The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

other. This approach is inherent in Wickham’s magisterial work. By the end of
the sixth century, while it is still possible in some ways to speak of a Mediter-
ranean world (see Conclusion), the west has largely fragmented. The eastern
government and its provincial and defensive structures were tested both in
the Balkans and in the east in major wars against the Sasanians, and Justinian’s
wars of reconquest may have overstretched the capacity of the eastern empire;
while it is hard to quantify the impact of the plague which fi rst hit the empire
in 541, contemporaries viewed it as a catastrophe of major dimensions (Chap-
ter 5). There were also structural factors which we can see refl ected in the
gradual metamorphosis of many cities in the eastern empire from late antique
towns with public buildings and grand houses into smaller, more defensive
and village-like formations, a process which had begun before the end of the
sixth century (see below and Chapter 7). The Persian invasions of the early
seventh century dealt another severe blow to parts of the east, and seriously
challenged the ability of the state to maintain a military response. Eventual
victory over the Persians was followed by the fi rst Arab incursions into Syria
in the 630s, which the eastern empire was unable to repel (see Chapter 9).
Taking a long view, it is possible to argue that the east and west underwent
similar processes, but at different times, the speed of change being regulated
by the operation of local factors. Yet the resilience of Constantinople in main-
taining its political existence is a remarkable feature of the seventh and eighth
centuries, and there is ample evidence of cultural and local economic continu-
ity through the Umayyad period.

The organization of labour

Large-scale slavery declined in the Roman empire but the sources make it
very clear that slaves continued to exist,^18 sometimes in very large numbers

• for example, on the estates of senatorial landowners – and this continued in
  the east into the Byzantine period. As we saw in Chapter 3, when late Roman
  landowners became Christian, they sometimes sold their property in order
  to use the wealth for Christian purposes, in which case the slaves were sold
  too; this was the case with estates which belonged to Melania the Younger in
  the early fi fth century. Slaves also often resulted from war, in which Romans
  as well as barbarians might be captured and enslaved. Slaves could also be
  bought, and were easily come by along the frontiers, and their existence is tak-
  en for granted in the barbarian law codes;^19 the example of Caesarius of Arles
  in the early sixth century shows that ransoming such slaves came to be seen
  as one of the duties of a Christian bishop.^20 Legal sources demonstrate the
  continued existence of slaves on the land and elsewhere, and the church also
  soon became a major owner of slaves. We can assume that part of the labour
  force on the land and in many forms of production will still have been servile.
  However, it is less clear what this meant in practice, or how slaves related to
  coloni – technically free tenants who were, in many areas, theoretically tied to
  their particular estates by imperial legislation, and over whom the landlords