6. John 13. 35.
7. For the efforts of the state to prevent such injustice, cf. especially Cod. Theod. XI. 1. 20, 26.
8. See Cod. Theod. XI. 7. 16, 20; 11.1, for the penalties for undue aggression by minor officials.
9. See III. 5 supra. For the reverse of the picture, note the text of the contemporary decree of Theodosius and Valentinian issued a.d. 443 (Cod. Just. V. 27. 2) beginning: "If any man whether free or bound in the toils of the curia ..." In his own eyes the curial had become a slave rather than a tyrant, and in those of the government as well, but the necessity of tyranny toward the taxpayers was thereby increased. For the obligations of the office and the difficulty of filling it at this time, see Cod. Theod. XII. 1, De decurionibus.
10. That similar conditions prevailed also in the eastern portion of the empire at this time is shown by the account of the Roman regime given by the Greek whom Priscus found at Attila's court (Priscus, "Historia Gothica," in De Boor, Excerpta Constantiniana I, 135-138; see also Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, I, 213-223): "Their oppressions in time of peace are much more bitter than the calamities due to war, both on account of the harsh tributes and on account of the oppression of the wicked, since the laws are not enforced for all alike. If a rich or powerful man transgresses them, he does not pay the penalty for his misdeed; but if a needy man, who does not know how to conduct his affairs, transgresses, he must expect the penalty ordained by law; unless perhaps, before the sentence is decided, when much time has been spent in continual litigation and great amounts of money expended beside, his life ends. But the worst injustice of all is that law and justice are to be obtained only by bargaining and bribery. For no one will open the courts to any injured man before he turns over his money to the use of the judge and his assistants." Priseus countered with a description of the general justice of the Roman law and government, to which the exile replied that the laws of the Roman state were indeed good and the empire gloriously constituted, but the magistrates, less public-spirited than of old, were weakening and perverting it.
11. Psalms 82. 4.
12. Ibid. 14. 3.
13. Elsewhere Salvian speaks in the same vein ( Ad ecclesiam IV. 8) : "In such a situation what do those men do whom Christ has appointed to speak? They displease God, if they are silent; men, if they speak. But, as the apostle said in answer to the Jews, it is more expedient to obey God than men."
14. An important bit of contemporary evidence for a fundamental step in the transition from the Roman regime in the country districts to feudalism.
15. Orosius' similar statement in the case of Spain has already been cited; cf. IV. 4 supra. Sidonius (Ep. V. 7) speaks of the officials whose oppression of Gaul stands out in marked contrast to the clemency of the surrounding barbarians. The account given by Paulinus of Pella of Roman life among the Gothic invaders corroborates Salvian's statements, in a situation in which the victory of the Goths and the plundering before their departure made, his favorable account the more remarkable. He lamented ( Eucharisticos 285-290) the disadvantage of having had no Goths quartered in his house to protect him from the ravages when their tribe withdrew: "for we know that certain of the Goths worked with the greatest humanity to benefit their hosts by their protection." Later his prayer ( Ibid. 424-425) that "some share of my ancestral fortune might remain from the barbarian plundering by right of war, and from the Roman crime, which has at various seasons fattened freely on my losses, against all justice" was answered by a Goth's payment to him for a part of his old estate, which had fallen to the honest barbarian as part of his booty.
16. A similar distaste is expressed by Sidonius ( Carmen XII) in his description of the difficulties of composing six-foot verses when seven-foot barbarians breathe onions and garlic into your face at daybreak.
17. Strictly speaking the Bagaudae were not barbarians, but revolted peasants from among the Roman citizenry, whose long-continued revolts had invested them in Roman eyes with a quasi-barbarian character; for the other barbarians note that in VII. 15 the Franks are described as especially hospitable.
18. So the tribune of the soldiers at Jerusalem said to Paul: "With a great price obtained I this freedom," i.e., Roman citizenship. (Acts 22.28.)
