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The Kommerkiarios, the Apotheke, the Dromos, the Vardarios, and The West *
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
Extract
Among the many problems besetting the study of Middle Byzantine economic history are those concerning adjustments to the partial demonetisation of transactions indicated by the fall-off in the numismatic record (of excavations, hoards, and stray finds) for the seventh to ninth centuries, and the origins of a subsequent remonetisation. The administrative systems through which the Middle Byzantine state met its various needs during this period, and the evolution of such systems in response to economic changes (often assumed to be of the state’s own making), have recently attracted attention, a development stimulated by the enrichment and re-ordering of the sigillographic record.
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References
1. See now La cultura bizantina: oggetti e messaggio. Moneta ed economia (Rome 1986), the contributions of Grierson, Morrisson, Durliat, and Kazhdan; Hendy, section 7, (iv) & (v), and 619 sq.
2. The crucial events in the history of Byzantine sigillography in this respect have been the publication of Zacos-Veglery, in particular ch. II, 1/1 129–363 (‘Dated seals of Kommerkiarioi’), and Laurent, II.
3. See Oikonomides (1972), 313, for the structure of this department of state; idem, 113, 1.33 for the textual reference of 899 AD to the position of the Kommerkiarios; idem, 313 and Hendy, 410–14 for the origins of the Genikon Logothesion in the 7th c; Harvey, 102–108 for the taxes and charges.
4. See Antoniadis-Bibicou, 97–104; Oikonomides (1992) 242–44.
5. See principally Antoniadis-Bibicou, ch. 6; Zacos-Veglery, ch. II and 1592–96; Seibt, C. Morrisson-W., ‘Sceaux de commerciaires byzantins du VIIe siècle trouvés à Carthage’, Revue Numismatique6 24 (1982) 222–41 Google Scholar; Hendy, 626–40; Morrisson, C., ‘Sceaux inédits de la Collection Henri Seyrig’, CRAI (1986) 420–35 Google Scholar; Oikonomides (1986), passim, for a brief presentation of which see the same’s ‘Commerce et production de la soie à Byzance’, , Hommes et richesses dans l’empire byzantin, I (Paris 1989) 187–92 Google Scholar; Haldon, 232–44.
6. Antoniadis-Bibicou, ch. 5–6. The argumentation is unfortunately diffuse, but even the most detailed review of the work, by Lemerle (Revue Historique 232 [1964] 225–31) does not engage with this thesis.
7. Hendy, Oikonomides, and Haldon as cited n.5.
8. Hendy, 626, n.308.
9. Oikonomides (1986) 48–49.
10. Nesbitt, J., ‘Double Names on Early Byzantine lead seals’, DOP 31 (1977) 111–21 Google Scholar: see 115–17.
11. Antoniadis-Bibicou, 143–45. The author imagines that tax-farming stopped in the 10th to mid 11th c., but see Oikonomides (1992) 241–42.
12. Antoniadis-Bibicou, 247–55; Hendy, 554–69; for the closure of provincial bronze-issuing mints in the east in 629–631 AD, idem, 417–24; for the virtual disappearance of the bronze coinage from Anatolian cities in the mid 7th c., idem, 640–45; for the parameters of low monetisation in Byzantium, idem, 299–304; but for another view, Oikonomides, N., ‘De l’impôt de distribution a l’impôt de quotité à propos du premier cadastre byzantin’, ZRVI 26 (1987) 9–19.Google Scholar
13. For clear analyses of the Late Roman origins of the land-tax in kind and the logicality of its Middle Byzantine designation as (i.e., compulsory purchase: basically some of the techniques used for compulsory purchase were applied to the assessment and levying of the land-tax) see Stein, E., Histoire du Bas-Empire, II (Brussels 1949) 200–01 Google Scholar and Haldon, 229–32; for the importance of payment in kind in Late Antiquity and the difficulty of commutation, Hendy, 294–96 and 605–06; for other arguments supporting Middle Byzantine taxation in kind, Antoniadis-Bibicou, 189–99 and 255.
14. See for instance, Haldon, J., Byzantine Praetorians: an administrative, institutional, and social survey of the Opsikion and Tagmata, c. 580–900 (Bonn 1984) 314–16 Google Scholar; Hendy, 607 and 611.
