The Economic History of Byzantium From

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at between 25,000 and 50,000 inhabitants and that of a provincial Egyptian metropolis of 80 ha2 at around 16,000.19

As a general rule, the coastal cities seem to have been densely populated through the sixth century.20 Cyprus apparently had a sizable population up to the Arab invasion of 648–649. An inscription at Soloi mentions the capture of 120,000 individuals, although we cannot be certain whether these constitute the inhabitants of a single city on the island or, more plausibly, of the island as a whole.21 The same held true for the cities of the continental province of Arabia and their expansion into Palestine III as far as Aila-Aqaba; these were extremely prosperous during the sixth and seventh centuries.22 The cities were unequally distributed, despite the efforts of the emperors to make their numbers grow in the less populous regions in order to foster greater administrative and fiscal efficiency. City (polis) and countryside (chora) were mutually complementary in the development of the territory of the city. Many landowners lived in town, in particular the possessores,23 who administered the city together with the bishop and the representative of the provincial administration. Agricultural production was thus a fundamental element of urban prosperity.

The Concentration of Rural Sites in the Empire

Surveys conducted in diverse regions (Boeotia, the Argolid, southwestern Turkey, Cyprus, Palestine, and Transjordan [Fig. 2]) reveal a highly advanced level of development. In the Argolid, around the city of Hermione, sites clearly proliferated around the fourth century A.D. and nearly matched the density of the fourth century B.C.24 New sites sprang up on hillsides and in the high valleys—land that was highly conducive to

19R. S. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, N.J., 1993), 53.

20One of the first to have argued this position was D. A. Zakythinos (“La grande bre`che dans la tradition historique de l’helle´nisme du septie`me au neuvie`me sie`cle,” Caristh´rion eij" Anastaj´ sion K. Orlaj´ ndon [Athens, 1966], 3:300–327), focusing particularly on the Aegean coasts of Greece. The same holds true, however (as we indicate in the course of this study) for the shores of the Black Sea and other sectors of the Mediterranean. It appears that in the West, the decline of the ports was not as irreversible as has been thought—at least with respect to Tarraco (S. Keay, “Tarraco in Late Antiquity,” in Christie and Loseby, Towns in Transition [as above, note 10], 18–44) and Marseille (S. T. Loseby, “Marseille: A Late Antique Success Story?” JRS 82 [1992]: 165–85).

21J. des Gagniers and Tran Tam Tinh, Soloi: Dix campagnes de fouilles (1964–1974) (Sainte-Foy, 1985), 115–26; D. Feissel, “Bulletin ´epigraphique,” REG 100 (1987): 380–81.

22R. Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeological Study (Princeton, N.J., 1995); idem, “Jordan on the Eve of the Muslim Conquest, A.D. 603– 634,” in La Syrie de Byzance `a l’Islam, VIIe–VIIIe sie`cles, ed. P. Canivet and J.-P. Rey-Coquais (Damascus, 1992), 107–19; Z. T. Fiema, “Economics, Administration, and Demography of Late Roman and Byzantine Southern Transjordan” (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1991); A. Walmsley, “Byzantine Palestine and Arabia: Urban Prosperity in Late Antiquity,” in Christie and Loseby, Towns in Transition (as above, note 10), 126–58.

23For the meaning of this term, see J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, “Civic Finance in the Byzantine Period,” BZ 89 (1996): 396–97.

24M. H. Jameson, C. N. Runnels, and T. H. Van Andel, A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day (Stanford, Calif., 1994).

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the cultivation of olives and in many cases had been unused prior to this period. By contrast, a slight setback occurred in the region of Sparta, whereas certain urban centers rose in importance.25

In Lycia the surveys conducted by R. Martin Harrison in the central part of the region and by Frank Kolb around Kyaneai highlight the development of villages and farms, as well as of farmed terraces, thus confirming the information provided in the Life of St. Nicholas of Sion.26 In Cilicia, wealthy villages composed of spacious houses endowed with agricultural presses, scattered somewhat haphazardly around churches, began to develop as of the fourth century in a hinterland that was well connected to the coast.27 In northern Syria, several hundred villages—the successors to estates— arose between 300 and 550 in the limestone massif at the margins of the vast agricultural area.28 The basaltic region to the northeast of Hama, at the edge of the steppe, also witnessed a strong expansion in the number of villages and small cities during the early Byzantine era.29

