SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE IN LATE ANTIQUITY

LATE ANTIQUE
ARCHAEOLOGY
Editorial Board
SERIES EDITOR
LUKE LAVAN
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Albrecht Berger
Averil Cameron
Beatrice Caseau
James Crow
Simon Ellis
Sauro Gelichi
Lale zgenel
Jean-Pierre Sodini
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Enrico Zanini
VOLUME 3.1 2005
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE
IN LATE ANTIQUITY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM BOWDEN
ADAM GUTTERIDGE
and
CARLOS MACHADO
CONCEIVED AND CO-ORDINATED BY
LUKE LAVAN
LEIDEN

BOSTON
2006
Cover illustration: Interior visualisation of the Alacami. The mosaic tabula ansafa bearing the dedi-
catory inscription is visible in the south side.
Brill has done its best to establish rights to use of the materials printed herein. Should any other
party feel that its rights have been infringed we would be glad to take up contact with them.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Social and political life in late Antiquity / edited by William Bowden, Adam Gutteridge, and
Carlos Machado ; conceived and co-ordinated by Luke Lavan.
p. cm. (Late antique archaeology, ISSN 1570-6893 ; v. 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-90-04-14414-9
ISBN-10: 90-04-14414-5 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Social historyTo 500. 2. Social changePolitical aspectsHistoryTo 1500. 3.
Power (Social sciences)HistoryTo 1500. 4. Social classesHistoryTo 1500. 5. Social
archaeology. 6. Archaeology and history. I. Bowden, William. II. Gutteridge, Adam. III.
Machado, Carlos. IV. Title. V. Series.
HN9.S62 2006
937dc22
2006051692
ISSN 1570-6893
ISBN-10: 90 04 14414 5
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 14414 9
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ...................................................................... ix
List of contributors .................................................................... xi
Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity: an Introduction .... xv
Adam Gutteridge and Carlos Machado
Binrioon.rnic Ess.vs
Political Life in Late Antiquity: a Bibliographic Essay .......... 3
Luke Lavan
Social Life in Late Antiquity: a Bibliographic Essay .............. 41
Lukas Schachner
Tnr Rov.x S+.+r: Fnov Irrx+i+v +o Poricv
Constructing Roman Identities in Late Antiquity?
Material Culture on the Western Frontier .......................... 97
Ellen Swift
Coins and Politics in the Late Roman World ........................ 113
Richard Reece
Tnr Evrrnon .xr nis Moxtvrx+s
Civil War and Public Dissent: the State Monuments of
the Decentralised Roman Empire ........................................ 141
Emanuel Mayer
Building the Past: Monuments and Memory in the
Forum Romanum .................................................................. 157
Carlos Machado
Tnr Ci+v: Soci.r .xr Pori+ic.r Cn.xor
Fora and Agorai in Mediterranean Cities during the
4th and 5th c. A.D. .............................................................. 195
Luke Lavan
The Control of Public Space and the Transformation of an
Early Medieval town: a Re-examination of the Case of
Brescia .................................................................................... 251
Gian Pietro Brogiolo
Cntncnrs .xr Povrn
Architecture and Power: Churches in Northern Italy from
the 4th to the 6th c. .............................................................. 287
Gisella Cantino Wataghin
Dark Age Rome: Towards an Interactive Topography ........ 311
Kate Cooper, Julia Hilner and Conrad Leyser
A New Temple for Byzantium: Anicia Juliana,
King Solomon and the gilded ceiling in the Church of
St Polyeuktos in Constantinople .......................................... 339
Jonathan Bardill
Tnr Mirrrr Cr.ss
Artisans and Traders in the Early Byzantine City:
Exploring the Limits of Archaeological Evidence .............. 373
Enrico Zanini
Middle Class Houses in Late Antiquity .................................. 413
Simon Ellis
vi cox+rx+s
Tnr Poon ix Trx+s
Constructed and Consumed: Everyday Life of the Poor
in 4th c. Cappadocia ............................................................ 441
Susan Holman
Poverty and Society in the World of John Chrysostom ........ 465
Wendy Mayer
Tnr Poon .xr Ancn.roroov
The Urban Poor: Finding the Marginalised ............................ 487
Steve Roskams
Rural Impoverishment in Northern Gaul at the End of
Antiquity: the Contribution of Archaeology ........................ 533
Paul Van Ossel
Socio-Ctr+tn.r Cn.xor
Some Aspects of Social and Cultural Time
in Late Antiquity .................................................................... 569
Adam Gutteridge
Social Transformation in the 6th9th c. East ........................ 603
John Haldon
Index .......................................................................................... 649
cox+rx+s vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank all contributors to both this volume and the
two conferences, as well as all those who helped organise and sub-
sidise both events. Bryan Ward-Perkins was joint convenor at Oxford
and advisory editor for this volume. Yuri Marano organised the ses-
sion in Padova, thanks to the generosity of Gian Pietro Brogiolo.
The Craven Fund Committee, the Oxford Byzantine Studies Commit-
tee, the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and the British
Academy provided generous grants towards the cost of the Oxford
meeting. At Oxford, Lukas Schachners organisation was outstand-
ing. Finally, our thanks go to Julian Deahl for agreeing to publish
these papers and to him, Marcella Mulder, Gera van Bedaf and
others at Brill for their work on this manuscript.
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Jox.+n.x B.nrirr researches in Roman and Byzantine archaeology.
He has held fellowships at the Institute of Archaeology and Linacre
College, Oxford, at Dumbarton Oaks, and at Newcastle upon Tyne.
He has a particular interest in the archaeology of Istanbul, and explores
the history and chronology of many of that citys late antique build-
ings in Brickstamps of Constantinople (2004).
Wirri.v Bovrrx is Lecturer in Roman Archaeology at the University
of Nottingham. He specialises in the archaeology of Roman and late
antique Greece and Albania. Recent publications include Epirus Vetus:
the Archaeology of a Late Antique Province (2003) and Byzantine Butrint:
Excavations and Surveys 19941999 (2004 with R. Hodges and K. Lako).
Gi.x Pir+no Bnooioro is Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the
University of Padua. He specialises in late antique to Early Medieval
settlement (the countryside, castra, churches and towns). His recent
publications include Aristocrazia e campagne nellOccidente europeo (IVVIII
secolo), (forthcoming with A. Chavarria).
Gisrrr. C.x+ixo W.+.onix teaches Christian Archaeology at the
University of Eastern Piedmont at Vercelli. She has written numer-
ous studies on late antique cities, particularly those of northern Italy.
Her recent publications have dealt with Christian topography includ-
ing Christian topography in the late antique town: recent results
and open questions Late Antique Archaeology 1 (2003) and The ide-
ology of urban burials in The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (1999).
Sivox Erris gained his doctorate from Lincoln College Oxford, on
late antique urban housing in 1984, and published Roman Housing in
2000. He directed excavations at Carthage from 1977 to 1988. From
1989 to 2001 he worked in UK local government. In 2001 he joined
the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. He is responsible for global sta-
tistics on Education, Science and Technology, Communications and
Culture including a recent initiative on archaeological sites in the
World Heritage list.
Ar.v Gt++rniror is the Artemis A. W. & Martha Joukowsky Post-
doctoral Fellow at the Pembroke Center, Brown University. His PhD
(Cambridge, 2005) considered perceptions of time and temporality
in late antique culture.
Jonx H.rrox is Professor of Byzantine History at Princeton University.
His research focuses on the history of the early and middle Byzantine
empire, in particular in the period from the 7th to the 11th cen-
turies, on state systems and structures across the European and Islamic
worlds from late ancient to early modern times and on the pro-
duction, distribution and consumption of resources in the late and
post-Roman world, especially in the context of warfare.
Sts.x R. Horv.x is an independent scholar in Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts, currently supported by the Project on Lived Theology at
the University of Virginia. Her research interests include social issues
in the sermons of Basil of Caesarea, and the role of religion in
responses to poverty, hunger, and health care in late antiquity. Her
publications include The Hungry are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman
Cappadocia (2001).
Ltkr L.\.x is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow of the Katholieke
Universiteit, Leuven, working for the Sagalassos Archaeological Project.
His doctorate (2001) considered Provincial Capitals in Late Antiquity.
He has edited conference volumes on late antique urbanism, the
countryside and historical methodology, and is series editor of Late
Antique Archaeology.
C.nros M.cn.ro is a doctoral student in Ancient History, Linacre
College at Oxford University, funded by the Brazilian Ministry of
Science (CNPQ). He is working on the political use of space in late
antique Rome, and the appropriation of urban space by the sena-
torial aristocracy. He has been awarded a scholarship by the British
School at Rome for the year 2006, to start a project on the dedi-
cation of honoric statues in late antique Italy and North Africa.
Ev.xtrr M.vrn is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics
at the University of Chicago. He specialises in the visual cultures of
the Roman empire with a strong emphasis on political iconography.
His PhD thesis on late antique state monuments was published under
xii ris+ or cox+nint+ons
the title Rom ist dort wo der Kaiser ist. Untersuchungen zu den Staatsdenklern
des dezentralisierten Reiches (2002).
Wrxrv M.vrn is Deputy Director and QEII Research Fellow in
the Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University.
She specialises in the social history of Late Antiquity, with a par-
ticular interest in the data contained in the writings of John Chrysostom.
In 2005, together with two colleagues, she was awarded a major
grant by the Australian Research Council to examine poverty and
welfare in the late antique period.
Ricn.nr Rrrcr retired as Reader from the Institute of Archaeology,
UCL, in 1999 where he had spent 30 years teaching courses on
Roman coins, the later empire, and Roman Britain. Outside Britain
his main interests have always been in coins from sites throughout
the empire and the transition from Roman to Romanesque.
S+r\r Rosk.vs is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University
of York. He is interested in all aspects of urban archaeology, both
theoretical and practical. The former employ Marxist perspectives
to understand Roman to Medieval transitions, such as in The poverty
of empiricism and the tyranny of theory in U Albarella (ed.) Environ-
mental Archaeology: Meaning and Purpose (2001), with Tom Saunders; the
latter develop techniques for interpreting complex urban sequences,
as in Teoria y Practica de la Excavacion (2003).
Ltk.s Scn.cnxrn is post-doctoral resarch assistant at St. Johns
College Research Centre, Oxford, UK. He specialises in monasti-
cism, religious topography and economic issues in Oriens and Egypt dur-
ing Late Antiquity and the period of early Islam. Recent publications
include Wine-production in the early monasteries of Egypt and the
Levant, in ARAM 17 (2005); Natron sources in antiquity and their
use in glass production (with A. Shortland, I. Freestone, M. Tite),
The Journal of Archaeological Science (forthcoming).
Errrx Svir+ is Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Kent.
She specialises in dress accessories and the late and post-Roman
transition in the West and is currently working on a project on
Roman decorative art, including mosaics, vessels, and dress acces-
sories. Recent publications include Late Roman bead necklaces and
ris+ or cox+nint+ons xiii
bracelets, in Journal of Roman Archaeology 16 (2003) and Dress acces-
sories, culture and identity in the late Roman period in Antiquit
Tardive 12 (2004).
P.tr V.x Ossrr is Professor at the University of Paris X Nanterre
where he teaches Gallo-Roman archaeology. His work focuses on
Gaul, particularly on landscape, economy and society during Late
Antiquity. He is director of the journal Gallia and his published works
including Etablissements ruraux de lAntiquit tardive dans le nord de la Gaule
(1992) and Champion, Hamois: une villa romaine chez les Condruses (2001).
Exnico Z.xixi is Senior Lecturer in Methodology of Archaeological
Research at the University of Siena. His research interests are focused
on Byzantine Archaeology in Italy and the Mediterranean basin,
involving excavations in the Byzantine Quarter of Gortyn, Crete.
Recent publications include: The urban ideal and urban planning
in Byzantine new cities of the sixth century A.D. Late Antique Archaeology
1 (2003); and Indagini archeologiche nellarea del quartiere bizan-
tino di Gortina: prima/terza relazione preliminare ASAtene (2002
2004).
xiv ris+ or cox+nint+ons
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE IN LATE ANTIQUITY:
AN INTRODUCTION
Adam Gutteridge and Carlos Machado
Soci.r .xr Pori+ic.r Lirr
Politics and Political Life in Late Antiquity
In general, the study of political life ought to encompass the nature
of the states institutions and their intrusions into, and eect on, the
lives of individuals, but it is a realm of research that is not without
signicant problems. One need only think of the volleys of contem-
porary polemic and accusation that ll our own daily textual sources
and their competing claims for the truth behind any and all politi-
cal situations, in order to appreciate the complexities involved with
assessing comparable institutions centuries dead. A true assessment
of political life must address not only political structures with their
own demands and actions, but the ways in which individuals and
social groups created, maintained, and interacted with such institu-
tions; the myriad dierent implications of the term political seem
themselves to thwart such endeavour by the sheer scale of the task.
Despite this, assessments of the later Roman state and its descen-
dants (whether clamouring heirs or inadvertent assassins, and often
both together) have been at the very forefront of research into the
period, and the political dimension of this world remains a focus of
continuing study.
Much of the energy of 19th and early 20th c. historians was
invested into mapping the very specic political geometry of the later
Roman state; to most of them political history represented not merely
the apex of scholarly endeavour, but rather its totality. From this
perspective, the congruence between history and politics was in no
way problematic, and the historical narratives constructed were thus
almost wholly focused on the fortunes and follies of the state and
those men responsible for its welfare. Ultimately, this exclusionary
focus on the central role of political institutions began to change
during the rst half of the 20th c. as the historical gaze opened up
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. xv

