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The transition from polis to kastron in the Balkans (III-VII cc): general and regional perspectives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Archibald Dunn
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Extract

Much of the evidence for the changes which scholars perceive in the Late Roman-to-Early Byzantine periods (the ‘Late Antique era’) and in the ‘Dark Age’-to-Middle Byzantine periods in the eastern empire, that is, changes occurring between the mid third and the eighth-to-ninth centuries, whether this evidence is textual, archaeological, or topographical, concerns in one way or another what might be called the upper levels of the settlement-system. These levels consist of settlements or sites distinguishable at various times from the undefended rural majority (or what in most areas forms the majority) of settlements by status (i.e., civic, that of a polis), form, size, situation, or associated functions. They may for present purposes be simply categorised as civic urban settlements, non-civic urban settlements, and non-civic non-urban fortifications or fortified settlements. To study the fate of such places, as settlements and as communities, is to confront the cultural, economic, and internal political history of the period in all its complexity, a task which in most respects is inconceivable without recourse to archaeology and topography. The following observations concern the need to rectify some imbalances in the emphases of research which distort some general analyses of the history of Late Antique and also Middle Byzantine settlements, and so distort our view of cultural, economic, and political change in the periods named.

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Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 18 , 1994 , pp. 60 - 81
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Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1994

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References

1. It would be invidious to demonstrate this with quantifications of pages and references, but I invite the reader to consider any general discussion (article or section of a book) published since the debate about the ‘Byzantine city’ began in the 1950s.

2. Several of these studies will be cited further on. Here it is worth citing two valuable collective works which ought, by now, to have had some impact: Villes et peuplement dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin (École française de Rome 1984) and (Vatican City/Thessaloniki 1984).

3. For the Balkans one thinks of the projects summarised in Kondic, V., ‘Les formes des fortifications protobyzantines dans la région des Portes de Fer’, Villes et peuplement 131–161 Google Scholar; and of the excavations of Sirmium, Novae, and Abritus, now in course of publication.

4. See, for example, Haldon, J., Byzantium in the seventh century. The transformation of a culture (Cambridge 1990 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). 94f., 112ff., 123, in the context of an otherwise wide-ranging and multifactorial approach.

5. The epigraphic culture of the Late Antique Balkans is poorer than that of some of the eastern provinces. There is no possibility of an urban social study such as Reynolds, J. — Tannenbaum, R., Jews and God-Fearers at Aphrodisias (Cambridge 1987)Google Scholar.

6. Cf. for instance Müller-Wiener, W., ‘Von der Polis zum Kastron’, Gymnasium 93 (1986) 434–75 Google Scholar. This lengthy article is unfortunately merely a rambling accumulation of anecdotes about sites (all of civic urban settlements, nearly all Anatolian). Their development is ordered into three ‘phases’ in purely descriptive terms. Phase II, that of the kastron, is made to begin around ‘600 AD’, but the discussion of this change is extremely confused and contradictory (art. cit. 451-62).

7. For a documentation of this numerical aspect and for a range of ‘differentiated’ types see MikulÜc, I., ‘Über die Grosse der spàtantiken Stàdte in [S.R.] Makedonien’, Ziva Antika 24 (1974) 191–212 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Friihchristlicher Kirchenbau in der Makedonien’, S.R., XXXIII. Corso di cultura sull’ arte ravennate e bizantina (1986) 221–251 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Spàtantike Fortifikationen in der Makedonien’, S.R., XXXIII. Corso di cultura … 253–277 Google Scholar. For the data-base see Tabula Imperii Romani. Naissus — Dyrrachium — Scupi — Serdica — Thessalonike (Ljubljana 1976).

8. Compare the information provided in some recent studies of the Late Antique Balkans regarding the sizes, situations, internal layouts, and features, of fortified settlements (see Biernacka-Lubanska, M., The Roman and Early Byzantine fortifications of Lower Moesia and Northern Thrace [Wroclaw 1982 Google Scholar]; Mikultic as cited at n. 7; Poulter, A., ‘The uses and abuses of urbanism in the Danubian provinces during the Later Roman Empire’, The city in Late Antiquity, ed., Rich, J. ([London/New York 1992] 99–135 Google Scholar) with what we know about a Middle Byzantine Balkan kastron such as that of Rentina, for a plan of which see now (1990) 94, Fig. 33 (excavations of Professor N. Moutsopoulos). See also Dunn, A., ‘Byzantine fortifications’, The Macmillans Dictionary of Art Google Scholar (in press).

