THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYin the context of Aphrodisias itself but also for wider issues of iconography
and style. Some of this evidence, like the literary evidence for the families of
Paralius and Asclepiodotus already noted (Chapter 6), tells us much about the
survival of pagan and classical culture in a provincial town; this is especially
true of the striking series of sculptured heads of late antique philosophers.^17
Finally, many Greek inscriptions also survive from Aphrodisias, through
which we can trace the effl orescence of Greek verse inscriptions and thus the
availability of training for this specialized literary accomplishment in the fi fth-
century east. These are only some of the results of the excavations conducted
at Aphrodisias over a thirty-year period to date. In particular, the Aphrodisias
inscriptions give us a virtually unbroken record of urban history from the
city’s acquisition of free and federate status during the Triumviral period to
its change of name in the early seventh century from Aphrodisias (city of
Aphrodite) to Stauropolis (city of the Cross) and its survival as a shadow of its
former self through the eighth and ninth centuries, when sources are almost
absent, only to undergo some rebuilding like other Byzantine sites in the tenth
and eleventh centuries. As we have seen, Aphrodisias is an important centre
for our knowledge of late paganism, but here too the prominent temple of
Aphrodite was converted into a church, probably in the late fi fth century.
18
Aphrodisias provides an example of a site with an extraordinarily rich and
spectacular amount of archaeological remains, including sculptural and epi-
graphic material of breathtaking quality and importance. A good many of the
later inscriptions are undatable, because their conventional language and style
remained so constant over the period, but it is possible here, as it rarely is
elsewhere, to piece together a real, if incomplete, view of changing patterns
in city life in the late antique period. Some other sites offer this possibility
too, each in its own way, among them Ephesus in Asia Minor and Apamea
in Syria.^19 But even apparently clear archaeological evidence, coins or inscrip-
tions, and or pottery dating may be unreliable. Archaeological evidence can
only tell us what happened, not why it happened, and it is only as good as
the methodology adopted by the archaeologists in question permits.^20 It is of
course tempting, in the absence of specifi c indications, to link certain sorts
of archaeological evidence to historical factors or events known from other
sources. Procopius’s Buildings, a detailed account of the building activity of the
Emperor Justinian, provides a particularly good example of a text frequently
used in this way. However, it omits Italy altogether, for reasons on which we
can only speculate, and the ample and literary treatment given to Constanti-
nople in book I is not carried through in the rest of the work, which in places
consists only of lists of names of fortifi cations.^21 Previous emperors, such as
Theodosius II and Anastasius, had engaged in the building of major urban
fortifi cations, with famous surviving examples at Constantinople, Thessaloni-
ca and Dyrrachium. However, city walls were commonly repaired and rebuilt
over long periods and many of the late Roman fortifi cations in the Balkans
and elsewhere cannot be dated from the material evidence alone. It is there-
fore always tempting to suppose a given site or fortifi cation to be Justinianic