Introduction

1Sometimes Latin vocabulary can be misleading for both modern scholars and readers due to its genetic relationship to modern Romance languages. Even if one does not consider Latin as a fundamentally euphemistic language, it is striking that in both public and military spheres, the true meaning of words could lie far from their everyday meanings. For instance, in the Roman Republic, the formula togatorum was not a list of “toga-wearers” as it would have seemed to be, but the annually updated list of Roman citizens and their allies, both Latin and Italian, subjected to compulsory, military service to Rome in the event of a defensive or offensive war1. In this case, authoritarianism and constraint were “veiled” by a neutral and deceptive term that expressed similarities to clothing terms and cultural closeness between Romans and Italians.

2The same situation is encountered for the administrative and military dimensions of the Latin word hospitium that will be investigated in this paper. The Roman term hospitium had little in common with modern hospitality insofar as it was neither a gesture of generosity nor a spontaneous act of sociability. Hospitium was closer to the ancient meaning of hospitality that entailed rights and duties, obligations and services. It was first recommended by social practice and aristocratic tradition, and then imposed by the Roman authorities. As hospitium appeared during Republican times, it did not specifically belong to Late Antiquity. However, the latter period was crucial for the history of Roman hospitium, since late emperors improved the administrative machinery by exploiting manpower and fiscal resources more methodically and efficiently, to cover increasing military expenditure.

3The Roman State was endangered by sudden and multiple usurpations and invasions during the second half of the iii^rd century, and as such it became more militaristic, or at least more militarised, and the structural evolution was probably necessary to meet inner and exterior challenges2. Thenceforth, the Roman State had developed an unprecedented control over human, animal and material resources. Militarisation of the later Roman Empire also influenced institutional terminology: words related to the military sphere practically invaded the official language until the point was reached where the word militia meant not only a military service, as was previously the case in classical Latin, but any public service regardless of its actual form. For instance, in late Roman official sources, the hospitium militare was a service imposed by the authorities to accommodate soldiers living in private dwellings3. Translating hospitium militare by the term billeting would be correct, although incomplete since civil servants were entitled to use the same privilege. As the Roman State was unable to properly accommodate officials and troops on the move, billeting was turned into a compulsory public service and the hospitium militare became both a practical necessity for rulers and a legal obligation for citizens.

4People and communities, especially billeting officials, were subject to so many and varied public obligations in Late Antiquity that two brief sections of the Theodosian Code and Justinian Code were specifically devoted to regulate this system called metatum4. We have to bear in mind that the Theodosian Code gathers together excerpts from some fifteen laws enacted between 361 and 435 CE, whereas the Justinian Code compiles a dozen extracts, of which four are posterior to 438 CE when the Theodosian Code was promulgated. In other words, most of the legal material handed down by the Justinian Code was already present in the Theodosian Code. Reading legal excerpts is quite a disappointing means to understand the mechanisms and details of the billeting system for visiting officials: late antique legal sources mostly disclose emperors’ concerns for limiting or supressing the housing obligations the Roman elite was submitted to, probably solicited by, courtly entourage. In contrast, the rest of the population continued to comply with such an obligation. Under these circumstances, one cannot expect to obtain a full picture of the hopitium militare in Late Antiquity from the legal codifications of the v^th and vi^th centuries.

5Focusing on other documents is necessary to discover the daily practice of the billeting system, but inscriptions of the Eastern Roman Empire provide limited information about this issue. Furthermore, epigraphic sources are only local in scope. Conversely, the long edict on military organisation promulgated in 501 CE by Emperor Anastasius was displayed across the early Byzantine Empire. It was attested to by several copies or versions in Libya Superior, Palestine, Arabia, Syria and Pamphylia. Anastasius’ military edict, although verbose, briefly mentioned soldiers billeted in civilians’ dwellings and stipulated that civilians who lived in or near to military camps were permanently obliged to accommodate soldiers, provided that requisition would not prejudice civilians’ wellbeing5.

