Empire and Communications

by Harold Adams Innis

  The written tradition dependent on papyrus and the roll supported an emphasis on centralized bureaucratic administration. Rome became dependent on the army, territorial expansion, and law at the expense of trade and an international economy. Trade with India increased following the discovery about A.D. 50 that the monsoons provided a reliable means of transit for sailing-vessels, and by the fourth century Rome had probably lost two-thirds of her gold and one-half of her silver to the East. The inflation under Commodus was marked by decline of the value of the denarius by two-thirds.[168]

  As a result of the decline of trade Roman religion escaped from the demands made upon Greek religion for adjustment in relation to time. Altheim describes the revelation of the gods to Romans in single historical acts and not in actions beyond time. The single day or hour had a unique position. Continuity was a sequence of single moments in a closed series. Everything represented the completion of that spoken by the gods or fatum and the results were evident in various aspects of Roman culture. The sculpture of historical situations differed from that of the Greeks in making distinct differentiation between the main and subsidiary figures in a group. The number of figures was restricted by insistence on a separate figure as the basis of composition. A concern with concrete and individual representation rather than the universal and the ideal was stressed in the epic documentary[169] tradition of columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. Continuous epic narrative technique was adapted to the uninterrupted continuity of surface of the book scroll, but the illustration of rolled manuscripts in continuous band forms was cut into pieces of the same size as the column width of single pages—each piece normally with one single scene depicting the hardships of the emperor and the troops in the field on great spiral columns. These types of representation and those of emperors after Vespasian on coins were effectively propagandist. Architecture characterized by solidity of construction and magnificence of conception reflected the demands of the imperial state. The discovery of cement about 180 B.C. enabled the Romans to develop on a large scale the arch, the vault, and the dome. Vaulted architecture became an expression of equilibrium, stability, and permanence, monuments which persisted through centuries of neglect.

  The individual with demands on religion for ‘the most positive and realistic assurances of his own personal salvation’ was neglected in the process of political unification. After Augustus the combination of creative forces in the princeps and the poet was followed by a settlement of religious forms and social stratification. A prescribed and formal collective demonstration replaced the free revelation of personality. To meet a widespread demand for individual salvation to be procured primarily by the aid of a deity redemptive religions were developed with great energy. They appealed to the lowest strata of society, developed in regions less exposed to the full impact of imperial expansion, and used a medium such as parchment designed to offset the centralizing tendencies of papyrus.

  The limitations of papyrus were shown in the use of smaller rolls to preserve a fragile medium and to enhance convenience for reference. Codices of papyrus were introduced in Egypt possibly following the gift of 200,000 volumes of the library of Pergamum from Antony to Cleopatra. These were probably in parchment and possibly in codices. In the codex a number of sheets twice the size of a required page were folded once in the middle to make two leaves of four pages each. It could be increased in size and was more convenient than the roll for reference. On the other hand, in a small quire of eight to ten leaves sewn together inside a cover, the papyrus tended to tear away from the stitching with use and age, and in a quire of over fifty sheets the papyrus became too bulky. Parchment offset these inconveniences. The untanned hides of calves or sheep were put into lime-water and thoroughly soaked, the hair scraped off, and the skin stretched to dry on a frame. It was then rubbed with chalk and pumice-stone until it was even and smooth, and the finished product cut into pieces about the size of the thin pieces of wood covered with wax and written on with a stylus used for writing in Greece and Rome.[170] The pieces were arranged in quires with the hair side facing the hair side and fastened together in a codex. Used on both sides parchment was economical, durable, convenient, easy to transport, to write on, to read, and to consult. Ink could be removed and the parchment used again as in palimpsests. A sharp-pointed split pen could be used in place of the reed. Light and heavy strokes led to the development of uncials. The influence of waxed tablets on Roman cursive writing in the first three centuries declined and an enlarged and flowing hand of a rounder type suggested the importance of parchment. Demands for durability in school books and in small popular editions used by travellers were followed by an increase in the use of the parchment codex.

