DISSEMINATION OF THE LAWS
Subsequent to its completion, the law was published and distributed among the administrative personnel, sometimes among the general population, or specific groups within it.
This process can be reconstructed from several of the complete extant laws. It began with the giving of the law, that is, its completion by the emperor himself, an act which was the equivalent of first promulgation and which invested the law with an Empire-wide validity.5 At this stage, a copy of the law was sent to the senior officials, generally to the praefecti praetorio who headed the legal-administrative hierarchies, who in turn passed it down to the subordinate level of the provincial governors.6 The reception of the law by the senior officials or the provincial governors was the second stage in this process. This was followed by its promulgation in the residence of the governors and in the principal provincial cities under their control.The law went into effect at the time of its promulgation in any given place.7 When it required action on the part of a specific group within the population—those fulfilling religious tasks within the community, e.g., the patriarch or his household, or the decurions in a given city— or if it was intended for them alone, the officials were ordered to send a copy of its text directly to those groups or individuals. At times a copy of the law, in addition to being given to the praefecti praetorio, was sent to other departments of the administration that were involved in the execution of the law, such as the treasury or the military. The main stages of this process may be seen, for example, in No. 10, issued by Constantine on 21 October 335, at Constantinople, to Felix, the Praefectus Praetorio of the diocese of Africa, who was charged to convey the substance of the law, accompanied by appropriate texts from himself, to the governors throughout his diocese.
Similarly, the text of Sirmondian Constitution No. 4 was the law promulgated in Carthage, the diocesan capital, on 9 March 336. We learn from its text that the law was also addressed to the other diocesan governors. A more complete example is that of No. 35. This law, which was issued at Rome by Honorius on 25 November 407, was addressed to Curtius, the Praefectus Praetorio of Italy, who was instructed to transmit its contents to the provincial governors and to give orders to them concerning its execution. Likewise, Sirmondian Constitution No. 12 is the text as “promulgated in Carthage, in the forum, underneath the declaration of the Proconsul Porphyrius, on the Nones of June” (408).8 The Third Novel of Theodosius II (No. 54) was issued at Constantinople on 31 January 438, and addressed to Florentius, the Praefectus Praetorio of the East, who was ordered to publish it in edicts of his own, to instruct the other governors to do likewise, and to publish the law in the cities and provinces. The second edict of Marcian of 452 (No. 55), which was addressed to Palladius, the Praefectus Praetorio of the East, listed in its margins the names of all those who received identical copies: the Praefectus Praetorio of Illyricum, the Prefect of the City of Constantinople, and the Master of Offices. No doubt in the process of publication, changes were made in the texts of these laws to fit their addressees—administrative officials or population groups—in accordance with the specific circumstances of each place and the extent of each official’s authority. An excellent example may be seen in several texts of one law (No. 51), which appears in Sirmondian Constitution No. 6 as well as in five separate texts of the Theodosian Code. In Sirmondian Constitution No. 6 the text of the law is quoted in full, as issued on 9 July 425, by Valentinian III at Aquileia, and addressed to Amatius, the Praefectus Praetorio of Gaul; CTh 16:5:62 was issued there on 17 July and addressed to Faustus, the Prefect of the City of Rome; CTh 16:2:46 -I- CTh 16:5:63 was issued there on 4 August and addressed to Georgius, the Proconsul of Africa; while CTh 16:2:47 + 16:5:64 were issued on 6 August and addressed to Bassus, Comes of the Private Property. These four texts were released by the chancellery during the course of approximately one month. The differences among them derive from the fact that the legislator related differently to problems which were specific to Gaul, Africa, and Rome.In the large majority of cases, the laws were addressed to the senior administrative officials of the Empire, especially the praefecti praetorio and the departmental heads in the court. Most of the texts sent to the praefecti praetorio and preserved in the codes were addressed to those of the East and of Italy, as the editors of the codes utilized the archives of the two capital cities. The existence of texts sent to the Praefecti Praetorio of Illyricum, Gaul, and Africa suggests that parallel—and perhaps even identical—texts were generally sent to all the praefecti praetorio. Texts were also sent to the department heads at court. Among the extant texts, one is addressed to the Master of Offices, one to the Comes of the Sacred Largesses, one to the Comes of the Private Property, and even one to the Comes and Master of the Two Services. There are also laws of limited geographical applicability in the two texts addressed to the Comes of the East, in two texts to the Praefectus Augustalis in Egypt, and in one text to the Proconsul of Africa. Most of these texts, however, originated in the archives of the two Imperial courts, so that they reflect the initial stage in the process of dissemination of these texts—i.e., from the emperor to the praefecti praetorio— and indicate an extreme proximity to the source of the law.