15. Haldon, J., ‘Comes horreorum — Komes tes Lamias’, BMGS 10 (1986) 203–09.Google Scholar
16. Zacos-Veglery, 135. For the ‘pre-indictional’ history of this institution see now Oikonomides (1986) 33–38, and for its specialist functions Oikonomides, Hendy, and Haldon as cited n.5. But Haldon evokes the complexity of such dealings in a demonetising economy, and logically deduces the role of the Apothekai in supplying the military’s many material needs (ibid., 239–41).
17. I follow Hendy, 626–45, regarding coin-usage; ibid., 409–14 and 628–29, on the breakup of the Praetorian Prefecture of the East. That part of the cursus publicus which dealt in taxes raised in kind was being abolished in the sixth century (ibid., 295–96). Haldon arrives at essentially similar conclusions regarding the breakup of the Prefecture (Haldon, 183–204), but also (loc. cit.) proposes that the Prefecture survived as a shadowy co-ordinator of the new fiscal departments with a sustained civil provincial administration, for the purpose of feeding and equipping the military. However the effective test of Middle Byzantine bureaucratic realities, the sigillographie record, now quite large, is negative. There are no seals of this Praetorian Prefect. The Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum becomes on his seal the ‘Eparkhos of Thessalonike’ (cf. Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, nos. 18.18–23), surviving until the constitution of the thema of Thessalonike, when he disappears. There are no other seals of the Eparkhoi of provinces in the E. Mediterranean orbit. An 8th-century Eparkhos of Nicaea is not the governor of a province (Zacos-Veglery, no. 3156), and seals of Eparkhoi without a geographical designation are invariably of Eparkhoi of Constantinople (e.g., Zacos II, no. 328), and anyway take us beyond our period of concern. Only one seal of an (the equivalent title) from our period of concern is to be found in the largest relevant collection (Zacos-Veglery, no. 701), but has no geographical designation, so may be of Constantinople. One seal of an Arkhon of Lydia (ibid., no. 1489: 7th c.) might fall within our period of concern. Haldon himself shows (op. cit., 204, n. 118 and 205, n. 120) that seals of Anthypatoi of the 7th to 9th centuries are, with two exceptions of the 9th century, not the seals of ‘proconsular’ civil provincial governors. We are therefore left with no group of seals attributable to civilian provincial governors for a notional Praetorian Prefect to co-ordinate in the mid 7th to mid 9th centuries. Admittedly this is negative argumentation and does not result in an alternative view regarding the existence or absence of civil governors. It is only meant to suggest that the titulature of a 9th-century courtly ceremony used to support the perpetuation of the Prefecture and civil governors (Haldon, 195 and 201), hence the perpetuation of an older set of arrangements for dealing with taxes and compulsory purchases in kind, receives as yet no sigillographie corroboration.
18. For seals of Dioiketai with a multi-provincial brief see Haldon 196–97. Seals of Dioiketai of named provinces are very scarce for the 7th century (e.g., Zacos-Veglery, nos. 1628 and 2290: probably mid to late 7th c.). The majority of seals of this period (mid 7th century onwards) are of ‘undesignated’ Dioiketai (e.g., Zacos-Veglery, nos. 616, 1439, 1464, 1527, 1528, 1534). There are more such seals of the 8th century.
19. See for instance Theokharides, G., Istoria tēs Makedonias kata tous mesous khronous (285–1354) (Thessalonike 1980) 179–189.Google Scholar
20. Rather the Sklaviniai in general were subject to campaigns of pacification from the mid 7th century onwards; see for instance Lemerle, P., Les plus anciens recueils des Miracles de Saint Démétrius et la pénétration des Slaves dans les Balkans, II (Paris 1981) 185–93 Google Scholar. For the foundation of the thema of Thessalonike in the early 9th century see for convenience Oikonomides (1972) 352.
21. Lemerle, P., Les plus anciens recueils des Miracles de Saint Démétrius, (Paris 1979 Google Scholar) cap. 289–94.
22. Haldon, art. cit. n.15.
23. For the geography of the operations of Late Antique Kommerkiarioi, and the operations themselves, see Oikonomides (1986) 33–38; Morrisson-Seibt, art. cit. n.5; Morrisson, art. cit. n.5.