  Use of the parchment codex gave Christians an enormous advantage over other religions. Christianity began as a ferment within Judaism and a protest against the increasing rigidity of the theocracy following the gap between Hebrew as a sacred language and Aramaic as the vernacular and accentuated by the persecutions of Antiochus. Its position was strengthened by the influence of Judaism as it had been assimilated to Hellenism in Egypt. Withdrawal of Christians from Jerusalem to Pella during the war against Rome severed bonds of sympathy between the two religions. Destruction of the Temple by Titus in A.D. 70 hastened the break between the orthodox Rabbinism of the Talmud and Mishna and Hellenistic Judaism of the dispersion. In A.D. 50 Jerusalem and Antioch were important Christian centres, but fifty years later they had been replaced by Ephesus and Rome. The Jewish scriptures which had been translated into Greek at Alexandria were used as a Bible by Christians, but its cumbersome forty rolls proved inconvenient in comparison with the parchment codex. An interest in publishing Christian letters was developed at Antioch, beginning with those written by Paul between A.D. 50 and 62, and published in two papyrus rolls about A.D. 90, and continuing with Luke and Acts published as two volumes about the end of the century. Mark was written and published as a popular book at Rome about A.D. 70. The four gospels were published as a collection not later than A.D. 125, and by A.D. 140 publishers were using the codex and a book-reading public of the Greek vernacular was assumed. Christianity continued as a Greek movement almost to the end of the second century, by which date codices capable of containing four-fifths of the New Testament were being used in North Africa. Early in the third century the codex was divided into quires and these were bound in a book. The codex was used to an increasing extent for Christian works, but the roll continued to be used chiefly for pagan works. The oral tradition of Christianity was crystallized in books which became sacred. The break with Judaism compelled reliance on an effective appeal to Gentiles of other religions with important results for Christianity.[171] ‘It is the irony of every religion that the most popular parts of it are those which do not belong to it but have been brought into it from those beliefs which it tried to supersede.’[172]

  The position of Christianity was strengthened by the work of scholars in attempts to establish a synthesis between Hebraic religion and Greek philosophy and the organization of the Church.[173] St. Clement was followed by Origen, his pupil, who brought together Jewish revised versions of the Old Testament in the Hexapla, and after being driven from Alexandria in A.D. 231 established a centre of study at Caesarea. Pamphilus founded a local library of his works which became a nucleus of Christian writings. Harnack has described the adherence of Christian learning at Alexandria and Caesarea to the Church as a decisive factor. It offset the powerful influence[174] of a learned Babylonian priesthood emphasizing cuneiform writing, which had been encouraged by the Seleucids in opposition to Persian religions. But the power of local cults in the East was evident in translations of the Bible into Syriac, Coptic, and later Armenian, and imposed serious strains on unity of organization. The primacy of the Roman Church had been established by the end of the first century and a Catholic confederation emerged about A.D. 180. After the middle of the third century Christianity became a syncretist religion. ‘The Christian religion is a synthesis and onl
y those who have dim eyes can assert that the intellectual empires of Babylonia and Persia have fallen’ (Cheyne).[175] ‘The triumph of the church will ... appear more and more as the culmination of a long evolution of beliefs’ (Cumont).

