THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYor even enhanced. In such circumstances, the Christianization, and in particu-
lar the conversion to asceticism, of members of leading senatorial families,
which began to occur in Rome in the late fourth century, seemed to present
a threat to status, wealth and tradition, and therefore met with considerable
opposition.^38
The later Roman empire was characterized by a high degree of competi-
tion for status and access to wealth and privilege, which we can see operative
also in the centralized bureaucracy. Since posts in the imperial service could
be highly lucrative, and released the holder from burdensome existing obliga-
tions, the bureaucracy drew off talent from the ranks of the curiales in the cities
even as imperial legislation, conscious of economic and administrative needs,
sought to keep them in their places. One of the most persistent of modern
myths about the late empire is that of a top-heavy and rigid bureaucracy which
wielded the hand of repression yet whose size made it unsustainable in rela-
tion to the existing resources of the empire. In fact the empire was engaged
in a constant balancing act between what was perceived to be necessary and
what was possible. There was in practice a high degree of social mobility, and
the court and the offi ce-holders had a natural tendency to proliferate. The
nomenclature and emoluments of the imperial service paralleled those of the
army; offi ce-holders held titles of military equivalence and received military
stipends. This had little to do with modern concepts of effi ciency, though the
government had at least an interest in fi lling the administration with people
it deemed suitable; at the same time it also needed to maintain the numbers
of curiales in each city (who were also the obvious candidates for openings in
the imperial service), since on them fell fi nancial responsibility and tax obliga-
tions at local level. The double bind in which the government found itself was
further complicated by the willingness of individuals effectively to buy their
way into the administration, and that of the government to sell offi ces within
it – the attraction for the purchaser being the emoluments that went with the
position, and often the possibilities for favour and extortion that it carried in
addition. To a modern observer this suggests corruption,^39 and it was easy for
contemporaries to abuse the system and for others to complain about them.
We should remember, however, that for all its impressive state apparatus, the
late Roman empire was still a very traditional society. Many offi cial posts were
sinecures, or unimportant in themselves, and John the Lydian, just such an
offi cial, has left a vivid account of what it felt like to serve in one of the great
offi ces of the state in the sixth century.^40 In practice the combination of pa-
tronage, aristocratic prestige, the need to fi ll the ranks of the bureaucracy and
at the same time its tendency to swell because of the advantages it offered to
those lucky enough to secure a position implied a constant balancing act only
partly evident at the time.
The practice of selling offi ces in the imperial administration provides a
particularly delicate example: on the one hand, the late Roman and later the
Byzantine governments were concerned to stop the abuse of the practice,
while at another level each used it as a fi nancial tool and mechanism for