The Economic History of Byzantium From

Syria-Palestine and Egypt Antioch had fallen into decline prior to the arrival of Islam, but it remained a regional center before the Byzantine reconquest in the late tenth century infused it with new life. In other areas,122 excavations show that certain characteristics of urban atrophy occurred, possibly beginning with the Persian occupation, certainly by the Umayyad period: the encroachment of shops and houses onto the street, the installation of artisanal workshops in the town center, as occurred at Gerasa and at Beisan (pottery kilns) or at Apameia (shops in the ancient episcopal quarter, bordering the cardo). The strata of the towns rose higher, as if waste products were no longer being hauled away but were simply deposited in layers. Houses were, however, carefully constructed and organized into quarters at Gerasa and Pella. Large villages such as Umm ar-Rassas and Umm el-Jimal remained quite active. Urban artisanal industries flourished: mosaic work, architectural sculpture, the crafting of bronze dishes. The water supply was no longer ensured by aqueducts.

In contrast with the areas that remained Byzantine, a good number of cities within the interior of the region survived until the ninth and tenth centuries: Apameia and Chalkis ad Belum in the north; Gerasa, Beisan, and Pella in the south, all three severely shaken by the earthquake of 749. Other cities grew in size following the Muslim conquest for specific economic, political, or religious reasons: Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, and Jerusalem. The same pattern applies to Egypt.

Demography

The sixth century was dominated by one major event—the Great Plague, which occurred in 542; cyclical recurrences followed until the end of the century and persisted, albeit less destructively and at increasingly longer intervals, until the beginning of the eighth. Contemporary authors (Prokopios, Evagrios Scholastikos, and John of Ephesos) left accounts of it, imitative of Thucydides to a greater or lesser degree, but by no means completely indebted to the historian of Athens.123 Originating in Egypt, where it broke out in the fall of 541, the pandemic struck the capital in the spring of 542 and Gaza, Antioch, and Syria in the same year, before spreading into Asia Minor and the Balkans, reaching the West in 543; it radiated particularly in cities and shore regions,

122H. Kennedy, “Antioch: From Byzantium to Islam and Back Again,” in The City in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Rich (London, 1992), 196–97; idem, “The Last Century of Byzantine Syria,” ByzF 10 (1985): 141–83; Walmsley, “Byzantine Palestine and Arabia.”

123P. Allen, “The ‘Justinianic’ Plague,” Byzantion 49 (1979): 5–20; L. Conrad, “The Plague in Bilad

al-Sham in Pre-Islamic Times,” Bilad al-Sham during the Byzantine Period, ed. M. A. al-Bakhit and M. Asfur, 2 vols. (Amman, 1986), 2:143–63; idem, “Epidemic Disease in Central Syria in the Late Sixth Century: Some New Insights from the Verse of Hassa´n ibn Tha´bit,” BMGS 18 (1994): 12–58; J.-N. Biraben, Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays europe´ens et me´diterrane´ens, 2 vols. (Paris–The Hague, 1975–76), 1:25–48. L. Conrad, “The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1981); D. Stathakopoulos, “Die Terminologie der Pest in byzantinischen Quel-

¨

len,” JOB 48 (1998): 1–7. M. McCormick, “Bateaux de vie, bateaux de mort, maladie, commerce, transports annonaires et le passage ´economique du Bas-Empire au Moyen Age,” Settimane 45 (1998): 35–122; B. Grmek, “Les conse´quences de la peste de Justinien dans l’Illyricum,” Acta XIII CIAC, 3 vols. (Vatican City–split, 1998), 2:787–94.

194 MORRISSON AND SODINI

and, conveyed with merchandise, it coursed along commercial routes. It raged in Constantinople for four months in the course of which more than 10,000 died per day according to Prokopios, as many as 16,000 according to John of Ephesos, and it may well have been an important factor in the reduction of the capital’s population by as much as half.124 There is no lack of written testimony concerning its manifestations (the symptoms and description of bubonic plague), the immediate problems that the plague entailed (the disposal of corpses), and its consequences: a shortage of wheat and wine in 543 as a result of the lack of manpower during the harvest of the prior summer, a rise in prices and wages that Justinian regulated in his Novel 122, as well as new shortages resulting from various recurrences. There is, however, disagreement among historians as to its significance.

