<論説>「ムーサに仕える輩たち」と後期ローマ帝国 : 教養知識人と帝国・皇帝体制 (特集 : 学びのネットワーク)

Abstract

本稿は四世紀ローマ帝国における教養人のネットワークに焦点を当てることで、帝政後期の教養文化とローマ帝国との関連について論じる。四世紀のローマ帝国では、数多くの知識人が学業を修め帝国官僚として栄達を遂げるために帝国内を広範囲に移動していた。教養人は知人や後続のために互いに便宜を図り合っており、こうして形成された彼らの交流網は帝国規模に及ぶものだった。当時の教養が最も重んじたのは修辞学であり、修辞学の素養はエリートとしての人格陶冶に必須のものとみなされていたため、教養人と帝国官僚を同じ教養エリートとして統合する役割も果たしていた。一方、教養人は頌辞において、ローマ皇帝は過去の威信を現在に再現しローマの再生と永遠を約束する存在と繰り返し語っており、当時の教養文化には皇帝と帝国の存続を自明視するところがあったことがわかる。後期ローマの教養人たちは帝国の体制や理念と密接に結びついていたのである。

This article deals with the relationship between literary culture and the Roman Empire in the fourth century in terms of the concept 'Networks of Learning'. The late Roman elites enjoyed a common literary culture based upon love and veneration of the Muses fostered through a shared education in classical literature. Though a privileged minority group in the whole population, this educated class, called the 'fellow servants of the Muses' by Peter Brown in his Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity, maintained a network of interactions and communications extending throughout the empire through which they moved, built careers as teachers and administrators and exchanged information and cooperated with each other through letterwriting. The later Roman Empire is characterised by the development of bureaucracy, and it was the literary elites who occupied the posts created in the later Roman bureaucracy. Because they moved throughout the empire in pursuit of these posts, the empire-wide itinerancy and interrelationship of educated elite was supported by the institutional development of the later empire and the prestige and benefits accrued from advancement within the bureaucratic organisation. Literary culture and networks of the educated class were sustained by and closely connected with the imperial system. Literary culture in the later Roman Empire played an important role in confronting imperial power. As P. Brown pointed out in the abovementioned book, the rhetorical education of the day was regarded as fostering self-restraint and decorum befitting of social elites, integrating local elites and imperial officials as educated men sharing the same cultural code and thus imposing restrictions on the exercise of imperial power. It was necessary for the smooth running of the vast empire to abide by a mode of behaviour moulded by literary culture that helped to earn the consent to govern and cooperation from local elites. Conversely, the sharing of culture tied the educated elites to the later Roman Empire. The belief itself that education could control and manipulate imperial power constituted a part of the mechanism of government and the mentality of educated men was heavily influenced by the existence of the empire.

The close connection between literary culture and empire is also suggested from the image of emperor portrayed by men of letters in panegyrical literature. Delivery of an encomium for an emperor occupies an important place in later Roman political culture and the careers of literate elites. The description of emperors expressed in panegyrical sources has a remarkable feature. An emperor is compared with heroes and leaders who appeared in myth and history and is always depicted as equal with or even surpassing them. In this kind of narrative, an emperor is portrayed as the one who re-enacts the victory and glory of the past in the Roman world of the present. As a result, it generates a sense of continuity between the glorious past and the current Roman Empire. The emperor serves as the nodal point of the past and present for the empire, and thus the Roman Empire is considered restored to the 'golden age' and the prosperity it experienced in the past brought back. Such a discourse guarantees the existence of empire and the values of the educated class and creates unity and stability among those living within the empire. At the same time, on the ideological level, the role that the emperor must play and the mission the empire must fulfill assume greater importance. The later empire was a period which saw an intensification of concern and consciousness towards the imperial system. The litterati, while praising the imperial deeds and virtues, reproduced not only the values and the 'Networks of Learning' to which they belonged but also the power and authority of the Roman imperial system within whose framework they lived and acted. The 'fellow servants of the Muses' were inextricably linked in a reciprocal relationship with the power and state structure of the empire in the fourth century. Therefore, the 'Networks of Learning' in the later Roman society has to be understood in the context of Roman imperial system and ideology. The attitudes of the literate class tended to be affirmative towards the empire, and the discourse of the sources in the fourth century is characterised by the absence of a sense of 'decline and fall'. The literary culture of the day took for granted that imperial authority would continue to exist and it participated in its reproduction. The network of educated men was as vast as the Mediterranean world, but its strong association with the imperial system made it impossible to diverge from the framework the empire itself had set up.