LATE ROMAN SOCIETY AND ECONOMYoccurred, though it seems to have happened later in the west. Under Anas-
tasius (491–518) it was decreed that the governing body for cities should be
drawn from ‘the bishop, the clergy, the honorati (offi ce-holders), the possessores
(landowners) and the curiales’.^30
It was from the curial class that offi ce-holders were drawn, and for whom
imperial offi ce-holding was highly attractive. Imperial service was now the
lucrative way to advancement: councillors themselves were by now often
men of modest means who could not shoulder their former burdens, and
when public monuments or statues were erected in eastern cities such as
Aphrodisias it was usually by men who held imperial ranks and offi ces.
Naturally this produced some statements of nostalgia, as well as serious
tensions for individuals, and in the mid-sixth century John the Lydian remi-
nisced about the time, now in the past, when councils still ruled the cities.^31
It was often the local bishop who stepped into the breach, and who became
not merely an authoritative leader in the town but in many cases the apex of
a much reduced municipal organization; see below, Chapter 7. Jones rightly
emphasizes the very large number of posts (dignitates) that had to be fi lled
on a regular basis, and the law codes assume that curiales frequently endeav-
oured to escape their lot and better themselves in the administration, the
church or the army. This class as a whole was the subject of what Jones calls
‘a vast and tangled mass of legislation’, whereby the state attempted ineffec-
tually to prevent the seepage and maintain the councils on whom the cities
depended. This legislation did not attempt to address the overall problem,
but was issued piecemeal and in response to local conditions, and with no
likelihood of general enforcement.^32 Earlier attempts to return curiales to
their cities if they had managed to secure a post in the administration failed,
and in principle after 423 individuals could no longer escape their obliga-
tions in this way. Similarly, the fi fth-century emperors were still attempting
to stop the loophole opened by Constantine when he freed clergy from
curial obligations, as was Justinian, when in 531 he allowed ordination of
curiales only if they had spent fi fteen years in a monastery fi rst, and were will-
ing to surrender a substantial part of their estate (CJ I.3.52). But despite the
complaints with which the sources abound, with the exception of the not
inconsiderable part now played by Christian charity one may suspect that
the condition of the people remained much the same.
But if there was no economic revolution, certain new factors did become
operative, including, on the one hand, settlement on a large scale and, on the
other, the growth of the church as a major economic institution in its own
right, with profound implications ranging from the role of bishops as urban
and rural patrons and the diversion of resources into church building to the
growth of monasteries and their potential impact on the local economy. It
was factors such as these, combined with the centralizing tendency of the late
Roman state and the severe damage caused in some areas and to some towns
by invasion and war, which disturbed the balance of landholding and wealth
and which inevitably brought profound change.