xxx
to embrace social, economic, and religious aspects of the period, but
the weight that these early enquiries placed upon the state and its
fate in the 4th and 5th c. is a legacy that yet remains with us today.
A. H. M. Joness Later Roman Empire remains the most enduring
and inuential investigation into the political, administrative, and
scal machinery of the Late Roman state.
1
Jones was himself react-
ing against an already existent model of the political system of the
age, one that characterised it as The Dominate, an interpretation
which had been reached through a largely uncritical reading of con-
temporary legal sources. The Dominate was seen as a society con-
trolled by a monolithic and totalitarian state, and thus its existence
was viewed as the adverse transformation of the idealised enlight-
ened monarchy that had characterised the early empire. Through
the deployment of a broad range of evidence and a determination
to produce an all-encompassing study of the era with a wide the-
matic scope, Jones was able to introduce nuance to this picture. His
conclusions and preoccupations are by now very familiar to scholars
of the Late Roman state and administration, although none have
remained undisputed: the rise of an institutional clergy as a pivotal
factor in the decline of comparable civic bodies; the states manip-
ulation of hereditary obligations (alongside rising taxation) as body
blows to the traditional class of senatorial aristocrats. Jones also
touched on the importance of friendship, patronage, and wealth as
grease in the cogs of government, although he regarded this situation
with some antipathy and viewed its existence as a systemic failure
of the administration rather than the normative means by which it
operated. Ultimately, although Jones brought about the realisation
that The Dominate was substantially more socially and adminis-
tratively sophisticated than had hitherto been imagined, his own
replacement image cast the state in no less a negative light. Although
this image continues to persist today, it is clear that some recent
strands of scholarship are seeking to depict the state machinery of
Late Roman governance without recourse to judgemental or moral-
istic disapproval.
2
1
Jones (1964).
2
Perhaps the most signicant is the reappraisal of corruption in the Late Roman
state oered by Kelly (2004) 13885. In this interpretation, what we identify as
corruption is less a cancerous symptom of a chaotic despotate, but more a logically
ecient means of getting things done.
xvi .r.v ot++rniror .xr c.nros v.cn.ro
Thus, many of the previous attempts to describe and understand
the means by which political life operated during the period have
been almost wholly the preserve of historians, dependant on textual
sources for their reconstructions of the political topography of the
time. In the context of this book, it is protable for us to ask in
what way archaeological evidence might add to the store of our
knowledge about political life in Late Antiquity. There are obvious
moments at which material culture avails us of specic vantage points
from which to view the political process actively at work in the lives
of people in the past and which are not accessible through textual
sources alone. Much of what (at least traditionally) is taken to be
archetypal archaeological evidence can be construed as the political
realm made materially manifest; such a reading can be applied to
coinage, monumental epigraphy, honoric statuary, public architec-
ture, and even the ancient urban landscape in toto.
3
It has come to
be realised, however, that such straightforward transliterations of
signicance are not without complexities of meaning and context,
and that the nature of political lifebased as it is on iconography,
power, persuasion, and propagandameans that its appearance in
the material world is likely to involve manipulation, thus making
interpretation treacherous. Indeed, since at least the 1930s, studies
have approached material articulations of political machinations with
an awareness of the role that propagandised iconographies of power
play in the domain of political life.
4
Although theoretical and method-
ological approaches to the political arena have changed signicantly
in subsequent decades, one concern has remained a constant: the
study of both monuments and images as a means of communicat-
ing political concepts and ideologies. Perhaps the most inuential
study of this type was P. Zankers work on Augustan Rome,
5
a book
that has had a lasting impact on late antique studies.
6
This interest
3
For this latter, see the articles collected in Ripoll and Gurt (2000), and specically
for the East, Ward-Perkins (2000).
4
A good example is LOrange (1938); also important, although not directly
concerned with Late Antiquity, was Alfldy (1935) and his study of political
iconography.
5
Zanker (1988).
6
Bauer (1996); Borg and Witschel (2001); Niquet (2000). All of these works
display concern for propaganda and self-representation, and deploy various dier-
ent genres of evidence such as epigraphy, monumental architecture, and imperial
portraiture.
soci.r .xr rori+ic.r rirr: .x ix+nortc+iox xvii
is more than understandable; it is in fact of marked relevance to the
world of Late Antiquity, a time in which outsize rhetoric appears to
have played an increasingly important role in political life.
Yet, there are some drawbacks to an exclusionary focus on just
this one aspect of political life during the period. Late Antiquity was
a time that was marked by important political changes that were of
enduring consequence. To limit the study of politics to a review of
the ways in which power was expressed or communicated to wider
sections of society is to reduce political life to its symbols and rep-
resentations. The way in which political institutions and behaviours
were perceived and conceptualised by late antique women and men
is not necessarily the way in which the political process actually took
place (although it is a fundamental part of it). There is a distinction
between practices, institutions, and symbols, even if it is a purely
heuristic or analytical one. The study of processes of propaganda
and self-representation by those who held political power is part of
the study of how a political order was made legitimate, but it is still
important to investigate what this political order was and how it
operated. Thus, archaeology might, via the study of ceramic distri-
bution patterns, permit us to reconstruct some of the ways in which
the annona actually operated, and the nature of the role taken by the
state in the periods political economy. The issue, of course, is not
to exchange one approach for the other, but the means by which
to combine them.
Taking material remains (whether coins, public and private build-
ings, or monumental architecture) as the expression, instrument, and
arena for political life is at the core of what political archaeology
should be. This does not mean advocating a division of late antique
life into distinct and exclusive sections, but rather adopting an approach
that makes politicsin the sense discussed aboveat the forefront
of its preoccupations. This political archaeology is an integral part
of late antique archaeology, although guided by specic interests and
goals. These might be an interest in the working of the late antique
government and state, and the institutions and policies through which
their presence was made manifest in society, and further, the rela-
tions between these institutions elements and other (sometimes com-
peting) political agents in the late antique world.
A recent call for a return to more institutionalised aspects of the
late antique past has explicitly put the state at the centre of its pre-
xviii .r.v ot++rniror .xr c.nros v.cn.ro
occupations.
7
The very Leviathanic nature of the state and its per-
vasive reach through all aspects of life has meant that it is not sur-
prisingly ill-suited to the recent turn towards micro-history taken by
late antique studies. As the study of Late Antiquity has gradually
moved towards niche-enquiries of very particular contexts and iden-
tities, subjects (such as the state) that require a fully synthetic treat-
ment in order to be most comprehensively understood have somewhat
fallen by the wayside. To abandon fully-integrated pictures of soci-
ety as a whole, including its political dimension, seems unwise,
although the exponential proliferation of scholarship in all areas of
Late Antiquity has made true synthesis an almost impossibly large
task. Yet it remains clearly vital that we nd feasible ways to study
the political arena of the late antique world, for without this aspect
we run the risk of producing a distorted and inaccurate picture of
the landscape as a whole.
Depending on how the period itself is dened chronologically, a
study of the state as an institution would include the changing status
of Roman forms of governance and rule: their disintegration in the
West (alongside the development of new polities), their adaptation
in the Early Byzantine East, and the emergence of a new Islamic
power.
8
The state was an integral part of the life of many sections
of late antique societycollecting taxes, attempting to provide social
and military security, framing and articulating social codes of behav-
iour through legislationand the implementation of these integral
aspects of life during the period should be considered alongside assess-
ments of its symbolic and iconographical intrusions into the minds
of its subjects. One potential way of addressing these problems may
be to focus on certain social loci, such as patronage, in which aspects
7
Giardina (1999) 174; the dismissal of the late antique state was noted by Peter
Brown himself, in Brown (1997) 24. It might be (mischievously) suggested that the
study of Roman administration now only continues to have high prestige in those
European countries which still themselves possess condent legions of public func-
tionaries and massed ranks of civil servants. Conversely, in those countries where
the states bureaucrats are a diminishing tribe viewed with suspicion and a certain
amount of doubt as to their public worth, there is an enhanced awareness of the
limits of political and administrative power, and thus a concomitant lack of inter-
est in pursuing this dimension of the past.
8
See Fowden (1993) for an assessment of the latter two aspects which eectively
combines social and political change during the period.
soci.r .xr rori+ic.r rirr: .x ix+nortc+iox xix
of the state interact with the individual; in this way, facets of the
general political system might be discerned through a specic situa-
tion, grounded in a particular social context.
The proposition that, in order for the political realm of the Roman
empire to be most fully understood it must be situated in its con-
temporary social context is a long-established and persuasive tenet
of scholarship. Even the most supercial encounter with the world
of Late Antiquity demonstrates that whilst the political landscape
itself was changing from the time of Diocletian onwards, the most
protable lens through which to study these changes is as a facet of
the wider transformations in social relations. From the study of the
familia caesaris, to the nature and layouts of praetoria and palaces, to
the quotidian business of judicial and scal machinery, it is evident
that the rhythms of everyday social life aected the organisation of
Late Roman politics and administration. The active cogs and wheels
of politics, in both the public and private spheres, were driven and
mediated by social networks and personal relationships such as patron-
age or friendship, both of which clearly span the articial divide
between the social and the political. A. H. M. Jones evidently
believedand this belief was shared by Rostovtzev and de Ste Croix
that to study social or economic structures in the past, one must
approach the issue with as holistic a scope as possible. That is to
say, there simply cannot be such a thing as the study of the political
landscape of Late Antiquity, divorced of its social context; nor, for
that matter, it is appropriate to study social identities and relation-
ships without grasping the diverse ways in which the multifaceted
political system impacted upon daily life. These are aspects of soci-
ety that we nd embedded within each other, and issues that can
be addressed through both textual and material evidence: through
the combination of the archaeological and literary sources we will
be able to go beyond a mere constitutional understanding of the
Late Roman and Early Byzantine state.
9
This is not to deny the
importance of the fundamental role played by political institutions
during the period, but rather to suggest ways of examining all insti-
tutional bodies, from the machinery of the state to municipal govern-
ment, in order to see them active in society.
9
See, for a recent example of the possibilities, Brandes and Haldon (2000).
xx .r.v ot++rniror .xr c.nros v.cn.ro
We might expect such a holistic understanding of political life to
embrace both the state and its individuals, and address political life
in its fullest breadth. The building of a new capital, for example,
might be conceived not merely as a matter of the expenditure of
state funds, but also as an event with a signicant impact on the
day-to-day practical lives of inhabitants, from the emperor and his
court, through the local lites, down to merchants, builders, and beg-
gars. Monumental building on any scale elucidates political rela-
tionships, from lapidary pronouncements to new urban landscapes:
the product of a socio-political dynamic which involved negotiation,
acceptance, and also resistance. Honoric monuments do not tell the
entire story, however: the existence of the state and the needs of its
administration also required physical structures, such as basilicas,
horrea, and palaces. When combined with the analysis of other such
archaeologically-visible aspects of political life, like the habit of ded-
icating statues, it might allow us to have an insight into both the
reality of politics, and the ways in which it was perceived in con-
temporary society.
10
Such work can be placed alongside analyses of
other civic political spaces, such as agorai, fora, and comparable struc-
tures that were considered to be integral parts of the urban experi-
ence such as theatres and circuses, for a more complete integration
between space and practice in the political realm.
Such an approach allows us to consider questions of social decline
in the agenda of late antique studies. The decreasing number of
inscriptions and statues being erected, alongside the decay and aban-
donment of certain physical structures used in political life, point not
only to supercial or aesthetic transformations, but also to more qual-
itative problems: they are evidence for the development of new polit-
ical organisations, working in dierent ways, and aligned toward
dierent priorities. The archaeology of houses, and considerations of
their architecture and decoration, for example, might be a way of
analysing the transformation of the ruling classes in this period,
despite all of the diculties associated with their identication.
11
Such
an approach might also illustrate that, at the most fundamental level
of late antique society, the polar opposition between individual and
10
As Smith (2002) shows from the analysis of the statue of a provincial gover-
nor and its context.
11
As noted in the contributions to Salzman and Rapp (2001).
soci.r .xr rori+ic.r rirr: .x ix+nortc+iox xxi
institutional is an articial one, and in doing so shows us a way to
study politics and society together.
Social Life and Social Archaeology
A determinedly broad denition might characterise social archaeol-
ogy as that which concerns itself with attempts to reconstruct social
practices and identities in the past, in order to provide a wider con-
text for the material culture that we excavate. Thus, it studies soci-
ety in the past, and the networks of diverse relationships, structures,
groups, and individuals, of which it is composed. With this ratio-
nale, all archaeology that operates at a level beyond unembellished
antiquarianism (the collection and display of ancient objects qua
ancient objects) is social archaeology, because it considers and exam-
ines something of that context in which material culture was both
created and understood: society. Inside such an ecumenical denition,
any exploration of the circumstance of a pots production, use, or
meaning is social archaeology, as it aims to reconstruct something
of the social setting of material culture. Over the last two decades,
however, the term social archaeology has been used in the eld of
archaeological theory to describe something more specic: a method-
ology or investigative framework that is driven by a desire to describe
and understand social life and social identity in the past, and the
ways in which such contextual identities are linked to material cul-
ture.
12
In this sense, the concept of social identity includes (but is
not limited to) questions of religious aliation, gender, age, ethnic-
ity, and social status, rank, or power.
Although a social archaeology that investigates these issues is liable
to concentrate upon the nature of both individual and group iden-
tity, the greater visibility of the corporate in the archaeological record
in toto, means that emphasis will most likely fall on the latter. The
investigation of social relationships is also of primary concern,
13
and
especially those interpersonal relationships that underpin much broader
12
For a comprehensive overview, see Meskell and Preucell (2004). An important
example of this type of approach applied in practice to archaeological evidence is
Meskell (1999). For an overview of questions surrounding identity in the study of
Late Antiquity, see Miles (1999).
13
Mathisen (2003) presents a corpus of textual sources dealing with social rela-
tionships in Late Antiquity.
xxii .r.v ot++rniror .xr c.nros v.cn.ro
networks of the political and economic realms, such as patron-
age/clientage and economic exchange.
14
Yet this particular inves-
tigative emphasis must be seen in the widest terms: social relationships
do not merely occur between people and other people, but they also
occur between people and things, people and space/place, and also
between people and their wider social horizons (understandings of
the past, present, and future, of birth and death). The material world
articulates these relationships, as it acts as a forum through which
such relationships are expressed, but it also is an active force that
itself creates identities. The ultimate goal of any attempt to recon-
struct social life in the past must be to imagine the society as it was
experienced by real people, in so far as is possible, and so to make
our narratives of the late antique past as fully human as we pos-
sibly can. In this particular context, archaeological studies of mate-
rial culture can have an enduring impact on the ways we understand
and appreciate the nature of social life during Late Antiquity, and
through detailed examinations of domestic contexts, for example, it
becomes possible to access a social realm largely ignored by textual
sources.
15
The Social World of Late Antiquity
Descriptions of the world of Late Antiquity as a living breathing
society peopled by individuals owe a substantial debt to the work of
Peter Brown: his seminal works are synthetic portraits of cultural
world, and are explicitly concerned with social relationships.
16
One
of the hallmarks of the late antique social history pioneered by Brown
has been a shift in the kinds of sources used by scholars to provide
material for their work. In general over the last forty years, there
has been a move away from a reliance on political and ecclesiasti-
cal narrative histories, towards an increasing exploitation of more
personal texts, especially hagiographic or epistolatory sources. Prior
to this, such texts had remained largely in the domain of church
14
See Theuws (2003) for a recent plea to view networks of economic exchange
in the Early Medieval world inside their social contexts, and not as isolated and
discrete relationships of trade alone.
15
See in particular the companion volume to this: Lavan, Ozgenel and Sarantis
(Forthcoming).
16
Most especially Brown (1971); Brown (1987).
soci.r .xr rori+ic.r rirr: .x ix+nortc+iox xxiii
historians, but their gradual movement into the mainstream of his-
torical material has meant that scholars nd themselves increasingly
able to illuminate aspects of personal identity and social landscapes.
By making individuals seem more alive and crafting a more com-
plete image of their social world, they can be depicted as conscious
social agents who make wilful choices rather than faceless pawns
bueted by the tides of history.
In studies of the material culture of Late Antiquity there have
been some comparable moves towards the study of individual iden-
tity and social relations through objects and assemblages that are
more personal than monumental.
17
Indeed, the period would seem
especially suitable for such an approach, as archaeologists have long
charted the decline in the monumentality of the Roman empire from
the 3rd c. onwards. Thus, much of the evidence that archaeologists
of this period have at their command clearly belongs rmly in the
realm of the personal: pottery, household objects, and graves (the
most personal space of all). The ubiquity of such seemingly mundane
evidence for late antique society can be turned to our advantage, as
it has the potential to provide a more rounded image of the social
life of the everyday. In addition, recent work has moved towards
tracing social action and social identity in the more traditional aspects
of monumental archaeology, including urban topography
18
and epig-
raphy.
19
In totality, if we are to construct a picture of the late antique
world which is as concerned with individuals as it is with the wider
social structures and apparatuses then it will be necessary to mar-
shal personal material culture, as well as attempting to see indi-
viduals in more collective settings.
Any individual is likely to have a wide variety of social identities
and participate in numerous social groups and networks simultaneously.
These abstract concepts will always be constructed and mediated
through the material world, and as such we can work towards under-
standing and reconstructing this wider world through archaeologically-
visible remains. Many of the essays in this volume concentrate upon
social life as it is linked to power and status in Late Antiquity, espe-
17
Maguire, Maguire and Duncan-Flowers (1989). For a useful examination of
approaches and issues dealing with personal (and domestic) space in the Roman
world, see Allison (2001).
18
Lavan (2003b).
19
Handley (2003).
xxiv .r.v ot++rniror .xr c.nros v.cn.ro
cially in relation to participation within economic networks. In these
examples, dierential access to monetary wealth dened identities
that range from the elite echelons through to the (almost archaeo-
logically-invisible) poor. Whilst these kinds of identities clearly remain
central to our understandings of social relationships throughout the
period, Late Antiquity was also a period when social power could
diverge radically from physical wealth, to the extent that those who
fully abandoned the latter in order that they might live atop columns
in the desert were consulted by emperors on matters of state policy.
Thus, although this volume largely focuses on social identities pred-
icated by disparate economic power, a future social archaeology of
Late Antiquity must encompass the ways in which material culture
denes and creates other social relationships and identities. Current
approaches in late antique studies in general have stressed the ways
in which both gender and ethnic identities are social and cultural
constructs, and, indeed, were undergoing rapid and wide-ranging
changes in the post-Roman, early Christian centuries. If these issues
are to be fully investigated through material culture such as mortuary
evidence, it will remain vital that archaeologists maintain an interest
not only in current theological debates about changing aspects of
gender,
20
but also in the ever-developing eld of ethnogenic history.
21
Perhaps, given our current predilection for a continuist paradigm,
one of the most appealing aspects of a social archaeology of Late
Antiquity is that it almost wholly negates the concept of decline. If
we study the society of West and East between the 4th and 7th c.,
we will nd that it changed in a multiplicity of ways, yet all soci-
eties change, and they do so constantly. If we study the fates of
political institutions or nations states, they can be seen to have both
beginnings and ends, however indistinct; societies, on the other hand,
only develop, evolve, and change, and they do so (largely) free of
value-judgements concerning their qualities. Whilst specic personal
or group identities may lapse and fall out of social currency (as
paganism largely did over the course of three or four centuries dur-
ing Late Antiquity), the continued existence of any such social iden-
tities in general (and their concurrent webs of relationships) is constant.
This is to say that, in contrast to the unravelling of complex political
20
Recent summaries by Clark (2000); Smith (2000).
21
Gillett (2002).
soci.r .xr rori+ic.r rirr: .x ix+nortc+iox xxv
institutions in the period, the universal fabric of social interaction
remained intact, even if the specic nature of the identities and rela-
tionships was open to substantial ux. Similarly, whilst our investi-
gations of social life will never be wholly free from the hegemony
of periodisation,
22
a social archaeology of Late Antiquity will always
stress change rather than decline because of its central focus on peo-
ple rather than institutions; as such, its most valuable benet is that
it actually helps us explore what continuity really means, rather
than simply assuming or denying its existence.
Soci.r Vrnsts Pori+ic.r?
At rst sight, it may appear that a dichotomy can be drawn between
aspects of the social and the political in any study of the past. The
former is most likely to centre upon individuals and their interac-
tions with each other, whilst the latter might be viewed as the study
of institutions and their political relations. One recent trend in Late
Antiquitys nascent self-aware historiography has been to polarise
these two approaches, so that they exist as discrete and contradic-
tory poles of our investigational capacity, in which one is often seen
to dominate at the total exclusion of the other. As the pendulum
of our corporate interest has recently swung toward a variety of
elds that t broadly under the rubric of the social rather than the
political (identity rather than administration, personal rather than
institutional histories, and microhistory not metanarrative),
23
these
characterised polarisations are often couched as objections to the
current state of the eld.
24
According to such interpretations, the study of Late Antiquity has
strayed too far away from the solid foundation of political and admin-
istrative history (which was, at least partially, the legacy of Jones),
and has become excessively obsessed with more marginal matters
of social identity (themes such as tattooing, the punishment of chil-
dren, or masculinity), a move that has been to the detriment of our
22
For issues surrounding periodisation and late antique studies, see Bowersock
(2001); Cameron (2002); Gutteridge (2004); Lo Cascio et al. (2004); Marcone (2000);
Martin (1976).
23
Cameron (2002); Cameron (2003).
24
Giardina (1999); Meckler (2002).
xxvi .r.v ot++rniror .xr c.nros v.cn.ro
holistic understanding of the period. Such objections have not gone
as far as to suggest that an interest in issues of social identity is not
appropriate or useful, but merely that the discipline has become far
too preoccupied with life lived at the level of the individual.
Consequently, the necessary return to concentrating upon the struc-
tural echelons of society, such as politics or economics, would pro-
vide a more rounded picture of the late antique world than is currently
being produced by the totality of our scholarly endeavours. Nevertheless,
implicit in these analyses of the state of the eld is a polarised divi-
sion between social and political frames of investigation.
Naturally, it is dicult to ignore the extraordinary growth that
the eld of late antique studies has seen in the study of sexuality,
religious identity, ethnicity, and social relationships in general. Equally,
it is at least anecdotally evident that there has been some decline in
the amount of work that is centred upon asking and answering ques-
tions concerning the political structure of the later empire and its
successor states. It might be said, for example, that the interests of
Anglophone/Atlantic scholars are increasingly shifting away from the
political means by which Germanic tribes were confronted or accom-
modated, towards the ways in which Germanic (and Roman) ethnic
identity was created and manipulated as a social construct.
25
It is one of the aims of this volume to bridge this illusory polar-
isation between social and political investigations, and to show that
the studies of social identity and political structure in the world of
Late Antiquity should be seen as complementary, not contradictory,
approaches. The case-studies that follow investigate the social world
of individuals primarily through their horizons of status, but they
also seek to integrate the study of social groupings with the trajec-
tory of political change in Late Antiquity, and thus integrate rather
than separate research on individuals and structures. Indirectly, of
course, these issues concerning the concurrence of the political and
the social in our studies of Late Antiquity also touch upon the exi-
gent problem of the relationship between texts and material culture,
history and archaeology. Papers in this volume deal with such ques-
tions of interdisciplinarity only obliquely,
26
but it is important to state
25
Heather (1999); Sivan (2002).
26
For more direct considerations of both the theory and the practice of using
texts and archaeology together, see Andrn (1994); Carver (2002); Geary (1994);
Lavan (2003a); Moreland (2001) 932; Reynaud (1999); Sauer (2004).
soci.r .xr rori+ic.r rirr: .x ix+nortc+iox xxvii
from the outset of the volume that no papers herein argue for evi-
dential exclusivity, or claim the total superiority of one source over
the other. Most blend perspectives taken from a range of source
material in order to explore specic substantive issues such as wealth,
power, and social identity. It is evident from this volume how much
can be gained from suusing the archaeology with a knowledge of
the literary sources, and also from seriously using archaeology as a
source for the study of political and social life. Cross-fertilisation that
takes place between source-communities, such as this, becomes a
likely outcome when scholars seek to holistically view social and polit-
ical life.
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3158.
Allison P. (2001) Using the material and written sources: turn of the millennium
approaches to Roman domestic space, AJA 105 (2001) 181208.
Andrn A. (1994) Between Artifacts and Texts: Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective
(New York 1994).
Bauer F. A. (1996) Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Sptantike: Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung
des entlichen Raumes in den sptantiken Stdten Rom, Konstantinopel und Ephesos (Mainz
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Borg B. and Witschel C. (2001) Vernderungen im Reprsentationsverhalten der
rmischen Eliten whrend des 3. Jhs. n. Chr., in Inschriftliche Denkmler als Medien
der Selbstdarstellung in der rmischen Welt, edd. G. Alfldy and S. Panciera (Stuttgart
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xxx .r.v ot++rniror .xr c.nros v.cn.ro
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAYS
POLITICAL LIFE IN LATE ANTIQUITY:
A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
Luke Lavan
Ix+nortc+iox
As the introduction to this volume has explained, one of the objec-
tives of this project was to encourage the holistic study of social and
political life in Late Antiquity, and especially, the examination of
particular and specic aspects of the society alongside wider per-
spectives of its broad structure and texture. As such, these two bib-
liographic essays cover a very broad canvas; their aim is not to act
as a denitive listing, but rather to serve as practical tool for stu-
dents and researchers who seek the most important recent literature
on any specic topic (from which more detailed references can be
sourced). In particular the hope is to make accessible research of a
micro-historical natureon gender, ethnicity, or the family, for exam-
pleto those wishing to retain a systemic holistic approach. An inter-
disciplinary attitude to sources is assumed, and at no point is it
supposed that it is desirable to discuss either political or social life in
this period without reference to textual sources; thus, studies of a more
historical nature are listed alongside archaeological publications.
Each section is prefaced by a brief abstract describing the nature
of the evidence, the state of research, and future opportunities for
scholarship in each eld. Naturally, the sections and subsections con-
tain much overlap, illustrating the uid and interlinked nature of the
spheres of social and political life. The bibliographic entries them-
selves are loosely arranged in order of stature and relevance; this is
not to say that the rst reference will necessarily be the most accom-
plished work on the topic under consideration, but simply that it
will often prove the most ecacious place at which to start, either
because it is a useful summary of the important issues, or it provides
valuable bibliography, or it had a deep impact on the sub-eld in
question. The imposition of a structure has necessitated some choices
and dictated some strictures of form. The Church is treated as an
integrated element of the late antique political and social system
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 340
rather than as a separate entity with its own sections and subsec-
tions. Of course, bishops often assumed as equally important a role
as the provincial governors in social and political aairs at a civic
level; thus, they and the clergy receive some attention here. Similarly,
aspects of Christian patronage are considered inside the wider realm
of patronal relations, but practical considerations arising from the
sheer volume of literature relating to the topic of Christianisation
have made it necessary to omit a section devoted solely to the Church
itself.
The ultimate hope of this endeavour is to encourage a sociology
of Late Antiquity, a systematic study of relationships amongst people,
supported by a belief that behaviour is inuenced by social, political,
religious, occupational, and intellectual groupings as well as by the
particular settings in which individuals nd themselves.
Stnrc+ Svx+nrsrs
Until the 1970s, most general accounts of both social and political
life in Late Antiquity were profoundly negative. Based largely on
legal texts and the complaints of social conservatives, they depicted
a landscape of political decay. This was variously attributed to ram-
pant unchecked corruption, the demise of the civic elite and the con-
comitant rise of a despotic central administration, and the emergence
of Christianity which was seen to emphasise a conceptual other-
worldliness. Such syntheses had a similarly dim view of the social
life of the period, which was often portrayed as a degenerate, ossi-
fying hierarchy. This social structure was understood to have pro-
duced a specic economic system characteristic of Late Antiquity, in
which the condition of the poor was gradually worsened through the
general oppression of landlords, the introduction of hereditary oblig-
ations, and the emergence of a legalised form of serfdom known as
the colonate.
A. H. M. Jones massive synthesis (1964) was largely set within
this model, but despite a broadly negative judgement on the period,
its detailed scope and breadth revealed a world which was both far
more stable, and far more complex, than had been previously imag-
ined. Synthetic work since that date has generally been much more
positive in tone, emphasising the social and political diversity of the
period, where both people and institutions were more prosperous
4 rtkr r.\.x
and stable than had hitherto been realised. These more recent
overviews tend to avoid value-judgements which denounce the social
and political make-up of the late antique system as the failings of
a denuded, post-imperial carcass. Finally, although archaeology is
making vital contributions to specic elds such as ethnic identity
and the study of elite material culture, broad synthetic works are
still dominated by textual evidence. Thus historians still perhaps have
yet to fully realise the contribution that archaeological evidence can
oer to understandings of such areas as the political economy.
Subject Syntheses Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602:
A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964); Brown P. R. L. (1971)
The World of Late Antiquity (London 1971); Stein E. and Palanque J.-R. (1949)
Histoire du Bas-Empire (Paris 1949); Garnsey P. and Saller R. P. (1987) The
Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture (London 1987); Ahrweiler H. (1975)
Lidologie politique de lEmpire byzantin (Paris 1975); Giardina A. (1986) ed.
Societ romana e impero tardoantico, 4 vols. (Bari 1986); Haldon J. F. (1997)
Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge
1997); Giardina A. (1989) ed. Luomo romano (Bari 1989); Morrison C.
(2004) ed. Le Monde byzantin I: lempire romain dOrient (330641) (Paris 2004);
Wickham C. J. (2005) Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford 2005); Bowersock
G., Brown P. R. L., and Grabar O. (2001) edd. Interpreting Late Antiquity:
Essays on the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Mass. 2001); Maas M. (2005)
ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge 2005); Lenski
N. (Forthcoming) ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (Cambridge
Forthcoming); Gregory T. (2005) A History of Byzantium (Oxford 2005);
Marcone A. (1998) Late Roman social relations, in The Cambridge Ancient
History, vol. 13: The Late Empire, A.D. 337425, edd. Averil Cameron and
P. Garnsey (Cambridge 1998) 33870; Garnsey P. and Humfress C. (2001)
The Evolution of the Late Antique World (Cambridge 2001); Neue Forschungen zur
Sptantike (19902002).
Regional Syntheses Carandini A., Cracco Ruggini L., and Giardina A.
(1993) edd. Storia di Roma, 3.1LEt tardoantica: Crisi e trasformazione (Turin
1993); Carandini A., Cracco Ruggini L., and Giardina A. (1993) edd. Storia
di Roma, 3.2LEt tardoantica: I luoghi e le culture (Turin 1993); Teja R. (2002)
ed. La Hispania del siglo IV: Administracin, economa, sociedad, cristianizacin (Bari
2002); Thierry N. (2002) La Cappadoce de lantiquit au moyen ge (Bibliothque
de lAntiquit Tardive 4) (Turnhout 2003); Dauphin C. (1998) La Palestine
byzantine: peuplement et populations (BAR International Series 726) (Oxford
1998); Bagnall R. S. (1993) Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton 1993); Bagnall
R. S. (2003) Later Roman Egypt: Society, Religion, Economy and Administration
(Aldershot 2003); Van Dam R. (2002) Kingdom of Snow: Roman Rule and Greek
Culture in Cappadocia (Philadelphia 2002); Mtivier S. (2005) La Cappadoce
(IV
e
VI
e
sicle): une histoire provinciale de lEmpire romain dOrient (Paris 2005).
Contribution of Archaeology Sodini J.-P. (2003) Archaeology and late
antique social structures, in Theory and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology,
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 5
edd. L. Lavan and W. Bowden (Late Antique Archaeology 1) (Leiden 2003)
2556; Sodini J.-P. (1993) La contribution de larchologie la connais-
sance du monde byzantin (IV
e
VII
e
sicles), DOP 47 (1993) 13984; Russell
J. (1986) Transformations in early Byzantine urban life: the contribution
and limitations of archaeological evidence, in Proceedings of the 17th International
Congress of Byzantine Studies: Major Papers (Washington 1986) 13754.
Reference works and Bibliography Kazhdan A. P. et al. (1991) edd. The
Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford 1991); Guillou A. (1993) ed. La civilt
bizantina, oggetti e messaggio: architettura e ambiente di vita (Universit degli Studi
di Bari, Centro di Studi bizantini; Corso di studi 6) (Rome 1993); Demandt A.
(1989) Die Sptantike: Rmische Geschichte von Diocletian bis Justinian, 284565
n. Chr. (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, Abt. 3, 6) (Munich 1989);
Neue Forschungen zur Sptantike (19902002) (Demandt (1989) is continued in
the online bibliographical project: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~antike/fmi/
antike/Bibliographie.html [last accessed 14/1/2006]).
Pori+ic.r Lirr
The Imperial Family
Texts can tell us a great deal about the lives of the ruler and their
families, but much of this material is likely to have been ltered
through a prism of propaganda (both positive and negative); there-
fore attention must also be paid to certain aspects of material cul-
ture for dierent and complementary perspectives. Monuments and
objects associated with emperors, kings, and their families have tra-
ditionally played an important part in late antique archaeology.
Buildings such as palaces and mausolea, as well as various portable
objects of status, including jewellery and imperial insignia, survive as
magnicent reminders of the prominent role that monuments and
material culture played in dening the notion of the imperial in
the period. Other media, such as inscriptions, statues, and coins,
which celebrate the ruling power, can also act as indicators of the
political vicissitudes of the period. Scholarship on the subject has, in
general, followed one of two approaches.
Firstly, by focusing on the personal involvement of rulers and
members of their families in the patronage of building projects such
as churches, fortications, or even urban renovation in toto, it is pos-
sible to assess changing political programmes and strategies; in this
way, personal (and dynastic) policies can be related to the workings
of the state. Secondly, by analysing the dierent conceptions of power
6 rtkr r.\.x
that were at play in late antique political culture it is possible to
approach the nature of the emperor and the imperial family; such
a perspective not only includes how they presented themselves to the
wider public, but also how they were represented through political
iconography, approaches that might lead to a better understanding
of the role of the political and imperial core in late antique society.
There are two questions related to these approaches, and in recent
years they have (deservedly) become foci of attention: rstly, how
can these two perspectives be better integrated (that is to say, how
are political practices and their social representations related)?; and
secondly, how did specic political frameworks change over time,
and how were ideas about rule and dominion transmitted into new
contexts (for example, how did Byzantine conceptions of the impe-
rial power inuence Germanic ideas of royalty?). Mayer (2002) has
stressed ubiquity and mobility as central characteristics of the late
antique emperor and his family, while Staesche (1998) discusses the
daily life of the emperors, including their hobbies, cultural inter-
ests, and residences, including a study of individual psychologies.
Syntheses Dagron G. (1996) Empereur et prtre: tude sur le csaropapisme byzantin
(Paris 1996); Dagron G. (2003) Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Oce in
Byzantium (Cambridge 2003); McCormick M. (2000) Emperor and court,
in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors,
A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins and M. Whitby
(Cambridge 2000) 13563; Millar F. (1977) The Emperor in the Roman World
(31 B.C.A.D. 337) (London 1977).
Empresses and the imperial family James L. (2001) Empresses and Power
in Early Byzantium (Leicester 2001); Holum K. G. (1982) Theodosian Empresses:
Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1982); Temporini-
Grn Vitzthum H. (2002) ed. Die Kaiserinnen Roms: Von Livia bis Theodora
(Munich 2002); Garland L. (1999) Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in
Byzantium, A.D. 5271204 (London 1999); Sirago V. A. (1996) Galla Placidia:
la nobilissima (392450) (Milan 1996); Disselkamp G. (1997) Christiani sena-
tus lumina: Zum Anteil rmischer Frauen der Oberschicht im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert an
der Christianisierung der rmischen Senatsaristokratie (Bodenheim 1997); Cesaretti P.
(2004) Theodora. Herrscherin von Byzanz (Darmstadt 2004); Allen P. (1992)
Contemporary portrayals of the Byzantine Empress Theodora (A.D.
527548), in Stereotypes of Women in Power: Historical Perspectives and Revisionist
Views, edd. B. Garlick, S. Dixon, and P. A. Allen (New York 1992) 1035;
Leppin H. (2000) Kaiserliche Kohabitation: Von der Normalitt Theodoras,
in Grenzen der Macht: Zur Rolle der rmischen Kaiserfrauen, edd. C. Kunst and
U. Riemer (Stuttgart 2000) 7585; Evans J. A. (2002) The Empress Theodora,
Partner of Justinian (Austin 2002); Foss C. (2002) The empress Theodora,
Byzantion 72 (2002) 14176; Foss C. (2001) Theodora and Evita: two women
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 7
in power, in Novum Millennium: Studies on Byzantine History and Culture Dedi-
cated to Paul Speck, edd. C. Sode and S. Takcs (Aldershot 2001) 11321;
McClanan A. (1996) The empress Theodora and the tradition of womens
patronage in the early Byzantine empire, in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval
Women, ed. J. McCash (Athens, Georgia 1996) 5072; Brubaker L. (1997)
Memories of Helena: patterns in imperial female matronage in the fourth
and fth centuries, in Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium, ed.
L. James (London 1997) 5275; Staesche M. (1998) Das Privatleben der rmi-
schen Kaiser in der Sptantike: Studien zur Personen- und Kulturgeschichte der spten
Kaiserzeit (Vienna 1998); Mol Ventura C. (1992) Principi fanciulli. Legittimismo
costituzionale e storiograa cristiana nella tarda antichit (Catania 1992). For more
on empresses, see entries under imperial representation, below.
Imperial ideology Straub J. (1939) Vom Herrscherideal in der Sptantike (Stuttgart
1939); Setton K. (1941) Christian Attitudes to the Emperor in the Fourth Century
(New York 1941); Dvornik F. (1969) Early Christian and Byzantine Political
Philosophy (Washington 1969); Ahrweiler H. (1975) Lidologie politique de lEmpire
byzantin (Paris 1975); Heim F. (1991) Virtus: Idologie, politique et croyances
religieuses au IV
e
sicle (Bern New York 1991); Heim F. (1992) La thologie
de la victoire: De Constantin Thodose (Thologie Historique 89) (Paris 1992);
Kolb F. (2001) Herrscherideologie in der Sptantike (Berlin 2001); Bellen H. (1994)
Christianissimus Imperator: Zur Christianisierung der rmischen Kaiserideologie
von Constantin bis Theodosius, in E fontibus haurire: Beitrge zur rmischen
Geschichte und zu ihren Hilfswissenschaften (Festschrift fr Heinrich Chantraine), ed.
R. Gnther and S. Rebenich (Paderborn Munich 1994) 319; Elsner J.
(1998) Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford 1998); Gro-Albenhausen
K. (1999) Imperator christianissimus: Der christliche Kaiser bei Ambrosius und Johannes
Chrysostomus (Frankfurt 1999); Just P. (2003) Imperator et Episcopus. Zum Verhltnis
von Staatsgewalt und christlicher Kirche zwischen dem 1. Konzil von Nicaea (325) und
dem 1. Konzil von Konstantinopel (381) (Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche
Beitrge 8) (Stuttgart 2003); Meier M. (2003) Gttlicher Kaiser und
christlicher Herrscher? Die christlichen Kaiser der Sptantike und ihre
Stellung zu Gott, in Das Altertum 48 (2003) 12960; Henck N. (2001)
Constantius ho Philoktistes?, DOP 55 (2001) 279304; Henck N. J. (1998)
Images of Constantius II: the philanthropic emperor and imperial propaganda in the 4th
century A.D. (D.Phil. diss., Oxford 1998).
Imperial representation Grabar A. (1936) LEmpereur dans lart byzantin
(Paris 1936); Kollwitz J. (1941) Ostrmische Plastik der theodosianischen Zeit (Berlin
1941); MacCormack S. G. (1981) Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley
1981); Jordan-Ruwe M. (1995) Das Sulenmonument (Asia Minor Studien 19)
(Bonn 1995); Guidobaldi F. (2001) Architettura come codice di trasmis-
sione dellimmagine dellimperatore, dai Severi allet costantiana, ActaAArtHist
15 (2001) 1326; Christol M. (1999) Le mtier dempereur et ses reprsen-
tations la n du III
e
et au dbut du IV
e
sicle, in Cahiers du Centre Gustave-
Glotz 10 (1999) 189207; Mayer E. (2002) Rom ist dort, wo der Kaiser ist:
Untersuchungen zu den Staatsdenkmlern des dezentralisierten Reiches von Diocletian bis
zu Theodosius II (Monographien des Rmisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum
8 rtkr r.\.x
Mainz, Forschungsinstitut fr Vor- und Frhgeschichte 53) (Mainz 2002);
Febronia E. (2002) ed. Politica, retorica e simbolismo del primato: Roma e Costantinopoli
(secoli IVVII). Atti del convegno internazionale (Catania, 47 ottobre 2001). Ommagio
a Rosario Soraci (Catania 2002); Brubaker L. and Tobler H. (2000) The
gender of money: Byzantine Empresses on coins (324802), Gender & History
12 (2000) 57294; Elsner J. (2000) From the culture of spolia to the cult
of relics: the Arch of Constantine and the genesis of late antique forms,
PBSR 68 (2000) 14984; Leppin H. (2000) Das Bild der kaiserlichen Frauen
bei Gregor von Nyssa, in Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the BeatitudesAn
English Version with Commentary and Supporting Studies (Proceedings of the Eighth
Internatinal Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa), edd. H. R. Drobner and A. Viciano
(Leiden 2000) 487506; McClanan A. L. (2002) Representations of Early Byzantine
Empresses: Image and Empire (New York 2002); Grierson P. (1962) The tombs
and obits of the Byzantine Emperors (3371042), DOP 16 (1962) 360;
McCormick M. (1985) Analyzing imperial ceremonies, Jahrbuch der ster-
reichischen Byzantinistik 35 (1985) 120; Nelson J. (1976) Symbols in context:
rulers inauguration rituals in Byzantium and the West in the Early Middle
Ages, in The Orthodox Churches and the West, ed. D. Baker (Studies in Church
History 13) (Oxford 1976) 97119, reprinted in her Politics and Ritual in
Early Medieval Europe (London 1986); Yannopoulos P. (1991) Le couron-
nement de lempereur Byzance: rituel et fond institutionnel, Byzantion 61
(1991) 7192; Arce J. (2000) Imperial funerals in the later Roman empire:
change and continuity, in Rituals of Power: From Late Antiquity to the Early
Middle Ages, edd. F. Theuws and J. Nelson (Leiden 2000) 11529; Rees R.
(1993) Images and image: a re-examination of tetrarchic iconography,
GaR 40 (1993) 181200; Angold M. (1996) Procopius portrait of Theodora,
in Philellen: Studies in Honour of Robert Browning (Venice 1996) 2134.
Imperial statues see entries on honoric columns under section on Constan-
tinople, with Bauer F. A. (1996) Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Sptantike:
Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung des entlichen Raumes in den sptantiken Stdten Rom,
Konstantinopel und Ephesos (Mainz 1996); Inan J. and Rosenbaum E. (1966)
Roman and Early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor (London 1966); Smith
R. R. R. (1999) Late antique portraits in a public context: honoric stat-
uary at Aphrodisias in Caria, A.D. 300600, JRS 89 (1999) 15589; Smith
R. R. R. (1997) The public image of Licinius I: portrait sculpture and
imperial ideology in the early fourth century, JRS 87 (1997) 170202;
Hedrick C. (2000) History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late
Antiquity (Austin 2000).
Imperial Palaces see those listed under political geography: imperial cap-
itals, noting also examples of imperial villas at Split and Romuliana: Wilkes
J. J. (1986) Diocletians Palace, Split (Sheeld 1986); McNally S. et al. (19721990)
edd. Diocletians Palace: Report on the Joint Excavations in the Southeast Quarter
16 (Split 197290); Srejovic D. (1993) ed. Roman Imperial Towns and Palaces
in Serbia: Sirmium, Romuliana, Naissus (Belgrade 1993); Srejovic D. and Vasic C.
(1994) Imperial Mausolea and Consecration Memorials in Felix Romuliana (Gamzigrad,
East Serbia) (Belgrade 1994).
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 9
The Imperial Court
The quasi-domestic nature of the imperial court in Late Antiquity
makes the study of this element closely connected to the study of
emperors and their families. This is true to such an extent that it
becomes dicult to separate them, both in terms of evidence as well
as in terms of its analysis. The caveats noted when discussing the
use of textual sources for investigating the imperial family are also
true here. The importance of personal relationships, something not
always evident in our sources, should make scholars cautious when
trying to understand the realities of late antique politics and should
also warn against assuming that modern political conceptions and
practices were valid during the period. One general question seems
to be fundamental, and is as yet still open in spite of recent progress:
how accessible was imperial power in Late Antiquity? Such a ques-
tion seeks to dene the relationship between the emperor, as the
centre of the political system, and the dierent agents that orbited
around him: ocials, bishops, friends, aristocrats, and subjects in
general.
The analysis of palatial architecture reveals how areas of public
display were combined with areas of very restricted access. When
this is combined with textual evidence, which takes into considera-
tion rituals and ceremonies, it can contribute to our understanding
of the interplay between the visibility and invisibility of power.
Characteristic of this period is the commitment of emperors to the
construction of new capitals or residences, something that not only
aected patterns of imperial movement, but also changed the ways
in which imperial presence was felt on a local level. The distribu-
tion of statues, inscriptions, and artefacts produced in the context of
the court and its ceremonies can also be viewed in the same per-
spective. Therefore, although archaeology alone can make a very
limited contribution to our understanding of the constitutional aspects
of power, it does represent an essential tool for seeing power at work,
and manifest in numerous dierent aspects of late antique society.
Apart from Delmaire (1995), Winterlings Comitatus (1998) is an exten-
sive collection of essays on the late imperial court, its structure, func-
tion, and personnel, including the lites, the eunuchs, and the role
of the empress.
Syntheses Noethlichs K. L. (1998) Strukturen und Funktionen des sp-
tantiken Kaiserhofes, in Comitatus: Beitrge zur Erforschung des sptantiken
10 rtkr r.\.x
Kaiserhofes, ed. A. Winterling (Berlin 1998) 1349, with other papers in this
volume; McCormick M. (2000) Emperor and court, in The Cambridge
Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd.
Averil Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 13563;
Pabst A. (1997) Comitia imperii. Ideelle Grundlagen des rmischen Kaisertums
(Darmstadt 1997); Schlinkert D. (1996) Vom Haus zum Hof. Aspekte
hscher Herrschaft in der Sptantike, Klio 78 (1996) 45482; Gizewski
C. (1997) Informelle Gruppenbildungen in unmittelbarer Umgebung des
Kaisers an sptantiken Hfen, in Zwischen Haus und Staat. Antike Hfe im
Vergleich (Munich 1997); Lhken H. (1982) Ordines dignitatum: Untersuchungen
zur formalen Konstituierung der sptantiken Fhrungsschicht (Cologne 1982).
Studies by period Barnes T. D. (1982) The New Empire of Diocletian and
Constantine (Cambridge 1982); Barrow R. H. (1973) ed. Prefect and Emperor:
The Relationes of Symmachus, A.D. 384 (Oxford 1973); Matthews J. (1990)
Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, A.D. 364425 (Oxford
2
1990) [review
by P. Wormald, The decline of the Western Empire and the survival of
its aristocracy, JRS 66 (1976) 21726]; Gillett A. (2001) Rome, Ravenna
and the last western emperors, PBSR 69 (2001) 13167; Liverani P. (2003)
Dal palatium imperiale al palatium ponticio, ActaAArtHist 17 (2003) 14363;
Vanderspoel J. (1995) Themistius and the Imperial Court (Ann Arbor 1995);
Cameron Alan and Long J. (1993) Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius
(Berkeley 1993); Mathisen R. W. (1993) Roman Aristocracies in Barbarian Gaul:
Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin 1993).
Imperial ceremonial Teja R. (1993) Il cerimoniale imperiale, in Storia
di Roma, 3.1LEt tardoantica: Crisi e trasformazione, edd. A. Carandini,
L. Cracco Ruggini, and A. Giardina (Turin 1993) 61342; MacCormack
S. G. (1981) Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1981); Mango C.
(1959) The Brazen House: A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of
Constantinople (Arkologisk-kunsthistoriske meddelelser, Kongelige danse
videnskabernes selskab 4, 4) (Copenhagen 1959); Herrmann-Otto E. (1998)
Der Kaiser und die Gesellschaft des sptrmischen Reiches im Spiegel des
Zeremoniells, in Imperium Romanum: Studien zu Geschichte und Rezeption. Festschrift
fr Karl Christ, edd. P. Kneissl and V. Losemann (Stuttgart 1998) 34669;
Dufraigne P. (1994) Adventus Augusti, Adventus Christi: Recherche sur lexploita-
tion idologique et littraire dun crmonial dans lAntiquit tardive (Paris 1994);
Lehnen J. (1997) Adventus principis: Untersuchungen zu Sinngehalt und Zeremoniell
der Kaiserankunft in den Stdten des Imperium Romanum (Frankfurt New York
2
1997); Herrmann-Otto E. (2001) Promotionszeremoniell und Personalpolitik
an kaiserlichen Residenzen, in Atti dell Accademia romanistica costantiniana,
XIII convegno internazionale in memoria di Andr Chastagnol, edd. G. Crif and
S. Giglio (Naples 2001) 83105; McCormick M. (1989) Clovis at Tours:
Byzantine public rituals and the origins of medieval ruler symbolism, in
Das Reich und die Barbaren, edd. E. Chrysos and A. Schwarcz (Vienna 1989)
15580.
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 11
The State
It is important that we do not imagine that the Roman state of Late
Antiquity existed and operated in a manner comparable to those of
the modern world: a vital point made by Kelly (2001; 2004). It was
a system whose strength was relatively weak when not supported by
military force, and thus much of its work was conducted through
formulating consent, and via personal relationships forged through
friendship, patronage, or bribery. Yet, despite all of this, the impor-
tance of the state in late antique social and political life is unques-
tionable. The massive legislative eort that characterised the period
(including the promulgation, compilation, and editing of laws), involv-
ing dierent aspects of everyday life, seems to be matched only by
the growth of the imperial bureaucracy, which was present virtually
everywhere, although recent work is seeking to suggest that it may
not have been as large and unwieldy as once thought. The impor-
tance of the state is a commonly acknowledged fact, especially from
the evidence given by written sources, yet unfortunately what we do
know about the Late Roman state is still very partial. Our infor-
mation is more complete for the upper levels of the administration,
and is lacking for the more local and day-to-day levels (although
papyri can provide crucial insights into the latter). We are also much
better informed about the eastern empire than about the western
kingdoms, which also means that our knowledge deteriorates as the
realities of the 5th c. progress into those of the 6th. Moreover, the
very nature of the evidence makes it dicult to identify and under-
stand the changes that must have taken place.
The material evidence presents other types of problems, not least
of which are issues concerning the identication of the states phys-
ical apparatus. Even once such structures are identied, it remains
almost impossible to dene the precise day-to-day functions of build-
ings such as basilicas and palatial quarters. Another diculty resides
in the integration of archaeological information with constitutional
and narrative political history. Scholars have adopted two approaches
in dealing with these problems: rstly, by focusing on issues of gov-
ernment and administration (i.e., trying to relate known physical
structures to the actual working of institutions through epigraphy
and texts), and secondly by focusing on specic groups within the
structure of the state, such as bureaucrats.
Syntheses Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602: A Social,
Economic and Administrative Survey, vol. 1 (Oxford 1964) chap. XIXIV, XVI;
12 rtkr r.\.x
Kelly C. (1998) Emperors, government and bureaucracy, in The Cambridge
Ancient History, vol. 13: The Late Empire, AD 337425, edd. Averil Cameron
and P. Garnsey (Cambridge 1998) 13883; Delmaire R. (1995) Les Institutions
du Bas-Empire romain de Constantin Justinian 1: les institutions civiles palatines
(Paris 1995); Ausbttel F. (1998) Die Verwaltung des rmischen Kaiserreiches von
der Herrschaft des Augustus bis zum Niedergang des Westrmischen Reiches (Darmstadt
1998); Kelly C. (2004) Ruling the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass.
2004); Kelly C. (2001) Empire building, in Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays
on the Postclassical World, edd. G. Bowersock, P. R. L. Brown, and O. Grabar
(Cambridge, Mass. 2001) 17095; Crif G. and S. Giglio (2001) edd. Atti
dellAccademia romanistica costantiniana, XIII convegno internazionale in memoria di
Andr Chastagnol (Naples 2001); Noethlichs V. M. (1981) Beamtentum und
Dienstvergehen: Zur Staatsverwaltung in der Sptantike (Wiesbaden 1981); Eich P.
(2005) Zur Metamorphose des politischen Systems in der romischen Kaiserzeit. Die
Entstehung einer personalen Burokratie im langen dritten Jahrhundert (Berlin 2005).
Studies by period Lo Cascio E. (2005) The new state of Diocletian and
Constantine: from the Tetrarchy to the reunication of the Empire, in
The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 12
2
: The Crisis of Empire, AD 193337, edd.
A. K. Bowman, Averil Cameron, and P. Garnsey (Cambridge 2005) 17083;
Barnish S. J. B. (2000) Government and administration, in The Cambridge
Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd.
Averil Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000)
164206; Haldon J. F. (1995) State, Army, and Society in Byzantium: Approaches
to Military, Social, and Administrative History, 6th12th centuries (Aldershot 1995).
Palatine ministries Syntheses Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire,
284602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964) 57292;
Delmaire R. (1995) Les Institutions du Bas-Empire romain de Constantin Justinian
1: les institutions civiles palatines (Paris 1995). Res privata and Sacra Largitionem
Delmaire R. (1989) Largesses sacres et res privata: lrarium imperial et son admin-
istration du IV
e
au VI
e
sicle (Rome 1989). Praetorian prefecture Migl J. (1994)
Die Ordnung der mter. Prtorianerprfektur und Vikariat in der Regionalverwaltung
des Rmischen Reiches von Konstantin bis zur Valentinianischen Dynastie (Frankfurt
1994); Porena P. (2003) Le origini della prefettura del pretorio tardoantica (Rome
2003); Salway R. W. B. (1995) The Creation of the Roman State AD 280340:
Social and Administrative Aspects (D.Phil diss., Univ. of Oxford 1995); Gutsfeld A.
(1998) Der Prtorianerprfekt und der Kaiserliche Hof im 4. Jahrhundert
n. Chr., in Comitatus. Beitrge zur Erforschung des sptantiken Kaiserhofes, ed.
A. Winterling (Berlin 1998) 75102; Heinen H. Der rmische Westen und
die Prtorianerprfektur Gallien. Historischer Raum und politische Ent-
wicklung, in Labor omnibus unus. Gerold Walser zum 70. Geburtstag, edd. H. E.
Herzig and R. Frei-Stolba (Stuttgart 1989) 186205; Claude D. (1997)
Niedergang, Renaissance und Ende der Praefekturverwaltung im Westen
des rmischen Reiches (5.8. Jh.), ZSav 114 (1997) 35279. Praepositus cubi-
culi sacri Scholten H. (1995) Der Eunuch in Kaisernhe. Zur politischen und sozialen
Bedeutung des praepositus sacri cubiculi im 4. und 5. Jh. n. Chr. (Frankfurt 1995);
Schlinkert D. (1996) Ordo senatorius und nobilitas. Die Konstitution des Senatsadels
in der Sptantike. Mit einem Appendix ber den praepositus sacri cubiculi, den allmchti-
gen Eunchen am kaiserlichen Hof (Stuttgart 1996). Quaestors Harries J. (1988)
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 13
The Roman imperial quaestor from Constantine to Theodosius II, JRS
78 (1988) 14872; Honor T. (1998) Law in the Crisis of Empire, 379455
A.D.: The Theodosian Dynasty and its Quaestors (Oxford 1998); Honor T. (1978)
Tribonian (London 1978). Magister ociorum Clauss M. (1981) Der magister
ociorum in der Sptantike (4.6. Jahrhundert). Das Amt und sein Einu auf die
kaiserliche Politik (Munich 1981); Aiello V. (2001) I rapporti fra centro e
periferia in epoca costantiniana. Lorigine del magister ociorum, in Atti dell
Accademia romanistica costantiniana, XIII convegno internazionale in memoria di Andr
Chastagnol, ed. G. Crif and S. Giglio (Naples 2001) 13763. Generals OFlynn
J. M. (1983) Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire (Edmonton 1983);
P. MacGeorge (2003) Late Roman Warlords (Oxford 2003). Other topics Scharf
R. (1994) Comites und comitiva primi ordinis (Mainz 1994); Scharf R. (1990)
Der comes sacri stabuli in der Sptantike, Tyche 5 (1990) 13547; Vitiello
M. (2002) Fine di una magna potestas. La prefettura dellannona nei secoli
quinto e sesto, Klio 84 (2002) 491525; Maas M. (1992) John Lydus and the
Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age of Justinian (London 1992);
Kuho W. (1983) Studien zur zivilen und senatorischen Laufbahn im 4. Jahrhundert
n. Chr.: mter und Amtsinhaber in Clarissimat und Spektabilitt (Frankfurt 1983).
Provincial Government
Our understanding of provincial government is still primarily based
on the work of Jones (1964), who was interested above all in govern-
ment and administration, although work on Libanius by Liebeschuetz
(1972), on papyri by Bowman (1971), and on inscriptions by Lewin
(ca. 1995) has allowed us to better grasp the workings of government
in practice. Thus we now lean less heavily on the detailed but some-
times too theoretical information provided by the law codes. Never-
theless, recent work on the Theodosian Code has greatly expanded
our ability to understand the relationship between law and govern-
ment. However, as with other political topics there is a geographi-
cal bias towards the eastern Mediterranean when one moves away
from legal sources. Relevant papyri and inscriptions are nearly all
4th c., whilst about half of the latter come from a single province,
Africa Proconsularis, and elsewhere they are scarce. Letters are very
useful but cluster around the late 4th and early 5th c. Only anec-
dotes from urban chronicles and ecclesiastical histories provide an
even chronological coverage, and these concentrate on a few major
centres. Our extant archaeological evidence for provincial govern-
ment is largely limited to praetoria, statues (and their accompanying
epigraphy), and occasional repairs to civil basilicas or entertainment
buildings, that hosted law courts and provincial games respectively.
14 rtkr r.\.x
Jones was notably negative in his evaluation of Late Roman provin-
cial government, seeing it riddled by corruption. A more positive
evaluation of the achievements of Late Roman provincial govern-
ment in law and tax collection is long overdue, along with a move
towards understanding the limitations of pre-modern government and
its dissimilarity to modern administrations. A major current of research
since Jones work has concerned the personal power or social matrix
through which governors operated. Liebeschuetz (1972) is a strong
early treatment of these issues, whilst Brown (1992) and Lendon
(1997) have explored them more fully. The signicance of Liebeschuetz
(1972) lies in the fact that it covers the interaction of governors with
other political authorities and the urban population of the capital of
Syria, which is better documented than any other in Late Antiquity.
Attention is also now being paid to late antique governors ocium,
though there has been little work on the social impact of this class
on provincial capitals or on how the development of provincial gov-
ernment aected wider society now that governors were becoming
increasingly prominent in local aairs.
Syntheses Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602: A Social,
Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964) 4247, 106107, 27983,
373403, 75759; Les Gouverneurs de Province dans lAntiquit Tardive (AnTard
6) (Paris 1998); Figures du pouvoir: Gouverneurs et vques (AnTard 7) (Paris
1999); Lavan L. (2001) Provincial Capitals of Late Antiquity (Ph.D diss., Univ.
of Nottingham 2001).
Regional Studies Ausbttel F. M. (1988) Die Verwaltung der Stdte und
Provinzen im sptantiken Italien (Europische Hochschulschriften III/343)
(Frankfurt 1988); Delmaire R. (1984) Les Dignitaires lacs au concile de
Chalcdoine: notes sur la hirarchie et les prsances au milieu du V
e
sicle, Byzantion 54 (1984) 14175; Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G. (1972) Antioch:
City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1972) 11014,
11961, 20818; Di Segni L. (1996) Metropolis and provincia in Byzantine
Palestine, in Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective after Two Millennia, edd. A. Raban
and K. G. Holum (Documenta et Monumenta Oriens Antiqua) (Leiden
1996) 58384; Lallemand J. (1964) LAdministration civile de Lgypte, de lavne-
ment de Diocltien la cration du diocse (284382) (Brussels 1964); Bowman
A. K. (1971) The Town Councils of Roman Egypt (Toronto 1971); Mazza R.
(1995) Ricerche sul pagarca nellEgitto tardoantico e bizantino, Aegyptus
75 (1995) 169242.
Governors Antiquit Tardive 6 and 7, as listed above, with the following
works particularly focusing on the social power of governors: Liebeschuetz
J. H. W. G. (1972) Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman
Empire (Oxford 1972) 11014, 20819; Brown P. R. L. (1992) Power and
Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (London 1992); Lendon
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 15
J. E. (1997) Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford
1997) 2225, 231236; Lewin A. (ca. 1995) Assemblee popolari e lotta politica
nelle citt dell Impero Romano (Florence ca. 1995); Cecconi G. A. (1994) Governo
imperiale e lites dirigenti nellItalia tardoantica: Problemi di storia politico-amminis-
trativa (270476 d. C.) (Como 1994); Kopecek T. A. (1974) The Cappadocian
Fathers and civic patriotism, Church History 43 (1974) 293303; Holum
K. G. (1986) Flavius Stephanus proconsul of Byzantine Palestine, ZPE
63 (1986) 23139; Rouech C. and Erim K. (1990) edd. Aphrodisias Papers:
Recent Work on Architecture and Sculpture ( JRA Supplementary Series 1) (Ann
Arbor 1990).
Urban prefects Chastagnol A. (1960) La Prfecture urbaine a Rome sous le
Bas-Empire (Paris 1960); Chastagnol A. (1997) Le fonctionnement de la
prfecture urbaine, in La Rome impriale: dmographie et logistique (Rome 1997)
11119; Dagron G. (1974) Naissance dune capitale: Constantinople et ses institu-
tions de 300 451 (Paris 1974).
Ocium Palme B. (1999) Die Ocia der Statthalter in der Sptantike:
Forschungsstand und Perspektiven, AnTard 7 (1999) 85133; Sinningen
W. G. (1997) The Ocium of the Urban Prefecture during the Late Roman Empire
(Rome 1997); Chastagnol A. (1960) La Prfecture urbaine a Rome sous le
Bas-Empire (Paris 1960); Chastagnol A. (1997) Le fonctionnement de la
prfecture urbaine, in La Rome impriale: dmographie et logistique (Rome 1997)
11119.
Provincial assembly Kornemann E. (1900) Concilium, PWRE 7 (1900)
80130; Larsen J. (1932) The position of provincial assemblies in the gov-
ernment and society of the later Roman empire, CP 29 (1934) 21011.
The Army
The Roman army in Late Antiquity has traditionally had a poor
name, its weaknesses being held responsible for the loss of the West,
if not the collapse of the East. In recent years there has however
been a growing appreciation of the vigour of the 4th c. army, and
more interest in the continuing strength of the eastern army in
the 5th6th c., although continued debate surrounds questions of the
precise size, costs, and capabilities of the military throughout the
period. Research has concentrated on how unit sizes, organisation,
and tactics all evolved to ght new styles of warfare, with a greater
emphasis on cavalry and siege warfare. Many changes took place as
a result of incorporating tactics of Persian or nomadic opponents.
The appearance of greater political organisation in the latter group
produced enemies which the Roman army struggled to match and
this factorthe emergence of new tougher enemies, notably the
Huns, Avars, and Arabsperhaps provides the best explanation for
16 rtkr r.\.x
the military defeat of the empire. Against the Persians and the
Germans the army was more successful, with the exception of two
disastrous misjudgements by Julian and Valens. Until the collapse of
the western frontier, the Roman army not only repelled attack, but
served as an important cultural institution for Germans eager to
earn money as soldiers. The role of Roman military culture in dening
lites in and beyond the frontier has thus been a major topic of
interest. Because of the role of the army in underpinning security
and conrming emperors, it can at times seem reasonable to think
that the army was the empire, or the better part of it. This senti-
ment was strong amongst those who served and fought for it, between
Trier and Antioch, but less so amongst those who paid for it, cre-
ating a cultural divide which few were able to bridge.
Sources for the army are textual, structural, and artefactual. A
series of military manuals inform us about tactics and weaponry,
with a certain degree of archaising eccentricity, whilst military his-
torians describe sieges and pitched battles, though with one eye on
appropriate literary formulae. Occasional administrative documents
such as the Notitia Dignitatum or military papyri are invaluable, though
rare. Burials provide a good level of detail on dress and weaponry,
although we have few high quality depictions of soldiers in battle
dress. Forts and fortresses can be problematic: their internal build-
ings are not so well dened as they were in earlier periods, and
some forts have few or no such buildings at all. Fortications have
much to tell us, though serious attempts to date them have been
rare. Future advances in research are likely to come from serious
study of the role of the military in cities, and the interaction of the
military with surrounding communities, which they greatly enriched,
through being the recipient of most taxation revenue. The func-
tioning of forts and fortresses, and military archaeology in general,
would also benet greatly from closely-controlled stratigraphic exca-
vation of destruction layers, of the type undertaken by Poulter at
Dichin in Bulgaria. In general terms there is much work still to be
done on the functioning of Germanic armies and navies, particularly
those of the western successor states. Finally, it seems likely that the
study of Late Roman army is like to continue within the shadow of
its more popular predecessor, the Early Roman army, which has
been researched in such detail that it will continue to provide a great
number of protable research perspectives for the investigation of its
late antique descendant.
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 17
Syntheses Carri J.-M. and Janniard S. (2000) Larme romaine tardive
dans quelques travaux rcents1e partie: linstitution militaire et les modes
de combat, AnTard 8 (2000) 32141; Janniard S. (2001) Larme romaine
tardive dans quelques travax rcents2e partie: stratgies et techniques mil-
itaries, AnTard 9 (2001) 35161; Carri J. M. (2002) Larme romaine
tardive dans quelques travaux rcents3e partie: fournitures militaires,
recrutement et archologie des fortications, AnTard 10 (2002) 42742;
Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602: A Social, Economic
and Administrative Survey, vol. 1 (Oxford 1964) chap. XVII; Southern P. and
Dixon K. R. (1996) The Late Roman Army (London 1996); Whitby M. (2000)
The army, c. 420602, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity:
Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins,
and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 288314; Whitby M. (2000) Armies
and society in the later Roman world, in The Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron,
B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 46995; Shaw B. (2001)
War and violence, in Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on the Postclassical
World, edd. G. Bowersock, P. R. L. Brown, and O. Grabar (Cambridge,
Mass. 2001) 13070; Treadgold W. (1995) Byzantium and its army: 2841081
(Stanford 1995); Isaac B. H. (1992) The Limits of Empire: the Roman Army in
the East (Oxford 1992); Haldon J. F. (1995) State, Army, and Society in Byzantium:
Approaches to Military, Social and Administrative History, 6th12th Centuries (Aldershot
1995).
Collections Le Bohec Y. and Wol C. (2004) edd. LArme romaine de
Diocltian Valentinian 1er (Actes du Congrs de Lyon, 1214 Septembre
2002) (Lyon 2004); Freeman P. et al. (2002) edd. Limes XVIII: Proceedings of
the XVIIIth International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies, held in Amman, Jordan
(September 2000) (BAR International Series 1084) (Oxford 2002).
Recruitment Zuckerman C. (1993) Les barbares romains: au sujet de
lorigine des auxilia tetrarchiques, in LArme romaine et les barbares du III
e
au
VII sicle, edd. F. Vallet and M. Kazanski (Rouen 1993) 1720; Liebeschuetz
J. H. W. G. (1986) Generals, federates and bucellarii in Roman armies
around AD 400, in The Defense of the Roman and Byzantine East, edd. P. Freeman
and D. Kennedy (Oxford 1986) 46374; Teall J. L. (1965) The barbar-
ians in Justinians armies, Speculum 40 (1965) 294322; Whitby M. (1995)
Recruitment in Roman armies from Justinian to Heraclius, in The Byzantine
and Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, ed. Averil Cameron
(Princeton 1995) 61124; Haldon J. F. (1979) Recruitment and Conscription in
the Byzantine army, c. 550950: A Study on the Origins of the Stratiotika Ktemata
(Sitzungsberichte der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-
hist. Klasse 357) (Vienna 1979).
Unit Types Tomlin R. (2000) The legions in the late Empire, in Roman
Fortresses and their Legions, ed. R. J. Brewer (London Cardi 2000) 15981;
Dixon K. R. and Southern P. (1992) The Roman Cavalry: From the First to the
Third Century A.D. (London 1992); Zuckerman C. (1993) Les barbares
romains: au sujet de lorigine des auxilia ttrarchiques, in LArme romaine
et les barbares du III
e
au VII
e
sicle, edd. M. Kazanski and F. Vallet (Paris
18 rtkr r.\.x
1993) 1729; Schmitt O. (1994) Die Bucellarii, Tyche 9 (1994) 14774;
Barlow J. and Brennan P. (2001) Tribuni Scholarum Palatinarum, c. A.D.
35364: Ammianus Marcellinus and the Notitia Dignitatum, CQ 51 (2001)
23754; Haldon J. F. (1984) Byzantine Praetorians: An Administrative, Institutional
and Social Survey of the Opsikion and Tagmata, c. 580900 (Poikila Byzantina 3)
(Bonn 1984).
Warfare and diplomacy Dodgeon M. H. and Lieu S. N. C. (1991) The
Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (London 1991) 226363; Shepard J.
and Franklin S. (1992) edd. Byzantine Diplomacy: Papers from the Twenty-fourth
Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, March 1990 (Publications of
the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies 1) (Aldershot 1992); Lee
A. D. (1993) Information and Frontiers: Roman Foreign Relations in Late Antiquity
(Cambridge 1993); Elton H. (1996) Warfare in Roman Europe: AD 350425
(Oxford 1996); Blockley R. C. (1998) Warfare and diplomacy, in The
Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 13: The Late Empire, AD 337425, edd. Averil
Cameron and P. Garnsey (Cambridge 1998) 41136; Blockley R. C. (1992)
East Roman Foreign Policy (Leeds 1992); Greatrex J. and Lieu S. N. C. (2002)
edd. The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars: A Narrative Sourcebook
(London 2002); MacGeorge P. (2002) Late Roman Warlords (Oxford 2002);
Gillett A. (2003) Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West,
411533 (Cambridge 2003); Halsall G. (2003) Warfare and Society in the
Barbarian West, 450900 (London 2003).
Tactics and equipment Bivar A. D. H. (1972) Cavalry equipment and
tactics on the Euphrates frontier, DOP 26 (1972) 273307; Bivar A. D. H.
(1980) Combined legionary detachments as artillery units in late Roman
Danubian bridgehead dispositions, Chiron 10 (1980) 55367; Bishop M. C.
and Coulston J. C. (1993) Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the
Fall of Rome (London 1993); Burns T. S. (1994) Barbarians within the Gates of
Rome: A Study of Roman Military Policy and the Barbarians, c. 375425 AD
(Bloomington 1994); Stephenson I. P. (1999) Roman Infantry Equipment: The
Later Empire (Stroud 1999); Anglim S. et al. (2002) Fighting Techniques of the
Ancient World 3000 BCAD 500: Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics (London
2002); Dennis G. T. and Gamillsche E. (1981) edd. Das Strategikon des
Maurikios (Vienna 1981); Greatrex G., Elton H., and Burgess R. (2005)
Urbicius Epitedeumata, ByzZeit 98 (2005) 3574.
Frontiers Isaac B. H. (1992) The Limits of Empire: the Roman Army in the
East (Oxford 1992); Whittaker C. R. (1994) Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A
Social and Economic Study (Baltimore 1994); Elton H. (1996) Frontiers of the
Roman Empire (London 1996); von Blow G. and Milcheva A. (1999) edd.
Der Limes an der unteren Donau von Diokletian bis Heraklios. Vortrage der interna-
tionalen Konferenz Svishtov, Bulgarien (1.-5. September 1998) (Soa 1999); Fentress
E. (1979) Numidia and the Roman Army: Social, Military and Economic Aspects of the
Frontier Zone (BAR International Series 53) (Oxford 1979); Arrignon J.-P.
and Duneau J.-F. (1981) La frontire chez deux auteurs byzantins: Procope
de Csare et Constantin Porphyrognte, in Geographica Byzantina, Byzantina
Sorbonensia 3 (Paris 1981) 1730; Daniels C. M. (1987) The frontiers: Africa,
in The Roman World, ed. J. Wacher (London 1987) 22365; Gregory T. (1992)
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 19
Kastron and diateichisma as responses to early Byzantine frontier collapse,
Byzantion 62 (1992) 23553; Kennedy D. L. (2000) The Roman Army in Jordan
(London 2000); Pohl W., Wood I., and Reimitz H. (2001) edd. The Trans-
formation of Frontiers: From Late Antiquity to the Carolingians (Transformation of
the Roman World 10) (Leiden 2001); Pearson A. (2002) The Roman Shore
Forts: Coastal Defences of Southern Britain (Stroud 2002); Shepard J. (2002)
Emperors and expansionism: from Rome to middle Byzantium, in Medieval
Frontiers: Concepts and Practice, ed. D. Abulaa and N. Berend (Aldershot
2002) 5582; Konrad M. (2001) Der sptrmische Limes in Syrien (Resafa 5)
(Mainz 2001); Parker S. T. (1987) ed. The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan:
Interim Report on the Limes Arabicus Project 19801985) (BAR International
Series 340) (Oxford 1987); Kennedy D. (2004) The Roman Army in Jordan
(Oxford 2004); Price R. M. (1976) The Limes of Lower Egypt, in Aspects
of the Notitia Dignitatum, edd. R. Goodburn and P. Bartolomew ( BAR
International Series 15) (Oxford 1976) 14355.
Fortications see above works with bibliography in Lavan L. (2001) The
late-antique city: a bibliographic essay, in Recent Research on Late Antique
Urbanism, ed. L. Lavan ( JRA Supplementary Series 21) (Portsmouth 2001)
926, and J. Crow and N. Christie in the same volume 91106, 10722;
Johnson S. (1983) Late Roman Fortications (London 1983); Coates-Stephens
R. (1998) The walls and aqueducts of Rome in the early Middle Ages,
A.D. 5001000, JRA 88 (1998) 16678; Brogiolo G. P. (1999) Le forticazioni
del Garda e i sistemi di difesa dellItalia settentrionale tra Tardo Antico e Alto Medioevo
(Mantua 1999); Feissel D. (1988) Larchitecte Viktrinos et les fortications
de Justinien dans les provinces balkaniques, BAntFr (1988) 13646; Feissel
D. (2000) Les dices de Justinien au tmoignage de Procope et de lpigra-
phie, AnTard 8 (2000) 81104; Poulter A. (2000) The Roman to Byzantine
transition in the Balkans: preliminary results on Nicopolis and its hinter-
land, JRA 13 (2000) 34758; Meyer Plath B. and Schneider A. M. (1943)
Die Landmauer von Konstantinopel (Denkmler antiker Architektur 6) (Berlin
1943); Bardill J. (2004) Brickstamps of Constantinople (Oxford 2004) 12225;
Bayliss R. and Crow J. (2000) The fortications and water supply systems
of Constantinople, Antiquity 74 (2000) 2566; Gregory S. (1995) Roman
Military Architecture on the Eastern Frontier (Amsterdam 1995).
Forts (selected sites) Casey P. J., Davies J. L., and Evans J. (1993) Excavations
at Segontium (Caernarfon) Roman Fort, 19751979 (Council British Archaeology
Research Report 90) (London 1993); Crow J. (2004) Housesteads: a Fort and
Garrison on Hadrians Wall (Stroud
2
2004); Jahresberichte aus Augst und Kaiseraugst
(Liestal 1972); von Blow G. and Milcheva A. (1999) edd. Der Limes an
der unteren Donau von Diokletian bis Heraklios. Vortrge der internationalen Konferenz
Svishtov, Bulgarien (1.5. September 1998) I (Soa 1999); Barnea I. (1980)
Dinogetia, une ville byzantine du Bas-Danube, Vyzantina 10 (1980) 23987;
MacKendrick P. L. (1975) The Dacian Stones Speak (Chapel Hill 1975) 16386;
Milinkovi M. (1997) ed. Jelica-Gradina I (Belgrade 1997); Iatrus-Krivina:
Sptantike Befestigung und frhmittelalterliche Siedlung an der unteren Donau (Schriften
zur Geschichte und Kultur der Antike) (Berlin 1979); Zuckerman C. (1991)
The early Byzantine strongholds in eastern Pontus, TravMm 11 (1991)
20 rtkr r.\.x
52753; Lauray J. (19831991) Halabiyya-Zenobia: place forte du Limes orien-
tal et la Haute-Msopotamie au VI
e
sicle (Paris 19831991); Villeneuve F. (1986)
Ad-Diyatheh: village et castellum romains et byzantins lest du Jebel Druze
(Syrie), in The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, edd. P. Freeman and
D. Kennedy (BAR International Series 297) (Oxford 1986) 697715; Gichon
M. (1993) En Boqeq I: Geographie und Geschichte der OaseDas sptrmische byzan-
tinische Kastell (Mainz 1993); Lander J. and Parker S. T. (1982) Legio IV
Martia and the legionary camp at El-Lejjun, Byzantion 8 (1982) 185210;
Parker S. T. (1987) ed. The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan: Interim Report on
the Limes Arabicus Project (19801985) (BAR International Series 340) (Oxford
1987); Harper R. P. (1986) Upper Zohar, an Early Byzantine Fort in Palaestina
Tertia: Final Report of Excavations in 19851986 (Oxford 1986).
Militarisation of society Brown T. S. (1984) Gentlemen and Ocers: Imperial
Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, A.D. 554800 (London
1984); Niquet H. (2000) Monumenta virtutum titulique: Senatorische Selbstdarstellung
im sptantiken Rom im Spiegel der epigraphischen Denkmler (HABES 34) (Stuttgart
2000); James E. (1997) The militarisation of Roman society, 400700, in
Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, AD 11300, edd.
A. N. Jrgensen and B. L. Clausen (Copenhagen 1997) 1924; Dunn A. W.
(2002) Was there a militarisation of the southern Balkans during Late
Antiquity?, in Limes XVIII: Proceedings of the XVIIIth International Congress of
Roman Frontier Studies, held in Amman, Jordan, ed. P. Freeman (BAR International
Series 1084) (September 2002) 70512.
Other issues Unit sizes Coello T. (1996) Unit Sizes in the Late Roman Army
(BAR International Series 645) (Oxford 1996); Duncan-Jones R. P. (1990)
Pay and numbers in Diocletians army, in Structure and Scale in the Roman
Economy (Cambridge 1990) 10517, 21421; Treadgold W. (1995) Byzantium
and its army: 2841081 (Stanford 1995); Hendy M. (1985) Studies in the
Byzantine Monetary Economy c. 3001450 (Cambridge 1985). Christianisation
Shean J. F. (1998) Militans Pro Deo: The Christianization of the Roman Army
(Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison 1998); Tomlin R. S. O. (1998)
Christianity and the late Roman army, in Constantine: History, Historiography
and Legend (London 1998) 2151. Varia Zuckerman C. (2002) La Haute
hirarchie militaire en Afrique byzantine, AnTard 10 (2002) 20118; Ricci
C. (2004) Il sarcofago romano di un uciale anonimo e il tribunato di
legione prima o dopo la riforma di Gallieno, in LArme romaine de Diocltian
Valentinian 1er (Actes du Congrs de Lyon, 1214 Septembre 2002), edd. Y. Le
Bohec and C. Wol (Lyon 2004) 43750.
The Political Economy
The political economy, which can be taken to mean that part of the
economy controlled by the state through taxation and expenditure,
has been the focus of attention for some of the most distinguished
scholars in late antique studies. It formed a major interest of Jones,
and has been considered by Carri, Wickham, Haldon, and Durliat.
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 21
The overall level of taxation and the consequences for the economy
as a whole have been central questions. The importance of the annona
(the grain dole) for the survival and prosperity of Rome and
Constantinople have interested urban historians as well as archaeol-
ogists, who have stressed the importance of the route of the annona
in shaping trade patterns; interest in the state supply of frontier
armies has only recently received scholarly attention. To date, much
of this work has rested on literary texts, occasional papyri, and the
study of pottery (particularly transport amphorae). Structural evi-
dence, such as the remains of government granaries, and port facil-
ities on the routes of the annona, has largely been ignored. There
has also been a failure to study settlement evidence, the remains of
imperial capitals, forts, and surrounding rural settlements in terms
of government expenditure patterns. Numismatists have at least sought
to address patterns of expenditure, through coin supply, and the
irregular opening of mints coinciding with military events. Future
research would do well to explore these avenues further, and above
seek to develop a more holistic approach to the political economy,
rather than being limited to interpretative comments based on one
source type, such as (typically) either papyri or pottery.
Syntheses Carri J.-M. (1994) Les changes commerciaux et ltat antique
tardif , in conomie antiqueLes changes dans lAntiquit: le rle de ltat (Saint-
Bertrand-de-Comminges 1994) 175211; Brandes W. and Haldon J. F.
(2000) Towns, tax and transformation: state, cities and their hinterlands
in the east Roman world, c. 500800, in Towns and Their Territories Between
Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, edd. G. P. Brogiolo, N. Christie, and
N. Gauthier (Leiden 2000) 14172; Haldon J. F. (1997) Byzantium in the
Seventh Century: the Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge 1997) 92124; Haldon
J. F. (1985) Some considerations on Byzantine society and economy in the
seventh century, Byzantinische Forschungen 10 (1985) 75112.
The wider economy Morrisson C. and Sodini J.-P. (2002) The sixth-
century economy, in The Economic History of Byzantium from the Seventh through
the Fifteenth Century, vol. 1, edd. A. Laiou and C. Bouras (Washington 2002)
171220; McCormick M. (2001) Origins of the European Economy: Communications
and Commerce, A.D. 300900 (Cambridge 2001) 4263, 83114; Whittow M.
(2003) Decline and fall? Studying long-term change in the East, in Theory
and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology, edd. L. Lavan and W. Bowden (Late
Antique Archaeology 1) (Leiden 2003) 40423, and also S. Kingsley in the
same volume 11338; Ward-Perkins B. (2001) Specialisation, trade and
prosperity: an overview of the economy of the Late Antique Eastern
Mediterranean, in Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean during Late
Antiquity (Proceedings of a Conference at Somerville College, Oxford, 29th May 1999),
edd. S. Kingsley and M. Decker (Oxford 2001) 16778, with other papers
22 rtkr r.\.x
from the same volume; Banaji J. (2001) Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity
(Oxford 2001); Johnson P. (2003) Late Roman economic systems: their
implication in the interpretation of social organisation, in TRAC 2002:
Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (Oxford
2003) 10112; Lewit T. (1991) Agricultural Production in the Roman Economy
(A.D. 200400) (Oxford 1991); Teja R. (1974) Organizacin econmica y social
de Capadocia en el siglo IV, segn los padres capadocios (Salamanca 1974)
Taxation Dlage A. (1945) La Capitation du Bas-Empire (Nancy 1945);
Goart W. (1974) Caput and Colonate: Towards a History of Late Roman Taxation
(Toronto 1974); Goart W. (1980) Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418584: The
Techniques of Accommodation (Princeton 1980); Carri J.-M. (1981) Lgypte
au IV
e
sicle: Fiscalit, economie, socialit, in Proceedings of the Sixteenth
International Congress of Papyrology (New York 1981) 43146; Carri J.-M.
(1994) Diocltien et la scalit, AntTard 2 (1994) 3364; Bagnall R. S.
(1985) Agricultural productivity and taxation in late Roman Egypt, TAPhA
115 (1985) 289308; Ermatinger J. W. (1996) The Economic Reforms of Diocletian
(St. Katharinen 1996); Hendy M. F. (1989) The Economy, Fiscal Administration
and Coinage of Byzantium ( Northhampton 1989); Hildesheim U. (1988)
Personalaspekte der frhbyzantinischen Steuerordnung. Die Personalveranlagung und ihre
Einbindung in das System der capitatioiugatio (Pfaenweiler 1988); Hendy M.
(1985) Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 3001450 (Cambridge 1985).
Coinage Duncan-Jones R. P. (1994) Money and Government in the Roman
Empire (Cambridge 1994); Reece R. (2003) Coins and the late Roman
economy, in Theory and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology, edd. W. Bowden
and L. Lavan (Late Antique Archaeology 1) (Leiden 2003) 13968; Banaji
J. (1998) Discounts, weight standards, and the exchange-rate between gold
and copper: insights into the monetary process of the sixth century in Atti
dellAccademia romanistica costantiniana: XII convegno internazionale in onore di Manlio
Sargenti, edd. G. Crif and S. Giglio (Naples 1998) 183202; Corbier M.
(2005) Coinage and taxation: the states point of view, in The Cambridge
Ancient History, vol. 12
2
: Crisis of Empire, A.D. 193337, edd. A. K. Bowman,
P. Garnsey, and Averil Cameron (Cambridge 2005) 32792; Kravari C.,
Lefort J., and Morrisson C. (1989) Hommes et richesses dans lEmpire byzantin,
vol. 1 (Paris 1989).
Annona Syntheses Carri J.-M. (1975) Les Distributions alimentaires dans
les cits de lempire romain Tardif , MFRA 87 (1975) 9951101; Durliat
J. (1990) De la Ville antique la ville byzantine: le problme des subsistances (Rome
1990); Sirks A. J. B. (1991) Food for Rome: The Legal Structure of the Transportation
and Processing of Supplies for the Imperial Disributions in Rome and Constantinople
(Amsterdam 1991); Garnsey P. (1996) Famine et approvisionnement dans le monde
grco-romain (Paris 1996). Rome Lo Cascio E. (1999) Canon frumentarius: stato
e privati nellapprovigianamento dellUrbs, in The Transformations of Urbs
Roma in Late Antiquity, ed. W. V. Harris ( JRA Supplementary Series 33)
(Portsmouth 1999) 16382; Tengstrm E. (1975) Bread for the People: Studies
in the Corn-Supply for Late Ancient Rome (Stockholm 1975); Whitehouse D. (1981)
The Schola Praeconum and the food supply of Rome in the fth century,
in Archaeology and Italian Society: Prehistoric, Roman and Medieval Studies, edd.
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 23
G. Barker and R. Hodges (BAR International Series 102) (1981) 19196;
Cracco Ruggini L. (1995) Economia e societ nell Italia annonaria: rapporti fra
agricoltura e commercio dal IV al VI secolo d. C. (Studi Storici sulla Tarda
Antichit 2) (Bari
2
1995); Vera D. (2002) Panis Ostiensis atque scalis: vec-
chie e nuove questioni di storia annonaria romana, in Humana Sapit: tudes
dAntiquit Tardive oertes Lellia Cracco Ruggini, edd. J.-M. Carri and R. Lizzi
Testa (Bibliothque de l Antiquit Tardive 3) (Turnhout 2002) 34156.
Alexandria Hollerich M. J. (1982) The Alexandrian bishops and the grain
trade: ecclesiastical commerce in Late Roman Egypt, JESHO 15 (1982)
186207. Antioch Schneider H. (1983) Die Getreideversorgung der Stadt
Antiochia im 4. Jahrhundert n. Chr., Mnstersche Beitrge zur antiken
Handelsgeschichte 2 (1983) 5972. Military Annona Mitthof F. (2001) Annona
militaris: die Heeresversorgung im sptantiken gypten: ein Beitrag zur Verwaltungs-
und Heeresgeschichte des Rmischen Reiches im 3. bis 6. Jh. n. Chr (Florence 2001);
Karagiorgou O. (2001) LR2: a container for the military annona on the
Danubian border?, in Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean during
Late Antiquity (Proceedings of a Conference at Somerville College, Oxford, 29th May
1999), edd. S. Kingsley and M. Decker (Oxford 2001) 12966.
Archaeological evidence of exchange patterns Fulford M. (1980) Carthage,
overseas trade, and the political economy, c. 400700, Reading Medieval
Studies 6 (1980) 6880; Mattingly D. (1988) Oil for export? A comparison
of Libyan, Spanish and Tunisian olive oil production in the Roman Empire,
JRA 1 (1988) 3356; Reynolds P. (1995) Trade in the Western Mediterranean,
400700: the Ceramic Evidence (BAR International Series 604) (Oxford 1995);
Watson P. M. (1995) Ceramic Evidence for Egyptian Links with Northern
Jordan in the 6th8th Centuries AD, in Trade, Contact, and the Movement of
Peoples in the Eastern Mediterranean: Studies in Honour of J. Basil Hennessy, edd.
S. Bourke and J.-P. Descoeudres (Sydney 1995) 30320; Kingsley S. (1999)
Specialized Production and Long-distance Trade in Byzantine Palestine (D.Phil. diss.,
Univ. of Oxford 1999); Strobel K. (2000) ed. Forschungen zur rmischen
Keramikindustrie: Produktions-, Rechts- und Distributionsstrukturen (Akten des 1. Trierer
Symposiums zur Antiken Wirtschaftsgeschichte) (Trierer Historische Forschungen
42) (Trier 2000). Pottery Sagu L. (1998) ed. Ceramica in Italia, 67 secolo: atti
del convegno in onore di John W. Hayes (Biblioteca di Archeologia Medievale 14)
(Florence 1998); Hayes J. W. (1972) Late Roman Pottery: A Catalogue of Roman
Fine Ware (London 1972); Hayes J. W. (1980) Late Roman Pottery: a Supplement
(London 1980); Hayes J. W. (1986) Excavations at Sarahane in Istanbul 2: The
Pottery (Princeton 1986); Keay S. J. (1984) Late Roman Amphorae in the Western
Mediterranean. A Typology and Economic Study: the Catalan Evidence ( BAR
International Series 196) (Oxford 1984); Mackensen M. (1993) Die Sptantiken
Sigillata und Lampentpfereien von El Mahrine (Nordtunesien). Studien zur Nordafrikanischen
Feinkeramik des 4. bis 7. Jahrhunderts (Munich 1993). For other recent bibli-
ography see Reynolds P. (2004) The Roman pottery from the Triconch
Palace, in R. Hodges, W. Bowden, and K. Lako (2004) edd. Byzantine
Butrint: Excavations and Surveys 19941999 (Oxford 2004) 22469. Shipwrecks
Kingsley S. A. (2004) Shipwreck Archaeology of the Holy Land: Processes and
Parameters (London 2004); Parker A. J. (1992) Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean
& the Roman Provinces (BAR International Series 580) (Oxford 1992).
24 rtkr r.\.x
Marble trade Sodini J.-P. (1989) Le commerce des marbres lpoque
palochrtienne, in Hommes et richesses dans lEmpire byzantin, IV
e
VII
e
sicle,
ed. C. Abadie-Reynal (Paris 1989) 16386; Ward-Perkins J. B. (1992) The
Roman system in operation, in Marble in Antiquity: Collected Papers of J. B.
Ward-Perkins, edd. H. Dodge and B. Ward-Perkins (Archaeological Monographs
of the British School at Rome 6) (Rome 1992) 2330; Sodini J.-P. (2000)
Le commerce des marbres en Mditerrane, in V Reunin dArqueologa
Cristiana Hispanica (Barcelona 2000) 42348; Corcoran S. and DeLaine J.
(1994) The unit measurement of marble in Diocletians Price Edict, JRA
7 (1994) 26373.
Porphyry Maxeld V. and Peacock D. P. S. (2001) The Roman Imperial
Quarries, Survey and Excavation at Mons Porphyrites 19941998 (London 2001);
Peacock D. P. S. (1997) Charlemagnes black stones: the re-use of Roman
columns in early medieval Europe, Antiquity 71 (1993) 70915; Diehl T. M.
(2002) Imperial Porphyry Quarries near Hurghada, Egypt (http://www.ems.psu.edu/
academic/cause2001/diehl.doc) [last accessed 16/01/2006].
Brickstamps Bardill J. (2004) Brickstamps of Constantinople (Oxford 2004).
Purple dye Munro J. H. (1983) Medieval scarlet and the economics of
sartorial splendour, in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe, edd. N. B. Harte
and K. G. Ponting (London 1983) 1370; Bridgeman J. (1987) Purple dye
in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, in The Royal Purple and the Biblical Blue:
Argaman and Tekhelet, ed. E. Spanier ( Jerusalem 1987) 15965.
State factories and warehouses James S. (1988) The fabricae: state arms
factories of the later Roman Empire, in Military Equipment and Identity of
Soldiers (Proceedings of the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference), ed. J. C. N.
Coulston (BAR International Series 394) (Oxford 1988) 257331; Rickman
G. E. (1971) Roman Granaries and Store Buildings (Cambridge 1971); Mundell
Mango M. (2000) The commercial map of Constantinople, DOP 54 (2000)
189205; Lavan L. (2001) Provincial Capitals of Late Antiquity (Ph.D diss.,
Univ. of Nottingham 2001) 24652.
Cursus Publicus Kolb A. (2000) Transport und Nachrichtentransfer im Rmischen
Reich (Klio. Beitrge zur Alten Geschichte, Beihefte, Neue Folge, 2) (Berlin
2000); Di Licietta P. (1999) Viaggi, trasporti e istituzioni: studi sul cursus publi-
cus (Messina 1999); Stoel P. (1994) ber die Staatspost, die Ochsengespanne und
die requirierten Ochsengespanne: Eine Darstellung des rmischen Postwesens auf Grund der
Gesetze des Codex Theodosianus und des Codex Iustinianus (Bern 1994); E. Kornemann
Postwesen, PWRE 22 (1953) 9881014.
Other government intervention see under professional corporations, in
section on the middle class; De Salvo L. (1992) Economia privata e publici
servizi nellimpero Romano: i corpora Naviculariorum (Kleio 5) (Messina 1992).
Political Geography: Provincial, Imperial and Royal Capitals
The phrase political geography is used here to describe the net-
work of cities hosting the dierent types of political authority that
developed during Late Antiquity, and most especially in the 4th c.
This was a period when the imperial court was not only frequently
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 25
divided, but also resident in major regional centres far from Rome.
The most important ministrythe praetorian prefecturewas also
divided into four, with permanent praefectural capitals developing
around the empire. Their vicarsthree times their numbersome-
times resided in xed places, although this is only certain for Antioch
and Alexandria. More certainly xed were the ordinary provincial
capitals: the metropoleis, which represented the nal tier of adminis-
tration above that of cities and vici.
The number of provincial capitals grew to over 120 during the
4th and 5th c., and from the time of Diocletian they seem to have
been recognised as xed centres of administration for the governor
and his ocium. This administrative hierarchy owed as much (or
more) to civic honour than any bureaucratic logic. It was reected
and reinforced by the administrative geography of the church, though
with some regional variations. Provincial capitals arguably did see a
greater level of investment than ordinary cities, and the arrival of a
governor and his ocium would have necessitated building works such
as a praetorium, horrea, governors statues, and perhaps enlargements
to entertainment buildings. However, this was normally done with
civic revenue, rather than large injections of imperial nance, mean-
ing that the urban development of such cities generally tended to
reect that of the surrounding region.
Provincial capitals are very unevenly researched. Some thematic
work has been undertaken on governors statues and praetoria, but
most metropoleis have been investigated as cities in their totality rather
than in terms of their political status. Furthermore, eldwork has
been uneven; the most extensively (and also most poorly) excavated
sites come from the East and the Mediterranean, whilst little is known
about their development in the West, outside Africa and Spain. There
has been no thematic research into provincial capitals of the early
Islamic empire, or into the theme capitals of the middle Byzantine
state, though some such cities have attracted broad-based interest as
individual places.
Provincial capitals Synthesis Lavan L. (2001) Provincial Capitals of Late Antiquity
(Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Nottingham 2001). Case Studies Foss C. (1979) Ephesus
after Antiquity: A Late Antique, Byzantine and Turkish city (Cambridge 1979);
Rouech C. (1989) Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (London 1989); Mitchell S.
and Waelkens M. (1998) Pisidian Antioch: The Site and its Monuments (London
1998); Christol M. and Drew-Bear T. (1999) Antioche de Pisidie capitale
provinciale et luvre de M. Valerius Diogenes, AntTard 7 (1999) 3871;
26 rtkr r.\.x
Petit P. (1955) Libanius et la vie municipale Antioche au IV
e
sicle aprs J.-C.
(Bibliothque archologique et historique 62) (Paris 1955); Liebeschuetz
J. H. W. G. (1972) Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman
Empire (Oxford 1972); Balty J. (1989) Apame au VI
e
sicle. Tmoignages
archologiques de la richesse dune ville, in Hommes et richesses dans lEmpire
byzantin, IV
e
VII
e
sicle, ed. C. Abadie-Reynal (Paris 1989) 7996; Segal
J. B. (1970) Edessa, the Blessed City (Oxford 1970); Tsafrir Y. and Foerster
G. (1997) Urbanism at Scythopolis-Bet Shean in the fourth to seventh
centuries, DOP 51 (1997) 85146; Haas C. (1997) Alexandria in Late Antiquity:
Topography and Social Conict (Baltimore London 1997); Ennabli L. (1997)
Carthage: une mtropole chrtienne du IV
e
la n du VII
e
sicle (Paris 1997).
Praetoria Lavan L. (1999) Residences of late antique governors: a
gazetteer, AntTard 7 (1999) 13564; Lavan L. (2001) The praetoria of civil
governors in late antiquity, in Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism,
ed. L. Lavan ( JRA Supplementary Series 42) (Portmouth 2001) 3956;
Patrich J. (1999) The warehouse complex and governors palace (areas
KK, CC, and NN, May 1993December 1995), in Caesarea Papers 2:
Herods Temple, the Provincial Governors Praetorium and Granaries, the Later Harbour,
a Gold Coin Hoard, and Other Studies, edd. K. G. Holum, A. Raban, and
J. Patrich ( JRA Supplementary Series 35) (Portsmouth 1999) 70108; Patrich
J. (2000) A government compound in Roman-Byzantine Caesarea, in
Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress for Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem 2000)
3544 [English section].
Statues Smith R. R. R. (1999) Late antique portraits in a public con-
text: honoric statuary at Aphrodisias in Caria, A.D. 300600, JRS 89
(1999) 15589; Horster M. (1998) Ehrungen sptantiker Statthalter, AnTard
6 (1998) 3759.
Imperial capitals (4th5th c.) and the Royal capitals of Germanic
successor states (5th7th c.)
The 4th c. saw emperors establish or consolidate major permanent
residences away from Rome, where they were joined by the court
and part of the eld army. With shared imperial rule and the even-
tual partition of the empire, this led to a stable decentralisation of
imperial capitals, bringing a new potent urban status into the provinces.
Imperial palaces and substantial public buildings (such as circuses
and baths) paid for out of central taxation revenues drawn from over
the whole empire, make these cities stand out from all others in their
region, in a way which provincial capitals do not. The imperial pres-
ence in major cities in the Westfrom Trier and Arles to Milan
and Ravennahas been extensively studied, though there is arguably
still more work to be done in the Balkans. Eastern imperial centres
such as Nicomedia and Antioch have seen less research into their
monumental topography and urban development, partly due to the
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 27
low importance of archaeology to modern urban development there.
Imperial palaces and government monuments have attracted much
attention from scholars. Nevertheless, there has been little interest
into what the presence of the imperial court meant for the overall
urban development of a city.
The royal courts of Germanic successor states used xed capitals
to varying degrees, and these have recently received attention as a
group (Ripoll, Gurt, and Chavarra (2000)). The degree to which
such royal courts specically invested in cities appears to have varied
greatly, and was at least partly dependant on their continuing con-
trol over the taxation system.
Syntheses Imperial capitals Brown T. (2002) Emperors and Imperial Cities, AD
284423 (D.Phil. diss., Univ. of Oxford 2002); Mayer E. (2002) Rom ist
dort, wo der Kaiser ist: Untersuchungen zu den Staatsdenkmlern des dezentralisierten
Reiches von Diocletian bis zu Theodosius II ( Monographien des Rmisch-
Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz, Forschungsinstitut fr Vor- und
Frhgeschichte 53) (Mainz 2002); Krautheimer R. (1982) Three Christian
Capitals: Topography and Politics (Berkeley 1982). Royal capitals Ripoll G., Gurt
J. M., and Chavarra A. (2000) edd. Sedes regiae (ann. 400800) (Barcelona
2000). Palaces in general Bauer F. A. (Forthcoming) ed. Visualisierungen von
Herrschaft. Frhmittelalterliche ResidenzenGestalt und Zeremoniell (Tbingen
Forthcoming); uri S. (1993) Late Antique Palaces: the meaning of their
urban context, Ars Orientalis 23 (1993) 6790; Duval N. (1985) Existe-t-il
une structure palatiale propre lantiquit tardive?, in Le Systme Palatial
en Orient, Grce et Rome, ed. E. Lvy (Leiden 1985) 46390; Duval N. (1997)
Les rsidences impriales: leur rapport avec les problmes de lgitimit,
les partages de lempire et la chronologie des combinaisons dynastiques,
in Usurpationen in der Sptantike, edd. F. Paschoud and J. Szidat (Akten des
Kolloquiums Staatsstreich und Staatlichkeit) (Solothurn Bern, 610 Mrz
1996) (Stuttgart 1997) 12753; Arce J. (1997) Emperadores, palacios y vil-
lae, AnTard 5 (1997) 293302. Mausolea Johnson M. J. (1986) Late Antique
Imperial Mausolea (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Princeton 1986). Trier Heinen H.
(1996) Frhchristliches Trier: von den Anfngen bis zur Vlkswanderung (Trier 1996);
Trier, Kaiserresidenz und Bischofssitz: die Stadt in sptantiker und frhchristlicher Zeit
(Mainz 1984). Arles Heijmans M. (2004) Arles durant lantiquit tardive: de la
duplex Arelas lurbs genesii (Rome 2004); Loseby S. (1996) Arles in late
antiquity: Gallula Rome Arelas and Urbs Genesii, in Towns in Transition: Urban
Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, edd. N. Christie and
S. Loseby (Aldershot 1996) 4570. Milan Senna Chiesa G. (1990) ed. Milano
capitale dellimpero romano 286402 d.C. (Milan 1990); Christie N. (1993)
Milan as imperial capital, and its hinterland, JRA 6 (1993) 48587;
McLynn N. (1994) Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital
(Berkeley 1994). Ravenna Susini G. (1990) Storia di Ravenna 1: Levo antico
(Venice 1990); Various Authors (2004) Archeologia urbana a Ravenna (Ravenna
28 rtkr r.\.x
2004); Carile A. (1991) ed. Storia di Ravenna, vol. 2.1 Dallet bizantina allet
ottoniana (Venice 1991); F. W. Deichmann (19581989) Ravenna: Hauptstadt
des sptantiken Abendlandes vol. 13 (Stuttgart 19581989); Johnson M. J. (1988)
Towards a history of Theoderics building program, DOP 42 (1988) 9296.
Thessalonica Spieser J.-M. (1984) Thessalonique et ses monuments du IV
e
au VI
sicle (Paris 1984); Torp H. (2003) Lentre septentrionale du palais imp-
rial de Thessalonique: larc de triomphe et le vestibulum dapres les fouilles
dEjnar Dyggve en 1939, AnTard 11 (2003) 23972. Nicomedia Foss C.
(1996) Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia 2: Nicomedia (British Institute of
Archaeology in Ankara 21) (Ankara 1996). Antioch Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G.
(1972) Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford
1972).
Rome as a political capital
As the city which had conquered the known world, Rome remained
the emotional heart of the empire to the beginning of the 5th c.,
despite losing the permanent imperial court from the time of the
Tetrarchy onwards. Political inertia meant that a massive state-sub-
sidised population remained here, as did the richest of the senator-
ial elite, drawing on land-holdings stretching across the whole empire.
As such, the city retained a size and splendour substantially greater
than that of the new imperial cities of the 4th c., until the traumatic
political events of the 5th c. meant that the state, the senators, and
the people lost control of the revenue streams which had permitted
such an exceptional urban life, which now shrunk drastically. Never-
theless, the unwinding of imperial government in the West did briey
permit the re-emergence of Rome and the senate as a centre of
leadership for Italy in the 5th c.
Because of Romes history and its inevitable attraction to archae-
ologists and historians, late antique Rome has been well-served. It
is perhaps the prime research target of classically-trained scholars
who feel happiest investigating aspects of the period which look and
feel most Roman, such as the political history of the senate or the
monuments of the city. Certainly, several emperors did make their
mark on the city, albeit from a distance, but it is dangerous to fail
to appreciate the changed status of the city through the comfort of
its familiar monuments. There has, though, been positive integration
between classical and ecclesiastical historians, and as a result of these
interactions there is a growing appreciation of the development of
the city as a Papal capital and its changing monuments, at exactly
the time when secular Rome was losing its power and population.
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 29
Sources are relatively rich for the capital, drawing on laws, letters,
ecclesiastical texts, and administrative notitia, and snippets from his-
torians such as Ammianus Marcellinus. They have been extensively
studied and organised in various reference works. The buildings of
the city, whilst not originally excavated with Late Antiquity in mind,
are now being surveyed or dug with particular attention to this
period, as are the many churches. Future scholarship will surely bring
many empirical discoveries, though much can be obtained from care-
fully re-surveying long-known structures, as recent work on the Arch
of Constantine has revealed.
This listing focuses aspects of Rome as a political capital, not the total
urban history of the city. Syntheses Curran J. (2000) Pagan City and Christian
Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford 2000); Krautheimer R. (2000)
Rome: Prole of a City, 3121308 (Princeton 1980); Lanon B. (1995) Rome
dans lAntiquit tardive (312604 aprs J.-C.) (Paris 1995); Harris W. V. (1999)
ed. The Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity ( JRA Supplementary
Series 33) (Portsmouth 1999); La Rocca E. and Ensoli S. (2000) edd. Aurea
Roma: Dalla citt pagana alla citt cristiana (Rome 2000); Arena M. S., Delogu P.,
Paroli L. et al. (2001) edd. Roma dallantichit al medioevo: archeologia e storia nel
Museo Nazionale Romano, Crypta Balbi (Rome 2001); Holloway R. R. (2004)
Constantine and Rome (New Haven 2004); Pietri C. (1976) Roma Christiana:
recherches sur lglise de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son idologie de Miltiade
Sixte III (311440) (Rome 1976). Reference works Plattner S. and Ashby T.
(1929) Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Oxford 1929); Richardson L.
(1992) A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore 1992); Steinby
E. M. (19932000) ed. Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae (Rome 19932000);
Dudley D. R. (1967) Urbs Roma: A Source Book of Classical Texts on the City
and its Monuments (London 1967). Image of Rome Bhl G. (1995) Constantinopolis
und Roma: Stadtpersonikationen in der Sptantike (Kilchberg Zrich 1995);
Heckster O. (1999) The city of Rome in late Imperial ideology: the
Tetrarchs, Maxentius, and Constantine, Mediterraneo Antico 2 (1999) 71748;
Roberts M. (2001) Rome personied, Rome epitomized: representations
of Rome in the poetry of the early fth century, AJP 122 (2001) 53365.
Emergence of the Papal capital see Krautheimer, Curran, and Pietri, above;
Pietri C. (1997) Christiana Respublica. Elements dune enquete sur le christianisme
antique, 3 vols. (Rome 1997). Pani Ermini L (2000) ed. Christiana Loca. Lo
spazio cristiano nella Roma del primo millenio, 2 vols. (Rome 2000); Pani Ermini
L. and Siniscalco P. (2000) edd. La comunit cristiana di Roma. La sua vita e
cultura dalle origini allalto medioevo (Vatican City 2000); Cooper K. and Hillner
J. (Forthcoming) edd. Dynasty, Patronage and Authority in a Christian Capital:
Rome, c. 250850 (Cambridge Forthcoming). Lateran Palace Liverani P. and
F. Guidobaldi F. (2004) Il patriarchio lateranense (Atti della giornata di
studi, Roma 2003), MEFRA 116.1 (2004) 9178; Liverani P. (2003) Dal
palatium imperiale al palatium ponticio, ActaAArtHist 23 (n.s. 3) (2003)
14363; Lauer P. (1900) Les fouilles du Sancta Sanctorum au Latran,
30 rtkr r.\.x
MFR 20 (1900) 25187. Imperial Palaces Augenti A. (2000) Palatia: tra la
tarda antichit e lalto medioevo, in Aurea Roma: dalla citt pagana alla citt
cristiana, edd. S. Ensoli and E. La Rocca (Rome 2000) 9197; Augenti A.
(1996) Il Palatino nel Medioevo: archeologia e topograa (secoli VIXIII) (Rome
1996); Kerr L. (2002) A topography of death: the buildings of the emperor
Maxentius on the Via Appia, Rome, in TRAC 2001: Proceedings of the Eleventh
Annual Theoretical Archaeology Conference, edd. M. Carruthers, C. V. Driel-
Murray, and A. Gardner (Oxford 2002) 2433; Ioppolo G. and Pisani
Sartorio G. (1999) edd. La villa di Massenzio sulla Via Appia: il circo (Rome
1999); Frazer A. (1966) The iconography of the Emperor Maxentius build-
ings in Via Appia, ArtB 48 (1966) 38592. Other imperial monuments Bauer
F. A. (1996) Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Sptantike: Untersuchungen zur
Ausstattung des entlichen Raumes in den sptantiken Stdten Rom, Konstantinopel und
Ephesos (Mainz 1996) [reviewed by Spieser J.-M. (1998) AntTard 6 (1998)
39698]; Hunt D. (2002) Imperial building at Rome: the role of Constantine,
in Bread and Circuses: Euergetism and Municipal Patronage in Roman Italy, edd.
T. Cornell and K. Lomas (London 2002) 10524; Elsner J. (2000) From
the culture of spolia to the cult of relics: the Arch of Constantine and the
genesis of Late Antique forms, PBSR 68 (2000) 14984; Peirce P. (1989)
The Arch of Constantine: propaganda and ideology in late Roman art,
Art History 12 (1989) 387418; Pensabene P. and Panella C. (1999) edd.
Arco di Costantino tra archeologia e archeometria (Rome 1999); Bauer F. A. (1999)
Das Denkmal der Kaiser Gratian, Valentinian II und Theodosius am
Forum Romanum, RmMitt 106 (1999) 21334; Gregory A. P. (1994)
Powerful images: responses to portraits and the political use of images in
Rome, JRA 7 (1994) 80105; Smith R. R. R. (1985) Roman portraits:
honours, empresses and late emperors, JRS 75 (1985) 20921; Smith
R. B. E. (2002) Restored utility, eternal city: patronal imagery at Rome
in the fourth century A.D., in Bread and Circuses Euergetism and Municipal
Patronage in Roman Italy, edd. T. Cornell and K. Lomas (London 2002)
14266. The emperor and public entertainment Blnsdorf J. (1990) Der sptan-
tike Staat und die Schauspiele im Codex Theodosianus, in Theater und
Gesellschaft im Imperium Romanum, ed. J. Blnsdorf (Mainzer Forschungen zu
Drama und Theater 4) (Tbingen 1990) 16173; Beacham R. C. (1991)
The Roman Theatre and its Audience (London 1991); Wiedemann T. (1995)
Das Ende der rmischen Gladiatorenspiele, Nikephoros 8 (1995) 14559;
Lim R. (1999) People as power: games, municence, and contested topog-
raphy, in The Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity, ed. W. V. Harris
( JRA Supplementary Series 33) (Portsmouth 1999) 26581; Khne E. and
Ewigleben C. (2000) Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient
Rome (London 2000). The senate building Bartoli A (1963) Curia senatus (Rome
1963); Fraschetti A. (1999) La conversione: da Roma pagana a Roma cristiana
(Bari 1999).
Constantinople
Constantinople was in many ways dierent from other new imper-
ial capitals of the 4th and 5th c. AD. It was from the start planned
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 31
as a new foundation (though building on a smaller civic predeces-
sor) and acquired its own grain dole, and eventually a senate. As
New Rome it was the only such city to seriously rival the old,
though its early development was tful, with Constantius, Valens and
Julian normally preferring to reside at Antioch. After an initial mon-
umental outlay by Constantine, it was boosted by building pro-
grammes of Theodosius I and II and Justinian in particular, by whose
time church building, paid for by both imperial and private funds,
came to dominate the monumentality of the city.
A major problem in studying the eastern capital is the state of
the sources. There have been very few excavations, and only one
published to modern standards so far, at Sarahane, on the Church
of St Polyeuctos, and what excavation there has been has almost
exclusively concentrated on prestigious public buildings, to the neglect
even of the houses of the imperial aristocracy. Whilst standing mon-
uments have been tfully surveyed, poor preservation means that
Renaissance and early modern depictions are often our best sources.
Fitting this information together with the often late and frequently
confusing literary sources involves a large amount of conjecture, as
can been seen from the greatly varying plan reconstructions oered
for the Great Palace by various scholars.
Recently there has been some new survey work, in and around
the city, and excavation inside the Great Palace. But the future of
research inside the modern Turkish capital largely depends upon
arguing the case that archaeological research into things Byzantine
is both economically worthwhile and politically neutral. This argu-
ment still has to be won in the face of ever-increasing destruction,
but if it is won, the potential results will be very great, because
archaeology has thus far only scratched at the surface of this great
city. Text-based research continues unperturbed however, with work
still to be done on producing reliable editions of some basic texts,
such as the Book of Ceremonies, currently being investigated by a team
led by Dagron.
This listing focuses aspects of Constantinople as a political capital, not the
total urban history of the city. Syntheses Dagron G. (1974) Naissance dune
capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 451 (Bibliothque byzantine,
tudes 7) (Paris 1974); Mango C. (1985) Le dveloppement urbain de Constantinople
(IV
e
VII
e
sicles) (Travaux et mmoires du Centre de recherche dhistoire et
civilisation de Byzance, Monographies 2) (Paris 1985) [a 2nd edition was
published in 1990 with important additions]; Magdalino P. (1996) Constantinople
32 rtkr r.\.x
mdivale: tudes sur lvolution des structures urbaines (Travaux et mmoires du
Centre de recherche dhistoire et civilisation de Byzance, Monographies 9)
(Paris 1996); Ward-Perkins B. (2000) Constantinople: a city and its ideo-
logical territory, in Towns and Their Territories Between Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages, edd. G. P. Brogiolo, N. Christie, and N. Gauthier (Leiden
2000) 32545; Bassett S. (2004) The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople
(Cambridge 2004); Cameron Averil and Herrin J. (1984) Constantinople in the
Early Eighth Century: the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai (Leiden 1984). Collections
Mango C., Dagron G., and Greatrex G. (1993) edd. Constantinople and its
Hinterland (Papers from the 27th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Oxford, April
1993) (Publications of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies
3) (Aldershot 1993); Necipoglu N. (2001) ed. Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments,
Topography and Everyday Life (Leiden 2001); Mango C. (1993) Studies on
Constantinople (Aldershot 1993). Reference works for all sites and monuments see
detailed entries in Mller-Wiener W. (1977) Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls
(Tbingen 1977); Bardill J. (2004) Brickstamps of Constantinople (Oxford 2004);
Bauer F. A. (1996) Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Sptantike. Untersuchungen
zur Ausstattung des entlichen Raums in den sptantiken Stdten Rom, Konstantinopel
und Ephesos (Mainz 1996); Janin R. (1964) Constantinople byzantine, dveloppe-
ment urbain et rpertoire topographique (Paris 1964); Berger A. (1988) Untersuchungen
zu den Patria Konstantinopoleos (Bonn 1988). The Great Palace Miranda S. (1965)
Le Palais des empereurs byzantins (Mexico City 1965); Ebersolt J. (1910) Le Grand
Palais de Constantinople et le livre des crmonies (Paris 1910); Mango C. (1959)
The Brazen House: A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople
(Copenhagen 1959); Bardill J. (1999) The Great Palace of Byzantine emper-
ors and the Walker Trust excavations JRA 12 (1999) 21630; Featherstone
J. M. (Forthcoming) The Palace as Reected in the De Cerimoniis, in
Visualisierungen von Herrschaft. Fruehmittelalterliche ResidenzenGestalt und Zeremoniell,
ed. F. A. Bauer (Tbingen Forthcoming); Jobst W. et al. (1997) Istanbul: The
Great Palace Mosaic (Istanbul 1997); Bardill J. and Hayes J. W. (2002) Exca-
vations Beneath the Peristyle Mosaic in the Great Palace of the Byzantine
Emperors: The Pottery From Site D, 1936 CahArch 50 (2002) 2740;
Mango C. (1995) Ancient spolia in the Great Palace of Constantinople,
in Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann
(Princeton 1995) 64549; Istanbul Arkeoloji Mzeleri yilligi (2002); Bolognesi
Recchi Franceschini E. (1994ongoing) The Great Palace Survey, annual
reports in Ara{trma Sonular Toplants (Ankara 1994-ongoing). Other palaces
Runciman S. (1980) The country and suburban palaces of the Emperors,
in Charanis Studies: Essays in Honor of Peter Charanis, ed. A. Laiou-Thomadakis
(New Brunswick 1980) 21928; Bardill J. (1997) The Palace of Lausus
and nearby monuments in Constantinople: a topographical study, AJA 101
(1997) 6795. The emperor and public entertainment McCormick M. (1986) Eternal
Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval
West (Cambridge and Paris 1986); Geyssen J. (1998) Presentations of vic-
tory on the Theodosian obelisk base, Byzantion 68 (1998) 4755; Cameron
Alan (1976) Circus factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford
1976); Humphrey J. H. (1986) Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (Berkeley
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 33
1986). Fora and triumphal routes Mango C. (2000) The triumphal way of
Constantinople and the Golden Gate, DOP 54 (2000) 17388; Berger A.
(1996) Tauros e Sigma: due piazze di Constantinopoli, in Bisanzio e
lOccidente: arte, archeologia, storia. Studi in onore di Fernanda deMaei (Rome 1996)
1924; Bauer F. A. (2001) Urban Space and Ritual: Constantinople in
Late Antiquity, ActaAArtHist 15 (2001) 2761. Golden Gate Bardill J. (1999)
The Golden Gate in Constantinople: A Triumphal Arch of Theodosius
I, AJA 103 (1999) 67196. Triumphal columns Mayer E. (2002) Rom ist dort,
wo der Kaiser ist : Untersuchungen zu den Staatsdenkmlern des dezentralisierten Reiches
von Diocletian bis zu Theodosius II (Monographien des Rmisch-Germanischen
Zentralmuseums Mainz, Forschungsinstitut fr Vor- und Frhgeschichte 53)
(Mainz 2002); Sodini J.-P. (1994) Images sculptes et propagande impri-
ale du IV
e
au VI
e
sicle: recherches rcentes sur les colonnes honoriques
et les reliefs politiques Byzance, in Byzance et les images, edd. A. Guillou
and J. Durand (Paris 1994) 4394; Mango C. (198081) Constantines
porphyry column and the chapel of St Constantine, Deltion tes Christianikes
Archaiologikes Hetaireias 10 (198081) 103110; Konrad C. B. (2001) Beobach-
tungen zur Architektur und Stellung des Sulenmonumentes in Istanbul-
Cerrahpa{aArkadiossule, IstMitt 51 (2001) 319402; Mango C. (1993)
The columns of Justinian and his successors, and Justinians equestrian
statue, in Studies on Constantinople (Aldershot 1993) chapters X and XI;
Berger A. (1996) Tauros e Sigma: due piazze di Constantinopoli, in
Bisanzio e lOccidente: arte, archeologia, storia. Studi in onore di Fernanda deMaei
(Rome 1996) 1924. Hippodrome Guilland R. (196270) tudes sur lHippo-
drome, Byzantinoslavica 2331 (196270); Casson S. et al. (1928) Preliminary
Report Upon the Excavations Carried Out in the Hippodrome of Constantinople in
1927, on behalf of the British Academy (London 1928); Casson S. et al. (1929)
Second Report Upon the Excavations Carried Out in and near the Hippodrome of
Constantinople in 1928, on behalf of the British Academy (London 1929); Berger
A (1997) Bemerkungen zum Hippodrom von Konstantinopel, Boreas 20
(1997) 515. Honoric statuary Bauer F. A. (2003) Statuen hoher Wrdentrger
im Stadtbild Konstantinopels, ByzZeit 96 (2003) 493513. Politically impor-
tant churches General Krautheimer R. (1982) Three Christian Capitals: Topography
and Politics (Berkeley 1982), plus Muller-Wiener and other reference works
listed above; Janin R (1969) La gographie ecclsiastique de 1Empire Byzantine,
III (Paris 1969) for sources on ecclesiastical foundations; Kleinbauer W. E.
(1992) Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. An Annotated Bibliography (Boston
1992); Mathews T (1971) The Early Churches of Constantinople (University Park,
Pennsylvania 1971); van Millingen A. (1912) Byzantine Churches in Constantinople:
Their History and Architecture (London 1912); see also bibliography on web-
site of T. Mathews The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul (http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/
dept/neart/html/Byzantine/index.htm [last accessed 14/1/2006]). Church
of the Holy Apostles Mango C. (1990) Constantines mausoleum and the
translation of relics, ByzZeit 85 (1990) 5162; Eenberger A. (2000)
Konstantinsmausoleum, Apostelkircheund kein Ende?, in Lithostroton.
Studien zur byzantinischen Kunst und Geschichte. Festschrift fr Marcell Restle, edd.
B. Borkopp and T. Steppan (Stuttgart 2000) 6778; Johnson M. J. (1986)
34 rtkr r.\.x
Late Antique Imperial Mausolea (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Princeton 1986). Church
of St Polyeuktos Bardill, in present volume; Harrison R. M. (1986) A Temple
for Byzantium (London 1989); Harrison R. M. (1986) Excavations at Sarahane
in Istanbul (Princeton 1986) 2 vols, and see entries under patronage/regional/
Constantinople. Sts. Sergius and Bacchus Bardill J. (2000) The Church of Sts.
Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople and the Monophysite Refugees,
DOP 54 (2000) 112 and articles by C. Mango reprinted in his Studies on
Constantinople (Aldershot 1993). St Sophia Mainstone R. (1988) Hagia Sophia:
Architecture, Structure, and Liturgy of Justinians Great Church (New York 1988).
The Political Institutions of Cities
The political life of late antique cities has seen relatively little research
in the 40 years since the seminal work of Jones (1964) and his work
on the late-3rd to mid-5th c. remains largely unchallenged. However,
important regional studies by Lepelley (1979), Ward-Perkins (1984),
Liebeschuetz (1972), Bowman (1971), and other monographs for well-
documented centres have all sharpened our perspective considerably,
while Laniado (2002) and Liebeschuetz (2001) have expanded serious
civic and administrative history into the 5th and 6th c. Both these
latter works provide references to most bibliography on issues such
as the decline of the curial order, later civic nances, civic services,
euergetism, and government intervention.
The sources of civic politics are the same as those for provincial
government and so are aected by the same biases: they are much
richer for the East and for the central Mediterranean than they are
for the West, and are also weighted to the 4th and early 5th c. (with
the exception of the laws). There is also a bias in chronicles and
histories towards the bigger cities of the East. 6th c. epigraphy looks
ever more promising as a potential source and the later papyri may
become better understood, although archaeology has been an under-
used source for these issues. However, understanding the political
life of the cities of the later 5th and 6th c. remains a considerable
challenge.
Syntheses Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602: A Social,
Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964) 71266; Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G.
(2001) The Decline and Fall of the the Roman City (Oxford 2001); Lewin A.
(1991) Studi sulla citt imperiale romana nellOriente tardoantico (Como 1991);
Lewin A. (ca. 1995) Assemblee popolari e lotta politica nelle citt dell Impero Romano
(Florence ca. 1995); Laniado A. (2002) Recherches sur les notables municipaux
dans lEmpire Protobyzantin (Paris 2002); Durliat J. (1990) Les nances publiques
de Diocletien aux Carolingiens (283889) (Sigmaringen 1990); Durliat J. (1993)
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 35
Les rentiers de limpt. Recherches sur les nances municipales dans la pars Orientis au
IV
e
sicle (Vienna 1993).
Alternative perspectives Whittow M. (1990) Ruling the late Roman and
early Byzantine city: a continuous history, PastPres 129 (1990) 329; Whittow
M. (2001) Recent research on the late antique city in Asia Minor: the
second half of the 6th c. revisited, in Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism,
ed. L. Lavan ( JRA Supplementary Series 42) (Portsmouth 2001) 13753;
Lavan L. (2003) Christianity, the city and the end of Antiquity, JRA 16
(2003) 705710.
Civic administration: regional studies North Africa Lepelley C. (1979) Les
Cits de LAfrique romaine au Bas-Empire (Paris 1979); LAfrique dans lOccident
Romain (I
er
sicle av. J.-C.IV
e
sicle ap. J.-C.) (Rome 1990). Italy Ward Perkins B.
(1984) From Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in
Northern and Central Italy AD 300850 (Oxford 1984); Cecconi G. A. (1994)
Governo imperiale e lites dirigenti nellItalia tardoantica: problemi di storia politico-
amministrativa (270476 d. C.) (Como 1994). Greece, Asia Minor, the Near East
Lewin A. (1991) Studi sulla citt imperiale romana nellOriente tardoantico (Como
1991); Lewin A. (ca. 1995) Assemblee popolari e lotta politica nelle citt dell Impero
Romano (Florence ca. 1995). Antioch Petit P. (1955) Libanius et la vie munici-
pale dAntioche (Paris 1955); Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G. (1972) Antioch: City and
Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1972). Egypt Bowman
A. K. (1971) The Town Councils of Roman Egypt (Toronto 1971); Bagnall R. S.
(1993) Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton 1993) 45109. Cyrenaica Liebeschuetz
J. H. W. G. (1985) Synesius and municipal politics in Cyrenaica in the
5th c. AD, Byzantion 55 (1985) 14664; Roques D. (1987) Synsios de Cyrne
et la Cyrenaque du bas-empire (Paris 1987).
Bishops and clergy in civic life Sterk A. (2004) Renouncing the World yet
Leading the Church: the Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass. 2004);
Rapp C. (2005) Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: the Nature of Christian Leadership
in an Age of Transition (Berkeley 2005); Brown P. R. L. (1992) Power and
Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (London 1992); Liebeschuetz
J. H. W. G. (2001) The rise of the bishop, in The Decline and Fall of the
Roman City (Oxford 2001) 13768; Sotinel C. (1998) Le personnel pisco-
pal: enqute sur la puissance de lvque dans la cit, in Lvque dans la
cit du IV
e
au V
e
sicle: image et autorit, edd. . Rebillard and C. Sotinel
(Rome 1998) 10526; Durliat J. (1996) vque et administration munici-
pale au VII
e
sicle, in La Fin de la cit antique et le dbut de la cit mdivale,
ed. C. Lepelley (Bari 1996) 27386; Dassmann E. (1994) mter und Dienste
in den frhchristlichen Gemeinden (Bonn 1994); Loseby S. (1992) Bishops and
cathedrals: order and diversity in the fth-century urban landscape of south-
ern Gaul, in Fifth-century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?, edd. J. Drinkwater and
H. Elton (Cambridge 1992) 14455; Lizzi R. (1990) Ambroses contem-
poraries and the Christianization of northern Italy, JRS 80 (1990) 15673;
Harries J. D. (1978) Church and state in the Notitia Galliarum, JRS 68
(1978) 2643; Schweizer C. (1991) Hierarchie und Organisation der rmischen
Reichskirche in der Kaisergesetzgebung vom vierten bis zum sechsten Jahrhundert (Bern
1991); Lancel S. (1990) vchs et cits dans les provinces africaines (III
e
V
e
sicles), in LAfrique dans loccident romain (Rome 1990) 27390; Lepelley C.
36 rtkr r.\.x
(1998) Le patronat piscopal aux IV
e
et V
e
sicles: continuits et ruptures
avec le patronat classique, in Lvque dans la cit du IV
e
au V
e
sicle: image
et autorit, edd. . Rebillard and C. Sotinel (Rome 1998) 1733.
Episcopia Pallas D. I. (1968) Episkopion in Reallexikon zur byzantinischen
Kunst, vol. 2.2 (Stuttgart 1968) col. 33571; Real U. (2003) Die Bischofs-
residenz in der sptantiken Stadt, in Die sptantike Stadt und ihre Christianisierung.
Symposion vom 14. bis 16. Februar 2000 in Halle/Saale, edd. G. Brands and
H. G. Severin (Wiesbaden 2003) 21938; Malaspina M. (1975) Gli epis-
copia e le residenze episcopali nella pars orientalis dellImpero romano,
CistAMilano 5 (1975) 21137; Mller-Wiener M. (1983) Riessioni sui palazzi
episcopali, FelRav 125126 (1983) 10345; Mller-Wiener M. (1989)
Bischofresidenz des 4.7. Jhs. im stlichen Mittelmeer-Raum, Actes du
XIe congrs international darchologie chrtienne (Lyon, Vienne, Grenoble, Genve, Aoste
1986, 2128 Septembre) (Vatican City 1989) 651709. See also articles in
Lavan, L., Ozgenel, L. and Sarantis, A. (Forthcoming) edd. Housing in
Late Antiquity: From Palaces to Shops (Late Antique Archaeology 3.2)
(Leiden Forthcoming)
Other Abrahamse D. (1967) Hagiographic Sources for Byzantine Cities, 500900
A.D (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan 1967); Lavan L (2003) The political
topography of the late antique city, in Theory and Practice in Late Antique
Archaeology, edd. L. Lavan and W. Bowden (Late Antique Archaeology 1)
(Leiden 2003) 31437.
Sotncrs ron Pori+ic.r Lirr
The sources for political life have traditionally been narrative histo-
ries, letters, and legal sources. To this, Jones and others were able
to add inscriptions, and careful work on more problematic sources
panegyrics, hagiographies, and ecclesiastical historiescontinues to
add to our knowledge. Analysis of source material via the frame-
work of prosopography has produced many entirely new insights
from the same sources, and the potential of new systems of analy-
sis, such as GIS, may produce comparable advances in future.
Nevertheless, there are also signicant archaeological sources for late
antique political life, ranging from palaces, court art, and coins, to
the settlement archaeology of political power as seen through the
establishment of forts or imperial capitals. Aside from monumental
art these sources have been little used for the study of politics and
administration during this period, though they might provide a pow-
erful check on tendentious literary sources, which are frequently
enmeshed in the controversies of the day and which provide a very
uneven chronological coverage.
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 37
Bibliographies Demandt A. (1989) Die Sptantike: Rmische Geschichte von Diocletian
bis Justinian, 284565 n. Chr. (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, Abt. 3,
6) (Munich 1989) 133, 51966; Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman
Empire, 284602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964)
146476; Winkelmann F. and Brandes W. (1990) edd. Quellen zur Geschichte
des frhen Byzanz (4.-9. Jahrhundert): Bestand und Probleme (Amsterdam 1990).
Legislation Cuneo P. (1997) La legislazione di Costantino II, Costanzo II e
Costante (337361) (Milan 1997); Pergami F. (1993) ed. La legislazione di
Valentiniano e Valente (364375) (Milan 1993); Harries J. and Wood I. (1993)
edd. The Theodosian Code: Studies in the Imperial Law of Late Antiquity (London
1993); Honor T. (1998) Law in the Crisis of Empire, 379455 A.D. (Oxford
1998); Harries J. (1999) Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge 1999);
Matthews J. (2001) Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (New
Haven 2001); Mathisen R. W. (2001) ed. Law, Society, and Authority in Late
Antiquity (Oxford 2001); Brard F., Feissel D., Petitmengin P., Rousset D.,
Sve M. (2000) Guide de lpigraphiste (Paris
3
2000) 16467.
Administrative and ceremonial texts Jordan H. (1878) ed. Notitia urbis
Romae de regionibus urbis (Berlin 1878); Seeck O. (1876) ed. Laterculus Veronensis
(Berlin 1876) 24753; Seeck O. (1876) ed. Notitia dignitatum (Berlin 1876)
1225 [a new edition (edition Teubner) is being prepared by R. I. Ireland];
Seeck O. (1876) ed. Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae (Berlin 1876) 22743;
Berger A. (1997) Regionen und Straen im frhen Konstantinopel, IstMitt
47 (1997) 349414 (contains translation and commentary of the Notitia urbis
Constantinopolitanae); Mommsen T. (1892) ed. Notitia Galliarum, in Chronica
Minora Saec. IV, V, VI, VII, vol. 1 (Berlin 1892, repr. 1961) 552612; John
Lydus, De magistratibus populi Romani, ed. R. Wnsch (Bibliotheca Scriptorum
Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana) (Stuttgart 1903/1967) [a new edi-
tion is being prepared by M. Dubuisson and J. Schamp, Collection des Universits
de France]; Maas M. (1992) John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and
Politics in the Age of Justinian (London 1992); Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
De ceremoniis Aulae Byzantinae, ed. V. Vogt (Collection byzantine) (Paris 1935)
[a new edition is being prepared by G. Dagron].
Epigraphy General Brard F., Feissel D., Petitmengin P., Rousset D., Sve
M. (2000) Guide de lpigraphiste (Paris
3
2000); Dittenberger W. (19151924)
Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum (Leipzig 19151924); Dessau H. (18921916)
Inscriptiones latinae selectae (Berlin 18921916); Diehl E. (19251967) Inscriptiones
latinae christianae veteres (19251867). Imperial Diocletianus: Der rmische Kaiser aus
Dalmatien (Witteren 1991); Grnewald Th. (1990) Constantinus Maximus Augustus:
Herrschaftspropaganda in der zeitgenssichen berlieferung (Historia Einzelschriften
64) (Stuttgart 1990) 179263. Civic Ward-Perkins B. (1984) From Classical
Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and Central
Italy AD 300850 (Oxford 1984); Lepelley C. (1979) Les Cits de LAfrique
romaine au Bas-empire (Paris 1979): vol. 1: La permanence dune civilisation muni-
cipale, vol. 2: Notices dhistoire municipale; Lewin A. (1991) Studi sulla citt impe-
riale romana nellOriente tardoantico (Como 1991) 11728; Robert L. (1948)
Hellenica: Recueil dpigraphie, de numismatique et dantiquits grecques 4: Epigrammes
du bas-empire (Paris 1948) 6089; Dagron G. and Feissel D. (1987) Inscriptions
38 rtkr r.\.x
de Cilicie (Paris 1987); Di Segni L. (1999) Epigraphic documentation on
building in the provinces of Palaestina and Arabia, 4th7th c., in The Roman
and Byzantine Near East 2, ed. J. H. Humphrey ( JRA Supplementary Series
31) (Portsmouth 1999) 14978; Lavan L. (2001) The late antique city: a
bibliographic essay, in Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism, ed. L. Lavan
( JRA Supplementary Series 42) (Portsmouth 2001) 926; Sironen E. (1997)
The Late Roman and Early Byzantine Inscriptions of Athens and Attica (Helsinki
1997); Rouech C. (1989) Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity ( JRS Monographs 5)
(London 1989); Lehmann C. M. and Holum K. G. (2000) The Greek and
Latin Inscriptions from Caesarea Maritima (The Joint Expedition to Caesarea
Maritima Excavation Reports 5) (Boston 2000); Moralee J. (2004) For
Salvations Sake: Provincial Loyalty, Personal Religion, and Epigraphic Production in
the Roman and Late Antique Near East (New York 2004).
Coinage Mattingly H., Sydenham E. A., Carson R. A. G., Sutherland
C. H. V. and Burnett A. M. (192394) Roman Imperial Coinage (London
19231994) [vols I to X (31 BC to AD 491)]; Wroth W. W. (1966) Western
and Provincial Byzantine Coins of the Vandals, Ostrogoths, and Lombards, and of the
Empires of Thessalonica, Nicaea, and Trebizond, in the British Museum (Chicago
1966); Hahn W (1973) Moneta Imperii Byzantini (Vienna 1973) [revised edi-
tion in English forthcoming]; Grierson P. (1982) Byzantine Coins (London
1982); Grierson P. and Mays M. (1992) Catalogue of Late Roman Coins in the
Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection: from Arcadius and
Honorius to the Accession of Anastasius (Washington 1992). See Reece in this
volume for a commentary on the use of coins as sources for political life.
Ocial insignia (costume, belts, brooches) Galavaris G. (1958) The sym-
bolism of the imperial costume, ANSMN 8 (1958) 99117; Moore M. (2001)
The kings new clothes: royal and episcopal regalia in the Frankish empire,
in Robes and Honor. The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. S. Gordon (New
York 2001) 95135; Stout A. M. (1994) Jewelry as a symbol of status in
the Roman Empire, in The World of Roman Costume, edd. J. L. Sebesta and
L. Bonfante (Madison 1994) 77100; Heurgon J (1958) Le trsor de Tns,
Arts et Mtiers Graphiques (Paris 1958); Warland R (1994) Status und Formular
in der Reprsentation der sptantiken Fhrungsschich, RmMitt 101 (1994)
175202; Johnson I. (1994) Rings, bulae and buckles with imperial por-
traits and inscriptions, JRA 7 (1994) 22342; Prottel P. (1988) Zur
Chronologie der Zwiebelknopbeln, JRGZM 35 (1988) 34772.
Other imperial objects Delbrueck R. (1929) Die Konsulardyptichen und ver-
wandte Denkmler (Berlin-Leipzig 1929); Weitzmann K. (1979) ed. Age of
Spirituality, Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century (New
York 1979) 259; Kinney D. (1994) The iconography of the ivory dip-
tychs Nicomachorum-Symmachorum, JAC 37 (1994) 6496; Cameron Alan
(1998) Consular diptychs in their social context: new eastern evidence,
JRA 11 (1998) 384403; Cutler A. (1998) Late Antique and Byzantine Ivory
Carving (Variorum CS 617); Bowes K. (2001) Ivory Lists: Consular dip-
tychs, Christian appropriation and polemics of time in Late Antiquity, Art
History 24 (2001) 228357; Leader-Newby R. E. (2004) Silver and Society in
Late Antiquity: Functions and Meanings of Silver Plate in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries
rori+ic.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 39
(Aldershot 2004) sect. 1; LArgenterie romaine de lantiquit tardive (Antiquit
Tardive 5) (1997); Spain A. S. (1977) Heraclius, Byzantine imperial ide-
ology, and the David plates, Speculum 52 (1977) 21737; Leader R. E.
(2000) The David Plates revisited: transforming the secular in early
Byzantium, ArtB 82 (2000) 40727.
Regests Seeck O. (1919) Regesten der Kaiser und Ppste fr die Jahre 311 bis
476 n. Chr. (Stuttgart 1919).
Prosopography Jones A. H. M., Martindale J. R., and Morris J. (1971)
The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, 3 vols. (Cambridge 19711992);
Mathisen R. W. (1987) A Survey of Signicant Addenda to P.L.R.E.
Medieval Prosopography 8.1. (1987) 530; Chastagnol A. (1962) Les Fastes de la
prfecture de Rome au Bas-Empire (Paris 1962); Mandouze A. (1982) Prosopographie
de lAfrique chrtienne (303533) (Prosopographie chrtienne du Bas-Empire 1)
(Paris 1982); Pietri C., Pietri L., and Desmulliez J. (1999) Prosopographie de
lItalie chrtienne (313604) ( Rome 1999); Martindale J. R. (2001) The
Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire I (641867) (Aldershot 2001) [CD-ROM];
Arnheim M. T. W. (1972) The Senatorial Aristocracy in the Later Roman Empire
(Oxford 1972); Bagnall R. S. et al. (1987) Consuls of the Later Roman Empire
(Atlanta 1987); Petit P. (1994) Les Fonctionnaires dans luvre de Libanios: analyse
prosopographique (Paris 1994); Delmaire R. (1989) Les responsables des nances
impriales au Bas-Empire Romain (IV
e
VI
e
s.). tudes prosopographiques (Brussels
1989); Barnish S. J. B. (1994) Late Roman prosopography reassessed,
JRS 84 (1994) 17176; Cameron Averil (2003) ed. Fifty Years of Prosopography:
The Later Roman Empire, Byzantium and Beyond (Proceedings of the British
Academy 118) (Oxford 2003).
40 rtkr r.\.x
SOCIAL LIFE IN LATE ANTIQUITY:
A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
Lukas Amadeus Schachner
Soci.r Lirr
The Imperial Aristocracy
The study of the imperial aristocracy stands on relatively rm ground.
We might consider it to consist of two main parts: rstly, a military
aristocracy, for whom membership was partially the result of birth,
or (more likely) of military ability (well attested in the western empire);
and secondly, a senatorial aristocracy, whose membership was based
on imperial service and personal wealth. To the large store of writ-
ten evidencemost notably the correspondence of Symmachus and
Libaniusone should add the substantial number of inscriptions that
were still being set up in the political centres of the Mediterranean
and, to a lesser extent, the archaeological record: artefacts such as
jewels, diptychs, statues, objects of daily use, as well as houses and
villas. At the same time, the developments of late antique proso-
pography since the 1960s have led scholarship to a very sophisti-
cated understanding of the political standing and connections of the
members of this group. Studies have concentrated on issues such as
personal and political connections, particularly in terms of friendship
and patronage. More recent is the scholarly interest in questions of
senatorial self-representation (especially with respect to epigraphy and
statuary).
The study of housing, both urban (strongest in the case of Rome)
and rural, is especially relevant to late antique archaeology, and a
number of questions have been addressed: the Christianisation of
this group, the political functions performed in domestic spaces, and
the development of a senatorial representational architecture, espe-
cially in the case of their massive palatial residences in Constantinople.
A few problems still remain, however, most fundamentally ones of
denition: the position of senators in late antique society was dened
not only juridically, but also visually, in the sense that those who
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 4193
met them daily had to be able to identify them unequivocally. Future
work will have to deal with this question of perception and
identication, and thus aim at a greater renement of the sociolog-
ical description of this group.
Syntheses Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602: A Social,
Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964) (especially chaper 15);
Winkelmann F. (1987) Quellenstudien zur herrschenden Klasse von Byzanz im 8.
und 9. Jahrhundert (BBA 54) (Berlin 1987); Salzman M. R. and Rapp C.
(2000) edd. lites in Late Antiquity (Arethusa 33.3) (Baltimore 2000), with sur-
vey of earlier bibliography by P. R. L. Brown The study of lites in Late
Antiquity, 31246; Ostrogorsky G. (1971) Observations on the aristocracy
in Byzantium, DOP 25 (1971) 132; Schlinkert D. (1998) Dem Kaiser
folgen: Kaiser, Senatsadel und hsche Funktionslite (comites consistoriani )
von der Tetrarchie Diokletians bis zum Ende der konstantinischen Dynastie,
in Comitatus: Beitrge zur Erforschung des sptantiken Kaiserhofes, ed. A. Winterling
(Berlin 1998) 13359; Matthews J. (1990) Western Aristocracies and Imperial
Court, A.D. 364425 (Oxford
2
1990); Nf B. (1995) Senatorisches Standesbewutsein
in sptrmischer Zeit (Paradosis 40) (Freiburg 1995); Heather P. (1998) Senators
and senates, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 13: The Late Empire, A.D.
337425, edd. Averil Cameron and P. Garnsey (Cambridge 1998) 184210;
Staesche M. (1998) Das Privatleben der rmischen Kaiser in der Sptantike: Studien
zur Personen- und Kulturgeschichte der spten Kaiserzeit (Bern 1998); Salzman M. R.
(2002) The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the
Western Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass. 2002); Schlinkert D. (1996) Ordo
senatorius und nobilitas. Die Konstitution des Senatsadels in der Sptantike. Mit
einem Appendix ber den praepositus sacri cubiculi, den allmchtigen Eunchen am
kaiserlichen Hof (Stuttgart 1996); Garbarino P. (1988) Ricerche sulla procedura di
ammissione al senato nel tardo impero romano (Milan 1988); Werner K. (1998)
Naissance de la Noblesse. Lessor des lites politiques en Europe (Paris 1998).
Continuity or extinction? Jacques F. (1986) Lordine senatorio attraverso
la crisi del terzo secolo, in Societ romana e impero tardo antico, vol. 1: Istituzioni,
ceti, economie, ed. A. Giardina (Bari 1986) 81225; Cracco Ruggini L. (1998)
Il senato fra due crisi (IIIVI secolo), in Il senato nella storia, I: Il senato
nellet romana, ed. E. Gabba (Rome 1998) 223375; Christol M. (1986) Essai
sur lvolution des carrires snatoriales dans la 2
me
moiti du III
e
sicle ap. J.-C.
(Paris 1986); Heather P. (1994) New men for new Constantines? Creating
an imperial lite in the eastern Mediterranean, in New Constantines: The
Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th13th Centuries, ed. P. Magdalino
(London 1994) 1133; Barnish S. J. B. (1988) Transformation and sur-
vival in the western senatorial aristocracy, c. A.D. 400700, PBSR (1988)
12055; Cecconi G. A. (1994) Governo imperiale e lites dirigenti nellItalia tar-
doantica: problemi di storia politico-amministrativa (270476 d. C.) (Como 1994);
Giglio S. (1990) Il tardo impero doccidente e il suo senato: privilegi scali, patrocinio,
giurisdizione penale (Naples 1990); Haldon J. F. (2004) The fate of the late
Roman lite: extinction or assimilation?, in lites Old and New in the Byzantine
42 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
and Early Islamic Near East, ed. J. F. Haldon (Papers of the VIth Workshop
in Late Antiquity and Early Islam) (Princeton 2004) 178232; Mathisen
R. W. (1993) Roman Aristocracies in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an
Age of Transition (Austin 1993); Schfer C. (1991) Der westrmische Senat als
Trger antiker Kontinuitt unter den Ostgotenknigen (490540 n. Chr.) (St. Katharinen
1991); Brown T. S. (1984) Gentlemen and Ocers: Imperial Administration and
Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, A.D. 554800 (Rome 1984).
Prosopography, landholding, patronage Clemente G. (1969) Le carriere
dei governatori della diocesi italiciana dal III al V secolo, Latomus 28 (1969)
61944; Cecconi (1994) above, pp. 13641; Vera D. (1988) Aristocrazia
romana ed economie provinciali nellItalia tardoantica: il caso siciliano in
Quaderni Catanesi di Studi Classici e Medievali, X/19.2 (1988) 11572; Vera D.
(1992) Conductores Domus Nostrae, Conductores Privatorum: concentrazione fon-
diaria e redistribuzione della ricchezza nellAfrica tardoantica, in Institutions,
socit et vie politique dans lEmpire Romain au IV
e
sicle ap. J.-C., edd. M. Christol
et al. (Rome 1992) 46590; Overbeck M. (1973) Untersuchungen zum afrikani-
schen Senatsadel in der Sptantike (Kallmnz 1973); Lim R. (1999) People as
power: games, municence and contested topography, in The Transformations
of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity, ed. W. V. Harris ( JRA Supplementary Series
33) (Portsmouth 1999) 26581; Cameron Alan (1984) Probus praetorian
games: Olympiodorus Fr. 44 GRBS 25 (1984) 19396.
Public image Niquet H. (2000) Monumenta virtutum titulique: Senatorische
Selbstdarstellung im sptantiken Rom im Spiegel der epigraphischen Denkmler (Stuttgart
2000); Nf B. (1995) Senatorisches Standesbewutsein in sptrmischer Zeit (Paradosis
40) (Freiburg 1995); Schlinkert D. (1996) Ordo senatorius und nobilitas. Die
Konstitution des Senatsadels in der Sptantike. Mit einem Appendix ber den prae-
positus sacri cubiculi, den allmchtigen Eunchen am kaiserlichen Hof (Stuttgart
1996); Cameron Averil (1979) Images of authority: lites and icons in late
sixth-century Constantinople, PastPres 84 (1979) 335; Bauer F. A. (2003)
Statuen hoher Wrdentrger im Stadtbild Konstantinopels, ByzZeit 96
(2003) 493513.
Housing see separate section, but note especially Rome Guidobaldi F.
(1986) Ledilizia abitativa unifamiliare nella Roma tardoantica, in Societ
romana e impero tardoantico, vol. 2Roma: politica, economia, paesaggio urbano, ed.
A. Giardina (Bari 1986) 165237; Guidobaldi F. (1999) Le domus tar-
doantiche di Roma come sensori delle trasformazioni culturali e sociali,
in The Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity, ed. W. V. Harris ( JRA
Supplementary Series 33) (Portsmouth 1999) 5368; Brenk B. (1999) La
cristianizzazione della Domus dei Valerii sul Celio, in The Transformations
of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity, ed. W. V. Harris ( JRA Supplementary Series
33) (Portsmouth 1999) 6984; Coates-Stephens R. (1996) Housing in
Medieval Rome, 5001000 A.D., PBSR 64 (1996) 23959; Hillner J. (2003)
Domus, family and inheritance: the senatorial family house in late antique
Rome, JRS 93 (2003) 12945; Santangeli Valenzani R. (2000) Residential
building in early medieval Rome, in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian
West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed J. M. H. Smith (Leiden 2000)
10112; Constantinople Kriesis A. (1960) ber den Wohnhaustyp im frhen
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 43
Konstantinopel, ByzZeit 53 (1960) 32227; Bardill J. (1997) The Palace
of Lausus and nearby monuments in Constantinople: a topographical study,
AJA 101 (1997) 6795; Strube Ch. (1973) Der Begri Domus in der Notitia
Urbis Constantinopolitanae, in Studien zur Frhgeschichte Konstantinopels, ed.
H.-G. Beck (1973) 12136.
The Provincial Aristocracy
The provincial aristocracy can be roughly distinguished from the
senatorial aristocracy as being the part of the provincial land-owning
elite without eective personal presence at court. This might, for
example, include people with the ocial rank of a senator, but who
had never visited the capital, (especially from the 5th c. onwards).
It further included the curiales, some notables emancipated from the
curia, lawyers, some ociales, soldiers, and the richer clergy: all those
who could be considered honestiores. This class typically owned land
and maintained substantial estates, with a comfortable if not enor-
mous domus in their city. In smaller cities their number might stretch
to include richer craftsmen who possessed the means and aspiration
for social advancement.
Interest in this group was for a long time dominated by impres-
sions received from a straightforward reading of the Theodosian
Code, that the provincial aristocracy was a class aected by heavy
hereditary obligations imposed upon them by a growing state. The
perception was that most people sought to ee from the city coun-
cils and their communal duties, which had been the traditional focus
of this group. Recently, a more nuanced appreciation of our sources
has led to the development of a general interest in social change
and social structures on their own terms, rather than just viewing
them through the prism of the moralising discourse of the ight of
the curiales. The recruitment of members of this class into the clergy
is also a major phenomenon from the late 4th c., which can now
be evaluated in a more positive light. Interest has ourished in the
investigation of this group through archaeology and material culture.
Most notably, this has manifested itself through the study of urban
housing, although interest still remains focused on high-status mate-
rials such as mosaics. Future research might provide a more geo-
graphically and socially widespread appreciation of the provincial
aristocracy, and move away from the traditional focus on prominent
individuals and cities, such as the emphasis on Libanius and 4th-c.
44 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
Antioch. Other evidence, such as of funerary practice and from the
papyri, may increasingly provide new insights.
Syntheses Salzman M. R. and Rapp C. (2000) edd. lites in Late Antiquity
(Arethusa 33.3) (Baltimore 2000); Ostrogorsky G. (1971) Observations on
the aristocracy in Byzantium, DOP 25 (1971) 132; Sannazaro M. (2000)
Viri laudabiles e viri honesti in et tardoantica: alcune considerazioni, in Ceti
medi in Cisalpina (Atti del Colloquio Internazionale, Milano, 1416 settem-
bre 2000), edd. A. Sartori and A. Valvo (Milan 2000) 28191; Salzman
M. R. (2002) The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change
in the Western Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass. 2002); Dummer J. and
Vielberg M. (1999) edd. Leitbilder der SptantikeEliten und Leitbilder (Stuttgart
1999); Macmullen R. (2003) Cultural and political changes in the 4th and
5th centuries, Historia 52 (2003) 46594; Maguire H. (2001) The Good Life,
in Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on the Postclassical World, ed. G. Bowersock,
P. R. L. Brown and O. Grabar (Cambridge, Mass. 2001) 23857; Lepelley
C. (1987) Spes saeculi: Le milieu social dAugustin et ses ambitions sculires
avant sa conversion, Congresso Internazionale su S. Agostino nel XVI. Centenario
della Conversione, vol. 1 (Rome 1987) 99117.
Curial Service Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602:
A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964) 73266; Laniado A.
(2002) Recherches sur les notables municipaux dans lEmpire Protobyzantin (Paris
2002) [in particular the bibliography, xvxxxi]; Laniado A. (1997) Bouleutai
et politeuomenoi, Chrg 72 (1997) 13044; Lepelley C. (1983) Quot curiales,
tot tiranni: limage du dcurion oppresseur au Bas-Empire, in Crise et redresse-
ment dans les provinces europennes de lEmpire (milieu du III
e
sicle-milieu du IV
e
sicle ap. J.-C.), ed. E. Frzouls (Strasbourg 1983) 14356.
Landownership Giardina A. (1981) Aristocrazie terriere e piccola mer-
catura: sui rapporti tra potere politico e formazione dei prezzi nel tardo
impero romano, Quaderni Urbinati 36 (1981) 12346; Vera D. (1994) Strutture
agrarie e strutture patrimoniali nella tarda antichit: laristocrazia romana
fra agricoltura e commercio, in La parte migliore del genere umano: aristocrazie,
potere e ideologia nelloccidente tardoanticoAntologia di storia tardoantica, ed. S. Roda
(Turin 1994) 165224; Banaji J. (2001) Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity (Oxford
2001); Sarris P. (2004) Rehabilitating the great estate: aristocratic prop-
erty and economic growth in Late Antiquity, in Recent Research on the Late
Antique Countryside, edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan, and C. Machado (Late
Antique Archaeology 2) (Leiden 2004) 5571.
Housing see separate section.
Honoric statuary Smith R. R. R. (1999) Late antique portraits in a
public context: honoric statuary at Aphrodisias in Caria, A.D. 300600,
JRS 89 (1999) 15589.
The clergy as a social lite Rapp C. (2005) Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity:
the Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley 2005); Noethlichs
K. L. (1972) Zur Einussnahme des Staates auf die Entwicklung eines
christlichen Klerikerstandes, JAC 15 (1972) 13653; Heinzelmann M. (1976)
Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien (Munich 1976); Pietri C. (1981) Aristocracie et
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 45
socit clricale dans lItalie chrtienne au temps de Odoacre et de Thodoric,
MFRA 93 (1981) 41761; Pietri C. (1976) Roma Christiana: Recherches sur
lglise de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son idologie de Miltiade Sixte III
(311440) (Rome 1976); Eck W. (1978) Der Einu der konstantinischen
Wende auf die Auswahl der Bischfe im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert, Chiron 8
(1978) 56185; Eck W. (1980) Handelsttigkeit christlicher Kleriker in der
Sptantike, Memorias de Historia Antigua 4 (1980) 12737; Durliat J. (1996)
vque et administration municipale au VII
e
sicle, in La Fin de la cit
antique et le dbut de la cit mdivale, ed. C. Lepelley (Bari 1996) 27386;
Cecconi G. A. (1997) Vescovi e maggiorenti cristiani nellItalia centrale
tra IV e V secolo, in Vescovi e pastori in epoca teodosiana, vol. 1 (Studia
Ephemeridis Augustinianum 58) (Rome 1997) 20524; Sotinel C. (1997)
Le recrutement des vques en Italie aux IV
e
et V
e
sicles: essai denqute
prosopographique, in Vescovi e pastori in epoca teodosiana, vol. 1 (Studia
Ephemeridis Augustinianum 58) (Rome 1997) 193204; Sotinel C. (1998)
Le personnel piscopal: enqute sur la puissance de lvque dans la cit,
in Lvque dans la cit du IV
e
au V
e
sicle: image et autorit, edd. . Rebillard
and C. Sotinel (Rome 1998) 10526; Rapp C. (2000) The lite status of
bishops in late Antiquity in ecclesiastical, spiritual and social contexts, in
lites in Late Antiquity (Arethusa 33.3), edd. M. R. Salzman and C. Rapp
(Baltimore 2000) 37999; Bartlett R. (2001) Aristocracy and asceticism:
the letters of Ennodius and the Gallic and Italian churches, in Society and
Culture in Late Antique Gaul, edd. R. W. Mathisen and D. Shanzer (Aldershot
2001) 20116.
The Middle Class: Craftsmen, Shopkeepers, Minor Professionals
The concept of middle class is modern and lacks an equivalent in
Late Antiquity and early Byzantium. However, one may use the
term in a conventional way to denote those socio-economic groups
that were in between the landed aristocrats and other honestiores on
the one hand, and the working class and the poor on the other: the
group includes craftsmen, merchants, shopkeepers, minor clergy, and
others who had achieved a comparable degree of relative prosper-
ity. A long tradition of researchbased on literary, archival, and
epigraphic sourceshas focused on the phenomenon of professional
bodies, and only recently has the study of chronicles and hagio-
graphic literature started to contribute to this eld. Archaeological
research into this middle class (via the remains of workshops and
dwellings, and through funerary evidence) is still in its infancy. It is
linked to developments in urban archaeology and the growing inter-
est into productive, commercial, and residential contexts of the urban
landscape in Late Antiquity.
46 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
Syntheses Sodini J.-P. (1979) Lartisanat urbain lpoque palochrti-
enne, Ktema 4 (1979) 71119; Von Petrikovits H. (1981) Die Spezialisierung
des rmischen Handwerks, in Das Handwerk in vor- und frhgeschichtlicher Zeit
I, edd. H. Jankuhn et al. (Gttingen 1981) 63132; Von Petrikovits H. (1981)
Die Spezialisierung des rmischen Handwerks II (Sptantike), ZPE 43
(1981) 285306; Whittaker C. R. (1983) Late Roman trade and traders,
in Trade in the Ancient Economy, ed. P. Garnsey (London 1983) 16380;
Giardina A. (1981) Aristocrazie terriere e piccola mercatura: sui rapporti
tra potere politico e formazione dei prezzi nel tardo impero romano,
Quaderni Urbinati 36 (1981) 12346; Kaplan M. (2001) Les artisans dans
la socit de Constantinople au VII
e
XI
e
sicles, in Byzantine Constantinople:
Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed. N. Necipo<lu (Leiden 2001)
24560; Ward-Perkins B. (2000) Specialized production and exchange,
in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors,
A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby
(Cambridge 2000) 34691; Poblome J., Degryse P., Librecht I. et al. (1998)
Sagalassos Red Slip Ware: the organisation of a manufacture, Mnstersche
Beitrge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 17 (1998) 5264.
Professions and professional bodies Cracco Ruggini L. (1971) Le asso-
ciazioni professionali nel mondo romano-bizantino, in Artigianato e tecnica
nella societ dellalto medioevo occidentale (Settimane di Studio del Centro italiano
di Studi sullAlto Medioevo 18) (Spoleto 1971) 59193; Cracco Ruggini L.
(1980) Progresso tecnico e manodopera in et imperiale romana, in Tecno-
logia, economia e societ nel mondo romano (Atti del convegno di Como, 2729
settembre 1979) (Como 1980) 4566; Sirks A. J. B. (1993) Did the late
Roman government try to tie people to their profession or status?, Tyche
8 (1993) 15975; Martorelli A. (1999) Riessioni sulle attivit produttive
nellet tardoantica e altomedievale: esiste un artigianato ecclesiastico?,
RAC 75 (1999) 57196; Tate G. (1991) Les mtiers dans les villages de la
Syrie du Nord, Ktema 16 (1991) 7378; Crum W. E. (1925) Koptische
Znfte und Pfeermonopol, ZS 60 (1925) 103111; Fikhman I. F. (1994)
Sur quelques aspects socio-conomiques de lactivit des corporations pro-
fessionnelles de lgypte byzantine, ZPE 103 (1994) 1940; Di Branco M.
(2000) Lavoro e conittualit sociale in una citt tardoantica: una rilet-
tura dellepigrafe di Sardi CIG 3467, AnTard 8 (2000) 181208.
Workshops Mundell Mango M. (2000) The commercial map of Con-
stantinople, DOP 54 (2000) 189205; Mundell Mango M. (2001) The
porticoed street at Constantinople, in Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments,
Topography and Everyday Life, ed. N. Necipo<lu (Leiden 2001) 2951; Crawford
J. S. (1990) The Byzantine Shops at Sardis (Archaeological Exploration of Sardis
9) (Cambridge, Mass. 1990); Harris A. (2004) Shops, retailing and the
local economy in the early Byzantine world: the example of Sardis, in
Secular Buildings and the Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire, ed.
K. Dark (Oxford 2004) 82122; Wipszycka E. (1972) Les ressources et les acti-
vits conomiques des glises en gypte du IV
e
au VIII
e
sicle (Papyrologica Bruxellensia
10) (Brussels 1972) chap. 2.
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 47
Dwellings Lavan L., Ozgenel L., and Sarantis P. (Forthcoming) edd.
Housing in Late Antiquity: from Palaces to Shops (Late Antique Archaeology 3.2)
(Leiden Forthcoming); Pavolini C. (1986) Ledilizia commerciale e ledilizia
abitativa nel contesto di Ostia tardoantica, in Societ romana e impero tar-
doantico, vol. 2Roma: politica, economia, paesaggio urbano, ed. A. Giardina (Bari
1986) 23998; Feissel D. (1995) Deux listes de quartiers dAntioche astreints
au creusement dun canal (7374 ap. J.-C.), Syria 62 (1985) 77103; Van
Nijf O. (1997) The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East
(Amsterdam 1997).
Burial Dagron G. (1991) Ainsi rien nchappera la rglementation
tat, glise, corporations, confrries: propos des inhumations Constan-
tinople (IV
e
X
e
sicle), in Hommes et richesses dans lEmpire byzantin, IV
e
VII
e
sicle, ed. C. Abadie-Reynal (Paris 1989) 15582.
The Poor
In the world of Late Antiquity and early Byzantium the poor rep-
resented a well dened group, both in economic and social terms:
to contemporaries, one was considered poor if in possession of less
than 50 nomismata, or, if ones labour could not guarantee ones sur-
vival day by day. However, the personal status of those who belonged
to this class was ambivalent, for, on the other hand, chosen poverty
was an ideal to follow in ones quest for spirituality and eternal sal-
vation. As such, both clerical and lay ascetics, including the very
rich, might privately or publicly embrace poverty; as a lifestyle, it
conferred considerable spiritual prestige, which those seeking to boost
their ecclesiastical inuence might draw upon. Nevertheless the cel-
ebration of the poor by the elite and their adoption of Christian
philoptchia or amor pauperum did lead to important changes in the
social fabric and urban design (construction of hospitals, etc.).
As privileged objects of philoptchia, the poor feature frequently in
the written sources (in particular, in chronicles and hagiography),
which had been the basis for the groundbreaking works by Patlagean
(1977) and Brown (2002). The archaeological evidence of poverty is
more limited, and it is often reduced to traces of primitive installations
built inside privatised public buildings or subdivided houses, and to
some burial remains, although this situation may be improved through
the use of modern techniques in excavation and the accurate doc-
umentation of all types of evidence. The link between nutritional
deciencies and poverty is now also evinced by palaeo-pathological
analysis.
48 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
Syntheses Patlagean E. (1977) Pauvret conomique et pauvret sociale Byzance,
4
e
7
e
sicles (Paris 1977); Brown P. R. L. (2002) Poverty and Leadership in the
Later Roman Empire (Hanover London 2002); Alfldy G. (1991) The Social
History of Rome (London 1985) 186220; Neri V. (1998) I marginali nelloccidente
tardoantico: poveri, infames e criminali nella nascente societ cristiana (Bari 1998);
Countryman L. W. (1980) The Rich Christian in the Church of the Early Empire:
Contradictions and Accommodations (New York 1980); Garnsey P. (1998) Cities,
Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity: Essays in Social and Economic History
(Cambridge 1998) 89179. See also bibliography of S. R. Holman and
J. Leemans at http://www.povertystudies.org/biblio-history.htm [last accessed
1/2/2006].
Dening the poor Chastagnol A. (1973) Classes et ordres dans le Bas-
Empire, in Ordres et classes (Colloque dhistoire sociale, Saint-Cloud, mai 1967)
(Paris 1973) 4957; Garnsey P. (1996) Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine
(Cambridge 1996); Humfress C. (Forthcoming) Poverty and Roman law,
in Poverty: from the Gracchi to Justinian, ed. R. Osborne (Cambridge Forthcoming);
Whittaker C. R. (1989) Il povero, in Luomo romano, ed. A. Giardina (Rome
1989) 299333 [translated in English as The Romans (Chicago 1993)];
Roug J. (1990) Aspects de la pauvret et de ses remdes aux IV
e
V
e
sicles, in Atti dellAccademia Romanistica Constantiniana, VII Convegno Internazionale
(Perugia 1990) 22748.
Charity and charitable institutions Syntheses Patlagean E. (1977) Pauvret
conomique et pauvret sociale Byzance, 4
e
7
e
sicles (Paris 1977); Holman S. R.
(2001) The Hungry Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New
York 2001); Miller T. S. (2003) The Orphans of Byzantium (Washington 2003);
Consolino F. (1989) Sante o patrone? Le aristocratiche tardoantiche e il
potere della carit, Studi storici 30 (1989) 96991; Hamel G. (1990) Poverty
and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries C.E. (Berkeley 1990); Hands
A. R. (1968) Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (London 1968).
Xenodochia and hospitals Horden P. (2005) The earliest hospitals in Byzantium,
Western Europe and Islam, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35.3 (2005)
36189; Horden P. (2004) The Christian hospital in Late Antiquity: break
or bridge?, in GesundheitKrankheit: Kulturtransfer medizinischen Wissens von der
Sptantike bis in die Frhe Neuzeit, edd. F. Steger and K. P. Jankrift (Cologne
2004) 7799; Crislip A. T. (2002) The Monastic Health Care System and the
Development of the Hospital in Late Antiquity (Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ. 2002);
Miller T. S. (1985) The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire (Baltimore
1985); DOnofrio M. (1999) ed. Romei e Giubilei: Il Pellegrinaggio medievale a
San Pietro (3501350) (Milan 1999); Meneghini R. and Santangeli Valenzani R.
(2004) ed. Roma nellAltomedioevo: topograa e urbanistica della citt dal V al X
secolo (Rome 2004) 7275; Santangeli Valenzani R. (19961997) Pellegrini,
senatori e papi. Gli xenodochia a Roma tra il V e il IX secolo, RivIstArch
1920 (19961997) 20326.
Prostitution Herter H. (1960) Die Soziologie der antiken Prostitution im
Lichte des heidnischen und christlichen Schrifttums, JAC 3 (1960) 70111;
Dauphin C. (1996) Brothels, baths and babes: prostitution in the Byzantine
Holy Land, Classics Ireland 3 (1996) 4772; McGinn T. A. J. (1997) The
legal denition of prostitute in Late Antiquity, MAAR 42 (1997) 73116.
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 49
Regional Studies Spain Garca Moreno L. A. (2001) From coloni to servi:
a history of the peasantry in Visigothic Spain, Klio 83 (2001) 198212.
Gaul Bayard D. (1997) Perception des hirarchies sociales par larcholo-
gie dans le nord-ouest de la Gaule la n de lAntiquit et au dbut du
Moyen ge, in Aux Sources de la gestion publique 3: Hommes de pouvoir, ressources
et lieux de pouvoir, V
e
XIII
e
sicles (Actes du colloque des 26 et 27 janvier 1997,
Universit de Lille), ed. E. Magnou-Nortier (Septentrion 1997) 20924; Foucray
B. (1997) La circulation montaire dans les campagnes de lAntiquit
tardive: lexemple francilien, in Les Campagnes en le-de-France de Constantin
Clovis (Colloque de Paris, 1415 mars 1996: rapports et synthses de la deuxime
journe), edd. P. Ouzoulias and P. Van Ossel (Document de travail 3) (Paris
1997) 4249; Van Ossel P. and Ouzoulias P. (2001) La mutation des cam-
pagnes de la Gaule du Nord entre le milieu du III
e
sicle et le milieu du
V
e
sicle: o en est-on?, in Belgian Archaeology in a European Setting 2, ed.
M. Lodewijckx (Acta Archaeologica Lovaniensia, Monographiae 13) (Leuven
2001) 23145. Rome Marcone A. (1989) Lallestimento dei giochi annuali
a Roma nel IV secolo d. C.: aspetti economici e ideologici, AnnPisa III,
11 (1989) 10522; Purcell N. (1999) The populace of Rome in Late
Antiquity, in The Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity, ed. W. V.
Harris ( JRA Supplementary Series 35) (Portsmouth 1999) 13561 and arti-
cle by R. Lim (1999) People as power: games, municence, and contested
topography, 26581; Rowland R. J. (1976) The very poor and the grain
dole at Rome and Constantinople, ZPE 21 (1976) 6972; Barnish S. J. B.
(1987) Pigs, plebeians and potentes: Romes economic hinterland, c. 350600
A.D., PBSR 55 (1987) 13785. Constantinople and Asia Minor see studies by
Holman and Mayer in this volume. Africa Lepelley C. (1983) Libert,
colonat et esclavage daprs la Lettre 24*: la juridiction piscopale de liber-
ali causa, in Les Lettres de Saint Augustin dcouvertes par Johannes Divjak,
Communications prsentes au colloque des 20 et 21 Septembre 1982 (Paris 1983)
32942; Lepelley C. (2003) La lutte en faveur des pauvres: observations
sur laction sociale de saint Augustin dans la rgion de Hippone, in Augustinus
Afer. Saint Augustin. Africanit et universalit, in Actes du Colloque international Alger-
Annaba, 17 avril 2001 (Fribourg 2003) 95107.
Slaves
It was traditionally assumed that, as an institution, slaverys socio-
economic importance was steadily diminishing by Late Antiquity,
from a peak sometime in the early empire. This attitude was largely
due to the perceived decline in the supply of new slaves to the
empire, and to interpretations of the structural changes to the rural
labour economy that emphasised the new importance of free peas-
ants tied to the land (the colonate) for the social passage towards a
feudal society. These concepts have recently been challenged, and
there have been a number of adjustments to this position. Firstly,
50 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
slaves continued to play an important role in the social fabric (exist-
ing as both wealth and workforce); secondly, the current views see
a coexistence of slavery and colonate throughout Late Antiquity in
dierent parts of the Roman empire, and argue for distinction between
the two institutions rather than for a gradual development from the
rst to the second. Current research also takes into account the con-
tinued presence of urban slaves.
Slaves continued to have an almost total lack of legal identity, and
members of the Church hierarchy followed the lead of writers such
as Paul in attempting to establish moral explanations for the exis-
tence of slavery. Moreover, the Church itself (both bishoprics and
monasteries) was sometimes the owner of (mainly agrarian) slaves.
Precise calculations of the numerical extent of slavery are dicult
to achieve, and the extent to which massed ranks of slave labour
ever formed a major part of the agrarian workforce is still open to
substantial debate, even for central provinces such as Italy and North
Africa. Aside from this, slaves were widespread and certainly con-
tinued to be present in domestic households and in urban manu-
facture. The very rich would have had a substantial corps of slaves
in their retinue. They continued to be part of the urban social fab-
ric in the service of both the extremely wealthy and the less rich,
and there was a large body of slaves in imperial service. On local
levels, it is clear from epistolatory sources that individuals could, on
occasion, be in danger of being captured by (or sold to) slave-traders.
Slavery continued to be present in Byzantium throughout the medieval
period.
Syntheses Bellen H. and Heinen H. (2003) edd. Bibliographie zur antiken
Sklaverei I: Bibliographie (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei, Beiheft 4) (Stuttgart
2003); Thompson F. H. (2003) The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slavery
(London 2003); Garnsey P. (1996) Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine
(Cambridge 1996); Munzinger M. (1998) Vincula deterrimae conditionis: Die
rechtliche Stellung der sptantiken Kolonen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Sklaverei und
Freiheit (Munich 1998).
Attitudes to slavery Coyle J. K. (1981) Empire and eschaton: the early
church and the question of domestic relationships, glise et Thologie 12
(1981) 3594; De Bonls G. (2002) Gli schiavi degli Ebrei nella legislazione del
IV secolo: storia di un divieto (Bari 1992); De Sainte-Croix G. E. M. (1975)
Early Christian attitudes to property and slavery, in Church Society and
Politics: Papers Read at the Thirteenth Summer Meeting and the Fourteenth Winter
Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. D. Baker (Oxford 1975) 138;
Garnsey P. (1997) Sons, slavesand Christians, in The Roman Family in
Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space, edd. B. Rawson and P. Weaver (Oxford 1997)
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 51
10121; Klein R. (1982) Die Sklavenfrage bei Theodoret von Kyrrhus:
Die 7. Rede des Bischofs ber die Vorsehung, in RomanitasChristianitas:
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Literatur der rmischen Kaiserzeit, Johannes Straub
zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. G. Wirth (Berlin 1982) 586633; Nathan G. (1999)
The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity and the Endurance of Tradition
(London 1999) chap. 8.
Regional studies Spain Garca Moreno L. A. (2001) From coloni to servi:
a history of the peasantry in Visigothic Spain, in Klio 83 (2001) 198212.
Gaul Grieser H. (1997) Sklaverei im sptantiken und frhmittelalterlichen Gallien
(5.7. Jh.): Das Zeugnis der christlichen Quellen (Stuttgart 1997). Italy Garnsey P.
(1997) Sons, Slavesand Christians, in The Roman Family in Italy: Status,
Sentiment, Space, edd. B. Rawson and P. Weaver (Oxford 1997) 10121;
MacMullen R. (1987) Late Roman slavery, Historia 36 (1987) 35982;
Samson R. (1989) Rural slavery, inscriptions, archaeology, and Marx: a
response to Ramsey MacMullens Late Roman slavery, Historia 38 (1989)
99110. Egypt Biezunska-Malowist I. (1977) Lesclavage dans lgypte grco-
romaine II (Wrocaw 1977); Straus J. A. (2004) LAchat et la vente des esclaves
dans lgypte romaine (Archiv fr Papyrusforschung, Beiheft 14) (Munich 2004).
Africa Gsell S. (1932) Esclaves ruraux dans lAfrique romaine, Mlanges
Glotz I (Paris 1932) 397415, reprinted in Gsell S. (1981) tudes sur lAfrique
antique. Scripta varia (Lille 1981) 25371; Lepelley C. (1983) Libert, colonat
et esclavage daprs la Lettre 24*: la juridiction piscopale de liberali causa,
in Les Lettres de Saint Augustin dcouvertes par Johannes Divjak, Communications
prsentes au colloque des 20 et 21 Septembre 1982 (Paris 1983) 32942.
Peasants
As the paper by Paul Van Ossel in this volume shows, the impov-
erishment of the rural population during the end of the Roman
empire is a signicant topos in the historiography of antiquity. This
was a view based mainly upon a simplistic reading of the Theodosian
Code and other legal texts, which painted a grim picture of peas-
ants being tied to the land through hereditary obligation, under an
oppressive social regime known as the colonate. Complaints from
tax-collectors in noting agri deserti (where there were no tenants to
tax) led Jones to render an especially bleak economic picture of the
countryside, particularly in Africa, where he thought that up to half
of the land had been abandoned. Government incompetence, through
over-taxing and the imposition of a proto-feudal status close to slav-
ery were thought to be to blame. However, careful new work on
legal sources, hagiography, and papyri now shows the legal and social
status of coloni to be more varied, great landed estates could be com-
mercially dynamic, and that free peasants were more important than
52 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
previously realised. Most importantly of all, rural eld archaeology
shows that in most regions the idea of a supposed cataclysmic reces-
sion in the countryside is no longer supportable. In some regions
(above all, the Levant) during the period settlement development
reaches its peak for all of classical antiquity, coinciding with much
structural evidence for rural prosperity and indeed indications that
forms of property ownership varied greatly.
From these remarks it should be clear that the source material
for peasants in Late Antiquity is particularly rich. Aside from the
legal evidence, Christian hagiography provides previously unavail-
able insights into social conicts and rural life. Papyri also include
collections of estate archives which allow very detailed study of indi-
vidual landholdings, though their coverage is of course not neces-
sarily even, and of course mainly conned to Egypt. In the Near
East, particularly Syria, rural epigraphy is also rich, providing records
of village church building and the construction of individual houses,
by people of modest means, both of which permit a degree of
quantication. Archaeology provides perhaps the biggest contribu-
tion, from villas to farmsteads, across the empire, vividly revealing
the materiality of everyday life. It remains disappointing, however,
that the best preserved houses, especially from the Near East, have
not been illuminated by stratigraphic analysis. To date, the only
exception to this is at the village site of Dhs, where the pioneer-
ing work of Tchalenko, Sodini and others has signicantly revised
structural interpretations and settlement chronology.
Syntheses Jones A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire, 284602: A Social,
Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford 1964) 773823; Wickham C. J.
(1984) The other transition: from the ancient world to feudalism, PastPres
103 (1984) 336; Wickham C. J. (2000) Le forme del feudalesimo, in Il
feudalesimo nellAlto Medioevo (Settimane di Studio del Centro italiano di Studi
sullAlto Medioevo 47) (Spoleto 2000) 1546; De Ligt L. (1990) Demand,
supply, distribution: the Roman peasantry between town and countryside
rural monetization and peasant demand, Mnstersche Beitrge 9 (1990) 2456;
Haldon J. F. (1993) The State and the Tributary Mode of Production (London
1993); Lo Cascio E. (1997) Terre, proprietari e contadini dellimpero romano:
dallatto agrario al colonato tardoantico (Rome 1997); Banaji J. (1999) Agrarian
history and the labour organisation of Byzantine large estates, in Agriculture
in Egypt, ed. A. K. Bowman (Oxford 1999) 193216; Ward-Perkins B. (2000)
Land, labour and settlement, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late
Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron, B. Ward-
Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 31545; Lewit T. (2004) Villas,
Farms and the Late Roman Rural Economy, 3rd to 5th c. A.D. (BAR International
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 53
Series 568) (Oxford 2004); Sarris P. (2004) The origins of the manorial
economy: new insights from Late Antiquity, EHR 119 (2004) 279311;
Kpstein H. and Winkelmann F. (1976) edd. Studien zum 7. Jahrhundert in
Byzanz: Probleme der Herausbildung des Feudalismus (BBA 47) (Berlin 1976).
Important studies Anderson P. A. (1974) Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism
(London 1974); Anderson P. A. (1979) Lineages of the Absolutist State (London
1979); Andreau J. (1997) Patrimoines, changes et prts dargent: lconomie romaine
(Rome 1997); Banaji J. (2001) Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2001);
Brown E. A. R. (1974) The tyranny of a construct: feudalism and histo-
rians of medieval Europe, AHR 79 (1974) 106388; Gellner E. (1988)
Plough, Sword and Book (London 1988); Wisskirchen R. (1995) Das mona-
stische Verbot der Feldarbeit und ihre rechtliche Gestaltung bei Benedikt
von Nursia, JAC 38 (1995) 196.
The colonate Carri J.-M. (1982) Le colonat du Bas-Empire: un mythe
historiographique?, Opus 1 (1982) 35170; Carri J.-M. (1983) Un roman
des origines: les gnalogies du colonat du Bas-Empire, Opus 2 (1983)
20551; Mirkovic M. (1997) The Later Roman Colonate and Freedom (Philadelphia
1997).
Regional studies Heather P. (2000) State, lordship and community in
the West (c. A.D. 400600) in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late
Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron, B. Ward-
Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 43768; Garca Moreno L. A.
(2001) From coloni to servi: a history of the peasantry in Visigothic Spain,
Klio 83 (2001) 198212; Wickham C. J. (1994) Land and Power: Studies in
Italian and European Social History, 4001200 (London 1994) 77118; Giardina A.
(1986) Le due Italie nella forma tarda dellimpero in Societ Romana e
Impero Tardoantico, vol. I: istituzioni, ceti, economie, ed. A. Giardina (Bari 1986)
136; Foxhall L. (1990) The dependant tenant: land leasing and labour
in Italy and Greece, JRS 80 (1990) 97114; for Syria see epigraphic stud-
ies below; Banning E. B. (1986) Peasants, pastoralists and Pax Romana:
mutualism in the Southern Highlands of Jordan, BASOR 261 (1986) 2550;
Beck H.-G. (1965) Byzantinisches Gefolgschaftswesen (Sitzungsberichte der
Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 5) (Munich
1965); Rowlandson J. (1996) Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt: The Social
Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford 1996); Carri J.-M.
(1997) Larithmtique sociale de lconomie agraire: prix de la terre, rente
foncire et prix des crales dans lgypte romano-byzantine, in conomie
antique: prix et formation des prix dans les conomies antiques, edd. J. Andreau,
P. Briant, and R. Descat (Entretiens darchologie et dhistoire, EAHSBC
3) (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges 1997) 12146; Bagnall R. S. (1993) Egypt
in Late Antiquity (Princeton 1993) 11047 and elsewhere; Keenan J. G. (1985)
Village shepherds and social tension in Byzantine Egypt, YCS 28 (1985)
24559; Lepelley C. (1983) Libert, colonat et esclavage daprs la Lettre
24*: la juridiction piscopale de liberali causa, in Les Lettres de Saint Augustin
dcouvertes par Johannes Divjak, Communications prsentes au colloque des 20 et 21
Septembre 1982 (Paris 1983) 32942.
Rural settlement See section on settlement archaeology and social struc-
ture and especially Chavarra A. and Lewit T. (2004) Archaeological
54 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
research on the late antique countryside: a bibliographic essay, in Recent
Research on the Late Antique Countryside, edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan and
C. Machado (Late Antique Archaeology 2) (Leiden 2004) 151.
Census and landholdings Jones A. H. M. (1953) Census records of the
Later Roman Empire, JRS 43 (1953) 4964; Bowman A. K. (1985)
Landholding in the Hermopolite nome, JRS 75 (1985) 13755; MacCoull
L. S. B. (1987) Le cadastre dAphrodit, TravMm 10 (1987) 10358;
Zuckerman C. (2004) Du village lEmpire. Autour du registre scal dAphrodit
(525/26) (Paris 2004); Bagnall R. S. and Frier B. W. (1994) The Demography
of Roman Egypt (Cambridge 1994); Gascou J. (1994) Un Codex scal hermopo-
lite (P.Sorb. II 69) (American Studies in Papyrology 32) (Atlanta 1994).
Epigraphy Trombley F. (2001) Town and territorium in Late Roman
Anatolia (late 5thearly 7th c.), in Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism,
ed. L. Lavan ( JRA Supplementary Series 42) (Portsmouth 2001) 21732;
Trombley F. (2004) Epigraphic data on village culture and social institu-
tions: an interregional comparison (Syria, Phoenice Libanensis and Arabia),
in Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside, edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan,
and C. Machado (Late Antique Archaeology 2) (Leiden 2004) 73101; Tate
G. (1992) Les Campagnes de la Syrie du Nord du II
e
au VII
e
sicle (Paris 1992);
Trombley F. (2003) Christian demography in the territorium of Antioch
(4th5th c. A.D.): observations on the epigraphy, in Culture and Society in
Later Roman Antioch, edd. J. Huskinson and B. Sandwell (Oxford 2003) 5884;
MacAdam H. I. (1983) Epigraphy and village life in southern Syria dur-
ing the Roman and early Byzantine periods, Berytus 31 (1983) 10315; Di
Segni L. (1999) Epigraphic documentation on building in the provinces of
Palaestina and Arabia, 4th7th c., in The Roman and Byzantine Near East 2,
ed. J. H. Humphrey ( JRA Supplementary Series 31) (Portsmouth 1999)
14978.
The Family and the Child
The concepts of the family and the child are cultural constructs
that are liable to shift and change in dierent contexts and periods.
Investigations of family relations in the late antique world have largely
centred on the extent to which the impact of Christian discourse
changed the social relationships of kin groups, and the nature of any
later changes to the same wrought by the barbarian settlements.
Inside the social unit of the family, interest in the social identities
of children and infants has increased in recent years; new approaches
have highlighted both the value of understanding the existence of
children and childhood in the past, as well as the challenges of
exploring these questions through material culture. The relatively
scant visibility of infants in the archaeology of daily life has meant
that almost all of our encounters with them are subsequent to their
deaths, through mortuary remains. Further, archaeological evidence
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 55
of skeletal remains and patterns of infant disposalin combination
with textual sourcescan provide a picture of changing attitudes to
infanticide and abandonment, social practices that are especially
important in attempting to evaluate the spread and impact of Christian
discourse in social life. Conversely, the social identities of the aged
and aging remain a relatively unexplored eld in late Antiquity,
although recent work on the issue in the earlier empire has shown
the potential for future research.
Syntheses Nathan G. (1999) The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity
and the Endurance of Tradition (London 1999); Giardina A. (2000) The fam-
ily in the late Roman world, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late
Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron, B. Ward-
Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 392415; Harlow M. and
Laurence R. (2002) edd. Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome: A Life
Course Approach (London 2002); Martin D. B. (1996) The construction of
the ancient family: methodological considerations, JRS 86 (1996) 4060;
Wood I. (2000) Family and friendship in the West, in The Cambridge Ancient
History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil
Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 41636;
Balch D. L. and Osiek C. (2002) edd. Early Christian Families in Context: A
Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue (Cambridge 2002); Moxnes H. (1997) ed. Constructing
Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor (London 1997).
Family size and demography Giovannini F. (2001) Natalit, mortalit e
demograa dellItalia medievale sulla base dei dati archeologici (BAR International
Series 950) (Oxford 2001); Patlagean E. (1978) Familles chrtiennes dAsie
Mineure et histoire dmographique du IV
e
sicle, in Transformations et conits
au IV
e
sicle aprs J.-C. (Bonn 1978) 16986; Feissel D. (1999) Deux grandes
familles isauriennes du V
e
sicle daprs des inscriptions de Cilicie Trache,
Mitteilungen zur Christlichen Archologie 5 (1999) 917; Gray P. (2001) Abortion,
infanticide, and the social rhetoric of the Apocalypse of Peter, Journal of Early
Christian Studies 9 (2001) 31337; McClanan A. (2002) Weapons to probe
the womb: the material culture of abortion and contraception in the early
Byzantine period, in The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation and Marriage in
Pre-Modern Europe, edd. K. Encarnacion and A. McClanan (New York 2002)
3357.
Roles and relationships Feissel D. (1998) Deux pigrammes dApamne
et lloge de lendogamie dans une famille syrienne du VI
e
sicle, in
AETOS: Studies in Honour of Cyril Mango, edd. I. evenko and I. Hutter
(Stuttgart Leipzig 1998) 11636; Arjava A. (1998) Paternal power in Late
Antiquity, JRS 88 (1998) 14765; Garnsey P. (1997) Sons, slavesand
Christians, in The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space, edd. B. Rawson
and P. Weaver (Oxford 1997) 10121; M. Harlow (1998) In the name of
the Father: procreation, paternity and patriarchy, in Thinking Men. Masculinity
and its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition, edd. L. Foxhall and J. Salmon
(London 1998) 15569; Harvey S. (1996) Sacred bonding: mothers and
56 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
daughters in early Syriac hagiography, Journal of Early Christian Studies 4
(1996) 2756; Cooper K. (Forthcoming) The household and the desert:
biological and monastic communities in the Lives of Melania the Younger,
in Household, Women, and Christianities, edd. A. Mulder-Bakker and J. Wogan-
Browne (Turnhout Forthcoming).
Other Aspects of family life Arjava A. (2001) Family nances in the
Byzantine Near East: P.Petra inv. 68, in Atti del XXII Congresso Internazionale
di Papirologia (Florence 2001) 6570; Shaw B. D. (1984) Latin funerary
epigraphy and family life in the later Roman Empire, Historia 33 (1984)
45797; Shaw B. D. (1987) The family in Late Antiquity: the experience
of Augustine, PastPres 115 (1987) 351; Clark P. (1999) Women, slaves
and the hierarchies of domestic violence: the family of St. Augustine, in
Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Dierential Equations, edd. S. Joshel
and S. Murnaghan (London 1999) 10929.
Children Derevenski J. S. (2000) ed. Children and Material Culture (London
2000); Arjava A. (1999) Die rmische Vormundschaft und das Volljhrigkeits-
alter in gypten, ZPE 126 (1999) 202204; Boswell J. (1988) Kindness of
Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the
Renaissance (London 1988); Hasitzka M. and Harrauer H. (1990) Neue Texte
und Dokumentation zum Koptisch-Unterricht (Mitteilungen aus der Papyrussammlung
der sterreichischen Nationalbibliothek (Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer), n. S. 18)
(Vienna 1990); Huskinson J. (1996) Roman Childrens Sarcophagi: Their Decoration
and Social Signicance (Oxford 1996); Johann H. T. (1976) ed. Erziehung und
Bildung in der heidnischen und christlichen Antike (Darmstadt 1976); Kalogeras N.
(2001) What do they think about children? Perceptions of childhood in
early Byzantine literature, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 25 (2001) 219;
Kammeier-Nebel A. (1986) Empfngnisverhtung, Abtreibung, Kindesttung
und Aussetzung im frhen Mittelalter, in Frauen in der Geschichte VII: Inter-
disziplinre Studien zur Geschichte der Frauen im frhen Mittelalter, edd. W. Aeldt
and A. Kuhn (Geschichtsdidaktik: Studien, Materialien 39) (Dsseldorf 1986)
13651; Lyman J. R. (1974) Barbarism and religion: late Roman and early
medieval childhood, in The History of Childhood, ed. L. de Mause (New York
1974) 75100; Mounteer C. (1987) Roman childhood, 200 B.C. to A.D.
600, Journal of Psychohistory 14 (1987) 23356; Mounteer C. (1998) God
the Father and Gregory the Great: the discovery of a late Roman child-
hood, Journal of Psychohistory 26 (1998) 43648; Eyben E. (1977) De jonge
Romein: volgens de literaire bronnen der periode ca. 200 v. Chr. tot ca. 500 n. Chr.
(Brussels 1977); Norman N. (2003) Death and burial of Roman children:
the case of the Yasmina cemetery at Carthage II: The archaeological evi-
dence, Mortality 8 (2003) 3647; Steinwenter A. (1921) Kinderschenkungen
an koptische Klster, ZSav 55 (1921) 175207; Vuolanto V. (2003) Selling
a freeborn child: rhetoric and social realities in the late Roman world,
AncSoc 33 (2003) 169207.
Ageing Parkin T. (2002) Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social
History (Baltimore 2002); Brandt H. (2002) Wird auch silbern mein Haar: Eine
Geschichte des Alters in der Antike (Munich 2002) chap. VI; Cokayne K. (2003)
Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome (London 2003).
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 57
Sotncrs ron Soci.r Lirr
Introduction
In this section, a much fuller presentation of the sources for social
life is oered than was the case for political life; this is due to a
number of dierent reasons. Firstly, archaeology currently oers far
more source material for social life than it does for political life, due
to the way in which the discipline has developed, as much as the
potential of the source material itself. Secondly, due to the appeal-
ing materiality of the archaeological evidence, the study of topics
such as burial or housing has generated academic interest for its
own sake, with work focusing on both material appearance and
specic behaviours behind such phenomena.
Perhaps disappointingly, work on social aspects of archaeology, in
burial, dress or housing has not always led to archaeology taking its
place alongside textual evidence as a serious source for mainstream
social history. This remains dominated by legislation, letters, and
papyri, whilst archaeology retains a largely illustrative role outside
the circles of specialists. Thus, when archaeologists have asserted
social theories on the basis of the development of rural settlement
or changes in urban housing, this has rarely aected the discourse
of the more text-based historians. For their part, archaeologists using
historically-based models of interpretation have sometimes tended to
stick too closely to textual sources to illustrate their evidence, rather
than attempt a serious evaluation of such theories in terms of the
independent testimony of eld evidence (a situation well described
by Van Ossel in the case of Gaul). Though serious discussion of
such topics as ethnicity are now unthinkable without taking archaeo-
