URBAN CHANGE AND THE LATE ANTIQUE COUNTRYSIDEof Constantinople at its height in the sixth century may on a very generous
estimate have approached half a million; that of Rome, perhaps more than a
million under Augustus, had declined considerably by the later Roman period
and was further reduced during the Gothic wars of Justinian;^2 in the east,
only Antioch and Alexandria came anywhere near these two. The country-
side accounted for by far the greatest mass of the population, and, through
agricultural production, contributed the basis of most of the empire’s wealth;
this remained broadly the case despite the great expansion in urban settle-
ments starting in the fourth century, and despite an increased emphasis in
modern scholarship on commercial exchange. Even if trade, or rather, pro-
duction, was more important in the global economic equation than has some-
times been thought (Chapter 4), the land continued to provide the economic
base; and cities on the whole, rather than being primary centres of produc-
tion themselves, continued to depend on their rural hinterland.^3 In recent
archaeological and economic studies increasing attention has been given to
country as well as city, and a growing amount of attention is being given to
villages and the village economy.^4 The change has also come about under the
infl uence of survey archaeology, in which excavation is not undertaken but all
surface fi nds are picked up and recorded over a given geographical area; more
modern techniques such as GIS are also now becoming common.^5 Major sur-
veys have been conducted in widely separated regions, which focus on a given
area and include all surface remains, thus taking a broad chronological sweep
which can allow insights into diachronic change not possible on the basis of
other evidence. The evidence thus produced may of course be much more
informative for one period than for another, and there are some basic meth-
odological problems inherent in all such surveys;^6 nevertheless, some have
produced important evidence for late antiquity. Starting in the 1950s, pio-
neering surveys have covered sites in Italy (the South Etruria surveys),^7 Spain
(Guadalcuivir), North Africa (Libyan valleys and Caesarea and its hinterland
in modern Algeria),^8 Cyprus and Greece (Boeotia, Melos and Methana). Dif-
ferences in settlement density in the later part of the period soon revealed
themselves between west (South Etruria) and east (Boeotia), but the dangers
inherent in such generalization have also been pointed out.^9 In northern Syria
the pioneering work of G. Tchalenko long dominated the fi eld, with his at-
tribution of the prosperity observable in the substantial architecture of the
800 or so villages on the limestone massif to an olive monoculture; subse-
quent work points to greater diversifi cation and the level of prosperity is still
clearly visible in the dense network of remains including standing structures.^10
In Cyprus surveys indicate increased density of settlement in late antiquity
through to the mid-seventh century. Modern Jordan and Israel have also been
well studied, and it is clear that in the now arid Negev, settlement reached a
dramatic peak in the late antique period. Studies of this kind focusing on Pal-
estine and Syria are particularly important in assessing population movement
and for judging the state of these areas on the eve of the Arab conquests; they
will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 8.