1

Administration, Late
Antique
SEBASTIAN SCHMIDT-HOFNER

From Diocletian onwards, the Roman imperial

administration rapidly expanded to become
the largest and most complex bureaucracy
in the history of the ancient world, with an
estimated number of 30,00040,000 imperial
officials (excluding those of the cities). The
structure, responsibilities, and social implications of this bureaucratic machine are amply
documented in sources such as the legal codes
of the era, the NOTITIA DIGNITATUM or the works
of JOHN LYDUS. The basic work of reference
remains Jones (1964).

STRUCTURE
Late Roman imperial administration consisted
of three major branches. The first was the central administration attached to the imperial
court, which itself was administered internally
by the Majordomo (castrensis) and the Great
Chamberlain (praepositus sacri cubiculi); the
latter came to dominate eastern politics by
the late fourth century. The central administration (Delmaire 1995) comprised two
financial departments with large staffs headed
by the Count of the Privy Purse (comes rerum
privatarum), responsible for revenue from
imperial domains, and the Count of the
Imperial Largesses (c. sacrarum largitionum),
responsible for taxes raised in precious metals,
the minting of coins, and the production of
silver objects or medallions for the imperial
donatives (Delmaire 1989). The third major
department of the central administration
was directed by the Master of the Offices
(magister officiorum), who over time acquired
a wide range of responsibilities including,
among other things, the handling of embassies,
supervision of imperial POSTAL SERVICES (cursus
publicus), and responsibility for the bureaus
for imperial correspondence. Alongside these

three major departments, the Quaestor of the

Imperial Palace (quaestor sacri palatii) drafted
imperial pronouncements and laws (Harries
1988); and the notaries, originally secretaries
of the imperial consistory (the imperial Privy
Council), formed a socially exclusive corps of
special commissaries employed for various extraordinary business (Teitler 1985) (see NOTARY).
The second branch of the late Roman government was the regional administration, which
had, by the mid-fourth century, acquired the
structure of a multi-layered pyramid. At the
bottom stood the provinces (see PROVINCIAL
ADMINISTRATION, ROMAN REPUBLIC), doubled in
number and much smaller than their
predecessors under the High Empire. At the
next level, vicars (vicarii) administered groups
of several provinces called dioceses, and above
them a varying number of praetorians prefects
presided over prefectures of several dioceses
(see PRAETORIAN PREFECT). A hierarchy of provincial and diocesan representatives of the two
financial comites ran parallel to the regional
administration (Delmaire 1989). The cities of
Rome and Constantinople had their own,
multi-leveled administration under urban prefects equal in rank to praetorian prefects
(Chastagnol 1960; Dagron 1974). The third
branch of the administration was the army;
its administration was similarly structured,
though probably smaller in size (see ARMY,
ROMAN EMPIRE).
Discrepancies in the number, nomenclature,
and rank of similar office-holders, inconsistencies within the hierarchy, as well as illdefined, often competing responsibilities, show
that the entire administrative system emerged
gradually out of a series of ad-hoc measures and
small-scale reforms and was never fully systematized (Migl 1994). Some of these inconsistencies seem to have been deliberately preserved
or even encouraged, to allow emperors closer
control over the bureaucratic apparatus or to
reaffirm their superiority (Kelly 2004) or, in the
case of the imperial judiciary, to prove imperial
omnipresence as the ultimate source of
law (Schmidt-Hofner 2010). Administrative

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 7982.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah12004

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procedure meanwhile reached a high degree
of formality, incorporating an impressive
amount of paperwork on all levels. The ambivalent picture of the administration that thus
emerges is symptomatic of the Roman bureaucratic system, which has often been compared
to that of modern states but must be understood on its own terms (for nuanced discussion Eich 2010).

RESPONSIBILITIES
Office-holders on all levels had an officium at
their disposal, a regular staff of subaltern officials (Stein 1962; Palme 1999). Each officium
consisted of two major departments (scrinia),
financial and judicial. This division reflects
the two main preoccupations of the late
Roman bureaucracy: the extraction of financial
resources for the needs of the army and the
emperor undoubtedly the driving factor
behind the emergence of the whole apparatus
(Eich 2005) and the dispensation of justice in
the name of the emperor, which was pivotal for
the legitimacy of the Roman monarchy (Millar
1992). Most other areas of public administration were left to the cities, professional associations, or other subsidiary entities. When
emperors did occasionally interfere in other
areas, such as religious matters, they relied on
ad-hoc commissaries drawn from the AGENTES
IN REBUS, notarii or other special delegates.
Although Late Roman government achieved
greater administrative penetration throughout
the empire and became more active in character
than that of the High Empire (Schmidt-Hofner
2008), the range of its regular responsibilities
remained limited in comparison to modern
bureaucratic systems.
SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Almost all administrators above the municipal
level were technically members of the imperial
militia; they wore insignia of their military
status, often bore military titles and, above
all, enjoyed the privileges of the soldiery,