logical evidence into account, we still have a long way to go before
social archaeology will aect social history as profoundly as it has
the history of cities, the countryside, or the economy.
Textual Sources
Despite the space given here to archaeological sources of evidence,
it is undeniable that most scholarship on the family, gender, impe-
rial and provincial lites, or the poor is still principally based on the
evidence derived from the texts. In this sphere of research legal texts
remain of great importance, as do administrative papyri, but increas-
58 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
ingly letters and incidental biographical or social information derived
from hagiographic literature are providing vivid and compelling infor-
mation. Funerary epigraphy is somewhat less informative than it was
in earlier centuries, but it yet retains much usefulness. Prosopography
and onomastics are similarly less bountiful than they were three cen-
turies earlier, due to changes in epigraphic habits and the disap-
pearance of the tria nomina, but they are sources of evidence that still
provide essential information about social life during the period.
Literary sources Demandt A. (1989) Die Sptantike: Rmische Geschichte von
Diocletian bis Justinian, 284565 n. Chr. (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft,
Abt. 3, 6) (Munich 1989) 133.
Papyri Bagnall R. S. (1993) Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton 1993) pro-
vides a starting point for sources and bibliography.
Epigraphy Urban and rural building inscriptions see respective bibliographies.
Funerary epigraphy Shaw B. D. (1984) Latin funerary epigraphy and family
life in the Later Roman Empire, Historia 33 (1984) 45797; Meyer E. A.
Explaining the epigraphic habit in the Roman empire: the evidence of
epitaphs, JRS 80 (1990) 7496; two especially important sites are Korycos
and Tyre: Keil J. and Wilhelm A. (1931) Denkmler aus dem rauhen Kilikien
(Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua 3) (Manchester 1931); Rey-Coquais
J.-P. (1977) Inscriptions grecques et latines dcouvertes dans les fouilles de Tyr (1963
1974) I: Inscriptions de la ncropole (Bulletin du Muse de Beyrouth 29) (Beirut
1977); see also funerary inscriptions and church dedications covered by the
designation Christian epigraphy, as listed for dierent regions in Brard
F., Feissel D., Petitmengin P., Rousset D., Sve M. (2000) Guide de lpigraphiste
(Paris
3
2000).
Prosopography see section on sources for political life.
Onomastics Salway B. (1994) Whats in a name? A survey of Roman
onomastic practice from 700 B.C. to A.D. 700, JRS 84 (1994) 12445;
Cheynet J.-C. (1996) LAnthroponymie aristocratique Byzance, in
LAnthroponymie: document de lhistoire sociale des mondes mditerranens mdivaux,
edd. M. Bourin, J.-M. Martin and F. Menant (Rome 1996) 26794; Settipani
Ch. (2000) Continuit gentilice et continuit familiales snatoriales romaines: mythe et
ralit (Prosopographica et Genealogica 2) (Oxford 2000); Co{kun A. and
Zeidler J. (online paper) Cover names and nomenclature in late Roman
Gaul. The evidence of the Bordelaise Poet Ausonius, http://www.linacre.ox.
ac.uk/les/pros/cnn.pdf [last accessed 1/2/2006]; Bagnall R. S. (1982)
Religious conversion and onomastic change, BASP 19 (1982) 10524.
Housing
Houses are buildings that reect both the taste of individuals and
the functioning of the domestic unit, ltered through contemporary
social and cultural trends, and the subject has blossomed since the
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 59
early 1990s with an increasing number of analytic studies of hous-
ing in general. Early work concentrated on the transformation of the
urban domus, and emphasised how the largest houses became much
grander in scale in the later empire. However it is clear that the
numbers of such houses steadily decreased during Late Antiquity.
Such evidence has been used to support those arguments that the
period saw power concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller
class of lites, and it has also indicated that the majority of houses
were of much more modest architectural distinction. Those lesser
houses, however, have proved more dicult to classify morphologi-
cally, and have received much less attention from scholars.
Two ongoing research issues stand out: rstly, what happened to
the housing of the middle classes of the Roman empire, which ear-
lier in the Roman period commonly mimicked the architectural form
of the aristocratic residences, but which in Late Antiquity seems
dicult to identify with any certainty? Secondly, consideration needs
to be given to the issue of subdivision in the arena of domestic space,
where larger buildings (both public and private) are partitioned in
order to provide numerous smaller housing units. Although studies
do exist which tackle the question (e.g. Saradi 1998), further inves-
tigations are often hampered by poor excavation strategies, despite
the fact that it may well be the key to understanding the transfor-
mations of housing in the late antique urban landscape.
As with all aspects of Late Antiquity, attention must be paid to
the dierent rates at which these changes were occurring, especially
in varying chronological and geographic contexts (the latter not simply
the dierence between East and West, but also the distinction between
rural and urban housing). Unfortunately, there are few regions where
there is sucient evidence available to construct a nuanced picture
of the full range of changes over the breadth of the late antique
period (with the exception of Tunisia and, perhaps, parts of Italy).
Besides the obvious sources of archaeological evidence for housing,
further evidence can occasionally be gleaned from artistic depictions
of residences (usually high statues) and from the papyri. The latter
can prove particularly informative, as they can provide information
both on types of housing (Bagnall 1993), as well as the relationships
between houses and ecclesiastical communities (Schmelz 2002).
See especially the extended bibliographic essay on housing by I. Uytterhoeven
in the companion volume to this book: Lavan L., Ozgenel L., and Sarantis P.
(Forthcoming) edd. Housing in Late Antiquity: from Palaces to Shops (Late Antique
60 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
Archaeology 3.2) (Leiden Forthcoming), and the fundamental articles by
Sodini (1995 and 1997), cited below, and for rural housing, Chavarra A.
and Lewit T. (2004) Archaeological research on the late antique coun-
tryside: a bibliographic essay, in Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside,
edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan, and C. Machado (Late Antique Archaeology 2)
(Leiden 2004) 151.
Syntheses Baldini Lippolis I. (2001) La domus tardoantica: forme e rappre-
sentazioni dello spazio domestico nelle citt del Mediterraneo (Studi e Scavi 17)
(Bologna 2001); Ellis S. (2000) Roman Housing (London 2000); Ellis S. (1988)
The end of the Roman house, AJA 92 (1988) 56576; Polci B. (2003)
Some aspects of the transformation of the Roman domus between Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, in Theory and Practice in Late Antique
Archaeology, edd. L. Lavan and W. Bowden (Late Antique Archaeology 1)
(Leiden 2003) 79109; Sodini J.-P. (1995) Habitat de lAntiquit Tardive
(1), Topoi 5 (1995) 151218; Sodini J.-P. (1997) Habitat de lAntiquit
Tardive (2), Topoi 7 (1997) 435577; Hales S. (2003) The Roman House and
Social Identity (Cambridge 2003); Dark K. (2004) ed. Secular Buildings and the
Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford 2004).
Decoration Ellis S. (1991) Power and decor: how the late antique aris-
tocrat received his guests, in Roman Art in the Private Sphere, ed. E. Gazda
(Ann Arbor 1991) 11734; Baldini Lippolis I. (2001) La domus tardoantica:
forme e rappresentazioni dello spazio domestico nelle citt del Mediterraneo (Studi e
Scavi 17) (Bologna 2001); Isager S. and Poulsen B. (1997) edd. Patron and
Pavements in Late Antiquity (Halicarnassian Studies 2) (Odense 1997); Maguire
E., Maguire H., and Duncan-Flowers M. (1989) edd. Art and Holy Powers
in the Early Christian House (Urbana-Chicago 1989); Scott S. (2004) Elites,
exhibitionism and the society of the late Roman villa, in Landscapes
of Change: Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed.
N. Christie (Aldershot 2004) 3965.
Subdivision Saradi H. (1998) Privatization and subdivision of urban
properties in the Early Byzantine centuries: social and cultural implications,
BASP 35 (1998) 1740; Chavarra Arnau A. (2004) Interpreting the trans-
formation of late Roman villas: the case of Hispania in Landscapes of Change:
Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. N. Christie
(Aldershot 2004) 67102; Ellis S. (1997) Late antique houses in Asia
Minor, in Patron and Pavements in Late Antiquity, edd. S. Isager and B. Poulsen
(Odense 1997) 3850; Ellis S. (2004) Early Byzantine housing in Secular
Buildings and the Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire, ed. K. Dark
(Oxford 2004) 3752; Ellis S. (2004) The seedier side of Antioch, in
Culture and Society in Later Roman Antioch, ed I. Sandwell and J. Huskinson
(Oxford 2004) 12633.
Specic Studies see articles by Sodini (1995, 1997) cited above; Loveluck
C. P. (1998) A high-status Anglo-Saxon settlement at Flixborough, Lincoln-
shire, Antiquity 72 (1998) 14661; Baldini Lippolis I. (1995) Ledilizia abi-
tativa urbana in Italia meridionale tra IV e VI secolo, Corso di Cultura
sullarte Ravennate e Bizantina 42 (1995) 1746; Ortalli G. and Heinzelmann
M. (2003) edd. Abitare in citt. La Cisalpina tra impero e medioevo (Palilia 12)
(Wiesbaden 2003); Bavant B. (1989) Cadre de vie et habitat urbain en
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 61
Italie centrale byzantine (VI
e
VIII
e
sicles), MFRM 101 (1989) 456532;
Schmelz G. (2002) Kirchliche Amtstrger im sptantiken gypten nach den Aussagen
der griechischen und koptischen Papyri und Ostraka. (Archiv fr Papyrusforschung
und verwandte Gebiete, Beiheft 13) (Munich 2002).
Clothing and Jewellery
Evidence for jewellery and clothing is drawn from several principal
sources: archaeological, art-historical, and written texts. Textile sur-
vival is rare, and most extant textiles are from Egypt; it is dicult
to know how far they are representative of dress in the empire as
a whole. Further evidence of dress is mainly from art-historical
sources. Coin-portraits are important for imperial regalia, while late
mosaics such as those at Ravenna are a useful source of evidence
for wider aspects of elite costume. Military dress becomes increas-
ingly central to the construction of elite identities in the later period,
and the archaeological evidence from cemeteries and hoard nds, in
the Eastern and the Western provinces, is especially useful here.
There are signicant late antique jewellery collections in the British
Museum, London (including the Thetford and Hoxne Treasures, 4th
and 5th c.) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Objects
of elite dress and jewellery have been much studied (though often
without context and provenance), particularly with respect to their
use as a marker of status and identity. Provincial and lower status
dress and dress accessories (e.g. belt-buckles) are not very popular
research topics; copper alloy, bone, and glass dress accessories are
best studied through reference to large cemetery reports. Scholarly
research to date has focused on questions of dating and provenance,
and workshops and techniques; whilst there are many useful cata-
logues, theoretically-informed and interpretative approaches are under-
represented in the literature, though there has been some important
discussion of questions of identity.
Syntheses Swift E. (2000) Regionality in Dress Accessories in the Late Roman West
(Monographies Instrumentum 11) (Montagnac 2000); Kalamara P. (1997)
Le Systme vestimentaire Byzance du IV
e
jusqu la n du XI
e
sicle (Lille 1997);
Bruhn J.-A. (1993) Coins and Costume in Late Antiquity (Byzantine Collection
Publications 9) (Washington 1993); Wipszycka E. (1965) LIndustrie textile dans
lgypte romaine (Archiwum lologiczne 9) (Wrocaw 1965).
Collections Antiquit Tardive 12 (2004); Chausson F. and Inglebert H.
(2003) edd. Costume et socit dans lAntiquit et le haut Moyen ge (Paris 2003);
Cardon D. and Feugre M. (2000) edd. Archologie des textiles des origines au
62 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
V
e
sicle (Monographies Instrumentum 14) (Montagnac 2000); Sebesta J. L.
and Bonfante L. (1994) edd. The World of Roman Costume (Madison 1994).
Jewellery Deppert-Lippitz B. (2000) Late Roman and early Byzantine
jewellery, in From Attila to Charlemagne: Arts of the Early Medieval Period in the
Metropolitan Museum of Arts, edd. K. Reynolds-Brown, D. Kidd and C. Little
(New York 2000) 5877; Stout A. M. (1994) Jewellery as a symbol of sta-
tus in the Roman Empire, in The World of Roman Costume, edd. J. L. Sebesta
and L. Bonfante (Madison 1994) 77100; Johns C. and Potter T. (1983)
The Thetford Treasure (London 1983); Buckton D. (19831984) The beauty
of holiness: opus interrasile from a late antique workshop, Jewellery Studies 1
(19831984) 1519; Hackens T. and Winckes R. (1983) edd. Roman Jewellry:
Craft, Style and Meaning from Mycenae to Constantinopolis (Louvain-la-Neuve 1983);
Tempelmann-Maczynska M. (1985) Perlen im Mitteleuropischen Barbaricum
(Rmisch-Germanische Forschungen 43) (Mainz 1985); Dbner-Manthey
B. (1989) Zum Amulettbrauchtum in frhmittelalterlichen Frauen- und
Kindergrbern, in Frauen in Sptantike und Frhmittelalter: Lebensbedingungen
LebensnormenLebensformen (Beitrge einer internationalen Tagung an der Freien
Universitt Berlin), ed. W. Aeldt (Berlin 1989) 6587; Ogden J. (1990) Late
antique jewellery: pierced work and hollow beaded wire, Jewellery Studies
4 (1990) 512; Yeroulana A. (1999) Diatrita: Gold-pierced Work Jewellery from
the 3rd to the 7th Centuries (Athens 1999); Von Freeden U. and Wieczorek
A. (1997) Perlen: Archologie, Techniken, Analysen (Akten des Internationalen
Perlensymposiums in Mannheim vom 11. bis 14. November 1994) (Bonn
1997); Sas K. and Thoen H. (2002) edd. Schone Schijn: Romeinse juweelkunst
in West-Europa/Brillance et Prestige: Jouaillerie romaine en Europe occidentale (Leuven
2002); Swift E. (2003) Late Roman bead necklaces and bracelets, JRA
16 (2003) 33649; Baldini Lippolis I. (1999) Loreceria nellimpero di Constantinopoli
tra IV e VII secolo ( Bari 1999); Daim F. (2002) Pilgeramulette und
Frauenschmuck? Zu den Scheibenbeln der frhen Keszthely-Kultur, Zalai
Mzeum 11 (2002) 11332.
Textiles and clothing Galavaris G. (1958) The symbolism of the impe-
rial costume, ANSMN 8 (1958) 99117; Harlow M. (2004) Clothes maketh
man: power dressing and lite masculinity in the later Roman world, in
Gender in the Early Medieval World, East and West, 300900, edd. L. Brubaker
and J. M. H. Smith (Cambridge 2004) 4469; Harlow M. (2005) Dress
in the Historia Augusta: the role of dress in historical narrative, in The Clothed
Body in the Ancient World, edd. L. Cleland, M. Harlow, and L. J. Llewellyn-
Jones (Oxford 2005) 14353; Olson K. (2002) Matrona and whore: the
clothing of women in Late Antiquity, Fashion Theory 6 (2002) 387420;
Schrenk S. and Knaller R. (2004) Textilien des Mittelmeerraumes aus sptantiker
bis frhislamischer Zeit (Textilsammlung der Abegg-Stiftung 4) (Riggisberg
2004); Bichler P. (1989) Antike koptische Textilien aus sterreichischem Privatbesitz
(sterreichische UNESCO-Kommission) (Schallaburg 1989); Thomas T.
(1990) Textiles from Medieval Egypt, A.D. 3001300 (Pittsburgh 1990); Trilling J.
(1982) The Roman Heritage: Textiles from Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean,
300600 A.D. (Washington 1982); Carroll D. L. (1988) Looms and Textiles
of the Copts, First Millennium Egyptian Textiles in the Carl Austin Rietz Collection
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 63
of the California Academy of Sciences (Seattle 1988); Fluck C., Linscheid P., and
Merz S. (2000) Textilien aus gypten 1: Textilien aus dem Vorbesitz von Theodor
Graf, Carl Schmidt und dem gyptischen Museum Berlin (Wiesbaden 2000); Lang
P. (1992) Sptantike und koptische Wirkereien (Ph.D. diss., Univ. Bern 1992);
Rutschowscaya M.-H. (1990) Coptic Fabrics (Paris 1990); Stauer A. (1991)
Textiles dgypte de la collection Bouvier: antiquit tardive, priode copte, premiers temps
de lIslam (Bern 1991); Stauer A. (1992) Sptantike und koptische Wirkereien:
Untersuchungen zur ikonographischen Tradition in sptantiken und frhmittelalterlichen
Textilwerksttten (Bern 1992); Van Driel-Murray C. (1987) Roman footwear:
a mirror of fashion and society, in Recent Research in Archaeological Footwear,
edd. D. E. Friendship-Taylor, J. M. Swann and S. Thomas (London 1987)
3242; Schulze-Drrlamm M. (2002) Byzantinische Grtelschnallen und Grtelbeschlge
im Rmisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseum 1: Die Schnallen ohne Beschlg, mit
Laschenbeschlag und mit festem Beschlag des 5. bis 7. Jahrhunderts (Kataloge vor-
und frhgeschichtlicher Altertmer 30) (Mainz Bonn 2002).
Diet
In very broad terms, diet in Late Antiquity seems to have centred
on bread and vegetables, supplemented by olive oil; frequent con-
sumption of meat seems likely to have been the preserve of the lites,
although sh may have had some role in the diet of ordinary people,
and would have been a staple for those living on rivers and near
the coast. Wine was common to all classes. Some of what we know
from textual sources concerning food and food consumption in Late
Antiquity is derived from contexts that discuss its absence, either
through the religious rituals involved in fasting, or via descriptions
of the poor and the sick, who relied on the states bread dole or
Christian charity for their survival. Religious fasting could be selec-
tive and periodic, and was often undertaken as a means of prepar-
ing for a liturgical festival (which may itself be celebrated with a
feast); hagiographic texts relate scenes of extreme bodily deprivation
for the purposes of spiritual fullment, although this kind of religious
fasting was undoubtedly a topos of monastic literature. Again, as with
so many other areas of social life during the period, there is an ever-
increasing exploitation of archaeological evidence to shed light on
hitherto unexplored issues. In this case, zooarchaeology is now pro-
viding a multiplicity of new perspectives on the production and dis-
tribution of food.
Syntheses Ferro-Luzzi A. and Sette S. (1989) The Mediterranean diet: an
attempt to dene its present and past composition, European Journal of
Clinical Nutrition 43 (1989) 1329; Flandrin J.-L. and Montanari M. (1996)
64 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
edd. Histoire de lalimentation (Paris 1996); Grimm V. E. (1996) From Feasting
to Fasting, the Evolution of a Sin: Attitudes to Food in Late Antiquity (London 1996);
Brothwell D. and Brothwell P. R. (1998) Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the
Diet of Early Peoples (Baltimore London
2
1998); Dalby A. (2003) Flavours of
Byzantium (London 2003).
Public grain supplies Tengstrm E. (1975) Bread for the People: Studies in
the Corn-Supply for Late Ancient Rome (Stockholm 1975); Whitehouse D. (1981)
The Schola Praeconum and the food supply of Rome in the fth century,
in Archaeology and Italian Society: Prehistoric, Roman and Medieval Studies, edd.
G. Barker and R. Hodges (BAR International Series 102) (1981) 19196;
Rowland R. J. (1976) The very poor and the grain dole at Rome and
Constantinople, ZPE 21 (1976) 6972; Schneider H. (1983) Die Getreidever-
sorgung der Stadt Antiochia im 4. Jahrhundert n. Chr., Mnstersche Beitrge
zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 2 (1983) 5972; Mller A. E. (1993) Getreide
fr Konstantinopel: berlegungen zu Justinians Edikt XIII als Grundlage
fr Aussagen zur Einwohnerzahl Konstantinopels im 6. Jahrhundert, Jahrbuch
der sterreichischen Byzantinistik (1993) 120.
The diet of the masses Hill S. and Bryer A. (1995) Byzantine porridge:
tracto, trachans and tarhana, in Food in Antiquity, edd. J. Wilkins, M. J. Dobson,
and F. D. Harvey (Exeter 1995) 4454; Baker P. (1996) Subsistence Strategies
and Animal Exploitation in North Italy during the Late Roman/Early Medieval Periods
(Ph.D. diss., University College London 1996); MacKinnon M. (2004)
Production and Consumption of Animals in Roman Italy, Integrating the Zooarchaeological
and Textual Evidence ( JRA Supplementary Series 54) (Portsmouth 2004);
Dauphin C. (1999) Plenty or just enough? The diet of the rural and urban
masses of Byzantine Palestine, Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society
17 (1999) 3965; La Bianca O. S. (1990) Sedentarization and Nomadization:
Food System Cycles at Hesban and Vicinity in Transjordan (Hesban 1.1) (Berrien
Springs 1990); Smith W. (2003) Archaeobotanical Investigations of Agriculture at
Late Antique Kom el-Nana (Tell el-Amarna) (Excavation Memoir 70) (London
2003).
The church and diet Bishops Shanzer D. (2001) Bishops, letters, fast,
food, and feast in later Roman Gaul, in Society and Culture in Late Antique
Gaul, edd. R. W. Mathisen and D. Shanzer (Aldershot 2001) 21736. Monks
Dembinska M. (1985) Diet: a comparison of food-consumption between
some eastern and western monasteries in the 4th12th centuries, Byzantion
35 (1985) 43162; Dauphin C. (20002001) The diet of the desert fathers
in late antique Egypt, Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 1920
(20002001) 3986; Harlow M. and Smith W. (2001) Between fasting and
feasting: the literary and archaeobotanical evidence for monastic diet in
Late Antique Egypt, Antiquity 75 (2001) 75868; Layton B. (2002) Social
structure and food-consumption in an early Christian monastery: the evi-
dence of Shenoutes Canons and the White Monastery federation A.D. 385
465, Le Muson 115 (2002) 2554; Kelhoer J. A. (2005) The diet of John
the Baptist: Locusts and Wild Honey, in Synoptic and Patristic Interpretation
(Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 176) (Tbingen
2005).
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 65
Texts: prescriptive and practical Grant M. (2000) ed. Galen: On Food and
Diet (London 2000); Powell O. W. (2003) ed. On the Properties of Foodstus
(= De alimentorum facultatibus) (Cambridge 2003); Bode M. (2001) Zur Rolle
sptantiker Oberschichten bei der Tradierung des Apicius-Kochbuches,
Laverna 12 (2001) 13954.
Settlement Archaeology and Social Structure
Though it may seem an unlikely proposition, settlement archaeology
(when used with care) can be a credible source of information about
Late Roman social organisation. In a region where textual sources
are plentiful, such as Egypt for example, this may seem less impor-
tant. However, many regions have absolutely no surviving historical
texts to inform us about the concentration of wealth or the patterns
of land holding, and even in Africa and Syria our knowledge is
extremely thin. Settlement archaeology can provide social informa-
tion about the organisation of landscapes and indeed whole regions,
and potentially answer a number of vital questions. Are settlements
increasingly nucleated in Late Antiquity, or is it possible to see a
rich peasantry of an egalitarian character? Is there evidence for the
residence or absenteeism of landlords on villa estates? Are villages
organised around villas and (later) monasteries, and does the char-
acter of some dwellings suggest the use of slaves? Is the basic unit
of the landscape a village or are farms widely dispersed? All these
observations have implications for the study of social life.
Concrete examples of the potential of settlement archaeology for
the study of social life come from many regions. In Britain, Hingley
(1989) suggested that the design of some Roman villas reected their
ownership by kin groupings. In Syria, Tate (1992) interpreted the
organisation of Syrian villageswith numerous well-built houses, but
no high-status residenceas reecting a prosperous egalitarian peas-
antry. In Tripolitania, Mattingly (1995) has noted a large number
of inland working villas without ornament, a settlement pattern in
great contrast to the coast. A tendency towards agglomeration has
been seen in rural settlement in Italy, where some villas grew or
were redeveloped, whilst others declined; this has been thought to
relate to concentration of landholding in Late Antiquity. The emer-
gence of villages in Britain during the later Roman period is also
thought to reect social change, as may also the increased impor-
tance of bourgades in Asia Minor. At the same time, the origins of
66 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
incastellamento and the hilltop medieval Mediterranean village have
been pushed later in time by eld-survey work, towards the 10th
12th c., although there is increasing evidence of small areas of the
West with new hilltop villages in the 5th6th c. (Languedoc/Provence,
maybe Calabria) or the 7th c. (Tuscany) (Wickham 2005). Obviously,
for many areas of the empire usable eld data is not yet available.
However, even where it is, one must be very cautious in the social
interpretation oered for particular landscapes. Some hypotheses can
be readily supported and others excluded (such as the presence or
absence of a resident country gentry), but very precise interpretations
of settlement patterns remain dicult. Further exploration of struc-
tures of settlement in the late antique landscape will be a fruitful
topic in years to come.
Related Syntheses No synthesis exists on the subject of settlement archae-
ology and social structure per se, but the most important related syntheses
are as follows: Chavarra A. and Lewit T. (2004) Archaeological research
on the late antique countryside: a bibliographic essay, in Recent Research on
the Late Antique Countryside, edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan, and C. Machado
(Late Antique Archaeology 2) (Leiden 2004) 151; Sodini J.-P. (1995)
Habitat de lAntiquit Tardive (1), Topoi 5 (1995) 151218; Sodini J.-P.
(1997) Habitat de lAntiquit Tardive (2), Topoi 7 (1997) 435577; Whittaker
C. R. and Garnsey P. (1998) Rural life in the later Roman Empire, in
The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 13: The Late Empire, A.D. 337425, edd.
Averil Cameron and P. Garnsey (Cambridge 1998) 277311; Ward-Perkins
B. (2000) Land, labour and settlement, in The Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron,
B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 31545; Lewit T. (2004)
Villas, Farms and the Late Roman Rural Economy, 3rd to 5th c. A.D. (BAR
International Series 568) (Oxford 2004); Brogiolo G. P. (1996) ed. La ne
delle ville romane: trasformazioni nelle campagne tra tarda antichit e alto medioevo
(Mantua 1996); Christie N. (2004) ed. Landscapes of Change: Rural Evolutions
in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot 2004); Wickham C. (2005)
Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400800 (Oxford
2005).
Regional studies, which connect settlement pattern change to social
changes, to varying degrees. Britain Hingley R. (1989) Rural Settlement in
Britain (London 1989). Gaul Halsall G. (1995) Settlement and Social Organisation:
the Merovingian Region of Metz (Cambridge 1995); Balmelle C. and P. Van
Ossel (2001) De Trves Bordeaux: La marque des lites dans les cam-
pagnes de la Gaule romaine aux IV
e
et V
e
sicles, in Les Campagnes de la
Gaule la n de lAntiquit (IVe Colloque de lAssociation AGER, Montpellier 1998),
edd. P. Ouzoulias et al. (APDCA Antibes 2001) 53352. Spain Chavarra A.
(Forthcoming) El nal de las villas romanas en Hispania (siglos IVVIII) (Bibliothque
de lAntiquit tardive) (Turnhout Forthcoming). Italy Noy G. (1994) Villes,
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 67
conomie et socit dans la province de Bruttium-Lucanie du IV
e
au VII
e
sicle, in La storia dellAlto Medioevo italiano (VIX secolo) alla luce dellarche-
ologia, edd. R. Francovich and G. Noy (Rome 1994) 693733; Sfameni C.
(2004) Residential villas in late antique Italy, in Recent Research on the Late
Antique Countryside, edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan, and C. Machado (Late
Antique Archaeology 2) (Leiden 2004) 33575. Greece Bintli J. (1991) The
Roman countryside in central Greece: observations and theories from the
Boeotia survey (197887), in Roman Landscapes: Archaeological Survey in the
Mediterranean Region, ed. G. Barker and J. Lloyd (London 1991) 12232;
Alcock S. E. (1993) Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Greece (Cambridge 1993);
Kosso C. (2003) The Archaeology of Public Policy in Late Roman Greece (BAR
International Series 1126) (Oxford 2003). Asia Minor Dagron G. (1979)
Entre village et cit: la bourgade rurale des IV
e
VII
e
sicles en Orient,
Koinnia 3 (1979) 2952. Syria Tate G. (1992) Les Campagnes de la Syrie du
Nord du II
e
au VII
e
sicle (Bibliothque archologique et historique 133) (Paris
1992); Foss C. (1995) The Near Eastern countryside in late antiquity: a
review article, in The Roman and Byzantine Near East: Some Recent Archaeological
Research ( JRA Supplementary Series 14) (Ann Arbor 1995) 21334. Palestine
Hirschfeld Y. (1997) Farms and villages in Byzantine Palestine, DOP 51
(1997) 4459. Africa Mattingly D. J. (1995) Tripolitania (London 1995);
Mattingly D. and Dore J. (1996) Romano-Libyan settlement: typology and
chronology, in Farming the Desert: the UNESCO Libyan Valley Archaeological
Survey, edd. G. Barker et al. (Tripoli 1996) 11158; Mattingly D. J. and
Hayes J. W. (1992) Nador and fortied farms in North Africa, JRA 5
(1992) 40819.
Burial
In a variety of guises, the evidence of funerary practice in Late
Antiquity has played a crucial role in our eorts to identify and
understand the changes apparent in society from the early 4th c.
onwards. Perhaps the most signicant aspect of these changes is the
appearance of burials inside urban boundaries, something that was
formerly taboo in the earlier Roman period. This is characteristi-
cally understood as the dissolution of a formerly inviolable spatial
boundary between the living and the dead, a signicant transfor-
mation of burial customs that had been enshrined in law and rein-
forced through tradition. From one perspective, the emergence of
intra-mural burial is yet one more symptom of a breakdown in social
cohesion and urban organisation, indicative of the declining state of
civic life. Yet, on a much broader level, such changing patterns of
burial practice mark a transformation of the relationship between
the living and the dead of a most fundamental kind. The most strik-
ing example of this is the veneration oered to those considered to
68 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
be holy dead, especially martyrs and saints. Such individuals were
felt to exist still, in a transcendental fashion, at the site of their bur-
ial; the cultic reverence shown to this location (and in many cases
to the relics of their bones) compelled many to seek to be them-
selves buried close to such a sacral epicentre.
Another change is appreciable in the burial archaeology record of
the north-west provinces from the second half of the 4th c. onwards;
increasing numbers of inhumation cemeteries occur in which the
bodies are interred accompanied by certain objects of material cul-
ture, including weapons, ceramics, and items of personal ornamen-
tation. These were traditionally identied as the graves of communities
of Germanic ethnicity, identied with the migrating tribes that
played a role in contemporary accounts of the demise of the west-
ern Roman Empire during the 4th and 5th c. Recent strands of
research have been critical of these approaches, arguing that simply
linking the archaeological evidence to extant historical narratives is
an insucient research objective, and a more contextual analysis of
the evidence is required. Instead of merely being used to investigate
the imputed ethnicity of the dead, cemeteries such as these might,
for example, allow us a better picture of the relationships between
material culture and the body, or of changing attitudes to wealth
and status.
Ultimately, the era when burials were utilised as simple indices
for measuring change (religious, ethnic, social) has passed, and cur-
rent approaches stress the importance of both burial ritual and funer-
ary topography in actively creating and maintaining social identity
(at the level of both the individual and the group) rather than sim-
ply passively reecting it. Future investigations of death and burial
may turn to examine more fully the culturally-liminal role of the
dead as a community, and the more visceral of their interactions
with the living. This could include further exploration of grave-rob-
bing (either via the prohibitions enacted against it, which sought to
link the practice to sorcery, or through material evidence for tomb
disturbance), or further research into the roles played by ghosts and
spirits (both sacred and profane) in vernacular and hagiographic lit-
erature of the period.
Syntheses Halsall G. (1995) Early Medieval Cemeteries: an Introduction to Burial
Archaeology in the Post-Roman West (New Light on the Dark Ages 1) (Skelmorlie
1995); Mills K. and Grafton A. (2003) edd. Conversion in Late Antiquity and
the Early Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing (Rochester 2003), sect. 3; Cooke N.
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 69
(1998) The Denition and Interpretation of Late Roman Burial Rites in the Western
Empire (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of London 1998); Harries J. (1992) Death and
the dead in the late Roman west, in Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the
Dying and the Dead, 1001600, ed. S. Bassett (Leicester 1992) 5667; Brogiolo
G. P. and Cantino Wataghin G. (1998) edd. Sepolture tra IV e VIII secolo
(Mantua 1998); Duval Y. and Picard J. C. (1986) edd. LInhumation privilgie
du IV
e
au VIII
e
sicle en Occident (Paris 1986); Toynbee J. M. C. (1996) Death
and Burial in the Roman World (Baltimore 1996) chap. VVI; Samellas A.
(2001) Death in the Eastern Mediterranean (50600 A.D.)The Christianization of
the East: An Interpretation (Tbingen 2001); Hrke H. (2001) Cemeteries as
places of power, in Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, edd. M. D.
Jong and F. Theuws (Leiden 2001) 930; Arce J. (2000) Imperial funerals
in the later Roman empire: change and continuity, in Rituals of Power: From
Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, edd. F. Theuws and J. Nelson (Leiden
2000) 11529; Cantino Wataghin G. (1999) The ideology of urban bur-
ial, in The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle
Ages, edd. G. P. Brogiolo and B. Ward-Perkins (Transformation of the
Roman World 4) (Leiden 1999) 14780.
Regional studies Britain Philpott R. (1991) Burial Practices in Roman Britain:
An Archaeological Survey of Grave Treatment and Furnishing A.D. 43410 (BAR
International Series 219) (Oxford 1991); Handley M. (2001) The origins
of Christian commemoration in late antique Britain, Early Medieval Europe
10 (2001) 17799; Keegan S. (2002) Inhumation Rites in Late Roman Britain:
The Treatment of the Engendered Body (BAR International Series 333) (Oxford
2002). Germania and Raetia Keller E. (1971) Die sptrmischen Grabfunde in
Sdbayern (Mnchner Beitrge zur Vor- und Frhgeschichte 14) (Munich
1971); Bhme H. (1974) Germanische Grabfunde des 4. bis 5. Jahrhunderts zwi-
schen unterer Elbe und Loire: Studien zur Chronologie und Bevlkerungsgeschichte
(Mnchner Beitrge zur Vor- und Frhgeschichte 19) (Munich 1974); Pirling
R. (1966) Das Rmisch-frnkische Grberfeld von Krefeld-Gellep (Germanische
Denkmler der Vlkerwanderungzeit) (Wiesbaden 1966). Pannonia Lanyi
V. (1972) Die sptantiken Grberfelder von Pannonien, ActaArchHung 24
(1972) 52312; Flep F. (1977) Roman Cemeteries on the Territory of Pcs (Sopianae)
(Budapest 1977). Italy Nuzzo D. (2000) Amulet and grave in late antiquity:
some examples from Roman cemeteries, in Burial, Society and Context in the
Roman World, edd. J. Pearce, M. Millett and M. Struck (Oxford 2000)
24955; Meneghini R. and Santangeli Valenzani R. (1993) Sepolture intra-
muranee e paesaggio urbano a Roma tra V e VII secolo, in La storia
economica di Roma nellalto Medievo alla luce dei recenti scavi archeologici, edd.
L. Paroli and P. Delogu (1993) 89111; Spera L. (2003) The Christianisation
of space along the Via Appia: changing landscape in the suburbs of Rome,
AJA 107 (2003) 2343; Costambeys M. (2002) The culture and practice
of burial in and around Rome in the sixth century, in Ecclesiae Urbis: atti del
congresso internazionale di studi sulle chiese di Roma (IV-X secolo), edd. F. Guidobaldi
and A. Guiglia Guidobaldi (Vatican City 2002) 72131. Spain Absolo J. A.,
Cortes J., and Prez Rodrgez-Aragn F. (1997) La necrpolis norte de la Olmeda
(Pedrosa de la Vega, Palencia) (Valencia 1997); Genera M., Macias J. M., and
70 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
Teixell I. (1999) Necrpolis de la villa dels Munts, in Del rom al romnic:
Histria, Art i Cultura de la Tarraconense Mediterrnia entre els segles IV i X, edd.
P. de Palol and A. Pladevall (Barcelona 1999) 27879; Chavarra A. (2001)
Villae y necrpoleis en Hispania durante la antigedad tarda, Bulletin de
lAssociation pour lAntiquit tardive 10 (2001) 4457. Gaul Brulet R. (1995) La
Spulture du roi Childric Tournai et le site funraire (Louvain-la-Neuve 1995);
Eros B. (2002) Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian
World (University Park, Pennsylvania 2002); Theuws F. and Alkemade M.
(2000) A kind of mirror for men: sword depositions in late antique north-
ern Gaul, in Rituals of Power: From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages,
edd. F. Theuws and J. Nelson (Transformation of the Roman World 8)
(Leiden 2000) 40176; Handley M. (2003) Death, Society and Culture: Inscriptions
and Epitaphs in Gaul and Spain, AD 300750 (Oxford 2003). Greece Ivison E.
(1996) Burial and urbanism at late antique and early Byzantine Corinth,
in Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle
Ages, edd. N. Christie and S. M. Loseby (Aldershot 1996) 99125. The Levant
Sodini J.-P. (1986) Les tombes privilgies dans lOrient chrtien (
lexception du diocse dgypte), in LInhumation privilgie du IV
e
au VII
e
sicle en Occident (Actes du colloque de Crteil 1984), edd. Y. Duval and
J.-C. Picard (Paris 1986) 23343; Michaeli T. (1996) Family burial in late
antique and early Christian paintings in Eretz-Israel, in ASSAPH 1996
(Studies in Art History, B, 2) (1996) 2748. Africa Thomas T. K. (2000)
Late Antique Egyptian Funerary Sculpture: Images for this World and the Next (Princeton
2000); Stevens S. T. (1995) Spultures tardives intra muros Carthage in
LAfrique du nord antique et medivale: monuments funraires, institutions autochtones,
ed. P. Trousset (Paris 1995) 20718.
Infant burial Scott E. (1999) The Archaeology of Infancy and Infant Death
(BAR International Series 819) (Oxford 1999) esp. 11423; Watts D. (1989)
Infant burials and Romano-British Christianity, ArchJ 146 (1989) 37283;
Huskinson J. (1996) Roman Childrens Sarcophagi: Their Decoration and Social
Signicance (Oxford 1996); Smith P. and Kahila G. (1992) Identication of
infanticide in archaeological sites: a case study from the late Roman and
Byzantine periods at Ashkelon, Israel, JAS 19 (1992) 66775; Soren D.
and Soren N. (1999) edd. A Roman Villa and a Late-Roman Infant Cemetery:
Excavations at Poggio Gramignano, Lugnano in Teverina (Rome 1999); Norman
N. (2003) Death and burial of Roman children: the case of the Yasmina
cemetery at Carthage II: The archaeological evidence, Mortality 8 (2003)
3647.
Christian burial Rush A. C. (1941) Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity
(Studies in Christian Antiquity 1) (Washington 1941); Duval Y. (1988) Auprs
des saints corps et me: linhumation ad sanctos dans la chrtient dOrient et dOccident
du III
e
au VII sicle (Paris 1988); Rebillard . (1997) Lglise de Rome et
le dveloppement des catacombes: propos de lorigine des cimetires chr-
tiens, MFRA 109 (1997) 74163; Rebillard . (1999) Les formes de las-
sistance funraire dans lempire romain et leur volution dans lantiquit
tardive, AnTard 7 (1999) 26982; Rebillard . (2002) Religion et spulture:
lglise, les vivants et les morts dans lAntiquit tardive (III
e
V
e
sicles) (Paris 2002).
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 71
Jewish burial Weiss Z. (1992) Social aspects of burial in Beth Shearim,
in The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. L. Levine (New York 1992) 35772;
Kraemer D. (2000) Jewish death-practices in Early Byzantine Palestine:
the Yerushalmi and Aggadic Midrashim, in The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic
Judaism (London 2000) 7294.
Pori+ic.r .xr Soci.r Rrr.+ioxs
Law and Social Relations
Unsurprisingly, the great corpora of Late Roman law provide a fasci-
nating wealth of material for social relations due to their objective
of regulating social statuses and obligations; this included both those
cases in which the state had an interest, as well as those in which
the people themselves wished to invoke the power of law. Aside from
the ocial ranks of status created by relative proximity to imperial
power and the needs of the state, many laws reveal details of every-
day social realities which legislators had sought to institutionalise.
These might include status distinctions, including discrimination against
infames, or the rights and responsibilities of people of dierent ages.
Social relations themselves also appear in regulated form: from the
collective responsibility of communities for taxes and law-breaking,
to hereditary obligations and family matters of adoption, inheritance,
and marriage. Links of patronage that were initially informal were
to receive some legal recognition, extending in some cases to more
formal contracts, and there was continual pressure that bribes be
recognised as ocially required payments. Yet Roman law can be
said to go further than simply institutionalising social relations; rather,
its spread could replace them with new institutional forms, especially
in terms of conict resolution. This topic is particularly relevant to
the reception of barbarian communities inside late antique society.
The Germanic law codes also reveal much about the traditions of
Germanic society prior to entering the Roman empire. The degree
to which Roman law really did accommodate such dierent tradi-
tions, or at least tried to uneasily co-exist with them, is a continued
focus of interest.
Despite the clarity of law, one should be careful not to read laws
as an easy mirror of Late Roman society. Legal documents by deni-
tion seek to be precise, when reality was often more complex. Further-
more, because legislation tended to be reactive in nature, arising from
72 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
specic legal or administrative problems, the social prole one obtains
of everyday life from laws can be excessively bleak. Where possible
it should be checked against comparanda from papyri, letters, or
hagiography, though there is much detailed information which only
laws can provide. Partly because of the large size of the source mate-
rial available there remains much work to do: the 6th c. legislation,
particularly the Novels of Justinian, having received less attention
than the 4th5th c. material. The origins of Canon law and its con-
nection to imperial legislation are also understudied, though the devel-
opment of episcopal courts has been a focus of interest.
Syntheses Liebs D. (2000) Roman law, in The Cambridge Ancient History,
vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron,
B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 23859; Matthews J.
(2000) Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (New Haven 2000);
Goart W. (1974) Caput and Colonate: Towards a History of Late Roman Taxation
(Toronto 1974); Harris J. (1999) Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge
1999); Charles-Edwards T. M. (2000) Law in the western kingdoms between
the fth and the seventh century, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14:
Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425600, edd. Averil Cameron,
B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge 2000) 26087; Johnston D.
(1999) Roman Law in Context (Cambridge 1999); Honor T. (1998) Law in
the Crisis of Empire, 379455 A.D.: The Theodosian Dynasty and its Quaestors
(Oxford 1998); see also synthetic entries on legislation under section on
sources for political life.
Collective responsibility Carri J. M. (1994) Diocltien et la scalit,
AnTard 2 (1995) 3364; Delmaire R. (1996) Cits et scalits au Bas-
Empire: propos du rle des curiales dans la leve des impts, in La Fin
de la cit antique et le dbut de la cit mdivale, ed. C. Lepelley (Bari 1996)
5970; Gascou J. (1994) Un Codex scal hermopolite (P.Sorb. II 69) (American
Studies in Papyrology 32) (Atlanta 1994); Crum W. E. and Steindor G.
(1912) Koptische Rechtsurkunden des achten Jahrhunderts aus Djeme (Theben) (Subsidia
Byzantina lucis ope iterata 18) (Leipzig 1912); Millar F. (1983) Empire
and City, Augustus to Julian: obligations, excuses and status, JRS 73 (1983)
7696; Lewis N. (1982) The Compulsory Public Services of Roman Egypt (Pap.
Flor. 11) (Florence 1982); Thomas J. D. (1983) Compulsory Public Service
in Roman Egypt, in Das rmisch-byzantinisch gypten. Akten des internationalen
Symposions 2630 September 1978 in Trier, edd. G. Grimm, H. Heinen, and
E. Winter (Mainz 1983) 3539; Lucrezi F. and Mancini G. (2003) Crimina
e Delicta nel Tardo Antico (Milan 2003).
Popular and Germanic law Fouracre P. and Davies W. (1986) The Settlement
of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge 1986); Wormald P. (1977)
Lex scripta and verbum regis: legislation and Germanic kingship from Euric
to Cnut, in Early Medieval Kingship, edd. P. Sawyer and I. Wood (Leeds
1977) 10538; King P. D. (1972) Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom
(Cambridge 1972); Arjava A. (2001) The survival of Roman family law
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 73
after the Barbarian settlements, in Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity,
ed. R. W. Mathisen (Oxford 2001) 3351; Harries J. (2000) Legal culture
and identity in the fth century West, in Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity,
edd. S. Mitchell and G. Greatrex (London 2000) 4558.
Status Rilinger R. (1988) Humiliores, Honestiores: zur sozialen Dichotomie im
Strafrecht der rmischen Kaiserzeit (Munich 1988); Neri V. (1998) I marginali nel-
loccidente tardoantico: Poveri, infames e criminali nella nascente societ cristiana (Bari
1998).
Everyday relations between neighbours Geyer A. (1993) Ne ruinis urbs
deformetur . . . : sthetische Kriterien in der sptantiken Baugesetzgebung,
Boreas 16 (1993) 6377; Janvier Y. (1969) La lgislation du Bas-Empire romain
sur les dices publics (Publication des Annales de la Facult des lettres, Aix-
en-Provence; Travaux et mmoires 56) (Aix-en-Provence 1969); Saliou C.
(1994) Les Lois des btiments (Beyrouth 1994).
Hereditary obligations Sirks A. J. B. (1993) Did the Late Roman gov-
ernment try to tie people to their profession or status?, Tyche 8 (1993)
15975.
Family law Evans Grubbs J. (1995) Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The
Emperor Constantines Marriage Legislation (Oxford 1995); Evans Grubbs J. (1993)
Constantine and imperial legislation on the family, in The Theodosian Code,
edd. J. Harries and I. Wood (London 1993) 12042; Evans Grubbs J.
(1994) Pagan and Christian marriage: the state of the question, Journal
of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994) 40612.
Law as institutionalised conict resolution Harries J. D. (2001) Resolving
disputes: the frontiers of law in Late Antiquity, in Law, Society, and Authority
in Late Antiquity, ed. R. W. Mathisen (Oxford 2001) 6882; Gagos T. and
Van Minnen P. (1994) Settling a Dispute: Towards a Legal Anthropology of Late
Antique Egypt (Ann Arbor 1994).
Spread of law in the Church Frazee C. (1982) Late Roman and Byzantine
legislation on the monastic life from the fourth to the eighth centuries,
Church History 51 (1982) 26379.
Property
Property is traditionally a specialised area of legal studies which
deserves its own consideration as it is conventionally considered as
the basis of political and social power (although recent work focus-
ing on documents of property transfer and dispute has illustrated the
key role of rights over land and labour as a fundamental foundation
of power). In the Roman world the need to assess taxable values
and to guarantee tax collection against property meant that prop-
erty rights were inextricably intertwined with scal processes, which
required the political involvement of a large empire-wide land-
owning elite in the structures of governance. Equally, control and
inheritance of property was obviously crucial to maintaining and
74 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
dening structures of kin and the power that went with it. Thus the
desire of radical Christian ascetics to renounce property could have
important social consequences when it involved the very rich; this
is a theme which has attracted much interest for early 5th c. Rome.
For those new to Roman legal forms, such as the Germanic incom-
ers, the adoption of a Roman framework of landholding had the
eect of greatly consolidating power. Recent debate has focused on
the nebulous boundary between the allocation of tax income and
the grant of property rights, but by the 7th c. at the latest, in the
West, notions of property had simplied radically, becoming rooted
in manifest possession as the scal and legal parameters of the late
antique state withered away. Aside from these general aspects, research
has considered how changes in the legal nature of landholding aected
social status of tenants, and the extent to which this led to people
being treated as property. Conversely the de facto end of slavery in
parts of the West in the Early Middle Ages, and so the partial redun-
dancy of a well-dened area of Roman property law has also attracted
attention. Yet the social eects of a supposed concentration of land
ownership in the countryside have not yet been seriously studied from
a legal point of view, though hagiography, papyrology, and archae-
ology have revealed regions in which absentee landowners were com-
mon or large villas developed at the expense of smaller ones.
The distribution of sources reects that of legal texts in general,
with the barbarian leges from the west giving insight into the inter-
action between provincial practice and new incomers. Normative
sources are supported by caches of papyri from Ravenna and Paris,
the Albertini tablets in North Africa, state documents from Visigothic
Spain, Merovingian formularies, and the earliest monastic charters
from the late 7th c. Epigraphy is of some local value, when bound-
ary stones are available, whilst archaeology is restricted to generali-
sations based on settlement form and distribution patterns: only in
few cases are useful estate boundaries known (e.g. in northern Syria).
Syntheses Harries J. (1984) Treasure in Heaven: property and inheritance
among senators of Late Rome, in Marriage and Property, ed. E. M. Craik
(Aberdeen 1984) 5470; Bagnall R. S. (2001) Monks and property: rhetoric,
law, and patronage in the Apophtegmata Patrum and the papyri, GRBS 42
(2001) 724; Wickham C. J. (2005) Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford
2005); Smith J. M. H. (2005) Europe After Rome: a New Cultural History
5001000 (Oxford 2005) Part III; Wickham C. J. (1994) Land and Power:
Studies in Italian and European Social History, 4001200 (London 1994); Goart W.
(1989) Romes Fall and After (London 1989); Mattingly D. J., Fouracre P., and
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 75
Davies W. (1986) The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge
1986); Salmon J. (2001) edd. Economies Beyond Agriculture in the Classical World
(London 2001); Levy E. (1951) West Roman Vulgar Law: the Law of Property
(Philadelphia 1951); Innes M. (Forthcoming) Land, freedom and the mak-
ing of the early medieval West, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
(Forthcoming 2006).
Landed property Kaplan M. (1992) Les Hommes et la terre Byzance du VI
e
au XI
e
sicles: proprit et exploitation du sol (Byzantina Sorbonensia 10) (Paris
1992); Koder J. (1994) Historical aspects of a recession of cultivated land
at the end of late Antiquity in the East Mediterranean, in Evaluation of
Land Surfaces Cleared of Forests in the Mediterranean Region during the Time of the
Roman Empire, ed. B. Frenzel (Paloklimaforschung 10) (Stuttgart 1994)
15767; Lo Cascio E. (1997) Terre, proprietari e contadini dellimpero romano:
dallatto agrario al colonato tardoantico (Ricerche 15) (Rome 1997); Banaji J.
(2001) Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2001); Lewit T. (2004) Villas,
Farms and the Late Roman Rural Economy, 3rd to 5th c. A.D. (BAR International
Series 568) (Oxford 2004); Sarris P. (2004) The origins of the manorial
economy: new insights from Late Antiquity, EHR 119 (2004) 279311;
Sarris P. (2004) Rehabilitating the great estate: aristocratic property and
economic growth in Late Antiquity, in Recent Research on the Late Antique
Countryside, edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan, and C. Machado (Late Antique
Archaeology 2) (Leiden 2004) 5571; Delmaire R. (1989) Largesses sacres et
res privata: lrarium imperial et son administration du IV
e
au VI
e
sicle (Rome
1989); MacAdam H. I. (2002) Geography, Urbanisation and Settlement Patterns in
the Roman Near East (Variorum CS 735) (Aldershot 2002); Jones A. H. M.
(1953) Census records of the Later Roman Empire, JRS 43 (1953) 4964.
Renunciation of property Brown P. R. L. (2005) Augustine and a crisis
of wealth in Late Antiquity, Augustinian Studies 36 (2005) 530; Countryman L.
(1980) The Rich Christian in the Church of the Early Empire: Contradictions and
Accomodations (New York 1980); De Sainte-Croix G. (1975) Early Christian
attitudes to property and slavery, in Church, Society and Politics, ed. D. Baker
(Studies in Church History 12) (Oxford 1975) 138; Ganz D. (1995) The
ideology of sharing: apostolic community and ecclesiastical property in
the Early Middle Ages, in Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, edd.
W. Davies and P. Fouracre (Cambridge 1995) 1730; Hengel M. (1973)
Property and Riches in the Early Church: Aspects of a Social History of Early Christianity
(Philadelphia 1973); MacQueen D. (1972) St Augustines concept of prop-
erty, Recherches Augustiniennes 8 (1972) 187229; Ramsey B. (1991) Christian
attitudes to poverty and wealth, in Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to
AD 600, ed. I. Hazlitt (London 1991) 25665; Giardina A. (1988) Carit
eversiva: le donazioni di Melania la Giovane e gli equilibri della societ
tardoromana, Studi Storici 1 (1988) 12742; Lepelley C. (199798) Mlanie
la Jeune, entre Rome, la Sicile et lAfrique: les eets socialement perni-
cieux dune forme extrme de lasctisme, in Kkalos: Studi pubblicati dallIstituto
di Storia Antica dellUniversit di Palermo (4344) 1.1 (199798) 1532.
Regional Studies Gaul Wood I. (1994) The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450751
(London 1994) 20320; Geary P. (1985) Aristocracy in Provence: The Rhne
76 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
Basin at the Dawn of the Carolingian Age (Stuttgart 1985) 80100; Ganz D.
and Goart W. (1990) Charters older than 800 from French collections,
Speculum 65 (1990) 90632. Italy Marazzi F. (1998) I Patrimonia Sanctae
Romanae Ecclesiae nel Lazio (secoli IVX): Struttura amministrativa e prassi gestion-
ali (Nuovi Studi Storici 37) (Rome 1998); Everett N. (2003) Literacy in Lombard
Italy, c. 568774 (Cambridge 2003) 197234; Brown T. S. (1984) Gentlemen
and Ocers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, A.D.
554800 (London 1984); Vera D. (1988) Aristocrazia romana ed economie
provinciali nellItalia tardoantica: il caso siciliano in Quaderni Catanesi di
Studi Classici e Medievali X/19.2 (1988) 11572. Rome Vera D. (1986) Simmaco
e le sue propriet, in Colloque genevois sur Symmaque: loccasion du mille six-
centime anniversaire du conit de lautel de la Victoire, ed. F. Paschoud (Paris
1986) 23176; Marazzi F. (1995) Le propriet urbane della Chiesa Romana
tra IV e VIII secolo: reddito, struttura e gestione, in Le Seul et limmeuble:
les formes dissocies de propriets immobilires dans les villes de France et de lItalie
(XII
e
XIX
e
sicles), edd. O. Faron and E. Hubert (Lyon Rome 1995) 15168.
Cappadocia Kaplan M. (1981) Les grands propritaires de Cappadoce
(VI
e
XI
e
sicles), in Le aree omogenee della civilt rupestre nellambito dellImpero
bizantino: la Cappadocia (Galatina 1981) 12558. Syria Tchalenko G. (1953)
Villages antiques de la Syrie de nord (Bibliothque archologique et historique
50) (Paris 1953). Palestine Cotton H. M. (2003) The Roman census in the
papyri from the Judean Desert and the Egyptian kat oikian apograph , in
Semitic Papyrology in Context: A Climate of Creativity (Papers from a New York
University Conference Marking the Retirement of Baruch A. Levine), ed. L. H.
Schiman (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 14) (Leiden 2003)
10522. Egypt Hardy E. R. (1931) The Large Estates of Byzantine Egypt (Studies
in History, Economics and Public Law 354) (New York London 1931);
Wipszycka E. (1972) Les ressources et les activits conomiques des glises en gypte
du IV
e
au VIII
e
sicle (Papyrologica Bruxellensia 10) (Brussels 1972) chap. 1;
Bowman A. K. (1985) Landholding in the Hermopolite nome, JRS 75
(1985) 13755; Bagnall R. S. (1992) Landholding in late Roman Egypt:
the distribution of wealth, JRS 82 (1992) 12849; Gascou J. (1994) Un
codex scal hermopolite (P.Sorb. II 69) (American Studies in Papyrology 32)
(Atlanta 1994); Rowlandson J. (1996) Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt:
the Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford 1996); Mazza
R. (2001) LArchivio degli Apioni: terra, lavoro e propriet senatoria nellEgitto tar-
doantico (Bari 2001); Keenan J. G. (1985) Notes on absentee landlordism
at Aphrodito, BASP 22 (1985) 13769. Africa Vera D. (1992) Conductores
Domus Nostrae, Conductores Privatorum: Concentrazione fondiaria e redistribuzione
della ricchezza nellAfrica tardoantica, in Institutions, socit et vie politique
dans lEmpire Romain au IV
e
sicle ap. J.-C., edd. M. Christol et al. (Rome
1992) 46590; Whittaker C. R. (1978) Land and labour in North Africa,
Klio 60 (1978) 33162. Spain King P. D. (1972) Law and Society in the Visigothic
Kingdom (Cambridge 1972).
Ownership of people see slaves and peasants sections.
Inheritance Arjava A. (1996) Women and Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford
1996).
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 77
Patronage
Institutionalised in what is called the patron-client system, Roman
society was characterised by normally informal, but binding, sets of
duties and rights that obligated people to one another. As emper-
ors, dignitaries, and aristocrats, or even representatives of the Church,
patrons exercised considerable inuence on the masses through dona-
tions, a situation best exemplied by the bread and circuses oered
to the plebs. The patrons scope of action was wide and ranged from
the construction, restoration, and decoration of public space and the
provision of food supplies, to the various expressions of Christian
philanthropy, which (as from an earlier period) are all well attested
both in monuments and texts. Accordingly, while senatorial city
patronage and civic private municence saw a serious decline in var-
ious parts of the Roman empire during the 3rd and 4th c. (and even
earlier in the East), bishops, monks and clergymen, and by then the
christianissimus emperor took over as patrons, increasing their power
by building churches and feeding the poor.
It is not surprising that the Roman patron-client relationship has
been useful for understanding early Christian bishops and their rela-
tionships with their communities. Monumental patronage, either
political or artistic (an articial division in any case) and the role of
the Church in patronising a Christianised plebs have been studied to
an extent, whereas other forms (such as the donations of minor
objects) yet call for further research. Further dierent is the patron-
client binding on the great estates of Egypt, which is presently being
re-investigated by Banaji (2001) and Sarris (2004), and which in the
future needs to be thoroughly extended to the ecclesiastic and monas-
tic estates. In sociological terms, patronage has been seen both as a
lopsided friendship and as an institution ( patrocinium) of its own. The
loose usage of patronage and friendship has recently been high-
lighted by Saller (2002), and he urges us to use a strict denition of
patronage which comes not from literary studies but from sociology,
insisting on a denition of patronage as a relationship which was
characterised by reciprocity, duration, and asymmetry. However, the
call for terminological precision cannot hide that the fact that real-
ity was more complex, and that it was an emulsion of personal ties
of patronage, friendship, and marriage that had always bound together
Roman society.
Syntheses Krause J. (1987) Sptantike Patronatsformen im Westen des rmischen
Reiches (Munich 1987); Ward-Perkins B. (1984) From Classical Antiquity to the
78 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
Early Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and Central Italy, A.D.
300850 (Oxford 1984) 1154; Winter B. (1991) Seek the Welfare of the City:
Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Grand Rapids 1991); Saller R. P. (2002)
Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Ann Arbor 2002); Crone P. (1987)
Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge
1987); see also entries on provincial governors in section on provincial gov-
ernment, especially works by Brown (1992) and Lendon (1997).
Types of patronage Secular euergetism see entries cited below by Ward
Perkins (1984), Lepelley (1979), Lewin (1991); MacMullen R. (1982) The
epigraphic habit in the Roman Empire, AJP 103 (1982) 23346; Rouech C.
(1989) Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (London 1989). Synagogues See entries by
Lifshitz B. (1967) Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives: rpertoire des
ddicaces grecques relatives la construction et la rfection des synagogues (Cahiers
de la Revue biblique 7) (Paris 1967). Other Rapp C. (2005) Literature and
patronage in the Age of Justinian, in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of
Justinian, ed. M. Maas (Cambridge 2005) 37699; Leader-Newby R. E.
(2004) Silver and Society in Late Antiquity: Functions and Meanings of Silver Plate
in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries (Aldershot 2004).
Regional studies Spain Kulikowski M. (2004) Late Roman Spain and its Cities
(Baltimore 2004). Gaul Loseby S. (1996) Arles in Late Antiquity: Gallula
Rome Arelas and Urbs Genesii, in Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, edd. N. Christe and S. Loseby (Aldershot
1996) 4570. Italy Harries J. D. (Forthcoming) Favor populi: People and Patrons
in Late Roman Italy (Forthcoming); Ward-Perkins B. (1984) From Classical
Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and Central
Italy, AD 300850 (Oxford 1984); Cecconi G. A. (1994) Governo imperiale e
lites dirigenti nellItalia tardoantica: Problemi di storia politico-amministrativa (270476
d. C.) (Como 1994) 10799; Caillet J.-P. (1993) Lvergtisme monumental chrtien
en Italie et ses marges (Rome 1993); Mrozek S. (1978) Municentia privata
in den Stdten Italiens der sptrmischen Zeit, Historia 27 (1978) 35568;
Lusuardi Siena S. (1992) Committenza laica ed ecclesiastica in Italia set-
tentrionale nel regno goto, in Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nellAlto
Medioevo occidentale (Settimane di Studio del Centro italiano di Studi sullAlto
Medioevo 39) (Spoleto 1992) 199242; Vuolanto V. (2002) Male and
Female Euergetism in Late Antiquity: a study on Italian and Adriatic church
oor mosaics, in Women, Wealth and Power in the Roman Empire, ed. P. Setl
et al. (Acta Instituti Romae Finlandiae 25) (Rome 2002) 245302. Rome
Smith R. B. E. (2003) Restored utility, eternal city: Patronal imagery at
Rome in the fourth century, in Bread and Circuses: Euergetism and Municipal
Patronage in Roman Italy, edd. K. Lomas and T. Cornell (London 2003)
142166; Brown P. R. L. (1982) Dalla plebs romana alla plebs Dei:
aspetti della cristianizzazione di Roma, in Governanti e intellettuali, popolo di
Roma e popolo di Dio (IVI secolo), ed. P. R. L. Brown, L. Cracco Ruggini
and M. Mazza (Passatopresente 2) (Turin 1982) 12345; Cracco Ruggini
L. (1997) I cristiani e le istituzioni politiche di Roma nel Tardo Impero,
in Cristianesimo e istituzioni politiche da Costantino a Giustiniano, edd. E. dal Covolo
and R. Uglione (Rome 1997) 2744. Constantinople Rebenich S. (1997)
Asceticism, orthodoxy and patronage: Jerome in Constantinople, Studia
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 79
Patristica 33 (1997) 35877; Brubaker L. (1997) Memories of Helena: pat-
terns in imperial female matronage in the fourth and fth centuries, in
Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium, ed. L. James (London 1997)
5275; Thomas J. P. (1987) Private Religious Foundations in the Byzantine Empire
(Washington 1987); Brubaker L. (2002) The Vienna Dioskorides and Anicia
Iuliana, in Byzantine Garden Culture, ed. A. Littlewood (Washington 2002)
189214; Connor C. L. (1999) The epigram in the Church of Hagios
Polyeuktos in Constantinople and its Byzantine response, Byzantion 69 (1999)
479527. Asia Minor and the Levant Lewin A. (1991) Studi sulla citt imperiale
Romana nellOriente tardoantico (Como 1991); Adak M. (1996) Claudia Anassa
Eine Wohltterin aus Patara, Epigraphica Anatolica 27 (1996) 12742; Mundell
Mango M. (1982) Patrons and scribes indicated in Syriac manuscripts, 411
to 800, in 16. Internationaler Byzantinistenkongress, Wien, 4.9. Oktober 1981:
Akten, edd. H. Hunger and W. Hrandner (Vienna 1982) 312; Mundell
Mango M. (Forthcoming) Artistic Patronage: Buildings, Silver Plate and Books in
the Roman Diocese of Oriens, A.D. 313640 (Oxford Forthcoming); Di Segni L.
(1999) Epigraphic documentation on building in the provinces of Palaestina
and Arabia, 4th7th c., in The Roman and Byzantine Near East 2: Some Recent
Archaeological Research, ed. J. H. Humphrey ( JRA Supplementary Series 31)
(Portsmouth 1999) 14978. Antioch Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G. (1972) Antioch:
City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1972) 192208;
Mayer W. (2001) Patronage, pastoral care and the role of the bishop at
Antioch, VigChr 55 (2001) 5870; Carri J.-M. (1976) Patronage et pro-
prit militaires au 4
e
sicle: objet rhtorique et objet rel du discours Sur
les patronages de Libanius, BCH 100 (1976) 15976. Egypt Sarris P. (2004)
Rehabilitating the great estate: aristocratic property and economic growth
in Late Antiquity, in Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside, edd.
W. Bowden, L. Lavan, and C. Machado (Late Antique Archaeology 2)
(Leiden 2004) 5571; Banaji J. (2001) Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity (Oxford
2001); Bagnall R. S. (1993) Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton 1993) 21425;
MacCoull L. S. B. (1989) Patronage and social order in Coptic Egypt,
Egitto e storia antica dallEllenismo allet araba (Bologna 1989) 497502. Africa
Lepelley C. (1979) Les Cits de lAfrique romaine au Bas-Empire (Paris 1979)
197331; Dunn G. (2003) Cyprian and his collegae: patronage and the epis-
copal synod of 252, Journal of Religious History 27 (2003) 113; Dunbabin
K. M. D. (1978) The Mosaics of Roman North Africa: Studies in Iconography and
Patronage (Oxford 1978).
Kin and Marriage
In parallel to the main concerns of recent study into the changing
concept of the family in Late Antiquity, much of the work that has
sought to explore the shifting meaning and concept of marriage has
been directed towards assessing the impact of Christianity on the
one hand, and of barbarian custom on the other. Evidential con-
80 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
straints have by necessity directed much of the work in this eld to
centre on legislative sources relating to marriage (e.g. Grubbs 1995,
Johlen 1998), but an increasingly holistic approach to the issue is
emerging.
Syntheses Dixon S. (2001) ed. Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World
(London 2001); Grubbs J. E. (1995) Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The
Emperor Constantines Marriage Legislation (Oxford 1995); Reynolds P. L. (1994)
Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage during the Patristic
and Early Medieval Periods (Leiden 1994); Satlow M. L. (2001) Jewish Marriage
in Antiquity (Princeton 2001).
Kinship Nathan G. (1999) The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity
and the Endurance of Tradition (London 1999), chap. IVV; Corbier M. (1991)
Constructing kinship in Rome: marriage and divorce, liation and adop-
tion, in The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, ed. D. I. Kertzer and
R. P. Saller (New Haven 1991) 12744; Barlow J. (1996) Kinship, iden-
tity and fourth-century Franks, Historia 45 (1996) 22339; Lee A. D. (1988)
Close-kin marriage in late antique Mesopotamia, GRBS 29 (1988) 40313;
ORoark D. (1996) Close-kin marriage in late Antiquity: the evidence of
Chrysostom, GRBS 37 (1996) 399411.
Marriage and divorce Arjava A. (1996) Women and Law in Late Antiquity
(Oxford 1996); Evans Grubbs J. (1994) Pagan and Christian marriage:
the state of the question, Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994) 40612;
DeConick A. D. (2003) The great mystery of marriage: sex and concep-
tion in ancient Valentinian traditions, VigChr 57 (2003) 30742; Stolte B.
(1999) Desires denied: marriage, adultery and divorce in early Byzantine
law, in Desire and Denial in Byzantium, ed. L. James (Aldershot 1999) 7786;
Sivan H. S. (2001) Why not marry a Jew? Jewish-Christian marital fron-
tiers in Late Antiquity, in Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity, ed.
R. W. Mathisen (Oxford 2001) 20819; Walker A. (2001) A reconsideration
of early Byzantine marriage rings, in Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary
Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society, edd. S. R. Asirvatham,
C. O. Pache, and J. Watrous (Lanham 2001) 14964; Arjava A. (1988)
Divorce in Later Roman law, Arctos 22 (1988) 521; Bagnall R. S. (1987)
Church, state and divorce in Late Roman Egypt, in Florilegium Columbianum:
Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, edd. R. E. Somerville and K. L. Selig
(New York 1987) 4161; Johlen M. (1998) Die vermgensrechtliche Stellung der
westrmischen Frau in der Sptantike: Zur Fortgeltung des rmischen Rechts in den
Gotenreichen und im Burgunderreich (Freiburger Rechtsgeschichtliche Abhandlungen,
n. F. 31) (Berlin 1998).
Gender
Issues of gender and gendered identity in the late antique world are
now at the forefront of investigations into the changing nature of
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 81
social life during the period. Moving beyond simple attempts to nd
and describe women, recent studies have examined the concepts of
male and female in Late Antiquity, which are aspects of identity
and therefore culturally constructed and historically specic. Never-
theless, individual case-studies concentrating on the lives of specic
women in Late Antiquity have provided valuable initial opportuni-
ties to understand the particular identities and choices that were
available for women in the late antique world (although predictably we
are more fully informed about those very women with lives that were
most unrepresentative in society as a whole, namely the empresses).
Much research has also been conducted into the relationships
between female gender and Christianity: not only on the attitude of
Christian dogma towards women in general, but also on the ways
in which Christian identity aected and altered the notions of what
it meant to be female. Other studies have concentrated upon chang-
ing portrayals and representations of gender identities in the secular
world, including the construction and depiction of masculinity as well
as those identities seemingly predicated by the bodily modication
of castration. An emphasis on the nature of the body has been in
evidence in late antique studies for some years, in part due to the
impact of Foucaults work on the emergence of Christian attitudes
to sexuality, although more recent work has focussed upon modied
or altered bodies during the period. In studying female identities, it
seems wise to be note that much of our evidence is derived from
male ecclesiastical authors (Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory
of Tours), hagiographic sources (again written by men), and legal
decrees. Only in exceptional cases are textual sources more multi-
faceted in their gendered perspective, such as those on the women
of Jeme (Wilfong 2003).
Syntheses Brown P. R. L. (1988) The Body and Society: Men, Women & Sexual
Renunciation in Early Christianity (London 1988); James L. (1997) ed. Women,
Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium (London 1997); Brubaker L. and Smith
J. M. H. (2004) edd. Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300900
(Cambridge 2004); Brubaker L. (2005) The age of Justinian: gender and
society, in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, ed. M. Maas
(Cambridge 2005) 42747.
Important studies Brundage J. A. (1996) The paradox of sexual equal-
ity in the Early Middle Ages, in Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, edd. R. W.
Mathisen and H. S. Sivan (Aldershot 1996) 25664; Clark E. A. (1990)
Patrons, not priests: gender and power in late ancient Christianity, Gender
& History 2 (1990) 25373; Wilfong T. (1998) Reading the disjointed body
82 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
in Coptic: from physical modication to textual fragmentation in Changing
Bodies, Changing Meanings: Studies on the Human Body in Antiquity, ed. D. Montserrat
(London 1998) 11636; Bitel L. M. (1996) Tr inna mBan: domestic space
and the frontiers of gender in Early Medieval Ireland, in Shifting Frontiers
in Late Antiquity, edd. R. W. Mathisen and H. S. Sivan (Aldershot 1996)
22455; Vuolanto V. (2002) Male and female euergetism in Late Antiquity:
a study on Italian and Adriatic church oor mosaics, in Women, Wealth
and Power in the Roman Empire, ed. P. Setl et al. (Acta Instituti Romae
Finlandiae 25) (Rome 2002) 245302; Shaw T. (1998) The Burden of the
Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis 1998).
Being female Syntheses and general works Clark G. (1994) Women in Late
Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Lifestyles (Oxford 1994); Clark E. A. (2000)
Women, gender, and the study of Christian history, Church History 70
(2000) 395426; Smith J. M. H. (2000) Did women have a transformation
of the Roman world?, Gender & History 12 (2000) 55271; Clark E. A.
(1998) Holy women, holy words: early Christian women, social history,
and the linguistic turn, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998) 41330;
Dixon S. (2001) Reading Roman Women: Sources, Genres and Real Life (London
2001); Wilfong T. G. (2003) Women of Jeme: Lives in a Coptic Town in Late
Antique Egypt (Ann Arbor 2003). Women and the law Beaucamp J. (1990) Le
Statut de la femme Byzance (4
e
7
e
sicle) 1: Le droit imperial (Travaux et mmoires
du Centre de recherche dhistoire et civilisation de Byzance 5) (Paris 1990);
Beaucamp J. (1992) Le Statut de la femme Byzance (4
e
7
e
sicle) 2: Les pra-
tiques sociales (Travaux et mmoires du Centre de recherche dhistoire et
civilisation de Byzance 6) (Paris 1992); Bagnall R. S. (1995) Women, law
and social realities in late Antiquity: a review article, BASP 32 (1995) 6586
[review article of Beaucamp (1990) and (1992)]; Evans-Grubbs J. (2001)
Virgins and widows, show-girls and whores: late Roman legislation on
women and Christianity, in Law, Society and Authority in Late Antiquity, ed.
R. W. Mathisen (Oxford 2001) 22041; Kennell S. A. H. (1991) Womens
hair and the law: two cases from Late Antiquity, Klio 73 (1991) 52636;
Arjava A. (1996) Women and Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford 1996). Gender iden-
tity and material culture Halsall G. (1996) Female status and power in early
Merovingian central Austrasia: the burial evidence, Early Medieval Europe 5
(1996) 124; Huskinson J. (1999) Women and learning: gender and iden-
tity in scenes of intellectual life on late Roman sarcophagi, in Constructing
Identities in Late Antiquity, ed. R. Miles (London 1999) 190213; Schade K.
(2003) Frauen in der SptantikeStatus und Reprsentation: Eine Untersuchung zur
rmischen und frhbyzantinischen Bildniskunst (Mainz 2003); Elsner J. (2003)
Visualising women in late antique Rome: the Projecta casket, in Through
a Glass Brightly: Byzantine Essays for David Buckton, ed. C. Entwistle (Oxford
2003) 2236; Smith K. (1993) Inventing marital chastity: the iconography
of Susanna and the Elders in early Christian art, Oxford Art Journal 16
(1993) 324. Gender identity and religion Davis S. (2002) Crossed texts, crossed
sex: intertextuality and gender in early Christian legends of Holy Women
disguised as monks, Journal of Early Christian Studies 10 (2002) 136; Brock
S. P. and Harvey S. (1998) Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Berkeley 1998);
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 83
Castelli E. (1992) I will make Mary male: pieties of the body and gender
transformation of Christian women in Late Antiquity, in Body Guards: The
Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, ed. J. Epstein and K. Straub (New York
1992) 2949; Cloke G. (1995) This Female Man of God: Women and Spiritual
Power in the Patristic Age, A.D. 350450 (London 1995); Coon L. L. (1997)
Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia
1997); Cooper K. (1992) Insinuations of womanly inuence: an aspect of
the Christianization of the Roman aristocracy, JRS 82 (1992) 15064;
Cooper K. (1996) The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity
(Cambridge 1996); Papathomas A. (2001) Keine Bestie auf der Welt gleicht
der schlechten Frau: Frauenfeindliche Polemik aus der pseudo-chrysos-
tomischen Homilie In decollationem Praecursoris in einem Berliner literarischen
Papyrus, MusHelv 58 (2001) 4753; Power K. (1995) Veiled Desire: Augustines
Writing on Women (London 1995); Salzman M. R. (1989) Aristocratic women:
conductors of Christianity in the fourth century, Helios 16 (1989) 20720;
Harvey S. (1983) Women in early Syrian Christianity, in Images of Women
in Antiquity, edd. Averil Cameron and A. Kuhrt (Detroit 1983) 28898;
Cameron Averil (1989) Virginity as metaphor: women and the rhetoric of
early Christianity, in History as Text: the Writing of Ancient History, ed. Averil
Cameron (London 1989) 184205; Arjava A. (1989) Jerome and women,
Arctos 23 (1989) 518; Aubin M. M. (2000) More apparent than real?
Questioning the dierence in marital age between Christian and Non-
Christian women of Rome during the third and fourth century, Ancient
History Bulletin 14 (2000) 113. Empresses and women in power see section on
empresses and imperial family.
Being male Burrus V. (2000) Begotten, not Made: Conceiving Manhood in Late
Antiquity (Stanford 2000); Cooper K. and Leyser C. (2000) The gender of
grace: impotence, servitude, and manliness in the fth-century West, Gender
& History 12 (2000) 53651; Harlow M. (2004) Clothes maketh the man:
power dressing and lite masculinity in the later Roman world, in Gender
in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300900, edd. L. Brubaker and
J. M. H. Smith (Cambridge 2004) 4469; Montserrat D. (1993) The rep-
resentation of young males in Fayum portraits, JEA 79 (1993) 21525;
Clark G. (1998) The old Adam: the Fathers and the unmaking of mas-
culinity, in Thinking Men: Masculinity and its Self-representation in the Classical
Tradition, edd. L. Foxhall and J. Salmon (London 1998) 17082; Kueer
M. (2001) The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender, Ambiguity and Christian Ideology
in Late Antiquity (Chicago 2001). Emperors see section on imperial ideology
and imperial representation.
Eunuchs Kueer M. (2001) The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender, Ambiguity
and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago 2001); Tougher S. (2004)
Social transformation, gender transformation? The court eunuch, 300900,
in Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300900, edd. L. Brubaker
and J. M. H. Smith (Cambridge 2004) 7082; Schlinkert D. (1994) Der
Hofeunuch in der Sptantike: Ein gefhrlicher Auenseiter?, Hermes 122
(1994) 34259; Scholten H. (1995) Der Eunuch in Kaisernhe: Zur politischen
und sozialen Bedeutung des praepositus sacri cubiculi im 4. und 5. Jh. n. Chr.
84 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
(Frankfurt 1995); Ringrose K. M. (1994) Living in the shadows: eunuchs
and gender in Byzantium, in Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism
in Culture and History, ed. G. Herdt (New York 1994) 85109; Ringrose
K. M. (2003) The Perfect Servant. Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender
in Byzantium (Chicago London 2003).
Same-sex relationships Boswell J. (1994) Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern
Europe (New York 1994); Cameron Alan (1988) Love (and marriage) between
women, GRBS 39 (1998) 13756; Brooten B. J. (1996) Love between Women:
Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago London 1996);
Smythe D. (1999) In denial: same-sex desire in Byzantium, in Desire and
Denial in Byzantium, ed. L. James (Aldershot 1999) 139148.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity and cultural identity are currently very popular topics of
research, and there is an exhaustive recent literature on the ques-
tion of ethnicity from a historical point of view. There is some bias
to the western provinces, and particularly to barbarian rather than
indigenous populations of the empire (e.g. Mitchell 2000). From an
archaeological point of view, the most important source of evidence
is that of Late Roman cemeteries, although the study of art-historical
monuments (particularly funerary monuments) is also central. The
focus to date has been on dress and accessories, and archaeological
research has been preoccupied with the nature of richly furnished
graves of northern France and Belgium, accompanied by weapons
and elaborate female jewellery. Recent applications of scientic tech-
niques such as isotope analysis are likely to add signicantly to this
debate. Areas for further research include provincial identities in the
Late Roman West, and the relationship between constructions of eth-
nicity and aspects of material culture other than dress and jewellery.
Synthetic works Ausenda G. (1995) ed. After Empire: Towards an Ethnology of
Europes Barbarians (Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology 1) (Woodbridge
1995); Mathisen R. W. and Sivan H. S. (1996) edd. Shifting Frontiers in Late
Antiquity (Aldershot 1996) sect. B; Mitchell S. and Greatrex G. (2000) edd.
Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity (London 2000); Pohl W. (1997) ed.
Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity (Transformation
of the Roman World 1) (Leiden 1997); Pohl W. and Reimitz H. (1998)
edd. Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300800
(Transformation of the Roman World 2) (Leiden 1998); Pohl W. and
Diesenberger M. (2002) Integration und Herrschaft: Ethnische Identitten und soziale
Organisation im Frhmittelalter (Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 3)
(Vienna 2002); Goetz H.-W., Jarnut J., and Pohl W. (2003) edd. Regna and
Gentes: The Relationship between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 85
in the Transformation of the Roman World (Transformation of the Roman World
13) (Leiden 2003); Miles R. (1999) ed. Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity
(London 1999).
Theoretical works Gillett A. (2002) ed. On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches
to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout 2002); Geary P. (2001) Barbarians
and ethnicity, in Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on the Postclassical World,
edd. G. Bowersock, P. R. L. Brown, and O. Grabar (Cambridge, Mass.
2001) 10729; Geary P. (1983) Ethnic identity as a situational construct
in the early Middle Ages, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien
13 (1983) 1526; Jones S. (1996) Discourses of identity in the interpreta-
tion of the past, in Cultural Identity and Archaeology: The Construction of European
Communities, edd. P. Graves-Brown, S. Jones, and C. Gamble (London 1996)
6280; Jones S. (1997) The Archaeology of Ethnicity (London 1997); Laurence R.
(1998) Introduction, in Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire, edd. R. Laurence
and J. Berry (London 1998) 19.
Integration of Germanic peoples within the Roman empire Pohl W.
(1997) ed. Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity
(Transformation of the Roman World 1) (Leiden 1997); Goart W. (1980)
Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418584: The Techniques of Accommodation (Princeton
1980); Ladner G. B. (1976) On Roman attitudes toward Barbarians in Late
Antiquity, Viator 7 (1976) 126; Blockley R. C. (1982) Roman-barbarian
marriage in the Late Empire, Florilegium 4 (1982) 6379; Bhme H. (1974)
Germanische Grabfunde des 4. bis 5. Jahrhunderts zwischen unterer Elbe und Loire:
Studien zur Chronologie und Bevlkerungsgeschichte (Mnchner Beitrge zur Vor-
und Frhgeschichte 19) (Munich 1974); Dobesch G. (1994) Vom ueren
Proletariat zum Kulturtrger: Ein Aspekt zur Rolle der Germanen in der Sptantike
(Amsterdam 1994); Geary P. (2002) The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins
of Europe (Princeton 2003); Goart W. (1988) The Narrators of Barbarian History:
Gregory of Tours, Bede, Paul the Deacon (Princeton 1988).
Specic ethnic identities Roman ethnicity Mitchell S. (2000) Ethnicity,
acculturation and empire in Roman and late Roman Asia Minor, in
Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity, edd. S. Mitchell and G. Greatrex (London
2000) 11750. Alans Kouznetsov V. and Lebedynsky I. (1997) Les Alains:
cavaliers des steppes, seigneurs du Caucase (Paris 1997); Alemany A. (2000) Sources
on the Alans: A Critical Compilation (Leiden 2000). Alemanni Geuenich D. (1997)
Geschichte der Alemannen (Stuttgart 1997); Wood I. (1998) Franks and Alemanni
in the Merovingian Period: An Ethnographic Perspective (Studies in Historical
Archaeoethnology 3) (Woodbridge 1998); Lorenz S., Scholkmann B., Bauer
D. R., and Tippelt C. (2003) edd. Die Alemannen und das Christentum: Zeugnisse
eines kulturellen Umbruchs (Schriften zur sdwestdeutschen Landeskunde 48/2 =
Verentlichungen des Alemannischen Instituts 71) (Leinfelden-Echterdingen
2003). Anglo-Saxons Hines J. (1997) The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period
to the Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Studies in Historical Archaeo-
ethnology 2) (Woodbridge 1997); Green D. H. and Sigmund F. (2003) edd.
The Continental Saxons from the Migration Period to the Tenth Century: an Ethnographic
Perspective (Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology 6) (Rouchester 2003).
Franks and Gauls Edward J. (1979) Cemeteries and the problem of Frankish
86 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
settlement, in Names, Words and Graves, ed. P. H. Sawyer (Leeds 1979)
5589; Wood I. (1994) The Merovingian Kingdoms (450751) (London 1994);
Woolf G. (2000) Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul
(Cambridge 2000); Drinkwater J. and Elton H. (1992) edd. Fifth-century Gaul:
A Crisis of Identity? (Cambridge 1992). Goths Amory P. (2003) People and Identity
in Ostrogothic Italy (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 33)
(Cambridge 2003) 489554; Sivan H. S. (2002) From Athanaric to Ataulf:
the shifting horizons of Gothicness in late antiquity, in Humana Sapit:
tudes dantiquit tardive oertes Lellia Cracco Ruggini, edd. J.-M. Carri and
R. Lizzi Testa (Turnhout 2002) 5562; Schfer C. (2001) Probleme einer
multikulturellen Gesellschaft: Zur Integrationspolitik im Ostgotenreich, Klio
83 (2001) 18297; Heather P. (1999) ed. The Visigoths: From the Migration
Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge 1999);
Heather P. (1996) The Goths (Oxford 1996); Heather P. (1991) Goths and
Romans 332489 (Oxford 1991). Huns Menghin W., Springer T. and Wamers
E. (1987) edd. Germanen, Hunnen und Awaren: Schtze der Vlkerwanderungszeit
(Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nrnberg, 12. Dezember 1987 bis 21.
Februar 1988 & Museum fr Vor- und Frhgeschichte der Stadt Frankfurt
am Main, 13. Mrz bis 15. Mai 1988) (Nuremberg 1987); Thompson E. A.
and Heather P. (1996) The Huns (Oxford 1996); Anke B. (1998) Studien zur
reiternomadischen Kultur des 4. bis 5. Jahrhunderts (Wilkau-Halau 1998). Lombards
Krger K. H. (1971) Knigsgrabkirchen der Franken, Angelsachsen und Langobarden
bis zur Mitte des 8. Jahrhunderts: Ein historischer Katalog (Mnstersche Mittelalter-
Schriften 4) (Munich 1971); I Longobardi: catalogo della mostra di Cividale (Milan
1991); Christou K. P. (1991) Byzanz und die Langobarden: Von der Ansiedlung in
Pannonien bis zur endgltigen Anerkennung (500680) (Historikes Monographies 11)
(Athens 1991); Christie N. (1995) The Lombards (Oxford 1995); Pohl-Resl B.
(1998) Legal practice and ethnic identity in Lombard Italy, in Strategies
of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300800, edd. W. Pohl
and H. Reimitz (Leiden 1998) 20519; Bertelli C. and Brogiolo G. P. (2000)
edd. Il futuro dei Longobardi: lItalia e la costruzione dellEuropa di Carlo Magno
(Milan 2000). Slavs and Avars Barford P. M. (2001) The Early Slavs (London
2001); Pohl W. (2002) Die Avaren, ein Steppenvolk in Mitteleuropa 567822 n.
Chr. (Munich
2
2002).
Friendship
The relatively recent direction of interest towards friendship in late
antique society is one facet of the burgeoning study of social rela-
tionships in general, but it is also indicative of a shift from studying
individuals solely through the mechanisms of prosopography towards
situating them inside wider networks of social life during the period.
As is the case with study of the family and marriage, there is much
interest in the ways in which Christian discourse had an impact on
classical models of friendships, but one particularly crucial future
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 87
avenue of research will surely be the materiality of late antique friend-
ship: letter-based relationships and the physical means by which they
were constructed. Research into friendship and gender identities is
also illuminating changing notions of love, sex, and friendship dur-
ing the period. The sociological distinction between friendship and
patronage has been outlined above, wherefrom it follows that dur-
ing Late Antiquity friendshipwith the emperor as the universal
patronwas highly critical in operating political power. Furthermore,
in foreign relations friendship was also a successful political tool avail-
able to the emperor when tracking down bandits: by oering them
formal friendship bandit chieftains could be co-opted and their sup-
porters recruited into the Roman army.
Syntheses Wood I. N. (2000) Family and friendship in the West, in The
Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D.
425600, edd. Averil Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby (Cambridge
2000) 41636; Konstan D. (1997) Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge
1997); Rader R. (1983) Breaking Boundaries: Male-Female Friendship in Early
Christian Communities (New York 1983); White C. (1992) Christian Friendship
in the Fourth Century (Cambridge 1992).
Important studies Sivan H. S. (1993) On hymens and holiness in late
Antiquity: opposition to aristocratic female asceticism at Rome, JAC 36
(1993) 8193; Topping E. C. (1988) St. Matrona and her friends: sister-
hood in Byzantium, in Kathegetria: Essays Presented to Joan Hussey (Camberley
1988) 21124; Van Dam R. (2003) Family and Friends in Late Roman Cappadocia
(Philadelphia 2003).
Violence
Interest in violence, popular or elite resistance, and violent change
and disorder among Late Roman historians and medievalists has
made fewer advances than in classical and Roman historiography,
partly because of the intractable nature of the literary source mate-
rials. In addition, political-ideological dierences inhibited a sensible
international debate for many years, with Soviet and Eastern Bloc
histo-rians keen to emphasise the economic class-based nature of
resistance and historians in the West equally keen to emphasise a
more pluralistic approach. In addition, Late Roman historians have
chosen to concentrate on specic rather than general and systemic or
structural phenomenathe Nika riot in Constantinople in 532, the
Bagaudae of Gaul in the 5th c., the Circumcellions of North Africa,
the Scamares in the Balkansso that a theorisation of social-economic
88 rtk.s .v.rrts scn.cnxrn
tensions as reected in regional developments and as inected by
the aects of local and imperial power-politics remains a desideratum.
There is a substantial descriptive bibliography for these phenom-
ena available, but few eorts to theorise or generate an overall frame-
work for a better understanding of them. As well as mass popular
or local regional violence and social disorder, there is also the ques-
tion of violence and disorder fomented with political ends and specic
vested interests in mind, and also the nature of state-sanctioned vio-
lence (torture, judicial punishment, etc.). At a very dierent level the
violence of the circus factions and demes has been the focus of a
great deal of attention, and Alan Camerons analysis (1976) proba-
bly comes nearest to oering a sociologically-informed discussion
which seeks longer-term and structurally-contextualised motives and
causes. The Nika riot (Greatrex 1997), on the other hand, exemplies
the sort of violence and disorder in which lites or members of an
elite with specic vested interests played a key role, and has prob-
ably received more attention than any other event or set of events,
yet still the structural or systemic aspect remains largely out of
sight in discussion. The sophisticated, if somewhat impenetrable,
sociologically-derived analysis of elite opposition in Gizewski (1988)
has remained totally ignored by historians of the Late Roman period.
The result is an extremely fragmented picture of if, how, and when
power-relationships and violence are interconnected. But this is begin-
ning to change: of the more recent literature, Shaw (2001) and
Liebeschuetz (2001) are good examples of the appreciation of the
need to ground violence, disorder, and resistance in a broad and
longer-term perspective.
Syntheses Shaw B. (2001) War and violence, in Interpreting Late Antiquity:
Essays on the Postclassical World, edd. G. Bowersock, P. R. L. Brown, and
O. Grabar (Cambridge, Mass. 2001) 13069; Violence, Victims and Vindication
in Late Antiquity (Proceedings of the 5th Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Colloquium,
Santa Barbara, 2023 March 2003) (Forthcoming); MacMullen R. (1967)
Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest, and Alienation in the Empire (Cambridge,
Mass. 1967); MacMullen R. (1990) The historical role of the masses in
Late Antiquity, in Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary (Princeton
1990) 25076; Gizewski C. (1988) Zur Normativitt und Struktur der Verfassungs-
verhltnisse in der spteren rmischen Kaiserzeit (Munich 1988) [reviewed by J. F.
Haldon, Rechtshistorisches Journal 8 (1989) 6981]; Burg D. F. (2003) A World
History of Tax Rebellions: An Encyclopedia of Tax Rebels, Revolts, and Riots from
Antiquity to the Present (London 2003).
Urban riots Aja Snchez J. S. (1998) Tumultus et urbanae seditionessus
causas: Un estudio sobre los conictos econmicos, religiosos y sociales en las ciudades
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 89
tardoromanas (s. IV) (Santander 1998); Patlagean E. (1977) Pauvret conomique
et pauvret sociale Byzance, 4
e
7
e
sicles (Paris La Haye 1977) 21531;
Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G (2001) Conict and disorder in the East, in The
Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford 2001) 24983; Gregory T. (1983)
Urban violence in Late Antiquity, in Aspects of Graeco-Roman Urbanism,
ed. R. T. Marchese (Oxford 1983) (BAR International Series 188) 13761;
Frankfurter D. (2000) Things unbetting Christians: violence and Chris-
tianization in fth-century Panopolis, Journal of Early Christian Studies 8 (2000)
27395; Barry W. D. (1996) Roof tiles and urban violence in the ancient
world, GBRS 37 (1996) 5574; Brown T. (1998) Urban violence in early
medieval Italy: the cases of Rome and Ravenna, in Violence and Society in
the Early Medieval West, ed. G. Halsall (Woodbridge 1998) 7689; Magalhaes
de Oliveira J. C. (2004) Le pouvoir du peuple: une meute Hippone
au dbut du V
e
sicle connue par le sermon 302 de saint Augustin, AnTard
12 (2004) 30924. Relationship with entertainment Liebeschuetz (2001) above;
Cameron Alan (1976) Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium
(Oxford 1976); Browning R. (1952) The riot of A.D. 387 in Antioch: the
role of the theatrical claques in the later empire, JRS 42 (1952) 1320;
Lim R. (2002) The Roman pantomime riot of A.D. 509, in Humana
Sapit: tudes dantichit tardive oertes Lellia Cracco Ruggini, edd. J.-M. Carri
and R. Lizzi Testa (Turnhout 2002) 3542; Greatrex G. (1997) The Nika
riot: a reappraisal, JHS 117 (1997) 6086; Whitby M. (1998) The vio-
lence of the circus factions, in Organised Crime in Antiquity, ed. K. Hopwood
(London 1998) 22953.
Religious violence Gaddis M. (1999) There is no Crime for Those Who Have
Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Ph.D. diss., Princeton
University 1999); ODonnell J. J. (1979) The demise of paganism, Traditio
35 (1979) 4588; Lim R. (1995) Religious disputation and social disorder
in Late Antiquity, Historia 44 (1995) 20431; Lizzi R. (1995) Discordia in
urbe: pagani e cristiani in rivolta, in Pagani e cristiani da Giuliano lApostata
al sacco di Roma, ed. F. E. Consolino (Soveria Mannelli 1995) 11540; Haas
C. (1997) Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conict (Baltimore
1997); Stewart P. (1999) The destruction of statues in Late Antiquity, in
Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity, ed. R. Miles (London 1999) 15989;
Dossey L. (2001) Judicial violence and ecclesiastical courts in late antique
North Africa, in Law, Society and Authority in Late Antiquity, ed. R. W. Mathisen
(Oxford 2001) 98114; Gregory T. (1979) Vox Populi: Violence and Popular
Opinion in the Religious Controversies of the Fifth Century A.D. (Columbus 1979).
Government repression Violence, Victims and Vindication in Late Antiquity
(Proceedings of the 5th Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Colloquium, Santa Barbara,
2023 March 2003) (Forthcoming); McLynn N. (1994) Ambrose of Milan:
Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley 1994) 31530; Macmullen R.
(1986) Judicial savagery in the Roman empire, Chiron 16 (1986) 14766,
reprinted in Changes in the Roman Empire (Princeton 1990); Du chtiment dans
la cit: Supplices corporels et peine de mort dans le monde antique (Rome 1984);
Bagnall R. S. (1989) Ocial and private violence in Roman Egypt, BASP
26 (1989) 20116.
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Military unrest and usurpation Kaegi W. E. (1981) Byzantine Military Unrest
471843: An Interpretation (Amsterdam 1981); Haldon J. F. (1986) Ideology
and social change in the seventh century: military discontent as a barom-
eter, Klio 68 (1986) 13990; Paschoud F. and Szidat J. (1997) edd. Usurpationen
in der Sptantike (Stuttgart 1997); Leszka M. J. (1999) Uzurpacje w cesarstwie
bizantynskim w okresie od IV do polowy IX wieku (Ldz 1999) [with English sum-
mary: Usurpations in the Byzantine Empire from the 4th to the half of the 9th cen-
tury]; Wardman A. E. (1984) Usurpations and internal conicts in the
fourth century A.D., Historia 33 (1984) 22037; Lenski N. (1999) Basil
and the Isaurian uprising of 375, Phoenix 53 (1999) 30829.
Crime and brigandry Giardina A. (1983) Banditi e santi: un aspetto del
folklore gallico tra tarda antichit e medioevo, Athenaeum 61 (1983) 37489;
Drinkwater J. F. (1992) The Bacaudae of fth-century Gaul, in Fifth-Century
Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?, edd. J. F. Drinkwater and H. Elton (Cambridge 1992)
20817; Hopwood K. (1983) Policing the hinterland: Rough Cilicia and
Isauria, in Armies and Frontiers in Roman and Byzantine Anatolia, ed. S. Mitchell
(London 1983) 17387; Hopwood K. (1998) Bandits between grandees
and the state: the structure of order in Roman Rough Cilicia, in Organised
Crime in Antiquity, ed. K. Hopwood (London 1998) 177206; Lewin A. (1991)
Banditismo e civilitas nella Cilicia Tracheia antica e tardoantica, Quaderni
Storici 76 (1991) 16784; Isaac B. (1984) Bandits in Judea and Arabia,
HSCP 88 (1984) 171203; Drexhage H.-J. (1988) Einbruch, Diebstahl und
Straenraub im rmischen gypten unter besonderer Bercksichtigung der
Verhltnisse in den ersten beiden Jahrhunderten n. Chr., in Soziale Randgruppen
und Auenseiter im Altertum, ed. I. Weiler (Graz 1988) 31323.
Famine and Epidemic Disease
It would not be too gross a generalisation to state that all parts of
the ancient Mediterranean world lived at the cusp of food shortage.
This is as much to say that the supply of sucient food was per-
petually threatened by the vagaries of climate, pestilence, warfare,
and political circumstance. Intervention to relieve (or avert) localised
famines and food shortages was either divine and miraculous in
hagiographic literature, or more prosaically achieved through state-
sponsored or clerically-led initiatives, by transporting food into stricken
regions or releasing stored grain at low prices.
Some interpretations of the demise of the western Roman empire
have from time to time laid extra emphasis on the role of disease
in Late Antiquity, and on occasion attributed the breakdown of social
and economic order to the impact of malaria or plague. Yet, in gen-
eral, modern research is moving to a position where disease is less
likely to be specically blamed for precise social changes, and more
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 91
likely to be evaluated as a constantly active agent on society. That
is to say, disease should be considered to have a wide impact on
demography, land settlement, and social frameworks in general. The
plague pandemic that emerged to ravage Europe and beyond dur-
ing the reign of Justinian was once only investigated through those
textual sources that reported its eects, but in recent years scholars
have turned towards archaeological evidence as a means by which
to evaluate the ways in which it shaped the social and political struc-
ture of the East (although it is important to remember that the eects
of the pandemic were conned to neither the reign of Justinian, nor
to the eastern Mediterranean). Much work has been directed towards
judging the impact of the plague on the long-term social and polit-
ical trajectory of the Byzantine empire, and especially its role in the
ultimate failure of eorts to reconquer the West and the general eco-
nomic decline of the empire from the mid-6th c. onwards. Ongoing
advances in techniques of extracting DNA samples from funerary
remains will increase our knowledge of the impact of all diseases
during the period.
Famine Kohns H. P. (1961) Versorgungskrisen und Hungerrevolten im sptantiken
Rom (Bonn 1961); Garnsey P. (1996) Famine et approvisionnement dans le monde
grco-romain (Paris 1996); Duncan-Jones R. (2004) Economic change and
the transition to Late Antiquity, in Approaching Late Antiquity: the Transformation
from Early to Late Empire, ed. S. Swain and M. Edwards (Oxford 2004) 2052;
Stathakopoulos D. C. (2004) Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early
Byzantine Empire: A Systematic Survey of Subsistence Crises and Epidemics (Aldershot
2004).
Epidemic disease Stathakopoulos D. C. (2004) Famine and Pestilence in the
Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire: A Systematic Survey of Subsistence Crises
and Epidemics (Aldershot 2004); Jones M. (2001) The Molecule Hunt: Archaeology
and the Search of Ancient DNA (London 2001); Roberts B. R., Trascho C. J.,
and Brothwell D. R. (1995) Cribra orbitalia: health indicator in the Late Roman
populations of Cannington (Somerset, Great Britain), Journal of Palaeopathology
7 (1995) 18593; Sannazaro M., Cattaneo C., and Ravedoni C. (1997) La
necropoli rinvenuta nei cortili dellUniversit Cattolica, in La citt e la sua
memoria: Milano e la tradizione di santAmbrogio (Milan 1997) 12029; Sallares
R. (2002) Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy (Oxford 2002);
Soren D. and Soren N. (1999) edd. A Roman Villa and a Late-Roman Infant
Cemetery: Excavations at Poggio Gramignano, Lugnano in Teverina (Rome 1999);
Spiegelman M. and Lemma E. (1993) The use of the polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis in ancient skeletons,
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 3 (1993) 13743; Donoghue H. et al.
(1998) Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA in calcied pleura from 1,400
years old, in Letters in Applied Microbiology 27 (1998) 26569. The plague of
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Justinian Allen P. (1979) The Justinianic plague, Byzantion 49 (1979) 520;
Conrad L. I. (1986) The plague in Bild al-Shm in pre-Islamic times,
in Proceedings of the Symposium on Bild al-Shm II, edd. M. Adman al-Bakhit
and M. Asfour Amman (Amman 1986) 14363; Durliat J. (1989) La peste
du VI
e
sicle: pour un nouvel examen des sources Byzantines, in Hommes
et richesses dans lEmpire byzantin, IV
e
VII
e
sicle, ed. C. Abadie-Reynal (Paris
1989) 10725; Stathakopoulos D. C. (2000) The Justinianic plague revis-
ited, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 24 (2000) 25676; Sarris P. (2003)
The Justinianic plague: origins and eects, Continuity and Change 17 (2003)
16982; Horden P. (2005) Mediterranean plague in the age of Justinian,
in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, ed. M. Maas (2005) 13460;
Pottier H. (1983) Analyse dun tresor de monnaies en bronze enfoui au VI
e
sicle en
Syrie byzantine (Brussels 1983); Curta F. (1996) Invasion or ination? Sixth-
to seventh-century Byzantine coin hoards in Eastern and Southeastern
Europe, Annali dellIstituto Italiano di Numismatica 43 (1996) 65224; Meier
M. (2005) ed. Pest: Die Geschichte eines Menschheitstraumas (Stuttgart 2005).
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Adam Gutteridge,
Peter Sarris, Ellen Swift, Carlos Machado, Wolfgang Liebeschuetz,
Simon Ellis, Tamara Lewit, John Haldon, Enrico Zanini, Linda Hall,
Emanuel Mayer, Ariel Lewin, Batrice Caseau, Julia Hilner, Yuri
Marano, Alexandra Chavarra, Youval Rotman, Susan Weingarten,
Tankred Howe, Rachael J. Dann, Caroline Humfress, Matthew Innes,
Peter Eich, Susan Holman, Leslie Brubaker, Mary Harlow, Johan
Leemans, Chris Wickham, Averil Cameron, Alexander Demandt,
Albrecht Berger, Yvonne Stolz, and the referees.
soci.r rirr ix r.+r .x+iti+v: . ninrioon.rnic rss.v 93
THE ROMAN STATE: FROM IDENTITY TO POLICY
CONSTRUCTING ROMAN IDENTITIES IN LATE
ANTIQUITY? MATERIAL CULTURE ON THE
WESTERN FRONTIER
Ellen Swift
Abstract
Following recent theoretical redenitions of concepts such as ethnic
identity, this paper explores the possibility of using archaeological evi-
dence to investigate Roman identities in the 4th to 5th c. western
frontier provinces. The diculties of the evidence and the complexi-
ties of studying identity through material culture are discussed. Possible
approaches to the archaeological material are illustrated through a case
study of the Rhine-Danube frontier in the 4th and 5th c. The use of
material culture to create military identities at death for Roman sol-
diers on the frontier line is discussed, together with an analysis of the
relationship of this military culture to subsequent weapon burials, and
the use, by Germanic societies, of elite Roman and Byzantine objects
to create ruling, martial identities in the 5th c.
Ix+nortc+iox
Questions of identity in Late Antiquity are particularly complex.
Dichotomies such as that of Christian/pagan, or military/civilian,
are balanced alongside that of barbarian and Roman. Recent schol-
arship which focuses on the creation of identity, particularly ethnic
identity, which redenes the ethnic group as a wholly cultural con-
struct,
1
has transformed the way in which these categories are
approached, and entails the rejection of previous attempts to ground
ethnicity in genetic or biological origins. Ethnicity is acknowledged
to be a subjective creation, rather than an objective fact
2
and does
not necessarily correlate with language or other shared culture. The
construction of an ethnic identity is recognised as a process driven
1
Jones (1996) 74; Jones (1997).
2
Geary (1983) 16.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 97111
by many factors; it cannot be separated, for example, from the nego-
tiation of power relations and the formation of ties of obligation and
allegiance.
3
Applying such revisionist theories of ethnicity to Late Antiquity
overturns the simple categorisation of barbarian and Roman as two
groups dierent in genetic makeup, culture, language and religious
sect. Among historians, this has led to an increased interest in the
process of ethnogenesisthe ways in which people in the past and
present create genealogies and ethnic identities for themselves as
politically expedient acts.
4
It has even been suggested that Roman
identity itself was transformed into an ethnic category in the 5th c.
north-western empire, in opposition to new barbarian ruling soci-
eties.
5
Archaeologically, the biggest impact of recent theories of eth-
nicity has been that the equation of an assemblage of archaeological
material with people of a particular genetic makeup has been rejected.
Yet in the new theoretical approaches it is suggested that material
culture itself remains a fundamental element in the creation of iden-
tity, as it can be actively used to constitute that identity in a tangi-
ble, visible sense. Archaeology might be expected, then, to shed light
on both the self-created identities of the period, and the process of
their construction.
However, the characterisation of ethnic and other identities as
exible and mutable, rather than rigid and unchanging, gives pause
to any simplistic attempts to evaluate the archaeological material.
Any identity is situated in a particular historical and geographical
context, and will develop and change in tandem with the society in
which it exists. Material culture, too, is always in a process of trans-
formation; and the symbolism of objects is similarly mutable. In the
late 4th to 5th c. transition period in the West, the problem is partly
sheer lack of material evidence; yet the often static characterisation
of the material evidence that remainsas unchangingly Roman or
Germanic for exampleis also a problem.
Using a case study of the Rhine-Danube frontier region in the
4th5th c. transition period, this paper will examine both the use-
fulness and the limitations of archaeological material. It will become
3
Lucy (1998) 18.
4
See Geary (2002).
5
Woolf (2000) 249.
98 rrrrx svir+
apparent that attempts to explain material culture change on the
frontier in terms of historically grounded suggestions of new identi-
ties, such as the possible ethnic Roman, are problematic. Instead,
material culture must be taken on its own terms, working from the
known symbolism of items of material culture provided by the broader
historical context and checking this against actual practicethe ways
in which material culture is used in a specied time and place
which can be recovered archaeologically. Careful selection of con-
textually situated material enables the examination of Roman or
Roman-derived material culture as a vocabulary which may express
a range of meaning, not simply a Roman identity. The archaeol-
ogist can then explore the ways in which this vocabulary may have
been used to create a multitude of dierent chronologically and geo-
graphically situated identities. Expression of identity, and the sym-
bolism of material culture objects, is shown to be contingent on time
and space, arising from particular circumstances, and responding to
them. Frontier regions are particularly interesting with respect to
questions of identity for obvious reasons. Boundaries are often the
point at which cultural dierence is critical, yet they are also regions
in which there may be signicant cultural inuence and borrowings
and in which there are simultaneous pressures towards both sepa-
rateness and assimilation.
Tnr N.+tnr or +nr Fnox+irn Rroiox .xr i+s Ctr+tnr
In the 4th c., the frontier provinces possessed a material culture
largely derived from Roman prototypes. They were also unique
among the western Roman provinces in that they supported a sub-
stantial military population, an aspect of the frontier provinces which
has been generally overlooked.
6
A broad frontier zone on both sides
of the border developed in which militarisation was the norm.
7
The
structures of power which arose, based on relations between war-
leaders and their military retinues, were, as D. Miller observes, typ-
ical of political relations on a periphery.
8
Yet it was not only in the
6
Wells (1999) 257.
7
Miller (1996) 166.
8
Miller (1996) 169.
coxs+ntc+ixo nov.x irrx+i+irs ix r.+r .x+iti+v: 99
structure of power relations that militarisation had its impact. A large
army also had a signicant economic impact on any region in which
it was stationed. On the western frontier, cross-frontier trade was
signicant, responding to the demands of the army; long-distance
systems of supply were also set up, which did not rely on market
forces.
9
In addition to the exposure to barbarian culture implicit in
the frontier situation, the army itself was composed of soldiers from
widely diering cultural backgrounds, including many barbarians,
and perpetuated military traditions of its own (such as allegiance to
the Mithraic cult) often of non-Roman cultural origin. Economic
pressures and the exposure to a widely varying cultural mix will have
been as signicant as political allegiances in the frontier zones.
The particular nature of the frontier zone clearly had an impact
on its culture. Culture in the frontier zones diverges from that in
the heartlands of Roman territory. Despite its basis in Roman cul-
ture, the regional nature of non-military frontier culture, for exam-
ple, is particularly pronounced; more so than in provinces which did
not border the frontier. G. Woolf notes that Gallic frontier culture
in the early Roman period was signicantly dierent to that of the
rest of Gaul.
10
Similarly, C. R. Whittaker observes that some types
of material culture develop in, and are conned to, the frontier
region, for example Stutzarmbeln, a type of brooch common to all
frontier societies on the Rhine and Danube.
11
In Raetia in the 2nd
and 3rd c., according to P. Wells, distinctive ceramic goods and met-
alwork developed which were not dependent on Roman tradition,
but on links with pre-Roman traditions.
12
The 4th c. material cul-
ture from the frontier regions can also be shown to be dierent in
large measure from the material culture of the interior, as Lengyel
and Radan observe in their survey of Pannonia.
13
In the 4th c., too,
regional styles in metalwork which could be considered to be explic-
itly derived from Roman prototypes, such as copper alloy snakeshead
bracelets, and some other items such as early forms of crossbow
brooches, can be shown to be much more easily identied in the
9
Whittaker (1994) 130.
10
Woolf (2000) 243.
11
Whittaker (1994) 216.
12
Wells (1999) 210.
13
Lengyel and Radan (1980).
100 rrrrx svir+
14
Swift (2000) 221.
15
Liebeschuetz (1992) 1617.
16
Poulter (1992) 105.
17
Poulter (1992) 118.
18
Brulet (1990) 295 (although see now Louis (2004), who argues that many
Roman sites remained occupied into the early 5th c.).
19
Brulet (1990) 287; 296; 323.
area of Raetia than for comparable western provinces.
14
It remains
dicult, however, to relate such patterns in a specic way to ques-
tions of cultural identity in the frontier zone.
In addition to the diculties in reconstructing the possible mean-
ings and associations which Roman-derived artefacts may have had,
in the 4th-5th c. transition period there is a dramatic reduction in
the material evidence on which the analysis must rest. A reduction
in civilian sites becomes particularly marked during the course of
the 4th c. In many cases, there is evidence of abandonment of such
sites in the frontier area, as W. Liebeschuetz discusses for Raetia,
Noricum and Pannonia.
15
Cities in the Danube provinces themselves
became militarised, in that they were used as bases for military troops,
e.g. Siscia, or arms factories, for example Sirmium,
16
while for those
in frontier zones of these provinces there is a paucity of evidence
for urban life.
17
R. Brulet summarises the archaeology of northern
Gaul in the Late Roman period, drawing attention in particular to
the lack of evidence for rural settlement in the 4th and 5th c., besides
a few very distinctive rural cemeteries and settlements which clus-
tered along the road network.
18
Similarly, town sites in northern Gaul are largely abandoned after
A.D. 350 though some with a military presence continue beyond
this date in both civilian and military life, and urban cemeteries con-
tinue in use until around A.D. 400.
19
The principal 5th c. evidence
on both the Rhine and the Danube frontiers comes from cemeter-
ies. Nor do these provide us with a great deal of material culture.
A burial in a rare Late Roman urban cemetery without grave goods
may be the nearest we can get to a typical civilian burial of the
early 5th c. This, of course, leaves the archaeologist with little to
discuss, beyond the observation that, if such a burial is culturally
Roman, in some sense, the norm is not the same as that of the
usual Roman 4th c. burial in which grave goods which survive
archaeologically are common. There is no means of determining, for
coxs+ntc+ixo nov.x irrx+i+irs ix r.+r .x+iti+v: 101
example, if this new burial style has any association with the eth-
nic Roman identity proposed by Woolf.
20
In many instances, the only material culture which seems to exist
in a frontier zone is that associated with military sites. In the case
of this type of evidence, a strong archaeological evidence base is
accompanied by sucient historical context in which to situate the
military material culture with respect to its possible symbolic uses
and meanings. In the main body of this paper, I shall therefore con-
centrate on military material and investigate the use of Roman-asso-
ciated culture to construct two particular kinds of related identities
in the late 4th5th c. transition period, drawing upon evidence from
the cemetery and military sites which form the principal base of
archaeological evidence for this period. Firstly, the peculiar nature
of the frontier zones as heavily militarised zones invites an exami-
nation of the way in which a military identity was constructed for
the soldiers who would have made up a typical late 4th c. Roman
army division. Secondly, recent scholarship has examined the use of
prestigious Roman and Byzantine goods (which often have military
overtones) to construct elite identities in high status burials of the
5th c. The Byzantine empire was the most powerful in the world,
and Roman/Byzantine culture therefore had connotations of power
and success. The Roman-ness of elite goods, far from being used
in a simplistic way to construct a Roman identity, seems to have
become important in the conspicuous display of power, particularly
at death; symbolizing the ruling identities of powerful leaders.
Fnox+irn Ctr+tnr .s Miri+.nv Ctr+tnr
Dressed burial rites
A universal burial rite was used to mark out those with a specic
military identityperhaps the elite among the militaryin Late
Roman cemeteries in the frontier provinces. The burial rite consists
of a crossbow brooch worn at burial on the right shoulder and a
belt set either worn at burial or placed at the feet of the corpse.
21
20
Woolf (2000) 249.
21
Cooke (1998)
102 rrrrx svir+
22
See Swift (2000) 3 for a further discussion.
23
Quoted by Geary (2002) 85.
From numerous art historical examples and historical references, and
the coherence between art history, history and archaeology in the
details of the items worn, the way in which they were worn, and
their association with the military, it is clear that the wearing of
these objects signalled a specic Roman identity, a role rmly embed-
ded in either the Roman army or the ocial administration with
nominal military status.
22
By the time the military burial rite had
reached a peak in the mid to late 4th c., the objects themselves had
become very standardised across the whole frontier area. This con-
trasts with the marked regional variation of non-military material
culture in the frontier zone noted above.
On the frontier, the burial rite which utilised these objects was
apparently used to emphasise at death the Roman military identity
of the soldier who was buried, and, in the death ritual, this was
viewed as more important than any other ethnic or cultural aliations
which the soldier may have had during his lifetime. A 3rd c. tomb-
stone from Pannonia, inscribed I am a Frank by nationality, but a
Roman soldier under arms
23
perfectly illustrates both the possibility
of dual identities and the precedence of Roman military over other
identities in a slightly earlier period. Similarly, and evidenced through
overwhelming archaeological evidence rather than the anecdotal qual-
ity of a single inscription, the 4th c. burial of soldiers was an oppor-
tunity for the explicit display of allegiance to the army and to a
unifying rather than a divisive identity. The burial rite may have
acted to bond soldiers together as part of a common culture, a com-
munity of soldiers; an important unifying ritual emphasising that
which they had in common. This death ritual would have been as
important in constructing a military identity as the wearing of the
brooch and belt set during life.
This construction of a military identity at death through use of
the belt set and crossbow brooch originated in the provinces and
became adopted in the heartlands; the crossbow brooch, for exam-
ple, rst appears in the Danube provinces, and later spreads across
military zones of the wider western empire and into the civilian elite.
Neither is the practice of dressed male burial, which becomes the
norm in these military cemeteries of the 4th c., a Roman practice
coxs+ntc+ixo nov.x irrx+i+irs ix r.+r .x+iti+v: 103
in origin. In this way we perhaps perceive a provincialisation or
Danubisation of Roman culture which did not detract from the
legitimacy of the ritual and objects used in the construction of an
ocially Roman military identity. The burial ritual was universally
accepted on the frontier line, and the objects were perceived every-
where as ocial symbols associated with the Roman army, despite
the fact that the crossbow brooch itself did not originate in Italy or
the Mediterranean. The adoption of apparently provincial culture as
an ocial Roman symbol merely reinforces the point that it is not
possible to label artefacts statically as Roman provincial or Germanic
and then use this as a means to similarly label sites or burials in
which the artefacts are found. The crossbow brooch also represents,
of course, a militarisation of late antique elite identity which per-
meated well beyond the army itself. The inuence of the Rhine-
Danube region in the wider militarisation of late antique culture and
the creation of a military elite close to the emperor is clear from
any examination of the historical events of the period, and is mir-
rored here in material culture.
A further point may be drawn out here. Since the military burial
ritual is not at all common on military sites further away from the
Rhine-Danube frontier, such as those in the west of Gaul, or indeed
in Britain, where it is very unusual, it raises a question about its
development and use in this particular Rhine-Danube frontier situ-
ation, and the explicit identities which were being constructed in this
context. It perhaps developed as a mechanism to reinforce the Roman-
ness of the soldier at a time when the Rhine-Danube frontier zones
would have contained a greater diversity of dierent cultures and
peoples than areas further west, not least within the army itself. More
signicantly, though, the use of dressed burial to express a military
identity may reect the normalisation of a culture of martial values
and display in the frontier zone.
24
In an atmosphere of militarisa-
tion, conict and violence, a warrior or military status is emphasised
in burial rites at the expense of other kinds of identities.
24
Miller (1996) 166; see also Wells (1999) for a discussion of this type of phe-
nomenon on the other side of the frontier line.
104 rrrrx svir+
25
Theuws and Alkemade (2000) 411.
26
See Bhme (2000); Brulet (1990).
27
Halsall (1992).
28
See Pohl (1998).
Weapon burials
The martial display evident in dressed soldiers burials in the 4th
c. becomes ever more visible in the burial rite which develops in
the very late 4th and early 5th c. within the former frontier provinces
25
in which weapons are included alongside the crossbow brooch and/
or belt set. These much-discussed weapon burials of northern
Gaul occur in military cemeteries such as Vermand, Oudenburg and
Krefeld-Gellep. It is interesting that the focus of previous discussions
of these burials has been their Germanic rather than their Roman
identity. H. Bhme, Brulet, and others who view them as Germanic,
perhaps foederati, accept their use of grave goods to construct a Roman
military identity, but take this as a given.
26
Those who prefer to
interpret them not as Germanic but as the display of local elites in
an environment of competing warlords, for example G. Halsall
27
ignore the relationship between the so-called weapon burials rite,
which in the 4thto 5th c. transition period in this area is strongly
associated with Roman military sites, and the previous Roman mil-
itary burial tradition. It is clear that the weapons themselves are
merely an extra accoutrement to an already established military
death ritual, and it can therefore be suggested that they were per-
haps rst used to signify identity as a Roman soldier, whatever his
origin. They ultimately supersede the Roman military dress objects
in what might be considered a more naked display of martial values,
perhaps ultimately leaving behind any Roman aspect to the iden-
tity created.
In turn, the practice of using weapons and other accessories to
create a Roman military status at death sheds new light on the some-
times obscure references to material culture made in contemporary
or near-contemporary historical sources. Axes, found in weapon bur-
ial graves of the period, have been the subject of heated debate con-
cerning their possible origin as a culturally Frankish weapon.
28
A
consideration of the Roman military connotation of the weapon burial
rite, however, suggests that the Frankish axe referred to in written
coxs+ntc+ixo nov.x irrx+i+irs ix r.+r .x+iti+v: 105
sources was not originally a marker of Frankish ethnicity or culture,
at least not in the 4th5th c. transition period in which it rst occurs
archaeologically. It may be better understood as the adoption of a
Roman warrior/ruler symbol. Axes are, after all, depicted as part
of the Late Roman repertoire of arms, in the illumination showing
the products of the fabricae, in that quintessentially Late Roman doc-
ument, the Notitia Dignitatum. They are also symbolic in the Roman
culture of leadership (as a constituent part of the Republican fasces),
as are spears; another popular weapon-burial item.
29
The association
between Frankish warriors and axes which developed from their tra-
dition of service in the Roman army was later misunderstood by
Early Medieval writers observing Frankish cultureas signifying a
Frankish tradition (it has been noted that the sources which describe
the axes as Frankish weapons are Visigothic and Byzantine, rather
than Frankish themselves).
30
The axe may even have eventually
become a Frankish symbol. But it seems likely that it was originally
adopted as a Roman symbol of military status, and became an accou-
trement to Early Medieval displays of power and legitimacy.
Roman culture as the language of power
In a similar vein to the symbolic adoption of Roman weapons in
rituals such as burial, the barbarian and other elites of the 5th c.
also used high-status dress accessories and other elite goods of Roman
or Byzantine origin to construct identities as powerful leaders. It
seems that Roman culture became the language of power among
the elites of Early Medieval societies, and exchange and conspicuous
display of Roman/Byzantine or Roman-style goods an important
way to construct and maintain power relations. There seem to be
two versions of this. Firstly, use of objects made in ocial Roman
workshops; and secondly, close imitations of contemporary Roman
elite goods which had a specic role in the construction of elite rul-
ing, and even imperial, identities.
The most obvious example of the former consists of the grave
goods in the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks. Though there
29
Spears are carried by the emperor in Late Roman depictions of the adventus,
see McCormack (1981) 2930, 43.
30
Geary (2002) 75.
106 rrrrx svir+
31
Brulet (1995).
32
Werner (1980).
33
Arrhenius (2000) 215.
34
Schmauder (1998).
35
Schmauder (1998) 293.
36
Schmauder (1998) 289.
37
Schmauder (1998) 289.
are undoubtedly some elements to the burial that can be suggested
to have pagan and Germanic origins, such as the ring of horse burials
surrounding his tomb,
31
or the gold bracelet,
32
there are also status
goods of eastern Roman origin, such as the gypsum-set panels of
garnet inlay on Childerics sword,
33
or the gold crossbow brooch.
The brooch, which he was presumably wearing at death, was, it can
be suggested, used to construct his identity as holder of Roman
authority in the West. The display of Roman symbols of power
appropriate to his status asserts Childerics knowing use of Roman
culture and hence his own claim to Roman authority in the West.
M. Schmauder explores this theme further in his examination of
four brooches found north of the Danube
34
characterised by pre-
cious stones and hanging pendants and known as Kaiserbeln (impe-
rial brooches) because of their similarity to art historical examples
and historical descriptions of the brooch which the emperor alone
was entitled to wear. On technical grounds it is argued that three
of the brooches were made in Byzantine workshops and were there-
fore probably gifts to barbarian leaders,
35
while the remaining brooch
from Pietroasa appears to be an imitation made beyond the fron-
tier.
36
Another brooch from the Pietroasa treasure, in the shape of
an eagle, is also probably an imitation of Roman elite culture
37
and
numerous other Roman-style items also occur in this assemblage.
Schmauder argues that the imperial brooches and the eagle brooch
were used as symbols of power, some legitimated by the Byzantine
empire and some not. Again, elite Roman/Byzantine culture forms
the medium through which power relations are negotiated and dis-
played. Imitations such as the Pietroasa brooch attest to attempts by
Germanic leaders to wrest such king-making objects from Byzantine
control.
Nor was the use of elite Roman culture as a vocabulary of power
conned to explicit symbols of authority such as imperial, crossbow
and eagle brooches. F. Theuws and M. Alkemade view ceremonial
coxs+ntc+ixo nov.x irrx+i+irs ix r.+r .x+iti+v: 107
gifting of swords and scabbards with garnet ornamentation, which
cluster in the former frontier zone along the Rhine, as well as between
the Seine and Aisne,
38
and subsequent burial with these goods at
death, as embodying the Early Medieval roles of warrior, aristocrat
and king.
39
However, the sources of these objects may also be con-
sidered. According to B. Deppert-Lippitz
40
and B. Arrhenius,
41
pro-
duction of elite dress accessories and garnet jewellery was controlled
by the imperial treasury, and garnet jewellery was key in gift exchanges
as part of contemporary international diplomacy. As well as evi-
dencing local competition and ritual display, such goods also attest
to the role of the eastern Roman empire, and the use of its culture,
in constructing elite identities and hence the importance of Byzantium
in structuring and maintaining power relations in the post-Roman
West.
The imitation coinage which was produced in some of the former
frontier provinces during the 5th c. might also be viewed in this
light. King describes gold and silver coins minted in the Rhine area
which were imitations of Roman gold solidi of Valentinian III and
Theodosius II with a Trier mint mark. Some apparently date to the
last quarter of the 5th c. and King suggests that it is more likely
that they were issued by the newly established Frankish kingdom
than by remnant Roman authorities as had been previously sug-
gested.
42
Whoever the originator, they are clearly an expression of
power in the Roman idiom, not only because they themselves imi-
tate Roman coins, but because to issue coins was a function (and
therefore a dening property) of a legitimate ruler. Imitation of a
culture, of course, is not always acceptance of that culture. R. Laurence
questions the equation of acceptance of Roman culture with assim-
ilation and rejection of it as resistance,
43
while I. Wood remarks that
similarity is competition rather than assimilation.
44
In the context
of elite display and power relations, this is clearly visible in the
inuence of Persian elite culture on the court regalia of Late Antiquity
38
Theuws and Alkemade (2000) 436.
39
Theuws and Alkemade (2000) 447.
40
Deppert-Lippitz (2000) 175
41
Arrhenius (2000) 224.
42
King (1992).
43
Laurence (1998) 2.
44
Wood (1998) 300.
108 rrrrx svir+
45
Wood (1998) 300.
itself, which results from the status of Persia as nearest equal and
competitor of the Byzantine empire. 5th c. elites could be said to
be not only using the language of Roman power to construct their
own status as elite leaders, but perhaps, as Wood suggests in a
dierent context, challenging Roman authority by imitating its own
symbols.
45
Coxcrtsiox
Archaeology cannot answer specic questions of interest to historians,
such as, Was there an ethnic Roman identity in the late antique
West? Queries of this kind are fundamentally unsuited to both the
contingencies of the surviving evidence and the possible ways in
which archaeological evidence may legitimately be interpreted.
Considering the archaeological evidence independently, however, in
a specic setting and time frame, and drawing upon the historical
context to understand the constituent elements of the vocabulary of
material culture and how they may have been used, a picture begins
to appear of the ways in which objects were used to create particular
kinds of identities, and of the changing symbolism and associations
of the objects themselves.
It appears that factors specic to the frontier zone- the militar-
ised nature of society, and the cultural diversity of the army itself-
contributed to the use of Romanised Danubian material culture to
construct a military identity in the Rhine and Danube frontier regions,
in particular, relating to martial display through the burial of mili-
tary goods. Weapon burials are a later variation of the same type
of martial display. Roman or Roman-derived material culture in the
western frontier zones is also particularly revealing of the hierarchies
in material culture which privileged a military, Roman-derived cul-
tural assemblage in burial ritual. The negotiation of power relations
using Roman/Byzantine culture as the language of power seems to
be a consequent development, in turn a contributory factor in the
full-scale self-invention of the Germanic successor states as legitimate
inheritors of Roman governance and power. The development of
military burial rites and the inuence of military material in the
coxs+ntc+ixo nov.x irrx+i+irs ix r.+r .x+iti+v: 109
construction of identities of power may be viewed as a direct con-
sequence of both the militarisation of social elites in the empire at
large, and the specic structures of power in the frontier zone, based
as they were on heightened violence and struggles for power through
arms.
Binrioon.rnv
Arrhenius B. (2000) Garnet jewellery of the fth and sixth centuries, in From Attila
to Charlemagne: Arts of the Early Medieval Period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, edd.
K. Reynolds-Brown, D. Kidd, and C. Little (New York 2000) 21425.
Bhme H. (2000) The Vermand Treasure, in From Attila to Charlemagne: Arts of
the Early Medieval Period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, edd. K. Reynolds-Brown,
D. Kidd, and C. Little (New York 2000) 7889.
Brulet R. (1990) La Gaule septentrionale au Bas-EmpireNordgallien in der Sptantike
(Trves 1990).
(1995) La spulture du roi Childric Tournai et le site funraire (Louvain-la-Neuve
1995).
Cooke N. (1998) The Denition and Interpretation of Late Roman Burial Rites in the Western
Empire (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of London 1998).
Deppert-Lippitz B. (2000) Late Roman and early Byzantine Jewellery, in From
Attila to Charlemagne: Arts of the Early Medieval Period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
edd. K. Reynolds-Brown, D. Kidd, and C. Little (New York 2000) 5877.
Geary P. (1983) Ethnic identity as a situational construct in the early middle ages,
Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 113 (1983) 1526.
(2002) The Myth of Nations: the Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton 2003).
Halsall G. (1992) The Reihengraberzivilisation: 50 years on, in Fifth Century Gaul:
a Crisis of Identity, edd. J. Drinkwater and H. Elton (Cambridge 1992) 196207.
Jones S. (1996) Discourses of identity in the interpretation of the past, in Cultural
Identity and Archaeology: the Construction of European Communities, edd. P. Graves-Brown,
S. Jones, and C. Gamble (London 1996) 6280.
(1997) The Archaeology of Ethnicity (London 1997)
King C. (1992) Roman, local and barbarian coinages, in Fifth Century Gaul: a Crisis
of Identity, edd. J. Drinkwater and H. Elton (Cambridge 1992) 18495.
Laurence R. (1998) Introduction, in Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire, edd.
R. Laurence and J. Berry (London 1998) 19.
Lengyel A. and Radan G. (1980) The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest 1980).
Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G. (1992) The end of the ancient city, in The City in Late
Antiquity, ed. J. Rich (London 1992) 149.
Louis E. (2004) A de-Romanised landscape in northern Gaul: the Scarpe Valley
from the 4th to the 9th c. A.D., in Recent Research in the Late Antique Countryside,
edd. W. Bowden, L. Lavan and C. Machado (Late Antique Archaeology 2)
(Leiden 2004) 479504.
Lucy S. (1998) The Early Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries of East Yorkshire (Oxford 1998).
McCormack S. (1981) Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1981).
Miller D. (1996) Frontier societies and the transition between Late Antiquity
and the Middle Ages, in Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, edd. R. Mathisen and
H. Sivan (Aldershot 1996) 15871.
Pohl W. (1998) Telling the dierence: signs of ethnic identity, in Strategies of
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Distinction: the Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300800, edd. W. Pohl and
H. Reimitz (Transformation of the Roman World 2) (Leiden 1998) 1769.
Poulter A. (1992) The use and abuse of urbanism in the Danubian provinces in
the later Roman Empire, in The City in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Rich (London 1992)
99135.
Schmauder M. (1998) Imperial distinction or barbaric imitation? The Kaiserbeln,
in Strategies of Distinction: the Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300800., edd. W. Pohl
and H. Reimitz (Transformation of the Roman world 2) (Leiden 1998) 28196.
Swift E. (2000) Regionality in Dress Accessories in the Late Roman West (Monographies
Instrumentum 11) (Montagnac 2000).
Theuws F. and Alkemade M. (2000) A kind of mirror for men: sword depositions
in late antique northern Gaul, in Rituals of Power: from Late Antiquity to the Early
Middle Ages, edd. F. Theuws and J. Nelson (Transformation of the Roman World
8) (Leiden 2000) 40176.
Wells P. (1999) The Barbarians Speak (Princeton 1999).
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manischen Handgelenkringe der jngeren Kaiserzeit, Frhmittelalterliche Studien 14
(1980) 149.
Whittaker C. R. (1994) Frontiers of the Roman Empire: a Social and Economic Study
(Baltimore 1994).
Wood I. (1998) Conclusion: strategies of distinction, in Strategies of Distinction: the
Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300800, edd. W. Pohl and H. Reimitz
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2000).
coxs+ntc+ixo nov.x irrx+i+irs ix r.+r .x+iti+v: 111
COINS AND POLITICS IN THE LATE ROMAN WORLD
Richard Reece
Abstract
Coins constitute source material: explicitly, from what is written and
portrayed on them or the place and authority in which they were
struck, and implicitly, from the portrait style and type. They are also
objects of metal, sometimes precious, the use and control of which
reects politics. Around 294, portraiture changed very sharply from
individuality to the representation of authority. Reverse types were also
now much more limited and concentrated than under the Principate.
The change occurred around 274 to 294, when city mints also ceased
local production and were either closed or made branches of the one
Imperial mint. These are signs of a move towards a heavily centralised
money supply, dictated by more strongly emphasised authority. Control
of metals, especially gold, followed the same path, though reforms in
the mid-4th c. may suggest that silver was let out of state control and
privatised.
Coixs .xr Pori+ics ix +nr L.+rn Rov.x Evrinr
When the craftsmen engraved pairs of dies from which coins were
to be struck they were creating a means of mass communication.
Whether they knew this and whether the state used it to try to
broadcast political messages, we do not know for certain. The whole
subject of the intention with which coin types were chosen, who
chose them, who the receivers of the message were supposed to be,
and how they reacted has been reconsidered recently by K. Butcher
who at least opens the subject up to wider debate even if, as he
himself says, he is unable to reach rm conclusions.
1
Even if the state did produce coins with intent we have virtu-
ally no knowledge of how the individual reacted on receiving the
state message. The best we can do is to examine the coins, their
1
Butcher (Forthcoming).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 113137
designs, types, and metal contents, and the systems that produced
them in an eort to outline the processes of political thought and
policy that might have been at work.
Information spreads fast through gossip and the bush telegraph,
but that information, or mis-information, is at the mercy of the dis-
tributors. Only when information is published in material form can
the publisher hope that a message as intended will be distributed
and travel throughout a constituency. A written notice will suce
to tell the villagers who can read what is going on; those who can-
not read will be dependent on transmission from fellow villagers. A
proclamation can be read out, but will only reach those who gather
to hear it. A law may be promulgated, but a text inscribed in the
forum, or read out by the chief magistrate will reach only a pro-
portion of the total population. When the communication comes
from the Roman state and the constituency is the whole of the
Roman empire ecient communication is obviously a problem.
There is very little information in the sources on the way in which
the population of the empire received the messages that might have
been communicated to them by the coins that some of them used.
Few sources actually mention individual coins at all, as opposed to
large sums of money, and careful surveys of such mentions have not
yet been done. There are a few straws in the wind, but they come
mainly from the earlier empire. A street-preacher in Palestine around
A.D. 30 was able to assume that someone in a crowd would have
a denarius with them, would be able to read, or at least recognise
the design of the coin, and would know who the picture represented.
2
Whose is the image and superscription? And they said Caesars.
Unfortunately the evidence as it stands at the moment suggests that
denarii such as those of Tiberius did not circulate in Palestine at that
period which must cause a little unease.
Depiction of Annona was often used as a coin type to emphasise
the care of the state for the people. As Annona was the personication
of the corn dole initially for the city of Rome, this could be seen
as advertising rather restricted generosity. It appeared commonly on
bronze coins under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, for example, but
only once on a silver coin of Hadrian, and three times on silver of
2
Gospel of Mark 12.1317.
114 nicn.nr nrrcr
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 115
Pius. It did not, however, appear on gold. This could be taken to
suggest a degree of targeting for the message. There is more point
in reminding the people who used bronze coins of the benevolence
of the state than those who used mainly gold and silver.
This introduces the main components of any scheme which the
state might have had for using the coins as conveyors of statements,
whether explicit or implicit. First there is the obverse of the coin
with the almost invariable portrait of the emperor surrounded by an
inscription; second there is the reverse of the coin with a chosen
type and inscription; third is the metal in which the coin was struck;
fourth the actual process of minting and distribution. All the points
can, and should, be qualied, but to do this in detail is impossible
here. Some examples will be given below, and all detail can be found
in the ten volumes of the standard corpus Roman Imperial Coinage
(RIC) and the volumes of Roman Provincial Coinage, published and in
progress (RPC). The important point is that these elements of the
coinage, and so perhaps the intentions behind them, change dra-
matically between the early and the later empire, and the changes
crystallise around the reforms of Diocletian in the 290s. I think that
all these elements have strong political signicance.
This paper will be divided into ve sections. I want to emphasise
four changes to the coinage that I think must reect four major
political changes. In the nal part I will examine the connections
between coins, regular emperors and usurpers to suggest ways in
which work in the future on the coinage could give information on
more general political points.
In an earlier paper I gave a general over-view of the economic
ideas that can be gained from collections of coins found individu-
allysite-nds.
3
From the coins as struck it is possible to gain an
insight into what the state intended to do, and thought it was doing,
in producing coins. The distribution of coins from dierent mints
allows us to investigate the ways in which coins were supplied to
dierent elements in the empire, especially the army, and moved
round the empire in general terms.
4
When consideration of nds is
restricted to one individual site there is the opportunity to compare
the site to the general background of the rest of the empire and so
3
Reece (2003).
4
Reece (2003) 14045.
5
Reece (2003) 14556.
6
Reece (2003) 15666. I did not deal with the lessons that can be learned from
hoards of coins and I have avoided the subject again here because the subject is
under vigorous discussion and there are several important surveys and syntheses
being prepared for publication. See, for example, Guest (Forthcoming).
detecting and interpreting uctuations in supply, use and loss of coins
at regional and local level.
5
When sites are compared with one
another they provide a statement of coin use in dierent regions
which can be seen to uctuate through time.
6
N.+iox.ris.+iox: Tnr Mix+s
An ordinary person shopping in a market somewhere in Asia Minor
around the year 210 would not only have asked for goods in Greek,
but would have given bronze coins, locally minted, in local denom-
inations and inscribed in Greek in payment. The home city may
well have produced the bulk of the coinage in use, but surrounding
cities and polities might also have contributed. Often a well known
local statue or temple appeared on the coinage. Silver coin needed
for a high value purchase might have been struck in Caesaraea in
Cappadocia, or Antioch, but Rome denarii may have been alterna-
tives. If a gold coin was involved it would have been struck in Rome.
Bronze had a very strong local avour, while silver was more closely
allied to Rome. Gold was Rome.
By 310 almost all evidence of locality in coinage had been removed.
Language was totally Latin, denominations were uniform empire-
wide, and if the coin carried a few letters of a local city such as
Antioch (ANT) at the foot of the reverse that was no more than
quality control for a branch of the Rome mint based in the city.
Cities had been totally removed from the matter of coinage which
had been given instead to the Praetorian Prefects (bronze) with gold
reserved for the emperor in person. That is, the local branch mints
were under the authority of the Prefects; gold was struck by the mint
travelling in the emperors entourage (Comitatusnoted on the coins
only after c. 360). In the 4th c. silver was in uctuation and I will
deal with that later.
116 nicn.nr nrrcr
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 117
There are factors which soften this blow to city pride, but it
remains a remarkably successful act of (totalitarian?) authority. Silver
had been struck occasionally by only a few citiesfor example
Caesaraea and Cyrene. Antioch and Alexandria had almost complete
coinage systems of their own which should probably be thought of
as regional as well as civic. Both continued as branches of the single
(Rome) mint though there is increasing evidence that they had been
used in this way for some time before the Great Reform of 294.
7
Producing city coinage, while good for prestige, had a cost. It
seems likely that the whole cost of producing an issue of bronze
cointhe actual metal, the engraving of the dies, the casting of
blanks, the striking of the coinswas not a matter of making money
except in the most practical sense. A subsidy was probably needed.
8
Finally, since most local coinage was struck in bronze, and bronze
denominations throughout the empire were in terminal decline in
the 3rd c., few cities were actually still striking their own issues by
about 270. By that date radiate coinage with a small admixture of
silver was the norm, taking the place of the old denarius or drachma,
and as bronze denominations were fractions of the old silver coin
their face value dropped far below the cost of production.
When extenuating factors are taken into account it might be pos-
sible for a picture to be painted of a benevolent Diocletian seeing
the disordered state of the coinage and helping it back on its feet.
But the fact remains that he did not help the coinage back on to
its former feet, but rather changed it, unied it and nationalised it.
He took an element from the decayed state system, the low-silver
radiate, and built a new national system around it. It might be
objected that since the major part of the total value of the empires
coins had always resided in gold, and sometimes also in silver, with
only the bottom 10% (at most) of value in copper, little had changed
for most silver and all gold coins came from Rome. This top down
view, however, has to be set alongside the view from the market
where the great majority of transactions must presumably have taken
place in bronze, and where the change was clearly visible.
7
Discussion and some early references in Carradice and Cowell (1987); Butcher
(1988).
8
Full discussion in the volumes of RPC.
9
Walker (1988).
The distribution of the branches of the mint was also changed.
In the West there was a proliferation of mints, while in the East
there was a reduction. In the 2nd c., the western part of the empire
was supplied (or not, as the case may have been) from Rome. If
that had involved regular supply through both time and space it
would have been an astonishing achievement of production and dis-
tribution on a high industrial scale. In fact, the production of coin
by the million even with the stop-go policy of distribution that is
slowly coming to light was remarkable enough.
9
During the 3rd c.,
coins typical of the Rome mint were produced in Lyon and Milan
which acted as branches of the Rome mint. City coinage continued
at Antioch, but some workers and equipment also seem to have
acted for part of the time as another branch mint from Rome. The
further proliferation of mints in the West that occurred at and after
the reform of 294 was little more than the recognition and reorgan-
isation of what was already in place. London had been established
during the rebel rule of Carausius and Allectus; Trier had been set
up under the rebel rule of the Gallic empire; Lyon had been brought
under central control by Aurelian; Ticinum (Pavia) had already been
established to provide a source of coinage for the army nearer the
north-west frontiers; and Rome was the original establishment. Aquileia
was a newly chosen site, and Ostia and Carthage were established
for brief periods due to political considerations.
The reduction in the East meant the cessation of general city rights
to mint coinage and the turning of long established institutions into
branches of the state mint. Alexandria and Antioch were transformed,
Cyzicus had a short history of branch mint production in the later
3rd c., Nicomedia, Thessalonica and Heraclea clustered in the north
Aegean (and were supplemented later by Constantinople), while Siscia
and Sirmium supplied the Balkans. The absences are perhaps as
interesting as the presences. The whole of the Iberian peninsula was
left without a mint as was North Africa to the west of Alexandria.
Yet the north Aegean was a focus of mint activity from 294 onwards.
This contrasts strangely with the known economic prosperity and
material display of North Africa and Iberia. Either the outward and
visible forms of prosperity are at fault or some sort of political econ-
118 nicn.nr nrrcr
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 119
omy is at work directing resources into what was to be the centre
of the empire.
For the eastern empire after 480 there are few changes in the
mints, though the reconquest of Italy and Africa by Justinian reclaimed
the Vandal mint of Carthage and took over the mint of Rome.
Heraclius, in his campaigns also established new or temporary mints,
for instance in Sicily. But the main changes came with the loss of
territory to the Arabs, and, in most cases, the elimination of impe-
rial mints in these areas.
In the West the picture is much less clear until the organisation
of the Merovingian gold tremis coinage with mint signatures in the
late 6th c. The successor kingdoms of the 5th c. in the West con-
tinued not only the titles, names, and representations of the eastern
emperors on their gold coinage, but copied mint-marks such as those
of Ravenna and Milan when it is quite clear from studies of distri-
butions of such coins that they were struck in Gaul, Germany or
Spain.
10
Pni\.+is.+iox: Mr+.rs
The change in Late Roman coinage between the years 354 and 364
(perhaps in 357) is one which I suspect may be the most important
but which at present is the least understood or even recognised. The
coinage system of the early empire consisted of a number of dierent
denominations struck in dierent metals. Gold produced the aureus,
silver the denarius, yellow bronze the sestertius, dupondius and semis, and
copper the as and quadrans. They related to one another very simply
with the as divided into halves and quarters (semisses and quadrantes),
the denarius made up of four sestertii, or eight dupondii or 16 asses, and
25 silver denarii making up the gold aureus. The purchasing power of
silver and gold coins probably approached the intrinsic value of their
bullion content while copper and bronze coins either circulated suc-
cessfully at token value, probably because their interchangeability
with silver was assured, or had their own intrinsic base metal values.
11
10
RIC X, 45070.
11
Duncan-Jones (1994) 23537.
Moving upwards from one metal to another was done through a
money changer who took a cut.
This system was dealt a fatal blow when Septimius Severus reduced
the silver content of denarii to an average of about 4648%. This
must have unsettled the relationship of silver to gold, whose stan-
dard remained high. It certainly had an eect on bronze/copper
fractions of the denarius, the smaller of which dropped out of use. As
the silver content was reduced through the 3rd c., the purchasing
power of the base-silver coin declined, and most bronze coins dropped
o the bottom of the scale of values. This was the state of aairs
that Diocletian attempted to remedy.
The meaning of these changes for authority and coin users, with
their mutually opposing desires, needs at some time to be argued
out, but a summary must suce here. The state wants coin that will
pay its bills in the simplest possible way. That simplicity includes
practicality of weights, numbers of coins, transport and distribution,
but also must include absence of argument. All coin must be accept-
able without discussion and preferably without use of force. All this
argues for high value (low weights and low numbers) coin of near
intrinsic value (bullion of high standard). The most numerous cate-
gory of coin user, the purchaser in the market, wants a majority of
money to be easily negotiable coin of face-value close to the average
market purchase. This want is most easily satised by a good supply
of token copper coinage easily exchangeable for gold or silver as
need (usually the state) dictates.
In one sense the new system introduced by Diocletian in 294, and
modied in 301, solved all problems. Gold was pure and struck to
a standard weight of 60 coins to the libra; silver was pure and struck
at 96 coins to the libra. Three copper coins with a small amount of
silver added (up to 4%) may have been taried (after 301) at 25, 5
and 2 denarii. As a guide to these values there are only two prices
in Diocletians Maximal Price Edict as low as one denarius out of
1057 values (a point I owe to R. Duncan-Jones), so a one denarius
coin is not needed. Prices of three denarii are also very rare. Values
of one and three denarii can be perfectly well managed with coins
at the value of two and ve denarii. This seems the perfect system
which caters to all needs; the state at the top end of the range and
the market stall at the lower end. But there are problems. Excavation
ought to demonstrate the loss of coins of the smallest value because
these would most often change hands and be least sought for after
120 nicn.nr nrrcr
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 121
accidental loss. Yet the discovery of the smallest of Diocletians coins
is so unusual as to be a notable event worth recording. The system
was excellent in terms of popular theory but remained in theory and
was not put into practice. It could be that the production costs of
the (possible) two-denarius pieces formed a high proportion of their
face value so they were uneconomic to mint. A policy was formed,
but proved too expensive to put into practice.
A second problem with the system was the place of silver. The
perfect system did not settle down to a century of slow develop-
ment, it quickly disintegrated. Within 20 years of 294 the high stan-
dard silver coinage had sunk to depths of debasement and, perhaps
surprisingly, extreme rarity. The copper coins with added silver
dropped dramatically in weight and silver content, the two lower
denominations were no longer produced, and the basic nummus was
continually reinvented by reforms at irregular intervals until about
357. It seems likely that the period from about 274 to 357 was the
period of maximum ination; it also corresponds with the time of
common coinage of copper-with-silver-added, although good silver
struck in very small quantities had been re-introduced by Constantine
in the 320s.
I see the period from 294 onwards as a time of stringent control
of metals and coinage. Gold and silver are almost a part of the
emperor (sacra, set apart, and not for common use). But from about
260 to 357 all coinage consists of gold or silver in some part, even
the meanest smallest coin. Pure gold and pure silver coins of this
period are rare today and were probably struck in these years in
restricted numbers sucient only for essential state payments.
Unfortunately once we move on beyond the date of the Maximal
Price Edict we have little idea of how the copper-silver coinage
related to everyday use. During the late 4th c., copper coins do carry
the signature of the Sacred Mints (e.g. SMANT) but this status may
well not apply to the base metal coins.
It is worth noting that in the Aezani copy of the Maximal Price
Edict, gold is given the same value whether coined or not (in regulis
sive in solidis).
12
Silver is simply quoted by the pound. This clearly
states that at that moment gold coin was not over-valued in rela-
tion to its intrinsic metal value, which leaves open the possibility that
12
Naumann and Naumann (1973).
13
Bastien (1977).
14
Anon., de rebus bell. 2.7 (ed. and transl. Ireland (1979) 5).
15
RIC VIII, 617.
silver coin was given a value well above its metal content value. This
could be the cause of the chronic instability of the silver and copper-
silver coinage from 294 to 357.
There is a strange contrast between what appears to be a strin-
gent, if not parsimonious, control of gold and silver by the state in
general terms, and its lavish disbursement in specic imperial cir-
cumstances. The classic example must be the Beaurains hoard of
which the gold and silver coins and medallions or multiples were
analysed so acutely by P. Bastien.
13
This heavy deposit of gold had
been handed out, year by year, event by event, to a state ocial in
the last years of the 3rd c. and the early years of the 4th c. The
great Arras medallion showing Constantius I subduing London for
the Tetrarchy is probably the best known piece of the hoard and
suggests that the ocial had some part in that campaign. No won-
der that later in the 4th c. in the De Rebus Bellicis the Anonymus
was crying out Repressa Largitate (2.7)cut down on your handouts
and the state will be in a more healthy condition.
14
In the years around 357 there were great changes. Gold coinage
was suddenly struck in relatively large amounts. If a collection con-
tains one gold coin it is likely to be of Constantius II struck between
about 355 and 361 proclaiming his 30th year of vows completed
and vows for his 40th year undertaken (VOT/XXX/MVLT/XXXX).
High quality silver struck after 357, with a weight reduction, is a
quite common nd on sites compared with the earlier silver coins
which are extremely rare nds. Copper coinage after 363 no longer
contained added silver. Put in simple and inexact terms the silver
from millions of base metal coins (1%) could well supply thousands
of good silver coins (100%). The system once again became stable.
Historians may be annoyed at the constant reference to the years
around 357. The imprecision is caused by the simple fact that no
written source bothered to announce this major change in monetary
and metallic policy. Since we lack an explicit text the changes have
gravitated towards the major visit to Rome of Constantius II in 357.
15
Gold was soon marked with the letters COMit was struck only
in the mint travelling with the emperor and his Comitatus. The mark
122 nicn.nr nrrcr
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 123
never appears on silver coin from this date, as P. Guest has pointed
out (pers. comm.). While the amount of silver plate that survives
from the Roman period is a tiny fraction of what once existed, a
fair amount belongs to the later 4th c. Most hoards of silver plate
appear to belong to domestic contexts, even if individual pieces were
imperial presentations. But apart from one or two hoards, probably
of later date and on the Balkan fringes of the empire, surviving
examples of gold plate are not known from the later empire. There
are references to gold plate throughout the literature but they are
invariably to regal or imperial contexts.
16
K. Painter (pers. comm.)
tells me that he also has failed to nd references to domestic gold
plate in the empire.
All these observations are consistent (I put it no higher) with the
idea that both silver and gold were kept totally as the preserve of
the emperor, or state, from 294 to around 357. From 294 to 357
silver coinage was either highly debased or struck in small quantities.
In 357, however, it appears that the state gave up the struggle, kept
gold as a total state monopoly, and privatised silver. Some silver
went to the state and was issued in coinage, individuals may have
had the right to have their own silver struck at the mint into coins,
or silver could be bought on the open market and made into plate
if you so wished. If this was the state of aairs in the second half
of the 4th and early 5th centuries it presumably came to an end
when control marks on silver appeared in the reign of Anastasius.
If gold was the sole prerogative of the emperor then it was occa-
sionally handed out, sometimes through the Prefects, sometimes the
Consuls, to private individuals who may already have had a small
amount of gold jewellery and decorations. The point at issue is the
apparent availability of silver after 357 and the rarity of newly fash-
ioned gold except in coinage.
Another point which could be taken into account is the fact that,
in Britain at least, silver coins were very commonly clipped, while
clipping of gold coins is extremely rare.
17
This might suggest that
you could do what you like with the (privatised) silver coin so long
as you do not touch the sacred image, but that gold coin was in
another, and much more dangerous, category.
16
E.g. in the Historia Augusta: Brandt (1996).
17
This impression is conrmed by Burnett (1992).
18
Dio Cass. 67.15.2.
19
Bursche (1998).
20
Fagerlie (1969).
21
Mihailescu-Birliba (1980); Bursche (1996).
In contrast, in the 5th c., no decisions involving the coinage appear
to have been taken. There are gradual changes, but they seem to
be much more the result of reaction rather than proaction. Gold
continued unchanged from the 340s to at least the 600s. Silver coin
was struck when there was a good supply of silver, but this became
increasingly uncommon. The copper coinage consisted mainly of
small coins which got smaller. The reform of Anastasius did little
more than to issue copper multiples. The basic coin was the nummus
and multiples of ve, ten, twenty and forty were issued and marked
accordingly. Other values such as the six and twelve at Alexandria
seem to have raised little modern comment.
The place of state servants in this pattern is presumably impor-
tant, with the army in rst place. The army could be blamed for the
start of the uncertainty under Severus when he passed on to his sons
the advice be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other
men.
18
His debasements gave the soldiers more denarii, as promised,
but a smaller weight of silver. The continuation of the policy did
not in fact benet the army because rises in numbers of coins were
always accompanied by diminutions of silver. This led to the aban-
donment of meaningful monthly pay and the institution of hand-
outs in gold and silver. Those hand-outs seem to have grown both
in the number of coins handed out and their weight. It could be
that the reform of c. 357 involved an accompanying reform of army
pay, although, so far as I know, there is no direct evidence of this.
Large gold multiple solidi were certainly produced to the end of
the 4th c. and found their way particularly to the Barbaricum, per-
haps as diplomatic gifts.
19
Some of the best known hoards of 5th c.
gold coins are also from the Barbaricum, especially Gotland, and the
Baltic area.
20
This moves the focus from the need to pay state ser-
vants inside the empire to the need to placate peoples outside the
empire, either to avoid conict or repair matters after conict. This
is nothing new except that the metal has changed from silver to
gold, for large numbers of good silver denarii left the empire for the
Barbaricum in the later 2nd c.
21
124 nicn.nr nrrcr
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 125
The medallions certainly seem to have done their job of diplo-
macy for many were mounted, presumably worn, and treasured for
decades or even centuries before being lost or deposited.
22
The bags
of solidi, which had never been sent into individual circulation before
their burial round the Baltic coasts, are usually assumed to be pla-
catory payments to Goths and Huns. The coins that were buried
perhaps placated, but failed in their second (Roman) purpose which
must have been to return to the empire in trade. This is a point on
which die studies could help. Many of the solidi in Baltic hoards
were struck from the same dies, or dies that were closely related.
This strongly suggests that some of the absolutely normal and stan-
dard output from the mint, perhaps the result of a weeks production
was allocated to the Barbaricum and sent o straight after produc-
tion. These coins can only be recognised from the dies used in their
production, so their study is an extremely detailed matter. There are
three alternative possibilities, however, which could be claried through
careful study. These possibilities are that:
1) The dies used to strike the coins now known in the Baltic are,
in general, dierent from those used to strike coins found singly
and in hoards within the empire. This would suggest production
for a short time, dedicated to diplomatic gifts which remained
isolated in Barbaricum
2) The dies used for Baltic coins are also found on coins lost singly
around and inside the north-west frontiers of the empire. This
would suggest that the gifts were used for trade and/or exchange
with the frontier regions.
3) The dies used for Baltic coins are the same as dies used for a
general sample of gold coinage found throughout the empire.
This would suggest that production was not specically targeted
towards Barbaricum but that occasional bags of newly struck gold
coin were set aside for dispatch beyond the frontiers.
While the East maintained its high standard of gold coinage through
the troubles of the 6th and 7th centuries and far beyond, the suc-
cessor kingdoms of the West seem to have found gold harder and
harder to obtain. This led to a gradual increase of silver content in
coins which were originally gold, and then the move to a ne silver
22
Bursche (1998).
coinage which developed into the early Saxon and Carolingian silver
penny. In the East silver was only used occasionally, and never chal-
lenged the supremacy of gold.
Vist.r Ixroc+nix.+iox
1) Portraiture
Although the coinage of the mid 3rd c. is of poor metallic quality
and often the result of careless production, the quality of engraved
portraiture reaches a peak (see g. 1). The rm presence of Postumus
(1) compares dramatically with cold determined Claudius Gothicus
(2) or the boyish features of the young Tetricus II (3). While these
are subjective, even emotive, descriptions the dierence of facial fea-
tures, however described is visible to all. These were people who
would be recognisable today if they were sighted at a gathering.
After the reform of 294, individuality all but vanishes. Diocletian (5)
is seldom distinguishable from Maximian (4) or the younger members
of the tetrarchies such as Licinius (6). Each coin may show a slightly
dierent representation, but the point is that there is no consistency
in the portrayal of individuals. Whereas all the coins of Postumus
and Claudius Gothicus show the same dierences, and the emperors
are easily recognisable without the surrounding legend, the coins of
the Tetrarchs can only be safely identied by their legends.
This must reect a major political decision because the change
happens very quickly between about 288 and 298, far too quickly
for a universal change in style, and within the life of one die-cutter.
This latter point removes the possibility of a decline in competence
whereby the ability to represent individuality in die-cutting died out.
A summary, which is dicult to oppose, would suggest that a deci-
sion had been taken to represent the great oce rather the meagre
person with regrettable personal deciencies who temporarily lled
the oce. The individual remains in the inscription, though usually
only in a single name.
Once that policy shift has happened there is little to record.
Constantine breaks out of the policy but his family return to it. That
is an over-compressed account of the fact that Constantines coin
portraiture which can be dated year by year varies substantially from
immediate rejection of the minimalist bearded soldier of the Tetrarchy,
126 nicn.nr nrrcr
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 127
Fig. 1 Typical portraits on common coins of (from left to right, top to bottom)
1. Postumus, 2. Claudius II, 3. Tetricus II, (all struck 26573), 4. Maximian I,
5. Diocletian, 6. Licinius I (all struck 294311).
through the religious ruler with eyes uplifted to heaven, to a rather
foxy, rm, more settled late portrait.
23
In my interpretation the indi-
vidual (par excellence?) rejects anonymity. Yet the sons of Constantine
are indistinguishable, as are Valens and Valentian, Arcadius and
Honorius. Two persons do stand outMagnentius and Julian, but
this is probably more because of attributes rather than attempts at
portraiture. Magnentius on many coins rejects the invariable diadem
and Julian wears a beard. One other attribute might be included
and that is the Manus Dei holding a wreath above the imperial rep-
resentation. It is very obvious on the gold coins of Eudoxia.
24
J. Kent,
in answer to my question on the signicance of this, once wondered
aloud whether the sign was used when there was some doubt as to
whether the status of the person shown justied representation on
the coinage. Thus doubts about an Augusta depicted on coins, or
an infant Augustus, could be calmed by showing divine approval.
By the early 5th c. all individuality had been ironed out of the
imperial representation, at least on coins, and there is almost nothing
to choose between East and West, Byzantines and barbarians, for
several centuries. Other forms of representation provide occasional
reason to challenge this sweeping judgement. For instance if the rep-
resentation of Justinian in the mosaics of San Vitale in Ravenna is
true to life this provides a puzzling exception which is totally con-
tradicted by his coin portraits.
25
The Great Change corresponds
exactly with the Great Reform of 294, and that, in turn is con-
temporary with the expansion of the principes from two (Diocletian
and Maximian) to four (with the addition of Galerius and Constantius).
Constantines reaction corresponds to the attempt to revert to per-
sonalities and dynasties. The Late Roman mould of representation
corresponds to concentration on the position and sacredness of the
emperor regardless of the human body who lled the post.
Since the change of emphasis corresponds so clearly with an exten-
sion of imperial authority so that an emperor can be in many places
at the same time and exert similar authority this does suggest a
major change in political policy. This is not something that changed
slowly over several generations, but the diktat of a year or day. This
is not to argue that an imperial decision changed the course of Late
23
RIC VI and VII.
24
RIC X, pl. 1, 1015.
25
Reece (1999) 4344.
128 nicn.nr nrrcr
Roman art from naturalistic representation to depiction of the Inner
Meaning of positions and events. But since imperial portraiture
changed so drastically so suddenly this suggests an imperial aware-
ness, and adoption, of current trends. Such adoption made the
humans in the tetrarchic system interchangeable and the system was
thereby greatly strengthened so long as actual individualities were
also submerged in the system.
2) Coin Reverses
Details of mint policy in the 3rd c. are still only known in outline.
Perhaps the best documented example is the sixth volume of the
British Museum Catalogue where R. Carson tried to set out the
yearly pattern of striking gold, silver and bronze in substantive and
special or minor, issues.
26
But the general picture in the 3rd c.
seems to be one of about six substantive issues (reverses) each year,
which might be continued into the next year, and a number of
smaller or special issues with no detectable regularity. By 330 bronze
issues, empire wide, were restricted to three types which continued
for about seven years. Silver, which by this point was extremely rare,
was presumably issued in very small numbers, and with very few
types, and gold was limited both in supply and variety.
The Great Change, which is seldom described, but which is a
powerful commentary on the political changes, is the new concen-
tration on a few themes of crucial importance to the state. Under
Hadrian, who is perhaps an extreme case of variability, the coin
types included provinces, personications, deities, records of events,
buildings and a number of other smaller categories. In the early
empire a personication was often shown by the same scene or per-
haps statue. An extreme example is that of Spes, who, from Claudius
I to Claudius II, is usually a female gure in the act of walking,
holding a ower in one hand. Spes is often associated with imperial
women or with the Roman people. By the 4th c. the gure has dis-
appeared and Spes is particularly linked, sometimes through the
empress, to the Respublica. The substantive issues invariably invoke,
represent, or express hopes for the state (Respublica), the army (Exercitus),
the Romans, Rome and Constantinople.
26
Carson (1962).
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 129
Comment in absolute terms on which reverse type was the most
common in any reign can only be made from detailed study and
counting of the dies used to strike the coinage. This is extremely
time consuming and, for the common coinages, has rarely been done.
Modern surveys, however, are beginning to ll in the relative details.
M. Petercommented on the most common type in coins of Hadrian
found at Augst and extended the survey to show that surrounding
sites had similar distributions.
27
A. Hobley worked further aeld and
he has shown similar unequal distributions of coin types.
28
So at pre-
sent, although we cannot say with certainty what coin type was most
commonly struck in the reign of Hadrian, we do know that the most
commonly found reverse on bronze coins in Europe was that of the
Salus Augusti. There are variations, one variant more common round
Augst, another more common in Italy. But Salus is the preferred
reverse. This might mean that there were strong wishes being expressed
for Hadrians well-being or it might mean that there was little else
to say, and Salus was a suitable type to ll up the vacuum. The
margin by which Salus tops the list is not great for the rest of the
bronze coinage is varied and dierent types were sent to dierent
areas. Silver and gold share similar types with a drift towards scenes
more suitable for their superior users.
In the later empire no searches, listings or calculations are needed.
From 365 to 378 Valentinian and/or Valens struck two main cop-
per reverses, and Gratian joined them for most of the production
with an issue of his own particular reverse only from the mint at
Arles. The coinage took a year or so to get into its stride, or decide
on uniformity, hence the beginning date of 365 rather than 364.
There are other small issues, for example Procopius in the East
around 366, but these smaller issues do little to dent the numerical
superiority of the standard products.
The choice, for the viewer, was between Victory striding left hold-
ing a wreath, the Securitas of the state; the emperor in military dress
with a military standard dragging after him an unfortunate captive,
the Glory of the Romans; or, for Gratian, the emperor standing
facing with a shield and standard, the Glory of the New Age. Gold
and silver coins oered a little more variety through time in the
27
Peter (2001) 102105.
28
Hobley (1998) 35560.
130 nicn.nr nrrcr
legends, but the types themselves oered only Victory, one or two
emperors in warlike pose, personications of Rome or Constantinople
helmeted and with spears, or commemoration of the vows that the
emperors had undertaken or completed. The change in the messages
conveyed, either explicitly in words, or implicitly in images is stark.
Variety was cut down to a military and administrative minimum,
and almost every coin referred to war.
The change from a whole range of types in 270 under either
Claudius II in Rome or Victorinus in the Gallic empire to minimal
choice of three reverse types for the years 364 to 378 is not quite
so sudden, nor so one-way as this might imply. The types in 270
ranged through a whole series of wishes and hopes for the Augustus
Securitas, Hilaritas, Pax, Salus, Providentia, Laetitia, Libertas, and the list
continues. What they have in common is attachment to the Augustus,
as in Pax Aug(usti ) and so on. In 294 the single common reverse was
not any attribute of the Augustus but the Genius of the Roman
People. Under Constantine there was a partial return in that the
most common reverse from 313 was of Sol Invictus, the companion
of the emperorSoli Invicto Comiti. This continued in the 320s with
the Providentia of the Augustus and the Caesars and with his victo-
ries and triumphs. The 330s were devoted to the (Gloria) Exercitus,
Rome (Urbs Roma) and Constantinople (Constantinopolis). After the death
of Constantine the state closed in so that from 340 onwards the only
attributes allowed, on common coinage, to any regular emperor were
the imperial vows and the occasional Victoria.
By the later 5th c. coin types in East and West, empire and king-
doms, had become virtually immobilised. That is, they repeated the
formula that had been used many times before even though it was
inappropriate at the time. An example would be the Vota of Zeno
who used the type appropriate to 35 years of rule when he had only
been on the imperial throne for 15 years.
29
The Coin as a Whole
The obverse of the coins struck between 270 and 300 show a clear
move away from individuality and towards visual anonymity. This
coincides with the change from individual rule to collegiate rule.
29
RIC X, 59.
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 131
Constantine rebelled against this trend and tried to establish an indi-
vidual portraiture, though he had trouble in nding a style of depic-
tion that suited him. After his death his sons appear to have given
up the struggle and went with the trend towards depiction of the
ruler rather than the person; this trend had reached a totally anony-
mous completion by the 360s.
The reverse of the coins struck up to 270 were varied, but most
types related to the emperor as an individual. After 270 types were
reduced in number and by 294 there was only one common type
which related not to the emperor but to the people as a whole.
Constantine turned back to individual imperial attributes, but this
ceased after his death and reverse types by 348 related almost exclu-
sively to organisations rather than individuals.
Put in this way the conjunction is striking and it is surprising that,
so far as I know, it has never been commented on before. I owe
the interpretation to Butcher who has re-opened the whole subject
of the interpretation of coin types in a recent article.
30
He suggests
that in order to understand the relevance of any coin type it is nec-
essary to consider who chose the type, for what reason, and to whom
it is addressed. All these points are dicult to agree on, if not impos-
sible. All we can do in the case of 294or thereaboutsis to note
that address from, to, or on behalf of the individual who happened
to be emperor at the time ceased and was replaced with address
apparently from the state to sub-sections within the state.
Regular and Irregular Power
It might be thought a cynical view to dene a legitimate emperor
of the 3rd and to some extent 4th c. as a usurper who survived.
The facts remain: Diocletian who lasted for 21 years and Constantine
who lasted for 32 years, both after irregular beginnings, are legiti-
mate emperors while Magnentius (3 years) and Eugenius (2 years)
are usurpers. The writer of the Historia Augusta was in little doubt as
to who was counted as an emperor, or empress.
31
Victoria must be
counted among the thirty pretenders because coins were struck in
her name of bronze and gold and silver of which forma (an example
or die?) is still in existence among the Treviri.
30
Butcher (Forthcoming).
31
SHA, Tyr. Trig. 31.3.
132 nicn.nr nrrcr
There is considerable scope for a comparative discussion of irreg-
ular emperors in the later empire according to their numismatic out-
put. A recent study of the coins of Vetranio shows the level of detail
that is needed.
32
There are many problems which such studies will
have to overcome and the most obvious of these is close chronol-
ogy and credibility. Thus Magnentius set up a mint at Amiens to
strike coins in his own name. He struck only copper-silver coins, but
there are also similar coins struck for Constantius II and Constantius
Gallus. The assumption is that the mint was set up to supplement
production at Trier, perhaps even as an insurance if Trier were lost.
33
But there is at present no way of deciding on an exact chronology
of the dierent mints production other than an appeal to historical
sources. Vetranio took control of the mints of Siscia and Thessalonica,
but the insertion of his coins, struck in 350, into the standard issues
of Constantius II, again depends totally on written sources.
If coins diverge from written sources the problem arises of who
to believe. The case of the emperor in Britain, Carausius, is prob-
ably over-quoted by British writers, but it does raise an important
point of judgement. The written sources are uniformly on the side
of the central empireCarausius was a rebel. Coins that he pro-
duced, with British mintmarks (London and C or G) include coins
for Diocletian with the reverse Pax Auggg which suggests agreement
between three Augusti, Diocletian, Maximian and Carausius. The
same three are shown as recognisable portraits with the legend
Carausius et Fratres Sui. These coins are taken by some commentators
to show that the central emperors recognised the rebel.
34
The total
absence of coins struck for Carausius in any central mint ought surely
to warn that this is too credulous a view. Only coins struck by reg-
ular emperors, in mints totally under their own control, can demon-
strate the entry of a usurper into a regular princely college.
If gold is indeed a closely guarded imperial monopoly then issues
of gold might be taken to dene emperors. That is, the skill and
resources necessary to produce copper or silvered copper coins is
available to most metal-workers who are willing to out the law; the
epidemic of Barbarous Radiates (27090) might be taken to illustrate
32
Dearn (2003).
33
RIC VIII, 11920, 132 .
34
E.g. most recently Lyne (2003).
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 133
this. Issues of gold coin, however, depend on sharing imperial gold.
This is a set of concepts (sharing, imperial gold) and so may not be
directly related to material practice; gold as a solid material can per-
fectly well be captured as well as shared. Presumably it remains
imperial even when in the hands of a usurper, who dares to misuse
it, and hence increases his own crimes.
When Magnentius made his bid for the throne he established his
authority over the mint of Trier and issued gold coin, presumably
from the stocks of gold already in the city. The mint he established
at Amiens coined only in silver-copper, though the high standard by
which the coins were struck led Bastien to suggest that skilled workers
were transferred from Trier.
35
Magnentiuss career was stopped after
he had taken Rome and Aquileia but before he reached the Balkans;
he issued gold in Rome and Aquileia but not in the next (geo-
graphical) mint at Siscia. There Vetranio was proclaimed and one
set of sources says that he held the Balkans until Constantius could
get there.
36
Gold struck in 350 can be identied, but there were only
two issues from Siscia, with dierent reverses and mint (batch) marks.
37
It is therefore not possible to claim that Vetranio struck gold coins
on behalf of Constantius as well as for himself. Standard issues of
silver, however, show coins of both emperors with the same mint-
marks which should therefore suggest that Vetranio struck for him-
self and Constantius at the same time. The same is true for the mint
of Thessalonica.
38
At Heraclea and points east (Constantinople,
Nicomedia, Antioch and Alexandria) Magnentius and Vetranio are
not mentioned.
Eugenius had a similar numismatic career. He captured the West,
including the Comitatensian mint at Trier and Milan, but at Rome
and Aquileia only bronze coin is listed for him.
39
At points further
East he is not mentioned. All this underlines the point that an irreg-
ular emperors recognition of the regular emperor by striking coins
for him says nothing about the attitudes of the regular emperors.
After 395 matters are much more complicated in that the two
parts of the empire function much more independently. This is
35
Bastien (1964) 34, 80.
36
Dearn (2003).
37
RIC VIII, 36768.
38
RIC VIII, 41314.
39
RIC IX, 33, no.s 101103 (Trier); RIC IX, 82, nos. 2829 (Milan); RIC IX
(Rome and Aquileia).
134 nicn.nr nrrcr
reected in RIC X which is set out rst with the East, then with
the West, emperor by emperor. A detailed check of emperors issu-
ing coins for their separated brethren is therefore much more
dicult. A quick check in Late Roman Bronze Coinage is easier since
the coins are set out mint by mint.
40
Reciprocal relations in bronze
coinage continue under Theodosius II and Valentinian III but then
break down. After 450 the East strikes copper coin only for eastern
emperors while Rome strikes for both East and West. This means
that irregular western emperors such as Romulus Augustus who struck
gold, but not copper in his own mints, cannot be authenticated or
dismissed by reference to the East.
In a sense this is a material commentary on the picture which
has been accepted for some time from the historical sources. It is
also a reductio almost ad absurdum of the point made above about the
separation of imperial power from the person. By 475 in Italy gold
coinage was not under the control of Romulus; he, the coinage, and
the stocks of gold, were under the control of his father Orestes. And
yet issues of gold in the West struck outside the strict limits of the
empire, in Gothic and other kingdoms, before and after 476, main-
tained the imperial ction. Gold apparently needed a properly con-
stituted imperial name to give it validity whoever the issuing authority
was. Only in the 6th c. did western kings break away and claim the
power to strike gold in their own right.
Coxcrtsiox
In some cases the political changes that I have noted are single turn-
ing points which are not reversed for several centuries; in others they
are simply twists and turns in ever changing political moves. Thus
the control of gold and silver, and the provision of base metal coinage,
seem to vary strongly between 200 and 300 and at least as much
again between 300 and 400 and 400 and 600. Change is less obvi-
ous in the shorter time scales of the successor kingdoms, though the
gradual slide from gold to silver in the coinage must be noted, and
brought into relation with the changes under the empire.
40
Carson, Hill and Kent (1960).
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 135
The change from the individualistic coinage of the empire up to
270, with personal representation and reverse types devoted to the
emperor himself, to a concentration on the power of the state and
its almost anonymous chief executive is a change which would not
be reversed until the Renaissanceat least on the coinage. The
change in portraiture or the change in reverse types taken in them-
selves might be argued away as temporary or unimportant, but, com-
ing together and irrevocably as they do, they signal a major change
of image to say the least. This is one of the great changes in the
empire which is often deduced from long term social, legal and reli-
gious sources. It is perhaps useful to have it documented on a rmly
material and fully datable source.
For the historian or archaeologist these notes have the obvious
defect of being written from the point of view of the coins, while
the reader probably wants information set in a historical or archae-
ological context. The benet of this approach is that at least what
has been said has been mainly positive. If we had started from his-
torical questionswhat can coins say about Xthe results would
probably have been limited or even negative. I hope there are enough
positive pointers here to suggest that future dialogue would be
protable and to suggest lines of future study to both numismatists
and all other students of Late Antiquity.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
I am grateful to Richard Abdy, Kevin Butcher, Georges Depeyrot,
Richard Duncan-Jones, Kenneth Painter, and the editors for saving
me from several mistakes and for helpful suggestions. Where I have
not taken their advice they should not be blamed.
Binrioon.rnv
Bastien P. (1964) Le monnayage de Magnence (350353) (Wetteren 1964).
Bastien P. and C. Metzger (1977) Le trsor de Beaurains (dit dArras) (Arras 1977).
Brandt H. (1996) Flagitium auri: gold in der Historia Augusta, in Historiae Augustae
Colloquium Barcinonense, ed. G. Bonamente (Atti dei Convegni sulla Historia Augusta 4)
(Bari 1996) 99110.
Burnett A. (1992) A clipped solidus from Wiltshire, NC 152 (1992) 175.
Bursche A. (1996) Contacts between the later Roman Empire and north-central
Europe, AntJ 76 (1996) 3150.
136 nicn.nr nrrcr
(1998) Zlote Medaliony Rzymskie w Barbaricum (Swiatowit Supplement series A,
vol. II) (Warsaw 1998).
Butcher K. (1988) The colonial coinage of Antioch-on-the-Orontes c.A.D. 21853,
NC 148 (1988) 6376.
(Forthcoming) Information, legitimation or self-legitimation? Popular and elite
designs on the coin types of Syria, in Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces,
edd. C. Howgego, V. Huechert and A. Burnett (Oxford forthcoming).
Carradice I. and Cowell M. (1987) The minting of Roman imperial bronze coins
for circulation in the East: Vespasian to Trajan, NC 147 (1987) 2650.
Carson R. A. G (1962) Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum VI (London
1962).
Carson R. A. G, Hill P. V. , and Kent J. P. C. (1960) Late Roman Bronze Coinage
(London 1960).
Dearn A. (2003) The coinage of Vetranio, NC 163 (2003) 16992.
Duncan-Jones R. P. (1994) Money and Government in the Roman Empire (Cambridge
1994).
Fagerlie J. M. (1969) Late Roman and Byzantine Solidi Found in Sweden and Denmark
(American Numismatic Society, Numismatic Notes and Monographs 15) (New
York 1969).
Guest P. (Forthcoming) Roman Imperial Coin Hoards (Royal Numismatic Society Special
Publication) (London forthcoming).
Ireland R. (1979) ed. and transl. De Rebus Bellicis, in De Rebus Bellicis, ed. M. W. C.
Hassall and R. Ireland (BAR International Series 63) (Oxford 1979) part 2.
Hobley A. (1998) An Examination of Roman Bronze Coin Distribution in the Western Empire
AD 81192 (B. A. R. International Series 688) (Oxford 1998).
Lyne M. (2003) Some new coin types of Carausius and Allectus and the history
of the British Provinces, NC 163 (2003) 14768.
Mihailescu-Birliba V. (1980) La monnaie romaine chez les Daces Orientaux (Bucharest
1980).
Naumann R. and Naumann F. (1973) Der Rundbau in Aezani mit dem Preisedikt des
Diokletian (Tbingen 1973).
Peter M. (2001) Untersuchungen zu den Fundmnzen aus Augst und Kaiseraugst (Studien zu
Fundmnzen der Antike 17) (Berlin 2001).
Reece R. (2003) Coins and the Late Roman economy, in Theory and Practice in
Late Antique Archaeology, edd. W. Bowden and L. Lavan (Late Antique Archaeology
1) (Leiden 2003) 13968.
(1999) The Later Roman Empire (Stroud 1999).
Walker D. (1988) The Roman coins, in The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath, vol. 2,
The Finds, ed. B. Cunlie (Oxford 1988) 281358.
Lis+ or Fiotnr
Figure 1. Typical portraits on common coins of (from left to right, top to bottom)
1. Postumus, 2. Claudius II, 3. Tetricus II, (all struck 26573), 4. Maximian I,
5. Diocletian, 6. Licinius I (all struck 294311).
coixs .xr rori+ics ix +nr r.+r nov.x vonrr 137
THE EMPEROR AND HIS MONUMENTS
CIVIL WAR AND PUBLIC DISSENT:
THE STATE MONUMENTS OF
THE DECENTRALISED ROMAN EMPIRE
Emanuel Mayer
Abstract
From the tetrarchy onwards, the arches and columns erected in praise
of emperors show a distinct change in the ways in which victory in
civil war was commemorated or justied. The attitudes towards civil
war demonstrated on these monuments also changed according to their
location and the attitudes and social mores of those who erected them.
From the time of Augustus onwards, in both panegyrical texts and
public monuments, victory in civil war had been presented in terms
of the defeat of non-Roman combatants. However, by the 4th c.,
despite protest from the conservative aristocracy, it was possible to
commemorate defeat of fellow Romans. This paper suggests that this
development reects both a change in imperial image and in the socio-
political context of these monuments, whereby the need to establish
the legitimacy of imperial rule overrode the traditional concerns of
conservative sections of the public.
Ix+nortc+iox
Relief-decorated arches and columns in praise of Roman emperors
have attracted much scholarly interest since the Renaissance dis-
covery of classical antiquity, because they relate to well-known his-
torical events. Whereas the monuments of the rst three centuries
A.D. were either studied as substitutes for lost historical writings or
later as a primary source for the representation and communication
of imperial ideology, the so-called historical reliefs of the later 3rd
and 4th c. were mainly described in terms of artistic style.
1
This
1
The columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in particular were studied in the
tradition of historicism as illustrations of lost comentarii. Since the 1920s this approach
has been abandoned. The ideological nature of Roman imagery as a whole was
commonly accepted in the aftermath of Rodenwaldts seminal work (1935). In recent
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 141155
xation on stylistic change is rooted in the central art-historical tenet
that a change in mentality must necessarily be reected in the arts.
Since the rise of Christianity after Constantines accession to the
throne is generally considered to have caused a major shift in cultural
paradigms, it has been one of the main aims of archaeological research
to trace this new Zeitgeist in the design of 4th c. monuments.
2
The study of Late Roman political iconography is therefore largely
detached from the discussion of earlier imperial monuments, in that
while the semantics of style have always been acknowledged in clas-
sical archaeology, the main focus of research has shifted to the iconog-
raphy of imperial monuments and the processes that led to their
commissioning. This paper will attempt to put a series of famous
4th c. monuments into their social and political context. Even though
the style of their sculptures may have been intended to convey polit-
ical or even ideological messages, the focus will be on the iconography
of these monuments, which introduces a new topic into the monu-
mental praise of the emperor: victory in civil war. We know from
explicit comments of outraged conservatives like Ammianus Marcellinus
that these representations were highly problematic and considered
to be wildly oensive by an unquantiable group of Roman tradi-
tionalists. Unfortunately, neither written sources nor the state-mon-
uments themselves can provide us with any information on what
these images meant to the majority of Roman viewers. It is, how-
ever, possible to determine how transformations in political processes
brought about this remarkable change. It is therefore necessary to
discuss briey what kind of information a Roman state-monument
can convey to the historian of the Roman empire before turning to
the monuments themselves.
Tnr Sroxsonsnir .xr Drsiox or Ivrrni.r Moxtvrx+s
Until very recently it was common to refer to any image of the
emperor as imperial self-representation or even propaganda. In
times the two most inuential works on the semantics of Roman political iconog-
raphy were Zanker (1987) and Hlscher (1987). On the ideological concepts behind
the relief-decoration of Trajans column, cf. Hlscher, Baumer, and Winkler (1991)
29195
2
Most explicitly Kemp (1994).
142 rv.xtrr v.vrn
the past few years, however, it has been recognised that these are
problematic concepts: relief-decorated arches and columns were, ide-
ologically at least, honoric monuments which the Senate or other
political bodies dedicated to the emperor in gratitude for his deeds.
3
In fact, the dedicatory inscriptions and the images adorning these
monuments change in tone and subject matter with the dierent
social groups and political bodies that commissioned them. It has
been convincingly argued that the relief-decorated monuments in the
eastern half of the empire put the emperor into a long established
tradition of the divine ruler while the monuments of the Roman
Senate stressed the emperors role as a republican magistrate.
4
This
can be illustrated by a comparison of three monuments which the
Senate, the bankers of the Forum Boarium, and the decuriones of Lepcis
Magna erected in honour of Septimius Severus.
5
The arch in the
Forum Romanumdedicated to the emperor(s) by the Senate for hav-
ing restored the res publica and widened the borders of the empire
6