The growth of early Byzantine Cyprus was expressed in a widespread proliferation of late Roman sites. Even in a region as marginal as Akamas, situated at the western edge of the island, Hagios Kononas expanded from the fifth century until approximately the middle of the sixth century.30 Elsewhere on the island, at Kalavasos-Kopetra and Maroni-Petrera, the expansion flourished into the seventh century,31 and a survey of the region of Amathos confirms the fact.32 A number of surveys of Transjordan indicate a relatively significant density, in some cases exceptional, of early Byzantine sites. Despite the margins of error inherent even in systematic studies, since they are limited to the top strata, taken as a whole these surveys provide evidence of an unusual population density in the countryside of the eastern diocese and a portion of the Aegean coast. The cause was most probably a strong demographic pressure,33 but sudden population movements may also have been a factor.

25W. Cavanagh et al., The Laconia Survey, Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape, vol. 2 (London, 1996).

26C. Foss, “The Lycian Coast in the Byzantine Age,” DOP 48 (1994): 1–52.

27RBK 4:182–356, s.v. “Kommagene-Kilikien-Isaurien.”

28G. Tate, Les campagnes de la Syrie du Nord, du IIe au VIIe sie`cle: Un exemple d’expansion de´mographique et ´economique dans les campagnes `a la fin de l’Antiquite´ (Paris, 1992).

29J. Lassus, Inventaire arche´ologique de la re´gion au nord-est de Hama (Damascus, 1935).

30J. Fejfer, ed., Ancient Akamas, vol. 1, Settlement and Environment (Aarhus, 1995); summary by M. Rautmann in JRA 9 (1996): 466–68.

31M. L. Rautman and M. C. McClellan, “Excavations at Late Roman Kopetra (Cyprus),” JRA 5 (1992): 265–71; S. Manning et al., “Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project: Preliminary Report on the 1992–1993 Seasons,” RDAC (1994): 356–67.

32P. Aupert, ed., Guide d’Amathonte (Athens, 1996).

33For Palestine, see the conclusions of Y. Tsafrir, “Some Notes on the Settlement and Demography of Palestine in the Byzantine Period: The Archaeological Evidence,” in Retrieving the Past: Essays on Archaeological Research and Methodology in Honor of Gus W. Van Beck, ed. J. D. Seger (Winona Lake, Ind., 1996), 269–83.

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The Rural Habitat: The Growth of Villages, the Persistence of Farmsteads, and the Decline of Villas

In the east, as in Byzantine North Africa, there is little evidence of the system of the villa in which large landowners resided, at least on a part-time basis, after the fourth century, as distinct from Gallia Belgica, England, Aquitaine, Spain, and southern Italy (for example, the villa of San Giovanni di Ruoti in Puglia34 and villas in Sicily). The western villas were most often abandoned in the course of the fifth century, giving rise in some cases to villages clustered around a church. The same holds true for the dioceses of Pannonia and Dacia, in which villas that lasted beyond the fifth century are rare (Fig. 3). By contrast, a number of fortified sites began to appear, often endowed with a church.35 Villas were few and far between in the diocese of Macedonia; there is evidence of several at the height of the sixth century.36 In Greece, a good number— “neither urban nor rural”—have been identified in the environs of Corinth, at the outskirts of fertile land and in contact with the city.37 In the Argolid (Akra Sophia, a site near Halieis) and in Messenia near Pylos, several villas that remained active into the sixth century have been identified.38

In Asia Minor, except for several cases cited in the sources (notably the texts of St. Gregory of Nazianzos regarding his family’s villa in Cappadocia39) or located around cities such as Ankyra, few examples are known. In Osrhoene at Sarrin, the atrium of what seems to have been a rural residence has been identified.40 In the provinces of Phoenicia and Palestine I, several large suburban villas have been discovered on the seacoast

34 A. M. Small, “Gli edifici del periodo tardoantico a San Giovanni,” in Lo Scavo di S. Giovanni di Ruoti ed il periodo tardoantico in Basilicata ed. M. Gualtieri, M. Salvatore, and A. M. Small (Bari, 1983), 21–37.

