Editing Late antiquity (section)

==Cities==
The later Roman Empire was in a sense a network of cities. Archaeology now supplements literary sources to document the transformation followed by collapse of cities in the [[Mediterranean basin]]. Two diagnostic symptoms of decline—or as many historians prefer, 'transformation'—are subdivision, particularly of expansive formal spaces in both the ''[[domus]]'' and the public [[basilica]], and encroachment, in which artisans' shops invade the public thoroughfare, a transformation that was to result in the ''[[souk]]'' (marketplace).<ref>'The changing city' in "Urban changes and the end of Antiquity", Averil Cameron, ''The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, CE 395–600'', 1993:159ff, with notes; Hugh Kennedy, "From Polis to Madina: urban change in late Antique and early Islamic Syria", ''Past and Present'' '''106''' (1985:3–27).</ref> Burials within the urban precincts mark another stage in dissolution of traditional urbanistic discipline, overpowered by the attraction of saintly shrines and relics. In [[Roman Britain]], the typical 4th- and 5th-century layer of [[dark earth]] within cities seems to be a result of increased gardening in formerly urban spaces.<ref>{{cite book|author-link=H. R. Loyn|first = Henry Royston|last = Loyn|title =Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest|date = 1991|publisher = Longman|isbn = 9780582072978|volume =1 |series = Social and economic history of England}}</ref>

The city of Rome went from a population of 800,000 in the beginning of the period to a population of 30,000 by the end of the period, the most precipitous drop coming with the breaking of the [[Roman aqueducts|aqueducts]] during the [[Gothic War (535–554)|Gothic War]]. A similar though less marked decline in urban population occurred later in Constantinople, which was gaining population until the outbreak of the [[Plague of Justinian]] in 541. In Europe there was also a general decline in urban populations. As a whole, the period of late antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe, and a reversion to more of a subsistence economy. Long-distance markets disappeared, and there was a reversion to a greater degree of local production and consumption, rather than webs of commerce and specialized production.<ref>See [[Bryan Ward-Perkins]], ''The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization'', OUP 2005</ref> 

[[File:Ephesus Curetes street.jpg|thumb|View west along the Harbour Street towards the [[Library of Celsus]] in [[Ephesus]], present-day [[Turkey]]. The pillars on the left side of the street were part of the [[colonnade]]d walkway apparent in cities of late antique [[Asia Minor]].]]
Concurrently, the continuity of the Eastern Roman Empire at [[Constantinople]] meant that the turning-point for the [[Greek East]] came later, in the 7th century, as the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire centered around the [[Balkans]], North Africa ([[Egypt (Roman province)|Egypt]] and [[Praetorian prefecture of Africa|Carthage]]), and [[Asia Minor]]. The cities in the East were still lively stages for political participation and remained important for background for religious and political disputes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fafinski |first=Mateusz |date=2024-04-04 |title=A Restless City: Edessa and Urban Actors in the Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09503110.2024.2331915 |journal=Al-Masāq |language=en |pages=1–25 |doi=10.1080/09503110.2024.2331915 |issn=0950-3110|doi-access=free }}</ref> The degree and extent of discontinuity in the smaller cities of the Greek East is a moot subject among historians.<ref>Bibliography in Averil Cameron, ''The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, CE 395–600'', 1993:152 note 1.</ref> The urban continuity of Constantinople is the outstanding example of the Mediterranean world; of the two great cities of lesser rank, [[Antioch]] was devastated by the Persian sack of 540, followed by the [[plague of Justinian]] (542 onwards) and completed by earthquake, while [[Alexandria]] survived its Islamic transformation, to suffer incremental decline in favour of [[Cairo]] in the medieval period.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Frenkel |first=Miriam |date=2014-01-02 |title=Medieval Alexandria – Life in a Port City |url=https://academia.edu/37006370/ |journal=Al-Masāq |language=en |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=5–35 |doi=10.1080/09503110.2014.877194 |issn=0950-3110 |via=Academia.edu}}</ref>

