The martyr, the matrona and the bishop: the matron Lucina and the politics of martyr cult in fifth- and sixth-century Rome

• The martyr, the matrona and the bishop: the matron Lucina and the politics of martyr cult in fifth- and sixth-century Rome KATE COOPER

The present study attempts to build on the achievement of Pietri and Llewellyn in assessing the peculiarities and limitations of the gesta martyrum as a source for late ancient and early medieval Rome, while shifting interpretative stress away ftom the lay-clerical binary which has dominated recent treatments of the cult of the saints, and toward an emphasis on factional conflict among lay-clerical coalitions. Central is an analysis of the literary motif which recurs across the gesta of Lucina, the aristocratic matrona or widow who sees to the burial of the martyr on her own lands. Though the stereotypical figure of Lucina warns us of the limitations of the gesta as a source for the patronage activity of the lay aristocracy, it is argued, her appearance in crucial texts such as the Passio Sebastiani can nonetheless help us to trace the role which the memory of the martyrs played in texts such as the gesta martyrum, the Symmachan Forgeries, or the Liber Pontificalis, as well as the role which martyr shrines such as the Vatican basilica and the memoria apostolorum on the Via Appia played in the contestation and consolidation of Roman episcopal authority. It is a complex and poignant story; but the outcome was plain - the martyr took on a distinctive late-Roman face. He was the patronus, the invisible, heavenly concomitant of the patronage exercised palpably on earth by the bishop. 1 The last quarter of the twentieth century may well be remembered, by future historiographers of late antiquity, as the age of the bishop. The problem of how, across three or four centuries, a new class of men took I

P. Brown, [The] Cult of the Saints: [its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity] (Chicago,

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power over the institutions of the ancient city, establishing themselves as the legitimate arbiters of political, social and metaphysical reality, has held the attention of a generation of late Roman historians. Beginning from the dense core of Christian communities no larger than a Roman household, the platform of authority of the Christian bishop extended progressively through ever-larger communities, and finally into the civic institutions of what had been pagan society. Equally, the rise of the cult of the saints has enjoyed particular historiographical prominence as a medium through which the transformation of antiquity into the Christian Middle Ages was achieved. 2 The central collision of the post-Constantinian church, it has been argued,3 was not between pagan and Christian per se, but rather between alternate notions of familia, one based on the bonds of kin and dynasty, and the other on a chosen kinship, that of the Christian ecclesia, whose ties were as durable as those of blood. In the fourth and fifth centuries, these two notions of community found their champions in, respectively, a newly Christianized aristocracy on the one hand and a newly aristocratic episcopacy on the other. The cult of the saints, in turn, has been seen as a by-product of the bishops' struggle to retain control of a church now inundated by a rich, articulate, and even imperious, laity. When viewed through the episcopal lens, the martyr as intercessor seems to be a supporter of hierarchy, lending distance and symmetry to the relationship between the faithful and their deity.4 This article, however, will argue that the cult of martyrs at the end of antiquity should be understood in agonistic, not hierarchical terms: the martyr's power was accessible to those in every rank of a contending faction, a point which the third-century bishops had discovered to their discomfort. There is no reason to assume that in the post-Constantinian period the martyr's power should have been any less volatile. If anything, once real power was in the gift of the church, it found itself more, rather than less, riven by factional conflict. This accords well with what we know about how kinship groups in the early Middle Ages would come to use ecclesiastical and monastic patronage, and perhaps especially the cult of relics, to forward dynastic claims.5 But fully to assimilate the idea of the martyr as champion 1 The arguments put forward in E. Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York, (979), especially chaprer 2: '''One God. One Bishop" [:the Politics of Monotheism'] , have influenced much of subsequent English-language scholarship; see also P. Brown. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, WI, (992), and literature cited there. The position outlined here is a central argument of Brown's Cult of the Saints.

