Forty times forty
Michael Trend
Before we all retire from Clio's court exhausted by our attentions to the stirr- lng events of 40 years ago on the beaches of '.°rInandY to historical moment which, curiously, ,,t13°k place precisely 40 times 40 years ago? Fmvve are exactly 1600 years on from the '1.111e of another of the key battles in our an- cient European civilisation — the famous debate over the Altar of Victory in Rome, a debate which resulted in the final establish- Meit of the cross as the symbol of state religi°n — a symbol which still today, at the Bayeux cemetery, is the first thing that the visitor sees. In the summer of AD 384 the pagan senator Q. Aurelius Symmachus, who then held the prestigious position of Prefect of W°he, engaged in a tremendous dispute Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. This Marked one of the most acute crises in the s_truggle between paganism and Christianity p4nd. has long been recognised as a turning- the history of the later Roman Mpire. The correspondence of the two through has come down to us in full and h r°11gh their petitions to the Imperial court we are able to see vividly this final clash of ftwo opposing world views that were to r e M our own. c, The focus for the argument between '0Yrn.m. achus and Ambrose was the physical t positioning of the celebrated Altar of Vie- t? Ywhich had been set up in the Senate use in Rome by Augustus after the battle uhta Actium. By the fourth century the altar reid. . become a central symbol in the Iglous struggle between the followers of the traditional pagan cults and the believers tif the Christin religion. In 382 the Chris- al4t11 EEmperora Gratian had removed the
er from the Senate House on the grounds of its association with the pagan cults. He also effectively disestablished and disen- dowed official state paganism by cutting off the subsidies hitherto paid out for sacrifices and ceremonies and ending the financial support of the Vestal Virgins and pagan priests. Symmachus's attempt to have the altar replaced in its original position was the outward sign of his desire to restore both the symbolic and the real ties and associa- tions between the state and the pagan forms of state religion. And behind Symmachus there was a sizeable class of wealthy and powerful men who, in the early months of 384, were enjoying something of a political comeback.
Symmachus wrote a magnificent petition to the new Emperor Valentinian, basing his arguments on his view of the history of Rome. He believed that the altar acted as a focal point holding the Roman people together; it was a place where oaths of loyalty could be consecrated. The altar and the institutions and ceremonies of the Roman state religion were, Symmachus 'I do hope Mr Scargill doesn't end up shooting himself in a coal bunker.' argued — and some later historians have shared this view — central to the Roman state. He knew, however, that the point where the spread of Christianity could be reversed had long passed — the failure of the attempts of the pagan Emperor Julian (who died in 363) to turn the Roman Em- pire back to its traditional cultic forms showed this most clearly. Symmachus, therefore, following the line that the best form of attack was defence, made a strong plea for tolerance. 'Everyone has his own customs, everyone his own rites', he observ- ed, in declaring: And so we ask for peace for the gods of our fathers, for the gods of our native land. It is reasonable that whatever each of us worships is really to be considered one and the same. We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe compasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue alone can we arrive at so tremen- dous a secret.
But Ambrose was not a man in a mood for tolerance. He was aware of the power of Symmachus's elegant and forceful literary style and he knew that the matter his peti- tion contained was of great importance. Ambrose hit back hard. Before he had even seen a copy of the petition he wrote to the 13-year-old Valentianian threatening him with excommunication if he yielded to the pagan cause: 'Nothing is more important than religion, nothing is of higher moment than the faith .. . You cannot serve two masters.' On receiving a copy of Sym- machus's words the bishop wrote again to the royal court attacking and trying to ridicule his opponent's points. The view of history that Ambrose and other fathers of the Church were developing — essentially that history was the revelation of God's purpose — was utterly opposed to that of Symmachus and his friends. Ambrose was looking forward into the centuries to come, utterly convinced of the immediate need for a final victory over the pagan cause. Sixteen hundred years ago this battle for the soul of the European continent was decided when the Emperor came firmly down on Am- brose's side. Two views of history, two visions of the future met for the last time: they were irreconcilable at a formal state level and one had to give way to the other. Symmachus and his party were finally isolated in 384 and in a short while they ceased to have any real importance.
Every generation is tempted to look back to the declining years of the Roman Empire to seek comparisons with its own times, and we should be wary of making too much of this great event of the fourth century. But there is perhaps one gentle irony here: for it is the victors of this debate in antiquity, the churchmen themselves, who increasingly find themselves isolated from the rest of the world today. They may try to take some comfort with Symmachus who, arguing his own cause, wrote that 'the love of establish- ment practice is a powerful sentiment'. But it did not work for him.
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