govern the provinces for good and for bad.

The approach proposed by Jill Harries, of seeing law in late antiquity from the viewpoints of both makers and recipients, may, after all, be the most fruitful. The viewpoints of the centre and periphery are simply two sides of the same coin and should be seen interacting. The nature of imperial rule in late antiquity as “both autocratic and populist”, both exuding sovereign power and seeking universal consent,^[98] cannot be understood using the Republican model of Rome. This is in my view the fundamental problem of the “decline or transformation” debate: should the gradual disappearance of the characteristics of the idealised Antonine empire that symbolised the shadow of modernity to the scholars of the nineteenth century be called a decline, or should late antiquity be judged by its own standards?^[99]

Decline and perceptions of decline are, and were, based on value judgments. Traditionally the ideal form of state has been the Athenian democracy or Republican Rome.

Looked at from an historical perspective, the decline or transformation of the Empire as an administrative unit began in the West in the early fifth century. In 410 Britain and Armorica threw out imperial administration, and there were separatist movements and barbarian invasions throughout the Empire. After 425 the Huns arrived and the Goths became more asser­tive; meanwhile Vandals took the rich African provinces. The fiscal base of the Empire was eroded by the loss of these provinces, and costs spiralled out of control because of the need to fight these conflicts. Due to these developments, the provincial-barbarian link became more workable than that of centre-province; as a result, administration was increasingly run by landowning elites, with growing regional tendencies.

Still, we have sources that attest to legal integration from the other side of the old Empire. A recent article by Antti Arjava based on the Petra papyri demonstrates imperial law at work in Petra in present-day Jordan in the early sixth century.^[101]

G.