Jean-Noe¨l Biraben holds that the plague entailed a catastrophic decline, and James Russell, as well as Pauline Allen, believes that deaths associated with it took, on average, a third of the population.125 Jean Durliat, to the contrary, concludes, on the basis of an examination of the narrative sources and their contradictory accounts, as well as epigraphic, papyrological, and archaeological sources (and what they do not tell), that “the plague was certainly deadly, but that it forced the flight of at least as many as it killed,” and that “its consequences . . . were limited.” He notes the scarcity of explicit references to the plague in the epitaphs that have survived, while noting the concentration of certain burials that are undoubtedly attributable to it at Nessana or at Sbeitla.126 (One might supplement the cases that Durliat cites with examples from the Negev dating from 541 to 543.127) He thus declines to draw comparisons between the Justinianic plague and the Black Death of the fourteenth century pending an inquiry conducted by specialists in the various categories of sources and “a closer analysis of the epigraphic, numismatic, and other data,” and believes that the phenomenon constitutes “a major historical problem rather than an incontrovertible fact of economic and social history.”128

Reporting on this position, Biraben has emphasized that contradictions in the texts and the silence of many of the other documents are equally observable in accounts of the Black Death and thus do not offer a decisive argument.129 Current knowledge

124Mango, De´veloppement urbain, 51.

125Biraben, Les hommes et la peste.

126The sole reference (to these authors’ knowledge as the text was going to press), to a death from po´tmo" boubw'no",appears in the epitaph of Ezra (J. Koder, “Ein inschriftlicher Beleg zur ‘justinianischen’ Pest in Zora (Azra’a)” in STEFANOSÚ Studia byzantina ac slavica Vladimı´ro Vavrˇ´ınek ad annum sexagesimum quintum dedicata ( BSl 56.2 [1995]: 13–18); it may be contrasted with that of Rhodopaeus, pater civitatis and sitw´ nh", who cast out plague and famine by means of baths and provisioning (loutroi'" kai` sitarci´ai" loimo`n kai` limo`n ajpela´ santa); commentary by Roueche´, Aphrodisias, 137–41.

127Y. E. Meimaris, Chronological Systems in Roman-Byzantine Palestine and Arabia: The Evidence of the Dated Greek Inscriptions (Athens, 1992), nos. 280–92, pp. 236–37.

128J. Durliat, “La peste du VIe sie`cle,” in Hommes et richesses (as above, note 15), 1:106–19, at 118–19.

129J.-N. Biraben, “Rapport: La peste du VIe sie`cle dans l’Empire byzantin,” in Hommes et richesses (as above, note 15), 1:121–25. We might add, with respect to the epigraphy, that the climate of an epidemic would hardly favor erecting and carving funerary steles (see the observations of Roueche´, Aphrodisias, 137–41, on the mediocre quality of an engraving subsequent to the plague compared to an earlier inscription in honor of Rhodopaeus). The cost of funerary monuments should also be kept

of epidemiology has shown in fact that the demographic consequences of plagues that occur during prosperous or less troubled times may be limited and that population recovery may be rapid; it is observable in Egypt, for example, where the recovery occurred within a few decades of the Antonine epidemic.130 The same does not hold true, however, when plague occurs in conjunction with other epidemics—Biraben here mentions the evidence of smallpox beginning at the end of the sixth century—and with wars. This connection is clear in Italy beginning in 562, after the ten-year respite that followed the end of the wars against the Goths; the cyclical recurrences of the pestis inguinaria in 592 and 601, for example, increased with the depredations of the Frankish and Lombard armies. Paul the Deacon makes an explicit connection between the plague, the depopulation of northern Italy, and the Lombard occupation.131 Nor are we barred from asking whether reductions in the army’s manpower at the end of the reign of Justinian, condemned by Justin II, were not in part at least linked to the plague.132 Conrad, with respect to Syria, ascribes the increased pressure of nomads on the whole of society to these epidemics, which affected the sedentary population more than they did the nomads. Tate, by contrast, holds that the inhabitants of villages were less affected than those of the cities, but that the decline of the urban population deprived them of their earlier trading outlets and set into motion the end of their prosperity. It is difficult, in any event, to deny that these factors affected the decline of urban life in the East, analyzed above.133

