The Greek census inscriptions of late antiquity

Journal of Roman Studies

Volumn 98, Issue , 2008, Pages 83-119

  Harper, Kyle ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA   (United States)

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EID: 61249718301     PISSN: 00754358     EISSN: 1753528X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3815/007543508786239661     Document Type: Article

References (139)

1. A. Déléage, La capitation du Bas-Empire (1945), 190-4.
2. HYPAIPA: J. Keil and A. Prcmerstein,'Bericht über eine dritte Reise in Lydienund den angrenzenden Gebietcn Ioniens', Kaiserliche Akademie Der Wissenscbaften, philosopbisch-historische Klasse, Denkscbriften 57 (1914), nos 85-7;
3. S. Charitonides, Hai Epigraphai tēs Lesion:symplērōma (1968), no. 17;
4. E. Erxleben, 'Zur Katasrcrinschrift Mytilene IG XII 2, 77', Klio 51 (1969), 311-23;
5. R. Parker and H. Williams, 'A fragment of a Diocletianic tax assessment from Mytilene', EMC 39 (1995), 267-73.
6. E. Geroussi-Bendermacher, 'Propriété foncière et inventaire d'esclaves: Un tcxte inédit De Perissa (Thera) tardo-antique', in V. Anastasiadis and P. Doukellis (eds), Esclavage antique et discriminations socio cultutrelles (2005), 335-58.
7. P. Thonemann, 'Estates and the land in Late Roman Asia Minor', Chiron 37 (2007), 435-77, provides a new edition of the inscriptions from Tralles and Astypalaīa, along with some new readings for Magnesia, Thera, and Lesbos. I thank Dr Thonemann for generously making his work available to me in advance, and I have benefited from his careful study.
8. A. H. M. Jones, 'Census records of the Later Roman Empire', JRS 43 (1953), 49-64;
9. J. Karayannopulos, Das Finanzwesen des frühbyzantinischen Staates (1958), 43-53;
10. A. Cerati, Caractère annonaire et assiette De l'impôt fancier au Bas-Empire (1975), 244-60;
11. W. Goffart, Caput and Colonate: Towards a History of Late Roman Taxation (1974), 113-21;
12. R. Duncan-Jones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy (1990), 199-210;
13. G. Kiourtzian, 'Note sur l'inscription cadastrale IG XII 3, No 343 De Thèra', in E. Magnou-Nortier (ed.), Aux sources De La gestion publique (1993), vol. 1, 35-44.
14. Consequently, most historians have followed his presentation: e.g. M. Jameson et al., A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day (1994), 112;
15. C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 (2005), 277;
16. P. Sarris, Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian (2006);
17. A. Chavarria and T. Lewit, 'Archaeological research on the late antique countryside: a bibliographic essay', in W. Bowden, L. Lavan and C. Machado (eds), Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside (2004), 3-51;
18. J. Banaji, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labour, and Aristocratic Dominance (2001).
19. The reflections of A. Bowman, 'Landholding in the Hermopolitc nome in the fourth century A.D.', JRS 75 (1985), 137-63, on the Hermopolite land registers could be applied in this case: 'the result may be a greater rather than a lesser degree of uncertainty about many important issues. the picture is more complex, the developments more subtle and ambiguous than might once have appeared'.
20. For Insulae, see J. Marquardt, Rötuische Staatsverwaltung (1881), vol. 1, 348-9;
21. A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (1964), 375.
22. The province of Phrygia and Caria was separated from Asia already by the 250s A.D.: C. Roueché, 'Rome, Asia, and Aphrodisias in the third century', JRS 71 (1981), 103-20.
23. It is interesting that possibly in the mid-fourth century, and certainly in the early fifth, the positions of proconsul and vicar were combined: D. Feissel, 'Vicaires et proconsuls d'Asie du IVe au VIe siècle: remarqucs sur I'administration du diocèse asianique au bas-cmpire', Antiquité tardive 6 (1998), 91-104.