6Although Anastasius’ military edict is epigraphically demonstrated within the extensive jurisdictional area of the praetorian prefecture of the East, not a single copy or abridged version has been found in Egypt (fig. 1). However, this region was also subject to the legislation enacted by the late Roman Emperors who settled in Constantinople from the late iv^th century onwards. Moreover, as a frontier region, Egypt had large military forces mostly deployed in its Western and Southern margins6. The hospitium militare was fundamentally related to the presence, voyage and accommodation of the Roman State civil and military officials. Thus, papyrological evidence can be found both in military zones and in the rest of the country, since civil servants on the move were allowed to use the housing of private individuals.

7Papyri retrieved from Egyptian sands provide more local and precise perspectives on the hospitium militare than do both codifications of the later Roman Empire. Scrutinizing papyrological documentation enables us to study the practical application of general standards, and to ponder aspects that are completely omitted or elliptically discussed by the Theodosian Code and the Justinian Code. We noticed that excerpts compiled in both legal collections mostly deal with privileges and exemptions granted by emperors from the late iv^th to the early vi^th centuries. This is why we should reopen the hospitium militare issue according to Egyptian sources, to obtain a better understanding of beneficiaries, benefits and evolution of the billeting system in Late Antiquity. Thanks to papyri it is possible to grasp the diversity of right holders, mechanisms of requisition, wrongdoings by officials and solutions proposed by authorities.

Beneficiaries of the hospitium militare

8As previously stated, legal sources of the later Roman Empire only mention the hospitium militare to make it more flexible, that is to say less burdensome for privileged people close or related to the imperial court. It comes as no surprise that, within a hierarchical society based upon close collaboration between rulers and aristocrats, emperors met the demands of the elite and agreed to reduce their obligation to billet officials. Solicitations from the ruling class conflicted with the lodging needs of officers, soldiers, and civil servants on the move, since petitions encouraged emperors to reduce the potential of requisitioned houses. Notwithstanding the granting of exemptions, emperors retained the ability to revoke or suspend privileges in the case of imperial voyages or military expeditions. These reasons were blatantly contradictory; excerpts and laws transmitted by legal codifications and collections recalled the mandatory nature of the billeting service styled as hospitalitas, hospitium, hospitum or metatum, yet they created new privileges or extended previous exemptions. Retired senior officers and civil servants, former consuls, patricians, senators with the rank of illustris, physicians, professors of literature or painting, workplaces used by shopkeepers and armourers as well as imperial estates in Northern Africa were partially or fully discharged from billeting7.

9Whilst legal sources enumerate categories that were partly or completely subtracted from the hospitium militare, they say very little of the people who could ask for billeting. In addition, legal excerpts do not give any indication of how private lodging was required and provided. Legal provisions handed down by late antique codes only made adjustments to a well-established system that did not require a detailed overview. Consequently, in the Theodosian and Justinian Codes one cannot see a full picture of the legal base, and the oldest legal excerpt is dated to the last year of Constantius II (337-361). However, the compulsory service of hospitium dates back to the origins of Rome or at least of the Roman Republic8. A long administrative tradition may explain why major jurists, contemporary to Septimius Severus (193-211) or even Diocletian (284-305), and whose comments were compiled into Justinian’s Digest in the vi^th century, recalled peculiarities or exceptions, but did not specify any general regulation dealing with a well-known system9.

10Similarly, in Late Antiquity legal editors did not provide the full list of people that were entitled to be billeted by private individuals. Only details and allusions given here and there by legal excerpts enable us to understand that hospitium beneficiaries belonged to the vast category of civil servants, “those who perform imperial service for Us” (ii qui nobis militant) according to the limpid phrasing used in a law enacted in 398 CE by Emperor Arcadius at Constantinople10. As noticed by previous scholars, militare in late Latin meant performing any public service, either military or civil. Officers and soldiers were supposed to be accommodated by citizens, but so was administrative staff (governors, judges, assessors, agents on mission, etc.)11. Some details provided by legal excerpts allow us to know the actual circumstances where civilian and military officials were entitled to ask individuals for temporary housing. Civil servants and soldiers could not require a billet from citizens where they usually performed duties. Only officials on the move could expect hospitium. This was for a brief respite, according to two laws respectively promulgated in Milan in 400 CE and Ravenna in 413 CE, and then integrated into the Theodosian Code12. Another law stated that private lodging could be requested for a magistrate carrying out a mission or on an inspection tour13. As the Roman State lacked public housing for its civilian and military servants, the requisition of private lodging was necessary. Providing accommodation suitable for officials also included that for horses, mules and carriages14.