  In the East Christianity was checked by the religion of Iran and in turn its position was consolidated in Hellenism. After Alexander, prayers and canticles of the religion of Iran which had been transmitted orally were committed to writing through fear of their destruction. Religious autonomy contributed to the defeat of the Seleucids, to expansion of the Parthian empire, and to the fall of Babylon in 125 B.C. Syncretism brought reconciliation between Babylonian and Persian religions which became a support to the Sassanid dynasty established in A.D. 228. A new capital at Ctesiphon was chosen and a ruling priesthood placed in charge of a reconstituted Mazdaism. The Avesta became a sacred book and the priests assumed responsibility for the teaching of reading, writing, and reckoning in the complex Pahlavi, a mixture of Aryan and Semitic. In the indecisive struggle with the Sassanids, Rome imitated Persian customs and religion, and Diocletian established an oriental court. Diocletian was the last emperor to celebrate a triumph and the last to be deified. The opposition of Hellenism compelled Constantine to choose a religion suited to its demands. Diocletian attempted to exterminate Christianity, but persecution brought prominence and the victory of Constantine in 312 was regarded as a victory of Christianity over Mithraism. In 313 the so-called edict of Milan secured the privileges of a licensed cult for Christianity, recognized the Church as a corporation by authorizing it to hold property, and dethroned paganism as a state religion. The Lord's Day Act of 321 suggested that the divorce between religion and politics could not be maintained. The Council of Nicaea in 325 called by Constantine denounced the dogma of Arius that the son of God was a created being and therefore not eternal and accepted that of Athanasius that Christ was the son of God, unbegotten and consubstantial (of one essence) with his Father. In the selection of a new capital at Constantinople,[176] dedicated on 11 May 330, Constantine was concerned with its possibilities of military defence and with the prospect of support from the large Christian population of Asia Minor and from proximity to the most important centres of Hellenistic culture. He emphasized a strong centralized authority and joined a powerful ecclesiastical interest to a military bureaucracy. Caesaropapism implied authority of the emperor over the Church. Christianity became a religion of conquerors and Constantine rather than Christ was to christianize Europe.

  The Nicene decisions proved unacceptable to the East and by 335 Constantine began to favour Arianism, and in 337 he died in the ‘odour of Arian sanctity’. Wulfilas, a Goth, became an active Arian missionary in Dacia about A.D. 340. He invented a Gothic alphabet, in part from Greek letters and in part from runes of the northmen, and translated part of the scriptures into the Gothic language. The Council of Rimini in 359 was a return to Arianism, but the death of Valens in 378 and the Council of Constantinople called by Theodosius in 381 brought it to an end.

  The Goths were driven back from Constantinople and pressed westward to create problems for the Western empire. Theodosius, as emperor of the East, was compelled to give assistance to the West and after his death in 395 left the empire to his two sons. Theodosianism regarded Trinitarian Christianity as a principle of political cohesion and paganism was ruthlessly exterminated. The Delphic oracle was officially closed in 390 and the temple of Serapis in Alexandria was destroyed in 391. Closing of the temples of pagan cults in 392, following a decree that every sacrifice was an act of treason against the emperor, meant the closing of pagan libraries. Later Stilicho ordered the burning of the Sybilline books. Ammianus Marcellinus could write ‘the libraries like tombs are closed forever’. In 396 pagan worship was prohibited. The pagan calendar and pagan festivals were replaced by the Christian calendar and Christian festivals.

  As the power of the empire was weakened in the West that of the Church at Rome increased and difficulties with heresies in the East became more acute. In 390 Theodosius was refused admission to worship by Ambrose at Milan until he had done public penance for the massacre at Antioch. After the sack of Rome in 410 Eastern heresies became more vocal. Attempts of Alexandrian patriarchs to establish a papacy were defeated by Leo the Great (440-6), who founded the pontifical monarchy of the West. Pelagius and his disciple Coelestius rejected the doctrines of predestination and original sin, and were excommunicated in 417. At the Œcumenical Council at Ephesus Pelagianism and the dogma of Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, that Jesus was only a man become God and that the virgin was not the mother of God, were condemned. The Council of Ephesus in 449 assured a temporary triumph for monophysitism, the doctrine of Cyril that human nature was absorbed by the divine substance in Christ, but its rejection by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 enabled the Roman papacy to establish authority over the Eastern Church. Rejection of the doctrine alienated Christians in Syria and Egypt. After the fall of the Western empire in 476 an attempt was made by Zeno (474-91) to restore harmony with the Monophysites by an edict in 482, but in turn it brought division between Constantinople and Rome. Justinian attempted to reconcile Rome, Syria, and Egypt, but in 551 the patriarch of Alexandria left the episcopal city and the Coptic liturgy was given its final form.