This is a view made influential by Pagels. 'One God, One Bishop'. See. for example, F. Prinz, FrUhes Monchtum rim Frankenreich: Kulture und Gesellschaft in Gallien, den Rheinlanden und Bayern am Beispiel der monastischen Entwicklung jabrhundert)] (Munich, (965). Early Medieval

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A century later, the Roman topography of dynasty and allegiance has yet to be established conclusively, though in an important 1989 article Charles Pietri attempted to account for how the seven-fold Roman diaconal structure followed on from the fourteen civil regions of the time of Augustus.9 Both Pietri and the British scholar Peter Llewellyn have sought to develop Dufourcq's approach, mining the gesta martyrum for clues to the social tensions of the fifth and sixth centuries, the period in which the bulk of the gesta are presumed to have been written. 10 Both writers give substantial weight to the lay-clerical binary: each would see the gesta martyrum as reflecting an ever more acute tension between the senatorial aristocracy and the increasingly centralized, and increasingly ambitious, clerical hierarchy of the city of Rome. The present study attempts to build on the achievement of Pietri and Llewellyn in assessing the peculiarities and limitations of the gesta martyrum as a source for late ancient and early medieval Rome, while putting less stress on the lay-clerical binary. Instead, a topographical approach will emphasize competition among rival cult sites sponsored by what may well have been lay-clerical coalitions. Special attention to the literary representation of lay-clerical collaboration is paid, but not with the hope of gaining evidence for actual historical events. Central to our story, rather, is a specific literary motif which recurs across the gesta, that of the aristocratic matrona or widow who sees to the burial of the martyr on her own lands. The matrona Lucina appears in so many passiones, set in such diverse historical periods, that she can only, in her present form, be a pious fiction, whatever the core of truth or tradition standing behind her figure. Attention to the Lucina motif reveals that the gesta are as unreliable as they are evocative when it comes to the question oflay-clerical relations and ecclesiastical patronage. Yet though the stereotypical figure of Lucina warns us of the limitations of the gesta as a source for the patronage activity of the lay aristocracy, her appearance in crucial texts such as the Passio Sebastiani can help us to trace the role which martyr shrines such as the Vatican basilica and the 9

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C. Pieui, 'Regions ecclesiasliques et paroisses romaines', Actes du Xie congres international d'archeologie chretienne. Lyon, Vienne, Grenoble, Geneve et Aoste (2I-28 september I986), vol. II (Vatican City, 1989), pp. 1035-67. Among the more important contributions by Pielri and L1ewellyn are: P.A.B. L1ewellyn, 'The Roman Church [During the Laurentian Schism: Priests and Senators]', Church History 45 (1976), pp. 417-27; P.A.B. L1ewellyn, 'The Roman Clergy during the Laurentian Schism: a preliminary analysis', Ancient Society 8 (1977)' pp. 245-75; C. Pietri, 'Aristocratie et sO,ciete clericale dans I'Italie chretienne au temps d'Odoacre et de Theodoric', Melanges des Ecoles Franraises de Rome et d'Athenes 93 (1981), 1, pp. 417-67; idem, 'Donateurs et pieux etablissements [d'apres le legendier romain (Ye-VIle s.)]', in Hagiographie, cultures et societes, Ive-XIle siecles. Actes du colloque organisee it Nanterre et it Paris (2-5 mai I919). Centre de Recherches sur l'antiquit# Tardive et le Haute Moyen Age, Universite de Paris X (Paris, 1981), pp. 435-53; and idem, 'Evergetisme et richesses ecclesiastiques dans I'Italie du lve a la fin du Ve S.: l'exemple romain', Ktema 3 (1984), pp. 317-37.

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Bishops, laity, and martyr cult in early sixth-century Rome There are certainly good reasons why the turn of the sixth centuty has stood as a particularly important hinge-point in the developing and tense relationship between the Roman aristocracy and their bishops. Best-known is the towering figure of Gelasius, pope from 492 to 496, whose pronouncements on the Two Powers became a bulwark of the medieval papacy, but Gelasius was only one of a constellation of figures contending over the division of authority between lay and clerical spheres. Much of this contention was focused not on the macrocosm of pope and emperor, but on the microcosm of a priest's relation to his more estimable parishioners. Donation of funds by lay grandees carried with it a bothersome expectation of controlling their use: Charles Pietri has shown how from the death of Pope Simplicius in 483 to that of Symmachus in 514, a recurring point of debate was whether the lay donor who provided funds for a church should retain the right to decide their use, or whether the clergy might exercise autonomy in dispensing them.1I A debate carried out by senators and bishops assembled under the chairmanship of the Praetorian Prefect Caecina Decius Maximus Basilius after the death of Simplicius exacerbated this tension by finding in favour of the lay donors. Pope Gelasius openly defied the assembly's finding, a policy carried forward with far less success by his nearsuccessor Symmachus (498-514). The patronage class, in turn, seems to have resisted his attempt to encroach on habits of evergetism far older than Christianity itself. The emergence of a contest over the papacy at the election of Symmachus can only have made matters worse. The schism, known as the Laurentian Schism after Laurentius, the Roman priest who stood against Symmachus, lasted from 498 to 507 or 8; it has been argued with force by Pietri and Llewellyn that one of the central issues in the schism was Symmachus' attempt to wrest control over the Roman tituli, and perhaps other shrines, from the lay aristocracy, with the bishop able to exploit a tension among the laity itself, between upper and lower classes. In 1966, Charles Pietri argued that the coalitions which took form during the Laurentian schism had arisen from a senate-plebs divide based in the green and blue factions of the circus, the Roman agonistic venue par excellence.12 This argument lost much of its power in 1976, II 12