24. Morrisson-Seibt, art. cit. n.5.
25. See for instance Zacos-Veglery, nos. 195, 197, 203, 204, 232–237 (Genikoi Logothetai of provinces).
26. See for instance Zacos-Veglery, nos. 2103, 2104, 2427: Kommerkiarios-Dioiketes; also B. Pančenko, ‘Katalog molivdovulov kolekcii russkago arkheologičeskago in-stituta v Konstantinopole’, IRAIK (1908)78–151, no. 320, seal of a Kommerkiarios and Dioiketes of the Peloponnese (9th c.), interpreted by Laurent, V., La Collection C. Orghidan (Paris 1952) no. 259 (note).Google Scholar
27. Dunn, no. 66 (Didymoteikhon: early to mid 9th c.); Schlumberger, G., ‘Sceaux byzantins inédits’, idem, Mélanges d’archéologie byzantine, I (Paris 1895) 199–274, no. 30 Google Scholar (Thessalonike: 10th c.); Nesbitt-Oikonomides, I, 18.43 (Thessalonike: 10th c.).
28. See Hendy, 602–613 for the Dromos as Cursus.
29. Haldon, art. cit. n.15 passim; idem, Byzantine Praetorians (op. cit. n.14) 314.
30. However Oikonomides’s arguments about an empire-wide official commercialisation of silk from the imperial workshops and about far-flung mulberry-plantations in central and eastern Anatolia, Macedonia, and Thrace, in the 7th-9th cc., run into a mass of practical objections, depending upon the region, environmental, political, communicational … (see now Haldon as cited n.5).
31. In fact Oikonomides recognises (Oikonomides [1986] 45–46) that several indiction-dated seals referring to Apothekai/Kommerkia and to fiscal officials (Logothetai, Dioiketai) or their circumscriptions (Dioikeseis) should be the seals of tax-farmers (who are supposedly also purveying silks to their victims). And Haldon (as cited n.5) gives effect to Hendy’s model of the Kommerkiarios as supplier of equipment to the provincial regiments by linking defrayment of the costs to a system of taxation in kind and corvée.
32. See Antoniadis-Bibicou, ch. 3–4 for the Early Byzantine terminology of dekateutai, dekatelogoi, etc., obviously displaced by the Kommerkiarioi themselves.
33. See Harvey, 86–89, for numismatic evidence from archaeological sites, particularly in Greece and the Balkans (putting Corinth into context). See Hendy, 424–26 for the probable operation of a bronze-issuing mint at Thessalonike in the 9th century.
34. See Laurent, , Collection Orghidan (op. cit. n.26), no. 229 Google Scholar: seal of a Kommerkiarios of the Peloponnese, unaccountably dated by Laurent to the 11th c, but in fact of the first half of the 9th.
35. See Seibt-W. Seibt, N., ‘Die sphragistischen Quellen zum byzantinischen Thema Nikopolis’, Praktika tou prōtou diethnous symposiou giē te Nikopolē, Khrysos, E. ed. (Preveza 1987) 327–47, no. 18.Google Scholar
36. See Dunn, A., ‘Historical and archaeological indicators of economic change in Middle Byzantine Boeotia and their problems’, Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Boeotian Studies Google Scholar (in press) nn.54–60 for the secondary literature including the debate between Metcalf and Hendy about the degree of monetisation.
37. Dunn, no. 55 (later 9th c.); supra, n.34, for a seal of the 9th century wrongly attributed to the 11th; also Schlumberger, 181–82, seal of Theognostos, Kommerkiarios, ‘12th c.’ according to the editor but in fact mid 9th to early 10th-c. — Oikonomides, N. cf., A collection of dated Byzantine lead seals (Washington, D.C. 1986) nos. 53, 56, and 57 Google Scholar, for iconography and style. For fiscal commutation in the Peloponnese in 921 see Oikonomides, N., ‘Caratteri esterni degli atti’, La civiltà bizantina: oggetti e messaggio (Rome 1991) 27.Google Scholar
38. Laurent, , Collection Orghidan, no. 223 Google Scholar (Antoniadis-Bibicou, ‘Liste’, no. 103), seal of a ‘Kommerkiarios of the Optimates …’ is a misreading.
39. I include a couple of seals which can only be assigned to ‘the ninth century’ as a whole. There are none which have to be assigned to the first half of the century.
40. Antoniadis-Bibicou, , ‘Liste’; Zacos-Veglery, , nos. 2087, 2177, 1840, 2101, 2137, 2503, 3072, 3134 Google Scholar; Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, nos. 18.2–3 and 18.36–50. Thessalonike only became a thema in the early ninth century.
