The Economy of Favours

This chapter discusses the fifth characteristic of Roman political culture; the fact that competition for honour between cities became locked in expectations about the mutual behaviour of its participants. It analyses this on the basis of the rescript of Constantine to the Umbrian city of Hispellum. In the Roman period under single rule competition between cities continued unabated, but the direction and nature of it changed. What might be regarded as a form of ‘horizontal’ competition or ‘peer polity interaction’ between communities that were in principle of equal status was now increasingly conducted along vertical lines: communities tried to enhance their status by obtaining privileges and honours from the ruler that affected their ranking in the urban network. In this way the ruler became not only the external arbiter in the competition for status, but at the same time actively shaped that competition. The symbolic exchange with the ruler was structured by petitions which were presented by embassies sent by communities. The relation between emperor and subject was construed in their interaction, and both the requests and their answers could therefore be bent and subtly manipulated to fit their writers’ wishes. However, as both parties became locked in expectations of each other’s behaviour, in the honorific exchanges exactly what was perceived as a gift obtained from the ruler and what was perceived as an honour given to the ruler became obfuscated. An economy of favours emerged in which benefactor and beneficiary played leapfrog.