emperors, not the bishops, had greater success, as the games continued for centuries
in Rome and in Constantinople.
In terms of private cult, too, late Roman bishops claimed the authority to define
what was and what was not acceptable. Indeed, notions about the correct way to
honor the dead and the growing emphasis placed on the veneration of martyrs made
private rituals concerning the dead of community import as the empire became increas-
ingly Christian (Brown 1981: 1– 49). As already noted, it was with his authority as
bishop that Ambrose prohibited Christians from offerings for the dead and the
martyrs (Aug. Conf.6.2). He, like other late fourth-century bishops, sought to teach
his flock about the correct rituals for the deceased and emphasized how very differ-
ent these were from pagan practice. Augustine discussed these at length in his tract
De cura gerenda pro mortuis. Clearly, private rites for the dead practiced by Christian
laypeople did not conform in all respects to the views of the bishops, nor, in the
late fourth century, was there uniformity in Christian practice in this area. None-
theless, within each city, it was the bishop who, like Ambrose, claimed the authority
to decide this matter.
It is consistent with their claim to authority that the bishops also asserted them-
selves in dealing with religious dissent, especially in matters pertaining to the
Christian community. Ambrose presented a paradigmatic example of episcopal
behavior when he asserted his authority in dealing with the empress Justina, widow
of Valentinian I. Gratian had granted those Christians not of the Nicene persuasion
a basilica in Milan for their worship. The basilica was handed back to the pro-Nicene
bishop Ambrose. But in 386 ce, “the Empress Justina had enacted freedom of
assembly for upholders of the creed of Ariminum, leading to a confrontation with
Ambrose, who mobilized his people to resist her” (Chadwick 1998: 581–2). Ambrose
succeeded in reclaiming this basilica, although the non-Nicene position remained a
viable one in Italian cities for at least another century.
Ambrose’s intolerance for dissenting Christianities was typical of the rising tide
of orthodoxy that accompanied the growth of an imperial Christianity in the late
fourth century. In dealing with Justina, Ambrose was successful without the use of
force, but violence did erupt at times. The struggle for the episcopacy of Rome in
366/7 ceincluded substantive as well as political differences between the supporters
of Damasus and Ursinus; it erupted into a violent conflict that left the religious
dissenters from both sides, some 137 of them, dead after a battle in the basilica
of Sicinus in Rome (Amm. 27.3.11–13). And after Theodosius’ laws of 391 and
392 ce, bishops could more effectively lead the charge against groups now labeled
as heretics or schismatics. So, in north Africa, Augustine preached and acted against
the schismatic Donatists at the end of the fourth century, as well as against pagans
and heretics (Chadwick 1998: 583 – 6).
Thus, in private and in public, in episcopal courts if need be, bishops denied the
validity of Christians sharing in many of Rome’s civic and public traditions. They
attacked what they defined as pagan elements of the public and private religious koine
even as they repressed dissenting religionists; in this latter movement, they focused
first on Christians, but pagans and Jews were also, logically, dissenters from the truth
who, too, could be confronted and converted.
Religious Koineand Religious Dissent 123