showed how Septimius Severus conquered Parthia with the help of

the invincible Roman army and the support of a group of senatorial
sta-ocers. The gate of the argentarii in the Forum Boarium, however,
stressed the devotion of the local businessmen to the numina of the
imperial family and presented static images of the divine emperor
and his family at a sacrice; Julia Domna even received a caduceus
and therefore a divine symbol.
7
The tetrapylon in Lepcis Magna put
the main emphasis on an adventus of Septimius Severus in his native
city and also showed him and his wife as Iuppiter Optimus Maximus
and Iuno Regina respectively.
8
Such images were hardly compatible
with the concept of the res publica restituta, which remained the corner-
stone of Principate ideology well into the 3rd c. Nevertheless, it could
be argued that monuments by commoners and especially provincials
which the emperors concerned possibly never saw or heard about
3
This issue has been most explicitly addressed by Bergmann (2000) 168. Cf. also
Mayer (2002) 427.
4
For the emphasis on the divine ruler in the Roman East, cf. Smith (1987); on
the republican image of the principes see Bergmann (2000) 172.
5
On the relief-decoration of the two Roman monuments, cf. the straightforward
account of Hannestad (1986) 26267 and 27784. On the tetrapylon at Lepcis Magna,
cf. Strocka (1972) 14772 and La Rocca (1985) 211.
6
CIL VI, 1033.
7
CIL VI, 1035. Cf. Hannestad (1986) 169.
8
La Rocca (1985) g. 5.
+nr s+.+r voxtvrx+s or +nr rrcrx+n.risrr nov.x rvrinr 143
in great detailwere not part of the ocial political discourse. In
a restored republic the public approbation of the nominally ruling
body (i.e. the Senate) could indeed be considered as far more rele-
vant for legitimising monarchical rule than the applause of his actual
subjects.
It is therefore of major concern who was responsible for the design
of the state-monuments commissioned by the Senate. Ocially it
was of course the Senate itself, and to claim that the emperor was
directly involved would imply a considerable degree of spin. In the
absence of explicit literary sources we are condemned to eternal spec-
ulation about this matter, but a few informed guesses are possible.
First, a survey of the closest literary parallel to honoric monu-
mentspublicly delivered panegyricsshows that the senators who
had to praise the emperor were not briefed on what to say.
9
In fact
they had to anticipate the emperors wishes in order to leave a
favourable impression, a delicate situation which proved to be too
much for the nerves of some such as like Augustine.
10
Second, no
emperor before Commodus was born in the purple and instead all
rose to the throne from the senatorial order. In the rst two cen-
turies A.D. emperors and senators originated from the same milieu
and often shared values and political ideals. It seems therefore rea-
sonable to assume that the Senates public applause of the emperor
functioned under normal circumstances without any direct imperial
interference, even though it is likely that in some cases the emperor
exerted direct inuence, as we will see later.
According to this model, the novel iconography of later Roman
state-monuments is easily explained by a change in the panegyrical
milieu. Neither Diocletian nor his successors were Rome-based aris-
tocrats but had come to the throne from the lower ranks of the
army and modest provincial backgrounds. As I have argued at length
elsewhere, one of the most important innovations of Diocletian was
his deliberate decentralisation of the empire.
11
Other emperors before
the tetrarchy had spent several years campaigning on the frontiers
but never transferred the sedes imperiithe seat of empirefrom
Rome to another city. Under the tetrarchs urban centres like Niko-
9
Cf. MacCormack (1981) 114; Mayer (2002) 615, and Rees (2002) 2326.
10
Aug. Conf. 66. Cf. MacCormack (1981) 12.
11
Mayer (2002) 1839.
144 rv.xtrr v.vrn
12
Mayer (2002) 6891.
13
Mayer (2002) 5768; 17583.
14
This interpretation of spolia contradicts the current orthodoxy that imperial
state-reliefs were either re-used for their artistic value or as deliberate reference to
good 2nd c. emperors. Cf. Mayer (2002) 195202. Recently Guidobaldi (2001) 19
stressed the Senates involvement in the erection of the arch and the design of its
program. Meier (2001) 6466 also addressed the question of patronage.
media, Milan, Trier and Thessalonica were not only termed sedes
imperii but also architecturally transformed into such. In addition, by
building mausolea in their native landsanother considerable breach
with traditionDiocletian and his colleagues demonstrated that they
did not want to reside in Rome, even after their deaths.
12
In the
course of this decentralisation of the empire, the rise of the comitatus
led to a further alienation between the Senate at Rome and the
travelling emperors who were accompanied by men of senatorial
rank but often not of aristocratic birth. It seems that the comitatus
praised the itinerant emperors in a dierent way from the Senate
at Rome: The tetrapylon that stood in front of a major entrance to
Galerius residence in Thessalonica celebrated the Persian victories
of the eastern emperors and the tetrarchic system itself but completely
ignored the republican traditions of the empire, as still emphasised
by the Senate on its monuments in Rome.
13
The arcus novus which
spanned the via lata showed the absent emperors sacricing in front
of temples which stood in the city of Rome. Through these images,
which were carved out of Claudian reliefs, the emperors were linked
to the great traditions of the urbs aeterna. The use of spolia reinforced
this commitment to tradition through their early imperial iconogra-
phy; but newly commissioned pieces, such as one of the bases of a
magnicent column-monument behind the rostra on the Forum Romanum,
also used a deliberately conservative mode of representation.
14
Covvrvon.+ixo Vic+onv ix Ci\ir W.n
The Arch of Constantine
Only one generation after Diocletian and his colleagues abandoned
Rome for a multitude of new sedes imperii, the Arch of Constantine
openly praised the emperoramong other thingsfor the victory
+nr s+.+r voxtvrx+s or +nr rrcrx+n.risrr nov.x rvrinr 145
over his rival Maxentius. This was a radical breach with the tradi-
tion of imperial praise and cries out for an explanation, especially
in the context of the conservatism of the Senates state-monuments.
Ever since the Renaissance, the Arch of Constantine has been the
main paradigm for the evolution of late antique, medieval or Christian
art forms.
15
As a victory-monument over Maxentius it also recalled
Constantines Christian vision at the eve of the battle at the Milvian
Bridge. Art-historical and Christian biases dominated the discussion
in such a way that even the inscription of the monument was never
studied in its own right but only in regard to its statement that
Constantine had won his victory over the tyrant instinctu divinitatis.
While much ink has been spilt over the possible connotations of
instinctu divinitatis, until very recently it was overlooked that the inscrip-
tion mentions more than one triumph and a factio of the tyrannus
which is reminiscent of the rst line of the res gestae divi Augusti.
16
In
fact, it seems that the Senate tried to explain Constantines victory
over Maxentius along traditional lines by setting it into the context
of Roman history, and by balancing the celebration of his victory
at the Milvian Bridge with the praise of the emperors triumphi over
northern barbarians through re-carved 2nd c. reliefs, which again made
a conservative statement by their distinctively traditional iconography.
Exactly the same strategy was chosen by an anonymous pane-
gyricist who praised Constantine in 313only one year after the
events at the Milvian Bridge. The fact that his speech was published
shows that he managed to put a highly controversial subject in a
way that was acceptable to the emperor at least. The rst half of
the speech dwells on the horrors of civil war: the great heroes of
the old republic and even Caesar and Augustus are portrayed as
bloodthirsty monsters or cunning cowards;
17
only the civil war against
Maxentius is considered a praiseworthy event because Constantines
personal virtues prevent him from making the same mistakes as his
illustrious predecessors.
18
Since this unorthodox version of Roman
15
For a summary of the recent discussions on the arch and its latest art-histor-
ical evaluation, cf. Elsner (2000).
16
CIL VI, 1139. The mentioning of several triumphi has been pointed out by
Giuliani (2000) 28182. On the Augustan connotations, see Mayer (2002) 228 and
infra.
17
Cf. esp. Pan. Lat. 12 (9).20.321.3 on Cinna, Marius and Sulla; 6.1 on Caesar;
10 on Augustus. Cf. Mayer (2002) 19294.
18
Pan. Lat. 12 (9).21.3.
146 rv.xtrr v.vrn
19
Pan. Lat. 12 (9).2223. Cf. also 2.6.3.3.
20
Pan. Lat. 8 (4). Cf. Mayer (2002) 14041 and Rees (2002) 95129.
21
Kolb (2001) 19193.
22
Cf. Zanker (1987) 8896.
23
On the fragments in Budapest, see Hlscher (1994) 100 g. 1011.
history was of course contestable, the panegyricist used his remaining
time to praise Constantine for his glorious victories over the Frankish
hordes, thus reassuring his audience that the emperor was also capa-
ble of performing traditional tasks.
19
This was an unconventional
strategy in the context of earlier panegyrics. In 298 an anonymous
rhetor had still praised the recapture of Britain by Constantines
father Constantius I as a victory over barbarians, even though the
island had been wrested from the usurper Allectus.
20
Equally, artistic
representations of this event did not allude to a civil war. A series of
famous gold medallions depicted only an adventus of Constantius I
on the island.
21
Graphic pictures of Romans killing Romans seem to have been
taboo in monumental imperial praise. Prior to the Arch of Constantine,
no Roman emperor of the rst three centuries had ever been hon-
oured for a victory in civil war. Augustus was ocially praised for
his epochal victory over Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium, but this
event was re-interpreted as a Roman victory over Egypt and not
represented on contemporary state-monuments.
22
Only a few decades
later a unique relief-decorated monument from the area of Naples,
whose membra disiecta are now kept in Budapest, depicted the battle
of Actium, which continued to be commemorated in the age of the
Emperor Claudius, to whose reign the monuments sculptures most
probably belong.
23
Claudius was the grandson of Anthony, and had
been adopted into the family of Augustus. He could therefore claim
descent from the two main protagonists of the battle which led to
the institution of the Principate. In this context it would not have
been prudent to depict Anthonys forces as non-Roman easterners,
especially at a time when the events themselves had already become
distant history.
If the battle of Actium was the only case in which the depiction
and celebration of civil war was politically acceptable, it becomes
understandable why the inscription of the Arch of Constantine mir-
rored the wording of Augustus political testament, in which the latter
justied his appearance on the political stage by the need to liberate
+nr s+.+r voxtvrx+s or +nr rrcrx+n.risrr nov.x rvrinr 147
the res publica from the tyranny of a factio. But why did the Senate
choose to praise Constantine for having relieved the republic from
the threat of a tyrant and his factio in the rst place? The cynical
sophistry of the panegyric of 313, and the desperate attempt in the
panegyric of 298 to cover up that the campaign against Allectus had
been a civil war, show that praising the emperor for the defeat of
a rival was either unthinkable or highly problematic. In the context
of the dozens of civil wars that were fought in the rst three cen-
turies A.D., it became generally accepted that emperors should not
be praised for defeating their rivals. In the 4th c., this was still explic-
itly stated in Ammianus Marcellinus nal negative assessment of
Constantius II:
Now, although this emperor in foreign wars met with loss and disas-
ter, yet he was elated by his success in civil conicts and drenched
with awful gore from the internal wounds of the state. It was on this
unworthy rather than just or usual ground that in Gaul and Pannonia
he erected triumphal arches (triumphalis arcus) at great expense com-
memorating the ruin of the provinces, and added records of his deeds,
that men might read of him as long those monuments would last.
24
In his criticism of Constantius, Ammianus also claimed that some
right-thinking men (i.e. himself and his conservative friends) believed
it would have been a striking indication of true worth in Constantius,
if he had renounced his power without bloodshed, rather than
defended it so mercilessly.
25
This passage gives a highly biased but
straightforward reason why civil war became a praiseworthy subject:
The emperor simply wanted it to be so. Ammianus is notorious for
his deliberate misunderstanding of public monuments and inscrip-
tions, but there can be no doubt that Constantius II had no scru-
ples about advertising his victories over defeated rivals.
26
Even if
Ammianus triumphalis arcus were nominally honoric monuments and
not erected by the emperor himself, Constantius still set up a vic-
tory monument over the usurper Magnentius: the famous Lateran-
obelisk.
27
Ammianus tells in a much-quoted passage that Constantius,
after he had entered Rome ex sanguine Romano triumphaturus, worried
24
Amm. Marc. 21.16.15 (transl. J. C. Rolfe).
25
Amm. Marc. 21.16.12 (transl. Rolfe).
26
Cf. Niquet (2000) 205.
27
Classic treatment by Wrede (1966) 17898.
148 rv.xtrr v.vrn
28
Amm. Marc. 16.10.
29
CIL VI, 1163.
30
Kolb (2001) 3854; 7280.
how he could adorn the eternal city with a monument (ornamentum)
that could stand comparison with the enormous constructions of ear-
lier emperors.
28
His choice was to erect the largest of all Roman
obelisks in the Circus Maximus. A long epigram on its base proudly
stated that this impressive monolith had been set up to commemo-
rate the emperors victory over defeated tyrants.
29
Given this impe-
rial self-representation it is understandable that the dedicants of
honoric monuments and panegyricists alike felt pressurised to praise
the emperors exploits in civil war.
We do not know whether Constantine lauded himself for his civil
wars, but the panegyric of 313 and the Arch of Constantine justify
the guess that he demanded public applause for his victory over
Maxentius: both the orator and the Senate represented this civil war
as something exceptional, but balanced it by praising Constantines
conventional imperial virtues. In the main thoroughfare of the Arch
of Constantine two re-carved Trajanic reliefs showed him as LIBE-
RATOR VRBIS and FVNDATOR QVIETIS, not for his victory
at the Milvian Bridge but for his defeat of northern barbarians.
Given the topical nature of Roman imperial praise in art and text
it is highly unlikely that such a problematic theme as civil war could
be addressed if imperial consent was not assured. Therefore it is
most likely that Constantine himself suggested this break with three
centuries of tradition. Such a move would go very well with his other
symbolic measures. Ever since Augustus, Roman emperors had upheld
the illusion of the Principate as the rule of the best man in a restored
republic. Even though Diocletian already seems to have formalised
long existing practices of imperial etiquette into a court ceremonial
which set the emperor apart from his peers in the Senate, only
Constantine took the diadem and demonstrated through the use of
this royal attribute that he was a monarch and not just the princeps
vir in the Roman state.
30
The rise of absolute monarchy and the cor-
responding justication of the dynastic principle could indeed be the
reason why the representation of civil war mattered so much to some
4th c. emperors.
+nr s+.+r voxtvrx+s or +nr rrcrx+n.risrr nov.x rvrinr 149
Theodosius I and the defeat of Magnus Maximus
According to Ammianus History, Constantius built arcus triumphalis
in order to preserve the memory of his victories over the usurpers
for eternity. Since this was one of the main functions of Roman
state-monuments, it can be taken for granted, but does not explain
why the horror of civil war was worthy of remembrance. Another
equally biased source might provide an answer to this question. It
is the panegyric delivered by Pacatus in 389 in honour of Theodosius
I who, like Constantine, was about to establish a new dynasty.
31
Unlike the speech in honour of Constantine, it does not even try to
balance this event with other praiseworthy deeds of the emperor,
but talks exclusively about the defeat of Magnus Maximus and also
recommends the erection of honoric monuments to commemorate
this event.
You too artists, to whom a propitious fate concedes the power to give
fame to events, scorn those hackneyed themes of ancient fables, the
labours of Hercules and the Indian triumphs of Bacchus, and the wars
with snake-footed monsters; with these let the public squares be dec-
orated, with these the temples [. . .] It is important to the security of
every age for what has been done to be seen so that if anyone has
ever entertained any nefarious desires, he may review the monuments
of our times and drink innocence with his eyes. If anyone at any time
dreams of draping his shoulders with royal purple may he encounter
the depiction of Maximus being stripped. If anyone wishes to deco-
rate his simple citizens feet with gold and gemstones may barefooted
Maximus appear before him. If anyone contemplates placing a dia-
dem upon his head may he gaze at the head of Maximus plucked
from its shoulders, and at his nameless corpse.
32
This statement must have sounded hypocritical to contemporary ears.
Theodosius had recognised Magnus Maximus as a co-emperor for
several years.
33
The two even shared the same faith: both were devout
orthodox Christians.
34
Pacatus speech was therefore not a statement
on imperial policy or even ideology, but a mere show of loyalty
towards Theodosius and his familyfor which he was possibly
rewarded with a governorship in North Africa.
35
Like Constantius
31
Pan. Lat. 2 (12).
32
Pan. Lat. 2 (12) 44.545.3 (transl. Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 512).
33
From 383387.
34
Ziegler (1970) 7485.
35
Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 439.
150 rv.xtrr v.vrn
36
For the most recent interpretation of this monument, cf. Mayer (2002) 11529.
37
CIL III, 737.
38
Mayer (2002) 13843.
39
Speidel (1995) 13136.
40
On the base, see most recently Bauer (2003) 511. Compare Mayer (2002) 136
n. 614.
41
The Senate continued to erect honoric arches commemorating external vic-
tories (collected by de Maria (1988) 31925), but the monuments dedicated for vic-
tories in internal conicts were seemingly quite modest and did not necessarily
allude to civil war like the statues erected after the defeat of Gildo in 397 (CIL VI,
1187).
42
On the occasion and the circumstances under which the panegyric was deliv-
ered, see Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 44344.
II, Theodosius also erected an obelisk whichamong other things
commemorated the downfall of Maximus, although this time not in
Rome but in Constantinople, now nally establishing itself as Na
Rmh.
36
In terms of a dynastic programme, the epigram on its base
claried the pretensions of the new imperial family: omnia Theodosio
cedunt subolique perenni.
37
This, however, was not the most prominent monument to com-
memorate civil war in the emerging capital of the East. In his forum
Theodosius was honoured by an impressive column which copied
the design of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius at Rome.
It celebrated both his victory over the Goths in 387 and over his
Roman enemies.
38
M. Speidel demonstrated that the surviving frag-
ments of the monument showed Romans ghting Romans. The most
prominent scenes depict a battle with a pile of corpses in Roman
armour, and of the surrender of Maximus imperial guard.
39
Byzantine
chroniclers also recognised a battle against Maximus on the base of
an equestrian statue for Theodosius on the same forum.
40
It is hardly surprising that the Senate did not dedicate such mon-
uments in Rome.
41
This kind of praise was left to others. Pacatus
came from Gaul, and was preferred over a Roman senator to give
the victory-speech on Maximus death in the curia itself.
42
Some of
his statements must have outraged conservative contemporaries includ-
ing Ammianus and especially Symmachus, who may have been pre-
sent. Pacatus not only openly praised the civil war, but also did not
shrink from saying that Theodosius army comprised Huns, Goths
and Alanic mercenaries who were made into good Romans under
the emperors command while Maximus army, which consisted of
the regular legions, had ceased to be Roman until it changed sides
+nr s+.+r voxtvrx+s or +nr rrcrx+n.risrr nov.x rvrinr 151
and joined forces with the barbarian army of the rightful emperor.
43
This was traditional Roman ideology upside down, but made per-
fect sense in terms of a concept which stressed the legitimacy of
imperial rule.
The column of Arcadius
Another Constantinopolitan monument also suggests that there was
a major shift in imperial ideology which turned this preoccupation
with legitimacy into a viable concept. The column of Arcadius, whose
sculptural decoration is lost but survives in reliable drawings of the
16th and 18th centuries, showed the emperors Arcadius and Honorius
on three sides of its base, under the sign of the cross carried by two
victory-like angels.
44
Ever since A. Grabars classic treatment of these
images it has been commonly accepted that they convey a new
Christian vision of victory.
45
This way of visualising the divine is fun-
damentally dierent from earlier representations, which showed emper-
ors and gods on the same level and not as belonging to two worlds
apart. The power of God is the ruling principle in the images. Indeed,
it was formulated around the same time that all imperial victories
belonged to the hand of God.
46
This implied that the emperors
were executing the divine will and were thus legitimised by the high-
est possible authority. An attack on the emperors who ruled by the
grace of God was therefore an assault on the Divine Majesty itself.
It is also important to note, however, that the reliefs on the column-
shaft seem to have represented a civil war. This is striking since
Arcadius and Honorius had not yet been challenged by usurpers
when the monument was dedicated, but were only forced to defeat
two high ranking generals of barbarian or rather semi-barbarian
origin. It would therefore have been quite easy to use the barbarian-
iconography for their forces, but this was no longer necessary.
47
43
Pan. Lat. 2 (12) 23.4 on the treason of the Roman legions; 32.45. on the
barbarians in Theodosius army.
44
Mayer (2002) 13941.
45
Grabar (1936) 3439.
46
A famous fragment of Eunapius (n. 78) relates that an unknown urban pre-
fect of (the new?) Rome celebrated an imperial victory in the hippodrome by
panels representing the hand of God coming out of the sky. According to the pan-
els caption the hand of God had defeated the barbarians. This was denitely an
extreme point of view (cf. Mayer (2002) 22223), but denitely a symptom for a
new Christian vision of victory. Cf. Cameron and Long (1993) 21823.
47
This contradicts the classic interpretation of the drawings by Kollwitz (1941)
152 rv.xtrr v.vrn
1762. Kollwitz thought that the reliefs represented the Ganas-crisis of 400/401
in a perfectly neutral and annalistic way: after the reliefs supposedly showed how
an angel drove the Goths out of Constantinople half of the monument (over 15 m
of lavishly carved relief !) is considered to have represented the Germanic hordes
freely moving around the empire before meeting their nal defeat at the hands of
a Roman army. In the context of Roman historical reliefs such a narrative would
be totally absurd, even by the standards of 19th c. historicism. In fact, the battle
scenes showed Romans ghting Romans, as I have argued at length (Mayer (2002)
15059). This, however, does not exclude the possibility that the reliefs celebrated
the victory over Ganas since he was the eld commander of the regular Roman
army and not a tribal leader, as Kollwitz suggests. Another possibility is the vic-
tory over Gildo in 397 who came also from a barbarian background, but com-
manded the Roman armies in North Africa.
48
Amm. Marc. 26.5.13.
49
Amm. Marc. 21.16.11.
50
Anm. Marc. 21.16.11.
51
On Julian in Antioch cf. Mayer (2002) 20817.
Against the backdrop of this new ideology it becomes under-
standable that Ammianus praised Valentinian I for having declined
to help his brother Valens against the usurper Procopius under the
pretext that he could not spare any troops in the face of an Alamannic
threat from across the Rhine: Procopius was only his own and his
brothers enemy, but the Alamanni were enemies of the whole Roman
world.
48
It is, however, questionable as to whether Ammianus rep-
resented a large section of public opinion. When Ammianus con-
trasted Constantius handling of civil war with that of Marcus Aurelius,
who had not only spared the lives of known rebels but also burnt
unopened letters disclosing the names of many more anonymous
conspirators, Ammianus could probably count on the sympathy of
his conservative readers like Symmachus.
49
But was this segment of
society truly representative? In this context it is quite telling that
Julians attempt to style himself as a philosophising emperor in the
tradition of Marcus Aureliusor rather his own interpretation of
itfailed catastrophically with the population of Antioch, even though
there had been a lot of goodwill from the Antiochene side. This
episode in particular suggests that a notoriously insubordinate met-
ropolitan 4th c. population such as that of Antioch preferred dignied
emperors over intellectuals.
51
Does the fact that the open praise of civil war on the Theodosian
monuments in Constantinople was not tempered by allusion to the
defeat of barbarians indicate a general change in the public perception
of the Roman monarchy? We will never know for sure. It has, how-
ever, become clear that this type of victory monument spawned a
+nr s+.+r voxtvrx+s or +nr rrcrx+n.risrr nov.x rvrinr 153
considerable degree of published and therefore public dissent by
Ammianus and his right thinking coterie. In the Senate of Rome
these men wielded considerable inuence and therefore did not vote
for colossal state-monuments like the columns of Theodosius and
Arcadius in order to commemorate the emperors victories over the
enemies of their dynasty. Unfortunately we do not know the dedicatory
inscriptions of these monuments in particular but it is probable that,
like all late 4th and early 5th c. state-monuments in the newly estab-
lished eastern capital, they were built on behalf of the urban prefect
of Constantinople or inuential courtiers. This panegyrical milieu
was characterised by its proximity and xation on the emperor him-
self. To praise victories over the internal enemies of their benefactor
was perhaps not an act that conicted with these courtiers notion of
the nature of the Roman empire. It seems that the new imperial image
was therefore not only due to a change in imperial self-denition
but also to its transforming socio-political context.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
I would like to thank Luke Lavan for inviting me to contribute to
this volume, Will Bowden for his careful editing, and the three anony-
mous readers for their stimulating and helpful comments.
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1993).
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limperatore, dai Severi allet constantiniana, ActaAArtHist 15 N.S. 1 (2001)
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(Berkeley 1994).
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77 (1987) 88138.
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(1995) 13136.
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von Lepcis Magna, AntAfr 6 (1972) 14772.
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IstMitt 16 (1966) 17898.
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+nr s+.+r voxtvrx+s or +nr rrcrx+n.risrr nov.x rvrinr 155
BUILDING THE PAST:
MONUMENTS AND MEMORY IN THE FORUM ROMANUM
Carlos Machado
Abstract
Memory played a crucial role in the shaping of Late Roman political
consciousness and identity. This is clear in the case of the city of
Rome, where political, religious, and social transformations aected
the way that the citys inhabitants dened their relationship between
themselves and with the imperial court. The area of the forum Romanum
was intimately related to Romes history, and was therefore particu-
larly appropriate for the construction of dierent Roman memories.
The aim of this article is to discuss how the monuments built or
restored in this area helped to dene these memories and turn the
past into a political argument.
Ix+nortc+iox
The period between the accession of Diocletian and the deposition
of Romulus Augustulus was one of fundamental importance in the
history of the city of Rome. During this period the city underwent
some of its most important and dramatic crises, and although the
process was far from complete by 476, the transformation of the city
into an urban settlement resembling its medieval form was already
well under way.
No more the political capital of the empire, the inhabitants of the
city witnessed its progressive loss of political inuence. At the same
time, Christianity became the religion of the majority, changing not
only the organisation, but also the appearance of the urban fabric.
Perhaps the most important transformation was the radical re-denition
of the nature and number of Roman citizens, although the impact
of a demographic crisis and the development of new social categories
(such as the Christian notion of the poor) are still dicult to assess.
1
1
On these changes, see the articles collected in Harris (1999).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 157192
Yet it is also important to understand changes in the lives of the
population, and the shifting perceptions that Romans had both of
themselves, and of their physical environment, during this period of
approximately 200 years.
The forum Romanum is an ideal case-study for the discussion of this
problem. It had been a fundamental arena for the shaping of Romes
civic identity since the earliest days of the city, and it remained so
during the late antique period.
2
It had been monumentalised to rep-
resent both the imperial present and the glories of the past since the
last centuries B.C., a practice that continued during the imperial
age.
3
During the forums continual re-building, many of its Republican
monuments were destroyed or replaced by others; the result was a
process of constant update for the monumental apparatus, accord-
ing to the current imperial priorities and agendas. Nevertheless, the
roads and buildings around the forum square (g. 1)
4
remained impor-
tant symbols of the city. They were testimonies and embodiments
of Romes past and present glories, and the ways in which they were
used to create and advertise dierent memories is of particular inter-
est if we are to address the problem of how late antique Romans
dened and displayed their own identity.
It must be said that I will not be dealing with the question of
how Romans dened their own concept of memory, bur rather I
am interested in how memory actually worked, in identifying and
describing dierent attitudes to the past. The word memory is used
here, therefore, in the sense of the dierent ways in which a given
collectivity represents its own past. As is the case with any represent-
ation, it is both an arbitrary creation and a product of historical cir-
cumstance. Simultaneously responsible for both remembering and
forgetting, memory plays a central role in the forging of social iden-
tity.
5
Its denitionor more precisely, the denition of its contents
2
On the political relevance of this area from the archaic through the imperial
period, see Coarelli (1984) and (1985) and also Purcell (1995A) and (1995B).
3
Purcell (1995B) 339.
4
I am being consciously vague in the denition of the area I am interested in,
for it involves not only the topographical entity formally known as forum Romanum,
but also occasional glances toward areas beyond it: most importantly the south por-
ticus of the forum of Caesar, which as I will argue was closely connected to the
Curia.
5
On the role of memory in the transmission of culture, see Rowlands (1993);
Lowenthal (1998) is an important discussion of the relevance of memory and pat-
rimony; a classic text on places of memory is Nora (1984).
158 c.nros v.cn.ro
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 159
Fig. 1 The forum Romanum (Plan), after Claridge (1998) 60.
is a process of great importance to societies marked by both social
and economic inequalities, and by religious and cultural dierences:
it is, after all, one of the elements that will help to maintain social
cohesion. Since dierent groups co-exist in the same society, dierent
memories are constantly interacting, sharing certain elements, and
mutually inuencing each other.
The forum Romanum might be considered a lieux de mmoire in the
sense discussed by P. Nora:
6
always functional, while deeply tradi-
tional, it was also imbued with historical signicance through the
erection of new historical markers, or monuments. Despite being
built for a variety of reasons, the monuments that constituted the
forum Romanum, be they buildings, statues, or inscriptions,
7
shared the
common function of making memory concrete. That this was itself
understood by the citys ancient viewers may be inferred from the
amazement of Constantius II, as he witnessed the marvellous sights
visible from the Rostra.
8
As G. Woolf observed, the practice of build-
ing monuments . . . draws societies together, entrenches social power,
expresses particular views of time, space and cosmology, and might
civilise and appropriate landscapes.
9
One is entitled therefore to ask how this area was used as a space
for the creation of dierent Roman memories. More specically, how
was Romes past represented through the monuments of the forum?
What were these dierent conceptions of the past that interacted in
this context? It must be made clear that the evidence presented by
both the archaeological and epigraphic record of this area gives us
a rather limited answer to these questions. Other media, such as
coinage or historical and panegyrical texts, will probably present
dierent elements. The monuments of the forum give us very limited
glimpses of the conceptions held by the majority of the population,
as they are more representative of the tastes and interests of those
who were actively involved in the planning and execution of work
in this area. Although the sharpness of a distinction between pop-
ular and elite memories is debatable, what follows is necessarily an
elitist approach, to the extent that only a very narrow section of
6
Nora (1984).
7
Purcell (1989) 162 reminds us that even the pavement of the forum was a mon-
ument in itself.
8
Or so we are told by Ammianus (16.10.13).
9
Woolf (1996) 30.
160 c.nros v.cn.ro
10
For the case of Rome, this question has been well explored for the reign of
Maxentius: see Cullhed (1994) and Coarelli (1986) 1022.
11
Chronographus anni 354 (MGH (AA) IX).
12
Morselli and Tortorici (1989) 13849; Amici (1991) 14354; Morselli (1995);
most recently Rizzo (2001).
Late Roman society left visible imprints on the monumental remains
of the forum.
Crrrnn.+ixo +nr Ivrrni.r P.s+ (284337)
The tetrarchic and Constantinian period might well be seen as one
of political innovation and experimentation. The very establishment
of the collegiate system of government, and its subsequent dissolu-
tion during the internal wars that lasted until the sole reign of
Constantine, created tensions in the relationship between the ruling
power and the past.
10
During this period the city of Rome went
through a considerable crisis of its political status: namely, the process
by which emperors began to build residences in other parts of the
empire, which culminated in the foundation of Constantinople at the
end of this period. The status of the former capital of the empire
should not be underestimated, however: although the tetrarchs sel-
dom lived in Rome, they expended eort and resources on the city,
paying visits to it and undertaking sumptuous building projects.
The forum Romanum and its adjacent areas experienced particularly
important transformations during this period. The Chronographus anni
354 tells us that in 283, during the reign of Carinus and Numerianus,
the Curia, the forum of Caesar, the basilica Iulia and the Graecostadium
were damaged by re; later, in 307, the Temple of Venus and Rome
also burned down, and the re probably also damaged the area
around it.
11
We are well informed about the huge extent of works
carried out in the forum of Caesar, and of how the whole appear-
ance of the complex was substantially altered under the tetrarchy.
Since this area will be of special importance for my argument, it is
worth summarising what is known about it (g. 2).
12
The basilica
Argentaria, the temple of Venus, and the tabernae along the clivus argen-
tarius, were all restored and reinforced. The south-eastern portico,
behind the Curia and facing the forum of Nerva, underwent impor-
tant transformations: the central colonnade was eliminated and the
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 161
pavement was re-laid with re-used coloured marble slabs. This struc-
ture was connected to the Curia through a door at its rear, and the
pavements of these two buildings are similar to each other (the Curia
itself was also rebuilt during this period).
13
An inscription found imme-
diately behind the Curia records the dedication of a gilded statue to
Aetius (probably between 43745) in atrio Libertatis, which suggests
that this part of the porticus should be identied with this named
structure.
14
As E. La Rocca observed, the erection of a new atrium
Libertatis and its topographical connection to the Senate may there-
fore be dated to a phase as early as the works carried out by
Diocletian and Maximian in this area.
15
The forum Romanum was also profoundly altered during this period.
16
This is clear not only from the text of the Chronographer, but also
from the large number of bricks dated to the tetrarchic period found
in many buildings of this area.
17
There is plenty of evidence to show
that buildings such as the Curia and the basilica Aemilia were com-
pletely rebuilt and that others were restored, of which the Curia is
13
See Rizzo (2001) 22829; La Rocca (2001) 180.
14
CIL VI, 41389, originally published in Bartoli (1946). On the identication of
the atrium Libertatis, see now Fraschetti (1999) 210; he is following the arguments of
Degrassi (1946) and Lugli (1964).
15
La Rocca (2001) 180.
16
Bauer (1996) is of fundamental importance for this discussion.
17
Evidence collected in Steinby (1986) 11630 and table A.
162 c.nros v.cn.ro
Fig. 2 Tetrarchic works in the forum of Caesar and Curia, after Amici (1991) 143.
18
Lanciani (1883); Bartoli (1963).
19
Bartoli (1963) 39.
20
Besides the discussion by Lanciani (1883), Degrassi (1946), and Lugli (1964),
see now Fraschetti (1999) 131236, who discusses the evidence for the location of
these buildings.
perhaps the best known example.
18
It seems that the Diocletianic
building closely followed the design of its Augustan predecessor. It
had a monumental porticus at its entrance, and although the exca-
vations at its western side were limited, it is probable that this
extended well beyond the faade.
19
In the same article of 1883 in which he identied the Curia as
the church of S. Adriano in Foro, R. Lanciani also published a series
of drawings by Baldassare Peruzzi, Sallustio Peruzzi, and Antonio
da Sangallo the Younger, which showed that this church was once
connected to the church of S. Martina by two other structures (g. 3).
This led to the suggestion that Diocletian had constructed a whole
complex of buildings related to the functions of the Senate, an argu-
ment which in fact supports the identication of the atrium Libertatis
in the forum of Caesar as his work.
20
The entire area in front of the
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 163
Fig. 3 Curia and forum of Caesar in drawing by Antonio da Sangallo the
Younger, from Fraschetti (1999) 137.
Curia was also re-paved and decorated with statues, and a fountain
with a marble basin was built (although the construction of this lat-
ter cannot be precisely dated).
21
The basilica Aemilia was also heavily restored. New walls were built
and new columns were erected over a new pavement of re-used mar-
ble slabs. The basilica Iulia, on the other hand, although mentioned
as being part of the tetrarchic works by the Chronographer, does
not provide us with archaeological evidence with which to assess the
extent of these works. The restoration of this building could, how-
ever, explain the high incidence of statue-bases of tetrarchic date
found in the area around it. It is also possible that the temple of
Concord was restored during this period, but this cannot be proved:
its dedicatory inscription, recorded by the anonymous author of the
Einsiedeln itinerary in a much later period, only mentions a recon-
struction by the Senate, declaring that the temple had collapsed
because of its age.
22
The most visible transformation, however, seems to have been car-
ried out on the forums central square.
23
The southern side of the
area, facing the basilica Iulia, was enclosed by 7 marble columns
erected on the top of bases built with tetrarchic bricks.
24
These had
a marble revetment, but this was robbed sometime in Late Antiquity
or during the Early Middle Ages. The Rostra at the western end of
the forum (the so-called Augustan Rostra) were perhaps extended at
this same time (the so-called Rostra Vandalica), but this is not certain.
25
The bases commemorating the imperial anniversary of 303 were set
up here, and they represent the most likely hypothesis for the con-
text of the tetrarchic works in this area.
26
Another monumental plat-
form was built at the eastern end of the square, in front of the
21
Boni (1900) 306; Plattner and Ashby (1929) 136.
22
CIL VI, 89: S(enatus) P(opulus) Q(ue) R(omanus) aedem Concordiae vetustate collapsam
in meliorem faciem opere et cultu splendidiore restituit. On the history of this building see
Ferroni (1993); Bauer (1996) 2627.
23
Conveniently summarised in Coarelli (1999) 2733; Bauer (1996). A thorough
analysis of the area is to be found in Giuliani and Verduchi (1987).
24
Giuliani and Verduchi (1987) 167.
25
Giuliani and Verduchi (1987) 216; Bauer (1996) 2425; Coarelli (1999) 29
30, who dates all the changes to the tetrarchic period, but presents no evidence in
support.
26
Discussion of the monument, its outlook, and location in LOrange (1938).
Also Bauer (1996) 2124.
164 c.nros v.cn.ro
27
The monument is dated by the presence of Diocletianic brick-stamps (CIL XV,
1650). See Giuliani and Verduchi (1987) 156; Verduchi (1999) 217.
28
Coarelli (1999) 30.
29
CIL VI, 40714.
30
CIL VI, 40717.
temple of Caesar, which, just like the ancient Rostra, was topped by
ve columns.
27
The result of these works was, as F. Coarelli observed, the cre-
ation of an enclosed space, intended for the celebration of a unied
and centralised power (g. 4).
28
The tetrarchic emperors were fol-
lowing traditional patterns when using the forum Romanum as a mon-
umental representation of their political concepts. The main dierence
now was that these concepts had changed so much that the entire
spatial layout of the square had to be changed. A similar picture
emerges from an analysis of the epigraphical record. Of the 27
inscriptions that can be dated to this period, all but two were ded-
icated to emperors (see table 1). The exceptions are a statue-base
erected by Diocletian and Maximian to the Genius Populi Romani,
29
and the dedication of a building by the emperors of the rst tetrarchy.
30
The emperors with the greatest number of statue-bases dedicated to
them are, unsurprisingly, Maximian (9 in total), Diocletian (5 in total,
but only one dedicated to him alone) and Constantine (9).
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 165
Fig. 4 The forum Romanum (drawing), from Coarelli (1999) 28.
Table 1: Distribution of all inscriptions: person honoured by period
283337 337410 410476 UNCERTAIN TOTAL
Emperor 25 16 5 7 53
Aristocrat 0 5 2 0 7
Military 0 3 1 0 4
Deity 1 0 0 0 1
Uncertain 1 14 8 14 37
Total 27 38 16 21 102
A greater problem is the identication of the original location of the
statue-bases. Archaeological reports, of course, record not the place
of a statue-bases actual dedication, but rather the location in which
it was found. Many of these were in fact found re-used in later struc-
tures, which means that they had been moved from somewhere else
subsequent to their original dedication. Furthermore, the information
given in a work such as CIL is most often extremely vague, being
in many cases taken from early accounts of discovery.
31
However, with
so many statue-bases at their disposal in the forum, it seems unlikely
that medieval builders would have needed to move blocks of marble
very far from their original locations in order to re-use them as
building material. This principle suggests that even if the precise
location of a statue-base is unknown, it is still possible to have an
idea of the general area in which it was originally dedicated.
Focusing, therefore, on these general areas in which inscriptions
were uncovered, rather than the exact buildings in which they were
erected (which would, in some cases, be impossible), may increase
our understanding of the priorities and conceptions that informed
the choices of those who were responsible for these monuments.
32
31
Such vagueness is not always the case, however. A good example of very pre-
cise identication of locations can be found, for example, in Boni (1900). Having
been himself responsible for the excavation of much of the area, Lanciani (1897)
is also a useful guide.
32
Therefore, in tables 1, 4, and 5, and in the subsequent discussion, although
terms such as Comitium or Curia will be used, they refer not only to a particular
structure, but also to the area around it. In the case of the Curia, for example, the
category will also include the porticus in front of it, the area between this build-
ing and S. Martina, and the hall in the porticus of the forum of Caesar immedi-
ately behind it.
166 c.nros v.cn.ro
33
I will refer to this area as Comitium, although the republican structure did not
exist anymore, not even in its diminished, Caesarian phase: see Coarelli (1993) 312.
34
On the temple of Peace, see Rizzo (2001) 24142; on the forum of Maxentius,
see Cullhed (1994) 4955.
Of all the areas in which inscriptions were erected, the Rostra, the
area between the Curia and the central square (Comitium),
33
and the
area around the basilica Iulia, have the highest concentration of tetrar-
chic inscriptions (Table 2). The Rostra and the Comitium were impor-
tant places for imperial ceremonies, such as the adlocutio, and were
therefore obvious choices for the celebration of imperial power. More
than this, these spaces were the traditional areas for such celebra-
tions, framed by the arch of Septimius Severus and the Curia, and
crossed by the Sacra via.
It must be observed that, although this was a period of great archi-
tectural innovation, most work related to the restoration or recon-
struction of damaged buildings, and followed their earlier designs.
In this sense, the interventions made in this area were more tradi-
tional than those that took place at the eastern end of the Sacra via:
at the forum of Maxentius, for example, and (as recent excavations
have revealed) in the Temple of Peace.
34
In this reconstructive work,
the past was preserved and embellished, yet at the same time it was
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 167
Table 2: Distribution of all inscriptions: area of discovery by period
283337 337410 410476 UNCERTAIN TOTAL
B. Aemilia 3 2 4 3 12
Curia 1 6 8 2 17
Comitium 5 6 0 1 12
Rostra 7 10 1 3 21
T. Concord 0 0 0 1 1
Port. Deorum 0 1 0 0 1
Consentium
T. Saturn 0 1 0 0 1
B. Iulia 5 7 0 6 18
Lacus Iuturnae 1 0 0 0 1
S. Maria Antiqua 0 1 0 0 1
Eastern Rostra 0 1 0 0 1
Uncertain 5 3 3 5 16
Total 27 38 16 21 102
adapted to t into a specic building programme. The architectural
changes could not obliterate the fact that the topography of the area
remained substantially the same. This traditionalism is also reinforced
in the text of inscriptions, celebrating the restoration of peace and
happiness, or of the Res Publica.
35
The restoration of physical struc-
tures was associated with a return to ancient times, or to a specic
conception of the past. Indeed, even the action of using specic
spaces to celebrate the restoration of ancient values, through the
dedication of statues and buildings to an emperor or famous pre-
decessors, was itself an extremely traditional undertaking: in this very
area of the forum, the Comitium had been used in such a way since
at least the 4th c. B.C.
36
It was in the area of the Comitium that G. Boni found a statue-
base dedicated to Mars and to the founders of the city, which is
also revealing of attitudes to the past during this period.
37
The base
probably supported a statue related to the foundation of the city, a
possibility reinforced by its location (close to the place traditionally
thought to be of the tomb of Romulus), and by the date of the ded-
ication (the anniversary of the citys foundation, 21 April). The con-
stant works in this area had certainly made the topography of the
Comitium very dierent, in the early 4th c., from what it had been
in earlier periods. It seems, however, that here we have a place that
carried so much memory that an emperor would wish to be closely
associated with it.
38
The tetrarchic embellishment of the forum was not so much a static
representation of the past, as an appropriation of the memory attrib-
uted to this area in order to enhance the presence and power of
the rulers. This picture began to change after the foundation of
Constantinople, when the nature of the relationship between emperors
and the city of Rome changed. This transformation gave way to the
expression of a dierent memory, allowing us to glimpse a more
complex and nuanced view of these issues.
35
Examples referring to Constantine: peace and happiness: CIL VI, 40764a; Res
Publica: 40768.
36
Coarelli (1985) 87.
37
Boni (1900) 303. Published as CIL VI, 33856: Marti invicto patri et aeternae Urbis
suae conditoribus. Dominus noster imp. Maxent[ius] p. f. invictus Aug.. On the right side:
Magistri quinq. coll. Fabrum dedicata die XI kal. maias per Furium Octavianum v. c. cur. aed.
sacr. Recent discussions of this statue-base can be found in Cullhed (1994) 61 and
Curran (2000) 6061.
38
On the successive phases of pavements, see Boni (1900). The chronology for
the earlier phases is conveniently summarised in Coarelli (1993).
168 c.nros v.cn.ro
39
Seeck (1919) remains fundamental for this period.
40
Gillett (2001).
41
CIL VI, 937: Senatus Populusque Romanus incendio consumptum restituit. The fun-
damental discussion of this building and of its restoration is Pensabene (1984).
42
Pensabene (1984) 67.
43
CIL VI, 102: [Deorum c]onsentium sacrosancta simulacra cum omni lo[ci totius adorna-
tio]ne cultu in f[ormam antiquam restituto] [V]ettius Praetextatus v. c. Pra[efectus U]rbi [reposuit]
curante Longeio [. . . v. c. consul[ari]. On the restoration of the Porticus, see Nieddu
(1985) and (1995). On Praetextatus, see PLRE I, Praetextatus 1.
Br+vrrx Evrrnons .xr Srx.+ons (337410)
During the second half of the 4th c. Rome became increasingly dis-
tant from imperial power. Towards the end of this period Constan-
tinople was consolidated as the seat of the emperor in the East,
whereas in the West the court was established in Milan and, in the
rst years of the 5th c., in Ravenna.
39
For a period subsequent to
the reign of Constantine those emperors who visited Rome did so
for short periods only, the main visits being those of Constantius II
in 357 and Theodosius in 389 and 394. Only with the accession of
Honorius did this trend begin to change.
40
One important consequence of the removal of imperial power was
that, subsequent to the reign of Constantine, the city witnessed no
further major building projects in its old civic centre. In spite of this,
there were still important restorations, and the forum Romanum was
the location for at least one very important example: indeed, the
inscription recording the restoration of the temple of Saturn is still
prominently visible. It oers no evidence for the date of the restora-
tion, stating only that the building was restored by the Senate after
being damaged by re.
41
However, according to P. Pensabene, the
size of its bricks and the nature of its marble decoration suggest a
date in the late 4th c. In his opinion, this restoration could have
been funded by the Senate, and must have taken place before the
reign of Theodosius, after which the restoration of a temple would
have been impossible.
42
It is dicult not to see a relationship between the restoration of
the temple of Saturn and the securely dated restoration of the stat-
ues of the Dei Consentes and the porticus in which they stood. This
restoration is dated by the inscription on its frieze to the urban pre-
fecture of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus in 36768, announcing that
the structure had been restored to its ancient form.
43
It is possible
that these two buildings were functionally related, perhaps even used
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 169
as the citys treasury.
44
Even so, the primary reason for this restora-
tion must have been religious, as the inscription itself, celebrating
the sacrosanct images of the gods, clearly illustrates. In the later
Saturnalia, Macrobius imagines leading Roman senators, all of them
pagans, discussing the religious meaning and origin of the temple of
Saturn, and even the statuary that adorned the building is men-
tioned: tritons with horses, and, in the cella, a statue of Saturn him-
self. The members of the Senate who were responsible for these
restorations would have been well aware of the religious implications
of their initiatives. More importantly, these restorations were all
accomplished during a period in which the imperial court was begin-
ning to change its attitude towards the pagan cult, and yet the build-
ing work was still advertised through the inscriptions.
It is also signicant that these two structures anked the clivus
Capitolinus, the street charged with religious symbolism that led from
the forum to the Capitol. During this period the emperors were no
longer ascending the Capitol upon entering Rome, an omission that
re-dened the ceremonial topography of the city.
45
In this context,
the restoration of these pagan buildings by members of the Roman
aristocracy acquires a particular signicance. It has recently been
suggested that instead of fearless champions of senatorial privileges,
traditional cults and classical culture, most members of the late
Roman elite were mere philistine landgrabbers.
46
Although the evi-
dence under examination here does not permit any evaluation of
the sincerity of senatorial religious aliation, it does suggest a more
nuanced view. Paganism was part of late Roman aristocratic tradi-
tion and political identity, and this should not be overlooked.
The basilica Iulia poses a dierent problem, however. A group of
statue-bases, with inscriptions that mention both restoration works
and a programme of decorative statues completed by the urban pre-
fect Gabinius Vettius Probianus, was found in the area around the
building.
47
The dating of this prefecture is as important as it is con-
170 c.nros v.cn.ro
44
There is a useful discussion about the temple in Macrob., Sat. 1.8.35.
45
As convincingly argued by Fraschetti (1999) 919, 26769.
46
Cameron (1999) 109.
47
CIL VI, 1156b; 1658c; 1658d; 37105 = 31886; Gabinius Vettius Probianus v. c.
Praef. Urbi statuam quae Basilicae Iuliae a se noviter reparatae ornamento esset adiecit. Other
bases put up by this same prefect were found in the Curia (CIL VI, 1658a; 1658b;
41337), andoutside the limits of this studyin front of the Temple of Antoninus
troversial. Two laws that appear in the Theodosian Code present
two possibilities; both laws are addressed to urban prefects called
Probianus, the former in 377 and the latter in 416.
48
F. Bauer has
recently argued that the later date is more likely, as such restora-
tion work of the buildings surrounding the forum would have been
necessary following the sack of 410.
49
This does indeed make some
sense, since there is also good evidence for such activity elsewhere
during the early 5th c., in particular for work on the Curia and for
the movement of statues to more frequented places. There is, how-
ever, a problem with this hypothesis. The prefecture of the Gabinius
Vettius Probianus who restored the basilica Iulia is probably better
dated to 377 because, as S. Mazzarino observed, it would make
more sense to identify the Probianus of 416 with Ruus Probianus,
who was vicarius urbis Romae either before 402 or 408416, as shown
in a diptych now in Tbingen.
50
These were not the only structures to receive attention during this
period. Spaces destined for the celebration of imperial power were
also the subject of building work, the most important of which was
apparently done on the eastern (or Diocletianic) Rostra. Bauer has
recently suggested that a fragment of architectural decoration, with
a dedicatory inscription to Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius
that is datable to 37983 and which has the setting for the statues
of three standing gures, could be part of a monument that stood
above the portal that gave access to the platform.
51
Traditional impe-
rial spaces that were related to imperial victories and visits were the
focus of great attention, just as they had been in the preceding
period: 10 inscriptions (out of 38 from this period: see table 2) were
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 171
and Faustina (CIL VI, 31883 and 31884). For a full list of these inscriptions, see
the appendix.
48
For 377: Cod.Theod. 11.2.3; for 416: Cod.Theod. 14.10.4. The problem of which
Probianus restored the basilica Iulia is mentioned both in Chastagnol (1962) 201 and
275 and in PLRE I, Probianus 4 and PLRE II, Probianus 1.
49
Bauer (1996) 2930.
50
Mazzarino (1942) 38384. See also CIL XIII, 10032
11
, for the diptych. On the
relationship between the vicarius urbis Romae and his role as assistant to the urban
prefect, see Chastagnol (1960) 4142.
51
It had an insciption (CIL VI, 31255) reading: Dominis omnium Gratiano Valentiniano
et Theodosio imperatorib. Aug[gg.] L. Val. Sept. Bass[us] v. c. Praef. Urb. maiestati eorum
dicavit. According to Bauer (1999) 224 the expression maiestati eorum dicavit would
suggest that the emperors were treated as being there. Bassus was urban prefect
between 379383 (PLRE I, Bassus 20).
found in the area around the western Rostra, including the eques-
trian statue dedicated to Constantius II. In the area around the
Comitium, 6 inscriptions securely dated to this period were found. As
would be expected, these areas were still regarded as important for
the celebration of the ruling power. A statue-base found in the area
in front of the arch of Severus, dedicated to the magister militum
Stilicho, and probably datable to 403, could also be seen from this
same perspective.
52
Closely associated with the court, the military
commander was thought worthy of such a high honour after defeat-
ing the Goths. His name was to be erased in the process of damna-
tio memoriae that followed his death after falling into political disgrace.
It is interesting to observe that of the inscriptions found in the
forum that can be dated to the period 337410, 16 (the largest cat-
egory) still honour emperors (table 1). These are fairly evenly distrib-
uted between the emperors who reigned during these years; however,
emperors who visited the city (Constantius II, Theodosius, Honorius,
and Valentinian II) received more dedications than those who did
not.
53
The dedicators are almost exclusively members of the Roman
aristocracy, who were responsible for 31 out of 38 inscriptions found
(table 3): 25 by urban prefects, 4 by the Senate, one by a consul
(PLRE I, Secundus 6) and one by a praetorian prefect (PLRE I,
Severus 28).
Table 3: Distribution of all inscriptions: dedicator by period
283337 337410 410476 UNCERTAIN TOTAL
Emperor 2 0 0 0 2
Consul 0 1 1 0 2
Praet. Pref. 1 1 0 1 3
Urban Prefect 3 25 11 3 42
Other Ocials 7 0 0 0 7
Senate 2 4 2 2 10
Collegium 1 0 0 0 1
Populus Romanus 0 1 0 1 2
Private 1 0 0 0 1
Uncertain 10 6 2 14 32
Total 27 38 16 21 102
52
CIL VI, 31987. See Bauer (1996) 2021.
53
Valentinian II could be an exception, but note that Seeck (1919) suggests a
brief visit in 388.
172 c.nros v.cn.ro
The forum Romanum was still very much an imperial space, but the
dierence from the tetrarchic period was that it was now managed
by the local elite. The senate and the urban prefecture were respon-
sible for the most important works, and the high frequency of ded-
ications erected by aristocrats shows that they played a greater role
in the shaping of the area. Imperial victories were still being cele-
brated as usual, and at the same time those structures related to the
citys religious and civic traditions were also being maintained and
embellished. As will be discussed below, this was also the period
when a great concern for statues caused the urban prefects to move
them to the forum, bringing ancient and prestigious works of art into
the eyes of the public. It seems to be the case that the Roman aris-
tocracy had its own conception of which past was to be preserved.
The aristocracy as a whole was displaying its own political and his-
torical agenda through the works carried out in the forum, to the
extent of restoring and embellishing pagan structures. When the aris-
tocracy gained a stronger hold over the care of the physical struc-
tures of the city due to the absence of the emperors, they began to
act in accordance with their own interests. Theirs was a very exible
agenda, one that was very conscious of the fact that the ruling power
was still politically relevant: it combined the care for tradition with
a commitment to ever-changing political realities. All the emperors
who reigned during this period, with the exception of Jovian, are
represented in the epigraphic record of the forum.
Tnr P.s+ .s Pori+ic.r Anotvrx+ (41076)
The political circumstances of the 5th c. were very dierent from
those of the period that ended with the sack of 410. As A. Gillett
has shown, Rome became the main imperial residence in the nal
decades of the western empire, due to the changing relationship
between emperors and senators, who were now playing a more
important political role.
54
Another important dierence is that dur-
ing this period the city was sacked twice by barbarian invaders,
events that provided a great shock for such a proud population.
55
54
Gillett (2001) 16365.
55
Lanciani (1899) provides a brief but illuminating description of the eects of
these events.
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 173
Rome nevertheless showed a remarkable resilience: although we may
never know what took place in every area of the ancient city, its
monumental centre was certainly cared for, even during a period
when many other cities of Italy were experiencing a rapid urban
decay.
56
In comparison to what is known about the forum Romanum during
earlier periods, evidence regarding its 5th c. appearance is scarce.
This is at least partially due to the nature of the archaeological clear-
ance that has taken place in the area since the 19th c., but it is
probably also indicative of the fact that there were fewer economic
resources, and that those resources that did remain were increas-
ingly being drawn away from the centre towards new areas of the
city, a characteristically late antique development of the old capitals
topography. Despite this, at least in some cases, destruction was fol-
lowed by restoration, and perhaps the most interesting example of
this is the basilica Aemilia. At an early date in the 5th c., very likely
410, its wooden roofs were set on re and subsequently collapsed.
This event can be dated precisely because of the coins excavated
from above the basilicas marble pavement: of the 100 coins or frag-
ments of coins that were cleaned and identied, the earliest date to
the 350s, and the latest to 409. R. Reece has observed that the
ndings in the forum area suggest that this period was marked by
the substantial loss or discarding of coins, a pattern that was itself
perhaps linked to the sack of 410.
57
The excavation of the basilica
Aemilia revealed a stratum of fragments of architecture, sculpture,
bricks, and other material above the rst layer of ashes, and above
this the collapsed brick-walls of the tetrarchic restoration.
58
The basilica was never used again after this event, and the small
number of architectural fragments found suggests that the columns
did not fall immediately after the re, and that the building was
despoiled of whatever decoration might have survived.
59
The portico
that stood between the basilica and the forum, however, was replaced
by one that was supported by red granite columns (four of which
56
Lanciani (1899) 87; Ward-Perkins (1984) analyses the case of Rome in the con-
text of north and central Italy.
57
Reece (2003) 158.
58
Plattner and Ashby (1929) 75.
59
Bartoli (1913) 760.
174 c.nros v.cn.ro
have been found) soon after these events.
60
The fragment of an archi-
trave discovered between the basilica Aemilia and the temple of Caesar,
with an inscription dated to the period 41820 and dedicated to
Honorius and Theodosius II, probably came originally from this
building.
61
At a later date the urban prefect (and later emperor)
Petronius Maximus erected a series of statues in this area that had
probably been moved from other places.
62
The western side of the
basilica was closed o with the erection of a brick wall with niches.
The nal result was, therefore, a monumental structure the collapsed
interior of which was kept hidden from sight by the portico on the
southern side, the wall with niches on the western side, and the walls
of the forum of Nerva and of the temple of Peace on the northern
side. The building had lost its original function, and was now more
useful as a reminder of the past glories of the forum than as a work-
ing space. Although partial, this restoration also helped to preserve
the overall topography of the area, a fact that reinforces the tradi-
tionalism of this intervention. The basilica Aemilia had been reduced
to an empty, but still meaningful, monument.
The Curia was also restored during this period, as the fragments
of architectural decoration (probably from the doors at the back of
the building) that were dedicated to Honorius and Theodosius II
show.
63
An inscription, found in the church of S. Martina, that was
dedicated by the urban prefect Flavius Annius Eucharius Epiphanius
(whose urban prefecture is dated to 41214), records the restoration
of the secretarium Senatus after its destruction by a fatal re (again,
probably in 410).
64
The inscription relates that the secretarium had
been built by the vir inlustris Flavianus, probably Nicomachus Flavianus
Iunior (urban prefect in 393 or 394, under the usurpation of Eugenius).
It was probably built in one of the tabernae of the forum of Caesar,
60
Hlsen (1909) 134; Bauer (1993) 186; Bauer (1996) 34.
61
CIL VI, 36962: Pro felicitate [d]d. nn. Honori [et Theodosi] Au[r.] Symmachus v. c.
Praef. Urbi.
62
The statue-bases are CIL VI, 37109, 37110, and the left side of 36956, read-
ing: Petronius Maximus v. c. consul iterum Praef. Urbi curavit .
63
CIL VI, 41386: [I]mperantibus dd. nn. Honorio et Theo[d]osio augg. [. . . Praef. Urbi
vice sacra iudicans reparavit (?)] and CIL VI, 41387.
64
CIL VI, 1718: Salvis dominis nostris Honorio et Theodosio victoriosissimis principibus
Secretarium amplissimi Senatus quod vir inlustris Flavianus instituerat et fatalis ignis absumpsit
Flavius Annius Eucharius Epifanius v. c. Praef. Urb. vice sacra iud. reparavit et ad pristinam
faciem reduxit. On Epiphanius, see PLRE II, Epiphanius 7.
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 175
now beneath the church.
65
It is interesting that the work of Flavianus
is specically recorded, despite the fact he probably undertook the
work during the reign of a usurper who was later defeated by the
father of the then-ruling Honorius.
The area behind the Curia was also the object of attention during
the 5th c.: the statue erected in honour of the military commander
Flavius Aetius in the atrium Libertatis, mentioned above, was found in
this area. Also discovered nearby was a fragment of a portal erected
by a certain Flavius Ianu [. . .]. The inscription mentions a ceiling
gleaming with gold, and says that the work was done pro genio Senatus
amplissimi.
66
As A. Fraschetti observed, it is not possible to identify
this urban prefect with the Flavius Ianuarinus who was consul in
328,
67
for the inscription is clearly later than this.
68
The most likely
date is again the early 5th c., and once again the inscription men-
tions works carried out at an earlier period, possibly by none other
than Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, a man who was not only an
extremely inuential and well-connected senator, but also an indi-
vidual closely connected to traditional cults.
69
Apparently, it would
seem that for the urban prefects of the 5th c., it was important to
show not only how their work was restoring older structures to their
former condition, but at the same time to stress that they were fol-
lowing in the footsteps of their most prestigious predecessors.
Traditionalism was also involved in the erection of a statue-base
for the goddess Minerva, found in the area of the forum.
70
The man
responsible, Anicius Acilius Aginatius Faustus,
71
was urban prefect
between 47572, and the reference made in this inscription to dam-
age caused by a civil conict probably refers to the clashes between
Ricimer and Procopius Anthemius in 472. The building that origi-
nally housed the statue would most likely have burnt down, with its
65
Fraschetti (1999) 23435.
66
CIL VI, 41378: [. . . ? came(?)]ram auro fulgentem quam Ve[ttius Agorius Praetextatus
(?) vir inlustri]s (?) cons[truxerat] Fl(avius) Ianu[arius (?) v. c.] Pr[aef. Urbi . . . (?) provi]den-
tia pro genio senatus amplissimi resta[ura]vit.
67
PLRE I, Ianuarius 2.
68
Fraschetti (1999) 210.
69
PLRE I, Praetextatus 1. He was responsible for the restoration of the statues
and porticus of the Dei Consentes, as seen above.
70
CIL VI, 526: Simulacrum Minerbae abolendo incendio tumultus civilis igni tecto cadente
confractum Anicius Acilius Aginatius Faustus v. c.et inl. Praef. Urbi vic. sac. iud. in melius inte-
gro proviso pro beatitudine temporis restituit .
71
PLRE II, Faustus 4.
176 c.nros v.cn.ro
collapsing roof damaging the image of the goddess. Fraschetti observed
that this statue was erected in the area immediately adjacent to the
Curia, and suggested that the famous atrium Minervae should be located
in the portico in front of the Senate house.
72
The role played by the concept of time in these works, as expressed
in the epigraphic record of the late antique forum, is a very complex
one. Inscriptions celebrated the restoration of buildings as equiva-
lent to the restoration of ancient virtues and values, as if physical
structures represented these moral and political concepts. The forum
Romanum was particularly charged with meanings, in the midst of a
process that involved both the changing political realities of the city
and the material transformations of its civic centre. The inscriptions
under discussion here present the passing of time in a two-fold way:
as a succession of events,
73
but also as a process that could be sus-
pended, allowing glories of previous days to come to life again.
It seems that it was the area around the Curia that was specically
a place in which aristocrats of the 5th c. celebrated their own past.
The inscriptions mentioning Flavianus
74
and Praetextatus
75
both com-
memorated men who had not only been powerful (Flavianus, who
was still alive, remained a very inuential aristocrat) in the recent
past, but had also been actively involved in promoting pagan cults
(Flavianus during a usurpation). This was also the period in which
the Saturnalia was written, and when the famous statue-base reha-
bilitating the memory of Nicomachus Flavianus the elder was set up
in the forum of Trajan.
76
This does not necessarily mean that there
was a pagan reaction in the 5th c., but it does suggest that for the
Roman aristocracy of this period the past was so important that
even its pagan elements could and should be remembered.
That this memorialisation was an intentionally selective process is
suggested by a fragment of marble decoration re-used in the restora-
tion of the Curia after 410.
77
According to Bauer, this fragment must
have originated from another monument probably located nearby,
72
Fraschetti (1999) 16869.
73
As is the case in CIL VI, 526 cited above, mentioning the destruction and
later restoration of the statue of Minerva.
74
CIL VI, 1718.
75
CIL VI, 41378.
76
CIL VI, 1783. The inscription and its historical context are discussed in
Hedrick Jr. (2000).
77
CIL VI, 41386, mentioned above.
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 177
and he has suggested that this was the monument erected by Lucius
Valerius Septimius Bassus to Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius
on the eastern Rostra.
78
Another fragment inscribed with the name
of the same prefect was found in the area between the temple of
Castor and the shrine of Vesta, and the comparable size, material,
and lettering, of these two fragments suggests that they may have
come from the same monument.
79
If Bauer is correct in his suppo-
sition, then the question must be asked: why would an imperial mon-
ument built only a few decades earlier be despoiled in the beginning
of the 5th c.?
It is possible that the monument to the emperors was damaged,
probably very badly, during the sack of 410 or in 408. If these were
statues made of bronze, as Bauer suggests, then they might have
been looted during the three days of plundering (or have been used
to pay the citys ransom in 408), and this would have left no rea-
son for the restoration of their marble base.
80
If this interpretation
is correct, a recent imperial monument was despoiled during a period
in which the emperors were spending more time in Rome. If so,
they had to live with monuments built for the glory of their prede-
cessors left in a ruinous state, and even despoiled for the restoration
of the Senate house.
The locations of inscriptions discovered that date to this period is
also revealing (table 2). In contrast with the preceding periods, only
one inscription that can be certainly dated to these years is reported
to have been found in the areas around the Rostra. Instead, the Curia
and the basilica Aemiliaprecisely the areas that were the foci of repair
work after 410have the greatest number of dedications.
Emperors were still being honoured in these 5th c. inscriptions.
The restorations mentioned above were dedicated to them, and they
naturally remained important actors in the political arena. But what
is clear is that Roman aristocrats had their own agenda regarding
the denition of which memories they wanted to retain and express
through their interventions in the forum Romanum. There is a strong
probability that this area never regained its full splendour after the
78
Bauer (1999) 230.
79
Bauer (1999) 22829. The inscription between the temple of Castor and the
shrine of Vesta is CIL VI, 37132.
80
Discussion of the statues, their material, and their character: Bauer (1999)
22125. On the plundering of bronze statues: Lanciani (1899) 57.
178 c.nros v.cn.ro
sack of Alaric in 410, and further conict in 455 and 472 will have
inicted more damage on the monuments of the area. Partially (or
poorly) restored monuments were co-existent with ruined ones, but
this did not prevent Romans from retaining an interest in their own
past.
Mo\ixo S+.+trs ix +nr L.+r Ax+itr FORUM
The ancient city was peopled with statues. It seems that the habit
of erecting statues to gods, emperors, and important people in gen-
eral was a distinctive characteristic of the ancient world. As C. Mango
has observed, the abandonment of this practiceor statue-habit, as
it was recently calledwas one of the characteristics of the transition
to the Middle Ages in Byzantium.
81
Statues were used to adorn streets
and monumental complexes alike, and it has been observed in a
variety of contexts that the choice of statues followed certain prin-
ciples established by those who built or restored these structures.
These principles could range from ideological choices (as in the forum
of Augustus) to religious associations (as in the statuary around the
temple of Venus and Rome that is mentioned by Prudentius).
82
In all cases, it is extremely dicult to reconstruct the appearance
of a monumental complex with its statuary. A very good illustration
of this diculty can be seen in Coarellis attempt to fully reconstruct
the Pompeian complex in the Campus Martius, including the statues
on display. As he admitted from the outset of his attempt, there is
no clear evidence to support such an enterprise, and he was forced
to rely on later sources, especially a Christian writer of the 2nd c.
A.D.
83
. He further noted that two of these statues were also men-
tioned by Pliny the Elder, and that one inscription kept in the anti-
quario of the Largo Argentina also supports the veracity of Tatianus
list.
84
In total this reconstructive eort contained a series of rather
81
Mango (1993) 35. Statue-habit was the title of a seminar series of the Classical
Archaeology Seminar at Oxford, held in 2002.
82
For the temple of Venus and Rome, see Prud., C. Symm. 1.22639 (mention-
ing heroes and divinities related to the foundation and early days of Rome), dis-
cussed by Gnilka (1994). On the forum of Augustus, Zanker (1988) 21112.
83
Tatianus, Ad Gr. 33
84
Coarelli (1996) 36365. Plinys list: H.N. 7.34.
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 179
dangerous assumptions, and this excursus is useful to illustrate how
eorts to reconstruct statuary assemblages in their entirety are extremely
problematic, even for much earlier well-known monuments in the
heart of Rome. This is a situation in sharp contrast, however, to
ongoing work in Aphrodisias. The amount of statues found in situ
here, in many cases in close proximity to their inscribed bases, has
allowed R. R. R. Smith to explore their wider context and iconog-
raphy, showing that statue assemblages can be extremely revealing
of this periods political culture.
85
Yet it is not essential to have the ideal conditions oered by
Aphrodisias in order to analyse statue collections in Late Antiquity:
by looking at both textual and archaeological evidence, S. G. Basset
was able to ask similar questions about the statuary and antiquities
on display at the Baths of Zeuxippos and the Hippodrome at
Constantinople.
86
It is well known that Constantine moved statues
from dierent parts of the empire to his newly founded capital, and
both his biographer and the reconstructed evidence from the mon-
umental complexes mentioned above, suggest a very traditional selec-
tion of subjects: divinities, historical characters (both Greek and
Roman), poets, athletes, and the imperial family.
87
This seems to
have been the general pattern, observable in dierent contexts, and
for the city of Rome it has been identied, among other cases, at
the Baths of Caracalla.
88
Full of historical and topographical associations, the forum Romanum
was an ideal space for dedicating statues either of gods or of people
one wished to honour. Of the 102 inscriptions I have been able to
identify as belonging to the period under consideration here, 69 are
statue-bases.
89
These inscriptions (table 4) reveal a great concentra-
85
Smith (1999).
86
Basset (1991) and (1996).
87
Eusebius describes the removal of ornaments from temples and their display
at various public places in Constantinople: V. Const. 3.54.23.
88
See the analysis of Marvin (1983), who, although more interested in the spa-
tial distribution of statues, shows that these same subjects were on display there.
89
I have limited my research to volume VI of CIL, following the topographical
indications of the editors. The dating of these inscriptions has been derived either
from these volumes or from the relevant volumes of PLRE, whenever possible. The
catalogue published by Bauer (1996) 401408, was also extremely useful. I have
tried to be as cautious about the location and date as possible, and therefore many
statues whose dating is assumed by others as certain or likely, I have designated
as uncertain.
180 c.nros v.cn.ro
tion of imperial statues (34 of 69), following a pattern that has been
observed in cities such as those of northern Italy and North Africa.
90
Aristocrats and military leadersStilicho (3 statues) and Aetius (1)
were also honoured in the forum, but it must be observed that the
identity of many of the dedicatees is unknown either because the
inscriptions are damaged or because they were not dedicated to any-
one in particular (and therefore are entered under the category uncer-
tain in table 4).
Since I have already discussed some aspects of the dedication of
statues in general, I will concentrate here on a specic group of ded-
ications, relating to the movement of statues (16 in all).
91
This is of
great importance for my argument, since the act of moving a statue
from one location to another seems to have involved a series of
assumptions related to a specic attitude to the past. Much of the
earlier scholarship related to this issue has been concerned with the
religious implications of moving statues, and the basic assumption
made is that such actions would have involved the de-sacralisation
of pagan images.
92
In 1874, G. De Rossi called attention to three
90
North Africa: Lepelley (1981). In the case of northern Italian cities, the evi-
dence collected in Ward-Perkins (1984), appendix 1, shows that although the largest
number of statues was erected for provincial governors and patrons of cities (48
statues), emperors were the main category in the tetrarchic period (21 statues between
283337), although the number of dedications dropped dramatically after this date
(3 between 337410).
91
See appendix.
92
De Rossi (1874); Lanciani (1899); Chastagnol (1962) 202, who went as far as
considering Gabinius Vettius Probianus a Christian because he moved statues;
recently, Lepelley (1994) 12, although he does not think this was the case for the
statues of Probianus. Against the moving of statues as sign of abandonment of pagan
practices: Curran (1994). For Christian attitudes towards classical statuary, see in
general Mango (1963).
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 181
Table 4: Distribution of statue-bases: person honoured by period
283337 337410 410476 UNCERTAIN TOTAL
Emperor 20 13 0 1 34
Aristocrat 0 5 2 0 7
Military 0 3 1 0 4
Deity 1 0 0 0 1
Uncertain 0 10 5 8 23
Total 21 31 8 9 69
statue-bases discovered in the area around the basilica Iulia, and that
he dated to the late 3rd or 4th c. (see appendix).
93
The highly laconic
inscriptions inform us that these statues were works of famous ancient
Greek sculptors, but that this was not their original location. He
argued that the statues were probably moved from the temple of
Felicitas, since Pliny the Elder mentioned that statues by Praxiteles
adorned this temple.
94
This implied, according to G. B. De Rossi,
that in Late Antiquity statues were being moved from sacred build-
ings to secular spaces. This view is supported by inscriptions from
other parts of the empire, such as the famous one from Verona
related to a statue moved from the Capitol to the forum.
95
On the other hand, moving statues was neither a specically
Christian nor a specically late antique practice, as B. Ward-Perkins
has observed, citing a letter of Pliny the Younger to Trajan.
96
More
importantly, the inscriptions on the statue-bases found in the forum
Romanum do not mention the places from which they had been moved.
We cannot even be sure whether they were moved to, or merely
within, the area of the forum. Although temples are obviously good
candidates for the supply of statues, they were not the only possible
source. The city of Rome in Late Antiquity had a huge number of
statues available, more than was strictly necessary for the embell-
ishment of the city. They could have come from many dierent
places, including the abandoned workshops of sculptors, buildings
demolished for the construction of the Aurelianic wall, or decaying
non-religious structures that were beyond repair.
97
93
De Rossi (1874) 181. The inscriptions are CIL VI, 10040, 10041, and 10042.
94
De Rossi (1874) 175. Pliny, H.N. 34.8.19. On the temple of Felicitas, see
Plattner and Ashby (1929) 207. This identication is not entirely convincing, laying
too much emphasis on one single passage of an author who, although generous in
references to statues, probably could not have included all of those in Rome in his
work.
95
CIL V, 3332: Hortante beatitudine temporum ddd. nnn. Gratiani Valentiniani et Theodosi(i)
Augg. statuam in Capitolio diu iacentem in cereberrimo [sic] fori loco constitui iussit Val. Palladius
v. c. cons. Venet. et Hist., datable to 37983.
96
Ward-Perkins (1984) 44: Plin., Ep. 10.8.1.
97
Coates-Stephens (2001) 232. He suggests that many of the statues found used
as building material in walls datable to this period could have come from the mate-
rial left by works on the wall. Inscriptions dating to the time of Honorius and
Arcadius (CIL VI, 188890) suggest that even at that late date, the ruins created
by the Aurelianic work had only recently been cleared. For the abandonment of
sculptors workshops, see Lanciani (1899) 4142, who mentions one between the
gardens of Maecenas and the baths of Titus.
182 c.nros v.cn.ro
It could be argued that there were dierent categories of statues
on display in the city, and that only the most prestigious ones would
have been moved to the forum. Yet at the same time it must be
remembered that there were also dierent categories of monuments,
and it was not only temples that were adorned with beautiful stat-
uary. What must be stressed is that some of the inscriptions in ques-
tion emphasise the importance of the place to which the statues were
moved, whilst simultaneously maintaining silence about their original
location. The statue-bases moved by Gabinius Vettius Probianus in
377 state that they were being moved to an illustrious place.
98
Another
inscription, the location and date of which cannot be determined,
states that it was moved to a lo[co celeberrimo], a much frequented
place, having been removed from a ruined structure.
99
Although the
number of examples involved are only very few, they are indicative
of a pattern similar to what was has been observed in other parts
of Italy and the empire.
100
Statues were being moved from hidden
places to the celebration of the baths, to the adornment of the pub-
lic place, and, as one inscription from Ostia puts it, from sordid
places to the adornment of the forum.
101
This is important if we consider the areas in which these statue-
bases were found: apart from two whose location is uncertain, 7
come from the basilica Iulia, 4 from the area of the basilica Aemilia
98
CIL VI, 1658a, 1658b, and 41377.
99
CIL VI, 41416.
100
I follow the discussion by Brandenburg (1989).
101
Respectively, ex abditis locis ad celebritatem thermarum (CIL X, 3714), [ad o]rnatum
publico lo[co] (CIL IX, 1563), and ex sordentibus locis ad ornatum fori (CIL XIV, 4721).
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 183
Table 5: Distribution of statue-bases: area of discovery by period
283337 337410 410476 UNCERTAIN TOTAL
B. Aemilia 2 2 3 0 7
Curia 1 5 2 1 9
Comitium 5 5 0 0 10
Rostra 4 10 0 1 15
B. Iulia 4 6 0 4 14
Lacus Iuturnae 1 0 0 0 1
Uncertain 4 3 3 3 13
Total 21 31 8 9 69
(three of which certainly related to the 5th c. restoration), and three
from the Curia (see the appendix). The location of this last group
in the Curia is suspicious,
102
since the inscriptions refer to them as
ornaments for a basilica. This may in fact refer to the basilica Iulia,
where four of the statues were placed by the same urban prefect,
Probianus. However, they could also refer to the basilica Aemilia, closer
to the actual location of their discovery. It should also be noted that
these statues were not being moved to unadorned spaces, but, as
table 5 shows, to areas where the larger concentrations of statue-
bases were found, suggesting areas of pre-existent statue decoration.
Although little is known about the state of the basilica Iulia after
410, once it is acknowledged that the Greek statues discussed by De
Rossi were moved there during the 4th c., then all the statue-bases
found in this area would date from the same period.
103
The con-
tinuous restoration of this area, and the dedication of a variety of
dierent types of statue, both suggest that this would have been a
space that could well t the denition of a loco celeberrimo. The same
might be said of the areas around the Curia and the basilica Aemilia;
even apart from the intrinsic importance of the structures themselves,
their location, anking the crossing of the Sacra via and the Argiletum,
made them very public spaces.
104
Apart from four examples whose dedicators are unknown, all the
bases were erected by urban prefects: Fabius Titianus (two), Gabinius
Vettius Probianus (7), and Petronius Maximus (three).
105
The existence
of the oce of curator statuarum at least since the mid-4th c., subor-
dinated to the urban prefect, meant that the management of stat-
ues in public spaces had been centralised under this ocial.
106
The
urban prefect knew, therefore, the nature and location of available
statues, and would ultimately decide where to re-dedicate them. It
was he who would have been seen as responsible for moving and
dedicating statues in the forum, and it would be reasonable to expect
102
CIL VI 1658a, 1658b, 41337.
103
De Rossi (1874) 180 suggests that they were part of the same group of statues
moved by Gabinius Vettius Probianus, who would in this case be responsible for
all the 7 statues under discussion here. This is, as discussed above, impossible to
prove.
104
Even if the inscriptions found in the area of the Curia were originally located
inside the building, which cannot be proven, they would still be seen by a very spe-
cial public.
105
Note that, as mentioned above, Probianus also moved statues to the area
around the temple of Antoninus and Faustina.
106
Chastagnol (1960) 52.
184 c.nros v.cn.ro
that his priorities were an important element in the decisions con-
cerning which statues should be moved, and to where.
An excellent example is one of the statue-bases used by Petronius
Maximus.
107
The base bears an inscription referring to his dedica-
tion, but another inscription, visible on the bases side, reveals it had
already supported a statue erected by the Praetorian Prefect Placidus
Severus
108
to the emperor Valens in the years 36478. Unfortunately,
it is not possible to know whether Maximus replaced the imperial
statue or merely re-used an already abandoned statue-base. The fact
that a statue-base with an inscribed dedication to a 4th c. emperor
should have been chosen is, however, suggestive. Maximus had a
spectacular political career in the rst half of the 5th c., and is known
through inscriptions to have founded a forum to the North of the
modern-day via Labicana,
109
although we do not know whether this
movement of statues to the area of the basilica Aemilia and the foun-
dation of his forum were simultaneous. But the fact that he was to
kill Valentinian III in 455 and usurp imperial power suggests that
he did have wider political ambitions, and that the actions of aris-
tocrats should be seen to have political meanings.
The extent to which ancient Romans were used to seeing statues
of great artistic quality in public contexts must always be consid-
ered. Since the days of military expansion during the Republic, stat-
ues were brought to Rome because they were beautiful, valued, and
also because they symbolised the victories of the Romans. They were
a necessary apparatus of an imperial capital, and the actions of
Constantine in his new capital show that they were still seen as such
in the 4th c. We might suppose that the Romans were interested in
their statues, and this is why it was so important to inscribe a statue-
base with the name of its prestigious and ancient Greek sculptor. By
moving statues in the forum Romanum the urban prefects were able
to make play with the fact that this was an area associated not only
with the emperors, but also with the citys much larger civic life and
pride. Ancient statues brought added memories to a place already
so rich with historical meaning.
107
CIL VI, 36956.
108
PLRE I, Severus 28.
109
CIL VI, 1197 and especially 1198: Domino rerum humanarum Valentiniano Augusto
Petronius Maximus v. c. fori condito[r] post qua[tt]uor praefecturas et duos ordinarios consula-
tus auctori sibi tot honorum loca[vit].. Location of the forum: Lanciani (1989) 30. Discussion
of the area might be found in Bauer (1997) 3841 and Palmer (1990) 4647.
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 185
Coxcrtsiox
It is possible to discern, from what we have seen, two distinct mem-
ories at play in the forum Romanum: one imperial, and the other
more civic, in the sense that it was related to the specic history
and traditions of Rome and its elite. I have preferred to present the
evidence in chronological order because this makes it easier to see
how these two conceptions were inter-related, but as a conclusion it
remains to try to discuss these memories as two distinct and indi-
vidual conceptions of the past.
In the rst category, which I have called the imperial memory,
the focus is the celebration of the emperors power and his glories.
This memory is embodied through monuments that look towards
the future: they are the visible signs of glories so memorable that
they have already become part of the historical record of Rome.
Just as the arch of Severus tells a story, the equestrian monument
dedicated by Neratius Cerealis to Constantius II in 353 celebrated
the recent extinction of the pestiferae tyrannidis, so that every visitor
to the forum would know who liberated the Roman world from such
an awful character as Magnentius.
110
More than that, the forum as a
whole was constructed from individual places which were themselves
full of memory, such as the Rostra and the Comitium. The fact that
during the tetrarchy this area was architecturally re-shaped in order
to celebrate more openly monarchic power illustrates that these his-
torical places could be physically manipulated by the imperial court.
Although most visible during the tetrarchic period, this imperial
memory was still very visible in the forum during the period 337410.
A great number of monuments were still being erected in areas asso-
ciated with the emperors and their presence in Rome, and emper-
ors were still the persons to whom the greatest number of dedicatory
inscriptions were being set up. However, there is a strong contrast
between this second period, and the third and nal period up to
476. After 410 emperors may well have been a more personal pres-
ence in the city of Rome, but they were becoming increasingly mar-
110
CIL VI, 1158: Restitutori urbis Romae adque orb[is] et extinctori pestiferae tyrannidis
d. n. Fl. Iul. Constantio victori ac triumfatori semper Augusto Neratius cere[a]lis v. c. Praefectus
Urbi vice sacra iudicans d. n. m. que eius. The fact that there were Roman senators who
supported Magnentius suggests that there were other memories being suppressed at
the same time as the ocial imperial memory was being monumentalised.
186 c.nros v.cn.ro
ginalised in the physical record of the forum. Dedications were still
being made to them, but as has been argued above, they were set
up around building projects which followed priorities established by
other agents. As seen above, the highest levels of the aristocracy,
especially the urban prefects, increasingly controlled the dedications
made in the forum. This group became responsible for monumen-
talising the imperial memory, and therefore played an active role in
the way imperial power was presented and its place in history within
this area.
The priorities of this group are what constitute the second, civic
memory under discussion. In this case, traditional structures associ-
ated with the citys past and its civic life received the greatest atten-
tion: temples, basilicae, and the gathering place of the local council
which happened, in this case, to be the Senate. These priorities were
also at play in the movement of statues discussed above, and cul-
minated in the 5th c. with a concentration of statues in senatorial
spaces, perhaps even to the detriment of imperial monuments. Texts
such as the Regionary catalogues and the codex calendar of 354
should be seen as part of this celebration of Rome and its urban/civic
structures.
111
The emphasis put on senatorial spaces, especially dur-
ing the 5th c., suggests that by that time the local aristocracy had
appropriated this memory, presenting itself as responsible for its
preservation.
A. H. M. Jones famously remarked that by Diocletians day Rome
was already an anachronism.
112
I would suggest otherwise. The forum
Romanum was still an important symbol of power, and even when
physically distant from the city, emperors attempted to appropriate
it as their own place of memory, reinforcing the symbolic status of
this area and of the Urbs. Senators, on the other hand, were increas-
ingly able to impose their own views of the past on the monumental
outlook of the forum. They had their own priorities, which concen-
trated upon civic and traditional structures, and by associating the
citys past with their own political spaces, they were able to use the
past as a political argument. Keepers of the Roman memory, sen-
ators could thus legitimise their more general political claims. Rome
was still a symbol of empire, and they remained aware of this.
111
On the Regionary catalogues as a panegyric of the city, see Arce (1999) 22.
For the codex calendar and its context, Salzman (1990).
112
Jones (1964) 687.
voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 187
Appendix: Statues moved to/in the forum
Observation: the criterion for identifying statues that were moved in
Late Antiquity is, to a certain extent, subjective. Of the statues listed
below only a few are explicitly stated to have been moved from
another location. For the date of the urban prefecture of Gabinius
Vettius Probianus, see above. All the references are from CIL VI.
Uncertain location
31880: Fabius Titianus [v.c.] consul Praef. Urbi curavit (339341
or 350351)
41416: . . . esin[. . . statuam (?) ex] squalen[tibus ruinis . . . (?) trans]
latam lo[co celeberrimo . . . (uncertain date)
basilica Iulia
10040: Opus Polyclit[i] (uncertain date)
10041: Opus Praxitelis (uncertain date)
10042: [O]pus Tim[a]rchi (uncertain date)
1156b: Gabinius Vettius Probianus v. c. Praef. Urbi statuam quae
basilicae Iuliae a se noviter reparatae ornamento esset adiecit
(? 377; on a re-used marble block)
1658c: Gabinius Vettius Probianus v. c. Praef. Urbi statuam quae
basilica Iuliae a se noviter reparatae ornamento esset adiecit (? 377)
1658d: [Gabinius Vettius Probianus v. c. Pr]a[ef. Urbi statuam quae
b]asilica[e Iuliae a se novit]er reparatae [ornamento es]et adiecit
(? 377)
37105: Gabinius Vettiu[s] Probianus v. c. Praef. Urb. statuam quae
basilicae Iuliae a se noviter reparatae ornamento esset adiecit (? 377)
Curia
1658a: Gabinius Vettius Probianus v. c. statuam conlocari prae-
cepit quae ornamento basilicae esse posset inlustri (? 377)
1658b: Gavinius [sic] Vettius Probianus v. c. Praef. Urb. statuam
conlocari praecepit quae ornamento esse poossit [sic] basilicae
inlustr. (? 377)
41337: [Ga]vinius [sic] Vett[ius Pro]bianus v. c. Pra[ef. Urbi st]atuam
conl[ocari pra]ecipit quae [orna]mento basil[icae ess]e possit
inlus[tri] (? 377)
188 c.nros v.cn.ro
basilica Aemilia
37107: Fabius Titianus v. c. consul Praef. Urbi curavit (339341
or 350351)
37109: Petronius Maximus v. c. iterum Praef. Urb. curavit (420421
or 421/439)
37110: Petronius Maximus v. c. iterum Praef. Urb. curavit (420421
or 421/439; on a re-used marble block)
36956: Petronius Maximus v. c. iterum Praef. Urb. curavit (420421
or 421/439; on a re-used marble block)
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
I wish to thank Bryan Ward-Perkins, Elizabeth OKeee, Luke Lavan,
Robert Coates-Stephens, and Greg Woolf, for reading the text and
for all their suggestions. The nal product was greatly improved by
the work and attention of the referees. All the errors, of course,
remain my own. I also want to thank the National Council for
Scientic Research (CNPq), Brazilian Ministry of Science, for fund-
ing the research on which this work is based.
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voxtvrx+s .xr vrvonv ix +nr FORUM ROMANUM 191
Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1. The forum Romanum (Plan), after Claridge (1998) 60.
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192 c.nros v.cn.ro
THE CITY: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE
FORA AND AGORAI IN MEDITERRANEAN CITIES
DURING THE 4TH AND 5TH C. A.D.
Luke Lavan
Abstract
This article reviews the nature of fora and agorai during the late 3rd5th
c. A.D., and investigates the material appearance and everyday func-
tions of these spaces. It revises the thesis of T. Potters Towns in Late
Antiquity, through drawing upon a wider range of archaeological evi-
dence and literary sources, which provide vivid details about everyday
activities. It is argued that in many cities, especially in the East, fora/ago-
rai were still monumental public squares with familiar public functions,
and that the denitive eclipse of civic plazas, departing from earlier
models of Mediterranean urbanism, comes later than has often been
thought, in the 6th and 7th c.
Ix+nortc+iox
1
For a thousand years prior to the accession of Diocletian, the ancient
civic squarethe forum or agorahad been the heart of urban life,
serving as the principal focus for political, social, and substantial reli-
gious activity. In new cities, up to and including the colonies of the
early empire, the forum/agora was often built at the central point of
the street grid and developed into the most elaborate area of a town.
By the 6th c. the forum/agora no longer enjoyed this position, with
pride of place in urban architecture having been taken by churches.
This process, and especially the decline of the civic square, has
excited much archaeological interest, most notably through the model
excavations of B. Ward-Perkins at Luni, in Italy, and T. Potter at
1
I dedicate this text to Jean-Pierre Sodini, on his retirement. It is thanks to him,
more than to any other scholar, that a recognisable sub-discipline of late antique
archaeology has emerged. This text is an abbreviated version of a longer study.
Dating evidence relating to porticoes, arches, paving, shops, basilicas, churches, stat-
ues and temples on fora/agorai will be published in full on a future occasion.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (eds.) Social and Political Life in Late
Antiquity. (Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden, 2006), pp. 195249.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 195249
Iol Caesarea, in Algeria. The latter project encouraged Potter to pro-
duce a short but inspiring book, Towns in Late Antiquity, which included
a stimulating synthesis on the state of fora/agorai during this period.
The study was largely based on archaeological and epigraphic evi-
dence from two regions: Africa and Italy. It was primarily designed
to provide a context for the interpretation of Iol Caesarea, although
in the absence of other research, it has become the standard work
on fora/agorai in Late Antiquity, something which its late author prob-
ably never intended.
2
Potters study was fairly negative about the history of fora/agorai
in Late Antiquity, paying much attention to evidence for abandon-
ment and decay; he envisaged fora going out of use in the 4th c., if
not earlier. However, only part of the abandonment evidence pre-
sented by Potter is well-dated, and in his book this sits alongside
plentiful evidence for repair. Indeed, his own careful excavations of
the forum of Iol Caesarea revealed an early 5th c. restoration, fol-
lowed by continued occupation; it did not in fact cease to be an
open plaza until the mid-6th c. Of course, there is much evidence
for the abandonment and decay of public squares in the later Roman
period: in Gaul it is usually dated to the 3rd c., in Britain to the
4th c., and in Spain, Italy and Africa to various times between the
4th and the 6th c. But there is also substantially more evidence for
new building and repair than Potter estimated. Whilst much of this
comes from the East, a signicant amount also derives from Spain,
Italy, and even Britain. It is substantial enough to show that in most
regions the forum/agora did not disappear in the 4th and 5th cen-
turies; rather, it continued to be an important urban element, with
its denitive eclipse coming somewhat later than thought, in the 6th
and 7th centuries.
3
Nrv Btirrixo .xr M.ix+rx.xcr ix +nr 4+n .xr 5+n Crx+tnirs
During the 4th and 5th c., new fora were of course still being built
at Constantinople: by Constantine, Theodosius, Arcadius, Marcian,
and nally by Leo (45774). At Antioch, a new forum was created
2
Ward-Perkins (1981), Potter (1995), nal report Benseddik and Potter (1993).
3
For example, Rouech (1989) was not mentioned by Potter though it contains
plentiful evidence for the repair and use of three agorai in the city, deep into the
6th c.
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4
Constantinople: see entries in Mller-Wiener (1977) and Bauer (1996) 143217.
On the Forum of Marcian, see esp. Mango (1990) 46 and on that of Leo see Mango
(1993). Antioch, Valens: Downey (1961) 63240.
5
Carthage: Victor Vit. 2.13: this platea nova may be the platea maritima of August.
de civ. D. 16.8, Retract. 2.58, which Procopius identies as an agora: Procop. Aed.
6.5.10. See Kleinwchter (2002) 45. Platea normally means a street: Spanu (2002)
esp. 351 n.20. But platea as forum is a possible sense at Thubursicu Numidiarum in
the mid-4th c., where there was a forum novum and platea vetus in the 4th c.: ILAlg
I, 1273=CIL VIII, 4878 (ILS 2943), ILAlg I, 1275 and 1276; Lepelley (1979) 21113.
6
Aphrodisias, Tetrastoon: Rouech (1989) ns. 2021 records the work, dedicated
to Julian (A.D. 36163) but with a matching inscription for Valens (A.D. 36478).
Scythopolis: the agora must post-date the 5th c., on account of coins and ceramics
in robbing trenches beneath it, and must pre-date A.D. 535: this is because of a
building inscription in situ, which does not title the governor as a consular, a title
gained in A.D. 535: Tsafrir and Foerster (1997) 12223, Foerster and Tsafrir
(1988/89) 31, Bar-Nathan and Mazor (1994) 45 (inscription).
7
Dating of round plazas: Thiel (2002), plus Delplace and Fournet (2001) 157
for Bostra, with a terminus post quem from preceding deposits. Durres: pers. comm.
John Wilkes. Scythopolis: pers. comm. Benjamin Arubas.
8
Antioch, Forum of Valens: Malalas 13.30, Downey (1961) 63240. Constantinople,
Forum of Theodosius: nymphaeum built under Valens in Socrates Hist. eccl. 4.8, said
to be on the site of the later Forum of Theodosius. It has been identied with an
through imperial patronage by Valens in the centre of the city.
4
But
new fora/agorai were also being built beyond imperial residences, in
major cities in the provinces. Carthage had a new square by ca.
477, which may also have been built in the 4th or 5th c.
5
At
Aphrodisias, a new four-porticoed square (the Tetrastoon) was built
by the theatre in the late 4th c. (g. 2), whilst Scythopolis saw the
construction of a new trapezoidal agora sometime in the 5th c.
6
Additionally, a large number of small circular plazas are known for
this period, all from the East Mediterranean. The westernmost is
Durres, dating from the late 5th or 6th c., whilst the rest come from
the Levant: that at Gerasa is late 3rd c., whilst that at Bostra must
be 4th c. or later. Another from Scythopolis is as yet undated, whilst
two from Antioch and Justiniana Prima are rmly 6th c. and so will
not be considered here.
7
The architectural character of these Late Roman squares was
partly determined by whether they were planned entirely anew or
tailored to t within pre-existing urban structures. At Antioch, the
Forum of Valens seems to have been created in part through the
reworking of a pre-existing space, as does that of Theodosius in
the capital. At Aphrodisias and Scythopolis the construction of the
new plazas also involved the refurbishment of an existing open area,
respectively a possible porticus post-scaenam and an earlier agora or
sacred area.
8
Probably because of the limitations imposed by adapting
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 199
to pre-existing urban spaces, all four of these fora were quadrilateral.
However, the entirely new plaza of Constantine at Constantinople
was round, as were the small new plazas at Durres, Gerasa and
Bostra. This perhaps identies the round form as the design of choice
in this age, although it was revolutionary of Constantine to use this
shape in the planning of a major forum. Sizes varied: Constantines
forum measured 140150 m across, that at Aphrodisias ca. 45 by 50
m, that of Theodosius perhaps 55 by 55 m, (if A. Bergers location
is correct), and that at Scythopolis ca. 52 by 120 m. Of the small
round plazas, that of Durres had a diameter of 40 m, Gerasa of
43.60 m, Bostra of 36 m and Palmyra of ca. 42 m.
9
As originally planned, none of these new fora included temples,
although neither did they include churches. Some political buildings
were still present, such as the senate house on the Forum of
Constantine, or the basilica on the Forum of Theodosius. The round
plaza at Durres was encircled by cellular rooms, which were probably
shops, as were those at Gerasa and probably Bostra. At Scythopolis,
approximately 25 shops could be found along one side of the trape-
zoidal agora. The Aphrodisias Tetrastoon had none, although it was
provided with an enclosed shopping area by the conversion of part
of the adjacent baths into a kind of shopping mall. Durres, Aphro-
disias, and Scythopolis all had porticoes, as did the fora of Valens,
Arcadius, Theodosius and Constantine. The former two possessed
nymphaea, and monumental arches as entrances. All imperial fora at
Constantinople had imperial honoric columns, as did the citys
Augusteion and the Forum of Valens at Antioch. They also all dis-
played other imperial statues, with numerous additions being made
to their ranks during the 5th and 6th c.
10
The small round plazas
exedra by the Arch of Theodosius by Berger (1996) 22. Aphrodisias, Tetrastoon: for
earlier space, of which an altar survived in situ: see Rouech (1989) ns. 2021
comments.
9
All dimensions include porticoes, and are measured from the back wall of the
portico. Dimensions of Aphrodisias, Scythopolis, Durres, Gerasa and Bostra, are based
on excavation. Width of Constantines forum is based on distance of 70 m between
column of Constantine at centre and supposed gate of pre-Constantinian wall, which
gives a maximum diameter of 150 m: Bardill (1997) 6795. Width of Theodosian
Forum: this depends on Bergers identication of the plaza with a square west of
the Theodosian Arch; this is reasonable considering the topography of the area and
the presence of a possible nymphaeum known to have existed in the forum, mentioned
by Socrates Hist. eccl. 4.8, Berger (1996) 1819, excavation in Naumann (1976).
10
Column of Constantine in his forum: Malalas 13.7, Parastaseis 56 with Bauer
(1996) 17377, (2001) 3135. Column of Theodosius in Augusteion: Marcell. com.
200 rtkr r.\.x
A.D. 390 and other later sources, listed and discussed in Bauer (1996) 159, who
also lists imperial statuary in agorai of Constantinople throughout Late Antiquity:
esp. 41318. Durres also seems to have had space for statues or alternative at its
centre, where there was a circular foundation 5.75 m in diameter: John Wilkes
pers. comm.
11
Thiel (2002).
12
Tree trunks, actually enormous clubs, with grasping hands: Naumann (1976),
Bauer (1996) table 22.12. Medusa head: Ward-Perkins (2000) 72, g. 5. Another
was found re-used near the Forum of Constantine: Mango (1990) 26 n. 17.
known from Gerasa and Bostra were decorated with tetrakionia.
W. Thiel has recently pointed out that these monuments should be
contemporary with, or post-date, the construction of the plazas they
decorate, as indeed tetrarchic inscriptions and stratigraphy at Gerasa
suggest; he proposes that these four-piered structures were perhaps
erected to honour the tetrarchs. This is certain at Gerasa, but no
tetrakionia are known for the round agorai of Durres and Scythopolis,
suggesting that not all such plazas served to advertise imperial power.
11
In architectural terms, the fora/agorai of this period seem to rep-
resent the continuing development of established classical urban forms,
but in a manner appropriate to the tastes and needs of their age.
The round plazas seem to develop the taste of the 2nd and 3rd c.
East, where there had been some architectural experimentation with
such shapes at odd street junctions on major colonnaded avenues.
The other squares seem to evoke either the tetragonal agorai of the
East (in the case of Aphrodisias and Scythopolis) or the architec-
turally-simplied imperial fora of Rome and Lepcis Magna (in the
case of the fora of Valens, Theodosius, Constantine and the Augusteion).
A mixture of tradition and innovation is particularly apparent in the
decoration of the fora of Constantinople. Here the column of Arcadius
closely copies that of Trajan at Rome, whilst the Forum of Theodosius
employs strange tree-trunk columns on its western gate; that of
Constantine may have been decorated by massive Medusa heads,
comparable to those from the Severan Forum of Lepcis Magna.
12
In terms of the architectural prominence given to dierent functions,
it is commerce that is now most noticeable. In the new imperial fora,
the display of imperial dignity was very prominent, as it was in the
tetrarchic restoration of the Forum Romanum, and may have been in
some of the round plazas with imperial tetrakionia, if Thiel is indeed
right in his hypothesis.
It is interesting to note that John Chrysostom, preaching in the
East at the end of the 4th c., actually complains about there being
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 201
too much new building work on agorai, and not enough on churches.
Although this might seem surprising, it does in fact t his experi-
ence as a resident of Antioch and Constantinople at this period, as
both cities had seen new fora constructed during his day. His com-
ments on the city of Kokousos, where he was exiled, are also reveal-
ing; his detachment from the cares of this life is such that Kokousos
suits him: the town has neither market nor market-place, though
that is nothing to me. As elsewhere in his preaching we are left
with the impression that in Chrysostoms cultural world the agora
was as important in dening a city as it was for Pausanias two hun-
dred years earlier. This sentiment nds a precursor in another east-
ern text, an imperial constitution of 32426 recording the successful
request of Orkistos in Phrygia to acquire urban status; the city had
argued as a central plank of its case that it had a functioning and
full forum, decorated with seats and statues of emperors past. Of other
monuments mentioned in this urban advertisement to the imperial
court, only baths and watermills were deemed worthy of consideration.
13
Major Restorations
Evidence for the whole-scale restoration of fora is more widespread
than for building anew. In Italy, 4th c. fora restorations are known
from an inscription at Albegna and from a text relating to Naples.
In Africa, inscriptions record many examples of restoration, from
the late 3rd to late 4th c., at Abthugni, Mustis, Thignica, Mididi,
Thubursicu Numidiarum, Lambaesis, Thala, Thamugadi, Madauros,
Lepcis (on two dierent fora), Belalis Maior and Sabratha. At the
latter three sites archaeology also testies to repair, as it does at Iol
Caesarea. Here, and at Sabratha, the repair involved amounts to
a near-total rebuilding. In Spain, it has been suggested that the
last phase of the forum of Conimbriga could be as late as the 3rd
4th c. and excavation has revealed that the forum of Complutum was
completely restored at the end of the 3rd c., as was the forum of
Rodez. In Britain, substantial programmes of building work have
been detected by archaeology at Caistor (a complete rebuilding ca.
13
Chrysostom and euergetism of agorai: Hom. in Ac. 18.4 (PG 60.147). Kokousos:
Ep. 14 (9.1.a in Malingrey Olympias). For Paus. 10.4.1, the city of Panopeus is hardly
a city because it has no state buildings, no training ground, no theatre, and no
market square and no running water. Orkistos: Chastagnol (1981) 386, 406407.
202 rtkr r.\.x
14
Restorations of western fora: see appendix, with also three examples of work
on plateae, which epigraphic evidence suggests may be fora.
15
Restorations of eastern agorai: see appendix.
27090), Exeter (after 340/50) and Cirencester (probably 4th c.).
Archaeology, texts and epigraphy together show that the Forum
Romanum at Rome underwent rebuilding at least twice: under the
Tetrarchy, and after Alarics sack of 410. The Forum of Caesar shows
the same two phases of extensive rebuilding. A possible further restora-
tion of the Forum Romanum in the later 4th c. has also been suggested.
14
In the East, extensive restorations are known from several larger
cities. Literary sources describe signicant building work in the agora
of Antioch under Constantine, and at Constantinople on the Augusteion
in 459, though the renaming of all or part of the Strategicon as the Forum
Theodosiacum before 425 suggests renovation there by Theodosius I,
Arcadius or Theodosius II, perhaps connected with the installation
of an obelisk, which the Notitia Urbis of the same year records.
Epigraphy suggests a major programme of repair in the agora of
Corinth under Valens and Valentinian. Inscriptions reveal to us that
at Ephesus and Side agorai were given imperial names (those of
Theodosius and Arcadius), probably as part of a refurbishment pro-
gramme. Archaeology reveals extensive building work on the tetrag-
onal agorai of Ephesus and Perge, which were rebuilt almost completely,
to their pre-existing square plan. The tetragonal agora at Side also
saw substantial additions. A commercial agora at Delphi was rebuilt
in the 4th c. with shops and a colonnade. At Athens, part of the
classical agora was re-established as a public square in the early 5th c.,
with new and refurbished monumental buildings, though the Roman
agora within the 3rd c. wall also shows signs of Late Roman repair.
15
Small-Scale Building and Repair
Examples of small-scale building works and repairs to fora/agorai are
known from many more cities. Some of this evidence is securely
dated through archaeological excavation and some is not, relying on
the use of re-used blocks, within repairs and obviously late con-
struction, to signify a date within Late Antiquity. Such interventions
generally sought to maintain the appearance of fora/agorai as recti-
linear plazas, with or without changes to the traditional monuments
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 203
that adorned them. Repair and new building work were especially
common in Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, and related primarily
to porticoes, arches and nymphaea set on agorai.
16
The greater volume
of building work recorded in these regions is in part to be linked to
the fact that more sites have been extensively excavated here than
elsewhere, yet it also seems that this part of the empire there were
objectively more repairs. In Turkey and Greece maintenance was in
fact the norm: where agorai have been excavated, approximately half
have evidence for some sort of repair (and thus their number makes
it necessary to reserve a full listing for a future publication). Far
fewer examples of repairs to public squares are known from the
Levant or Egypt, though they do exist, as at Antioch, Philadelphia
and Gerasa. This is because comparatively few agorai have been exca-
vated in this region, where in some districts they seem to have always
been uncommon.
17
Statue Dedication and Statue Editing
The use of fora/agorai as monumental spaces in the late 3rd5th c.
is further conrmed by the prolonged dedication of statues, the bases
of which decorated fora in Spain, Africa, and at Rome. Elsewhere
in the West our knowledge is patchy, because preservation is poorer,
although Britain does have one forum with a surviving monument
base, rebuilt in re-used material, at Gloucester. In the East, similar
16
Porticoes: West: new at St Bertrand-de-Comminges (macellum square, 4th c.),
Rome twice (post-410), Madauros (later 4th c.), Mididi (29394) and Sabratha (late
4th or after mid-5th c.); repaired (late 3rd to 5th c.) Rome, Complutum, Iol Caesarea,
Thuburbo Maius, Mididi, Belalis Maior, Lepcis Magna, and Sabratha (also possi-
bly Taracco and Scolacium). East: new at Durres, Constantinople, Aphrodisias and
Antioch (all 4th c.), and new dated to the late 3rd, 4th or 5th c. at Delphi (prob-
ably 4th c.), Thessalonica (early 4th c.), Philippi (ca. 500), Megara (5th c.), Ephesus
(late 4th/5th c.), Sagalassos (5th c.), and Philadelphia (late 3rd or later). New but
undated re-used building material at Messene, Megalopolis, Oenoanda, Sagalassos,
and Side (harbour square). Repairs dated at Constantinople, Corinth, Ephesus, and
Aphrodisias. Repairs in re-used building material at Elis, Orthosia, Kaunos, and
Smyrna. Arches: new at Mididi (A.D. 29394), Rome, and possibly Thubursicu
Numidiarum. East, new at Constantinople (2 or 3), Argos, and Perge. Repairs to
theatre square at Ephesus. All are 4th c. Nymphaea: new twice at Constantinople
(A.D. 37273 and undated), Corinth (ca. A.D. 400), and Aphrodisias (5th c.), in re-
used material at Knidos. Repair in re-used material at Hierapolis. Fountains: Argos,
4th c., repaired Ephesus undated. Also see n. 1.
17
At Gerasa, a compact market building is named as an agora by grati found
on site: Olavarri Goicoechea (1986) esp. 3338.
204 rtkr r.\.x
18
Examples of statuary transfer: Thubursicu Numidiarum: during the restoration
of forum novum under Constantius II (35561) and Julian (36162): ILAlg I, 1275;
ILAlg I, 1276; some statues were transferred here as part of the same operation,
such as Trajan and Constantine in ILAlg I, 1247=ILS 9357, and Felicitas Augusti:
ILAlg I, 1285. Thamugadi: statue editing in relation to imperial politics: a base of
Maxentius removed and one of Diocletian reused and possible third case: Lepelley
(1979) 44851. Cyrene: see appendix of temple conversion. Orkistos: Chastagnol
(1981) 386, 406407. For statue moving in Late Antiquity generally, see Brandenburg
(1989).
problems of survival exist for the Levant, where fewer agorai have
been excavated. By contrast, in Turkey and Greece a considerable
number of agorai have well-preserved epigraphic elds, where statue
bases survive more or less in situ, with late antique statue dedica-
tions from the late 3rd to early 5th c., and occasionally beyond.
These epigraphic elds show not only that new statues were dedi-
cated, but also testify to the continued display of early imperial statue
monuments in Late Antiquity. One should also note that in both
East and West the epigraphic elds we see today in fora/agorai are
often the result of substantial late antique editingthat is, moving
and removing statuesas can be seen at sites as varied as Rome,
Thubursicu Numidiarum, Thamugadi, Dougga, Bulla Regia, Philippi,
Aphrodisias, Melli and Sagalassos. This editing sometimes included
the introduction of statues of well-respected early imperial emperors
such as Trajan at Thubursicu Numidiarum and Marcus Aurelius at
Cyrene, so that like Orkistos in 32426 the city would have a forum
istatuis veterum principum ornatum.
18
In summarising evidence for repair and new building to public
squares, I do not intend to claim that nothing had changed since
the early empire. There are of course examples of the decay of fora
in the West during the 4th and 5th c., especially from smaller cities,
and it seems that civic squares had become redundant in the fortied
cities emerging on the Danube or in northern Gaul at this time. In
the East, there are also some examples of cities with at least one of
their agorai going out of use in the late 4th or 5th c., as was the
case at Thessalonica, Troy, Hierapolis, Iasos, Xanthos, Petra and
Cyrene. Nevertheless, it appears that for the 4th and 5th c. at least,
the extent of decay has been exaggerated, by focusing too heavily
on evidence for abandonment, especially on sites with impressive
dated sequences from northern Italy, where the disappearance of fora
is usually part of much broader urban changeeven urban decay.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 205
But in all regions, except Gaul and along the northern frontier,
examples of decay of fora/agorai are just a small part of a wider pic-
ture in which there is widespread evidence for repair. This continued
in the West into the second quarter of the 5th c., with some occu-
pation going beyond this time, and in the East repair work was to
carry on into the 6th c.
Tnr Ftxc+ioxs or FORA/AGORAI ix +nr 4+n5+n c.
What were the functions of fora/agorai, in the 4th and 5th c.? Did
they resemble those of the early imperial period? Surprisingly, archae-
ologists have contributed little to this debate, despite innumerable
excavations. This is partly because most sites have been badly dug,
but it is also because of the nature of the evidence. Only occasion-
ally has artefactual evidence relating to function been recovered.
Furthermore, repairs to architectural elements such as porticoes,
paving and entrances tell us only that the area continued to serve
as a monumental public space, and do not provide much informa-
tion about specic human activities. Nevertheless, statue dedications,
as well as repairs to public buildings and shops, shed light on polit-
ical and commercial activity in agorai.
Textual sources for the function of agorai have been given even
less attention than archaeology, despite the fact that the vast num-
ber of anecdotes preserved in secular and religious writings often
recall specic events in fora and agorai at this time. Whilst one has
to guard against literary devices and topoi, even rhetorical texts such
as sermons and orations can include valuable details, often incidental
to the main purpose of the work, which describe specic behaviours
or actual events. A more pressing concern is to watch for nuances
of language: forum can mean simply the law court, and I also suspect
that generic references to events occurring in the agora may simply
mean in public. As such, the literary sources used in this article
have been selected as being likely to refer to real events or typical
behaviour taking place in public squares, and ambiguous cases are
signalled in the footnotes.
19
19
Forum as law court: Isid. Etym. 28.15; Amm. Marc. 30.4.8; Cassiod. Var. 3.52,
8.31, 9.21. In the agora meaning in public: Procop. Anec. 17.4145 (denitely),
and 29.30 (possibly). One could also note that, according to Haas (1997) 31, 368
206 rtkr r.\.x
n. 29 and 46162 n. 12, references to o goraoi (those of the agora) can mean
the multitude in Late Antiquity. Libanius also refers to the agora as a market, but
in a commercial rather than spatially-bounded sense, when describing how com-
mercial activity in Antioch diers from other cites: Lib. Or. 11.251. There are other
words to describe simply a market, and Libanius use is frequently demonstrably
the sense of public square. For a discussion of my methodology for distinguishing
between dierent senses of the words forum/agora see Lavan (Forthcoming).
The geographical spread of the sources is not even. Textual evi-
dence is concentrated in the central and eastern Mediterranean.
Furthermore, anecdotes usually refer to bigger cities. Archaeological
evidence is also patchy, with preservation best in Africa and the East,
although excavations are of a higher quality in the West. However,
regional variation in the nature of the evidence does not render gen-
eralisation inappropriate. From the archaeological and textual evi-
dence we have, it appears there was something of a cultural koine of
urban life in the central and eastern Mediterranean during Late
Antiquity, comprising Africa, central-southern Italy, Greece, Asia
Minor, the Levant and Egypt, with some outlying communities in
Spain and southern Gaul, along with the Rhineland and Britain for
the 4th c. Thus I feel justied in oering a synthetic overview of
the function of fora/agorai for these areas. Whilst local variation is of
great interest, it is important to point out that no coherent account
of the function of fora/agorai can emerge at the level of one site or
one region. The data is simply too fragmentary to permit such an
empirical, bottom-up study to be meaningful. Rather, an interpre-
tative study is needed, to weigh the value of the evidence, and pro-
duce a general model, which might then be adapted to local contexts.
Political Activities
It could be said that politics provided the biggest raison detre for
maintaining a square rather than a wide street. A street is capable
of acting both as an informal meeting place and as a commercial
centre, but squares allow large numbers of people to gather and to
observe each other arranged rituallythat is, for static public cere-
monies to take place. Thus it is no surprise that in both East and
West civic political buildings were traditionally located on large public
squares. Signicantly, city council chambers continued to be repaired
in Africa, Greece and Turkey during the 4th and early 5th c. This
chimes with textual evidence which reveals that councils continued
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 207
their meetings up to the mid-5th c. in many Mediterranean cities.
In the West, at Rome and at Sabratha, curiae were built anew, whilst
at Lepcis a new curia was established in a former temple. Those at
Exeter, Lambeisis, Leges Maiores, Mididi, Belalis Maior, Tiddis and
Pupput were rebuilt or refurbished. In the East, new curiae were built
on two fora in Constantinople (the Augusteion and that of Constantine),
whilst the council house at Antioch seems to have been repaired
between 408433. Bouleuteria-odea were repaired at Nysa, probably
sometime after the mid-4th c. (g. 3), and at Aizanoi and Ephesus.
20
At Philippi the curia faade was reinforced sometime around 500.
Traditional square bouleuteria were rebuilt at Megalopolis and repaired
at Heracleia am Latmos, both so far undated. Examples of the decay
of council chambers are also attested, but so far only the bouleuterion
of Sagalassos has produced dated evidence for structural decay before
470, after which time several examples are known.
21
Mediterranean city councils also continued to dedicate honoric
statues on their civic squares, up to the 430s, and a little later in
the East.
22
The dedication of these statues probably involved small-
scale rituals, of the kind C. Rouech has envisaged taking place at
Aphrodisias, in her study of acclamatory inscriptions. Secular public
feasts, which might be paid for by city councils, are known for the
4th c. from Africa, Antioch, and Asia Minor; these might have taken
place in agorai, though the one example we have where the setting
is certain took place in a street.
23
Yet, the only formal political cer-
emony involving a city council, recorded by textual sources on an
agora, is the formal greeting of an incoming governor by the boule of
Antioch before its bouleuterion, situated on the Hellenistic Agora of the
city, during an adventus.
24
Indeed, it is the activities of the imperial
208 rtkr r.\.x
20
This is not the place to discuss the bouleuterion-odeon issue. I hold that odea
built on agorai are best primarilly described as bouleuteria, unless there is a strong
argument to the contrary. See Balty (1991) and Machatschek and Schwartz (1981)
51 for a list of odea-type structures built over the site of bouleuteria, as was the case
in the Athenian agora.
21
City council chambers: see appendix.
22
Statue bases erected by city councils: see n.1.
23
Small scale rituals: Rouech (1999). Public feasts: Theod. Hist. eccl. 5.21.4, in
agora perhaps here means in public. Public banquet on restoration of curia build-
ing in 293 at Mididi: CIL VIII,11774, Lepelley (1979) 296. At Antioch held in the
colonnaded streets: Lib. Or. 22.38.
24
Council meeting governor before bouleuterion at Antioch: Lib. Or. 46.40; for
position of bouleuterion on Hellenistic Agora: Downey (1961) 62140.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 209
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government which dominate our sources; these must have been par-
ticularly strongly felt on the agorai of provincial capitals. It appears
that provincial governors and their imperial masters used the forum/agora
as a preferred location to base their headquarters: praetoria were
installed on fora/agorai in between three and ve cases during Late
Antiquity: at Constantinople, at Antioch (twice), and possibly at
Carthage and Athens;
25
previously, more peripheral locations had
been preferred. Imperial palaces were also installed on fora/agorai in
several cases: at Savaria, Constantinople, and possibly at Arles and
Milan.
26
Other government oces also used this location, such as
the mints at Serdica and Thessalonica.
27
On the fora/agorai of provincial capitals, governors dedicated statues
to their imperial masters, from Corduba and Tarraco in the West
to Corinth, Ephesus and Aphrodisias in the East, reecting practices
at Rome and Constantinople. These statues were important local
manifestations of imperial power and were a place of legal sanctuary.
28
Of other statues erected on agorai, whether in provincial capitals or
elsewhere, most were dedicated by city councils to honour governors.
29
In the Tetrastoon at Aphrodisias, Rouech has identied painted accla-
mations, written one over the other, again and again, that she sug-
gests were formally shouted here to honour late antique governors;
25
Praetoria on fora/agorai: Constantinople, Forum of Leo: Lydus Mag. 2.2021.
Mango (1993). For a praetorium close to or possibly bordering east side of Forum of
Constantine: Guilland (1969) vol.2 3639, Janin (1964) 166. Antioch (twice): Malalas
10.10, 13.4, 13.30, with discussion in Downey (1961) 62140. Possibly Athens,
Palace of Giants: Frantz (1988) on account of the similarity of its plan to the Palace
of the Dux Ripae at Dura Europos. Possibly Carthage: Palace of Vandal kings on
Byrsa where the forum was (Procop. Vand. 2.14.3435, 2.14.26, Victor Vit. 3.32) is
thought to be a former proconsular palace, although nothing conrms this. Earlier,
more peripheral locations: Cologne, Aquincum, Dura Europos, Caesearea Maritima
Promontory Palace: see Lavan (1999).
26
Imperial palaces on fora/agorai: Sirmium: Amm. Marc. 30.5.16. Constantinople:
Bauer (1996) 14867. Arles: Heijmans (1999) was almost certainly built as an impe-
rial palace, as well as on account of its size and the quality of its architecture.
Milan: the position of the palace is based on a medieval toponym mentioning a
church in palatio in this area of the town, as well as the discovery of an apsed
hall, which alone would not be enough: AAVV (1990) 99. Manifestations of impe-
rial power: Sever. creat. 6.5 (PG 56 489).
27
Mints: Serdica: mint of later 3rd to 4th c. date apparently installed in so-called
praetorium complex, on south side of forum: Staneva (1987) 70. Thessalonica: mint
functioning in rooms on agora in rst half of 4th c. and perhaps later: Fotiadou
(2001). Other: see appendix.
28
Statues dedicated by provincial governors: see n. 1.
29
City councils honouring governors: see n. 1.
210 rtkr r.\.x
they were probably painted at this specic location because they
were being ocially pronounced in the Tetrastoon.
30
Although no tex-
tual account can conrm this, we do have one record of a related
ritual that took place in the forum of Carthage during the early 5th
c. Quodvultdeus tells us that the proconsul displayed ivory tablets
with the names of his predecessors so that the crowds could cheer
or boo them, based on their performance in oce.
31
Many cere-
monies of this kind might have taken place on the forum/agora of a
provincial capital, and indeed the rituals of provincial government
form the basis for the Late Roman school-book forum scene studied
by A. C. Dionisotti, which possibly represents life in 4th c. Trier.
32
We also have references to agorai being used for ocial celebrations
in two provincial capitals: at Antioch, after imperial clemency fol-
lowing the riot of the statues of 378, when the agora was decorated
with garlands, and at Edessa, during a festival in 495/96.
33
Imperial letters and other ocial pronouncements could be read
out in fora/agorai, at Ephesus and possibly Trier.
34
Ocial texts might
also be displayed here. Eighteen wide-ranging laws from the Theodosian
Code are known to have been posted in the Forum of Trajan at
Rome, between 319 and 451; these postings best relate to the admin-
istrative activity of the urban prefects in this forum. Postings may
have been made in fora in other cities, though we lack spatial evi-
dence. In the case of monumentalised public decrees, it is possible
to say that display went beyond the agora, encompassing praetoria,
streets and the walls of public buildings; this was the case at Ephesus,
where two colonnaded streets close to the agora served as display-
points for inscribed government edicts, which during the 5th c. also
began to appear around the cathedral church. Yet a good number
of such texts were displayed in fora/agorai. Some of these might be
inscribed in this place because they actually regulated activities taking
30
Aphrodisias, fragmentary acclamations at Tetrastoon: Rouech (1999), Rouech
(1989) n. 75 (?5th/6th c.), painted onto columns, in many layers of text, including
many years for the eparchs.
31
Quodvultdeus Gloria Sanctorum 13.15.
32
School book forum scene: Dionisotti (1982) 104105, 11819, 12223.
33
Ocial celebrations: Antioch, agora garlanded after Riot of Statues leniency:
Joh. Chry. Hom. ad pop. Ant. 21.4 (PG 49.220). Edessa: Josh. Styl. 27 (A.D. 495/96)
candles placed in antiphoros during a festival.
34
Imperial pronouncements: possibly Trier (4th c.): Dionisotti (1982) 104105;
Ephesus (A.D. 431): ACO 1.1.5.14.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 211
place in the plaza. This is certainly true for regulations regarding
swine collectors at Rome in 367, which were to be displayed on
bronze tablets in the swine market. It is probably also true of laws
which Augustine described as being displayed in the forum, regulat-
ing teachers salaries and how much was to be paid by pupils, who,
as it will be seen, often attended classes in fora/agorai. Similarly, stone
copies of Diocletianic price edicts recovered from agorai at Aphrodisias,
Aizanoi and Stratonicea, were almost certainly inscribed here to reg-
ulate market traders.
35
In imperial capitals, fora also appear to have been used for impor-
tant political ceremonies. At Rome, Constantine, Constantius II and
probably Maximian made appearances at the rostra in the Forum
Romanum, to present themselves, or give discourses to the people.
36
In the early 5th c., consuls were being appointed in the Forum of
Trajan. Late sources for Constantinople also suggest that 4th c. con-
suls were appointed in the Forum of Constantine, or at least in its
senate house. The Forum of Theodosius appears as the place where
crown gold was oered in 416, and perhaps where foreign embassies
were received. The Forum of Trajan seems to have had a range of
other administrative functions, which until 35253 included storing
senators treasure chests.
37
35
Laws displayed in fora/agorai: August. Conf. 1.16 (26). Diocletianic stone decrees:
Aphrodisias, South Agora: Erim and Reynolds (1970) esp. 120 and Erim, Reynolds
and Crawford (1971) esp. 171. Aizanoi, Rundbau now known to be in Tetragonos
Agora: Naumann and Naumann (1973). Stratonicea in Caria: Edict on maximum
prices inscribed on the side of the bouleuterion: Nauman and Nauman (1973). This
faced onto a square, which current excavators believe to be the agora: Hakan Mert
pers. comm. Laws posted in Forum of Trajan: see full list in Bauer (1996) 95 n.119.
Ephesus: Feissel (1999).
36
Constantine in adlocutio relief: Bauer (1996) Tafel 5.1. Constantius comes to
rostra and gives speech from tribunal: Amm. Marc. 16.10.13. Maximian may have
addressed the people and soldiery in a contio in the forum, as suggested by Carlos
Machado pers. comm., using Lactant. de Mort. Pers. 28.24, Eutr. 10.3.1 and other
texts, soon to be published.
37
Consuls at Rome: Claud. de VI cons. Honorii 64348, Sid. Apoll. Carm. 2.544f,
recording the manumission of slaves as part of the ceremony. Consuls at Constantinople:
rst consul of the city, Callistratus, is supposed by the Parastaseis and Patria to have
received his codicils of oce in Forum of Constantine, whilst Cedrenus and Zonaras
conrm that consuls were appointed in its senate building and received ocial cos-
tume here: Parastaseis 59, Patria 2.44, Cedrenus vol. 1 page 610.13f, Zonar. 3.125.3f.
Forum of Theod.: aurum coronarium given to emperor here: Chron. Pasc. Olympiad 299,
A.D. 416; reception of embassies Patria 2.47; political functions discussed in Bauer
(1996) 203; for vague imperial ceremonial in basilica in this forum before 462 in which
the emperor wore the clothes of a consul see Cedrenus vol.1 page 610.15611.1. Forum
of Trajan: senators treasure until 35253: Scol. Juv ad Sat. 10.5.34 p.163 (not seen).
212 rtkr r.\.x
In provincial capitals the most important ceremony held in public
was the law court. These were held on fora/agorai at Carthage, Con-
stantinople, Antioch and Ptolemais, and possibly also at Trier and
Ephesus.
38
Legal hearings of criminal cases were of course public spec-
tacles, where the ambitious made their name as lawyers, while the
acclamations of the watching public might try to encourage the acquital
of defendants.
39
Judicial torture was an important aspect of the pub-
lic theatre of these proceedings, to persuade witnesses and suspects
not to lie. With their drama of cruelty, morality and socio-political
spectacle, the courts became a big draw for all classes of the pub-
lic.
40
It is possible that the holding of law courts in fora/agorai has left
its mark on cities in the East through a concentration of dated build-
ing work on civil basilicas in imperial and provincial capitals, as at
Ephesus and Aphrodisias (denitely on agorai ) and perhaps at Caesarea
Maritima and Nicomedia (probably on agorai ). In the West, such
building work is more common, but with no concentration in provin-
cial capitals; the ordinary cities of Exeter, Complutum, Saepinum and
Sabratha are amongst those with restorations of basilicas on fora, sug-
gesting either peripatetic jurisdiction, or more likely, commercial use.
41
Tribunals built on agorai at Constantinople and Ephesus provide per-
haps a more direct indication of judicial activity.
42
38
Law courts: Trier, though city identication is not certain: Dionisotti (1982)
104105. Carthage August. Conf. 6.9. Constantinople, Basilica courtyard: law courts
in mid-6th c. Nov. 82.3, Procop. Anecdota 14.13, Aed. 1.11.12 where lawyers and
prosecutors prepare their cases. Constantinople (in the Baths of Zeuxippus): Sozom.
Hist. eccl. 3.9, under Constantine, and Malalas 14.38, under Leo. There are also
references in the Historia Augusta to Valerian holding court in baths at Byzantium,
which are likely to reect practice at the date of composition, in the late 4th c.:
SHA Aurel. 10.3, 13.1. For a law school in the Basilica courtyard or possibly in
the basilica of the Forum of Theodosius see Anth. Pal. 9.660. Antioch: Joh. Chry.
Hom. in 2 Tim. 3.3 (PG 62.616), Hom. in 1 Tim. 14.4 (PG 62.576), Hom. in 1 Tim.
14.6 (PG 62.578). Ptolemais, in royal stoa/basilica: Syn. Ep. 41. Ephesus: 6th c.
inscriptions announcing legal decisions found adjacent to Neronian Basilica, on lower
agora: Feissel (1999) 131. Abitina in Africa Proconsularis: Christian detainees led to
forum, from where they were sent o to Carthage: Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 2.
Market places site of torture for tax inquiries under Galerius: Lactant. de Mort.
Pers. 23.
39
Lawyers: e.g., Lib. Or. 6.46, 62.21, August. Conf. 1.18 (29), Cassiod. Var. 8.31.
Interference of public: Cod. Iust. 9.47.12 (Diocletian and Maximian, no date), Cod.
Theod. 16.2.42 (A.D. 416), Malalas 14.38 (under Leo).
40
Judicial torture: Jones (1964) 51920, Dionisotti (1982) 105. Syn. Ep. 41. Court
as spectacle: Lib. Or. 11.139, Joh. Chry. de sac. 1.2.2021, Cassiod. Var. 3.52, 9.14.5.
41
Basilicas: see n. 1. Commercial use: see below.
42
Tribunals at Constantinople on Augusteum, late 4th/early 5th c.: Vita Olympiadis
5 and Not. Const. 3.14 (Reg. 2). Tribunal fori Constantini: Not. Const. 4.13 (Reg. 3) A.D.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 213
Fora/agorai could also be used as places of judicial punishment.
The scriptures were burnt here under the Tetrarchs, in both Africa
and the East.
43
Criminals might be tortured and exposed, or be muti-
lated here, as in Vandal Africa. Huneric also ordered the entire
province of Mauretania to be gathered together in the forum to watch
the right hands and tongues of the Catholics of Tipasa be cut o.
When women were exposed naked to humiliate them, as happened
under Huneric and under Julian at Heliopolis, this may also have
been done in the market place.
44
Executions could sometimes take
place in the civic centre: Jucundus, the Arian patriarch of Carthage,
was burnt alive in the middle of the town, ca. 477, on the steps of
the new square as the people looked on, although executions nor-
mally took place outside a city.
45
Exceptionally, the corpses of public enemies might be displayed
in city squares. During a time of public disturbance at Alexandria
in 457, the body of the Patriarch Proterius was hung up on the
tetrapylon of the city, which C. Haas has suggested was located in the
agora. In the early years of the 6th c., rioters at Antioch hung up
the body of Menas, chief of police, on a statue in the antiphoros; this
term probably refers to a small square, perhaps a circular plaza,
although its exact meaning has not yet been established.
46
The author-
425. Tribunal in the Forum of Arcadius: Parastaseis 71. Ephesus, tribunal added to
north-east corner of upper agora, apparently after construction of eastern portico,
which post-dates the destruction of a temple at the centre of the square: Alzinger
(1970) 1601.
43
Divine scriptures burnt in market places, under the tetrarchy: Euseb. Hist. eccl.
8.2 provides a vague reference kat msaw goraw, but Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs
3 describes such a burning in a specic forum at Abitina before or in 304. Burning
of records under Aurelian in Trajans forum: SHA Aurel. 39.3. In Alexandria pagan
cult objects were possibly exposed to ridicule here in the agora in 391: Soc Hist.
eccl. 5.15, Runus 2.2230, though the sense of agora here may well be in public.
44
Torture as punishment in forum/agora: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Mt. 77.6 (PG 67.710).
Huneric and Tipasa Catholics (in medio foro): Victor Vit. 3.30. Exposure of women:
Heliopolis, though specic location is not given: Sozom. Hist. eccl. 5.10; Vandal
Africa women, esp. noble, tortured naked and in full view of the public Victor
Vit. 3.2122.
45
Jucundus: Victor Vit. 2.13 (in media civitate pro gradibus plateae novae). Heldica and
Teucharia burned in the middle of the town by Huneric: 2.15. See n. 5.
46
Body of Proterius hung from tetrapylon at Alexandria: Evagr. Hist. eccl. 2.8, Zach
Myt Chron. 4.2 Theophanes AM 5950 A.D.; Haas (1997) 31, 317, 368 n.27. Haas
proposed position of the tetrapylon appears to be based on the desire of the bishops
assassins to show the body to all, and on the central position of tetrapyla in other
eastern cities. No ancient source actually xes it in the agora, though texts place
them both in/towards the centre of the city: Adriani (1966) 254. For the burning
214 rtkr r.\.x
ities might occasionally adopt this behaviour, when political security
or public order were at stake. Thus Honorius exhibited the mutilated
Attalus on the tribunal of the Forum Romanum; a few years later
Valentinian III displayed the bodies of Aetius and Boethius the Prefect
in the same square. Marcellinus Comes notes that the corpses of riot-
ers hung up for display at Constantinople in 52223 provided a
grateful sight for the good citizens, which gives us some idea of the
motives of the authorities.
47
Finally, it seems likely that soldiers quar-
tered inside cities could meet as a unit in the agora. Zosimus describes
how, following the battle of Adrianople, Gothic soldiers were massa-
cred in the market places, after being tricked into assembling there
to receive a donative. But it was probably more usual for soldiers to
gather outside of the city, as was the case at Antioch and Constantinople.
Nevertheless the Strategion square at Constantinople seems originally
to have served as a military assembly point, hence its name.
48
Social Activities
Literary evidence for social activities is largely eastern, with partic-
ularly rich information coming from the sermons of John Chrysostom,
to which a separate article has been devoted.
49
However, it would
be unwise to assume that surviving fora in the western Mediterranean
were not also centres of social life at this time. The dierence is
probably simply due to the greater numbers of letters and urban
and ecclesiastical chronicles from the East, which preserve scenes of
everyday life. The literary evidence for political activities from the
West detailed above, alongside that for schooling, makes social inter-
course in the forum almost inevitable. Furthermore, it should be noted
that quite a few of the activities described by eastern authors as
occurring in agorai are mentioned in Ammianus vignettes of social
of a priest at a tetrapylon in Amida: Chronicle of Zuqnin A.D. 52526. Antioch, Menas
A.D. 507: Malalas 16.6. For the antiphoros at Daphne in Antioch, built by Antiochene
senator Mamianus under Zeno (47491), see also Evagr. Hist. eccl. 3.28. Antiphoros
at Edessa mentioned by Josh. Styl. 27 (A.D. 495/96), restored by Justinian after
ood of 520 in Procop. Aed. 2.7.6.
47
Display of corpses: Rome: Olympiodorus frag 26, Priscus Book 5 frag. 30
(latter could mean in public but forum very likely). Constantinople, but not specied
as in agorai: Marcell. com. A.D. 52223.
48
Constantinople, Strategion: Janin (1964) 5455, 43142. Slaughter of Goths after
Adrianople: Zos. 4.26.89.
49
Lavan (Forthcoming).
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 215
life in late 4th c. Rome, though without a denite spatial context.
But such a context is provided at Arles in 461, where Sidonius
Apollinarius attests to the social function of a monumental forum,
which he visited in the usual way, as people hid behind columns
and statues to avoid him. Although the one known forum of Arles
has been provisionally shown by excavation to have been encroached
upon by this time, there is no reason to assume that there was no
public square in the city at this date, where some social activities
comparable to those of eastern agorai could have taken place.
Signicantly, the forum of the same city appears in texts as late as
the 6th c. as an open public space.
50
For Libanius, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nazianzus, a full agora
was a sure sign of a prosperous city. For Orkistos in Phrygia this
image seemed so important, in its plea for urban status before
Constantine, that it stressed that the seats in the forum were easily
lled.
51
According to Libanius and Chrysostom the use of agorai was
seasonal. Chrysostom notes that in winter people stayed at home, as
the agora was too muddy, whilst Libanius remarks that citizens of
cities that did not have colonnaded streets (as his Antioch did) had
to meet socially in the agora and so thus were kept at home during
the winter rain.
52
He also boasts that other cities had a special time
of day when people lled the agora, but not his lively home town.
Though Libanius rst remark seems credible, we should probably
prefer the testimony of Chrysostom on the second point. He tells us
that even at Antioch/Constantinople the agora was full during the
morning, at the 3rd hour especially, before the sun had lled the
market place.
53
He notes that people went there after calling on their
neighbours and that it was also the main destination for his con-
gregation after church. He also tells us that after leaving the agora
one might go to bathe or to eat. This suggests that in at least the
50
Amm. Marc. 14.6.1517, on public social life in Rome, compares well with
behaviour described by Chrysostom: Lavan (forthcoming). Arles forum: Sid. Apoll.
Ep. 1.11, Life of Caesarius 1.31, 2.30 (not seen).
51
Full agora: Joh. Chry. Hom. ad pop. Ant. 2.1 (PG 49.35), 2.2 (PG 49.3536),
17.2 (PG 49.178), Libanius Or. 11.171, Greg. Naz. Or. 33.6. Imperial letter of
32426: Orkistos should be a city because (amongst other things) in its forum the
benches ([se]dilia) are easily lled by its people: Chastagnol (1981) 386, 406407.
52
Seasonal use: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Jo. 58.4, (PG 59.320) mud is phlw, Lib. Or.
11.21517.
53
Time of day: Lib. Or. 11.171, Joh. Chry. Hom. in Ac. 5.2 (PG 60.51), Hom. in
Ac. 35.3 (PG 60.256). It is not possible to identify whether the latter homily refers
to Antioch or Constantinople: see Lavan (Forthcoming).
216 rtkr r.\.x
larger eastern cities something like the traditional daily rhythm of
salutatio, forum, bath and dinner was still intact.
54
Cassiodorus, though
perhaps being rhetorical, presents a similar urban social rhythm for
a Roman noble of his day: to converse with ones equals, to stroll
through the forum, to look in at some skilful craftsman at his work,
to push ones own cause through the law courts, play counters, go
to the baths with ones acquaintances, to have a banquet.
55
For Ammianus, at Rome, the forum was one of several places where
one might meet others.
56
However when an overall view of the east-
ern evidence is taken, from Libanius, Chrysostom, Gregory of
Nazianzus and the ecclesiastical historians, a dierent picture emerges.
It seems that in the late 4th and early 5th c. the agora was the cen-
tral focus of social life, more important than the street, large houses
or public baths. What could be easier than a walk in the market
place? asked Chrysostom.
57
In his writings regarding Antioch and
Constantinople, it appears as a primary setting for formalised social
display, in which patrons could compete with one another, rather
than simply cultivate their clients, as they might at home. The wealthy
would appear wearing ne clothes and ornaments, perhaps on horse-
back, with a processing suite of followers, a phenomenon also observed,
although without a precise architectural context, by Ammianus at
Rome.
58
These followers might include domestic servants, and some-
one to clear the way before the group. For someone of senatorial
rank, the number of followers probably ranged between 20 and 50
people, based on remarks by Libanius and Ammianus.
59
Social com-
petition in this setting was intense, reected in jealous glances recorded
54
Agora after calling on neighbours, but before bath or returning home: Joh.
Chry. Hom. in 1 Tim. 14.4 (PG 62.576). Before going for a bath: Hom. in Mt 5.1
(PG 57.55). After communion: Hom. in Mt. 5.1 (PG 57.55). Evening use: Hom. in
1 Cor. 12.6 (PG 61.104), Hom. ad pop. Ant. 17.2 (PG 49.179).
55
Cassiod. Var. 8.31, telling curiales and possessores of Brutti to live in a city for
larger part of the year.
56
Proletariat of Rome gather in fora et compita et plateas et conventicula engaged in
quarrelsome arguments with one another: Amm. Marc. 28.4.29.
57
Walk in the market-place: Joh. Chry. Hom. in 1 Thessal. (PG 62.428).
58
Horseback with retinue: Joh. Chry. Ad Theodorum lapsum ( Treatise) 18.3334,
Hom. in Phil. 9.4 (PG 62.23132). Walking through agora with attendants: Ad Theodorum
lapsum ( Treatise) 9.16. Senators at Rome: Amm. Marc. 14.6.1617.
59
Servants: Joh. Chry. Hom. in 1 Cor. 40.5 (PG 61.354), Hom. in 1 Cor. 11.4 (PG
61.92). Clearing the way before the group: Hom. in 1 Cor. 40.5 (PG 61.354). Libanius
states that a suite of only 20 is a disgrace for a consular governor returning from
the theatre: Lib. Or. 33.12, whilst Ammianus at Rome considered 50 attendants at
the baths to be worth remarking: 28.4.9.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 217
by Chrysostom. The desire to show ones status in the agora per-
meated to other social strata: Chrysostoms sermons against the van-
ity of the agora are addressed to a wide social spectrum, and his
targets include vain young men and virgins seeking to show o their
beauty, as well as rich mens wives and socially ambitious males.
60
The agora might be a setting for more formal ceremonies. At
Athens, Gregory of Nazianzus records a ritual through which new
university students were inducted: the group paraded through the
agora, in formation, before taking a bath together and retiring to
someones house; funny incidents were intentionally interspersed along
the way.
61
A wedding ritual is also recalled by Chrysostom whereby
the bride and bridegroom were carried through the agora at night,
with the object of celebrating the beauty of the former, accompa-
nied by vulgar songs and drunken dancing. At Constantinople, a law
of 440 preserved in the Codex Justinianus forbids marriages from being
celebrated in the Basilica courtyard, conrming they had taken
place here until this date. There is also some late evidence that mar-
riages might be contracted in the Forum of Constantine, at the
nymphaeum opposite the senate building, for those with no place of
residence in the city. Libanius provides a contemporary witness for
late 4th c. Antioch, recalling marriages being celebrated in the citys
bouleuterion, on its principal agora. Even in death, funeral processions
of the well-to-do seem to have passed by the agora, for a last good-
bye, as Eusebius, Gregory of Nazianzus and Chrysostom recall.
62
For most people, the forum would have been a place to partici-
pate in simpler social encounters. For Libanius, the agora of Antioch
and that of Ankara were places where one might meet friends.
Chrysostom seemed to have conceived of the agora as mainly a place
for men, though women were present in the market places he recalled,
60
Social competition: jealous glances: Joh. Chry. Hom. ad pop. Ant. 15.1 (PG
49.156); vain young men: Hom. in Mt. 49.5 (PG 58.502); virgins: de sac. 3.13.3751;
rich mens wives: Hom. in Heb. 28.6 (PG 63.199) and socially ambitious males Hom.
in Jo. 3.5 (PG 59.44). See Lavan (Forthcoming) for further details.
61
Athens, university induction ritual: Greg. Naz. Or. 43.15.
62
Marriages: Joh. Chry. Hom. in 1 Cor. 12.6 (PG 61.104). Constantinople: Cedrenus
vol.1 page 610.14f, Zonor. 14.1.18, discussed by Bauer (1996) 171. Antioch: Lib.
Or. 2.36. Funeral processions: Eusebius Hist. eccl. 9.8.11: lamentation in every lane
and market place; Joh. Chry. Hom. in 2 Thessal. 1.2 (PG 62.471); for that of Basil
of Caesarea, which Gregory described but did not witness, see Greg. Naz. Or. 43.80
(PG 36.601).
218 rtkr r.\.x
talking or showing o their jewellery. Aside from virgins, whom he
wished to protect from the gaze of men, he mentions couples court-
ing, slaves on errands, and buskers. Gregory of Nazianzus describes
children playing: boys might play ball, like those who shot one
through a heretical bishops legs in the agora of Samosata, during
the reign of Valens.
63
Some people sat in the agorai semi-permanently,
watching what was going on. The occasional loner might mull some-
thing over, like Augustines friend Alypius, meditating in the forum
of Carthage prior to class. Chrysostom himself recommended singing
hymns to God in the market-place, when no-one was listening. But
both Gregory of Nazianzus and Chrysostoms friend Basil dened
themselves as being so engrossed in their spirituality that they had
no place in the agora.
64
For the poor, and those from out of town, the agora was one place
to sleep.
65
References to beggars in the plaza are frequent. At
Alexandria a beggar spurned a patrons help, preferring the crowds
and meat of the agora, his chosen spot. Chrysostoms beggars are
crippled, lame and maimed, although he also recalls a troop of
dishevelled prisoners brought out in chains to beg in the market
place for their sustenance. In times of famine, the bodies of the dead
might be found littered about here, as beggars succumbed to hunger
and disease.
66
Eusebius recalls a famine where even high-born women
were forced to beg here.
67
In happier moments, buskers and jug-
gling and dancing beggars might add to the colour of the square,
63
Virgins: Joh. Chry. de sac. 3.13.3751; Hom. in Mt. 73.3 (PG 58.677). Widows:
de sac. 3.13.9. Lovers: Hom. in Jo. 79.5 (PG 59.432) (use of agora here may mean
in public). Slaves on errands: Hom. in Rom. 4.4 (PG 60.4042). Buskers: Hom. in
Rom. 4.4 (PG 60.41). Boys playing: Greg. Naz. Or. 39.3. Boys playing ball at
Samosata: Theod. Hist eccl. 4.15.57.
64
Sitting in the agora, watching: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Ac. 35.3 (PG 60.257). Loners:
August. Conf. 6.9 (14), Joh. Chry. Hom. in Col. 9.3 (PG 62.364). Dont belong in
the agora: Greg. Naz. Or. 33.8, Joh. Chry. de sac. 1.2.2021. Agora not place for a
spiritual person: Hom. in Jo. 61.3 (PG 59.340), Hom. in 1 Cor. 8.5 (PG 61.74).
65
Sleeping in agora: Leontius N. v. Jo. Eleem 21 (early 7th c. Alexandria).
66
Beggars: Greg. Nys. de Pauperibus Amandis 1 (PG 46.458). Antioch/Constantinople:
Joh. Chry. Hom. in Ac. 13.4 (PG 60.111), Hom. in 1 Cor. 30.4 (PG 61.254), Hom. in
Ac. 3.4 (PG 60.39). Alexandria: Palladius Hist. Laus. 21.56, late 4th or early 5th c.;
this work has some later contamination, though the story does sound authentic.
Prisoners: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Jo. 60.4 (PG 59.333).
67
High-born women: Euseb. Hist. eccl. 9.8.7. Dead from famine lay in market
places and lanes: Euseb. Hist. eccl. 9.8.9. During famine in Edessa hungry poor die
in courtyards of the (City) Church, as also in the city squares and inns: Josh. Styl.
43 (A.D. 500/501).
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 219
whilst it seems that prostitutes might occasionally be found in agorai,
although they, along with other infames, were forbidden from using
public seats (such as those mentioned in the Orkistos inscription of
32426).
68
Though common on eastern agorai, such seats rarely escape
spoliation, surviving antiquity on the upper agora of Sagalassos and
at Ephesus, amongst other places. At Ephesus, the bench on the
upper agora includes a late antique place inscription for a clergyman,
whilst at Aphrodisias six rectangular marble benches found around
the late 4th c. Tetrastoon bear inscriptions that Rouech suggests may
reserve them for particular associations.
69
The chatter of the market place mirrored the interests of late
antique society. At Antioch, Chrysostom records people discussing
merchandise, taxes, the sumptuous table, the sale of lands, or other
contracts, wills, or inheritances. But the talk of people who passed
their time sitting in the agora was about chariot races; he disapproved
of this and also of the witticisms uttered here.
70
Basil complained of
being slandered in the market place, and dreamt of a former golden
age when there were debates and gatherings of wise men in the
agora. Informal debates do however still seem to have been conducted
here, certainly about theology at least.
71
Theodoret records an arrest
made under Valens following a young mans holy enthusiasm in
an agora of Antioch. Chrysostom was eager that people talk theology
in the market place, but he disapproved of guessers and errers, and
even recommended thumping blasphemers. Not surprisingly, around
this time Theodosius I tried to ban contests and assemblies in the
markets, in a move against heretics.
72
Strong feelings made agorai
68
Prostitutes: infamous women in agora of Damascus may be prostitutes: Euseb.
Hist. eccl. 9.5.2. Pimp in agora: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Ac. 31.4 (PG 60.234). Prostitutes
are of course more normally found in taverns and brothels. Public seats forbidden
to actresses, tavern workers etc.: Cod. Theod. 15.13.1 (A.D. 396).
69
Seats on agorai: Sagalassos, see plan and picture in Waelkens et al. (2000) 298,
299, g. 105, 300, g. 106. Ephesus, upper agora: Foss (1979) 82, n. 70. Aphrodisias,
Tetrastoon: Rouech (1989) n. 212, thought to be 4th c. or later because the latest
architectural arrangement of the plaza is of this date. On public seats: Chastagnol
(1981) 386, 406407.
70
The chatter of the market place: Joh. Chry. Hom. ad pop. Ant. 10.1 (PG
49.11112). Races: Hom. in Jo. 32.3 (PG 59.187). Witticisms: Hom. in Eph. 17.3 (PG
62.119).
71
Slander: Basil Ep. 289. Debates of wise men: Ep. 74.
72
Theology: Theod. Hist eccl. 3.11.2, Joh. Chry. Hom. ad pop. Ant. 6.6 (PG 49.90),
Hom. in Jo. 2.2 (PG 59.31), Hom. ad pop. Ant. 1.12 (PG 49.32). Theodosius I ban:
Sozom. Hist. eccl. 7.6, though agora might here mean here in public.
220 rtkr r.\.x
dangerous places: Chysostoms supporters at Constantinople avoided
them after his deposition, and an Arian Patriarch of Antioch, under
Constantius, dragged the orthodox away from the agora, to punishment.
Nevertheless, some people might go there to protest, as happened at
Constantinople, Nicomedia and Antioch in the later 4th c. Such pro-
tests could develop into a riot, as at the council of Ephesus in 431.
73
Relating the archaeology of fora/agorai to social life is dicult. On
a general level one might say that porticoes and fountains did much
to provide an amenable social environment. Statues too were evi-
dently erected to be looked at, and their inscriptions to be read, by
those who would take the time to loiter. Latrines would have made
long stays more comfortable, such as those known adjacent to agorai
at Constantinople, Magnesia on the Meander, Aphrodisias and Saga-
lassos. They could also be found in baths adjacent to fora and agorai.
Although baths were a crucial part of social life, it is probably best
not to consider those built and repaired on fora/agorai as evidence
for the interconnection of their social functions. Baths with late
antique repairs are frequently located not far from fora/agorai and
some that are adjacent to them, as at Sagalassos, have no entrance
from the plaza. Nevertheless, on occasion, a functional connection
of baths to activities taking place in agorai is reasonable. This seems
most obvious at Aphrodisias, where the main entrance of the prin-
cipal baths of the city was via a courtyard opening o the southern
agora. This courtyard was a major site of statuary display in Late
Antiquity, and in the same city, the theatre baths was connected to
the new Tetrastoon square by cutting through a wall.
74
When one looks further, one has to admit that everyday social
activities generally leave little archaeological trace. There may be
some potential in the study of the stone surface archaeology of ago-
rai, in analysing the nature and distribution of inscribed grati and
other markings. Amongst these, gameboards are the most obvious
indicators of social life. As casually inscribed grati, they occur in
73
Agorai dangerous: Chysostoms supporters: Sozom. Hist. eccl. 8.23.4. Patriarch
of Antioch: Theod. Hist eccl. 2.9.2. Protest: Nicomedia: Sozom. Hist eccl. 4.16.12;
Antioch, against tricks of Julian: Theod. Hist eccl. 3.17.3, and riot of statues.
Constantinople, against deposition of Joh. Chry.: Sozom. Hist. eccl. 8.18.4; Ephesus,
A.D. 431: ACO 1.4.14 when anti-Nestorian rioters lled agora during the Council.
74
Latrines: see n. 1. Aphrodisias: Bath courtyard o agora with statues: Smith
(1999); cutting of entrance from Theatre Baths into the Tetrastoon: Erim (1986)
9495.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 221
many forms in theatres, temples, streets, fora/agorai, andsignicantly
church atria, revealing that at least some are late antique. They can
be very elaborate, even taking the shape of a circus, as in the forum
at Belalis Maior. More formal, professionally carved gameboards are
known from at least four agorai in Turkey. At two sites, Aphrodisias
and Perge, these are denitely late antique in date. The former has
a dedicatory inscription, whilst that at Perge (g. 4) was found com-
plete with two spolia benches for competing parties to sit on. Though
often overlooked, these gameboards may be the closest that we will
get to detecting the people who sat watching the world go by in the
agora; we know from Ammianus that this class of person was as
addicted to dice-playing as they were to talking about the races: at
Belalis Maior they were able to combine both pursuits.
75
Lest juggling beggars and dice-players give too casual an image
of agorai, one should note 4th and 5th c. evidence which suggests
that civic elites wished to encourage dignied public comportment
in eastern agorai. At Constantinople a law of 440, which was retained
by the compilers of the 6th c. Justinianic Code, forbade assemblies
and banquets in the Basilica courtyard, along with the introduc-
tion of horses, thus making it a pedestrian space. In the same city
in the mid-6th c. Belisarius walked to the agora everyday on foot
with his suite, although coaches were a habitual way to move around
the city. This may indicate pedestrian-only access, though it is dicult
to envisage this for all the fora of the city, most of which were set
on major processional arteries.
76
Certainly horses of governors passed
through the agora at Antioch in order to enter the praetorium, and
some aristocrats processed there on horseback as part of their daily
75
Rough gameboards: in church atria: e.g., Hierapolis church by agora, Sagalassos
bouleuterion church (both site observations July 2004) and Aphrodisias, immediately
south of the south door of the Temple-Church, on the top step: Rouech (1989)
n. 217 (two gameboards, each of three concentric squares). Belalis Maior: Mahjoubi
(1978) 142. Cut gameboards: Aphrodisias: Rouech (1989) n. 6871 late 5th to
6th c. date based on titles of people, one a patr tw plevw. Perge: the gameboard
is made from a statue base, and the seats are parts of re-used architectural ornament:
Mansel (1975) 79, 81, g. 43. Sagalassos: a similar board is known from the centre
of the upper agora at Sagalassos. Though it has no absolute dating, it probably also
dates to sometime in Late Antiquity, as it was certainly never removed from the agora,
despite decisions to remove honoric monuments during the 6th c.: site observ. July
2004. Ephesus: similar gameboard, site observ. May 2003. Gamers at Rome: Amm.
Marc. 14.6.25 (making disgusting sounds through their noses), 28.4.21.
76
Correct comportment in Constantinople Basilica: Cod. Iust. 8.12.21 (440).
Belisarius: Procop. Goth. 3.1.56.
222 rtkr r.\.x
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 223
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routine. Chrysostom also recalls tradesmen delivering their wares by
camel and donkey, which was probably a particular nuisance dur-
ing morning hours.
77
But the sentiment that the agora ought to be a
dignied public space can also be detected in the writings of Synesius,
who thought that the torture of the law court at Ptolemais disgured
the agora, a space which he considered to be the most elegant part
of the city; similar sympathies are also revealed in comments by
Basil.
78
Commercial Activities
Fora and agorai were still commercial centres. This can be seen through
the archaeology of commercial structures: stalls, market buildings and
shops. At Iol Caesarea, Potter dated the stalls on the forum to the
5th c., based on coins recovered from gaps between the paving
beneath. He noted a possible parallel from Paestum and suggested
further stalls from pavement indentations at Philippi in Macedonia.
79
At Aphrodisias, Rouech recorded something rather more informa-
tive: late antique place inscriptions, which seem to mark out where
stall holders were ocially permitted to ply their trade. They include
two from the Tetrastoon marking out the place of (the) men of
Hierapolis, an important neighbouring city, and one from the south-
ern agora recording the place of Zoticos, a peddlar. An acclamation
to an association of litter-bearers, dating to the 5th6th c. and found
re-used in the agora, even allows Rouech to envisage a Late Roman
taxi-rank.
80
77
Governor on horseback at Antioch: Hom. ad pop. Ant. 17.2 (PG 49.173). Aristocrats
processed there on horseback as part of their daily routine: Joh. Chry. Ad Theodorum
lapsum (Treatise) 18.3334, Hom. in Phil. 9.4 (PG 62.23132). Deliveries on camels
and donkeys: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Ac. 6.3 (PG 60.61). Suggestion that donkeys deliv-
ered in the morning: Lib. Or. 50.25.
78
Dignity of agora: Ptolemais: Synesius Ep. 41; Caesarea in Cappadocia: Basil
Ep. 74. Restrictions on animal access may have applied depending on the time of
day, as in earlier times, but high status visitors and political ceremonies are likely
to have been more or less exempt: imperial coronation processions in a chariot
passing through agorai at Constantinople: Cer. 1.91, see Bauer (2001) 3746.
Governors carpentum before bouleuterion at Antioch: Lib. Or. 46.40.
79
Stalls, Cherchel: Potter (1995) 3639. Paestum: Greco and Theodorescu (1980).
Philippi: Potter (1995) 75, 77.
80
Aphrodisias place inscriptions. Tetrastoon: Rouech (1989) n. 19597. Rouech
(1989) n. 196 and 197 both read Place of (the) men of Hierapolis. This area in
its present architectural form is Late Roman and so the inscriptions must be too,
224 rtkr r.\.x
Civil basilicas probably still had some commercial functions, at
least in the West. In Rome, the Basilica Aemilias destruction in 410
seems to have left the coins of money changers scattered on the
oor.
81
At Cuicul, the construction of a basilica vestaria, and a civil
basilica on the same city square, shows that these structures might
be used for more than just judicial functions, though here at least
such functions were separated. In the East, at Constantinople, only
the Basilica of the Skindressers near to the Augusteion suggests com-
mercial use.
82
The construction or repair of traditional market build-
ings on fora/agorai, seems to have continued at a low level through
the 4th and 5th c. In Spain, at Complutum, a macellum has been
proposed as the function for the new courtyard building built on the
forum in the very late 3rd c, and that at Valencia was restored in
the same period, whilst a new macellum on the forum of Geneva is
dated to the later 3rd or 4th c. In Africa macella survive very well,
suggesting continued use in this period; that on the forum at Bulla
Regia produced several 4th c. statue dedications to local aristocrats,
as well as conserving a base dedicated to Mercury. Nevertheless the
macellum of Valencia fell out of use by the 5th c., and that on the
agora of Naples was denitely redundant by the mid-6th c.
83
In the East, macella are mentioned at Constantinople by Socrates
in 336 and by the Notitia Urbis of 425. The latter lists two in region
5 and two in region 8. At least those in region 8 must have been
built in the previous century, as this part of town was a post-
Constantinian quarter. They must have been close to the Forum of
Theodosius, because of the regions small size. Socrates macellum was
located on or very close to the Forum of Constantine. Outside the
given their structured arrangement. Southern agora: Rouech (1989) n. 198206,
on columns and bases, Rouech (1989) n. 206 being place of Zoticos, peddlar. Most
of these are accompanied by crosses, including the Zoticos inscription. Acclamation
to association of litter-bearers: Rouech (1989) n. 122 (5th to 6th c., found in the
agora, though re-used). Rouech notes that the majority of place inscriptions are
either clearly Christian or can be dated as late antique based on their location:
Rouech (1989) p. 22930. She notes that the assignment of places was probably
carefully regulated, citing an early imperial place inscription from Iasos, allocated
by a city ocial, Die Inschriften von Iasos (IK 28) (Bonn 1985) 261.
81
Basilica Aemilia: money-changers coins in destruction layer on basilica oor,
the latest of which is A.D. 409: Reece (1982) 117, 127, 13133.
82
Basilica vestaria at Cuicul: CIL VIII, 20156=ILS 5536 (A.D. 36467). Constan-
tinople, Basilica of Skindressers: Chron. Pasc. Olympiad 327 A.D. 531. Janin (1964)
16061.
83
Western macella: see n. 1.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 225
capital, at Cyrene, the Hellenistic market building on the Greek agora
was replaced by a new smaller version during the later 4th c., whilst
a square courtyard building built on the Athenian Agora in the early
5th c. might also be a macellum. The macellum at Sagalassos was rebuilt
using spolia and the market building at Melli never appears to have
been spoliated, whilst the market building at Pednelissos survived in
a reduced form until the end of antiquity. The restored tetragonal
agorai of Ephesus (g. 5), Side and Perge could also be considered
similar to macella, being simple courtyards surrounded by shops, with
only one or two public buildings. On the other hand, the market
building on the upper agora of Selge was spoliated to build an adja-
cent chapel, tentatively dated to the late 4th/early 5th c., and the
macellum at Philippi was demolished to provide space for a new
church.
84
Equally important but less monumental commercial structures were
built anew on agorai in this period: rows of small cellular rooms, nor-
mally identied as shops, based on their morphology and internal
contents. For the West we have four dated archaeological examples
of such shops built anew on fora, from Exeter (later 4th c.), Segobriga
(sometime in the 3rd c.), Herdonia (probably 4th c.) and Sabratha
(mid-3rd c. or after), along with a notice from Cassiodorus con-
cerning the construction of shops in the Forum Romanum in 507/11.
A single example of refurbishment is known from the forum of Com-
plutum, from the last years of the 3rd c. In the East, we have the
rebuilding of the shops of the tetragonal agorai of Ephesus, Perge
and Side, and rows of shops built anew on public squares at many
other sites. These are dated at Delphi, Sagalassos (twice) and Cyrene,
and undated at Antioch in Pisidia, Aphrodisias (twice), Arykanda,
Iasos and possibly Seleucia-Lyrbe, and on minor plazas at Ephesus
and Side. Repairs to existing shops on agorai are dated at Thessalonica
and Sagalassos, whilst undated repairs are visible at Arykanda, Perge
(square in front of the city gate), and Ariassos. This certainly sug-
gests a very dynamic role for commerce within fora/agorai during the
period. However, it should be noted that none of these develop-
ments seriously impinge on the monumentality of the squares they
seek to benet from. This was not unplanned encroachment, but
measured commercialisation.
85
84
Eastern market buildings: see n. 1.
85
Shops: see n. 1.
226 rtkr r.\.x
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 227
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The function of most shops occupied during this period unfortu-
nately cannot be determined. In the West, only two forum shop func-
tions have so far been identied, both from Spain, with a 4th c.
metal workshop known from Segobriga and a mosaicist of the same
century from Complutum. In the East, glass workshops have recently
been identied on the basis of nds from shops on the Roman agora
of Delphi and the tetragonos agora of Ephesus. Another glass workshop
discovered in the shops of the Sebasteion just o the agora at Aphrodisias
included a furnace. In another small shopping area, adjacent to the
same plaza, a sculptors workshop, of 4th c. date, has been identied:
complete with unnished statuary, unsold stock and even sculptors
tools. At Sagalassos there may have been a metal workshop in one
of the 5th c. cellular rooms on the west side of the upper agora, as
suggested by concentrations of metal nds, such as keys, rings and
hooks. On the lower agora of the same city a restaurant has been
proposed, on the basis of nds of serving and drinking vessels, stor-
age facilities and the functional arrangement of rooms. At Antioch
in Pisidia undated Late Roman shops on the Tiberia Platea (an elon-
gated plaza rather than a simple street) have been ascribed the same
function, on account of nds from within the shops, which included
many drinking vessels and large storage jars. A ladle and two bronze
spits were also found during the excavation of this sector, leading
Mitchell and Waelkens to identify the shops as small bars and restau-
rants. A similar function has been ascribed to a shop installed on
the agora of Cyrene ca. 400, based on pottery.
86
Much evidence for commerce is literary or epigraphic, though this
comes almost entirely from the East. During the reign of Julian,
Christians, worried about pagan holy water sprinkled on foodstus,
saw meat, fruit, vegetables and bread on sale in Near Eastern agorai.
Chrysostom too mentions meat and bread, and seems to imply wine,
whilst also mentioning vegetables and shoes.
87
At Gaza, we learn
that hot dishes were kept on the boil in the market place. These
were used to boil up a few Christians, when tempers frayed under
Julian.
88
Of ergasteria, here best translated as shops, Chrysostom men-
86
Shop functions: see appendix.
87
Bread and meat and fruit and vegetables: Theod. Hist eccl. 3.15.2. Meat and
wine: Joh. Chry. Ad Theodorum lapsum ( Treatise) 19.710. Vegetables and shoes: Hom.
in Ac. 9.5 (PG 60.84).
88
Gaza boiling pots: Sozom. Hist. eccl. 5.9.4.
228 rtkr r.\.x
tions a barbers and perfumers in the agora, whilst elsewhere he
bemoans the noise of silver beaters and braziers in the market place.
A wine shop was installed in the agora of Alexandria in a former
temple, where hot wine was available.
89
At Aphrodisias, place inscrip-
tions on the columns in front of shops installed in the hall of the
Theatre Baths reveal the trade of one of the occupants: a barber.
A rough grato, from an alcove of the adjacent Tetrastoon, provides
us with a list of prices of goods being sold in this recess, or perhaps
in the plaza: the list includes honey, wine, oil, bread and, less cer-
tainly, vegetables, pulses, and storax, a fragrant gum.
90
Chrysostom found that commerce could dominate everyday expe-
rience of the agora, with the bustle of deliveries and noise from the
manufacture of goods. At Caesarea in Cappadocia, the porticoes on
each side of the agora echoed to similar sounds: people squabbling
over payments and the lashes of whips, perhaps related to the sale
of animals or slaves. Basil thought that through these echoes the
very porticoes were groaning, lamenting the passing of the more
dignied Hellenic agora of his literary imagination.
91
Bullying soldiers
seem to have been a constant problem: a stall holder at Philadelphia
in Lydia was stabbed to death by a Gothic soldier who had declined
to pay for his purchase, and Basil was particularly upset by military
vulgarity in the agora at Caesarea.
92
Despite these uncouth everyday
realities, the most unpleasant commerce (such as leather working,
89
Barbers and perfumers: Joh. Chry. Hom. in 1 Cor. 36.5 (PG 61.313), silver
beaters and braziers Hom. in Ac. 6.3 (PG 60.61). Tychaion transformed into a wineshop,
described by Palladas, who worked in Alexandria: Anth. Pal. 9.18084, where hot
wine was available: 9.184. This building was known to be towards centre of the
city, where the agora was located. Its position on the agora is conjectural, though it
is usual for these structures: Adriani (1966) 25859.
90
Aphrodisias, Hall of Theatre Baths: Rouech (1989) n. 19194. Rouech (1989)
n. 191 is of a barber. This area in its present architectural form is Late Roman
and the inscriptions must be too, given their structured arrangement. List of com-
modities: Rouech (1989) n. 213, painted as a rough grato on the wall of a recess
in the theatre wall facing onto the Tetrastoon, listed as ?4th c. by Rouech, because
it was painted onto plaster that seems to date from time of the building of the
Tetrastoon (later 4th c.), though the inscription could of course be later, 5th to early
7th c. date.
91
Commerce dominating: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Ac. 6.3 (PG 60.61). Caesarea: Basil
Ep.74.
92
Philadelphia: Zos. 4.31.4. Diocletian: Malalas 12.38. Later, Belisarius soldiers
occupying Carthage in 533/34 get their lunch by purchase from the agora: Procop.
Vand. 1.21.10; this might be in the sense of on the open market but other words
could have been used if this was the case.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 229
pottery production or animal sales) was probably kept out of the
main agorai of most cities, by higher rents and public control. We
do not hear of such traders owning shops in agorai, amongst all the
barbers and perfumers. Silversmiths, (who could be bankers as much
as metalworkers), were present close to agorai at both Carthage and
Constantinople, and it was perhaps this type of high-value artisan
that Cassiodorus envisaged a Roman aristocrat might like to visit on
a stroll through the forum.
93
It doubtless also pleased men like Basil
that schools were held in or adjacent to fora, at Rome, Milan and
Carthage, and in agorai, at Constantinople, Athens and notably
Antioch, where at least three establishments competed for pupils on
the same square in the mid-4th c.
94
Religious Activities
Finally, one should not forget the religious function of fora/agorai. It
was here that many of a citys principal temples could be found.
These were, until their closure, social centres, as well as places of
cult. In the later 4th c., some pagan ceremonies were recorded tak-
ing place in agorai, with processions under Julian, and public feasts
and wild Bachanal celebrations under Valens.
95
Change was proba-
bly rapid when a city fell under the inuence of an assertive Christian
community, as there is no record of such activities beyond the 4th
c. Even prior to the sack of Rome by Alaric, pagan conservatives
were not allowed to use the forum as a place of public sacrice, as
they thought t. Whilst it had long been primarily a pagan centre,
the agora seems occasionally to have been used as a place of assem-
bly/procession for Christians, at both Constantinople and Antioch,
96
yet one cannot talk of it being a standard place of Christian assembly.
93
Carthage, shops of silversmiths by forum: August. Conf. 6.9 (14). Constantinople,
portico of silversmiths close to Augusteion: Chron. Pasc. Olympiad 327 A.D. 531, Janin
(1964) 16061. Cassiod. Var. 8.31.
94
Teaching: Rome, in imperial fora: Marrou (1932); tombstone of grammaticus
Boniface who taught here: CIL VI, 9446=33808; Venantius Fortunatus Carm. 7.8.
Milan, late 5th c.: Ennodius 3. Carthage, later 4th c.: August. Conf. 6.9 (14), Conf.
1.16 (26). Constantinople, in the Basilica courtyard: Socrates Hist. eccl. 3.1.9. Athens:
Lib. Or. 1.35. Antioch: Lib. Or. 1.101102, 1.104, 1.102.
95
Pagan procession at Antioch under Julian: Lib. Or. 15.76. Public paganism
under Valens: Theod. Hist eccl. 4.24.3 and 5.21.4, though here agora may mean in
public.
96
Religious gatherings: Constantinople, protest gathering in Forum of Constantine
230 rtkr r.\.x
Chrysostoms congregation liked to go from communion in church
into the agora, though he saw the two spaces as being in conict and
in competition, rather than being complementary.
97
From the West a small number of restorations of temples on fora
are known. In the Forum Romanum, the Temple of Saturn was rebuilt,
and the Temple of Concord probably also restored during the 4th c.,
whilst the porticus deorum consentium was rebuilt in 36778. At Thibilis,
an unnished temple has been dated to the second half of the 3rd
c. at the earliest, whilst capitolia on fora were restored at Lambeisis,
Thamugadi and Pupput. At Sabratha, a temple of Liber Pater, prob-
ably on the forum, was restored 34050. The temple in the Severan
Forum at Lepcis Magna was also lavishly refurbished, or given over
to another monumental use, at an undated time in Late Antiquity.
At other sites no repair is visible but good preservation suggests tem-
ples were actively conserved as part of the monumental landscape,
as at Rome, Sufetula and Thugga. Disuse or demolitions were also
common, however. An inscription from Abthugni dating to 38392
refers to cellae of the capitolium being empty, and probably regulates
their new uses. Early conversions of temples to churches are known
from Tarraco and Trieste, whilst the curia of Lepcis and the basilica
of Lucus Feroniae may have been established inside temples during
this period.
98
From the East, Zosimus records Constantine building temples to
Rhea and the fortune of Rome in the old tetragonal agora of Constan-
tinople, which may refer to the Augusteion, or the adjacent Basilica
courtyard; the existence of the Temple of Fortune located adjacent
to or on the Basilica is conrmed by Socrates and Ps.-Hesychius.
On the agora of Argos, archaeology has detected a small new temple,
built using re-used material, over the broad base of a statue group.
The prytaneion of Ephesus, which served as a civic cultic space, was
also restored, perhaps in the late 3rd/ early 4th c., and the Metroon
on the agora of Athens survived so well in Late Antiquity that some
have suggested it continued to function for much of the period. Of
course it is more common to see temples on agorai destroyed during
under Anastasius: Marcell. com. A.D. 51112. Antioch, agora included in proces-
sion: Theod. Hist eccl. 5.35.4. Constantine builds two temples (Rhea and fortune of
Rome) in old agora of Constantinople: Zos. 2.31.2. Religious processions pass through
agora under Julian: Lib. Or. 15.76.
97
Agora after communion: Joh. Chry. Hom. in Mt. 5.1 (PG 57.55).
98
Western temples: n. 1.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 231
this time, as happened at Philippi, Ephesus, Miletus, Pessinus, Apamea
and Jerusalem (dated with various degrees of condence to the 4th
or 5th c.). Alternatively, they may have been converted to new uses,
as occurred in one case at Sagalassos, two at Antioch in Syria, two
at Alexandria (all securely dated to the 4th c.), as well as at Assos,
Perge, Side and Cyrene (all undated).
99
According to the 2nd c. testimony of Pausanias, religious statues
were also commonly found in agorai of cities in Greece.
100
Letters
between Augustine and Maximus of Madauros in 390 refer to two
statues of Mars and possibly other deities standing on the forum of
this city at this time. Such statues will have continued to be dis-
played on fora/agora, and if Maximus is any guide, there were pagans
who treasured them, as symbols of religious potency. But there are
few surviving bases of religious statues known from fora/agorai. One
such inscription from Thubursicu Numidiarum records a dedication
of statues of Jupiter and Hercules for the safety of Diocletian and
Maximian. A second, from the Forum Romanum, was erected to Mars
and the founders of the city (thus Romulus and Remus), under
Maxentius in 308. It seems likely that in both cities these monu-
ments survived the later 4th c. because of their enduring historical
appeal.
101
In some places, religious statues might still be displayed as
secularised works of art: this was the case for the statue of Athena,
which stood in the Forum of Constantine, along with other pieces
of ancient artwork.
102
In ordinary cities this might have taken the
form of an attempt to preserve the nest cult statues: as at Verona
in 379/83 when a governor moved a statue from the capitolium to
99
Eastern temples: see n. 1.
100
Religious statues of agorai in Greece: Paus. 1.35.2, 2.13.4, 7.22.2 (market
Hermes).
101
Madauros: August. Ep. 16 and 17. Thubursicu Numidiarum: bases for Jupiter
and Hercules for safety of Diocletian and Maximian by ordo and people (AE 1940
18=BCTH 1940 xxvixxvii with AE 1957, 94=BCTH 1954 (1956) 19596 and ILAlg
I, 1228=ILS 9357) Lepelley (1979) 21415. Rome, image of Mars and city founders,
dedicated under Maxentius: CIL VI, 33856=ILS 8935.
102
Athena Promachos: statue removed from the acropolis during the lifetime of
Proclus who died 485: Marinus Vita Procli 30. Identied with statue before senate
on Forum of Constantine by Jenkins (1947) 3133, pl. x. Subsequent debate explored
by Bassett (2004); it was destroyed at Constantinople in 1203: Nicetas Choniates
558.47. Other ancient art work in Forum of Constantine: discussed with references
by Bauer (1996) 17879.
232 rtkr r.\.x
the forum.
103
But the rarity of nds of religious statue bases on ancient
agorai is likely to reect late antique removal of such monuments.
Zeus and Hermes had been popular on agorai in the East, the latter
being the patron of the market, but I know of only two surviving
statue bases of Hermes, from the macellum at Bulla Regia and a forum
temple at Dougga, whilst the Hermes temple on the agora of Antioch
was demolished either under Constantine or at the end of the 4th c.
104
Altars on fora/agorai almost certainly fell out of use in the 4th c.,
wherever imperially sanctioned Christianity could penetrate; as noted
above, even prior to the sack of Rome by Alaric, pagans were not
allowed to sacrice in the forum, where, according to Zosimus, they
thought these rites must take place.
105
However, archaeological traces
of this transition are not substantial. An altar in the Tetrastoon of
Aphrodisias was left in situ, though partly buried, by the builders of
the new square, and substantial remains of altars on the agora of
Thasos survived antiquity.
106
Pausanias also mentions heroa (that is,
monumental tombs of the heroic dead), on the agorai of several cities
in Greece.
107
Surprisingly, heroa or monumental tombs survived the
period in good condition on agorai at Xanthos and Termessos. Whilst
this might seem odd, we should perhaps remember the careful incor-
poration, for whatever reason, of a heroon into the octagonal church
at Philippi, along with continuing interest in urban foundation sto-
ries, reected in the writing of civic local histories, or patria, into the
6th c. and beyond.
108
The forum was not a typical site for urban churches in the West
during the 4th and 5th c. In this period, they were often built on
103
Statue moved at Verona in A.D. 379/83: CIL V, 3332.
104
Statues of Hermes: Bulla Regia: Beschaouch, Hanoune and Thbert (1977)
89; Dougga: Golfetto (1961) 36. Antioch, Shrine of Hermes in agora demolished
and replaced by basilica of an otherwise unknown praetorian prefect Runus under
Constantine: Malalas 13.3, Downey (1961) 62231. More credibly, Zos. 5.2 has a
well-known Praetorian Prefect called Runus building a basilica stoa in Antioch, in
or soon after A.D. 393.
105
Rome, as reported by Zos. 5.41.23. He says not one pagan dared to follow
ancestral custom.
106
Aphrodisias, altar left in place by builders of Tetrastoon, later used as a sun-
dial: Rouech (1989) 42, 9192. Altars on agora of Thasos: Grandjean and Salviat
(2000) 7273, Roux (1953) 27276 and (1955) 35152.
107
Heroa: Paus. 1.35.2, 1.42.3, 10.36.4.
108
Heroon at Philippi: Koukouli-Chrysanthaki and Bakirtzis (1995) 4954; Lazarides
(1964) 37274. Interest in urban foundation stories into the 6th c.: Liebeschuetz
(2001) 23437.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 233
the edge of cities, close to their walls, rather than on fora.
109
Never-
theless, there are some examples of this phenomenon known from
4th and especially the 5th c., where churches seem to be tted within
the overall monumental context of the plaza, instead of building over
it, as do many churches in the 6th c. At Aosta, a church was built
on the side of the forum during the 4th c., whilst the Basilica Sancti
Stephani adjoined that at Arles by the mid-5th c. At Sabratha a church
was installed in the civil basilica on the market place, probably in
the rst half of the 5th c., and at Iol Caesarea a church was also
built at the side of the forum during the same century. At the latter
site, we know that the plaza of the forum remained in use at the
same time as rubbish piled up behind the church. At Sabratha, a
cemetery did eventually spread over the open space of the forum
itself, but not until after the Justinianic reconquest. Thus in one and
probably both cases, these churches co-existed for some time with
the open plazas, as new monumental elements of them. Churches
were also installed on fora at Zadar in Dalmatia, inside a row of
shops, and at Serdica, in the baths now known as the St George
complex, although the dates of these conversions are unknown.
110
In the East, churches were built on the sides of agorai at Jerusalem
(the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) in 326, at Alexandria sometime
between 339 and 345 and at Constantinople (St Sophia) in 360.
Churches built on the edge of agorai at Thasos and Selge might date
as early as the 4th5th c., though no archaeological dating is avail-
able. Undated conversions of civil basilicas on agorai into churches
are known from Magnesia on the Meander, Cremna, Samaria and
Tiberias, and of stoas into churches at Elis and Tegea. These could
be early but equally may well date to the 6th c. The Church of the
Holy Sepulchre and St Sophia are notable for their failure to use
adjacent agorai as any kind of monumental forecourt, pointing their
atria away from the space. This tendency continues in the 6th c.,
with only a few exceptions. Church builders seem to have preferred
to point their buildings eastwards wherever possible, normally ignor-
ing the architectural possibilities of the agora.
111
109
Position of churches 4th and early 5th c.: Gauthier (1999) 198202, Cantino
Wataghin (2003) 22456.
110
Western churches on fora: see n. 1.
111
Eastern churches on agorai: Jerusalem: Temple of Venus-Aphrodite demolished
to build the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in A.D. 326: Euseb. Vit. Const. 3.2543.
234 rtkr r.\.x
Coxcrtsiox
The overall picture of the history of fora/agorai in Late Antiquity is
complex. Although civic squares did disappear from parts of the
northern frontier in the 3rd c., they remained an important part of
urbanism in the Mediterranean to the second half of the 5th c., and
often beyond. Many of their traditional functions remained: social
life continued to privilege the agora over other settings, whilst polit-
ical rituals, especially those of provincial government were happy to
use this setting. There was some tendency towards commercialisation
and the removal of pagan monuments, but otherwise continuity with
earlier periods seems the strongest feature to note. Repairs to fora/
agorai can be seen around the Mediterranean, from wholesale rebuild-
ing to mundane repairs to paving and colonnades, with plazas in
eastern provincial capitals probably witnessing the most thorough
building work. Nevertheless, even in Africa and Asia Minor, some
fora/agorai fell out of use during the 4th and 5th c. But here, as in
Spain and Greece, decay might aect only one of several squares
within a city, others of which might still be in use, as was the case
at Tarraco, Philippi, Xanthos and Phaselis. Thus it appears that the
agora was not in eclipse, but, at most, was instead exhibiting a pattern
of partial redundancy, which aected some other secular structures,
such as large public bath buildings, during the 4th and 5th c. The
urban landscape had been over-provided with both agorai and bath
buildings by earlier civic generosity, and it can be expected that the
more modest civic revenues of the later empire could not support
such duplication. Yet both types of structure still remained part of
the classical urban model, and continued to be built anew, into the
5th and 6th c. respectively.
From the mid-5th c., however, repairs on western fora seem to
have stopped altogether and subsequently public squares began to
disappear from many places. Even the post-reconquest government
in Africa generally sought to build over them rather than repair
them. Yet their abandonment in the West does correlate with wide-
ranging changes in topography at this time, even urban decay. Where
The location of the agora here is conjecture, based on there being several temples
here and it being the major crossing point of the city: Eliav (2003). Constantinople:
Socrates Hist. eccl. 2.16.16. Alexandria: Kaisarion given as site for Great Church
between A.D. 339 and 345 (episcopate of Gregory): Epiph. Pan. 69.3.3. Other
churches: see n. 1.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 235
monumental classical cities continued to exist, as in the 6th c. East,
agorai seem to have faired better. Many survived until the great
changes of the late 6th/early 7th c., as at Philippi, Ephesus, Aphro-
disias, Miletus, Sagalassos and Side, although there seems to have been
less repair work than in the 4th and 5th c., and secondary agorai
continued to be built over. Then, at dierent times in the later 5th
and early 6th c., the building of churches came to outshine the mon-
umentality displayed in and around agorai in eastern cities. Nevertheless,
even beyond the mid-7th c., fora/agorai did survive in some places,
notably Rome, Thessalonica, especially Constantinople, and probably
in some Italian centres. Despite this, the idea of wider continuity
between the ancient forum and the medieval urban square seems
dicult to assert. There is very little physical continuity between
them, and it is probably no accident that the word used to describe
the medieval spacesplaza/place/piazzawas not derived from forum
or agora but from the Greek word platea, which primarily refers to
a colonnaded street.
112
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
I wish to thank the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, the
University of Cologne, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
for supporting the research time devoted to this study. A very large
number of people have helped me in my work, for which I am very
thankful. But I am especially grateful to the following individuals: to
Sbastien Mercier, (rem Durda<, and Buket ok{uner for driving
me to sites in Greece, Turkey and Spain; to Anne-Marie-Manire,
Bert Smith, Marc Waelkens, Fotini Kondyli, Damianos Kommatas
and Sebastin Rascn Marqus, for arranging site tours; to Sam
Barnish, Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Veronika Mitsopoulos-Lon, Toon
Putzeys, Wolfgang Thiel and John Wilkes for answering queries, and
to Franz Bauer, Hugh Elton, Ine Jacobs, Stephen Mitchell, Werner
Eck and Hansgerd Hellenkemper for suggestions after reading the
text. All errors are of course my own. Finally I would like to thank
all the sta of the BIAA for making my year in Turkey (20022003)
a success.
112
Spanu (2002), but in some cases where platea may mean forum see n. 5.
236 rtkr r.\.x
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Arrrxrix
Abbreviations
For ease of use the appendices contain distinct bibliography, given in full, except
where the following abbreviations are used.
Alzinger RegierungsviertelAlzinger W. (197275) Das Regierungsviertel, Jh 50
(197275) Beiblatt 229300.
Amici Foro di CesareAmici C. M. (1991) Il foro di Cesare (Firenze1991).
Bauer SPDBauer F. A. (1996) Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Sptantike. Untersuchungen
zur Ausstattung des entlichen Raums in den sptantiken Stdten Rom, Konstantinopel und
Ephesos (Mainz 1996).
Benseddik and Potter CherchelBenseddik N. and Potter T. W. (1993) Fouilles du
Forum de Cherchel 19771981 (6e supplment au Bulletin dArchologie Algrienne)
(Algiers 1993).
Berger TaurosBerger A. (1996) Tauros e Sigma. Due piazze di Constantinopoli,
in Bisanzio e lOccidente: arte, archeologia, storia. Studi in onore di F. De Maei (Rome
1996) 1731.
Downey AntiochDowney G. (1961) A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab
conquest (Princeton 1961).
242 rtkr r.\.x
Feissel InventairesFeissel D. (1985) Inscriptions du IV
e
au VI
e
sicle, in Inventaires du
Ploponnse, edd. D. Feissel and A. Philippidis Braat (Travaux et Mmoires 9) (Paris
1985) 267395.
Foss PamphyliaFoss C. (1996) The cities of Pamphylia in the Byzantine age, in
Cities, Fortresses and Villages of Byzantine Asia Minor (Aldershot 1996).
IvEDie Inschriften von Ephesos (IK 1117) (Bonn 19791981)
Kenrick SabrathaKenrick P. M. (1986) Excavations at Sabratha 19481951 ( JRS
monograph no. 2) (London 1986).
Kent Corinth inscriptionsKent J. H. (1966) Corinth. Results of the Excavations conducted
by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vol. 8 part 3 The Inscriptions
19251950. (Cambridge, Mass. 1966).
Mahjoubi RcherchesMahjoubi A. (1978) Rcherches dhistoire et darchologie Henchir
El-Faouar (Tunisie). La cit des Belalitani Maiores (Tunis 1978).
Mller-Wiener BildlexikonMller-Wiener M. (1977) Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls
(Tbingen 1977).
Rascn Marqus Complutum en la tardoantigedadRascn Marqus S. (1999) La ciu-
dad de Complutum en la tardoantigedad: restauracin y renovacin, in Acta
antiqua complutensia I: Complutum y las ciudades Hispanas en la antigedad tarda, edd.
L. Garca Moreno and S. Rascn Marqus (Alcal de Henares 1999) 5170.
Stucchi Agor 1.1Stucchi S. (1965) Agor 1.1 di Cirene I: i lati nord ed est della platea
inferiore (Rome 1965).
Comprehensive Restorations of Western Fora
Albegna: CIL V, 7781 (A.D. 35460); Naples: Lib. Pont. 1.186 (restoration by
Constantine). Abthugni: forum restored with ornamentation of statues added (AD
37677): AE (1995) 1704. Mustis: forum transitorium built or improved 351: ILTun
1557; Lepelley (1979) 148; possible forum restoration A.D. 26467: ILTun 1542=CIL
VIII; 15581, Lepelley (1979) 14748. Thignica: forum olitorium restored A.D. 32633
CIL VIII, 1408; Lepelley (1979) 195. Mididi: curia rebuilt with adjacent portico
(A.D. 29093) CIL VIII, 11774; Lepelley (1979) 296, portico around forum erected
with arch giving access A.D. 29394: CIL VIII, 608=CIL VIII, 11772=ILS 637;
Lepelley (1979) 29697. Thubursicu Numidiarum: restoration of platea vetus in 32633:
ILAlg I, 1273=CIL VIII, 4878=ILS 2943; Lepelley (1979) 211; there is here a forum
novum restored in A.D. 35561 and 36162: ILAlg I, 1275; ILAlg I, 1276; Lepelley
(1979) 21113 decorating the square with statues and columns; Lepelley notes that
the works must have been substantial as the verb instituere (to found) is used to
describe the second campaign in a dedicatory inscription. Lambaesis: forum transito-
rium restored A.D. 36467: CIL VIII, 2722=ILS 5358; Lepelley (1979) 420. Thala,
Byzacena: platea (colonnaded street or public square, accordingly to Lepelley) built
in A.D. 387: CIL VIII, 2391; Lepelley (1979) 316. Thamugadi: A.D. 29093 platea
inaugurated (square or street) M. Christoe Rapport sur les travaux de fouilles . . . eectus
par le service des monuments historiques de lAlgrie (Algers 1938) 427, Lepelley (1979) 446.
Pupput: A.D. 282 forum restored: CIL VIII, 24095=ILS 5361; Lepelley (1979) 302.
Madauros, possible: A.D. 399400: ILAlg I, 2107, Lepelley (1979) 131. Lepcis Magna:
IRT 467 A.D. 32426; Lepelley (1979) 337 and IRT 543 late 3rd / early 4th c.,
according to Lepelley (1979) 340 n.21 on local letter style. Belalis Maior possible:
Mahjoubi Rcherches 16569 portico building inscription from forum prob. (A.D.
31724), 17475 further works, location uncertain (A.D. 38392) Lepelley (1979)
80. Sabratha: Kenrick Sabratha 2934, 80: late 4th c. restoration thought to be after
historically-attested earthquake of 365, dated by re-use of temple columns in rebuilt
basilica and statue bases of A.D. 36475 in rebuilt curia. Both structures share mosaics
with late portico but this overlies a sherd of Hayes 76, attributed to the middle
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 243
quarters of the 5th c.. This makes it possible that the restoration is later than
thought or alternatively that the portico and common mosaic programme are later
than the other repairs. Rome, Forum Romanum, restored three times: (i) under the
Tetrarchy, with the rebuilding of the curia (see appendix) and the Basilica Julia, and
the erection of 5 honoric columns behind the rostra, which appear on the adlocu-
tio on the Arch of Constantine, and are partially extant: Chronicle of 354 A.D., Bauer
SPD 2124. (ii) in the later 4th c. (Porticus Deorum Consentium and probably Temple
of Saturn) Machado, this volume. (iii) after Alarics sack: A. Fraschetti La conversione
da Roma pagana a Roma cristiana (Bari 1999) 206207, building work in late 4th c.:
Bauer F. A. Das Denkmal der Kaiser Gratian, Valentinian II. und Theodosius am
Forum Romanum, RmMitt. 106 (1999) 21334. Rome, Forum of Caesar: First
Phase: Chronicle of AD 354 states that Diocletian and Maximian undertook works on
the Forum of Caesar. Though there is evidence for much late antique repair, it is
dicult to distinguish works of this time archaeologically from those of later restora-
tions, such as after Alarics sack of A.D. 410, though the similarity of some repairs,
such as on the Basilica Argentaria and arches by the entrance, to the new curia sug-
gests they are contemporary and so tetrarchic. Considered in Bauer SPD 8283,
Amici Foro di Cesare 153f and H. Khler Triumphbogen, in PWRE VII A1 (1939)
402 nr 46 but no dating evidence discussed. Second Phase: the southern portico
was rebuilt in red granite and spoliated capitals. This portico is similar to that
erected in place of the Basilica Aemilia after the sack by Alaric, and so may date to
this time. Amici Foro di Cesare 145 discussed in Bauer SPD 8283. Iol Caesarea:
Potter proposes a comprehensive restoration in the early 5th c., grouping repairs
to the portico and basilica in the same phase with the dated installation of a church.
Not all of this work need be exactly contemporary, though it seems unlikely to be
far apart: Benseddik and Potter Cherchel (1993) vol. 1 3842. Conimbriga: A. R.
Congs Lhypothse dune basilique deux nefs Conimbriga et les transforma-
tions du Forum, MEFRA 99.2 (1987) (71151) 728 believes on stylistic grounds
(architectural decor) that the third phase with three new porticoes could be any-
where between 2nd and 4th c. Complutum: In phase 2 of the forum, the whole
complex was restored, including the forum baths, the tabernae, the colonnade and the
basilica, to which was added an adjacent administrative building and an enclosed
courtyard structure, interpreted as a market. This phase is given a terminus post quem
by pottery of the very end of the 3rd c., and the portico was restored: Rascn
Marqus Complutum en la tardoantigedad 5357. Rodez: the forum was apparently refur-
bished in the very last years of the 3rd c., after a period of decay: J. Catalo et al.
Le forum de Rodez premiers rsultats, Mmoirs de la Societ Archologique du Midi de
la France 55 (1994) 1158 (not seen). Caistor: forum rebuilt ca. 27090, based on
nds of stratied 3rd c. material, including coins of Gallienus ca. 260 and mid-to-
late 3rd c. pottery, from beneath an entirely new phase of building work (new por-
ticoes and surrounding buildings): S. S. Frere The forum and baths at Caistor by
Norwich, Britannia 2 (1971) 126, esp. 9 and 26. Exeter: basilica and curia extended
and new possible shops erected: P. T. Bidwell The Legionary Bath-house and Basilica
and Forum at Exeter (Exeter 1979) 104109, in period 3A, after ca. 340/50 accord-
ing to coins and pottery. Cirencester: the last phase, prob. 4th c. in comparison to
other British sites, saw the old plaza halved in size and a new square surrounded
by shops built to the south: Wacher J. S. (1962) Excavations at Cirencester, AntJ
42 (1962) 114.
Comprehensive Restorations of Eastern Agorai
Antioch: there seems to be comprehensive programme of building works in the
agora of Antioch under Constantine, though some of this may be late 4th c. Malalas
244 rtkr r.\.x
13.34. See commentary in Downey Antioch 62231. Constantinople, Augusteion build-
ing work: Chron. Pasc. Olympiad 309 A.D. 459. Constantinople, Forum Theodosiacum:
Not. Const. 233 (Regio 5), Bauer SPD 22528, R. Guilland tudes sur la topogra-
phie de Constantinople Byzantine: les trois places ( forum) de Thodose Ier le Grande,
JB 8 (1959) 5355. Ephesus: IvE 5.1534. Side: J. Noll Side in Altertum. Geschichte
und Zeugnisse 1 (IK 43) (Bonn 1993) 133. It has not been established which agorai
within Ephesus or Side these relate to. Corinth: Feissel Inventaires nos 67 (A.D.
36478), which are inscriptions from portico entablature dedicated to the emper-
ors Valens and Valentinian, suggesting major works. Rebuilt agorai: Ephesus: shops
rebuilt in re-used material on all sides. Colonnades re-using spoliated material, with
some colonnades using columns from the Temple of Domitian, suggesting terminus
post quem of mid to late 4th c.: W. Wilberg Ephesos III: die Agora (Vienna 1923) 13,
15. Re-used material, including inscriptions, from the Prytaneon found here are espe-
cially important. The destruction of the Prytaneon is given a terminus post quem of ca.
A.D. 400 by the use of other material from it in the rebuilding of the baths of
Scholasticia: IvE 2.437 (baths of Scholasticia), IvE 4.1063 (in wall by north gate of
agora), IvE 4.1073 (in wall by north gate of agora). P. Scherrer The city of Ephesus
from the Roman period to Late Antiquity, in Ephesos, Metropolis of Asia: an Interdisciplinary
Approach to its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture, ed. H. Koester (Valley Forge, Penn.
1995) (125) 19. Recent excavators believe that at least part of the northern colon-
nade dates to 6th c., but a glass workshop of apparent 5th6th c. date found in
one of shops provides a separate terminus post quem for the rebuilding of these units.
They have also identied a drain apparently restored in the later 4th c. P. Scherrer
et al. Ephesos (Trkei) 2.2 Tetragonos agora in Jahresbericht 1999 des sterre-
ichischen Archaeologischen Instituts, in Jh 69 (2000) 374, ibid. Ephesos (Trkei)
2.3 Tetragonos agora in Jahresbericht 2000 des sterreichischen Archaeologischen
Instituts in Jh 69 (2001) 258. Perge: here all but one entrance was blocked and
shops on all sides show evidence of rebuilding, sometimes with re-used building
material. Re-used building material evident in steps to surviving entrance: pers.
observ. May 2003. Other changes, such as the addition of mosaics and frescoes to
shops, and the addition of a possible chapel, are thought to be late antique, though
there is no archaeological dating evidence available: A. M. Mansel Bericht ber
Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen in Pamphylien 19571972 AA 1975.1 (4996)
7981, C. G. Lanckoronski Stdte Pamphyliens und Pisidiens I: Pamphylien (Vienna 1890)
44, Foss Pamphylia 16. Side: Foss suspects that piers in the corners, a new entrance,
and two exedras with late mosaics are late antique additions, though they are
undated: A. M. Mansel Die Ruinen von Side (Berlin 1963) 97, A. M. Mansel Die
Ruinen von Side (Berlin 1963) 156, Foss Pamphylia 35. The northern shops look to
have been rebuilt using re-used material at some stage: pers. observ. May 2003.
Though this is undated, nds suggest late antique use: O. Avtur Side agorasi kk
buluntular II. Ara{trma (1984) 9397. Both of these rebuildings could of course
be 6th c. Delphi: the reconstruction of the agora, with a new row of shops and a
spolia colonnade is dated by a ll of 4th c. date (no nds dated after this time).
This was found in a shop of an earlier phase inlled as part of the restoration:
only preliminary reports so far: V. Droche BCH 113 (1989) 403416, V. Droche
and P. Ptridis BCH 117 (1993) (64144) 643, spolia details in P. Amandry BCH
105 (1981) (673769) 724, rebuilding in general summarised in R. Weir Roman
Delphi and its Pythian Games (BAR IS 1306) (Oxford 2004) 9597. Athenian agora:
several monuments refurbished and new public buildings constructed during the
late 4th/early 5th c. A.D., north of the Palace of the Giants, thus bringing part of
the agora back into use: summarised in I. Baldini Lippolis Sistema palaziale ed
edici amministrativi in et protobizantina: il settore settentrionale dellAgor di
Atene, Ocnus 11 (2003) 923. Antioch in Pisidia: a possible new agora of the early
4th c. has been identied by S. Mitchell and M. Waelkens Pisidian Antioch. The Site
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 245
and its Monuments (London and Swansea 1998) 108109. They claim this by con-
necting an inscription of A.D. 31113 recording work to porticoes with an unex-
cavated square of 48 m width west of the theatre. But the inscription seems to
come from an extension of the theatre over the road, and so it could however
relate to the theatre and road instead: M. Christol and T. Drew-Bear, Antioche
de Pisidie capitale provinciale et luvre de M. Valerius Diogenes, AnTard 7 (1999)
(3871) 54. This square, based on its location next to the theatre, might also be
an early imperial porticus post-scaenam. Only the barest outline of the plan is known,
with no archaeological observations made so far, which might date it.
Curiae: the West
Exeter: basilica and curia extended and new possible shops erected: P. T. Bidwell
The Legionary Bath-house and Basilica and Forum at Exeter (Exeter 1979) 104109, in
period 3A after ca. 340/50 according to coins and pottery. Rome: curia senatus
restored three times: rebuilt by Diocletian, in the 420s after Alarics sack, and in
early 6th c., according to literary sources and inscriptions from the site: Chronicle of
354 A.D. 148; Aurelius Victor Caes. 13.5., AE (1953) 68, Cassiod. Var. 9.7.2, PLRE
II 60910. See also A. Bartoli Curia Senatus. Lo Scavo et il Restauro (Rome 1963)
4244, 5160, A. Fraschetti La conversione da Roma pagana a Roma cristiana (Rome
and Bari 1999) 132236, esp. 207208. E. Tortorici (1993) Curia Julia, in E. M.
Steinby Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae vol. 1 AC (Rome 1993) 33234. Lambeisis:
curia restored 37983 CIL VIII, 18328=ILS 5520 (unknown if on forum but this is
very likely); Lepelley (1979) 420. Leges Maiores: curia restored AE (1982) 961. This
appears as a city in 4th c., from when this inscription should date. Mididi: curia
rebuilt with adjacent portico (A.D. 29093) CIL VIII, 11774; Lepelley (1979) 296.
Belalis Maior: last (undated) phase of apsidal hall on forum thought to be connected
to inscription on lintel recording restoration of curia A.D. 32631: CIL VIII, 14436=ILS
5518; Lepelley (1979) 79; Mahjoubi Rcherches 149. Tiddis: Salle B on forum, identied
as a curia, at least partly rebuilt using re-used building material: A. Berthier Tiddis,
cit antique de Numidie (Paris 2000) 69, Balty (1991) 6467. Pupput: A.D. 282 curia
restored CIL VIII, 24095=ILS 5361; Lepelley (1979) 302. Lepcis Magna: Balty (1991)
3942, author of a study of curiae/bouleuteriae, and R. Bartoccini La curia di
Sabratha, QAL 1 (1950) 4345 think that the position of the curia in the temple-
like structure on the old forum cannot be original, and so is likely to represent a
conversion post-dating Constantines ocial adoption of Christianity, or the public
persecution of paganism. Bartoccini suggests it is associated with the rebuilding of
the forum (IRT 467) under Constantine, in 32426, after a re. Whether or not the
temple-curia is original, an inscription (IRT 580), found elsewhere on the site, of 4th
or early 5th c. date (considering titles and overall epigraphic assemblage of Africa)
records the restoration of a [c]uria. Sabratha: for this structure, which contains spo-
lia, R. Bartoccini La curia di Sabratha, QAL 1 (1950) 2935 gives a terminus post
quem of the reign of Valens and Valentinian (A.D. 36475) based on statue bases
of these emperors found inside the building and a terminus post quem of 365, based
on historical circumstances, as it was at this date that a period of troubles was
brought to an end in the province. This is pretty uncertain dating even for the ter-
minus post quem as the statues could have been moved into the building. Nevertheless
a 4th or 5th c. construction is likely for this building as part of a programme of
restoration for the whole forum, ca. 365 or later. As part of this restoration a sim-
ilar mosaic pattern was found inside this building, in the eastern transverse forum
portico and in phase 3a of the forum basilica. However it is possible that the curia
was rebuilt before this mosaic was laid: Kenrick Sabratha 2934, 8087. Vallis: curia
possibly restored, with portico A.D. 40823 ILTun 1279=CIL VIII, 14775=1283;
246 rtkr r.\.x
Lepelley (1979) 231. Timgad: the curia continued to be occupied, as shown by three
4th c. inscriptions from it, relating to membership of the curia and interaction with
provincial government: Lepelley (1979) 45668; A. Chastagnol LAlbum municipal de
Timgad (Antiquitas III, 22) (Bonn 1978). Conimbriga curia removed: in phase 3, for
which see note in appendix on fora restorations in the West.
Bouleuteria on agorai: the East
Constantinople: Mller-Wiener Bildlexikon. Nysa: rebuilding of scaena frons with parts
of a frieze of skulls and garlands, perhaps from as temple (pers. observ. April 2001);
the late addition of a basin and statue bases to the front of the building may also
be late antique: V. Idil Nysa and Acharaca (Istanbul 1999) 11921. Antioch: Downey
Antioch 62527 suggests that the Psephion, restored by Memnonius ruler of Antioch
sometime between A.D. 408 and 433 (Evagr. Hist. eccl. 1.18) is identical with the
bouleuterion, because it had a hypaethral court recalling the open courtyard of the
city hall described by Lib. Or. 22.31 Furthermore in Evagrius this piece of build-
ing work is mentioned in the context of restorations to the Hellenistic agora, where
this building was located. For dating see PLRE 2, Anatolius 10. Downey Antioch
45354 suggests that Psephion derives from psephos (vote). Aizanoi: re-used material
under the threshold in portals of scaena frons: pers. observ. May 2003. Ephesus: re-
used material in inner walls of scaena frons and in a few seats: pers. observ. April
2001. The material in the scaena frons seems to be part a late phase involving brick.
Lionel Bier believes this phase post-dates the destruction of the adjacent basilica,
because it had involved the building of a faade which this structure masked. Whilst
the brick and re-used building material phase is undoubtedly late, I cannot yet
accept Biers interpretation, as so much of the remains of the basilica (which was
restored with re-used material in Late Antiquity) was found here in situ. Would the
faade really have faced onto a ruin? Perhaps the faade did co-exist with the re-
modelled basilica in some modied form: L. Bier The bouleuterion at Ephesos: some
observations for a new survey Steine und Wege. Festschrift fr Dieter Knibbe zum 65.
Geburtstag, edd. P. Scherrer, H. Taeuber, H. Thr (Vienna 1999) 718. Heracleia
am Latmos: repair in re-used material to steps visible inside building. Megalopolis:
extensively rebuilt using re-used materials: H. Lauter and T. Spyropoulos Megalopolis
3. Vorbericht 19961997 AA 1998.3 42638 (A.D. 41552). Philippi: faade of
bouleuterion apparently given props after earthquake which caused general damage
and is dated ca. 500 by the use of impost capitals in the neighbouring south colon-
nade, assumed to be part of the same programme of restoration: M. Sve Loeuvre
de lEcole franaise dAthnes Philippes pendant la dcennie 19871998, AEMT
10b 1996 (70515) 708709. Sagalassos: the bouleuterion was partially spoliated to
build the Late Roman city wall ca. 400. This included the re-use of a weaponry
frieze to decorate the gates and the re-use of more basic structural material in the
wall fabric (F. Martens pers. comm). The dating of the city wall is given a loose
terminus post quem by coins of A.D. 38392 in stratigraphy inside the Doric temple
relating to its conversion into a tower: J. Poblome Sherds and coins. A question
of chronology, in Sagalassos III, edd. M. Waelkens and J. Poblome (Acta Archeologica
Louvaniensia Monographiae 7) (Leuven 1995) (185205) 18990. It is given a ter-
minus ante quem of the 6th c. A.D. by rubbish deposits piled up against the exterior
of wall, which seem to date from the early 6th c. A.D. based on pottery, though
the last coin is of Theodosius II (A.D. 42550): J. Poblome Sagalassos Red Slip Ware
Typology and Chronology (Studies in Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology 2) (Leuven
1999) 280, 317. A similar result comes from ll layers immediately inside the wall
which are thought to pre-date an early 6th c. earthquake attested across the site,
though coins were no later than 5th c.: M. Waelkens et al. The 1994 and 1995
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 247
excavation seasons at Sagalassos, in Sagalassos IV. Report on the survey and excavation
campaigns of 1994 and 1995, edd. M. Waelkens and J. Poblome (Acta Archaeologica
Lovaniensia Monographiae 9) (Leuven 1997) (103216) 19193 for further refer-
ences. Selge: conversion of bouleuterion into church for which a stylistic dating of as
early as the 4th5th c. A.D. has been proposed based on alleged Syrian inuences
in architecture. No archaeological dating is available: A. Machatschek and M.
Schwartz Bauforschungen in Selge (Ergnzungsbnde zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris nr.9) (Wien
1981) 107108. Dated disuse, decay, destruction or reuse is known for Valencia,
Rome, Paliopolis (Corfu), Antioch, Pella, and Scythopolis, all after A.D. 470 except
for Valencia, where re-use is claimed as 5th c.
Government oces
Constantinople: Treasury (arca) in Forum of Constantine: Chron. Pasc. Olympiad 345
A.D. 603, R. Guilland tudes de topographie de Constantinople byzantine 2 vols. (Berliner
Byzantinistische Arbeiten 37) (Berlin 1969) vol.1 394. Rome: oce of the water
board on the forum was repaired in 328: statio aquarum by a curator aquarum: CIL VI,
36951=ILS 8943. Cyrene, possible secretarium: called praetorium by excavators: an
audience hall established in the Augusteum (and so likely to be late 4th c. or later),
with Ptolemaic inscriptions re-used in foundations. A statue of Marcus Aurelius,
composed of bits of reworked statuary, was brought into the complex probably at
this time: Stucchi Agor 1.1 31218. Antioch: civic prison: adjacent to bouleuterion,
on agora: Lib. Or. 22.30 (A.D. 378).
Shop functions
Segobriga: metal workshop of 4th c. date on forum: one of tabernae on south side of
forum has been identied as having housed a metal workshop during the 4th c.,
presumably on the basis of nds: poster Foro Romano de Segobriga, purchased on site
November 2004. I could not nd details of this in the site report: J. M. Abscal,
M. Almagro-Gorbea and R. Cebrin Segobriga 19892000. Topografa de la ciu-
dad y trabajos en el foro, MadridMitt 43 (2002) 12361. Complutum: mosaicist of
the 4th c. in cellular rooms on forum: Sebastin Rascn Marqus, pers. comm.
Delphi: blobs of glass identied in occupation layer with 2nd-3rd c. pottery sealed
by a ll of 4th c. date; only preliminary reports so far: V. Droche and P. Ptridis
BCH 117 (1993) (64144) 643. Ephesus: amongst the evidence for this workshop
of apparent 5th-6th c. date were glass weights with monograms; only preliminary
reports published so far: F. Krinzinger Ephesos 2000 Kaz Sonular Toplants 23.2
(2001) (12735) 129. Aphrodisias: blobs of glass found with a furnace in this shop.
It is built into a former pagan religious monument, with oor levels producing 4th-
6th c. coins: R. R. R. Smith and C. Ratt Archaeological research at Aphrodisias
in Caria, 1996, AJA 102 (1998) (22550) 238. Sagalassos metal workshop: the dat-
ing is as quoted in preliminary report, see M. Waelkens The 2000 excavation and
restoration season at Sagalassos, Kaz Sonular Toplants 23.1 (2001) (1121) 12.
Sagalassos restaurant: identied by nds and room arrangement (large open public
room and kitchen) see T. Putzeys, M. Waelkens, J. Poblome, W. Van Neer, T. Van
Thuyne and N. Kellens Contextual analysis at Sagalassos: the material from an
Early Byzantine complex at the lower agora, in The Artisan Contribution to Roman
Economy and Society, edd. J. Poblome, M. Waelkens et al. (forthcoming). These shops
were replanned in Late Antiquity, and the restaurant occupation is posterior to this:
the provisional date of the replanning is suggested as being late 4th or early 5th c.,
as coins found in interstices between pavement, and so relating to the use of the
248 rtkr r.\.x
shops in this phase date from A.D. 391491, especially the later 4th and 5th c.
A.D.: M. Waelkens, D. Pauwels and J. Van den Bergh The 1993 excavations on
the upper and lower agora, in Sagalassos III Report on the Fourth Excavation Campaign
of 1993, edd. M. Waelkens and J. Poblome (Acta Archaeologica Lovaniensia
Monographiae 7) (Leuven 1995) (2346) 29. Antioch in Pisidia: S. Mitchell and
M. Waelkens Pisidian Antioch. The Site and its Monuments (London, Swansea 1998)
14749 describe nds from within the shops excavated in 1924. Cyrene: shop
installed on agora in last monumental phase ca. 400, after a supposed Austurian
destruction, has been thought to be a thermopolion (restaurant) based on the types of
ceramic found there: scaldabevande with also oinochoe: Stucchi Agor 1.1 32526.
Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1. New fora/agorai and round plazas built in late antiquity.
Fig. 2. The tetrastoon at Aphrodisias, a new agora of the later 4th c.
Fig. 3. Bouleuterion-odeion on agora of Nysa, with front wall rebuilt in re-used blocks.
Fig. 4. A professionally cut gameboard, with seating, from a re-used statue base
and cornices, in the tetragonal agora, Perge.
Fig. 5. The southern shops of the rebuilt tetragonal agora at Ephesus.
No+rs
* Gerasa: C. H. Kraeling ed. Gerasa (New Haven 1938) plan XII.
Bostra: S. Cerulli Bostra: Note sul sistema viario urbano e nouvi apporti alla
coprensione delle fasi edilizie del Santuario dei SS. Sergio, Bacco e Leonzio,
Felix Ravenna 115 (1978) pp. 11124 g. 7. Durres: Courtesy of J. Wilkes.
Antioch: J. Lassus Antioch on the Orontes vol. VLes portiques dAntioche (Princeton 1972)
14 plan V.
Justiniana Prima: B. Bavant, V. Kondc and J. M. Spieser ed. Caricin Grad II
(Collection de lcole francaise de Rome, 75) (Belgrade and Rome 1990).
Aphrodisias: C. Rouech Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity: The Late Roman and Byzantine
Inscriptions, revised second edition, 2004, http://insaph.kcl.ac.uk/ala2004, plan 6.
Constantinople: R. Naumann Neue Beobachtungen am Theodosiusbogen und
Forum Tauri in Istanbul, IstMitt 26 (1976) 123 Abb. 5.
Scythopolis: Y. Tsafrir and G. Foerster Urbanism at Scythopolis-Bet Shean in the
fourth to seventh centuries, DOP 51 (1997) 72146, g D.
ron. .xr .oon.i rtnixo +nr +n .xr +n c. ..r. 249
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC SPACE AND THE
TRANSFORMATION OF AN EARLY MEDIEVAL TOWN:
A RE-EXAMINATION OF THE CASE OF BRESCIA
G. P. Brogiolo
Abstract
In the town of Brescia, Roman buildings and the urban infrastructure
remained relatively intact until the 6th c. However, during the 6th
and 7th c., the town underwent a series of transformations. Focusing
on the eastern part of the city, this paper examines the transforma-
tions that occurred within monumental public buildings and domestic
buildings, the appearance of artisanal activities in the urban area, and
of burials in zones of residential occupation. It is argued that these
developments did not result from changes in attitudes and values among
the population but rather were controlled and instigated by a central
authority based in the episcopal and later ducal complex on the west-
ern side of the city.
Ix+nortc+iox
Brescia (ancient Brixia) is situated on the Po plain, just under the
foot-hills of the Alps, to the south west of Lake Garda. The site has
been occupied since the Bronze Age (11th/10th c. B.C.), whilst lit-
erary sources attest the political importance of the Iron-Age oppidum
that preceded the Roman town, the capital of the Celtic tribe of
the Cenomani.
1
The urban structure of the Roman town, a Latin
colony since 89 B.C. and a municipium from 49 B.C., dates back to
the Augustan/Tiberian period, when the walls were erected and the
street-grid and the aqueduct laid out. Brescia seems to have main-
tained both its prosperity and Roman urban plan down to Late
Antiquity, when several decisive changes occurred (g. 1).
1
Livy, 32.30: in vicos Cenomanorum Brixiamque quod caput gentis erat.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 251283
252 o.r. nnooioro
Fig. 1 1) Forum; 2) Basilica; 3) Capitolium; 4) Theatre; 5) Cardo maximus;
6) Decumanus maximus (the modern via dei Musei); 7) via Piamarta cardo;
8) Ortaglia cardo; 9) S. Giulia insula; 10) Ortaglia insula; 11) Episcopal
complex; 13) Curia ducis; 14) via Alberto Mario cardo (from Brogiolo 1993).
In particular, these changes included the construction of a large
building within a small extension to the city walls on the western
side. I have previously argued that this building was a palatium, owing
to the high quality of its construction and the fact that it was the
seat of the duke in Lombard times.
2
New defences were added to
the existing wall circuit of Augustan date, and a new river-port was
constructed to the south-east.
3
These developments formed part of
a single project to enhance the political and economic importance
of Brescia, which played a signicant role during the Gothic wars
and throughout the Lombard period.
During the 4th and 5th c., the main sites of Christian worship
were also constructed and continued in use throughout the Early
Middle Ages. To the west, near the probable palatium, a double cathe-
dral with baptistery (of the 5th c.) was built,
4
while a number of
oratories and martyrial churches were erected in the extramural
cemeteries.
5
The shift of the seats of secular and ecclesiastical power to the
western edge of the city, created a new urban centre, away from
that of Antiquity. This change was remembered in local tradition:
Malvezzi, the early 15th c. author of a chronicle of Brescia, recounts
how after a destruction of the city by re at the hands of Attila, the
eastern quarters were abandoned, and Brescia was reconstructed fur-
ther to the west, as far as the banks of the River Garza.
6
The purpose of this article is to analyse these eastern quarters,
where during the 1980s large-scale excavations were carried out
under my direction, in the cloisters of the monastery of S. Salvatore
and in Via Alberto Mario. This research provided the data for the
rst synthetic treatments of the citys archaeology in the 1990s, in
which I hypothesised that a group of people of low, perhaps even
servile, rank was settled on public land to the north of the Decumanus
maximus, in the area of the Capitolium, theatre, and Roman houses
around S. Giulia, starting from the rst period of Lombard domi-
nation. These people were clearly involved both in metal-working,
2
Brogiolo (1993) 5565.
3
Brogiolo (1993) 4555.
4
On the episcopal complex see Panazza (1990) and Cantino Wataghin (1996)
11920.
5
On the Christian topography of Brescia: Brogiolo (1993) 6571.
6
Malvezzi (1729).
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 253
which was strategically vital in the production of weaponry and other
equipment, and perhaps also in agricultural and pastoral activities
in the area south of the decumanus, where a thick layer of highly
organic soil (produced through cultivation and stock-raising) devel-
oped over the buildings of the Roman and Ostrogothic periods,
which had continued to be used in some form until the end of the
6th c.
The recent publication of new information on the monumental
centre of Roman Brescia (around the theatre, Capitolium and Forum)
allows a fuller reconstruction of the changes that occurred in the
public buildings, under the direction of those in power during the
5th to 7th c.
7
By comparing what happened here with the buildings,
activities and graves documented in the insulae occupied by private
houses, it is possible to consider whether the documented and rad-
ical transformations were planned and controlled by the public author-
ities, or were the result of spontaneous developments. In order to
consider this question, I will concentrate on four aspects: (1) resi-
dential buildings after the end of the Roman domus; (2) the trans-
formation of the monumental buildings (theatre, Capitolium, baths,
Basilica); (3) the activities of artisans; (4) the presence of graves amongst
the houses.
Dovrs+ic Btirrixo Ar+rn +nr Exr or +nr DOMUS
Until the 5th c., the roads were still paved, the drains were func-
tioning, building work was of a reasonable quality, and the Roman
houses, even if broken up and adapted to artisanal use, still char-
acterised an urban landscape that was not very dierent from that
of the earlier imperial centuries.
8
In the 6th c., however, in dierent
7
De Vanna (1998a), (19992000a) and (19992000b); Venturini (1998); Rossi
(2002a).
8
Building work of reasonable quality can be seen at the via Alberto Mario site
(Brogiolo (1988)), which replaced an earlier poorer phase, as well as the baths of
the 5th/6th c. at via Gasparo. See also, in the S. Giulia insula, near the decumanus
and on the level with S. Maria in Solario, a reconstruction datable between the
end of the 4th, and the rst rst half of the 5th c., which also involved re-establishing
a connection into the main drain under the road. Its walls are bonded with good-
quality mortar, and the oors are also of mortar: Biena, Breda, Melley and Mills
(19992000) 117. The paving blocks of the Ortaglia cardo were reset after the laying
254 o.r. nnooioro
parts of the city the nal phase of the Roman domus is marked by
signs of re and destruction, which signal the end of the ancient
patterns of habitation.
9
It would, however, be misleading to see these
traumatic events as the sole cause of the transformations that aected
housing, streets, and the public area of the theatre, the Capitolium,
the Forum and the Basilica. Instead these changes were part of a more
generalised and long-term process that aected not only the distri-
bution and structure of housing, but also created new relationships
between residential areas, the burial of the dead, and new cultural
and economic structures.
An initial consequence of this episode of destruction was the partial
demolition of the surviving buildings and the dumping of the rubble
that resulted. In the domus of the S. Giulia area (g. 2), the demolition
of buildings (that were, at least in part, two-storied) created a mass
of rubble, which was then selectively dumped. In domus B and C, it
was mainly the rooms to the north, and those near the decumanus
that were in-lled, whereas in domus D the build-up was greater in
the rooms along the decumanus (which had the lowest oor-levels)
than in those that opened onto the Ortaglia cardo.
10
At least in some areas, this activity seems to have been organised
on a suciently wide scale to level out the very dierent oor lev-
els of individual rooms, which had characterised the Roman phase
and which had been linked by stairways and sloping pavements.
However, even after this levelling, dierences of levels could persist
even within the same domus (as in domus A and C). Consequently,
later occupation in some parts was directly on top of Roman pave-
ments, which were cut by numerous post-holes and eventually worn
away completely (g. 3), while in other areas it occurred at a much
higher level above deposits of dumped soil. In both cases, the new
of a lead pipe for which a terminus post quem is provided by ve coins that cannot
be attributed to specic emperors, but which are of late 4th/5th c. date; and a
terminus ante quem of the mid-6th c. re. In via Musei 41, the domus built in the
Augustan period and reconstructed perhaps in Flavian times, was inhabitated until
the 4th/5th c. (De Vanna (1998b) 49).
9
The re is most precisely dated at via Alberto Mario (Brogiolo (1988)) and
S. Giulia (Brogiolo (1993)).
10
In the excavation near S. Maria in Solario and via dei Musei, the oor-
levels of domus C were raised almost a metre (from 142.42 to 143.25) by three suc-
cessive dumps of earth mixed with rubbish, alternating with beaten oors; this
phase is well dated by Lombard pottery discovered in one of the lowest layers of
the sequence (Biena, Breda, Melley and Mills (19992000) 117).
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 255
256 o.r. nnooioro
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.

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oors were of beaten earth, on which hearths were established and
waste of dierent kinds (mainly ash and food remains) was discarded,
with the result that oor-levels rose slowly.
Rubbish and dumped material covered not only private spaces
within the insulae, but even the streets. On the Ortaglia cardo, the
paving-blocks were covered by the collapse of the domus, around the
middle of the 6th c., and the street was then recreated with a simple
beaten surface. A similar situation is attested in via Alberto Mario,
where the decumanus was buried at the end of the 6th c. after the
destruction by re of a building of the Ostrogothic period.
11
The rise
11
This dating is based on a fragment of ARS Hayes 105 (of the end of the 6th/
rst half of the 7th c.) discovered in the layer covering the paving of the decumanus
(Biena, Breda, Melley and Mills (19992000) 117).
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 257
Fig. 2b Brescia (S. Giulia): plan of the structures of Phase IIIB
(6thrst half of the 7th c.).
258 o.r. nnooioro
F
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.

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.