24. J.-M. Carrié, 'Dioclétien et La fiscalité', Antiquité Tardive 2 (1994), 33-64.
25. See Section IV, for the status of the labourers. J.-M. Carrié, '"Colonato del Basso-Impero": La resistenza del mito', in E. Lo Cascio (ed.), Terre, proprietari e contadini dell'Impero romano (1997), 75-150;
26. B. Sirks, 'Reconsidering the Roman colonate', ZRG no (1993), 331-62.
27. C. Grey, 'Contextualizing colonatus: the origo of the Late Roman Empire', JRS 97 (2007), 155-75, at 169.
28. See O. Seeck, Regesten Der Kaiser and Päpste für die Jahre 311 bis 476 n. Chr. (1919), 27, for the reasons it must be A.D. 371. I will argue below that the inscriptions and this law are connected to precisely the same census.
29. The secondary registers are from Astypalaia, Chios, Cos, Magnesia, Samos, and Tralles. A. H. M. Jones, 'Capitatio and Iugatio', JRS 47 (1957), 88-54, is a lucid discussion of fiscal assessment. The size of the iugum is considered in Section in.
30. T. R. R. Broughton, 'Roman Asia Minor', in T. Frank (ed.), ESAR 4 (1938), 914-15.
31. On the official suppression of paganism under Theodosius, see J. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (2000), 209-17.
32. The letter form is late also at Aphrodisias, C. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (1989), 332, with cautions about using late letter forms as a dating tool.
33. The fragments of A.D. 301 have been shown to concern a trust belonging to an association of woolsellers: Th. Drew Bear, 'An act of foundation at Hypaipa', Chiron 10 (1980), 509-36.
34. See also G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World (1999), 344.
35. A. Chaniotis, 'The Jews of Aphrodisias: new evidence and old problems', SCI 21 (2.002), 209-42, at 215.
36. Only some villagers at Hypaipa carried the name Aurelius, which is perhaps unsurprising for the sort of modest households attested here. Over the fourth century M. Aurelii disappear: cf. J. Reynolds and R. Tannenbaum, Jews and God-fearers at Aphrodisias (1987), 20.
37. R. Bagnall, 'Religious conversion and onomastic change in Early Byzantine Egypt', BASP 19 (1982), 105-24;
38. E. Wipszycka, 'La valeur De l'onomastique pour l'histoire De La christianisation De l'Egypte. A propos d'une étude De R. S. Bagnall', ZPE 62 (1986), 173-81;
39. R. Bagnall, 'Conversion and onomastics: a reply', ZPE 69 (1987), 243-50.
40. B. Salway, 'What's in a name? A survey of Roman onomastic practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700', JRS 84 (1994), 124-45, at 136. The names at Magnesia are more traditional, which might be expected among the conservative, landowning classes of a provincial town. Still, names ending in - are well represented.
41. D. Feissel, 'L'ordonnance du préfet Dionysios inscrite à Mylasa en Carie (Ier Août 480)', TM 12 (1994), 263-97;
42. The members of the senatorial order are Priscillianus, Capitolinus, Hermonactiane, Eutyches, Aristocleia. A senator, Attalus, appeared in a patronymic on Thera. These should be Easterners, since the landholdings of even the wealthiest members of the Western Senate in the fourth century were limited to the Western provinces: see especially D. Vera, 'Simmaco e le sue proprietà: Struttura e funzionamento di un patrimonio aristocratico del quarto secolo d.C.', in Atti del Colloque Genèi'ois sur Symmaque (1986), 231-70, at 243-5.
43. For the creation of the Eastern Senate, see G. Dagron, Naissance d'une capitate: Constantinople et ses institutions De 330 à 451 (1974), 119-210;
44. A. Chastagnol, 'Remarques sur les sénateurs orientaux dans le IVe siècle', AAntHung 24 (1976), 341-56.
45. 2 vol. 13 (1998), 184-210.
