International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Jaime de Miguel López
Universidad de Alcalá, Alcala de Henares, Spain; 
[e-mail]
Exile, Prison and Physical Tortures against Pagans 
during the Reign of Emperor Zeno (474-491)
The IV century marks the beginning of the end of the traditional Roman religion. The Edict 
of Milan in first place and the Edict of Thessalonica in second, represent the definitive insertion of 
Christianity in the society and institutions of the Empire, leaving the paganism in a second place, even 
being pursued by the Roman law, that since the time of Theodosius have included strong anti-pagans 
provisions. Despite this and the political rise of the various Christological doctrines –facing each other 
for the control of the Church-, we realise that at the end of the Vth century, important redoubts of 
paganism are still remaining inside the Roman World, showing themselves especially in the most 
important knowledge centres in those moments, like the Schools of Alexandria, Athens and Syria.
Therefore, according to the testimonies of authors like the neoplatonist philosopher Damascius 
and the miaphisite Zacharias of Mytilene, would exist a relative peaceful coexistence between pagans 
and Christians during the reign of the emperor Zeno; although this, does not mean that there are 
no conflicts and turbulent times when this peaceful coexistence breaks out. One example of this 
breakdown, would be the case of the conflict with Paralius, a Christian scholar who is beaten by a 
group of pagan students from the School rolled by Horapollon in Alexandria around the year 486. 
This issue was going to promote an organized attack by the religious and imperial authority against 
the pagan community of Alexandria.
In this paper, we will study precisely these violent moments when the peaceful coexistence 
between Christians and pagans were broken, putting special attention to the punishments imposed 
to these pagans from the Imperial court of the Emperor Zeno, taking also a special care about 
the penalties of exile, imprisonment and physical tortures applied to those damned pagans. To 
do that, we will drop our attention to contemporary and secondary literary sources, the different 
epigraphical testimonies preserved and also the Roman legislative corpora. Likewise, we will try to 
set up if it would be possible to know at this time, if there was an official persecution against the 
pagan communities from the Imperial power or otherwise, to know if these attacks to the paganism 
were produced attending just to the different political, religious and social situation of that time. 
To conclude, we must indicate that this paper is included within the research lines which 
are being done by the project: Historical Contexts of Imprisonment Penalties Application in the 
Eastern Mediterranean Empire (5
th
– 7
th
centuries a. D.): Cases and Legislation (HAR2014-52744-P), 
financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

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