35 E. Thomas, Ro¨mische Villen in Pannonien: Beitra¨ge zur pannonischen Siedlungsgeschichte (Budapest, 1964); J. Henning, Su¨dosteuropa zwischen Antike und Mittelalter: Archa¨ologische Beitra¨ge zur Landwirtschaft des 1. Jahrtausends u. Z. (Berlin, 1987); M. Jeremic´, “Balajnac, agglome´ration protobyzantine fortifie´e,” Antiquite´ tardive 3 (1995): 193–207; M. Jeremic´ and M. Milinkovic´, “Die byzantinische Festung von Bregovina (Su¨dserbien),” ibid., 209–225; M. Milinkovic´, “Die Gradina auf dem Jelica-Gebirge und

ˇ ˇ

die fru¨hbyzantinischen Befestigungen in der Umgebung von Cacak, Westserbien,” ibid., 227–250; A. G. Poulter, “Town and Country in Moesia Inferior,” Ancient Bulgaria: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Ancient History and Archaeology of Bulgaria, University of Nottingham, 1981 (Nottingham, 1983), 74–118.

36S. Djuric´, “Mosaic of Philosophers in an Early Byzantine Villa at Nerodimlje,” VI Coloquio Internacional sobre mosaico Antiguo, Palencia-Merida, Octubre 1990 (Guadalajara, 1994), 123–34.

37R. M. Rothaus, “Urban Space, Agricultural Space and Villas in Late Roman Corinth,” in Structures rurales et socie´te´s antiques, ed. P. N. Doukellis and L. G. Mendoni (Paris, 1994) 391–96.

38T. E. Gregory, “An Early Byzantine Complex at Akra Sophia Near Corinth,” Hesperia 54 (1985): 411–28; for Messenia, information provided by S. Gerstel (report in Hesperia 66 [1997], 469–82). Other examples in C. K. Kosso, “Public Policy and Agricultural Practice: Archaeological and Literary Study of Ancient Greece” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Chicago, 1993).

39J. Rossiter, “Roman Villas of the Greek East and the Villa in Gregory of Nyssa Ep. 20,” JRA 2 (1989): 101–10.

40J. Balty, La mosaı¨que de Sarrıˆn (Osrhoe`ne) (Paris, 1990).

(a)

(b)

3. Distribution of habitat (by type) in the Balkans: (a) second–fourth centuries; (b) fifth–seventh centuries (after J. Henning, Südosteuropa zwischen Antike und Mittelalter, Archäologische Beiträge zur Landwirtschaft des 1. Jahrtausends u. Z. [Berlin, 1987], 23, fig. 1, and 37, fig. 11)

4. Farm in Ramat Hanadiv (Mount Carmel, Palestine I), sixth–seventh centuries (after Y. Hirschfeld, The Palestinian Dwelling in the Roman-Byzantine Period [ Jerusalem, 1995], 83, fig. 59)

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(at Jenah and Awzai, another one near Caesarea), but there were no rural villas in the strict sense. At Ascalon, the complex that has been found more resembles an enterprise directed toward agricultural production than the residence of a landowner.41

Village and farmstead were thus the two common forms of rural land exploitation; one might predominate over the other, or they might balance each other. Early Byzantine villages have been identified and studied to some extent in regions where the topography and climate protected them over a long period from reoccupation and destruction—in the high Lycian valleys, the mountainous foothills of Cilicia, the limestone massif, the basalt hills of Hauran, the Golan, or the Negev desert.42 In these regions, such forms of habitation were for the most part the rule. They increased considerably between the fourth and the sixth century. The development of certain villages of the limestone massif in northern Syria can be deduced either through great estates such as those at Bammuqqa, Benebil, and Qirbizze, or on the basis of preexisting communities (for example, at Brad, where the hypothesis of the village’s origins in a large estate should nonetheless not be ruled out).

Sometimes the village occupied a site in which no prior traces are discernible without recourse to excavations. Naturally, there are differentiations within this region: the southern chain of the limestone massif has yielded larger and more structured houses with a more elaborate system of access in the Djebel Zawiyye than in the Djebel Barisˇa and the Djebel Sem‘an; in the latter areas, the topography is relatively uneven, with more limited arable land that needs to be carefully cleared of rocks. These areas must have differed in agricultural production and certainly in yield. The outward aspect of villages changes even within a single mountain chain, a function of altitude or of accessibility.43 These villages developed toward the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth in the southern Hauran (even though certain “Roman” villages, such as Jimarin and Burd, continued to exist during the early Byzantine period44), and in the Negev, where they might have been newly founded or reworkings of Nabatean sites. They are numerous in Egypt, where they are estimated to have numbered between 2,000 and 2,500.45

The farmstead, nonexistent in the limestone massif, and rare in the Hauran and the Golan Heights, was important in Judea, on the seacoast between Dor and Gaza (Fig. 4), in the hills of Samaria, and in the Negev.46 Village and farmstead coexisted in equal

41Information regarding Ascalon communicated by Y. Hirschfeld, whom we thank.

