Patrons in command. A seigneurial attitude of late antique élites: the Cecina Deci (centuries 5th-6th AD)

Limina, Valentina
(2021) Second International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea — Location: Ibn Haldun University-Byzantine Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki (16.September.2021)

Files

Patrons_in_command_A_seigneurial_attitud.pdf
  • Open Access
  • Adobe PDF
  • 245.34 KB
Download

Details

Authors
Abstract
Since the first century AD, the Etruscan Cecina family could be considered a ‘dynasty’ of well-known generals in close relationships with emperors and often involved in conspiracies for imperial succession. Wealthy landowners, the Cecina members rely on their power to a broad network of clients and friends all over the Mediterranean world. The extraordinary survival of the family at the top rank of political and social hierarchies of the Roman Empire until the sixth century AD was due to their peculiar long-term strategies. Thanks to literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources, the paper analyzes members of the Cecina family in the fifth and sixth centuries. The goal is to show persistence in bearing military titles, even if almost purely honorific, and their control of armed bands of clients to fit private interests. The fact that eleven members of the gens, between 402 AD and 541 AD, hold the highest magistracies in the Western Roman Empire, in both civil and military domains, confirms the Cecina’s involvement in military matters such as internal security and logistics. Moreover, patronage was the base for their coercion power, while controlling armed bands of clients and relatives in Rome could have led to real wars. The paper argues that this is one of the ‘seigneurial’ features of late antique elites in the transition to Middle Ages, following the model by John Percival (Seigneurial Aspects of Late Roman estate Management, 1969), and that the Cecina case could, in part, modify the definition of ‘warlords’ and ‘landlords’ given by Wolf Liebeschuetz (Warlords and Landlords, 2007).
Affiliations
  • Università di PisaDipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere

Citations

  • APA
  • Chicago
  • FWB

Limina, V. (2021). Patrons in command. A seigneurial attitude of late antique élites: the Cecina Deci (centuries 5th-6th AD). Second International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea, Ibn Haldun University-Byzantine Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/101217