Codex Theodosianus
Nine laws concerning Portus and one concerning Ostia can be found in the Codex Theodosianus (compiled by order of Emperor Theodosius II and completed in 438 AD). They are presented here in chronological order.
324 AD - If the ship of any shipmaster should enter the port of the City of Rome from any shore in Spain whatsoever, provided this ship should carry a fiscal cargo, We command that the aforesaid ship shall depart without any claim by any person. It shall not be subject to any extraordinary burden, and thus it may more easily fulfill the services enjoined upon it.
364 AD - Porters of the port of Rome. If private citizens should convey anything to the Port of the Eternal City, Your Magnificence shall command that all of it shall be transported by the porters themselves, or by those persons who desire to unite with that guild. In accordance with the variations produced by different seasons, the merchandise shall be assessed with a well considered and just appraisal, so that if it should appear that any private citizen had transported his imported wares through his own helpers, a fifth part of said ware shall be vindicated to the profit of the fisc.
364 AD - We have learned that fiscal storehouses in the City of Rome and also in the Port have been converted to private uses. You shall take care to restore such storehouses to their former condition. Grain must not be stored in the lower stories of such storehouses, for it is spoiled by the nature of the place and the moisture. If any persons, to the public detriment, have dared to appropriate the food supplies that were anciently assigned to the storehouses, you shall compel them to restore them, and you shall direct that the substance of such supplies shall go to the benefit of the treasury of the people of Rome. Of course, you shall compel those persons whom you find to be authors of the destruction of buildings to make necessary restoration.
365 AD - Since We desire to restore the condition of the Eternal City and to provide for the dignity of the public buildings, We order that a solidus shall be paid to each limeburner and lime transporter for each wagon load of lime. Of this sum, three parts shall be paid by the landholders, and the fourth part shall be taken from the price paid for that wine which is customarily furnished from the wine treasury. We add that not more than three thousand lesser wagon loads shall be demanded each year. Moreover, of the lime thus transported the ratio shall be so distributed that one thousand five hundred loads shall be assigned annually to the aqueducts, the other to the repair of buildings, on the condition that no license shall be left for any judge or members of an office staff to burn lime, under the provisions of this statute, whereby if any person should participate in such usurpation, he shall be forced to undergo the severity of public punishment.
Moreover, this exception shall be made from the regular tax of the payment of Terracina which is customarily assigned, according to ancient usage, to the requirements of the lighthouse and the Port. But We command that the decurions of Tuscany shall be relieved of the burden of nine hundred loads which they were forced to deliver each year, under the condition that if ever the necessity of a new construction should arise, this fact shall be transmitted to Our knowledge by the reports of the judges. By the regulation of Our prudence We shall sanction what must be added and to what extent deliveries must be made. Moreover, from the above mentioned number of wagon loads, one half, which We ordered to be apportioned for the repair of houses, shall be separately assigned. Thus the office of the prefect of the City shall know that his responsibility pertains to their duties.
366 AD - Shipmasters shall declare in the records of the municipal curators and magistrates that they have received unspoiled supplies, and those persons before whom such attestation is deposed must prove by personal inspection that there are no imperfections in such supplies. The office of the prefect is commanded always to observe the same proceeding at the time when the supplies arrive at the Port of the sacred City.
398 AD - The price of Ostian bread. It is our will that Ostian and fiscal bread shall be sold for one nummus. Furthermore, we sanction that no person by the authority of a sacred imperial rescript shall dare to increase the price, and if any person should offer such a supplication to the Emperor, a fine of two pounds of gold shall be inflicted upon him.
De praetio panis ostiensis.
Imp(eratores) Arcad(ius) et Honor(ius) a(ugusti) Theodoro p(raefecto) p(raetori)o.
Panem Ostiensem adq(ue) fiscalem uno
nummo distrahi volumus. Sancimus
autem, ut nullus per sacrum rescrib-
tum audeat pretium ampliare; qui
si obtulerit supplicationem, duarum
librarum auri multa ferietur. Dat(um)
prid(ie) id(us) april(es). Med(iolano) Honorio a(ugusto) IIII
et Eutychiano cons(ulibus).Codex Theodosianus 14.19.1.