42P.-L. Gatier, “Villages du Proche-Orient protobyzantin (4e`me–7e`me sie`cle): Etude re´gionale,” in

Land Use and Settlement Patterns (as above, note 18), 17–48.

43G. Tchalenko, Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord. Le massif du Belas `a l’e´poque romaine, 3 vols. (Paris, 1953–58); Tate, Campagnes.

44F. Villeneuve, “L’e´conomie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans le Hauran antique (Ier s. av. J.-C.–VIIe s. ap. J.-C.): Une approche,” in Hauran I, ed. J.-M. Dentzer, 2 vols. (Paris, 1985), 1:63– 136; H. I. MacAdam, “Settlements and Settlement Patterns in Northern and Central Jordan, ca. 550–ca. 570,” in Land Use and Settlement Patterns (as above, note 18), 49–94; R. Schick, “The Settlement Pattern of Southern Jordan: The Nature of Evidence,” ibid., 133–54.

45Bagnall, Egypt, 110.

46Y. Hirschfeld, The Palestinian Dwelling in the Roman-Byzantine Period (Jerusalem, 1995).

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proportion in Cilicia.47 Excavations undertaken in various wadis of Tripolitania have also revealed the existence of fortified farms between the fourth and the sixth cen- tury—the qsour, which seem to have been part of the dependent networks of large landowners, rather than independent entities.48 In Tunisia, in the region of CilliumThelepte, farms were also abundant and were integrated into networks of villas and cities. This pattern, however, is obscure and disputed; it is not certain, moreover, whether it lasted into the sixth century, after the Byzantine reconquest (533–536), in this specific region at least.49

A New Level: The Secondary City, or Town

Many villages hardly differed from small cities, and the transition from one to the other was imperceptible. In the urban hierarchy there thus appears an intermediary level between city and village: large towns (komai, metrokomiai, komopoleis), on which Gilbert Dagron has focused and which call to mind the “secondary centers” that were developing in the West during the same period.50 The emporia, which were not necessarily located on the sea, and which are amply attested in Thrace, Bithynia, and Moesia during the late empire, fall under this category of urban habitation.51

A famous passage in Libanios’ Antiochikos clearly explains the function of the metrokomiai of Antiochene.52 As a result of artisanal production and small-scale trade, they had markets, in which peasants could acquire requisite goods and tools without having to go to the city. What seem to have been shops have been found in a number of these towns,53 and we find references to textile makers,54 blacksmiths,55 goldworkers,56

47In addition to villages composed of several sizeable houses, such Karakabakli, Isikkale, and Sinekkale (RBK 4:182–356, s.v. “Kommagene/Kilikien/Isaurien”), fortified farms have been identified (in Delikkale, Go¨kbu¨rc¸, Cettepe, Keslik) (ibid.) and a large estate, possibly a farmstead, possibly part of a village at Domuztepe (J. J. Rossiter and J. Freed, “Canadian-Turkish Excavations at Domuztepe, Cilicia, 1989,” Echos du monde classique/Classical Views 35, n. s., 10 [1991]: 145–74).

48G. W. W. Barker et al., “Unesco Libyan Valleys Survey XXIII: The 1989 Season,” Libyan Studies 22 (1991): 31–60; D. A. Welsby, “ULVS XXV: The Gsur and Associated Settlements in the Wadi Umm el Kharab. An Architectural Survey,” Libyan Studies 23 (1992): 73–99.

49R. Bruce Hitchner, “The Organization of Rural Settlement in the Cillium-Thelepte Region (Kasserine, Central Tunisia),” L’Africa Romana, 6.1. (Sassari, 1989): 387–402.