19. The revolt of the Bagaudae, analogous in many respects to that of the Jacquerie in the 14th century, broke out in Gaul in A.D. 283-4 because of oppression in that province, due especially to overheavy taxation. The empire was engaged in war against usurpers, and the revolt spread rapidly. Maximian won great praise for suppressing it, but the Bagaudae continued to plunder the country districts and towns, and spread through Gaul and Spain, adding seriously to the difficulty of guarding the frontiers. In the 5th century their revolt again assumed serious proportions; their troops were now regular armies and their local units closely equivalent to the individual German states in menace to the unity of the empire, breeding increasing discontent with the official oppression. The last mention of the Bagaudae in the Chronicle of Idatius is in the year A.D. 449, and the movement seems to have come to an end not long after this. For the contemporary references, of which Salvian's account is the most detailed, cf. Seeck, s.v. "Bagaudae," in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie.
20. That a man should not be held responsible for a crime committed under compulsion is recognized by a decree of Honorius and Theodosius in a.d. 416 (Cod. Theod. XV. 14. 14) prohibiting suits for crimes committed during the barbarian raids, "either through flight or through the herding together of refugees . . . for an act done to escape death is not considered a crime."
21. Salvian uses the term Bagaudae, apparently a word of Celtic origin, for which Seeck suggests the meaning "warlike," as equivalent to "outlawed rebels."
22. The ten chief men of each town were responsible for handing over to the agents of the central government all that was due from their district in payment of the indiction, the term used from the time of Diocletian for the general provincial taxation on the basis of the amount of arable land, cattle and laborers in each locality. The periodical revisions of the taxable property also depended largely on the town officers, and usually caused much oppression of the poorer taxpayers, as Salvian here says. In this case, also, as in so many others, the rich could more easily gain substantial relief by bribery than the poor could do.
23. See Cod. Theod. XI. 1. 7 for the decree of Constantius and Constans in A.D. 361 relieving of payments pro his qui aufugerint any senators who could prove that they possessed none of the property of fugitive holders; and XI. 1. 31 for the similar decree of Honorius and Theodosius in a.d. 412. Salvian's description is closely paralleled by the passage from Priscus quoted in note 10.
24. The contrast between these practices and the imperial theory is shown by the five decrees in Cod. Theod. VIII. 11: "That the heralds of public good fortune are to receive no gifts from public levies or from forced payments."
25. See IV. 6 supra. No writer gives further details on these measures, and they are not mentioned in the Codex. Salvian's description of the profit made by the rich out of attempts at relief is confirmed by phrases in Cod. Theod. XII. 1.173, of A.D. 410: "For relieving the fortunes of the poorer curials and restraining the oppression of the powerful. . . . Let them fear the knowledge of your power and dare make no attempt at relieving the rich and destroying the needy."
26. That is, free farmers, not coloni, for the latter would not be liable to direct taxation. The constant use of diminutives in reference to their property ---- agelli, resculae, habitatiunculae ---- shows the type of small farmer meant. The passage is an important one as an indication of the existence of independent small landholders in Gaul in Salvian's time.
27. See Cod. Theod. XII. 1. 146 of a.d. 395: "We have noted that many hide under the shadow of the powerful to defraud their country of the payments due"; and, in general, Cod. Theod. XI. 24; De patrociniis vicorum . A decree of a.d. 319 ( ibid. XI. 3. 1) recognized as the cause of many arrears in the taxes that "some men, taking advantage of the temporary needs of others, get possession of the best farms on condition of holding them tax free without making up their arrears to the fiscus."
28. In Cod. Just. XI. 54. 1, a.d. 468, an attempt is made to prevent patronage by making testaments in such eases invalid; in Cod. Theod. XI. 24. 4 such patronage is made subject to very heavy fines.
29. Salvian uses the word capitatio, winch, as Haemmerle ( op. cit. II. 11) points out, must be here equivalent to iugatio, not to the poll tax.
30. For attempts to remedy this wrong, ef. Cod. Theod. XI. 3. 1-5, providing for proper registration and payment of arrears on land acquired " in any way whatsoever."