182 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
organizations as seedbeds of undercover political activity. Hence, an imperial
rule prohibited meetings of these associations more often than once a
month. Pliny, Trajan’s special envoy in Bithynia/Pontus, a province with a
bad reputation for disorder, was instructed to issue a decree prohibiting
associations. Christian gatherings were assumed to fall under the general
prohibition (Pliny, Ep. 10.96.7), and also groups with an apparently
utilitarian function. Trajan rejected a request from the people of Nicomedia
for a fi re brigade. Pliny, who had viewed the proposal sympathetically, was
reminded by the emperor that ‘this province and especially these cities have
been troubled by cliques of this type. Whatever name we may give for
whatever reason to those who come together for a common purpose,
political clubs emerge quickly from them’ (Pliny, Ep. 10.34).
Imperial regulation of urban gatherings and distribution of benefi ts were
not enough to prevent violence in the cities. Republican magistrates had had
no police forces to suppress urban unrest, and military units were by
tradition forbidden from crossing the ‘sacred boundary’ ( pomerium ) around
the city. In the midst of recurring urban violence the senate in 52 BC dispensed
with tradition and summoned Pompey to reestablish order in the city with
troops.^23 Augustus then organized the fi rst standing forces in Rome: the
praetorian guard, the urban cohorts and the night watch ( vigiles ). The initial
impetus for these organizations was partially political in the beginning – to
support Augustus against challenges – but they did come to perform various
policing functions in the city. Despite their presence, pervasive street crime
aroused constant fear among urban residents (Pliny, HN 19.59). The military
units were more effective in controlling the crowds at public spectacles.
When a theatre crowd in AD 32 abused Tiberius for allowing grain prices to
rise, the emperor resorted to the traditional Republican response of asking
the senate and the magistrates to use their authority to suppress the verbal
insolence (Tacitus, Ann. 6.15). To prevent vocal protest from developing
into a riot, the presence of a praetorian cohort became a regular feature of
public spectacles. In AD 55, Nero experimented by removing the guard at the
games, ‘in order that there might be a greater show of freedom, that the
soldiery too might be less demoralized when no longer in contact with
the licence of the theatre, and that it might be proved whether the populace,
in the absence of a guard, would maintain their self- control’ (Tacitus, Ann.
13.24–5). The soldiers were brought back the following year, but it is
noteworthy that a consideration in Nero’s initial decision was freedom of
expression.
Away from Rome, the authorities had both less to offer urban populations
in the manner of subsistence and entertainment, and less institutional
apparatus for repressing disorder or other activities classifi ed as undesirable.
Army detachments were sometimes available for policing purposes, especially
in provincial or regional centres. Thus soldiers are much in evidence in
accounts of actions taken by authorities against Christians. To a large extent,
however, communities were left to police themselves. Many Greek cities of