The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

The deluge of information from these areas and elsewhere (much more
such work is currently going on or is still unpublished) opens up many ex-
citing possibilities, but at the same time presents some major diffi culties. It
is tempting to use it at once in order to draw general pictures of what was
happening in a wider province or area. But survey work can yield misleading
results, for a variety of reasons including such simple matters as the actual dif-
fi culty of identifi cation of some kinds of sherds and the possible intervention
of pure chance in accounting for certain ‘assemblages’ (the technical term for
the range of materials found). Recognition of these dangers is an important is-
sue for archaeologists, and adds to the diffi culties which historians experience
in using survey publications. It is obviously extremely diffi cult in any case
to keep up with the latest situation in such a fast-moving fi eld, and anything
written on this basis runs the risk of running out of date very quickly. It is also
diffi cult to gain access to all the publications, which tend to be very scattered
and often in obscure journals or archaeological reports. But the impact of this
work is very great, particularly in certain geographical areas, and the very fact
that so much has been done and is still going on means that a history of the
later Roman empire in the old style is simply inadequate for today. One of
the major disadvantages of studying ancient history has always been the pau-
city of the available evidence, and especially the lack of documentary sources.
‘Total’ history in the sense in which the term was used by the French Annales
school, i.e., history which takes in all the long-term and underlying structures
and considers every kind of evidence, material as well as textual, will never
be possible for the ancient world by comparison with the early modern and
modern periods; but the prospect has come much nearer than anyone would
have expected.

Using archaeological evidence

Studies of individual towns in conjunction with their rural hinterland mark
a valuable fi rst step, but the sites for which an integrated treatment of texts
and material evidence is possible remain relatively few. One important site
where this kind of work is being undertaken is Sagalassos in south-west Ana-
tolia.^11 But in general where urban sites are concerned, all sorts of practical
constraints dictate the course of archaeological work, especially the extent of
subsequent settlement. Many major late antique cities will never be excavated,
simply because they have been the site of continuous settlement ever since the
ancient period; on such a site, the traces of the late antique and medieval city
may now be barely visible. For similar reasons, in many other cases only small
areas can be excavated. This is largely the case with the city of Constantino-
ple.^12 Excavations took place in the Great Palace area as early as the 1930s,
but the layout of the palace in its different phases still has to be largely recon-
structed from diffi cult textual evidence; however, a fresh look at the records
of the earlier excavations has led to modifi cation of the conclusions drawn by
the earlier excavators, and has contributed to the debate about the dating of