11Although copious and valuable, codifications of the Later Roman Empire disclose a reduced picture of the hospitium militare. Even in Egypt one should not expect to find a detailed overview of such a common practice in papyrological sources, an ethos according to the formula mentioned on a vi^th century papyrus of unknown origin15. The Roman hospitium was first imposed upon Italian allies and then expanded to all provinces. It did not require any specific staff apart from a few quartermasters (mensores, metatores16), who were responsible in the Roman army and administration for requisitioning and allotting private lodgings when necessary17. Both words, mensor and metator, indicate that the main task was to measure and distribute shelter in a military camp or an individual home. Whatever the current denomination, metatum or hospitium, the obligation of providing accommodation for visiting civil servants and officers is documented in Egypt from the Early Roman Empire onwards. It is probably not fortuitous that a metator of this period inscribed a proskynema, a brief prayer, in Silsilis, a checkpoint garrisoned by the Roman army in a gorge of the Nile Valley18. In Upper Egypt once again, a frontier area, another document links the billeting service to the presence of Roman troops. This is an accounting document preserved on a vi^th century papyrus of Edfu, written by a cashier serving in the army. A soldier was mentioned on the payroll because he received money through another soldier (probably a military cashier) to use housing (µητᾶτον with variants µετάτων and µιτάτων). The right edge of the papyrus is unfortunately damaged. Therefore, one can no longer determine the amount paid to the soldier. On the same list, a civilian received money for rent because he owned housing used as metatum19. As the Roman military presence was not limited to troops positioned on borders, it is not surprising that the billeting system is evidenced across inland sites such as Fayum. For instance, a iv^th century papyrus found in Oxyrhynchus mentions Moorish auxiliary soldiers who were billeted by metatores, i.e. quartermasters, in several houses owned by the same, and probably wealthy, landlord. Documented proofs existed that legionary and auxiliary troops were also entitled to hospitium militare20. At the end of the iv^th century, a widow living at Hermupolis Magna sent a letter of complaint to military command, to get rid of Gothic soldiers who were abusively billeted in her home21. Previous examples evidenced that everywhere in late antique Egypt, the Roman authorities required private individuals to provide accommodation for soldiers when they left the barracks, they used to be garrisoned in.

Benefits of the hospitium militare

12The word hospitium reflects the real service imposed by the State upon citizens towards visiting civil servants and military, and as such is more explicit than metatum. In Latin, hospitium also means the social practice of hospitality and lodging. The legal use of the word reveals how the Roman authorities turned private hospitality between individuals into a compulsory service in favour of officials on the move. According to a law enacted in 384 CE by Emperor Theodosius I settled at that time at Constantinople, hospitium was legally considered as a duty of hospitality, a hospitalitatis munus22. Citizens were compelled to provide private housing for an authorised person who was considered as a “guest”, which hostis means precisely in Latin.

13Preserved laws repeated that hospitium (or metatum) was a public service relying upon individuals. Emperor Valentinian I used this legal definition as an argument to enact a law at Trier in 368 or 370 CE to ban any requisition of synagogues since billets only concerned private houses (priuatorum domus)23. In other words, places of worship were exempt from hospitium militare whereas private homes were subjected to it. A closer look at the legal vocabulary in both codifications shows that domus is a term insistently used by law redactors whilst aedes is rare. Choosing the word domus for a lodging billeting of officials was probably not incidental, since it was applicable to any dwelling, even modest ones. For instance, domus was applied to armourers’ housing submitted to hospitium militare24. The same word may also mean a home of good quality, or even an aristocratic mansion. Many legal excerpts deal with exemptions granted by emperors to grandees. Therefore, the last meaning cannot be discarded when one reads late antique legislations. Indeed, patricians, consuls, generals, ministers, and advisers, either sitting or retired, used to live in luxurious houses. All of these persons were labelled as illustres, the highest rank within the senatorial aristocracy in Late Antiquity25. Due to the size of aristocratic houses submitted to billeting, legislators needed to precise several times the division of space allotted to officials benefitting from hospitium militare: normally a third of the house was assigned to visiting “guest” whilst two thirds were kept by the owner for personal use26. However, beneficiaries with the rank of illustris were entitled to be accommodated in half of a house rather than a third part27. Obviously, mansions possessed enough rooms to allow a clear spatial distinction between a temporary lodging assigned to visiting officers and civil servants and a home permanently reserved for the owner, his family and household. In other words, the compulsory billeting service was not meant to encourage a potentially contentious and conflictive coexistence. In addition, excerpts preserved in the Theodosian Code provide evidence that individuals who were granted derogations from the requisition of private housing were wealthy people: legal provisions aimed to allot partial exemption from the burdensome hospitium of several houses owned by a same individual28. For instance, on the iv^th century papyrus concerning the “delicate” billeting of Moorish auxiliary soldiers, the author owned several houses29.

