Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.
W. G. SINNIGEN / NEW YORK The political history of Late Rome is essentially the story of a struggle to centralize administration in an attempt to counteract centrifugal tendencies that had all but destroyed the Empire during the crises of the third Century. To command obedience and to enforce laws originating at the imperial court, the reforming emperors of the late third and early fourth centuries created an ubiquitous bureaucracy, one which, although descended frorn governmental agencies of the Principate,1 resembled its institutional predecessors only superficially. Late Roman bureaucracy with its complicated System of checks and balances, its competing and parallel chains of command spawning interdepartmental rivalries and disputes, its often vague and overlapping areas of jurisdiction and spheres of competence - was a notably cumbersome, corrupt, and ineffective Instrument with which to govern a civilized state. The central government was well aware that it had created a bureaucratic monster, that the effectiveness of legislation in the interest of reform and centralization was being thwarted by red tape, lethargy, and corrupt vested interest at every level of administration. It sought to remedy the Situation by periodically despatching special commissioners to investigate the more flagrant and notorious instances of
Byzantinische Zeitschrift – de Gruyter
Published: Jan 1, 1964
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.