Cities in the Byzantine Empire

In the Byzantine Empire, cities were centers of economic and cultural life. A significant part of the cities (there were more than 900 of them by the 6th century) were founded during the period of Greek and Roman antiquity. The largest of them were Constantinople, Alexandria, Thessaloniki and Antioch, with a population of several hundred thousand people. Large provincial centers had a population of up to 50,000. Although the spread of Christianity negatively affected urban institutions, in general, late antique cities continued to develop continuously. Byzantium remained an empire of cities, although the urban space had changed a lot. If the Greco-Roman city was a place of pagan worship and sports events, theatrical performances and chariot races, the residence of officials and judges, then the Byzantine city was primarily a religious center where the bishop's residence was located.

Historical development

From ancient city to early Byzantine

Main street paved with marble blocks in Sardis (Lydia), Turkey.

The first period of Byzantine history, "Proto-Byzantine" in the words of Paul Lemerle, is usually placed between the 4th and the middle of the 7th century. It is considered to be transitional, and its main characteristics can be described in the late antique socio-cultural paradigm, which was based on a polis with its inherent features. The French historian Évelyne Patlagean emphasizes the contrast between the internal stagnation of urban life and the external prosperity of the polis. However, within the vast territory of the Roman and Byzantine empires, development took place in different ways, and, for example, in Anatolia, during more than 500 years of Roman rule, the process of ruralization took place.

For the first period, several fairly general trends were identified that determined the appearance of the city. First, after more than a century and a half, the construction of city walls resumed at the end of the 5th century. The previous fortification program, which began under Emperor Valerian I in the middle of the 3rd century in response to the invasions of the Goths and Heruli, ended around 330. As a rule, the early Byzantine walls of the cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans date from the reign of the emperors Anastasius I (491–518) and Justinian I (527–565), however, the absence of a real military threat in those years makes the dating unreliable. In modern works, it is suggested that the walls of a number of Asia Minor cities could have been created during the era of Theodosius dynasty (379–450), when the empire was threatened by the Goths and Huns. The Theodosian walls were impressive structures that surrounded almost entirely residential areas and were equipped with representative gates. According to one point of view, the walls marked the core of the city and served as a symbol of its status. On the contrary, the perimeter of the walls built under Justinian and his successors, as a rule, did not allow to protect the entire city. In favor of short walls, a choice was made in the new fortresses erected after the conquest of North Africa. The small size of the inner city did not necessarily indicate a population decline, since most of the population lived outside of it.

References

Sources

• Brubaker, L. (2001). "Topography and the creation of public space in early medieval Constantinople". In M. de Jong; F. Theuws (eds.). Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages. Brill. pp. 31–44. ISBN 90-04-11734-2.
• Jacobs, Ine (2012). "The creation of the Late Antique city. Constantinople and Asia Minor during the "Theodosian renaissance". Byzantion. 82: 113–164. JSTOR 44173257.
• Kazhdan, A. P.; Constable, G. (1982). People and Power in Byzantium: An Introduction to Modern Byzantine Studies. Dumbarton Oaks. ISBN 0-88402-103-3.
• Liebeschuetz, W. (2001). Decline and Fall of the Roman City. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-815247-7.
• Niewohner, P. (2017). The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia: From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190610463.