41. Antoniadis-Bibicou, , ‘Liste’; Zacos-Veglery, , no. 2404 Google Scholar; Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 39.5.
42. For the chronological span: Schlumberger, 112–13, nos. 1 and 4 (10th c.); Zacos II, no. 159 (mid 9th to early 10th c.); Barnea, I., ‘Sceaux byzantins de Dobroudgea’, Studies in Byzantine sigillography, Oikonomides, N. ed. (Washington, D.C. 1987) 77–88, no. 5 Google Scholar (early to mid 11th c.).
43. Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 65.1.
44. Ibid., no. 78.1–3; Oikonomides, N., ‘Presthlavitza, the Little Preslav’, Südost-Forschungen 42 (1983) 1–9 Google Scholar, for its location near the mouth of the Danube and for evidence of its role as a centre of Russo-Byzantine exchange.
45. Mordtmann, A., ‘Inscriptions byzantines de Thessalonique’, Revue archéologique n.s. 37 (1879) 193–203 Google Scholar: seals of Kosmas, Vardarios, Kommerkiarios (‘Vardarios Kommerkiarios’?), and Protonotarios of Thessalonike (201), and of Pardos, Vardarios of Thessalonike (202); Schlumberger, G., ‘Sceaux byzantins inédits (cinquième série)’, Revue Numismatique (1905) 321–354, no. 204 Google Scholar: seal of Pardos, Vardarios of Thessalonike. All are dated ‘10th/11th c.’, but on the basis of illustrations can be assigned to the 10th century.
46. Ellas, for which there is one published seal of a Kommerkiarios of our second period: Schlumberger 167 (illustrated: 10th c.). For four occupations of Ellas in the 10th century by Bulgars and Magyars see Hild, J. Koder-F., Tabula Imperii Byzantini I. Hellas und Thessalia (Vienna 1976) 60, 61, 63 Google Scholar, and Oikonomides, N., ‘Vardariotes — W. l. nd. r — V. n. nd. r: Hongrois installés dans la vallée du Vardar en 934’, Südost-Forschungen 32 (1973) 1–8.Google Scholar
47. Zacos II, no. 286 and Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, nos. 82.4–9.
48. Dunn, no. 56.
49. Zacos II, no. 200.
50. Antoniadis-Bibicou, ‘Liste’: the seal is of the 10th c. (see Schlumberger 271, with illustration). See Oikonomides (1972) 350, for Seleukia.
51. Antoniadis-Bibicou, ‘Liste’ (sceaux non datés). But see Schlumberger 312, with illustration: the seal is dateable to ca. 950–1050. For the province see Oikonomides (1972) 354.
52. Antoniadis-Bibicou, ‘Liste’; Zacos-Veglery, nos. 1880, 2113(a)-(b), 2235, 2527(a)-(b), 3168; Zacos II, nos. 306 and 357. For the province see Oikonomides (1972) 345. There is a literary reference to a Kommerkiarios of Khaldia (10th-c.) which I owe to the entry ‘Kommerkiarios’, The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 2, 1141.
53. Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 5.3 (10th c.).
54. Seals of the 10th c. (second half): Tsougarakis, D., ‘Some unpublished lead seals concerning Crete’, REB 48 (1990) 243–46, no. 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘The Byzantine seals of Crete’, Studies in Byzantine sigillography 2, 137–52, no. 57 (where previous editions are cited).
55. Antoniadis-Bibicou, ‘Liste’. For the province see Oikonomides (1972) 351–52.
56. Zacos-Veglery, nos. 1711, 2172, 2174, 2250.
57. Zacos II, no. 152 (Erythrai); Antoniadis-Bibicou, ‘Liste’ (Cyprus and Attaleia). See Schlumberger, 305, with illustration, for the latter: early to mid 11th century. Also Wasilewski, A. Szemioth-T., ‘Sceaux byzantins du Musée National de Varsovie. Première partie’, Studia zródloznawcze 11 (1966), 1–38, no. 52 Google Scholar (Attaleia; ‘second half of the eleventh c.’, but rather early to mid 11th c.).