9. One thinks for instance of the fortified settlements of ‘Golemo Gradiste’/Konjuh and ‘Kalata’/Makedonski Kamenica in F.Y.R.O.M., for which see Mikulcic, ‘Über die Grosse der spãtantiken Stàdte’ (art. cit. n. 7) 204-206 and 207-208; idem, ‘Frühchrisüicher Kirchenbau’ (art. cit. n. 7) 241-43; or of ‘Krupiste’, N.W. of Bargala, for which see Beldedovski, A., ‘Bregalnica Basin in the Roman and Early Medieval period’, Zavod na spomenicite na kultureta i narodnei muzej. Zbornik 6 (1990) 67–84, see 74–75 Google Scholar.

10. Compare the arguments of Poulter, ‘The uses and abuses of urbanism’(art. cit. n. 8) regarding the transformative role of the state in various Balkan contexts with, for Anatolia in the late third century, those to be found in Roueché, C., ‘Floreat Perge!’, Images of authority (The Cambridge Philological Society, supplementary vol. 16, [1989], 206–28 Google Scholar.

11. Besides the literature cited at nn. 7-9 above see too Poulter, A., ‘Town and country in Moesia inferior’, Ancient Bulgaria II, ed., Poulter, A. (Nottingham 1983) 74–118 Google Scholar; Goceva, Z., ‘Der thrakische Festungsbau und sein Fortleben im spàtantiken Fortifikationssystem in Thrakien’, in: Hermann, J., Kõpstein, H., Miiller, R. edd., Griechenland — Byzanz — Europa (Berlin 1985) 97–108 Google Scholar; Dunn, A., ‘Frompolis to kastron in southern Macedonia: Amphipolis, Khrysoupolis, and the Strymon Delta’, Castrum V. Archéologie de l’habitat fortifié. Archéologie des espaces agraires méditerranéens au Moyen Age (Madrid/Rome Google Scholar, in press). For the literary evidence of the role of the state see Velkov, V., ‘La construction en Thrace à l’époque du Bas-Empire (d’après les écrits), idem, Roman cities in Bulgaria (Amsterdam 1980) 263–275 Google Scholar. For a case-study of dispersal from a large low-lying polis see reports upon the archaeology of the surroundings of the polis (civitas) of Scupi: Mikulcic, ‘Über die Gròsse der spàtantiken Stàdte’, 208-12, and Causidis, N., ‘Novootkrieni docnoantifcki tvrdini na Skopska Crna Gora’, Macedoniae Acta Archaeologica 10 (1985-1986) 183–97 Google Scholar, with the bibliography of several projects (particularly that at ‘Markovi Kuli’/Vodno, reported in the same periodical). See also Mikulcic, ‘Über die Grosse …’ 201-202 for evidence of a similar dispersal around Heraclea Lyncestis. There can be no doubt that investigations effected at the same scale as these would identify the phenomenon throughout northern Greece. See for instance Bakhuizen, S. — Geschnitzer, F. — Habricht, C. — Marzolff, P., Demetrias V (Bonn 1987) 228–29 Google Scholar for the possibilities in southwestern Macedonia. It is probably detectable too among the many fortified upland sites reported by John Fossey in his topographical studies of Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris. But it is not obvious in the Péloponnèse.

12. A vast subject which cannot be broached here, for which syntheses become ever harder to imagine. For the Balkans of course the ‘classic’ study would be Dyggve, E., History of Salonitan Christianity (Oslo 1951 Google Scholar), beyond which it cannot be said that Christian Archaeology progressed to a new analysis in the proceedings of the tenth international congress of Christian Archaeology (1980), devoted to Eastern Illyricum in Late Antiquity. Balkan case-studies were absent from an earlier approach which used as its organising concept that of the ‘Heilige Stadt’: Claude, D., Die byzan-tinische Stadt im 6. Jahrhundert (Munich 1969) 208–19 Google Scholar. Meanwhile the excavations of Thessalonike, Amphipolis, and Philippi would seem to provide the opportunity for new studies, and in the case of Thessalonike christianisation of the foci of communal life has been very much the focus of the research of Vickers, Bakirtzis, and Spieser. See Spieser, J.-M., Thessalonique et ses monuments du IV au Vf siècle. Contribution à l’étude d’une ville paléochrétienne (Paris 1984)Google Scholar.

13. Brandes, W., Die Stàdie Kleinasiens im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (BBA 56. Berlin/Amsterdam 1989)Google Scholar.

14. See for a preliminary summary of numerous projects in Aegean Thrace Bakirtzis, Kh., ‘Western Thrace in the Early Christian and Byzantine periods: results of archaeological research and the prospects, 1973-1987’, BF 14 (1989) 41–58 Google Scholar.

15. Of epigraphy and topography, yes. But one looks in vain for a reference to an excavation-report in Jones’ The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (for instance in the section on Thrace: 1-27 and 375-81 of the second edition of 1971), or in his The Later Roman Empire (II, ch. 19, ‘The cities’, or in the references: III, 225-47), or in the related work The decline ‘of the ancient world.

