Aristocracy, Family, and Property

Chapter 3 describes the senatorial aristocracy of Rome and divisions within its ranks. Even after the seat of western government left the city for safer territory, its aristocrats retained their pride of place. When Constantine founded Constantinople as his capital in the East, an entire senatorial aristocracy was created for it, although its members could not claim the ancient lineage and traditions of their Roman counterparts. The chapter details senatorial wealth, including that of Melania and Pinian. It explores the diverse meanings of “family” in ancient Rome and relevant inheritance law. It traces the family trees of Melania and Pinian and their extensive real estate—mansions, villas, and agricultural properties, spread across eight Roman provinces. It analyzes the fraught question of whether an excavated palace on Rome’s Caelian Hill was Melania and Pinian’s, and its probable fate.

Translation: The Life of Saint Melania the Younger

Blessing, Father: Blessed be the Lord, who has stirred your Reverence, holy priest, to ask my humble person for an account of the life of our holy mother Melania the Roman, who dwells with the angels.1 Since I spent considerable time with her, I have a slight knowledge of the senatorial family from which she sprang and how, having forsaken the vanity of the world, she started out on an angelic way of life. But since I know my own shortcomings only too well, I considered myself incapable of narrating such great struggles. I rather decided that it was safer to refuse, believing that I could better exalt the noble servant of God by my silence than insult her outstanding achievements through my idle words. However, since you, holy priest, promised again to help me through your pious prayers, I took courage through the power of the [Holy] Spirit: I am preparing to throw myself into the infinite sea of narration, looking forward to the celestial reward for my obedience....

Finding Melania

Chapter 1 offers a survey of Melania’s life. Coerced into marriage by her parents, who wished for descendants to inherit the family fortune, she and her young husband, Valerius Pinianus (Pinian), produced two children. When both children died, she persuaded Pinian to join her in a life of ascetic renunciation. They, along with her widowed mother, Albina, abandoned Rome shortly before the Gothic invasion and traversed the Mediterranean area, founding monasteries in North Africa and Jerusalem. Toward the end of her life, she traveled from Jerusalem to Constantinople in the hope of converting her still-pagan uncle, who was on a mission to the eastern court. Returning to Jerusalem, she died in 439 CE. This chapter details the discovery and publication of two versions of her Life in the early twentieth century, along with conclusions regarding its authorship. It also notes other ancient textual sources concerning Melania; the genre of hagiography; women’s roles in early Christianity as martyrs, patrons, pilgrims, and ascetics; and education and literacy in late antiquity.

Ascetic Renunciation

Chapter 5 surveys the development of ascetic renunciation as a favored mode of Christian existence from the religion’s origins to late antiquity. It details what ascetic Christians “renounced” (e.g., money, food, property, sleep), what their goals were, and what models of ascetic living became popular. Pagan writers as well as some Christian writers criticized the movement, which could jolt members of the upper classes when their members broke rank and divested themselves of possessions. In Rome, shortly before Melania’s time, aristocratic women had, at various stages in their lives, given up markers of their status (including civic philanthropy) and adopted ascetic practices, sometimes within their own palaces. Transmission of property and inheritance came into question, as women refused to marry (or to remarry). Melania’s Life dramatically illustrates how difficult it was to rid oneself of all property and possessions, especially the thousands of slaves that she and Pinian owned. Modern scholars have been less kind than their predecessors in their assessments of the social and economic consequences of Christian calls to renunciation.

Rome: Empire, City, and Church

Chapter 2 describes the Roman Empire in the fourth and early fifth centuries and important emperors of the period. Among imperial reforms was the introduction of a new form of coinage, the gold solidus. The chapter introduces the emperor Honorius’ important general of the western imperial troops, Stilicho, and his wife, Serena, who will figure in Melania and Pinian’s attempts at divestment. It describes the life of cities in that era, especially the city of Rome, and the role of Christianization in changing its urban landscape. Rome’s inhabitants were dependent on food brought from elsewhere and distributed to them by a system called the annona; disruption of the supply could lead to food riots, one of which plays a role in the couple’s attempts to divest. The building of churches and martyr shrines in and around Rome, importantly spurred by the emperor Constantine and his family in the early fourth century, later often became a cooperative venture between bishops (especially Damasus) and local elites. The cult of Saint Lawrence plays a significant role in the life of Melania: at his shrine or church, Pinian was persuaded to adopt a life of ascetic renunciation with her.