58. Erythrai, whose name survived locally until this century as ‘Lythri’, had been important in the Roman period. It had a protected harbour, opposite Chios, but no hinterland of its own (RE VI, cols. 575–91). It was a suffragan of Ephesus throughout the Middle Byzantine period: Darrouzès, J., Notitiae episcopatuum ecclesiae constantinopolitanae (Paris 1981 Google Scholar) not. 1, 2, 3,4,7,9,10, and 13. It was certainly, like Strovilos, another naval section, oriented by geography towards the sea and away from the interior.
59. For Constantinople see R. Harrison, Excavations at Saraçhane I, ch. 12, ‘The coins’, by M. Hendy, particularly 278–80. The Apotheke of Constantinople, attested in the 7th to 8th cc. (Zacos-Veglery 1/I, Table 21) was perhaps where much primary produce taken in taxation was commercialised or otherwise exchanged. The only useful published coin-series from the older inner provinces, the 1,234 identifiable coins of the years 491–1282 AD from the excavations of Sardis of 1958–1968, indicate a slight revival of the petty currency from the time of Leo V (813–820) onwards, after a period (667–812 AD) for which there are only 5 coins: Bates, G., Archaeological exploration of Sardis. Monographs 1. Byzantine Coins (Harvard 1971), 7 Google Scholar, Table III.
60. For the control of exports and imports in general see Antoniadis-Bibicou, 50–56. For timber and arboreal products see Dunn, A., ‘The exploitation and control of woodland and scrubland in the Byzantine world’, BMGS 16 (1992) 262–79.Google Scholar
61. The connection between the Kommerkiarioi and the needs of the military would be detectable to the end if a seal of a ‘Khartoularios and Kommerkiarios of Presthlavit-za’ (Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 78.3) were a seal of a military Khartoularios (for seals of whom see Laurent II, nos. 554–78).
62. For fiscal commutation see Hendy, 297 and Harvey, 113–14. For some qualifications see Dunn, art. cit. n.61, 262–72.
63. For these seals, published with one exception over one hundred years ago by Schlumberger, listed with their inaccurate dates, see Antoniadis-Bibicou, ‘Liste’, nos. 129–135.
64. Hendy, 173–175 and 613–18.
65. Of course there is the problem of the tendency within the élite towards the use of ‘private’ seals. But other high fiscal officials continued to advertise their functions on their seals (Pronoetai, Anagrapheis, Exisotai…), which is hardly surprising given the nature of their business.
66. See now Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, 1–2.
67. Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 12.6 (10th c.).
68. Laurent, V., Les sceaux byzantins du Médailler Vatican (Vatican 1962) no. 111 Google Scholar (1050s).
69. Zacos II, no. 1075 in apparatu (first half of the 10th c.).
70. Oikonomides (1972), 341–42.
71. Oikonomides (1992).
72. Dunn, no. 58 (previously Corinth XII, no. 2715).
73. In approximate chronological order, Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 1.27; iidem no. 1.25; Zacos II, no. 1075 in apparatu; Dunn, no. 58; Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, nos. 1.26, 1.23, 12.6, 1.28, 1.29; Schlumberger, , Mélanges (pp. cit. n.27), no. 80 Google Scholar; Schlumberger, 198, no. 1; Likhačev, N., Istoričeskoe značenie italo-grečeskoi ikonopisi, ịzobraženija Bogomateri (St Petersburg 1911 Google Scholar) pl. IV/27.
74. Schlumberger, 504, no. 1. Schlumberger was uncertain and suggested a 10th/11th-century dating.
75. In approximate chronological order, Laurent II, no. 453; idem, nos. 457, 454, 455, 456; Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 1.11; Zacos II, no. 825; Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 1.6; Laurent II, nos. 458, 459, 460; Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 1.8.
76. In approximate chronological order, Laurent II, nos. 450, 453, 451, 452.
77. Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 1.5 (commentary).
78. For the functions of the Dromos see in general Bréhier, L., Les institutions de l’empire byzantin (2 Paris 1970) 244–45 and 263–68 Google Scholar; for the sigillographie data, which truly complements the texts, Laurent II, 195–262; for the Late Antique and Byzantine Cursus Publicus see Hendy, 294–96 and 602–613. The article by Miller, D., ‘The logothete of the Drome in the Middle Byzantine period’, Byzantion 36 (1966) 438–70 Google Scholar, does not help this discussion. See Laurent II, nos. 409 sq, 467, and 473, for origins and structure.
