In this context the textual content of the Notitia Dignitatum was reproduced due to the artistic value derived from the physical illustrations of the document. The effort and craft for creating a written manuscript meant even written text was often beautifully crafted. They continued to be collected into and transmitted through elaborately illustrated codices that have an artistic merit as well as a literary one. The possession of books was an indication of social status and wealth amongst the Carolingian elites. In such a paradigm it is hardly unsurprising that a manuscript became as much an objet d’art as it was a literary text. In contrast to the Curiosum, the Notitia manuscripts have survived in two groups. The as we have already discussed, is represented by the Codex Spirensis. The second is the copy of the Notitia that survives as part of the 354 Codex-Calendar. The Codex Vindobonensis 3416 (from the fifteenth century) contains our oldest copy of the 354 that contained the Regionary Catalogues. It was a direct copy of the now lost 9th century Codex Luxemburgensis. It is used as our primary source for the Codex-Calendar as it was copied before the Luxemburgensis lost several pages. More importantly the Luxemburgensis was believed to a true copy of the fourth-century original. If the Luxemburgensis was indeed a true copy of the fourth-century codex-calendar, this would mean that, in contrast to the Curiosum, we possess a fourth-century copy of the Notitia through the Codex-Calendar of 354. The finished appearance of the Notitia MS is therefore easily dated by its presence in the Codex-Calendar. The Notitia has been described as odd one out as it is the only item concerned with topographical/geographical information in a Codex generally concerned with chronological information. But whilst the Notitia is certainly not a chronological list, it does fit thematically with the delivery of a “traditional” Roman
order to reassure the population of Rome (and warn them about the extent of his power) Aurelian ordered the construction of a massive 19km circuit of walls to surround the city. A redefinition of the city of Rome would have had to accompany this, not just in terms of its topography but also in terms of how the city was managed. Tactical efficacy may have been the necessary pretext for the wall, although this is subject to debate, but its construction required the topographical and administrative restructuring of the urban landscape. The Wall’s construction was therefore contemporaneous with the City’s largest programme of administrative reforms until the reign of Constantine. As a result of this, Aurelian, like Severus, made substantial changes to the annonae, the subsidised food supply of Rome. Most notably was his introduction of a free pork ration and subsidised wine. His administrative reforms also included a reform of the free bread ration from the distribution of grain to a ration of baked bread. His Temple of Sol served as one of the many gradus scattered across the city, stepped buildings from which people could collect (and observed the collection) of their portion of the annona. He also enacted a reform of the olive oil ration which was distributed from the mensae oleriae (state olive oil shops), which are listed in the appendices of the Regionary Catalogues. It cannot be over-stressed how important the food supply was to the city of Rome and how much of a concern it was to the emperors and their Urban Prefects. At the mere prospect of a grain shortage in AD 360, an angry mob marched to the Urban Prefect’s Tertullus’s house and he only narrowly avoided death by presenting his two baby sons to the mercy of the people. However the statistics and buildings concerned with food supply in the Regionary Catalogues do not make sense outside of the third-century context of Aurelian’s reforms. These reforms, whilst not novel, greatly added to the administrative
The Wall of the Temple of where the Marble Plan was hung. [Photo] Retrieved from [15/05/2016] Internet Sources: Barbara Bordalejo, ‘Genetic Criticism’, Textual Scholarship, http://www.textualscholarship.org/gencrit/index.html [10/09/2015]. Early Church Fathers – Additional Texts, tertullian.org, http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm# Curtius – A Gateway to Ancient Rome, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project, http://formaurbis.stanfor