A PECULIAR INSTITUTION?

There is a problem about patronage. Patronage has traditionally been viewed as a defining feature of Roman society, an institution of pivotal importance, offering a vital clue to the relative stability of that society over time. It was an institution as quintessentially and centrally Roman as patria potestas, the authority of a Roman male head of household. Nowadays, however, historians are saying that patronage was much less significant than it has been made out to be, especially in the sphere that (in their judgment) really mattered, politics. That is, in the first instance, for the period of the republic, when political office was highly regarded and fiercely competed for within the framework of a republican constitution – before monarchy arrived and transformed the nature of politics. It used to be thought, to put it simply and starkly, that the Roman aristocracy under the republic controlled the voting population of citizens through patronage, that what counted in elections was the quantity and quality of one's clients. The experts don't believe this any more. They follow Peter Brunt in his conviction that patronage relations were fragile, peripheral, short-lived, and did not count for very much – especially, but not only, in the late republican period.

As to the principate, again there is an old idea, now regarded as an anachronism, that with an emperor in charge private patronage became redundant. The emperor was universal patron, patron of all citizens, patron of all subjects.

This book has its origin in the Carlyle Lectures delivered at Oxford University in Hilary Term 2005. I would like to thank George Garnett and the other members of the Carlyle Committee for honouring me with their invitation to give the lectures, and the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College for extending to me their hospitality for the period concerned. I benefited greatly from discussing matters arising from the lectures with members of the audience during my time in Oxford. In composing a work of this kind, I have inevitably drawn on the learning of a large number of scholars who have written extensively and expertly in aspects of my subject. In addition, colleagues and friends have generously read my work or parts of it in draft and given me encouragement and advice. They include Margaret Atkins, Tim Blanning, Anthony Bowen, Peter Brown, Myles Burnyeat, Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi, Patricia Crone, John Crook, Michael Frede, Raymond Geuss, Richard Gordon, Verity Harte, Caroline Humfress, David Ibbetson, Melissa Lane, Geoffrey Lloyd, John Marenbon, Dieter Nörr, Michael O'Brien, Glenn Olsen, Christopher Rowland, Magnus Ryan, Malcolm Schofield, David Sedley, Quentin Skinner, Gareth Stedman Jones, John Thompson, Robert Tombs and Frank Walbank. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Raymond Geuss, Richard Gordon and Caroline Humfress for raising my sights and lifting my spirits. Niketas Siniossoglou has given me invaluable assistance in the closing stages. My family has been as usual tolerant, patient and supportive.

There were six lectures in the first instance.

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND

In 1840 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon of Besançon, a printer and an autodidact, published What is Property? and answered his own question: ‘Property is Theft.’ Karl Marx was twenty-one years of age at the time, and writing his dissertation for the University of Jena on the difference between the natural philosophy of Democritus and of Epicurus. After a brief opening chapter on methodology, Proudhon moves on to definitions. He begins in this way:

‘Roman law defines property as the right to use and abuse a thing within the limits of the law’ – and he provides the Latin: ‘Jus utendi et abutendi re sua, quatenus iuris ratio patitur.’ Abuse of property, he says sardonically, is really indistinguishable from use of property. One way or another, the proprietor can do what he likes with his land. He can ‘let the crops rot underfoot, sow his field with salt, milk his cows on the sand, turn his vineyard into a desert, and use his vegetable garden as a park’.

Further definitions follow. According to the Declaration of Rights, published as a preface to the French Constitution of 1793, property is ‘the right to enjoy and dispose at will of one's goods, one's income, and the fruit of one's labour and industry’.

INTRODUCTION

Plato's ideal polity, or Kallipolis, is often characterized as a communistic society, in part or as a whole. Communism has been recently defined in this way:

The author proceeds to apply this (perfectly acceptable) definition to the ideal polity of the Republic: ‘The idea of communism as collectively owned property first appears in classical Greece. Plato's Republic contains a notable defence.’

This claim is mistaken. There is no collective or communal ownership of property in the ideal state of the Republic. Rather, Plato has Socrates prescribe for the political leadership and military (the Guards and Auxiliaries) an absence of property (coupled with a denial of individual families), or, to view it from a more positive angle, a community of use and a community of minds, involving the sharing of basic accommodation and subsistence, women and children, feelings and emotions.

INTRODUCTION

On 7 May 1318 four men were burned at the stake in the market place of the city of Marseille. According to a contemporary writer:

The four victims are only names to us; the writer was Angelo Clareno, a member of the Franciscan order, Fratres Minores, or Brothers Minor. In protest at what he saw as laxity and corruption in the Order, Clareno tried to form a breakaway group more in tune with the ideals of St Francis. He won temporary success, when Pope Celestine IV created for them a new Order called the Poor Hermits of Pope Celestine, under his own rather than Franciscan jurisdiction. However, Celestine was forced out of office after only four months (in 1294), his acts were nullified by the new Pope, Boniface VIII, and the Poor Hermits fled to Greece (in the first instance).

PRELIMINARIES

‘In revolutionary France of April 1849, a banquet was held of “socialist priests”, 33 of them, 3 in cassocks, and the rest dressed as lay men. 600 working men joined the festivity, and toasted Jesus of Nazareth, father of socialism.’

In 1891 Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum Novarum. The early chapters carry the message that socialism is unjust and deleterious to workers' interests, whereas private property is natural, blessed by God, and conducive to the common and private good. That principle once established, the Pope is now ready to pronounce on the issue of how the class struggle can be moderated, through a proper understanding of how wealth should be used. For guidance on this point, he says, the place to turn is not to philosophy but to the teachings of the Church; and the Pope now cites authorities. Thomas Aquinas receives pride of place, followed by New Testament texts urging charitable giving. We hear that in God's view, ‘there is nothing disgraceful in poverty, nor cause for shame in having to work for a living’: 2 Corinthians 8:9 is cited, where St Paul says of Christ: ‘He who was rich became poor for our sake.’

INTRODUCTION: PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON AND THEODOR MOMMSEN

In 1849 a cartoon appeared in Germany depicting The Progress of Learning (‘der Fortschritt der Wissenschaft’) over 300 years. Three panels present scholarly figures in dress appropriate to the academic profession of their epochs, the sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Each panel bears a caption, apparently drawn from Roman law.

On the left: ‘Justice is the constant and unwavering determination to give to each his right.’ This is a citation, attributed to the classical jurist Ulpian (d. 223), from the sixth-century Digest of Justinian.

In the centre: ‘The king is completely exempt from all law.’ This is an Absolutist State's version of a statement of the same jurist, Ulpian: the emperor is exempt from the laws.

On the right: ‘Property is theft’ (Dominium est furtum). No Roman jurist, we may be sure, ever made this pronouncement. The slight figure in this panel is full of nervous energy as he points emphatically at his audience. He is Theodor Mommsen, Extraordinary Professor of Roman Law at Leipzig. At the time only thirty-one years of age, he was later to become arguably the greatest historian of ancient Rome of all time. In 1840 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon of Besançon had posed the question: ‘Qu'est-ce que la propriété?’ and had given as his answer: ‘La Propriété, c'est le vol.’ Nine years later we find Mommsen being credited with a Latinized version.