The Last Dance of the Salians: the Pagan Élite of Rome and Christian Emperors in the Fourth Century AD

Abstract

How does the pagan élite of Rome react to the laws that gradually limited the traditional religion and imposed the Christian faith? Was it an armed resistance or a painless process? The case study to better understand the topic will be an inscription regarding the Salians (CIL 6.2158), a very ancient priesthood of Rome, traditionally held by young Roman patricians. The pontiffs act independently without their maximus (the emperor), trying to go on practising the ancestral rites and restoring the ancient buildings, in this case precisely the mansiones of the Salians. Taking advantage of the evidence provided by the laws contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian Code, it will be very interesting to follow the internal process of change of the Roman élite, more complex than usually regarded, between actions and reactions, resistences until the inevitable conversion. The fourth century is no doubt a turning point in Roman history and religion.1 Christianity gradually imposed itself as the one and only religion of the Empire, not even a century after the so-called “Edict of Tolerance” issued in 313 AD by Constantine.2 From the persecuted, the Christians became persecutors.3  On the recent flourishing of studies on Late Antiquity and for a history of the concept, see A. Giardina, “Esplosione di tardoantico”, Studi Storici. Rivista trimestrale dell’Istituto Gramsci , , –; L. De Giovanni, Istituzioni scienza giuridica codici nel mondo tardo antico, Roma , ch. ; A. Garzya, “Premesse al Tardo antico”, in U. Criscuolo – L. De Giovanni (eds.), Trent’anni di studi sulla Tarda Antichità: bilanci e prospettive. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Napoli – Novembre , Napoli , –.  On the complex figure of Costantine, his conversion and his relation with the city of Rome and the traditional religion, see A. Alföldi, The Conversion of Costantine and Pagan Rome, Oxford ; R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean world from the second century ad to the conversion of Constantine, London , –; G. Ostrogorsky, Storia dell’impero bizantino, Torino , –; P. Bruun, “The victorious sign of Constantine: a reappraisal”, Numismatic Chronicle , , –; P. Barcelò, “Warum Christus? Überlegungen zu Costantins Entscheidung für das Christentum”, in C. Batsch, U. Egelhaaf-Geiser, R. Stepper (eds.), Zwischen Krise und Alltag. Conflit et normalité, Stuttgart , –; L. De Giovanni, L’imperatore Costantino e il mondo pagano, Napoli ; A. Fraschetti, La conversione. Da Roma pagana a Roma cristiana, Ed. Laterza, RomaBari , –; M. Sordi, “La conversione di Costantino”, in A. Donati, G. Gentili (eds.), Costantino il Grande. La civiltà antica al bivio tra Occidente e Oriente, Milano , –; G. Filoramo, La croce e il potere. I cristiani da martiri a persecutori, Roma–Bari , ch. ; on Constantine’s legislation, see J. Gaudemet, “Les constitutions costantiniennes du Code Théodosien”, in ARC , , –; finally the Enciclopedia Costantiniana, published by the Istituto Nazionale dell’Enciclopedia Treccani, exactly on the occasion of the th anniversary of the Edict of Milan. Here I would like to show some important features of this complex and important change. First, I will focus my attention on the fourth century senatorial élite of Rome,4 whose members held the traditional priesthoods of Rome, trying to better understand what was their real attitude in regards to this process. Secondly, I will consider an inscription regarding the Salian priesthood of Rome, which will be our case study and which will give us a rather interesting point of view on the behaviour of the pagan élite of Rome towards the gradual Christianization of their city. In this regard, with the help of several and different sources, above all the laws contained in the Theodosian Code, I will propose a new dating of that inscription, which will give us a more grounded key of interpretation. Finally, I will go back to examine more in depth and thus to better understand the different stages and the various features of the attitude of the pagan senatorial élite of Rome in regard to the crucial religious change of the fourth century AD. 1. The Fourth-Century Roman Élite The main question is: to what extent did Roman nobles first try to coexist, resist, then to adapt and come to a compromise with the changing situation involving the traditional religion of Rome? There is no consensus in this regard among scholars, whose views range from considering the behaviour of such nobles as a bitter and armed resistance to looking at it as a passive and an almost indifferent acceptance of the religious change imposed by imperial laws. The first and traditional view usually considers these nobles as indomitable defenders of the traditional way of life (mos maiorum), which of course included religion, until the defeat of the Frigidus (394 AD), and for some of these nobles even later. A rather famous example of this position, the so-called reaction païenne,5 is the paper of Herbert Bloch, “The Pagan Revival in the West at the End of the Fourth Century”6. Endowed with more power and influence because of the absence of the  On the topic, see among others P. F. Beatrice (ed.), L’intolleranza cristiana nei confronti dei pagani, Bologna ; Filoramo, La croce (cf. n. ); G. Filoramo, “Sono le religioni monoteistiche (in)tolleranti? Il caso del cristianesimo antico”, in A. Cosentino, M. Monaca (eds.), Studium Sapientiae. Atti della Giornata di studio in onore di Giulia Sfameni Gasparro,  gennaio , Soveria Mannelli , –.  On the concept and its historical development, see R. Lizzi Testa, “Introduzione”, in Ead. (ed.), Le trasformazioni delle élites in età tardoantica. Atti del Convegno Internazionale. Perugia, – marzo , Roma , –.  For a historical contextualisation of this theory, see R. Lizzi Testa, “Dal conflitto al dialogo: nuove prospettive sulle relazioni tra pagani e cristiani in Occidente alla fine del IV secolo”, in Criscuolo – De Giovanni (cf. fn. ) –.  H. Bloch, “The Pagan Revival in the West at the End of the Fourth Century”, in A. Momigliano (ed.), The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, Oxford , –. The author already exposed his ideas in the essay “A New Document of the Last Pagan Revival in the West, – AD”, HThR , , –. On the same line A. Alföldi, Die Kontorniaten, Buda118 Giorgio Ferri