To Jerusalem

Chapter 8 depicts the voyage to and settlement in Jerusalem, with a stop in Alexandria and surroundings, to meet bishops and holy men. On a return trip to Egypt, they visited the so-called desert fathers and attempted to leave them funds. Egypt and Palestine (called the “Holy Land” by Christians in this era) were the prime destinations for Christian pilgrims, women as well as men, from the fourth century onward. Some “Westerners” settled there and founded monasteries, including Melania’s own grandmother and other Roman aristocrats. The Bible provided a virtual tour guide for pilgrims in Palestine. The family of Constantine saw to the erection of the churches of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Accompanying these developments was the burgeoning quest for relics (of the “True Cross,” of the body parts of martyrs and saints). Melania, too, sought relics for the monasteries she established in Jerusalem. For some years before undertaking the building of monasteries and soliciting inhabitants for them, however, she lived in semi-solitary confinement on the Mount of Olives. The author of the Life describes the ascetic practices in these establishments. After the monasteries were built, there is little evidence that Melania participated much in the larger worship life of Jerusalem, which is described in other sources. The author of the Life aligns his heroine with his own religious preferences and depicts her as a fierce opponent of “heresy.”

To Sicily and North Africa

Chapter 7 narrates the adventures of Melania, Pinian, and Albina as they left the Italian peninsula, encountering danger in their sea travel, first to Sicily. In Sicily, a favored location for the estates of Roman aristocrats, Melania gathered sixty women, slave and free, to join her in ascetic practices. Whether Melania’s estate was as lush as the Villa del Casale at Piazza Armerina remains unknown. From Sicily also comes the ascetic treatise On Riches (probably by a Pelagian author), the most scathing critique of wealth from late antiquity. Roman Christian aristocrats, including Melania and her circle, expressed considerable interest in the Pelagian branch of Christianity, away from which bishop Augustine of Hippo tried to steer them. From Sicily, the trio left for agriculturally rich Roman North Africa before the end of 410. On one of their North African estates, Melania built monasteries, developed her ascetic practices, and enriched local churches. North African Christians in this era were divided between Donatist and Catholic factions; pagans and Manicheans were also present. To service the area’s agricultural production, vast numbers of slaves and seasonal laborers were needed. The trio lived in North Africa for seven years before departing for Jerusalem.

Exiting Rome and the Sack of the City

Chapter 6 explores the dramatic events spurring Melania and her entourage to leave Rome in advance of the Gothic sack of the city in August 410. After the death of Melania’s father in perhaps 405 or 406, Melania and Pinian went to a suburban property to begin their renunciations. Goths advanced into Italy starting in 401; from 407 onward, Alaric demanded ransom money and goods to prevent his attack on the city. Serena, wife of Stilicho and a member of the imperial court, had arranged with the emperor for court officials to assist the couple with the divestment of their property. When both Stilicho and Serena were killed, Melania and Pinian lost a major source of protection. The emperor Honorius dawdled in meeting Alaric’s requests, and Roman senators resisted parting with their wealth to pay the ransom. The Roman city prefect perhaps attempted to confiscate the couple’s property in order to pay the ransom but was killed in a riot over the bread supply. The extreme difficulty of divesting themselves of their possessions is clearly on display (Serena herself had claimed that she could not afford to buy their Roman mansion), as is the fierce opposition of their relatives, especially Pinian’s brother. The sack of Rome elicited various responses from Christian and pagan writers.

To Constantinople and Back

Chapter 9 follows Melania as she trails her still-pagan uncle Volusian to Constantinople; he was one of two chosen to represent the West at the wedding of the eastern princess Licinia Eudoxia to the western emperor, Valentinian III. The chapter describes travel arrangements of the period, including use of the cursus publicus, and the city of Constantinople and its institutions. It traces the development of Christianity in the city, the rise of monasticism, the building of churches, and the search for relics. It describes the eastern court and Melania’s associations with high aristocracy and the Constantinopolitan imperial family. Volusian, although converted, did not live to participate in bringing the recently finished Theodosian Code to the West. The chapter also details the theological politics and Christological controversies (in which Melania participated) that disturbed the city in the fifth century. After mourning her uncle, Melania left Constantinople in late February 437, making record progress through the snow in order to reach Jerusalem in time for Easter (April 11, 437). In Jerusalem, she continued her building activities and acquisition of relics, and she greeted and escorted the empress Eudocia on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from Constantinople. A few days before her death in December 439, Melania accompanied her cousin Paula to celebrate the nativity of Jesus in Bethlehem. Back in her monastery, she bade farewell to various groups before dying on probably December 31. Her remarkable life, according to her biographer, was crowned by a similarly spectacular death and entry to heaven.

Pagans and Christians in Late Ancient Rome

Chapter 4 explores the meaning of “pagan” in late antiquity, debates over its use today, and the meaning and progress of Christianization. Recent controversies over “conversion” and the pace of Christianization, especially among the senatorial aristocracy, have called into question mid-twentieth-century claims that there was an ardent “pagan revival” among aristocrats at the end of the fourth century. Some key elements in that controversy involved the removal of the altar of the goddess Victory from the senate house and the fate of the Vestal Virgins. The chapter details later imperial rulings against pagan practices from the 390s onward. Recent scholarship questions whether conversion to Christianity entailed a radical life change for upper-class Romans. The growth of the number and role of bishops is noted. Christianity’s charity operations were probably a factor in winning some to the new faith. Soon, “heresy” would become a more pressing concern to bishops and some emperors than the occasional “pagan” practitioner.