46. The stone for farms starting with the letter beta has thirty-seven farms. This is the nearest-complete stone, although another fragment shows that we are missing some 'betas'. Using the CIG as a database of place-names, Duncan-Jones estimated that beta should account for about 3.5 per cent of all place-names. Thus we have, at most, 8 per cent of the original, possibly less. There were also six to eight representatives of the curial order listed. The size of town councils varied, but if the number visible in the extant fragments was 8 per cent of the total, it would imply the right order of magnitude: for which see B. Salway, 'Prefects, patroni, and decurions', in A. Cooley (ed.), The Epigraphic Landscape of Roman Italy (2000), 115-71, at 127. Indeed, the small number of attested decurions strongly reinforces the inference that the original number of senators was also originally much larger.
47. The number of Greek senators grew throughout the second and especially the third centuries, as a coterie of old municipal elites from cities like Ephesus entered the order: see H. Halfmann, 'Die Senatoren aus den Klcinasiatischen Provinzen des römischen Reiches vom 1. bis 3.
48. Jahrhundert', in Epigrafia e ordine senatorio (1982) 2, 603-50;
49. H. Halfmann, Die Senatoren aus dem östlichen Teil des Imperium Romanian bis zum Ende des 2. Jh. n. Chr. (1979);
50. B. Remy, Les Carrières sénatoriales dans les provinces romaines d'Anatolie an haut empire (31 avant J.C.-284 après J.C.) (1989).
51. Mylasa: IGSK 34.1, no. 275:
52. A. Giardina and F. Grelle, 'La tavola di Trinitapoli. Una nuova costituzione di Valentiniano l', MEFRA 95 (1983), 249-303.
53. See P. Heather and J. Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century (1991), 13-26.
54. Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae 31.14.2: 'ut domum propriam'.
55. Curial role, see A. H. M. Jones, The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian (1940), 144;
56. J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (1972), 161-7.
57. R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993), 157-9.
58. cf. the Cappadocian fathers below). Seeck thought there were regular five-year censuses conducted throughout the fourth century, but the evidence he collected is unconvincing after the 320s A.D.: O. Seeck, 'Zur Entstehung des Indictioncyclus', Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswisscnschaft 12 (1894), 279-96;
59. noted by T. D. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (1982), 226-37.
60. A series of laws which mandated the careful recording of annual receipts against tax assessments emanated from the East over the next century. See Feissel, op. cit. (n. 32), 288.
61. A. Chastagnol, 'La législation sur les bicns des villes au IVe siècle à La lumière d'une inscription d'Ephèse', in AARC (1986), 77-104. His text is used. Lines 2-3: '[Quod ex red]itibus fundorum iuris re[i publicae, quo]s intra Asiam diversis quibusque civitatibus ad instaurand[am mojenium faci[cm pr]o certis | [partibu]s habita aestimationc concensimus.' Lines 11-13: 'Ha(n)c sani (sic) quia ratione plenissima, quod intra Asiam rei publica íuga esse videantur.'
62. PLRE I Modestus 2, 606-7. The laws in the Theodosian Code often descend from specific administrative contexts and were not, originally, 'general': J. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (2000), 66-71. The itinerary of Modestus might thus argue that the census was limited to Asia, Asiana, and Pontica. Modestus was made consul in A.D. 372.
63. T. A. Kopecek, 'The Cappadocian Fathers and civic patriotism', Church History 43 (1974), 293-303, collects some of the evidence, bur does not acknowledge the role of the census behind the campaign.
64. See W.-D. Hauschild, Basilius Von Caesarea: Briefe I (1990), 138-41, 208-9;
65. The place-names from Lesbos are analysed in N. Spencer, an archaeological and epigraphical approach to a topographical problem', ZPE 12 (1996), 253-62.