50G. Dagron, “Entre village et cite´: La bourgade rurale des IVe–VIIe sie`cles en Orient,” Koinonia

3 (1979): 29–52 (repr. in idem, La romanite´ chre´tienne en Orient: He´ritages et mutations (London, 1984), art. 7.

51Regarding these institutions, see J. and L. Robert, “Bulletin e´pigraphique,” REG 92 (1979): no. 548.

52Libanios, Or. 11.230, in A.-J. Festugie`re, Antioche paı¨enne et chre´tienne: Libanius, Chrysostome et les moines de Syrie (Paris, 1959), 29–30.

53Such at least seems the likely function of rooms opening onto the street and onto the other rooms of the house: Hirschfeld, Dwellings, passim.

54Alexandros agnapharios, surnamed Sakkas, originally from the village of Kadia, who exercised his trade at the emporion of Strobilos (“Bulletin ´epigraphique,” REG 92 [1979]: no. 548).

55Vie de The´odore de Syke´on, ed. A.-J. Festugie`re, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1970), 1: chap. 27, p. 25.

56Nessana Papyri 30.3; 79.42; 90.60, ed. C. Kraemer, Non-Literary Papyri, Excavations at Nessana 3 (Princeton, N.J., 1958), 92, 230, 272 [hereafter PNess]; for another (chrysochos [sic]) at Luzit, near Beth

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entrepreneurs, stone carvers, and carpenters.57 The marble workers of the island of Proconnesos were dependent on an emporion tied to Kyzikos.58 They had physicians59 and, undoubtedly, schoolmasters and lawyers.60 These represented “satellite towns,” to use Dagron’s phrase, in which fairs ( panegyreis, nundinae) were held (as they were at Imma [Yenni Sehir]), and in which merchants circulated; one such merchant purchased the fair’s entire stock of nuts.61 There is textual evidence for these towns, which might bring together individuals of the same ethnicity,62 in Thrace (more often in the south than in the north, and along the great trading routes), in Asia Minor (in particular in the territory of Magnesia on the Maeander, where third-century inscriptions clearly illustrate the exchange networks that these towns constituted in symbiosis with the city63), in Lycia, in Cilicia, and in Isauria, as well as in Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, and the Negev. The country markets of Africa—the nundinae—represented a comparable rural network, which should be linked more to the fundi than to communities of free peasants.64

Archaeology has made possible the recovery of a good number of these towns, such as Osmaniye, near the mouth of the Dalaman C¸ay, Alakisla in Caria, and Arif in Lycia (Fig. 5).65 Among the more significant towns of the limestone massif, we may note El Bara (300 ha of constructed area) and Brad (Kaprobarada, with 100 ha). Similar towns sprang up in central and northern Syria, such as Tarroutia of the Merchants and Ande-

Govrin, see L. di Segni, “Christian Burial Caves at Luzit: The Inscriptions,” in Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land: New Discoveries, ed. G. C. Bottini, L. di Segni, and E. Alliata (Jerusalem, 1990), 315–20.

57P. Ness. 90.116 (p. 275); G. Dagron and J. Marcillet-Jaubert, “Inscriptions de Cilicie et d’Isaurie,” Belleten 42 (1978): 373–420: an ergolabos serving the kome of Siphoi. Many members of these trades, in Cilicia and northern Syria, came from villages; cf. below, 194ff.

58J. and L. Robert, “Bulletin ´epigraphique,” REG 92 (1979): no. 548.

59P. Ness. 22.22; 36.15; 90.116 (pp. 72, 112, 275); for another (archiatros) at Luzit, near Beth Govrin, see di Segni, “Christian Burial Caves,” 315–20.

60A single, uncertain example: PNess 48.8 (p. 48) (scholastikos?).

61Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Histoire des moines en Syrie, ed. P. Canivet and A. Leroy-Molinghen, 2 vols. (Paris, 1977–79) 1:7.1–3, pp. 366–68.

62Karps, Huns, Scythians, Sarmatians: V. Velkov, “Les campagnes et la population rurale en Thrace aux IVe–VIe sie`cles,” BBulg 1 (1962): 31–66; Arabs at Anasartha: I. Shahıˆd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century (Washington, D.C., 1995), 1:628–30; undoubtedly the Samaritan and Jewish villages followed a similar principle.