Justinian rebuilt his birthplace in [[Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum|Illyricum]], as ''Justiniana Prima'', more in a gesture of ''imperium'' than out of an urbanistic necessity; another "city", was reputed to have been founded, according to [[Procopius]]' panegyric on Justinian's buildings,<ref>Procopius, ''[[De aedificiis|Buildings of Justinian]]'' VI.6.15; ''Vandal Wars'' I.15.3ff, noted by Cameron 1993:158.</ref> precisely at the spot where the general [[Belisarius]] touched shore in North Africa: the miraculous spring that gushed forth to give them water and the rural population that straightway abandoned their ploughshares for civilised life within the new walls, lend a certain taste of unreality to the project.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

In mainland Greece, the inhabitants of [[History of Sparta|Sparta]], [[Ancient Argos|Argos]] and [[Ancient Corinth|Corinth]] abandoned their cities for fortified sites in nearby high places; the fortified heights of [[Acrocorinth]] are typical of Byzantine urban sites in Greece. In Italy, populations that had clustered within reach of [[Roman road]]s began to withdraw from them, as potential avenues of intrusion, and to rebuild in typically constricted fashion round an isolated fortified promontory, or ''[[Rocca (architecture)|rocca]]''; Cameron notes similar movement of populations in the Balkans, 'where inhabited centres contracted and regrouped around a defensible [[acropolis]], or were abandoned in favour of such positions elsewhere."<ref>Cameron 1993:159.</ref>

[[File:Roman cavalry - Big Game Hunt mosaic - Villa Romana del Casale - Italy 2015.JPG|thumb|left|upright=1.35|[[Roman cavalry]] from a [[mosaic]] of the [[Villa Romana del Casale]], [[Sicilia (Roman province)|Sicily]], 4th century CE]]
In the western Mediterranean, the only new cities known to be founded in Europe between the 5th and 8th centuries<ref>"Arte Visigótico: Recópolis"</ref> were the four or five [[Visigoth]]ic "victory cities".<ref>According to E. A Thompson, "The Barbarian Kingdoms in Gaul and Spain", ''Nottingham Mediaeval Studies'', '''7''' (1963:4n11).</ref> [[Reccopolis]] in the [[Guadalajara (province)|province of Guadalajara]] is one: the others were ''Victoriacum'', founded by [[Leovigild]], which may survive as the city of [[Vitoria-Gasteiz|Vitoria]], though a 12th-century (re)foundation for this city is given in contemporary sources; ''Lugo id est Luceo'' in the [[Asturias]], referred to by [[Isidore of Seville]], and ''Ologicus'' (perhaps ''Ologitis''), founded using [[Basques|Basque]] labour in 621 by [[Suinthila]] as a fortification against the Basques, modern [[Olite]]. All of these cities were founded for military purposes and at least Reccopolis, Victoriacum, and Ologicus in celebration of victory. A possible fifth Visigothic foundation is ''Baiyara'' (perhaps modern [[Montoro]]), mentioned as founded by Reccared in the 15th-century geographical account, ''[[Kitab al-Rawd al-Mitar]]''.<ref>José María Lacarra, "Panorama de la historia urbana en la Península Ibérica desde el siglo V al X," ''La città nell'alto medioevo'', '''6''' (1958:319–358). Reprinted in ''Estudios de alta edad media española'' (Valencia: 1975), pp. 25–90.</ref> The arrival of a highly urbanized Islamic culture in the decade following 711 ensured the survival of cities in the ''Hispaniae'' into the Middle Ages.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