such as exemption from curial and other

liturgies under certain conditions. They
received a stipend but also profited from fees
(sportulae) collected, for example, for the
issuing of judicial documents and for various
other administrative business. On retirement,
they were often paid a considerable sum by
their successors. While none of these practices
were regarded as illegal as such, bribery and
other forms of corruption were widespread
(even though the phenomenon was certainly
exaggerated in earlier scholarship). Financial
rewards were only one attraction of the imperial militia. Not only magistrates but also
higher officials in the officia and even subaltern
units such as the silentiarii (ushers of the
consistory) or the palace guard steadily rose
in rank and social prestige, ultimately receiving
senatorial rank. Service in the higher-ranking
positions thus became desirable, in economic
as well as in social terms. Its spell was
felt in particular by the curial aristocracy; in
the almost complete absence of a formal
admissions procedure and professional qualifications for service, a classical education,
sometimes combined with training in Roman
law, made the municipal elite the main recruitment reservoir for higher positions. The late
Roman emperors, who needed both the curiae
and the militia, found themselves trapped in a
conflict of interests: legislation repeatedly
recalled bureaucrats of curial origin to their
duties and bound them to their status, while
at the same time a constant influx of curiales
filled the imperial service. Only the positions
of ordinary clerks in provincial and other
low-ranking officia were less attractive; consequently, service in them was made hereditary.
Roman bureaucrats, particularly those of higher
rank, developed a strong corporate identity
characterized inter alia by a deep appreciation
of bureaucratic ceremony, by a preoccupation
with questions of hierarchy, precedence, and
administrative procedure, and by jealous
competition for power and rank among rival
departments of the administration. Altogether,
bureaucrats thus came to form a class of their
own in Late Roman society (Kelly 2004).

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SEE ALSO: Army, Late Antiquity; Court
(imperial), Roman; Decurions.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Chastagnol, A. (1960) La prefecture urbaine a`
Rome sous le Bas-Empire : 290423. Paris.
Dagron, G. (1974) Naissance dune capitale.
Constantinople et ses insitutions de 330 a` 451. Paris.
Delmaire, R. (1989) Largesses sacrees et res privata.
Laerarium imperial et son administration du IVe
au VIe sie`cle. Rome.
Delmaire, R. (1995) Les Institutions du BasEmpire romain de Constantin a` Justinien I: les
institutions civiles-palatines. Paris.
Eich, P. (2005) Zur Metamorphose des politischen
Systems in der romischen Kaiserzeit. Die
Entstehung einer personalen Burokratie im
langen dritten Jahrhundert. Berlin.
Eich, P. (2011) Burokratie, Autokratie, Aristokratie.
Antagonismen als dynamische Elemente in der
spatromischen Gesellschaft. In P. Eich,
S. Schmidt-Hofner, and C. Wieland, eds., Der
wiederkehrende Leviathan. Staatlichkeit und
Staatswerdung in Spatantike und Fruher Neuzeit.
Heidelberg.
Harries, J. (1988) The Roman Imperial Quaestor.
Journal of Roman Studies 78: 14872.
Jones, A. H. M. (1964) The later Roman Empire
284602. A social, economic and administrative
survey. Oxford.

Kelly, C. (2004) Ruling the Later Roman Empire.

Cambridge, MA.
mter.
Migl, J. (1994) Die Ordnung der A
Pratorianerprafektur und Vikariat in der
Regionalverwaltung des Romischen Reiches von
Konstantin bis zur Valentinianischen Dynastie.
Frankfurt.
Millar, F. (1992) The emperor in the Roman world.
London.
Palme, B. (1999) Die officia der Statthalter in der
Spatantike. Forschungsstand und Perspektiven.
Antiquite Tardive 7: 85133.
Schmidt-Hofner, S. (2008) Reagieren und Gestalten.
Der Regierungsstil des spatromischen Kaisers
am Beispiel der Gesetzgebung Valentinians
I. Munich.
Schmidt-Hofner, S. (2011) Staatswerdung von
unten. Justiznutzung und Strukturgenese in
der Romischen Kaiserzeit. In P. Eich, S. SchmidtHofner, and C. Wieland, eds., Der wiederkehrende
Leviathan. Staatlichkeit und Staatswerdung
in Spatantike und Fruher Neuzeit.
Heidelberg.
Stein, E. (1962) Untersuchungen uber das Officium
der Pratorianerprafektur seit Diokletian.
Amsterdam.
Teitler, H. C. (1985) Notarii and exceptores: An
Inquiry into Role and Significance of Shorthand
Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical
Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early
Principate to c. 450 A.D.). Amsterdam.