Agricultural Production

Products

Agricultural products of the Mediterranean region during the sixth century were identical with the products of antiquity. A few examples taken from the north and south of

in mind: the price of a tomb during the 6th century ranged from 2 to 6 solidi (see J.-P. Callu, “Les prix dans deux romans mineurs d’e´poque impe´riale,” in Les “de´valuations” `a Rome: Epoque re´publicaine et impe´riale, 2 vols. [Rome, 1979–80], 2:194 n. 28, citing de Rossi, La Roma sottoranea cristiana 3 [1877], 549, for prices of 2, 31⁄3, and 6 solidi). For a price of 41⁄4 solidi in Thessalonike, see E. Tsigaridas and K. Loverdou-Tsigarida, Kata´ logo" cristianikw'n ejpigrafw'n sta` mousei'a th'" Qessaloni´kh" (Thessalonike, 1979), no. 24; see also D. Feissel, Recueil des inscriptions chre´tiennes de Mace´doine du IIIe au VIe sie`cle

(Athens–Paris, 1983), 149, with supplementary references.

130D. Rathbone, “Villages, Land and Population in Graeco-Roman Egypt,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 216, n.s., 36 (1990): 103–42, cited by R. Bagnall and B. W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge, 1994), 174.

131L. Cracco Ruggini, Economia e societa` nell’Italia annonaria: Rapporti fra agricoltura e commercio dal IV al VI secolo d. C. (Milan, 1961; repr. Bari, 1995), app. 2, 478–89.

132Agathiae Myrinaei Historiarum libri quinque, 5.13.7, ed. R. Keydell (Berlin, 1967), 180; prooimion to Novel 148 (566), CIC 3, 722; cf. A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey, 2 vols. (Norman, Okla., 1964), 1:301–2.

133Patlagean, Pauvrete´ ´economique, 85–92 (for analysis of the effects of the plague, although this analysis is not, however, subsequently adopted to explain the decline in population, which is ascribed to wars, pp. 426–28); H. Kennedy, “The Last Century of Byzantine Syria: A Reinterpretation,” ByzF

10 (1985): 141–83; J. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge, 1990), 111–12.

196 MORRISSON AND SODINI

the empire will suffice. Wheat was produced in abundance in Sicily, Tunisia, Egypt, the plains of Asia Minor, and Thrace. At Dinogetia, Sadovec, and Iatrus-Krivina, we find varieties of wheat, hard and soft. At Dinogetia, wheat seems to be associated with rye in the diet, in ratios ranging from 77–85% wheat to 15–23% rye.134 The attempt to pair a tender cereal with one more hardy should perhaps be linked to the utilization in late antiquity of the better-keeping hard wheat,135 samples of which have been found at Iatrus-Krivina.136 Barley, rye, millet, and oats have also been discovered at the site, along with numerous pulses (peas, vetch, and lentils). Hard wheat and a variety of rye may nonetheless have been imports, since they cannot be cultivated in this part of what is now Bulgaria. At Hesban, the flotation analysis of grains and carbonized remains has revealed the presence of two varieties of wheat and one variety of barley.137 In an inscription at the synagogue of Rehov, cereal products appear as bread dough and flour.138 A few data as to yield may be gleaned from the Life of St. Nicholas of Sion and the Nessana papyri: 1:5 to 1:7 for wheat, slightly more for barley.139 The evidence with respect to Egypt is a case apart by virtue of the physical specificities of the region’s agricultural production and its papyrological documentation.140

The importance of bread is evident throughout the empire. The annona was merely the expression of this need, felt by both urban and rural populations, as well as by monastic communities.141 Wine and oil as well were basic products, common to all areas; their production and trading were fundamental to the economy of the sixth century, even if we can hardly speak of a high degree of specialization and long-distance export, as occurred during the Roman period in the Iberian peninsula and in North Africa.142 In what is now Tunisia, nonetheless, olive oil production remained significant

134A. Suceveanu and A. Barnea, La Dobroudja romaine (Bucharest, 1991), 225–26.