Beyond the Mediterranean world, the cities of [[Gaul]] withdrew within a constricted line of defense around a citadel. Former imperial capitals such as [[Cologne]] and [[Trier]] lived on in diminished form as administrative centres of the [[Franks]]. In [[Roman Britain|Britain]] most towns and cities had been in decline, apart from a brief period of recovery during the fourth century, well before the withdrawal of Roman governors and garrisons but the process might well have stretched well into the fifth century.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fafinski |first=Mateusz |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/roman-infrastructure-in-early-medieval-britain/E7FC0BD5F8164A5B57464A84440EE766 |title=Roman infrastructure in early medieval Britain: the adaptations of the past in text and stone |date=2021 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |isbn=978-90-485-5197-2 |series=Early medieval North Atlantic |location=Amsterdam |pages=87–91 |access-date=2024-04-15 |archive-date=2024-04-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240416192025/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/roman-infrastructure-in-early-medieval-britain/E7FC0BD5F8164A5B57464A84440EE766 |url-status=live }}</ref> Historians emphasizing urban continuities with the [[History of Anglo-Saxon England|Anglo-Saxon period]] depend largely on the post-Roman survival of Roman [[toponymy]]. Aside from a mere handful of its continuously inhabited sites, like [[York]] and [[London]] and possibly [[Canterbury]], however, the rapidity and thoroughness with which its urban life collapsed with the dissolution of centralized bureaucracy calls into question the extent to which [[Roman Britain]] had ever become authentically urbanized: "in [[Roman Britain]] towns appeared a shade exotic," observes [[H. R. Loyn]], "owing their reason for being more to the military and administrative needs of Rome than to any economic virtue".<ref>Loyn 1991:15f.</ref> The other institutional power centre, the [[Roman villa]], did not survive in Britain either.<ref name="auto">Loyn 1991:16.</ref> [[Gildas]] lamented the destruction of the twenty-eight cities of Britain; though not all in his list can be identified with known Roman sites, Loyn finds no reason to doubt the essential truth of his statement.<ref name="auto"/>

[[Classical antiquity]] can generally be defined as an age of cities; the Greek [[polis]] and Roman [[municipium]] were locally organised, self-governing bodies of citizens governed by written constitutions. When Rome came to dominate the known world, local initiative and control were gradually subsumed by the ever-growing Imperial bureaucracy; by the [[Crisis of the Third Century]] the military, political and economic demands made by the Empire made the service in local government to be an onerous duty, often imposed as punishment.<ref>{{Cite thesis |title=Freiheitsbeschränkungen der Dekurionen in der Spätantike |publisher=Olms |date=2014 |place=Hildesheim |isbn=9783487151540 |first=Alexander |last=Baumann}}</ref> Harassed urban dwellers fled to the walled estates of the wealthy to avoid taxes, military service, famine and disease. In the Western Roman Empire especially, many cities destroyed by invasion or civil war in the 3rd century could not be rebuilt. Plague and famine hit the urban class in greater proportion, and thus the people who knew how to keep civic services running. Perhaps the greatest blow came in the wake of the [[extreme weather events of 535–536]] and subsequent [[Plague of Justinian]], when the remaining trade networks ensured the Plague spread to the remaining commercial cities. The impact of this outbreak of plague has recently been disputed.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Mordechai|first1=Lee|last2=Eisenberg|first2=Merle|last3=Newfield|first3=Timothy P.|last4=Izdebski|first4=Adam|last5=Kay|first5=Janet E.|last6=Poinar|first6=Hendrik|date=2019-11-27|title=The Justinianic Plague: An inconsequential pandemic?|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=116|issue=51|pages=25546–25554|language=en|doi=10.1073/pnas.1903797116|issn=0027-8424|pmid=31792176|pmc=6926030|bibcode=2019PNAS..11625546M |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Mordechai|first1=Lee|last2=Eisenberg|first2=Merle|date=2019-08-01|title=Rejecting Catastrophe: The Case of the Justinianic Plague|journal=Past & Present|language=en|issue=244|pages=3–50|doi=10.1093/pastj/gtz009|issn=0031-2746}}</ref> The end of [[classical antiquity]] is the end of the polis model. While there was a decline of urban life in late antiquity (especially in the West) the epoch brought with it new forms of political participation in the urban spaces as well.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fafinski |first=Mateusz |date=2024-04-04 |title=A Restless City: Edessa and Urban Actors in the Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus |journal=Al-Masāq |language=en |pages=1–25 |doi=10.1080/09503110.2024.2331915 |issn=0950-3110|doi-access=free }}</ref> Especially the role of crowds and masses in cities has increased, leading to new levels of tension.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Magalhães de Oliveira |first=Juan Caesar |title=Late Antiquity: The Age of Crowds?* |url=https://academic.oup.com/past/article/249/1/3/5819584 |journal=Past and Present |issue=1 |pages=3–52}}</ref>