79. For the exclusion of these areas from ‘The West’ see Oikonomides (1972) 341–42. See Laurent II, no. 466 for a Middle Byzantine seal of the ‘Eastern Dromos’. There is in fact a seal of the ‘Dromos of Thrake’ (see n.81 below).
80. Seals of the clearly provincial officials of the Dromos are conveniently assembled in Koutava-Delivoria, B., ‘Les et les functionnaires nommés : les sceaux et les étoffes pourpres de soie après le 9e siècle’, BZ 82 (1989) 177–90 Google Scholar, Tableau 2, nos. 65–70.
81. For Thrake see Schlumberger, 123: seal of the ‘Ek Prosopou of the Dromos of Thrake’ (mid 11th c.?). For Strymon there is a reference to the , a route on the south side of Mt Pangaion in the province of Strymon on the line of the natural route between Constantinople and Thessalonike, which would seem to have been named after the kountoura, the dock-tailed horses of the Dromos, for which see Psellos, Michael, , ed. Sathas, K. (Paris 1876) E’, 532–33 Google Scholar. For the reference to Pangaion see Archives de l’Athos XVI. Actes d’Iviron II, eds. J. Lefort-N. Oikonomides-D. Papachryssanthou (Paris 1990) no. 52 (1104 AD), 1.200.
82. Bréhier, op. cit. n.78, 245. For the charter see Pertusi, A., ‘Venezia e Bisanzio nel secolo XI’, La Venezia del mille (Florence 1965) 117–60 Google Scholar: Appendice (155–60).
83. See Antoniadis-Bibicou, 157–91 for these activities.
84. Bratianu, G., ‘Le commerce bulgare dans l’empire byzantin et le monopole de l’empereur Leon VI à Thessalonique’, Sbornik Nikov (Sofia 1940), 30–36 Google Scholar; Antoniadis-Bibicou, 143–44.
85. See n.73 above for further references regarding chronology. For the various officials of the Genikon see in brief Oikonomides (1972) 313–14.
86. See Zacos-Veglery 1/I, Tables 18/1–20, 22, 23, 25–27, and 29. One seal (Table 19) is of 755/6 (?) or 770/1 (?).
87. Stavridou-Zaphraka, A., 11 (1982) 44 Google Scholar and nn. 135 and 138–39.
88. See Antoniadis-Bibicou, 157–63 for the Kommerkiarios as commercial agent of the state, and 247–55 for Middle Byzantine demonetisation; Hendy, 294–96 and 605–607 for the importance of taxation in kind and of the Cursus Publicus in the collection and purchase of primary products (principally grain) even during a period of greater monetisation (the sixth century); idem, 607–11 for the Middle Byzantine Dromos as inheritor of these functions (but missing out an ‘Apotheke-phase’).
89. This interpretation of the use in the ninth through eleventh centuries of the title ‘Kommerkiarios of the West’, combined or not with specific provinces, does not preclude other meanings for Dysis in other branches of the administration, fiscal and military, at these and other times. Cf. for instance seals of high officials of the Skholai of the West (Zacos II, nos. 865 and 1077; Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, no. 1.12) of the 10th and 11th cc., and seals of the 11–12th centuries of’Khartoularioi of the Genikon Logothesion, of the Arkla of the West’, vel sim. (Laurent II, no. 383(?); Nesbitt-Oikonomides I, nos. 1.4 and 1.8).
90. Note the survival of the term kommerkion in the sense of tax-farm in the formula comerchium angariae, the ‘farm’ of the fiscally commuted angaria of Chios in 1413.1 take this reference from Balard, M., ‘The Genoese in the Aegean (1204–1566)’, in Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204, eds. Jacoby, B. Arbel-B. Hamilton-D. (London 1980) 170 Google Scholar. The apparent conflict with the Kletorologion of Philotheos of 899 AD, which attaches Kommerkiarioi to the Genikon (v.s.), should not surprise us in the light of recent research showing the mobility of officials and the fluidity of institutions: see Winkelmann, F., Byzantinische Rang- und Ämterstruktur im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1985)Google Scholar, and Haldon’s, J. review, in BS 47 (1986) 229–232.Google Scholar
91. See Oikonomides, art. cit. n.12, 10 for this idea. For accounts of Constantine V’s hoarding, by Patriarch Nikephoros and by Theophanes, see Hendy, 298–99.
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