Further reading

• Alston, R. (2002). The City in Roman and Byzantine Egypt. Routledge.
• Berger, A. (1982). Das Bad in der byzantinischen Zeit. Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia (in German).
• Brandes, W. (1989). Die Städte Kleinasiens im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert. Akademie-Verlag. ISBN 90-5063-012-X.
• Bouras, C. (1981). "City and Village: Urban Design and Architecture". Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik: 611–653.
• Bouras, C. (2002). "Aspects of the Byzantine City, Eighth–Fifteenth Centuries". In Laiou, A. (ed.). The Economic History of Byzantium. Dumbarton Oaks Studies. pp. 497–528. ISBN 0-88402-288-9.
• Brown, Peter (1992). Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. Toward a Christian Empire. The university of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-13340-0.
• Brooks, A. (2013). Castles of Northwest Greece. Aetos Press. ISBN 978-0-9575846-0-0.
• Buchwald, H. (2007). "Byzantine Town Planning – Does it Exist?". In M. Grünbart; E. Kislinger; A. Muthesius; D. Stathakopoulos (eds.). Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400‒1453). Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 57–74.
• Brandes, W. (1999). "Byzantine Cities in the Seventh and Eight Centuries — Different Sources, Different Histories?". In G. P. Brogiolo; B. Ward-Perkins (eds.). The Idea and Ideal of the Town Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. BRILL. pp. 25–58. ISBN 9004109013.
• Сюзюмов, М. Я. (1956). "Экономика пригородов византийских крупных городов". Византийский временник (in Russian). XI: 55–81.
• Сюзюмов, М. Я. (1967). "Византийский город (середина VII—середина IX в.)". Византийский временник (in Russian). XXVII: 38–70.
• Dagron, Gilbert (2002). "The Urban Economy, Seventh–Twelfth Centuries". In A. Laiou (ed.). The Economic History of Byzantium. Dumbarton Oaks Studies. pp. 393–461. ISBN 0-88402-288-9.
• Decker, M. J. (2016). The Byzantine Dark Ages. Bloomsbury Academic.
• Dunn, A. (1994). "The transition from polis to kastron in the Balkans (III-VII cc): general and regional perspectives". Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 18: 60–81. doi:10.1179/byz.1994.18.1.60. S2CID 162412449.
• Finley, Moses (1981). "The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulance to Max Weber and Beyond". In R. P. Saller (ed.). Economy and Society in Ancient Greece. Chatto & Windus. pp. 3–23.
• Foss, C. (1977). "Archaeology and the "Twenty Cities" of Byzantine Asia". American Journal of Archaeology. 81 (4): 469–486. doi:10.2307/503279. JSTOR 503279. S2CID 191388506.
• Jones, A. H. M. (1964). The Later Roman Empire 284—602. Vol. I–II.
• Haldon, J. F. (1997). Byzantium in the seventh century: The transformation of a culture. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52126492-8.
• Haldon, J. F. (1999). "The Idea of the Town in the Byzantine Empire". In G. P. Brogiolo; B. Ward-Perkins (eds.). The Idea and Ideal of the Town Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. BRILL. pp. 1–24. ISBN 9004109013.
• Hakim, B. S. (2001). "Julian of Ascalon's Treatise of Construction and Design Rules from Sixth-Century Palestine". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 60 (1): 4–25. doi:10.2307/991676. JSTOR 991676.
• Kazhdan, A. P. (1985). Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06962-5.
• Kazhdan, A. P., ed. (1991). Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. N. Y.: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
• Kennedy H. (1985). "Polis to Madina: Urban Change in Late Antique and Early Islamic Syria". Past & Present (106): 3–27. doi:10.1093/past/106.1.3. JSTOR 650637.
• Laiou A.; Morrisson C. (2007). The Byzantine Economy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-35446-5.
• Liebeschuetz, W. (1992). "The end of the ancient city". In J. Rich (ed.). The City in Late Antiquity. Routledge. pp. 1–49. ISBN 0-203-13016-2.
• Liebeschuetz, W. (2000). "Administration and politics in the cities of the fifth to the mid seventh century: 425–640". In A. Cameron (ed.). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. XIV. Cambridge University Press. pp. 207–237. ISBN 978-0-521-32591-2.
• López Quiroga J. (2016). "Early Byzantine Urban Landscapes in the Southwest and Southeast Mediterranean". In S. Marjanović-Dušanić (ed.). Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 69–106. ISBN 978-86-80656-00-7.
• Maksimović L. (1988). The Byzantine Provincial Administration under the Palaiologoi. Adolf M. Hakkert - Publisher. ISBN 90-256-0968-6.
• Mango C. (1981). "Daily Life in Byzantium". Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik: 337–353.
• Matschke K. (2002). "The Late Byzantine Urban Economy, Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries". In A. Laiou (ed.). The Economic History of Byzantium. Dumbarton Oaks Studies. pp. 463–495. ISBN 0-88402-288-9.
• Saradi H. (2008). "Towns and Cities". In E. Jeffreys; J. Haldon; R. Cormack (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. pp. 317–327. ISBN 978-0-19-925246-6.
• Zavagno, L. (2009). Cities in Transition: Urbanism in Byzantium Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (500-900 A. D. ). Archaeopress. ISBN 9781407306070.