16. Jones, as cited, note 15 above.

17. A good recent example of this general approach to the explanation of change in the Balkan context would be Pallas, D., ‘Corinthe et Nikopolis pendant le bas moyen-âge’, Felix Ravenna 118 (1979) 93–142 Google Scholar.

18. See his (Athens 1965) 39-50, and his ‘La grande brèche dans la tradition historique de l’Hellénisme du septième au neuvième siècle’, (Athens 1966), I, 300-327, for the framework within which Greek archaeologists have in practice, if not explicitly, operated.

19. See for instance Kh. Bakirtzis, (Athens 1989) 695-710; idem, ‘A propos de la destruction de la basilique paléochrétienne de Kipia (Pangée)’, in Karayannopoulos, J., Les Slaves en Macédoine (Athens 1989)32–38 Google Scholar; idem, (Athens 1989) 339-341.1 would like to acknowledge here the thoughtfulness of Kharalampos Bakirtzis in providing me with the almost unobtainable Les slaves en Macédoine.

20. One thinks for instance of the old excavations of Amphipolis, by Stikas, E. (reported in the Praktika tis arkhaiologikis etaireias from 1962 to 1981), or of the excavations of Lazaridis, P. at Phthiotic Thebes (reported in the same periodical from 1959 onwards), both projects pursued over decades without discussion of an interpretative frameworkGoogle Scholar.

21. A very rare case of the opposite is that of Scupi (Skopje), as cited at n. 11. But this will change as surveys of the hinterlands of excavated, or surveyed, urban centres advance (in the former category, Corinth and Sardis; in the latter, Thespiai and Yettos in Boeotia).

22. A complaint made for instance about the works of the great Bulgarian scholar Velkov in Beševliev, V., ‘Les cités antiques en Mésie et en Thrace et leur sort à l’époque du haut Moyen Age’, Études Balkaniques 5 (1966, 207–20 Google Scholar) 207. Honourable exceptions to this rule are the much-criticised studies of Clive Foss.

23. For instance Frances, E., ‘La ville byzantine et la monnaie auz VIIe-VIIP siècles’, Byzantinobulgarica 2 (1966)3–14 Google Scholar; Brandes, , Stàdie Kleinasiens (op. cit. n. 13)Google Scholar.

24. A point which was nevertheless understood before the non-urban record began to be seriously reported: see Spieser, J.-M., ‘La ville en Grèce du IIP au VIIe siècle’, Villes et peuplement, 315–40 Google Scholar.

25. One thinks particularly of the studies of MikuliSc and Poulter as cited; of Soustal, P., Tabula Imperii Byzantini 3. Nikopolis undKephallënia (Vienna 1981), and idem, T.I.B. 6. Thrakien (Vienna 1991)Google Scholar; or of a small-scale project, Koder, J., ‘The urban character of the Early Byzantine empire: some reflections on a settlement-geographical approach to the topic’, The 17th International Congress of Byzantine Studies. Major Papers (Washington D.C. 1986) 155–187 Google Scholar.

26. The point is well argued with specific reference to historians’ interpretations of the term kastron by Brandes, Stàdie Kleinasiens (op. cit. n. 13) 28.

27. See for instance Dagron, G., ‘Les villes dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin’, Villes et peuplement 1–19 Google Scholar, and Lemerle, P., ‘Conclusion’, op. cit. 501–521 Google Scholar.

28. See Keller, D. — Rupp, D. ed., Archaeological survey in the Mediterranean area (British Archaeological Reports, I.S. 155, 1983)Google Scholar, for many such agendas.

29. For a discussion of the conflict between the agendas of intensive surveys and the need to study Byzantine settlements from other perspectives see Dunn, A., ‘Historical and archaeological indicators of economic change in Middle Byzantine Boeotia and their problems’, in: (in press)Google Scholar.

30. Každan, A., ‘Vizantiiskie goroda v VII-IX vv.’, Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 21 (1954) 164–88, particularly 166–73 Google Scholar. Každan develops his arguments about demonetisation in his ‘Moneta e società’, La cultura bizantina: oggetti e messaggio. Moneta ed economia (Rome 1986) 203-236, see 208-18.

31. For this debate see now for convenience Brandes, Städie Kleinasiens 19, nn. 1-4.

32. One thinks particularly of his well known monographs about Sardis and Ephesus, of his study of Ankara — DOP. 31 (1977) 27-87 — and the study of the fate of the ‘twenty cities’ (i.e., civic urban centres) — AJA. 81 (1977) 469-486.