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Idem, 'Donateurs et pieux etablissemenrs', pp. 440-1. Idem, 'Le senat, le peuple [Chretien et les parris du Cifque a Rome sous le Pape Symmaque (498-514)]; Melanges d'Archeologie et d'histoire de l'Ecole Franfaise de Rome 78.1 (1966), pp. 123-39. Blackwell

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when Alan Cameron established that the circus factions in fact played a disarmingly narrow role in Rome as professional audience claquesjl3 one might also remember that the charge carried in the propaganda produced by Symmachus' party, that the senate was united against him, may have been formulaic. An alternate, and perhaps more helpful view of the division among the laity would pay attention to clusters of dynastic allegiance, paying attention to the multi-class pyramids at whose pinnacle would stand a figure such as the senator Festus, patron of Laurentius, or the senator Anicius Probus Faustus Niger, cos. 490, patron of Symmachus. As is well known, the literary manipulation of the holy dead played an important role in the contest: one need only think of the so-called Symmachan forgeries to see that the heroic figures of early Christian Rome were harnessed as apologists for either side.14 The Liber Pontificalis itself reflects this tendency to reach for historical precedent: its manner of characterizing the early popes often reflects the issues in play during the early sixth century, a point particularly noticeable where its characterization of the history of the cult of the martyrs is concerned.15

Suggested here is that the cult of the martyrs, too, must have played an important role as a medium of papal self-assertion. There is no lack of evidence to support this point. One of the standard benchmarks, for example, for the development of martyr cult in Rome is the renovation of St Peter's basilica on the Vatican Hill to the west of the city, commissioned by Pope Symmachus during the first part of his reign. Symmachus did much to establish the Vatican as a centre of papal power, conferring on St Peter's a prominence among the suburban martyr basilicas which it had not enjoyed previously. If the Liber Pontificalis is an accurate reflection, the veneration of the martyrs was for Symmachus a means of projecting a picture of the pope as head of a pan-Italian episcopal coalition. His entry in the Liber Pontificalis is one of the most staggering in terms of the number of buildings commissioned or renovated, the quantity of church plate bestowed. Symmachus' intervention at the Vatican is known particularly for the addition of an oratory complex centred on the cult of Saint Andrew the apostle and brother of Peter, which commemorated and housed the relics of other Roman and non-Roman saints: the roman pair Protus and '3 '4

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A. Cameron, Circus Pactiom (Oxford, 1976). On rhe forgeries, see. W.T. Townsend, 'The So-called Symmachan Forgeries', Journal of Religion 13 (1933),pp. 165-74, and G. Zecchini, 'r "gesra de Xysri purgarione" e le fazioni arisrocrariche a Roma alia mera del V secolo', Rivista della storia della chiesa in ltalia 34 (198o), pp. 60-74On rhe use of rhe Symmachan forgeries by rhe editor of rhe Liber Pontificalis, for example, see Pierri, 'Donareurs er pieux erablissemencs', p. 440.