  Justinian attempted to strengthen the prestige of the Eastern empire by strengthening the resources of Constantinople. In 529 he closed the schools of Athens. Constantine had started a library by ordering Eusebius to procure fifty copies of the sacred scriptures written on prepared parchment. The great manuscripts of Christian literature were produced in the first half of the fourth century. About 300 Gregorius and Hermanogenianus attempted to bring order into Roman law. In 425 Theodosius II established a university with thirty-one professors. The codex of Theodosianes completed in 438 included decrees issued by Christian emperors since Constantine, and was used in abridgement by the Visigoths. By the fifth century the imperial library was estimated at 120,000 volumes, and while it was destroyed in 477 it was restored under Zeno. Justinian's great achievements have been described as the code of civil law[177] and the cathedral of St. Sophia. A commission appointed in 528 published imperial constitutions promulgated since Hadrian. A second commission appointed in 530 published the decisions of the great jurisconsuls in 533 in the Digest. Decrees from 534 to 565 were published as the Novellae leges. The principles of the new code were summarized in the Institutes, a single manual for students. Written in Latin the Corpus juris civilis was followed by Greek commentaries and summaries. Latin, which had been the official language for all imperial decrees and edicts, was replaced by Greek in 627. The Digest, as the final development of Roman law, was a complete renunciation of systematic continuity. ‘The laws of Rome were never reduced to a system till its virtue and taste had perished.’ The codes exercised a powerful influence on the legal systems of Europe. The work of the classical Roman jurists and the vitality of their influence are ‘among the most remarkable proofs in history that the indestructibility of matter is as nothing compared with the indestructibility of mind.’[178] Justinian's law influenced European life more than it has been affected by any other work except the Bible.[179]

  Justinian purchased his success in the West with large concessions to the king of Persia in 532. After his death and the beginning of the Heraclian dynasty in 610 the disaffection of the monophysitic populations of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine facilitated the capture of Palestine in 614 and Egypt by the Persians in 618 or 619. Although territory was recaptured by Heraclius it was lost again to the Arabs, who captured Jerusalem in 637 or 638, Cyprus in 650, and by the close of the seventh century had conquered the eastern and southern provinces of the Byzantine empire, North Africa, and Spain. But the hard core of the empire was to persist until 1453. ‘In some sense the walls of Constantinople represented for the East the gun and gunpowder for lack of which the Empire in the West had perished’ (N. H. Baynes), but its continuity was a reflection of the success with which the concept of
empire had been grasped.

  The Byzantine empire developed on the basis of a compromise between organization reflecting the bias of different media: that of papyrus in the development of an imperial bureaucracy in relation to a vast area and that of parchment in the development of an ecclesiastical hierarchy in relation to time. It persisted with a success paralleled by that of the compromise between monarchical elements based on stone and religious elements based on clay which characterized the long period of the Kassite dynasty in the Babylonian empire.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [127] See Franz Altheim, A History of Roman Religion, translated by Harold Mattingly (London, 1938).

  [128] Rhys Carpenter, ‘The Greek Alphabet Again’ (American Journal of Archaeology, 1938, xlii, p. 67).

  [129] Fritz Schulz, Principles of Roman Law (Oxford, 1936), p. 7.

  [130] It has been argued that Mediterranean influence on Roman law was slight. See Eugen Ehrlich, Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law (Cambridge, 1936), p. 262.

  [131] For example, in intestate succession. R. W. Lee, The Elements of Roman Law (London, 1944), pp. 10-11.

  [132] H. S. Maine, Ancient Law (London, 1906), p. 335.

  [133] Ibid., p. 326.

  [134] Ibid., p. 138.

  [135] Fritz Schulz, Principles of Roman Law (Oxford, 1936), p. 72.

  [136] G. H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory (New York, 1937), p. 161.