Estates and the land in late Roman Asia Minor

Chiron

Volumn 37, Issue , 2007, Pages

  Thonemann, Peter ^a  

^a ALL SOULS COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Asia Minor; Cadaster; Land Tenure; Late Antiquity; Tax

Indexed keywords

EID: 67650281991     PISSN: 00693715     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (72)

1. e siècle), ZRVI 26, 1987, 9-19.
2. The workings of the Diocletianic fiscal system are complex and controversial. The clearest introduction is now that of J.-M. CARRIÉ - A. ROUSSELLE, L'Empire romain en mutation des Sévères à Constantin, 192-337, 1999, 190-195, 593-615;
3. see also J.-M. CARRIÉ, Dioclétian et la fiscalité, AntTard 2, 1994, 33-64.
4. For the inscribed census records from the dioecesis Asiana, I have found most useful E. DÉLÉAGE, La capitation du bas-empire, 1945, 163-196;
5. A. H. M. JONES, Census Records of the Later Roman Empire, JRS 43, 1953, 49-64;
6. J. KARAYANNOPULOS, Das Finanzwesen des frühbyzantinischen Staates, 1958, 28-53;
7. W. GOFFART, Caput and Colonate: Towards a History of Late Roman Taxation, 1974, 113-121;
8. A. CERATI, Caractère annonaire et assiette de l'impot foncier au bas-empire, 1975, 244-260;
9. Organisation of recension (and returns) by city may not have been universal. In Coele Syria, Palaestina, Phoenice and Arabia, collective fiscal responsibility seems to have devolved as far down as individual villages: F. MILLAR, The Roman Near East, 31 BC - AD 337, 1993, 196;
10. M. SARTRE, Nouvelles bornes cadastrales du Hauran sous la Tétrarchie, Ktema 17, 1992, 130-131.
11. See also J. KARAYANNOPULOS, Die kollektive Steuerverantwortung in der frühbyzantinischen Zeit, VSWG 43, 1956, 289-322.
12. J.-M. CARRIÉ, Un roman des origines: les genealogies du «Colonat du Bas-Empire», Opus II/1, 1983, 218.
13. e siècle, AntTard 6, 1998, 91-104.
14. S. CORCORAN, The Empire of the Tetrarchs, 1996, 229-232.
15. W. SELB - H. KAUFHOLD, Das syrisch-römische Rechtsbuch, 2002, II 157 (text, ch. 106c), III 226-8. In I. Ephesos 42.12-13, quod intra Asiam rei publicae iuga esse uideantur cuiusque qualitatis, the issue of 〈quality〉 seems only to be whether they are opima atque idonea or defecta ac sterilia (15-16).
16. A. H. M. JONES, The Later Roman Empire 284-602, 1964, 415, 732
17. though cf. P. DEBORD, Aspects sociaux et économiques de la vie religieuse dans l'Anatolie gréco-romaine, 1982, 143-144. Note also the presence of a at Magnesia d13.
18. A. K. BOWMAN, Some Aspects of the Reform of Diocletian in Egypt, in: Akten des XIII. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, 1974, 43-51; CARRIÉ, Fiscalité (above, n. 2) 57-60; F. MITTHOF, CPR XXIII 124-125.
19. 22004, 7-42.
20. J. DURLIAT, Les finances publiques de Diocletian aux Carolingiens (284-889), 1990, 16, 27.
21. R. DUNCAN-JONES, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy, 1990, 137-138.
22. MILLAR (above, n. 3) 193-196, 535-544; SARTRE (above, n. 3). Note, however, Z. URI MA'OZ, The Civil Reform of Diocletian in the Southern Levant, SCI 25, 2006, 105-119, who wishes to dissociate the boundary stones from the tax-reform altogether.
23. D. FEISSEL, Un rescrit de Justinien découvert à Didymes (1er avril 533), Chiron 34, 2004, 285-365. For the government's reluctance to make piecemeal alterations to the cadaster, see JONES (above, n. 12) 454-455.
24. C. LEPELLEY, Quot curiales, tot tyranni. L'image du décurion oppresseur au Bas-empire, in: E. FRÉZOULS (ed.), Crise et redressement dans les provinces européennes de l'Empire, 1983, 143-156;
