So this guy introduced a bunch of radical reforms at the end of 3rd century but how effective was the Roman state in enforcing them. Did they even work outside of major cities? How would the empire try to enforce those laws in small villages, far away from main roads.
>>17433338>but how effective was the Roman state in enforcing themNot every. Constantine converted to Christianity to get the manpower and bureaucratic apparatus to make it work, but then he took the central-planning a lot farther so it ended up failing.>Did they even work outside of major cities? It didn't even work inside the major cities. You should think of the Roman Empire as a huge number of states under the trenchcoat of the Imperial Government, which is the Emperor, his generals, and his armies. >How would the empire try to enforce those laws in small villages, far away from main roads.Theoretically they'd put pressure on the local establishment and threaten the withhold aid and send in the troops. The invention of the Christian Clergy was Constantine's solution. You know how Christians HAVE to go to mass every 7 days, or they get punished? You know how they HAVE to confess to their priest, or they get punished? This is why.
The so called "reforms" had so many useless edicts like for the farmers to not migrate or sell their property that it was basically proto-serfdom. The main bureaucratic bloat came from all of these provincial administrators. The biggest problem was that the issued two systems of taxation instead of levies in order to curb the black market and to regulate prices. But all of these edicts did not fix the problem and later Rome suffered significant devaluation of money and inflation. The real question is to what extent the Romans understood the economy as being an "economy" as we understand it now, without the need for micromanagement.