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.
in level was not always the same in the private spaces as on the
streets. In the area of the Basilica, the paving outside was sealed in
the Early Lombard period by almost half a metre of dark organic
soil, while inside the building this same deposit is only a few centi-
metres deep.
12
A new spatial organisation
During the Roman period, the domus occupied rectangular lots inside
the insulae. Their shortest side faced the road, connected to their
interiors and upper-storeys by narrow passageways. The street-frontage
was therefore densely built-up, although we cannot know its full
heightonly in very few cases it is possible to tell whether an exca-
vated room had an upper storey. This urban landscape, which must
have looked similar to those that are still visible in Pompeii and
Herculaneum, survived down to the 5th c., albeit subject to rebuilding,
amalgamations, or sub-divisions, of which we know very little. Urban
excavations at Brescia, as in other towns, tend to stop at the level
of the latest, solid Roman pavements, which are left undisturbed. In
other towns, where the archaeological deposit has been fully inves-
tigated, as at Milan
13
or at Vicenza,
14
archaeologists have been able
to document radical transformations, in both plan and elevation,
during the Roman period.
The changes documented in the Roman period did not, however,
change the overall nature of the townscape, which was transformed
only in the 5th and 6th c., when the unity of the domus lots was
broken, both on the frontages and inside the insulae. The area of
S. Giulia (see g. 2a and 2b) is the one most extensively investi-
gated, and buildings have been recorded in each of the four limited
areas excavated along the line of the streets.
15
On the east side of
the Ortaglia cardo, a hut used for iron-working that faced onto a
courtyard next to the cardo itself has been excavated, while a hut
has been identied in the most recent phases of the site in via Alberto
12
De Vanna (1998b).
13
Caporusso (1991).
14
The excavation is still unpublished.
15
Buildings have been recorded along via dei Musei; near S. Maria in Solario;
in the SW building (IX), on via Piamarta; and lastly along the Ortaglia cardo, on
the W side.
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 259
Mario. The domus in via dei Musei 4, meanwhile, seems to have
been abandoned and quarried for its building materials, and was
only reoccupied for residential purposes between the 8th and the 9th
c.
16
On the street frontages, houses now alternated with open spaces,
while private courtyards or shared passageways granted access to the
interior of the insulae where other houses were to be found. The
compact frontages of the domus were therefore breaking up, both
horizontally, with the alternation of houses and courtyards, and ver-
tically, with the presence of buildings of dierent heights (the tallest
being the former public buildings, like the Basilica and theatre; while
the domus were generally replaced by one-storied buildings).
Within the insulae, the closely spaced domus gave way to huts and
one- or two-roomed houses set around open courtyards, which were
either private or shared between several buildings (e.g. houses XXIX,
XXX and XXXII at S. Giulia), and connected to the street by com-
munal passageways. All the houses, those facing onto the streets as
well as those in the interior, maintained the same orientation as the
earlier Roman housespartly because they often partially reused
their walls, but also because, even when the buildings were wholly
new, they seem to respect the earlier property-boundaries.
In our present state of knowledge, it is impossible to say if the
subdivision at S. Giulia was carried through a programmed inter-
vention aecting the whole insula, or whether it occured as the result
of numerous private and individual transactions. Nor do we have
adequate data for this process from the other sectors of the town,
where the excavations have been more limited in area and there-
fore do not allow us to form an impression of wide-scale transfor-
mation. One conclusion, however, is possible. Where excavation has
been extensive (at S. Giulia in the area of domus A, B, and C1) the
post-Roman houses are homogeneously and uniformly distributed,
suggesting at the very least a common adhesion to a particular spatial
model. House-types, however, are much more varied, although all
the new buildings share common general characteristics. All are
one-storied, with a simple one- or two-roomed plan and no separate
service-areas, and are constructed in perishable materials with beaten
earth oors.
16
De Vanna, Gallina and Sannazaro (19992000) 114.
260 o.r. nnooioro
The excavations carried out between 1980 and 1992 in the S. Giulia
insula and in the southern Ortaglia domus identied approximately 20
post-Roman buildings; of which at least 15 date to the period ca.
A.D. 568680. They can be divided into three distinct types:
Sunken huts built entirely of wood ( g. 4)
Three structures (of which two are certain and one hypothetical) cor-
respond to a building type well known in northern Europe as the
Grubenhaus. The rst two were in use sequentially. They had load-
bearing vertical timbers, walls of wattle and daub, and apparently
wooden oors (suggested by sunken oorsbetween 15 and 40 cm
deep in the case of the earlier house, 80 cm in the case of the latter).
These tiny structures (3.80 3 m, and 2.5 2.5 m) were set within
a yard covering over 300 m
2
, delineated by the remains of Roman
walls demolished nearly to ground-level. Inside the area, in addition
to the huts, were found a palisade, a pit (which probably served for
the storage of food), and two infant burials.
These huts are closely paralleled in the houses of Gepids and
Lombards excavated in Pannonia, and it was therefore initially sug-
gested that this type of building was introduced in Italy by the
Lombards at the end of the 6th c.
17
Elsewhere in Europe sunken
featured huts like these are usually interpreted as ancillary buildings
attached to structures of greater size and importance,
18
but at Brescia
they seem to have been independent domestic units.
Houses of mixed building technique ( g. 5)
Eight buildings dier from the others through the use of a mixed
technique in their construction in which the walls of the Roman
houses were reused, in combination with new stone and brick walls
bonded with clay, to support a wooden or wattle and daub super-
structure. These buildings had either one or two rooms and were
decidedly larger than the sunken huts, having a surface of 39 and
67 m
2
. The largest of these was found in the area of S. Giulia
17
Brogiolo (1993) 95. The discovery of examples of similar huts in Byzantine
Apulia has led Arthur (1999) to question the hypothesis of a direct derivation of
these buildings from a Germanic tradition.
18
Chapelot and Fossier (1980) 11635.
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 261
262 o.r. nnooioro
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(Building XXIX), and had two clearly distinct rooms. Its southern,
eastern and (in part) northern walls reused the Roman structures,
while to the west, the wall was of wattle and daub, supported by
posts resting on stone bases. The internal partition had a base of
stone bonded with clay, into which vertical posts were inserted. The
ridge of the roof, which was set slightly o-centre, was supported by
posts, resting on stone bases and on a razed wall of an earlier build-
ing. As regards both the reused Roman walls and the new walls
bonded in clay, it is impossible to know how high they originally
stood. Technically, given the nature of their build, they could have
reached to roof-level, or alternatively may have supported a super-
structure. The latter is more likely as none of the walls survive to
over 80 cm in height. It is possible that they supported a super-
structure made of wooden planks, as no trace of wattle and daub
was found associated with the buildings.
Wooden huts with dry-stone footings ( g. 6)
This type of building is represented by the remains of a hut, of
which only one complete side (4 m long) and parts of two connecting
sides (1.30 m long) were excavated. It had load-bearing vertical posts
set directly in the ground, and small dry-stone walls only one course
high, probably for a wooden superstructure supported by vertical
timbers. Built along the cardo separating the S. Giulia and Ortaglia
insulae, and facing onto a yard, it was surrounded by a wooden pal-
isade. Since it was only partially excavated, it is impossible to say
whether this hut, of which both the internal and external living-sur-
faces contained smithing-waste, was used exclusively for artisanal
activity or also functioned as a dwelling.
The contemporaneous use of dierent building techniques and
types poses a particular problem. Are the dierences the result of
the dierent technical skills available to people who came from dis-
tinct cultural traditions, or might the same builders have used dierent
techniques according to particular circumstances or the temporary
availability of materials? The fact that Building XXIX at S. Giulia
contains three clearly distinct techniques tends to support the second
hypothesis, though we cannot exclude the possibility that various
individuals took part in the construction, each with their own tra-
dition of building. Leaving aside this problem, I think it is clear that
this simple technique did not require specialised artisans, but represent
264 o.r. nnooioro
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 265
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the levels of technology available to the small groups who lived in
these houses.
Tnr Tn.xsronv.+iox or Ptnric Btirrixos .xr Sr.crs
As stated above, recent excavations carried out by the Soprintendenza
Archeologica della Lombardia have yielded new and important infor-
mation concerning the transformation of the monumental centre of
the Roman town, situated around the Forum, and which included
the theatre, the Capitolium, the baths and the Basilica (g. 7).
The theatre
In the eastern sector of the cavea of the theatre, the following strati-
graphic sequence has been documented:
1) Dumps of rubble.
2) A brick-kiln generically dated to between Late Antiquity and the
Early Lombard period.
3) An initial funerary use of the area, attested by 4 tombs built with
stone walls and covered with tiles alla cappuccina, a form which is
closely paralleled in the rst (8th c.) phase of the nearby ceme-
tery around S. Salvatore.
4) A second phase of burials (19 in total), similar in style to those
described above;
5) A building of uncertain function, constructed of roughly-squared
stone blocks.
19
In the area of the scaenae frons, now facing onto via dei Musei, there
were some houses whose presence is revealed by oors of beaten
earth and hearths, set above levelling layers that seal the late antique
phase.
20
The room to the west of the scaena seems also to have been
reoccupied, in a generic late antique/Early Medieval period, after
a period of re-damage and decay. The presence of much Lombard
pottery and of post-holes suggests that these were domestic dwellings,
contemporaneous with a single burial.
21
Nearby was a lime-kiln,
exploiting the marble of the ancient theatre.
19
Brentegnani (19951997) 18788.
20
De Vanna and Dander (19951997).
21
Melley, Mills and Vannini (19992000) 119.
266 o.r. nnooioro
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 267
Fig. 7 Brescia, the Forum area. The theatre is to the right of the Capitolium.
(from Rossi 2002b)
The Capitolium
According to the most recent data, the abandonment of the Capitolium
as a temple can be dated to the end of the 4th c., and presumably
resulted from the rise of Christianity.
22
The building seems to have
been left unused for at least a century although it is not clear whether
the structure was mantained in any way during this period. In the
eastern portico and in the fourth cella, the rst traces of domestic
activities consist of thin deposits which have yielded a few fragments
of coarseware of the early 6th c..
23
It is only during the Early Lombard period that traces of occu-
pation become more evident. In this phase, after a period of rob-
bing and demolition, two pottery kilns were established on the Roman
cocciopesto oor, while hearths and post-holes further to the south sug-
gest the presence of a dwelling (g. 8).
24
Similarly, in the rooms
adjoining the eastern portico of the temple, which were abandoned
and became covered in soil at the end of the 4th c., a new phase
of occupation seems to have occurred at the end of the 5th and the
beginning of the 6th c. However, it is only between the Late Lombard
period and the 10th c. that an established settlement emerges.
25
The Forum
On the western side of the Forum, excavations have been carried out
on the site of a shop (taberna) opening onto the square, and some
rooms of a (possibly public) bath.
26
In the taberna, after a phase of
wooden structures of uncertain date and the dumping of further
material, new occupation occurred that can be dated to the Early
Lombard period. A period of burials followed, containing ve tombs
dating to the 7th c. Three of these were of children laid directly in
the earth, one was of an adult woman buried in a masonry tomb,
while the last contained a new-born baby buried between curved
roof-tiles. There is also a sixth and later burial, associated with a
22
Rossi (2002b) 221.
23
Guglielmetti (1996).
24
Dander and Scarpella (1996) 90.
25
De Vanna (1998a) 63; De Vanna (2002) 22829.
26
Rossi and Scarpella (1994); Dander, Perencin and Scarpella (1996) 9899; De
Vanna (1996) 28990.
268 o.r. nnooioro
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 269
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wooden fence, sealed by layers containing pottery of the 8th/10th c.
The rooms of the bath-building also were broken up during the 6th
c. into humble dwellings, in a dense stratigraphic sequence that also
included three burials (one of a new-born baby buried between tiles;
one of a child possibly alla cappuccina, and a third, also a child, buried
in a masonry tomb).
The Basilica
The post-Roman sequence in the Basilica is as follows:
27
1) At an unknown date the southern portico was demolished and
the building underwent a period of secondary occupation (the
evidence for which includes post-holes, hearths, and the blocking
of a window).
2) In the Early Lombard period, the ground-surface was raised by
a layer of dark organic soil, which was noted to be only a few
cm deep inside the building, but had built up to a depth of
around 50 cm on the exterior. In this phase the Basilica appears
to have been still standing more or less intact (g. 9).
3) In the Carolingian period (a date provided by a brooch in one
of the graves), six burials were inserted in the interior of the
Basilica. Two burials were placed directly in the soil (one a child,
the other an adolescent). A third was perhaps interred in a masonry
tomb, which was disturbed by a subsequent burial alla cappuccina.
This latter tomb was used more than once, and contained the
brooch by which this phase of burials is dated. The fth was
that of an adult inhumation in a rectangular grave covered by
horizontally-laid roof-tiles, while outside the Basilica was a further
burial (of an infant, in a brick tomb).
4) Between the 8th and 10th c., at least ve stone and brick houses
were built against the faade of the Basilica, facing onto a new
road that had formed within the Roman square that had once
fronted the building. These were to survive until the end of the
Middle Ages.
27
See De Vanna (1998b).
270 o.r. nnooioro
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 271
F
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Only the production of lime and one instance of metal-working
activity are directly attested within the S. Giulia and Ortaglia insulae,
though slags and wastes suggest that glass and bone were also worked
here. In the Capitolium and in the theatre, as well as lime-kilns, the
discovery of two pottery-kilns attests to ceramic production.
28
The
products of these activities were partly utilised within the immediate
vicinity (as revealed by the amount of Lombard pottery discovered),
but, for the most part, they must have been destined for use else-
where. The four excavated lime-kilns had in fact a productive capac-
ity that is disproportionate for the needs of the buildings in this
sector of the town. As they exploited the abundant limestone of
the Roman public buildings, it is likely that this activity was at
least subject to regulation, if not to the direct control, of the public
authority.
Pottery kilns, forges and lime-kilns were all close to the huts in
which the specialised craftsmen lived. This begs the question of how
these artisans, who probably worked full-time and made their liveli-
hoods solely from these activities, were supplied with food. In only
one rather late case (in the second half of the 7th c.) is a garden
clearly attested in the area. Unless they held cultivated plots else-
where (for instance, in the more ruralised part of the city to the
south of the Decumanus maximus), it could be inferred that the people
who lived in the former centre and within the S. Giulia insula did
not grow their own crops, but obtained their food in return for their
specialised labour and for their manufactured products (whether by
barter or through the use of money). In this regard, it should be
noted that the bones of sheep and goats are prevalent in the rub-
bish associated with Buildings XXIXXXX. This evidence contrasts
with the greater frequency of pig-bones on the other urban sites,
and may be explained by Brescias location by the foothills of the
Alps, but it is unlikely that the artisans were themselves engaged in
animal husbandry.
28
Guglielmetti (1996).
272 o.r. nnooioro
Btni.rs Avoxos+ +nr Hotsrs
Together with the spread of new types of building, one of the most
signicant dierences between the Roman and Lombard periods is
that during the latter burials were present in the central and west-
ern quarters of the town, in close association with houses (g. 10).
It must be stressed that this practice involved only part of the pop-
ulation, since at the same time organised burial-grounds existed both
outside the city-walls and on the slopes of the castle hill (an area
that was presumably only sparsely inhabited).
29
In total 65 tombs
have been documented, containing a little less than 100 individuals,
30
although tombs were rarely used for more than one inhumation.
The quantity of burials is small considering the length of the period
in question (from the end of the 6th, through at least the 8th c.),
in relation to the potential number of inhabitants in these areas. The
highest concentration, and one that is unlikely to be fortuitous, is
attested between the insula of S. Giulia and the former public mon-
uments. In other areas of the city the phenomenon is only sporad-
ically recorded. The types of burials, which are mainly in masonry
tombs, together with inhumations alla cappuccina placed directly into
the soil, do not dier from those contemporaneously in use in the
cemeteries, and do not necessarily suggest lower quality or poverty.
The gender-distribution amongst the deceased also looks fairly nor-
mal: males and females seem to be present in roughly equal pro-
portions. The higher frequency of child graves is probably due to
high infant mortalityit is not necessary to evoke here the persis-
tence of a Protohistoric tradition, which in remote regions survived
into the Roman period, of burying children near houses.
29
Brogiolo (1997).
30
As well as the burials considered in Brogiolo (1997) and in De Vanna (1996)
there are ve tombs in Vicolo S. Paolo (Venturini (1998) 6465); two burial phases
in via Cattaneo 41 (De Vanna (19992000a) 110); one tomb in the rooms con-
nected to the theatre (Melley, Mills, Vannini (19992000) 119); two tombs in a
portico connecting the theatre to the decumanus (De Vanna and Dander (19951997)
184); nine (post 8th c.) graves in the area of the portico of the Flavian Capitolium
(Dander and Scarpella (1996) 90 and De Vanna (2002) 22829); six in the Basilica
(De Vanna (1998b)); one in via Trieste/via Paganora, ex hotel Gallo (Rossi (1991)
and De Vanna (19951997) 191).
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 273
274 o.r. nnooioro
Fig. 10 Brescia (S. Giulia): Early Lombard period houses and burials.
The scarcity and poverty of grave-goods is in obvious contrast
with the riches found in other burial-grounds of the Early Lombard
period, which has led to the suggestion that burial near houses
resulted from a desire to reduce funerary expenses.
31
The relatively
high quality of this type of burial (in terms of tomb construction),
its continuity through time, and the re-use of some of the tombs,
certainly rules out the possibility that burials in the midst of the city
occurred only during moments of crisis, when the public cemeteries
could not be accessed.
Inhumation amongst houses is widely attested in the Early Middle
Ages, and, although it is not as common as burial in row cemeter-
ies (Reihengrberfelder) or church cemeteries, it is not rare.
32
The phe-
nomenon is known not only in other towns of northern Italy,
33
but
throughout the whole of western Europe.
34
It has been interpreted
as a sign of marginality,
35
or as a reection of the complex trans-
formation of urbanism, caught between a strong tradition of family-
rights and a slow Christianisation of death.
36
Certainly burials amongst houses removed funerary ritual from the
public sphere, renouncing the ritual display of the corpse, carried
through the town and buried in a public cemetery, and restricting
it to the much more limited space of the houses and their court-
yards. This involved the renunciation of public ceremony, whether
Christian, or secular associated with the row cemeteries.
37
In the
case of the Church, treatment of the physical remains of the dead
and clerical participation in funerary rituals (intended to help in the
afterlife) began before death with the giving of viaticum (the Eucharist
administered prior to death) to the dying.
38
The community recited
31
De Vanna (1996) 294.
32
As armed by Haerke (2001) 10.
33
Cantino Wataghin and Lambert (1998).
34
Azkarte Garai-Olaun (2002) 127.
35
Guadagnin (1988) attributes these tombs to slaves or to individuals excluded
from society. For the anthropological analysis of the skeletons, see Brogiolo and
Cuni (1988).
36
Azkarte Garai-Olaun (2002) 129.
37
Against an ethnic interpretation of the appearance of row cemeteries see Brather
(2000); contra Bierbrauer (2002) 225 n. 3. It could nevertheless be observed that
from the arrival of the Lombards in Italy (A.D. 568) down to the second half of
the 7th c., row cemeteries are attested alongside burial near churches.
38
Clerical participation in funerary rituals commenced from the end of the 7th
c. (Eros (1997) 79).
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 275
psalms as the body was washed, placed on a bier, accompanied to
the church, and buried.
39
In row cemeteries, the rst step of the funerary rite was the dress-
ing of the corpse in a manner that carried strong ideological mean-
ing. The body was then borne to the cemetery, and interred along
with an array of carefully-chosen grave-goods. The nal elements of
the funeral process were the feasting and the lighting of ritual res
by the grave.
40
This was a shared ritual, more even than the Christian
funeral. The row cemetery was in fact the place par excellence of a
competitive discourse, where occurred perhaps the most important
of the symbolic ceremonies that marked the life-cycle of an individual.
The funeral was a moment of socialisation, an occasion for the main-
tenance or the advancement of the status of the family, which was
potentially threatened by the death of one of its members,
41
in a his-
torical phase of great social instability.
42
Those buried among the houses were removed from both the
redemptive context of the Church, codied in the 4th and 5th c.
and still very much alive in the 6th/7th (as evidenced by the sur-
vival of late antique mausolea), and from the social competitiveness
of the lites, typied by the furnished graves in the open cemeteries.
Was this a voluntary choice, analogous to the burial of the hermits
close to their cave dwellings? Or was it forced on the deceased by
a loss of rights and by social exclusion, as in the the case of the two
individuals buried in landll deposits who were probably victims of
a violent death?
43
The deposition of a few grave-goods and the pres-
ence of reasonable tomb-structures, suggest that these individuals
were mourned by their families and community. But it seems likely
that those who buried their dead close to their houses were from
the lower ranks of society, with limited ideological and social horizons.
39
Paxton (1990) 3744.
40
Young (1977).
41
Halsall (1998) 333.
42
Haerke (2001) 30 speaks of an unstable snowball run by competitive preda-
tory elites.
43
The bodies of individual victims of violent death were brought to light in the
area of the atrium of the early Christian basilica at Concordia Sagittaria (Venice),
in levels of Early Medieval date (9th/10th c.) (Croce da Villa (2001)).
276 o.r. nnooioro
Ax O\rn.rr Ix+rnrnr+.+iox
Lombard Brescia shrank within its late antique walls to an area of
about 25 ha, about a third of the area covered by the Roman city.
The area settled cannot, however, be used as a simple indicator of
a fall in population. There was indeed a radical change in the style
and density of habitation, and in the eastern insulae, north of the
decumanus, the densely packed huts could have housed more people
than the underlying houses of the Roman period. On the other hand,
the presence of cultivable plots and empty spaces in other insulae, a
characteristic of all Early Medieval cities, may well have meant that
the overall level of habitation per hectare was similar to that of the
Roman period, or perhaps sparser.
The archaeological data examined here, as noted at the begin-
ning of this article, are mainly from the eastern quarters of the
Roman town and from the Forum. Between the 5th and 6th c. this
area lost its centrality, as the episcopal complex and a great public
building (possibly a late antique palace), subsequently occupied by
the Lombard duke, were established on the western edge of the
town.
44
The fact that both the secular authority and the bishop were
involved in these transformations suggests a possible collaboration
between the two, although the details of this cannot be known. I do
not consider it likely that the abandonment of the former pagan cen-
tre of the city, along with the reuse in the cathedral of columns from
the Forum, was motivated by ideological choice. The one thing we
can say with condence is that the episcopal complex, with its dou-
ble-basilica and baptistery, as well as the Curia ducis, established as
it was in an ancient building of some signicance, survived through-
out the Early Middle Ages, thereby preserving some impression of
the classical monumentality of the city.
45
Although the information we have for the quarters in the centre
and east of the city is incomplete, and cannot be extended to the
areas of town where episcopal and ducal power were centred, it does
include data on public buildings and spaces. Understanding the
medium term or occasional strategies involved in the transformation
of these structures can shed light on the choices available to the
public authorities. As far as the Capitolium is concerned, we should
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 277
44
Brogiolo (1993) 5565.
45
On the Early Medieval re-use of ruins see Eros (2001).
46
Gurt Esparraguera (20002001) 455 uses the concept of new urban coloni-
sation. Evidence of craft activities is attested in several Italian towns. Of particu-
lar interest is the case of Vercelli, where these came to light in an area probably
under the bishops control (Pant and Spagnolo-Garzoli (1999)). On the ecclesias-
tical involvement in craft activities during Late Antiquity see the work by Martorelli
(1999); on the specic cases of Canosa and San Giusto (Apulia) see Volpe (in press).
47
The gradual impoverishment of building technology began in the 5th c., and
rst note the long period of abandonment. It was only during the
Ostrogothic period that it was periodically reoccupied, after a full
century of disuse. A similar situation is attested for the public build-
ings of other towns. At the same time, the houses underwent processes
of transformation (architectural subdivisions and changes of use), with
varying quality of construction associated with these alterations. The
most extensive and systematic changes, however, occurred only dur-
ing the Early Lombard period, during which developments became
homogenous, ending the distinction between public and domestic
buildings. In the buildings and public spaces of the Forum area as
well as in the nearby insulae, after re damage datable to around
the middle of the 6th c., there was demolition, re-use of the rooms
by poor-quality structures, artisanal activities, burials among the
houses, as well as abandonment of the original surfaces of the roads
and of the Forum square itself.
Such a homogeneous and large-scale transformation, engulng
public buildings and spaces, must have been instigated by the urban
authorities. We can hypothesise that these changes oered opportu-
nities to carry out both conscation of property and the resettlement
of population. It seems likely that this was done for economic ends,
both to use the Roman monuments (which had lost their original
function) as quarries for the lime needed in prestige projects, and to
provide a location for artisanal activities, connected principally to
the working of iron, which had a long history in the region of Brescia.
This would follow a model of the town as a centre of production,
which became common in western Europe, starting in the 5th c.
46
In a society that was both insecure and increasingly militarised,
it was perhaps thought opportune to place strategic activities like
the working of iron within the city-walls. At the same time, a lesser
interest in monumentality and in the quality of the urban infra-
structure made the siting of artisanal activities within the city more
acceptable.
47
278 o.r. nnooioro
I believe it is likely that the public authorities used the domus and
the long-abandoned public buildings to house new social groups (per-
haps of servile status), with specic craft skills. In this way, the urban
population was swelled, although without a corresponding abandon-
ment of the countryside (as is hypothesised for example in Hispania).
48
Rather, a displacement of certain social groups could explain, at least
in general terms, similar developments attested not only in other
towns, but also even in the changing rural villas, in which sub-divi-
sion and squatter occupation are widely known phenomena.
49
This clear division between the productive sector of the town and
that which was established as a seat of power indicates that in the
case of Brescia we must discount the suggestion that the transfor-
mations are attributable to a new mentality amongst the Early
Medieval aristocracies, who were growing accustomed to living in
poorer buildings.
50
Even if we think that these changes were all due
to local developments, rather than an inux of new ethnic groups,
we have to understand that it was an unexpected traumatic event
(the re and the destruction of the city) that provided the opportu-
nity for this process of structural change. The changes involved not
only the quality of the residential buildings and public spaces, but
also the organisation of labour, with the inhabitants of the Roman
houses transforming themselves into artisans, adopting new ways of
living, and elaborating an ideology of death and burial that is very
dierent both from the Roman tradition (which continues into the
Early Middle Ages),
51
and from that which typies the Germanic
row-cemeteries that spread through Italy and the region of Brescia,
52
particularly after the arrival of the Lombards.
53
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 279
reached its low point in the 7th, when even some rural churches were constructed
of walls bonded with clay, and, in extreme cases, of wood (Northdurfter (2001)).
48
Gurt Esparraguera (20002001) 467.
49
Chavarra Arnau (2004).
50
Lewitt (1991) 3840; Halsall (1995).
51
Brogiolo (2002).
52
As in the great cemeteries at Leno and Calvisano: De Marchi and Breda
(2000).
53
The row-cemeteries are widely attested only after the arrival of the Lombards,
even though the earliest example is the necropolis with ernjachov Culture objects
found at Sacca di Goito, near Mantua, dated between the end of the 4th and the
beginning of the 5th c. (Menotti (1994) and (2001)).
54
The beginning of Period IIIB is dated by the presence of the Lombard pot-
tery and, in some cases, of the ARS (Hayes 105 and 91CD: ex 6th7th c.); the
nal phases are dated on the basis of a bronze follis struck by Constans II (658659)
and of a 1/8 of silver siliqua struck by Pertarit (661672 and 672688).
55
Brogiolo (2000).
I would conclude, however, that at Brescia, the transformation of
the urban landscape was the result of a restructuring of the city,
which saw the new centres of power established in the western quar-
ters of the town, and which was characterised by three separate
events: rst, the transfer into public control of some of the insulae
once occupied by private houses, which had been violently destroyed
and deprived of their original occupants; second, the decision to
transform these spaces and the monumental area of the Forum into
centres of manufacture, and third, the transfer of groups of enslaved
or semi-free artisans for the production of goods under the control
of the royal and ducal court. This new arrangement of the city sur-
vived until the end of the 7th c.,
54
when within the S. Giulia insula
buildings of a better quality appear, perhaps belonging to the royal
court. It ended nally in A.D. 753 when, in an area granted to him
by King Aistulf, Desiderius founded the monastery of S. Salvatore,
which thereby became heir to all this public property.
55
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Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1. 1) Forum; 2) Basilica; 3) Capitolium; 4) Theatre; 5) Cardo maximus; 6) Decumanus
maximus (the modern via dei Musei); 7) via Piamarta cardo; 8) Ortaglia cardo; 9)
S. Giulia insula; 10) Ortaglia insula; 11) Episcopal complex; 13) Curia ducis; 14)
via Alberto Mario cardo (from Brogiolo 1993).
Fig. 2a. Brescia (S. Giulia): plan of the Roman domus superimposed over plan of
the structures of Phase IIIB (6thrst half of the 7th c.).
Fig. 2b. Brescia S. Giulia): plan of the structures of Phase IIIB (6thrst half of
the 7th century)
Fig. 3. Brescia (S. Giulia): post-holes cutting Roman mosaics
Fig. 4. Brescia (S. Giulia): Early Lombard period sunken huts wholly of wood
(Grubenhauser) in use sequentially.
Fig. 5. Brescia (S. Giulia): Early Lombard period houses of mixed technique.
Fig. 6. Brescia (S. Giulia): Early Lombard period wooden hut with dry-stone footings.
Fig. 7. Brescia, the Forum area (from Rossi 2002b). The theatre is to the right of
the Capitolium.
Fig. 8. Brescia, pottery kilns and a hearth erected within the Capitolium (Guglielmetti
1996).
Fig. 9. Brescia, artists reconstruction of the Basilica between the 7th and the 9th c.
(da Rossi 1998).
Fig. 10. Brescia (S. Giulia): Early Lombard period houses and burials.
. nr-rx.vix.+iox or +nr c.sr or nnrsci. 283
CHURCHES AND POWER
ARCHITECTURE AND POWER:
CHURCHES IN NORTHERN ITALY FROM
THE 4TH TO THE 6TH C.
Gisella Cantino Wataghin
Abstract
This paper considers the relationship between the development of
monumental churches and the rise of Christian communities and
episcopal power. Using a number of examples attested by archaeo-
logical and documentary evidence it examines how the increasing com-
plexity of Christian architecture, decoration and liturgical arrangement
reects the growing power of the bishop and the developing hierar-
chical complexity of Christian communities. In conclusion it examines
the changing role of Christian monumental architecture as a vehicle
for articulating the changing power structures of the Church between
the 4th and 6th c.
Ix+nortc+iox
The relationship between the development of church building and
the role of Christian communities in the Roman social and political
system was stated in 1939, both concisely and clearly, by Krautheimer,
when he wrote that the Edict of Milan of A.D. 313 immediately
aected the arrangement of churches, since it changed the status of
the Christian communities . . . who were entitled to erect public places
of worship impressive enough to emphasise the importance of the
newly recognised community.
1
Since then, this point has been stressed
over and over again, as the gap between pre-Constantinian domus
ecclesiae and the basilicae founded after 313, in all their dierent forms,
was recognised and the reading of architecture as a sign of power
was extended from pagan and secular buildings to Christian ones.
2
1
Krautheimer (1939) 132.
2
A few classic references out of a large bibliography: Alfldi (1935); Dyggve
(1941); Krautheimer (1942); Veyne (1976); Zanker (1987); Duval (2003).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 287309
The very term conquest of space, applied frequently to the instal-
lation of a Christian topography,
3
implies that constructing monu-
mental cult buildings was one means whereby the Christian Church
asserted itself.
The key gure in this process is the bishop. It is generally admit-
ted that the presence of a bishop is an essential, if not a sucient,
condition for churches to be founded, either on intra-urban sites (for
formal worship, liturgical use, and general and baptismal instruction,
with a baptistery and episcopal or clerical domestic quarters attached)
or in extra-mural locations (for funerary use and martyrs cults).
4
The
presence of a church endowed with a baptistery at Aosta at the end
of the 4th c. is believed to prove that the city already had a bishop
in that period, although one is rst mentioned in the written sources
only in 451.
5
Because it is the visual symbol of the bishop, the con-
gregational church is singled out in the literature as the episcopal
church, a better term than the convenient but anachronistic cathe-
dral. According to this model, the development of Christian topo-
graphy and architecture moves in step with the increasing importance
of the bishop in late antique and Early Medieval society. The expan-
sion of episcopal building complexes, the monumentalisation of the
churches, the transformation of liturgical arrangements, and the build-
ing programmes of bishops are each seen as the marks of a power
in the process of asserting itselfthere is no need to cite any specic
reference, since observations along these lines are commonplace. Yet
these observations do not entirely address the problem, since the theo-
retical premises on which they are founded are only touched on,
and the inherent diculties of analysis are not always taken into
account. Through consideration of a number of case-studies, and
some remarks on a few general issues, this paper is intended to
advance the debate.
3
Perrin (1998); Salzman (1999) among others.
4
Cantino Wataghin, Gurt Esparraguera, and Guyon (1996).
5
Cantino Wataghin (1989) 3435.
288 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
Moxtvrx+.r Btirrixo .xr +nr Povrn or +nr
Cnnis+i.x Covvtxi+v
When considering the archaeological evidence from northern Italy,
Aquileia is the obvious starting point. Even if some problems remain
relating to the chronology of the individual components, it is possi-
ble to follow the transformation of the episcopal group here through
its complex structural history from its foundation in the second decade
of the 4th c. to its full monumental development in the 5th c.
6
The
rst building was a large complex, made up of three rectangular
halls arranged in a U-shape, with a baptistery and other secondary
rooms, that occupied an entire insula in the south-eastern part of the
town, not far from the river and the port, where building activity
in the 4th c. city was concentrated.
7
As asserted in the two well
known inscriptions within the mosaic oors,
8
this was the work of
Bishop Theodorus, known for his participation at the Council of
Arles in 314 and thought to have died around 319. Therefore its
construction immediately followed the peace of the Church. Although
experimental both from an architectural and functional point of view,
as the inscriptions underline, this complex was clearly the result of
a coherent and ambitious episcopal programme, showing both the
importance and the economic resources of the Christian community
(the poemnion), which according to the inscription of the south hall
contributed to its construction.
Shortly afterwards, around the middle of the 4th c.,
9
the complex
was signicantly enlarged by the construction of a huge three-aisled
basilica, that took the place of the northern hall and part of the
intermediate one, extending eastwards beyond the limits of the insula.
This clearly reected the increasing importance, both in size and
wealth, of the Christian community, while at the same time it estab-
lished a new relationship between the episcopal group and the urban
6
For the essential titles from the enormous bibliography, see Cantino Wataghin
(1989) 18687; Caillet (1993) 12324; Cuscito (1995); (1999) and (2003).
7
Cantino Wataghin (1992) and (1996b).
8
Cuscito (1989) 73841; Caillet (1993) 12341; Cantino Wataghin (1992) 81 and
(1995) 8083; Mazzoleni (1996) 20943.
9
The chronology of the three-aisled basilica is still discussed; it is commonly
believed that it was under construction when Athanasius of Alexandria visited the
city, shortly before the middle of the 4th c.: see Caillet (1993); Cantino Wataghin
(1989) 18384; (1995) 83; (1996a) 118.
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 289
context, through the massive structure of the basilica, with its promi-
nent and tall central nave, that became a dominant feature of the
urban landscape.
10
Subsequent alterations stressed the predominance
of the episcopal insula, which became more evident as the surrounding
townscape gradually declined in splendour. These alterations included
a new entrance on the west side of the basilica, with a porticoed
atrium that gave access to the bishops residence. Further enlarge-
ments came with the construction of a second basilica (replacing the
south hall), and the baptistery which stood in front of this second
basilica. The destruction by re of the northern basilica did not
markedly aect the arrangement of the complex, since it was prob-
ably replaced with a new, if smaller, church.
11
A similar evolution can be detected at Pore, where the results of
recent investigations and restorations allow us to appreciate in detail
the increasing monumentality of the episcopal group, which was
already impressive in the 5th c. and reached its apogee at the time
of Bishop Euphrasius, around the middle of the 6th c.
12
Elsewhere
the evidence is more fragmentary, but nonetheless presents a clear
picture; in Verona as well as in Milan, huge and complex episco-
pal groups develop from the rst congregational churches between
the 4th and the 5th c.
13
Inferences that can be drawn from the locations of Christian build-
ings are more questionable. The specic location of episcopal churches
seems mainly fortuitous.
14
However, it is noteworthy that at Aquileia
the entrance to the episcopal insula, at rst on the east, was shifted
to the west following the construction of the northern basilica; a
direct, monumental approach from the centre of the town was thereby
provided for the church, thus marking its full integration into the
10
Cantino Wataghin (1996a); the hypothesis that the basilica was covered with
a ceiling of a uniform height (Bertacchi (1980) 223; Duval (1982)) is based on the
presumption that the small columns found in the excavations belonged to this phase,
although they do not t the traces on the plinths still in situ: see Cantino Wataghin
(1996a) 11819 and (1998) 100102.
11
Cantino Wataghin (1996a) and (1998).
12
Terry (1984); Caillet (1993) 32431; Mateii (1995) and (2002); Mateii and
Chevalier (1998); Cuscito (1995) and (2003).
13
Lusuardi Siena (1987); (1989); (1990); (1996); (1997); Cantino Wataghin (1995).
14
Cantino Wataghin (1989); (1999) and (2003); Cantino Wataghin, Gurt Espar-
raguera and Guyon (1996); Gauthier (2000).
290 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
urban grid. At Milan, a carefully planned project meant to assert
the hold of the Milanese Church on the urban landscape, is usually
ascribed to Ambrose, whose foundation of churches along the main
roads into the city can be seen as a deliberate imitation of the model
of Rome.
15
In fact, Ambrose himself is explicit on this point; in his
De sacramentis he writes of the church of Rome . . . whose model and
form we follow.
16
The building programme of the bishop is also
sometimes depicted as a move in his struggle against the Arian court
of the emperor Valentinian and his mother Justina. According to
this hypothesis, the basilica Ambrosiana was constructed in the west-
ern necropolis of Milan in order to set up an orthodox foundation
in opposition to the Arian circus and imperial palace,
17
while the
basilica Apostolorum was an orthodox appropriation of a monumental
porticoed road built by the Arian emperor.
18
Although appealing,
these interpretations cannot be easily demonstrated, and dierent
possibilities also have to be considered. In the case of the basilica
Ambrosiana, the presence of Christian memorials in the necropolis and
its location along the road to Vercellae (which was an important area
for Ambroses mission),
19
could be sucient reason for the choice of
site for the bishops funerary church. As far as the basilica Apostolorum
is concerned, we should not forget that St. Peters basilica in Rome
provided an excellent model for an extra-mural church linked to the
city by a colonnaded road.
20
In this, as in most cases, we are faced
with the problem of interpreting elusive evidence, without sound
parameters within which to evaluate it. In any case, it seems unde-
niable that the purpose of appropriating key points of the urban
framework has its place in the combination of pragmatism and ambi-
tion that is peculiar to Ambrose and his episcopal contemporaries.
21
15
Cagiano de Azevedo (1963); Krautheimer (1983) 7781; Monfrin (1991).
16
De sacramentis (CSEL 73, 40): . . . ecclesiam romanam . . . cuius typum sequimur et
formam.
17
Sannazaro (1996); see also Sannazaro (1997) and (2001); Lusuardi Siena (2001)
189.
18
Lusuardi Siena (1990).
19
Cracco Ruggini (1997).
20
Pietri (1976).
21
The observations of Gauthier (2000) on the Gallic bishops apply also to the
Italian ones: Cantino Wataghin (1989) 3547.
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 291
Li+tnoic.r Dr\rrorvrx+s
The development of liturgical arrangements, which again can be
documented through the material remains, can also be interpreted
as a sign of changing relationships within the Christian community.
From the very beginning of Christian architecture, the inner space
of the church was divided according to the functions of its dierent
parts. In both the halls built by Theodorus at Aquileia a wooden
chancel-barrier separated the eastern bay, reserving it for the clergy.
22
Further divisions are suggested in the northern hall by the mosaic
oor. In the chancel, a trapezoidal area adjoining the eastern wall
probably corresponds to the location of the episcopal cathedra (or
throne) and of the benches for the clergy. In the congregational area,
meanwhile, the dierent mosaic patterns (which are much simpler
in the western bay), possibly refer to the assignment of specic spaces
to the various members of the community, the most important ones
taking their place in front of the sanctuary. A few decades later such
a distinction is marked in the northern basilica of Geneva with a
barrier.
23
The custom of dividing the congregation into categories, assign-
ing each a specic area of the church, is well known from the writ-
ten sources.
24
Niceta of Remesiana mentions the place reserved for
virgins, delimited by a wooden enclosure (surely you must recall that
place separated by boards in which you stood in church);
25
while
Jerome recalls that, during her penance, the lady Fabiola stood in
a part of the Lateran basilica assigned to penitents (. . . in the Lateran
basilica . . . you stood amongst the group of penitents), and in this
case too the existence of some kind of screen is likely.
26
Later, accord-
ing to the Ordo Romanus I (of the 7th c.), notables took their place
in the senatorium, on the right side of the chancel, opposite the pars
22
Gnirs (1915) 158; Tavano (1960); Mirabella Roberti (1982); Cuscito (1995)
9194 and (1999); for discussion of the functions of the three halls of the Theodorus
group, see also Menis (1996); Piva (1996).
23
Bonnet (1993).
24
Cuscito (1995) 9091.
25
Libellus ad virginem lapsam (PG 67, 149596): . . . nonne vel illum locum tabulis sep-
aratum in quo in ecclesia stabas recordare debuisti . . .
26
Ep. 77.4 (ed. J. Labourt (Paris 1954) 43): . . . in basilica quondam Laterani . . . staret
in ordine paenitentum . . .; Monachino (1947); Pietri (1976) 586.
292 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
mulierum or feminarum reserved for women.
27
In the elaborate organ-
isation of its mosaics, the oor of the basilica of St. Eufemia at
Grado, dedicated in 579 by Bishop Elias, preserves in all its details
a careful interior division of the church (which was possibly rein-
forced on the occasion of liturgical ceremonies with movable barri-
ers).
28
Two pairs of mosaic carpets with dierent geometric patterns,
separated by a plain frame, mark the western and eastern part of
the nave on both sides of a central passageway that links the main
entrance with the choir. This arrangement displays, on the one hand,
the full integration of the oor decoration in the liturgical coordi-
nation of the inner space of the church (decoration being obviously
an understatement of its function), and on the other the strength-
ening of a hierarchical structure amongst the community of the faith-
ful. The inscriptions in the central passageway are meant to stress
this, marking the progression in the rank of the various donors from
the entrance to the choir. The inscriptions mention successively two
notarii, a lector, and a diaconus before reaching the verses celebrating
Bishop Elias as the builder of the church. Further on are three ded-
ications, respectively by a vir clarissimus, an actoarius and a Greek-
speaking John, whose name is also given in two monograms, which
are set into the round panel that contains the second, gold-lettered,
dedication glorifying Bishop Elias, whose monogram appears at its
centre. In this way the oor mosaics contribute to building the stage
for a liturgy, whose rst, solemn moment was the ceremony of the
entrance procession, as is already attested in the 4th c. in written
sources for Rome, and possibly Milan.
29
The sanctuary was the focus of the procession; the changes in its
arrangement from the 4th through the 6th c. develop in the same
direction as those that occur in oor patterns, giving bishop and
clergy a physical prominence over the assembly. The sanctuary, which
was simply isolated with barriers in Theodoruss halls, in the north-
ern basilica of Aquileia and in the basilica of Concordia,
30
was later
raised above the level of the nave and made accessible by a few
steps. The best evidence of this practice comes from the second phase
27
De Blaaw (1994) 100102; see also Selhorst (1931) and Andrieu (1948).
28
Cuscito (1975); Caillet (1993) 21857; Cantino Wataghin (1994).
29
Mathews (1962); De Blaaw (1994) 141; see also Schmitz (1975).
30
Fogolari (1974); Bertacchi (1980) 31415; Sannazaro (1989).
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 293
of both the above-mentioned basilicas, basilicas A and B at Verona,
31
and the basilica nova of Milan.
32
Practical considerations, such as bet-
ter visibility in large interiors, cannot hide the fact that the clergy
was progressively isolated from the congregation assembled for ser-
vice, even more so if we consider that curtains might have com-
pleted the pergulae.
33
The decoration of the apse rounds o this
sophisticated choreography. Its focusthe gloried gure of Christ,
as in St. Pudenziana in Rome at the end of the 4th c., or the Cross,
as in St. Apollinare in Classe around the middle of the 6th c.
legitimises the role of the bishop, whose throne was placed beneath,
in the centre of the row of clergy-seats, facing the congregation who
are standing beyond the chancela throne, very lofty, to do hon-
our to the man presiding, to quote the words of Eusebius of Caesarea.
34
Bisnors, Cntncn Btirrixo, .xr +nr Cox+nor or Cntncnrs
The cult building was a constant concern for the bishops. The dis-
tinctive features of this engagement are synthesised by Ambrose,
when he writes:
. . . it is not right to undertake superuous building, nor to ignore
what is necessary. In particular, a priest should ornament the temple
of God with suitable decoration, so that the hall of the Lord is resplen-
dent through this adornment. He should ensure that the right sums
of money in charity are spent, that strangers receive what they require
rather than too muchnot an excess, but what is appropriate to our
humanity. Otherwise he may seem to seek the approval of others
through his liberality to the poor; or appear too niggardly or too indul-
gent towards his fellow clergy.
35
31
Lusuardi Siena (1987).
32
See note 13; in general Cuscito (1995) and (1999).
33
Perrin (1998) 1025; on the use of cloths in paleochristian architecture see Ripoll
(2004); for a later period Riganati (2002).
34
HE 10.4.44.
35
O. 2.21 (CCSL 15): . . . quidquid ex adfectu puro ac sincero promitur, hoc est deco-
rum, non superuas aedicationes adgredi nec pretermittere necessarias. Et maxime sacerdoti hoc
conuenit, ornare Dei templum decore congruo ut etiam hoc cultu aula Domini resplendeat, impen-
sas misericordiae convenientes frequentare, quantum oporteat largiri peregrinis non superua sed
competentia, non redundantia sed congrua humanitati ne sumptu pauperum alienam sibi quaerat
gratiam, ne restrictionem erga clericos aut indulgentiorem se praebeat.
294 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
The construction of splendid churches, both to honour God and as
a work of charity, was a signicant task of the priest, and is men-
tioned as such by Ambrose in the commemoration of his brother,
when he recalls the apparently leading role that Satyrus played in
Ambroses own building projects: I can attest that in church-build-
ing I was often concerned, lest I do something that displeased you.
36
A few decades earlier Eusebius of Caesarea, celebrating Constantines
foundations in Constantinople, Nicomedia, Jerusalem and Antioch,
praises the emperors generous piety and justies his enterprises in
the context of divine Providence and of Christian doctrine.
37
Such
devotion is usually evoked in the donor-inscriptions, whether of cler-
gymen or laymen; the oor mosaics of Grado are but one example
from a very rich corpus.
38
In this respect, although it can be said
that bishops inherited the social responsibility of civic notables,
Christian euergetism diered considerably from that of ancient times,
at least in principle.
39
Palladius, in his life of John Chrysostom insists
on the duty of avoiding any ostentation;
40
while Ambrose remarked
that there are two forms of giving: the one liberality, the other
prodigal waste,
41
insisting throughout his treatise on the idea of modus
(moderation). It is perhaps in this context that we should read the
emphasis placed on the poor state of repair of the pre-existing
churches, in the inscriptions celebrating the new episcopal churches
of Bishop Elias of Grado (The hall that you see embellished in var-
ious ways,/ Under the multicoloured marble is mere earth;/ Its age
and antiquity had obscured it), and of Bishop Euphrasius of Pore
(This was beforehand a temple falling into ruin,/ Risking terrible
collapse, and of uncertain stability,/ Small and lacking impressive
materials).
42
This may have been a way of justifying the investment
36
De exc. Sat. 1.20 (CSEL 73): . . . Testor sanctam animam tuam me in fabricis eccle-
siae id saepe veritum esse, ne displicerem tibi .
37
Eus. V Const. 3 (ed. F. Winkelmann (Leipzig 1975)); Maraval (2001); see Barnes
(1981) 26571.
38
Fvrier (1974) 13435; Caillet (1993).
39
Fvrier (1987); Duval and Pietri (1997); on ancient euergetism see Veyne (1976)
4472; see also note 50.
40
Pall. Dial. 13.91 (ed. Coleman-Norton (Cambridge 1928)).
41
O. 2.21: largitatis enim duo sunt genera: unum liberalitatis, alterum prodigae eusionis.
42
Grado: Caillet (1993) 226: Atria quae cernis uar[io for]mata decore / squalida sub
picto cae[latu]r marmore tellus / longa vetustatis seno f[us]cau[e]ra[t a]etas.; Pore: Inscriptiones
Italiae, 10.2.81: Hoc fuit in primis templum quassante ruina / terribili labsu nec certo robore
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 295
of considerable church funds in building, which might otherwise have
been spent on more explicitly charitable functions. Rusticus of
Narbonnes detailed account of expenditure on his episcopal church
should perhaps be seen in this same light.
43
According to the denition of Isidore of Seville, divine temples
are called basilicae, because there ritual and sacrice are oered
to God, the King [basileus, in Greek] of all.
44
However, far from
being simply the palace of the King of Heaven, the basilica, or
indeed any church building, also has a strong theological signicance,
along the lines of a scriptural inheritance.
45
Augustine, for example,
compares the material structure of an earthly church with the build-
ing of Gods Church through charity.
46
Shortly before the middle of
the 4th c., Cyril of Jerusalem draws a parallel between the work of
erecting a building and the instruction of the faithful before baptism
(the catechesis): Catechesis is like a building. Unless we dig down
and lay foundations, unless we construct the linked parts of the house
in a logical order, so that there is no part missing and no part loosely
put together, the building will collapse and all our work will come
to nothing. We set one stone on top of another in due order, and
build each corner in turn, so that a balanced structure in the end
arises.
47
The building of a church therefore acquires a symbolic
meaning, as a reference-point and a tangible sign of the commu-
nity; from being the community itself, the ecclesia also becomes the
building in which the community gathers for holy services. The well
known funerary mosaic of Tabarka, with the image of the ecclesia
rmum / exiguum magnoque carens tunc furma metallo . . .. For the literary references in
the two inscriptions, see Cuscito (1989) 74653. This problem has been the sub-
ject of a seminar by R. Haensch on La construction des glises et lvergtisme
antique held at the cole des Hautes tudes en Science Sociales (March 2004).
43
Diehl (1951) n. 1806; Fvrier (1974) 12935, in particular 134 ; Marrou (1960);
Mazzoleni (1989) 78082.
44
Etym. 15.4.11 (PL 82.34: 345): divini templi basilicae nominantur, quia ibi Regi
omnium Deo cultus et sacricia oeruntur.
45
The main reference is Deut. 12.29 and 1314: Fonseca (1989); see also Tena
(1960); Sotinel (1997).
46
Sermon 336 in dedicatione Ecclesiae (PL 38.1474).
47
Procatechesis 11 (PG 33.351): . . . Aedicium quoddam catechesim esse puta; nisi fodi-
amus et fundamentum ponamus; nisi ordinata serie, structurae vinculis apte coniungamus domum,
ne quid laxum et hians repeeriatur, et ruinosa at aedicatio, in irritum cadet omnis prius sus-
ceptus labor; sed oportet ex ordine lapidi lapidem apponi, et angulum ad angulum consequi; et
superuis erasis, ita demum aequabilem aedicationem assurgere . . .
296 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
mater to which the deceased Valentiniana entrusts her rest in pace is
possibly the best synthesis of this complex system of values.
48
The bishop was the only one entitled to consecrate a church, even
when it was a private foundation; in principle the licence of the
bishop of Rome was also required.
49
Sermones in dedicatione are a type
of homily already well dened in the 4th c., the rst and most famous
being that by Eusebius for the consecration of the cathedral of Tyre.
50
The anniversary of the consecration of a church was celebrated
solemnly; it is mentioned as such in the Martyrologium Ieronimianum.
51
The consecration of a church by a priest Othia, around the middle
of the 5th c. (in 455) was a clear abuse; the inscription in which
this was recorded was closely modelled on episcopal dedications:
Othia the priest, in the thirty-third year of his priesthood, built and
dedicated this basilica in fullment of a vow, in the sixth [rightly,
eighth] consulship of Valentinian, and that of Anthemius.
52
The construction of a cult building was a topos in the model of
episcopal and more generally clerical sanctity; the very act of found-
ing a church was meritorious, whatever the architectural features of
the building.
53
For example, church building is presented as the main
task of the missionaries of the Val di Non,
54
while one hundred
churches marked the evangelisation of the Verbano area by Julius
and Julianus.
55
Also, according to Ennodius, the restoration of the
ecclesia, opposed by the devil in the form of a snake, gives Epiphanius
of Pavia the opportunity to perform a miracle,
56
while at Tortona,
the construction of all the churches of the town is attributed to
48
Duval (1965) and (1976).
49
Fonseca (1989) 93033; De Puniet (1920); Gauthier (2000) 175, with reference
to the Orlans (a. 441) and Agde (506) councils.
50
See below note 66.
51
De Puniet (1920) 403404.
52
Gauthier (2000) 17879; Diehl (1951) n 1807, a. 455: Othia pr(es)b(yter) anno
XXXIII pr(es)b(y)t(eratu)s sui baselicam ex voto suo . . . con(s)tr(uxit) et d(e)d(icavit) Valentiniano
VI (=VIII) et Anthem(io coss).
53
On the cultural and social meaning of the building activity of bishops see
Orselli (1994) in particular p. 428; Perrin (1998) 58586; Cuscito (1989); Mazzoleni
(1989).
54
Cantino Wataghin (1997) 13132.
55
Cantino Wataghin (1997) 12930.
56
Ennod. V. Epiph. 101105 (MGH, AA 7.97); on bishop Epifanius see Sotinel
(1995); Herrmann-Otto (1997); Prosopographie chrtienne du Bas-Empire, 2, Italie, edd.
Ch. Pietri and L. Pietri (1999) 63741.
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 297
Bishop Innocentius.
57
The foundation of the cathedral of Ravenna
by Ursus, meanwhile, is related through the metaphor of the shep-
herd caring for his ock: . . . he was the rst to commence build-
ing the temple of God, so that the Christian ock, which had
previously wandered between dierent shrines, could now be gath-
ered together into one sheepfold by this most pious pastor.
58
Many
more examples of this kind could easily be added to this list.
The ever-increasing role of the bishop can also be seen in his
relationship with relics and with the buildings which housed them.
In fact, the cult building was also a mean of controlling and exploit-
ing the power of these relics. Gregory of Tours, speaking of the
church of Saint Martin, states clearly that his aim is not to describe
the sanctuary, but to celebrate through it the sanctity of the shrine
engendered by the tomb of the Saint.
59
The relics are the raison dtre
of the building, while its architecture extols the power of the relics.
Individuals could be involved in the origins and development of cults
and in the construction of memoriae or martyrial basilicas, but it was
the bishop that consecrated the church and celebrated the adventus
of the relics, making sure that the custody of the cult remained rmly
in ecclesiastical hands: the sermons of Ambrose of Milan, Victricius
of Rouen, and Chromatius of Aquileia leave no doubt that the bishop
was the custodian of the relics, and therefore shared their potentia,
virtus, and vis as a part of his own power.
60
Similarly, between the 5th and the 6th c., a rst network of bap-
tismal churches denitively replaced private oratories, thus marking
the process whereby the bishops took possession of the countryside.
A rural baptistery, more than the church, might recall explicitly its
dependence on the diocesan centre, through adopting the architec-
tural model of the cathedrals own baptistery. In a similar way, the
majority of the churches of Venetia in the 4th5th c. adopted the
57
Picard (1991).
58
Agnellus, Lib. Pont. Eccl. Rav. (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores 2.1 (Milan 1723) 51:
. . . iste primus hic initiavit templum construere Dei, ut plebes Christianorum, quae in singulis
teguriis vagabant in unum ovile piissimus pastor colligeret. It is interesting to note that the
construction of churches, although highly praised by Eusebius, does not seem to
have any part in the missionary strategy outlined in his Historia Ecclesiastica: Mendels
(1999) 179233.
59
See note 66.
60
Dassmann (1975); Cracco Ruggini (1974); Cuscito (1987) 16569; Beaujard
(2000); see also Brown (1981); Beaujard (1991); Cameron (1999).
298 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
Aquileian plan of a basilica without apse, thereby acknowledging the
metropolitan authority of Aquileia and the cohesion of its diocese.
61
Until then the aristocracy had played an important role, if not the
main one, in the christianisation of the countryside, building orato-
ries in their villas as yet another sign of their personal power.
62
In
fact, laymen continued to be as active in founding churches as bish-
ops did.
63
Bishops and laymen, however, were not mutually antag-
onistic towards one anothers foundations, since in principle it was
always the bishop that consecrated the church and appointed the
clergy. A private foundation contributed to the prestige of the donor
and at the same time reected positively on the Church: the more
private foundations there were, the greater the prestige accruing to
the Church.
Tnr Virvs or Cox+rvron.nirs
Looking for contemporary appraisals of architecture, we are faced
with abundant but elusive and puzzling evidence. The reference by
Augustine to the ideal proportion of the churchone to two, between
width and length and between aisles and navedoes not express
any architectural theory, nor even a specic interest; but is a classic,
handbook quotation, inserted in his reasoning as an example of the
relative value of the comparison between human and divine qualities
(. . . so they should not always be said to be in equal measure . . .).
64
Buildings are referred to frequently by authors, the early Church
Fathers among them, but mostly without specic attention to any
architectural details; the mention of a pious foundation might be
accompanied by a comment such as mirabilis, miro opere, mirice fab-
ricata, without any further clue allowing us to visualise this mar-
vellous workmanship. The account of Eusebius of the churches built
before the peace of the Church is in a similar style: . . . How could
one describe those crowded assemblies and the multitudes gathered
together in every city and the remarkable concourses in the places
61
Menis (1958); Cuscito (2003); for the baptisteries see Fiocchi Nicolai and Gelichi
(2001) and in general Guyon (1991) and (2000); Monfrin (1998) 968.
62
Brogiolo, Cantino Wataghin and Gelichi (1999).
63
Pietri (2002).
64
Tract. in Epist. John. 4.9 (PL 35.2010): . . . sicut non semper ad aequalitatem dici solet . . ..
See Duval (2002) 22, following Marrou (1960) 126, contra Marec (1958) 228.
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 299
of prayer? The result was that people were no longer satised with
the buildings of earlier times and began to erect from the founda-
tions wide and spacious churches throughout all the cities.
65
There are some detailed descriptions amongst these vague refer-
encesfrom the famous examples of Eusebius (the churches of Tyre,
the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and the Holy Apostles at Constan-
tinople, among others),
66
to that of the church of Saint Martin by
Gregory of Tours,
67
and the hymn for the church of Edessa.
68
These
descriptions however all derive from the literary genre of ekphrasis,
in which the description serves a specic purpose, rather than being
an end in itself; the presupposition and the role of ekphrasis are
dierent from those of description. For instance, the description of
the church at Tyre is a part of the inaugural speech delivered by
Eusebius about the year 318, within that very church, at the request
of Bishop Paulinus, and is intended both to celebrate the bishop and
to construct a theological argument. To this end the church is treated
rst as a building, but then as a symbol of the living temple. Similarly,
the hymn written to celebrate the reconstruction of the cathedral of
Edessa after the re of 524/525 is an entirely symbolic reading of
its architecture.
69
Here again we should note that the religious impli-
cations of a building were uppermost in the mind of contemporaries;
the details of a description are selected and presented in order to
suggest, through the perceptible qualities of the building, the imper-
ceptible ones, the invisible through the visible. According to the
Martinellus, an appendix to the works of Sulpicius Severus, on the
front of the altarium of St. Martins church at Tours (above the arch
of the altars apse) was written How fearsome is this place! Truly
it is the temple of God and the gate of Heaven, which oers an
eloquent synthesis of the complex symbolic function of the church-
building.
70
65
HE 8.1.5, as quoted in Milburn (1988) 8586.
66
HE 10.4.3638 (ed. G. Bardy (SC 55) (Paris 1958) 9297).
67
HF 2.14 (MGH, SRM 1.1); on this famous and discussed text, and on the
carmina of Martinellus, see Vieillard-Troiekouro (1977) 31124; Weidemann (1982)
II, 14551; Pietri (1983) 38198 and 80012; Duval (2002).
68
Grabar (1947); McVey (1983)
69
Macrides and Magdalino (1988); Webb (1999); Webb (2000) 66; see also
Deichmann (1983) 89108.
70
Martinellus, n. 12 , Pietri (1983) 809: . . . super arcum absidis altaris . . . Quam metuen-
dum est locus iste! Vere templum Dei est et porta coeli; see also Pietri (1988) on the tituli
written by Paulinus of Nola for the basilica of Cimitile.
300 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
The letters of Sidonius Apollinaris concerning the episcopal church
of Lyon are among the texts that allow us to grasp the outstanding
elements of a building in the eyes of contemporaries. They exalt the
building itselfonce more the very fact of its existence is note-
worthythen its luxurious decoration, the forest of columns, the
porches, and the atria.
71
The columns are constantly mentioned as
the most remarkable feature of a building, as a luxury component
as well as the load-bearing basis of the buildings stability, to the
point that they are the object of special unction during the conse-
cration.
72
Their installation is no commonplace undertaking; in his
Life of St. Martin, Paulinus of Prigueux emphasises the diculty of
transporting columns that were needed for a church (. . . when, with
great eort, the Saint strove to move some beautiful columns to the
site of his church . . .).
73
Windows are also a recurrent feature of
descriptions, and here too, as with columns, their functional role is
stressed, alongside their obvious part within the widespread symbol-
ism of light.
74
Coxcrtsiox: Ancni+rc+tnr .xr S+n.+roirs or Povrn
I have already stressed on another occasion that the appraisal of the
relationship between power and material structures is an open ques-
tion, owing to the diculty of comparing fragmentary and static
archaeological data to power, which is a situational construct, devoid
of objective reality and exerting itself through rituals and strategies
that we do not always have the means to reconstruct.
75
Inferring
power requires us to place objects in a behavioural system and to
look for their implicit values (on top of their explicit ones) in order
to understand their meaning;
76
the risk of introducing modern con-
cepts to the study cannot be underestimated. In the specic instance
of religious architecture, the problem is even more complex, since a
71
Reynaud (1998) 4445.
72
Guyon (1997) 201; Duval (2002) 26; see also De Puniet (1920).
73
De vita sancti Martini 6.264289 (ed. C. Schenkl (CSEL 16) 14950: . . . cum
pulchras molitio tanta columnas temptaret sancti transferre ad limina templi . . ..
74
Monfrin (1998).
75
Cantino Wataghin (2002).
76
Geary (1994) 33, quoting Wittgensteins denition of meaning as a function of
use and MacWhites patterns of signicance.
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 301
multiplicity of parameters, which vary in the course of time and
according to context, are involved in its relation to power. In fact,
various powers are involved: ecclesiastical power, in the hands of
bishops, is anked by secular power, with laymen (specically the
aristocracy) being very active in the foundation of churches and later
of monasteries. Equally, however, the very nature of the bishops
power is manifold: it is a religious power, in principle exerting itself
on all the faithful, independently of their social status; it is also a
psychological power, derived from the religious one and from the
bishops personal charisma. From both of these derived the bishops
capacity to intervene in the civic sphere with real, even if not insti-
tutional, power. Bishops were important social leaders in their cities,
which after their deaths might even recognise them as their special
saintly patroni, thereby conferring on them yet another power.
From what we have seen, according to the written sources it fol-
lows that the church as a building had an undoubtedly major role
for the bishop in the process of asserting his authority, the economic
power of the Church, and his control over the religious practices of
the community. The specic architectural features of any church
must, however, be placed in their context. The emphasis put on the
boldness and the magnicence of a building is either self-evident, or
can only be identied in relation to other contemporary buildings
the building in question has to be considered within its specic
chronological and geographical context. It has been remarked that
the dimensions of churches between the 4th through to the 8th c.
decrease dramatically;
77
but they have to be compared each time
with a dierent urban landscape. The churches of the 7th or 8th c.
are small in comparison with the ones of the 4th or 5th c.; but
against a background of towns consisting of wooden houses, or huts
and open spaces, they would have looked more monumental than
they do today. The power of the bishop had grown in a similar
way, expanding in a context of diminishing secular power.
The 6th c. seems to be an important step in this direction. The
Pragmatic Sanction of 555, setting out the administration of Byzantine
Italy, dened a new status for the clergy, according to which bishops
were absorbed within the notables of the peninsula, and the Church
77
Ward Perkins (1988).
302 oisrrr. c.x+ixo v.+.onix
was fully integrated in the political system.
78
As far as the archaeo-
logical evidence is concerned, it cannot be fortuitous that around
the middle of the century the inscriptions in the cathedrals of Grado,
Pore, and Trieste put the bishop in the foreground; the fragmen-
tary inscription of the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian near
Trento, built by a Laurentius cantor, also mentions the bishop as the
chronological reference.
79
The bishop has become the ministre de
lvergtisme;
80
in this respect Christian euergetism demonstrates its
novelty and complexity in comparison with that of the classical world.
In fact, besides being a charitable duty, a mark of wealth as well as
of devotion, the construction of a church develops the stage for the
performance of rituals in which each member of the community is
an actor in a well established role. Architectural features, liturgical
arrangements, and the decoration of walls and pavements (whether
mosaics, paintings, marble or fabrics) play a part in establishing a
setting in which each action goes according to a well established
script and each participant is given his proper position. In other
words, the church, which in the 4th c. was the sign of the new
power acquired by the Church following the peace with the empire
and later the acknowledgement of Christianity as the established
religion, has become the place in which the dierent powers inside
the community confront each other and where their hierarchy is
sanctioned.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
I am pleased to thank Bryan Ward Perkins for his helpful sugges-
tions on the text and for improving its English.
78
Constitutio pragmatica, in Just. Nov. (ed. R. Schoell and G. Kroll (Berlin 1959)
799802). See Sotinel (1998) 730.
79
Cuscito (1989); Caillet (1993) 22632 and 292; see also Cuscito (2003).
80
Duval and Pietri (1997) in particolar 384, 372 and 380.
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 303
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Veyne P. (1976) Le pain et le cirque. Sociologie historique dun pluralisme politique (Paris
1976).
Vieillard-Troiekouro M. (1977) Les monuments religieux de la Gaule daprs les oeuvres de
Grgoire de Tours (Paris 1977).
Ward Perkins B. (1988) The towns of northern Italy: rebirth or renewal?, in The
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Webb R. (1999) The aesthetics of sacred space : narrative, metaphor and motion
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AnTard 8 (2000) 6771.
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Zanker P. (1987) Augustus und die Macht der Bilder (Munich 1987).
cntncnrs ix xon+nrnx i+.rv rnov +nr +n +o +nr 6+n c. 309
DARK AGE ROME:
TOWARDS AN INTERACTIVE TOPOGRAPHY
Kate Cooper, Julia Hillner and Conrad Leyser
Abstract
This paper represents a report on work in progress at the University
of Manchesters Centre for Late Antiquity. The goal of our research
is to open a new chapter in research on late ancient and Early Medieval
Rome, through the systematic collation and diusion of relatively
neglected sources, in particular the Roman gesta martyrum. They are
not usually considered as a source for the social history of the city,
because of their transparently tendentious character. Yet the gesta are
our best witness to the ebullient of the Roman laity, on whose patron-
age the ecclesiastical hierarchy continued to depend. We hope to make
the gesta more widely accessible, and to facilitate their cross-referencing
with other kinds of source; our method is to combine the tools of tra-
ditional scholarship with contemporary digital technologies, the oper-
ation of which we briey describe here.
Ix+nortc+iox
Neither Rome nor our understanding of its history was built in a
day. Despite centuries of research much remains insuciently explained,
especially where the late antique and Early Medieval city is con-
cerned. Curiously, many of the remaining mysteries in the citys his-
tory are the result not of the paucity of documentation but rather
of an embarrassment of riches where source material is concerned.
Faced with a deeply fragmented patchwork of various sources, many
of which are virtually impossible to date, historians have tended to
rely on a single major source as the scaold from which their under-
standings are built: the collection of papal biographies known as the
Liber Ponticalis.
1
Our image of the city of Rome in this period is thus
1
The standard edition of the Liber ponticalis is the second edition of Duchsne
(1955). On the diculties associated with this source see now Geertman (2003)
26784.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 311337
signicantly ltered by the care taken, centuries ago, by Roman bish-
ops to document their own importance as stewards of the citys pat-
rimony. This has led to what one might call an over-reliance within
scholarship on an episcopal viewpoint for not only the meanings of
the citys Christian institutions, but also for the entirety of the citys
late- and post-imperial history.
A second reason for scholarly over-reliance on the Liber Ponticalis
may be the diculty of assessing geographical and topographic rela-
tionships, an undertaking that begins with the simple task of assem-
bling all the evidence (both historical and archaeological) linked to
a given location. The foremost 19th c. scholar of early Christian
Rome, G. B. De Rossi, suggested over a century ago that the way
forward in understanding the rise of Christian institutions in the city
lay in a topographic analysis of both martyr cults and relationships
of patronage and rivalry; the promotion of particular cults might be
governed by the intensely specic politics of the neighbourhood,
rather than by a simple and repetitive power struggle between the
Roman clergy and the Roman laity. This approach could potentially
reveal a landscape of local interests in competition with one another
for resources and prestige, a landscape inected by lay and ascetic
agendas (as well as by those multi-status coalitions centred around
one given family or institution) rather than just the better-documented
interests of the episcopacy.
2
De Rossis approach may also oer the key to interpreting another
abundant, yet highly unreliable, body of textual source material: the
Early Medieval historical romances known as the gesta martyrum. These
were texts produced in the city of Rome from the 5th c. onwards,
and purport to describe the passions of pre-Constantinian heroes of
the faith. Although some later students of the gesta embraced De
Rossis ideas (most notably A. Dufourcq and J.-P. Kirsch, who con-
sidered them to be promotional material for individual cult sites),
the gesta remain an under-valued source, largely because they are so
dicult to date.
3
Despite a recent interest in the topographical data
the gesta containas witnessed, for example, by many entries in the
2
De Rossi (186467) III, xxii.
3
Dufourcq (19001907; 1988), Kirsch (1918). A more recent study, Amore (1975),
gives the essential mid-20th c. bibliography; reference to more recent scholarship
on individual gesta can be found in LTUR II, and in Cooper and Hillner (Forthcoming).
312 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
Lexicon Topographicum Urbis RomaeDe Rossis methodological sug-
gestions have yet to attract the systematic treatment they deserve.
4
Since its foundation in 1996, the Centre for Late Antiquity at the
University of Manchester has developed, in the context of collabo-
rative projects, a cluster of research resources for the study of the
city of Rome in the transition from the ancient to the Medieval
world. A common structural feature of these resources is that they
function as sophisticated nding-aids, allowing researchers to explore
the links between source materials in a swifter and more complex
way than is allowed by the traditional search methods, based as they
are on printed indices. The substantive intent behind the develop-
ment of such resources is to loosen the imaginative hold exerted by
the Liber Ponticalis; this will allow the full evidentiary base for Early
Medieval Romefrom epigraphy to fragmentary (and often anony-
mous) devotional literature such as the gesta martyrumto inuence
the heuristic process of scholarly investigation. Our own interest has
been in how new networks of patronage (both religious and secular)
changed Romes urban landscape, with a special emphasis on the
social dynamics of authority and patronage in the Roman church
in the 5th9th c., but the resources themselves have been designed
to suit a wide variety of uses. In the context of these collaborative
projects we hope to have found a compelling way to full the promise,
and at the same time to test the limits, of De Rossis topographical
approach.
Tnr Rrsr.ncn Rrsotncrs
Starting from the assumption that visualisation technology can dra-
matically enhance a users ability to analyse complex patterns in our
data, our initiative aims both to construct a digital portal to give
online access to our resources and to use the analytical facilities of
a Geographical Information System (GIS) to foster new hypotheses
about how sources for religious cult, patronage, and clerical activity
4
See, for example, LTUR II, s. v. domus: for a lengthy discussion of the location
of the house of the ex-praefectus urbi Faustus see the passio Pimenii 4 (ed. Delehaye
(1936) 25963).
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 313
may be related to one another. While the full realisation of both of
these developments is subject to the continued availability of fund-
ing, it is possible to report here on progress made to date.
5
We have developed two electronic nding aids, each designed to
foster swift analytical searches for patterns of distribution among pri-
mary sources otherwise accessible solely through time-intensive man-
ual searches of printed indices. The Roman Martyrs Project surveys
narrative source material for the early cult of martyrs in the city.
Its outcome is a systematic assessment of the gesta martyrum and related
texts, in the form of approximately one hundred dossiers of indi-
vidual martyrs or martyr clusters, specifying all topographical, proso-
pographical, and inter-textual connections revealed in the gesta
describing their life, passio, and cult.
6
In digital terms, this resource
currently exists as a at-le databaseessentially a gloried table
though a request for funding to enhance the database structure, and
to make it available for use via the Centre for Late Antiquity web-
site, is pending at the time of writing.
Scepticism about the value of the gesta as a source for social history
is, perhaps, best answered with a specic example. Let us take the
well-known case of the Roman martyrs John and Paul, whose church
on the Caelian Hill has recently and splendidly been restored. Beneath
the shrine lie the remains of a Roman domus dating back to the
3rd c. Many enthusiasts (Richard Krautheimer among them) saw in
this residential complex the very house where, according to their
6th c. passio, John and Paul were killed and buried by an agent of
Julian the Apostate (361363). As Beat Brenk has conclusively shown,
this interpretation of the archaeological evidence in the light of the
much later witness of the passio is untenable.
7
However, while this
means that the passio Iohannis et Pauli must be treated with as much
caution as any of the other post-Constantian gesta, the passio remains
unusual in that a 6th c. manuscript copy of the text has survived.
Most of the gesta have come down to us only in later Carolingian
exemplars and may be refracted through the devotional concerns of
5
Support for GIS development has been provided by the University of Manchesters
Distributed Learning Fund.
6
British Academy major Research Grant, 199699, The Roman Martyrs Project,
directed by Dr. K. Cooper.
7
Brenk (1995).
314 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
their copyists. In the case of John and Paul, our scribe, writing in
Capua ca. 600, takes us closer to the original Roman context.
8
Unabashedly, the story of John and Paul as it appears in this early
manuscript is to do with urban real estate. The deance of John
and Paul in the face of the Apostates persecution relates not only
to their steadfast allegiance to Christ, but also to their refusal to sur-
render their house, a legacy from the imperial family, to the avarice
of the emperor. Their death serves to remove the property irrevo-
cably from the clutches of the state, as it becomes a cult site and
then a church, under the formidable patronage of Pammachius. In
this passio, we may have articulated in narrative form a claim to the
privilege of immunitya juridical form central to the institutional
denition of Early Medieval monasteries, but, in the absence of sur-
viving charter evidence, one not believed to exist in any meaning-
ful late antique form.
A concern to link questions usually asked by Medieval social his-
torians to the late antique evidence lies at the core of the project
Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Rome, ca. 440ca. 840. This
has as its outcome our second electronic resource, a relational data-
base far more sophisticated than the at le Roman Martyrs com-
pilation. The Patronage Database assimilates the evidence for support
of Christian institutions in the city of Rome from the era of Leo
the Great down to that of Leo IV, who built the Leonine walls
which protect the Vatican.
9
(For the purposes of the database, Rome
is dened as including the Suburbium to the 20th milestone.) The
database contains approximately 6,000 records. The distinctive fea-
ture of the database is its inclusion of all sources across a broad
chronological range and a wide variety of source types. It allows sys-
tematic retrieval and comparison of, for example, epigraphic, nar-
rative, and documentary evidence for the dynamic process of patronage.
Compiled in Microsoft Access, the database has a front-end inter-
face, which allows users who are not familiar with Access to search
8
The passio Iohannis et Pauli is to be found in St Petersburg Q. v. I 5; for devel-
opment of the argument sketched here, see Leyser (Forthcoming).
9
Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Rome, c. 440c. 840 (University of Manchester:
Centre for Late Antiquity, 2003), lodged with the Arts and Humanities Data Service
(Study No. 4630). The database was the outcome of a three-year AHRB-sponsored
project (with the same name as the database), directed by Dr C. Leyser, and run-
ning from 19992002.
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 315
and query.
10
Again, web delivery and database enhancement are pro-
jected, pending the availability of funding.
In its current form, what the database allows users to do is to
summon all the sources pertaining to a particular site, so as to make
visible the layers in the development of local traditions, and so to
prompt the process of source criticism. For example, a systematic
survey of the epigraphic and narrative evidence for S. Petrus ad vin-
cula shows that the evidence for patronage of this church exists mainly
outside the mainstream ecclesiastical documentation such as the Liber
Ponticalis and centres very strongly on late and quasi-ctional nar-
rative sources.
According to Krautheimer, the church of S. Petrus ad vincula was
founded probably at some time between the second half of the 4th
and the early 5th c., but no records or inscriptional evidence exist
to indicate the context of its foundation.
11
An inscription preserved
in a 9th c. sylloge testies to a renovation by Pope Sixtus III (43240),
with imperial support (regia vota).
12
Another inscription, whose Early
Medieval location is not known, but which is widely believed to
derive from the site of the church, mentions the fullment of vows
of the eastern emperor Theodosius II, his wife Athenais-Eudokia and
their daughter Licinia Eudoxia.
13
All of this points to imperial
municence contributing to the renovation of the church, probably
between 438 and 440, when Licinia Eudoxia was in Rome together
with her husband, the western emperor Valentinian III, whom she
had married in Constantinople in 437.
14
The church continued
throughout the 5th c. to be called ecclesia or titulus Apostolorum.
10
For further detail see Hillner and Leyser (2003).
11
Krautheimer (1971) 179234; see also LTUR, s. v. S. Petrus in vinculis, Titulus,
823. The original church seems to have used an aula absidata dating from the
4th c. which had been erected in the courtyard of a previous (aristocratic?) domus.
There is some debate whether the aula was used for Christian liturgical purpose
right from the startKrautheimer rejects this idea, which is maintained by A. M.
Colini/G. Matthiae (1966).
12
De Rossi (1888) 110, 67 (Sylloge of Lorsch IV) and 134, 3 (Sylloge of Verdun):
see Appendix A for the text of the inscription.
13
De Rossi (as n. 12) 8, 66: Theodosius pater eudocia cum coniuge votum | cumque suo
supplex eudoxia nomine solvit.
14
Martindale (1980) s. v. Licinia Eudoxia (2), 4102.
316 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
In the 6th c., however, the name S. Petrus ad vincula seems to
supplant this ancient name.
15
(The substitution of names in itself is
interesting, especially in light of the re-invention of traditions sur-
rounding the extra-mural basilica apostolorum on the Via Appia, where
a substitution of Sebastian for Peter and Paul seems to occur at
roughly the same period.)
16
There are two inscriptions which may
be datable to the 6th c. from the church, and which allude to the
chain relic of St. Peter.
17
Certainly, the relic was in Rome by 519,
but we do not know the exact date of its arrival.
18
De Rossi assumed
that the relic was brought to Rome by the empress Eudoxia, whose
mother, Athenais-Eudokia, visited Jerusalem in 439, where she could
have received the chains of St. Peterbut this is purely hypotheti-
cal.
19
It was not until much later, in fact, that the chain relic and
Eudoxias patronage came together in Roman cultural memory. From
the end of the 8th c. the church is regularly called by the name of
its ancient imperial benefactor: titulus Eudoxiae.
20
But it was not until
the 12th c. that we nd Medieval corroboration for De Rossis con-
jectured scenario, in the shape of an inscription preserved in the
15
The name is rst recorded by the Liber Ponticalis for the year 501/502: Duchsne
(1955) I, 261, and it is also used in an inscription recording the donation of a pres-
byter to the church in 532 (Diehl (1925) 1780). The poet and deacon Arator in
544 read his praise on the apostles in ecclesia beati Petri quae vocatur ad Vincula (PL
48.81).
16
Cooper (1999) 313, noting that the roughly contemporary Passio Sebastiani (BHL
7543) may have been designed to support, rather than to supplant, the memory of
the apostles burial at the Appian site.
17
De Rossi (1888) 114, 64; 80, 12; 254, 5. The 6th c. date seems to derive from
allusions in the inscriptions to Arators poem on SS. Petrus and Paulus, read in the
church in 544; whether the date is in fact later may be worth investigating.
18
Collectio Avellana 187.56, ed. Gnther (1895)
19
This assumption is largely based on an inscription in the basilica of St Peter
in Spoleto from the rst half of the 5th c. This inscription mentions the existence
of a chain relic of St. Peter in Spoleto at the time of the bishop Achilles (after 419)
(De Rossi [1888] 113, 79. 80. 81). According to De Rossi the relic came to Spoleto
after Eudoxia had brought it to Rome and therefore after c. 440. However, as
already Leclercq (1913) 8 rightly points out, there is nothing in the inscription that
tells us when the relic rst came to Spoleto. For Athenais-Eudokia's trip to Jerusalem
see Holum (1982). The only relics that Eudokia obtained there without doubt are
those of St. Stephen: see Clark (1982).
20
LP I 508, 512 (vita Hadriani); LP II, 3, 11, 19, 24 (vita Leonis). The only
other time that the church is called by this name is in a letter of Gregory the
Great, Ep. 11.15 (MGH, Epp. 2.2757 = CC 140A.8814).
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 317
Mirabilia urbis Romae, and a homily spuriously attributed to Paul the
Deacon.
21
The existing evidence on the history of S. Petrus ad vincula is both
confusing and revealing. The church did not in the early period
receive much attention in ocial papal documents. The signicance
of imperial interestand whether Licinia Eudoxias involvement
would have been perceived in terms additionally of a lay or eastern
dimensionhas yet to be fully understood. The tension between lay
and clerical patronage of the Roman titular churches is itself not
entirely understood: it could be that S. Petrus ad vincula received so
little attention in the Liber Ponticalis because imperial and not epis-
copal patronage was perceived as dominant.
22
Meanwhile, whether
members of the imperial family should in fact be seen as laity
remains an open question. Certainly, emperors such as Justinian saw
themselves as entitledindeed perhaps as responsibleto take a lead-
ing role ex ocio in theological and ecclesiological aairs.
23
A third resource held by the Centre for Late Antiquity, which we
also hope to make available via our website, is an unpublished proso-
pography, with over 1,000 entries, of the Roman clergy from 400
to 1000 compiled by P. Llewellyn of the University of Bangor.
24
Although scholars now possess the excellent volumes on Italy of the
Prosopographie chrtienne du Bas-Empire for the period up to 604, there
is as yet no published research on clerical biographies in the crucial
years of the Roman Churchs formation between the invasion of the
Lombards and the rise of the Carolingians.
25
In all three cases, it
should be stressed that the resources are essentially nding-aids: once
the data has been identied, the scholar is left with the usual, often
staggering, problems of assessing its properties. For example, most
of the data that has been collected, whether narrative or epigraphic,
is not securely dated, and almost all is anonymous; the database
21
Marucchi (1902) 3, 317; the inscription is rst recorded by the Mirabilia (11
12th c.). For the homily, not attested in any of the pre-1100 manuscripts of Pauls
Homiliary, see Pauli Diaconi Homilia de Sanctis (PL 95.148589).
22
Important scholarship which has noted lay-clerical (i.e. episcopal) tension over
the titular churches includes, e.g. Llewellyn (1976) 41727, Llewellyn (1977) 24575;
cf. also Pietri (1981) 43553. On the wider issue, see Hillner in Cooper and Hillner
(Forthcoming).
23
See, for example, Dagron (1996) and the essays collected in Dihle (1989), espe-
cially the paper by Pietri.
24
Cf. Llewellyn (1981).
25
Pietri and Pietri (19992000).
318 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
directs users to printed sources, but this represents the beginning,
rather than the end of the research process.
Users of our resources often arrive without a denite or limited
query, but instead with a range of ideas and incipient hypotheses
about a given institution or individual. While our resources as they
currently stand are able to answer discrete queries, we are seeking
to integrate their structures in order that cross-referencing among the
resources can help researchers to funnel their queries heuristically.
One type of data that allows sometimes unexpected inter-connections
to emerge is that documenting spatial relationships. All our resources
contain information about locations in a variety of dierent, but
potentially overlapping, contexts. Hagiographical narratives, for exam-
ple, reveal a ctional landscape of early Christian Rome as imag-
ined by successive generations, but as the Patronage database illustrates,
it was a ction that was made increasingly real as these generations
decided to invest in martyr cults, which they did building shrines
around the city to commemorate the pantheon of early Christian
heroes, and by transferring objects, such as relics, from one location
to another. To assess whether those cult sites into which investment
was made can also be interpreted as geographical arenas for the
competition of resources between dierent groups (lay versus cleri-
cal, for example), researchers must investigate the topographical back-
ground of the dierent parties involved. In this case, a well-researched
and carefully documented prosopography can oer valuable breadth
and detail.
D.nk Aor Rovr: Ax Ix+rn.c+i\r Toroon.rnv
During 20032004, we were able to develop a Geographical
Information System (GIS) to house spatial data on Early Medieval
Rome and to serve as a tool for exploring our relational database
on Early Medieval patronage, addressing the need to support
researchers in developing heuristic or open-ended queries. During
this phase of funding our team was also able to establish web deliv-
ery of the interface linking the relational database and GIS, using
ArcIMS software.
26
Our GIS is based on the most up-to-date map
26
Thanks in particular to the expertise of M. Islam of the University of Manchester.
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 319
of Early Medieval Rome, furnished by the Museo Nazionale Romano
della Crypta Balbi, which aords a state-of-the-art view of the citys
development and decline from the republican period onwards.
27
A GIS can be dened as a database with computer mapping func-
tionality,
28
but to the untrained eye it is a clickable map which,
when queried, brings up data relevant to specic map coordinates:
GIS data combine information on what an object is with informa-
tion on where it is located. Now that our GIS has been built and
web delivery of our Patronage database via the user interface to
which it is linked has been tested, the next goal will be to code all
the data in our relational database geographically, i.e. to populate
the GIS with topographical data.
29
Topographical coding thus adds
a spatial dimension to each query. For example, with GIS func-
tionality researchers can call up institutions, discover where they were
located, and analyse their geographical distribution, for example, in
terms of proximity to each other and to other buildings, or to known
nd spots of inscriptions. The software used is sensitive enough that
in the long term we could hope to integrate archaeological data,
such as excavation reports.
One of the most benecial features of GIS is that rather than
storing all information about a study area in a single structure, GIS
separates the landscape into dierent layers, which are dened by
the information that they contain: all settlement evidence, for exam-
ple, can be partitioned into a single layer, or all information con-
cerning water and its supply; such ordering of data can also be
accomplished by creating layers of information specic to a single
period of time, or other analytical category. GIS thus allows the user
to overlay two or more distribution patterns simultaneously for com-
parison, oering a substantial analytical advantage over the tabular
representation of search results customary in word-based user inter-
faces. In turn, GIS software makes it possible to query the records
in the database directly through a map, using a clickable topogra-
phy as a tool to explore the underlying data linked to locations dis-
played on the map itself. This functionality has the potential to
27
Meneghini and Santangeli Valenziani (2001) 2255 (gs. 12).
28
Pietri and Pietri (19992000).
29
For the purposes of the pilot study, we coded enough data to show how this
would work, but this sample represents only a fraction of the 6,000 records held
in the patronage database alone.
320 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
provide more eective access to data for users who desire to fun-
nel their research questions interactively.
With the use of GIS the aim is to build a spatial-visual portal for
our resources: a map-based user interface that allows users to inter-
act with a face of Rome that would have been familiar to Early
Medieval visitors to the city. Secondly, we hope to contribute to a
shift in the balance of scholarly endeavour, from source gathering
to source analysis. By front-loading the time-intensive data organi-
sation component for complex searches among inscriptions, charters,
and narrative sources, our research resources are designed to allow
users to test a wide variety of interpretive strategies against the pri-
mary source data in the swift trial-and-error rhythm known to IT
colleagues as rapid-cycle prototyping.
For the purpose of digitisation, we have overlaid the Crypta Balbi
Map with a proprietary vector map of a street plan of modern Rome
at scale 1:25,000.
30
We have also extracted separate layers from the
Crypta Balbi Map representing real-world features that will be rel-
evant to the research on our data, such as ancient buildings, roads,
water, the citys fortications etc. As a separate layer we have vec-
torised a sample of 9 churches dedicated to three major saints
that are recorded by the Patronage database, namely S. Petrus in
Vaticano, S. Petrus ad vincula, S. Laurentius in Formoso, S. Laurentius in
Lucina, S. Laurentius in Damaso, S. Laurentius extra muros, S. Stephanus
Maior, S. Stephanus Minor, and S. Stephanus on the Caelian Hill.
We have also produced a web-enabled interactive version of the
GIS. Finally, we have designed a web-based map search interface,
which will allow queries into our resources both via the GIS and
via an independent database. The prototype interface demonstrator,
which is accessible via the web, is described in more detail below
(Appendix B).
On the basis of the results derivable from the demonstrator alone,
we can call into question some of De Rossis assumptions about the
relation between urban topography and social history. An investigation
into the sources for donations of lay patrons of the 4th and 5th c.
30
The map was obtained from NAVSTREETS by Navigation Technologies.
Maps can be digitised in two dierent ways: a vector model sub-divides space sub-
divided into individual discrete features, such as points, lines, or polygons; a raster
model, in contrast, attempts to represent space as a continuous surface.
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 321
in Rome, such as members of the senatorial aristocracy and the
imperial family, suggests that the church of S. Petrus in Vaticano was
the most important beneciary of donations from this group. This
concentration on one of the most central churches in late antique
Rome, at the expense, it seems, of more marginal institutions, would
run against De Rossis presumption that lay families used their patron-
age activities to gain inuence in particular areas of the city.
In a future phase of the project we hope to populate the GIS
with spatial data from our existing resources, using identical codes
for the geo-referencing and for unique record IDs in the database.
We would then augment these spatial data with further data layers
relevant to our three existing datasets. For example, to study the
dataset on lay distribution of patronage, we might want to use archae-
ological data on private housing. As one of the key abilities of GIS
is to integrate data from a variety of disparate sources, we intend
to explore opportunities to accommodate the addition of new resources,
including evidence from disciplines other than our own, such as
archaeological evidence recovered via excavation.
This phase would also include re-structuring the relational data-
base, which is currently in Microsoft Access, into an umbrella data-
base named MySQL, which is designed specically for use on the
internet and would embrace and unite all of our three existing
resources. We would also address problems arising from some of our
map sources. Future plans also include addressing some problems
over the topographical veracity of our map sources, as some of the
information concerning the location of certain institutions such as
churches and monasteries is derived (out of necessity) from histori-
cal maps which are not always geographically precise. Where ancient
institutions no longer exist, their precise original location can often
not be determined; as such, the accuracy of the representation of
such features in the GIS is wholly dependent on the (frequently ques-
tionable) reliability of the original sources. The fact that the exact
location of many perished structures can only be guessed from sur-
viving textual references has naturally caused considerable debate
amongst scholars, and in this GIS map, topographical deviations of
up to 100 m were allowed as a margin of error.
A striking example of the problematic relationship between textually-
derived topography and the modern cityscape of Rome is the way
in which numerous Early Medieval sources describe certain buildings
in the citys suburbium at specied milestones along the major roads.
322 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
It has not yet been denitively established whether the accepted mile-
distances out of the city were measured from one specic location,
either the milliarium aureum in the Forum, or some other meaningful
point. We currently follow the conclusion of S. Platner and T. Ashby
that the miles were measured from the gates in the Servian Wall,
the inner circuit of fortications around Rome that dated from repub-
lican times.
31
Locations that are described at a particular milestone
on a particular road were identied by working out the distance of
the location from the appropriate gate of the road in the Servian
Wall, using the gure for a Roman mile of 1.481 km. Therefore, a
church at the 5th milestone of the Via Appia would be located at
7.405 km along the Via Appia from the Servian Wall: this approach
may have its limits for the late antique city, but it remains vital that
the topographic methods used to reach cartographic conclusions are
rendered as transparently as possible.
Coxcrtsiox
The issues we have outlined above are not, of course, exclusive to
Rome. Any of the major Christian capitals of the late empire
Constantinople, Jerusalem, or Milan for examplemay benet from
a similar attempt to index and analyse the constantly expanding pool
of data, and to make nding aids and other research tools available
via the web; in a number of cases this is already happening. Indeed,
it is to be hoped that an early outcome of digital research will be
greater and more rapid sharing of data and insight by scholars work-
ing on the dierent cities of the late- and post-imperial period, and
a greater emphasis on the benets of a comparative approach.
On a much wider scale, problems exist on an institutional level
for those engaged in research based around the application of infor-
mation technology. Not only is the unpredictability of funding a key
issue, but there is also the distinct, if not unrelated, problem of a
dependence on expensive licensing and technical expertise, not only to
develop resources, but also to make them available in web-accessible
form, both initially and as a long-term commitment once they are
functional. Ultimately, however, this inter-dependence with the work
31
Platner and Ashby (1929) 342.
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 323
of colleagues in web and database design and maintenance, and the
related need to assist and to learn from colleagues who are engaged
in parallel initiatives in other scholarly elds, may turn out to be
one of the really valuable aspects of the digital turn in arts and
humanities research.
There is no doubt that this kind of work would not be worth
undertaking if it did not hold out exciting intellectual possibilities,
both with regard to the ecient discovery of answers to scholarly
questions, and also towards the discovery of new and more illumi-
nating questions to pursue. But more than this, it also holds out
what we might think of as meta-possibilities, the most obvious of
which is nding new audiences for Late Roman research. These new
audiences vary from colleagues working in other elds such as census-
based 19th20th c. social historywho will be increasingly impor-
tant conversation-partners in matters of methodologyto a generation
of students for whom web-delivered and visually-orientated resources
hold a privileged place in the imagination. Less obvious, but per-
haps more valuable still, is the intellectual discipline of describing
Rome at the end of antiquity in what amounts to a new scholarly
language. The inevitable process of self-criticism involved in re-envi-
sioning our work in these unfamiliar terms is a necessity if ancient
and Medieval studies are to have a voice in conversations about the
future of arts and humanities research.
324 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
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Appendix B: The Demonstrator
A working demonstrator of the user interface and the GIS map
itself can be accessed via the internet at http://distlearn.man.ac.uk/
dldev/darkrome.
For the sake of the demonstrator a small but representative sec-
tion of the Patronage database has been transferred into MySQL.
This section allows running queries that have been chosen to demon-
strate the database and the usefulness of linking it to a GIS.
At the top of the demonstrator appear six tabs, which display the
six categories or angles from which users can approach our data.
Users can choose, for example, between a prosopographical approach
(by searching specic donors), a topographical approach (by search-
ing specic areas of the city), or a material approach (by searching
for specic objects of donations, such as relics). Each of the search
categories can be further manipulated by choosing a number of
search options, displayed on the left hand side of the screen. In the
people category, as shown in g. 1 for example, users can narrow
their search by dening whether they want to search for donors or
recipients, by dening the name and status (lay, clerical, monastic)
of the people they are looking for, or their family roles (e.g. father,
husband, brother etc.) and their career (e.g. Pope, emperor etc.).
The results of a search are displayed in tabular form at the bot-
tom of the screen. Each result that has a topographical implication
will also be displayed on the map in the centre of the screen. For
example, where donations involve churches or monasteries, their loca-
tion (where identied) will automatically appear on the map.
In the anticipated subsequent phase, researchers will also be able
to explore our datasets directly through the GIS (rather than through
the user interface). Clicking on the encoded locations, for example
a church, will activate a pop-up box with table of attributes (as
shown in g. 2), such as names of patrons of the church or objects
given to it. Users will then be able to initiate database searches by
clicking on attributes in this box: clicking on the name of a patron,
for example, will show other donations of this patron to other insti-
tutions, the location of which will be shown on the map.
On the interface (see g. 1), users will nd just above the tabu-
lar results of the query a number of buttons that will allow them to
save and reload the results of their various queries and to leave a
visual trail of their search history. This facility serves as a reference
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 329
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point about the structure of the queries that produced results and
users can store, retrieve, and eventually share derived results with-
out confusion. Within the demonstrator version of the interface the
user is guided through the available data by two structured query
sequences to follow. A demo guide in the top right hand corner of
the screen, to be activated as a pop-up box by a mouse click, pre-
sents the steps required to construct and run the queries via the
interface.
In the anticipated future form of the interface, more advanced
users, who know what they want from the data, will also be able to
type in the required information and make a free-form search. For
the time being, as only selected data supporting specic queries have
been transferred to the web-searchable version, searches are always
structured.
The rst query sequence starts with a prosopographical search
into the donor activity of the empress Eudoxia. The second query
sequence underlines the fruitfulness of an interaction between the
Patronage database and the maps, in revealing problems with De
Rossis view presumption that lay families used their patronage activ-
ities to gain inuence in particular areas of the city. A more detailed
query over a wider chronological scope could show the development
of specic donation patterns for clerical, lay, and monastic groups
and the types of sources which provide this information. The query
designed for this purpose starts with an investigation into the donors
of S. Petrus in Vaticano. As the tabular results of this query in g. 4
show, between 440 and 840 there are 43 donors recorded, who made
76 donations to the church. The rst 12 donors are shown here;
scrolling down the table would reveal the other 31.
The 43 donors of S. Petrus in Vaticano are drawn from clerical,
lay, and monastic backgrounds. A second step of this query investi-
gates where else these 43 donors gave to. At this point the map dis-
plays all the locations of institutions that were patronised by these
43 donors. In the nal version of the GIS users will be able to select
each of the 43 donors in the tabular results at the bottom of the
screen, which will change the map towards a display of the institu-
tions that a particular benefactor of S. Petrus also patronised. For
the demonstrator, we have chosen a sample of ve donors from a
chronological and social range, namely Pope Symmachus (499514),
the Byzantine general Belisarius (in Italy 535549), Pope Gregory
the Great (590604), the Byzantine emperor Constans II (641668),
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 331
332 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
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Fig. 4 Query results: donations to S. Petrus in Vaticano.
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 335
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336 k.+r coorrn, tri. nirrxrn .xr coxn.r rrvsrn
and the Carolingian king and emperor Charlemagne (752814). By
clicking on either of these in the tabular results, users will be able
to change the map accordingly. An example of this is shown in g.
5, where the topographical results of the patronage activity of Gregory
the Great are displayed on the map. Naturally, in the future there will
also be a simultaneous change in the tabular results towards more
details, including bibliographical, of the single donations of Gregory
the Great, or any other record in which users are interested.
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Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1. User interface of Dark Age Rome database.
Fig. 2. Pop-up box with table of attributes to S. Petrus in Vaticano.
Fig. 3. Demo guide to constructing queries.
Fig. 4. Query results: donations to S. Petrus in Vaticano.
Fig. 5. Query results: other patronage activity of S. Petrus donors.
r.nk .or novr: +ov.nrs .x ix+rn.c+i\r +oroon.rnv 337
A NEW TEMPLE FOR BYZANTIUM:
ANICIA JULIANA, KING SOLOMON, AND
THE GILDED CEILING OF THE CHURCH OF
ST. POLYEUKTOS IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Jonathan Bardill
Abstract
The extent to which the design of Anicia Julianas church of St.
Polyeuktos inuenced Justinians cathedral of St. Sophia is an issue that
has attracted much attention. There is broad agreement that Julianas
church is likely to have been crowned with a brick dome on penden-
tives (a precursor of that crowning St. Sophia). But a reconsideration of
the literary and archaeological evidence suggests that this was not the
case. I argue here that a tale related by Gregory of Tours on the gild-
ing of the roof of St. Polyeuktos reliably describes the churchs pan-
elled wooden ceiling, and that the account is consonant with the
archaeological evidence from the excavated site. Juliana commissioned
for her church a ceiling similar to that which had adorned Solomons
Temple in Jerusalem. Inspired by political and religious circumstances,
she claimed to have built a copy of the New Temple, which, according
to Biblical prophecy, would descend from heaven in the eschatological
era and surpass the deled Solomonic Temple.
S+. Porvrtk+os ix Cox+rx+
The excavations of R. M. Harrison and N. Fratl at Sarahane in
Istanbul between 1964 and 1969 revealed the church of St. Polyeuktos
to have been one of the largest and most sumptuously (if gaudily)
decorated churches in the Early Byzantine city.
1
Built on the northern
branch of the citys main street by the wealthy and inuential aris-
tocrat Anicia Juliana,
2
the church was doubtless intended to make a
striking political and religious statement. The nature of that statement,
1
Harrison (1986); Harrison (1989); Hayes (1992).
2
On Anicia Juliana, see PLRE II, Iuliana 3; Capizzi (1968).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 339370
I believe, may be fully appreciated only by considering the historical
circumstances in which the church was built.
On the basis of the indiction dates stamped on the bricks used in
the fabric of the church, I have argued elsewhere that the bricks from
the substructures were manufactured between 508/509 and 511/12.
3
If these dates accurately indicate the period in which the substruc-
tures were built, then work on the church began in the latter half
of the reign of Anastasius. The Emperor Anastasius was not only a
provincial of undistinguished lineage,
4
but also a monophysite. Juliana,
by contrast, had been born into the House of Theodosius and was
staunchly pro-Chalcedonian. She rmly resisted devious attempts by
the monophysitical emperor and Patriarch Timothy to win her over,
5
and corresponded with the Pope in an eort to bring an end to the
Acacian schism.
6
When, in 512, the pro-Chalcedonians of Constan-
tinople rose up against Anastasius, they marched to Julianas house
chanting for her husband, Areobindus, to take the crowna request
he declined by ight.
7
Had the church of St. Polyeuktos been begun
as early as 508/509, shortly after Areobindus had held the consul-
ship, then the edice would have served as a prominent public
reminder that in both the political and religious spheres the Theodosian
House was a serious rival to the ruling authority.
It appears that the bricks from the superstructures of the church
were manufactured between 517/18 and 520/21.
8
Therefore, the
main body of the church was built sometime after 1 September 517,
and it is even conceivable that the substructures were erected at that
time, too, the bricks used to construct them having been stockpiled.
It was at about this time, on 9 July 518, that the Emperor Anastasius
died and the pro-Chalcedonian Justin I was elected to replace him.
Juliana had doubtless hoped that her son, Olybrius, would succeed
Anastasius, thereby restoring both the Theodosian dynasty to power,
and orthodoxy to Constantinople. Olybrius,
9
who had held the con-
3
See Bardill (2004) 6264, 11116.
4
On Anastasius father, see Cameron (1978) 25963.
5
Theoph., Chron. A.M. 6005 (ed. de Boor (1883) 15758) (also the transl. by
Mango and Scott (1997) 239).
6
For Julianas communications with the Pope concerning the reunion, see Coll. Avell.
164, 179, and 198 (ed. Gnther (1895) 615, 635, 65758), and Capizzi (1973) 8083.
7
Malalas 16.19 (ed. Thurn (2000) and the transl. by Jereys et al. (1986) 228).
On Areobindus, see PLRE II, Areobindus 1.
8
See Bardill (2004) 6264, 11116.
9
On Olybrius, see PLRE II, Olybrius 3.
340 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
sulship in 491 and had married a niece of the Emperor Anastasius,
is likely to have been as strong a contender for the throne as the
emperors nephews, Pompey, Hypatius, and Probus. The election of the
provincial Justin must, therefore, have been a bitter disappointment
to Juliana. Nevertheless, she would have been delighted by both the
restoration of orthodoxy and the reconciliation achieved between the
Churches of Rome and Constantinople on 28 March 519, even if
she was unwilling to recognise the new emperors role in bringing
it about.
10
If Julianas church had been started as early as 508/509,
then its symbolism would have altered somewhat by the time work
had started on the superstructures around 519. Whilst continuing to
represent the political power of the House of Theodosius, the church,
rather than anticipating the restoration of orthodoxy and the
reunication with Rome, would have served to commemorate their
achievement.
Juliana might have chosen to make her political and religious state-
ment by founding a new church, but instead she chose to rebuild the
church that had been dedicated to St. Polyeuktos by her great-grand-
mother, the Empress Eudokia.
11
The choice was no doubt consid-
ered highly appropriate in the circumstances: Eudokia had been a
monophysite but had converted to Chalcedonian orthodoxy in about
455, having been persuaded to do so by abbot Euthymius, whose
birth had been foretold at the shrine of St. Polyeuktos in Melitene. It
does not seem unreasonable to suggest that, in commemoration of
her conversion, Eudokia had sent relics of St. Polyeuktos from her
home in Jerusalem to Constantinople, for deposition in an existing
church that was to be rededicated to that saint.
12
If so, St. Polyeuktos
himself would have become intimately associated with Chalcedonian
orthodoxy, and, more specically, with conversion from heresy to
orthodoxy. Julianas decision to rebuild Eudokias church of St.
Polyeuktos in the very period when Chalcedonianism was spurned
by Anastasius and embraced by Justin would appear to be a clear
indication that the edice was a monument to the orthodox cause.
10
Vasiliev (1950) 181 notes that in a brief letter to the Pope (Coll. Avell. 164 (ed.
Gnther (1895) 615), one of several in a dispatch dated 22 April 519 ocially
informing him of the reunion), Juliana fails to mention Justin.
11
On Eudokia, see PLRE II, Eudocia 2. On her conversion, see Clover (1978)
17779.
12
See Bardill (2004) 12526. On Eudokia and Euthymius, see Mundell Mango
(1991) and Pizzone (2003) 11322. For the possibility that she changed the dedi-
cation of an existing church, see Magdalino (2001) 5864.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 341
The religious and political circumstances of the early 6th c. help
to explain not only the dedication of the church, but also a striking
claim made in an inscription displayed on plaques outside it.
13
There
it was stated that Juliana alone has conquered time and surpassed
the wisdom of celebrated Solomon, raising a temple to receive God.
14
Solomons Temple had been destroyed when Jerusalem was captured
by the Babylonians in about 587 B.C. The glory of God had departed,
and the disaster was interpreted as Gods punishment for the fail-
ure of the Jews to observe His statutes.
15
During his captivity in
Babylon, Ezekiel had seen a vision that the Temple would one day
be replaced by a pure Israelite sanctuary, to which the glory of God
would return.
16
But the Second Temple of Zerubbabel was dese-
crated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes; and despite being puried by
Judas Maccabaeus and later being rebuilt by Herod, it was never-
theless considered to be inferior to the Solomonic Temple. After the
sanctuary had been destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Jews
came to believe that the New Temple would not be built by man
but would descend to earth from heaven at the end of the world.
17
Christians adopted and adapted this Jewish concept of the New
Temple,
18
and the author of Revelation predicted that the New
Jerusalem (a city modelled on that in which Ezekiels Temple stood)
would come down from heaven in the eschatological era.
19
From the
words inscribed outside her church, it is clear that Juliana, embold-
ened by the recent restoration of orthodoxy and the reunication of
the Eastern and Western Churches, was proclaiming that she had
founded an earthly copy of the new and better Temple foreseen in
the scriptures, a Temple surpassing Solomons because it was a pure
Christian shrine to receive God (Yehdxon), who had departed long
ago from the deled Jewish Temple.
13
Anth. Pal. 1.10.4276 (ed. Stadtmueller (1894) 67). I reserve for another occa-
sion consideration of the distribution of the verses on the ve plaques and the loca-
tion of the plaques themselves. For discussion, see Mango and evenko (1961)
24546 (followed by Harrison (1986) 7); Speck (1991); Mango (1994) (revising his
earlier opinion); Connor (1999) 49596 (ignorant of Speck (1991) and Mango (1994));
Pizzone (2003) 108109 n. 5.
14
Anth. Pal. 1.10.479 (ed. Stadtmueller (1894) 6).
15
Ezekiel 9.3; 10.45; 11.23 (ed. Brenton (1851) 98890). McKelvey (1969) 7.
16
Ezekiel 40.147.5 (ed. Brenton (1851) 103345). McKelvey (1969) 911.
17
McKelvey (1969) 2241.
18
McKelvey (1969) 14078.
19
Revelation 2122 (ed. Souter (1910)).
342 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
Further support for this conclusion comes from the description of
the church that is given in the verses inscribed outside the building.
The most striking feature of this description is the emphasis that is
laid upon the churchs symmetry. We read how it glitters like the sun
on both its sides; of columns on either side of the nave; of recesses
on both sides; of walls opposite each other; and of elaborate dec-
oration on each side.
20
From the prominence given to the churchs
symmetry, it is clear that the poet was making close reference to the
description of Ezekiels visionary temple, which similarly stresses the
buildings harmonious symmetrical aspects, using the words nyen ka
nyen throughout.
21
Such symmetry is not a feature of the Biblical
descriptions of the Solomonic Temple.
22
The verses also refer to a depiction of the baptism of Constan-
tine showing how, eeing the idols, he overcame the God-ghting
fury, and found the light of the Trinity by purifying his limbs in
water.
23
A depiction of the rst Christian emperors reception of the
baptismal rite would have been highly appropriate in a church claim-
ing to represent the New Temple, given that the waters of baptism
were connected by Christian writers with the river of life that owed
from beneath Ezekiels visionary temple.
24
The poet asks whether such
works could be appreciated by a singer of wisdom moving swiftly
on the path of the west wind and trusting in a hundred eyes. This
appears to me to be an allusion to the airborne chariot of Ezekiels
vision that was powered by four cherubim full of eyes round about.
25
The relevance of Julianas bold claim to have built a Temple to
surpass Solomons would have been increased by the eschatological
expectations of the time.
26
As early as the beginning of the 3rd c.,
Hippolytus had placed the start of the seventh millennium-long day
of the worlds historywhen Christ would cast Satan into the pit, and
reign on earth until his enemys escape one thousand years later
in the early 6th c.
27
Among a number of apocalyptic texts that were
20
See Anth. Pal. 1.10.55, 58, 60, 68 (ed. Stadtmueller (1894) 67).
21
See especially Ezekiel 40:48, 40:49, 41:1, 41:2, 41:3, 41:15, 41:19, 41:26 (ed.
Brenton (1851) 103637).
22
See I Kings 67 and II Chronicles 25 (ed. Brenton (1851) 45054 and 56973).
23
Anth. Pal. 1.10.7073 (ed. Stadtmueller (1894) 7).
24
Ezekiel 47:112 (ed. Brenton (1851) 104546); Milner (1994) 78.
25
Anth. Pal. 1.10.6667 (ed. Stadtmueller (1894) 7); Ezekiel 1:428; 10:122 (ed.
Brenton (1851) 97981, 98889). Contrast Connor (1999) 49192.
26
On this speculation, see Mango (1980) 203204.
27
Danielou (1948). For the events of the seventh day, see Revelation 19:1120:7
(ed. Souter (1910)).
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 343
composed during this very period was the revised Oracle of Baalbek,
dated to 502506. This work predicted that, after the death of the
monophysitical Emperor Anastasius, the last emperor to rule before
the coming of the Antichrist would be a king from the East who
would restore all the people of the entire East and Palestine. His
name is unfortunately corrupt in all three surviving versions of the
oracle: Hiolbos, Olibos, or Ioulibos. However, as P. J. Alexander has
observed,
28
the reference may have been to Olybrius, the son of Anicia
Juliana and husband of a niece of the Emperor Anastasius.
As I have already indicated, any hopes Juliana may have had that
Olybrius would take the throne on Anastasius death, simultaneously
restore Chalcedonian orthodoxy, and thereby hasten the coming of
the heavenly kingdom, were to be dashed upon the election of Justin.
But although the death of Anastasius did not see the restoration of
the Theodosian dynasty, Juliana could still celebrate the healing of the
Acacian schism (a cause to which she had been devoted) and live
in hope that her son would succeed the elderly Justin upon his death.
It is in this context that Julianas eschatological Temple dedicated
to St. Polyeuktos should be interpreted. In 525, however, shortly
after Julianas edice had been completed, Justin was forced by the
Senate to elevate his nephew Justinian to the rank of Caesar, and
the succession was no longer in doubt.
29
In the light of Justins reconciliation with Rome, the eschatological
speculations of the period, Julianas ambition for her son, and her
boast that she had surpassed Solomon, the decoration of St. Polyeuktos
also acquires a clearer signicance. R. M. Harrison suggested that
the decorative details of many of the architectural elements that were
found during the excavations deliberately recalled the adornment of
the Temples of Solomon and Ezekiel as described in the Bible.
30
The
observation is doubtless correct, but the interpretation of the designs
can be taken further, since Juliana was not merely turning the Biblical
descriptions into an architectural reality. Given Julianas claim that
her church represented the pure, heavenly Temple expected in the
eschatological age, I think there can be little doubt that the peacocks
and the excessive naturalistic and stylised vegetal decoration (vinescroll,
28
Oracle of Baalbek (ed. Alexander (1967) 12627 n. 15; also 112 n. 50). Alexander
(1985) 15859.
29
Vasiliev (1950) 94 with n. 70.
30
Harrison (1986) 424 n. 19; Harrison (1989) 13738; Harrison (1994) 24248.
344 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
acanthus, owers, palm trees, palmettes, and exotic plants) should
be interpreted as a reference to the paradise that would be estab-
lished at the end of time.
C. Connor, by contrast, has claimed that the decoration is funerary,
and that we should deduce from this that Anicia Juliana built the
church as her burial place. But even if we consider that permission
might have been granted for Juliana to be buried within the city
(an honour reserved for emperors), I would be cautious about draw-
ing this conclusion. In my opinion, the decoration of St. Polyeuktos
refers primarily to the promise of eternal life in the context of the New
Temple and the New Jerusalem, and inevitably appears funerary
because funerary art drew on the eschatological imagery of paradise.
Therefore, it does not necessarily follow from the decorative scheme
that the church served a funereal function, although such a function
is not incompatible with the interpretation I would place on the
building.
31
Tnr Roor or S+. Porvrtk+os
Textual Evidence
Although mistakenly interpreting Julianas church as a replica of
Solomons deled Temple, Harrison nevertheless rightly argued that
Julianas claim to have surpassed Solomon was reected in the very
structure of the church. He pointed out that not only the buildings
decorative details, but also its metrology accorded with Biblical descrip-
tions of the Temples of Solomon and Ezekiel. In particular, the body
of the church could be explained as being 100 seven-hand cubits in
length and breadthprecisely the dimensions of Ezekiels visionary
Temple.
32
I wish to argue here that the form of the roof of Julianas
31
Connor (1999) 499, (2001), (2004) 10815. The peacocks that decorated the
church, besides representing cherubim, have rightly been seen as references to eter-
nal life by Sodini (1998) 31113, although their symbolism needs to be seen in the
wider political and religious context at the time of the churchs construction.
Exploration of the similarities between the decoration of St. Polyeuktos and the
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem must be postponed, but are highly signicant given
that the latter, like the former, had strong eschatological connections: Rosen-Ayalon
(1989) 4662.
32
Harrison (1986) 41011; Harrison (1989) 13839; Vickers (1989). Milner (1994)
7677 rightly observed that the dimensions of Julianas church accord with descrip-
tions of the Temple of Ezekiel rather than with descriptions of Solomons Temple.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 345
church was yet another architectural manifestation of her claim to
have built the New Temple. The evidence is provided by Gregory
of Tours.
Gregory of Tours On the Glory of the Martyrs, which was composed
between ca. 584 and ca. 594, contains a story concerning Anicia Juliana
and her church of St. Polyeuktos.
33
Gregory tells us that Juliana, in
an attempt to prevent her wealth falling into the hands of the avari-
cious Emperor Justinian, decided to expend her riches by gilding the
roof of her church. The events described by Gregory, if they occurred
exactly as he says (an issue to which we shall return), would have taken
place in 527 or 528, since they concern both Justinian, who came to
the throne in 527, and Juliana, who died in either that very year
or the next.
34
Since Gregory refers to the churchs roof using the term camera,
C. Mango and I. evenko suggested that the edice might have
been crowned with a dome.
35
This possibility is of particular impor-
tance because the church may have had a considerable impact on
the design of Justinians domed Constantinopolitan churches of Sts.
Sergius and Bacchus, St. Eirene, and St. Sophia. The term camera,
however, although it originally referred to a vaulted roof, could be
applied to a roof of any kind by the time Gregory was writing.
36
Thus, in the 3rd c., Faventinus, paraphrasing Vitruvius comments
on bath houses, contrasted vaulted concrete roofs (camerae structiles)
with at ones ( planas cameras).
37
Around 400, in his commentary on
the Aeneid, Servius referred to a camera incurva, which again suggests
that the word camera on its own no longer necessarily referred to a
vaulted roof,
38
and St. Augustine commented explicitly that a cam-
era is rightly so called not only if it is curved but even if it is at
Fowden (1994) 27677 n. 16 comments Nonetheless, the epigram speaks of Solomons
temple, not Ezekiels, missing the crucial point that Juliana claimed not to have
copied but to have surpassed Solomon.
33
Greg. Tur., Glor. Mart. 102 (ed. Krusch (1885) 105107) with variant readings
in Krusch (1920) 736. Earlier editions of Gregorys text, in which the tale is chap-
ter 103, are Ruinart (1699) cols. 79495 and Bordier (1857) 27683. For a trans-
lation based on Krusch, see van Dam (1988) 12426.
34
Von Premerstein (1903) 109; Mango and evenko (1961) 24445.
35
Mango and evenko (1961) 245.
36
TLL III, 203 s.v. camera I: pars aedicii ( proprie tectum curvum, tum quodvis tec-
tum . . .). For a discussion of the meaning of the term, see Deichmann (1957) 25052.
37
Cetius Faventinus 17 (ed. Cam (2001) 26 with 117 and 120).
38
Serv. on Aeneid 1.505 (ed. Thilo (1923) 157).
346 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
(camera non solum curva, sed etiam plana recte dicitur).
39
Paulinus of Nola,
writing in the early 5th c. of the basilical complex of St. Felix at
Nola, used the term camera of the vault of the apse. Decorated with
mosaic, the vault illuminated the apse below, whose oor and walls
were panelled with marble (absidem solo et parietibus marmoratam camera
musivo inclusa claricat).
40
Gregory of Tours, in his Histories, however,
described how Bishop Perpetuus of Tours preserved the beautifully
made roof (camera) of the small shrine of St. Martin and used it to
roof a new basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul.
41
It is clear that in this
context the term camera must designate a highly decorated wooden
(hence portable) roof or ceiling, rather than an immovable masonry
superstructure.
42
In the Liber Ponticalis, at least until the end of the
8th c., the term camera seems, in general, to refer to a at ceiling
that hid the trusses of the roof from view, as can be deduced from
some of the more descriptive passages that are discussed below.
43
However, when the term is used in the account of the work of Pope
Gregory III (73141) at the church of St. Andrew to the south of
St. Peters, it apparently refers to the interior of a dome.
44
Similarly,
Agnellus, in his Liber Ponticalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis composed between
39
Aug., De Genesi ad Litteram 2.9.22 (ed. Migne (1887) 271).
40
Paulinus of Nola, Epistula 32.10 (ed. Goldschmidt (1940) 3839); Liverani (2003)
15 with n. 19.
41
Greg. Tur., H.F. 2.14 (ed. Krusch and Levison (1951) 64): Et quoniam camera
cellulae illius prioris eleganti opere fuerat fabricata, indignum duxit sacerdos, ut opera eius deperiret,
sed in honore beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli aliam construxit basilicam, in qua cameram
illam adxit.
42
As also observed by Liverani (2003) 22, who stresses the value of Gregorys
detailed descriptions of churches. Du Fresne du Cange (18831887) II, 46 no. 9,
denes camera in this passage as Opus ligneum elegantius, which, while assuming that
the decoration was of wood, suggests that the term camera does not here designate
the entire roof. Bonnet (1890) 249 n. 6, who understands camera generally to mean
vault, claims that the term must here be taken to mean only the decoration of
the vault.
43
See also Liverani (2003) 1623. On pp. 1718, Liverani adduces Lib. Pont.
47.6; 92.8; 98.4; 98.5; 98.9; 98.92 (ed. Duchesne (19551957)) as examples of cam-
era referring to a at ceiling. Although this is very likely to be correct, the passages
themselves contain no details that betray the nature of the camera, and in each case
Davis (2000) 39 and (1992) 24, 181, 182, 223 has translated apse-vault. The pas-
sages that I consider to be more revealing concerning the meaning of camera are
discussed below. Liverani points out that the internal ceiling (camera) is distinguished
from the shell of the roof (tectum) in several instances, e.g. Lib. Pont. 92.7; 92.11;
97.64b with 97.74; 98.92 (ed. Duchesne (19551957)).
44
Lib. Pont. 92.11. Fecit autem et tectum a noviter simul et cameram sancti Andreae Apostoli
ad Sanctum Petrum apostolum, quam depinxit (ed. Duchesne (19551957)). Liverani (2003)
1819, 21.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 347
830 and 845, referred to the mosaic-decorated dome of the Orthodox
Baptistery at Ravenna as a camera.
45
Given the ambiguity of the term camera as to both structural form
and material, it is rather surprising that proper attention has not
been paid to the interpretation and veracity of Gregorys detailed
account of the decorative procedure undertaken in the church of St.
Polyeuktos. Closer analysis of Gregorys text is all the more neces-
sary because of the diculties in establishing the nature of the super-
structure of the church from the meagre archaeological remains.
Although Gregory was writing far away from Constantinople and
some 60 years after the church of St. Polyeuktos had been completed,
the reliability of his description of the roof need not be doubted.
There is evidence in Gregorys Histories to suggest that he had access
to written Byzantine sources,
46
and whether the story concerning St.
Polyeuktos was based on material transmitted from Constantinople
orally or in writing, Mango and evenko rightly commented that
the tale commends itself in several authentic details.
47
Gregory
gives the names of both Juliana and her church correctly, and is
aware of Julianas great wealth invested in scattered properties. He
is also almost certainly accurate in stating that Julianas church was
beside her residence (erat enim proximum domui eius),
48
since she is likely
to have inherited the home of her great-grandmother Eudokia, which
is known to have been located in the tenth region of the city, where
the church of St. Polyeuktos was itself located.
49
Additionally, Gregory
is correct in saying that Juliana was an old woman by the time
Justinian had come to power (quod esset senex); indeed, she was in the
last year or two of her life.
50
As to Gregorys discussion of the churchs
roof, he is demonstrably correct in writing that it was adorned with
gold, since the verses inscribed on plaques outside the church describe
a golden-roofed covering (xrusorfou . . . kalptrhw).
51
45
Agnellus, Lib. Pont. Eccl. Rav. 28 (ed. Holder-Egger (1878) 292): Fontes Ursiana
ecclesia pulcerrime decoravit: musiva et auratis tesselis apostolorum imagines et nomina camera
circumnxit, parietes promiscuis lapidibus cinxit. On the meaning of camera in Agnellus,
see Mauskopf Deliyannis (2004) 31517.
46
Cameron (1975).
47
Mango and evenko (1961) 245.
48
Greg. Tur., Glor. Mart. 102 (ed. Krusch (1885) 106.24).
49
Magdalino (2001) 59.
50
Greg. Tur., Glor. Mart. 102 (ed. Krusch (1885) 106.25).
51
Anth. Pal. 1.10.57 (ed. Stadtmueller (1894) 6).
348 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
The roof is, in fact, the very subject of Gregorys tale. Having
explained St. Polyeuktos ability at extracting confessions and pun-
ishing liars, Gregory introduces his story with the words: Juliana, a
certain lady of that city, covered the camera of this basilica with pure
gold in this way (Huius basilicae cameram Iuliana quaedam urbis illius
matrona auro purissimo texit hoc modo).
52
We may imagine that Julianas
splendid ceiling was so striking that many sought an explanation for
how it had come to be adorned with so large an amount of gold, and
the tale that Gregory retells served to provide the necessary popular
explanation. Gregory, however, attempts to construe the story as an
illustration of the power of the martyr: having nished the tale, he
claims that Polyeuktos had intervened to ensure that Julianas gold
would not fall into the hands of Justinian. Given that the storys
very purpose was to account for the churchs excessively gilded roof,
and bearing in mind that it is demonstrably accurate in a number
of details, it seems most unlikely that the description of the roof itself
is utterly wrong.
The crucial passage in Gregorys story runs as follows in the edi-
tion of B. Krusch:
At illa, vocatis articibus, quantum reperire auri in prumptuariis potuit, tradidit
occultae, dicens: Ite, et factis iuxta mensuram tegnorum tabulis, beati ex hoc Poliocti
martyris cameram exornate, ne haec avari imperatoris manus attingat. Illi vero,
perfecta omnia quae matrona praeceperat, camerae adxerunt texeruntque ex auro
mundissimo.
53
But she, after workmen had been summoned, secretly handed over to
them as much gold as she was able to nd in her stores, saying: Go,
and having made tabulae according to the measurements of the tegna,
decorate with this [gold] the camera of the [church of the] blessed mar-
tyr Polyeuktos, lest the hand of our avaricious emperor should touch
these things. They indeed, after everything that the lady had com-
missioned [i.e., the tabulae] had been completed, xed [them] to the
camera and gilded [them] with very pure gold.
In other words, Juliana ordered her craftsmen to make tabulae of the
correct size, and then to decorate the roof (camera) of the church
with the gold she had given them. We are informed that they xed
the tabulae to the roof (camerae adxerunt) and then covered them with
very pure gold (texeruntque ex auro mundissimo). This decoration was clearly
52
Greg. Tur., Glor. Mart. 102 (ed. Krusch (1885) 105.2425).
53
Greg. Tur., Glor. Mart. 102 (ed. Krusch (1885) 106.1519).
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 349
undertaken on the interior, since the story concludes with Justinian
entering the church and being prompted by Juliana to look up at
the gilded camera. I should add that I do not believe that this gilded
camera could be the semidome over the apse. It is, as I have already
indicated, almost certainly to be equated with the golden-roofed cov-
ering mentioned in the verses displayed outside the church; and
since that covering is said to have been supported by columns upon
columns on either side of the nave, and was, therefore, the roof over
the nave, it follows that Gregorys camera is the same, and not the
roof over the sanctuary.
There can be no doubt that tabulae means wooden panels or metal
plates.
54
Metal plates appear to have been used to sheath the inte-
rior of the coered masonry dome of Hadrians Pantheon in Rome,
55
and U-shaped bronze plates seem to have been used to clad the
wooden beams of its porch.
56
The coers of the roof of Constantines
mausoleum in Constantinople are said to have been gilded, so perhaps
gilded bronze plates attached to a masonry dome are to be inferred.
57
Had a masonry dome crowned St. Polyeuktos, however, we would
expect it, like the domes of other Byzantine churches, to have been
decorated not with metal plates but with mosaic.
58
The meaning of
tabulae, however, can hardly be stretched to encompass mosaic tesserae.
59
Furthermore, the order in which work on the roof is described by
Gregory suggests that the tabulae were gilded only once they were
in position: camerae adxerunt texeruntque ex auro mundissimo. If Gregorys
word-order is signicant, then plates of bronze must certainly be
ruled out, since the gilding of such plates would have entailed their
54
OLD s.v. tabula 1 and 2, cf. 5. For tabulae of lead on the roof of a church, see
the mid-10th c. text Flodoardus 3.5 (ed. Colvenerius (1879) col. 144): tecta templi
plumbeis cooperuit tabulis.
55
De Fine Licht (1968) 146 with g. 143.
56
MacDonald (1976) 28 (contrast de Fine Licht (1968) 48).
57
Eus., V. Const. 4.58 (ed. Winkelmann (1975) 144; also transl. by Cameron and
Hall (1999) 176). It is disputed whether the building described by Eusebius is the
same as the domed and circular (sfairoeidw ka kuklikw) mausoleum described
by Mesarites in his Description of the Church of the Holy Apostles 39.2 (ed. Downey
(1957) 891 with n. 3, 915). Some would argue that Eusebius is describing the at,
coered ceiling of a cruciform church in which Constantine was initially laid to rest.
58
Mango and evenko (1961) 245, however, claimed that Juliana called in her
craftsmen, handed them all her gold and directed them to cast it into plaques.
59
Nevertheless, Mundell Mango (1992) 12526, commenting on Gregorys story,
states that St. Polyeuktos probably had masonry vaults decorated with glass mosaic
rather than gilded wood coering.
350 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
being coated with a mixture of mercury and powdered gold, before
being heated until the mercury evaporated and the gold was xed.
Wooden tabulae, however, could have been gilded either before or
after having been placed in position. If the tabulae were not yet gilded
when xed in place, we may imagine that the scaold used when
attaching them to the roof was also employed for the application of
the gesso, bole, and gold leaf.
The suggestion that the tabulae were wooden panels attached to the
undersides of the wooden beams of the roof is supported by Julianas
command that the tabulae be made iuxta mensuram tegnorum. The
most likely explanation of this phrase is that tegnorum = tignorum (as in
T. Ruinarts and H. Bordiers editions of the text)
60
and that the
panels were made according to the measurements of the beams of
the roof. We may imagine, therefore, that wooden panels (probably
with coers) were made in sizes necessary to span the intervals
between the tie-beams of a trussed roof, so as to create a at ceil-
ing beneath the trusses over the nave and aisles. Once in position,
the panels could have been decorated with gold leaf.
The term camera, which is used by Gregory to describe the roof of
St. Polyeuktos, or the Greek kamra, from which the Latin was
derived, is used in other texts of the early Byzantine period to refer
to at, panelled ceilings. A selection of the more instructive passages
follows.
The Liber Ponticalis states that Constantine donated 500 lbs. of gold
for gilding the length and breadth of the camera of the Lateran basil-
ica in Rome.
61
Although some scholars have understood the gilding
to have been applied to the vault of the apse,
62
it has been calculated
that the use of such a large quantity of gold is better explained as
gold leaf spread thinly over the extensive surface of all the churchs
ceilings.
63
In this case, therefore, the term camera would appear to
60
Ruinart (1699) cols. 79495; Bordier (1857) I. 278. Baxter and Johnson (1934)
list tegna for tigna c. 550 (not repeated in R. E. Lathams revised edition of 1965).
However, Niermeyer, van de Kieft and Burgers (2002) have tegnum = tectum (roof ),
but it seems unlikely that Gregory, who uses camera four times to refer to the roof,
would have chosen a dierent term to mean the same thing in just the one instance.
61
Lib. Pont. 34.3 (ed. Duchesne (19551957) I, 172): cameram basilicae ex auro tri-
mata in longum et in latum, lib. D.
62
Krautheimer et al. (1977) 9. Davis (2000) 16 translates: the apse-vault of the
basilica, of gold-foil in both directions, 500 lb.
63
Assuming the gold was applied at a thickness of two microns over the roof-
area of 4,125 m
2
, a total of 487 lbs. of gold would have been required. See Mundell
Mango (1992) 125.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 351
mean a at, possibly coered, ceiling over the nave and aisles of the
church.
64
When, in 325 or 326, Constantine wrote to Bishop Macarius of
Jerusalem to propose the construction of a church on the site of
Christs tomb, he raised the issue of the decoration of the roof, sug-
gesting that the kamra might be coered and gilded (tn d tw basi-
likw kamran pteron lakvnaran di traw tinw rgasaw gensyai
soi doke, par so gnnai bolomai. e gr lakvnara mlloi enai,
dunsetai ka xrus kallvpisynai).
65
There can be no doubt in this
case that a at ceiling is meant,
66
since Constantines suggestion was
adopted. Eusebius states that the exterior of the roof was covered
with lead, while its interior (t tw esv stghw) was tted with carved
coers and like a vast sea spread out by a series of joints binding
to each other through the whole royal house, and being beautied
throughout with brilliant gold made the whole shrine glitter with
beams of light.
67
A at, coered ceiling is duly indicated in archi-
tectural reconstructions of the basilica, which are based on the exca-
vated ground-plan.
68
Paulinus of Nola, writing in 403 of the restoration of the mar-
tyrium of St. Felix at Nola, describes teams of two craftsmen in
ceiling panelling and marble (biiuges laqueari et marmore fabri ) and
praises their work: Behold, you see: how much splendouras if the
building has been rebornsmiles upon the carved coering as the
roof (camera) shimmers. In wood it simulates ivory (ecce vides quantus
splendor velut aede renata / rideat insculptum camera crispante lacunar. / in
64
This camera was later repaired by Leo I (44061) and Leo III (795816): see
Lib. Pont. 47.6; 98.5 (ed. Duchesne (19551957)).
65
Eus., V. Const. 3.32.1 (ed. Winkelmann (1975) 99; transl. by Cameron and Hall
(1999) 135).
66
I know of no other example of the term kamra (derived, presumably, from
kmptv, I bend, I curve) referring to a at ceiling. It is conceivable that the term
is used here because the letter was written or drafted in Latin using the word cam-
era. Constantine wrote a letter to the Persian king in Latin, and is said to have
written his speeches also in Latin (Eus., V. Const. 4.8 and 4.32 (ed. Winkelmann
(1975) 12223, 132; transl. Cameron and Hall (1999) 156, 165).
67
Eus., V. Const. 3.36.2 (ed. Winkelmann (1975) 100; transl. by Cameron and
Hall (1999) 136). On the form of the ceiling, see also Deichmann (1957) 25758
and Weber (2001) 56.
68
See, e.g., Krautheimer (1986) 61 with g. 27(A) (although a clerestory seems
necessary). In both Mango (1972) 12 and Cameron and Hall (1999) 135 kamra
at Eus., V. Const. 3.32.1 is translated as vault rather than roof . On the contrary,
comparison with Eus., V. Const. 3.36.2 indicates that this is obviously taken to refer
to the at coered ceiling, as recognised by Mundell Mango (1992) 125.
352 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
ligno mentitur ebur).
69
This coered camera was clearly made of wood
and, although it is not inconceivable that it was a wooden vault, the
preceding examples clearly allow the possibility that it too was a at
wooden ceiling.
70
The Liber Ponticalis describes the work of Pope Hadrian I (77295)
on the roof of the basilica of St. Peters in Rome. He replaced 14
beams and subsequently decorated the ceiling: Indeed, carving it with
various colours on the ancient model, he renewed the roof (camera) of
the [church of ] Peter, prince of the apostles, which had been com-
pletely destroyed and broken (Camera vero beati Petri apostolorum principis
in omnibus distructam atque dirutam exemplo olitano sculpens diversis coloribus
noviter fecit).
71
Although it might be argued that the camera is here the
vault of the apse,
72
the reference to the prior replacement of roof-
beams suggests that the entire ceiling of the basilica is meant. Further-
more, the words carving it with various colours recall the wooden
insculptum lacunar described by Paulinus of Nola, and are best explained
by assuming that the camera was decorated with painted coers.
Additional information about this restoration is contained in the
Codex Carolinus, which preserves a letter of Pope Hadrian to Charle-
magne concerning the latters supply of materials for the project.
The pope writes, About the camaradum (that is, the ypochartosis) to be
repaired in the basilica of the holy apostle Peter (De camarado autem,
quod est ypochartosin, ad renovandum in basilica beati Petri apostoli ), and
goes on to suggest that Charlemagne send a magister to Spoleto to
obtain the timber which would be necessary in the aforesaid ypochar-
tosis (that is, camaradum) (quod in predicto ypochartosin, hoc est camarado,
necesse fuerit), since there was none in Roman lands.
73
The term
hypochartosis is apparently related to xrthw, meaning leaf or plate,
74
69
See Paul., Carm. 27.385, 38789 (ed. Goldschmidt (1940) 545).
70
See Goldschmidt (1940) 136 (on Carm. 27.388) and the comments of Deichmann
(1957) 255. On the excavated site of the church complex, see Krautheimer (1986)
19596.
71
Replacement of beams: Lib. Pont. 97.64 (ed. Duchesne (19551957) I, 505).
Decoration (quoted here): Lib. Pont. 97.74 (ed. Duchesne (19551957) I, 508).
72
Davis (1992) 161, translates apse-vault.
73
Codex Carolinus, ep. 65 (ed. Grundlach (1892) 59293) (also quoted by Duchesne
(19551957), I, 51920 n. 77). For the letters date, see Geertman (1975) 33.
74
Liddell, Scott and Jones (1996) 1980 s.v. xrthw. I am grateful to Raymond
Davis for pointing this out. Du Fresne du Cange (18831887) II, 38, s.v. camaradum
quotes Codex Carolinus ep. 65 and comments Est autem hypocartosis, tectorium, sive
crusta, qua parietes et camerae inducuntur.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 353
and the context clearly indicates that it was made of wood. It may
reasonably be suggested that the plates comprising the hypochartosis
were equivalent to the wooden tabulae mentioned in Gregorys descrip-
tion of the coered ceiling of St. Polyeuktos, and that the term
hypochartosis refers to a at ceiling of wooden panels attached below
roof-beams. If so, since hypochartosis is provided as a denition of
camaradum, the same meaning is applicable to camaradum itself. The
term camaradum, whilst very unusual and certainly requiring the gloss
provided by the author, is clearly derived from the word camera, and
the derivation makes more sense in the light of the fact that camera
could refer not only to vaulted roofs but also to at ceilings.
75
The term hypochartosis is apparently used again in Agnellus Liber
Ponticalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis in a passage concerning the restoration
of the roofs of the basilica of SantApollinare in Classe, which was
undertaken thanks to the municence of Pope Leo III (795816).
Under Archbishop Martin (81017/8), Chrisafus, Leos attendant,
restored the roofs of [the church of ] blessed Apollinaris, all of them
with beams and r coers (ex trabibus et laquearibus abiegnis), and all
the roofs (tegumenta) of [the church of ] that martyr. We are told that
the masons arranged the beams on top of the walls [i.e., across the
width of the nave], and everything was nished (Caementariique ordina-
bant trabes super parietes, et perfecta sunt omnia). This description of the
positioning of the tie-beams upon the walls of the clerestory clearly
indicates that a at ceiling over the nave is being described. But
what of the tting of the r coers? In the manuscript, the next sen-
tence reads solaque hypocrastos hic pontifex ingere praecepit. The editor
may well be correct in substituting hypocartosis for hypocrastos, in which
case we may translate: there was only the hypocartosis [that was
unnished and] this ponti [Martin] ordered [them] to x it in.
76
75
On the interpretation, see Geertman (1975) 19293 (who suggests that the
author possibly chose not to use the word camera, to avoid any suggestion that he
was referring to a vault); Davis (1992) 15556 n. 127; and Liverani (2003) 19 (who
argues that the choice of camaradum and hypochartosis is to be explained by the fact
that at the Frankish court the word camera referred to the imperial treasury).
76
Agnellus, Lib. Pont. Eccl. Rav. 168 (ed. Holder-Egger (1878) 387). On this pas-
sage, see Geertman (1975) 19293; Deichmann (1976) 23536, 240; Mauskopf
Deliyannis (2004) 297. The last renders and this bishop ordered the oors to be
laid with hypocartosis, which she denes as Marble opus sectile (pp. 32526, with
discussion of other suggested meanings). Since in the Codex Carolinus the term hypo-
cartosis clearly relates to the roof of St. Peters, I am not convinced that sola here
means oors, for which Agnellus is likely to have used the word pavimenta (as at
354 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
Indeed, the context seems to require a term relating to the coered
ceiling mentioned earlier, and hypocartosis would be well suited, given the
meaning that has been suggested above. As in the case of St. Peters,
we may suggest that the installation of the hypocartosis undertaken by
Archbishop Martin involved the attachment of wooden panels to the
underside of the tie-beams so as to create a at ceiling with coers.
The passages cited above demonstrate not only that the term camera
was used with reference to at, coered ceilings, but also that at St.
Peters in Rome and at Sant Apollinare in Classe wooden panels
were attached to tie-beams so as to create such a ceiling (sometimes
termed a hypochartosis or camaradum). These texts therefore provide strong
additional support for the contention that the camera of St. Polyeuktos,
as described by Gregory of Tours, was a ceiling consisting of wooden
panels (tabulae) attached to beams.
Nevertheless, we should perhaps briey address the possibility that,
when Gregory refers to a camera, he means not a at, wooden ceil-
ing but a wooden vault, and that wooden tabulae were attached to,
or between, the ribs of a wooden dome. Indeed, Connor has claimed
that Paul the Silentiarys description of St. Sophias dome as a wood-
less roof (julon . . . tgow) presupposes the existence of wooden
domes in Constantinople, and that St. Polyeuktos itself may have
possessed one.
77
That, however, is an invalid deduction. Whether or
not it was St. Polyeuktos in particular that Paul had in mind (which
I doubt), he is much more likely to have been contrasting St. Sophias
masonry dome with the standard trussed roofs of wood that would
have covered most of the citys churches.
78
Although it is not incon-
ceivable that the church of St. Polyeuktos was crowned by a wooden
dome (with a diameter of ca. 19 m),
79
it would seem much more likely
that if a domed roof had been desired, it would have been built
Lib. Pont. Eccl. Rav. 29, 41, 86, 87, 114). Indeed, the context itself would lead us
to believe that Agnellus is writing about the roof of Sant Apollinare. If hypocrastos
is in fact in error for hypocartoseos, one might suggest this bishop ordered them to
x the surfaces of the ceiling. I am most grateful to Raymond Davis for providing
a working translation of the passage, and for detailed discussion of the obscure text.
77
Connor (1999) 515; Paul the Silentiary, Description of St. Sophia 518 (ed. Friedlnder
(1912) 242).
78
The author of the Syriac hymn describing the Justinianic church of St. Sophia
in Edessa (verse 10) compares wooden and stone roofs: There is no wood at all
in its ceiling, / which is as if entirely cast from stone. See McVey (1993) 357.
79
For the evidence concerning wooden domes, see Creswell (1969) 11621; Ward-
Perkins (1947) 17879.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 355
using the local building material, brick, as in the slightly later churches
of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, St. Eirene, and St. Sophia.
There is a further reason to link the gilded roof of St. Polyeuktos
with the at, panelled and gilded ceilings we have noted elsewhere,
and in particular with the ceiling of Constantines church of the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In his Life of Constantine, Eusebius not
only describes the basilica on Golgotha and its gilded ceiling, but
also makes the striking claim that it is the New Jerusalem, facing
and superseding the deled Jewish Temple of King Solomon, which
had been destroyed in A.D. 70:
New Jerusalem was built at the very Testimony to the Saviour, fac-
ing the famous Jerusalem of old, which after the bloody murder of
the Lord had been overthrown in utter devastation, and paid the
penalty of its wicked inhabitants. Opposite this then the Emperor
erected the victory of the Saviour over death with rich and abundant
municence, this being perhaps that fresh new Jerusalem proclaimed
in prophetic oracles, about which long speeches recite innumerable
praises as they utter words of divine inspiration.
80
Julianas claim to have surpassed the wisdom of Solomon in building
St. Polyeuktos is a clear echo of this. It can hardly be a coincidence
that Constantine gave orders for the construction of the church at
Christs sepulchre immediately after his apparent success in unifying
the Christian Church at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and that
Juliana built her New Temple immediately after Constantinoples
reunication with Rome in 519. Clearly, in both cases, religious cir-
cumstances enhanced the signicance of the building programme
and helped to justify the founders attempt to surpass Solomon by
building a copy of the heavenly Temple.
81
The similar claims of
Constantine and Juliana to have outdone Solomon
82
are crucially
relevant with regard to the type of roof that covered their churches
because we read in the Vulgate that the ceiling of Solomons Temple
80
Eus., V. Const. 3.33.12 (ed. Winkelmann (1975) 99; transl. Cameron and Hall
(1999) 135). Likewise, Eus., Hist. Eccl. 10.4.272 describes Paulinus cathedral at
Tyre as the New Temple surpassing Solomons. He uses the vocabulary of Ezekiel
4041, and claims that the church fulls Haggais prophecy that the glory of this
house shall be great, the latter more than the former (Haggai 2.10, ed. Brenton
(1851) 1113). See Wilkinson (1982).
81
For yet another church with Solomonic connections that was built at a turning-
point in ecclesiastical history, see Magdalino (1987).
82
Treatments of Julianas claim to have surpassed Solomon include Milner (1994)
and Koder (1994).
356 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
was panelled and gilded. Solomon, we are told, dressed the whole
roof (cameram) with panels of cedar and covered or roofed the greater
house with wooden panels (tabulis) of r and axed (axit) leaves of
pure gold (auri obrizi ) throughout.
83
There cannot, I think, be much doubt that the language of Gregory
of Tours account of the decoration of St. Polyeuktos roof was
inuenced by the Vulgates description of the gilded camera of Solomons
Temple; and since the Vulgate makes it clear that the tabulae of
Solomons Temple were wooden and that the gold was applied in
leaves, the conclusion to be drawn is that Gregory was thinking of
similar materials and procedures in the case of St. Polyeuktos. The
camera of Solomons Temple was certainly not domed, and there is,
therefore, no reason to assume that Gregory meant us to infer that
Julianas camera was either. Although we shall see that the circumstances
in which St. Polyeuktos ceiling was gilded were probably not quite
as Gregory reports, it seems hardly likely, for the reasons set out at
the beginning of this discussion, that his description of the ceiling
itself is completely misleading, having been dictated only by a desire
to allude to the Vulgate. Rather, Gregorys Biblical allusion may
well suggest that he knew that the church of St. Polyeuktos had been
designed and decorated so as to emulate and supersede Solomons
Temple, and, if so, is a further indication that his story, even if elab-
orated and adjusted in some respects, is correct in its detail.
84
It would
seem that, in her attempt to surpass Solomon, Juliana (and perhaps
also Constantine at the Holy Sepulchre) had deliberately emulated
the king by commissioning a panelled and gilded wooden ceiling,
and that Gregory, fully aware of the churchs symbolism, thought
to allude to the signicance of the design and decoration of that
ceiling by echoing the words of the Vulgate.
The verses set up on plaques outside the church provide a few
details about the buildings architectural form, and mention that the
columns support the rays of the golden-roofed covering (xrusorfou
83
I Kings 7:3 (tabulatis cedrinis vestivit totam cameram), and II Chronicles 3:5 (Domum
quoque maiorem texit tabulis ligneis abiegnis, et laminas auri obrizi axit per totum; compare
I Kings 6:910), in: Hetzenauer (1929) 289, 369 (compare 288). Gregorys use of
the Vulgate text for the books of Kings is demonstrated by Bonnet (1890) 57.
84
Gregorys lead was perhaps followed by Agnellus in his account of the repair
of the ceiling of Sant Apollinare in Classe, where ex trabibus et laquearibus abiegnis
may well suggest the vocabulary is inspired by the Biblical description of Solomons
Temple, as suggested by Mauskopf Deliyannis (1994) 273, 306; (2004) 87.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 357
ktnaw ertzousi kalptrhw).
85
Regarding these rays, Harrison
commented that it is not clear whether the reference is to the radi-
ating ribs of a golden dome or simply to rays of light.
86
He might
also have considered the possibility that the rays were gilded par-
allel tie-beams spanning the nave. A concrete use of the term ktw
is, however, very rare,
87
and the word usually means ray of light.
This is its meaning in Nonnus, whose work inuenced the authors
of the verses displayed inside and outside the church of St. Polyeuktos.
The meaning is also the same in Paul the Silentiary, who echoes
Julianas poem when he describes the gold tesserae on the vaults of
St. Sophia from which pours a glittering gold-streaming ray (n po
marmarousa xdhn xrusrrutow ktw).
88
There is, therefore, no good
reason to assume that the author of the St. Polyeuktos epigram was
using the term ktw to refer to an architectural element; rather, we
should understand that the columns supported a radiant gilded roof.
Thus the use of the word ktw by Julianas poet tells us nothing
specic about the form of the roof.
Discussing the same verse, Connor argued that the term for cover-
ing (kalptrh) suggests a rounded form, such as the covering of a
womans head and gives some reason to think the roof above the
galleries was a spherical dome.
89
This, however, is hardly a justiable
conclusion, since the term might refer to a covering of any shape,
and does not in itself imply curvature.
90
Thus, when Paul the Silentiary
applies the word to the roof of St. Sophia, it is the accompanying
epithets well-helmeted and deep-bosomed that suggest the precise
shape of the covering of which he speaks.
91
85
Anth. Pal. 1.10.57 (ed. Stadtmueller (1894) 6).
86
Harrison (1989) 131, cf. Harrison (1986) 408 with n. 10.
87
In an epigram by Antipater of Thessalonica (Anth. Pal. 9.418.5, in: Gow and
Page (1968) 1.623 with 2.84) the word is used for the radiating teeth of a cog
(the axle, which revolves with its twisting rays the hollow weights of the millstones).
However, Gow and Page comment that the noun is not used elsewhere in this or
any kindred sense.
88
Paul the Silentiary, Description of St. Sophia 669 (ed. Friedlnder (1912) 246).
89
Connor (1999) 491.
90
Herodotus, Histories 4.64 (ed. Hude (1927)), for instance, refers to kalptraw
tn faretrvn (covers of quivers). Oppian, Halieutica 4.67 (ed. Mair (1928)), uses
the term of a veil of clouds, as does Nonnus, Dion. 2.175, 2.502, 10.301, 36.39 (ed.
Rouse (1940)). Nonnus, Dion. 41.96 refers to the xeow . . . kalptrhn (veil of chaos)
(I thank Mary Whitby for the references to Oppian and Nonnus). Julianas poet
may have had in mind the golden covering (kalpthn) of the altar of the taber-
nacle (Exodus 27:3, Numbers 4:1314).
91
Paul the Silentiary, Description of St. Sophia 52930 (ed. Friedlnder (1912) 242):
kalptrh / eplhj baykolpow.
358 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
It may be signicant that the verses displayed outside the church
make no explicit reference to any curving superstructure.
92
Connor,
however, argued that Julianas poem would not have mentioned a
dome, had one existed, since the feature would have been obvious
to anyone standing before the building.
93
Yet by that reasoning,
one might as well claim that the entire description of the church given
in the verses concerned was redundant. Connors assertion not only
assumes that the poem was read only in situ whilst observing the
structurewhereas, in fact, such a sophisticated work almost certainly
circulated as a poem in its own right
94
but also neglects the fact
that other descriptions of domed churches in this period do not fail
to make much of the crowning architectural achievement.
95
Anicia
Julianas poem, therefore, contains nothing that contradicts what we
have deduced from the account of Gregory of Tours, and gives some
reason to accept that account.
Gregorys tale suggests that the panelling and gilding of the roof
of St. Polyeuktos was additional and unnecessary adornment of an
existing building undertaken in 527 or 528, early in the reign of
Justinian. If that is so, then we would have to argue that the verses
of Palatine Anthology 1.10 that were displayed outside the church and
that contained the reference to the rays of the golden-roofed cov-
ering (verses 4276), were composed several years later than those
that were inscribed, probably between 519 and 522, on the entab-
lature inside the nave (verses 141). The verses displayed outside the
church are certainly distinct from those inside, in terms of both sub-
ject-matter and, more signicantly, style.
96
Their contrasting styles
may suggest dierent authorship, which may in turn suggest that the
two poems were composed at slightly dierent times. However, the
92
Verses 5859 describe recesses (klpoi), which are said to be hollowed out by
arches and to give birth to the ever-revolving light of the moon. Such celestial
imagery is typically applied to a dome, but here the reference is apparently to exe-
dras whose columns support an arcuated entablature and a semidome.
93
Connor (1999) 506.
94
Cameron (1973) 113.
95
See verses 58 of the Syriac poem, composed in the 540s or 550s, celebrat-
ing the inauguration of Justinians church of St. Sophia in Edessa (McVey (1993)
35657); Proc. Aed. 1.1.3746 (transl. Dewing and Downey (1940) 21) on St. Sophia
in Istanbul c. 554; Paul the Silentiary, Description of St. Sophia 48997 (ed. Friedlnder
(1912) 241; transl. Mango (1972) 83) on St. Sophia in Istanbul in 562.
96
Subject-matter: Harrison (1986) 78. Style: Agosti and Gonnelli (1995) 376,
378 with n. 338. The style of Anth. Pal. 1.10 is the subject of an important study
by Mary Whitby (2006), and I am grateful to her for valuable discussion.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 359
evidence should not necessarily be taken to support the chronology
of Gregorys story. We might equally suggest that the internal verses
were composed around 519 in conjunction with the architectural
design of the interior, and that the external verses were composed,
possibly by a dierent author, after the roof had been gilded, and
as the dedication of the church approached around 522. It could,
therefore, be the case that the gilding of the roof (which might have
been planned from the start, as in the case of the church of the
Holy Sepulchre) was undertaken immediately upon completion of
the shell of the church. In that case, we would have to conclude
that the ceiling was decorated before Justinian became emperor, and
that his involvement in the tale that Gregory of Tours retells results
from the simple fact that the original author of the story considered
that Justinians reputation for avarice would provide a suitable expla-
nation for the churchs excessively gilded roof. The amount of gold
required to gild the panels of a coered roof on this scale could not
have been much less than 330 lbs.
97
Archaeological Evidence
The question of the form of the churchs roof is inextricably linked
with the equally complex issue of its structural remains. In 1964, the
deep cutting for an underpass clipped the apse of the church, reveal-
ing that its foundations descended over 7 m below the estimated
level of the nave oor.
98
Primarily on the basis of the depth of the
foundations excavated at Sarahane, Harrison concluded that the
church must have possessed a weighty, vaultedpresumably domed
superstructure.
99
In plan, the foundations incorporate two deep walls,
7 m wide, running from East to West, thereby dening the width
of the nave. This evidence, taken together with the evidence of the
97
Mundell Mango (1992) 12526, assuming that gold mosaic tesserae were used
to decorate St. Polyeuktos, arrives at 331 lbs. of gold. Since her calculations take
no account of the height or curvature of the proposed vaults and assume a two-
micron thickness of gold in mosaic cubes (the same as would have been applied in
gold leaf to a wooden roof ), her overall total of 331 lbs. of gold can be accepted
(and, indeed, would be more accurate) for the at, coered, wooden ceiling sug-
gested here.
98
Harrison (1986) 17, gs. C and D (Building B), 18, pls. 1, 2, 14.
99
Harrison (1986) 40611; Harrison (1989) 12734. Numerous scholars have con-
curred regarding the existence of a dome, including Krautheimer (1986) 219, Mathews
(1971) 53, and Mango (1991) 238.
360 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
100
For an expression of other worries about Harrisons reconstruction, note
Mainstone (1997) 339 n. 38.
101
Harrison (1986) 26.
inscribed marble blocks of the entablature discovered on the site,
suggested to Harrison that the church had been similar to Justinians
St. Eirene. Its nave, he proposed, had been divided into two bays:
a square one to the East, which had two large columnar exedras to
both the North and South, and which was roofed by a dome; and
a rectangular one to the West, which was covered by a cross- or
barrel-vault. To support the proposed dome, Harrison postulated
four huge masonry piers, one at each corner of the eastern bay,
standing upon the 7-m-wide foundation walls (g. 1).
Although the arrangement is in itself plausible, Harrison did not
address the issue of buttressing.
100
In St. Eirene and St. Sophia, the
four main piers supporting the dome arches are complemented by
corresponding buttress piers, which are located directly behind the
main piers and form a part of the exterior walls of the church. The
outward thrusts generated by the dome are thus contained by vault-
ing that springs over the aisles from the main piers to the buttress
piers. The surviving foundation of the northern exterior wall of St.
Polyeuktos, however, reveals that no such buttress piers could have
existed in Julianas church. Intimately linked with the issue of buttressing
is the question of the spanning of the aisles. The pair of barrel-
vaulted passages running beneath the oor of the north aisle strongly
suggest to me that there was a double aisle on either side of the nave,
the wall dividing the passages serving as a foundation for a colon-
nade above (g. 2). Such an arrangement would certainly have made
it easier to roof the great width of the aisles. However, if there had
been a dome, its outward thrusts would have been transferred not
only to the churchs external walls, but also to the colonnades between
the aisles. Therefore, we would expect to see the foundations of but-
tress piers in the surviving foundation wall that divides the passages
below the north aislebut again they are not present.
I would also argue that the great depth of the foundations of St.
Polyeuktos does not necessitate a vaulted reconstruction. In the rst
place, the church was designed to stand upon a platform that raised
the nave oor 4 m above the paved atrium outside.
101
This unusual
arrangement was presumably dictated by the Biblical description of
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 361
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364 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
the steps leading up to Ezekiels Temple.
102
Whatever the reasoning
behind the design, however, it is the very height of the platform (as
opposed to the nature of the superstructure) that accounts for a sub-
stantial proportion of the overall depth of the churchs foundations.
Secondly, it may be observed that the foundations of timber-roofed
basilicas can be surprisingly deep. At Constantines Lateran basilica
in Rome, for instance, the foundations of the transept and apse pen-
etrate more than 7 m below the nave;
103
and at St. Peters, too, the
foundations are of a similar depth.
104
Moreover, the foundations of
these basilicas, unlike those of St. Polyeuktos, were not subjected to
the additional load of galleries.
105
As to the internal arrangements of the church, a re-examination
of the archaeological evidence from the excavations has led me to a
very dierent conclusion from that reached by Harrison. A detailed
justication cannot be presented here, but by analysing the ndspots
of the surviving inscribed blocks, it has been possible to establish the
systematic arrangement of the dierent types of block used to con-
struct the great entablature, and the approximate number of letters
that would have been inscribed on each type. It emerges that, on
either side of the central nave of the church, there were in fact three
columnar exedras arranged in a linear fashion upon the surviving
7-m-wide foundation walls (g. 2). This arrangement of exedras
justies the construction of the foundation walls along the full length
of the nave. The columns and marble piers that constituted the exe-
dras would have carried the inscribed entablature. Carved from East
to West on the southern entablature were verses 121 of Palatine
Anthology 1.10, and verses 2241 of that poem were inscribed in the
opposite direction on the northern side of the nave.
106
Each exedra, like those in the later churches of Sts. Sergius and
Bacchus, and St. Sophia, would have risen into the upper storey and
have been topped by a semidome. The elevation on either side of
the nave, consisting of two storeys of carefully arranged columns and
102
Ezekiel 40:49 (ed. Brenton (1851) 1036).
103
Krautheimer et al. (1977) 30, 3435, 37, 39.
104
Krautheimer et al. (1977) 186.
105
Galleries are attested at St. Polyeuktos by Anth. Pal. 1.10.56, 69 (ed. Stadtmueller
(1894) 6, 7) (in verse 69, delete the comma after perdromon, which is here a noun
meaning gallery or ambulatory).
106
This answers Mangos justied concerns regarding Harrisons proposed arrange-
ment of the poetry. See Mango (1991) 238.
marble piers, would therefore have resembled the architectural back-
drop to a theatre stage (scaenae frons). This was deliberate, since in
Revelation the New Jerusalem is described in terms of the Tabernacle
of the Old Testament, using the word skhn, meaning not only tent
and tabernacle but also stage.
107
Clearly, Anicia Juliana intended
that St. Polyeuktos should resemble the heavenly Temple not only
in its dimensions and decoration, but also in its architectural scheme.
The linear arrangement of the exedras is strongly suggestive of a
trussed roof over the nave, such as that described by Gregory of Tours.
Indeed, I would argue that the system of numerous columns and
marble piers required to support the inscribed blocks of the entab-
lature cannot have incorporated the huge masonry piers necessary
to support a dome. The clearest indication of this may be mentioned.
According to the revised distribution of the verses of the poem, the
entablature block inscribed with parts of verses 15 and 16 (called
block 1 a ii by Harrison) would have been located precisely where
it would be necessary to position the south-western masonry pier of
the four piers required to support a dome (g. 2). It is, however,
inconceivable that this block was engaged in a solid masonry pier,
since on its underside there is a decorated sot, indicating that there
was an opening beneath the block, and suggesting that it was supported
at either end by a marble pier.
108
It would seem that the churchs
roof was carried upon rows of marble piers and columns uninterrupted
by huge piers of solid masonry such as would have been necessary
to support a vaulted superstructure.
The plan of St. Polyeuktos may have been an innovative one, but
I can hardly believe that the churchs architects were so inexperienced
that they attempted to raise a masonry dome on the structure without
either adequate buttressing or suciently sturdy piers. The archae-
ological evidence, meagre as it is, serves to reinforce what has been
deduced above from the literary sources. The church of St. Polyeuktos
was not crowned by a masonry dome; rather, it was adorned with
107
Revelation 15.5, 21.3 (ed. Souter (1910)). In the mosaics of the Orthodox
Baptistery in Ravenna and of the Rotunda at Thessaloniki, the heavenly Temple
is depicted as a columnar stage backdrop with exedras. It is therefore highly signicant
that these depictions also have decorative features (vinescroll, acanthus, peacocks)
in common with the sculpture from St. Polyeuktos. The connections will be explored
elsewhere. On the Rotunda, see Torp (2002).
108
For the block (in two joining pieces), see Harrison (1986) 117 (1 a ii), g. A,
pls. 9192.
. xrv +rvrrr ron nvz.x+itv 365
a coered wooden ceiling, a ceiling so sumptuously gilded that it
was popularly claimed that Juliana had expended all her surplus
wealth in its creation, so as to ensure that the notoriously avaricious
Emperor Justinian could not acquire her riches. In respect of its four
aisles, and presumably also its trussed roof and coered ceiling, the
church of St. Polyeuktos recalled Constantines church of the Holy
Sepulchre; and the ceilings of both of these churches recalled the
panelled and gilded ceiling of Solomons Templealthough both
Juliana and Constantine believed their churches to surpass the Jewish
Temple in splendour and purity, thus evoking the New Temple
described in Ezekiel, and the New Jerusalem of Revelation.
The extent to which Julianas church emulated and surpassed
Solomons Temple in other respects is a matter that cannot be
addressed here. Equally, detailed demonstration of the truth of the
claims I have made above regarding the internal arrangements of
St. Polyeuktos would take us far beyond the scope of this paper.
Nevertheless, I hope to have said enough to show that the signicance
of the dedication, decoration, and design of Anicia Julianas church
can only be fully appreciated and explained by examining the avail-
able evidence in the context of the political and religious circum-
stances in which the edice was constructed.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
I am, in the rst place, greatly indebted to the late Professor R. Martin
Harrison and his inspiring work at Sarahane. My own work on the
church of St. Polyeuktos began in earnest whilst holding a British
Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institute of Archaeology in
Oxford in 199497, and it continued during a Fellowship at
Dumbarton Oaks in 199899. A new architectural reconstruction,
drawing on information in the Sarahane excavation archive, was
presented on 10 June 1997 to the Byzantine Studies Seminar in
Oxford, and on 8 April 1999 at the international conference, Byzantine
Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, Bo[azii University,
Istanbul. The reconstruction drawings and explanatory text will be
published as part of a wider and more detailed study of the archi-
tecture and decoration of the church, its patron, Palatine Anthology
1.10, and the ideological aspects of St. Polyeuktos and related build-
ings. This article was written whilst holding an AHRB Research
366 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
Fellowship in the School of Historical Studies at the University of
Newcastle upon Tyne. Many thanks go to Mary Whitby and Raymond
Davis for help with various aspects of this study and for commenting
on drafts; to Franz Alto Bauer and Yuri Marano for references; and
to Elizabeth Harrison for her co-operation and encouragement.
Figure 1 is reproduced from Harrison (1989) g. 169. Figure 2 is
Jonathan Bardill.
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Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1. Simplied groundplan of St. Polyeuktos with Harrisons proposed layout of
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of the superstructures superimposed.
370 ox.+n.x n.nrirr
THE MIDDLE CLASS
ARTISANS AND TRADERS IN THE
EARLY BYZANTINE CITY: EXPLORING THE LIMITS OF
ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
Enrico Zanini
Abstract
The application of research methodologies and strategies derived from
western urban archaeology to Early Byzantine contexts renders tradi-
tionally obscure social groups, like the productive and commercial
middle class, visible in the archaeological record. Working from both
a re-examination of written sources and an assessment of new archae-
ological data, it seems possible to trace the evolution of the social and
economic role of artisans and shopkeepers in the Early Byzantine city
between the 5th and 7th centuries. At the same time, the investigation
of such undetermined social groups calls for a reection about the lim-
its of archaeological knowledge and the need for closer interaction
between dierent disciplines and research perspectives.
Ix+nortc+iox
The stratigraphic revolution that for the past 15 years has charac-
terised the archaeological study of the eastern Mediterranean, and in
particular the archaeology of the Early Byzantine world, has been
responsible for numerous positive transformations in the discipline.
Perhaps the most signicant change is that researchers now feel capa-
ble of asking the archaeological evidence a range of questions that
only two decades ago would have seemed futile and hopeless.
1
The
era in which archaeology was only considered t to study the great
public monuments of the past is long gone, and our research into the
archaeology of the Early Byzantine world now incorporates questions
regarding its residential, productive, and commercial structures. Whilst
we still lack a full understanding of these structures, a series of key
excavations has shown that when stratigraphic analysis is applied to
1
Ward-Perkins (1996a).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 373411
well-preserved archaeological contexts, archaeology can provide inno-
vative ways to understand complex socio-economic phenomena.
Alongside these innovations in eld techniques, and a concomitant
growth in their appreciation, an increasingly nuanced interdisciplinary
approach is also being developed: we are becoming more skilful at
combining data recovered from archaeological excavation with tradi-
tional historical narratives. In other words, the focus of our research
is shifting away from simple concerns over the availability of basic
information towards exploring the ways in which the information
available might help us to respond to complex questions.
2
Indeed,
this paper will itself be aimed towards just such a complex question:
the continuity and evolution of the roles played by artisans and small
traders in the economic and social system of Early Byzantine cities.
3
From this perspective, the aim of this paper is not to provide a
synthesis of all available archaeological information related to such
artisanal production and trade.
4
Instead, it will focus on the need for
a more self-conscious approach to the complex issue of reconstructing
and interpreting archaeological data recovered from the urban con-
texts of Early Byzantine society and the potential of such an approach.
This oers a departure from the cognitive limitation that is intrin-
sic to the way in which we understand the archaeological record
(whereby we attempt to weave a broad tapestry of social history from
the threads of micro-history preserved by archaeological deposits) by
applying conceptual models and methodologies derived from other
schools of archaeology to the context of the Early Byzantine world.
If one seeks to transcend ones own constraints, it is rst necessary
to recognise them. Therefore, if we want to develop ways in which
archaeology can say more about the past, the rst step towards this
goal is to understand its present limitations. In this case, one possible
approach is to apply to the eld of Early Byzantine archaeology the
broader theoretical ideas advanced by T. Mannoni and his school,
5
based around what he calls changing disciplines at the junction of
knowledge.
6
This methodif one might summarise it in schematic
2
Sodini (2003).
3
Kaplan (2001).
4
Eective syntheses are Sodini (1979); Morrison (1989); Ward-Perkins (2000) and
(2001); Dagron (2002); and Morrison and Sodini (2002); all of which include ref-
erences to the extensive earlier bibliography.
5
Mannoni, Cabona, and Ferrando (1988).
6
Mannoni (1994) and (1997).
374 rxnico z.xixi
formis aimed toward developing what is termed a spiralling cog-
nitive approach: that is, one begins with an intensive analysis of the
available archaeological record in its entirety, in order that one may
arrive at the point at which the material evidence and those meth-
ods used to understand it have exhausted all of its inherent possi-
bilities. Arriving at this methodological intersection (Mannonis junction
of knowledge) one does not in fact cease enquiry, but rather one
turns to new types of evidence and new methodological tools in order
to critique the evidence. If our interpretative models can be expanded
and enriched in this way, then it becomes possible to return to our
original evidence with new hypotheses to verify and new interpretative
strategies. We are therefore equipped with new lenses through which
to view the material evidence (objects, monuments, deposits), and
consequently may hope to advance our state of knowledge.
Wno vrnr Tn.rrns .xr Wno vrnr An+is.xs?
The subject under consideration is particularly complicated for two
dierent reasons. Firstly, artisans and small traders did not, in Antiquity,
represent any sort of homogeneous or identiable social group. The
very idea of a middle class is a modern one that has no parallel
in the ancient world, where the intermediate classes between the rel-
atively well-described groups of aristocrats and the poor appear as
a rather vague horizon, constituted by individuals of very weakly dis-
tinguished social status, and who existed in continuous evolution.
7
Secondly, due to this very lack of precise social identity, the visibil-
ity of this intermediate class in the historical and archaeological
record is very limited. In both cases, the intermediate classes often
appear as a background noise, in which substantial research might
occasionally identify and study specic groups or discrete individuals.
8
The Written Sources
The knowledge that can be drawn from written texts concerning arti-
sans and small traders active in Early Byzantine cities is limited by
7
Garnsey and Saller (2003) 12952.
8
Sodini (2003) 4245.
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 375
the ideology of the sources (i.e. non-vernacular texts, such as historio-
graphy, treatises, monumental and ornamental epigraphy, and similar)
which invariably reect the viewpoint of the elite. Following Graeco-
Roman cultural tradition, those activities designated as artisanal or
commercial (from which substantial portions of the ruling classes
indirectly derived some of their own wealth) continued to be perceived
as occupations unbecoming to an aristocrat, and were instead to be
reserved for individuals of lower rank.
These social activities tend, therefore, to be largely ignored by the
sources, or rather they suer from a curious phenomenon of dual
social identity. In other words, although there is apparent disinterest
or disdain towards commercial activity, the goods themselves (their
rich variety and their exotic origin), and the evident presence of opu-
lent marketplaces, are constantly associated with the concept of pros-
perity and form an important way through which urban and rural
lifestyles are dierentiated from one another. One of the most signi-
cant evidence of this might be found in Libanius description of late
4th c. Antioch and its surroundings: here, the system of urban por-
ticoes, the shops of which displayed products from all over the known
world, becomes a key symbol of urban opulence (g. 1).
9
In the same
way, those regular markets or fairs that took place in neighbouring
villages and at which inhabitants could nd everything they needed
without going into the city,
10
evidently qualify as urban character-
istics despite the smallness of the settlements they served.
In a very dierent literary contexta prescriptive rather than a
descriptive textsuch a concept reappears six centuries later, in the
famous 10th c. Book of the Eparch, which suggested, albeit slightly ana-
chronistically, the model of an ideal city that might be applied to
Early Byzantine Constantinople.
11
It ratied a topographic hierarchy
of commercial activities within the city, in which the shops in which
luxury goods were sold (both the exotic, and the merely important)
were perceived, just as they were in the time of Libanius, as a den-
ing element in the concept of urban dignity. As such, they had the
right to be located along the main colonnaded street of Constantinople
(the Mese),
12
thus reviving the citys image as a commercial capital,
9
Antiochikos 11.25155; Festugire (1959) 3334; Petit (1955).
10
Antiochikos 11.23032; Festugire (1959) 2930.
11
Koder (1991).
12
Thomov and Ilieva (1998); Mundell Mango (2000).
376 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 377
F
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and following the model of the great caravan cities of the ancient east-
ern Mediterranean.
13
Shops that sold somewhat less exclusive (though
still highly valued) merchandise, occupied an intermediate location,
most usually along the colonnaded streets that depart perpendicular
to the main road. Finally, the workshops that produced the cheapest
goods, and the shops that sold them, were not considered to enhance
the dignity of the city, and indeed detracted from it, due to their
being sources of danger, noise, and malevolent odours. As such, they
were to be located on the citys periphery or even in its extra-urban
areas. The single exception to this rule were the retailers of domestic
goods (saldamarioi ), whose function was to provide immediate satisfac-
tion to the needs of daily life, a fact that explains their capillary dis-
tribution throughout all quarters.
When one turns, however, to more minor or vernacular sources,
such as chronicles, hagiographies, private epigraphy, and archival
sources, one gains an alternate perspective. Although this corpus has
not yet been the subject of a systematic search for information relat-
ing to commercial activities, and the evidence itself is dispersed and
fragmentary, a handful of examples illustrate how such material, per-
haps in itself more closely related to daily life than more ocial
written sources, might create a richer and more precisely articulated
image of the role of commerce, and of the social status of artisans
and small traders. Hagiographies oer a particularly interesting insight
in this sense, allowing us to gain a more precise idea of the articu-
lation of the social groups that formed the majority of the population
of small and medium urban centres.
14
This social make-up can also
be glimpsed and understood with a similar clarity in the corpus of
private epigraphy,
15
both of funerary (as shown in particular by the
collection of inscriptions from Korykos in Cilicia),
16
and non-funerary
character.
The most important of the non-funerary inscriptions are proba-
bly the many references to the activities of architects, engineers, and
master masons that have been preserved in epigraphy from the vil-
lages of the limestone massif in northern Syria.
17
These inscriptions
13
Mundell Mango (2001).
14
Mangoulias (1976).
15
Trombley (2004).
16
Patlagean (1977) 15870; Trombley (1987).
17
Tate (1991).
378 rxnico z.xixi
testify how, regardless of the social importance of the building under
construction (many inscriptions indeed refer to private buildings), arti-
sanal activity was in itself a way for an individual to extract themselves
from the mass anonymity of the urban plebs, and preserve themselves
and their names. They were recorded as the owners of specic knowl-
edge and skills that might qualify them as worthy of recognition in
the social and economic fabric of the urban community in which
they lived and worked. In short, alongside those archival sources that
have been conserved, studied, and published, (such as the corpus of
Egyptian papyri),
18
these inscriptions probably represent our best
instrument for understanding the complex web of relationships and
mechanisms that regulated the organisation of artisanal production
and the articulation of small-scale trade in the dierent parts of the
Early Byzantine empire.
A Social Class in Evolution?
This comparison between the images of artisans preserved in the
more ocial written sources and those culled from so-called minor
sources almost seems to indicate a progressive social evolution in the
ways in which these individuals and their roles were perceived within
Early Byzantine urban society. It seems possible that the period in
question saw changes to the labour market that represent the rst real
alteration in the very static horizons of the ancient economy, and
that these changes were to create the very conditions in which the
work of artisans and traders was for the rst time to achieve both
economic value and social visibility.
Some indications of this gradual evolution emerge from evidence
connected to a wide variety of artisanal trades, but most especially
those workers involved with the building industry. In one well-known
passage, Gregory of Nyssa mentions how, in late 4th c. Iconium, he
tried to employ 30 specialised workers capable of building a chapel,
and declared his willingness to pay a salary equivalent to four times
that established for such artisanal labour in Diocletians edict of
prices, only a century before.
19
This demand for artisanal skills in
the construction trade is particularly interesting, as it bears witness
to the creation of new forms of public and private building (both
18
Van Minnen (1987); Fikhman (1994).
19
Analysis and commentary in Cracco Ruggini (1980) 57.
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 379
ecclesiastical foundations, and the sumptuous urban residences that
played a role in the social recognition of an aristocratic class),
20
and
the way in which this need created a new kind of labour market
and encouraged the inter-regional mobility of those artisans who had
a particular specialisation.
21
The famous inscription from Sardis, dated to 459,
22
is also indicative
of an increasingly formalised labour market, as the text details the
rules that regulated the relationship between building entrepreneurs
(oikodmoi ) and patrons, particularly with reference to the time allowed
for the completion of works (g. 2). Whilst both of these texts are
relevant in a local context, they are paralleled in imperial legislation
that (especially from the second half of the 5th c.), often appears
aimed at repressing construction artisans whose behaviour is con-
sidered improper and who appear to have attempted to create some-
thing akin to cartels with the intention of controlling the labour
market and articially determining price rises.
23
Some Justinianic legislation, which was evidently directed towards
halting the rising salaries of artisans and other categories of labourer,
refers to this same scenario of socio-economic self-assertion by mem-
bers of the artisanal and commercial classes. This is perhaps most
evident in the text of a novella that was promulgated at a moment of
grave social and economic distress subsequent to the plague of 542,
an event that had brought the productive and commercial system of
many urban centres to the very brink of collapse.
24
Artisans and
traders were associated with farmers and ship-owners, all charac-
terised by the eyes of the law as being in the very grip of the hate-
ful practice of greed; this suggests that processes similar to those well
documented for the building industry (due to its relatively high vis-
ibility in literary and epigraphic sources) might be extended to many
other productive and commercial sectors. It might also be a valuable
20
Guidobaldi (1999).
21
We might compare information about the presence of Isaurian stone-cutters
active in Antioch and maybe even in Constantinople, or those Egyptian workers
who were employed in the reconstruction of Jerusalem after the Persian sack of
614: Sodini (1979) 76.
22
For a comprehensive re-reading of the interpretative problems of this inscrip-
tion see, most recently, Di Branco (2000), with synthesis and commentary of the
vast preceding bibliography.
23
See Cod. Theod. 15.1.153; Cod. Iust. 8.10.114; 8.11.122; Janvier (1969); Saliou
(1994).
24
See Nov. 122, datable to 544.
380 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 381
Fig. 2 The inscription from Sardis (after Di Branco 2000).
indication of a wide-ranging transformation in the economic roles of
artisans and traders within the social organisation of the Early
Byzantine cities.
25
Moreover, this is a transformation of which the
continuation can be dened throughout other professional categories
in subsequent centuries.
26
The Archaeological Sources
As detailed above, the recent developments in the eld of Early
Byzantine archaeology have actually produced a profound transfor-
mation in the nature of the available data that might be used to
reconstruct the socio-economic panorama of Early Byzantine cities,
and most especially the urban environment of the middle classes.
Signicant sections of urban landscape have been excavated at dierent
sites, revealing areas of residential, productive, and commercial char-
acter. Although in many of these cases publication is not yet denitive,
it is still possible to glean from these sites a better understanding of
the archaeological traces left by the lives and activities of urban arti-
sans and small traders in the Early Byzantine world.
Of these sites, the most extraordinary is that of the shops at
Sardis,
27
where it has been possible to investigateeven via the exca-
vation methodologies and recording strategies of the 1960san entire
commercial complex that was destroyed by re at the beginning of
the 7th c., in which even the goods on sale at the time of the conag-
ration have been preserved (g. 3).
28
Houses, oces, and shops belong-
ing to members of the productive and commercial lower/middle
classes have also been excavated at Anemurium,
29
where research into
the domestic instrumentum and its social context originally formed part
of a signicant methodological agenda,
30
even though this research
directive did not nd until today appropriate space in the nal publi-
cation of the excavations. Research into the SW quarter of the upper
city at Cariin Grad
31
has attempted to throw new light on the round of
daily activities that took place even in this urban landscape, the highly
25
Cracco Ruggini (1971).
26
Cheynet, Malamud and Morrison (1991); Dagron (1991).
27
Foss and Scott (2002).
28
Crawford (1990).
29
Russell (2002).
30
Russell (1982) and (1986).
31
Bavant, Kondic and Spieser (1990).
382 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 383
Fig. 3 The shops at Sardis during the excavation in 1960 (after Crawford 1990).
symbolic and newly-fashioned miniature capital of Early Byzantine
Illyricum, the functions of which were predominantly administrative.
32
Further excavations of commercial and artisanal areas at Sagalassos,
33
Scythopolis,
34
Caesarea in Palestine,
35
Hierapolis in Phrygia,
36
Iol
Caesarea in Africa,
37
and Beirut
38
(and such a list of these important
sites, recently excavated and published, is by no means complete, or
even exhaustive) have contributed to our reconstructions of a multi-
faceted panorama of life in the Early Byzantine cityscape. This eld
of knowledge will be further enriched by those excavations recently
begun at Chersonesos,
39
at Carthago Spartaria,
40
and at Gortyn.
41
Naturally, if our aim is to produce reliable synthetic considerations
of the issues at hand it will be necessary to wait for a more complete
publication of at least some of these eldwork projects, but in the
meantime it remains possible to note the positive eects of this gen-
eral reconsideration of our approaches to these research problems.
A fruitful confrontation between raw data and more interpretative
models (which are themselves derived from both archaeological and
non-archaeological sources) is, for example, one of the most impor-
tant elements in the recently published volume The Economic History
of Byzantium,
42
in which detailed case-studies of archaeological evidence
from several of the sites mentioned above are used to sustain the
volumes arguments.
Fnov Ancn.roroov +o Soci.r His+onv:
A Qtrs+iox or Visiniri+v?
The value of these new excavations has not been restricted to the
provision of data useful for the reconstruction of the economic fabric
of the Early Byzantine city. They also constitute an important oppor-
32
Popovic (1990).
33
Waelkens et al. (1997).
34
Tsafrir and Foerster (1997).
35
Patrich (1999).
36
Arthur (2002a); DAndria (2003).
37
Potter (1995).
38
Perring (199798).
39
Kazanski and Soupault (2000).
40
Ramallo Asensio (2000).
41
Di Vita (1987); Zanini and Giorgi (2002) and (2003); Zanini (2004).
42
See Laiou (2002) 6.
384 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 385
tunity for the methodologies employed by archaeologists to be further
sharpened, so that we might better understand the ways in which
we approach dicult questions. As such, this research agenda allows
us a chance to assess what it is we mean by visibility in the archae-
ological record, and how, in the midst of the archaeological traces
of a complex society, certain classes or sections might be distin-
guished, identied, and described.
Shopkeepers
In theory at least, shopkeepers should be relatively visible in the
archaeological stratigraphy of the Early Byzantine city, not least be-
cause those buildings of a commercial character are often closely
associated with the grand monumental nuclei of any city, or at least
lie in their vicinity. This urban core has often been the principal re-
search focus of programmes of archaeological excavation (at least in
the formative years of the discipline), and so we might expect such
work would naturally reveal concomitant commercial premises along-
side a citys monumental heart. In the case of Sardis, it is clear that
this, the most signicant example of commercial property uncovered
from the Early Byzantine world, was discovered largely through the
aegis of blind chance, rather than a directed programme of research
into the nature of the citys mercantile fabric, as it was discovered
via an exploration of the monumental complex to which the work-
shops were attached. Analogous cases might be cited from Hierapolis,
Gortyn, Scythopolis, and from Caesarea Palestina, where the explora-
tion of the commercial space of the Early Byzantine city originated
in excavations of the monumental complexes of the earlier imperial
Roman period.
In contrast to these instances of topographic serendipity, one might
also cite the inevitable archaeological near-invisibility of any human
activity that occurs principally at a small scale. Local commerce is
a clear example of one such micro-social activity. Similarly, it is self-
evident that commercial spaces tend to be dicult to identify as a
category, and it is also hard to dierentiate typologically between
their many varied manifestations. As with all areas and structures that
are of an exclusively functional purpose, shops and workshops were
the subject of a strong structural traditionalism and a marked absence
of typological dierentiation. At Constantinople, as in the provinces
and as in ancient, medieval, and modern Romethe buildings and
spaces destined for commercial enterprise were always typologically
identical to each other: simple rectangular areas, delineated by (often
windowless) walls pierced by one or two entrances, and with one or
more benches either structurally incorporated into the building or,
more commonly, added as furniture.
In both the contemporary and ancient cityscape of commerce, the
principal factor that distinguishes the shop of a goldsmith, a bookseller,
or a merchant of carpets (and a crucial element in the historical dis-
courses that we construct about the diversity of economic roles played
by the shopkeeper in the Early Byzantine world) is not the form of
the container, but rather its contents. However, it almost goes with-
out saying that in the overwhelming majority of cases the contents of
a commercial space have not been conserved in the archaeological
deposits that we can recover, not only because the commercial mate-
rial itself may well have been perishable, but also because once any
commercial property has been abandoned, its stock is very rarely left
lying idle in the empty shops. This is true for all periods: it is enough
to consider for a moment how our knowledge of small-scale commerce
in the earlier Roman world would have been aected had we not had
evidence from the exceptional case of Pompeii on which to draw, a
site at which the eruption of Vesuvius captured the socio-economic
fabric of an entire city in the archaeological record. The result of
this is that our research models often, by necessity, place heavy em-
phasis on a handful of extraordinary sites with exceptional levels of
preservation, such as Sardis (g. 4),
43
and thus construct frameworks
around such examples, into which data derived from other, less for-
tunate contexts, must be forced.
A second avenue of approach into the nature of commerce during
the period is to examine instead the manufactured and traded objects
themselves. Yet this territory is a no less treacherous object of study,
since the undoubtedly widespread and multifaceted network of trade
survives to us through only ephemeral traces. In very general terms
43
In this context, another such site of extraordinary preservation is the exedra
of the Crypta Balbi in Rome. Here, excavations revealed an accumulation of mate-
rial that evidently derived from the demolition of a multi-function workshop; this
workshop was clearly situated in the immediate vicinity of the monument, although
its exact location has yet to be identied. Despite the fragmentary nature of the
material from the exedra, and its secondary-depositional state, its recovery has never-
theless provided a much better picture of the nature of workshops in Rome during
the period: Sagu and Manacorda (1995); Sagu (1998); Arena et al. (2001).
386 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 387
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one might easily arm that the visibility of commerce is closely linked
to the movement of the objects in question: that is to say, it only
becomes possible to infer the existence of a commercial mechanism
when objects evidently move through space. Although this appears
a rather banal observation, it has some serious implications for our
ability to construct a social archaeology of commerce in the Early
Byzantine urban landscape, because the archaeological record allows
us to see only a restricted portion of a vast and complex world of
merchants.
The evidence of traded objects allows us to see and identify those
who moved large quantities of goods of limited value over large dis-
tances (such as those who traded ne African table ware or amphorae
containing Syrian/Palestinian wine throughout the Mediterranean)
(g. 5),
44
or those who transported precious goods over long and
short distances (such as might be evident in the complex mechanism
of fairs and other exchange systems that moved goods toward the
frontier regions)
45
(g. 6). However, it rarely allows us to identify or
appreciate those who sold goods of local production that were everyday
urban necessities, and who doubtlessly represented the overwhelming
numerical majority of all of those involved in trade transactions. If
we only approach trade and commerce through the evidential medium
of objects that can be identied as moving through space, then this
group of peoplecentral to any assessment of trade and traders in
the Early Byzantine worldis rendered almost wholly invisible in
the archaeological record.
This is the problem that faces us, and it has become vital to develop
a methodology with which we can confront it. Firstly, we must adopt
a new and more holistic approach in our assessments of what con-
stitutes archaeological indicators of commercial activity. This means
that at the level of artefact analysis, great attention must be paid to
the specic context in which manufactured articles are found; at a
wider level, this means that some of the more traditional categorisa-
tions of individual objects (typological microvariation, chronological
seriation, frequency percentages) might be eschewed in favour of an
overall assessment of artefacts as indicators of human activity, from
production, to distribution, to abandonment.
46
44
Lopez (1959); Durliat (1990).
45
For a southern Italy example, see Arthur (2002b) 140.
46
Ikheimo (2003).
388 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 389
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Secondly, there is a need for a more careful approach, from a
methodological point of view, towards data retrieved from excava-
tion contexts. The archaeological invisibility of commercial activities
might be signicantly reduced if a closer reading was given to the
stratigraphy, especially through an increased awareness in any
ephemeral residues of human activity. The research conducted at Iol
Casearea is exemplary in this sense.
47
Here the minute documenta-
tion of traces left by portable wooden structures on the pavement
of the forum, and their association with numerous small coins found
in the interstices of the paving stones, provided archaeological evi-
dence of human activity that would otherwise have never emerged
from generic references in the sources (g. 7).
Thirdly, it is vital that a longer chronological span is considered
than has hitherto been the case for these issues, since that which
remains invisible over the arc of a short time span can instead become
evident if one searches for continuity over a longer period. In this
sense, the case of the city of Palmyra in Syria represents a particularly
interesting case study. Our knowledge of this city during the Early
Byzantine period is essentially limited to its defensive works and to
several churches in its so-called Byzantine Quarter; we know noth-
ing of the commercial activities that could have continued to develop
in the Early Byzantine period along the grand colonnaded street that
traversed the entire city. However, archaeological investigations have
revealed that during the Umayyad period the physical appearance
of this space changed radically (it was now occupied by two lines of
shops, separated by narrow alleys) yet its function as the commer-
cial nucleus of the city remained unaltered.
48
This functional continuity
accompanied by a radical spatial transformation (g. 8) might be
interpreted as sucient to postulate the vitality of this commercial
nucleus in the preceding Early Byzantine period as well, even in the
absence of secure archaeological evidence that might well have escaped
the notice of investigations that were not specically aimed at their
recovery.
This last point leads us to a nal methodological reection. As was
the case in the Graeco-Roman world, and as would also prove to be
47
Potter (1995) 3261.
48
Al-As"ad and Stepniowski (1989). For a theoretical model (albeit disputed) of
the functional continuity between the late antique porticoed street and the Arab
souk in the Syrian cities of the 7th8th centuries see Sauvaget (1934) 99102; Bejor
(1999) 106110.
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 391
392 rxnico z.xixi
Fig. 7 Forum pavement at Iol Caesarea showing traces of wooden structures
(after Potter 1995).
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 393
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the case throughout the Medieval period and into todays contem-
porary Mediterranean society, much of the material fabric of com-
mercial activity in the Early Byzantine city was of a temporary nature,
as business was conducted in the form of an open-air market. These
impermanent stalls, varying their locations over time, leave little
recoverable trace in the archaeological record. Perhaps it might
become possible in this instance to talk of inverse archaeological
evidence because, paradoxically, it appears that the absence of archae-
ological data might constitute the best archaeological proof for a
continuity of function in those areas of the Early Byzantine city that
had traditionally been given over to commercial life: fora and por-
ticoes. In other words, the reconstruction, restoration, and even the
maintenance and upkeep of these areas that kept them free of detri-
tus (activities that are also often attested by written sources) could
constitute secure archaeological evidence for the continuity of com-
mercial activities in the cities of the Early Byzantine Mediterranean.
49
In this case, one cleans and maintains in order that a utilised space
remains both functionally and conceptually associated with a specic
activity in the round of daily life. Thus, the structural and functional
conservation of open areas and grand porticoes, something that is
archaeologically demonstrable as one of the characteristic traits of
Early Byzantine urbanism in the Mediterranean until at least the
end of the 6th c.,
50
assumes a new signicance: it should not be
treated merely as an abstract celebration of either imperial or local
euergetism, but instead as a concrete indication of a continuously func-
tioning commercial urban society (g. 9).
In this sense, and to cite only two of many possible examples, dis-
tinctive archaeological indications such as the reorganisation of the
colonnaded street at Apamea in the aftermath of earthquakes in 526
and 528 which recreated a kind of great pedestrian island in the heart
of the city,
51
or the simple inscription related to the cleaning of the
forum at Terracina in the middle of the 7th c.,
52
appear united by a
49
Ward-Perkins (1996b).
50
For a list of those sites in which archaeological investigations have demon-
strated the continued functional existence of porticoed streets in the Early Byzantine
period see Claude (1969) 6062; Crawford (1990); in general on the porticoed streets
of cities in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire, see Segal (1997) 553; Bejor
(1999); on the porticoed streets of Constantinople in particular, see Mundell Mango
(2001). See also Lavan (this volume).
51
Balty (1989).
52
Zanini (1998) 18687.
394 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 395
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thin yet robust evidential thread that permits us to imagine both the
principal street of a great Syrian city and the small forum of a forti-
ed city in Byzantine Italy populated by merchants, customers,
andtheir wares (although obviously on a slightly dierent scale in the
two cases). In fact, this is not wholly removed from the scene at
Antioch two centuries earlier, as described by Libanius in the cele-
brated passages discussed above, or the similar setting that was to
be revealed 13 or 14 centuries later when early photographs recorded
life in the street markets of cities great and small throughout
Mediterranean Europe in the pre-industrial age (g. 10).
Craftsmen
In the case of craftsmen, the problem of their visibility inside the Early
Byzantine city might be phrased in a dierent way, and in fact appears
to assume an essentially chronological character. By their very phys-
ical nature, the activities of craftsmen are particularly evident in the
archaeological record, in so far as they leave the solid traces of both
the object itself, and the area in which it was produced or worked. We
might nd, for example, highly specic types of structures (in par-
ticular, those for which re was essential to production), remains of
raw materials, specialised tools, waste and debris from the process of
production, and ultimately the nished products themselves.
53
Our as
yet limited knowledge of craft activities in the Early Byzantine city
thus must be attributed to the fact that there are still very few inves-
tigations that are explicitly orientated towards these particular research
issues. To a certain extent, this very issue is exacerbated by the fact
that at least until the middle or the rst two thirds of the 6th c.,
this type of activity continued to be relegated to the more periph-
eral quarters of the city, if not wholly exterior to the dened perime-
ter of the urban area. A series of judicial directives and customs that
concerned this issue, which dated back to the late Republican era,
continued to be enforced right until the end of the Justinianic period;
they stipulated that those activities that produced noise, bad odours,
or were otherwise indecorous should be located on the urban periph-
ery.
54
On this point both the written sources and the archaeological
data seem to be in accord.
53
Mannoni and Giannichedda (1996).
54
Morel (1987); Papi (2002).
396 rxnico z.xixi
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 397
Fig. 10 19th c. street market in a village of the Roman countryside (after Becchetti 1983).
In terms of the historical sources, the most illuminating text is
without doubt the so-called Urban Treatise of Julian of Ascalon
55
which
was written in the middle of the 6th c., and is a brief text of a pre-
scriptive character which describes the rules and customs relating to
the location of buildings in Palestine. All the evidence within the text
points to regulation at a local level. This is particularly interesting,
in that it allows us to comprehend how central imperial regulation
emanating from Constantinople might have been actually applied in
specic regions, albeit in a more succinct form.
56
In the text of Julian,
moreover, the requirement for a location outside of the city is parti-
cularly explicit for all those industrial activities that constituted a
potential risk of re, such as furnaces for the production of glass or
the smelting and working of metal, and also for all those activities,
most especially tanning and cheese making, that were the source of
foul odours. In any case, no craft activities save for the working of
gold or other precious materials were to be located in the very centre
of the city. This proscription must have been heeded, because it is
exactly such a picture that has recently begun to emerge from the
archaeology of the Early Byzantine city, as its focus has begun to move
outwards and away from its early concentration upon the monu-
mental civic core.
As suggested above, the absence of certain evidence might be
argued to provide some archaeological proof, as generally speaking,
craftsmen and their activities are absent from the Early Byzantine
cityscape until the end of the Justinianic era. Subsequently, from the
middle, or from the last quarter, of the 6th c. and then visibly devel-
oping at the start of the 7th c., there was a radical change in the
archaeological record, and the craftsmen and their activities become
an evident part of the Byzantine urban landscape. A detailed exam-
ination of the archaeological evidence shows a progressive conquest
of the ancient central monumental areas of the city by a type of
building that was a newcomer to the urban core: the dwellings and
workshops of an artisanal class.
This phenomenon is particularly signicant for a variety of dierent
reasons. Firstly, it appears throughout almost all of the urban centres,
both large and small, that have hitherto been excavated, and it appears
to occur throughout these examples during the same brief time period.
55
Saliou (1996).
56
Saliou (1994) and (2000).
398 rxnico z.xixi
Secondly, it always displays the same characteristics in the way that
it develops. Initially at least, the new buildings occupy only open
areas and are reasonably ordered constructions with some form of
urban planning evident, but this phase is succeeded by a second in
which the development of urban space occurs in a more haphazard
fashion. In this second phase new dwellings and workshops are carved
out of ruined public monuments and spaces through privatisation
and subdivision, the most common forms of which are the blockage
of intercolumniations along porticoed streets by impermanent structures
and the installation of small-scale industrial facilities in abandoned
monumental buildings.
57
(g. 11) Thirdly, it appears that this phe-
nomenon was not necessarily connected with rising levels of socio-
economic insecurity caused by invasions and the perennial state of
war in which some territories existed: it is evident in the cities of
the frontier regions, in those of the more secure interior regions, and
also in those cities that were completely secure, such as those situated
on the large islands of the Mediterranean, that would surely not have
suered directly from the overall rise in military conict during the
period. Seen thus in its entirety, the phenomenon appears so wide-
spread that one might surely arm that, together with the appearance
of churches and other religious buildings within the walls and the
steady increase of intra-mural burial practice, this arrival of the work-
ing and living quarters of artisans into the heart of the urban fabric
represents one of the most signicant signs of the transition between
the ancient and Byzantine cities.
The traces of this process mark the archaeological manifestation of
an epochal transformation of both society and economy in the Early
Byzantine city. From a social point of view, the growing presence
of artisans in the urban fabric clearly coincides with the profound
reorganisation in the traditional hereditary assets of the ancient world:
in the East, this arrival of artisans is contemporaneous with the nal
stages of a progressive decline in the power of the urban aristocracy,
evident in the end of the urban curia.
58
These social processes were
57
Of the numerous widespread examples from all regions of the empire, several
might be cited as signicant because they relate to urban centres that dier in size,
history, and political/administrative function: for those documented in the Palestinian
region, see Walmsley (1996) 14445; for Greece, see Sodini (1984) 37073; for
Illyricum, see Popovic (1982); for Justiniana Prima in particular, see Kondic and
Popovic (1977).
58
Laniado (2002).
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 399
400 rxnico z.xixi
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commensurate with the emergence of newer forms of urban power:
the potentiores in the citizen body; the milites in the various grades of
the states peripheral administration; and the bishops and ecclesiastical
hierarchy, who were to assume direct power of a civil character. In
such a context of profound social transformation, the considerable
presence of artisans evidently raises some new issues, principally about
the identity and origin of these new urban inhabitants of the city who,
until this period, remained archaeologically invisible.
One cannot fail to note how this phenomenon of spatial saturation,
so evident in the eastern cities of the second half of the 6th c.,
appears to have much in common with the parallel phenomenon
that had occurred in the cities of the western Mediterranean one or
two centuries earlier. As such, it appears reasonable to at least attempt
to construct a common explanatory model that might include both
phenomena. The model most commonly proposed is one which seeks
to explain the evidence via the concepts of abandonment and decline
in the grand public spaces, and the emergence of a poorer class of
squatter occupation. However, in the light of the material discussed
above, this argument seems questionable in the case of the western
cities, and wholly unlikely in the face of the evidence from the urban
centres of the East.
The widespread nature of this phenomenon suggests that squat-
ting is too simplistic an explanation when one considers the scale of
the evidence: why would so-called squatter occupants, whose inhab-
itation of space was by denition occasional and temporary, found
it necessary to ood all the public spaces in the urban centres of the
West with their precarious temporary structures when they had at
their disposal an immense patrimony of buildings left vacant by demo-
graphic crisis? Why house artisanal activities and small-scale indus-
trial facilities in fragile structures carved from the ruins of the great
antique monuments when the very same demographic crisis must
have liberated those ready-made productive buildings that would
have been supplying the Roman city only one or two centuries
before? For the cities of the eastern Mediterranean these same con-
siderations are ultimately reinforced by another obvious observation:
those who occupy areas and monuments with their dwellings and
productive activities clearly have nothing in common with the idea
of squatters, who seek only to survive and have a parasitical rela-
tionship to the socio-economic fabric that hosts them. Upon closer
examination, those occupying the spaces in question appear to be
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 401
possessors of a material culture that remains well-structured, and that
is able to equip them to produce objects of quality through the use
of relatively sophisticated technology for the manufacture of metals,
ceramics, glass, and other commodities.
59
In other words, those artisans who lived and worked in the dwellings
and workshops that were to so profoundly transform the Early Byzan-
tine citys monumental centre are very likely those who fed the trade
of basic and precious commodities that constituted one of the char-
acteristic elements of the urban economy. In this view, the plausible
explanation for their presence in the centre of the townscapeand
thus for their concomitant new archaeological visibility inside the city
may well be a model which sees them as protagonists in a pheno-
menon that might be termed micro-migration. The artisans that we
now see appearing in cities may be none other than the same artisans
who previously lived and workedaccording to established laws and
customsin the margins of the urban landscape and in productive
buildings located fully outside the perimeters of the city. This phe-
nomenon of a migration by small-scale industrial/productive activities
into the town centre is archaeologically attested in Africa,
60
where by
the middle of the 6th c. there is evidence for the signicant movement
of the production of ne table wares (ARS) into the interior of urban
centres, notably through the occupation of disused public structures
(and specically bath houses, at least initially).
The micro-migration might also explain one further recurrent
element of these installations, namely the question of their limited
dimensions. The production of objects of a reasonable quality is most
usually associated with a relatively limited quantity: this is not man-
ufacturing on a production-line scale, but rather in relation to instal-
lations of a limited capacity, and involving a small number of people,
probably all linked to a single family nucleus. The most plausible
hypothesis is one in which people perform a dual economic role.
For certain months of the year they would be engaged in subsistence
farming and occupied in the cultivation of agricultural land in the
59
One example of this is by the so-called Quartiere Bizantino at Gortyn, which
from the second half of the 6th c. to sometime in the 8th c. appears to have been
populated by a group of craftsmen who possessed the technical knowledge necessary
to produce (albeit in limited quantities) glass objects and coarseware ceramics that
sported elegant painted decoration, and which were notable for the quality of the fab-
ric, the accuracy of the moulding, and the nesse of the decoration: Di Vita (1987).
60
Bonifay (2003) 12428.
402 rxnico z.xixi
environs of the city (which they could reach every day, or otherwise
reside there in temporary accommodation). For the remainder of the
time they would be occupied in small-scale artisanal activities that
were aimed at the creation of monetary surplus. In this hypothesis
these new urban artisans would, therefore, be concrete evidence of
the urbanisation of the productive classes who had traditionally been
extra-urban, and who brought a varied material culture into the city
while participating in both agricultural and artisanal activities.
61
The force driving this signicant mass of population to a progressive
urbanisation remains dicult to identify. In the peripheral regions
of the empire a considerable role was doubtless played by increasing
levels of insecurity stemming from the state of permanent conict that
characterised the immediate aftermath of the Justinianic era but, as
has been indicated above, such an explanatory model is unsuitable
for other regions that also display this urban characteristic and were
sheltered from such conict. An explanation must therefore be sought
in other, more general, spheres of life and most likely in more struc-
tural aspects of economic transformation. Although on the whole
these structural changes still largely escape us, some preliminary con-
siderations in this direction can be oered. The artisanal production
of high quality goods suggests that this was still a lively economic
context: glass vessels and lamps, nely decorated pottery, and dress
ornaments in bronze or precious metals (merely some of the principal
products that came out of these small workshops) are evidently not
products of basic necessity. They are not direct sources of sustenance
in the manner of agricultural products, they are not tools that are
indispensable for life and for subsistence work, and neither might
they be used as a means for paying tax directly. Once produced,
their destiny must lay in commerce, as they can be sold to obtain
currency that might be deployed to purchase other more basic goods
or to pay taxes.
From this point of view, the presence of such artisanal activity in
the Early Byzantine city, and the very form that it takes in this
instance, appears to constitute an eective testimony for the contin-
uation of a monetary economy, or perhaps even the renewed mon-
etisation of the urban economy. Of note in this context is the evident
61
Mazzarino (2002) 153.
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 403
contemporaneous recovery of monetary circulation evidenced by the
vertiginous peak of coin ndsand in particular of medium-value
bronze denominations ( folles and half folles)in the archaeological
levels of much of the 7th c., from the reign of Heraclius to that of
Constans II.
62
The exact relationship between these two distinct and
parallel phenomena is necessarily a matter for reection on the part
of historians of the Byzantine economy, but I believe it is apparent
that they might be treated as two concordant evidential elements,
that can together contribute to the rethinking of the complex panorama
of the Early Byzantine urban economy.
Coxcrtsioxs: A Covvox Drs+ixv?
This investigation into the archaeological visibility of artisans and
small traders in the Early Byzantine cityscape has, in many ways,
conrmed some of the more theoretical propositions with which the
article began. To synthesise the available information about such
multifaceted a social group is a dicult task, but it is also a particularly
important research objective because both the archaeological and
historical sources have such rich potential. Merchants and craftsmen
might initially appear to be of limited visibility in Early Byzantine
urban contexts, but when we attempt to identify their presence and
activities, they become bearers of information that is fundamental in
understanding the complex mechanisms of transformation that were
occurring throughout a society in transition.
The conclusions that it is possible to draw are therefore as much
methodological as they are interpretative. Archaeology oers in this
instance some potentially concrete knowledge, provided that some
preconditions concerning our methodologies are met and maintained
in our research strategies. Firstly, there needs to be a greater focus
on historical questions; that is to say, the research goals of a social
archaeology (in the widest sense, not merely those issues concerning
the Early Byzantine city raised here) need to derive from a fuller inter-
action between dierent elds of learning. It is vital that we utilise
and integrate elements of other disciplines: not only their research
questions, but also the interpretive models that are deployed to answer
62
Morisson (1989).
404 rxnico z.xixi
them, and the sources that are used to construct them. In this sense, it
is more crucial than ever before that archaeologists, historians, econ-
omists, philologists, epigraphers, and art historians must strive to raise
their eyes from their specialisations and experiment with the practice
(and also the pleasure) of dynamic collaboration with specialists from
apparently distant disciplines, the goals of whom overlap their own.
Secondly, it is necessary to further improve the quality of excavation,
of documentation, and of publication. The stratigraphic revolution that
has been applied to Middle Eastern archaeology has created a set
of methodological conditions in which a range of interdisciplinary
questions might be asked, and has therefore shown the vast informative
potential of archaeological investigation when it equips itself with
adequate tools, strategies, and objectives. The next step must be to
extend these practices, honed in the complex archaeology of urban
centres in northern and western Europe, and use them to investigate
the archaeology of the Mediterranean in order to recognise, document,
and interpret its own complicated networks of micro-evidence, includ-
ing (in this instance) issues such as the commercial and economic
systems of the Early Byzantine city.
63
Thirdly, it is necessary that we
continue to develop a reexive methodology that recognises our own
interpretative capacity, including its limits and its potential. It is vital
that we try to examine the archaeological evidence before us with
new eyes, and are able to understand the signicance of absence as
well as presence and not be afraid to include new sources of evidence
in our eorts to reconstruct the past.
The following closing interpretative conclusions are oered as pro-
visional, and should be seen as suggesting future directions for research
questions, rather than a set of specic answers. One initial point is
that of the nature of the (apparently new) roles played by the pro-
ductive and commercial middle classes in the Early Byzantine city.
Artisans and small traders would doubtlessly have played a precise
role within an economic system that appears to remain strong, and
which was based on varied production, on organised exchange, and
on monetary circulation. In the Early Byzantine cityeven until the
end of the 7th c.goods intended for both mass consumption and
for luxury use continued to be produced and traded, and raw materials
63
An example of this might be the current urban archaeological project in Beirut,
where the vast areas of post-war reconstruction in the modern city are transforming
our knowledge of its ancient and Byzantine forebears (cfr. Perring (199798) and (2003).
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 405
such as glass, base metal, and silver continued to be transformed and
worked through the application of relatively sophisticated technology.
64
There does not, therefore, appear to a perceptible shift towards non-
specialised general production of low technology goods that is one
of the characteristics of contemporary western Europe, including, to
a certain degree, the western basin of the Mediterranean. It is pos-
sible that with this continuityand perhaps even an enhancement
of their economic role in the midst of a society in transformation,
the artisanal and mercantile classes and merchants witnessed a rise
in social status.
65
The end of a structured urban aristocracy would
have left some vacant space at the higher end of the pyramid of
social status, a development that might have proved opportune to
members of a class traditionally excluded from public civic visibility,
and this might be seen in the wider context of a progressive redenition
of what urban society meant during the period.
66
A second fundamental point is the nature of the chronological se-
quence in which these complex changes occurred. In short, it appears
possible to identify some substantial continuity between the ancient
socio-economic structure, and that of the Justinianic era. Throughout
this lengthy period, artisans and small traders continued to occupy
the same position in the economic system, the social structure, and the
urban topography. A rapid change, however, can be noted from the
middle of the 6th c. onwards. This was when the expansive thrust of
territorial conquest slowed, and there were grave demographic and
economic crises generated by the plague and the rst harbingers of
military insecurity at the frontiers of the empire. These factors led
to a sudden change in the both the social and the economic order
of the empire in general, and of its cities in particular. The reaction
to this change might be identied, as has been argued, as the signi-
64
Hodges (1998).
65
It is worth noting that during the exact same span of time an Arab society
was developing, in which the gure of the merchant was to assume a hitherto
unknown social prominence (cf. Kennedy (1985) 2325; Carver (1996)).
66
A celebrated passage of the Chronicon Paschale (1.713) appears to allude to this
new role of the productive and commercial middle class within the urban social
hierarchy: it relates to the presence of representatives of the capitals artisan com-
munity in the procession of honour that was provided by Heraclius to accompany
the Avar Khan to the citys gates (cfr. Dagron (2002) 407; Sodini (1979) 11718
attributes little signicance to the episode). There are similar, and more frequent,
attestations of public oces lled by members of this class within municipal and
provincial councils (for an Italian case, cfr. Cosentino (1999)).
406 rxnico z.xixi
cant transformation of urban spaces and the creation of a new
order, in which activities of both production and exchange became one
of the central characteristics of a new Early Byzantine urban panorama.
This new order was to endure until at least the central decades of
the 7th c., when the great crisis of the Mediterranean economy began
to impact severely upon the Byzantine city, an event that was to
create a denitive epochal break, and which led to the formation of
a new economic system in the Medieval Byzantine period.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
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Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1. A workshop depicted in a oor mosaic in the Yakto Complex at Daphne,
near Antioch (5th c.) (after Levi 1947).
Fig. 2. The inscription from Sardis (after Di Branco 2000).
Fig. 3. The shops at Sardis during the excavation in 1960 (after Crawford 1990).
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evidence of a two-storey structure (after Crawford 1990).
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(after Arena et al. 2001).
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(after Sauvaget 1934).
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Fig. 10. 19th c. street market in a village of the Roman countryside (after Becchetti
(1983)).
Fig. 11. 7th c. house-workshop walls between the pillars of the 6th c. aqueduct in
Gortyn.
.n+is.xs .xr +n.rrns ix r.nrv nvz.x+ixr ci+v 411
MIDDLE CLASS HOUSES IN LATE ANTIQUITY
Simon Ellis
Abstract
The concept of the middle class is a modern invention, but it can be
applied in archaeology to identify housing between that of the aristocracy
and the lowest level of domestic architecture in a settlement. Applying this
concept suggests that late antique craftsmen and professionals aspired
to an aristocratic lifestyle by adopting elements of aristocratic architecture.
There are indications that the middle classes increased their inuence
in Late Antiquity and that they continued to aspire to an aristocratic
lifestyle until the 7th c. A.D.
Ix+nortc+iox: Tnr Mirrrr Cr.ss ix L.+r Ax+iti+v
This paper revolves around two central problems of ancient history
the question of whether there was a middle class, and the question
of the relationship between oces and houses. To a degree of course
both of these ideas are modern concepts, and it can be argued that
they are inappropriate to a study of the ancient or Early Medieval
world. The middle class as a concept, as a layer of society within a
fairly dened boundary, can be seen as a professional or bureaucratic
class that lies between the industrial working class of the 20th c. and
those who are rich from land or trade. The oce, a place where peo-
ple go and work, and distinct from home or a factory, is to some
extent also a product of the Industrial Revolution and the emergence
of service industries and state bureaucracy. The problems of the mid-
dle class and the oce are, however, also a real problem for Roman
and Byzantine historians.
For many historians Roman society was polarised between the land
owning class, and those with no property and few if any civic rights.
For P. Garnsey and R. Saller [In] ancient Rome there was no pros-
pect of the emergence of such a [middle] class.
1
They argue that
1
Garnsey and Saller (1987) 45.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 413437
the rewards of status associated with land ownership soon converted
any potential wealth derived from trade into wealth in land. This
prevented the rise of any signicant waged or trade-based assets.
There is a further dimension to this problem in Late Antiquity. The
historians of the rst half of the 20th c. developed a picture of the
colonate in which independent small farmers (and independent trades-
men) became economically tied to rich landowners on specic estates
following the Diocletianic reforms. Under this theory what was left
of any independent middle class from the high empire was slowly
absorbed into tied tenancy and political dependency. The honestiores
with rank and property had all the rights, and the humiliores could
be subject to abuse and physical punishment at will. This distinction
has clear merit in distinguishing two very clear social groups. However,
more recent historical theory is moving away from these rigid dis-
tinctions, and there is evidence that there were further groups that
lay between the landed aristocracy and the landless peasant. This
evidence includes:
1. That which relates to collective action on the part of trade guilds
in Late Antiquity including the builders of Sardis and the bakers
of Antioch.
2
2. That which relates to the growth of the Byzantine civil service,
appearing above all in the writings of John Lydus.
It can be objected that the actions of the guilds were not political
and were limited to certain specic disputes. It can also be objected
that the Byzantine civil service, like its Late Roman predecessor, was
run as a branch of the army. Nevertheless the guilds and the civil
service represent classes of people who were dened as lying between
the aristocracy and the peasants and who were recognised by con-
temporaries as distinct social groups. It is arguable that by the time of
John Lydus the civil service was a distinct career relished by people
of varying intellectual ability, who did not see themselves as part of
the military. It can also be argued that a new prominence of evidence
for craftsmen reects something of the changes that were underway
in late antique society.
3
2
See Sodini (2003). For builders at Sardis see Foss (1976) inscription 14, while
for bakers at Antioch see Liebeschuetz (1972) 22124. Van Nijf (1997) 1218 asserts
the economic role of craft associations in opposition to Finley.
3
Liebeschuetz (2001) 18.
414 sivox rrris
The civil service and the guilds were very much representative of
urban society. However, this analysis of social distinctions must also
consider rural society. I have made some comments on rural society
in what follows but my comments are tempered by a lack of coherent
archaeological evidence in several key regionsmost notably North
Africa and Anatoliaand the emerging historical understanding of
the development of a village based society, especially in areas of Italy
and the Balkans.
4
Moreover, Sodinis model for identifying dierent
classes, based on a careful assessment of land tenure, economic power,
and social status is very attractive. However, this may be more appro-
priate for a rural setting where it is more dicult to dierentiate
economic and social roles based on the archaeology of houses alone.
For example, J.-P. Sodini and G. Tate have questioned the iden-
tication of specialised shops and workshops by G. Tchalenko in the
rural Massif Calcaire to the east of Antioch.
5
In this paper, however,
I will limit myself to the contribution that archaeology and the study
of housing can make to this debate. Almost every class, except itin-
erants, had some form of house owned or rented. It should be pos-
sible to chart for any particular epoch the distinct forms of housing
ranging from the richest to the poorest.
Irrx+irvixo Mirrrr Cr.ss Hotsixo
In a previous work I have linked the richest provincial houses of the
5th and 6th centuries A.D. with the illustris, a specic rank at court.
6
The illustris tended to retire from court to the provinces where, like
Libanius at Antioch, he was able to outrank the local governor and
use his direct inuence at Constantinople to become an extremely-
powerful patron. These aristocrats continued to live in traditional
classical peristyle houses. Other residences which might be legitimately
classied as belonging to the upper classes are governors praetoria
and bishops palaces.
7
It is important to note that these developments
4
As best revealed in the papers presented at the World Byzantine Congress in
Paris in 2001.
5
Sodini (2003).
6
Ellis (1988).
7
For praetoria see Lavan (2001). Larger bishops palaces include Side (Mansel
(1978)) and Porec. See also Liebeschuetz (2001) 11016, especially on the lack of
clear nomenclature for the class in power over provincial cities.
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 415
can be linked to the introduction into domestic architecture of specic
architectural attributesapses, audience halls, grand dining rooms,
monumental fountainsas well as to the emergence of a new expres-
sion of power and heroism in domestic mosaics and sculpture. Social
developments amongst the aristocracy can thus be linked to very spe-
cic changes in domestic buildings. Earlier aristocratic houses (such
as those at Apamea and Ephesus) continued to be used, but they can
be set alongside late 3rd and 4th c. houses built in a very distinc-
tive style. This style, as will be seen below, also had an impact on
housing of the middle classes.
I have also argued that the poorest class of housing recognisable
on a consistent basis in archaeology may be the shop.
8
It is well
known that many shopkeepers lived in their shops. This is evident-
from bed niches at Pompeii, and in Late Antiquity from sites such
as Sardis.
9
At the latter site shops destroyed in the mid 7th c. pre-
served a considerable quantity of furniture that suggested living quar-
ters in an upper oor above the shop itself which had more of an
artisanal function. Although most shops at Sardis preserved some signs
of commercial activitypiles of the same metal item, tools etc.
some only produced evidence of domestic articles. These could be
houses, rented because of their location in the centre of town or
simply because they were solid dwellings. They may also be shops
of services such as scribes, notaries etc. Here we begin to touch the
potential middle class.
In between the house of the illustris and the shop there is a mass
of other types of housing, which must include the residences of lesser
aristocrats, merchants, civil servants, tradesmen and others. This is
the area in which we need to place any potential middle class cit-
izens of the late antique world. It is also a mass of archaeological
evidence which desperately requires systematic organisation and inter-
pretation so that it may contribute to historical analysis. It is possible
to make some suggestions based on the range of known domestic
architecture, taking into account the provincial context of many dis-
coveries. The most extensive range of housing is probably that from
North Africa. Here we can nd many small houses of the later
empire tucked into corners of the urban fabric, without peristyles,
or mosaics, and sometimes arranged around a corridor rather than
8
Ellis (2000) 7880.
9
For Sardis see Crawford (1990).
416 sivox rrris
a central court. However, we need to establish some more objective
criteria on which to hang a potential classication of housing and
social rank (as I have previously established for the illustris).
10
An archaeology of housing should establish whether the hypothesised
increasing prominence of middle class groups such as the civil ser-
vice and craftsmen is manifested in the material evidence. It should
also establish the chronological parameters of this change, and the
extent to which it paralleled the growth in power of the honorati. A
study of housing should also begin to establish something of the rela-
tionship between dierent classes in society on the basis of the use
of architectural features, dcor and furniture.
There are two principal directions in which we may attempt to
identify the houses of the middle class.
1. We can identify a middle class from texts and epigraphy and try
and identify their houses.
2. Within settlements we can identify houses that are of middle range
in terms of their size, decoration etc., and then attempt to identify
who lived in them.
The rst method suers from problems in terms of contextualising the
textual evidence. How can we be sure that the texts refer to a cer-
tain class of housing? How can we be sure that the text can be used
appropriately in relation to a particular settlement or house? On the
other hand using texts gives the great advantage that the method uses
classes of society, which were recognised by the people of the time,
and sometimes discussed by them. The second method has the advan-
tage that, for any settlement, it is relatively easy to identify houses
of a middle range in size and decor. This classication thus oper-
ates independently of any particular social classication identied
through a single or group of texts. The problems are that a purely
archaeological classication can suer from relativity in comparison
between dierent archaeological sites, and can result in a classication
that cuts across a mixture of dierent social classes as identied in
textual evidence. The question is thus whether such an archaeolog-
ical classication reects a real social distinction?
Both these approaches to identication of the middle classes and
their housing have their advantages and their problems. In the follow-
ing section I will largely adopt the second method of inquiry, because
10
Ellis (1988).
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 417
it is the most appropriate for my own personal training and discipline.
However, I will be mindful of the rst approach, and will seek to
identify characteristics of houses that may be associated with par-
ticular social groups that can be identied from texts.
Ex.vrrrs or Mirrrr Cr.ss Hotsixo
North Africa of the 4th c. A.D. provides abundant archaeological
evidence for urban housing from which it is possible to identify a mid-
dle stratum of society. It should immediately be added, however, that
it is not as easy to identify such houses as might be expected, because
even in Africa attention tends to focus on the richest and poorest
kinds of housing peristyle houses with mosaics, and rural villages. In
order to look at middle class housing one has to look as it were in
the interstices between the reports and the major monuments, housing
which in a modern town planning context is known as inll. The
4th c. may be considered early Late Antiquity, but the two North
African houses examined here have typical features that might be
considered middle class. Extrapolating from the better African evi-
dence, reference will be also made to other similar houses especially
the House of the Bronzes at Sardis. I will then discuss the shops at
Sardis, the so-called Archive Building at Caesarea, and the house
at Halicarnassus in the context of what they may tell us about the
varied residential circumstances of the middle classes.
Utica: Lot 11 ( g. 1)
11
This house is located in the only well known insula in this town, and
thus allows us to see the relative social composition of a complete
block. It is organised around a 13 m long corridor. The doorway
to the corridor from the street was locked, indicating that it was a
single property though subdivided into dierent apartments. By con-
trast, in apartment blocks in Ostia it is the doors to each apartment
which have locks rather than the main access door from the street to
whole apartment block, emphasising the privacy and ownership of
each apartment.
12
The fact that there is a lock to the street door at
11
Alexander et al. (1973) 95100.
12
Ellis (2000) 77 and 84.
418 sivox rrris
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 419
Fig. 1 Lot 11 (Utica) (after Alexander et al. (1973)).
Utica thus suggests a single owner for all the rooms that were accessed
through this door. If more than one property/apartment had been
reached through the street door at Utica, one would have expected,
on the basis of the analogy of Ostia, that the street door would have
had no lock and that locked doors would lie further back at the en-
trance to each apartment. At the far end of the corridor was a small
2.5 3.5 m stone-agged yard containing a wellhead for a cistern.
On the street frontage the corridor was anked by three shops. Two
adjoining shops seem to have been properties that were separate from
the main house. The largest shop, to the left of the entrance on
entering the building, had a doorway that gave it access to the rear
of the main property. This was the principal apartment in the build-
ing and may thus have belonged to the owner. At the rear of the
building to the right of the corridor was a small apartment of three
rooms with its own secondary court. This suite recalls the medianum
type of Ostia apartment, in which a bedroom and reception room
were separated by a central communicating space that functioned as
hall and kitchen.
13
Lot 11 thus has a solid construction, with two agged courts, an
apartment that may be classical in style, and another with quite a
large commercial property. It does not have mosaics or highly dec-
orated apartments. Neither does it have a large peristyle; a major
requirement for a standard house of the Roman aristocracy.
Djemila: the House of the Ass ( g. 2)
14
The House of the Ass is the denitive example of Roman housing
inll. It has three major features associated with the classic 4th to
6th c. A.D. aristocratic house; an apsidal reception room placed oppo-
site a monumental fountain, and private baths. However the house was
squeezed into a small area of land behind a Roman temple. The house
was entered, as in the case of Lot 11 Utica, by a corridor. The rst
door to the left on entering the building led to the private baths, before
the corridor was crossed by a tripartite doorway, another sign of aris-
tocratic architecture. The corridor then passed behind and adjacent
to the temple, and a second door led into the apsidal reception room.
Since the temple occupies the space normally taken up by the peri-
13
For comments on Ostia see Ellis (2000) 7278.
14
Blanchard-Leme (1975) 23106, with the commentary of Thbert (1987) 356.
420 sivox rrris
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 421
Fig. 2 The House of the Ass (Djemila) (after Blanchard-Leme (1975)).
style, the monumental fountain is actually within the dining room!
This arrangement is paralleled at the House of Menander at Daphne.
Sardis: the House of Bronzes
15
The House of the Bronzes at Sardis in Asia presents a similar picture
to that provided by the House of the Ass. It had a marble oored
apsidal reception room, in which the semicircular marble table and
chandelier, or polycandelon were both found in situ. However this
reception room was a basement room, located at the end of a long
sloping corridor. It is likely that the house was some form of vertically
organised apartment house, lit by a small court or light-well to the
north. It is important to point out that the House of the Bronzes at
Sardis demonstrates continuing use of such classical facilities in a
provincial setting in the early 7th c. A.D., when the site was burnt
leaving the table and polycandelon behind. Like the House of the Ass
the house at Sardis demonstrates the desire for a full classical recep-
tion facility in a situation of restricted availability of space, and/or
straitened resources.
We therefore have a group of houses which for dierent reasons
might be described as middle class. They suggest the following poten-
tial indicators for middle class housing:
1. A lack of aristocratic architecture, in particular a peristyle;
2. Restricted space, perhaps indicating limited land ownership and
hence wealth;
3. Poor decor or decor that attempts to imitate that of richer housing.
Sardis: the shops
The shop is the smallest type of house that is clearly identiable in
archaeology. Roman shops conventionally consisted of one or two
rooms. Where there were two rooms, the second, located behind or
above the commercial space, was a living area. It is certain that a
large quantity of lower quality housing existed, including wooden
round huts, and tent-like structures, but these are dicult to identify
or classify in terms of architecture. The shop on the other hand does
have certain features. The commercial space, or street front room, for
example usually included a production area, storage, and a cash box.
15
Hanfmann (1960) and Waldebaum (1983).
422 sivox rrris
Counters might be within the shop, in the street front, or encroach-
ing onto the adjacent public space.
The shops alongside the gymnasium at Sardis, which were burnt
in the early 7th c. A.D. with many possessions in situ, provide a good
example of this type of building in Late Antiquity. Several shops in
the line of forty had no sign of commercial activity, for which there
are two possible interpretations:
16
1. They may have been used for service industry, such as the shop
of scribes, who according to Egyptian papyri were used by the
common illiterate to compose letters and legal documents.
2. They may have been houses of people who owned the other
shops, or houses rented out as a commercial activity.
Indeed, when given due consideration it is clear that a shop at Sardis
may have been a very desirable residence. It was located in a good part
of town, oering good prospects for commerce. It was moreover a
very solid stone structure, and may have been subject to maintenance
by the landlord.
Caesarea: the Archive Building ( g. 3)
I will now discuss two houses for which it is possible to describe the
social context more precisely. This will allow an approach closer to
the rst method discussed at the beginning of this paperstarting
from a textual denition of a middle class and seeking to identify
this class in archaeology. The rst of these, the Archive Building
at Caesarea, consists of eight rooms arranged in a tight square form
14.7 18.5 m, and fronted by a tessellated street portico. Six of the
eight rooms contained mosaic inscriptions (and it is possible that the
remaining two rooms also had inscriptions which have not been pre-
served).
17
The corner rooms of the building, alongside the portico,
both contained roundels of mosaic with a biblical invocation: If you
would not fear the authority, then do good and you will receive
praise from it.
18
The north-east room of the building opened directly
onto the portico, from which direction the inscription could be read,
while the inscription in the south-east room was intended to be read
16
Crawford (1990) and Ellis (2000) 7880.
17
The following descriptions are derived from Holum (1995). I thank Ken Holum
for help in initial discussions on this paper.
18
Romans 13.3.
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 423
424 sivox rrris
Fig. 3 The Archive Building (Caesarea) (after Holum (1995)).
by those entering from the central court, or covered hall. At 6 10
m this hall was almost twice the size of the other rooms in the build-
ing. Both these eastern corner rooms were provided with low benches
on all their sides.
19
Two poorly preserved and somewhat smaller side rooms, each
measuring 6 4 m, opened to either side of the central part of the
hall. The southern side room preserved a small fragment of mosaic
inscription that was to be read on entering from the adjacent roomin
the south-east corner of the building. There were signs of a bench in
the north-west corner of the room. Outside the entrance to the north-
ern of the two smaller rooms was a mosaic roundel inscribed Christ
help Marinos the magistr[ianos] and Ampelios and Musonios. Although
positioned outside the entrance to the north side room, the roundel
19
A plan in Patrich (1999) g. 37, shows a later additional room with benches
inserted on the east side of the central court and opening onto the street portico,
suggesting continuity of use and even increased activity in the Byzantine period.
was orientated to be read by someone walking from the street to the
back of the hall. The position of the inscription within the hall is
eccentric and it is tempting to suggest that there may have been a
parallel medallion outside the southern side room, where the mosaic
was not well preserved. The northern side room formed the only
means of access to the north-west corner room of the building, which
has a very badly preserved oor. It may have had a bench on its
southern side.
At 6 7 m both rear western corner rooms were larger than the
other rooms (except the hall). The south-west room was entered from
the central hall. Upon entering, the visitor was greeted by a (now
fragmentary) mosaic inscription in a tabula ansata positioned right
across the threshold of the room, which appears to be some form
of invocation to be peaceful.
20
There were also clearly preserved
benches on all sides of the room. The central room at the rear of
the building, 6 3.5 m in area, was also well preserved. An inscrip-
tion, just inside the room, and intended to be read from inside the
room, recorded Christ help Ampelios the chartularios and Musonius
the numerarios and the rest of the chartularioi of the same scrinion.
Again, the room was lined with benches on all sides.
The building backs onto a very large residential or palatial structure
that has been interpreted as the praetorium of the provincial governor.
21
A large number of inscriptions found in the insula refer to governors,
and to other ocials of varying status. There were two very large apsi-
dal halls. The central one was over 12 m wide by more than 20 m
long and has been identied as the governors audience hall or law
court.
22
This hall appears to have opened onto an open area which in
turn possibly gave access to a large vestibule located to the south of the
Archive Building and virtually the same size as it in plan. Immediately
behind the Archive Building was a second apsidal hall some 25 m
long and 8 m wide which has been identied as an archive or library.
Full analysis of this whole complex, which would involve discus-
sion of several other insulae at Caesarea, would require a separate
paper.
23
For the moment it can be accepted that the two apsidal
20
This inscription remains unpublished, as does the small roundel in the hall.
They are said by Holum (1995) to contribute nothing to an explanation of the
character of the building.
21
Raban and Holum (1996); Patrich (2001).
22
Patrich (1999).
23
Publication until now has been somewhat summary. It would, for example,
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 425
rooms did form part of the governors ocial administrative buildings,
though much detailed analysis of all the architectural remains and in-
scriptions is required. What is more pertinent here is that it is unclear
to what degree the Archive Building that we are discussing was
incorporated into this complex. Architecturally the building most
resembles a house, as the excavators acknowledge.
24
Such houses,
composed of nine rooms of equal size arranged in a chequerboard
square, are characteristic of the region. One of the best preserved
is the house of Flavios Seos from Il Haiyat in the south Syrian desert,
but other similar structures are familiar from Jerusalem itself.
25
The
benches in the rooms are not characteristic of a regular house, but
can be found in the vestibules of aristocratic houses.
26
They have
been interpreted as areas where clients waited to see their patrons.
Several of the other buildings around had mosaic inscriptions sim-
ilar in tenor, if not in precise content, to those in the Archive Building.
In the stoa immediately in front of the building was a mosaic inscrip-
tion stating that the hypoboethoi made this.
27
A large room, in a par-
tially excavated building on the opposite side of the street, had an
inscription May the one and only God help Eusebius the numerarius
while further to the north-east again was another mosaic roundel
inscribed Good luck Dionysius.
28
Further to the south, beyond the
vestibule to the larger apsidal hall, was another courtyard building,
Building 6, to which would normally be ascribed a domestic char-
acter. In the largest room was a mosaic roundel which reads Good
luck to [Steph]anus with his wife and children.
29
It can be argued
therefore that throughout this area there seemed to be an epigraphic
habit of recording the names of workers/inhabitants of the buildings
concerned. The mention of Stephanus family certainly invokes at
least one domestic context.
aid interpretation if a detailed stratigraphic matrix for the insula was published along
with sections, or even proles, of the remains along an east-west axis.
24
Holum (1995), in support of Hirschfeld (1987) 2651. This typology was also
suggested in Ellis (1984).
25
Flavius Seos: Butler and Prentice (1919) 363, with two inscriptions, one men-
tioning the owner with rank of megalopraeprestatos dated A.D. 578. See also the House
of Eusebius at Jerusalem: MacAllister and Duncan (1926).
26
Ellis (1985).
27
Patrich (1999) 101, asserts that these were low ranking assistants in the admin-
istration; strange then again that they should be contributing to a stoa.
28
Patrich (1999) 97.
29
Patrich (1999) 80.
426 sivox rrris
Returning to the Archive Building itself, about which we have-
most detailed information, it is likely, judging from the benches, that
groups of people had to wait in each room. The two inscriptions in
the corner rooms near the street, with their biblical invocations con-
cerning authority, set the tone for those enteringthey are in the
presence of people in authority. It is not, however, until the client
reaches the centre of the hall, or is sitting in the far side of the room
at the end of the hall, that the names of the presiding ocials are
revealed. The sheer number of inscriptions, almost one for each room,
suggests the need to reinforce the message about authority and its
representatives at every opportunity. The more precise inscriptions
at the far end of the building implied that there were broad-based
invocations near the street for lowlier clients, while the more seri-
ous cases (or those who were more likely to be impressed by indi-
viduals than invocations) were dealt with at the back of the building.
The building has been identied as a tax oce based on the men-
tion of the rank of numerarius in the inscription to the rear of the
building. K. Holum considers that numerarii were only to be found
in the civil service.
30
This is not the place for a detailed critique of
this interpretation. Suce to say that whether this is tax oce or a
private business it has the form of a house and could have included
living accommodation on an upper storey.
A lengthy analysis is required to determine the precise status of
the Archive Building. For the present paper I would only argue that
its precise association with the collection of taxes and with the palace
to the rear requires further demonstration. At this moment I would
prefer to suggest a broader association with nancial and legal trans-
actions that does not preclude Holums more precise interpretation.
In particular the parallels with the building in which the nancial
accounts known as the Agro Murecine tablets were found should be
noted. J. Andreau considers that the Sulpicii, the central characters
in the Agro Murecine tablets, were merchants and money lenders. He
notes that while aucun sige proprement dit de socit commerciale,
aucun lieu de travail de ngociant na t dcouvert archologique-
ment,
31
the building in which the tablets were found in 1959 has
several interesting features, most importantly the presence of four
dining rooms around a court. Indeed other sources indicate that it
30
Holum (1995).
31
Andreau (1997) 186.
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 427
was a rectangular building with at least ve triclinia.
32
There were
mosaics, marble oors, and wall paintings. Indeed the tablets were
discovered under the couch in one of the triclinia. Thus the nancial
building or house at Agro Murecine, like the Archive Building at
Caesarea, had a series of reception suites around a central court.
As noted above, the closest architectural comparison to the Archive
Building at Caesarea within the Palestinian/southern Syrian region
is the house at Il Haiyat, a solidly built two-storey structure with a
central court and which mixes classical and local tradition. The room
arrangements are the usual rural Syrian pairings of square rooms
with a central arch to support two spans of wooden rafters, and nar-
rower rooms which supported one span. The four arches used to
make porticos around the central court recall a peristyle, but it has
neither the true peristyle nor apsidal reception room of the so-called
Bishops Palace at Bosra in the same region, though the latter also
has the Syrian style pairings of rooms. The Il Haiyat house has an
inscription of A.D. 578 recording a megalopraeprestatos, Flavius Seos.
It has been suggested that this personage was a local military ocer
or Arab chief. This would suggest similar circumstances surround-
ing its construction as Qasr Ibn Wardan, its near contemporary in
northern Syria.
33
Another local parallel for this type of building with a compact
central court is the Monastery of the Virgins on the Temple Mount
Jerusalem.
34
Again the identication as a monastery needs careful
examination, but essentially we have the same architectural form as
that of the house at Il Haiyat and the Caesarea Archive Building,
and I would argue the same overall residential character, in which
business functions and domestic functions were inseparably mixed.
In this case, instead of combining residential and oce functions, it
seems to have combined residential and religious functions. Even today
in poor countries government buildings can be the residences of their
employees, or even rented out to relatives or businesses overnight.
In this part of Caesarea, as discussed, there were several build-
ings with mosaic roundels recording the names of individuals, many
of relatively low rank, who lived or worked in these same structures.
32
The description of the building is drawn from Andreau (1997), and Bove (1979)
23. The original discovery, including plan of the site, was published by Elia (1960)
29 .
33
See Sodini (2003) 33, on whether this is a private estate or a military foundation.
34
Mazar (2003).
428 sivox rrris
The main palatial or ceremonial structures of the administration in
Caesarea, such as the grand apsidal hall which has been identied as
the governors law court, were surrounded by a wide range of build-
ings with central courts, and no great architectural pretension. These
buildings, including the Archive Building had both residential and
oce functions.
The overall architecture of this group of Palestinian houses recalls
Lot 11 at Utica. Generally they have a central court, but do not
demonstrate any classical style reception suites. They have aspects
of monumental architecture, but do not adopt a fully edged mon-
umental appearance that includes, for example, internal porticoes. I
would therefore contend that here we have a class of housing which
can be identied as middle class. These houses contain signs of:
1. monumental architecture; mosaics, central courts;
2. ownership by middle ranking ocials
The general interpretation of buildings such as the Archive Building
at Caesarea and the building at Il Haiyat is perhaps still unclear.
In terms of architectural typology they seem to be linked with hous-
ing. In the two cases discussed here, however, there is evidence that
the buildings were associated directly or indirectly with ocialdom.
The architectural type itself, though domestic, is not aristocratic like
a peristyle house. This more modest architecture and a link with
ocials might be said to be middle class and could also link them
with some oce function, as the interpretation of the benches at
Caesarea has suggested. Further broader and more detailed discus-
sion may be necessary to examine the context of the remains as well
as the complexities of the archaeology, in particular the earlier his-
tory of the Archive Building to determine how much its architec-
ture and function stem from an earlier period.
Halicarnassus ( g. 4)
35
We can contrast the buildings described above with an example of
an aristocratic house that may have been owned by someone from
35
For the rst British excavations see Newton (1862) 280310. The Danish exca-
vations have been published in Poulsen (1995). Isager and Poulsen (1997) cover the
building and many associated contextual issues. This publication reports on a sem-
inar at Odense in 1994. I am very grateful to the excavators and the University
of Odense for inviting me to the seminar, and for many opportunities to discuss
their ndings.
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 429
430 sivox rrris
F
i
g
.