14Officers and civil servants benefitted from hospitium militare during journeys and missions. Thus, individuals who were forced to accommodate them had to give shelter to their mounts and mule teams as well. Two laws are quite explicit on this point: within the one third accommodation space requisitioned by officials, the house-owner was also supposed to have a place specifically dedicated to equidae (stabulum), but he was not required to provide food for either visiting humans or animals30. Likewise, legal sources of the later Roman Empire made a clear distinction between housing and transport. Individuals submitted to provide hospitium were not compelled to provide mounts, mule teams or carriages to officials on the move, since the latter had special permits granted by central authorities to allow them to use the public transportation network, the so-called cursus publicus31.

15Papyrological sources are more precise concerning services provided by individuals for billeted soldiers. A remarkable and well-known case lies in the partially preserved archive of a strategus of Panopolis in Upper Egypt. He was responsible for overseeing the collection of taxes in his district, so the strategus was greatly anxious in October 298 awaiting the imminent arrival of Emperor Diocletian’s vanguard. Mobilising human and material resources was necessary to meet the challenge of billeting so many soldiers travelling downstream with the Emperor himself and his retinue. The strategus was mainly concerned by ensuring food supplies through the annona system, and housing is only indirectly mentioned in his papers32. For this reason, the strategus’ archive mentioned neither hopistium nor metatores even though the strategus had planned that soldiers and animals would be sheltered across the rural and urban territory of his district to facilitate the distribution of food and fodder33. As billeting troops and equidae in private houses and stables was part of the administrative routine for a strategus and did not require him to take any emergency or specific measures, documents are silent on this issue.

16It is worth noting that one passage mentions four people amongst the strategus’ correspondents, who were responsible for providing bedding (ἔκστρωσις) for the visiting soldiers. They are indicated in a possibly hierarchical order: one person for the metropolis of the district, another for the former temple of Tripheion located close to Panopolis and transformed into an official residence (παλάτιον) and the remaining two for the stopping places (µοναί) belonging to the cursus publicus network and situated within the district of Panopolis34. The last three people were civilians in charge of public structures (which were an official residence and halting places) whereas the first had been appointed by the local senate (βουλή) of Panopolis. He was responsible for collecting matrasses and blankets, and distributing them to billeted soldiers. This is a positive proof that providing bedding was clearly different from requisitioning housing, even though hospitium is omitted from the whole papyrological dossier, and consequently individuals were forced to accommodate soldiers but not to provide bedding35. However, it is hard to believe that a man of note designated by the local ruling class to oversee the bedding supply was rich enough to buy matrasses and blankets for a whole army. In these circumstances, one should rather presume that an exceptional bedding contribution took place before the vanguard reached Panopolis and it was imposed on district people to accommodate Diocletian’s army.