135H. Helbaek (“Late Bronze Age and Byzantine Crops at Beycesultan in Anatolia,” AnatSt 11 [1961]: 90–91, cited by A. Kazhdan, “One More Agrarian History of Byzantium,” BSl 55 [1994]: 76) posits the existence of hard wheat during the 10th century and its absence at Beycesultan during the late Bronze Age. Hard wheat has been found at Carthage, but its precise identification is uncertain (Triticum durum/aestivum): E. S. Hoffman, “Plant Remains from Vandal and Byzantine Deposits,” in

Excavations at Carthage 1977, Conducted by the University of Michigan, ed. J. Humphrey (Ann Arbor, 1981), 259–68, esp. 261; W. van Zeist, “Botanical Remains,” in Hurst, Excavations at Carthage (as above, note 9), 325 (7th century); M.-C. Amouretti (Le pain et l’huile dans la Gre`ce antique: De l’araire au moulin

[Paris, 1986], 39 n. 50), in considering finds of hard wheat at Knossos from the Minoan period and after, suggests an ancient presence (which was nonetheless to remain sporadic!).

136E. Hajnalova, “Die archa¨obotanische Funde,” in Iatrus-Krivina (Berlin, 1991), 4:261–98 (manuscript submitted in 1983).

137P. Crawford, Øystein Sakala, and R. B. Stewart, “The Flotation Remains: A Preliminary Report,” in R. S. Boraas and L. T. Geraty, Hesbon, 1974 (Berrien Springs, Mich., 1976), 185–87.

138J. Sussman, “The Inscription in the Synagogue at Rehov,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed, ed. L. I. Levine (Jerusalem, 1981), 146–53.

139Patlagean, Pauvrete´ ´economique, 246–48; M. Evenari, L. Shanan, and N. Tadmor, The Negev: The Challenge of a Desert, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1982), 120–25; Kaplan, Les hommes et la terre, 80–84.

140Bagnall, Egypt, 23–25.

141Y. Hirschfeld, “The Importance of Bread in the Diet of Monks in the Judean Desert,” Byzantion 66 (1996): 143–55.

142R. B. Hitchner, “Olive Production and the Roman Economy: The Case for Intensive Growth in the Roman Empire,” in La production du vin et de l’huile en Me´diterrane´e, ed. M.-C. Amouretti and J.-P. Brun ( BCH, suppl. 26 [1993]), 499–508.

and dominated important outlets in Tarragon; the region’s ties to Rome and Constantinople diminished little by little, beginning in the late sixth century, if not earlier. Vineyards and olive tree plantations are mentioned in the censuses of Hypaipa in Lydia, Thera, and Lesbos,143 as well as in the Tablettes Albertini, which date to the end of the fifth century.144 In Egypt, olive oil was prized, but it does not often appear in papyrological documentation; the most common type of oil was produced from the seeds of lachanon.145

In addition to these basic foodstuffs, there were many other vegetables, as well as edible plants and fruit. Figs and dates played an important role, the latter particularly in Egypt and in Palestine III. Egyptian papyri, the Nessana papyri, inscriptions,146 and texts147 (in particular a chapter in the Geoponika that provides a succinct calendar of vegetables to be sown and planted in the region of Constantinople)148 point to an extremely broad variety of products, with strong regional variations, which might at different stages represent significant commercial commodities. Excavations are increasingly providing information regarding the plant environment and the kinds of plants that were cultivated, whether at Iatrus-Krivina,149 Hesban,150 Nessana,151 or Karanis,152 to name but a few varied sites in the early Byzantine area. Mosaics may also reflect, if indirectly, certain local products. Mention should also be made of other agricultural products such as flax (attested at Iatrus-Krivina) and varieties of timber used for heating, construction, or shipbuilding (in Cyprus, Lycia, Lebanon, or the massif of Amanus).

Toolmaking had altered little since antiquity.153 Nonetheless, water mills began to become widespread during the sixth century; we have evidence of the fact in an in-

143A. De´le´age, La capitation du Bas-Empire (Maˆcon, 1945), 148–201.

144C. Courtois et al., Tablettes Albertini: Actes prive´s de l’e´poque vandale, fin du Ve sie`cle (Paris, 1952), 201–2.