66. The largest contiguous properties are attested at Magnesia (a75-iuga estate) and on Lesbos, where farms of 430, 305, and 294 arable iugera are listed, probably all of the same owner: IG XII.2, no. 76. Archaeological and literary evidence for rural villas and the intrusion of Western settlement patterns into parts of Greece: see J. J. Rossiter, 'Roman villas of the Greek East and the villa in Gregory of Nyssa Ep. 20', JRA 2 (1989), 101-10;
67. J. Rowlandson, Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt: The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (1996), 113.
68. See also L. Koenen, 'Papyrology, Ptolemaic Egypt, and Byzantine Palestine', in B. Palme (cd.), Akten des 23. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses (2007), 5-13, at 12-13.
69. Duncan-Jones, op. cit. (n. 2), 206-7. The inscription implies that these estates were desirable (they are described as optima), at a yield of just under 2 solidi per iugum.
70. Thonemann, op. cit. (n. 1), 467, argues.that the 80 per cent of sown land bore only 30 per cent of the total iugatio.
71. This number should be adjusted downward (see below). R. Bagnall, 'Landholding in Late Roman Egypt: the distribution of wealth', JRS 82 (1992), 128-49, at 131, fig. 2.
72. For the Carian example, see D. Feissel, 'Un rescrit De Justinien découvert à Didymes', Chiron 34 (2004), 285-365.
73. R. Marchese, The Lower Maeander Flood Plain: A Regional Settlement Study (1986), 317.
74. Marchese, op. cit. (n. 81), 317, employs a rank-size approach which implies very high rates of urbanization (over 30 per cent).
75. 2 (1000), 787-816.
76. See Bagnall, op. cit. (n. 77), 137.
77. See, e.g., U. Roth, 'Food rations in Cato's De agri cultura and female slave labour', Ostraka 11 (2001), 195-213;
78. W. Scheidel, 'The most silent women of Greece and Rome: rural labour and women's life in the ancient world', G&R 41 (1995), 201-17 and 43 (1996), 1-10;
79. W. Jongman, 'Slavery and the growth of Rome. The transformation of Italy in the second and first centuries BCE', in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds), Rome the Cosmopolis (2003), 100-22.
80. A. Dunn, 'Continuity and change in the Macedonian countryside, from Gallienus to Justinian', in W. Bowden, L. Lavan and C. Machado (eds), Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside (2004), 535-86;
81. S. Kingsley and M. Decker (eds), Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean during Late Antiquity (2001);
82. S. Alcock, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (1993).
83. Not to mention that agri deserti should be interpreted in fiscal, not demographic, terms: C. R. Whittaker, 'Agri deserti', in M. I. Finley (ed.), Studies in Roman Property (1976), 137-65.
84. Most recently, C. Grey,'Revisiting the "problem" of agri deserti in the Late Roman Empire', JRA 20 (2007), 362-76.
85. R. Duncan-Jones, The Roman Economy: Quantitative Studies (1974), 327;
86. Also suggested by W. Scheidel, 'The Roman slave supply' (forthcoming).
87. Careful study of the Roman slave system has downsized the plausible extent of slavery, so the discovery of prominent agricultural slavery in this region of the Empire (outside the traditional heartland) is immediately striking. See W. Scheidel, 'Quantifying the sources of slaves in the Early Roman Empire', JRS 87 (1997), 156-69;
88. W. Scheidel, 'The slave population of Roman Italy: speculation and constraints', Topoi 9 (1999), 129-44;
89. J.-M. Carrie, 'Le "colonat du Bas-cmpire": un mythe historiographique?', Opus 1 (1982), 351-70;
90. D. Vera, 'Forme e funzioni della rendita fondiaria nella tarda antichità', in A. Giardina (ed.), Società romana e impero tardoantico (1986), vol. 1, 367-477;
91. W. Scheidel, 'Slaves of the soil', JRA 13 (2000), 727-32;
92. D. Kehoe, Law and Rural Economy in the Roman Empire (2007), especially 163-91;
93. B. Sirks, 'The colonate in Justinian's reign', JRS 98 (2008), 120-43.
94. Julian, Orationes 7.22 (Ed. Rochefort (1932-1964), vol. 2, 75).
95. Archaeological evidence for estate-based pastoralism in North Africa: B. Hitchner, 'Image and reality: the changing face of pastoralism in the Tunisian High Steppe', in J. Carlsen (ed.), Landuse in the Roman Empire (1994). 17-43-
96. The register from Lesbos, however, uniquely recorded pasture. On the relationship between fallowing and pasture, see Grey, op. cit. (n. 90), 369-70.