63J. Nolle´, Nundinas instituere et habere: Epigraphische Zeugnisse zur Einrichtung und Gestaltung von landlichen Markten in Afrika und in der Provinz Asia (Hildesheim, 1982), 10–86.

64B. D. Shaw, “Rural Markets in North Africa and the Political Economy of the Roman Empire,” Antiquite´s africaines 17 (1981): 7–83; H. Pavis d’Escurac, “Nundinae et vie rurale dans l’Afrique du Nord romaine,” BAC 17B (1981): 251–60; Nolle´, Nundinas, 88–162. Regarding economic complementarity between town and country, see L. De Ligt, “Demand, Supply, Distribution: The Roman Peasantry between Town and Countryside. Rural Monetization and Peasant Demand,” Mu¨nstersche Beitra¨ge zur Antiken Handelsgeschichte 9 (1990): 24–56, and idem, “The Roman Peasantry: Demand, Supply, Distribution between Town and Countryside, II: Supply, Distribution and a Comparative Perspective,” Mu¨nstersche Beitra¨ge zur Antiken Handelsgeschichte 10 (1992): 33–77.

65K. Hattersley-Smith and V. Ruggieri, S. J., “A Byzantine City near Osmaniye (Dalaman) in Turkey: A Preliminary Report,” OCP 56 (1990): 135–64; V. Ruggieri and F. Giordano, “Una citta` bizantina sul sito cario di Alakisla,” OCP 62 (1996): 53–88; R. M. Harrison, “Nouvelles de´couvertes romaines tardives et pale´obyzantines en Lycie,” CRAI (1979): 222–39.

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rin in the basalt massif to the east of Hama. In the Hauran, a wealthy network of large komai developed in the sixth century, as it did in the Transjordan. The “city” of Umm el-Jimal, with its fifteen churches, must have had a population of 5,000 inhabitants— slightly less than Madaba or Philadelphia, which were true cities. A prosperous agricultural “city” developed from the fifth to the eighth century after the site had lost its regular contingents, relieved by the Ghassanids, and subsequently left to fend for itself, like many other formerly fortified sites of the limes arabicus, following the departure of the Ghassanid phylarchate after the year 580. Kastron Mefaa (Umm ar Rasas) also had a sizable population, undoubtedly on the order of several thousands, that spilled over the fourthto fifth-century walls of the castellum. The Negev also offers testimony to the development of komai, connected with pilgrimages to Sinai and trade with Egypt, the Arabian peninsula, and the Red Sea, but also with abundant agricultural production. Shivta (covering nearly 90 ha) and Nessana—both only slightly smaller than the cities of Elusa and Mampsis on which they depended—testify to the prevalence of these secondary centers, which developed during late antiquity. Egypt equally sustained a good number of sizable towns. Karanis, which at its zenith covered 80 ha, was comparable in size to the small city of Thmouis; its surface area, however, was barely a third that of Arsinoe.66

The development of these towns, whose vitality made them a partial substitute for cities in the regional economy, even though they neither carried the traditional urban apparatus nor sustained the functions of an established urban culture, was a new element that anticipated the future networks of medieval cities. While legislators were aware of their existence, the role of these towns in provincial administration remained embryonic. They were in any case remarkably adaptable to the fluctuating circumstances of the sixth century. Thus, in the Pars Orientis, there seems to have been significant exploitation of agricultural potential, with an active rural population that worked the land with consummate skill refined by ancestral knowledge of nature and by the realization that the unceasing maintenance of these fields (clearing, terracing, rock removal, irrigation) was the precondition of the community’s survival and the source of its well-being. The peasant population was distributed either in farmsteads or (perhaps more often) in villages at the center of agricultural lands whose limits were demarcated with care, as is evident in northern Syria and in Jordan.67

Landholdings and Landownership

The emperor was the preeminent landowner and had his estates managed in all regions by his administrators or leased to them through emphyteusis, a procedure often attested in Africa from the fourth century on.68 These estates were to be found through-

66Bagnall, Egypt, 111.

67Tate, Campagnes; Villeneuve, “L’e´conomie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans le Hauran antique,” 63–137.