145Bagnall, Egypt, 30.

146That of Rehov mentions peas, Egyptian beans, squash, melons, cucumbers, parsnips, dried lupins, dried figs, cakes of pressed dates, leeks, sesame, mustard, rice, nuts, and dried plums (?). See also the Tablettes Albertini: olive trees (by overwhelming majority), fig trees (three times less), almond and pistachio trees, and oaks (very few).

147Patlagean, Pauvrete´´economique, 36–53, has assembled the main data known from texts; regarding the dietary regimen of monks in Palestine, see Y. Hirschfeld, The Judean Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period (New Haven, Conn., 1992), 82–91.

148J. Koder, Gemu¨se in Byzanz: Die Versorgung Konstantinopels mit Frischgemu¨se im Lichte der Geoponika

(Vienna, 1993); idem, “Fresh Vegetables for the Capital,” in Constantinople and Its Hinterland, ed. C. Mango and G. Dagron (Aldershot, 1993), 49–56; see also J. Lefort, “The Rural Economy, Seventh– Twelfth Centuries,” EHB 246.

149Peas, fava beans, capers, lentils, vetch, nuts, peaches, wine-grapes, mulberries, and poppies. Plant remains have also been found at Caricˇin Grad by J.-M. Spieser and B. Bavant.

150Three pulses (vetch, fava beans, lentils), olives, apricots, dates, and grapes.

151Colt, Excavations at Nessana, 1:258, app. 1: colocynth (bitter apple), clover, oats, barley, rye, wheat, nuts, laurel, pomegranates, almonds, peaches, and wine grapes.

152Bagnall, Egypt, 31.

153A. A. Bryer, “Byzantine Agricultural Implements: The Evidence of Medieval Illustrations of Hesiod’s Works and Days,” BSA 81 (1985): 45–80, and idem, “The Means of Agricultural Production: Muscle and Tools,” EHB 99–111; cf. Lefort, “Rural Economy,” 228–29; Amouretti, Le pain et l’huile;

Henning, Su¨dosteuropa zwischen Antike und Mittelalter.

198 MORRISSON AND SODINI

scription at Sardis, the mills of the agora at Athens, and a water wheel found to the north of Caesarea in Palestine.154 There was an appreciable development in the techniques of extracting oil and wine during the early Byzantine period. Treading areas, characteristically fitted with a channeled floor that overhung various basins into which the juice flowed,155 were now endowed with a press, which served to effect a second extraction of lesser-quality juice from the skins and pulp residue. The presses could be levered, as they were in Greece and in the West,156 or activated by a central screw mechanism that pressed the residues directly, as in the Hauran, Arabia, and the provinces of Palestine.157 Oil presses evolved as well, with winch-activated counterweights progressively replaced by levered counterweights. Within Africa, it is only at Carthage that we find a few examples of these levered counterweights;158 they were widespread in Provence, Spain,159 the Pontus, Bithynia, Phrygia, and Caria. Levered presses, from which the oil was recovered in vats placed below the press-bed, have been found in Judea.160 Recovery of the oil operated similarly in the case of counterweight presses. While Roman pressworks, particularly in Africa, had several presses (up to six) within the same building, early Byzantine pressworks rarely made use of more than two, and generally in privately owned structures (in a few cases, monasteries also had their own presses). The oil production was thus no longer concentrated; it was in the hands of small-scale operators, whatever their status might otherwise be, and whatever the distribution pattern of the commodity—whether in-kind payment of a portion of the harvest to the village’s landowner161 or the direct sale to oil merchants.162

154J.-P. Sodini, “L’artisanat urbain `a l’e´poque pale´ochre´tienne (IVe–VIIe s.),” Ktema 4 (1979): 97– 100; idem, “La contribution de l’arche´ologie `a la connaissance du monde byzantin (IVe–VIIe s.),” DOP 47 (1993): 147 nn. 46–47.

155For Greece, see E. Kourkoutidou-Nicolaı¨dou, “Agrotike´" egkatasta´ sei" paragwgh´" krasiou´ sthn perioch´ twn Fili´ppwn (4o"–6o" ai. m. C.),” in Doukellis and Mendoni, Structures rurales et socie´te´s antiques

(as above, note 37), 463–70.