25. P. SARRIS, Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian, 2006, 181-193. For an attempt to curb inequable distribution of the tax-burden by the decurial class in Caria, see SEG 44, 909.
26. There is no doubt about the reading of the name: Valerianus Romus also appears in e17-18. As a personal name, Romus is extremely rare: CIL VI 13204 (M. Aur. Augg. lib. Romus); AE 1938, 97. It is conceivable that we have an internal abbreviation compare a9 and d2, where we appear to have (note the abbreviation mark on the omicron in a9). See H. I. BELL, Abbreviations in Documentary Papyri, in: Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson, 1953, II 424-433. It is, however, hard to see what Rhomaios would signify at this date.
27. I restore, on the basis that Eutychion is an; the two religious offices are found together in I. Magnesia 237, cf. also I. Magnesia 119.17. Magnesian are 〈mountain-walkers〉: see L. ROBERT, Documents d'Asie Mineure, 1987, 35-46. For at neighbouring cities, see I. Ephesos 943.4, with commentary; I. Erythrai 64.6 (〈walker on Mt Mimas〉).
28. For the spelling in I. Trall. 3.4-5, see now R. DINÇ - G. MEYER, Mélanges de cultures et de populations à Tralles d'après deux nouvelles inscriptions, MediterrAnt 7/1, 2004, 294, 300.
29. In Lycian B, the dative or locative of the place-name seems to have been Tralije and/or Trelewñne. H. CRAIG MELCHART, A Dictionary of the Lycian Language, 2004, 131.
30. L. DEROY, Les inscriptions cariennes de Carie, AntClass 24, 1955, 307-309, nos.1-2, with DINÇ - MEYER (above, n. 34) 297: personal names Paos (twice), Artemon and Artemis.
31. Strabo 14.1.42. See L. ZGUSTA, Kleinasiatische Ortsnamen, 1984, 630-632; dismissed without argument by DINÇ - MEYER (above, n. 34) 299-300.
32. (gen.), at Termessos: TAM III 1, 414; (?) at Selge: L. ROBERT, Noms indigènes dans l'Asie Mineure gréco-romaine, 1963, 431-432; cf. (gen.) at Termessos: TAM III 1, 325.
33. (nom.) at Balboura: SEG 40, 1268 A18; (nom.) at Myra: E. PETERSEN - F. VON LUSCHAN, Reisen in Lykien, Milyas und Kibyratis, 1889, no. 51.
34. The only clear example is the name Mandane in I. Trail. 53. The names Mithradates (SEG 46, 1434, II BC; I. Trall. 76), Pharnakes (I. Trall. 247) and Mitra (I. Trall. 180.3) need not indicate an Iranian residue (N. V. SEKUNDA, in: H. SANCISI-WEERDENBURG - A. KUHRT [eds.], Achaemenid History VI, 1991, 85-86, 101-102); DINÇ - MEYER (above, n. 34) 312 n. 136, are over-enthusiastic.
35. CIG II 2827.16 (where we should certainly read); TAM V 2, 1335, with N. V. SEKUNDA, REA 87/1, 1985, 22.
36. This point is not understood by CHR. CHANDEZON, in: F. PROST (ed.), L'Orient méditerranéen de la mort d'Alexandre aux campagnes de Pompée, 2003, 206.
37. I. Magnesia 113.24; I. Magnesia 215a40, 251; I. Magnesia 116.37; SEG 32, 1149; etc. For the village names and in SEG 32, 1149, see P. THONEMANN, Neilomandros, Chiron 36, 2006, 35. Note also the Carian name at Magnesia (SEG 45, 1595); cf. the Carian ethnic at Apollonia Salbake, L. and J. ROBERT (above, n. 33) no. 162.11.
38. D. FEISSEL, Noms de villages de Syrie du Nord. Élements grecs et sémitiques, in: O, 1991, 300-301.
39. The abbreviated form is already found in a document from Hadrianic Athens, apparently a register of rent payments of 8% on plots of civic land on perpetual lease: S. G. MILLER, A Roman Monument in the Athenian Agora, Hesperia 41, 1972, 50-95. Numerous different abbreviations of the term are found in papyri of the sixth and seventh centuries.