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| image1 = Cambridge, Trinity College, ms. O.17.2 (11).jpg
| alt1 = Side view of the Column of Arcadius, with carved reliefs of scenes and figures on the pedestal, on the socle and spiralling up the column shaft, capped by a capital and a statue's empty plinth
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| image2 = Cambridge, Trinity College, ms. O.17.2 (12).jpg
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| image3 = Cambridge, Trinity College, ms. O.17.2 (13).jpg
| alt2 = Side view of the Column of Arcadius, with carved reliefs of scenes and figures on the pedestal, on the socle and spiralling up the column shaft, capped by a capital and a statue's empty plinth. A door is visible in the top-most section.
| alt3 = Side view of the Column of Arcadius, with carved reliefs of scenes and figures on the pedestal, on the socle and spiralling up the column shaft, capped by a capital and a statue's empty plinth. A door at ground level giving access to the spiral staircase within is visible.
| footer = Library of [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]: ms. O.17.2 (the "Freshfield album"), folios 11–13
| header = [[Column of Arcadius]], Constantinople (built 401–421)
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=== Public building ===
In the cities the strained economies of Roman over-expansion arrested growth. Almost all new public building in late antiquity came directly or indirectly from the emperors or imperial officials. Attempts were made to maintain what was already there. The supply of free grain and oil to 20% of the population of Rome remained intact the last decades of the 5th century. It was once thought that the elite and rich had withdrawn to the private luxuries of their numerous [[villa]]s and town houses. Scholarly opinion has revised this. They monopolized the higher offices in the imperial administration, but they were removed from military command by the late 3rd century. Their focus turned to preserving their vast wealth rather than fighting for it.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The [[basilica]], which had functioned as a law court or for imperial reception of foreign dignitaries, became the primary public building in the 4th century. Due to the stress on civic finances, cities spent money on walls, maintaining baths and markets at the expense of amphitheaters, temples, libraries, porticoes, gymnasia, concert and lecture halls, theaters and other amenities of public life. In any case, as Christianity took over, many of these buildings which were associated with pagan cults were neglected in favor of building churches and donating to the poor. The Christian basilica was copied from the civic structure with variations. The bishop took the chair in the apse reserved in secular structures for the magistrate—or the Emperor himself—as the representative here and now of [[Christ Pantocrator]], the Ruler of All, his characteristic late antique [[icon]]. These ecclesiastical basilicas (e.g., [[St. John Lateran]] and [[St. Peter's Basilica|St. Peter's]] in Rome) were themselves outdone by Justinian's [[Hagia Sophia]], a staggering display of later Roman/Byzantine power and architectural taste, though the building is not architecturally a basilica. In the former Western Roman Empire almost no great buildings were constructed from the 5th century. A most outstanding example is the [[Basilica of San Vitale]] in Ravenna constructed {{circa|530}} at a cost of 26,000 gold [[solidus (coin)|solid]]i or 360 [[Roman pound]]s of gold.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

City life in the East, though negatively affected by the plague in the 6th–7th centuries, finally collapsed due to Slavic invasions in the Balkans and
Persian destructions in Anatolia in the 620s. City life continued in Syria, Jordan and Palestine into the 8th. In the later 6th century street construction was still undertaken in [[Caesarea Maritima]] in Palestine,<ref>Robert L. Vann, "Byzantine street construction at Caesarea Maritima", in R.L. Hohlfelder, ed. ''City, Town and Countryside in the Early Byzantine Ear'' 1982:167–70.</ref> and [[Edessa, Mesopotamia|Edessa]] was able to deflect [[Chosroes I]] with massive payments in gold in 540 and 544, before it was overrun in 609.<ref>M. Whittow, "Ruling the late Roman and early Byzantine city: a continuous history", ''Past and Present'' '''129''' (1990:3–29).</ref>