156P. Bruneau and P. Fraisse, “Pressoirs de´liens,” BCH 108 (1984): 717; J.-P. Brun, “L’ole´iculture et la viticulture antiques en Gaule: Instruments et installation de production,” in Amouretti and Brun, Production du vin et de l’huile (as above, note 142), 307–41, and idem, “La discrimination entre les installations ole´icoles et vinicoles,” in ibid., esp. 523–26.

157Y. Hirschfeld and R. Birger, “Early Roman and Byzantine Estates Near Caesarea,” IEJ 41 (1991): 81–111; I. Roll and E. Ayalon, “Two Large Wine Presses in the Red Soils Regions of Israel,” PEQ 113 (1981): 111–25; S. Dar, Landscape and Pattern: An Archaeological Survey of Samaria, 800 B.C.E.–636 C.E.

(Oxford, 1986), 147–63.

158G. Quilico, “Contrepoids de pressoirs `a vis retrouve´s `a Carthage,” CEDAC Carthage Bulletin 14 (1994): 47–48.

159P. Castanyer Masoliver and J. Tremoleda i Trilla, “La villa de Vilauba: Resultados de las ultimas campan˜as de excavacio´n (1990–1993),” JRA 8 (1995): 275–77.

160R. Frankel, “Oil Presses in Western Galilee and the Judaea: A Comparison,” in Olive Oil in Antiquity, ed. D. Eitam and M. Heltzer (Haifa, 1987; Padua, 1996), 63–80; idem, “An Oil Press at Tel Safsafot,” Tel Aviv 15/16.1 (1988–89): 77–91.

161Theodoret of Cyrrhus, ep. 18, in Tompkins, “Some Letters,” 182.

162Theodoret of Cyrrhus, in Histoire des moines de Syrie, 2:27.2, pp. 36–37: a hermit, Abraames, passes himself off as a merchant seeking to purchase the village’s entire stock of nuts.

Food of Animal Origin

Livestock, both large and small, held an important place in the Mediterranean world. Its character varied considerably according to the importance of pasturage. Thessaly, Epiros, Thrace, and the plains and plateaus of Asia Minor have produced livestock from time immemorial. Texts provide many references to the consumption of beef, notably the Life of St. Nicholas of Sion, which traces the saint’s rounds and his slaughtering of cattle in the villages of Lycia. The monks of Theodore of Sykeon distributed beef to the inhabitants of the village. Beef was consumed at Dehes and Hesban.163 Cattle were also valued for the production of milk and cheese, as well as for their hides. Hump-backed cattle, closely related to present-day zebus, must have been numerous, particularly in marshy regions (Apameia). Farms and village houses kept ranks of feeding stalls on the ground floor of their main buildings, separated by pillars that supported the second floor. These features are common in northern Syria, the Hauran, and the Negev. Pillars have been found in the Golan (notably at Meiron), but an interpretation of these finds as evidence for feeding stables does not seem to have been adopted by site excavators, although it would seem the most plausible. While cattle must often have been lodged in these stables, it is also likely that horses and mules had similar shelters. There are no clear, published criteria, however, that permit us to distinguish horse stables from cattle stables.

Goats, sheep, and other flock animals were lodged in the courtyards of village houses or, on farms, within enclosures, which have been found in a number of cases near water troughs. Their existence is attested in the cadasters of Thera and Lesbos. At Hesban, there is a noticeable increase in the number of goats, undoubtedly after the early Byzantine period; this may indicate an impoverishment in the condition of the pastures, as grass gave way to low shrubs and bushes.164 In North Africa, where evidence of meat consumption varies by location, sheep exceeded large livestock by a wide margin.165 In addition to meat, they provided milk, cheese, and wool.

Pork was highly valued in Rome; it was distributed in annonary rations, and the guild of pork butchers (corpus suariorum) seems to have been more important than that of the pecuariorum (butchers of small livestock) and the boarii (beef butchers).166 It was equally so in Italy and North Africa, as instanced by a miracle from the first half of the fourth century that portrays a butcher from Uzalis and his son.167 The cadaster of Hy-

163Dehes: Syria 57 (1980): 300; Hesban: see note 164.