68A. Marcone, “Il lavore nelle campagne,” in Storia di Roma, ed. A. Schiavone, vol. 3.1 (Turin, 1993), 828–32; C. Lepelley, “Deux te´moignages de saint Augustin sur l’acquisition d’un domaine impe´rial

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out the empire—in Africa, Thrace, Cappadocia (Novel 30 of Justinian [536]), in northern Syria (the estate of Hormisdas in the limestone massif), and in the Hauran (an estate at El-Meshrefe that belonged to the empress). The church also had vast landholdings, and its landownership seems to have grown in the course of the sixth century, notably in the development of monasteries on the outskirts of villages.69 Large landowners, who constituted an urban ´elite, appear most often to have owned scattered parcels of land. Their number was significant in Africa, Thrace, the Hellespont, and Cappadocia, even if the size of their properties was no longer comparable with that of the vast Roman estates. Libanios’ Discourse on Patronages70 refers to lands that had but a single master, large towns split among several large landowners, as well as properties of the city of Antioch that were deeded to curiales or to other citizens, such as teachers. The correspondence of Theodoret of Cyrrhus71 gives a glimpse of the situation in the region of Cyrrhus with respect to one Ariobindus, a consul and magister militum in 434, who owned the village of Sergitheum, which lay within the territory of the city; the peasants of this village, owing to poor harvests, were unable to provide him with their dues of olive oil. There were undoubtedly a good number of such large landowners in northern Syria as well.72 The state nonetheless imposed limitations when the ownership of a sizable kome might have enabled a citizen to own excessively large freeholds.73 Others owned a great number of scattered properties, such as a family mentioned in the archives of Petra.74 Large landowners, who in Egypt constituted approximately

`a bail emphyte´otique,” BAC 17B (1981): 273–84. The church as well might lease its lands through emphyteusis; cf. the inscription at Olympia regarding Kyriakos, a reader and emphyteutes (D. Feissel and A. Philippidis-Braat, “Inscriptions du Pe´loponne`se, Appendice I,” TM 9 [1985]: 373, no. 155). On the development of emphyteusis, see M. Kaplan, Les hommes et la terre `a Byzance du VIe au XIe sie`cle: Proprie´te´ et exploitation du sol (Paris, 1992), 163–68.

69D. Feissel, “Magus, Me´gas et les curateurs des ‘maisons divines’ de Justin II a` Maurice,” TM 9 (1985): 465–76; Gatier, “Villages du Proche-Orient,” 28; R. S. Bagnall, “Landholding in Late Roman Egypt: The Distribution of Wealth,” JRS 82 (1992): 128–49; J. Beaucamp, “Donne, patrimonio, chiesa (Bisanzio, IV–VII secolo),” in Il Tardoantico alle soglie del duemila, ed. G. Lanata (Pisa, 2000), 249–65.

70L. Harmand, Libanius: Discours sur les patronages (Paris, 1955); J.-M. Carrie´, “Patronage et proprie´te´ militaire au IVe sie`cle,” BCH 100 (1976): 158–76; C. Lepelley, “Quot curiales, tot tyranni: L’image du de´curion oppresseur au Bas-Empire,” in Crise et redressement dans les provinces europe´ennes de l’empire (milieu du IIIe–milieu du IVe sie`cle apre`s J.-C.), ed. E. Fre´zouls (Strasbourg, 1983), 143–56; A. Chauvot, “Curiales et paysans en Orient (fin du Ve–de´but du VIe sie`cle ap. J.-C.),” in Socie´te´s urbaines, socie´te´s rurales dans l’Asie Mineure et la Syrie helle´nistiques et romaines, ed. E. Fre´zouls (Strasbourg, 1987), 271–81; P. N. Doukellis, Libanios et la terre: Discours et ide´ologie politique (Beirut, 1995), 103–28, 202–22.

71I. G. Tompkins, “Problems of Dating and Pertinence in Some Letters of Theodoret of Cyrrhus,” Byzantion 65 (1995): 181–83.

72Notably the references to clerouchoi: D. Feissel, “L’e´pigraphie des mosaı¨ques d’e´glises en Syrie et au Liban,” Antiquite´ Tardive 2 (1994): 287.

73Prokopios, Secret History, 30.18–19: Justinian revoked a transaction that enabled an orator of Caesarea to be master of a maritime kome called Porphyreon. Dagron cites the example in “Entre village et cite´,” 35–36.

74L. Koenen, “The Carbonized Archive from Petra,” JRA 9 (1996): 183–84: three notables—broth- ers—inherit scattered landholdings totaling more than 134 acres.