THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYCodex Theodosianus, as it was called, and its sixth-century successor, the Codex
Justinianus, were compiled in Latin. Even if Greek was the basic language in
use, as Fergus Millar insists, Latin naturally remained important in the upper
levels of education and Theodosius II also established Latin teaching at public
expense in Constantinople (Chapter 6). The production of the Theodosian
Code, completed in 437 and promulgated in 438, was a massive effort of com-
pilation and editing. All laws were issued in the names of both or all reign-
ing emperors, irrespective of where they originated, and dated by the Roman
calendar, and in fact took the form of imperial letters (‘constitutions’) addressed
to offi cials, or sometimes the Senate.^23 The emperor described his motives in
ordering the collection in a constitution of February, 438; he wished to replace
the mass of law books, imperial letters and other material,
which close off from human understanding a knowledge of themselves by
a wall, as though they were swallowed up in a thick cloud of obscurity.
(trans. Harries)Darkness would give way to light, and laws would be brought together in
the name of ‘brevity’. However, interpreting this mass of material is far from
simple, and at times one could wish that the compilers had done less editing
rather than more. Theodosius himself may have been weak and easily infl u-
enced, as contemporaries suggest (‘meek above all men which are upon the
face of the earth’, according to the church historian Socrates, Historia Ecclesi-
astica VII.42), but his reign was extremely important in the civilianization of
the eastern government in the fi fth and sixth centuries. Tellingly, Socrates and
Sozomen, who composed continuations of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History in
Constantinople in the 440s, both seem to have been lawyers.
Not all went smoothly in the early fi fth century. In 403 quarrels between
John Chrysostom and the Empress Eudoxia, two hot-tempered and outspo-
ken characters, had led to the bishop’s deposition by the so-called Synod of
the Oak, and, after his return and yet another perceived affront, to a sec-
ond exile in the following year.^24 As with the events of AD 400, this was a
dramatic story. On Easter Saturday, after John’s condemnation, 3,000 new
Christians were about to be baptized when the service was broken up by sol-
diers, and on the night when he left Constantinople, a mysterious fi re broke
out in the church of St Sophia which burned down the senate house and
some of its many classical statues; pagans blamed John’s supporters, many
of whom refused to communicate with the bishop who replaced him. John
had other powerful enemies, notably the Syrian Severian of Gabala and the
forceful Theophilus of Alexandria, who objected to John’s support of the
Tall Brothers, a group of monks who had fl ed from Theophilus’ anti-Origen-
ist activities in Egypt; but it was especially remembered that he had referred
to the Empress Eudoxia in a sermon as Herodias and Jezebel, and that
she had been offended by another he had preached against the vices of women.
Although John had wealthy and infl uential women among his own following,