164J. Boessneck and A. van den Driesch, “Preliminary Analysis of the Animal Bones from Tell Hesban,” in R. S. Boraas and L. T. Geraty, Heshbon, 1976: The Fifth Campaign at Tell Hesban. A Preliminary Report (Berrien Springs, Mich., 1978), 259–87.

165See the summary table on bovine, ovine, and swine remains compiled by D. J. Mattingly and R. B. Hitchner, “Roman Africa: An Archaeological Review,” JRS 85 (1995): 197, table 1.

166Durliat, De la ville antique, 74–80, 94–107; B. Sirks, Food for Rome: The Legal Structure of the Transportation and Processing of Supplies for the Imperial Distributions in Rome and Constantinople (Amsterdam, 1991), chap. 13.

167J.-M. Lasse`re, “Miracles et vie ´economique en Afrique au Ve s.: A propos d’un troupeau de cochons (De miraculis Sancti Stephani protomartyris libri duo, I.14),” L’Africa Romana 8 (1991): 305–15.

200 MORRISSON AND SODINI

paipa (Lydia) mentions pigs. Remains of them have been found at Dehes, Nessana,168 and Hesban, where they were most in abundance during the early Byzantine period. In Egypt, pork was the most common meat.169 Chickens and pigeons were equally a source of meat; dovecotes were numerous in the countryside of the Near East, and there is abundant evidence for the consumption of chicken in the early Byzantine levels at Apameia, Pella, and Carthage.

In fifthand sixth-century Carthage, pork (pigs were in many cases slaughtered for meat at under a year in age) and sheep or goats (generally slaughtered prior to their twenty-eighth month; only rarely at under a year) were the most widely consumed meats. In one sector of the city, horses and camels were also consumed.170 At Apameia, changes in diet took place following the Sasanian conquest. The consumption of small livestock (sheep and goats) increased, while that of large livestock decreased appreciably. Pork consumption also dropped significantly, particularly in contexts dating to the seventh and eighth centuries, that is, in the time of Islamic rule (whereas consumption during the same period at Pella remained high).171 The consumption of fowl doubled.172

Fish constituted a significant portion of the diet in large cities such as Constantinople173 and Antioch, in which, as Libanios notes with pride, both saltand freshwater fish were to be found. At Dehes and Apameia, numerous remains of silurids and catfish have been identified. At Carthage, fish remains have been found in great variety;174 at the end of the sixth century, fish was consumed far in excess of fowl, which had not been the case earlier. Shellfish played a role in the diet, but were particularly valued for their purple dye, which was used to dye cloth.175 The consumption of meat, while variable, was more common among laypeople than is suggested by our sources, which describe the diet of monks.

Donkeys seem to have been more important than horses as draft animals. The use of mules increased to a certain extent during the early Byzantine period. Camels were

168Colt, Nessana, 1:69.

169Bagnall, Egypt, 28–29: numerous pig bones found in excavations at Karanis.

170J. H. Schwarz, “The (Primarily) Mammalian Fauna,” in Excavations at Carthage: The British Mission, vol. 1.1 (Sheffield, 1984), 229–65; D. E. Reese, “Faunal Remains from Three Cisterns,” in Humphrey, Carthage 1977 (as above, note 135), 191–258; M. A. Levine, “The Analysis of Mammal and Bird Remains,” in Hurst, Excavations at Carthage (as above, note 9), 314–24; A King, “Diet in the Roman World: A Regional Inter-site Comparison of the Mammal Bones,” JRA 12 (1999): 168–202.

171R. H. Smith, Pella of the Decapolis, 2 vols. (Wooster, Ohio, 1973), 1:162.

172A. Gautier, “La faune de quelques maisons d’Apame´e,” in Apame´e de Syrie: Bilan des recherches arche´ologiques, 1973–1979. Aspects de l’architecture domestique d’Apame´e, ed. J. Balty (Brussels, 1984), 305–58; idem, Les restes de verte´bre´s de la Maison aux Consoles (Brussels, 1977).

173References to 6th-century sources in G. Dagron, “Poissons, peˆcheurs et poissonniers de Constantinople,” in Mango and Dagron, Constantinople and Its Hinterland (as above, note 148), 57–73.

