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Lending String: LSC Patron: Journal Title: Volume: Issue: Month/Year: 1997Pages: See Notes Article Author: Bowden, William Article Title: Urban transformation in early-Byzantine Epirus. the example of Butrint Imprint: ILL Number: 1177368 CANON LOCATION: 712512011 09:15:48 AM Charge Maxcost: Shipping Address: Milton Eisenhower Library LOCAL Fax: Ariel: Email: iiExchange and Trade in Medieval Europe ~ Papers ofthe ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997" Conference - Volume 3 William Bowden Urban transformation in early-Byzantine Epirus: “The happiness of an hundred millions depended on the personal merit of one or two men, perhaps children, whose minds were corrupted by education, luxury and despotic power.(.)...they abandoned the church to the bishops, the state to the eunuchs and the provinces to the bar- barians" (Gibbon 1776: 1V, 177) ‘This was the Edward Gibbon’s view of the later Roman Empire, one which profoundly influenced his successors forthe following two centuries. It is only within the last thirty years that scholars have begun to seriously reassess the later Empire or the period row known as late antiquity, and significant advan- ces have been made towards a view which challenges that of Gibbon and his successors. Much of the recent study, both historical and archaeological, has focused on the urban centres of the Roman world, as the apparent abandonment of the cities was fundamental to concepts of “decline and fall”, and the search for urban continuity or discontinuity became a central issue (see Roskams 1996). ‘This recent study has established that the towns and cities ofthe late Roman and early Byzantine world ‘were fundamentally different to those of the early Empire (Durliat 1990; Rich 1992: Christie & Loseby 1996). In essence this is hardly surprising. We are, afterall, dealing with a period of several hundred years and, even allowing for the conservatism of the Roman ‘world, which despite a relatively high degree of social mobility was essentially backward-looking (Jones 1964, 714-715; Brown 1971, 28-32), itis unlikely that the framework of urban life would remain static over such a Tong period, Prior to examining the archaco- logy of the towns of Epirus, and more specifically Butrint, it seems opportune to provide a brief over- view of current opinions on the more general changes which occurred following the so called ‘crisis of the third century. Several important factors affected the character of the late Roman urban centre. The increased centrali- the example of Butrint zation of administration which commenced under Diocletian began changes which eventually altered radically the face of the city. Diocletian's rapid expan sion of the imperial administrative hierarchy, meant that the government was obliged to recruit extensi- vely from the curial classes. Although it insisted that decurions hold the regular series of offices in their native cities before applying for an imperial post, repeated legislation against abuses demonstrates that the government was incapable of controlling the prac- tice, as the curial orders sought to avoid the expense of local civic office by advancing directly to imperial posts (Jones 1964, 741). The confiscation of civie Jands and their revenues by Constantine I and Con- stantius dealt a severe blow to economic indepen- dence and despite the concessions of the late fourth century in which one third of civic lands and civie taxes were retumed to local administration, the towns became increasingly unable to provide for their own ‘maintenance (Haldon 1990, 96; Jones 1964, 732). The decline ofthe curial order and local administration as the means by which Imperial authority was expressed and fiscal revenues collected (and more importantly redistributed), had a markedly detrimental effect on the classical urban fabric. The decline inthe power of local government meant that those who had pre- viously expressed their status and munificence through means of grandiose public building in their hhome towns found little reason to continue the prac- tice (cf Liebesehuetz 19922), and the large scale con- struction of public utilities and monuments which had marked the first and second centuries AD, became increasingly an imperial activity, with main- tenance of the urban infrastructure carried out by representatives appointed by the provincial governor. Private wealth which had previously effectively sub- sidised municipal life in terms of construction and upkeep of civic amenities was expressed in other ways, such as the construction of opulent country residences (Brown 1971, 40). The sudden decline in the construction of publie buildings, or atleast in the number of dedicatory inscriptions which accompan- ied them, is readily apparent in the archaeological 155W. Bowden record and in some ways appears to substantiate theo- ries of a more generalised urban decline, although the graphic nature of the decline of the epigraphic evi- dence itself, may in fact have exaggerated its signifi- cance. Equally, it is likely that different parts of the Empire were affected in different ways. It is suggest- ‘that, on the basis of the epigraphic