33. P. Grierson, ‘Coinage and money in the Byzantine empire, 498-c. 1090’, Moneta e scambi neW alto medioevo (Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi suir alto medioevo Vili, Spoleto 1961) 411-453; idem, ‘Commerce in the Dark Ages: a critique of the evidence’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 9/5 (1959) 123-40; M. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c. 300-1450 (Cambridge 1985) section 7 (iv) & (v) and 619 ff.; also the contributions of Grierson, Morrison, Durliat, and Každan, to La cultura bizantina: oggetti e messaggio. Moneta ed economia (Rome 1986).

34. For instance J. Hayes, ‘Problèmes de la céramique des VIIe-IXe siècles à Salamine et à Chypre’, Salamine de Chypre. Histoire et archéologie. État des recherches (Paris 1980) 375-80; P. Arthur, ‘Amphorae and the Byzantine world’, in: J.-Y. Empereur-Y. Garlan edd., Recherches sur les amphores grecs (Paris 1986) 655-660; idem, ‘Aspects of Byzantine economy: an evaluation of amphora evidence from Italy’, in: V. Déroche — J.-M. Spieser, Recherches sur les céramiques byzantines (Paris 1989) 79-91; C. Abadie-Reynal, ‘Céramique et commerce dans le bassin égéen du IVe au VIIe siècle’, in: Hommes et richesses dans l’empire byzantin I: IV — VIF siècles (Paris 1989) 143-159.

35. See above all Brandes, Stàdie Kleinasiens 81-111.

36. The recent study by Whittow, M., for instance, ‘Ruling the Late Roman and Early Byzantine city: a continuous history’, Past and Present 129 (1990) 3–29 Google Scholar, in stressing the evidence of the wealth of the traditional urban centres of the eastern provinces until the end of the sixth century does not affect this argument one way or the other.

37. For instance Brandes, W., ‘Ephesos in byzantinischer Zeit’, Klio 64 (1982) 611–622 Google Scholar.

38. For the Balkans, N.W., Bulgaria, , and F.Y.R.O.M. see nn. 7-9 and 11 above; for Albania see for convenience Popović, V., ‘Byzantins, Slaves, et autochthones dans les provinces de Prévalitane et Nouvelle Épire’, Villes et peuplement 181–243 Google Scholar.

39. See Mikulčić, , ‘Frühchristlicher Kirchenbau’ 227. An analysis of the data assembled in Papazoglou, F., Les villes de Macédoine à l’époque romaine (Paris 1988) 185–206 and 351–442 Google Scholar regarding southern Macedonia would produce a similar reduction by half in the number of civic urban settlements.

40. For the dissonance between, on the one hand, real imperial priorities and the settlements and communities which could develop in the conditions of the sixth century, and, on the other hand, the supposed roles of an imperial foundation, see Popović, I., ‘Les activités professionelles …’, Caričin Grad II (Belgrade/Rome 1990) 303–306 Google Scholar.

41. Points to be developed in a forthcoming study.

42. See Haldon, , Byzantium in the seventh century 95–98 Google Scholar for a synopsis of this process which pursues it into the early seventh century.

43. For probable examples see Foss, C., Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia I: Kütahya (British Archaeological Reports, I.S. 261, 1985) 95–98 Google Scholar, plus plan, unnumbered in fine (the site of Altintas.), and 119-21 (the site of Saruhanlar).

44. Haldon, Byzantium in the seventh century, ch. 3.

45. For instance Romuliana (‘Gamzigrad’), built by the emperor Galerius, and Split, built by Diocletian: Wilkes, J., Diocletian’s Palace, Split: Residence of a Retired Roman Emperor (Sheffield 1986 Google Scholar).

46. The process was nevertheless under way in third-century Anatolia: see Roueché, art. cit. n. 10.

47. See now Brandes, Stadie Kleinasiens, eh. III.

48. That is, only from the fifth century onwards, e.g. at Stobi (Mikulčić, ‘Über die Gròsse’, 198, with further references). It is important to distinguish this phase of urban disintegration, which eventually affected all differentiated settlements, from the selective abandonments (displacements) of the third and fourth centuries.

49. The later seventh, and sometimes the eighth, centuries are emerging from complete obscurity in the preliminary and final reports of the excavations of Corinth, Gortyn, Kourion, Anemourion, Crimean Kherson, and ‘Emporio’/Khios, all coastal or insular sites. But it is not yet possible to look into the vast Balkan and Anatolian ‘hinterlands’ (I exclude for this purpose the excavations of the settlements of the Bulgar Khaganate, such as Pliska), or beyond this timeframe, other than in the way so well deployed by Brandes (Stàdie Kleinasiens, eh. V), that is, using written sources and essentially topographical data (regarding the sizes and situations of sites as they changed).