Adaptations of the hospitium militare

17Later Roman Emperors showed concern for limiting officials’ missions and the proportion of homes assigned to them, but not for suppressing the billeting system. They considered it a necessary evil, at least from the sophisticated phrasing of late antique codifications. Yet one can still read in legal excerpts the unexpected confessions made by rulers that billeting was oppressive. In 398 CE at Constantinople, Emperor Arcadius enacted a law that mentioned the injustice committed against citizens not only by quartermasters (mensores) but also by hospitium itself. The belated official awareness of tensions created by billeting officials in private homes, impelled emperors to specify the assignation rules of rooms distributed between owners and “guests”. Although the distribution of living space was supposedly better regulated, emperors continued to consider that billeting was an injustice or a misfortune (iniuria, infausta)36. Thereafter, other imperial laws claimed to reduce restlessness (inquietudo), burden (grauamen) and annoyance (molestia) caused by hospitium militare. The last word appeared several times in Theodosian legislation, particularly in Theodosius ii’s laws37.

18Despite declarations of principle and minor changes, the billeting system continued unchanged under Theodosian rule, i.e. in the late iv^th and first half of the v^th centuries, although Theodosius II (408-450) confirmed a court decision giving individuals the possibility to become exempt from the requisition of a third of their home in exchange for the payment of a special tax to the public purse38. Changing a compulsory service into a financial contribution was not original in late antique taxation, and it made the requisition of housing more unequal since wealthy individuals were able to buy an exemption whereas ordinary people could not afford it. The possibility of paying the substitute tax is called epidemeticum in legal Latin, a term derived from the Greek ἐπιδηµία meaning sojourn. This did not put a final end to the requisition of housing and only reduced its nuisance for the elite. The substitute tax became the norm in the second half of the v^th century, to such an extent that the Justinian Code section on billeting was entitled De metatis et epidemeticis39. The wording clearly expressed that the two terms were related in late Roman law, although they were not synonymous. An unexpected and undesired outcome was that visiting governors used the substitute tax as a pretext to extort money from individuals, and in 530 CE, Emperor Justinian banned such wrongdoing40. Despite legal provision, unfair and illegal practices continued, and the same ruler renewed the prohibition measure in 556 CE41.

19Another law enacted by Justinian in 546 CE called civil servants on the move to order. It threatened soldiers with fines, and officers with dismissal and exile. For the sake and liberty of subjects and taxpayers, Justinian forbade soldiers to take up quarters (metata) in the main house where the owners currently dwelled and instead commanded them to be billeted in distinct lodging (diaeta)42. Although the billeting system was contentious, since officials abused their prerogatives and individuals felt helpless, it persisted in the East because the later Roman State could not be sustained without it. It should be noted that the law of 546 CE did not take over from previous provisions dividing requisitioned homes and substituted for them by a strict separation of the living space. Also, in classical and later Latin diaeta is borrowed from the Greek δίαιτα, which means bedroom, separate apartment or housing distinct from the main building43. As Justinian was fully aware of the disturbance caused by billeting, for political and safety reasons he enforced a spatial division between inhabitants and “guests”. Legal provision was apparently favourable to individuals, but it required from them that they owned and maintained buildings that were specifically dedicated to visiting civil servants and military. According to Emperor Anastasius’ edict on military structures in the Roman East, billeting took place in individuals’ homes when the owners lived close to a military camp, but soldiers should provide lodging if private housing was not sufficient44. In this way, Anastasius’ edict imposed on the military to have lodgings for billeting within their camp, but it only dealt with border areas. Justinian’s law had a broader purpose, since it encouraged people to follow military policy and possess an official lodging that was distinct from their home to avoid frictions.

20Egyptian sources shed light on adaptations that the billeting system underwent, since, as elsewhere, it had a potential for conflict in Egypt. For instance, a lone soldier leaving his camp and wandering around agricultural land in Fayum was considered by humble peasants as a risk of pillaging. The peasants consequently solicited military command or powerful landowners to protect them and force the soldier to reintegrate his garrison45. Another example in Fayum is that of a woman who was forced to accommodate soldiers in her home. However, coexistence between them and her irritable husband was so difficult that he stole their personal belongings and ran away46. Risk of tension between civilians and soldiers were higher in military area according to some 600 ostraca discovered in the ruins of Douch, a settlement in the Great Oasis close to a small fort on the Libyan Desert doorstep47. One ostracon retains traces of a letter written in the second half of the iv^th century by a woman expelled from her home by “Barbarians” as she called them; in fact, they were auxiliary soldiers serving the Roman army. In Oxyrhynchus, other “Barbarians” billeted in a private house did not hesitate to lock the owner in the basement48. To reduce opposition against the billeting service imposed on citizens and keep records of billeted soldiers, some ostraca could be thought of as “lodging tickets” according to the editors of Douch ostraca although the interpretation is debatable49.