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Hyacinth, the Campanian martyr Sossus, and the north Italians, Cassian of Imola and Apollinaris of Ravenna.'6 With their complex layering of cult upon cult, this collection of oratories and the related oratory of Thomas, Andrew's apostolic colleague, represent a new stage in the articulation of martyr piety in Rome, and serve, perhaps, to advertise and to strengthen Symmachus' links with the bishops in whose cities the non-Roman martyrs were venerated - bishops who may, indeed, have supplied him with relics. In addition, the Constantinian associations of the place loomed large; there is some evidence that Symmachus intended to establish his own sarcophagus there'? - a quasi-imperial gesture brazen in its defiance of the emperor's support for his opponent Laurentius. ,8 Of course, the enhancement of the Vatican was an inspiration born of necessity. It was Laurentius, not Symmachus, who controlled the traditional papal residence, the Lateran palace in the south-east of the city.'9 Symmachus may have been left with nothing to do but to develop an alternate site, calling down upon it all the powers of heaven. The layering of multiple cults which characterizes Symmachus' programme for the Vatican is perhaps best understood as an attempt to channel both earthly and spiritual powers toward synergy, an embodiment of the human and supernatural resources which undergird his claim to the Roman see. Symmachus' role as impresario of martyr cult on the Vatican was paralleled by textual efforts. Clearly, both parties used hagiographical texts to manipulate the memory of early Christian Rome. Just as the popes of an earlier era played a crucial role in the romans a clef of the Symmachan forgeries, so certain of the martyrs commemorated by the gesta, and, perhaps, certain passages of the Liber Pontificalis itself, seem to have been harnessed to the dramas of early-sixth-century Rome. Giovanni Nino Verrando, for example, has found among the gesta an apologia for the Symmachan party.20 Further work would be welcome on the relationship between the gesta and the other polemical texts of early-sixth-century Rome, such as the divergence between the Passio of 16

Recent and useful discussion is offered by J.D. Alchermes, 'Cura pro mortuis [and cultut Commemoration in Rome from the Second through the Sixth Century]', PhD thesis, New York University, '989, pp. 273ff. Discussion in Alchermes, 'Cura pro mortuis', p. 284. Discussion of imperial support for Laurentius in Pietri, 'Le senat, le peuple', and John Moorhead, 'The Laurentian Schism: East and West in the Roman Church', Church History 47 ('978), pp. 125-36. On Symmachus' construction of two episcopal palaces at the Vatican to compensate for his lack of access to the Lateran, see R. Krautheimer, St. Peters and Medieval Rome (Rome, '985), martyrum:

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Polychronius, the bishop of Jerusalem contemporary with Sixtlls, and the Gesta de Xysti purgatione produced by the Symmachan party among its forgeries. 21 Use of the gesta on the Laurentian side in turn has been the subject of an important article by Peter Llewellyn, who argued that the intertwined vitae of Pudentiana and Praxedis should be read as apologetics for the authority of the senatorial party within the Roman ecclesia,whose power base lay in the independent, and often ancient, traditions of the tituli.22 In the case of Pudentiana and Praxedis, the focus was the Titulus Praxedis on the Esquiline Hill, where Laurentius himself held office as priest before becoming a contender for the episcopacy. For Llewellyn, the references to church finance in the Acta Pudentianae et Praxedis (BHL 6988) - particularly the minutiae of how an aristocrat might establish a legacy which is water-tight against claims after his death - are intended as imparting legitimacy to the concerns of lay donors who resented the attempts of the non-Roman popes, Gelasius and Symmachus, to curtail their treatment of the local titulus as an Eigenkirche.23 This accords well with what the Liber Pontificalis allows us to learn about Symmachus' escalation of papal patronage: if he was seen as annexing to the episcopacy a role which many felt should be exercised by the laity, it is not surprising that when his detractors sought a point on which to condemn him, it was his handling of the papal treasury which they chose.24 Where the present approach differs from that of Llewellyn can be summarized as follows. While accepting that Symmachus undertook to strengthen the pope's ex officio role as an impresario of martyr cult - a point which is in fact difficult to assess, since our main source, the Liber Pontificalis, may well be coloured in its account of earlier periods by the developments of the early sixth century25 - the present study suggests this escalation of the officium of the bishop should not be understood in exclusively lay-clerical terms. Rather, both senators and clerics may have

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Beyond the scope of this atticle but meriting attention is the confused relationship between these two texts. The Sixtus of the Passio Polychronii (BHL 6884), edited by Oelehaye, is distinctly Pope Sixtus II (d. 258): his successor, Oionysius (d. 267), and the emperors Oecius and Valerian, are named within the text. But the Gesta de Xysti purgatione et de Polychronii accusatione clearly intend Polychronius as the contemporary of Sixtus III (d. 440). L1ewellyn,'The Roman Church', pp. 418ff. On the use of ecclesiasticalpatronage to forward dynastic claims, see Prinz, Fruhes Monchtum, pp. 48