97. Duncan-Jones, op. cit. (n. 95), 327, is the best discussion.
98. Even in the U.S. South, cash-crop farms like cotton plantations allowed less than half the year to cotton production. See G. Wright, Slavery and American Economic Development (2006), 86.
99. On the efficiencies of using female slave labour in the New World, see J. T. Toman, 'The gang system and comparative advantage', Explorations in Economic History 42 (2005), 310-23.
100. C. Whittaker, 'Circe's pigs: from slavery to serfdom in the later Roman world', in M. Finley (ed.), Classical Slavery (1987), 88-112;
101. 2 (1998; orig. 1980), 191-217.
102. P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (2000), 224-30, 390.
103. On modes of production, see J. Banaji, 'Modes of production in a materialist conception of history', Capital and Class 2 (1977), 1-44.
104. Cf. C. Wickham, 'The other transition: from the ancient world to feudalism', PP 103 (1984), 3-36;
105. C. Wickham, 'Marx, Sherlock Holmes, and Late Roman commerce', JRS 78 (1988), 183-93, cspecally 187;
106. Above all, D. Rathbone, Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century A.D. Egypt: The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus Estate (1991).
107. This is an important point, since it is sometimes claimed, in the face of considerable evidence for slavery in the Late Empire, that slaves were organized in a tenant mode of production: especially D. Vera, 'Dalla villa perfecta alia villa di Palladio: sulle trasformazioni del sistema agrario in Italia fra principato e dominato', Athenaeum 83 (1995), 189-211, 331-56.
108. J. Teall, 'The Byzantine agricultural tradition', DOP 25 (1971), 33-59, especially 42.
109. W. Scheidel, 'Grain cultivation in the villa economy of Roman Italy', in J. Carlsen (ed.), Landuse in the Roman Empire (1994), 159-66;
110. A contrary view emphasizes the radical character of republican villa slavery, e.g., A. Carandini (ed.), Settefinestre: una villa schiavistica nell'Etruria romana (1986).
111. Emphasized by J. Andreu and J. Maucourant, 'À propos De La "rationalité économique" dans l'antiquité grécoromaine', TOO 9 (1999), 48-102;
112. L. Foxhall, 'The dependent tenant: land, leasing, and labour in Italy and Greece', JRS 80 (1990), 97-114, at 103;
113. P. Sarris, 'The origins of the manorial economy: new-insights from Late Antiquity', EHR 119 (2004), 279-311, at 287.
114. See W. Schcidcl, 'Columellas privates ius liberorum: Literatur, Recht, Demographie. Einige Probleme', Latomus 53 (1994). 513-27;
115. See R. Bagnall and B. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (1994), 40-52, on the Egyptian data.
116. W. Schcidcl, 'Roman age structure: evidence and models', JRS 91 (2001), 1-26, especially 5.
117. See also R. Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (1991), 120-5.
118. See W. Schcidcl, 'Progress and problems in Roman demography', in W. Scheidel (ed.), Debating Roman Demography (2001), 1-81, at 24-9;
119. All names are in the accusative. This makes it impossible to identify with absolute certainty the gender of names ending with -lov. Most of them will have been masculine names ending in -105, which became extremely popular in the onomasticon of Late Antiquity (see above, n. 30). But it is not possible to rule out that some were neuter-form feminine names, for which, see A. Wilhelm, 'Die sogenannte Hetäreninschrift aus Faros', in Kleine Schriften 2.3, published in SAWW 679 (2000), 441-72.