4
P
l
a
n

o
f

t
h
e

h
o
u
s
e

a
t

H
a
l
i
c
a
r
n
a
s
s
u
s

(
a
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t
e
r

I
s
a
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e
r

a
n
d

P
o
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s
e
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(
1
9
9
7
)
)
.
what might otherwise be considered a middle class occupation, which
was excavated at Halicarnassus. Here a central yard (D) was anked
on all but the north side by corridors (Passages A, B, and G). The
north side of the yard (D) was anked by a large hall (B), which
was preceded by a vestibule (A), with an entrance corridor (E, C)
running round it. The most important room identied in the house
so far is an apsidal reception room (F). This forms one of a suite
of rooms (A, B, F) which probably form a grand dining hall similar
to those that I have described elsewhere.
36
These suites are often
served by a separate entrance route from the street, which preserved
the privacy of the main house. Although doorways are not well pre-
served in the existing remains, it is most likely that the entranceway
near the street (E) led to vestibule (A) and across hall (B) to the
apsidal reception room (F).
At the chord of the apsidal room was an inscription designed to
be read from the main body of the room. It records the restoration
of the building, and the laying of the mosaic, by a certain Charidemos.
Come hither and nod your approval without delay with your bright
shining eyes. I present a multiform body of stones laid in mosaics, a
body which skilled men in spreading the oor made shine all over, so
that the richly wrought appearance of the high-roofed building shall
make this city renowned in many places. What before was in a mis-
erable state Charidemos raised from the ground with toil and enor-
mous expense.
37
Three cities were personied in a mosaic at the southern end of the
entranceway (E), furthest from the street (g. 5). At the west was a
bust of Halicarnassus to be viewed from the south, inside the house.The
central bust of Alexandria, and the eastern bust of Beirut were ori-
entated to be seen by someone entering the vestibule (A) from entrance
(E). All three busts were identied by inscriptions. That of Halicarnassus
was clearly chosen as it was the site of the house. Its presence sug-
gests in itself a personal motivation for the choice of the three city
portraits. There might be many reasons for the choice of Alexandria
since it was one of the most important cities of the empire. Beirut
is a more dicult choice to explain, but was principally famous for
its university law school.
36
Ellis (1991).
37
Translation by Isager (1995).
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 431
432 sivox rrris
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i
g
.

5
B
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t
s

o
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n
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a
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d

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u
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(
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(
1
9
9
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)
)
.
It could therefore be hypothesised that the owner of the house at
Halicarnassus either attended the law school or had some particular
personal or family connection with Beirut. The bust of Alexandria,
renowned above all as a centre of learning, strengthens the possi-
bility of a link with the university and law school. Our main source
of information on the law school is the Life of Severus, the famous
monophysite patriarch of Antioch who was educated at Alexandria
and the Beirut law school, which was written by one of his fellow
students.
38
Unfortunately there is no evidence of anyone called Chari-
demos associated with the law school. The excavators themselves
have proposed that the busts reect a more general viewpoint of a
cultured man, and Isager has associated the verse inscription with
Nonnius Dionysiaca.
39
I would argue that, while this is appropriate
for a bust of Alexandria, culture in Beirut was strongly identied with
the law indicating that the owner was of this profession. The bust
of Halicarnassus, meanwhile, is a device to associate the owner per-
sonally with his city of residence. The three busts together thus build
a strong link between the owner, his background and his residence.
Although there are few records of the numbers of law graduates
amongst the lower ranks of the late antique civil service, lawyers or
graduates from the main universities were seemingly common in its
ranks, two examples being John the Paphlagonian and John Lydus. A
glance through Volume 2 of the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
also provides some indication of how high someone could advance
with legal training. Two late 4th c. governors had been lawyers
(Gennadius Torquatusproconsul of Achaea 396404, and Flavius
Mallius Theodorusgovernor of Africa about 377), while Cassiodorus
records four western quaestors of the palace who began their career
in the law. Two Praetorian Prefects of the East (Leontiusmentioned
above, and Marinus 7in oce between 512 and 519) had a legal
background. One western lawyer, Avitus, even became emperor.
It is thus quite reasonable to suppose that these three busts tell
something of Charidemos career. Born, or later adopting, Halicarnassus
as his home he had (like Severus of Antioch and other eastern intel-
lectuals) been educated in Alexandria and Beirut. He had probably
risen to a provincial governorship in Asia or elsewhere. The pres-
ence of the audience chamber at Halicarnassus suggests that he occu-
38
Collinet (1925).
39
Isager (1995) 21617.
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 433
pied the house at the height of this career, or as an honoratus in
retirement, when the audience chamber would have been used to
receive patronal clients.
Without overstating the hypothesis of Charidemos as a lawyer, the
house provides a good example of what a late antique middle class
professional might well aspire to live in. This house is certainly to
be grouped with the largest houses of late antiquity, and from that
standpoint should be architecturally at least regarded as upper class,
on the other hand taken as a class lawyers might be regarded then,
as now, as ranging from a middle to an upper class occupation.
In the case of both Caesarea and Halicarnassus discussion has
centred on houses where there is a seeming contradiction between
architecture and the class of their occupants. In the case of Caesarea
and the similar house at Il Haiyat a type of building recognised as a
type of architecture associated with middle range housing has been iden-
tied with people of potentially higher class. In the case of Halicarnassus
it has been hypothesised that a house of quite magnicent architecture
was owned by someone of a middle class profession. These houses
serve to suggest some social mobility in the late antique world. In
other words lawyers could aspire to live like aristocrats, while within
a certain social context people with a certain social status at Caesarea
and Il Haiyat lived or worked in more modest housing.
Coxcrtsioxs
This paper has identied various criteria associated with middle class
housing. However when we have tried to identify a particular occu-
pational group as middle class, as one might do in todays society,
we have failed. Classes such as the professions seem to have owned
a range of housing right up to aristocratic housing such as that at
Halicarnassus. Similarly those involved in commercial activity might
own anything from a shop like those of Sardis, to the kind of house
one might associate with those of rich merchants.
I have concentrated on urban houses, and indeed it is more dicult
to establish a rural middle class. This is partly because of a great
lack of archaeology on late antique rural settlement. Sodini has how-
ever argued that the inhabitants of the rural houses of the massif
calcaire had many characteristics which would not have been asso-
434 sivox rrris
ciated with the lower classes.
40
Firstly they employed skilled crafts-
men to build their homes (some of whom were recorded in inscrip-
tions), and secondly local donations to churches attest they had some
amount of accumulated wealth.
In view of these arguments it seems possible to propose the following
more forthright historical conclusion. In the ancient world the mid-
dle class was not associated with any particular occupation, but if
we are to use the concept it would correspond to a middling trans-
versal social component to be found across all occupational groups
from the merchants to professionals to farmers. The housing of
such groups demonstrates that people in such occupations could be
economically successful, and that they could adopt elements of an
aristocratic lifestyle.
An archaeological study of housing thus gives some idea of the
aspirations of this middle class. Just as in earlier Roman times (e.g.
the House of the Vettii, a family of freedmen at Pompeii) these houses
suggest that the middle class aspired to be members of the upper
echelons of society by adopting elements of aristocratic architecture
in their houses. The middle class tried to introduce apsidal triclinia,
fountains and mosaics into their more modest dwellings. For those
who made it into the upper levels of society a full-scale peristyle
house was an achievable option.
Much of the archaeological evidence presented here belongs to
the 4th and 5th c. AD and it would be rash to push such inter-
pretations into the 6th and 7th c. Nevertheless it is important to
note the House of the Bronzes at Sardis, an example of such mid-
dle class housing with an apsidal reception room that was demon-
strably in use into the rst quarter of the 7th c.
More comprehensive analysis of houses placed between the aris-
tocratic peristyle house and the shop is very much required. This
paper has merely touched the surface of a huge wealth of archaeological
evidence in order to demonstrate the potential that such an analysis
holds to understanding the evolving social structure of late antique
society.
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 435
40
Sodini (2003) 46.
Binrioon.rnv
Alexander M. et al. (1973) Corpus des mosaiques de Tunisie 1.1: Utique Insulae IIIIII
(Tunis 1973).
Andreau J. (1997) Patrimoines, changes et prts dargent: lconomie romaine (Rome 1997).
Blanchard-Leme M. (1975) Maisons mosaiques du quartier central de Djemila Cuicul
(Aix-en-Provence 1975).
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Butler H. and Prentice H. (1919) Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria
Volume 2A (Leiden 1919).
Collinet P. (1925) LHistoire de lcole de droit de Beyrouth (Paris 1925).
Crawford J. S. (1990) The Byzantine Shops at Sardis (Cambridge 1990).
Elia O. (1960) La domus marittima delle tabulae ceratae nel suburbio di Pompeii,
RendNap 35 (1960).
Ellis S. (1984) An Archaeological Study of Urban Domestic Housing in the Mediterranean AD
400700 (DPhil diss., Univ. of Oxford 1984).
(1985) The Palace of the Dux and related houses, in Cyrenaica in Antiquity,
edd. G. Barker, J. Lloyd, and J. Reynolds (Oxford 1985) 1525.
(1988) The end of the Roman house AJA 92 (1988) 56576.
(1991) Power and decor; how the late antique aristocrat received his guests,
in Roman Art in the Private Sphere, ed. E. Gazda (Ann Arbor 1991) 11734.
(2000) Roman Housing (London 2000).
Foss C. (1976) Byzantine and Turkish Sardis (Sardis Monographs M2) (Cambridge
1976).
Garnsey P. and Saller R. (1987) The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture
(London 1987).
Hanfmann G. (1960), Excavations at Sardis 1959, BASOR (1960) 843.
Hirschfeld Y. (1987) Dwelling Houses in Eretz-Israel in the Roman-Byzantine Period ( Jerusalem
1987).
Holum K. (1995) Inscriptions from the imperial revenue oce of Byzantine Caesarea
Palaestinae, in The Roman and Byzantine Near East: Some Recent Archaeological Research,
ed. J. H. Humphrey ( JRA Supplementary Series 14) (Portsmouth 1995) 33345.
Isager S. and Poulsen B. (1997) edd. Patron and Pavements in Late Antiquity (Halicarnassian
Studies 2) (Odense 1997).
Isager S. (1995) Pagans in late Roman Halicarnassos 2, Proceedings of the Danish
Institute at Athens 1 (1995) 20919.
Lavan L. (2001) The praetoria of civil governors in Late Antiquity, in Recent Research
on Late Antique Urbanism, ed. L. Lavan ( JRA Supplementary Series 42) (Portsmouth
2001) 3956.
Liebeschuetz J. (1972) Antioch: City and Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford
1972).
(2001) The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford 2001).
MacAllister R. and Duncan J. (1926) Excavations on the Hill of the Ophel Jerusalem
19235 (Palestine Exploration Fund Annual 4) (London 1926).
Mansel A. (1978) Side (Ankara 1978).
Mazar E. (2003) The Temple Mount Excavations in Jerusalem 19681978 directed
by Benjamin Mazar; Final Report Vol. 2, the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods,
Qedem 43 (2003).
Newton C. (1862) Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidae (London 1862).
Patrich J. (1999) The warehouse complex and governors palace (areas KK, CC and
NN, May 1993December 1995) in Caesarea Papers 2, edd. K. Holum, A. Raban
and J. Patrich ( JRA Supplementary Series 35) (Portsmouth 1999) 71107.
(2001) A government compound in Romano-Byzantine Caesarea, in Proceedings
of the Twelfth World Congress for Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem 2001).
436 sivox rrris
Poulsen B. (1995) Pagans in late Roman Halicarnassus 1, Proceedings of the Danish
Institute at Athens 1 (1995) 193208.
Raban A. and Holum K. (1996) Caesarea Maritima: a Retrospective After Two Millennia
(New York 1996).
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and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology, edd. L. Lavan and W. Bowden (Leiden 2003)
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History of Private Life I, ed. P. Veyne (Cambridge 1987) 313409.
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Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1. Lot 11 (Utica) (after Alexander et al. (1973)).
Fig. 2. The House of the Ass (Djemila) (after Blanchard-Leme (1975)).
Fig. 3. The Archive Building (Caesarea) (after Holum (1995)).
Fig. 4. Plan of the house at Halicarnassus (after Isager and Poulsen (1997)).
Fig. 5. Busts of Halicarnassus, Alexandria and Beirut (from left to right) (after Isager
and Poulsen (1997)).
virrrr cr.ss notsrs ix r.+r .x+iti+v 437
THE POOR IN TEXTS
CONSTRUCTED AND CONSUMED:
THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF THE POOR IN
4TH C. CAPPADOCIA
Susan R. Holman
Abstract
Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa each
include detailed depictions of the poor in their sermons on poverty
relief. This paper examines their rhetorical constructs in order to look
for the everyday life of these destitute, who often elude the archaeo-
logical record. Sharing some features with the later Byzantine exempla,
these images had rhetorical power precisely because they were recog-
nisably comparable with real poor known to their audiences. Here
four stereotypes are considered: the parent who must sell a child; the
exiled sick; the famine victim (with an emphasis on impoverished women
and questions of status); and the debtor. The paper concludes that
these authors constructed images of the poor body must be under-
stood in the context of their theological understanding of the Christian
doctrine of the Incarnation.
Ix+nortc+iox
The poor in Late Antiquity have gained increasing attention in recent
scholarship, most of which is easily accessible through the works of
P. Brown and others.
1
These studies usually consider social and reli-
gious theories by mining the texts for traces of ancient records of
the poor. Such records depend on resources available only to those
with power: the records are of loans, lawsuits, and taxation, preserved
in chronicles, letters, or sermons; the resources are those ruled by
individuals with the tools for literacy, such as writing materials or
scribes, and who have occasion to preserve these images, opinions,
and the plight of the needy.
1
For example, Atkins and Osborne (2006); Brown (2002); Constantelos (1991);
Garnsey (1988); Hanawalt and Lindberg (1994); Harvey (1990); Miller (2003).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 441464
Inevitably, therefore, the poor who have nothing remain dependent
on those who do not share their experience to record even the
memorials of their existence. Those that these texts call poor (ptoxw
or pnhw) are functional ghosts in the archaeological record. As
J.-P. Sodini observed, It is certainly easier to detect wealth through
archaeology than it is to detect poverty.
2
Whether the poor were
prisoners working naked in the mines, decomposing lepers begging
from the edge of the town, starving bodies bent to the earth in drought-
stricken elds, or infants, children, or widows interred without even
a burial pot or epitaph, the very poor had nothing. They leave only
their bones for posterity, silent witnesses that attest only obliquely
by nd site, physical context, or bone pathologiesto their owners
social and economic role in household and community. And indeed,
material culture may not necessarily be a reection of status or
position in a social hierarchy . . . We are constantly confronted, there-
fore, with the possibility, indeed the likelihood, of signicant errors
of interpretation.
3
The poor may, for example, own neither the house
in which they die nor the artefacts nearby, and in an uncertain econ-
omy, disease and nutritional deciencies are no respecter of wealth
and status. Further, the bones of the ascetic, voluntary poor may
not, to the scientist, dier greatly from those who could not choose
their deprivation.
4
Thus, like those human-shaped hollows in the ash
at Herculaneum, the poor are often a vexing negative space in the
material record, an emptiness that may be reversed and developed
like a lm negative through archaeological tools and ink, yet whose
details remain uncertain.
Thus concerning the real poor, we have little archaeological evi-
dence, although they are always present in the writings of the great
leaders of the church.
5
So while one must retain an interpretive
caution about site ndings, some of the gaps in the material record may
be lled (with equal caution) by an archaeology of the text. Indeed,
ancient texts are often the only remaining witness to the existence of
beggars, homeless wanderers, and poor peasant farmers, women, and
2
Sodini (2003) 27. Or as De Vinne (1995) 51, put it, As irrefragably as visi-
bility bonds to asceticism, invisibility adheres to poverty.
3
Sodini (2003) 26.
4
One exception is the evidence for repeated prostration in joint pathologies
identied in the 5th c. bones from St. Stephens monastery in Jerusalem; see e.g.
Niebuhr and Sheridan (1998), Leyerle (2002), and Sheridan (2000).
5
Sodini (2003) 49.
442 sts.x n. norv.x
children living in acute poverty in the ancient world. Despite their
frequently overt bias toward a specic rhetorical or moral agenda, the
sermons, letters, and hagiographical anecdotes of Christian writers,
as well as ancient medical and healing texts, oer at least a prism
through which poor bodies and lives may be seen in vivid relief.
Recognising that we view these individuals through both their and
our contemporary interpretive reections, one may still ask (without
being unreasonably simplistic) what were their daily life experiences?
Even against the limits of the sources, surely they retain some reection
of material realia in social history? W. Mayers study in this volume
discusses these reections in the sermons of John Chrysostom and
the urban settings of Antioch and Constantinople. This chapter will
focus on the rhetorical constructs of the poor in Cappadocian texts,
with implications they may have for the provincial countryside and
the particular theological agenda of these slightly earlier episcopal
contemporaries of John.
C.rr.roci.x Po\rn+v Srnvoxs
Among the 4th c. texts by the leading Cappadocian bishopsBasil of
Caesarea, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and their friend Gregory
of Nazianzusthere are 7 sermons which explicitly discuss the prob-
lem of poverty and contain many details about scal problems,
starvation, disease, and the indecent excesses of wealth in the face
of human need.
6
While it is in these particular sermons that the
poor are most central, they are also specically referred to in other
texts by the same authors.
7
Around 369, a regional drought prompted Basil to preach at least
4 key sermons on the poor: In destruam,
8
In divites,
9
In famem et siccitatem,
10
and In Psalmum 14b.
11
In these sermons he focuses on the working
6
Discussed in detail in Daley (1999); Holman (2001).
7
E.g., select letters, poems and a will, discussed further below. For social issues
outside Cappadocia suggested in two of Basils minor sermons (not discussed here),
see Holman (2004).
8
PG 31.26878 [= Hom. 6].
9
PG 31.277304 [= Hom. 7]; for the critical edition of homilies 6 and 7, see
Courtonne (1935).
10
PG 31.30328 [= Hom. 8].
11
PG 29.26480, hereafter HPs. 14b.
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 443
poor, those who live on the edge but are still members of the com-
munity. Basils poor includes both labourers, who still have houses,
families and possessions but who are unjustly lacking the material
means for survival, and the disenfranchised new poor, those from
honourable families who have suered economic reversals. He con-
structs an image of persons who have little food or money and are
highly susceptible to fraud, their fragile social balance easily knocked
into chaos by debt, disease, or agricultural crisis. Basil wrote these
4 sermons during the same period when he was beginning to estab-
lish his ecclesiastical power (he did not formally succeed his prede-
cessor as bishop until the latters death in 370), using his own
patrimony to buy grain and supplying famine victims with food and
medical care. In this period he also began to construct his ptochotro-
pheion, a hospice for the sick and homeless poor who were ocking
to the region in hope of aid. By 372, when he described it to the
governor, the relief institution was part of his bishops complex, next
door to both church and bishops residence. Basil described it as a
hospice (katagge)
for strangers, for those who visit us while on a journey, for those who
require some care because of sickness, . . . we extend to the latter the
necessary comforts, such as nurses, physicians, beasts for travelling and
attendants . . . [and] occupations to go with these men, both those that
are necessary for gaining a livelihood, and also such as have been dis-
covered for a decorous manner of living. And . . . other buildings
equipped for their pursuits.
12
In contrast, Gregory of Nazianzus Or. 14
13
and Gregory of Nyssas
two sermons De pauperibus amandis,
14
dated with less certainty to the
period between 369 and 382, focus on the involuntary poor who,
rather than having inadequate scal power, have none at all. These
poor subsist outside the social structure and include the homeless, the
sick, displaced war victims, and lepers. These are people with no
labour opportunities, excluded from participation in community feasts,
whose esh is abandoned to decomposition.
12
Basil Ep. 94 (trans. Deferrari (1928) 151). Called a hospice here, it is called
a ptvxotrofeon in Ep. 150, a letter describing only Basils philanthropic ideals and
nothing specic about the place itself. In Ep. 142 Basil appeals for tax exempt sta-
tus for a ptvxotrofeon based on precedent, again failing to describe the institu-
tion, though he does invite the tax ocials to come and visit.
13
Greg. Naz. De pauperum amore; PG 35.857909.
14
For the critical edition see van Heck (1967), 93108 (De pauperibus amandis 1)
and 111127 (De pauperibus amandis 2).
444 sts.x n. norv.x
Other texts suggest that neither Basil nor either Gregory was com-
pletely myopic about the type of poor he envisioned. Both Gregories
were also aware of the social poor, on whom Basil focuses; for exam-
ple, Gregory of Nyssas sermon, Contra usurarios,
15
purports to com-
plement Basils HPs. 14b while addressing the same audience, and
Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa each wrote an encomium
on Basil that also mentions his poverty-relief activities in terms of
very specic groups of destitute individuals, including lepers.
16
Basils
epistles also suggest he was attentive to outcasts, although he often
regards them with more suspicion than those supplicants who clearly
t within his church and civic spectrum.
While the Cappadocian images of the poor explored below are
poignant and vivid, they do not provide an abundance of hard mate-
rial data such as precise facts on diet, houses or property (if any), or
clothing. Nonetheless, it is possible to infer much of this from con-
sidering the ancient context in light of the general state of poor per-
sons in any economic system. For example, Cappadocian Caesarea was
located inland, at a major crossroads between East and West, with easy
travel south and frequent travel north into the mountains of Armenia;
a wide variety of food would have been available from passing mer-
chants much of the year at market rates that depended on weight,
transport, and demand. For those without ready cash, bread was the
basic food; we know landowners stored grain in underground caves
and rock-carved granaries.
17
In a region characterised by extreme
weather, Cappadocian labourers and the poor would have had fruits
and vegetables but seasonally at best. In this land-locked region, only
locally-caught freshwater sh were available, although during the famine,
Basil relates, dry river beds served as roadways for both children
and adults carrying heavy bundles rather than as sources of food.
18
The ability to preserve surplus food for the winter (by drying, salt-
ing, or safe-packaging) would depend on access to the harvest as well
as available rewood and dry, secure, storage options. In good years
Cappadocia was a verdant land: from antiquity it was famous for its
horses and grazing lands, and there was game for the hunter. If the
weather was kind, the poor need depend only rarely on the market,
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 445
15
Greg. Nyss. Contra usurarios (Gebhart (1967) 195207).
16
Greg. Naz. Or. 43, esp. chapters 3436; Greg. Nyss. In Basilium fratrem (ed.
and trans. Stein (1928)).
17
Magie (1950) 201.
18
Basil Fam. 2.
though they remained subject to the whims of barter, patronage, and
taxation. However, if the weather was severe or unpredictable, or if
the roof of the storage room leaked or pests and disease took over, then
crisis set in. If this crisis led to loans and usury, it could often end
in economic and personal disaster.
We know that the poor owned few of the animals they worked with,
and even their household furnishings were meagre. The father forced
to sell his child, as pictured in Basils sermons, has little else of market
value. A householder with animals for transport has access to a greater
range of food sources and thus has more freedom to barter about
food prices. Transport was one of the resources Basil oered at his
poorhouse, although it is unclear whether this was intended for the
poor or the bishops visiting dignitaries. Cappadocian Caesarea was
renowned for its production of clothing, with women employed as
weavers for the citys imperial mill.
19
Yet those who visited the church
knew that even workmens rags were always in demand: Ep. 286
tells of a whole cloakroom robbed during a local church gathering,
the thieves taking the cheap clothing of poor men, whom they should
rather have clothed than stripped.
20
And the eects of famine were
hardly limited to 36869; as late as 372 Basil cites famine as a motive
for theft of the grain which alone our very dear brother Dorotheus
possessed for meeting the necessities of life.
21
Those who survived at subsistence level within the community, one
may guess, also frequented every possible church event that might
serve food, for example general feasts as well as memorial feasts at
martyr shrines; all who joined such events (from which lepers were
barred) might grab at these tangible goods, if only a few crumbs. More
signicantly, church events oered access to social aliations, includ-
ing opportunities for more subtle forms of begging and other appeals,
such as free legal aid or job recommendations from the bishop for
the supplicant or his children.
The Cappadocians references to the poor generally suggest that
these were individuals the bishops knew personally. For all their edu-
cation, brilliance, and eminence in the history of Christian theology,
Basil and the two Gregories were essentially country clergy, living on
their families estates, and leading rural communities still dominated
by a local dialect. Although their poverty sermons have had pro-
19
Noted in Van Dam (2002) 41.
20
Basil Ep. 286 (trans. Deferrari (1934) 177).
21
Basil Ep. 86 (trans. Deferrari (1928) 11315).
446 sts.x n. norv.x
found impact across the ages, they were originally written about, for,
and often to, very local situations.
While this general overview prepares us to consider the poor in
Cappadocia, many of these details would apply as well to the poor in
other regions of the empire in Late Antiquity. E. Patlageans classic
study of economic and social poverty in Early Byzantine culture
22
considers not only the rhetorical classications of the poor in Christian
texts of this period, but also the material and social conditions, such as
food, nutritional status, the household, clothing, illness, family structures,
patronage, farming, economic exchange, mortality, and funeral prac-
tices. Much of her detail would t Cappadocia even as it also applied
to the poor in other texts. The Cappadocian texts thus represent
views of the poor that were widely recognisable across the empire.
Tnr Poon .s Rnr+onic.r Coxs+ntc+
In viewing the poor in these texts for realia, one must remain ever
mindful of their function as rhetorical tools. Trained in classical
rhetoric, Basil and the two Gregories followed specic rhetorical pat-
terns in constructing their homiletic and epistolary images, including
their images of the poor. For example, M. Vinson has outlined the
structure of Gregory of Nazianzus Or. 14 as an epideictic lalia, a
loosely-structured moral talk that closely follows the structure which
Menander Rhetor prescribed.
23
She particularly notes how psycho-
logical stratagems to evoke emotion and persuade the audience to
allegiance to his cause are part of the traditional narratio (dighsiw),
and take the form, not only in Gregorys Or. 14 but also in Basil
and Nyssens writings on the poor, of
a poignant recital of the victims singular misery, which he illuminates
again and again by a series of scenes strongly pictorial in their impact.
This tableau of related images, which draws its power from the inter-
action of literary and visual device . . . helps to burn his message more
deeply and forcefully upon our sensibilities . . . the steady prick and
relentless intimacy of detail, made even more stark through keenly
delineated contrasts and the resulting intimacy of tone, are part of its
method and eect.
24
22
Patlagean (1977).
23
Vinson (2003) xix

