This kind of moral blindspot is a deep and broad problem within Christianity. St. Paul dismissed women even while working with them and failed to condemn slavery, though he baptized slaves. It has taken Christianity nearly two millennia to see through all three of these blind spots. Why do so many today condemn gays? Fear Muslims? Denigrate creation? Besides the specific content and the various ways of interpreting it, there are a few other points that shed light on Ambrose’s approach to emperors. For example, he often threatens to absent himself from the church if the emperor is present, a slight to the imperial person. The strategy of running away goes back to his first call to the episcopacy. This was not cowardice but politics. He left Milan ahead of both Maximus and Eugenius rather than seem to offer legitimacy to their usurpations, conversely he explicitly told his people that he would not leave them, even to save his own life, during the Portiana conflict.
Story # 9: Massacre at Thessaloniki It was the night before the biggest sports event of the year. Thessaloniki, like the rest of the Roman world, was as crazy about chariot racing as Americans are for NASCAR and NFL combined. We know because the graffiti is still all over Roman sites. Sure, there were other sports—every little kid had a little effigy of his favorite gladiator—but when we use the term “bread and circuses” we mean the race track. Every town of any size had their own track and every town used the same stripped down no-commercial-adds simplicity to the teams: and they did race in teams—think Cross Country. You were identified as a fan by your colors, simultaneously the names of the teams: Red, White, Green, Blue. There was gambling, drinking before hand, parties in homes and in bars…we get the scene.
Which raises another trope. As elsewhere Ambrose alludes to his willingness to take personal risk. He dares to speak out because “I would expose myself patiently, though not gladly…I would prefer you to be accepted and glorified by God without any danger to myself. But if the guilt of my silence and my dissembling inculpate me.” He goes so far as to claim—absurdly—that he is personally responsible for the attack and even dares the emperor to punish him “so as not to lose the opportunity for martyrdom.” This is drama, of course: Theodosius is unlikely to threaten a bishop of the stature, reputation, and people’s affections as Ambrose. On the other hand, Maximus has set the precedent of killing bishops and Theodosius was known for—and will soon demonstrate—a murderous temper. In the Callinicum case, as in that of the Altar of Victory, Ambrose wrote two letters, the second one as if he had not already won his point. Why go to the bother? The second letters allow him to make a more full throttle argument, to run up the score, so to speak. It is as if he wants to load the public record with a complete precedent to be employed, if necessary, later. There are also a few clues in this episode that allude to the relationship between Ambrose and Theodosius. First, it is clear (and had been even as far back ago as the mission to Maximus) that Ambrose understood Theodosius to be the premier authority, despite the young Valentinian II being emperor longer and being of the dynasty of Valentinian I. Ambrose was probably part of the consistory of this Nicaean ruler. His first appeal in this matter seems to have been in person and he seems to suggest that, had he not been absent from Milan when the order was given, he might have kept it from happening in the first place. Ambrose took great personal liberties with Theodosius not the least of which is illustrated in that utterly remarkable episode at the liturgy; he can snap at a senior officer with impunity, he plays a blinking game with the emperor himself—and wins. He forces an explicit promise, and then trusts that coerced promise. For better or worse, Theodosius believes that the bishop has a particular influence with God which he would not want to jeopardize: “will you really not listen to the man whom you would want to be heard praying on your behalf? Are you not apprehensive…that when you declare me unworthy of being heard by you, you may declare me unworthy to be heard [by God] on your behalf?”
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The “green” team on a victory lap, complete with the palm branch of victory (which will become, in Christian art, the sign of martyrdom—victory over death. Ostia Antica, Baths of the Seven Sages in the Insula of Serapis, Hadrianic.
And, as now, sports heroes were not necessarily paragons of virtue, not role models for your kids. The best known athlete in Thessaloniki had a thing for a girl, but so, as it turns out, did Butheric, the consularis. If one had star power, the other had legal power. The governor had the racer arrested and thrown in jail. Imagine this happening to the star quarterback of your team the night before the Super bowl. You are already lubricated with wine and bolstered by your rowdy friends. People took to the streets in the thousands—some say as many as 7,000. They went for the jail, they liberated their divus and when confronted by the militia, they fought back. There was blood and when the dust settled and the sun rose the governor himself was dead. Word reached Theodosius in Milan. He knew Thessaloniki well, he had lived there for at least three years and he had faced the abuse of the populace himself. The circus, in fact, was adjacent to the imperial palace complex (see Thessaloniki race track wall, page 29) (there, as in other imperial cities, this was for the convenience of making a ‘public’ appearance at the games without having to traverse the streets on gameday). Theodosius was furious at this attack on his authority: it could not be interpreted any other way. He had turned a blind eye when the citizens of Constantinople had cheered the false rumor of his defeat to 87