On the price of Ostian bread.
Dated April 12, 398 AD.
Issued in Milan.
Manuscript from the sixth century.
Image: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. Lat. 886.
398 AD - A fine of five pounds of gold shall be inflicted upon the petitions of those unscrupulous persons who very impudently dared to demand supplies of water that are due to the mills which had furnished food supplies very abundantly to the venerable City, unless they desist from the importunity of such petitions. Also those persons in charge of the office of the prefect of the annona and the apparitors who minister to them with their services shall be restrained by an equal fine, if they should consent or be subservient to the wishes of these most unscrupulous persons.
Moreover, by a similar punishment those persons shall be constrained who have dared to vindicate for themselves, as though by private possession, any supplies from the State storehouses or the small storerooms which are established within the City of Rome and the Port and which are held under the control of the breadmakers.
400 AD - Patrons of the State storehouses of the Port. We decree that patrons of the State storehouses of the Port shall be in charge of the administration for only one year. All surreptitious devices shall cease, and the accounts of the old issue of public supplies shall never be inserted in the account of the new supplies. No person shall fraudulently usurp for himself the administration of the State storehouses of the Port beyond the statutory time limit, unless the account of the previous year has been deducted beforehand and he should be chosen for another year, on the ground that he is faithful and responsible.
414 AD - With remedies well planned Our Clemency provides against the dissimulation and the petty corruption of the offices of the prefect of the City and of the prefect of the annona, so that if a shipmaster should ever incur a shortage beyond the measure of the percentages allowed, within five days of the time when he enters the port of the venerable City, three Illustrious men shall be summoned by the office of the prefect of the City, and in the presence also of the judicial investigator of cases involving the annona, the prefect of the City shall investigate what shortage has occurred. If any person should be found guilty of fraud in this matter, along with the judicial statement and with the addition of a suitable enforcement officer, the guilty person shall be conducted immediately to Africa and to the court of the Most Noble prefect of the annona, and he shall have to pay, at the instance of the aforesaid prefect, whatever he is found to owe.
By this law, therefore, We decree that if the prefect of the annona should permit the shipmaster to delay his case beyond the day previously set, he shall know that he and his office staff must pay to Our treasury five pounds of gold. We decree that the office staff also of the prefect of the City shall be punished with a fine of three pounds of gold. The prefect of the annona shall be forced to pay two pounds of gold to Our sacred imperial largesses unless, at his especial insistence, the trial shall be accelerated within the established time. Therefore, such investigations must be completed even on holidays and days of devotion, without any observance of such days.
417 AD - In order to eliminate the fraudulent practices of the patrons of the raftsmen and the thievery of the grain measurers of the port, one of the patrons shall be selected by common consent of the whole guild, and he shall undertake the custody of the port stores for a period of five years. He shall send a secret sample to his colleagues, in order that the hidden fraud of the shippers, men of the worst quality, may not change any of the supplies in kind. To this patron We grant the reward that if with the most excellent trustworthiness he should administer this compulsory public service that is enjoined upon him, after the completion of the term of five years of administration he shall be honored with the rank of count of the third order, and he shall not obtain this rank from Our imperial letters patent but from the indulgence contained in this constitution. If he should be apprehended in fraud, he shall forfeit his patrimony and also be recalled to the lowest services of breadmaking.
We also decree that the Most Noble prefect of the annona shall have no right to inflict corporal injury on anyone of the three chief patrons of each guild, for the condemnation of the illustrious urban court is sufficient correction for each delinquent.
Right: the cover of the commented edition of the Codex Theodosianus
by Jacques Godefroy from Geneva, who dedicated his life to it.
It was published posthumously in Lyon in 1665.
Bottom: Iacobus Gothofredus, 1587-1652.
Photo: Wikimedia, Museum Martena.