xxii.
24
Vinson (2003) xx.
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 447
Such rhetorically poignant recitals reach a self-contained form in the
moral tales (dihgseiw cuxvfelew) or exempla that so characterise
Byzantine hagiography.
25
Both the Cappadocian image-capsules
(explored in detail below) and the later Byzantine stories, oer readers
valuable insights . . . of . . . everyday people as far as we can
tell . . . qualied [in that] we are hearing that tale through a monas-
tic earphone . . . yet from the way in which these stories were told
and retold . . . they functioned as a vigorous folklore [and no one]
perpetuates a folklore totally inimical to its own beliefs and aspira-
tions.
26
Despite this similarity to the exempla, however, I suggest that
the Cappadocians images of the poor t better into the earlier rhetor-
ical models, as brief ekphraseis in these epideictic lalia. Unlike the
exempla, these are not self-contained tales but illustrative images in
a broader context. The persons they describe are (usually) neither
moral nor immoral, but instead victims who express pathos in the
face of human need, a need that the preacher squarely blames on
the social choices of the listening audience.
Who then are the poor in these texts? In general, they all appear
to be free persons, not slaves. Indeed slaves, while legally power-
less, might share in the trickle-down eect of a households patron-
age relationships and be active participants in it, thus protected from
the extremes of need the poor suer. Indeed Gregory of Nazianzus
will attests to an active role for his (largely freed) slaves in support-
ing his ministries and his monetary legacies to the poor upon his
death.
27
Both Nazianzuss will and Gregory of Nyssas Life of Macrina
(discussed further below) attest to household slaves who shared in
the familys voluntary ascetic poverty (though this poverty was
arguably involuntary from the slaves perspective).
28
These members of the poor furthermore, like most of the poor in
early Christian texts, are assigned a sacred identity that must inevitably
nuance even the most graphic physical description by these profoundly
theological authors. Through exegesis of Matthew 25: 3146 they
25
For discussion see e.g., Burns (2001); Demoen (1996); Wortley (1991); Wortley
(2002).
26
Wortley (2002) 54.
27
For critical edition and commentary see Beaucamp (1998). For English trans-
lation see Van Dam (1995).
28
Greg. Nyss., V. Macr.; Callahan (1952) 378 [Greek] and Callahan (1967) 168
[trans].
448 sts.x n. norv.x
are equated with the body of Christ;
29
through exegesis of the prophetic
texts they are equated with justice; through exegesis of the Psalms they
are linked to the earth and Gods generosity with natural resources
to benet good and evil alike. As part of their advocacy for voluntary,
monastic poverty, the Cappadocians regarded care for the poor as
essential in theosis, the ideal attainment of participation through Christ
in the sanctity and sanctifying power of the deity, sometimes called
deication. Often (but not always) the poor are assigned the role
of jurors before God to attest to good deeds (or lack thereof ). Even
when the poor are speechless, passive objects in the text, they repre-
sent a kinetic ground for redemptive almsgiving, eecting heavenly
favour merely by standing between wealth and heaven.
30
Like pilgrim
tokens, the poor are tangible representations imbued with the power
of the sacred they represent, power available for blessing only to
those who dare tactile engagement with them.
31
Po\rn+v Scrxrs
From this general overview, let us now consider some of these visual
constructs in the Cappadocian texts that here serve as part of phil-
anthropy-rhetoric. The following section explores four specic detailed
images found in these texts: a penniless father who must sell his child
into slavery, described in Basils In destruam; the sick, outcast poor of
the Gregories sermons about lepers; the famine victims of 36869
with a focus here on the more hazy, but equally certain, presence of
poor women and class dynamics in both Gregory of Nyssas Life of
Macrina and Gregory of Nazianzus will; and nally, the frantic debtor
consumed by his very consumption, in the sermons against usury.
29
This is a commonplace; see e.g., Holman ( Forthcoming); and, for John
Chrysostom, Brndle (1979).
30
The best known early Christian texts on redemptive almsgiving are Clement
of Alexandrias early 3rd c. Quis dives salvetur? and Cyprian of Carthages De opere
et eleemosyne. Among the extensive secondary literature on redemptive almsgiving in
early Christianity, see e.g., Dunn (2004), Garrison (1993), Herrin (1990), Osiek
(1983) and Ramsey (1982).
31
For this image of pilgrim tokens, see Vikan (2003), esp. III. Ruminations on
edible icons: originals and copies in the art of Byzantium.
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 449
The Poor Father
In destruam is Basils appeal to the rich to release their stored grain
(which they probably did by selling it to Basil) in order to feed famine
victims. Within this sermon, addressed to those anxious to preserve
their own future food securities, Basil presents one particularly vivid
image as an appeal for pity. In chapter 4 he describes one among
them, a father who must sell a child so that the rest of the family
might survive:
He stands there looking about him in his miserable home. He sees no
money in his purse, nor any hope of it. He looks at his clothes and
household objects (skeh d ka syw), the other few articles that form
the belongings of the poor; in all they are worth but a few coins . . . His
eyes then . . . rest upon his own little ones. . . . Consider . . . the anguished
struggle within him, between the hunger that devours them and the
fathers love. . . . Whom will he rst sell? . . . [He thinks:] I must not
put to shame [the] rights [of] the eldest . . . [but the youngest] is t
for study, for learning. O dread misery! If I keep them all . . . one by
one I shall see them die of hunger. If I sell one. . . . how shall I remain
in my house [and] come to the table, furnished at their price?
32
He decides, at length, to sell the dearest loved. But (Basil accuses), the
buyers, (i.e., those listening to the sermon) haggle for the lowest price,
unmoved by the mans agony . . . hunger . . . pain . . . tear . . . groans.
He presents this man as one of many with whom his rich audience
has direct contact, in chapter 6 blaming them for the fact that: The
hungry are dying before your face. The naked are sti with cold.
The man in debt is held by the throat. . . . You need not go knock-
ing at the doors of other people but they must come knocking at
yours!
33
And later he appeals for the bread that you hold . . . the
cloak locked away in your cupboard . . . the shoes going to waste . . .
How then can I put before your eyes the suering of the poor, that
you may know from what agony you gather in wealth?
34
In this description of the impoverished father in the context of
general economic distress, we nd several suggestions of daily life for
the poor around Caesarea at this time. Here is a man with a (hitherto)
intact house and family. His wife is not mentioned; daughters are not
mentioned. Indeed, Basil rarely alludes to women in his writings,
32
Basil In destruam 4 (trans. Toal (1959) 3.328, slightly altered).
33
Basil In destruam 6 (trans. Toal (1959) 3.331).
34
Basil In destruam 6 (trans. Toal (1959) 3.332).
450 sts.x n. norv.x
either positively or negatively; even when he mentions weeping infants
audible in the sanctuary in In famem, he does not even allude to the
women who were presumably nearby. In divites denounces the greed
of rich mens wives whose appetite for luxuries doubles their husbands
evil.
35
But Basil almost never alludes to female sexual improprieties,
a theme that would be inevitable were this father selling a daughter.
While the audience sees here only the man and two of his sons,
the text suggests a plurality of persons who would judge him trai-
tor at his own table after the heinous act; the implied family unit
is obviously greater than three. The text further assumes a family
with community loyalties: the father recognises and respects the pat-
rimony due an oldest son and is eager to educate one who shows
a bent for learning. Indeed, this compassionate, grieving father, with
his honour-bound and bright sons, presents an ironic ideal, as Basil
permits no description of this family that might imply dishonour or
give the least excuse for withholding aid; it is the rich he seeks to
shame in this homily.
Basils poor are not always guiltless, however; HPs. 14b presents
the same image to show a father victimised not by famine but by his
own debts. Here, appealing to creditors to forgive a loans interest
as a gift to God, Basil focuses on the fathers shame: I have seen a
piteous sight, free sons dragged to the marketplace to be sold because
of paternal debt. You are not able to leave money to your sons? Do
not deprive them as well of their dignity.
36
Ambroses homily De Tobia,
which frankly copies large selections from HPs. 14b, is even more
explicit about the paternal shame, with less sympathy for the father:
I have seen a pitiful sight, children led forth to sale for their fathers
debt. . . . Even a father often sells his children by authority of his par-
enthood, but not with the consent of piety, and he drags the unfor-
tunates to the auction with a shamefaced countenance, saying Pay,
my children, the expense of my gluttony, pay the cost of your fathers
table, disgorge what you have not devoured.
37
35
Basil In divites 7.4.
36
Basil HPs. 14b.4 (trans. Way (1963) 189).
37
Amb. De Tobia 8.29 (ed. Zucker (1933) 47). For Augustine on social action
and the needs of the poor, see e.g., Lepelley (2003) and Di Berardino (2003); for
Augustine on the sale of children into slavery, see e.g., Ep. 10*, Ep. 24* (for ET
of these new letters, discovered by Divjak and characterised by asterisks, see Eno
1989) and discussion in Humbert (1983); on usury see e.g., Augustine, Serm. 86.
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 451
Basils audience therefore included both debtors and creditors; both
might relate to this painful experience which, even if it was not their
own, was certainly one that they might view regularly in the local
slave market.
The Exiled Sick Poor
The Gregories three sermons On the love of the poor describe home-
less and chiey diseased beggars barred from the public places and
labelled as lepers. While these poor (as well as Basils famine victims)
have been explored at length elsewhere,
38
I would like here to view
them very briey in light of another text that clearly alludes to the
same population: Gregory of Nyssas Life of his sister Macrina.
In his two sermons De pauperibus amandis, Gregory of Nyssa in par-
ticular describes these individuals as living at the edges of society,
sleeping in the city porticoes and gathering in communities outside
the city. Their limbs were diseased by various neuropathies that may
or may not have been caused by leprosy. Such rotting disgurement
may have occurred, alternatively, through accidents, or through a
neglected infection that led to gangrenous necrosis, or even, perhaps
from frostbite suered while living rough in the elements during
harsh Cappadocian winters. Homelessness perpetuates physical neglect:
inadequate nutrition can cause as well as aggravate pre-existing skin
aictions; lice thrive where bathing facilities are inadequate; bare
feet and a diet of rotting food may result in internal worms; and a
cold climate may inhibit the use of rivers or woodland springs for more
than basic drinking water. In this way extreme poverty perpetuates
disease, and disease further aggravates malnutrition. It is hardly sur-
prising to nd the poor with chronic skin diseases, and groups hud-
dling together for warmth would further increase the chance of
contracting true leprosy, a condition now known to carry a lower
risk of contagion than traditionally assumed.
Sharing these everyday living conditions, the outcast, sick poor in
Cappadocia seem to have created pseudo-social structures for survival.
The texts are worth quoting at length for their specic detail. Gregory
of Nyssa writes,
38
Holman (2001).
452 sts.x n. norv.x
Driven away from everywhere, they form a society apart and living,
mixed together, in tight quarters . . . [T]hey arrive [in town] to make
a parade of their inrmities and give the crowds the spectacle of their
crippled bodies . . . Macabre jugglers, exhibiting their diverse mutila-
tions! Making sad melodies and gloomy chants, poets of a unique type
of tragedy where, without any need of new subjects, they ll the stage
with their own misfortunes . . . All they ever need to do to awaken
their own plaintive cries is to look at themselves . . . Powerless alone,
they help one another and lend the use of their members to make up
for those without. One always sees them together.
39
And Gregory of Nazianzus, the same groups in mind, writes,
By way of identication they keep calling out the names of their moth-
ers and fathers, brothers, and places of origin . . . because they cannot
be identied from the way they used to look . . . They are driven away
from marketplace, public gatherings, festivals, even . . . water itself . . . And
so they wander about night and day, helpless, naked, homeless, expos-
ing their sores for all to see . . . leaning on each others limbs in place
of those they have lost, devising songs that tug at the heartstrings . . . Not
even discomture is a deterrent from attending celebrations; quite the
contrary, their destitution compels their attendance [at] . . . religious
festivals that we have organised for the public as a way of minister-
ing to souls, when we meet either for some sacramental occasion or
to celebrate the martyrs . . . they would rather be hidden in the moun-
tains or crags or forests . . . Yet they throw themselves in our midst . . . to
hear a human voice . . . to look upon a human face . . . to collect scraps
of food . . . baring their private woes . . . What will our attitude towards
these people be?
40
While the two Gregories each describe these sick beggars in their own
words, they clearly cover the same ground and focus on the same
details of daily life. For both men, the image functions to arm the
physicality of human nature, and to shame the audience into a direct
philanthropic contact with the poor that respects their humanity while
also promising the donor spiritual healing through redemptive alms.
The Gregories focus particularly on the importance of daring to
touch these pitiful creatures, engaging with them in mutual healing.
The merciful donors gain spiritual healing by their attention to the
physical healing of these sick. Yet through this agenda emerges the
traces of real people, outcasts in an alternative world leaning on one
another to ll their own deciencies, creating a new market economy
39
Greg. Nyss. De paup. 2 (PG 46.47780), selections, my trans.
40
Greg. Naz. Or. 14.1015, selections (trans. Vinson (2003) 4549).
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 453
based on a theatre of the macabre that is, in fact, all they have left
with which to survive.
In the account of his brother, Naucratius ascetic life,
41
Gregory
of Nyssa may further provide a glimpse of one such pseudo-community
precisely where Nazianzus said lepers would rather be hidden: in
the forest. Naucratius had chosen monastic poverty, retreating to live
deep in the woods along the Iris river, probably on a part of the
familys rural estate. Here he lived by himself , yet not alone. His
slave, Chrysaphius, joined his master in his poverty and, together
(though Gregory speaks only of Naucratius) they cared for a group
of old people living together in poverty and inrmity.
42
Gregory
describes how Naucratius lived and died:
[He] used to go hunting to procure food for the old people . . . He
also zealously carried out his mothers wishes if she asked anything for
herself . . . He lived this way for 5 years . . . [ Then] he went out to
hunt, which was his means of furnishing provisions for the old people
43
and was brought home dead, he and Chrysaphius, his companion. His
mother was a three day journey away.
44
While Naucratius chose this lifestyle in order to advance in philosophic
and ascetic perfection, his pattern of self-discipline was ultimately
interdependent on the existence of those who did not choose their
poverty, both the inrm elderly he served and also one of his house-
men (tiw . . . tn oketn), the slave Chrysaphius. On a most mun-
dane level, the story is ironic: these poor, unlike the ideal ascetic poor
of Late Antiquity, depended largely on a diet of wild game, cloth-
ing themselves with fur and leather against the elements, both obtained
through the eorts of their young ascetic patron. The text also demon-
strates the liminal nature of the poor even for these authors. One
presumes, for example, that Chrysaphius shared fully in his masters
lifestyle,
45
but he remains invisible in his actions, appearing only at
the death he shared (by forces unknown) with his master. Gregory tells
how their mother grieved bitterly, but Naucratius death surely had
a more critical impact on those elderly in the woods who now faced
starvation, individuals who are not mentioned again in the text.
41
Greg. Nyss. V. Macr. (Callahan (1952) 37880).
42
presbtaw tinw pen& kai rrvst& suzntaw. Callahan (1952) 379; trans.
Callahan (1967) 169.
43
d w parexe tow ghrvkomoumnoiw t epitdeia. Callahan (1952) 379.
44
Greg. Nyss. V. Macr (trans. Callahan (1967) 169).
45
Since Chrysaphius followed him because he was used to taking care of him
and because he had decided on the same choice of life.
454 sts.x n. norv.x
Famine, Poverty, and Ascetic Women
Several other vignettes in the Life of Macrina describe Macrinas direct
contact with the poor, particularly poor women, and suggest the rela-
tion of this general context to the famine that is best known from
Basil. While Basils homilies and letters,
46
and even Gregory of Nazian-
zus funeral oration, all give the impression Basil toiled almost alone
in feeding the starving, Gregory of Nyssa says that in fact it was
Macrina, her brother Peter, and their mother who, from their her-
mitage, provided and managed the abundant grain supplies for the
crowds who came pouring into our region because of the fame of
its prosperity.
47
One cannot be certain who is unfairly deleting whom
from their philanthropic work, but the Life of Macrina assigns no
famine-relief role at all to Basil.
Some of the women Macrina rescued remained with her perma-
nently. Gregory identies some nuns in Macrinas community as
those she had nursed and reared after nding them prostrate along
the highway at the moment of starvation and she led them to the
pure and uncorrupted life.
48
Basils In famem suggests that whole fam-
ilies might be seen in this public despair: The farmers . . . weep over
their vain toil, looking toward their young children and crying, gaz-
ing at their lamenting wives and wailing . . . groping for their parched
produce.
49
His image of the starving body is classic:
The knees no longer support the body but drag themselves by force,
the voice is powerless, the eyes are sunken as if in a casket, . . . the
empty belly collapses, conforming itself to the shape of the backbone
without any natural elasticity of the bowel. The person who rushes by
such a body, . . . should he not be reckoned with the savagery of the
beasts, accused and a homicide?
50
For those women rescued from starvation who chose to remain in
Macrinas community, everyday life surely took on a whole new model,
not only an ordered asceticism balanced with prayer, fasting and the
social inuence of its upper-class abbess, but also a new type of daily
contact with women of higher status. Gregory describes two of these
46
See esp. Basil Ep. 27 and Ep. 31.
47
Greg. Nyss. V. Macr. (trans. Callahan (1967) 172).
48
Greg. Nyss. V. Macr. (trans. Callahan (1967) 18283). For the argument that
Gregorys Life of Macrina describes more a pious household than a model of insti-
tutional monasticism, see Rousseau (2005).
49
Basil in famem 2 (trans. Holman (2001) 184).
50
Basil in famem 7 (trans. Holman (2001) 190).
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 455
women, along with those rescued from the roadside, in his narrative
of his dialogue with them immediately after Macrinas death. The
most dominant woman, Vetiana, a senators daughter, was a wealthy
widow who seems to have lived in the community without fully being
identied with it: Spending much of her time with the women, she
learned from them the life of virtue.
51
Beside her at the bedside
Gregory places Lampadius, a woman of unknown social status who
was a deaconess in charge of a group of the women.
52
While Vetiana,
a woman who had, perhaps, not renounced her own wealth, focuses
Gregorys attention on Macrinas holy corpse, on the scar denoting
her healing,
53
and on her jewellery, Lampadius, who probably had re-
nounced her personal wealth, emphasises Macrinas similar complete
philanthropic divestment: She recognised one storage place for pri-
vate wealth: the treasury of heaven. There she deposited everything
and left nothing on earth.
54
This treasury of heaven is common
shorthand for liberal donations to the poor. Those who joined Macrina
in her communal poverty and social levelling entered into the social
and power dynamics of such a community from a wide variety of
points on that spectrum. The discrepancy suggested here by Vetianas
and Lampadius dierent concerns regarding the material remains
of their friend and leaders dead body surely hint at a community that
even during her life was not free from class tensions. How did these
dierences show themselves at her deathbed? Gregory subtly but
clearly indicates these dierences by contrasting rational philosophical
rhetoric with uncontrolled passions: Vetiana and Lampadius speak
to him with reason, while those rescued from the roadsides gather
together in the background, and weep.
In Gregory of Nazianzus will we nd another ascetic woman and
her two servants paired with, and in direct counterpoint to, the poor.
Dated 31 May 381 at Constantinople,
55
the will notes in the very
beginning: I have dedicated all my possessions to the Catholic church
at Nazianzus for the provision of the poor [ptvxo] who are dependent
upon the aforementioned church.
56
Gregory appoints three men (two
51
Greg. Nyss. V. Macr. (trans. Callahan (1967) 183).
52
Greg. Nyss. V. Macr. (trans. Callahan (1967), 183).
53
On Macrinas mark, see Frank (2000); Burrus (2003).
54
Greg. Nyss. V. Macr. (trans. Callahan (1967) 184).
55
Van Dam (1995) 143 n. 99.
56
Greg. Naz. Test. (PG 37.389a, trans. Van Dam (1995) 144).
456 sts.x n. norv.x
are former slaves, including his heir Gregorius) to manage this poor-
relief (ptvxotrfouw), which explicitly excludes gifts subsequently des-
ignated for individuals. The rst of these bequests (after the managers)
concerns an unspecied annual allowance to the most venerable vir-
gin Russiana, my relative, so that she might live independently.
57
Though not the only woman mentioned in Gregorys will, she is the
only woman who benets by it.
58
Russianas exact relationship with
Gregory is unknown, but he is remarkably respectful about her sta-
tus and the terms of her inheritance:
In the past I did not decide about her residence, because I did not
know where she preferred to live. But now I wish also this, that in
whatever place she chooses a household might be prepared that is suit-
able for her, an independent woman, [and] for the respectable life of
a virgin. She will of course possess this household for her use and sus-
tenance without any disturbance until the end of her life; then it will
revert to the church. I wish that two [slave] girls whom she has cho-
sen also be given to her on the understanding that the girls stay with
her until the end of her life. And if she is satised with them, she is
allowed to honour them with manumission; if not, they are to belong
to the same church.
59
J. Beaucamp suggests this legacy to Russiana is un parallle pour
le cas des pauvres,
60
in both cases granting the recipients revenues from
Gregorys patrimony without alienating the property, which remains
with the heir. Despite the parallel, however, the poor/stewards and
Russiana represent striking dierences in social status.
This extraordinarily detailed description of Russianas rights has
certain elements in common with Nyssens funeral scene of Macrinas
women. Like Macrina, Russiana was apparently a woman of status
who had adopted the ascetic lifestyle. Gregorys respectful, repeated
references to her freedom of choice bears some of the same tones of
fearful obedience that characterised his relations with his father and
suggests her personal power in his life. That she should need such a
safeguard after his death suggests that he bore some responsibility
57
PG 37.392b (trans. Van Dam (1995) 145).
58
Caesarius remaining goods are bequeathed, not to his niece Alypiana, but to
her children. Gregory seeks Alypianas pardon for leaving her nothing, but I have
already promised everything to the poor (PG 37.392c (trans. Van Dam (1995) 145).
59
PG 37.392b-c (trans. Van Dam (1995) 145); for the Greek text see Beaucamp
(1998) 3234, ll. 4456.
60
Beaucamp (1998) 48.
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 457
for her comfort during his life. Even though she was a relative and
independent woman of status, Russianas fate clearly equalled that
of the other poor dependents of the church. Possibly the two slave
girls whom she has chosen also belonged to Gregory (or the church)
since they are given her only at his death. Like Macrinas rescued
women, these girls benet by their mistress ascetic securities even
as they lack her legal volition. Like Chrysaphius, they share poverty
but only as possessions.
Consumer and Consumed: the Debtor
The nal Cappadocian image of the poor explored here is that of the
debtor, particularly the victim of usury. This character appears in
various poses, all extreme, most notably in Basils HPs. 14b, and was
a stock gure in early Christian moral rhetoric. Ambrose and Augustine,
as noted above, also preached on the same theme, and money-lend-
ing and interest in Antiquity has been discussed elsewhere at length.
61
The debtor diers from the rst three types of poor because he
is, or at least he begins as, someone with property, goods, and social
standing, although these are all textually positioned at the very edge
of an economic precipice. Cappadocian references to the debtor are
dominated by a kinetics of destructive consumption. These images of
usury resemble those of metastatic cancer: an uncontrolled, uncon-
trollable growth that eats away all peace, all goods, all securities,
and ultimately life itself. Basil follows Aristotle in a wordplay on tokos,
aligning usury with the unnatural wild reproduction of the hare.
62
Images of the debtor are intertwined with equally vivid condem-
nation for the creditor: Basil writes The more [the miser] is fed,
the more he hungers.
63
In his homily against the rich, Basil describes
victims consumed by their neighbours greed; coveting these goods, the
rich force injustices that may, but do not necessarily, include debt.
Using examples also present in Gregory of Nazianzus poem Adversus
opem amantes,
64
Basil points to harassment, threats, false claims, and
lawsuits that wear down the less-powerful, gradually forcing them to
61
See e.g., Andreau (1999) esp. 9099; Frederiksen (1966), Maloney (1973), and
for the later Byzantine economy Laiou (2002) esp. 9091104.
62
Basil HPs. 14b.3 (trans. Way (1963) 187), following Arist. Hist. anim. 6.33.579b.
63
Basil Hom. 6.5 (trans. Toal (1959) 329).
64
Greg. Naz., Adversus opem amantes (Coulie (1985) 95118).
458 sts.x n. norv.x
yield, to sell at loss, and concede their property to the greedy neigh-
bour, even into poverty.
Basils script for the victim of usury, in HPs. 14b, is more theatrical
than any of his other poverty images. The moral of his account is
simply stated: Are you rich? Do not borrow. Are you poor? Do not
borrow.
65
Somewhat ingenuously identifying himself with the poor,
he says, Let us, the poor, surpass the rich in this one thing . . . free-
dom from care. In reality, he knows,
He who owes is both poor and full of care, sleepless . . . anxious . . . putting
a value on his own possessions . . . [coveting those of others of value to
pay o his own debts] . . . If you knock at his door, the debtor hides under
the couch . . . Does the dog bark? He drips with perspiration; . . . No
boxer avoids the blows of his antagonist as much as the debtor avoids
a meeting with his creditor, hiding his head behind pillars and walls . . .
66
Basils debtor is thus a man with walls to hide behind and a couch
to hide under. He is a member of society who works hard to remain
unseen. Accustomed to patronage, he is unwilling to work with his
hands and refuses to beg. On some level he shares the same greed of
his creditor. He is devoted to unrestrained expenses and fruitless extra-
vagances . . . I need for myself, he says, costly clothing and gold plate,
for my sons decent garments . . . for my servants bright-coloured
and varied attire . . . for my table abundance of food.
67
Ever seeking
fresh loans, living on an illusion, he thus endeavours to escape the
evidence of his need by the continuous succession of evils.
68
Like leprosy, debt is a disease model. Basil compares this perpet-
ual gorging with those who suer from cholera and its uncontrollable
diarrhoea and vomiting; with the prolic wild beast of the hare as
noted above; and the relentless monthly interest with epilepsy-inducing
demons of the moons cycles.
69
Gregory of Nyssas sermon contra
usurarios, an intentional addendum to Basils, is primarily concerned
with deating the apparently envied image of moneylenders. Here
Gregory compares their greed to a fever-thirst and their usurious
patronage to a homicidal physician.
70
Money-lending is like scattering
65
Basil, HPs. 14b.3 (trans. Way (1963) 186).
66
Basil, HPs. 14b.4 (trans. Way (1963) 188).
67
Basil, HPs. 14b.4 (trans. Way (1963) 18889).
68
Basil, HPs. 14b.4 (trans. Way (1963) 18889).
69
Basil, HPs. 14b.5 (trans. Way (1963) 191).
70
Greg. Nyss. Contra usurarios (ed. Gebhardt (1967) 1.195207; trans. McCambley
(1991) 295).
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 459
seed to catch birds, he says, and moneylenders are insatiable, roving
hunters, such misers that in the end they do not trust even their clos-
est kin with the location of their assets, impoverishing their own heirs.
Thus the debtor is in fact one of the very poor, even though he
(and his family) may to all outward appearances (and even to the
archaeological record) seem to belong among the wealthy. Internally
diseased with frantic consumption, his victimisation depends on this
very grasping at social status and the appearance of power. While
the extreme poor are, in these texts, tangible bodies that remain
invisible and demand materialisation, the victim of usury is, in contrast,
a popular social gure who lives a lie, in constant attempts to hide
his plight. Poverty then, as now, inuenced both the body and the
mind of ones everyday life.
Coxcrtsiox
In conclusion, these closely-related Cappadocian texts provide a series
of consistent constructs, or images, of daily life for the poor in the
ancient world. While portrayed as discrete individuals, these poor are
in fact rhetorical stereotypes that function to probe the moral con-
science into specic charitable activities within a dened structure.
The poor in these texts are primarily power-poor, lacking power
over the patron, the employer, the family group, and the nurture of
their own esh.
Amidst the increasing social displacement of the 4th c., as people
lost their homes to invaders, wars, natural disasters, creditors, and dis-
ease, Christian bishops took over the role of patron to these strangers
and outcasts, incorporating into the classic patronage model the new
Christian emphasis on poor-houses and redemptive almsgiving. This
appropriation of the poor as a group was eected by sermons and
orations in which the poor gained new visibility, albeit ltered and
skewed according to the speakers particular agenda. The everyday
life of the clerics and monastic ascetic poor (not discussed here) often
deliberately emulated the material poverty of the ptochoi even as it
ministered to them. This gentrication of poverty redened this
state of being and helped the poor become more socially visible, if
perhaps no better o.
460 sts.x n. norv.x
This paper has focused on traces of everyday life in writings by
three inuential bishops, two brothers and their friend. Yet one can-
not fully appreciate what these texts say about the poor without also
recognising an underlying assumption that was (for these authors) far
more important than a cold and grumbling stomach. The visceral,
embodied presence of these needy had Christian meaning, above all,
because it was identied with what most modern readers would view
as an intangible: the signicance of the incarnate deity in the per-
son of Jesus Christ. For these bishops and other Nicene Christians,
the doctrine of the incarnation mattered precisely on the level of
matter itself. The incarnation, as it was believed, proved Gods power
to take on mutable substance without polluting the ineable substance
and sanctity of the Holy. It armed matter against opposing Greek
philosophic views. This redemption of material reality was armed
in and by Christian liturgy, not only in the eucharistic liturgy of tra-
ditional worship but in the Christianisation of the Greco-Roman
leitourgia of euergetism, particularly targeted now to poverty-relief.
Christian teachings based in Matthew 25:3146, the parable of the
sheep and the goats at the last judgment, widely identied the body
of the poor with the real presence of Christ.
The poor thus held power to aect spiritual reality, but only insofar
as they were understood as Christ, not simply on the basis of their
own personal human selves as part of the natural creation. Thus the
Christian armation of the poor body and of its legitimate needs
was paradoxically armed by power in heaven, something that could
not be materially measured (at least, not in the present life). It is
impossible to generalise howor ifthis perspective inuenced the
human experiences of the very poor, and an exploration of such
examples is outside the goals of this study. Nonetheless, the nuances
of Cappadocian poverty rhetoric were subtly shaped by this ideol-
ogy as it informed those who regarded these vividly somatic images.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
My thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their helpful
suggestions.
r\rnvr.v rirr or +nr roon ix +n c. c.rr.roci. 461
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464 sts.x n. norv.x
POVERTY AND SOCIETY
IN THE WORLD OF JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
Wendy Mayer
Abstract
Like those of Basil and the two Gregories, the writings of John Chry-
sostom provide useful data about poverty that is dicult to recover from
the archaeological record. In this article, images of the poor and infor-
mation about poverty in his writings are grouped into ve categories:
basic information, voluntary poverty (asceticism), the sight and sound
of poverty in the urban setting, individual social response, and self-
consciousness about poverty. In a sixth section, the status of the data
and how they relate to the models put forward by Patlagean and
Brown are considered.
Ix+nortc+iox
Where the writings of Basil and the two Gregories provide us with
useful, if ltered images of the poor in the towns and countryside
of late antique Cappadocia, those of John Chrysostom,
1
a priest at
Antioch, and later bishop of Constantinople, give us insight into the
poor of two of the larger, wealthier and more powerful cities of the
late antique Mediterranean world. One might suspect that poverty was
thrown into particularly sharp relief in these cities, where, as an
additional factor, the public display and consumption associated with
the emperor, his court, and administration dominated day-to-day life
for signicant periods throughout the mid 4th to early 5th c. Yet it
is interesting that in many ways the poor of Antioch and Constantinople
encountered in Johns writings look, smell, think, and act little
dierently from those we nd in the works of other major Christian
writers of the time.
1
The treatises of Chrysostom date from as early as ca. 378 and span his entire
ecclesiastical career (including the rst year of exile), his homilies were delivered
between 386 and 404, and the letters date from the period following his exile from
Constantinople (404407).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 465484
Before we delve into the images of, assumptions about, and allusions
to poverty that endure in his writings, the same caveat that S. Holman
raises in her discussion of the Cappadocians, applies. As both bishop
and priest Johns agenda is always pedagogical. On the one hand,
the poor are used as exempla to shame the wealthy into modifying
their life, as recipients of a regimen of almsgiving intended to improve
the lot of the rich persons soul, or as a means of demonstrating that
those who think they are poor have little to complain about. Other
images, particularly those of beggars, are evoked in order to bring
about pity or guilt, to wring the emotions of the audience to whom
John has directed the moral exhortation in his sermons. On the other
hand, if G. Kurbatov is correct, there are yet other instances when
the poor themselves are the target of Johns preaching, as he seeks to
persuade them that their existence in society is necessary and essen-
tial to Gods greater scheme.
2
Furthermore, as P. Brown has pointed
out, it is in the interest of the preacher to present images of poverty
and wealth in terms of polarities or extremes, an image that inevitably
obscures the far more diverse range which exists in between.
3
As a
result, while the images of the poor which occur in Johns writings
have the potential to ll the gaps in the archaeological record to at
least some degree,
4
the images are, as both Brown and Holman point
out, inevitably ltered and distorted by Johns rhetorical and peda-
gogical agenda. He selects what he tells his audience, as well as the
way in which he frames it, in order to t the moment.
5
The glimpses of the poor of Antioch and Constantinople that John
allows us, then, are selective and, like the images exploited by the
Cappadocian bishops, are at times chosen to shock the listener into a
particular response. At the same time, on occasion they give us what
seem to be genuine glimpses of who the poor were, what they looked
like, how they behaved, what caused poverty, how others reacted to
it, how dierent members of society viewed and identied poverty, and
how individuals and institutions sought to alleviate it. As we attempt
to understand precisely who the poor were in late antique Antioch
and Constantinople, we will explore each of these issues in turn by
2
Kurbatov (1958).
3
Brown (2002) 4648.
4
For the argument that early Christian homilies can genuinely record aspects of
daily life see Allen and Mayer (1993).
5
On the necessity of taking Johns rhetorical agenda into account when assess-
ing data presented in his homilies see Mayer (2005) 48084.
466 vrxrv v.vrn
piecing together the often casual clues which are sprinkled throughout
the homilies, treatises, and letters of John Chrysostom. Unlike his
Cappadocian counterparts, John rarely focuses an entire sermon on
the topic of poverty. He does, however, address the issue time and
again in the context of other topics such as almsgiving and envy (for
instance, in the ethica of the homiletic series on Matthew and 1 Corin-
thians, and in the homily De eleemosyna). The alleviation of poverty
is also the occasional topic of letters from exile in which John con-
centrates on ensuring that pastoral care continues in his absence.
Tnr B.sic Pic+tnr
When scholars discuss poverty in relation to late antique Antioch
and Constantinople they commonly cite the statistics which John
supplies in two of his homilies.
6
The poor, he says in Hom. in Matth.
66/67, comprise 10 percent of the population, the rich a further 10
percent and everyone else occupies the middle ground.
7
But what
does he mean by the poor? In this case he makes it clear that the
poor are those who have absolutely no possessions,
8
in contrast to
the extremely rich.
9
This implies that the 10 percent of the population
whom he denes as poor are in fact the extremely poor and that
the other 80 percent cover a range in between. John goes on to say
that whereas the extremely rich are few in number, those who come
next in scale (presumably the less wealthy) are numerous, while the
poor constitute a far smaller number than the latter. If the wealthy
and less wealthy were to divide up those in need of food and cloth-
ing between them, barely one poor person would be shared among
every 50 to 100 people.
10
In order to shame his audience he further
points out that the church, with an income from a single very rich
person and a less wealthy individual, daily supports a register of 3,000
widows and virgins, not to mention people in prison, in the xenodo-
cheion, those who are healthy, travellers, people with crippled bodies,
6
See Petit (1955) 31011; Liebeschuetz (1972) 98; Dagron (1974) 519; Brown
(2002) 14 and 65.
7
PG 58.630 511.
8
PG 58.630 10.
9
PG 58.630 1314.
10
PG 58.630 1922.
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 467
and those who attend the altar in return for food and clothing. If
just 10 wealthy individuals chose to spend their money in this fash-
ion there would be no poverty.
11
Clearly these are exaggerated claims.
As Brown has pointed out, John undoubtedly minimises the level of
poverty and maximises the level of relative wealth in order to show
how easily poverty could be solved in the local urban context.
12
He
does, however, provide a rough base from which to work, and does
give some idea of which categories within society required assistance
to survive and to what extent the church had already developed
mechanisms for providing such assistance.
A similar set of statistics is presented in Hom. in Act. 11. Here,
after stating that, if all of the men and women in the audience
pooled their assetsmoney, estates, possessions and houses (exclud-
ing slaves)and then sold them, at an estimate the total would come to
1 million litra of gold or perhaps even two or three times that gure;
John then goes on to speculate what would happen if one added in
the assets of the rest of the citys population: the Jews and Greeks, who
were additional to an estimated 100,000 Christians.
13
There was a
point to these calculations: John estimated that there were no more
than 50,000 poor in the city.
14
Poverty would be banished, if everything
was shared in common as it was at the time of Acts. The picture
that he paints here is of phenomenal wealth amongst the Christians
alone, matched at the same time by what seems on initial presentation
to be a fairly high percentage of the population classied as poor.
Since we do not know for certain whether this homily was delivered
at Constantinople, as has previously been supposed,
15
and since the
calculations regarding the population size of both Antioch and
Constantinople result in gures which vary considerably,
16
it is dicult
11
PG 58.630 2435.
12
Brown (2002) 14.
13
PG 60.97 1126. Cf. Hom. in Matth. 85/86 (PG 58.762 59763 3), where the
gure of 100,000 who attend church (i.e. Christians) is oered. There he argues
that if each Christian gave a single loaf of bread to a poor person, poverty would
be eliminated (i.e., the poor number less than 100,000).
14
PG 60.97 2627.
15
On the problems linked to determining the provenance of Chrysostoms hom-
ilies in general, and those in this series in particular, see Mayer (2005) and Allen
and Mayer (1997). This same question mark is attached to Hom. in Matth. 66/67,
usually thought to have been delivered at Antioch. The homily in itself contains
no evidence which supports that provenance.
16
For Antioch see Petit (1955) 310 (200,000800,000), Liebeschuetz (1972) 9395
(150,000300,000). Dagron (1974) 518 refers to estimates for Constantinople of
468 vrxrv v.vrn
to determine what percentage of the total population a gure of 50,000
represents. If both W. Liebeschuetz and G. Dagron are correct, how-
ever, and the population of both cities was close to 300,000,
17
then
50,000 poor would constitute roughly one sixth of the population,
while the gure of 10 percent mentioned in Hom. in Matth. 66/67
would roughly equal 30,000. Allowing for rhetorical manipulation,
the gures given in both homilies are thus not so dissimilar.
Whatever the actual statistics, poverty can be seen to come in a
variety of shapes and forms. Just as Holman identies the social
poor, the poor who stand outside society (the beggars), the voluntary
poor (the ascetics), and the power-poor, so in Chrysostoms homilies
we catch glimpses of a similar range of the impoverished. In Hom.
in principium Actorum 1, delivered at Antioch,
18
John distinguishes
between the audience on the present occasion, the majority of which
were comprised of the poor, and the massive audience on the previous
Sunday, the majority of whom were rich.
19
As he proceeds to detail
why the poor were less able to attend the previous Sunday he states
that they have necessary occupations, and the worry of daily work:
their livelihood comes from their hands. They have wives and are
concerned with raising their children, and if they do not work, they
can not live.
20
The people he describes here are not homeless or
beggars, but tradespeople or labourers of some description.
In De eleemosyna, John gives us a glimpse both of the beggars of
Antioch and of at least some of the causes of homelessness.
21
The
beggars he has just passed outdoors on his way to the church have
crippled hands or eyes, or bodies covered in ulcers and seeping
wounds.
22
Their plight in winter is markedly dierent to summer,
when they can walk barefoot without risk, use the sun for warmth,
sleep on the oor, and safely spend the night outdoors. At that time
of year they can survive on the water from springs and the cheapest
vegetables or a small quantity of dry grain.
23
One suspects there is a
between 200,000 and 1,000,000, but himself supports the calculations of Jacoby which
place the population in the second half of the 4th c. at 300,000350,000 (p. 525).
17
See previous note.
18
See Mayer (2005) 43445.
19
PG 51.6567 1619.
20
PG 51.69 5459.
21
Regarding the Antiochene provenance of this homily, see Mayer (2005) 36769.
22
PG 51.261 311.
23
PG 51.261 2029.
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 469
degree of exaggeration here and that life in summer for the homeless
was far less comfortable, but the point he makes here is that the sit-
uation in winter is far worse. Then, a lack of shoes, inadequate cloth-
ing, and the need for a suciently warm place to sleep at night are
not merely a problem, but become a matter of survival.
24
Summer
is also associated with ease of nding work: at that time of year the
agricultural, construction, and shipping sectors were all in need of
labour.
25
For the poor, their body and hands are their sole means
of support,
26
which implies that in Hom. in princ. Actorum 1 the poor
are also labourers rather than tradespeople. Elsewhere John makes it
clear that tradespeople, though they may have diculty making ends
meet, are unlikely to be homeless, as the tools of their trade are an
asset, something that always allows the possibility of working their
way back out of debt, even if they have had to take out a loan in
order to avoid being forced into selling them.
27
In that instance he
talks specically about the situation of bronze-, gold- and silversmiths.
As well as the dictates of seasonal work, the rates of such loans
were a signicant contributing factor to poverty. In Hom. in princ.
Actorum 4, John both suggests that poor people are the ones who seek
out loans in the rst instance, and that the interest charges on the loan
further exacerbate their poverty.
28
In this same passage he also indi-
cates that, in the particular example he is thinking about, both lender
and borrower are members of the local Christian community. The
point that John makes here is that whereas a Christian who is
suciently wealthy to make a loan to a fellow Christian could osten-
sibly provide free nancial assistance, there is no thought in that
persons mind of forgoing the interest. For most, Christian charity
has no place in nancial dealings. In another homily, speaking in
more general terms, he says that poor people are typically physically
abused by the lender when they are unable to repay their loan at the
expiry of its term.
29
The poor are also seen as those who are often
the victims of lawsuits.
30
In this instance, however, clear distinction
is made between the poor and beggars. The latter are never taken
24
PG 51.261 3945.
25
PG 51.261 3135.
26
PG 51.261 3538.
27
Hom. de Laz. 3 (PG 48.993 2327).
28
PG 51.97 214 ab imo.
29
De decem millium talentorum debitore, PG 51.24 5057.
30
Hom. in Act. 13 (PG 60.110 51111 3). Cf. De eleemosyna (PG 51.269 2358).
470 vrxrv v.vrn
to court. The poor in this particular scenario evidently retain assets
that might be targeted by the litigant.
Poverty, in turn, contributes to prostitution and to other more
desperate means of making ends meet. Prostitutes, who stand in front
of their houses and sell their bodies for food, do so out of driving
hunger. They have no room for choice, accepting slaves, freedmen,
gladiators or anyone as their clients, just so long as the would-be
client can meet their price.
31
In a world where eye injuries and dis-
eases were common and where injuries to hands and feet could result
in amputation or loss of mobility, others are reduced to begging as
a direct result of their incapacity to earn a living.
32
A woman who
is both a widow and a cripple is doubly susceptible to this level of
poverty.
33
Men with families who take up begging as a source of
income in some instances permanently maim their children to increase
their potential earnings.
34
Among those who beg on a regular basis,
there are those who have evolved forms of street entertainment to
humour passers-by into parting more generously with their money.
35
Beggars have standard phrases that are used,
36
just as those who are
solicited have standard negative responses.
37
Poverty, when measured
in economic terms, thus ranges from people who still have sucient
assets to be taken to court, tradespeople who vacillate in and out of
poverty, to prostitutes, to seasonal labourers who spend part of the
year homeless, and those whose only source of income is begging
due to a permanent incapacity to earn.
31
Hom. in Hebr. 15 (PG 63.120 63121 3). See further Leyerle (1994) 3637.
Regardless of what drove them to prostitution in the rst instance, not all prosti-
tutes remained poor. In Hom. in Matth. 67/68 (PG 58.636 48 .), John describes a
Phoenician prostitute and actress whose clients were clearly among the cream of
the elite and whose resultant income was considerable.
32
Hom. in Act. 13 (PG 60.111 1012); Hom. de mutatione nom. 4 (PG 51.152. 5456).
See also Hom. in 1 Thess. 12 (PG 62.465 57), where John refers to beggars with
amputated feet.
33
See Hom. de mut. nom. 4 (PG 51.152.5456). On widows and orphans as distinct
social groups who require charitable assistance see Brown (2002) 24, 32 and 5859.
34
Hom. in Ep. I ad Cor. 21 (PG 61.177 2636).
35
Hom. in Ep. I ad Cor. 21 (PG 61.177 4558). The passage, which describes
beggars eating the leather of old shoes, driving nails into their heads or plunging
their bodies into icy water, is much cited (e.g. Leyerle (1994) 32233).
36
See Hom. in Phil. 15 (PG 62.290 2526).
37
Hom. in Act. 8 (PG 60.71 1920).
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 471
Vortx+.nv Po\rn+v
Those who voluntarily embrace povertymen and women who have
adopted a variety of ascetic lifestylesconstitute another signicant
category. In some instances their diet and clothing are not dissimi-
lar to those of the involuntary poor. In Hom. in Ep. I Tim. 14, John
claims that of the male ascetics who live communally in the wilder-
ness, some break their fast in the evening with just bread and salt,
others add oil, while those who are in poor health supplement their
diet with greens and lentils.
38
Some female ascetics adopt a dierent
diet, eating only an evening meal which consists of neither greens
nor bread, but rened our, beans, chickpeas, oil, and gs.
39
Monks
who live outside the city are said to adopt clothing made from fab-
ricssuch as camel hair, goat hair, and skinsof a kind not even the
poorest of the poor would wear.
40
In this latter passage John high-
lights the extremity of their piety by pointing out that the wearers
have often given up wealthy backgrounds in order to live in this
way. Elsewhere he makes it clear that people expect monks to dress
simply and eat sparingly, and that monks are publicly criticised if
they are perceived to do otherwise.
41
Interestingly, John himself
includes priests among the voluntary poor, taking the audience to
task for refusing to dene priests in this way. Where he argues that
poverty is dened as possessing only what one has been given, the
audience clearly assesses a persons status not by the source of pro-
38
PG 62.577 1820. Cf. the water, cheap vegetables, and dry grain said to be
the diet of the seasonal labourer in summer in De eleemosyna above. See also Hom.
in Matth. 69/70 (PG 58.653 1621), where ascetics of this kind are said to avoid
meat and to live on bread and water. Theod. Hist. Rel. 8.3, records a similar diet
for Aphrahat, an ascetic in the Antiochene milieu at around this same time.
39
Hom. in Eph. 13 (PG 62.98 3134).
40
Hom. in Matth. 68/69 (PG 58.644 2734 and 645 3538). Cf. Theod. Hist. Rel.
9.9, who describes servants in a household at Heliopolis imitating the monks of
Antioch, in which the servant playing the exorcist monk dressed up in a goats
hair cloak. More frequently, however, ascetics are said to be dressed in sackcloth
(e.g., De studio praesentium (PG 63.488 62489 17)). Virgins, who manage to indi-
vidualise and dress up their otherwise uniformly modest and simple blue, black and
white clothing, are criticised by John in Hom. in Ep. I ad Tim. 8 (PG 62.541 62542
24). The association between poverty and the style of dress adopted, although the
latter in each case is obviously not wealthy, is less than clear. Clothing of animal
hair and skins imitates the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist, while
sackcloth is associated primarily with penitence. Simplicity, minimal layers and lack
of variation may in fact be the only elements directly in common.
41
Hom. in Matth. 23/24 (PG 57.309 3540).
472 vrxrv v.vrn
visions but by what they actually wear or possess.
42
Thus priests too
are criticised, if they appear wealthier than the publicly accepted
standard. That lay Christians quoted Matthew 10:9 back at John when
he challenged them on this point (a passage in which Jesus tells the
disciples that they should take only the bare minimum with them
when they travel),
43
suggests that in the public perception not only
were clergy expected to look and behave as if they were poor, but
that the increasing cross-over between ascetics and the ordained
priesthood by this period may have inuenced this.
Whereas ordained clergy regularly received sportulae (distribution
from the oerings made to the church),
44
which presumably guar-
anteed them an at least basic standard of living, ascetics relied on
a variety of means of support, not all of them bearing an economic
denition as poverty. Some were of a wealthy background, so while
they adopted a simple dress and diet and abstained from comforts
such as bathing, they retained substantial nancial resources which
they used not only to support the community in which they lived, but
also to operate as patrons of bishops, monks, and those in need. The
most outstanding example in Johns circles at Constantinople was
the female deacon and founder of an ascetic community, Olympias.
45
Others, whether also ordained and functioning as priests or living
in ascetic communities, worked with their hands to provide a basic
level of food and income. This was the case with the so-called monk-
priests from the rural areas of Syria, who periodically visited Antioch
in order to meet with their bishop.
46
In Hom. in Matth. 72/73 the
male ascetics, many from wealthy educated backgrounds, perform
menial tasks, such as fetching wood and lighting res, presumably for
cooking, which would ordinarily have been assigned to servants.
47
Since
such communities lived in the mountain areas surrounding Antioch,
it is probable that such tasks were as much necessary for their sur-
vival, as they were a part of their ascetic regimen. In Hom. in Hebr. 11,
42
Hom. in Phil. 9 (PG 62.251 2730).
43
Hom. in Phil. 9 (PG 62.251 35252 10).
44
See Brown (2002) 26. See, however, Ep. 217 (PG 52.731 2223), where John,
in addressing Valentinus, a lay person at Constantinople, speaks of sportulae which
are owed, but which he will dismiss, if the addressee will instead direct nancial
aid to the starving widows and orphans.
45
Regarding her situation and activities, see most recently Teja and Marcos
(1996); Mayer (1999a).
46
Regarding their identity and lifestyle, see van de Paverd (1991) 26093.
47
PG 58.671 2022.
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 473
on the other hand, John provides a rare glimpse of monks in an urban
setting who solicit food. The audience is chided for treating them
in the same way as they do beggars.
48
Although there is some risk in-
volved if the monks claim that they are also priests (see below), the
audience is told that under straightforward circumstances they ought to
respond. It is of interest that elsewhere ascetics are bracketed together
with beggars as being exempt from lawsuits: they possess nothing
worth taking them to court over.
49
As a summary of the economic status of ascetics, in Hom. in Phil. 1
John encourages his audience to support individual ascetics, if they
themselves are unable to observe the same level of askesis. But if a
person is a priest or bishop and lives in comfort, he warns, even if
the person is also an ascetic, the audience should not support them.
They should support by preference an ascetic who is in need, with
a particular duty towards those who suer hunger. Even if the per-
son is an ascetic, there is no benet in giving where it is not needed.
50
The passage conrms a number of aspects of voluntary poverty
that have already been observed. If an ascetic was also a member
of the priesthood, they apparently received some kind of support
other than that oered directly by patrons; they may even have been
comfortably o. The increasing combination of asceticism and ordi-
nation meant that the lines between clergy and ascetics were becom-
ing blurred in public perception. Some ascetics genuinely went hungry
and found it dicult to support themselves. At the same time, there
was an expectation on the part of the Christian laity that ascetics
were in some way set apart within society and that supporting them
conferred direct benet upon the donor. Patronage of this kind was
unconnected to the economic status of the ascetic in question.
51
It
would seem that voluntary poverty and economic poverty, while
they could coincide, in the main functioned independently.
Finally, there is a common view that in the eastern Roman empire
the ascetics who inhabited the countryside originally came from the
48
PG 63.96 927.
49
Hom. in Act. 13 (PG 60.110 51111 3).
50
PG 62.188 2948.
51
On monks themselves as patrons of the poor via the patronage of wealthy
members of the senatorial class at Constantinople see Caner (2002) chapter 5. On
the patronage by laity of ascetics as an established social relation see Hom. in Phil.
9 (PG 62.250 3350), where John says that such giving is a liturgy or obligation
comparable to the military tax.
474 vrxrv v.vrn
lower poorer classes.
52
While John certainly promotes this view within
his homilies,
53
at the same time he suggests elsewhere that it was not
the sons of the poor and illiterate, but of rich or upper middle-class
families who swelled their ranks.
54
In fact, the ascetic mentors and
communities in the mountains in the vicinity of Antioch appear to
have operated as a kind of nishing school for literate, well-educated
young men.
55
Voluntary poverty thus encompassed an extremely wide
range of possibilities: people who had chosen an ascetic lifestyle and
priests who also lived as ascetics; people who embraced asceticism
but remained independently wealthy, as well as those who received
sportulae; others who laboured to feed themselves or who resorted to
begging; some whose dress and diet was similar to that of the eco-
nomic poor and others who dressed and ate in a way identiably
dierent; and people who entered voluntary poverty from a broad
range of social strata.
Sion+, Sotxr, .xr Unn.x Sr++ixo
The sight and sounds of poverty were an unavoidable and intrusive
part of daily life in both cities. In Constantinople the bishop was lit-
erally cursed by beggars as he crossed the agora.
56
In another homily
John talks of the poor who walk through the streets, enter peoples
halls and solicit, by yelling out from down below.
57
Beggars, probably
in both cities, used noisy performances to attract passers-by. In Hom. in
52
See Urbainczyk (2002) 6869 and literature.
53
E.g., Hom. in Matth. 69/70 (PG 58.654 2138); Hom. in Ep. I ad Tim. 11 (PG
62.555 59); Cat. 8 (Sources Chrtiennes 50bis. 250 5.36.3).
54
E.g., Hom. in Matth. 68/69 (PG 58.645 3538); Hom. in Eph. 13 (PG 62.97
4249); and Ad Stagirium 1.10 (PG 47.4478), where he indicates that Stagirius
background is one of wealth and status. See further Urbainczyk (2002) 6872, who
points out that despite appearances, in much of the ascetic literature of the 4th and
5th c. the holy men come from predominantly upper class backgrounds. This includes
the majority of the 13 ascetics from the Antiochene milieu who appear in Theodorets
Historia Religiosa.
55
On this phenomenon see Adv. opp. vit. mon. 3.12 (PG 47.36871), where we
are told of a rich young man who came to Antioch to further his education and
whose tutor was an ascetic from among those who inhabited the mountains around
Antioch.
56
Hom. in Act. 3 (PG 60.39 2730). While it is no longer certain that the homily
was delivered at Constantinople (see Mayer (2005)), the internal evidence does point
to a degree of probability.
57
Hom. in Ep. I ad Cor. 13 (PG 61.113 1420).
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 475
Ep. 1 Thess. 11, John describes beggars who insert cups on their
ngers and play them like cymbals, who use a pipe to sing erotic songs,
and who shout to attract attention.
58
Yet other beggars dance and
whistle in the agora.
59
As one walked past them in the streets, beg-
gars would call out any one of a number of standard cries: Give,
as usual!,
60
Pray for me!.
61
John provides a particularly vivid image
of seated beggars with no feet who, unable to follow the person who
walks past, swear an oath at them about giving just one obol or two,
hoping to keep them hooked by fear.
62
An entirely dierent category
of the poor, the widows supported by the church, make a dierent
kind of noise. They are said to be constantly present at church,
where they sing psalms night and day. They do this not just in order
to receive charity, since they could, if they wished, beg in the streets.
63
While the night and day is almost certainly an exaggeration, John
does imply that psalm-singing on the part of such widows is not a
simple response, but enters more into the realm of an obligation
linked to the support that they receive.
With regard to the visual impact of the poor, ascetics could, on
occasion, rival the beggars. In addition to sackcloth or clothing of
animal hair and skins, some ascetics (both women and men) also wore
wooden collars or iron chains and smeared themselves with ashes.
64
Not all ascetics were as visually distinct as they might have been, how-
ever. In the case of women, while some no longer looked after their
hair or wore make-up, and even wore fabric of rough hair close to
their naked skin and went barefoot ( John says that he has only heard
of such women, rather than seen them),
65
others pushed the bound-
aries of the mode of dress commonly adopted by virgins and wore
their belt in the latest fashion, polished their black shoes to an ele-
gant shine, and used a variety of perfumes, fabrics, and parasols.
66
58
PG 62.465 2737.
59
Hom. in Rom. 4 (PG 60.421 27422 2).
60
Hom. in Phil. 15 (PG 62.290 2526).
61
Hom. in Act. 25 (PG 60.197 68 (inferred from context)).
62
Hom. in 1 Thess. 12 (PG 62.465 510).
63
Hom. in Ep. I ad Cor. 30 (PG 61.254 58255 2).
64
De studio praesentium (PG 63.489 57); Hom. de Macabeis 2 (PG 50.626 2426).
65
Hom. in Eph. 13 (PG 62.98 2731).
66
Hom. in 1 Tim. 8 (PG 62.542 224) and Contra eos qui subintroductae 10.47,
Dumortier (1955) 79. There is a degree of exaggeration here, but the humour would
be ineective without some basis in reality (he is in any case emphatic about the
use of perfume). See also Palladius, Dial. 5 (Sources Chrtiennes 341.122, 14043),
where it is said that John reformed the order of widows on his arrival at Constantinople,
having taken exception in part to their mode of dress.
476 vrxrv v.vrn
Beggars could also be visually confronting. In Hom in Hebr. 11 John
challenges his audience by pointing out that no-one, if they had a
choice, would expose themselves to shame by loudly lamenting in
public with their wife naked and their children covered in ash,
67
as
clearly some beggars did. Missing hands, feet, and eyes are not un-
common, as are the visual signs of disease.
68
In one case he describes
the poor who stand in front of the doors of martyria as a group of
elderly people, clothed in rags, unwashed, lthy, hunched over, lean-
ing on sticks, frequently with eyes missing, and their entire body crip-
pled.
69
The clothing of poor people is in any case distinct by virtue
of its lack of aectation, and the poor quality and age of the fabric.
In Hom. in Phil. 10 John oers as an extreme the image of a rich per-
son and a poor person coping with the hot summer. The rich person
is sweating in their three short cloaks, woollen tunic, belt and trousers,
while the poor person is much better ventilated in their cheap, worn-
out, single garment.
70
As seen through Johns eyes, the poor were to be found in specic
locations in and around the two cities. In De eleemosyna he indicates
that at Antioch in winter beggars were to be encountered in the
middle of its streets, while in summer they could be found sleeping
on its footpaths.
71
At Constantinople we have already seen the bishop
being cursed by beggars as he crossed the agora. In both cities ago-
rai, streets, and alleys seem to have been focal points for beggars.
72
With reference to what was apparently another common locus, at
one point John describes Job as poorer even than those who gather
at the baths and sleep in the ashes of the stoves.
73
The entrances to
churches and martyria were another natural gathering point. There
the poor, the mentally ill, the lame and crippled, the elderly, and the
blind would sit in front of the doors in the hope of moving towards
charity the better-o who came to worship.
74
This is not to say that
people who might be classied as poor were not among those found
inside the church during a synaxis. As we saw above in relation to
67
PG 63.94 5962.
68
See, e.g., De eleemosyna (PG 51.261 613).
69
In illud: Habentes eundem spiritum hom. 3 (PG 51.300 1831). On the poor as
characteristically unwashed see further Hom. in Col. 1 (PG 62.304 2429).
70
PG 62.259 1532.
71
PG 51.261 69 and 2125.
72
See, e.g., De Lazaro conc. 6 (PG 48.1033 3334).
73
Hom. de diabolo tent. 3 (PG 49.270 5962).
74
Hom. in Ep. I Thess. 12 (PG 62.466 1929). Cf. Hom. in Col. 7 (PG 62.351 811).
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 477
Hom. in princ. Act. 1, it is the poor (possibly tradespeople or labourers),
who make up the majority of the audience at a synaxis held in Antioch
shortly after Easter.
Ascetics, too, were to be encountered in a variety of locations. While
at Constantinople we nd a community of some 250 upper-class
women and their servants living on a private property adjacent to
the episcopal church, with its own entrance to the churchs narthex;
75
this information is rare however, and we are more likely to learn of
the location of male ascetics. Patronage of ascetics was common at
Constantinople: in a letter to a community of Gothic monks, John
indicates that they lived on an estate which had belonged to Promotus,
a military commander and consul under Theodosius, while the Vita
Isaaci indicates that the Syrian monk was oered a choice of estates
for his foundation by two dierent high-ranking ocials, eventually
choosing the estate of Saturninus just outside the city walls.
76
Individual
ascetics who were visitors to the city could be found lodged in the
private houses of the wealthy, on church property, or in the ocial
bishops residence (the episkopeion), depending on their networks and
status.
77
The situation at Antioch, on the other hand, is more dicult
to determine, with a strong bias in Johns writings towards the indi-
viduals and communities situated in the mountains which bordered
the city.
78
This partiality obscures the pattern within the city itself.
What we do know is that the inhabitants of Antioch were likely to
encounter ascetics regularly at least in the person of their own bishop,
Flavian, and certain of the priests. At either location, virgins and wid-
ows were to be found regularly among the audience at synaxis,
79
while
in Hom. in Hebr. 15 John refers to at least one monk among those in
the audience who are laughing and joking and ignoring his sermon.
80
75
See Mayer (1999a) 26769.
76
Ep. 207 (PG 52.72627); and Caner (2002) 192.
77
So we learn that Acacius of Berrhoea was unhappy with the lodging that John
himself provided when he visited the city (Palladius, Dial. 6 (Sources Chrtiennes 34.
126 811)), while the 50 Egyptian monks who arrived at Constantinople to peti-
tion the emperor were housed in a xenon attached to the church of St Anastasia
(Palladius, Dial. 7 (Sources Chrtiennes 341 pp. 150 8791)).
78
E.g., Hom. in Ep. I Tim. 14 and various of the homilies on Matthew.
79
Contra eos qui subintroductae 10.3144, Dumortier (1955) 8081; Mayer (1999b).
80
PG 63.122 57.
478 vrxrv v.vrn
Soci.r Rrsroxsr
81
Poverty, particularly in the form of beggars, evoked a number of re-
sponses, depending on the approach. When beggars sought attention
by resorting to street theatre, they could quickly attract a crowd of
both men and women who would stay for a while and respond pos-
itively by giving the performer bread, or an obol or some other
item.
82
In Hom. in Ep. I ad Cor. 21, John accuses the onlookers of
giving silver coin specically for the purpose of encouraging the beg-
gar to do it again.
83
Slaves, when sent out of the house on an errand
by their masters, are said to be habitually distracted by beggars who
perform conjuring tricks in the agora.
84
More commonly, however,
the response was negative. On being solicited, passers-by habitually
backed away or quickly replied: I dont have anything on me.
85
Equally typical was verbal abuse, accompanied by the demand that
the beggar account for their request for money, by explaining why
they arent employed.
86
Another classic response to poverty in general
was the argument that poor people have a choice and could better
their lot, if they really wanted to, by taking up shop-keepinga
complaint that John heard often.
87
In Hom. in Hebr. 11, John addresses
at some length the complaint that beggars are frauds, who misrep-
resent their plight and exaggerate their claims. While John admits
this is the case, he says that the beggar has some justication, given
the diculty of evoking a response and the sti competition in the
profession. These same people who accuse beggars of being con
artists also claim that if they give a beggar anything, they will imme-
diately turn around and sell it.
88
The response of a small number of individual Christians, on the
other hand, could be quite dierent. At Antioch, the bishop Flavian
had devoted his ancestral home to use as a hostel (xenon) to such an
81
This section provides a brief outline of individual responses to poverty across
society. For a discussion of organised response to poverty via religious bodies see
Mayer and Allen (2000) 4752.
82
Hom. in Ep. I Thess. 11 (PG 62.465 3037).
83
PG 61.177 5458.
84
Hom. in Rom. 4 (PG 60.420 58421 7).
85
Hom. in Act. 8 (PG 60.70 3133 and 71 1920).
86
Hom. in princ. Actorum 2 (PG 51.85 415); Hom. in Hebr. 11 (PG 63.94 2426).
87
Hom. in Phil. 9 (PG 62.251 3541).
88
PG 63.94 3159. Cf. Hom. in Act. 45 (PG 60.320 15). The same passage describes
beggars exposing their mutilated limbs, a practice which passers-by nd oensive.
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 479
extent that John states that it would have been more accurate to
say that it belonged to its inmates rather than to him.
89
The feed-
ing and care of those who stayed there was most likely undertaken
at his own expense. In Constantinople, when the 50 Egyptian monks
arrived and asked John for assistance, although he allowed them ac-
commodation in quarters associated with St Anastasia, it was to cer-
tain women, rather than the resources of the church, that he looked
when posed with the problem of how to feed and care for them.
90
In one of his letters John commends the tribune Marcianus for his
philanthropic activities in the midst of the confusion and persecu-
tion which occurred at Constantinople in the months immediately
following Johns exile. Marcianus, he says, has been caring for orphans
and widows in every possible way, alleviating their poverty and
becoming their protector.
91
Personal patronage of this kind is not
dissimilar to the patronage of the voluntary poor that was observed
above. It is more likely, however, that individuals believed that care
for the poor was the duty of the church via its enrolled lists of wid-
ows, virgins and orphans, and via its institutions for the sick and for
indigent travellers. This attitude is addressed at length in Hom. in
Ep. I Cor. 21 and Hom. in Act. 45.
92
Tnixkixo Poon
The study of poverty in Late Antiquity is not just about the objective
poor, however: it also has a strong subjective dimension. As Brown
has argued in Poverty and Leadership, in Late Antiquity deep poverty
was only one aspect of the subject. Far larger numbers of individu-
als of the middling classes could slide in and out of shallow poverty
a number of times in their lives, while it was fear of impoverishment,
rather than impoverishment itself, that ruled the lives of the majority.
93
In a society where even extremely wealthy citizens could be subject
to sudden conscation of their assets, that anxiety was valid. In a
89
Sermo 1 in Gen. (Sources Chrtiennes 433.170 26171).
90
Palladius, Dial. 7 (Sources Chrtiennes 341.150 8791).
91
Ep. 122 (PG 52.676). Cf. Ep. 217 (PG 52.731), in which Valentinus is said to
be an enthusiastic patron of the poor and is exhorted to extend his support to a
crisis situation involving widows and orphans.
92
PG 61.17980; PG 60.31920.
93
Brown (2002) 1415. Cf. Hom. in Phil. 9 (PG 62.197 26).
480 vrxrv v.vrn
homily delivered at Constantinople John alludes to a sudden upheaval
in which a prominent citizen, now in exile, has had his house, his
estates, his slaves and nancial assets stripped and distributed else-
where.
94
In another homily John tells his audience that the loss of
houses and property to ones enemies is a suciently common occur-
rence that he could, if he wished, name more than one victim who is
still alive.
95
It is more than likely that two of the four female dea-
cons who worked closely with John in Constantinople came into his
orbit because a close male relative of theirs had suered precisely
this fate.
96
Side by side with fear of impoverishment there existed a view of
oneself and ones place in society which identied poverty not as
absolute, but as relative. This emerges most clearly in Johns homilies
when we turn to consider the status of his audiences. Often when
he appears to address the poor in a particular audience, it becomes
clear as the homily progresses that the poor are not necessarily poor
by objective or economic standards. Rather they perceive themselves
as poor by comparison with the identiably rich. In Hom. in illud:
Ne timueritis 1 he raises the probable excuse of the men in his audience
in regard to their poor attendance: I have children, I run a household,
I have the worry of a wife, Im constrained by poverty, Im focused
on getting enough to eat,
97
only to show later that the women wear
gold jewellery around their necks and on their hands.
98
In another
homily he addresses his audiences envy of the rich, but indicates
that their own poverty doesnt extend to not having enough to eat,
nor are they without servants.
99
In Hom. in Col. 1, where a lengthy,
highly exaggerated and hypothetical comparison of wealthy and poor
hospitality is presented, it is noteworthy that the poor host nonethe-
less has a table set with glassware and two servants to handle the
food, even if the food itself is sucient only to satisfy hunger.
100
In
94
Quod frequenter conveniendum sit (PG 63.461 2344). See further Mayer (1999c)
29293.
95
Hom. in Heb. 32 (PG 63.222 4354).
96
Mayer (1999a) 274.
97
PG 55.501 4548.
98
PG 55.507 3247.
99
Hom. in Phil. 2 (PG 62.195 518 and 197.1220). Cf. Libanius orations, which
persistently exaggerate the poverty of those whose case he pleads, but at the same
time suggest that the complainants genuinely viewed themselves in this light (e.g.
Or. 20.3637, 31.1112, and Or. 33 and 45 in general).
100
PG 62.304 3359.
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 481
a society where wealth and patronage, prestige and power are inti-
mately linked, a constant awareness of ones own relative wealth or
poverty is, in a way, inevitable. This self-consciousness about ones
own economic and social standing adds yet another dimension to
the complexity of poverty as both concept and reality in the late
antique city.
Coxcrtsiox: Po\rn+v, Cntncn, .xr Socir+v
The question remains to what extent the images of the poor embed-
ded in the writings of John Chrysostom constitute part of an emerg-
ing discourse on poverty, or reect some kind of social reality specic
to the cities of Antioch and Constantinople. The answer, one suspects,
lies somewhere in between these two poles. Clearly there are elements
which reect a veriable social reality (that is, detail which must
match the audiences personal experience, if it is to have any point).
For instance, when John arrives at church and talks of the beggars
he has passed in the street, or when he writes to supporters at
Constantinople and urges them to care for the widows and orphans
who are suering as a result of the upheaval following his exile, there
can be no question that the poor mentioned in both instances exist
and are in the situation that he describes. At the same time, it is
clear from study of his representation of the situation in Antioch fol-
lowing the overturning of the imperial statues in 387 that John is
selective in discussing real events and that he often deliberately focuses
on only one part of a much larger whole and slants his interpreta-
tion of aairs to suit a particular ecclesiastical position.
101
In this
light, we should expect that Johns portrayal of the poor, no matter
how grounded in reality, is manipulated and ltered in some way, and
we should seek to examine the context in which he oers a particular
picture for some hint as to how to interpret it. In essence, it is prob-
ably as much the similarities in their ecclesiastical and pastoral agenda
as the realia of poverty itself that contribute to recurring elements in
the images of poverty that occur across the writings of the bishops
of this time.
Finally, how does the view of poverty in Late Antiquity that
101
Van de Paverd (1991) Part One; cf. Mayer (2005) 48084.
482 vrxrv v.vrn
emerges from Johns writings correspond with the two most signicant
models that have been put forward: those of E. Patlagean and Brown?
This is an important question, and one that, due to the constraints of
the present work, cannot be answered in full, although a few points
are worthy of brief remark. Both Patlagean and Brown suggest a major
change in the social imagination with regard to public benefaction,
a change that is in process at the time John Chrysostom was preach-
ing and writing.
102
For Patlagean it is a change from a civic to an
economic model of the community; for Brown it is explained in the
emerging role of the bishop as governor of the poor. Johns writings
conrm both of these models, as well as nuancing them. On the one
hand, a concern for wealth and poverty as benchmarks of societal
and self- denition permeates his homilies, while at the same time it
is clear that individual Christians, at least, already have an established
ideal of patronage of the voluntary poor (ascetics), which bears no
connection to the latters economic status. This contrasts with a far
less well established ideal of public benefaction of the economic poor,
which is still overshadowed by a civic model of benefaction.
103
At
the institutional level, on the other hand, organised care by the
church for the poor within a range of categories is well established,
with the bishop explicitly characterised, at least in Antioch, as patron
of the poor.
104
The dierent stages in the process of transformation
at which, through Johns writings, we can observe on the one hand
church versus private benefaction, and on the other private bene-
faction of the voluntary versus economic poor, raises the question
whether another strand must be added to Browns model. This might
be the transformation of the civic to economic model of community
not just via the emergence of the bishop as governor of the poor,
but also via the gradual redirection of public benefaction away from
the citizens of the earthly polis towards the ascetics (the voluntary
poor), who are citizens par excellence of the eternal polis of heaven.
Whatever the answer turns out to be, Johns writings clearly provide
a residue of data about the poor and poverty in Late Antiquity that
rewards careful archaeological scrutiny.
102
Patlagean (1977); Brown (2002).
103
See, e.g., In Eutropium (PG 52.39192), where the chariot races, theatrical
shows and dinner parties sponsored by Eutropius as consul are mentioned.
104
De decem mill. tal. deb. (PG 51.23 1923). On the location of this homily among
those delivered following the riots in 387 C.E., see Valevicius (2000).
ro\rn+v .xr socir+v ix +nr vonrr or onx cnnvsos+ov 483
Binrioon.rnv
Allen P. and Mayer W. (1993) Computer and homily: accessing the everyday life
of early Christians, VigChr 47 (1993) 26080.
(1997) Traditions of Constantinopolitan preaching: towards a new assessment
of where Chrysostom preached what, Byzantinische Forschungen 24 (1997) 93114.
Brown P. (2002) Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Hanover, NH 2002).
Caner D. (2002) Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of
Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 2002).
Dagron G. (1974) Naissance dune capitale. Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 451
(Paris 1974).
Dumortier J. (1955) Saint Jean Chrysostome. Les cohabitations suspectes; Comment observer
la virginit (Paris 1955).
Kurbatov G. (1958) Klassovaja suscnost ucenija Ioanna Zlatausta, Ezegodnik muzeja
istorii i religii i ateiznoz 2 (1958) 80106 (The Nature of Class in the Teaching
of John Chrysostom, Eng. trans. by A. Valevicius, www.cecs.acu.edu.au >
Research > Chrysostom research).
Leyerle B. (1994) John Chrysostom on almsgiving and the use of money, HTR
87 (1994) 2947.
Liebeschuetz J. H. W. G. (1972) Antioch. City and Imperial Administration in the Later
Roman Empire (Oxford 1972).
Mayer W. (1999a) Constantinopolitan women in Chrysostoms circle, VigChr 53
(1999) 26588.
(1999b) Female participation and the Late Fourth-Century preachers audi-
ence, Augustinianum 39 (1999) 13947.
(1999c) Les homlies de s. Jean Chrysostome en juillet 399. A second look
at Pargoires sequence and the chronology of the Nov homili (CPG 4441),
Byzantinoslavica 60/2 (1999) 273303.
(2005) The Homilies of St John Chrysostom: Provenance. Reshaping the foundations
(Rome 2005).
Mayer W. and Allen P. (2000) John Chrysostom (London 2000).
Patlagean E. (1977) Pauvret conomique et pauvret sociale Byzance 4
e
7
e
sicles, (Mouton-
Paris-La Haye 1977).
Petit P. (1955) Libanius et la vie municipale Antioche au IV
e
sicle aprs J.-C. (Paris 1955).
Teja R. with M. Marcos (1996) Olimpiade la diaconessa (c. 395408) (Milan 1996).
Urbainczyk T. (2002) Theodoret of Cyrrhus. The Bishop and the Holy Man (Ann Arbor
2002).
Valevicius A. (2000) Les 24 homlies De statuis de Jean Chrysostome. Recherches
nouvelles, Revue des tudes Augustiniennes 46 (2000) 8391.
van de Paverd F. (1991) St. John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Statues. An Introduction
(Rome 1991).
484 vrxrv v.vrn
THE POOR AND ARCHAEOLOGY
THE URBAN POOR:
FINDING THE MARGINALISED
Steve Roskams
Abstract
Why are archaeologists missing the poor in Late Roman towns? This
paper suggest that we are looking in the wrong place, and need to
concentrate on areas of the townscape beyond its monumental centre;
that we are looking in the wrong way, and need to develop more
sophisticated methodologies in both gathering and analysing data; and
that we are seeing our evidence through inappropriate interpretative
frameworks. To remedy this last state of aairs, we must develop
Marxist approaches dening dierent modes of production, and then
apply them to the analysis of townscapes and landscapes, and to arte-
fact and ecofact assemblages.
Ix+nortc+iox
When the topic of this papernding the marginalised urban poor
was rst proposed, the conference organisers recommended that it be
approached by considering how textual and pictorial evidence might
be related to more purely archaeological perspectives in order to shed
light on the issues involved. They further suggested that the task should
include a survey of the current state of research in this sphere, in
order to dene issues which have been neglected or misunderstood.
In the event, I have found myself attempting very little of this. This
is partly due to a lack of space in the publication, as well as a lack
of expertise and knowledge on my part. More importantly, however,
it is because I believe that solutions will never emerge from surveys
of what is already known, even if such surveys take place with the
objective of pointing out gaps in that knowledge. Rather, we will only
make progress via a critique of how evidence is presently gathered
and interpreted.
In what follows, my strategy will provide an implicit argument
against empiricism, and a criticism of the current emphasis on what
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 487531
are essentially descriptive accounts of the question at hand. Thus I
aim to point out some crucial inadequacies in the way in which the
urban poor have been conceived and characterised, before agging
up alternative perspectives. Inevitably, I approach these issues from
a personal position: as an urban excavator who has worked in major
towns in Britain and North Africa, rather than as a eldworker con-
ducting rural surveys, a textual historian, or a specialist in art history
or architecture; and as a Marxist who believes that the analytical
tools of Historical Materialism are essential for understanding past
societies. On both counts, I run the risk of being seen as parochial
in my interests and understanding. Indeed, I might end up joining
or, rather, failing to leavethe ranks of the marginalised myself !
However, this is a risk worth taking.
What follows will not conne itself especially to the Late Roman
period, and this is so for four reasons. Firstly, it is not clear to me
that it is useful to analyse archaeological material in a periodised
framework that has been dened in relation to well-known political
and military events.
1
The implications of the points put forward
below are relevant to a broader chronological span than just these
centuries. Secondly, such concern about chronological denitions is
linked to that of chronological resolution, and in particular the need
to balance the impact of short-term events such as barbarian incur-
sions against ongoing processes when attempting to facilitate inter-
disciplinary research. To ensure such balance, we clearly need to
have a grasp of longer-term trajectories, and thus to step beyond the
date-ranges dened above. Thirdly, one can only understand social
processes in any one period by reference to preceding periods: there
is much of real interest in the course of change between the early and
the late empire, and this is preferable to a consideration of either
in isolation. Debate of this matter usually revolves around whether
one interprets such change in material or ideological terms, often
raising the equally vexed, but unproductive, issue of whether it is
appropriate to talk of decline or transformation.
2
Fourthly, although
1
See the discussion in the Introduction to the most recent volume of the CAH
(Cameron, Ward-Perkins, and Whitby (2000)) on dening the chronological limits
of Late Antiquity: the many proposed boundary-markers include the rst council
of Ephesus, or the Vandal conquest of North Africa for its start; Ostrogothic defeat
and establishment of Frankish power for its end in the West, and the death of
Maurice and decisive Persian and Arab conquests in the East.
2
Liebeschuetz (2001).
488 s+r\r nosk.vs
in certain areas, the Late Roman empire was clearly dierent from
what preceded it, this is not true of every sphere. Thus the ques-
tion of whether or not it is even useful to distinguish between early
and late (and, if so, what dates should dene each period), is one
that will vary from theme to theme and from context to context. In
short, the analytical utility of the category Late Antiquity, and its
exact chronological boundaries, is something that must be argued
for on a case-by-case basis, rather than assumed in advance.
As is probably clear by now, this paper is deliberately speculative
in tone and content. It deals with issues of theory and method, dis-
cusses the sort of evidence that might be relevant to these, and sug-
gests ways forward. This is, presumably, in keeping with the editors
brief to talk about the problem of the poor and how it might be
rectied. At the end of the process I may not have proven anything
about the specic roles which those marginalised members of society
played in the past, yet I hope to have shown how we can recognise
their critically important position in Antiquity.
Why, then, are we missing the urban poor? My short answer is
that we are looking in the wrong place; that we are looking in the
wrong way; and we are seeing the evidence through less-than-useful
lters. Of these failings, the rst two can be countered by method-
ological and organisational ingenuity, whereas the last will require
greater intellectual energy. I will therefore discuss it in greater detail.
Lookixo ix +nr Rion+ Pr.cr
It seems fairly obvious that, if we are to have contact with the mar-
ginalised of Late Roman society, it will be useful to investigate geo-
graphically-marginal areas. R. Samson,
3
reviewing R. MacMullens
discussion of rural slavery,
4
made the point that, in order to pass
beyond epigraphic sources when elucidating social relations, we need to
understand not just selected high status buildings, but instead the whole
system of landscape development and exploitation. The same goes
for urban contexts: research interests which focus exclusively on mon-
umental structures in town centres become self-fullling all too easily.
3
Samson (1989).
4
Macmullen (1987).
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 489
Paradoxically, some of the best corrections to this tendency to in-
vestigate only central monuments derive from urban rescue excava-
tions which have had, at best, only implicit research goals. Excavations
in Carthage and London, part of my personal eldwork experience,
serve to make the point. The international UNESCO work at the
former town has not only added hugely to our understanding of its
main monuments and their trajectories of development, but has also
investigated sequences of urban infrastructure (roads and water sup-
ply), together with domestic and commercial buildings. In the process,
it has elucidated the changing spatial and chronological relationships
between structures designed for the living, and places for the dis-
posal of the dead, whether in organised cemeteries or more infor-
mal settings. In short, core and periphery, in every sense, have been
the objects of interest.
5
Similarly, a huge volume of evidence concerning Roman London
is now available because of excavations carried out ahead of modern
development over the last thirty years. Hence detailed descriptive
syntheses have been written which cover virtually every aspect of the
city.
6
Beside these works can be set detailed studies of specic themes
(for example, the port of Londinium);
7
of particular functions (indus-
try in Roman Southwark);
8
and of mortuary practices.
9
All this is
underpinned by a vast, detailed archive, which will undergo further
study in the coming decades, and already allows us to look forward
to future research frameworks,
10
as well as back on what we have
already come to know.
Such programmes of urban excavation have not only given us a
more balanced account of a settlements topographical and structural
development, but the numismatic, ceramic, and faunal studies which
they generate also oer a more vibrant understanding of trajectories
of economic development: systems of taxation, trade and exchange,
food supply systems, and so on. When set beside rural surveys, which
themselves allow a more detailed understanding of corresponding (or
5
See Pea et al. (1998) for a recent resum of a variety of types of site, and
Rakob (2000) for how this can be drawn together to provide a synthetic account,
in this case Augustan Carthage.
6
For example by Perring (1991) and Milne (1995).
7
Milne (1985).
8
Hammer (2003).
9
Barber and Bowsher (2000).
10
Nixon et al. (2002).
490 s+r\r nosk.vs
contrasting) trajectories in the countryside, we can signicantly increase
our understanding of the whole process of social and economic devel-
opment. Of course, such matches are the exception rather than the
rule: extensive urban excavation is rarely accompanied by quality
landscape survey in adjacent locations. Yet, where this is the case, town-
hinterland relations can enter the agenda in a more vibrant way that
has been possible hitherto.
11
Much of the above is surely well known. However, I would also
draw attention to one other aspect of this upsurge in accessible, good
quality data, and its interpretation, which might be more contentious.
Commercial excavations carried out in advance of modern develop-
ment have often been criticised, understandably, for a lack of research
direction. Collecting data ahead of the bulldozer can seem, at the
time, more important than constructing research agendas, even when
one already knows that it is indefensible to carry out rescue projects
lacking research outcomes. Yet such work generates its data sets in
a very dierent context from projects carried out for purely acade-
mic reasons. Urban sequences covering extended periods of time are
recorded by teams that operate in much the same way whether they
are documenting Roman, Medieval or even Early Modern periods.
One result is that commercial excavators have developed an inter-
est in urban transitions through time. The interpretative frameworks
which they employ tend to be much less reliant on chronological
structures dened by documentary sources and culture-historical labels.
The above attitudethat ignorance of documentary evidence is bliss
may be unfortunate in the long term, but it means that rescue archae-
ology, unlike research-driven projects, does not only provide information
about the wider townscape, including its marginal areas. More than
this, it has an intellectual impact, a productive questioning of con-
ventional periodisation. It is well known that the inuence of New
Archaeology has always been greater within prehistoric, non-docu-
mented periods, than it has amongst Romanists. However, we should
also recognise that an interest in understanding social process, rather
than explaining change in relation to particular events and named
individuals, has developed more readily amongst excavators of urban
rescue sites than on research projects.
11
See, for example, Perring (2002) for ways forward within England.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 491
Lookixo ix +nr Rion+ W.v
The second issue concerns not so much where in the townscape inves-
tigation takes place, as how it is carried out. It is a commonplace,
even in our supposedly post-modern world, that all excavation rep-
resents an exercise in sampling. The sampling fractionand thus
the level of resolution which we can expect our datasets to incor-
poratecan remain implicit or, better still, be made explicit, as in
the case of M. Carvers recovery levels when excavating the early
medieval site of Sutton Hoo.
12
Either way, decisions taken at this
formative stage about what to record and collect obviously aect the
types of interpretation that can be reached thereafter.
A good example of the implications of sampling strategies comes
from my own work in the Roman town and associated military camp
of Lambaesis in Algeria. French excavators, working here earlier in
the 20th c., were explicitly interested in the relationship between Roman
and native in Numidia and how this may have changed through
time.
13
This was clearly a signicant research question, yet the large-
scale excavations of the civilian town that were designed in order to
answer it focussed on the sites central public buildings. This involved
detailed consideration of monumental architecture, spatial analysis of
the organisation of movement through bath complexes, and so forth.
Not surprisingly, given this approach, native impact on urban develop-
ment seemed minimal. Our own more recent work in the town,
however, looked at detailed stratigraphic sequences in restricted areas,
rather than clearing large zones, and concerned itself with deposit
formation and the contents of apparently amorphous earth layers
overlying proper archaeology. In addition, we collected a more com-
plete range of ceramics, faunal materials, and other everyday mate-
rial. One result was that we were able to suggest that the superstructure
of many buildings in the 3rd c. town were comprised not of full
stone walls, as was previously assumed, but instead were constructed
from masonry foundations surmounted by mud-brick superstructures.
This interpretation, though hardly unique or earth shattering in itself,
does not just fundamentally alter the architectural reconstruction of
the town centre, it also indicates the use of a local building technique,
12
Carver (1986) Table 6.
13
See Janon (1973) for detail, and Mattingly (1997) for the wider social and
political context of their work.
492 s+r\r nosk.vs
rather than an approach imported by the military, thus throwing
interesting new light on Roman/native dynamics. By looking beyond
art historical and architectural contexts, and by sampling a dierent
range of archaeological data, we can provide new answers to what
is seemingly the same question.
Of course, problems abound in trying to apply such methods in
long-lived settlements, especially if they are overlain by modern cities.
Furthermore, these problems can reach a high level of complexity
when dealing with late antique levels, although it is these very prob-
lems which makes this period the most challenging, and stimulating
to understand archaeologically. Hence stratigraphic distinctions are
usually tenuous, especially in the period of the 4th6th c. (an issue
which itself indicates something important about the character of
occupation at that time). Further, the complex sequences of super-
imposed structures occupied at this time often used diverse building
materials, which were then robbed at the end of their life. Elucidating
structural development in such circumstances can be very dicult.
Indeed, answering even seemingly straightforward questions, such as
the date of a buildings demise, can be beyond our grasp: most mate-
rial in robber trenches derives from any tidying of the site and thus
dates to the subsequent development of the area, rather than the
earlier dismantling of buildings. Hence, if a part of the townscape
remained open but derelict for some generations, it may be dicult
to recognise such gaps in the occupation sequence. Finally, the rede-
position of datable nds from lower to higher levels in the course
of new construction creates severe problems, as does the recycling
of building materials in those new structures. Continuing general cir-
culation of artefacts well after their original date of production, and
the curation of specic kinds of material culture, in combination
allow the establishment of chronological boundaries that remain
fuzzy for dening successive periods of urban activity. These types
of stratigraphic sequence can seldom be usefully set against histori-
cally-dated political or military upheavals.
The above problems are surely familiar to all excavators of Late
Roman towns, and we are slowly coming to terms with their solutions:
a concentration on site formation processes; greater clarity in strati-
graphic analysis; increasingly explicit strategies for investigating arte-
fact and ecofact assemblages; and more coherent ways of integrating
the results of dierent specialist research. Ultimately it should be
possible to provide a convincing synthesis of diverse trajectories of
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 493
urban development during these critical centuries. Yet, beyond where
we look for the urban poor, and how we do so, there remains a deeper
problem in our approach to the interpretation of Late Roman urban
material culture. This revolves around the critical, but questionable,
assumptions which we employ when endeavouring to see social rela-
tions in general, and the poor in particular, in the archaeological
record. The issue will be considered in the following section.
Srrixo ix +nr Rion+ W.v
It is presumed by many commentators that, when archaeologists
excavate large monuments, we become acquainted with imperial ide-
ology, and equally that when we investigate wealthy homes, we elu-
cidate the lives of urban elites. There is a sense in which this is
obviously true: the rulers of the empire dominated monumental archi-
tectural tastes and occupied the wealthy houses that were built for
them. Yet it should be acknowledged that, in uncovering such struc-
tures, we are also making contact with other levels of society. This is
true not merely in the sense that slaves and other servants may have
lived in or near elite residences, and certainly worked in them too, or
that lower levels of society played a role in ceremonies carried out
in association with urban monuments such as temples and amphithe-
atres. Over and above this, we need to recognise that those at the base
of society were essential at all times to every aspect of elite lifestyle:
the construction of public and wealthy domestic buildings, the pro-
duction of the vessels from which the privileged ate, and the trans-
port and cooking of the food which they consumed (together with
the discard of any uneaten residues), were all a product of the labour
of people other than those elites.
It follows from the above argument that the poor are embodied in
the urban archaeological record at every level and in every way: we
do not have to go to the edge of town in order to nd them, as they
are essential to, and therefore exist within, its core activities. The
production of the material culture which upper class society needed
to support its lifestyle was a result of a relationship between them
and the people whom they exploited. Given the background of con-
temporary Roman authors, it is unsurprising that such relationships
were rarely considered in their writings, especially in terms of those
at the very base of Roman society. Indeed, it has even been argued
494 s+r\r nosk.vs
that such attitudes explain their appeal to later classicists: one set of
country landowners talking the same language as those who shared
a corresponding class background in the 18th19th c.
14
Much less
excusable is the tendency within the majority of much more recent
research to further marginalise the poor by choosing to ignore the
fact that Antiquity was constructed on the basis of their oppression.
By theorising the various exploitative mechanisms that may have
existed between dierent groups in the Late Roman world, we can
begin to understand their changing positions inside that society. In
what follows, I will rst argue that we need to focus on the process
of production. I will then consider the Marxist notion of a mode
of production, before attempting to dene four forms of surplus
extraction which may have existed in Late Antiquity.
A Focus on Production
The framework of the conference on which this publication is based
employed an explicit, three-fold social division: elites and their mon-
umental structures; artisans who resided in workshops; and the poor
beyond this, who are seen as somehow dicult (if not impossible)
to contact archaeologically. Although one might question the valid-
ity and utility of these divisions, they do have the merit of posing
two critical questions: rstly, how are we to dene the various types
of social relations which may have existed in Antiquity, and secondly,
can this be done in ways which are archaeologically useful? Clearly,
there are those who nd the whole attempt inappropriate or doomed
to failure. Tying social categories explicitly to legal status, they decide
(probably correctly) that they are not susceptible to archaeological
analysis. Thus, for example, P. Van Ossel states that . . . property
is a notion that archaeologists cannot study.
15
In a similar vein,
J.-P. Sodinis discussion of the countryside seeks free peasants in vil-
las, tenants on farms and workers in hovels, but when archaeology
fails to recognise such distinctions, it is seen as a dead-end. Hence,
with the peasantry, we have . . . no access to their relationship with
the land.
16
Even B. Ward-Perkins, who generally takes a more pos-
itive view of the potential of archaeological evidence, maintains that
14
Parenti (2003).
15
Van Ossel and Ouzoulias (2000).
16
Sodini (2003) 52.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 495
we need written sources to understand how land was shared out
(because this sharing is seen in purely legal terms).
17
In sum, for
such authors, archaeology may be able to identify very broad social
distinctions but is insuciently ne-grained to discriminate detailed
social contrasts. Thus, without epigraphy, all social commentary by
archaeologists is simply guesswork.
At rst glance, general documentary evidence may seem to pro-
vide a better way forward. On this basis, Ward-Perkins ags up some
general developments occurring in Late Antiquity:
18
an increase in
ecclesiastical landholdings; and growing numbers of coloni, as the state
attempted to tie producers to the land in a more formal fashion (evi-
dence for some of the inexibility of the late empire, and for others
a link to feudal serfdom). He also notes some geographical contrasts:
villagers in the eastern empire collected their own taxes and paid
them to the governor (and were named in relation to those villages),
whereas the rural West embodied a preponderance of scattered farm-
steads; rural slaves appear more common in the West than the East,
though they are rarely gathered into large blocks of production. Yet
well-known problems abound at every turn with such interpretations.
How typical are these documented examples? Are growing ecclesi-
astical estates more apparent than real, because the church controlled
literacy and simply stored its records more eectively than other
institutions? Is the colonate really concerned with control of slave or
wage labour per se, or simply with binding producers to the land to
facilitate taxation?
19
And, ultimately, if laws concerning land tenure
were only enacted, then re-enacted, because they were being broken,
do they really provide an accurate picture of what was actually hap-
pening on the ground? Such conclusions concerning the inadequa-
cies of both archaeological and documentary sources are more than
a little demoralising. To begin to counter their impact, it is neces-
sary to step beyond legalistic denitions and focus on the various
ways in which power may have operated in Antiquity, and in par-
ticular the power of one group to exploit another in the process of
production.
17
Ward-Perkins (2000a) 336.
18
Ward-Perkins (2000a).
19
Banaji (2001). Or is it perhaps just a construct of modern scholarship (Carri
(1982))?
496 s+r\r nosk.vs
There is clear evidence that Late Roman society employed a com-
plex range of production processes: its state-run factories required
a signicant division of labour; its professional army needed to be
supported by supplies from the land; and its town life had to be sus-
tained. (The latter remains the case even if late antique urbanism
was fundamentally dierent from earlier periods: landowning elite
citizens may have given way to a burgeoning secular and ecclesiastical
bureaucracy, but this new set of essentially unproductive mouths still
had to be housed and fed, just as much as their predecessors did.)
Each element of this social structure implies the existence of a range
of underlying mechanisms of surplus extraction, and thus the possibility
of investigating essential economic relations. Yet, for some com-
mentators, a focus on the realities of production is no more promis-
ing than those legal emphases explored above. For example, in an
echo of the foregoing worries, a recent discussion of North African
olive oil suggests that its mechanisms of production are far from
clear.
20
More generally, it has been proposed that business systems in
Antiquity are too complex to be grasped from the available doc-
umentary evidence, although the same author interestingly sees it as
unproblematic to approach the archaeological evidence on the basis
of the empire representing the gradual globalization of the market
economy.
21
The implications of such statements seem obvious: either
we are simply in the dark concerning production and will remain
so, or we must assume the existence of ahistorical economic rela-
tions based on modern capitalism. Either way, true historical analy-
sis is precluded, which leads us back to square one.
22
To avoid this conclusion, it is necessary to return to the key issue
of surplus extraction. In his brilliant analysis of ancient society, G. de
Ste. Croix rst took apart M. Webers sociological approach to ancient
history,
23
and he then proceeded to construct an alternative based
on a dierent conception of class, which he saw as representing a
relationship of exploitation. This notion forms a foundation for what
follows here. For Marxists, exploitation and resistance to exploitation
are central to all complex societies: conict (whether open or hidden)
20
Mattingly et al. (2001) 83.
21
Aubert (2001) 91.
22
Although see Wickham (1984) for a vibrant rejection of both alternatives.
23
de Ste. Croix (1983) 85. Thus, by implication, he also deconstructed
M. Finleys classication by status.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 497
lies at the heart of society. Marx put forward a specic analytical
toolthe mode of productionin order to dene various forms of
surplus extraction. It is this pivotal concept, dening the relationship
between elite and poor, which can be used to counter the latters
marginalisation in our discussions of Antiquity.
Dening the Mode of Production
For Marx, any mode of production consisted of two elements: the
forces and the relations of production. The former comprise, in essence,
people working collectively, using the technical knowledge lodged in
their brains in order to operate tools which act on the resources of
the landscape to full their material needs: food, shelter, and so forth.
However, particular societies may develop to a point which allows
production beyond bare subsistence. When part of this surplus gen-
erated by the forces of production is alienated from the control of
its direct producers, a second component comes into being: relations
of production. Marx saw these relations determining dierent types
of mode. Thus, in an oft-repeated phrase from Capital, he proposed
that the specic form in which this unpaid surplus labour is pumped
out of the direct producers determines the relationship between those
who dominate and those who are in subjection.
24
It is important to recognise the signicance of Marxs precise for-
mulation in this case. Firstly, these two components need not have a
unique relation, with one set of forces being linked with just one set
of relations of production, although a particular combination of each
will dene a unique mode. Secondly, relations of production do not,
as J. Haldon implies, simply dene the way in which direct pro-
ducers and means of production are combined;
25
rather, they dene
the way in which this is done for the purposes of the formers exploitation.
Both facets have considerable importance for the denition of dierent
sorts of modes (something to be discussed below in greater detail).
Before putting more meat on these bare bones, it is necessary to note
some areas of misunderstanding which have derived from this delib-
erately abstract denition, especially in the work of those wishing to
caricature Marxism. These misunderstandings concern the role of a
24
Marx (1981) 927.
25
Haldon (1993) 57.
498 s+r\r nosk.vs
mode of production in analysis; the fundamental causes of social
change; the predictability, or otherwise, of trajectories of such devel-
opment; and the notion of the state.
Firstly, a mode of production is not itself a stage in social devel-
opment but an heuristic device, an analytical tool designed to facil-
itate comparisons between dierent social formations. Hence modes
do not, in themselves, develop: rather, it is the social formations,
embodying a combination of dierent modes in dierent proportions
and relationships, which do so.
26
In the modern world, wage labour
in its various guises clearly dominates economic activity, and quickly
drives out earlier forms of surplus extraction wherever it encounters
them. Past social formations, in contrast, were characterised by
dierent modes functioning alongside each other, although one par-
ticular mode of production could be expected to be dominant at
any one time. Yet even this dominant mode need not dene how the
bulk of production was carried out in that society. Any one mode of
production simply denes how an exploiting class acted in order to
ensure the delivery of the surplus which it needed to sustain its posi-
tion. This can be a small proportion of production as a whole (though,
of course, its existence and maintenance was crucial to the elite in
question).
Secondly, in the process of dening dierent forms of surplus extrac-
tion, a mode of production also identies a specic, underlying, struc-
tural dynamic within a particular social formation, thus producing
not a static model but one with an inherent focus upon social process:
change, or at least the potential for change, is pivotal to Historical
Materialist analyses. Further, Marx had an explicit view on how we
should understand this process, on how one dominant mode might
be replaced by another. For him, the growing ability of an elite to
extract surplus from producers could, initially, facilitate increased
production beyond subsistence to support that class. However, there
will come a point when these developments in the forces of pro-
duction mean that, instead of the associated relations of production
facilitating economic development, they begin in fact to restrict it.
When relations of production become fetters in this way, periods of
social upheaval will result. Before wage labour became the dominant
form and allowed internal expansion of the forces of production,
26
Anderson (1978).
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 499
these changes took the form of extensive development through the
conquest of land and natural resources. This factor, lying at the core
of the so-called Brenner Debate,
27
applies in a general sense to all
pre-capitalist formations, although it has mostly been discussed in
the context of technological change within medieval society.
Failure to understand these matters, which for me form the essence
of any truly Marxist analysis of change, has led to a variety of mis-
leading questions. In particular T. Byres has raised the issue of which
of the two components, either the forces or the relations of produc-
tion, should be seen as dominant within a mode.
28
In fact Marxs
analytical work is quite clear. Relations of production provide the
dening characteristic of any mode (how surplus is pumped out of pro-
ducers). However, when seeking to understand social change (i.e. to apply
such tools of analysis to the real world), it is developments in the
forces of production that have the pivotal role in determining when
relations change from facilitating to fettering further economic progress.
Thirdly, although Marx had views on the underlying dynamics of
social change, as outlined above, he maintained that specic trajectories
cannot be simply read o from our knowledge of a particular mode.
Crises will occur in any society based on exploitation, but the out-
come of such upheavals is not pre-determined. Not only did dierent
modes of production exist alongside each other, but changes in social
formation did not proceed in a simple, unidirectional fashion. Hence,
there is no reason why society should always move towards the gen-
eration of greater amounts of economic surplus, and thus develop
increasingly complex forms of social organisation on the basis of the
circulation of that surplus: tributary relations, for example, were not
pre-ordained give way to feudal, and then capitalist relations (these
categories are further dened below). Indeed, reduced social com-
plexity is not just theoretically possible but, in my view, actually tran-
spired in certain parts of the former Roman empire in the course
of later centuries. The point here is that with Marxism, just as with
other interpretative perspectives, we must engage in empirical enquiry
in order to understand what happened in the past.
A nal issue concerns the relationship between modes of production
and the state itself. Haldon has been particularly useful in his dis-
27
Aston and Philpin (1985).
28
Byres (1985) 6. He goes on (n. 4) to suggest that Marx argued for each being
dominant at dierent times.
500 s+r\r nosk.vs
cussion of the complex issues surrounding the latters denition and
formation, showing how its authority must be recognised as legiti-
mate and exclusive (an ideological element), and that the ruling estab-
lishment must have a monopoly over the use of coercion (a material
element).
29
Such states are likely to generate impersonalised and insti-
tutionalised techniques with which to support themselves, involving the
evolution of a bureaucratic elite, perhaps with its own resource base
and identity, to operate the associated recording and accounting sys-
tems. If the process of state formation evolves eectively, what begins
as ideological hegemony may move towards consensual identity, for
example via the use of the ritual penetration of a temple system.
Furthermore, any state will not always simply act in accordance with
the ruling class that established it. Such an institution, though always
reliant on existing surplus extraction methods, can adapt to new con-
ditions and evolve as the latter change. Much productive analysis
has taken place on the basis of these characteristics of a state, not
least from Haldon himself, who has discussed the complex process
of interaction between this component of the superstructure and the
tributary relations at the base of society, both at specic stages of
development and through time more generally.
30
Indeed, the state
may be the critical component when explaining diverse development.
31
Yet, despite their clarity, these formulations can pose problems in
social analysis. Any stress on the ideological aspects of the state raises
the issue of the relationship between ideas and material circumstances.
Furthermore a state does not, in itself, dene a particular mode of
production. Both its initial form, and its subsequent evolution, can only
be understood in relation to the constituent modes which dene any
specic social formation. Failure to insist on the analytical priority
of the mode of production can quickly lead to an abstract notion of
the state. Thus H. Berktay has viewed medieval social development
as a process of rent-taking, something that requires the development
of a state to represent the feudal elite. This institution then imposes
its own apparatus on both the old feudal aristocracy and the peas-
antry alike.
32
Similarly, C. Wickhams now classic article on the other
29
Haldon (1993) 32.
30
Haldon (1993).
31
See, for example, Harman (2004) on the failure of mercantile power to lay
foundations for capitalist development by breaking the hold of the Chinese state,
because of the latters continuing role in the maintenance of vital canal systems.
32
Berktay (1987) 311.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 501
transition, from Antiquity to feudalism, proposed a contrast between
taking surplus from individual households and from whole communities.
This distinction, although potentially of great analytical utility, was
expressed in terms of rent (paid to individual landlords) versus tax
(paid to the state). As a result, the state becomes cast adrift from
production: social relations become aligned, not with the interests
of the landlord, but with those of the state
33
which is dependent
on the good will of no power group
34
and supported by its own
mode of appropriation of surplus.
35
Wickhams use of tax in this
instance is not as a mode of production in the classic Marxist sense,
but rather simply as a mechanism for supporting the imperial
bureaucracy and the army via urban systems.
36
In sum, a taxing state
can be under-pinned by various forms of surplus extraction (modern
nation states maintain themselves, ultimately, from prots generated
by wage labour; medieval states drew, for the most part, on the
exploitation of peasantry via tribute, rent taking, or similar). States
and modes of production are fundamentally dierent from one
another, and any attempt to amalgamate them as examples of state
societies runs the risk of creating an overly blunt analytical tool.
Dening Dierent Modes
Marxists therefore face a threefold challenge: to classify dierent modes
of production as analytical categories; to consider how they might
be recognised archaeologically; and hence, to discover by empirical
enquiry how their relative importance may have changed in space
and through time. It is this process of classication, modelling, and
investigation which is key to establishing the relationship between
the prominent rich and the marginalised poor of the Late Roman
world. Unsurprisingly the rst taskdening the dierent ways in
which surplus might be taken from producershas not proven easy.
A scheme is required which is internally consistent and true to Marxs
notion of forces and relations of production, yet at the same time is
relevant to the real world: too small a number of modes will render
them unable to explain signicant changes in that world; too great
33
Wickham (1984) 12.
34
Wickham (1984) 14.
35
Wickham (1984) 12.
36
See also Haldon (1993) 89.
502 s+r\r nosk.vs
a number would match each mode with a single historical situation,
and so empty them of analytical content. The latter is particularly
regrettable if the objective of our analyses is to allow comparisons
and contrasts between social formations to emerge.
Some, naturally, have turned directly to the writings of Marx and
Engels themselves for a starting point. However, as Wickham has noted,
any concepts which these two put forward must be set in context
of their writing as a whole, and some contexts allow for looser usage
than others.
37
Hence Marx wrote about Asiatic and Ancient modes
alongside communal, slave, feudal and capitalist ones: in con-
trast modern commentators, would generally wish to avoid this use
of geographical or chronological terminology, not least to retain a
clear distinction between an existing social formation and the mode
as an analytical tool.
38
In addition, for the reasons explored above,
I think it useful to shun the notion of a taxation mode of pro-
duction. In what follows, therefore, I propose a four-fold distinction:
1. tributary relations, in which some form of overarching bureau-
cracy (royal, religious, etc.) took surplus from its followers on the
basis of social allegiance, whether in kind (perhaps annually), or
in the form of primitive money.
2. feudal relations, in which elites took surplus on a household-by-
household basis, either by rent in kind (including share-cropping)
or in cash.
3. slave relations, in which owners employed unfree labour to inter-
vene directly in production, whether in agriculture, domestic con-
texts, or elsewhere.
4. capitalist relations, in which producers were entirely dispossessed
of any control of the economic process and forced to work for a
wage in a context dened, in its entirety and in every detail, by
a ruling class. The latter took the prots from such exploitation
and invested it in revolutionising the forces of production, demand-
ing labour mobility to ensure a quick response to changing, dynamic
conditions.
Some elements on this list are straightforward, and others are more
controversial. All Marxists, for example, would agree that the capitalist
37
Wickham (1985).
38
See Reynolds (1994) 13 on forestalling a confusion of words, concepts, and
concrete phenomena: the least signicant of the three is the word itself.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 503
mode is qualitatively dierent from what came before it, and most
accept that slavery, though rarely dominant in early class societies,
is equally distinctive. But what of other pre-capitalist, non-slave, for-
mations? Here it is necessary to tackle an ongoing debate concern-
ing whether feudal rent-taking and tribute extraction are really
qualitatively dierent from each other, or are merely variations within
a single mode. This issue, derived initially from Marxs fairly brief
discussion of an Asiatic mode in relation to the impact of British
rule on India,
39
has been given a new lease of life in recent decades by
the work of S. Amin, and his attempt to make Marxism less Euro-
centric.
40
In part, his aims are both understandable and welcome:
do we really want to nd ourselves aligned with von Ranke, whose
intentions to write universal history ended up portraying European
states as living, individual organisms and India and China as in eter-
nal repose?
41
Or, when researching African social development over
extended periods of time, do we wish to travel down an analytical
dead-end stretching back to Hegel, which holds that the sub-Sahara
is so undeveloped that writing its history is out of the question and
the only African history worth teaching is the history of Europeans
in Africa?
42
Most archaeologists here nd themselves much closer to
Saids critique of orientalism.
Yet Amin, in ghting against such reactionary attitudes towards
non-European history, may have thrown out the baby with the bath-
water. He portrays all societies as moving from primitive commu-
nism, to the tributary stage, and then to capitalist relations: three
necessary stages of development.
43
Western Europe, and its parti-
cular feudal development, represents a peripheral o-shoot of tribu-
tary relations, albeit one which happens, due to its structural weaknesses
and level of underdevelopment, to generate the rst forms of capi-
talism (an example, in Trotskys pithy epithet, of the privilege of
historic backwardness). For Amin, tribute and rent are essentially
the same thing: surplus taken by non-economic means after the point
of production. H. Berktay has furthered this notion of a universal,
pre-capitalist, mode in respect of Turkey,
44
as has Haldon, rstly in
39
Callinicos (1995) 154.
40
Amin (1976); Amin (1980); Amin (1997).
41
von Ranke (1983).
42
Trevor-Roper (1965) 9.
43
Amin (1980) 15. The use of slavery in the Ancient world is of limited inter-
est to him.
44
Berktay (1987).
504 s+r\r nosk.vs
relation to Byzantium,
45
and then with Late Roman and Early
Medieval society more generally.
46
Thus the latter, after rightly crit-
icising Soviet scholars for interpretations that view western feudalism
as a simple synthesis of Roman slave mode and Germanic tribal-
ism/communalism, then went on to suggest that tax and rent both
depend on a peasant producing class occupying and exploiting its
holdings.
47
Naturally, the process of surplus appropriation may take
a variety of forms at a political-juridical (i.e. superstructural) level,
yet this only aects the rate of exploitation,
48
not its underlying form.
Any society in which coercion is achieved by extra-economic forces
should therefore be seen as part of the same mode of production,
to be called the tributary mode.
In my view, this attempt to collapse tributary and feudal mecha-
nisms into a single mode is mistaken. The representation of all pre-
capitalist, peasant-based, societies as essentially the same robs the
concept of its explanatory power. Instead, it creates a general descrip-
tive category which sees the world as a single, undierentiated struc-
ture and fails to elucidate the diverse trajectories of social and
technological developments in those societies. In part, it is Wickhams
misleading notion of a taxation mode which has allowed Haldon
and Berktay the space in which to make their arguments. They start
by noting that the exploitative mechanisms which underpin pre-cap-
italist states involve exploiting peasantry in order to support an army,
salaried scal ocers, and so forth. They then observe that this sys-
temtaxationis not a distinctive form of surplus extraction, but is
merely a secondary redistribution of surplus: tax and rent are not
dierent modes. Tensions between central government, provincial
rulers, and local elites can, they acknowledge, have signicant impacts.
Field armies of the Late Roman state, for example, may fragment
into private militia, or a constitutionally dened urban oligarchy may
be replaced by one operating behind closed doors, as state ocials
cast o the democratic control of fellow citizens. Yet these seem-
ingly important changes are interpreted as products of intra-class
conict within a single mode, in which the underlying relationship
of peasantry to the land was unchanged.
45
Haldon (1989).
46
Haldon (1993) 63.
47
Haldon (1989) 10.
48
Haldon (1993) 67.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 505
The above arguments fail to acknowledge an essential point: truly,
tax and rent are not dierent modes, because, as argued above, the
former is not a mode of production at all. The mistake, I believe,
arises from misunderstanding the essence of relations of production.
The mode of production denes class as a relational property: there
can be no such thing as a class of peasantry in isolation, as it only
exists relative to an exploiting class. Thus, when using the concept
to understand a process of exploitation, the question should be: what
units of appropriation are useful in our analyses? Amin et al. see
all peasant produces as essentially the same. Yet the issue of whether,
for the purposes of taking their surplus, the peasantry are dened as
single households or as collections of the same seems, to me, to be of
considerable theoretical and empirical importance. If groups of peasant
households are exploited as a community, this imposes certain limita-
tions and possibilities on the processes involved. Elite authority has
no incentive, or real power, to dictate how production and removal
of surplus might take place within the community, and the latter
may in fact have considerable latitude in the landscape (in how it
divides up economic functions, for example, and how it moves between
dierent zones over time). In contrast, if peasant households give up
their surplus as individual households (which we can call rent-taking, as a
shorthand), this more direct and individual form of exploitation allows
elite authority to exert a much greater control over the means of pro-
duction, as well as the power to tie producers down to specic plots
of land and so forth, thus explaining, inter alia, the dramatic expan-
sion of agricultural production in parts of Early Medieval Europe.
There is a second aspect of this argument. If tributary and feudal
relations are collapsed on the basis that both involve extra-economic
coercion, logic dictates that slavery and wage labour should equally
be seen as parts of a single mode, as both embody exploitation in the
process of production.
49
Yet many Marxist commentators have been
at pains to note the structural dierences which result from using
real slaves as opposed to wage slaves. The former are the individual
belongings of a single master; are subject to physical force, usually at
the start of enslavement and continuously thereafter, often on a daily
basis (real punishment thus involves the removal of food and shelter);
and subsist within an institution which acts as a substitute for death
49
Patterson (1979) 54 comes close to this position in the claim that slavery is
just capitalism with its clothes o.
506 s+r\r nosk.vs
(which in fact constitutes social death, creating as it does a social
isolate with no kin relations, no honour, no legal property and, ulti-
mately, no existence outside the owner). The position of workers
under capitalism diers in many fundamental ways: they are owned
by a whole system; their essence, as a class, involves being free to
be pushed into new economic roles as the economy develops; and
they must work to retain food and shelter (real physical force is used
in the modern world only as a last resort). If we collapse slave labour
and wage labour into a single set of relations, presumably called cap-
italism, such distinctions become simply superstructural, rather than
the essential, basic dierences they so clearly are. I cannot see how
any of this would aid social analysis.
Having argued that retaining the distinction between rent and trib-
ute, and between slave labour and wage labour, does not conict
with the fundamental principles of Historical Materialism, and may
be analytically useful, one empirical concession can yet be made to
Haldons and Berktays arguments. As tribute-taking and rent-taking
both involve extra-economic coercion, they are closer in form to
each other than either is to slave or capitalist modes. Imposing the
latter modes requires that once-free peasant producers are either
forced from their land and required to work for wages, or are actu-
ally owned by a master and devoid of all human dignity. As history
shows us, enforcing such new conditions was always a traumatic and
dicult process. Thus, in the real world, one might expect changes
between rent and tribute to be achieved more readily than any move
from either towards slave or capitalist development. This also explains
the problem in distinguishing rent and tribute empirically (although
this is not, in itself, a reason to avoid the distinction analytically).
Arrrvixo Morrrs +o D.+.
In order to use these tools to analyse concrete past social formations,
it is useful to rst outline some general views of social development
in Antiquity. Here, amongst Marxist and non-Marxist commentators
alike, there exists a fair consensus concerning the impact of the cre-
ation of empire although, inevitably, there is rather less agreement
on the detailed dynamics which underpin it and their relative impor-
tance. In contrast, agreement on general interpretations of subse-
quent changes and their causes, both in Late Antiquity and beyond,
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 507
is much harder to identify. This is perhaps only to be expected, as
theorising the diverse responses to social crises and analysing frag-
mentation was always going to be more dicult than dealing with
expansion and consolidation: hence the challenge, and attraction, of
the later period. After outlining these generalised accounts of Roman
development, this section will consider the archaeological recogni-
tion of social change, both in the broad spheres of rural landscapes
and of townscapes, and in the more specic areas involving arte-
factual and ecofactual evidence.
General Developments
Debate still rages over the nature of the Roman empire and whether
its development was engendered by economic or ideological factors.
For non-Marxists this raises the issue of whether it was a creation
of conscious imperial policy or an accidental by-product of other
forces,
50
and such questions inevitably blend into discussion of the
relationship between any such policy and the rationale put forward
by Roman authors to explain their conquests. For Marxist analyses,
in contrast, the question of whether expansion was actively promoted
towards certain ends and, in either case, of how Roman elites sought
to justify the process of take-over to themselves, is not an appro-
priate departure point for fundamental analysis, interesting though
it might be to know about such matters.
Notwithstanding these disputed points, there is considerable con-
sensus about the twin impacts of that expansion: the non-Marxist
overview by K. Hopkins
51
sees things in much the same light as the
position statement by the Historical Materialist, E. M. Wood.
52
Initially, peasantry were incorporated into the army as citizen soldiers
in the dynamic of conquest. Their absence from the imperial core
allowed elites who remained back home to appropriate more land
and thus concentrate their holdings. Subsequently, conquest spawned
considerable supplies of slaves and they, in places, replaced peasant
producers with their labour. In this way, continuous warfare inter-
acted with the booty derived from newly acquired territories to impov-
erish peasants in Italy. The latters emigration to towns (resulting,
50
See, for example, the contrasting positions in Harris (2004); Rich (2004).
51
Hopkins (2004), summarised in his g. 4.
52
Wood (2003).
508 s+r\r nosk.vs
for Hopkins, in the growth of urban markets) and to provinces beyond
Italy were a clear consequence of their alienation from these land-
holdings. Furthermore, supplies of slaves were generated even during
the initial conquest of Italy illustrating that, from its very inception,
the Roman empire was involved with the process of enslavement
and the resultant impacts on its peasantry.
Additional work by Italians of the Carandini school has begun
to add more archaeological detail to this general characterisation.
53
Thus, in contrast to earlier views which viewed slaves as unsuited
to rural production outside wine and oil, more recent data suggests
that they were initially used for ranching, perhaps to aid army food
supply, and subsequently for cereal production in Sicily and Campania.
Only later was their full impact felt on estates growing vines and olives,
a further expansion that allowed these products to be sold on to Gaul
and Spain. This specic evidence serves to reinforce both the for-
mative role of slaves in supporting imperial structures (ensuring that
the army was fed must always have been of fundamental importance
to the empire, for example), and the signicance of newly acquired
territories in providing additional markets for their products.
In sum, ancient society embodied a mixture of dierent modes of
production: a combination of tenant farmers, share-croppers, inde-
pendent peasantry and freedman artisans, all set beside increasing
amounts of slave labour. The creation of the Roman empire engen-
dered, in essence, two contradictory forces. On the one hand, con-
solidation of elite landholdings meant that existing tributary relations,
based on vertical social allegiances, became stretched. Although all
remained tied together, in theory, by bonds of citizenship, one sec-
tion came to control more and more land at the expense of those
below them. These changes in material circumstances meant that
the objective interests of dierent levels of citizens diverged. On the
other hand, increasing slave supplies meant that the more extreme
examples of conicting interests within that body could be mediated
by the introduction of a new mode of production, removing the need
for citizen to work directly for citizen on the land and for one to
serve the other in the home. These twin processes, of stretched social
allegiances and the replacement of tributary with slave relations in
53
See reviews by Rathbone (1983) and Wickham (1988) for convenient sum-
maries of its main implications.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 509
critical sectors of the economy, should both be evident in the archae-
ological record.
There is less consensus concerning the ways in which these processes
played out in the course of Late Antiquity. How far was slave pro-
duction exported beyond this Italian core? C. Whittaker, though
questioning whether an overall drop in slave numbers is as evident
as is it is often assumed to be by others, accepts that the use of
slaves in Gaul and Africa was more common in households than in
the landscape, which remained dominated by tenant farming.
54
Most
commentators agree that some sort of economic rupture of the sys-
tem occurred in the course of the 2nd c. A.D., but its causes are
disputed. A. Carandini and his school see this as a result of the impact
of provincial competition on Italy, and Wickham has suggested this
may have led to a move from slave to tenant producers, the latter
being more exible and thus able to respond to the unpredictabil-
ity of Roman commerce.
55
This use of long-distance exchange and its markets to explain gen-
eral social and economic development is commonplace in discussions
of Antiquity, yet such a role is problematic. Detailed explanations
of the trading system are complicated by a lack of data,
56
but its ini-
tial expansion is clear, as is its reorientation on the eastern
Mediterranean and its eventual demise, rst in the West and then
the East. How has this general patterning been interpreted? A crit-
ical issue here concerns the nature of exchange activity. The view of
some commentators, particularly historians, is that such systems are
integral with the demands of the state, and the result is a kind of
administered trade. But the state was much more concerned with
moving grain than it was with the movement of oil amphorae and
ceramic table-wares.
57
So how did this relationship between dierent
exchange dynamics work in reality? The response, particularly amongst
archaeologists, is to interpret the pottery evidence in terms of sup-
ply and demand models: disembedded commerce (albeit initially mak-
ing use of imperial infrastructure). In this model, correlations between
density of rural settlement and exports thus prove that trade created
54
Whittaker (1987).
55
Wickham (1988).
56
Indeed, we may never have enough data: Ward-Perkins (2000b) 376.
57
Sirks (1991) even has reservations about the states real impact in the former
sphere, the critically-important food needed for Rome.
510 s+r\r nosk.vs
a more prosperous and numerous peasantry and, thereafter, stimu-
lated local demand.
58
Equally, subsequent reorientations of the net-
work explain the demise of some regions in Late Antiquity.
However, correlation does not equal causation: is the development
of commerce a cause, or just a symptom, of more general change?
And, if it takes the form of free trade, why did an economic boom
not result when taxes were reduced in the West? For Ward-Perkins, the
advantages which he assumes would have accrued from the removal
of the states heavy hand may have been swallowed up by more
general economic decline, in a society lacking the necessary favourable
underlying economic conditions.
59
As these conditions remain
undened, and their role in causing decline is not made explicit, we
nally have to take refuge in the idea that anything as large as the-
fall of empire cannot possibly be fully explained.
60
The problem
here is not that a full explanation is lacking, but rather that it pro-
vides no explanation unless it can be shown how trade, whether
administered or disembedded, engendered economic development in
its own right. The transition from Marxs mercantile capital to pro-
ductive capital is portrayed as being automatic, yet the mere exis-
tence of prot-making intentions amongst merchants, who then carried
out successful enterprises, is insucient: we have to investigate whether,
and how, these prots could be invested in changing the productive
base of society.
A more useful, and explicitly Marxist, analysis of Late Roman
development involves stepping below trade dynamics, in order to
contextualise them. This is most successfully provided by combining
the work of Wood and Wickham.
61
The former, employing an argu-
ment rst put forward by P. Docks in a discussion of Medieval soci-
ety,
62
has proposed that the use of slave production on large estates
generated the need for an increasingly powerful state, in order to
prevent alliances between free producer and slave against slave owner.
Over time this body, although located originally in contradictions
embodied in pre-existing modes of production, came to exploit peas-
antry directly, in the form of Wickhams tax-gathering, which was
58
Ward-Perkins (2000b) 374.
59
Ward-Perkins (2000b) 381.
60
Ward-Perkins (2000b) 390.
61
Wood (2003); Wickham (1984).
62
Docks (1982).
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 511
underpinned by a complex mesh of tributary, slave, and perhaps
wage relations, before eventually moving towards feudal forms of
exploitation. Long distance trade provided for a variety of needs in
this evolving structure. These included supplying material resources
to its army and state, ocials, and to the fragmenting citizenry whose
interests it purported to represent. Such exchange networks also
catered for its ideological needs, for example by transporting presti-
gious material culture to distant regions in order to bind to it a
bureaucracy of geographically-dispersed tax collectors.
A dating element, derived from a consideration of imperial expan-
sion, can be added to this general outline. Initially, the process of
conquest would have allowed the state to maintain a relatively stable
system: on the one hand, it guaranteed external supplies of slaves, and
on the other it provided places where peasantry and army veterans,
forced from their land in the imperial core, could settle afresh. These
two factors combined to ensure that social conict within the empire
took place mainly between free and unfree, and not within an increas-
ingly diverse citizen body. Conversely, the ending of expansion from
the 2nd c. A.D. onwards would have signalled the start of the struc-
tural changes which Wickham has proposed. Hence, when analysing
the transition to Late Antiquity, we have a rough chronological
marker to look for in the archaeological record, as well as a series
of qualitative changes between slave and other relations of production.
It has been argued above that charting the rise and fall of slave
production is critical to understanding the development and transforma-
tion of the empire. However, detailed empirical investigation of such
changes will be no easy matter. The proportions of each type of labour
changed through time, space, and across dierent economic sectors.
In particular, slave numbers would have been inuenced by the
mechanics of supply, whether via the external agencies of war or
the activities of slave traders working on the margins of the empire.
63
Internal breeding programmes might make a signicant addition to
numbers
64
(especially in the domestic sphere where women were more
common), but they could only iron out the vagaries of other supply
mechanisms, rather than sustain slave numbers as a whole.
65
Within
this general scheme, some have attempted to use the archaeological
63
Crawford (2004) 101.
64
Wiedemann (1981).
65
Bradley (1987).
512 s+r\r nosk.vs
record to elucidate changing proportions of free and unfree labour.
F. H. Thompson has taken a direct approach to the problem:
66
when
archaeologists nd artefacts such as shackles and gang chains, or rep-
resentations of such, they are nding slaves. However, distribution-
maps of this data say very little about the incidence and impact of
slavery, as their absence in Italy and concentration in Britain and
other outlying provinces merely reects dierent intensities of archae-
ological eldwork.
67
When we consider archaeological recognition of slavery in house-
hold or landscape settings, things get no easier. Studies in the for-
mer sphere have either looked for domestic slaves near where they
worked in the house (a functionalist approach), or searched for them
outside an independently-dened master zone (viewing the slave as
marginal). However, incomplete excavations and slave mobility mean
we have almost no trace of their existence in domestic architec-
ture.
68
M. Georges subsequent suggestion, that slaves are visible
only in faint outline, is an eloquent enough description of their roles
in the household, but fails to contribute much to the debate con-
cerning their changing impact in Antiquity. In the rural sphere too,
corresponding problems arise. Consolidation of landholdings into
larger estates is a predicted outcome of the use of slave labour, but
this is a legal process rather than a spatial one, and thus it is unlikely
to be evidenced in the simple conjunction of adjacent, once separate,
farms.
69
Equally, the division between free and non-free was not a
straightforward duality. Both types were employed in a great range
of occupations, often in mutual dependence. Hence seasonal, some-
times itinerant, free labour might be used on slave-run estates for
agricultural eciency.
70
By the same token, independent peasantry,
paying their annual taxes in coin by selling surplus produce at local
markets, must have frequently worked alongside those who paid rent
in kind to landlords, as share-croppers. Study of Egyptian papyri
from a late period by J. Banaji has shown just how complex this
production process was: large estates using a mixture of tenants,
salaried labour, and coloni occupied the landscape alongside large
66
Thompson (1993); Thompson (2003).
67
The results of corresponding work by Schumacher (2001) must be hedged
around with similar reservations.
68
George (1997) 24.
69
Hopkins (2004) 125 n. 16.
70
Garnsey (1980).
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 513
villages of independent peasantry who were controlled (or protected)
by the church or imperial court.
71
Furthermore, the same person
might occupy dierent economic positions at dierent times (for
example as wage labourer and rent payer), and earlier periods were
no doubt equally multifaceted in their use of labour. All of these
factors cloud our ability to make the vital distinction between slave
societies and societies with slaves.
72
Rather than look for slavery in this direct way, it is more productive
to use archaeological evidence to search for evidence of the degree of
control exercised over the labour process, and in particular to chart
moves away from tributary or feudal modes (this will be attempted
below in four dierent spheres). Where such changes are evident, the
next pressing need will be to distinguish slave from wage labour. There
are good, albeit circumstantial, grounds to suggest that the latter was
of less signicance than the former on the land, where the vast
majority of production in Antiquity took place. Firstly, there is the
well-known prominence of slavery in writings on agriculture. In addi-
tion, when free peasantry were drawn into agricultural production
seasonally, in order to augment core unfree labour, this was accom-
plished on an informal, socially-embedded basis, and not via imper-
sonal mechanisms:
73
Antiquity seems to have lacked a true market
to facilitate free movement of wage labour, something that forms an
essential element of capitalism. Finally, although there is evidence
for technical advances in landscape exploitation (for example, in the
techniques of olive and grape processing, the use of mechanical mills,
and the selective breeding of animals),
74
there is no suggestion here
of sustained technological development occurring at an increasing
rate, in the manner that is clearly apparent in modern society. Even
if its cumulative impact was considerable, this kind of technological
progress in Antiquity was both gradual and unspectacular.
75
In addition, where progressive technological development is evi-
dent, it is patterned. Thus the army, the only case for which we
can be sure that a form of wage labour existed, was the one sphere
in which scientic enquiry was applied consistently to facilitate techno-
71
Banaji (2001).
72
Turley (2000) 4.
73
Garnsey (1980).
74
Greene (2000).
75
Greene (1990).
514 s+r\r nosk.vs
logical development.
76
Both the use of pumps and of water in mining
(for ushing and other processes), a sector directly associated with
slaves, and the employment of machines in productive contexts,
77
is more evident on Italian slave estates than elsewhere. In short, the
evidence suggests that there were limits on the ability of the elite to
promote technological change through the direct control of produc-
tion along truly capitalistic lines, and so their basic choice was between
slave, tributary and, perhaps, feudal modes of production. Finally,
where technological advances was made, they occurred in contexts
which might most easily take advantage of any opportunities to inter-
vene directly in production: either with the army or slaves.
On this basis, we can use the denitions of dierent modes, as out-
lined above, to create models which identify archaeological corre-
lates, as attempted below, and thus allow their inter-relationships to
be investigated. In this way, it should be possible to get closer to
the heart of Late Roman society, and bring the poor back to centre
stage. This should be achievable, at least in principle, for every type
of archaeological evidence, and thus relevant to every aspect of
ancient society. In what follows, I will consider four areas of interest:
general patterns at the level of both landscape and townscape, and
the basics of production in relation to the artefactual and the eco-
factual evidence.
Landscapes
Archaeological surveys of landscapes, despite being limited by incon-
sistencies in coverage and methodology, have huge potential to elu-
cidate processes of social development. Tributary relations between
citizens involved each group of producers regularly delivering surplus
to the elite, but otherwise they retained considerable freedom of
action over agricultural practices. Any change from this system towards
the use of slave labour should be most evident in the consolidation
of landscape holdings in the imperial core. As noted above, this
process is unlikely to merely involve the amalgamation of contiguous
farms. Yet the general fusion of landholding should be more visible
than its fragmentation due to inheritance processes. More importantly,
the use of slaves could have allowed greater division of the labour
76
Millett (2001) 32.
77
Greene (2000) 42.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 515
process, but only if the scale of production was increased. Such
changes of scale should also be directly visible in the archaeological
evidence generated by broad-brush landscape studies. Finally, the
imposition of slave production must have involved practical mea-
sures in terms of the accommodation needed for unfree farm labour-
ers, most obviously in relation to the design of latifundia. Indicative
features of this may include rooms with one window, an earth oor,
a niche for a lamp, and a hearth by a single entrance.
78
For later periods, any move from tributary/slave relations towards
feudal forms of exploitation should be evident in the spatial organ-
isation of rural settlement. Direct producers would be increasingly
tied down to particular plots to facilitate their exploitation, and move-
ment outside their villages would be controlled.
79
One would expect
this to be accompanied by the growth of small market centres, pro-
moted by local elites, along the lines described by R. Hilton.
80
Such
places facilitated peasant access to petty commodities, and perhaps
the tools which they employed in the elds, items that they could
no longer produce within their own households because of this
increased exploitation.
A good example of how these forces for change may have played
out at the very base of society comes from recent work in the region
around Roman York. The site of West Heslerton,
81
a so-called lad-
der settlement, which rst developed in the Iron Age and contin-
ued in use throughout most of the Roman period, is typical of tribal
tributary arrangements in the area. It nally fell into demise in the
course of the 4th c. and, in its place, the area was extensively remod-
elled through the creation of a series of large, open terraces covered
with pebble surfaces. This development took place in association with
the use of an anomalous, sub-rectangular structure, interpreted by the
excavators as a Late Roman rural shrine, linked by pathways to a
nearby well-head and spring issuing from the foot of the nearby val-
ley. The scheme formed the core of subsequent Anglian development
of the area, in the course of which specialist areas for animals, crop
processing, craft/industry, and housing made their appearance. Although
the shrine may have been in use before the terraces, the latter clearly
78
Rossiter (1978), although he shows that incomplete data makes it dicult at
present to assess the overall impact of rural slavery using this source of evidence.
79
See Saunders (1990) for a possible model.
80
Hilton (1992).
81
Powlesland (2003) 288.
516 s+r\r nosk.vs
represent a marked change in landholding, and the demise of a sys-
tem which had been in use for many centuries. It allowed the whole
of one end of the valley oor to be dominated by a new form of
more focussed, feudal exploitation involving greater direction and
division of labour.
It is unclear how far such control extended to the later, Anglian-
period zones to the North, where mobile household structures are
still in evidence: we are dealing in this case with a battle within the
community over mobility and access to land, and some areas seem to
have been more readily dominated than others. By the same token,
the whole settlement was deserted before the 9th c., and so had no
clear relationship with the arrival of truly feudal tofts and crofts in
villages elsewhere on the Yorkshire Wolds from the 10/11th c.:
82
we
are also charting a stop-start process of change in the region as a
whole, rather than unilinear development. Yet the general lesson is
equally clear: the spatial analysis of settlement forms and landholding
systems constitutes a vibrant tool for chronicling the outcome of
struggles over resources in general, and over surplus articulation in
particular.
The role of the urban poor in general changes to the process of
agricultural production is rather more dicult to dene. It is clear that
a proportion of adjacent land was farmed by producers who com-
muted daily from Roman towns. It seems reasonable to suppose that
any initial drive to supplant free peasantry with slave labour would
have been most successful in those areas where owners could control
the process most readily: the most accessible estates. Hence, agricultural
producers who lived in or near towns would nd themselves at the
cutting edge of the changes outlined above, and extra-mural hin-
terlands should provide our most accurate gauge of how rural class
conict worked out in practice. However, it would have been in the
streets and buildings of the town itself that conict would have been
most clearly evident.
Townscapes
It is a commonplace to say that towns were of fundamental impor-
tance to the self-identity of the Early Roman empire, places where
the ideological cement of citizenship was laid and reinforced. Exchange
82
Saunders (1990).
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 517
of prestige objects to strengthen social relations was a critical part
of this process, both at the largest scale (as gifts of monumental
buildings containing social facilities, which will be discussed here) and
at a more everyday level (as luxury foods consumed in highly struc-
tured culinary and architectural contexts: see further below). The gen-
eral argument presented above suggested that the expanding empire
brought about a stretching of social allegiances embodied in tributary
relations between citizens. Urban settlements must have played a
critical ideological role in endeavouring to ensure that these bonds,
though stretched, did not break entirely, and that the lowly citizen
continued to identify with the higher citizen, rather than the unfree
servant. Equally, if Late Antiquity involved a move away from the
promotion of citizenship and a move towards the establishment of
feudal elite identity, then these changes should also be most evident
in towns.
Epigraphic and other documentary evidence provides some support
for the idea that, paradoxically, it was urban slaves themselves who
built and maintained the physical and mental structures which helped
to mediate relationships within the very citizen body from which
they were excluded. For example, slaves seem to have been critical
in various types of production carried out for non-economic rea-
sons. Porphyry
83
and Egyptian stone
84
were both used as gifts between
urbanised elites, and temple rebuilding
85
was an expression of civic
identity. Where the workforce for these activities is known, it shows
that slaves were central to this maintenance of imperial ideology:
when modern excavators uncover these public monuments, they come
face-to-face with the labour of the most exploited section of urban
society. Concerning the maintenance of mental structures at the level
of the private household, the sheer number of epigraphically-recorded
freedmen who later became traders or artisans illustrates how wide-
spread the underlying institution of slavery must have been in the
home. Indeed, as R. Saller has noted, using slaves in this way may
have impacted on the family as an institution:
86
loose structures, in
which an authoritarian master dominated the whole household and
used concubinage to prevent legitimate birth and so manipulate lin-
eages, would explain the fragility of Roman marriage.
83
Maxeld (2001).
84
Adams (2001).
85
Davies (2001).
86
Saller (1987).
518 s+r\r nosk.vs
How far these systems continued into the late empire, and in what
form, is unclear. It has long been acknowledged that Late Roman
urbanitas took on very dierent forms from those of the early empire.
The logic of Wickhams viewpoint, outlined above, is that towns had
begun to be places where proto-feudal elites endeavoured to estab-
lish their own identity in contradistinction to that of their social infe-
riors, rather than attempting to paper over the cracks of an increasingly
fraught relationship with fellow citizens. This notion is given some
support by the fact that the social fault lines in Late Antiquity lie
between honestiores and humiliores, not between free (citizen) and unfree
(slave). Research on Medieval settlement forms has drawn attention
to the close chronological and spatial relationship between village
and town planning, with urban plots focussed on street frontages
resembling rural tofts and crofts, and artisan activities at these frontages
being carried out by household units derived directly from villages.
There is even evidence of small-scale food production taking place at
the rear, which would not have been out of place in a purely agri-
cultural context. In short, Medieval townscapes closely resemble the
topographical organisation and functions, and arguably even the social
structures, of rural landscapes which formed the true power base of
the feudal nobility. Are such developments evident in earlier centuries?
Here one calls to mind the picture evident in 4th c. London of scat-
tered, good quality town houses set amongst dark earth horizons
delineated by boundary walls.
87
In this case it has been argued that
the origins of this development begin as early as the late 2nd c.
88
Beyond general aspects of topography and function, understand-
ing will also be furthered through a detailed structural analysis of
the larger buildings that were set up in late antique cities. Do they
embody the coherent and consistent application of labour, set within
a planned topographical context, or do they instead employ recy-
cled buildings materials, smaller units of production, longer timescales,
and project-specic changes to the townscape? The former suggests
the use of large-scale, directed labour, as typied by slave-supported
urbanism, whereas the latter implies that control over external sources
such as stone quarries had become more dicult, and that urban
development now started to take on the more diverse, individualistic
87
Perring (1991).
88
Perring and Roskams (1991), although see Yule (1990) for an alternative view
of this dating.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 519
form seen more fully in the true Medieval town. Only further empir-
ical enquiry will put meat on the bones of this issue, by showing
when such changes occurred and where they were rst evident.
Artefacts
Not only monumental and household structures, but also prestigious
artefacts were critical to social interaction amongst Late Roman
urbanised elites. The production, distribution, use, and discard of
African Red Slip ceramics provides an example of how underlying
relationships between elite consumer and common producer may have
changed in the course of several centuries. This prestigious neware
has been intensively studied in terms of typological development,
thus enhancing its critical role as a dating mechanism,
89
and for its
associated supply mechanisms, most notably to assess their relation-
ship with state transport systems.
90
The 4th c. distribution of Red
Slip vessels, most of which were found within North Africa but with
signicant numbers travelling well beyond this core, is itself an indi-
cation of the amount of eort which the empire was prepared to
invest in the production process in order to cement social relations
right across the western Mediterranean. Recently, under the inuence
of postmodernist perspectives, Red Slip has even taken on a role in
studies of the sociology of eating. Does the advent of large diameter-
plates, for example, which were designed to be used simultaneously
by a number of people, signal a collective context for eating, in con-
trast to the smaller plates for individual consumption that were in
use previously?
91
These studies of typological forms and associated use, plus their
long distance distribution arrangements, are useful up to a point.
Yet rather less attention has been paid to the technical aspects of
ceramic production (the use of moulds, application of decoration,
etc.), and virtually none at all to the social relations at the point of
production. As is well attested, Red Slip was manufactured in a vari-
ety of settings, with the distribution of kiln sites in the landscape
changing through time between coastal and inland situations.
92
The
89
Hayes (1972); Hayes (1980).
90
See, for example, Reynolds (1995).
91
Hawthorne (1996).
92
See Mackensen (1998) and references.
520 s+r\r nosk.vs
sheer volume of Red Slip manufacture is clearly evidenced by the
size of these complexes, and by the huge mounds of associated wasters.
The North African focus of production is symptomatic of the chang-
ing centre of economic and political gravity within the empire. In
part this is related to the movement of olive oil production from
Spain to Africa in the 3rd c. A.D.,
93
and reected in the changed
origins of those aspiring to the imperial purple from the time of
Septimius Severus, native of Tripolitania. This is not to say, of course,
that pottery production was under direct state control: indeed, indus-
trial levels of manufacture continued independent of various seem-
ingly-major political changes, such as the arrival of a new Vandal
elite in Carthage in the 5th c., although the Justinianic conquest of
North Africa under Belisarius may, ultimately, have been a dierent
matter. The scale of this achievement is reinforced if one recalls the
inability of Gallic Terra Sigillata to maintain similar levels of consis-
tent production in the course of the upheavals of the 3rd c.
The consistent forms and sizes of Red Slip wares show that those
in charge were able to intervene in the production process, impose
division of labour, and implement technological change. Such pat-
terning of archaeological data suggests levels of controlled interven-
tion feasible only with access to slave or wage labour (and, for reasons
given above, the former seems more likely than the latter). As in the
case of monumental architecture, increasing pressure on social relations
between Roman citizens would have required greater investment in
the production of this tableware, and eating in ideologically correct
ways was one way in which that body was cemented. This critical
need was met by the use of unfree labour, and this solution in turn
raises further spheres of interest which ceramic analysis could eluci-
date. The logic of expanding the use of slaves is that economic activ-
ity becomes organised by slave overseers. This means that, past a
certain point, technological innovation can be problematic: those in
ultimate charge have less relationship with the production process,
and those who remain in direct contact have little incentive to inno-
vate, and most slaves will remain slaves, no matter how ecient that
process becomes.
94
When applied to pottery production, these ten-
sions would emerge as conicts between direct producers, who are
increasingly responsible for the work, and the kiln owner, who is
93
Mattingly (1988).
94
Roskams (1996) 17374.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 521
seeking to remain in charge of their labour power yet remote from
its application. Detailed consideration of Red Slip production has
shown that there were times when control of kiln ring conditions
was less exacting and when form proles or vessel volumes were less
consistent.
95
Such pressures on production are best interpreted as an
expression of the changing relationship between slave producer and
distant owner.
In addition, Red Slip vessel forms and decoration altered over
time-hence the materials great utility as a dating mechanism. These
variations have usually been explained in terms of changing fashions,
implicitly drawing parallels with present-day capitalist production.
However, the dierences are not evenly and consistently distributed
through time, and are instead suggestive of a sporadic process of devel-
opment. Rather than a pale reection of modern economic dynamics,
these changes are better understood in relation to the role of this
luxury tableware in Late Roman, socially-embedded, exchange.
Anthropological studies have demonstrated that prestige goods cir-
culating in a closed system (for example an empire with set borders)
create inationary tendencies. This problem can be resolved in var-
ious ways: by destroying the thing exchanged (e.g. by consuming gifts
of food in feasts); by removing it from society (e.g. by accompanied
burial or other forms of ritualised deposition); or by changing the
nature of the item required to legitimate social exchanges (e.g. by
changing the rim form of prestigious bowls and plates). All of these
reactions might be visible archaeologically. To adopt the third solu-
tion, the Red Slip industry would need to be able to amend its ves-
sel proles systematically, something facilitated by the use of slaves.
Equally, any cessation in typological development would indicate the
owners lack of control over production. Prolonged stasis would mean,
ultimately, that Red Slip was unable to full the social role for which
it was designed: an unchanging vessel type which became too numer-
ous would lower its prestige value accordingly. Here detailed analy-
sis of ceramic forms and production processes could not only dene
dominant modes of production, but also act as a barometer for the
changing balance of class forces, registering the conicts inherent in
the process of production.
Similar studies could be applied to other pottery vessels. Are the
container volumes of dierent amphora types stable and regular over
95
Hayes (1972).
522 s+r\r nosk.vs
time, and what might this mean for how these storage jars could be
employed to systematise regional surplus extraction from landscapes?
96
Analysis of more mundane, locally distributed vessels may be of
even greater signicance here, given that most pre-capitalist surplus
was generated and consumed locally. For example, recent study of
Yorkshires Late Roman Calcite-gritted wares has dened diagnostic
5th c. pottery types in the region, hence facilitating our dating of
4th6th c. transitions. More importantly, it has also suggested that
the pots were storage containers for products generated by the rural
economy, which was possibly linked to the salt industry.
97
Thus this
pottery-type might chart the ways in which surplus was extracted
from the landscape from the Late Roman into the post-Roman
centuries. Furthermore, the consistency (or otherwise) of the volume
measurements which these vessels display could elucidate how closely
such extraction mechanisms were controlled by any remnant of cen-
tral authority. In short, studying manufacturing processes in a whole
range of ceramics can provide direct insights into relations between
the marginalised poor producer and the elites whom they served.
It would show not only how the former were manipulated and
exploited, but also how they reacted to this. Ultimately, analysis of
the demise of these production systems can indicate when produc-
ers moved from hidden reactions to open rebellion, and a new set
of economic relations emerged.
Ecofacts
A nal type of evidence focuses on the food needed to supply a set-
tlement living o its hinterland. Some recent sociological studies,
exclusively interested on the symbolism of eating, would have us
believe that these practices lie outside economic processes. I would
argue, on the contrary, that consumption of food is integral to social
interaction simply because it is the most basic of any humans material
needs. Animal bones, because of their survival and recovery rates, pro-
vide one of the best archaeological routes into these issues.
98
Com-
parisons between urban and rural datasets concerning age-at-death,
butchering practices, carcass distribution, and species proportions
96
Peacock and Williams (1986).
97
Whyman (2001).
98
Milner and Fuller (2003).
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 523
(especially between wild and domestic animals), all have a role to
play here.
99
One indicator of the ability of urban consumers to intervene in
rural production, and so inuence meat supply, concerns the age at
which animals were killed. If this was done at a point which max-
imised meat yield, this suggests that central authority could dictate
culling regimes independent of the needs of the countryside, and
move towards specialised supply of meat, a process best facilitated
by the use of wage or slave producers. On the other hand, if age-
at-death indicates that animals were placed in the urban food chain
only after they were no longer useful for other functions, such as
traction or milk production, tributary relations will be more pertinent.
For example, uniform urban butchery techniques, described below,
have been argued to have required a steady supply of meat. Data
on age-at-death could show whether this was met by the large-scale
gathering of beasts as tribute, or by the dedicated culling of younger
animals.
Large groups of bone can also indicate the mechanics of getting
meat to the town, albeit only at a gross level. For example, in the
case of beef, all the parts of the animal are usually represented in
whole urban assemblages, implying that cattle arrived on the hoof,
rather than in individual parts selected for urban markets. More
detailed examination of chronologically distinct groups, investigating
both the degree of diversity of animal parts and the ages which each
exhibits, would help to show any changes in supply mechanisms
through time and perhaps indicate the scale and level of regularity
of the meat trade, thus elucidating dierences between individualised
urban-rural relationships and state taxation.
Butchering practices clearly play a vital role in food preparation.
Previously, Roman methods have been considered generally rough
and careless but a more detailed consideration of the evidence has
not supported this assumption.
100
Firstly, the tools used for processing
meat that was supplied to urban markets were dierent from those
used in the countryside: the latter used non-descript knives, whereas
urban butchers employed a range of equipment, including specialised
cleavers. Secondly, urban carcasses were cut up in a uniform way,
99
See Roskams and Saunders (2001) for an attempt to apply these ideas to fau-
nal evidence derived from Roman and medieval York.
100
Seetah (Forthcoming).
524 s+r\r nosk.vs
a process in which speed was of the essence. Thirdly, carcasses were
hung up to aid the pace of this work, thus probably entailing the
involvement of more than one person at certain stages and certainly,
given the weight of a cow, requiring structural alterations to associ-
ated buildings. These elements, in combination, imply that an increased
scale of work and a corresponding division of labour were employed
in specialised butchery. Finally, although most animals continued to
arrive as complete carcasses for processing, certain components later
received dierent treatment, for example the smoking of beef joints.
101
In sum, detailed analysis suggests that urban meat processing was
the province of expert, directed labour.
Using these trends in culling regimes, the representation of dierent
animal parts, and the butchering techniques in order to chart urban
foodways, we can identify dierences between the use of slave or wage
labour, and tributary or feudal relations in the supply process and
perhaps register any moves from personalised to impersonal delivery
mechanisms. Such research should also be able to map geographi-
cal patterning at a number of levels: is dedicated supply more evi-
dent in the core of empire, for example around the Mediterranean
littoral, than beyond it? Concerning the balance between the use of
slaves in town and country: is direct control of meat processing evi-
dent in an urban household context before the management of meat
production in a rural one? Finally, one form of production can be
viewed with considerable time depth: is the impact of wage labour
really as limited in Antiquity as evidence from other spheres implies?
Data from Exeter seemed to suggest so, in that dedicated supply of
specialised cuts of meat to the city was seen only in faunal assem-
blages of Early Modern date.
102
Whether it was similarly absent from
all other major Romano-British cities, and from the provinces
fortresses, is another question.
If, as argued above, Late Antiquity embodied a move away from
use of slaves and towards exploitation after production, one would
expect a general reduction in intervention into meat production, pro-
cessing, and distribution.
103
It would be interesting to know where,
and when, such pinch points rst emerged. Animal bones could also
101
OConnor (1988).
102
Maltby (1979).
103
We would see, for example, an end to the increased proportion of non-trac-
tion cattle supplied to towns that has been identied by Seetah (Forthcoming).
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 525
test Wickhams characterisation of the other transition as involving
the emergence of a feudal authority with the power to control the
landscape and its inhabitants on a more detailed basis than hith-
erto.
104
A critical issue here concerns the ability of an elite to convey
undomesticated products of the landscape to more distant settlements,
rather than consume them locally. Just such a change is apparent
in England by the 10th/11th c., when an increased proportion of
wild animals began to reach urban diets, with the same perhaps
being true of sh from marine and estuarine contexts.
105
More gen-
erally, small changes in the proportions of minority species can act
as a barometer of the exploitation of wild resources over time. In the
case of Medieval England, they indicate a move towards more direct
control of rural labour and of the landscapes/waterscapes in which
it operated, as well as an ability to move products to more distant
urban centres on a more regular basis than was hitherto possible:
we are charting a transition between tributary and feudal relations.
Of course, using bones to distinguish between these variations in
types of economic relations will not be easy. Sometimes soup kitchen
assemblages will be available for analysis (for example the small pig
horizon, possibly of 5th c. date, identied beneath York Minster).
106
However, most animal bones were not dumped beside feasting sites
and will only be recovered archaeologically after they had been dis-
carded, undergone a complex series of transformations, and then
nally been deposited. Thus, meat might be separated from the car-
cass outside the household and the bones used for artefact production
or marrow extraction, then discarded close to the manufacturing site.
Equally, bones from meat butchered in urban kitchens may be placed
in rubbish dumps, then mixed with assemblages from a great vari-
ety of dierent faunal production contexts, before being spread on
surrounding elds. Such complicated processing and discard proce-
dures will severely complicate our ability to dene clear changes in
production and supply, or to date them accurately.
Yet, as N. Milner and D. Fuller have noted, zoological or tapho-
nomic studies can aid our understanding of methodological issues
and thus help us to avoid pitfalls in interpretation, especially when
placed beside contextual information associated with excavated fau-
104
Wickham (1984).
105
Roskams and Saunders (2001) 71.
106
Carver (1995).
526 s+r\r nosk.vs
nal groups.
107
Also, in the rst instance, only broad trends derived
from the analysis of large assemblages will be needed to create gen-
eral frameworks within which further model testing can proceed.
Commentators on Late Antiquity were recently taken to task by
B. Ward-Perkins for their inability to recognise the activities of a
peasant with a specialised sideline in rearing chickens.
108
He sug-
gested, correctly, that such an everyday transaction may not show
up archaeologically and would lie below the level of information
habitually recorded in documents. However, the general relationship
between such small-scale transactions and the more centralised sup-
ply of chickens is certainly susceptible to faunal analysis. In the end,
are we more interested in investigating an individual strategy, pur-
sued on a piecemeal basis, or in trying to understand how typical
such strategies were of a given society? When linked with research
into botanical remains, faunal analyses can elucidate changing meth-
ods of surplus extraction to create a more rounded image of urban
food supply. In addition, if patterns here were to be studied in con-
junction with trends in the spatial organisation of rural settlements,
still more coherent pictures will appear, and variations through time
and/or in space should become evident. As noted at the outset, we
should not expect simple patterning to emerge, as the material with
which we deal is a product of complex relations between real peo-
ple operating in conicting circumstances. However, on the basis of
such studies, we can at least start to elucidate the relationship between
poor and elite in supplying the latters most essential and immedi-
ate need: food.
Coxcrtsiox
If analyses of landscapes, townscapes, artefacts, and ecofacts of the
sort outlined above were to be carried out, could we then be said to
have found the poor, the marginalised, of society? In one sense the
answer is no. The truly marginalised of the Late Roman world, those
who produced only for their direct needs and remained unengaged
with any other levels of society, will not be readily apparent. Yet, in
another sense, perhaps such social groups were not really of that
107
Milner and Fuller (2003).
108
Ward-Perkins (2000a) 319.
+nr tnn.x roon: rixrixo +nr v.noix.risrr 527
world at all: they simply found themselves in it, geographically and
chronologically. For those who did engage with production beyond
subsistence, whether the small elite who fought to place themselves
at the top of the system, or the much larger group below who were
forced to support them, the use of Marxist modes of production to
analyse archaeological material is the most vibrant way to under-
standing the various contexts in which that surplus was created,
extracted, distributed, and consumed. In this sense, I think that
archaeologists using such approaches would have gone some way
towards giving a voice to these people without history.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
This article has beneted hugely from its discussion amongst a group
of postgraduate research students in York, from email correspondence
with my comrades T. Saunders and A. Callinicos, and from com-
ments by two referees (one anonymous, the other Professor J. Haldon,
Princeton University). I am also grateful to L. Lavan and the edi-
tors of this volume for allowing me a little more space in the pub-
lication to elaborate on one or two themes which those referees felt
deserved further development.
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RURAL IMPOVERISHMENT IN NORTHERN GAUL
AT THE END OF ANTIQUITY:
THE CONTRIBUTION OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Paul van Ossel
Abstract
The state of the rural population in Late Antiquity has traditionally-
been described by textual scholars as one of crushing impoverishment,
with a colonate suering from social oppression. Archaeologists working
in northern Gaul have tended to agree with this picture, on the basis
of their eld discoveries, yet the views of those textual scholars have
now begun to change and recent archaeological work also suggests
that new models are needed. A re-evaluation of both methodology and
data results in a picture of continued economic and social complexity.
Ix+nortc+iox
In contrast to the elite (a group whose diverse identities and activities
have been thoroughly explored), the ancient poor are more rarely stud-
ied in our discipline. Ancient texts generally provide little information
on the fate of the poor, and when they do, it is often in order to
develop a contrast between such people and other more prosperous
social groups. Above all, such texts were written by and for mem-
bers of the wealthier classes of society, who often profoundly despised
poverty, and thus they teach us very little about the poor in general,
and even less about the impoverished who lived in the countryside.
Studying poverty through archaeological sources provides a dierent
challenge: examining the destitution of people via material culture
seems almost paradoxical, as archaeology by denition takes an inter-
est in physical objects, both portable and structural. One who possesses
nothing a priori leaves little trace, and what remnants are left will be
scarcely recognisable. And yet to limit our endeavours to these neg-
ative observations makes no sense. Instead it must be realised that
the study of poverty and its eects should be conducted through a
close examination of the entire structure of society, for poverty and
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 533565
wealth are not merely the two poles of existence, but are in fact fully
intertwined. Consequently, archaeologists must examine those sources
of data that might allow them to identify and dene the most under-
privileged social groups. It may well be that archaeology cannot eas-
ily examine the absence of wealth; it can, on the other hand, illuminate
the changing conditions of material life within a society, and expose
the stages of their improvement or deterioration. Such an exercise
is not without peril, however, and it raises issues over the criteria
on which we evaluate changing lifestyles over time, and the subjec-
tive lters (both ancient and modern) through which we view such
changes. The resulting images of the poor and any attendant con-
clusions are doubtless both partial and tentative, and thus reect a
state of knowledge in a research eld that is still developing.
The geographical area which will be considered here corresponds
to the Diocese of the Gauls, eectively meaning the northern area
of Gaul extending between the Rhine and the Loire. The principal
arena of study is dispersed rural settlement; life in vici will only be
addressed obliquely, despite the fact that such small towns were
closely connected with the rural world. The reason for this choice
is the disparity in research within the wide geographical area under
investigation: in all regions, villas and rural settlements have been
studied at a suciently detailed level to furnish researchers with a
wide-ranging data-set that will withstand comparative analysis. Minor
towns, however, have not been so well studied, and knowledge of
their development remains sketchy (even if, in some respects, it
appears to mirror the trajectory of the dispersed rural communities).
Tnr Rtn.r Poon ix L.+r Ax+itr G.tr:
A Bnirr His+onioon.rnv
The impoverishment of the rural population during the end of the
Roman empire is a signicant topos in the historiography of Antiquity.
According to the traditional view, the material condition of the
majority of the population deteriorated considerably from the 3rd c.
onwards, on account of the general political crises of the period. In
the countryside, social deprivation was directly linked to a decline
in the agrarian economy, caused by the development of great estates,
the rise of the colonate, the breaking of the economic circuitry that
had formerly connected the rural landscape to the towns, and mil-
534 r.tr \.x ossrr
itary invasion (which was especially noticeable in the northern provinces
of Gaul). Even some recent syntheses still draw a poignant picture
of the impoverishment of the lower levels of the population, and
describe in great detail the increased oppression they endured at the
hands of both the state and the large landowners.
1
The result was
an upheaval of traditional social structures, marked by the levelling-
out of social status, and by the expansion of dependency-systems that
became more and more restrictive for the poorest classes (e.g. the
colonate).
Inevitably, so the story goes, this social situation had an eect on
the material condition of the rural population. Contemporary sources
are indeed full of allusions to the ight of peasants and coloni, and to
the spread of brigandry and rural sedition. The Bagaudae, who troubled
the Gallic provinces during the second half of the 3rd c., were often
considered to be evidence of endemic lawlessness and insurrections
aicting the countryside during the period. Thus from the 3rd c.
onwards, an individuals prospects of social advancement became
more and more limited, whilst their chances of social descent steadily
increased. In the 4th c., the principal social trend was the merging
of the various discrete layers of the humiliores. Generalised poverty,
both in the cities and in the countryside, and a lack of freedom,
characterised the social conditions of the majority of the population,
who were no longer considered free labour but were constrained
within status orders which had become hereditary. Prevented from
choosing their domicile or trade, the free populace was progressively
reduced to a servile state. From this perspective, the extension of the
colonate system appears as the logical consequence of a deterioration
of social conditions caused by oppression perpetrated by a class of
avaricious property-owners and a state above all preoccupied with
the collection of taxes.
However, recent research on textual sources, conducted over the
last few decades, has permitted some important reassessments of the
situation, suggesting some important modications to this overly bleak
picture. Fundamental criticisms of the traditional picture have emerged
from historians studies of large rural estates and the colonate, top-
ics which have long been at the centre of debates about the impov-
erishment of the rural population in Late Antiquity. Whilst a discussion
1
In particular, Alfldy (1991) 14465.
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 535
of the intricacies of this debate is beyond the scope of this article,
it is important to note the following key points. Firstly, this work has
underlined the rather abstract character of the notion of the colonate,
a label which can cover multiple social circumstances.
2
Secondly, it
has been observed that the colonus is not always a person of an infe-
rior economic level, especially with regard to the management of
the imperial estates.
3
Similarly, recent research has demonstrated that dierences did exist
among the humiliores: rst of all between the plebs urbana and the plebs
rustica, and subsequently between groups that coexisted within these
categories, varying according to occupation, the conditions of property,
and their social bonds with the honestiores. Yet the details of obliga-
tions, rights, and advantages which dierent circumstances brought
matter less for the present paper than the observation that the plebs
rustica of the 4th5th c. seemed to be agricultural labourers of vary-
ing status: coloni, tenant farmers, permanent farm workers, and slaves.
4
Among them there were also numerous artisans and specialised crafts-
men, as well as paid labourers, of whom seasonal workers formed
the largest number. Independent farmers who possessed small prop-
erties of their own constituted a second level within the rural plebs.
Not much is known about these small freeholders: they are attested
in certain provinces in the East,
5
though their existence in the coun-
tryside of northern Gaul remains the subject of debate.
6
Less fortu-
nate were barbarian prisoners, who (according to a panegyric) were
sold under the porticoes of Gallic cities to be distributed through-
out rural estates. They formed a separate category within the rural
population, no doubt comparable to farm slaves, though their exact
number and the role they played in Gaul remains largely unknown.
7
2
Carri (1982) and (1983); Ouzoulias (1997) 1314.
3
Delmaire (1989) 67982.
4
Alfldy (1991) 183; Garnsey (1996) 78.
5
Villeneuve (1985); Tate (1995); Carri (1997).
6
Bayard (1997), for example, describes the plains of Picardy during the late
empire lled principally by a class of small landowners, living in rural settlements.
This class was supposed to have considrablement souert des invasions de la n
du III
e
sicle, before suering the cultural repercussions of the militarisation of
provincial society, which was followed by the germanisation of the local elites
from the second half of the 4th c. onwards and continuing into the 5th c.
7
Occasion textual references to slaves are almost solely of domestic servants,
those who were part of the landowners familia. See for example the slave named
Bissula in Ausonius (De Bissula), or the young slave of Lupicinus described by Sulpicius
Severus (V. Mart. 8.1).
536 r.tr \.x ossrr
Tnr Ancn.rorooic.r Arrno.cn
Strangely, these ongoing debates between historians have yet to lter
through to archaeologists, who still retain traditional pictures of the
fate of the rural plebs in the 4th and 5th c. In archaeological literature,
the same topoi about the rural population in Late Antiquity appear over
and over again: social levelling, impoverishment, and their increas-
ing dependency on the rich due to the combined eects of debt and
the development of the colonate. Indeed, this apocalyptic vision of
the fate of rural society has often found greater favour amongst the
archaeological community, who thought they saw in their own exca-
vation data a general conrmation of such theses.
Analyses of the material evidence had in fact led archaeologists
to a vision of the impoverishment of the countryside that was almost
identical to the traditional model outlined by ancient historians.
Throughout almost all of the Diocese of the Gauls archaeologists
presented a picture of a population dynamic which had lost its impe-
tus towards growth, and they even postulated an overall decline in
the numbers of inhabited sites. Whilst individual sites might display
numerous signs of architectural decadence and summary elaborate
transformations, it was stressed that others illustrated the abandon-
ment of luxury facilities such as baths. The archaeological symptoms
of such rural transformation were noted to be many and varied. The
cabin at Dambron, for example, which was excavated in 1972, appears
to be the archetypal humble hovel of the poor populace of the 4th c.
(g. 1). At the same time, the increased use of wood in new con-
structions is also evident (g. 2), as is the frequent replacement of
stone buildings by wooden ones (g. 3). More seriously, one might
detect the severing of ties between country and city, and the increasing
withdrawal of some rural communities into something resembling
self-suciency. This latter phenomenon might be detected through
a reduction in the amount of goods that have been traded or
exchanged, but is equally visible through the multiplication of small
production-units (such as iron-working) in the rural communities
themselves, suggesting an increased emphasis on autarkic measures
at a local level.
As C. R. Whittaker has noted,
8
my own earlier work was largely
conducted under the inuence of this narrative, and my thesis
8
Intervention in Andreau, Briant and Descat (1994) 235.
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 537
538 r.tr \.x ossrr
Fig. 1 Dambron La Fosse Dieppe (Eure-et-Loire) (after Ferdire (1983) 5960).
An example of the supposed impoverishment of the countryside in the 4th c.
The reconstruction clearly underlines the miserable character of the structure.
Fig. 2 Athies-sous-Laon Le Bois dEmpreville (Aisne, France). Reconstruction of part
of a rural establishment in its condition from the end of the 3rd c. until the middle
of the 4th c. (after Collart (1989) 95).
(completed in 1986) displayed a rather negative perception of the state
of the countryside in northern Gaul during the 4th c., in spite of the
new perspectives it sought to present. Images such as the squat-
trisation of the rural settlements, or the taux de survie in respect
of the population, or the declin continu of the countryside, were
still present in my work. It was then epistemologically impossible to
consider the changes of the 4th5th c. in anything other than a pejo-
rative and pauperising light.
Tov.nrs . Rr.ssrssvrx+
A large quantity of new evidence is now available, however, which
suggests that this vision of a poverty-wracked rural landscape is overly
simplistic. Initially, the impetus for reassessment came from the grad-
ual accumulation of eld observations, which allowed us to discern-
new patterns through comparative studies. Inevitably, this empirical
process revealed a need for greater theoretical reection, and for a
more sophisticated methodological discussion about notions of wealth
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 539
Fig. 3 Hambach 66. Plan of the principal building. 4th c. wooden constructions
are shown in grey (after Rech (1983) with additions by the author).
and poverty and the ability of archaeological techniques to detect
either.
When studying the wealthy, the task is generally more simple, as
they often possessed attributes of a particular status that can be eas-
ily recognised as such, like vast and richly-decorated residences, osten-
tatious funerary monuments, golden and silver jewellery and tableware,
or their insignia of rank (such as cruciform bulae). But what about
the poor? Where are the testimonies of their conditions, and how
might they even be detected and recognised as such? What is the
validity of the archaeological criteria that might be applied? Does
one have to think, for example, that la forme matrielle de lhabi-
tat est insparable de son statut juridique, and that lhabitat est
donc un critre complet pour une dnition de la pauvret?
9
The
armation is obviously too general to cover the variety of situations
which archaeologists can bring to light. Is the non-possession of char-
acteristic objects from the predominant cultureoriginally Roman,
in this casesucient to conrm possible conditions of poverty of
an individual or a group of people? What is to be done, then, with
voluntary poverty, which spread throughout the empire from the
4th c. onwards and was inuenced by eremitic movements? Can our
attempts to understand and dene poverty amongst those who referred
to and identied themselves with models of Roman society be applied
to those in the Germanic social communities, who became more and
more numerous in the countryside of northern Gaul from the 4th c.
onwards? Is it possible, beyond a general denition, to devise a scale
(either progressive or regressive) of poverty? Is it really possible to
measure levels of poverty? Was there a middle class, who coexisted
in the countryside alongside the rich and the very rich? Can we pos-
sibly even detect the existence of small freeholders alongside a mul-
titude of labourers who were living in destitute circumstances? Some
of these questions will be addressed in greater detail below, but before
answers are sought, some discussion is required about the limitations
and shortcomings of the approaches used.
540 r.tr \.x ossrr
9
Patlagean (1977) 54.
Rr\isioxs .xr Qtrs+ioxs:
Tnronr+ic.r Rrrrrc+ioxs .xr Dirrictr+irs or Ix+rnrnr+.+iox
Four major problems make it dicult to study late antique social life
using data derived from excavation.
Measuring impoverishment over time: valid comparisons?
In order to qualify impoverishment (or even its opposite, enrichment)
one must refer back to an earlier situation, which has subsequently
changed. In case of the late antique countryside in northern Gaul
one must look back to the 1st3rd c. A.D., a period which appears
to be (relatively) auent compared to both the Iron Age that pre-
ceded it, as well as the centuries that were to follow it. One need
only view the collections of any archaeological museum in the region
to appreciate the quality, quantity, and variety of the material culture
of Gallo-Roman society in the rst few centuries of our era. The
technical skill involved in their manufacture, the cultural richness of
the artefacts, and their status as evidence of sophisticated exchange
and production, is impressive. In comparison, the more meagre collec-
tions of the 4th and 5th c. appear standardised (and often militarised).
Faced with such a comparison, it is only natural for the impression
of a general impoverishment of Gallo-Roman society during Late
Antiquity to take such a rm grip on our minds.
But despite this, the accuracy of our knowledge and its interpreta-
tions can be called into question. Are the periods of the early and late
empire so easily comparable? If we take the answer to be yes, then
we stand accused of assuming that the social and economic contexts
are identical, which is plainly not the case. This entire methodological
approach, interpretation via comparative analogy, is built on very
uncertain foundations, as it focuses solely upon dierences between
two arbitrary situations in order to deduce impoverishment (or indeed,
enrichment). This is a very dangerous trap for the archaeologist to
fall into because it oers a simple and easy interpretive model. Sadly
many archaeologists do fall prey to it, succumbing to the temptation
because of gaps in their evidence. In fact, if we are ever to approach
questions of wealth and poverty through material culture, it is vital
that we try to correlate multiple observations, and restrict our inter-
pretation of their signicance to one given socio-economic system.
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 541
Thus, we would be able to distinguish various levels of wealth and-
poverty within a single society. Such an approach would without doubt
allow a better appreciation of which strata of society witnessed a real
change in their material circumstances, and what ways it had changed.
Evaluating wealth from material culture: limitations of a traditional approach
Traditional interpretations state that, in the ongoing process of archi-
tectural development, the use of supposedly ne materials and a
variety of material culture types are indisputable signs of material enrich-
ment and socio-economic progress. Thus, it is perfectly understandable
that the reverse phenomenonthe reduction of occupied space, the
construction of fewer and smaller rooms, and the use of more simple
construction techniques and architectural materials (e.g. earth and
wood)are considered to indicate the opposite: impoverishment,
regression, and decline. This is all the more signicant an assump-
tion in the study of Late Antiquity, because the phenomenon appears
to be so widespread as to be characteristic. Yet this interpretative
strategy is not without serious problems. The Dambron cabin, for
instance, so emblematic of the impoverishment of Late Antiquity,
is nothing more than a single isolated structure within a much larger
rural settlement of the 4th c. about which little is known. There is
nothing inherent in the structure itself which suggests that its parti-
cular material nature should be regarded as representative of the entire
villa as a whole. The cabin, in fact, may conceivably be a very mod-
est secondary structure, used for a function that would in no way
justify the use of elaborate materials.
Generalisations about construction techniques or materials are often
overly schematic, or attribute too great a signicance to the wood/stone
problem. These tendencies should be avoided. Reality is, as might
be expected, far more complex, even if the use of wood for structural
purposes is indisputably quicker and less expensive than stone. The
famous description of the palace of Attila left to us by Priscus is evi-
dence enough that wooden structures could be opulent and lled
with wealth.
10
In order to fully appreciate the character of such build-
10
Priscus, Frag. 8; cited and translated by Chastagnol (1976) 26769 and by
Blockley (1983) 26581. See also Jordanes, Get. 34, 17879.
542 r.tr \.x ossrr
ings, one must take into account the interior decoration made up of
tapestries and curtains, which were (as a recent conference at Lyon
organised by the Association pour lantiquit tardive reminded us) increas-
ingly important for status-designation from the 3rd c. onwards.
Another danger would be to claim, a priori and without any inher-
ent justication, that there exists a direct causal relationship between
the architectural lay-out of a building and its function. We can see
this issue manifest by comparing the ground plans and sizes of two
secondary structures from 4th c. rural settlements in the region around
Paris: Servon and Saint-Germain-les-Corbeil (g. 4). The use of wood
in no way implies a dierence of economic or social category, and
nor can it be used as evidence of impoverishment or decline. The
appearance of such wooden buildings in numerous rural settlements
across 4th c. Gaul is by now a well-attested phenomenon. Such
buildings are integrated into the general lay-out of the settlement,
and nothing allows them to be used as de facto evidence of impov-
erishment. Indeed, the installation of corn dryers in the farmyards of
many of these settlements renders such a hypothesis even less likely.
This problem arises in particular when evaluating communities of
Germanic groups that settled in the Diocese of the Gauls during the
4th c. Here, buildings are entirely constructed out of wood using
techniques proper to the north-western regions of Free Germany;
these communities also completely distinguished themselves from rural
Gallo-Roman settlements through both their appearance and their
organisation (g. 5). In comparison to the splendour of some late
antique villae (such as Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer in the dpartement Seine-
Maritime,
11
for example (g. 6)), these communities, which comprised
several agricultural units made up of as many as a dozen buildings
of various dimensions, might easily be considered as those of the rural
poor (or at least, the less rich). However, one of the agricultural
units in the community of Saint-Ouen-du-Breuil has produced a
remarkable treasure (g. 7), composed of 16 solidi, 23 double silver
medals, a gold ring, and three silver spoons. This represents a con-
siderable fortune, so much so that some scholars still doubt the link
between the community and the treasure, proposing that wealth of
such value could not possibly have belonged to such a low-status
11
This villa on the coast, which has subsequently disappeared due to the seas
advance, was located some 30 km from the community of Saint-Ouen-du-Breuil.
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 543
544 r.tr \.x ossrr
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ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 545
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546 r.tr \.x ossrr
Fig. 6 Plan of the villa of Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer (Seine-Maritime, France),
showing the location of the late antique mosaics (after Darmon (1994) 107).
settlement. This is surely an error of judgement,
12
and those familiar
with the rural communities of Free Germany during the 4th5th c.
would not nd the association between the treasure and the com-
munity at all surprising, although it is very remote from our con-
ceptions of Roman culture.
De-Romanisation
A further danger that faces our interpretation of archaeological evi-
dence concerns cultural changes aecting Gallo-Roman communi-
ties of the 3rd5th c., which erased the most visible signs of classical
culture from them. Naturally, this was not a phenomenon that was
12
The data produced by the excavations are incontestable: the treasure came
from a pit that was associated with the community not only in its location, but also
in the other material that it produced. Besides the treasure, the material excavated
consisted of ceramics (Black Burnished Ware, hand- and wheel-made coarsewares)
that were all characteristic of late antique habitation.
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 547
Fig. 7: Hoard from Saint-Ouen-du-Breuil (Seine-Maritime, France) (after Gonzalez,
Ouzoulias and Van Ossel (2001) 47).
restricted to the countryside, being also evident throughout the towns
and cities. This was a process whose speed varied according to time
and place, but it is clear that some of the most representative char-
acteristics of Roman civilisation were being progressively abandoned
from the second half of the 3rd c. onwards. This marks a gradual
de-Romanisation of society. In relation to questions of wealth and
its display, P. Brown argued (as early as 1983) for a link between
the disappearance of honoric and funerary inscriptions, with a pro-
found transformation of mentalities which henceforth encouraged
people to express the status of themselves and their families via other
means.
13
Such a change does not automatically mean that all clas-
sical forms of Roman culture disappeared completely, especially not
amongst the wealthier classes (who were likely the most loyal to Rome
and its ideals), but it is convenient to map out the changes that took
place in society from this time onwards.
14
Above all, there was a
diversity of behaviour, of the kind which S. Esmonde Cleary has
alluded to for later Roman Britain: thus, archaeologists must rst
establish the social class of the people under consideration, as without
this context further understanding is impossible.
15
The work of E. Swift
has also emphasised this issue, in her important contributions to the
debate of establishing ethnicity from archaeological objects; she has
urged scholars to leave such ethnocentric disputes behind, and con-
centrate instead on the contexts of the geography of fashions and
patterns of behaviour.
16
The Impossibility of Identifying Property
A nal theoretical problem that archaeologists must tackle when
attempting to study poverty in the Late Roman rural landscape is
the inability of material evidence to address the issue of land owner-
ship in the past. This is an issue of great signicance, as landown-
ership was the rst criterion used by the Romans to distinguish
wealth from poverty. How eectively can archaeology distinguish a
large estate from a small property? In the well-known case of the
Langmauerbezirk near Trier (g. 8), it is only the wall that surrounds
13
Brown (1983) 101102.
14
See Balmelle and Van Ossel (2001) 55052.
15
Esmonde Cleary (2001) 2343.
16
Swift (2000).
548 r.tr \.x ossrr
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 549
Fig. 8 Plan of the Langmauerbezirk (after Gilles (1999) 246). An imperial estate
near Trier, enclosed by a wall of the period of Valentinian.
the enclosurea wall measuring 72 km in lengthwhich allows us
to recognise the size of an estate that contained dozens of rural set-
tlements and belonged, in all probability, to the emperor.
17
Even
more dicult, and yet much more relevant for the purpose in hand,
is how might one distinguish any small independent property from
any other tract of land, in the absence of legal sources? Property
and the ownership of land are realities that archaeology simply can-
not address, despite those who argue to the contrary. However,
archaeology can go some way to identifying variations in the size
and productive capacity of rural settlements, information that might
be used to deduce the modes of exploitation taking place on a given
estate, and the judicial status of those who occupied the land.
Archaeology can also study the relative levels of a groups material
culture, and thus go some way to clarifying its position in wider
social hierarchies. Thus it may be possible to make some inferences
about the nature of a particular group of people, if not about the
precise ownership of land itself.
Tnr Cox+nint+iox or Ancn.roroov
Despite all of these diculties, there still remain a number of specic
perspectives that archaeology can oer regarding the social realities
of the late antique rural landscape in the region, and thus address
this specic question of poverty in the countryside. In the nal part
of this paper, ve separate research trajectories will be outlined.
Together, the exploration of these themes should encourage a recon-
sideration of traditional views regarding the countrysides economic
condition, and the perception that it was unable to produce wealth
during the period.
18
The Survival of Dispersed Rural Settlement
Recent research is increasingly demonstrating a widespread survival
of rural settlement in northern Gaul throughout the 4th c. (g. 9).
Although a decrease in population (the extent of which is itself region-
17
Gilles (1999).
18
Van Ossel and Ouzoulias (2000; 2001).
550 r.tr \.x ossrr
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 551
Fig. 9 Histogrammes showing rural settlement in 5 areas of lle-de-France
between the 1st and the 8th c. (after Ouzoulias and Van Ossel (2001) 151).
25
20
15
10
5
0
I II III IV V VI VII VIII
Marne-la-Valle
%
25
20
15
10
5
0
I II III IV V VI VII VIII
Pays-de-France
%
25
20
15
10
5
0
I II III IV V VI VII VIII
Mauldre-Vaucouleurs
%
25
20
15
10
5
0
I II III IV V VI VII VIII
La Basse
%
25
20
15
10
5
0
I II III IV V VI VII VIII
Snart
%
ally variable) can be observed almost everywhere, it is no longer pos-
sible to maintain the traditional position that argued for the almost
total desertion of rural settlements. The extent to which permanent
rural settlements remain in occupation varies between regions, with
between 20% and 80% of pre-existing earlier settlements surviving
into the 4th c. In all cases where it has been possible to construct
detailed maps of settlement distribution, a similar tale can be told: the
late antique rural community remains still largely dispersed through-
out the countryside (g. 10). Despite a decrease in the numbers of
individual occupied sites, and the manifest decline evident at individual
sites, overall one can detect neither a concentration of population,
nor a re-arrangement of settlement patterns (except on occasion,
from the 5th c. onwards a broad tendency for settlement to favour
certain valleys). The survival of dispersed settlement patterns, and
the relative scarcity of evidence for nucleation, is seemingly a rule
during the period, and only the occasional increased density of late
antique settlement around certain towns (such as Tongres and Cambrai)
is indicative of populations clustering around central places; the sit-
uation at Cambrai, in fact, was accentuated by the quasi-abandonment
of rural settlements in the area around Bavay, the old civitas-capital.
19
Nevertheless, one should not assume that the rural habitat of north-
ern Gaul did not change at all during the period. On the contrary,
there are some strong regional variations and even some micro-
regional ones too. Neighbouring regions that shared largely homo-
geneous physical characteristics can display highly dissimilar levels of
population survival, one showing vigorous continuity, and the other
in contrast demonstrating signs of profound decline and even aban-
donment. Analysis suggests that it was those areas that were already
under stress during the early empire, and which were the least suited
to agricultural exploitation, that were the rst to be deserted, although
such areas were never wholly abandoned. The sites that one might
nd in such areas are often much reduced in size, and also com-
paratively poorer. The dominant impression is of a landscape that
was more suited to extensive pastoralism, including small groups of
shepherds and oxherds, regions thus disassociated from settlements
with a more varied agrarian economy known elsewhere.
19
Delmaire and Fontaine (1982); Delmaire (1994); Duurland (2000).
552 r.tr \.x ossrr
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 553
Fig. 10 Distribution of late antique rural settlement in the Aldenhover Platte in
Rhineland. Above: 1st and 2nd third of the 4th c. Below: end of the 4th c.
(after Lenz (1999)).
The Diversity of Rural Settlement
The increasingly comprehensive excavations of rural settlements in
recent years have allowed us a greater understanding of the mater-
ial conditions of settlement during the later empire; one of the out-
comes of this enhanced knowledge has been the identication of
dierent kinds of rural occupation. It is now possible to categorise
the dierent forms of rural occupation by quality of lifeusing such
criteria as architectural decoration, size, and the scope of their facil-
itiesas well as by their implied economic roles. In this present
paper, I shall not elaborate on the nature of these typologies, which
I have dealt with elsewhere; instead, it is the very diversity of settle-
ment that is worth remarking on, as the nature of occupation varies
not only from region to region, but also from settlement to settle-
ment. In the case of northern Gaul in the later empire, the evidence
at our disposal does not permit the conclusion that there was a polar-
isation of rural settlement, with the population dynamics creating a
binary opposition between very wealthy large estates and the mis-
erable slums of an impoverished and dominated population. Instead,
it appears that there was a great diversity of settlement in certain
regions (such as the area around Trier and the Rhineland, in Picardy,
and the landscape surrounding Paris), which points to concomitant
social diversity.
In the Plaine de France, for example, there is the same variety of
settlements in the 4th c. as there was during the early empire, only
with the overall total number of sites slightly diminished. Similarly, in
the Rhineland, there are numerous sites of small and medium size,
many of which are associated with richly furnished tombs. One of
the best examples is the site at Rheinbach-Flerzheim (g. 11a), which
has a number of notable features including fortied granaries, cereal-
drying chambers, and funerary remains, among which are 4 dating
from the end of the 3rd c. that are particularly well furnished. The
small farm of Hambach 32 is another comparable example (g. 11b).
In the region around Trier, we can cite another small rural settle-
ment at Bollendorf (g. 11c) which did not have a bath suite until
the end of the 3rd c., or the site at Leiwen-Hostert (g. 11d), where
a residential building was constructed at the start of the 4th c. using
the relatively unsophisticated technique of cob walling. Some of
these settlements doubtlessly belonged to members of the middle
classes, perhaps rented out to tenant farmers, but considering the
554 r.tr \.x ossrr
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 555
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exceptional quality of some of the funerary objects, one cannot
entirely exclude the possibility that others may have belonged in fact
to the curial elites. The questions this raises oer tangible proof of
the complexities involved in attributing a dened social status or class
to the occupants of any settlement.
Economic Reorganisation, not Economic Decline
In many cases, the development of rural settlements seems to involve
an overall reduction of the occupied area, something that is occasionally
accompanied by the reorganisation of a settlements ground plan and
layout. This phenomenon, long-identied in the towns of Gaul, was
traditionally associated with the decline of a settlement and the impov-
erishment of its inhabitants. However, some studies have cast doubt
on such an unequivocal interpretation. The case of the villa of
Champion (g. 12) is symptomatic of such reconsiderations, and it
has allowed scholars to identify and investigate in great detail this
process in which the occupied space is reduced. Champion shows
that this important modication was linked not to impoverishment,
but instead to more general changes to the agricultural economy of
the settlement. In this case, the reduction of the occupied area, which
began in the Severan period, was contemporary with the period in
which the residential area of the villa (and above all the baths),
reached its largest extent, and was endowed with rich painted dec-
oration. It was also at this time that a large stone granary was con-
structed as a replacement for an earlier wooden one. Some nds of
golden jewellery dating from the mid-3rd c. testify to the general wealth
of the settlement, at a time in which the courtyard, too big to be
suited to new avenues of agricultural exploitation (possibly extensive
animal husbandry), was abandoned. In the reduction of the size of
the complex, one must see above all a reorganisation of space and
the adaptation of agricultural units to a new set of working condi-
tions and new economic constraints.
In some cases, it is of course likely that some economic impov-
erishment occurred at the same time, but this should not be assumed
to be the case in every example, and individual sites should be stud-
ied in some detail to determine whether or not this was the case.
Naturally, where the reduction of the occupied area is accompanied
by evidence of the material decay of agricultural installations in rural
settlements, then there are obvious criteria for assuming some levels
556 r.tr \.x ossrr
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 557
Fig. 12 The evolution and restructuring of space in the villa of Champion
(province of Namur, Belgium), between the 2nd c. and the end of the 3rd/start
of the 4th c. (after Van Ossel and Defgne (2001)).
103
3 0 1
2 0 1
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8 9
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0 50 m
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ca 260 - 320 AD
ca 200-260 AD
ca 120-200 AD
pound and water gully
remaining buildings
new buildings
of impoverishment during the period, although the transition in con-
struction techniques from stone to wood, discussed above, should not
necessarily be implicated in such assessments. Only where there exists
the substantial abandonment or subdivision of pre-existing buildings
without any simultaneous new constructions, it seems plausible to
assume some increase in the levels of poverty. The very nal stage
of the villa at Champion, up to the rst half of the 4th c., appears
to follow this model.
Monetarisation: Evidence of Continued Economic Complexity
It is thus quite incontrovertible that there was some measure of im-
poverishment throughout rural settlements in 4th c. northern Gaul,
but it is equally incontestable that this was not a blanket phenomenon
that aected all areas in the same way, and thus generalisations that
ignore the diverse trajectories of each micro-region, even each indi-
vidual settlement, are dangerous, and detailed study is in reality the
only way forward.
One way to conrm this conclusion, and thus to reject the hypoth-
esis that rural impoverishment aected all settlements with equal
severity during Late Antiquity, is to study the monetarisation of the
countryside. This can be a good criterion for the health of the econ-
omy in preindustrial societies.
20
Contrary to those who hold what is
termed a primitivist view of the ancient economy, money was indeed
present in the countryside during Late Antiquity.
21
G. Depeyrot has
written: Plus lor se diusait au cours du IV
e
sicle, plus le mon-
nayage de bronze atteignait les strates sociales les plus humbles.
22
The limited purchasing power of those bronze pieces in circulation
was proportional to the needs of the population and their consumer
power. It reects the daily usage of coins for the purchase of low-
priced goods that were accessible to a great number of individuals.
20
De Ligt (1990) 3345.
21
The large number of coins found in the north of Gaul is some indication of
the quantitative importance of money in circulation, as well as of the volume of
the monetary mass and the rapidity of its circulation: Carri (1994) 19293; Depeyrot
(1982). The volumes of FMRD, FMRL, and of the journal Trsors Montaires, can
provide on occasion rather impressive lists of coins found in the rural settlements
or in the isolated farmsteads, as can coin-lists from individual excavation reports:
Van Ossel (1992) 7478.
22
Depeyrot (1991) 203206.
558 r.tr \.x ossrr
Regional studies of the countryside have suggested that the great
majority of daily transactions were eected with bronze coinage, and
the more rare gold and silver were mainly used for the payment of
taxes, interest, and debts. Such a thesis has been conrmed by the
discovery of several money-balances in vici and rural settlements, such
as those from the south of Seine-en-Marne.
23
That there was a barter
economy that existed alongside (or even beneath) this monetary econ-
omy is of little importance to this argument. What is crucial, however,
is the fact that bronze currency, either ocial or imitation, continued
to circulate from the end of the 3rd c. at least to the end of the 4th,
and that such circulation is indicative of a rural population actively
participating in mechanisms of exchange.
24
All the evidence points
to a rural population using such quantities of bronze coinage as to
illustrate that they had not been reduced to poverty, even if they
suered from the ination caused by increases in issues of gold from
the time of Constantine onwards.
25
It was only from the early 5th c. onwards, with the cessation of
bronze minting between 408 and 420, and subsequently the disap-
pearance of silver coin, that gold remained the only available currency
of value. As a consequence, money was scarcely used in daily trans-
actions, although recent research has shown that this was a very grad-
ual transformation that took time, and that the demonetarisation of
the countryside did not occur until the middle of the 5th c. (as indi-
cated by the preponderance of Victoria auggg and Salus Reipublicae types,
and their imitations, the circulation of which appears to last until
around 450).
26
The Distribution of Manufactured Objects: Evidence of Rural Exchange
The participation of the rural population in networks of exchange
is clear also from the distribution of a variety of dierent types of
object. There are many examples of objects of daily life (such as
womens hairpins),
27
or others that we nd as grave-goods,
28
that are
23
Unpublished data collected as part of the collective research project Lpoque
romaine tardive en le-de-France, directed by the author and P. Ouzoulias.
24
Fulford (1989) 18182, 185, 19193.
25
Depeyrot (1991) 123. Between the end of the 3rd c. and 367, ination was
on average 17% per year, and subsequently, after 367, around 3%.
26
Foucray (1997) 4445.
27
See Rodet-Belarbi and Van Ossel (2003) 344350.
28
Van Ossel (1993). The existence of a middle class is evinced not only from
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 559
in themselves indicative of the existence of a population of the lower-
and middles-classes that were still attached to the hallmarks of provin-
cial Gallo-Roman imperial culture, and which possibly are even man-
ifestations of a particular loyalty to the imperial regime itself. The
widespread diusion of such objects is also indicative of the close
links between the cities and the countryside, and contradicts the idea
of a rural landscape gradually retreating into autarkic isolation. The
same might be said for the late antique terra sigillata from Argonne,
which is still present in almost all of the rural communities that
remained in occupation towards the end of Antiquity. Evidence sug-
gests that the distribution channels passed through towns and cities,
and then out into the remote rural landscape without diculty.
29
That manufactured goods of such small value could circulate so eas-
ily and in such visible quantities is evidence that the countryside was
not isolated or self-contained, and that it did have links to the wider
cultural realm.
30
Of even greater signicance was the recent discov-
ery of a production workshop of terra sigillata of the Argonne-type,
dating from the middle of the 4th c. in a rural settlement at Mareuil-
ls-Meaux, not far from Meaux; this demonstrated that not only was
the Diocese of the Gauls still part of a zone of economic activity,
but that the countryside continued to play an important role in indi-
vidual or collective production. A relationship of such economic cor-
respondence between rural and urban does not appear to be an
isolated phenomenon: the division of labour in the production of
beer, for example, provides comparable evidence. In the 4th c., and
also later in the 8th-9th c., evidence seems to suggest that agricul-
tural exploitation was responsible for its production as far as the
making of the malt, whilst the brewing stage of the process was com-
pleted in the towns and cities.
31
Thus, even if the total number of rural settlements did diminish
over the course of the 4th c. (a decline continued throughout the 5th),
the quality of the funerary objects in question, but also from the use of heavy stone
sarcophagi at the small rural cemeteries in question. Such tombs and sarcophagi,
generally constituting a minority within the cemeteries, could very well be the graves
of the owners or wardens of the estates in which they were found.
29
Van Ossel (1995).
30
Here, archaeology modies the pronounced opinion of M. Rostovtzev in par-
ticular (1957; ed. 1988) 388: Les paysans vivaient dans une pauvret extrme et
en revinrent une conomie domestique presque absolue, chaque foyer pourvoy-
ant lui-mme ses besoins.
31
Laubenheimer, Ouzoulias and Van Ossel (2003) 58.
560 r.tr \.x ossrr
and even if a number of these individual sites exhibit undeniable
signs of decline, and even if cultural expression itself did progressively
transform over the course of Late Antiquity, I still do not believe that
the settlements of the countryside became self-contained or inward-
looking, nor that trade with urban centres diminished (or at least,
not yet). The continued existence of a pattern of dispersed and diverse
rural settlements, inhabited by a population of varied statuses, con-
tradicts any idea of a self-sucient landscape which has been denuded
of its production capacity.
Coxcrtsiox
To conclude this panorama, several points must be emphasised as
key to our understandings of the issues at hand. Firstly, the analysis
of archaeological evidence has conclusively shown that the inhabitants
of the late antique countryside of northern Gaul displayed considerable
diversity of wealth/status, indicating the existence of people of numer-
ous social categories. Besides several trs riches magnats de la terre
et une masse de trs pauvres dpendants de statut divers,
32
there
were without doubt a great number of intermediate categories. The
people belonging to them were neither very rich, nor very poor, and
in our minds belong to something labelled the middle class. Yet it
remains vital to remember that such a group was not a monolithic
entity, but rather a great spectrum of individuals who had varying
statuses, wealth, and technical capabilities.
A second point is that poverty has always existed, and numerous
sources (both archaeological and textual) indicate that where impov-
erishment came to the countryside during Late Antiquity, it had many
dierent causes. One can no longer maintain that there was a very
general pauperisation of the rural population, and that this was caused
solely by the development of the colonate and the growth of large
estates.
Thirdly, it has become vital to draw up a geography of wealth and
poverty, using recent methodologies and criteria. It is crucial that local
variations and regional dierences are recognised and appreciated
when we come to discuss impoverishment in Late Antiquity. Some areas
32
Delaplace and France (1995) 91.
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 561
are simply less populous than others, in other areas it is the wider
economic circumstances that are altering, and in yet others the entire
framework of agriculture is undergoing transformation: are all of the
individuals involved in these changes becoming poor, and if so, are
there all becoming poor in the same way? Individual context and
detailed circumstance must be elucidated in all cases.
Finally, even if I am personally opposed to theories that postulate
a broad abandonment of the countryside in the Diocese of the Gauls,
and of a rural economy in abject decline, one cannot argue that
nothing changed in Late Antiquity. The countryside did not remain
the same as it had been in earlier centuries. But a lot of work remains
to be done before we can correctly identify changes aecting Gallo-
Roman society at this time, especially those concerning the distrib-
ution or concentration of wealth.
Ackxovrrrorvrx+s
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Gechter M. (1980) Die rmische Villa rustica von Rheinbach-Flerzheim, Rhein-Sieg-
Kreis, in Ausgrabungen im Rheinland 79 (Bonn 1980) 17377.
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Festschrift fr Gnther Smolla (Wiesbaden 1999) 24558.
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564 r.tr \.x ossrr
Lis+ or Fiotnrs
Fig. 1: Dambron La Fosse Dieppe (Eure-et-Loire) (after Ferdire (1983) 5960). An
example of the supposed impoverishment of the countryside in the 4th c. The
reconstruction clearly underlines the miserable character of the structure.
Fig. 2: Athies-sous-Laon Le Bois dEmpreville (Aisne, France). Reconstruction of part
of a rural establishment in its condition from the end of the 3rd c. until the mid-
dle of the 4th c. (after Collart (1989) 95).
Fig. 3: Hambach 66. Plan of the principal building. 4th c. wooden constructions
are shown in grey (after Rech (1983) with additions by the author).
Fig. 4: Comparison between the agricultural buildings of the rural establishments
of Saint-Germain-ls-Corbeil (in grey) and of Servon (in dark grey) (Seine-et-
Marne, France) (after Van Ossel and Ouzoulias (2001) 170).
Fig. 5: Plan of the Germanic settlement of Saint-Ouen-du-Breuil (Seine-Maritime,
France) (V. Gonzalez, P. Ouzoulias and P. Van Osselunpublished document).
Fig. 6: Plan of the villa of Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer (Seine-Maritime, France), show-
ing the location of the late antique mosaics (after Darmon (1994) 107).
Fig. 7: Hoard from Saint-Ouen-du-Breuil (Seine-Maritime, France) (after Gonzalez,
Ouzoulias and Van Ossel (2001) 47).
Fig. 8: Plan of the Langmauerbezirk (after Gilles (1999) 246). An imperial estate near
Trier, enclosed by a wall of the period of Valentinian.
Fig. 9: Histogrammes showing rural settlement in 5 areas of lle-de-France between
the 1st and the 8th c. (after Ouzoulias and Van Ossel (2001) 151).
Fig. 10: Distribution of late antique rural settlement in the Aldenhover Platte in
Rhineland (after Lenz (1999)).
Fig. 11: Four villae in Rhineland in their 4th c. phases: A. Rheinbach-Flerzheim,
in the Rhine plain (after Gechter (1980)); B. Hambach 77/32, on the plateau
of Dren (after Czysz (1978)); C. Bollendorf (after Cppers et al. (1983) 124);
D. Leiwen Hostert, in the region of Trier (after Trierer Zeitschrift 49 (1986)).
Fig. 12: The evolution and restructuring of space in the villa of Champion (province
of Namur, Belgium), between the 2nd c. and the end of the 3rd/start of the
4th c. (after Van Ossel and Defgne (2001)).
ntn.r ivro\rnisnvrx+ ix xon+nrnx o.tr 565
SOCIO-CULTURAL CHANGE
SOME ASPECTS OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL TIME
IN LATE ANTIQUITY
Adam Gutteridge
Abstract
This study examines some aspects of social time in Late Antiquity, argu-
ing that conceptions of time can be found in places other than the
calendar, and that numerous dierent levels of time exist simultaneously,
some of which can be investigated through texts and material culture.
Late antique conceptions of renovatio, especially those expressed through
numismatic legends, are examined, alongside evidence relating to the
destruction and conversion of pagan temples during the period. This evi-
dence is used to suggest that during this period time was conceptualised
in a way that stressed its discontinuous, non-sequential, character. This
is interpreted in the context of other recent studies of late antique cul-
ture which have argued that the period witnessed a characteristic frag-
mentation of larger structures into smaller discontinuous elements,
subsequently made available for non-linear reassembly.
The treasures of time lie high, in urnes, coynes, and monuments, scarce below the
roots of some vegetables. Time hath endlesse rarities, and shows of all varieties
1
Ix+nortc+iox
This brief study develops from two axiomatic principles concerning
the concept of time, and its relationship with the cultural world of a
society. The rst is that the existence and character of time, whilst-
being a part of the frame of any individual human consciousness, is
also something that has a larger social articulation and expression.
In this way, it is akin to other social structures such as power, religion,
morality, or law: one of the ways in which humans and their societies
characteristically structure and understand the world around them.
2
1
Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, Chapter 1 (Browne (1977) [1658]
267).
2
For a similar treatment of the concept of social space in late antique and Early
Medieval Italy, see Harrison (1992) 17780.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 569601
Like these other examples, time will be understood by an individual,
but it will also exist as a much broader, shared, conception, which-
makes it a part of social discourse. This is what may be understood
by the term cultural time. All cultures will thus have created a
number of distinctive notions concerning the ways in which time might
be understood (that it is cyclical, for example, or linear; that its end
may be imminent in some way, or that it is eternally unchangeable
and constant; that it is a purely universal objective entity, or that
there are numerous dierent levels of subjective time co-existent within
the world). None of these cultural conceptions of time is to be con-
sidered as normal, or objectively correct. Instead, they exist as cha-
racteristics of the ways in which a society structures and mediates
its experience of the world.
The second principle is that just as religion or power will be artic-
ulated in a wide variety of material manifestations, so any consensual
understandings of time will be expressed by a society in a number of
ways. Such cultural expressions of time in a past society may well be
recognisable to researchers in the present. With an ecumenical method-
ology, which embraces both material and textual sources, we may
be able to say something about such a social conception of the char-
acter of time in a past society. This may be visible in a myriad of
ways, including the treatment of ancient buildings, the writing of
past histories, or the expectations of future realities. Such material
manifestations exist in a reciprocal relationship with the more abstract
conceptions of time: neither has an independent status or priority,
and instead, they condition each other. In a certain town, for example,
the way in which the past is understood as a concept, and its per-
ceived relationship to the present, will inuence a communitys decision
to either demolish or preserve an old building. Yet the outcome of
such a decision, and whether a new building, a renovated old structure,
or a disintegrating ruin, occupies a place in the urban landscape, will
then continue to aect and inuence the conception of the past
through future generations. Similarly, the ways in which a historian
conceives of time, and the shape and purpose of history, are clear
preconditions of the form and meaning of the written text that the
historian creates. In years to come, the structure of that written text,
and its conception of historical time, will go on to inuence its read-
ers. Conceptions and acted outcomes are constantly dynamic, and
constantly interwoven. The material world and the written record
are both created and creative.
570 .r.v ot++rniror
Previous scholarship has addressed the concept of time in Late
Antiquity on a variety of levels.
3
Although some recent studies have
focused attention on the ways that time and its cultural expression
might be a locus in which social and personal identities are expressed,
4
other contemporary work has addressed the issue more obliquely,
studying time as a primarily calendrical construct, a portion of social
life that might be extrapolated from the arrangements of sacred days
and moveable feasts.
5
Much scholarly emphasis has been placed on
the concept of a Christian time, and the increasing impact of the
Christian calendar on social practice from the mid-4th c. onwards.
It must be remembered, however, that time and the calendar are
not synonymous terms. The latter is a specic kind of designated
framework that seeks to apply an organisational principle to quo-
tidian or annual rhythms of life. These rhythms certainly contain,
and even create, perceptions of the temporal landscape and the qual-
ities inherent in the passage of time, but time itself is not restricted
to the pattern of days and months. The procedures involved in the
Christian ritualisation of festal and calendrical time may be empha-
sised in the source material that we have for Late Antiquity, but
they are only one of numerous dierent ideological, cultural, and
religious levels of time in society.
Sociologists have long been interested in examining these dier-
ent levels of social time, and the range of temporal horizons that
are interwoven in any one society, individual, or practice.
6
These
levels of time include, amongst others, the cycles of natural time,
3
For earlier investigations of issues concerning social and cultural concepts of time
in the period, see Brilliant (1970); Duval (1976); Fabricius Hansen (2003) 24570;
MacCormack (1982); Siniscalco (1983). Studies of the philosophical conception of
time in Late Antiquity are another parallel approach to the subject, and surveys can
be found by Ariotti (1972); Pines and Sambursky (1971); Sorabji (1983). For the
most comprehensive examination of Late Antiquitys complex relationship with its
past, see Cameron (2001). There is an extensive corpus of literature concerning social,
cultural, and political concepts of time in other periods, to which reference can be
given only to the most salient: Chevallier (1976); Constable (1989); Constable (1990);
Goetz (2002); Gosden (1994); Le Go (1980); Leone (1978); Leroux (1984); Momigliano
(1966); Rosen (2004); Swanson (2002); Thompson (1967); Whitrow (1988).
4
Handley (2000); Handley (2003) 11038. Also see Gardner (2002) for a Giddensian
approach to space-time and identity in late antique Britain.
5
For example, see Inglebert (2001) 37881; Markus (1990) 85135; Pietri (1984);
Salzman (1990); Salzman (1999). For a sophisticated analysis of the relationships
between liturgical sacred time and the calendrical structures of the lived world in
Early Medieval Gaul, see Van Dam (1985b) 277300.
6
The classic studies are Adam (1990); Adam (1995).
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 571
the trajectory of a lifespan, the structures of the calendar, the various
levels of personal or shared tradition and memory, and the perception
and expectation of the future. In any one event or at any moment,
many of these dierent times will exist, and in the social realm they
will be mediated and articulated through material expressions.
One way to reveal the multiplicity of dierent temporal horizons
inside social practice is to dissect a single individual case-study, in order
to illustrate the pervasive character of the temporal and the extent
to which it can have a cultural materiality in the world. The annually
recurrent rise and ood of the River Nile in Egypt is one such exam-
ple, where an individual event and its social manifestations might be
unpicked to show the wide range of temporalities with which it is
interwoven. This natural phenomenon was absolutely vital to crop
yields and, indeed, to survival itself in the region. Beginning to
overow in July and peaking in the middle of August, the oodwater
and its nutrient-rich silt from the Nile covered elds for 6 to 8 weeks,
and enabled new crops to be planted in the now-fertile valley.
7
The regular rhythm of this annual natural event determined the
structure of the Egyptian calendar, and the rst swellings of the river
marked the start of the year, thus socialising the cyclical cadence of
natures temporality by linking it to human reckoning. But there was
much more to the event than calendrical calibration, as it also linked
the present to the endless ages of past tradition. The Egyptians knew
that the Nile had ooded since time immemorial, and that its repet-
itive nature existed not only in the present, but also in the civilisa-
tion of the past. The anonymous author of the Expositio Totius Mundi
et Gentium, a work probably composed in the years around A.D. 360
and largely free of Christian sentiment, could write that the annual
rising of the Nile not only regularly fed the crops of Egypt present,
but it had also bred the oldest race on earth in Egypt past.
8
Its rise
and ood was therefore indicative of a continuity between times past
and times present, a link that could bridge the two. As well as this
embodiment of the past, it also linked the time of the present to the
time of the future. Water levels before and during the ood were
carefully monitored, using a variety of formal devices,
9
and this knowl-
edge would be used to not only predict the eventual extent of the
7
Bagnall (1993) 1521; Bonneau (1964) 29131.
8
Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium, E.34.
9
Bonneau (1971) 2264; Borchardt (1906).
572 .r.v ot++rniror
ood, but also the future crop yield and harvest. This predictive tech-
nology connected the present to the expected future, and gave those
in control of the nilometers a perceived knowledge of, and power
over, what was to come. This was often linked to religious practice,
10
and therefore tied the rising waters to cosmic and divine authority,
and even fuelled Egyptian concepts of vast historical cycles of time
which were seen to mirror the cyclical pattern of the Nile.
11
This bond between the divine and natural worlds, and its eect on
the conceptions of temporality, recurrence, and the rhythms of the-
world, came under some Christian scrutiny in the 4th c., but the re-
location of some nilometers from temples to churches did not radically
alter the diverse layers of time woven through the events.
12
The
monk John of Lycopolis was granted the ability to foretell the future
by God, and more specically, the power to predict the rise of the
Nile and yield of the crops, and as such, he was a human and
Christian version of the ancient nilometer, binding the present to
the future, through his sanctity.
13
Another monastic story relates how
a certain monk had left a sin of fornication without repentance for
many years, until one year the Nile failed to ood. Prayer revealed
that the cause of the failure was the monks sin, and once his penance
had been completed, the waters rose.
14
The message here is that time,
or its essential articulation, can be halted and restarted by the Christian
God, at will. This is a further example of the ways in which natural
phenomena such as ood or harvest were increasingly understood
to occur solely through the power of God, and subject to divine will
10
For cultic practice and religious interpretations of the Niles ood, see Bonneau
(1964) 219369; Bonneau (1991).
11
As conceived, for example, in the later and interpolated versions of the Oracle
of the Potter: see Koenen (1970); McCown (1925) 398411; Smith (1978) 7684.
12
One of the most well-known devices for measuring the rise of the Nile was
housed in the Serapeum in Alexandria. Excavations revealed its structure to have
been an opening in the ground to the East of the temple building, which enabled
water measurements to be taken from a cistern connected to the citys subterranean
aqueduct system (Rowe and Rees (1957) 49293). Apparently Constantine demanded
the removal of the measuring device to a Christian building, and although it was
reinstated in the Serapeum by Julian (Sozom., Hist. eccl. 5.3), it was permanently
relocated in the aftermath of the temples destruction in 391 (Ruf., H.E. 11.30;
Engreen (1943); Haas (1997) 15969). For Christian views of the Nile and its ood,
see Sozom., Hist. eccl. 7.20; Bonneau (1964) 42139; Frankfurter (1998) 4546;
Hermann (1959); Trombley (1993) 14344, and for a recent overview of Christian
attitudes to the landscape of Egypt generally, see Frankfurter (2003) 36481.
13
The Lives of the Desert Fathers, Life of John of Lycopolis, 11 (transl. Russell (1981)).
14
Ward (2003) 5.26.
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 573
rather than natural law.
15
This brief summary of one single pheno-
menon has shown the wide range of dierent kinds of social time
inherent in any one practice or moment, and that once traced, reveal
that time as a social concept is not only expressed through calendars,
but has a much wider existence through many levels of social under-
standing. In this example, the Nile and its nilometers represent a
multiplicity of times with a material manifestation in the landscape,
which links the present to past tradition and future expectation, and
intertwines the social, natural, and divine realms of life and time.
It is not my intention to argue that there was one distinct, uni-
vocal way of understanding time during Late Antiquity, or a single
unied cultural perception of its character: time is altogether too
ubiquitous and multiplicitous to allow that. Yet whilst there will not
be one singular and unique concept of time articulated throughout
late antique society, it may still be possible to discern and describe
a number of repeated traits that pervade the cultural world of the
period. Taken as a whole, these repeated characteristics may illus-
trate that there was a certain style of viewing the nature of time
during Late Antiquity.
16
This study will seek to identify and describe
some of these traits, and argue that in a number of spheres of the
late antique world, there appears to be a tendency to conceive of
time as having a non-linear and non-universal structure. This con-
ception of times character reveals temporal landscape that can be
manipulated, rearranged, and which has had aspects of sequential-
ity replaced by a fragmented, non-linear framework.
Tivr, RENOVATIO, .xr L.+r Ax+itr Coix.or
The system of taking and honouring vows was central to Roman reli-
gion, as it united the devotion paid by individuals with the benevolent
power of divinities.
17
A petition was made by an individual with the
15
Compare, for example, the Christian interpretations of periodic springs and their
sacralisation in Late Antiquity, described by Barnish (2001) 39398, or the concep-
tions of nature that are demonstrated by Gregory of Tours (De Nie (1987) 71132).
16
Roberts (1989) 18, approaches late antique poetics in a similar fashion, arguing
that whilst there is not a single ubiquitous aesthetic of late antique poetry, it is still
possible to identify repeated traits that occur and reoccur through the corpus, and
which potentially provide a loose denition of the stylistic features of the periods
writings.
17
For the system of vows in Greco-Roman religion generally, see Ogilvie (1969)
574 .r.v ot++rniror
proviso that if favour was granted and the wish fullled, due hon-
our would be paid to the god by the recipient of divine assistance.
The VSLMs that litter both the epigraphic corpus and the oorspace
of provincial archaeological museums eortlessly illustrate the centrality
of this rite in creating a bond between the realms of the human and
divine, a bond that was maintained throughout Classical Antiquity. The
custom of imperial public vota was initiated at the very start of the
empire, and assumed its characteristic style from early in the reign
of Augustus. Emperors would declare that they had made a formal
petition for 10 years of rule (a susceptum), most visibly through the
medium of numismatic legend. If that term was reached, the vow
would be publicly fullled through the same medium (the moment of
solutum), and the emperor would simultaneously make a fresh susceptum
petition for a further 10 years of rule. Not only did this tradition
bind the emperor to the gods above and the people below, through
the maintenance of an image stressing the rulers reign by virtue of
the gods favour, but it also bound the emperor into the rhythms of
time. Vows were to be made in the present that looked forward to
the expected future, and, if they were reached, not only was the cel-
ebration made in the present, but the past was sated and the future
expected once more. The celebrations of the solutum, which occurred
at the bounds of a very specic and rigid period of time dened by
both tradition and memory, created a sense of renewal and restoration
in miniature: as one decennial period passed away and ended, the
coincident new period was born out of its death, acknowledging the
end of one cycle and the rebirth of a new one. Whilst couching the
celebration of the solutum in the imagery of stability, the repetitive
nature of cycles beginning and ending at specied times emphasised
the expected metronomic rhythms of closure followed by renewal.
These vows, instituted as a part of the public ritual behaviour of
emperors, continued as an almost unbroken part of the lexicon of
imperium throughout the entire course of imperial history, and were
probably linked to the ceremonial granting of donatives to the army
that occurred every 5 years of an emperors reign.
18
In the high
3740; Van Straten (1981). For the imperial vows recorded on coinage, especially
in the later empire, see Bruun (1966) 5661; Buttrey (1983) 37578; Kent (1981)
5054; Kent (1994) 59; Mattingly (1950); Mattingly (1951); Pearce (1951) xxxvii

