BASTAGA´RII
BASTAGA´RII The word
bastaga (connected with
βαστάζειν) in Low Latin was applied to the duty of transport of
goods belonging either to the state or to the emperor, from one part of the
empire to another (Ducange, s. v.). The carriers were called bastagarii;
they formed a corporation, and, like most functionaries of their time, they
could not desert their special branch of duty (Cod. Theod. 10.20, 11). In an
emergency in 368 A.D. they are assigned every tenth (or fifth, according to
the Justinian Code, 11.8, 4) draught animal to supply anew their stock of
beasts of burden (Cod. Theod. 10.20, 4). From the Notitia Dignitatum
(
Occ. 11.78-85) we learn that there were four transports
a year from the East to Italy and back again (adopting Seeck's admirable
addition
Italicianae). The praepositi of such bastagae, who
belonged to the class of cohortales (Cod. Theod. 12.58, 3), had the duty of
seeing to the loading and unloading of the transports (see Böcking
ad loc. 2.365 ff.). Of the transports in
question, one praepositus superintended the unloading of the first from the
East to Italy, and the loading of the fourth from Italy to the East; another
the unloading of the second from the East to Italy, and the loading of the
third from Italy to the East, and so on. For these praepositi were stationed
in Italy, and so under the control of the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum of the
West. We also hear (
Occ. 12.28, 29) of a bastaga rei privatae
Orientalis inferioris (i. e. according to Böcking, 2.391, that
which came by the mare Inferum), and bastaga privatarum Galliarum under the
Comes rerum privatarum. (Besides Böcking and Seeck on the Notitia,
see also L. Bouchard,
Étude sur l'administration des
finances de l'Empire romain dans les derniers temps de son
existence, pp. 296-298, who, however, does not give sufficient
evidence for his statements.)
[
L.C.P]