40. For the term as designating an element of a rural estate in the late Roman period, compare D. FEISSEL, Notes d'épigraphie chrétienne (VIII), BCH 116, 1992, 404-407 (SEG 42, 1363), a on the territory of Seleucea Pieria belonging to the future emperor Justinian (AD 521-527).
41. The term is vague: CHR. SCHULER, Ländliche Siedlungen und Gemeinden im hellenistischen und römischen Kleinasien, 1998, 81-83. At Magnesia was used of quite a large property (e7, 2 1/2 1/4 1/20 iuga), and a large farm at Samos had the name (IG XII 6, 980.6, 3 1/3 1/50 1/600 iuga). However, the smallest property in the Thera land-register, 6 iugera of arable, had the name.
42. At Oxyrhynchus, was generally used of estate vineyards, while was used of estate settlements; in the Hermopolite nome, the usual term for an estate settlement was (J. BANAJI, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity, 2001, 175; SARRIS [above, n. 23] 91).
43. The village of (ethnic) at Akkent, near the sanctuary of Apollo Lairbenos in southern Phrygia, is first securely attested in AD 169 (T. RITTI, Documenti epigrafici dalla regione di Hierapolis, EA 34, 2002, 66-69: SEG 52, 1333); an unpublished inscription at Çivril, also of the second century, shows that the village was also known as.
44. e siècle, 1992, 95-101.
45. The argument of W. BRANDES and J. HALDON, Towns, Tax and Transformation, in: G. P. BROGIOLO et al. (eds.), Towns and their Territories between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, 2000, 149-150, that the changing terminology reflects an ironing-out of the juridical differences between free and dependent, is too simplistic.
46. S. MITCHELL, The Life of Saint Theodotus of Ancyra, AS 32, 1992, 95-96.
47. D. FEISSEL, Tyche 11, 1996, 108 n. 12;
48. F. MILLAR, Repentant Heretics in Fifth-century Lydia: Identity and Literacy, SCI 23, 2004, 123-128.
49. In the late sixth-century Life of St Symeon the Stylite, the term is all but universal for village: FEISSEL (above, n. 51) 288-294. For sixth-century epigraphy, see e.g. FEISSEL, Inscriptions grecques en Vénétie, Aquileia Nostra 47, 1976, 155-172;
50. id., BCH 118, 1994, 277-283. The development of the usage = village between the fourth and sixth centuries is intimately bound up with the decline of the ethnikon, a problem I hope to study in detail elsewhere.
51. Ulp., Dig. 50.15.4: forma censuali cauetur, ut agri sic in censum referantur, nomen fundi cuiusque et in qua ciuitate et in quo pago sit et quos duos uicinos proximos habeat. See M. TARPIN, Vici et pagi dans l'occident romain, 2002, 192-211. The fundi of the Volcei tax-register of AD 323 are listed by pagus: InscrIt III.1, 17.
52. Eg. BE 1974, 458; T. DREW-BEAR, Nouvelles inscriptions de Phrygie, 1978, 105.
53. Cf. e.g. I. Ephesos 3828; I. Thr. Aeg. 396: MAMA III 262: F. A. PENNACCHIETTI, Nuove iscrizioni di Hierapolis Frigia, AAT 101, 1966-7, 298-299 nos. 8-9: M. V. SCHEIBELREITER, Stifterinschriften auf Mosaiken Westkleinasiens, 2006, Nr. 8 (Sardis).
54. U. HILDESHEIM, Personalaspekte der frühbyzantinischen Steuerordnung, 1988, 140-141.
55. W. R. PATON - E. L. HICKS, Inscriptions of Cos, 1891, no. 360. I tentatively restore the name in ll. 6-7, although it produces an odd form of name. The script (cursive omega and rectangular sigma) suggests a date in the third century or later. If PATON - HICKS are right to restore a cross in the final line, a fourth-century date would be preferable. For the title, cf. SEG 35.1272; I. Iznik 767. In neither case is it clear exactly what kind of office is being referred to.