xxxviii.
For detailed studies of the system and organisation of the vota coinages of Constantine,
see Bruun (1954); Bruun (1956).
18
Bruun (1966) 5658; Burgess (1988).
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 575
empire there was little deviation from the standard pattern of public
vota oered by the imperial machine: Antoninus Pius, for example,
minted vota decennalia issues in 14748 to celebrate his ten-year anniver-
sary; in 157, he minted with the legend VOTA SOLUTA, and the
year after that, in 158, minted a susceptum issue for thirty years.
19
The upheavals of the 3rd c., however, meant that despite a number
of emperors taking decennalian suscepta vows on their accession coinage,
very few won enough divine favour to see out their stretch, and cel-
ebrate as such with a solutum issue. The reign of the tetrarchs witnessed
the rst solutum coinage for a number of years, and the reign of
Constantine and his various empurpled ospring saw a multiplicity
of such issues, but it was here that the rst temporal ruptures in the
long-established tradition of vota may be discerned. Constantine rst
issued his own vota coinage in 310 from Trier, an aureus that assumed
a ve year solutum vow and a proclaimed a suscepta for ten.
20
This is
perhaps history rewritten as Constantine would have liked it to have
been: celebrating an accession as Caesar at the time of his fathers
assumption of the imperium in 305. In fact, it was a title that was
not granted to him in that year, and was something for which he
had to ght in the years subsequent to his fathers death. He res-
olutely retained this temporal schema of his own, however, and in
315 he celebrated a decennalia with a large-scale issue of VOT X
MUL XX and VOTIS X ET XX legends.
21
This apparatus of
anniversary vota was signicant enough to also appear on his decen-
nalian monument, the arch at Rome: so ten, so twenty.
22
This itself
was not an innovation, as one of the few surviving pieces of the
Arcus Novus monument from Rome is a votive inscription, suggesting
that it was almost certainly a similar decennalian monument for
Diocletian and Maximian.
23
It is clear however that Constantines
19
Buttrey (1983) 376; Mattingly (1950) 15961.
20
Mattingly (1951) 221.
21
Mattingly (1951) 22223.
22
CIL VI, 1139. The single word VOT, accompanied by a chi-rho sign (and a
trireme), is also to be found as a pictograph in one of the technopaegnia dedicated
to Constantine by Optatian Porfyry (Poem 19; see Levitan (1985) 25758).
23
CIL VI, 31385, on Fragment 22a. For the monument itself, which straddled
the Via Lata until its destruction in the late 15th c., see principally Laubscher (1976),
and also De Maria (1988) 197203, 31214; Kleiner (1992) 40913; Torelli (1993).
The generally accepted date for the monument is the decennalia of 293 (Buttrey
(1983)), although Chastagnol (1987) 501504, maintains that it is a vicennalia mon-
ument, with the extant votive inscription belonging to the Caesars, accompanying
576 .r.v ot++rniror
slight elasticity with his vota anniversary was a technique of calculation
that became increasingly common in the course of the 4th c. and
beyond.
24
Jovian, for example, who reigned for less than a calendar
year managed to produce coinage which copied the formulae pro-
claiming not only VOT V MULT X, but even VOT X MULT
XX, which replicated the oering of a solutum for a 10 year reign.
25
By the mid-5th c. the eastern emperors had become utterly elastic in
their denitions of vota and anniversaries. Seemingly in 474, the 17th
and nal year of his reign, Leo I minted coins which assured his
populace VOT XXXV MULT XXXX. Two years after that, amidst
the confusions of the wars between the usurper Basilicus and Zeno,
the former issued one of the nal mintings of any vota coinage, in
which he found time to proclaim on the reverse of a half-aureus,
VOTA XXXX.
26
a lost VOTIS XX ET XXX for the Augusti. Two points are of particular signicance
in terms of this particular study. If the monument is indeed related to the decen-
nalian celebrations oered in 293, then as Diocletian was absent from Rome dur-
ing that period, the dedication must have been oered jointly to Maximian who
was present in the city at that time. Obviously, 293 does not represent the 10th
anniversary of Maximians own coronation, so this example predates the Constantinian
vota as the rst instance of fudging historical veracity in monumental votive rites.
Secondly, like much of what remains of the Arcus Novus, the stone upon which the
vow is inscribed is spolia (Cozza (1958); Kinney (1997) 131, 146; Laubscher (1976)
taf. 15). A Tyche kneels beside a column, upon which is suspended a clipeus, and
watches as a female gure, surviving only fragmentarily, inscribes the vow with a
stylus upon the formerly blank shield. The original message of the clipeus has been
erased and overwritten by the tetrarchic masons, and the reused gures are now
being made to pronounce the vows of Diocletian, in a kind of monumental post-
eventum prophecy. This is a clear example of the way in which architectural spolia
can cause play and discontinuity with temporal boundaries.
24
A recent assessment by Burgess (1988) has argued that the 4th c. issues were
not as wildly irregular as once thought, although it remains clear that from Theodosius
II onwards, the system displayed increasingly fundamental dierences in its expres-
sions of times cycles from the earlier issues. A number of practical explanations
have been oered for why this increasing inexactitude between the actual regnal
years and the dating schemata of the vota coinages began: that a junior emperor
intentionally backdates the start of his reign to match that of an older colleague
and then is forced to retain that regnal calculation (Pearce (1951) xxxvii

xxxviii);
that the vows may begin to honour an emperor other than the one for whom the
coinage was minted (Boyce (1965) 4648); that minting might begin on either the
rst or the last day of the anniversary year (Bruun (1966) 5658); that there was
an increasing need to pay army donatives in intervals of less than 5 years (Kent
(1981) 5354).
25
Buttrey (1983) 37678; Mattingly (1951) 23839.
26
Boyce (1965) 8789; Mattingly (1951) 253; Kent (1994) 59. Later emperors
are clearly inuenced by the nal vota legends of Theodosius II, and his vota types
become immobilised, so that vows made in 435 become repeatedly exhumed and
repeated by rote.
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 577
Naturally, the format of the vows themselves had changed greatly
since their inception as public rites of divine contract or thanksgiving.
Similarly, no-one can suggest that the people of Constantinople were
so devoid of public memory that they genuinely believed Leo I had
reigned for 35 years because a coin in their hand told them so. Yet
this was more than simple fakery, more meaningful than the cheer-
ful cant of an imperial propaganda machine churning out rewritten
history through the medium of crypto-anniversaries. More subtle
transformations appear to be taking place. Obviously, in the changing
religious climate of the period, any elements of the vota that may
have been interpreted as having an overtly pagan character quietly
vanished, but one of the most signicant changes seems to be the
fundamental shift in the way in which time, and its cadence, were
being articulated. No longer was there a sense that the set rhythms of
times passage will bring about cycles of restoration, nor that such
periods of renewal may be measured at specic regular intervals,
and are therefore to be celebrated as the brooches that clasp the
present to the past and future. Instead, the state of existence for the
new imperium is one of perpetual restoration, a heightened aura of
continual renewal that nds no room for the declining arc of times
gyre. In the vota imagery of Late Antiquity, we nd only rebirth,
expectation, and promises begged that stretch out 30 years into the
future, yet which are seemingly fullled in 5 or 10. The death that
should predetermine a rebirth has vanished, elided by a culture that
seeks only for continual renewal. A present reign appears no longer
sucient, and thus future rule must also be invoked, so that Imperator
Perpetuas Leo can claim that his 35 years are already run as he seem-
ingly petitions the divine for 5 more. There is dissatisfaction with
the measured progress of sequential time, and a longing to strive
towards (even to catch up with) the future. As such, the ordered
sequential cycles of time that found their manifestation in the vota
oered during the early empire are to be found in stark contrast to
this imagery of constant futurity and restoration.
Amidst this plethora of created and creative anniversaries, which
spread a message of constant unceasing restoration, other coinage issues
of the 4th c. seem to t perfectly. The Fel. Temp. Reparatio sequence
of reverses began with a large issue of aes coinage during the time of
Constans and Constantius II.
27
The supercial instruction of the leg-
27
Mattingly (1933); Kent (1967).
578 .r.v ot++rniror
end is plausibly read as the celebration of an anniversary, and a slo-
gan declaring that this moment ushers in the return of good times.
It has long been argued that the occasion for the initial minting of
this coinage was the celebrations of 348, marking the 1100th birth-
day of the foundation of Rome. Yet very soon these anniversary-
celebrating legends hardened into a standard reverse continuing to
be produced by ocial mints until around 358, and becoming a
model for non-ocial coinage, in Britain and elsewhere, after that.
28
This can be read to once again illustrate a move towards a temporal
dimension that has sought to transcend sequential restorations, and
instead achieved this perpetual state of temporal renovatio.
29
This message of a propagandised renovatio is a very ancient one,
periodically used by a range of rulers to celebrate their reign, but
always falling into step with times cycles, and in the past it had
often been linked to specic historical (or even astrological) events
that marked the start of one such cycle.
30
Virgil had utilised such an
image in his Fourth Eclogue to celebrate the occurrence of one such
specic historical event, which he celebrated as the start of a new
Golden Age.
31
By the 4th c., however, not only had a conceptual
Golden Age been transformed by writers such as Lactantius, who
saw it as synonymous with the Christian age of history,
32
but its
inherently cyclical cadence of rise and fall had been transformed into
an endless pitch of reparatio alone.
28
Brickstock (1987); Pearce (1941).
29
J. P. C. Kent argued that this movement from a series of cyclical renovations
to one single limitless and transcendent age of renovatio was motivated by a desire
on the part of the state to allay (secular) eschatological fears (Kent (1967) 85). He
suggested that the use of phoenix imagery on the Fel Temp. coinage was an iconog-
raphy specically chosen to stress self-generating rebirth, in the face of popular con-
cerns that the end of the 11th saeculum in 348 may occasion the end of the world.
The phoenix, however, had been linked to the numismatic iconography of Romes
centennial celebrations since Antoninus Pius minted its image in 138/9 and 142/3
(Van den Broek (1972) 70), and one was even reported to have appeared in Egypt
around A.D. 34 (Tac., Ann., 6.28), which Tacitus linked to the culmination of one
historical cycle and the inception of another.
30
For the history of this propagandist use of the concept of renovatio by legiti-
mate rulers, see Alfldi (1929) 27079; Alfldi (1973); Alfldi (1977); Dvornik (1966)
50611; Turcan (1983) 2229, and for its appearance in oppositional propaganda,
see De La Bdoyre (1998); Fowden (1986) 3842; Tarn (1932). For its continued
use, beyond Late Antiquity, see most generally Ladner (1982); Magdalino (1994).
31
Clausen (1994) 121; Mack (1978) 13; Mattingly (1947); Ryberg (1955); Versnel
(1993) 194203.
32
For Christian responses to Virgil, and to the images of renovatio in his poetry,
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 579
This pattern of continual restitution can be seen replicated in a
much broader sphere, through the machinery of governance, the
iconography of rule, and most especially, the concept of rebuilding in
the late antique world. Maxentius was one of the rst emperors who
drew heavily upon the iconography of renovation, restoration, and
renewal in his propaganda, and to a certain extent he styled himself
as Romulus reborn, a trans-temporal individual capable of saving
both Rome and empire.
33
Senatorial inscriptions from 4th c. Rome
repeatedly eulogise the restoration and renovatio of a range of public
buildings. The individuals responsible for these restorations are cast
as rescuing the stones from ruin, thereby creating the perpetually
restored urban landscape of the Eternal City.
34
This evidence can
be seen in the context of the well-known legislation from book 15.1
of the Theodosian Code,
35
which directed the attentions of provincial
governors and the prefects of Rome towards renewing and restor-
ing the old rather than building the new.
36
The ideological concept of
renovation, and the rhetorical expression of restoration, clearly drove
numerous expressions of power in the post-Roman landscape, and had
a wide range of inuence from the policies of Theodoric in Rome,
37
see especially Constantine, Oration on the Saints, 1921, Lact., Div. inst., 5.7, and dis-
cussions by Bennett (1988); Courcelle (1957); MacCormack (1998) 2131; Nicholson
(1988) 125; Radke (1978); Swift (1968). Peirce (1989) strenuously argued that the
Arch of Constantine and its iconographic programme were intended to be read as
the celebration of a new Golden Age.
33
Cullhed (1994) 4564; Heckster (1999) 72437. For other imperial uses of the
image of Romulus reborn, an iconography that seems to have begun in the 3rd c.,
see Bruggisser (1999) 7681. The propaganda of the tetrarchy had also included
the extensive use of the iconography of aeternitas and perpetuitas, especially in numis-
matic legend, related to the overall message of rule through divine mandate (Arnaldi
(1977)).
34
Alfldy (2001) 813; Bauer (2001). For attitudes to ruins in Late Antiquity:
Eros (2001) 103110, for a general overview; Bell (1998) 48; Williams (1997), for
evidence from Britain; Percival (1996); Percival (1997), for responses to ruined vil-
las in particular.
35
E.g. Cod. Theod. 15.1.3, 15.1.11, 15.1.15, 15.1.16, 15.1.17, 15.1.19, 15.1.21,
15.1.29, 15.1.31. For an overview, see Alchermes (1994); Cantino Wataghin (1999)
73540; Kunderewicz (1971); Saradi (1995) 4142.
36
This tendency towards labelling all rebuilding work a renewal of urban life
was common in late antique society. As Peter Brown has pointed out, one could
make an epigraphic claim to have renewed a city with so small an action as repair-
ing the oor of a cistern (Brown (1980) 19). For evidence of epigraphic claims of
rebuilding and reconstruction in the western empire generally, see Thomas and
Witschel (1992).
37
Theodoric was often cast as a renovator of the old, especially in his role as
de facto ruler of the city of Rome; see, Cassiod., Var. 3.29, 3.31, 7.15; Chronicon, 500.
580 .r.v ot++rniror
to the Gaulish villas of Venantius Fortunatus,
38
and later, to the
churches of Basil I in Constantinople.
39
In these examples, the ide-
alised rhetoric stresses not only that the period is one of renovatio,
but that the rulers powers are so great that they can even reverse
the passage of time. By restoring old glories even the bending sickle
of time and entropy can be defeated by the superhuman power man-
ifest in the king, bishop, or emperor. In this world the constant pitch
of renovatio expressed through numismatic legend nds a material
manifestation.
Trvrrrs .xr Trvron.ri+v
The ruination of sites of pagan veneration, and their sporadic conver-
sion into places of Christian worship from the mid-4th c. onwards, has
been comprehensively studied, and examined from a wide variety of
viewpoints.
40
The material examined here relates to a number of
See discussions by Bloch (1959) 201202; Coates-Stephens (2003) 35456; Johnson
(1988) 7678; Macpherson (1989) 100101; ODonnell (1979) 41; Ward-Perkins
(1984) 21217.
38
Fortunatus description of the villa of Leontius of Bordeaux (Poems, 1.18),
specically lauds the bishop for renewing the old ruins, and making the baths and
fountains live once more. He stresses not that Leontius has created something new,
but instead that he has brought classical ways of living back to life once more. For
the background to the poem, see George (1992) 10913.
39
The rhetoric of time-defeating restorative renewal is elucidated in Basils vita,
commissioned by Basils grandson Constantine VII and preserved as the second sec-
tion of Theophanes Continuator: Basil, by means of continuous care . . . raised
from ruin many holy churches that had been rent asunder by prior earthquakes or
had entirely fallen down or were threatening collapse . . . [T]he famous church of
the Holy Apostles, which had lost its former beauty and rmness, he fortied
by . . . the reconstruction of broken parts, and having scraped o the signs of age
and removed the wrinkles, he made it once more beautiful and new. Also the holy
church of the Mother of God . . . that had decayed . . . he renewed and wrought
more splendid than before (7880, transl. Mango (1986) 1929). The author con-
tinues a relentless list of restorations, repeatedly stressing that Basil rst removed
the signs of age, and then restored the buildings in question to a more glorious
state than they ever had been before. See also Alexander (1962) 34950; Magdalino
(1987) 5355. For the general context of urban renewal in the middle Byzantine
period, see Ivison (2000) 1825.
40
See the general reviews by Buchwald (1999); Caillet (1996); Cantino Wataghin
(1999); Caseau (2001) 86107; Caseau (2004) 11833; Deichmann (1939); Hanson
(1978); Karivieri (2002); Milojevic (1997); Vaes (198486); Ward-Perkins (1999) 23340.
For more specic and regional studies, see Cormack (1990b); Frantz (1965); Spieser
(1976); Trombley (1993) 10847; Tsar (1998); Vaes (1980); Van Dam (1985a).
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 581
examples that cast light upon conceptions of time, and the ways that
attitudes to the event of destruction or conversion can inform us
about the shifting relationships between past, present, and future in
the late antique world. The ruination or conversion of these massive
urban monuments not only remakes the symbolic map of the city,
41
but can also aect the temporal landscape.
It is clear that much of the legislation from the second half of the
4th c. that concerns itself with the fate of pagan cult places rejects
appeals to demolish the buildings outright. Cod. Theod. 16.10.3, for
example, demanded that once pagan religious practices had been halted
at a temple, then the building itself should be allowed to stand, with
the images inside to be . . . measured by the value of their art rather
than by their divinity. Other similar laws established that the ces-
sation of pagan sacrices rendered the structures religiously neutral,
and even liable for imperial protection.
42
This can be compared with
the comment made by Prudentius, in his manufactured dispute with
Symmachus over the removal of the Altar of Victory from the Senate
House in Rome. Prudentius demanded that the Altar be removed on
a variety of grounds, but repeatedly returns to stress that all things
improve, progress, and develop for the better, and just as mankind
moved from eating acorns to embarking upon the path of civilisa-
tion, then so must she now leave behind the vestiges of pagan cul-
ture and continue the forward journey with the adoption of Christianity,
which is itself the expression of a more advanced relationship between
God and mankind. With this background in mind, Prudentius con-
siders works of art, and specically statues, which might have par-
ticipated in the world of paganism (either because they were carved
by pagans, or they depicted pagan gods or heroes, or they were utilised
in pagan rituals). He remarks that they can exist as works of art, to
be appreciated in the context of the present, only if they are entirely
purged of their past: drenched in the blood of their history, they must
be wiped entirely clean of the remnants of the past, to exist in a
constant present.
43
In eect, what he is demanding is the entire era-
41
As discussed by Bayliss (1999); Cormack (1990a); Milojevic (1996), and in gen-
eral, Wharton (1995).
42
Cod. Theod. 16.10.3, 16.10.15, 16.10.18.
43
Prudent., C. Symm., 1.5025. See also Alchermes (1994) 171. For overviews of
late antique Christian attitudes to pagan statuary, see Bassett (1991); Bassett (1996);
Bowersock (2001) 57; Bowra (1960); Caseau (2001) 10721; Hannestad (1999);
Lepelley (1994), and for evidence from a slightly later period, Dagron (1984) 12759;
James (1996); Mango (1963); Mango (1994); Saradi-Mendelovici (1990).
582 .r.v ot++rniror
sure of their context and a removal from the past, making them into
static images that have no associated heritage and oat freely, to be
admired in a purely aesthetic manner. It is as if Prudentius is demand-
ing that the statues themselves become atemporal, in so far as they
must be removed from the past, or have their past removed from
them, taken out of times sequential stream.
It is possible that some evidence remains of this approach to
removing ancient statuary from its temporal context. Some portrait
heads that have survived are complete with cross-motifs incised into
their foreheads, an act of presumably Christian apotropaism, designed
to in some way neutralise or cleanse either the physical statue itself,
or the historical person depicted, or indeed, both.
44
Of the examples
collected, the majority are portraits rather than mythological depic-
tions or pagan deities, and as such the sealing of these individuals
with the sign of the cross probably represents something other than
straightforward exorcism. The care with which the crosses have often
been executed has led to the suggestion that that they are the mate-
rial remains of some form of sphragis ceremony. This has been viewed
as an action of baptism, and of cleansing, but once again, it might
also be seen as an attempt to remove the statue from its problematic
temporal context of a pagan past, and visibly mark it, anachronistically,
with the sign of the future: a post-eventum baptism.
45
The historical
individuals in question retain their identity and are not exorcised,
but instead momentarily come alive, bursting through past centuries
into the Christian present, to receive a mark of sanctity truly signi-
fying their removal from old contexts and their reinsertion into new.
We might even compare this approach of lifting a pagan monument
out of time, or isolating it from the continuing rush of the present,
to two examples of pagan temples from cities of the East.
46
The tem-
ple of Artemis, at Jerash, was at the western end of a lengthy cer-
emonial routeway, doubtless the arena of processional ritual on specic
sacred festivals. Here, excavators found that whilst the cella was
increasingly isolated from the 5th c. onwards, the propylaeum was
maintained. It continued to be integrated as part of the townscape,
44
Hannestad (1999) 18284; Hjort (1993); Marinescu (1996) 28889. Examples
include an Augustus and Livia from Ephesus, a Germanicus in the British Museum,
and a tetrarch from Bursa.
45
For the role of baptism in late antique Christianity, see Cramer (1993) 46129;
Van Engen (1997).
46
Tsar (1998) 207208, 21518.
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 583
and eventually, some time later, it was integrated into a Christian
basilica that was built on an adjacent site, by the ruins of a bridge.
Similarly, at the site of Scythopolis, a temple with a round cella found
at the foot of the acropolis had its cella entirely removed sometime
during the late 4th c., yet its pronaos was allowed to remain fully
standing. Arguments might be made that suggest that the cellae were
believed to be inhabited by dmons or the remnants of the dark
forces of paganism,
47
but there may be something more subtle at
work. The erasure of the cella and the preservation of the aesthetically-
acceptable part of the temple complex, the most neutral faade part,
which can then be seen to be removed from its past and its linear
heritage, and be a free-oating object to be integrated into the new
urban narrative. This is not to suggest that erasure of the past was
so easily achieved in the minds of those who saw the monuments,
especially as the existence of a ruin is often more potent than the
building which preceded it, but at least the treatment of the spaces
can be seen as an attempt at creating atemporal monuments.
The ery destruction wrought upon the temple of Apollo at Daphne
in 362, most likely by Christian zealots moonlighting as the wrath
of the divine, is another example of the implications of monumental
change on both time and memory. In his Discourse on the Blessed Babylas,
John Chrysostom attempted to understand the reasons why the tem-
ple had been left only semi-ruinated by the might of God, rather
than obliterated completely from the landscape. He argued the
removal of the temple in its entirety from the landscape of Daphne
would have resulted in the triumphal event of its devastation being
forgotten within a generation. Its continued, ruinated, presence in
the landscape removes this possibility, and allows the site a continued
mnemonic function in the landscape, as a locus of ever-present
Christian triumph and pagan dereliction. But what is important to
Chrysostom is the temporal presence of the event: For everyone
who arrives at this place receives the impression that the conagration
has just occurred.
48
The event has always, only just happened, and
the destroyed building remains as it did, as though the passing of
time around it has not aected it. Chrysostom further argues that
the temple, frozen at the moment of its partial destruction, will con-
tinue to remain a relic of that one single divinely-inspired action,
47
For the context of demon-belief during the period, see Flint (1999); Mango (1992).
48
John Chrysostom, Discourse on the Blessed Babylas, 114.
584 .r.v ot++rniror
never re-entering the stream of time, and never obliterated from the
social memory of those who see it. It is outside of temporal sequence,
unaected by its passage: See: it is twenty years after the event and
none of the edice left behind by the re has perished in addition;
but the parts which escaped the re remain solid and rm, and are
so strong enough as to suce for a hundred years and for another
two times as much and again much more time than this.
49
If the
temples at Jerash and Scythopolis have had elements of their past
removed from them, then the temple of Apollo at Daphne has itself
been isolated and removed from times progression.
This temporal discontinuity, a rupture of the past and a frag-
mentation of sequential time, is also apparent in a text that describes
the conversion of a temple at Carthage, found in Quodvultdeus The
Book of Promises and Prophecies of God. In his account, the conversion of
a temple to Caelestis, in around 407, was completed with a ceremony
undertaken by the Bishop Aurelius, which was intended to conse-
crate the former temple space as site of Christian worship.
50
After
clearing debris from the area, Quodvultdeus and the congregation
witnessed the bishop place his chair on the site of the former temples
cult statue. It was at this point in the ceremony that the crowds
attention was drawn to an inscription in bronze letters on the buildings
faade, which apparently commemorated its original dedication, in
the name of the Emperor (Marcus) Aurelius. Quodvultdeus and the
crowd, however, read the ancient lettering as a description not of
the temples previous dedication, but instead as a divinely-inspired,
unconsciously prophetic, reference to its conversion at the hands of
Bishop Aurelius. The message recorded in the temples ancient epig-
raphy was interpreted not as the material record of a past event,
but instead as the physical manifestation of a future that was still
yet to happen at the time the letters were inscribed.
Such a reading of the past as can be compared with information
from the sites of other temple conversions, illustrating that the beliefs
of the audience at Carthage were not unique. In the aftermath of
the destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria, in 391, inscribed cross-
49
John Chrysostom, Discourse on the Blessed Babylas, 117. This is discussed by Mary
Carruthers in her extensive examination of the nature of Medieval thought, in which
she argues that memory can only be removed from a place via overcrowding with
other new memories, rather than by outright destruction (Carruthers (1998) 5456).
50
Quodvultdeus, The Book of Promises and Prophecies of God, 3.38.
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 585
shaped hieroglyphics were discovered by the Christian crowds amongst
the ruins. The Christian populace interpreted the ancient symbols
as the cross of Christ, and position supported by recent proselytes who
told them that the literal translation of the symbol (presumably an
ankh), was the phrase life to come. This led to the Christian deci-
pherment of another portion of hieroglyphic script visible in the
ruins, which was said to read When the cross should appear, the
Temple of Serapis would be destroyed.
51
This is particularly similar to what we know of a collection of
theosophical texts perhaps written in Alexandria around 500, and
once part of a larger work called On True Belief, but now only par-
tially preserved in a fragments known as The Tbingen Theosophy.
52
This collection of spurious oracles and fabricated prophetic testimonies
from a variety of gures from pagan antiquity, was intended to illus-
trate that not only was the ascendancy of Christianity inevitable, but
its eventual triumph had been predicted by numerous pagan sages
centuries before its establishment in the Roman world. One of the
texts major concerns is the folly of idol worship and the uselessness
of temples, and it collected a number of sayings apparently uttered by
gures such as Odysseus and Plato, which condemn pagans for their
meaningless worship in temples. One text refers to the mid-4th c.
conversion of a temple at Cyzicus into a Christian church dedicated
to the Virgin Mary, during which an ancient inscription was uncov-
ered in the building. This inscription was said to record an oracle
given by Apollo during the temples original dedication, prophesy-
ing that the building would eventually become a shrine to the Mother
of God.
Undoubtedly, much of the need for such interpretative frameworks
stemmed from the Christian desire to illustrate to pagans both the
antiquity and the universality of the Christian God.
53
Among many
51
Socrates, Hist. eccl. 5.17, and also mentioned in Ruf., H.E. 11.29, and Sozom.,
Hist. eccl. 7.15. Socrates further highlights the fact that this temporally non-linear
approach to the hermeneutics of ancient epigraphy has a scriptural precedent, as
Paul used an ancient inscription, conveniently at hand, when speaking to the coun-
cil of Athens (Acts 17.23). For general conceptions of hieroglyphs in Late Antiquity,
see Iverson (1993) 4552.
52
Beatrice (1995); Mango (1995); Sardella (1985). This work was inuential, and
elements of it were reproduced in a variety of locations and languages: see Brock
(1983); Brock (1984); Van den Broek (1978).
53
These twin concerns had also driven Christian chronographers such as Jerome
and Eusebius to collate and calibrate the past into a tool for encouraging conversions.
586 .r.v ot++rniror
of the charges levelled at Christians, one of most potentially prob-
lematic was that the Incarnation had occurred late in time, and con-
sequently that their beliefs lacked antiquity, and therefore credibility.
Christians had to not only establish the historical antiquity of their
deity, but also illustrate His active presence in the historical landscape.
Similarly important for 4th c. apologists of Christianity was the need
to stress (as Paul had done at Athens), the universality of their deity,
and the fact that ancient cultures and other older religions had come
into contact with Him, however unwittingly. Interpreting these ancient
inscriptions attached to temples as references to the future rather than
records of the past, and reading them as divinely-sanctioned endorse-
ments of the buildings conversion, achieved both of these goals. Gods
eternal presence lent the ancient epigraphy a transtemporal signicance,
taking it out of the ancient context of its production, and inserting
its meaning into the new temporal context of the future. Yet this
treatment of ancient epigraphy uncovered through temple conversions
or restorations has a secular comparandum, found in Socrates and
examined by R. Coates-Stephens in his discussion of epigraphy as
spolia.
54
When the Emperor Valens destroyed the walls of Chalcedon
in 375, in order to use the material for the construction of baths at
Constantinople, an ancient inscription was found on one of the dis-
mantled stones that had been built into the walls. Once the epigraphy
had been deciphered, its message was treated as an oracular prophecy,
and one of the interpretations of its meaning was that it foretold its
own spoliation from defences to baths. In all of these examples, obvi-
ously ancient inscriptions, uncovered in the midst of programmes of
conversion, are interpreted as containing descriptions of the future
rather than the past in their antique lettering.
55
The transtemporal
signicances read into them by late antique observers create objects
that exist outside the realm of sequential time, breaking down barriers
between the past and the future.
For a nal image of a temporal displacement, we move to examine
the cycle of mid-5th c. mosaics celebrating events in the life of the
Virgin Mary that surround the apse at S. Maria Maggiore, in which
54
Socrates, Hist. eccl. 4.8; Coates-Stephens (2002) 28081.
55
This can even be compared to the continued belief in Byzantine tradition that
certain of the citys ancient antiquities, often the decorations or inscriptions of col-
umn-bases, held prophetic images wrought by the hands of the ancients, which
depicted the fall of certain emperors, and even the nal end of the city itself
(Alexander (1962) 343; Dagron (1984) 12759).
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 587
there is a depiction of the presentation of Christ at the temple in Jeru-
salem (g. 1).
56
The story, which is to be found in the gospel of Luke,
57
involves the acclamation of the devout Simeon, who has waited in the
temple for the revealed moment that will mark the inception of Gods
salvation history. In Christian dogma this moment is associated with
the culmination of one epoch and the inception of a new age for
mankind and for the world. Behind the chirping beaks of two turtle
doves, blissfully unaware of their impending sacricial fate, stands the
face of the temple in front of which this glorious moment of historical
realignment is about to be being enacted. Yet this is not the Temple
in Jerusalem, in which the gospel writer described Mary, Joseph, and
the rite of purication. Instead, it is the faade of a very Roman
temple, indeed one specic Roman temple: the 2nd c. structure that
came to be known as the Temple of Venus and Rome, or the
Templum Urbis, and which could be found not too distant in space
from Maria Maggiore, on the Velia near the Flavian Amphitheatre.
A characteristic asequentiality of time is manifest on a variety of
dierent levels in this image. If this depiction is meant in anyway
to be viewed as a standard representation of a well-known event,
then it has stepped outside of the boundaries of understood sequen-
tial time, and is taking place in an atemporal realm. The Templum
Urbis shared neither a temporal nor a spatial location with the events
unfolding before it, and clearly it marks the intrusion of one temporal
plain into another, and the denial of any straightforwardly linear,
Euclidean concepts of space or time. However, not only is the phys-
ical character of the building illustrative of one level of temporal
confusion, but its shape as a symbol and the concurrent concepts it
carries with it, also create ruptures within temporal frames. The tem-
ple itself, one of the grandest in imperial Rome, worked an archi-
tectural synecdoche for the temporal eternity of both the state and
the emperor- the visual manifestation of the endless duration expected
of the city and its concomitant boundless potency.
58
Begun by Hadrian
in 121, its dedication was simultaneous with the citys earliest regular
numismatic legends promising Urbs Aeterna. Its incorporation into the
56
For the mosaics in general see Brenk (1975); Gandolfo (1988).
57
Luke 2.2235.
58
For the temple itself, see Cassatella (1999); Turcan (1964). For its ideological
associations, and its role in the concepts of urbs aeterna, saeculum and renovatio, see
Gag (1936); Kantorowicz (1965); Mellor (1975) 200202; Moore (1894) 42.
588 .r.v ot++rniror
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 589
F
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ritual life of the civic centre as the Templum Urbis, the temple of the
city, meant that the tie that bound it to the conceptual eternity of
the eternal city was strong, a connection which continued, in a variety
of guises, through the later empire. In the middle of the 3rd c., this
incorporation into the narrative of Romes eternal presence meant
that it was utilised both as the principal sacricial theatre for, and
the primary symbolic marker of, the millennial games of 248 by the
emperor Philip the Arab.
59
Philip was himself a cypher torn asunder
by zealous Christian exegetes like Orosius, determined to nd him
crypto-Christian because God could never have allowed a pagan to
preside over the celebrations of Romes 1,000th birthday.
60
Later,
the temple was heavily restored by Maxentius,
61
who axially aligned
his new Basilica nearby to the orientation of the renewed temple, and
for whom its renovation would have existed as part of a wider created
identity portraying an emperor who was of the city itself, and con-
cerned with its heritage and destiny.
62
The appearance of the Templum
Urbis at the Presentation scene can be understood as spolia, and it
acts not simply as the discrete use of a sign out of its temporal con-
text, but a reuse of the signs multiple meanings too. Although there
are numerous ancestral layers and associated signicances existent
within the image of a new-born boy as the harbinger of a new age,
63
the mosaic at S. Maria Maggiore has used the associated imagery
of temporal renovation and eternity inherent within the single image
of the temple building, to weave and fuse the concept of historical
renovatio in an entirely new and previously unrelated narrative, remov-
ing the image from one temporal context and inserting it into another.
59
Gag (1938).
60
Oros. 7.20, from Euseb., Hist. eccl. 6.34, who was repeating a rumour origi-
nating from correspondence between Origen and Philips wife. See also Crouzel
(1975), who deals with Antiochene sources for Philips Christianity (including the
martyrdom of Babylas), and York (1972) who argues that Philips Christianity suered
a Constantinian damnatio because Licinius claimed him as an ancestor. For Philips
own use during his reign of renovatio imagery generally, and the god Aion in par-
ticular, especially in connection with the celebration of the millennial anniversary
and his foundation of Philippopolis, see Charbonneaux (1960).
61
For evidence for the repairs to the structure during the reigns of both Maxentius
and Constantine, see Monaco (2000).
62
For Maxentian coinage issues featuring the temple, see Cullhed (1994) 4649.
63
See the comprehensive investigations by Jackson (1994) and Musso (2000) for
the variety of depictions of Aion mythology during the period, and the classic study
by Levi (1944).
590 .r.v ot++rniror
Coxcrtsioxs
One way of considering the issue of social time in Late Antiquity
has been to approach some of its manifestations, such as the changing
calendar, as evidence of the Christian conversion of time. This is
then interpreted in a comparable way to the conversion of space,
64
and
to a certain extent this model ts into the wider realm of studies of
the Christianisation of the Roman empire during the period. Such
a story emphasises that as certain aspects of the social and physical
world became increasingly Christian, they became comparably less
pagan, until all aspects of life and experience, from the house and
the forum, to the natural world and its festal rhythms, were
Christianised. Whilst this unidirectional arrow of change once made
a splendidly uncomplex narrative, it was also an obviously fallacious
construct, using rather hollow essentialist categories to blanket material,
and reducing the complex web of social relations between people and
things to a simple teleological movement from black to white. Studies
of religious change in Late Antiquity have therefore become increasingly
concerned with emphasising the social syncretism of the period, and
not only downplaying any outright conict between religious cul-
tures, but also exploding the idea that pagan and Christian were
inviolable bubbles of personal and social identity that were never fused.
Approaching the concept of time with this in mind, we nd that
once we accept that its aspect may be studied as entirely separate
from the narrative rhetoric of christianisation studies, other themes
and motifs can be discerned, pervading its character. Conceptions
of time can, and should, be studied inside wider considerations of the
general cultural worlds of Late Antiquity, in order to build a more
complete and holistic picture of the periods imago mundi.
Several recent studies on aspects of culture and thought in Late
Antiquity have drawn attention to important concepts of fragmentation
and reassembly during the period. Apparent in a range of social and
cultural spheres, these two motifs occur and reoccur, almost as a kind
of cultural trope, a repeated pattern of the age. Evidence of this
pattern has been explored in the elds of late antique literature,
65
64
E.g. the approach taken by Salzman (1999).
65
The extensive discussion of late antique poetics by Roberts (1989) identies
the dissolution of continuous structure in favour of discontinuous compositions of
discrete parts as a common stylistic feature of the periods literature. See also Roberts
(1988) for a discussion of examples of narrative fragmentation into static episodes
rather than linear sequences.
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 591
art,
66
religion,
67
and the concept of the body.
68
What these studies
have identied is a general trend, as older, classical, and internally-
coherent structures of culture were steadily broken up throughout
the 4th and 5th c., into smaller, discontinuous elements.
On one level, this disassembly of a variety of formerly solid and
inviolable cultural structures, such as the lifes work of Virgil, the
monuments of the Antonines, the understanding of natural law, or the
physical human corpse, would have been a profoundly unsettling cul-
tural experience. But it is clear that there were other, less negative
outcomes of this process of fragmentation, and it led to new aspects
of cultural innovation and vitality. One of these was the liberation of
the component from the structure, so that the individual line of Virgil
became an object in itself rather than merely a part of the whole,
as did a sculptural tondo of Hadrian hunting boar, or the nger
bone of a saint, or the individual location of a tomb in a landscape:
all became signiers in themselves. They were liberated from a pre-
viously dominant structure of understanding, and in many cases,
assumed synecdochal properties in society, where the fragmentary relic
stood for the entirety of the saint and their power, or the individual
scene from the life of Jesus stood for the holy story in its totality.
Another outcome of this trend was the late antique propensity to
reassemble these loosed fragments in order to create new structures,
which could be inversions or distortions of the older structures. This
includes the reconstructive literature of Proba and Ausonius, the
intentionally spoliate, bricolage architecture of the Arch of Constantine
or the Lateran, and the constellations of partial apostles intended to
orbit the body of Constantine in his mausoleum at Constantinople. It
also includes the reassembly of topography into new networks, manip-
66
Cox Miller (1998) discusses many dierent levels of fragmentation in Late
Antiquity, concentrating on fragmentation and discontinuity in artistic and textual
narratives, and the reconstruction of fragmentary relics, images, and words, into
new networks of meaning. Elsner (2000) concentrates on the creation of a late
antique aesthetic of fragments, including the growth of spoliation in architecture
and the impact of the cult of relics on religious and artistic imaginings.
67
Pearce (2003) discusses the impact of Christian concepts on classical percep-
tions of the world, concluding that new ideas about holiness and power changed
and fragmented, amongst other things, the understandings and expectations of the
natural world.
68
For the abhorrence of, but the obsession with, corporal fragmentation in late
antique thought, especially subsequent to bodily death, see Bynum (1992) 26770;
Bynum (1995) 11114. For descriptions of bodily fragmentation from late antique
Coptic texts, see Wilfong (1998).
592 .r.v ot++rniror
ulating fragmented locations that had been culled from older struc-
tures of spatial meaning, in order to give them new values. This
could occur inside the connes of a single urban setting, where the
warrens of tombs and the peripheral elds of the dead that ringed
the urban core became centres of sanctity in the realigned Christian
cityscape. It could also occur on a much wider geographic scale, as
the once insignicant dust-choked byways of Palestine became the
networked focus of a new sacred imperial topography.
69
This analysis does not presuppose that the meanings inherent in
every single one of these instances of fragmentation are identical to
each other, or that they are each driven by the same single motor. It
does suggest, however, that the frequency of this motif, threaded
through the cultural life during the period, is a signicant aspect of
late antique society, and the ways that it structured and understood
the world. The contention of this study is that something intrinsically
similar to this can be seen in the social and cultural character of
time itself during the period. Formerly structured sequences of time,
such as cyclical regeneration or linear progression, were broken up
and fragmented into their constituent parts, and reassembled in ways
that emphasised temporal non-continuity and created a-temporal or
trans-temporal events, monuments, and ideas. The temporal landscape
of Late Antiquity exhibits repeated tendencies towards fragmentation
and reassembly, where non-sequential vistas are increasingly funda-
mental in making sense of the world.
Ackxovrrrovrx+s
This work represents some elements of my PhD thesis, Time and
Culture in Late Antiquity; my research has been funded by a studentship
from the AHRB, to whom I am grateful for support. An earlier ver-
sion of this paper was delivered at Trinity College, Oxford, in sum-
mer 2003, and I would like to thank both Bryan Ward-Perkins for
his kind invitation to present some of my research, and the audi-
ence that afternoon, who corrected and directed some of my thoughts.
That paper was also read by Jas Elsner, and by my supervisor Henry
69
For this rearrangement of ideological macro-topography, see Ando (2001);
MacCormack (1990); Markus (1994); Ward-Perkins (2000).
.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 593
Hurst, both of whom corrected errors and made suggestions. I would
also like to thank: William Bowden and the anonymous readers at
LAA, for saving me from errors contained in an earlier version; T.R.
Volk, who rst suggested I look at the numismatic material; Luke
Lavan, for his patience and encouragement; and Kim Bowes, who
read this text and has long listened to its gestation.
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.srrc+s or soci.r .xr ctr+tn.r +ivr ix r.+r .x+iti+v 601
SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
IN THE 6TH9TH C. EAST
John Haldon
Abstract
This paper summarises some archaeological and documentary evidence
for the changes seen in the East Roman empire between the 6th and
the 9th c., and suggests how this evidence may be placed within a
broader theoretical framework relating to pre-modern social systems.
Whilst archaeological evidence for the latter part of the period remains
very limited, that for the 6th and 7th c. reveals a marked retreat from
urban life towards more defensible sites, and a decline in inter-regional
exchange. However, combined with the archaeological data, docu-
mentary sources suggest the survival of a society of some complexity,
producing sucient surplus to sustain the military and bureaucratic
systems that evolved between the later 7th and 9th c. It is suggested
that Byzantine society should not be viewed as a logical hierarchical
entity reminiscent of modern western administrative structures, but
rather as the result of a multiplicity of interacting relationships and
social structures.
The question of the nature, form, and underlying structure of social
evolution in the eastern Roman world between the 6th and 9th c. is
a broad and complex theme, and touches on a wide range of prob-
lems.
1
It is also a potentially rich eld for theoretical speculation and
model-building, especially when eastern Roman state and society are
taken as only one part of a geographically much wider post-Roman
world: how can we appropriately construct a history of social change
which takes into account all the empirical data and at the same time
ts within a coherent and plausible statement about how pre-modern
social and political systems evolve? This is too large a theme for a
1
This is a revised and somewhat expanded version of the paper read at the col-
loquium in Oxford in March 2003. I am grateful to the two anonymous readers
whose sensible and critical comments were of great value in producing this revised
version.
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 603647
detailed treatment here, but a few comments on the broader picture
might be useful in order to situate the more specic discussion that
follows. What I would like to do, therefore, is to summarise some
of the archaeological and documentary evidence and suggest some
possible social relationships and structures which might help us make
sense of it.
Pnrrivix.nv Coxsirrn.+ioxs
My starting point in looking at the changes (or transformations, or
cultural shiftsthe terms proliferate) that are generally agreed to
have taken place in the period ca. 550850 in the eastern part of the
Roman empire (regardless of whether longer-term developments under-
lie them) is that of a Medieval East Roman historian: a Byzantinist.
In other words, I am looking at the origins of the phenomena with
which I am familiar in a later period: the causal relationships which
generated the social, political, and cultural forms I study. I do this
because I want to be able to understand, rst, why these phenomena
have the appearance and eect they appear to take on in the sources
(written or not), and second, how the phenomena themselves actually
came about. In marked contrast to the history of the Roman, Late
Roman, and western Medieval worlds,
2
there have been few attempts
to theorise Byzantine or indeed early Islamic society, or to situate
social conict in its structural context,
3
although there is a proliferation
of non-specialist attempts to theorise pre-industrial societies in general.
4
Within the discipline itself this is to some extent a reection of the
limited and limiting nature of much of the source material, whether
2
There is a huge literature, readily accessible to those who wish to follow it.
For the sake of brevity, I refer the reader of this volume to the summary of some
aspects of recent discussion in Wickham (2000) and his earlier contribution: Wickham
(1984). McCormick (2001) might be expected to pay some attention to this, but the
theoretical implications of this otherwise very important contribution to the history
of the Early Medieval post-Roman world remain largely unexplored.
3
There have been, in the last few years, some serious eorts to open a debate
among specialists of Byzantine society, at least as far as theorising Byzantine eco-
nomic structures is concerned. Useful and welcome though these are, they remain
conned to the realm of the strictly economic models that historians might employ
as a heuristic framework. See Laiou (2002a) and (2002b), for example.
4
For example, Di Cosmo (1999); Steinmetz (1999); Lieberman (1999); Goldstone
(1991); Crone (1989); Runciman (1989); Gellner (1988); Tainter (1988); Carneiro
(1987); Mann (1986); McNeil (1983).
604 onx n.rrox
archaeological or documentary, but much more importantly, it also
reects the dominant instrumentalist tradition in the eld, dictated
by the nature of source-critical and related study.
We are still trying to produce modern, philologically sound, critical
editions of many of our key texts, for example, and although visible
progress has been made in the last twenty years, and seems to be
speeding up, we still struggle with a poor archaeological record in
many of the core regions of the Medieval East Roman state. So
there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this instrumentalismindeed,
it is still essential that we continue to work in this wayexcept that
such an approach has inevitably tended to marginalise or obscure
the need for higher-level or meta-theoretical reection.
5
Although
there have now been a number of valuable and substantive critiques
of many of the traditional, positivist, approaches to such topics as
literary production and authorship, or the ways in which literary
representation engenders both Medieval and modern readings of the
texts at our disposal, these critiques represent for the most part a
piecemeal chipping away at some aspects of traditional scholarly
approaches, or even act as a complement to them. Indeed, the cri-
tiques themselves might even be said to have shied away from any
attempt to enunciate, or raise issues associated with, a more general
theory of cultural and historical change.
6
The general tendency of
recent post-modernist historiography has been to eschew, or even
decry, higher level theory about society altogether.
7
This is not the place to embark upon a discussion about the rel-
evance or the form of general theories of historical causation or
changewhat can be termed metatheoryalthough I have suggested
in the past that it might be appropriate for those of us dealing with
the Byzantine world after the 6th c. to address the issues such a dis-
cussion might raise.
8
What I do want to do, however, is to outline
very briey what I think the archaeological and textual evidence for
the development of East Roman society tells us about the period from
5
See Haldon (2002); also Haldon (19841985). Anderson (1974) and (1979) and
Mann (1986) do look at the question of Islamic states, albeit from very dierent
perspectives.
6
See, for example, Cameron (1996) and, situating representations of Byzantium
in respect of cultural perceptions and Saids notion of orientalism, Cameron (2003),
with literature.
7
Kelly (1991); Joyce (1991); Stone (1991), and my comments, Haldon (2002).
8
Haldon (1984).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 605
the 6th to the 8th c., in the framework of my own understanding of
where Byzantium ts into this broader perspective. Technically, since
I am dealing with the East, I should also include some comments
on the early post-Roman Islamic world, but since I cannot do that
in this short contribution, I will conne myself to Byzantium, whilst
conceding the fact that one of the major problems of Byzantine his-
tory-writing has been that it is generally taken on its own merits,
without any real consideration of the structural commonalities it shares
with the neighbouring post-Roman cultures to both East and West.
9
I will approach these questions from two angles: rst, by summarising
what I think we can say about the general physical and socio-
economic context by combining archaeology and documentary mate-
rial, and second, by looking at whether and how the result of this
process aects our understanding of particular aspects of socio-polit-
ical evolution. Bearing in mind the complexity of some of the changes,
and the fact that this period includes the 7th c. as well as the rst
period of iconoclasm, I will, necessarily, have to be rather sketchy
in my survey.
The history of East Roman social evolution after the middle of the
6th c. is beset by three key problems. Firstly, how exactly, and with
what sort of regional variations, do the society and economy of both
the urban and rural worlds develop? Secondly, what happens to the
social elites of the empire (I use the plural deliberately), both at
Constantinople, and in the provinces across this period, whose culture,
if not always their residence, had been focused in the towns? And
thirdly, what is the role of the central government and the admin-
istrative machinery of the East Roman state, in both these areas?
B.sic Asstvr+ioxs
Continuity and Discontinuity
Before essaying a response to any of these questions, I should clarify
a number of my assumptions about the nature of social, economic
and cultural change. Firstly, the issue of continuity or discontinuity
9
Although this is changing quicklyMcCormick (2001) is a case in point.
606 onx n.rrox
must be dealt with. The opposition assumed between these two terms,
which recurs repeatedly in recent discussion, is surely overstated and
misleading, and I confess myself somewhat baed as to why so much
discussion has been devoted to it. As a historian I take it as axiomatic
that change occurs variably across both time and space. Some changes
in the way people did things, what they did them with, how they
constructed or acted upon their material environment, or how more
general developments aected them, are always going to be limited
to particular regions, or to particular social (or otherwise identiable)
groups, or both. But even generalised changes occur at dierent
rates, and with dierent outcomes, in dierent parts of the Late Roman
or Medieval worlds. We should assume, for example, that the changes
which aected urban life in the period from the 5th to 7th c. pro-
ceeded at dierent speeds, and with dierential local consequences,
across the regions of the empire, or that the eects of a monetised
economy in one region may be very dierent in another. Of course,
reductionism is always both a danger and a challenge, and the less
multi-faceted our sources, or the less multi-dimensional our under-
standing of those sources, the more likely it is that an overly simplistic
or a limiting explanatory account will be generated. Equally, I do
not wish to deny that there are phenomena which aect the whole
of a socio-cultural system, but we need to see their eects as dierential,
rather than from a perspective of continuity or discontinuity.
Continuity is always present at some level or in some sphere of
human activity. Political transformations, or even revolutions, barely
impinged upon agricultural technology in the pre-modern world, for
example (although they may have impacted very dramatically on lev-
els of production, and the means of collecting and distributing what
was produced). Thus, it is not hard to demonstrate systemic conti-
nuities from Late Rome to Byzantium at many levels of organisational
structures, such as armies or scal systems, although the overall shape
and articulation of the systems themselves was completely transformed.
And, as I have tried to emphasise elsewhere, no single framework of
how a state and its society works (labelling it scal as opposed to
commercial, for example, in respect of the ways in which its produc-
tion, exchange, and consumption took place) can ever be adequate.
Not only were there context-bound variations in the actual eectiveness
of a scal, or military, or administrative apparatus, but priorities
could also shift, promoting dierent emphases in both geographical
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 607
and chronological terms.
10
Perhaps most obviously, the structure of
ecclesiastical administration and the role of the clergy represents a
key area of continuity, yet it is also the case that the socio-political
context in which the Church functioned was entirely dierent in the
8th and 9th c., as compared with the 6th: a case of continuity within
discontinuity.
Stability, Change, and Variability
I also take it as axiomatic that there may have been uctuations in
levels of wealth, building activity, or cultural production both on an
inter- and intra-regional level, within relatively short periods. It is
possible that a period of time as brief as a few decades was sucient
for a full cycle of change (or, to put it in the terms most recently
employed, both intensication and abatement) to take place. Indeed,
I would argue that we should in fact assume such uctuations, unless
we can clearly point to evidence of the contrary. For even if we are
now convinced that much of the Late Roman world in the 6th c.
benetted from a thriving regional or inter-regional commerce,
11
the
bulk of the population in all regions was part of an essentially sub-
sistence peasant economy. In such an economic setting, patterns of
demand, population levels, short-term climatic changes, uctuations
in agricultural output, and (to leave the state to the last) demands for
tax or similar resources could very easily introduce unplanned, and
often unpredictable, imbalances, with all the implications these held
for the pattern of social and economic life, and the economic inter-
dependencies that had evolved between dierent parts of the empire.
12
Average yields on seed sown vary considerably between the regions
of Asia Minor, for example, and are also considerably lower than
in many areas of Palestine, Syria, or Egypt, suggesting a signicant
dierence in the potential of the populations of some areas to with-
stand such unplanned events, in comparison with those in others.
13
By the same token, fertile areas and relatively high yields could also
stimulate demographic expansion and, as is hypothesised for parts
10
I have argued this in respect of urbanism in the 7th c., for example, in respect
of the use of coins for commercial exchange, and in the ways in which such mat-
ters as the recruitment of soldiers for the army were conducted: see Haldon (1997).
11
Sodini (2000).
12
Ward-Perkins (2000) 37791.
13
Pleket (1993) 32234; and in general, Spurr (1986) 122, 8288.
608 onx n.rrox
of northern Syria in the later 6th c., an overpopulation which left
the economy of the area equally vulnerable. Such considerations are
crucial when looking at the dierential development of the various
sub-regions and provinces of the Late Roman empire.
14
Many of these imbalances could be managed when things were
good. But additional unexpected stresses could throw a whole sector
into disarray, with consequential eects for any related spheres of
activity. One of the most obvious, but still, I believe, underrated fac-
tors in this respect, is the minor climatic change that can be shown to
have aected the Late Roman and Early Medieval worlds from the
4th and 5th to the 8th/9th c. With some variations and within cer-
tain margins, climatic uctuations were minimal across the late ancient
and Medieval periods, yet such uctuations do need to be borne in
mind. In conjunction with natural events such as earthquakes, human-
induced phenomena such as warfare, and catastrophes such as pan-
demic disease, climatic uctuations could have dramatic short- to
medium-term consequences for the human populations of the regions
with which we are concerned, and thus for patterns of settlement, land-
use, political systems, and the extraction, distribution and consumption
of resources. It is important, though, to view climatic change as
something occurring in conjunction with these other kinds of change.
The climate throughout much of the late Hellenistic and Roman
imperial period was relatively warmer and milder than in the period
which preceded it, and constituted a climatic optimum which favoured
the expansion of agriculture and population, generating an extension
of cultivation and an intensication of exploitation. By about AD
500, however, this was changing, with colder conditions persisting
up to the mid-9th c., a situation mirrored in some of the literary texts
as well as, indirectly, in the material record. The human environment
of the later 5th to 7th c. thus became both more challenging, and
the economy of existence more fragile. Combined with the pestilence
of the mid-6th c. this established a short but vicious cycle which
impacted upon the population and thus upon settlement patterns and
density, particularly in areas where the balance of economic life was
inherently more fragile. In Asia Minor and the Balkans, marginal lands
appear largely to have been abandoned, soil erosion increased where
agriculture receded, and the colder, wetter climate generated increas-
ing water volume in rivers and watercourses, which contributed to
14
See Gatier (1994), for example, and Foss (1997).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 609
a rapid alluviation accompanied by lowland ooding in many more
exposed areas. An overall reduction in population, and thus in the
rate of exploitation of natural resources such as forests, is shown by
an increased variation in woodland ora over the same period. During
the 9th c. this trend was reversed, and is paralleled by an extension
of agriculture, an increase of human exploitation of woodland and
scrubland, strong demographic growth, and an increasing density of
settlement and rate of exploitation of agrarian resources.
15
Of course,
too simplistic an appreciation of these highly complex phenomena
and their interdependence canas P. Horden and N. Purcell have
made very apparentlead to grossly misleading conclusions, and the
inversion of causes and eects. But the issues need to be kept in
mind, even if we also agree that generalised shifts can only be under-
stood through their regional and local eects.
16
I do not want to suggest that climate, which is usually categorised
as a long term background factor, at least in respect of the pace of
human societal change, should necessarily be seen as the prime mover
in historical change. No-one would suggest that climate alone can
explain the uctuating patterns of agricultural production, demography,
and settlement density, which dierent regions of the Late Roman world
experienced. Nor do we believe that environmental change induced
by human activity can provide the whole answer. Indeed, it can be
shown that minor uctuations in average temperatures do not impair
levels of production until their eects combine with other factors;
while it has also been pointed out that climatic changes do not nec-
essarily occur at the same rate or to the same degree across larger
continental regions, without dierentiation. Their eects may vary
between northern Europe, and southern and Mediterranean Europe,
and again within micro-regions (as emphasised by Horden and Purcell),
between adjacent districts of lowlands and uplands in Anatolia or
the Balkans, for example.
17
But the complex interrelationship of cli-
mate, human activity, and political and social activity is worth fur-
ther examination. For the fact that one area ourishes while another
declines, inside an ecological context in which both are aected by
the same sets of natural variables, surely serves as a pointer to struc-
15
Bintli (1982); Koder (1996); Geyer (2002) 4044; Dunn (1992); and for method-
ology, as well as questions of regional variation in climatic change, Telelis (2000).
16
Horden and Purcell (2000) 31241.
17
Geyer (2002) 42; Telelis (2000) 23233.
610 onx n.rrox
tural or systemic constraints. In the framework of a relatively fragile
natural environment, these would limit or determine the responses in
each area, whether in social organisation, in the eects of (for example)
warfare, or government taxation, and so forth. Soil erosion, alluviation,
and deforestation, all of which were frequently direct consequences of
intensive exploitation of the soil, combined with the eects of plague
or warfare, for example, which lead in turn to decreases in levels of
agricultural production, may have radically dierent consequences
according to the geophysical and ecological context. All these, and
many other factors impinge upon the everyday workings of human
societies, and should be taken into account precisely because the
response appears to have been so variable.
Contexts and Boundaries
A third point I want to raise is the issue of extraneous factors, to
ask whether in fact those things that sometimes appear as phenom-
ena which aect a social or political system from outside, are not
in fact also a part of its structural make-up. For example, there is
an assumption that wars and warfare are external factors which aect
an otherwise balanced context. However, it might equally be argued
that all competing state systems (and there is no doubt that the Late
Roman state was in competition with its various neighbours) gener-
ate geo-strategic conict at some level, whether this conict is moti-
vated by ideological imperatives, or competition for resources, oras
is usually the casea complex bundle of all of these. Conict, and
thus warfare, is in consequence systemic, and as such cannot be
regarded as external to the social and political structures that char-
acterised the Late Roman and Byzantine (or Merovingian, or Umayyad)
political systems. If we are to generate explanations of the causes of
change over time and space, we need to build this into our theories,
rather than treat it as an unwelcome surprise which would otherwise
not have aected the pre-existing trajectories of social, political, eco-
nomic, or cultural development. Just as we are now increasingly see-
ing the post-Late Roman world from Iraq to the Atlantic as a highly
regionalised whole, we need to integrate the structural implications
of the geo-political context of the society or state we study into our
explanatory framework.
Finally, and a concomitant to the previous point, where does one
society end and another begin? This is a question which has exercised
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 611
sociologists for over twenty years, but one which has barely been
raised in our elds.
18
There is a tendency to assume that political
divisions also represent social divisions (even if, as soon as we put
the question in this way, we would admit that this is generally unlikely
to have been the case). As long as they remained Christian, were
north Syrian peasants in the 7th and 8th c. not, in one sense, part
of the same society as their (Byzantine) Anatolian neighbours? We
would probably respond by saying that there was a political frontier
between them, that they spoke a dierent language, fought in dierent
armies, paid their rent to members of a dierent social elite, and their
taxes to a dierent government. Yet underlying all of these there are
elements which unite rather than divide, including the organization
of family economies, the seasonal cycle of production, the materials
and styles of clothing, their levels of technology, their relationships
to those who appropriate their surplus wealth in the form of money,
labour or products, and so forth. It is surely important to problematise
this issue if we are to understand the dierent types of continuity
and discontinuity which our empirical work appears to identify. We
may reasonably have to make distinctions for heuristic purposes, but
it is worth bearing in mind that at many levels there are continua
which belie both political and religious boundaries. To paraphrase
Mann, societies are neither unitary nor are they the same as social
systems, and the various networks and sets of relationships which
occupy one particular geographical space, invariably overlap with
those of neighbouring spaces.
Unn.x .xr Fon+irirr Crx+nrs
Patterns of Urban Development
I need hardly go into detail on the regionally-varied trajectories of
urban development in the Late Roman world from the 5th to 7th c.
in this forum. But the history of Byzantine settlement patterns in the
period from the mid-7th to the 11th c. still remains sketchy in the
extreme.
19
One obvious reason for this is the fact that whereas much
18
See, for example, Mann (1986) 13 with further literature.
19
For the enormous literature on the Byzantine city, see Brandes (1989) and (1999),
Dunn (1994) and Bouras (2002).
612 onx n.rrox
of the best archaeological evidence comes from 6th7th c. contexts,
the best documentary material is of the later 8th and 9th c. and beyond,
leaving an uncomfortable absence at a key point. In addition, the
lack of extensive surveys of urban sites in Asia Minor in particular,
and the lack of ceramic data, has made it dicult to produce any-
thing more than generalisations. These must necessarily ignore or
conceal the wide range of functional dierences between the dierent
types of settlement across the very dierent regions of the empire, as
well as the undoubted regional variations in urban-rural relations,
levels of wealth, and so forth. The archaeological and documentary
evidence from both Italy and the southern Balkan region provides
useful comparative material against which that from Anatolia may
be set, and should remind us that the history of urban development
in the Byzantine world is neither linear nor continuous across the whole
empire. The results of the surveys carried out by the Tabula Imperii
Byzantini alone, however, provide us with a vastly improved amount
of information, and it is now possible, drawing on this and the more
regionally-specic eldwork carried out over the last 1015 years, to
begin to build up a better picture than has been possible hitherto.
The social and economic function of towns and fortresses varied
according to regional conditions (which themselves uctuated over
time).
20
Bearing in mind this obvious fact, it seems generally agreed
that whatever the economic situation of towns before the Persian wars
and the early Arab incursions into Asia Minor from the 640s,
21
the
survival of urban settlements after this time owed much to the fact that
they might occupy defensible sites, as well as acting as foci of mili-
tary or ecclesiastical administration. Continuous, but seasonally deter-
mined warfare and insecurity, economic dislocation, and social change
meant that the great majority of urban centres now played a role
which might be seen as peripheral to, and even derived from, the
economic and social life of the countryside, and reected, if anything,
the needs of state and Church.
22
Yet the picture is certainly more com-
plicated than this generalisation, partly because the eects of warfare
20
For a useful discussion of denitions: Dagron (2002), esp. 39396.
21
It is generally agreed, for example, that within the parameters set by the (often
very considerable) regional uctuations and dierences, most towns retained their
economic vitality, and that in many provinces of the empire in the East there was
a ourishing rural economy into the rst quarter of the 7th c. See the brief sum-
mary in Whittow (2003).
22
See in general Brandes (1989) and (1999).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 613
and economic dislocation varied zone by zone. Asia Minor has been
crudely divided into three broad zones, for example, which reect
the dierential eects of hostile activity in the regions in question.
The nature of towns and their relationship to the surrounding rural
communities varied in each case.
23
Archaeologists and historians have identied several basic types or
models of urbanism which were characteristic of the Late Roman
world: ruralised cities, with substantial areas within the walls devoted
to pasture or arable; the city in islands, with inhabited quarters
separated by abandoned or ruralised areas; the transferred or shifted
city, where the population has moved to a dierent but nearby loca-
tion; and a variant on this last, the fortress city, where the population
has moved to a fortied site. In addition, there might also be con-
tinuous cities, with a very considerable degree of continuity in infra-
structure, use of space, and so forth, whilst there is also substantial
evidence of large and densely-populated rural settlements of a largely
non-urban character but which contain populations often greater than
those of nearby true urban centres.
24
Examples of all these types can
be found in the East Roman world from the 6th c. on, in both the
southern Balkans and across Asia Minor. Many were marked already
in the 4th and 5th c., and especially in the 6th c., by features which,
from an archaeological and topographical perspective, seem quite
familiar from the Early Medieval world, and characteristic of for-
tresstowns, those defended centres of population with administra-
tive and military functions (not all that dierent from the later
Byzantine kastron).
25
Patterns of Intra-Urban Settlement
The transformations that aected the eastern part of the Late Roman
world did not, except in a relatively small number of cases, involve
an abandonment of formerly urban sites ( poleis) in favour of hilltop
fortied sites (kastra). But they did involve a change in the way pop-
ulations were distributed between such sites, their extents, and the ways
23
See Lilie (1976) 34550.
24
See Brandes (1989) 82131 for a town-by-town survey along these lines; Brogiolo
(2000) 312.; and Morrisson and Sodini (2002) 17981.
25
See the discussion in Dunn (1994), critical also of the otherwise useful survey
of Mller-Wiener (1986).
614 onx n.rrox
in which they were occupied.
26
Rural communities without defensive
potential tended to shrink and to move site to more easily-defended
locations. In some cases the castles or forts whose ruins have been
identied in numerous out-of-the-way locations across central, south-
ern, and eastern Asia Minor may in fact represent fortied village
communities, rather than military establishments. A similar interpre-
tation has been suggested for the patterns of such defended settlements
in parts of Byzantine Italy,
27
but the evidence is scarce and dicult
to interpret in view of the lack of datable material. Those villages
nearest fortresses or well-defended walled towns may have been aban-
doned completely, as the population moved into the town and con-
ducted their agricultural activities from a new base. Surveys in Greece,
for example in Boeotia and the western Peloponnese, suggest both
a reduction in village extent, and their movement to less exposed
or less obvious sites.
28
Similar results have been obtained from sur-
veys in Asia Minor, notably in Pisidia and Lycia.
29
The sample is
still very limited, but it may be indicative. With a handful of excep-
tions, such as Nicaea, Constantinople, and Thessalonica, most of the
major classical cities of the eastern Roman world shrank during the
7th c. to the size of their defended citadels, even though the lower
city of such towns (i.e., the main Late Roman inhabited area) may
have remained the site of smaller communities.
In some Byzantine texts, mostly hagiographical, there occur descrip-
tions of cities with populations inhabiting the lower town. This has
resulted in some debate about the interpretation of both the texts in
question, as well as the archaeological evidence, and here the evidence
for Euchaita is a case in point.
30
Yet these accounts can, in fact, be
reconciled with the results of archaeology. Excavations at Amorion
26
Brogiolo (2000), esp. 31213; Brandes (1989) 81131; with Dunn (1994); and
Haldon (1999). For a survey of the state of the question, with particular emphasis
on the period after the 8th c. but including valuable discussion of the preceding
centuries, see Bouras (2002).
27
See Mitchell (2000) 14647 (Pisidian example); Brown and Christie (1989)
38182, 388, 39798.
28
See, for example, Bintli (2000) 3844, and Avramea (2001), with further
literature.
29
Marksteiner (2000); Mitchell (2000); Waelkens et al. (2000).
30
It has been argued, on the one hand, that this means that the whole ancient
city area continued to be occupied: e.g., Trombley (1985); andwith a slightly
dierent datingZuckerman (1988). Alternatively, it has been suggested that the
text(s) in question consist of topoi and that only a citadel is actually meant. See the
comment by Brandes (1999) 4749.
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 615
and several other sites show that while the very small fortress-citadel
continued to be defended and occupied, discreet areas within the Late
Roman walls, often centred around a church, also continued to be
inhabited. In Amorion there were certainly two, probably three, and
possibly more such areas, although the extent to which these became
joined up at a certain stage in the history of the city remains still
to be determined.
31
Sardis similarly shrank to a small fortied acro-
polis during the 7th c., but it appears that several separate areas
within the circumference of the original late ancient walls remained
occupied.
32
At Ephesos, which served both as a refuge for the local
rural population, and as a fortress and military administrative centre,
but also retained its role as a market town, survey and excavation
have suggested that it was divided into three small, distinct and sep-
arate occupied areas, including the citadel.
33
Miletos was reduced to
some 25% of its original area, and divided into two defended com-
plexes.
34
Didyma, close by Miletos, was reduced to a small, defended
structure based around a converted pagan temple and an associated
but unfortied settlement nearby.
35
The literary evidence for Euchaita,
on the central plateau, may also support this pattern of develop-
ment: a permanently-occupied settlement or settlements, perhaps con-
centrated around key features (churches, for example) within the
original Late Roman enceinte, with the citadel or fortress as the site
of military and administrative personnel, and the centre of resistance
to attack.
36
This evidence is still very limited, and the dateable ceramic
data is negligible or sparse, but further survey work may demon-
strate a similar line of development at other sites. The conclusions
we may draw from this evidence must, therefore, remain both spec-
ulative and tentative.
But this is a pattern found elsewhere in the formerly Roman world,
both in Gaul and Spain, on the one hand, and also in Italy, where
such sites have been referred to by archaeologists as the citt a isole.
31
Lightfoot (1995) 105.; Lightfoot (1998).
32
Foss (1976) 5576; Foss and Scott (2002).
33
Kazhdan et al. (1991) 1, 706; Foss (1979) 10613. Note that some doubt has
been cast on aspects of the interpretation of the archaeological evidence, that it
demonstrates the destruction of Ephesos at the hands of the Persians: see Russell (2001).
34
Mller-Wiener (1967); Foss (1977) 477f.
35
Kazhdan et al. (1991) 2, 931; Foss (1977) 479 with literature. There are many
other examples: see the survey of Brandes (1989) 82111, 132. with further liter-
ature and sources.
36
See literature cited in note 25 above; and Kazhdan et al. (1991) 2, 737.
616 onx n.rrox
Whereas in Gaul and Spain this tendency seems to have led to the
fragmentation of the original urban space, in Italy it can be shown
that in many cases the dissolution of the city as a single unit did
not occur, and that an original Late Roman street plan survived.
37
Although there are some problems with dating the appearance and
occupation of such islands, this type of settlement does appear to
become representative of several sites in the eastern Roman world,
in particular in Asia Minor. Small but distinct communities thus con-
tinued to exist within the city walls, while the citadel or kastron
which kept the name of the ancient polisprovided a refuge in case
of attack. While dwelling eectively in separate communities or villages
within the walls, the inhabitants of such urban concentrations saw
themselves as belonging to the polis itself. In some cases, the walls
of the lower town area were maintainedirregularly, for the most
partin order to provide shelter for larger-than-usual concentrations
of troops, or the rural population of the surrounding district. This
seems again to have been the case in a number of excavated and
surface-surveyed urban sites.
Patterns of Planning and Defence
There also appears to have been a shift in the way urban spaces and
facilities were laid out. That there was a transformation in the use
and functions of space in late ancient towns from the 5th c. onwards
is well-established, and it is important to note that the reuse of older
structures for new functions reected a quite pragmatic rethinking
of the use of urban facilities: bath buildings oered accessible re-
proof structures, and could be reused as kilns, for example, something
that is found at many Late Roman sites. The archaeological record
at a number of sites also seems to suggest a relationship between
artisanal production centres and church buildings, and thus the pos-
sibilitysuggested by the importance of the bishop in townsof a
central role for the church in the re-structuring of urban settlement.
Another notable feature of this period is the incorporation of small-
and medium-scale industrial production locations (for materials such
as brick, glass, ceramics, etc.) into the domestic areas of a town. This
37
See Ciampoltrini (1994); Brogiolo (1987) 2746; (1984) 5253; 6also Gelichi
(1991) 16062.
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 617
is perhaps a reection of the relative insecurity of many urban hinter-
lands during the 6th c. and, in the Byzantine world in particular,
throughout most of the 7th and 8th c. It would have been quite
sensible to bring non-agricultural production within the defences, a
process that would also encourage a convergence of rural with urban
activities, and which seems typical of many smaller and middling
settlements of the period after the 6th c. While most of the evidence
for this still relates to the Late Roman period, the very limited evi-
dence from some medieval Anatolian sites would not contradict this
interpretation.
38
Such kastra (referred to often, however, by their inhabitants and by
many writers who mention them as poleis) and fortresses, whether in
an obviously frontier region or not, generally sited on rocky outcrops
and prominences (which were often also the sites of pre-Roman
fortresses), typied the East Roman provincial countryside well into
the Seljuk period and beyond. Investigation of sites in Cappadocia
may provide a pattern for similar frontier locations, although it is
still too early to generalise. At Akhisar, some 10 km south of Kolonia
(Aksaray), for example, an important hilltop fortress was situated in
a defensible position with commanding views across to the Hasan
Da< and to Kolonia, overlooking the Byzantine road from Tyana
to Mokissos and Kolonia. It played a signicant role in the warfare
between Byzantine and Islamic forces in the 7th to early 9th c.
39
Interestingly, there is an associated civilian settlement (Canl Kilise),
some 3.5 km distant, consisting of a number of very substantial rock-
cut mansions with both stables and associated smaller dwellings. The
ceramic evidence reects an occupation from the 7th/8th c. through
into the Seljuk period, although the 10th and 11th c. may have been
the most ourishing period of occupation. It has been suggested that
this may be a settlement for the families of local ocers, adminis-
trative ocials and the associated civilian population.
40
There is a
similar arrangement at Selime not far away, and at many other sites
in comparable locations, such as Ack Saray, which would have been
38
See in particular the useful discussion of Leone (2003), although limited chiey
to North African sites; and more generally Martorelli (1999); Roskams (1999); and
Bouras (2002).
39
Hild and Restl (1981) 72, 27778 with literature; Lilie (1976) 114; Ousterhout
(1997).
40
Hild and Restl (1981) 278; Ousterhout (1997).
618 onx n.rrox
within the political/military frontier zone during the period from the
7th to 10th c.
41
Parallels from other parts of the Byzantine world for this period
oer useful comparative material. Fortress-settlements situated on or
near easily-defended natural outcrops, functioning as refuges for more
extensive but lower-lying civilian settlements, are also found in south-
ern Italy. Here, they may reect the lack of a clearly-dened natural
frontier or borderland between Byzantine and Lombard territory, and
the need to cater for localised defensive and refugee needs. Several
sites in Calabriaon the isthmus of Catanzaro, or at Tiriolo, for
example, near Squillacewhich were occupied from the late 6th c.
onwards, as well as in the southern Balkan region, typify these devel-
opments.
42
For a useful comparison, work on a later period in Boeotia
has shown that warfare between Franks, Byzantines and Turks dur-
ing the 14th c. led to a wide-ranging abandonment of many rural
settlements as the population concentrated in the regional fortied
towns. This sort of development seems to be reected in the Early
Medieval South Italian evidence, and there can be little reason to
doubt that the warfare to which the settlements in the more exposed
regions of Asia Minor were subject during the 7th and part of the
8th c. produced similar results.
43
This picture, of fort or fortress with accompanying or associated
settlement, can be found across Anatolia. Many larger or more impor-
tant sites in Byzantine Asia Minor t the model, and there are good
examples in the fortresses at Ikonion,
44
(Pontic) Koloneia,
45
Akroinon,
46
Dazimon,
47
Sebasteia,
48
Charsianon,
49
in the central and eastern regions,
Priene, Herakleia
50
in Caria, and several others along the western
coastal provinces, or Herakleia Pontike (Kybistra),
51
on the Black Sea
coast. All were shielded by natural features, adequately supplied with
41
Rodley (1985). A glance through Hild and Restl (1981) illustrates the num-
ber of similar sites.
42
For Italy: Noy (1992) and her summary, Noy (1994), esp. 72830; for the
south Balkans (Thessaly): Avramea (1974) 11984; Rhodope area: Asdracha (1976).
43
See Bintli (1991) and (1996); Bintli and Snodgrass (1988a) and (1988b).
44
Belke (1984) 17678, 182f.
45
Bryer and Wineld (1985) 14551.
46
Belke and Mersich (1990) 17778.
47
Belke (1984) 88; Kazhdan et al. (1991) 592.
48
Belke (1984) 27476.
49
Belke (1984) 16365.
50
On these see Brandes (1989) 89110 with older literature.
51
Belke (1984) 18890.
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 619
water, positioned to control the surrounding districts, and often com-
bined with a lower town located within the Late Roman walls which
remained occupied during times of relative peace. With the defences
of the lower town in reasonable repair, they could serve as an appro-
priate refuge for the surrounding rural population.
A variation on this relationship between citadel and town was rep-
resented by towns where the greatly-reduced walled central area was
lled primarily with administrative and ecclesiastical buildings, and
perhaps also barracks or other accommodation for soldiers, with the
civil population in villages or smaller communities outside the walls.
Examples such as Nicopolis ad Istrum, in the Balkans, show that the
walled area could be occupied chiey by such ocial structures,
and by the wealthier and more powerful members of the civilian
population, with substantial areas remaining free of any standing
structures at all, and with dwellings concentrated around the outside
of the walls, particularly near the entrances or chief routes. None of
this was new in the 7th c.
52
Yet the association between a large
number of medium or small Anatolian towns, and an earlier, pre-
Roman citadel or stronghold, becomes the norm in Asia Minor, and
meant on the one hand the survival of the Roman or Hellenistic
name for the site, and on the other, the survival of the identity of the
residents with the city and thus, in however tenuous a fashion, with
the notion of the city itself.
The characteristic features of Byzantine towns and fortresses across
the 7th9th c. were thus a visible defensive capacity embodied in a
citadel or fortress, usually located on a naturally-defensible site, which
dominated a lower town often within the Late Roman walls, but which
was itself divided into a number of separate settlement foci. Their
military, social, and economic role depended on the zone in which
they lay. They attracted limited small-scale industry (such as building,
metalwork, leatherwork, and so forth) and localised ceramic produc-
tion, and were centres of consumption, although they were not nec-
essarily magnets of market activities, except at certain times of the
year for local rural populations.
52
See Poulter (2000) for a summary. The internal arrangements of urban cen-
tres in provincial Byzantium remains obscure for want of adequate data and sur-
veys, although recent workat Amorion and Amaseia, for examplewill make
some discussion possible.
620 onx n.rrox
Virr.ors .xr Rtn.r Socir+v
The Topography and Mobility of Rural Settlements
The situation in the rural hinterlands of these fortresses and defended
towns is very unclear. While on the one hand a long-term and gen-
eralised demographic decline has been identied, which seems to
date from the later 5th or early 6th c. across parts of the Mediterranean
world, it is also clear that on the other hand strong regional uctuations
and variations (in some cases representing short- or medium-term
trends of up to half a century or more) also occurred. The dierences
between the histories of northern Syria and central/southern Syria,
for example, as indicated in the archaeological record, as well as
between the western and the central regions of Asia Minor, are illus-
trative.
53
For Anatolia it may reasonably be hypothesisedand at a
general level the archaeological evidence seems to bear this out
that in conditions of widespread insecurity (such as warfare or sim-
ilar disruptive activities), as well as in regions aected by more general
change, rural communities moved.
Such movement was both to more secure locations, as well as
towards the regional central places to which their non-subsistence
production surpluses might normally have owed.
54
In coastal regions
this appears generally to have meant a movement or a withdrawal
towards defended, but still accessible ports or, if the distances involved
excluded this possibility, towards well-defended or less-easily acces-
sible locations, but which had access to routes that would permit the
population to move goods to local market centres.
55
In inland regions
it meant movement towards areas readily accessible from fortied
centres. The still very limited survey work on parts of Asia Minor, and
the somewhat more extensive research on the southern Balkans which
has taken this relationship into account, would suggest as much.
56
This
was in turn both accompanied by, and further stimulated, an overall
53
For Syria in particular see the excellent survey by Foss (1997).
54
See Koder (1986) 16164 for an approach to modelling the relationship between
central places and the overlapping spheres of dependent settlements around them;
and 16475 for working hypotheses on the basis of Late Roman provincial urban-
ism; Morrisson and Sodini (2002) 17579 for the situation in the 5th7th c.
55
Koder (1998), esp. 24957.
56
See in general Koder (1986) and (1998); and Lampropoulou (2000) 100108;
Mitchell (2000); Waelkens et al. (2000); Marksteiner (2000).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 621
reduction in the areas of cultivated land, from which the empire
began to recover only slowly during the 9th and 10th c.
57
But such
a reduction need not necessarily imply an absolute impoverishment
of the producing populations, if consumption needs continued to
match population size, except in areas placed under particular, short-
term, pressures (such as districts to which refugees might move from
time to time, for example). But we are still heavily dependent upon
literary sources, which are themselves almost entirely silent on the
nature and structure of Byzantine villages for this period, although a
little evidence can be gleaned from them regarding their economic life.
58
This is perhaps the more surprising in view of the fact that the
village and the land it exploited was the basic scal unit of the
empire from the early 8th c. and probably before.
59
The little evidence
that has been extracted from the available sources shows that many
villages of the period were situated on the higher ground near to a
good water supply, usually a river or stream, but in a way that they
were aorded some protection from ooding and from severe weather
conditions. Many were situated well back from, but with good access
to, major roads. Others were situated on promontories or similar
sites with diculty of access. Indeed, it seems from the available lit-
erary descriptions of villages that such a protected and defensible,
or out-of-the-way site was to be preferred, in view of the various
natural advantages such a location conferred. We read thus of villages
situated near marshes and between streams, sites originally selected
for the various advantages they were thought to possess.
It is very likely that in regions frequently raided, the populations
of villages will have withdrawn to those fortied centres that were
nearest, sometimes on a permanent basis. Terracing work was often
a feature of such communities, aording both improved land-use and
the extension of the settlement; and many villages were also defended
by walls. Indeed, one source of the early 11th c. (somewhat later
than our period but nevertheless still relevant to the earlier situation)
refers to a village as a kastron, and it is likely that many of the smaller
57
Koder (1994).
58
See esp. Kaplan (1992), for the best modern survey and interpretation of the
sources regarding middle Byzantine peasant society and village structures, with a
detailed analysis of the relevant written sources.
59
Kaplan (1992) 185216; Haldon (1997) 13253. For the structure of the rural
economy and the social organisation of village life and production, see Lefort (2002);
(Bryer) 2002.
622 onx n.rrox
forts and defended enclosures which recent surveys have revealed,
particularly in the frontier zone of Asia Minor, were in eect defended
village communities, a point I have noted already.
60
Not all villages
were nucleated settlements, though. Certain areas were characterised
by dispersed settlements, connected by a particular road(s) or track(s)
and spread across the slopes of a mountainside, a type of settlement
pattern typical of predominantly pastoral and mountainous regions.
61
But the majority of farming communities dwelt in settlements in
which village dwellings and vegetable plots were concentrated together.
The Village Economy
While towns were centres of both services and productive activities,
villages were themselves centres of both productive and artisanal
activity, and they disposed of their goods with the means appropri-
ate to the times. Where coin was not readily available then potters,
for example, could exchange their wares for agricultural produce, oil,
wine, or whatever the region produced.
62
Indeed, even where coin
was to be had, in areas where there were few regular market oppor-
tunities (such as the yearly saints day festivities and fair, for exam-
ple) and where coin (esp. bronze coin) could not be converted readily
into gold, exchange was probably just as safe and as simple a way of
carrying out such transactions. Absence of coin does not (necessarily)
signify either absence of exchange or of production and, therefore,
of population.
63
There is also an important dierence between undefended rural
settlements, on the one hand, and fortresses and other kastra-like cen-
tres on the other. Under certain conditions it was the latter that were
more likely to suer attack than the undefended villages as they con-
tained soldiers and administrators. Enemy armies intent on damaging
the Byzantines ability to strike back or to defend themselves were
just as likely, if not more so, to concentrate on such targets, in con-
trast to the villages. The undefended rural sites were certainly a
60
Lemerle et al. (1970) no. 14 (13738). For further details see Kaplan (1992)
10410. On village dwellings and related buildings, see Morrisson and Sodini (2002)
17778.
61
Kaplan (1992) 11115.
62
See Sanders (2000), esp. 170; and for the 6th c. situation, Morrisson and Sodini
(2002) 201. Older material in Bouras (1981).
63
Sanders (2000) 170.
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 623
source of booty, and above all of forage, but may by the same token
have been ignored by raiders with more strategic aims in mind, par-
ticularly if they were situated away from regular routes of access or
transit across Byzantine territory. It has been suggested on the basis
of both archaeological and textual evidence that this was the case
with much of Boeotia during this period, for example, with relatively
ourishing village economies survivingalthough largely demonetised
in the shelter of a number of strongly-fortied, well-situated, defen-
sible kastra such as Thebes or Orchomenos (with the rural settlement
at Skripou below the acropolis).
64
It is entirely possible that it applies
equally to many other regions of the empire, certainly to those away
from the outer zone in Asia Minor, which was the object of the most
regular small-scale raiding.
The major written sources for the village in the middle Byzantine
period are the so-called Farmers Law and the 10th c. Fiscal Treatise;
these can be supplemented by casual references in hagiographies and
similar texts.
65
The former is very problematic in its dating, but prob-
ably dates to either the 8th or 9th c., and sets out the property rela-
tions between neighbours in a rural community. Since the text is not
localised it is impossible to know whether or not it was meant to reect
all villages in the empire, or only those from a particular region.
But it does at least oer some idea of the structure of social relation-
ships within a nucleated village community.
66
The Fiscal Treatise
was a handbook for tax-assessors, and presents therefore a somewhat
one-dimensional picture of the village as a scal unit. It paints a pic-
ture of a densely-settled community with a fairly complicated pat-
tern of land-tenure and a varied social composition, including wealthy
peasants with substantial holdings (some of which might be sub-let);
holdings let out or bought by outsiders; peasants with limited hold-
ings sucient only to support their families and cover their basic
tax-burdens; wage-labourers; and artisans and local craftsmen. Many
villagers had their own household gardens adjacent to their dwelling,
but many did not. Basic crops included cereals, vines, olives, and
vegetables, and livestock included sheep, pigs, goats, and cattle, with
64
Trombley (2000); Bintli and Vroom (2000).
65
Although the question of its date remains undecided: Oikonomids (1996) 445
argues for the 12th c.
66
See for the Farmers Law Brubaker and Haldon (2001) 29092; also Haldon
(1997) 132. with older literature; and Schminck (1999), for a proposed date of
compilation in the later 9th c.
624 onx n.rrox
donkeys and mules used as beasts of burden. Although the Farmers
Law deals with the village from a dierent standpoint, and presents
a dierent aspect of the relationships between villagers and their
property (the conicts between peasants over boundaries, access rights
and so forth) the picture that it draws is not too dierent from this.
67
Archaeological data for whole village communities is still sparse
for the period after the late 6th/mid-7th c. Excavations at Olympia
in Greece have revealed an Early Medieval rural community, estab-
lished in the middle of the 6th c. after the destruction (probably by
earthquake) of a previous Late Roman settlement. Although this com-
munity appears to have suered a degree of impoverishment during
the 7th c. as immigrants from the central and western Danube region
arrived, it may not have been untypical of similar village communities
in other regions of the empire through the following centuries: fairly
dense building groups along narrow alleys, constructed from spolia,
internally plastered, with built-in storage vessels and working sur-
faces, hearths and simple internal divisions. Individual dwellings were
often fronted by open yards. Winepresses provide evidence for part
of the economic activities which supported the village, with ovens and
kilns associated with clay moulds, as well as lime kilns, pointing to
some ceramic production and building activity, while agrarian tools
and querns suggest cereal cultivation. Iron slag, bronze and copper
ornaments and kitchen vessels, attest to the activities of coppersmiths
and blacksmiths. In short, it was a well-rounded agrarian commu-
nity that was self-sucient in many basic requirements. Similar com-
munities are known from other Balkan and Aegean sites, although
the chronology of their development, their regional variations, and
the nature of their relationships to local urban centres, all require a
great deal more clarication.
68
As the ceramic data from Asia Minor and the Balkans increase, it
is also becoming clear that, while the large-scale, inter-regional move-
ment of ne and semi-ne wares draws to a close during the nal
decades of the 7th c. or slightly earlier,
69
substantial production of
67
See the account in Harvey (1989) 35.; Kaplan (1992) 89134, 22031, and esp.
25680 on the structure of village society; also Kaplan (2001). For the Fiscal Treatise,
see Dlger (1927) 11323; Ostrogorsky (1927) 4.; Oikonomids (1996) 4445.
68
Vlling (2001); Gregory (1994); Popovic (1982).
69
Once again, regional nuances are apparent, and there is now evidence for
some continued international exchange throughout the 7thlate 8th c. between the
eastern Mediterranean basin and southern Italy, for example. For the general con-
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 625
both coarse and table wares existed to meet local demand. The large
number of varied but localised wares noted by eld surveys, as well
as by site excavations, is illustrative of this, even if it is not yet co-
ordinated into any broader picture (and even though issues of dat-
ing, origin and distribution remain to be resolved).
70
An obvious
conclusion to be drawn from this material is that, while there may
have been marked regional uctuations in the fortunes of provincial
society in general over the period ca. 650800, rural society continued
to exist at a more than impoverished subsistence level in most
provinces of the empire, in spite of the disruption. Indeed, rural soci-
ety may well have been positively ourishing in less exposed regions.
This is perhaps less surprising when we bear in mind rstly the heavy
demands which the state imposed (and which appear generally to
have been met) upon producers, in order to maintain its army and
related administrative apparatus; and secondly, the probability that
substantial ecclesiastical estates also survived the 7th and 8th c. in
the less-exposed provinces. There is also likely to have been the con-
comitant growth of large secular estates (evident from the middle of
the 9th c., but surely beginning well before this time). These factors
clearly assume the potential for tax-extraction on the part of the state,
and indicate the attraction of rent-taking for those with the resources
to invest in land.
As I have noted already, absence of copper coins (if there really is
such an absence, rather than a bias in collected material and casual
nds) should not necessarily be taken to mean an absence of econ-
omic exchange and production. In light of the current evidence, I
see no reason to doubt that the changes in the weight and value of
the coin produced by the state, as well as the number of coins struck,
reected the general economic situation within the empires remaining
text: Sodini (2000). The red line-painted and other slipped wares found at sites in
Byzantine southern Italy, in and around Naples, for example, as well as at other
southern Italian sites, both inside and outside Byzantine territory, represented an
important regional tradition independent of the areas to north and east, and were
especially prominent. Many of these bear striking similarities to contemporary dec-
orated wares from Egypt and Palestine. Such wares are found at all these sites and
many others in the eastern Mediterranean basin in levels of the 7th and 8th c.,
and suggest contacts, regular if not frequent, between the regions concerned. See
Noy (1988); Arthur and Patterson (1994) 40941.
70
Harrison (1992) 216; Lightfoot (1998); Lightfoot et al. (2001) 37980; Arthur
(1997); Russell (1980) 3140; Williams (1977); Mitchell (2000) 146; and for the more
distant Crimea, see Romancuk (1981). Note also, anecdotally, Whittow (2003) 413.
626 onx n.rrox
territories.
71
A deliberate curtailment of issues of the bronze coinage
of account from about 658, or soon thereafter, seems to have taken
place. This curtailment has been associated with the probable inter-
nal restructuring of tax collecting mechanisms (and by denition,
therefore, with the ways in which the army was paid and supplied),
72
and would suggest once more that the government was concerned pri-
marily with the scal functions of the coinage, ignoring its involvement
in market exchange. This contrasts very markedly with the relatively
constant rate of production and gold-content of the precious-metal
coinage right through from the middle of the 7th to the 9th c. and
beyond.
73
The dramatic fall in the numbers of bronze issues recov-
ered from archaeological sites across the southern Balkans and Asia
Minor for the period c. 660 until the early 9th c. or later, corroborated
by the incidence of such issues in collections, illustrates the change
in the economic circumstances under which exchange and the appro-
priation of surplus through tax took place.
74
It also contrasts very
sharply with the continued widespread and intensive use of copper
coins throughout the former imperial territory now under Islamic
control, where the archaeological as well as numismatic material shows
virtually no disruption to the patterns of economic activity which had
been established by the 630s. Indeed, it suggests a very considerable
demand for coin which was met by the production on a large scale
and at a number of local mints of coins which, until the 660s and
670s at least, imitated available imperial issues.
75
71
See the survey of the role of coin in the Byzantine economy in Morrisson (2002).
72
See Haldon (1997) 22627, 23244 with earlier literature; and Phillips and
Goodwin (1997), esp. 75.
73
The purity of the gold nomisma was in fact reduced during the second half of
the 7th c. and only slowly restored, by the early 9th c.; but this uctuation was,
compared with that in the form and quantity of the bronze coinage, insignicant.
See the detailed survey of the evidence in Morrisson (1985), esp. 12327 and (2002)
92029.
74
See Morrisson (1986) 156.; Grierson (1960) 436, with table 2; also (1968) vol.
1, 6f., and cf. Hendy (1985) 49699; 640f.; also Brandes (1989) 22627. For recent
excavation results which demonstrate the same pattern: Galani-Krikou (1998) 152.;
Bowden (2003) 67 for Albania. It should be noted that while many of the sites in
which this pattern emerges have been the subject of excavations limited to very
restricted areas, the same pattern emerges even from those sitesfor example, in
Greece and the Peloponnesewhere much more extensive soundings or excava-
tions have taken place, so that its universal application can hardly be doubted. The
basic pattern seems to be conrmed throughout the empires remaining territories.
See the comments in Morrisson (2001), esp. 383.
75
See Gatier (1994), MacAdam (1994) and Tsafrir and Foerster (1994) for
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 627
Taken in the light of, and complemented by, the information
oered by documentary sources, the archaeological material thus pro-
vides some hints of the physical form of the eastern Roman world after
the 6th c. Admittedly, the archaeology does not yet oer rmly date-
able evidence for many of the later 7th, 8th and 9th c. developments
we can read out of the written material, although it does not con-
tradict them. But the archaeology does support the general picture of
a fairly marked retrenchment of urban life from c. 620640, with
regional variations in pace and intensity. It suggests an increasing
focus on a certain minimal defensive capability in both rural and
urban contexts, and it supports the picture of a fragmentation of
local exchange and production, including a decline in inter-regional
exchange, a decline in high-quality ceramic production in the inland
regions, and the increasing domination by Constantinople of its
extended hinterland. It does not support notions of either mass depop-
ulation or abandonment, as the absence of identiable ceramic mate-
rial should not be taken to mean absence of ceramic material as such
and therefore of people. It does, however, leave scope for the deser-
tion or abandonment of both the most marginal agricultural lands,
and of those most exposed to hostile activity, and also for demo-
graphic decline or dierentiated regional demographic collapse.
Soci.r Cox+rx+
There is a great deal more survey and excavation material that needs
to be taken into account if we are to produce a more nuanced, and
perhaps a more sophisticated picture, but the outlines of the material
cultural environment can at least be sketched in. While this account
of the archaeological record is certainly informed by the pattern of
political and social history known from the written sources, and in
particular from the historiographical record, it remains to be seen
whether the archaeological material can tell us more about the detail
of that pattern and whether a pattern known from the written sources
may be challenged by the archaeological evidence.
generalised continuity in central and northern Syria, Palestine and western Jordan;
and for the coinage, Walmsley (2000) 33239; Domascewicz and Bates (2002); Foss
(1999); Phillips and Goodwin (1997).
628 onx n.rrox
Elite Society
It may be helpful to begin with the question of what happened to
the elites of the empire, both central and provincial. To some extent
they clearly overlapped until the 10th c., for social status and nancial
security depended often on state service at one level or another; and
if not state service, then service in the church. The middle Byzantine
elite of courtiers, government, and military ocials replaced the Late
Roman establishment, dominated by the so-called senatorial aristo-
cracy, during the course of the 7th c.
76
The process by which this
occurred, the extent to which there was a continuity of families of
personnel, and the degree of continuity in respect of land-ownership
and oces, all remain very obscure. What does seem to emerge from
a careful prosopographical analysis of the available data is a twofold
development. First, at Constantinople itself, in the central administrative
organs of the state and at the higher levels of the clergy, there was
a considerable degree of continuity. Second, in other areas, and in
the provincial military in particular, the evidence suggests a substantial
discontinuity, as the conditions of warfare and insecurity brought to
the forefront a large number of new men, many of them immigrants
from outlying regions such as Armenia, and from social strata that
would only rarely have provided senior state ocials in the 6th c.
Political and military instability encouraged the need to appoint
competent and able persons to positions of military and political
authority, to move such persons around to carry out functions the
emperors deemed necessary, and thus stimulated a shifting and uid
bureaucratic-military establishment. Insecurity in such contexts is usu-
ally high, as has been well-established by many studies of bureaucracies,
encouraging both maximum exploitation of the possibilities open to
the oce-holder during their period of tenure, and the building of
factions and cliques intended to secure the fortunes of particular, and
constantly uctuating, groups of individuals at court and in the
76
For the later Byzantine elite, see the articles in Angold (1984); and esp. three
contributions by Cheynet (1990), (1996), and (2000), with more recent literature;
see also Kazhdan and McCormick (1997); and Oikonomids (1997). On the 7th c.
situation, the article by Ostrogorsky (1971) is now too out-of-date to be of much
value for this dicult period; while Yannopoulos (1975) oers a rather unsatisfac-
tory survey of titles and oces and their social context. For an attempt to exam-
ine the problem in its broader context, see Haldon (1997) 15371 and 38999.
The best analytical account of the growth of the middle Byzantine bureaucratic
elite is Winkelmann (1987); with Patlagean (1984). See now Haldon (2004).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 629
provinces.
77
This also introduces an element of insecurity at the level
of the ruler, who is dependent on his highest ocials, and thus needs
to be sure of their loyalty. Increasing the dependence of the highest
ocials on the emperors person was one way of securing this end;
regularly transferring individuals from one post to another was another.
It might be said that the more insecure the members of the state
establishment were, the more secure the emperor, since he thus max-
imised their dependency upon his goodwill. Of course, this could
work to his disadvantage: a ne balance had to be kept between
pushing too many of the leading elements of the elite too far into
insecurity and anxiety for their positions and physical safety. The
period from c. 690 to 717 provides some useful illustrations, where
we can detect a conict between members of the older metropoli-
tan elite and the newer men promoted by the imperial court, and
between the population of Constantinople and the surrounding provin-
cials.
78
Similar considerations may apply to the conicts within the
elite in the opening and middle years of the reign of Constantine
V. The extent to which social and economic issues are reected, if
at all, in the positions adopted by the three major factions (extreme
anti-iconoclasts; iconophiles willing to compromise; former iconoclasts
willing to compromise) into which the clergy can be divided in the
780s and 790s is unclear, but court politics, social position and the
politics of the church clearly played an important role.
79
Much the
same can be said of the period of imperially-imposed monotheletism
in the 640s660, and in both cases what may well have begun as
an entirely politico-religious issue quickly became entangled with
issues of power-politics, factionalism at court, and provincial identi-
ties and attitudes.
80
As I pointed out already, the proportion of new men in the higher
echelons of the Church seems to have been substantially smaller than
in the civil and military apparatus of the state. This would accord
with the fact that the decline in provincial municipal culture and
77
Raychaudhuri and Habib (1982) 1, 243; cf. Anderson (1979) 399400; Haldon
(1993).
78
Analysis of such relationships should begin with Webers classic discussion of
patrimonial power structures, and the tension between centralised, despotic power
and decentralised aristocratic particularism: see Weber (1968) 3, 100669. For
modern discussions, see Kautsky (1982); and the discussion in Mann (1986), esp.
16774; and Runciman (1989) 15556 and 19097.
79
See, for example, Speck (1978) and Brubaker and Haldon (2005), chapts. 3,
4, and 6.
80
Brandes (1998); see also Winkelmann (2001).
630 onx n.rrox
the concentration of resources (including educational resources) in
Constantinople meant that the Church henceforth provided one of
the most stable environments for the continued inuence of the cul-
tural inheritance of the traditional social elite. The structures which
had supported secular literary activity were, with a very few excep-
tions, no longer there; and it is worth recalling here that it is pre-
cisely in the realms of the Church and theology (which encompassed
an enormous variety of genres and sub-types of literature), that the
emphasis in terms of literary production is found after the middle
of the 7th c. until well into the 8th.
81
In the context of the later 7th
and early 8th c., it would have been precisely these educated mem-
bers of the old establishment who could have provided the Church
with the literacy, learning, and cultural capital it needed to maintain
this tradition. It is worth noting that the majority of occupants of
the patriarchal throne throughout the 7th and much of the 8th c.
were chosen from among the higher clergy of Hagia Sophia; while
the major monasteries in and around Constantinople appear to be
associated with a (possibly) conservative metropolitan opposition to
imperial policy under Justinian II in the late 7th and early 8th c.
82
The result of all these changes was the slow emergence during the
8th and 9th c. of a new elite of service, which eventuallyby the
early 11th c.grew into an aristocracy. In its early years, however,
its power was very dependent upon court, title, and function in the
state system; it invested its wealth, individually and by family and
clan, in the state apparatus as much as in land; and it depended
heavily on the survival of the empire and the imperial system for its
own survival. Besides the very general references in texts (such as
hagiographies, for example) to provincial ocers, and apart from the
sigillographical material which permits us to detail the administrative
hierarchy in the provinces, the elite remains archaeologically more
or less invisible until we reach the 10th and 11th c. at the earliest.
Even then its traces are sparse and dicult to interpret.
83
Further
work on contexts such as the Canl Kilise sites will add substantially
to this.
81
Cameron (1992).
82
See Kountoura-Galaki (1996) 6275; 78.
83
No work of the sort possible for Italy and the west in respect of aristocratic
or middle-class housing, for examplesee Polci (2003)has yet been undertaken for
Byzantium in this early period, although the period from the 9th c. onwards has
received some attention. See Bouras (2002).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 631
Provincial Society and the Army
What about the ordinary population of the empire? Throughout
the greater part of the 8th and 9th c. the mass of ordinary provincial
people was represented, implicitly and informally, through one par-
ticular institution, and in the only form through which they could make
their opinions at least partially known to those in power. For it was
from the peasantry of the empire that the vast majority of soldiers
were recruited, and it was through the army, in its various provincial
divisions, that popular opinion could on occasion be given expression.
It is now generally accepted that the recruitment of troops became
highly localised after the 650s, and that soldiers came increasingly
to be drawn from the regions where their units were based. Likewise,
the organisation of military matters at the tactical level became highly
localised. Soldiers recruited from particular districts served in the
units based in that area, as far as we can tell (and later evidence
shows how this worked), and thus tended to share loyalties, and polit-
ical (and other) views.
84
The changes in the role and character of
towns and fortresses, which had taken place (see above), also had
important implications in this respect. For, in the absence of populous
towns and the possibilities they oered for the expression of the views
of ordinary people, the army eectively replaced the urban popu-
lace of the empire as the voice of the people.
Perhaps it is indicative of the complexity of these changes that
they seem to coincide with a decline in the independent political
activities of Blue and Green factions in the cities of the East, inso-
far as anything can be said about their activities outside Constantinople.
A purely urban phenomenon, and hitherto the most obvious locus of
both popular views and discontent or approbation, their demise more
or less corresponds with the changes in function and form of cities
in East Roman culture and government, on the one hand, and with
the increasingly vocal appearance of soldiers in politics on the other.
85
It is in the light of these developments that the activities of soldiers
84
For the evidence for this localisation see Haldon (1993).
85
For the role of soldiers and the armies during the later 7th and early 8th c.,
for example, see Haldon (1986) 172 and 187. On the factions, see Cameron (1979),
esp. 615; Cameron (1976) (and for a survey of earlier views: Winkelmann (1976),
who stresses the continued importance of the Blue and Green factions in Constantinople
during the 7th c.; also Beck (1965a), esp. 3541). Yet in Constantinople, as Alan
Cameron showed, the continued political activity of these organisations is con-
strained by an increasingly circumscribing imperial ceremonial function.
632 onx n.rrox
in the later 7th, 8th, and 9th c. must be understood. Conversely, it
is no accident that during the later 10th, and especially in the 11th and
12th c., as towns become much more important economically, they
begin to play a central role in political developments, so that whereas
in the later 7th through into the mid-11th c., most military revolts
had been based in the countryside and around the headquarters of
the local general, during the 11th c. and thereafter such political
opposition to the central government is almost always centred in
urban contexts, whose populations begin to appear in the sources as
a body of self-aware citizens with specic interests.
One of the implications of these changes is that from the middle
of the 7th c. the army now became political in a way that it really had
not before, in spite of the fact that there was (in constitutional terms)
always a military element in, for example, the acclamation or choice
of a new emperor, so that politics, in the very broadest sense, was
not new for soldiers. Yet it is very apparent that the politics of sol-
diers during the period of iconoclast rule were highly provincialised:
rebellions, civil wars and similar disturbances, while often led by
political men aiming at absolute or imperial power, had very clearly
localised roots, in respect of the sources of discontent, the nature of
the opposition, and the competitive loyalties of one theme army ver-
sus another, and so on. The absence of any other focus, save the
armies, for non-metropolitan or provincial opinion, and the central
position of the thematic commanders in imperial politics, were impor-
tant aspects in this development.
86
This was reinforced by the fact
that the Byzantine armies of the 7th, 8th, and 9th c. were mostly
indigenous and relatively homogeneous, from the cultural as well as
the economic perspective: rooted in local society, recruited region-
ally from peasant communities, and ocered (as far as the evidence
allows us to say,) by local men.
87
While this does not mean that there
were no foreign mercenaries or recruits to the army at this time,
analysis of military unrest in the later part of the 7th, and the 8th
and 9th c. shows that regional identities played an important part
in at least some of the internecine strife that aected the provincial
armies at this time.
88
86
See in particular Kaegi (1966) and (1981) 20943, esp. 232. and 270.
87
For some examples from the 9th and early 10th c., see Haldon (1984) 331
and n. 1021.
88
See Kaegi (1981) 201., and Haldon (1986).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 633
What remains entirely obscure until the later 9th c. is the extent
to which such conicts were also rooted in local economic dierentia-
tion, or reected local systems of the distribution of power, the evolu-
tion of networks of patronage and of client groups, and the competition
among members of the state elite and their kin. This cannot, as far
as I can see, be detected in the very limited archaeological data cur-
rently available. But the presence of substantial bodies of troops and
the ability of the countryside to support them throughout the 7th
and 8th c. and beyond is another clear illustration of the fact that
rural agrarian production must have been sucient in such regions
to support both resident and transient populations, and still leave
something for the tax collector. Indeed, the whole principle of the
so-called theme system was logistical rather than strategic, determined
by the ability of the rural population to support the eld armies re-
located to Asia Minor after the later 630s.
89
Textual evidence for conict is limited to regionalised tensions
between thematic forces, or between the latter and Constantinople;
or to provincial populations who represented particular ethnic group-
ings with particular reputations. The archaeological evidence is even
more problematic: it is signicant, for example, that we are not yet
able to identify archaeologically (although the sigillographical mate-
rial does oer some starting points) any of the considerable num-
bers of Slav immigrants transferred by the imperial government to
Anatolia in the later 7th and 8th c., nor any of the North Syrian
or eastern Asia Minor populations transferred to the Balkan provinces.
But evidence certainly exists for tensions or conict underpinned by
religious motives, particularly with regard to the movement of small
groups of people with heterodox beliefs as refugees or state transplantees
(such as the various heretical groups in both Asia Minor and in
the Balkans), although the data is very limited and ambiguous.
90
That conict was indeed present throughout this period of substantial
social, economic, and political change should not be doubted, although
the forms it took were many and varied. But it is signicant that
the states control remains very solidthere is not the slightest hint
in any source that the power, authority, and prestige of the state was
ever endangered by such conict, reinforcing the impression that the
89
See Haldon (1997) 215f.
90
For the fullest treatment see Ditten (1993) with complete earlier bibliography;
and Brandes (2002) on the seals.
634 onx n.rrox
state was able, perhaps paradoxically, to extend and deepen its con-
trol as the empire shrank territorially, economically, and culturally. In
contrast, indirect evidence for integration certainly suggests that new-
comers, both socially and ethnically/culturally (e.g., individual Turks,
Iranians, Arabs, Slavs) were absorbed into the administrative elite of
the state, on the one hand, while ethnically-distinct outsidersSlavs,
Armenians, for examplewere eventually, and sometimes quite
quickly, absorbed into the demographic structure of the empire.
Sovr Coxcrtrixo Rrv.nks
My account represents an attempt to combine an interpretation of
the documentary sources with the available, often very patchy or
ambiguous, archaeological evidence. This is not easy. As has recently
been noted, it is extremely dicult to relate social structures to the
evidence from excavations, even if generalised statements about rel-
ative levels of wealth, or uctuations in the size and distribution of
particular types of structure or settlement, remain possible.
91
In what
ways do the fortied kastra, larger defended cities with their citadels
and partially-occupied lower towns and dependent villages reect, if
at all, the military and administrative needs of the government in
the 7th9th c.? How does the states scal apparatus map onto this
pattern? How is metropolitan and provincial elite society reected
in the pattern of urban fortied centres in the provinces? Can we
identify archaeologically where members of the provincial elite and
the state or ecclesiastical establishment lived?
92
Supercially, it is easy to claim that the regionalisation reected
in the administrative changes of the later 7th c. is repeated in the
distribution of major fortied centres, but this does not really tell us
much. No-one has yet attempted to relate archaeologically, or in terms
of survey, the thematic centres to their subordinate regional or district
towns, although we know where the majority were (along with their
medieval names), for the most part, certainly for the 9th c., and often
for the previous century too. In only a very few cases is anything
known of the internal physical layout of either category of settlement,
and this question is still extremely uncertain. We might note that, where
91
Sodini (2003) 52.
92
See Bouras (2002) for the interpretative problems raised by such questions.
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 635
we can locate clusters of forts and associated settlements grouped
around a larger fortied centre (as at Canl Kilise in the Cappadocian
frontier region, for example),
93
this is evidence for both the physical
impact of warfare, and of a particular hierarchy of settlements,
reecting shifts in both social as well as military relationships. But
any conclusions posited here remain at best vague and speculative,
and work on the relationships between dierent levels of the settlement
hierarchy remains in its infancy.
94
There has to date been simply
not enough evidence to look either at questions of internal settlement
structure, or to assess the possible density and spread of nucleated
or dispersed settlement types by region. Both of these topics have,
in contrast, received a great deal of attention in western Late Roman
or Early Medieval contexts. Whether this evidence, limited though
it still is, can be used to justify conclusions about the relative status
of the provincial elite in contrast to that of Constantinople and the
metropolitan region (for example), remains open to question. It cer-
tainly tells us very little as yet about the relationship between urban
and fortied centres and their rural hinterlands, other than what we
think we can say from the evidence of written sources. Social change
can certainly be assumed, when the patterns of the 7th and 8th c.
are compared with those of the 6th and earlier 7th c., but locating
the precise points at which this happens is much more dicult.
Attempting to account for social and economic change by relating
physical contextual evidence to documentary material thus poses a
number of problems. But this is only one possible approach. A very
dierent, and complementary, perspective on the ways in which social
development occurs is generated if we attempt to locate what have been
referring to as the unocial infrastructures within which and upon
which the more obvious ocial or public forms of government and
state administration are in most cases built. The premise is that only
rarely do novel forms of political structure arise from a vacuum (i.e.,
the complete annihilation of all that went before), but rather that
elements of processual and structural continuity are universally pre-
sent in the growth of any new system. The analysis may be focused
on a range of topics, including, for example, the role of household
administrations, of accounting systems, of clerical and exchange media,
93
See Ousterhout 1997.
94
But see Dunn (1994) for comments on the Late Roman Balkan evidence and
its relevance to Asia Minor.
636 onx n.rrox
of networks of inherited rights and jurisdictional claims, and of pop-
ular socio-economic solidarities and local ideologies and identities. In
the Byzantine case, we are beginning to use prosopographical materials
to approach some of these issues for the period of the transforma-
tionfrom the later 6th to the middle of the 8th c., sayby looking
at continuity of occupation/function, or landownership, or high oce,
all within kinship groups (such as the family of Theodore of Stoudion,
for example). This is supplemented by study of the shape and form
of networks of patronage or social inuence, as reected in either
letter-writing, or tenure of court or ecclesiastical positions. The work
already mentioned, on the elite from the late 6th to 9th c., is a case
in point.
Traditionally, historians have tended to view Byzantine administra-
tion from a point of view too obviously determined by modern, pre-
dominantly western, administrative bureaucratic traditions and
assumptions, including modern ideas about eciency, administrative
order, and so on. Recent work has suggested that these ideas should
be seriously challenged,
95
since they have led to a somewhat articial
model of Medieval administrative procedure and a tendency to ignore
or underestimate the exibility and multi-dimensional aspect of the
ways in which Byzantine state ocials attained oce or promotion,
carried out their duties, and exercised their authority. This is a ten-
dency which has had the further result of obscuring our perception
of the ways in which power-relations were constructed, and how they
operated in the Byzantine world of the 8th and 9th c. But the Byzantine
bureaucratic system was not an anonymous, independent, self-regulating
administrative structure, which is what many have assumed. On the
contrary, it was a patrimonial structure of concentric circles of clien-
tage and patronage, concentrated around the imperial court and, more
importantly, around the person of the emperors and their immedi-
ate family or entourage. Eorts to understand Byzantine ranks as
represented in ocial titles, for example, will not grasp the dynamics
of this set of relationships until the paramount role of the individual
emperors in selecting or rejecting imperial ocials has been grasped.
Attempts to build up a logical system of precedence, in which each
95
The only serious challenge to these assumptions has been mounted by
Winkelmann in his work on the Byzantine system of rank and precedence and on
the Byzantine social elite at this period. See Winkelmann (1985) and (1987). Note
also Mango (1980).
soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 637
position is neatly related to those above and below it according to
modern notions of order and system, are doomed to misrepresent
the realities of Byzantine culture and patterns of social power until
this is recognised.
Wider structures of governmental administration arise out of a
multiplicity of infrastructural relationships, many of which may remain
entirely invisible to the historian because of the nature of the available
evidence, but which should always be borne in mind when describing
the results of research based upon what data is at hand. There is a
personal, career-, family-, and individual-orientated core to all his-
torically-attested organisational infrastructures, for example, in which
the power to control surplus wealth and its distribution may also coin-
cide in both delegated and inherited forms. Byzantine society is no
exception, as was pointed out some time ago.
96
For some societies
we have enough material actually to identify these relational systems,
at least to a limited extent. For Early Byzantine Italy up to the later
8th c., for example, it is possible to locate and describe some of
these relationships, as it is, (within certain limits) for Byzantium dur-
ing its last four centuries or so. Further work using the prosopo-
graphical resources now available may extend this approach to the
earlier period.
97
Approaching the Early Byzantine state from this perspective of
society as a collective, many-headed, and internally-inconsistent set
of relationships and structures provides a valuable way of looking at
how systems of rule and administration are ultimately rooted. These
relationships and structures are fundamental elements in the medium-
and long-term success of state-like political entities, and in the ways
their societies evolve. Networks of elite household administrations,
the bundles of rights and privileges they gained over productive
resources (both through long-term processes of kin-based inheritance,
as well as through rights granted from higher political authorities), all
contributed to situations in which states were in eect many-centred,
functioning through progressively de-centralised pools of administra-
tive eectiveness, dependent upon mutually benecial relations of
96
E.g., Kazhdan and Constable (1982); and, with a somewhat dierent per-
spective, Magdalino (1989).
97
For Italy, see esp. Brown (1984); for the 10th12th c., for example, in the
now classic analysis of the Byzantine power elite by Cheynet (1990), and Kaplan
(1981). The major tools are now Martindale (2000) and Lilie et al. (19992002) for
the period 641867; and for Italy Cosentino (1996) and (2000).
638 onx n.rrox
support, tribute, and upward-redistribution of surpluses. These are
only rarely visible in the case of the majority of pre-modern states
for which we have evidence, although they can be highlighted and
brought out in the analysis of more recent state formations.
J.-C. Cheynets analysis of the elite in the period from the 10th12th
c. begins this work for Byzantium, and complements and extends
H.-G. Becks much earlier work on retinues. Other work on the
elites of the 7th9th c. may provide insights for those years, although
whether enough data is currently available to produce a plausible
account is open to question.
98
The documentary evidence suggests
that for a while, and in the context of the later 7thlater 8th c., social
and economic relationships were closely articulated within the state
and its structures, and this was an important factor in determining
the trajectory that Medieval East Roman society was to follow. There
was no absence of conict, but this closely reected the various inter-
ests and the positions occupied by dierent groups or individuals
within this state- and court-dominated system.
99
Yet while the doc-
umentary material may be sucient to begin to tackle such topics,
it is unfortunately the case that the archaeological data is still very
sparse and not yet suciently well understood (or available in sucient
quantity) to enable us to verify or to challenge the picture it paints.
In this respect the writing of middle Byzantine social and economic
history still lags a long way behind that of the later Roman period
and of the Early Medieval West.
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soci.r +n.xsronv.+iox ix +nr 6+nq+n c. r.s+ 647
abandonment xxi, 196, 205
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xxi,
4, 12
African Red Slip 52022
aged 56
almsgiving 467
altars 233
Ambrose (Saint) 291, 294
Amin, S. 504
Ammianus Marcellinus 142, 148,
150, 15354
Amorion 616
Antioch 32, 47779
antiquarianism xxii
antiquity
Christian 58687
pagan 586
Aphrodisias 179
apotropaism, Christian 583
Aquileia 28990
episcopal group 289, 292
architectural, monumental 494
architecture, palatial 10
aristocracy 399, 405
Early Medieval 279
imperial 4143
military 41
provincial 44
Roman 173, 17778, 187
senatorial 41, 43
army 15, 1621, 100, 103, 627,
63233
Christianisation 21
payments 124
recruitment 18
supply 100
units 18, 21
artisanal activities 403
artisans 375, 37980, 382, 399,
401405
asceticism 455
ascetics 47276, 478, 483
Asia Minor 609, 61315, 617,
61921, 624, 627
Augustus 147
axes 105106
Bagaudae 535
Balkans 609, 621, 627
Baltic region 12425
barbarian prisoners 536
Barbaricum 12425
Basil of Caesarea 44344, 446,
45052, 455, 45859
Bauer, F. A. 171, 178
beggars 46971, 47479
Berktay, H. 501
bishop 4, 36, 78, 28889, 291, 294,
29798, 302303, 312, 443, 46061,
617
Boeotia 615, 619, 624
Bhme, H. 105
Book of the Eparch 376
Brescia (see also domus, huts, insulae,
and public authorities) 251,
25354, 277, 280
Basilica 270
Capitolium 268, 27778
forum 268, 270, 278
house-types 260
lime-kilns 272
monumental centre 266, 268, 270
population 277, 279
pottery kilns 272
theatre 266
brigandry 91
brooch 100, 103, 107
crossbow 100, 102104
Brown, P. xxiii, 441, 466, 468, 480,
483, 548
Brulet, R. 105
building industry 379
techniques 264
bureaucracy 12
burial 49, 6872, 101102, 105,
107109, 273, 27576
Christian 71
infant 71
intra-mural 68
Jewish 71
ritual 69
rite 102106, 109
Butcher, K. 113, 132
INDEX
butchery 52425
Byres, T. 500
Byzantine society 604, 638
Caesarea (Cappadocia) 44546
archive building 42329
housing 428
Calabria 619
calendar 57172, 591
camera/dome 34657
Cameron, Alan 89
capital xxi
imperial 10, 27, 31, 32
provincial 15, 26
capitalism 504, 507
Cappadocia 445, 447, 618
Carandini, A. 509510
Carthage 490
cathedral see episcopal church
cemeteries 101
census 55
Centre for Late Antiquity (Manchester)
31315, 318
ceramic 625
ceremonial, imperial 11
Chalcedonians 34041
Charidemos 431, 43334
charity 49
child 55, 57
Childeric 107
tomb of 106
Christian
community 29293, 296, 303
discourse 5556, 87
topography 288
Christianisation 41, 591
Christianity 268, 582, 586
gender 82
Church 51, 65, 74, 288, 340, 467,
62931
church building 287, 294, 296
churches 3435, 195, 200, 23334,
236, 288, 29596, 300, 303, 446
architecture 29293, 299, 303
consecration 297
see rural baptisteries
cities 35, 401
Early Byzantine 382, 399, 405
civic
administration 36
life 36
politics 35
civil
service 414
war 142, 4649, 15152
Classe (Ravenna), S. Apollinare in
Classe 354
clergy 4446
climate 609610
climatic change 609610
clothing 6264, 477
Coarelli, F. 179
coinage 23, 11517, 119, 122, 124,
126, 130, 135, 57678, 627
bronze 559
imitation 108
local 11516
Merovingian 119
coins (as means of communication)
113, 115
bronze 114, 11617, 11922, 129,
130, 135
copper 11921, 124
distribution 115, 118, 130
gold 11517, 11925, 130, 13335
policy 114
purchasing power 11920
reverse types 12932, 136
silver 114, 11617, 11924, 129,
130, 135
collective responsibility 73
colonate 5152, 54, 414, 496,
53436
Comitatus 116, 122, 145
commerce 388, 608
(in fora) 201
commercial activity 376, 391, 394
communication 113115, 141
comportment, public 222
Connor, C. 345, 355, 35859
Constantine 121, 126, 146, 149, 161,
180, 576
Constantinople 3135, 161, 16869,
180, 47778, 480, 629, 631
column of Arcadius 152
forum of Theodosius 151
obelisk of Theodosius I 151
Constantius II 148
construction technique 542
continuist paradigm xxv
continuity 42, 606, 607
corruption 4, 15
countryside 53, 534, 539, 561, 618
court 63031, 637
imperial 1011, 25, 28, 16970
craftsmen 396, 404, 414
crime 91
culture
provincial 104
Roman 106107
650
curator statuarum 184
curiae/bouleuteria 208, 24648
curiales 4445
Dambron (Gaul) 537, 542
Danube provinces 101, 103
De Rossi, G. B. 18182, 31213,
32122
de Ste Croix, G. xx, 497
debt 451, 459
debtor 45860
decay 196, 205
decennalia 576
decline xxi
demographic decline 621
denarius 124
Depeyrot, G. 558
de-Romanisation 548
Didyma 616
dies (coinage) 12526, 130
diet 6466
Diocletian xx, 115, 117, 120, 144,
149
diplomacy 19, 125
discontinuity 606
disease 9192
distribution 560
Djemila (N. Africa), house of the Ass
420, 422
doctrine of incarnation 461
domestic space 60
Dominate xvi
domus 60
(Brescia) 25455, 257, 25961,
279
dwellings 49
economic
exchange xxiii
relations 497
economy
agrarian 534
barter 559
Byzantine 404
peasant 608
elite 4, 606, 612, 62930, 635,
63839
empire, Roman 508
empresses 7
entertainment 31, 33
environment 611
Ephesos 616
epigraphy (see also inscriptions) xxiv,
55
episcopal church 288, 290
estates
ecclesiastical 496
imperial 536
rural 53436
ethnic identity xxv, xxvii
ethnicity 8587, 9798
Germanic 69
ethnogenesis 98
Euchaita 616
euergetism 461
eunuchs 8485
evidence, archaeological 5, 14, 49,
55, 58, 442
evidence
literary 215, 228
material 12
texts 44243
textual 5, 10, 12, 17, 58
excavation
rescue 49091
urban 490
exchange 24, 106, 510, 529, 623,
626, 628
exploitation 497, 500, 505, 516
factories 25
family 5557, 74, 80, 451
famine 9192, 45051
Farmers Law 62425
fasting 64, 455
feasts 446
eld archaeology 53
Fiscal Treatise 624
food 523, 527
forces of production 498500, 502
fortications 17, 20
forts 17, 2021
forum
ceremonies 218
new fora 19697, 199
political activities 207215
forum/agora 19596, 201202,
23536
commercial activities 22426,
22830
function 206
religious activities 23034
social activities 21524
Foucault, M. 82
fragmentation 591
Franks 106, 108
friendship 8788
frontier 1920, 98105, 107110, 612
culture 100
funerary practice 68
651
Garnsey, P. 413
Gaul 100101, 104, 105
gender xxv, 8185
female 8384
male 84
generals 14
Geographical Information System (GIS)
313, 31922, 329
Germanic
communities 543
leaders 107
peoples 86
gesta martyrum 312, 314
gold 123, 135
plate 123
Gortyn, Quartiere Bizantino 402 n. 59
government 15, 52, 61112, 627,
629, 63236, 638
decentralisation 144
oces 248
repression 90
Grabar, A. 152
Grado, basilica of S. Eufemia 293
grati 22122
grain supply 65
grave-goods 27576
Greece 615, 625
Gregory of Nazianzus 44448,
45254, 45657
Gregory of Nyssa 44446, 45253,
45556
Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina
452, 45556, 458
Gregory of Tours 346, 348, 357
Grubenhaus 261
hagiography 53, 378, 448
Haldon, J. 498, 500501, 504505
Halicarnassus 429, 431, 433
Halsall, G. 105
Harrison, R. 344, 358, 361, 364
Historical Materialism 488, 499
hoard, Beaurains 122
Holman, S. 466, 469
Holum, K. 427
honestiores 44, 46
honoric monuments xxi
Horden, P. 610
Hospice 444
hospitals 49
houses xxi, 413, 41518, 420,
42229, 431, 43435
decoration 61
subdivision 61
housing 4144, 5961
humiliores 53536
huts (Brescia) 25961, 264
identity xxii

xxiii, xxv, 8182, 85, 97,

99, 103, 107, 109, 110
barbarian 98
civic 158
elite 102, 104, 108
ethnic 86, 9798
legal 51
military 102104
personal xxiv

xxv
Roman 9899, 102103, 105, 109
ideology 8, 150, 153
imperial 141, 152, 518
Principate 143
Roman 152
Il Hayat (Syria) 428
illustris 415
imperial anniversary 57779
capitals 212
ceremonies 167
family 69
power 10
representation 128
residences 173
spaces 10, 171, 173
treasury 108
impoverishment 48081, 535, 537,
54142, 556, 558
incastellamento 67
individual xx, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, xxvii
industrial activities 398, 401
ination 121
information 114
inheritance 77
inhumation 69
inscriptions (see also epigraphy) xxi,
143, 16567, 17778, 180, 183,
37880, 587
institutions (political) xviii, xx,
xxv

xxvi
insulae (Brescia) 257, 25961, 272,
278
Iol Caesarea 196, 391
Istanbul, St. Polyeuktos 33845,
34951, 353, 35561, 36466
Jerusalem
Monastery of the virgins 428
Holy Sepulchre 356
temple of Solomon 342, 345, 357
tomb of Christ 352
652
jewellery 108, 6263
John Chrysostom 201202, 215,
46570, 47283, 584
John of Lycopolis 573
Jones, A. H. M. xvi, xx, xxvi, 4, 14,
15, 52, 187
judicial punishment 21415
Julian of Ascalon 398
Justinian 119
kastron 614, 61718, 635
kin 80, 81
Krautheimer, R. 287
Kurbatov, G. 466
labour 50, 444
market 37980
Lambaesis (Algeria) 492
landholdings 43, 55, 75, 515, 517
landlords 4
landownership 548
landscape 515
rural 539, 560
Langmauerbezirk (Gaul) 548
late antique archaeology 6
Late Antiquity xvii

xx, xxiii

xxvi, 4,
12, 15, 25, 60, 9798, 489
law 12, 14, 7274
codes 14
Germanic 72, 73
courts 213
lawyers 433
legislation 380
legitimacy 152
legitimate emperor 132
Lepcis Magna, tetrapylon of Septimius
Severus 143
lepers 452
Libanius 14, 376, 415
Liber Ponticalis 311, 318
Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G. 1415
literary production 631
liturgy 293
Lombards 261
London 490
MacMullen, R. 489
magister ociorum 14
Magnentius 13234
Mannoni, T. 374
marble 25
market buildings 22526
marriage 8081
Martyrium of S. Felix (Nola) 352
martyrs 69
Marx, K. 49899, 503
Marxists 497, 502503, 508
material culture xvii, xxii

xxv, xxvii,
98100, 102103, 105, 109, 402,
442, 494, 54142
material life 534
Maxentius 580
Maximus, Petronius 185
meat supply 52425
memory 158, 160, 168, 18587, 572,
575, 578, 58485
civic 18687
imperial 186
metalwork 100
middle class 4649, 60, 375, 382,
405, 41314, 41617, 429, 431,
43435
Milan 291
basilica Ambrosiana 291
basilica Apostolorum 291
Miletos 616
militarisation 21, 99, 100, 104, 110
military
culture 16
defeat 16
equipment 19
tactics 19
unrest 91
mint
branches 118
imperial 119
Rome 11619
state 118
mints 11518, 133, 134
mode of production 49899,
501503, 505, 509, 521, 528
models of interpretation 58
monetarisation 558
monetary
circulation 404
policy 122
monks 472, 474
monument, imperial 178
monumental building xxi
monuments 158, 160
honoric 143, 149, 150
imperial 14142
neighbours 74
Nicopolis ad Istrum (Balkans) 620
Nika Riot 89
Nile (river), ooding of 57274
nilometer 57374
653
Nora, P. 160
Notitia Dignitatum 106
nummus 121, 124
oces 413, 427
ocial texts, display of 21112
ocium 15
oracle 58687
Pacatus 15051
pagan
ceremonies 230
practices 582
reaction 177
paganism xxv, 170
palace of Attila 542
palaces 9, 28, 3031, 33
palaces, imperial 210
Palatine Anthology 1.10 359364
palatine ministries 13
Palmyra (Syria) 391
panegyrical milieu 144, 154
panegyrics 144, 14647, 149
Pannonia 103
papyri 53
past 570, 572, 575, 578, 58285, 587
pagan 583
Patlagean, E. 447, 483
patronage xix

xx, xxiii, 6, 42, 72,

7880, 313, 319, 322, 478, 480,
634, 637
Christian 4
ecclesiastic 78
peasants 5255, 632
Period, Late Roman 488
plague 92
plebs rustica 536
polis 614, 61718
political
archaeology xviii
buildings 200, 207
ceremony 21213
culture 7
discourse 144
economy xviii, 2125, 119
geography 2535
history xv
iconography 142
institutions 3537
life xv, xvii

xviii, xxi, 35, 37

order xviii
spaces xxi
politics xx

xxi
poor 4, 46, 4850, 219, 44161,
46567, 46971, 47578, 48183,
49495, 533, 540
urban 487, 489, 517
population 60810, 61417, 61923,
630, 63334
rural 535, 537, 559
Pore 290
portrait 115, 126, 128, 129, 132, 136
post-Roman West 108
Potter, T. 19596
pottery 523
production 52122
poverty 49, 443, 452, 454, 456, 460,
46568, 47071, 47583, 533, 535,
541, 550, 552, 561
monastic 449, 454, 456
voluntary 472, 47475, 540
power xxiv

xxv, 301302
praepositus cubiculi sacri 13
Praetextatus, Vettius Agorius 169,
176
praetoria 2627, 210
praetorian prefecture 13, 26, 116
Price edict 12021
priests 47274
Principate 14344
private municence 78
Probianus, Gabinius Vettius 17071,
18384
production
agrarian 634
relations of 498500
professional bodies 4748
professions 47
propaganda xvii

xviii, 6, 142
property 7477, 550
landed 76
renunciation of 76
prostitutes 471
prostitution 49
provincial
assembly 15
government 1416
overnors 4, 15, 26, 21011
society 632
Prudentius 58283
public
authorities (Brescia) 27779
image 42
Purcell, N. 610
quaestors 13
654
Raetia 101
reassembly 591
Rebus Bellicis (de) 122
relics 298
renovatio 57981, 590
representation 8
res privata 13
restoration 174
restoration/repair 202205, 235,
24346
rhetoric 447
Christian 458
Rhine-Danube region 98, 104
riots, urban 89
Rome 2931, 14445, 157, 161, 169,
17374, 182
arch of Constantine 14547
arch of Septimius Severus 143
arch of the argentarii 143
arcus novus 145
atrium Libertatis 16263, 176
basilica Aemilia 162, 164, 17475,
178, 18385
basilica Iulia 164, 17071, 18284
Capitol 170
clivus Capitolinus 170
Comitium 16768, 172, 186
Crypta Balbi 385 n. 43
Curia 16263, 17578, 184
Diocletianic Rostra 164, 171, 178
domus of Saints John and Paul
31415
forum of Caesar 161, 163, 175
forum Romanum 158, 16062, 16465,
16869, 17274, 17678, 180,
18283, 18587
milestones 32223
porticus of Pompey 179
porticus of the Dei Consentes 169
Rostra 145, 16465, 167, 172, 178, 186
S. Maria Maggiore 58788, 590
S. Petrus ad vincola 31618, 32528
S. Petrus in Vaticano 322, 331, 353
Sacra via 167
secretarium Senatus 175
temple
of Concord 164
of Saturn 16970
Templum Urbis 588, 590
Rostovtzev, M. xx
ruling classes xxi
rural
baptisteries 298
communities 615, 625
hinterland 621
society 626
sacra largitionem 13
Saint-Germain-les-Corbeil (Gaul) 543
Saint-Ouen-du-Breuil (Gaul) 543
Saller, R. 413
same-sex relationships 85
Samson, R. 489
Sardis 616
house of Bronzes 422, 435
shops 382, 385, 42223
schism, Acacian 340, 344
Schmauder, M. 107
Scythopolis, temple 584
self-representation xvii n. 6, xviii,
142, 149
Senate 14446, 14849, 151, 154,
163, 16970, 173
senators 29
Serapeum (Alexandria) 58586
Servon (Gaul) 543
settlement 6668, 613, 63536
barbarian 55
patterns 552, 612
rural 5455, 434, 534, 543, 550,
554, 556, 558, 560, 623
shopkeepers 385
shops (see also Sardis, shops) 226,
22829, 24849, 376, 378, 382,
38486, 416, 42223
silver 123, 135
plate 123
slavery 75, 506, 514, 518
attitudes to 5152
slaves 5052, 509510, 51216, 518,
52122, 524
urban 518
social archaeology xxii, xxv

xxvi
cohesion 160
context xx
display 217
evolution 603, 606
identity xxii, xxiv

xxv, xxvii, 55
life xxii

xxiv, xxvi, 21
relations 72, 489, 495
relationships xxii

xxiii, xxv
Sodini, J.-P. 442, 495
soldiers 63233
solidus 12425
sources 3740, 58
archaeological 382
655
epistolary xxiii
hagiographic xxiii
textual 206207
textual 535
written 375
spolia 145, 590
state xv

xvi, xviii

xxi, xxv, xxvii,

1214, 21, 44, 72, 11315, 117,
120, 12224, 129, 49697, 499502,
504505, 51012, 52021, 524, 605,
607608, 611, 613, 626, 62931,
63435, 63739
state service 629
state-monuments 144, 146, 149, 154
statue-bases 166, 18082, 185, 205
statues xxi, 9, 27, 173, 179, 181, 185
dedication of 204205, 210
honoric 208
imperial 181
movement of 18185, 18788
pagan 58283
portrait 583
status xxiv, 74, 105106
Stilicho 172
stratigraphic revolution 373, 405
surplus extraction 497, 499, 502
Swift, E. 548
syncretism 591
Syria 621
massif calcaire 43435
taxation 2223, 490, 496, 503, 505
technological development 514
temple
of Caelestis, Carthage 585
of Apollo (Daphne) 58485
of Artemis ( Jerash) 583
temples 182, 200, 23132, 58182, 586
conversion of 58586
destruction of 58486
terra sigillata 560
Tetrarchy 29, 144, 161
urban centres 144
theme system 634
Theodosian code 14, 44, 52
Theodosius I 15051
Thessalonica, tetrapylon of Galerius 145
time
concept of 177, 56971, 574, 582,
591
cultural 570
social 571, 574, 591
towns 51719, 61314, 620, 63233
townscape 402, 519, 583
trade 100
long distance 510
guilds 414
traded objects 388
traders 375, 37980, 382, 404405
tradespeople 470
traditionalism 168, 176
Tbingen Theosophy 586
urban
centres 613
development 492, 494, 612
landscape 259, 280, 313, 388, 398,
402
life 101, 195, 207, 607, 628
prefect 15, 184, 187
prefecture 173
settlement 613
society 415
space 617
topography xxiv
urbanism 235, 614
usurpation 91
usurpers 132, 133
Utica (N. Africa), Lot 11 418, 420
Van Ossel, P. 52, 495
villa of Champion (Gaul) 556, 558
village economy 62324
villages 62124
Vinson, M. 447
violence 8891
political 89
popular 88
religious 90
vows
(religious) 57475
imperial 57576, 578
Ward-Perkins, B. 195, 49596, 511
warfare 19, 611, 613, 618, 629, 636
wealth xxv
western
frontier 16
kingdoms 12, 125
Wickham, C. 501502, 505, 51011
women 8283, 45051, 456, 476
Wood, I. 108109
working classes 46
workshops 48, 385, 402
xenodochia 49
Zanker, P. xvii
656
LATE ANTIQUE
ARCHAEOLOGY
Series Editor
LUKE LAVAN
Late Antique Archaeology is published annually by Brill, based on papers given
at the conference series of the same title, which meets annually in Oxford
and at one venue outside the UK. Contributions generally aim to present
broad syntheses on topics relating to the years theme, discussions of key
issues, or try to provide summaries of relevant new fieldwork. Although
papers from the conference meetings will form the core of each volume,
relevant articles, especially syntheses, are welcome from other scholars. All
papers are subject to approval by two anonymous referees. The editorial
committee includes Albrecht Berger, Averil Cameron, Beatrice Caseau,
James Crow, Simon Ellis, Sauro Gelichi, Lale zgenel, Jean-Pierre Sodini,
Bryan Ward-Perkins and Enrico Zanini. The next two volumes, based on
papers given at meetings in 2004 will concern technology and the every-
day spatiality of material culture. Journal abbreviations follow those used
by the American Journal of Archaeology, whilst literary sources are abbreviated
according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. Oxford 1999) xxix-liv
and when not given here, following A. H. M. Jones The Later Roman Empire
(Oxford 1964) vol.2, 1462-76. Conferences, held in 2005, have covered
religious diversity and late antique paganism.
For programme information and notes for contributors, with contact
details, visit: www.lateantiquearchaeology.com
1. 2003. Lavan, L. and Bowden, W. (eds.).
Theory and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12567 1
2. 2004. Bowden, W., Lavan, L. and Machado, C. (eds.).
Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13607 X
3.1 2005. Bowden, W., Gutteridge, A. and Machado, C. (eds.).
Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity. Conceived and Co-ordinated by
L. Lavan. 2006. ISBN 978 90 04 14414 9; ISBN 90 04 14414 5