evidence, North African cities, for example, apparently maintained a vigorous municipal life throughout the fourth century (Lepelley 1992). A similarly dynamic urban life has been argued for Antioch and other cities in Syria, which flourished inthe fourth and fifth centuries prior to an apparently dramatic decline inthe sixth century (Ken nedy 1983). The growing importance of Christianity and the rise in episcopal power also caused significant changes inthe physical appearance of cities. From the fourth century onwards local bishops played an in- creasingly central role in local civic administration and civil defense as the state became increasingly unwil- ling or unable to fulfill these needs, (Dagron 1977, 19- 23; Liebeschuetz 1992b, 228-235 for the example of ‘Synesius of Cyrenaica). The increasing status of the bishop is reflected in the changing urban topography of the later Roman Empire in which large eccle- siastical buildings appear to dominate the shrinking areas of the fortified cities. This view has been rein- forced by excavations in recent decades which have demonstrated that within towns in all parts of the ‘Roman world, Christian “quarters” were established, and churches assumed a degree of architectural pro- rminence within (and without) the city walls (Sodint 1993, 157-161). These factors, combined with the growing insecurity of the frontiers, meant that the turban centres of the late-antique and early-Byzantine ‘world, in many ways bore little physical resemblance to their early-Imperial predecessors. Inessence then, the towns and cities of the Roman. ‘world were faced with an increasingly centralized imperial bureaucracy and administration coupled with ‘an increasingly demanding imperial exchequer. In the words of Haldon, “the cities lost their role as crucial fiscal intermediaries in the extraction by the state ofits revenues” (1990, 96) These factors led to significant changes in local government structure, with many of the tasks and powers of local civil administration devolving to local landowners and to the church, the hierarchy of which became to some extent a replacement for the curial hierarchy of the carly Empire, although this was never formally estab- lished in the eastern Empire, as it was in the west (Haldon 1990, 97). This paper intends to examine the changing fortunes of the towns and cities of Epirus against this background and also in the light of the factors which affected Epirus specifically, including the nature ofthe barbarian incursions which occurred 136 from the late fourth century onwards, with specific reference to the emerging archaeological evidence. Butrint and Epiras ‘The administrative reforms of Diocletian at the end of the third and stat of the fourth centuries AD creat- ced the province of Epirus Nova from part of the for- mer province of Macedonia, From this point onwards the original province of Epirus was known as Epirus ‘Vetus. The two provinces were part of the diocese of Eastern Illyricum under control of the praefectus pre- ‘ori Ilyrici. While the precise geographical borders of the provinces are not known, broadly speaking, Epirus Nova occupied most of moder Albania with its provincial capital at Dyrrachium, while Epirus ‘Vetus comprised the southern-most part of Albania, and north-western Greece, as far south as the Ambra- cian Gulf, with its provincial capital at Augustus's victory city, Nikopolis (fig. 1). It was an area with a long history of urbanism. According to Pliny, there ‘were 150 cities in Macedonia, in contrast to their appa- rent paucity in northern Illyricum and Thrace. How- ever, by the time Hierocles compiled the Synekdemos in the fifth century, there were less than $0 in the same arca (Jones 1964, 716). Butrint (fig. 2) lies on the coast on the north-west of the province of Epirus Vetus. Founded inthe eighth century BC, it seems to have escaped the destructive actions of L. Aemilius Paullus following the Roman conquest of 167 BC. Cicero wrote of Caesar's inten- tion to establish a colony of veterans at Butrint, but it was a later plan, to settle Italians displaced by the veteran settlements in Italy, which led tothe eventual establishment of the Roman colony (Purcell 1987, 75). The colony was fully established under Augus- tus and during the early Empire it developed into & prosperous maritime town. Historically, little is known of Butrint’s fortunes during the later Roman period, although its bishops are mentioned twice in connection with ecclesiastical disputes of the fifth and sixth centuries (Ugolini 1936, 319-322). It ap- pears, in common with many of the towns of Epirus, to have had a brief revival around the reign of Justinian before falling victim to the vicissitudes of the late sixth and early seventh centuries which caused the apparent eclipse of many of the towns of Greece and the Balkans. It re-emerged in the high Byzantine period, appearing sporadically in later medieval sources, prior to its eventual capture by the ‘Turks in the seventeenth century (Ugolini 1937, 102). By the time it was visited by Colonel William Leake at the start of the nineteenth century (Leake 1835, 95- 101) it had dwindled to a few fisherman's huts Fig. late. gro Arcl large Cow