21From a tiny sample of Egyptian documents, one cannot reasonably assume that endemic violence plagued the Later Roman Empire or consider the military structure as a source of brutal coercion or permanent oppression50. Far from it, most of the above-mentioned documents prove that people had direct access to civilian and military justice to protect them against soldiers who were not systematically synonymous to soldiery. However Greek and Syrian writers contemporary to Justinian spoke out against rabbles of soldiers51, and the Emperor himself encouraged citizens to relocate hospitium militare outside their home. The same emperor took the opportunity of troop redeployment in Upper Egypt to billet them outside metropoleis, the district capitals52. During the same period, the word metatum experienced a semantic evolution: first it meant a temporary lodging for soldiers and officials, then it referred to a building specifically provided for civil servants and military on the move. On the Edfu accounting list previously discussed, an individual received indemnity from the army cashier because he owned a building designed for billeting soldiers53. A mid-vi^th century papyrus of Heracleopolis, in Middle Egypt, mentions the word σταβλοµίτατον. The hapax combined the Latin words stablum and metatum and designated a building that could provide both housing for visiting soldiers and stables for equidae54. Clearly, vi^th century papyri reveal a distancing of hospitium militare through the construction of buildings, although these were maintained by individuals, which reduced the disturbance caused by the compulsory service of billeting officials.

An Epigraphic Conclusion

22Inscriptions discovered across the Eastern provinces demonstrate the enforcement of Anastasius and Justinian’s legislation concerning the billeting of soldiers and their distancing from civilians. According to inscriptions, several buildings styled as metata were erected in the v^th and vi^th centuries and maintained by military, civilians or communities. South of Apamea, in central Syria, a garrison commander had built a µητᾶτον placed under the protection of saint Sergius55. The inscription, albeit lacunose, can be dated to between 468 and 477 CE and is sufficient to prove that Anastasius’ edict, enacted one generation later, only systematised previous measures already enforced locally rather than of introducing truly innovative reforms. In 524 CE, a µητᾶτον was built close to Emesa, in Southern Syria, and dedicated to saint Longinus, saint Theodorus and saint George. Two years later, a tower-shaped µητᾶτον was built in nearby Apamea and dedicated to the archangel Michael and saint Longinus. In the same region a fragmentary inscription, probably dating from the vi^th century, mentions a µητᾶτον associated to saint Sergius56. The inscriptions reveal a multiplication of buildings specifically provided for the troops by military command, and for this reason they are dedicated to soldier saints57. An epigraphic parallel is offered at Cagliari, in Southern Sardinia, where a metatum was dedicated to saint Longinus and completed with a magic formula directed against the devil58. In Upper Egypt at the end of the vi^th century in Syena, modern Aswan, an opistograph inscription records the construction by military authorities of a lodging place for soldiers (ἀπαντητήριον) and a few years later its transformation by the local population under bishop’s supervision into a hostelry for both official and private visitors59. The financial and material support of the building explains how it was renamed and opened to civilians. In the region of Syrian Apamea, a µητᾶτον dedicated to saint Theodorus was styled as hostelry or almshouse for foreigners (ξενεών)60. The name proved that it was opened to all visitors. In Miletus, on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, a µητᾶτον was dedicated to Mary and not to a soldier saint as was the case elsewhere. In Miletus, one can assume that the lodging belonged to a monastery or a church dedicated to the Holy Virgin61. The integration of such a building into ecclesiastical property did not reveal an extension of religious institutions into the late antique society, but religious communities were also forced to maintain public lodgings for officials and soldiers on the move62. Military, civilians, clerics and monks built housing facilities for both official and private visitors, but the multiplication of such facilities across the later Roman Empire did not bring a final end to the disturbance caused by the billeting practice63. However, they permitted the burdensome hospitium militare to be borne by communities rather than individuals, who also managed to distance themselves from it at least in part.