120. To find a female majority in an estate-based setting is more unexpected. The population structure on Thera contrasts with the masculine, army-barracks model of plantation slavery in republican Italy: e.g. A. Carandini, 'Villa romana e La piantagione schiavistica', in E. Gabba and A. Schiavone (eds), Storia di Roma (1989), vol. 4, 101-200, at 106. See below, n. 152.
121. R. Bagnall, 'Missing females in Roman Egypt', SCI 16 (1997), 121-38, at 124-5.
122. For a modern comparison, M. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio De Janeiro, 1808-1850 (1987), 64.
123. This can answer the obstacles suggested by W. Harris, 'Demography, geography, and the sources of Roman slaves', JRS 89 (1999), 62-75, at 69, that a skewed sex ratio afflicted the rural slave population - at least at this later date. E. Herrmann-Otto, 'Modes d'acquisition des esclaves dans l'Empire romain. Aspects juridiques et socioéconomiques', in M. Garrido-Hory (ed.), Routes et marchés d'esclaves, 26e colloque du GIREA (2002), 113-26, has also been sceptical of reproductive success. In any case, if the slave population of the fourth century was still extensive, the system was in a largely self-reproducing stage. One could argue, then, either that the Thera data represent only this more mature phase of the slave system (thus reconcilable with contrasting demographic models, by positing change over time), or that the inscription provides better evidence than the earlier sources.
124. C. Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (1987), 98.
125. Lactantius, Inst. div. 5.18 (Ed. S. Brandt, CSEL 19.1 (1890), 461).
126. See K. Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (1987).
127. Pain and reward incentives are not mutually exclusive as modes of domination, but see S. Fenoaltea, 'Slavery and supervision in comparative perspective: a model', Journal of Economic History 44 (1984), 635-68.
128. W. Haris, 'Child-exposure in the Roman Empire', JRS 84 (1994), 1-22;
129. See K. Bradley, 'The age at time of sale of female slaves', Arethnsa II (1978), 243-52.
130. The high estimates of G. Alföldy, 'Die Freilassung Von Sklaven und die Struktur Der Sklaverei in Der römischen Kaiserzeit', Rivista storica dell'antichità 2 (1972), 97-129, have been received with general scepticism. More realistic estimates are available in T. Wiedemann, 'The regularity of manumission at Rome', CQ 35 (1985), 162-75;
131. K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (1978), 115-32;
132. K. Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (1994), 154-65.
133. Cf. S. Cole, 'Capitalism and freedom: manumissions and the slave market in Louisiana, 1725-1820', Journal of Economic History 65 (2005), 1008-27.
134. R. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (1989), 114-53.
135. cf. a slave population with relatively high fertility in Brazil: A. Metcalf, 'Searching for the slave family in colonial Brazil: a reconstruction from São Paulo', Journal of Family History 16 (1991), 283-97, at 290: 'Fathers of their children remained nebulous figures on the fringes of the family.'
136. Also, CT 2.25.1 (A.D. 325) assumes that if slave families were separated between owners, the family was broken apart. R. Steckel, 'The fertility of American slaves', Research in Economic History 7 (1982), 239-86, at 270-1, shows that the incidence of cross-plantation marriage in America was variable, and as the size of properties increased, the incidence of cross-plantation marriages declined. It was rare in Brazil: Metcalf, op. cit. (n. 186), 286.
137. cf. U. Roth, 'To have and to be: food, status, and the peculium of agricultural slaves', JRA 18 (2005), 278-92, for the earlier period.
138. Concern for female labour, see above, n. 117. Interest in child labour is visible in contemporary agricultural manuals: Geoponica 2.2 (Ed. H. Beckh (1895), 34).
139. Jerome was certainly aware that familial relations were an instrument of domination: Jerome, Vita Malchi 6 (Ed. C. C. Mierow in Classical Essays Presented to J. A. Kleist (1946), 33-60, at 44).