174A. Wheeler, “The Fish Remains,” in Humphrey, Carthage 1977 (as above, note 135), 231–41 and

249.Tuna, absent in this sampling, has been found in the surveys of the circular harbor, Hurst,

Excavations at Carthage (as above, note 9), 319.

175See, for Carthage, J. Zaouali, “Marine and Land Molluscs,” in Hurst, Excavations at Carthage (as above, note 9), 320–24.

widespread as far west as Asia Minor, and essential in the Near East. Both camels and horses could be used as food when necessary. Crises notwithstanding,176 the supply of food seems to have been adequate to the needs of the population throughout the empire. There were significant surpluses in the sixth century that facilitated the provisioning of cities (Constantinople most importantly) and the army. With the loss of important wheat-growing land during the seventh century, however, changes in the diet of the empire followed; the role of bread diminished, while that of meat and fish grew.

Artisanal Production and Small-Scale Trade

References to trades hold an important place in epitaphs from the fourth century on. The cause may have been the strengthening of the guilds, which gave each artisan the sense of belonging to a profession that was to be protected, or it may be linked to the system of tomb purchases, although we have no proof that guilds participated in the purchase of a sepulcher, either in Korykos177 or in Tyre,178 which provide the two largest groups of such epitaphs. Pride in one’s craftsmanship, and its assertion in the tombs’ inscriptions, were perhaps accentuated by rivalry between social groups. The strength of the trades in any event gave rise to a great diversification of subtrades within certain branches of activity.179 While there were, as we have seen, artisans in the larger villages, these small trades were, for the most part, an urban phenomenon.

Provisioning and the hardware trades were particularly well represented, the first undoubtedly implicating rural inhabitants as well. The place in which commercial activity took place is often specified: a baker in Nicaea had his shop near the stone tetrapylon;180 at Nea Anchialos, a salt meat or fish merchant sold his produce at the agora.181 Fine examples of taverns have been found at Sardis (Fig. 6).182

Construction flourished during this period, as indicated above, developing as much in the city as it did in the countryside, and calling into play a large number of village inhabitants and, in some cases, seasonal workers.183 The trade included marble workers (who may be linked with the epitaphs of the “Proconnesians”),184 stonecutters (whose

176For a good inventory of the crises in large early-Byzantine cities, see Durliat, De la ville antique, 321–422.

177MAMA 3: nos. 200–788; Patlagean, Pauvrete´ ´economique, 158–63.

178J.-P. Rey-Coquais, “Inscriptions de la ne´cropole (Tyr),” BMBeyr 29 (Paris, 1977); cf. J. and L. Robert, “Bulletin ´epigraphique,” REG 89 (1978): 522.

179K. P. Mentzou, Sumbolai´ eij" th`n mele´thn tou' oijkonomikou' kai` koinwnikou' ´biou th'" prwi?mou buzantinh'" perio´dou (Athens, 1975); Sodini, “Artisanat urbain”; H. von Petrikovitz, “Die Spezialisierung des ro¨mischen Handwerks II (Spa¨tantike),” ZpapEpig 43 (1981): 285–306; Bagnall, Egypt, 78–92.

180C. Foss, Nicaea: A Byzantine Capital and Its Praises (Brookline, Mass., 1996), 16 n. 17.

181A. Ntina, “Epitu´mbie" enepi´grafe" sth´le" palaiocristianikh´" epoch´" apo´ ti" Fqiw´ tide" Qh´be" (Ne´a" Agcia´ lou),” Dieqne´" Sune´drio gia thn Arcai´a Qessali´a sth mnh´mh tou D. P. Qeoca´ rh (Athens, 1992), 452.

182J. S. Crawford, The Byzantine Shops at Sardis (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), W1–W3, E1–2.

183For Cilicia and northern Syria, Sodini, “Artisanat urbain,” 76; Tate, Campagnes, 249–51, and G. Tate, “Les me´tiers dans les villages de Syrie du Nord,” Ktema 16 (1995): 73–78; Feissel and Fourdrin, “Une porte urbaine.”

184Regarding quarries, see Sodini, “Marble and Stoneworking in Byzantium,” 125–31.