Ancient Cities
Bookmark this page

DEFINITION OF ANCIENT CITY

• Physical: temples, colonnaded streets, theatres – differing different regions
• Political and cultural contexts: institutions, entertainments, arts, festivals – self-governed by the curiale classes – Roman cities relied on for culture, government, fiscality (Cameron) tiny percentage total population.  Dependent on rural hinterland for wealth agrarian base
•  

WHEN?

• 6^th 7^th century ending of political characteristics – no evidence curiale activity after 590
• Balkans: Stobbi, Nicopolis no sings of urban life at all, but more common is a fortification of a much contracted city area – Rome and Constantinople
• Cameron – significant change before 6^th century – local factors but also deep-seated social and economic change (Luni Italy declines as marble resources run out)
• Major Cities – Asia Minor (Ephesus, Sardis) still enjoy late antique civil life until Persian invasions – Whittow cites silver at Edessa 6^th century as sign prosperity

WHY?

EVENTS

• 6^th century – plagues, invasions, wars, locusts and earthquakes – Mango cites plague 542 severe demographic effects
• Famine: poor infrastructure meant only temporary shortages sustained, could no move surpluses around – Edessa 180 a day die of starvation – Mango: rising price of wheat main reason urban to rural migration
• Sacking and Invasion: Sirmium never recovered after Hunnic sack and deserted after Avar invasion 582 – Balkan towns especially contraction city around walls Sparta for example
• Accelerate Trends of 3^rd Century: depopulation countryside,  - invasions don’t lead to abandonment but failure to reoccupy or rebuild Need for security leads to walls and citadels
• NOT PRIMARY REASONS FOR FALL OF THE CITY, MAY HAVE HASTENED FALL IN INDIVIDUAL CASES

RURALIZATION OF POWERFUL ELITES

·        Role of Curiales: until 4^th century at least honour to part of curiale class self-administer city – wealthy compete for status with public munificence: temples, theatres etc. Cameron – decline as power provincial governor increases. Peak munificence 3^rd century

·        Burden on Curiales: Burden of collecting tax for imperial regime increasing as war campaigning and bureaucracy increased – loss of one third personal income.  Financial pressure became too much – curiale members into clergy, ascetic life, enlarged imperial administration (tax immunity).  New curiales less well off and ale to maintain and create public munificence.  Liebeschetze links right back to Diocletian,  Curiales become more oligarchic Whittow curiales merely an institutional arrangement, underlying strength of rural elites masks more structural changes

·        Decline of Education: 726 contemporary source “extinction of schools”, by end 6^th century higher education v. few cities

·        Move to Countryside: city not survive without richest and most educated citizens – spent time villas by 5^th century can fortify land (Edicius 471 Visigoths) – evidence artisans moving away due to collegia tax.

·        Evidence for Ruralization: little empirical evidence increase rural population, increase church building 5^th and 6^th centuries implies elite in cities.

·        Rural-Civic Dynamic: Dynamic city and surrounding countryside changed – Liebveschetz argues decline Roman tax system and fact that army recruited increasingly from peasantry suggests that integration city and surrounding countryside finished – L sees this relationship as principle character ancient city – in East still have agricultural markets.  As civic territories split up – villages become centres of administration – monasteries in countryside, also rural forts, strengthen economic position of the villages.

·        Age of Disasters: - 549 plagues, wars, internecine wars, invasion, city council diminish – stability restored by Carolingians in West and Leo III in East – admin no longer based in administrative units, urban centres no longer survived as centres for rural civic territory. End of the Ancient City involved the emancipation of the countryside

ECONOMIC

• Taxes in kind, supplies to army, if traders no longer dealing in goods then decline of city inevitable
• Survival Full Urbanism linked to continuation of money economy and trade – survival cities Aquitaine paralleled by coinage
• Increasing risk of long distance trade lessens trading as way of life

CHRISTIANISATION

• Church Building: Cultural landscape had changed which in turn changes the physical landscape – rich benefactors cajoled into donating for monasteries and churches not temples and theatres.  Move from secular to religious civil pride – Selukia uses Christian (saint) identity.  Cameron Thessaloniki 7^th century urban life no less vital.
• Church Administration: Bishop and clergy took on role of administering the city, in some cases acting as social security system.  Liebeschuetze sees focus on single bishop as leader as a positive development for cities.
• The Church and Classical Features Urban City – church views with suspicion classic features ancient city – theatre, hippodrome, aversion to public entertainment – theological phenomenon or attempt to get church attendance increased.  Greaco-Roman feature of unity survives in guise of ecclesiastical leader.

ISLAMICISATION

• Mosques as political / social centre: linked in with educational and legal features
• Nature of Islam: emphasis on family, private space.  Public space dependent on civic authority to maintain it – Islamic state more minimalist than Roman one – encroachment
• Commerce: Islamic culture views commerce more meritorious than governmental work – see development retail alleys, suqs, expense colonnaded streets
• CULTURAL CHANGES HAD FIRECT PHYSICAL EFFECTS

CHANGE NOT DECLINE?

• Decline: Historians see decline from classical ideal of ancient city to urban squalor of the islamicised city – vaue judgements.  What about vibrant Islamic cities of Aleppo and Damascus.
• THE TRANSFORMATION OF CITIES, NOT THE DELCINE, WHILST ENDING GREAT CLASSICAL TRADITION WAS REGENERATIVE AS WELL AS DESTRUCTIVE

HISTORIANS’ INTERPRETATIONS

• Cameron: By late 6^th century cities experiencing fundamental changes – impact of the church, not in decline or being broken up
• Hodges and Whitehouse: Trade, cities, rural settlement, population levels collapse in 5^th century West Barbarians, 6^th 7^th East wars of Justinians entropy of social and economic life autarkic settlements – but isn’t ancient city more about culturae and politics, decline secular administrative elites?
• Ward-Perkins: As state declines so does role of administration – continuity of location but not of function.
• Whittow: Argues for continuation cities, especially in the East – coinage, change cultural attitudes
• Kennedy Political chaos and economic decline effectively destroy classical citiesm elite into rural areas, villas, monasteries then castles – continuity location in east but physical appearance changes.

Other Notes in this Category

1. Ancient Cities
2. Carolignian Period
3. Charles the Bald
4. Chronology of Byzantium and Persia
5. Dynasty of Theodosius I and Barbarians in the West
6. French and British Agriculture
7. Islamic Conquests up to 700 a.d. - Islamic Strenghts / Roman Weaknesses?
8. Islamic Conquests up to 700 a.d. - Islamic Strenghts / Roman Weaknesses?
9. MOHAMMED, CHARLEMAGEN AND THE ORIGINS OF EUROPE
10. New Centres of Power in the 8th and Ninth Century
11. Peace and War - Rome and Persia - 5-7th Centuries
12. Practice Questions
13. The Age of Attila
14. The Decline of the Ancient World
15. The Mediterranean and the Dilemma of the Roman Empire in Late antiquity
16. Warfare
17. Was successful Kingship in Merovingian Gaul simply a matter of being an effective and lucky war leader?
18. Why did the western empire fall when the east survived?

Didn't find this useful?

• Visit Coursework.Info for over 14,000 GCSE, A-Level and University Essays