THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYis weak, where the social bonds are loose or where there is change and competi-
tion for place in the new scheme of things. In late antiquity, ‘traditional patrons
found themselves supplanted as patrons, but also impeded as landlords – and
as tax collectors – by men with local authority, secular or religious. Their pro-
tests were echoed with legislation representing the fi scal interests of the central
government.’^45 For when new actors – bishops, state offi cials – entered a stage
on which patronage already operated on every level, and when the interests of
the poor, the landlords and the state diverged, any existing equilibrium was bro-
ken. In such conditions the poor and the helpless looked where they could for
protection. The state for its part made repeated attempts to declare this form of
protection (patrocinium) illegal, on the grounds that it represented an evasion of
the responsibilities of those who were its subjects, and an illicit appropriation
of authority by those who took it on, not to mention the extra tips which they
doubtless imposed. A law of 415 allowed the churches of Constantinople and
Alexandria to retain villages which had come under their protection, provided
that all taxes were paid and other obligations fulfi lled,^46 but later emperors such
as Marcian and Leo continued to try to end the practice, and Leo attempted to
forbid all patronage contracts from 437 in Thrace and from 441 in the east.^47
Again, the practice itself and the government’s inability to deal with it demon-
strate not so much endemic corruption as the huge challenge presented to the
bureaucratic system in relation to the vast and fragmented areas which it was
attempting to control.
Financing the stateBehind many of the problems which the state experienced, and which gave
rise to these social diffi culties, lay the need for tax revenue and the diffi culties
of collection. Many scholars have believed that the level of taxation was high-
er in late antiquity – so high in fact as to contribute substantially to increased
extortion and consequent decline. However, while we have in the sources a
number of fi gures for tax revenue and budgetary expenses, it is far from clear
whether they are reliable or not, or how far they may have changed over the
period we are considering. At least in the late empire there was now a regular
tax period (‘indiction’) for which levels were fi xed, and the system had been
changed to take into account both labour force and quality of land. Constan-
tine had imposed special taxes on senatorial wealth and on commerce, and
had thus at last brought these sectors into the tax net. But taxation still fell
mainly on the land and on agricultural production, and the government had
little recourse in response to loss of land and shortage of manpower except
to try to close loopholes and harangue the population through often repeated
legislation such as that seeking to restrict movement of coloni and help land-
lords to keep their tenants and maintain the tax revenue:
Whereas in other provinces which are subject to the rule of our serenity
a law instituted by our ancestors holds tenants down by a kind of eternal