56. In the Marcian Treatise (tenth or early twelfth century), the term is used of the total tax liability of a village: F. DÖLGER, Beiträge zur Geschichte der byzantinischen Finanzverwaltung, 1927, 114 ll. 22-23). The terms (〈base〉) and (〈root〉) are, if not synonymous, clearly in the same semantic group. On this parallel, could mean «for which the owner/lessee undertakes the entire fiscal responsibility».
57. JONES (above, n. 12) I 417-420; A. D. RIZAKIS, L'emphytéose sous l'empire en pays grec, in: S. FOLLET (ed.), L'hellénisme de l'époque romaine, 2004, 56-57. There is a reference to the ius by Ulpian, but it is unclear whether he is referring to the institution known in later periods
58. I. AVOTINS, Glotta 60, 1982, 256-257.
59. JONES (above, n. 2) 58-64; J. ROWLANDSON, Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt, 1996, 32-48, 63-69.
60. The second-century tax-registers from the Judaean desert are ambiguous on this point: H. M. COTTON, Land Tenure in the Documents from the Nabataean Kingdom and the Roman Province of Arabia, ZPE 119, 1997, 255-265.
61. e siècle à la lumière d'une inscription d'Éphè se, in: Atti dell'Accademia romanistica Costantiniana VI, 1986, 77-104;
62. R. DELMAIRE, Largesses sacrées et res privata, 1989, 645-668.
63. e siècle après J.-C., BCH 122, 1998, 277-342; RIZAKIS (above, n. 83) 55-76.
64. Decurial status was effectively hereditary by this point: F. QUASS, Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens, 1993, 389-390.
65. Lib. Or. 31.16-17; cf. Julian, Misopogon 370D-371A. I follow the interpretation of DELMAIRE (above, n. 87) 646-647, in preference to the complex explanation offered by P. PETIT, Libanius et la vie municipale à Antioche, 1955, 97-103.
66. Here, as in all the land-registers, olives are listed by the individual stand, rather than by iugera. I know of no research on the typical density of olive plantations in Asia Minor or the islands in antiquity; for the possible degree of regional and chronological variation, D. J. MATTINGLY, JRA 1, 1988, 45. For the figure of 50 olive trees per iugerum (= c.80 per acre or 200 per ha)
67. see PATON, IG XII 2 p.38 (tentatively endorsed by G. LABARRE, Les cités de Lesbos aux époques hellénistique et impériale, 1996, 226-227).
68. This fits well with estimates of the average size of the family farm in Classical Attica: between 10 and 20 acres was normal, 45-70 acres unusual, larger than 100 acres all but unknown: A. BURFORD, Land and Labor in the Greek World, 1993, 66-71;
69. V. D. HANSON, The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilisation, 1995, 181-193.
70. A comparable proportion of female landowners is found at Dereköy in north-west Lycia in the mid-second century AD (13 of 53): M. WÖRRLE - W. W. WURSTER, Dereköy: Eine befestigte Siedlung im nordwestlichen Lykien und die Reform ihres dörflichen Zeuskultes, Chiron 27, 1997, 429-438.
71. For individuals owning land in the territory of neighbouring cities, see L. ROBERT, Études Anatoliennes, 1937, 378-382 (Pisidia and Lycia). Dio could claim it to his credit that all the farms which made up his modest estate were on the territory of Prusa, with the implication that this might not necessarily have been the case: Dio 46.7.
72. e siècle ap. J.-C., 1992, 305-311.