There are relatively few texts which derive from a lower stage in the process of the law’s dissemination to wider circles, further from their source. There are two complete extant texts (Nos. 10 and 15) reflecting laws addressed directly to praefecti praetorio. Sirmondian Constitution No. 4 was sent on 21 October 335, to Felix, the Praefectus Praetorio of Africa who published it in Carthage in 336.
No. 12 in the same collection, dated 25 November 407, was addressed to the Praefectus Praetorio Curtius who transmitted it to Carthage where it was promulgated by the Proconsul Porphyrius in June 408. Both texts draw a clear distinction between the stage of the giving of the law (data) and that of its publication (proposita).Two texts indicate that the laws were published in cities that were not diocesan capitals—i.e., they testify to the law’s dissemination in an even wider circle. No. 7 was published in Colonia Agrippinensis in 329, while No. 17 is known to us from a text that was “accepted” and published in Regium in 384. Two texts are addressed in a general way to “the Jews” (No. 23) or to “all the Jews” (No. 13), and these also doubtless reflect one of the stages of publication of these laws. It is reasonable to assume that during the process of codification many of the details concerning their receipt and promulgation were dropped from the text of many of these laws, as these were of no importance to their editors. Thus, we can no longer know for certain what the extent was of the publication of these laws, which are today known in the texts issued by the chancellery. For example, No. 37 clearly preserved the text of an original law, as it opened in the vocative, but there are no details at its subscription as to how it was received or published. This fact requires extra caution when we wish to determine the character of a given text. At the same time, one is led to the conclusion that most of these texts reflect a very early stage in the process of dissemination of the laws.
The same conclusion in relation to the use of dative or accusative case can be reached when we examine the chronological division of the inscriptions to the laws. O. Seeck9 noted that in the earlier texts, particularly those up to the reign of Theodosius I, the inscriptions are phrased in the accusative (ad + acc.), while the texts written during and after Theodosius are mainly in the dative.
He explained this on the assumption that in order to locate old laws the codifiers consulted copies of the laws which had been preserved in local archives, whose inscriptions were phrased in the accusative. For documents closer to their own time, the codifiers referred to the original documents, available in the archives of the capitals, and these were phrased in the dative.An examination of those laws pertaining to the Jews produces a very clear picture: in all the laws given until 384 the inscription was phrased in the accusative, except for three texts, one of which (No. 7) was taken from the text as published at Colonia Agrippinensis, i.e., Cologne. In a text addressed to Ablavius on 29 November 330, the inscription was phrased in the accusative, while the version of that law destined for public promulgation was given in the dative. In those laws published after 384, the dative was always used, with four exceptions: No. 37, which preserved the original vocative form of address; No. 23, which used the comprehensive term “to the Jews”; No. 24, addressed to the Comes of the East, which may have been copied from a copy rather than from the original; and No. 28, addressed to the Praefectus Praetorio of the East. It thus seems probable that the texts of the laws given until the end of the fourth century are quoted according to copies, while from then on the extant texts were taken from the original documents of the laws addressed to the praefecti praetorio in the two capitals and preserved in the archives of these cities. This conclusion is consistent with our finding that the greater part of the documents at hand derive from the first stage of the dissemination process.
This may explain the small number of substantive differences among the different versions of the same law, whether in terms of style or content. This, also, would seem to contradict the conclusion of Gaude- met who proved that the system of publication of Roman law was conducive to the introduction of a considerable number of errors into the original texts.10 Gaudemet clearly established that mistakes crept into the texts of the laws and that emendations were introduced even before their codification.
An interesting example of this is No. 51 in which the various alterations made in one law are visible. In No. 9 it is possible to distinguish between the versions formed in the two stages of distribution and promulgation of the law. These examples are to a large extent exceptions, as the largest majority of extant texts are from the earliest stage in which the process of change and error had not yet begun. Moreover, we generally have only one text, so that we are unable to compare it with other texts of the same law. Generally speaking, the errors in our laws entered in the later stages—that is, during the codification and the manuscript transmission—and only rarely in the earlier stages.3.